Ubisoft is closing a Canadian studio just over two weeks after it unionized. In a dizzying claim, the company told GamesIndustry.biz that the closure of Ubisoft Halifax was part of “company-wide actions to streamline operations” and unrelated to the unionization.
On December 22, Ubisoft Halifax announced that 61 of its workers had joined the Game & Media Workers Guild of Canada. At the time, the studio’s lead programmer, Jon Huffman, told CTV News that 73.8 percent of employees voted in favor of unionizing. Ominously in hindsight, he had described the decision as a “huge relief.” The studio was working on mobile titles within the Rainbow Six and Assassin’s Creed franchises.
Ubisoft’s official statement framed the shutdown as part of a broader pattern of financial belt-tightening. “Over the past 24 months, Ubisoft has undertaken company-wide actions to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs,” the company said. “As part of this, Ubisoft has made the difficult decision to close its Halifax studio. 71 positions will be affected. We are committed to supporting all impacted team members during this transition with resources, including comprehensive severance packages and additional career assistance.”
In October, Ubisoft announced that Massive Entertainment, developer of The Division series, Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, was offering buyouts to some employees. The company framed that move as a “voluntary career transition program.” Over the past few years, Ubisoft has closed offices and laid off workers in San Francisco, London and Leamington. In 2024, the company’s headcount dropped by eight percent.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-is-shutting-down-a-studio-16-days-after-it-unionized-183000983.html?src=rss
When LG announced that it would demo a laundry-folding, chore-doing robot at CES 2026, I was immediately intrigued. For years, I’ve wandered the Las Vegas Convention Center halls and wondered when someone might create a robot that can tackle the mundane but useful tasks I despise like folding laundry. With CLOiD (pronounced like “Floyd”), LG has proven that this is theoretically possible, but probably not likely to happen any time soon.
I went to the company’s CES booth to watch its demonstration of CLOiD’s abilities, which also include serving food, fetching objects and fitness coaching. During a very carefully choreographed 15-minute presentation, I watched CLOiD grab a carton of milk out of the fridge, put a croissant in an oven, sort and fold some laundry and grab a set of keys off a couch and hand them to the human presenter.
Throughout the demonstration, LG showed off how its own appliances can play along with the robot. When it rolled over to the fridge, the door automatically opened, as did the oven. When the LG-branded robot vacuum needed to move around a hamper, CLOiD helpfully cleared the path. But the robot also moved very slowly, which you can see in the highlight video below.
The appliance maker is selling the setup as a part of its vision for a “zero labor home” where its appliances and, I guess, robotics technology can come together to take care of all your chores and household upkeep. Maybe I’m jaded from a decade of watching CES vaporware, but I left the slick demo thinking the concept is unlikely to amount to much anytime soon.
On one hand, it is exciting to see robots competently performing tasks that would actually be useful to most people. But this technology is still far from accessible. Even LG isn’t making any firm commitments about CLOiD’s future as anything more than a CES demo. The company has instead said that CLOiD is a signal of its interest in creating “home robots with practical functions” and “robotized appliances,” like fridges with doors that can open automatically.
That may be a more reasonable target for the company (and yet another way for LG to sell us more appliance upgrades). But it’s still pretty far from anything approaching the fantasy of a “zero labor home.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/lgs-cloid-robot-can-fold-laundry-and-serve-food-very-slowly-181902306.html?src=rss
If you’re a Mac user with Logitech accessories and you’ve noticed that your settings and customizations seem to have gone away this week, you’re not alone.
The company’s Logi Options+ and G Hub apps for macOS abruptly stopped functioning on Monday, refusing to launch and reverting all accessories’ settings to their built-in defaults.
The culprit, according to both a Logitech support page and Reddit posts from Logitech Head of Global Marketing Joe Santucci, was a security certificate that was inadvertently allowed to expire, rendering both apps non-functional.
Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half — without reducing passenger journeys — by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using the most efficient aircraft, according to analysis. The Guardian: These efficiency measures could be far more effective in tackling the fast-growing carbon footprint of flying than pledges to use “sustainable” fuels or controversial carbon offsets, the researchers said. They believe their study, which analysed more than 27m commercial flights out of approximately 35m in 2023, is the first to assess the variation in operational efficiency of flights across the globe. The study, led by Prof Stefan Gossling at Sweden’s Linnaeus University, examined flights between 26,000 city pairs carrying 3.5 billion passengers across 6.8 trillion kilometers. First and business class passengers are responsible for more than three times the emissions of economy travelers, and up to 13 times more in the most spacious premium cabins.
