Exercise is generally good for you, but a new high-quality clinical trial finds that it’s so good, it can even knock back colon cancer—and, in fact, rival some chemotherapy treatments.

The finding comes from a phase 3, randomized clinical trial led by researchers in Canada, who studied nearly 900 people who had undergone surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer. After those treatments, patients were evenly split into groups that either bulked up their regular exercise routines in a three-year program that included coaching and supervision or were simply given health education. The researchers found that the exercise group had a 28 percent lower risk of their colon cancer recurring, new cancers developing, or dying over eight years compared with the health education group.

The benefits of exercise, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, became visible after just one year and increased over time, the researchers found. The rate of people who survived for five years and remained cancer-free was 80.3 percent among the exercise group. That’s a 6.4 percentage-point survival boost over the education group, which had a 73.9 percent cancer-free survival rate. The overall survival rate (with or without cancer) during the study’s eight-year follow-up was 90.3 percent in the exercise group compared with 83.2 percent in the education group—a 7.1 percentage point difference. Exercise reduced the relative risk of death by 37 percent (41 people died in the exercise group compared with 66 in the education group).

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People Can Fly, the developer of Outriders and Gears of War: Judgement, announced Monday that its ending development on two of its upcoming games due to issues with its publisher and an inability to secure funding to continue development. As part of this decision, People Can Fly will be forced “significantly regroup” and “scale down [its] teams,” the studio’s CEO Sebastian Wojciechowksi shared in a statement on LinkedIn.

The statement doesn’t elaborate on how many staff will be impacted by the cuts, but does call out Project Gemini and Project Bifrost as the two games being cancelled. People Can Fly made the decision to shut down Gemini because the game’s publisher failed to provide a publishing agreement and didn’t communicate “its willingness to continue or terminate the Gemini project.” Without that publishing deal or the funds to continue working on Bifrost — a self-published VR game — the studio was forced to cancel it, too.

This isn’t the first time People Can Fly has shut down a project or made cuts to its teams. In December 2024, the studio announced that it was ending development on a game called Project Victoria and also reducing the number of people working on Bifrost. In that same announcement, People Can Fly also revealed that Square Enix was publishing Gemini.

People Can Fly last worked with Square Enix to publish Outriders, somewhat of a minor cult hit now, but not a commercial success at launch. Even with the cuts and cancelled games, the studio still has multiple upcoming projects in the works, including Project Delta, which People Can Fly is creating for Sony and Gears of War: E-Day, which the studio is co-developing with Xbox studio The Coalition.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/people-can-fly-cancels-two-games-and-lays-off-developers-220310524.html?src=rss

Microsoft introduced an AI-powered video generator to its Bing search engine. Bing Video Creator is powered by OpenAI‘s Sora, which creates short clips based on text prompts. The free feature is rolling out to the Bing mobile app starting today and is slated to arrive later on desktop and to Copilot Search.

Microsoft has invested multiple billions of dollars into OpenAI in support of its artificial intelligence endeavors over the years. The tech giant integrated the DALL-E image generation capability from OpenAI into the Bing search engine in 2023, so it’s not surprising that it has followed a similar path with the company’s Sora video tool.

However, Sora had a rocky launch with a rebuke from YouTube’s CEO not to train on its videos and protests from several of its early testing participants. The model became broadly available at the end of last year. It’s also facing more competition from other video AI models offering more complex features, such as Google’s Veo 3.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-integrates-openais-sora-video-creator-into-bing-215421408.html?src=rss

Broadcom has cut the lowest tier in its VMware partner program. The move allows the enterprise technology firm to continue its focus on customers with larger VMware deployments, but it also risks more migrations from VMware users and partners.

Broadcom ousts low-tier VMware partners

In a blog post on Sunday, Broadcom executive Brian Moats announced that the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program for VMware Resellers, which became the VMware partner program after Broadcom eliminated the original one in January 2024, would now offer three tiers instead of four. Broadcom is killing the Registered tier, leaving the Pinnacle, Premier, and Select tiers.

