Gigarefurb Refurbished Laptops News

Gamers around the world are preparing for the Fortnite Champions Series, which starts on Saturday.

It is the first competitive event since last month’s inaugural World Cup in New York, which had a record-breaking $30m (£24m) prize purse.

Many of the newly-made millionaire stars of the World Cup will be taking part in the multiplayer shooting and building game.

One man who will be just as busy and nervous is Hugh Gilmour, even though he will not be touching a controller for the entire competition.

The 19-year-old, whose online name is Destiny, is arguably the world’s most successful Fortnite coach.

He mentored the top three finishers in the solo competition in New York.

The list includes 16-year-old Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, who won the title and is now $3m richer.

And Hugh also helped the top three teams to success in the doubles event.

No bonuses

Even though he helped coach the winners, who received huge prizes, he himself has not become rich – only charging his clients a fixed fee of £120 with no percentage of winnings.

However, Hugh has no regrets over the situation.

“I only turned from player to coach full-time in July, so I used the World Cup as an entrance event and it was an incredible moment for me,” he told the BBC.

“I was at home watching the matches so closely, and even though it was my players who were making all that money, I was thinking ‘this is great for me too’,” he added.

From failed player to successful coach

Hugh lives with his parents in Kent, England and was a competitive player himself, until he decided to make the switch after failing to qualify for the World Cup.

“I got into Fortnite when it went really big in March 2018. I was working at a gym and I started playing to a high standard, then casually helping others with tactics and tips,” he said.

“Once I went into coaching, I told everyone in my Fortnite community that I was available. It went from there.”

Hugh’s coaching is all done through video chat on the gaming platform Discord.

Although he also helps with the mental preparation, the bulk of his time and effort goes into analysing matches and developing tactics.

The battle royale style of Fortnite involves 100 players being dropped on to an ever-shrinking island, where they have to race to get weapons and materials to help them survive to the end.

The last player standing wins.

Tactics

Developing tactics for the first few minutes of each match is crucial to victory.

Hugh says he spent eight hours a day on each of the 11 days leading up to the World Cup, collecting data and intelligence for his players on their opponents’ likely movements.

Hugh said: “A lot of people look at Fortnite and think it is a cartoony video game made for kids, but it’s actually really complex and deep.

“It’s an intense game with mechanical work, target practice and looting. There’s so much going on, you have to have a good early game set-up with items and building materials.

“That’s where a lot of my work goes. I watched back dozens and dozens of matches to find out which of my players’ rivals are likely to get in the way of a good early game set-up.

“You don’t want to bump into a decent player early on, or get to a loot spot too late to get the weapons.”

Hugh Gilmour’s top five Fortnite tips

• Master your early landing and route – know when fights will take place and how you will have an advantage in them
• Practice your mechanics as a warm-up every day – aim, editing and building drills
• Have a dedicated practice schedule – set amounts of time that you can do everyday with noticeable results
• Box fights – the most crucial part of this game is being able to fight while box-to-box next to another player. Practise these in creative mode against a friend and learn new strategies
• Use video-on-demand to watch your own games back and evaluate why you died and why – especially the sequence before. Also very useful is watching live streams of other professionals

Hugh showed the BBC a route map that he made for Bugha, the winner of the World Cup.

It shows the 16-year-old’s preferred landing spot and route in the first few minutes of an average match and compares his plans with those of his opponents.

Using this and other player statistics and behaviours, Hugh was able to make plans and contingencies for how to beat certain players.

He also developed specific techniques for how players could, for example, defend themselves in certain exposed areas on the map.

Hugh also helped British 15-year-old Jaden “Wolfieiz” Ashman and his partner Dave “Rojo” Jong to their eventual silver medal and $2.25m winnings in the doubles competition.

Rojo says the coaching was invaluable: “Knowing where other people were dropping and fine-tuning our own drop with rotation was so important.

