You’d be entirely forgiven for thinking that the Projects screen in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is just a Battle Pass system. The gradual drip feed of rewards presented in a straight line evokes strong déjà vu of countless live service and free-to-play games like Fortnite or Genshin Impact. Additionally, Assassin’s Creed…
You can play pinball in VR or mixed reality with an arcade cabinet that also feels like a real pinball machine.
At GDC 2025 we tested Pinball FX VR with the Arcade2TV-XR cabinet and a pair of Quest controllers mounted on top for tracking. Pinball FX VR supports Touch controllers as well, which I tested, but my colleague Don Hopper also put those controllers on a physical Arcade2TV-XR unit to effectively track the object, using a bluetooth dongle to connect the arcade cabinet’s controls to his headset.
Altogether, the Arcade2TV-XR provides a solid grounding to really get into the game. Meanwhile, during my demo with the Touch controllers, Pinball FX VR felt like a welcome evolution on the original game ahead of its launch on April 3.
Pinball remains a timeless arcade classic that’s been recreated countless times over the years. From more traditional approaches like Pinball VR Classic to intriguing reinventions like Velan’s Bounce Arcade, one company that’s continued coming back is Zen Studios. The new game shares many similarities with 2023’s Pinball FX, but this feels more like a reinvention than a direct port.
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There’s a pleasing amount of physicality while exploring this environment. Physical objects can be picked up, there’s a music player where you can swap cassettes through touch inputs, and you can even play darts.
Customizing each room lets you make this space your own too, adjusting each room with different statues, posters, wallpapers, and carpets. I need more time to fully assess how much choice this offers, and more options appear to be unlockable, though what I’ve seen already shows good variety.
I began by trying mixed reality support where several tables were already set up by the studio, and it reminds me of the MR mode in Arcade Paradise VR.
Playing the Knight Rider table and watching the car drive across a road that bends around me is pretty fun, while the Indiana Jones table saw Indy come alive in my play space. His moving character model duplicated in the same spot, a momentary bug that will hopefully not be present at full release. I’m still unnerved by a Cylon from the original Battlestar Galactica table watching over me, too.
These pinball tables have been faithfully recreated to match their real-life counterparts, and it’s these little extra visual details that add a lot to the experience. I appreciate that you can turn off the visual effects if you’d prefer the more purist experience, though these look great in VR.
Having that freedom to look around the table feels considerably more natural than playing off a flatscreen, as does physically pulling the plunger – or firing a gun in Indy’s case – to shoot the ball into play. I encountered one glitch on the Star Trek: The Next Generation table where this motion didn’t register, so I’m hoping that gets fixed. Holding the sides of each table while hitting the controller triggers for the flippers adds a subtle touch to the immersion.
I’ve enjoyed my time so far, but given how well designed this new explorable environment feels, there’s one thing that I can’t help but wish Pinball FX VR had: multiplayer. It’s a solo experience only. I’d love to be able to invite friends into my arcade, hang out, and watch each other play at the tables.
As it stands, my Pinball FX VR preview has me intrigued to jump into the full release. We’ve been testing out the Arcade2TV-XR cabinets at home and will plan on showing it on Steam in the weeks ahead as we test out the fully released version of Pinball FX VR.
Pinball FX VR will reach the Meta Quest platform on April 3. The base game for $9.99 includes three tables, with more available as DLC.
Universal Pinball: TV Classics Pack – $14.99
Indiana Jones™: The Pinball Adventure – $14.99
Williams™ Pinball: World Cup Soccer – $9.99
Williams™ Pinball: The Addams Family™ – $9.99
Williams™ Pinball: Twilight Zone – $9.99
Williams™ Pinball: Star Trek™: The Next Generation – $9.99
Less than six months after it came to Xbox, sleeper 2025 GOTY contender Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will finally be playable on PlayStation 5 in a few weeks. The April release date was confirmed during a cheeky 90-second video sketch featuring voice actors Nolan North of Uncharted fame and Troy Baker, whose …
David Sterba of SUSE sent in all of the Btrfs file-system updates today for the now-open Linux 6.15 kernel merge window. There are some new performance optimizations, new and faster Zstd compression level options, and other changes slated to be included for this CoW file-system in Linux 6.15…
Disney is giving Disney+ subscribers the ability to edit their “Continue Watching” lists, a quality-of-life feature that’s been oddly missing from the streaming service up until now.
