Apple may go old-school with the iPhone 12S - PhoneArena

Apple releases Chrome extension for iCloud passwords - The Verge

Apple has released an official extension for the Windows and Mac versions of Chrome that lets you use passwords stored in your iCloud Keychain. For anyone who uses Chrome as their browser and iCloud Keychain in lieu of a dedicated password manager, this could make bouncing between Windows and Mac computers much easier.

The release of the extension means that if you’ve used Safari to automatically generate strong passwords on other platforms, those can now be available to you in Chrome when you’re prompted for a login. Passwords created in Chrome for Windows will also sync back to iCloud so they’ll be available on Apple devices as well.

The extension is called iCloud Passwords and is available now in the Chrome Web Store. Details of the functionality were prematurely revealed last week in an update for the iCloud Windows 10 app, which listed “Support for iCloud Passwords Chrome Extension” as a new feature, despite the extension not having been released or otherwise announced.

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All the Galaxy S21 Ultra's new camera tricks and how to actually use them - CNET

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Samsung's Galaxy S21 Ultra (which is officially on sale, along with the rest of the Galaxy S21 line), has already proven to pack a formidable camera, full of features to help novices and pros alike take brilliant shots when out and about. It's not a dramatic overhaul from the Galaxy S20 Ultra, with headline specs such as the 108-megapixel sensor and 100x zoom being common across both phones. But there are some new tricks to know about. 

Let's dive in to see what features are new and how to use them.

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Single Shot 

Single Shot is a function that allows the phone to capture multiple images and video clips -- each with a different effect applied -- just by pressing the shutter button once. Its aim is to allow you to capture a whole variety of interesting photos and videos of, say, your child unwrapping a birthday present, without having to decide in advance on a particular style, zoom lens or filter. 

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It was a feature launched on the Galaxy S20, but it's been expanded to produce even more effects. It sounds complex, but using it is very straightforward. To start, tap into the Single Shot camera mode in the mode dial next to the shutter button. Then, all you need to do is tap the shutter button and wait for the 10 seconds it takes to capture everything. The idea is that you'll move around, maybe pan the camera between faces, so that the phone has more material to work with to create all the different options for you. 

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Once done, you can head into the gallery and find your Single Take file and swipe up to see the different items it's produced. There'll be still images, different cuts of videos, GIFs -- all of which will have effects applied. You can save them all or pick your favorites to share with friends and family.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Using the zoom 

The S21 Ultra has a 3x optical zoom, a 10x optical zoom and can take digitally zoomed images up to a whopping 30x and 100x. Using them is dead easy. In the standard camera mode you'll see small leaf icons next to the shutter button. A single leaf means zooming in (i.e. getting closer to the leaf); the icon with three leaves means using the super wide lens (i.e. capturing more leaves in one shot). Tapping the icons will take you quickly to 3x or 10x zooms, but you can also tap on the numbers that pop up next to them as well. 

It works just the same whether you're zooming in when taking a still image or whether you're recording video. 

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Night mode 

The proper Night mode on the S21 Ultra can be frustrating to find if you're new to the phone and you may not even know it's there at first. The phone can take great low-light images in its standard camera mode, but when things get really dark, scroll to More on the mode panel next to the shutter button and you'll see a whole variety of different shooting options. 

One of them is called Night and is represented by an image of a moon. In this mode the phone will take an image over several seconds in order to capture more light. While it uses image stabilization to keep the shot as sharp as possible, you can help it further by keeping as steady a hand as possible, or even better by stabilizing your hands on a nearby wall or other object to minimize hand shake. 

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Director's View

A new feature for the S21, Director's View is a video feature that shows you thumbnails of what the scene you're shooting will look like using the different zoom lenses. You'll find it in the same menu screen as Night mode (tap More on the mode selection wheel). Once there, you'll instantly see the different thumbnails and can tap on them to start recording video in each zoom length. 

Director's View has an additional feature, however, that allows you to record video with the front and rear cameras simultaneously. The idea is that you can film a scene in front of you, while also capturing your own reaction to it. When in Director's View you'll see a square box at the top right of the screen (when held in portrait orientation, or at the top left if held in landscape). Tapping this will allow you to select how you want your front-facing video to be displayed; as a split-screen view where your face takes up half the screen, or as a smaller picture-in-picture style, where you appear as a small window overlaid onto the main view. 

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Tapping either of these will bring your face into the picture and hitting record will let you capture video with both sides at once. Remember though that the phone permanently bakes both videos into a single file, so don't shoot with the front and back cameras at once hoping to separate them into individual videos later. 