“We made a few mistakes that got fixed before the tournament thanks to Destiny pointing them out.

“We would have most likely made those mistakes at the World Cup and not got second place.”

Rojo, like many Fornite professionals, says that coaching is now a big part of e-sports.

“Coaching is, in my opinion, already one of the most important things in e-sports. Whether it be video analytics, tactics or mental coaching, it releases the weight from players’ shoulders so they can focus on their own game.”

Coaching in e-sports is already well established in older games like League of Legends or Fifa.

According to the British Esports Association, teams pay about £26,000 for a full-time coach, often with a share of the winnings as well.

Go to Source

While we’re still waiting for a firm Huawei P40 release date leak, we’re excited for the upcoming smartphone – the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro came out in March 2019 after all, and we already know how the Chinese firm can improve with their successors.

That’s not to say the P30 and P30 Pro are bad phones, far from it – the latter currently tops our best camera phones list, and we gave them both near-perfect scores. 

We’ve taken them for intensive camera tests and described how they got us excited to take pictures with our phones, so we’re definitely fans.

Smartphones are a competitive industry, and with near-constant flow of new phone launches bringing with newer upgrades, the Huawei P40 and Huawei P40 Pro will need to arrive with significant upgrades to be relevant. 

The Google Pixel 4, iPhone 11, and Huawei Mate 30 are set to launch before the end of 2019, while the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 has already been announced, so there’s plenty for the P40 and P40 Pro to build from in 2020.

We’ve listed what we want to see in the Huawei P40 below, as well as what we already know or have heard rumored. We’ll be constantly updating this article with all the latest Huawei P40 leaks and rumors as they happen, to bring you the best idea of what to expect ahead of the handset’s official launch.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The latest in Huawei’s P range of smartphones
• When is it out? Likely in the first few months of 2020
• What will it cost? Probably a tiny bit more than the P30 series

(Image credit: Future)

Huawei P40 release date and price

A launch is still likely months away, and we don’t have a firm Huawei P40 release date from any rumors or leaks just yet, but we can offer up a prediction based on the company’s previous event activity. 

The P30 and P30 Pro were unveiled in Paris in March 2019, and the P20 and P20 Pro launch event look place in March 2018. So, our early Huawei P40 launch date prediction is March 2020. Shocker, right?

It makes sense too, as Huawei likes to separate its phone launches from other big tech events. It had previously launched new P series handsets at MWC in Barcelona at the end of February, but that’s a show which features a huge number of launches and it gets more exposure by delaying by a couple of weeks and holding its own event in March.

The Huawei P40 price is a more interesting conversation. At launch the Huawei P30 cost £699 / AU$1,099 (roughly $910), and the P30 Pro started at £899 (AU$1,599, around $1,140), which were both pricier than the previous year’s entries.

We’re expecting that trend to be followed in 2020 if the phones are as much of a tech upgrade as we’re hoping, so you could see the Huawei P40 and P40 Pro inch closer towards premium phones.

One thing we’re not expecting though? For the Huawei P40 to be available in the US, as previous Huawei phones haven’t been.

What we want to see

1. A new camera lens

When the Huawei P30 Pro came out with four lenses, it was one of the first smartphones to do so, and even the P30’s three were impressive.

But now more affordable smartphones have four cameras, like the Honor 20, so one way for Huawei to continue its photography dominance, and distinguish itself from the competition, would be to add yet another lens.

(Image credit: Future)

Our top choice for this extra lens would be a Motorola One Action-style ‘Action Cam’ for recording video, as video-specific cameras are things we haven’t seen too much in cameras. 

An anamorphic lens would also be great for recording video, as that type of lens is used by professional film-makers as it letterboxes the footage and captures lens flare, with other perks too.

2. Wireless charging

This is something we ask for in every new phone, as it’s a feature that’s becoming bigger over time, but wireless charging on the Huawei P40 would be a really useful feature that would fit its premium status.

