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Razer’s cloud gaming handheld starts at $400 for the WiFi-only model
A 5G version of the Razer Edge is also coming in January, but pricing is currently unknown.
‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ was made possible by fans, for fans
Zack Snyder's Justice League is finally here, against all odds, and you have the fans to thank.
AMD's Radeon RX 6000 reference card ditches the noisy blower
With NVIDIA gathering raves for its GeForce RTX 3080 launch, AMD is trying to draw attention to its own upcoming Radeon GPUs. To that end, the company has teased the reference design for its RX 6000 “Big Navi” graphics cards, showing a much-improved cooling system.
MLB teams could use cameras to detect fans who don't wear masks
According to a Bloomberg report the MLB has been investigating the use of cameras that could scan fans and spot individuals who are either not wearing masks or are using them improperly.
Meet the Upscalers
Fans across the world are using technology to bring low-res video entertainment up to HD standards. Meet the Upscalers.
Facebook gives creators more ways to make money
As VidCon gets ready to take place between July 10th and 13th in Anaheim, California, Facebook has news to share with its creator community. The company has announced that it is introducing more ways for them to earn money on its site, starting by giving them the ability to choose better placement for ads in their videos. Facebook says that, in order to better support videos that may not have "a natural break for ads," creators will now have the choice to include non-interruptive advertising formats, such as pre-roll or image-based ads. This could come in handy on videos that are particularly short, for instance.
Facebook Pages can now build their own communities
Today, Facebook is rolling out a new feature called "Groups for Pages," which will let artists, brands, businesses and newspapers create their own fan clubs. The company says the idea stems from two reporters at The Washington Post who started a Facebook group called PostThis, where they interact with some of "the most avid fans" of the paper on a daily basis. Facebook says right now there are more than 70 million Pages on its platform, so this going to be great for many users who want to let their loyal supporters feel more connected to them.
Spotify buys CrowdAlbum to give artists a fan's perspective
It's no secret that Spotify and other audio streaming apps are constantly looking for ways to help artists connect with fans. Today, Spotify announced that it's acquiring CrowdAlbum, a company that builds a library of photos and videos from fans so that artists can gauge the reaction to live performances. The two companies are no strangers, teaming up on a Fan Insights feature for musicians and concert recommendations for listeners. Under the streaming service's roof, CrowdAlbum will continue to work on products for artists. In fact, it already lends a hand to over 1,000 performers and venues in the US, including Lil Wayne, Diplo and Fall Out Boy.
Deezer taps BandPage for more interaction between artists and fans
Music streaming services like Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify and Tidal already offer ways for artists to connect with their fans. By partnering with BandPage, Deezer is looking to do the same. After making the trek across the Atlantic to stream tunes in the States earlier this year, Deezer will allow musicians to promote tour dates, photos, merchandise and VIP meet-ups with the help of BandPage. The company has already been working with Rhapsody and Spotify, sending 1.5 million eager fans to artist stores on a monthly basis. Based you your streaming habits, BandPage will serve up push notifications with artist info you might find interesting. When you factor in Deezer's six million subscribers, there's some potential for artist/listener interaction as the company looks to keep its piece of the streaming pie in a crowded marketplace. As mentioned, these types of musician-facing tools have been a part of the other services for some time, so Deezer has some catching up to do if it's looking to woo more talent. [Image credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images]
This is Minecon: the biggest 'Minecraft' fan convention
Inside the main convention hall, children scurry left and right with foam diamond swords raised high above their heads. Eyes wide and mouths agape, some of them rush toward a blocky reimagining of Big Ben, where Minecraft's formidable Ender Dragon can be found wrapped around the clock face. Below, parents wander between life-size character statues and trees with cube-cut canopies, a mixture of fascination and bemusement etched onto their faces. For one weekend in July, 10,000 of the most dedicated Minecraft players have descended upon London's Excel Exhibition Centre for Minecon, a fan convention celebrating the blockbuster sandbox building game. With panels, signings, tournaments and merchandise, it's the Minecraft equivalent of Disney World and Comic-Con.
