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F1: The Movie now streaming on Apple TV following a long theatrical run
F1: The Movie, the cinematic love letter to Formula One and — quite possibly even more so — consumer products made by Apple, is finally available to stream on Apple TV if you’re a subscriber. It follows the sports thriller’s long theatrical run, during which it raked in more than $630 million globally, comfortably making it Apple’s most successful original film.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, Tron: Legacy), F1: The Movie follows the washed-up former F1 prodigy Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), who is convinced by an old friend (Javier Bardem) to get back in the driver's seat and help rescue his failing team. Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton served as a producer on the film to ensure it represented the sport as authentically as possible.
Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar reviewed F1: The Movie when it arrived in theatres in the summer, calling it a "shameless Apple ad that will blow your socks off." Should you manage to keep your eyes from rolling straight out of their sockets when a pair of AirPods Max appear on screen before anyone says a word, then a deliriously entertaining blockbuster awaits.
For all of the film’s formulaic storytelling and generic characters, the Really Fast Car bits are so well done that they put F1: The Movie among the very best racing movies, as far as our reviewer is concerned. In truth, it’s the kind of film that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen you can find, but failing that, the TV in your living room should do the job just fine, too.
Apple recently dropped the "+" from its streaming service’s name, so it’s now just called Apple TV (yes, the same name as one of its products). If you’re a new subscriber you can take advantage of a seven-day free trial, after which it costs $13 per month following a recent price hike.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/f1-the-movie-now-streaming-on-apple-tv-following-a-long-theatrical-run-133531702.html?src=rssIn 2025, AI and EVs gave the US an insatiable hunger for power
You may be surprised to learn electricity only accounts for 21 percent of the world’s energy consumption. Fossil fuels and the rest all play their part to make the world go around, but their role is likely to diminish no matter what happens. The International Energy Agency believes electricity’s share of global energy consumption is going to double in the next decade alone. You all know the causes: Electrification, EVs, data centers and AI mean the planet needs to dramatically increase its power generation, transmission and storage capacity. It’s a shame, then, that the world is nowhere near ready to satisfy such an outrageous surge in demand.
Re-learning to love the atom
The US has certainly spent the year opening doors to dramatically increase domestic energy production. Part of that has to give the signal that the US will embrace nuclear power in ways it hasn’t for generations. This January, an executive order titled Unleashing American Energy included an instruction for the government to eliminate rules and regulations related to power generation. Its primary focus was to destroy environmental regulations limiting the extraction of oil, natural gas and coal, but also to remove roadblocks to the construction of new nuclear plants. Then, in May, a subsequent order declared a desire to ensure the deployment of “advanced nuclear technologies.”
As the driving force behind the AI push, big tech has made some high profile moves to buy up extra generation capacity. Meta signed a 20-year deal with Constellation to own the output of the Clinton Power Station, preserving the 1.1GW facility once its state tax credit expires next year. Microsoft has its own 20-year deal with Constellation to own the power generated by reactor 1 at Three Mile Island, now renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. On November 18, that project was also given the backing of the Department of Energy which authorized a $1 billion loan. But even without the backing of big tech, other mothballed reactors are being restarted, like the Palisades plant in Michigan. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy handed out a $1.52 billion loan to get the facility, capable of generating 800MW, back up and running.
Big tech is also betting on the future of nuclear power, signing deals with a number of startups looking to build out a new generation of reactors. Google, for instance, has backed Kairos Power and its plan to build a series of small, modular reactors. Amazon, meanwhile, invested in X-Energy and has published plans for its own buildout in Washington State.
It’s not just the US that is learning to fall back in love with nuclear power, as the rest of the world is also building out new capacity. The World Nuclear Association says there are 70 reactors currently under construction across 15 countries. Russia, India, Argentina, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, and Brazil, to name just a few, are all working on new reactors.
China on its own is presently building 33 reactors and, as Nuclear Business Platform reported earlier this year, greenlit a further 10 this April. That same report adds that China’s policy of producing multiple reactors at a time has seen costs crater. It says that while the UK’s two new reactors at Hinkley Point will cost in excess of $60 billion, each of these new reactors will cost $2.7 billion.
Bridging the nuclear gap
Building a nuclear reactor is not a swift process, and construction of a facility can take the better part of a decade. You can add on a few more years if you include the necessary procedural steps that need to be undertaken before a single piece of concrete is poured. Consequently, any major shift in the US’ power generation fleet will be measured in generations, rather than years. It’s a concern that, for all of the attention nuclear power is getting, it’s merely a smokescreen for a renewed push for fossil fuel extraction.
After all, one major casualty from the Big, Beautiful Bill was the eradication of subsidies for the US’ solar industry. As we reported back in July, the act has kicked the legs out from domestic solar panel manufacturing, handing renewable energy dominance to China. This goes hand in hand with the US Department of Energy setting up a $625 million funding stream to revive America’s coal industry and recommission old power plants. Or that it is also awarding contracts to grow America’s strategic petroleum reserve.
Back in September, Energy Secretary Chris Wright made the implausible claim to BBC News that fossil fuel extraction was nothing to worry about as fusion power would be on the grid in the next decade. Wright, himself the former CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy, was taken to task by a number of climate experts for publishing a report riddled with “misleading or fundamentally incorrect” assertions. Similarly, on November 20, the Department of Energy reshuffled its org chart to eliminate several departments responsible for renewable energy and energy efficiency while forming the Office of Fusion.
Solar’s unstoppable rise
The US may have kneecapped its domestic solar industry, but it may not be enough to defeat renewables’ momentum. In October, the International Energy Agency projected renewable energy will grow by 4.6 TW by 2030 — a figure equal to the combined generation capacity of China, the EU and Japan combined. 77 percent of that figure is expected to come from solar power alone, despite the loss of subsidies in the US and less favorable circumstances in China.
The domestic US forecast has been revised downward significantly as a consequence of its policy choices. But despite this, the obvious benefits of solar power haven’t gone away even if the price may be higher than it was at the start of the year. It remains the fastest and cheapest way to add new power in many countries, and can be installed on a grid or individual basis. Not to mention its utility in remote areas with poor generation resources, where it can reduce dependency on fossil fuels. This year, clean energy think-tank Ember reported on the growth of solar power in the last decade, and how it went from adding just one percent of global power generation in 2015 to 8.8 percent in the first half of 2025.
“AI demand for electricity is the macro driver of US made solar,” said Rob Gardner, VP at the Solar Manufacturers for America Coalition. “AI investments can’t deliver expected returns without quickly deployed power, and US solar is the fastest and cheapest to deploy,” he said. Gardner cited a recent FERC forecast which predicts that 92.6GW of solar will come online between now and July 2028.
The dream of fusion
The US is pinning a lot of its hopes on fusion power to wipe away the debt of our fossil fuel past. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy released a roadmap to get fusion out of the lab and into the world. It wants to coordinate the remaining resources of the federal government to close the fusion world’s “critical science, materials and technology gaps.” In the next three years, officials have been tasked with designing facilities for reactors and developing sources of fuel. Within the next decade, it’s hoped the government will be able to offer large-scale fuel cycle plants to help private sector plants start operations.
If fusion power can be harnessed, it has many of the same upsides as nuclear fission with a lot fewer downsides. If nuclear fission harnesses the energy released when an atom is broken apart, then fusion harnesses the energy released when two smaller atoms are smashed together to create a larger one. It harnesses the same principle as you’ll find inside our sun: Superheated hydrogen atoms fusing to create helium. And while nuclear fusion requires radioactive material, we can source deuterium and tritium from water and lithium.
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is a giant experimental fusion reactor under construction in France which, when operational, will be the world’s largest. It is backed by a coalition of nations, including the US, EU and China, and has the aim of both generating power and developing the technologies necessary to make Fusion a reality. The organization claims that there is enough of both materials available on the planet to run fusion plants for at least a thousand years, if not longer. There are also a raft of safety benefits, as there’s no creation of the sort of long-lived and dangerous waste associated with nuclear power, no risk of a meltdown, and its raw materials can’t be used to make weapons.
But while fusion is entirely possible, and on paper could be the salve to all of the world’s energy ills, it’s not yet a reality. There are a large number of engineering challenges sitting between us and a viable commercial reactor. The shift that has happened this year is that fusion is now being treated as a “strategic national priority,” according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. More than 160 fusion facilities are operational worldwide, each one looking to explore ways of solving the hard problems standing between us and limitless power.
But as well as ITER, there are other major nations working to build out their own fusion capacity. The biggest would likely be China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) which has already set a record for energy generation. At the start of this year, it was able to produce a steady state for 1,066 seconds.
But what we are seeing now, which may offer some degree of hope, is the surge in interest from the private sector. Companies like Commonwealth Fusion, Type One Energy, Helion and Pacific Fusion are all working on their own fusion facilities. These projects have received billions in funding, but it’s likely all will need time to work out if their approaches are viable.
Stuart White is a spokesperson for Tokamak Energy, a British-Japanese startup spun out from the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority which is developing its own fusion technologies. In 2022, the company’s own reactor was able to reach a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees celsius. “It’s an incredible achievement but that isn’t going to power homes around the UK or anywhere,” he said. White believes the fusion world will spend the next decade “scaling up,” projects to find the right pathway to building commercial reactors. He cited national programs, like the UK’s STEP which is targeted to begin working in 2040, while the US’ plan for the mid-2030s he feels is “aggressive.”
White also explained that, as equally important as solving the key physics issues, is building out the supply chain to actually make the equipment. He cited the importance of manufacturing in Japan and China to produce the hardware necessary to build fusion reactors. And that this process, while time consuming now, will help accelerate the eventual development of the technology down the line. White added that another positive sign is that regulators aren’t likely to want to scrutinize fusion reactors with the same intensity as they do nuclear reactors. That will both speed up the construction of new facilities and reduce costs when they do eventually enter service.
What’s clear, however, is that Fusion is not going to be able to swoop in and decarbonize the world’s energy needs in the sort of time scale it’s likely to be required. (White said it is likely to arrive in time to complement other clean sources of energy over the next half century, rather than so quickly that every other power station gets mothballed instantly.) Consequently, the government of the world must keep prioritizing the rollout of renewables rather than hoping that fusion will simply bail everyone out in the next decade.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/in-2025-ai-and-evs-gave-the-us-an-insatiable-hunger-for-power-133000673.html?src=rssEngadget Podcast: Why Netflix is the best worst option for Warner Bros.
Last week, Netflix surprised us all when it announced plans for an $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros., a move that would fundamentally reshape the world of streaming video and Hollywood. But Paramount isn't giving up on WB — this week it launched a $108 billion hostile takeover effort. In this episode, we discuss why everyone is fighting for WB, and why Netflix may be the best worst option for the storied movie studio.
Subscribe!
Topics
What the Netflix bid for Warner Bros. means for at-home streamers and moviegoers – 1:55
Disney characters are coming to Sora after OpenAI struck a deal – 32:59
Meta may be giving up on open source for Llama – 43:53
Google CEO says we’re just going to have to grin and bear societal disruption via AI – 46:46
Around Engadget: The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is good, but is it $630 good? – 49:06
The best trailers and announcements from The Game Awards’ Day of the Devs stream – 51:28
Here’s why projectors won in 2025 – 54:31
Working on – 56:15
Pop culture picks – 57:33
Credits
Host: Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Nathan Ingraham
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Get 40 percent off MasterClass subscriptions for the holiday season
If you want to learn a new skill in the new year or brush up on some skills you already have, MasterClass could be a good option for you. It's even more accessible now that the company is running a holiday promotion that knocks 40 percent off subscriptions. For the top-tier Premium plan, which includes offline mode and use on up to six devices, you'll pay $144 for the year instead of the usual $240. The entry-level plan, which supports just one device and doesn't offer offline viewing, is marked down to $72 from $120.
Over the past few years, MasterClass has grown to over 200 classes, sessions and original series. You can learn about entrepreneurship from Richard Branson, screenwriting from Aaron Sorkin, cooking from Gordon Ramsay and heaps more. Each of these offers classes in a one-on-one format with slick instructional videos and often workbooks to accompany them.
MasterClass also appears on our list of the best subscription gifts for this Christmas. Loved ones will enjoy superb production quality and a rich library where they are sure to find something that piques their interest. Gift subscriptions can also be scheduled, so you can take advantage of the current sale even for future gifts. If you're buying it for yourself, know that MasterClass offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Whether you're looking to learn about business from Kim Kardashian or basketball skills from Steph Curry, MasterClass can help you expand your horizons in 2026. The "Holiday Head Start Offer" is available through December 15.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-40-percent-off-masterclass-subscriptions-for-the-holiday-season-150520505.html?src=rssThe Morning After: Tech’s biggest losers of 2025
Honestly, compiling the biggest losers for Engadget is more fun than talking up the winners. While we reviewed nothing as atrocious as those ill-fated AI assistant gadgets from 2024, AI companies and services straddled both the winner and loser podiums.
The losers might be you, the American consumer. (Sorry.) In the US, anyone wanting a drone will have to find something that isn’t made by DJI. The company has been targeted by regulators since 2017 over concerns its products could spy on sensitive US infrastructure on behalf of China.
The problem is DJI has such a high market share (over 75 percent) that its absence will effectively upend the industry. Oh, and its drones are consistently the best too. The US government hasn’t yet attempted to work with DJI to assess whether its products pose a risk. DJI recently made a final plea for a security review, sending letters to five US agencies that could assess its products. If that fails, US drone options will shrink massively.
In the same 12 months, EV sales across the globe are up around 25 percent this year. Germany set a record in the first half of 2025, with electric cars accounting for nearly one in five new registrations. In China, EV sales are growing so fast (over 50 percent market share) that the country is flooding the global market with gas-powered cars it can’t sell at home. However — remember this is about losers — in the US, the Trump administration ended the EV tax credit. And shock! Sales of EVs in the US slumped, with some automakers, such as Ford, seeing a 60 percent year-over-year decline.
As Sam Rutherford puts it, this policy change puts more roadblocks (his inadvertent pun, not mine) in the way of making cheaper battery-powered cars. It also affects EV investment and could mean US automakers fall even further behind their rivals elsewhere.
We also point and shake our heads at Xbox, Grok and TV streaming. Check it all out right here.
— Mat Smith
The other big stories (and deals) this morning
Control Resonant steps into a larger world inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion
Trump orders creation of litigation task force to challenge state AI laws
All the winners (and everything announced) at The Game Awards 2025
News, trailers and award winners. Most of which are Clair Obscur.
If you missed The Game Awards 2025, you missed a historic sweep by Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The Belle Epoque saga, which was expected to win several categories, even bagged Game of the Year and eventually picked up more wins than any title in the show’s 12-year history.
Naturally, there were trailers and game reveals too, which were pleasantly notable. We got a first look at the Control sequel, Resonant, Star Wars: Fate of The Old Republic is coming, headed by Mass Effect veterans, while Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series following the success of Baldur’s Gate 3. Heck, if you want a good chance of winning at The Game Awards, hire Jennifer English to voice one of your main characters — she was in both BG3 and Clair Obscur.
OpenAI signs deal to bring Disney characters to Sora and ChatGPT
Slop Wars, Toy Sloppy and more!
Disney announced a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI to bring more than 200 of its characters, including those from Star Wars and Pixar, to the Sora app and ChatGPT. With the deal in place, OpenAI users will be able to prompt ChatGPT to generate images that tap into Disney’s intellectual property, with costumes, props, vehicles and environments covered. Additionally, Disney will invest $1 billion in OpenAI, with the option to purchase additional equity down the road.