We’re hopeful this feature will be added – the Huawei P30 Pro had wireless charging, as did the Mate 20 Pro, so it’s probably on a matter of time before Huawei brings the feature to its non-pro phones. 

(Image credit: Future)

3. Improved display technology

If we were to sum up the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro displays, it’d be ‘good not great’ – the OLED are HDR10, which is fine for viewing content, but nothing on competitors with QuadHD or even 4K displays.

Huawei is always trying to be competitive in the camera department, and to view increasingly amazing pictures you’re going to need better and better displays, so it would make sense for Huawei to update its range. 

Perhaps by fitting the Huawei P40 with AMOLED tech in the screen, with QuadHD or even 4K, Huawei could stay ahead of the competition.

4. Keep the notch

We’d like the Huawei P40 to keep the notch of the P30. This is something of a controversial stance, so stay with us here – but we don’t want Huawei to follow the trend of increasingly bizarre and gimmicky notch alternatives.

The reason for this is that, currently, there are no better solutions to the front-facing camera problem. Punch-hole cut-outs take up as much, if not more space, and pop-up cameras are a gimmick that can be an inconvenience when done well, and very annoying when not.

It’d be good if Huawei could shrink the P30 Pro’s notch, which is rather thick, but the P30’s is slim and inoffensive compared to that of many other phones. Better to imitate this than try something different, that ends up backfiring.

5. A redesigned user interface

This is going to be less of a controversial opinion – we’d like Huawei to redesign EMUI, its own-brand user interface, in time for the Huawei P40.

Currently, EMUI is arguably rather bright (some would call it garish), and it comes with quite a bit of bloatware that you’ll find yourself uninstalling straight away. Chinese phone manufacturers frequently have UIs that are popular in China, but not as much elsewhere, and EMUI is a prime example.

If Huawei could dust up this UI for the Huawei P40 (which may be a simple task if the phone runs on Harmony OS), it’d certainly be much more pleasant to use.

6. Even further camera zoom distance

One of the most impressive Huawei P30 features was the digital and optical zoom available on the camera, but we’d like to be wowed again if the Huawei P40 zoom saw an upgrade.

The Huawei P30 allowed for 3x optical zoom and 30x digital, and the P30 Pro saw up to 5x optical and 50x digital – that’s pretty impressive sight. But now that smartphones like the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom support a crazy 60x zoom (despite the name), Huawei is going to have to pull out the big guns to keep competitive.

Perhaps we could see an improved telephoto lens in the P40 and P40 Pro, as well as a better megapixel count so that digital zoom creates less grainy results.

7. Dual-lens front camera

Huawei’s smartphones are noted for their rear camera arrays, but we’d like to see the Huawei P40 cameras on the front to also allow for competition-crushing pictures, and the best way for Huawei to achieve this would be by having multiple front-facing cameras.

(Image credit: Future)

We’ve already seen this done in phones like the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, which has two cameras on the front which ‘see’ depth in order to add appropriate ‘bokeh’ background blur. If there was something similar in Huawei’s upcoming phones, even just the Huawei P40 Pro, it’d give the device a competitive edge.

8. Increased IP protection rating

While the Huawei P30 Pro had IP68 protection, making it pretty much accident-proof (it means it’s dust resistant, and can be submerged up to 2 metres for half an hour), the P30 was had only an IP53 rating, so it was dust and splash protected, but if you dunk it in the bath along with your P30 Pro, it’s not turning on afterwards.

We’d like the Huawei P40 to have resistance to match its P40 Pro counterpart – we don’t like having to worry about the safety of our smartphone at all times, and if the P40 could match the P30 Pro’s protection, it’d help us sleep safe and sound at night (and by bodies of water).

Go to Source

What if your bedside lamp could send you to sleep with a lullaby? Or if your bookshelf played relaxing tunes as you leafed through a dog-eared copy of your favorite book?

