- A passenger took over controls and crash landed a small plane at Martha’s Vineyard Airport after the pilot suffered a medical condition, officials say CNN
- Small plane crash lands in Martha’s Vineyard after pilot suffers medical emergency, police say NBC News
- Small plane crash-lands on Martha’s Vineyard after pilot passes out, passenger takes control Fox News
- Small plane crashes on Martha’s Vineyard NBC10 Boston
- Passenger takes controls of small airplane from ailing pilot and crash lands in Martha’s Vineyard Yahoo News
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Tag Archives: Controls
China Hits US Defence Industry, Export Controls Tagret Metals Key To Advanced Radars On Jets & More – CRUX
- China Hits US Defence Industry, Export Controls Tagret Metals Key To Advanced Radars On Jets & More CRUX
- China’s Export Curb on Chip-Making Metals Prompt Countries to Explore Supply-Chain Diversification The Wall Street Journal
- Will Beijing’s Export Curbs Escalate the US-China Chip War? | Vantage with Palki Sharma Firstpost
- Factbox-Where are germanium and gallium produced, what are they used for? By Reuters Investing.com
- China Latest: Xi Urges Open Supply Chains After Curb on Metal Exports Bloomberg Television
- View Full Coverage on Google News
GoldenEye controls better on Xbox than on Switch — can they be changed?
The long, long awaited reissue of Rare’s classic 1997 James Bond shooter GoldenEye 007 is available on Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles today — and you might want to carefully consider which version you play.
As announced earlier this week, only GoldenEye on Switch has online multiplayer. But it turns out the Xbox version of the game also has an exclusive feature which might have an even bigger impact on your enjoyment: modern first-person shooter controls.
Nintendo has taken a purist approach with the Switch version of GoldenEye. The game doesn’t support any inputs which didn’t exist on the original Nintendo 64 controller, which means no right trigger to fire from. The various control options available in the game — all carried over from the original, with their Bond-inspired names like “Honey,” “Solitaire,” and “Goodnight” — only allow fire to be assigned to the left trigger or the A button.
The N64 controller also only had a single analog stick. Nintendo does map the four yellow C buttons, which formed a kind of secondary D-pad, onto the Switch’s right stick, but none of the available control maps correspond to the modern standard for twin-stick first-person controls, with move and strafe on the left stick, and aim and turn on the right. There’s also no custom control option.
Doubtless the game will feel great if you have one of Nintendo’s classic N64 controllers — or even better, two, so you can use one of its dual-wield options — but as it stands, on a standard Switch or a Pro Controller, the options all feel quite ungainly and will take some getting used to. (There is a workaround that involves swapping the Switch’s Joy-cons, but it’s a bit of a fiddle and not that comfortable, plus it isn’t an option for Switch Lite owners or handheld play.)
The Xbox version, by contrast, adds two new control options to the original game’s eight (though even these reassign fire from the left trigger to the right). “Diamond” is a classic modern FPS setup, with move and look operating as normal on the sticks, and fire on the right trigger. The game plays effortlessly this way. The other option is a fully customizable control map, which is a win for accessibility.
What about other differences between the two versions? The Switch’s exclusive online multiplayer mode works via the Switch Online lobby interface: create a room with some friends there, then jump in and play together as if playing locally. Yes — that means you’ll still be able to see each other’s screens in split-screen. There’s no matchmaking with randoms available. It’s not exactly elegant, but if it’s your only way to play with friends, it’s a huge bonus.
Additionally, the Switch version of GoldenEye allows the game’s cheats (additional modes, characters, weapons, and levels) to be unlocked by entering cheat codes, as did the original. The Xbox version doesn’t appear to support this, and cheats need to be unlocked the hard way through gameplay. For its part, the Xbox version has 55 new achievements to go for.
GoldenEye is available in the Nintendo 64 collection that forms part of the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription on Switch. On Xbox, it’s included in an Xbox Game Pass subscription, or as a free update to the Rare Replay collection. It can’t be bought separately on either system.
