Topps Blog

Monday, 22 November 2021

FTC Will Crack Down On Companies That Make it Difficult to Cancel Services

(Image: FTC) The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it will begin “ramping up enforcement” against companies that manipulate people into starting subscriptions or that make it difficult to cancel services. It’s an unanticipated move that should disappoint almost no one—except maybe your cable company.

In an announcement from late last month, the FTC said companies that failed to obtain informed consent or provide clear upfront information upon selling a service would be considered guilty of using dark patterns to trick or trap customers. The agency’s new enforcement policy statement warns companies involved in such practices that without rapid changes, the FTC may pursue civil penalties, injunctive relief, and consumer redress. The statement strictly outlines what it looks like for a company to obtain a customer’s consent and prenotify customers of imminent charges. It also warns companies against using a customer’s silence or failure to act as permission to continue charging for a service. The new enforcement policy was approved by a 3-1 vote, with the only dissent coming from Commissioner Christine S. Wilson on the basis of contradiction with the FTC’s open rulemaking.

The FTC’s Office of Public Affairs. (Photo: FTC)

This isn’t the first time the FTC has cracked down on shady subscription practices. In fact, the FTC has been a major factor in trying to prevent such practices for years, having enforced rules against questionable or downright exploitative automatic renewal terms, free-to-pay conversions, and user interfaces that trick customers into sticking with a subscription even when they want to cancel. The FTC has sued companies for hiding cancellation buttons online, and for making customers listen to lengthy ads or sit on hold for extended periods of time before they can even talk about cancelling a plan.

The frustration of figuring out how to cancel, say, an internet package or streaming service is so pervasive that it could practically be considered an American rite of passage. Mainstream television has incorporated jokes about the whole ordeal into shows like Saturday Night Live and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, knowing just about anyone watching would be able to relate. Of course, a general threat of enforcement is different from actually bringing down the hammer on service providers who love to keep customers on hold—but here’s hoping the experience of tearing one’s hair out to cancel a service becomes a little less relatable with the FTC’s new enforcement policy.

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Rockstar Apologizes for GTA Definitive Trilogy Launch, Will Make Classic Games Available Again

Gamers the world over have been waiting with bated breath for the release of Rockstar’s GTA Trilogy, and maybe it wasn’t worth the wait. The launch last week was an unmitigated disaster, with gamers complaining of bugs and ugly graphics until Rockstar’s authentication system broke, making the games impossible to play. Rockstar has now apologized for the mess and confirmed a bug-fixing patch is incoming. By way of contrition, Rockstar will also make the original versions of the games available once again.

The official name of the revamped games is “Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition,” and it includes three iconic titles: GTA3, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas. These games launched between 2001 and 2004, setting the standard for open-world gameplay. When modernizing the games for 2021, Rockstar opted to go with a simplified cartoon style. Most fans have expressed disappointment that Rockstart didn’t go further and make the games more detailed. Along the way, developers also introduced a number of glaring bugs that weren’t in the original versions.

In its apology, Rockstart admits that the Trilogy has technical problems and doesn’t meet the studio’s standards. Apologies are all well and good, but they don’t make busted games work correctly. To that end, Rockstar says it is working on a bug-squashing update that will roll out soon. Although, “soon” could mean a lot of things in this context. The authentication issue was rectified last week, but it’s still a trio of broken games after launch.

An update regarding the unexpected technical issues with Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. https://t.co/YP4pkOLQmG pic.twitter.com/AsfYPuMI0d

— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) November 19, 2021

Rockstar also seems willing to admit that removing the classic versions of these games in advance of the Definitive Edition release was a bad idea. So, they’re coming back, sort of. Rockstar says that it will release a new bundle of all three classic games on its website. In addition, anyone who bought The Definitive Edition or buys it through June 30, 2022 will get the classic editions at no extra cost. However, Rockstar has not said whether or not it plans to return the classic versions to other digital storefronts like Steam.