Enter the Sonos IKEA Symfonisk lamp speaker and bookshelf speaker, which do just that, combining practical home furnishings with Sonos’ audio expertise.

Many were skeptical when Swedish furniture retailer IKEA announced that it would be teaming up with the acclaimed audio brand Sonos – but both speakers scored an impressive four out of five stars in our recent reviews.

So, which of these unconventional wireless speakers would suit your home best? We take a look at the pros and cons of the lamp speaker and the bookshelf speaker to help make your decision easier. 

(Image credit: Andrew Murphy / TechRadar)

Symfonisk lamp speaker vs bookshelf speaker: price and availability

In true IKEA fashion, neither of these speakers are particularly expensive; the cheapest of the two is the bookshelf speaker, which costs $99 / £99 / AU$149, while the lamp speaker will set you back  $179 / £150 / AU$269.

That means the lamp speaker is closer price-wise to the Sonos One, which you can currently pick up for around $200 / £200 / AU$280 – and sometimes less, if you bag yourself a good deal. 

So, if sticking to a budget is your biggest concern, you may want to opt for the bookshelf speaker, but neither is going to rinse your bank account. 

(Image credit: Andrew Murphy / TechRadar)

Symfonisk lamp speaker vs bookshelf speaker: design

Let’s start with the Symfonisk lamp speaker, which, unsurprisingly, looks like a lamp – although instead of a traditional base, the base is essentially a speaker, encased in a white wraparound grille.

If you’ve had traumatic experiences with IKEA flat-pack furniture in the past, have no fear: you simply have to screw in a bulb, put the lampshade in place, and plug in the figure-of-eight power lead, and you’re ready to go. 

While the Symfonisk lamp speaker doesn’t sport the slimmest build, it blends nicely into the home. In terms of connections, you’ll only find an ethernet port – both speakers can connect to your home network via Wi-Fi, but you may find a wired connection to be stronger and more reliable. Otherwise, the unit sports an on/off switch, and play/pause and volume controls. 

The Symfonisk bookshelf speaker blends equally well into your home decor. It can be wall-mounted as a bookshelf that can hold up to 3kg of books or ornaments, or you can place it horizontally or vertically on any suitable surface.

Coming in white or black, the brick-shaped bookshelf speaker has a fabric grille on its front, with play/pause and volume controls. As with the Symfonisk lamp speaker, the only connectivity options you’ll find are a power lead and wired ethernet port. 

(Image credit: Andrew Murphy / TechRadar)

Symfonisk lamp speaker vs bookshelf speaker: features

The Symfonisk lamp speaker and bookshelf speaker share many of the same features – and these wireless speakers are more than just basic IKEA products with a few drivers supplied by its audio partner. 

Instead, they’re fully-fledged members of the Sonos ecosystem, and as such can link to any other Sonos component you have on your home network; you could also pair two of the Symfonisk speakers for stereo sound, or even pair one with Sonos’ existing home cinema devices, like the Sonos Beam, Sonos Playbar, Sonos Playbase, or Sonos Amp. 

This means you can even use the speakers as rear channels in a 5.0 or 5.1 surround sound system – pretty cool for a lamp and a bookshelf.

As Sonos products, both Symfonisk speakers eschew Bluetooth connectivity in favor of a home internet connection, via Apple AirPlay 2 or Spotify Connect. 

The obvious difference between the two speakers is that the lamp speaker also functions as lighting for your home; what’s cool about this is that you could choose to fit it with a smart bulb, like the Philips Hue.

So, if you want to embrace the smart home, the Symfonisk lamp speaker allows you to do this more thoroughly than the bookshelf speaker. 

(Image credit: Andrew Murphy / TechRadar)

Symfonisk lamp speaker vs bookshelf speaker: sound performance

Whether you’re using the lamp speaker or the bookshelf speaker, it’ll only take a few moments to connect them through the Sonos app, where you’ll also find various means of tuning the Symfonisk for optimal sonic performance. 

