Had enough Zoom meetings? Can’t bear another soul-numbing day of sitting on video calls, the only distraction your rapidly aging face, pinned in one corner of the screen like a dying bug? Well, if so, then boy do we have the app for you. Meet Zoom Escaper: a free web widget that lets you add an array of fake audio effects to your next Zoom Call, gifting you with numerous reasons to end the meeting and escape, while you still can.
You can choose from barking dogs, construction noises, crying babies, or even subtler effects like choppy audio and unwanted echoes. Created by artist Sam Lavigne, Zoom Escaper is fantastically simple to use. All you need do is download a free bit of audio software called VB-Audio that routes your audio through the website, then change your audio input in Zoom from your microphone to VB-Audio, and play with the effects.
You can watch a video tutorial on how to set up Zoom Escaper and listen to a sample of the various sound effects here:
If you’re running Zoom Escaper, you can’t actually hear the sound effects yourself. But I was able to test the site’s functionality with the help of my colleague, Verge news editor Chaim Gartenberg. Here was his opinion of the various effects Zoom Escaper had to offer:
Urination: “That sounds very fake. Also, I’m not entirely sure what the plan is to sell this as a reason to leave a call?”
Construction: “This sounds like you literally stood in the middle of a construction site. I think the sounds need to be a bit more muffled to sell it, but it’s very good.”
Man Weeping: “Those are the sobs of a broken man. But who’s crying — is it your roommate, your partner?”
Bad Connection: “This one works really well. Your audio is coming through broken up and disrupted. Get off the call.”
Echo: “Extremely annoying and very convincing. This sounds like a busted Zoom connection. If someone I was speaking to had this, I’d tell them to get it fixed. It wouldn’t be feasible to have a meeting with that.”
Wind: “If you were trying to skive off work, I’m not sure how you’d convincingly sell gale force winds in your own office.”
Dog: “That sounds very real. It sounds like a dog barking outside, but maybe not the sort of thing you’d need to take care of?”
Upset Baby: “That baby sounds decently upset! This is definitely something you should go and check on! Go and take care of your baby!”
Our opinion was that Upset Baby provided the most excusable reason to drop a call, but also requires that people believe you have a baby. And if you’re prepared to fake the existence of a child in order to get out of Zoom meetings with your co-workers, then perhaps you have bigger issues with work than a few annoying video meetings.
Zoom Escaper isn’t the first of Lavigne’s projects to self-inflict computer harm. His 2017 work The Good Life let users sign up to receive 225,000 emails confiscated from Enron during its 2001 implosion, while 2016’s Slow Hot Computeris a website that… makes your computer run slow and hot. “Use it at work to decrease your productivity,” says Lavigne.
If Zoom Escaper isn’t direct enough for you, there’s also Zoom Deleter, another of Lavigne’s creations. As he writes on his website, this is just a small program that runs in your menu bar or system tray: “It continually checks for the presence of Zoom on your computer, and if found, immediately deletes it.”
Speaking to The Verge, Lavigne describes the underlying ethos of his art as: “Deliberate slowdown, reducing productivity and output, self-sabotage, etc.” When asked by The Verge why these values were important to him, Lavigne did not respond.
Apple is discontinuing the original, full-size HomePod and will now focus its speaker efforts on the HomePod mini, the company told TechCrunch on Friday evening.
Here is what Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch:
HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini. We are discontinuing the original HomePod, it will continue to be available while supplies last through the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers. Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care.
The Space Grey model of the full-size HomePod is already sold out on Apple’s online store.
The full-size HomePod had great sound quality, but it was criticized for its high $349 price tag at launch. Apple eventually dropped the price to $299 in April 2019, and came out with the $99 HomePod mini last year.
The move isn’t altogether surprising; sales of the HomePod have reportedly been low, and in our review, we felt that the HomePod mini offered good sound for its size.
A star engineer, Raja Koduri is one of the Intel executives who tends to reveal development progress of upcoming products via social media. A couple of months ago, he announced that the first GPU based on Intel’s Intel’s Xe HPG architecture had powered on, and this week, he seemingly teased the bring-up process of Intel’s upcoming entrant into the best gaming graphics card race.
From 2012 to 2021 – same Intel Folsom lab, many of the same engineers with more grey hair , I was at Apple back then, getting hands on with pre-production crystalwell, 9 years later playing with a GPU that’s >20x faster! pic.twitter.com/RgmRJuhOXwMarch 12, 2021
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“From 2012 to 2021 — same Intel Folsom lab, many of the same engineers with more grey hair,” Raja Koduri, general manager of Architecture, Graphics, and Software at Intel, wrote in a Twitter post Thursday. “I was at Apple back then, getting hands on with pre-production Crystalwell, nine years later playing with a GPU that is >20x faster!”
The two pictures Koduri included show him running some tests on two development systems: one based on Intel’s Haswell with Iris Pro 5200 graphics equipped, a 64MB eDRAM package (Crystalwell) from 2012 and another powered by an upcoming Intel Xe. He didn’t specify the GPU as Xe HPG specifically, but the running of 3DMark, as well as the video outputs point toward the gaming-focused GPU.
The second image partly reveals the Xe bring-up board. Such boards are designed to provide maximum flexibility in terms of GPU configuration and power delivery, so while they have display outputs, they do not look like graphics cards at all. That said, it’s not surprising to see the Xe HPG development board come with a cooling system that looks like it belongs with a server CPU.
Koduri’s photo zoomed in (Image credit: Raja Koduri/Twitter)
It’s also interesting to see Koduri says that the Xe GPU was over 20 times faster than Intel’s Iris Pro 5200 from 2013. Of course, an upcoming discrete graphics processor should be an order of magnitude faster than an eight-year-old integrated GPU. And “>20x faster” could mean a range of things (not that we would expect Koduri to share performance numbers at this stage).
For some comparison, Intel’s Iris Pro 5200 with 40 execution units (EUs) and 128MB of eDRAM scores 1,426 graphics points in 3DMark FireStrike. By contrast, the latest Intel Iris Xe G7 integrated GPU with 96 EUs scores between 5,800 and 5,900 graphics points, making it over four times faster than its ancestor in said benchmark.
Modern discrete graphics cards, such as Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, score around 31,000 graphics points in 3DMark FireStrike, so they are, indeed, over 20 times faster than Intel’s Iris Pro 5200. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s top-of-the-range GeForce RTX 3090 scores between 52,000 and 53,000 graphics points in 3DMark Firestrike (37 times faster than the Iris Pro 5200).
We can’t draw any firm conclusions on Intel Xe HPG’s performance based on Koduri’s tweet. But if by over 20 times faster, the exec meant something close to 20 times faster, then we can expect the GPU to compete against products like the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. We’ll have to wait for much more information to see.
Zadak is a fairly young manufacturer of computer hardware—they were founded in 2015 in Taiwan. Besides SSDs, they’ve released cases, memory, and closed-loop watercoolers. All their products are targeted at the DIY PC space.
The Zadak Spark RGB is an M.2 NVMe SSD that goes all out on RGB bling capability. Thanks to support for all major motherboard vendors, you can use the Spark RGB with your mobo’s RGB control software, and it just works. No additional cabling is required, the SSD will show up as a separate ARGB element in your motherboard’s RGB software.
Under the hood, the Zadak Spark RGB SSD is based on a Phison PS5012-E12 controller, paired with Micron 96-layer 3D TLC flash and 1 GB of DDR4 DRAM cache. PCI-Express 3.0 x4 is used as the host interface.
The Zadak Spark RGB SSD is available in capacities of 512 GB ($130), 1 TB ($220), and 2 TB ($390). Endurance for these models is set at 360 TBW, 726 TBW, and 1550 TBW respectively. Zadak provides a five-year warranty for the Spark RGB.
Specifications: ZADAK Spark RGB 1 TB
Brand:
ZADAK
Model:
SPARK PCIe Gen 3×4 M.2 RGB SSD
Capacity:
1024 GB (953 GB usable) No additional overprovisioning
Filing taxes can be daunting, especially if you’re a professional streamer. Every penny that you make via Twitch, YouTube, or any other content creation platform needs to be reported. I’ve spoken to various CPAs, Tax Auditors, and tax filing companies to find some best practices when filing taxes as content creators.
Editor’s Note: We contacted a number of tax professionals and researched several sources for this story. But it is meant to be general guidance, not professional legal advice. Please speak to a tax professional about these and other filing concerns before submitting your tax return.
You’ll notice that, when you level up to Affiliate status with Twitch, the company asks you to fill out a tax form. Once you do so from any business you are responsible for reporting that income. At the end of the year, these companies will send you a 1099/ W9 if you’ve made $600 or more.
