High tech car makers like Tesla offer drivers a taste of the future today with a feature that allows them to rid themselves of the tedious, inelegant shackles of physical car keys, and instead open their winged doors with the modernized simplicity and ease of a phone app. But like all app-based features, that key is…
Source: Gizmodo – Tesla App Outage Leaves Some Drivers Locked Out of Their Cars
As we wait for Intel to introduce its first modern discrete desktop graphics cards, the leaks and questions are starting to pile up. For example, will Arc Alchemist in flagship form give AMD and NVIDIA a run for their money in the high-end GPU space? What will inventories look like, and what price points are we looking at? We won’t have concrete
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Arc Alchemist Loses To RTX 2060 In Leaked Benchmark, Should We Be Concerned?
After its first serious foray into e-commerce this past summer, Twitter has started testing a new live shopping experience. The feature essentially allows users to both watch a broadcast and shop at the same time. The first live shopping stream will debut on November 28th at 7PM ET when Walmart hosts a Cyber Week-themed livestream with Jason Derulo. The songwriter will spend about 30 minutes talking about a variety of products, including electronics and home decor.
“Livestreaming on Twitter gives businesses the power to engage with their most influential fans, and adding the ability to shop into this experience is a natural extension to attracting and engaging with receptive audiences,” Twitter said of the feature.
Twitter has also started testing a “Shopping Manager” it says will help with the merchant onboarding experience. Additionally, the company is expanding the availability of the “Shop Module.” First announced in July, the tool allows brands and businesses to add a carousel to their profile that can highlight a selection of products. Over the coming weeks, the company says it will roll out the feature to more merchants in the US.
Compared to other social media platforms, Twitter has been slow to embrace and add e-commerce features. The fact the company is now adding a host of shopping features suggests it sees e-eommerce as a big part of its future.
Source: Engadget – Twitter starts experimenting with shopping features in livestreams
For the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. last year, Nintendo released a special edition Game & Watch. (If you don’t know, Game & Watch were a line of handheld LCD devices from the ‘80s that could each play one very simple game.) Rather than featuring a single title, the Super Mario anniversary device had a full version of the original adventure as well as its Japan-only sequel, known in the West as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.
Nintendo’s pulling the same trick this year with a 35th-anniversary Legend of Zelda-themed Game & Watch that just went on sale. And like last year’s model, it includes a color screen and full games, but the selection is more generous. It includes the original The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, both originally released on the NES. It also includes The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which came out on the Game Boy in 1993, making this essentially a collection of Zelda’s early 8-bit adventures.
I actually have never really played the first two Zelda games, though I do love Link’s Awakening. I played the Switch remaster a few years ago, but I haven’t touched the original game since my childhood — so when we got a chance to check this tiny device out, I was pretty thrilled to give that game a go.
The Game & Watch itself is elegantly designed, but also feels rather cheap. It’s a tiny, palm-sized device with an eye-catching gold front, while the rest of the device is clad in green plastic. The front has a 2.36-inch color LCD screen that is very small but also looks great — and when playing Link’s Awakening, the upgrade from the Game Boy’s screen, which had no backlight, is dramatic. The D-Pad and buttons are nothing to write home about, but they’re good enough.
On the right side of the device is an exceedingly modern USB-C port for charging its battery (which is pretty meager, so you’re going to need to do that a lot) and a power button; the speaker is on the left side. Finally, there’s a great Easter egg on the back: When the screen is on, the Triforce glows subtly through the green plastic. It’s a great little detail.
The Game & Watch has a few different modes: clock, timer and game. Pressing the “game” button lets you switch between the three Zelda titles, a Link-themed version of Vermin (from a 1980 Game & Watch), and the timer. The clock and timer are fairly self-explanatory, but their use of Zelda action as backgrounds is expertly done.
On the clock, you’ll see the original Legend of Zelda, and the CPU-controlled Link essentially battles his way through the game over the course of the next 12 hours, defeating Ganon and rescuing Zelda at 11:59. If you’re so inclined, you can pick up the console and control the action from the clock screen at any time. Likewise, the timer features a handful of different scenes from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link that you can either watch or play yourself. The device’s packaging even converts into a little stand so you can use the Game & Watch as a desk clock.
If you’re interested in this Game & Watch, though, you’re not in it for playing the clock: you want to relive Link’s earliest adventures on the smallest portable device you can find. Sure, you can play the NES Zelda collection on the Switch (or many other old Nintendo devices), but the Game & Watch’s miniature screen and old-school controls feel just right for these adventures. That’s doubly true with Link’s Awakening, since it was originally designed for portable systems.
