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Razer's new Blade 16 has Intel's latest chips and ultra-fast RAM
After leaning into some questionable AI antics at CES 2026, Razer is making some altogether more practical updates to its 16-inch laptop by giving it newer chips and faster RAM. The new Razer Blade 16 features Intel's new Core Ultra chips and speedy LPDDR5X-9600 MHz RAM, and is available to order today for $3,500.
The Razer Blade 16 is designed to split the difference between the portable Razer Blade 14 and the monstrous Razer Blade 18, mostly by being thin but offering improved performance. Razer says the 2026 Blade 16 is 0.59 inches (14.9mm) at its thinnest point, which matches the thinness of the 2025 Blade 16. The laptop also has a similar 16-inch QHD+, 240Hz OLED screen to last year's model, though the company says it's 100 nits brighter than before. Port selection also remains respectable: the laptop includes three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a Thunderbolt 4 port, a Thunderbolt 5 port, a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port and a UHS-II SD card reader.
The real notable upgrade is Razer's switch from AMD Ryzen chips to new Intel Core Ultra 9 386H chips on the 2026 Razer Blade 16. The new Core Ultra chips are some of Intel's first processors made with its new 18A process and pitched as the company's comeback. Razer says the new chip es 16 cores and an integrated NPU that "provides up to 50 TOPS" for things like image generation and live translation, which the Razer Blade 16 supports natively as a Copilot+PC. The efficiency of the new chip also contributes to the laptop’s up to 15 hours of battery life. Of course, if you want power, the Razer Blade 16 has it: the laptop includes NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series Laptop GPUs and up to 64Gb of LPDDR5X-9600MHz RAM, which should give the Razer Blade 16 plenty of pep for games.
Hardware upgrades don't come cheap, and the higher $3,500 starting price of the Razer Blade 16 — which includes 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and a GeForce RTX 5080 GPU at a minimum — is likely reflective of the growing cost of memory and storage that's already negatively impacting the PC industry.
The Razer Blade 16 is available to purchase now through Razer’s website.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/razers-new-blade-16-has-intels-latest-chips-and-ultra-fast-ram-185858799.html?src=rssNintendo to start charging different prices for first-party digital and physical games
Nintendo just announced it will soon start charging different prices for first-party Switch 2 games based on whether the content is digital or physical. This could actually be a good thing for those who like to download their games instead of heading to a brick-and-mortar store to pick up a copy, as digital titles are getting a nice discount.
It starts with the release of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book on May 21, which will be $60 on the eShop but $70 at retail locations. Prior to this, most first-party games were $70 no matter how you bought them. I prefer downloading games, for convenience, and paid that much for both Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokémon Pokopia.
It's yet another blow, however, for consumers who prefer physical media. They aren't getting any kind of a discount, and many Switch 2 cartridges don't even contain the game nowadays. The boxes include game key cards, which allow the user to download the title to the console but are basically paperweights after that.
This isn't the first time Nintendo has participated in this kind of dual pricing structure. The digital version of Donkey Kong Bananza was cheaper than the physical version in some parts of the world, including the UK.
Is this another sign that making and shipping actual things is getting to be prohibitively expensive? There are storage and memory shortages due to AI and oil shortages due to war, not to mention an ever-shifting tariff policy here in the US. It's tough out there.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-to-start-charging-different-prices-for-first-party-digital-and-physical-games-184249374.html?src=rssYouTube is bringing affiliate shopping features to more creators
YouTube creators can start making money earlier in their careers. On Wednesday, the company said it's reducing the Shopping affiliate program subscriber threshold from 1,000 to 500.
The affiliate program launched in 2022, allowing creators to earn kickbacks when viewers buy products tagged in their videos. It applies to YouTube Shorts, VOD and Live content. Creators will still need to meet the YouTube Partner Program's other requirements to reap the benefits.
Perhaps not a coincidence, the move comes only a day after Meta added shopping links to Reels. Creators on Facebook and Instagram can now link to up to 30 distinct products from marketplace partners in a single video.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/youtube-is-bringing-affiliate-shopping-features-to-more-creators-183927027.html?src=rssJury rules against Meta and YouTube in social media addiction case
A jury in Los Angeles has found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in a closely-watched trial over social media addiction. The companies were ordered to pay $3 million in damages to the woman who said she was harmed by their addictive features as a child.
The case was brought by a 20-year-old woman, named in court documents as “K.G.M,” who sued Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, saying that she had been harmed by the platforms as a child due to addictive features. TikTok and Snap reached a settlement ahead of the trial.
According to NBC News, Meta was ordered to pay 70 percent of the $3 million in compensatory damages with YouTube taking on the remaining portion. Punitive damages have not yet been decided. “We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”
The weeks-long trial has been closely watched because it's the first of many court cases in which plaintiffs have argued that social media platforms harmed minors due to how they were designed. Meta's lawyers and executives have disputed the idea that social media should be considered an "addiction." CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified that the company wants Instagram to be "useful," and repeatedly accused the plaintiff's lawyer of "mischaracterizing" his past statements.
“This is the first time in history a jury has heard testimony by executives and seen internal documents that we believe prove these companies chose profits over children,” Joseph VanZandt, one of K.G.M.’s lawyers, said in a statement to The New York Times,
For Meta, it's the second legal setback in as many days. The verdict comes one day after a jury in New Mexico ruled against Meta in a trial over child safety issues. The company was ordered to pay $375 million in penalties; the company said it would appeal.
Update, March 25, 2026, 11:22AM PT: Added a statement from Google.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/jury-rules-against-meta-and-youtube-in-social-media-addiction-case-181344860.html?src=rssHere's your first look at For All Mankind spinoff Star City
Apple’s excellent For All Mankind might be wrapping up after its recently confirmed sixth season, but as one big-budget alt-history sci-fi show departs, another is born. Apple TV has just dropped the first teaser for Star City, which focuses on the reimagined space race of the 1960s from the Soviet perspective.
ICYMI, For All Mankind has been running for nearly five seasons now (the fifth arrives later this week), with its debut season in 2019 asking, "what if Russia had beaten America to the moon?" For All Mankind has jumped a number of decades ahead since then, but Star City returns us to that initial premise, taking us behind the Iron Curtain to see how the Soviet Union orchestrated its fictional historical triumph.
The brief teaser doesn’t show us much in the way of plot, but you straight away get what vibe the streamer is going for with a show it describes as a "propulsive paranoid thriller." We also get a look at some of the cast, which includes House of the Dragon’s Rhys Ifans, Anna Maxwell Martin and Agnes O’Casey.
Interestingly, Star City’s two-episode premiere lands on Apple TV on May 29, right after the finale of For All Mankind season 5, which takes place in the 2010s. That could make for a pretty jarring backwards time jump if you watch both seasons back to back, but nobody can say that Apple isn’t serving its sci-fi audience.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/heres-your-first-look-at-for-all-mankind-spinoff-star-city-174359587.html?src=rssGoogle's Lyria 3 Pro can now generate AI music (slop) up to 3 minutes in length
Google just introduced Lyria 3 Pro, an updated version of its AI model that generates songs based on prompts. The biggest improvement here is the ability to make full three-minute songs, up from 30 seconds when the product launched last month.
The tool also brings a lot more customization into the mix. Users can now prompt the model to create specific elements within a song, like intros, verses, choruses and bridges. Google says "Lyria 3 Pro better understands musical composition" when compared to the previous model and that it's "great for experimenting with different styles or generating songs with complex transitions."
It's already available for paid Gemini users and for enterprise customers on Vertex AI. Additionally, developers have access to the tool via the Gemini API and Google AI Studio. The company is also integrating it into Google Vids, an AI-based video-generation platform.
Google says that "responsibility was foundational" when designing and training this model, so it only uses materials that the company has actual rights to. Additionally, all Lyria 3 Pro outputs are embedded with SynthID, which is a watermark for identifying AI-generated content.
That's all well and good, but do we need yet another AI music-making tool? Current estimates suggest that around 50,000 AI-generated tracks get uploaded daily to Spotify alone. The platform had to delete, and this is not a typo, 75 million of these tracks last year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-lyria-3-pro-can-now-generate-ai-music-slop-up-to-3-minutes-in-length-172738752.html?src=rssMeta lays off hundreds of workers, including more from Reality Labs
Meta is laying off more employees. Of the hundreds of cuts made on Wednesday, the Reality Labs division is one of the prime recipients. The layoffs come a day after news broke that Meta executives (sans Mark Zuckerberg) could be set for windfalls of up to $2.7 billion each under new pay packages.
Today's cuts of “hundreds” fall well short of its reported 20 percent workforce reduction plans that leaked earlier this month. At the end of 2025, Meta's workforce stood at around 79,000 people. However, this could simply be a smaller initial round before the larger cuts come into play.
Earlier in March, Meta reportedly asked some managers to prepare cost-cutting plans. The company is looking to offset its costly AI infrastructure investments, which include a plan to spend $600 billion on data centers by 2028.
The layoffs are also said to affect Meta's recruiting, sales, Facebook and global operations divisions. But the Reality Labs cuts further illustrate how the company's VR and metaverse bets failed to pay off. Today’s cuts follow layoffs in January that shed over 1,000 jobs from the division, which has lost over $70 billion since the beginning of 2021. Now, despite the 2021 rebranding that pivoted from social media to the metaverse, Zuckerberg now increasingly views Meta as an AI titan.
In January, the CEO forecast the AI world Big Tech is creating when he said he was beginning to see "projects that used to require big teams now [being] accomplished by a single very talented person." That sure sounds peachy for the dwindling few reaping the benefits. Those farther down the food chain may have different thoughts.
Speaking of that sweet, sweet C-suite life, Meta is taking a page from Tesla's Elon Musk pay package. SEC filings reveal that the company is planning a lucrative new incentive system for six executives: CTO Andrew Bosworth, CFO Susan Li, COO Javier Olivan and CPO Chris Cox. They're set to receive more stock-based compensation tied to performance. Bosworth, Cox, Li and Olivan could reportedly be looking at bounties of up to $2.7 billion apiece.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-lays-off-hundreds-of-workers-including-more-from-reality-labs-171536879.html?src=rssThe Afeela 1 came too late and now is gone too soon
One of the most overly hyped, unfortunately named and curiously positioned cars has been officially killed. It's the Afeela 1, better known as the PlayStation Car, and it was meant to be an ultimate intersection of personal mobility and digital media. It is, instead, dead, killed by a combination of headwinds that even the most pessimistic of mobility analysts couldn't have foreseen when it was first revealed six years ago.
That said, the six year interval might have been the biggest blow to the Afeela 1's chances.
How did we get here?
What was to become the Afeela 1 debuted at CES 2020 as the Sony Vision S, a car that made headlines not so much for the way it looked (it was pretty plain) or the way it was supposed to drive (Sony didn't really talk feel). It was notable simply because it was a car from a company best known for TVs that looked amazing and video game consoles that were impossible to find.
A few years later, Sony paired up with Honda to show that this wasn't just a Gran Turismo fantasy made manifest. This was going to be an actual production car. In 2025, it was given a price tag: $100,000, along with a maximum range of about 300 miles. With cars like the Lucid Air already on the road, going 400 miles on a charge and costing less, Afeela 1 looked out of date well before it entered production.
