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The office of Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton has requested that Pfizer and several other companies turn over advertising data tied to the social media giant Meta. The lawsuit was filed after consumer data privacy concerns were raised by the state in its latest legal battle with Meta, according to a report by Law360. The Texas Attorney General claims that millions of Texas residents have had their private biometric data misappropriated over the past ten years.

The order requires the vaccine maker to share any records it holds regarding Meta’s use of facial recognition technology over claims that the company was collecting biometric data from Facebook users without their consent. This decree over Pfizer’s records follows a February 2022 filing against Meta by the Texas Attorney General that claimed “Facebook knowingly captured biometric information for its own commercial benefit” in order to “train and improve” its in-house facial recognition technology powered by AI. The Texas lawsuit cites Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s commentary that photo tagging is “more important than every other [Facebook] feature put together” as evidence in their case against the company under a section that highlights its allegations against the company. The February 2022 petition against Meta over data privacy concerns came shortly after Facebook decided to discontinue its face recognition systems in 2021. Meta said its move to cut back on its facial recognition tech development was necessary because of the lack of regulator guidelines.

The Texas Attorney General has been aggressive in its pursuit of Meta’s data on the issue. The state has cast a wide net with its series of lawsuits, subpoenaing a number of other big-name companies affiliated with the company through its advertising arm. Pfizer is just one of many companies subpoenaed in the attempt to discover data incriminating Meta. Others ordered to turn over advertising data include Procter & Gamble, Home Depot, The New York Times, SmileDirectClub and Clarity Media Group. Although the exact investment value of Pfizer’s advertising deals with Meta are undisclosed, we do know the company’s “selling, general, and administrative expenses,” which include marketing and advertising, reached a whopping $34 billion in 2022.

Meta is hardly the only name in big tech being targeted by the Texas AG over data privacy concerns. Google is similarly facing the Texas Attorney General in court over its facial data collection practices. Last year, Google was sued by Texas for engaging in “years-long practices” of capturing biometric data from millions of Texans without consent. In that same year in a separate lawsuit with the state of Illinois, Google paid $100 million to settle a class action that accused the tech giant of violating the Biometric Information Protection Act. The case resembles the Texas suit filed against Meta, which claims the company violated Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act. Confirmation that a violation of that specific Texas act by Meta can result in a penalty of up to $25,000 per violation of the law. So far, an infraction fine against the social media giant has not been determined.

Both Pfizer and the Texas AG office could not be reached to comment on the ongoing case.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/texas-ag-subpoenas-pfizer-to-release-meta-ad-records-160736593.html?src=rss 

Summer can be a sleepy time for deals, but there was actually a fair amount of savings to be found on tech this week. Amazon’s Prime Day is probably about a month away, but the company looked like they were getting a head start with discounts on Kindles, two Echospeakers, Fire TV devices and Blink mini cameras. Those prices may go lower during the event, but the savings are still good if you can’t wait. Our favorite Sony headphones dropped back down to $348 and a few different Beats earbuds, including the Powerbeats Pro saw discounts of up to 36 percent. Apple’s latest laptop, the 15-inch MacBook Air is already $100 off and last year’s XPS 15 from Dell is currently $800 off. Here are the best deals from this week that you can still get today. 

Amazon Echo Dot + smart plug

Pair a smart speaker with a smart plug and you have the underpinnings of a smart home setup. Right now, Amazon is selling its Echo Dot smart speaker with a Kasa Smart Plug Mini for just $28. That’s a substantial $45 discount and cheaper than buying the Dot on its own. The new Echo Dot is is our favorite smart speaker under $50 and is basically a more compact version of its full-sized sibling, the Echo. Despite measuring less than four inches in diameter, the Dot can pump out decent sound that’s surprisingly clear. 

Alexa is a competent voice assistant who can set timers and reminders, tell you the weather and news, play your music and, of course, control your smart home devices, like smart plugs. All of the Kasa smart plugs I tested for our guide paired nicely with my Echo Dot. You can program the plug through the Kasa app or via the Alexa app, having it do nifty things like turning on a lamp an hour before sunset or shutting things off when you say, “Alexa, goodnight.”  

Sonos Sale

Sonos speakers rarely go on sale, so if you’ve been thinking about a new soundbar or speaker, you may want to jump over to Sonos as their ongoing Father’s Day sale ends Sunday the 18th. The sale first went live two weeks ago and includes discounts of up to 25 percent on some of their more popular audio devices. Sonos equipment is well-regarded for its sound quality and reliable connectivity — pairing easily with existing equipment, supporting most streaming services and syncing seamlessly with other Sonos speakers.

