Finally, Wendy’s Made a Tabletop RPG at NYCC

We’re living in a golden age of “games” that are really just ironic cash-in advertisements for fast food companies. Not since the Wild West of cheap NES cartridges have we seen this. Sneak King was truly ahead of its time. Just a few weeks ago, KFC took things to the next level (or new low) by releasing a free dating sim chicken kitchen visual novel where you kiss Colonel Sanders. And now Wendy’s, no longer content just making Super Mario Maker 2 courses, has put out a Feast of Legends, a delicious role-playing just in time for New York Comic Con.

Perhaps realizing that it’s never been a better time to get into Dungeons and Dragons as an adult, this new game from Wendy’s takes most of its cues from that titan of tabletop RPGs. In Feast of Legends you’ll manage your stats for things like Strength and Arcana. You’ll pledge loyalty to Spicy Chicken Sandwich guilds and the Order of the Baconator or whatever. The lore runs hilariously deep. Your ultimate nemesis is off-brand Ronald McDonald. He’s a clown who loves burgers. Sure!

The free 100-page PDF download gives you everything you need to run your own campaign with this shockingly fleshed-out system. There’s some neat artwork, too, showing Wendy herself as a mighty warrior alongside a baked potato in a wizard hat. Listen, I’m writing this first night of New York Comic Con which means I’m just delirious enough to not question a fantasy fast food board game. Just roll with it. There’s a plague of frozen patties in “Beef’s Keep.”

Feast of Legends is available now. All hail Freshtovia.

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Tesla finally has Spotify, but there are other hacks for the Model 3 screen

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10 tips for tailgating in cold weather - CNET

Great advice and gear to help you stay warm while you watch the game.

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Amazon slashes prices on Garmin Vivoactive 3 and Forerunner smartwatches

Smartwatches continue to pile on capabilities in impressive feats of multifunctionality encased in a few ounces of wristworn tech. Amazon slashed the prices on two of Garmin's most appealing smartwatches. 

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What is hi-res audio and how can you experience it right now?

High-resolution audio has gone from audiophile novelty to mainstream attraction, but understanding it isn’t easy. Here’s what “hi-res” really means for you, and why you shouldn’t just brush it off as another marketing gimmick.

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Watch Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise public Q&A with employees

Image: The Verge

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke with a longstanding tradition today and decided to live stream one of his company’s routine Q&A sessions he hosts with employees, ones where anyone is free and supposedly even encouraged to ask the chief executive a tough question.

The decision was made as a direct response to leaked audio obtained by The Verge and published earlier this week of a previous, private Q&A that detailed Zuckerberg’s candid and unscripted views on everything from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plans to break up Big Tech to the harrowing working conditions of contract content moderators. You can read the full transcript of Zuckerberg’s leaked internal Facebook Q&A sessions here.

Zuckerberg wanted to show the world what goes on at...

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T-Mobile will stop selling the OnePlus 7 Pro

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The new OnePlus 7T isn’t even out yet in the US, but T-Mobile has confirmed it’s already pulling its more expensive predecessor, the OnePlus 7 Pro. That’s apparently because OnePlus “wants to focus on a single model” in the US, according to a report from Wave7 Research (via PCMag).

Though that’s disappointing if you wanted to buy the OnePlus 7 Pro in the US — T-Mobile is the carrier partner for OnePlus here — it seems that T-Mobile is realizing something similar to what my colleague Dan Seifert concluded in his review: most people would be better served buying the 7T, which shares many features with the 7 Pro but offers them at a cheaper price.

T-Mobile confirmed to PCMag that has pulled the 7 Pro from its website “due to low...

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Greyparrot uses computer vision to improve waste management

Meet Greyparrot, a London-based startup that wants to improve waste management. The company uses computer vision to make sorting more efficient at different stages of the waste chain. And Greyparrot has been selected as a wildcard for the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.

The company has been using machine learning with images of different types of waste to train a model that detects glass, paper, cardboard, newspapers, cans and different types of plastics (black trays, PET, HDPE).

Greyparrot can then use a simple camera combined with a computer to sort waste in a fraction of a second.

There are many different use cases for this kind of technology, but it seems particularly promising in sorting facilities. Those facilities already use a ton of machines to separate small and big objects, metal from plastics, etc. But many of them still rely on humans at the end of the process to pick up the last remaining false positive objects.

While it’s never possible to sort everything with a 100% accuracy, you want to get as close as possible to 100%. Sorting facilities create huge cubes of PET plastics and send them to countries on the other side of the world so that they can transform PET into something else.

In some cases, those cubes are not pure enough. For instance, Indonesia regularly refuses containers of waste and send them back to the U.S. or Europe.

Greyparrot wants to help with the last step of the sorting process. The product can be used to assess the purity of a conveyor belt to see if it’s good enough. It can also identify problematic objects and give coordinates to a sorting robot so that it can automatically pick up impurities.

The startup has been testing its solution in facilities in the U.K. and South Korea. It has raised $1.2 million so far.

