Jurang Tayo

Senin, 30 September 2019

The Morning After: A 'Microsoft Flight Simulator' preview - Engadget

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome back! Apple's latest iOS update is here, and the difference from .0 to .1 is bigger than you might expect. Also, Flight Simulator is making a comeback, and on Saturday, Elon Musk set the timetable for Starship test flights.

Let's try that again.iOS 13.1 review

According to Chris Velazco, "A dark mode, helpfully redesigned apps and Voice Control add offer more flexibility out of the box, and now that iOS 13.1 has filed down a lot of the initial release's rough edges, it's finally worth installing."

This is the series' first new entry since 2014.Microsoft 'Flight Simulator' hands-on

Microsoft is now accepting applications for a pre-alpha Flight Simulator Insider program due to kick off later this year. The full game will launch on PC in 2020 and on Xbox after that. To find out what the ultra-realistic sim has to offer this time around, read Jessica Conditt's impressions.

"Flight Simulator offers a new perspective on the world, period. Developers are committed to holding a mirror to reality, researching and recreating accurate atmospheres, cockpits, wind patterns, flight maneuvers, weather and locations. Even the stars in the night skies are accurate."

Mark your calendar (in pencil).Elon Musk hopes SpaceX's Starship will reach orbit in six months

As part of a Q&A session at SpaceX's Starship presentation on Saturday night, Musk outlined plans for rapid prototyping that could get the vessel into space in a short time frame. Starship Mk1 at Boca Chica, Texas, should have a suborbital test flight in one to two months. If all goes well, either Mk3 or an eventual Mk5 would fly an orbital test within six months. Besides his typically optimistic production timelines, Musk's presentation also included a look at the plan for in-orbit refueling, which would help the Starship take longer trips to Mars and beyond.

It's an extension of the game that encourages players to create in the real world.'Minecraft Earth' launches in early access this October

Mojang and Microsoft have revealed that the augmented reality game will be available in "early access" for some countries, starting in October. It didn't say which countries or platforms would be included, but the beta has both Android and iOS users.

There's an extra gig of RAM, but not much else new.Apple's seventh-gen iPad gets bigger but keeps the same size battery

Now in its seventh generation, the "most popular" iPad that Apple sells has grown from 9.7- to 10.2-inches, ships with iPadOS and has a connector to support the company's still-pricey keyboard add-on. The folks at iFixit attacked this new model with their assortment of tools and found that despite the new size, inside it's still very similar to the previous model.

But wait, there's more...

The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't Subscribe.

Craving even more? Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.

Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? Send us a note.

In this article: av, entertainment, gadgetry, gadgets, gaming, gear, home, mobile, personal computing, personalcomputing, sex, space, themorningafter, transportation

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Comments

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/30/the-morning-after/

2019-09-30 11:10:26Z
52780397522393

All I want to do is chill and play 'Flight Simulator' - Engadget

Sponsored Links

It's been a long day. You get home as the sun is setting and close the door behind you, throwing down your keys and sliding off your shoes. You grab a drink and sink into the chair in front of your PC. The screen boots up and -- click, click -- it's filled by a long stretch of asphalt backed up by the mechanical hum of a single-engine Cessna. You throttle the small plane forward, straighten out, and take off. As soon as you're in the air, you flip the perspective from inside the cockpit, surrounded by dials and gauges and window frames, to a third-person view just behind the plane. Suddenly, the land below stretches 600km in every direction, alive and dense with realistic detail. Above, an infinite sky is peppered with layers of mist and clouds. You pick a direction and fly.

