Learn what ‘A Very Jonas Christmas Movie’ is all about and which stars are joining the Jonas brothers in the festive film.
Learn what ‘A Very Jonas Christmas Movie’ is all about and which stars are joining the Jonas brothers in the festive film.
You can’t pause your game in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s always-online campaign
While most of the enormous Call of Duty audience buys each annual entry without hesitation for its multiplayer offering, the single-player campaign is also a big part of the experience. CoD campaigns are often big on popcorn silliness and refreshingly tight. Some people just like to start a game and see its credits roll within a weekend, you know? But judging by the early impressions of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 that are beginning to surface online, it sounds like this year’s campaign comes with some pretty major caveats.
I admittedly haven’t played the game myself yet, but IGN is one of the outlets that has gone live with its 6/10 review, which reveals that the campaign’s always-online nature means it can’t be paused, and if you’re idle for what the game deems to be too long it’ll boot you out. For a mode that is traditionally offline and totally separate from the online portion of the game, this might come as a shock to some players.
It gets worse. While the official website for Black Ops 7 states that the campaign can be played solo or with a “squad,” it definitely emphasises its co-op nature first. A campaign that facilitates co-op is usually a good thing, but here it sounds like very few considerations are made for single players. You can’t fill in spots in the four-person squads with AI companions, so if you don’t have three friends handy, you’re not getting the desired experience.
Objectives clearly designed for multiple players are reportedly tediously repetitive when you have to do all of them on your own. Many games are built entirely around co-op and that’s fine, but it seems like a pretty dramatic departure for a series that has always accommodated the solo player. According to IGN’s coverage there are no checkpoints either, so if you don’t finish a mission in a single sitting — not always possible for people with busy lives — you’ll lose all your progress. As you presumably will if your Wi-Fi dies.
For groups willing to live with all these potentially very awkward conditions, the Black Ops 7 campaign promises “high-stakes challenges across a wide spectrum of environments, from the neon-lit rooftops of Japan to the Mediterranean coast, and even into the deepest corners of the human psyche.” Presumably that last bit doesn’t refer to the rageful thoughts of someone who just lost all their progress because they had to answer the front door.
As you’d expect, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 also offers the traditional multiplayer and Zombies modes that will no doubt keep you busy until next year. It’s out today on Xbox (included with Game Pass), PS5, PS4 and PC.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/you-cant-pause-your-game-in-call-of-duty-black-ops-7s-always-online-campaign-172707048.html?src=rss
Who Is ‘Pyjama Man,’ Johnson Wen, Who Attacked Ariana Grande at the ‘Wicked: For Good’ Premiere?
The person who lunged at Ariana at the ‘Wicked: For Good’ Singapore premiere was identified as Johnson. Get to know him and the aftermath of his actions at the event.
The person who lunged at Ariana at the ‘Wicked: For Good’ Singapore premiere was identified as Johnson. Get to know him and the aftermath of his actions at the event.
The GoPro Hero 13 Black is cheaper than ever ahead of Black Friday
The GoPro Hero 13 Black action camera is down to $310 as part of an early Black Friday sale, which is a record low price. That’s a discount of 23 percent or $90.
This model topped our list of the best action cameras, and for good reason. It’s a fantastic device with all kinds of bells and whistles. It’s the most versatile Hero camera that GoPro has ever made. There’s a new family of modular lenses and it can shoot up to 5.3K and handle 2X optical zoom.
The battery is bigger than ever before and offers around 90 minutes of continuous shooting in 4K/30FPS. The camera is waterproof up to 10 millimeters, so don’t worry about puddles. The full-color front screen is vivid and makes it easy to review footage without getting a computer involved.
There’s no internal storage here, but it accepts microSD cards. There’s a camera bundle on sale right now that includes a 64GB microSD, three batteries, a dual charger and a case. That pack costs $349, which is a discount of 30 percent.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-gopro-hero-13-black-is-cheaper-than-ever-ahead-of-black-friday-160154066.html?src=rss
Early Black Friday Apple deals include a four-pack of AirTags for $65
Good deals on Apple products are generally harder to come by throughout the year than with other brands, but sale events are usually the best time to look around. And sure enough, ahead of Black Friday, Apple’s AirTags are cheaper than ever. You can pick up a four-pack of these handy Bluetooth trackers for $65, a record low price. Bear in mind that this deal brings the price per AirTag down to $16 if you were to buy them individually, and when not on sale they usually cost $29.
