CD Projekt Red never intended to release Cyberpunk 2077'smultiplayer mode with the main game at launch. But if you were hoping to play with your friends in the game's futuristic setting within the year or the next, then we've got bad news for you. According to Polygon, the developer's SVP of development Michał Nowakowski told investors in a call that the mode won't be coming out until after 2021. Not entirely surprising, seeing as the company has just announced that the game's release date has been pushed back to September 17th.
Cyberpunk 2077, was supposed to be part of the pretty long list of much-awaited games dropping in April, along with the Resident Evil 3 and Final Fantasy VII remakes. (Square Enix also move backFFVII's release for a month.) However, CD Projekt Red had to delay the RPG's release by five months to give it enough time to polish and test the game, as well as to fix any issues it may have.
In the call, Nowakowski said:
"Given the expected release of Cyberpunk 2077 in September, and frankly speaking of the series of events we expect to occur after that date, 2021 appears unlikely as a release date for the Cyberpunk multiplayer."
Unfortunately, the exec didn't give a more specific timeframe for multiplayer's availability. We'd just have to wait for more updates to come out over the next two years.
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.
CD Projekt Red never intended to release Cyberpunk 2077'smultiplayer mode with the main game at launch. But if you were hoping to play with your friends in the game's futuristic setting within the year or the next, then we've got bad news for you. According to Polygon, the developer's SVP of development Michał Nowakowski told investors in a call that the mode won't be coming out until after 2021. Not entirely surprising, seeing as the company has just announced that the game's release date has been pushed back to September 17th.
Cyberpunk 2077, was supposed to be part of the pretty long list of much-awaited games dropping in April, along with the Resident Evil 3 and Final Fantasy VII remakes. (Square Enix also move backFFVII's release for a month.) However, CD Projekt Red had to delay the RPG's release by five months to give it enough time to polish and test the game, as well as to fix any issues it may have.
In the call, Nowakowski said:
"Given the expected release of Cyberpunk 2077 in September, and frankly speaking of the series of events we expect to occur after that date, 2021 appears unlikely as a release date for the Cyberpunk multiplayer."
Unfortunately, the exec didn't give a more specific timeframe for multiplayer's availability. We'd just have to wait for more updates to come out over the next two years.
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.
Two years after teaming up with Lyft to collaborate on self-driving technology, Magna said that partnership's coming to an end. The auto parts maker plans to focus on assisted driving products, instead of fully autonomous tech.
Magna isn't fully severing ties with Lyft, in which it invested $200 million in 2018, but the self-driving partnership seems to have been impacting its bottom line. They'll keep working together on other autonomy-related software and hardware. Lyft has also collaborated with Waymo on autonomous cars.
Ultimately, Magna doesn't think there's big enough potential in autonomous vehicles in the medium term. It sees more opportunities for growth in the assisted driving market (up to Level 3 autonomy) over the next five years.
CEO Don Walker told reporters that the industry is getting "more realistic" about how long it'll take before autonomous driving really takes off. As such, Magna plans to invest "where we're going to get a higher volume," CFO Vince Galifi said.
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.
We recommend businesses and other organizations pay for extended security updates if they still use Windows 7. This option isn’t available to home users, and the exact price of the updates depends on whether you have Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Professional.
Even if you need Windows 7 for some reason, you don’t have to use it for everything. If you need Windows 7 to interface with a specific hardware device or run a software program that doesn’t run on Windows 10, we recommend keeping that Windows 7 computer off your network, if possible.
Malicious websites and other network-based attacks won’t be an issue. Your Windows 7 system can’t be compromised and turned against other devices on your network. You won’t have to worry about security issues if the Windows 7 system is cut off from the dangerous internet.
If you need to run an older software program that doesn’t run on Windows 10, it may also be worth upgrading to Windows 10 and running that older application in a Windows 7 virtual machine on your Windows 10 desktop. Bear in mind that most older applications will run just fine on Windows 10, so this shouldn’t be necessary for most applications.
