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Engadget Podcast: Why Netflix is the best worst option for Warner Bros.

Last week, Netflix surprised us all when it announced plans for an $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros., a move that would fundamentally reshape the world of streaming video and Hollywood. But Paramount isn't giving up on WB this week it launched a $108 billion hostile takeover effort. In this episode, we discuss why everyone is fighting for WB, and why Netflix may be the best worst option for the storied movie studio. Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Podcasts Topics What the Netflix bid for Warner Bros. means for at-home streamers and moviegoers 1:55 Disney characters are coming to Sora after OpenAI struck a deal 32:59 Meta may be giving up on open source for Llama 43:53 Google CEO says were just going to have to grin and bear societal disruption via AI 46:46 Around Engadget: The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is good, but is it $630 good? 49:06 The best trailers and announcements from The Game Awards Day of the Devs stream 51:28 Heres why projectors won in 2025 54:31 Working on 56:15 Pop culture picks 57:33 Credits Host: Devindra Hardawar Guest: Nathan Ingraham Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/engadget-podcast-why-netflix-is-the-best-worst-option-for-warner-bros-132156232.html?src=rss

Get 40 percent off MasterClass subscriptions for the holiday season

If you want to learn a new skill in the new year or brush up on some skills you already have, MasterClass could be a good option for you. It's even more accessible now that the company is running a holiday promotion that knocks 40 percent off subscriptions. For the top-tier Premium plan, which includes offline mode and use on up to six devices, you'll pay $144 for the year instead of the usual $240. The entry-level plan, which supports just one device and doesn't offer offline viewing, is marked down to $72 from $120. Over the past few years, MasterClass has grown to over 200 classes, sessions and original series. You can learn about entrepreneurship from Richard Branson, screenwriting from Aaron Sorkin, cooking from Gordon Ramsay and heaps more. Each of these offers classes in a one-on-one format with slick instructional videos and often workbooks to accompany them. MasterClass also appears on our list of the best subscription gifts for this Christmas. Loved ones will enjoy superb production quality and a rich library where they are sure to find something that piques their interest. Gift subscriptions can also be scheduled, so you can take advantage of the current sale even for future gifts. If you're buying it for yourself, know that MasterClass offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Whether you're looking to learn about business from Kim Kardashian or basketball skills from Steph Curry, MasterClass can help you expand your horizons in 2026. The Holiday Head Start Offer is available through December 15. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-40-percent-off-masterclass-subscriptions-for-the-holiday-season-150520505.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Techs biggest losers of 2025

Honestly, compiling the biggest losers for Engadget is more fun than talking up the winners . While we reviewed nothing as atrocious as those ill-fated AI assistant gadgets from 2024, AI companies and services straddled both the winner and loser podiums. The losers might be you, the American consumer. (Sorry.) In the US, anyone wanting a drone will have to find something that isnt made by DJI. The company has been targeted by regulators since 2017 over concerns its products could spy on sensitive US infrastructure on behalf of China. Engadget The problem is DJI has such a high market share (over 75 percent) that its absence will effectively upend the industry. Oh, and its drones are consistently the best too. The US government hasnt yet attempted to work with DJI to assess whether its products pose a risk. DJI recently made a final plea for a security review, sending letters to five US agencies that could assess its products. If that fails, US drone options will shrink massively. In the same 12 months, EV sales across the globe are up around 25 percent this year. Germany set a record in the first half of 2025, with electric cars accounting for nearly one in five new registrations. In China, EV sales are growing so fast (over 50 percent market share) that the country is flooding the global market with gas-powered cars it cant sell at home. However remember this is about losers in the US, the Trump administration ended the EV tax credit. And shock! Sales of EVs in the US slumped, with some automakers, such as Ford, seeing a 60 percent year-over-year decline. As Sam Rutherford puts it, this policy change puts more roadblocks (his inadvertent pun, not mine) in the way of making cheaper battery-powered cars. It also affects EV investment and could mean US automakers fall even further behind their rivals elsewhere. We also point and shake our heads at Xbox, Grok and TV streaming. Check it all out right here . Mat Smith The other big stories (and deals) this morning Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review-in-progress Control Resonant steps into a larger world inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion OpenAIs house of cards seems primed to collapse Trump orders creation of litigation task force to challenge state AI laws All the winners (and everything announced) at The Game Awards 2025 News, trailers and award winners. Most of which are Clair Obscur. Remedy If you missed The Game Awards 2025, you missed a historic sweep by Sandfall Interactives Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 . The Belle Epoque saga, which was expected to win several categories, even bagged Game of the Year and eventually picked up more wins than any title in the shows 12-year history. Naturally, there were trailers and game reveals too, which were pleasantly notable. We got a first look at the Control sequel, Resonant , Star Wars: Fate of The Old Republic is coming, headed by Mass Effect veterans, while Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series following the success of Baldurs Gate 3 . Heck, if you want a good chance of winning at The Game Awards, hire Jennifer English to voice one of your main characters she was in both BG3 and Clair Obscur. Continue reading. OpenAI signs deal to bring Disney characters to Sora and ChatGPT Slop Wars, Toy Sloppy and more! Disney announced a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI to bring more than 200 of its characters, including those from Star Wars and Pixar, to the Sora app and ChatGPT. With the deal in place, OpenAI users will be able to prompt ChatGPT to generate images that tap into Disneys intellectual property, with costumes, props, vehicles and environments covered. Additionally, Disney will invest $1 billion in OpenAI, with the option to purchase additional equity down the road. Continue reading. MasterClass subscriptions are 40 percent off for the holiday season Learn about tennis from Serena Williams or music from John Legend. If youre struggling to find a good present for the holidays, MasterClass has discounted its subscriptions by up to 40 percent. I secured a similar deal for myself and was pleasantly surprised by the solid interface and the number of courses. I also forgot to update my subscription, whoops. Maybe this offer will get me back on board. Continue reading. Amazons AI-generated recap tool didnt watch Fallout very closely Its already getting the details wrong on its own shows. Amazons plan to offer AI-generated recaps of Prime Video shows isnt off to a great start. The companys recap of the first season of Fallout has multiple errors. First, the AI-generated recap incorrectly identifies the era of the shows Los Angeles-set flashbacks as being the 1950s theyre actually 2077. Perhaps more egregiously for a recap, it misunderstands the ending of the first season, which sets up season twos partnership between vault dweller Lucy and The Ghoul. Continue reading. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121506303.html?src=rss

The best E Ink tablets for 2025

E Ink tablets have always been intriguing to me because Im a longtime lover of pen and paper. Ive had probably hundreds of notebooks over the years, serving as repositories for my story ideas, to-do lists, meeting notes and everything in between. However, I turned away from physical notebooks at a certain point because it was just easier to store everything digitally so I always had my most important information at my fingertips. E Ink tablets seem to provide the best of both worlds: the tactile satisfaction of regular notebooks with many of the conveniences found in digital tools, plus easy-on-the-eyes E Ink screens. These devices have come a long way in the past few years, and were just starting to see more color E Ink tablets become more widely available. I tested out a number of different E Ink tablets to see how well they work, how convenient they really are and which are the best tablets using E Ink screens available today. Table of contents Best E Ink tablets for 2025 Are E Ink tablets worth it? What to look for in an E Ink tablet Other E Ink tablets we've tested Best E Ink tablets for 2025 Are E Ink tablets worth it? An E Ink tablet will be a worthwhile purchase to a very select group of people. If you prefer the look and feel of an e paper display to LCD panels found on traditional tablets, it makes a lot of sense. Theyre also good options for those who want a more paper-like writing experience (although you can get that kind of functionality on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or a more distraction-free device overall. The final note is key here. Many E Ink tablets dont run on the same operating systems as regular tablets, so youre automatically going to be limited in what you can do. And even with those that do allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram and Facebook, E Ink tablets are not designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mostly due to the nature of E Ink displays, which have noticeable refreshes, a lack of vibrant colors and lower picture quality than the panels youll find on even the cheapest iPad. Arguably the biggest reason why you wouldnt want to go with an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, etc) is because its much easier to get distracted by email, social media and other Internet-related temptations. What to look for in an E Ink tablet Writing and latency Arguably the most important thing to consider when looking for an E Ink tablet is the writing experience. How good it is will depend a lot on the displays refresh rate (does it refresh after every time you put pen to paper, or at a different regular interval) and the stylus latency. Most of the tablets Ive tested have little to no latency, but some are certainly better than others. Finally, you should double check before buying that your preferred E Ink tablet comes with a stylus, or if you need to purchase one separately. Reading How much will you be reading books, documents and other things on this tablet? E Ink tablets come in many sizes, but most of them tend to be larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing much easier. Having a larger display isnt a bad thing, but it might make holding it for long periods slightly more uncomfortable. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading). The supported file types for e-books can also make a big difference. Its hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much among E Ink tablets. The TL;DR is that youll have a much better reading experience if you go with one made by a company that already has a history in e-book sales (i.e. Amazon or Kobo). All of the titles you bought via the Kindle or Kobo store should automatically be available to you on your Kindle or Kobo E Ink tablet. Also with Kindle titles, specifically, since they are protected by DRM, its not necessarily the best idea to try to bring those titles over to a third-party device . Unless the tablet runs an operating system like Android that supports downloads for apps like Kindle and Kobo, youll be limited to supported file types, like ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG and others. Search functionality Most E Ink tablets have some on-device search features, but they can vary widely between models. Youll want to consider how important it is to you to be able to search through all your handwritten notes and markups. I noticed in my testing that Amazons and Kobos E Ink tablets made it easy to refer back to notes made in books and files because they automatically save to the specific pages on which you took notes, made highlights and more. Searching is less standardized on E Ink tablets that have different supported file types, but their features can be quite powerful in their own right. For example, a few devices I tested supported text search in handwritten notes along with handwriting recognition, the latter of which allows you to translate your scribbles into typed text. Sharing and connectivity While we established that E Ink tablets can be great distraction-free devices, most manufacturers understand that your notes and doodles arent created in a vacuum. You may want to access them elsewhere, and that requires some form of connectivity. All of the E Ink tablets I tried have Wi-Fi support, and some support cloud syncing, companion mobile apps and the ability to export notes via email so you can access them elsewhere. None of them, however, integrate directly with a digital note taking system like Evernote or OneNote, so these devices will always be somewhat supplementary if you use apps like that, too. Id argue that, if you already lean heavily on apps like OneNote, a standard tablet with a stylus and screen protector might be the best way to go. Ultimately, you should think about what you will want to do with the documents youll interact with on your E Ink tablet after the tablet portion is done. Price E Ink tablets arent known for being cheap. They generally fall into the $300-$800 price range, which is what you can expect to pay for a solid regular tablet, too. A key factor in price is size: cheaper devices with E Ink displays are likely to have smaller screens, and stylus support isnt as much of a given. Also, those types of devices are generally considered e-readers because of their size and may not be the best for note-taking, doodling and the like. E Ink tablets have gone up in price recently. Supernote and Onyx Boox increased prices, as did reMarkable. The former said it was due to increased costs, and a reMarkable representative confirmed this to Engadget and provided the following statement: We regularly review our pricing based on market conditions and operational costs. We've communicated an upcoming adjustment for the US market effective in May to provide transparency to our customers. Multiple factors influence our pricing decisions, including supply chain dynamics and overall operational costs in specific markets. As a result, the reMarkable Paper Pro jumped from $579 to $629 (that's for the bundle with the standard Marker and no Folio). This isn't great, considering the Paper Pro was already on the expensive side of the spectrum for E Ink tablets. It's also worth noting that Supernote and Onyx Boox have raised prices in the past few months as well. Other E Ink tablets we've tested Onyx Boox Tab X C The Boox Tab X C is a color-screened version of the Tab X, the companys all-purpose e-paper Android tablet. The Tab X C has a lovely 13.3-inch Kaleido 3 E Ink color display, an octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and it runs on Android 13, making it one of the most powerful tablets in Booxs lineup. Ive used the Tab X in the past and this color version runs similarly, if not better, and at 5.3mm thick, its impressively svelte even when you pair it with its folio keyboard case. As someone who loves legal-pad sized things to write on, I also like how the Tab X C is most akin to A4-size paper. But at $820 for the bundle with the standard case (or a whopping $970 for the tablet and its keyboard case), its really only best for those who are ready to go all-in on a premium E Ink tablet. Lenovo Smart Paper Lenovo made a solid E Ink tablet in the Smart Paper , but it's too pricey and too married to the company's companion cloud service to warrant a spot on our top picks list. The hardware is great, but the software isn't as flexible as those of competitors like the reMarkable 2. It has good Google Drive integration, but you must pair it with Lenovo's cloud service to really get the most use out of it and in the UK, the service costs 9 per month for three months, which is quite expensive. Onyx Boox Tab Ultra The Boox Tab Ultra has a lot of the same features we like in the Note Air 2 Plus, but its designed to be a true, all-purpose tablet with an E Ink screen. Running Android 11 and compatible with a magnetic keyboard case, you can use it like a standard 2-in-1 laptop, albeit a low-powered one. You can browse the web, check email and even watch YouTube videos on this thing but that doesnt mean you should. A standard 2-in-1 laptop with a more responsive screen and better overall performance would be a better fit for most people who even have the slightest desire to have an all-in-one device. Like the rest of Onyxs devices, the Tab Ultra is specifically for those who put reading and eye comfort above all else. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/best-e-ink-tablet-130037939.html?src=rss

Everything announced and all the winners at The Game Awards 2025

This year at The Game Awards, if your game wasnt melodramatic, mechanically innovative, beautifully presented and aggressively French, it didnt stand a chance. The Game Awards 2025 wrapped up on the evening of Thursday, December 11 with a record-breaking showing by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive. The game received the most nominations and wins in the shows 12-year history. But, we know thats not really why youre here. Between the award presentations and musical numbers, there were heaps of new game trailers, announcements and updates, and weve collected them all for you right here. The award winners are also there. News Capcom's Pragmata is coming your way on April 24 Bradley the Badger looks like Wreck-It Ralph as a real video game Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is a new action RPG from the director of Mass Effect and KOTOR Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series with... Divinity Coven of the Chicken Foot is the debut game from Naughty Dog alum Bruce Straley's indie studio The devs of SOMA are back with a spiritual successor called Ontos 4:LOOP is a co-op shooter from the creator of Left 4 Dead and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot Order of the Sinking Star: Ten years after The Witness, Jonathan Blow's next massive puzzle game is almost ready for primetime South of Midnight is coming to PS5 and Switch 2 next spring Exodus is delayed to early 2027 Control Resonant steps into a larger world that's inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight swoops onto PC and consoles on May 29 Lara Croft will return in Tomb Raider: Catalyst and a new remake Housemarque's Saros is delayed to April 30 Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a podracing game set for 2026 Award winners Best family game: Donkey Kong Bananza Innovation in accessibility: Doom: The Dark Ages Best esports game: Counter-Strike 2 Best esports athlete: Chovy Best esports team: Team Vitality Best mobile game: Umamasume: Pretty Derby Best indie game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Best adaptation: The Last of Us season 2 Best action game: Hades II Best performance: Jennifer English, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Games for impact: South of Midnight Best ongoing game: No Mans Sky Best audio design: Battlefield 6 Content creator of the year: MoistCr1TiKaL Best fighting game: Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Most anticipated game: Grand Theft Auto VI Best action/adventure game: Hollow Knight: Silksong Best art direction: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Best sim/strategy game: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Best debut indie game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Best score and music: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Best sports/racing game: Mario Kart World Best community support: Baldurs Gate 3 Best VR/AR game: The Midnight Walk Best RPG: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Players voice: Wuthering Waves Best narrative: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Best multiplayer game: Arc Raiders Best game direction: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Game of the year: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Trailers Pragmata by Capcom Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic by Arcanaut Studios and Lucasfilm Games Divinity by Larian Studios Coven of the Chicken Foot by Wildflower Interactive ONTOS by Frictional Games 4:LOOP by Bad Robot Games Resident Evil Requiem by Capcom Order of the Sinking Star by Thekla Exodus by Archetype Entertainment WARLOCK by Invoke Studios and Wizards of the Coast Control Resonant by Remedy Enterainment Gang of Dragon by Nagoshi Studio Street Fighter movie sneak peak LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight by Warner Bros. Games Tomb Raider: Catalyst by Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog Invincible VS by Skybound Games Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred by Blizzard Entertainment Deadpool is coming to Marvel Rivals 007 First Light Lenny Kravitz Announcement Saros by Housemarque Warframe featuring Werner Herzog for some reason Total War: Warhammer 40,000 by Creative Assembly Hitman World of Assassination by IO Interactive Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve by Bandai Namco Star Wars Galactic Racer by Fuse and Lucasfilm Games Out of Words by Kong Orange and WiredFly Phantom Blade Zero by S-GAME Mega Man Dual Override by Capcom Super Mario Galaxy movie trailer Highguard by Wildlight Entertainment Dont forget to check out our Day of the Devs: The Game Awards 2025 roundup , which included six world premieres, three release date announcements and a whole bunch of awesome indie goodness. The Women-Led Games and Latin American Games showcases tied to the awards were also downright delightful. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/everything-announced-and-all-the-winners-at-the-game-awards-2025-044101761.html?src=rss

Housemarque's Saros is delayed to April 30

PlayStation had said on X that it would have news about Saros at The Game Awards, and unfortunately, fans excited for the new Housemarque project will need to wait a little longer to get their hands on it. The game has been delayed from its planned March release. But there's only a short time until the new date of April 30, and pre-orders are open now. Star Rahul Kohli appeared at The Game Awards to introduce the newest trailer for the game. I'm glad we won't be waiting too much longer, because Saros looks very cool. Housemarque made its name on titles like Resogun and Returnal , and Saros seems like a great addition to their library. The latest trailer shows off all the golden and solar vibes in Carcosa. It also has more glimpses of the characters and story as well as the dangerous and deadly beings that will be trying very hard to kill you. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/housemarques-saros-is-delayed-to-april-30-041813989.html?src=rss

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a podracing game set for 2026

Why have one Star Wars game announcement at an edition of The Game Awards when you can have two? Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a podracing (and speeder racing) game from Fuse Games , a studio established in 2023 by former Burnout and Need for Speed developers. It's scheduled to hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2026. The action here is set after the fall of the Empire. With the galaxy in rebuild mode after dealing with that whole mess, an unsanctioned, underground racing circuit called the Galactic League comes into being in the Outer Rim. Here, according to the game's Steam page , syndicates bankroll chaos and champions are forged. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is run-based, so if your podracer blows up, it might be game over. The action takes place across well-known Star Wars planets in addition to some new ones. The races have branching routes and you'll unlock new abilities on each run. There's a story-driven, single-player campaign, as well as PvP modes. The vehicles are customizable too. Dig it. Where do I sign up, Watto? This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/star-wars-galactic-racer-is-a-podracing-game-set-for-2026-035508891.html?src=rss

Exodus is delayed to early 2027

So there's good news and bad news about the highly anticipated Exodus coming out of The Game Awards this year. The good news is that there's a fresh trailer showcasing more of the game. The bad news is that the game won't be out until early 2027. The game was originally announced two years ago (also at The Game Awards) and had been pegged for release in 2026. We may be waiting longer to get our hands on Exodus , but the substantial new trailer shows more of what the final product will entail, offering some backstory on main character Jun Aslan. He's the only human who can use the technology developed by Celestials, which are humans that have evolved 40,000 years into the future. The trailer also showcases the character C.C. Orlev, voiced by Matthew McConaughey. (Insert obligatory alright alright alright here.) Developer Archetype Entertainment includes some notable names from BioWare, 343 Industries and Naughty Dog, and the BioWare lineage seems particularly strong with this character- and choice-driven science fiction story. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/exodus-is-delayed-to-early-2027-032610665.html?src=rss

Lara Croft will return in Tomb Raider: Catalyst and a new remake

The last mainline Tomb Raider game was 2018s Shadow of the Tomb Raider , and after spending a few years in video game purgatory, Lara Croft is coming back in two new games. At The Game Awards 2025, Amazon Game Studios announced that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will reimagine of one of the heros early adventures in 2026, and Tomb Raider: Catalyst will continue the series in 2027. Catalyst is developed by Crystal Dynamics and follows Lara through Northern India in the wake of a mythical cataclysm, as she comes into competition with other treasure hunters. Legacy of Atlantis , developed by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog, reimagines the very first Tomb Raider game in Unreal Engine 5. And yes, it seems like dinosaurs will be in the mix. A new Tomb Raider game has been in the works officially since at least 2022 , when Amazon announced that it would be publishing the next game in the series. Amazon shared that Fleabag s Phoebe Waller-Bridge would be developing a television adaptation of Tomb Raider in May 2024. Sophie Turner, best known for playing Sansa Stark on HBOs Game of Thrones , was cast as Lara Croft in September 2025. With both a show and a game in the works, Amazon clearly seems interested in making Tomb Raider its next big crossover hit after the success of Fallout . Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will be released in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The platforms Tomb Raider: Catalyst will be released on werent shared, but the game is scheduled to be released in 2027. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lara-croft-will-return-in-tomb-raider-catalyst-and-a-new-remake-025859998.html?src=rss

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight swoops onto PC and consoles on May 29

It didn't take too long for a game that a whole bunch of people are excited about to swoop into Grand Theft Auto VI 's old release week. Or maybe Rockstar had an idea of was what was coming and delayed its blockbuster by six months to get out of the way of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight . Either way, TT Games and Warner Bros. Games brought a new trailer to The Game Awards and revealed that the Caped Crusader's next adventure will hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and the Epic Games Store on May 29. The base game will cost $70 and pre-orders are open as of 11PM ET on December 11. Lego games often have a massive cast of characters and, as the trailer revealed, this one will be no different. It will feature the likes of Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl and Catwoman, as well as a murderer's row of super-villains, such as The Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, The Penguin and Bane. Warner Bros. Games is announcing the release date at a bit of an awkward time. Netflix recently had an $82.7 billion bid accepted for a chunk of Warner Bros. Discovery that includes the gaming division. However, Netflix co-CEO Gregory Peters said the company didn't factor Warner Bros. Games into its valuation. While they definitely have been doing some great work in the game space, we actually didnt attribute any value to that from the get-go because theyre relatively minor compared to the grand scheme of things, Peters said, according to PC Gamer . Now we are super excited because some of those properties that theyve built, Hogwarts [ Legacy ] is a great example of that, have been done quite well, and we think that we can incorporate that into what were offering. Theyve got great studios and great folks working there. So we think that theres definitely an opportunity there. But just to be clear, we havent built that into our deal model. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lego-batman-legacy-of-the-dark-knight-swoops-onto-pc-and-consoles-on-may-29-024729940.html?src=rss

Vivo X300 Pro Review | The unbeatable camera phone of 2025

Vivo X300 Pro builds upon the legacy of the X200 Pro and elevates the camera experience to much greater height for which the series is known for

South of Midnight is coming to PS5 and Switch 2 next spring

South of Midnight is heading to PlayStation 5 and Switch 2 in Spring 2026, developer Compulsion Games announced on X . The third-person action-adventure game launched as an Xbox and PC exclusive, but like plenty of Microsoft's other first-party games, it's heading to competitors' consoles. Mixing platforming with magic-infused combat in a unique setting inspired by the folklore of the South, Compulsion Games' South of Midnight was generally well-receive d when it was released in April 2025. The game likely reached sizable audience by launching on Game Pass and PC, but coming to PlayStation and Switch will open it up to an even bigger audience. As Microsoft reworks its Xbox brand to focus more on software than hardware, releasing its exclusives on other platforms has become a key part of its ongoing strategy. It tested the water with games like Pentiment , Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves in 2024, and now everything from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Halo are making the jump. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/south-of-midnight-is-coming-to-ps5-and-switch-2-next-spring-022725892.html?src=rss

Trump orders creation of litigation task force to challenge state AI laws

On Thursday evening, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a single, nationwide regulatory framework governing artificial intelligence at the expense of the ability of different states to regulate the nascent technology. To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation, the order states. But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative. As was expected after a draft of the order leaked earlier this week, the centerpiece of the document is an AI Litigation Task Force whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge state AI laws inconsistent with the presidents policy vision. US Attorney General Pam Bondi has 30 days to create the task force, which shall meet regularly with the White Houses AI and crypto czar, David Sacks . As laid out in the presidents AI Action Plan from July , the administration will also limit states with onerous AI laws from accessing federal funding. Specifically, the secretary of commerce will target funding available under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, a $42.5 billion effort to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities. Advocacy groups were quick to criticize the presidents order. This executive order is designed to chill state-level action to provide oversight and accountability for the developers and deployers of AI systems, while doing nothing to address the real and documented harms these systems create, Alexandra Givens, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement provided to Engadget. States that take steps to protect their residents from such harms should not be subject to threats of legal attacks; nor should the administration punish rural Americans by threatening to withhold funding for the broadband services that could connect them to AI in the first place. Its worth noting President Trumps previous attempts to curb the ability of states to regulate AI as they see fit has proven unpopular across the political spectrum. As part of his One Big Beautiful Bill, the president attempted to impose a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulation. That clause was eventually removed from the legislation in a decisive 99-1 vote by the Senate . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/trump-orders-creation-of-litigation-task-force-to-challenge-state-ai-laws-022657022.html?src=rss

The devs of SOMA are back with a spiritual successor called Ontos

Frictional Games is back with a new game that looks primed to carry on the studio's tradition of excellence in horror. It's called Ontos , and it's slated to launch on PC, PlayStation and Xbox next year. The trailer debuted during The Game Awards 2025. The company's past projects include Amnesia: The Dark Descent and SOMA , and this new title is also looking pretty dang creepy. It looks like things will take a philosophical turn, with a story of trying to piece together your father's past that leads you to questioning the meaning of life and reality. The team is going big with the casting, with Stellan Skarsgrd playing one of the main roles in the trailer. This is one that any horror fans will want to keep on their radar. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-devs-of-soma-are-back-with-a-spiritual-successor-called-ontos-021535060.html?src=rss

Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series with... Divinity

Larian Studios didnt rest on its laurels for long. Two years after taking home the Game of the Year prize for Baldurs Gate III at The Game Awards, the developer popped up again at the 2025 edition of the ceremony to announce its upcoming project, which is the next entry in the Divinity series. Simply called Divinity , this will be the studios biggest game to date with more breadth and depth than ever before, according to TGA host Geoff Keighley. After 2017s Divinity: Original Sin II , Larian took a break from the series with which it established itself to make BG3. The rumor mill had been churning about a new Divinity game after Keighley shared a photo of a statue that was erected in the Mojave Desert. The shape of the statue matched a Divinity logo that was trademarked recently . Before the reveal trailer was shown at The Game Awards, a short (and rather neat) live performance took place in which some actors were hoisted into the air. The trailer itself is pretty gruesome. It references The Wicker Man , as large wooden effigies with people chained inside are set ablaze. I wont spoil what else happens other than to say its pretty gruesome, so maybe dont watch it quite yet if youve just had dinner. Larian hasnt announced a release window for Divinity yet. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/larian-studios-is-returning-to-the-divinity-series-with-divinity-015833088.html?src=rss

Ten years after The Witness, Jonathan Blow's next massive puzzle game is almost ready for primetime

Many of the big announcements at The Game Awards are for completely new projects, some of which are total surprises (if you had an Okami sequel on your bingo card last year, you're either in the know or probably used up all your luck for the next few years). We'll often get updates on games that were previously announced too. The trailer for Order of the Sinking Star is something a little different, as it's a game that Braid designer Jonathan Blow has been working on fairly openly since releasing The Witness in 2016. The trailer revealed some new details, including confirmation of the expected title and a release window (2026 on Steam , with more platforms to be announced). Ahead of The Game Awards, Blow gave Engadget a preview of the game and explained some of its many complexities. Fundamentally, Order of the Sinking Star is a grid-based puzzle game in which you'll move blocks around to complete an objective. You might know of this as a Sokoban game, named after the series Hiroyuki Imabayashi created about pushing boxes around a warehouse. But this is a Jonathan Blow game, so nothing stays too simple for very long. Blow and his team took the core concept of pushing objects around and built on it in myriad ways, with a wide array of environments, mechanics and characters for you to get to grips with. Order of the Sinking Star starts with you playing as a deposed queen from another world who is transported to a strange place. This turns out to be the tutorial. Among other things, you'll find out about the undo button, a handy option you can use to revert your actions if you get stuck. It's probably worth being careful with this button, as Blow says it's possible to undo thousands of moves with it. There's a level reset option too. The first phase of the game has four distinct territories with their own characters, stories and gameplay mechanics. One of these realms has a fantasy theme with a warrior character who can push multiple objects that are in a row. His friend, the thief, can only pull objects. The wizard, meanwhile, can teleport and swap positions with objects or other characters. Sometimes, you'll use multiple characters in a level and swap between them to solve puzzles. Theres a talking boat somewhere, too. You'll take what you learn within individual levels into the overworld so you can make progress there. For one thing, the queen can wear a warrior, wizard or thief outfit to adopt their abilities and solve puzzles in the north section of this phase. Over in the east, theres a world with mirror-based puzzles. By positioning the mirrors and where you stand, you'll use the mirror's reflection to teleport at a right angle. If your character (or an object) has a reflection in two mirrors, they can be duplicated, which is something you might have to do a few times if a level requires you activate multiple switches at the same time. Once you near the end of two of the phase one worlds, you can enter one of six gold rooms. In these rooms, which are the gateways to the second phase of Order of the Sinking Star, some of your characters meet each other for the first time. For instance, the guy from The Mirror Isles and the wizard might encounter each other in a gold room and then you can use their combined abilities to solve puzzles. Given that later-game levels combine mechanics from the early stages, they are naturally more complex. Shifting to 3D perspectives will ramp things up too. Order of the Sinking Star Thekla/Arc Games You can tackle the four worlds that make up the first phase in any order. Collectively, they contain days worth of gameplay, Blow said. And yet he claimed this first phase accounts for about five percent of the entire game. All told, there are about 1,400 puzzles, many of which are optional. If you're a completionist, you'll need to be pretty dedicated to see this through. Blow estimates that it'll take around 500 hours for a player to do absolutely everything in the game. The overworld has more than 100 screens from which you can jump into individual levels. All the levels are about ideas. They're not just random puzzles, Blow said. We don't add puzzles to the game unless they show something cool about how the objects interact. Then, once you see the cool thing, you come back to the overworld, and you navigate from that screen using the cool mechanic that you learned. We is a key word there, because it's not as if Blow has been making Order of the Sinking Star by himself for the last decade. His studio, Thekla, has around 10 people working on the game full-time along with another 10 or so part-time contractors. Those who contributed include puzzle game designers Alan Hazelden and Marc ten Bosch . Some members of Blow's Twitch community whocontributed some idea to one of the levels somewhere will receive design credits too. Blow and his team use custom game engines for their projects. Starting in around 2013, he started livestreaming his work on the programming language that Order of the Sinking Star is written in (Thekla will eventually make the engine available for free as an open-source project). Once I was working on the game, it was a good way to show people what the programming language was about and also how game programming works, and so I would frequently do just streams where we would sit down and implement something, Blow said. Some of the design work he did on stream ended up in the final game. Order of the Sinking Star Thekla/Arc Games After such a long time of working on Order of the Sinking Star, the end is in sight for Blow and his team. The main focus for the last year or so has been on making sure all of the puzzles align with the overworld. Making art for many hundreds of levels is a major undertaking too, while Blow is still refining the story. Because there's a lot of these levels and a lot of characters in the levels, it's just natural for them to talk to each other, Blow said. And so what is that dialog and what does it do? Is it just little jokes that don't add up to anything? Or do you get little peeks into a larger narrative? I think the latter is obviously better. And so that's my main task between now and release, is making sure that the story is really good. Blow had the core concept of having separate worlds with mechanics that work across them in place from the very beginning, though how that worked in practice evolved a lot over time. For instance, the overworld idea wasn't set in stone from the outset. There was an overworld in place by around 2021, but it wasn't organized in the way the current one was. It was just sort of areas smushed together, Blow said. At some point, I came up with this concept that it was spatially organized in an almost ritualistic manner or a mathematical manner, whichever way you want to think about it. And we redesigned the overworld from that point, and from then till now, it's been just sort of a continuous improvement. Order of the Sinking Star was originally supposed to be a much smaller game that took around 10 or 20 hours to play, but it just blew up, Blow said. Part of development has just been dealing with that fact. Like, oh, my God, this game took so long to make. It actually feels really good to be here toward the end. We still have a fair bit of work to do before it's done, but we can see the ending from where we are now, and that's great. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ten-years-after-the-witness-jonathan-blows-next-massive-puzzle-game-is-almost-ready-for-primetime-015727378.html?src=rss

Coven of the Chicken Foot is the debut game from Naughty Dog alum Bruce Straley's indie studio

Coven of the Chicken Foot has a lot of things going for it already, in my book. It stars a hero rarely seen in video games, an elderly woman, and it has gorgeous storybook-style art in a lush fantasy setting. Its a single-player puzzle platformer, it relies on wordless storytelling and the woman, a witch named Gertie, travels with a creepy-cute companion. Plus, Gertie has chicken feet. I love her little chicken feet. Coven of the Chicken Foot is the first game from Wildflower Interactive, the independent studio founded by Naughty Dog veteran Bruce Straley. The game is coming to Steam and its available to wishlist now, though theres no firm release date. The first trailer for Coven of the Chicken Foot premiered at The Game Awards 2025, showing Gertie and her friend traveling together through caves, forests and temples. Gertie is on a quest to prove herself to the local coven by standing up to the self-appointed, prideful heroes of the land. She doesnt have a sword or a dodgeroll, and instead has to figure out how to work with her strange friend to survive. Her companion develops unique behaviors based on individual play styles, shaping how Gertie gets around. Straley left Naughty Dog in 2017 after almost 20 years with the studio, where he directed The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 . He announced Wildflower Interactive in July 2022 with a brief YouTube message , saying, In 2017 I left the industry not sure if I wanted to make games anymore. But the longer I was away, I kept thinking about this medium, and everything yet to be done and everything I wanted to do still. And this idea kept following me. So I grabbed some friends and we started prototyping. This naturally led to the formation of a studio, Straley explained. We have to do it the right way, he said in the video. It has to be inclusive, equitable and collaborative, full of big-hearted people that want to grow both professionally and personally. The culture needs to be as iterative as the way we make games. Coven of the Chicken Foot Wildflower Interactive Today Wildflower Interactive has 16 employees from AAA and smaller-scale backgrounds, according to its website. Its mission statement reads as follows: Were making small-ish, creatively-charged, uniquely-stylized games that explore the possibilities of our medium. And were building a small, open-hearted team of creators that want to improve their skills and still lead a good life outside of work. People that want to hone their craft, have a say in the process, feel respected for their contributions, and be a part of the evolution of this awesome medium. Im not going to say the studios direct and repeated emphasis on work-life balance, diversity and compassion is a response to the soulless capitalistic grind built into the AAA development complex, but Im not going to not say that, either. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/coven-of-the-chicken-foot-is-the-debut-game-from-naughty-dog-alum-bruce-straleys-indie-studio-014004553.html?src=rss

Capcom's Pragmata is coming your way on April 24

Capcoms long, long-delayed sci-fi shooter Pragmata finally has a release date. Its headed your way on April 24, 2026 on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and as Capcom confirmed in a trailer at The Game Awards Nintendo Switch 2. You dont have to wait another four months to try it out, though. A gameplay demo is out now on Steam . It will be available for consoles at a later date. Pragmata first emerged all the way back in 2020 and Capcom initially planned to release it in 2022. After multiple delays , the game will arrive four years later than the company anticipated. This is the first entry in a new franchise from Capcom, so taking extra time to get things right is not exactly a bad idea. Pragmata, which is set in a dystopian near-future, features the dual protagonists of Hugh Williams (a heavily armored fella) and Diana (an android with special powers). The two have to work together if they want to escape from a lunar research station thats filled with malevolent robots. To defeat these clankers, Diana has to hack them to disable their defense systems and make a weak point available for Hugh to attack. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/capcoms-pragmata-is-coming-your-way-on-april-24-010826258.html?src=rss

Bradley the Badger looks like Wreck-It Ralph as a real video game

A lot of trailers drop during The Game Awards, but the comedy of Bradley the Badger stood out from the pack. The conceit is similar to Wreck-It Ralph . Bradley, the protagonist of a fictional platforming series, is suddenly transported into the worlds of other unfinished video games; the trailer shows a badger-ified Bloodborne , Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us . He also has access to a kit of dev tools that let him modify these incomplete projects, getting a taste of making a game. As the trailer ends, Bradley briefly crosses into the real world and comes face to face with an actual game developer. This looks like it will be a funny and very meta game. Astro Bot made that combo work brilliantly, so here's hoping Bradley the Badger does too. Bradley is part love letter to videogames and part satire of them, said Christian Cantamessa, co-founder of Day 4 Night Studios. Games are an art form and this is a story inspired by our adventures making them. Cantamessa and fellow co-founder Davide Soliani have some big credits on their resumes, including Red Dead Redemption , Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle . The titular badger is voiced by Evan Peters, who has been in the recent X-Men movies as well as Tron: Ares . The team is planning to release the game on Steam, with consoles possibly to follow, but no timeline has been given yet. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/bradley-the-badger-looks-like-wreck-it-ralph-as-a-real-video-game-005634520.html?src=rss

Apple (mostly) loses its appeal in Epic Games case

Apple has clawed back a bit of ground in its legal fight with Epic Games that could have wide-reaching consequences for all app developers. Today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals mostly upheld a previous contempt ruling regarding fees Apple levied on third-party payment systems. However, the judges did decide to reverse the order that Apple cannot charge any commissions on those external payments, which was one of the company's main arguments in this ongoing debate. To catch you up, US Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers initially ruled in 2021 that Apple must allow third-party payment systems, although her decision fell shy of calling the tech company's control over the App Store a monopoly. In May 2025 , she ruled that Apple's 27 percent commission on those outside payments violated her previous order. Apple responded with an emergency motion to appeal that finding. Epic Games had taken its smash hit Fortnite off both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store while it was in court arguing these cases. Fortnite returned to iOS in the spring and just arrived back on Android devices today. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-mostly-loses-its-appeal-in-epic-games-case-235509557.html?src=rss

Amazon's AI-generated recap tool didn't watch Fallout very closely

Amazon's plan to offer AI-generated recaps of Prime Video shows isn't off to a great start. The company's recap of the first season of Fallout features multiple errors, GamesRadar+ writes , including basic facts about the plot of the show. You can watch the recap yourself in the Extras section of Amazon's Fallout season two listing in Prime Video. Besides being somewhat dry, the AI-generated recap incorrectly identifies the time period of the show's Los Angeles-set flashbacks as being the 1950s, when they're actually 2077 (the Fallout franchise is set in an alternate history that diverged from our real one after 1945). As Gizmodo notes , the recap also seems to misunderstand the ending of the first season, which sets up season two's partnership between vault dweller Lucy and The Ghoul, an irradiated wastelander with a personal connection to the mystery at the heart of the first season. While the recap suggests Amazon's AI system can successfully combine clips, music and dialogue into a coherent video, it apparently lacks an understanding of the details. The inaccuracies in this recap won't prevent anyone from enjoying the second season of the show, but they don't exactly inspire confidence in Amazon's tool either. It also seems like a problem that could have been easily solved by having a human employee who's watched the show review the video before it was uploaded. Unfortunately, Amazon's lack of AI quality control extends beyond recaps of its shows and into the dubs for the shows themselves. The company pulled AI-generated voiceover tracks for Banana Fish and other anime because of how bad they sounded earlier this week. It wouldn't be surprising if this recap gets pulled, corrected and re-uploaded, too. As Amazon adds more AI-generated content to its platform, users are bound to discover more ways it comes up short. The company's audience is too big, and AI is apparently still too unreliable for it to be avoided. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazons-ai-generated-recap-tool-didnt-watch-fallout-very-closely-215712958.html?src=rss

Disney's deal with OpenAI is about controlling the future of copyright

This morning Disney and OpenAI announced a three-year licensing agreement: Starting in 2026, ChatGPT and Sora can generate images and videos incorporating Disney IP, including more than 200 characters from the company's stable of Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel brands. To say these companies make for strange bedfellows is an understatement. The agreement brings together two parties with very different public stances on copyright. Before OpenAI released Sora, the company reportedly notified studios and talent agencies they would need to opt out of having their work appear in the new app. The company later backtracked on this stance . Before that, OpenAI admitted, in a regulatory filing , it would be impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials. By contrast, Disney takes copyright law very seriously. In fact, you could argue no other company has done more to shape US copyright law than Disney. For example, there's the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act , which is more derisively known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. The law effectively froze the advancement of the public domain in the United States, with Disney being the greatest beneficiary. It was only last year that the company's copyright for Steamboat Willie expired, 95 years after Walt Disney first created the iconic cartoon. On the face of it, it's unclear OpenAI is getting much value out of the deal. As part of the pact, Disney will host a curated selection of Sora-generated videos on its streaming platform Disney+, legitimizing the medium of AI-generated video in a way it hasn't been before, but it would appear Disney has the option to spotlight as much or little of it as it sees fit. Additionally, the $1 billion Disney agreed to invest in OpenAI is a drop in the ocean for a company that's expected to burn through more cash in five years than Uber, Tesla, Amazon and Spotify did combined before they became profitable. If anything, the addition of Disney characters is likely to make operating ChatGPT and Sora more expensive for OpenAI; the company will now need to pay a licensing fee on top of the cost of running its servers to generate images and videos. At this stage, it's also hard to put a value on Disney's pledge to use OpenAI's APIs. The company has said those tools will enable new products, tools and experiences, including some found inside of Disney+, but beyond that it hasn't shared specifics. Bob Iger might be feckless , but he's not stupid. Sometime this week or soon after, President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that makes good on part of his AI Action Plan from July. Specifically, the president has promised to fight against urdensome state-level regulation of AI. According to CNN , a recent draft of Trump's order calls for the creation of an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge and preempt state AI laws in favor of the president's own more lax regulatory regime. It's unclear how successful the administration will be in that effort, but clearly Disney is thinking ahead. It's banking on the fact that this time it won't be able to count on the federal government to shape copyright law in its interest, so instead it's making a deal with an industry pushing the boundaries of intellectual property rights as we know them. More importantly, it has partnered with the one AI company it can actually leverage. As I argued in a recent piece , OpenAI is in a far different and more precarious position now than it was at the end of 2022 following the release of ChatGPT. The company is just one AI provider in a sea of competition, and you can't even argue its models are the best, based either on benchmarks or user feedback. Moreover, OpenAI has yet to turn a profit, and has adopted an extremely risky investment strategy. In recent months it has signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals, hoping to outmuscle the competition that's already beating it through scale. It's not an accident Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google a day before its agreement with OpenAI became public. OpenAI might be the most valuable private company in the world , but Alphabet, Google's parent company, is worth more than $3 trillion. In any negotiations between the two, at best Disney would be on equal footing, and certainly not in a position where it could demand some amount of control over Google's AI projects. And yet by accounts it won exactly that from OpenAI. According to Axios , the deal gives Disney a fair amount of control over how its intellectual property is used. The two will form a joint steering committee designed to monitor the content users create on ChatGPT and Sora. As you surf the web today, you'll likely see a lot of opinions on how this legitimizes AI video. And while that's true, far more important is the fact Disney has secured a seat at the table to decide how the technology evolves over the coming years. Much like with news publishers, OpenAI and other chatbots concerns took a stance of begging forgiveness rather than asking permission towards copyright. It seems to have paid off. Most of the highest-profile news organizations have signed licensing deals to at least be paid a little rather than be ripped off until reaching an uncertain verdict in court. Disney seems to be signalling that the same speculation rush is about to begin for audiovisual licensing, and it may have already secured the most favorable terms. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/disneys-deal-with-openai-is-about-controlling-the-future-of-copyright-213009504.html?src=rss

New York passes law requiring ads to disclose the use of AI performers

New York is taking steps to regulate the use of AI in the state's entertainment industry. NY State Governor Kathy Hochul passed two pieces of legislation on Thursday that forces certain productions to disclose the use of AI-generated performers, and defines rules around how someone's likeness can be used after their death. Assembly Bill A8887B, now known as S.8420-A, specifically covers the use of AI performers in advertisements. Per Hochul's announcement, the law requires persons who produce or create an advertisement to identify if it includes AI generated synthetic performers. S.8391, meanwhile, requires consent from heirs or executors if a person wishes to use the name, image, or likeness of an individual for commercial purposes after their death. By signing these bills today, we are enacting common sense laws that will ensure we are fully transparent when using images generated by artificial intelligence and also prevent the unauthorized commercial use of a deceased individuals name or likeness, Governor Hochul said in the announcement. In New York State, we are setting a clear standard that keeps pace with technology, while protecting artists and consumers long after the credits roll. The use of AI performers and deepfakes made using the likenesses of actors were major focuses of the contract SAG-AFTRA won during its strike in 2023 . The union ultimately agreed to allow for the use of things like digital replicas and AI-generated performers, with some key carveouts . For example, actors have to give their explicit consent for a digital replica to be made in their image. They also have to give their consent each time the replica is used and are supposed to receive a pre-negotiated rate every time the replica appears in a production. New York's new regulations put further safeguards around both practices, and join a growing collection of state AI laws that have passed or are currently being considered this year. Because of the close relationship between tech companies and the Trump administration, though, multiple attempts have been made to prevent such laws from existing at all. A decade-long ban on state AI regulation was included in early drafts of the Big Beautiful Bill, and David Sacks, venture capitalist and White House Special Advisor, has reportedly gone to great lengths to try and get President Donald Trump to sign an executive order banning state AI regulation. The effort may have been worth it: The president posted on Tuesday that he would sign a new executive order focused on AI this week. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/new-york-passes-law-requiring-ads-to-disclose-the-use-of-ai-performers-202619826.html?src=rss

Fortnite is back on the Google Play Store

Epic Games has spent a lot of time in court over the past several years, but it seems the company's litigious era may be winding down. The company announced today that its game Fortnite is back on the Google Play mobile store in the US. Fortnite 's return to Android devices means Epic's popular hit is now available on just about every gaming platform following five years of arguing antitrust lawsuits. Epic took both Google and Apple to court over their policies for mobile payment systems back in 2020. The gaming company has been successful on the whole in its challenges, most recently reaching a settlement with Google in November. The companies agreed to a modified version of the order US District Judge James Donato originally placed on Google regarding fees charged to developers and handling of in-app payments and third-party billing systems. The same saga unfolded earlier this year with Apple. US Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also sided with Epic Games in May, ordering Apple to stop collecting commissions on purchases made outside its own App Store. After a bit of back and forth , Fortnite finally returned to iOS in the US a few weeks later. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fortnite-is-back-on-the-google-play-store-195507458.html?src=rss

OpenAI releases GPT-5.2 to take on Google and Anthropic

OpenAI's code red response to Google's Gemini 3 Pro has arrived . On the same day the company announced a Sora licensing pact with Disney , it took the wraps off GPT-5.2 .OpenAI is touting the new model as its best yet for real-world, professional use. Its better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step projects, said OpenAI. In a series of 10 benchmarks highlighted by OpenAI, GPT-5.2 Thinking, the most advanced version of the model, outperformed its GPT-5.1 counterpart, sometimes by a significant margin. For example, in AIME 2025, a test that involves 30 challenging mathematics problems, the model earned a perfect 100 percent score, beating out GPT-5.1s already state-of-the-art score of 94 perfect. It also achieved that feat without turning to tools like web search. Meanwhile, in ARC-AGI-1, a benchmark that tests an AI systems ability to reason abstractly like a human being would, the new system beat GPT-5.1s score by more than 10 percentage points. OpenAI says GPT-5.2 Thinking is better at answering questions factually, with the company finding it produces errors 30 percent less frequently. For professionals, this means fewer mistakes when using the model for research, writing, analysis, and decision support making the model more dependable for everyday knowledge work, the company said. The new model should be better in conversation too. Of the version of the system most users are likely to encounter, OpenAI says GPT5.2 Instant is a fast, capable workhorse for everyday work and learning, with clear improvements in info-seeking questions, how-tos and walk-throughs, technical writing, and translation, building on the warmer conversational tone introduced in GPT5.1 Instant. While it's probably overstating things to suggest this is a make or break release for OpenAI, it is fair to say the company does have a lot riding on GPT 5.2. Its big release of 2025, GPT-5 , didn't meet expectations. Users complained of a system that generated surprisingly dumb answers and had a boring personality. The disappointment with GPT-5 was such that people began demanding OpenAI bring back GPT-4o. Then came Gemini 3 Pro which jumped to the top of LMArena, a website where humans rate outputs from AI systems to vote on the best one. Following Google's announcement, Sam Altman reportedly called for a code red effort to improve ChatGPT. Before today, the company's previous model, GPT-5.1, was ranked sixth on LMArena, with systems from Anthropic and Elon Musk's xAI occupying the spots between OpenAI between Google. For a company that recently signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in a bid to outscale the competition, that was not a good position for OpenAI to be in. In his memo to staff, Altman said GPT-5.2 would be the equal of Gemini 3 Pro. With the new system rolling out now, we'll see whether that's true, and what it might mean for the company if it can't at least match Google's best. OpenAI is offering three different versions of GPT-5.2: Instant, Thinking and Pro. All three models will be first available to users on the companys paid plans. Notably, the company plans to keep GPT-5.1 around, at least for a little while. Paid users can continue to use the older model for the next three months by selecting it from the legacy models section. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-releases-gpt-52-to-take-on-google-and-anthropic-185029007.html?src=rss

