Inspired by the ongoing Resurgence giveaway, I thought it might be fun to discuss some of our favourite Trek games. Underappreciated gems are particularly welcome!
My editor used to be SO into the Porsche designed Huawei phones. They brought a different look, but outside the Porsche label, I couldn’t say what made them any more stylish or desirable.
The situation has been getting MUCH better. The thing a lot of these articles overlook is just the strange structural difference between Android and iOS. We still seem to be primed to look for the big OTA, that’s “THE Update”, but increasingly more of the bug fixes, security patching, and feature refinement are being delivered by individual app updates and Google Play system updates. I’m OK if the OTAs are a bit more sporadic if I see work from the manufacturer and from Google to push better code throughout the year. I’d rather not wait for a big OTA, when a small component needs to be updated. The situation for Android updates has gotten a LOT better.
We care so much about our users’ privacy and security, we make sure their messages fall back to SMS when chatting with non-iphones. We COULD have dictated the future of messaging in North America, and demanded standards that would have benefited us, but we know we make more money by letting out customers bully the green bubbles.
Well sure, a 5 year old phone will lose most of these performance comparisons against modern phones, but will it lose badly enough for consumers to care?
I get that some people are annoyed when different phones have settings in slightly different menus, but we should just be teaching people to rely on search in settings rather than memorizing where each phone puts individual settings.
It’s a double edged sword. DO we want Android to be more like Windows? That’s the only way you won’t have OEMs making their own unique hierarchy of menus in settings. It’s all a part of a “familiarity” strategy. Get someone used to the way one phone is organized, then they will complain that another phone isn’t “intuitive”. Either we teach people to lean on search, or we ask for Google to take over more of the “unification” of Android.
[Weird little guy in the back of the room.] Hey guys! I still like Qobuz. They pay rights holders better than Apple Music, aren’t nearly as far behind in catalog size as they used to be, and almost the entire catalog is CD quality or higher. No fancy algorithms or podcasts. Just hi-res music. Just saying. It’s an option.
A lot of techies don’t seem to understand just how much Sony is pushing the camera functionality on XPERIA. It has a headphone jack to monitor audio while recording or to add a mic, just like a Sony Alpha camera. That it can be used for entertainment is the distant third place benefit for including it.
I sat down with two MediaTek executives to chat about their new chip, their relationships with OEMs (chasing benchmark scores), and an aggressive shift towards mobile AI.
What’s in it for valve? More games sold. They don’t seem to mind steam keys being sold on aggressive sales through other platforms. Partnering with another hardware manufacturer for a revenue share doesn’t seem like an extreme stretch. Unlikely? Sure. Impossible? No.
Bendy folding screen tech is REALLY cool. I’m having a lot of fun playing with folding mini-tablets that turn into awkward sandwich phones. It’s pretty nifty stuff. I’m still not convinced this is the next phase for practical consumer daily mobile computing. It’s an interesting niche to be sure, but I think the actual screen tech will have other applications, especially in automotive and industrial capacities.
Dead cells, baba is you, 2112TD, Bad North, plague inc, Anomaly, endurance, undead horde, grimnight heroes, crypt of the necrodancer, dadish, dandara, implosion, unruly heroes, super meat boy, pascals wager, evoland, battlechasers, titan quest, actraiser, Boris and the dark survivor, donut county,
Apple still links services like device bricking to the Find My network. If your iphone is stolen, and you don’t want someone to reset it to use or sell, you HAVE to submit your location data to be a part of the tracker network. Disabling that, Apple sends users a scary nag email that their device is no longer protected.
My wife play a fun game with every show we re-watch. Where a guest star gets some emotional moment in a show, and some kind of exit quip like “I’ll get you next time!”
All the incognito browser windows share the same “session” in Firefox. So say you open an Incognito window to browse Facebook or something, then you open another Incognito window, this new incognito window is linked to the previous incognito window, meaning you are logged into Facebook at that new Incognito window as well....
I’ll be doing a workshop in a few weeks, and I wanna raise awareness about predatory lootbox paytowin games. I wanna play live, an easy to start playing and understand game, that is so sneaky and predatory that some kid would very easily buy some microtransaction or lootbox without even realizing what they just did....
I got in pretty deep on Marvel Future Fight a couple years back. It really bothers me how a family friendly franchise will be packed with pressure points and gambling mechanics.
The game starts fine, as a short mission based story line, and progress happens fairly quickly. You play missions to get character bios (points) to unlock more marvel characters, and then you can build small teams for different missions.
As you start unlocking more characters, you also need to rank up the characters you own to make them more powerful. Again, the basic level upgrades are easy, as you collect material per mission, but as you start getting into the middle game, ranking a character happens through RNG.
You upgrade a character though multiple resource points, Rank, then Tier, then weapons, uniforms, gear, and crystals. There is no set “cost” for upgrading one part of a character. You build up a bunch of materials, and then you take a spin. There’s a random amount of progress made spending the material, and each upgrade path becomes its own slot machine, with its own materials to spend. You MIGHT get lucky and get a full upgrade to a power crystal in one turn, but more than likely you’ll need to burn HOURS of game time grinding to build up the materials, spend all the materials, and be left with nothing.
