Kalakshar US

A prolific voice actor behind Pokémon‘s Professor Oak and many other classic animated characters has passed away. James Carter Cathcart, who was best known for his voice acting work in animation and video games, died of throat cancer at 71, Variety reports.

The actor, who was frequently credited as “Jimmy Zoppi” and “Carter Cathcart” throughout his career, played a variety of Pokémon‘s most memorable supporting characters. Alongside Professor Oak, Cathcart voiced his grandson Gary Oak and Team Rocket’s Meowth and James across over 700 episodes of the animated series and 15 movies. That includes Pokémon: The First Movie, Cathcart’s first feature film credit. His work wasn’t exclusive to animation, either. Cathcart also voiced Vector the Crocodile in the game Shadow the Hedgehog, and provided voices for multiple Pokémon that appeared in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Beyond voice acting, Cathcart was a talented musician and writer. He’s credited with writing and adapting multiple English-language versions of Pokémon TV movies. After 25 years in the entertainment industry, Cathcart decided to retire from voice acting in 2023 due to his cancer diagnosis, Kotaku writes. The voice actor was in hospice care in Forest Hills, New York when he died. He’s survived by his wife, Martha Jacobi, and a body of work that touches everything from One Piece to candy bar commercials.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/professor-oaks-voice-actor-james-carter-cathcart-has-died-192858421.html?src=rss 

Nintendo games famously don’t tend to go down in price all that much, but original Switch owners were able to save money on eligible first-party-published titles by taking advantage of the company’s Switch Game Voucher program. But that won’t be the case for much longer, with Nintendo today announcing that the vouchers in question will no longer be sold after January 30 2026.

Currently, Game Vouchers can be purchased as a pair for $99.98, which you then redeem on select digital titles, from Switch classics like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to more recent additions to the console’s library, including 2024’s Super Mario Party Jamboree and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This year’s Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, which was the last significant first-party Switch release before the Switch 2 arrived in June, is also in the catalog. Game Vouchers were introduced in 2019, and all of the above games are priced at $60, so you’re saving just over $20 when you use them to buy two. 

Nintendo chose not to extend Game Vouchers to Switch 2-exclusive games, adding insult to the injury of price increases to both games and hardware in this new handheld generation.

Vouchers purchased before January 30 will remain valid for one year. The company also said that new games will continue to be added to the catalog. Presumably this means that games such as Metroid Prime: Beyond, which is coming to Switch and Switch 2 later this year, have a good chance of ending up there.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-is-getting-rid-of-its-money-saving-game-vouchers-program-170409145.html?src=rss 

Razer just announced the pending availability of the DeathAdder V4 Pro gaming mouse, an upgrade to one of our favorite peripherals. The big news here is that this mouse ships with an optical scrolling wheel, and this is the first time Razer has used this tech.

The company says the wheel has been “purpose-built for esports.” Just like optical switches on keyboards, optical scrolling wheels allow for more precision and durability when compared to their mechanical counterparts. Razer says it offers “triple the durability and consistent, tactile control even under intense gameplay.”

This gadget also features newly-designed optical mouse switches, which feature a “crisp, enhanced click feel” along with a rating for 100 million clicks. The upgraded wireless transmitter should improve power efficiency by 63 percent and decrease latency by 37 percent, both of which are useful during intense competitive gaming sessions.

Razer says this mouse offers “flawless tracking across a wide range of surfaces,” thanks to larger polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) feet. It boasts sensor accuracy of up to 45,000 DPI and tracking speeds up to 900 IPS. It’s also incredibly light, with the black model weighing 56 grams and the white version weighing 57 grams.

The battery life has improved. We were impressed by the 90 hours that the V3 offered, but the company claims this one can go for 150 hours before requiring a charge. The Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro is available for preorder right now, with shipments going out on July 24. It costs $170.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/razers-deathadder-v4-pro-gaming-mouse-features-an-optical-scrolling-wheel-171705018.html?src=rss 

The National Crime Agency (NCA) in London has arrested two 19-year-old men, a 17-year-old boy and a 20-year-old woman on suspicion of blackmail, money laundering, organized crime and contravening the Computer Misuse Act. These arrests are part of an investigation into a series of cyberattacks on three large UK retailers — Marks & Spencer, Harrods and Co-op — earlier this year.

