Porsche knows you're probably going to compare the Mission E to Tesla's cars, and it's determined to prove that it its electric performance car is the one to beat. Company EV head Stefan Weckbach has promised that the Mission E has "reproducible" per...
YouTube's crackdown on conspiracy theories in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting has had some unintended casualties. The streaming video firm has confirmed to Bloomberg that its human moderators inadvertently removed videos and took down channel...The hype is real. This is exactly the kind of experience VR exists to deliver. But I'm going to need a lot more of it.
Imagine for a moment you are a giant spirit, your sheer mass allowing you to gaze down upon the world as though we humans were all living in dollhouses. You have the ability to interfere with our lives in small ways, but your primary task in life is to observe the story that is our existence.
That, in a nutshell, is the new PlayStation VR game Moss. You more or less observe story of Quill, a brave little mouse who is called to greatness. She's got destiny on her side and you as the hovering spirit to help her out from time to time, and what you experience in this game is the first part of her story.
Moss is more or less a side-scrolling adventure brought to Virtual Reality, presented as though you are journeying through pages in a book. The game is broken up into sections you can observe by sitting still, looking from left to right. Quill starts on one side of the screen, and you help her get to the other side. The representation isn't always left to right, but that is certainly the default. As you complete a section, you hear a page turn and the world around you changes to the next part of the scene. Rinse, repeat.
What makes each section interesting are the puzzles. Quill needs to navigate the world from the perspective of a small mouse, while you observe and help with advantages like seeing through walls and being able to stand up to see the whole area. You can peer around corners Quill cannot, and together you unlock doors and set traps and fight. Neither of you are able to do this alone, but together the puzzles are a lot of fun to play through. The ability to stand up and look around a world is incredible, and on more than one occasion gave me the unique perspective I needed to quickly solve a puzzle and move on with the story.
This is also the real opportunity to take in the art of the game. Moss is built in such a way that Quill sees everything as fairly simple and either dark or colorful through most of the game, but with your superior vantage you see a world utterly destroyed by a massive war interrupted by stunning moments of untouched simplicity and beauty.
Moss is a shining example of what makes VR gaming so special.
When I say you observe Quill, I'm being a little obtuse. You still very much control Quill with your DualShock controller, with buttons for attack and jump to generally navigate her around. But when you get to a puzzle, she uses a combination of squeaks and American Sign Language and gestures to show you how to solve the puzzle. You as the giant spirit interact with her as an equal, giving her high fives and waving to her when she waves at you, but when it comes to jumping off cliffs and fighting monsters it is very much you in control of the mouse. This split focus is a lot of fun, because you can multitask quite effectively. Your abilities are mostly limited to healing Quill and lifting heavy things when they need lifting when it comes to physically influencing the world, but by being able to see everything from your mighty vantage you can better guide Quill as you see fit.
In fact, by basically using your face as the camera angle for the third-person Quill experience in Moss, it often becomes easy to find flaws in the world this game is built on. Areas the developers have arbitrarily stopped you from climbing on or jumping through because it doesn't suit the puzzle, but as the viewer you can clearly see Quill could easily step through a hole in the wall or climb a wall a different way. Like many games, Moss adds a splash of color to areas it wants you to climb instead of leaving it to the player to discover and making the experience a little more open. It's an unfortunate bit of user agency restriction in an otherwise fantastic environment.
Most third-person hack and slash games, of which Moss very much is, features a hero that can take a couple of hits. Quill is not that kind of character, and that introduces an amazing level of difficulty you don't frequently experience in this genre. Most of the enemies in this game can seriously damage Quill with a single hit, and as you progress in the store there are several enemies capable of dispatching her with single strikes. Success in these fights relies on Quill's speed, and your ability to interrupt certain attacks as the giant spirit while also counterattacking as Quill. It's remarkable how challenging that concept can become when there are multiple enemies in play, because the natural instinct from years of gamplay is to focus on what Quill is doing in a fight. In fact, if you don't lean back a little and observe the entire arena for combat, Quill is likely to be in a lot more trouble.
Moss is also uniquely challenging in its hidden puzzles. Nearly every section of the game has a hidden scroll for Quill to find, so much so that coming across an area without a scroll can occasionally feel like a failure on your part. These scrolls often require additional planning in a puzzle so you don't have to start over, or standing up and looking around the map to see areas Quill cannot. This whole aspect of the game invites a level of interaction you can't get outside of this environment. In this respect, Moss is a shining example of what makes VR gaming so special.