Back then, I said it was already shaping up to be a PS4 in a PS5 era, and a year later, the unveiling of a slightly taller SUV version didn't exactly shift the fates in the Afeela's favor.
That incredibly long rollout, teasing a car for six full years, was pretty damning, but that was far from the only factor in the demise of the Afeela 1.
A geopolitical EV catastrophe
Back in 2020, the future was looking electrified. Manufacturers around the world were gearing up for an anticipated European ban on internal combustion by 2035, many of them promising to have fully electrified fleets years ahead of schedule.
Government incentives were generous, free chargers were popping up all over the place, and the global cheerleader for emissions-free motoring, Elon Musk, was still mostly respectable.
In the years that followed, everything fell apart, especially here in the US. Electric cars became a political firestorm, with Trump’s campaign taking every opportunity to decry them. Our federal rebates were scrapped, incentives for charger deployments were terminated and suddenly, the global automotive landscape became mired in a turbulent web of tariffs that shifted with the winds of hot air billowing around Washington.
EVs were now seen as an incredible folly by a considerable percentage of American consumers. The CEO of the world's largest EV manufacturer goose-stepping along to the beat didn't help. What was a market ripe for electrified innovation in 2020 turned into a mobility landmine by 2026.
Autonomy when?
One of the key selling points of the Afeela 1 was to be Sony deploying the full might of its digital empire onto four wheels. PlayStation gaming on the go! High definition movies in the dashboard! Ratchet & Clank on a weird little LCD on your bumper for some reason!
This was exciting stuff back in 2020 because autonomous cars were right around the corner. Waymo was doing incredible things, others were hot on its heels, and a significant chunk of industry analysts were predicting that hands-off, eyes-closed autonomy would be a tick of a box on vehicle configurators in just a few years' time.
Fast-forward to 2026 and, in many ways, we're no closer to that dream. Sure, we have a number of hands-off driver assistance systems available today, some more aspirationally named than others, but there are no mass-market, eyes-off autonomy systems on American roads.
That means the inclusion of Sony's media empire isn't quite the flex it was. Sure, your kids in the back seat can have a hell of a time, but chances are they already have enough devices to keep them well entertained without you having to drop six figures on a new car from a new company with a funny name.
The intangibles
Another key strike against the Afeela 1 was that it, quite simply, didn't look very good. That first Vision concept had a few striking lines about it. But by the time Sony Honda Mobility came about, they'd all been ironed out. A white, featureless sedan is something that's hard for anyone to get excited about.
Not every car needs to be exciting to behold, but the Afeela 1 didn't really deliver in other regards. I've sat in a few different versions of prototypes, and while they were all nice enough, none held a candle to the sorts of posh appointments you'd expect were you to drop $100,000 on a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW.
Sony was really betting on the car's media chops to deliver value to its hardcore fans, but there are plenty of amazing-sounding cars on the road today, cars that look better and cost less than the Afeela 1 would have. Sony cachet simply wasn't enough.
Honda's cold feet
The final death knell of the Afeela 1 came at the hands of Honda. While the Afeela 1 was born of a Sony dream, it was to be produced in partnership with Honda. When I met with Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe last year, he was already getting cool on the company's American EV prospects. "The volume initially will probably be less than we had envisioned earlier," he said.
Since then, Honda took things further, canceling its 0 Series EVs. That struck me as a real shame. Where the Afeela 1 looked anonymous and was set to cost too much, the 0 Series machines were stunning and intended to be affordable. They had a real chance.
Their death effectively ripped the platform right out from under the Afeela 1. It's conceivable that Sony could take its content, car and characters to a new platform, and indeed, the press release on the cancellation of the Afeela 1 leaves the door open, saying: "SHM will continue discussions with Sony and Honda regarding its future business plans." But, that seems extremely unlikely to me.
So the Afeela 1 is dead, and so too is the dream of the PlayStation car. If you've read my coverage of the thing in the past, you know that I was never bullish on it. Pessimistic is closer to the truth, yet I still feel incredibly bad about this turn of events. I spoke with and interviewed a fair few Sony Honda Mobility employees over the years, and all were extremely excited about what they were building.
And why not? They were trying to do something new, a radically different experience in a wholly new car from a wholly new brand. That’s not something that comes along very often. Sadly, the Afeela 1 will go down in history as a lesson of exactly why that is.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/the-afeela-1-came-too-late-and-now-is-gone-too-soon-164845008.html?src=rssSupreme Court rules ISPs aren't liable for subscribers' music piracy
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on March 25 that Cox Communications is not liable for copyright infringement committed by its subscribers, reversing a 2024 appeals court decision that had upheld the ISP's liability.
Sony Music Entertainment and other major labels sued Cox in 2018, arguing the company failed to terminate internet service for subscribers repeatedly flagged for pirating copyrighted music. A jury awarded $1 billion in statutory damages after finding Cox willfully infringed all 10,017 copyrighted works at issue, though this was overturned on appeal and a new trial was ordered.
Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said a provider is not liable "for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights." A provider is liable only if it intended or actively encouraged the infringement, Thomas wrote. The decision applies the same framework the court used in 2005 when it found file-sharing service Grokster liable for promoting piracy.
Cox serves approximately six million subscribers and contractually prohibits them from using their connections to distribute copyrighted content. A firm enlisted by the labels to track piracy sent Cox 163,148 infringement notices over a roughly two-year period. Cox terminated just 32 subscribers for copyright infringement during that span.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/supreme-court-rules-isps-arent-liable-for-subscribers-music-piracy-163412791.html?src=rssSpotify is testing a tool to help real artists deal with AI slop on their profiles
Low-quality, mass-produced AI songs have been flooding music streaming platforms like Spotify for a couple of years now. This is annoying, but relatively easy for fans to avoid. However, it leads to real problems for artists. There's so much slop coming in that some gets falsely attributed to actual musicians on these platforms.
This messes with brand identity and audience retention, but Spotify is testing a new tool to help real artists exercise more control over their profiles. The platform's Artist Profile Protection feature lets musicians review releases before they go live and become associated with their profiles.
This should prevent AI slop from creeping in, as the actual artist will have final say when 100 new songs show up out of the blue that sort of sound like them but with all of that pesky soul removed. It's in beta right now and if an artist denies a track, it won't be associated with their profile, won't contribute to stats and won't show up in user recommendations. This looks to be a simple and potentially effective solution to an ongoing problem.
"Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse," Spotify wrote in a blog post. "We know how frustrating this can be for both artists and fans alike."
This comes just a week after Sony requested the removal of more than 135,000 AI-generated songs from Spotify after it was discovered the tracks were impersonating real artists. This even happens to bands that have opted out of Spotify entirely. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard left the platform last year, to protest CEO Daniel Ek's investment in a weapons manufacturing company, but a deepfake artist quickly filled the vacuum.
Some of this isn't malicious. It's a numbers game for the "creators" of these tracks. Statistics vary, but it's been estimated that around 50,000 AI-generated songs get uploaded to Spotify each and every day. The platform deleted 75 million of these tracks last year. With this many uploads, it's easy for tracks to accidentally end up on the wrong artist's profile. Bad actors looking to attach their slop to a known quantity compounds the issue.
In any event, it's good that Spotify is doing something about this. We don't know when the tool will exit the beta phase and become available for all artists on the platform. That day can't come soon enough.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/spotify-is-testing-a-tool-to-help-real-artists-deal-with-ai-slop-on-their-profiles-161013653.html?src=rssReddit will prompt some accounts to 'verify humanness' in latest bot crackdown
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has detailed the company's latest plan to fight bots and it means that some accounts will need to "verify humanness," though the company is stopping short of widespread identity verification. In an update, Huffman said that in "rare" cases accounts that seem "fishy" will be prompted for additional verification.
Such prompts "will not apply to most users," according to Huffman, but will apply to accounts where Reddit detects signs of automated posting or bot-like behavior. If the account doesn't pass the verification test, it may be "restricted" from the platform. For now, verification will take the form of on-device methods, including FaceID and passkeys. But the company is considering alternative methods, including World ID, the face-scanning orb company run by Sam Altman. "I think the internet needs verification solutions like this, where your account information, usage data, and identity never mix," Huffman writes.
As part of the new policy, Reddit is also adding an "[APP]" label to existing "good" bots on the platform and making it easier for users to report suspected "bad" bots. The company is also grappling with a growing number of age verification laws. Reddit is “exploring” ways to “comply with these regulations without compromising user privacy,” Huffmans said.
The company is clearly trying to walk a careful line in how it approaches verification. Huffman notes that Reddit intends to "confirm humanness" rather than verify users' actual identities, which would erode the anonymity that Reddit is known for. But the rise of agentic AI has meant that Reddit is contending with the same sorts of bot-driven spam that took down the short-lived reboot of Digg.
Of course, Reddit is also filled with AI-generated material that's shared by actual humans but may be considered spammy by other users. The company has no plans to crack down on such content, at least for now, according to Huffman. "For better or worse, using AI to write is part of how people will communicate in the future (albeit annoying), so our current focus is to ensure there is a real, live human behind the accounts you’re seeing."
Sony's upcoming Bravia 3 II is a mid-range LED TV available in sizes up to 100 inches
Sony just revealed the upcoming Bravia 3 II mid-range LED TV. It'll be available in sizes all the way up to 100 inches, for those in need of a home theater centerpiece. It's considered a mid-range device, but is still outfitted with plenty of tech typically reserved for the company's high-end displays.
First of all, these TVs ship with Sony's XR processor. This grants access to the company's proprietary Clear Image algorithm, auto HDR tone mapping and more. It's nice to see these features expand beyond flagship products.
The 4K LED display supports Dolby Vision, Atmos and DTS:X, with refresh rates up to 120Hz. It also features four HDMI 2.1 ports, so you can hook up a Switch 2, a PS5 and an Xbox Series X all at the same time with a port to spare.
The software here is integrated with Google Gemini, allowing for all kinds of voice commands. Finally, the TVs ship with Sony's new Inclusive Remote Control, which has been designed for accessibility.
The Bravia 3 II line will start showing up at retailers this spring. Prices start at $600 for a 43-inch model and go all the way up to $3,100 for that 100-inch monstrosity.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/sonys-upcoming-bravia-3-ii-is-a-mid-range-led-tv-available-in-sizes-up-to-100-inches-160002697.html?src=rssSony adds the Bravia Theater Bar 5 and Bar 7 to its soundbar lineup
Sony already has a robust collection of soundbars in its Bravia Theater lineup. Today, the company is adding two more, as well as new rear speakers and three new subwoofers. The Bar 7 will sit in Sony’s premium tier, alongside the existing (and larger) Bar 8 and Bar 9 models, while the Bar 5 will offer a more compact and more affordable solution just below the current Bar 6.
The Bravia Theater Bar 7 utilizes nine total drivers to produce Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and IMAX Enhanced sound. More specifically, that arrangement includes three woofers, two tweeters, two up-firing units and two side-firing drivers, in addition to four passive radiators. Compare that to the Bar 8 and Bar 9 which house 11 speakers and 13 speakers respectively. Sony says the Bar 7 has new two-way front speakers and the center, up-firing and side-firing drivers all have the company’s oval-shaped X-Balanced design. In terms of features, you get Sony’s 360 Spatial Sound Mapping and Sound Field Optimization for more immersive audio performance.
