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Besides a wealth of Fortnite skins based on Disney IP, it hasn't really been clear what the entertainment company has gotten in return for its $1.5 billion investment in Epic from 2024. That could change this November, Bloomberg reports , when Epic releases a Disney-themed extraction shooter. The game is one of three Disney projects the publisher is currently working on, and is reportedly expected to be Epic's comeback after the company laid off 1,000 employees in March due to a downturn in Fort

A 20-year-old man was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department after allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's house, The New York Times reports . In a statement shared on X , SFPD wrote that it responded to a request for a fire investigation in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco around 7:12 AM ET / 4:12AM PT. At the scene, officers learned that an unknown male subject threw an incendiary destructive device at a home, causing a fire at an exterior gate. A

As child social media bans spread across Europe and beyond, Estonia isn't having it. On Friday, the country's education minister said the bans won't actually solve problems, while warning that the kids will find a way regardless. Although companies like Meta would love for you to believe its a fairy tale , social media addiction is associated with tangible negative repercussions for children. Studies show that its harms range from depression and anxiety to sleep deprivation and obesity. (The lat

Whoop, the makers of a screen-free fitness tracker of the same name, could soon have some competition. Fitbit teased its take on a Whoop-style band with the help of Steph Curry at the end of March, and based on a trademark filing spotted by Gadgets & Wearables , Garmin appears to be working on its own band that tracks similar health metrics. This new Garmin wearable, called CIRQA in the trademark filing submitted in February, is designed to measure he body's physical parameters and other physio

Amazon is ending support for third-party integrations on its Luna cloud gaming service. The most immediate changes mean that it's no longer possible to buy Ubisoft+ and Jackbox Games subscriptions or standalone games through Luna. Amazon will automatically any cancel active subscriptions bought through Luna at the end of customers' next billing cycle. If you have a Ubisoft+ subscription that you bought directly from Ubisoft instead, youll still be able to access games on that service through Lun

America's Big Tech companies may soon learn that saddling up with Donald Trump doesn't tend to work out in the end . As the president sows chaos and distrust around the globe while taking aim at EU tech regulations, Europe is looking for ways to adopt its own alternatives. The latest example is France, which said it's dropping Microsoft Windows in favor of Linux. On Wednesday, France said ( via TechCrunch ) it plans to move its workstations from Windows to the open-source Linux. It's part of a b

Google has announced that end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Gmail on Android and iOS is now rolling out for its enterprise users. Emails that require E2EE in Workspace can be composed and read within the Gmail app, so eligible users wont need additional apps or portals. The new feature expands Googles client-side encryption (CSE) offering, a little more than a year after E2EE was introduced to Gmail on the web. According to a Google blog post , any encrypted message sent to a recipient who uses t

Google News has begun showing Polymarket bets and odds alongside actual stories, according to a report by Futurism . These look to appear as large blocks that include links to numerous ways for people to lose their money. Bets tend to appear in the For you section of Google News, which is supposed to be tailored to a person's particular interests. Futurism notes that the platform actually placed a Polymarket bet as the top news result when inquiring about the price of Bitcoin. The publication sa

After its history-making trip around the Moon, NASA's Artemis II mission is set to return to Earth later today. The Orion spacecraft carrying astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen is scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07PM ET. NASA will stream the landing on YouTube and its NASA+ website , as will Netflix and HBO Max .The official broadcast will begin at 6:30PM ET. After leaving Earth on NASA's super heavy-lift SLS rocket an

Not everyone needs a $1,000 soundbar . Its easy to argue the sonic superiority of those flagship models from Samsung, Sonos and Sony, but for some people a simple boost to their TV speakers can provide a world of difference. As part of its 2026 soundbar lineup, Sony debuted the Bravia Theater Bar 5 : a $350 entry-level model that covers the basics and comes with a wireless subwoofer in the box. The real question here is how many features are you willing to live without. The good: Sound quality,