The reduction is a result of Broadcom’s “strategic direction” and a “comprehensive partner review” and affects VMware’s Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Japan geographies, Moats wrote. Affected partners are receiving 60 days’ notice, Laura Falko, Broadcom’s head of global partner programs, marketing, and experience, told The Register.

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Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays 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.

It’s the week of Summer Game Fest, so I’m mentally wrapped up in a complex web of embargoes, meetings, schedules and cryptic invites, and I can already smell the plasticky, sanitized air that accompanies video game conventions of all sizes. Mmm, smells like pixels.

This will be my third SGF and I’m looking forward to it, as usual. I appreciate the event’s focus on independent projects, diverse creators and smaller-scale publishers, particularly with shows like Day of the Devs, Wholesome Direct, Women-Led Games, and the Latin American and Southeast Asian games showcases. I deeply believe that innovation in the industry stems from these untethered, experimental spaces, and SGF has consistently provided room for these types of experiences to shine.

I appreciate SGF even more after spending seven years wandering the cavernous halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center, covering the Electronic Entertainment Expo. E3 was exciting in its own right and I feel privileged to have attended it so many times, but it was also a soulless kind of show. E3 was unwelcoming to independent creators and packed with corporate swag, and by the time Sony decided to stop attending in 2019, it felt like an expensive, out-of-touch misrepresentation of the video game industry as a whole. The best parts of E3 in its final years were the unaffiliated events hosted by Devolver Digital, which took place in a nearby parking lot packed with Airstream trailers, food trucks and fabulous, up-and-coming indie games. It felt a lot like SGF, in fact.

I wrote about this phenomenon in 2018, in a story that questioned whether the video game industry needed E3 at all. Perhaps because I’m a witch but mostly due to the pandemic, E3 shut down in 2020 and it never re-emerged as an in-person show. The Entertainment Software Association hosted one virtual session in 2021, but nothing afterward, and E3 was officially declared dead in December 2023. Meanwhile, the video game market has continued to grow, driven by a maturing indie segment, mobile play and harsh crunch-layoff cycles at the AAA level.

Now, the ESA is back with a new video game showcase called iicon, the Interactive Innovation Conference, heading to Las Vegas in April 2026. The industry’s biggest names are involved, including Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Epic Games, Electronic Arts, Disney, Amazon and Take-Two Interactive, and the show is poised to be “a space for visionaries across industries to come together,” according to ESA president Stanley Pierre-Louis. E3 2.0 has arrived, and it seems to be as AAA-focused as ever. For what it’s worth, Summer Game Fest has its own version of a AAA thought-leader summit this year with The Game Business Live.

Meanwhile, the ESA has remained silent — even when directly asked — as some of the industry’s most influential companies roll back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, at a time when women, POC and LGBT+ employees are enduring active existential threats. And during Pride Month, no less.

All of this is to say, I’m stoked for Summer Game Fest this year. It all kicks off with a live show on Friday, June 6, and we have a rundown of the full schedule right here. We’ll be publishing hands-on previews, developer interviews and news directly from SGF over the weekend and beyond, so stay tuned to Engadget’s Gaming hub.

The news

Playtonic layoffs

Playtonic, the studio behind Yooka-Laylee, has laid off an undisclosed number of employees across multiple departments, including production, art, game design, narrative design and UI/UX. In a message shared on X, the studio’s leaders said, “This isn’t simply a difficult moment, it’s a period of profound change in how games are created and financed. The landscape is shifting, and with it, so must we.” Playtonic’s latest game, Yooka-Replaylee, is due to come out this year. Though Playtonic is a small, privately owned company (with a minority investment from Tencent), the timing of the layoffs fits the established playbook of many AAA studios, which operate with periods of crunch and bulk layoffs baked into their business plans.