The Bar 7 will come bundled with Sony’s new Bravia Theater Sub 7 for $870, but you can also purchase it without the subwoofer (pricing TBA). For a more robust system, the Bar 7 can be paired with the company’s Bravia Theater Rear speakers.
Speaking of subwoofers, Sony debuted three new models today. The aforementioned Sub 7 is the smallest, employing a 5.1-inch driver for the low-end tone. Move up to the new Sub 8 and you get a 7.9-inch driver for “enhanced atmosphere, clearer bass,” according to the company. The largest of the new options is the Sub 9 which has two opposing 7.9-inch drivers for “powerful, clean bass.” Unfortunately, these add-ons don’t come cheap: the Sub 7 is $330, the Sub 8 is $500 and the Sub 9 is $900.
Sony also touts dual subwoofer connectivity as part of the refreshed Bravia Theater lineup. All three of the new subs can be used as a pair, so long as you have a Theater Bar 7, Theater Bar 8 or Theater Bar 9. You can also use two subwoofers with some of Sony’s receivers (STR-AZ7000ES, STR-AZ5000ES, STR-AZ3000ES, STR-AZ1000ES and STR-AN1000). The company explains that opting for two subs provides “stronger, more balanced bass,” obviously, that fills the room for a more “cinematic effect.” Sony also says two subwoofers enable “richer, fuller bass” at lower volumes.
Rear speakers are something you’ll need if you truly want immersive audio, and the new Theater Rear 9 units are a big upgrade over the current Rear 8s. Most notably, you get an up-firing driver for enhanced overhead sounds along with two passive radiators, in addition to a tweeter and a woofer. The drivers all have aluminum diaphragms instead of paper, and the Rear 9s come with a swivel wall mounts that enable 60-degree movement. A pair of Theater Rear 9 speakers will set you back $750.
If all of that sounds too expensive for your living room, Sony has something more affordable in the midrange area. The Bravia Theater Bar 5 is just $350 and still offers Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio. It doesn’t have up-firing drivers, it’s a 3.1-channel setup, so any overhead effects will be simulated. Still, that’s probably okay if you have a smaller space or live in an apartment as the upmixing tech (S-Force Pro Front Surround and Vertical Sound Engine) should provide ample immersion. The Bar 5 does come with a subwoofer though, and you can employ Sony’s Voice Zoom 3 feature for enhanced dialogue.
The Bravia Theater Bar 7, all three of the new subwoofers and the Rear 9 will be available for pre-order later this spring. The Bar 5 is up for pre-order starting today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/sony-adds-the-bravia-theater-bar-5-and-bar-7-to-its-soundbar-lineup-160000680.html?src=rssX is changing its revenue-sharing policy to deter users pretending to be Americans
X is updating its revenue-sharing incentives to give more weight to engagement from a user’s home region, Nikita Bier, the company’s Head of Product has announced. Bier said the change in policy was to “encourage content that resonates with people in [the user’s] country, in neighboring countries and people who speak [their] language.”
Bier continued that while X appreciates everyone’s opinion on US politics, the company is hoping the new policy can “disincentivize gaming the attention of US or Japanese accounts.” The US and Japan have the largest number of users on X. Bier didn’t mention it outright, but dozens of popular accounts tweeting pro-Trump sentiments and commentaries focusing on US politics in general were revealed to be based outside the US late last year, when X rolled out a transparency feature that exposed users’ locations. Those accounts, which pretended to be from the US and garnered millions of likes, views and reposts, turned out to be based in countries like India, Kenya and Nigeria.
“X will be a much richer community when there's relevant posts for people in all parts of the world,” Bier said. When one user responded to his post that some countries barely have any users, making it hard to earn money from the website, Bier just suggested that they should write about their day-to-day experiences. “Of course, you’re welcome to continue chiming in on America politics. We just won’t send money overseas for that content,” he said. X’s new policy will start taking effect on Thursday, March 26.
We’ve love to hear your thoughts about living in Portugal. I’m sure you have plenty of great stories about your day to day experience there.
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) March 25, 2026
Of course, you’re welcome to continue chiming in on America politics. We just won’t send money overseas for that content.
Update, March 25 2026, 11:30AM ET: According to a tweet from Musk, X "will pause moving forward with this until further consideration."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-is-changing-its-revenue-sharing-policy-to-deter-users-pretending-to-be-americans-090701729.html?src=rssMark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang and Sergey Brin join Trump's tech advisory panel
The leaders of several major tech companies will offer the White House their opinions on tech and science policy as part of an advisory council. Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison — the CEOs of Meta, NVIDIA, Dell and Oracle, respectively — are joining the panel alongside Google co-founder Sergey Brin and AMD CEO Lisa Su. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has donated to super PACs that support President Donald Trump, will serve on the panel too.
The latest iteration of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has 13 members, though that could expand to 24. White House AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sacks co-chairs PCAST alongside Trump's science advisor, Michael Kratsios.
“Under President Trump, PCAST will focus on topics related to the opportunities and challenges that emerging technologies present to the American workforce, and ensuring all Americans thrive in the Golden Age of Innovation,” the White House told The Wall Street Journal in a statement. Zuckerberg said he was "honored to join the president’s council and work with other industry leaders" to help ensure the US is the world leader in AI.
George W. Bush established PCAST with a 2001 executive order, and some notable executives have been involved with the panel. Barack Obama's advisors included then-Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and former Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie, while ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger served on PCAST during Trump's first term. Joe Biden's panel included Su.
The tech CEOs all have a personal and professional stake here, given the potential impact of federal rules on them and their businesses. It’s worth noting that Meta, Google and Huang all chipped in to help pay for the construction of Trump’s White House ballroom. Google, Meta and NVIDIA were among the companies that each donated $1 million to the committee for Trump's second inauguration.
Meanwhile, Ellison — whose family has spent much of the last couple of years building a media empire that includes Paramount and potentially Warner Bros. Discovery — has close ties to Trump. Oracle is also one of the companies that backed the takeover of the US version of TikTok, a deal that Trump approved with an executive order. It was reported this month that the Trump administration is receiving $10 billion for brokering the buyout.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/mark-zuckerberg-jensen-huang-and-sergey-brin-join-trumps-tech-advisory-panel-144722797.html?src=rssStephen Colbert is writing a new Lord of the Rings movie
It’s been quite a while since we visited Middle-Earth on the big screen (anime prequels aside), but it looks like Lord of the Rings fans have plenty to look forward to in the coming years. We already knew that Andy Serkis’ The Hunt for Gollum was in the works — and by all accounts is progressing nicely — but another Rings-related film is in development too, and it’s being co-written by none other than Stephen Colbert.
The announcement came from Peter Jackson himself, in a video posted by Warner Bros. to coincide with Tolkien Reading Day. The director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy provided a quick update on Serkis’ film (the British actor is both directing and reprising his role as Gollum), before introducing "very special partner" and diehard Tolkien fan Colbert on a video call.
With The Late Show nearing its end, its host was seemingly going to be out of work in the summer. Colbert is working with his son Peter as well as screenwriter Philippa Boyens (who co-wrote the original film trilogy). They'll adapt some early chapters of Fellowship of the Ring that never made it into Jackson’s 2001 film. The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is actually set 14 years after the events of Return of the King, and will see Sam, Merry and Pippin retrace the first steps of their famous adventure.
So while the new film is inspired specifically by Fellowship chapters III (‘Three is Company’) through VIII (‘Fog On The Barrow-Downs’), it sounds like we’re actually getting a sequel of sorts, in which we’ll also see Sam’s daughter Elanor make a huge discovery that puts her on her own quest.
Colbert and his son had been scribbling away at their idea for several years before plucking up the courage to show what they had come up with to Jackson, but the legendary 64-year-old filmmaker was clearly a fan. And given the timing of the announcement, Colbert will soon be able to commit all of his energy to the project, which has not yet named any cast members. Will Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan be dusting off their hobbit attire? Only time will tell, but the time jump would presumably make it possible.
The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past doesn’t have a release date, but its announcement coincides with the 25th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring, which has already been marked by the whole trilogy returning to theaters earlier this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/stephen-colbert-is-writing-a-new-lord-of-the-rings-movie-143004743.html?src=rssAnthropic releases safer Claude Code 'auto mode' to avoid mass file deletions and other AI snafus
Anthropic has begun previewing "auto mode" inside of Claude Code. The company describes the new feature as a middle path between the app's default behavior, which sees Claude request approval for every file write and bash command, and the "dangerously-skip-premissions" command some coders use to make the chatbot function more autonomously.
With auto mode enabled, a classifier system guides Claude, giving it permission to carry out actions it deems safe, while redirecting the chatbot to take a different approach when it determines Claude might do something risky. In designing the system, Anthropic's goal was to reduce the likelihood of Claude carrying out mass file deletions, extracting sensitive data or executing malicious code.
Of course, no system is perfect, and Anthropic warns as such. "The classifier may still allow some risky actions: for example, if user intent is ambiguous, or if Claude doesn't have enough context about your environment to know an action might create additional risk," the company writes.
Anthropic doesn't mention a specific incident as inspiration for auto mode, but the recent 13-hour AWS outage Amazon suffered after one of the company's AI tools reportedly deleted a hosting environment, was probably front of mind for the company. Amazon blamed that specific incident on human error, saying the staffer involved in the incident had "broader permissions than expected."
Team plan users can preview auto mode starting today, with the feature set to roll out to Enterprise and API users in the coming days.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-releases-safer-claude-code-auto-mode-to-avoid-mass-file-deletions-and-other-ai-snafus-142500615.html?src=rssRing adds 4K to its battery-powered video doorbells
Ring has today announced a spec bump to its battery-powered video doorbells for all those folks who can’t wire their units to power. The flagship Battery Doorbell Pro (2nd gen) gets 4K video, with 10x zoom and the promise of far longer time between recharges than the previous model. At the same time, it’s bringing 2K imaging to its lower-end battery doorbells, the Battery Doorbell Plus and Battery Doorbell (2nd gen). The former, as fitting its higher price, gets a quick-release battery pack, while both models get 2K video and 6x zoom. Naturally, these features are already available on Ring’s wired products, the bulk of which were announced back in September 2025.
The company is also aware that swapping out batteries isn’t ideal if you really need a doorbell to work all of the time. That’s why it’s also launching a new Solar Charger which integrates into the mount, keeping your doorbell running for longer between trips to the wall outlet. There’s also a bigger Solar Panel, which pumps out more juice than its smaller sibling, and can be mounted in a wider variety of places. All of the above are available to pre-order from today, and are priced as follows: Pro ($250), Plus ($180), Battery Doorbell ($100), Solar Charger ($50), Solar Panel ($60).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/ring-adds-4k-to-its-battery-powered-video-doorbells-130021181.html?src=rssSennheiser's owners want to sell its consumer headphone business
Hearing aid company Sonova has put its Sennheiser consumer audio division on the auction block less than five years after acquiring it, the company announced on Reddit. "Today Sonova announced they intend to divest the business and will focus on Hearing Care," Sonova wrote, adding it intends to find "the right new owner."
