When Pi Charging (winner of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017) rebranded as Spansive last month, the company also dropped plans for its previously-shown cone-shaped charger capable of charging phones placed within a few inches around it. That charger would’ve required special cases for each device — and as the world quickly adopted built-in wireless charging standards like Qi, that no longer seemed like the right move.
They did say, however, that they were working on a different, Qi-centric wireless charging device with a “few tricks” of its own, and that it’d arrive by summer. This is that charger.
Called the Spansive Source, it’s a base station capable of wirelessly charging four phones at once. Unlike their cone-shaped charger, you’ll need to set your phone pretty much right on top of the Source — but unlike most pad-based wireless chargers, you won’t need to fuss with getting it aligned just right. Built using some of the same concepts they’d figured out with the cone-shaped charger, Spansive tells me that Source can determine where your phone is placed on the pad and adjust its array of magnetic charging coils accordingly. It’s also able to charge right through many brands of phone cases.
Spansive CEO and co-founder John MacDonald brought a few of his chargers to our office — and, while it’s tough to gauge how well something like this works in a short demo, it seemed to do what they promised. He placed one phone after another onto the base station, and each one’s screen lit up, its respective battery percentage ticking upward. He placed a phone with a thick Otterbox on the charger; it started juicing right up. The last phone he added to the pile had an Otterbox and a PopSocket on it, and it seemed to work all the same.
Spansive says Source charges at a rate of up to 5W for each phone being charged wirelessly, while the USB ports push up to 12W. MacDonald tells me that the wireless charging rate isn’t impacted by the number of phones on the pad; in other words, the first phone won’t charge slower just because you’ve added another phone or two to the charger.
John was careful to note that the Source is built to charge phones, specifically. The angled design would make resting something like an Apple Watch on it a bit awkward, for example — so Source also has two USB ports on its side, meant to help charge your various other devices. Even within the phone category, Spansive isn’t promising full compatibility across all Qi phones right off the bat; MacDonald tells me they’ve focused on getting it to work with Samsung’s Galaxy phones (beginning with the S7) and iPhones (beginning with iPhone 8), with certification/compatibility with other phones likely coming down the road via over-the-air software update. It has WiFi built-in for pulling down those updates, with a button on Source’s base for wiping your WiFi credentials with a tap if you don’t want yet another IoT device on your network indefinitely.
Source goes up for sale today at $189, shipping immediately in two colorways: white and charcoal.
Posted by Tali Dekel, Research Scientist and Forrester Cole, Software Engineer, Machine Perception
The human visual system has a remarkable ability to make sense of our 3D world from its 2D projection. Even in complex environments with multiple moving objects, people are able to maintain a feasible interpretation of the objects’ geometry and depth ordering. The field of computer vision has long studied how to achieve similar capabilities by computationally reconstructing a scene’s geometry from 2D image data, but robust reconstruction remains difficult in many cases.
A particularly challenging case occurs when both the camera and the objects in the scene are freely moving. This confuses traditional 3D reconstruction algorithms that are based on triangulation, which assumes that the same object can be observed from at least two different viewpoints, at the same time. Satisfying this assumption requires either a multi-camera array (like Google’s Jump), or a scene that remains stationary as the single camera moves through it. As a result, most existing methods either filter out moving objects (assigning them “zero” depth values), or ignore them (resulting in incorrect depth values).
Left: The traditional stereo setup assumes that at least two viewpoints capture the scene at the same time. Right: We consider the setup where both camera and subject are moving.
In “Learning the Depths of Moving People by Watching Frozen People”, we tackle this fundamental challenge by applying a deep learning-based approach that can generate depth maps from an ordinary video, where both the camera and subjects are freely moving. The model avoids direct 3D triangulation by learning priors on human pose and shape from data. While there is a recent surge in using machine learning for depth prediction, this work is the first to tailor a learning-based approach to the case of simultaneous camera and human motion. In this work, we focus specifically on humans because they are an interesting target for augmented reality and 3D video effects.
Our model predicts the depth map (right; brighter=closer to the camera) from a regular video (left), where both the people in the scene and the camera are freely moving.
Sourcing the Training Data
We train our depth-prediction model in a supervised manner, which requires videos of natural scenes, captured by moving cameras, along with accurate depth maps. The key question is where to get such data. Generating data synthetically requires realistic modeling and rendering of a wide range of scenes and natural human actions, which is challenging. Further, a model trained on such data may have difficulty generalizing to real scenes. Another approach might be to record real scenes with an RGBD sensor (e.g., Microsoft’s Kinect), but depth sensors are typically limited to indoor environments and have their own set of 3D reconstruction issues.
Instead, we make use of an existing source of data for supervision: YouTube videos in which people imitate mannequins by freezing in a wide variety of natural poses, while a hand-held camera tours the scene. Because the entire scene is stationary (only the camera is moving), triangulation-based methods--like multi-view-stereo (MVS)--work, and we can get accurate depth maps for the entire scene including the people in it. We gathered approximately 2000 such videos, spanning a wide range of realistic scenes with people naturally posing in different group configurations.
Videos of people imitating mannequins while a camera tours the scene, which we used for training. We use traditional MVS algorithms to estimate depth, which serves as supervision during training of our depth-prediction model.
