Author: Mobile Syrup

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Mobile Syrup

Elgato’s new capture card works with variable refresh rates

The HD60 X, Elgato’s latest video game capture card features an updated design with rear-facing HDMI/USB ports, but more importantly, compatibility with variable refresh rates (VRR).

This includes 1440p 60fps SDR, 1080p 60fps HDR, and pass through for up to 4K 60fps HDR, 1440p 120fps SDR and 1080p 240fps SDR. It’s also possible to capture 120fps in 1080p if you scale down 1080p 240fps footage.

The Xbox Series X supports VRR and Sony is working on bringing the feature to the PlayStation 5.

As someone who just purchased an Elgato HD60 S+ a few weeks ago, I’m not exactly pleased by the reveal of the HD60 X. However, I don’t own a monitor or TV that supports VRR, so I’m not missing out on much, though the rear-facing HDMI/USB ports would be great for cable organization.

The HD60 X costs $259.99 in Canada and is available to order now.

Image credit: Elgato 

Source: Elgato 

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Mobile Syrup

Logan Paul wears rare ‘Illustrator’ Pikachu Pokémon card to WrestleMania visit

After wearing a $1 million first-edition Dragon-type Charizard Pokémon card to his fight against Floyd Mayweather back in June 2021, YouTuber Logan Paul has just upped his game.

Paul, who was a special guest at WWE’s WrestleMania 38, adorned himself with a card rarer and way more expensive than his Charizard. This time around, he had an ‘Illustrator’ Pikachu Pokémon card around his neck, valued at $5,275,000 (roughly $6,579,217 CAD).

According to reports, the card is as authentic as it gets. Paul purchased the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) Grade 10 Pikachu Illustrator card at a private sale where he surrendered a PSA Grade 9 Pikachu Illustrator card for about $1,275,000 USD (about $1.593 million CAD) and paid the remaining sum. Paul’s Grade 10 Pikachu Illustrator card is by far the most expensive Pokémon card.

And now, since the card has been a part of major media attention, the valuation has surely increased.

This comes soon after the YouTuber dished out $3.5 million for fake sealed first-edition Pokémon cards, which actually turned out to be GI Joe trading cards 😂.

Image credit: @LoganPaul

Source: WWE

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter confirms it’s working on edit button, Elon Musk will likely take credit

Twitter has confirmed that it’s officially working on a heavily-requested feature: an edit button.

The social network made the announcement through its official @TwitterComms account.

Interestingly, this comes shortly after Elon Musk — who recently purchased a stake in Twitter and joined the company’s board — publicly asked users if they wanted an edit button.

However, Twitter noted in its tweet that the idea for the edit button didn’t come from a poll, in a clear reference to Musk. Instead, the company says it’s been working on the edit button since last year.

The feature will begin testing within Twitter Blue Labs in the “coming months to learn what works, what doesn’t and what’s possible,” Twitter says.

Twitter users have long asked for an edit button, as the only way to correct any mistakes otherwise is to fully delete and tweet again.

However, people have warned that this could be used maliciously, especially in an era of misinformation. For example, someone could tweet something innocuous, receive many likes and retweets and then edit the tweet to include something harmful. To that point, users have suggested an “edit history” section in the vein of Facebook so that a public record of previous versions of a given tweet can be accessed.

It’s unclear exactly what form the Twitter edit button will take, but the company’s comment about needing to “learn what works, what doesn’t and what’s possible” at least seems to acknowledge the importance of getting this right.

Source: @TwitterComms

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Mobile Syrup

Samsung patched a vulnerability in February that gave hackers access to your smartphone

Up until February, Samsung phones were vulnerable to a security flaw that could allow hackers to gain access to your device.

According to the Mobile Application Security Testing tool’s maker Kryptowire, a newly found vulnerability, ‘CVE-2022-22292,’ affects all Samsung smartphones running Android 9 to Android 12. Kryptowire says that once a device is infected, hackers can delete all the user data from the smartphone, make phone calls, install and uninstall apps, and even weaken the device’s overall security, leaving it vulnerable to more attacks.

Kryptowire reported the vulnerability to Samsung on November 27th, 2021, and subsequently, a “high” severity rating was given to the vulnerability.

Android 9 to Android 12 running devices have a pre-installed phone app that has been labelled an “insecure component.” The component has system privileges, and bad apps can use the component to perform admin-level operations without user authorization.

KryptoWire adds that Samsung patched the vulnerability in February 2022 as part of its ongoing Security Maintenance Release (SMR) process. Samsung smartphone users are advised to make sure that their device has received the February security update.

Source: KryptoWire Via: AndroidAuthority

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Mobile Syrup

Here’s an ultra pretty Unreal Engine 5 demo from Vancouver’s The Coalition

Epic Games has officially launched Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the latest version of its ubiquitous game development engine.

