Super Mario Run will require always-on internet connection to play.

Nintendo and Mario’s first experience on the mobile platform, which has grown drastically in the few years, isn’t as well received as anyone expected. The game will require a constant internet connection to be played. This has upset a high number of people, from hardcore Mario fans to even more casual gamers.

The new Super Mario Run game for mobile platforms isn’t even out yet and still managed to upset gamers. The fact that the game will require an always-on internet connection was first announced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario, during a recent interview.

He explained that the constant connection is required because developers had a hard time offering the game’s World Tour single-player mode as offline. This is due to the fact that the mode is linked with the other two modes, Mushroom Kingdom and Toad Rally.

Basically, the Toad Rally mode needs to access the scores and various other play data of players. This information can only be downloaded from a server. Additionally, the Mushroom Kingdom mode includes a purchase verification as the players will buy in-game items with their coins. This verification cannot be possible without a constant internet connection.

Miyamoto has stated that Nintendo will continue to work on the game and hopes to develop a way to make the World Tour single-player mode available even during offline play. However, the relation between the different game modes is not the only reason for implementing the always-on internet connection measure.

Nintendo considers that through their constant internet connection, they will be able to monitor the game’s version. Doing this, they hope to prevent the piracy of the game as well as maintain the security of players’ data.

As expected the news of an internet connection being required to play the game has upset many players. Additionally, Nintendo seems to be missing the point of a mobile game which many phone users play mostly when they don’t have an internet connection. A huge demographic of the game consists of young children playing the game on offline devices. The success of the game will also depend on its quality though Nintendo should be familiar with touch controls for their games.

What do you think about the always-on internet connection for Super Mario Run?

Image source: Flickr

Nissan self-driving cars are towing other cars at their Japan factory.

Many tech and car companies are testing their autonomous car technology for its eventual commercial release, some in more controlled conditions than others. However, it seems that Nissan is using the self-driving cars they have developed to tow other cars around in one of their factories in Japan.

Nissan, a well-known Japanese automaker isn’t going to be outdone by other companies in the race to release the first commercial autonomous cars. For this purpose, they have begun testing the current level of their technology on a number of Leaf electric cars which are used at their Oppama Plant in Japan transport other cars on a trailer to the wharf, after which they will be loaded onto transport ships.

Nissan believes that testing self-driving technology in this manner will help shipping companies save money as well as boost efficiency. The company’s tests are also used to collect data and knowledge on how to make cars adequately safe for general use on public roads.

Nissan hopes to use the technology for their Oppama plant by 2019, after which if it does prove highly beneficial, to implement it in the rest of their factories across the world. However, at this point, the company still has to resolve the various issues of the self-driving technology. During the media demonstration event, one car did have some troubles as it refused to move.

Nissan quickly acknowledged the issue, with Kazuhiro Doi, vice-president of the company, stating these types of glitches are unique challenges to the self-driving car technology which removes the human drivers for mechanical operations.

Currently, at their Oppama Plant, Nissan only has two self-driving Leaf cars. However, in order to autonomously tow all the vehicles produced there, the company needs another five such vehicles. Also, at this point, human drivers are still required to get into each towed vehicle to drive them up to their specified wharf.

The driverless towing tests taken place in Japan is the results of Nissan’s partnership with Renault SA of France. Although a media demonstration was only recent made available, the cars started towing operations since last year.

What do you think about Nissan’s towing tests using self-driving cars?

Image source: Wikimedia

MIT AI is able to imagine the future of still images through videos.

Despite the capacity of artificial intelligence for learning which has enabled advanced in various technologies, AI is still not fully able to imitate our brain’s power of imagination. An AI can have a hard time forming images, sensations, and ideas if they a lack a direct input. However, this may very well change thanks to MIT researchers who developed AI who is able to imagine the future of still images by producing videos.

A team of researchers from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT, led by Carl Vondrick, managed to create a deep learning algorithm that after examining still images of various objects, people, and environments, it creates videos showing what it thinks might happen in the future of each still image like the picture of train station expecting a train to arrive.

Vondrick also collaborated with MIT professor Antonio Torralba and Hamed Pirsiavash from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Although they are not the first ones to try this sort of AI innovation, their algorithm adds new techniques like the capacity to process an entire scene at once.

Their work is detailed in a paper which will be presented at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in Barcelona, taking place next week. They reveal that developing the AI’s capacity for imagining the future was possible after exposing the algorithm to over 2 million videos of simple activities and scenes found throughout our daily life. Additionally, all the videos were found in the wild with no label or description to help the Ai figure out what was happening in each one.

