China loses farmland to urbanization at a pace that makes most planners nervous, and the usual architectural response is to pour a slab and move on. Wei Dou took a different position with the Verdant Syndicate, a mixed-use complex in Henan designed around the premise that the agricultural identity of a site deserves to survive its redevelopment. The project occupies 4,269 square meters of former farmland and organizes itself as two offset stepped volumes flanking a shared courtyard, wrapped in warm timber cladding and draped in cascading vertical vegetation from ground level to roofline.
What makes the building function as a living system is a tenant-operated planting board system, where modular growing panels connect directly to embedded water and nutrition lines. People who work and gather inside the building are also tending it, turning every terrace and balcony into a productive growing surface. A gravity-powered rainwater collection system handles irrigation without mechanical pumping, closing the resource loop on a plot that once fed the surrounding community through entirely different means.
Designer: Wei Dou
Splitting the program across two volumes instead of one monolithic block gives the courtyard between them genuine solar access, which matters enormously when your facade is a vertical farm. The stepped terrace profile on the taller volume echoes terraced agricultural landscapes without being literal about it, and the offset placement of the two blocks creates a ground-level commons that functions as the social spine of the whole complex. At 60 by 71 meters, the site is compact enough that every planning decision carries weight, and Dou clearly understood that.
Tenants can install, reconfigure, or remove individual planting panels, each one tapping into water and nutrient lines built directly into the structure. The building’s productive surface is never fixed, it adapts to whoever is using it and what they want to grow, season by season. Most biophilic buildings treat greenery as a fixed aesthetic layer applied during construction and maintained by a facilities team. Here the maintenance is distributed, social, and intentional, which is a fundamentally different model and one that actually has a chance of working long term.
The facade runs slim vertical members in a warm timber tone, with terraces wide enough to support real planting depth rather than cosmetic window boxes. Solar panels sit integrated into a mid-level roof deck canopy under a mature tree, handling shade and energy harvesting simultaneously without dedicating separate real estate to either function. The ground floor activates with retail, and the renders show it occupied and commercially legible, not the ghostly pedestrian utopia that kills most concept presentations.
Henan is a province with deep agricultural history and rapid urbanization pressure, which makes it exactly the right place to ask whether a building can carry both realities at once. The Verdant Syndicate backs that argument with a gravity-fed water loop, a modular tenant farming system, GIS and CAD-optimized solar orientation, and a courtyard massing strategy that keeps the whole thing from tipping into greenwash territory. Whether the planting board system performs in practice the way it does in simulation is the real open question. The framework is sound, and the building looks extraordinary doing it.
As part of a Year in Review blog detailing changes Valve made to Steam in 2025, the company shared a minor update on its hardware plans that doesn't sound good for anyone hoping to buy a Steam Machine, Steam Controller or Steam Frame in 2026. Specifically, the company is now opening up the possibility its new hardware won't ship this year at all.
In February, when Valve acknowledged the ongoing memory and storage shortage had delayed the launch of its hardware and could lead to higher prices, the company was still committing to a (fairly wide) window of when its hardware would ship:
"Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change."
As of the company's latest post, however, things somehow sound even less certain. "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us," Valve wrote in its Year in Review post. "We’ll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!"
While Valve's air of secrecy can make it easy to read too much into the limited information the company does share, moving from "the first half of the year" to "[hoping] to ship in 2026" certainly gives it wiggle room to not release new hardware this year. And considering the difficulties other companies are facing sourcing memory and storage, it wouldn't be all that surprising.
HP said in February that RAM accounts for a third of its PC costs, and industry analysts expect the RAM shortage could radically alter the PC landscape as companies are forced to raise prices. Valve's already struggling to keep the Steam Deck in stock due to its issues securing RAM, it stands to reason sourcing components for even more devices wouldn't make that process any easier. Then again, the company hasn’t updated its launch timing FAQ, so there’s still reason to hope the Steam Machine ships in 2026.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/valve-doesnt-sound-confident-the-steam-machine-will-ship-in-2026-221709517.html?src=rss
Most nightlights exist to disappear. They’re meant to be small, soft, forgettable little things that plug into walls and glow just enough to keep you from stubbing your toe at 3 a.m. They’re not supposed to have personality. They’re definitely not supposed to stare back at you.