The story itself is very linear, right down to the level of interaction in your gameplay. Everything starts off very casual, but by the end of this part of the story you are at the edge of your seat rushing Quill from section to section to see what happens next. The enemies become increasingly more challenging, the puzzles start to grow beyond individual sections of the story, and eventually you are in a full sprint to the end of the tale. It's the kind of experience you can thoroughly enjoy in a single sitting because it sucks you in, but also because the story itself isn't particularly long.
I completed my first run through Moss in a little over three hours to see how the story ended. I missed quite a bit, and plan to go back and fully explore the game from beginning to end, but either way you look at it this is not a long game. The ending makes it very clear this is the first part of a story, which implies there will be more to play at some point in the future.
I loved every minute of this game. There are a few small things I would change, starting with Polyarc's decision to start every chapter with a blinding flash of white light directly into my eyeholes, but it's a small criticism in what was otherwise an exceptional story. There can be no greater sign of a quality experience than getting to the end and wanting more, and Moss delivers that without making you feel like you've been shortchanged.
If you own a PlayStation VR, spend the $30 and take a trip through Moss. You will not regret it.
Outstanding
4.5/5
YouTube TV has landed another Major League Soccer deal, and this time you might be more likely to notice. As part of a multi-year agreement, the internet TV service is now the official streaming option for all Seattle Sounders FC games. Similar to th...
The early development of our universe is still quite a mystery, but in a new study published today in Nature, researchers describe what may be evidence of when the first stars began to form. After the Big Bang, which took place some 13.7 billion year...
Many horror games are solitary affairs -- a little odd when horror movies are frequently shared experiences. Why not make games which play off the social side of fear? Question is trying just that. The group of BioShock and Dishonored alumni has u...LG's could-have-been flagship for 2018.
LG's appearance at this year's MWC was, timid, to say the least.
The company's new LG V30S is essentially just a spec bump over the regular V30 with a couple small software tweaks, but apparently, LG had more exciting things to show off behind closed doors.
According to Ynet, LG had a working unit of the G7 (codenamed "Neo") to show off to select attendees of the trade show. This is the G7 that LG's new mobile head scrapped in favor of the new "Judy", but nevertheless, it gives us an idea of what we could see with that phone when it's released this June.
As you can see from the above photos, the G7 follows the steps of other Android OEMs by adopting the iPhone X's notch with its screen. However, LG built a software trick around this to give users the option of hiding it with a black status bar. As for the screen surrounding that notch, it's reportedly a 6-inch, 19.5:9 panel with a resolution of 3120 x 1440.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 powers the phone, there's 64GB of internal storage, and two different models with 4 and 6GB of RAM.
On the back of the G7 is a glass back (this particular model features a blue color), fingerprint sensor, and two cameras that are positioned in a vertical fashion.
Shortly after this news came out, Evan Blass also gave us this little nugget:
Little bird told me that in the same venue that this G7 was being shown, there was also a Q7 and V35. And a new watch.
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 28, 2018
We don't have any images of the above gadgets, but I'm really curious to see what comes of this mystery smartwatch. LG's last wearables were the Watch Style and Watch Sport, and while they were supposed to lead the Android Wear 2.0 charge, each one had too many quirks to be truly great.
Assuming LG's Judy has any resemblance to the G7 Neo, are you looking forward to what we see from LG later this year?
Meet Quill, the bravest, strongest mouse ever.
Since we first saw Moss at E3 last year we have been waiting with baited breath for it to arrive, and it finally has! Released on February 27th, it has already stolen our hearts and fills our hours with the beauty of a fully realized world.
Lets take a look at some of the top tips to make your journey through the land of Moss even better.
Though you control the actions of our little mouse adventurer, you do not actually play the game as her. You are a spirit, or as the game calls you the Reader, who is the companion of Quill and you have your own function to perform above and beyond just moving Quill.
Using the Sixaxis Controller you can pick up and move objects in the game. A lot of the time this means moving statues and pieces of puzzles to help Quill traverse the environment but other times it gets more complicated. Using your control you can pick up enemies to stop Quill from being overrun, or even more fun you can move enemies to help you open doors or activate switches where otherwise you wouldn't be able to.
