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Discord Nitro will let you annoy your friends with soundboard noises
The subscription tier is also adding new themes, seasonal avatar decorations and 'Super Reactions.'
Acer updates its range of gaming laptops for 2023
Acer wants to give its Nitro laptops more of an identity.
Discord rolls out a lower-priced Nitro subscription
Discord now has a more affordable Nitro Basic subscription, not to mention shared activities like games.
Discord is pulling its subscription service's free games library
Discord's Nitro subscription service stepped into Steam territory last year when it gave subscribers access to a curated library of games. It only ever offered a fraction of the titles Steam has -- it launched with just over 60, including Super Meat Boy and Psychonauts -- but it was a nice perk that came with the $10-a-month Nitro plan. The bad news for those who play those games is that the vast majority of subscribers don't, which is why the company has decided remove its Nitro Games catalogue on October 15th.
Discord will start selling games in a 'curated' store
Discord isn't just for chatting (and watching the occasional video) any more. The community-driven service is launching a beta that will offer games, including a full-fledged game store. The new portal will offer a "curated" store that focuses on titles both Discord and the community feel you might like. That currently includes a mix of familiar, well-received indie games like Dead Cells and Into the Breach. However, that's really just the start.
Fur technology makes Zootopia's bunnies believable
Zootopia is a world where humans don't exist. It's a big, crowded metropolis where anthropomorphic animals drive cars, fight crime, eat ice cream and ride trains. Prey and predators of varying shapes and sizes coexist in harmony until their prejudices get in the way.
Fizzics countertop 'draught' system makes bad beer good
I like -- nay -- love beer. But I'll be honest, when I first heard about Fizzics and its promise to deliver the perfect pour of tap-quality beer from any can or bottle I dismissed it. It seems like the sort of silly snake oil you'd find in SkyMall or Sharper Image. But, I gave Philip Petracca, the CEO of the company the opportunity to convince me otherwise. He swung by the Engadget compound with a cooler full of beer and a pitch full of science. I'm convinced he's not just some huckster, but whether or not Fizzics truly makes beer better is a different question.
AT&T's LG Nitro HD goes up for sale, LTE-enabled Gingerbread pep for $250
In case you forget that AT&T's latest LTE-equipped smartphone hit shelves today, consider this a friendly reminder from your mobile obsessed friends here at Engadget. We're talking about the LG's Nitro HD, the 4.5-inch device we lovingly handled last week -- loaded with a skinned version of Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, running atop its peppy 1.5 GHz Qualcomm APQ8060 dual-core processor. If you'll recall, it's notably packing a 1280 x 720p screen resolution with an ultra-crisp looking 329ppi, an 8 megapixel rear camera (1.3 MP up front) and a healthy 4GB of internal storage supplemented by an included 16GB microSD card (expandable to 32GB). Thankfully, bloatware on the Nitro is at an all time low, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that's it's been confirmed to be loaded with the ickyness of Carrier IQ. Sure, it's not as tasty as an Ice Cream Sandwich, but if your hungering for LTE-enabled 4G speeds on Ma Bell, at least you now have a third option. It can be yours now for $250 with a two-year renewal of service, and you'll find more info at the source link below.
AT&T 4G LTE now working in parts of New York City
We got a taste of AT&T's 4G LTE action last night in the Big Apple with the introduction of its LG Nitro HD, and today, the company has apparently flipped the 4G "on" switch in the City That Never Sleeps -- confirming its promise from November. According to tipster reports, some speed tests are showing downloads as fast as 27 Mbps and uploads of 15 Mbps, confirming that the LTE network has indeed gone live in parts of New York City. Update: To be clear, this is not an official deployment of LTE in NYC by AT&T. So, if you can't get signal, or if your signal stinks, don't take it out on them. It's still in testing! [Thanks, @SamSavitt]
LG holding 'exclusive launch event' on December 1st, Nitro HD the likely suspect
In case you were wondering why LG hasn't been making huge waves in the US this holiday season yet, it appears we now know the reason. The company just sent us a nice invite in the form of electronic mail, detailing an exclusive launch event on the evening of December 1st (next Thursday). LG was trying to play coy by not leaving any clues in the image, but fortunately it left the name of the image file easily seen by our prying eyes: LG Nitro. The Nitro HD has long been rumored to be the Optimus LTE for AT&T and another name for the P930, which was referenced in an XML file as having a 1,280 x 720 HD display. Sounds great, but we never know for sure until it happens -- after all, we could be introduced to a $50 prepaid T-Mobile phone exclusive to 7-11. Anyone want to place bets?
Full-screen web apps should get a JavaScript boost in iOS 5
Lots of information about iOS 5 is still hidden under the developer NDA, but here's one tidbit that's sneaked out: Some web apps will be faster under the new operating system. So says one developer over on a coding message board; it confirms the rumor that full-screen web apps opened from the iPhone and iPod touch's homescreen will get to take advantage of the JavaScript Nitro engine. In terms of what this means for users, there's not a lot of difference -- you'll still click the icon on your homescreen and the web app will launch like normal. But behind the scenes, if the web page you load uses Nitro, it'll work quicker than usual. Keep in mind that neither full-screen web apps nor browser views within apps have had access to this high-speed engine in iOS 4, so this is an improvement. Web apps that run outside of Safari, however, using an iOS class called UIWebViews, still won't use this souped-up engine for JavaScript. As the hackers explain, that's at least partially due to security concerns in terms of what UIWebViews can and can't do. But it's nice to know that some of the web apps you may use on your iPhone or iPad may see a speed boost with the new OS. When it comes to web pages, faster is almost always better.
