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The Morning After: Is ‘Halo: Infinite’ worth the wait?
Google Photos 'Locked Folder' feature rolling out to non-Pixel smartphones
'Ameca' robot shows off more human-like facial expressions
'Halo: Infinite' may have a grapple hook, but it's still a grind
Amazon's Fire tablets are back on sale for as low as $35
Crypto exchange BitMart loses $196 million to hackers

The Morning After: Is ‘Halo: Infinite’ worth the wait?

Posted: 06 Dec 2021 04:15 AM PST

The wait is finally over. After a year-long delay, Xbox's iconic hero, Master Chief, is back. With Halo Infinite, there are new toys and fight mechanics, while many players will also benefit from major cosmetic upgrades if they're playing on the newest Microsoft consoles.

Senior Editor Jessica Conditt has been playing through the single-player campaign mode — while we wait for the rest of the game to appear – and it still seems very much like a Halo experience, for better and worse. Read her full impressions right here.

— Mat Smith

'Fortnite' Chapter 3 officially debuts with a new island and revamped gameplay

Yes, Spider-Man and The Rock are here.

Epic has officially released a trailer that outlines what to expect both in Chapter 3 and its first season, "Flipped." The new island is the star, with the flip from the Chapter 2 finale leading to a complete landscape overhaul that includes chaotic weather. However, the gameplay changes are arguably more important — you'll have to rethink your tactics.

Sliding and swinging mechanics should help characters move (and dodge) faster than before, while camps help your squad heal and store items that persist between matches. You can also earn XP beyond battle royale and hold on to a Victory Crown if you keep winning — possibly marking you out as a major threat during battles.

New characters? Spider-Man should be well suited to the new swinging mechanic, but you can also play as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Fortnite character, The Foundation, or Gears of War's Marcus and Kait.

Continue reading.

eBay banned some users by mistake

Customers couldn't get any help.

eBay has confirmed it suspended a "small number" of users by mistake on December 3rd. The company didn't provide a cause or reveal the extent of the problem, but said it had fixed the slip-up and notified those affected.

There may have been a significant number of victims. Reddit users devoted a large thread to the bans, noting there weren't any potential red flags for at least some of the accounts. People were suspended even if they had excellent buyer and seller histories or hadn't used eBay for years.

Continue reading.

IKEA's latest wireless charger appears to be a portable model

We wouldn't get too excited.

IKEA has sold a variety of wireless chargers since 2015, but never one you could use without plugging into a wall outlet. It looks like that's about to change, with images of a new portable Nordmärke Qi charger making their way online courtesy of a few hawk-eyed Reddit users. We also have some details on the device thanks to German media outlet mobiFlip, which obtained them from a reader who bought one at a store in Cologne. No word yet on whether the charger will appear elsewhere, but with these specs, you're probably not missing out on much.

Continue reading.

Crypto exchange BitMart loses $196 million to hackers

The theft might be difficult to track.

The crypto exchange BitMart has lost the equivalent of $196 million (originally estimated at $150 million) to a hack. The intruder breached Ethereum and Binance wallets with a flood of transfers starting around 2:30 PM ET on December 4th, followed by an exodus of tokens two hours later that included Shiba and USDC.

It's not clear who was responsible, and the stolen funds have been sent to an Ethereum mixing service that could make it difficult to trace.

While this isn't the biggest digital heist (the Poly attacker back in August grabbed $610 million), Coindesk notes this is one of the larger centralized exchange hacks to date.

Continue reading.

Apple takes Russia to court over App Store ruling

The company doesn't want to let app makers mention payment alternatives.

Apple is asking for a judicial review of a Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service warning from August that allows developers to mention alternatives to the App Store's in-app payment system. FAS gave Apple until September 30th to alter its policies, but the company declined to change its rules despite the threat of a fine.

The opposition parallels Apple's legal battles in the US. The judge in Epic's lawsuit against Apple ordered the tech firm to let App Store developers point to other payment systems, but Apple appealed the injunction in hopes of a delay. The court denied the request, and Apple will have until December 9th to let app makers point to other options. The company will make exceptions to its policy for some media apps in 2022.

Continue reading.

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Google Photos 'Locked Folder' feature rolling out to non-Pixel smartphones

Posted: 06 Dec 2021 02:10 AM PST

As it promised, Google Photos is starting to roll out the Locked Folder feature to Samsung and other non-Pixel phones, Sammobile has reported. The idea is that it keeps your most private photos away from your primary image set and offline, as well. It has only been available on the Pixel 3 or later devices until now, but is now rolling out to older Pixel models too, The Verge noted.

Locked Folder immediately got tagged as the "nude storage folder" by pundits when it first launched at Google IO 2021 in May. Whether you have those or other sensitive photos, it stores them in a passcode or biometric-secured spot so kids, friends or others won't accidentally stumble across them.

To use the feature, simply launch Google Photos, go to "Library" then the "Utilities" section at the top. Click on that and the feature should appear in a card, provided you have the update from around November 29th.