One example is TruePlay, which uses the microphone built into your smartphone or tablet to scan the shape of the room you’re in and amend the EQ settings accordingly.

The app also features a simple two-band equalizer that lets you fine-tune the bass and treble response. We found that both speakers benefitted from a little reduction in the bass, with Sonos’ Loudness feature left on to add some focus and punch. 

Both the Symfonisk lamp and bookshelf speakers offer a full-bodied soundstage and a lively, enjoyable presentation; however, the lamp speaker fares slightly better in terms of accuracy and width. 

That’s partly due to the circular wraparound grille utilized by the lamp speaker – this design allows its soundstage to open up more than that of the rectangular bookshelf speaker, for a more immersive listening experience. 

That’s not to say the bookshelf speaker sounds bad; in fact, its audio performance is better than you might expect. Bold, focused and full-bodied, the Symfonisk bookshelf speaker certainly isn’t shy about throwing music into the room.

Neither speaker offers the detail and precision of the Sonos One, but it’s important to remember that they both offer dual functions, and also that they’re cheaper than Sonos’ flagship wireless speaker.

(Image credit: Andrew Murphy / TechRadar)

Takeaway

Which Symfonisk speaker you should buy isn’t a particularly taxing decision: if you want a lamp, go for the lamp speaker, and if you could use a bookshelf, or just want a speaker that you can place on a bookshelf or similar, go for the bookshelf speaker.

If both appeal equally, it’s worth noting that the bookshelf speaker is significantly cheaper, and offers many of the same features as the lamp speaker; both are fully-fledged members of the Sonos ecosystem, and could therefore be paired with each other, or with other speakers to great effect. 

The lamp speaker is the better-sounding of the two, by a small margin, with its wraparound grille providing a wider soundstage than the bookshelf speaker. 

Whichever speaker you go for, you won’t be buying into a mere interior design gimmick: as well as making attractive focal points in your living room, the Symfonisk speakers are very capable audio devices in their own right.

Go to Source

You wait all year for some decent Apple Watch Series 5 rumors and then two come along at once: we only just heard that the fifth-generation wearable might launch in September and now there’s news of some different casing materials getting added this year.

Brazilian site iHelp BR spotted graphics hidden in the beta code of watchOS 6 that point to ceramic and titanium casings – quite possibly for the Apple Watch 5 but maybe as new options, alongside stainless steel, for the Apple Watch 4.

Apple has offered ceramic smartwatches in the past, but the option was removed on the Series 4. There’s never been a titanium Apple Watch though, so that’s completely new.

We did hear rumors about a ceramic model for the Series 5 wearable back in February, from noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. It’s possible that both the Series 5 and the Series 4 (which presumably will stay on sale) are going to get the new editions.

Watch and wait

Only yesterday we reported that Ming-Chi Kuo is expecting a new Apple Watch 5 in the second half of 2019. That would fit in with the launch schedule of previous models, but we haven’t heard much in the way of rumors or speculation about a new edition for 2019.

It’s possible that Apple is going to unveil the Apple Watch 5 alongside the new iPhones for 2019, at an event which is being tipped to happen in the second week of September, though that’s not official yet.

Further digging by iHelp BR found references to both 40mm and 44mm size smartwatches, so whether these titanium and ceramic labels apply to Series 4 or Series 5 devices, they’ll have the same chassis size as the existing Apple smartwatches.

If we are getting a new Apple Watch 5 next month then it’s not clear exactly what features and improvements it’s going to bring along with it, though watchOS 6 offers some clues – it gives the Apple Watch its own App Store portal, for example.

Via 9to5Mac

Go to Source

Welcome to our pick of the best single player PC games in 2019. Single player PC games exhibit gaming at its finest. 

Throw around all the numbers you want about the popularity of Fortnite, or how League of Legends fills out arenas all over the world, but a well-crafted solo experience has the unparalleled ability to sweep you away to meticulously crafted worlds and immerse you in unique forms of storytelling.