Here are a few of the more noteworthy deals:

The top-end Sonos Arc soundbar is down $719, which is $180 off the list price. Read our review here.

The more affordable Sonos Beam (Gen 2) is down $399, which is $100. Here’s our review.

The Sonos Ray is the brand’s entry-level soundbar and is currently $223 or $56 off.

The portable Sonos Roam speaker connects to WiFi or via Bluetooth and is currently $134 instead of $179. The slightly smaller Sonos Roam SL is down to $119 after a $39 discount.

One of the brand’s first portable speakers, the Sonos Move is down to $300 after a $99 discount. Here’s what we said when that speaker first came out.

Sony WH-WH-1000XM5

A few different audio devices from Sony are on sale at Amazon and directly from Sony, including the WH-100XM5, which is our current top pick for the best wireless headphones you can buy. They’re back down to $348, which isn’t the lowest we’ve seen, but still about $50 less than they typically sell for. Our senior editor and audio expert Billy Steele gave them a high score of 95 in his review when they came out last year, praising the all-day comfort, excellent noise cancellation and a sound quality that’s both immersive and clear.  

The in-ear WF-1000XM4 earbuds are down to $198 after a 28 percent discount. They are the top pick in our wireless earbuds guide thanks to their great sound quality, solid ANC and battery life that went for seven and a half hours in our tests. 

Sony’s brand new budget headphones, the WH-CH720N, are on sale for just $38 after a 37 percent discount. Billy found them lightweight, comfortable and capable of delivering surprisingly good sound quality. You’ll also get around 35 hours of playback on a charge. You won’t get all the features of the flagship model, and the all-plastic build feels less than premium, but for $38, they’re a budget way to get high-end sound. 

Amazon Kindle

There are a lot of great books coming out this summer. If you’re thinking of getting an e-reader to dive into them, now might be a good time to act as Amazon is discounting a number of its Kindle devices. The basic Kindle is our favorite budget pick in our ereader guide and is currently down to $80, which is just $5 more than the all-time low it hit back in February. This is the latest model Kindle, released last October, with a screen resolution bumped up to 300ppi for sharp and crisp text. The battery lasts over a month and comes with 16GB of storage, which should be enough for many summers of reading and all the seasons between. 

It’s not waterproof, however, and doesn’t offer a warm light option. For that, you may want to check out the Kindle Paperwhite. It’s on sale for $110 instead of $140. The 6.8-inch screen is comfortably bigger than the standard option, boasts a warm light and can handle a dunk in water. The Paperwhite Signature, which our deputy editor Nathan Ingraham called, “The best e-reader. Period.” is on sale for $145 instead of $190. It adds more storage, wireless charging and an automatically adjusting warm light. 

Apple 15-inch MacBook Air M2

Apple announced the long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air M2 during its annual WWDC event earlier this month. Amazon immediately offered a $50 discount on pre-orders. Now that orders are shipping, the retailer is rewarding those who waited (and potentially angering those who didn’t) with a full $100 discount on the new machines, making them $1,199 instead of Apple’s suggested $1,299 price. Currently, the discount applies to the base model, which ships with 256GB of storage, in either Starlight, Space Gray or Midnight. If you want it in Silver, you’ll have to pay $1,234. 

The model with 512GB of storage is $100 off in Midnight only. The other three colorways are selling for $1,437, which is $62 below list price. Our deputy editor, Nathan Ingraham, got a chance to review the new computer and gave it a high score of 96. He was impressed with the difference the bigger screen makes and declared it “one of the best Apple laptops [he’s] used in a long time.” With the same M2 chip inside, the larger model doesn’t change much over the 13-inch MacBook Air, which isn’t a bad thing. We gave that model a similarly high score of 96 when it came out last year. 

Beats Studio Buds

The Studio Buds by Beats are currently $50 off at Amazon and Target. That matches the low we’ve seen a few times this year, though isn’t quite as low as they were for the shopping holidays last November. We gave them a review score of 84 when they debuted in 2021. They’re lightweight and small, making them comfortable for hours of continued wear. The sound is balanced and delivers plenty of punchy bass but doesn’t overdo it. They have a decent active noise cancellation too. 

