Finished files are the result of years of

It sounds crazy to say, but when I first finished Cyberpunk 2077 I was surprised at how not buggy the game was. I wrote in my original review that people concerned the game may be too big for its own good shouldn't fret, that Cyberpunk 2077 is imperfect but still a resounding success.Obviously, things have changed.Just like every other publication, CNET was given review codes for the PC version. Running on a rig with an Nvidia GTX 3080, Cyberpunk is an acutely beautiful game. I experienced some glitches in my playthrough of the main story, but they were mostly benign: My character's hair wouldn't appear in cutscenes, sometimes I'd see cars stuck together in the open world. Only twice in about 30 hours did I have to reset my game, and both times were several hours into a session.But then two things happened. First, after I published the review, I finally had time to play through sidequests and meander through Night City. I found bugs far more frequently here -- mission prompts not … [Read more...] about Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best games — of 2021

One fine Monday morning, Ars Technica Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson came to me with a problem: the colors in his text editor, in his humble opinion, had Begun To Suck. In Lee's 20 years or so of Vim usage, he'd gotten accustomed to comment lines in his code and configuration files being rendered in dark blue. But after upgrading a machine to Ubuntu 20.04, Vim started rendering comments in cyan—and since the "Identifier" syntax category also rendered in cyan, he was unhappy enough about it to decide to change the defaults. At first blush, Vim seems to adhere to roughly the same configuration standard that many if not most Unixlike systems and applications do—there's a set of systemwide configurations in /etc , which can be overridden individually per user by changes made in an optional configuration file in that user's home directory. In Vim's case, that's ~/.vimrc —just like Bash configurations can be overridden in ~/.bashrc . But when Lee tried to make his One … [Read more...] about Configuring vim: The right way, the wrong way, and the Hutchinson way

You’ve almost certainly never heard of Peter Belanger , but you’ve definitely seen his photographs. In fact, you may even see his work every day, and it’s likely that you own some of his most famous subjects. Belanger is the man behind some of Apple’s most iconic product images, a San Francisco-based product photographer at the top of his field. Apple is but one of his clients — he’s done work for everyone from eBay and Nike to Pixar and Square — and we sat down with Peter to talk about his work, his background, and some very, very expensive gear. Where are you right now? I just put the kids to bed and I’m waiting for Mad Men to download from iTunes. Your portfolio shows your focus (and prowess) as a product and advertising photographer. How did you find your way to that specialty? "I could actually make a living doing what I loved." While studying photography I was in a program that really pushed the creative side of the industry (concept and meaning more than … [Read more...] about The illusion of simplicity: photographer Peter Belanger on shooting for Apple

Sonos is one of the best-known audio companies in the world, and it could be on the verge of launching a new wireless speaker . An FCC filing (Federal Communications Commission) spotted by The Verge describes a device that uses a wireless charging base; but it requires less power than the company's Move speaker, suggesting a similar portable smart speaker that's more compact. The compact form could mean the device is a cheaper version of the Sonos Move , in the same way that the Apple HomePod mini is a cheaper version of the original HomePod smart speaker. And it could be launching soon – Sonos CEO Patrick Spence divulged in a call with investors that the brand would be releasing a new product in March (although there is a chance that this new product could easily be the first Sonos headphones , too). While details of the next Sonos speaker are thin on the ground, there are a few things we can glean from the FCC filing – as well as lots of features we’d love … [Read more...] about New Sonos speaker: everything we know about the rumored Sonos Move follow-up

The $199 Amazon Kindle Fire is a worthy device. It’s not an iPad slayer, but it could be the first tablet to ably stand atop Mount Tabulous (or at least on a rock ledge just a few dozen feet lower) with Apple’s industry-dominating slab computer. This is a product I wanted to love. The Kindle Fire’s unveiling was so impressive. Jeff Bezos hitting all the right notes in true Jobsian fashion, telling the tale of a product vision so clear it made my eyes tear up. Instead, now I’m discovering it's a somewhat flawed gadget — a product that literally does not always know which way is up. First the good stuff. The Amazon Kindle Fire is a tablet that simply works. From the moment you turn it on to the first time you download music from your own personal cloud to the minute you start watching a movie on the device and then continue watching on your HDTV — without connecting the device to the TV — you’re hooked. This is a smart tablet with a fully thought-out ecosystem. It is — … [Read more...] about Amazon Kindle Fire, iPad’s First True Competitor [REVIEW]