If you were on the fence about the GTA Trilogy, you might want to wait and see how this upcoming patch works out. If it can stomp some bugs, then all you have to get past is the questionable visual design. Maybe there will be a better version in another 20 years.

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Friday, 19 November 2021

MediaTek Unveils Fully Loaded Flagship Mobile Processor

In most western nations, MediaTek plays second banana to Qualcomm. The best, and most powerful phones all run on Qualcomm ARM chips, but that might change soon. MediaTek has just announced its first true flagship system-on-a-chip (SoC) in years, which it’s calling Dimensity 9000. It’s the world’s first 4nm chip from TSMC, and it has all the latest technology. Still, this isn’t MediaTek’s first attempt to get into the premium segment, and Qualcomm is entrenched, to say the least.

Despite its reputation as an also-ran chipmaker, MediaTek has had a very successful few years. Its components power smart speakers, the new Kindle, and uncountable mid-range smartphones around the world. In fact, MediaTek recently attained the top spot among global SoC makers with a 40 percent overall market share and 28 percent of the 5G market. In its new position as the market leader, the Dimensity 9000 starts to make more sense.

MediaTek didn’t go crazy cramming in ten CPU cores as it did with its last flagship attempt. The Dimensity 9000 is an octa-core chip, but it does have the latest core designs from ARM—they’re so new you might not even recognize the names. At the forefront is a Cortex X2 clocked at 3.05GHz, and that’s paired with three slightly slower 2.85GHz Cortex-A710 cores. The rest of the CPU is composed of four Cortex-A510 cores at 1.8GHz. The new X2 core clock is surprisingly high, which could give MediaTek a single-threaded processing advantage even as Samsung and Qualcomm move to adopt the X2 down the road.

MediaTek didn’t stop with the CPU—the Dimensity 900 is also the first mobile SoC with support for LPDDR5X memory. The company says that it will allow for a 17 percent boost in available memory bandwidth at up to 7,500 Mbps. And yes, the GPU is new, as well. The Dimensity 9000 will be the first SoC to ship with the Mali-G710 GPU. Each GPU core has about twice the performance of older G78 cores, and there are ten of them. It also supports software ray tracing on Vulkan.

Google has talked up the AI capabilities of its new Tensor chip, and MediaTek is hoping to compete with the fifth iteration of its custom NPU. The company says the new APU core is four times more powerful and four times more efficient than the last one. That hypothetically puts it just in front of Google’s Tensor. Naturally, the image signal processor (ISP) supports all the latest ultra-high-resolution displays, HDR, high refresh rates—the whole nine yards.

The only thing the Dimensity 9000 is missing is millimeter wave 5G. It has sub-6 support that will cover every carrier in the world, but the lack of mmWave might make it a tough sell for the US market. For that reason, Qualcomm will probably retain its niche in the US market. That’s a bummer because mmWave is bad, and the Dimensity 9000 seems pretty good. The first devices with this chip should appear early next year.

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Semiconductor Industry Forecast Projects Huge Gains for AMD, Losses for Intel and Sony

Semiconductor market research company IC Insights has released its November update, which ranks the top 25 semiconductor companies based on projected year-on-year sales, and also includes some forecasts for the future. In its ranking of the top 25 companies based on expected sales, AMD is leading the way with an anticipated 65 percent year-on-year growth, thanks to its strong product lineup across both its GPU and CPUs, along with gains it’s made in the data center business with its Epyc CPUs. Bringing up the rear in 25th place is Sony, which is expected to show a small decline in business at -3 percent, with Intel right above it at -1 percent. The two tech giants were the only companies on the list with anticipated negative performance for the year.

Overall, the report paints a bright picture for the the industry as a whole, with a projected annual growth of 23 percent. It notes this strong growth is being driven by several factors: changing habits caused by the pandemic and the rebound from it, a 20 percent increase in semiconductor shipments, and an average three percent higher average sale price (ASP). The report highlights the fact that growth like this hasn’t been experienced in the industry since 2010, when it grew 34 percent following the 2008/2009 economic recession.

