performance
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Firefox 'performance' tab will curb its RAM hunger
Despite their popularity, both Firefox and Chrome have reputations as resource hogs that chew up big chunks of your RAM. In the case of Firefox, some of this is unfair -- parent Mozilla says part of the problem is that many users are running older machines without a lot of memory in the first place. To help those folks, the developers are working on a new feature called "performance" that will let you fine-tune the browser if you're running a PC that's less than state-of-the-art.
Tesla Model 3 'release candidate' drives off the lot
As Tesla continues its march towards producing a mass-market electric vehicle, CEO Elon Musk gave us a brief glimpse at the latest prototype. This Vine-length clip showed the first drive of a "release candidate" Model 3. Autoblog explains that unless there's some unforeseen problem, it's unlikely there will be any major styling or content revisions from this before the car goes into production, but engineers can still test and tweak things like brake calibration.
Microsoft updates Beam streaming to better compete with Twitch
Microsoft is getting its newly-acquired Beam livestreaming service ready for Xbox and Windows with a big new update rolling out today in beta. Beam's low-latency tech lets you rapidly interact with your favorite streamers, and even play along, compared to the more passive Twitch experience. It's improved the already-quick latency by five times, increased the max bitrate to 10 Mbps and now supports 60 FPS render speeds at up to 2,560 x 1,440 resolution.
ABC's 'Nashville' VR specials will be a last hurrah for the show
There was sad news for fans of ABC's country music drama Nashville this week. The network announced that the show was being cancelled at the end of season 4, which is currently airing. That revelation came on the heels of ABC revealing that it would give fans an inside look at the series with virtual reality. A collection of videos are set at the Bluebird Cafe serving as a companion to what will be the last few episodes of the show.
Watch Intel's record-setting drone light show
Intel talked a big game when it said that it set a Guinness World Record for the most drones controlled by a single person, but it now has the evidence to back up that braggadocio. Guinness has posted a video of the feat, which saw 100 drones perform a light show (coordinated by Intel software, of course) while humans played Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 on the ground. Is it a publicity stunt? Absolutely. But it's still fun to watch, and it's proof that drone swarms are easier to control than ever.
Windows 10 focuses on Cortana and Edge in first big update
Microsoft is rollingout the first major update to Windows 10 for tablets and PCs. The release focuses on improvements to Cortana, Edge and performance. The personal assistant will now track your event and movie tickets, and even monitor travel time and give you a heads up when you should leave. The update also allows you to book an Uber, in case you need a ride to the theater. And for our international friends, Cortana is finally landing in Japan, Australia, Canada and India.
Ex-Beats CEO's game taps our weird talent show fixation
The co-creator of the service behind Beats music has launched a game that plays on the public's love for shows like X-Factor and Glee. Called Chosen, it lets users either record and upload their performances, or act as judges to give other musicians the old Simon Cowell treatment on video. As in the televised versions, the cream of performers and judges will rise to the top of the rankings and get... well, bragging rights, anyway.
Twitch introduces free-to-use music, place to perform tunes
Twitch introduced a library of music that is safe to use for broadcasting on the platform. The streaming service's new music section includes over 500 royalty-free tracks that broadcasters can feature in both live and archived videos. Notably, the songs "will not be flagged by the audio recognition system implemented in 2014 to protect audio copyright holders and Twitch broadcasters alike," according to Twitch. "Our community has been vocal about the importance of music for their broadcasts and their love of music in general," Twitch's Chief Strategy Officer Colin Carrier said in the announcement. "By working with both established and upcoming record labels, we are now able to offer music for them to use that is cleared for live broadcasts and archiving." The streaming platform's audio recognition tech began muting archived broadcasts in August that seemingly contained "unauthorized third-party audio," which included many false-positive cases where genuine in-game audio was muted as well. The company's CEO Emmett Shear called those cases a mistake, introducing an appeals system for streamers to use. Additionally, Twitch added "Music" to the platform's game directory, giving artists a space for "creating, performing and presenting original songs." Pending Twitch's approval, "certain established labels and artists" may also host "radio-style listening shows and broadcast large scale events, such as music festivals." [Image: Twitch]
Advanced Warfare console comparison drops a few frames on PS4