EA cans Black Panther

Electronic Arts revealed its plans to make a single-player, third-person Black Panther game back in 2023 as part of a broader Marvel push at the studio, but apparently, things have changed. EA canceled its Black Panther project and closed the studio that was building it, Cliffhanger Games. EA Motive, the team behind the stellar Dead Space remake, is still working on an Iron Man game, as far as we know.

Roll7 returns to Steam

Any time I can gas up Rollerdrome or OlliOlli World, I’m going to do it. After being delisted from Steam more than a year ago, Rollerdrome and OlliOlli World have returned to the storefront to fulfill all of your flow-state needs. Both games come from Roll7, a London-based studio that Take-Two purchased in November 2021 and shut down in May 2024, removing Rollerdrome and Olli Olli World from Steam in the process.

Playdate Season 2 is live and it’s good

Have we convinced you to get a Playdate yet? Whatever your answer, Playdate Season 2 is live right now, adding two new games to the crank-powered system each week until July 3. Engadget’s resident Playdate expert Cheyenne Macdonald has a review of the initial batch, which includes Fulcrum Defender from Subset Games, Dig! Dig! Dino! from Dom2D and Fáyer, and Blippo+, a fever dream masquerading as a video game. And while you’re in this headspace, check out Igor Bonifacic’s enlightening interview with Subset Games co-founder Jay Ma.

Ex-Ubisoft bosses face sexual harassment trial in France

Three former Ubisoft executives appeared in French court on June 2, accused by multiple employees at the studio of sexual harassment, bullying and, in one defendant’s case, attempted sexual assault. The lawsuit alleges Serge Hascoët, Tommy François and Guillaume Patrux regularly engaged in misconduct and fostered a toxic culture at Ubisoft, and it follows a public reckoning at the studio in 2020, plus arrests in 2023.

The Switch 2 is coming

Nintendo’s Switch 2 officially comes out this week, on June 5. We’ll have a review of the new console as soon as we can, but in the meantime you can find all of the information you need regarding pre-orders in our handy guide.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/video-games-weekly-i-still-dont-miss-e3-214108810.html?src=rss

We’ve been covering the small, reversible USB Type-C connector since the days when it was just a USB Implementers Forum tech demo, and in the decade-plus since then, the port has gradually taken over the world. It gradually migrated from laptops to game consoles, to PC accessories, to Android phones, to e-readers, and to iPhones. Despite some hiccups and shortcomings, we’re considerably closer to a single connector that does everything than we were a decade ago.

But some of that confusion persists. A weakness built into the USB-C from the very beginning was that the specification for the physical connector was always separate from the specifications for the USB protocol itself (that is, the data transfer speed a given port is capable of), the USB Power Delivery specification for charging, and the USB-C Alt Mode specification for carrying non-USB signals like DisplayPort or HDMI.

All of these specifications were frequently grouped together so that individual USB-C ports could handle charging, display output, and data transfers (or some combination of all three at once), but they weren’t required to go together, so occasionally users will still run into physical USB-C ports that fall short of the port’s do-everything promise.

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If you’ve been searching for a pair of wireless over-ear headphones that combine sound quality with comfort, these Sony noise-cancelling headphones are currently on sale for under $100. According to price trackers, they’re at their lowest price yet, and are a worthy alternative to those who find in-ear and clip-on headphones uncomfortable. 

Sony WH-CH720N Noise Canceling Wireless Headphones

$98.00
at Amazon

$149.99
Save $51.99

$98.00
at Amazon

$149.99
Save $51.99

With plush ear cups and wireless capabilities, Sony’s lightest over-ear headphones (weighing just 192 grams, or a little over six ounces) offer comfort as well as more immersive sound. They’re suitable for long listening sessions or blocking out distractions at home, but are also a potential fit for commuters or remote workers who need to focus in public areas.

The battery lasts up to 35 hours on a charge, according to Sony, who also cites 4.5 hours of playback for a 10-minute charge. The headphones come with features like Adjustable Ambient Sound mode, which lets you enjoy sound quality while staying aware of your surroundings—similar to open earbuds—as well as the ability to adjust sound based on your location.