IC Insights’ Top 25 Companies by projected sales (Image: IC Insights)

As far as Intel and Sony are concerned, the report describes the expected performance of these two behemoths in the middle of a booming period is, “utterly amazing,” but it does not mean that in a good way. It notes that Intel, which is the world’s second-largest supplier of semiconductors, faces several challenges, chief among them are the ongoing supply chain issues. This has resulted in reduced sales of Intel-based laptops since its partners have been unable to get all the parts they need from their suppliers. The report states that Intel is not standing still, however, as its Intel Foundry Service has just begun shipping chips to paying customers recently, and the company is hoping this new business unit will become a significant source of revenue in the coming years.

Sony’s ranking is also the result of supply chain issues, according to the report. It remarks that the company hasn’t been able to make enough Playstation 5 gaming consoles due to shortages of parts, resulting in lower than expected revenues. Also, it’s also been previously reported that Sony is looking to partner with TSMC for a joint venture that would hopefully ease some of the strain on chip supplies, and also help protect the company in case of future disruptions. However, that facility won’t be online until 2024 at the earliest, by which time we are hopefully beyond the current issues affecting the global supply chain.

Rounding out the top four on the list are all “fabless” companies that outsource the production of the silicon wafers that make the chips at the heart of their products. Coming in just below AMD are tech titans Mediatek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, which are all projected to show gains over 50 percent for the year, which is indeed impressive. Nvidia’s appearance at the top of this list is no surprise, as it just reported record revenue for the third quarter.

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Microsoft Chief Calls for Commitment to Game Preservation

(Photo: Kamil S/Unsplash) Phil Spencer, VP of Gaming at Microsoft, is calling on gaming companies across the industry to work toward preserving older games.

In a statement to Axios, Spencer shared that he hopes more companies will follow in Microsoft’s footsteps by making older titles available through software emulation, something most easily enjoyed by PC and Xbox users. While games from other brands often remain locked to their console counterparts (cough PlayStation) Microsoft has long openly advocated for the preservation of games that are past their prime. It’s why the company’s latest console releases, the Xbox Series X and S, are considered emulation powerhouses: each can play games made for Xbox consoles as far back as the original Xbox, which came out in 2001.

Spencer likens gamers’ ability to revisit old titles to our collective ability to revisit old art. “I think we can learn from the history of how we got here through the creative,” Spencer wrote in a message to Axios. “I love it in music. I love it in movies and TV, and there’s positive reasons for gaming to want to follow.”

Generally speaking, emulation allows individuals to play games that aren’t necessarily made for the system they’re playing on. This is most often used for retro games, like the original Spyro the Dragon, Street Fighter, and Donkey Kong, to name a few, though it can also be used for games that simply aren’t backwards compatible with a console one generation away.

Blinx: The Time Sweeper is an Original Xbox game that can be emulated on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

It’s important to note that some forms of emulation skirt legal boundaries, when they involve the sharing of copyrighted ROMs. (Emulators essentially serve as a software-based recreation of the console, while ROMs are the games themselves.) Spencer is specifically calling for legal emulation, in which it’s up to video game companies to find ways to keep older titles alive—not on individuals to swap ROMs on a gray market.

“My hope (and I think I have to present it that way as of now) is as an industry we’d work on legal emulation that allowed modern hardware to run any (within reason) older executable allowing someone to play any game,” Spencer said.

While it’ll take some time to see if other brands follow through on Spencer’s call, Nintendo is already making a bit of headway. At its latest Nintendo Direct it announced the company recently brought several Nintendo64 and Sega Genesis titles to the Nintendo Switch, where gamers can now revisit Mario Kart 64, the original Pokemon Snap, and Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. By doing so, Nintendo breathed life into a good chunk of its original library—and at its core, that’s what emulation is all about.