Afterward, researchers used a method known as adversarial learning to pit an AI that could generate videos featuring a probable future of a scene based on still images, with another AI that was meant to determine and discriminate between what seems real and what is a fake video.

After repeated experiments, the video generator AI could create more increasingly realistic videos of what might happen in certain images, so much so that it was able to fool the second AI. Human subjects even deemed the imagined videos to be more realistic in 20 percent more cases.

The ability to imagine the future through videos can be used for smarter video recognition of various objects in security footage, adding animation to still images, and more.

Image credit: MIT

Students are highly susceptible to fake news, study finds.

Fake news and the dangers it poses to both people’s everyday lives as well as deciding who to vote are clear as it allows readers to act on a fictional reality. However, if you expected that students in middle school and above who are more tech-savvy than other generations wouldn’t be susceptible to fake news, well new study shows exactly the contrary.

Researchers from Stanford University questioned around more than 8,700 students from different ages groups about whether a specific news article they showed was a real and credible piece of information or just a fake one meant to misinform readers.

The study began with testing middle school students and found that a large majority of around 82 percent of them could not tell the difference between obvious fake and real news. The study also showed that middle schoolers couldn’t distinguish between a sponsored content post and a real news story based on their source. Around two-thirds of interviewed middle schoolers found no issue with a bank’s executive post about financial preparedness.

Although the ability to tell fake news apart from real news improves with age, researchers found that at the high school level it wasn’t a drastic improvement. However, the results varied with the type of post they were asked to identify. For example, 40 percent of questioned high-school students thought that the region near the Fukushima power plant in Japan was toxic after seeing just a photo with not source or location attribution of a deformed daisy featuring a title about the Japanese area.

Although this seems an improvement over the capacity of middle schoolers, not even all college students were able to identify fake news completely. Researchers think that most people are more focused on the appearance of legitimacy of a post or article rather than the quality of its information. For example, students thought that by adding a photo to a Twitter post, makes it more credible without any reference to the actual validity of its content.

New surveys found that 88 percent of people up to the age of 18 get their news from social media, with an overall 62 percent of US adults. Although tech companies have started to take measures against fake news, the true solution only lies with better education.

Have you ever fallen prey to fake news?

Image source: Pixabay

Apple saved your call history to the iCloud.

Smartphones are able to record large amounts of data about your activity including your call history. A new report shows that Apple started saving your call logs in the iCloud for some time now, without properly informing iPhone users. This allows them to easily share your private information with government agencies if they are requested to do so.

A software forensics company based in Russia, Elcomsoft have revealed that their new Phone Breaker software is able to retrieve a smartphone’s user personal call history data which was saved on iCloud. Additionally, the report also reveals that Apple has also been saving FaceTime logs. More specifically, Apple records to the iCloud detailed information such as phone numbers, the dates and times of each call you made or received, their durations. They can even keep data about your ignored or missed calls.

This situation is what most privacy experts have warned against. If Apple decides to share your personal information with government authorities, then they could easily do so thanks to their large databases of each user’s call history of up to four months. There no specific options to disable this function without directly disabling the iCloud Drive service.

According to the Elcomsoft report, the syncing of your call history to the iCloud can happen in real-time, or just in a few hours. The company’s software managed to retrieve information dating back to four months ago.

Although Apple’s actions seem like a violation of your privacy, the company only decided to implement the function for iCloud as an essential aspect of cross-device functionality. It’s doubtful that the company wants to really spy on their users. If it really did want to, then Apple should have given the FBI access to the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter. Additionally, keeping all your call history data provides a backup point in case you lose your phone.

Nonetheless, users should have the option to choose for themselves if they really want their call history and personal information to be saved on the iCloud. A change in the company’s policy about sharing information with authorities could easily occur in light of new circumstances.

What do you think about Apple saving your call history?

Nike will release the HyperAdapt self-lacing sneakers.

In a bid to satisfy the fans of Back to the Future by developing the technologies we saw in the movie, Nike has developed self-lacing sneakers. They initially gave the special edition Nike Mag shoes to a raffle contest for Michael J. Fox’s foundation which fights against Parkinson’s disease.

Now, the company has announced that it will publicly release a new edition of the much sought after self-lacing sneakers called the HyperAdapt. It was initially reported that will cost you around $1,000. However, a company spokesperson clarified the report by stating the actual price of $720 as well confirming December 1^st as the official release date of the new shoes.