The average seat occupancy across all flights in 2023 was almost 80%. US airports accounted for a quarter of all aviation emissions and ran 14% more polluting than the global average. Atlanta and New York ranked among the least efficient airports overall, nearly 50% worse than top performers like Abu Dhabi and Madrid.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At CES 2026, Swedish furniture giant Ikea showed off its new Kallsup Bluetooth speaker, which will cost just $10 in the U.S. Normally, I’d be skeptical of any speaker this cheap, but the Kallsup grabbed my attention for a few reasons—chief among them that Ikea says you can chain up to 100 of them together to create the multi-speaker setup of your dreams. That aside, the hardware seems pretty basic: The speaker has a USB-C port at the back, and two buttons up top (play/pause, and pair).
Chaining together Bluetooth speakers is nothing new, but this is the first time I’m seeing the ability to pair as many as 100 of them. The only reason this use case is even remotely plausible is the pricing: As reported by The Verge, the Kallsup Bluetooth speaker will be priced at $10 in the U.S. and €5 (roughly $6) in Europe, which means you can buy 10 of them for the same price as one HomePod mini. The Verge also says that once you pair one of them to your phone (the company promises Bluetooth 5.3 support), you can add more to the chain with a two-button sequence.
Design-wise, the speakers are cubical and colorful, which I’m a fan of (at the moment, Ikea is showing them off in white, green, and pink). But how do they sound? Well, Gizmodo says that while they are loud, they don’t deliver much in the way of bass. I’d love to get a couple to judge for myself before committing to chaining a few dozen of them together, but I definitely admire Ikea’s big swing here. That said, while CES is the place to grab attention with out-there ideas, and I am struggling to find a use case for chaining 100 Bluetooth speakers together. Maybe if you’re an amusement park owner and you want the cheapest possible audio setup for a haunted house? Likely most people will be content with a more reasonable number of them, spread around the house.
I’ll admit that I’ve always kind of taken walking for granted. Other than a knee injury more than a decade ago, my ability to walk long distances has largely been limited only by my own choices. That’s not the case for everyone, though. And robotics company Dephy has created a pair of robotic sneakers, called the Sidekick, that are meant to help people who want to walk more than their bodies might otherwise be capable of.
The system consists of two parts: an ankle-worn exoskeleton and a special pair of sneakers that attach to it. The exoskeleton hooks onto the back of the shoe and is secured with a strap around your calf. The battery powered device is equipped with sensors that can detect and adapt to the wearer’s gait in order to deliver an extra “boost” with each step.
The whole setup is pricey, at $4,500, but Dephy is betting that people who have “personal range anxiety” might be willing to pay for the extra confidence the Sidekick can provide. “This is a device that’s kind of like [having] an extra calf muscle,” Dephy CEO Luke Mooney told me.
I was able to take the Sidekick for a spin around the CES showfloor and it was a truly surprising sensation. The best way I can describe walking with the Sidekick powered on is that with every step forward there’s a noticeable upward push from under your heel. It wasn’t enough to throw me off balance, but it did feel a bit strange.
The Sidekick has adjustable power levels based on how much help you might need. At the highest level, it definitely felt unnecessarily pushy. The lower levels were still noticeable but felt less disruptive. I just felt… bouncy. Later, when Mooney turned off the power entirely, I noticed that my feet felt weirdly heavy in a way they hadn’t just a few minutes before.
Mooney was quick to tell me that I’m not Dephy’s target demographic. “A lot of times people who are fit, or like athletes, actually struggle to adopt to the technology because their body’s so in tune with how they move,” he said. “Whereas folks who are not as physically active and fit, their body’s ready to accept help.”
The company’s technology will be used in products more focused on athletic performance, however. Dephy has partnered with Nike on its upcoming robotic sneaker currently known as Project Amplify. Mooney declined to share details on the collaboration, but the shoemaker has claimed that some early testers have been able to improve their mile times by two minutes.
I tried the Sidekick early in the day. Several hours later, though, when I was walking between the Las Vegas Conventions Center halls for the third or fourth time, I started thinking about those robotic sneakers again. I was getting close to 10,000 steps and hadn’t sat down for hours. My feet were sore. I remembered that strange, bouncy boost and thought it sounded kind of nice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/these-robotic-sneakers-gave-me-a-surprising-boost-at-ces-174500005.html?src=rss
Spotify is rolling out more social features to keep people on the platform. It’s adding a new tool to its messaging platform that lets users see what their friends and family members are listening to in real time.