This level of cooperation and interaction is rare in any game so it is doubly exciting when you are in VR and playing it so close. It makes you think not just about what needs to be done to solve the puzzles but how you can achieve that goal using all the environment, not just turning a dial here or flipping a switch there.
Moss has a set of scrolls to collect as part of the main story and they are hidden in some unusual places that you may need to move around to find. When playing the game you can get lost in the story and with watching Quill and you start to forget, at first, that you are in VR, until the first time you look around a column. When it happened to me I was trying to get a better look at some of the scenery and as I tilted my head I saw one of the scrolls behind the wall on the far side, easy enough for Quill to reach but had I been playing the game in the traditional way I would never have seen it.
Puzzles can be solved in the same way. By looking around obstacles or into smaller areas you can often see things you would notice normally and the change in perspective makes it much easier to solve the puzzles that, if you were on a fixed camera, would be much harder. Being able to look at the whole map and even lean in closer to the action has the added benefit of being able to appreciate the art that goes into a game like moss. Quill is a perfectly rendered little creature that feels alive, especially when you can lean down and see her ears and nose twitching randomly as she sits and waits for you. Speaking of waiting..
When you start playing the game the puzzles are simple enough, pull this lever, move this statue, that kind of thing but as you start to progress things become more challenging. The puzzles start to have multiple components that you need to do at the same time to get them to work and sometimes, after an hour or two of playing your mind just can't piece it all together. Thankfully you are part of a team in Moss and not just on your own. It turns out the little mouse adventurer that is your partner in this game is far cleverer than you. She knows how to do it.
If you are struggling to figure out what to do with a certain puzzle just wait for a minute and look at Quill. Eventually, she will get impatient and start showing you, using American Sign Language, how to complete it. Honestly, I enjoy waiting to see what she says anyway because the animations are so fluid and well done. Most of the time she gives you that last little piece that's missing, like telling you to turn the stairs or make the bug shoot, which makes your brain turn on and you can start figuring. It doesn't always help mind you, and she won't tell you how to get the scrolls that are hidden on the levels, but invariably she can point you in the right direction.
More: Everything you need to know about Moss, the most anticipated PlayStation VR game of 2018
A lot of the game puzzles in Moss require you, the reader, to move objects in the world using your Sixaxis Controller. They make this action as interesting as possible by making the variety of things you need to move, well, varied. From statues to gears and cogs there is a long list of things you can do to help Quill get through the maze including using the enemies that appear too. Using enemies is extremely helpful as they can be moved to stand on plates that Quill can't reach.
What makes Moss almost unique in puzzle games is that you can move yourself and Quill at the same time. By holding an enemy in place while moving moss to another area you can solve puzzles that normally wouldn't work, or use this skill in combat to make a huge difference. You can use your hold maneuver to drag enemies away from Quill while she fights another enemy, stopping her from getting overrun, it's very satisfying and adds a layer of complexity to Moss that elevates the whole game.
This is a really helpful tip for combat. Quill is very brave but a little squishy, it only takes two or three hits to knock her out and restart the level so you need to use all the dirty tricks you can. You can use several enemies in the game when you have them in your Sixaxis grip to fire, or explode parts of the landscape to help solve puzzles, happily they can also kill each other using that power too.
When you are in combat with multiple enemies keep your eyes peeled for the ones that fire or explode and use that ability to keep Quill out of combat. I managed to complete a big fight by hanging Quill on a ledge and using the shooting beetle to kill all the little guys, then Quill finishes off the one I was controlling. Keeping your little mouse friend alive is really your only task as the "reader" so you may as well use the forces of evil against themselves.
These five tips are really just the start of what you can do in Moss but they will help you get started in fine fashion. navigating this world with Quill really does feel like a partnership so you learn together how best to succeed. Let us know in the comments if you find any other cool tips for your fellow readers.
You have a few options when it comes to streaming music and whether you're subscribed to Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal or something else, there's a lot of music right at your fingertips. But live recordings offer their own sort of listening pleasure, a...Ashwin Ram is now Google Cloud's Technical Director of AI.
Amazon's got a lot of people working on Alexa at any given moment, but one of its top employees has officially left for a position at Google. According to a LinkedIn post, Alexa AI's head of research – Ashwin Ram – is Google Cloud's new Technical Director of AI.
