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Call Devolver Digital whatever you want — except a liar. The indie publisher’s inaugural Devolver Delayed showcase delivered on its promise, featuring five games whose release windows have been pushed out of 2023 and into 2024. Which, of course, kind of means Devolver was lying when it initially announced these games, but let’s live in the now.

So, here’s the list of Devolver games that are now due out next year, minus the maniacal corporate joy that underpinned the actual showcase: Skate Story, The Plucky Squire, Stick it to the Stickman, Anger Foot and Pepper Grinder.

Skate Story is the hardest delay to swallow, personally speaking. Developed by Sam Eng, Skate Story is a highly stylized skateboarding game set in a dark, neon-streaked hellscape and starring a demon made of glass. It looks trippy and fast-paced, and I was very much looking forward to playing it this year. Skate Story is now coming to PC in 2024 and it’s available to wishlist on Steam.

Stick it to the Stickman and Anger Foot are both products of Free Lives, the studio behind Broforce, Gorn and Genital Jousting, and a longtime Devolver partner. Both Stickman and Anger Foot are coming to PC next year and are available to wishlist right now.

The Plucky Squire looks to be an extraordinarily cute platforming adventure that swaps between 2D and 3D visuals. This one comes from All Possible Futures and it’s heading to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch (in 2024, of course). Last on the delay list, Pepper Grinder is a 2D platformer featuring a character with a big drill, and it’s being developed by Oregon-based studio Ahr Ech for PC and Switch.

The Devolver Delayed showcase also provided some relief, in the end. A handful of the publisher’s games have decidedly not been delayed and are still targeting 2023 release windows, including Gunbrella, Wizard with a Gun, KarmaZoo, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood and — most notably, in my book — The Talos Principle II. A sequel to the 2014 award-winning game from Croteam, The Talos Principle II promises more first-person laser-based puzzles, philosophical pontification and existential dread, and it’s all still coming out in 2023 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is actually due out on August 16, just over one week from today. It’s the latest game from Deconstructeam, the Spanish studio behind Gods Will Be Watching and The Red Strings Club, and the preview had me happily building tarot decks and flirting with immortal beings.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/skate-story-and-four-other-devolver-games-have-been-delayed-to-2024-162331587.html?src=rss 

Google is taking aim at the likes of Grammarly with a feature it added to Search recently. The service now includes a grammar checker, which can analyze the construction of a phrase or sentence and offer suggestions if it something seems off.

Punching in a phrase like “grammar check,” “check grammar” or “grammar checker” will make sure the tool activates, as 9to5 Google points out. But Search might still offer grammar suggestions if you don’t include one of those phrases with your query.

If the tool notices an error, including a spelling mistake, Google will rewrite the sentence and indicate what’s different. You’ll easily be able to copy the corrected phrase or sentence by hovering over it. If your grammar is spot on, the tool will give you a dopamine-inducing green checkmark, but not, sadly, a gold star.

Unsurprisingly, the tool is powered by artificial intelligence. It might not always be accurate, especially if you ask it to review a phrase or fragment instead of an entire sentence. If you spot something wrong with a suggestion (or want to help the system understand that its correction was helpful), you can provide feedback.

The tool will only be available in English for the time being, but it’s worth noting that it won’t run if the phrase or sentence violates Search policies. It won’t check the grammar for dangerous, harassing, medical, sexually explicit or terrorist content, or anything to do with violence and gore. You might have to look elsewhere to make sure that a phrase or sentence containing profanity or vulgar language is grammatically correct too.

Google has, of course, offered grammar tools in Gmail and Google Drive for a long time now. Bringing one to Search makes a lot of sense, given that it has a dictionary tool in its extensive bag of tricks. It’ll save you having to open Google Docs or another app. You won’t necessarily have to bust out a dusty copy of The Elements of Style either.

However, many people just focus on the keywords when they search for something on Google and don’t write complete sentences or grammatically correct phrases (e.g. “hard boiled egg how long”). The AI will have to make an educated guess as to whether someone wants their grammar to be checked or not. Otherwise, Search could push the information they’re looking for even further down the page.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-search-now-has-an-ai-powered-grammar-checker-144539934.html?src=rss 

It’s early August and that means the back-to-school season is closing in on us fast. For those looking to invest in a new laptop for the upcoming semester, Amazon has a sale on the latest 15-inch MacBook Air that brings many models down to their lowest price yet. At the time of writing this, every color of the 256GB MacBook Air M2 is $200 off and down to $1,099, and the 512GB model in starlight is also $200 off and down to $1,299. Regardless of the size you get, the Air M2 is one of our favorite laptops at the moment, and it’s even better when you can grab it on sale like this.