Inferring the Depth of Moving People
The Mannequin Challenge videos provide depth supervision for moving camera and “frozen” people, but our goal is to handle videos with a moving camera and moving people. We need to structure the input to the network in order to bridge that gap.
A possible approach is to infer depth separately for each frame of the video (i.e., the input to the model is just a single frame). While such a model already improves over state-of-the-art single image methods for depth prediction, we can improve the results further by considering information from multiple frames. For example, motion parallax, i.e., the relative apparent motion of static objects between two different viewpoints, provides strong depth cues. To benefit from such information, we compute the 2D optical flow between each input frame and another frame in the video, which represents the pixel displacement between the two frames. This flow field depends on both the scene’s depth and the relative position of the camera. However, because the camera positions are known, we can remove their dependency from the flow field, which results in an initial depth map. This initial depth is valid only for static scene regions. To handle moving people at test time, we apply a human-segmentation network to mask out human regions in the initial depth map. The full input to our network then includes: the RGB image, the human mask, and the masked depth map from parallax.
Depth prediction network: The input to the model includes an RGB image (Frame t), a mask of the human region, and an initial depth for the non-human regions, computed from motion parallax (optical flow) between the input frame and another frame in the video. The model outputs a full depth map for Frame t. Supervision for training is provided by the depth map, computed by MVS.
The network’s job is to “inpaint” the depth values for the regions with people, and refine the depth elsewhere. Intuitively, because humans have consistent shape and physical dimensions, the network can internally learn such priors by observing many training examples. Once trained, our model can handle natural videos with arbitrary camera and human motion.
Below are some examples of our depth-prediction model results based on videos, with comparison to recent state-of-the-art learning based methods.
Comparison of depth prediction models to a video clip with moving cameras and people. Top: Learning based monocular depth prediction methods (DORN; Chen et al.). Bottom: Learning based stereo method (DeMoN), and our result.
3D Video Effects Using Our Depth Maps
Our predicted depth maps can be used to produce a range of 3D-aware video effects. One such effect is synthetic defocus. Below is an example, produced from an ordinary video using our depth map.
Bokeh video effect produced using our estimated depth maps. Video courtesy of Wind Walk Travel Videos.
Other possible applications for our depth maps include generating a stereo video from a monocular one, and inserting synthetic CG objects into the scene. Depth maps also provide the ability to fill in holes and disoccluded regions with the content exposed in other frames of the video. In the following example, we have synthetically wiggled the camera at several frames and filled in the regions behind the actor with pixels from other frames of the video.
Acknowledgements The research described in this post was done by Zhengqi Li, Tali Dekel, Forrester Cole, Richard Tucker, Noah Snavely, Ce Liu and Bill Freeman.
A year ago Instagram made a bold bet with the launch of IGTV: That it could invent and popularize a new medium of long-form vertical videos. Landscape uploads weren’t allowed. Co-founder Kevin Systrom told me in August that “What I’m most proud of is that Instagram took a stand and tried a brand new thing that is frankly hard to pull off. Full-screen vertical video that’s mobile only. That doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Now a dedicated hub for multi-minute portrait mode video won’t exist anywhere at all. Following lackluster buy-in from creators loathe to shoot in a proprietary format that’s tough to reuse, IGTV is retreating from its vertical-only policy. Starting today, users can upload traditional horizontal landscape videos too and they’ll be shown full-screen when users turn their phones sideways while watching IGTV’s standalone app or its hub within the main Instagram app. That should hopefully put an end to crude ports of landscape videos shown tiny with giant letterboxes slapped on to soak up the vertical screen.
Instagram spins it saying “Ultimately, our vision is to make IGTV a destination for great content no matter how it’s shot so creators can express themselves how they want . . . . In many ways, opening IGTV to more than just vertical videos is similar to when we opened Instagram to more than just square photos in 2015. It enabled creativity to flourish and engagement to rise – and we believe the same will happen again with IGTV.”
Last year I suggested IGTV might have to embrace landscape after a soggy start. “Loosening up to accept landscape videos too might nullify a differentiator, but also pipe in a flood of content it could then algorithmically curate to bootstrap IGTV’s library. Reducing the friction by allowing people to easily port content to or from elsewhere might make it feel like less of a gamble for creators deciding where to put their production resources” I wrote.
The coming influx of repurposed YouTube videos could drive more creators and their fans to IGTV. To date there have been no break-out stars, must-see shows, or cultural zeitgeist moments on IGTV. Instagram refused to provide a list of the most viewed long-form clips. Sensor Tower estimates just 4.2 million installs to date for IGTV’s standalone app, amounting to less than half a percent of Instagram’s billion-plus users downloading the app. It saw 3.8 times more downloads per day in its first three months on the market than than last month. The iOS app sank to No. 191 on the US – Photo & Video app charts, according to App Annie, and didn’t make the overall chart.
Instagram has tried several changes to reinvigorate IGTV already. It started allowing creators to share IGTV previews to the main Instagram feed that’s capped at sixty seconds. Users can tap through those to watch full clips of up to sixty minutes on IGTV, which has helped to boost view counts for video makers like BabyAriel. And earlier this week we reported that IGTV had been quietly redesigned to ditch its category tabs for a central feed of videos that relies more on algorithmic recommendations like TikTok and a two-wide vertical grid of previews to browse like Snapchat Discover.
