Battlefield V, Star Wars News, and Tech Industry Trends

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek Hello and welcome to Altered Geek I'm your

host Steve Megatron Phillips and in this episode

again solo Continuing from last week. I wanted

to cover some more of the various New reboot

slash film things coming out and I think I'll

talk about like kind of starting off with something

a little strange. Liam Neeson is in talks to

join a new Men in Black film with Chris Hemsworth

and Tessa Thompson kind of playing the role that

were in the UK branch of the agency kind of like

where Rip Torn was in the original films. I think

this could be really cool having kind of like

Taken you know meets you know some of these other

aspects kind of in Men in Black I was a fan of

the original ones with him but It'll be interesting

to see what role they place him in and how they

how they do this I I'm not a huge fan on a lot

of that kind of weird Dark Horse comics styled

Alien weird stuff that they had in it, but I'd

liked the aspects with the humans in it, and

I think they did that fairly well So it'll it'll

be fun to see that Some other interesting things

there's gonna be a Boba Fett movie finally Director

James Mangold is directing Luke's films Boba

Fett film the Logan director which I think is

kind of good because you get this guy that'll

actually be able to flesh out the character when

he's older type of thing. And it kind of leads

you to wonder whether it's going to be Boba Fett

pre -Sarlacc or post -Sarlacc, which makes me

wonder a little bit. I'm kind of a fan of knowing

whether he's going to be post -Sarlacc, so...

Could be could be interesting. But anyways, they're

doing the character development for this right

now and I'm gonna say spoiler alert for this

next part If you don't want to hear this after

I finish speaking this for us forward like 30

seconds So we have in solo a Spoiler in essence

that the main villain is Darth Maul that he survived

in the film and obviously he's back in Star Wars

Rebels and dies in Rebels so if you already watched

that series you already know but it's in there

either way. So we're kind of in this age of villains

and heroes and everybody getting their own solo

film or getting a aspect in all the fandoms that

they're finally fleshing out everybody that's

not in the prime first -tier level of characters,

and so I guess that's kind of where we're at

in today's world with films. So, yeah, I mentioned

that. Ryan Reynolds did the funniest thing, and

it's kind of because of the end of Deadpool 2.

They had a end -credits scene. where Deadpool

goes back in time and shoots Reynolds in the

head after he read the Lantern script, thus setting

the world right. As Blanchard would love that.

So anyways, they poked fun at it in the first

movie with asking for Super Suit to not be green

or animated, and the second film, that's how

they did it. So... WB seems to have a sense of

humor about the failure of Lantern and Reynolds

mocking of it They aim for the you know stars

with the movie, but the crashed and burned before

getting you know 20 feet off the ground and It's

funny because they they Sent a picture with a

character one of the Green Lanterns asking politely

for Reynolds to return the ring. It says, sorry,

we're going to need the ring back. And then Reynolds

puts, well, if we'd used a Nuva ring in the first

place, we wouldn't be in this mess. It's just

kind of funny seeing the sense of humor. It's

another one of those things, kind of like a few

months back when they were coming out with Reddit

Player One and we had that. Carl's jr. With their

sandwich trying to make a spiel burger and trying

to get spiel burger and they actually like went

up to his Office trying to get him to sign off

on the name And went to the premiere and tried

to do all this other stuff So anyways he ate

the burgers and said they were good, but he said

no way can you use my name? For their their promotion

it was kind of tacky, but it was kind of interesting

how the how they did that the first place But

so it's another one of those things. That's very

much on that same Same line. And, uh, Warner

Brothers made a joke to him after saying we tried

to put a ring on it and they showed him holding

the Green Lantern thing. Yeah. So anyways, it's

kind of funny. Moving on to something a little

bit, uh, in a different world, different span,

we have Battlefield 5 news. Am stoked They start

off with with a first look of a woman character

Which has thrown some fans for a loop I honestly

don't really care because you spend the majority

of time in first -person view anyway I Just don't

see why people have a wild conniption I'm sure

there were women that fought in World War II.

I mean, for crying out loud, they did convert

a lot of the factories here back home in the

U .S. into factories and the women worked at

them because all the men were at war. I'm not

saying there weren't women in the war, but they

were very much still involved, regardless of

capacity. So, people are just having a hairy

about it. So anyways, it's going back to DICE

and... and EA are going back to the world of

World War II, telling real stories about men

and women who changed history over the course

of the Second World War. It's going to be out

October 19th for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. So

very much like Battlefield 1, it'll have a single

-player campaign that'll unfold through an anthology

of war stories, each telling a different tale

from World War II. Co -opting is returning to

the first -person shooter series because they

kind of did away with that. Which I think is

kind of cool because then you could play multiplayer

with people like I could play with my brother

through the storyline So that would be a nice

so it's returning to the series along with a

new multiplayer mode called Grand Operations

They will not and I love this precedent that

they're setting with this game. I Wonder how

they're gonna recap the money, but they're going

to not have any sort of premium pass or season

pass in Battlefield 5 no paying for maps or modes

Nor will you have to buy anything that affects

gameplay Earlier this year dice is being very

very cautious after the outrage of last year's

battle front where they did a lot of this and

I can understand why they They actually had these

these elements where They kind of screwed the

pooch too much on the loot boxes and a lot of

companies are going overboard on this. I honestly

am not one of those people that wants to continuously

pay for a game or for features in a game. I would

rather just, you know, I'm sure the game is going

to cost more when it comes out, which most people

will probably swallow and accept to some degree.