MasterClass subscriptions are 40 percent off for the holiday season
Learn about tennis from Serena Williams or music from John Legend.
If you’re struggling to find a good present for the holidays, MasterClass has discounted its subscriptions by up to 40 percent. I secured a similar deal for myself and was pleasantly surprised by the solid interface and the number of courses. I also forgot to update my subscription, whoops. Maybe this offer will get me back on board.
Amazon’s AI-generated recap tool didn’t watch Fallout very closely
It’s already getting the details wrong on its own shows.
Amazon’s plan to offer AI-generated recaps of Prime Video shows isn’t off to a great start. The company’s recap of the first season of Fallout has multiple errors. First, the AI-generated recap incorrectly identifies the era of the show’s Los Angeles-set flashbacks as being the 1950s — they’re actually 2077. Perhaps more egregiously for a recap, it misunderstands the ending of the first season, which sets up season two’s partnership between vault dweller Lucy and The Ghoul.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121506303.html?src=rssThe best E Ink tablets for 2025
E Ink tablets have always been intriguing to me because I’m a longtime lover of pen and paper. I’ve had probably hundreds of notebooks over the years, serving as repositories for my story ideas, to-do lists, meeting notes and everything in between. However, I turned away from physical notebooks at a certain point because it was just easier to store everything digitally so I always had my most important information at my fingertips.
E Ink tablets seem to provide the best of both worlds: the tactile satisfaction of regular notebooks with many of the conveniences found in digital tools, plus easy-on-the-eyes E Ink screens. These devices have come a long way in the past few years, and we’re just starting to see more color E Ink tablets become more widely available. I tested out a number of different E Ink tablets to see how well they work, how convenient they really are and which are the best tablets using E Ink screens available today.
Table of contents
Best E Ink tablets for 2025
Are E Ink tablets worth it?
An E Ink tablet will be a worthwhile purchase to a very select group of people. If you prefer the look and feel of an e paper display to LCD panels found on traditional tablets, it makes a lot of sense. They’re also good options for those who want a more paper-like writing experience (although you can get that kind of functionality on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or a more distraction-free device overall.
The final note is key here. Many E Ink tablets don’t run on the same operating systems as regular tablets, so you’re automatically going to be limited in what you can do. And even with those that do allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram and Facebook, E Ink tablets are not designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mostly due to the nature of E Ink displays, which have noticeable refreshes, a lack of vibrant colors and lower picture quality than the panels you’ll find on even the cheapest iPad.
Arguably the biggest reason why you wouldn’t want to go with an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, etc) is because it’s much easier to get distracted by email, social media and other Internet-related temptations.
What to look for in an E Ink tablet
Writing and latency
Arguably the most important thing to consider when looking for an E Ink tablet is the writing experience. How good it is will depend a lot on the display’s refresh rate (does it refresh after every time you put pen to “paper,” or at a different regular interval) and the stylus’ latency. Most of the tablets I’ve tested have little to no latency, but some are certainly better than others. Finally, you should double check before buying that your preferred E Ink tablet comes with a stylus, or if you need to purchase one separately.
Reading
How much will you be reading books, documents and other things on this tablet? E Ink tablets come in many sizes, but most of them tend to be larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing much easier. Having a larger display isn’t a bad thing, but it might make holding it for long periods slightly more uncomfortable. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading).
The supported file types for e-books can also make a big difference. It’s hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much among E Ink tablets. The TL;DR is that you’ll have a much better reading experience if you go with one made by a company that already has a history in e-book sales (i.e. Amazon or Kobo). All of the titles you bought via the Kindle or Kobo store should automatically be available to you on your Kindle or Kobo E Ink tablet.
Also with Kindle titles, specifically, since they are protected by DRM, it’s not necessarily the best idea to try to bring those titles over to a third-party device. Unless the tablet runs an operating system like Android that supports downloads for apps like Kindle and Kobo, you’ll be limited to supported file types, like ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG and others.
Search functionality
Most E Ink tablets have some on-device search features, but they can vary widely between models. You’ll want to consider how important it is to you to be able to search through all your handwritten notes and markups. I noticed in my testing that Amazon’s and Kobo’s E Ink tablets made it easy to refer back to notes made in books and files because they automatically save to the specific pages on which you took notes, made highlights and more.
Searching is less standardized on E Ink tablets that have different supported file types, but their features can be quite powerful in their own right. For example, a few devices I tested supported text search in handwritten notes along with handwriting recognition, the latter of which allows you to translate your scribbles into typed text.
Sharing and connectivity
While we established that E Ink tablets can be great distraction-free devices, most manufacturers understand that your notes and doodles aren’t created in a vacuum. You may want to access them elsewhere, and that requires some form of connectivity. All of the E Ink tablets I tried have Wi-Fi support, and some support cloud syncing, companion mobile apps and the ability to export notes via email so you can access them elsewhere.
None of them, however, integrate directly with a digital note taking system like Evernote or OneNote, so these devices will always be somewhat supplementary if you use apps like that, too. I’d argue that, if you already lean heavily on apps like OneNote, a standard tablet with a stylus and screen protector might be the best way to go. Ultimately, you should think about what you will want to do with the documents you’ll interact with on your E Ink tablet after the tablet portion is done.
Price
E Ink tablets aren’t known for being cheap. They generally fall into the $300-$800 price range, which is what you can expect to pay for a solid regular tablet, too. A key factor in price is size: cheaper devices with E Ink displays are likely to have smaller screens, and stylus support isn’t as much of a given. Also, those types of devices are generally considered e-readers because of their size and may not be the best for note-taking, doodling and the like.
E Ink tablets have gone up in price recently. Supernote and Onyx Boox increased prices, as did reMarkable. The former said it was due to "increased costs,” and a reMarkable representative confirmed this to Engadget and provided the following statement: "We regularly review our pricing based on market conditions and operational costs. We've communicated an upcoming adjustment for the US market effective in May to provide transparency to our customers. Multiple factors influence our pricing decisions, including supply chain dynamics and overall operational costs in specific markets.”
As a result, the reMarkable Paper Pro jumped from $579 to $629 (that's for the bundle with the standard Marker and no Folio). This isn't great, considering the Paper Pro was already on the expensive side of the spectrum for E Ink tablets. It's also worth noting that Supernote and Onyx Boox have raised prices in the past few months as well.
Other E Ink tablets we've tested
Onyx Boox Tab X C
The Boox Tab X C is a color-screened version of the Tab X, the company’s all-purpose e-paper Android tablet. The Tab X C has a lovely 13.3-inch Kaleido 3 E Ink color display, an octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and it runs on Android 13, making it one of the most powerful tablets in Boox’s lineup. I’ve used the Tab X in the past and this color version runs similarly, if not better, and at 5.3mm thick, it’s impressively svelte even when you pair it with its folio keyboard case. As someone who loves legal-pad sized things to write on, I also like how the Tab X C is most akin to A4-size paper. But at $820 for the bundle with the standard case (or a whopping $970 for the tablet and its keyboard case), it’s really only best for those who are ready to go all-in on a premium E Ink tablet.
Lenovo Smart Paper
Lenovo made a solid E Ink tablet in the Smart Paper, but it's too pricey and too married to the company's companion cloud service to warrant a spot on our top picks list. The hardware is great, but the software isn't as flexible as those of competitors like the reMarkable 2. It has good Google Drive integration, but you must pair it with Lenovo's cloud service to really get the most use out of it — and in the UK, the service costs £9 per month for three months, which is quite expensive.
Onyx Boox Tab Ultra
The Boox Tab Ultra has a lot of the same features we like in the Note Air 2 Plus, but it’s designed to be a true, all-purpose tablet with an E Ink screen. Running Android 11 and compatible with a magnetic keyboard case, you can use it like a standard 2-in-1 laptop, albeit a low-powered one. You can browse the web, check email and even watch YouTube videos on this thing — but that doesn’t mean you should. A standard 2-in-1 laptop with a more responsive screen and better overall performance would be a better fit for most people who even have the slightest desire to have an all-in-one device. Like the rest of Onyx’s devices, the Tab Ultra is specifically for those who put reading and eye comfort above all else.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/best-e-ink-tablet-130037939.html?src=rssEverything announced and all the winners at The Game Awards 2025
This year at The Game Awards, if your game wasn’t melodramatic, mechanically innovative, beautifully presented and aggressively French, it didn’t stand a chance. The Game Awards 2025 wrapped up on the evening of Thursday, December 11 with a record-breaking showing by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive. The game received the most nominations and wins in the show’s 12-year history.
But, we know that’s not really why you’re here. Between the award presentations and musical numbers, there were heaps of new game trailers, announcements and updates, and we’ve collected them all for you right here. The award winners are also there.
News
Bradley the Badger looks like Wreck-It Ralph as a real video game
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is a new action RPG from the director of Mass Effect and KOTOR
Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series with... Divinity
Coven of the Chicken Foot is the debut game from Naughty Dog alum Bruce Straley's indie studio
The devs of SOMA are back with a spiritual successor called Ontos
4:LOOP is a co-op shooter from the creator of Left 4 Dead and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot
Control Resonant steps into a larger world that's inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight swoops onto PC and consoles on May 29
Lara Croft will return in Tomb Raider: Catalyst and a new remake
Award winners
Best family game: Donkey Kong Bananza
Innovation in accessibility: Doom: The Dark Ages
Best esports game: Counter-Strike 2
Best esports athlete: Chovy
Best esports team: Team Vitality
Best mobile game: Umamasume: Pretty Derby
Best indie game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Best adaptation: The Last of Us season 2
Best action game: Hades II
Best performance: Jennifer English, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Games for impact: South of Midnight
Best ongoing game: No Man’s Sky
Best audio design: Battlefield 6
Content creator of the year: MoistCr1TiKaL
Best fighting game: Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
Most anticipated game: Grand Theft Auto VI
Best action/adventure game: Hollow Knight: Silksong
Best art direction: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Best sim/strategy game: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
Best debut indie game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Best score and music: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Best sports/racing game: Mario Kart World
Best community support: Baldur’s Gate 3
Best VR/AR game: The Midnight Walk
Best RPG: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Players’ voice: Wuthering Waves
Best narrative: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Best multiplayer game: Arc Raiders
Best game direction: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Game of the year: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Trailers
Pragmata by Capcom
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic by Arcanaut Studios and Lucasfilm Games
Divinity by Larian Studios
Coven of the Chicken Foot by Wildflower Interactive
ONTOS by Frictional Games
4:LOOP by Bad Robot Games
Resident Evil Requiem by Capcom
Order of the Sinking Star by Thekla
Exodus by Archetype Entertainment
WARLOCK by Invoke Studios and Wizards of the Coast
Control Resonant by Remedy Enterainment
Gang of Dragon by Nagoshi Studio
Street Fighter movie sneak peak
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight by Warner Bros. Games
Tomb Raider: Catalyst by Crystal Dynamics
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog
Invincible VS by Skybound Games
Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred by Blizzard Entertainment
Deadpool is coming to Marvel Rivals
007 First Light – Lenny Kravitz Announcement
Saros by Housemarque
Warframe featuring Werner Herzog for some reason
Total War: Warhammer 40,000 by Creative Assembly
Hitman World of Assassination by IO Interactive
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve by Bandai Namco
Star Wars Galactic Racer by Fuse and Lucasfilm Games
Out of Words by Kong Orange and WiredFly
Phantom Blade Zero by S-GAME
Mega Man Dual Override by Capcom
Super Mario Galaxy movie trailer
Highguard by Wildlight Entertainment
Don’t forget to check out our Day of the Devs: The Game Awards 2025 roundup, which included six world premieres, three release date announcements and a whole bunch of awesome indie goodness. The Women-Led Games and Latin American Games showcases tied to the awards were also downright delightful.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/everything-announced-and-all-the-winners-at-the-game-awards-2025-044101761.html?src=rssHousemarque's Saros is delayed to April 30
PlayStation had said on X that it would have news about Saros at The Game Awards, and unfortunately, fans excited for the new Housemarque project will need to wait a little longer to get their hands on it. The game has been delayed from its planned March release. But there's only a short time until the new date of April 30, and pre-orders are open now. Star Rahul Kohli appeared at The Game Awards to introduce the newest trailer for the game.
I'm glad we won't be waiting too much longer, because Saros looks very cool. Housemarque made its name on titles like Resogun and Returnal, and Saros seems like a great addition to their library. The latest trailer shows off all the golden and solar vibes in Carcosa. It also has more glimpses of the characters and story as well as the dangerous and deadly beings that will be trying very hard to kill you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/housemarques-saros-is-delayed-to-april-30-041813989.html?src=rss4:LOOP is a co-op shooter from the creator of Left 4 Dead and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot
The next game from Left 4 Dead designer Mike Booth is putting a sci-fi spin on his last game's co-op action, based on a trailer Booth and producer JJ Abrams shared at The Game Awards 2025. The new game is called 4:LOOP, and it's the first project entirely developed by Bad Robot Games, film production company Bad Robot's game studio.
4:LOOP combines the four-player co-op action of Left 4 Dead, with roguelike elements enabled by what seems like a time loop mechanic. Based on the trailer, players fight a mixture of aliens and robots in each mission, all in the hopes of eventually drawing the attention of an alien mothership and destroying it.
"Each time the four-player team succeeds in a mission, they make choices to improve their equipment, building out a unique kit to survive the epic boss battle at the end of the Act," Booth said in an interview with PlayStation Blog. "If the team completes all three Acts, they defeat the Mothership and save the world. All of this is, of course, easier said than done."
Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that it would be publishing 4:LOOP earlier in December, so naturally the game will be available on PS5 and PC when it launches. Players interested in trying 4:LOOP can sign up on the game's website.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/4loop-is-a-co-op-shooter-from-the-creator-of-left-4-dead-and-jj-abrams-bad-robot-035835461.html?src=rssStar Wars: Galactic Racer is a podracing game set for 2026
Why have one Star Wars game announcement at an edition of The Game Awards when you can have two? Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a podracing (and speeder racing) game from Fuse Games, a studio established in 2023 by former Burnout and Need for Speed developers. It's scheduled to hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2026.
The action here is set after the fall of the Empire. With the galaxy in rebuild mode after dealing with that whole mess, an unsanctioned, underground racing circuit called the Galactic League comes into being in the Outer Rim. Here, according to the game's Steam page, "syndicates bankroll chaos and champions are forged."
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is run-based, so if your podracer blows up, it might be game over. The action takes place across well-known Star Wars planets in addition to some new ones. The races have branching routes and you'll unlock new abilities on each run.
There's a story-driven, single-player campaign, as well as PvP modes. The vehicles are customizable too. Dig it. Where do I sign up, Watto?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/star-wars-galactic-racer-is-a-podracing-game-set-for-2026-035508891.html?src=rssExodus is delayed to early 2027
So there's good news and bad news about the highly anticipated Exodus coming out of The Game Awards this year. The good news is that there's a fresh trailer showcasing more of the game. The bad news is that the game won't be out until early 2027. The game was originally announced two years ago (also at The Game Awards) and had been pegged for release in 2026.
