As a society, we have decided to carry expensive electronic devices that are made out of glass. It’s a real problem, especially if you have butter fingers. Gorilla Glass maker Corning has announced a new material that might help save the day the next time you drop a phone. The company claims its latest Gorilla Glass Ceramic can withstand drops that would shatter lesser materials.
As the name implies, Corning’s new glass incorporates ceramic components to improve strength compared to other types of hardened glass. Corning has offered a bit of data to support this claim. In its lab tests (PDF), Gorilla Glass Ceramic withstood 10 drops from one meter onto surfaces that closely resemble asphalt. Why Corning does not use real asphalt for this test is unclear. Regardless, the company says an unspecified “competitive” type of aluminosilicate glass would typically fail on the first drop.
Chemically strengthened glass has been a key component in the proliferation of smartphones across the world. Since the company provided the glass for that first iPhone back in 2007, it has made glass for more than 7 billion devices. That makes Corning the largest glass supplier in the mobile industry, but it does face increasing competition in the budget and midrange segments.
Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck company Nikola, has received a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald Trump. A jury found Milton guilty of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud in October 2022. In 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison.
Milton announced the pardon in a press release and the White House confirmed it to CNBC. It came two weeks after prosecutors asked a judge to order Milton to pay $680 million in restitution to Nikola shareholders as well as $15.2 million to a wire fraud victim. However, due to the pardon, the judge is unable to order any restitution.
Prosecutors argued that Milton pumped up his company’s stock by lying to investors about “nearly all aspects” of Nikola’s business, such as having a fully functional electric truck. Nikola (which filed for bankruptcy last month) released a video in 2018 that appeared to show a Nikola One prototype moving by itself, but prosecutors claimed the truck was rolling down a hill and that Milton had a hand in the video’s creation. Following a damning report by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research that prompted an SEC investigation, the company said in 2020 it never claimed that the “truck was driving under its own propulsion in the video,” which has been made private on YouTube. Milton now plans to release a documentary to tell his side of the story.
Milton has given Trump and his associates millions of dollars in political donations, according to reports. Filingsshow he donated $750,000 to MAHA Alliance — now-Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s political action committee — in September and $920,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in October, just ahead of the election. CNBC notes that Milton did not make any six-figure political contributions before 2024, per federal campaign finance records.
Trump has pardoned hundreds of people in the first couple of months of his second term, including around 1,500 who were convicted or charged with crimes related to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. On his second day in office, Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison after being charged with money laundering, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking.
Meanwhile, the family and associates of Sam Bankman-Fried are reportedly campaigning for Trump to pardon him. The founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was sentenced in 2024 to a 25-year prison sentence after he was found guilty of seven fraud and conspiracy charges.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-receives-a-full-pardon-from-president-trump-160107880.html?src=rss
Right before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, I noticed a trend in robot vacuums. The suction power these robots were reporting were astronomical. Where Pa (suction power is measured in pascals) in 2024 was considered “high” at 8,000 or 10,000, the Ecovacs x8 is 18,000, the Dreame x50 is 20,000, and the Roborock Saros 10 is 22,000. In calls with the marketing reps and engineers of these machines I would routinely ask, “Is there a limit to how much suction is realistically useful?” And on more than one occasion, engineers revealed that the reason Pa levels had gone sky high was primarily because internal studies had revealed suction power was the primary way consumers chose robot vacuums. While I disagree that suction power translates to a good vacuum, I understand why consumers use this basis to choose: What other criteria would be important?
Suction is only one factor in getting debris off the floor
To understand why suction power isn’t a good determining criteria, you first have to understand how robot vacuums function. Regardless of brand, almost all robots work like a regular vacuum does. On the bottom of the robot are a roller or series of rollers, like a regular vacuum. As the rollers go over debris, the suction from the robot pulls the debris off the rollers and sucks the debris into an internal, bagless chamber. To move debris toward these rollers, most robots have brushes that sweep the debris. In a perfect situation, all debris is picked up by the rollers, suctioned off of them into the chamber, and the floor is left clean.
On this Roborock Saros, you can see underneath the robot, the sweep at the front of the robot is designed to move debris towards the rollers. This split design roller is meant to help debris move through the rollers without clogging. Credit: Amanda Blum
The reality is that certain types of debris, such as hair, tie up the rollers, which wraps around the roller and can slice the silicone on it. Larger debris, like a receipt or even a small piece of mulch can get stuck in the roller, requiring a human to dislodge it. Debris can also be sucked up but clog the pipe because it gets stuck on the way to the internal chamber. In some of these cases, more suction might help, but how straight a suction tube is designed, or even how big the flapper is on the internal chamber make a difference, too. In truth, the entire design of the system, and all the parts working in concert is what makes a robot vacuum successful (or not).