Continue Watching collects all of the TV shows, movies and live events you’ve started watching, saving your place so you can pick up right where you left off. If you dip in and out of watching things, it’s very easy for the list to get unwieldy quickly, so being able to edit it is helpful.
You can remove something from Continue Watching in two different ways: directly from the list itself or the Details page of a given show or movie. If you’re on your TV and want to edit your list, you just highlight a movie or show with your remote, press and hold the remote’s button (on the Apple TV remote, for example, its the center button) and then select “Remove” when the menu slides over. From the Details page of the show or movie you want to remove, just highlight and select the “Remove” icon (it’s a minus symbol) to get it out of your list.
The process is similar on the web or in Disney+ mobile app. If you’re watching Disney+ on your phone, you can just tap on the three dots in the corner of a show or movie in Continue Watching and then tap on Remove. On the web, just hover your mouse over anything in Continue Watching and click on the Remove icon in the corner of the movie or show. The only thing you can’t remove from Continue Watching are live events, which will stay until they officially end.
Disney says the ability to edit Continue Watching is available today on the web, iOS devices and Apple TV, and will be coming to the other platforms Disney+ is on in the coming weeks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/disney-adds-option-to-edit-continue-watching-list-182856588.html?src=rss
The Pentagon has canceled its troubled Defense Civilian Human Resources Management System after years of delays and budget overruns, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. The project, launched in 2018 with a one-year timeline and $36 million budget, ultimately ran eight years and exceeded costs by $280 million, reaching 780% over budget. “We’re not doing that anymore,” Hegseth said in a video announcing the cancellation. Officials have 60 days to develop a new plan to modernize DoD’s civilian HR systems. The cuts are part of a broader $580 million spending reduction that includes $360 million in diversity, climate change and COVID-19 grant programs, plus $30 million in consulting contracts with Gartner and McKinsey.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Final Destination has always been less about death itself and more about the inescapability of it—especially when you’ve cheated it once. The series turns survivor’s guilt into a blood-soaked curse, punishing those who narrowly avoid tragedy with even more elaborate and grotesque ends. And what makes these deaths so…
Severance fans have had a weekend to let the season finale of Apple TV’s dystopian workplace thriller sink in, and some are not handling it well. Make no mistake, “Cold Harbor” was a thrilling hour and change of television that ended the season on an incredible note. Some might argue it could have served as an uncomfor…
The recent big Zwift update included the welcome addition of several new bike frames, including two bikes from US-based Cannondale. The fastest of these bikes is the Cannondale SuperSix EVO LAB71, which is a top-spec racing frame ridden by the pros at EF Pro Cycling.
You’ll need to be updated to game version 1.86+ to see the SuperSix EVO LAB71 in Zwift’s Drop Shop. You’ll also need to be at level 40+ with 1,750,000 Drops to buy it. Here’s how it’s described in the Drop Shop:
“The SuperSix EVO LAB71 is the trusted bike of EF Pro Cycling, crafted for cyclists who demand peak performance. This fourth generation of the SuperSix EVO boasts razor-sharp aerodynamics and an ultra-lightweight frame, delivering exceptional performance across all terrains. From steep climbs to powerful sprints, this bike offers unmatched speed and agility. Every detail is engineered for excellence, making the LAB71 SuperSix EVO the ultimate race-ready machine that gives you a competitive edge.”
This is a pro-spec bike that the pros actually ride, which is fun. And reviewers say the IRL bike handles very well while being stiff in the right places and super light. But how does it perform in Zwift?