Apple confirms some WebKit optimizations unavailable to iOS Apps
The web performance enhancements included in Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 4.3, are exclusively available to the Mobile Safari web browser, an Apple spokesperson has confirmed. The optimizations, which double JavaScript performance in Mobile Safari, are not available to the underlying web view framework that powers the embedded browsers in other apps. "The embedded web viewer does not take advantage of Safari's web performance optimizations," Trudy Muller, a spokesperson for Apple, told The Register. Apple's statement comes as a response to controversy started earlier this week when developers first recognized the notable performance gap between Mobile Safari and the embedded web views in their own applications. The debate deepened yesterday when Blaze Software released the results of a study that implied Android loaded web pages 52 percent faster than the iPhone 4. Apple refuted Blaze's results, citing the differences between Safari and the embedded web viewer. Many developers voiced concerns about Apple's decision to exclude third-party apps from taking advantage of the Nitro JavaScript engine included in iOS 4.3. One anonymous developer suggested Apple purposefully omitted the enhancements to subtly degrade the web experience in non-Apple browsers and web apps launched from the home screen. "Apple is basically using subtle defects to make web apps appear to be low quality - even when they claim HTML5 is a fully supported platform," the developer claimed in The Register. Matt Asay, vice president of business development for Strobe, indicated that Apple filed the performance gap as a bug but marked it "not to be fixed by exec order." On Twitter, Asay called the scenario "slimy" and suggested it's partly a tactic for convincing developers to focus on the development of native apps. The real reasons for the performance gap may not be so sordid. Ars Technica observes the Nitro JavaScript engine uses a technique called "just-in-time [JIT] compilation" to transform dynamic JavaScript code into machine code optimized for the ARM processor architecture. Nitro's ability to dynamically generate and execute code enables it to process JavaScript much faster than its predecessors. Unfortunately, for security reasons, other applications developed for iOS aren't typically granted permission to execute dynamically generated native code. Miguel de Icaza, a lead developer for both GNOME and Mono, said he suspects the issues are legitimate technical problems and not a conspiracy. "It seems that people are attributing to malice what can easily be explained by history - iOS has never allowed user code to generate code on demand, and this has for years prevented JIT compilation from taking place," Icaza told Ars Technica. "Third parties have never been able to get access to this - not Mono, not Java, not Lua, not JavaScript, or any other runtime, compiler, or library that generates native code dynamically." As a result, applications that use the UIWebView framework, including web apps launched from the home screen, will not enjoy the performance optimizations available to Apple's Mobile Safari web browser. Despite the technical challenges in adapting Nitro to work safely within the UIWebView framework, developers like Icaza are optimistic Apple will enable the new JavaScript engine for apps with embedded web views. "Since this is the first OS release with Nitro on the Mobile Safari browser, it is probably safe to assume that this is merely a bug or limitation," he said. Is this a conspiracy worth dubbing "browser-gate," or simply a small speed bump in this tale of two JavaScript rendering engines? Please use the comments below to discuss. [via The Mac Observer]
iOS 4.3 gold master benchmarks from WIRED show speedier Safari browsing
In case you're wondering how that iOS 4.3 update is going to work out for you, WIRED has released results of benchmarks they performed using the gold master (release) version of the software. What they found was that the update provides major improvements in Safari's ability to run JavaScript. iOS 4.3 uses the new Nitro JavaScript engine for JavaScript rendering, and WIRED's tests showed that Safari was able to pull a SunSpider time of 4340.1 ms compared to 10626.4 ms for iOS 4.2.1. That's over twice as fast! The iOS 4.3 update is available right now in iTunes, so if you'd like to see sites like Google Voice, Google Docs, and Google Reader running faster on your iPhone or iPad, or browse your Facebook page at light speed, get the update loaded ASAP. The update also adds AirPlay functionality to more apps, including Safari and YouTube.