Per Ram's post:
Excited to share that I'm joining Google Cloud as Technical Director of AI in the Office of the CTO. Google arguably has the best AI on the planet; my role will be to help make that AI even better and broadly available to everyone.
I've had an awesome couple of years at Amazon Alexa working with some of the smartest people I know. Delighted to have had the opportunity to create and lead Alexa Prize and to experience this legendary Day 1 company from the inside.
Although Google Cloud isn't a consumer-facing product, it does power various aspects of services like YouTube and Google Search. Amazon hasn't announced who will be replacing Ram's position, but either way, this is a pretty solid win for Google in its quest to be the best at AI.
Shortly before Ram's departure, it was announced that Amazon had purchased smart doorbell/floodlight maker Ring — just a couple months after it purchased Ring competitor Blink. Amazon's hitting the connected-world with full force, and while Ram's absence won't necessarily help the company, it certainly won't stop it from chugging along with everything it's got.
The gaming chat service Discord has reportedly banned several alt-right groups. The move comes six months after the platform shut down racist accounts in the wake of the Charlottesville protests in order to 'take action against white supremacy, nazi...
Spotify quietly signaled its intention to become a publicly traded company in December of last year, even though several lawsuits over licensing were looming. Now the streaming service has filed for a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, an...Does your phone support wireless charging?
Wireless charging has been around for a few years now, but sadly it hasn't become as widely adopted as we'd like. That may change now that Qi and Powermat and the various companies backing them are working together, so keep your fingers crossed.
However, many popular phones are beginning to embrace wireless charging, and if that's something you're looking for in your next phone, here's a list of those lucky devices.
The best wireless charging pads for Galaxy S8
Note: All devices below support Qi charging. Devices marked with a * do not offer support for AirFuel or PMA wireless charging.
While wireless charging may not be as fast as a traditional plug, being able to plop your phone on a wireless charging block/stand/mat while at your desk, eating dinner, or sleeping can make a world of difference to the phone and its user.
We'll update this list periodically with new devices that support this wonderful feature.
Update February 2018: Added the newest phones that support wireless charging.
The I.D. Buzz might not be the first electric Volkswagen bus you see roaming the streets. VW's Scania brand has announced that its first electric bus, the Citywide Low Floor, is going into full-fledged service in the Swedish town of Österlund i...Say goodbye to awkwardly liking tweets you don't actually agree with.
Twitter's my go-to social network of choice, and while I enjoy most parts of it, there are a few areas that are in desperate need of improvement (I'm looking at you, un-editable tweets). While edits still aren't here, Twitter is adding something that a lot of people have been asking for for a while — bookmarks.
As you can probably guess, the purpose of bookmarks is to give you an easy way to save tweets for later that you might not have time to look at right that very second. To do this, tap on the new share icon and then select "Add Tweet to Bookmarks."
To then find any tweets you've bookmarked, just tap on your profile icon and then the Bookmarks tab.
Up until now, the only way to save tweets for later was to like them. This method worked fine, but it meant you had to like tweets for later viewing even if you didn't really like/agree with what they said.
I don't currently have access to Bookmarks on my account, but Twitter says this feature is rolling out today to its Android, iOS, and Lite apps, as well as its mobile site.
Scientists have been puzzling over the moon's formation for a long time, and now there's a new theory that might explain some of the baffling mysteries surrounding our satellite. A new study published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Pla...
What's the best car mount for Google Pixel?
The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are gorgeous and you're going to want to hold onto them all the time, but that's just plain unsafe when you're driving — and depending where you live, it's often illegal! You need to pick up a great car mount, and we have some favorites to share with you!
Spigen makes a lot of really ingeniously designed smartphone accessories, and their Air Vent Magnetic Car Mount is as convenient as it gets. The mount itself quickly and securely clips onto an air vent on the dash.
As the name suggests, this mount secures using magnets. That will require you to attach a metal plate to the back of your phone, or better yet to your Pixel's case. Once installed, all you have to do is hold your phone close to the mount and it pops right on. With no clips or holsters to deal with, you can easily grab your phone with one hand as you leave the car. You can also take the Spigen clip with you and use it as a portable kickstand which holds your phone at the perfect angle for hands-free viewing.
But for all the positives, there are some drawbacks to this design. Adhering the metal plate on the back of your phone may interfere with the way you grip your phone, or leave scratches on the metal. If keeping your Pixel in pristine condition is important to you, you may want to look elsewhere, or slap the metal plate on the inside of a thin case so you can quickly pop your phone out.
