Category: Technology

Now is a good moment to buy a second Xbox controller for your local multiplayer games — or a livelier-looking replacement for the gamepad you already have. Amazon is selling the Xbox Core Wireless Controller for up to 26 percent off. The white model is the most affordable of the bunch at $45 (normally $60), but you’ll also find significant savings for the blue, red and Electric Volt (read: neon green) variants.

Buy Xbox Core Wireless Controller at Amazon – $45

If you own an Xbox Series X or Series S, you know what to expect. The Core Wireless Controller largely offers Microsoft’s years-old layout, just with an Elite-style circular directional pad (better for fighting games and some other titles), a share button and better grip. It’s not as clever as Sony’s PS5-oriented DualSense, but it’s comfortable, offers Bluetooth support and lasts up to three days on AA batteries. It’s clearly the gamepad of choice if you want to use an official design and don’t want to pay the premium for Elite Series 2.

As you’d guess, you won’t get any frills with these gamepads like you would with the Elite or some third-party pads. You won’t find swappable covers or sticks, a luxurious feel or other upgrades catering to the most dedicated gamers. At these sale prices, though, the Xbox Core Wireless lineup is an easy choice when you just need an extra controller for your child or the occasional sports game showdown.

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It’ll soon be easier for WhatsApp users to invite other folks to join a call. Meta is rolling out the option to share Call Links. If you see one of these links, you’ll be able to join a call with a single tap. You’ll need the latest version of WhatsApp to use Call Links. From the app’s Calls tab, you can select the Call Links option. You can then generate a link for a voice or video call to share with family and friends.

It’s a handy feature, and one that we’ve already seen Apple adopt. Last year, the company started offering sharable FaceTime links that allow others to join calls from Android devices and Windows PCs. While Apple enables people to schedule calls ahead of time using links, WhatsApp will not offer a similar feature, a spokesperson confirmed to Engadget.

In addition, WhatsApp has started testing encrypted group video calls for up to 32 people, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. The company will share more details on that front soon.

Update 9/26 11:53AM ET: Added clarification that WhatsApp will not allow users to schedule calls. 

 

After missing 2022 altogether, one of the most important gaming trade shows will return next year. On Monday, the Entertainment Software Association announced that E3 2023 will take place between June 13th and June 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center, with the event open to the public starting on June 15th. Ahead of the show proper, there will also be partner showcases that will start on June 11th.

Before announcing last year’s cancelation, the ESA had planned to host a digital-only event but later changed course. At the time, the organization said it would devote its resources to delivering a “revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer.” For next year’s show, the ESA has recruited the help of ReedPop, a company with experience organizing events like PAX, EGX and Star Wars Celebration.

The 2023 show will be an important one for the ESA. Even before the pandemic, E3 had waned in importance as companies like Sony decided not to take part in the 2019 edition. In many ways, the ESA also has yet to regain the trust of the industry after it inadvertently leaked the contact information of more than 2,000 journalists, analysts and content creators that same year.

 

September 26th is The Last Of Us Day and HBO is marking the occasion with the first trailer for its highly anticipated adaptation of Naughty Dog’s game. The clip, which runs for just over a minute and a half, includes some of the most memorable moments from the 2013 title (which just got a complete remake for PS5). It features the leaning building from an early level and a bombastic opening outbreak sequence, as well as the unmistakable sound of a Clicker. It seems that the show will draw from the Left Behind expansion as well.

For the uninitiated, The Last of Us tells the story of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsay). The pair travel across a near-future version of the US that has been left devastated by a fungal infection, which turns victims into aggressive, zombie-like creatures. The trailer does a solid job of capturing the terrifying atmosphere of the game.

It’s clear HBO has high hopes for the series. Last month, it closed out a big sizzle reel that highlighted upcoming projects with the first footage from the show. While there’s no specific release date as yet, The Last of Us will premiere on HBO and HBO Max in early 2023.

 

Aphex Twin is finally ready to offer his mutation-driven music software to the world. Pitchforknotes Aphex Twin (aka Richard James) and engineer Dave Griffiths have released Samplebrain, a free “sample mashing” app that turns audio files from your computer into sample blocks you can use for projects. You can recreate a sample using tracks in your music library, or craft a “303 riff” from unexpected sounds.

The app is available in ready-to-use versions for Mac and Windows computers. You can build a Linux-friendly edition as well. As Pitchfork warns, you may need some technical know-how to use the app — this isn’t for rookie musicians.

Samplebrain has been a long time coming, to put it mildly. James said he first envisioned the app in 2002, back when Drukqs was his latest release. He revealed that he’d hired an engineer to work on the software in 2014 (when he returned to music with Syro), but didn’t say much else until now. There’s a good reason for that, apparently. James and Griffiths realized the project became “slightly out of control” as they added more and more parameters, and James admitted he hasn’t had much time to “explore [Samplebrain] properly.” This is a bid to finally put the tool in creators’ hands, even if it’s in a rough form.

 

Lego has pulled back the curtain on its latest Star Wars set, and it’s one that will keep you occupied for a while. It’s a 72 cm-long version of the Razor Crest from the Disney+ show The Mandalorian. While there was already a 1,000-piece version of Din Djarin’s ship, this one has 6,187 pieces.

The set, which is part of the Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, features removable engines, along with a cockpit, escape pod and a carbon-freezing chamber that’s just the right size for a minifigure. Speaking of which, minifigures of Grogu, the Mandalorian, Mythrol and Kuiil (who can be placed on a buildable Blurrg model) come with the set. You can display the figures on a stand that includes an information plaque.

The model, which is 50 cm wide and 24 cm tall, costs $600. Lego VIP members can snap it up on October 3rd. Everyone else will have a shot at buying the Razor Crest set on October 7th at Lego’s website and stores.

Building the set could help fans of The Mandalorian pass some time until the show returns. The third season is slated to hit Disney+ in February 2023.

 

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is about to crash into the asteroid Dimorphos, and you’ll have plenty of options to follow along as it happens. The space agency is livestreaming coverage of the DART collision starting at 6PM Eastern, and you can tune into either a full presentation or a dedicated stream from the craft’s DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation) instrument. That last feed will show one image per second up to the moment of impact. The vehicle is expected to smash into Dimorphos at about 7:14PM, although its distance from Earth will delay the footage you see.

You aren’t tied to official sources, either. The Virtual Telescope Project will host its own stream starting at 6:30PM ET. It’s teaming up with two South African observatories to provide an Earth-bound view of the collision. The Didymos asteroid system (where Dimorphos is a moonlet) will just be a dot, but you should see it flare up after DART makes contact.

DART will gauge the viability of using spacecraft to deflect asteroids, comets and other objects that might otherwise strike Earth. If all goes well, it will show that NASA can use autonomous vehicles as defensive systems and confirm the results using ground telescopes. Dimorphos is an ideal candidate due to both its relative proximity and the lack of threats — NASA won’t inadvertently create the very calamity it’s trying to avoid.

This won’t be the only mission headed to the Didymos system, either. The European Space Agency expects its Hera mission to reach Didymos by 2026, when it will study DART’s effects on Dimorphos. If there are any questions left after tonight’s one-way flight, they should be answered within a few years.

 

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, next year’s iPhone could introduce a change to Apple’s naming convention. It could call its largest and most expensive device in 2023 the iPhone 15 Ultra instead of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Gurman expects the iPhone 15 to feature USB-C, among other “bigger changes” – which he didn’t elaborate on at this point.

Interestingly, Gurman thinks Apple might not hold another event this fall. He says the company will announce new Mac mini, MacBook Pro and iPad Pro models before the end of the year, but that they’ll likely be iterative and land without the Apple event fanfare.

– Mat Smith

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In ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader was voiced by an AI so James Earl Jones could retire

Respeecher recreated the actor’s voice as it was in 1977.

James Earl Jones has said goodbye to Darth Vader. At 91, the actor recently told Disney he was “looking into winding down this particular character.” That forced the company to ask itself how do you even replace Jones? The answer Disney eventually settled on, with the actor’s consent, involved an AI program. Respeecher can use archival recordings and a “proprietary AI algorithm” to create new dialogue featuring the voices of “performers from long ago.”

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‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ debuts December 25th on Netflix

Meanwhile, season three of ‘The Witcher’ arrives next summer.

The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series, will debut on December 25th. Set thousands of years before the story of the Witcher Geralt and Ciri, Blood Origin will center on the moment in the Witcher universe when humans, elves and monsters all come to inhabit the fantasy world of the series. Actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Scian, the elven protagonist. Originally slated to run six episodes, Blood Origin will instead be four episodes long.

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‘Oxenfree II: Lost Signals’ is delayed until 2023

Night School Studio needs more time to make the sequel ‘truly special.’

