For a limited time, Amazon has dropped the price of the UGREEN Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W Laptop Portable Charger to just $85.
The post UGREEN Drops Its 25,000mAh Power Bank to a New Record Low to Rival Anker’s Portable Chargers appeared first on Kotaku.
How will Grace and Leon’s story end? We don’t know, but I can speculate
The post I Have A <em>Resident Evil Requiem</em> Theory, And I Hope I’m Wrong appeared first on Kotaku.
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It’s been nearly five years since Apple released the first—and only—AirTag, but that’s not necessarily a surprise: These trackers aren’t really the kind of product you expect to update every year or two. Unlike an iPhone, which gets new processors, cameras, and other hardware features every year, AirTags just … track your stuff. The only thing that needs replacing annually are their batteries; otherwise, they do exactly what you expect them to.
That said, Apple has made changes over the years. In response to initial criticism, the company made it much more difficult for someone to slip one of these AirTags in your bag or car and track you without your knowledge. Plus, there’s plenty you can do with the current AirTag that wouldn’t make you think you needed an upgraded one. Nonetheless, I suppose the original AirTag wasn’t going to be the AirTag for all time. As such, Apple just announced a brand-new AirTag. It likely won’t get you out to replace your existing Apple trackers, but these new features will come in handy if you decide to expand your AirTag collection.
Apple isn’t really calling this new AirTag anything in particular: It’s still just AirTag. I’m a bit surprised, since, even if Apple replaces the existing AirTag with this one, they’ll have a difficult time distinguishing between the first and second gen models.
But that’s a problem for Apple Store Geniuses, not us. The new AirTag comes with Apple’s second-gen Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip. This is the UWB chip Apple uses with the iPhone 17 Line, as well as the iPhone Air, the Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Apple Watch Series 11. That new chip, plus the new Bluetooth chip, boosts Precision Finding’s range by 50%. Precision Finding uses your iPhone to guide you to your AirTag, using haptics and visual and audio feedback to tell you when you’re getting closer or further away. To be clear, the original AirTag also has a UWB chip that is compatible with Precision Finding, but this new UWB chip will make it easier to find an AirTag that isn’t as close by.
If you have an Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2, the new AirTag marks the first time you’ll be able to use Precision Finding. I’m not sure that’s worth the upgrade, since you can always use Precision Finding with your iPhone, but it’s certainly a nice perk if you happen to own one of these watches.
Precision Finding is helpful for finding your AirTag’s whereabouts, but it might not help you locate it if it’s hiding, like if it’s stuck under a cushion. That’s what the speaker is for: You can make your AirTag chirp, so you can find it easier when you’re within listening range. The new AirTag’s speaker is 50% louder than the original, which should help when you really can’t find your AirTag in your couch.
That’s about all the updates Apple added to this newest AirTag—though you wouldn’t know it from the press release. Apple sprinkles in existing AirTag features that might make you think they’re fresh, but, really, these are just core features of all AirTags, both new and old.
This AirTag, like all AirTags, works within the Find My network: There’s no inherent internet connection to enable tracking. Instead, the AirTag passively connects to any and all internet-connected Apple devices that are also connected to Find My—often, that means iPhones, but it can mean other devices like iPads and Macs. That enables features like Share Item Location, which lets you share your AirTags location with a third-party, like an airline. In that example, the airline can use that info to help find your luggage.
The new AirTag also carries over the same privacy and security features as the previous model. No data is stored on device, and all Find My communications are end-to-end encrypted. Whether you have this AirTag or the first, Apple can’t see your AirTag, or any devices that connected it to the Find My network.
Apple also didn’t change the price of the second-gen AirTag. One of these trackers runs you $29, while a four pack costs $99—a small savings if you want to buy that many. Unless you really need the newest ones, however, you might want to consider the previous gen, since you can pick up a four-pack for $69.99 on Amazon right now.
For most of us, the realities of winter road riding mean grinding away on grit-strewn roads, trying to catch a ride in the precious hours of daylight, only to be passed by cars emerging alarmingly from the gloaming.
For mountain bikers and gravel riders, a quick jolly turns into a logistical nightmare as post-ride clean-up can easily take as long as the ride itself.
Others will turn indoors, toiling away on the smart trainer to help maintain fitness through the darker months.