If you use Apple devices and are prone to losing stuff, AirTags are the obvious choice of Bluetooth tracker to buy. Adding one to your account requires little more than a single tap, and with Apple’s Find My network offering such extensive coverage these days, it’s never been easier to find missing belongings.
Tracking down a still nearby misplaced item is as easy as using your iPhone to trigger a sound from the AirTag’s built-in speaker, or alternatively you can use Precision Finding to pinpoint its location through Find My. You just follow the instructions on your iPhone’s screen, paying attention to its vibrations as you get closer.
If you only need a single AirTag, they’re also on sale right now for $18, another record low. It works out a bit better as a deal if you purchase the four-pack, but if you just want to attach one to your keys or backpack, $65 might seem like a stretch. Just remember that AirTags can’t be attached to items right out of the box. You’ll need to add an accessory in order to turn one into a keyring, or even attach it to your pet’s collar.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/early-black-friday-apple-deals-include-a-four-pack-of-airtags-for-65-161756983.html?src=rss
You need a fabric shaver, and my favorite is only $13 for Black Friday
If you clicked on this story because you don’t know what a fabric shaver is, you’re not alone. That was me not too long ago when I started searching for something that could get rid of the pilling on some of my most loved pieces of clothing. Blessedly, I stumbled upon the Philips Fabric Shaver, a type of device I didn’t even know existed, and decided to give it a shot. It’s now an essential piece of tech in my house, and you don’t have to pay as much as I did for it thanks to this Black Friday deal that knocks it down to $13.
Sure, it may not seem revolutionary — especially if you already knew of the wonders of such devices — but it was for me. I have a lot of T-shirts, joggers, sweaters and more that I’ve had for at least three years and wear regularly. We also have a bunch of throw blankets around the house, partially because I love a good throw, and partially because my cat demands soft spots on which to sleep. All of those well-worn, well-loved fabrics have pilled over time, and I was tired of picking at the pills myself.
This Philips Fabric Shaver makes it so I never have to do that anymore. It runs on two AA batteries, has a simple on-off switch and a shaving head with three sized holes that, as you glide it over your sweater or blanket, catches the pills and shaves them right off. It’s literally as simple as that; after I tried it the first time on a pair of joggers, I spent far too much time running around my house and through my closet de-pilling as many things as I could. All the little fabric bits collect in a removable chamber that you simply empty as often as you need into the trash. If you’re like me and try to make the most of the wardrobe you have and not buy new clothing all the time, this little gadget will keep the pieces in your closet looking fresh.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/you-need-a-fabric-shaver-and-my-favorite-is-only-13-for-black-friday-163402235.html?src=rss
Who Is Scott Kelly? Meet the Man Whose Résumé Was Viewed at a Jonas Brothers Concert
Imagine getting thousands of LinkedIn requests all because of a concert. Meet the real man behind the résumé that was viewed during a Jonas Brothers concert.
Imagine getting thousands of LinkedIn requests all because of a concert. Meet the real man behind the résumé that was viewed during a Jonas Brothers concert.
‘Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’ thrillingly brings the series into the modern era
Earlier this year, I played Metroid Prime for the first time in at least a decade. Back in 2023, Nintendo released a remastered version of the 2002 classic for the Switch, and I felt like dusting it off once we finally knew Metroid Prime 4: Beyond would arrive this year after about a decade in development. The original Metroid Prime holds up surprisingly well for a 23-year-old game, but there were plenty of times where it showed its age. The platforming often felt overly clunky, as precise control over Samus Aran is not the game’s strong suit. Similarly, dealing with larger hordes of energy-sucking Metroids could get pretty frustrating, again due to a lack of precision.
But the main feeling I came away from the game with was excitement over a fully modernized Metroid Prime experience. I’ve been interested in seeing how the lush alien worlds, monstrous enemies and first-person combat would feel on a current console, built with today’s technology and the many improvements that have come to game design since 2002. I finally got a chance to play about 90 minutes of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond last week and nothing I saw diminished my excitement for the series being brought into the current decade — even if the game felt almost too familiar at times.
