Kalakshar US

If you’ve been planning on spending the tail-end of your holiday break revisiting the original Splatoon for Wii U or Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, you could be out of luck. It looks like Nintendo has already begun to restrict the Wii U and 3DS’s ability to play online, according to multiple users and media outlets like Nintendo Life. This started just before Christmas Eve, which is a real Bowser move.

We knew this was coming, but Nintendo originally said the shutdown wouldn’t happen until early April. This may not impact every player just yet, so head online with your console to give it a shot. Jonathan Barrow of Pretendo, an “open-source Nintendo Network replacement,” wrote that this is part of a “slow rollout” of Nintendo’s April plans. Pretendo hopes to eventually bring the two consoles back online.

To be fair, Nintendo never actually said that the April end-date was set in stone, as the company suggested that it could discontinue online services “earlier than planned.” It could’ve warned folks, however, so they could get one last round of multiplayer Kid Icarus: Uprising in.

This news follows Nintendo closing its 3DS and Wii U eShops back in March. So, now, you can’t buy new games or go online with your old games. The company’s silly-yet-engaging Miiverse social network, which operated on both consoles, was shut down in 2017, though there’s a post archive.

This is sad, but it happens. Out with the old and in with the new, and all of that. Being a gamer is weird that way. Entire generations of games simply disappear, like Goomba tears in the rain. On the plus side, maybe we’ll be able to shell out full-price for some more remakes, with a Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon refresh coming to the Switch next year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nintendo-starts-shutting-down-online-play-for-wii-u-and-3ds-months-ahead-of-schedule-191720412.html?src=rss 

Apple has filed an appeal to the International Trade Commission (ITC) attempting to reverse a ban on US sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, according to court records. The company’s also requesting an emergency stay on the ban until a decision is reached regarding proposed redesigns of both smartwatch models.

The company spoke to Reuters and said it’s “taking all measures to return” the smartwatches to US store shelves. The appeal is just one part of that. The matter even went before President Biden, with Apple hoping in vain for a veto. The ban officially goes into effect today, though Apple started pulling smartwatches from its digital and physical storefronts last week.

In today’s filing, Apple claims it will “suffer irreparable harm” if the ban continues. The Exclusion Order Enforcement Branch of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is scheduled to make a decision on Apple’s redesigned versions of the smartwatches on January 13.

This all started when the ITC ruled that Apple infringed on blood oxygen saturation tracking technology patented by a health tech firm called Masimo. This led to Apple scrambling to issue a software fix before a ban went into effect. However, the ITC and Masimo agreed that this is a hardware issue involving the actual sensor, so software fixes wouldn’t cut it. As such, Apple is busy redesigning the sensors for the two smartwatch models. The Apple Watch SE doesn’t have a blood oxygen sensor, so it remains unimpacted by the ban.

Masimo sued Apple back in 2021 over the aforementioned patient violations and even alleged that the company poached employees with high-level knowledge of blood oxygen monitoring capabilities. It’s still possible the two companies will come to a financial agreement, putting this issue to bed.

So what does this mean for consumers looking for a bit of wrist candy? You can still buy the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 in other parts of the world, as the ban only impacts the US. You can also buy the watches from third-party retailers in the US until the stock dries up. You cannot, however, purchase one of these smartwatches directly from Apple.

Apple Watch sales account for around half of the entire smartwatch market. So when the company says the ban will cause “irreparable harm”, it isn’t kidding.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-appeals-ban-on-watch-series-9-and-ultra-2-174046101.html?src=rss 

Microsoft’s Copilot tool, the company’s AI chatbot that can do everything from help you write code to draft a marketing email, has made its way onto Android mobile devices. Copilot, which is powered by OpenAI’s latest models GPT-4 and DALL-E 3, can also be used to generate images from simple text descriptions and requests. The app is available on the Google Play Store, is free to download and does not require a Microsoft account to sign in.

The rollout of a mobile version of Microsoft’s Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) was quiet — with little buzz and no formal announcements, unlike what we saw with the release of Bing Chat on mobile devices. The new Copilot app was released earlier this month and was initially spotted by Neowin when X users noticed it in the Play Store. Copilot is still not available on iOS though, and the company has yet to make any promises for a release date.

It only makes sense that Copilot has made its way to mobile devices (or at least on Android to start). Microsoft’s previous move to bring Copilot to Windows 10, after launching on Edge, Microsoft 365 products and Windows 11 — added an additional 1 billion devices that are eligible to use the AI assistant, signaling Microsoft’s deadset view on expansion. This coincides with the company’s recent updates to Copilot which include its video summarization capability and song creation feature.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-copilot-ai-assistant-arrives-on-android-170729243.html?src=rss