Digital Trends Live: Big Tech’s facial recognition stand, PlayStation 5 unveiled

By Todd Werkhoven June 12, 2020

On this episode of Digital Trends Live, host Greg Nibler discusses the top-trending tech stories, including Microsoft’s decision to not sell facial recognition software to the police, drones that track social distancing, soccer’s digital crowds, the PlayStation 5’s reveal, new Snap features, and more.

Jason Kelley

Jason Kelley, general manager for IBM’s Global Blockchain Services, talks about its stand against police use of facial recognition technology, and how Big Tech can take a role in advocacy, equity, and inclusion.

Finally, we’re joined by Ken Yeung, technology editor at Flipboard, for our Tech Briefs segment, which wraps up this week’s biggest tech stories, including companies taking a stand against facial recognition software and the unveiling of the PlayStation 5.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Todd Werkhoven's work can be read at numerous publications and he co-authored a personal finance book called "Zombie…

Gaming

2022’s best indie game is finally coming to PlayStation this month

A woman plays Vampire Survivors on a Steam Deck.

2022's bullet hell hit Vampire Survivors just got a release date for its PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 port, meaning it'll finally be available on every current gaming platform.

Vampire Survivors will launch on the two Sony consoles on August 29, and the store page is now live for those who want to wishlist it. All DLC, which includes Legacy of the Moonspell, Tides of the Foscari, Emergency Meeting, and Operation Guns, will also be available for purchase.

Gaming

PlayStation sales are down, but more players are using PS Plus

A Pulse Elite, DualSense, and PlayStation Portal sit on a table.

Is console hardware struggling? In its latest financial report released Tuesday, Sony revealed that hardware sales are declining, although that doesn't spell doom for the video game conglomerate.

Hardware sales are down year over year, from 3.3 million to 2.4 million, which finance chief Sadahiko Hayakawa attributes in part to an increase in first-party software sales and the impact of foreign exchange rates. However, those same game releases, along with increased PlayStation Plus subscriptions, meant income was up 12% for games overall. Sony also revealed that PlayStation had clocked 116 million monthly active users during June, which is the highest recorded for this time of year (even though it's down from the 118 million from last quarter).

Audio / Video

Personalized spatial audio comes to the PlayStation 5

The latest beta update for Sony's PlayStation 5 console brings the ability to create personalized spatial audio profiles, which should produce more immersive and realistic sound.

The beta software was released on July 25 and described in a PlayStation blog post. Officially, Sony calls the new feature "personalized 3D audio profiles for headphones and earbuds."