UK investigators believe the suspects are connected with a loose-knit English-speaking hacker group called Scattered Spider, which has been blamed for a series of high-profile incidents. For Co-op, this was the second such incident this year, after a hacking group called DragonForce gained access to the retailer’s membership data. Scattered Spider was implicated in 2023 when US-based casino chain Caesars Entertainment reportedly paid tens of millions of dollars to the group in order to keep its customers’ data from being exposed.

Marks & Spencer was attacked in April and was forced to shut down its online store for over a month. Co-op fell victim the same month in an attack that led to a partial shutdown of its IT system. Harrods disclosed on May 1 that it had staved off an attempted attack by restricting internet access across its websites.

“Since these attacks took place, specialist NCA cybercrime investigators have been working at pace and the investigation remains one of the agency’s highest priorities,” said Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s national cybercrime unit.

The four suspects remain in custody for questioning.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/uk-authorities-arrest-four-suspected-members-of-hacker-group-scattered-spider-172532501.html?src=rss 

Amazon’s Prime Day is in full swing, and now that two full days have passed, some of us have gotten past our decision paralysis and checked out our online shopping carts. It’s no surprise that the Engadget team consists of people who are fans of tech (and non-tech) products, and we also love a good deal. As we’ve put together roundups and news stories about the best things to buy this week, we’ve also been tempted by the savings. Here’s a list of what several of our team members bought, not only to share our lives with you but to also show you some of the deals we deemed good enough to spend our own money on. 

(Ed. note: Igor Bonifacic saved a whopping $2 on this guitar tuner, but it was worth it to him. I’ll let him explain.)

In Canada, the D’Addario tuner I ended up buying is normally a little more expensive at $20 CAD, but I figured there was a chance it would go on sale for Prime Day. So I set up a Camelcamelcamel alert, and on the morning of July 8 I got an email from the website saying it was… $2 off. Not the greatest discount, but hey, in such an expensive hobby, every dollar counts, right?

This past spring, I picked up the guitar for the first time in about 15 years. How it happened doesn’t matter. What does matter is that now I play everyday, and I’ve been asking myself why did I ever stop in the first place. I feel more creative, my eyes feel healthier from less screen time and I’m better now than I ever was as a teenager.

As I’ve gotten back into the hobby, I’ve slowly been buying all the little accessories that can make it easier to maintain your guitar. With Prime Day around the corner, I set my sights on a headstock tuner. These little gadgets weren’t around when I first started learning the instrument, but let me tell you they’re great.

Like the name suggests, you attach one to the headstock of your guitar. It then allows you to tune the instrument by measuring the vibrations produced by the strings. While you could just as easily use an app like GuitarTuna to do the same, clip-on tuners aren’t affected by ambient noise, making the entire tuning process fast and easy. Best of all, they’re cheap. In the US, you can spend as little as $15 to buy the model I purchased for Prime Day. — Igor Bonifacic, senior reporter

Without even trying, I’ve become a devotee of Apple’s Continuity Camera over the last few years. I think with my laptop and monitor setup, it’s just always made more sense to use my iPhone as a camera rather than buying some kind of USB-C docking station or giving up another port on my computer. Unfortunately, I also find having my phone within arm’s reach while I’m writing to be pretty distracting. Taking advantage of a Prime Day deal on a dedicated webcam this year is my solution.