Even on this Roborock QRevo, you can see that the rollers occasionally get stuck with debris like floof, despite having high suction power. Credit: Amanda Blum
For instance, while recently testing the Eureka J15, which has over 16,000Pa, I noticed that even though the sweepers were moving debris directly towards the rollers, the debris wasn’t making it up into the roller, so the robot left the debris behind. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav, which has over 20,000Pa, rides so low to the ground that some debris can’t get to the rollers to be affected by the suction and is instead simply pushed around the floor by the robot. Meanwhile, the original Switchbot K10+ had only 3,000Pa and did a spectacular job grabbing debris off the floor because it rides a little higher, allowing the rollers to access more debris, and the rollers are designed so that debris doesn’t get stuck as often. My favorite robot vacuum and mop of all time, the Roborock MaxV Ultra Vacuum, has only 10,000Pa but is undeterred by any type of debris and gets floors cleaner than any other vacuum I’ve tried. Roborocks have a very effective roller design that doesn’t seem to suffer from getting beat up by debris, and their sweepers are always being redesigned to be more effective at sweeping debris toward the rollers.
Navigation, AI and the robots size matter, too
It’s not only the rollers, sweeper, and suction that determines how well it will suction debris off the floor—the robot also has to be able to access the space where the debris is. Robots are now getting slimmer so they can slide under more furniture, but they’re generally still 12-13 inch objects trying to squeeze themselves into spaces, and if you have a lot of floor furniture, the robot will have trouble getting between those objects to effectively clean. Robots do best in big, open spaces, with walls that have no toekicks. The AI on board most robots can sometimes identify debris as obstacles, and tell the robot to avoid the debris altogether. (This is a repercussion of a few robot vacuums accidentally rolling over pet waste years ago and smearing it all over a room; now, robots are overly cautious about anything that could be remotely interpreted as such by AI).
Debris also has to move through the dock
There’s another point where suction matters, though most product listings don’t discuss it: the robot dock. This is where, in most cases these days, the robot will be auto-emptied into a real vacuum bag that has to be changed every few months. The value of the auto empty is infinite; it’s what makes robot vacuums autonomous. If the dock gets clogged, it’s a lot more work to solve than if the robot does. Recently, I’ve seen mentions of docks like the Narwal Freo Z getting redesigned so there’s less turns in the suction pipe that receives the debris in the dock, since that will translate to less clogs.
Ultimately, there likely isn’t one “best” robot vacuum, but rather the best robot vacuum for your home, since each house is different. For example, if you have a lot of large debris in your home, you would likely want a Roborock, since they handle that type of debris better than most. If your house has a lot of obstacles, you might consider the Switchbot K10+ Pro, which is much smaller than most robots, and can navigate into smaller spaces. If you have high thresholds in your home, a robot that can navigate those thresholds, like the Dreame x50 or the Roborock Saros line would be important. While suction is a factor of robot success, it shouldn’t be the only or determining factor when making a buying decision.
On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order that took aim at one of the US’s foremost cultural and scientific institutions: the Smithsonian. Upset by exhibits that reference the role of racism, sexism, and more in the nation’s complicated past, the order tasks the vice president and a former insurance lawyer (?) with ensuring that the Smithsonian Institution is a “symbol of inspiration and American greatness”—a command that specifically includes the National Zoo.
But in the process of airing the administration’s grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information.
Grievance vs. science
The executive order, entitled “Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History,” is filled with what has become a standard grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the many cases where the US has not lived up to its founding ideals, institutions are attempting to “rewrite our nation’s history.” It specifically calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.”
AerynOS 2025.03 has officially been released, introducing a variety of exciting features for Linux users. The release includes the highly anticipated GNOME 48 desktop environment, which comes with significant improvements like HDR support, dynamic triple buffering, and a Wayland color management protocol. Other updates include a battery charge limiting feature and a Wellbeing option aimed at improving user experience.
While there were a few graphics benchmarks in yesterday’s Ubuntu 25.04 beta benchmarks, today’s article is looking more at the Ubuntu 25.04 Linux gaming performance for both the GNOME 48 and KDE Plasma 6.3 desktops that default to the Wayland-based session by default while also trying out the X11 session for both of these desktops.
