Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March 2025. Get the latest updates on his case, legal status, and where he is now.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March 2025. Get the latest updates on his case, legal status, and where he is now.
There’s yet another Nintendo Direct coming our way, which is the third in less than a month. This one is entirely focused on the upcoming Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World. It starts at 9AM ET and should last around 15 minutes.
It’s livestreaming on Nintendo’s YouTube page, but mega-fans can also open up that recently-launched Nintendo Today! app to follow along. We are embedding the YouTube link, so feel free to keep this tab open.
We have no idea what information Nintendo is going to spring on us as part of this Direct presentation. The company has already released a ton of info about Mario Kart World. It’s an open-world racer that can accommodate 24 plays at the same time.
However, there are still a couple of unknowns. Most of these involve the open-world aspect. Are there any rewards for exploration? Are there secret tracks that can only be unlocked by finding them? Can the same be said for unlockable characters? Again, we don’t know, but hope springs eternal.
There’s also the $80 elephant in the room. The exorbitant retail price of Mario Kart World has sent many fans into a tailspin. That’s a whole lot of money, and Nintendo only recently-released its first-ever $70 game. There’s a minuscule chance that the company will throw us a bone and knock $10 off the asking price, but this is highly unlikely given current economic uncertainty. At the very least, we could get some new data regarding the preorder date for US customers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/heres-how-to-watch-the-mario-kart-focused-nintendo-direct-184825796.html?src=rss
It seems like every few years, gadget makers try to come up with something that will make us care about seeing things in 3D again. Without going all the way back to the 1800s, the first Avatar movie brought millions to theaters to watch blue cat people dance around in stereoscopic vision. Then came the flop that was 3D TVs in the early 2010s before things heated up again with the arrival of VR headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Soon, Samsung will release a new take on the tech with its glasses-free Odyssey 3D Gaming Monitor (model G90XF) and after trying it out, I feel like if 3D has been this good all along, people wouldn’t roll their eyes every time the idea gets brought up.
If this monitor looks somewhat familiar, that’s because Samsung actually demoed very early pre-production models at CES in both 2024 and 2025. In fact, I tried the first version in Las Vegas almost a year and a half ago, playing Lies of P back when it was a slightly larger 37-inch display. Regardless, the Odyssey 3D is finally going on sale later this month on April 28 for $2,000 and while I don’t think it’s an essential piece of tech, it’s definitely a fun way to experience both games and videos in a new dimension.
The G90XF features a 27-inch 4K LCD panel with a 165Hz refresh rate, which isn’t all that impressive considering its price. And in some respects, it gets even worse when the 3D effect is active. In addition to having two eye and face tracking sensors hidden beneath its bezels, the Odyssey 3D also uses a lenticular filter to create two slightly different versions of the same scene (one for each eye), which gets interpreted by your brain as a 3D image.
This lowers the perceived resolution of the screen, which results in a very faint screen door effect like you might get on a VR headset. For me, this meant I saw a little chromatic fringing around certain objects while individual pixels became more noticeable. Unfortunately, because the monitor is designed to be viewed with two eyes, the effect doesn’t come across in photos or videos as cameras typically only record with a single lens/sensor at a time. (Womp womp.)
That said, even with all of those limitations, I was still impressed by the Odyssey 3D. In games, the monitor can handle two different levels of integration. There is one for titles specifically co-developed with input from Samsung (denoted with a yellow badge) that take full advantage of the tech and another more general setting for games with basic 3D support.
The first game I played — Khazan: The First Berserker — is a fully certified title and it demonstrated a surprising level of immersion. Even without pushing the sliders for 3D effects like focal distance and depth factor all the way up, trees and foliage around the edge of the screen looked like they were popping out the display right at me, while little gameplay elements like floating orbs of blood just hovered in the space between my face and the monitor. There were also details like snowflakes that looked like they were flying past my head, which was a nice touch.
Importantly, the tech never felt oppressive and thanks to the built-in head tracking, I had the freedom to move around in my seat (just a little bit) without ruining the effect. So instead of being a distraction, it simply added a bit of atmosphere to the game. And it still looked quite sharp and ran as smooth as you’d expect. Sadly, I couldn’t play Octopath Traveler, which is another one of Samsung’s supported titles, as I think the combination of the 3D effect with the game’s retro HD-2D art style would be a great showcase of the tech.
