Technology

Today, aerospace startup Venturi Astrolab revealed its new interplanetary rover designed to transport cargo and people across the surface of the Moon — and eventually Mars. The company says it plans to build a fleet of these rovers over the coming decade to help NASA and commercial companies establish a long-term presence on the Moon. Called FLEX, for Flexible Logistics and Exploration, the rover can crouch down and lift payloads up from the surface of the Moon, carrying them under its belly before depositing them at their intended location. With its “modular payload concept,” it can carry many different types of objects, so long as they are built to an agreed-upon standard of size and shape. In keeping with its name FLEX, the rover can maneuver semi-autonomously, be controlled remotely — ...

Instagram on Thursday launched Creator Lab, an educational portal intended to aid emerging creators in growing their platforms via advice from popular players on the social media platform. From fine-dining connoisseurs and path-forging philanthropists to front-row-seated fashion influencers and opinionated entertainment critics, the platform is fully equipped with informative content from well-established creators across a variety of industries. Creator Lab is divided into three separate categories — Expressing Yourself, Building Community and Growing Long-Term — in which each participating creator has provided their own candid and tactical advice video on topics including “building content strategy” and “going full-time as a creator,” as well as “addressing money taboo,” “avoiding social ...

Microsoft is making improvements to its Energy Saver mode on Xbox consoles. While Xbox owners have traditionally had to enable Standby mode to continue getting game and system updates while consoles are powered off, the Energy Saver mode will now support downloading updates in the background. “Now, system and game updates can be downloaded during Energy Saver mode, further saving energy,” explains Dave McCarthy, corporate vice president of Xbox operations. “Energy Saver mode consumes about 20 times less power than Standby mode when the console is not being used or receiving updates.” Microsoft has now made Energy Saver mode the default option when Xbox owners initially set up a console. The Energy Saver mode does mean it’s slower to resume your Xbox, particularly on older Xbox One consoles...

March 10th is the unofficial holiday to celebrate all things Nintendo, and a variety of retailers are offering bargains on first-party Nintendo titles and some of the best accessories for the Nintendo Switch. While neither the Switch Lite nor OLED models of the Nintendo Switch are currently discounted, both models are readily available for late adopters or anyone who has been looking to upgrade from the classic Switch (in the case of the Switch OLED model). Games for the Nintendo Switch go on sale fairly regularly, but it’s not often that we see substantial discounts on first-party titles, especially the digital versions. The discounts on most of these titles even extend to their Nintendo eShop listings, which will remain on sale until March 13th. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the ...

Microsoft is providing an update on its support for Valve’s Steam Deck today. Most Xbox Game Studios titles will run on the Steam Deck, but Microsoft says Gears 5, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite, and Microsoft Flight Simulator X are unsupported. These titles don’t work on the Steam Deck due to anti-cheat systems, and it’s not clear if they’ll ever be supported in the future. Microsoft has marked eight games as “Verified,” and six more as “Playable.” The difference between the two can be something as small as a warning appearing or even having to invoke a virtual touchscreen to enter text during a game. While some are only on the playable list right now, they could soon progress to verified status. Microsoft’s list only covers Xbox Game Studios titles currently available o...

What happens if you’re gaming on your desktop Windows PC but want to continue the game from a different part of the house — or even out of the house? If you’re using Steam, Valve’s PC gaming destination, you can get around the first part of this dilemma by using Steam Link, an in-home game streaming solution that uses your local network. And now, there’s a way around the second as well — with some caveats. While the recent release of the Steam Deck has provided gamers with a new way to play games away from their desktop, the Steam Link feature lets you stream your games from anywhere using an Android or Apple device with an internet connection (R.I.P Steam Link Box). Even though Steam Link has been out of beta for some time, the service can still be an uphill battle even for power users, s...

Web3 operating system droppTV has announced it is bringing an NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club to life, rendering Ape #7792 into a 4D humanoid. Leveraging droppTV’s proprietary artificial intelligence and mixed reality engine, Ape #7792 will enact human-like characteristics and will serve as a host on droppTV — an innovative shoppable streaming platform where creators can monetize their videos through direct commercial sales incorporated in the streaming of diverse content. droppTV is advancing content-driven commerce through the use of AI and machine learning, a subset of AI that uses data analysis to inform its real-time algorithm and model building. Without leaving the stream of content, consumers will be able to watch and shop music videos and shows housing contemporary streetwear, ex...

Lego’s interactive Super Mario universe is getting even bigger today with the addition of a Lego Princess Peach starter kit, which adds the Mushroom Kingdom’s ruling royal to the ever-expanding array of modular sets. Like the addition of Lego Luigi last year, the Lego Princess Peach starter kit doesn’t make any major changes from the initial Lego Mario sets from 2020. The broad technology is still the same for all three characters, which uses a combination of an LCD display for animating each character’s facial expressions and a main screen on their chests and a sensor to scan barcodes and react to different colored Lego tiles. The Lego characters can also connect to a companion app over Bluetooth, as well as to each other for two-player gameplay. That said, Peach does at least introduce a...

One of the ironic things about The Walt Disney Company contributing just under $200,000 to the Florida Republicans behind HB 1557 — better known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — is the very real possibility that same bill could soon make it all but illegal for teachers to talk to their students about any of Disney’s handful of movies and shows that happen to feature queer characters. Whether Disney CEO Bob Chapek had considered this before multiple shareholders pressed him about this bill this week during Disney’s annual investors call isn’t clear. But what has become increasingly apparent since the bill passed in Florida’s House of Representatives last month, and in the state’s Senate this past Tuesday, is that Disney was not expecting so much of the public to take note of its actions or for...

Rejoice, peasants! Your proletarian gadgets may live another year yet! I refer, of course, to the Mac Studio that Apple recently announced, which hits shelves March 18th. The company made a number of lofty claims about the device’s power and efficiency, using various charts that it did not label in any particularly useful way. Those are just claims until we get our hands on a unit — we’ll need to verify the metrics ourselves. But Apple also showed us pictures of the device. We’ve seen it. And there are two things we know for sure, without a doubt, that it has. Computer, enhance: Image: Apple Sure, there are some ports for Thunderbolt, Ethernet, whatever. But look at those two little rectangles to the left of the HDMI. Those two beautiful rectangles. These, my friends, are a new invention c...

When the video game industry is valued at $300 billion, a Halo TV series trailer is occupying prime real estate during the AFC Championship, and a GTA facsimile like Free Guy is one of the top-grossing films of the year, it is clear that Jack Thompson lost the fight. For those who don’t remember, Thompson was the attorney who led the charge against violent video games and helped morph a fringe topic into a dominant wedge issue of the mid-2000s. He has since vanished from the public eye as the outrage ran dry, and everyone moved on. Looking back, the imagery of the zeitgeist — think Joe Lieberman brandishing a light-gun live on CSPAN or Hillary Clinton equating first-person shooters to tobacco and alcohol — is rendered strange and atemporal in the harsh light of the 2020s. Yes, the affair s...