Google is working on diversifying the languages it uses in Search results to display information in more than one language, as first reported by Android Police.
The new experiment is starting with the Hindi language in India, but could soon be developed to support multilingual queries in French and English in Canada.
In a majorly multilingual market like India, Google has found that users prefer viewing Search results that are linguistically dynamic, and not just presented in the same language as the searched keyword.
Although users can find Search results in different languages, it either requires you to search for their query in the language they’re looking for the result in or change their device’s language outright.
At our eighth #GoogleForIndia, we shared the progress that we, along with our partners have made to bring you more AI-based innovations that are India-first and India-focussed.
What the company is doing now in India is making Search bilingual, regardless of the language your search keyword are in. “To make it easier for people who use more than one language to seek and explore information, we’re now making search results pages bilingual, for people who prefer it that way,” reads Google’s blog about the functionality. “Using advanced machine learning-based translation models and a cross-language search technology, we’ll serve you high-quality and relevant content in your local language alongside English results, if that’s how you choose to view them.”
The functionality has rolled out in Hindi, with Google intending to expand the feature to other Indian languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali, in the coming year.
The feature is likely to be tested in India for a while before it makes its way to other bi/multilingual countries like Canada.
The U.K. government makes password sharing of streaming services illegal, a fan reverse-engineered the 1995 Star Wars games, and artists are revolting against AI art.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Wednesday, December 21, and I am your host, Samira Balsara.
Yesterday, the UK government Intellectual Property Office (IPO) issued a new piracy guidance, suggesting that people who share their Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney Plus passwords are potentially violating copyright law, TorrentFreak reported. In March 2017, Netflix tweeted; “Love is sharing a password”. Clearly this did not age very well, as this year, Netflix reported a significant slump in revenue, and password sharing is particularly to be blamed for limiting the number of new subscribers. Password sharing is almost always illegal in a streaming platform’s terms of service and watchdogs paint it as such. IPO said to TorrentFreak that some provisions in criminal and civil law may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright protected works without payment. However, the bar for criminality is very low as using the services of a members’ club without paying is cited as an example of fraud in the UK.
1995 Star Wars Dark Forces game does not look like much today, given modern standards, but brought significant technical innovations to the first person shooter genre, an Engadget report explained. Revisiting 90s games is challenging and enthusiasts would have to buy a digital copy of the game from Steam or GOG and use DOSBox to run it on a modern computer. LuciusDXL however launched The Force Engine (TFE) to reverse-engineer LucasArts’ proprietary Jedi Engine and make the two games that were built with it–Dark Forces and 1997’s Outlaws–easier to run on modern systems. The Force Engine, version 1.0 is compatible with both the GOG and Steam versions of Dark Forces. Once you’ve installed the software, it will automatically detect the game’s executable, and you can start playing without needing to do things like adjusting cycles in DOSBox. The Force Engine also adds several features to make the games more attractive, such as widescreen resolutions, mouselook support, save system and more.
Artists are revolting against AI-generated art on Artstation. The platform, owned by Epic Games, allows game, film, media and entertainment artists to showcase their portfolio. Artists started protesting by spam posting the same image that reads No to AI Generated Image. Artists pointed out that AI-generated images were being featured on the platform’s main explore page and that the juxtaposition of AI art against theirs is degrading to their skill. ArtStation released a FAQ, in response, regarding AI artwork on its platform where it defended the inclusion of AI-generated works on its platform. The company stated that its “content guidelines do not prohibit the use of AI in the process of artwork being posted.”
Scientists in Australia have identified a molecule that activates receptors in similar ways as insulin, thereby opening possibilities towards uncovering oral alternatives for insulin shots for people with diabetes. According to New Atlas, progress was long hindered by the instability of the hormone in the insulin pill and its inability to pass through the digestive tract without being broken down. Scientists have therefore developed biocompatible packaging to protect the pill from digestive enzymes and oral capsules that inject insulin through microneedles. They claim that these findings solve the mystery of whether unrelated molecules can mimic the role of insulin and will help explore ways to control the signaling of insulin receptors.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Samira Balsara.
In 2019, writer-director Rian Johnson delighted audiences with his thoroughly entertaining comedy-mystery film, Knives Out.
Now, he’s back with a standalone sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The new movie once again stars Daniel Craig as comically accented detective Benoit Blanc — this time as he works to solve a murder on a billionaire’s private island.
