コラムニスト・小田嶋隆さん死去　65歳　現代社会を鋭く批評 | 毎日新聞

鋭い現代社会批評で知られるコラムニストの小田嶋隆（おだじま・たかし）さんが24日、死去したことがわかった。65歳。 東京都生まれ。早稲田大教育学部卒。味の素ゼネラルフーヅを退社後、ラジオ局アシスタントディレクター、作詞家などを経験する。著書に「日本語を、取り戻す。」「小田嶋隆のコラムの切り口」「超・反…

Netflix Games snags ‘Into The Breach’ as a mobile exclusive

It’s safe to say that not everything is going swimmingly over at Netflix, given that it just laid off another 300 employees. However, the company’s games division is putting together a strong library of titles. Among those are exclusive mobile ports of several beloved indies like Spiritfarer, and Netflix just snagged another one with Into The Breach.

Netflix subscribers will have exclusive access to Into The Breach on iOS and Android starting on July 19th. It’s the exact same turn-based strategy title that’s available on PC, Switch and Stadia, albeit with a touch interface that has been revamped for smaller screens.

Into The Breach was one of Engadget’s favorite games of 2018. You control three mechs and the main aim is to protect structures from monsters known as the Vek. Each map has its own objective and you have a fixed number of turns to complete it. The key twist is that, when it’s your turn, you’ll see exactly what the monsters will do on their next move, which makes Into The Breach a puzzle game. Since it’s a roguelike and the scenarios are procedurally generated, no two runs are the same.

When Into The Breach lands on iOS and Android next month, Subset Games will release a major update for all platforms. The studio says the free Advanced Edition Update will expand almost all elements of the game. It will add more mechs, weapons, enemies, challenges, pilots and abilities. Support for seven more languages will be added — Arabic, Thai, Swedish, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Turkish and Spanish (Latin American) — taking the total to 17. A physical edition will be released for Nintendo Switch later this year too.

Netflix’s gaming push started small but has ramped up significantly over the last year. Among the well-regarded indies it counts as mobile exclusives are Exploding Kittens, Kentucky Route Zero and Before Your Eyes. Immortality, the latest FMV game from Her Story and Telling Lies creator Sam Barlow, is coming to Netflix Games, as is Desta: The Memories Between from Monument Valley studio Ustwo.

Netflix has a slate of original games as well. Those include some based on its own properties — such as Stranger Things, The Queen’s Gambit and Money Heist — as well as the likes of the fantastic Poinpy from Downwell creator Ojiro Fumoto. Netflix aims to have 50 games available for subscribers by the end of the year.

The long-delayed remaster of 1997’s ‘Blade Runner’ game is finally available

The much-delayed remaster of the classic Blade Runner adventure game is finally here. As Polygonreports, Nightdive Studios has released Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition for Windows PCs (via Steam) as well as PlayStation, Switch and Xbox consoles. The modernized version runs at 60 frames per second instead of the original’s 15FPS, complete with updated animations and models. Improved in-game tools help you work with clues as you track down hostile replicants, and gamepad support is available on all platforms.

Westwood’s 1997 game pushed the boundaries of both gameplay and graphics at the time. Instead of the usual fixed plot, Blade Runner changed the replicant with each playthrough while offering branching storylines, different outcomes and characters that operate on their own timetables. You couldn’t just cut to the chase and ‘retire’ the android at the start. And instead of relying on either 2D art or crude 3D, the title used voxels (pixels with 3D attributes) that allowed far more visual detail for the era, including volumetric lighting that mimicked the Ridley Scott movie’s gritty look.

You’ll still notice the limitations from 25 years ago. This won’t control as elegantly as present-day games, and Westwood’s budget limited it to only some voices from the movie cast (including Sean Young and James Hong) and recreated music from Vangelis’ score. Even so, this remains the closest you’ll get to filling Deckard’s shoes in a game while preserving the 1982 film’s atmosphere.

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge’ is a glorious beat-’em-up revival

If you visited arcades in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, you surely remember the golden age of beat-em-up games. Cabinets like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, X-Men and more followed a fairly simple formula: take a popular franchise and have …

‘Strange New Worlds’ mixes the maudlin and irreverent

The following article discusses spoilers for The Elysian Kingdom.There’s a genre of writing best embodied by the serial escalation of premises found on forum threads in certain corners of the internet. It’s the sort of energy that imbues this week’s St…

Spotify’s Live Event Feed makes it easier to find out when your favorite artist is touring

Spotify has expanded its old Concert Hub and added more features to make it easier to find information and tickets for live events in your location. The streaming service sources listings for the hub, now called Live Events Feed, from its ticketing partners that include Ticketmaster, AXS, DICE, Eventbrite and See Tickets, among other companies. During the height of COVID-19 lockdowns, the Concert Hub helped users find at-home or studio performances, podcast recordings and other online performances. Turns out Spotify was studying user behavior at the same time. 

Sam Sheridan, Product Manager for Live Events Discovery, said Spotify spent the past two years studying the music industry and its users. One of the most important behaviors the company noticed was that fans would engage with artists on the platform and then leave to search for concert listings or to follow them on social media to be able to stay on top of any upcoming tour dates. “We think the Live Events Feed is an opportunity to help close this loop,” Sheridan said. 

If you don’t see the Live Events Feed in your app, simply search for “live events.” You’ll see a listing of all the performances in your area, and clicking on any of them would lead you to an interface that includes a link where you can find and buy tickets. If the artist you’re listening to has an upcoming tour date, Spotify will show you that event in-app while you’re listening. Spotify has also built a new messaging tool that can notify you about upcoming concerts based on your listening habits. Don’t worry — you can tweak your notification preferences so you don’t have to get messages if you don’t want to. 

