Jan 26
Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and James Corden may have more to say next week.
Jan 26
BioWare’s ambitious Anthem is off to a rough start as players bring servers to their knees
Posted in: Today's ChiliThe gaming world is excited to play Anthem, BioWare’s answer to Destiny and other big-budget online shooters — but an exclusive preview weekend for the mech-flying game has struggled to get off the ground. Of course, it wouldn’t be a game launch these days without a few hiccups to spice things up, but it is a little embarrassing.
The 40-gigabyte demo was made available today to those who had pre-ordered the game, as well as press and other “VIPs.” The game, announced last year at E3, is a loot-focused shooter where you pilot mechs through a huge open world, engage in cooperative combat and exploration and all that.
At least, so they say. Reports immediately came flooding in on forums and social media that not only was Origin, the service on which the demo is offered, failing to function properly, but that the game itself wasn’t connecting to servers, or if it did, wouldn’t load beyond the intro sequence.
I encountered this myself; after eventually getting loaded and logged in, I managed to get into the starting town area where you will, in the full game, upgrade your gear, accept quests and so on. But when I attempted to launch the first mission or otherwise enter the actual game world, the loading bar would stop about 95 percent of the way done and stay there forever (I waited about five minutes and reloaded a couple times to make sure it wasn’t just my aging rig). Those who made it all the way in complained of lag and glitches.
No one really ever expects a major title, especially one with a major online components, to launch even in a limited way without a few speed bumps, but something like this can really put the brakes on a hype train. Publisher EA admitted to the laundry list of issues from a support Twitter account:
Funnily enough EA Help’s own servers were having trouble as well, so not only could people not play Anthem, they couldn’t report that they couldn’t play Anthem.
Patience is a necessary virtue in today’s AAA game launches, but the people hoping to play this weekend aren’t randos but paying customers; this preview demo weekend was supposed to be a pre-order bonus, but the first day is a bust so far. Considering BioWare and EA knew exactly how many players could be trying to connect today — and those numbers are likely far less than those who will try the open beta or connect on launch day — it’s rather odd that they were seemingly caught so off-guard.
Anthem is certainly promising and the developers have gone out of their way to assure players that many of the hated practices of online games these days would not find a home on their platform. But launch problems always jar the confidence of undecided buyers, and there’s almost no question that the game will be better a month or two after its actual debut. Launch numbers could be affected by players not believing the game is ready to play, and therefore not being willing to pay.
I fully anticipate these issues getting resolved at some point soon, however, and will collect my impressions of the game in a separate post when that happens.
Jan 26
Google Voice remains a popular service that gets far too little attention. Users have been waiting months for a promised voice-over-IP (VoIP) feature, which entered beta testing around a year ago. Google was quiet on the test during that time, but a recent tweet prompted an update from the company: the new VoIP support is starting to roll out and … Continue reading
Jan 26
A man was reportedly arrested this week in connection with a recent bank robbery after his credit card that was used to rent a Jump e-scooter linked him to the scene of the crime.
Jan 26
Jan 26
Conspiracy videos can be fun and entertaining to a certain degree because it makes you think about things. However at the same time it can be dangerous as it can result in people actually buying into the conspiracy, which could also make them take action based on potential falsehoods that could endanger themselves or others around them.
Unfortunately it would be impossible to outright ban conspiracy videos, and to make things worse, YouTube seems to be recommending them as well, although unintentionally. However the good news is that YouTube is finally doing something about it and has announced that they will stop recommending such videos in the future.
According to YouTube, “To that end, we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
YouTube also notes that not recommending these videos does not mean that these videos won’t be available. They state that users can still search and watch those videos and that these videos will remain up as long as they comply with the platform’s guidelines. According to YouTube, “We think this change strikes a balance between maintaining a platform for free speech and living up to our responsibility to users.”
