Technology

The developer of indie hits Celeste and Towerfall has unveiled its next game: Earthblade. There aren’t many details about the game just yet, but Extremely OK Games billed Monday’s news as a “vibe reveal,” taking the wraps off the game’s title, a poster, and a song from the game. You can see the poster and the game’s logo (designed by Pedro Medeiros) and hear the song (composed by Lena Raine) in a teaser video posted on Twitter. Earthblade Vibe reveal! ( sound on!) A 2D explor-action game in a seamless pixel art world. The next release from the Celeste team, coming 20XX. pic.twitter.com/ceAM80PEaG — Extremely OK Games (@exok_games) April 19, 2021 We might be waiting a while for the actual release of the game. Extremely OK Games has only officially listed a vague “20XX” release date, and the...

Mercedes-Benz has revealed a new electric SUV called the EQB at Auto Shanghai 2021. It’s the first mass-market electric SUV the company will sell in the US after it canceled plans to bring its first mass-market EV, the EQC, stateside in February. It will be the second mass-market electric Mercedes-Benz in the US after the EQS sedan goes on sale later this year. The EQB is a slightly taller electric SUV than the EQC, and it has space for seven people. It won’t dazzle in the range department, though, as Mercedes-Benz says it expects the EQB to squeeze 419 kilometers out of the 66.5kWh battery pack when fully charged, or about 260 miles. That figure is based on Europe’s WLTP testing standard, too, which typically produces rosier estimates. The EPA-rated range will likely be less. Mercedes-Ben...

There are a lot of 4K TVs available to choose from, complete with a wide variety of prices and performance. But even if your budget is less than $500, you can get a good 4K TV in a bigger size than you might expect. Whether you want a secondary TV for a bedroom or a high-end, next-gen-gaming-ready OLED, we’ve picked out the best TV deals across four common categories: Best 4K TV deals for most people Best budget 4K TVs Best OLED TVs Best 4K TVs for the PS5 and Xbox Series X We will provide regular updates to this post so be sure to check back regularly for the most up-to-date info on the deals available. Best 4K TV deals for most people A 55-inch TV is the most popular size available now. It is not too big, nor is it too small, making it a safe size if you’re looking to upgrade the TV in a...

If you’re hunting for an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset, Newegg has an appealing sale happening on bundles that will net you a free accessory. For $350, you can get the 64GB headset (normally $300 by itself) with Logitech’s G333 VR wired earbuds and the Oculus Elite strap. Both accessories would usually add $100 to the total, but with this bundle, you’re saving $49, so it’s like you’re getting the ever-useful and comfortable Elite strap for free. Oculus Quest 2 VR headset bundle $350 $399 13% off Prices taken at time of publishing. The latest standalone VR headset from Oculus features a refined design, higher-resolution displays, and a faster processor than its predecessor. Visit Newegg to find the headset bundled with Logitech’s G333 VR earbuds and a complimentary (or steeply discounted) acces...

Discord has loosened its ban on accessing NSFW servers from its iPhone and iPad apps. Now, only servers focused on “explicit pornographic content” will be fully blocked from being accessed through the apps. Other NSFW servers will still be blocked by default, but users will be able to opt in to viewing them. The changes walk back a stricter ban on NSFW content that Discord put in place last week. On April 12th, Discord said it would require server owners to mark their community as NSFW if it was “organized around NSFW themes.” Under the original plan, any server marked NSFW would have been inaccessible on iOS. Users were frustrated with the changes, though, since it limited their ability to communicate with others and moderate servers they were in charge of. The Verge has reached out to Di...

Facebook says it’s taking extra moderation measures around the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer accused of murdering Minneapolis man George Floyd last year. As a verdict in the trial approaches, Facebook has designated Minneapolis a “high-risk location” where it will seek and remove calls to bring weapons to events. It will also remove content that “praises, celebrates, or mocks George Floyd’s death.” Facebook content moderation VP Monika Bickert outlined preparations for a verdict in a blog post this morning. “We want to strike the right balance between allowing people to speak about the trial and what the verdict means, while still doing our part to protect everyone’s safety,” Bickert writes. Users can “discuss, critique, and criticize the trial and the attorneys involve...