So: modern controls and achievements, or online multiplayer and cheat codes? In an ideal world we’d have them all in a single version, but we don’t. The choice is yours.
Google Home app starts rolling out full TV controls
Some television sets can be controlled by the Nest Hub, and the Google Home app is now finally starting to pick up those touch-based controls.
Back in August, Google said it was “rolling out redesigned controls for popular smart home devices in the Google Home app,” including fans, air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, and TVs. This turned out to be pretty minor visual tweaks to a device’s control page.
Users that have TVs compatible with Google Assistant/Home support are now noticing that the Google Home app is offering full touch controls. This includes volume up/down, un/mute, power on/off, play, pause, channel, and a Source list.
It’s the same template as for non-Cast smart speakers, with a large switch for volume and pills housing everything else, except play/pause.
Old vs. new (u/PhilStation)
These controls might have already been available on the Nest Hub, but they are now available on the Google Home app. This is different from Cast-enabled televisions or Google/Android TV, which are instead served by the new Google Home app’s media controls.
As of today, there are reports from LG and Samsung television owners who are on the redesigned Home app Preview Program. This functionality is not yet widely rolled out in the Google Home app for all users.
More on Google Home:
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Google Home app starts rolling out full TV controls
Some television sets can be controlled by the Nest Hub, and the Google Home app is now finally starting to pick up those touch-based controls.
Back in August, Google said it was “rolling out redesigned controls for popular smart home devices in the Google Home app,” including fans, air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, and TVs. This turned out to be pretty minor visual tweaks to a device’s control page.
Users that have TVs compatible with Google Assistant/Home support are now noticing that the Google Home app is offering full touch controls. This includes volume up/down, un/mute, power on/off, play, pause, channel, and a Source list.
It’s the same template as for non-Cast smart speakers, with a large switch for volume and pills housing everything else, except play/pause.
Old vs. new (u/PhilStation)
These controls might have already been available on the Nest Hub, but they are now available on the Google Home app. This is different from Cast-enabled televisions or Google/Android TV, which are instead served by the new Google Home app’s media controls.
As of today, there are reports from LG and Samsung television owners who are on the redesigned Home app Preview Program. This functionality is not yet widely rolled out in the Google Home app for all users.
More on Google Home:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
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Sam Asghari slams fan theories that he controls wife Britney Spears
Sam Asghari is shutting down claims that he is now controlling his wife, Britney Spears, a year after her conservatorship ended.
When asked if he was “controlling Britney,” he told TMZ on Friday, “No, I don’t even control what we have for dinner.”
“You know, in the past, there has been a lot of stuff going on, so I understand where [fans are] coming from.”
“They’re just being protective. If anything, they’re being good fans,” the model, 28, added.
While Asghari said his wife, 41, is in control of her own life, several fans have shared interesting theories surrounding the “Gimme More” singer’s recent behavior online, sparking the #WhereIsBritney hashtag.
After the pop star deactivated her Instagram earlier this month, her husband took to his own account and shared a message about how social media can be “traumatizing.”
“Sometimes it’s good to take a break,” Asghari wrote on his Instagram Stories Dec. 7. “She has her voice and is a free woman. I have respect for her privacy and I protect it at all times. Thank you to all of her protective fans.”
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After Spears reactivated her account, several TikTokers speculated that a body double of the “Toxic” songstress was used in new posts from her and Asghari.
Fans also questioned her newer captions, which were extremely shorter than the lengthy ones she usually posts.
Earlier this month, Asghari defended his wife against criticism for sharing nude images on social media.
“The only person in the world that gets bullied for posting things like this,” he commented on Instagram at the time, while admitting how he really felt about the NSFW posts.
“I personally preferred she never posted these but who am I to control someone that’s been under a microscope and been controlled for most of her life,” the “Lioness” actor added.