I played two segments of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. The first is an opening sequence that Nintendo made available for people to try at the Switch 2 demo experiences earlier this year before the console launched, while the second is a longer slice that takes place on a gorgeous alien planet where it seems the bulk of the game will likely take place. That first segment is the classic “get the player acquainted with the controls” level where Samus flies in to help defend a base under attack. Since I had played the Switch version of Metroid Prime recently, I felt right at home with the controls even though a few buttons were remapped. All of the classic Metroid moves, including charge blasts, the morph ball, the missile cannon, the scanning visor and more are intact here, and I quickly slipped back into the routine of scanning enemies for weak points and blasting away.
Right from the jump, the game looks fantastic. There’s an extensive cutscene (at least for a Metroid game) that shows Samus flying in to save the day through a battle-torn base, and everything from the flash of fireball explosions to small details on Samus’s ship give off a level of detail that we simply haven’t seen in a Metroid game before.
I was playing the game on the Switch 2, in both handheld mode and hooked up to a TV and it looked great either way. The aforementioned explosions popped nicely in HDR and the frame rate never stuttered in a way that I picked up on. As usual, Nintendo’s art direction is top-notch, but this is the first Metroid Prime game made on a console with some power behind it (remember, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption came out on the original Wii). The game isn’t quite aiming for photorealistic graphics, but it’s closer than almost any other Nintendo game I can think of. The combo of impeccable style and a modern resolution that finally lets the Metroid world shine is thrilling, and I can’t wait to see more variety in the worlds that Samus explores.
There’s also a lot more voice chatter than in the original Metroid Prime. As you get dropped into defending the base under attack, plenty of other soldiers recognize Samus, ask for help, tell her where to go and generally praise her for being a badass. It’s a lot more voice work than I’m used to in a Metroid game, and it goes a long way towards making the journey feel less isolated.
A screenshot showing the jungle world of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.
Nintendo
The second area I got to explore looks even better than the somewhat generic base where the game kicks off. It’s a classic Metroid world that mixes natural beauty with a mysterious, alien culture. And, of course, a lot of the nature wants to kill you for invading its territory (or possibly because it is being controlled by outside forces). The big boss of the demo was cut from this cloth: a giant tentacled plant flinging its giant spiked arms at you and firing off poisonous flowers. A classic Metroid battle if ever there was one, albeit one that felt not wildly different from some of the boss battles from Metroid Prime. That said, the scope of the battle felt bigger, due to the size of the arena and how the plant’s tentacles made maneuvering and getting off clear shots a challenge. While the boss clearly had a central body right in the middle of the room, the tentacles made it feel like it was all around me, at all times
This boss felt like an upscaled but familiar version of ones from past games, and it was far from the only thing that felt familiar. For example, the game still uses save stations scattered throughout the map to save your progress rather than just autosaving at significant points. That’s a throwback I didn’t exactly miss and didn’t expect to see in 2025. Plenty of the music cues and sound effects felt like they could have been lifted straight from other Metroid Prime games, and the basic move set and weapons Samus has early in the game is nearly identical to how you start Metroid Prime. Naturally, something happens where she loses most of those abilities and has to regain them to progress — in the demo, I had to find the Morph Ball power up to move on, just as you do in nearly every Metroid game before.
Samus Aran uses her new abilities to unlock a way forward.
Nintendo
At times, it felt like the game was leaning a bit too heavily on the already-established framework rather than trying something new. But given that I was early in the game, I’m allowing for there to be a lot of unexpected changes to come. And I did get a chance to try out the biggest gameplay change Nintendo has teased thus far (no, not the motorcycle): new psychic abilities.
These powers, at least in the demo, are primarily used for solving environmental puzzles, as they provide a new way to interact with various objects and structures. But there’s also a combat component that I needed to use to beat the aforementioned boss. You can charge and fire off a sort of psychic beam — once it leaves your blaster, time slows to nearly a crawl and you can take control of its direction with the analog stick. While fighting the boss, I had to guide the beam around a host of obstacles to hit each of the three tentacles; once I did that, the monster was vulnerable and I could then charge in and blast it with my conventional weapons. You can see some examples of this power in action in the video below.