It feels like Flight Simulator was made for exactly this scenario: coming down after a long day. But, after soaring around a digital Earth for four hours, casually exploring exotic and familiar locations, it's clear that the game offers plenty more than mere relaxation -- though developers at Microsoft and Asobo Studio would recoil at the term "game." Flight Simulator is too deeply researched and technically detailed to be anything less than a full-on simulation experience, in their eyes. And, even in pre-alpha, that seems to ring true.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Hands-on with Flight Sim

The first location I loaded up was Phoenix, Arizona, my hometown. I wanted to see if the map in Flight Simulator would be accurate enough for me to recognize landmarks, follow highways and even spot specific houses. Besides, Phoenix is gorgeous, especially at sunset -- the airport sits at the heart of a desert valley, saguaros and skyscrapers highlighted from the west in brilliant purples and reds.

I flew over my former condo complex.

Not only did I recognize the airport immediately, but also every side street, skyscraper and mountain range that came into view. Keeping my tiny plane aloft, I clicked through the settings menu at the top of the screen, and shifted the weather and time of day, making the sun and stars streak across the sky. I chose scattered clouds, just as the fading light turned golden. I clicked back and continued flying, tapping the rudder and shifting the wings gently to one side, aiming for the row of high-rises marking downtown. The engine whirred and I pulled the nose of the plane upward, compensating for power lost in the turn.

Each prominent building was accurate and in the correct location, including unique architectural details, company logos and store names. I flew over my former condo complex and saw the exact balcony where I would sit and listen to podcasts while watching the city lights flicker on; I soared over Central Avenue and through the gaps between buildings that I've only ever viewed from below. The roof of Chase Field was open, baseball diamond clearly visible within.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Around me at the Flight Simulator preview event in Seattle, other journalists were checking out their own hometowns, buzzing The Vatican, marveling at Machu Picchu and getting a feel for the geography around the Egyptian pyramids. I crashed my plane into a South Phoenix neighborhood -- landing is by far the most difficult aspect of Flight Simulator -- and booted up a location I'd never visited in real-life: Dubai. Again, I took off, switched to a third-person view, and shifted the environment to my liking. Every trip began with a real-time representation of the actual weather and time in each location, but I wanted to see sunsets and clouds. I set Dubai to rain.

It felt fantastic to learn more about the world in a random flyby.

Even through heavy vapor and moisture, the Burj Khalifa was easy to spot, shooting out of the desert landscape like a shining silver beacon. As I approached, more buildings popped into view. I dropped low along the coast and spotted curious shapes in the water that eventually coalesced into a giant, stylized palm tree. I paused the game briefly and turned to my phone, where I learned this was one of the Palm Islands, a trio of man-made archipelagos hosting hotels and fancy residences. I'd never heard of the islands before, and it felt fantastic to learn more about the world in a random flyby.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Flight Simulator had that effect on me time and time again. It made the planet feel accessible yet impossibly vast. There was a sense that I could go anywhere in that plane, but once I hit altitude, the immensity of the world set in, and I felt impossibly tiny. Not in a bad way -- simply in a true, realistic sense. You know, like in a simulator.

Bing Maps, but better

The Flight Simulator franchise is Microsoft's longest-running software property. It's older than Windows by three years, with the original title released in 1982. It gets a refresh every few years, taking advantage of evolving computer technology with each launch; the most recent title was Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition, which landed in 2014.

A lot has changed since then.

Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition vs the latest Flight Simulator

The rise of online systems has made it possible for developers to recreate the entire planet in the latest Flight Simulator and infuse it with live, real-world events. Every remote island, every landmark and nearly every building is in its proper place, popped into frame in 4K, photorealistic glory via procedural generation and 3D photogrammetry.

That's one reason Asobo Studio is behind this title. It's the home of Fuel, the 2009 open-world racing title that was awarded a Guinness Book world record for having the "largest playable area in a console game," coming in at 5.5 square miles. Today, Asobo's technology is being used to digitize 196.9 million square miles of land, man-made marvels and sea.

Asobo's engine takes full advantage of Microsoft's varied resources, pulling satellite data from Bing Maps and relying on Azure cloud systems to keep the game stable and updated for the majority of players. Machine learning and procedural generation helps populate trees and edifices in the proper spots.