Check out the ultimate Elite: Dangerous setup
Immersion is all in the eye of the beholder. It's all about what you need to feel as if you're stepping out of your world and into the game, something that can happen on a setup as simple as a handheld game console in the right circumstances. But it can also happen on a setup like that belonging to Elite: Dangerous fan Markus Boesen, which is going to put your own setup to shame no matter how good it may be. Boesen's game cockpit is setup with head tracking, three monitors angled for a simulation of peripheral vision, touchscreen interfaces, two joysticks, and more or less everything you could ever want to pretend that you're really sitting in a ship and flying through space. There's a video just past the break, if you'd like to see the setup in action and possibly make some last-minute amendments to your winter holiday gift list.
Researchers' profiles reveal the stereotypical gadget fan, sort of
What does the stereotypical Beats fan look like? Or Apple, HTC, BlackBerry? You've probably got some pretty strong images in your head right now, but I can almost guarantee they don't jive with those on market research firm YouGov's new profiling tool. A small volcano is erupting online as Brits type in their favourite brands and products to see if they're anything like the "typical" customer. Entering Motorola, for instance, brings up a 60-year-old man from East Anglia that works in engineering. "Wait, that isn't right!" I hear you cry. Well, that's because the results don't actually represent the stereotypical user. As YouGov explains, the data shows what it thinks is "particularly true" about a company's fans in the UK. So in Motorola's case, it could just mean it has a large number of customers aged 60 and above, or at least more than you might expect. (It doesn't necessarily mean that the average Motorola customer is that age.) Nevertheless, it's still great fun to enter a tech company or gadget and see what distinctive traits pop up. Just don't take it too seriously, okay?
Meet other fans for the big game with Best Bars
Your favorite team has a big game coming up and you need to find out where other fans will be gathering to watch. Best Bars, a free universal app that requires iOS 6.0 or later should provide you with some good ideas. The app offers a list of watering holes that you can sort by distance based on your current location or a rating based on other users' evaluations. This will be especially useful if you are out of town on business or a vacation. The app provides a list of bars or a map showing where all the bars are located in conjunction with your current location. If you you pick one of the bars you get more info including the address and phone number, which teams' fans have selected that place as a team favorite, driving directions, and other information provided by bar managers such as daily specials and which games will be shown. Users can set up their own favorite teams in Best Bars so you can get the schedule of upcoming games and all the major sports are covered, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA football and basketball, and major soccer leagues. Once you establish your list of favorites you can get a list of upcoming games and the app notifies you if there are any places where other fans of your team hang out. If you have friends who also use the app you can send invitations to them to meet you to watch the game. The app provides lots of basic information about sports hang outs but for it to be most effective the operators of the businesses need to become involved. The developer offers a merchant tool kit that allows the operators to update the information available about their particular establishment. With the tool kit, merchants can put out a daily list of what games will be shown, offer discounts and freebies to users of the app, send out alerts about specific games or deals and key those to fans based either on their favorite teams or the users' location. I checked out quite a few places around where I live and found almost no business had added additional information. Best Bars can be a big help to people who like to get together with other fans to watch games on TV, but needs more merchant participation to reach its full potential. But even now users will find an extensive list of watering holes near them. I did find a business for fans of my favorite team that I did not know about. Plus if you are away from your home neighborhood Best Bars offers quick and detailed access to places to watch your favorite team.
Lord of the Rings Online fans clean up old models
Lord of the Rings Online has been running for quite a while, and while it's not an ugly game its graphics are getting a bit long in the tooth. That's no one's fault, really, just the march of time making itself known. One fan has taken up the challenge of seeing what can be done with a bit of adjustment and retexturing, and the results are available on Reddit for fans to admire. The "new" models all have the same technical specifications as the models currently in the game, but have simply been adjusted and had their textures improved. Currently five of the models have been done -- male and female elves, male and female hobbits, and female humans. You can browse through to see how the updated geometry looks, although there's no way to put these models in the game at the moment. [Thanks to Emilia for the tip!]
An iPhone-ready ceiling fan and more news for June 5, 2014
What's in the news this morning? A cool fan with a rude name, good news for Pebble owners and Apple's apparent misuse of a product name. Let's get to it. Big Ass Fans has introduced a ceiling fan that can be controlled with your iPhone. The Haiku with SenseME is smart enough to know when a room is occupied and turn itself on or off accordingly. Additionally, it learns your "comfort preferences" and responds to temperature and humidity conditions in its environment. The companion iPhone app lets you create schedules and fiddle with various controls. Now I need to figure out how to convince my wife -- our family's CFO -- that I need one of these. The Pebble smart watch firmware, iOS app have been updated. Good news, Pebble owners. Pebble firmware 2.2 is available, and the iOS app has been updated as well. The updated app now uses iBeacon to know when the watch and the phone are close by each other. Other changes include a music progress bar and additional button functions. Australian company claims Apple stole the name "HealthKit." An Australian company called...wait for it..."HealthKit" lets users track their health and fitness online. Sound familiar? HealthKit co-founder Alison Hardacre thinks so, and she's not happy about it. "We won't let them trample over our product. Someone needs to be fired for this. We have a business with the same name and a similar product, if they had done a quick Google search they would have seen that. It's not fair."