A few other earbuds from Beats are on sale as well. None of them are hitting all-time lows, but the savings are decent, such as the Powerbeats Pro for $160 instead of $250 at Amazon and Target. Our editor in chief and marathon coach, Dana Wollman, named them the most comfortable option in our guide to the best workout headphones. The Beats Fit Pro are also on sale, down to $160 after a $40 discount. Our audio expert, Billy Steele, picked them as the best workout earbuds in his guide to those devices. 

NordPass

Security experts say it’s best to have a long, strong and unique password for every site you log-in to. That’s a lot of passwords to keep track of. Which is one reason you should probably use a password manager. NordPass is currently offering a 40 percent discount on its premium personal plan, making it $42.96 for two years of the service (which is usually $72). 

The premium plan gives you no limits on the number of passwords you can have and will let you stay logged into six different devices at a time. Once you store a password, NordPass auto-fills your credentials the next time you visit the site, so the only password you’ll need to remember is the master one. Our senior security reporter, Katie Malone, named NordPass the best manager for cross-platform access, allowing you to easily get to your vault of stored passwords from any device or operating system. 

Crucial P5 Plus 1TB Gen4 NVMe

Those who need to add storage space to their PC or PS5 may want to take a look at the sale on Crucial SSDs. Discounts range up to 53 percent and include a $20 discount on the brand’s PS Plus NVMe drive in the 1TB size. It can deliver sequential read speeds of up to 6,600MB per second and fits in PCs with a Gen4 M.2 connection. The drive will also work with a PS5 and is in fact our top pick to upgrade your capacity on that console.  

A portable drive from Crucial, the X6 1TB external SSD, is on sale for $59 after a 46 percent discount. It can handle transfer speeds of up to 800MB/s via the USB-C port and comes in a shock and vibration-proof case. 

Spigen Ultra Hybrid iPhone 14 case

Spigen’s Ultra Hybrid case is one of the iPhone cases we recommend in our guide to those accessories and right now it’s down to $25 at Amazon after a 44 percent discount. It usually hovers around that price, but is a decent savings over the $45 MSRP. Our senior commerce editor, Valentina Palladino, found it to be one of the most secure cases in our tests, firmly holding on to an iPhone 14. The clear case shows off the color of your phone, so if you went for that sunny yellow hue, this case will let it shine. The case is also MagSafe compatible for charging and accessories.  

Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite

A new smart TV can be expensive, but if you already have a regular set, a streaming stick can turn it smart inexpensively. Amazon’s Fire TV Stick Lite is our favorite budget pick in our streaming device guide and right now, it’s just $22 after a 27 percent discount. The stick puts Amazon’s easy-to-use Fire TV interface on your set, granting access to just about any streaming content you can think of. Just keep in mind the Lite doesn’t support 4K video or offer TV controls on the remote for power or volume, so you’ll need to use two clickers. If you want an all-in-one option that can stream 4K video to a 4K-enabled screen, go for the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. It’s $35 right now, instead of the usual $55.  

The even more feature-rich Fire TV Cube is $125 or $15 off. The set-top device lets you plug in your game consoles, supports WiFi 6E and 4K video, and has the fastest processor Amazon offers in an external streaming device. It also has a built-in mic so you can talk to Alexa to control your TV and smart home without needing to hold the remote. 

Dell XPS 15

If you prefer Windows laptops and are looking for something portable with enough power for everyday productivity, check out Dell’s sale on the XPS 15. We named another model in the XPS line, the smaller XPS 13 Plus, the best Window’s laptop you can buy. The larger XPS 15 is currently $1,099 after an $800 discount from Dell. Our senior editor and laptop expert Devindra Hardawar reviewed the machine in 2022 and called it the “best 15-inch Windows laptop.”

It packs Intel’s 12th-gen Core i7 processor with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. It comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. The 15.6 inch screen has a 60Hz refresh rate and a FHD+ 1920 x 1200 resolution. While it isn’t the latest XPS laptop available, it’s still a great price for a solid, workhorse machine. 

Breville Smart Pizza Oven

Our favorite indoor pizza oven, the Breville Pizzaiolo is currently on sale for $200 off at Amazon. It’s usually $1,000, but the sale brings it down to $800. Our resident pizza oven expert and senior editor Billy Steele tested it out and was impressed by the wealth of options it offered, which produced the desired results for New York, “wood fired,” frozen and other presets. But he cautioned that it was really quite expensive. Now that it’s $200 cheaper, it may be an easier buy for someone who really likes pizza — and doesn’t want to go outside to make it. 

