Displays

Amid Unity Pricing Controversy, Is Epic Games Eying 'Unreal Engine' Integration for Apple's Vision Pro? (substack.com) 19

The VR blog Nifty Sparks made an interesting discovery: In a strategic move that could reshape the gaming industry, Epic Games, the creator of the widely-used Unreal Engine, is reportedly considering native integration with Apple's forthcoming Vision Pro.

The mixed-reality headset, slated for a 2024 release, could greatly benefit from this integration, but the timing of this development is particularly noteworthy, as it comes amidst ongoing legal disputes between Apple and Epic Games and a recent controversy surrounding changes to Unity's pricing structure.

Victor Lerp, Unreal Engine XR Product Specialist at Epic Games, has indicated that the company is actively exploring native support for Apple Vision Pro.

In Unreal Engine's developer forums, Lerp turned up in a thread titled "Support for Apple Vision Pro in Unreal ??" Someone had posted "Please tell me there is support coming?" and in June Lerp had first responded "We don't have any information to share at the moment, but stay tuned for the future."

But four days ago, Lerp returned to the thread with an update. "Internally we're exploring native Unreal Engine support for Apple Vision Pro, but it's too early for us to share details on the extent of support or timeline. We have access to the public SDK's like everyone else, and there's nothing fundamentally stopping us, or you, from developing support, or shipping Apple Vision Pro applications with Unreal Engine."

The VR blog notes that this follows Unreal Engine 5.2's native support for Apple Silicon Macs. And "meanwhile, Unity's recent pricing changes have led some developers to consider alternatives like UE and Godot."

Thanks to Slashdot reader NiftySparks for sharing the article.
Iphone

iPhone 15 Models Have 'Completely Standard' USB-C Port (arstechnica.com) 76

According to Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham, the iPhone 15 devices "have completely standard USB-C ports that work just fine with all existing USB 3 and USB-PD (Power Delivery) compliant cables, chargers, and accessories, just like Apple's other devices." It contradicts rumors that Apple's implementation of USB-C would limit data and charging speeds for any accessories not certified through its Made for iPhone (MFI) program. From the report: We'll still need to test the phones to know for sure how they'll behave with different things plugged into them, but all of Apple's official authentication-chip-less USB-C chargers and cables quietly had their compatibility tables updated this week to include all iPhone 15 models. That also includes chargers from third parties like Mophie and Belkin that pre-date the iPhone 15's introduction.

That's not to say that there won't be some kind of licensing program available for iPhone-compatible USB-C accessories. But fears that these cables would be required, and that the iPhone wouldn't work just fine with otherwise standards-compliant USB-C cables and chargers, were unfounded.

Businesses

Developers Respond To Unity's New Pricing Scheme (theverge.com) 107

Unity announced a new pricing model this week, charging developers per game install beyond certain thresholds. This move has faced severe backlash from developers, criticizing Unity's communication, clarity, trust issues, and perceived exploitation of indie teams. The Verge adds: Many developers and even publishers took to social media to register their anger and to call on Unity to reverse its decision. [...] "This decision puts studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles," read a post on X (formerly Twitter) from developer Aggro Crab. "If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our Unity expertise." Many developers shared a similar sentiment, explaining they were considering abandoning Unity as a game engine.

Other game developers, like Massive Monster, were more drastic, which, via the official account for its game Cult of the Lamb, threatened to delist the game entirely. Though the post was a tongue-in-cheek joke, it's one being repeated by other developers. "[Please] buy our game," posted the official Viewfinder account. "But don't install it after January 1, 2024." Other game makers wondered how Unity could put forth such a statement without considering all the ways it could negatively impact its users. According to a post on the Unity forums from someone who claimed to be an employee, objections were raised internally. "Know also that all of the concerns that are understandably blowing up at the moment have been raised internally by many weeks before this announcement," the alleged employee wrote. "Why it was decided to rush this out anyway in this way I can only speculate about."

Wireless Networking

Why Apple Put a Thread Radio In the iPhone 15 Pro (theverge.com) 56

On Tuesday, Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max featuring USB-C ports, titanium bodies, and Action Buttons. They're also the first smartphones to support the open-source smart home protocol Thread. The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy explains how Apple might deploy this wireless connectivity protocol in its ecosystem: The obvious use for Thread in the iPhone is as a Thread border router for the slew of new Apple Home and Matter-enabled Thread smart home devices from companies like Eve, Nanoleaf, and Belkin WeMo. This would mean you wouldn't have to have a HomePod Mini, Apple TV 4K, or other Thread border router to use Thread smart home gadgets with your iPhone. ... [Jonathan Hui, VP of technology at the Thread Group and a software engineer at Google] says that Thread connectivity in a smartphone will allow it to communicate directly with a Thread device. "Compared to existing smartphones without Thread, a smartphone with Thread can communicate directly with a Thread device, without relying on a separate Thread border router or any other communication technology," he said.