Even in the last few years, the best single player PC games have conquered new narrative and technical frontiers, which is why we’ve decided to round up 10 of the best single player PC games that you can play right now in 2019.

Make sure you check out our picks of the best PC games as well, for the very best single and multiplayer PC games from a wide range of genres.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 

(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Four years on from release, millions of gamers continue their solemn journeys across the war-ravaged low-fantasy world of The Witcher 3. It remains a high watermark of videogame storytelling; everything from side-quests with lowly peasants to the political tinkerings of lords and barons seems to get the same degree of love and attention from the writers.

It’s the game that made surly, concrete-voiced hero Geralt of Rivia a gaming icon (and soon to be star of a Witcher Netflix show). The world is not just sensational in terms of topographical scale and variety, but also in its sense of history and life, as it seems that every village, castle ruin and cave has a story to tell. 

The fact that The Witcher 3 remains as impressive an experience today as it was when it first came out is testament to its pioneering role in the medium.

2. Doom

(Image credit: Bethesda)

There’s something audaciously old-school about a game that does away with meaningful plot in favor of vicious, driving violence. In 2016’s Doom you’re somewhere between a human battering ram and artillery cannon, tearing apart and decimating a familiar but vibrantly redesigned army of demons in the most satisfying ways imaginable.

A key conceit is that in order to gain health and ammo, you need to charge headlong into the enemy and pull off brutal Glory Kills, forcing you to always be right up in the faces of shrieking Revenants and obese Cacodemon heads. 

Everything in the game – from that forward momentum to the clanging tech-metal soundtrack – propels you, leaving you breathless after each fracas like no other game…

… except maybe for the upcoming sequel.

3. Resident Evil 2: REMake

(Image credit: Capcom)

A remake of one of the great survival horror games can be a poison chalice, but Capcom managed to create a magnum opus both within the series and among all videogame remakes.

Like the original, RE2 REMake has two overlapping campaigns as Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. While it follows the narrative beats of the original game, it’s also an exemplar of modern level design, as you solve puzzles and open up shortcuts around the mazey Raccoon City Police Department. 

Each zombie is a bullet sponge and mortal threat, resources are limited, and an infallible blue man dressed like a hard-boiled detective marches after you through much of the game. Remake or not, this is one of the best horror game ever made.

4. Celeste

(Image credit: Matt Makes Games)

The makers of Towerfall, one of the greatest couch multiplayer games around, took some of that game’s best mechanics and converted them into a triumphant 2D platformer about climbing a mountain. 

The core mechanic is the ability to dash in eight directions, but as you progress you’ll find yourself encountering an ever-growing trickle of new obstacles and challenges. Eventually, Celeste amounts to a tough old time.

Many levels can be played through in different iterations, and all that finger-cramping platforming is enveloped by a touching story about friendship and tribulation. Celeste feels as important and seismic for the modern 2D platformer as Super Meat Boy was when it came out nearly a decade ago.

5. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey 

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Taking a year out in 2016 to rethink the Assassin’s Creed series was a wise move by Ubisoft, and with Odyssey that decision really paid off. Looking to RPGs for inspiration, it’s an unthinkably large open-world adventure set in the arid azure idyll of the Hellenic peninsula.

It’s not just the scenery and gloriously recreated Greek architecture that makes Odyssey such a joy, it’s in the way Alexios and Kassandra’s story weaves through history and myth, and in how it refines certain systems – like ship-sailing and level-based enemies – from previous games.

Some will balk that it’s no longer the cloak-and-dagger assassin game the series is known for, but the reality is that it’s now become so much more.

6. Total War: Warhammer 2

(Image credit: Creative Assembly)

When the Total War series stagnated with Rome 2, for its next project Creative Assembly took on one of the most inspired possible fusions of videogame genre and IP: epic-scale strategy and Warhammer.