I purchased an off-white Logitech Brio 500, which normally costs $130, but is $50 off for Prime Day through Amazon or Logitech. It’s a kind of a long, tube-shaped 1080p webcam, so not the sleekest or best option out there, but it has the basics I need, like a manual shutter and auto-framing, and critically, it matches my Logitech mouse. If, like me, you can’t stand the idea of paying over $100 for a webcam, I think it’s a pretty appealing option at $80. — Ian Carlos Campbell, contributing writer

I recently discovered that as all my gear transitioned to USB-C, I no longer had any compatible thumb drives. Rather than buy an adapter dongle that I would inevitably lose, I figured it would be smart to have a new thumb drive that could handle both USB-C and USB-3. The discount on the SanDisk drive I bought wasn’t huge, but Prime Day seemed like a good time to save a few bucks on a practical purchase. — Anna Washenko, contributing reporter

I made a very short, focused list of three things to buy on Prime Day — a Nori Press, a walking pad and the Ms. Rachel Tonie toy for the kids in my life. But when I was looking through our roundup of the best deals this week, the discounted entry-level iPad caught my eye. 

My dad had been asking me repeatedly for weeks about an iPad for watching videos and movies while him and my mom were traveling, and I wasn’t able to give them an answer as I was weighing a lot of concerns. What is the best operating system for them? Do they need something released recently, or could they save some money on an older model? 

Seeing this current-generation iPad on sale prompted me to just buy it for them. It simplifies things as my dad uses an iPhone and is familiar with iPadOS, and apps like YouTube and Netflix would satisfy their desires to download videos to watch offline. Saving $70 on what is a very solid device felt like a great deal, but more importantly it earned me points with my family. — Cherlynn Low, managing editor

What we’re still considering

As Prime Day goes on till the end of the week, many on the Engadget team are still weighing their decisions. Executive editor John Falcone, for example, hasn’t bought Anker’s UFO 3-device charger, but says he wishes he did. I’ll update this post if he does, because he will save almost 30 percent on it.

Not all our purchases have been through Amazon, either. Editor-in-chief Aaron Souppouris is thinking about buying “a weird camera for too much money not on Amazon.” It’s a full-spectrum conversion camera, and if and when he does make that purchase, we will be sure to shame him here.

Finally, senior reporter Billy Steele has made arguably the best shopping decision all week, on or off Amazon. He bought “three Happy Meals trying to get the cool toys. I got three of the same toy. :(” 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazon-prime-day-2025-the-deals-that-the-engadget-team-spent-our-hard-earned-money-on-154509453.html?src=rss 

AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has been flooding the internet, according to a report by The New York Times. Researchers at organizations like the Internet Watch Foundation and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children are warning that this new AI-created CSAM is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.

Let’s go over some numbers. The Internet Watch Foundation, a nonprofit that investigates and collects reports of CSAM, has identified 1,286 AI-generated videos so far this year. This is compared with just two videos identified in the first half of 2024. That’s an exponential increase.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children re-affirms those statistics. It told NYT that it has received 485,000 reports of AI-generated CSAM, including still images and videos, in the first half of 2025. This is compared to 67,000 for all of 2024. That’s another massive uptick

“It’s a canary in the coal mine,” said Derek Ray-Hill, interim chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation. “There is an absolute tsunami we are seeing.”

This technology is constantly improving, so the videos and images have become more realistic. The Internet Watch Foundation found an internet forum in which users were praising how realistic the new videos were. Reporting suggests that this content is distributed through the dark web, making it harder for law enforcement agencies to identify the offenders.

It’s worth remembering how AI image generators work. They are trained using real images and videos. The New York Times says that much of this new glut of AI-generated content includes real CSAM that has been repurposed by the algorithm. Some of the material even uses real photos of children scraped from school websites and social media.

The issue dates back to the early days of this technology. In 2023, researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory found hundreds of examples of CSAM in a data set used in an early version of the image generator Stable Diffusion. Stability AI says it has introduced safeguards to improve safety standards and “is deeply committed to preventing the misuse of our technology, particularly in the creation and dissemination of harmful content, including CSAM.”

That did lead other companies to start reporting AI-generated CSAM to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Amazon reported a whopping 380,000 instances of AI-generated CSAM in the first half of this year, all of which it took down. OpenAI reported 75,000 cases.