YAWN, a sculptural concrete nightlight by designer Roger Reutimann, does both. It glows. It stares. And somehow, despite being a solid block of cast concrete with two resin eyes, it manages to feel more alive than most of the smart gadgets cluttering our nightstands.
The lamp draws its design language from the Bauhaus movement, that brief but enormously influential period in early 20th-century Germany that insisted form, function, and craft could coexist without ornament getting in the way. YAWN takes that ethos seriously. Its geometry is sharp and stepped, with a cantilevered vertical element rising from a blocky base like a small architectural monument. The proportions are deliberate, the angles clean, the surface left raw and mineral. It looks less like something you’d find at a lighting store and more like a fragment of a brutalist building that wandered onto your bedside table.
But then you notice the face. Two recessed lenses, made from diffused resin, sit beneath a pronounced overhang that reads unmistakably as a brow. The effect is a sleepy, slightly slouched expression, like the lamp itself has had a long day and would really rather not be awake right now. The humor is subtle and dry. It never tips into cuteness or kitsch. It’s more like a quiet joke between the object and whoever happens to glance at it in the dark.
I think that tension is what makes YAWN so compelling. Bauhaus-inspired design can sometimes feel austere to the point of being cold, all discipline and no pulse. And character-driven objects, the ones with faces and feelings, can easily become gimmicky. Reutimann manages to hold both impulses together without either one undermining the other. The lamp is rigorous and warm at the same time.
That balance probably comes from his background. Reutimann was originally trained as a sculptor and approaches lighting as a spatial and tactile study rather than a decorative accessory. You can feel that in how YAWN carries itself. It has weight and mass and a genuine sense of presence that most domestic lighting simply doesn’t aspire to. This isn’t an object that recedes into a room. It anchors a corner of it.
The production process reinforces that sensibility. Each piece is hand-cast in concrete, requiring precise mold fabrication, controlled aggregate selection, and vibration techniques to eliminate air pockets. The crisp edges and consistent surface finish come from repeated casting trials, and every unit is cured, sanded, and sealed by hand in the studio. The LEDs housed inside the resin eyes are dimmable and smart-home compatible, which is a nice practical touch for something that otherwise feels deliberately analog. Integrating electronics within a solid mineral body is no small feat, requiring concealed internal channels and careful thermal management.
YAWN is produced in a limited edition of 100 pieces, which feels right for something made this way. It sits comfortably at the intersection of industrial object and character study, a piece that takes modernist principles and reminds you that they were always supposed to serve people, not the other way around.
What I appreciate most is the restraint. It would have been easy to push the anthropomorphic quality further, to give the lamp a mouth, or make the eyes bigger, or lean into the cartoon of it all. Reutimann didn’t. The face emerges from proportion and placement alone, not from applied detail. That’s a sculptor’s instinct, knowing exactly how much to suggest before the material starts doing the storytelling for you.
In a market saturated with lighting that’s either purely functional or purely decorative, YAWN occupies a rare middle ground. It’s a lamp that does its job quietly, looks striking on a shelf, and manages to make you smile when you catch its eye at 2 a.m. Not bad for a block of concrete.
Netflix's library of streamable party games is expanding today with a custom version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat. Netflix launched its cloud gaming program with games like Lego Party and Tetris Time Warp, but Overcooked feels a bit unique because it features a roster of Netflix-affiliated characters from KPop Demon Hunters and Stranger Things.
For the uninitiated, Overcooked plays like a more manic version of Diner Dash, where teams attempt to prepare food together in increasingly elaborate kitchens filled with obstacles. The original version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat was released in 2020, and includes DLC and stages from previous versions of the game. Netflix's version bundles in the same content, and "10 Netflix celebrity chefs" including "Dustin, Eleven, Lucas, and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things," and "half-dozen faces from KPop Demon Hunters," like "Mira, Rumi, Zoey, Jinu, Derpy and Sussie." Like Netflix's other streaming games, playing Overcooked also requires you to use a connected smartphone as a controller.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/netflixs-version-of-overcooked-lets-you-play-as-huntrx-212515187.html?src=rss
It was one of the more audacious moves at MWC 2026. Right across the aisle from Meta’s smart glasses booth at Fira Gran Via, Alibaba’s Qwen pavilion was anchored by a pair of glasses so oversized they were practically architecture, a giant sculptural prop that functioned as a very literal invitation to come over and look. People did. And once they got close enough to see the actual products, the conversation shifted fairly quickly from “interesting marketing stunt” to “wait, what exactly is this?”