Once activated, a user’s listening activity will be displayed at the top of the chat. The other person in the chat can tap the bar to play a particular track, save it or react with an emoji. People can also, of course, comment directly to either praise or rag on the song selection.
There’s another little addition to Spotify’s messaging system. Users will now be able to invite chat participants to start a Jam, which is the app’s collaborative listening feature. Premium users will find a “Jam” button in the top right corner, which sends an invite. This lets two people add tracks to a shared queue and listen together. Free users can join one of these sessions, but cannot initiate.
It’s worth noting that the messaging platform is currently just a one-on-one affair. There’s no option for a group chat, so users won’t be able to spy on multiple people simultaneously. These tools are rolling out gradually for iOS and Android right now, but won’t be broadly available for a few weeks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-now-lets-you-share-what-youre-listening-to-in-real-time-via-chat-173749120.html?src=rss
SteamOS’s slow march across the Windows-dominated PC gaming landscape is continuing to creep along. At CES this week, Lenovo announced it will launch a version of last year’s high-priced, high-powered Legion Go 2 handheld with Valve’s gaming-focused, Linux-based OS pre-installed starting in June. And there are some intriguing signs from Valve that SteamOS could come to non-AMD devices in the not-too-distant future as well.
A new SteamOS-powered Legion Go 2 isn’t exactly shocking news given how things have been going in the world of PC gaming handhelds. Lenovo became the first non-Valve hardware maker to embrace the Windows alternative when it announced a SteamOS-compatible version of the lower-end Legion Go S almost exactly a year ago. When that version hit the market last spring, Ars testing found it actually performed better than the Windows-based version of the same hardware on many popular games.
Valve has also been working behind the scenes to expand SteamOS’s footprint beyond its own hardware. After rolling out the SteamOS Compatible software label last May, SteamOS version 3.7 offered support for manual installation on AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Ally and the original Legion Go.
I know IKEA is all about small, efficient spaces, but their meeting room inside the Venetian during the company’s first-ever CES was the same size as my (not large) living room. Plenty of people were as excited as I was to see what the Swedish designers brought with them to the show and the room was thick with humans. A bowl full of BELÖNING bars helped ease my mounting claustrophobia and I was able to check out the new smart home lineup.
Like most things IKEA, the 21 Matter-compatible smart home devices are simple, sleek and silly affordable. They include a $6 smart bulb, an $8 smart plug, a $6 smart remote and a slew of home sensors. A slightly pricier ($15) globe bulb is a direct answer to my longstanding wish for more attractive (but affordable) smart bulbs.
One of my favorite of the new devices was the BILREA remote control. It’s a smooth, riverstone-like object that either comes with two simple buttons or a button and a scroll wheel. It pairs up with and controls IKEA’s smart devices and lamps but what i really love is the magnetic mount integrated into its body. You can either attach the remote to any ferrous surface or use the small metal chip and included adhesive to give the remote a home on a wall or elsewhere. Why have so few other companies come up with a way to neatly and simply organize these tiny yet crucial controllers?
The whole suite is Matter-compatible and, as such, they need a hub to function. IKEA has it’s own, DIRIGERA, but, true to the Matter principles of interoperability, you can also use a Matter hub you already own. The new line of smart home devices should start showing up in IKEA stores and on its website sometime in January.
Apart from the egalitarian and utilitarian items, the Swedish brand also brought a new collection of products, TEKLAN, designed in collaboration with designer and photographer Tekla Evelina Severin. These include circular Bluetooth speakers in color-saturated patterns and solids ranging from eight to 18 inches. There are also two speaker lamps, KULGLASS, topped with glass domes inspired by soft serve ice cream. That collection went on sale at the first of the year.