In the future, Greyparrot also has other ideas of use cases. For instance, you could imagine embedding Greyparrot’s technology in a smart bin to automatically sort waste from the very beginning. You could also use Greyparrot in reverse vending machines and credit your account when you return plastic bottles.

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This iPhone 11 Pro case makes its weird camera worth it

Image: Cinepocalypse

What you need to know

• A new case has popped up that makes terrific use of the iPhone 11 Pro's triple-camera system.
• The so-called Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger case turns the cameras into rocket launchers
• It's a perfect recreation of the iconic scene in the 1985 film Commando.

Arnold Schwarzenegger with a rocket launcher has you covered.

The most polarizing aspect of the iPhone 11 Pro is its camera system. Love it or hate it, the triple-camera system elicits strong opinions from people. Whether you are on one side or the other, there's no denying the Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger iPhone 11 Pro case makes the new camera system worth it.

For those of you that are not familiar with Commando, it is a 1985 film that stars Schwarzenegger as retired United States Special Forces Colonel John Matrix. At one point, his daughter is kidnapped and he is forced to spring into action and save her while taking out a gang of thugs. Along the way, there is an iconic scene where he aims rocket launcher and starts laying waste.

The boxy front rocket launcher just so happens to look a lot like the square camera of the iPhone 11 Pro. So somebody decided to make a case of the iconic scene that perfectly places Schwarzenegger in position to shoot not the rocket launcher, but the iPhone 11 Pro cameras.

And the award for best ever iPhone case goes to... pic.twitter.com/frweuwniKJ

— Cinepocalypse (@cinepocalypse) September 30, 2019

Twitter users Cinepocalypse shared an image the displayed how awesome the case looks on a Midnight Green iPhone 11 Pro.

It's a hilarious case that makes perfectly recreates the scene. It also shows the ingenuity people are inspired with when Apple does something questionable with their product design.

The Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger case came up from a meme making fun of the iPhone 11 Pro camera. There were plenty of memes making fun of it, so we're crossing our fingers more hilarious cases come out that better utilize the camera.

You can find the Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger case on Amazon.

11 iPhone 11 memes to make your day

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Boss’ new Katana guitar amps offer more tones than ever

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StrattyX lets you buy and sell shares using automated rules

StrattyX is a trading interface that lets you set up sophisticated “if-this-then-that” rules and execute orders on the stock market. The startup is participating in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.

There are plenty of brokers that let you buy and sell shares using a mobile app and a web interface. But if you want to access more sophisticated tools and automate strategies, there’s not much you can do.

StrattyX wants to open up automated trading software to anyone, from non-professional traders who have some savings to professional day traders. The startup focuses on this specific part of the process.

It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel and it doesn’t want to become an online stock broker. Instead, the company integrates with existing brokers, such as Robinhood, TD Ameritrade and many others as long as they support trading via an API. It acts as an interface and executes orders on your behalf.

You can create rules based on multiple different factors. In addition to traditional stop-loss and stop-limit orders, you can say that you want to buy or sell shares if something happens on Twitter, in the news or on the stock market.

Here are a few examples of rules you can create:

• If @realdonaldtrump tweets something that contains “China” or “tariff,” sell Apple shares.
• If the value of EUR drops by 2% against USD, buy LVMH shares.
• If news headline contains “Tesla delays deliveries,” sell Tesla shares.

Interestingly, StrattyX will provide a marketplace of strategies. If a star investor starts using StrattyX to define a set of automated rules, other users could follow the same strategy.

StrattyX then wants to go one step further by giving you the tools to train a model using machine learning and user-generated data sets. You could imagine a feature that lets you upload a .csv file with price history and different types of data points, such as SEC filings, earnings, etc.

The company is also working on a feature that would show you news headlines that you’d rate with a Tinder-style swipe gesture — swipe right if you think it’s good news, swipe left if you think it’s bad news.

StrattyX is launching its mobile app today. It’s a sort of minimum viable product for now — some features are still in beta. The company is also working on a desktop version that would be useful for professional traders in particular.

StrattyX initially costs $5 per month per user, with more expensive plans for bigger teams and whether you execute a lot of orders through the product. The startup is looking to raise a seed round in the coming months.

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LifeCouple wants to improve your romantic relationship

Good relationships require ongoing commitment and work. LifeCouple, launching today in public beta at TechCrunch Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield, wants to help make that work a bit easier for you and your partner.

Through its app, LifeCouple enables couples to address and monitor any challenges in their relationship. The startup does this by serving up content designed to encourage people to look more closely at their relationship across four key areas: trust, communication, conflict and intimacy. The content includes daily relationship challenges, ice breakers to help approach tricky conversations, digital gifts and more.

LifeCouple is designed to supplement couples therapy, its founder Sean Rones told TechCrunch.

“It’s not a replacement to therapy but it’s a complement to it,” he said. “I don’t think this can 100% solve your problem but it can give you the tools to solve your problems.”

Additionally, Rones envisions couples therapists using this tool to further assist their clients.

Just how startups use technology to track fitness and health, LifeCouple aims to help people create relationship goals, address those goals and track them over time. The ideal is for people to spend about 15 minutes per day to get the most out of it, Rones said.