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

108-megapixel images

The 108-megapixel resolution of the main camera sensor is huge and while it's the same resolution as the S20 Ultra, it's been given some software tweaks to improve it, so it's worth checking out if you haven't already. To activate it, start off in the standard camera mode and you'll see some icons along the top of the screen (or the left, if you're holding it in landscape mode), one of which will be for the aspect ratio and will be indicated with numbers such as 3:4, 1:1 or Full. 

Tap it and you'll see the 3:4 108MP option. Tapping that will activate the high resolution mode, but keep in mind that with that active you won't be able to use any of the zoom lenses as it relies solely on the main camera's image sensor.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

12-bit raw  

Samsung has apparently given the S21 Ultra a boost in its raw shooting skills with support for 12-bit raw files. Raw files are essentially "digital negatives" that don't save information like white balance or digital sharpening, giving a better base image for editing the shot later. Raw files are typically used by pro photographers who want the utmost control and quality from their images. 

12-bit raw files, in theory, capture more dynamic range meaning more detail in the highlights and shadows. It's a pro feature perhaps, so it's no surprise that you'll need to go into More and then activate the Pro mode. This will bring up all the manual settings for exposure, white balance and auto focus, so it's only worth experimenting with if you're confident with your photography knowledge. Activating raw mode takes an additional step though; tap the settings cog, go into Format and advanced options and turn on RAW copies, which will allow the phone to take a raw image as well as a standard JPEG. 

Keep in mind, though, that raw files take up a lot more space than JPEG images, so if you're running low on space, make sure you've not left this mode switched on and are accidentally filling up your gallery with high-resolution raw images of your pet. Unless that's what you're into.

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Carbon capture technology has been around for decades — here's why it hasn't taken off - CNBC

People tend to vegetables growing in a field as emission rises from cooling towers at a coal-fired power station in Tongling, Anhui province, China, on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019.

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Elon Musk is going to pay $100 million towards a prize to come up with the best carbon capture technology. (Or so he tweets. Details are scarce so far.)

The maverick tech CEO's promise is not particularly notable for its generosity. With a net worth over $200 billion, $100 million is 0.05% of Musk's wealth.

But still, the richest person in the world's tweet brings attention to an often overlooked technology which has been around since the 1970s, but has mostly been relegated to niche corners of the energy community. 

"Mr. Musk's announcement reflects a maturation in the private sector around climate change and investment," Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, tells CNBC via email. "As in the past, Mr. Musk's announcement has shaken up the gumball machine." 

Why not just plant more trees?

One popular reaction to Musk's tweet was that he would be better to spend his money planting trees. Trees, like other plants, consume carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis and release oxygen. There is an international initiative, 1t.org, which aims to restore and grow one trillion trees by 2030 to mitigate climate change. The trillion trees campaign is run by the World Economic Forum and funded by the Marc R. Benioff Foundation, an eponymous philanthropic effort funded by the billionaire Salesforce CEO. 

 But even 1t.org knows planting trees is not a silver bullet. 

"Addressing climate change will require investment in technologies that help to limit future emissions, such as electric vehicles, and also the drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere. Nature based solutions can help with both of these, but we will need thousands of solutions in combination," says Tom Crowther, a tenure-track professor of Global Ecosystem Ecology at ETH Zürich and the chief scientific advisor to the United Nation's Trillion Tree Campaign. "There is huge potential for direct carbon capture technology as part of a diverse climate plan," Crowther tells CNBC from Switzerland via email.

So does Musk. In response to one tweet recommending tree-planting, Musk said trees "are part of the solution, but require lots of fresh water & land. We may need something that's ultra-large-scale industrial in 10 to 20 years."

In that vein, here's a look at where carbon capture, utilization and storage or sequestration (CCUS), which is often shortened to "carbon capture," technology stands now and why it has, thus far, not been more broadly deployed.

Carbon capture from factory emissions: Where it stands

There are currently 21 large-scale CCUS commercial projects around the globe where carbon dioxide is taken out of factory emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental energy organization. The first one was set up in 1972.

The earliest CCUS technology was used for enhanced oil recovery, meaning the carbon dioxide is pumped into an oil field to help oil companies retrieve more oil from the ground, Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative and author of the book "Carbon Capture," tells CNBC.

It wasn't until the 1980s that carbon capture technology was studied for climate mitigation efforts, but even then, it was "mainly lone wolves," Herzog says. By the 1990s "activity really ramped up," he says. 

One example in the United States is in Decatur, Ill., where the food processing giant Archer Daniels Midland Company launched a carbon capture and storage project in 2017. It has the capacity to take 1.1 million tons of carbon per year out of the emissions released by a corn processing factory, and stores that carbon a mile and a half underground.

One part of the carbon capture project at Archer Daniels Midland Company in Decatur, Illinois.

