Technology - Google News

Bandai Namco apologises for Elden Ring performance issues - Eurogamer.net
I used Apple's AirTag to track my wife and kids. Here’s what I learned - PCWorld
The Samsung Galaxy S22 range is now on sale – at least in some places - TechRadar

Bandai Namco apologises for Elden Ring performance issues - Eurogamer.net

Posted: 25 Feb 2022 04:51 AM PST

Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco has acknowledged various performance problems with the game, and particularly with its PC build.

As Eurogamer reported earlier this morning, Elden Ring currently sits with a "mixed" Steam user rating despite its widespread critical acclaim. Many negative reviews note the game's current visual stutters on PC.

Yesterday, Digital Foundry listed this visual stutter among a number of issues it had uncovered during an early appraisal of the game with its current 1.02 patch applied. More on that below.

Now, Bandai Namco has said sorry for the issues players have faced when playing the highly-anticipated Elden Ring at launch.

"We are currently experiencing some issues that are preventing the game from playing properly under some conditions," a Bandai Namco spokesperson wrote in a blog post.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and ask for your patience."

A list of items "to be revised" in future patches includes issues with mouse sensitivity, and a problem with Easy Anti-Chat "when the Steam account name is set to 2-byte characters". Both will be resolved via a patch in the "near future".

"Regarding the phenomenon of framerate and other performance-related issues during gameplay," Bandai Namco continued, "we will be constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms.

"For the PC version, updating your graphics card drivers to the latest version may significantly improve performance."

Lastly, Bandai Namco acknowledged an issue where PS5 game saves were affected if a console was unexpectedly switched off while playing or while in rest mode. This will also be addressed in a patch.

"Until the patch is released, please save your game manually by exiting the game regularly," the publisher advised. "Game data will be saved correctly if you quit the game by opening the system menu using the Option button and selecting 'Quit Game'."

There's no word yet on when these patches may arrive.

Writing yesterday, the Digital Foundry team noted that Elden Ring's PC version had issues "that will affect all hardware configurations on all graphical settings presets", including "severe and distracting frame-time stuttering issues".

"As we have seen with other titles suffering from similar issues such as Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Halo Infinite, it could be sensible to wait for further patches before investing time into the PC version of Elden Ring," Digital Foundry concluded.

Earlier this week, Eurogamer awarded Elden Ring a rare Essential accolade, after playing the game on PlayStation 5. "Grandiose, mysterious, but now a touch more welcoming, Elden Ring tweaks the FromSoft formula to open up its world," Aoife wrote in Eurogamer's Elden Ring review.

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I used Apple's AirTag to track my wife and kids. Here’s what I learned - PCWorld

Posted: 25 Feb 2022 07:40 AM PST

I used Apple's AirTag to track my wife and kids. Here's what I learned | PCWorld

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An Apple AirTag was used to stalk a Sports Illustrated model. Thieves are placing AirTags on cars to track them home, where they can later be stolen. If you're like me, you may have been freaked out by those recent headlines pushed your way. But since a lot of headlines can be overblown, I decided to experiment with an AirTag to see if the headlines are justified by tracking my wife and kids.

In full disclosure: I'm an Android user and I've used Tile devices for sometime. When the headlines started to build recently, I heard Apple fans throw out whataboutisms by saying "Tile does it too! (and Samsung!!!)"

I dismissed Tile as being much of a threat since my experience with Tile was often about it not working more than it working. How can a technology that can't find my misplaced portable SSD inside my home be used to track someone 20 miles away? Still, I decided to include a Tile Pro (a 2020 model with a new battery) and a shiny new AirTag in my testing. I did this with my family's knowledge, and I also followed them via a phone-based GPS tracking app to compare with what I was seeing in the Tile and Apple Find My app.

Before we go too far you need to know how the AirTag and Tile Pro work. Both are very simple devices that emit a Bluetooth beacon every few minutes via radio frequencies. That beacon reports the last location of the phone, tablet, or IoT device that it pinged.

For Tile, any other phone running the Tile App or any Amazon Sidewalk (Echo, etc) device will report if they've received the beacon and relay the information. The AirTag does the same but with the key difference of a billion iOS devices that can be pinged. The trackers do NOT contain GPS locators, but instead rely on the phone or Amazon Sidewalk device's reported location. There is also a short-range, high-precision locator feature on newer trackers but that's only when you're very close to the tag. Most of the coarse location information is done using Bluetooth.

