The investment firm Piper Jaffray has published the findings of its latest Taking Stock With Teens survey, detailing ongoing shifts in how teenagers divide their yearly spending budget up between things like food, clothing, and video games.

This latest report, based on data gathered from 8,600 teens, says that teenagers expect to spend an average of $215 during the current calendar year. All in all, that makes up 14 percent of the average teen’s yearly spending but is a 4 percent decrease from the spring 2018 survey.

While the data can point to useful trends in how younger players divvy up their spending, it is worth keeping in mind that the company’s numbers are based on expected spend rather than a dollar-by-dollar tally of how much teenagers are actually dropping on video games in a year.

For instance, 83 percent of teens surveyed say that they either own or plan to purchase a current generation console by year-end, up 3 percent from this spring. Breaking that down, Piper Jaffray says that 66 percent of those surveyed already own a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One while an additional 17 percent plan to own one. 

The survey also has some notable stats on how many teenagers are playing mobile games. For the Fall 2018 survey, 69 percent of teens said they play games on either a mobile phone or tablet, down from 75 percent in spring 2018 and the lowest percentage the survey has reported across 12 reports.

Of those, 28 percent say they spend money on in-app purchases in mobile games, which is up 1 percent from the spring 2018 survey but about par-the-course for 2017 and 2018.

Newsbrief: Blizzard has announced that its previously announced World of Warcraft Classic will officially go online next summer.

The revamped MMORPG World of Warcraft captures a version of the game as it was 14 years ago before various updates and expansions changed the landscape and certain features of the massive online fantasy world.

A throwback version of World of Warcraft has been something wanted by players of the long-running MMORPG for a while now. Fans have unofficially tried to set something up on their own through standalone projects created by reverse engineering Blizzard code like Nostalrius, which was met with a legal threat from Blizzard, and it’s follow-up Elysium.

Blizzard’s own take on a vanilla World of Warcraft server is now set to go live during the summer of 2019, though folks that are attending Blizzcon either in-person or through the event’s digital ticket can explore an hour-long demo of Classic this weekend.

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PDT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Skip Ahead will begin receiving the latest 19H1 Xbox One system update (rs_xbox_dev_flight.181024.2142). Read on for more about the fixes and known issues in the latest 19H1 system update.  This build has the same features as 1811 plus more to be announced over the coming months!

New Features:

Family Settings

• Children signing up for new accounts will now be asked to add a parent only if required to by local privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR or COPPA). This means that some minors, like teens in the U.S., will no longer have to add a parent and join a Microsoft family during signup. Xbox privacy and online safety defaults will still be applied based on age, and in order to change those, the minor would need to add a parent on Xbox who can then change their settings. Minors not in a family can add a parent anytime in Settings > Account > Family settings > Add a parent. Joining a family would also allow the parent and child to use other family features like content restrictions, screen time, activity reporting, and spending.
• Children that are subject to local privacy regulations will still be required to add a parent during signup. While this will create a Microsoft family through which the parent can use family features like content restrictions, screen time, activity reporting, and spending, the parent will no longer be required to sign in on Xbox. If a parent wants to change their child’s Xbox privacy and online safety settings, the parent can sign in separately on Xbox and manage their family in Settings > Account > Family settings.
• Existing child accounts are not affected by this change and will remain with their parents in their current Microsoft family.

 Mouse & Keyboard Support

• We have enabled mouse support in the build.  Please check out the Quest in the Xbox Insider Hub to experience mouse and keyboard support in Warframe.

 Search Enhancements

• The search function has been enhanced across the console and will now return responses from the Xbox Assist application for example to help with help, support and troubleshooting.  Please check out the Quest in the Xbox Insider Hub to help us gather feedback.

Fixes:

Power

• Additional fixed issues in which the console is fully powering off when it is placed into Instant On mode.

 System

• Stability fixes in this build.
• Localization fixes for large keyboards.

Known Issues:

Avatars

• We are aware that the Avatars are shrinking and displaying an less than ½ height.

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

For anyone who wasn’t confident the talent behind the Castlevania animated series on Netflix was respecting the source material, this should put any concerns to rest once and for all. An eagle-eyed viewer of season two has spotted a cartoon chicken bone poking out from one of the walls within Dracula’s castle during a key fight scene. The assistant director of the animated series even confirmed it himself.

