E3 2019 Games

Here is the list of more interesting games presented during this year E3:

• 12 Minutes
• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Apex Legends
• Banjo-Kazooie
• Baldurs Gate 3
• Battlefield V
• Battletoads
• Blair Witch
• Bleeding Edge
• Borderlands 3
• Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Ft. The Legend of Zelda
• Control
• CrossfireX
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Daemon X Machina
• Deathloop
• Doom Eternal
• Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
• Elden Ring
• FIFA 20
• Final Fantasy VII Remake
• Forza Horizon 4: Lego Speed Champions
• Gears POP!
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• GhostWire: Tokyo
• Gods & Monsters
• Halo Infinite
• Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
• Luigi’s Mansion 3
• Madden NFL 20
• Marvel's Avengers
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Minecraft Dungeons
• No More Heroes 3
• Ori and the Will of the Wisp
• Outriders
• Phantasy Star Online 2
• Psychonauts 2
• Rage 2
• Rainbow Six Quarantine
• The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics
• The sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• The Sims 4 Island Living
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition for Nintendo Switch
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Gameplay
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Trailer
• Tales of Arise
• The Outer Worlds
• Watch Dogs Legion
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Next Generation Xbox

Next gen Xbox, called Project Scarlett, will debut fall next year. It has been designed by the Scorpio team and it looks like the Xbox One X was a foundation for a next console. This is what we know so far about the hardware:

• Custom CPU based on AMD’s Zen 2 architecture,
• Radeon RDNA GPU,
• GDDR6 RAM,
• SSD for storage,
• Native 4K at 60 FPS, up to 120 FPS,
• Support for 8K gaming,
• Hardware accelerated ray tracing.

This is not much, but at least we know that next console will be available next year alongside PS5. 2020 will be a good year for gamers 😀

Google Stadia

Google has also announced more details about upcoming Stadia projekt:

• Google Stadia will launch in November in 14 countries (US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland),
• At the launch it will support at least 31 games,
• The Basic version will be available for free,
• The Pro version will cost $9.99 per month,
• At the beginning there will be also "Founder’s Edition", for $130, with limited controller, Chromecast Ultra and 3 months of Pro subscription,
• Stadia is not primarily a subscription service. Although some games will be included in a subscription, we will have to buy games separately. That's why the Basic version is free.
• It will require at least 10Mbps connection for 720p 60fps streaming with stereo audio,
• For 4K streaming at 60fps with  5.1 surround sound we will need connection capable, at least, 35Mbps.

Google Stadia looks promising and I would love to try it. Unfortunately it will not be available in Poland, and looking at status of Google Store in Poland I might have to wait for a while 😔

Interesting links

• The Swift 5.1 features that power SwiftUI’s API
• SwiftUI: Getting Started
• Ethereum for web developers
• Ethereum in Depth: Smart Contracts - Part 1: What is a Smart Contract?
• Ethereum in Depth: Smart Contracts - Part 2: How to Create and Publish a Smart Contract
• CQRS with MediatR (for Commands) and Odata (for Queries)
• How did Apple DO this?? - MacBook Pro 2019

Image credits: E3

Google IO

Google held its annual conference this week. This year, nothing revolutionary announced,  it was rather a presentation of an evolution of the current products. You can watch a recap here. Here is the short list of more interesting news:

• Google Assistant became smarter and faster,
• AR walking directions in Google Maps,
• New Pixel 3a was announced,
• Android Q gets dark mode,
• Smart screen became Google Nest,
• Duplex is coming to the web

From all the thing that's been shown I'm most impressed by the Google Assistant. As I tweeted earlier this week, it is lightyears ahead of Bixby, Siri or even Alexa. I wish Apple care about Siri as much as Google does with Assistant.

PowerBeats Pro

Tech reviewers started getting their hands on the new Beats earbuds. First impressions are very positive. PowerBeats Pro are the best Beats ever, but they have two major issues. One is pricing and the second is ery big charging case. I have already accepted the price, but the case is humongous. It will definitely not fit to the pocket, so you either need a backpack/bag to carry it or leave it at home.

Windows Now Comes with Linux

Microsoft will ship a full Linux kernel in Windows 10. Although Microsoft added multiple Linux Bashes to Windows over the years, this is a big surprise.