Spears and Asghati tied the knot at the singer’s California home in June, eight months after her controversial conservatorship was terminated.
UK, France and Spain rush in new Covid controls for arrivals from China
The UK, Spain, and France have joined other countries imposing new controls on travellers from China as Covid-19 cases surge after Beijing scrapped pandemic restrictions.
Nations including the US, Japan, India and Italy had already announced compulsory Covid-testing on visitors from China as fears grew about new strains — although EU officials have resisted Italian calls for bloc-wide restrictions.
Scientific advisers in the British government had previously downplayed the need for new testing measures given the lack of evidence of any new variants emanating from China.
But millions of people are contracting infections in China each day following the abrupt abandonment of its draconian zero-Covid policy.
With British Conservative MPs calling on the government to act, prime minister Rishi Sunak authorised the new measures on Friday evening under which visitors from the Chinese mainland will require a negative Covid-19 tests before travel.
France, which had also previously said there was no urgent need to change policy given the limited number of arrivals in Europe from China, shifted stance on Friday evening as well. It will now require a negative Covid-19 test before travel and for people on direct flights from China to wear masks, its government announced.
Earlier in the day the Spanish government said it would demand proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test from people arriving from China.
Madrid did not say when it would bring the measures into force but indicated they would come before January 8 when China will fully reopen its airports for international travel.
The unilateral responses revived memories of the chaotic days of March 2020, when the global spread of the virus became clear and national governments moved at drastically different speeds to impose border controls and national lockdowns.
Italy, Spain and the UK were among the European countries hardest hit in the early months of the pandemic.
Explaining Spain’s decision, health minister Carolina Darias said: “There is concern about the evolution of infections in China and about the difficulty of assessing the situation given the scarce information currently available.”
On Thursday, the EU’s health and security committee, made up of officials from member states, had agreed that “co-ordination of national responses to serious cross-border threats to health is crucial”, but failed to endorse Italy’s call for the bloc to test all air arrivals from China.
In a letter to the bloc’s health ministers seen by the Financial Times, Stella Kyriakides, European health commissioner, said there was “wide consensus that EU countries should act in a co-ordinated way if we want measures to be effective”.
But she called for “science-based” responses, such as surveillance of wastewater from airports, and said ministers should ensure they scaled up their gene-sequencing programmes to detect any new coronavirus variants.
“If a new variant of the Sars-Cov-2 virus appears — be it in China or in the EU — we must detect it early in order to be prepared to react fast,” she said.
“Reliable epidemiological data or testing data for China are quite scarce” and “the general vaccination coverage in China is low”, Kyriakides warned.
The commissioner also noted that Chinese-made vaccines were not valid as proof of vaccination under the EU-wide system, although Spain’s Darias said Madrid would accept proof of inoculation with any product recognised by the World Health Organization.
The WHO has approved widely used Chinese-made vaccines including those from Sinovac and Sinopharm.
The commission has already said that the BF.7 Omicron variant, prevalent in China, is already present in Europe.
As China starts dismantling ‘zero-COVID’ controls, fears of virus grow
BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – As many Chinese embraced new freedoms on Thursday after the country dropped key parts of its tough zero-COVID regime, there was mounting concern that a virus, which had largely been kept in check, could soon run wild.
Three years into the pandemic, many in China had been itching for Beijing to start to align its rigid virus prevention measures with the rest of the world, which has largely opened up in an effort to live with the disease.
Those frustrations boiled over into widespread protests last month, the biggest show of public discontent since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
Without saying it was a response to those protests, some cities and regions began relaxing COVID controls, in moves that heralded a nationwide loosening of the rules unveiled by the National Health Commission on Wednesday.
The NHC said infected people with mild symptoms can now quarantine at home and it dropped the need for testing and health status checks on mobile apps for a variety of activities including travelling around the country.