While we won’t go into the details about the battle to avoid spoilers, what we can point out is that this is a direct reference to the original 1986 Famicom game, Castlevania. If you haven’t played a Castlevania game previously, the series is known for hiding different varieties of meat – including chicken – behind certain walls around the castle. In the first game, you could often use your whip to destroy a wall and access a hidden chunk of meat, which would in return replenish your character’s health.

This was dubbed ‘wall chicken’ by fans and has led to theories and even jokes about it over the years. Preserved dungeon meat also tends to be a common video game trope. Below is a look at the scene from the Netflix animation as tweeted by @Nick_Waplington and an enlarged screen capture courtesy of Kotaku:

And here’s a screenshot from the game:

It is a bit odd when you start to think about it. A man finding preserved chicken meat behind a wall and then proceeding to eat it. At the very least, it’s a hilarious and faithful reference to the iconic game series.

Have you watched the latest season of Castlevania? Did you spot this yourself? Tell us in the comments.

SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is a competent fighter but its “busty and over-sexualized characters might not be to everyone’s taste in 2018” – as we noted in our September review of the game. SNK Producer Yasuyuki Oda even admit the fanbase was divided – with some delving deep into the game’s fighting systems and others not wanting to consider it at all due to the concept.

What really amazed Oda-san was how audiences reacted to Terry Bogard being transformed into a “fatal cutie” in the spiritual successor to SNK Gals’ Fighters on Neo Geo Pocket. Apparently, it was the first thing the development team decided about the game, so the element of surprise was never there on their own end. Oda went onto explain how Terry from the Fatal Fury series was always planned to become a female, due to his style, design, and identity being easy to recognise.

In regards to plot twists in the game, Oda-san said reactions were mostly positive in Japan, though not everyone necessarily agreed. Apparently, the aim was to create a game world based on a “dreamlike pocket dimension” filled with jokes and fun. The producer said some might judge the game based on its visuals alone and think it looks odd, but if you actually play it, you’ll see how the story works out with its “silly” flavour.

As for whether the female version of Terry will make an appearance in more games, it’s unlikely according to the SNK producer, as the surprise factor is now gone. There’s also Terry’s number one female fan Alice Nakata to fill the void. On a more promising note, the developers reportedly have plans for a second wave of DLC to support the game. SNK Heroines will also be joining the Japanese company’s eSports program.

What did you think of the fatal cutie Terry Bogard when the fighter joined the SNK Heroines roster? Did you purchase this title on release? Tell us in the comments.

Enterprises of all sizes are reporting dramatic and widening skills gaps in Linux and open source skills. Meanwhile, Linux tops the list as the most in-demand open source skill, according to the 2018 Open Source Jobs Report. In this article series, we are taking a closer look at one of the best new ways to gain open source and Linux fluency: the Introduction to Open Source Software Development, Git and Linux training course from The Linux Foundation.

This article is the final one in a four-part article series that highlights the major aspects of the training course, in chronological order. The initial article in the series covered the course’s general introduction to working with open source software, with a focus on such essentials as project collaboration, licensing, legal issues and getting help. With that groundwork laid, the course delves into working with Bash, the standard shell for most Linux distributions. The second article covered the course curriculum dedicated to working with Bash and Linux basics. The third article covered working with the command line as well as command-line tools. Here we will look at the course’s extensive content on working with Git and GitHub.

Working with Git, is, of course, essential for working with open source in today’s environment, especially if you will be collaborating with others. Git is a distributed version control system that makes collaborating on projects easy, while at the same time minimizing version-related errors and unwanted duplication of effort. Once you are working with Git you can also leverage a valuable repository called GitHub, where teams can house their projects, access and update code, and more.

The course covers Git as well as working with GitHub, and also notes that there are alternatives to GitHub that are worth knowing about, such as:

Why are Git and GitHub essentials important?

Git began as an offshoot of the Linux kernel development community, initially created by Linus Torvalds himself. However, people quickly realized that it could be used for any project that had collaborative needs. The course comprehensively covers Git essentials as they apply to collaborating on projects. In focusing on GitHub, it notes that collaborators can designate hosted projects as public or private, and that public repositories are free of charge.

The course devotes 11 chapters to installing, using, and working with Git, covering the following topics:

• Git Installation

• Git and Revision Control Systems

• Using Git: An Example

• Git Concepts and Architecture

• Managing Files and the Index

• Commits

• Branches

• Diffs

• Merges

• Managing Local and Remote Repositories

• Using Patches

As is true throughout the Introduction to Open Source Software Development, Git and Linux training course, there are Labs modules that encourage students to get hands-on experience with Git and GitHub. An initial module guides students through creating a GitHub account that can go on to be used for working with open source projects over time.