With all that out of the way, I tracked my family with my AirTag and Tile Pro in a variety of scenarios.

Tracking device for a tail: Near useless

For my tests, I tested with the trackers inside the car in a cup holder. And, uh, also taped to the bumper to simulate my life-long fantasy of being PI Jim Rockford tailing someone.

I've actually tried to tail someone the old fashioned way as reporter and lost them within a few minutes. If I had planted an AirTag or Tile Pro on their car, it wouldn't have helped me.

The AirTag and Tile Pro simply don't update information often enough nor come into contact with other devices at the right time to be useful. When the location is updated, it's usually so out of date the actual person might be a mile or miles away. At freeway speeds you'll just never receive any updates most of the time as well.

Tracking you to your home: Scary, scary effective

Actively tracking you at freeways speeds is pointless but if the only thing someone wants to know is where you live, Apple's AirTag is scary effective. But indeed, so is the Tile Pro. Again, my experience with my Tile Pros have been pretty much hit or miss for finding lost stuff in my home. So I was quite surprised to see the Tile Pro work reasonably well as a tracking device.

I had expected the porous Tile network to be so ineffective that the Tile Pro would provide no useful information at all. For example, in a 20 mile radius of my metropolitan home, the app reports roughly 5,000 Tile users. That's 5,000 people running the app that can spot a missing Tile in a city of 400,000. That's not a lot, but its partnership with Amazon appears to have made a difference. Any Echo or Amazon doorbell, security camera, or other Bluetooth-enabled device can also spot the Tile and report its last location. It works well enough that it feels like a Tile Pro planted on your car could at least get someone within a few blocks of you. In my testing, the Tile Pro was spotted by a neighbor's house 150-yards away.

I'm confident Apple's AirTag could track you within a house or two of where you end up thanks the massive network of iPhones. Find My, for example, reported my AirTag to be located inside the neighboring house, where I know the occupants use iPhones.

As a way to stalk someone walking around: Scary effective

AirTag on lost keys — If you lose your AirTag, the vast Find My network will track it down for you.

Michael Simon/IDG

The Sports Illustrated model that was tracked said that the culprit planted an AirTag in her jacket to follow her walk home. To simulate that experience, I placed both the Tile Pro and the AirTag in my daughter's backpack and watched her movements.

The Tile Pro, again, did far better than I expected in a dense metropolitan area where there are just enough Amazon Sidewalk devices and Tile-enabled phones. But it still paled in comparison to the AirTag, which gave me updates on my daughter's location that let me pinpoint her location by perhaps 25 feet to 50 feet and seemly updated every time I checked. The reason? My daughter has a Tile but the app is no longer active because she became frustrated with it just not working. If she had the Tile app running, the location updates could have been better. But she uses an iPhone that the AirTag would use to update its location.

Again: An AirTag doesn't have GPS. It relies on your phone to report its location back to you. In a dense area, it's unlikely you're ever out of radio range of an iPhone reporting that AirTag's last location.

This is scary, Apple (and Tile) need to do something!

After seeing just how scary effective the AirTag (and to an extent, Tile) is, you might think I'm for Apple potentially Nerfing its use further. In fact, some would probably call for the technology to be outright banned. That's an understandable knee-jerk reaction many people would have after seeing the latest 60-second TV news broadcast or newspaper story on an AirTag "used to follow someone home!" These occurrences shouldn't be made light of and they are a legitimate problem. But they are also legitimately criminal activities too. Many states have laws that prevent electronic tracking of a person without their knowledge. I recommend you read Macworld's excellent guide on how to find and neutralize unwanted AirTags that may be tracking you.

After a few days of stewing it over though, I've come to realize that the AirTag is far more useful as a tool that works in your favor should a crime occur, rather than it being used against you.

The latest FBI crime stats report 721,885 cars were stolen in 2019. The National Insurance Crime Bureau shows 53,111 motorcycles were stolen in 2020. Your odds of recovering a stolen car seem to range from 50 percent to 80 percent depending on the state and reporting organization. Getting a stolen motorcycle back is pretty rare as well. Your bicycle or stolen lawn mower? Forget about it.