Sennheiser's consumer audio division mainly manufactures high-end headphones like the HD 400, HD 500, HD 600 and HD 800 series and recently launched the HDB 630, $500 wireless headphones aimed at audiophiles. The company's most (in)famous lineup is the HE series, which includes the $55,000 HE 90 and €89,990 HE 1.
Sonova originally purchased Sennheiser with the intent of expanding its demographic to younger customers. At the time, it said "even if [young people] don't have hearing loss, most of them will gradually get hearing loss with age, and devices like Sennheiser's allow us to have earlier consumer access to such people." For its part, Sennheiser said it wanted to relinquish its consumer business in order to focus on its pro audio, business and Neumann (high-end microphone) divisions that it still owns.
Things apparently didn't go to plan, though. Sonova's Sennheiser division's sales in the last half-year declined significantly year-over-year and the company was hit with a €6 million fine over its retail pricing practices (that occurred prior to the acquisition). However, the company's recent products have been praised by the audiophile community as a return to previous form, with Engadget's audio reviewer Billy Steele calling the HDB 630 "a sonic marvel."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/sennheisers-owners-want-to-sell-its-consumer-headphone-business-121830441.html?src=rssSamsung Galaxy A37 and A57 hands-on: The cheaper phone might be a winner
Late last year, Samsung launched its newest generation of affordable A-series phones, starting with the entry-level A17. Following the arrival of the flagship Galaxy S26 line, the company has returned to flesh out the rest of its midrange portfolio. The more affordable Galaxy A37 and Galaxy A57 sport some interesting upgrades, even when compared to some of their pricier siblings.
Core specs and features
Before we dive into my hands-on impressions, I want to do a quick rundown of each phone's specs as that should help set up (or temper) expectations. As you'd expect based on their numbering, the A37 is the more affordable of the two with a base price of $450 for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. You can also choose 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage for $540. Notably, when compared to the A17, the A37 features a much more recent and more powerful Exynos 1480 chip that brings a big jump in NPU performance and helps unlock much of the phone's newfound AI capabilities. It also comes with a large 6.7-inch AMOLED display, a 5,000mAh battery and three rear cameras. However, two of those will likely get more use than the other as the A37 packs a 50-megapixel main camera and an 8MP ultra-wide, along with a 5MP macro shooter.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy A57 is a bit more expensive, starting at $550 for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or $610 for the 8GB/256GB version. It also features a slightly more powerful Exynos 1680 processor and a higher-res 12MP sensor for its ultra-wide lens, but aside from that, it has the same general camera setup as A37 and the same size battery. One small difference is that the A57 has Bluetooth 6 connectivity and Wi-Fi 6E, but the A37 is still stuck with BT 5.3 and basic Wi-Fi 6.
Both phones come with IP68 ratings for dust and water resistance (which is an upgrade from IP67 on the A36) and 120Hz refresh rates. However, the most important shared trait is that while neither supports wireless charging, they can both take wired power at up to 45 watts, which is actually faster than a base Galaxy S26's limit of just 25 watts. Finally, in addition to six years of OS and security updates, the A37 and A57 are getting some trickle-down AI features from its flagship siblings. Those include improved support for Google's Circle to Search, Object Eraser and better transcription and translation capabilities in the Samsung Voice Recorder app.
Galaxy A37 impressions
Both phones have nearly identical designs, right down to the same screen size and number of cameras. That said, one area where Samsung cut corners on A37 is that it features a plastic frame instead of the A57’s aluminum. But even when you hold them side by side, it's rather difficult to discern between the two. There's no obvious difference in appearance or button layout, so the main way to tell the two apart is by feeling for the cooler touch you typically get from a metal chassis. Alternatively, if you look closely, you'll notice that the A37 has slightly thicker bezels around the outside of its screen.
Compared to the Galaxy A17, the A37's Exynos 1480 felt significantly snappier and much better equipped for multitasking or AI-based tasks like removing unwanted objects from photos. Regardless, as the less expensive of Samsung's new midrange phone options, the company did a really good job disguising the major differences between the two new models.
Galaxy A57 impressions
To be honest, the A57 wasn't quite as appealing as the A37 due to its higher price and no additional features. The main tool it has that isn't available on its more affordable sibling is Samsung's Best Face camera tool, which allows the phone to analyze people's expressions so you can select your favorite reaction and put it in the photo you want. On paper, its Exynos 1680 chip should be a bit faster, but in normal use, it's really hard to tell. And unlike the A37, which comes in four colors (white, charcoal, lavender and gray/green, depending on the retailer), the A57 is only available in navy.
Early thoughts
As a more powerful and more premium alternative to the $200 A17, the A37 feels like a worthy upgrade for the money. It offers noticeably smoother performance along with a more elegant hole-punch selfie cam (instead of a waterdrop) and stereo speakers (instead of mono). Starting at $450, the A37 can also undercut the Pixel 10a while offering a larger 6.7-inch AMOLED display (versus 6.3 inches for the Pixel) and a smattering of equivalent AI features. And in some ways, the wider selection of colors just reinforces that Samsung is probably placing bigger bets on the A37's market prospects. If I were looking for an affordable Android phone with a big screen, I'd give more consideration to this new middle child in Samsung's A-series lineup.
As for the A57, it's certainly not a bad phone, but starting at $550, it suffers from being in a much more competitive price bracket. For those who prefer smaller devices, the $500 Pixel 10a is cheaper while offering even better AI tools, a cleaner UI, wireless charging, a slightly larger battery and unmatched photo quality. However, the A57's biggest rival is arguably another Samsung phone: the Galaxy S25 FE. Aside from slower wired charging, it has an even nicer design, an extra year of software and security updates (seven total) and a proper telephoto camera instead of a macro lens. And while its MSRP is a bit higher at $650, it's regularly on sale for under $600 (or less), which effectively sidesteps the A57's biggest advantage.
That said, no matter which one you prefer, more options for affordable gadgets are always welcome — especially with the price of smartphones and PCs increasing due to the global RAM shortage.
The Galaxy A37 and A57 will officially go on sale April 9.
Apple introduces age verification for iCloud accounts in the UK
Apple has introduced more than just new features, like an AI playlist generator, with iOS 26.4 in the UK. The company now requires users in the region to verify their ages and to prove they’re 18 years old or above before they can access “certain services or features, or take certain actions on their account.” Users can verify their ages in Settings by linking a credit card to their account or scanning an ID. For people who’ve had an Apple account for a while, the company will check if they already have a payment method on file that can prove they’re of age.
The company says it will automatically switch on its Web Content Filter and Communication Safety features for everyone under 18 and for those who haven’t verified their ages. These tools are integrated into Apple’s operating systems and can restrict users from accessing specific websites on Safari and third-party browsers, as well as warn users when they’re receiving or sending images and videos containing nudity.
Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, praised Apple for the decision, especially since it’s not required to implement age verification for the iOS or its App Store under the region’s Online Safety Act. “Apple’s decision that the UK will be one of the first countries in the world to receive new child safety protections on devices is a real win for children and families,” the regulator said. “Our rules are flexible and designed to encourage innovation, particularly in age assurance. We've worked closely with Apple and other services to ensure they can be applied in a variety of contexts in order to ensure users are protected. This will build on the strong foundations of the Online Safety Act, from widespread age checks that keep young people away from harmful content, to blocking high-risk sites and stepping up action against child sexual abuse material.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-introduces-age-verification-for-icloud-accounts-in-the-uk-115340237.html?src=rssThe Afeela EV is dead
Sony Honda Mobility, the automotive venture from two of Japan’s most storied companies, has swung the axe on its EV project. In a statement, it said it would “discontinue the development and launch” of the Afeela 1 and 2, its long-in-development electric cars. The company added it would review its “business direction,” and announce its future plans “at the earliest possible opportunity.” Which, if we’re honest, probably means the whole thing is going to be shut down, or scaled back so much it’s no longer worth talking about.
2026 has not been a great year for Honda. On March 12, it posted an up-to $15.7 billion loss as it wrote off a big chunk of its investment in EVs. The US’ pivot toward fossil fuels, removal of federal EV tax credits and the imposition of tariffs has hit its business pretty hard. Not to mention the high-profile embarrassment of its current F1 engine project with Aston Martin, which promised so much and has delivered less than nothing.
Sony’s journey into the automotive world began six years ago with the announcement of the Vision-S, the car which would eventually be re-christened Afeela. But while the product looked good on trade show stands, it stood still while the rest of the car world sprinted ahead. In January, Tim Stevens said Afeela 1 looked a little dated, and a little lacking in emotion, and a lot more expensive than comparable models from rivals. It’s also worth noting Sony and Honda’s vision of a smart device on wheels is hardly a novel concept these days.
Not to mention that Afeela 1 is a sedan, being sold to a world that’s increasingly fallen out of love with the type in favor of higher-riding SUVs. In Sony's statement, however, the SUV-aping Afeela 2 didn't even get a mention by name, which hints that it was as much an afterthought for the company as we might have guessed when it was announced.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/sony-and-honda-kill-its-afeela-evs-100426852.html?src=rssMeta is letting creators fill their Reels with shopping links
It's about to get a lot easier for creators on Facebook and Instagram to push products to their followers. Meta will now allow creators to include clickable shopping links for products directly in their Reels.
Brand partnerships and affiliate links, in which creators earn a portion of sales generated by their recommendations, are central to how creators earn money from Facebook and Instagram. But Meta has limited the ways in which they can direct their followers off-platform. As a result, creators often rely on third-party "link in bio" services for managing links to the stuff they endorse.
Now, Meta says it will allow eligible creators to link to up to 30 distinct products in a single Reel. the feature will be available on both Instagram and Facebook, though Facebook creators are limited to tagging products from marketplace partners like Amazon.
The change could be a boon for lifestyle creators and others who rely on their followers regularly buying the stuff they recommend. It brings Meta’s apps up to par with TikTok and YouTube Shorts, both of which have had affiliate shopping features for years. It will also make shopping content a lot harder to ignore, which could risk alienating some people if creators go overboard.
For Meta, the change will give it new insight into what its users are buying. A Meta spokesperson says the company isn't taking a cut from creators' sales via these links for now, though it's probably safe to assume the company will use the data gleaned from them to bolster its ad business.
Jury rules against Meta, orders $375 million fine in major child safety trial
A jury in New Mexico has found Meta liable for violating the state's consumer protection laws in a high-profile civil trial over child exploitation and other safety issues. One day after closing arguments in the weeks-long trial concluded, the jury ruled against Meta on every count and ordered the company to pay $375 million.
The case was brought by New Mexico's attorney general in 2023 and centered around allegations that Meta knew its platform put children at risk of exploitation and mental health harms and failed to put safety measures in place. In the end, the jury ruled that Meta was liable for both counts of violating New Mexico's consumer protection laws for misleading people in the state about the safety of its services. It imposed a penalty of $375 million, the maximum amount under the law based on the number of violations.
During the trial, jurors were shown numerous internal documents throughout Meta's history. These included the results of research into mental health issues facing teens, and email exchanges in which Meta executives discussed safety problems like sextortion, self harm content and grooming. Prosecutors argued that these documents showed Meta knew children were experiencing harms on its apps, despite public statements that it prioritized safety.
In a statement, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company would appeal the verdict. "We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content," he said. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
The verdict isn't the end of New Mexico's case against Meta. The state will argue that Meta is a "public nuisance" at a bench trial (a trial with a judge and no jury) that's expected to begin in May. In a statement, Attorney General Raul Torrez called the verdict a "historic victory" for families affected by Meta's safety lapses.“Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough."