As for other titles, the monitor can convert standard 2D graphics into 3D on the fly. Though, as you might imagine, the effect isn’t nearly as pronounced, particularly in more modern titles with fancier graphics. However, when I played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, characters and vehicles still popped out in a very pleasing way that made a more than 20-year-old game feel brand new. Once again, it wasn’t a groundbreaking change, but added an extra level of fun and immersion to an already very nostalgic game.
But the Odyssey 3D’s abilities don’t stop at gaming because the monitor can also convert non-DRM-protected videos (like clips from YouTube) into 3D on the fly. Similar to games, more recent trailers like Avengers: Endgame had an obvious depth effect that made certain scenes shine, though I still wouldn’t call it a revolutionary experience. However, for other genres like anime, the display did an even better job of separating stuff in the background from characters up front. On top of all that, the monitor can also convert side-by-side stereoscopic footage into standard 3D videos as well, which is a nice, though rather niche, inclusion. I just wish I didn’t have to click on the notification to activate the 3D effect every time I pulled up a new video.
Of course, the big question is if the Odyssey 3D’s added dimensionality is worth an extra $1,000 or more compared to a more traditional monitor with similar specs. And to that I’d probably say no. But I don’t think that means this display is a failure, because I found that being able to turn this effect on and off at will without needing extra equipment like glasses made the whole experience rather enjoyable, instead of completely off-putting like so many devices in the past. And if Samsung can make this tech a bit more affordable, it would feel more like a nice bonus that has definite value when viewing certain games or movies. When you consider all the false starts and flops 3D gadgets have had throughout the years, that feels like a small but important win in my book.
Finally, while there are currently 12 games that are fully certified to work with the Odyssey 3D, Samsung says it hopes to bring that number closer to 50 by the end of the year. Currently support titles are listed below.
KHAZAN: The First Berserker
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
Lies of P
Psychonauts 2
Little Nightmares II
Palworld
F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake
Like a Dragon: Ishin
Only UP
Darksiders Genesis
Octopath Traveler
The Samsung Odyssey 3D Gaming Monitor will be available for $2,000 starting on April 28, with pre-orders eligible for a $200 credit from select retailers like Samsung.com.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/samsung-odyssey-3d-monitor-hands-on-this-should-be-the-new-baseline-for-glasses-free-3d-190015689.html?src=rss
Deezer, a Spotify alternative that launched in the US in 2016, shared on Wednesday that 20,000 completely AI-generated tracks are added to its music service on a daily basis, making up “over 18% of all uploaded content” the platform receives every day.
Like other streaming services, Deezer offers methods for independent artists to upload their own music without having to be part of a larger licensing deal with a record label. While that lowers some barriers, it also leaves the door open for music that isn’t made by people at all. Clearly, people are taking advantage of the option.
Deezer introduced a tool for detecting and tagging AI-generated content in January 2025, when at the time, AI-generated music only made up 10 percent of uploads. The tool is helpful, but it feels like a stopgap until there’s consensus on whether AI-generated tracks should be allowed to exist in the first place. AI companies contend that training on existing books, movies, music, and internet ephemera is “fair use,” but many of the people who made that material feel differently. In terms of pushback, AI music startups Suno and Udio were sued by record labels for copyright infringement in 2024 and artists have spoken out about “unlicensed AI training” but there’s yet to be ruling that sets the new legal standard.
Deezer also isn’t alone in dealing with an infestation of AI-generated content. It’s well-documented at this point that Spotify has the same issue. Subscribers have highlighted dozens of instances of AI-generated tracks that were clearly uploaded to try and game Spotify’s popular weekly playlists, and while Spotify has removed some copycat tracks when artists have complained, the company has no qualms with hosting AI music.
“If creators are using these technologies — where they are creating music in a legal way that we reimburse and people listen to them — and are successful, we should let people listen to them,” Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström shared on a Big Technology podcast episode from November 2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/deezer-reports-18-percent-of-the-music-uploaded-to-its-service-every-day-is-ai-generated-193652533.html?src=rss
Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite being a legal U.S. resident for several years. Learn about his case here.
Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite being a legal U.S. resident for several years. Learn about his case here.
A mere two days after announcing GPT-4.1, OpenAI is releasing not one but two new models. The company today announced the public availability of o3 and o4-mini. Of the former, OpenAI says o3 is its most advanced reasoning model yet, with it showing “strong performance” in coding, math and science tasks. As for o4-mini, OpenAI is billing it as a lower cost alternative that still delivers “impressive results” across those same fields.
More notably, both models offer novel capabilities not found in OpenAI’s past systems. For first time, the company’s reasoning models can use and combine all of the tools available in ChatGPT, including web browsing and image generation. The company says this capability allows o3 and o4-mini solve challenging, multi-step problems more effectively, and “take real steps toward acting independently.”
At the same time, o3 and o4-mini can not just see images, but also interpret and “think” about them in a way that significantly extends their visual processing capabilities. For instance, you can upload images of whiteboards, diagrams or sketches — even poor quality ones — and the new models will understand them. They can also adjust the images as part of how they reason.
“The combined power of state-of-the-art reasoning with full tool access translates into significantly stronger performance across academic benchmarks and real-world tasks, setting a new standard in both intelligence and usefulness,” says OpenAI.
Separately, OpenAI is releasing a new coding agent (à la Claude Code) named Codex CLI. It’s designed to give developers a minimal interface they can use to link OpenAI’s models with their local code. Out of the box, it works with o3 and o4-mini, with support for GPT-4.1 on the way.
Today’s announcement comes after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company was changing course on the roadmap he detailed in February. At the time, Altman indicated OpenAI would not release o3, which the company first previewed late last year, as a standalone product. However, at the start of April, he announced a “change of plans,” noting OpenAI was moving forward with the release of o3 and o4-mini.
“There are a bunch of reasons for this, but the most exciting one is that we are going to be able to make GPT-5 much better than we originally though,” he wrote on X. “We also found it harder than we thought it was going to be to smoothly integrate everything. and we want to make sure we have enough capacity to support what we expect to be unprecedented demand.”
That means the streamlining Altman promised in February will likely need to wait until at least the release of GPT-5, which he said would arrive sometime in the next “few months.”
In the meantime, ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Team users can begin using o3 and o4-mini starting today. Sometime in the next few weeks, OpenAI will bring online o3-pro, an even more powerful version of its flagship reasoning model, and make it available to Pro subscribers. For the time being, those users can continue to use o1-pro.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-new-o3-and-o4-mini-models-are-all-about-thinking-with-images-170043465.html?src=rss
X DMs may soon be kaput. On Tuesday, a company software engineer posted on the platform that “the whole entire DM’s will be gone soon.” But the former Twitter isn’t getting rid of messaging; the company is said to be replacing it with a full-fledged chatting system called XChat.
X Software Engineer Zach Warunek replied to another user who asked whether XChat would replace message requests. “No, not like request messages but like the whole entire DM’s will be gone soon,” the engineer replied. Engadget contacted Warunek to ask about a timeframe for the feature, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.
No, not like request messages but like the whole entire DM’s will be gone soon
— Zach Warunek (@ZachWarunek) April 16, 2025
These aren’t the first rumors we’ve seen about XChat. Early this year, the X account @xDaily posted a screenshot showing an XChat icon instead of Messages in the platform’s sidebar. In February, owner Elon Musk wrote that, within a few months, he would discontinue his phone number and only use X for texts and calls. Then, @swak_12 (via Android Headlines) posted screenshots this month showing a PIN verification screen (similar to secure messaging apps like Signal) for XChat.
Yet another alleged leak posted on Wednesday by @P4mui includes more screenshots and a list of XChat features, including fully encrypted end-to-end messaging, file transfers and the ability to unread messages and delete individual ones for all users.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-may-soon-replace-dms-with-its-upcoming-chat-platform-171006540.html?src=rss
Bloober Team has provided a first proper look at gameplay for its latest project, Cronos: The New Dawn, after a brief tease at the end of the initial reveal in October. The trailer has a very Dead Space-like feel, which shouldn’t be too surprising given that this is a third-person survival horror game, but that’s hardly a bad thing. There appear to be some other influences at play here, and there’s one particular feature that seems quite terrifying.