We may be waiting longer to get our hands on Exodus, but the substantial new trailer shows more of what the final product will entail, offering some backstory on main character Jun Aslan. He's the only human who can use the technology developed by Celestials, which are humans that have evolved 40,000 years into the future. The trailer also showcases the character C.C. Orlev, voiced by Matthew McConaughey. (Insert obligatory "alright alright alright" here.) Developer Archetype Entertainment includes some notable names from BioWare, 343 Industries and Naughty Dog, and the BioWare lineage seems particularly strong with this character- and choice-driven science fiction story.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/exodus-is-delayed-to-early-2027-032610665.html?src=rssLara Croft will return in Tomb Raider: Catalyst and a new remake
The last mainline Tomb Raider game was 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and after spending a few years in video game purgatory, Lara Croft is coming back in two new games. At The Game Awards 2025, Amazon Game Studios announced that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will reimagine of one of the hero’s early adventures in 2026, and Tomb Raider: Catalyst will continue the series in 2027.
Catalyst is developed by Crystal Dynamics and follows Lara through Northern India “in the wake of a mythical cataclysm,” as she comes into competition with other treasure hunters. Legacy of Atlantis, developed by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog, reimagines the very first Tomb Raider game in Unreal Engine 5. And yes, it seems like dinosaurs will be in the mix.
A new Tomb Raider game has been in the works officially since at least 2022, when Amazon announced that it would be publishing the next game in the series. Amazon shared that Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge would be developing a television adaptation of Tomb Raider in May 2024. Sophie Turner, best known for playing Sansa Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones, was cast as Lara Croft in September 2025. With both a show and a game in the works, Amazon clearly seems interested in making Tomb Raider its next big crossover hit after the success of Fallout.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will be released in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The platforms Tomb Raider: Catalyst will be released on weren’t shared, but the game is scheduled to be released in 2027.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lara-croft-will-return-in-tomb-raider-catalyst-and-a-new-remake-025859998.html?src=rssLego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight swoops onto PC and consoles on May 29
It didn't take too long for a game that a whole bunch of people are excited about to swoop into Grand Theft Auto VI's old release week. Or maybe Rockstar had an idea of was what was coming and delayed its blockbuster by six months to get out of the way of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.
Either way, TT Games and Warner Bros. Games brought a new trailer to The Game Awards and revealed that the Caped Crusader's next adventure will hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and the Epic Games Store on May 29. The base game will cost $70 and pre-orders are open as of 11PM ET on December 11.
Lego games often have a massive cast of characters and, as the trailer revealed, this one will be no different. It will feature the likes of Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl and Catwoman, as well as a murderer's row of super-villains, such as The Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, The Penguin and Bane.
Warner Bros. Games is announcing the release date at a bit of an awkward time. Netflix recently had an $82.7 billion bid accepted for a chunk of Warner Bros. Discovery that includes the gaming division. However, Netflix co-CEO Gregory Peters said the company didn't factor Warner Bros. Games into its valuation.
"While they definitely have been doing some great work in the game space, we actually didn’t attribute any value to that from the get-go because they’re relatively minor compared to the grand scheme of things," Peters said, according to PC Gamer. "Now we are super excited because some of those properties that they’ve built, Hogwarts [Legacy] is a great example of that, have been done quite well, and we think that we can incorporate that into what we’re offering. They’ve got great studios and great folks working there. So we think that there’s definitely an opportunity there. But just to be clear, we haven’t built that into our deal model."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lego-batman-legacy-of-the-dark-knight-swoops-onto-pc-and-consoles-on-may-29-024729940.html?src=rssSouth of Midnight is coming to PS5 and Switch 2 next spring
South of Midnight is heading to PlayStation 5 and Switch 2 in Spring 2026, developer Compulsion Games announced on X. The third-person action-adventure game launched as an Xbox and PC exclusive, but like plenty of Microsoft's other first-party games, it's heading to competitors' consoles.
Mixing platforming with magic-infused combat in a unique setting inspired by the folklore of the South, Compulsion Games' South of Midnight was generally well-received when it was released in April 2025. The game likely reached sizable audience by launching on Game Pass and PC, but coming to PlayStation and Switch will open it up to an even bigger audience.
As Microsoft reworks its Xbox brand to focus more on software than hardware, releasing its exclusives on other platforms has become a key part of its ongoing strategy. It tested the water with games like Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves in 2024, and now everything from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Halo are making the jump.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/south-of-midnight-is-coming-to-ps5-and-switch-2-next-spring-022725892.html?src=rssTrump orders creation of litigation task force to challenge state AI laws
On Thursday evening, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a single, nationwide regulatory framework governing artificial intelligence at the expense of the ability of different states to regulate the nascent technology. “To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,” the order states. “But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative.”
As was expected after a draft of the order leaked earlier this week, the centerpiece of the document is an “AI Litigation Task Force whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge state AI laws inconsistent” with the president’s policy vision. US Attorney General Pam Bondi has 30 days to create the task force, which shall meet regularly with the White House’s AI and crypto czar, David Sacks.
As laid out in the president’s AI Action Plan from July, the administration will also limit states with “onerous” AI laws from accessing federal funding. Specifically, the secretary of commerce will target funding available under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, a $42.5 billion effort to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities.
Advocacy groups were quick to criticize the president’s order. “This executive order is designed to chill state-level action to provide oversight and accountability for the developers and deployers of AI systems, while doing nothing to address the real and documented harms these systems create,” Alexandra Givens, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement provided to Engadget. “States that take steps to protect their residents from such harms should not be subject to threats of legal attacks; nor should the administration punish rural Americans by threatening to withhold funding for the broadband services that could connect them to AI in the first place.”
It’s worth noting President Trump’s previous attempts to curb the ability of states to regulate AI as they see fit has proven unpopular across the political spectrum. As part of his One Big Beautiful Bill, the president attempted to impose a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulation. That clause was eventually removed from the legislation in a decisive 99-1 vote by the Senate.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/trump-orders-creation-of-litigation-task-force-to-challenge-state-ai-laws-022657022.html?src=rssThe devs of SOMA are back with a spiritual successor called Ontos
Frictional Games is back with a new game that looks primed to carry on the studio's tradition of excellence in horror. It's called Ontos, and it's slated to launch on PC, PlayStation and Xbox next year. The trailer debuted during The Game Awards 2025.
The company's past projects include Amnesia: The Dark Descent and SOMA, and this new title is also looking pretty dang creepy. It looks like things will take a philosophical turn, with a story of trying to piece together your father's past that leads you to questioning the meaning of life and reality. The team is going big with the casting, with Stellan Skarsgård playing one of the main roles in the trailer. This is one that any horror fans will want to keep on their radar.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-devs-of-soma-are-back-with-a-spiritual-successor-called-ontos-021535060.html?src=rssControl Resonant steps into a larger world that's inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion
Remedy Entertainment's Control is a bizarre yet totally captivating action game that feels like Die Hard by way of David Lynch. InControl: Resonant, players step into the role of the original game's most enigmatic and unsettling characters for their own jaunt through a 'new-weird' world outside The Oldest House.
Just ahead of the reveal at The Game Awards, we got an early look at Control: Resonant, the next game in the Remedy Connected Universe. Along with learning why the developers wanted a new protagonist, they also explain why this Neon Genesis Evangelion-inspired sequel is the most expansive game they have made to date.
Seven years after the events of Control, the hostile supernatural force that plagued The Oldest House has invaded Manhattan. As the massive urban landscape morphs into an otherworldly nightmare and the Federal Bureau of Control director, Jesse Faden, goes missing, the remaining FBC sends her brother, the notorious supernatural entity Dylan Faden, into the city to stop the invasion. To find his sister and stop the devastation from spreading beyond New York City, Dylan will have to embrace his powers, and some occasional guidance from The Board, to take on the malevolent forces looking to reshape the world.
In the years since Control's release, developer Remedy has expanded the story into a larger, connected universe spanning multiple games, including the Alan Wake series and the co-op spin-off FBC: Firebreak. Control: Resonant picks up on many threads left by recent games including Alan Wake 2, which saw the FBC investigate the supernatural events following the titular character.
However, the sequel is going with a bit of a different direction, this time embracing melee-driven combat and a more "open-ended" approach to exploration within the Inception-style landscape of Manhattan. Though the developers were clear that it is not an open-world game, they stated during the presentation that it is embracing a more action-RPG approach and that it's also the most expansive game they have ever made.
It's an interesting premise for a sequel, especially considering the focus on the original game's most unnerving characters. But according to creative director Mikael Kasurinen, the concept ties into showing parallels between the Faden siblings and how they navigate this new-weird world.
"Each game represents one of the siblings and their respective journeys through this world. Because of this, you can play these games in any order; they stand on their own feet like two independent siblings," Kasurinen said. "When Dylan wakes up, he's the only one who can fight back against the Hiss and try to contain the disaster. He has lived his whole life inside The Oldest House, so the door leading outside to Manhattan might as well be a portal to an alien world. To him, this leads to a discovery of a new reality, just like what The Oldest House was to Jesse."
Much like the original game, Control: Resonant maintains that balance of exploration, discovery, and over-the-top action beats to overcome. The sequel leans a bit further into the latter, with Dylan adopting a more aggressive, brawler combat style with his shapeshifting melee weapon. We got to see Dylan switch between short-bladed weapons and a massive hammer, which opened some cool looking combo attacks. It's very much in the vein of Jesse's Service Weapon, but now designed for getting up close to deal heavy melee damage.
From what we saw in the footage, the core combat feels equal parts Nier: Automata and DmC: Devil May Cry, showing Dylan dodging attacks and slipping through blind spots to unleash ground and aerial combo strikes. It's a notable shift away from the third-person shooting gameplay from the original, but it still captures the same weird, otherworldly feel.
According to the creative director, the core inspiration for making a sequel with a new character was to contrast storytelling perspectives and gameplay styles — as he puts it, both characters represent two sides of the same coin.
"When we looked at the siblings [as characters], it was almost like turning to the other side of a coin – Jesse uses a gun, but Dylan chooses a melee weapon. When we created the large environments, compared to the original, it was a challenge to incorporate shooting combat, as we didn't want people to have to keep finding cover to avoid fire. But with melee weapons, the combat instantly became more aggressive and intimate, where you're really going for the enemies. It really changed the dynamic of the Control combat experience. So it felt right, and it's also refreshing for us to create something a bit new for us."
So far, Control: Resonant looks like a sequel that ups the weirdness of the series and takes it into the twisting, inverted streets of Manhattan. It's a stunning-looking game, and one particular source of inspiration for the creative direction was the seminal 1990s anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Having seen the game's corrupted world and enigmatic protagonist in motion, that totally tracks. I can't wait to see what other oddities are to come in Remedy's new-weird sequel.
Control: Resonant will arrive in 2026 for PC/Mac, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series with... Divinity
Larian Studios didn’t rest on its laurels for long. Two years after taking home the Game of the Year prize for Baldur’s Gate III at The Game Awards, the developer popped up again at the 2025 edition of the ceremony to announce its upcoming project, which is the next entry in the Divinity series. Simply called Divinity, this will be the studio’s biggest game to date with “more breadth and depth than ever before,” according to TGA host Geoff Keighley.
After 2017’s Divinity: Original Sin II, Larian took a break from the series with which it established itself to make BG3. The rumor mill had been churning about a new Divinity game after Keighley shared a photo of a statue that was erected in the Mojave Desert. The shape of the statue matched a Divinity logo that was trademarked recently.
Before the reveal trailer was shown at The Game Awards, a short (and rather neat) live performance took place in which some actors were hoisted into the air. The trailer itself is pretty gruesome. It references The Wicker Man, as large wooden effigies with people chained inside are set ablaze. I won’t spoil what else happens other than to say it’s pretty gruesome, so maybe don’t watch it quite yet if you’ve just had dinner.
Larian hasn’t announced a release window for Divinity yet.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/larian-studios-is-returning-to-the-divinity-series-with-divinity-015833088.html?src=rssTen years after The Witness, Jonathan Blow's next massive puzzle game is almost ready for primetime
Many of the big announcements at The Game Awards are for completely new projects, some of which are total surprises (if you had an Okami sequel on your bingo card last year, you're either in the know or probably used up all your luck for the next few years). We'll often get updates on games that were previously announced too. The trailer for Order of the Sinking Star is something a little different, as it's a game that Braid designer Jonathan Blow has been working on fairly openly since releasing The Witness in 2016.
The trailer revealed some new details, including confirmation of the expected title and a release window (2026 on Steam, with more platforms to be announced). Ahead of The Game Awards, Blow gave Engadget a preview of the game and explained some of its many complexities.
Fundamentally, Order of the Sinking Star is a grid-based puzzle game in which you'll move blocks around to complete an objective. You might know of this as a Sokoban game, named after the series Hiroyuki Imabayashi created about pushing boxes around a warehouse.
But this is a Jonathan Blow game, so nothing stays too simple for very long. Blow and his team took the core concept of pushing objects around and built on it in myriad ways, with a wide array of environments, mechanics and characters for you to get to grips with.
Order of the Sinking Star starts with you playing as a deposed queen from another world who is transported to a strange place. This turns out to be the tutorial. Among other things, you'll find out about the undo button, a handy option you can use to revert your actions if you get stuck. It's probably worth being careful with this button, as Blow says it's possible to undo thousands of moves with it. There's a level reset option too.
The first phase of the game has four distinct territories with their own characters, stories and gameplay mechanics. One of these realms has a fantasy theme with a warrior character who can push multiple objects that are in a row. His friend, the thief, can only pull objects. The wizard, meanwhile, can teleport and swap positions with objects or other characters. Sometimes, you'll use multiple characters in a level and swap between them to solve puzzles. There’s a talking boat somewhere, too.
You'll take what you learn within individual levels into the overworld so you can make progress there. For one thing, the queen can wear a warrior, wizard or thief outfit to adopt their abilities and solve puzzles in the north section of this phase.
Over in the east, there’s a world with mirror-based puzzles. By positioning the mirrors and where you stand, you'll use the mirror's reflection to teleport at a right angle. If your character (or an object) has a reflection in two mirrors, they can be duplicated, which is something you might have to do a few times if a level requires you activate multiple switches at the same time.
Once you near the end of two of the phase one worlds, you can enter one of six gold rooms. In these rooms, which are the gateways to the second phase of Order of the Sinking Star, some of your characters meet each other for the first time. For instance, the guy from The Mirror Isles and the wizard might encounter each other in a gold room and then you can use their combined abilities to solve puzzles. Given that later-game levels combine mechanics from the early stages, they are naturally more complex. Shifting to 3D perspectives will ramp things up too.
You can tackle the four worlds that make up the first phase in any order. Collectively, they contain "days worth of gameplay," Blow said. And yet he claimed this first phase accounts for about five percent of the entire game.
All told, there are about 1,400 puzzles, many of which are optional. If you're a completionist, you'll need to be pretty dedicated to see this through. Blow estimates that it'll take around 500 hours for a player to do absolutely everything in the game.
The overworld has more than 100 screens from which you can jump into individual levels. "All the levels are about ideas. They're not just random puzzles," Blow said. "We don't add puzzles to the game unless they show something cool about how the objects interact. Then, once you see the cool thing, you come back to the overworld, and you navigate from that screen using the cool mechanic that you learned."
"We" is a key word there, because it's not as if Blow has been making Order of the Sinking Star by himself for the last decade. His studio, Thekla, has around 10 people working on the game full-time along with another 10 or so part-time contractors. Those who contributed include puzzle game designers Alan Hazelden and Marc ten Bosch. Some members of Blow's Twitch community who "contributed some idea to one of the levels somewhere" will receive design credits too.