We know that many people will continue running Windows 7 and connecting it to the internet. If you are, we’ve got some security tips for locking things down.
We recommend running a good antimalware tool that still supports Windows 7. Be sure it’s actively receiving updates.
Microsoft says it no longer offers downloads its own Microsoft Security Essentials tool, although MSE still seems available for download on Microsoft’s website. Perhaps Microsoft plans to pull the downloads soon. However, if you have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, it will continue receiving malware signature updates until 2023.
Other security software companies still offer antiviruses that are supported on Windows 7. For example, Lifehacker recommends Bitdefender Free.
Whatever you pick, we also recommend Malwarebytes. The free version of Malwarebytes will let you perform manual scans to remove malware and other junk software from your system, and it also runs on Windows 7.
If you’re still using Windows 7, you should definitely avoid running Internet Explorer. Even Microsoft has recommended moving off of Internet Explorer to a more modern, secure browser.
Google Chrome still runs on Windows 7 and will support it with security updates until at least July 15, 2021.
Mozilla Firefox still runs on Windows 7, too. Mozilla hasn’t said how long it will support Firefox on Windows 7.
With the operating system itself no longer receiving updates, your security software and web browser take on newfound importance in blocking you from threats online.
Secure Your Operating System Settings
If you’re using Windows 7, you should definitely visit Windows Update and ensure you’re up-to-date with all the updates Microsoft released for it. We also recommend having Windows Update automatically check for updates. Microsoft might release especially critical updates for Windows 7 even after the end of support, just as it did for Windows XP.
Avoid clicking strange links in spam emails or other strange messages sent to you—this is especially important considering it will become easier to exploit Windows 7 in the future. Avoid downloading and running strange files.
Windows 7 was released a long time ago, so you may have quite a few applications you don’t really need installed. Worse yet, they may be outdated.
For example, old versions of browser plug-ins like Java, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, and QuickTime are all potentially vulnerable to attack. Go through the list of installed programs in Windows 7’s Control Panel and remove any applications you don’t use.
Ensure all the applications you use are updated to their latest available versions, too. For example, if you still have an old version of WinRAR installed, you need to update it manually or your PC could be vulnerable to malicious ACE archives.
There’s no silver bullet here. Windows 7 will get more dangerous over time as flaws around found. However, the exact attacks Windows 7 is vulnerable to will depend on what security flaws are found, how serious they are, and how easy they are to exploit.
You can keep using Windows 7 and it will still function normally—with some nag messages. Just keep in mind that Microsoft has washed its hands of patching security holes on your machine. We love Windows 7, but its time has passed.
A new Silicon Valley startup is trying to build the “world’s first true smart contact lens,” putting a screen right against your eye that can enhance your vision of the world. The startup, Mojo Vision, showed off a very early prototype in meetings at CES last week and is now ready to start talking about the product’s development.
Mojo Vision hopes to first create a smart contact lens that can assist people with low vision by displaying enhanced overlays of the world, sharpening details or zooming in to help them see. But that reality seems to be a ways away. The prototype shown at CES included a green, monochromatic display that was wired to a large battery, and the company still needs to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration to eventually ship to consumers, particularly for its medical use cases.
Mojo’s tech is built into a hard scleral lens, which has a bulbous portion that sits slightly above the surface of the eye. Mojo Vision claims to have a 14,000 ppi display (the iPhone 11 has a 326 ppi display, for comparison) as well as an image sensor, radio, and motion sensor that will be built in to help overlay and stabilize images. While Mojo showed off a lens that it says includes all of those components, we didn’t demo a fully working unit. The display technology seemingly worked when held close to the eye — we weren’t allowed to insert it — but it required an external battery and processor to run. The company says people would have to disinfect their contacts nightly and that it’d recharge through a proprietary induction system.
As part of the demo, Mojo demonstrated how a display placed over a person’s eye could help them see in the dark, especially if a person already has low vision. The demo relied on an edge detection algorithm to show off where objects were placed in a room. It worked, but again, the contact was on a bigger base and not working within the tiny form factor.