But Instagram has still refused to add what creators have been asking for since day one: monetization. Without ways to earn a cut of ad revenue, accept tips, sign up users to a monthly patronage subscription, or sell merchandise, it’s been tough to justify shooting a whole premium video in vertical. Producing in landscape would make creators money on YouTube and possibly elsewhere. Now at least creators can shoot once and distribute to IGTV and other apps, which could fill out the feature with content before it figures out monetization.
For viewers and the creators they love, IGTV’s newfound flexibility is a positive. But I can’t help but think this is Instagram’s first truly massive misstep. Nine months after safely copying Snapchat Stories in 2016, Instagram was happy to tout it had 200 million daily users. The company still hasn’t released a single usage stat about IGTV usage. Perhaps after seemingly defeating Snap, Instagram thought it was invincible and could dictate how and what video artists create. But the Facebook pet proved fallible after all. The launch and subsequent rethinking should serve as a lesson. Even the biggest platforms can’t demand people produce elaborate proprietary content for nothing in return but “exposure”.
A year ago Instagram made a bold bet with the launch of IGTV: That it could invent and popularize a new medium of long-form vertical videos. Landscape uploads weren’t allowed. Co-founder Kevin Systrom told me in August that “What I’m most proud of is that Instagram took a stand and tried a brand new thing that is frankly hard to pull off. Full-screen vertical video that’s mobile only. That doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Now a dedicated hub for multi-minute portrait mode video won’t exist anywhere at all. Following lackluster buy-in from creators loathe to shoot in a proprietary format that’s tough to reuse, IGTV is retreating from its vertical-only policy. Starting today, users can upload traditional horizontal landscape videos too and they’ll be shown full-screen when users turn their phones sideways while watching IGTV’s standalone app or its hub within the main Instagram app. That should hopefully put an end to crude ports of landscape videos shown tiny with giant letterboxes slapped on to soak up the vertical screen.
Instagram spins it saying “Ultimately, our vision is to make IGTV a destination for great content no matter how it’s shot so creators can express themselves how they want . . . . In many ways, opening IGTV to more than just vertical videos is similar to when we opened Instagram to more than just square photos in 2015. It enabled creativity to flourish and engagement to rise – and we believe the same will happen again with IGTV.”
Last year I suggested IGTV might have to embrace vertical after a soggy start. “Loosening up to accept landscape videos too might nullify a differentiator, but also pipe in a flood of content it could then algorithmically curate to bootstrap IGTV’s library. Reducing the friction by allowing people to easily port content to or from elsewhere might make it feel like less of a gamble for creators deciding where to put their production resources” I wrote.
The coming influx of repurposed YouTube videos could drive more creators and their fans to IGTV. To date there have been no break-out stars, must-see shows, or cultural zeitgeist moments on IGTV. Instagram refused to provide a list of the most viewed long-form clips. Sensor Tower estimates just 4.2 million installs to date for IGTV’s standalone app, amounting to less than half a percent of Instagram’s billion-plus users downloading the app. It saw 3.8 times more downloads per day in its first three months on the market than than last month. The iOS app sank to No. 191 on the US – Photo & Video app charts, according to App Annie, and didn’t make the overall chart.
Instagram has tried several changes to reinvigorate IGTV already. It started allowing creators to share IGTV previews to the main Instagram feed that’s capped at sixty seconds. Users can tap through those to watch full clips of up to sixty minutes on IGTV, which has helped to boost view counts for video makers like BabyAriel. And earlier this week we reported that IGTV had been quietly redesigned to ditch its category tabs for a central feed of videos that relies more on algorithmic recommendations like TikTok and a two-wide vertical grid of previews to browse like Snapchat Discover.
But Instagram has still refused to add what creators have been asking for since day one: monetization. Without ways to earn a cut of ad revenue, accept tips, sign up users to a monthly patronage subscription, or sell merchandise, it’s been tough to justify shooting a whole premium video in vertical. Producing in landscape would make creators money on YouTube and possibly elsewhere. Now at least creators can shoot once and distribute to IGTV and other apps, which could fill out the feature with content before it figures out monetization.
For viewers and the creators they love, IGTV’s newfound flexibility is a positive. But I can’t help but think this is Instagram’s first truly massive misstep. Nine months after safely copying Snapchat Stories in 2016, Instagram was happy to tout it had 200 million daily users. The company still hasn’t released a single usage stat about IGTV usage. Perhaps after seemingly defeating Snap, Instagram thought it was invincible and could dictate how and what video artists create. But the Facebook pet proved fallible after all. The launch and subsequent rethinking should serve as a lesson. Even the biggest platforms can’t demand people produce elaborate proprietary content for nothing in return but “exposure”.
Next week, New York City’s Metro Transit Authority will be adding contactless payment support for Google Pay. In the meantime, Google’s getting ready by bringing a key new commuting feature to Android.
Starting today, NYC straphangers can use Google Assistant to find out the ETA of the next train. Saying, “Hey Google, when is the next 4 train arriving?” or “Hey Google, when is the next train?” Will pop up its estimated arrival in each direction, along with walking directions to the closet station. Something I could have used this morning, after narrowly missing the R train.
If you’re located in the New York City area, odds are you’ve already seen the contactless payments pop up in a handful of locations along the 4,5,6 line. Next week, those commuting between Grand Central in Manhattan and Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center in Brooklyn will be able to swipe their phone as part of a public pilot.