Blow and his team use custom game engines for their projects. Starting in around 2013, he started livestreaming his work on the programming language that Order of the Sinking Star is written in (Thekla will eventually make the engine available for free as an open-source project). "Once I was working on the game, it was a good way to show people what the programming language was about and also how game programming works, and so I would frequently do just streams where we would sit down and implement something," Blow said. Some of the design work he did on stream ended up in the final game.
After such a long time of working on Order of the Sinking Star, the end is in sight for Blow and his team. The main focus for the last year or so has been on making sure all of the puzzles align with the overworld. Making art for many hundreds of levels is a major undertaking too, while Blow is still refining the story.
"Because there's a lot of these levels and a lot of characters in the levels, it's just natural for them to talk to each other," Blow said. "And so what is that dialog and what does it do? Is it just little jokes that don't add up to anything? Or do you get little peeks into a larger narrative? I think the latter is obviously better. And so that's my main task between now and release, is making sure that the story is really good."
Blow had the core concept of having separate worlds with mechanics that work across them in place from the very beginning, though how that worked in practice evolved a lot over time. For instance, the overworld idea wasn't set in stone from the outset. There was an overworld in place by around 2021, "but it wasn't organized in the way the current one was. It was just sort of areas smushed together," Blow said. "At some point, I came up with this concept that it was spatially organized in an almost ritualistic manner or a mathematical manner, whichever way you want to think about it. And we redesigned the overworld from that point, and from then till now, it's been just sort of a continuous improvement."
Order of the Sinking Star was originally supposed to be a much smaller game that took around 10 or 20 hours to play, but "it just blew up," Blow said. "Part of development has just been dealing with that fact. Like, oh, my God, this game took so long to make. It actually feels really good to be here toward the end. We still have a fair bit of work to do before it's done, but we can see the ending from where we are now, and that's great."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ten-years-after-the-witness-jonathan-blows-next-massive-puzzle-game-is-almost-ready-for-primetime-015727378.html?src=rssCoven of the Chicken Foot is the debut game from Naughty Dog alum Bruce Straley's indie studio
Coven of the Chicken Foot has a lot of things going for it already, in my book. It stars a hero rarely seen in video games, an elderly woman, and it has gorgeous storybook-style art in a lush fantasy setting. It’s a single-player puzzle platformer, it relies on wordless storytelling and the woman, a witch named Gertie, travels with a creepy-cute companion. Plus, Gertie has chicken feet. I love her little chicken feet.
Coven of the Chicken Foot is the first game from Wildflower Interactive, the independent studio founded by Naughty Dog veteran Bruce Straley. The game is coming to Steam and it’s available to wishlist now, though there’s no firm release date. The first trailer for Coven of the Chicken Foot premiered at The Game Awards 2025, showing Gertie and her friend traveling together through caves, forests and temples.
Gertie is on a quest to prove herself to the local coven by standing up to the self-appointed, prideful heroes of the land. She doesn’t have a sword or a dodgeroll, and instead has to figure out how to work with her strange friend to survive. Her companion develops unique behaviors based on individual play styles, shaping how Gertie gets around.
Straley left Naughty Dog in 2017 after almost 20 years with the studio, where he directed The Last of Us and Uncharted 4. He announced Wildflower Interactive in July 2022 with a brief YouTube message, saying, “In 2017 I left the industry not sure if I wanted to make games anymore. But the longer I was away, I kept thinking about this medium, and everything yet to be done and everything I wanted to do still. And this idea kept following me. So I grabbed some friends and we started prototyping.”
This naturally led to the formation of a studio, Straley explained.
“We have to do it the right way,” he said in the video. “It has to be inclusive, equitable and collaborative, full of big-hearted people that want to grow both professionally and personally. The culture needs to be as iterative as the way we make games.”
Today Wildflower Interactive has 16 employees from AAA and smaller-scale backgrounds, according to its website. Its mission statement reads as follows:
“We’re making ‘small-ish,’ creatively-charged, uniquely-stylized games that explore the possibilities of our medium. And we’re building a small, open-hearted team of creators that want to improve their skills and still lead a good life outside of work. People that want to hone their craft, have a say in the process, feel respected for their contributions, and be a part of the evolution of this awesome medium.”
I’m not going to say the studio’s direct and repeated emphasis on work-life balance, diversity and compassion is a response to the soulless capitalistic grind built into the AAA development complex, but I’m not going to not say that, either.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/coven-of-the-chicken-foot-is-the-debut-game-from-naughty-dog-alum-bruce-straleys-indie-studio-014004553.html?src=rssStar Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is a new action RPG from the director of Mass Effect and KOTOR
The Game Awards kicked off with a bang, showing the world premiere of Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic. It's a brand new action role-playing game that will be directed by Casey Hudson, who previously headed up several notable BioWare games you probably know like Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic.
There’s not much to go on in the trailer, but the game simply existing is a pretty great surprise and this cinematic trailer sure looks shiny. Hudson is working with Arcanaut Studios on this project, which is described as “an epic interactive adventure across a galaxy on the brink of rebirth where every decision shapes your path towards light or darkness.” Which kind of sounds like Star Wars crossed with Mass Effect, and I am personally very excited for that combo.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/star-wars-fate-of-the-old-republic-is-a-new-action-rpg-from-the-director-of-mass-effect-and-kotor-012913046.html?src=rssCapcom's Pragmata is coming your way on April 24
Capcom’s long, long-delayed sci-fi shooter Pragmata finally has a release date. It’s headed your way on April 24, 2026 on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and — as Capcom confirmed in a trailer at The Game Awards — Nintendo Switch 2. You don’t have to wait another four months to try it out, though. A gameplay demo is out now on Steam. It will be available for consoles at a later date.
Pragmata first emerged all the way back in 2020 and Capcom initially planned to release it in 2022. After multiple delays, the game will arrive four years later than the company anticipated.
This is the first entry in a new franchise from Capcom, so taking extra time to get things right is not exactly a bad idea. Pragmata, which is set in a dystopian near-future, features the dual protagonists of Hugh Williams (a heavily armored fella) and Diana (an android with special powers). The two have to work together if they want to escape from a lunar research station that’s filled with malevolent robots. To defeat these clankers, Diana has to hack them to disable their defense systems and make a weak point available for Hugh to attack.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/capcoms-pragmata-is-coming-your-way-on-april-24-010826258.html?src=rssBradley the Badger looks like Wreck-It Ralph as a real video game
A lot of trailers drop during The Game Awards, but the comedy of Bradley the Badger stood out from the pack. The conceit is similar to Wreck-It Ralph. Bradley, the protagonist of a fictional platforming series, is suddenly transported into the worlds of other unfinished video games; the trailer shows a badger-ified Bloodborne, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us. He also has access to a kit of dev tools that let him modify these incomplete projects, getting a taste of making a game. As the trailer ends, Bradley briefly crosses into the real world and comes face to face with an actual game developer. This looks like it will be a funny and very meta game. Astro Bot made that combo work brilliantly, so here's hoping Bradley the Badger does too.
"Bradley is part love letter to videogames and part satire of them," said Christian Cantamessa, co-founder of Day 4 Night Studios. "Games are an art form and this is a story inspired by our adventures making them." Cantamessa and fellow co-founder Davide Soliani have some big credits on their resumes, including Red Dead Redemption, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. The titular badger is voiced by Evan Peters, who has been in the recent X-Men movies as well as Tron: Ares.
The team is planning to release the game on Steam, with consoles possibly to follow, but no timeline has been given yet.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/bradley-the-badger-looks-like-wreck-it-ralph-as-a-real-video-game-005634520.html?src=rssApple (mostly) loses its appeal in Epic Games case
Apple has clawed back a bit of ground in its legal fight with Epic Games that could have wide-reaching consequences for all app developers. Today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals mostly upheld a previous contempt ruling regarding fees Apple levied on third-party payment systems. However, the judges did decide to reverse the order that Apple cannot charge any commissions on those external payments, which was one of the company's main arguments in this ongoing debate.
To catch you up, US Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers initially ruled in 2021 that Apple must allow third-party payment systems, although her decision fell shy of calling the tech company's control over the App Store a monopoly. In May 2025, she ruled that Apple's 27 percent commission on those outside payments violated her previous order. Apple responded with an emergency motion to appeal that finding.
Epic Games had taken its smash hit Fortnite off both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store while it was in court arguing these cases. Fortnite returned to iOS in the spring and just arrived back on Android devices today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-mostly-loses-its-appeal-in-epic-games-case-235509557.html?src=rssAmazon's AI-generated recap tool didn't watch Fallout very closely
Amazon's plan to offer AI-generated recaps of Prime Video shows isn't off to a great start. The company's recap of the first season of Fallout features multiple errors, GamesRadar+ writes, including basic facts about the plot of the show.
You can watch the recap yourself in the "Extras" section of Amazon's Fallout season two listing in Prime Video. Besides being somewhat dry, the AI-generated recap incorrectly identifies the time period of the show's Los Angeles-set flashbacks as being the 1950s, when they're actually 2077 (the Fallout franchise is set in an alternate history that diverged from our real one after 1945). As Gizmodo notes, the recap also seems to misunderstand the ending of the first season, which sets up season two's partnership between vault dweller Lucy and The Ghoul, an irradiated wastelander with a personal connection to the mystery at the heart of the first season.
While the recap suggests Amazon's AI system can successfully combine clips, music and dialogue into a coherent video, it apparently lacks an understanding of the details. The inaccuracies in this recap won't prevent anyone from enjoying the second season of the show, but they don't exactly inspire confidence in Amazon's tool either. It also seems like a problem that could have been easily solved by having a human employee who's watched the show review the video before it was uploaded.
Unfortunately, Amazon's lack of AI quality control extends beyond recaps of its shows and into the dubs for the shows themselves. The company pulled AI-generated voiceover tracks for Banana Fish and other anime because of how bad they sounded earlier this week. It wouldn't be surprising if this recap gets pulled, corrected and re-uploaded, too. As Amazon adds more AI-generated content to its platform, users are bound to discover more ways it comes up short. The company's audience is too big, and AI is apparently still too unreliable for it to be avoided.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazons-ai-generated-recap-tool-didnt-watch-fallout-very-closely-215712958.html?src=rssDisney's deal with OpenAI is about controlling the future of copyright
This morning Disney and OpenAI announced a three-year licensing agreement: Starting in 2026, ChatGPT and Sora can generate images and videos incorporating Disney IP, including more than 200 characters from the company's stable of Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel brands. To say these companies make for strange bedfellows is an understatement.
The agreement brings together two parties with very different public stances on copyright. Before OpenAI released Sora, the company reportedly notified studios and talent agencies they would need to opt out of having their work appear in the new app. The company later backtracked on this stance. Before that, OpenAI admitted, in a regulatory filing, it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials."
By contrast, Disney takes copyright law very seriously. In fact, you could argue no other company has done more to shape US copyright law than Disney. For example, there's the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which is more derisively known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. The law effectively froze the advancement of the public domain in the United States, with Disney being the greatest beneficiary. It was only last year that the company's copyright for Steamboat Willie expired, 95 years after Walt Disney first created the iconic cartoon.
On the face of it, it's unclear OpenAI is getting much value out of the deal. As part of the pact, Disney will host a "curated" selection of Sora-generated videos on its streaming platform Disney+, legitimizing the medium of AI-generated video in a way it hasn't been before, but it would appear Disney has the option to spotlight as much or little of it as it sees fit.
Additionally, the $1 billion Disney agreed to invest in OpenAI is a drop in the ocean for a company that's expected to burn through more cash in five years than Uber, Tesla, Amazon and Spotify did combined before they became profitable. If anything, the addition of Disney characters is likely to make operating ChatGPT and Sora more expensive for OpenAI; the company will now need to pay a licensing fee on top of the cost of running its servers to generate images and videos. At this stage, it's also hard to put a value on Disney's pledge to use OpenAI's APIs. The company has said those tools will "enable new products, tools and experiences," including some found inside of Disney+, but beyond that it hasn't shared specifics.
Bob Iger might be feckless, but he's not stupid. Sometime this week or soon after, President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that makes good on part of his AI Action Plan from July. Specifically, the president has promised to fight against "burdensome" state-level regulation of AI. According to CNN, a recent draft of Trump's order calls for the creation of an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge and preempt state AI laws in favor of the president's own more lax regulatory regime.
It's unclear how successful the administration will be in that effort, but clearly Disney is thinking ahead. It's banking on the fact that this time it won't be able to count on the federal government to shape copyright law in its interest, so instead it's making a deal with an industry pushing the boundaries of intellectual property rights as we know them. More importantly, it has partnered with the one AI company it can actually leverage.
As I argued in a recent piece, OpenAI is in a far different and more precarious position now than it was at the end of 2022 following the release of ChatGPT. The company is just one AI provider in a sea of competition, and you can't even argue its models are the best, based either on benchmarks or user feedback. Moreover, OpenAI has yet to turn a profit, and has adopted an extremely risky investment strategy. In recent months it has signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals, hoping to outmuscle the competition that's already beating it through scale.
It's not an accident Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google a day before its agreement with OpenAI became public. OpenAI might be the most valuable private company in the world, but Alphabet, Google's parent company, is worth more than $3 trillion. In any negotiations between the two, at best Disney would be on equal footing, and certainly not in a position where it could demand some amount of control over Google's AI projects.
And yet by accounts it won exactly that from OpenAI. According to Axios, the deal gives Disney a fair amount of control over how its intellectual property is used. The two will form a joint steering committee designed to monitor the content users create on ChatGPT and Sora. As you surf the web today, you'll likely see a lot of opinions on how this legitimizes AI video. And while that's true, far more important is the fact Disney has secured a seat at the table to decide how the technology evolves over the coming years.
Much like with news publishers, OpenAI and other chatbots concerns took a stance of begging forgiveness rather than asking permission towards copyright. It seems to have paid off. Most of the highest-profile news organizations have signed licensing deals to at least be paid a little rather than be ripped off until reaching an uncertain verdict in court. Disney seems to be signalling that the same speculation rush is about to begin for audiovisual licensing, and it may have already secured the most favorable terms.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/disneys-deal-with-openai-is-about-controlling-the-future-of-copyright-213009504.html?src=rss'47 Ronin' director found guilty of defrauding Netflix out of $11 million
A director who was charged with defrauding Netflix out of millions of dollars has been found guilty, Business Insider reports. Carl Rinsch, director of the 2013 Keanu Reeves movie 47 Ronin, now faces up to 90 years in prison.
Rinsch began filming the project, White Horse (later renamed Conquest), around 2017. (Its premise: A scientist creates an organic humanoid species that turns on its creators.) The director completed six short-form episodes with his own money and investor funds. He then used those episodes to pitch studios for the money to complete the first season. Netflix ended up buying the rights for over $61 million.
In 2020, after spending $44 million of Netflix's money on the series, Rinsch petitioned for another $11 million to complete the season. The company agreed.
Then things got weird. Instead of using Netflix’s investment to finish the series, Rinsch transferred the funds to personal accounts. Within two months, he lost over half of it on seven-figure stock trades. He spent the rest on cryptocurrency.