Finally, I made my way (three feet) over to the curious, donut-shaped lamps. This is the smart version of the store’s popular VARMBLIXT lamp that debuted three years ago. It’s controllable through the app or the remote I mentioned above and gently cycles through a rainbow of color patterns, shifting slowly from shade to shade. I got lost for a while watching it morph from white to pink to red and back again. For a moment I forgot I was wedged into a room too full of people. I figured those around me probably wanted a look at the lamp for themselves, so I took a longing glance back at the BELÖNING bowl and squeezed out of the room.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/ikeas-first-ces-appearance-included-a-6-matter-smart-bulb-172623474.html?src=rss
Like many parents, sometimes I view my kids as lazy. This was one of those times: At Orlando International Airport, on our way to Disney World, my 16-year-old daughter shared how much she wanted a rideable suitcase. I laughed and told her that she can walk just fine. “Besides,” I added, “that would never work.”
I hadn’t seen rideable luggage yet, and I pointed out the immediate detractions that came to mind. First, it wouldn’t work for someone like me—6’3 and 215 pounds. Second, I had doubts that it would have much storage space to carry items, which is the whole point of luggage. And third, who would be caught dead riding something so silly? But my daughter was determined to prove to me not only that they exist, but that they’re popular. She showed me videos of them in action. I wasn’t convinced.
We joked about rideable luggage as we walked through the airport. It came up again as we trekked through Disney World. (“See, if we had rideable luggage, we wouldn’t be so tired.”) By the time we walked to baggage claim after returning to LaGuardia, it was a running gag. That same week, as I prepared for CES, I looked into rideable suitcases and made plans to test them out at the show. And as it turns out, my daughter was right.
At CES, I tried several rideable suitcases, putting my bulky 6’3, 215-pound frame on motorized, battery-powered, airplane cabin-sized bags. The best I rode came from Jitlife, which is premiering its fourth model, the Jitlife JS07i, this year. Not only did it impress, but it’s also one of the finalists for the official Best of CES 2026 awards for the travel category.
Like all the suitcases I drove, the Jitlife rideable suitcase is the size of a standard cabin bag but can carry up to 250 pounds, has a maximum speed of around 8 miles per hour, and can travel about six miles on a charge. The suitcase has a capacity of 28 liters, which is indeed much less than the 60-80 liters of space I expect from a standard check-in bag, but it’s better than I thought for something that weighs under 20 pounds and can carry me around. Overall, the kid was right: Rideable luggage can work, and it’s actually already a fairly common sight in Asia, particularly in China.
As for looking goofy riding one, well, I believe my point stands. But, for those with accessibility needs, younger children, or people who prioritize its functionality over the judgment of strangers, rideable luggage might be a worthwhile solution for moving through large airports more quickly and easily. Testing it out is certainly the most fun I’ve had at CES, so whatever the future of rideable luggage, I’ll live with the “I told you so” from my kid.
Microsoft has canceled plans to impose a daily limit of 2,000 external recipients on Exchange Online bulk email senders. From a report: The change was announced in April 2024, when Microsoft said that it would add new External Recipient Rate (ERR) limits starting January 2025 to fight spam, with plans to begin enforcing the limit on cloud-hosted mailboxes of existing tenants between July and December 2025.
As explained last year, this new Mailbox External Recipient Rate Limit was designed to prevent Microsoft 365 customers from abusing Exchange Online resources and to restrict unfair usage. However, on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that the Exchange Online bulk emailing rate limit is being canceled indefinitely, following negative customer feedback.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
On Wednesday, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority announced that it is halting the relicensing process for two reactors at the Hamaoka plant after revelations that the operator fabricated seismic hazard data. Japan has been slowly reactivating its extensive nuclear power plant collection after it was shut down following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. The latest scandal is especially shocking, given that the Hamaoka plant is located on the coast near an active subduction fault—just as Fukushima Daiichi is.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority was reportedly alerted by a whistleblower in February of last year, but the issue became public this week when the regulators halted an evaluation process that could have led to a reactor restart at Hamaoka. This prompted the company that operates the plants, the Chubu Electric Power Co., to issue a press release describing in detail how the company manipulated the seismic safety data.
Based on an English translation, it appears that seismic risks were evaluated at least in part by scaling up the ground motion using data from smaller earthquakes. This is an inexact process, so the standard approach is to create a group of 20 different upscaled earthquake motions and find the one that best represents the average among the 20.
Samsung says AI data center-fueled RAM scarcity could raise the company’s prices. Wonjin Lee, Samsung’s global marketing leader, sounded the alarm in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday at CES 2026. As recently as early December, Samsung told Reuters that it was monitoring the market but wouldn’t comment on pricing. So, the change of tune can be seen as a deliberate signal to soften the ground ahead of an official announcement.