The launch came during Epic’s April 5th ‘State of Unreal’ stream. As part of the presentation, Vancouver’s The Coalition, the Xbox-owned studio behind the recent Gears of War titles, has unveiled a tech demo to showcase the engine’s capabilities on Xbox Series X.

The demo, titled “The Cavern,” features brief looks at various technical elements, including real-time lighting and reflections, character rendering, open-world visuals and cinematics. The most significant part of the demo features a man fleeing from a creature in a dark cave.

Of course, this is a highly polished short tech demo, not an actual game. Still, the photorealistic visuals are extremely impressive, especially since this is so early in UE5’s life cycle. A more tech jargon-filled breakdown of The Cavern can be found on Xbox’s blog.

Other news that came out of the State of Unreal show includes confirmation that Crystal Dynamics, the lead developer of 2013’s Tomb Raider and 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, is working on a new Tomb Raider game on UE5.

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Mobile Syrup

Amazon signs deals for 83 satellite launches to compete with Starlink

Nov 22, 2019 Palo Alto / CA / USA – Close up of Amazon logo and Smile symbol at one of their corporate offices located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco bay area

Amazon has signed deals with three companies to launch internet satellites in space.

There will be up to 83 launches under Project Kuiper over the next five years, Reuters reports.

38 launches are with United Launch Alliance, and 18 are with Arianespace. 12 launches are through a contract with Blue Origin, another company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. There’s an option to add an additional 15 launches with Blue Origin.

The move heats up the race to provide internet from space.

“Amazon is investing billions of dollars across the three agreements. Together, it is the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history,” a company spokesperson told the publication.

But despite the new agreements, Amazon is still trailing behind SpaceX. According to CNBC, the company, owned by Elon Musk, has launched 2,000 Starlink subscribers and serves roughly 250,000 customers.

The service is available in Canada, where customers recently experienced a price hike.

Project Kuiper plans to use 3,000 satellites to support high-speed internet for various customers, Reuters reports.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Reuters, CNBC

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Mobile Syrup

Microsoft reveals new Windows 11 features, including tabs in File Explorer

Microsoft held a Windows 11 event today where it unveiled several new things coming to the desktop operating system. While many of the announcements were centred on work, there are plenty of other little changes and tidbits worth paying attention to.

We’ve rounded up some of the best and most interesting new Windows 11 features below:

File Explorer tabs

File Explorer tabs | Image credit: The Verge

Next up, Windows 11’s File Explorer app is finally getting tabs. This feature has been a long time coming, and MobileSyrup recently reported Microsoft was testing it in a Windows Insider build.

The addition of tabs will allow Windows 11 users to navigate multiple folders in a single File Explorer window. It should help boost productivity, especially for people dealing with files spread across multiple folders.

Alongside the tabs, File Explorer will get a new homepage with the typical Quick Access folders, recent documents, and a new favourites option. There will be an updated sharing dialogue as well.

Source: The Verge

Live Captions

According to XDA Developers, Windows 11 will soon get a ‘Live Captions’ feature than can automatically generate captions for audio generated by any app or website. It sounds like this new system-wide capability will work similar to Google’s Live Caption feature for Android and Chrome.

Integrating Windows 365 cloud PCs to Windows 11

Windows 365 Switch | GIF credit: The Verge

This is purely a business feature, but I wanted to include it because I think it’s pretty neat. Microsoft added PCs to the cloud with Windows 365 last year — the feature allows businesses to access cloud PCs from anywhere to stream a version of Windows 10 or 11 inside a web browser.

Now, Microsoft is integrating the feature into Windows 11’s virtual desktop (dubbed Task View) feature. That will allow Windows 11 users to switch between their desktop and a cloud PC with ease.

Microsoft is calling it ‘Windows 365 Switch’ and it will come alongside some other improvements for 365, including ‘Boot’ to let users directly log into a cloud PC at startup, and a new offline feature to let people work locally when they don’t have connectivity to access a cloud PC.

You can learn more about these features via The Verge.

Focus feature, Start folders, and other small changes

Rounding things out are a few other smaller updates. That includes a new ‘Focus’ feature with a timer so users can focus for a period of time. Along with that, Microsoft detailed other small benefits coming to Windows 11, such as app folders in the Start menu.

Snap Layouts will gain touch support soon, making it easier for users on touch devices to snap windows into different configurations.

That looks like it for now, but we’ll add any other new features to this post as they arrive.

Source: The Verge, (2), XDA Developers

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Mobile Syrup

Heritage Minister tables bill to make digital platforms pay news organizations

June 11, 2019, Brazil. In this photo illustration the Google News logo is displayed on a smartphone.

Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, has introduced Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act, to ensure digital platforms pay Canadian news outlets for using their work.

At a press conference Tuesday, Rodriguez said the way people access news has changed with preference going to digital platforms and social media. The shift results in advertising dollars moving away from the news industry and towards platforms that gatekeep the news.

