Kalakshar US

Nintendo closed out today’s Direct showcase with a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, showing off the game’s traversal mechanics and dramatic cinematics. Link takes to the skies above Hyrule on a huge, four-engine drone and in the bucket of a small hot-air balloon, and he drives across the grass on a massive motorized chariot. In one shot, he slides down one rail of a cliffside metal track, Jet Set Radio style.

Tears of the Kingdom is scheduled to hit Switch on May 12th, 2023, and pre-orders are open right now. 

Tears of the Kingdom is the follow-up to Breath of the Wild, which was a wildly successful launch title for the Switch. Nintendo promises the new game will be as vertically expansive as its predecessor, taking Link to the mysterious islands floating above Hyrule.

 

With the start of season two around the corner, Activision has shared what Call of Duty fans can expect from Warzone 2.0 come February 15th. As previously teased, the update will introduce Ashika Island, a new map for players to fight over. Pulling on Japan for inspiration, the battleground marks the return of Warzone’s Resurgence mode. The mode allows your operator to respawn more than once per match, provided at least one of your teammates is still alive. You can shorten the countdown before your squad member returns by doing things like taking out enemy players.

Ashika Island landmarks include a feudal castle complete with springtime cherry blossoms and the wreckage of two cargo tankers. Continuing with the Japanese theme, Activision is adding Restore Honor, a map-exclusive feature that allows you to earn a bit of in-game cash and intelligence by picking up the dog tag a player leaves behind the first time they die during a match. A new “Path of the Ronin” seasonal event allows you to earn items, including a weapon charm, by completing challenges modeled after the samurai’s Bushido code.

You can read the full list of changes coming to Warzone 2.0, as well as everything that Activision is bringing to Modern Warfare II, on the Call of Duty blog.

 

The tug of war over Meta’s acquisition of Within is over. Meta has completed its purchase of the virtual reality workout app maker, bringing Supernatural and other projects into the metaverse giant’s fold. The two didn’t elaborate further on their plans, but Within said in October 2021 that it would continue to develop Supernatural exercise content under Meta’s Reality Labs wing.

The deal was in doubt for a while. The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit to block the deal in July 2022, contending that Meta was trying to buy its way into VR dominance by acquiring key developers like Within and Beat Saber creator Beat Games. Meta agreed to delay the acquisition to provide more time. Last week, however, a federal court denied a preliminary injunction to block the merger while the FTC investigated. The commission decided against appealing the loss, but was yet to decide whether or not it would rely on an administrative law judge to stop the union.

The move gives Meta control over one of the most popular VR fitness apps at a crucial moment. Meta is struggling to pivot to the metaverse between steep losses and a lack of clear incentives to spend extensive time in VR. Within gives Meta both a fitness system and a subscription service, albeit one aimed at a relatively niche audience. It also helps Meta compete against a growing wave of headsets that includes PlayStation VR2.

The completion isn’t good news for the FTC, however. The Within buyout was an early test of commission chair Lina Khan’s crackdown on Big Tech. While there are still other battles to fight, such as the antitrust suit over Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard takeover, this suggests the regulator won’t have an easy time keeping major companies in check.

 

After nearly a decade in development, Pikmin 4 is due to land on the Switch on July 21st, 2023. Nintendo shared a fresh gameplay trailer during today’s Direct showcase, featuring a new Pikmin with ice abilities and a friendly dog who helps the little plant buddies on their cosmic adventures.

Apparently, Pikmin games just take a long time to develop, OK? Nintendo head Shigeru Miyamoto said in 2015 that Pikmin 4 was “very close to completion,” but that clearly wasn’t the case. It’s now been 10 years since the release of Pikmin 3, which itself spent eight years in development. Of course, it ended up being an absolutely lovely experience on the Wii U. 

