In a barrage of Kindle hardware, Amazon might have something for anyone looking to upgrade from a basic Kindle. The biggest reveal might be the Kindle Colorsoft, its first reader with a color display. Amazon tried to ensure the reader has a good color and black-and-white experience, with high contrast, high resolution and high clarity whether you're looking at a color image or a black-and-white page. Amazon uses nitride LEDs, which work with the company’s algorithm to enhance color and brightness without washing out images.
Judging by the press images (and the demos we went to), these seem primed for graphic novels and comics. If you’re looking for something to digitally house your comics and manga, the Kindle Colorsoft will cost you $280 and start shipping on October 30.
With the original Scribe, Amazon got a lot of the basics right. It nailed latency and smoothness of the writing experience, but writing notes on your ebooks was a bit janky. Now, when you write on a page, the Scribe will generate a box for your notes. This box is embedded in the text, with the book’s words rearranging and flowing to accommodate it. However, it’s still not a simple ‘draw on the page’ solution. The Kindle Scribe will be available in December, starting at $400.
Analogue says it’s nailed its most complicated project yet: rebuilding the Nintendo 64 from scratch. Once again, the Analogue 3D has an FPGA (field programmable gate array) chip, coded to emulate the original console on a hardware level. We’re promised support for every official N64 cartridge ever released, across all regions, but with some major upgrades. The Analogue 3D supports 4K output, variable refresh rate displays and PAL and NTSC carts. The company is also making Original Display Modes to emulate your CRT TV of yore.
Prada and Axiom Space teamed up to design a new spacesuit, and NASA is now ready to reveal the look. This is the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit, white with red and gray accents for a bit of color and excitement. The suit is almost finished, having undergone testing and simulations at Axiom Space, SpaceX and NASA facilities. It should enter a final review in 2025.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-amazon-finally-made-a-kindle-with-a-color-display-111533015.html?src=rss
Astro Bot, one of Sony’s greatest triumphs, is getting new content for those who live life (or at least play PS5) in the fast lane. Developer Team Asobi said on Wednesday that the first of five free speedrunning levels teased at Sony’s September State of Play will arrive on Thursday, October 17.
The first speedrun level is Building Speed, where you’ll get an assist from your robot bulldog friend Barkster. Team Asobi promises you’ll “blast your way through a sky-high city.” Dodging cranes, smashing through crates and zipping through a flying car wash are part of the festivities. It sounds like more of the cute, 3D-platforming fun that Engadget’s Jessica Conditt described as the equivalent of “Super Mario Bros. for a new generation of video game fanatics.”
Team Asobi / Sony
After tomorrow’s first level, a new speedrunning stage will arrive on each of the following four Thursdays. That includes Let it Slide on October 24, Spring-loaded Run on October 31, Helium Heights on November 7 and Rising Heat on November 14.
The speedrun levels are all free. You should see them starting at 9AM ET on their launch dates.
Each level will add two new bots to rescue. Team Asobi has already teased nods to Eve from Stellar Blade and the Helldivers, but you can expect more fun surprises beyond those.
Team Asobi sounds like it has more content on tap. In its announcement blog post, the developers invited you to stay tuned because “there may be even more surprises coming soon” for Sony’s latest PlayStation-exclusive success story.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-first-of-astro-bots-free-speedrunning-levels-arrives-on-thursday-162006557.html?src=rss
A year after it was first teased, Analogue says it’s nailed its most complicated project yet: rebuilding the Nintendo 64 from scratch. The Analogue 3D will ship in Q1 2025 — it was originally slated for 2024 — and pre-orders start on October 21 at $250.
Like all of the company’s machines, the Analogue 3D has an FPGA (field programmable gate array) chip coded to emulate the original console on a hardware level. Analogue promises support for every official N64 cartridge ever released, across all regions, with no slowdown or inaccuracies. If it achieves that goal, the Analogue 3D will be the first system in the world to perfectly emulate the N64, though other FPGA and software emulators get pretty close.
The company has been selling recreations of retro consoles for over a decade, starting with high-end, bespoke takes on the Neo-Geo and NES. Over time it’s gradually shifted over to more mass-market (though still high-end) productions, with versions of SNES, Genesis and Game Boy all coming in at around the $200 mark. All of the company’s systems support original physical media, rather than ROMs.
Analogue’s original unique selling point was its use of FPGA chips. Rather than using software emulation to play ROMs, Analogue programs FPGA “cores” to emulate original console hardware, and its consoles support original game media and controllers. Compared with software emulation (especially in the early ’10s when Analogue got started), FPGA-based consoles are more accurate, and don’t suffer from as much input lag.
FPGA emulation has come a long way over the past decade. Where Analogue was once the only route into the world of FPGAs for most people, there’s now a rich community of developers and hardware manufacturers involved. The open-source MiSTer project, for example, has accurately emulated almost every video game thing produced up to the mid ’90s. And plenty of smaller manufacturers are now selling FPGA hardware for very reasonable prices. The FPGBC is one good example: It’s a simple DIY kit that lets you build a modern-day Game Boy Color for a much lower price than an Analogue Pocket.
A DE10-Nano board produced by Terasic.