Sheridan says Spotify will work “to even further integrate event discovery directly into the app” to make it more intertwined with the listening experience, so we’ll likely see more updates to Live Events in the future. 

‘Hyenas’ is a team shooter from the creators of ‘Alien: Isolation’

Creative Assembly is best known for deliberately-paced games like Alien: Isolation and the Total War series, but it’s about jump headlong into the multiplayer action realm. The developer is partnering with Sega to introduceHyenas, a team-based shooter coming to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PCs in 2023. The title takes its cue from tech headlines, but also doesn’t take itself (or its gameplay mechanics) too seriously.

You join three-person teams to raid spaceship shopping malls for the coveted merch left behind by Mars billionaires. You’ll have to compete against four other loot-seeking teams while simultaneously dealing with security systems, hired goons and zero-gravity. You can not only flip gravity on and off, but use bridge-making goo and other special abilities to claim the upper hand. And yes, it’s pretty silly — you can expect appearances from Richard Nixon masks, Sonic the Hedgehog merch and Pez dispensers.

The creators are currently accepting sign-ups for a closed alpha test on PCs. They’ve also made clear there will be no “pay to win” systems. While that suggests you might have the option of buying cosmetic items, your success should depend solely on talent. It’s just a question of whether Hyenas will be good enough to pry gamers away from multiplayer shooter mainstays like the Call of Duty series or Fortnite.

Acast subscribers will soon get access to exclusive podcast groups on Facebook

Your favorite podcast might soon have an official, easy-to-find forum. Meta has teamed up with podcast giant Acast to offer exclusive Facebook Groups for podcasts using Acast+ paid subscriptions. Link your membership to your Facebook account and you’ll have a ready-made place to discuss the latest episode with fellow fans — you won’t have to hunt for a message board or use social network hashtags. You’ll also get exclusives like livestreams and Q&A sessions with show hosts.

The two companies didn’t say when subscriber groups would be available. Several podcasts are involved in a testing period, including the beauty show Fat Mascara. The price you’ll pay will likely vary, but podcasters can enable Acast+ for free. 

Meta has struggled to compete in the podcasting realm, and began shutting down services in early June. The deal keeps the company involved in the category, however. The social media company can benefit from the rise of paid podcasts (through increased use of its services) without having to pour resources into creating or distributing content. This is the first time a podcast company is using Facebook’s new platform for Interoperable Subscriber Groups, but it might not be the last if Acast’s partnership proves successful.

Twitter wants writers to publish longform content with ‘Notes’

Twitter has finally shown off its long-rumored feature for long form writing. The company confirmed that it’s beginning to test a new “Notes” feature, which will allow writers to publish freeform content on Twitter without a character limit.

Notes are essentially blog posts that appear within Twitter without the typical limitations of a tweet. There are no character limits, and writers can embed photos, videos and other tweets within a Note. Writers can also share their Notes via tweets, and their published Notes will appear on their Twitter profiles.

Notes could significantly change how writers interact with their followers, and give them more flexibility than the typical tweetstorm. In a Note announcing the launch, Twitter’s editorial director Rembert Browne wrote that Notes are meant to give writers an alternative to the lengthy threads without having to publish writing elsewhere and share it back to Twitter. “Since the company’s earliest days, writers have depended on Twitter to share their work, get noticed, be read, create conversation — everything but the actual writing,” Browne wrote. “With Notes, the goal is to fill in that missing piece and help writers find whatever type of success they desire.”

For now, the feature is available to a “small group of writers” from Canada, Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States, though the company says it will eventually expand the test group as it gathers feedback. Notes is part of a broader push by Twitter to build features for writers. With the change, the company is also bringing Revue, the newsletter company it acquired last year, into its new “Twitter Write” group, which encompasses notes and newsletters. So far, it’s unclear how Revue newsletters may be incorporated into Notes.

Twitter makes it easy for Shopify merchants to highlight their products

Twitter has teamed up with Shopify to give merchants in the US an easy way to use the social network to grow their business. Merchants can now add a Twitter sales channel app to their Shopify admin dashboard to access a manager where they can see the social network’s shopping tools and features. That sales channel automatically and regularly syncs with Shopify merchants’ catalogs, so users won’t have to worry about updating product information on multiple platforms. 

That will make it easier for merchants to showcase their products through Twitter’s Shop Spotlight, which is a dedicated space at the top of a profile that can display up to five items. Visitors to a merchant’s account will be able to scroll through those carousel of products to purchase them without having to leave Twitter. Merchants can also choose to highlight a bigger collection of goods through Twitter’s in-app shops, which can list up to 50 handpicked items. Both features used to be on beta testing, but they’re now available to all merchants in the US. Those who want to see what the Shopify integration looks like on Twitter may want to check out Trixie Cosmetics, which is one of the first users to take advantage of Twitter sales channel app on Shopify. 

Amir Kabbara, Director of Product at Shopify, said:

“Reaching potential customers where they are is critical to the success of Shopify merchants. Twitter is where conversations happen, and the connection between conversations and commerce is vital. Our partnership with Twitter, and the launch of the Twitter sales channel, will let merchants seamlessly bring commerce to the conversations they’re already having on the platform.” – Amir Kabbara, Director of Product at Shopify.”

In addition to its team-up with Twitter, Shopify has announced other new features and products at its first semi-annual showcase called Editions. One of its upcoming offerings is the ability to accept customer payments right from an iPhone using Shopify’s Point of Sale. The company has built PoS hardware merchants can attach to their iPhone, and merchants in the US will even have access to the new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature.