Technology

Whether you’re a new or not-so-new Switch owner, everyone needs some good games to play. If you want some of the best titles released for Nintendo’s console, you can get them for $20 off their full $60 price. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen these discounts, but it’s rare that these price cuts extend to both physical and digital versions of the games. So if you’d prefer to purchase a game code so you can instantly download it to your microSD card, that’s an option. Super Mario Odyssey $40 $60 34% off Prices taken at time of publishing. Mario’s latest adventure is one of his best yet. Super Mario Odyssey usually costs $60 (and is loaded with enough gameplay to warrant the cost), but it’s $40 right now at a few retailers. Fire Emblem: Three Houses $40 $60 34% off Prices taken at time of ...

Marvel has just revealed a first look at one of its most exciting upcoming projects: Eternals, the studio’s next big superhero team-up that’s set to arrive in theaters on November 5th. It’s the next big project from Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao, following her Best Picture and Best Director wins for Nomadland earlier this year. Unfortunately, the teaser (which primarily serves as a hype reel for Marvel’s return to blockbuster films after a months-long pandemic-induced break from theatrical releases) doesn’t provide too much footage from Eternals. Instead, there are just a few quick glimpses of some of the bigger stars, including Salma Hayek’s Ajak riding a horse, Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo staring off into the distance, and Richard Madden’s Ikaris standing at the front of the team. The te...

Epic Games didn’t sue Apple to get a big payout, but that’s because the lawsuit itself is an investment. And to rewrite Apple’s rules, Epic is spending a fortune. The reason Epic’s Fortnite got thrown out of the Apple App Store was that Epic rogue-updated Fortnite to offer a payment mechanism that bypassed Apple’s 30 percent cut of all in-app transactions. Apple booted Fortnite for violating its rules. Epic threw an… epic… hissy fit about this, culminating in the trial starting this week. While Epic has cobbled together an alliance called the Coalition for App Fairness — along with Spotify, Match Group, Basecamp, and Tile — there’s one more tech behemoth in play. Epic Games Store runs on Amazon Web Services. So does Fortnite itself. ‘Fortnite’ pretty much prints cash The fight with Apple e...

Just started watching season four of The Handmaid’s Tale and I remember why I prefer the weekly release schedule for this show: Bingeing it is utterly draining (Monica Hesse makes this point much more eloquently in her mostly spoiler-free review in the Washington Post). The show has a conundrum: it can’t kill off its main character (which would be an incredible plot twist) and it can’t take her out of Gilead because that’s where the action is. So June has to keep suffering over and over. And over. After the first three episodes, June’s done plenty of suffering already. Over the rest of the season I’m really hoping to see A) much more of Alexis Bledel and Samira Wiley and B) something good happen to June. Anything. Here’s the roundup of this week’s trailers: [embedded content] West Side Sto...

Microsoft has been planning to cut its Xbox store cut to just 12 percent, according to confidential documents filed in the Epic Games vs. Apple case. The software maker details its store fees and changes in a document from January, where it also lists the 12 percent cut to PC games it announced this week. While most of the important parts of the document are redacted, one page reveals Microsoft also wants to reduce its 30 percent store cut on the Xbox console side. A table reveals “all games will move to 88 / 12 in CY21,” which means Microsoft had been planning a significant cut to Xbox transactions for some point in the 2021 calendar year. While Microsoft has announced its PC cut, which is also listed in the same table, the company has stayed quiet about any Xbox plans. A change to 12 per...

Facebook is continuing its campaign against Apple’s iOS 14 privacy updates, adding a notice within its iOS app telling users the information it collects from other apps and websites can “help keep Facebook free of charge.” A similar message was seen on Instagram’s iOS app (Facebook is Instagram’s parent company). Technology researcher Ashkan Soltani first noted the new pop-up notices on Saturday (see his tweet below), but a Facebook spokesperson directed The Verge to a blog post from earlier last week that detailed the update. The company refers to the notices as “educational screens,” and said they provided “more details about how we use data for personalized ads,” according to the blog post by Dan Levy, Facebook’s vice president for ads and business products. “This version of iOS require...