It worked just fine for me on Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Fold3 devices, and Android Central reported that it has also appeared on Oppo and OnePlus devices. If you decide to use it, bear in mind that your photos won't be backed up to the cloud, so they'll disappear if you delete Google Photos or wipe/lose your smartphone. Google has more information about the feature here.

'Ameca' robot shows off more human-like facial expressions

Posted: 06 Dec 2021 01:30 AM PST

Engineered Arts, the company behind the human-like Mesmer robot series, has unveiled a new creation that may weird you out even more. "Ameca" is a new humanoid robot that doesn't have realistic hair and skin like Mesmer, but can instead show more human-like, natural-looking expressions than others we've seen, as The Verge has reported.

Ameca at first displays confusion as it appears to wake up, then shows mild astonishment when it moves its hands (the hand gestures looks fairly real, too). It then appears surprised to see the viewer or camera, and finishes the video with a smile and welcoming hand gesture.

The improvements in facial animation look to be the result of more fluid movements than we've seen before. By contrast, the Mesmer "Fred" robot had decent head movements, but he "looks like he just had a shot of Novocain in his entire lower face" when he speaks, I wrote back in 2018.

It appears to have a fully articulated head, face, neck, shoulders, arms and hands, but Engineered Arts notes that none of its robots can walk — though the company is studying that capability. It's not clear how Ameca's facial expressions were animated, but some form of motion capture seems a good bet. The company said that Ameca is a "platform for developing AI," but is letting others develop the necessary machine learning algorithms.

Engineered Arts has previously said that it uses "powerful, silent, high-torque" motors to drive Mesmer's body and head movements, with everything designed from scratch to work together perfectly. It also uses sensors like cameras, depth sensors, LiDAR and microphones. To control movements, it has developed browser-based software that works much 3D apps used for VFX or gaming animation.

There's no word on pricing or availability for Ameca or Mesmer, though the company's more basic RoboThespian models reportedly cost $79,000 and up in 2018. In any case, we'll soon get a close-up look at Ameca, as Engineered Arts plans to show it off at CES 2022 in Las Vegas.

'Halo: Infinite' may have a grapple hook, but it's still a grind

Posted: 06 Dec 2021 12:01 AM PST

The best thing I can say about Halo: Infinite is that it gets better as it goes. The single-player campaign starts out as a basic first-person shooter dripping in nostalgia juice, and it ends up as a rudimentary open-world shooter swimming in sci-fi tropes, starring everyone's favorite emotionless space soldier and his co-dependent AI assistant.

As the first open-world entry in the Halo franchise and with more than a year of extra development time, I had high hopes for Infinite. Maybe too high. And even with a grapple hook, this game just can't reach them.

I say all of this with love in my heart. I've been a Halo fan since Combat Evolved, and I have two decades of happy memories associated with the franchise, most of which I've re-lived while playing Infinite. That part has been a treat — there's nothing like turning the corner in a random metal-lined corridor, or driving a Warthog down a narrow mountain path, and feeling that warm, gleeful sense of familiarity. This happens over and over again in Infinite.

Revamping old environments is the easy part, though. Halo Infinite is the first open-world entry in the franchise's history, promising more exploration and spontaneity for Master Chief than ever before. However, in practice, the world of Zeta Halo is contained and largely linear, offering few surprises and little incentive to travel off the beaten path. There are bases to capture and hordes to defeat, but with such a cramped map, these sidequests pop up naturally along the path of the main storyline, and the game automatically switches the objective to whatever mission is nearby. Sidequests are folded into the campaign like this, and they become indistinguishable from the main missions.

By the time I felt ready to get out and explore the Ring, I realized I'd already hit all the icons on my map.

That said, Infinite introduces new mechanics and tools that are really fun to play with, and the best of these gadgets is the grapple hook. There are no invisible walls in Infinite, and the grapple hook allows players to take advantage of Zeta Halo's vertical space, scaling mountains and buildings in a series of pops and swings. The grapple hook opens up fresh vantage points for every battle, and it saved my Master Chief from falling to his death many times over. (I may have even sang, "Spider-Chief, Spider-Chief..." under my breath every now and then. Maybe.)

Playing with an Xbox controller, the grapple hook lives on the D-pad, alongside three other tools that get added to Chief's arsenal as the game progresses: a shield, radar darts and a dash move that I rarely use. I've tried to deploy the dash, but I really don't see the point when the grapple hook does the same thing, but faster and in more directions.

Switching among these options on the D-pad takes some practice, but once that becomes second-nature, the hook, shield and radar make each fight more dynamic than Halo's ever been. The grapple hook allows Master Chief to pick up objects from afar like guns and throwable explosives, it eventually shocks enemies on contact, and it lets players smoothly take over enemy vehicles. Infinite is at its best when it provides a rich environment for grappling, shielding and landing floaty in-air headshots, with enemies attacking from all sides.

