Posts

Albert Penello, the senior director of product management and planning at Microsoft, says there is “still a tonne of experimentation in VR.” Virtual reality headsets are a “viable” consumer product “for a certain size of audience,” says Penello, but Microsoft “learned with Kinect and the Wii that just translating a typical game experience to VR is not a winning strategy.” Penello explains that “it’s the oddball VR-specific stuff that makes it sing,” and Microsoft didn’t want to distract developers with that this year....

It’s important to note that exclusives aren’t the only things that make new consoles so desirable, but they certainly help, especially as this will be the first full holiday season for both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5. Compared to last year’s PS5 lineup, things are looking pretty baren for the console, which is directly juxtaposed with how much content is coming to Xbox platforms in the final months of the year....

Microsoft’s Race to Fix a Nasty Exploit News of this exploit came to light on The Verge. The exploit was found a week before the report by Twitter user @jonasLyk. This exploit works because Windows 10 handles a particular string of text, numbers, and symbols. When Windows 10 detects this string, it trips a bug that tricks the operating system into thinking its hard drive is corrupted. Someone abusing this trick doesn’t need to do anything extraordinary....

Started in 2010, the Xbox Live Rewards program gave members Microsoft Points (and occasionally other digital items like Avatar clothing/trinkets) in exchange for completing tasks. For example, if a gamer spent a certain amount at the Xbox Live Marketplace they might get a certain percentage back in Microsoft Points. The Rewards program also doled out a few Microsoft points simply as a good will gesture, either because it was your birthday or because you played a certain game....

OK, we made that diary entry up. But here’s the point: like an increasing number of other high-tech companies, software giant Microsoft is moving beyond the concept of “usability engineers,” the researchers who typically sit in cloistered labs behind one-way mirrors watching consumers grapple with new software. Today, Microsoft has a small team of real, trained anthropologists who visit the homes of regular people and study them at their computers, just as they would an indigenous tribe in the Australian outback....

Raghuvesh Sarup, sales director at Nokia India, a subsidiary of Microsoft Mobiles, has been quoted saying that “As soon as the operators decide about the 4G, we can offer them the technology.” This was revealed during the launch event of the Lumia 630 dual SIM smartphone handset, which is the country’s first device equipped with Windows 8.1 system. The official added that “We have been LTE-ready with devices starting 2012; we have the technology....

Announced this year on 20th June, the 10.1-inch ATIV tab 3 is touted as the slimmest tab made by Samsung so far. Its Super PLS LCD panels boast a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels at 155-ppi. The tab is powered by Intel Atom Z2760 chipset, built inside the Saltwell dual core CPU, covered at 1.8GHz. With 64GB of built-in storage, the ATIV tab 3 sports 2GB of system memory and a PowerVR SGX 545 GPU....

Fractures of the humerus are divided into three types: Proximal humerus fractures of the shoulder Distal humerus fractures of the elbow Mid-shaft humerus fractures Mid-Shaft Humerus Fractures A mid-shaft humerus fracture represents about 3% of all broken bones. It typically doesn’t involve the shoulder or elbow joints. The most common cause of a humeral shaft fracture is a fall, but high-energy injuries (motor vehicle collisions, sports injuries) and penetrating trauma (gunshot wounds) also can cause this injury....

After all, the youth hockey coach and executive director of a winter festival in Alaska had served as the Aces’ emergency goalie in practices for a quarter of a century. MORE: Stanley Cup playoffs: Ranking the goalies | Secret of the hot playoff goalie What better reward, then, but to put him on the ice for the team’s season finale Saturday night vs. the Colorado Eagles — and let him sink or swim?...

Scientists discovered the fossil of the braincase of a Shuyu fish. Despite its skull only being the size of a fingernail they were able to recreate seven virtual casts of the brain. They also unearthed the first 419 million-year-old armored galeaspid fossil completely preserved with gill filaments. The team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found the spiracle, slits behind the eyes leading to the mouth which allows some species to breathe....

What is the Level Cap in Middle-earth: Shadow of War? While at release, the maximum level for players was 60, an update several years ago raised the level cap to 80. Players can level their gear and weapons to level 85 as well, and even level 90 for weapons that an Olog breaks. For anyone who is going back to play these games as rumors of the next Middle-earth title in the series is in the works, getting to level 80 doesn’t have to be impossible....

Republican Party officials in Michigan altered the state’s primary election and party delegate apportionment rules requiring candidates to receive at least 20 percent of the primary vote in order to receive any delegates at all. This marks a 5 percent uptick from the previous 15 percent candidate minimum and also indicates that any candidate who received 50 percent or more of the primary vote will receive every single one of Michigan’s delegates, MLive....

As he is currently scheduled to graduate high school in 2022, though, this feels like a rather long engagement, with lots of potential distractions for Bates — the No. 1 prospect in high school basketball, perhaps the best since Anthony Davis — before he makes that pledge formal by enrolling at MSU. It even was there in his words as he broke the news via ESPN: “I’m not sure what the future may hold, but I do know right now I will be committing to Michigan State University,” Bates said....

State Senator Dale Zorn, a Republican who represents Ida Township in the southeastern part of the state, and just north of Ohio, wore the mask during a Senate vote Friday at the state capitol. The mask was red with blue stripes and white stars, according to the Detroit Free Press. On Saturday, Zorn tweeted an apology for his “choice of pattern” on the mask made by his his wife....

“We are having such a great time in San Diego," the Stones’ front man told the crowd during the show at the Padres’ ballpark. “It’s so beautiful here. Why would anyone want to leave? Especially the Chargers.” Jagger was referring to the Chargers’ 14-year-old saga to build a new stadium in southern California. The team now has two proposals on the table, including one potential deal developed by a city task force to develop a new $1 billion facility next to Qualcomm Stadium, the Chargers’ current home....

Mickelson – who celebrated his 50th birthday earlier this month – carded a seven-under-par 63 to top the leaderboard at the halfway stage of the tournament on Friday. The five-time major champion was almost flawless at TPC River Highlands in Connecticut, where he holed eight birdies and just one bogey for the outright lead at 13 under. After dropping his second hole of the day, Mickelson was blemish-free with birdies at the fifth, seventh and ninth before a bogey-free back nine yielded another five gains....

So, what differentiates a single-board computer and a microcontroller? Let’s take a look. What’s a Single-Board Computer? A single-board computer (SBC), as the name suggests, is a computer that consists of a single-board. An SBC is a full-fledged computer with RAM, storage, input/output, and peripherals like USBs, all on a single motherboard. An SBC also has an OS and can run various programs at the same time. In other words, an SBC only needs the power to start working....

Things progress a step further, however, when gamers learn that a game is capable of running at 1080p, but only on one console. As of late that has usually meant said game, be it Call of Duty: Ghosts or Watch Dogs or whatever, runs at a higher resolution on PS4, while the Xbox One version comes in at either a close, or sometimes even a distant, second. However, now that the resolution-gate issues have seemingly died down some, many are wondering whether the two consoles have achieved greater parity than at launch....

Microsoft Outlook users will see improvements in the reliability and sync latency of shared calendars. Microsoft is describing the new improvements as “the biggest change to Outlook for Windows since its initial release in 1997.” “This is one of those improvements that should be invisible because it eliminates issues but doesn’t change the core product functionality,” Microsoft wrote in a post announcing the improvements. “Calendars will sync faster, and we have eliminated any reliability issues when managing a calendar....