Twitch Yearly Payout Less Than $600
If you have not made at least $600 on their platform, Twitch is not obligated to send you a 1099 form, but you are still obligated to keep track of your earnings and report them to the IRS on a Schedule C.
If you agree to Twitch’s Affiliate/Partnership program but do not fill out a W9 to specify how much taxes should be withheld, the company automatically withholds up to 30%, as stated on Twitch.tv.
Non-U.S. residents are also subject to U.S. income taxes. “In most cases, a foreign person is subject to U.S. tax on its U.S. source income. Most types of U.S. source income received by a foreign person are subject to U.S. tax of 30%”, the IRS website states.
Hobbyist vs Self Employed
If you are planning to make money as a content creator, freelancer, or streamer you are self-employed and run your own business as a freelancer. According to IRS.gov, if you earn more than $400 in a year, you are subject to self-employment taxes of 15.3%, which go into retirement and medicare and must file 1040 or 1040-SR forms.
Also, you must determine if your streaming income is classified as a business or a hobby. If it’s a business, you can deduct expenses. The IRS lists nine criteria for determining whether something classifies as a business, including:
“Whether you were successful in making a profit in similar activities in the past.
Whether the activity makes a profit in some years and how much profit it makes.
Whether you can expect to make a future profit from the appreciation of the assets used in the activity.”
Kari Brummond, Tax Preparer with Tax Debt Help said, “When you have self-employment income, the IRS considers you to be a small business owner and lets you write off your business expenses. This includes everything you purchase to support your streaming business — microphones, PCs, cameras, and streaming software are all deductible…”
If you constantly are losing money year after year as a content creator, the IRS will automatically determine you to be a hobbyist instead of a business. If you are spending more money on equipment than you are earning, it is a sign that you are losing money as a creator.
Turbo Tax suggests keeping copies of receipts throughout the year and, if possible, using a business credit card to differentiate between content creator purchases and everyday purchases. Get oil changes at the beginning of the year so you can have proof of your mileage. These bookkeeping tips will help you determine if you are losing money and your yearly expenses.
Deductible Expenses for Streamers
Ms. ZaCorra Bronson, a Tax Professional with W.E.B.S. Tax Preparation & Bookkeeping Services states, “[Since passage of] the Tax Cuts and Job Act, it is harder to deduct expenses because it increased the standard deduction by almost half but eliminated many previous eligible deductions as well. Fees for tax preparation or investment management are no longer eligible deductibles.”
According to the IRS, deductible expenses for any business include rent, travel and assets (which could include equipment).
CPA Travis Guterman said that, as a content creator, your expenses can include internet services, Xbox subscriptions, games bought, computer equipment, gaming hardware and video equipment. Guterman offered a few tips to help you calculate how much of your internet and computer equipment you use for business.
“Claiming you use your home internet or telephone for 100% business use is not accurate,” Guterman said. “You’re going to use it for personal matters such as streaming Netflix, communicating with friends and family, and etc.”
If you’re trying to calculate how much is used for personal or business, think about how long you stream or edit videos. If you’re streaming 70 hours a week, there are 168 hours in a week, you use about 40% of your internet for business a week. If you only stream two hours for income, you use less than 10% of your internet for a business in a week. Calculating how much you use an Xbox subscription requires the same calculations.
Writing Off Purchases
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
If you’re using a car for streaming purposes, you can keep track of the miles and deduct them on your taxes. Your business expenses can be write-offs up to a certain amount.
“As a general rule of thumb, you write off the entire cost of small purchases and routine expenses (office rent, electricity software subscription fees) in the year of purchase, and you deduct large expenses such as computers incrementally over time,” Brummond said. “However, the Section 179 deduction lets you claim the full cost of many equipment expenses in the year of purchase.”
Using an EIN Instead of an SSN
If you are in the early stages of creating content you don’t have to file for an LLC just yet, suggests Guterman. If you’d like to acquire a free EIN, you can do so via the IRS.gov website.
Having an EIN doesn’t mean you have to file separate taxes for your business; it just means that you don’t want to give out your social security number to every company you work with. Everything made is added or subtracted from your overall annual income.
Tips and Donations Count as Income
You have to count donations sent to your PayPal, CashApp, or Venmo because those aren’t just gifts; they are part of your income. Ms. Bronson and TurboTax both suggest you subtract the service fees from platforms like PayPal. If someone gives you $30, Paypal charges you three cents per donation, which leaves you with $29.97.
What if You Spent More Than You Made?
I spoke with Guterman about losses and how to calculate them into your income. He gave me this formula. If you buy a new camera that costs $300 but only made $400 from Twitch, your income from that platform would be $100. Or, if you buy a $300 camera, but only make $200 on the platform you’ve lost money and can subtract $100 from your overall income, but you need to itemize those expenses on your Schedule C.
Finding and speaking with an accountant is going to be in your best interest. Using tax preparation software can help you prepare your taxes as well.
Annie M. Yang, Accountant Manager suggests using FreeTaxUSA.com as the cheapest option to file your taxes.
“If you use any other tax software company, they charge around $100 to file a tax return with Schedule C, which is way too much money for someone who earned less than $600 last year from their business,” she said.
The IRS site is a great resource that will also help you file your taxes. You can call 1-800-829-1040 to get answers to your federal tax questions 24 hours a day. The deadline for filing is April 15th. If you need an extension visit IRS.gov.
Executives of Loongson Technology, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at a recent conference that the next-gen Loongson 5000-series processors were on track to be released this year. The new MIPS64-compatible CPUs are aimed at client PCs as well as multiprocessor servers. Interestingly, the new chips may be the last high-end MIPS64 offerings from the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The chips in question are the 2.50 GHz quad-core Loongson 3A5000 for client PCs and 16-core Loongon 3C5000 for servers with up to 16 processors. Both chips are set to be made using a 12nm process technology (most likely one of TSMC’s nodes), reports CnTechPost, citing a small conference that was held earlier this year. Both CPUs are said to be based on a new internal architecture that is compatible with the MIPS64 instruction set, feature enlarged caches, and a new memory controller.
Based on some previous reports, the 3A5000 was taped out in April 2020, which is why it is due in the coming months; whereas the 3C5000 was taped out in August, 2020, so it will be released towards the end of 2021 if everything goes as planned.
(Image credit: HKEPC)
One interesting thing about Loongson Technology is that the company is reportedly ‘looking forward to join the open-source instruction consortium.’ The consortium mentioned by Loongson’s executives is almost certainly RISC-V International, which essentially means that going forward, the company will focus on RISC-V.
Loongson has historically developed MIPS-compatible CPU cores, so switching to RISC-V should not be too challenging for the company as the architectures have many similarities. Meanwhile, the adoption of RISC-V means that Loongson’s upcoming processors (or cores) will be supported by a broad ecosystem of software and hardware, something that will inevitably make them more competitive.
Developing new RISC-V-compatible microarchitectures and cores will take several years, so for now, Loongson will have to promote its 3A5000 among PC makers and its 3C5000 among server and HPC customers.
This year, multiple companies primarily known for gaming laptops have been branching out into the portable business and productivity sector. It’s a crowded field already, but Razer made quite a splash with its excellent Razer Book 13, which has an elegant chassis, a 16:10 screen, and just a touch of its company’s signature RGB lighting.
In this review I’m looking at the Summit Series, which is MSI’s attempt to enter the same space. The series includes the Summit E line — which includes discrete GPU options and is priced to compete with top dogs like Dell’s XPS 15 — and the Summit B line, which starts at $999 and sits squarely in the midrange market.
I’m discussing the Summit B15 here — I looked at the Summit E15 last fall. The base B15 includes a Core i5-1135G7, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. I tested the more expensive configuration, which costs $1,249 and has a Core i7-1165G7 (one of Intel’s top 11th Gen processors), 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The system puts solid specs in a nice chassis, but there are a few misses that make it a bit expensive for what it offers.
The most appealing facets of the Summit-Series laptops are their look and build. They have a smooth black finish, an aluminum build, a classy backlit keyboard, and a lustrous new MSI logo on the lid and bottom bezel (no dragon to be found, a first for MSI). MSI claims the B15 has “military-grade durability,” and while that’s a difficult claim to test, there’s very little flex in the B15’s lid and keyboard. And at 3.53 pounds and 0.67 inches thick, it’s light for its size.