Another day, another subscription price hike, this time for YouTube Premium. Every plan for YouTubes ad-free tier is going up, and depending on which one you have, you could be paying as much as $4 per month more. As reported by 9to5Google , YouTube has started emailing subscribers about the price changes, rather than announcing them publicly, and some Reddit users have posted screenshots of the emails theyve received. The emails say that the increases will kick in during the June 2026 billing p

Microsoft has rolled out a Notepad update for Windows Insiders that removes the Copilot branding and icon from within the app, Windows Central has reported. The old Copilot menu has been replaced with writing tools, but its worth noting that the tools are still powered by AI and are pretty much identical to the selection found in the old menu. Microsoft has just replaced the Copilot button with a pen icon. In addition, the company has removed mentions of AI in the Settings menu and has placed th

Amazons satellite-based internet service, Leo, will enter service by mid-2026 , so says company CEO Andy Jassy. Writing in his annual letter, Jassy claimed Leo would offer download speeds of up to 1Gbps, far more than what Starlink presently offers. Sadly, Amazon declined to offer any more details about what that mid-2026 service would look like. But given select partners have already been kicking Leos tyres for a while, we can only hope. The mega-retailer is making some grand promises, includin

Google has removed popular psychological horror game Doki Doki Literature Club! from the Play Store. According to Dan Salvato, who led its development team, and publisher Serenity Forge, Google told them the visual novel was removed because it violated its Terms of Service in its depiction of sensitive themes. The game is widely celebrated for portraying mental health in a way that meaningfully connects deeply with players around the world, they said in their announcement. Its free version , whi

OpenAI has closed a yawning gap in its ChatGPT subscription pricing with a new $100 per month Pro plan that slots between the $20 per month Plus plan and $200 per month Pro plan. Offering five times more Codex than the $20 option, it appears designed to challenge Anthropic's $100 per month Claude option. Compared with Claude Code, Codex delivers more coding capacity per dollar across paid tiers, an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch . So what's the difference between OpenAI's two Pro plans? The

Apple is closing three of its retail stores this summer, including its first location to unionize. The tech company said it plans to permanently close Apple Store in Trumbull, CT, Escondito, CA, and Towson, MD. The Apple Store location in Towson, was the first where unionized workers and Apple reached a contract agreement back in 2024. MacRumors published a statement from Apple confirming the closures. The company credited noting the departure of several retailers and declining conditions at the

A film adaptation of Metal Gear Solid is in the works again, this time from filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the directors of Final Destination: Bloodlines , according to The Hollywood Reporter . The duo are reviving the project at Columbia Pictures as part of a new first-look deal with Sony, the latest attempt in what's been multiple decades of work to turn the blockbuster stealth game into a blockbuster film. Metal Gear Solid was nothing short of a groundbreaking cinematic masterpie

You may already know that emulators can run Wii games on a Mac . But one developer has flipped the script. Bryan Keller now has an ancient version of the Mac's operating system running on Nintendo's 2006 game console (via Kottke ). Why? Because they said it couldn't be done. The developer first had the idea in 2013 while a sophomore in college. However, they found renewed motivation five years ago when Redditor u/CussdomTidder posted , There is a zero percent chance of this ever happening. Devel

Meta is giving users the ability to edit Instagram comments they leave on posts, though only within a 15 minute window after they're posted. The setup is similar to how the social app handles editing messages, an option it first added in 2024 , 11 years after direct messaging was introduced to Instagram in 2013 . You're only able to edit comments you left with your own account, and the process of actually doing so is easy. Just tap on the word Edit under your comment to pull up a text box where

Thick as Thieves , the magical heist game from a crew of stealth legends at OtherSide Entertainment, is coming to Steam on May 20. OtherSide and publisher Megabit Entertainment announced the release date in a new gameplay trailer during today's Triple-i Initiative showcase (which was packed with cool indie games , as always). OtherSide was founded by Thief and System Shock 2 veteran Paul Neurath in 2013, and Deus Ex creator Warren Spector joined in 2016. These are two of the developers who shape

