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If you’re one of the small group of people out there who owns a smartphone running Windows Phone 8 or 8.1, or a computer running Windows 10, you probably recognise Cortana. Effectively Microsoft’s answer to Siri and Google Now, Cortana is Microsoft’s answer to a voice-operated assistant that lets you speak to your phone to have it perform tasks for you, such as setting reminders, finding out things you need to know, or messaging contacts.
Though developed for Microsoft’s own devices, Microsoft of late have been very eager to expand the reach of Cortana and turn it into the personal assistant behind ALL your devices. To that end, the company has also released Cortana as apps for iOS and Android. But while these app-based versions of Cortana might allow you to message people with your voice or look up information from the internet, it’s not really integrated with Android or iOS. There’s only so much the developers can do when they don’t control the operating system.
However, a new announcement from Cyanogen suggests that this could change.
For several years now, a team of developers have made waves with a fork of the Android system known as Cyanogen. Cyanogen’s original intention was to take what was good from stock Android systems and modify the rest, to create a system that gives control and customisability over how their smartphone looks and works back to the actual user. Cyanogen has since become a corporation – of which Microsoft is a key investor – and the system has become a standard mobile phone OS in its own right, with Cyanogen OS becoming the original system of choice for the OnePlus One and many other phones; with the older Cyanogenmod remaining the tool of choice for replacing stock Android and installing Cyanogen to traditional Android-powered phones.
Cyanogen’s desire to put control back in the hands of the user has put the system regularly at odds with Google’s ethos; and Cyanogen has ditched many standard Android services for equivalents, either home-grown or ran by competitors such as Microsoft. And now, the company has revealed that it’s working with Microsoft to integrate Cortana into Cyanogen- kicking the traditional Android voice assistant, Google Now, out onto the street.
It’s not clear exactly how this will compare to the assistant on other platforms, but Cyanogen hints that it could offer better control over third-party apps than rivals like Google or Apple’s Siri. You could tell Spotify to play specific songs or playlists, for instance. We should not have long to wait to find out how well this pairing works, however – Cyanogen have claimed Cortana will start in her new role from the very next Cyanogen OS release.
From Software, the Japanese development studio best known for the Dark Souls series has announced that it is planning to open a new studio in Fukuoka, Japan next month with an aim to get it fully operational by January next year.
The studio’s function will be the creation of 3D CG assets for games, as well as providing support to From Software’s main studio located in Tokyo. Job listings are already going up online for 3D environmental and character artists to join the team and with Dark Souls 3 having had its Japanese console release date announced it’s a fair bet that it’ll be working on that project as the first thing it ever does.
From Software are known most famously for their Dark Souls games and most recently Bloodborne on the Playstation 4; bringing a unique mix of elements that defines the games as uniquely theirs.
The people behind Anno 2205 have just released a new trailer that details footage and other things shown at the recent Gamescom event, most notably the arctic setting available in game.
At its core Anno 2205 is about celebrating humanity’s growing technological prowess to the point that areas thought unhabitable now are able to be lived at in the near future, the arctic land and the craters of the moon being two of the climes available in Blue Byte’s colony builder game, alongside the much more manageable climate of our own fair Earth in the future.
Arctic play will focus on the mining of methane ice by building an industrial infrastructure and as you could guess supplying the necessary heat to keep the machines working and the people alive will be your biggest and primary concern for that setting.
Are you looking forward to Anno 2205? Tell us in the comments!
XCOM 2 has been subject to a delay, but the pre-orders are live already and it seems that of all the places getting the game, Australia is once again subject to prices that are much higher than elsewhere.
The pre-order comes with a bonus in the form of the Resistance Warrior Pack that contains a number of soldier customisation options as well as a survivor of the previous game’s war turning up in the barracks as a recruit. The Steam US store has this priced at $59.99 and the UK one at £39.99. Australians however are seeing a price of $127.45 – which is the equivalent of 89.95 US dollars or £58.27. Ouch.
While this is quite the price hike, this isn’t the first time that Australia has seen much higher prices for digital games even before the introduction of a new tax on ‘intangible’ digital imports in the country’s 2015 budget pushed them even higher.
Who remember their first game of pokemon? Whether it was on the grainy black and white screen of the classic Gameboy, or in colourful 3D on the N64, pokemon is close to a lot of gamer’s hearts. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a world inhabited by strange and wonderful creatures, that can be tamed and used to battle your friends? Well now you can!
A new phone app allows you to search out pokemon in your local areas, and with the use of a pokeball watch, capture and battle them with people around you.
Geo-caching is not a new phenomenon. It’s a simple premise where you are given map co-ordinates and go treasure-hunting. This sort of real-world application is always open to abuse; some people may remove the treasure, or you might not live in a place where a treasure hunt has been initiated.
Pokemon Go eliminates all these problems by making everything digital. Your pokemon are available in cyberspace, located over physical co-ordinates. Although details are scarce on release dates and game mechanics, I for one have never been more excited to wander round my town and collect ‘em all.