“There’s going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it’s going to affect everyone,” Samsung’s Lee said. “Prices are going up even as we speak. Obviously, we don’t want to convey that burden to the consumers, but we’re going to be at a point where we have to actually consider repricing our products.”
The global RAM shortage is the result of AI data centers gobbling up high-bandwidth memory. Memory manufacturers have shifted their output priorities to meet that demand, leading to a snowball effect where even the low-bandwidth RAM found in automobiles is affected.
“AI workloads are built around memory,” Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO of Greyhound Research, told NPR in late December. “AI has changed the nature of demand itself. Training and inference systems require large, persistent memory footprints, extreme bandwidth, and tight proximity to compute. You cannot dial this down without breaking performance.”
It’s been more than three years since ChatGPT launched and kicked off the AI craze. During that time, companies have hyped chatbots and other generative AI tools as a technology that will take us to the promised land, making life easier as machine learning automates our daily lives. It isn’t yet clear if an AI bubble is set to burst, but some financial forecasters have sounded the alarm. Regardless, it’s hard to see how consumers and workers are getting anything but the short end of the stick so far.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/samsung-says-ram-costs-will-likely-lead-to-price-hikes-soon-170653524.html?src=rss
I’m fascinated by AI cooking robots which, as far as I’m concerned, automate the one fun bit of cooking. Sadly, it’s far easier to make something that can stir a pan of ingredients as they cook compared to building something that would successfully peel a carrot. Nosh is the latest unit to use CES to announce itself to the world, gearing up for its launch in the next few months. Like its many rivals, you load ingredients into the unit and then Nosh will assemble them for you. Unlike its many rivals, you can have more than one ingredient tray, opening up the possibility that you could prep multiple meals at the same time.
Even if you’re not familiar with the category you can guess how this thing works: You’ll select a recipe from the hardware’s 500-dish strong repertoire. Then you’ll prepare the necessary raw materials and slide them into individual compartments in the trays. Once done, you’ll be able to push the tray into the unit when you’re ready to eat and let it get on with the job of cooking. There are water and oil reservoirs, a spice rack mounted in the top, and a camera that uses computer vision to keep an eye on the meals as they cook. As each morsel is added, a mixer arm spins to ensure the food never stays in one place for too long.
From the marketing materials (as well as my own common sense) it’s clear Nosh works best with sauce heavy meals. Pasta dishes, soups and curries will work pretty well in the system, which may limit how often you’ll want to use it across a regular week. That said, the idea of having this as a low-effort alternative to pre-prepared meals from the oven or microwave is preferable. I’m just not sure how engaged I’ll be in finely julienning carrot batons after an 18-hour day at the content factory.
Nosh is launching in the near future but early birds can already put some cash down to get the unit for $1,200, a deep discount on its $2,000 retail price. And, for all my snootiness about the utility of AI cooking robots in general, I’ll admit — I am looking forward to trying one of these out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/nosh-is-an-ai-cooking-robot-for-the-meal-prep-crowd-170000610.html?src=rss
Last week, San Diego State Senator Steve Padilla introduced a bill that would impose
CES 2026 is in full swing, but you don’t have to wait months to get your hands on everything announced in Las Vegas this year. A surprising number of products are already up for pre-order, if not outright available to buy today, from new chargers and docks to projectors, keyboards and smart home gear. CES is still a showcase for concepts and big promises, but these are the gadgets that have real pricing and an order button ready right now. Check out all of the CES 2026 gadgets you can buy right now below.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/17-ces-gadgets-you-can-buy-right-now-164325644.html?src=rss
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you’re among the macOS users experiencing some weird issues with your Logitech mouse, then good news: Logitech has now released a fix. This comes after multiple Reddit users reported yesterday that Logi Options Plus — the app required to manage and configure the controls on Logitech accessories — had stopped working, preventing them from using customized scrolling features, button actions, and gestures.
One Reddit user said that the scroll directions and extra buttons on their Logitech mouse “were not working as I intended” and that the Logi Options Plus app became stuck in a boot loop upon opening it to identify the cause. Logitech has since acknowledged the situation and said that its G Hub app — a similar management software for gaming devices under the Logitech G brand — was also affected.