Like its predecessor, Glass Onion features a star-studded ensemble cast that includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom, Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline.
However, unlike the first Knives Out, Glass Onion only played in select theatres for one week in November. Otherwise, the movie will begin streaming exclusively on Netflix on December 23rd. This is part of Netflix’s larger deal with original Knives Out distributor Lionsgate to acquire Glass Onion and one more sequel for $450 million USD (around $612 million CAD).
Glass Onion premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September to significant critical acclaim, with some even saying it’s better than the original.
It’s crazy to think that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt came out over seven years ago. At the time, I’d recently been laid off (RIP Future Shop) and jumped at the chance to lose myself in an expansive open-world. And boy, did it deliver, becoming one of my favourite games of all time.
Now, developer CD Projekt Red has given the last-gen RPG a fresh coat of paint on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S via a free update to Wild Hunt‘s Complete Edition. It couldn’t have come at a better time, too — as one of many people who felt burned by the studio’s mishandling of its most recent game, Cyberpunk 2077, there’s a lovely comfort in revisiting something so beloved, especially with a bevy of current-gen enhancements and bug fixes.
And after nearly 200 hours across the main game and its Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions (which are all included in the Complete Edition), the update has me finding even more enjoyment with the whole experience.
If you’re unfamiliar, Wild Hunt follows Geralt of Rivia, a magically enhanced monster hunter known as a witcher, who must find his adopted Ciri before the spectral warriors called The Wild Hunt. It’s a magnificently well-written tale that takes Geralt across the fantastical world of the Continent and embroils him in all kinds of fascinating political intrigue. The exceptional writing extends to the game’s many sidequests, which feel as high-quality as the main story missions and, as a result, flesh out the world even more. This all remains true in 2022, but it’s the technical improvements that have me falling in love once again with CDPR’s magnum opus, making it easily worth the time sink.
Like a lot of current-gen games, you now have a few graphical options, ranging from a 60fps performance mode with dynamic 4K resolution scaling and a 4K/30fps option with ray-tracing. The latter setting offers admittedly impressive lighting and shadow effects, but the trade-off for the reduced framerate ultimately wasn’t worth it for me.
But the 60fps performance mode is an absolute delight, adding a wonderful new level of smoothness to traversal and combat. On top of these options, CDPR has cleaned up several other aspects of the presentation, including crisper and more detailed character models, reworked foliage, richer foliage, a new ‘Gray Sky’ weather type and higher crowd density. Some fan-made mods have also been brought over from the PC version for further enhancements. The end result is something that looks and feels like a modern game, especially when you factor in how dense and NPC-heavy the world can be.
But beyond that, it actually encouraged me to play a bit differently. Admittedly, I sometimes rush through areas to get to the next quest or cutscene, in part because the experience is grabbing me but also because I just want to get to the next game in my ever-growing backlog. With the new Wild Hunt update, though, I found myself going through the Continent more methodically, even after I’d taken the time to initially take note of what’s improved.
I wanted to live and breathe in this world and soak in all of its refreshingly distinct Slavic-inspired touchstones, from the musky, sweltering swamps and lush, colourful forestry to the lively, bustling medieval cities. It’s a testament to the quality of both the original world design and the presentational overhaul that I felt this added layer of immersion. (The new photo mode is the perfect way to capture all this beauty.)
Gameplay-wise, CDPR has also made some smart changes. On a base level, there are new control and camera options to tweak how Geralt feels while moving, a nice way to address some complaints of clunky handling in the original game. But the bigger, more profound change is the utility of magic, known here as ‘Signs.’ As a witcher, Geralt can cast five basic Signs: Aard (a telekinetic blast), Axii (a Jedi mind trick-esque confusion spell), Igni (projectile fire), Yrden (slows down the enemy) and Quen (a temporary protective shield). In the original version of Wild Hunt, you would have to pull open a radial wheel to toggle equipped Signs, which could definitely slow the pace of battles.
Fight for Ciri. Fight to protect the helpless. Fight for principles. Fight as you were taught in a manner worthy of a witcher from the School of the Wolf 🐺
With the update, you can enable ‘Quick Sign Casting,’ which allows you to assign a spell to your controller’s face buttons and bring them using L2. My muscle memory had gotten accustomed to the wheel, but once I got the hang of the streamlined control option, it was a genuine revelation. All told, it significantly adds to the rhythm of the core combat, which is admittedly not terribly deep from a mechanical standpoint.