See our master list of all frames in Zwift >
It’s rated 3 stars for aero, 4 stars for weight, like a handful of other top newish all-arounders. But a 4-star system isn’t the most granular of performance measurements, so we ran this frame through our precise tests to measure performance at nerd-level detail. Let’s dive in!
Note: test results below are from a 75kg, 183cm rider holding 300W steady using Zwift’s stock 32mm Carbon wheelset.
The SuperSix EVO LAB71 is very slippery, trimming 61.4s off our baseline Zwift Carbon frame over an hour of flat riding.
That puts it within 1.6 seconds of the game’s fastest frame. And like we said with the S-Works Tarmac SL8, when you consider that our tests have a 1-second margin of error, one could reasonably lump this frame in with the other fastest frames in terms of performance on flat roads.
The real-life SuperSix EVO LAB71 is known for its light weight as well as aero performance, so we expected it to climb well. We weren’t disappointed.
This bike shaves 52.3 seconds off of our baseline Zwift Carbon’s time on an hourlong climb, which means slots neatly into 3rd place in our rankings, just 3.7 seconds behind the S-Works Tarmac SL8 over an hour of climbing.
Like all frames in Zwift, the SuperSix EVO LAB71 can be upgraded in five stages. As a high-end race bike, each of the five stages results in a performance improvement. The Cannondale SuperSix EVO LAB71 upgrade stages are as follows:
You can expect a fully upgraded SuperSix EVO LAB71 to be approximately 28 seconds faster on a flat hour and 36 seconds faster on an hourlong climb vs the “stock” SuperSix EVO LAB71.
While it’s not quite as fast in Zwift as the new S-Works Tarmac SL8, Cannondale’s SuperSix EVO LAB71 is within just a few seconds of this new standard… so close that it’s doubtful riders will notice the difference.
So if you’re a Cannondale fan, or just like the look of this frameset (it is a sweet paintjob, even if there’s no color slider), buy it and race it! Because it’s one fast bike.
Got questions or comments about this frame? Share below…
Important note: this post contains speed test results for Zwift frames or wheels. These results may change over time, and a bike’s performance relative to others may also change. We don’t always revise posts when performance rankings change, but we do keep current, master versions of our speed test results which are always available. See the frame charts, wheel charts, and Tron vs Top Performers for current performance data.
Google has confirmed that a technical issue has permanently deleted location history data for numerous users of its Maps application, with no recovery possible for most affected customers. The problem emerged after Google transitioned its Timeline feature from cloud to on-device storage in 2024 to enhance privacy protections. Users began reporting missing historical location data on support forums and social media platforms in recent weeks. “This is the result of a technical issue and not user error or an intentional change,” said a Google spokesperson. Only users who manually enabled encrypted cloud backups before the incident can recover their data, according to Google. The company began shifting location storage policies in 2023, initially stopping collection of sensitive location data including visits to abortion clinics and domestic violence shelters.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
There’s now a native version of Google Drive for Arm-powered PCs, like those featuring last year’s Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips. The company announced this feature update in a blog post, saying that the Drive app for Windows is “generally available” for Snapdragon X chipsets. Today’s release follows a beta test going back to last year.
This includes machines by several big brands, with the most notable being the newest Microsoft Surface laptops. The Drive port for Arm-based PCs also allows users to access their accounts through the Windows File Explorer app. This should make it easier to pull files from Drive accounts.
The native app only works on devices running Windows 11 and Microsoft WebView2. Existing beta users will automatically be updated to the full version. It’s rolling out today but could take up to 15 days to hit everyone’s accounts. The new app is available for all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers and users with personal Google accounts.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/google-drive-is-now-available-on-snapdragon-based-windows-pcs-173517153.html?src=rss
Due to staff reductions, retirements, and a federal hiring freeze, the National Weather Service has announced a series of suspensions involving weather balloon launches in recent weeks. The question is, will this significantly degrade forecasts in the United States and around the world?