Another possibility with direct control is some type of trigger or presence detection. Your Thread devices could know you're home as soon as you walk into the house and respond appropriately. However, presence detection -- something the smart home sorely needs -- would be easier to do with the UWB chips already in most iPhones and HomePods (and is already being done to some extent). As an IP-based mesh protocol, Thread could be a more reliable way to connect multiple such devices to your phone while also having multiple "parent" devices within the same home (such as your iPad, MacBook, or other family member's iPhones). Its IP characteristic makes it easier to maintain a persistent data connection directly to the device, says Moneta. Additionally, Thread being mesh means your device doesn't have to be in range of the controller (iPhone/iPad etc.), as it would with Bluetooth. This could apply to Apple accessories such as the Apple Watch and third-party devices that use Bluetooth, like camera accessories and medical devices. Of course, all of those would need a Thread radio in, too, so that's not going to happen anytime soon. [...]

A popular theory in my X (formerly Twitter) feed after the Apple event was that Thread is in the iPhone 15 Pro line more or less as a freebie. It's plausible that the Wi-Fi / Bluetooth chip Apple is using in its highest-end phones comes as a sort of three-for-one: you pay for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and you get your Thread for free! Given that Apple itself doesn't seem to have a clear idea or any concrete examples of what the Thread capabilities will add (beyond a vague "opening up future opportunities for Home app integrations" statement in the iPhone 15 press release), this does seem to be the most likely reason -- for now. Although, Apple rarely does anything without some purpose in mind.

Iphone

More Countries Are Concerned About iPhone 12's Radiation Levels (reuters.com) 63

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Belgium said on Thursday it would review potential health risks linked to Apple's iPhone 12, raising the prospect that more European countries might ban the model after France ordered a halt to sales due to breaches of radiation exposure limits. However, there seemed to be no immediate prospect of an EU-wide ban as the European Commission said it would wait for feedback from other EU countries before deciding on any action. European Union member states, which were notified by the French regulator on Wednesday, have three months to provide comments. Some, such as Italy, said they would take no steps for now.

Mathieu Michel, Belgium's state secretary for digitalization told Reuters that the Belgian regulator was looking into the matter after the French moves. "We immediately asked the IBPT (Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications) for confirmation, or at least an analysis, and this is currently under way," he said. Michel also asked the regulator to review all Apple smartphones, and devices made by others, at a later stage. However, he stressed that European standards were extremely cautious and there were no immediate safety concerns. "So that's why today it's obviously a limit which is being crossed (according to the French regulator) and that's not acceptable, but in terms of health and safety, I don't think there's any reason to think that we're all going to turn into little green men."

The iPhone 12 had passed the radiation test conducted by the French agency in 2021. Germany's network regulator BNetzA reiterated that the work in France could act as a guide for Europe as a whole and that it would examine the issue for the German market if the process in France had progressed sufficiently. The Dutch digital watchdog also said it was looking into the matter and would ask the U.S. firm for an explanation, while stressing there was "no acute safety risk." Portugal's telecommunications regulator ANACOM said it was monitoring and analyzing developments in coordination with France, and expected one of the two likely outcomes: Apple correcting the situation or, failing that, Brussels telling EU member states "to adopt proportional measures." Britain, where the iPhone 12 met radiation safety standards when it was released, has not announced any plans in the wake of France's decision.

Iphone

France Halts iPhone 12 Sales Over Radiation Levels (bbc.com) 158

AmiMoJo writes: France has ordered Apple to stop selling the iPhone 12 for emitting too much electromagnetic radiation. On Tuesday, the French watchdog which governs radio frequencies also told the tech giant to fix existing phones. The ANFR has advised Apple that if it cannot resolve the issue via a software update, it must recall every iPhone 12 ever sold in the country. France's digital minister Jean-Noel Barrot told French newspaper Le Parisien the decision was due to radiation levels above the acceptable threshold, according to Reuters.

He said the ANFR found the iPhone 12's Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) was above what is legally allowed. "Apple is expected to respond within two weeks," he said. "If they fail to do so, I am prepared to order a recall of all iPhones 12 in circulation. The rule is the same for everyone, including the digital giants."