Netflix has added a heavy hitter in party activities to its gaming lineup. The streamer announced that Jackbox Party Essentials is joining the Netflix Party Games collection. This move makes three of the popular Jackbox group games available for free to Netflix subscribers: Fibbage 4 , Quiplash 3 and Drawful 2 . Each one supports up to eight players. Netflix has been refocusing its interactive strategy to highlight family-friendly and party games. The company has even offered tie-ins to its orig

Developer Klei Entertainment has announced a follow-up to Don't Starve that adds a new sense of depth to the popular survival game. And that's in a literal sense: Don't Starve Elsewhere translates the game's resource gathering and sanity management to a world with three-dimensional terrain at different elevations, a first for the traditionally flat series. Don't Starve Elsewhere doesn't quite seem like the Super Mario 64 to Don't Starve 's Super Mario Bros. but based on the trailer, having actua

Windrose was a hit in a recent Steam Next Fest event, with more than 850,000 people checking out the demo. More than 1.5 million people have wishlisted the pirate survival-adventure title on Steam as well. So, its safe to say this game has some wind in its sails, and itll be arriving very soon. During Thursdays Triple-i Initiative showcase , developer Windrose Crew revealed that its charted a course for an early access release on Steam , the Epic Games Store and Stove on April 14 for $30. In Win

Tesla may be shifting strategy once again. Reuters reported that the company is working on a smaller and less expensive electric SUV. This would be a brand new vehicle rather than a variant of the existing Model 3 or Model Y, according to the publication's sources. The new EV would allegedly be about 14 feet long, shorter than the 15.7-foot Model Y. Reuters didn't have details about whether this would be an autonomous vehicle or a traditional one, but one source reportedly said that Tesla is gen

Razer just released the Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed gaming earbuds , another entry in the recently-crowded field of gaming earbuds . These have been designed for low latency, which is a necessity when playing video games. To that end, the earbuds integrate with Razer's proprietary HyperSpeed 2.4GHz streaming platform, which allows for gaming-grade lag-free audio. This works with plenty of devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs, the Steam Deck, the PS5 and more. The earbuds can also connect vi

Indie game studio Coldblood announced today that its debut project Neverway has been given a release window of October 2026. Billed as nightmarish life-sim RPG, this is going right to the top of my spooky season game queue. It has a cozy-sounding premise, with protagonist Fiona starting a new life on an island, but things take a surreal turn when she becomes the immortal herald for a dead god. She'll be building relationships and making friends one minute and coping with psychological horrors th

Developer Sunset Visitor just revealed its follow-up to the fantastic 1000xResist . It's called Prove You're Human and looks to wade in similar sci-fi waters as the team's first title. Just like 10000xResist , the new game is a narrative adventure set in the far future. Prove You're Human tasks players with convincing an AI product that its not alive, but there's a rub. The protagonist is a digital clone of a person, so they aren't human either. This will no-doubt lead to all manner of ethical c

Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper ) will launch mid-2026, according to Andy Jassy. On Wednesday, the Amazon CEO dropped the news in his annual letter to shareholders. The company says Leo will support download speeds up to 1 Gbps. By comparison, Starlinks download speeds typically range between 45 and 280 Mbps. Jassy didn't specify whether the mid-2026 launch date will include consumer availability. (An Amazon spokesperson told Engadget that the company doesnt have more detail to add right now

A large chunk of Nintendos 2026 plans remain a mystery (that is, unless you take the insiders and leakers at their word ), but we have been waiting on release dates for a couple of previously announced first-party titles, including Rhythm Heaven Groove , which officially arrives July 2. Seemingly announced first on the Nintendo Today! app before making its way to the companys various social channels, the first new entry in the Rhythm Heaven series in more than a decade is technically launching o

The Banana Ball World Tour is coming to Roku. The platform has signed a deal to stream free content from the Banana Ball Championship League. This, of course, includes Savannah Bananas games. If that last paragraph didn't make a lick of sense to you, here's a primer. The Savannah Bananas are a wacky baseball team, playing something called Banana Ball. The team has been called the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, and that's a fairly apt name. Players dress in funny costumes, step into ridiculous