Sledgehammer Games recently confirmed that the Xbox One version of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare automatically scales its resolution up to 1080p on a frame-by-frame basis. By comparison, the PS4 version consistently maintains a high resolution, but performance analysis tests from Digital Foundry show that it comes at a price. In a video (seen after the break) of Advanced Warfare version 1.04 running on both systems, the testers found that the Xbox One version held up at a mostly steady 60fps. As for the PS4 version, it had more frequent dips in frame rate, dropping as low as the mid-40s during some scenes. The tests were primarily focused on the game's campaign; initial looks at Advanced Warfare's multiplayer performance bore similar results, though the Xbox One version did not scale up from its 1360x1080 resolution during multiplayer sessions. [Image: Activision]
iPhone 6 tops competition in benchmarks, battery life
Apple's annual iPhone update always brings with it a nice bump in specs, and this year is no different. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are currently being put through their paces by the benchmarking gurus at AnandTech, and the preliminary results show that Apple's newest pair of smartphones are among the best of the best on several popular graphical tests as well as web browsing battery life. In nearly all the tests -- check out the full rundown to get the whole picture -- the iPhone 6 twins hold the top two smartphone scores, with the exception of a physics benchmark where they only narrowly beat out the iPhone 5s and lag behind the rest of the competition. It's unclear why that particular test came out the way it did, while the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus dominate so handily in the rest, but the testing parameters have been questioned by commenters. It's interesting to note where the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus trade places from test to test. With slightly less screen real estate to worry about, the iPhone 6 has a small advantage and manages to eke out its bigger brother a few times along the way. The two remain very close in nearly every test though, so the slight differences in performance shouldn't factor into your choice either way. [Graph via Anandtech]
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar ain't doing so good
If you somehow missed it, last week the WildStar team announced that the game will be squishing into megaservers to help bolster populations. What the hell happened? Contrary to what the developers would like you to believe, this is not good news. It's especially bad news if you're part of the roleplaying community, as you're about to get shoved into a server configuration that's almost specifically designed to prevent you from roleplaying outside of a handful of shared plots, but it's bad news for everyone. And it's bad news for the game when server merges are a reasonable reaction after less than three full months of operation. We all know that the game launched to good reviews, and it's far too early to say, "Well, it failed." At the same time, this is not a sign of a robust and vibrant future. This is the first stage of an organized retreat, and it doesn't inspire confidence. So what, exactly, took place that brought the game from the high of its launch to server mergers today?
Mortal Online claims 'breakthrough' with improved client performance
If you've been frustrated by bad client performance with Mortal Online, then you'll be glad to hear that developer Star Vault has isolated the problem: It's Gordo the Carniverous Sea Slug (as seen above) who is eating your packets and pings with wild abandon. In all seriousness, the team has pinpointed the issue as related to the new armor models and is beginning to work on a solution. "We have made a very exciting breakthrough in how to handle player performance cost," a team update reads. "We have identified one big thing that does indeed add quite a bit of drop on client performance when the client sees many players." In addition to fixing the performance drop, Star Vault announced that the territory control system is "progressing very smoothly" and that the team has added a new concept artist to flesh out the world and lore. [Thanks to James for the tip!]
The Nexus Telegraph: The basics of crafting a WildStar build
There are few things I love so much as writing a column for June 30th only to find out on the 30th that the patch I'm discussing is going live on July 1st. You know, when it's too late to change anything. I really would have been happy to have found that out before the day. But, hey, WildStar's first patch came out, and now I've had a couple of weeks to explore it a bit. Am I happy with it? Sufficiently, yes, although I haven't yet digested it in full. For one month out from launch, I can't complain much. Of course, that's not the first thing that I want to talk about today. I want to talk about builds. Rather than giving you the absolute best-of-the-best builds for tanking and DPS and so forth, which I can't quite do, I want to help you figure out how to make a build that works. It's a satisfyingly interactive, and there are lots of very functional options however you choose to build your character.
Lord of the Rings Online's Weatherstock returns this weekend
Weatherstock, the annual player-run music festival in Lord of the Rings Online, will be returning for its sixth appearance this weekend. This year there will be two elements of the festival. The first is the Weatherstock Concert Series, which features longer sets leading up to the battle of the bands, i.e., Weatherstock itself. Ten player groups will perform for the crowd and compete against each other at the summit of Weathertop. Last year there were over 700 players in attendance. Weatherstock VI will take place on the Landroval server this Saturday afternoon, June 14th. The Weatherstock schedule is up, as is a FAQ and a Twitter feed for important updates.