Although the actual price is somewhat cheaper, the shoes are still the most expensive sneakers that Nike has ever released. The company is confident that the self-lacing technology will attract the attention of many people, despite the design being relatively common.

The new Nike HyperAdapt will include cable as well as pressure sensors meant to adjust its laces depending on the wearer’s feet. You can always adjust the tightness of the laces by pressing integrated button near the tongue of the shoe. Besides its characteristic laces or lack thereof, the HyperAdapt will also feature several LED lights. They can be found on the back-end and on the sole of the shoe. The lights will be powered by a lithium-ion battery that lasts around two weeks and can be fully charged in three hours. Besides looking cool, they light also serves as battery indicators. The lights are blue on a full charge and gradually become yellow as the battery depletes, with red indicating that they need to be charged immediately.

The only pair revealed as of yet are black with white accents on Nike’s logo and the sides of the sole. The HyperAdapt is similar to a low-top, cross training type of sneaker. Its self-lacing function and LED lights can be charged through a wireless charging dock found in the sole.

It remains to be seen how many people are actually willing to spend that much cash on sneakers. Also, Nike has not yet released any details regarding the regions where the shoes will be available in. You can at least expect them in the US.

Image source: Nike

Vespa reveals their new electric scooter.

Vespa is probably the most well-known scooter manufacturer in the world. The company also enjoys a great reputation for its premium scooter with great design and functionality. Now, they have released the first images of their upcoming electric scooter. It is designed to the upcoming age of electric transportation.

Vespa is trying to once again propel itself at the top of the scooter market with their new electric scooter. Unfortunately, at the current moment has only developed a prototype which they recently made public. The actual electric scooter will go into production in early 2017 and will be available to purchase in the latter half of the same year.

The official announcement of the electric scooter was made on Tuesday by Vespa’s parent company, Piaggio. Strangely enough, it was made two days ahead of the Milan Motorcycle Show known as Esposizione Internazionale Ciclo e Motociclo (EICMA).

The official name of the new scooter is Vespa Elettrica and the only details about it are only those that we can discern from the released images. It features a full silver colored metal body with blue accents on the sides and on the rims of the wheels. Although previous Vespas were made out of steel, it is unclear if the company will go in the same direction this time.

There has been no information released regarding pricing or specs. However, Piaggio has stated that they will reveal more after the show starts. However, they also issued a statement saying that they plan to build on the success of the original Vespa Scooter. The only main difference will be the new electric system. It will retain all of the features that brought acclaim to the Vespa scooter.

Electric vehicles is a gradually increasing market. It has evolved from being just a niche product to a more mainstream one. Automakers around the world have released or plan to release an electric vehicle. With this announcement, Vespa is trying to be part of the upcoming age of the auto industry.

However, it remains to be seen how successful the Vespa Elettrica will actually be. Most of its appeal to potential customers will depend on its technical specs, more specifically its autonomy on a single charge. This feature will most likely be revealed in the next few days.

Image source: Piaggio

Atlas Recall can index all your computer activity.

If you ever wanted a digital compendium of your entire activity on a device, then you should try installing the new Atlas Recall app. The service has recently launched in open beta and it will allow users to index everything they do and see on the device the app is installed on.

Atlas Recall manages to combine different services like internet searches, browsing through your personal information, photos and files found on your computer or any other site you’ve visited, play any music you ever listened to on the device, and much more. The app will enable users to have a perfect digital memory of their entire activity.

According to the company which developed the app, Atlas Informatics and its CEO, Jordan Ritter, there are two types of searches in the internet era. One is meant to find you the things you haven’t seen or those you don’t know yet and the other is offering you the things you have seen but can’t find. Atlas Recall has been developed with fulfilling the latter function and do it in a superior way than any other app currently available.

It’s able to memorize and categorize everything you see and do on the device of your choice, be it a computer, tablet or smartphone. It will even record your activities on sites like Facebook, or apps like Outlook.

As useful as this may be, some people may be quite reticent in using this type of service, especially so when privacy leaks tend to be commonplace in our day and age. However, Atlas will not require access to any of the services your use or their APIs. The indexed information will always be encrypted no matter what you do. Also, to keep users peace of mind, they will always be in control of what type of activities and information the app remembers, as well as block and delete anything you want to.

At the core of the service lies the search engine capable of providing relevant results even with vague terms. It will also include a wide variety of filters such as time, content type or keyword. The open beta of Atlas Recall is currently available only for Mac and iOS, with a Windows 10 version available soon.

Image source: Atlas Informatics