Lawsuit accuses ChatGPT of reinforcing delusions that led to a woman's death

OpenAI has been hit with a wrongful death lawsuit after a man killed his mother and took his own life back in August, according to a report by The Verge . The suit names CEO Sam Altman and accuses ChatGPT of putting a target on the back of victim Suzanne Adams, an 83-year-old woman who was killed in her home. The victim's estate claims the killer , 56-year-old Stein-Erik Soelberg, engaged in delusion-soaked conversations with ChatGPT in which the bot validated and magnified certain paranoid beliefs. The suit goes on to suggest that the chatbot eagerly accepted delusional thoughts leading up to the murder and egged him on every step of the way. The lawsuit claims the bot helped create a universe that became Stein-Eriks entire lifeone flooded with conspiracies against him, attempts to kill him, and with Stein-Erik at the center as a warrior with divine purpose. ChatGPT allegedly reinforced theories that he was 100% being monitored and targeted and was 100% right to be alarmed. The chatbot allegedly agreed that the victim's printer was spying on him, suggesting that Adams could have been using it for passive motion detection and behavior mapping. It went so far as to say that she was knowingly protecting the device as a surveillance point and implied she was being controlled by an external force. The chatbot also allegedly identified other real people as enemies. These included an Uber Eats driver, an AT&T employee, police officers and a woman the perpetrator went on a date with. Throughout this entire period, the bot repeatedly assured Soelberg that he was not crazy and that the delusion risk was near zero. The lawsuit notes that Soelberg primarily interfaced with GPT-4o, a model notorious for its sycophancy . OpenAI later replaced the model with the slightly-less agreeable GPT 5 , but users revolted so the old bot came back just two days later . The suit also suggests that the company loosened critical safety guardrails when making GPT-4o to better compete with Google Gemini. OpenAI has been well aware of the risks their product poses to the public, the lawsuit states. But rather than warn users or implement meaningful safeguards, they have suppressed evidence of these dangers while waging a PR campaign to mislead the public about the safety of their products. OpenAI has responded to the suit, calling it an incredibly heartbreaking situation. Company spokesperson Hannah Wong told The Verge that it will continue improving ChatGPT's training to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress. It's not really a secret that chatbots, and particularly GPT-4o, can reinforce delusional thinking . That's what happens when something has been programmed to agree with the end user no matter what. There have been other stories like this throughout the past year, bringing the term AI psychosis to the mainstream . One such story involves 16-year-old Adam Raine, who took his own life after discussing it with GPT-4o for months . OpenAI is facing another wrongful death suit for that incident , in which the bot has been accused of helping Raine plan his suicide. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/lawsuit-accuses-chatgpt-of-reinforcing-delusions-that-led-to-a-womans-death-183141193.html?src=rss

Google Disco is an experimental web browser that builds AI widgets based on your tabs

The latest experiment emerging out of Google Labs is Disco, which is the company's AI-driven approach to web browsing. The first feature for Disco is called GenTabs, built on Google's Gemini 3 model. GenTabs are interactive widgets created from a mix of user prompts, open tabs and chat history. The preview examples demonstrate how GenTabs can create a model to demonstrate entropy as a study aid, or collect trip ideas into one screen for building an itinerary. The GenTab can be further refined with natural language requests, and it will also offer contextual suggestions for additions that may be helpful. Google's blog post announcing this concept notes that information given in a GenTab will include links to its sources. Google has a waitlist for people who want to try out Disco and GenTabs, although for now it's only on macOS. Google Labs projects don't always go the distance to an official public release, and the company even acknowledged that GenTabs will likely have some wonkiness at this experimental stage. But it's been clear for months that big tech companies are gunning for the best and fastest ways to put their AI tools into browsers, so it seems likely that there will be more features in this vein coming up soon. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-disco-is-an-experimental-web-browser-that-builds-ai-widgets-based-on-your-tabs-180000701.html?src=rss

Rivian goes all in on 'universal hands-free' driving at its first Autonomy and AI day

EV automaker Rivian just held its inaugural Autonomy and AI day which, unsurprisingly, focused extensively on hands-free driving. An upcoming software update promises the introduction of universal hands-free driving. The company says its vehicles will be able to autonomously navigate more than 3.5 million miles of roads in North America, covering the vast majority of marked roads in the US. This is coming to the R2 line of EVs , but also Gen 2 R1 vehicles like the recently-released Rivian R1S . The service will be locked behind a subscription for something called Autonomy+ that includes self-driving, but also offers access to forthcoming and unannounced autonomous features. Rivian customers can pay $2,500 for lifetime access to the platform or $50 per month. The R2 is getting LiDAR sensors, which will presumably help enable some of those upcoming autonomous features, in addition to a new chip called the Rivian Autonomy Processor. The processor has been designed for multimodal applications and runs the company's proprietary neural net engine. Both of these features are expected to ship on R2 models starting at the end of 2026. Today's event wasn't just about hands-free driving. Many of the company's vehicles will soon be given access to the AI-powered Rivian Assistant, which uses LLMs and can connect to apps like Google Calendar. This assistant will be model-agnostic, as it will orchestrate different models and choose the best one for the task. In addition to the upcoming R2, the company is prepping the R3 and R3X. A Rivian offshoot just introduced an extremely expensive, but modular, electric bike called the TM-B . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/rivian-goes-all-in-on-universal-hands-free-driving-at-its-first-autonomy-and-ai-day-172004733.html?src=rss

Disney has accused Google of copyright infringement on a 'massive scale'

Disney has accused Google of copyright infringement on a massive scale, alleging that the tech giant is training its AI tools on protected materials as well as allowing those tools to generate infringing images and videos. Variety reports that Disney attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google on Wednesday. Google is infringing Disneys copyrights on a massive scale, by copying a large corpus of Disneys copyrighted works without authorization to train and develop generative artificial intelligence (AI) models and services, and by using AI models and services to commercially exploit and distribute copies of its protected works to consumers in violation of Disneys copyrights, reads the letter, which Variety reviewed. The letter includes examples of images from several Disney properties including Deadpool, Moana, Star Wars and others, reproduced by Google's AI tools. Disney is demanding that Google implement guardrails within all its AI products to prevent further infringement. The media giant sent a similar letter to Character.AI in September, and is currently suing Hailuo and Midjourney over alleged copyright infringement. Copyright enforcement has become more challenging in the face of AI-created imagery, and companies are increasingly taking an if you can't beat them, join them approach. Today Disney announced a deal with OpenAI to license its characters for use in Sora, OpenAI's video generator. The deal will see Disney invest $1 billion in OpenAI (a paltry sum by some standards ), with the option to purchase additional equity at a later date. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/disney-has-accused-google-of-copyright-infringement-on-a-massive-scale-163737642.html?src=rss

CES 2026 preview: What to expect from tech's biggest conference in January

CES doesn't start until January, but whispers of the products and announcements that could be in store for tech's biggest annual conference have already started to take shape. The CES 2026 show floor is officially open from January 6 through 9, although the show kicks off with events on Sunday January 4 and a host of press conferences on Monday. As always, product demos, announcements and networking will be happening at the Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding hotels all over the city. As usual, Engadget will be covering the event in-person and remotely, bringing you news and hands-ons straight from the show floor. More specific details and pre-announcements should trickle out as CES approaches, but in the meantime, we do know what companies will be hosting press conferences and what tech trends could rear their heads at the show. What we already know about Press conferences and show floor booths are the bread and butter of CES. The Consumer Technology Association has already published a searchable directory of who will have a presence at the show, along with a schedule of every official panel and presentation. On Sunday, January 4, Samsung will kick-off CES with The First Look, a presentation hosted by TM Roh, the CEO of Samsung's DX Division, on the company's vision for the DX (Device eXperience) Division in 2026, along with new AI-driven customer experiences. That'll be followed by multiple press conferences throughout Monday, January 5. LG is hosting its Innovation in Tune with You presentation to share its vision for elevating daily life through Affectionate Intelligence at the start of the day, Intel is launching its new Core Ultra Series 3 processors in the afternoon, Sony Honda Mobility is holding a press conference on its first car and AMD CEO Lisa Su will cover AMD's upcoming chip announcements at a keynote address that closes out the day. Finally, on Tuesday, January 6, Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang will host Lenovo's Tech World Conference at Sphere, using the large and decidedly curved screen to share the company's commitment to delivering smarter AI for all by constantly redefining how technology can engage, inspire, and empower. Its worth noting that Lenovo is the parent company of Motorola, which still makes phones and foldables that feature AI tools, so its possible those devices feature in the presentation as well. Outside of the formal introduction of new products and initiatives, reading the tea leaves of what was announced last year and what companies are reportedly working on, we can make some educated guesses at what we could see at CES 2026. New chips from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm CES is frequently the start of a cascade of new chip announcements for a given year, and one of the first places new silicon appears in real consumer products. AMD will likely use its keynote to introduce new versions of its Ryzen chips, including the recently spotted Ryzen 7 9850X3D , which is expected to offer better single-threaded performance, and the Ryzen 9000G series, which could be built with AMD's Zen 5 architecture. The company might also use its CES stage to go over its new FSR Redstone AI upscaling tech. Intel has already publicly announced that it'll launch its Panther Lake chips at CES 2026. The officially titled Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips fit into Intel's overall AI PC push, but are specifically meant for premium laptops. Based on a preview from October 2025, Intel says the first chip made with its 2-nanometer 18A process will offer 50 percent more processing performance than previous generations and for the chip's Arc GPU, a 50 percent performance bump from last generation. Qualcomm is also rumored to be targeting laptops at the show, building on the work it's done moving its Snapdragon chips out of phones and tablets and into other types of computers. The company's Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Premium chips should start appearing in laptops at CES 2026, offering a look at the improved speed and AI performance the company promised in 2025. Brighter, ruer screens Sony announced a collection of new Bravia TVs in April 2025, replacing the company's flagship, filling in its midrange options and adding a new budget model to the mix. The star of this updated Bravia lineup is the Bravia 9, which features a QD-OLED panel, but Sony appears to be prepping entirely new display tech for 2026. In March 2025, Sony introduced a new RGB LED panel that uses individual Mini LED backlights colored in red, green and blue to produce even brighter, more accurate colors. In contrast to a QD-OLED, which filters a layer of blue organic light emitting diodes through quantum dots that change color, Sony's General RGB LED Backlight Technology can get as bright as a Mini LED panel without needing an extra filter layer or worrying about OLED's problems with burn-in. The company has already trademarked the name True RGB, which could end up being what Sony calls this new flavor of display if it decides to show them off at CES. It seems entirely likely, because CES is nothing if not a TV show its a sure bet that well see new TVs from the likes of LG and Samsung in addition to Sony. If the company doesn't introduce new display tech for its TVs, it does have a new 240Hz PlayStation monitor coming in 2026 that it could show off at CES instead. Sony isn't the only company hyped on bright screens. Samsung is reportedly pushing an updated version of the HDR10 and HDR10+ standards that could be ready to demo at CES 2026. The new HDR10+ Advanced standard would be Samsung's answer to Dolby Vision 2 , which includes support for things bi-directional tone mapping and intelligent features that automatically adapt sports and gaming content. Samsung's take will reportedly offer improved brightness, genre-based tone mapping and intelligent motion smoothing options, among other improvements. Ballie Watch 2026 The ball-shaped yellow robot lovingly known as Ballie has been announced twice, first in 2020 and then again in 2024 with a projector in tow. Samsung said Ballie would go on sale in 2025 at CES last year and then shared in April 2025 that Ballie would ship this summer with Google's Gemini onboard. But it's nearly 2026, and Ballie is nowhere to be seen. It's possible Samsung could make a third attempt at announcing its robot at CES 2026, but whether or not it does, robotics will still be a big part of the show. Robot vacuums and mops were a major highlight of CES 2025, and it's safe to expect notable improvements from the new models that are announced at CES 2026. Not every company will adopt the retractable arm of the Roborock Saros Z70 , but robot vacuums with legs for rising over small ledges like the Dreame X50 seem like they could become the norm. Roborock could also show off its new Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow , the first of its robot vacuums to feature a retractable roller mop. Beyond just traversing spaces more efficiently, improving robots' navigation could also be a major concern at the show. Prominent members of the AI industry are turning their attention from large language models to world models , which aim to give AI a deep understanding of physical space. Those world models could be the key to making robots, bipedal or otherwise, competent at navigating homes and workplaces, and will likely be a significant talking point at CES 2026. Well be updating this article throughout the month as more rumors surface and new products are confirmed stay tuned for future updates! Update, December 11 2025, 11:03AM ET: This story has been updated to include detail on Lenovo being Motorolas parent company and how the latter might have a part in the Tuesday presentation. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/ces-2026-preview-what-to-expect-from-techs-biggest-conference-in-january-120000200.html?src=rss

One of our favorite budgeting apps is 50 percent off for new users

With a new year just around the corner, now is the perfect time to take stock of your finances. A budgeting app can help with that, and right now you can get 50 percent off your first year of a Monarch Money plan. All you need to do is enter the code MONARCHVIP at checkout and youll pay $50 for the initial 12 months instead of the regular price of $100. Note that the offer only applies to new users. Monarch Money was the runner-up in our guide to the best budgeting apps in 2025, and it was definitely a grower. Initially we found the experience of using the app to be needlessly complicated compared to some of its rivals, but get over that hurdle and its impressively fully-featured. There are plenty of customization options, a helpful goals feature and a thorough month-in-review recap that beats out similar features from some of its competitors. We also like how you can grant account access to others. Besides the steep learning curve, we also noted that the mobile app is less intuitive to use than the web version, which might pose a problem if you were hoping to do most of your accounting on the go. We also had some issues with the app failing to distinguish between bills and other recurring expenses, as well as a few bugs along the way. All things considered, Monarch is definitely one of our favorite budgeting apps, only being beaten out by Quicken Simplifi. As you might expect, the biggest strength of Simplifi is its simplicity, and how it eases you into using its various features. If you value that kind of user experience, it might be a better choice for you, but theres unfortunately no free trial to take advantage of. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/one-of-our-favorite-budgeting-apps-is-50-percent-off-for-new-users-154056449.html?src=rss

Apple's AirPods Pro 3 drop to a new record low of $199

No need to fret if you missed out on some of the best Black Friday deals this year some of them have returned already. Case in point: Apple's AirPods Pro 3 , which came out in September this year, are on sale for a new record low of $199. That's 20 percent off and better than the discount we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With the new AirPods Pro, Apple made some big improvements, including better battery life and sound quality, and introduced useful new features, such as Live Translation. The AirPods Pro 3 are the best AirPods available today, with Apple's H2 chip, and earned a score of 90 out of 100 in Engadget's review this fall. Active noise cancellation (ANC) is one of the biggest selling points of the AirPods Pro, and Apple has made the experience even better with the AirPods Pro 3. They sport new foam-infused ear tips that create a better seal to improve passive noise isolation, and as Engadget's Billy Steele wrote in his review, Ultra-low-noise microphones combine with advanced computational audio to silence even more background noise. In testing, they had no problem blocking out the chatter of people nearby or otherwise noisy environments. With the AirPods Pro 3, Apple introduced heart-rate sensing, so you'll be able to see your heart rate data from the earbuds in the Fitness app and other workout apps. The AirPods Pro 3 also boast Live Translation, which you can activate via controls on the earbuds themselves. As long as you have an Apple Intelligence-capable device, you'll be able to translate in-person conversations in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin). Also on sale in the world of AirPods are the AirPods 4 with ANC , which are down $119 when you pick them up with two years of AppleCare+. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-airpods-pro-3-drop-to-a-new-record-low-of-199-222806888.html?src=rss

OpenAI signs deal to bring Disney characters to Sora and ChatGPT

It looks like Disney wasted no time delivering on CEO Bob Igers promise to bring AI-generated content to Disney+. On Thursday, the company announced the start of a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI to bring more than 200 of its beloved characters, including those from Star Wars and Pixar, to the Sora app and ChatGPT. With the deal in place, OpenAI users will be able to prompt ChatGPT to generate images that tap into Disneys intellectual property, with costumes, props, vehicles and environments covered. The agreement does not include voices or talent likenesses, meaning Sora users wont be able prompt the app to make a video with Black Widow and get something with Scarlett Johansson in it. Instead, both Sora and ChatGPT will only have access to animated and illustrated versions of Marvel and Star Wars characters like Black Panther, Captain America, Han Solo, Darth Vader and others. Disney will stream curated selections of Sora-generated fan videos on Disney+. Sora and ChatGPT users will be able to start generating images and videos with Disney characters starting in early 2026. Disney is the global gold standard for storytelling, and were excited to partner to allow Sora and ChatGPT Images to expand the way people create and experience great content, said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences. Disney has also agreed to become an OpenAI customer, promising to use the companys APIs to build new products, tools and experiences. Additionally, Disney will invest $1 billion in OpenAI, with the option to purchase additional equity down the road. OpenAI recently completed a restructuring to become more of traditional profit-seeking corporation, clearing the way for a potential IPO sometime in the next year or so. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-signs-deal-to-bring-disney-characters-to-sora-and-chatgpt-144344820.html?src=rss

Warios one and only 3D platformer is now playable on Switch 2

Nintendo has been slowly drip-feeding us GameCube games since the console joined its Nintendo Classics offering when the Switch 2 launched in June, and we just got another one. Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers can now play Warios one and only 3D platformer on the service. Wario World launched in 2003 and was developed by Treasure ( Gunstar Heroes , Ikaruga ). You play as Wario, the flatulent antithesis of Nintendos primary mascot, in what is a combat-heavy platformer. Warios castle has been overthrown by an evil piece of sentient jewellery called Black Jewel, and its up to the garlic-loving antihero to punch and piledrive everything in sight in order to reclaim it. Wario World was a relative commercial hit for Nintendo, but while many reviewers praised its chaotic gameplay, the games short length pulled the scores down. Interestingly, the same criticism was leveled at the similarly brief Luigis Mansion , which joined the Nintendo Classics app just ahead of Halloween. Wario World becomes the seventh GameCube game that can be played on the Switch 2 via NSO. The service launched with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker , F-Zero GX and Soulcalibur II . Since then Nintendo has added Super Mario Strikers , Chibi-Robo! , Luigis Mansion and now Wario World . The likes of Super Mario Sunshine and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance will arrive at some point. Its been a good week for NSO subscribers who enjoy retro 3D platformers. Yesterday Nintendo announced that Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble are coming to its N64 emulator on December 17. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/warios-one-and-only-3d-platformer-is-now-playable-on-switch-2-133011950.html?src=rss

Google's Gemini AI comes to Chrome on iPhone and iPad

After rolling it out on desktop and Android earlier in 2025 , Google is finally bringing its built-in Gemini AI experience to iPhone and iPad. It offers new features like summarizing pages and helping you test your knowledge about a subject you're learning. As with any AI tool, though, it shouldn't be trusted for anything important given the possibility of hallucinations and other errors. When it arrives on your iOS device, tapping the spark icon at the left of the address bar (in place of the Google Lens camera) brings up a Pages tool that offers Lens and the new feature, Ask Gemini. You can then chat with Gemini about the current web page (by default) or any other topic. It may then offer suggestions that appear in the chat box like: Summarize page: Tap to get key takeaways and insights that help you understand any topic. Create FAQ about this topic: Tap to get FAQs based on info from this page and similar sites. If you elect to just type in the chat window, here are some examples of what you can do: Summarize key takeaways from an article Explain a complex topic in a different way Help you test your knowledge of a new subject youre learning Modify a recipe to meet dietary needs Compare information or make recommendations based on your preferences The response to your chat questions will float over the web page that then shifts to the background. A new chat can be started from the top right corner, and you'll see a Liquid Glass overflow menu. For now, Gemini in Chrome on iPhone and iPad is only supported in the US with the browser language set to English. You need to be signed into Chrome and the feature doesn't work in incognito mode. Google also noted that the feature is only available to users 18 and older and may not roll out to your device immediately. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-gemini-ai-comes-to-chrome-on-iphone-and-ipad-130003432.html?src=rss

US could demand five-year social media history from tourists before allowing entry

Tourists from Europe and other regions could be asked to provide a five-year social media history before given entry to the United States, according to a new proposal from the US Customs and Border Protection service (CBP). The new rule would affect visitors from countries who normally enjoy relatively easy entry to the US via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). The new proposal cites an executive order issued by President Trump from January titled Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats. In his first year in office, Trump has been hyper-focused on strengthening US borders and reducing what he calls illegal immigration. The US state department will conduct online presence reviews for applicants and their dependents and require privacy settings on social media profiles to be made public. Applicants must list all the social media handles they've used over the last five years and if any information is omitted, it could lead to the denial of current and future visas. The CBP didn't say what information they were looking for or what could be disqualifying. On top of the social media information, CBP may require applicant's telephone numbers and email addresses used over the last five and 10 years respectively, along with information about family members. The new conditions are liable to increase ESTA wait times and drastically boost the cost of enforcing it. The CPB's document suggests that an additional 5,598,115 man-hours would be required per year, or around 3,000 full-time jobs plus all the costs that entails. Right now, the ESTA application costs $40, allows people to visit the US for 90 days at a time and is valid for a two-year period. The mandatory social media reporting and other requirements could discourage travelers. Some Australian tourists who were coming to the US for the upcoming World Cup have now said that they've abandoned those plans, according to The Guardian , with one person calling the new rules horrifying. However, when asked if the proposal could lead to a tourism decline in the US, Trump said he wasn't concerned. No. We're doing so well, he told a reporter. We want to make sure we're not letting the wrong people come enter our country. The CPB emphasized that the new conditions were only a proposal for now. Nothing has changed on this front for those coming to the United States [currently], a spokesperson told the BBC . This is not a final rule, it is simply the first step in starting a discussion to have new policy options to keep the American people safe. If implemented, the rule would affect people from 40 countries, including the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan. The largest number of tourists to the US come from Canada and Mexico, accounting for nearly half of the total however, visitors with passports from those two countries don't require a visa or ESTA approval. Travel to the US was down three percent this year compared to 2024 as of August 2025, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/us-could-demand-five-year-social-media-history-from-tourists-before-allowing-entry-102751243.html?src=rss

OnePlus 15R Ace Edition announced for December 17 launch

The Chinese smartphone maker said, OnePlus 15R is the ultimate value flagship, and the OnePlus 15R Ace Edition is perfect for those who wish to declare themselves the ultimate Ace gamer.