ArcheAge fansite compiles the game's current problems
It's hard out there for an ArcheAge fan in the USA; the game still isn't out here, seems to be getting no closer to release, and is getting an official release in what seems like every other possible country. So one of the biggest ArcheAge fansites is trying to make the localization job for Trion Worlds just a little bit easier by explaining exactly what the game's major issues are, with a specific eye toward its most recent patch. Essentially, the complaints in the thread focus around the idea that the game continues to reduce the effectiveness of open PvP while adding in far more standard themepark elements, including a heavy reliance on daily quests near the level cap. If you've played the game's Korean version, you can feel free to jump in on the thread and add your own views. No word on how much this will be heard by the localization team, but it's a good snapshot of what the community likes about the game and what could be improved. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Dyson's latest vacuums still look alien, boast more sucking power
Over the years, Dyson's managed to vault its line of household suction beasts into the world of enviable gadgets -- a rare feat for a home appliance. And the company hasn't been sitting on its laurels with recent successes: Dyson's engineers have been hard at work to make them smaller, lighter and more powerful. The latest upright and hand-vac models -- the DC 58/59 and the DC65 -- are a testament to this ethos. While the sleek, space-age design has remained virtually unchanged from previous models, there are a series of under-the-hood improvements and some of the changes were tailored specifically for the US market. The new DC65 upright vacuum arrives in three flavors: Multifloor ($499), Animal ($599) and Animal Complete ($649), and boasts a remodeled airflow and new brush design, which are said to improve suction by 25 percent. For wire haters, the cordless varieties got overhauled too in the DC58 ($250) handheld and DC59 ($500) digital slim; both arrive with Dyson's new V6 digital motor that hits 110,000RPM to get at those fine specks of dreck that have settled into your floor's nether regions. All these models will be landing at Best Buy starting January 19th, just in time to prepare for spring cleaning. Update: Dyson's initial release estimates were incorrect. The DC65, DC58 and DC59 will all be available starting January 19th.
The Daily Grind: What games do you like even though you didn't play them much?
I only played Warhammer Online seriously for the six weeks of my first Choose My Adventure stint. There's no way I could call myself a big fan without being a liar. But despite that -- and despite the fact that the game had been in a steady downward trajectory ever since the first day I started working at Massively -- I still had a lot of affection for the title. I was sad to hear it would be shutting down, because it appealed to me, even if I didn't want it to be my main game. I think we've all had a game or two that we tried or played for a little while without really falling for it. Sometimes we move on peacefully, and other times we still cheer for the game from the sidelines. So what games do you like even without being a big-time player? Are they games you used to play that you eventually moved on from or ones that just strike you as somehow worthy? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
TUG puts out the call for fan-made music
The game of TUG is all about user creations. The entire concept behind the game is making a world in which players can shape land and social structures according to their desires. So it makes sense that the game is looking to see if the more musically inclined community members would like a chance to get their compositions into the game. Because even if the game has plenty of songs for play, there's always space to fit in some talented fan productions. Currently the team at Nerd Kingdom is gauging interest in the idea, which would play a random selection of fan-made music on the game's menu screen. The piece played would include the composer's name, the title, and a link to where more of the composer's music could be found. It's not payment, but if you think you'd benefit from the exposure, feel free to take a look and express your interest.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite game that doesn't work in the US?
So we all found out yesterday that MMOs do not work in the US. The only two that have ever been successful at all were EverQuest and World of Warcraft. This much come as a shock to the teams behind EVE Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Second Life, Defiance, EverQuest II, RIFT, Neverwinter, and countless other titles. Or the plethora of titles still running in maintenance mode. You get the idea. So today we're going to just plant our tongues firmly in our cheeks. Pick a game you like that is not one of the two MMOs that has been successful in the US, and explain why you like it. There's no need to say anything bad about the many other games that don't work in the US, just wax poetic about your favorite game that doesn't work. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