Microsoft is using "other sources" to fill in the gaps in Bing Maps' database, and it's partnered with a handful of third-party companies, including airports and weather-data providers, to pipe live information into Flight Simulator. This means players will be able to see a breakdown of actual flights departing and arriving at any airport on the globe, and experience natural disasters as they happen, from a safe, digital distance.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Just before the preview event in mid-September, Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas, traveling slowly and lingering over the islands for days. From their offices in Bellevue, Washington, and Bordeaux, France, Microsoft and Asobo developers flew through the hurricane in Flight Simulator, entering the eye of the storm and getting a sense of the surrounding chaos. Real-world weather systems are growing more extreme under the pressures of climate change, and Flight Simulator will reflect this in real-time, offering a new perspective on dangerous meteorological developments.

Flight Simulator offers a new perspective on the world, period. Developers are committed to holding a mirror to reality, researching and re-creating accurate atmospheres, cockpits, wind patterns, flight maneuvers, weather and locations. Even the stars in the night skies are accurate.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

The latest Flight Simulator simultaneously feels like a ridiculously detailed new viewing mode for Bing Maps (or Google Maps, for a reference that more people can relate to), and an intense, realistic training system for wannabe pilots. Because it is such a blank canvas, its applications are vast. It might end up as an educational tool, with teachers sending kids on geographical scavenger hunts; or as an esports title, where players race to complete delivery routes and complicated flight paths. Microsoft is accepting applications for the pre-alpha via the Flight Simulator Insider program, and that's due to kick off this year. The full game -- excuse me, simulator -- will hit PC in 2020, with a launch on Xbox afterward.

Even with the educational, creative and technical possibilities built into Flight Simulator 2019, the scenario I'm most excited for is its use as an everyday decompression tool. The preview alone was an infinitely relaxing experience, requiring just enough attention from me, the pilot, to keep things interesting, while offering up the literal planet as a playground.

In this article: airplane, asobo studio, av, bing, bing maps, flight simulator, gaming, hands-on, microsoft, personal computing, personalcomputing

Comments

50 Shares

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/30/flight-simulator-2020-hands-on-pre-alpha/

2019-09-30 07:36:16Z
52780397522393

What is semantic rendering, and how it improves your iPhone 11’s camera - Digital Trends

iPhone 11 Pro Max rear triple camera — Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The biggest improvements to Apple’s new iPhones are in the cameras, and not just because of the new ultra-wide-angle lenses on the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. The software powering the cameras is responsible for a significant leap forward in image quality thanks to improvements in computational photography techniques. One of the most interesting is semantic rendering, an intelligent approach to automatically adjusting highlights, shadows, and sharpness in specific areas of a photo.

What is semantic rendering?

In artificial intelligence, “semantics” refers to a machine’s ability to smartly segment information similar to how a human would. Different branches of machine learning may have different uses for semantic segmentation, but for photography, it starts with subject recognition.

In Apple’s case, the camera is specifically looking for any people within the frame, but it goes a level deeper than that. When the iPhone detects a human subject, Apple told Digital Trends it further differentiates between skin, hair, and even eyebrows. It can then render these segments differently to achieve the best results, creating a portrait that is properly exposed over the background.

[/pullquote]Just take a picture, and the phone will do the work in fractions of a second. [/pullquote]

To understand why this is so important, it helps to also understand how a standard camera works. Whether an older iPhone or a professional DSLR, a camera usually doesn’t know what it’s shooting. It knows the color and brightness of any given pixel, but it can’t glean any meaning about what’s actually in the frame. When you select the “portrait” color profile on a Nikon or Canon, for example, the camera is merely applying settings to specific color ranges of pixels commonly found in human subjects; it doesn’t really know if a person is present or not.