For now, at least, it seems the future is limited to single ride payment (versus daily/weekly/monthly cards), as the MTA works on hammering out the finer details. Stations that accept Google Pay will be added to Maps in coming weeks. Android users will also be able to add in a credit or debit card via the app. That feature is also arriving for riders in Melbourne and London.
Next week, New York City’s Metro Transit Authority will be adding contactless payment support for Google Pay. In the meantime, Google’s getting ready by bringing a key new commuting feature to Android.
Starting today, NYC straphangers can use Google Assistant to find out the ETA of the next train. Saying, “Hey Google, when is the next 4 train arriving?” or “Hey Google, when is the next train?” Will pop up its estimated arrival in each direction, along with walking directions to the closet station. Something I could have used this morning, after narrowly missing the R train.
If you’re located in the New York City area, odds are you’ve already seen the contactless payments pop up in a handful of locations along the 4,5,6 line. Next week, those commuting between Grand Central in Manhattan and Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center in Brooklyn will be able to swipe their phone as part of a public pilot.
For now, at least, it seems the future is limited to single ride payment (versus daily/weekly/monthly cards), as the MTA works on hammering out the finer details. Stations that accept Google Pay will be added to Maps in coming weeks. Android users will also be able to add in a credit or debit card via the app. That feature is also arriving for riders in Melbourne and London.
Indiegogo has a new chief. Andy Yang will take over for outgoing CEO David Mandelbrot who is stepping down. According to sources close to the company, several other Indiegogo employees are also leaving. Indiegogo has yet to confirm this claim or state the number or reason for their departure.
Mandelbrot announced the move on LinkedIn, citing “personal reasons” as the reason he’s leaving. He was at Indiegogo for six years starting as SVP of Operations in August of 2013.
Andy Yang comes to Indiegogo from Reddit where he was most recently leading its product team. He was previously the CEO of 500px.
Yang comes to Indiegogo at a critical time for the company. Consumers are increasingly becoming jaded by crowdfunding projects that leave backers without their promised product. Under Mandelbrot’s leadership, he helped Indiegogo net several key partners including General Electric and Lego. The company also enlisted the help of several manufacturing and marketing professionals to help backers make projects into products.
TechCrunch requested an interview with Yang, but has yet to be granted that request.
Researchers have found two apps masquerading as cryptocurrency apps on Android’s app store, Google Play.
One of them was largely a dud. The second was designed to steal cryptocurrency, the researchers said.
Security firm ESET said one of the two fake Android apps impersonated Trezor, a hardware cryptocurrency wallet. The good news is that app couldn’t be used to steal cryptocurrency stored by Trezor. But the researchers found the app was connected to a second Android app which could have been used to scam funds out of unsuspecting victims.
Lukas Stefanko, a security researcher at ESET — who has a long history of finding dodgy Android apps — said the fake Trezor app “appeared trustworthy at first glance” but was using a fake developer name to impersonate the company.
The fake app was designed to trick users into turning over a victim’s login credentials. Uploaded to Google Play on May 1, the app quickly ranked as the second-most popular search result when searching for “Trezor” behind the legitimate app, said Stefanko. Users on Reddit also found the fake app and reported it as recently as two weeks ago.
According to Stefanko, the server where user credentials were sent was linked to a website linked to another fake wallet, purportedly to store cryptocurrency, and also listed on Google Play since February 25.
“The app claims it lets its users create wallets for various cryptocurrencies,” said Stefanko. “However, its actual purpose is to trick users into transferring cryptocurrency into the attackers’ wallets – a classic case of what we’ve named wallet address scams in our previous research into cryptocurrency-targeting malware.”
Both apps were collectively downloaded more than a thousand times. After ESET contacted Google, the apps were pulled offline the next day.
Cloud native models using containerized software in a continuous delivery approach could benefit from serverless computing where the cloud vendor generates the exact amount of resources required to run a workload on the fly. While the major cloud vendors have recognized this and are already creating products to abstract away the infrastructure, it may not work for every situation in spite of the benefits.
Cloud native put simply involves using containerized applications and Kubernetes to deliver software in small packages called microservices. This enables developers to build and deliver software faster and more efficiently in a continuous delivery model. In the cloud native world, you should be able to develop code once and run it anywhere, on prem or any public cloud, or at least that is the ideal.
Serverless is actually a bit of a misnomer. There are servers underlying the model, but instead of dedicated virtual machines, the cloud vendor delivers exactly the right number of resources to run a particular workload for the right amount of time and no more.
Nothing is perfect
Such an arrangement would seem to be perfectly suited to a continuous delivery model, and while vendors have recognized the beauty of such an approach, as one engineer pointed out, there is never a free lunch in processes that are this complex, and it won’t be a perfect solution for every situation.
Arpana Sinha, director of product management at Google says the Kubernetes community has really embraced the serveless idea, but she says that it is limited in its current implementation, delivered in the form of functions with products like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions and Azure Functions.
“Actually, I think the functions concept is a limited concept. It is unfortunate that that is the only thing that people associate with serverless,” she said.