New Microsoft Edge released as a preview

Microsoft has released a preview of their new browser powered with Chromium engine. Right now it is available only on macOS. I run a quick test with Tatooine.live. So far, this site worked properly only on Chrome, now it also works, without any issues, on Edge for Mac.

What's even more interesting, this is the first Microsoft's browser on the Mac since Safari replaced Internet Explorer over 15 years ago.

New Star Wars Movies

Disney has announced the release dates for its upcoming movies, including Star Wars. Right now, only new trilogy has been announced with following releases:

• Part 1 - Christmas 2022
• Part 2 - Christmas 2024
• Part 3 - Christmas 2026

So, after Episode 9, there will be no Star Wars movies for 3 years. Hopefully the new TV shows will fill the gap. Right now, we know nothing about this trilogy, but we know about 2 potential projects:

• Rian Johnson trilogy,
• D.B. Weiss and David Benioff (Game of Thrones showrunners) project in the Old Republic era.

No spinoff has been announced, which is disappointing, because I'm waiting for Kenobi movie.

Spider-Man: Far From Home Trailer

Roughly two weeks after Avengers Endgame premiere, the new Spider-Man trailer hit the web. The trailer shows the aftermath of the events from the Endgame and it looks like it's opening the Multiverse  for the Phase 4.

Interesting Links

• Former Google engineer reveals the secret YouTube plot to kill Internet Explorer 6
• Minecraft Classic in a browser
• Proxx - minesweeper in a browser
• Real Time Flight Map w/ Azure Functions, CosmosDB & SignalR
• Tinder’s move to Kubernetes
• Real-time satellite imagery on your desktop with Downlink
• How Dead Cells Secretly Stops You From Dying | Audio Logs
• How Idle Heroes made $100M in a Year
• A new (and easy) way to hide content accessibly
• 99 point checklist for web designers
• 4 reasons your z-index isn’t working (and how to fix it)
• Best Practices for Mobile Payment Experiences
• The curious case of the disappearing Polish S

Image credits: Gogole

This was a busy week. We have news from our galaxy as well as the one that was a long time ago, far, far away. So without further ado, lets get started.

First black hole picture

For the first time ever we finally were able to capture the black hole. This is a breakthrough moment for the astronomy. We knew about black holes for a while now, but we have definite proof of their existence. I'm sure, this is the one of those pictures that become iconic.

Star Wars: Episode IX The rise of Skywalker

When I write this post, in Chicago, there is Star Wars Celebration happening right now. So Star Wars related news will be split into 2 weeks. But the main event, Episode IX panel, has already happened. Panel itself didn't unveil too many details, but we finally got the title and the teaser trailer.
I have to admit, J.J. Abrams knows how to tease a movie. The voice of the Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine, at the end, literally gave me a goosebumps.
Regarding the title, I believe that Skywalker will become a new name for a force sensitive people. Although I still prefer Jedi and Sith, it might not be a bad conclusion of the Skywalker saga.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

Finally we got our first look at this game. It is so long in the production that I started worrying it was canceled. Thankfully I was wrong and it will be release on 15th November this year. According to developers this game is singleplayer and story driven game, without any microtransactions, but I won't believe it until I see it.
Story wise, the game will take place between episodes III and IV, and will tell the story of the young Jedi named Cal Kestis. Beside that we don't know too much, but Lucasfilm already started planting some elements of the game into the universe.

SpaceX Arabsat-6A Mission

This week Space X launched, for the second time ever, the Falcon Heavy rocket. This time it was not only first commercial mission, but, for the first time, all 3 boosters have been successfully retrieved.
By retrieving most of the rocket, SpaceX has set the bar really high. The next milestone is successful crew mission.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft has release first preview of the WebKit powered Edge.

Interesting links

• How to Understand the Image of a Black Hole
• Google Graveyard - Killed by Google
• What the Hex?
• Checklist Design - best UI elements for the best UX practice
• When does an anchor becomes a button?
• How to use CSS position to layout a website
• 339 bytes of responsive CSS

Image credits: Event Horizon Telescope.

This week I want to try a different approach to weekly digest. Instead of trying to keep it as one coherent piece, today, I will break it into separate sections. I believe this will make it more clear to see what actually happened each week and it should also make writing it easier. Those are the goals I want to verify with this little experiment.