What they found were two frame styles that could sit in any optician’s window without raising an eyebrow. A rectangular wayfarer in matte black, clean and understated. A rounded frame in warm tortoiseshell with a two-tone contrast that leans vintage without being self-conscious about it. Both carry the “Qwen” wordmark on the temple, small and unobtrusive. Both have cameras tucked discreetly at the hinge corners rather than mounted on the bridge. And inside the lenses, visible only when you look closely, is the faint shimmer of a waveguide display.
Designer: Qwen
That last detail is where the competitive context gets genuinely interesting. The smart glasses market in 2026 has essentially sorted itself into two camps. On one side, you have camera-and-speakers devices like the mainstream Ray-Ban Metas, starting around $299, which have been wildly successful because they figured out that looking normal matters more than most features. On the other, you have display-first devices like the Even Realities G1 and G2, which sit at $599 and offer binocular waveguide displays, but sacrifice the camera entirely and strip out the speakers to keep weight down to a remarkable 36 grams. Meta entered the premium display tier late last year with the $799 Ray-Ban Display, a full-colour waveguide in one eye, a 12MP camera, and open-ear audio. It’s a compelling package, but $799 is a significant ask for a first-generation product in a category most consumers are still on the fence about.
The Qwen glasses, if they land close to the pricing of Alibaba’s previous Quark AI Glasses at around $277, would be threading an entirely different needle. Camera, display, on-device AI, and a frame design that competes aesthetically with anything in this space, all at a price that undercuts the Even G2 by more than half and the Meta Display by almost two-thirds. On paper, that’s a serious value proposition. The technology powering it is a lightened version of Qwen 3.5, running directly on the device rather than offloading everything to the cloud, which matters both for latency and for use cases where connectivity is limited.
The honest caveat is the brand itself, and it’s worth sitting with. Qwen is well regarded within AI research circles, particularly since Alibaba open-sourced much of the model family and developers worldwide have built on it. But Qwen as a consumer product, as something you’d buy at a store or recommend to a friend in Europe or North America, carries essentially zero name recognition. The app ecosystem that Alibaba plans to migrate onto the glasses, things like food delivery and ride-hailing integrations, is deeply rooted in China’s domestic services infrastructure and doesn’t translate directly to international markets without significant rework. Meta spent years building the Ray-Ban brand before it put a chip inside the frame. Alibaba is trying to build hardware credibility and software trust simultaneously, in markets where it starts from a cold position.
None of that makes the product less interesting. The Qwen glasses are arguably the first device in this category to arrive with a camera, a waveguide display, on-device AI, and a design that doesn’t require the wearer to make aesthetic compromises, all at a price that could realistically attract mainstream buyers rather than just enthusiasts. With North America and Western Europe commanding the vast majority of global smart glasses demand, Alibaba is clearly going after the big markets, and the product is credible enough to deserve a proper hearing there. The harder work, convincing people in those markets to trust a brand they have never heard of with a face-worn AI device that has cameras and a display, is the challenge that no amount of giant sculpture at a trade show can solve on its own.
What MWC established is that the hardware is real, the ambition is real, and the timing is deliberate. Alibaba confirmed that AI earbuds and a smart ring are coming later this year under the same Qwen brand, building out a wearable ecosystem that mirrors the strategy Meta has been executing for several years. The glasses are the opening argument. Whether the rest of the world ends up listening is the part that plays out over the next twelve months.
Nintendo of America is suing the US government, including the Department of Treasury, Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection, over its tariff policy, Aftermath reports. The video game giant already raised prices on the Nintendo Switch in August 2025 in response to “market conditions,” but has so far left the price of its newer Switch 2 console unchanged.
Nintendo’s lawsuit, filed in the US Court of International Trade, cites a Supreme Court ruling from February that confirmed a lower courts’ opinion that the Trump administration’s global tariffs were illegal. Nintendo’s lawyers claim that the video game company has been “substantially harmed by the unlawful of execution and imposition” of “unauthorized Executive Orders,” and the fees Nintendo has already paid to import products into the country. In response, the company is seeking a “prompt refund, with interest” of the tariffs it has paid.
“We can confirm we filed a request,” Nintendo of America said in a statement. “We have nothing else to share on this topic.”