She says that Google has tried to be more expansive in its definition “It’s basically a concept for developers where you are able to seamlessly go from writing code to deployment and the infrastructure takes care of all of the rest, making sure your code is deployed in the appropriate way across the appropriate, most resilient parts of the infrastructure, scaling it as your app needs additional resources, scaling it down as your traffic goes down, and charging you only for what you’re consuming,” she explained
But Matt Whittington, senior engineer on the Kubernetes Team at Atlassian says, while it sounds good in theory, in practice fully automated infrastructure could be unrealistic in some instances. “Serverless could be promising for certain workloads because it really allows developers to focus on the code, but it’s not a perfect solution. There is still some underlying tuning.”
He says you may not be able to leave it completely up to the vendor unless there is a way to specify the requirements for each container such as instructing them you need a minimum container load time, a certain container kill time or perhaps you need to deliver it a specific location. He says in reality it won’t be fully automated, at least while developers fiddle with the settings to make sure they are getting the resources they need without over-provisioning and paying for more than they need.
Vendors bringing solutions
The vendors are putting in their two cents trying to create tools that bring this ideal together. For instance, Google announced a service called Google Cloud Run at Google Cloud Next last month. It’s based on the open source Knative project, and in essence combines the goodness of serverless for developers running containers. Other similar services include AWS Fargate and Azure Container Instances, both of which are attempting to bring together these two technologies in a similar package.
In fact, Gabe Monroy, partner program manager at Microsoft, says Azure Container Instances is designed to solve this problem without being dependent on a functions-driven programming approach. “What Azure Container Instances does is it allows you to run containers directly on the Azure compute fabric, no virtual machines, hypervisor isolated, pay-per-second billing. We call it serverless containers,” he said.
While serverless and containers might seem like a good fit, as Monroy points there isn’t a one size fits all approach to cloud native technologies, whatever the approach may be. Some people will continue to use a function-driven serverless approach like AWS Lambda or Azure Functions and others will shift to containers and look for other ways to bring these technologies together. Whatever happens, as developer needs change, it is clear the open source community and vendors will respond with tools to help them. Bringing serverless and containers is together is just one example of that.
Are you thinking about building your first PC, but you’re not sure where to start? Or are you worried about whether you’ll choose the right components to create a balanced and functional build?
In that case, using the website PC Part Picker can help. The site gives you tons of information about PC components so you can make the right choices for your first build.
Why PC Component Compatibility Matters and How to Check It
It used to be the case that you’d have to do a lot of research to find out which parts were compatible. Even then, you’d sometimes buy several components only to find that they didn’t all fit in the case you’d chosen.
Fortunately it’s now easy to check part compatibility before you buy any hardware. Sites like PC Part Picker allow you to add your chosen hardware to a list and will warn you if there are any incompatibilities.
How to Check Part Compatibility Using PC Part Picker
To check part compatibility of the hardware you’re thinking of purchasing, go to the PC Part Picker website. Then select System Builder from the menu at the top. Here you’ll see a list of components like CPU, Motherboard, and Memory.
To add a component, for example a CPU, hit the blue button which says Choose a CPU. Add all of the different components you are thinking about buying for your build.
Now look at the colored bar under the link for your build. If everything is compatible, the bar will be green and labelled “Compatibility: see notes below.” The notes will advise you if there are any compatibility issues that can’t be checked (for example, some coolers only fit into cases with particular configurations). But generally, if the bar is green then you are good to go.
If there are compatibility issues, such as the motherboard not supporting the processor you’ve chosen, the compatibility bar will be red and will say “Compatibility: Warning! These parts have potential issues or incompatibilities”. If you click on details you can see exactly which parts are incompatible.
How to Budget the Cost of Your Selected Components
As anyone who has a built a PC knows, the costs of all the different components can quickly add up. As well as the basic components like CPU, motherboard, RAM, power supply, graphics card, and storage, there are other costs to consider.
Perhaps you want an after-market cooler, or maybe you’d like an expensive case to show off your build. You also need to remember to budget for extras like fans, case lighting, or a sound card. Not to mention the cost of shipping if you’re buying your components online. All these little costs can add up.
That’s why it’s useful to keep a running total of the budget for your build. As a rough guide, spending less than $1,000 total would be considered a budget build. Spending $1,000 to $2,000 would be mid-range. And spending more than $2,000 would be a high-end build.
To check your budget on PC Part Picker, scroll to the bottom of the System Builder page. There you’ll see a total cost, with a base total for just the cost of the components you have selected so far, along with additions for shipping and subtractions for rebates.
How to Select the Components You Need
If you’re not sure exactly which components to choose, then PC Part Picker can help you with this too. If you go to Browse Products, you can select component types such as Power Supply. Then you can see a list of available power supplies.
This list shows you key information like features, price, and form factor. There’s also a Compatibility Filter option which will show you only parts which are compatible with the components you’ve already selected.
Most useful of all, you can see the prices for components from different online retailers. Click on the name of a component and you can see how much it costs at different websites, as well as a graph showing how much it has cost historically. You can also check reviews on this page to see if other people were satisfied with their purchase.
How to Check the Total Wattage of Your Build
Another useful feature of the site is that it will tell you the total power requirements of your system. Many people end up buying power supplies with a much higher wattage than they need because they overestimate their power requirements.
When you’ve put a build together on the site, at the top of the page it will show you your estimated wattage for the system in a blue box. You can use that information to choose an appropriate power supply.
Considerations When Choosing a Power Supply
Remember that you don’t want to underpower your system, so do give yourself some wiggle room in your wattage when choosing a power supply.