The New Mexico trial has been closely watched as it's among the first of many cases against Meta over child safety issues. A jury is currently deliberating in a separate trial in Los Angeles over social media addiction. A coalition of dozens of other states have also brought a lawsuit against the company for harming teens.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/jury-rules-against-meta-orders-375-million-fine-in-major-child-safety-trial-224215209.html?src=rssSony is reportedly shutting down Dark Outlaw Games, run by former Call of Duty director
Sony is shutting down Dark Outlaw Games, a first-party game studio led by former Call of Duty producer Jason Blundell, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports. Before leading Dark Outlaw Games, Blundell was the head of Deviation Games, which was an independent studio, but also happened to be developing a PlayStation game before it shut down, Schreier says.
Dark Outlaw Games had yet to announce what it was working on, but considering Blundell's experience with the Call of Duty franchise, it seems likely the studio was developing a multiplayer project for PlayStation. Blundell was a programmer and producer at Activision before making the jump to Treyarch to work on Call of Duty 3, and he contributed to multiple Call of Duty: Black Ops games after that, including serving as the director for the campaign and Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops III and the career and Zombies modes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
Engadget has contacted Sony for more information about the fate of Dark Outlaw Games. We'll update this article if we hear back.
The studio's shutdown is being paired with cuts to staff at PlayStation focused on mobile development, according to Schreier. Sony has made a habit of laying off staff and shutting down studios in the last year, seemingly as a way to retreat from an earlier investment in online, live-service multiplayer games. The company shut down Bluepoint Games in February following attempts to get a live-service God of War game off the ground. Sony also closed Firewalk Studios after the spectacular failure of multiplayer shooter Concord in October 2024. And a year before that, Naughty Dog officially abandoned work on a standalone multiplayer version of The Last of Us in December 2023.
That leaves Sony with at least two Horizon Zero Dawn spin-offs, a co-op game from original developer Guerilla Games and a MMO from developer NCSoft; Fairgame$, which is still in active development despite the departure of Haven Studios head Jade Raymond; Arrowhead Game Studios' Helldivers 2; Bungie's Destiny 2 and Marathon; and if you really want to stretch, Gran Turismo 7. Sony clearly hasn't given up on producing online multiplayer games, but it's not hard to characterize its attempt to expand into the space as a disaster.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-is-reportedly-shutting-down-dark-outlaw-games-run-by-former-call-of-duty-director-215634410.html?src=rssBaltimore sues xAI over Grok deepfakes
Grok has already taken extensive heat after the AI chatbot's image generation tool was used to create an estimated 3 million sexualized images over 11 days, including 23,000 of minors, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Regulators around the world have limited access or launched investigations into the platform's potentially illegal and nonconsensual image generation. The US government hasn't made any moves against xAI or its platform at the federal level, but today, the city of Baltimore began a municipal lawsuit against the company.
The lawsuit takes a different tactic, arguing that Elon Musk's businesses violated the city's Consumer Protection Ordinance. This complaint, as reported by The Guardian, said that xAI marketed Grok as an all-purpose AI assistant without disclosing the risks and exposure to harm of using both Grok and the X social network.
"Baltimore’s consumer protection laws exist to safeguard residents from exactly this kind of emerging harm," City Solicitor Ebony M. Thompson said. "When companies introduce powerful technologies without adequate guardrails, the City has both the authority and the obligation to act. We are stepping in now to protect our residents, hold these companies accountable, and prevent these harms from becoming further entrenched as this technology continues to evolve."
The other notable action against Grok within the US stemmed from a potential class action filed by three teenagers who alleged that photos of them were used to create child sexual abuse material.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/baltimore-sues-xai-over-grok-deepfakes-214135922.html?src=rssOpenAI is shutting down its Sora video generation app
OpenAI is shutting down its Sora video generation app. "We're saying goodbye to Sora," the company wrote in a X post published Tuesday afternoon. For now, OpenAI has yet to say when the app and its related API service would become unavailable. Instead, promising to share those details at a later date.
"We've decided to discontinue Sora in the consumer app and API. As we focus and compute demand grows, the Sora research team continues to focus on world simulation research to advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks," an OpenAI spokesperson told Engadget.
We’re saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.
— Sora (@soraofficialapp) March 24, 2026
We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on…
While today's news might come as a surprise for some, there were warning signs Sora was heading in this direction since the start of the year. While Sora hit the top of the US App Store charts shortly after its debut, interest in the platform appears to have quickly fizzled out thereafter. At the start of 2026, data from analytics firm Appfigures suggested the app was seeing successive month-over-month declines in both new installs and user spending. In December alone, a time of year when most apps typically flourish, Sora reportedly saw a 32 percent decline in new downloads from November.
The shutdown also aligns with OpenAI's recent shift in strategy. Since the release of GPT-5.2, the company's "code red" response to Google's Gemini 3 Pro model, OpenAI has tried to court professionals like coders and data analysts with systems that excel in those domains, seeing enterprise customers as a route toward profitability. However, today’s shutdown does appear to come with an additional cost for OpenAI. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney is exiting the deal it signed with the AI lab at the end of last year, and won’t, as a result, invest $1 billion into it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-shutting-down-its-sora-video-generation-app-211023358.html?src=rssApple could give Siri a standalone app and an 'Ask Siri' button in iOS 27
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has been sharing every incremental update about what Apple's long-awaited Siri overhaul will and won't include. His latest article claims that the AI assistant will have a standalone app and will introduce an "Ask Siri" feature that could mark a decidedly different direction in how users will interact with the platform.
Gurman reports that Siri is being designed to leverage personal data from messages, emails and notes to complete requests. Siri will also allegedly be able to execute tasks within apps, access news and conduct web searches. The "Ask Siri" angle means people will be able to make their requests in conversational, natural language formats by either text or voice, which has not been an option in Apple's platform and appears to confirm that the company wants Siri to function akin to other AI chatbots. These improvements are still expected to be a part of the iOS 27 and macOS 27 updates.
The official announcement of the reimagined Siri is expected to happen during WWDC 2026. Apple's summer showcase is happening over June 8-12, with the keynote and Siri news likely happening on June 8. There have already been so many delays, even just in the past two months, that it's hard to know how substantive the first parts of the Siri overhaul will be. We know direct from the company that Google Gemini will be powering the new Siri, but that's the only real confirmation Apple has offered as the redesign process has dragged on.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/apple-could-give-siri-a-standalone-app-and-an-ask-siri-button-in-ios-27-202802492.html?src=rssZoox is bringing its robotaxi to new cities and expanding coverage in Las Vegas and San Francisco
Zoox has announced plans to bring its robotaxi to Austin, Texas and Miami, Florida for the first time, along with offering expanded service in San Francisco and Las Vegas. The company formally launched its robotaxi service in September 2025, and shared earlier in March that it would begin testing in Dallas and Phoenix.
A "Zoox retrofitted testing fleet" has been operating in Austin and Miami since 2024, but offering rides with company's purpose-built robotaxi — designed to be more of a rolling social space with seats facing each other — is an important step towards Zoox running its full service in both cities. At least to start, rides will be available in a small part of both cities and only for "Zoox employees, their families and friends," but the company says it'll expand who can hail a ride as testing continues.
For anyone who lives in San Francisco or Las Vegas, Zoox's coverage area and options for pick-ups and drop-offs are also becoming more convenient. Zoox is now able to pick up riders from more locations in Las Vegas, including the Las Vegas Convention Center and "a majority of the major hotels along the Strip." The company will also provide limited service to high-traffic events at The Sphere and T-Mobile Arena, and eventually plans to send its robotaxi on trips to Harry Reid International Airport. Starting this spring, Zoox is also expanding where it will offer rides in the eastern half of San Francisco, covering "the Marina, North Beach, and Chinatown, as well as Pacific Heights and along the Embarcadero."
Besides being able to pick up riders in more places, Zoox is rolling out two product updates to improve the experience of riding in its robotaxis. "Find My Zoox" will let the company's robotaxis use "distinct lighting and sound cues," to signal to riders which robotaxi is theirs, and "Zooxcast" will let riders play their audio over Bluetooth while they're in a robotaxi.
In comparison to all the cities Waymo currently offers its robotaxis, Zoox is playing catch-up, but the company is also approaching its business a bit differently. Zoox is focused on using custom robotaxi for rides, while Waymo has expanded quickly on the back of cars retrofitted with the sensors that makes its Waymo Driver software work. Waymo plans to incorporate its own robotaxis co-developed with Geely into its fleet over time, but for now, rides with Zoox are a bit more bespoke.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/zoox-is-bringing-its-robotaxi-to-new-cities-and-expanding-coverage-in-las-vegas-and-san-francisco-195410391.html?src=rssAccuWeather is now available inside ChatGPT
Who among us hasn't tormented over the burden of having to exit an AI app to check the weather? Well, I haven't, and I'm guessing you haven't either. But AccuWeather has a solution regardless. On Tuesday, the company rolled out a ChatGPT app to spare… someone that pain.
Snark aside, there may be a few niche situations where this provides a slight advantage. AccuWeather suggests asking ChatGPT, "When is the best time this afternoon to go for a run with the most comfortable weather conditions?" or "Will it rain on my planned vacation this weekend?" Of course, you could just read the dang forecast to get those same answers. But hey, to each their own.
After you've connected the AccuWeather app to your ChatGPT account, your weather-related queries will be answered in an interactive weather module. Available info includes MinuteCast, RealFeel and RealFeel Shade.
This isn't the first time AccuWeather has adapted its service — perhaps questionably — to emerging technologies. In 2017, it pushed out a virtual reality app for Samsung's Gear VR headset. Engadget noted at the time that it "sounds like one of the least exciting VR experiences imaginable."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/accuweather-is-now-available-inside-chatgpt-192637363.html?src=rssSplitgate's 1047 Games is starting work on a Titanfall-style movement shooter
At the close of a video announcing the second season of Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, the company's co-founder and CEO Ian Proulx revealed that "a small section of the team" has started work on a new game. He said that the next project will be a movement shooter in the style of Titanfall and Black Ops 3.
Those two tidbits are really all that 1047 Games had to share. People can sign up to participate when playtesting begins, but considering the latest release is only just hitting its second season, it's a safe bet that we'll have a while before this project gets a title and a trailer, much less a release window.
Splitgate is a well-made game with smart traversal and movement mechanics, so it's likely that they'll have good ideas to bring to this sliding and gliding subgenre of FPS. Whether players will continue supporting 1047 Games is a different question. The studio leadership bungled a lot of things in the past year, starting with Proulx's questionable fashion choices and even more questionable handling of said choices. 1047 Games also pulled a bait-and-switch with the release of Splitgate 2, yanking it back to beta after release and cutting jobs before re-releasing and reimagining the sequel as Splitgate: Arena Reloaded in December.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/splitgates-1047-games-is-starting-work-on-a-titanfall-style-movement-shooter-192551191.html?src=rssThree new Gemini features come to Google TV
Google has announced a trio of new AI-powered features for its Google TV platform, after showing off smarter Gemini integration at CES back in January.