While taxes and other trade policies are supposed to be set by Congress, President Donald Trump implemented a collection of global tariffs over the course of his first year in office using executive orders and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law that gives the president expanded control over trade during a global emergency. The Trump administration has positioned tariffs as a way to punish enemies and bargain with trade partners, but many companies have passed the increased price of importing goods onto customers.
In upholding opinions from the US District Court of the District of Columbia and the US Court of International Trade, the Supreme Court removed the Trump administration’s ability to collect tariffs using IEEPA, but didn’t clarify how the tariffs the government had illegally collected should be returned to companies. Like Nintendo, other companies have decided filing a lawsuit is the best way to get refunded.
The Guardian reports that US Customs and Border Protection is already preparing a system to process refunds for affected companies, but that might not mark the end of Trump’s tariff regime. In a press conference held after the Supreme Court released its decision, the President announced plans to introduce tariffs using other, more constrained methods. Tariffs aren’t the only obstacle Nintendo faces, either. The company could also be forced to raise the price of its consoles in response to the current RAM shortage.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-is-suing-the-us-government-over-trumps-tariffs-191849003.html?src=rss
Samsung caught flak for the Galaxy Buds 3. The company’s mimicry of Apple’s AirPods was all too obvious last year when it opted for a stem or “blade” design after several generations of putting touch controls on the main housing of its earbuds. The Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro continue that trajectory, as Samsung keeps adding new features with direct parallels to AirPods. The good news is, both models have been improved in various ways, all while their prices stay the same.
A refined design that’s still too familiar
On last year’s Galaxy Buds models, Samsung introduced its “blade” design and overall shapes that clearly took inspiration from Apple’s earbuds. While all of that remains the same on the Galaxy Buds 4 lineup, Samsung made some refinements that at least gives its earbuds a more polished look.
The angular “blade” is gone from both the open-fit Galaxy Buds 4 and silicone-tipped Galaxy Buds 4 Pro. That stem is now a flat panel with a thin metal cover, but it’s still called the blade (thanks, Samsung). And thank the gods, the gimmicky blade lights on the last Pro model are now gone. The Galaxy Buds 4 and 4 Pro both have an indented area that accepts both swipes and presses for the onboard controls, a design choice that makes that area easy to find by touch alone. Aside from that, the overall shape of both Galaxy Buds 4 models remains mostly the same, and they’re both pretty much the same size too.
One big change for the Galaxy Buds 4 duo is the charging case. Since the buds now lay flat in there instead of sitting vertically in the case on the previous model, Samsung has gone back to its rounded square shape from older generations. The company did, however, keep the translucent lids, so you can clearly see if the earbuds are in the case without having to open it.
In addition to their styles (the Buds 4 are open fit while the Pro have ear tips), a notable distinction between the two is their ingress protection (IP) levels. The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro is rated IP57, which is good enough for dust protection and full immersion in up to three feet for 30 minutes, while the Galaxy Buds 4 is IP54. That latter number means you’re only guarded against dust intrusion and water splashes.
Useful features, if you have a Samsung phone
Samsung Buds 4 Pro
Billy Steele for Engadget
A few years ago, Samsung offered iPhone users the same suite of features as those onGalaxy phones. Those days are long gone. Like Apple does with AirPods and Google with Pixel Buds, Samsung requires you to pair a Galaxy phone to get the most out of a pair of Galaxy Buds 4 or 4 Pro. If you opt for the open-fit model though, you’ll have to sacrifice a few features.
Let’s start with the tools that are available on both versions. You can expect Adaptive EQ 2.0, 360 audio with head tracking, Auracast, automatic switching, head gestures and both touch and swipe controls across the board. Both models also offer AI assistance via either Bixby or Gemini.
Voice features are where the two models primarily differ. The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro has voice detection that automatically lowers the volume and activates ambient sound mode when you start speaking. The pricier version also offers hands-free access to an AI assistant without having to touch the earbuds or your connected device.
Pretty much all of this stuff requires a Samsung phone. Sure, you can use the basics — ANC, onboard controls and ambient sound — from the likes of iPhones and Macs. But the more advanced items like voice detection, head gestures and automatic switching won’t be available there. As before, there’s an app for Android users with non-Galaxy phones, but things like UHD audio and higher-quality calls are not available on those devices. If you do have a Galaxy phone, everything is baked into the Bluetooth menu, just like Apple does with AirPods.