Also, just because you don’t need high wattage doesn’t mean you should buy the cheapest power supply you can find. The power supply is an important component and can damage other components if it goes wrong, so buy one which is reliable and from a reputable brand, even if it is low wattage.
If you’re new to building PCs, it’s a good idea to get feedback or advice on your component selection before spending a lot of money. Once you’ve selected your components you can share your build with friends or on forums to get advice from experienced PC builders.
To share your build, you can use the link at the top of the System Builder page. In the light yellow box, next to the link icon, you’ll find a link in a form like http://bit.ly/2WiS4iF.
You can copy this link and send it to other people to let them view your build and send you feedback.
PC Part Picker Makes Building Your First PC Easy
Using a site like PC Part Picker can help you build your own PC for a better price by getting you good deals and making sure you don’t buy any incompatible parts.
The popular video game genres, such as platformers and shooters, are self-explanatory. But there are lots of video game genres that aren’t so well-known.
In this article we look at some of the more niche video game genres, explaining what they are and recommending the best games in each genre.
1. Visual Novel
The visual novel genre blurs the line between literature and video game. These works of interactive fiction are text-heavy and don’t feature much action at all. Typically, they’re played from a first-person perspective, and present you with a deep story and memorable characters.
Unlike many video games, the “gameplay” elements in a visual novel are pretty minimal. Most of the time, your interaction with the game is limited to advancing through text boxes, making dialog choices, and occasionally solving light puzzles. This genre focuses more on building an interesting world than revolutionary gameplay. Often, your choices in conversations have direct effects on the story.
Visual novels are wildly popular in Japan, so anime-style art is common in these games. They’ve recently become more popular outside of Japan thanks to a few key series, many of which you can enjoy right now.
A fantastic visual novel to get you started is the Ace Attorney series. In it, you play as Phoenix Wright and other lawyers who must defend their unjustly accused clients. Beyond that, we’ve looked at some other visual novels you should play, such as the Zero Escape series.
2. 4X
4X refers to a type of strategy game where you have four goals: to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Unlike some of the relatively simple gameplay offered by other genres on this list, 4X games are incredibly deep and often take a long time to play.
In a 4X title, you oversee an empire and must manage important aspects like battles with neighboring kingdoms, claiming new territories, and controlling resources. If you like complex gameplay, you’ll love what 4X games have to offer. You’ll have to take into account the cultural and political consequences of your choices—what happens if your government doesn’t like that you declare war on your neighboring region?
The classic example of a 4X title is the Civilization series. If you’re looking for something a bit more accessible, try these 4X strategy games for Android.
3. Walking Simulator
While “walking simulator” is sometimes used as a derogatory term, it’s generally accepted as the name for a particular genre of adventure title. It refers to a narrative game that has few elements of gameplay aside from walking around and interacting with objects.
Typically, walking simulators drop you into a world and let you discover details about it through audio logs, documents, and similar items that you find. Because there’s no combat and minimal puzzle solving, the story is the focus.
You’ll like walking simulators if you enjoy the mystery of discovering a story through in-game data instead of cutscenes. Do walking simulators count as video games? It depends on how interactive you feel games should be, but many people enjoy them regardless.
If you want to give a walking simulator a try, The Stanley Parable is a fun example of this genre, as it’s quite meta. Firewatch is another popular walking simulator, where you play as a fire lookout in a forest.
4. Metroidvania
The term “Metroidvania” is a combination of two game series: Metroid and Castlevania. Since 1997’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, both series have featured similar gameplay styles, giving birth to this genre.
A Metroidvania game features a large, complex map that you can’t access all from the start. Instead, you must explore and find upgrades that provide access to new areas. While new abilities let you access more of the map, they also serve as buffs for combat.
Many Metroidvania games feature epic boss battles, which often protect the upgrades. You can also find secret rooms that provide even more optional goodies. Thanks to the non-linear world design, there’s often backtracking to earlier areas to discover new paths you couldn’t reach earlier.
Most Metroidvania games are 2D, though not all are. While both series are of course a great place to experience the genre, Metroidvania is also a popular genre for modern indie titles. Hollow Knight is a great example because it doesn’t hold your hand while exploring. For something less intense, Ori and the Blind Forest serves as an excellent introduction to the genre.
5. MOBA
MOBA stands for “multiplayer online battle arena.” It’s a combination of real-time strategy and action where two teams compete in a small arena, each trying to destroy the other’s base. Most MOBA maps feature three “lanes” that allow teams to travel between bases.
In a MOBA, each player typically selects one hero for the whole match. These heroes are broken up into classes based on their purpose, while each one also has various unique skills. During the course of a match in a MOBA, players defeat computer-controlled weak characters known as “creeps” to gain experience and make their characters more powerful.
Two well-known MOBAs are League of Legends and Dota 2 (Defense of the Ancients). Both are free-to-play and feature tons of characters to try out. Read our introduction to League of Legends to help you get started.
6. Clicker/Idle Game
A clicker game (also known as an idle or incremental game) refers to a title where the gameplay is limited to extremely basic interactions, such as clicking on the screen. Typically, you earn points each time you click. As you continue clicking, the game provides upgrades that let you earn more points more quickly.
After some time, these upgrades will begin to rack up points for you, even if you’re not actively “playing” them. This is where the “idle” term comes from. Many of them have no ending, though they include milestones you can work to achieve.