The game takes place across two time periods, a decayed post-apocalyptic future and 1980s-era Poland. As a Traveller, you’re sent back in time to rescue certain people before they die in an apocalypse. To do that, you’ll need to battle creatures known as Orphans, which Bloober describes as “twisted, body-horror monstrosities born from humanity’s darkest nightmares.” But you’ll need to be sure to burn the bodies of fallen monsters. If you don’t, that can spell a whole heap of trouble.
Living Orphans can absorb the bodies of their fallen ilk. This so-called Merging evolves the creatures. They become fast, stronger and tougher to take down, and they gain new abilities to boot. So yeah, you’ll want to torch any Orphans that you take out.
There’s a lot going on elsewhere in the trailer. Along with Dead Space, the action and visuals evoke games like The Last of Us Part 2 (if you know, you know), Returnal, Bioshock and Control — not least because of the shifting, fractured Brutalist architecture. The creature designs are reminiscent of those in last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake, a game that Bloober Team just happens to be behind.
Those aren’t criticisms in any way. There’s nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from others and fashioning them into something new. Cronos: The New Dawn is looking pretty compelling, and it’s already got a spot on my wishlist.
Cronos: The New Dawn is slated to arrive later this year. It’s coming to Steam, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cronos-the-new-dawn-seems-to-smush-dead-space-and-control-together-in-a-good-way-172611962.html?src=rss
Microsoft just announced that Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One owners can now stream select games they own directly from the console. This feature is exclusive to Game Pass Ultimate members.
What’s the point of this? It’s intended to save both time and hard drive space. Gamers can jump right in immediately, without having to download and install a giant file. It doesn’t work with every game. As of this writing, there are over 100 titles that enable this feature. They include standouts like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Animal Well, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hogwarts Legacy, among others.
All you have to do is peruse your library and look for the cloud icon accompanying a game. Playable titles can also be filtered in search. The Store app even displays this icon, allowing you to start playing as soon as you hand over some digital cash.
Xbox players could already do this on devices outside of an official console. Throughout the past few months, the feature has been popping up on select smart TVs, Amazon Fire TVs and Meta Quest VR headsets. It also works on browser-supported devices like PCs, tablets and smartphones. A beta test for Xbox consoles started in December.
Microsoft also just announced that backward compatible games from the Xbox and Xbox 360 will now be streamable via remote play across all supported devices. That significantly increases the library of available titles. It’s worth noting that the company has removed remote play from the official Xbox app on mobile, but it still works via browsers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-users-can-now-stream-games-they-own-on-their-consoles-173739687.html?src=rss
Scientists have caught a colossal squid on camera in its natural environment for the very time, according to a report by the BBC. This happened around 100 years after the species was originally discovered, proving just how vast and mysterious the ocean truly is.
The squid is a juvenile, so it’s not nearly as large as its namesake suggests. It clocks in at around 11.8-inches long. Adult colossal squid can grow up to 23 feet in length and weigh up to 1,100 pounds. They are the heaviest invertebrate on the planet.
The crew was exploring the south Atlantic Ocean, near the South Sandwich Islands, as part of a 35-day mission to find new marine life. The juvenile squid was caught on camera at a depth of nearly 2,000 feet. Chief scientist Dr. Michelle Taylor said the team was unsure it was even a colossal squid at first, but filmed it anyway because it was “beautiful and unusual.” The footage was then verified by another researcher.
“It’s exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling to think that they have no idea that humans exist,” said Dr. Kat Bolstad.
Most colossal squid found in the wild are already dead and spotted as remains in whale stomachs. Dying adults have been spotted near the surface of the ocean but this is the first time a specimen has been filmed in its natural element. We don’t even know that much about their life cycle, other than the fact that juveniles are transparent and adults are not. The Natural History Museum has said it’s hard to estimate the global population.
It’s incredible just how ignorant we still are of our own ocean in the year 2025. Only a fifth of the ocean floor has been sufficiently mapped. It truly is the final frontier of Earth-bound exploration. Maybe Katy Perry and Gayle King would have received a better reception if they took an 11-minute trip underwater instead.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/scientists-film-a-living-colossal-squid-for-the-first-time-161201996.html?src=rss