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DuckDuckGo Announces App Tracking Prevention for Android

Your smartphone goes everywhere with you, and the data it contains describes every detail of your daily life. Naturally, advertisers want to use the marvel of mobile technology to improve ad targeting, and DuckDuckGo wants to put a stop to that. The company has announced a tracking blocker for its Android app. The feature isn’t live yet, but you can join the waitlist today.

When you open an app, the developer isn’t the only one getting data from you. Most apps — DuckDuckGo says 96 percent, to be exact — include third-party tracking code from the likes of Google and Facebook. These systems don’t need to spy on you 24/7, though. Even a trickle of data over weeks can give companies an idea of where you’re going, what you’re doing when you get there, and even when you go to bed.

Apple recently rolled out a feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT), and DuckDuckGo says its upcoming feature is similar. On iOS, apps have to ask for permission to track you across other apps and services, and most people say “no.” Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and other big names are reporting billions in lost revenue following the release of Apple’s solution.

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The DuckDuckGo system won’t be integrated into the OS, so it might not be as effective as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. However, it’s free and will operate entirely on your device using Android’s built-in VPN functionality. Rather than route your data through a remote server like most VPN services, App Tracking Protection (ATP) will run in the background and alert you if it sees a request going to a third-party and block it. You can also disable ATP for select apps.

The user will get a running tally of the trackers that ATP blocks, as well as showing where those requests were going. DuckDuckGo says that in its testing, 87 percent of apps sent data to Google and 68 percent sent data to Facebook, and ATP can allegedly stop that without breaking apps. It doesn’t sound like this solution will be as elegant as Apple’s, but it’s the best we’ll get unless Google forgets that it’s an advertising company and adds its own version of tracking protection.

The feature is available in beta, but you can’t just start using it right away. You have to download the DuckDuckGo app and sign up for the waitlist (in settings). The company didn’t estimate how long it would take to get testers onboarded.

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Google Confirms the Pixel 6 Doesn’t Charge As Fast As We Thought

Google’s recently released Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are huge steps forward for the company’s smartphones. Google is finally getting serious about its hardware by offering big batteries, great displays, and a custom ARM chip called Tensor. Google even boosted the Pixel series’ anemic charging speed, although, it’s not as fast as we thought. Google has clarified how the latest Pixels charge, and the true maximum rate is not the full 30W supported by the new charger.

Like almost everything that isn’t an iPhone, the new Pixel phones charge over USB-C. The last few Pixels were stuck at 18W maximum charging speed, but Google announced the 2021 Pixels will work with its new 30W charger, which uses the latest USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) features. We all took that to mean the Pixels could charge at 30W, but Google has published a support article that explains why that is not the case.

Google’s battery explanation has a hint of Apple hand-waving. It shied away from listing the actual rated charging speed on the official spec table, preferring to give rough estimates of charging times as measured with the 30W adapter. For the record, the Pixel 6 can charge to 50 percent in about 30 minutes, which is respectable but not incredible.

According to the new support page, the Pixel 6 tops out at 21W and the Pixel 6 Pro can hit 23W. Like all smartphones, those speeds are only attainable when the batteries are mostly empty. The speed drops as the battery becomes full, which helps avoid excess wear on the cells. Google says that it designed the battery and charging system to “strike a balance between battery life, longevity and fast charging.” One way Google accomplishes that is by tying the phones’ charging behavior into the Pixel’s machine learning capabilities. Adaptive charging can actually pause charging above 80 percent or slow charging to a trickle overnight in certain circumstances.

Google’s messaging here has been lacking, but at least we have all the technical details now. If you want to pick up Google’s official charger, it should be very versatile. Not only does it support standard USB-PD up to 30W, but it also has PPS (programmable power supply) support. That’s what the Pixels and a few other cutting edge devices use to more efficiently vary voltages. So it should fast charge your Pixels and anything else with a USB-C port up to 30W. It’s $25 from Google, or $35 if you want a cable with it. Any third-party USB-PD charger with enough capacity should be able to hit the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro maximum charging speeds (based on my testing), but they won’t be as efficient.

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