Back to life: A collection of 'holographic' appearances
We've offered up the details about holographic live appearances, and now it's time to kick back and take in a few. Jump in the gallery below for performances from Michael Jackson, Tupac, Mariah Carey and more. There's also a feat from Sir Richard Branson allowing him to be in two places at once and a rather odd appearance from Al Gore.
Germany turns to 3D printed food to help those who can't swallow
See that meal up there? All of it was crafted on a 3D printer. Smoothfood is a project designed to provide better meals for both the elderly and sufferers of dysphagia -- an inability to swallow food. The process requires freshly-cooked ingredients to be pulped like baby food, before being mixed with a secret additive mix and regurgitated by a modified Foodjet 3D printer. The meal looks, and even apparently tastes, the same as it did before the process, but simply melts in the mouth instead of choking whoever would eat it. Smoothfood can currently create meals with Cauliflower, Peas, Chicken, Pork, Potatoes and Pasta, with more foodstuffs coming at some point in the future. We're slightly nervous that we're going to have to try some of this at a forthcoming trade show, so let's hope it's all as tasty as its creators claim.
Titanfall averages 46.5 frames-per-second on Xbox 360, Digital Foundry reports
The recently released Xbox 360 version of Respawn Entertainment's mech-dropping first-person shooter Titanfall maintains an average unlocked framerate of 46.5 frames-per-second, gaming performance analysis site Digital Foundry reports. Digital Foundry finds that the Xbox 360 version of Titanfall runs at a 1040x600 native resolution, compared to the Xbox One's 1408x792 resolution. The Xbox 360 version boasts an unlocked framerate of up to 60 frames-per-second, along with an option to lock the framerate at 30 FPS to eliminate screen tearing and input lag. Presentation-wise, Digital Foundry notes that the Xbox 360 version of Titanfall has "a necessary reduction in texture detail compared to the other versions, but nothing that overtly compromises the look of the game." The testing results are consistent with pre-release claims from porting studio Bluepoint Games, which promised a framerate above 30 frames-per-second in the final Xbox 360 version of Titanfall. [Video: Digital Foundry / Respawn Entertainment]
Benchmarking the new HTC One: less cheating, better performance
There are actually two "Ones" that launched this week. The star attraction is undoubtedly the HTC One, but let's not forget the brand-new Snapdragon 801 running under its hood: a cutting-edge processor that will also power the Sony Xperia Z2 and the Samsung Galaxy S5, but which happens to have reached the market first in HTC's flagship phone. This chip represents a significant upgrade over the Snapdragon 600 in the old One, promising a hat trick of better all-round performance, more fluid gaming and longer battery life, and these are precisely the claims we're about to explore using a combo of benchmarking apps and real-world tests. At the same time, HTC has suddenly decided to come clean on the issue of benchmark cheating, which makes it a bit easier for us to trust what the numbers are telling us.
FCC Speed Test app for iOS lets the government track your iPhone's network performance
Downloading an app from the federal government might not top your list of priorities at the moment, but if you're looking to tick that public service box without a need to worry about measly pay, background checks and furloughs, the FCC could sure use your help. That org's latest venture, the FCC Speed Test app for iOS, delivers yet another connectivity benchmark tool to iPhone and iPad users. This free download also benefits the government's Measuring Broadband America program, however, enabling the FCC to build out a public database of network performance across the country. Unlike its Android counterpart, this iOS app doesn't test performance in the background, so you'll need to fire it up to see how well your cellular or WiFi connection is doing. It's available from the App Store today.
Battlefield 4 won't get AMD-powered frame rate boost until later in January
The company known affectionately as Advanced Micro Delays has just confirmed something we already knew: the intriguing Mantle update for Battlefield 4, which promises a "significant" frame rate bonus for PC gamers running AMD hardware, has been postponed. It didn't arrive in December like it was supposed to, but is now officially meant to be on track for release sometime in January. The gossip is that the source of the delay isn't actually on AMD's side, but rather on EA DICE's, since the game developer has been swamped with bug-fixing chores and hasn't had time to focus on luxuries. Meanwhile, other developers tell us that they're getting on well with Mantle, thanks to its ability to circumvent DirectX and make better use of AMD's Graphics Core Next and octa-core CPU designs -- and that's something that we expect to be able to prove, one way or another, in the next few days.