Photo courtesy Archer Daniels Midland Company

For factory carbon-capture, emissions are routed through a vessel with a liquid solvent which essentially absorbs the carbon dioxide. From there, the solvent has to be heated up in a second tower — called a "stripper" or "regenerator" — to remove the CO2, where it's then routed for underground storage. The solvent can then be re-used in the first vessel or tower, Herzog says. 

If the storing is done carefully, "you should be okay," Herzog says. "We don't have experience on the scale we want to go to," Herzog says, "but we've demonstrated you could do it correctly." 

The U.S. Department of Energy is on the case, "developing models that simulate the flow of stored carbon dioxide, to help understand and predict chemical changes and effects of increased pressure that may occur."  

Carbon capture from the air: Where it stands

In terms of reversing global climate change, there's already been too much carbon released into the atmosphere for us not to try and capture carbon and store it, says Klaus Lackner, the director of Center for Negative Carbon Emissions and professor at Arizona State University.

"The question of whether you want to store or not to store [carbon] was a very good question in 1980," Lackner tells CNBC. "But you needed to have this discussion 30, 40 years ago because back then you still had a chance to stop the train before we collide with something." 

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is tracked as in parts per million, or PPM. As of December, atmospheric carbon dioxide stands at 414.02 ppm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

"We started the industrial revolution with 280 parts per million in the atmosphere," Lackner tells CNBC. "By now we have 415 [ppm], and we are going up 2.5 ppm a year at this moment." The consequences of that rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already dire and will get worse. "The oceans have started to rise, hurricanes have gotten way worse, climate has become more extreme, and this will only get worse over the next decade," Lackner says.

The only choice, Lackner says, is to "draw down" the atmospheric carbon dioxide — or to suffer unknown, devastating consequences.

Capturing carbon from the air, not from a factory smokestack, is called "direct air capture," and there are currently 15 direct air capture plants in Europe, the United States and Canada, according to the IEA. "Carbon removal is expected to play a key role in the transition to a net-zero energy system," the IEA says, but currently it is a very expensive technology. 

Direct air capture is "very expensive because the CO2 in the atmosphere is only .04%," Herzog tells CNBC, and the technical process of removing carbon dioxide from a gas gets more expensive the lower the concentration of the carbon dioxide gets. "But it is very seductive. A lot of people jumped on this," he says. 

Lackner sees it as a necessity. "In the end I see CO2 as a waste management problem. We have for two centuries simply dumped the waste from energy production — which is carbon dioxide — in the atmosphere and not thought about it any further, and we are gradually waking up to the fact that that's not acceptable," Lackner says.

The future of carbon capture technology

The technology exists to capture carbon and there is a grave need for climate change to be mitigated. So why isn't it being used everywhere already?

The problem is economics, says Herzog. "It's cheaper to put [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere. It is cheaper to let it go up the smokestack then put this chemical plant on the back of the smokestack to remove it," Herzog says. "Who is going to pay for that?" 

To change that reality, there must be economic costs to releasing carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere.

"The best capture technology will reduce these costs, but it will never be zero. Hence, even the best carbon capture technology will be useless if the world is not willing to put a price on carbon," Berend Smit, a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, at the University of California, Berkeley, tells CNBC by email. His research focuses on finding the optimal material for carbon capture.  

In the meantime, scientists and researchers are working to make current carbon capture technologies better.

"Over the past 10 years, there are a number of innovations and improvements to enable us to save more energy and cost up to 70% less for new carbon capture processes," Paitoon (P.T.) Tontiwachwuthikul, a professor of industrial and process systems engineering at the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a co-founder of the Clean Energy Technologies Research Institute University of Regina, tells CNBC by email. "These include novel solvents (and their mixtures) as well as new process hardware items (e.g. new columns, catalysts, etc.)." 

Smit is also working on how to use a kind of sponge "with a strong affinity for carbon dioxide," he says. "Hence if we flow air through the sponge, the CO2 gets removed. One the material is saturated with CO2, we need to heat it, pure CO2 comes out, which we can then store. The sponge is empty and we can start over again." 

An artist's impression of a mechanical tree farm.

Image courtesy Silicon Kingdom Holdings Ltd.

Lackner has developed a free-standing device to take carbon dioxide out of the air. "Everybody's machine out there right now, they are sucking carbon dioxide or pushing carbon dioxide with fans and blowers ... we think that the wind alone is good enough to move the air around and our design aims to just be passively standing in the wind, just like a tree." While the technology has been demonstrated on campus, it's still in its infancy. 

Fundamentally, it all comes down to money. "You need regulatory frameworks where basically, if you want to dig up carbon, you better show that you put an equal amount away," Lackner says. "If you have a cheaper way by all means do it first. if you don't have a cheaper way, you have no excuse because this one will work."  