All in all, though, the B15 has a bit of a utilitarian look, especially compared to the E15. The latter has some small flourishes that add up to a classier vibe — there are gold accents around the touchpad and edges of the hinge, for example, where the B15 is straight black. One other thing about the B15’s chassis — it’s one of the worst fingerprint magnets I’ve ever seen. Touch the lid one time, and a visible smudge will remain. I used the sides of my fists to reposition the laptop while taking photos and still had to wipe it down between shots.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice-looking and nice-feeling chassis. But there’s nothing exciting about it, and you’ll be wiping it down a lot if you want to maintain a clean look.
Two USB-A and a microSD on the right.
The useful port selection is a highlight, given the thin chassis. It includes a USB-C (supporting Thunderbolt 4, power delivery, DP 1.4a, and USB 4.0), two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, one USB 3.2 Gen 1, one combination audio jack, one microSD reader, and one HDMI jack, in addition to the barrel-plug power port. You also get an RJ45 Ethernet dongle in the box, which is handy. I also appreciate having USB-A ports on both sides.
I also like the keyboard backlighting, which looks quite classy and wouldn’t be out of place in an office setting. The keys have a nice texture and 1.5mm of travel. Three nitpicks to note: First, the Fn key is half-sized, and I found it a pain to hit. Second, there was occasionally some internal rattle inside the deck, which was annoying. Third, the keys are more mushy than they are clicky, and they’re a bit shallower than the best keyboard keys around. Subjectively, I made more errors on this keyboard than I normally do.
Audio jack, HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, and power port on the left.
The display, similarly, is functional with caveats. It covers 98 percent of the sRGB gamut and 76 percent of AdobeRGB, and it maxes out at 258 nits. That’s an acceptable range of color coverage and is functional enough for office use, but it’s too dim to use easily in bright settings. I would expect more from a $1,249 laptop. Additionally, it uses a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is falling out of fashion among premium business laptops for a reason — it’s cramped for multitasking purposes.
The one component I really don’t like is the touchpad. It’s a bit small for a 15-inch laptop, and I sometimes hit the fingerprint sensor (built into the top-left corner) and the top plastic as I was scrolling. It also isn’t the smoothest I’ve ever used, and my fingers would skid across it a fair amount. Both the material and the click feel a bit plasticky compared to what you might find in a nicer model.
The Summit’s performance is good. I didn’t encounter any problems while running it through my usual office work. The integrated Iris Xe graphics aren’t suitable for serious gaming but can run lighter fare if that’s your thing. I could occasionally feel the system chugging under the keyboard while doing more intense tasks, but it never got too loud or too hot. You can swap to the “Silent” cooling profile in MSI’s control panel if fan noise is bothering you.
With that said, two disappointments came out of my testing period. First, the audio from the B15’s two speakers isn’t terrible and works just fine for video calls, but it delivers tinny percussion and practically no bass. I also heard occasional distortion at maximum volume, though I could eliminate it by bumping the sound down a notch. My test unit’s microphone also wasn’t working on Zoom calls, though it worked in other applications — I’ve asked MSI about this and will update this article if they figure it out.
Second disappointment: the battery life. Running the B15 as my daily driver at 200 nits of brightness, I only averaged five hours and 13 minutes. This isn’t entirely unexpected, as it only has a three-cell 52Wh battery — similar to what some 13-inch laptops come with at this point. On this 15-inch laptop, it’s not enough to power you through a full day if your workload is similar to mine (around a dozen Chrome tabs, Slack, occasional Zoom call, that sort of thing). One thing to note is that the B15 comes loaded with Norton, which I’ve seen be a serious battery drain in the past. I ran a battery trial before uninstalling that software and only got four and a half hours. After I nuked the bloatware, the B15 got closer to six.
All told, the Summit Series is a fine first step for MSI. In a market where business-focused laptops commonly cost multiple thousands of dollars, there’s absolutely an audience for something like the B15, which is light, attractive, and functional for just over the $1,000 mark. It looks and feels like a laptop you’d bring to a business meeting, and it has a top Intel processor with cooling that can handle it. Professionals on a budget could certainly do worse.
“Determined to succeed” is the Summit Series motto.
But given the unremarkable audio, battery life, and the other areas of the chassis, I still think that people who are willing to spend a bit more will benefit from doing so, especially folks who can live with less RAM and storage. A better screen, better speakers, and better battery life can make a big difference in the daily experience, and while the B15’s nice chassis, plentiful storage, and business-specific features are worth a premium for some folks, they won’t be everyone’s top priority.
Mad Catz is a gaming peripherals company located in Hong Kong and has been around since 1989 (in one way or another). With the M.O.J.O. M1, Mad Catz does a lot of things differently compared to usual. Customization has been kept to an absolute minimum: no software, just four fixed CPI steps, only 1000 Hz polling, and a non-adjustable lightweight 66 g design. Furthermore, a more flexible paracord-like, braided cable is used, along with PixArt’s PMW3360 capable of 12,000 CPI. As for the main button switches, the M.O.J.O. M1 is equipped with Mad Catz’s custom DAKOTA switches rated for 60M clicks and of particularly low latency. Lastly, the M.O.J.O. M1 is priced at $49.99, which is also rather uncommon for a Mad Catz mouse.
As both a software engineer and an avid player of strategy games, chaosparrot struggled to reckon with the damage his work and hobbies had done to his hands. By 2017, the consistent pain of his repetitive stress injuries was bad enough that he could no longer type comfortably or enjoy the games he loved to play. While searching for solutions, he came across a video of someone using speech recognition software to code. He decided to try using the same tech — not for coding, but for playing games.
“I started the process of trying to play the old games that I couldn’t play anymore with sounds instead,” chaosparrot says. The project started in Python, which he used to create a full voice control program that enables him to play games hands-free. And it worked: he was able to reach just one tier below the rank in Starcraft he had attained before his injuries, and he also beat Hollow Knight, a twitchy game that’s likely to frustrate players even with a traditional controller, using just his voice.
Games have slowly gotten more accessible over time, but when features are missing or controls don’t work, the onus falls on disabled players to find their own ways to play. Many disabled players use a combination of adaptive hardware — such as mouth-operated controllers and specially designed joysticks — and various apps to enable features like eye tracking, screen resizing, or voice control. Chaosparrot’s use of voice is just one of the many customizable, bespoke solutions players have turned to.
“That’s like life when you have a disability. Anything that I kind of want, or need, and it’s not available, we have to make it ourselves,” says Kyle Abbate, who runs onehandmostly, a YouTube channel focused on accessibility in games. That might be a cup holder for his wheelchair, attachments for his keyboard and mouse, or the software setups he uses to play games. “A lot of stuff for disabled people is trial by error, and making your own accessible tech, and whatever works for you, and experimenting and trying to find what’s best.”
Chaosparrot’s program, Parrot.Py, was inspired by Talon Voice, a freely available voice recognition software for writing, coding, and theoretically any other computing task. By teaching Parrot.Py specific clicks, hisses, and clucks and associating them with button inputs in a game, chaosparrot is able to vocalize commands — selecting units in Starcraft or attacking and dashing in Hollow Knight — in addition to using eye tracking for movement. He hopes to get it working in a variety of game genres, and has even tested it while playing Among Us, though that involved explaining to friends why he was hissing into his mic on the way to electric.
There are other players who use older, preexisting voice control programs like VoiceAttack and GAVPI as viable alternatives to typical controllers. But regardless of the program, there are still hurdles that come with voice as a control method. Voice controls create a time delay between giving a command and the move being executed in the game, which makes for a more difficult gameplay experience, especially in games that call for fast reaction times.
There’s also more mental labor involved in setting up voice commands before diving into a game. Both VoiceAttack and GAVPI require more tech literacy than just running a game by itself, and Parrot.Py requires at least a basic familiarity with coding. Using any of these programs involves extra steps on top of the existing barriers that come with playing as a disabled person. “It’s gonna be hard to bridge that gap,” says chaosparrot. Like Abbate has done for VoiceAttack, he plans to make videos explaining how to use his program.
Beyond the quirks of setting up voice controls, some games are just more difficult to play than others. A game like Celeste, which requires fast decision-making and movement, presents a challenge, but is more playable thanks to a built-in assist mode that allows for adjustments in speed, stamina, and invincibility. For games without an assist mode, adjusting elements like health or attack damage with a program like Cheat Engine can make the game adapt to the player, meeting them in the middle between what they’re capable of and what the game requires. “I think if you look at the future of accessibility, I think [an assist mode] is a great thing to add, at least to single-player games,” says chaosparrot.
Inclusive design requires time, careful consideration, and a willingness to solicit feedback from people with a variety of disabilities. Developers don’t always have adaptive play styles in mind, and don’t necessarily have the best track record for considering how disabled people might interact with their games, from button-mashing triggering chronic pain flare-ups to flashing lights potentially causing seizures.
