Apple has bought a game studio for the first time. Digital Trends reported on Tuesday that the company has scooped up RAC7. The two-person team is behind the Apple Arcade hit Sneaky Sasquatch.

For years, some investors have hoped Apple would apply its full clout to the gaming industry. Although recent years have seen the launches of Apple Arcade and Game Mode for Macs, there’s still untapped potential. Another piece of news on Tuesday makes it easier to speculate that something is brewing. Bloomberg reported that the company will launch a revamped gaming app at WWDC. The new app is said to replace the oft-forgotten Game Center.

However, Giovanni Colantonio of Digital Trends suggests the acquisition isn’t necessarily a sign of what’s to come. He notes that Apple described the RAC7 purchase as a unique situation to help the small studio grow. “We will continue to deliver a great experience for Apple Arcade players with hundreds of games from many of the best game developers in the world,” Apple told the publication.

Sneaky Sasquatch was a launch title for Apple Arcade in 2019. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar described it as an example of how the service can let developers “cut loose and get weird.” And weird, it is. (Delightfully so!) You play as the mythic Bigfoot, tiptoeing around a forest. What starts as a quirky stealth game takes even stranger turns. As you progress, you’ll learn to drive cars, disguise yourself as a human and hit the slopes.

Over five years later, the quirky title is still one of Apple Arcade’s tentpole games. It sits alongside favorites like Katamari Damacy Rolling Live, Skate City: New York and Threes! And we can’t forget one of Engadget’s all-time favorite games, Balatro. The “almost perfect” port of the deck-building game hit the service last year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/apple-buys-the-maker-of-sneaky-sasquatch-210305065.html?src=rss

A Qualcomm-commissioned study found that Apple’s inaugural C1 modem, debuting in the iPhone 16e, significantly underperformed compared to Qualcomm-powered Android devices in challenging network conditions. The research by Cellular Insights tested devices on T-Mobile’s 5G network in New York City, where Android phones achieved download speeds up to 35% faster and upload speeds up to 91% quicker than the iPhone 16e.

The performance gap widened when networks were congested or devices operated farther from cell towers — precisely the scenarios where next-generation modems should excel, according to the report. The iPhone 16e became “noticeably hot to touch and exhibited aggressive screen dimming within just two-minute test intervals” during testing. This study arrives as Apple attempts to reduce its dependence on Qualcomm, which has historically provided modems for the entire iPhone lineup and represents roughly 20% of Qualcomm’s revenue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

National Public Radio sued President Trump and his administration today over Trump’s move to block funding for public broadcasting. NPR said Trump acted illegally, and that losing federal funding could force it to shut newsrooms and dramatically scale back news coverage.

On May 1, Trump issued an executive order titled, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” in which he ordered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and all US agencies to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS. The White House had previously alleged that NPR and PBS “spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.'”

NPR’s lawsuit in US District Court for the District of Columbia asked the court to declare Trump’s executive order and all actions to implement it unconstitutional. NPR’s lawsuit said that Trump “has no authority under the Constitution to take such action. On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress, and the President has no inherent authority to override Congress’s will on domestic spending decisions. By unilaterally imposing restrictions and conditions on funds in contravention of Congress, the Order violates the Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause of the Constitution.”

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If you wanted to get a COVID vaccine during pregnancy, to protect yourself and your future baby from the virus, that may soon be difficult to impossible. According to a short video posted on X, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who is also a noted anti-vaccine activist, said that the COVID-19 vaccine “has been removed” from the list of vaccines recommended in pregnancy, as well as the list of vaccines recommended for healthy children. This announcement sidesteps the usual regulatory process, and it’s not clear exactly what will happen next—but here’s what we know. 

The announcement may not be entirely valid

RFK, Jr made the announcement in a video where he stood alongside the NIH director Jay Bhattacharya and FDA commissioner Marty Makary. Notably, nobody from the CDC was present. The FDA approves vaccines, but it’s the CDC that is in charge of recommendations. (It is not clear who the CDC’s acting director actually is, or whether there is one.) 

Normally, the CDC has an advisory panel called ACIP (the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices) that reviews scientific evidence to make recommendations for vaccines. They’ll vote on whether a given vaccine should be recommended for everybody in a group of people. Their decisions are then passed to CDC leadership, who make the final call as to whether the vaccine gets officially recommended for that group. 