Amazon is in the midst of its Big Spring Sale event, which started earlier this week on Tuesday, March 25 and runs through Monday, March 31. There are some tantalizing deals to be had, including record low prices for things like the latest-generation PC processors and gaming monitors with reasonably fast refresh rates, along with a wide assortment
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Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is almost over, but there are still deals you can take advantage of, including Lifehacker Associate Tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt’s favorite tech deals. One deal you can take advantage of right now is the Dangbei Freedo, a portable projector with an official Netflix license and a 1080p resolution. You can get it for $399 (originally $549), the lowest price it has ever been, according to price-tracking tools.
Portable projectors, obviously, must work independently of an outlet and be easy to carry around. They don’t get the best brightness, since they’re meant to be light and portable and rely on a limited battery, so keep that in mind. This projector does all of the basics well. It’s light, portable, has a 2.5 hours of battery life, which is on par with the competition, has 450 ISO lumens of brightness, which is good for its price, and has Dolby Audio and HDR10, nice perks that not all portable projectors have.
With 450 lumens of brightness, you’ll need to keep a room relatively dark to get the best picture. However, it is usable in a backyard with some low ambient light (with some sacrifices in color and contrast). Since it’s officially licensed by Netflix, the app comes pre-installed, and it uses the Google TV operating system, which is my favorite because it means you get to cast your phone using Chromecast.
The Dangbei Freedo has a full HD 1080p resolution, but it supports 4K, meaning it’ll receive the signal but it will scale it down to 1080p. It’s also impressive that it can cast a screen of up to 180 inches. The auto focus and keystone correction automatically kick in and work well, which is important for a portable projector.
A Nature survey has found that three-quarters of responding U.S. scientists are considering leaving the nation following disruptions to science under the Trump administration.
Out of 1,608 respondents, 75.3% said they were contemplating leaving the country. Scientists cited concerns over research funding and the general treatment of science as contributing factors for their reasoning. Europe and Canada were mentioned as potential destinations for those looking for opportunities abroad.
Micro Center, a popular US retailer for PC hardware, apparently received a decent shipment of new high-end NVIDIA GPUs. While store restocking is typically not newsworthy, the elusive GeForce RTX 5090 GPU certainly deserves a mention. Since its release in January, it has been consistently difficult to acquire for gamers, and its pricing has
These are several videos of the work of João Paulo Gonçalves, who uses carefully placed wooden blocks illuminated by a mirrored bulb in the center to produce precisely shaped shadows. How about that! Me and my shadow? We’re not talking. We got into a huge fight after he said he’s tired of being attached and living his entire life on back of the couch and wants to do his own thing. I regret ever letting him watch Peter Pan.
When Nintendo finally officially revealed the Switch 2 in January, one of our major unanswered questions concerned whether games designed for the original Switch would see some form of visual or performance enhancement when running on the backward-compatible Switch 2. Now, Nintendo-watchers are pointing to a fleeting mention of “Switch 2 Edition games” as a major hint that such enhancements are in the works for at least some original Switch games.
The completely new reference to “Switch 2 Edition games” comes from a Nintendo webpage discussing yesterday’s newly announced Virtual Game Cards digital lending feature. In the fine print at the bottom of that page, Nintendo notes that “Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games and Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games can only be loaded on a Nintendo Switch 2 system [emphasis added].”
The specific wording differentiating these “Switch 2 Edition” games from “Switch 2 exclusives” suggests a new category of game that is compatible with the original Switch but able to run with enhancements on the Switch 2. But it’s currently unclear what Switch games will get “Switch 2 Edition” releases or how much developer work (if any) will be needed to create those new versions.
Back during the Linux 6.13 kernel cycle initial support for many (pre-M1) Apple devices were upstreamed including various iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch devices. That though was the very preliminary support and continuing to work their way upstream are various drivers/patches to further enhance the support. Now for the Linux 6.15 kernel is a new Apple backlight driver for controlling the backlight on various mobile Apple devices…
As of this writing, 6,653 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the
mainline kernel repository for the 6.15 release. This merge window is thus
well underway. A number of significant changes have been merged so far;
read on for our summary of the first half of the 6.15 merge window.
Grab your popcorn. Nintendo just announced the official release date of the live-action Legend of Zelda movie. It hits theaters on March 26, 2027, which is just about two years from now. The film was first announced back in 2023.
The company dropped this bombshell on the official Nintendo Today! app that was surprise-released during a recent Direct livestream. The stream promised that the app would be a constant source of news and information. It looks like that promise was not hyperbole.