Amazon Echo Studio

The biggest Alexa-enabled speaker from Amazon is the Echo Studio. Right now a 20 percent discount brings it down to $160 instead of $200. That’s the lowest it’s been since Black Friday when it dropped to $155. Our audio reviewer Billy Steele called it “the best sounding speaker Amazon has built” in his review. It does all of the smart-home, Alexa-controlled stuff that the other Echo speakers can do, it just does it from a much bigger package. At seven inches in diameter and over seven pounds in weight, it has room for five speakers, including three mid-range ones, a tweeter and a downward-facing 5.25-inch woofer.

Otterbox Otterspot 

The OtterSpot system is more than just a wireless charger for your phone; It also accommodates a disc-shaped battery you can take with you for a recharge on the go. Right now Otterbox is selling the set for half price, making it $50 instead of the usual $100. Our reporter, Jon Fingas, named it the best overall pad in Engadget’s guide to wireless chargers because of its stable base that can handle a wide range of phone sizes, both Android and iPhone. The unit can charge your phone, plus up to three of the 5,00mAh batteries at once. Those discs can easily fit into your bag when you need a partial recharge when you’re out and about — either wirelessly or via the USB-C port. Just keep in mind they can be finicky with certain non-Otterbox cases. If you want one of their cases to go with, you can check out the sale at Amazon.  

Rosetta Stone 

Rosetta Stone can help you learn a new language — or several — and right now a lifetime subscription is down to $179 instead of $299. A subscription gets you access to 23 languages and Rosetta Stone’s immersive learning style with access via browsers or your smartphone. If you’ve been thinking about learning Japanese, Spanish or Korean, you may want to act now as the deal ends June 18th. 

Razer Viper Ultimate 

In his quest for the perfect productivity mouse, our editor-at-large, James Trew, declared the Razer’s Viper Ultimate mouse the best gaming mouse for everyday use. It works in either hand and weighs just 74 grams, making it easy to use for long periods of time. And the 70-hour battery life lasts longer than other mice in its category. Right now, Amazon is selling it for $80 instead of the rather steep $150 MSRP. 

Blink Mini 

The Blink mini wired indoor security camera is down to $25, which is a 29 percent discount and within a dollar of its lowest price this year. It dropped lower for Black Friday, and may again for Prime Day, but if you don’t want to wait, this is still a good deal on a smart home camera. We recommend the Blink mini in many of our guides because it’s a low-cost device that delivers most of the features you’d want, including 1080p video delivered right to your phone. Motion detection turns the camera on and you can hear, see and talk to anyone nearby. And, as an Amazon product, the Blink mini works swimmingly with Alexa — but not other voice assistants.  

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-echo-dot-is-down-to-28-plus-the-rest-of-this-weeks-best-tech-deals-163111257.html?src=rss 

Today, we are one step closer to the immortal celebrity future we have long been promised (since April). Meta has unveiled Voicebox, its generative text-to-speech model that promises to do for the spoken word what ChatGPT and Dall-E, respectfully, did for text and image generation. 

Essentially, its a text-to-output generator just like GPT or Dall-E — just instead of creating prose or pretty pictures, it spits out audio clips. Meta defines the system as “a non-autoregressive flow-matching model trained to infill speech, given audio context and text.” It’s been trained on more than 50,000 hours of unfiltered audio. Specifically, Meta used recorded speech and transcripts from a bunch of public domain audiobooks written in English, French, Spanish, German, Polish, and Portuguese.

That diverse data set allows the system to generate more conversational sounding speech, regardless of the languages spoken by each party, according to the researchers. “Our results show that speech recognition models trained on Voicebox-generated synthetic speech perform almost as well as models trained on real speech.” What’s more the computer generated speech performed with just a 1 percent error rate degradation, compared to the 45 to 70 percent drop-off seen with existing TTS models.

The system was first taught to predict speech segments based on the segments around them as well as the passage’s transcript. “Having learned to infill speech from context, the model can then apply this across speech generation tasks, including generating portions in the middle of an audio recording without having to recreate the entire input,” the Meta researchers explained.

Voicebox is also reportedly capable of actively editing audio clips, eliminating noise from the speech and even replacing misspoken words. “A person could identify which raw segment of the speech is corrupted by noise (like a dog barking), crop it, and instruct the model to regenerate that segment,” the researchers said, much like using image-editing software to clean up photographs.