If you want to shortcut that progression, it can cost HUNDREDS of dollars to rank ONE character to a point where you can be competitive in online events and in guild play. You won’t be competitive with just a couple high ranking players, you need a FULL roster for the multiple events available.
At present, Marvel Future Fight includes over 250 playable characters. Each needs to be ranked and upgraded through multiple game mechanics, and new uniforms are regularly released that also require RNG mechanics to own and upgrade.
Whales will spend THOUSANDS of dollars at the start of a new event, and when new characters are released, to chase the game’s meta. Sure, you aren’t “buying a lootbox”, but players are spending money to build up resources, only to throw those resources away at multiple slot machines built into EVERY character. It’s one of the most insidious games I’ve ever played, and it’s marketed at kids and teens.
So I’ve been using youtube ad blockers since pretty much when ad blocker extensions were first available. Lately though I’ve been getting hit more and more with these messages that YT was sending out every 5 or so videos telling me that adblockers aren’t allowed. No problem, just gotta wait 5 seconds to x it out and then...
And YouTube beat expectations on profits the quarter they raised prices again. The worst part of this is knowing YouTube is turning screws on the audience AND on advertisers. We know Google keeps more data on us than any other company, but they’re miserable at pairing relevant ads to my interests. So these brands advertising on YT aren’t reaching a potential customer, they’re only being used as a pain point to make free YT worse, and to neg viewers into buying premium. In a weird way, we might be saving brands from paying for useless ad clicks. Like, even looking at late stage capitalism and enshittification, this is totally bonkers.
The Dimensity 9000 and 9200 have both been great performers. If the Snapdragon 8gen3 is fabbed by Samsung, and the next Dimensity is made.by TSMC, we could be in another tough year for qualcomm.
It’s one of the main reasons I stick with Firefox, for background and screen off video playback. The frustrating thing is knowing there are folks out there spending cash on super underpowered Chromebooks, that won’t offer any more “freedom” for users than a phone with an alternate view desktop mode. The phone will often be more powerful, but the Chromebook looks like a computer. There’s a massive issue with consumer education.
Desktop modes and force all phones to support things like video out through the USBC. The next billion internet users won’t be able to afford multiple computers. Even inexpensive phones should offer basic laptop/PC replacement features.
Well at least it’s not Samsung colluding with other companies to fix prices again, right? Surely in a free market, Hynix and Micron will use this as an opportunity to compete with lower prices and consumers will benefit from healthy and robust competition.
Or people taking video calls in public spaces and then acting like people around them are the inconsiderate jerks. I basically live in noise cancelling headphones these days.
A lot of folks are finding out that their bosses never REALLY cared that their job was done well, or even competently. If the company can save money with an AI that gets a bunch of stuff wrong, that’s “good enough”.
The problem with most smartphone image editors is that they are meant for quick edits to photos. Usually they are limited to cropping, adding filters and drawing. I’m looking for something a little more capable, something more akin to a traditional desktop editor like GIMP. Open source is a plus.
It’s like Google’s deal with Apple. Apple receives around $10 Billion a year to make Google the default search. I don’t believe Siri search can be changed, but if the user changes safari over to DDG, Apple already got paid. The amount Google pays out doesn’t depend on users KEEPING Google search. Just that it was the default.
Almost as bad as the connection of titles, the performance is so pretty garbage too. Especially compared to running apps in Windows 11. I made a short when it launched and still get people whining “but he’s complaining about a BETA?!?!”, like Google’s terrible performance is excusable, and we haven’t had better emulation for years now.
I love all this consumer blaming. “Samsung put 512GB on the side of the box, but these DUMB AVERAGE CONSUMERS are freaking out because their phone says 470GiB! They’re so dumb to whine about that! Why didn’t they learn about decimal versus binary storage measurements HUR HUR HUR!”
Then they can conveniently ignore that Samsung is still eating up a bunch of device storage. Criticizing Samsung means making less money.
This should be easy. The label on the side of any computer should be the user accessible storage. Done. If your product’s system files take up 20GB, then you can’t advertise to the user that they have 512GB.
Let's remember some Star Trek games
Inspired by the ongoing Resurgence giveaway, I thought it might be fun to discuss some of our favourite Trek games. Underappreciated gems are particularly welcome!
Honor Magic6 and 6 Pro Porsche Desing renders surface online (m.gsmarena.com)
Personally, I expected some good design smartphones with the collaboration. The designs IMO just appear to be average.
Android updates are getting faster, but also more sporadic (9to5google.com)
Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: ‘We took steps to protect our users’ (www.theverge.com)
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 might drop little CPU cores altogether (www.androidauthority.com)
Can a Five Year Old Phone Compete Today? How Far has Android Come Since the LG V50? (youtu.be)
Well sure, a 5 year old phone will lose most of these performance comparisons against modern phones, but will it lose badly enough for consumers to care?