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“What motivated me is after many different startups, I’ve learned that in order to be somewhat successful, you have to be tackling a really big problem,” he said.

LifeCouple is currently free, but is working to determine the cost moving forward. In the first two months of its soft launch, LifeCouple amassed 2,500 users in the U.S.

“What we’re trying to do is create something that can help — even if it’s just 10 couples that stay together,” Rones said.

This year, LifeCouple raised a $575,000 seed round. The plan is to do a full launch in January.

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Battle burger giants with Wendy's new Feast of Legends fantasy tabletop RPG - CNET

Do you have what it takes to be a warrior in the Order of the Baconator?

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Surface Duo: No, Microsoft isn't making another Windows phone - CNET

The company confirms it's going all in with Android on its dual-screen phone for 2020.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg live streams employee Q&A in rare move - CNET

Zuckerberg's internal Q&As with employees were leaked earlier this week.

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‘Project Resistance’ Brings Man-Made Zombie Horror to NYCC

Not too long ago Capcom trickled out the first details of Project Resistance, a new multiplayer survival horror game set in the universe of Resident Evil. And now we have a better idea why details have been so scarce. Right now the game really is just a project as opposed to a full-fledged thing. It’s not even going to keep that name.

But unfinished multiplayer games need lots of feedback from real players to improve. Fortunately, Capcom delivered a taste of Project Resistance to plenty of real players at New York Comic Con, including us.

While Resident Evil has dabbled with multiplayer in the past, from Resident Evil Outbreak to (ugh) Umbrella Corps, Project Resistance is something totally different. It embraces tropes from more recent multiplayer horror games like Friday the 13th and Dead By Daylight by realizing that the scariest monster of all is your fellow man.

Project Resistance hinges on asymmetry. Four players control survivors trying to escape while another embodies the evil mastermind trying to keep them trapped. As players succeed they’ll earn extra time on the clock whereas if the mastermind’s obstacles are successful time ticks down faster. So each group has their own potential virtuous cycles. And the inherent randomness of both the level layout and the mastermind’s actions make the experience scarier because you just can’t learn it.

I only got to play as a survivor, and we failed both attempts to escape. But typical Resident Evil ideas like searching for puzzle piece door keys and managing deadly but lumbering B.O.W.s, translates fine to squad-based multiplayer. The series had already become so co-op focused anyway. Each survivor has their own class skills (and their own great Resident Evil name like January Van Sant) so I went with the tank Tyrone and his powerful kick. Everyone staying in their lane and watching each other’s back is key to not just survival but completing tasks. It’s a bit like Rainbow Six Siege in that way, or I guess Left 4 Dead where the AI director is just a real person.

It looks pretty good, too. This current Resident Evil engine is just some solid tech. And when the mastermind suddenly spawned and controller the tyrant Mr. X (a powerful ability with a long cooldown) I had flashbacks to terrifying Resident Evil 2 remake encounters from earlier this year. Nifty visuals and an intriguing multiplayer setup though don’t immediately equal a great game. But we’re now keeping an eye out for Project Resistance to fully emerge from the shadows.

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23andMe review: It lives up to the hype of DNA testing

23andMe is the second-most popular DNA testing service in the world. Its large database of users and comprehensive DNA test make it our favorite DNA test.

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Chevy's 2020 Corvette C8.R sounds way more exotic than the Stingray, but why? - Roadshow

Could the new Corvette race car be packing an exotic flat-plane V8?

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How to watch Rams vs. Seahawks on Thursday Night Football tonight without cable - CNET

NFL Network, Fox, Amazon Prime Video and Twitch all have the game live tonight. And Fox is streaming in 4K.

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23andMe review: It lives up to the hype of DNA testing

Of all the companies that offer DNA testing, 23andMe is one of the most famous. According to the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, 23andMe has tested the DNA of more than 5 million people, making it the second-most popular test after AncestryDNA.

This popularity provides an advantage over DNA tests from smaller services: The more people in the system, the more accurate the ethnicity estimates. 23andMe also regularly releases new reports evaluating your DNA.

Note: This review is part of our best DNA test kit roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

At a $99 MSRP (and often cheaper thanks to occasional discounts), you’ll get just the ancestry reports, which outline your recent ethnic heritage and the ancient forebears on your mother’s and father’s side. It also has a robust relative-matchmaking system, thanks to its large database of users.

To read this article in full, please click here

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2020 Audi Q5 TFSI E first drive review

Audi will roll out a range of plug-in hybrid models for the 2020 model year. The Q5, the A7, and the A8 are all getting electrified. Digital Trends took a gasoline-electric Q5 for a spin in the German countryside.

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What’s new on Netflix and what’s leaving in October 2019

Our complete list of what's new on Netflix for October 2019 will help you catch up on your binge list.

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Work/Life: How to find and communicate the value of your work

In this episode of Work/Life, we discuss communicating what you’re worth. How do you figure out your own worth? And how do you communicate it? We give tips and context to finding your own voice and clearly communicating your value.

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