The ultimate goal is to make the contact a little bit like what Google Glass was supposed to be: a screen that can show you “useful and timely information” without forcing you to pull out your phone. With its much tinier size, a smart contact lens could avoid a great number of the social hurdles Google Glass initially faced; it just has the far more difficult challenge of building its tech into an object tinier than a penny. The company says people will likely have to wear an extra accessory that would provide the data connection and processor for the contacts, and the team also suggested that people would use eye tracking to control what they see. I demoed eye tracking software while wearing an HTC Vive VR headset to get a sense of what the UI could look like and found the eye tracking to be exhausting. The team says people get used to it, but I had a headache after only a few minutes.
Mojo Vision imagines its smart contact being sold to both consumers and businesses, with the earliest versions helping people with vision impairments. The company has raised more than $100 million in funding to build its tech, but for now, it remains in development. There’s no exact timeline for when it expects the first smart contacts to hit the market. although Mojo says it hopes to have product released within the next two years.
Ultimately, Mojo could run into the same pitfalls many wearables face: issues with interoperability between platforms. Its use case for people with vision impairments is unique and potentially useful, but for the broader consumer audience, it needs legitimate justification to make people want to wear the contacts every day. (The company wouldn’t say how much it’s thinking these contacts would cost, but it did say people would need to replace them every year.) Connected contacts could be useful for Android users who want notifications in front of their faces and don’t want to wear AR glasses. But like any other wearable, Mojo could struggle when it comes to iPhone users who want access to iMessage.
Mojo has seemingly accomplished one of its biggest hurdles — embedding a tiny display on a contact lens — but it still needs to prove that the tiny form factor can function on its own and, beyond even that, prove that society is comfortable with the idea of AR contacts.
The Galaxy S20’s leak floodgates opened last weekend and things have been pretty crazy ever since. Today is no exception because XDA Developers has compared several dummy units of Samsung’s upcoming devices to some of the most popular flagships on the market.
The Galaxy S20 Ultra is a little bigger than the Note 10+
Representing the best of the best in Samsung’s lineup of smartphones will be the Galaxy S20 Ultra. It’s going to feature a huge 6.9-inch Infinity-O AMOLED display complete with a 120Hz refresh rate and a Quad-HD+ (3200x1440p) resolution.
But despite the sheer size of the screen on paper, Samsung has managed to keep things relatively compact thanks to the extra tall 20:9 aspect ratio that it’s now employing. As seen in the images below, this means the phone is roughly the same width as the 6.7-inch Galaxy Note 10+ and only a little taller.
The flagship is also quite a bit longer than the massive OnePlus 7 Pro. However, Samsung’s phone should feel a lot more comfortable in the hand thanks to the curved edges of the rear glass and the fact that it’s a little narrower.
Turning the premium device over reveals a huge camera module that’s over two times the size of the Galaxy Note 10+ equivalent. The dummy in question is based on an earlier prototype that featured five rear sensors, but the smartphone is now expected to house four cameras.
These should include a super-powerful 108-megapixel camera that makes use of pixel binning technology to produce high-quality 12-megapixel shots and improve performance in low-light conditions. It’ll reportedly be combined with a 10x periscope zoom camera complete with a 64-megapixel resolution.
Samsung is planning to combine the data from this sensor with that of the primary camera and a bit of software wizardry to achieve an incredible 100x hybrid zoom. Other features include a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a massive 5,000mAh battery, and the Snapdragon 865 or Exynos 990 depending on the region paired with 5G support as standard.
The Galaxy S20 compares favorably to other phones
On the opposite end of the flagship spectrum sits the standard Galaxy S20. It boasts a smaller 6.2-inch Infinity-O panel but still offers all the perks featured on the premium sibling.
The phone is virtually the same size as last year’s Galaxy S10 – Samsung has added height but made it narrower – and compares extremely favorably to the 6.3-inch Google Pixel 4 XL thanks to the curved edges and razor-thin bezels.