PlayStation (Games)

Sony's New PS5 Update Includes Dolby Atmos and the Ability To Mute the Startup Beep (theverge.com) 12

Sony is rolling out a big new PS5 update today, just over a month after it first started testing the changes in a beta. From a report: The update adds Dolby Atmos, lets you mute that annoying bootup beep, and even supports pairing a second controller as an assist one to let you help friends or family complete a game. Sony is also expanding its PS Remote Play app to Google's Chromecast with Google TV (4K), allowing you to stream games from a PS5 or PS4 to Android TV OS 12 devices. The Dolby Atmos support comes in the form of Sony's 3D Audio implementation (Tempest 3D AudioTech). It's compatible with Dolby Atmos devices like sound bars, TVs, or home theater systems. Media apps like Netflix can also update their apps on PS5 soon to support Dolby Atmos audio.

You can now mute the PS5 beep sound that chirps when you turn the console on or off, or even when it goes into rest mode after being idle. If you just want to adjust the volume of the beep there's now an option for that, too. One of the most useful additions is the ability to use a second DualSense controller for assistance. "You can now assign a second controller to one account as an assist controller, and use two controllers to operate your PS5 console as if you were using a single controller," explains Hideaki Nishino, senior vice president of platform experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment. "This feature introduces a new way for you to enjoy games collaboratively with others or help a friend or child navigate a particularly challenging section of a game."

Iphone

Apple is Killing the iPhone's Silent Switch (techcrunch.com) 66

The ring/silent switch has been on the iPhone since the very first one was announced in 2007 by Steve Jobs, but now the writing is on the wall for the device's last significant moving part. From a report: With its replacement by a haptic "action button," it's just a matter of time before the rest of the lineup is as smooth as a pebble from the river. At today's iPhone event, the no doubt long-contemplated change was announced with little fanfare, selling the new button as a customizable shortcut to anything the user wants. Launch the camera, or an assistance feature, or a particular app, etc. Seems useful in some ways, especially for accessibility. But I mourn the loss of this switch the way I do every time they compromise the hardware design of Apple devices. Removing TouchID is one such choice I still hold out hope they will reverse. The haptic touchpads in MacBooks is not something I enjoy compared to the actual depression of the originals, though it's probably a net benefit repair-wise. The attempt to unify under a single port was unsuccessful in everything but driving dongle sales. They have tried and failed to kill the magnetic power connector.
China

China Flags 'Security Incidents' With Apple's iPhones (bloomberg.com) 40

China flagged security problems with iPhones while saying it isn't barring purchases, the government's first comments on the topic after news reports that authorities are moving to restrict the use of Apple products in sensitive departments and state-owned companies. From a report: "We noticed that there have been many media reports about security incidents concerning Apple phones," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, without elaborating. China plans to expand a ban on the use of iPhones to a plethora of state-backed companies and agencies, Bloomberg News has reported, a sign of growing challenges for Apple in its biggest foreign market and global production base. Several agencies have begun instructing staff not to bring their iPhones to work. "China has not issued laws and regulations to ban the purchase of Apple or foreign brands' phones," Mao said, adding that the government attaches "great importance" to security and that all companies operating in China need to abide by its laws and regulations.
Businesses

Unity Rushes To Clarify Price Increase Plan, as Game Developers Fume (axios.com) 71

Unity, the tech company behind one of the most popular engines for creating video games, is scrambling to clarify how a price increase for its services will work, after its announcement Tuesday morning broadly infuriated the game development community. From a report: The fees, which Unity said are essential for funding development of its tech, left many game makers wondering if having a hit game through Unity would cost them more money than they could make. Developers spoke throughout the day of delaying their games to switch to rival Epic Games' Unreal Engine or other services on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. But by the evening, Unity exec Marc Whitten was updating Axios on the policies, potentially defusing some concerns raised by game creators.

The new "Runtime Fee" announced Tuesday morning is tied to a player's installations of a game, an action that previously didn't cost developers anything. With Unity's new plan, developers who use Unity's free tier of development services would owe Unity $0.20 per installation once their game hit thresholds of 200,000 downloads and earn $200,000 in revenue. Developers paying over $2,000 a year for a Unity Pro plan would have to hit higher thresholds and would be charged with lower fees. The newfee system will begin at the start of 2024. [...] After initially telling Axios earlier Tuesday that a player installing a game, deleting it and installing it again would result in multiple fees, Unity's Whitten told Axios that the company would actually only charge for an initial installation. (A spokesperson told Axios that Unity had "regrouped" to discuss the issue.) He hoped this would allay fears of "install-bombing," where an angry user could keep deleting and re-installing a game to rack up fees to punish a developer.

