September 21, 2018
Review: BenQ 4K HDR EL2870U monitor
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The latest news

Canon’s new full-frame mirrorless EOS R is the beginning of the end for DSLRs

Posted on by Raj Deut

The EOS R resets the standards for speed, detail and intuitive design. Unsurpassed image quality comes to life through the fastest and sharpest lenses

Say hello to Canon’s first full-frame mirrorless camera the EOS R. The new camera also brings with it a new “RF” lens mount and slew of lenses.

Spec wise the EOS R has a solid 30.3MP full-frame sensor with an ISO of 100-40k and dual-pixel autofocus. You’ll also find Canon’s award winning DIGIC 8 image processor, a new OLED viewfinder and fully articulated touchscreen on the rear.

The new lineup of RF lenses cover a wide variety of options launching with a 24-105mm f/4 L, a 50mm f/1.2mm L, a 28-70mm f/2 L, and a 35mm f/1.8 macro versions initially. In addition to the new mount the new R lenses introduce some additional functionality allowing you to control the lenses’ aperture directly from the barrel via a new control ring.

For those with existing and expensive Canon glass, you’ll still be able to use your EF & EF-S lenses on the EOS R via an adaptor mount converting them to the new RF connection.

Available late October, pre-orders for the new EOS R begin September 12th and while we wait for Australian pricing North American RRP gives us a relatively pricey guideline at US$2,299 for the body and US$3,399 for the kit that includes body & 24-105mm lens.

Source: EOS R: Rethink Mirrorless | Canon Australia

Review Roundup: Marvel’s Spider-Man

Posted on by Raj Deut
Tags: gaming

Hitting store shelves this coming Friday, Marvel’s Spider-Man by Insomniac Games is one of the most anticipated PS4 titles to hit this year.

Assuming the roll of your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man a few years beyond his well over-told boy-hood origin story the game is effectively set free to explore new stories and carve its own path instead of staying laden to ones already told.

Reviews seem overwhelmingly positive, as you’ll see below, and perhaps even exceed the expectations of Reckoner’s own preview of the game from E3. You decide!

Press Start – 10/10:

It’s hard to fault Marvel’s Spider-Man as Insomniac has taken their game to the next level. As a developer, they have gone from strength to strength and Spider-Man is a culmination of their past hits. There’s a stunning verticality that compliments the game’s watertight mechanics and, despite the literal boundaries, still makes the city seem boundless.

Stevivor:

Spider-Man is a heroic masterpiece, and one certainly worth playing. You’ll find yourself happily overlooking some small rough edges just to get back to slinging some webs.

Polygon – Recommended:

Insomniac has put time and care into making Spider-Man the quippy hero we’ve come to expect, and the world-building in the game’s writing paints a clear picture of Peter Parker.

But unfortunately, that personality and charm doesn’t always extend to New York City itself. I’d often run into the same few character models over and over, and the city lacks the diversity and ambiance I’d expect from New York.

IGN – 8.7/10

Aside from a few odd pacing issues, which momentarily took me out of the experience of being a superhero, and a world of optional missions that don’t always quite live up to the heft of the main story, Insomniac has delivered a Spider-Man story that both surprised and delighted me, coupled with gameplay that made me feel like Spider-Man nearly every step of the way.

Aussie government plays ‘tip of the spear’ in bid for ‘Five Eyes’ encryption backdoor

Posted on by Raj Deut
Tags: australia, tech

Released on behalf of the US, UK, Canada & NZ the Australian government has decided it will carry the torch for thinly veiled threats to tech companies whom they want to:

…create customized solutions, tailored to their individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements.

Now they’ve also begun warning that there could be repercussions for failing to provide the access their after essentially saying they’ll just make up laws to enforce it:

…we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions,”

It’s interesting that Australia’s essentially falling on the sword here on behalf of everyone else, or more precisely the US & UK. Perhaps pumping out press-releases “down under” come under less global scrutiny, perhaps its a pat on the back for standing up and telling the world we have no respect for the laws of mathematics. Either way they refuse to call it a back door, ignore the gross misuse and abuse by government employees of existing systems, let alone this new one and play down the huge privacy implications every citizen is affected by.