The best noise-canceling headphones for 2025

Noise is hard to escape, whether its the hum of traffic, the buzz of a busy office or the neighbors lawn mower starting up right when you need to focus. Thats where noise-canceling headphones earn their keep. A good pair doesnt just quiet the world around you, it creates a pocket of calm so you can actually enjoy your music, podcasts or peace and quiet. Modern noise-canceling headphones have come a long way, combining powerful ANC with clearer sound, longer battery life and smarter features like adaptive modes and multipoint connectivity. Some emphasize comfort for long flights, while others are tuned for audiophiles who want studio-level clarity. Weve tested a wide range of options to find the best noise-canceling headphones for every listener. Whether youre after something lightweight for travel or a premium set for focused work sessions, these picks deliver the sound, silence and comfort you need to tune out the chaos. Table of contents Best noise-canceling headphones for 2025 How to choose the best noise-canceling headphones for you How we test noise-canceling headphones Other noise-canceling headphones we tested Noise-canceling headphones FAQs Best noise-canceling headphones of 2025 How to choose the best noise-canceling headphones for you Design When youre shopping for the best wireless headphones, the first thing youll need to decide on is wear style. Do you prefer on-ear or over-ear headphones? For the purposes of this guide, I focus on the over-ear style as thats what most noise-canceling headphones are nowadays. Sure, you can find on-ear models with ANC, but over-ear, active noise-canceling headphones are much more effective at blocking outside sounds since your ears are completely covered. For gamers, there are also gaming headsets that feature noise cancellation some even have detachable microphones, so they can double as over-ear headphones. However, for the purpose of this article, were only going to be focusing on noise-canceling headphones rather than headsets. Look for models with a comfortable headband and memory foam ear cups to ensure you can wear them for long periods without discomfort. Many headphones also come with a range of color options, so if aesthetics matter to you, youll find plenty of choices beyond just black or white. Whether youre looking for something neutral or a bold pop of color, brands now offer a variety of styles to match your personal taste. Finally, if youre planning to wear your headphones for long periods of time, its important to pick a model with a comfortable fit. Memory foam ear cups, an adjustable headband, and lightweight materials can make all the difference during extended listening sessions. After all, great sound is only part of the equation; comfort matters just as much. Type of noise cancellation Next, youll want to look at the type of ANC a set of headphones offers. Youll come across terms like hybrid active noise cancellation or hybrid adaptive active noise cancellation, and there are key differences between the two. A hybrid ANC setup uses microphones on the inside and on the outside of the device to detect outside noise and cancel it out. By analyzing input from both mics, a hybrid system can combat more sounds than regular ANC, but it does so at a constant level that doesnt change. Adaptive ANC takes the hybrid configuration a step further by continuously adjusting the noise cancellation for changes in your environment and any leakage around the padding of the ear cups. Adaptive noise-canceling also does a better job with wind noise, which can really kill your vibe while using headphones outdoors. Some high-end headphones also support Dolby Atmos, which enhances spatial audio and makes everything from music to movies sound more immersive. For the purposes of this best headphones list, Im only considering products with hybrid ANC or adaptive ANC setups because those are the most effective at blocking noise and improving your overall listening experience. Customization Youll also want to check to see if the ANC system on a prospective set of headphones offers adjustable levels of noise cancellation or presets. These can help you dial in the amount of ANC you need for various environments, but it can also help you save battery life. Master & Dynamic, for example, has ANC presets that provide both maximum noise blocking and more efficient cancellation that is more energy efficient. Other companies may include a slider in their companion apps that let you adjust the ANC level to your liking. Some high-end models even allow you to fine-tune the ANC for specific types of environments. How we test noise-canceling headphones The primary way we test headphones is to wear them as much as possible. I prefer to do this over a one-to-two-week period, but sometimes deadlines dont allow it. During this time, I listen to a mix of music and podcasts , while also using the headphones to take both voice and video calls. Since battery life for headphones can be 30 hours or more, I drain the battery with looping music and the volume set at a comfortable level (usually around 75 percent). Due to the longer battery estimates, Ill typically power the headphones off several times and leave them that way during a review. This simulates real-world use and keeps me from having to constantly monitor the process for over 24 straight hours. To test ANC performance specifically, I use headphones in a variety of environments, from noisy coffee shops to quiet home offices. When my schedule allows, I use them during air travel since plane noise is a massive distraction to both work and relaxation. Even if I cant hop on a flight, Ill simulate a constant roar with white noise machines, bathroom fans, vacuums and more. I also make note of how well each device blocks human voices, which are a key stumbling block for a lot of ANC headphones. ANC-related features are something else to consider. Here, I do a thorough review of companion apps, testing each feature as I work through the software. Any holdovers from previous models are double checked for improvements or regression. If the headphones Im testing are an updated version of a previous model, Ill spend time getting reacquainted with the older set. Ditto for the closest competition for each new set of headphones that I review. Other noise-canceling headphones we tested AirPods Max Apples AirPods Max are premium, well-designed over-ear headphones that incorporate all of the best features you find on standard AirPods: solid noise cancellation, spatial audio and easy Siri access. However, their $550 starting price makes them almost prohibitively expensive, even for Apple users. There are better options available at lower prices, but if you can pick up the AirPods Max at a steep discount, they might be worthwhile for the biggest Apple fans among us. Dyson On-Trac The On-Trac headphones have an almost infinitely customizable design, and thats whats most unique about them. The sound profile offers some nice detail, but lacks dynamic range overall. ANC is average at best and there arent any advanced features that will make your life easier. Well, except for the hearing health monitor, which is actually handy. All told, thats not a lot for a set of $500 headphones. Sonos Ace The Sonos Ace is an excellent debut for the companys first headphones. The combination of refined design, great sound quality and home theater tricks creates a unique formula. However, ANC performance is just okay and key functionality is still in the works for many users. Sony ULT Wear If most headphones dont have the level of bass you desire, the ULT Wear is an option to consider. The low-end thump isnt for everyone, but there are also plenty of handy features and a refined look to make the $200 set more compelling than many in this price range. Beats Studio Pro The Studio Pro lacks basic features like automatic pausing, and multipoint connectivity is only available on Android. Moreover, theyre not very comfortable for people with larger heads. Overall sound quality is improved, though, and voice performance on calls is well above average. Master & Dynamic MH40 (2nd gen) The MH40 are a great set of headphones if you favor crisp, clear and natural sound that isnt overly tuned. This pair showcases the companys affinity for leather and metal too, but limited customization and short battery life for non-ANC cans kept this set from making the cut. Bowers & Wilkins Px8 The companys trademark pristine sound is on display here, but the Px8 is more expensive and not nearly as comfortable as the Px7 S3. Noble Audio FoKus Apollo While this is my top pick for overall sound quality in our main guide to the best wireless headphones , the ANC performance is less impressive than the Px7 S3. Bowers & Wilkins gets the nod here for its improved noise cancellation over the Px7 S2 and Px7 S2e, and its overall excellent audio quality. Noise-canceling headphones FAQs Does noise cancellation block all noise? Noise cancellation doesnt block out all noise, though it does drastically reduce the volume of most external sounds. Is there a difference between wired vs wireless noise-canceling headphones? In terms of sound quality, if you have two headphones one wired and one wireless with similar specs, the difference is going to be very minimal. However, wireless headphones offer more convenience, allowing you to move around more freely with your headphones on, which is why they often feature noise cancellation to minimize external sounds. Does noise cancellation impact sound quality? ANC does bear some weight on sound quality, but the impact of this often doesnt outweigh the benefits. Noise cancellation reduces ambient noise, allowing a greater focus on audio detail. For audiophiles, however, there may be a small difference in sound fidelity when ANC is turned on. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/best-noise-canceling-headphones-130029881.html?src=rss

Mewgenics, the next game from The Binding of Isaac's developer, will arrive next February on PC

Indie game developer Edmund McMillen hosted a Reddit AMA today offering some more details about his upcoming game Mewgenics . For starters, the Steam release date for this turn-based cat-breeding RPG has been slightly delayed to February 10. The game was first announced all the way back in 2012 and had most recently been slated for a launch some time this year. Part of the long development cycle was so that McMillen could pause to launch Super Meat Boy Forever , the sequel to his Super Meat Boy platforming hit from 2010. Gamers may also know McMillen for The Binding of Isaac , which has had some notable crossovers with titles like Balatro in recent years. Other tidbits from the AMA include the promise that McMillen already has DLC ideas, so expect to have additional content release after the base game is available. Although there doesn't seem to be any lack of replayability in Mewgenics; McMillen said I currently have 300+ hours across 2 saves and have only beaten the game on one save so far. There is also a plan to have some console versions of the game, although likely not until much later next year at the soonest, the dev added. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/mewgenics-the-next-game-from-the-binding-of-isaacs-developer-will-arrive-next-february-on-pc-235740063.html?src=rss

The NES game Jaws is getting a retro physical re-release on Switch and PS5

The year is 1987. Beverly Hills Cop II is the highest-grossing movie. Walk Like an Egyptian is the hottest song. The Iran-Contra scandal dominates American political headlines, while Konamis Contra sucks up coins in arcades. But towering above them all is the watershed moment of Jaws arriving on the NES. (This time there's no escape!, warned the box art.) Now, 38 years later, the 8-bit game is returning as a Limited Run Games physical re-release. The retro release coincides with the Spielberg movie's 50th anniversary. From December 19 to January 18, you can pre-order a physical copy for Switch and PS5. It will be available in two physical editions: a standard (Retro Edition) one for $35, and a deluxe (The Bigger Boat Edition) one for $100. The latter adds an NES-inspired box, a physical CD of the game soundtrack, a keychain and best of all a pixelated shark lamp. Both versions include original and enhanced versions of the 1987 game. Promo art for the Jaws NES reissue Limited Run Games The game is split mainly between a birds-eye view (where you pilot your boat around the map) and an underwater side view (where you harpoon the shit out of marine wildlife). Eventually, you'll encounter Jaws. After several of these encounters, gradually diminishing his hit points, you'll try to finish him off in a faux-3D perspective on the water's surface. If you think this sounds like a minor variation of what you found in a handful of other licensed NES games from that era, you wouldn't be wrong. You can pre-order the Jaws re-release from Limited Run Games' website , starting on December 19 at 10 AM ET. In the meantime, you can refresh your memory of the 8-bit game with the video below. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-nes-game-jaws-is-getting-a-retro-physical-re-release-on-switch-and-ps5-221052996.html?src=rss

Apple TV and Apple Music were down for some users

Apple Music and Apple TV were briefly down during outage, according to Apples System Status page . The outage was logged on Apples own system at around 2:53PM ET and affected both of the companys streaming services, along with Apple TVs Channels feature, until the company resolved the issue around 4:31PM ET. On DownDetector, reports of issues with Apple TV and Apple Music first appeared right around 2:33PM ET, a little before Apple officially confirmed the outage on its own site. Only some users were affected by the outage, according to Apple, and anecdotally, multiple members of Engadgets staff were still able to stream content while the services were reportedly out. Engadget has reached out to Apple for more information on the outage and how many people were impacted. Well update this article if we hear back. Apple relies on cloud services from third-party companies like Amazon, and is ultimately only as stable the data centers its paying for. In October 2025, the company was impacted by the same Amazon Web Services outage that took down services and apps like Alexa, Fortnite and Snapchat for hours. Update, December 10, 5:09PM ET: Article and headline updated to reflect that the outage has been resolved. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/apple-tv-and-apple-music-were-down-for-some-users-214425802.html?src=rss

Meta is reportedly working on a new AI model called 'Avocado' and it might not be open source

Mark Zuckerberg has for months publicly hinted that he is backing away from open-source AI models. Now, Meta's latest AI pivot is starting to come into focus. The company is reportedly working on a new model, known inside of Meta as Avocado, which could mark a major shift away from its previous open-source approach to AI development. Both CNBC and Bloomberg have reported on Meta's plans surrounding Avocado, with both outlets saying the model could be proprietary rather than open-source. Avocado, which is due out sometime in 2026, is being worked on inside of TBD, a smaller group within Meta's AI Superintelligence Labs that's headed up by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who apparently favors closed models. It's not clear what Avocado could mean for Llama. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg said he expected Meta would continue to be a leader in open source but that it wouldn't open source everything that we do. He's also cited safety concerns as they relate to superintelligence.As both CNBC and Bloomberg note, Meta's shift has also been driven by issues surrounding the release of Llama 4. The Llama 4 Behemoth model has been delayed for months ; The New York Times reported earlier this year that Wang and other execs had discussed abandoning it altogether. And developers have reportedly been unimpressed with the Llama 4 models that are available. There have been other shakeups within the ranks of Meta's AI groups as Zuckerberg has spent billions of dollars building a team dedicated to superintelligence . The company laid off several hundred workers from its Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit. And Meta veteran and Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, who has been a proponent for open-source and skeptical of LLMs, recently announced he was leaving the company. That Meta may now be pursuing a closed AI model is a significant shift for Zuckerberg, who just last year said fuck that about closed platforms and penned a lengthy memo titled Open Source AI is the Path Forward. But the notoriously competitive CEO is also apparently intensely worried about falling behind OpenAI, Google and other rivals. Meta has said it expects to spend $600 billion over the next few years to fund its AI ambitions. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source-215426778.html?src=rss

Spotify's new playlist feature gives users more control over their recommendation algorithm

Spotify is attempting to give users more control over the music the streaming service recommends with a new playlist feature called Prompted Playlist. The beta feature is rolling out in New Zealand starting on December 11, and will let users write a custom prompt that Spotify can use alongside their listening history to create a playlist of new music. By tapping on Prompted Playlist, Spotify subscribers participating in the beta will be presented with a prompt field where they can type exactly what they want to hear and how they want Spotify's algorithm to respond. And while past AI features took users' individual taste into consideration, Spotify claims Prompted Playlist taps into your entire Spotify listening history, all the way back to day one. Prompted Playlist will exist alongside Spotify's other playlist features. Spotify Prompts can be as broad or specific as users want, and Spotify says playlists can also be set to automatically update with new songs on a specific cadence. An Ideas tab in the Prompted Playlist setup screen can provide suggestions for users who need inspiration for their prompt. And interestingly, Spotify says each song in the playlist will be presented with a short description explaining why the algorithm chose it, which could help direct future fine-tuning. If this all sounds familiar, it's because Spotify has already tried AI-generated playlists in the past. The difference here, besides Spotify framing the new feature as giving users more control, is the detail of the prompts, the depth of user data Spotify is applying and the options users will have to keep playlists up-to-date. Prompted Playlist is only available in English for now, but Spotify says the feature will evolve as it adds more users. Spotify isn't the first company to offer users more direct control over how content is recommended to them. Meta has recently started experimenting with algorithm-tuning options in Threads and Instagram , and TikTok lets users completely reset their For You page to start fresh. The irony of all these features is that algorithm-driven feeds were supposed to be able to recommend good music, posts and videos without additional prompting. Now that prompting is being pitched as a feature, rather than extra work. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotifys-new-playlist-feature-gives-users-more-control-over-their-recommendation-algorithm-203237903.html?src=rss

Intel loses its latest challenge to 16-year-old EU antitrust case

Intel will have to pay up in an antitrust case dating back to 2009 , Reuters reported on Wednesday. The company has lost its challenge against a 376 million ($438.7 million) regulatory fine levied by the European Commission. However, Intel managed to get the amount reduced to 237 million euros ($276.6 million). The case began in 2009, when mobile computing was in its infancy and netbooks ( remember those? ) were all the rage in the PC space. At the time, the EU ruled that Intel violated antitrust laws on multiple fronts. First, it used illegal hidden rebates to push rivals out of the PC processor market. Second, it paid manufacturers to delay or stop production of AMD-powered products. The latter, the portion that today's fine deals with, was classified as naked restrictions. It regarded anticompetitive payments Intel made to HP, Acer and Lenovo between 2002 and 2006. As often happens in these situations, the legal process bounced back and forth through the courts for years. In 2017, Europe's highest court ordered the case to be re-examined , citing a lack of proper economic assessment of how Intel's behavior affected its rivals. Europe's second-highest court then overturned the judgment from the first (hidden rebates) portion of the fine in 2022, a move confirmed by the EU Court of Justice last year. That penalty, initially set at a whopping 1.06 billion ($1.2 billion), was wiped off the books. The second (naked restrictions) fine was imposed in 2023 after European courts upheld that portion. Intel's latest challenge sought to have that one removed, too. Instead, it will have to settle for shaving one-third off the initial sum. With todays judgment, it's tempting to declare the matter over and done with. But the Commission and Intel can still appeal the decision to the EU Court of Justice on points of law. Tune in next year to see if this long, strange saga has another chapter. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/intel-loses-its-latest-challenge-to-16-year-old-eu-antitrust-case-200746004.html?src=rss

The 10 best white elephant gifts worth fighting over for 2025

There are a lot of competing ideas as to what a white elephant gift exchange really is. The origins of the term white elephant point to one definition: According to legend, the King of Siam would give a white elephant to courtiers who had upset them. It was a far more devious punishment than simply having them executed. The recipient had no choice but to simply thank the king for such an opulent gift, knowing that they likely could not afford the upkeep for such an animal. It would inevitably lead them to financial ruin. While that story is almost certainly untrue, it can inform one approach to the white elephant gift exchange: gifting something just useful or amusing enough that it wont immediately get tossed into the trash, but is also somewhat of a burden. However, every workplace, friend group and family unit has their own approach to white elephant gift exchanges nowadays. Some compete to get a gift that others will surely want to steal, while others scavenge for the most niche and targeted gag gifts. Almost all of them, though, typically have a price limit that keeps the burden of gift giving to a minimum usually $50 or less. So with all of that in mind, here are some white elephant gift ideas that will get you a few chuckles without requiring you to spend too much (or think too hard about it). Best white elephant gift ideas White elephant FAQs What is white elephant? A white elephant gift exchange is a party game typically played around the holidays in which people exchange funny, impractical gifts. How does white elephant work? A group of people each bring one wrapped gift to the white elephant gift exchange, and each gift is typically of a similar value. All gifts are then placed together and the group decides the order in which they will each claim a gift. The first person picks a white elephant gift from the pile, unwraps it and their turn ends. The following players can either decide to unwrap another gift and claim it as their own, or steal a gift from someone who has already taken a turn. The rules can vary from there, including the guidelines around how often a single item can be stolen some say twice, max. The game ends when every person has a white elephant gift. Why is it called white elephant? The term white elephant is said to come from the legend of the King of Siam gifting white elephants to courtiers who upset him. While it seems like a lavish gift on its face, the belief is that the courtiers would be ruined by the animals upkeep costs. Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-10-best-white-elephant-gifts-worth-fighting-over-for-2025-150516281.html?src=rss

The world premieres and other hotness from The Game Awards 2025 Day of the Devs stream

You gotta love that post-Day of the Devs showcase feeling. The organization, founded by Double Fine Productions and iam8bit, consistently highlights top-tier games from independent developers across the globe, providing space for creators to share their stories in both online and in-person events. This years Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Digital Showcase was an hour-long celebration of 22 upcoming indie games, including six world premieres and three release date announcements. Settle in and bask in the afterglow with us: World Premieres Virtue and a Sledgehammer - Deconstructeam Deconstructeam is a small Spanish studio thats responsible for some of the most cerebral, sexy and darkly philosophical games around, including Gods Will Be Watching , The Red Strings Club and The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood . The teams next project is Virtue and a Sledgehammer , and it represents a new look with 3D, cel-shaded animations and a third-person perspective rather than the studios typical pixelated planar fare. The vibes are just as sinister and introspective as expected, though. Virtue and a Sledgehammer is a moody coming-of-age experience set in a wooded ghost town dotted with robots and lost locals. Spend quiet moments with old friends and then swing the sledgehammer to raze your hometown and uncover memories that can help you move on. The games buildings and objects are highly reactive, which can only help with the catharsis of it all. Virtue and a Sledgehammer is due to hit Steam in 2026, published by Devolver Digital. UN:Me - Shueisha Games Now, this is a horror game. UN:Me comes from Japanese publisher Shueisha Games and developer Historia, and its a creepy, mind-bending exploration of primal fear. It stars a young woman with four souls trapped inside of her body, fighting for control of her consciousness. She wanders sterile, illogical hallways and encounters grotesque horrors representing common human fears like heights, authority figures and confined spaces. The souls switch randomly, each one manifesting a specific anxiety. As she wanders, the player has to choose souls to eliminate until only one remains. Whether its her real soul or a fake isnt disclosed until the very end. UN:Me is available to wishlist now on Steam . Scramble Knights Royale - Funktronic Labs Funktronic Labs is mainly known as a VR studio, with games like Cosmic Trip , Fujii and The Light Brigade under its belt, but its latest project doesnt require a headset at all. Scramble Knights Royale is coming to PC and Xbox in 2026, and its a battle royale with adventure game twists. You begin on a boat with 30 to 40 other online players, make your way to land on the back of a turtle, and then its essentially Naked and Afraid from there. Find resources, fight creatures, upgrade your gear and play your own game, only battling other players when you encounter them in the wild. Dont let the sweet, clay-like animations fool you, either Funktronic says the combat mechanics are incredibly deep and finely honed. Scramble Knights Royale also supports local split-screen. Mirria - Mografi Mografi made a name for itself with the adorable Jenny LeClue detective game, but now its time for something different. Mirria is an atmospheric puzzle experience from ISLANDS: Non-Places artist Carl Burton, published by Mografi, and it looks like a delicious mix of Kentucky Route Zero and Monument Valley . In Mirria , you explore mirror worlds and attempt to make the two realities match, paying attention to small details and making minute adjustments until the unsettling environments are perfect reflections. It looks and sounds like soul-soothing stuff. Mirria is due out in 2026 on Steam. CorgiSpace - Finji In recent years, Finji founder Adam Saltsman has been involved in high-profile indie games like Overlands , Night in the Woods , Tunic and Usual June , but his new project taps into his simplistic and mechanics-driven Canabalt roots. Corgispace is a collection of 8-bit games with off-kilter premises, including the soulslike Rat Dreams where you can only dodgeroll, the no-jumping platformer Skeleton Jeleton , and Prince of Prussia , an adventure where you stab Nazis but in a fun new way, according to Saltsman. Also, he says there are no secrets in this game, which leads us to believe there is at least one secret in this game. Corgispace is out now (!) on Steam and Itch.io . Frog Sqwad - Panic Stations If the former Fall Guys developers at Panic Stations know how to do one thing, its make a silly-physics multiplayer game, so thats exactly what theyre doing. Frog Sqwad is a co-op experience where you and your fellow frogs search the sewers for food in order to satiate the swamp king. You can eat food to grow bigger and become the mega frog, vomit to shrink, and use your long sticky tongue to swing, hang and slingshot your friends. The sewer levels are procedurally generated, so your froggy playground will always be different, and each run gets harder as the swamp king requires more food. Frog Sqwad is coming to Steam in 2026, with a playtest beforehand. Release dates Dogpile by Studio Folly, Toot Games and Foot: Today, like literally right now Big Hops by Luckhsot Games: January 12 Demon Tides by Fabraz: February 19, 2026 And the rest The stream featured a dozen other in-development titles, including the super spooky Lucid Falls , a 90s-grunge-band rhythm game called Rockbeasts , the soothing alien musicality of Soundgrass , an impressive-looking follow-up to The Invincible called Into the Fire , and Unshine Arcade , a creepy game about the secret lives of tamagotchis and claw machines. The Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Digital Showcase 2025 wrapped up with a neat little announcement. The organization teamed up with the Video Game History Foundation to release Xcavator 2025 , a finished version of a long-lost game from legendary programmer Chris Oberth. It was originally developed by Big Buck Hunter studio Incredible Technologies but never found a publisher. Its been revived by Mega Cat Studios, Retrotainment Games and iam8bit, and an NES cartridge of Xcavator 2025 is available to pre-order now on iam8bit . Proceeds will benefit the Video Game History Foundation. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-world-premieres-and-other-hotness-from-the-game-awards-2025-day-of-the-devs-stream-200000447.html?src=rss

