Top story this week, two college students stand accused of costing Apple nearly $900,000 in losses with their creative counterfeiting scheme
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The scam had the students ordering large amounts of fake, unusable iPhones from China, and then sending them in to Apple while claiming they were under warranty
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All the claims indicated “No power/wired charging issues” as the reason, to explain why they wouldn’t start up, and then they just needed to get lucky and have Apple employees send a replacement before the fakes were found out
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All told they sent in over 3000 warranty claims, and while about half of them were rejected the other 1500 phones were replaced by Apple no questions asked
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The real phones were then sent back to China and sold to bargain-hunting consumers
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The worst part here is if they’d operated on a smaller scale they might not have even gotten caught- Apple seemed content with sending hundreds of warranty replacements to a random person’s home address, and the only reason they were caught was because Hong Kong customs officials seized several shipments of the fake iPhones after noticing the shipping methods and packaging didn’t match Apple’s usual standards
The Switch is getting VR support on some major titles this month
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You might recall us talking about Nintendo’s Labo VR headset back in episode 240
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First, Super Mario Odyssey is getting a bite-sized bonus experience with mini missions set in the Cap, Seaside, and Luncheon Kingdoms
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Then, from what I’ve read, Breath of the Wild is getting full VR support!
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It doesn’t convert the game into first person, but rather makes your head the camera for more fine-tuned control and immersion
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According to Nintendo, “turning the feature on and off is a snap”
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It’ll be interesting to see how the graphics change in these modes to get the framerates that VR really needs, plus there aren’t any details yet on how exactly the cardboard headset will strap on, or if you have to just hold it the whole time
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Both experiences require free software updates, coming on April 25th
Sony’s PlayStation Network ID change system is finally live this week, but it hasn’t really improved much since we talked about the beta release back in episode 221
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The name change is only supported by games originally published on or after April 1, 2018
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At least 10 games have known “critical issues” , including Everbody’s Golf and Little Big Planet 3, that can have users losing ingame progress, progress toward trophies, and in-game currency either earned or paid
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There are also a bunch of games like Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, GTA V, The Last of Us, and Warframe that have problems ranging from just displaying your old ID to reverting all settings back to their defaults
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There’s a list of games that Sony has tested available on the PlayStation website, and if that all sounds good you can get your first name change for free and then future changes are $10 (or $5 for PS+ subscribers)
Third party controller company PDP is bringing a basic missing feature to the Switch
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Their new wired controller coming in June will include a headset port for any games using Vivox in-game chat (like Fortnite)
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Currently the Switch has very limited voice chat support, so games like Splatoon require you run a separate app on your phone and use a splitter to combine the audio manually
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Potentially the hardware could work with any in-game chat, but it will be up to game developers to decide how they want to proceed with support
Amazon’s coming under fire this week after Bloomberg reported on their Alexa Improvement facilities, where thousands of employees listen to voice recordings captured whenever Alexa thinks it hears a trigger word
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Even more damning, rather than scrambling identifiers and distorting audio, they actually link your first name, account number, and serial number to the recording
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There is a way to turn off the feature, but it’s on by default and not immediately apparent when you’re setting up a new device
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If you’re concerned about privacy you should absolutely go through your Alexa settings and review exactly what’s getting sent where
Design and Game Awards
Tidbits
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Netflix has removed the ability to AirPlay videos from your phone to other devices, which has been a feature for the last 6 years, citing technical limitations
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A spokesperson provided some more details later, saying that because AirPlay support is rolling out for third-party devices they’re taking their ball and going home
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I mean, they’re saying there isn’t a way to tell what device is being streamed to or to certify the experiences, which is kind of a non-answer considering they already couldn’t tell what TV you’re using so…
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A new ad for Smash Bros Ultimate on Nintendo’s YouTube channel may have accidentally spoiled a Stage Builder mode coming soon
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Within the first couple seconds of the video you can see the Smash Ultimate menu including an icon for Stage Builder in the bottom corner, so it’ll be interesting to see if they announce that update in the next Nintendo Direct
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Using 10 radio telescopes working in parallel to act as a giant telescope the size of Earth, astronomers have put together the first-ever picture of a black hole
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It’s an amazing feat of technology and programming years in the making, and we’ve gotten our first good look at this super massive black hole that’s 55M light-years away and about the size of our entire solar system
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Recommend The Academy by Bentley Little
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It’s an paranormal horror/thriller that’s centred around a high school that suddenly starts going through some unsettling changes
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It does a great job of building an atmosphere of dread and unease
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If you’re looking for a creepy slow burn with moments of solid wtf, you’ll probably like it
Literally Misleading
MOVIE – Brothers party their way all the way to success!
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