Domestic ticket sales for tourist and leisure spots have soared, according to state press, while some people took to social media to reveal they had tested positive for the virus – something that had previously carried heavy stigma in China.
Others expressed caution.
“I know COVID is not so ‘horrifying’ now, but it is still contagious and will hurt,” said one post on the Weibo platform. “The fear brought to our heart cannot be easily dissipated.”
“Too many positives!” said another Weibo user.
China reported 21,439 new local COVID-19 infections on Dec. 7, down slightly from the previous day and below a peak of 40,052 cases on Nov. 27. Cases have been trending lower recently as authorities across the country dropped testing requirements.
Various multi-million dollar projects to build testing laboratories across the country, from Shandong province in the east to Sichuan in the southwest, have been scrapped as China has cut down the need for testing, reported Shanghai government-backed news outlet The Paper.
China and Hong Kong stocks lifted Asian equity markets on Thursday, as these still cautious steps towards reopening were seen giving the world’s second largest economy a chance to regather momentum.
China’s yuan , which has also recovered some ground against the dollar in recent weeks, was little changed on Thursday.
ILL-PREPARED
China’s most populous city Shanghai, which endured one of the country’s longest and harshest lockdowns, on Thursday dropped the need for COVID tests to enter restaurants or entertainment venues.
There has been no mention of China’s “zero-COVID” policy in recent announcements, raising suspicions that the term is becoming defunct as the government gradually moves the country toward a state of living with the virus.
Top officials have also been softening their tone on the dangers posed by the virus.
But, while adopting the new more relaxed controls, some cities urged residents to remain vigilant.
“The general public should maintain a good awareness of personal protection, and be the first responsible person for their own health,” Zhengzhou, the central city home to the world’s largest iPhone factory, said in a message to residents.
It urged residents to wear masks, maintain social distancing, seek medical attention for fever and other COVID symptoms and, especially for the elderly, to get vaccinated.
Some analysts and medical experts say China is ill-prepared for a major surge in infections, partly due to low vaccination rates among vulnerable, older people and its fragile healthcare system.
“It (China) may have to pay for its procrastination on embracing a ‘living with COVID’ approach,” Nomura analysts said in a note on Thursday.
Infection rates in China are only around 0.13%, “far from the level needed for herd immunity”, Nomura said.
Feng Zijian, a former official in China’s Center for Disease Control, told the China Youth Daily that up to 60% of China’s population could be infected in the first large-scale wave before stabilising.
“Ultimately, around 80%-90% of people will be infected,” he said.
The country will probably face a large-scale outbreak in the next one to two months, state-owned magazine China Newsweek reported on Thursday citing health experts.
China’s current tally of 5,235 COVID-related deaths is a tiny fraction of its population of 1.4 billion, and extremely low by global standards. Some experts have warned that toll could rise above 1.5 million if the exit is too hasty.
But, even with the dangers, for many there is an acceptance that life must go on.
“It’s impossible to kill this virus completely, maybe just live with it and hope it will evolve into flu,” said Yan, a 22-year-old unemployed Beijing resident, who said he hoped a further opening up of China’s economy would help him find work.
Reporting by Ella Cao, Bernard Orr, Ryan Woo and Albee Zhang and the Beijing newsroom and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Covid-19 protests: China entering ‘new stage and mission’ for pandemic controls, says Vice Premier Sun Chunlan
CNN
—
China’s most senior official in charge of its Covid response told health officials Wednesday that the country faced a “new stage and mission” in pandemic controls, state media Xinhua reported – potentially indicating an adjustment to Beijing’s “zero-Covid” strategy which has sparked days of nationwide protests.
“With the decreasing toxicity of the Omicron variant, the increasing vaccination rate and the accumulating experience of outbreak control and prevention, China’s pandemic containment faces new stage and mission,” Sun Chunlan, China’s vice premier, said Wednesday, according to Xinhua.