Total War: Warhammer 2 embraces the asymmetry of its source material, with each faction offering a unique tactical and narrative experience. If you also own Total War: Warhammer 1, all the major factions of the vibrant grimdark world are represented in the sequel. 

Skaven lurk in city ruins and skurry through an underworld, Vampire Coast pirates embark on treasure hunts, and Dwarves hunker down behind heavy armour, ready to repel any infantry charge.

Each campaign lasts dozens of hours, offering endless clashes between the most well-crafted, inventive armies seen in a strategy game.

7. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

(Image credit: From Software)

Sekiro is a tense, tough, and visually striking samurai game set in a mythologised feudal Japan, and it’s one of the best single player PC games you can buy.

If you’ve played Dark Souls or Bloodborne, you’ll know what to expect, and know already whether its unforgiving style is for you. Some see the punishing combat as sadistic, others see it as a high-challenge, high-reward experience with no equal. Whichever way you lean, you can’t question the precision of Sekiro’s mechanics.

Where Sekiro differs from its spiritual predecessors is that it’s less obtuse, with a linear, coherent narrative and an inclusion of more mainstream action-game elements. 

You leap around vertically-oriented levels in search of shortcuts and secrets, while combat is about finding the right angle and timing for that precious killing katana blow. It’s never easy to land, but once you start doing so regularly, you begin to understand what all that suffering is for.

8. What Remains of Edith Finch

(Image credit: Giant Sparrow)

A complete change of pace from the big-money behemoths that populate this best single player PC games list, Edith Finch is so poignant and beautifully crafted that it will touch the souls of even the most stubborn walking-simulator naysayers.

As the titular character, you wander around her vast, recently abandoned family home set on a haunting, crepuscular island in Washington State. You explore the richly detailed house, entering the still-furnished rooms of each family member where you get swept up in dreamy, surreal vignettes showing how they died.

It’s a meditative game about piecing together the story of a family that seems to be afflicted by an implacable curse.

Edith Finch is the kind of thematically heavy, highly curated experience that doesn’t seem to be quite done justice by the word ‘videogame’.

9. Hollow Knight

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Of all the genres to have re-emerged since the indie revolution nine-odd years ago, the Metroidvania has been the biggest benefactor. The kinds of games that have come out haven’t just been throwbacks to the good old days of the 90s, but profound evolutions in their own right.

Hollow Knight feels like the zenith of the last several years of Metroidvania design, and it’s earned its place in this list of the best single player PC games. You explore an enchantingly forlorn subterranean kingdom as the titular knight, incrementally gaining abilities that let you descend deeper into the world.

It’s both brooding and cute, magical and challenging, shaped by thoughtful touches like the fact that Hollow Knight physically pulls out a map whenever you look at the map screen. 

10.  Dishonored 2 

(Image credit: Arkane Studios)

One of the tragedies of single-player gaming is that the immersive sim – descended from cerebral first-person games like System Shock, Thief and Deus Ex – has rarely been a big seller. So the future of masterpieces like Arkane’s Dishonored always seems tenuous.

Dishonored 2 casts you as a preternaturally gifted assassin on a revenge mission in the sun-kissed steampunk city of Karnaca. Each sizeable area lets you explore apartments, shops and cluttered rooms from all angles before swooping in on your objectives.

It’s both visceral in its black-magic-and-blades combat, and ingenious in its level design, with the ever-shifting Clockwork Mansion and the time-travelling Crack in the Slab offering some of the most memorable gameplay sequences you’re likely to play.

Go to Source

We’re entering a new dark age. Developers are falling over themselves to develop dark versions of their apps in preparation for the imminent release of Android Q and iOS 13, with their system-wide dark modes.

This will apply not only to your phone’s interface – apps will also be switched to dark mode when you activate the option. In Android Q, any apps without a specially reated dark version will be ‘forced’ when dark mode is activated, which will adjust the interface colors automatically and potentially spoil the designer’s carefully crafted user experience.