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has gotten its first trailer, showing off the high-flying martial arts action and a new hero for the interconnected universe of Marvel films and shows: Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), who’s known in the comics as Marvel’s preeminent master of martial arts. The trailer serves as a short introduction to Shang-Chi as he faces off against the mysterious Ten Rings organization and its true leader, the Mandarin. The Ten Rings have been a figure lurking in the background for the entirety of the MCU, first introduced in 2008’s Iron Man (and notably spoofed by a copy-cat group in Iron Man 3), but Shang-Chi promises to reveal the actual group for the first time. The upcoming film also takes some inspiration from the more recent Shang-Chi series of comics, which sees t...

Andrew Bosworth, VP at Facebook’s Reality Labs, has given some more hints as to what’s in store for future Oculus hardware. In an audio Q&A with John Carmack on Twitter Spaces transcribed by UploadVR, Bosworth suggested that while last year’s Quest 2 will be sticking around for some time yet, the company is working on headsets with greater capabilities. “People are also asking about the Quest 3, which doesn’t exist yet, and [for] everyone who is listening to us who is a reporter — there isn’t a Quest 3, there’s only a Quest 2.” Bosworth said. “But I did hint at an AMA earlier this year about Quest Pro because we do have a lot of things in development where we want to introduce new functionality to the headset along the kinds that people theorize that we would want to introduce, and tha...

Microsoft is testing out a new performance mode for its Edge browser. The new mode is available to some testers using the Microsoft Edge Canary version of the browser, and others can enable it manually with a flag. “Performance mode helps you optimize speed, responsiveness, memory, CPU and battery usage,” says Microsoft. “Performance improvements might vary depending on your individual specifications and browser habits.” It’s not clear exactly how the performance mode changes Edge, but it does affect the Sleeping Tabs feature. If you enable performance mode then the Sleeping Tabs timeout will be locked to five minutes. Microsoft introduced sleeping tabs in Edge earlier this year, allowing the browser to automatically release system resources for inactive tabs when you have a number of tabs...

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter nailed a successful debut test flight on Mars, engineers confirmed early Monday morning. The tiny spacecraft lifted itself 10 feet off the Martian surface for about 40 seconds, marking the first ever powered flight on another world. The historic demonstration opens up tantalizing possibilities for a new mode of planetary travel that could send future rotorcraft far beyond the reach of traditional rovers. The four-pound Ingenuity helicopter lifted its tissue box-sized body at noon Mars time (around 3:30AM ET), spinning its twin rotor blades to achieve its first flight in the ultra-thin atmosphere of Mars faster than 2,500 RPM — much faster than the roughly 500 RPM needed to fly on Earth. The rotorcraft arrived on the Red Planet on February 18th clinging to the un...

Audi has debuted a concept version of an all-electric A6 sedan, which is coming to all major global markets and will be built on a new EV platform the company is co-developing with Porsche. A production version won’t be revealed until at least the second half of 2022, but the German automaker is targeting around 700 kilometers (more than 400 miles) of range for the new car, which will be called the A6 E-Tron. The A6 E-Tron concept Audi showed off on Monday at Auto Shanghai 2021 is pretty straightforward as far as concepts go, which is in keeping with how the automaker has handled these reveals lately. To wit, the Q4 E-Tron electric SUV that Audi debuted just last week is a dead ringer for the “concept” version it first showed off at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. While there are plenty more d...

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is slated to attempt the first-ever powered flight on another world at 3:30AM ET on Monday. The twin-blade rotorcraft will try to ascend 10 feet above ground and hover in place for 30 seconds while cameras on NASA’s Perseverance rover record the historic attempt from a distance. The four-pound Ingenuity copter landed on Mars February 18th attached to the underbelly of Perseverance, NASA’s latest Mars rover whose main mission is to search for signs of ancient Martian life. Perseverance has set aside time to witness Ingenuity’s flight attempt and report the results back to Earth. Ingenuity’s Monday flight test is the first of five planned within a 31-day window that kicked off last week. If all goes well, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California...