Courts have been slow to catch up with this tech. The DOJ made its first known arrest last year of a man suspected of possessing and distributing AI-generated CSAM. A UK man recently got 18 months in jail for using AI to generate the foul images, which he sold.

“The Department of Justice views all forms of AI-generated CSAM as a serious and emerging threat,” Matt Galeotti, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, told NYT.

It’s worth noting that despite the alarming uptick in occurrences, AI-generated content still represents a mere fraction of all CSAM identified by authorities and watchdog organizations. For instance, the Internet Watch Foundation confirmed 291,273 reports of CSAM in 2024 and, as previously noted, just two instances were AI-generated.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/reports-indicate-a-massive-uptick-in-ai-generated-csam-throughout-the-internet-154937671.html?src=rss 

There’s a new (ish) retro console on the block. The ModRetro Chromatic had a soft launch last year but is now “permanently in stock” for consumers. This is another machine that runs Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, like the beloved Analogue Pocket and others.

The Chromatic features a magnesium alloy build, so it should take a licking. It also features a backlit screen — something the original Game Boy lacked. As a matter of fact, Nintendo didn’t fully embrace backlighting technology until midway through the life of the Game Boy Advance.

The console was designed by Palmer Luckey and was originally sold in a limited run last year. Today’s release includes a new colorway and the choice of a sapphire glass display for increased durability. There are also a bunch of new accessories, like a rechargeable power bank, and some nifty software features. It can now natively stream to Discord, Mac or PC, without any additional hardware and there’s a new firmware tool to update games.

The Chromatic runs proprietary cartridges, in addition to Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. There are a handful of new games arriving with this release, including a metroidvania called Wicked Plague. Each console ships with Tetris, just like the original Game Boy. The standard release costs $200, but the model with the sapphire glass display costs $300. New games price out at $40 and old-school Game Boy carts are available on eBay, at garage sales and maybe buried in ancient couch cushions.

There are a couple of caveats here. First of all, this doesn’t emulate games, as cartridges are required. It only handles Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. The Analogue Pocket, for instance, can also play Game Boy Advance titles and a separate adapter brings other consoles into the mix.

There’s also the creator himself. Palmer Luckey is a controversial figure. He founded Oculus and helped bring VR to the masses, sure, but recent years has found him running a military defense contracting firm called Anduril Industries. This company has been involved with designing a “virtual” border wall complete with hundreds of surveillance towers, building AI tools for military use and, most recently, making wearables that allow soldiers to interact with AI-powered weapon systems.

He’s become a big player in the defense space, securing $6 billion in global government contracts. You’ll have to decide if you want to indirectly contribute to that cause by giving him $200 or $300 to pick up a portable console.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/palmer-luckeys-modretro-chromatic-portable-console-is-now-a-thing-you-can-actually-buy-160016032.html?src=rss 

Starting today, Google is bringing image-to-video generation to the Gemini app. The feature comes courtesy of the company’s Veo 3 model, which Google began rolling out more broadly to AI Pro users last week after it was initially only available to AI Ultra subscribers.

To start using Gemini’s image-to-video generation, click the “tools” option in the prompt bar and then select “video.” Google is currently limiting Veo 3 to producing eight-second clips at 720p. Gemini will output your request in a 16:9 landscape format, so the resulting clips won’t be great for sharing on social media — unlike those generated by TikTok’s AI Alive feature, for example. However, Veo 3 is currently one of the only AI models capable of generating synced audio alongside the video it creates.

You can also use Veo 3’s image-to-video generation feature in Flow, Google’s AI filmmaking app. As of today, the program is available in 75 additional countries. Over in the Gemini app, image-to-video generation is rolling out on the web today. Google expects most mobile users will have access by the end of the week. A $20 per month Google AI Pro or $250 per month AI Ultra subscription is required to use the new feature.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-gemini-app-can-now-generate-videos-from-static-images-150052396.html?src=rss