Text-to-Speech generators haver been around for a minute — they’re how your parents’ TomToms were able to give dodgy driving directions in Morgan Freeman’s voice. Modern iterations like Speechify or Elevenlab’s Prime Voice AI are far more capable but they still largely require mountains of source material in order to properly mimic their subject — and then another mountain of different data for every. single. other. subject you want it trained on.

Voicebox doesn’t, thanks to a novel new zero-shot text-to-speech training method Meta calls Flow Matching. The benchmark results aren’t even close as Meta’s AI reportedly outperformed the current state of the art both in intelligibility (a 1.9 percent word error rate vs 5.9 percent) and “audio similarity” (a composite score of 0.681 to the SOA’s 0.580), all while operating as much as 20 times faster that today’s best TTS systems.

But don’t get your celebrity navigators lined up just yet, neither the Voicebox app nor its source code is being released to the public at this time, Meta confirmed on Friday, citing “the potential risks of misuse” despite the “many exciting use cases for generative speech models.” Instead, the company released a series of audio examples (see above/below) as well as a the program’s initial research paper. In the future, the research team hopes the technology will find its way into prosthetics for patients with vocal cord damage, in-game NPCs and digital assistants.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-voicebox-ai-is-a-dall-e-for-text-to-speech-150021287.html?src=rss 

After dozens of stories, we’re just about wrapped with our coverage of Summer Game Fest 2023. Following the cancellation of E3 back in March, we had a smaller, stripped-back experience at SGF. It began… before it all began, with Sony holding its own PlayStation Showcase livestream on May 24th. It was a pretty packed show, featuring Bungie’s Marathon, Haven’s Fairgame$, a Metal Gear Solid 3 remake, more info on Final Fantasy XVI and Spider-Man 2, and a release date for Alan Wake II. There was also the Project Q handheld streaming device. 

Then came Summer Game Fest with an opening night event on Thursday, June 8th. We got a gameplay reveal for Mortal Kombat 1, a new (delayed to 2024) release date for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and a handful of smaller reveals like Sand Land and Sonic Superstars. There were a lot of sequels and free-to-play MMO trailers, but it was a generally low-key affair, with fewer big names than we’ve come to expect from the team behind The Game Awards.

The Day of the Devs and Devolver streams immediately following Summer Game Fest’s live show were a little more successful, with interesting games from smaller studios, including Baby Steps, Beastieball, Cocoon, Hauntii, Helskate, Simpler Times and Viewfinder.

It wasn’t until Sunday’s Xbox event that we got an event filled with the AAA announcements you’d expect out of E3. Microsoft had a customarily dense show that featured new announcements and some release dates (or windows) for known games. Among the games featured were Avowed, Fable, South of Midnight, Persona 3 Reload, Forza Motorsport, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Metaphor: ReFantazio and Clockwork Revolution. We also finally got an Xbox Series S that has 1TB of built-in storage.

On Monday, we saw a pair of smaller shows. First up was Ubisoft, which featured Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a trio of Assassin’s Creed games, a new Crew game and a fresh Prince of Persia title. Later that day it was Capcom’s turn, and they showed off Exoprimal, again, and offered an intriguing look at Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, which looks like a unique third-person action game. Finally, because it’s 2023, there was also an indefinite delay to the company’s almost-forgotten AAA sci-fi game, Pragmata. That’s a game that was announced for PlayStation 5 way back in June 2020 — before we even knew what the PS5 looked like — and this is its second delay after initially being expected in 2022.

We’ll have more coverage in the coming weeks, and will update this post with links when they go live. For now, enjoy our analysis, previews and all the other big announcements from SGF 2023.

Analysis

Summer Game Fest 2023 and the stagnant state of the industry

I published this story about the state of AAA gaming on the eve of Summer Game Fest. After a week stuffed full of gaming announcements, I feel exactly the same way. — Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter

Generative AI can help bring tomorrow’s gaming NPCs to life

This story from senior reporter (and Engadget’s AI expert) Andrew Tarantola looks at the history of NPCs from if-then programming through to finite-state-machines, decision and behavior trees, GOAPs, and modern AIs in games like The Last of Us, and then looks to the future to see how generative AI might impact the future of gaming.