Cookie Clicker is one of the best-known free games you can win by clicking. Each click earns you a cookie, and you can eventually purchases factories and grandmas to bake even more cookies. AdVenture Capitalist is another clicker game where you start with a lemonade stand and work to earn as much money as possible.
7. Roguelike
This subgenre of RPGs gets its name from the classic 1980 computer game Rogue. One of its hallmarks is dungeon-crawling through procedurally generated areas, meaning the game is different every time you play. In addition, they feature permadeath, a mechanic which completely resets your progress once you die. “True” roguelikes also use tile-based movement and prioritize resource management.
Classic roguelikes are turn-based, but not all modern instances of the genre follow this rule. One close example is Darkest Dungeon, which is a procedurally generated turn-based RPG where character management is essential.
A subdivision of this genre is the roguelite. This terms refers to games that have some aspects of a roguelike, but lack others. One well-known and accessible roguelite is The Binding of Isaac. It features permadeath, but you can earn some upgrades that persist through playthroughs. The game is also not turn-based.
8. Tower Defense
Another subdivision of the strategy genre, tower defense games focus on you protecting a base or territory. Typically in these types of games, you strategically place defenses and obstructions, and must survive waves of incoming enemies.
As you’d expect from the name, what sets these apart from other real-time strategy games is that you’re always on the defensive. If the enemy destroys your base, you lose.
Plants vs. Zombies is an example of a fairly casual tower defense game. Kingdom Rush is another popular title in the genre.
What Video Game Genre Will You Play Next?
We’ve taken a look at many video game genres you might not know much about. Perhaps you’ve previously heard the names, but didn’t know what each genre entailed. Now that you do, you should play each one to expand your gaming horizons.
The only way to beat laziness is with guilt, and so that’s what Future sells. It assigns you an actual human trainer who builds personalized workout plans and message you throughout the day to make sure you’re doing them. It even gives you an Apple Watch to track your activity and ensure you’re not lying. Future actually got me to the gym where my coach kicked my ass remotely with a 30 minute lifting routine I’d never have stuck to by myself.
The catch? It’s probably the most expensive app you’ve ever seen, charging $150 per month.
Future officially launches today, touting some stunning stats from its beta tests. 95% of users stuck with it for 3 months, and 85% kept training for 6 months. Luckily it comes with a 1-month money-back guarantee that CEO Rishi Mandal says has only been redeemed once.
The remarkable retention and Future’s potential to become a gateway for your fitness and nutrition spending have roped in some big name investors. Today it’s announcing an $8.5 million Series A led by Kleiner Perkins, building on its $3 million seed. Other backers include Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and Caffeinated Capital. Athletes are betting on Future’s promise of democratizing the personal training they get, including Golden State Warrior Sean Livingston, and NFL stars Ndamukong Suh and Kelvin Beachum.
“Future manages to be both deeply personalized (and personable!) while being super convenient” says Krieger of one of his first investments since leaving Instagram. Future’s Mandal previously built local experience app Sosh while sitting next to Krieger at incubator Dogpatch Labs where Instagram got its start. “The always available nature of it means travel or a shifting schedule is no longer an excuse to not work out.”
How Future Works (Out)
Throughout the onboarding, Future flexes the money you spend to give what feels like a luxury app experience.
Upon signup, you’ll answer some questions about your goals like slimming down or beefing up, and pick from a few expert trainers who specialize in your needs. You’ll do a 15-minute video chat with your trainer to get friendly, describe your schedule, and hammer out details of your workout plan. After you get your welcome kit with some swag and an Apple Watch, your trainer delivers your week’s worth of personalized daily routines that come with video instructions for each exercise. The Future app provides audio cues to guide you through the workout while your trainer chimes in with personalized pointers and motivation via pre-recorded voice clips.
But what’s unique about Future is that your trainer proactively checks in with you throughout your day to make sure you’re actually getting to the gym or doing those pushups. Since you don’t switch between trainers with each workout like some apps, and since they have your activity and heart rate data from the Apple Watch, they can spot patterns of procrastination or flaking out. And you’re prompted to give feedback after each sweat session that the trainer uses to tweak your plan. That personalization and prodding go a long way to making sure Future always fits your day and actually stays part of it.
For example, I wanted to burn a few pounds without burning too much time by adding a gym day or two plus some warmup strength training before my home Peloton rides. My trainer Renee, a former University Of Wisconsin Director of Sports Performance for basketball, designed a 30-minute weight lifting circuit and some 10-minute bodyweight exercise plans for me. When I messaged her that I was doing an a more intense spin class today, she remixed my warmup exercises to avoid legs so I wouldn’t be tired during my ride. So far she’s always responded within a few minutes, and been cheerful yet forceful “I know your days are slammed, just wanted to check in and see if you were able to get to that spin class?” she messaged me at 6:30pm. That’s something even most in-person trainers don’t do.
The constant communication and sense of trust users develop with their coaches could give Future potential beyond subscription fitness. The app becomes a hub for your healthy behavior. Future already offers an in-app Shop where it recommends workout clothes, headphones, and water bottles. It’s easy to imagine it partnering with fitness equipment makers, health food lines, or other brands to score a cut of referred sales.