Currently, Android features an interface-only dark mode, which can be activated manually or triggered automatically based on the color of the user’s chosen wallpaper. It might seem like a purely aesthetic choice, but there are also practical reasons for turning down the brightness.

One of the biggest of these is power-saving. Google’s own research revealed that darker interfaces are far less of a drain on system resources, and allow users to go longer between charges.

It’s also been suggested that bright lights from screens (particularly phones, which we often use in bed) can stop us getting a good night’s sleep.  Although blue light is often cited as a particular concern, some professionals, including  John O’Hagan of Public Health England’s centre for radiation, chemical and environmental hazards, say light on all wavelengths can disturb circadian rhythms, so limiting light exposure in general can help regulate your natural sleep cycle.

Finally, dark mode just looks cool. White interfaces have been the standard for so long, it’s refreshing to have a different option.

With all that in mind, why is light mode still the default – and could it change when Android R and iOS 13 roll around?

Turn out the lights

For both companies, going dark by default would be a huge change. The bright, white look has been an essential part of Google’s design language from the very beginning, with its origins as a blank page with a logo and central search bar.

It’s since added colored elements (as explained in its Material Design principles) but the clean, white design has always been central to its identity.

Apple has also long associated itself with clean, white lines – starting with the Snow White design language in 1982. However, it’s become much more adventurous with colors in recent years – and its fans seem to approve. The announcement of dark mode for macOS Mojave last year was met with much whooping and cheering (even more than usual for an Apple launch event), so it’s easier to imagine Apple taking the plunge and making dark the default.

Things might change on the Android front, too. Even if Google sticks with white for stock Android on its own Pixel phones, the likes of Samsung and Huawei might prefer the benefits of the dark side. After all, why wouldn’t they want to prolong battery life wherever possible – and provide the experience users are whooping for?

The future is dark.

Go to Source

A significant security vulnerability in Bluetooth has left millions of smartphones and other devices at risk of attack, researchers have said.

The flaw would allow an attacker to more easily brute force the encryption key used by devices during pairing to monitor or even manipulate the data transferred between two paired devices.

The vulnerability has been given the name “Key Negotiation of Bluetooth attack” or “KNOB” for short and it affects Bluetooth BR/EDR devices using specification versions 1.0 to 5.1.

News of the KNOB vulnerability was revealed in a coordinated disclosure between the Center for IT-Security, Privacy and Accountability (CISPA), ICASI and ICASI members including Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Cisco and Amazon.

The flaw itself allows an attacker to reduce the length of the encryption key used for establishing a connection and in some cases, the length of the encryption key could be reduced to just a single octet making Bluetooth devices much easier to access.

KNOB vulnerability

A security advisory on Bluetooth.com, provided further insight on how the KNOB vulnerability functions, saying:

“The researchers identified that it is possible for an attacking device to interfere with the procedure used to set up encryption on a BR/EDR connection between two devices in such a way as to reduce the length of the encryption key used. In addition, since not all Bluetooth specifications mandate a minimum encryption key length, it is possible that some vendors may have developed Bluetooth products where the length of the encryption key used on a BR/EDR connection could be set by an attacking device down to a single octet.” 

After figuring out the Bluetooth keys of two devices, attackers could then monitor and manipulate the data being sent between them. This would even allow them to inject commands, monitor key strokes and carry out other types of malicious behavior. Fortunately, ICASI has not yet seen this attack method used maliciously nor have any devices been created to initiate this type of attack.

Exploiting the KNOB vulnerability would also be difficult because both devices need to be Bluetooth BR/EDR, the attacker would need to be within range of the devices while they establish a connection and the attack would also need to be repeated every time the devices paired. The Bluetooth specification has also been updated to recommend a minimum encryption key length of seven octets for BR/EDR connections to resolve this vulnerability.

Via Bleeping Computer

Go to Source