Then, lo and behold, Rinsch got a second chance: The crypto trades turned a profit. Did the director seize the opportunity to right his ship and finish the series? No, he didn't. Instead, he used the crypto profits to go on a $10 million shopping spree. According to prosecutors, he spent nearly $4 million on furniture and antiques, $2.4 million on five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari, almost $1 million on mattresses and linens and $650,000 on luxury watches and clothes.
The series was never completed. By 2021, Netflix had canceled the project and written off over $55 million in costs.
Rinsch's charges included one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering and five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. During the trial, he took the stand in his own defense, claiming that Netflix's millions were intended as reimbursement for the personal funds he invested in the series.
After less than five hours of jury deliberation, Rinsch was found guilty on all seven counts. Although he could face up to 90 years, he's expected to receive a much shorter sentence.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/47-ronin-director-found-guilty-of-defrauding-netflix-out-of-11-million-205519293.html?src=rssNew York passes law requiring ads to disclose the use of AI performers
New York is taking steps to regulate the use of AI in the state's entertainment industry. NY State Governor Kathy Hochul passed two pieces of legislation on Thursday that forces certain productions to disclose the use of AI-generated performers, and defines rules around how someone's likeness can be used after their death.
Assembly Bill A8887B, now known as S.8420-A, specifically covers the use of AI performers in advertisements. Per Hochul's announcement, the law "requires persons who produce or create an advertisement to identify if it includes AI generated synthetic performers." S.8391, meanwhile, "requires consent from heirs or executors if a person wishes to use the name, image, or likeness of an individual for commercial purposes after their death."
“By signing these bills today, we are enacting common sense laws that will ensure we are fully transparent when using images generated by artificial intelligence and also prevent the unauthorized commercial use of a deceased individual’s name or likeness," Governor Hochul said in the announcement. "In New York State, we are setting a clear standard that keeps pace with technology, while protecting artists and consumers long after the credits roll."
The use of AI performers and deepfakes made using the likenesses of actors were major focuses of the contract SAG-AFTRA won during its strike in 2023. The union ultimately agreed to allow for the use of things like digital replicas and AI-generated performers, with some key carveouts. For example, actors have to give their explicit consent for a digital replica to be made in their image. They also have to give their consent each time the replica is used and are supposed to receive a pre-negotiated rate every time the replica appears in a production.
New York's new regulations put further safeguards around both practices, and join a growing collection of state AI laws that have passed or are currently being considered this year. Because of the close relationship between tech companies and the Trump administration, though, multiple attempts have been made to prevent such laws from existing at all. A decade-long ban on state AI regulation was included in early drafts of the Big Beautiful Bill, and David Sacks, venture capitalist and White House Special Advisor, has reportedly gone to great lengths to try and get President Donald Trump to sign an executive order banning state AI regulation. The effort may have been worth it: The president posted on Tuesday that he would sign a new executive order focused on AI this week.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/new-york-passes-law-requiring-ads-to-disclose-the-use-of-ai-performers-202619826.html?src=rssFortnite is back on the Google Play Store
Epic Games has spent a lot of time in court over the past several years, but it seems the company's litigious era may be winding down. The company announced today that its game Fortnite is back on the Google Play mobile store in the US. Fortnite's return to Android devices means Epic's popular hit is now available on just about every gaming platform following five years of arguing antitrust lawsuits.
Epic took both Google and Apple to court over their policies for mobile payment systems back in 2020. The gaming company has been successful on the whole in its challenges, most recently reaching a settlement with Google in November. The companies agreed to a modified version of the order US District Judge James Donato originally placed on Google regarding fees charged to developers and handling of in-app payments and third-party billing systems.
The same saga unfolded earlier this year with Apple. US Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also sided with Epic Games in May, ordering Apple to stop collecting commissions on purchases made outside its own App Store. After a bit of back and forth, Fortnite finally returned to iOS in the US a few weeks later.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fortnite-is-back-on-the-google-play-store-195507458.html?src=rssOpenAI releases GPT-5.2 to take on Google and Anthropic
OpenAI's "code red" response to Google's Gemini 3 Pro has arrived. On the same day the company announced a Sora licensing pact with Disney, it took the wraps off GPT-5.2. OpenAI is touting the new model as its best yet for real-world, professional use. “It’s better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step projects,” said OpenAI.
In a series of 10 benchmarks highlighted by OpenAI, GPT-5.2 Thinking, the most advanced version of the model, outperformed its GPT-5.1 counterpart, sometimes by a significant margin. For example, in AIME 2025, a test that involves 30 challenging mathematics problems, the model earned a perfect 100 percent score, beating out GPT-5.1’s already state-of-the-art score of 94 perfect. It also achieved that feat without turning to tools like web search. Meanwhile, in ARC-AGI-1, a benchmark that tests an AI system’s ability to reason abstractly like a human being would, the new system beat GPT-5.1’s score by more than 10 percentage points.
OpenAI says GPT-5.2 Thinking is better at answering questions factually, with the company finding it produces errors 30 percent less frequently. “For professionals, this means fewer mistakes when using the model for research, writing, analysis, and decision support — making the model more dependable for everyday knowledge work,” the company said.
The new model should be better in conversation too. Of the version of the system most users are likely to encounter, OpenAI says “GPT‑5.2 Instant is a fast, capable workhorse for everyday work and learning, with clear improvements in info-seeking questions, how-tos and walk-throughs, technical writing, and translation, building on the warmer conversational tone introduced in GPT‑5.1 Instant.“
While it's probably overstating things to suggest this is a make or break release for OpenAI, it is fair to say the company does have a lot riding on GPT 5.2. Its big release of 2025, GPT-5, didn't meet expectations. Users complained of a system that generated surprisingly dumb answers and had a boring personality. The disappointment with GPT-5 was such that people began demanding OpenAI bring back GPT-4o.
Then came Gemini 3 Pro — which jumped to the top of LMArena, a website where humans rate outputs from AI systems to vote on the best one. Following Google's announcement, Sam Altman reportedly called for a "code red" effort to improve ChatGPT. Before today, the company's previous model, GPT-5.1, was ranked sixth on LMArena, with systems from Anthropic and Elon Musk's xAI occupying the spots between OpenAI between Google.
For a company that recently signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in a bid to outscale the competition, that was not a good position for OpenAI to be in. In his memo to staff, Altman said GPT-5.2 would be the equal of Gemini 3 Pro. With the new system rolling out now, we'll see whether that's true, and what it might mean for the company if it can't at least match Google's best.
OpenAI is offering three different versions of GPT-5.2: Instant, Thinking and Pro. All three models will be first available to users on the company’s paid plans. Notably, the company plans to keep GPT-5.1 around, at least for a little while. Paid users can continue to use the older model for the next three months by selecting it from the legacy models section.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-releases-gpt-52-to-take-on-google-and-anthropic-185029007.html?src=rssLawsuit accuses ChatGPT of reinforcing delusions that led to a woman's death
OpenAI has been hit with a wrongful death lawsuit after a man killed his mother and took his own life back in August, according to a report by The Verge. The suit names CEO Sam Altman and accuses ChatGPT of putting a "target" on the back of victim Suzanne Adams, an 83-year-old woman who was killed in her home.
The victim's estate claims the killer, 56-year-old Stein-Erik Soelberg, engaged in delusion-soaked conversations with ChatGPT in which the bot "validated and magnified" certain "paranoid beliefs." The suit goes on to suggest that the chatbot "eagerly accepted" delusional thoughts leading up to the murder and egged him on every step of the way.
The lawsuit claims the bot helped create a "universe that became Stein-Erik’s entire life—one flooded with conspiracies against him, attempts to kill him, and with Stein-Erik at the center as a warrior with divine purpose." ChatGPT allegedly reinforced theories that he was "100% being monitored and targeted" and was "100% right to be alarmed."
The chatbot allegedly agreed that the victim's printer was spying on him, suggesting that Adams could have been using it for "passive motion detection" and "behavior mapping." It went so far as to say that she was "knowingly protecting the device as a surveillance point" and implied she was being controlled by an external force.
The chatbot also allegedly "identified other real people as enemies." These included an Uber Eats driver, an AT&T employee, police officers and a woman the perpetrator went on a date with. Throughout this entire period, the bot repeatedly assured Soelberg that he was "not crazy" and that the "delusion risk" was "near zero."
The lawsuit notes that Soelberg primarily interfaced with GPT-4o, a model notorious for its sycophancy. OpenAI later replaced the model with the slightly-less agreeable GPT 5, but users revolted so the old bot came back just two days later. The suit also suggests that the company "loosened critical safety guardrails" when making GPT-4o to better compete with Google Gemini.
"OpenAI has been well aware of the risks their product poses to the public," the lawsuit states. "But rather than warn users or implement meaningful safeguards, they have suppressed evidence of these dangers while waging a PR campaign to mislead the public about the safety of their products."
OpenAI has responded to the suit, calling it an "incredibly heartbreaking situation." Company spokesperson Hannah Wong told The Verge that it will "continue improving ChatGPT's training to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress."
It's not really a secret that chatbots, and particularly GPT-4o, can reinforce delusional thinking. That's what happens when something has been programmed to agree with the end user no matter what. There have been other stories like this throughout the past year, bringing the term "AI psychosis" to the mainstream.
One such story involves 16-year-old Adam Raine, who took his own life after discussing it with GPT-4o for months. OpenAI is facing another wrongful death suit for that incident, in which the bot has been accused of helping Raine plan his suicide.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/lawsuit-accuses-chatgpt-of-reinforcing-delusions-that-led-to-a-womans-death-183141193.html?src=rssGoogle Disco is an experimental web browser that builds AI widgets based on your tabs
The latest experiment emerging out of Google Labs is Disco, which is the company's AI-driven approach to web browsing. The first feature for Disco is called GenTabs, built on Google's Gemini 3 model.
GenTabs are interactive widgets created from a mix of user prompts, open tabs and chat history. The preview examples demonstrate how GenTabs can create a model to demonstrate entropy as a study aid, or collect trip ideas into one screen for building an itinerary. The GenTab can be further refined with natural language requests, and it will also offer contextual suggestions for additions that may be helpful. Google's blog post announcing this concept notes that information given in a GenTab will include links to its sources.
Google has a waitlist for people who want to try out Disco and GenTabs, although for now it's only on macOS. Google Labs projects don't always go the distance to an official public release, and the company even acknowledged that GenTabs will likely have some wonkiness at this experimental stage. But it's been clear for months that big tech companies are gunning for the best and fastest ways to put their AI tools into browsers, so it seems likely that there will be more features in this vein coming up soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-disco-is-an-experimental-web-browser-that-builds-ai-widgets-based-on-your-tabs-180000701.html?src=rssRivian goes all in on 'universal hands-free' driving at its first Autonomy and AI day
EV automaker Rivian just held its inaugural Autonomy and AI day which, unsurprisingly, focused extensively on hands-free driving. An upcoming software update promises the introduction of "universal hands-free" driving. The company says its vehicles will be able to autonomously navigate more than 3.5 million miles of roads in North America, "covering the vast majority of marked roads in the US."
This is coming to the R2 line of EVs, but also Gen 2 R1 vehicles like the recently-released Rivian R1S. The service will be locked behind a subscription for something called Autonomy+ that includes self-driving, but also offers access to forthcoming and unannounced autonomous features. Rivian customers can pay $2,500 for lifetime access to the platform or $50 per month.
The R2 is getting LiDAR sensors, which will presumably help enable some of those upcoming autonomous features, in addition to a new chip called the Rivian Autonomy Processor. The processor has been designed for multimodal applications and runs the company's proprietary neural net engine. Both of these features are expected "to ship on R2 models starting at the end of 2026."
Today's event wasn't just about hands-free driving. Many of the company's vehicles will soon be given access to the AI-powered Rivian Assistant, which uses LLMs and can connect to apps like Google Calendar. This assistant will be model-agnostic, as it will "orchestrate different models and choose the best one for the task."
In addition to the upcoming R2, the company is prepping the R3 and R3X. A Rivian offshoot just introduced an extremely expensive, but modular, electric bike called the TM-B.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/rivian-goes-all-in-on-universal-hands-free-driving-at-its-first-autonomy-and-ai-day-172004733.html?src=rssDisney has accused Google of copyright infringement on a 'massive scale'
Disney has accused Google of copyright infringement on a "massive scale," alleging that the tech giant is training its AI tools on protected materials as well as allowing those tools to generate infringing images and videos. Variety reports that Disney attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google on Wednesday.
“Google is infringing Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale, by copying a large corpus of Disney’s copyrighted works without authorization to train and develop generative artificial intelligence (‘AI’) models and services, and by using AI models and services to commercially exploit and distribute copies of its protected works to consumers in violation of Disney’s copyrights,” reads the letter, which Variety reviewed.
The letter includes examples of images from several Disney properties including Deadpool, Moana, Star Wars and others, reproduced by Google's AI tools. Disney is demanding that Google implement guardrails within all its AI products to prevent further infringement. The media giant sent a similar letter to Character.AI in September, and is currently suing Hailuo and Midjourney over alleged copyright infringement.
Copyright enforcement has become more challenging in the face of AI-created imagery, and companies are increasingly taking an "if you can't beat them, join them" approach. Today Disney announced a deal with OpenAI to license its characters for use in Sora, OpenAI's video generator. The deal will see Disney invest $1 billion in OpenAI (a paltry sum by some standards), with the option to purchase additional equity at a later date.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/disney-has-accused-google-of-copyright-infringement-on-a-massive-scale-163737642.html?src=rssCES 2026 preview: What to expect from tech's biggest conference in January
CES doesn't start until January, but whispers of the products and announcements that could be in store for tech's biggest annual conference have already started to take shape. The CES 2026 show floor is officially open from January 6 through 9, although the show kicks off with events on Sunday January 4 and a host of press conferences on Monday. As always, product demos, announcements and networking will be happening at the Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding hotels all over the city. As usual, Engadget will be covering the event in-person and remotely, bringing you news and hands-ons straight from the show floor.
More specific details and pre-announcements should trickle out as CES approaches, but in the meantime, we do know what companies will be hosting press conferences and what tech trends could rear their heads at the show.
What we already know about
Press conferences and show floor booths are the bread and butter of CES. The Consumer Technology Association has already published a searchable directory of who will have a presence at the show, along with a schedule of every official panel and presentation.
On Sunday, January 4, Samsung will kick-off CES with "The First Look," a presentation hosted by TM Roh, the CEO of Samsung's DX Division, on the company's "vision for the DX (Device eXperience) Division in 2026, along with new AI-driven customer experiences."
That'll be followed by multiple press conferences throughout Monday, January 5. LG is hosting its "Innovation in Tune with You" presentation to share "its vision for elevating daily life through Affectionate Intelligence" at the start of the day, Intel is launching its new Core Ultra Series 3 processors in the afternoon, Sony Honda Mobility is holding a press conference on its first car and AMD CEO Lisa Su will cover AMD's upcoming chip announcements at a keynote address that closes out the day.
Finally, on Tuesday, January 6, Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang will host Lenovo's Tech World Conference at Sphere, using the large and decidedly curved screen to share the company's "commitment to delivering smarter AI for all by constantly redefining how technology can engage, inspire, and empower." It’s worth noting that Lenovo is the parent company of Motorola, which still makes phones and foldables that feature AI tools, so it’s possible those devices feature in the presentation as well.
Outside of the formal introduction of new products and initiatives, reading the tea leaves of what was announced last year and what companies are reportedly working on, we can make some educated guesses at what we could see at CES 2026.