Iphone

Apple Launches iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max Featuring Titanium Bodies (theverge.com) 101

Apple just announced its new high-end iPhones: the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. The Verge: They're made of titanium, they have Action Buttons, and Apple promises they're the most powerful smartphones Apple has ever made. The 15 Pro starts at $999 with 128GB of storage, and the Pro Max at $1,199 with 256GB of storage. Both will be available for preorder this Friday and on sale September 22nd. This year's Pro has a 6.1-inch screen, and the Pro Max has a 6.7-inch display -- same as the new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. Both are powered by the A17 Pro chip, which Apple says has the fastest performance in any smartphone and can even challenge some high-end PCs. Along with a redesigned GPU, Apple seems to think these devices could be poised to level up the kinds of games you can play on your phone.
Iphone

Apple Announces iPhone 15 with USB-C (theverge.com) 191

Apple has just announced the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, and the big news is a USB-C port. From a report: We've been waiting for the day that the iPhone would switch to the widely used USB-C standard instead of Apple's proprietary Lightning connector. Apple confirmed last year that it would make the change to USB-C to comply with the European Union's upcoming regulations, and the iPhone 15 is now the first iPhone to make the switch. The iPhone 15 is priced starting at $799 for a 128GB model and the iPhone 15 Plus starts at $899 for a 128GB version.

USB-C is good news, but if you were hoping for a totally new iPhone 15 design, well, that's not happening this year. This year's iPhone looks largely the same as the iPhone 14 before it, with the iPhone 15 continuing to use a 6.1-inch display. All models of the iPhone 15 will come with the Dynamic Island. That's the pill-shaped cutout that first debuted on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, providing a new way to see certain notifications and interact with apps. The iPhone 15 also has an OLED Super Retina display, which supports Dolby Vision content with 1,600 nits of brightness. The peak brightness of this display is 2,000 nits in sunlight, double that of the iPhone 14.

Businesses

Nokia Phone Maker HMD is Launching Its Own Smartphone Brand (theverge.com) 18

HMD Global, the Finnish company best known for producing Nokia-branded smartphones, has revealed plans to launch its own line of mobile devices. From a report: On Monday, HMD Global CEO Jean-Francois Baril announced on Linkedin that the company will be expanding its portfolio with a new HMD brand that will co-exist alongside its Nokia phones and collaborations with "exciting new partners" that have yet to be disclosed. "It has been a great journey as 'HMD -- the home of Nokia phones' -- an exclusive position we have held for the past six years," said Baril. "Now we are ready for the next step on our journey -- to enter the market independently as a force to create a new world for telecommunications focused on consumer needs."
Cellphones

Huawei Shocks With Advanced New Smartphone Built With South Korean Memory Chips (cnn.com) 67

Huawei's launch last week of the Mate 60 Pro smartphone "shocked industry experts," reports CNN, who didn't understand how Huawei "would have the ability to manufacture such an advanced smartphone following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China's access to foreign chip technology."

And in a related note, CNN adds that South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix "is investigating how two of its memory chips mysteriously ended up inside the Mate 60 Pro, a controversial smartphone launched by Huawei last week." Shares in Hynix fell more than 4% on Friday after it emerged that two of its products, a 12 gigabyte (GB) LPDDR5 chip and 512 GB NAND flash memory chip, were found inside the Huawei handset by TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, which took the phone apart for analysis. "The significance of the development is that there are restrictions on what SK Hynix can ship to China," G Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, told CNN. "Where do these chips come from? The big question is whether any laws were violated."

A Hynix spokesperson told CNN Friday that it was aware of its chips being used in the Huawei phone and had started investigating the issue.

The company "no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the U.S. restrictions against the company," it said in a statement... Industry insiders said it was possible that Huawei had purchased the memory chips from the secondary market and not directly from the manufacturer. It's also possible Huawei may have had a stockpile of components accumulated before the U.S. export curbs kicked in fully.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear for sharing the news.
Crime

Cheating in Tennis: How Cellphone Records Revealed a Massive Match-Fixing Ring (msn.com) 37

"On the morning of his arrest, Grigor Sargsyan was still fixing matches. Four cellphones buzzed on his nightstand with calls and messages from around the world.... The information on his devices would provide a remarkable window into what has become the world's most manipulated sport, according to betting regulators. Thousands of texts, gambling receipts and bank transfers laid out Sargsyan's ascent in remarkable detail..."