The games themselves are exactly as you remember them, with no quality of life enhancements or graphics updates; Link’s Awakening is in black and white, rather than the later “DX” version released for the Game Boy color. I’m not complaining, though, as these original versions seem right for the Game & Watch as a celebration of the series’ 8-bit origins.
How you feel about these games will depend on your history with the series. Like I said, I’ve never played the original NES Zelda adventures; I got on board with A Link to the Past in 1992. As such, I don’t have a lot of nostalgic love for the original pair, and playing the first game was an exercise in frustration. There’s barely a map, Link is slow while enemies are fast, and aiming is imprecise at best. I definitely died more than my fair share of times, which was rather humbling for this self-described Zelda expert. But hey, I shouldn’t have expected anything different from a 1986 game, and I started to get the hang of it soon enough.
Link’s Awakening, on the other hand, was like visiting an old friend. Muscle and brain memory combined to have me slashing my way through it in no time at all, and it controlled just like I remembered. The A and B buttons may have felt rather squishy, but the D-pad was close enough to the one on my old Game Boy that I felt right at home. I don’t know if I’ll finish the NES Zelda games, but I’ll definitely play through Link’s Awakening.
So who exactly is this $50 device for? The Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch was really only meant for people who loved that first Mario game, not necessarily people who love the Mario franchise in general. Likewise, The Legend of Zelda Game & Watch is best for someone who loved these original games growing up. It doesn’t even have to be all three, though — if one of them was a formative gaming experience, you’ll delight in getting a chance to play it on a cute little handheld. But someone raised on Twilight Princess or Breath of the Wild probably will find these a lot less essential.
Source: Engadget – Nintendo’s Zelda-themed Game & Watch is a love letter to Link’s 8-bit origins
When you pick up your AirPods or your Beats, you expect them to play your favorite music, podcasts, movies, and more. What you might not expect to hear are random, unexplained alert tones. These sounds can be distracting and confusing, and can affect the way your headphones and earbuds function. Here’s what these…
Source: LifeHacker – What Do All Those Noises Your AirPods and Beats Make Actually Mean?
I guess it was inevitable that once humanity got Doom running on everything, including cash registers, Twitter, and unreleased consoles, that we would have to seek out a new formidable challenge. Now that we’ve nearly done it all, it’s not about how you play Doom, but who you get to play Doom. First up, apparently,…
Source: Kotaku – Rats (Sort Of) Played Doom Via VR
Everything’s bigger in Texas—including problems with its electric grid and energy demand for bitcoin. A new analysis shows that the electric grid is just as vulnerable to crisis as it was before February’s blackouts just as the state is gearing up to welcome cryptocurrency operations that will add an enormous amount…
Source: Gizmodo – Bitcoin Miners Are Flocking to Texas as Grid Operator Warns of Future Blackouts
When it comes to sales of electric cars, Norway is in a league of its own. In September, battery-powered electric vehicles accounted for 77.5 percent of all new cars sold. That figure makes Norway a world leader by a long way — leapfrogging over the UK, where 15 percent of new car sales were electric as of October, and the US, where that number is just 2.6 percent. From a report: Norway’s electric dream has been credited to a series of tax breaks and other financial carrots that mean brands like Tesla can compete on price with combustion engines. But these incentives — and their success — have created a unique predicament: Norway is running out of dirty cars to tax.
It’s quite a big problem. The previous government — a center-right coalition that was replaced by a center-left minority government in October — estimated that the popularity of EVs was creating a 19.2 billion Norwegian krone ($2.32 billion) hole in the country’s annual revenue. While EVs might be great news for the environment, their rapid success in Norway is now forcing some serious fiscal consternation. The road to this point has been long — and offers lessons to other countries racing to ditch gas-guzzling combustion engines. In Norway, the most progressive electric vehicle policies in the world started with a pop group, an environmentalist, and a small red Fiat Panda. It was 1988 when activist Frederic Hauge, along with fellow green campaigners from the band A-ha, traveled to the Swiss city of Bern, where they found the red Fiat. A previous owner had converted the car to run off a lead battery, and the group planned to use the vehicle to persuade the Norwegian government to encourage electric vehicle uptake.