Improvements in gaming accessibility have often been the result of disabled people advocating for themselves. Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller was developed with guidance from advocacy groups like AbleGamers to better address the needs of disabled players. A letter from a disabled player is what pushed Naughty Dog’s team to consider accessibility in their games. They prioritized accessibility in The Last of Us Part IIas a result, and the game was praised for its wide range of customizable options like remappable controls and audio cues for players with low vision.
Those pushes for more accessible features are also found on social media platforms, where disabled people band together to bring awareness to what’s missing in games and what fixes have been made. “The disabled community on social media has been growing and becoming more and more vocal,” says Courtney Craven, founder of Can I Play That, an accessible game review site.
Players continue to advocate for accessibility in games by reaching out to developers and showcasing and sharing the kinds of solutions they use. Chaosparrot’s Parrot.Py is designed to address his needs, but he and other players know that accessibility will never be one-size-fits-all.
“I encourage devs to take a look at their game and their mechanics, and then think about ‘how do we make these accessible,’’’ says Abbate. “And then when you’re making your next game, ‘how can we iterate again, and make those changes, make it even better.’”
(Pocket-lint) – Oppo is on the move, gaining popularity in its home market where it’s even overtaken Huawei. But it’s not just gaining at home: it’s now undoubtedly a top contender in the world of smartphones, make it the most likely challenger to Apple and Samsung’s dominance.
Oppo’s latest effort, the Find X3 Pro, is seeking to go toe-to-toe with the likes of the Galaxy S21 Ultra and iPhone 12 Pro Max, offering a big and premium flagship experience that, as we’ve found, is stunning in almost every way.
Distinctive design
Glass and metal design; curved glass around rear camera enclosure
Dimensions: 163.6 x 74.0 x 8.26mm / Weight: 193g
IP68 water and dust resistance
For the past few years we’ve seen smartphone makers all use the same tired design and – for 2021 so far – thankfully we’re seeing some new takes. Samsung kicked things off with its odd, but purposeful, camera hump in the S21 series – the one that wrapped around the edge of the phone to form a more deliberate part of the design.
Now the Find X3 Pro delivers what we think is an even more refined finish. Rather than have a separate unit for the camera, Oppo made the camera protrusion part of the same piece of glass as the rest of the phone’s back, forming this completely seamless curve. The company says it took 2000 attempts to get this right, and nearly gave up on the idea, but the effect is really unique.
The result is a lot more subtle and refined than just having a rectangle sticking out of the back fo the phone. It’s also unique, unlike anything else currently on the market. It’s really lovely to look at – and far better looking than the odd digital renders that leaked ahead of the phone’s launch – although the camera arrangement definitely has some iPhone-like vibes.
The rest of the Find X3 Pro’s back is one smooth surface with gradual curves towards the edges, while this blue model features a lovely frosted soft glass finish that’s really nice to the touch. The branding is minimal too, giving this phone a look and feel that’s highly polished and befitting of its high price tag.
It’s slimmer than its predecessor, the Oppo Find X2 Pro, too. In fact, it’s a more than a 1mm thinner than the vegan leather model of old and noticeably lighter too – although there’s no denying the Find X3 Pro is still quite a large phone. It doesn’t have the bulk or weight of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra though.
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It’s skinny bezels all the way around on the front and nothing cuts into that display panel except for a small selfie camera punched into the top corner.
Aligning itself slightly with recent trends, the curves around the edges of the display are less extreme than we’ve seen in the past, but are very much still there. It seems the trend of ‘waterfall displays’ died before it began. Unsurprising, really, given how easy it is to perform accidental touches on those things.
Another positive is that Oppo has built in some stereo speakers, so if the phone is close enough to your face, you get that left and right channel effect while watching movies and listening to music. The loudspeaker at the bottom is definitely the louder of the two, however, and can be quite easy to cover with a hand by accident – especially during landscape gaming – leaving you with quite a quiet left channel only.
Brilliant display
6.7-inch AMOLED panel, QHD+ resolution (3216 x 1440 pixels)
120Hz refresh rate (with adaptive frame rate)
1300 nits peak brightness
ColorOS 11 (based on Android 11)
Oppo has made something of a name for itself by putting fantastic screens on its phones this past couple of years. For 2021, that’s no different. With a high-resolution and fast refresh rate panel – with adaptive refresh up to 120Hz – the Find X3 Pro delivers on that sharp and smooth experience.
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As if that wasn’t enough, it can display up to a billion colours, is HDR10+ compatible, and has a peak brightness of 1300 nits. The display spec sheet is enough to make any tech nerd’s mouth water.
But it’s not just read it and imagine stuff, it’s great in reality too. It’s bright, it’s sharp, it’s dynamic, and the colours are rich. It’s set to FHD+ resolution by default, but it’s easy enough to change to QHD within the settings and get the full effect of its sharpness (inevitably minus some battery life).
We don’t find that it over-eggs the contrast too much either, so while blacks are really deep and dark, they don’t cause the screen to feature that overly contrasty or ‘black crush’ look we sometimes found with the Find X2 Pro or OnePlus 8.
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Oppo’s ColorOS software is great in a lot of ways too. As Android skins go, it’s worked itself into the position of being one of the cleanest, most fluid and attractive options out there. It doesn’t go crazy with colourful icons and trasitions like Samsung’s One UI, and has attractive rounded corners on the notification bubbles.
It’s come a very long way since it was effectively just a clone of Apple’s iOS back in the day – before Oppo’s launch in Europe (well, relaunch). There are some quirks though. Mainly around notifications.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of consistency in how notifications are handled. For instance, we could have a little icon showing we have a notification on the always-on display, but then there’s nothing displaying on the Lock Screen. Or there coule be a little red dot on the app icon, but nothing showing up in the status bar or notification shade when we dropped it down.
The lock screen’s inconsistency was particularly unusual. Even when we’d set notifications to wake up the phone we’d see the notification light up the lock screen, but upon picking up the phone to check again, the notification would vanish – despite being unread and still showing as an icon on the always-on display.
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All of these quirks were despite having set notifications to have the ability to show everywhere (status bar/app icon/lock screen), and despite setting our most-used apps to ignore any battery optimisations that might push them to background status or send them to sleep.
Still, there’s some other fun and good points to ColorOS, such as the Relax app to help you get to sleep at night by playing some calming ambient noise. And we like the customisation options available for the interface and the always-on display.
Performance & battery life
Snapdragon 888 processor, 12GB RAM
256GB storage, no microSD expansion
4,500mAh battery capacity
65W Super VOOC 2.0 flash charging
30W Air VOOC wireless charging
5G connectivity
As far as pure power goes, the Find X3 Pro is up there with the best of them, featuring the top-end for 2021 Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series. Here that means the Snapdragon 888 with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.
Load up your favourite games and the phone handles them without breaking a sweat, keeping up with fast animations and transitions. It doesn’t stutter or lag anywhere, so it really doesn’t matter what you try to do with it, it’ll handle it just fine. It didn’t even get particularly warm, even after a 30 minute gaming session.
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Battery management is similarly efficient. We struggled to drain the full battery in a single day, even at a weekend with three hours of gaming and then some camera testing we still finished the day with 30 per cent left over.
On quiter days with only a little dabbling with news sites, maybe an hour of gaming and some social media, we could easily finish the day with more than 50 per cent left at bed time. So we have no doubt this could easily be a two-day phone for light to moderate users.
Then when the battery does eventually empty, it has Oppo’s trademark flash charging technology in both wired and wireless forms. With the wired adapter, it can full refill in under 40 minutes. With the proprietary AirVOOC tech – which OnePlus also uses in its Wireless Warp Charge stand – you can fill it up pretty quickly with the wireless charger too.
Under the microscope
3-megapixel ‘Micro lens’
Where to start with the camera. Let’s go with the gimmick bit first. Because, actually, it’s rather fun.
In its quad camera system, the Find X3 Pro has a so-called ‘Micro lens’. This gives you the effect of zooming in up to 60x and has its own little LED light ring around it. That’s an essential addition because it’s for shooting really, really close-up shots, allowing you to see detail you just can’t with the naked eye.
Launch the microscope mode in the camera and a curtain goes from being just about able to see a weave pattern to being able to see the individual threads and weaves in the construction. It’s a similar effect with a weaved nylon watch strap or a clothbound book. Hold it to a screen and you’ll see the sub pixels in the panel. It’s pretty cool.
Yes, it’s a gimmick – and with a low 3-megapixel resolution – so it’s not particularly sharp, but it is fun and definitely adds a different edge to your photography.