In this part of the course, the focus is very much on applying Git and GitHub skills to collaborative project management and tasks. As students go through these lessons, they should keep in mind that the online course includes many summary slides, useful bullet lists, graphics, and more. It’s definitely worth setting up a desktop folder and regularly saving screenshots of especially useful topics to the folder.

Are you interested in advancing your open source skills? If so, this training course can help. Learn more about the Introduction to Open Source Development, Git, and Linux (LFD201) course and sign up now to start your open source journey.

The iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max are all packing Apple’s second-generation Face ID, an updated version of the biometric authentication system which is supposed to be faster than the version introduced with the iPhone X. Is there actually a noticeable difference between the already-fast and the potentially faster versions in the real world?

Testing Face ID speeds on the iPhone X versus iPhone XS

The theory

Face ID uses machine learning algorithms and the Neural Engine built into the iPhone’s processor to analyze and recognize scans of the user’s face made by the TrueDepth camera system, the array of sensors located in the notch at the top of the screen. In the unlocking process, the iPhone has to make a depth map of the user’s face using the sensors, which is then compared with a mathematical representation of the registered user’s face stored in the Secure Enclave, a task that can largely be improved just by increasing processing performance.

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Along with other processor-related improvements expected from the A12 chip in the 2018 releases, the Neural Engine has been upgraded from a dual-core design to an 8-core version, making it capable of running at 5 trillion operations per second than the 600 billion operations offered by the version in the A11.

By this measure alone, this should make a Face ID check take less time, but Apple has also claimed that the Face ID algorithms in the new phones are faster as well. The only real way to find out is to put last year’s iPhone X up against the iPhone XS and to see if there is much of a difference.

The trial

To make the tests as fair as possible, my face was rescanned on both phones under the exact same lighting conditions. While the iPhone X will have updated its stored depth map data over time, it would be best for testing purposes if both devices share as close to identical data as possible.

To determine a winner in each case, footage of the unlocking process was examined frame-by-frame, to see which completed the home screen animation first. For the initial 15-round run, the iPhone XS was fastest 11 times, a tie was declared 4 times, and the iPhone X failed to finish first at all.

Testing different angles for Face ID unlock on the iPhone X versus iPhone XS

While the test revealed the second-generation Face ID is generally faster than the first-generation version, the fact that it had to be checked on a frame-by-frame basis strongly suggests most users won’t notice a sudden jump in performance just by looking at it.

The same test was conducted again, but under low light conditions. In this second trial, not only did the iPhone XS win every single time, but in three instances out of seven, it was very noticeable, even without slowing the video down. It seems that darker conditions give the newer models an advantage.

Lastly, it was decided to try and find issues with Face ID just by trying to unlock at weird angles to the face, and in the process discovered a weak spot for the iPhone X while holding it near the user’s legs. While the iPhone XS unlocked every single time in this situation, the iPhone X had to be lifted up a bit in order to unlock.

Other than that single situation, both iPhones did equally well for practically all tested angles.

The result

So let’s answer the original question: is the second-generation Face ID on the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR faster than the first-generation version used on the iPhone X? Yes, it is, but for the majority of real-world situations, it won’t make that much of a difference to most people. There was a bigger improvement in low light, but it’s still not that much faster overall.

It seems that Face ID is just as usable as before, and probably just as secure, but only a hair faster.

Further tests are planned for the iPhone XR, which AppleInsider will be putting through its paces soon, but given the similar specifications, it is probably going to be a similar story as for the iPhone XS for Face ID.

Deals on the iPhone XS and XS Max

If you haven’t already ordered Apple’s iPhone XS or XS Max, wireless carriers are incentivizing the purchase. Want to get your hands on a new device asap? eBay sellers are also shipping units now.

Carrier deals:

• AT&T Wireless: Buy one iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max, get a second $700 off when you add a line.
• Verizon Wireless: Buy an iPhone XS or XS Max and save up to $300 with a qualifying trade.
• Sprint: Get the 64GB iPhone XS for half off with eligible trade-in and Sprint Flex lease.
• T-Mobile: Save up to $390 on the iPhone XS with an eligible iPhone trade.

Keep up with AppleInsider’s coverage by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.