The layers instead came from how you respond to the staggeringly high number of enemies you encounter, like reading up on a monster’s strengths and weaknesses and brewing the necessary potions to counter that. That’s all still there, of course, but now you’re also encouraged to more actively switch between your Signs, making the already balletic swordplay feel more dynamic and engaging. For example, Yrden’s circular area of effect makes it effective for crowd control, but sometimes you just want to switch to Igni which, when upgraded, can have Geralt shooting a stream of flame out of fingers and incinerate foes.
Another noteworthy addition is a new questline that, upon completion, unlocks a set of armour inspired by Henry Cavill’s Geralt in Netflix’s The Witcher series. I could never get into the show, but it’s an undeniably cool way to add even more value to the update while paying homage to a popular part of The Witcher franchise. If nothing else, there’s a real novelty in hearing Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle reprise the role for some more charming and gravelly lines of dialogue.
In the end, I’ve really enjoyed my time with The Witcher 3‘s ‘next-gen’ update. From the litany of technical improvements to the small-but-meaningful gameplay additions, this really feels like a low-key remaster of an all-time great RPG. That CDPR is offering all of this for free is just brilliant, as it’s easy to see how other publishers would have sold this separately or even charged a small fee to upgrade. Whether you’re someone who’s never played The Witcher 3 or are an avid fan like I am, this update makes it absolutely worth your while to plan a trip to the Continent.
Xbox has announced that High on Life, the latest title from Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland’s Squanch Games, has set three Xbox Game Pass records.
In a blog post, the gaming giant confirmed that the comedic sci-fi shooter, which hit Xbox consoles and PC on December 12th, is the biggest Game Pass launch of any third-party title to date, the biggest Game Pass release of 2022 and the biggest single-player launch in Game Pass history. Xbox says these stats are based on the number of hours played in the first five days of release.
Having any new IP hit a milestone like this is significant in and of itself, but High on Life‘s success is especially notable since the game was originally set to release on Google Stadia, as reported in June by Axios‘ Stephen Totillo. We’ve since learned that Google’s struggling game streaming platform is officially set to shutter next month, so Squanch Games certainly dodged a bullet with this one.
In High on Life, players assume the role of a teenage bounty hunter who must use living weapons to save Earth from an alien invasion. As a Roiland-produced project, the game also has a ton of Rick and Morty-esque humour, although that’s proven to be a bit divisive so far.
Xbox Game Pass costs $11.99/month or $16.99 for Game Pass Ultimate, which includes Game Pass for console and PC, EA Play, Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Every month, Amazon adds several new series and movies to its streaming service, Prime Video and January 2023 will be no different.
Below is everything set to hit and leave Prime Video in Canada. Amazon also shared several featured titles coming to Prime Video Channels, which are add-on channels with additional content for extra subscription fees (they’re noted below):
January 4th
Nos Étes: Season 1-4
January 6th
LOL: Qui Le Dernier? (Amazon Original)
The Rig: Season 1 (Amazon Original)
Payback (Exclusive Content)
January 13th
Hunters: Season 2 (Amazon Original)
The Test: Season 2 (Amazon Original)
January 15th
A Dash of Love
The Perfect Bride
All Things Valentine
The Story of Us
Love, Once and Always
Date with Love
January 20th
The Legend of Vox Machine: Season 2 (Amazon Orignal))
Detective Knight: Independence
Marquerite Volant: Season 1
January 27th
Shotgun Wedding (Amazon Orignal)
Jeepers Creepers: Reborn
Good Rivals (Amazon Original)
Lupin vs Cats Eye
Alan Patridge – Stratagem
Leaving Prime Video
Maid in Manhattan (January 1st)
Fury (January 1st)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (January 1st)
Zombieland (January 1st)
Catch and Release (January 1st)
Bing (January 6th)
Parks and Recreation (January 8th)
A Quiet Place Part II (January 13th)
Being Erica (January 14th)
Nancy Drew (January 21st)
Charmed (January 28th)
Coming to Prime Video Channel
Mayfair Witches: Season 1 (AMC+ – January 5th)
BMF: Season 2 (Starz – January 6th)
The King’s Daughter (Starz – January 20th)
Vera: Season 12 (BritBox – January 22nd)
Married at First Sight: Season 16 (StackTV – January 5th)
Fantasy Island: Season 2 (StackTV – January 3rd)
Mayor of Kingstown: Season 2 (Paramount+ January 15th)
The Bachelor: Season 26 (Citytv+ – January 24th)
Poker Face: Season 1 (Citytv+ – January 26th)
Last month, Apple announced that it will launch a MLS Season Pass in more than 100 countries on February 1st, 2023.