As the weeks roll – seemingly ever slower – towards the end of the cold, wet months, even the most committed cyclists can’t help but wonder why we bother.
But as spring bulbs begin to emerge from the grimy roadside verges turned black from a season’s gritting, a little inkling of form starts to creep back into your legs.
Like a Gore-Tex-clad onion, your winter-paled flesh is slowly exposed as gloves, arm warmers, and extra layers are shed progressively with each ride. Days stretch out, and the prospect of long rides once again feels possible. Everything begins to feel more optimistic.
Here in the UK, come the turning of the clocks, everything that makes bike riding good comes into full flow.
However, it’s all too easy to stumble upon this magical moment and find yourself lacking direction – or the form needed to make the most of these precious warm, long months.
With that in mind, we invite you to start 2026 right, in association with ROUVY.
Over the course of this themed week, we’ll be sharing practical training tips and riding advice to help ensure you’re in top form come spring.
Covering races and must-visit destinations, we’ll also bring you inspiration for the year ahead from some of the finest cycling spots around the world.
Thanks again to ROUVY for supporting this week, and I look forward to seeing you down the road in fine fettle come spring.
While we got a peek at a few Xbox Game Studios projects during last week’s Developer Direct event, neither Bethesda nor Activision Blizzard made appearances. Fans of several Blizzard franchises won’t need to wait too long to find out what’s next for their favorite games, though, as the publisher has lined up several showcases to help mark its 35th anniversary.
The developer-led streams will include “major game announcements,” according to Blizzard. They’ll all air over the next few weeks. Here’s where and when you can watch each stream:
January 29. 12PM ET — World of Warcraft State of Azeroth (YouTube and Twitch)
February 4, 1PM ET — Overwatch Spotlight (YouTube and Twitch)
February 9, 12:30PM ET — Hearthstone Spotlight on the (YouTube and Twitch)
February 11, 5PM ET — Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight (YouTube and Twitch)
With Blizzard not holding a BlizzCon in either 2024 or 2025, the announcements at these showcases should help fill the gap until the event returns in September. “This is only the start of what we’ll share around our games this year,” Blizzard president Johanna Faries said.
The WoW showcase will take place just over a month before the Midnight expansion arrives on March 2. Among other things, the developers will share their roadmaps for both modern and classic WoW.
Overwatch 2 has been teasing a takeover of the game by the villainous Talon faction, and with the next season only a couple of weeks away, we’ll surely hear more about that. Maybe Blizzard will reveal the long-rumored Overwatch mobile spinoff here too (and hopefully an animated series).
The second Diablo IV expansion, Lord of Hatred, is set to arrive on April 28 with a new campaign and fresh classes in tow, so expect to learn more during that franchise’s showcase. Hearthstone fans will also soon get a better sense of what to expect for that game this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzard-lines-up-wow-overwatch-hearthstone-and-diablo-showcases-154912932.html?src=rss
Now is a great time to add a new screen to your entertainment setup.
The post Insignia’s 32″ Smart Fire TV Is Nearly 50% Off Before the Super Bowl, Now Cheaper Than No-Name Portable Monitors appeared first on Kotaku.
Saudi Arabia is preparing to significantly scale back Neom, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship development that sprawls across a Belgium-sized stretch of Red Sea coastline and was once billed as the world’s largest construction site. Financial Times is reporting that Prince Mohammed, who chairs the project, now envisions something “far smaller” as a year-long review nears completion. The Line, a futuristic 170-kilometer linear city that served as Neom’s centerpiece, will be radically reimagined as a result, the report added.
Architects are already working on a more modest design that would repurpose infrastructure built over the past few years. Neom could pivot toward becoming a data center hub, taking advantage of seawater cooling from its coastal location as Saudi Arabia pushes to become a leading AI player. The Trojena ski resort is also being downsized and will no longer host the 2029 Asian Winter Games as originally planned. Construction largely stalled after longtime CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr abruptly departed in November 2024.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Back at the start of the Linux 6.19 kernel cycle I ran benchmarks showing some scheduler performance regressions with the new kernel. Fortunately, two weeks out from the Linux 6.19 stable release, merged this weekend was disabling the scheduler’s NEXT_BUDDY feature due to performance regressions. Here are some fresh benchmarks looking at the latest Linux 6.19 Git state with/without NEXT_BUDDY and comparing it to Linux 6.18 stable for reference.
