Monthly Archives: January 2016
iOS 9.3 Wants to Improve Your Sleep Patterns With ‘Night Shift’
Apple has promised a new feature for iOS 9.3, called "Night Shift," with the intention to make its devices easier on your sleep cycle.
When activated, Night Shift "automatically shifts the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum" at nighttime. This is in response to several studies which indicate that cooler colors like blue can adversely affect a person's sleep cycle.
The feature will then adjust the colors back to normal in the morning. Both functions will require access to your device's clock and geolocation to function properly. The latter of which should, ideally, account for those that frequently travel between time zones.
CES 2016: Expectations vs Reality
There was a lot of hype for the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show and now that it's over, we can take a look back and see what predictions we got right and wrong. With a show so vast, it’s hard to really see technology trends on the show floor until you take a step back. Let’s get right into it.
I expected there to be a lot of VR at the show and indeed there was. Just about every company was trying to dip their toes into the hot new entertainment and computing platform. Big players like Oculus and HTC were there showing off their best games and technology demos. Oculus is the first company to name a release date and price for its high-end virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift.
New Witcher 3 Patch Fixes Tons of Issues
Patch 1.12 for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is now available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. This latest update provides fixes for numerous issues related to the Hearts of Stone expansion, gameplay, UI, quests, and more.
A handful of notable changes can be seen below, while the full list can be found here, courtesy of CD Projekt Red.
- Introduces a number of improvements to general game performance.
- Introduces a series of minor difficulty balance tweaks at all difficulty levels in Hearts of Stone expansion.
A Virus is the Monster in The CW’s Containment
The CW's intense new series, Containment - premiering midseason (TBA) - takes a hard look at what would happen if a viral outbreak occurred in a major U.S. city. How families, friends, loved ones, separated inside and outside the quarantine, would all deal, how their lives how everyone’s lives would change after what feels like a potentially very real catastrophe.
Created by Vampire Diaries and Originals EP Julie Plec, and based on the Belgian series Cordon, Containment is designed to be a a horror show "where the monster is a virus," Plec said when she, along with the cast and executive producers Matt Corman and Chris Ord, appeared at the TCA Winter Press Tour to chat about the show with TV critics. And to discuss the legitimacy of the procedures depicted in this nail-biter of a series.
Netflix Has Codes To Find Specific Genres
The Internet has recently re-discovered that Netflix has a series of special codes that are synced to super-specific entertainment categories in the streaming service's interface.
Netflix is already pretty good at gauging what you might like, but if you share an account, the results aren't always perfect. So for all you sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book lovers out there, GeekTyrant have compiled a list of codes for you to take back your main page.
The list follows:
- Martial Arts Movies: 8985
- Comic Book and Superhero Movies: 10118
Arrow and The Flash Are All About Their Big Bads When They Return
After Arrow and The Flash helped launch the new CW series DC's Legends of Tomorrow during the first half of each show's seasons, both series will refocus their storylines on their respective central villains once Legends premieres on January 21st.
For Arrow, that means the series is going to double down on Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell) quest to take down Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough). Showrunner Marc Guggenheim said fans can expect to be surprised by a twist coming up with the season's Big Bad.
"The back half of the season, we're pretty much following the same structure that we have in seasons past where obviously the Big Bad gears up. That said, we're going to throw a hard six in episode 15 that I think will surprise people," he told IGN while promoting Legends of Tomorrow at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. "We're going to do something that's never been done before on Arrow with the Big Bad. 15 is a real game-changer episode for us."
Oxenfree Partners with Walking Dead Creator for Film, More
Night School Studio, the developer of upcoming indie thriller Oxenfree, announced a partnership with Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment today.
Skybound will be partnering with the studio to bring Oxenfree to new mediums, including film, a web-based documentary series and merchandise.
In addition to that, Skybound has also produced a making-of web series called "The Story of Oxenfree." The first episode, covering the story of the game, is live today on Skybound's channel, with the rest publishing once a day leading up to Oxenfree's release on Jan. 15.
Skybound has worked on several projects in the past for indie games, including a making-of series for VR game Gone and several videos for card game Superfight.
Star Wars Rebels Recruits Princess Leia
Leia Organa will appear in Star Wars: Rebels, according to TV Insider, who cites that Alderaan's last princess will debut in the January 20 episode "A Princess on Lothal." Julie Dolan will perform the voice for Leia, who will only appear once in Season 2.
Lucasfilm's Dave Filoni said, “We thought we had an opportunity to show her learning to be a leader, experimenting with the personality that becomes the stronger more resolute character you see in A New Hope. One of the complex challenges of depicting Leia in Rebels is that we have to remind the audience that at this point she is part of the Empire. She doesn’t believe in the Empire, but she is acting the part, almost a double agent.”
Gambit: Production Begins in March in New Orleans
20th Century Fox will begin production on its long awaited Gambit movie in March.
According to WGNO (via ComingSoon.net), work on the Doug Liman-directed comic book movie will commence in New Orleans in just two months' time.
Gambit stars Channing Tatum as the card-throwing mutant, with Lea Seydoux onboard as the film's female lead, Bella Donna Boudreaux. According to producer Simon Kinberg, Gambit will be both a heist movie and "sexy thriller."
Shortlist of Star Wars: Han Solo Spinoff Actors Revealed
Disney is zeroing in on an actor for its Han Solo standalone, with only about a dozen names left on the shortlist.
Variety cites actors like Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Dave Franco, Jack Reynor, Scott Eastwood, Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, and Blake Jenner to play young smuggler. They would fill the role both in the character's origin film, and potentially cameo in the in-production Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Rogue One is set sometime between the original and prequel trilogies, which lines up timeline-wise for the younger actor.