12 steps you can take right now to be safer online

There's a fundamental question you can ask of both the internet and real life: How do I enjoy my time here without taking unnecessary risks? In grass-touching meatspace, you can cut out processed foods, carry pepper spray and avoid skydiving without a partner. But the best methods for staying safe online aren't as intuitive. The internet is a massive town square where people are constantly bellowing deeply personal facts about themselves. It's no surprise that it's become a breeding ground for scams, theft and other criminal activity. Given the breadth of dangers, it may feel easier to throw up your hands and say that whatever happens will happen. I'm here to tell you, though, that cybersecurity doesn't have to be complex, difficult or time-consuming. You don't need to be a hacker to foil a hacker you only have to take advantage of simple tips and free apps designed to make you safer online. Whether you commit to all 12 detailed here or only focus on one, you'll be much more secure for it. 1. Install security updates immediately One of the most important things you can do to ensure your digital security is to install all software updates as soon as they become available on your devices. When you see the notification, don't wait train yourself to download the update immediately. Not all software updates are about security, but the ones that are form your best line of defense against technical hacks. When developers discover a flaw that can be exploited, they ship an update to fix it. By the time the flaw gets patched, chances are very high that hackers also know about it, so any time lost means you could be the next to get exploited. As you go down this list, you'll learn that cybersecurity threats are less technical than you think. To counter the ones that are, however, there's nothing more important you can do than install security updates. 2. Use strong passwords Weak, easily guessed passwords are one of the most frequent causes of data breaches and malware attacks. If a password is one of the ten or so most common, an attacker may be able to guess it with no other information. If it's connected to you your birthday, say, or mother's maiden name it may be guessable from information anyone can look up online. Even if your password is a random string of characters, it might still be guessable if it's too short. Hackers can use programs to guess all possible combinations and try each one on a target account. The longer a password is, the more exponentially difficult it is to guess. SEAN GLADWELL via Getty Images That means you need passwords that are both long and meaningless to you. You might rightly complain that these are bastards to remember, but you're in luck: password managers can do that for you. A password manager app or browser extension can create passwords when you need them, store them securely and fill them in automatically. All you have to remember is the one master password that unlocks all the others. 3. Set up two-factor authentication Even the strongest password might get revealed through no fault of your own, like if it's stored without encryption and leaked in a data breach. That's why it helps to have two-factor authentication (2FA), also known as multi-factor authentication (MFA), as a second secure layer on every account. You probably already know 2FA as the irritating extra step that makes you go get your phone but that's not the only way to do it. Many apps, including Google and Apple, now let you log in through passkeys . These not only don't require you to enter a code or password, but use asymmetric encryption, sharing credentials between your device and the service that runs the passkeys. It's a lot quicker for you, and leaves nothing to steal. 4. Back everything up Ransomware and its cousins are a growth industry within the cybercrime economy. These attacks corrupt your files or lock you out of them until you pay a fee to get them back. The easiest way to foil a ransomware attack, or to clear any other kind of malware off a device, is to restore the entire system from the most recent backup. To make sure you actually have a backup, experts recommend the 3-2-1 rule: three different backups, on two different types of storage, with at least one physically distant from the main system. For example, you could have one backup on another device in your house, one in the cloud and one on a portable hard drive. Automatic backup services can save disk images for you at set intervals so you don't have to remember to do it yourself. 5. Learn to spot social engineering Despite all the technobabble flying around the cybersecurity world, a great many scams and hacks are accomplished through methods a 19th-century con artist would recognize. Scammers pose as experts or authority figures to gain your trust, and use frightening language to bypass your critical thinking. Ticking clocks, emotional manipulation and fake identities are all in the toolbox. Alex Cristi via Getty Images Take phishing, in which hackers trick you into giving up your information willingly. A typical phishing email might pose as a bank, credit bureau or other authoritative service. In red letters, it may demand your bank password or social security number to immediately fix an irregularity with your account. Other common approaches include warning you about speeding tickets you never incurred or sending receipts for subscriptions you never bought. Social engineering attacks are constantly evolving, but they often fall back on the same strategies. The best way to foil them is to take a deep breath every time you receive a frightening email or text message, then research it in detail: look up the email address, check the visual design to make sure the sender is who they claim to be, and ask yourself if there's any way the message could be true. I highly recommend working through this phishing quiz it's tough, but fair, and extremely educational. 6. Always check links before clicking This is a companion to the previous tip. Social engineering scams don't always try to get you to give up information yourself. They also get you to click on links that put secret malware on your device like keyloggers that watch you type your passwords or ransomware programs that corrupt your files. If you're ever not sure about an email attachment or a link you're being asked to click, copy the link (without opening it) and paste it into a URL checker like this one from NordVPN . These free tools can tell you if a link is associated with any known malware domains. Sam Chapman for Engadget You can also mouse over any link, then look at the bottom-left of your browser to see what URL it will take you to. If an email is from your bank, any links within it should go to your bank's website. If it's going anywhere else, especially to an unidentifiable string of characters, be suspicious. A related tip is to never copy and paste something into your URL bar if you aren't absolutely sure of what it will do. Social engineering doesn't always get you to click the link sometimes attackers leave it un-hyperlinked so mousing over it doesn't reveal anything. This also goes for the command modules on desktop and laptop computers. In a recent documented attack , hackers convinced AI chatbots to suggest a command that gave them root access to the victim's device. Never copy-paste anything into the command window without verifying it first, especially if an AI told you to do it. 7. Don't overshare Over the last two decades, lots of us have gotten into the habit of dumping all sorts of personal information on social media. This trend has supercharged the scam economy. It may seem harmless to broadcast the names of your kids or the dates you'll be on vacation, but every piece of data you put into the world makes it easier for a stranger to get hooks into you. For example, grandparent scams are on the rise right now. Grifters contact a target, usually a senior, pretending to be their grandchild. They'll claim to be in a crisis and need money fast. The more information they have on their target, the more convincing their tale of woe will be. Social media is a prime place to study a potential victim. Oversharing can also be a compounding problem. If you use weak passwords, your public information can be used to guess your credentials or answer your security questions. So, if you don't have a password manager yet, think twice before you engage with that quiz post on Facebook that asks for the name of your childhood pet. 8. Use a VPN I'm a big booster of virtual private networks (VPNs), but it's important to be realistic about what they can and can't do. Even the best VPNs aren't total cybersecurity solutions you can't just set one and assume you're safe forever. A VPN can't protect you if you use easily guessed passwords, for example, or click on a malware link. It's about hiding your identity, not making you invulnerable. So what can a VPN do? In short, it replaces your IP address (a fingerprint that identifies you online) with another IP address, belonging to a server owned by the VPN. The VPN server does business with the internet on your behalf, while its conversations with your device are encrypted so it can't be traced back to you. Sam Chapman for Engadget This means no third party can connect your online actions with your real-world identity. Nobody will be harvesting data on the websites you visit to sell to advertisers, nor building a file on you that an unscrupulous government might misuse. VPNs also protect you from fake public Wi-Fi networks set up by cybercriminals even if a hacker tricks you with a man-in-the-middle attack, they can't do much without your real IP address. Many top VPNs, including my top pick Proton VPN , include ad blockers that can also keep cookies and tracking pixels from latching onto you. So, even if a VPN can't do everything, you'll be far safer and more private with one than without one. If you dont want to pay for a new subscription right now, I've also compiled a list of the best free VPNs that are actually safe to use. 9. Run regular virus scans The most important time to look for malware is when you're downloading a file from the internet. Not only can unwanted apps hitch rides on seemingly safe files, but links can start downloads in secret, even if you don't think they're meant to be downloading anything. A solid antivirus program can catch malware as it arrives on your system, and if it's uncertain, can lock suspicious files in quarantine until it knows whether they're safe or not. Dedicated antivirus apps are sometimes even capable of catching malware that hasn't been seen or used yet. AV software uses machine learning to identify the common patterns of malware, filtering out new viruses that behave like old ones. But what about malware that's already gotten through the perimeter? An antivirus app can also check your computer at set intervals in search of unwanted apps, including those that might be masquerading as system files. Windows computers now come pre-installed with Windows Defender, which is enough to handle most of these tasks, but I recommend at least one anti-malware program on any device. 10. Use email maskers and private search engines If you're concerned about your information being misused or mishandled, remember that the less you put out into the world, the less danger you're in. Keeping your private data off social media is one important step, but there are other ways your data gets disseminated and other options for responding. For example, you often need an email address to sign up for an online account. If you use your real email, your contact information is now floating around online, increasing the chance of someone using it to scam you (or at least adding you to mailing lists you never signed up for). To stay safe, use an email masker. These services give you a fake email address you can use to create accounts, which automatically forwards messages to your real address. Sam Chapman for Engadget Search engines, especially Google, are also notorious for building profiles on users by watching the terms they search for. You can dodge that by switching to a private search engine like DuckDuckGo , which doesn't track anything you do it's funded by non-targeted ad sales on its search results pages, not by selling your data to brokers. 11. Use a data removal service Speaking of data brokers: unfortunately, if you've been on the internet at any point in the last 10 years without taking intense precautions, your data is probably in the hands of at least one business that makes money by hoarding and selling it. These data brokers range from public-facing, people-search sites to private backend dealers. Data brokers are poorly regulated and lax about safety. The longer one has your personal information, the more likely it is to leak. The good news is that most brokers (though not all of them) are legally required to delete your data if you ask them to. However, there are a lot of data brokers out there, and they really want to keep your data. Each one makes opting out harder than uninstalling a Norton product and hundreds of them may have files on you. To make the process easier, you can use a data removal service like DeleteMe or Surfshark VPN's partner service Incogni. 12. Practice physical security Let's close out the list by getting a little old school. I've already discussed how many online scams depend on classic con artistry to work. By the same token, physical infiltration and smash-and-grab tactics still pose a threat to cybersecurity. It doesn't take too much imagination to see how this could work. If you leave your laptop or phone unattended in public, for example, someone might insert a flash drive that loads malware onto the system. In one illustrative case, a thief in the Minneapolis area would loiter in bars, watch people unlock their phones, then steal those phones and unlock them himself. I'm not saying you need to be paranoid every second you're in public. Just use the same level of caution you'd use to protect your car. Lock your phone with a biometric key so only you can open it, and make sure not to leave any device lying around if it can access your online accounts. And at work, be careful not to let anyone into a secure area if they don't have the proper credentials. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/12-steps-you-can-take-right-now-to-be-safer-online-130008335.html?src=rss

State Department: Calibri font was a DEI hire

The US Department of State is unwinding a 2023 decision to use san-serif Calibri font on all official communications and switching to Times New Roman instead, The New York Times reports . In a memo obtained by NYT titled Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper, Secretary of State Marco Rubio frames the change as a way to return professionalism to the State Department. Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the departments official correspondence, Rubio said in the memo. That's because the font is informal and clashes with the State Department's letterhead, according to Rubio, while serif fonts like Times New Roman connote tradition, formality and ceremony. Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken originally switched the State Department to Calibri in 2023 to improve the accessibility of official communications. The curvy, flourish-free lines of sans-serif fonts work better with assistive technologies like screen readers and text-to-speech tools. Serif fonts, meanwhile, are typically used in things like newspapers to make small, printed text legible. While Rubio notes that Calibri was not among the departments most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A., it seems clear that Rubio lumps the font in with those same diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives. Getting rid of it is an easy (and weirdly petty) way to follow through on the second Trump administration's anti-DEI stance towards just about everything. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/state-department-calibri-font-was-a-dei-hire-190454957.html?src=rss

Hackers tricked ChatGPT, Grok and Google into helping them install malware

Ever since reporting earlier this year on how easy it is to trick an agentic browser , I've been following the intersections between modern AI and old-school scams. Now, there's a new convergence on the horizon: hackers are apparently using AI prompts to seed Google search results with dangerous commands. When executed by unknowing users, these commands prompt computers to give the hackers the access they need to install malware. The warning comes by way of a recent report from detection-and-response firm Huntress. Here's how it works. First, the threat actor has a conversation with an AI assistant about a common search term, during which they prompt the AI to suggest pasting a certain command into a computer's terminal. They make the chat publicly visible and pay to boost it on Google. From then on, whenever someone searches for the term, the malicious instructions will show up high on the first page of results. Huntress ran tests on both ChatGPT and Grok after discovering that a Mac-targeting data exfiltration attack called AMOS had originated from a simple Google search. The user of the infected device had searched clear disk space on Mac, clicked a sponsored ChatGPT link and lacking the training to see that the advice was hostile executed the command. This let the attackers install the AMOS malware. The testers discovered that both chatbots replicated the attack vector. As Huntress points out, the evil genius of this attack is that it bypasses almost all the traditional red flags we've been taught to look for. The victim doesn't have to download a file, install a suspicious executable or even click a shady link. The only things they have to trust are Google and ChatGPT, which they've either used before or heard about nonstop for the last several years. They're primed to trust what those sources tell them. Even worse, while the link to the ChatGPT conversation has since been taken off Google, it was up for at least half a day after Huntress published their blog post. This news comes at a time that's already fraught for both AIs. Grok has been getting dunked on for sucking up to Elon Musk in despicable ways , while ChatGPT creator OpenAI has been falling behind the competition . It's not yet clear if the attack can be replicated with other chatbots, but for now, I strongly recommend using caution. Alongside your other common-sense cybersecurity steps , make sure to never paste anything into your command terminal or your browser URL bar if you aren't certain of what it will do. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/hackers-tricked-chatgpt-grok-and-google-into-helping-them-install-malware-185711492.html?src=rss

YouTube TV Plans will let you choose genre-specific content packages

YouTube TV, which launched in 2017 as a $35-per-month all-in-one service, will soon introduce YouTube TV Plans. Although the announcement is light on details, we know the initiative will let you sign up for genre-specific packages, such as sports and news. In other words, it's the final step in the legacy-cable-ification of the service . YouTube hasn't said anything about pricing. But it's probably safe to assume that narrowing your available content will reduce your bill. A year ago, the company raised its monthly cost to $83. That's 137 percent higher than the services launch price nearly nine years ago. We don't yet have the full list of available plans, but YouTube mentioned packages for sports, news and family and entertainment content. As expected, it promised that you can mix and match them. The YouTube TV Sports Plan will include access to all major broadcast channels and several sports networks, like all ESPN networks, FS1, and NBC Sports Network. It sounds similar to offerings from Fubo and DirecTV . YouTube TV plans will launch in early 2026. The current $83 all-in-one model will remain available alongside it. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/youtube-tv-plans-will-let-you-choose-genre-specific-content-packages-182909455.html?src=rss

Amazon brings same-day deliveries of perishable food items to 1,300 new areas

Amazon is introducing same-day delivery of perishable food items to 1,300 new cities and towns throughout the country, upping the total service area to more than 2,300 locations. This expansion covers cities like Boise, Salt Lake City, Fort Collins, Omaha, Des Moines and many more. Check the link to see if it has expanded to where you live . The commerce giant says it will be bringing the service to even more cities in 2026, making the platform a real rival to stuff like Instacart and Walmart+. Amazon introduced this feature earlier this year and it has proven to be quite the success, given today's move. It lets people order perishable food items like fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat alongside other more traditional items like electronics and books. Amazon uses a specialized temperature-controlled fulfillment network to ensure that perishables remain in tip-top shape and they are delivered in insulated bags. The deliveries are free for Prime members, as long as the order exceeds $25. Everyone else has to pay $13 per order. Amazon The company says that fresh groceries already make up nine of the top ten most-ordered items for quick delivery, which is a fairly astounding metric. People want their avocados. Amazon has been steadily increasing the number of items available via this method by incorporating Whole Foods products. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-brings-same-day-deliveries-of-perishable-food-items-to-1300-new-areas-175746531.html?src=rss

The UK government will 'look into' Rockstar's firing of union-organizing workers

Rockstar Games may have to answer for what appears to be union-busting behavior. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, under pressure from parliament, said the government will look into the firing of 31 employees in October. The sacked workers were all part of a private trade union chat group on Discord. The company claimed the firings were for gross misconduct and accused the workers of sharing confidential information outside of the company. But based on what we know, it's hard to see that characterization as anything but union-busting in search of legal cover. The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) described the case as the most blatant and ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry. In November, IWGB issued legal claims against the Grand Theft Auto developer. The next day, over 200 staff at Rockstar North signed a letter condemning the firings and pressuring management to reinstate the workers. Earlier that month, the fired workers and their supporters protested outside Rockstar North's Edinburgh headquarters. Others picketed in Paris, London and New York. Fired workers and supporters protesting outside Rockstar's headquarters IWGB Its clear to everyone close to this situation that this is a blatant, unapologetic act of vicious union busting, one of the fired staffers said anonymously in a November statement. Rockstar employs so many talented game developers, all of whom are crucial to making the games we put out. Edinburgh East and Musselburgh MP Chris Murray, who prompted Starmer's response, said in parliament that he recently met with Rockstar to discuss the case. The meeting only entrenched my concerns about the process Rockstar used to dismiss so many of their staff members, he said. I was not assured their process paid robust attention to UK employment law, I was not convinced that this course of action was necessary, and alarmingly, I did not leave informed on exactly what these 31 people had done to warrant their immediate dismissal. Murray added that Rockstar initially refused entry to the MPs unless they signed a non-disclosure agreement. The company eventually relented on that front. On Wednesday, Murray triggered Starmer's response in parliament. The MP asked the Prime Minister if he agreed that all companies, regardless of profit size, must follow UK employment law and all workers have the right to join a union? Starmer replied that he found the case deeply concerning. He added that every worker has the right to join a trade union, and we're determined to strengthen workers' rights and ensure they don't face unfair consequences for being part of a union. Our ministers will look into the particular case the member raises and will keep him updated. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-uk-government-will-look-into-rockstars-firing-of-union-organizing-workers-174216696.html?src=rss

The next Nintendo Switch Online additions are N64 games Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble

Nintendo has announced its Nintendo Switch Online additions for December, which are for all the N64-era 3D platformer fans out there. On December 17, Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble are joining the Switchs Nintendo Classics library. As a reminder, N64 games are exclusive to Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers, along with the emulators for the Game Boy Advance, Sega Genesis and GameCube. For retro gaming completionsists, Tonic Trouble might actually be the more interesting get for NSO, despite being far less well known than the Rayman series. It was Ubisofts first 3D platformer, but a number of delays meant it ended up releasing in the same year as Rayman 2 , and therefore has become a bit lost to time. The game stars an alien janitor named Ed, who accidentally drops a powerful green tonic out of his spaceship and all over Earth, making a mutated mess of the planet that he has to clean up. Tonic Trouble was also conceptualized by Rayman creator Michel Ancel, but Ubisoft clearly only had room for one limbless mascot going forward. Arriving in 1999, Rayman 2: The Great Escape was the series Super Mario 64 moment, reimagining the original 2D game as a 3D platformer that was met with critical acclaim at launch. These days, the superb Rayman Legends would probably be most fans pick for the best game in the long-running series, but Rayman 2 would likely be near the top of the list. Todays announcement means that Rayman arrives on the N64 NSO app before Nintendo's own Donkey Kong 64 , which has been one of the most requested games for years. Why the company still hasnt handed that one over in a year when the big ape made his triumphant 3D platformer comeback remains a mystery. But with the Rayman series kicking off its 30th anniversary celebrations back in September, the arrival of Rayman 2 makes a lot of sense. Nintendo updated its N64 app for the launch of the Switch 2 earlier this year. Fire it up on today and you can make use of a rewind function, as well as a new CRT filter for optimum nostalgia. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-next-switch-online-additions-are-n64-games-rayman-2-the-great-escape-and-tonic-trouble-171500122.html?src=rss

OpenAI's house of cards seems primed to collapse

OpenAI is in a far less commanding position than it was following the public release of ChatGPT a few short years ago. Back in 2022, the sudden popularity of ChatGPT sent Google into a panic . The company was so worried about the possibility of the upstart chatbot disrupting its Search business, executives sounded a code red alert inside of the company and called Sergey Brin and Larry Page out of retirement to help it formulate a response to OpenAI. It then rushed out Bard, announcing its first commercial chatbot on February 6, 2023 . Google's stock tanked days later when the AI incorrectly answered a question about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope during a public demo. But it wasn't just Google that wanted a piece of OpenAI, while the search giant sought to compete with it, others including Microsoft and Apple made deals with the company to bring its technology to their products and services, all the promise that AI would eventually revolutionize every facet of the economy. Since then, OpenAI has seen its lead against Google and much of the AI industry evaporate, culminating in a series of successive blows throughout 2025. On January 20, the same day Altman was busy rubbing shoulders with other tech oligarchs at Donald Trumps inauguration, Chinas DeepSeek quietly released its R1 chain-of-thought model. A week later, the startup's chatbot surpassed ChatGPT as the most-download free app on the US App Store . The overnight success of DeepSeek eliminated $1 trillion worth of stock market value, and almost certainly left OpenAI blindsided. In response, the company showed a newfound urgency. In one week, for instance, OpenAI released both o3-mini and Deep Research . It even went so far as to announce the latter on a Sunday evening. But for all its new urgency, OpenAI's biggest, most important release of the year was a miss. It's safe to say GPT-5 hasn't lived up to anyone's expectations, including OpenAI's own. The company touted the system as smarter, faster and better than all of its previous models, but after users got their hands on it, they complained of a chatbot that made surprisingly dumb mistakes and didn't have much of a personality. For many, GPT-5 felt like a downgrade compared to the older, simpler GPT-4o. That's a position no AI company wants to be in, let alone one that has taken on as much investment as OpenAI. Anthropic was quick to take advantage of the weakness, signing a deal with Microsoft to bring its Claude models to Copilot 365 . Previously, Microsoft depended exclusively on OpenAI for partner models in Copilot. Before the company announced the integration, reporting from The Information said Microsoft made the decision based on the strength of Anthropic's Sonnet 4.0 model , judging it perform[ed] better in subtle but important ways relative to OpenAI's offerings. However, what will likely go down as the defining moment occurred a few short weeks after OpenAI announced the conclusion of its restructuring. On November 18, Google released Gemini 3 Pro , and immediately the new model leap-frogged the competition, including GPT-5. As of the writing of this article, Google's new model is at the top of LMArena , the site where humans compare outputs from different AI systems and vote on the best one. GPT-5, by contrast, is currently ranked sixth overall, behind models from Anthropic and Elon Musk's xAI. According to a December 2 report from The Wall Street Journal , Sam Altman sent a companywide memo following the release of Gemini 3 Pro. Echoing the words Google used to describe the situation it found itself against OpenAI in 2023, he called for a code red effort to improve ChatGPT. Altman reportedly told employees there would be temporary reassignments and that the company would delay some products, all in an effort to catch up to Google and Anthropic. The few numbers these companies are willing to share don't paint a promising picture for OpenAI. Each month, about 800 million people use ChatGPT. On paper, that's impressive, but Google is catching up there too. In October, the company said the Gemini app had 650 million users, up from 450 million just a few months earlier in July, thanks to the popularity of its Nano Banana Pro image generator . More importantly, OpenAI has an inherent disadvantage against Google. For the search giant, AI may touch everything the company does now, but Gemini is just one product in an extensive portfolio that includes many other popular services. Google can fund its AI advancements with money it makes elsewhere. OpenAI cannot say the same. The company is constantly raising money to stay afloat, and according to a financial roadmap obtained by The Journal , it will need its revenue to grow to about $200 billion annually to become profitable by 2030. In November, Altman said on X the company was on track to hit above $20 billion in annualized revenue this year. In an effort to grow revenue, Altman and company have adopted an incredibly risky strategy. In recent months, OpenAI has signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in a bid to outscale the competition that is already beating it. Many of those agreements can only be described as circular , and I think the fears about a financial bubble are real. In the first half of 2025, investment in data centers accounted for nearly all of US GDP growth . Even if there's not a repeat of the 2008 housing market crisis or the dot-com crash, the AI boom is at the very least poised to make everyday electronics ( and utilities ) more expensive for regular people in the short term. Since late October, demand for server-grade computer components, including memory and storage, has sent the price of consumer PC parts skyrocketing as manufacturers devote more of their production capacity and wafers to high-margin customers like OpenAI and Google. Since late October, the cost of most RAM kits has doubled and tripled . In November, the price of some SSDs went up by as much as 60 percent . Next year, the cost of LPDDR5X memory, which is used in both smartphones and NVIDIA servers, is expected to climb as well. Be it carmakers, smartphones or consumer electronics, everyone that uses memory is facing pressure from price hikes and supply constraints in the coming year, Zhao Haijun, the co-CEO of memory manufacturer SMIC told analysts, per Bloomberg . Gita Gopinath, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, recently estimated that if the AI bubble were to burst, it would wipe out $20 trillion in wealth held by American households. The Great Recession, considered the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, reduced US household net worth by $11.5 trillion, and it took years before for American families to rebuild their wealth to pre-recession levels. The modern AI bubble may have been started by ChatGPT, but given the crowded field of chatbots and LLMs, it won't necessarily pop should OpenAI go bust. With novelty and technical prowess no longer on its side though, it's now on Altman to prove in short order why his company still deserves such unprecedented levels of investment. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-house-of-cards-seems-primed-to-collapse-170000900.html?src=rss

Petco accidentally exposed heaps of customer information

Petco has accidentally exposed a whole lot of customer data and personal information, according to a report by TechCrunch . This is thanks to a security lapse involving its Vetco clinics website, forcing the company to take a portion of that site offline. Petco has confirmed the leak and TechCrunch noted that the security lapse allowed anyone to download customer records without login information. The exposed data includes customer names, driver's license numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and even financial information. It also includes customer records from visits to Vetco, like medical histories, pet names, vaccination records and other stuff like that. This was due to an incorrect software setting that made a number of files accessible online, according to a notice filed by Californias attorney general and reported on by Mashable . The company has since corrected the setting, removed the exposed files and implemented security measures. However, Petco hasn't said if any data was actually extracted during the security lapse or if it even has the means to suss out that kind of thing. Vetco customers should probably perform some due diligence to shore up personal security. The company is offering credit and identity monitoring services to impacted customers, but only in some states. We recommend giving Petco a call to discuss options. Data breaches of this sort are becoming an unfortunate part of modern life. Recent security breaches have impacted entities like AT&T , Discord , the social network Tea and the human resources company Workday , among others. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/petco-accidentally-exposed-heaps-of-customer-information-163825302.html?src=rss