Ubisoft needs a reboot

At some point in the last console generation, Ubisoft lost its soul. It was a piecemeal erosion process that started in 2015, and it finally resulted in a complete identity collapse somewhere between the studio’s unironic rollout of in-game NFTs and its sixth delay of Skull & Bones. Ubisoft has 40 years of AAA hits and weird licensing deals to its name, and it used to be a pillar of European innovation — but in 2023, it’s selling live-service blandness, mobile ports with microtransactions and unreliable release dates. What even is Ubisoft anymore? — Jessica Conditt

The Starfield direct has me excited for Bethesda’s new ambitious RPG

Senior video producer Brandon Quintana shot this video immediately after Microsoft’s Starfield Direct on Sunday, outlining why, after a fuller look at the game, he’s more excited than ever for Bethesda’s new ambitious RPG.

Why the ‘Oxenfree II’ team became Netflix’s first game studio

In early 2021, Night School was in the market for a partnership. It ended up being acquired by Netflix, becoming the company’s first game studio. Now, Night School is gearing up to launch its first game for the streaming giant. But that’s not the end of Netflix’s ambitions.

Game previews

‘Alan Wake II’ stands out in a sea of sequels

I’m nervous about Saga’s fate in Alan Wake II — and that only makes me more excited for the full game. This is first-and-foremost a linear, narrative-driven experience, and it looks spooky as hell. – Jessica Conditt

‘Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon’ has fast battles with customizable mechs

Armored Core, one of the longest-running mech battle series ever, hasn’t been seen in over a decade. Now, developer FromSoftware, flying high from Elden Ring and Dark Souls glory, is returning to mechs, with what it says is a remastered, reimagined take on robot combat. It’s time for a mech gaming boom. – Mat Smith, UK Bureau Chief

‘Cocoon’ is worth getting excited about

Cocoon is a game that makes perfect sense while you’re playing it. That would be an unremarkable achievement if it wasn’t also a game that forces you to use its levels to solve themselves. It’s the debut title from Geometric Interactive, a studio from folks that previously worked on the award-winning puzzle platformers Limbo and Inside. At Summer Game Fest 2023 I had around half an hour to play through the game’s opening, and it has stuck with me more than anything else I saw at the show. In my mind it’s the game of the show. – Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

‘Forza Motorsport’ wants you to drive forever

The long-overdue next title in the Motorsport series (it’s been over five years since the last!) has a bunch of new features, improved physics, better AI and looks absolutely fantastic at 4K/60. The most interesting thing about it to me is that it could well be the last distinct Motorsport game, as Microsoft is moving the series to a game-as-a-service model. In the age of Game Pass, that makes perfect sense to me, and I can’t wait to start driving this October. – Aaron Souppouris

‘Immortals of Aveum’ first look: A little more magic and this might be wonderful

When I saw the announcement trailer for Immortals of Aveum in the winter of 2022, I was surprised by my own interest in the game. Today, I remain interested in Immortals of Aveum and I think I’ve figured out why. There aren’t a ton of first-person action games that rely on mechanics other than guns — Dishonored, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hexen come to mind, but it’s a small field overall. That might be one reason Immortals stands out as something fresh, but it’s also nice to see a new, AAA-level game that’s single-player and narrative-driven with a contained campaign, rather than an open world of live-service features. – Jessica Conditt

‘Lysfanga’ is what happens when hack-and-slash meets tactical time travel

Lysfanga’s isometric views may conjure up memories of Hades, but this is a different kind of game. While you’ll still be slicing and dicing monsters and enemies, protagonist Imë combines her spells and weapon combos with the ability to revert time and do it all over again, differently. The second time around, her shadow from the previous timeline will continue to rush into the enemies. While some action-game prowess helps, you’ll only beat most levels by thinking them through before you act. The controls and play style aren’t remotely similar, but Lysfanga reminded me of old Fire Emblem games, where careful planning decided a fight before it even begins. Even in this early demo, the game offers some incredibly satisfying moments when all your attacking clones come together to wipe out all the enemies in mere seconds. – Mat Smith

‘Mortal Kombat 1’ made a great first impression

Ed Boon’s on-stage gameplay reveal of Mortal Kombat 1, the latest entry in the storied fighting game franchise, was one of the stand-out moments of an otherwise subdued opening event. At a private event after the show, Brandon Quintana and Mat Smith sat down to play some MK1 and came away impressed.

‘Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’ is a Metroidvania-style platformer coming in 2024

After a small reveal at Summer Game Fest’s opening night event, Ubisoft did a deeper dive into the game during Monday’s “Forward” stream. After that, senior video producer Brandon Quintana got his hands on an early build of the game and had a blast.