It also takes some concentration and very steady hands. Holding the camera 1-3mm away from a subject is hard enough without the extreme magnification also making every tiny hand movement or shake exagerated.
It has a macro mode too, which thankfully isn’t handled by this low-resolution sensor. It instead uses the same sensor as the ultra-wide camera – which we’ll come to later.
What that means for photos – examples of which you can see in the gallery above – is that your images retain colour, detail and a natural blur that you generally don’t get with a seperate, low-resolution macro camera. It can get you great results, although its automatic activation can take a little while to get used to.
With the camera set to its default 1x mode it’ll automatically switch to macro mode as soon as you get close to a subject. Sounds great, except it switches to the ultra-wide lens – and because that’s in a physically different position you have to then adjust and re-frame.
Our only real criticism here is that sometimes with the macro mode the background blur causes edges to appear to have a outline glow, which is kind of odd.
As for the other cameras, it’s pretty much all good here. Pictures have detail and a lot of vibrancy and life, especially when shooting in daylight. One of the best things is that both the ultra-wide and primary camera use exactly the same 50-megapixel sensor.
That means – since they make use of the same image processing tech too – that the balance of colour, dynamic range and detail between the two is pretty much identical. It helps photos taken from those two camera appear consistent, which isn’t the case on a lot of other phones.
The phone cameras seem to handle harsh lighting conditions pretty well too, balancing out highlights and shadows nicely. It’s a really reliable system.
One thing we did notice – in both daylight and night modes – is that the camera produces quite a warm colour balance. We like the look, but it isn’t necessarily the neutral and clean finish some will like. Saying that, there is a ‘Pro’ mode which will let you adjust all manner of settings, including the white balance.
There’s also a telephoto zoom camera with 2x optical zoom, 5x hybrid zoom, and up to 20x digital zoom, giving you that extra range you might want to shoot subjects further away.
Images from this camera don’t have that same quality look of the two primary cameras, but they hold up well – up to about 5x anyway. Zoom beyond that and the detail falls off quite rapidly. At 20x the picture looks quite ropey, with details somewhat jagged and blurry.
With night mode activated the phone performs well in low-light conditions too. To our surprise we found that both the primary and ultra-wide cameras perform well in night mode, drawing in a lot of light. Although, with its wider aperture, the primary is noticeably better.
We took the Find X3 Pro out to compare with the iPhone 12 and Google Pixel 5 at night and found that its images were warmer than the other two. It doesn’t seem as heavy-handed with contrast and highlights like the iPhone, but isn’t quite as realistic looking as the Pixel in our view.
Night mode doesn’t just apply to photos either. Tapping an AI enhancing button boosts the video performance at night too. This does effect the optical stabilisation a little negatively, but results in some pretty colour and hyper-realistic scenery, but it’s impressive to see the difference in really low-light situations.
Best smartphones 2021 rated: The top mobile phones available to buy today
By Chris Hall
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Verdict
When it comes to display, battery life and overall speed, the Oppo Find X3 Pro is undoubtedly one of the best flagships on the market right now – and will likely remain a strong choice throughout 2021.
While the camera does have a habit of warming up pictures’ colour balance and sometimes making them a bit oversaturated, the whole system is immensely versatile and gets great results, regardless of lighting conditions.
The only other negative relates to quirks with notifications from the ColorOS software. Otherwise it’s hard to find much fault with Oppo’s top-tier flagship.
While Oppo might not be a familiar name to everyone, the Find X3 Pro is so fantastic in nearly every way that it’ll put the brand name on the map. It simply stands out from the crowd for all the right reasons.
Also consider
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Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
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Oppo is competiting with the big names, and Samsung’s latest ultra-premium device has a lot going for it. The screen is fab and it has a super camera system. Oh, and that Phantom Black colour is stunning too.
Read our review
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iPhone 12 Pro Max
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It’s Apple’s latest all-singing all-dancing flagship and offers many of the same hardware features. It’s a very polished experience all-round if you’re not up for Google’s Android OS.
You’ve probably already seen a Wombo video floating around your social media. Maybe it was Ryu from Street Fighter singing the “Witch Doctor” or the last three heads of the US Federal Reserve miming in unison to Rick Astley’s “Never Going to Give You Up.” Each clip features exaggerated facial expressions and uncanny, sometimes nightmarish animation. They’re stupid, fun, and offer a useful look at the current state of deepfakes.
It’s certainly getting quicker and easier to make AI-generated fakes, but the more convincing they are, the more work is needed. The realistic Tom Cruise deepfakes that went viral on TikTok, for example, required an experienced VFX artist, a top-flight impersonator, and weeks of preparation to pull off. One-click fakes that can be created with zero effort and expertise, by comparison, still look like those made by the Wombo app and will continue to do so for the immediate future. In the short term, at least, deepfakes are going to be obviously fabricated and instant meme-bait.
The Wombo app launched late last month from Canada after a short development process. “Back in August 2020 I had the idea for Wombo while smoking a joint with my roommate on the roof,” app creator and Wombo CEO Ben-Zion Benkhin tells The Verge. Releasing the product was “an enormous joy,” he says. “I’ve been following the AI space, following the meme space, following the deepfake space, and just saw the opportunity to do something cool.” In just a few weeks, Benkhin estimates the app has seen some 2 million downloads.
Wombo is free and easy to use. Just snap a picture of your face or upload an image from your camera roll, and push a button to have the image lip-sync to one of a handful of meme-adjacent songs. The app’s software will work its magic on anything that even vaguely resembles a face and many things that don’t. Although similar apps in the past have been dogged by privacy fears, Benkhin is adamant users’ data is safe. “We take privacy really seriously,” he says. “All the data gets deleted and we don’t share it or send it to anyone else.”
The app’s name comes from esports slang, specifically Super Smash Bros. Melee. “If a player lands like a crazy combination then the casters will start yelling ‘Wombo Combo! Wombo Combo!’” says Benkhin. True to these origins, Wombo has proved particularly popular with gamers who’ve used it to animate characters from titles like League of Legends, Fallout: New Vegas, and Dragon Age. “I did some digging into [the origins of the slang],” says Benkhin, “and apparently there was some pizza place that started all this, where they would put a shit-ton of toppings on all their pizza and call it a Wombo Combo.”
Benkhin says the app works by morphing faces using predefined choreography. He and his team shot the base video for each song in his studio (“which is really just a room in my apartment”) and then use these to animate each image. “We steal the motions from their face and apply it to your photo,” he says. The app is also an example of the fast-paced world of AI research, where new techniques can become consumer products in a matter of weeks. Benkhin notes that the software is built “on top of existing work” but with subsequent tweaks and improvements that make it “our own proprietary model.”
Currently, Wombo offers just 14 short clips of songs to lip-sync with, but Benkhin says he plans to expand these options soon. When asked whether the app has the proper licenses for the music it uses, he demures to answer but says the team is working on it.
As with TikTok, though, it seems the reach offered by Wombo could help ameliorate license-holders’ worries about rights. Wombo has already been approached by artists wanting to get their music on the app, says Benkhin, and it’s likely this could offer a revenue stream in addition to the current premium tier (which pays for priority processing and no in-app ads). “It’s going to give [artists] a completely new way of engaging audiences,” he says. “It gives them this new viral marketing tool.”
Wombo is far from the first app to use machine learning to create quick and fun deepfakes. Others include ReFace and FaceApp. But it’s the latest example of what will be an ever-more prominent trend, as deepfake apps become the latest meme templates, allowing users to mash together favorite characters, trending songs, choreographed dances, public figures, and so much more. The future of deepfakes will definitely be memeified.
In December, the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to sue Facebook for illegally maintaining a monopoly in social networking. The lawsuit, which was accompanied by a separate suit joined by 49 US attorneys general, alleges that Facebook used acquisitions and software restrictions on developers to prevent competitors from succeeding.
The government’s case appeared shaky from the start, I wrote at the time. Its allegation that Facebook owns a monopoly in advertising-supported social networking felt overly narrow and blinkered; the case does not even mention the existence of TikTok. And its suggestion that Facebook should have done more to share data with third-party developers seemingly runs counter to the FTC’s own privacy enforcement actions — in 2019 the agency fined Facebook $5 billion for sharing too much data with developers.
At the same time, the case contains numerous incriminating emails suggesting that Facebook executives acted knowingly to reduce competition by making acquisitions including Instagram and WhatsApp. And the states’ suit in particular articulated a compelling theory of harm: that Facebook’s privacy policies worsened as competition decreased, making life worse for the average consumer. This is important because recent antitrust law has focused on cases that have caused prices to rise for consumers; companies like Facebook (and Google and Amazon) have escaped scrutiny until now in large part because they offer their services for free.