The Wii U. Wow, it really has been a long time since the last Pikmin game came out. That could explain the length of Pikmin 4‘s production timeline, too, as it entered development at the end of the Wii U’s short lifecycle, yet long before the Switch entered the market. If it’s as cute as all the trailers make it look, we’ll take it.

 

You now have a very practical reason to subscribe to Twitter Blue beyond long video uploads and the coveted blue checkmark. As of today, Blue members in the US can post tweets up to 4,000 characters long. You can’t currently schedule these posts or save them as drafts, but this could be helpful if you’d rather not write a lengthy multi-tweet thread just to share your thoughts.

Free Twitter users can still reply to and quote these tweets. And yes, Twitter is aware that scrolling through a sea of these lengthy posts could be frustrating. Any tweet longer than 280 characters now hides any extra content beyond a “show more” prompt. Blue normally costs $8 per month, or $84 per year.

This probably won’t prompt you to switch from social networks like Facebook or Mastodon, where long posts have been available for a while. However, it could be helpful if you’d like to share the same post across multiple social platforms without having to split it up or write a condensed version.

There’s certainly pressure on Twitter to make Blue more appealing. Twitter reportedly only had 180,000 Blue subscribers in the US as of mid-January, and roughly 290,000 worldwide. While the revamped subscription hasn’t been available for very long, it needs to be highly attractive to enthusiasts if Elon Musk wants to achieve a goal of generating half of Twitter’s revenue from subscriptions.

 

Get ready, Nintendo fans: it’s almost time for the company’s first Direct of 2023. The showcase will mostly focus on games coming to Switch in the first half of this year and it will run for around 49 minutes. The Nintendo Direct starts at 5PM ET and you can watch it below.

It’s not totally clear which games Nintendo plans to show off, but there are a few safe bets. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, one of the biggest games of the year, will arrive on May 12th — it would be a surprise if there isn’t at least a mention of it here. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon is likely to make an appearance, since that’s out in March. Super Nintendo World will open at Universal Studios Hollywood next week and The Super Mario Bros. Movie is fast approaching, so they’ll likely pop up as well.

Everything else is largely a mystery, and that’s part of the fun of a Nintendo Direct. Rumor has it that Nintendo will release the delayedAdvance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp imminently and many folks are hoping for news on Metroid Prime 4 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Luckily, we won’t have to wait much longer to find out more about what Nintendo has in store for the next few months.

 

Spotify is launching a new feature today called Exclude from your Taste Profile. As its name suggests, it lets you choose playlists — perhaps those played by a child or other family member — that you don’t want affecting your personalized recommendations.

The company says the feature “reduces the impact” the playlists have on your recommended content. So if your child loves jamming out to “Elmo’s Favorite Elmo Songs!” ad nauseam, the new feature should help you avoid hearing similar children’s tunes in your Daily Mix playlists and other algorithmically generated content. (Although we wouldn’t fault you for putting on “Brushy Brush!” while cleaning those pearly whites.)

Exclude from your Taste Profile only works with playlists — not albums or individual songs. Spotify says liked songs within those playlists will still affect your recommendations, so it may be wise to ask family members to ease up on the heart button. The changes will apply retroactively, excluding past and future listens of the unwanted playlists from your recommendations.

Spotify is rolling out the feature “starting today,” suggesting you may not see it immediately. The feature will work on iOS, Android, desktop and the web. Once available, you can exclude music by selecting a playlist, tapping the three-dot menu near the top and selecting “Exclude from your Taste Profile.” In addition, the company says you can turn the feature off at any time using the same process.

 

The original AirPods Pro and AirPods Pro 2 are popular among iPhone users for their convenience and compelling mix of features. However, your options are limited if something happens to the charging case, and your earbuds aren’t under warranty. Apple will replace the case for a fee. If you own a first-generation pair of AirPods Pro, you’re probably better off buying the new model to get a fresh set of batteries. In any event, there’s no easy way to repair a set of AirPods Pro and limit your electronic waste. Replacement parts are either hard to find, expensive or non-existent, and Apple didn’t design any of its earbuds with repairability in mind.