Google TV can now provide "richer visual help" when you ask it a question. Request the current sports scores, for example, and Gemini will bring up not only a live updating scorecard, but also where you can watch the game. If you’re looking for a recipe, it’ll pair its results with a video tutorial where possible.
If you’d rather learn something new than binge away at your latest Netflix fix, Google TV can also now do visual "deep dives" on topics that interest you. If there’s an economic trend, scientific phenomenon or technological innovation that’s on your mind, Gemini will create a "custom, interactive walkthrough" on the subject in question, allowing you to ask follow-up questions afterwards.
The idea is that the feature lets you turn "passive viewing into meaningful screen time." It would appear that even your TV is now telling you off for watching too much TV.
When you ask about a topic, you can either click "Dive deeper" to learn more, or navigate to the Gemini tab at the top of your home screen and select the "Learn" option.
The last new addition is Gemini-powered sports briefs, which function in the same way as the news briefs Google introduced last year, but strictly for sports. Designed as an alternative to checking your phone, you can ask your AI-assisted TV for "timely, narrated overviews" of the latest goings-on in any league you might follow. Already, the feature supports the NBA, NCAA basketball, NHL, MLS and NWSL, and it will live in the Gemini tab.
Deep dives and sports briefs are initially limited to those with Gemini-enabled devices in the US, with Google promising wider device support later in the spring. Richer visual help is rolling out today in the US and Canada, and Google has also announced that its various Gemini Google TV features are coming to more countries in 2026, starting with Australia, New Zealand and the UK in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/three-new-gemini-features-come-to-google-tv-175724155.html?src=rssApple confirms ads are coming to Apple Maps
Apple Maps will soon have ads, Apple confirmed in a blog post announcing the company's new Apple Business platform. Reports that Apple planned to expand its ad business outside of the App Store and Apple News broke as recently as yesterday, but the company has been rumored to be exploring putting ads in its navigation app as far back as 2022.
Ads in Maps, as the new advertising program is called, will allow businesses to create ads that can appear "when users search in Maps," at the top of search results and "at the top of a new Suggested Places experience in Maps, which will display recommendations based on what’s trending nearby, the user’s recent searches, and more," Apple says. The program will be open to Apple Business customers in the US and Canada starting this summer. Any advertisers using the existing Apple Ads experience will also be able to book space in Apple Maps.
Like the other ads Apple offers to businesses in the App Store and Apple News, ads in maps will be clearly marked and are designed to maintain users' privacy. What ads users interact with and their current location is not associated with their Apple Account, and personal data stays on user's devices and isn't shared with third-parties or collected by Apple.
Apple's slow expansion into advertising most directly benefits its over $100 billion "Services" business, which covers obvious things like Apple TV and Apple Music, but also includes the fees it takes from in-app purchases made through the App Store and the money it makes selling advertising. At least so far, Apple's ads are easy to ignore, and based on the samples provided as part of its announcement, that'll stay true in Apple Maps.
Ads in Maps are bundled in Apple's larger Apple Business program, an enterprise offering that's designed to appeal to multiple different sizes of business. Apple Business includes things like mobile device management (for distributing apps and managing user accounts), the ability to set up a business email, calendar and web domain through Apple and the aforementioned Ads in Maps.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apple-confirms-ads-are-coming-to-apple-maps-175613751.html?src=rssFor All Mankind is returning for a sixth and final season
Apple TV's long-running sci-fi show For All Mankind has just been renewed for a sixth and final season, ahead of this week's season five premiere. This seems more like the natural endpoint of the story instead of a cancellation, according to remarks made by some of the creators.
"Getting to explore the For All Mankind universe over six seasons has been an amazing privilege, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to finish the story the way we’ve always hoped," co-creators and showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi said. "We’re incredibly proud of what this series has become, and grateful to Apple TV and Sony Pictures Television for helping us see it through to its final chapter."
The plan for the show has always been to bring it up to the modern day and it looks like the creators will get to do just that. Season five takes place in the 2010s, which gives season six plenty of time to catch up to the 2020s.
For the uninitiated, For All Mankind is an alt-history series that started in the 1960s with Russia beating America to the moon. The show absolutely loves time jumps, with each season covering a decade or two.
That initial discrepancy with our reality has ballooned into all kinds of butterfly effect-type stuff. For instance, humanity quickly moved beyond the moon to occupy Mars. Al Gore also got to be president in that timeline.
Despite the numerous time jumps, several of the show's original cast members are still on board. Joel Kinnaman's character, astronaut Ed Baldwin, is quite literally in his 80s at this point. The actor must be getting tired of all of those fake wrinkles.
Apple TV has unveiled first-look photos for “Star City,” the upcoming “For All Mankind” spinoff series that explores the same story from Russia's point of view.
— Variety (@Variety) February 26, 2026
The series will debut with two episodes May 29 on Apple TV, running through July 10.https://t.co/QFE7hDgBRw pic.twitter.com/t6fXW8h6c6
In any event, season five of For All Mankind premieres on March 27. The mainline show is coming to a close, but there's still a spin-off to look forward to. Star City premieres on May 29. This looks to be a take on the events of the original show from the perspective of Russia.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/for-all-mankind-is-returning-for-a-sixth-and-final-season-173859683.html?src=rssiOS 26.4 is here, with Playlist Playground and new emoji
iOS and iPadOS 26.4 are here, with a surprising number of new features for a point release. Chief among them is a new AI playlist generator, similar to one Spotify launched in 2024.
Playlist Playground is Apple's branding for the song list generator. It works as you'd expect: Type a prompt, and it spits out tracks that match it. As MacRumors noted, your prompts can relate to mood, feelings, activities and more.
Also new in iOS 26.4, an ambient music widget puts background sounds on your home screen. Like the corresponding Control Center tool, it brings up (Apple-curated) sounds for sleep, chill, productivity or well-being. Yet another music feature is Bandsintown integration: upcoming concert dates in your area will appear in the Apple Music app.
Unicode's latest emoji characters arrive in the update, too. This includes "Hairy Creature," also known as Bigfoot. Another fun one is fight cloud. (Think old-timey cartoons beating each other up inside a puff of vapor.) Also onboard are a trombone, a treasure chest, a distorted face, an apple core, an orca, ballet dancers and a landslide.
The update also has fixes for some of iOS 26's nagging bugs. In Apple's latest attempt to stem the tide of complaints about Liquid Glass, there's a new "Reduce Bright Effects" setting. There's also a fix for a keyboard bug that caused errors when typing rapidly.
Although we aren’t seeing it on our devices just yet, macOS Tahoe 26.4 should be arriving today as well. The update brings back the option to use Safari’s compact tab bar. (You’ll find this in iPadOS 26.4 as well.) Mac users can also customize their maximum charge level — anywhere from 80 to 100 percent. Meanwhile, watchOS 26.4 finally lets you start a workout with one tap.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/ios-264-is-here-with-playlist-playground-and-new-emoji-171343120.html?src=rssBandsintown integration for concerts is coming to Apple Music
The live music discovery platform Bandsintown’s partnership with Apple goes way back, but iOS 26.4 brings the deepest integration between the two companies to date. Concert listings from Bandsintown will now appear in Apple Music, allowing you to find out when either a band you already love, or one you’re discovering for the first time, is next playing live.
Artists who use Bandsintown to advertise their tour dates can promote upcoming shows in a number of ways through Apple’s app. A new Concerts tab will live within Search, allowing subscribers to search for shows by their genre, location and date, while participating artists can also connect their Bandsintown dashboard to their Apple Music artist page. By doing this, their tour dates will automatically appear in an "Upcoming Concerts" section within 48 hours of connecting the two services.
Apple Music users can tap listed events to see more details about a show and will be able to buy tickets through direct links to sellers. If you follow artists, you can also set up push notifications for their announced shows.
Bandsintown’s platform is already built into a number of other Apple apps and services, with the likes of Shazam, Apple Maps, Photos and Spotlight Search all able to pull through live event data. The new Apple Music features will be available on devices running iOS 26.4 when it leaves beta.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/bandsintown-integration-for-concerts-is-coming-to-apple-music-170034229.html?src=rssPokémon Champions will hit Switch and Switch 2 on April 8
Pokémon Champions — a battle-focused game along the lines of Pokémon Stadium — now has a release date, and it's pretty darn soon. It will hit Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on April 8. A mobile version is in the works with support for cross-play with Nintendo's consoles.
Nintendo released a new overview video that shows how the game works. You can recruit Pokémon in the game or transfer those you've found in previous titles and Pokémon Go via Pokémon Home. Then you'll be able to take half a dozen of your Pokémon into strategic turn-based fights with other players. It's definitely a Pokémon battle game!
There are ranked battles, a casual mode, private lobbies and online competitions. You'll earn victory points, which you can use to swap a Pokémon's moves, increase their stat points and make other modifications. In addition, victory points enable you to recruit Pokémon in Pokémon Champions more than once per day. Pokémon that you recruit with victory points can stay in your roster permanently instead of just a week. There's a shop too, where you can spend points on accessories, Pokéball throwing styles, victory poses and battle music.
Pokémon Champions will be the second new Pokémon game to arrive this year, following the success of Pokémon Pokopia. There's more to come in the not-too-distant future, as Pokémon Wind and Pokémon Waves are scheduled to arrive on Switch 2 next year.
While Pokémon Pokopia is selling like hotcakes, the Switch 2 perhaps isn’t flying out of the door as quickly as Nintendo hoped. According to Bloomberg, Nintendo has cut back on production of the console after lower-than-expected sales over the holiday season. The company is said to be making 4 million units this quarter rather than the previously planned 6 million, with the lower production rate set to extend into April.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/pokemon-champions-will-hit-switch-and-switch-2-on-april-8-165737121.html?src=rssThe Punisher's one-off TV special hits Disney+ on May 12
We knew Disney+ was prepping a standalone special for The Punisher, but we didn't know it was coming so soon. The Punisher: One Last Kill premieres on May 12. This is just one week after the season two finale of Daredevil: Born Again, which starts up this week. It's possible The Punisher will be featured in that, so we could be in for eight straight weeks of skull-shirted shenanigans.
Frank Castle returns in A Marvel Television Special Presentation: The Punisher: One Last Kill May 12, only on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/4I3H10grXz
— The Punisher (@ThePunisher) March 24, 2026
One Last Kill was actually co-written by star Jon Bernthal, who has been playing the vigilante for a decade now. It's been described as a love letter to the character, but plot details have been kept under wraps. Marvel TV head Brad Winderbaum has called it "a shotgun blast of a story." Reinaldo Marcus Green is directing, who previously made We Own This City with The Wire's David Simon.
We do know that Frank Castle survives whatever violent ordeal he goes through in the special. That's because The Punisher is featured prominently in the trailer for the next Spider-Man film. This will be the first time Bernthal's take on the character will show up in an actual movie.
He first took on the role in season two of the original Netflix Daredevil show. Bernthal was a fan favorite, which led to two seasons of a spin-off show before Netflix and Marvel ended their whole joint TV experiment.