The Season Pass would be available directly through the Apple TV app on Apple TV set-top boxes, smart TVs, video game consoles and more, and would allow users to stream every MLS regular-season game, the playoffs and the Leagues Cup live with no regional blackouts.
Until now, the schedule for the MLS games was unknown, but Apple has revealed the full schedule of the 2023 MLS Season Pass for those watching on the Apple TV app.
A majority of the 2023 MLS Season Pass will be broadcasted on Saturdays, with some matches taking place on “select Wednesdays” at 7:30pm local time.
The MLS Season Pass launch on February 1st, 2023 will mark the first day off a decade-long partnership between Apple and the MLS, and is part of a broader strategy by Apple to offer more live sports through its Apple TV streaming app.
The MLS Season Pass is set to cost $99 USD (about $134 CAD) per season or $14.99 USD (roughly $20 CAD) per month. Apple hasn’t revealed the official Canadian pricing for the service yet.
Notable leaker ShimpApplePro has shared that Apple is reportedly testing a build of the Apple TV app for Android smartphones.
There’s no timeline for release, but the Apple TV app launched in 2019 and has avoided Android phones since. Notably, you couldn’t even run the web version of the Platform on Android smartphones at launch.
At some point, that went away, and it became possible to play videos via the web, but my testing revealed spotty results.
exclusive Apple TV app is coming to Android, currently are still internal beta testing. Will soon be released. Oh Apple Music app for Android is also getting updated too.
It makes sense for Apple to release an Apple TV Android app, given the streaming app market requires volume to support it, and keeping the app off roughly half the phones worldwide considerably limits that reach.
It should also be noted that there’s an Apple TV app for Android/Google TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and almost every other device except for Android phones and Fire tablets (which run a fork of Android).
Ideally, this app will release soon, but since Apple has been sitting on it for so long, it doesn’t appear that the company will rush it out.
Apple has dropped two firmware releases for its AirTag Bluetooth tracker since November, but until now, it’s been unclear what new features were actually included in these updates.
Now, according to a new support document on Apple’s website, update ‘2.0.24‘ allows users to locate unknown AirTags via ‘Precision Finding.’ Apple first announced the feature earlier this year as an anti-stalking measure.
When an iPhone detects an unknown AirTag that’s following them, the user can now utilize Precision Finding and a sound alert to locate it and disable the device.
It’s important to point out that Precision Detection requires an iPhone 11 or later that features Apple’s U1 Ultra Wideband chip.
‘2.0.36,’ on the other hand, fixes an issue with the AirTag’s accelerometer that prevented it from activating when moving.
Similar to Apple’s AirPods, it’s not easy to update the AirTags’ firmware. The Bluetooth tracker automatically updates when connected to an iPhone, and there’s no way to push it manually.
Borrowing design cues from Hyundai’s popular electric vehicle, the car maker’s new Kona 2024 bears a striking resemblance to a smaller, and hopefully cheaper, version of the Ioniq 5.
The compact SUV, which is also available as an electric vehicle (EV), features a full-width LED headlight strip running across its entire front end and an Ioniq 5-like indent on its side, giving the car a far more aggressive look than its minor 2021-2022 redesign. On the rear, a pixelated backlight runs across the back of the car, sticking with the futuristic look the front offers and borrowing even more from the Ioniq 5’s look.
Hyundai says that the new Kona is 4.25m in length, making it 150mm longer than the 2023 version of the car. The vehicle is also slightly wider at 25mm in width with a 60mm wheelbase and 19-inch wheels.
On the inside, similar to the Ioniq 5, the 2024 Kona also features 12-inch touchscreen displays and, at least in the EV version, ample interior space. A sportier version of the car in Hyundai’s N line is also on the way.
Given how popular the Ioniq 5 has been for Hyundai, it’s not surprising that its recognizable design language is trickling down to the company’s other vehicles.
It’s unclear how much Hyundai plans to charge for the 2024 Kona, but if it can hit a price point between the $33,395 the standard version of the car costs/$44,599 starting price of the EV and the $48,999 the Ioniq 5 costs, it could be a huge seller.