Samsung has also rearranged the cameras this year, which makes the Galaxy S20’s module appear smaller than the Galaxy S10’s equivalent. It’s also much slimmer than the Pixel 4’s bump, but a lot longer.
Rumors suggest it’ll house a 12-megapixel main camera that’s noticeably more powerful than 2019’s offering. Also expected is a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and a 2x telephoto shooter. Samsung will keep costs down by skipping the Time-of-Flight sensor.
The Galaxy S20+ is a little taller than the Galaxy S10+
The final phone in Samsung’s new lineup is the Galaxy S20+. It boasts a huge 6.7-inch display but is noticeably more compact than comparable devices.
Today’s dummy comparisons show that it’s roughly the same size as the Google Pixel 4 XL, despite featuring a screen that’s 0.4-inches bigger. This is once again down to Samsung’s effort when it comes to reducing bezel size.
Samsung’s upcoming flagship also appears to be a little narrower than the Galaxy S10+. It should, therefore, be more comfortable to hold, although it is noticeably taller.
I hopped on the Android bandwagon early: I sold my iPhone 3G in 2009, bought an HTC Hero, and never looked back. I’ve been using Android every day since then, writing about Google’s platform as a tech journalist. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to keep pace with iPhone developments, and recently set aside a week of my life to get reacquainted with Apple’s smartphone.
I put all my Android phones in a drawer and settled into life with the iPhone 11 Pro. Admittedly, the iPhone does some things extremely well, even for a long-time Android user like myself. However, there are also plenty of things I hate with a fiery passion.
Where the iPhone wins
Apple’s Taptic Engine: Haptics are an underappreciated but important aspect of interacting with a smartphone, and Apple understands this. The “Taptic Engine” is essentially a giant vibration motor bolted right to the iPhone’s frame, and it’s fantastic. The haptic feedback is tight and powerful, surpassing all Android phones on the market. It can almost feel like you’re pressing physical buttons on the screen sometimes. Google’s Pixel phones have by far the best haptics on Android, but even those devices are far behind Apple.
Gesture navigation: I was skeptical when Apple decided to make gestures mandatory for navigating its phone, but its gesture scheme is a significant improvement over a physical button. In fact, Apple’s gesture approach is the best I’ve seen. The gestures are all incredibly smooth and don’t require long swipes—it feels like you’re flinging the UI around. I also appreciate that the gesture pill at the bottom of the screen doesn’t take up too much space. There’s a reason Google straight-up copied some of Apple’s gestures in Android 10.
Ryan Whitwam/IDG
iPhone gestures beat Android phone gestures. They just do.
Battery performance: Apple prioritizes battery life on the iPhone, and that’s a refreshing change for me. The early days of Android were a free-for-all in which app developers could do almost anything, and many apps siphoned off battery power with impunity. Google has tamped down on the worst excesses, but iOS has always been more measured. It slowly added new features to the OS, and apps are kinder to your battery as a result. The iPhone 11 Pro will last an entire day, even if you use it heavily. It’s about on par with Android phones with 20 to 30 percent larger batteries.
Silent switch: The iPhone’s silent mode switch is a quick, simple way to shut up your phone. My old iPhone 3G had one, and I’m happy Apple has stuck with it. There are still ringer volume controls and a Do Not Disturb mode, but you have to wake up the phone to use those. The iPhone’s switch doesn’t move far, but it has delightful tactile click, and you get haptic feedback when activating silent mode. It’s so easy and reliable, you can change the ringer mode while the phone is in your pocket.
Ryan Whitwam/IDG
The iPhone’s silent mode switch sure comes in handy.
True Tone display: Color accuracy is a noble ideal, but that’s not always good for a phone display you might be staring at for hours. Apple’s True Tone technology tweaks the color temperature of the display based on environmental lighting, making it easier on the eyes. So, you get nice, bright whites outside and warmer, less-distracting tones inside. The iPhone screen “blends in” with the world much better than other phones I’ve used. Google has a similar feature on the Pixel 4, but it’s nowhere near as effective.