This isn't the only Netflix-era hero getting a resurgence on Disney+ and beyond. Charlie Cox returned to the role of Daredevil for Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law before getting his own show. It's also been reported that Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones is coming back this season on Born Again and Mike Colter has been dropping hints that his version of Luke Cage could be gracing televisions in the near future.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-punishers-one-off-tv-special-hits-disney-on-may-12-162208769.html?src=rssThere's a new Payday game, this time in VR
The popular co-op heist franchise Payday is coming to VR. Payday: Aces High will release for the Meta Quest platform and SteamVR later this year. It looks like it has everything people love about the series, but with some of that VR-style immersion.
Just like the mainline games, this version tasks players with planning and then pulling off elaborate heists. It offers four-player co-op, with each person filling a particular role within the group. These are your standard heist movie archetypes. There's the planner, the brawler, the gadget nerd and the silent but deadly assassin.
The developer also promises plenty of gear and weapons, with "an arsenal that keeps growing." This leads to the usual Payday gameplay loop. Each successful heist lets players buy more weapons and gadgets. Rinse and repeat.
Fast Travel Games is making this one, and the developer has a decent pedigree in the VR space. It helped make Cities: VR and Apex Construct, among many others. The graphics here look decent and we already know the gameplay is solid. Plus, there are clown masks. We'll find out if Payday: Aces High makes the grade later this year.
This is just the latest major gaming franchise to experiment with virtual reality. There are VR versions of Half-Life, Assassin's Creed, Horizon and many more.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/theres-a-new-payday-game-this-time-in-vr-160051276.html?src=rssEpic is laying off more than 1,000 workers, citing a downturn in Fortnite engagement
Epic Games has announced sweeping layoffs of more than 1,000 employees. “The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded,” CEO Tim Sweeney said in a memo to workers on Tuesday.
Sweeney wrote that, combined with “over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles,” the layoffs will give Epic more stability. He added that the layoffs are not related to AI.
Back in 2023, Epic laid off 830 employees. At the time, that was 16 percent of its workforce, suggesting around 4,000 employees remained at the company. If those numbers haven’t changed too much in the meantime, that means Epic is culling around a quarter of its headcount this week.
Along with a dip in Fortnite engagement, Sweeney pointed out that Epic isn’t immune from systemic issues the games industry is contending with, such as a slowdown in growth, reduced spending, “tougher cost economics” and a battle with other types of media for consumer’s attention.
However, Epic has some issues of its own to deal with. “Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season; we're only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world's billions of smartphones; and in being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers,” Sweeney wrote. (He previously said Epic spent over $100 million in legal fees alone on its App Store battle with Apple.)
The path forward for the company, per its CEO, is to create “awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story and live events,” perhaps in an attempt to recapture some of that “magic” he’s referring to. Speeding up work on developer tools amid the transition to Unreal Engine 6 is important as well, Sweeney indicated.
He said that the workers Epic is laying off will receive at least four months of their base pay, though they’ll get more depending on the length of their tenure at the company. Epic will pay for extended healthcare coverage, including for six months for affected workers in the US. The company — which is not publicly traded — will speed up the vesting of stock options through next January and “extend equity exercise options for up to two years,” Sweeney said.
Epic announced the layoffs days after it increased the price of Fortnite’s V-bucks currency. “The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills,” it said.
As part of the changes at the company, Epic is killing off three Fortnite modes. Rocket Racing (which was built by Rocket League developer Psyonix) will shut down in October. Fortnite Ballistic — a 5v5 tactical shooter mode — and Festival Battle Stage, which is a competitive version of the Fortnite Festival rhythm game, will vanish on April 16. “We've built a lot of Fortnite modes, and in some cases we failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base,” Epic said on X.
The company noted in its Year in Review recap last month that although the hours that players spent in third-party titles on the Epic Games Store increased by four percent in 2025, “overall gameplay hours declined year over year,” hinting at a dip in Fortnite numbers. The company said PC players spent $1.16 billion on the store in 2025, an increase of six percent from the previous year. Of that, $400 million was spent on third-party PC games. However, Epic Games Store vice president and general manager Steve Allison told Polygon in February that, factoring in first-party revenue and the 12 percent cut the company takes from third-party games, “the store is already — even with all this stuff — marginally profitable now."
Here is the full memo Sweeney shared with Epic’s employees on Tuesday:
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/epic-is-laying-off-more-than-1000-workers-citing-a-downturn-in-fortnite-engagement-154436905.html?src=rssToday we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees. I'm sorry we're here again. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place.
Some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation's; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment.
And some of our challenges are unique to Epic. Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season; we're only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world's billions of smartphones; and in being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers.
Since it's a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren't related to AI. To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can.
What we now need to do is clear: build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events; accelerate developer tools with greater stability and capability as we evolve from Unreal Engine 5 and UEFN to Unreal Engine 6. And we'll be kicking off the next generation of Epic with huge launch plans towards the end of the year.
This isn't our first time being here. Epic survived upheavals in 1990's with the move from 2D to 3D with Unreal 1; in the 2000's building console games with Gears of War; and in 2012 moving to online gaming with Paragon and Fortnite. Each time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position.
Market conditions today are the most extreme we've seen since those early days, with massive upheaval in the industry accompanied by massive opportunity for the companies that come out as winners on the other side. That's what we're aiming to do for our players, and we aim to bring other like-minded developers in the industry along on the journey to build an increasingly open and vibrant future of entertainment together.
At Epic, we pride ourselves in only hiring the industry's best, so it is very painful to part with so many talented people. The folks impacted by the layoffs will receive a severance package that includes at least four months of base pay, with more based on tenure. We’re also extending Epic-paid healthcare coverage.
For example, in the U.S., they’ll receive paid coverage for 6 months. We’ll also accelerate their stock options vesting through January 2027 and extend equity exercise options for up to two years.
We'll have a company meeting Thursday to talk about the roadmap in more detail.
-Tim
Samsung's cheaper Mini LED TVs are now on sale
Samsung has unveiled the budget M70H and M80H Mini LED TVs, promising a bright picture and accurate colors starting at just $400 for the 50-inch and $1,200 for the 85-inch models. The company also revealed a pair of new higher-end TVs with the company's "Quantum Mini LED" tech, the QN70H and QN80H, that offer "precise backlighting" and 100 percent color volume.
Mini LED TVs have been dropping rapidly in price over the past couple of years while also improving in quality. The M70H and M80H are among the cheapest we've seen so far, with, most 50-inch Mini LEDs currently on sale costing $400 or more. Samsung is promising pretty decent specs as well like 10-bit panels that can display a billion colors, Samsung's HDR+ and a 144Hz refresh rate with FreeSync Premium or 240Hz with DLG at 1080p.
Other key features include Samsung's One UI Tizen with Smart Home support and Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple TV) compatibility, along with Samsung's Gaming Hub for cloud gaming and adaptive sound (but not Dolby Atmos support). The company didn't mention some key specs like brightness, color gamut and the number of local dimming zones, so you can likely assume those aren't top-of-the-line.
The prices are very good, with the 43-inch M70H at $350, the 65-inch M70 priced at $530 and the 85-inch M70H running $1,200. The M80H starts at $700 for the 55-inch model and runs up to $1,800 for the 85-incher. All models are now on sale, and Samsung said that a 100-inch Class M90H model is arriving later this year this year.
Samsung also revealed a new line of higher-end Neo QLED models powered by its "Quantum Mini LED" technology. With the QN70H and QN80H, Samsung is promising "brilliant brightness" and 100 percent DCI-P3 color volume, thanks to the quantum dot tech and "more precise backlighting." Samsung said this model would have more local dimming zones than before (though again, it didn't say how many), which should result in better contrast and less "blooming" caused by light leakage from neighboring pixels.
Features are largely the same as with the M70H and M80H, but the QN models also offer Dolby Atmos and 360 audio along with a slightly highter 288Hz DLG refresh rate at 1080p. The Neo QLED 4K QN70H starts at $600 for the 43-inch model and goes up to $1,200 for the 65-inch version and $2,300 for the 85-inch model. The 55-inch QN80H, meanwhile, costs $1,299, the 75-inch model is $2,000 and the 100-inch TV is $5,500.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/samsungs-cheaper-mini-led-tvs-are-now-on-sale-150034289.html?src=rssAkai just released a portable and relatively budget-friendly MPC sampler
Akai just revealed specs and other details about the MPC Sample after teasing the gadget earlier this month. This is a portable sampler and groovebox that looks eerily similar to Teenage Engineering's EP series. It also resembles some legendary Akai gadgets from decades past, including the MPC3000 and MPC60. In other words, it's easy on the eyes and sort of looks like a Super Famicom.
It seems pretty capable. The Sample has 16 velocity-sensitive MPC pads with poly aftertouch, which should please finger drummers. It can handle 32 stereo voices of polyphony and there's a sequencer for making actual beats.
As for sampling, there's an easily accessible chop mode, in addition to time-stretching and repitching capabilities. Samples can be edited via waveform, thanks to a full-color LCD display. The machine can resample internally with FX, letting creators make some unique soundscapes. The MPC Sample boasts access to four effects engines and 60 effect types.
The gadget ships with over 100 factory drum kits, but users can easily add whatever they want. It comes with just 8GB of internal storage, but there's a microSD slot for more. It can, of course, connect to MIDI keyboards for playing melodic samples. The Sample also hooks up to DAWs.
The RAM is on the lower side, at just 2GB. However, this is the standard configuration for some more expensive units, like the MPC Live and Live II. It should be able to get the job done, but the MPC XL is the product to pick for those looking for maximum horsepower. That one has a whopping 16GB of RAM. It also costs nearly $3,000.
The rechargeable battery here lasts five hours, which is respectable but not groundbreaking. Teenage Engineering's EP series boasts better battery life, but requires pricey AAs. Finally, there's a speaker, but I've never had much luck with speakers on this type of thing. Bring some headphones to actually hear what's going on.
Perhaps the biggest news here is the price. The MPC Sample costs just $400, which seems reasonable given the form factor and features. It's available right now.
Casio announces this release
— LozaxPixel (@LozaxPixel) January 26, 2026
Casio SX-C1 ...
Casio is sooo back and i want it so bad. pic.twitter.com/plMtbdqZU6
Casio recently unveiled another nifty-looking portable sampler called the SX-C1. It also resembles a Nintendo product, but this time it's a Game Boy and not the Japanese SNES.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/akai-just-released-a-portable-and-relatively-budget-friendly-mpc-sampler-140047113.html?src=rssUltrahuman opens US pre-orders for Ring Pro
At the end of February, Ultrahuman announced its latest smart ring which promises up to 15 days of battery life on a single charge. Sadly, if you were based in the US, you weren’t able to pre-order the Ring Pro, as the company has been locked in a longstanding legal tussle with ring rivals Oura. Now, however, it appears the situation has been resolved, with the US Customs and Border Protection giving its blessing. Consequently, pre-orders for the Ring Pro are starting today, with the first 1,000 customers to sign up getting a hefty bonus.
The smart ring market is still in its infancy, which means it’s fiercely competitive as companies try to keep their rivals at bay. Market leader Oura has been willing to protect its IP in court, issuing patent lawsuits against Ultrahuman, Samsung, RingConn, Reebook, Circular, Zepp, Nexxbase and Omate. In October 2025, Oura secured what it called a “decisive legal victory” over Ultrahuman, banning the import and sale of its rings in the United States. On its own website, Ultrahuman stated the lawsuit was lacking in merit, and that it was an attempt by a rival to hold down a "new player" with a "superior product." Even so, the company's Bhuvan Srinivasan told me in January that the Ring Pro has been designed to avoid any such legal drama going forward.