’33 Immortals’ first look: Defying a god is more fun with friends

Can you imagine assembling 33 players for a 25-minute raid? 33 Immortals plans to do exactly that. Channeling the animation style of retro cartoons (and a little Banner Saga), 33 Immortals is a multiplayer roguelike top-down action game from the creators of Spiritfarer. In this early build of the game I played with five others and had a lot of fun, even if some technical issues spoiled the party a little. I’m excited to play a roguelike as part of a mob, and I’m curious to see what the other character types will be. – Mat Smith

‘Under the Waves’ is a sad but relaxing oceanic adventure

Parallel Studio’s Under the Waves is a calming game. Between the cheers and jeers from Crash Team Rumble players (possibly employees) nearby, I was diving. Diving deeper and deeper into the inky blue, chasing a jettisoned shipping container as it bounced off rocks, spilling soft toys and revealing a mysteriously abandoned submarine hidden deeper still. While I might have been relaxed, I also felt a little unsettled. In a lot of ways, whether it’s the story yet to be revealed or the uneasy tension that is touched on regularly, it reminds me of Firewatch, even if it’s all set undersea. – Mat Smith

All the other big announcements at Summer Game Fest 2023

You can find all of our coverage from Summer Game Fest right here, but here’s a chronological list of the announcements we think really moved the needle.

Thursday June 8th

You can play a demo of the goth Pinocchio game ‘Lies of P’ right now

‘Sand Land’ is a new adventure game based on a manga by the creator of Dragon Ball

‘Sonic Superstars’ gives classic gameplay another modern makeover

‘Like A Dragon Gaiden’ revives Kiryu on November 9th 2023

‘Final Fantasy VII Remake: Rebirth’ is delayed to early 2024

‘Baby Steps’ is the 3D ‘QWOP’ we’ve all been waiting for

Sunday June 11th

Take a peek at Xbox’s Fable reboot in action

‘South of Midnight’ is a Southern Gothic monster adventure from Compulsion Games

Obsidian’s fantasy RPG ‘Avowed’ is coming to PC and Xbox in 2024

‘Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II’ will arrive in 2024

‘Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’ will make you see Ichiban’s bare butt in early 2024

Xbox Series S will be available with 1TB storage in black for $349 on September 1st

‘Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty’ will take you back to Night City on September 26th

‘Cities Skylines II’ will arrive on PC and consoles October 24th

‘Metaphor: ReFantazio’ is a fantasy RPG from the team behind ‘Persona 5’

‘Clockwork Revolution’ is a time-traveling RPG of steampunk anarchy

Overwatch 2’s story missions and new PvP mode will land on August 10th

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/summer-game-fest-2023-all-the-games-announced-140053892.html?src=rss 

The US has routinely lagged behind Europe and other regions in terms of EV adoption, but no longer. Counterpoint estimates that American EV sales jumped 79 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2023, helping it move past Germany to become the world’s second-largest electric car market. Only China is larger, the analyst group says.

EV tax credits are believed to have played a “crucial role” in spurring sales, and may have helped the US automotive industry as a whole. Where sales of combustion engine cars were flat, EVs surged ahead, according to Counterpoint.

It won’t surprise you to hear which brands are out front. Tesla represented 62.7 percent of EV sales in the quarter, with the Model Y and Model 3 taking the top two spots. GM was a distant second, with the Bolt EUV and regular Bolt taking it to 7.6 percent. Volkswagen had 6.3 percent of the market thanks to the ID.4. Plug-in hybrids are a different story — Stellantis has nearly 43.9 percent courtesy of Jeep’s PHEV Wrangler and Grand Cherokee models as well as the Chrysler Pacifica minivan. BMW was next at 16.1 percent with the X5, and Toyota’s RAV4 helped push it to 15.4 percent.

Counterpoint is optimistic about American EV sales going forward. While revised rules narrowed the list of cars that qualify for tax credits, they’re still poised to influence demand. The early stages of economic recovery could also help drive interest. We’d add that increasing domestic production of some EVs, such as the VW ID.4 and future Hyundai models, should expand the range of cars eligible for credits.

EV sales were poised to spike at some point. States like California and New York will require that all new passenger car sales are electrified by 2035, and makes like GM have already committed to going all-electric around the same time. If this analysis is accurate, though, that accelerating growth is already underway.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-us-is-now-the-second-largest-ev-market-behind-china-140958789.html?src=rss