The 15-inch MacBook Air takes everything we loved about the 13-inch model and make it just a little bit bigger. Like it’s smaller sibling, the 15-inch laptop has impressive performance thanks to Apple’s M2 chipset, a comfortable keyboard and trackpad and a battery life that exceeded the 18 hours that the company promised in our video playback testing.

The bigger screen has a 2,880 x 1,864 resolution, but it shares the same pixels per inch (224) as that of the 13-inch version. Although it’s not a mini LED display like you’ll find on the MacBook Pros, it’s still a lovely Liquid Retina panel with 500 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate. The extra screen space will definitely come in handy in a lot of different workflows, and since the 15-inch MacBook Air is nearly as thin and light as the 13-inch model, it’s remains quite portable.

The biggest gripe with the 15-inch Air that we should call out, especially now, is that Apple’s M2 chipset is one year old at this point and there’s a possibility that we see new, M3-powered Macs debut this fall. This time of year, it’s worth waiting to pick up a Mac if you absolutely must have the latest and greatest. However, it’s likely that Apple will not retire the M2 MacBooks even if it launches M3 machines in the fall; the company currently sells the M1 MacBook Air alongside the M2 laptops, so we expect the M2 machines to stick around for a while even after the latest devices come out.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-15-inch-macbook-air-m2-models-are-up-to-200-off-right-now-135843112.html?src=rss 

Amazon is running another sale on its Fire TV Stick media streamers, with the Fire TV Stick 4K Max available for $27. We’ve seen the 4K streaming stick fall as low as $25 in recent weeks, but this deal is still roughly $20 below the device’s average street price. The standard Fire TV Stick is also on sale for $25, but since the Max brings a performance boost for only a couple dollars more, we recommend getting the higher-end model instead.

Though it’s a couple years old, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is still relatively fast to load menus and switch between apps. Its remote has Alexa support baked in, so it can tie neatly into other Alexa-compatible smart home devices. It supports just about all the major streaming services and HDR standards, as well as Dolby Atmos audio. Unlike the base Fire TV Stick 4K, it also includes a WiFi 6 radio, though you’ll need a compatible router and a particularly fast internet connection to see any advantage from that.

The main caveat, as with most Fire TV devices, is software. Compared to similarly-priced streamers from Roku and Google, Amazon’s Fire OS is generally more aggressive about displaying ads on the home screen and nudging you toward the company’s own services throughout the UI. You’ll get the most out of it if you already use services like Prime Video on a regular basis. There’s also no support for Google Cast (unlike Google’s Chromecast) or Apple AirPlay (unlike various Roku streamers). 

We broadly recommend the Roku Streaming Stick 4K and Google Chromecast to most people in the market for an affordable streaming stick for those reasons. Right now, though, both of those devices cost about $20 more. If all you need is a cheap and quick way to get more streaming apps on your TV, the Fire TV Stick 4K is still a fine value at this price.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-amazon-fire-tv-stick-4k-max-is-back-on-sale-for-27-141556027.html?src=rss 

After a ransomware attack in June, the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) notified students on Friday of a potential data leak. In June, “unauthorized actor(s)” not yet publicly identified accessed CDHE systems in a ransomware attack. While authorities continue to investigate the full extent of the damage, the department has disclosed that the attack breached personally identifiable information like names and social security numbers.

“The review of the impacted records is ongoing and once complete, CDHE will be notifying individuals who are potentially impacted by mail or email to the extent we have contact information,” CDHE wrote in a Notice of Data Incident. But the department warns students that the impact of the breach reaches across programs, from public schools to adult education initiatives, over a 16 year time period.

In response, CDHE is offering free access to Experian credit monitoring and identity theft protection to protect their data. The department recommends impacted groups keep an eye on their account statements and credit reports for suspicious activity. 

Education systems are a popular target for ransomware attacks. In 2022, at least 44 colleges and 45 school districts reported ransomware attacks, compared to 88 total education departments in 2021, according to data from Emsisoft. The Government Accountability Office recommended that the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security coordinate to evaluate school cybersecurity efforts across the country. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/colorado-department-of-education-data-leak-personal-information-143001196.html?src=rss