Still, the biggest hurdle is convincing people to pay over 10X their Netflix fee for a personal trainer they don’t see in person. Compared to the $1 apps we’re used to, Future can induce sticker shock. But compared to unused gym memberships, pricey private coaching, and potential health problems, Future could look affordable if well-to-do professionals squint right. And if it works. Humans are sluggish. Most heathy habits lapse. But Future is building the closest thing to “press button, pay money, get fitter” — which in the end looks like getting someone to enthusiastically shame us from afar.
Valve has launched a dedicated Steam Chat app for mobile. Available on Android and iOS, the Steam Chat app brings most of the features from the desktop client to your smartphone. Allowing you to chat anywhere and everywhere.
In July 2018, Valve updated Steam and upgraded Steam Chat in the process. This was an attempt to compete with Discord, the dedicated chat app beloved by gamers. The new Steam Chat boasted a number of new features, and now it even has its own mobile app.
The Key Features of the Steam Chat App
The Steam Chat app was unveiled on the Steam Blog. The company calls it “a modernized Steam chat experience available for free on iOS and Android platforms.” With the tagline of “Take your Steam friends, groups, and conversations with you wherever you go.”
The new Steam Chat mobile app looks exactly as you would expect. Which should make it feel familiar to anyone used to using Steam Chat on the desktop client. It also means you can carry on chatting to people across platforms, whether they’re on desktop or mobile.
The key features making the move across from Steam Chat on the desktop client include:
Friends List – Allowing you to see who’s in game or online at a glance.
Rich Chat – High fidelity links, videos, tweets, GIFs, emoticons, and more.
Invite Links – Allowing you to add new friends on Steam with a link.
Customizable Notifications – Meaning you’ll never miss a message or invite again.
Group Chats – Making it easier to stay in touch with your communities.
Valve is keen to hear your opinion of the Steam Chat app. It’s also already working on improvements, including voice chat. And because Steam Chat now has its own dedicated app, the main Steam Mobile app is set to get significant upgrades in the future.
The Steam Chat for mobile app is a solid entry into a crowded market. However, it isn’t doing anything particularly different. People who already use Steam Chat on the desktop client will lap it up, but we can’t see people abandoning other chat apps for it.
Steam Chat comes hot on the heels of the Steam Link app which lets you play PC games on your iPhone or iPad. While Steam Link has been available on Android since May 2018, it took Valve another 12 months to convince Apple to approve the app.
The Tor Project has released Tor Browser 8.5. And this is the first stable release for Android. In a nutshell this means you can now download the Tor Browser from Google Play and start browsing the internet anonymously. Or visit the deep and dark web.
Tor Browser 8.5 brings with it several improvements and bug fixes. But the headline here is that Tor Browser 8.5 is the first stable release for Android. Which means you can download the Tor Browser for Android from Google Play as well as from The Tor Project.
The Tor Browser for Android isn’t perfect. There are a list of bugs and missing features The Tor Project is working to overcome. However, Tor Browser 8.5 is considered the first stable release, which means it’s ready to be used by the general public.
We've got big news.
After months of work, Tor Browser is now stable on Android.
The Tor Project launched Tor Browser for Android in alpha in September 2018. At the time the organization listed its ability to “block trackers,” “defend against surveillance,” “resist fingerprinting,” offer “multi-layered encryption,” and enable users to “browse freely”.
In case you’re wondering, no, there’s no official Tor Browser for iOS, and no plans to release one. The Tor Project claims this is “due to restrictions by Apple”. However, it recommends iOS users keen to browse anonymously use the Onion Browser instead.
It’s important to remember that while using Tor makes it more difficult for authorities to track you, it doesn’t guarantee you anonymity and security. Tor also doesn’t change the legality of certain behaviors, so breaking the law is still breaking the law.
Apple has decided to forego all the pomp and circumstance of the upcoming WWDC event to announce a refresh to its MacBook Pro models. The company has made some pretty compelling changes to the devices that could help convince anyone who’s been on the fence about purchasing Apple’s higher-end laptop.
New MacBook Pro Upgrades
The first major update to the MacBook Pro comes to the processor. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is getting a new quad-core processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.7GHz. The larger (and more expensive) 15-inch models get six and eight-core processors with Turbo Boost speeds up to 5.0GHz. Apple says that compared to the fastest quad-core processor, the new eight-core model is up to twice as fast.
Interestingly, Apple also made some changes to the keyboard on the MacBook Pro. Apple told The Wall Street Journal that it changed the material used in the keyboard mechanism. Apparently, it’ll help with the double keyboard presses that some users were reporting.
The 13-inch starts with 8BG RAM and a 256GB SSD for storage. For the 15-inch, both the six-core and eight-core model features 16GB RAM, but the eight-core model comes with a 512GB SSD, while the six-core variant features a 256GB SSD.
New MacBook Pro Availability
Both the 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro models are available now. The 13-inch model goes for $1,799. For the 15-inch, the six-core model sells for $2,399 and the eight-core model goes for $2,799. Interested buyers can snag either one from anywhere Macs are normally sold.
Apple Expands Keyboard Warranty
Additionally, Apple announced some changes to the warranty offered on its laptop keyboards. The company announced that all laptops with butterfly keyboards are eligible for the new repair program, including the new 2019 models.
Apple has a full list of models covered on its support website with a detailed breakdown of what is covered and what isn’t. Basically, anyone with an eligible device can get their keyboard repaired free of charge as long as it’s having buttons repeat unexpectedly, letters or characters not appearing, or keys feeling sticky.