The best board games to gift for the 2025 holiday season

It's become cliche to say that we live in a golden age of board games, but to paraphrase the great stoic philosopher Andy Bernard, it's great to know you're in the good old days before you've left them. Great titles are still coming out by the thousands every year, from crowd-pleasing party games to genre-bending, theme-heavy Euros. Whether the gamer in your life is looking for a mind-warping challenge, a fun evening with friends or something in-between, we've got new releases or old favorites they'll love. The best board games to gift (and play) Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-board-games-to-gift-for-the-2025-holiday-season-125529024.html?src=rss

CloverPit, a Balatro-style game with a grungy slot machine, hits iOS and Android on December 17

CloverPit is one of my favorite games of the year so far. Developer Panik Arcade took the formula that helped make Balatro so successful using various tools to bend the rules of the game to help you rack up obscenely high scores and based it around a slot machine rather than poker. Its been a hit so far on PC, where it has sold more than a million copies since September, and on Xbox. CloverPit has been among the top 20 most-played titles on Game Pass since its surprise debut there last month . Now, the horror-tinged roguelite is venturing into new territory, as its coming to iOS and Android on December 17. The mobile versions of the game are said to have a fully-optimized interface, as well as all of the post-launch updates, such as the Hard Mode that Panik Arcade recently added. CloverPit will cost $5 on mobile and it will have no microtransactions or predatory mechanics. That might seem surprising for a game centered around a slot machine, but CloverPit isnt really about gambling (which the developers say they dont like anyway). Its about breaking the rules to tilt the odds in your favor. The setup is pretty straightforward. Youre imprisoned in a rusty cell and you have a rapidly increasing debt to pay off. The only way to do that, and hopefully leave through the door, is to earn enough coins from the slot machine to pay what you owe. There are more than 150 items (which are called charms here) to experiment with that affect things like the number of spins, how much each symbol or pattern is worth and how many tickets you earn. Tickets are what you need to buy more charms. Figuring out combinations of items that work well together is key to quickly scaling up the number of coins and tickets you can earn from each visit to the slot machine. Fail to pay off your debt by a deadline (i.e. after a certain number of spins) and its game over, as you plunge into the titular pit. CloverPit is strange and beguiling and heaps of fun. Ive plowed around 39 hours into it on Steam, and Im sure itll take up much of my attention on my phone after it hits mobile next week. Doomspinning seems slightly healthier for my brain than doomscrolling. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cloverpit-a-balatro-style-game-with-a-grungy-slot-machine-hits-ios-and-android-on-december-17-154500028.html?src=rss

Apple's Studio Display is $230 off right now

Apples Studio Display hasnt been updated since it launched in 2022, but it remains one of the best monitors for the Mac-oriented, and right now you can pick one up for $230 off. This deal applies specifically to the tilt-adjustable model, which means you cant adjust the height of the built-in stand. That might be a deal-breaker for some users, but if not, $1,368 is a near-record low. The Studio Display was a product that Apple devotees had been asking the company to make for years. As well as being a solid 27-inch 5K LED monitor, it also packs in a variety of ports and some surprisingly good speakers. In our 80-scoring review at the time, we praised its bright and color-accurate screen, while bemoaning the fact that it isn't as smooth as Apples many ProMotion-equipped devices. If youre content with what's already on offer, this is a good deal on what has always been a very expensive luxury device, but bear in mind that there are swirling rumors of a next generation Studio Display that could arrive in 2026. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Apple might currently have two new models in the works, though it isnt clear if both will end up making it to retail. Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-studio-display-is-230-off-right-now-152328981.html?src=rss

MasterClass subscriptions are 40 percent off for the holiday season

If learning a new skill is one of your New Year's resolutions, then you might want to know that MasterClass subscriptions are currently 40 percent off. This brings the top-tier subscription with offline mode and use on up to six devices down from $240 annually to $144. The entry-level plan, which supports just one device and doesn't offer offline viewing, is marked down to $72 from $120. Over the past few years, MasterClass has grown to over 200 classes, sessions and original series. You can learn about entrepreneurship from Richard Branson, screenwriting from Aaron Sorkin, cooking from Gordon Ramsay and heaps more. Each of these offers classes in a one-on-one format with slick instructional videos and often workbooks to accompany them. MasterClass also appears on our list of the best subscription gifts for this Christmas. Loved ones will enjoy superb production quality and a rich library where they are sure to find something that piques their interest. Gift subscriptions can also be scheduled, so you can take advantage of the current sale even for future gifts. If you're buying it for yourself, know that MasterClass offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Whether you're looking to learn about business from Kim Kardashian or basketball skills from Steph Curry, MasterClass can help you expand your horizons in 2026. The Holiday Head Start Offer is available through December 15. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/masterclass-subscriptions-are-40-percent-off-for-the-holiday-season-150520277.html?src=rss

Projectors won us over in 2025

Not long ago, you may have thought of projectors as complicated, unreliable or just too expensive. In 2025, though, consumer sentiment started to flip. Companies like Anker and Valerion made the projector experience more practical and immersive, helping drive consumer interest and, ultimately, sales. This shift has been quite a few years in the making. LG helped kickstart the projector renaissance back at CES 2018 when it introduced its unusual-looking CineBeam HU80K projector that could provide a 150-inch image. The next year at CES saw the dawn of the ultra short-throw (UST) laser projector that could create a similarly large display while sitting just inches from your wall. Another big technological upgrade over the following years was the bright and long-lasting laser light engines that replaced weaker, more fragile bulbs. The timing couldnt have been better for projector manufacturers. When COVID shut down theaters in 2020, consumers were forced to get their entertainment at home. Many wanted something akin to a movie theater experience both indoors and out and thus interest in projectors started to take off. In 2025, though, projectors really entered the zeitgeist thanks to two new products. The first was Ankers SoundCore Nebula X1 , the highest-rated home theater product Engadget reviewed this year. It comes with a triple-laser engine that allows for 3,500 lumens of brightness enough that you can watch it during the day. It also uses liquid cooling to reduce annoying fan noise and offers color-accurate picture quality with support for Dolby Vision HDR. Even better, it can be carried outside easily via the retractable handle and used for movie nights under the stars. If you splurge for the Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro version that comes with huge party speakers, you can even expect excellent sound quality. It also looks sleek and modern, unlike the plasticky models normally aimed at mid-range buyers. However, the most interesting feature which is new for a projector in this price range is the motorized tilting lens that automatically fits the picture to your screen or surface. That allows buyers to set up the Nebula X1 themselves in just a few minutes, rather than hours. That also makes it easy to move the projector around and use in another location. Valerion The other model that captured our imagination was the Valerion VisionMaster Max . This projector shares many traits of the Nebula X1, like Dolby Vision, a triple laser system and automatic setup. Its also a nice-looking, modern product. However, it has two other innovations that made it extra interesting. The first is the dynamic iris and its Enhanced Black Level technology. That had reviewers raving about its deep black levels that were comparable to projectors like JVCs NZ8 that cost twice as much. The other is the so-called anti-rainbow technology, which eliminates most of the rainbow-hued strobing that appears with models using Texas Instruments DLP chips. This resolves a common complaint with mid-range projectors. For a similar price as a good quality TV ($1,500 - $3,000), these models can beam an image double the size. And to install one, you just need to position the projector in front of the screen, roughly center it and hit calibrate to get a perfect image. Both the X1 and VisionMaster Max were first announced on Kickstarter and became the top two projectors ever sold on the site. Plus, several projector models, particularly from Anker/Soundcore, appeared on Googles gadget search trends . All of that is helping the home projector market increase to the point that its, well, projected to nearly double by 2030. As people researched these products, they may have noticed the other advantages. Along with movies, theyre also great for gaming and sports, particularly if you have a big group of people. In fact, they actually take up less room than a TV if both the projector and screen are ceiling mounted. And many models are portable, battery-powered and bright enough to use outside for parties and camping. Steve Dent for Engadget A prime example of a recent projector convert is Engadget editor and cinema podcaster Devindra Hardawar, who explained why he decided to make the leap. I know big TVs have gotten cheaper, but they still can't reach the massive 120-inch screen size of my Formovie ultra-short throw projector, he said. It makes watching anything feel truly cinematic, and not like I'm just staring at another screen. Even though projectors are gaining some ground, they wont replace TVs for most people. Mid-range televisions still cost less at around $1,000. TVs are obviously easier to install and more convenient to use, as all projectors need time to warm up. TVs are much brighter, too: even dim models put out at least 500 nits of brightness, compared to 200 to 300 nits max for very bright projectors. However, even though projector setups are less tricky than before, you still need to buy and install a screen for optimal performance, which adds cost and complexity. How much more can projectors improve? I think theyll continue to get brighter, more color accurate and even easier to install. Another piece of technology with potential to reduce complexity and improve image quality is the roll-up screen . If those come down in price enough, they may convince some buyers to replace their TVs with a projector. Theyre still likely to remain a niche product, but for cinephiles who want a theater-like experience, projectors are now a more compelling option. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/projectors-won-us-over-in-2025-143655492.html?src=rss

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: A very particular set of skills, for a price

In a world where notifications persistently compete for our attention, distraction-free ereaders and writing tablets have found an audience. Putting your phone, laptop or iPad aside and curling up with a Kindle or a reMarkable tablet have become an almost ironic way for the tech-savvy to disconnect from online noise and focus on reading and writing. Its debatable how broad the appeal of these devices is, but even in what appears to be a relatively small slice of the industry, the competition is fierce. Amazon is arguably the biggest name in the space, with its Kindles dominating the ereader market for years. When it introduced the Kindle Scribe in 2022 , the company made a play for the burgeoning E Ink writing tablet category, and just last year it launched its first color ereader with the Kindle Colorsoft. Put all those features reading, writing and color together, and youve got the ingredients for Amazons latest contender: the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. This time, Amazon expanded the Scribe line by releasing three new Scribes at once. The entry-level model is the black-and-white tablet without a front light, which costs $430. For $70 more, youll get the front light, and then the Colorsoft version goes for $630. There are upgrades from last years Scribe across the trio, and for this review well be looking mostly at the Colorsoft, which has all of the new features. Like with previous models of the Scribe, Amazon doesnt indicate the generation number in the name, simply calling this lineup the all-new Kindle Scribe, attaching the word Colorsoft to the edition that renders colors. To avoid confusion, Ill occasionally be referring to this generation of the device as the Scribe 3, and the version from last year as the Scribe 2. Editors note: As I only received the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft on December 7 due to shipping delays, I wont be assigning a score to this device until I have had more time to test it. My colleague Valentina Palladino received the new Kindle Scribe a few days before that, and has contributed testing and impressions to this review. Its also worth noting that some new features, like Send to Alexa+, Story so far and Ask this book arent available to test yet. We will update this review with a score after spending more time with it so we can better gauge things like battery life and the usefulness of some software features. Whats new with the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft Aside from the obvious, which is that the Colorsoft can now render colors, the latest Kindle Scribes also feature a refined design, improved front light system, updated screen architecture, new quad-core chip, more memory and Oxide display technology. It has a larger 11-inch screen compared to the 10.2-inch display on its predecessor, and still manages to weigh 33 grams less at 400 grams (0.88 pounds). Theres also a revamped Home page that houses a Quick Note for easier access to the writing interface as well as some software and AI tools that arent available to test yet. A lot of the hardware tweaks translated to a snappier, more responsive device overall. In my testing, the Scribe Colorsofts AI summarization and handwriting refinements took a bit less time than the Scribe 2, which I attribute most to the processor, but I also noticed improved fluidity in the writing experience. Drawing on the Scribe Colorsoft brings me right back to my younger days testing out pens at bookstores. Amazons stylus feels like a pen with ink that flows more freely and consistently onto the page than others, and between the nib and the texture of the page there is a lack of resistance and overall smoothness that is very satisfying. Cherlynn Low for Engadget Amazon said that the Premium Pen that comes with the Scribes has been refined with a thicker and more rounded silhouette. With its latest Oxide display, the Scribe Colorsofts screen response rate of 14 milliseconds and the non-Colorsoft Scribe 3s rates of 12ms are both much higher than the 20-21ms for the Scribe 2. Together, this probably is the main reason that the new Scribe feels more responsive in general, and why writing on it seems so smooth. Although, that new front light system might also be contributing to the overall feeling of freshness. Speaking of, I put the Scribe 2 and Scribe Colorsoft side by side in my friends living room and the difference was stark. When I brought both devices next to the window, under direct sunlight, they both seemed similarly bright, with the typical glare-free finish youd expect of ereaders. But when I took them into a darkened bedroom, the auto-adjusting panel on the Colorsoft lit up its screen and made it easier to read. Colors popped, and while I felt that there was a slight blue tinge to the light, it wasnt something I wouldve noticed without a side-by-side comparison. Its not an issue though because you can also adjust the warmth here like you can on other Kindles. One of my complaints in my review of the Scribe 2 was the flimsy attachment method of magnets holding the pen to the tablet. While Amazon hasnt built an onboard slot or holder for the stylus, it did increase the magnetic force on the Scribe 3. This was already noticeable during my hands-on with the device back in October, and in real-world use I appreciated this upgrade in keeping the Premium Pen tightly attached to the Scribe Colorsoft. I would still prefer a more secure approach, since I still do worry about the stylus getting lost in my purse and dont want to have to buy a case just for this purpose. But its a small quibble and my concerns have largely been allayed with the increased magnetism. Cherlynn Low for Engadget I still need to test some software features like Send to Alexa+, Ask This Book and Story So Far, but theyre not available yet. Ive been focusing my testing on the Notebook section and need to spend more time marking up and annotating books to better evaluate that use case. But not much has changed there since Amazon rolled out the collapsible margins in February, and you can read my review of the Scribe 2 for my impressions there. The new home page and AI-powered Notebook search At the moment, I can speak to one of the new features: AI-powered Notebook search. The Search bar at the top of the Scribe can now answer questions about the contents of all your Notebooks (and books). At the time of the Scribes announcement, I thought this would be helpful in pulling together all the tasks Id assigned to specific team members across the to-do lists I drew up for various events. When I asked the Scribe what tasks have I assigned Sam, its results page showed six categories, pulling information from my library, notebooks, the Kindle Store, the Audible Store, Goodreads and text within books. Only the second one had any findings. Under Results in your notebooks, there was a label AI-powered insights followed by a header Sams Assigned Tasks. Below that was a bulleted list, which Ill transcribe and include an image of here: Add content to CES sheet Handle KPBP company set Track Samsung mobile developments Handle OnePlus 13 Review device during CES Attend meetings with: - Dell & ASUS on Thursday, MSI, Razer, HP, Lenovo, Potentially Sony Ateela Work on Sam Qi 2 Best-Sam host responsibilities Cherlynn Low for Engadget I quickly realized that Id need to fine-tune my requests to get results that made more sense, since random tasks divorced from their parent documents made little sense without context. Thankfully, there was a button below the results that prompted me to Ask Notebooks about these insights, or ask something else. However, tapping that only brought me to a different page showing the same list but with a new section to see the notes they were sourced from. Ill also point out that this list of tasks for Sam was not the same result I got from a query about where do I mention Sam? In addition to the two to-do lists that I created in December 2023 and January of this year, the Scribe told me Sam appears on a Christmas shopping list as one of the checked-off friends. Thats fairly impressive, since that list did have Sam under a handwritten header Friends, as opposed to other pages titled Gym or Neighbors. But it appeared to only be able to determine that Sams name was checked off thanks to the template I used for the notebook. Other check marks I made outside the predefined boxes in that background werent deemed as checks and instead misrecognized as dashes. So later when I asked where my friend Michelle appeared in all my notebooks, the Scribe noted an entry for Michelle-scart in a different holiday shopping page. Retrying the same question did yield more accurate results, though, with a subsequent search correctly stating Michelle appears in a list with scarf noted next to her name. And whether its my overly messy handwriting to blame or Amazons technological deficiencies, there were still some words or sentences that it misidentified, like Michelle-callin instead of Michelle Callie. So far, the AI-powered Search feels like a hit-or-miss update. Sometimes, like when I took the bait and asked the questions it suggested, I would get shockingly accurate answers. Try asking which Ariana song is mentioned in the list, the Scribe prompted. Or When is the HOA meeting occurring? For the former, it told me that the song Bang Bang was on a list of karaoke songs, while the latter simply told me the date and time it had found in a note titled Appointments Dec 2022. Ill need more time to think of better ways to use this feature, but for now I cant decide if its actually helpful without some extra work. Cherlynn Low for Engadget I already spent some time testing the Summarize and Refine tools introduced in the last Kindle Scribe, so Ill just say that refining the handwriting of a to-do list on the Scribe Colorsoft was largely the same as before, just a tad faster. I didnt really use either AI tool in the year since I reviewed the Scribe 2, so I was right last year in thinking I wouldnt find much use for them in daily practice. What I thought would be more practical is the redesigned Home screen and the Quick Note that takes up the top left corner of this page. Again, Id need to spend much more time to understand how Id navigate the device over weeks and months, but for the most part I find it easy to just hop in and out of notes I want without first going to the Home section. Id prefer a hardware shortcut like Montblanc offers in its Digital Paper writing tablet. On that device, you can program the buttons on the pen so that a double click starts a new note, adds a blank page or brings you back home. While you can customize the button on Amazons Premium Pen, your options are limited to switching between tools like the highlighter, pen, shader or eraser for use while youre writing. (And yes, like before, you can still use the top of the Premium Pen to erase content no need to push any button.) One last thing to note about the home page (for now) is that seeing the rows of book covers in color is a delight, and though its not something that impacts the function of the device, it certainly adds a layer of visual pleasure. How does the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft compare to the competition? One of the Scribe Colorsofts main competitors is the reMarkable Paper Pro . The latter has a larger 11.8-inch screen and, correspondingly, weighs a lot more at 525 grams (1.16 pounds). Though I prefer the sharp lines of the reMarkable to the rounded edges and corners of the Scribe, I find the Kindles size much more manageable, especially when Im writing for more than five minutes. Importantly, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft simply has a better screen than the reMarkable. It delivers brighter, more saturated colors, and supports more hues, too. Plus, when I placed them next to each other, the Paper Pro seemed to have a yellow cast and a dimmer screen overall (even at maximum brightness). And when I use the highlight function on each, the reMarkable device flashes meaning you have to give it a second for the color to appear in its final form after you put the stylus to the screen. Meanwhile, the color that shows up on the Colorsofts panel as soon as you write on it doesnt change no flashing takes place. Cherlynn Low for Engadget The Scribes other strengths are its superior performance and Amazons ecosystem of books (for those like me who already have large Kindle libraries, anyway). Though it does offer AI features that reMarkable doesnt, Im generally leery of those tools, and, as already detailed in this review, they dont usually help me. However, the reMarkable remains the winner when it comes to writing software. Its way more versatile than Amazon in this respect, especially with its ability to have handwritten and typed text coexist within the same document. You can also edit a note from reMarkables app on your phone, typing in any last-minute additions to your shopping list and bolding, italicizing or formatting them if you like. And if youre a power user, getting your favorite ebooks onto the reMarkable tablet isnt too difficult, provided you have the EPUB files. The main problem for me here is that you'll need to pay $3 a month for its Connect subscription to continue having access to a lot of these features. Ill also shout out companies like Kobo and Boox, who also make color-rendering ereaders that you can write on. Booxs Note Air 5c starts at $530 and includes the stylus and a magnetic case for that price. It supports apps via the Google Play Store, but, as our deputy editor Valentina Palladino cautions, isnt the most beginner-friendly product. Kobo, on the other hand, makes color ereaders like the Libra Color. Although it does support stylus input, it is much smaller with its 7-inch display. And for those who arent too fussed about color, there are plenty of black-and-white E Ink writing tablets, including the $905 Montblanc Digital Paper , which Ive been testing for a few weeks. Im finishing up my review but that one is clearly a luxury product targeted at a much more niche audience than the already limited target market for this category of devices. If your budget is tight, Id recommend skipping the Colorsoft model unless its crucial to your process. $500 is a much easier price to stomach. Who should get the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft? I hesitate to recommend anyone buy anything before Ive had enough time to assign a score, since things like battery life take longer to evaluate. And while I continue to test the device to get a better sense for its battery life, Ive already noticed that like the Scribes before it, this version doesnt last as long as other Kindles. Amazon promises weeks of reading and writing per charge, which could be anything between two and ten (or more) weeks. In my experience so far, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft dropped about 20 percent in two days, which, mathematically, means it would struggle to even last a week, not to mention multiple weeks. But because the Scribe 2 showed similar battery drain during my review (with heavier use) and manages to stay charged for at least a month when Im not testing it all day every day, Im willing to believe Amazons promise of greater runtime. Aside from my reservations about battery life, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is a competent device that delivers on most of its promises so far. The biggest knock against it is its price. At $500 for the monochrome model and $630 for color, this is one Amazon product that can be more expensive than the competition. But its not without its strengths. Id think of the Kindle Scribe 3 (and Colorsoft) as an E Ink tablet that is more of a notebook than a portal for textbooks you can mark up, with a robust library of Kindle titles to boot. The AI features are not crucial to the experience, but they also stay out of the way. For those looking for a more sophisticated and versatile writing tablet that is less of a book replacement, the reMarkable Paper Pro is the superior device. And for people who dont mind the notifications, apps and alerts that these purpose-driven tablets keep from distracting you, theres always the option of buying an iPad or an Android tablet with a stylus. Just install minimal apps or block all notifications, and you might even save hundreds of dollars in the process. Cherlynn Low for Engadget Wrap-up I hate to admit it, but Amazons devices and services chief Panos Panay was right in calling the Kindle Scribe a 2-in-1 . But the two functions it serves are very specific. I think of the Scribe devices as Kindles first and foremost. That means theyre ereaders, capable of substituting stacks of books thanks to their digital libraries and eye-friendly screens. The second role the Scribe plays well is that of a notebook substitute. It is a place to hold endless slips of digital paper, and its search function can competently help you find what you jotted down in a random note years ago. But Amazon has not yet found a way to deliver on features like annotating and marking up ebooks that feels like pen-and-paper. Trying to mark up a digital textbook on the Scribe still feels unintuitive, involving virtual sticky notes, collapsible margins and inserting boxes within lines of text. And you wont be able to easily edit your notes if youre away from your Scribe, unlike how you can on a reMarkable product. So the Kindle Scribe 3 is not a three- or four-in-one. I dont have a problem with that, especially without the extra cost that comes with the color capabilities. While the Colorsoft model is superior to the competition at the moment, it also comes at a premium. If youre looking for the best color E Ink writing tablet available and are willing to splurge, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is worth consideration. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/kindle-scribe-colorsoft-review-a-very-particular-set-of-skills-for-a-price-140014961.html?src=rss

EU pledges 90 percent cut to carbon emissions by 2040

The European Union has provisionally agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent (based on 1990 levels) by 2040, the EU parliament announced in a press release . That goes beyond the goals of most other major economies, including China, but falls short of the original one recommended by the EU's climate science advisors. The target delivers on the need for climate action while safeguarding our competitiveness and security, said Denmark's minister Lars Aagaard, who helped negotiate the deal. The new accord a vital step in the bloc's long-term goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 was a political compromise months in the making. On one hand, countries like Poland and Hungary argued that deeper cuts would be too onerous for industries already facing high energy costs. And on the other, members including Spain and Sweden said action was needed to help blunt extreme weather events and allow the EU to catch up with China in green tech manufacturing. To achieve the target, European industries will need to reduce emissions by 85 percent and sell carbon credits to developing nations to make up the balance. The EU also agreed on an option to use additional international carbon credits (up to five percent) to soften the impact on industry and to delay a carbon tax for fuel by a year to 2028. Even with the reduced targets Europe is more committed than all other major polluters, having already cut emissions 37 percent from 1990 levels. During the same period, the US has only managed a reduction of about 7 percent, according to Statista . And under the Trump administration, the US has once again pulled out of the Paris climate accord, scrubbed references to climate change from government sites and promoted polluting energy sectors like coal and gas. The deal must still be ratified by the EU parliament and individual countries to become law. Normally, though, that's a formality for such pre-agreed deals. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/eu-pledges-90-percent-cut-to-carbon-emissions-by-2040-133919256.html?src=rss