The team over at iFixit has done its teardown thing again, this time examining Apple’s AirTag trackers. Part one of its two-part review digs into the guts of the little trackers, and for those lamenting the lack of a key ring loop on the AirTag, iFixit (carefully) drilled a hole into one without damaging any of its parts. After some reconnaissance inside our first AirTag, we grabbed a 1/16” drill bit and carefully punched a hole through the second tracker in our four-pack—after removing the battery, of course. We miraculously managed to avoid all chips, boards, and antennas, only drilling through plastic and glue. The best part? The AirTag survived the operation like a champ and works as if nothing happened. The team cautioned that you have to remove the battery before drilling, and warned...

The $399.99 Acer Chromebook Spin 513 (currently listed at $349) is one of the very first Snapdragon-powered Chromebooks to hit the market. Specifically, it’s powered by the Snapdragon 7c Compute SC7180, the type of chip you’d generally expect to see in a tablet or phone. Just from seeing that name, some readers can probably predict exactly what this device is going to be: a lightweight, mediocre performer with excellent battery life. Say hello. That’s pretty much what it is — but you get some other nice bonuses, too. The display is much nicer than those I’ve seen on other Chromebooks at this price. It’s portable at 2.65 pounds, its speakers and microphones are serviceable, and it has a really smooth Gorilla Glass touchpad. If performance is your priority, there are Chromebooks with better ...

Four astronauts returned from the International Space Station early Sunday morning aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico nearly six months after arriving at the orbital laboratory in November last year as the first operational, long-duration crew under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Soichi Noguchi boarded Crew Dragon and undocked from the space station at 8:35PM ET Saturday to begin their roughly six-hour trek home. The crew splashed down off the coast of Panama City, Florida at 2:56am ET on Sunday, NASA said in a news release. The crew’s return was initially set for Wednesday, April 28th, but was delayed due to high winds in the splashdown ...

So it seems that Google, the exemplar of the open-office concept, is trying now to figure out how to keep its design ideals intact while offering its employees at least some feeling of safety in these 6-foot-apart times. Apparently, these measures may include a number of interesting concepts, such as inflatable walls. (A GIF of one of those walls slowly unfolding nearly had me doing a spit-take with my morning coffee.) These rather complex measures may have some people wondering whether we should abandon the entire open-office concept and go back to a more old-fashioned — but in these pandemic days, safer — plan of separate offices and high-walled cubicles. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. But. First, let me assure you that I am not a great fan of the whole open-off...

Neuralink President Max Hodak tweeted Saturday that he has left the company he co-founded with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk xxx. Hodak didn’t elaborate on why he left the company or elaborate on the circumstance for his departure. “I am no longer at Neuralink (as of a few weeks ago),” he tweeted. “I learned a ton there and remain a huge cheerleader for the company! Onward to new things.” ✨Some personal news:✨ I am no longer at Neuralink (as of a few weeks ago). I learned a ton there and remain a huge cheerleader for the company! Onward to new things. — Max Hodak (@max_hodak) May 1, 2021 Neuralink is focused on developing brain-machine interfaces. Last month, the company posted a video to YouTube that appeared to show a monkey with a Neuralink implant in its brain moving a c...

Conservative news channel Newsmax has posted an apology to an employee of Dominion Voting Systems, after it reported without evidence that he was involved in manipulating results of the 2020 US presidential election. “On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family,” a statement posted to Newsmax’s website states. According to the statement, there was no substance to the allegations made about Eric Coomer, Dominion’s director of product strategy and security: “Newsmax would like to clarify its coverage of Dr. Coomer and note that while Newsmax initially covered claims by President Trump’s lawyers, supporters and others that Dr. Coomer played a role in manipulating Dominion vo...