Snag it for around $7.
This is definitely the coolest mount on this list. The Steelie is a two-piece mounting system wherein a circular magnet adheres to the back of your Pixel and a spherical magnetic base adheres to your car's dashboard or console.
Hop in the car, and your phone mounts in a snap. This is about as minimalist as it gets in terms of car mounts. Making sharp turns and hitting potholes? No worries: The magnet is super strong and the magnetic ball moves with your phone to prevent it from falling off.
If you want a mounting system that nigh unnoticeable, the Nite Ize Steelie is your slick solution for around $20.
Minimalism and simplicity are important features for a lot of people. The Kenu Airframe Plus+ is a simple car mount that's slim enough to comfortably fit in your pocket, but still secures your phone by clipping to an air vent.
There's really not too much to this one — no suction cups, adhesives or adjustable arms — so there's less places for this mount to break or fail. The clip is able to mount to any vent type, whether they be horizontal, vertical, angled or circular. It's so portable that you can take it with you and also use it as a kickstand. Simply slip a business card or something of a similar size in the clip on the back and it will stand on its own.
Versatile, simple and portable — what more could you want? Grab it for around $20.
The Ram Mount is an adjustable crade-style mount that holds onto your Pixel or Pixel XL with four arms. It adheres to your dashboard or console via a suction cup and is adjustable via its ball socket, which allows you to orient your phone any way you want it.
The holder is spring-loaded, so you can just slide your Pixel in and away you go. It's made of a high-strength composite, aluminum, and stainless steel, so it's durable and strong, sturdily securing your phone. It's a little on the expensive side at $50, but it's worth it.
The Spigen Style Ring is one of those accessories that seems a bit weird when you're looking at it in the box, but is a true game changer once you've become accustomed to all the ways it makes using your phone easier — and that includes its function as a car mount.
The Style Ring sticks to the back of your phone or a case with adhesive (don't worry, it won't leave marks or residue on your phone) with a 360-degree swiveling ring that's the star of the show. Slip a finger through it and you no longer need to death grip your phone while walking down the street or when reading your phone in bed, or set it up as a kickstand for hands-free viewing.
But back to the car mount feature. Arguably the most convenient feature is the little black hook that comes with the Style Ring, which simply attaches anywhere on your dash and allows you to seamlessly attach your phone with the Style Ring so you can use your phone for navigation, playing music, place hands-free phone calls and more. When you arrive at your destination, simply pop the phone off the mount hook and you're on your way! There's no complex rig to install and the hook mount is barely noticeable on your dash.
Our very own CrackBerry Kevin is a huge fan of the Style Ring, so check out his video if you need more convincing. It's available in five different color options so you should be able to find that matches your phone's color. You can pick one up for $14.
For a completely customized car mount, direct your attention to ProClip. They offer a two-part car mount solution that you customize for your specific needs. Firstly, you select your Pixel model from the menu and indicate whether or not you want to factor in the case you use. You'll be given a variety of six to eight images to choose from with specs and details for each phone holder offered.
Once you've decided on your Pixel holder, you move on to the custom mounting base. Select the kind of base you want (dashboard, pedestal, and so on) and select the vehicle you drive. The bases you will be selecting from are designed to snap into the seams of your dashboard or grip the necessary panels, so no sticky pads or bolts are necessary. Eliminate the guessing by customizing every aspect of your car mount and know that it's going to fit just the way you want it to.
Pricing starts around $35.
Oliv. mounts are minimalist, effective, and an awesome addition to your dash. They come in a few iterations, but I like the button mount the best. It has a 3M adhesive on the back and sticks to your dash anywhere you like it. The strong magnet then hold your phone in place in any orientation you like (there's the adhesive metal plate, which I recommend you stick on your case, since it doesn't seem to work through a case).
It really is just a button that adheres to your dash, and then the link sticks to that via magnet. The metal plate that goes on your phone is low-profile, and quite a bit more refined-looking than other metal mounting plates. At $30, the Oliv. doesn't come as cheaply as other mounts on this list, but it does offer efficacy, a modern design, and it takes up minimal space.
Did we miss your favorite car mount on our list? Leave us a comment below!
Updated February 2018: Added the universal and modular Oliv. mounts from ProClip, since they rock my socks. Updated pricing for the other items on this list.