It’s against that backdrop that I read Facebook’s response to the government, which it filed in court on Wednesday. Here’s Brent Kendall in TheWall Street Journal:
Facebook on Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss antitrust lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, arguing that government enforcers have no valid basis for alleging the social media giant is suppressing competition.
The FTC “utterly ignores the reality of the dynamic, intensely competitive high-tech industry in which Facebook operates,” the company said in seeking to dismiss the commission’s case. In a second motion, Facebook argued the states’ case “does not and cannot assert that their citizens paid higher prices, that output was reduced, or that any objective measure of quality declined as a result of Facebook’s challenged actions.”
A motion like this is, on one hand, totally expected — if you’re Facebook, why not try to get this case thrown out as soon as possible — and, on the other hand, unlikely to succeed. No matter how wobbly the government’s case against Facebook appears from Silicon Valley, it is the product of years of investigation. I imagine a judge would be inclined to at least let the government make its case at trial, but we’ll see.
At the same time, Google — which is facing a similar set of US antitrust lawsuits — declined to filed such a motion when presented with the opportunity last year. So why does Facebook think its Hail Mary has a better chance of success?
The company laid out its arguments in a blog post yesterday. As expected, it complains about the government’s tortured efforts to define a market small enough for Facebook to credibly monopolize. It complains that the government cannot specify what exclusionary things it did in the wake of purchasing Instagram or WhatsApp, or restricting access to its data, that actually broke the law. And it raises various questions of standing and timing that I won’t try to assess here.
In response, the government dismissed these arguments, though not in any great level of detail.
“Facebook is wrong on the law and wrong on our complaint,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the states’ case, told The Verge. “We are confident in our case, which is why almost every state in this nation has joined our bipartisan lawsuit to end Facebook’s illegal conduct. We will continue to stand up for the millions of consumers and many small businesses that have been harmed by Facebook’s unlawful behavior.”
II.
Is there a better case to be made against Facebook than the antitrust complaints that actually got filed?
I wondered that while rereading this great 2018 David Streitfeld profile of Lina Khan, who President Biden will reportedly nominate to the FTC. Khan helped inspire the current antitrust moment with a widely read paper, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” which moved the discussion of competition issues away from a decades-long focus on price increases.
“We’re finally beginning to examine how antitrust laws, which were rooted in deep suspicion of concentrated private power, now often promote it,” Khan told Streitfeld.
This has been a necessary and productive reversal. As more of our lives move online, we can’t help but notice all the ways in which our activities are enabled and monitored by a small handful of West Coast companies.
Facebook owns three of the most popular apps in the world; is a primary news source for billions; hosts a significant portion of global political speech; runs a large marketplace for physical goods; is building a significant consumer hardware division; and developed a cryptocurrency (now operated by a consortium) intended to power a worldwide payments network.
It is a quasi-state operating in parallel with all the other nations where it exists.
Laws that were truly rooted in a suspicion of concentrated power, I think, might have intervened earlier in this state of affairs. Regulators could have expressed more skepticism about acquisitions; crafted a national privacy law; or written standards for data portability. They could have required Facebook to offer nondiscriminatory access to parts of its infrastructure, as if it were a public utility.
None of which would have required rethinking antitrust laws that may not be suited to the purpose that regulators are now pursuing.
Perhaps existing laws will turn out to be well-suited for that purpose after all. Perhaps the newly Democratic Congress will write some new ones, as they have long been promising to do.
Or perhaps, given that the consumer internet is now the most competitive it has been in the past half-decade or so, it won’t much matter either way.
I don’t think Facebook’s motion to dismiss is likely to end the government’s ambitions to rein in the company. But it does highlight the steep challenge facing the FTC in the short term. A badly written lawsuit could still succeed at trial — but first it has to make it there.
This column was co-published with Platformer, a daily newsletter about Big Tech and democracy.
Although I assembled it myself, and its software all comes from an open-source DIY project, in many ways my MiSTer is the most versatile computer I own. It’s a shapeshifting wonderbox that can change its own logic to make itself run like countless other machines as accurately as possible. From old arcade boards to early PCs to vintage consoles, MiSTer developers are devoted to helping it turn into an ever-expanding range of hardware.
If you’ve ever wanted to use computer software or hardware that is no longer available for sale, you’ve probably run into emulation before. It’s a huge field that often involves a ton of people working on a technically challenging feat: how to write software that lets one computer run code that was written for another. But there’s only so much traditional emulators can do. There are always inherent compromises and complexities involved in getting your current hardware to run software it was never designed to handle. Emulated operating systems or video games often encounter slowdown, latency, and bugs you’d never have encountered with the original devices. So what if there was a way to alter the hardware itself?
Well, that’s MiSTer. It’s an open-source project built upon field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, which means it makes use of hardware that can be reconfigured after the fact. While traditional CPUs are fixed from the point of manufacture, FPGAs can be reprogrammed to work as if they came right off the conveyor belt with the actual silicon you want to use.
What this means is, you’re not tricking a processor into believing it’s something else, you’re setting it up to run that way from the start. A MiSTer system can theoretically run software from the NES to the Neo Geo, to the Apple II or Acorn Archimedes, and deliver responsive, near-as-dammit accurate performance next to what you’d get from the actual devices.
Of course, it’s not as easy as that makes it sound. In order to program an FPGA to act like a computer from three decades ago, you have to intimately understand the original hardware. And that’s what makes MiSTer one of the technically coolest DIY projects going today, building on the knowledge of developers around the globe.
The DE10-Nano sandwiched between the I/O and USB hub boards.
FPGAs aren’t new technology. Two early companies in the field (sorry) were Altera, now owned by Intel, and Xilinx, now part of AMD. The two have competed since the 1980s for market share in programmable logic devices, largely serving enterprise customers. One of the biggest advantages of FPGAs on an industrial scale is that companies can iterate their software design on hardware before they need to manufacture the final silicon. FPGAs are widely used to develop embedded systems, for example, because the software and the hardware can be designed near-concurrently.
You might be familiar with FPGAs if you’ve come across Analogue’s boutique console clones, like the Mega Sg and the Super Nt. Those use FPGAs programmed in a certain way to replicate a single, specific piece of hardware, so you can use your original physical cartridges with them and get an experience that’s very close to the actual consoles.
The MiSTer project is built around more accessible FPGA hardware than you’d find in commercial or enterprise applications. The core of the system is an FPGA board called the DE10-Nano, produced by another Intel-owned company called Terasic that’s based out of Taiwan. It was originally intended for students as a way to teach themselves how to work with FPGAs.
The DE10-Nano looks somewhat similar to a Raspberry Pi — it’s a tiny motherboard that ships without a case and is designed to be expanded. The hardware includes an Altera Cyclone V with two ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores, 1GB of DDR3 SDRAM, an HDMI out, a microSD card slot, a USB-A port, and Ethernet connectivity. It runs a Linux-based OS out of the box and sells for about $135, or $99 to students.
MiSTer is inspired by MiST, an earlier project that made use of an Altera FPGA board to recreate the Atari ST. But the DE10-Nano is cheaper, more powerful, and expandable, which is why project leader Alexey Melnikov used it as the basis for MiSTer when development started a few years back. Melnikov also designed MiSTer-specific daughterboards that enhance the DE10-Nano’s capability and make a finished machine a lot more versatile; the designs are open-source, so anyone is free to manufacture and sell them.
You can run MiSTer on a single DE10-Nano, but it’s not recommended, because the board alone will only support a few of the cores available. (A “core” is a re-creation of a specific console or computer designed to run on the MiSTer platform.) The one upgrade that should be considered essential is a 128MB stick of SDRAM, which gives MiSTer enough memory at the right speed to run anything released for the platform to date.
Beyond that, you’ll probably want a case, assuming you’d rather not run open circuitry exposed to the elements. There are various case designs available, many of which are intended for use with other MiSTer-specific add-ons that vertically attach to the DE10-Nano. An I/O board isn’t necessary for most cores, for example, but it adds a VGA port along with digital and analog audio out, which is useful for various setups. (A lot of MiSTer users prefer to hook up their systems to CRT TVs to make the most of the authentic output and low latency.) You can add a heatsink or a fan, which can be a good idea if you want to run the system for extended periods of time. And there’s a USB hub board that adds seven USB-A ports.