That's part one of a two-part story in which more than 181 tennis players are involved, and from more than 30 countries, fixing more than 375 professional tennis matches. The Washington Post reveals the years-long investigation that began when Belgium's gambling commission tipped off their federal prosecutor's office to "irregular wagers on obscure tennis matches played around the world."

The breakthrough came with geolocation data on a cellphone, cross-referenced against the the names of people who'd recently flown to that country... The bets were made in small towns in the Flemish countryside. The gamblers appeared to be acting on inside information; they consistently won even when they bet against steep odds... [Nicolas Borremans, a 45-year-old police investigator based in the Flanders region of Belgium] knew little about sports. He had never watched an entire tennis match. But even a cursory description of the case was enough for him to see how a gambling operation might be used to launder money...

Within a few months, he had traced the accounts of four men who had placed suspicious bets in Belgium, all Armenian immigrants. Their wagers were mostly small — a few hundred euros each — ostensibly to avoid scrutiny. Almost all of the bets were on low-level professional tennis tournaments, where players earned barely enough to pay for their travel. Borremans secured wiretaps on the gamblers' phones, and a team of Armenian interpreters listened in. It became clear that the gamblers were working for someone. They received detailed instructions about which matches to bet on. They weren't gambling just on the outcomes, but on specific scores for sets and games... Borremans added more gamblers to his diagram. "Money mules," he called them. Eventually, he would uncover 1,671 accounts at gambling establishments across Europe. Many were registered by working-class Armenians: mechanics, a pizza deliveryman, a taxi driver.

While the tennis tour "has in recent months issued a raft of bans and suspensions," the article points out that the scale of the gambler/tennis player network "has remained a secret until now, in part because the tour is still working on active investigations related to the operation." (The professional tennis tour has its own investigation unit "formed in part because of pervasive allegations of match-fixing in the sport," which assisted the Belgian police.)

The operation's "maestro" had tried to evade investigators. (One French player received his payment in 21 separate transfers from Armenia.) The maestro also gave the tennis players anonymously-registered SIM cards for communication. But unfortunately, the article points out, every professional tennis player "signs a contract agreeing to hand their phones over to tennis investigators at any time if required." Soon investigators were reading the mastermind's text messages — and even wiretapping his phone calls to his mother.

His phone's search history would later offer a glimpse into his life and concerns. Sargsyan scoured the internet for references to himself and his players ("maestro tennis," "match fixing tennis hossam"); he did some broader research into his world ("tennis corruption," "armenian mafia"); he searched for ways to spend his new fortune ("escort geneve," "villa rent close port mallorca") But, mostly, he searched for new bookmakers ("croatia betting shop," "usa betting," "mybet Australia").
Caught in the investigation were Sebastian Rivera, the Chilean coach based in the United States, and Slovakian tennis player Dagmara Baskova (who says she was paid 10,000 euros for each thrown match). Another French player told investigators "Since 2015, I estimate that I have accepted to deliberately lose or manipulate the outcome of 20 to 30 matches for Maestro, both in singles and doubles." Some tennis players infuriated the maestro by tipping off other gamblers about their plans to throw matches.

Leaving the courtroom for his own trial, the maestro gave this response to the Post reporter asking how he felt about the courtroom proceedings. "If the prosecutor knew what I know, there would be many more people on trial." Later the maestro was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, money laundering, and leading a criminal organization.
Games

Meet the Guy Preserving the New History of PC Games, One Linux Port At a Time (404media.co) 21

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Historically, video game preservation efforts usually cover two types of games. The most common are very old or "retro" games from the 16-bit era or earlier, which are trapped on cartridges until they're liberated via downloadable ROMs. The other are games that rely on a live service, like Enter the Matrix's now unplugged servers or whatever games you can only get by downloading them via Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel, which shut down in 2019. But time keeps marching on and a more recent era of games now needs to be attended to if we still want those games to be accessible: indies from the late aughts to mid twenty-teens. That's right. Fez, an icon of the era and indie games scene, is now more than a decade old. And while we don't think of this type of work until we need it, Fez, which most PC players booted on Windows 7 when it first came out, is not going to magically run on your Windows 11 machine today without some maintenance.