The Fiat became the centerpiece of a nine-year campaign in which Hauge and members of A-ha drove the car on Norway’s toll roads without paying. The fines racked up, and when they remained unpaid, the vehicle would be impounded and sold at auction, where Hauge would buy it back and repeat the cycle of toll dodging. A-ha’s celebrity members added glitz to the crusade against toll fees for EVs and Hauge — who has led an environmental group called Bellona since 1986 — courted press attention to demand incentives for electric cars. “By being a positive vigilante, he made the media and also the politicians aware of the electric car,” says Oyvind Solberg Thorsen, director of Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council, which publishes statistics about the country’s roads and vehicles.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Norway Is Running Out of Gas-Guzzling Cars To Tax
If you’re like me, you can’t stop thinking about the third act of Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Heck, I first saw it back in August and I still can’t get it out of my head. So much wild stuff happens and I’m delighted that with the film currently in theaters, I can finally talk about all of it with you. …
Source: Gizmodo – Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s Ending Begs to Be Discussed
A swath of new Horizon Forbidden West details were revealed today on the PlayStation Blog. Among them is mention of a new crowd system that will influence NPC behavior, with the stated goal of making the various tribes and cultures you encounter feel distinct not just in their clothing and architecture, but in their…
Source: Kotaku – Every Horizon Forbidden West Character Will Have Some Kind Of Attitude
Enlarge / Is that the Pixel 6? Nope! It’s the mid-range Pixel 6a. (credit: OnLeaks x 91Mobiles)
The Pixel 6 only recently hit the market, but given that we’re regularly getting a six-month lead time on smartphone leaks nowadays, it’s time to talk about its mid-range cousin, the Pixel 6a. This weekend, OnLeaks and 91Mobiles graced the Internet with a render of what the phone is expected to look like, based on CAD files that need to be distributed to accessory makers.
Our closing thoughts in the Pixel 6 review expressed a hope that Google would carry forward its Pixel 6 work and build something that finally felt like a cohesive product line, rather than the yearly reboot crapshoot that the Pixel line has been since its inception. For the Pixel 6a, at least, it looks like Google is following that path. The 6a looks just like the Pixel 6, with a big rear camera bar, a two-tone design, a flat front screen with a centered hole-punch camera, and an in-screen fingerprint reader. This Pixel 6a render is barely distinguishable from the Pixel 6.
One major difference will be the size. While the Pixel 6 Pro is 6.7 inches, and the Pixel 6 is 6.4 inches, the 6a will slot in at 6.2 inches. CAD files should have pretty exacting dimensions for accessory makers, and OnLeaks says the phone is 152.2×71.8×8.7 mm. Again, that’s a big step down in size from the 75.9-mm-wide Pixel 6 Pro and the 74.8-mm-wide Pixel 6. People clamoring for a smaller Google phone will have something closer to what they want in the Pixel 6a, and a smaller size is a good way to cut costs on this mid-range device.
Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Pixel 6a renders show Google carrying the Pixel 6 design forward
“The internet not only connects us to our friends, families and communities, but it is also the foundation of the global knowledge economy.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Aug. 21, 2013.
Source: Gizmodo – We’re Making the Facebook Papers Public. Here’s Why and How
After multiple delays, the Analogue Pocket finally has an exact release date. In an email the company sent to those who pre-ordered the handheld console, Analogue said it would start shipping the device on December 13th. It expects to deliver most pre-orders by the end of the year.
Pocket is shipping on December 13th. An email has been sent out to everyone who has pre-ordered with details on address updating and more: https://t.co/Y5W6Qg7WVPpic.twitter.com/e7rJwhJikz
— Analogue (@analogue) November 22, 2021
If you expect you won’t be at home to receive your shipment during that time, Analogue recommends you email it about holding your order. In that case, your Pocket will ship sometime around January 3rd. Lastly, if you want to make any last-minute tweaks to your order, the final day to do so is November 28th.
Getting the Pocket to market has been something of a journey for Analogue. When the company first announced the $199 handheld, with its ability to play Game Boy, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx games, it promised to deliver it sometime in 2020. But that was before the pandemic, and like with many other electronics, supply chain issues forced Analogue to adapt.
Source: Engadget – Analogue’s Pocket handheld starts shipping on December 13th
China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining in May triggered an exodus of miners and a global race to relocate millions of the clunky, power intensive machines they use to solve complex puzzles and earn bitcoin. From a report: Fourteen of the biggest crypto mining companies in the world have moved more than 2m machines out of China in the months following the ban, according to data gathered by the Financial Times. The lion’s share of machines was hastily moved to the US, Canada, Kazakhstan and Russia. Bit Digital, one of the largest US-listed crypto mining companies, hired an international logistics firm to extract its property from China and is still waiting for a batch of almost 1,000 machines to be released from the docks at the Port of New York.
“We started our fleet migration in March 2020, which in hindsight was a great move. When the ban was announced we had 20,000 miners in China,” said Sam Tabar, chief strategy officer of Bit Digital. Still, the company said it had to abandon 372 machines in China, which had “reached the end of their useful lives.” Eight out of the 10 largest public mega farms based in North America have expanded the number of machines in their fleets since China’s ban, the FT’s figures show.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – China’s Exiled Crypto Machines Fuel Global Mining Boom
Enlarge / LV0007 leaves the ground on Nov. 20, 2021. (credit: Astra)
Astra never sought to build the best rocket, the biggest rocket, or the safest rocket. The California-based space company simply wanted to build a rocket that was just good enough, and to do it fast.