I wish I got a chance to see how these powers would evolve throughout the game, and I’m definitely intrigued to see how they manage to separate the gameplay in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond from the aspects of it that feel merely like an updated version of what came before. And to be honest, I’m not sad the game feels familiar. Plenty of people haven’t experienced the Metroid Prime series before or haven’t played it in more than a decade, and many of the familiar aspects felt like a perfect example of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” And it won’t be long before we can all find out if Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finds a way to really stand out from its predecessors after all this time. The game arrives on December 5 for Switch and Switch 2.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/metroid-prime-4-beyond-thrillingly-brings-the-series-into-the-modern-era-140000932.html?src=rss
WhatsApp enables interoperability with two other messengers in the EU
Meta has announced that BirdyChat and Haiket are the first third-party messaging services that will have interoperability with WhatsApp in the European Union. The company has been working on enabling third-party chats since 2023 after the rules of the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into effect. It apparently held small scale tests over the past few months to make sure WhatsApp does work with BirdyChat and Haiket, and it will roll out integration with the services across Europe “soon.”
Users will be able to send messages, images, voice messages, videos and files between the messaging services whether they’re on Android or iOS. To those wondering, any messaging service Meta teams up with will need to have the same level of end-to-end encryption as WhatsApp under DMA’s rules. Users will see a notification in their Settings tab on WhatsApp over the coming months when BirdyChat and Haiket integration becomes available, telling them how they can opt-in to third-party chats. They can choose not to enable the feature at all or to switch it off anytime they want.
When Meta released details detailing how WhatsApp will work with other messengers, the company said that users will be able to create group chats with their friends on its partner apps. That feature won’t be available at launch, though, and will come later when Meta’s partners are ready to support the capability. Meta also said that it will continue expanding WhatsApp’s interoperability with more apps, as it’s required to do so under the DMA.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/whatsapp-enables-interoperability-with-two-other-messengers-in-the-eu-140000835.html?src=rss
Anthropic’s AI was used by Chinese hackers to run a Cyberattack
A few months ago, Anthropic published a report detailing how its Claude AI model had been weaponized in a “vibe hacking” extortion scheme. The company has continued to monitor how the agentic AI is being used to coordinate cyberattacks, and now claims that a state-backed group of hackers in China utilized Claude in an attempted infiltration of 30 corporate and political targets around the world, with some success.
In what it labeled “the first documented case of a large-scale cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention,” Anthropic said that the hackers first chose their targets, which included unnamed tech companies, financial institutions and government agencies. They then used Claude Code to develop an automated attack framework, after successfully bypassing the model’s training to avoid harmful behavior. This was achieved by breaking the planned attack into smaller tasks that didn’t obviously reveal their wider malicious intent, and telling Claude that it was a cybersecurity firm using the AI for defensive training purposes.
After writing its own exploit code, Anthropic said Claude was then able to steal usernames and passwords that allowed it to extract “a large amount of private data” through backdoors it had created. The obedient AI reportedly even went to the trouble of documenting the attacks and storing the stolen data in separate files.
The hackers used AI for 80-90 percent of its operation, only occasionally intervening, and Claude was able to orchestrate an attack in far less time than humans could have done. It wasn’t flawless, with some of the information it obtained turning out to be publicly available, but Anthropic said that attacks like this will likely become more sophisticated and effective over time.
You might be wondering why an AI company would want to publicize the dangerous potential of its own technology, but Anthropic says its investigation also acts as evidence of why the assistant is “crucial” for cyber defense. It said Claude was successfully used to analyze the threat level of the data it collected, and ultimately sees it as a tool that can assist cybersecurity professionals when future attacks happen.
Claude is by no means the only AI that has benefited cybercriminals. Last year, OpenAI said that its generative AI tools were being used by hacker groups with ties to China and North Korea. They reportedly used GAI to assist with code debugging, researching potential targets and drafting phishing emails. OpenAI said at the time that it had blocked the groups’ access to its systems.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropics-ai-was-used-by-chinese-hackers-to-run-a-cyberattack-142313551.html?src=rss