The sequel to 2016’s Oxenfree won’t arrive until next year, the developer announced on Saturday. “To make Oxenfree II truly special and add more localizations, we’re moving our release window to 2023,” the studio posted on Twitter. News of the delay came shortly after Netflix announced subscribers could download the original game for free. Yes, more than six years after its PC debut, Netflix is making Oxenfree available freely to those with a subscription to its streaming service.

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UK police arrest alleged ‘GTA VI’ hacker

The 17-year-old may also have been responsible for an Uber cybersecurity incident.

Police in the UK have arrested a 17-year-old suspected hacker, with reports connecting it to the Rockstar Games hack that led to a major Grand Theft Auto VI leak. The individual may have been involved with an intrusion on Uber as well. The arrest is the result of an investigation involving the City of London Police, the UK’s National Cyber Crime Unit and the FBI. According to reports, he was arrested earlier this year for hacking Microsoft and NVIDIA.

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Amazon will hold a Prime Early Access Sale on October 11th and 12th

The holiday shopping season will begin earlier than ever this year.

Amazon plans to hold a second sales event this fall, exclusively for Prime members. The second Prime Day of the year, dubbed Prime Early Access Sale, will be on October 11th and 12th in the US, UK, Canada and 12 other countries, following the same two-day format as the original event. That said, we don’t know what sort of discounts this event will include. There will probably be a Kindle or two, though.

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Watch the trailer for NieR: Automata’s spinoff anime

It arrives this January.

Square Enix’s genre-twisting RPG, NieR Automata was a cult hit in 2017. Now, an anime adaptation is almost here. Titled NieR: Automata Version 1.1a, it will debut in January 2023. NieR creator Yoko Taro shared the release window, adding that the anime’s story would differ from its source material.

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Audacity is best known as a free app to do quick audio edits and record audio, but the latest update makes it more viable as a full on production tool, parent Muse Group has announced. Version 3.2 now supports non-destructive editing, real-time effects and enhanced VST3 support, along with user interface improvements and faster audio sharing via a new service, audio.com.

The most welcome addition is non-destructive audio capabilities that allow creators to adjust effects without the changes being permanently baked into the audio file. It also supports real-time playback of effects and crossfades as you adjust them, allowing for more accurate edits while listening to audio. That compares to previous versions, which required that you render the effect before you could hear it.

The company has completely rewritten the code base for VST plugins to improve stability and reliability, while adding improved support for VST3. It also addressed concerns about what we’ve called its “ugly and a bit archaic” user interface. And it now offers a “clearer and more consistent set of visuals” in the top bar for editing, with a new “Audio Setup” option that makes it easier to change input, mic and output settings. 

Finally, the new audio.com site lets you easily share audio files by sending a link rather than the entire file. You can share files either publicly or privately, or use your account for cloud storage. (Muse Group recently updated its privacy policy, promising it wouldn’t sell any of the “very limited” data it collects from users.) The new version of the app is now available as a free download. 

 

TikTok isn’t just facing financial penalties in the US over claimed child privacy breaches. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has warned TikTok that it might face a £27 million (about $29.2 million) fine after the watchdog determined that the social network may have broken data protection law by “failing to protect” kids’ privacy between May 2018 and July 2020. The company may have handled the data of children under 13 without parental consent, processed “special category” data (such as ethnicity, sexual orientation or health) without a legal foundation and didn’t offer necessary information to users in a “concise, transparent and easily understood” fashion.

ICO began investigating TikTok in February 2019, soon after the US’ Federal Trade Commission fined the social media heavyweight $5.7 million over reported child privacy infringements. At the time, the UK overseer was concerned about both TikTok’s “completely open” direct messaging as well as its transparency tools. Sexual predators were found messaging users as young as eight years old, and it was relatively easy for kids to bypass the app’s age gate.

The office stressed that these were preliminary findings, and that there was no definitive conclusion that TikTok broke the law or will pay a fine. ICO added it would “carefully consider” TikTok’s stance before making a final decision. We’ve asked the company for comment, and will let you know if we hear back.

There’s mounting pressure on TikTok to protect kids. In the US, members of Congress and state attorneys general are grilling TikTok over possible harms to child users, including attempts to keep them riveted to using the app. A UK fine might not be the end of the company’s troubles, at least until politicians and regulators are satisfied it’s keeping young people safe.