The Legend of Zelda live-action film releasing on March 26, 2027 (via Nintendo Today!) pic.twitter.com/8DzgH5e1YF
Anyone who opened up the app this morning saw a short video of a Tri-Force floating alongside the iconic Zelda theme music. After that, text confirmed the release date for the movie. Now we’ll all have to check that darned app every day for more news.
The release date, however, is pretty much all we know about the film. It’s being directed by Wes Ball, who made Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and the Maze Runner trilogy. There’s no casting information yet, or a look at sets or anything like that. We don’t even know who is writing it. Ball has said that he envisions the film as “live-action Miyazaki,” referring to the legendary Studio Ghibli director.
Will Nintendo ready a Zelda game to accompany the film? We have no idea, but Super Mario Bros. Wonder followed the release of the Super Mario Bros. Movie a couple of years back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-legend-of-zelda-movie-hits-theaters-on-march-26-2027-150145662.html?src=rss
In 2022, a team of AI researchers at Sony sat down and made an AI agent that was nearly unbeatable at the racing game Gran Turismo 7. More than just car control, the agent, called GT Sophy, had to also learn racing tactics and strategies—and even etiquette. Up against the world’s best human players, Sophy beat the humans by 104 races to 52 in a match in 2021.
Since then, Sony and Polyphony Digital have been hard at work retraining it from being able to dominate the world’s best with ease into something that’s more fun for the rest of us to compete against. The latest refinement is GT Sophy 2.1, which appeared as part of GT7‘s latest update yesterday. It’s now enabled at more tracks, and you can finally set up custom races at those tracks using the better AI.
“Since we first introduced GT Sophy three years ago, we have worked closely with [Polyphony Digital] to explore how AI can enhance gameplay and create more dynamic and fun racing experiences for players of all skill levels,” said Kaushik Subramanian, senior staff research scientist at Sony AI. “With GT Sophy 2.1, we are giving players more control than ever over their interactions with GT Sophy by allowing them to fine-tune gameplay, experiment with new strategies, and advance their racing skills.”
Google is revamping its smart home lineup, ending production on two of its devices in favor of integrations with third-party manufacturers. First, it will sunset the Nest Protect smoke & CO alarms. Existing products will continue to function and receive security updates until their expiration dates. They will also remain available for purchase while supplies last. Second, it will end production for the Nest x Yale smart lock. As with the Nest Protect, the remaining inventory will still be available for purchase and the devices will continue receiving security updates.
Rather than manufacture its own smoke alarm, Google announced that it will take a partnership approach. The company is teaming up with First Alert for a new smart smoke and carbon monoxide alarm that will integrate with existing Nest Protect devices and can be controlled from the Google Home app. First Alert hasn’t provided an exact release date, but says the new alarm coming soon to the US and Canada and will be priced at $130. It’ll be available in both Google and First Alert’s stores, and also sold through retail stores and “professional distribution partners.”
And on the lock side, Google will again partner with Yale. The pair is developing the Yale Smart Lock with Matter, which is meant to work with the Google Home ecosystem just as well as the Nest-branded lock. As the name suggests, it’ll play nice with all manner of devices using the Matter smart home protocol, and Yale says its battery will last for up to a year. It’ll be available “later this summer” at $170 in a variety of finishes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/google-will-stop-making-the-nest-protect-smoke-alarm-150024379.html?src=rss
Baby Steps is a video game about hiking. This is, of course, a ridiculous concept.
Before we get to the game’s protagonist, an adult toddler in a thin onesie, or its unserious side characters and nonsensical narrative, we have to acknowledge the absurdity at its very core. Leisurely walking around in nature is perhaps the most organic, least technological activity a person can engage in, and the desire to digitize this experience, recreating it for consumption from the butt-shaped cushions of your couch, is silly. It’s such a patently Game Developer™ impulse that, actually, I find it adorable. Much like the rest of Baby Steps.
Baby Steps is a walking simulator from a trio of veteran game developers: Dance Central creator Maxi Boch, Ape Out developer Gabe Cuzzillo, and Bennett Foddy of QWOP and Getting Over It fame. It’s heading to PC and PlayStation 5 this year, and since its announcement video dropped in June 2023, it’s been a hotly anticipated curio for fans of annoyingly precise traversal mechanics and offbeat indie shit. It’s a larger audience than you might think.