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New study: A zero-emissions US is now pretty cheap - Ars Technica

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In many areas of the United States, installing a wind or solar farm is now cheaper than simply buying fuel for an existing fossil fuel-based generator. And that's dramatically changing the electricity market in the US and requiring a lot of people to update prior predictions. That has motivated a group of researchers to take a new look at the costs and challenges of getting the entire US to carbon neutrality.

By building a model of the energy market for the entire US, the researchers explored what it will take to get the country to the point where its energy use has no net emissions in 2050—and they even looked at a scenario where emissions are negative. They found that, as you'd expect, the costs drop dramatically—to less than 1 percent of the GDP, even before counting the costs avoided by preventing the worst impacts of climate change. And, as an added bonus, we would pay less for our power.

But the modeling also suggests that this end result will have some rather unusual features; we'll need carbon capture, but it won't be attached to power plants, for one example.

Model all the things

Decent models of the future energy economy are complex. They typically involve breaking the grid down by region and simulating typical demand by using historic data, often scaled to represent increased demand. They'll then try to meet that demand using different energy sources, subject to a set of applied constraints. So, in this case, one of the constraints would obviously be limiting carbon emissions. The model then iterates over possible ways of meeting both the demand and constraints in the most economical way possible, identifying an optimal solution.

In this case, the researchers set up a series of eight scenarios that applied different constraints. These scenarios include things like continuing current trends into the future (where fossil fuel prices are low), or simply identifying the cheapest carbon-neutral pathway. Other variations include a scenario with an all-renewable grid and high levels of efficiency technology; another scenario where the land given over to energy production is constrained; and a scenario where the United States manages to reach negative net emissions.

The US uses fossil fuels for a lot of things beyond electrical generation, and shifting these to emissions-free options is also part of the model. These include things like switching vehicles and heating to electrical options and altering industrial processes where possible. Carbon capture is deployed as needed to reach emissions goals.

One of the things that's immediately apparent from running the business-as-usual model is how much already changes thanks to the price drops in wind and solar. In this scenario, carbon emissions will drop by 22 percent, largely due to the displacement of coal use. It's worthwhile knowing this, as any proposals for a target in that area can be dismissed as irrelevant. Another thing that is clear is that decarbonizing the energy system doesn't mean the US will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The non-carbon greenhouse gases will still provide the equivalent of 500 metric megatons of carbon dioxide.

Efficiency and beyond

One of the things the research has made clear is that efficiency will be absolutely necessary for reaching emissions targets. By 2050, rising population and GDP should boost energy demand in the absence of efficiency. But, to get to carbon neutrality, we'll have to keep energy use roughly equal to our present levels. Some efficiency will occur simply because electrical vehicles and heating systems are inherently more efficient. But it's clear that we'll need quite a bit beyond that, since the research team estimates that per-capita energy use has to decline by about 40 percent in the next 30 years to reach carbon neutrality.

While energy use may stay level, the increased electrification of homes and vehicles will mean that we'll need significant increases in generating capacity. The typical scenario would involve about 3.2 terawatts of new capacity, almost all of it in the form of wind and solar power.

The good news is that doing this is relatively cheap. The researchers estimate that the net cost of the transformation will be a total of $145 billion by 2050, which works out to be less than a half-percent of the GDP that year. That figure does include the increased savings from electrical heating and vehicles, which offset some of their costs. But it doesn't include the reduced costs from climate change or lower health care spending due to reduced fossil fuel use. These savings will be substantial, and they will almost certainly go well beyond offsetting the cost.

Due to the reduced cost of renewable generation, the authors project that we'll spend less for electricity overall, as well.

The most expensive scenarios raise the cost to about 1 percent of the 2050 GDP. Notably, going to net negative emissions is not the most expensive; instead, limiting land use cuts down on the amount of renewable energy that could be deployed, raising costs.

Part of the reason it is so cheap is because reaching the goal doesn't require replacing viable hardware. All of the things that need to be taken out of service, from coal-fired generators to gas hot-water heaters, have finite lifetimes. The researchers calculate that simply replacing everything with renewables or high-efficiency electric versions will manage the transition in sufficient time.

Not what you might expect

Many takes on a carbon-neutral grid assume that periods of low solar and wind production will be smoothed over with gas generators using carbon capture and storage. But this analysis suggests that any remaining gas plants simply won't run often enough to provide an economic justification for the carbon-capture hardware. Similar things are true with batteries; the periods when demand outstrips capacity are expected to be so rare that it doesn't make economic sense to build that many batteries to cover them.

Instead, gas plants will simply dump their carbon emissions into the sky. This ends up being carbon neutral because we'll still need some liquid fuels for things like air travel, and we'll make these with carbon pulled back out of the atmosphere, combined with hydrogen produced from water during periods of excess renewable supply. The researchers estimate that we would require 3,500 terawatts just to make enough hydrogen—roughly the same amount of electricity we make currently.