Online ad revenues in 2020 totalled $9.7 billion, and Google and Facebook shared 80 percent of these revenues.

“The news sector in Canada is in crisis, and this contributes to the heightened public mistrust and the rise of harmful disinformation in our society,” Rodriguez said.

The bargaining process

If passed, the legislation will require platforms to make deals with news organizations to share content. These deals will include several criteria, including compensating organizations fairly, respecting journalistic independence, and investing in diverse news outlets.

Newspapers and magazines, public and private broadcasters, and non-Canadian news businesses that meet the criteria can take part in the bargaining process.

“This is fundamentally fairer for Canadian news media, which will be able to negotiate on more equal terms with the tech giants,” a press release following Rodriguez’s announcement states.

Bargaining between the platform and the news business is mandatory unless they meet a list of exemptions. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will be the regulator.

News organizations will receive support if a deal can’t be reached.

The need for transparency

To make the process transparent, Rodriguez said platforms that meet the criteria for payment, all exemptions granted, and names of participating news outlets will be made public. An annual report outlining the value of the deals made will also be published.

Regulatory tools will include a code of conduct to ensure fairness and an undue preference provision. The latter will ensure platforms that hold power in the market don’t engage in practices that negatively impact policy, organizations, or how Canadians receive news.

Some Canadian publishers have welcomed the news with open arms. News Media Canada, which represents 500 print and digital titles across Canada, says the bill was needed.

“Trusted information is needed more today than ever before, and real news reported by real journalists costs real money,” Jamie Irving, chair of News Media Canada, said. “This legislation levels the playing field and gives Canada’s news publishers a fair shot and doesn’t require additional taxpayer funds.”

What Australia taught Canada

News access was a problem in the last country that introduced similar legislation. Early last year, Australia passed an act forcing large digital platforms, like Google and Facebook, to pay publishers for the news accessed on those platforms.

Soon afterwards, however, Facebook blocked Australians from accessing news on the platform. At the time, former Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said the actions wouldn’t deter Ottawa from continuing its pledge to pass a similar law in Canada.

Rodriguez said the model is similar to what was seen in Australia and includes feedback from stakeholders.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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Mobile Syrup

DeLorean DMC-12 will be reborn as an EV on August 18th

Back in February, the DeLorean Motor Company gave the world a sneak peek of its upcoming gull-wing door EV DeLorean. At the time, the company said it will reveal the EV sometime in 2022.

Now, via Twitter, the company announced that it will show off its EV at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on August 18th.

“Excitement is rising like the doors of our iconic sports car, and we are revealing the next generation prototype three days earlier than planned on the most prestigious stage at Pebble beach,” said Troy Beetz, CMO of DeLorean Motor Company.

The company says it will reveal the name of its new EV at the Monterey Car Week, along with what the future holds for the brand. For reference, the original DeLorean was called the DMC-12.

“The long-awaited concept car is the culmination of a 40+ year history with the prestigious design company Italdesign and DeLorean’s new interpretation of a modern icon,” reads the company’s news release.

Before the DeLorean Motor Company went out of business in 1982, it released the original $25,000 USD (approximately $31,000 CAD) DMC-12 which was well recognized for being an extremely underpowered vehicle with iconic gull-wing doors — as of now, the vehicle’s value translates to about $71,000 USD (roughly $90,000 CAD).

We are not sure whether the new release will be a common EV. From the looks of it, it seems like the upcoming vehicle will just be a concept car that not many would be able to get their hands on.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: DeLorean Motor Company

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Mobile Syrup

GM and Honda to co-develop affordable Electric Vehicles

Detroit-based General Motors and the Minato, Tokyo-based Honda Motor Company announced a new partnership today that will see the two companies co-develop “a series of affordable electric vehicles” using GM’s Ultium EV battery pack.

The partnership, which will bring millions of affordable EVs on the road will start bearing fruits in 2027, with the two automotive staples working towards “standardizing equipment and processes to achieve world-class quality, higher throughput and greater affordability” throughout their EV lineup, along with improving their EV battery tech to improve performance, cut down costs and lead in a sustainable fashion.

“This is a key step to deliver on our commitment to achieve carbon neutrality in our global products and operations by 2040 and eliminate tailpipe emissions from light duty vehicles in the U.S. by 2035. By working together, we’ll put people all over the world into EVs faster than either company could achieve on its own,” said Mary Barra, GM chair and CEO in the company’s release about the partnership.

The USA and Japan-based companies’ partnership doesn’t come out of the blue.

The two joined forces back in 2018 for GM’s EV Battery Module development and announced later in 2020 plans to co-develop two EVs, one of them being the Honda Prologue, scheduled to release in 2024. Further, the two companies are also working with Cruise (GM has a majority stake in Cruise) on the development of the Cruise Origin, one of the world’s first purpose-built completely autonomous cars for ride-hailing and delivery.

Source: GM