I played about 45 minutes of Baby Steps at GDC 2025 while Boch, Cuzzillo and Foddy looked on and intermittently told me how good I was at walking. The game stars Nate, an unemployed adult dude who lives in his parents’ basement, as he explores an arid mountain landscape one shaky, unsure step at a time. Maneuvering his body in the proper way is the main goal, and it’s a tricky one. Using a gamepad, you control Nate’s legs individually, one per trigger, and his limbs are incredibly sensitive to small changes in button depression. Pull a trigger tight to lift and bend one of his knees, and release it bit by bit to swing out his lower leg and place his foot precisely where it needs to be. Press forward with the left stick to give Nate just the right amount of momentum, get your trigger rhythm right, and suddenly, hey, you’re walking here.
It sounds easier than it is. Thanks to the game’s incredibly precise mechanics, Nate falls over easily, faceplanting in the dirt and tumbling backward over rocky slopes like a ragdoll, covering his grey onesie in mud and sweat. This same precision also makes Nate shockingly sturdy at times, like when he pulls his whole body onto a ledge with a single step, ending in a perfectly balanced flamingo stance. There’s room in the controls for both mastery and mayhem, and by the time I put down the gamepad, I was walking Nate around with all the grace of a perfectly adequate five-year-old. I was proud of this accomplishment, too, damn it.
Devolver Digital
Literally placing one foot in front of the other requires so much concentration in the game’s first few minutes that it’s easy to ignore Nate’s surroundings, but as walking becomes easier, you’re finally able to look around and ask, “What the hell am I doing here?” The first two chapters of Baby Steps are set on a mountainside dotted with craggy rocks, patches of brown grass, long-abandoned wooden buildings, random carousel horses and dirt pits, and the only indication of where to go is an orange glow emanating from a ridgeline high above Nate’s spawn point.
The few folks Nate meets along the way — a charmingly aloof guide and at least one other, much more prepared hiker — are incredibly entertaining to interact with, but they’re also pretty unhelpful with existential questions. Nate murmurs and monosyllabizes his way through conversations, and he tends to get cut off by the NPCs’ eager observations. Like when I was playing, Nate fell and got stuck at the bottom of a muddy hole, and his guide friend showed up and immediately said, “This hole used to be dry. Hey, did you pee in the hole? Did you pee in this hole?” In response, Nate made anxious noises and generally panicked.
The comedy in Baby Steps is sharp and chaotic, with a delirious, improvised edge. Foddy does the voice work for most of the characters, and he tends to just make up their lines at the mic. The result is a messy yet refreshing conversational flow, and every cutscene I encountered made me chuckle.
Devolver Digital
Most aspects of Baby Steps made me smile, in fact. At one point I entered a fast-walking groove while wandering along a rocky path on the edge of the canyon, and I realized the birdsong and the thuds of my own steps had morphed into a rhythmic song, encouraging my gait with a steady, organic beat. The game’s soundscape comes courtesy of Boch, and it intentionally ebbs and flows according to the way you play the game. Combine this responsive, immersive soundtrack with the constant focus you have to keep on Nate’s movements, and Baby Steps quickly becomes a hypnotic experience. The game’s details only encourage this feeling — the mountain is strangely beautiful, rendered in crisp 3D graphics, and it’s completely explorable, with no invisible walls in sight. If you can see it, you can attempt to climb it. Nate’s onesie collects sweat along the small of his back, under his arms, and in all the crannies you’d expect, and it also picks up mud when he falls, but the stains wash away when you get in water. On-screen prompts are rare. There are hidden hats to wear and penis graffiti to admire, and Nate can take numerous paths to reach the same point, bouncing pancake butt leading the way.
Behind all the absurdity, Baby Steps is an incredibly well-crafted, hyper-detailed relaxation tool. While it is laugh-out-loud funny, its mechanics cut deeper than its oddball trailers suggest, and in practice, it actually left me feeling meditative. Baby Steps is a serious silly game.
Baby Steps is being published by Devolver Digital, and it’s due to hit PS5 and PC via Steam later this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/baby-steps-preview-serious-gameplay-in-a-silly-walking-sim-150008737.html?src=rss
The First Berserker: Khazan is in some ways a Soulslike crafted for hardcore Soulslike fans. There are few ways to too cheese boss fights with broken builds and the skill-checks come early and often (Chapter 3 boss Viper is already infamous as “newbie crusher). But it also has the DNA of an old-school action game that…
Daredevil: Born Again is really quite something. It feels like the first genuinely adult-focused project within the MCU, and its shocking brutality is all the more surprising for being created by Disney. (While Deadpool & Wolverine had gore and naughty words, it’s hard to really credit the silly movie with being…