According to Logitech’s support page, the problem was caused by “an expired certificate” required for the apps to run. Windows users were unaffected. The issues only impacted Mac users because macOS prevents certain applications from running if it doesn’t detect a valid Developer ID certificate, something that has affected other apps in the past.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It’s been six years since Sony first rolled out its prototype car at CES 2020. It was called the Vision-S back then, and I remember everyone endlessly debating just how serious the consumer electronics powerhouse was about making a car. Over the subsequent half-decade, Sony has proven it is not only serious, but absolutely hell-bent on making this thing a reality.
At CES 2026, we’re still somehow about 12 months away from that car hitting the roads. Now called the Afeela 1, instead of being built by Sony proper it will come from the joint venture Sony Honda Mobility. It will start at $89,900, offer around 300 miles of range, and wear an exterior design so sedate that even the 31.5-inch-wide “Media Bar” micro-LED integrated into the nose barely makes an impact.
With the Afeela up on stage again this year, what’s new in 2026? I’m fresh from getting a closer look at the sedan here in Las Vegas and, sadly, there’s little more to see than what so underwhelmed me last year. From the outside, 2026’s Afeela looks nigh identical to 2025’s, save for one change: I’m happy to report that the unfortunate seam running down the middle of last year’s nose-mounted Media Bar has been fixed. It now appears to be a single, contiguous panel.
On the inside, the interior seems to have a higher degree of fit and finish than last year’s. To get in, you either push on a little button hidden in the trim or pull out the smartphone app and request that the door open automatically. There are no door latches as such, something that might raise a few eyebrows given Tesla’s current door handle woes. (I was told there are physical door releases hidden below the car on the outside, and low in the door card on the inside.)
The door closes automatically once you’re inside, instantly hushing the manic drone of the crowd on the always-packed CES floor. This creates a great soundscape for the whopping 28 speakers Sony is deploying here. The car’s interior shape was actually designed to optimize the placement of those speakers, and the few moments of music I heard were impressive.
There’s Dolby Atmos support, so you can take full advantage of the spatial audio features in the cockpit. You can even toggle the sound on or off for individual seats, perhaps helping a little one stay asleep in the back seat — or simply sparing your kids from the depths of your guilty pleasure playlist.
The most noticeable feature inside the car, though, is the sweeping display that runs across the dashboard. There’s a 12.3-inch LCD gauge cluster on the left conjoined with a 28.5-inch display that goes all the way to the right. Sony’s infotainment software effectively splits that rightmost panel in two, enabling you or the passenger to drag apps left or right as needed.
Media or other distracting apps running on the passenger’s side of the display will trigger an integrated privacy shield, blacking it out ensuring minimal distraction for the driver. But Sony is still pushing the envelope a bit here in a few other areas. You can dial into Zoom meetings from the driver’s seat, for example, and while the Afeela 1 won’t be the first car to do this (Mercedes-Benz included the service in the car in its 2024 E-Class), Sony will actually let the driver participate in the video while driving. This seems a little unnecessary to me.
Zoom uses the ceiling-mounted camera, one of 40 sensors in and around the Afeela 1. That includes the pods for a LiDAR sensor and more cameras protruding rather conspicuously from the roof. These sensors will provide Level 2+ driver assistance at launch. Over time, Sony promises to upgrade the car to Level 4, meaning that you, the driver, could theoretically take a nap behind the wheel. The car certainly looks to have enough sensors and processing power to make that work, but as we saw with Tesla’s Full Self Driving, these sorts of automotive upgrades have a tendency to take longer than anticipated.
Some of that digital processing power comes courtesy of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis, which also powers the infotainment experience. The software that runs the dashboard and rear seat experience looked far more comprehensive than before. That includes a functional AI voice assistant providing advanced routing guidance, like telling you which of the dozen taquerias on your route has the best guac.
Personalization is a big part of the sales pitch here, with downloadable packages changing everything from the car’s ambient lights to the gauge cluster, engine sound, and even whatever’s displayed on the nose-mounted display.
The idea here is to give you an emotional connection with the car — despite its decidedly emotionless exterior design.
“Our brand, Afeela, is built on a vision to redefine the relationship between people and mobility,” Izumi Kawanishi, Sony Honda Mobility’s president and COO, said. “Being in a car will no longer be about driving. It will be about making the most of your time and space while you move.”
I got to sample a number of these customizations at the show, including a particularly cool one that replicated the dashboard of Honda’s first-ever Grand Prix-winning machine, 1965’s RA272. The Afeela even picked up the raspy sound of its 1.5-liter V12.