For my setup, I ordered the DE10-Nano, a 128MB SDRAM stick, a VGA I/O board with a fan, a USB hub board, and a case designed for that precise selection of hardware. These largely came from different sources and took varying amounts of time to show up; you can order the DE10-Nano from countless computer retailers, but other MiSTer accessories involve diving into a cottage industry of redesigns and resellers. Half of my parts arrived in a battered box from Portugal filled with shredded paper and loosely attached bubble wrap.
MiSTer accessories are based on Melnikov’s original designs, but since the project is open-source, many sellers customize their own versions. My case, for example, includes a patch cable that hooks directly into the IO board to control its lighting, while some others require you to route the LEDs yourself. The USB board, meanwhile, came with a bridge to the DE10-Nano that seemed to be a different height from most others, which meant I had to improvise a little with screw placements. Nothing I ordered came with instructions, so it did take some time to figure out what should go where, but everything worked fine in the end. The only other thing I had to do was go buy a small hex screwdriver for the final screws in the case.
That’s part of the fun with MiSTer. There’s a base specification that everything works around, but you’re still ultimately assembling your own FPGA computer, and you can adjust the build as much or as little as you want.
Once your hardware is set, you need to install the MiSTer software. There are a few ways to do this, and you’ll want to dig around forums and GitHub for a while so you know what you’re doing, but the method I went with was simple in the end — essentially, you format your microSD card with an installer package, put it into the DE10-Nano, plug in an Ethernet cable and a USB keyboard, power on the system, and it’ll download all of the available cores. Your SD card will then be set up to boot the MiSTer OS directly, and you can run another script to make sure everything’s updated with the most recent versions.
The MiSTer OS is very simple, with a default background that looks like pixelated TV static and a basic menu in a monospaced font that lets you select from lists of console and computer cores. The first thing I did was load some old Game Boy Advance ROMs I dumped well over a decade ago, because for some reason Nintendo doesn’t want to sell them for the Switch. (Please sell them for the Switch, Nintendo.) The performance felt about as authentic as I could’ve expected, except for the fact that I was looking at a 4K TV instead of a tiny screen.
My main reason for getting into MiSTer is to have a hardware-based way to access the parts of computer history that I missed, or to revisit forgotten platforms that I was around for. I knew that computer systems like the Apple II and the Amiga were big gaps in my knowledge, so it’s great to have a little box that can run like either of them on command. I’ve also been getting into the MSX platform, which was popular in Japan in the ’80s. My next rainy-day project is to work on an install of RISC OS, the Acorn operating system that was on the first computers I ever used at school in the UK. (You can actually still buy licensed ROM copies of various versions of the OS, which was a neat surprise.)
MiSTer development is a vibrant scene. Melnikov has a Patreon that’s updated several times a week with improvements he’s made to various cores, but there are lots of other people contributing to the project on a daily or weekly basis. A colleague introduced me to the work of Jose Tejada, for example, who’s based in Spain and has made a ton of progress on replicating old Capcom arcade machine boards. There’s another project aiming to get the original PlayStation running, marking the biggest step yet into 3D hardware on MiSTer.
FPGAs are often talked about as if they’re a silver bullet for perfect emulation, but that’s really not the case — at least, not without a lot of effort. Anything that runs perfectly on MiSTer, or as close to perfectly as is otherwise imperceptible, is the result of a ton of work by talented programmers who have spent time figuring out the original hardware and applying the knowledge to their cores. Just read this post from the FPGA PSX Project about what it took to get Ridge Racer running on MiSTer, as well as the assessment of how far they have to go. The cores can vary in quality, accuracy, and state of completion, but a lot of them are still under active development and huge strides have been made in the past couple of years.
Analogue lead hardware engineer Kevin Horton spoke to The Verge in 2019 about the work that went into re-creating the Sega Genesis for the Mega Sg console. The process took him nine months, including two-and-a-half months figuring out the CPU at the heart of the console. “I didn’t know Genesis very well, and knew literally nothing about the 68000 CPU at all!” he said. “This was my first foray into both things and probably slowed the process down since I had to learn it all as I went.”
Ultimately, Horton confirmed the accuracy of his work by directly connecting a 68000 to an FPGA and comparing their performance on a test that ran for a week straight. It demonstrates the lengths that FPGA enthusiasts go to in pursuit of the most accurate results possible, but what makes MiSTer special is that this is largely the work of hobbyists. No one’s paying anyone a salary to make incremental tweaks to the performance of the arcade version of Bionic Commando, but that’s where Tejada has directed his passion.
MiSTer is an important project because it speaks to the concept of preservation in a way that all too often goes underserved by the technology industry. The project makes the argument that the way we run software is as big a part of our experience as its content. Yes, you can port or emulate or re-release software to run on modern hardware, but there’s always going to be a compromise in the underlying code that moves the pixels in front of your eyes.
Of course, that might sound like a pretty niche concern for anyone who’s satisfied with, say, the emulated software you can run in a browser at Archive.org. I’m often one of those people myself — emulation can be great, and it’s hard to beat the convenience. But the MiSTer project is an incredible effort all the same. I’ll never have a shred of the technical knowledge possessed by MiSTer developers, but I’m grateful for their effort. Once you build your own system, it’s hard not to feel invested in the work that goes into it; MiSTer is a never-ending pursuit of perfection, and there’s something beautiful about that.
The Asus ROG Strix Scope RX is a compelling keyboard with optical switches, per-key RGB lighting and many gaming-focused features. It’s only limited by its size and keycaps.
For
+ Switches deliver pleasant typing, gaming
+ Sturdy construction bolstered by dust, water resistance
+ On-keyboard controls for lighting, profile switching and more
Against
– Keycaps can feel unpleasant
– Thick, obtrusive rubber cable
– Switches feel stiffer than expected
Most gaming keyboards only use lighting to look pretty. You watch as the keys illuminate with a dazzling array of 16.8 million colors and a variety of effects. Gaming keyboards with optical mechanical switches do the same thing, sure, but they’re also built around the idea that light offers the best way to register a key press. RGB lighting is essentially a decoration; the lighting used by optical switches are foundational.
It’s taken a while for optical keyboards to go mainstream, but they’re slowing becoming increasingly common among vendors claiming to make the best gaming keyboards. Razer, Corsairand Roccat all released keyboards with optical switches in late 2020, and Asus joins the optical trend with the introduction of the $130 Asus ROG Strix Scope RX. Could this finally be the keyboard that convinces gamers to flock to optical switches?
Asus ROG Strix Scope RX Specs
Switches
Asus ROG RX Red optical mechanical
Lighting
Per-key RGB
Onboard Storage
5 customizable profiles
Media Keys
With FN
Interface
USB 2.0 Type-A
Cable
Attached, rubber
Additional Ports
USB 2.0
Keycaps
Plastic
Construction
Aluminum top plate, plastic base
Software
Asus Armoury Crate
Dimensions (LxWxH)
17.3 in x 5.4 in x 1.5 in (440 x 137 x 39 mm)
Weight
2.4 pounds (1.07kg)
Design of the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ROG Strix Scope RX is a full-size keyboard that features a few design changes to the standard layout meant to help it appeal to gamers. The most notable of those changes are the double-width left Ctrl key, which is supposed to make it easier to find the “crouch” button in most shooters, and the Stealth key that sits in the function row (we’ll talk more about what that key does next). Otherwise, the ROG Strix Scope RX looks like a standard gaming keyboard.
The ROG Strix Scope RX’s Stealth key lets you quickly hide all open apps and mute the system’s audio. Like I said in my Asus ROG Strix Scope TKL Electro Punk review, that feature doesn’t feel particularly necessary while working from home. For those who disagree, well, that hoodie-clad keycap is just waiting for you to press it.
It features a black and gray color scheme accented by per-key RGB backlighting and a rather conspicuous ROG logo in the top-right corner. The lighting appears to shine evenly through the keycaps, and the aluminum top plate’s treatment allows it to reflect those lights without coming off as shiny.
There are no dedicated media keys, unfortunately, but Asus did give media controls top priority when it printed the function row’s legends. The “F5” to “F12” labels are all printed on the front of their respective keycaps instead of the top, which is a nice touch. A similar labeling approach is also used for the secondary functions (changing profiles, controlling lighting, et cetera) of other keys.
The ROG Strix Scope RX offers USB 2.0 passthrough, which some will find useful as it brings a USB Type-A port closer to you. But that does mean the keyboard’s stuck with a thick cable — in this keyboard’s case, a rubberized one — that ends with two different USB connectors. That isn’t uncommon for keyboards that offer USB passthrough, but it’s still disappointing after reviewing the HyperX Alloy Origins 60mini keyboard with a detachable braided cable. Comparatively, the ROG Strix Scope RX is a beast.