Compared to more expensive headphones from premium brands, the plastic exterior may not be as durable or sleek as models made from premium materials like aluminum, stainless steel, or carbon fiber. They also adjust with clicks unlike higher-end models, which typically feature non-clicking adjustment. Finally, they’re not water-resistant, so this pair isn’t ideal for ultra-sweaty workouts. That said, if you dislike the feeling of earbuds and are looking for noise cancellation at an affordable price, the Sony noise-canceling headphones can provide an entry point alternative to pricier noise-canceling headphones from brands like Bose or Apple. 

It has become a common refrain during Google’s antitrust saga: What happened to “don’t be evil?” Google’s unofficial motto has haunted it as it has grown ever larger, but a shareholder lawsuit sought to rein in some of the company’s excesses. And it might be working. The plaintiffs in the case have reached a settlement with Google parent company Alphabet, which will spend a boatload of cash on “comprehensive” reforms. The goal is to steer Google away from the kind of anticompetitive practices that got it in hot water.

Under the terms of the settlement, obtained by Bloomberg Law, Alphabet will spend $500 million over the next 10 years on systematic reforms. The company will have to form a board-level committee devoted to overseeing the company’s regulatory compliance and antitrust risk, a rarity for US firms. This group will report directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. There will also be reforms at other levels of the company that allow employees to identify potential legal pitfalls before they affect the company. Google has also agreed to preserve communications. Google’s propensity to use auto-deleting chats drew condemnation from several judges overseeing its antitrust cases.

The agreement still needs approval from US District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco, but that’s mainly a formality at this point. Naturally, Alphabet does not admit to any wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement, but it may have to pay tens of millions in legal fees on top of the promised $500 million investment.

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On May 23, President Trump issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Gold Standard Science.” And, in news that may surprise our readers, it sounds remarkably good, focusing on issues like reproducibility and conflicts of interest. While there were a few things that could be phrased better, when it comes to basic scientific practices, the language was remarkably reasonable.

So, why didn’t we report on what appeared to be a rare bit of good news? I’d considered doing so, but the situation is complicated by the fact that the order is structured in a way that makes it very sensitive to who’s responsible for implementing it, a situation that’s subtle enough that I couldn’t figure out how to handle it well. Fortunately, I only had to wait a week for a member of the Trump administration to show just how dangerous it could be and highlight its biggest problem.

On Sunday, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary appeared on one of the weekend news programs, where he was asked about the decision to limit pregnant people’s access to the COVID-19 vaccines. The host mentioned that aggregation of studies involving a total of over 1.8 million women had shown the vaccine was safe and effective.

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Game developer and publisher IO Interactive is participating in Summer Games Fest 2025 with its own showcase. The presentation will take place on Friday, June 6 at 9PM ET/6PM PT. You can watch the IOI Showcase live on multiple platforms: Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. We’ve also got the YouYube stream embedded above, so that you can watch here while keeping up with our coverage of all the other developments happening during this year’s packed Summer Games Fest lineup.

IO Interactive parlayed its work on the excellent Hitman trilogy into a gig making a new James Bond game. Today, the company teased the title, 007 First Light, and it seems like there will be a game reveal during the showcase on Friday. The presentation will also introduce new content for the studio’s Hitman World of Assassination and as well as a game called MindsEye from its publishing branch. “We’ve prepared some truly exciting surprises” for the event, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak said, so there will probably be additional announcements beyond those three titles. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/how-to-watch-the-ioi-showcase-at-summer-games-fest-2025-200751318.html?src=rss

X has never been a go-to app for messaging, even back when it was known as Twitter. Direct messages are useful, sure, and I have no doubt that someone out there uses it as their main chat app. But the platform’s chat function have never been most users’ reason for logging on, especially compared to dedicated platforms like WhatsApp.

But Elon Musk isn’t content with that status quo. As TechCrunch reports, Musk has made it clear over the years since he acquired and renamed Twitter that he wants DMs to compete with (and beat out) competitors like Signal and iMessage. Now, he’s finally making a move, as DMs on X are transforming into something new: XChat.