New chips from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm
CES is frequently the start of a cascade of new chip announcements for a given year, and one of the first places new silicon appears in real consumer products. AMD will likely use its keynote to introduce new versions of its Ryzen chips, including the recently spotted Ryzen 7 9850X3D, which is expected to offer better single-threaded performance, and the Ryzen 9000G series, which could be built with AMD's Zen 5 architecture. The company might also use its CES stage to go over its new FSR Redstone AI upscaling tech.
Intel has already publicly announced that it'll launch its Panther Lake chips at CES 2026. The officially titled Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips fit into Intel's overall "AI PC" push, but are specifically meant for premium laptops. Based on a preview from October 2025, Intel says the first chip made with its 2-nanometer 18A process will offer 50 percent more processing performance than previous generations and for the chip's Arc GPU, a 50 percent performance bump from last generation.
Qualcomm is also rumored to be targeting laptops at the show, building on the work it's done moving its Snapdragon chips out of phones and tablets and into other types of computers. The company's Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Premium chips should start appearing in laptops at CES 2026, offering a look at the improved speed and AI performance the company promised in 2025.
Brighter, "truer" screens
Sony announced a collection of new Bravia TVs in April 2025, replacing the company's flagship, filling in its midrange options and adding a new budget model to the mix. The star of this updated Bravia lineup is the Bravia 9, which features a QD-OLED panel, but Sony appears to be prepping entirely new display tech for 2026. In March 2025, Sony introduced a new RGB LED panel that uses individual Mini LED backlights colored in red, green and blue to produce even brighter, more accurate colors. In contrast to a QD-OLED, which filters a layer of blue organic light emitting diodes through quantum dots that change color, Sony's "General RGB LED Backlight Technology" can get as bright as a Mini LED panel without needing an extra filter layer or worrying about OLED's problems with burn-in.
The company has already trademarked the name "True RGB," which could end up being what Sony calls this new flavor of display if it decides to show them off at CES. It seems entirely likely, because CES is nothing if not a TV show — it’s a sure bet that we’ll see new TVs from the likes of LG and Samsung in addition to Sony. If the company doesn't introduce new display tech for its TVs, it does have a new 240Hz PlayStation monitor coming in 2026 that it could show off at CES instead.
Sony isn't the only company hyped on bright screens. Samsung is reportedly pushing an updated version of the HDR10 and HDR10+ standards that could be ready to demo at CES 2026. The new HDR10+ Advanced standard would be Samsung's answer to Dolby Vision 2, which includes support for things bi-directional tone mapping and intelligent features that automatically adapt sports and gaming content. Samsung's take will reportedly offer improved brightness, genre-based tone mapping and intelligent motion smoothing options, among other improvements.
Ballie Watch 2026
The ball-shaped yellow robot lovingly known as "Ballie" has been announced twice, first in 2020 and then again in 2024 with a projector in tow. Samsung said Ballie would go on sale in 2025 at CES last year and then shared in April 2025 that Ballie would ship this summer with Google's Gemini onboard. But it's nearly 2026, and Ballie is nowhere to be seen. It's possible Samsung could make a third attempt at announcing its robot at CES 2026, but whether or not it does, robotics will still be a big part of the show.
Robot vacuums and mops were a major highlight of CES 2025, and it's safe to expect notable improvements from the new models that are announced at CES 2026. Not every company will adopt the retractable arm of the Roborock Saros Z70, but robot vacuums with legs for rising over small ledges like the Dreame X50 seem like they could become the norm. Roborock could also show off its new Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, the first of its robot vacuums to feature a retractable roller mop.
Beyond just traversing spaces more efficiently, improving robots' navigation could also be a major concern at the show. Prominent members of the AI industry are turning their attention from large language models to world models, which aim to give AI a deep understanding of physical space. Those world models could be the key to making robots, bipedal or otherwise, competent at navigating homes and workplaces, and will likely be a significant talking point at CES 2026.
We’ll be updating this article throughout the month as more rumors surface and new products are confirmed — stay tuned for future updates!
Update, December 11 2025, 11:03AM ET: This story has been updated to include detail on Lenovo being Motorola’s parent company and how the latter might have a part in the Tuesday presentation.
The best Christmas gifts to give everyone on your 2025 holiday shopping list
Finding the right gifts for everyone on your list this time of year can be a major source of stress. It can be even more daunting if you’re trying to stick to a budget all while getting the folks you love things that they will really appreciate. But there’s also a good chance you’re getting fed bad gift ideas (and just as bad deals) if you’re browsing the web frantically searching as we get closer and closer to the holidays.
Allow us at Engadget to help you through it. Here, you’ll find all of our holiday gift guides collected in one place, so you can more easily find the best Christmas gifts you need this year. Are you looking for white elephant gift ideas? Are you struggling to come up with a good gift for the father figure in your life? Are you just looking for a good board game to pick up for your own family? We’ve got you covered with gift ideas for all of those scenarios and more.
Best white elephant gift ideas
According to legend, the King of Siam would give a white elephant to courtiers who had upset them. The recipient had no choice but to simply thank the king for such an opulent gift, knowing that they likely could not afford the upkeep for such an animal. It would inevitably lead them to financial ruin. This story is almost certainly untrue, but it has led to a modern holiday staple: the white elephant gift exchange. These gift ideas will not only get you a few chuckles, but will also make your recipient feel (slightly) burdened.
Read more: The best white elephant gift ideas
Best Secret Santa gifts
Secret Santa gift exchanges are supposed to be fun, but it’s easy to overthink it. You want a gift that feels thoughtful without being awkward, useful without being boring, and most importantly, affordable. The sweet spot is under $50, which is plenty to find something that fits your recipient’s personality. Whether you’re buying for a co-worker you only chat with at the coffee machine, a friend who already has everything or a cousin who never gives you ideas, there are clever options that will make them smile.
Read more: The best Secret Santa gift ideas
Best tech gifts and gadgets
Trying to find the right gift for an unabashed gadget lover during the holidays can be difficult, especially if you don’t keep up with tech industry news yourself. Fortunately, you’re reading Engadget.com, a site entirely staffed by people who spend all day figuring out what new stuff is and isn’t actually good. So allow us to help. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite gadgets and gear that just might satisfy the avid geek in your life.
Read more: The best tech gifts and gadgets
Best board game gifts
We could all use more time away from screens of all types and sizes, and board games are a fun way to do that and bond with friends and family. You can find plenty of unique sets out there now, from word puzzles to whodunnits to calming playthroughs that showcase the beauty of the little things in life. From games with giant monsters to those with haunted mansions, we’re sure at least one of our suggestions will be a hit with you and your loved ones.
Read more: The best board games to gift this season
Best gifts for $25 or less
So you want to give someone a gift but you don’t have a ton of cash to spare. Don’t fret because first, you’re not alone, and second, there are tons of options to choose from. Especially if you’re looking in the tech space, it can feel especially daunting to find a gadget that’s affordable but also worth gifting — in other words, not a piece of junk that will eventually take up residence at the bottom of a drawer. But you don’t have to drain your wallet to get someone a cool gadget that will both be useful and make their lives easier. We’ve collected our favorite pieces of tech under $25 that make great gifts and help you to stick to a budget.
Read more: The best gifts for $25 or less
Best gifts under $50
We wouldn’t blame you if you try to do all of your tech shopping around the holidays. That’s when you can typically get the best sales, both on relatively affordable gear and (more importantly) on big-ticket items. But it would be wrong to think that only the most expensive tech is worth gifting. Since we at Engadget test a plethora of gadgets every year, we know that there are some hidden (and not so hidden) tech gems at lower price ranges — you just have to know where to find them.
Read more: The best gifts under $50 that make great stocking stuffers
Best gifts under $100
Finding a gift for the tech nerd on your list can be tough. They likely have all the tech they need and then some, but you can add to their kit with the right accessories. Apple, Samsung, Sony and other big tech companies all have affordable gear that comes in at $100 or less, you just have to know where to look. We've collected some of our favorites, but remember: you can often find alternatives that are just as good (and sometimes better) than these. However, for the people in your life for which brand names really do matter, these gifts will speak to them.
Read more: The best tech gifts under $100
Best tech toys for kids
We know it’s been a pretty crazy year that’s got you wondering how exactly you’re going to make the holiday season extra special, especially for the kids in your life. The good news is that the toy industry is just as creative as ever, and this year’s crop of hot tech toys is filled with plenty of surprise and delight, all at affordable prices. We’ve picked some of our favorites under $100, ones that will not only thrill right out of the box, but keep the kids entertained for months to come.
Read more: The best tech toys for kids
Best gifts for remote workers
There's a pretty good chance you know at least one person who works remotely in some fashion. While the WFH life has its perks — nobody likes a long commute — it comes with its own set of challenges, from lacking pro-level equipment to dealing with household disturbances. If you’re looking to give a gift to someone who spends much of their time in their home office, we’ve rounded up a few techy gift ideas that should make their days a little more delightful, or at least easier to manage.
Read more: The best gift ideas for the remote worker in your life
Best travel gifts
For as long as humans have traveled, they've carried gear with them to make long journeys easier. Airplanes may have made travel faster, but crossing states and countries can still be exhausting. If you have a friend or family member who loves exploring the world, they'll appreciate things that will save them stress when they're far from home. So let Engadget help you find the perfect gift for the person in your life with wanderlust.
Read more: The best gifts for travelers
Best gifts for Nintendo lovers
If you're like us, Nintendo holds a special place in your heart thanks to iconic characters like Mario, Peach and Donkey Kong and multiple generations of best-selling consoles. But little did we know that outside of gaming hardware and accessories, there's an ever-growing assortment of Nintendo-themed toys, clothes and decor. And it's kind of a problem because we want all of it. So to help you figure out the best gifts for the Nintendo fan in your life, we've put together a big list of our favorite products that will give anyone a power-up this holiday season. Of course, if none of the ones on our list quite fit the bill, you can also head over to our full list of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories for even more ideas.
Read more: The best Nintendo gifts for the holiday season
Best retro gaming gifts
The stream of new video games never ends, but for some of us, nothing beats the classics. If you don’t feel like hunting through eBay and local game shops for old cartridges to add to your loved one’s collection, we’ve picked out a few other gift ideas for the nostalgic gamer in your life — from video upscalers for old consoles to retro-themed books and artwork.
Read more: The best retro gaming gifts for the holidays
Best gifts for gamers
The year may not be over, but 2025 is all but guaranteed to go down as one of the best 12 months in gaming history. Between releases like Hades 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Ghost of Yotei, to name just a few, there was truly something for everyone in 2025. Of course, that abundance also means it can be tricky to find a gift for the gamers in your life, especially if you're not one yourself. Worry not — Engadget is here to help. We guarantee our guide will help you find the perfect gift for your friend or loved one.
Read more: The best gifts for gamers
Best gifts for moms
Some moms really do mean it when they say they don’t need any gifts. But those same moms will probably appreciate getting something thoughtful and personal — a gift that shows you put in a bit of consideration. It’s tough to pin-point what that ideal gift is for any given mom, but we’ve got ideas to get you started. Since we spend our days testing and otherwise thinking about tech, most of the presents here have a gadget spin, but all of them are a heck of a lot more unique than a candle and a bath bomb.
Read more: The best gifts for mom
Best gifts for dads
It's not always easy to find gifts for dads, especially for those who are often quick to snap up whatever they need on their own. But even the geekiest and most well-informed dads have blind spots — the trick is to find something they've never heard of, but could actually make their lives useful. We've collected some of our favorite dadcore gift ideas, which would suit everyone from a complete gadgetphobe to a total techie.
Read more: The best gifts for dads
Best subscription box gifts
Subscription boxes are the rare gift that keeps its charm long after the wrapping paper is gone. You make the choice once, but the surprises keep landing on their doorstep for months after that. For anyone who loves the buzz of a delivery, these are gifts that extend the season well past December. Each box on this list combines a bit of discovery with something tangible, such as gadgets, books, collectibles, snacks or clever projects. Some appeal to hardcore hobbyists, others to the curious or the comfort seekers, but all offer that same spark of delight that comes from unboxing something unexpected.
Read more: The best subscription box gifts
Best gifts for home cooks
For home cooks, kitchen tools are the equipment that make all your favorite dishes and meals possible. And while having the fanciest gear certainly isn't a requirement, it is really nice, which makes products like the ones here such great gifts. These are the kind of things that people want but might not be able to justify buying for themselves, or essential pieces that would be handy additions to any kitchen or pantry. So if you're looking for present ideas for the chef in your life, check out our guide of tried and tested cooking tools and gadgets.
Read more: The best cooking gifts
Best gifts for coffee lovers
When it comes to making coffee at home, us coffee nerds are constantly evolving. Whether the person you’re shopping for is newly indoctrinated into the world of small-batch roasters or obsessive over every possible aspect of every brewing process, we’ve compiled a list of the best coffee gear for any coffee geek this holiday season. For brewing, grinding and drinking, we’ve got multiple options at a range of prices to help expand any java geek’s horizons. And if you think the coffee aficionado on your list already has everything they need, we’ve got a recommendation for them too.
Read more: The best gifts for coffee lovers
Best gadgets for your pets
We're a pet-loving staff here at Engadget, with diverse distribution of cat people, dog people, other-small-fuzzy-creature people, bird feeder enjoyers and so on (at press time, I'm unsure if we have a rat person, but I'd be surprised if we didn't). And, of course, we love getting new gadgets of all sorts for our pets as much as for ourselves. Our list, with gifts as low-tech as a blanket and as high-tech as the best $30 two-way camera you'll ever use, is for the pet lover in your life — whether that's you or another favorite human.
Read more: The best gadgets for your pets
Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-christmas-gifts-to-give-everyone-on-your-2025-holiday-shopping-list-170018456.html?src=rssOne of our favorite budgeting apps is 50 percent off for new users
With a new year just around the corner, now is the perfect time to take stock of your finances. A budgeting app can help with that, and right now you can get 50 percent off your first year of a Monarch Money plan. All you need to do is enter the code MONARCHVIP at checkout and you’ll pay $50 for the initial 12 months instead of the regular price of $100. Note that the offer only applies to new users.
Monarch Money was the runner-up in our guide to the best budgeting apps in 2025, and it was definitely a grower. Initially we found the experience of using the app to be needlessly complicated compared to some of its rivals, but get over that hurdle and it’s impressively fully-featured. There are plenty of customization options, a helpful “goals” feature and a thorough month-in-review recap that beats out similar features from some of its competitors. We also like how you can grant account access to others.
Besides the steep learning curve, we also noted that the mobile app is less intuitive to use than the web version, which might pose a problem if you were hoping to do most of your accounting on the go. We also had some issues with the app failing to distinguish between bills and other recurring expenses, as well as a few bugs along the way.
All things considered, Monarch is definitely one of our favorite budgeting apps, only being beaten out by Quicken Simplifi. As you might expect, the biggest strength of Simplifi is its simplicity, and how it eases you into using its various features. If you value that kind of user experience, it might be a better choice for you, but there’s unfortunately no free trial to take advantage of.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/one-of-our-favorite-budgeting-apps-is-50-percent-off-for-new-users-154056449.html?src=rssThe 10 best last-minute Christmas gifts for the 2025 holiday season
We’re almost out of time — the holidays are just about here, and if you’re still doing your holiday shopping, you’re not alone. Between wrapping things up at work before some well-deserved time off and making sure you have everything you need to host family and friends, it can be hard to find the time to go shop for some gifts. And if you’re going to physical stores right now, you’re probably being met with half-empty shelves. But the internet remains an option, even this late in the game: you still have time to buy holiday gifts online.