Vaccines are not usually added or removed to the recommended list by the CDC without consulting with ACIP, and they definitely aren’t usually added or removed by tweeting a video. 

Dorit Reiss, a law professor who specializes in vaccine policy, posted on LinkedIn that the announcement may not be legally valid if it’s not immediately followed by supporting documentation. She says: “Under administrative law, to avoid being found arbitrary and capricious, an agency’s decision has to meet certain criteria, including explaining the agency’s fact finding, a connection between the facts and the decisions, etc. A one minute video on Twitter doesn’t quite get you there.” 

So far, the CDC’s web page on vaccines recommended in pregnancy still says that “A pregnant woman should get vaccinated against whooping cough, flu, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).” The adult and child vaccine schedules still include COVID vaccines.

Strangely, this move on behalf of the CDC contradicts the one we reported about recently from the FDA. The FDA plans to require extra steps (possibly unethical and/or impractical ones) to approve new COVID vaccines for healthy children and adults. But these steps don’t apply to people who are at high risk for complications of COVID. The FDA’s policy announcement included a list of those high risk health conditions—which includes pregnancy.

Why it matters which vaccines are “recommended”

Recommending a vaccine doesn’t just mean expressing an opinion; the Affordable Care Act requires that vaccines recommended by ACIP must be covered by most private insurance and Medicaid expansion plans without any cost sharing. That means no deductible and no copay—so these vaccines must be free to you out of pocket if you fall into a group of people for whom they are recommended. 

The recommended vaccines include all the standard childhood vaccines, plus your seasonal flu shot, and other vaccines that are recommended for adults, for people who are pregnant, and so on. The full schedules are here. If you’ve gotten a COVID shot, a flu shot, a tetanus shot, a shingles shot—the shot’s inclusion on this list is why you were able to (probably) get it for free.

So taking a vaccine off the recommended list means that it could be prohibitively expensive. GoodRX, which keeps tabs on pharmacy prices, reports that COVID shots may cost $200 or more out of pocket, plus any applicable administration fee that the provider might charge.

Taking a vaccine off the recommended list may also mean it won’t be covered by the Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccines to children who don’t have coverage for them through health insurance.

Whether or not the vaccine actually gets taken off the list, the recent HHS announcement has another impact: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement that “Following this announcement, we are worried about our patients in the future, who may be less likely to choose vaccination during pregnancy despite the clear and definitive evidence demonstrating its benefit.” 

The ACOG statement also pointed out a few ways in which removing the vaccines from the recommended list is not “common sense and good science,” as the HHS announcement claimed. ACOG writes: “As ob-gyns who treat patients every day, we have seen firsthand how dangerous COVID infection can be during pregnancy and for newborns who depend on maternal antibodies from the vaccine for protection. We also understand that despite the change in recommendations from HHS, the science has not changed. It is very clear that COVID infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families.”

Police have arrested a third suspect linked to one of the most extreme bitcoin-related kidnapping and torture cases in the United States, The New York Times reported.

The arrest came after an Italian man, Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, escaped a luxury Manhattan townhouse after three weeks of alleged imprisonment.

Running to a traffic agent for help, he later told police that he was tortured by colleagues for his bitcoin password, “bound with electrical cords and whipped with a gun,” his feet submerged in water while a Taser gun sent jolts through his body, the NYT reported. At times he feared for his life—allegedly once held suspended from the ledge of the fifth-story building—but he seemingly never gave up his password, a resistance that only prompted more extreme violence.

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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

PASADENA, Calif.—Nicole Byrne watched anxiously from across the small kitchen in her home as Parham Azimi, a Harvard University researcher, lined up sample bottles next to the running tap.

As his phone timer chimed, indicating the water pipes had been flushed for the required five minutes, Azimi began filling collection bottles and packing them to be mailed to a lab in San Diego later that day.

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The saga of Cities: Skylines II has involved a lot of frustration, and the years-long ride still doesn’t appear to be over. The latest news from the developer is yet another delay, this time for the planned Bridges & Ports DLC. Colossal Order will release a small free update to the game on June 11 as planned, but the full expansion is now being pushed back to some time in Q4.

A post from the team on publisher Paradox Interactive’s forum explained that the delay was based on early access feedback that the DLC still needs more polish. “That left us with a difficult choice: delay the release once again to add more depth, or release it as-is, knowing players may feel it falls short,” the update states. “We believe the current content is enjoyable, but we’re not blind to what’s missing, and to bring it to the level you deserve, we need more time.”