“Until recently, it was unclear whether variable renewable energy, nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage would become the main form of generation in a decarbonized electricity system... The cost decline of variable renewable energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the situation.”

The scenarios with additional constraints produce some odd results as well. The only scenario in which nuclear power makes economic sense is the one in which land use is limited. This also drives more wind offshore and relies on fossil fuel plants with carbon capture. Not surprisingly, this turns out to be the most expensive situation the researchers looked at. Carbon capture, along with enhanced biomass use for power, also features prominently in a scenario where the shift to electric vehicles and appliances is delayed.

Going entirely renewable actually forces much higher levels of carbon capture to ensure that fuel needs could be met without any fossil fuels. And going net negative involves a variety of carbon capture and biofuels, with substantial land use as a result of the latter.

Everything has changed

To an extent, the researchers themselves seem somewhat surprised by how much has changed in the last few years. "The net cost of deep decarbonization, even to meet a 1°C/350 ppm trajectory," they write, "is substantially lower than estimates for less ambitious 80 percent by 2050 scenarios a few years ago." It also provides clarity to what has been an uncertain future. "Until recently, it was unclear whether variable renewable energy, nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage would become the main form of generation in a decarbonized electricity system," they note. "The cost decline of variable renewable energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the situation."

Now, even if we go for deep decarbonization, we'll be investing in the future. It will cost money to get there, but we'll have lower future energy costs if we pay the price upfront—as well as improved health and a more stable climate.

There are, however, significant hurdles to getting there beyond simple economics. The emission-free future will involve us installing roughly 160GW of wind and solar per year in less than two decades; 2021 will see us installing only 15GW. And the switch to electric vehicles and appliances has to start now—anything that breaks should be replaced with an electric version, which does not seem to be happening.

But if this analysis holds up, there are good reasons to think it's worth getting started.

AGU Advances, 2021. DOI: 10.1029/2020AV000284  (About DOIs).

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Police called as Tokyo PS5 sale descends into chaos - Video Games Chronicle

Police were called to a popular Tokyo department store on Saturday after the intended sale of new PlayStation 5 consoles descended into chaos.

Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo’s Akihabara shopping district had promised to sell several hundred PlayStation 5 consoles via a first-come, first-served policy. However, according to personal accounts on social media, the whole process was cancelled after hundreds of consumers swamped the store.

As shown in multiple social media videos, huge crowds formed inside Yodobashi as staff planned to handout numbered tickets for the PS5 consoles. The situation appeared to be fairly calm until staff began distributing the tickets, causing the crowds to begin pushing, shoving and shouting.

“They cancelled the sale due to people being insane,” wrote Creatures Inc’s Dave Gibson, who was at the store. “[They] pushed so hard even the cash registers and staff went backwards. I’ve never seen that kind of insanity in japan before…”

He added: “People paying at the registers were pushed out of the way. Cash left on trays. Registers and staff pushed all the way back into storage area.”

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Tokyo is currently under a State of Emergency due to a resurgence of coronavirus infections in the city. As part of the order, companies are encouraged to work remotely and residents urged to avoid non-essential outings.

PlayStation 5 at retail

As noted by PSU, Saturday’s event was likely popular due to its first come, first serve policy, which is unusual for PS5 sales. To date, most Japanese retailers have been running lotteries for their PS5 stock, which is thought to be more fair considering the huge demand for consoles.

The Yodobashi retailer also usually requires customers to have active credit accounts in order to purchase in-demand items such as PS5. However, the Akihabara location is one of a few stores that do not.

With this context taken into consideration, Saturday’s PS5 sale likely would’ve been attractive to both consumers and also re-sellers looking to sell the consoles on for profit.

Gibson wrote: “I would estimate about 70% of that crowd to be resellers. Hope to god I didn’t get corona because I got caught up in that insanity.”

A report recently suggested that re-seller targeting of PS5 consoles is so high that the long-term health of PlayStation 5 in Japan could be under threat.

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Like many other regions, PS5 shortages in Japan have been exacerbated by scalpers reselling large quantities of the console at significant mark-ups, keeping it out of the hands of consumers and in turn damaging pivotal software sales.

The knock-on effect is an unusually low software attach rate in Japan, reports Bloomberg. As noted by the publication, a healthy ratio for a new console is around one game sold for each console bought.

But based on Japanese sales data from Famitsu, as of mid-December Sony had sold around 213,000 PS5 consoles in the product’s first month of availability and just 63,000 physical games.

There are other factors that could be impacting early physical PS5 software sales, most notably the shift to digital. PS5 also comes pre-installed with a game, Astro’s Playroom, and is backwards compatible with PS4 titles.