I suppose portability isn’t as much of a concern for a full-size keyboard. The ROG Strix Scope RX measures in at 17.3 inches long, 5.4 inches wide, and 1.5 inches tall before the feet are extended from underneath its top corners. It weighs 2.4 pounds. At that point having a sleeker, more travel-friendly cable probably wouldn’t change much. For comparison against other optical gaming keyboards, the Razer Huntsman, is 17.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches, and the Corsair K100 RGB, with many media and macro keys, is 18.5 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches.
Luckily, it seems like Asus was prepared for the ROG Strix Scope RX to sit in one place for extended periods. The company said the keyboard offers IP56 dust and water resistance, which means it should be able to withstand any reasonable accumulation of dust or spills.
Typing Experience on the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
Most important is the ROG Strix Scope RX’s status as the first keyboard to feature Asus’ proprietary ROG RX Red optical mechanical Switches. These linear switches are supposed to be able to withstand up to 100 million keystrokes, feature a 1.5mm actuation point, require 40g of force to actuation and 55g of force to bottom out and a have total travel of 4mm. These specs are similar to the linear Cherry MX Red standard mechanical switches, but they require less force to bottom out (55g versus over 60g) and a shorter actuation point (1.5mm versus 2mm). They also require less initial force for the spring to start compressing (45g compared to about 30g ). More details are on Asus’ website.
The ROG RX Red switches performed surprisingly well during everyday use. I’ve been fairly vocal about my preference for tactile keys, especially when I’m typing, but the first time I pressed a key on the ROG Strix Scope RX, I double-checked the packaging to make sure I wasn’t sent the wrong keyboard by mistake. These don’t feel like any other linear switches I’ve used before. While they are linear, meaning they don’t have a bump along its travel, such as Cherry MX Browns, they feel stiffer than other linear switches, like Cherry MX Reds. And that stiffness persisted after I used the keyboard for days.
Whether that’s a virtue or vice is a matter of perspective. For me, it meant I got the advantages of linear switches — namely their responsiveness and relatively quiet operation — without the disadvantage of having to edit out a bunch of accidental keypresses. But it’s not hard to imagine that someone expecting a linear switch to be easier to press might be a little frustrated.
A keyboard is more than just the sum of its switches, however, and in that regard the ROG Strix Scope RX left something to be desired. The keycaps feel oddly grippy and grimy even though my house is (almost unbearably) dry because of the extended New York winter. It almost felt like I had to pull my fingertips away from the keycaps any time I wanted to punch at another one.
But those are just qualitative impressions. The quantitative impressions are more favorable: I scored an average 122.3 words per minute (wpm) with 97.3% accuracy on the 10fastfingers.com typing test. That’s faster than I typed on any other keyboard, including my daily drivers, with only a slight decrease in accuracy, (which varied; I was 99.5% accurate in one of the tests.
It was also nice to have some of the keyboard back after using a 60% board. Providing easy access to media controls, arrow keys, and important tools like Home and End was a point in the ROG Strix Scope RX’s favor. Do I still find the number pad unnecessary? Yeah, especially since I have a fairly large mouse pad. But having those others keys available helped during everyday use.
Gaming Experience on the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
Gaming is where the ROG Strix Scope RX is supposed to shine. Optical switches aren’t just meant to be more durable than their strictly mechanical counterparts, since they actuate when the stem passes through a light beam, rather than via metallic contact. They’re also said to be more responsive. Nothing travels faster than light, right? That is just an illusion, though, and the reality is that I wasn’t able to tell that I was gaming on optical switches rather than standard mechanical ones.
I will say the way Asus designed the ROX RX Red switches lends to my play style. I like to keep my fingers on important keys (the WASD cluster, left Ctrl, etc.) when I play my go-to competitive titles, like Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Some linear switches interpret that hovering as a key press, which can lead to disaster if it results in me peeking at a bad time.
That doesn’t happen with this keyboard, however, because of the ROG RX Red Optical Mechanical Switches’ initial resistance. That means the switch will probably be even more polarizing when it comes to gaming —many linear switches are popular specifically because they can be activated by a baby’s breath from halfway across the room— but it worked for me.
The grippy quality of the keycaps also proved to be a boon rather than a hindrance when it came to gaming. Typing requires me to find a bunch of different keys in rapid succession, while gaming mostly requires me to keep my hands on the same keys for extended periods. That’s easier (if not more pleasant) when those keys are slightly grippy.
A word to the wise: if you’re going with a full-size keyboard like this, you should get a mouse pad that’s either small enough to sit next to it or large enough for it to sit on. Mine, the Razer Gigantus V2 in large, was caught in a no-man’s-land that forced me to move everything around when I switched from writing to gaming. Those minor inconveniences add up. (For some recommendations, see our Best RGB Mouse Pads list.)
Software and Features on the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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The ROG Strix Scope RX uses the same Armoury Crate software as other Asus peripherals to handle key settings, basic RGB lighting management and firmware updates. It’s also compatible with Asus Aura Sync, which helps the company’s products shine their pretty lights in unison, but people who haven’t invested in that ecosystem can just stick with Armoury Crate.
You can save settings to the keyboard’s onboard storage. It offers five user-managed profiles, as well as a default profile that can all be accessed via the F1-F6 keys. This will mostly be used to swap between specific key assignments and lighting effects based on the game being played, and Armoury Crate can switch profiles automatically when games are launched.
Much of the keyboard’s additional functionality can be managed right on-keyboard, too, which is a welcome feature. The arrow cluster can be used to manage the lighting’s brightness and effects, a quick-toggle switch immediately switches the function row to media playback controls, holding down Fn while pressing the Windows key can “lock” it to prevent accidental presses.
The keyboard’s on-the-fly macro recording makes it easy to record and assign macros without ever having to launch Armoury Crate too. It’s nice not to be totally reliant on the software for basic functionality, such as managing different lighting presets or switching between profiles saved to onboard storage. Armoury Crate is a bonus, not a necessity, as it should be.
The ROG Strix Scope RX also boasts 100% anti-ghosting, N-key rollover, and a 1,000Hz response rate.
Bottom Line
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ROG Strix Scope RX was a surprise. I expected the linear optical switches to respond to a feather landing on top of them, but instead they met me with resistance similar to that of a tactile key. I expected to use Armoury Crate for everything, because it’s been a while since I reviewed an Asus keyboard, but instead I was reminded that most features can be managed on-keyboard. I expected it to look exactly like a stereotypical gaming keyboard, but… well, yeah, I was right there.
There’s a lot to like about the ROG Strix Scope RX. It feels sturdy and offers per-key RGB lighting, and a wide array of features that should allow it to appeal to a diverse audience. Not everything feels like a must-have, though, and Asus’ decision to opt for a more resistive linear switch for its first optical keyboard might confound people who expect more responsiveness.
There are some downsides too. Nobody likes grimy keycaps, and I suspect that’s exactly what the ROG Strix Scope RX would have if there were a single additional drop of moisture in my home. Its rubber cable is massive and looks bent after just a little over a week of use. Travel doesn’t even feel like an option with this keyboard; it’s simply too big to easily take anywhere.
For those seeking a sturdy full-size keyboard with optical linear switches that aren’t as sensitive as the titular character in “Bubble Boy,” then, the ROG Strix Scope RX should fit the bill. Anyone looking for something a little more responsive or portable should consider something else.
The Raspberry Pi Pico is becoming the Swiss Army Knife of microcontrollers, and this is largely down to the flexibility provided by the programmable IO (PIO) and the $4 price tag. In the latest project to grab our attention, we see Luigi Cruz, a computer student and amateur radio enthusiast, use the Pico as a software defined radio (SDR) interface for the popular GNR Radio application.
Cruz’s SDR project, PicoSDR, uses one of the analog input pins to sample 8 bit data at 500ksps. Cruz has connected the Pico’s analog input to the output of his soundcard and uses an online tool to generate tones that are visible on his computer. To connect the Pico to the computer, Cruz explains, “The data is sent via USB using the RNDIS protocol to emulate a TCP/IP interface. The ADC speed is limited to 500 ksps. The data can be used with software like the GNU Radio with a custom block.” This provides a low-bandwidth means to get data from the Pico and into applications such as GNU Radio.
Cruz continues the demo by showing how you can use the GNU Radio to view and analyze the audio input; for example, Cruz plays a video file, and we can see the audio frequency and sample rate in GNU Radio.
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(Image credit: Luigi Cruz)
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It is still early days for PicoSDR, but we can see a Raspberry Pi Pico powered scope for basic electronics work. Right now, there is no public code with which we can replicate this project, but it is only a matter of time until Cruz announces the details via his Twitter account.
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