The last players heard from Colossal Order was also a delay, in that instance for the console port of the city-builder. The studio said the version wouldn’t be available before summer 2025, but a more specific date hasn’t been shared yet. Cities: Skylines II has had a challenging life cycle for both the players and the developers, so it’s particular tough to hear that the game is still struggling.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cities-skylines-ii-delays-bridges–ports-dlc-to-q4-200052345.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier today, Panasonic announced refreshed models of its long-established Let’s Note laptop series. However, for the first time in its history, we have a Let’s Note portable that doesn’t have a VGA port. According to a report by Nikkei Japan, this is probably the beginning of the end for laptops sporting VGA output, with “other companies to follow suit.”

A number of factors have precipitated Panasonic’s removal of the venerable VGA port. The Nikkei report highlights the strong competition from HDMI, which can simultaneously transmit audio. We also see that the new Panasonic Let’s Note CF-SC6 models feature a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can also be used for video out. That’s three separate ports remaining on the Let’s Note to drive external displays.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European regulators are investigating Pornhub. On Monday, the European Commission (EC) accused the platform of not doing enough to block underage access. Also included in the investigation are Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos.

The EC suspects the porn sites have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA), which includes child safety measures. Specifically, it accused the platforms of lacking age restriction tools. All four sites let EU users watch content after clicking a single button to confirm they’re over 18.

In a statement to Engadget, Pornhub said it’s “fully committed” to the online safety of minors. “Our sites are fully RTA compliant as rated by the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP), and are strictly reserved for those of legal age only,” the company said. It added that it believes device-level verification, rather than on the website, is “the real solution.”

“Children should not have access to pornographic content,” EC spokesperson Thomas Regnier said at a press conference (via The Guardian). “This is why today the commission has opened [the] investigations.”

Next, regulators will carry out an in-depth probe. If the companies are found to be in violation, they could face fines of up to six percent of their global annual turnover. However, the EC could also accept remedies from the companies.

The DSA allows the commission to regulate online platforms with over 45 million users. Those missing that mark fall under the jurisdiction of the EU’s 27 member states. On that note, the commission said Stripchat no longer meets that threshold. Moving forward, it will be regulated by Cyprus, where its parent company operates. However, the new designation doesn’t take effect for four months, so it remains part of the probe.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/eu-regulators-are-investigating-pornhub-and-three-other-sites-194234570.html?src=rss

Welcome to the initial installment of Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday (yes, we realize today is Tuesday), broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays, observations and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, a reporter who’s covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

Please enjoy — and I’ll see you next week.

I’ve noticed a growing sentiment in some of my favorite queer gaming forums regarding Grand Theft Auto VI, and it’s both making me laugh and causing me deep anxiety about the malleable nature of our shared reality. When the second trailer for GTA VI dropped on May 6, one of its protagonists, Jason, became an instant sex symbol among the gays, and the thirsty memes started rolling in. This was light-hearted and fun, but at the same time, the alt-right gaming crowd was freaking out about Jason being too gay — even though, canonically, he’s clearly a straight dude. Queer players accused the neo-Nazis of projection, and the memes exalting Jason as a gay icon ramped up, until, somewhere along the way, it stopped being a joke. I started to see earnest comments suggesting the GTA franchise was a bastion of inclusion and an outspoken friend to the LGBT+ community. I saw queer players talk about GTA VI as if it were going to be a warm and welcoming space, something made for us.

And I oop — that is some serious grand theft gaslighting, friends.

I’m not here to burst any bubbles, and I sincerely hope that GTA VI presents well-rounded, diverse characters with thoughtful storylines. However, when it comes to queer issues, that’s just not what the series does. GTA has a history of perpetuating harmful stereotypes about transgender people in particular, and GTA V specifically provided a platform for players to enact violence against trans characters.

I covered this topic in-depth in 2020, and at the time I spoke with Dr. Ben Colliver, a lecturer in criminology at Birmingham City University and the author of “Representation of LGBTQ Communities in the Grand Theft Auto Series.” Violence against trans people in the United States has long been recognized as an epidemic, and in 2025, the situation is worse than ever — lawmakers are legalizing transphobia and shutting down access to gender-affirming care, using trans lives as a political football. It’s a bad time for the LGBT+ community to have false friends, which is one reason I cringe when I see people rewriting the history of GTA.