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“Even if we consider digital download software purchases, the percentage of sold PlayStation 5s actually in use is not that high, meaning the current demand is constrained by profit-taking resellers,” according to Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute.

Another analyst told Bloomberg that consumers’ inability to acquire the console and the resulting hit on software sales could negatively impact the profitability of the PlayStation business over the coming years.

Bloomberg even claims that a major Japanese publisher has internally discussed the possibility of delaying its PS5 games based on concerns it has about the early market response to the console.

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Chaos Erupts Over Sony PlayStation 5 Sale in Tokyo - HYPEBEAST

With the supply of the Sony PlayStation 5 still quite scarce all over the world, gamers in Tokyo jumped at a recent chance to get their hands on the next-gen console.

Earlier this week, Akihabara’s Yodobashi Camera, received a major shipment of PS5s that caused chaos to break out when released. Standing as one of the largest electronics stores in Japan, the sale saw an estimated 300 first come, first served ticket entries for a chance to purchase a PS5. With many people also joining the madness as the Akihabara location of Yodobashi Camera does not require customers to hold its black credit card to purchase the console, a requirement created to prohibit resellers.

The crowd that packed into the location began to push and shove forcing checkout counters and staff to be forced back. Ultimately, the local police were called and canceled the sale due to the aggressive nature that broke out amidst the state of emergency over the Coronavirus issued by the Japanese government.

Catch all the chaos over the Sony PlayStation 5 below.

They cancelled the sale due to people being insane!! Pushed so hard even the cash registers and staff went backwards. I’ve never seen that kind of insanity in japan before…

— Dave Gibson ⠿ POKEMON? (@AJapaneseDream) January 30, 2021

秋葉wwwwwww
乱闘wwwwwww
クソ面白いwwwwwww#ps5 #ヨドバシ #アキヨド pic.twitter.com/FH3x5M5R4f

— たばた。 (@tabata__97) January 30, 2021

In case you missed it, Death Note manga’s first new volume in 14 years is now set to release.

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Lawsuit accuses Valve of abusing Steam market power to prevent price competition - Eurogamer.net

A new lawsuit has accused Valve of abusing Steam's market power to prevent price competition.

The Hollywood Reporter said that five gamers filed an antitrust class action in California that alleges Valve requires developers and publishers enter into a "Most Favoured Nation" clause.

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A Most Favoured Nation clause is a retail parity clause in which a supplier agrees to treat a particular customer no worse than all other customers. MFNs are under increased scrutiny from authorities across the world, including the European Commission.

The lawsuit alleges a developer or publisher must agree the price of a PC game on Steam will be the same price as on other PC platforms. Essentially, the lawsuit claims Steam does not allow developers to price their games lower on other platforms.

The suit, submitted by American law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, says Valve's MFN clause keeps prices of PC games high on other platforms, such as the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store.

"The Steam MFN also hinders innovation by creating an artificial barrier to entry for platforms," reads the complaint.

"When a market, such as this one, is highly concentrated, a new entrant can benefit consumers by undercutting the incumbent's prices. The ability to provide PC games to consumers at lower prices is one way a firm or new entrant could gain market share. If this market functioned properly - that is, if the Steam MFN did not exist and platforms were able to compete on price - platforms competing with Steam would be able to provide the same (or higher) margins to game developers while simultaneously providing lower prices to consumers."

The lawsuit uses tweets from Epic boss Tim Sweeney to back up its case. In a January 2019 tweet, Sweeney said Steam "has veto power over prices".

Steam has veto power over prices, so if a multi-store developer wishes to sell their game for a lower price on the Epic Games store than Steam, then:
1) Valve can simply say ?no?
2) Pricing disparity would likely anger Steam users, leading to review bombing, etc

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 30, 2019

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Then, in a February tweet, Sweeney added:

"If the dominant store has a price parity clause, and takes a much higher revenue share than competitors, then the only way for creators to pass savings on to gamers is by avoiding the dominant store.

"That's what this is ultimately about!"

Curiously, the lawsuit includes a raft of publishers as co-defendants: CD Projekt, Ubisoft, kChamp Games (the one-man indie developer behind ShellShock Live), Rust, LLC (the Los Angeles developer behind Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades), and Devolver Digital. The lawsuit alleges these companies agreed to the Steam MFN.

But why include only these publishers and developers and not the many others who release games on Steam? Why single out two indie developers in this case?

The suit alleges that if Steam MFN did not exist and platforms were able to compete on price, then platforms competing with Steam would be able to provide the same (or higher) margins to game developers while simultaneously providing lower prices to consumers. But does this play out in reality?