Highlighted in Cyber Security News recently,
A takedown issued by the captain of the Firefly-class Serenity no less
The post <i>Warhammer 40K</i>-Inspired <i>FTL</i> Mash-Up Removed From Steam After Seemingly Bogus DMCA Takedown appeared first on Kotaku.
Keeping track of your essentials has never been easier.
The post UGREEN’s Apple Find My Certified Tracker (4-Pack) Gets Cleared Out at an All-Time Low, Several Times Cheaper Than AirTags appeared first on Kotaku.
Apple has launched its next-generation AirTag for $29 and brought a slew of new features along with it. But, first, it’s important to get this out of the way: The new AirTag still doesn’t have a keyring hole, so you’ll still need a case or secure pocket.
Once you get over that, the new Apple AirTag does offer some nice improvements. For starters, it’s now powered by Apple’s second-generation Ultra Wideband chip — the same one used in the iPhone 17 lineup and for the Apple Watch Ultra 3. It also uses Precision Finding to reach items up to 50 percent further away than the previous AirTag model. This feature will now work with any Apple Watch Series 9, Ultra 2 or a later iteration of either.
The new AirTag is also 50 percent louder than before and has what Apple calls a “distinctive new chime.” It still uses the Find My network to bounce off other Bluetooth users and locate the AirTag.
Launched in 2021, Apple’s AirTag has long stood as our favorite Bluetooth tracker for iPhones. It’s convenience within the Find My app is a big help and almost makes up for the fact that it doesn’t have a key ring — almost.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apples-new-airtag-still-doesnt-have-a-keyring-hole-150540254.html?src=rss
That’s
As it swaps between two heroes, the ninth Resident Evil feels like two different games
The post Three Hours With <em>Resident Evil Requiem</em>: The Best Of The Series’ Horror And Action Wrapped In One appeared first on Kotaku.
The ninth mainline Resident Evil is trying to split the difference between the series’ action-heavy entries and the stress-inducing hide-and-seek episodes. During a four-hour playthrough of some early parts of Resident Evil Requiem, I spent time with both of the two main characters, Grace and series mainstay Leon. They offer distinctly different playstyles, talents, strengths, and weaknesses. While it isn’t an entirely new premise for the survival horror series (in the original, playing as Chris Redfield offered more challenge than playing as Jill Valentine) it’s never been this pronounced.
I started playing as Leon, entering a medical facility he seemed to have been invited to. With a cavernous main hall, it feels like yet another iconic Resident Evil hub, immediately reminding me of Raccoon City’s Police Precinct and even the original’s cavernous manor. Wings to explore? Check. Suspiciously quiet and empty central area that will almost definitely get overrun by zombies at some point? Probably.
Both Grace and Leon’s parts can be played in either third- or first-person perspective, though Leon’s segments seem better suited to the third-person view, since there’s just a lot more shooting. Grace’s segments were tense and demanded my full attention, more akin to Resident Evil 7. During this early part of the game, there is a lot of hiding, plenty of ammo conservation and a lot more learning from dumb mistakes. The parts of the game I played with Leon reminded me more of Resident Evil 4 (or 5 or 6 – but let’s gloss over those).
Once you take control of him, Leon is immediately attacked and has to fend off roughly 15 infected doctors, nurses and patients. It’s a significant tone shift from Grace skulking around the facility, hiding behind plants and sometimes just hoping for the best.
Leon, fortunately, arrives with several weapons, including a new melee option, a hatchet. Using this, he can make targeted attacks to lop off limbs and aim at the head to deliver more damage. At least on these basic zombies, I found relentless slashing more effective than more targeted efforts – I’m sure future enemies will demand more… nuanced approaches. A later enemy must be decapitated to kill it.
After a set number of swings, you will need to retreat and sharpen the blade, which adds to the jeopardy while not disrupting the chaos. The hatchet can even be used to parry attacks – if you get the timing down.
Leon even gets to wield a chainsaw during this initial encounter, but only after claiming it from one particularly industrious zombie that seemed to find it inside a hospital. It was crucial to both disarm this zombie and grab the chainsaw before another corpse could take a turn on it. However, just because the chainsaw gets dropped doesn’t mean it’s turned off. I suffered significant damage when I repeatedly rushed into the spinning power tool.