Apple releases Safari 5 with Safari Reader, Extensions and Bing search (updated)
Apple has just outed a press release for Safari 5, which curiously didn't get a mention during the company's WWDC10 keynote, but should be ready to download any minute now. Safari Reader is making its debut, as we'd heard it might, alongside a claimed 30 percent performance improvement over Safari 4 and -- mirroring the iPhone 4 -- Bing as one of the preloaded search engine options. Google and Yahoo are still around, don't freak out. Apple is also adding in Extensions (think Firefox's Add-Ons) to the browser, allowing devs to use HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to pretty up the browsing experience. The Reader feature intrigues us most, as it auto-detects articles within webpages and pulls them out for an unencumbered text-only view. The idea sounds great, but we'll naturally need to see how well it works in practice. Apple's been doing a bit of benchmarking too and boasts that Safari 5 runs JavaScript a whole three percent faster than Chrome 5.0 and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6. Internet Explorer is presumably still working on finishing that test. P.S. We're hearing the current release might be for devs only, hence the lack of a public download. Update: Okay, now it's available for public consumption. Update 2: We've been playing with Safari 5 for a few moments and here's what we've noticed: Reader is pretty gorgeous -- think Instapaper on the fly. It's hard to tell when it'll kick in and show the Reader button in the toolbar, though -- it works on Engadget posts, but not in Wikipedia articles. Yes, Netflix is broken. It seems like it's doing a browser detect and failing with the new build number, so we'd guess it'll be fixed soon. It's much faster at everything from launch to rendering times. We haven't clocked it yet, but it's noticeably snappier on our quad-core i7 iMac. We're dying to try out some Extensions and see how they work, but we haven't seen any yet. Same with the new HTML5 features -- hit us up if you see anything! Bing Search integration is... Bing search integration. What else is there to say?
Need for Speed: Nitro trailer heads down to Rio
We always thought Rio was only good as a backdrop for gritty crime dramas or a place to shop for gigantic Jesus statues. Alas, the tropical climate is also very suitable for street racing -- at least, according to this new trailer for EA's arcade racer, Need for Speed: Nitro. The racing looks intense enough and it seems EA did a good job getting the sense of speed aspect down. However, even though EA is willing to take a risk on the platform, we hope the company is prepared should Nitro suffer the same fate as our beloved Dead Space Girl.
Need for Speed Nitro rushes to retail in early November
Need for Speed Nitro, the graffiti-laced second entry in EA's "fresh" Need for Speed trio, has pulled out of the garage sooner than expected. Promising a mixture of "the franchise's trademark attitude, sense of speed and addictive gameplay," the colorful Nitro has gone gold, with both Wii and DS versions now set to ship on November 3 in North America and November 6 in Europe.Capitalizing on its Unique Art Style, the game will drape in-game vehicles with skins designed by popular "lifestyle brands," including Upper Playground, tokidoki, and i am 8-bit. You'd be right in calling it a product of marketing, but it's preferable to the alternative conjured up by the Dante's Inferno promotional team: in-game vehicles draped in human skins. %Gallery-43523%
Japanese hardware sales, 4 December - 10 December: Terminator edition
Listen to me. I've been sent from the future, sent to warn you about the impending destruction of the human race. There were so many, we just couldn't ... we were overwhelmed within weeks. Humans now live in scattered clusters, fearful of the raids, desperately clinging to life. We need to stop it. They're gaining power.Surely, you've seen the signs. They're infecting homes, complacent, waiting for their chance to strike. Soon, their numbers will be unstoppable, and you're allowing, nay, helping their cause. Every week they grow stronger! They added what will be their strongest general, Dragon Quest, to their arsenal quite recently. Yes, surely you see it now: within two months, the DS Lites will become sentient. They'll launch a attack on the Pentagon and all major military bases in the continental United States, removing our defensive capabilities. From then on, it'll be inevitable ... Judgement Day.From their seat of power in Akihabara, Japan (the new capital of Nitro, their self-proclaimed worldwide empire), they will launch wave after wave of attack on the remaining humans. We're led by the one man who might rally us from defeat ... Reggie, of course. He sent me here, to prevent it, but now I see that it's already too late. February 13th is the day, gentlemen. May Iwata have mercy on your pathetic souls.- DS Lite: 309,630 132,729 (75.03%)- Wii: 85,439 264,919 (75.61%)- PS3: 50,171 18,735 (59.6%) - Xbox 360: 35,343 31,290 (772.02%) - PS2: 30,460 7,345 (31.78%) - PSP: 28,930 5,013 (20.96%) - GBA SP: 1,896324 (20.61%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,555 303 (24.20%) - Gamecube: 569 252 (30.69%) - DS Phat: 167 27 (19.29%) - GBA: 17 5 (22.73%) - Xbox: 6 5 (45.45%)[Source: Media Create]
Biggie-sized pic of the Treo 750
This is the first shot we've ever seen of a Treo without an external antenna. And when we say "first," we mean seventh this month.
Palm chooses September to announce new Treo
One might argue we've collected enough intelligence at this point to make an official announcement ourselves, but according to a Reuters report, Palm has committed to unveiling at least one of its next-gen Treos for reals (without our help) next month. From the way Palm is talking, it sounds like this debut will be for the Windows Mobile-based UMTS model first mentioned for Vodafone in July, though we're guessing Cingular's Treo 750 isn't far behind (right, Palm?). Other than that tidbit, Palm's asking us all to patiently wait for the September 12 when the press releases start flying -- but one thing we can say with near certainty is that there won't be a stub antenna anywhere in sight.[Thanks, Dave]
Yet another shot of an unreleased Treo (Nitro?)
Just in case you haven't seen a picture of the backside of our stubless friend against red carpeting, well, here ya are. Sure, none of our illicit shots so far have the spit and polish of a meticulously-prepared press kit -- but then again, said press kit doesn't exist yet.[Thanks, Jojo]