USPS, UPS and FedEx have laid out their holiday shipping deadlines for 2025. At this point, we recommend picking up small, affordable gifts that will ship quickly from retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target so you have plenty of time to wrap them up nicely and make it look like you had everything well-planned from the start. Here are the best last-minute Christmas gifts you can get right now and still have in time before the holidays.
Best last-minute Christmas gifts
Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-10-best-last-minute-christmas-gifts-for-the-2025-holiday-season-140037254.html?src=rssApple's AirPods Pro 3 drop to a new record low of $199
No need to fret if you missed out on some of the best Black Friday deals this year — some of them have returned already. Case in point: Apple's AirPods Pro 3, which came out in September this year, are on sale for a new record low of $199. That's 20 percent off and better than the discount we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With the new AirPods Pro, Apple made some big improvements, including better battery life and sound quality, and introduced useful new features, such as Live Translation.
The AirPods Pro 3 are the best AirPods available today, with Apple's H2 chip, and earned a score of 90 out of 100 in Engadget's review this fall. Active noise cancellation (ANC) is one of the biggest selling points of the AirPods Pro, and Apple has made the experience even better with the AirPods Pro 3. They sport new foam-infused ear tips that create a better seal to improve passive noise isolation, and as Engadget's Billy Steele wrote in his review, "Ultra-low-noise microphones combine with advanced computational audio to silence even more background noise." In testing, they had no problem blocking out the chatter of people nearby or otherwise noisy environments.
With the AirPods Pro 3, Apple introduced heart-rate sensing, so you'll be able to see your heart rate data from the earbuds in the Fitness app and other workout apps. The AirPods Pro 3 also boast Live Translation, which you can activate via controls on the earbuds themselves. As long as you have an Apple Intelligence-capable device, you'll be able to translate in-person conversations in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin).
Also on sale in the world of AirPods are the AirPods 4 with ANC, which are down $119 when you pick them up with two years of AppleCare+.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-airpods-pro-3-drop-to-a-new-record-low-of-199-222806888.html?src=rssOpenAI signs deal to bring Disney characters to Sora and ChatGPT
It looks like Disney wasted no time delivering on CEO Bob Iger’s promise to bring AI-generated content to Disney+. On Thursday, the company announced the start of a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI to bring more than 200 of its beloved characters, including those from Star Wars and Pixar, to the Sora app and ChatGPT. With the deal in place, OpenAI users will be able to prompt ChatGPT to generate images that tap into Disney’s intellectual property, with costumes, props, vehicles and environments covered.
The agreement does not include voices or “talent likenesses,” meaning Sora users won’t be able prompt the app to make a video with Black Widow and get something with Scarlett Johansson in it. Instead, both Sora and ChatGPT will only have access to animated and illustrated versions of Marvel and Star Wars characters like Black Panther, Captain America, Han Solo, Darth Vader and others. Disney will stream “curated selections” of Sora-generated fan videos on Disney+. Sora and ChatGPT users will be able to start generating images and videos with Disney characters starting in early 2026.
“Disney is the global gold standard for storytelling, and we’re excited to partner to allow Sora and ChatGPT Images to expand the way people create and experience great content,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences.”
Disney has also agreed to become an OpenAI customer, promising to use the company’s APIs to build new products, tools and experiences. Additionally, Disney will invest $1 billion in OpenAI, with the option to purchase additional equity down the road. OpenAI recently completed a restructuring to become more of traditional profit-seeking corporation, clearing the way for a potential IPO sometime in the next year or so.
Reaction from the entertainment industry was mixed. In a statement released on Bluesky, The Writers Guild of America, which represents writers across film, television and other media, made it clear it is unhappy with the deal:
“Disney’s deal with OpenAI appears to sanction its theft of our work and cedes the value of what we create to a tech company that has built its business off our backs. We will meet with Disney to probe the terms of this deal, including the extent to which user-generated videoes will use the work of WGA members. We will continue to fight to protect our members’ creative and economic interests in the context of AI technology.”
SAG-AFTRA, the screen actors union which has around 160,000 members worldwide, was less incendiary. It posted a notice on its site saying that both Disney and OpenAI had reached out to the union to give “their assurances that they will meet their contractual and legal obligations to performers.” The union noted it would “closely monitor the deal and its implementation to ensure compliance with our contracts and with applicable laws protecting image, voice, and likeness.”
Update, December 11, 5:45PM ET: This story was updated after publish to include comment from the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-signs-deal-to-bring-disney-characters-to-sora-and-chatgpt-144344820.html?src=rssWario’s one and only 3D platformer is now playable on Switch 2
Nintendo has been slowly drip-feeding us GameCube games since the console joined its Nintendo Classics offering when the Switch 2 launched in June, and we just got another one. Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers can now play Wario’s one and only 3D platformer on the service.
Wario World launched in 2003 and was developed by Treasure (Gunstar Heroes, Ikaruga). You play as Wario, the flatulent antithesis of Nintendo’s primary mascot, in what is a combat-heavy platformer. Wario’s castle has been overthrown by an evil piece of sentient jewellery called Black Jewel, and it’s up to the garlic-loving antihero to punch and piledrive everything in sight in order to reclaim it.
Wario World was a relative commercial hit for Nintendo, but while many reviewers praised its chaotic gameplay, the game’s short length pulled the scores down. Interestingly, the same criticism was leveled at the similarly brief Luigi’s Mansion, which joined the Nintendo Classics app just ahead of Halloween.
Wario World becomes the seventh GameCube game that can be played on the Switch 2 via NSO. The service launched with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX and Soulcalibur II. Since then Nintendo has added Super Mario Strikers, Chibi-Robo!, Luigi’s Mansion and now Wario World. The likes of Super Mario Sunshine and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance will arrive at some point.
It’s been a good week for NSO subscribers who enjoy retro 3D platformers. Yesterday Nintendo announced that Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble are coming to its N64 emulator on December 17.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/warios-one-and-only-3d-platformer-is-now-playable-on-switch-2-133011950.html?src=rssPick up our favorite Anker MagSafe power bank while it's on sale for 34 percent off
If you're traveling for the holidays, there are few things more useful to take with you than a portable charger. Whether you're using your phone for music and navigation on a long drive or music and logistics before, during and after a flight, you'll want it to stay alive for the entire door-to-door journey. A number of our favorites — like this Anker MagGo 10K bank — are on sale right now for record-low, or close to them, prices.
Even better, the Anker MagGo power bank is currently on sale for $60, down from $90. This 34 percent discount brings the power bank to only $5 more than its all-time low price. We're big fans of Anker's MagGo power bank — one of the first and best Qi2-certified products available. You can get about 1.7 iPhone 15 charges out of it and bring your phone from five percent to 60 percent in a little more than 45 minutes. Plus, the stand makes it easy to keep using your phone while it charges.
Two of our other picks for best MagSafe power bank are also on sale — and down to record-low prices. The Baseus Picogo 25W Power Bank is 24 percent off and down to $53 from $70. Meanwhile, the Ugreen MagFlow 10,000mAh 25W Power Bank has dropped to $60 from $90 — a 33 percent discount.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/pick-up-our-favorite-anker-magsafe-power-bank-while-its-on-sale-for-34-percent-off-151039668.html?src=rssGoogle's Gemini AI comes to Chrome on iPhone and iPad
After rolling it out on desktop and Android earlier in 2025, Google is finally bringing its built-in Gemini AI experience to iPhone and iPad. It offers new features like summarizing pages and helping you test your knowledge about a subject you're learning. As with any AI tool, though, it shouldn't be trusted for anything important given the possibility of hallucinations and other errors.
When it arrives on your iOS device, tapping the spark icon at the left of the address bar (in place of the Google Lens camera) brings up a "Pages tool" that offers Lens and the new feature, "Ask Gemini." You can then chat with Gemini about the current web page (by default) or any other topic. It may then offer suggestions that appear in the chat box like:
Summarize page: Tap to get key takeaways and insights that help you understand any topic.
Create FAQ about this topic: Tap to get FAQs based on info from this page and similar sites.
If you elect to just type in the chat window, here are some examples of what you can do:
Summarize key takeaways from an article
Explain a complex topic in a different way
Help you test your knowledge of a new subject you’re learning
Modify a recipe to meet dietary needs
Compare information or make recommendations based on your preferences
The response to your chat questions will float over the web page that then shifts to the background. A new chat can be started from the top right corner, and you'll see a Liquid Glass overflow menu.
For now, Gemini in Chrome on iPhone and iPad is only supported in the US with the browser language set to English. You need to be signed into Chrome and the feature doesn't work in incognito mode. Google also noted that the feature is only available to users 18 and older and may not roll out to your device immediately.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-gemini-ai-comes-to-chrome-on-iphone-and-ipad-130003432.html?src=rssUS could demand five-year social media history from tourists before allowing entry
Tourists from Europe and other regions could be asked to provide a five-year social media history before given entry to the United States, according to a new proposal from the US Customs and Border Protection service (CBP). The new rule would affect visitors from countries who normally enjoy relatively easy entry to the US via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
The new proposal cites an executive order issued by President Trump from January titled "Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats." In his first year in office, Trump has been hyper-focused on strengthening US borders and reducing what he calls illegal immigration.
The US state department will conduct "online presence" reviews for applicants and their dependents and require privacy settings on social media profiles to be made "public." Applicants must list all the social media handles they've used over the last five years and if any information is omitted, it could lead to the denial of current and future visas. The CBP didn't say what information they were looking for or what could be disqualifying.
On top of the social media information, CBP may require applicant's telephone numbers and email addresses used over the last five and 10 years respectively, along with information about family members.
The new conditions are liable to increase ESTA wait times and drastically boost the cost of enforcing it. The CPB's document suggests that an additional 5,598,115 man-hours would be required per year, or around 3,000 full-time jobs plus all the costs that entails. Right now, the ESTA application costs $40, allows people to visit the US for 90 days at a time and is valid for a two-year period.
The mandatory social media reporting and other requirements could discourage travelers. Some Australian tourists who were coming to the US for the upcoming World Cup have now said that they've abandoned those plans, according to The Guardian, with one person calling the new rules "horrifying."
However, when asked if the proposal could lead to a tourism decline in the US, Trump said he wasn't concerned. "No. We're doing so well," he told a reporter. "We want to make sure we're not letting the wrong people come enter our country."
The CPB emphasized that the new conditions were only a proposal for now. "Nothing has changed on this front for those coming to the United States [currently]," a spokesperson told the BBC. "This is not a final rule, it is simply the first step in starting a discussion to have new policy options to keep the American people safe."
If implemented, the rule would affect people from 40 countries, including the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan. The largest number of tourists to the US come from Canada and Mexico, accounting for nearly half of the total — however, visitors with passports from those two countries don't require a visa or ESTA approval. Travel to the US was down three percent this year compared to 2024 as of August 2025, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/us-could-demand-five-year-social-media-history-from-tourists-before-allowing-entry-102751243.html?src=rssThe best noise-canceling headphones for 2025
Noise is hard to escape, whether it’s the hum of traffic, the buzz of a busy office or the neighbor’s lawn mower starting up right when you need to focus. That’s where noise-canceling headphones earn their keep. A good pair doesn’t just quiet the world around you, it creates a pocket of calm so you can actually enjoy your music, podcasts or peace and quiet.
Modern noise-canceling headphones have come a long way, combining powerful ANC with clearer sound, longer battery life and smarter features like adaptive modes and multipoint connectivity. Some emphasize comfort for long flights, while others are tuned for audiophiles who want studio-level clarity.
We’ve tested a wide range of options to find the best noise-canceling headphones for every listener. Whether you’re after something lightweight for travel or a premium set for focused work sessions, these picks deliver the sound, silence and comfort you need to tune out the chaos.
Table of contents
Best noise-canceling headphones of 2025
How to choose the best noise-canceling headphones for you
Design
When you’re shopping for the best wireless headphones, the first thing you’ll need to decide on is wear style. Do you prefer on-ear or over-ear headphones? For the purposes of this guide, I focus on the over-ear style as that’s what most noise-canceling headphones are nowadays. Sure, you can find on-ear models with ANC, but over-ear, active noise-canceling headphones are much more effective at blocking outside sounds since your ears are completely covered.
For gamers, there are also gaming headsets that feature noise cancellation — some even have detachable microphones, so they can double as over-ear headphones. However, for the purpose of this article, we’re only going to be focusing on noise-canceling headphones rather than headsets. Look for models with a comfortable headband and memory foam ear cups to ensure you can wear them for long periods without discomfort.
Many headphones also come with a range of color options, so if aesthetics matter to you, you’ll find plenty of choices beyond just black or white. Whether you’re looking for something neutral or a bold pop of color, brands now offer a variety of styles to match your personal taste.
Finally, if you’re planning to wear your headphones for long periods of time, it’s important to pick a model with a comfortable fit. Memory foam ear cups, an adjustable headband, and lightweight materials can make all the difference during extended listening sessions. After all, great sound is only part of the equation; comfort matters just as much.
Type of noise cancellation
Next, you’ll want to look at the type of ANC a set of headphones offers. You’ll come across terms like “hybrid active noise cancellation” or “hybrid adaptive active noise cancellation,” and there are key differences between the two. A hybrid ANC setup uses microphones on the inside and on the outside of the device to detect outside noise and cancel it out. By analyzing input from both mics, a hybrid system can combat more sounds than “regular” ANC, but it does so at a constant level that doesn’t change.
Adaptive ANC takes the hybrid configuration a step further by continuously adjusting the noise cancellation for changes in your environment and any leakage around the padding of the ear cups. Adaptive noise-canceling also does a better job with wind noise, which can really kill your vibe while using headphones outdoors. Some high-end headphones also support Dolby Atmos, which enhances spatial audio and makes everything from music to movies sound more immersive. For the purposes of this best headphones list, I’m only considering products with hybrid ANC or adaptive ANC setups because those are the most effective at blocking noise and improving your overall listening experience.
Customization
You’ll also want to check to see if the ANC system on a prospective set of headphones offers adjustable levels of noise cancellation or presets. These can help you dial in the amount of ANC you need for various environments, but it can also help you save battery life. Master & Dynamic, for example, has ANC presets that provide both maximum noise blocking and more efficient cancellation that is more energy efficient. Other companies may include a slider in their companion apps that let you adjust the ANC level to your liking. Some high-end models even allow you to fine-tune the ANC for specific types of environments.
How we test noise-canceling headphones
The primary way we test headphones is to wear them as much as possible. I prefer to do this over a one-to-two-week period, but sometimes deadlines don’t allow it. During this time, I listen to a mix of music and podcasts, while also using the headphones to take both voice and video calls.
Since battery life for headphones can be 30 hours or more, I drain the battery with looping music and the volume set at a comfortable level (usually around 75 percent). Due to the longer battery estimates, I’ll typically power the headphones off several times and leave them that way during a review. This simulates real-world use and keeps me from having to constantly monitor the process for over 24 straight hours.
To test ANC performance specifically, I use headphones in a variety of environments, from noisy coffee shops to quiet home offices. When my schedule allows, I use them during air travel since plane noise is a massive distraction to both work and relaxation. Even if I can’t hop on a flight, I’ll simulate a constant roar with white noise machines, bathroom fans, vacuums and more. I also make note of how well each device blocks human voices, which are a key stumbling block for a lot of ANC headphones.