A new feature that lets you create an AI avatar with your likeness is now live on YouTube. First announced in a blog post earlier this year, avatars are designed to be used in Shorts (provided you still allow them to show up), allowing you to insert yourself into video content in a way that YouTube deems to be safe and secure. YouTubes approach to combatting the AI sloppification of the internet and the proliferation of deepfakes appears to be adding more and more AI features to its platform, fr

Sometimes, you just want your dang music streaming app to play music. Spotify, which has increasingly incorporated video features through the years, is finally giving us the option to turn that mess off. Behold: universal video toggles. Spotify's video settings control several areas. First, the old Canvas toggle ( videos on the Now Playing screen ) is still there. But now you'll find two additional switches alongside it. One lets you control whether the app plays music videos. The other, all oth

JBL introduced two new headphones to its Live series lineup and both are fighting to live up to expectations. Dont get me wrong, the JBL Live 780NC and 680NC are both a solid set of cans, but in a sea of noise-cancelling headphones, one of them definitely has more appeal. The biggest differences between these two headphones are the over-ear and on-ear cups, and surprisingly, their audio quality. Lets get into what does and doesnt make them so special. Design and comfort Outside of varying colors

OpenAI is putting the brakes on Stargate UK, according to Bloomberg . Thats the companys AI infrastructure project with NVIDIA thats meant to help the UK build out its sovereign computing capabilities. The company announced Stargate UK back in September, but it launched a strategic partnership with the UK government months before that. Stargate UK would enable the government to run top AI models locally from data centers inside the region, particularly for specialist use cases where jurisdiction

Google has fully integrated NotebookLM , its AI-powered research tool, into the Gemini app. The company launched a standalone NotebookLM app last year, but as it said in its announcement, keeping track of everything can be a challenge. It added NotebookLM as a source in the Gemini app last year, but now you can create notebooks right inside the chatbot. You can now find the option to create a new notebook in Geminis side panel and then select Add sources that the tool can use, such as PDFs, docu

Dyson just announced its first-ever handheld fan, the HushJet Mini Cool. As the name suggests, it uses the company's proprietary HushJet air projection system. This tech first showed up on an air purifier that we found to be exceptionally quiet . Dyson promises the fan can deliver focused airflow of up to 25m/s, which works out to 55mph. The brushless motor spins up to 65,000 RPM. This thing looks like a legitimate cooling system, despite its size. It also weighs just 7.5 ounces. It offers five

If you missed your chance to pay Samsung $2,900 for a phone earlier this year, we have great news for you. Android Police reported that what may be the final shipment of the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold will be arriving in the US on April 10. The unique foldable was discontinued a mere three months after it first went on sale, and it seems like Samsung is clearing out whatever inventory it has left. So if you have a spare $3,000 that you're just desperate to get rid of, bookmark the TriFold's page w

The latest Triple-i Initiative Showcase is nearly upon us, as the indie-focused event returns for its third consecutive year on Thursday, April 9 at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. Were being promised announcements for 40 games, including eight world premieres, so its well worth tuning in if you like your indies. Youll be able to watch the stream on The Triple-i Initiative YouTube channel, as well as Twitch , bilibili , niconico and on Steam . Co-streaming partners IGN and Gamespot will also host their own st

Following the icy reception to Llama 4 , Meta is releasing the first in a new family of AI systems built by its recently formed Superintelligence team. The company is kicking off its new Muse era with Spark , a lightweight model geared toward consumer use. In the future, Meta plans to offer more capable versions of Muse, but for now, it's clear the company wants to nail the basics. To that point, many of Spark's capabilities are table stakes for a new model in 2026. For instance, it offers both

Greece will ban children under the age 15 from using social media starting next year. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made the announcement in a video posted to TikTok , in which he referenced anxiety, sleep problems and addictive design features as reasons for the ban. Greece has been proactive in its approach to tackling excessive screen time for children, having already banned mobile phones in schools in 2024. While the PM chose not to name any platforms, he said he was concerned about chi