Like I could see people paying as much as like

upwards to like $79. Some people probably spend

more, but I'm not one of those guys that gets

into the games at like top -tier pricing. I'll

get into it later if I have to pay for it and

so like That's why like when I had Battlefield

4 they bought the My family bought the premium

pass and it came with the entire game and everything

else for like 50 bucks when it was old It was

it was kind of old hat. They were getting ready

for Battlefield 1 And then when I started playing

Battlefield 1 after doing the alpha the beta

and then the pre -release on origin access or

EA Access Origins or whatever. My family bought

the game, I bought the expansion, which was still

50 bucks either direction, so it's $100 total,

which is a bit ridiculous for a game. So anyways,

EA confirmed that the game will not have any

form of randomized loot boxes. Previously, a

report had suggested that the next Battlefield

would have cosmetic -only loot boxes. and now

they've confirmed there will be no loot boxes.

Gonna put a trailer for that in the episode post,

but it says it'll show off multiplayer on June

9th. You get to follow around with a female soldier

who's got kind of a set of tongs for a hand type

setup in the game. I'm very much looking forward

to this game and seeing what they do with it,

seeing the historical aspects that they add into

the game from, you know, real life and with the

people involved. They're going to have, like

I said, the simultaneous thing and they're opting

to get rid of the premium pass because it means

that the entire community will be going on the

same journey across the same content at the same

time. giving EA and Dice another layer of control

over the player experience because then everyone's

doing the same thing at the same time instead

of trying to figure out, oh, did you have premium

pass? Oh, did you have the plus? Or did you get

this expansion? Did you have this? No, everybody

will be getting the same rollouts at the same

time, so you won't have to worry about if somebody

has an expansion or not being able to play with

friends online, which was kind of the problem.

that stop me and various other people in my family

from playing the game together, it'll have a

real world, it'll have a premium real world real

money currency, but those will be the things

that, You will buy cosmetic items for in the

game. So like if you want to So basically it's

like grind currency, you know The game's gonna

have grind currency in it too But like this is

gonna be purely for cosmetics of like how your

character looks what they wear You know the tanks

the arsenal like it's it's gonna be purely cosmetic

that you have to spend your own money to get

I can't see a lot of people doing that but I

can see some people doing that they they Intend

to remove any concerns among fans that Battlefield

5 would be a pay -to -win which is what Battlefield

1 kind of was That was kind of my only gripe

is when we were in the alpha and the beta everyone

was on the same playing field the minute the

game came out we were just It was it was pure

hell because people had Elements that they were

just unable to to compete with what people could

afford so I'm kind of looking forward to that

and seeing how they go about all of this as the

game comes out. Moving into Techland, since we

still have time in this episode, Firefox 60 is

out and the first browser to give you password

-free logins. It supports the web authentication

API taking the no password login approach, which

I'm not entirely sure. I mean, it's coming later

this month to Chrome 67 and Edge and consideration

for Safari, but they're hoping to remove passwords.

The web often API will make phishing attacks

a lot harder and give users more convenient authentication

choices, including hardware. security key dongles

such as a YubiKey device, fingerprint readers

on smartphones, or facial recognition systems

like the iPhone X Face ID. The key advantage

is that when it generates cryptographic public

-private pairs for signing in, which means no

shared secrets that could be leaked if a site

is hacked, which is nice, and honestly, I would

much rather punch in a dang code and do a web

API than have to. sit there and remember 50 ,000

passwords among all of my sites. It's nuts. So

anyways, that they're hoping that beyond signing

into websites that another WSC3 standard would

kind of create a payment request API that one

day would be possible to authorize online purchases

from a mobile browser using a fingerprint. Which

could be good, could be bad, hard to say. So

let me cut your thumb off, I mean that's instant

payment. Stealing wallets will steal thumbs.

So, I know, I'm sorry, morbid thought. So when

plugged into a USB port, the feature would enable

biometric login from mobile devices following

a notification issued by websites. So as long

as it supports WebAuthn, which... It'll be interesting

to see how long it takes for everyone to get

on board with this, or if it actually happens,

but it's kind of an interesting twist in privacy

and password protection in today's world. I mentioned

a few weeks back that I was looking at getting

a new cell phone. It's still in process, but

it's going to take a lot longer, it seems, because

I don't have any money to buy a cell phone. because

they cost $1 ,000. So I was looking at ZTE and

ASUS as possibilities because they're cheaper

and I could get a lot of the same features. I'm

not sure how they work because I haven't had

to use them, but ZTE had ceased operations in

the U .S., or actually all together after a U

.S. ban because it had to do with something with

the Chinese tech. and in the U .S. legislation,

barring the sale of national security -sensitive

technology to China in an effort to crack down

on the theft of U .S. intellectual property.