Shockingly good sound quality
Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro (left) and Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 (right)
Billy Steele for Engadget
I’ve come to expect good sound from the Galaxy Buds line. I usually go into any new Samsung audio review knowing I”ll be getting average audio quality at the very least. On last year’s Galaxy Buds 3, the sound performance was well above average for both sets, and that continues on the two latest models. However, if audio is your main priority, the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro is the better pick.
Like Samsung did with the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, this year’s 4 Pro has a two-way driver setup with an 11mm “super-wide” woofer and a 5.5mm planar tweeter. While the woofer is larger than what’s inside the 3 Pro, the tweeter is smaller. Those components combine for shockingly good sound quality for a pair of Samsung earbuds. I was truly surprised when I put the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro in my ears for the first time and played aya’s electro-tinged hexed! The driving bass line on “off the ESSO” is energetic yet nuanced, vocals are cutting and clear, while the synths and other percussive elements pierce through the mix. The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro deftly handled everything I threw at it, from Spiritbox’s heavy metal to the mellow acoustic tunes on Muscadine Bloodline’s 2025 release.
The Galaxy Buds 4 aren’t a sonic slouch by any means. It’s true you’ll get deeper bass and more overall clarity and detail from the Pro model, but prospective buyers who desire an open fit don’t have to sacrifice too much in the sound department. There’s still punchy bass and crunchy highs, with enough midrange to fill in the gaps adequately. I noticed the biggest difference on that aya track, where the bass isn’t as deep or detailed and the rest of the mix isn’t quite as dynamic as it is on the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro.
Active noise cancellation that still needs work
Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro (left) and Galaxy Buds 4 (right)
Billy Steele for Engadget
While both Galaxy Buds 4 models offer active noise cancellation (ANC), the Pro version has what Samsung calls Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation 2.0 versus just Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation on the other. The company didn’t go into much detail about the differences, other than to say the ANC performance on the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro is superior. Hence the 2.0, I guess.
ANC performance was a major issue on the Galaxy Buds 3 and that continues on the Galaxy Buds 4. Samsung just hasn’t managed to crack the noise cancellation code on open-fit earbuds the same way Apple has with its “regular” AirPods. In fact, the ANC on this new model makes such a modest difference, I’d wager most customers would prefer to trade it for longer battery life (or a lower price). I only kept it on in the interest of my battery rundown, otherwise I wouldn’t have used it at all. It’s definitely more like active noise reduction than outright cancellation.
Thankfully, noise cancellation is a different story on the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro. It’s still not going to silence the world like the second-gen Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds can, but Samsung’s tech does just enough to make it useful in most circumstances. I found it particularly adept at blocking moderate levels of constant noise, like a clothes dryer, fan or white noise machine. It’s the sudden jolts of racket where the Pro struggles. The Buds 4 Pro also does a decent job at muffling human voices, which caused my family much frustration.
Calls and voice quality
Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro (left) and Galaxy Buds 4 (right)
Every audio company claims its special sauce is the key to the clearest calls, and Samsung is no different. The company boasts that its combo of a 16kHz super wideband mode, DNN noise reduction and personalized beamforming mics offer “calls so clear, it’s stunning.” Of course, that promise requires a Galaxy S26 series phone — not just the earbuds.
I was shocked to discover how well I sounded in quiet environments as both of these earbuds offer voice quality that’s crisp and clear. If you move to a noisy spot, both models will completely block any background roar, but you will sound slightly digitized on the other end. This was more apparent on the Galaxy Buds 4, but it’s noticeable on both versions. That’s due to all the audio processing Samsung is doing to mute those distractions.
To top it all off, the ambient sound mode on the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro is very natural, which means you won’t be yelling to hear yourself during calls or meetings.
The competition
If you’re looking for the best earbuds to use with a Samsung phone, the Galaxy Buds 4 and 4 Pro are your best options. Again, like Apple does with the AirPods and Google with the Pixel Buds, Samsung continues to offer the most advanced and most useful features to the Galaxy faithful. If you don’t really care about that synergy, the second-gen Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are currently my top pick. That set won’t wow you with features, but the combination of excellent sound quality and the best ANC performance make them hard to beat. Plus, multipoint Bluetooth connectivity offers easy switching between a Galaxy S26 and a MacBook.