Ugly stereotypes and targeted violence are part of GTA’s DNA, so the common argument here is that, actually, the series punches in all directions and that means it isn’t discriminatory. But, this take doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Dr. Colliver’s analysis found that straight, cis men in GTA games remain largely unscathed, and characters who represent oppressed groups are often the ones used as punchlines.

“Largely it is LGBT people, sex workers and women who are portrayed in a bad way,” Dr. Colliver said in 2020. “Typically, men in the game conform to almost these traditional masculine stereotypes that we expect of men around violence and aggression.”

The only subject that GTA really takes seriously is masculinity, and even then it approaches the topic from a basic lens. GTA presents mainstream straight-male power fantasies with a Michael Bay flair and a teenage sense of edginess, and GTA VI looks to be more of the same. That’s even with the inclusion of a female protagonist — Lucia, who is very much involved with Jason, who is actually straight-coded despite appealing massively to gay men, which I believe was a total accident on Rockstar’s part.

(And because I can hear your screams from here: Yes, The Ballad of Gay Tony exists and it’s a fine piece of DLC for GTA IV focused on a queer character. The thing is, it came out 16 years ago — before Rockstar built trans violence into GTA V — and even though it was incredibly well-received, the studio has yet to return to its blueprint. I find that fact more telling than anything else.)

GTA is a non-subversive franchise built for basic bros, and this fact is only reinforced by the homogeneity of Rockstar Games and the complacency of its parent company, Take-Two Interactive. We don’t have data about queer representation at Rockstar, but at Rockstar North in 2024, women composed less than 12 percent of employees in the highest-paid roles. Across the studio, women’s average hourly pay was 43 percent lower than men’s. In its annual investor report filed this month, Take-Two removed all references to diversity and inclusion, and deleted any mention of awards the company has received for supporting LGBT+ employees. These moves are intended to appease President Donald Trump, and it’s the exact type of spineless, bootlicking behavior that the GTA series is supposed to mock.

Personally I love doing crimes and messing with cops, and as it turns out, so do most other video game fans. This mass-appeal ethos has helped make GTA one of the industry’s most enduring franchises. Please, just don’t bank on GTA VI being progressive or actively inclusive from a queer standpoint. We don’t need another reason to be disappointed nowadays.

More than that, we can’t let the alt-right reality consume our own. The people complaining about Jason being too gay are the same ones claiming that Widow’s ass isn’t visible enough in her Overwatch 2 Cammy skin — they are unserious people making bad-faith arguments about games as an art form. Do not absorb their messaging and do not engage with their lies. Think critically about their angles of attack and, meanwhile, play all the queer games you want to. One of my personal recent favorites is Sorry We’re Closed, if you’re looking for a sexy, campy place to start.

The news

Night School nabs Obsidian veteran Carrie Patel

Avowed director and longtime Obsidian narrative lead Carrie Patel has joined Night School, the studio behind the Oxenfree series, as a game director. This is a big get for Night School and a sign that the team has some stability in its future. Netflix acquired Night School in 2021, before the launch of Oxenfree 2 and as part of the streaming company’s big push into video game development and publishing. Netflix has since closed one internal AAA studio and reduced its third-party output, but it seems Night School is secure and working on something story-heavy, if Patel’s involvement tells us anything.

The first video game included in Cannes

Lili made history in May as the first video game to be included in a Cannes Festival competition, and it looks super rad. Lili is a contemporary, neo-noir interpretation of Macbeth, presented in full-motion video and set on the streets of Iran, featuring webs of government corruption and witches who work as hackers. It’s a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and iNK Stories, the studio behind the award-winning game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. Lili is already on the festival circuit but it’s still in development, and it’s due to be publicly available in or just after late 2025.

Troubles are bubbling at Bungie around Marathon

Bungie only revealed Marathon in April, but the game is already enduring a rocky pre-launch period. First, the studio had to publicly apologize and review all of its Marathon assets after it was confirmed that the game’s alpha included stolen artwork. Then, Forbes dropped a report documenting the current tensions at Bungie, saying morale at the studio was in “free fall” across every department. The most recent rumblings around Marathon, which is due to land in September, are that its marketing plans have been scuttled completely.