The standard price for the Ring Pro is $399, but you’ll need to fork out another $100 for the fancy schmancy charging case that adds so much more to the ring’s arsenal. But, for those 1,000 early birds, you’ll be able to pick up both the Pro and its case for $349, which is quite a hefty discount all told. If you’re customer 1,001 don’t feel too despondent, however, as Ultrahuman will still offer you some sort of discount if you’re quick.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ultrahuman-opens-us-pre-orders-for-ring-pro-130043933.html?src=rssSpotify's SongDNA can tell you all about the track you're listening to
Spotify has started rolling out a feature called SongDNA that can show you the people behind your favorite tracks and give you an insight on how they were created. You can access it by opening the Now Playing view while listening to a specific song and then scrolling down to the SongDNA box.
Tracks that support the new feature will show you all the artists, writers, producers and collaborators behind them. It’s yet another way to make more music on the platform discoverable, since you’ll be able to tap on their icons to see their profiles and the other pieces they worked on. The box will also contain the samples and interpolations that helped form a track’s sound, as well as the covers it inspired. Spotify says it’s giving eligible artist and label teams the power to review and manage the components of the feature, so it’s bound to be supported by more and more tracks as time goes on.
“SongDNA is designed to make a song’s creative lineage more transparent so fans can easily explore the people and influences behind the music they love,” said Jacqueline Ankner, Spotify’s Head of Songwriter & Publisher Partnerships. “By bringing collaborators, samples, and covers together in one place, we’re making it easier for fans to discover new music and see how songs connect and come to life—while giving songwriters, producers, and rightsholders meaningful recognition for the role they play in creating it.”
SongDNA is making its way to paying iOS and Android users around the world, but it’s still in beta and might still go through revisions before it’s more widely available. It will roll out more broadly to Premium users throughout April.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/spotifys-songdna-can-tell-you-all-about-the-track-youre-listening-to-130000809.html?src=rssThe Morning After: WWDC 2026 is happening June 8th
It’s coming. Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will take place from June 8-12. Going on past timings, CEO Tim Cook will take the stage for the keynote on June 8, most likely at 1 PM ET.
WWDC is a software-focused affair, so expect to see the upcoming "27" operating systems, now that the new naming convention has settled. Apple will likely cover iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, visionOS 27, watchOS 27 and macOS 27. However, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is suggesting that WWDC will be "a fairly muted affair," – but in all fairness, WWDC has never been that explosive.
Still, there are things I want to hear about: Rumors suggest that iOS 27 will deliver big upgrades to Apple Intelligence and — possibly — that overdue Siri overhaul. Reports also suggest the presence of split-pane multitasking, if you’re aching to juggle spreadsheets, web browsing and more on your mobile device.
– Mat Smith
The other big stories (and deals) this morning
Engadget review recap: Lots of Apple, Galaxy S26, Dell XPS 16 and more
Billionaire OnlyFans owner Leonid Radvinsky has died from cancer at 43
Twitter turns 20
And now what?
Senior reporter Karissa Bell marks two decades on Twitter. Twitter/X as changed a lot, especially in the last five years, as AI slop, clickbait, and ragebait keep the algorithm ticking over. More recently, X’s AI assistant was able to ‘undress’ anyone you ask it to. Great.
The social network has moved far away from its exciting heyday of live tweeting, memes and more — or even a place to make new friends and contacts. In fact, I got my job here at Engadget through Twitter DMs to former Engadget editor Richard Lai. As Karissa puts it, "Twitter stopped being that place a long time ago.”
Nothing Phone 4a Pro review
A new midrange champ?
The Phone 4a Pro punches well above its $499 price tag. Nothing has successfully refined its hardware into a more premium, all-metal unibody, losing the jarring camera bump of its predecessor in favor of a sleek design that houses a genuinely impressive camera. There are still a few signs that it’s not quite a flagship (mediocre video recording performance and a lack of wireless charging), but at this price, these seem like minor complaints. Nothing’s next flagship phone needs to offer something, right?
Samsung’s new S26 series can AirDrop like an iPhone
A new update has added support.
Android AirDrop sharing is expanding to more devices. Samsung announced earlier this week that its Galaxy S26 Series is getting AirDrop support via the Quick Share feature.
Google first introduced the Quick Share feature on its Pixel 10 phones last year. The setting allows Android users to send and receive photos and files from an Apple device. Y’know, like AirDrop.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121555441.html?src=rssSnapchat users sent 'nearly' 2 trillion snaps in 2025
Snapchat users are sending a staggering number of snaps to each other, according to newly released data from Snap. In 2025, Snapchat users created close to 2 trillion snaps, the company said in an update.
That works out to about 5.5 billion distinct snaps per day and about 63,000 each second, according to the company. When you consider that Snapchat has about 474 million daily users, that averages to more than 11 snaps per user each day. In a blog post, the company called it "a reflection of how often people are capturing a moment in a bid to connect with one another."
The numbers offer a window into engagement on the nearly 15-year-old platform where much of users' activity happens out of public view. The stat is the first time the company has shared the total number of snaps sent in a year, though Snap said last year its users shared more than 1 trillion selfie snaps in 2024.
Snap, which at times has struggled with user growth, has been inching closer to 1 billion users for the last year. It reported 946 million monthly users in its most recent earnings report. CEO Evan Spiegel described reaching a billion people as a "long term goal."
Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Engadget’s parent company Yahoo, joined the board of directors at Snap on September 12, 2024. No one outside of Engadget’s editorial team has any say in our coverage of the company.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/snapchat-users-sent-nearly-2-trillion-snaps-in-2025-121500274.html?src=rssDenon expands its multi-room speaker lineup with the Home 200, Home 400 and Home 600
If the Sonos app saga still has you down, Denon has three new multi-room speakers that give you some fresh alternatives. The company’s Home 200, Home 400 and Home 600 offer audio flexibility with other HEOS-enabled products. These new devices were also designed so that they blend in with home decor better than most speakers, coming in stone and charcoal color options for that purpose. As you progress up in number, the speakers not only get physically larger, but their sonic output is also more robust.
The Denon Home 200 houses three drivers and three amplifiers for “natural, room-filling sound” in a compact speaker. More specifically, you get two 0.98-inch tweeters and a single 4-inch woofer. The Home 200 looks a kind of like the Sonos Move 2, although Denon’s new compact unit isn’t portable. However, you can use a pair of them for a stereo setup, or connect two 200s to Denon’s Home Sound Bar 550 and Home Subwoofer for a 5.1 home theater system.
Next up is the Home 400, which carries two 0.75-inch tweeters, two 4.5-inch woofers and six amplifiers, in addition to two 1-inch up-firing drivers. Here, Denon says you can expect “a wide, airy soundstage” that provides room-filling audio coverage. What’s more, those upward-facing drivers project sound overhead, so there’s a greater sense of dimensionality and immersion here.
The Home 600 is the largest speaker in the new trio, with dual 6.5-inch woofers alongside two tweeters, two midrange units and two up-firing drivers. Denon explains that this configuration offers “deep, authoritative bass” that provides more depth in your tunes than other two models.
All three of the new Home speakers have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth USB-C and aux connectivity with the wireless streaming powered by Denon’s HEOS tech. As such, you can connect these Home speakers with up to 64 other HEOS devices — including A/V receivers and Denon’s new DP-500BT turntable — and arrange your audio gear in up to 32 different zones. You’ll have access to tunes from Tidal, Amazon Music HD and Qobuz in the HEOS app, and all three new Home speakers support Dolby Atmos Music where available.
The Home 200, Home 400 and Home 600 speakers are available today for $399, $599 and $799 respectively. They’re available from Denon directly or other authorized retailers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/denon-expands-its-multi-room-speaker-lineup-with-the-home-200-home-400-and-home-600-080000916.html?src=rssThe US bans all new foreign-made network routers
The Federal Communications Commission has released a notice today designating any consumer routers manufactured outside the US as a security risk. The rule states that new foreign-made product models for network routers will land on the Covered List, a set of communications equipment seen as having an unacceptable risk to national security. Previously purchased routers can still be used and retailers can still sell models that were approved by the prior FCC policies. In an exception to the usual rule, routers included on the Covered List can continue to receive updates at least through March 1, 2027, although the date could potentially be extended.
The move stems from a goal in the White House's 2025 national security strategy that reads: "the United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components—from raw materials to parts to finished products—necessary to the nation’s defense or economy." The notice from the FCC states that companies can apply for conditional approval for new products from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security. However, that requires the businesses to provide a plan for shifting at least some of their manufacturing to the US in order to receive that conditional approval.
Few, if any, brands known for consumer-grade routers currently build products stateside. It seems likely this sweeping provision could face legal challenges from and cause confusion for the many companies that have production facilities overseas. In addition to Chinese tech giants like TP-Link, US companies will also be affected. NetGear, Eero and Google Nest are all headquartered domestically but have manufacturing in Asia. At least some of that manufacturing activity happens in regions like Taiwan that have historically been on good terms with the US. Until the sector sorts out this new restriction, don't expect to see any new router models on store shelves.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-us-bans-all-new-foreign-made-network-routers-223622966.html?src=rssClaude Code and Cowork can now use your computer
Anthropic announced today that its Claude Code and Claude Cowork tools are being updated to accomplish tasks using your computer. The latest update will see these AI resources become capable of opening files, using the browser and running dev tools.
When enabled, the Claude AI chatbot will first prioritize connectors to supported services such as the Google workplace suite or Slack, but if a connector isn't available, it will be able to still execute an assigned task. Claude should ask for permission before taking these actions, but Anthropic still recommended not using this feature to handle sensitive information as a precaution.
Claude computer use will initially be available to Claude Pro and Claude Max subscribers on macOS. This feature is still in a research preview, so will continue to be adjusted based on Anthropic's user feedback. It will also support use with Anthropic's Dispatch feature, which allows a person to message the chatbot in a single continuous conversation across phone and desktop.
Claude Cowork was introduced in January. It's an iteration of the Claude Code AI agent for programmers that is designed for more casual users.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/claude-code-and-cowork-can-now-use-your-computer-210000126.html?src=rssEA is nuking Battlefield Hardline on consoles
EA has put another game on the chopping block, or at least the console versions of it. The company says it will delist the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Battlefield Hardline from digital storefronts on May 22, and shut down the online services on June 22. The single-player campaign will remain playable for those who own the game. The PC version of Battlefield Hardline isn’t affected by these changes.
In its announcement on X, EA didn't explain exactly why it's ceasing support for the game on PS4 and Xbox One. It pointed readers to a FAQ on its website that lays out some of the typical reasons why it ends online support for its games. These include factors like declining player bases.
Battlefield Hardline, which was released in 2015, will still be available on Steam as well as EA's own PC app. The Steam version has a peak concurrent player count of 41 so far this year.
It's hardly uncommon for a publisher to end online services for games with declining player bases, but it's an issue that's come into greater focus over the last few years thanks in part to the Stop Killing Games movement. EA alone has sunsetted dozens of games. Its website has a full accounting of these, spread across three webpages.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ea-is-nuking-battlefield-hardline-on-consoles-193321551.html?src=rss