What I do know from living in a high-crime metropolitan city is that stolen cars either get stripped down for parts, lodged against an abutment, or abandoned in an area where someone else decides to strip it for parts or use it as a bathroom.

Apple AirTag being tracked in Find My — The AirTag's location was updated every time someone with an iPhone walked or drove by the car it was located inside of.

IDG

If you're lucky, it just sits on the street until it accumulates enough tickets and a towing agency takes it away, leaving you to pay several thousand dollars in impound fees. Maybe you'll get your Creedence Clearwater Revival tape back, but in the end, the odds of getting your car returned—especially in a timely matter—is terrible. You could pay a few hundred dollars for a great system such as a LoJack, but are you really going to LoJack a jalopy?

But for the low price of $29, you can basically tag your car, bicycle, motorcycle, outdoor grill, or generator and track it down should it ever get "misplaced." In fact, it's already popular to tag pets with AirTags to track them down should they run off. Frankly, I wouldn't mind it if someone could figure out a way to make an AirTag withstand the heat of a catalytic converter so thieves and the location of the shops that buy those stolen catalytic converters could be reported to the police.

Apple and Tile are likely uncomfortable with the trackers being used this way since they're always thinking about the liability that could come their way. Apple has already made some changes to start to address AirTag stalking concerns, and those improvements may wind up in iOS 15.4 very soon. Good! I don't care what Apple or Tile think, though, because despite the months of scary headlines—this one included—I've come to realize the AirTag and Tile are very powerful tools that can also be used for good, and not just abused for evil.

Editor's note: This article originally published on 2/23/2022 but was updated to include mention of the new AirTag anti-stalking features appearing in iOS 15.4 beta.

Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.

One of founding fathers of hardcore tech reporting, Gordon has been covering PCs and components since 1998.

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The Samsung Galaxy S22 range is now on sale – at least in some places - TechRadar

Posted: 25 Feb 2022 07:54 AM PST

Update: while today is the Samsung Galaxy S22 launch day, at least in certain countries around the world, we've been hearing reports that not everyone is receiving their devices on time.

In our full report on the matter, we've detailed many different reports of people having their estimated shipping dates pushed back, including on many different devices (including the Tab S8 range) and to various different dates.

So, if you've pre-ordered your device, it might not arrive today. Our original story follows below.

Original story: If you've been hoping to get your hands on a Samsung Galaxy S22 then today could be the day, as the whole range – including the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra – is now on sale.

Or at least it is in the US, and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is also out now in the UK, but that phone isn't coming to Australia until March 3. Both the UK and Australia have to wait a bit for the other models, with the standard Samsung Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S22 Plus both hitting Australia on March 3 and the UK on March 11.

So if you're in the US and you've pre-ordered any of these phones then they should be turning up on your doorstep today, with UK orders of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra doing likewise.

If you haven't ordered yet though then there may still be a bit of a wait, as demand for these handsets is high, so you might find there's a wait to receive them depending on the configuration you choose.

That's no surprise, as the Samsung Galaxy S22 range are the most high-profile phones so far this year, and are likely to remain so until the iPhone 14 range arrives in September.

They arguably deserve to be that high-profile too, especially the S22 Ultra, which we awarded 4.5 stars to in our review, praising its incredible cameras and zoom, its excellent S Pen, and its silky-smooth screen.

OnePlus 10 Pro shown in both black and green shades — The OnePlus 10 Pro (Image credit: OnePlus)

Analysis: other phones on the horizon

While the Samsung Galaxy S22 range look to be the flagships to beat right now, they've got plenty of competition on the way.

That includes the OnePlus 10 Pro, which has actually already been unveiled, but so far only for China. This has a top-end chipset, a 6.7-inch QHD+ screen, a triple-lens camera tuned by Hasselblad, and more, and it's likely to be joined by a standard OnePlus 10 when it gets its global launch.

Then there's the Xiaomi 12 and the Xiaomi 12 Pro, which include similarly high-end specs. Plus there's the Oppo Find X5 range, with numerous other upcoming phones on the horizon as well.