Ubisoft ditched Steam a while back to launch its PC games on the Epic Games Store. On Epic's platform, Assassin's Creed Valhalla costs £49.99. That's the same price as Assassin's Creed Odyssey costs on Steam. Despite the increased revenue share afforded to publishers and developers on the Epic Games Store and the fact Assassin's Creed Valhalla is not on Steam, it doesn't look like any saving has been passed on to customers.

And what about this Steam MVN upon which the lawsuit is based? According to the pricing section of Steamworks' documentation, developers and publishers are responsible for setting and managing pricing for their products. However, the blurb confirms Valve will review initial pricing and proposed pricing adjustments (sales).

"Initial pricing as well as proposed pricing adjustments will be reviewed by Valve and are usually processed within one or two business days," reads the documentation.

"We recommend pricing strategies based on our experience and we may suggest prices based on currency conversions and other factors."

Steam's pricing rules, according to public documentation.

Does this amount to an MVN clause? Tim Sweeney seems to think so. In a February 2019 tweet, the Epic boss said the "reviewed by Valve" line "shows developers don't have autonomy to set prices for games".

There is a clearer stipulation in the Steam keys section of the Steamworks documentation that reveals Valve expects price parity on Steam keys, specifically:

"Please note that Steam keys cannot be sold on other sites unless the product is also available for purchase on Steam at no higher a price than is offered on any other service or website."

What's going on here, then? Back in February 2019, Epic's Tim Sweeney tweeted to suggest private agreements between Steam and developers is not usually known.

"The situation with price parity expectations on Steam is not transparent," Sweeney said. "Valve's public docs say temporary sales elsewhere are fine but they expect overall price parity on Steam keys. What each private Steam agreement with developers require is not generally know."

Then, later from Sweeney on Twitter:

"We have been told by multiple developers that Valve has approval over price and that long-term price parity (excluding temporary sales) is expected. We are researching further. Because these agreements are private, any Valve clarification would be helpful."

Valve is yet to comment on the lawsuit. Devolver has shrugged it off.

We started Rust Inc. to quietly steal Rust away from you.

— Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) January 29, 2021

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The lawsuit wants a ruling that Steam's supposed MFN clause "is anticompetitive and constitutes illegal monopolisation and monopoly maintenance", an injunction, damages and legal costs.

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The Samsung Galaxy S21 might convince me to ditch OnePlus - Android Authority

1 hour ago

Credit: David Imel / Android Authority

Opinion post by

C. Scott Brown

I’ve been writing for Android Authority since 2017. When I first started as a freelancer, my daily driver was the OnePlus 5. Later on, after I became a full staff member, I got a OnePlus 6T. Today, I’m using the OnePlus 7 Pro. Due to my devotion to OnePlus (and the 7 Pro, in particular), I’m known as the “OnePlus guy” on our team. However, the Samsung Galaxy S21 has put that nickname in jeopardy.

I won’t mince words, here. OnePlus had a very bad 2020. Things started out okay with the OnePlus 8 series, especially the OnePlus 8 Pro. Unfortunately, more problems than successes followed. The disappointing OnePlus Nord N10 and N100, Carl Pei’s departure, the Facebook controversy, and the steady Oppo-ification of the brand all made it very difficult to be proud about being the “OnePlus guy.”

Now, with my beloved OnePlus 7 Pro getting old and the company dragging its feet when it comes to an Android 11 rollout, I am tempted to switch teams. With the launch of the Galaxy S21 series, the temptation has grown substantially. In fact, I will admit that I pre-ordered both a vanilla Samsung Galaxy S21 and a Galaxy S21 Plus. My intention is to try them both out and see if ditching OnePlus really is what I want to do.

Samsung Galaxy S21: Why I would switch

Credit: David Imel / Android Authority

Samsung really upped its game this year with the Galaxy S21 series. The designs look great, the lowered pricing is an important and smart move, and the Ultra model finally lives up to its name. The COVID-19 pandemic might prevent sales from going through the roof, but I think the company has set itself up for real success this year.

I wrote the Android Authority review for the vanilla Galaxy S21. In brief, I loved my time with the phone. The camera is terrific (especially for the $800 asking price), its palm-friendly size is a breath of fresh air in the “bigger is always better” world of Android, and the Snapdragon 888 processor is a total monster. Even the controversial changes this year didn’t matter much to me. Yeah, the lack of a microSD card slot is annoying, but the move to a plastic back is actually good, in my eyes. I’ll let you read the review for all my thoughts on those things.

Check it out: The Android Authority Samsung Galaxy S21 review

In the past, the biggest reason I avoided buying Samsung phones was the software. Simply put, One UI is not my favorite Android skin. I’ll take the minimalist simplicity of Oxygen OS or Pixel UI any day over the bloated and sometimes incoherent mess of One UI. When you factored in Samsung’s dismal reputation for delivering Android updates, it was enough to make me swear off the brand.