Making no mention of “zero-Covid,” her remarks, as reported by Xinhua, came a day after China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said the rectification of current pandemic measures is underway and local governments should “respond to and resolve the reasonable demands of the masses” in a timely manner.
In a meeting with the NHC on Wednesday, Sun also stated that a “human-centered approach” should be taken, and China should enhance its “diagnosis, testing, treatment and quarantine” measures, continue boosting vaccination rates – especially among the elderly people – and beef up medication and medical resources.
The softened rhetoric comes as officials in Guangzhou indicated an inching towards easing Covid-19 containment measures, after the southern metropolis saw protesters clash with police on Tuesday evening.
In a press briefing Wednesday, Zhang Yi, a spokesperson of Guangzhou’s health commission, said that the city has adjusted the designation of risk levels and pandemic containment measures – to a varying extent – in all its eleven districts.
Lockdowns in four districts – namely Liwan, Baiyun, Tianhe and Haizhu – have been lifted, while lockdowns remain in areas designated as high-risk.
Guangzhou will stop sending all close contacts of Covid-19 patients to central quarantine facilities and allow some to isolate at home if they meet the requirements, Zhang said.
The city will also no longer launch district-wide mass Covid-19 testing. “All districts should conduct testing in a scientific manner,” Zhang added.
On Tuesday, Guangzhou reported 6,995 new local cases, Zhang said. China reported 37,612 new local cases nationwide on Tuesday, the NHC said Wednesday.
China has moved quickly to suppress demonstrations that erupted across the country against the government’s zero-Covid policy over the past few days, deploying police forces at key protest sites and tightening online censorship.
The protests were triggered by a deadly fire last Thursday in Urumqi, the capital of the far western region of Xinjiang. The blaze killed at least 10 people and injured nine in an apartment building – leading to public fury after videos of the incident appeared to show lockdown measures had delayed firefighters from reaching the victims.
Public protest is exceedingly rare in China, where the Communist Party has tightened its grip on all aspects of life, launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, wiped out much of civil society and built a high-tech surveillance state.
Protests against Covid controls erupt across China
Demonstrators against Covid restrictions hold blank sheets of paper during a protest in Beijing in the early hours of Monday, Nov. 28.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
BEIJING — Rare protests broke out across China over the weekend as groups of people vented their frustration over the zero-Covid policy.
The unrest came as infections surged, prompting more local Covid controls, while a central government policy change earlier this month had raised hopes of a gradual easing. Nearly three years of controls have dragged down the economy. Youth unemployment has neared 20%.
People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, ran a front page op-ed Monday on the need to make Covid controls more targeted and effective, while removing those that should be removed.
In Beijing, many apartment communities successfully convinced local management they had no legal basis for a lockdown. That came after more and more compounds in the capital city on Friday had abruptly forbade residents from leaving.
On Sunday, municipal authorities said temporary controls on movement should not last more than 24 hours.
Over the last three days, students staged protests at many universities, while people took to the streets in parts of Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Lanzhou, among other cities, according to videos widely shared on social media. The videos could not all be independently verified.
Demonstrations initially started in Urumqi, Xinjiang, on Friday after a building fire killed 10 people the prior day — in an area that had been locked down for months. The narrative on social media centered on how Covid controls prevented residents and rescue workers from saving lives.
While it’s not clear what exactly caused the deaths, local authorities subsequently declared the Covid risk had subsided, and began relaxing controls.
In Shanghai on Saturday, a vigil for the Urumqi deaths turned into a protest against Covid and the ruling Communist Party of China. Some unverified videos also showed calls for President Xi Jinping to step down.
Videos on social media showed police arresting some protesters.
Many of the demonstrators have held up blank sheets of white paper. Some have sung the national anthem and “The Internationale,” a socialist song associated with the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Notably, social media also showed protesters at the prestigious Tsinghua University on Sunday.
It was not immediately clear whether the protests reached a meaningful scale in a country of 1.4 billion people, or whether a wide demographic participated.