Early on Saturday morning, Astra proved the value of this philosophy by successfully launching a stripped-down rocket for the first time. The mission hefted a small test payload for the US Space Force into an orbit 500 km above the planet.
The launch came five years and one month after Astra was founded by Chris Kemp and Adam London in October 2016. With this weekend’s success, Astra became the fastest company to reach orbit with a privately developed liquid-fueled rocket. With its Falcon 1 rocket, SpaceX required six years and four months. Firefly, Virgin Orbit, and Rocket Lab all needed seven or more years to successfully reach orbit.
Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Astra’s quick-and-dirty development plan pays off as its rocket goes orbital
It seems that all the complaints that have been coming in about the sluggish performance of Windows 11 across multiple social media platforms hav caught the attention of Microsoft. The UI team for Microsoft says it will be focusing on performance in 2022.
Since the official launch of Windows 11 there have been various complaints pouring
Source: Hot Hardware – Microsoft Will Be Making Windows 11 Much Faster Next Year
If you’re looking for an affordable robot vacuum to gift this year, one of iRobot’s latest may do the trick. The Roomba 694, which came out earlier this year as a replacement for the Roomba 675, has dropped back down to an all-time low of $179. Normally $275, this model was already fairly inexpensive — especially for an iRobot device — but this Black Friday sale puts it in line with budget models from the likes of Anker and others.
Buy Roomba 694 at Amazon – $179
iRobot carried over most of the features from the Roomba 675 to the new 694, but the latest robo-vac has a sleeker design that features three physical buttons on its top. You can manually control the device using those buttons, or you can turn to the mobile app for that. When we tested the Roomba 694 for our budget robot vacuum guide, we found it to be good at cleaning both hard and carpeted floors, thanks in part to iRobot’s three-stage cleaning system, and we liked its ability to focus on particularly dirty spots until they were completely clean. One of the on-device buttons even lets you activate a spot-cleaning mode if and when you want the device to clean only a targeted spot.
The companion app is one of the Roomba 694’s selling points. It’s pretty easy to navigate, even for those who have never used a robot vacuum before. With the iRobot app and the device connected to WiFi, you can set cleaning schedule and remotely turn the device on and off. You can even use Alexa or Google Assistant commands to tell the robo-vac to start a cleaning job — and when it’s finished, it’ll automatically return to its base for a recharge. It should last roughly 90 minutes on a single charge, which should be enough time for it to clean one floor of your home (depending on how big it is) or the entirety of a small apartment.
Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Source: Engadget – iRobot’s Roomba 694 is on sale for a record low of 9 right now
It’s a very bad time to be a replicant, but that makes it a very good time to be a fan of Ridley Scott’s 1983 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner. Not only did we receive a surprisingly good, if wholly unnecessary, sequel in 2017 thanks to Dune director Denis Villeneuve, but the Blade Runner: Black Lotus anime spin-off…
Source: Gizmodo – A Blade Runner TV Series Is Coming, Courtesy of Ridley Scott
This morning, the official Genshin Impact Twitter account gave more information about Shenhe and Yun Jin, who will be playable characters sometime in the future. According to the tweets, Shenhe will be a cryo-element polearm user, and Yun Jin will be a geo-element polearm user.
Source: Kotaku – Genshin Impact’s Next Characters Include An Exorcist And An Opera Singer
Uber Eats is moving into the cannabis market. Starting today, users in Ontario can place an order at retailer Tokyo Smoke through the app. Don’t expect an Uber driver to drop off joints, though. Cannabis orders are pickup-only for the time being.
Users need to search for “cannabis” or “Tokyo Smoke” and confirm they’re of legal age before they can make their purchase. Orders will be ready for pickup within an hour. At the store, buyers will need to present their ID to Tokyo Smoke staff to prove they’re aged 19 or older.
With the help of the swift order turnaround, Uber and Tokyo Smoke hope they can steer business away from those who deal pot illegally. Uber says the underground market accounts for 40 percent of non-medical cannabis sales in Canada, where recreational use was legalized in 2018.
Cannabis is a new market for Uber. The company didn’t mention whether it will offer cannabis purchases in other provinces or via other retailers, or if it will eventually deliver orders. Uber has been making inroads into alcohol delivery, and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said earlier this year the company might deliver cannabis in the US if it were legalized at federal level.
Source: Engadget – Uber Eats users in Ontario can now buy cannabis through the app