So this Fair Trade with China Enforcement Act

would block government or contractors from buying

telecommunications equipment and services from

Chinese tech giant ZTE in Hawaii or Hui. So anyways,

Yeah, it's... I think they're trying to distance

themselves from the fact that China's trying

to catch up to the US companies and Germany across

like robotics, aerospace, and clean energy cars.

So they're essentially like hacking them at the

knees with it. But they're saying that how...

America responds to the growing threats posed

by China as the single most important geopolitical

issue of the time and it would define the 21st

century Which is Marco Ruby or the guy that introduced

the bill I'm I'm kind of on both sides of this

like I get it for the national security thing

But like buying and selling products is kind

of damaging to both sides. So I yeah, I just

don't know how this is gonna work out so anyways,

they're even the UK though has had security risks

of using CTE equipment so and Australia ends

the sale of CTE so essentially like everybody's

taking down China's CTE company so it's it's

kind of a domino fall effect yeah so because

politics jump in Everyone suffers, so they're

also saying that you know because of this it

kind of puts that into wondering of how many

more are coming down the right road So yeah,

we'll see it has to do with the chips to like

the chipsets that are used in semiconductors

and everything else So since I'm on this whole

internet kick right now I thought something that

was kind of interesting to talk about was social

media that has died or gone the way of the cloud

that it sits on. So we have a few different services

and unfortunately we've lost some social media

companies. I didn't use either one of them though.

Clout went away this month. Social media measuring

power tool essentially just went pfft. I'm kind

of confused on why this was such a thing. It

was supposed to kind of measure your clout score.

And in 2011, 2012, everybody was obsessed with

it. It was weird because it says if it was low,

you felt blue and you tried hard to get your

score back up, which I don't know why anybody

cares. It's a social media platform. So anyways,

it just lured people, another reason that it

mattered or didn't matter. People have high clout

scores, you know And it just it just wasn't an

important thing for people. I I don't even know

why People followed it as much as they did To

be honest like I don't even care that it's gone

like I didn't even know it was still around I

signed up for one when I came out, but that was

because everybody's like you're gonna have one

of every social media platform And then StumbleUpon

also is dead, because evidently nobody was clicking

the button. So June 30th, that's gonna be gone.

It's supposed to help you discover new websites,

and it's shutting down, and I guess their founder,

Garrett Camp, is kind of moving into another

platform called Mix, which is kind of like StumbleUpon

and Pinterest. They're saying like... It's like,

if the two had a baby, that's what you get, so...

It says only fewer people click on that baby

than on its parents, which means they're killing

the parent company so that the baby can absorb

all the power and become a popular one, I guess.

I don't even have a clue what... Like, Mix is

supposed to be like, to show you even more. I

don't really need to discover a site that shows

me things I like because I pretty much already

follow it at this point in time. It's where you

can easily Google it or have a trends thing that

you follow. I just started using this thing called

feedly .com, which I plan to, it basically curates

news in different categories that you select

and you add different websites that are on it.

to this, and it helps you build out a topic thing

of things you're interested in. I started doing

that. It's basically a glorified RSS reader all

in one place, but I started doing that because

I've gotten to this point where I'm interested

in finding out things, but I don't necessarily

want to have to search for it, or even things

that could be talked about on the podcast as

possible topics, and I don't want to have to

search them out. So it will give me things that

are timely relevant and things that I would want

to talk about All at the same time and so I think

that that's more the way to go than than this

route Because it's essentially like tagging and

keywording that you're setting up things So I

don't know. It's something different and YouTube

music is coming soon. So they're gonna have They've

got like sign -ups to get a sneak peek at the

service. It's essentially gonna take like your

music stuff that you already kind of watch on

YouTube and put them in your ears so you can

listen to it. It's gonna be like a new like essentially

like a Spotify or Pandora or something like that.

And I have a feeling that because Google Play

music was just too wordy and too mouthy to say

because like especially when you say Google play

music podcasts I have a feeling that's gonna

go away too so when the the URL changes I have

a feeling everybody's gonna lose it and then

you're gonna have to start over from scratch

and Every one of your subscribers or Google play

is gonna be irrelevant I have a feeling because

they're gonna roll that into Google into YouTube

music as well It's just a matter of whether they

redirect the URL and it's the same RSS feed for

that or not like I'm not really sure It's a good

thing that hardly anybody listens to any of the

content there even on popular network national

shows or podcasts because it would really have

a hurt there, but Since it's not a leading player

in the game and Google seems to have this knack

for anything That's that's created by Google

that wasn't YouTube Really doesn't catch on for

the most part unless it's Android or something

they bought up They had their like their blogging

thing Google profile thing that never took off,

and now they have this element. So it's hard

to say what happens. But I'm interested in seeing

what they do with it. Interesting to see how

they play this out. And then the final thing

is, this is like a giant security thing in the

US. And maybe I'll save that for the next episode.

It just kind of, it has to do with GDPR and it

becoming compliant and like the massive deadline

because it was last week. So it's like this giant

thing from the European Union for general data

protection regulations. So we'll talk about that

on the next episode. So until next time, get

altered, get geeky with the Altered Geeks.