Powerbeats Pro

One weeks after Apple's new AirPods release, Beats announced new truly wireless Powerbeats Pro. We knew they were coming, but now it is official, and we have the launch date. They are coming in May, in 20 countries, for about $250. Here are some features of the new earbuds:

• up tp 9 hours of listening time,
• Apple's H1 chip with for quick connection and hands-free “Hey Siri”,
• Sweat and watter resistant,
• Physical and programmable control buttons,
• Automatic pause and resume,
• Charging case, which work similarly to AirPods' case,
• 23% smaller and 17% lighter than its predecessor,
• Come in 4 colors: Black, Ivory, Moss and Navy.

The are a little pricey, but I'm waiting for them.
I was waiting patiently for sport version of the AirPods, but they've never come. Also, when I was fitting the AirPods, they were loose in my ears, so they would probably fall during the training. Powerbeats doesn't have this problem as they were design for athletes.
Beside the price, there is one more thing I don't like. It is the lightning jack on the charging case. I really wished Apple/Beats would finally switched to USB-C with all their products.

Visual Studio 2019

Microsoft has released the next version of its main development IDE. For me, the new IntelliSense powered by an AI is mind-blowing. Also live sharing built into the IDE looks awesome. There are many more new features and improvements, which you can check here.

Cloudflare free VPN

Cloudflare has added free VPN into its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver app. What's interesting this is not a traditional VPN service. Usually the main reason we use VPNs it to trick websites and services into thinking wee are accessing them from a different location. That's no the case with Cloudflare’s service. Instead, the VPN works behind the scenes to increase speed and privacy.
This is different approach, but as long as it is keeping us safe I approve it.

List of interesting things

• VueSolitaire
• Super Charrio Kart
• Vue PWA example
• Vue.js Kanban Board Part I with PWA features in Part II
• How to Fix the Refresh Button When Using Service Workers
• Konami Code Fun: Adding Cheat Codes to your Website
• Libraries Used in the Top 100 iOS Apps
• 5 Tools To Speed Up Your App Development
• Why I Replaced Disqus and You Should Too
• The worst volume control UI in the world
• GDC 2019 Vault
• The Twelve-Factor App
• The first iPhone prototype: an exclusive look at Apple’s red M68
• The MacBook keyboard fiasco is way worse than Apple thinks
• Windows 10 Hero Desktop Image - Behind the Scenes
• Mathigon

Image credits: Apple.

This week World Wide Web turned 30 years old :). I think when Tim Berners-Lee created first WWW site, he didn't know how much he would change the world. Today it is in the center of our life. It's not only a source of information or entertainment. We shop there, we trust our savings in electronic bank. We not only earn money over Internet, but sometimes we even trust it with our lives.
Without a doubt world would not be the same without the WWW. Let's only hope that personal agendas of the politicians won't destroy it.

This week Tesla completed their S3XY car lineup with the brand new model Y. This model is a compact SUV, but it doesn't look like one. It's basically a bigger version of Model 3. The new car will be available in 2020 with price starting at $39,000 for model with 230 miles range. The 300 miles range model will cost $49,000 and the Performance version will cost $60,000.
SUVs are one of the most popular cars out there. We will see whether the people are interested enough in the electric one to boost Tesla's position on the market.

Apple finally announced the WDDC 2019. This year, conference will take place in the first week of June (3rd - 7th) in San Jose. This year's conference should be the interesting one. Of course we will get our first glimpse at iOS 13 and macOS 15. But I think we, as developers, are all waiting for more details about project Marzipan, as well as long awaited Mac Pro and maybe even rumored new MacBook Pro.

Microsoft announced that Windows will be able uninstall broken updates. This is the good step forward, especially after issues with last October update, but I'm wondering how fast we will see reports about this tool making even more harm than good.

Thats all for this week. If you want more, here is the list of interesting things.

The iOS Dev Directory

Ralph Küpper - Running Small Microservices in Swift on Production Environment

A little thread on generating and rendering a procedural trajectory mesh

Creating the Blockade Runner Engine Look for Rogue One

Designing Star Wars: Star Wars Resistance

Someone is recreating Star Wars: Dark Forces... in Unreal Engine 4

Real-Time AR Self-Expression with Machine Learning

A JavaScript-Free Frontend

Learning React Hooks by building a game - react.games Preview

Direct uploads to AWS S3 from the browser (crazy performance boost)

10 Programming Terms in Normal Human Language

Image credits: Pixabay.