The pre-production car on the Afeela stage had about a dozen such experiences installed, but the plan is for many, many more. Sony Honda Mobility will launch what it’s calling the Afeela Co-Creation Program, a set of software developer tools and interfaces enabling third-party developers to not only create their own customizations, but to sell them.
Yes, alternate revenue streams are a big part of the equation here, including premium audio and video purchases, but Sony seemingly isn’t factoring that in to help make the Afeela 1 more affordable. Again, you’re looking at $89,900 to start, a price that hasn’t changed from last year.
In fact, the biggest change to the Afeela 1 since CES 2025’s showing is a delay. The sedan now isn’t hitting the road until the very end of 2026, with first, limited deliveries happening in California. Arizona is next in 2027, but it could be years more before it’s available anywhere else in the world.
Don’t call it vaporware, though, because it is coming. Trial production work is already happening at Honda’s plant in Ohio. In fact, the Afeela 1 you see here is an early, pre-production machine assembled there.
But just because it’s going to happen doesn’t mean that it will be a compelling product. An EV that costs $20,000 more than a more-powerful, longer-range Lucid Air Touring is a difficult proposition today, never mind 2027 or later, when the Afeela 1 will finally become readily available.
With sedans increasingly on the outs in the American market, an SUV shape would make more sense. Sony confirmed that one is coming by rolling out the Afeela 2026 Prototype, but despite its name, it isn’t coming until 2028 at the earliest.
As much as I respect Sony’s stubborn commitment to this project, the numbers are just not working out in the Afeela 1’s favor. I asked Sony Honda Mobility America president and CEO Shugo Yamaguchi what would make the car stand out in an EV segment that’s increasingly crowded with quality machines, many available for tens of thousands less.
“We do have that LiDAR, which is expensive, and introduces more safety. We have better entertainment, amazing displays and 800 TOPS of processing power. So, we believe that through our applications and our development, we are going to more than make our customers happy,” he said.
Will customers pay more for a luxury and safety experience topped off by an expensive sensor that likely won’t be fully utilized for years to come? After making a similar pitch in its 2025 EX90, Volvo has decided to delete LiDAR from the 2026 model. I can’t say I’m more bullish here.
The Afeela 1 was an audacious product when it was announced at CES 2020, but with each subsequent year it feels more and more out of touch. It’ll undoubtedly be the ultimate expression of brand loyalty for the true PlayStation fans out there. But with even established luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz shifting their focus to more affordable EVs like the new CLA, a $90,000 sedan with specs that sounded good in 2020 makes it awfully hard to stay excited for this PlayStation on wheels.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/at-ces-2026-sony-honda-mobilitys-latest-afeela-1-still-feels-woefully-out-of-date-163513001.html?src=rss
Roblox Corporation, the company behind the popular online game platform Roblox, announced today that age verification will now be required for any users wishing to use in-game chat in all regions where the feature is available. This comes after mounting pressure to protect underage players and lawsuits from multiple state attorneys general like Louisiana and Texas.
Starting January 7, players in the US and abroad will need to submit to facial age estimation via a selfie. Users 13 years of age or older may opt for ID-based checks. These features were given a trial rollout late last year in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, where Roblox says half of the daily active users have already completed verification. The company says facial estimation is done via its third-party vendor Persona and that images are deleted immediately after processing. Age verification remains optional to play the game itself and is only required to use chat for now.
Once a player’s age is verified, they will be placed in one of six age groups, the youngest being under 9, and the oldest being 21+. Players in these groups can only chat with their own group, as well as age groups directly below and above theirs. Roblox says players who are 13 or older can still chat more freely with players beyond their immediate age group by using the “Trusted Connections” feature within Roblox. This feature is intended for friends imported via a user’s phone, or contacts added by QR codes shared outside of Roblox. Age verification is still required by both parties to use this feature.
Players under 9 years old will have chat turned off by default unless a parent approves its use after age verification. Roblox says it may ask users to resubmit verification if their behavior suggests they are substantially older or younger than they claimed.
Roblox has faced repeated accusations that it was not doing enough to protect younger players. In 2024, the company banned players under 13 from accessing certain types of in-game content, as well as restricting their ability to direct message with other players outside of specific games. Last year the company cracked down on user-created content, after a lawsuit from the state of Louisiana alleged some disturbing in-game “experiences” that minors may have been exposed to.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/roblox-now-requires-age-verification-to-use-in-game-chat-163213512.html?src=rss