Wrap-up
With each passing year, Samsung draws closer to offering Galaxy phone users a true like-for-like AirPods rival. The company is really only lagging behind Apple in two areas: hearing health and heart-rate tracking. Samsung currently offers the option to amplify voices on its earbuds, but it hasn’t built a hearing test or the hearing protection tools Apple has. The biggest update on the AirPods Pro 3 was the addition of heart-rate tracking last year, which would be a great foundation for a fitness-focused version of the Galaxy Buds.
Everything else continues to improve on a familiar formula. Samsung has bolstered overall sound quality and ANC performance, even if the noise canceling abilities of the Galaxy Buds 4 remain somewhat lackluster. The design changes offer a more premium look and the gradual addition of modern features like head gestures help the company keep pace with the competition. While the Galaxy Buds 4 and 4 Pro are both good, Samsung really needs to take bigger swings with new features to make its earbuds the must-buy that AirPods are for iPhone users.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/samsung-galaxy-buds-4-and-4-pro-review-impressive-audio-imperfect-anc-190000202.html?src=rss
One of the biggest issues with mainline Pokémon games is that you're often so focused on catching, battling and trying to be the very best that you don't have time to stop and smell the flowers. But in Pokémon Pokopia, you're rewarded for doing just that while building a loving community of friendly monsters. The game is one part Animal Crossing and one part Dragon Quest Builders sprinkled with a touch of Minecraft and Stardew Valley. he result might be one of the coziest, most wholesome life sims on the market.
Setup and gameplay
In Pokopia, you play as a Ditto, who has awakened to a world where all the other humans and Pokémon have mysteriously disappeared. Naturally, the loss of your trainer has inspired you to take the form of a person (well, as best as a Ditto can). You work together with the only other soul around, Professor Tangrowth, to figure out how to revitalize this once thriving town. As you explore, you learn to create habitats from a mix of shrubs, trees and anything else you can scavenge. You can also create new homes for the missing Pokémon and lure them back, slowly converting the wasteland into a bustling place full of life and excitement. It's a simple but extremely rewarding gameplay loop, and as you make friends with the returning monsters, they help you on your quest by teaching you skills that allow you to continue shaping and manipulating the environment. They also provide handy items and building materials.
Some Pokémon like Squirtle can even teach you new moves that you can use to manipulate your environment.
Nintendo / Engadget
This is where the other main gameplay cycle comes in, as the entire world is made up of blocks that you can excavate or rework to your heart's content. Not only does this let you customize your environment, it also serves as a way to traverse the world. See a shiny treasure on the other side of a river but you can't swim there? You can simply build a bridge instead. And just like in Minecraft, you can use raw materials to create all sorts of fancy blocks and furniture so your homes look exactly how you want. When compared to games like Animal Crossing, I found I actually prefer Pokopia's flavor of world-building a touch more, as it relies slightly more on building and exploring and less on decorating.
In order to lure Pokémon to your town, first you need to build a home they'll want to live in.
Nintendo / Engadget
My one small issue with the game is that while I like the real-time building mechanic that lets Pokémon work on stuff while you're not playing, having to wait a full day for bigger projects to be completed can bog down your progress a bit. With a game that easily provides more than 50 hours of content just for its main story (and that's not counting all the time you'll spend customizing and tweaking your town), sometimes things become a slower burn than they ought to be.
The magic of Pokopia
As befitting a Pokémon game, each monster has skills befitting their type like Charmander being able to light fires.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
While the success of Pokopia's core mechanics can be largely attributed to co-developer Bandai Namco borrowing the game's basic template from the Dragon Quest Builders series, the real magic of the game comes from the Pokémon themselves. When I load into the world and the first thing that happens is one of my townsfolk running up to me to say thanks or give me a present, it just makes me happy. And unlike most other Pokémon games, you can actually have proper conversations with them, instead of just hearing them do their 8-bit cries. Speaking of that, I really think it's time for Game Freak to archive those Game Boy-inspired sound bites in favor of proper voice acting. We've had thirty years of crunchy, low-fi yells, and in an open-world game with adorable polygonal graphics, I think we can finally let the 'mons say their names like they do in the anime.