Source: ‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else | TechCrunch

The TPG and Vodafone merger is all systems go

Posted on by Raj Deut
Tags: australia, tech

TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia have announced that they will proceed with their merger to form a telecommunications giant that they say will have an enterprise value of approximately AU$15 billion.

Sing it..

Two strong hearts,
We stick together like the honey & the bee,
But we’ll be called TPG!

Poised to become Australia’s 2nd largest telco in the next five years. Optus potentially getting the ass by a compatriot of it’s Singaporean parent.

Source: TPG and Vodafone Australia to merge into AU$15b telco named TPG | ZDNet

Bose announce a range of voice-assistant-agnostic smart speakers

Posted on by Raj Deut

Bose has just announced a $400 home smart speaker and two soundbars that will be available in October. All three products will ship with Alexa voice support, with “other voice assistants to follow” according to the company. Each has an eight-microphone array for far-field voice recognition. AirPlay 2 functionality will be added in early 2019.

Ctrl-F “Sonos“, Replace All… “Bose“.

Today’s announcement and press release is almost a carbon copy of Sonos a year ago…

Alexa day 1, tick!
Google Assistant coming… sometime, tick!
AirPlay 2 next year, tick!

In fact, the only real difference comes via the Bose Home Speaker 500, their premium room speaker à la Apple HomePod, à la Sonos Play 5. The 500 includes a screen, which will display the cover art for the playing track and has a series of buttons along its surface that can be mapped to your favourite stations and play lists.

Available to order today the Home Speaker 500 will retail for US$399.95. The Soundbar 500 and 700 will retail for US$549.95 and US$799.95, respectively.

Source: Bose challenges Sonos with new Alexa-powered smart speaker and soundbars – The Verge

Watch 48 minutes of Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay

Posted on by Raj Deut
Tags: gaming

Watch 48 minutes of official 2018 gameplay from Cyberpunk 2077 and get a glimpse into the world of perils and possibilities that is Night City — the most vibrant and dangerous metropolis of the future.

The good folk at CD Projekt Red (CDPR) have finally released a version of the gameplay walkthrough video press were lucky enough to see at E3 earlier this year.

The 48 minute video takes a similar path to the one we wrote up back in June and graphically looks slightly more polished than the version we saw.

Still no release date and very much following CDPR’s attitude of “it’ll be out when it’s done” my excitement levels couldn’t be higher!

Meet DJI’s new Mavic 2 drone series

Posted on by Raj Deut

 

 

Introducing the Mavic 2, a drone that embodies all of DJI’s advanced, signature technologies, and is able to redefine what is possible for the world of aerial photography.

Here’s one for the books. DJI’s announcement overnight has revealed not one but two versions of the new DJI Mavic 2 drone available to purchase.

Both include DJI’s market leading fully omnidirectional obstacle avoidance, 3 axis gimbal, high speed tracking with trajectory prediction and a 31 minute fly time but its the cameras that set the two new models apart.

The first (and cheaper model) is gaining a zoom lens. A new 24-48mm optical zoom camera will now come standard with the DJI Mavic 2 Zoom and maintains a flexible f/2.8 – f/11 aperture range. The Zoom lens is a  12 MP 1/2.3″ CMOS Sensor that DJI say offers the most flexible photo/video shooting drone to date and incorporate new programmable shoot styles to make use of the zoom.

The second is the Mavic 2 Pro, which certainly doesn’t let you down on that front and sees DJI partner with one of the most reputable camera brands in the world, Hasselblad. There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of them but in photography circles they’re the top-of-the-pops and can easily set you back tens of thousands for a camera body. Thankfully the Mavic 2 Pro isn’t anywhere near that but their new Hassleblad camera brings a 20MP 1″CMOS Sensor along with 10-bit HDR video and 10-bit Dlog-M colour profiling.

Available to order now DJI’s new Mavic 2 Zoom starts from A$1,999 and the Hasselblad equipped Pro A$2,299. Both are shipping immediately.