Samsung and OnePlus are pointlessly burying one of Android’s best features [Notifications History] (9to5google.com)
Xbox spends "over a billion dollars a year" on Xbox Game Pass (www.eurogamer.net)
Not exactly right for this sub, but found inside a bustling Target... (lemdro.id)
It’s an almost two year old phone now…
Spotify made £56m profit, but has decided not to pay smaller artists like me. We need you to make some noise | Damon Krukowski (www.theguardian.com)
Vivo X100 Challenges Norms, Ranks Second In Latest Android Performance Race (sparrowsnews.com)
Google Photos app reveals how 'Video Boost' on Pixel 8 Pro works (9to5google.com)
SONY Xperia 1 V -- is it REALLY the AUDIOPHILE's smartphone? - Darko Audio (www.youtube.com)
Tldw: it’s just serviceable but Darko Audio wish for it to be more powerful.
Interview: Dimensity 9300 - Is Generative AI the Future of Smartphones? (youtu.be)
I sat down with two MediaTek executives to chat about their new chip, their relationships with OEMs (chasing benchmark scores), and an aggressive shift towards mobile AI.
Persuasion by Swayze (lemmy.world)
Bonus panel....
The Steam Deck's budget price tag is the reason I still rate it nearly two years on (www.pcgamer.com)
Can Foldable Phones Become Lifeline for the Declining Global Smartphone Market? (www.trendforce.com)
Notable bits:...
Recommend me some Android games
I’ve unlocked all weapons in Vampire Survivors, and I’m too bored to grind the remaining 14 unlocks....
Apple's called Android a "massive tracking device" in an internal presentation (www.androidauthority.com)
https://lemdro.id/pictrs/image/85086591-be8b-43e8-b82d-455c5ed4caeb.webp
Fiction or fiction? (startrek.website)
Be careful, your understanding of incognito mode in Firefox may be wrong and that could be costing you
All the incognito browser windows share the same “session” in Firefox. So say you open an Incognito window to browse Facebook or something, then you open another Incognito window, this new incognito window is linked to the previous incognito window, meaning you are logged into Facebook at that new Incognito window as well....
feat. coffee mug, standard case and microsoft foldable keyboard. (sopuli.xyz)
Pixel 8 display port update - Mishaal Rahman (x.com)
So it looks like you can enable it but Michaal is having issues doing it previously on the pixel 8....
What is some very predatory, sneaky and popular among children game?
I’ll be doing a workshop in a few weeks, and I wanna raise awareness about predatory lootbox paytowin games. I wanna play live, an easy to start playing and understand game, that is so sneaky and predatory that some kid would very easily buy some microtransaction or lootbox without even realizing what they just did....
I totally forgot how terrible a non-ad-free YouTube experience is
So I’ve been using youtube ad blockers since pretty much when ad blocker extensions were first available. Lately though I’ve been getting hit more and more with these messages that YT was sending out every 5 or so videos telling me that adblockers aren’t allowed. No problem, just gotta wait 5 seconds to x it out and then...
This is why we hate you (startrek.website)
Samsung Exynos 2400 detailed – 70% faster CPU, Xclipse 940 GPU with AMD RDNA 3 graphics (www.gsmarena.com)
cross-posted from !samsung...
Another reason to sail the high seas (sh.itjust.works)
$25 to rent the movie, one watch within max 24 hours after you start watching it… Or $5 more to own it. Scammers.
Phone as a PC (forum.xda-developers.com)
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this.
What new features would you want future Android versions to add/fix?
Wishlist for Android 15, or future versions like Android 20.
Samsung Slashes NAND Output by 50%, Prices to Slowly Edge Higher (www.tomshardware.com)
Exclusive: Google Pixel 9 processor won't be the ambitious chip we hoped for (www.androidauthority.com)
Halloween Keming (midwest.social)
Every. Time. (lemmy.sdf.org)
It’s either the full volume Facebook video feed, texting with the keyboard sounds on, or microwaving sardines.
“AI took my job, literally”—Gizmodo fires Spanish staff amid switch to AI translator (arstechnica.com)
My favorite Enterprise vs Star Wars ship that I've seen (startrek.website)
What are some good image editor apps for Android?
The problem with most smartphone image editors is that they are meant for quick edits to photos. Usually they are limited to cropping, adding filters and drawing. I’m looking for something a little more capable, something more akin to a traditional desktop editor like GIMP. Open source is a plus.
Asus only cut the PC department in July, and now the commercial department is also going to be cut (Asus Zenfone 10 is their last phone) (finance.technews.tw)
Here is the English translation...
Does Firefox make money even if I don't use Google as my default search engine?
How does it work anyway? I mean, how does Firefox make money? Are they paid per google search or something like that?...
Google Play Games - Play Android games on PC (play.google.com)
Samsung shows system storage correctly in Android 14 (9to5google.com)
cross-posted from !samsung