Things have changed, however. One UI is now better than ever. Yes, it’s still bloated with apps I don’t want and features I’ll never use, but Samsung has done a great job making all that less in-your-face. Moreover, the company has pulled a one-eighty when it comes to after-market support. Security patches are flying in at a furious pace. Android 11 landed on all its major flagships in record time.

In brief, the Samsung Galaxy S21 series has great hardware and great software. This isn’t something I’ve ever been able to say with conviction about Samsung phones.

OnePlus 7 Pro: What makes me want to stay

As great as the Galaxy S21 phones are, the OnePlus 7 Pro is still my favorite Android phone of all time. In so many ways it seems like OnePlus made the phone specifically for me. It ticks off so many of my essential smartphone feature boxes.

I’ve already written a whole article about why I love the OnePlus 7 Pro, so I won’t rehash it all here. I do want to focus on the two things the phone offers that the Galaxy S21 series doesn’t: an uninterrupted display and the alert slider.

Related: OnePlus phones: A history of the company’s entire lineup so far

I am of the opinion that the pop-up selfie camera is currently the best way to get rid of notches and display cutouts in smartphones. The pop-up camera on the OnePlus 7 Pro is one of its best features, even now after the display cutout has become the industry standard. Yes, eventually we’ll have under-display selfie cameras that will solve both problems. At the moment, however, the technology just isn’t far enough along for wide consumer adoption.

Moving from that gorgeous 1440p display with no cutout to a 1080p display with a big selfie camera hole at the top would be difficult. Nevertheless, after a week of using the Samsung Galaxy S21, the cutout became less of an annoyance. But any time I started playing a game or watching a YouTube video it would be there, reminding me that this display just isn’t as good as that of the 7 Pro.

The alert slider would also be hard to abandon. For the life of me, I have no idea why all Android OEMs haven’t stolen this feature. It’s so nice to simply flip up the slider when I don’t want to be interrupted. Thankfully, the premium version of the third-party Side Actions app gives me a workaround on Galaxy devices. Still, that alert slider would be greatly missed.

What else is in the pipeline?

Credit: David Imel / Android Authority

We’re not even out of the first month of 2021 yet. Although I am greatly impressed by the Samsung Galaxy S21 series, would waiting a bit longer to make a commitment be a good idea?

Obviously, the OnePlus 9 series is right around the corner. However, there doesn’t appear to be much even the OnePlus 9 Pro will offer over the vanilla Galaxy S21. The Galaxy S21 will likely have a better rear camera system, while the rest of the specs should be much the same across the two phones. With the 9 Pro having a display cutout too, the only real advantage would be that I’d get to keep the alert slider and stick with Oxygen OS.

Related: OnePlus needs to hit a home run with the OnePlus 9

The Asus ROG Phone 4 (or 5) is also coming up soon. The Asus ROG Phone 3 was my favorite smartphone of 2020, so its follow-up is certainly on my radar. The big problem I have with the ROG Phone series, however, is how massive the phones are. I love using them for specific tasks — which includes gaming, obviously — but I don’t like lugging them around with me wherever I go. Nevertheless, it is likely this phone will have an uninterrupted display, which does make it enticing.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we also expect a Google Pixel 5a to land at some point in the first half of the year. If it’s anything like the Pixel 4a, it’s bound to be a stellar device with a great camera, terrific software, and a low price. Yet, My big gripe with Pixel phones is the fingerprint reader being on the back. My phone lives on my desk for 10 hours every day so I need my sensor on the front.

It appears no matter what I do, I’m going to need to give something up to get something new.

Decision time: What’s it gonna be?

Honestly, I hoped that writing this all out would make this decision easier for me. I’m not sure it worked, though.

Loading poll

On one hand, I have the Samsung Galaxy S21. It will have a better camera than the OnePlus 7 Pro, a faster processor, 5G support, and a smaller form-factor. However, it will have a display cutout and lack an alert slider.

On the other hand, I have the OnePlus 7 Pro. It has a higher-resolution uninterrupted display. Its Snapdragon 855 processor is still fully capable, its camera is good enough to get the job done, and its software is much more in line with my taste.

Related: Samsung Galaxy S21 is here, but should you wait for the OnePlus 9?

Inevitably, I’m going to need to upgrade. I can’t use the 7 Pro forever. The question, I guess, then becomes whether or not now is the right time. The notable aspect of this whole conundrum is that I am thinking about switching to Samsung in the first place. I don’t know if that says more about Samsung upping its game or OnePlus’ recent fumbles. 2021 is already a year full of surprises.

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Maybe you can help? Answer the poll above, and then let me know in the comments what you think I should do!

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