Source: Mavic 2 – See the Bigger Picture – DJI

Valve is bringing more Windows games to Steam on Linux

Posted on by Jacob Bates
Tags: gaming

Steam Play – Valve’s name for its cross-platform initiative – is getting a major update, with built-in tools allowing you to run Windows games on Linux. We saw the first hints of the feature last week, and today Valve has confirmed it. It’s available right now in beta, so if you want to test the compatibility features on your own Linux install you don’t have to wait.

A frustration with Linux based Operating Systems for gamers is often the lack of compatibility for Windows-only titles. Valve’s latest venture hopes to ease that pain, announcing Proton – a modified version of the popular open-source Windows-on-Linux compatibility software, Wine – now integrated with Steam Play.

Currently in beta, only a handful of newly compatible Steam games are available to try out on Linux. There’s no plans for Mac support announced at this stage. You can opt-in to the beta via your Steam settings now, a nice excuse to download Ubuntu and fire up Star Wars Battlefront II (2005).

If all goes well with the beta, we could see a much larger range of formerly Windows-only games available via Steam Play on Linux in the future.

Source: Valve’s “Steam Play” uses Vulkan to bring more Windows games to Linux | Ars Technica

YOU are the next big thing in porn

Posted on by Raj Deut
Tags: tech
Image: The Verge

This week, [Naughty America] launched a service that lets customers pay to customize adult clips to their liking using AI. They’ll be able to insert themselves into scenes alongside their favorite actor or actress or edit the background of an existing clip.

The process is called “deepfakes” and it came about last year when a bunch of devs figured out a way of using AI to face-swap celebs into porn videos.

Naturally, porn companies being on the forefront of any technology likely to see mass-adoption, saw an opportunity for the tech and are now offering “personalised” services to custom a clip for you own personal consumption with the faces you want to insert.

The fear is that the tech is used for nefarious purposes such as revenge porn or celebs fakes but Naughty America (NA) seem unfazed with NA CEO, Andreas Hronopoulos, saying: “It’s just editing, that’s all it is. People have been editing people’s faces on pictures since the internet started.”

The services requires you send a series of specific photos and videos that are likely to be difficult to source if you’re not the applicant but still, NA have said nothing about verifying they belong to the submitter and only that their legal team will seek consent.

Official pricing for the service is yet to be released but NA have said it will start in the hundreds and end in the thousands depending on the length of the video being requested from their catalogue.

Source: A porn company promises to insert customers into scenes using deepfakes – The Verge

Nvidia’s new RTX-20 Series are the shiny new of GPUs you want

Posted on by Raj Deut
Tags: gaming

 

NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX [20 Series] delivers the ultimate PC gaming experience. Powered by the new NVIDIA Turing™ GPU architecture and the revolutionary RTX platform, RTX graphics cards bring together real-time ray tracing, artificial intelligence, and programmable shading. This is a whole new way to experience games.

Real-time ray tracing is kind of a big deal. The new Turing equiped GPU series will be able to perform in such a way that complicated lighting reflections and cinematic effects can now be applied in real-time.

Nvidia is launching three versions of the new series immediately, an entry level GeForce RTX 2070 (more powerful than a Titan X if you can believe it), the mid-tier 2080 and the top of the line 2080Ti. Founders Edition versions are available for pre-order immediately with cards shipping September 20th however as Australians expect to be burnt on the conversion rate here.

The Founders Edition 2070 is A$899 a A$100 premium over the US converted US$599, meanwhile the 2080Ti is even worse going for A$1,899 here but only US$1,199 (A$1,640).

Naturally versions of the card will become available through the usual suspects of Nvidia GPU partners: EVGA, ASUS, MSI, etc and these are expected to be US$100 or more cheaper than the Nvidia’s own offering but still remain far from cheap by any means.

Are they worth it? Well, few games take advantage of the new RTX architecture but that wont take long to change with Unreal Engine announced to already take advantage and new titles such as the upcoming Tomb Raider series and Metro Exodus demoed at the announcement.

For those of you rocking a 1080 or 1080Ti the jump to a 20 Series probably isn’t going to be worth it (especially at the launch price premium) but those who’ve been waiting for a while, this is the time.

Hopefully we’ll be able to tell you more once the cards launch and a review unit comes our way.

 

Source: GeForce RTX 20 Series Graphics Cards | NVIDIA GeForce