Pokopia's roster of characters is also bigger than expected. That's because in addition to new faces like Peakychu and Mosslax, there are well over 100 different Pokémon to befriend. And while the game leans a bit more heavily on characters from Kanto and the original 151, there's solid representation from other generations, including cameos from legendaries. Furthermore, each monster has its own unique habitat, preferences and abilities. I appreciate little details like water-type Pokémon who ask you to make their home a bit more humid or fighting-type monsters who ask for exercise equipment to spruce up theirs. Similarly, when it comes to building out your town, I like that the game makes you turn towards plant-types if you want help with your crops or a fire-type if you need help smelting some iron.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Nintendo / Engadget
However, the most heartwarming thing about Pokopia might not even be how you interact with the other Pokémon, but how they socialize with themselves. Sometimes you'll run into two mons chasing each other around, working out together or cuddling up for a nap. And thanks to the game's photo mode, you can capture all these moments when they happen.
Exploring the world is also quite satisfying, particularly for anyone who has played any of the Pokémon games from gen one. There are a ton of references to memorable people and places from Kanto. Plus, when you're just out and about or spelunking, you'll sometimes run into other adventurous mons who need a little help before you can convince them to move into town. It feels like there are fun secrets hiding around every other corner, and even for those that are a bit less obvious, Pokopia drops just enough hints to point you in the right direction.
Wrap-up
Just look how happy everyone is when we all work together.
Nintendo / Engadget
There's so much to do in Pokopia that I wouldn't be surprised if dedicated players could tide themselves over with this game until Pokémon Winds and Wavescomes out next year. But more importantly, Bandai Namco and Game Freak have found a perfect balance between the title's open-world building mechanics and homages to the underlying franchise. Pokopia isn't just a half-hearted life-sim clone with a thin veneer of monster catching (or in this case, monster community outreach) draped on top; it's a good game in its own right that just gets better with the addition of neighborly Pokémon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/pokemon-pokopia-review-possibly-the-most-charming-pokemon-game-yet-183000812.html?src=rss
Action cameras are great until you realize you’ve left yours at home. Phones are always with you, but most of them are too big, too fragile, or too awkward to mount anywhere useful. The FOSSiBOT F116 Pro is a compact, rugged phone that tries to solve both problems at once, and the approach is specific enough to be interesting.
The F116 Pro is built around a 4.05-inch display and has a standard 1/4-inch screw socket at the bottom, the same thread you’d find on a tripod or a GoPro accessory. That means it works with the same ecosystem of mounts that action cameras already use: chest straps, suction cups, handheld grips, and neck mounts. The phone goes where the camera goes, instead of staying in your pocket while you film.
The camera is a 48 MP wide-angle unit with a 152.6-degree field of view, which is genuinely wide. Most smartphone ultrawide lenses sit somewhere between 70 and 90 degrees for comparison. Built-in stabilization smooths out footage on bumpy terrain, and a dedicated physical camera button on the body launches the camera instantly without unlocking the phone first, which matters more than it sounds when you’re actually moving.
Inside, the phone runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset built on a 4nm process, paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, expandable up to 1TB with a now-rare microSD card slot. The display refreshes at 120Hz, 5G connectivity means footage can leave the device without hunting for Wi-Fi, and a 3,700 mAh battery with 33W charging keeps things moving. Modest numbers, but proportionate to a 4-inch screen and mid-range specs.
There’s also a rear circular LED that FOSSiBOT calls a “Light Signal Tower,” which cycles through colors and can be set to show notifications. It reads as a feature designed more for personality than practicality, but on a device this small, glancing at the back for alerts without waking the screen has some logic to it.
The compact body is the most interesting design choice here, and also the one that will define the experience. At 4.05 inches, the screen is smaller than almost anything else currently on the market. That’s a genuine advantage for one-handed operation and pocket carry, and a real limitation for anything that benefits from screen size: reading, navigation, video playback. The F116 Pro is betting its users want something small enough to forget they’re carrying it.
FOSSiBOT has been around since 2022 and claims more than 1.5 million users across its lineup. The F116 Pro showed up at CES earlier this year, and again at MWC 2026, which suggests the company is serious about getting it in front of people. The more honest question is whether a mountable, rugged, mini-format phone lands in a gap the market actually has, or one the market has already decided it doesn’t need.
Apple launched their budget friendly laptop last week, the MacBook Neo, a laptop designed to make the macOS experience more accessible than ever before. With a starting price of $599, or $499 for students through an educational discount, this device is aimed at budget-conscious users, particularly students and first-time Mac buyers. While it omits some […]