The zombies in Requiem are also a little more nuanced compared to previous games – if a zombie can have nuance. While nearly all of the zombies will attack you on sight, they can be distracted or delayed based on the person they were before they turned. For example, the chef zombie (a hardy, bigger zombie than the ones you’ve come across until that point) will only chase you around his kitchen. Step out into the corridor and he’ll leave you alone. Elsewhere, a zombie (attached to an IV, cute) has his eyes bandaged and will react aggressively to any noise. I used this to my advantage, hurling an empty bottle at another zombie who stood nearby. The IV zombie killed him immediately. Another time, a senior exec who’s been turned is firing an employee of his… by killing them, moaning “You’re fired” as he does so. This little vignette gave me enough time to dim the lights and hide when he left his office.
In Requiem, players are expected to exploit individual zombie behaviors to outmaneuver them. It’s also a welcome dose of humor to the survival horror series, reminding me a little of the camp moments in Dead Rising, another zombie-centric Capcom series.
Leon doesn’t have to strategize quite as much, arriving with a particularly powerful handgun, the Requiem, that he eventually passes over to Grace. This is capable of stopping pretty much (but not all) enemies you come across, although it initially comes with only a single bullet, so you really have to make it count.
During a set-piece battle against a towering, swollen former patient, I got to test Requiem’s action-horror controls under pressure. Leon finds a shotgun and has to flank (and outrun) his “hungry” attacker. The environment in the rafters of the building is designed so it’s easy to figure out where you need to go and how to stop the giant zombie from cornering you. Ammo, at least during this fight, was scattered around, which was a relief after struggling to find bullets during Grace’s segment.
Despite the lack of traditional weapons, Grace eventually finds a blood injector (and its companion blood analysis system). These turn into Requiem’s crafting system. Powered by literal buckets and puddles of blood (you have to draw up infected blood from certain parts of the environment and enemies), samples can be combined with scraps, herbs and more to create high-powered first-aid shots, injectable explosive blood, ammunition and a lot of other things. Analysing different blood types (and solving some light puzzles) adds further crafting options.
During the preview, the infected blood injector was exclusively for Grace’s use. It’ll be intriguing if only one character gets to benefit from the crafting system, although Capcom teased customizable weapons for Leon, which might better suit his playstyle. Grace might also be handicapped by the typewriter save system popularized in the first few RE games. This could mean you’ll only be able to save if you have an ink ribbon on you, a very stressful part of inventory management early on in the series — she really can’t catch a break. However, it appears to be adjustable in difficulty settings.
According to Capcom’s Resident Evil showcase last week, infected blood will apparently play a strong role in Requiem, touching on both Leon’s past (he’s apparently suffering from a mystery ailment) and the circumstances surrounding the death of Grace’s mother. And it wouldn’t be a Resident Evil game with mystery, buckets of blood, and a pulpy villain. Capcom has primed another fascinating villain with Requiem’s Dr. Gideon, a former Umbrella virologist who was seemingly written for an actor to go full camp baddie – if the doctor’s hooded snakeskin trenchcoat wasn’t a giveaway.
Resident Evil Requiem will be released on February 27, 2026 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/resident-evil-requiem-preview-150000849.html?src=rss
The 276th installment of the 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup is here for the week ending January 25th, 2026, keeping you updated on the most important developments in the Linux world.
The UK is losing more jobs than it is creating because of AI and is being hit harder than rival large economies, new research suggests. From a report: British companies reported that AI had resulted in net job losses over the past 12 months, down 8% — the highest rate among other leading economies including the US, Japan, Germany and Australia, according to a study by the investment bank Morgan Stanley. The research surveyed companies using AI for at least a year across five industries: consumer staples and retail, real estate, transport, healthcare equipment and cars.
It found that British businesses reported an average 11.5% increase in productivity aided by AI. US businesses reported similar gains, but created more jobs than they cut. It suggests UK workers are being hit particularly hard by the rise of AI, as higher costs and taxes also weigh on the job market. Unemployment is at a four-year high, as rises in the minimum wage and employer national insurance contributions squeeze hiring.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
For a limited time, you can save $40 on the Anker USB-C Nano laptop docking station with detachable hub.
The post Anker Crashes Its 13-in-1 Docking Station With Detachable Hub to Its Lowest Price Since Launch appeared first on Kotaku.