AirDrop: Sharing content with the internet at large is easy these days—there’s Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat... take your pick. But sharing something securely with a person right next to you is comparatively difficult on Android. On the iPhone, it’s a breeze thanks to AirDrop. Just hit the share menu, pick AirDrop, and nearby contacts will appear like magic. The recipient has the option to accept or decline each transfer. If you’re daring, you can even allow AirDrop visibility for people who aren’t in your contact list.
Where the iPhone fails
The home screen: Ten years after I left the iPhone behind, its home screen remains almost entirely unchanged. This was one of the biggest pain points for me coming over from Android—I missed my app drawer so much. In addition, iOS only supports rudimentary widgets, and they’re all crammed into one screen on the far left. It’s also frustrating that every app I install ends up on the home screen, forcing me to obsessively organize this ever-expanding list of icons if I ever want to find anything. During these frequent reorganizations, the launcher has a maddening habit of assuming I want to make a folder when I hover over an icon for even a fraction of a second anywhere near another icon. The process is so tedious, I avoided installing apps I didn’t absolutely need.
Default apps: Try as you might, you will never escape Apple’s default apps on the iPhone. You can install different browsers, email clients, and so on, but they’ll be treated like second-class apps on Apple’s platform. For example, URLs will always open in Safari. If someone sends you an address, it’ll open in Apple Maps. Apple grudgingly added support for third-party keyboards a few versions back, but they don’t have the same level of system integration as Apple’s keyboard. The iPhone also likes to re-enable the default Apple keyboard at seemingly random intervals. The default app situation is a huge pain, especially if you’ve grown accustomed to choosing your defaults on Android.
Ryan Whitwam/IDG
Apple’s insistence on pushing default apps is downright annoying.
No always-on display: Apple was late to the game with OLED screen technology, and it’s missing one of the key benefits now that it does use them. Most Android phones have support for an always-on display feature, sometimes called an ambient display. This allows you to see notifications and other information at a glance, and it doesn’t drain the battery much because black OLED pixels use no power. Apple doesn’t have anything like this, and the iPhone wakes up the full panel when you get notifications. It’s just a waste.
Notifications: Apple had just implemented push notifications when I ditched the iPhone years ago. Today, Apple has a notification center that looks a bit like Android’s, but the similarities are only skin-deep. The iPhone’s notifications management is far, far behind Android. The phone dumps notifications into a different section after you’ve seen them once, making it difficult to track things down. When you do find that notification, the snippet might be too short, and notifications don’t expand like they do on Android. You have to open apps to get more context—how barbaric. Clearing notifications also requires multiple actions (like a swipe, followed by a tap). And then we have the icon badges, which are a profoundly bad way of relaying information to the user. Apps can notify for all kinds of reasons, and the red counter doesn’t tell you anything about why an app wants your attention. They also have zero relationship with what’s in your notification center.
Ryan Whitwam/IDG
Apple’s approach to notifications is just bad UX. Bad, bad, bad.
Lightning and charging: I’m heavily invested in USB Type-C at this point. I have computers, headphones, cameras, and even keyboards that use the new standard. So, moving to Apple’s Lightning port was extremely disruptive and it offered zero benefits. USB-C is not only universal, it supports extremely fast charging speeds. Even with Apple’s new, faster charger, many Android phones leave it in the dust. Apple has already moved to USB-C on tablets and laptops, so it’s probably just a matter of time until it does the same on phones. Until then, iPhone users are stuck with this proprietary cable.
Siri: Apple was the first smartphone maker to push a virtual assistant as a game changing feature, and Siri was basically unopposed for several years. But Google Assistant is a much better experience than Siri today. Assistant has more smart home integration, much better general search functionality, and it’s much more adept at understanding queries. I also like that Assistant is more fully integrated with my data on Android. Perhaps Apple’s careful approach to privacy is part of the problem here, but I’m willing to trade a little privacy for a digital assistant that doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out.
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