The person doing that maintenance, as well as making sure that about 70 of the best known indie games from the same era keep running, is Ethan Lee. He's not as well known as Fez's developer Phil Fish, who was also the subject of the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, but this week Lee started publicly marketing the service he's been quietly providing for over 11 years: maintenance of older games. "The way that I've been pitching it is more of like, the boring infrastructure," he said. "Let's make sure the current build works, whereas a lot of times, people feel like the only way to bring a game into a new generation is to do a big remaster. That's cool, but wouldn't have been cool if Quake II just continued to work between 1997 and now without all the weird stuff in between? That's sort of why I've been very particular about the word maintenance, because it's a continuous process that starts pretty much from the moment that you ship it."

As he explains in his pitch to game developers: "the PC catalog alone has grown very large within the last 15 years, and even small independent studios now have an extensive back catalog of titles that players can technically still buy and play today! This does come at a cost, however: The longer a studio exists, the larger their catalog grows, and as a result, the maintenance burden also grows." Just a few of the other indie games Lee ported include Super Hexagon, Proteus, Rogue Legacy, Dust: An Elysian Tail, TowerFall Ascension, VVVVVV, Transistor, Wizorb, Mercenary Kings, Hacknet, Shenzhen I/O, and Bastion. [...] With the PC, people assume that once a game is on Windows, it can live on forever with future versions of Windows. "In reality, what makes a PC so weird is that there's this big stack of stuff. You have an x86 processor, the current-ish era of like modern graphics processors, and then you have the operating system running on top of that and its various drivers," Lee said. A change to any one of those layers can make a game run badly, or not at all.

Nintendo

Nintendo Demoed Switch 2 To Developers at Gamescom (eurogamer.net) 27

An anonymous reader shares a report: In Cologne last month, Nintendo's public Gamescom showfloor booth let you play Pikmin 4 and Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But behind the scenes, the company had more up its sleeves. Developer presentations for Switch 2 took place behind closed doors, Eurogamer understands, with partners shown tech demos of how well the system is designed to run.

One Switch 2 demo is a souped up version of Switch launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild, designed to hit the Switch 2's beefier target specs. (To be clear, though - this is just a tech demo. There's no suggestion the game will be re-released.) Nintendo is yet to publicly discuss plans for its inevitable Switch successor, though its new hardware is widely-expected to launch at some point in 2024. Word that it is now being shown to external developers comes as details have begun to emerge around when we may see the system launch.

IOS

iPhone and iPad Apps Will Be Available In the Vision Pro App Store By Default (theverge.com) 8

The App Store for Apple's Vision Pro headset will include all compatible iPhone and iPad apps "by default." The Verge reports: In an update on Tuesday, Apple said it will release the new App Store with the developer beta of visionOS this fall. Both iPad and iPhone apps will appear alongside visionOS apps in the new App Store. As Apple has said previously, it will automatically import iOS and iPadOS apps to its new mixed reality operating system "with no additional work required." Developers can still optimize their apps if needed.

"By default, your iPad and/or iPhone apps will be published automatically on the App Store on Apple Vision Pro," Apple notes. "Most frameworks available in iPadOS and iOS are also included in visionOS, which means nearly all iPad and iPhone apps can run on visionOS, unmodified." Developers also have the option of building an app for Vision Pro using Apple's visionOS software development kit.

Games

Starfield's Missing Nvidia DLSS Support Added By a Mod - With DRM (arstechnica.com) 48

tlhIngan writes: Starfield, a Bethesda space-based RPG that was recently released, was criticized for not having Nvidia DLSS support -- instead the game was primarily written to feature AMD's FSR support. This isn't too surprising since the major consoles all use AMD processors and GPUs. However, an enterprising modder created a mod that enables players with Nvidia cards to enable DLSS. This isn't the unusual bit -- the mod makes DLSS2 (ca. 2020) available for free, while the version enabling DLSS3 (which adds the ability to use AI to generate frames in-between) is behind a Patreon paywall. This has lead to several other people to crack the DRM protecting the mod itself (note: this is not the DRM on the game itself -- the game's Steam page doesn't seem to imply use of 3rd party DRM beyond Steam). Imagine that -- DRM on a game mod because it requires payment.
Youtube

YouTube's Latest Experiment is Playing Games (theverge.com) 21

YouTube is trying out games as its next experimental offering. The company is adding a new "Playables" section on the site that will include games that can be played on both the desktop website and mobile devices. From a report: Playables will only appear for "a limited number of users to start," and there was no list of game titles published at this time. 9to5Google reports that one of the games to grace the new YouTube Playables experiment includes Stack Bounce, which involves a 3D ball bouncing on top of rings you must smash through with well-timed clicks. If you've heard of the game before, it's because Google already offers it on its minigames service, GameSnacks.

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