Nintendo Switch 2 owners will have to wait a bit longer to check out IO Interactive's stab at a James Bond game on the console. The Hitman developer has delayed that version of 007 First Light until later this summer. The game is still slated to hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on May 27, which itself is a delay from the previous March release date. We're excited to see players discovering James Bond's reimagined origin story, IOI wrote on X . [We] are looking forward to bringing you the best gam

The free No Mans Sky updates are still flowing. With the latest one, dubbed Xeno Arena , Hello Games has added a completely original feature. Players have long been able to adopt wild animals as companions . But now these can be deployed in simulated, turn-based battles against rival teams. As you win more battles, youll increase your reputation and perhaps be invited to take on more difficult opponents. Among other things, the creatures can launch powerful attacks, use healing abilities, dodge

GoPro will cut 23 percent of its global workforce by the end of this year, as the action camera pioneer looks to reverse its fortunes in a competitive market. 145 employees will be laid off, with the restructuring process commencing in the second quarter of 2026, the San Mateo company said in a Form 8-K filing. At the end of the first quarter, GoPros total number of employees stood at 631, and it expects the cuts to cost it between $11.5 million and $15 million. These charges include honoring se

I've played a couple of hours of Forza Horizon 6 , and so far I've enjoyed it in much the same way as its predecessor: by exploring and taking in the sumptuous world Playground Games has crafted. The preview build I played on my Xbox Series X was limited in terms of available activities it was basically the game's prologue but I was able to explore almost all of the open world. The on-rails intro takes you through some of the Japanese countryside and past landmarks like Tokyo Tower and Shibuya

If youre using an older Kindle, you may want to check what year it was released. Amazon has sent out emails to some of its users, with a warning that its discontinuing support for Kindle ereaders and Fire tables released in 2012 or earlier. You can still read books youve already downloaded on those devices, but youll no longer be able to purchase, borrow or download new ones, starting on May 20, 2026. In addition, if the device has an issue that can only be solved by a factory reset, doing so wi

Insta360, the company best known for its action cameras, just released the Snap selfie screen. It's a small display that connects via USB-C and sits on the back of your phone, helping you to use your rear camera for higher resolution vlogging or selfies. The 3.5-inch touchscreen allows you to adjust camera settings like zoom and focus and frame your selfies before you take them. The company has also released a model it co-developed with the beauty tech brand AMIRO that offers a built-in light wi

If you live in Los Angeles, you may soon be able to hail a Volkswagen ID. Buzz robotaxi from the Uber app. The companies' previously announced multi-year strategic partnership is nearing a public launch, with on-road testing with a safety driver underway. The vehicles use tech from MOIA America, the US wing of Volkswagen's self-driving subsidiary. Uber and MOIA plan to deploy thousands of ID. Buzz vehicles across the US over the next decade. LA is the pilot city, and if all goes well, it will sp

Meta has released a new version of WhatsApp for CarPlay that has much better integration that its previous version.As MacRumors and 9to5Mac report, the new app gives users access to a native interface. The old WhatsApp for CarPlay is mostly limited to Siri-operated features. Users can, for instance, ask Siri to compose messages or place calls for them. The new interface has a contact info section, where they can see the profiles of people saved in their account, as well as a favorite contacts se

This year at CES 2026 everybody was pretty confused about the new Micro RGB and RGB Mini LED TVs that use similar technology but carry different names. Now, Sony has come up with another label for its own Mini LED TVs with RGB backlighting: True RGB . The idea is to emphasize that the individual red, green and blue LED backlights allow for purer color, greater brightness, and the largest color volume ever achieved in Sonys home TV history, the company said. To be clear, this is not some new tech

Elon Musk is still taking OpenAI to court over its transition to a for-profit company, but today he amended the complaint so that he won't personally get any of the $150 billion in damages he's pushing for. The Wall Street Journal reported that if Musk wins in his upcoming trial, he wants any damages should be awarded to the OpenAI nonprofit branch. He's also seeking OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's removal from the nonprofit's board of directors if his suit succeeds. Musk launched a lawsuit against Open