On February 27, it was announced that balloon launches would be suspended entirely at Kotzebue, Alaska, due to staffing shortages. In early March, Albany, N.Y., and Gray, Maine, announced periodic disruptions in launches. Since March 7, it appears that Gray has not missed any balloon launches through Saturday. Albany, however, has missed 14 of them, all during the morning launch cycle (12z).
The kicker came on Thursday afternoon when it was announced that all balloon launches would be suspended in Omaha, Neb., and Rapid City, S.D., due to staffing shortages. Additionally, the balloon launches in Aberdeen, S.D.; Grand Junction, Colo.; Green Bay, Wis.; Gaylord, Mich.; North Platte, Neb.; and Riverton, Wyo., would be reduced to once a day from twice a day.
A new report says that when the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Elon Musk less than a week before President Trump’s inauguration, only one member—the current chairman—voted against filing the lawsuit.
The vote behind closed doors was 4–1, with three Democrats and Republican Hester Peirce joining to support the lawsuit over Musk’s late disclosure of a Twitter stock purchase in early 2022, Reuters reported today. The one dissent reportedly came from Republican Mark Uyeda, who was subsequently named acting SEC chairman by Trump.
Uyeda also asked SEC enforcement staff “to declare that a case they wanted to bring against Elon Musk was not motivated by politics, an unusual request that the staffers refused,” Bloomberg reported last month. Reuters said its sources confirmed that “staff refused to sign the pledge, as it is not typical SEC practice.”
Back in 2004, the launch of Half-Life 2 would help launch Steam on the path to eventually becoming the de facto digital rights management (DRM) system for the vast majority of PC games. But years before that, with the 1998 launch of the original Half-Life, Valve cofounder and then-CMO Monica Harrington said she was inspired to take DRM more seriously by her nephew’s reaction to the purchase of a new CD-ROM burner.
PC Gamer pulled that interesting tidbit from a talk Harrington gave at last week’s Game Developers Conference. In her remembering, Harrington’s nephew had used funds she had sent for school supplies on a CD replicator, then sent her “a lovely thank you note essentially saying how happy he was to copy and share games with his friends.”
That was the moment Harrington said she realized this new technology was leading to a “generational shift” in both the availability and acceptability of PC game piracy. While game piracy and DRM definitely existed prior to CD burners (anyone else remember the large codewheels that cluttered many early PC game boxes?), Harrington said the new technology—and the blasé attitude her nephew showed toward using it for piracy—could “put our entire business model at risk.”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is an open-world RPG through and through, complete with stats to level up and progressively more powerful gear to find. As you might expect, it employs a level scaling system, where the enemies and quests you encounter get stronger as you do. That is to say, if you’re level five, the enemies…
Less than a week after IBM announced that it was donating three open source AI tools to the Linux Foundation, FOSS Force learns that Kubernetes-focused Mirantis is the process of donating a couple of project to CNCF.
The post Mirantis Is Giving Two Kubernetes Projects to CNCF appeared first on FOSS Force.
Author, journalist, and long-time Internet freedom advocate Doc Searls wants us to stop asking for privacy from websites, services, and AI and start telling these things what we will and will not accept.
Draft standard IEEE P7012, which Searls has nicknamed “MyTerms” (akin to “Wi-Fi”), is a Draft Standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms. Searls writes on his blog that MyTerms has been in the works since 2017, and a fully readable version should be ready later this year, following conference presentations at VRM Day and the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW).
The big concept is that you are the first party to each contract you have with online things. The websites, apps, or services you visit are the second party. You arrive with either a pre-set contract you prefer on your device or pick one when you arrive, and it tells the site what information you will and will not offer up for access to content or services. Presumably, a site can work with that contract, modify itself to meet the terms, or perhaps tell you it can’t do that.
Remember the science fiction of the 1950s, when people imagined the role robots and artificial intelligence could play, dramatically improving our lives by taking on menial tasks and unpleasant jobs so that we would have more spare time, not need to work every hour, and increase our personal luxury? Weird how, in the…