On Sunday, Musk posted on X announcing that XChat’s rollout. It does appear that the new chat feature is currently in beta, but between Musk’s post, and some first-hand reporting, it looks like XChat is bringing four key new features to chatting on X.

Encryption

Encryption is the first new feature Musk mentions in his XChat post, and it’s no mystery why. End-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging is a key feature for modern chat apps. It ensures that only the users involved in the conversation are able to read the messages sent and received—if bad actors were to intercept the thread and attempt to read the messages without logging into the approved user’s account, they’d see a jumble of meaningless code. Importantly, it means the company that makes the chat app can’t access your messages either.

Most chat apps offer E2EE to at least some degree. Signal made the standard famous, but iMessage, WhatsApp, and Messenger all use it. X’s DMs have traditionally not been encrypted, which meant it is possible for someone at X to read your chats, or to release your chats to the authorities should they request them.

Musk isn’t wrong that E2EE is necessary if you’re trying to make a chat app to compete with the likes of Signal, but he also isn’t clear if he understands how encryption works. Musk says XChat’s encryption is “build on Rust with (Bitcoin style) encryption.” Rust is a programming language, which makes his wording here a bit odd. (One Redditor points out Musk is treating Rust like a platform, not the programming language that it is.) But more importantly, Bitcoin isn’t encrypted, which makes “Bitcoin-style encryption” a confusing statement. There’s speculation that Musk means “cryptography,” which Bitcoin does use, but that’s not the same as encryption. For the sake of XChat’s users, I hope chats are actually E2EE, but it’s tough to say at this point.

Vanishing messages

Snapchat may have made vanishing messages popular, but it’s far from the only app to offer them. For years, you’ve been able to send self-destructing texts in apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Soon, you’ll be able to do the same in XChat.

It’s not clear how XChat will handle vanishing messages, but I’m guessing the app will offer a self-destruct feature that will let you select a time limit before a sent message expires, like Telegram.

File sharing

With XChat, Musk says you’ll have the ability to send “any kind of file.” He’s sparse any other details, but file sharing is a useful element to any chat app. Currently, you can send photos, videos, and GIFs in X DMs, but not other file types.

Make messages as unread

Musk did not announce this feature in his initial post, but a user testing out the beta noticed it. XChat supports “unreading” a message, or, essentially, marking it as unread. It’s a small but helpful change for messages you can’t get to right away, but don’t want to forget about the next time you scroll through your chats.

Delete messages for everyone in the chat

This is another new feature Musk did not announce himself. That same beta tester post notes that XChat supports the ability to deleting a message for all participants. Like many chat apps, if you send a message you regret, you can “undo” it, and it will be removed from the recipients’ chats as well.

Many apps place a time limit on this feature, however. iMessage, for example, only lets you undo a message within two minutes of sending it. After that, you’ll only see the option to delete it for yourself. It’s not yet clear how long XChat will let you delete a message for everyone after you send it.

Audio and video calls (which aren’t actually new)

As part of the announcement, Musk said that audio and video calls would also be rolling out to XChat—but X has already had audio and video calling for a while, so I’m not sure why he chose to highlight them.

Will XChat actually catch on as a messaging alternative?

Maybe I’m skeptical, but I strongly doubt these new features—while genuinely useful—will make XChat the chat app to beat, and for a simple reason: Have you ever tried getting your friends and family to switch chat apps? It’s like pulling teeth. People are set in their ways when it comes to communication—whether they’re committed to their iPhones with iMessage, or they’re dedicated to WhatsApp like most of the world. There are a lot of apps out there for communication, and while people switch between them for various reasons, you’re unlikely to move them en masse to one specific platform.

Add to that the fact that this new option is tied to a controversial platform owned by a controversial person, and it’s hard to imagine anyone signing up for X just to use XChat. I could be wrong, but something tells me I won’t be XChatting with my friends and family in the near future.