GeoGuessr ditches the EWC after a brief protest

GeoGuessr will no longer be included in the Esports World Cup after a quick — and clearly effective — community blackout. The most prolific GeoGuessr map creators pulled their contributions from the game to protest its participation in the EWC, calling the tournament “a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record.” Less than a day after the blackout began, GeoGuessr AB responded by abandoning the event, writing, “You — our community — have made it clear that this decision does not align with what GeoGuessr stands for. So, when you tell us we’ve got it wrong we take it seriously.”

FTC admits defeat against Microsoft

The FTC was the last remaining voice rallying against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and it’s now been silenced for good. The FTC officially dismissed its case against Microsoft after losing its latest appeal earlier this month.

A reminder that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a very good game

In a cute moment of serendipity, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has sold 3.3 million copies in its first 33 days on the market. If you were waiting for a sign to start playing, this might be it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/video-games-weekly-grand-theft-auto-is-no-friend-to-the-queer-community-193059427.html?src=rss

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QLEDs attempt to look like OLED TVs without the hefty price tag, and within QLEDs, there is diversity in price. A great mid-tier QLED is TCL’s QM7, which I got to review. But you can find budget QLEDs for cheaper: That’s where the Hisense QD6 QLED, currently $379.99 (originally $499.99), half the price of the QM7 for the same 65-inch size and matching the lowest price it has ever been, according to price-tracking tools. And you still get a lot of the nice features normally found on mid-tier or higher TVs.

Hisense 43-inch QD6 QLED TV

$199.99
at Amazon

$299.99
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$199.99
at Amazon

$299.99
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Hisense 55-inch QD6 QLED TV

$258.99
at Amazon

$379.99
Save $121.00

$258.99
at Amazon

$379.99
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Hisense 65-inch QD6 QLED TV

$379.99
at Amazon

$499.99
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$379.99
at Amazon

$499.99
Save $120.00

Hisense 75-inch QD6 QLED TV

$549.99
at Amazon

$675.00
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$549.99
at Amazon

$675.00
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Hisense 85-inch QD6 QLED TV

$897.99
at Amazon

$1,065.00
Save $167.01

$897.99
at Amazon

$1,065.00
Save $167.01

The Hisense QD6QF is the 2025 Fire TV version of the 2024 Hisense QD65NF. As mentioned, this is a budget QLED TV, meaning it won’t have the same number of dimming zones or contrast you can find on higher-end QLEDs, but you’re still getting a QLED with some surprising features usually reserved for more expensive TVs.

Gamers will enjoy up to a 120Hz refresh rate, which can make their game feel smoother. It also has a Game Mode Plus, which reduces the input lag and enhances picture quality for video games, and VRR, which reduces screen tearing and stuttering.

For movies and TV shows, the TV supports Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10+, all of which are great at the price this TV is currently going for. Since this is a Fire TV, you can stream movies that support those premium formats from apps like HBO Max and Netflix. You also get the voice remote feature to call for Alexa, and there’s an AI feature that claims to enhance low-resolution content up to 4K, but we won’t know how good that performs until this TV gets hands-on testing. Also, since this is a Fire TV, remember you can install Kodi to virtually stream anything for free.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an online child safety bill, bucking a lobbying push from big tech companies that included a personal phone call from from Apple CEO Tim Cook. From a report: The measure requires app stores to verify users’ ages and secure parental approval before minors can download most apps or make in-app purchases. The bill drew fire from app store operators such as Google and Apple, which has argued that the legislation threatens the privacy of all users.

The bill was a big enough priority for Apple that Cook called Abbott to emphasize the company’s opposition to it, said a person familiar with their discussion, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Texas is the latest state to adopt an age-verification law for app stores. Despite lobbying from big tech, reportedly including a personal call from Apple CEO Tim Cook, Governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill that requires app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental approval for a minor to download software or make in-app purchases.

The sponsors of the Texas bill said it was intended to protect children and teens from inappropriate content. “This puts tools in the hands of parents to make decisions for their own children,” said bill author Angela Paxton. The Republican state senator is married to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. 

Utah was the first state to enact legislation that places responsibility on app store operators to check users’ ages. Similar to the Texas endeavor, Google also petitioned Utah’s governor for that bill to be vetoed. Apple and Google have pushed back against these age-verification measures, arguing that they pose privacy risks for all users by creating a new infrastructure where they need to submit personal information. “We believe there are better proposals that help keep kids safe without requiring millions of people to turn over their personal information,” Apple said regarding the new Texas law.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-enacts-age-verification-law-for-app-stores-190603522.html?src=rss