The 10 best last-minute Christmas gifts for the 2025 holiday season

The holidays are nearly here and if youre a bit behind on your gift shopping, youre not alone. The holidays can truly sneak up on you, and this year thats been more true than ever. Between wrapping things up at work before some well-deserved time off and making sure you have everything you need to host family and friends, it can be hard to find the time to go to a store to pick out presents. And when you do finally get there, you may be met with half-empty shelves. But this is where the internet comes in handy: you still have time to buy holiday gifts online. At this point, we recommend picking up small, affordable gifts that will ship quickly from retailers like Amazon , Walmart and Target so you have plenty of time to wrap them up nicely and make it look like you had everything well-planned from the start. Here are the best last-minute Christmas gifts you can get right now and still have in time before the holidays. Best last-minute Christmas gifts Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-10-best-last-minute-christmas-gifts-for-the-2025-holiday-season-140037254.html?src=rss

The best things Engadget editors bought in 2025

For many of us at Engadget, a big part of our jobs is testing out new tech on a regular basis. Our desks are cluttered with new smartphones, power banks, gaming accessories and more pretty much all the time, and there are plenty of winners and losers amongst them. Similarly, there are winners and losers in the things we buy for ourselves throughout the year, and we like to sing their praises just as much as we do for the best new tech that (professionally) comes across our desks. These are the best things Engadget staffers purchased in 2025 that will continue to get lots of use in the new year. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-things-engadget-editors-bought-in-2025-130000576.html?src=rss

Adobe brings Photoshop, Acrobat and Adobe Express to ChatGPT

Back in October, OpenAI announced apps like Spotify and Canva would be accessible in ChatGPT. At the time, the company said more software was on the way, and now one of the most popular professional applications is available through the chatbot. Starting today, you can access Photoshop, Acrobat and Adobe Express inside of ChatGPT. All the apps are free to use through OpenAIs website, though before you can begin generating PDFs and illustrations using Acrobat and Adobe Express, you'll need to sign into your Adobe account.To use any of the apps in ChatGPT, either name them in your prompt or select them from the plus menu. Of the three apps, the way OpenAI's chatbot connects to Photoshop is probably the most interesting. Depending on the prompt, the interface will change to display the sliders most relevant to your request. For example, if you want to brighten an image, you'll see one slider allowing you to adjust the exposure, alongside other ones for the shadows and highlights. By comparison, if you want to add an effect to an image, ChatGPT might display options related to dithering and tri-tone, among others. What's interesting about all this is the way ChatGPT is interacting with Adobe's tools, through an MCP server , to offer a slice of the company's apps. I don't know about you, but Ive always found Adobe software to be far too complicated, with often one too many ways to accomplish the same task. Granted, what I saw was a hands-off demo, but the routing Adobe created worked well. A ChatGPT user asks the chatbot to create a dance party invitation. Adobe We build the Lego blocks, which are the MCP tools, and we create detailed instructions, and then ChatGPT figures out what it wants to do, Aubrey Cattell, vice-president of developer platform and partner ecosystem at Adobe, explains. Sometimes it does what we want it, and sometimes it doesn't. That's the nature of it being non-deterministic, and we're continuing to hone as much as we can from users' intent and natural language to give them the result that they're looking for. Of course, if you ever want more control, the web versions of Photoshop, Acrobat and Adobe Express are a click away. For OpenAI, this is easily the biggest coup to date of its push to reshape ChatGPT into an operating system for all the apps its more than 800 million users depend on daily. For Adobe, it feels like the company is partnering with an entity out to eat its lunch. After all, OpenAI offers its own image generation . However, Cattell said Adobe doesn't see it that way. A couple weeks back, OpenAI dropped Apps SDK as a new paradigm for accessing ChatGPT, we saw there was a natural fit in the work we were doing with our applications, he said. Essentially, they gave us an operating system we were able to leverage to bring our applications to their surface. There's a lot of natural affinity there between the workflows OpenAI is trying to enable and Adobe's best in class capabilities. Cattell promised Adobe would continue to explore what it could offer inside of ChatGPT, but added the company's apps will continue to be the place users can go if they want more power, precision and control. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/adobe-brings-photoshop-acrobat-and-adobe-express-to-chatgpt-130000389.html?src=rss

The best mesh Wi-Fi systems of 2025

Spotty Wi-Fi can make even simple tasks feel harder than they should. If youve ever had a video call freeze in one room or watched a stream buffer in another, a mesh Wi-Fi system can fix those frustrations. Instead of relying on a single router tucked in a corner, a mesh setup uses multiple units that work together to spread a strong, consistent signal throughout your home. Modern mesh systems are built for busy households. They keep dozens of devices connected at once, manage traffic intelligently and often include helpful app features that make troubleshooting or adjusting settings much easier. Many support the latest Wi-Fi standards and faster internet plans too, so you can upgrade your network without replacing everything else. Weve tested a range of mesh Wi-Fi systems to find the ones that deliver the best mix of speed, coverage and reliability. Whether you live in a small apartment or a multi-floor home, these picks can help you stay connected wherever you are. Table of contents Best mesh Wi-Fi systems for 2025 What to look for in a mesh Wi-Fi system Other mesh Wi-Fi router systems we tested How we test Wi-Fi routers Mesh Wi-Fi system FAQs Best mesh Wi-Fi systems for 2025 What to look for in a mesh Wi-Fi system Linksys CEO Jonathan Bettino told Engadget why mesh systems are an advancement in Wi-Fi technology over buying a single point router. With one transmitter, the signal can degrade the further away from the router you go, or the local environment isnt ideal. You can have a small [home], but theres thick walls [...] or things in the way that just interfere with your wireless signal, he said. Historically, the solution to a homes Wi-Fi dead zone was to buy a Wi-Fi extender but Bettino said the hardware has both a terrible user experience and one of the highest return rates of any consumer electronics product. Mesh Wi-Fi, by comparison, offers multiple nodes that can be placed anywhere in your home, says Bettino, resulting in ubiquitous Wi-Fi that feels as if you have a router in every room. Rather than having one main router in your home, having a router in every room is the biggest selling point for mesh Wi-Fi given how reliant we all are on the internet. Each node is in constant contact with each other, broadcasting a single, seamless network to all of your connected devices. Theres no separate network for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, just a single name that you connect to. Its a good time to buy a mesh Wi-Fi system since the latest standard, Wi-Fi 6E, represents a big leap in the technology. Matt MacPherson, Cisco's Chief Technology Officer for Wireless, said Wi-Fi 6E is a big inflection point, using much more of the wireless spectrum than its predecessors. If youre using that spectrum with a Wi-Fi 6 [device], he said, youre going to get significant gains [in speed.] MacPherson added Wi-Fi 6E will likely carry you for a long time thanks to the fact its top throughputs now typically exceed what people can actually connect their home to. In short, with a top theoretical per-stream speed of 1.2 Gbps, Wi-Fi 6E is fast enough to outrun all but the fastest internet service. What do all these Wi-Fi numbers and letters mean? Im sorry folks, we need to get boringly technical for one paragraph, but I promise you its worth it. Wi-Fi is governed by International Standard IEEE 802.11, and every few years a letter gets added onto that name when the technology evolves and improves. Until 2019, routers were sold under their IEEE name, leaving users to pick through the word soup of a product labeled 802.11 b/g/a/n/ac and so on. Mercifully, wiser heads opted to rebrand the letters as numbers, so rather than 802.11 b/g/a/n/ac, we have Wi-Fi 1, 2, 3 4 and 5. Right now, were in the middle of one of those Wi-Fi generations, with most of the gear on sale right now supporting either Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E. Whats the difference between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E? Wi-Fi uses chunks of the radio frequency spectrum, with Wi-Fi 6 using the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands to pump data around. In fact, back in the old days, it was likely your home router would offer you the choice of the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz network, as separate bands to access. These days, all of the spectrums are tied together as one thing, and Wi-Fi 6E has the added ability to use the 6GHz band as well. Thats a big chunk of extra wireless real estate that isnt as cluttered up as the 2.4 and 5GHz bands. Youre going to talk about wireless frequencies now, arent you. Each Wi-Fi band had tradeoffs, because the slower radio frequencies have greater range but less speed. 2.4GHz signals will travel a long way in your home but arent quick, while 6GHz is blisteringly fast but can be defeated by a sturdy brick wall. A lot of Wi-Fi-enabled gear you own, like smart home products, only use the 2.4GHz band because the range is better and its a lot cheaper. But it means that the band is also overcrowded and slow, making it great for your doorbell and robovac, but lackluster for Twitch streaming. So, what am I looking for? Right now, the market is full of mature Wi-Fi 6 and 6E devices, and most new systems available to buy are capable of taking advantage of the faster speeds they offer. This guide focuses on Wi-Fi 6E gear since its what we think its more than enough to satisfy almost everyones at-home Wi-Fi needs. What about Wi-Fi 7? Were now seeing the first generation of Wi-Fi 7 devices available to buy, but we dont recommend you do so immediately. The Wi-Fi 7 standard is still so new that theres little to no reason for you to rush out and buy one for your home. The hardware is tremendously expensive and while Wi-Fi 7 will, eventually, offer some great benefits over 6E, its not as transformative an upgrade as 6E. Not to mention, Wi-Fi 7 is so new that almost none of your homes devices will be able to take advantage of its big-ticket features. Id estimate you wont need to worry about upgrading to Wi-Fi 7 for at least five years, if not longer. Range and speed All Wi-Fi routers boast a theoretical broadcast range and a theoretical top speed, and in some cases external antennas to boost signal directionality but these figures dont mean much. After all, manufacturers cant control your ISPs real speed, the materials and layout of your home or where you put your Wi-Fi gear. Raw speed isnt everything, either, and you likely need a lot less than the internet speeds your provider is advertising. What matters more is how consistent your connection is between rooms and across devices.. After all, Netflix needs just 15 Mbps to push a single 4K video stream to your home. As cool as it is to say youve got all these hundreds of Mbps, factors like latency and reliability are far more crucial to a happy internet life. And unless you have Gigabit internet that can reach speeds of up to 1 Gbps, you wont need a mesh router that offers that spec. Backhaul Mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. Its no surprise that it might take a long time for the right information to reach its intended destination. To combat this, higher-end mesh routers offer dedicated wireless backhaul; a slice of the spectrum for node-to-node communication. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because theres less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems. Connectivity These days, even your washing machine can have a wireless connection, but that doesnt mean you should ignore the joys of wired internet. No matter how fast Wi-Fi is, a hard line will always be faster, and some gear, like Philips Hue bridge, still needs an ethernet connection. Plenty of routers can also use these hard connections as backhaul, eliminating further wireless clutter. Its convenient for spread-out systems and power users, but it will mean running more wires through your home. The most common standard is Cat 5e, or gigabit ethernet which, unsurprisingly, has a top speed of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). Since Ethernet cables are backward compatible, you should be able to easily find one that works with your system. However, to get the most out of your mesh routers, its worth investing in an Ethernet cable that meets the standard your router uses if its Cat 5e, use a Cat 5e cable. You can check your routers specs via the manufacturers website to be sure. Flexibility and scalability Mesh routers enable you to add (or subtract) modules from your home network to suit your needs. D-Links Alan Jones said users should check how scalable the prospective product is before you buy. This sense of scale doesnt just apply to the number of nodes on the network, but how many simultaneous connections it can handle. Its also worth looking at ASUS AiMesh products, which can combine mesh Wi-Fi gear and its standard spider Wi-Fi routers. If youve got a tricky part of your home, you can bolt on an ultra-power standalone Wi-Fi router to a compatible mesh. Placement Mesh networks replace one big piece of hardware with a series of identical nodes that you scatter around your home. You connect one to your modem (usually over ethernet), and then scatter the rest around the place for the best coverage. A good rule of thumb is to place each node no more than two rooms away from the last one, rather than sticking them at the far ends of your home. Bear in mind, every physical obstacle between a Wi-Fi node, its siblings and your devices will hurt your overall performance. You should aim to place them, at the very least, at waist height on furniture in open air, without too many obstructions. The reason many mesh Wi-Fi products are designed to look like an inoffensive white doodad is so you dont feel compelled to hide them behind your TV. Other mesh Wi-Fi router systems we tested Amazon Eero Pro 7 Eero built its reputation on easy to use yet powerful mesh systems that offer a lot of good in a relatively small and affordable package. Setup is effortless, the app running things is clean and simple, and you get the added benefit of backwards compatibility with older hardware. Sadly, the issue with every Eero system is that so many basic management features, like parental controls, are paywalled behind the companys Eero Plus subscription for $100 a year. Amazon Eero 6E Eero Pro 6E is an easy device, the sort a total novice can set up on their own and thrive with for years on end. Theres little brainwork required to get things set up, and the app has a clean UI with plenty of hand-holding. But, as with the Eero Pro 7, the fact that so many basic management tools are paywalled irks me, especially since you can get plenty of them for free with Googles rival offering. Netgear Orbi 960 The Orbi 96T0 (RBKE963) is Netgears flagship mesh Wi-Fi product, which the company calls the worlds most powerful Wi-Fi 6E system. Its also one of the most expensive consumer-level kits on the market, setting you back $1,499.99 for a three pack. It's a fantastic piece of gear, but it's worth saying that the subset of people who could, would or should buy it remains far smaller than you might expect. Ultimately, I feel that if youre paying luxury prices, you should expect a luxury product. There were plenty of times during testing that I went looking for a feature that was either only available via the web client, or behind a paywall. While, yes, much of your cash is going to the superlative hardware, but for this sort of money, the fact you have to pay extra for some table-stakes features is insulting. If youre looking for a new Wi-Fi system and arent prepared to spend almost $1,500, its worth considering our other top picks for the best Wi-Fi routers and mesh systems. How we test Wi-Fi routers My home covers around 2,200 square feet across three stories with the office on the third floor. Its relatively long and thin, with the living room at the front of the house, the kitchen at the back and the three bedrooms on the first floor. Its age means there are a lot of solid brick walls, old-school lathe and plaster as well as aluminum foil-backed insulation boards to help with energy efficiency. There are two major Wi-Fi dead zones in the house: The bathroom and the third bedroom behind it, since theres lots of old and new pipework in the walls and floors. For mesh routers with two nodes, I place the first in my living room, connected via ethernet to my cable modem with the second on the first floor landing in the (ostensible) center of the house. For three-node sets, the third goes in my kitchen, which Ive found is the optimal layout to get the bulk of my house covered in Wi-Fi. Fundamentally, my home poses enough challenges that if it succeeds here, it stands a very good chance of succeeding in your place. Each mesh is judged on ease of setup, Wi-Fi coverage, reliability, speed and any additional features that it advertises. I look at how user-friendly each companion app is from the perspective of a novice rather than an expert given you shouldnt need to be a network engineer to do this sort of thing. Tests I do include checking for dead zones, moving from room to room to measure consistency of connectivity and streaming multiple videos at once to replicate common usage patterns. Mesh Wi-Fi system FAQs This is the section of our mesh Wi-Fi buyers guide where we talk about the stuff that most people just glide past. If youre not familiar with technology, it can be intimidating if people talk about these things as if youre expected to already know. So heres a very simple, very basic rundown of some of the stuff you might have missed in very basic terms. Whats the difference between a Wi-Fi router and a mesh router? A Wi-Fi router is a box that usually sits close to wherever the internet comes into your home and pumps out information over radio waves. A mesh router, meanwhile, is a set of smaller devices, one of which sits next to your internet connection while the rest are scattered around your home. A single Wi-Fi router is great if your home is small, your needs arent too demanding, or if your home doesnt have many radio-blocking obstructions that mean those signals cant reach every corner of your home. But, much like standing next to a radio transmitter and then walking away from it in a straight line, after a while, the signal will degrade. Thats the problem a mesh system is designed to solve, since it will take the signal from your modem and pump to the other mesh devices, known as nodes, in your home. That way, instead of having one big router in one part of your home, you have several small ones that ensure you have good Wi-Fi connectivity all over. It also helps ensure that theres no risk of dropping your connection as you move around a mesh router system makes it easy to, for instance, walk from room to room watching Netflix and know you wont miss a single frame. What's the difference between a Wi-Fi extender and a mesh system? Oh boy. Wi-Fi extenders, or repeaters, are small devices designed to push Wi-Fi a little further than your Wi-Fi router can stretch. Theyre cheap, compact and often come in the form of little boxes that sit on your plug sockets with the hope of pushing Wi-Fi to a signal-sparse corner of your home. They are, and I cant put this delicately enough, often a big pile of rubbish and are often not worth your time . Especially since the price of mesh routers has fallen to within most peoples budgets. What is a wireless backhaul? As we explained above, mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. Its no surprise that it might take a long time for the right information to reach its intended destination. To combat this, higher-end mesh routers offer dedicated wireless backhaul; a slice of the spectrum for node-to-node communication. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because theres less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems. Is it better to hard wire instead of using a mesh Wi-Fi system? This is a great question that doesnt have a simple answer. It is (almost) always preferable to connect devices with a wire, in this case Ethernet, than to use Wi-Fi. The speeds are faster, its more reliable and your data is less vulnerable to the slings and arrows of the laws of physics. Hell, I spent about a year trying to work out how to build an iPhone to Ethernet connector back in the bad old days of Wi-Fi. But your ability to do so depends on your level of DIY skills and / or how much money you want to spend on contractors. Wiring your home for Ethernet if you dont have the infrastructure already can be a costly and time-consuming process. Particularly if you dont want ugly wires running along your baseboards and under your carpets or across your hardwood floors. If youre building your own home or can do some serious DIY, then hard wiring is a fantastic thing to have. It goes wonderfully hand-in-glove with mesh networks too, since youll be able to hook up your nodes to the network for even better speeds. But if Im honest, advances in Wi-Fi technology mean Id only go for hard wiring if I really believed I needed the sort of speed it offers. Unless youre a Twitch streamer running your own 24/7 content studio, its probably overkill. When we started renovating our 140-year-old home, I had Ethernet installed in the living room, the master and second bedroom and in my office, all at the front of the house. I cant use it for my mesh since Id need to put the wiring through the middle of the house. If I ever had the wiring done again, I would do so as I know Ill instantly see a meaningful improvement in both my connection speed and reliability. But I wouldnt spend several thousand pounds to have it done just for the sake of it. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/best-mesh-wifi-system-130028701.html?src=rss

Apple previewed its 5th retail store in India, opens Dec 11 for public

The U.S. based tech giant is also expected to open its 6th and the second store in Mumbai in the early 2026

Lava Agni 4 Review | Pushing boundaries and gets a lot right

While it still proudly carries the Made in India badge, the Agni 4 takes a very different path in design and identity, choosing to stand apart rather than build on its predecessors character

Foldable smartphone shipments forecast to grow 10% year-on-year in 2025 to 20.6 million units: IDC Report

The report by the International Data Corporation highlighted novel developments in the foldable smartphone space next year, even while customers hesitate to upgrade their handsets

Watch the Day of the Devs: Game Awards 2025 edition right here at 1PM ET

The Game Awards 2025 edition of the Day of the Devs digital showcase goes live on Wednesday, December 10 at 1PM ET on Twitch and YouTube . Thats more than 30 hours before The Game Awards itself kicks off, which makes perfect sense. It is called Day of the Devs, after all, and if were judging by past appearances , the event absolutely deserves its own full 24 hours in the spotlight. This year, the Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Digital Showcase will feature 22 indie titles, including three release date announcements and six world premieres. Thats a packed show, even by Day of the Devs standards. Expect to see projects from developers including 17-BIT, BONE Assembly, Capybara Games, Deconstructeam and Panic Stations, and publishers Annapurna Interactive, Devolver and Blumhouse Games, among others. Each Day of the Devs showcase lasts about an hour and highlights a batch of extremely rad-looking independent games across a wide range of genres, complete with commentary from creators. The featured games are curated by industry veterans at Day of the Devs, and past shows have offered early looks at future hits like Animal Well, Blue Prince, Cocoon, Despelote, Crow Country, Phoenix Springs, Skate Story, UFO 50, Eternights, Sorry Were Closed and many others. Day of the Devs is a non-profit operation that provides a platform for select independent creators to showcase their games to large audiences for free, founded by folks at Double Fine Productions and iam8bit. On top of accepting donations, it receives support from various industry players, including Xbox, PlayStation and Summer Game Fest. The Game Awards 2025 begins on Thursday, December 11 at 7:30PM ET, with a half-hour pre-show up first. The whole thing will certainly last longer than one hour, but well find out together whether itll have more game reveals than Day of the Devs. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/watch-the-day-of-the-devs-game-awards-2025-edition-right-here-at-1pm-et-060000319.html?src=rss

Disney nominates former Apple COO to its board

Jeff Williams retired as Apples COO earlier this year, having held the position since 2015

Repair iconic 2000s-era gadgets in upcoming indie game ReStory

We love a little nostalgia mixed in with our cozy gaming, and ReStory looks like a perfect blend of those two. In this upcoming indie game, you play the owner of a Tokyo electronics repair shop in the mid 2000s. The trailer that dropped today shows you tinkering with some very familiar gadgets from the era, such as renamed riffs on a Tamagotchi, a Nokia brick phone, a PSP and a Walkman. You clean and repair these devices for customers, and it looks like your conversations with them might have as much impact on their lives as your official work does. The whole thing looks exceedingly charming and chill. It's nice to see a game like ReStory as a counterpart to something with a similar premise but wildly different tone like Kaizen , which was a highlight during the Steam Automation Fest over the summer. ReStory is being developed by Mandragora, and it is currently playtesting ahead of a planned 2026 release. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/repair-iconic-2000s-era-gadgets-in-upcoming-indie-game-restory-233445848.html?src=rss

Uber is installing kiosks for booking rides without the mobile app

Uber is rolling out kiosks for travelers to book rideshares without using the mobile app. The company is pitching the service as a convenience for international travelers who may not have a data plan, but it could also be a lifesaver if your phone runs out of juice and you don't have a way to recharge it. A passenger can use the kiosk to enter their destination and desired ride type, then will receive a printed receipt with the details about their booked ride. The first kiosk will debut in Terminal C at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, but Uber said it would have additional locations in airports, hotels and ports over the coming months. In airport situations, these kiosks make Uber even more of a direct competitor to traditional taxis. With the removal of the app, the kiosk can essentially stand in as the dispatcher and a passenger can decide how to travel based on their preferences (or on wait times) for a rideshare versus a yellow cab. Uber also used LaGuardia as the starting point for its shuttle bus service in New York, with $18 rides between the airport and Manhattan transit hubs in October 2024; it later rolled out the shuttles to John F. Kennedy Airport in March 2025. Today, Uber said it is bringing the shuttle bus option to Newark Liberty International Airport, so all major NYC airports now have access to the service. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/uber-is-installing-kiosks-for-booking-rides-without-the-mobile-app-220904106.html?src=rss

Instagram is generating SEO-bait headlines for its users' posts

It looks like Meta has decided to turn Instagram users into unwitting SEO spam pawns. On Tuesday, 404 Media reported that the platform is generating sensational, likely AI-generated headlines and descriptions for user posts without their knowledge or explicit consent. An Engadget editor has also noticed this on their posts. The headlines are found in the pages code and are only visible in search results. The scheme appears to be an effort to boost the Google search ranking of Instagram content. An Instagram post by Engadgets Sam Chapman, about a board game he created, received an unwanted generated description. Floramino is a cozy puzzle game where you arrange gardens as a traveling florist, the generated text reads. The demo looks fun, with charming visuals and strategic elements. In this case, theres a significant factual error. The board game is called Bloomhunter. Floramino , which the generated text referenced, is a puzzle game on Steam. In an example cited by 404 Media , author Jeff VanderMeer's untitled video about a bunny eating a banana received a generic, SEO-style title. Meet the Bunny Who Loves Eating Bananas, A Nutritious Snack For Your Pet, it reads. That indeed reads like the work of an LLM. A Massachusetts library's post promoting a reading of a VanderMeer book got the same treatment. Join Jeff VanderMeer on a Thrilling Beachside Adventure with Mesta , the headline reads. Multiple cosplayers also found their posts gaining strange titles. I would not write mediocre text like that, and it sounds as if it was auto-generated at scale with an LLM, cosplayer Brian Dang told 404 Media . This becomes problematic when the headline or description advertises someone in a way that is not how they would personally describe themselves. The headlines appear in the posts code, as confirmed by Google's Rich Result Test tool. (They're found in the tags for the post. The descriptions appear in the text: section) The spammy headlines differ from the page's alt text, which Instagram generates for people with low vision. You might want to search for your recent content to see if youre affected. Engadget reached out to Meta for confirmation and a statement. We'll update this story if we hear back. Update, December 9, 2026 at 5:07 PM ET: The story was updated to include more detail about a post from Engadgets Sam Chapman receiving a generated description. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-is-generating-seo-bait-headlines-for-its-users-posts-213702800.html?src=rss