Robotics engineer Ken Pillonel, who became internet famous in 2021 for creating a working USB-C iPhone, is trying to fix that. With his latest DIY project, Pillonel has effectively created an end-to-end solution for those who want to swap the battery in their AirPods Pro case rather than replace it altogether.

Pillonel designed a replacement USB-C PCB he says is possible to install in an undamaged case without milling. If you’ve been following Pillonel for a while, you likely know that he also designed a USB-C PCB for the first- and second-generation AirPods and uploaded the design to GitHub. This time, he’s selling the AirPods Pro part to make the repair as easy as possible for anyone who wants to attempt it. You can get a single PCB from his online store for about $38.

If you damage your AirPods Pro case trying to access the internal battery, Pillonel has thought of that too. He’s uploaded a schematic to GitHub that you can use to 3D print a replacement. The USB-C PCB and case are fully compatible with one another. The only part you need to source independently is a replacement battery. You can find those online for about $20. “The goal of this project is to maximize the number of successful repairs to minimize the quantity of electronic waste,” Pillonel said in a statement. Obviously, most people won’t have the patience or confidence to service their AirPods Pro charging case, but a project like this is invaluable for those who do.

 

Google Translate is getting an AI-powered upgrade in the coming weeks to help you find more accurate translations, particularly for words with multiple definitions. The app will offer additional contextual translation options with descriptions and examples.

Let’s say you’re looking for a translation of the word “row,” which has multiple meanings in English. It could refer to an argument, a line of seats on a plane or using an oar to propel a boat. Google Translate should soon offer translations for all of those variants, along with examples of how they’re used.

Google says the app will provide “the context you need to accurately translate and use the right turns of phrase, local idioms or appropriate words depending on your intent.” All going well, this should help you communicate more clearly in different languages. The upgraded contextual translations will be available for languages such as English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish starting this month, with more surely to follow.

Meanwhile, the company recently rolled out a Translate redesign on Android. It’s coming to the iOS app soon. The revamped app introduces more gestures that should make it easier to use, including swifter access to language selection and the option to swipe to bring up recent translations. Google says translations are now more readable, while an extra 33 languages are available for on-device translation, including Basque, Hawaiian, Hmong, Kurdish, Sundanese, Yiddish and Zulu.

 

If you like Squid Game but not enough to brave the real-life version, you’ll soon have a VR option. Netflix has partnered with Sandbox VR to produce a game based on the Korean TV series, and from “late 2023,” you’ll be able to enter this gruesome dystopia at any of the Sandbox VR arcades around the world. The game developer has over 30 locations globally — 26 of which are in North America — at the time of writing, which is a much needed rebound after lying dormant throughout the worst part of the pandemic.

According to Sandbox VR, its upcoming experience will have players “transported to iconic Squid Game locations, where they become contestants in a variety of pulse-pounding challenges inspired by the Netflix series.” You’ll “compete against each other to be the last one standing” — presumably without anyone actually dying. As with all Sandbox VR games, players will be able to immediately rewatch, share and even download a personalized mixed-reality highlight reel.

The San Francisco-based VR company didn’t share further details on its Netflix collaboration, but judging by my recent experience with its latest zombie-shooter, Deadwood Valley (pictured above), the upcoming Squid Game title shouldn’t disappoint. All Sandbox VR games allow up to six players to roam around freely in each room, while wearing wrist and ankle trackers for full-body motion capture, as well as a bHaptic TactSuit to feel gunshots or zombie scratches. Players also hold a prop weapon that matches the size of its virtual counterpart, thus making these VR games more immersive than they already are.

I’m anticipating the likes of Red Light, Green Light, hopscotch and Squid making their way into the Squid Game VR experience, but I’m less keen on the idea of licking a prop to solve the dalgona candy puzzles.