You didn’t know it at the time, but we were surprisingly close to playing exclusive Xbox games on the iPhone last year. Microsoft and Apple engaged in a back and forth about how xCloud games could run on iDevices, and both parties nearly came to an agreement. The companies were close to hammering out all the business aspects, but the deal hinged on a technical requirement on which Apple would not budge. We only know how close we got thanks to a trove of documents from the Apple-Epic trial, . As Microsoft prepared to launch Xbox Cloud Gaming (née xCloud), Apple was of integrating cloud games into the App Store.
(Photo: Sonia Sanmartin/Unsplash)Microplastics have been known for a while to end up in the human body by way of accidental ingestion, but now scientists have confirmed they cause damage to human cells. UK researchers Evangelos Danopoulos, Maureen Twiddy, Robert West, and Jeanette M. Rotchell conducted an of 17 previous studies on the toxicological impacts of microplastics on human cell lines. Using this information, they compared the levels at which cell damage occurred with the levels at which humans ingest microplastics, namely through seafood, table salt, and drinking water. Such levels of consumption resulted in undeniable cell harm, including allergic response, damage to cell walls, and cell death.
In a new blog post for its series called The Fast and the Curious, Chrome Developer David Bienvenu details some of the improvements Google has made to its Chrome browser recently. This includes a deep dive into what the company calls Native Window Occlusion. The explains the work Google has done to reduce resource consumption by non-visible tabs and windows in Chrome, which it says has allowed Chrome to boast up to a 25.8 percent faster start up speed and to experience 4.5 percent fewer crashes. It also notes the company has been working for years on methods to better understand how to ascertain which Chrome windows and tabs are visible to the user, so it can allocate the system’s resources appropriately.
Our sun is pretty unremarkable as far as stars go. It’s big enough to warm the surface of the Earth but not so oversized that it burns through its nuclear fuel in a cosmological blink of an eye. A solar system known as b Centauri is anything but average. Astronomers from Stockholm University have , which is so large we didn’t think it would have any planets at all. This discovery could have astronomers rethinking what we thought we knew about planetary formation. The name of this star system is a bit confusing. Alpha Centauri (a and b) and Proxima Centauri are the closest stars to Earth, and they’re probably the ones you hear about most often, but there are more stars in the Centaurus constellation.
(Image: Canon)Canon has announced the creation of a new imaging sensor that is is able to take high-resolution, color photographs even in almost total darkness. Though you might think this will be a boon to astrophotographers, the technology will actually be aimed at more commercial fields before it arrives in a future version of the EOS Ra, if that ever happens. Its “night vision” capabilities make it a natural fit for industries such as surveillance, Augmented Reality (AR), automation, and self-driving cars. Canon says the new sensors will begin mass production in 2022. The new type of image sensor is called a SPAD (single photon avalanche diode), according to a report from .
You still can’t play Fortnite on the iPhone as the legal skirmish between Apple and Epic Games continues to wind its way through the courts. The initial ruling from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers earlier this year was an almost total win for Apple. It was ordered to change just one thing about how the App Store operates, but Apple doesn’t do partial victories. It appealed, and now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has . That means Apple doesn’t have to unlock more payment options today, pending the outcome of its appeal. This mess stretches back to 2020 when Epic baited both Google and Apple by adding non-approved payment options to Fortnite.
Ubisoft is among the game publishers that invested early in microtransactions, which many would argue have made gaming worse. Well, get ready for microtransactions on steroids. There won’t be anything “micro” about the NFTs Ubisoft . These unique in-game items will give your characters a little more gravitas, and you will be able to buy and sell NFTs with the new Ubisoft Quartz platform. That could make special edition items into high-value assets that you won’t be able to afford. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are digital items that can be registered on a cryptographic blockchain. This can prove ownership or authenticity of a non-physical item, and you can buy or sell ownership of the NFT even if the content itself is easily reproduced.
Nintendo has an image as a fun, friendly company that makes cute games the whole family can enjoy. Just don’t get on Nintendo’s bad side. Canadian hacker Gary Bowser (no relation) has found that out the hard way. After spending the last few years making and selling modding kits, Bowser has to settle a civil lawsuit. This is in addition to the following his criminal conviction. Bowser was the principal character behind Team Xecuter, a hacking group that released mod chips for the Switch, 3DS, NES Classic Edition, and more. These products allowed owners to unlock the hardware and run custom games.
Apple rustled a lot of corporate jimmies back in April when it announced iOS 14.5, which would allow iPhone users to opt-out of having apps track their behavior across other apps and websites. When you fired up an app that tracks you, a simple on-screen prompt would ask you if you preferred to be tracked or not, and according to news reports most people did indeed opt-out of this seemingly intrusive situation. However, the situation is not quite as black-and-white as some users thought it was, according to a new report by the Financial Times, as apparently Facebook and Snapchat are still tracking users who opted-out, but with some caveats.