Slack's CEO is joining OpenAI to find the money to pay for all those data centers

OpenAI has announced that Denise Dresser, the current CEO of Slack, will be the company's new Chief Revenue Officer. Dresser will oversee the company's revenue strategy across enterprise and customer success, according to OpenAI's announcement, and will presumably play a key role in leading the company towards profitability now that it's reorganized as a public benefit corporation . We're on a path to put AI tools into the hands of millions of workers, across every industry, Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Products said in the announcement. Denise has led that kind of shift before, and her experience will help us make AI useful, reliable, and accessible for businesses everywhere. Simo joined OpenAI in May of this year, after serving as CEO of Instacart, and before that, the head of Facebook at Meta. Hiring Simo and Dresser could be a good indication of how OpenAI plans to approach ChatGPT going forward. Which is to say, the company is taking a very Silicon Valley approach to growing its chatbot business and focusing on scale and monetizing as many AI interactions as possible. It's not a mistake that Simo helped establish Meta's ads business and OpenAI is reportedly planning to introduce ads into chats with its AI models. Even with the possibility of ad revenue, Dresser will still have to overcome what OpenAI continues to spend to offer its various AI products. OpenAI pays for multiple partnerships for data center access and has commitments to both buy and build server components for those data centers. Add in the cost of just processing a ChatGPT query itself, and growing the companys revenue seems like a tall order. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/slacks-ceo-is-joining-openai-to-find-the-money-to-pay-for-all-those-data-centers-220411962.html?src=rss

How to watch The Game Awards 2025 on December 11

The Game Awards are this week, with the grand showcase for 2025 coming up on Thursday, December 11 at 8PM ET. There's also a pre-show (in case the multi-hour affair just isn't enough TGA for you) and that kicks off at 7:30PM ET. The ceremony will be a mix of honoring games from the past year and debuting trailers for future releases, so expect a couple interesting announcements to emerge from Thursday night. Engadget will be reporting on any big stories as they happen at The Game Awards, but if you want to watch along with us, the whole shebang is available to watch for free on just about every streaming platform you could want. The primo spot to watch is probably YouTube , since it will be broadcasting the show in 4K and you'll want to see all those trailers in their full glory. The video is embedded above. The other official co-streaming partners are Twitch and TikTok Live , but you can also watch everything on Steam and Amazon Prime Video . The Game Awards will also be on social media via Facebook Live , Instagram and X . It's been a good year for gaming and lots of top-notch projects are up for nominations at the show this year. The Game Awards will also shine a light on important subjects such as Innovation in Accessibility and Games For Impact as well as recognizing recent releases for excellence in artistry and design. And don't sleep on the Day of the Devs showcase happening tomorrow, Wednesday, December 10; that will almost certainly have some hype stuff emerging from the indie scene. In terms of reveals, host Geoff Keighley has shared a few looks at what's to come. There will definitely be an appearance by Lara Croft and whatever is happening at Wildflower Interactive , the new studio helmed by The Last of Us co-director Bruce Straley, is due to be announced. PlayStation will also have more to say about Saros , which is Housemarque's follow-up to Returnal . And of course, hope springs eternal (as do the memes) for Half-Life 3 . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/how-to-watch-the-game-awards-2025-on-december-11-205500124.html?src=rss

Traeger debuts Woodridge Pro Plus grill with Wi-Fi features and built-in storage cabinet

Traeger debuted its Woodridge line of Wi-Fi-enabled pellet grills back in January. The overall theme across the Woodridge, Woodridge Pro and Woodridge Elite is the companys reliable performance and features are available for less than the cost of its most premium models. Just before Christmas, the company is adding to the the Woodridge lineup with the Woodridge Pro Plus . For $400 more than the Woodridge Pro, this Plus model adds the enclosed storage cabinet from the Woodridge Elite. Instead of an open shelf, the cabinet offers a better option for keep pellet bins and other accessories close to the grill. This Plus version also has four casters on the bottom of the cart, so its easier to maneuver on solid surfaces than the Woodridge Pro. The main difference between the Pro Plus and Elite models is that the latter includes an induction burner on the side shelf. This new Woodridge Pro Plus still carries all of the handy features from the Woodridge Pro, including Wi-Fi-powered WiFIRE connectivity with the Traeger app, Super Smoke mode, 970 square inches of cooking space and an integrated pellet level sensor. You can also use wireless food probes from the Traeger-owned Meater lineup and the P.A.L. Rail system allows you to customize the grill to your needs with extra organization. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/traeger-debuts-woodridge-pro-plus-grill-with-wi-fi-features-and-built-in-storage-cabinet-205320548.html?src=rss

The best subscription box gifts for 2025

The best gifts inspire joy long after the initial unwrapping. Subscription boxes are designed to show up again and again, each time offering something new to try, build or taste. Theyre perfect for friends who already have too much gear or relatives who like to discover things without searching for them. From electronics kits and mystery puzzles to Japanese treats and fresh coffee, these boxes make each month feel like a small celebration. You pick the vibe, the plan and the recipient gets a steady stream of good surprises. Below are 13 subscription boxes that hit the sweet spot between fun and thoughtful, whether your giftee is a builder, reader, snacker or collector. Best subscription box gifts Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-subscription-box-gifts-for-2025-130037236.html?src=rss

The Webb telescope spots a supernova from 13 billion years ago

The James Webb Space Telescope and other international observatories have spotted a 13-billion-year-old supernova. On Tuesday, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the sighting of a gamma-ray burst from a star that exploded when the Universe was only 730 million years old. The Webb telescope even detected the supernova's host galaxy. Before this observation, the oldest recorded supernova was from when the Universe was 1.8 billion years old. That's a difference of more than a billion years. You can see the gamma-ray burst in the image below. It's the tiny red smudge at the center of the zoomed-in box on the right. The tiny red splotch in the center of the crop box is the oldest thing you've seen. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Levan (IMAPP) This observation also demonstrates that we can use Webb to find individual stars when the Universe was only 5 percent of its current age, co-author Andrew Levan wrote in the ESA's press release. There are only a handful of gamma-ray bursts in the last 50 years that have been detected in the first billion years of the Universe. This particular event is very rare and very exciting. Researchers learned that the 13-billion-year-old explosion shared many traits with modern, nearby supernovae. While that may not sound shocking, scientists expected a more profound difference. That's because early stars likely had fewer heavy elements, were more massive and didn't live as long. We went in with open minds, co-author Nial Tanvir said. And lo and behold, Webb showed that this supernova looks exactly like modern supernovae. Detection was an international relay race. First, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory noted the X-ray source's location. (That helped Webb to make subsequent observations that determined its distance). Then, the Nordic Optical Telescope on the Canary Islands in Spain made observations indicating that the gamma ray might be very distant. Hours later, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile estimated its age: 730 million years after the Big Bang. All of this happened in under 17 hours, according to the ESA. The team behind the observation has been approved to spend more time with Webb studying gamma-ray bursts from the early Universe and the galaxies behind them. That glow will help Webb see more and give us a 'fingerprint' of the galaxy, Levan predicted. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/the-webb-telescope-spots-a-supernova-from-13-billion-years-ago-194327489.html?src=rss

PlayStation's 2025 Wrap-Up is here, so you can see how many hours you've sunk into Death Stranding 2

Sony's 2025 PlayStation Wrap-Up is now available . The recap, which is similar to those from music streaming services, sums up gaming habits from throughout the year. It shows players how many hours they used their PS4 or PS5, what games they played the most, preferred genres, trophy counts and more. These digital cards are shareable on social media, which is kind of the whole point. Nothing says bragging rights more than offering definitive proof of how long you spent on a couch grinding in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or wandering the wasteland in Death Stranding 2. Sony This year, the recap provides insight into how much players interacted with accessories like the PlayStation Portal and PS VR2. It also details the most used DualSense wireless controller design. The 2025 Wrap-Up will be available until January 8 . Once completed, players also get a unique glass-themed avatar. It's only available for adults. My PlayStation wrap up 2025 pic.twitter.com/9Em96T4Xce priceless (@Real__Priceless) December 9, 2025 The PlayStation Wrap-Up has been around since 2017, though it ran into some issues with accessibility in 2024. Spotify introduced the basic idea with Wrapped back in 2015. Since then, the concept of a shareable year-end streaming list has spread like a virus. Just about everyone does it now, from Apple Music to Nintendo and even YouTube . We love to reflect on things we recently experienced, don't we folks? This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/playstations-2025-wrap-up-is-here-so-you-can-see-how-many-hours-youve-sunk-into-death-stranding-2-191508693.html?src=rss

Skyrim arrives on the Switch 2

You can add the Switch 2 to the (long) list of platforms where you can play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim . The bad news: It costs $60 to play the 2011 game optimized for Nintendo's 2025 hardware . The good news: It costs less (or nothing) if you own one of the versions for the original Switch. The (digital-only) Switch 2 port is the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim , released in 2021. That includes the base game and three expansions ( Dawnguard , Dragonborn and Hearthfire ). You'll also find hundreds of Creation Club items, like quests, weapons, armor, spells and dungeons. The Anniversary Edition's Zelda crossover content (Master Sword, Hylian Shield and Champion's Tunic) is also there. So, at least there's plenty of content. The game also offers technical upgrades for the Switch 2 hardware. It has enhanced resolution, DLSS anti-aliasing, faster load times and general performance optimizations. There's also mouse support, motion controls and Amiibo support. The trailer below gives you an idea of what to expect. In an interview with Nintendo Life , Bethesda Creative Director Matt Carofano said the Switch 2 port was an easy development process and actually pretty quick to make. He described the team's motivation for porting it as bringing back one of our most beloved games to the Switch 2 and see how we can improve it and make it the best experience for that console. Okay, cool, but I'm gonna go on a limb and say money was also a factor. Thats because, if you don't already own Skyrim for the OG Switch, you'll have to fork over a whopping $60 in the Nintendo Store for the 14-year-old game. Meanwhile, if you own the standard version of Skyrim for the original Switch, youll pay $20 to upgrade. Finally, if you have the Skyrim Anniversary Edition on the OG Switch, you can install the new version for free. If you own the Switch 1 version, first install that on Switch 2 and start the game. When you see the eShop banner advertising the new version, press Y to access the store and upgrade. You can do that with both digital and physical versions of Skyrim for Switch 1. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/skyrim-arrives-on-the-switch-2-175200223.html?src=rss

Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 now has a Stranger Things expansion

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 just got a fairly bizarre expansion inspired by the Netflix show Stranger Things . If you've ever wanted to fly over a fictional Indiana town in the 1980s, this is the update for you. That's right. The game now lets folks fly over Hawkins, Indiana and check out more than 40 iconic locations from the series, including Starcourt Mall, the junkyard, the government lab and, of course, the upside down. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 introduces Netflixs Stranger Things expansion, out Dec 9 Recreation of Hawkins with more than 40 iconic locations Five exhilarating missions Full details: https://t.co/JyB4LkMSzO pic.twitter.com/XsmGzt52Mb PlayStation (@PlayStation) December 9, 2025 Inexplicably, this isn't just a joyride. There's an actual game here, with five helicopter-based missions that have players arranging supply drops, rescuing characters and chasing bad guys. Murray Bauman, portrayed by Brett Gelman, is on hand to assign missions and engage in banter. This is a free update and it's available right now, so get out there and blast that one Kate Bush song over and over (and over.) As for Stranger Things , the second part of season five drops on December 25 , followed by the series finale on January 1. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 , which first came out last year, recently launched for PS5 . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/microsoft-flight-sim-2024-now-has-a-stranger-things-expansion-173944325.html?src=rss

Meta is trying to make Facebook suck less by simplifying things a bit

Somewhere along its never-ending quest to increase engagement, Meta realized that giving Facebook users more of what they want would make it more likely that they'll stick around. The company has announced a bunch of updates designed to help improve the feed and the broader Facebook experience by making it easier to find, create and share interesting things. (Because primarily showing updates from your friends with the occasional ad or meme post is maybe just too complicated.) Simplification is a big focus of this overhaul. First, the Facebook feed will be a bit more streamlined. Whenever you post multiple photos, Facebook will arrange them into a standardized grid. When you click into anything on the feed, you'll be able to see it in a full screen view. And there's a very welcome change in that you'll be able to like a photo by double-tapping it. Just be careful with that when you're swiping through an ex's or a crush's photos. Simplified Facebook feed. Meta Search results are now said to show more content in a more immersive grid layout that supports all content types, according to Meta. The company is trying out a new full-screen viewer for Facebook that lets you explore different photo and video results without losing your place in search, which it plans to expand to more content and post types in the coming months. In addition, the company says youll be able to provide feedback on a Facebook post or Reel to help make future recommendations more relevant. More ways for you to shape your feed and offer feedback on what the algorithm serves up are coming soon. The Facebook feed sucks, and it's good that Meta knows it sucks. There have been numerous occasions over the last couple of years where I've had to scroll through a couple dozen uninteresting posts from pages and creators I've never heard of before seeing something from a friend.The glut of spam and AI slop isn't helping (things are pretty grim for creators who have been dealing with content thieves too ). There was a spell of several months last year when, every single time I opened Facebook, I would see an utterly garbage AI-generated image of a tiny house, a supposedly cozy domicile where not much actually made sense (three TVs in a living room, stairs and railings that had the telltale signs of AI warping). I'd always provide feedback that I didn't want to see any posts from that page again. But the next day there'd be another rotten tiny house image from a different page in my feed. Here's hoping Meta will actually take feedback related to recommendations on board and act on it. If the company does, it might actually make the feed more interesting to scroll through again. Elsewhere, Facebook will place the most-used tab bar features such as Reels, Friends, Marketplace and Profile front and center on the tab bar for easier and faster access. Meta is also promising a refreshed look for the menu and cleaner tab notifications. Facebook Story creation screen Meta Facebook is making it easier to access more popular Story and Feed post creation tools like music and friend tagging by giving them more prominent placement. Advanced options like text background colors will be an extra tap or two away. The post and Story composer feature audience and cross-post settings prominently, so that you have ease of control over who can see what you're sharing. Meta has updated how comments work across the feed, Groups and Reels as well to make things more streamlined and easier to follow. On top of all of that, when you make changes to your profile, you might start seeing suggestions for friends with shared interests. Meta suggested that, if you update your profile to show you're into sourdough bread baking or planning a trip to Nashville, Facebook will show you friends who can give you sourdough starter tips or offer suggestions on the best local spots. As always, though, you can decide who sees what on your profile or simply opt to share none of this personal info with Facebook at all, especially if you feel that Meta already knows too much about you. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-trying-to-make-facebook-suck-less-by-simplifying-things-a-bit-171910771.html?src=rss

Google Pixel Watch 4 gets double pinch and wrist turn features

It has been two months since Google released the Pixel Watch 4 and now the company is introducing new updates to the wearable. In our review , Engadget managing editor Cherlynn Low was impressed enough with the watch to give it an 86, but called out the lack of gesture-based interactions. The new one-handed gesture features, like double pinch and wrist turn, should make up for that. In an industry that involves constant borrowing of ideas, it should come as no surprise that these features are very similar to those available on the Apple Watch. Double pinch works much the same to the Apple Watch's double tap . Pixel Watch 4 users should be able to pinch their fingers together twice on the same hand to do things like answer or end a call and pause timers. The Pixel Watch will also offer context hints on its screen about when a person should consider using double pinch. Then there's wrist turn, Google's answer to Apple's wrist flick . It should allow Pixel Watch 4 users to take actions like dismissing incoming calls by turning their wrist. Currently, users can rotate their wrist to scroll through notifications . They can also summon Gemini by bringing their wrist to their mouth, but it's a bit finicky, requiring them to start at the homepage and be extremely accurate in their movements. Google is rolling out a new step-by-step tutorial for this raise to talk feature, so hopefully it becomes a bit easier to use moving forward. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/google-pixel-watch-4-gets-double-pinch-and-wrist-turn-features-170024210.html?src=rss

Study shows that Instacart was charging different amounts for the same items

A collaborative report from Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union has uncovered pricing experiments within the Instacart app that yielded higher or lower prices for different users on the exact same items from the same store location. The organizations partnered to enroll 437 shoppers in an experiment across four cities, where each shopper added the same items to their carts within Instacart from the exact same store. Almost 75 percent of grocery items were shown to shoppers at multiple price points, with as many as five different prices shown for the same item. The average difference between the highest and lowest price shown was 13 percent, while the highest delta on an individual item was a whopping 23 percent. Engadget reached out to Instacart and received the following response. It reads in part: Just as retailers have long tested prices in their physical stores to better understand consumer preferences, a subset of only 10 retail partners ones that already apply markups do the same online via Instacart. These limited, short-term, and randomized tests help retail partners learn what matters most to consumers and how to keep essential items affordable. An Instacart spokesperson added that this is not dynamic pricing (insofar as it is not based on supply and demand), that no personal demographic data is used in the process and that these experiments are random. The bulk of the tests were conducted at Safeway and Target stores, which both yielded similar results. A Target spokesperson told the New York Times that the company is not affiliated with Instacart and is not responsible for prices on the Instacart platform. Instacart told the Times that they were evaluating different approaches to cover the platform's costs at the time of the study, but have since discontinued pricing tests on Target orders. Instacart published a blog post today attempting to explain how these tests that showed higher prices are actually meant to help retailers invest in lower prices. It also waxes poetic about Instacart's commitments to affordable groceries for consumers. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/study-shows-that-instacart-was-charging-different-amounts-for-the-same-items-165108224.html?src=rss

Pebble is making a weird little smart ring for recording thoughts

Pebble just announced the Index 01 , a smart ring for recording thoughts. It's a little ring with a built-in microphone and that's about it. The Index 01 is almost anti-tech in its simplicity. There's no needless AI component shoehorned in, aside from speech-to-text. It's a ring with a microphone that you whisper ideas into and I want one. Here's how it works. You get an idea while walking down the street, so you quietly whisper it into the ring. The ring sends the idea to a notes app or saves it for later review. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky calls this an external memory for the brain, but I call it a nice way to avoid having to dig the phone out of a pocket or bag just to utter something like pizza, but for cats. The ring doesn't record unless a button is pushed, so it won't be listening in on private conversations, and it doesn't require a paid subscription of any kind. It's on the smaller side, about the size of a wedding band, and is water-resistant. The battery also lasts for years and never needs to be charged. The ring is designed to be worn at all times, so users develop the muscle memory of holding down the little button when they have something to share. See what I mean? I want one, and I've quite literally never worn a ring in my life . Pebble Migicovsky says this is an open source product and that Pebble is leaving the side door open for folks to customize. He envisions people will integrate AI voice agents and that the ring will eventually work with stuff like ChatGPT, Beeper, Google and other services. The Pebble Index 01 works with iPhone and Android and is available for preorder right now . It costs $75 during this preorder period, but the price jacks up to $99 when shipments start going out in March. This is just the latest product by Migicovsky and Pebble. The company unveiled the Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2 smartwatches earlier this year . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/pebble-is-making-a-weird-little-smart-ring-for-recording-thoughts-161723645.html?src=rss

The 11 best gifts under $25 for 2025

The most hyped tech is often also the most expensive: flagship smartphones, ultra-powerful gaming laptops, immersive VR headsets and the like. But it would be wrong to assume that those are the only pieces of technology worth gifting. You dont have to drain your wallet to get someone a cool gadget that will both be useful and make their lives easier. There are more solid, affordable gadgets out there now more than ever, but that also means youll discover some junk along the way. Weve collected our favorite pieces of tech under $25 that make great gifts and help you to stick to a budget. Best gifts under $25 Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/the-11-best-gifts-under-25-for-2025-140042203.html?src=rss

Our favorite Anker MagSafe power bank is 34 percent off right now

Holiday travel is almost upon us and, while it likely won't be something out of a Richard Curtis film, there are ways to make it easier. You can raid our list of best travel gifts for 2025 and pick up our favorite MagSafe power bank : Anker's MagGo 10,000mAh Power Bank . Even better, the Anker MagGo power bank is currently on sale for $60, down from $90. This 34 percent discount brings the power bank to only $5 more than its all-time low price. We're big fans of Anker's MagGo power bank one of the first and best Qi2-certified products available. You can get about 1.7 iPhone 15 charges out of it and bring your phone from five percent to 60 percent in a little more than 45 minutes. Plus, the stand makes it easy to keep using your phone while it charges. Two of our other picks for best MagSafe power bank are also on sale and down to record-low prices. The Baseus Picogo 25W Power Bank is 24 percent off and down to $53 from $70. Meanwhile, the Ugreen MagFlow 10,000mAh 25W Power Bank has dropped to $60 from $90 a 33 percent discount. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/our-favorite-anker-magsafe-power-bank-is-34-percent-off-right-now-151039224.html?src=rss

Spotify finally brings music videos to the US

Spotify is finally letting the United States join its music video party. Music Videos have started rolling out in beta today to Premium users across the US and Canada, offering not only official artist videos but also new formats like live performances and covers. Music Videos first arrived last year in 11 countries, but the United States wasn't one of them. The reason for that was simple Spotify simply didn't have the rights. However, last month the streaming service struck a deal with the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) that included new provisions for video content, paving the way for the new feature. Here's how to access Music Videos. If you're a Premium subscriber in one of Spotify's beta markets, you can simply open a track (on TV, desktop, IOS and Android devices) and tap Switch to video. The music video will then start playing where the song left off. To return to background listening, hit Switch to audio. You can get a full-screen experience by turning your device to landscape mode. When the service first launched, it was limited to thousands of music videos, but Spotify promised that the list would expand rapidly. In discussing the benefits to artists, the company said early this year that users who discover a song and then watch the music video on Spotify are 34 percent more likely to stream the song again the following week. In a job listing spotted by The Verge , Spotify said it planned to build a best-in-class video experience to rival the biggest players, like YouTube or TikTok. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-finally-brings-music-videos-to-the-us-150037974.html?src=rss

Amazon is rolling out new shopping features for Alexa+, because of course it is

Congrats to any budding Nostradamus out there who peered into the future to boldly predict that Amazon would bring more shopping features to Alexa+ sooner rather than later. A gold star for you. Yes, it hasn't taken too long for Amazon to weave more features into the generative AI-powered version of Alexa that are designed to get you to buy more stuff. Shopping features were part of the original Alexa from the jump, of course, but Amazon is doing some interesting things with the latest iteration. For instance, the company is rolling out a new price tracking feature. Tell it the product you want and how much youre willing to pay for it. As soon as the item goes on sale for below that price, Alexa+ will automatically order it for you using your default payment method and delivery address. This deal tracking feature also keeps an eye on items in your cart and wishlists. Maybe remember to turn this off when youre going out of town for a while, though. Another feature that Alexa+ users can start trying today is a Shopping Essentials tool on Echo Show 15 and 21. You'll be able to see real-time tracking for your orders, your recent orders, household essentials that it may be time to reorder, saved items and your shopping list. Tap the screen and you can find out more info about products, add them to your cart and complete your purchase. You'll soon be able to add a shopping widget to your Echo Show home screen, but for now you can check this out by saying Open Shopping Essentials or Alexa, where's my stuff? Elsewhere, Alexa+ can offer personalized product recommendations after you share details about a special occasion or a person you're buying for. That could be handy if you haven't completed your gift shopping yet. There's also an option to add extra items onto a current order until just before it leaves an Amazon warehouse. Alexa+ might make some suggestions here, such as asking if you need batteries for a new gadget or toy. Amazon was always going to be interested in tapping into Alexa+ to prompt you to buy more goods from the company, but some of these features are pretty interesting, especially for deal hawks and those who order items frequently. It makes even more sense now as to why Amazon is trying to prevent third-party AI agents (such as the one in Perplexity's Comet browser ) from carrying out purchases on the platform. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-is-rolling-out-new-shopping-features-for-alexa-because-of-course-it-is-150000355.html?src=rss