Such an effect is called a global adjustment, meaning it is applied to the entire photo equally. This is also how standard high dynamic range, or HDR, photos work: Highlights are lowered, shadows are raised, and midrange contrast might be enhanced — but without regard to what’s in the picture. This approach works well for subjects like landscapes, but it doesn’t always work for portraits.

iphone 11 review portrait mode girl — iPhone 11 portrait mode Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

With semantic rendering, an iPhone 11 can apply local, rather than global, adjustments. This means a bright sky can have its brightness reduced to maintain color and detail, while the highlights on a person’s face won’t be reduced as much, preserving depth in the subject. Sharpness can also be applied to the skin and hair in different strengths.

Photographers have been doing this kind of retouching by hand in programs like Adobe Photoshop for years, but the enhancements are applied instantly on an iPhone 11.

How do you use it? Just take a picture, and the phone will do the work in fractions of a second. Know that semantic rendering only affects human portraits; other types of photos receive the standard HDR treatment. It is not limited to portrait mode — any photo with a human subject is automatically a candidate for semantic rendering.

Computational photography — which incorporates everything from HDR to depth-sensing portrait modes — enables phone cameras to surpass the physical limitations of their small lenses and sensors. Apple’s semantic rendering is among the next evolution of these technologies — Google has been using similar machine learning to power the camera in its Pixel smartphones.

While the tech powering it is complex, its goal is simple. By giving the iPhone the ability to know when it’s looking at a person, it sees the world a little more like we do, leading to pictures that look natural and more true to life.

Editors' Recommendations

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/apple-semantic-rendering-iphone-11/

2019-09-30 00:59:14Z
52780396097266

All I want to do is chill and play 'Flight Simulator' - Engadget

Sponsored Links

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Hands-on with Flight Sim

I flew over my former condo complex.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

It felt fantastic to learn more about the world in a random flyby.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Bing Maps, but better

A lot has changed since then.

Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition vs the latest Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator

In this article: airplane, asobo studio, av, bing, bing maps, flight simulator, gaming, hands-on, microsoft, personal computing, personalcomputing

Comments

50 Shares

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/30/flight-simulator-2020-hands-on-pre-alpha/

2019-09-30 07:01:03Z
52780397522393

Minggu, 29 September 2019

Malware uses web apps to turn PCs into conduits for attacks - Engadget

Sponsored Links

It's not just botnets that can hijack PCs for nefarious ends. Microsoft and Cisco's Talos researchers have identified a new malware strain, Nodersok (or Divergent), that uses web apps to turn systems into proxies for malicious internet traffic. The attack gets victims to run an HTA (HTML application) file through a rogue ad or download, launching a complex sequence of events. JavaScript in the HTA downloads a separate JavaScript file, and that in turn runs a PowerShell command that downloads and runs a whole host of tools, including ones that disable Windows Defender, ask for more control, capture data packets and create the intended proxy.

Crucially, the infection relies on legitimate programs to accomplish its task, whether they're built into Windows or downloaded from third parties. There are no malware programs copied to storage. The approach makes it harder for security teams to research the code and devise countermeasures.

It's not certain who's behind Nodersok. It appears to be meant for everyday criminals rather than hostile countries, however. Cisco believed that i was "primarily designed" for click fraud, or the practice of automatically generating ad clicks to boost revenue from websites. Most targets are typical consumers in Europe and the US rather than corporate or government users.

Both Microsoft and Cisco are keen to tout the ability of their enterprise-grade defense systems to thwart the malware. Most people don't have access to those to those resources, though, and conventional signature-based antivirus software has a much harder time. Nodersok has targeted "thousands of machines" in recent weeks, according to Microsoft, and that might not let up in the near future.

Via: ZDNet

Source: Microsoft, Talos

In this article: gear, html, html application, internet, nodersok, security

Comments

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/29/nodersok-malware-uses-web-apps/

2019-09-29 14:07:47Z
52780396154710

Malware uses web apps to turn PCs into conduits for attacks - Engadget

Sponsored Links

Via: ZDNet

Source: Microsoft, Talos

In this article: gear, html, html application, internet, nodersok, security

Comments

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/29/nodersok-malware-uses-web-apps/

2019-09-29 13:47:07Z
52780396154710