ANC-related features are something else to consider. Here, I do a thorough review of companion apps, testing each feature as I work through the software. Any holdovers from previous models are double checked for improvements or regression. If the headphones I’m testing are an updated version of a previous model, I’ll spend time getting reacquainted with the older set. Ditto for the closest competition for each new set of headphones that I review.
Other noise-canceling headphones we tested
AirPods Max
Apple’s AirPods Max are premium, well-designed over-ear headphones that incorporate all of the best features you find on standard AirPods: solid noise cancellation, spatial audio and easy Siri access. However, their $550 starting price makes them almost prohibitively expensive, even for Apple users. There are better options available at lower prices, but if you can pick up the AirPods Max at a steep discount, they might be worthwhile for the biggest Apple fans among us.
Dyson On-Trac
The On-Trac headphones have an almost infinitely customizable design, and that’s what’s most unique about them. The sound profile offers some nice detail, but lacks dynamic range overall. ANC is average at best and there aren’t any advanced features that will make your life easier. Well, except for the hearing health monitor, which is actually handy. All told, that’s not a lot for a set of $500 headphones.
Sonos Ace
The Sonos Ace is an excellent debut for the company’s first headphones. The combination of refined design, great sound quality and home theater tricks creates a unique formula. However, ANC performance is just okay and key functionality is still in the works for many users.
Sony ULT Wear
If most headphones don’t have the level of bass you desire, the ULT Wear is an option to consider. The low-end thump isn’t for everyone, but there are also plenty of handy features and a refined look to make the $200 set more compelling than many in this price range.
Beats Studio Pro
The Studio Pro lacks basic features like automatic pausing, and multipoint connectivity is only available on Android. Moreover, they’re not very comfortable for people with larger heads. Overall sound quality is improved, though, and voice performance on calls is well above average.
Master & Dynamic MH40 (2nd gen)
The MH40 are a great set of headphones if you favor crisp, clear and natural sound that isn’t overly tuned. This pair showcases the company’s affinity for leather and metal too, but limited customization and short battery life for non-ANC cans kept this set from making the cut.
Bowers & Wilkins Px8
The company’s trademark pristine sound is on display here, but the Px8 is more expensive and not nearly as comfortable as the Px7 S3.
Noble Audio FoKus Apollo
While this is my top pick for overall sound quality in our main guide to the best wireless headphones, the ANC performance is less impressive than the Px7 S3. Bowers & Wilkins gets the nod here for its improved noise cancellation over the Px7 S2 and Px7 S2e, and its overall excellent audio quality.
Noise-canceling headphones FAQs
Does noise cancellation block all noise?
Noise cancellation doesn’t block out all noise, though it does drastically reduce the volume of most external sounds.
Is there a difference between wired vs wireless noise-canceling headphones?
In terms of sound quality, if you have two headphones — one wired and one wireless — with similar specs, the difference is going to be very minimal. However, wireless headphones offer more convenience, allowing you to move around more freely with your headphones on, which is why they often feature noise cancellation to minimize external sounds.
Does noise cancellation impact sound quality?
ANC does bear some weight on sound quality, but the impact of this often doesn’t outweigh the benefits. Noise cancellation reduces ambient noise, allowing a greater focus on audio detail. For audiophiles, however, there may be a small difference in sound fidelity when ANC is turned on.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/best-noise-canceling-headphones-130029881.html?src=rssThe best streaming deals: Save on MasterClass, Audible, Philo and others
Streaming services keep raising prices. At this point, if you subscribe to all the major services out there, you're basically paying the same price as cable — those antiquated local monopolies that streaming was supposed to save us from. But streaming still has one big advantage over the old ways: no contracts. That means you can grab a good streaming deal and then cancel without penalty.
Our advice is to sign up for a service when you see a good streaming deal (or the latest season of, say, Doctor Who, Severance, Andor and/or The Last of Us). Then, when the deal ends or you've binged whatever it is you want to watch, cancel as needed. But streaming deals don't come around all that often and, when they do, it's easy to miss them thanks to...everything. So we're keeping eyes out for the best streaming deals out there and we update this guide often — so check it out the next time you have a hankering to watch something new.
Best streaming deals
True streaming deals can be hard to come by. Most often, they’ll pop up during the Black Friday shopping period. On occasion, we’ll see them sparingly throughout the year and they usually take the form of a discounted monthly or annual rate for a limited period of time. Also, true streaming deals are typically on the ad-supported versions of a service, but once in a while you’ll find a unicorn of a deal on a tier that has ad-free viewing.
If you’re able to wait for a deal before subscribing to a streaming service, we recommend doing so. You’ll save money upfront and in the long run, and you also have the option to cancel your subscription before the price goes back up to the normal rate.
Philo Core — $25 for your first month ($8 off): Our pick for the best cheap live TV streaming service, Philo offers more than 70 channels in its Core tier, plus access to HBO Max (with ads), AMC+ and Discovery+. After your first month, the subscription will auto-renew at the standard $33-per-month rate.
Audible — three months for $3: For literally $1 per month, you can get access to Audible's enormous library of published audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals (which can be anything from never-before-heard books to live performances). It's only three months, after which you'll have to cancel or renew at the regular price, but an audiobibliophile can cram a lot of listening into 90 days.
Starz (one year) for $12 ($58 off): Pay upfront for one year and you can get more than $40 off a Stars annual subscription. There's a month-to-month option too, which costs $3 per month for the first three months if you don't want to commit to the full year. Either option gives you access to the entire Starz TV and movie library with offline viewing and no ads.
Spotify Premium Individual — four months for free ($48 off): This is our favorite music streaming service for podcasts and social features. The Premium Individual plan lets you listen ad-free and skip songs at will. You can also organize your listening queue and download content for offline listening. Just be aware, your subscription will auto-renew at the end of the trial period. So if you don't want to be on the hook for the $12 monthly fee, set a reminder to cancel and go back to the free version.
Amazon Music Unlimited — three months for free ($36 off): Amazon's own music streaming service is now free for three months, for new subscribers only. With it, you get access to 100 million songs with no ads, many podcasts and some audiobooks from Audible as well.
Fubo Pro for $55/month for the first month ($30 off): Fubo has introductory discounts on most of its packages, and the Pro package is the least expensive plan currently listed. It offers access to 224 channels, unlimited cloud DVR and up to 10 simultaneous streams. It even includes regional sports content from the NHL, MLB and NBA.
DirecTV starting at $50/month for one month (up to $40 off): All of DirecTV's signature packages are up to $45 off right now for your first month when you sign up. If you opt for the base "Entertainment" package, you'll spend $50 for the first month and get access to over 90 channels, including many local stations as well as ESPN, ESPN 2 and Fox Sports 1. You'll also be able to watch on the go with the DirecTV mobile app.
Streaming bundle discounts
There’s more consolidation happening now than ever before in the streaming space, and that means there are more streaming bundle options. These bundles offer you access to more content with one subscription price, but those prices are typically higher than paying for a single service by itself (obviously). It may be tempting to just get the bundle, but if only one of those services in the bundle speaks to you, you’ll spend less overall by just paying for the single service.
Speaking of a deep love for a single streaming service: if all of your favorite shows are on Peacock or the latest releases on HBO Max consistently bring you joy, consider paying for one year upfront. Subscribing with an annual plan usually saves you money in the long term over paying on a monthly basis. Unfortunately, not all streaming services (looking at you, Netflix) have an annual subscription option.
Disney+
If you feel like Charlie Kelly trying to figure out who Pepe Silvia is when you look at Disney's streaming prices chart, you're not alone. The confusion comes from the fact that Disney owns, or has a hand in, many streaming services including Hulu and ESPN. Throw in a partnership with HBO Max and you have a ton of options to consider and, probably, whiplash to match. Here's a quick overview of popular Disney+ bundle pricing.
Disney+ and Hulu bundle (with ads) — $13/month
Disney+ and Hulu bundle (without ads) — $20/month
Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Select (with ads) — $20/month
Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Select (without ads on Disney+ and Hulu only) — $30/month
Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max (with ads) — $20/month
Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max (without ads) — $33/month
Peacock TV
Peacock doesn't have any streaming bundles available all year round, but you can save if you pay for one year upfront.
Peacock Select (with ads) — $8/month or $80/year
Peacock Premium (with ads) — $11/month or $110/year
Peacock Premium Plus (without ads) — $17/month or $170/year
Paramount+
Paramount+ used to bill its tier with Showtime as a sort of bundle, but it has since renamed its plans and focused the Showtime inclusion in its premium tier as just another bonus of paying for the higher priced plan.
Paramount+ Essential (with ads) —$8/month or $60/year
Paramount Premium (without ads) — $13/month or $120/year
Student discounts on streaming services
It pays to be a student — sometimes, at least. A number of streaming services have student discounts you can take advantage of as long as you're actively studying. What that translates to most of the time is being able to verify your student status and signing up with your .edu email address.
HBO Max student discount — subscribe for $5/month (50 percent off): HBO Max offers their ad-supported tier to students for half off the usual rate. You’ll just have to verify that you’re a student through Unidays, and make note that this offer is only good for up to 12 months of service.
Hulu student discount — subscribe for $2/month (75 percent off): Those with a valid student ID can get Hulu’s ad-supported tier for 75 percent off the typical rate. They’ll keep the same sale price for as long as they’re a student as well.
Spotify student discount — Premium + Hulu with ads for $6/month (72 percent off): Spotify’s student offer continues to be one of the best around, giving you access to the Premium tier of the music streamer and Hulu’s ad-supported plan for only $6 monthly. Purchased separately, you’d pay $22 per month for both of the services. Plus, the first month is free when you sign up.
NBA League Pass student discount — one year for $120 (40 percent off): Students can get one year of League Pass for only $10 per month, which includes access to NBA TV and the ability to watch classic and archive games on-demand. On the NBA League Pass website, look for the student discount banner at the top and follow the instructions to verify your student status.
Read more streaming coverage
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/best-streaming-service-deals-133028980.html?src=rssMewgenics, the next game from The Binding of Isaac's developer, will arrive next February on PC
Indie game developer Edmund McMillen hosted a Reddit AMA today offering some more details about his upcoming game Mewgenics. For starters, the Steam release date for this turn-based cat-breeding RPG has been slightly delayed to February 10. The game was first announced all the way back in 2012 and had most recently been slated for a launch some time this year. Part of the long development cycle was so that McMillen could pause to launch Super Meat Boy Forever, the sequel to his Super Meat Boy platforming hit from 2010. Gamers may also know McMillen for The Binding of Isaac, which has had some notable crossovers with titles like Balatro in recent years.
Other tidbits from the AMA include the promise that McMillen already has DLC ideas, so expect to have additional content release after the base game is available. Although there doesn't seem to be any lack of replayability in Mewgenics; McMillen said "I currently have 300+ hours across 2 saves and have only beaten the game on one save so far." There is also a plan to have some console versions of the game, although likely not until much later next year at the soonest, the dev added.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/mewgenics-the-next-game-from-the-binding-of-isaacs-developer-will-arrive-next-february-on-pc-235740063.html?src=rssThe NES game Jaws is getting a retro physical re-release on Switch and PS5
The year is 1987. Beverly Hills Cop II is the highest-grossing movie. "Walk Like an Egyptian" is the hottest song. The Iran-Contra scandal dominates American political headlines, while Konami’s Contra sucks up coins in arcades. But towering above them all is the watershed moment of Jaws arriving on the NES. ("This time there's no escape!", warned the box art.) Now, 38 years later, the 8-bit game is returning as a Limited Run Games physical re-release.
The retro release coincides with the Spielberg movie's 50th anniversary. From December 19 to January 18, you can pre-order a physical copy for Switch and PS5.
It will be available in two physical editions: a standard ("Retro Edition") one for $35, and a deluxe ("The Bigger Boat Edition") one for $100. The latter adds an NES-inspired box, a physical CD of the game soundtrack, a keychain and — best of all — a pixelated shark lamp. Both versions include original and "enhanced" versions of the 1987 game.
The game is split mainly between a birds-eye view (where you pilot your boat around the map) and an underwater side view (where you harpoon the shit out of marine wildlife). Eventually, you'll encounter Jaws. After several of these encounters, gradually diminishing his hit points, you'll try to finish him off in a faux-3D perspective on the water's surface. If you think this sounds like a minor variation of what you found in a handful of other licensed NES games from that era, you wouldn't be wrong.
You can pre-order the Jaws re-release from Limited Run Games' website, starting on December 19 at 10 AM ET. In the meantime, you can refresh your memory of the 8-bit game with the video below.
Apple TV and Apple Music were down for some users
Apple Music and Apple TV were briefly down during outage, according to Apple’s System Status page. The outage was logged on Apple’s own system at around 2:53PM ET and affected both of the company’s streaming services, along with Apple TV’s Channels feature, until the company resolved the issue around 4:31PM ET.
On DownDetector, reports of issues with Apple TV and Apple Music first appeared right around 2:33PM ET, a little before Apple officially confirmed the outage on its own site. Only “some” users were affected by the outage, according to Apple, and anecdotally, multiple members of Engadget’s staff were still able to stream content while the services were reportedly out.
Engadget has reached out to Apple for more information on the outage and how many people were impacted. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
Apple relies on cloud services from third-party companies like Amazon, and is ultimately only as stable the data centers it’s paying for. In October 2025, the company was impacted by the same Amazon Web Services outage that took down services and apps like Alexa, Fortnite and Snapchat for hours.
Update, December 10, 5:09PM ET: Article and headline updated to reflect that the outage has been resolved.
Meta is reportedly working on a new AI model called 'Avocado' and it might not be open source
Mark Zuckerberg has for months publicly hinted that he is backing away from open-source AI models. Now, Meta's latest AI pivot is starting to come into focus. The company is reportedly working on a new model, known inside of Meta as "Avocado," which could mark a major shift away from its previous open-source approach to AI development.
Both CNBC and Bloomberg have reported on Meta's plans surrounding "Avocado," with both outlets saying the model "could" be proprietary rather than open-source. Avocado, which is due out sometime in 2026, is being worked on inside of "TBD," a smaller group within Meta's AI Superintelligence Labs that's headed up by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who apparently favors closed models.
It's not clear what Avocado could mean for Llama. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg said he expected Meta would "continue to be a leader" in open source but that it wouldn't "open source everything that we do." He's also cited safety concerns as they relate to superintelligence. As both CNBC and Bloomberg note, Meta's shift has also been driven by issues surrounding the release of Llama 4. The Llama 4 "Behemoth" model has been delayed for months; The New York Times reported earlier this year that Wang and other execs had "discussed abandoning" it altogether. And developers have reportedly been unimpressed with the Llama 4 models that are available.
There have been other shakeups within the ranks of Meta's AI groups as Zuckerberg has spent billions of dollars building a team dedicated to superintelligence. The company laid off several hundred workers from its Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit. And Meta veteran and Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, who has been a proponent for open-source and skeptical of LLMs, recently announced he was leaving the company.
That Meta may now be pursuing a closed AI model is a significant shift for Zuckerberg, who just last year said "fuck that" about closed platforms and penned a lengthy memo titled "Open Source AI is the Path Forward." But the notoriously competitive CEO is also apparently intensely worried about falling behind OpenAI, Google and other rivals. Meta has said it expects to spend $600 billion over the next few years to fund its AI ambitions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source-215426778.html?src=rss