Now I'm going to talk some shit about the grapple hook. I know, I just sang its praises, and I stand by everything I said, but I have to put it all in context. From my perspective, the most obvious innovation in Halo Infinite is its use of vertical space, aided by the grapple hook — but that's hardly a new idea at all, and frankly, other games have done it better.

To name just a few recent examples: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made headlines in 2017 for rethinking vertical exploration in an open-world space; last year, Doom Eternal beautifully demonstrated the power of parkour mechanics in an FPS environment; and Insomniac's Spider-Man series has perfected the art of high-swinging action. In comparison to games like these, Infinite's mechanics aren't innovative at all.

I bring this up because I think it's a disservice to compare Halo Infinite only to other Halo games, rather than its competitors. After all, competition is the root of evolution — and that's kind of Halo's jam. I expected more from a pioneer of the FPS genre as it ventured into open-world gaming. Just because it's new for Halo doesn't mean it's new for the industry.

Even with the fresh toys and larger world, Infinite plays like a classic Halo game. The levels are repetitive and mazelike, and the story is packed with military stereotypes, sarcastic robots, women in skin-tight bodysuits and cheesy dialogue. There are a handful of cool new weapons, like the reticle-shifting Heatwave and the revolver-like Mangler, and the entire map is generously stocked with loose ammo and guns. It's a blockbuster action movie in interactive form, and it has high-energy, entertaining moments, but these are largely overshadowed by the simplistic grind of it all.

Overall, Halo Infinite lacks surprise and intrigue, from the map to individual fights. Failing a boss battle, for instance, rarely feels like a failure of strategy. These encounters generally take place in simple settings with repetitive attacks, and I don't feel like I'm learning anything new with each runthrough; I'm just going through the motions until I catch a lucky break and I can follow the yellow diamond to my next checkpoint. And then the next. And the next.

All of this should make for an incredibly fun multiplayer component, and so far, it seems like that's the case. Maybe Infinite's campaign is more engaging in split-screen co-op, historically my preferred way to play, but that mode won't be available until next year. Neither will Forge mode, for that matter.

If Halo Infinite had launched day-one with the Xbox Series X and S, I likely wouldn't have many complaints. The fact that 343 Industries and Microsoft took an extra year to build this game, hyping it up the whole way through, shifted my expectations a bit. Maybe too much.

Regardless, I'll see you in the Halo: Infinite multiplayer lobby on December 8th.

Amazon's Fire tablets are back on sale for as low as $35

Posted: 06 Dec 2021 12:00 AM PST

If you missed a chance to pick up an Amazon Fire tablet on the cheap during Black Friday, worry not: they're on sale again. Ahead of the winter holidays, Amazon has discounted the Fire 7 to $35, while the Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 are currently on sale for $55 and $100, respectively. While none of the three tablets are priced as low as they were over the Thanksgiving weekend, they're still a decent pickup, particularly if you're looking for a last-minute gift for someone.

Buy Fire 7 at Amazon - $35 Buy Fire HD 8 at Amazon - $55 Buy Fire HD 10 at Amazon - $100

Of the three, we think the Fire HD 8 is the best fit for most people. We awarded it a score of 81 on the back of its refined design, all-day battery life, decent performance and new USB-C port. You can configure the Fire 8 HD with up to 64GB of internal storage. The included microSD slot allows you to add up to 1TB of additional storage. Like all of Amazon's Fire tablet, the HD 8 is best seen as a media consumption device, but if you want the best possible experience, then it's worth spending the extra $45 to pick up the Fire HD 10. It has the best display of the trio thanks to a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution panel. It's also the fastest due to the inclusion of an 2.0GHz octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM. And if all you want is something affordable, it's hard to go wrong with the Fire 7, especially when it costs less than $50.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Crypto exchange BitMart loses $196 million to hackers

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 02:28 PM PST

Large-scale cryptocurrency heists remain a significant headache. According to Coindesk, the crypto exchange BitMart has lost the equivalent of $196 million (originally estimated at $150 million) to a hack. The intruder breached Ethereum and Binance wallets with a flood of transfers starting around 2:30PM Eastern on December 4th, followed by an exodus of tokens two hours later that included Shiba and USDC.

Founder Sheldon Xia said only a "small percentage" of BitMart's assets were at risk. Even so, the company has frozen withdrawals "until further notice" and is reviewing security.

It's not clear who was responsible, but the culprit may have been knowledgeable The stolen funds have been sent to an Ethereum mixing service that could make it difficult to trace the funds. Crypto thieves aren't always that astute. The Poly Network attacker, for instance, offered to "surrender" and wound up returning all their loot. They claimed they were contributing to Poly's security, but that might also have been an attempt to avoid repercussions after researchers obtained potentially identifying data.

While this isn't the biggest digital heist (the Poly attacker grabbed $610 million, for instance), Coindesk notes this is one of the larger centralized exchange hacks to date. It also underscores the growing issue of cryptocurrency theft — the technology makes it all too feasible to steal large sums with few repercussions.

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