YouTube To Stop Recommending Conspiracy Videos , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jan 26
It’s 2019, and ordinary beer bongs just won’t cut it. Gravity just doesn’t deliver beer fast enough for some people. That’s why we now have the Q-bong pressurized beer bong, a device designed to shoot beer down the throat of its recipient faster than ever.
All you have to do is fill the reservoir with up to 32-ounces of beer, pump the air bulb to your desired beer-pressure, press the trigger valve and get to chugging. Isn’t college fun? Now it’s a little less fun because it’s so convenient to chug all by yourself with no one helping.
Is it called the Q-Bong because some guy in British intelligence who invents gadgets for a living came up with this? I have no idea, but I can tell you that the guy in the video looks like Ryan Reynolds demonstrating this device. And just as I thought, he doesn’t look like he’s having a lot of fun chugging from this thing. Calling it now, this thing kills parties dead. Oh look, there’s so and so over there chugging by himself in the corner from what is essentially a juice box of beer. No one likes that guy.
I like how the video also cuts off right before he chugs. Because he can’t. Because he’s clearly too old for college.
[via Dude I Want That via Geekologie]
Jan 26
President Trump signs bill without border wall funding to temporarily end the partial government shutdown.
Jan 26
BioWare’s ambitious Anthem is off to a rough start as players bring servers to their knees
Posted in: UncategorizedThe gaming world is excited to play Anthem, BioWare’s answer to Destiny and other big-budget online shooters — but an exclusive preview weekend for the mech-flying game has struggled to get off the ground. Of course, it wouldn’t be a game launch these days without a few hiccups to spice things up, but it is a little embarrassing.
The 40-gigabyte demo was made available today to those who had pre-ordered the game, as well as press and other “VIPs.” The game, announced last year at E3, is a loot-focused shooter where you pilot mechs through a huge open world, engage in cooperative combat and exploration and all that.
At least, so they say. Reports immediately came flooding in on forums and social media that not only was Origin, the service on which the demo is offered, failing to function properly, but that the game itself wasn’t connecting to servers, or if it did, wouldn’t load beyond the intro sequence.
I encountered this myself; after eventually getting loaded and logged in, I managed to get into the starting town area where you will, in the full game, upgrade your gear, accept quests and so on. But when I attempted to launch the first mission or otherwise enter the actual game world, the loading bar would stop about 95 percent of the way done and stay there forever (I waited about five minutes and reloaded a couple times to make sure it wasn’t just my aging rig). Those who made it all the way in complained of lag and glitches.
No one really ever expects a major title, especially one with a major online components, to launch even in a limited way without a few speed bumps, but something like this can really put the brakes on a hype train. Publisher EA admitted to the laundry list of issues from a support Twitter account:
Funnily enough EA Help’s own servers were having trouble as well, so not only could people not play Anthem, they couldn’t report that they couldn’t play Anthem.
Patience is a necessary virtue in today’s AAA game launches, but the people hoping to play this weekend aren’t randos but paying customers; this preview demo weekend was supposed to be a pre-order bonus, but the first day is a bust so far. Considering BioWare and EA knew exactly how many players could be trying to connect today — and those numbers are likely far less than those who will try the open beta or connect on launch day — it’s rather odd that they were seemingly caught so off-guard.
Anthem is certainly promising and the developers have gone out of their way to assure players that many of the hated practices of online games these days would not find a home on their platform. But launch problems always jar the confidence of undecided buyers, and there’s almost no question that the game will be better a month or two after its actual debut. Launch numbers could be affected by players not believing the game is ready to play, and therefore not being willing to pay.
I fully anticipate these issues getting resolved at some point soon, however, and will collect my impressions of the game in a separate post when that happens.
Jan 26
Google Voice remains a popular service that gets far too little attention. Users have been waiting months for a promised voice-over-IP (VoIP) feature, which entered beta testing around a year ago. Google was quiet on the test during that time, but a recent tweet prompted an update from the company: the new VoIP support is starting to roll out and … Continue reading
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