Terasic
Amid all these developments, Analogue occupies a strange spot in the retro gaming community, which has evolved into an open-source, people-powered movement to preserve and play old games. It produces undeniably great hardware that doesn’t require expertise to use, but its prices are high, and its limited-run color variants of consoles like the Pocket have both created FOMO in the community and been a consistent target for scalpers. Analogue is, in many ways, the Apple of the retro gaming hardware space.
With that said, it’s hard to deny that the Pocket has brought more players into the retro gaming world and attracted talent to FPGA development. And if Analogue comes through on its promise here, the Analogue 3D will be another huge moment for video game preservation, and could be the spark for another half-decade of fantastic achievements from the FPGA community at large.
Breaking the fifth-gen barrier
While the FPGA emulation of the first few video game generations is largely a solved problem, there’s a huge leap in complexity between the fourth generation (SNES, Genesis, etc.) and the next. Strides have been made to rebuild the PlayStation, Saturn and N64 in FPGA, but there is no core for any fifth-gen console that has fully solved the puzzle. The current state of the MiSTer N64 core is pretty impressive, with almost every US game counted as playable, but very few games are considered to run flawlessly.
So how did Analogue solve this? The studio does have a talented team, but it importantly has a leg-up when it comes to hardware. The Analogue 3D has the strongest version of the Intel Cyclone 10GX FPGA chip, with 220,000 logic elements. For context, the MiSTer project’s open-source DE-10 board has a Cyclone V FPGA with 110,000 logic elements, while the Analogue Pocket’s main FPGA offers 49,000 elements. There’s a lot more to an FPGA than its logic elements, but the numbers are illustrative: The 3D’s FPGA is undoubtedly the most powerful Analogue has ever used, which clearly gave it more flexibility in designing its core.
While we can’t verify Analogue’s claim of 100 percent compatibility by looking at a spec sheet, the company does have a good track record of programming fantastic FPGA cores, so it’s likely it’ll get incredibly close.
Kris Naudus for Engadget
Of course, if you just wanted to play N64 games accurately, you could plug an N64 into any TV with a composite or S-Video connector, or use one of many boxes that converts those formats into HDMI signals that modern TVs require.
The problem with running an N64 on a modern TV is that its games run at a wide range of resolutions, typically from 320 x 240 up to (very rarely) 640 x 480, the max output. There are countless oddball resolutions between, and some games run below 320 x 240. This is a nightmare for modern displays. Some will scale to a full screen very nicely — both of the common resolutions I listed multiply neatly to 4K, albeit with pillarboxing. The situation gets more confusing with PAL cartridges, which can run at fun horizontal resolutions like 288 and 576. There’s also the issue that the vast majority of these games were designed with the CRT displays of old in mind, taking advantage of the quirks of scanlines to, say, make a checkerboard pattern look translucent.
This makes playing N64 games on a modern TV a bit of a hassle. There are fantastic retro upscalers like the RetroTINK series, but when plugging in a game for the first time, you wind up deciding between integer and “good enough” scaling, dealing with weird frame rates and tweaking blending options to get the picture just right. Many people enjoy this fine-tuning and customization aspect, and all power to you! But it's undoubtedly a barrier to entry, and much of the hard work done on upscaling has been focused on 2D gaming, rather than 3D.
Analogue says its scaling solution will solve many of these issues. The Analogue 3D supports 4K output, variable refresh rate displays, and PAL and NTSC carts. On top of those basics, it’s building out “Original Display Modes” to emulate the CRT TVs and PVMs of old. Calling ODMs filters feels a little reductive, as they’re a complicated and customizable mix of display tricks, but essentially you pick one and it changes the way the picture looks, so….
ODMs were used effectively on the Analogue Pocket to emulate various Game Boy displays. Perhaps the most impressive example is a Trinitron ODM that came to the Pocket in 2023 that, when used with the Analogue Dock, does a pretty incredible job of turning a modern TV into a high-end Sony tube TV. We don’t have a ton of information on which ODMs are coming to the 3D, but I will share the very ’90s ad for the feature below:
Analogue
The final piece of the image-quality puzzle is frame rate. The N64’s library is full of some spectacularly slow games. My memory may be scarred from growing up in a PAL region, which meant, while the US and Japan’s NTSC consoles were outputting a blistering 20 fps, I was chugging away at 16.66 fps. But even in the idealized NTSC world, lots of games outright missed their frame rate targets comically often. As an example, the majority of Goldeneye’s single-player campaign plays out between 15-25 fps, while a four-player match would typically see half that number. And let’s not speak of Perfect Dark.
These glacial frame rates are far less noticeable on a CRT than they are on modern displays with crisp rows of pixels updating from top to bottom. While the ODMs go some way to replicating the feel of an old TV, they can’t change the underlying technical differences. The Analogue 3D does support variable refresh rate output, but that won't do much when a game is running at 12 fps, and instead is intended to help the system run like the original N64 did at launch.
In its initial press push last year, Analogue told Paste magazine that you’ll have the option to overclock the 3D’s virtual chips to run faster — "overclocking, running smoother, eliminating native frame dips" — but the company hasn't mentioned that in its final press release. Instead, Analogue CEO Christopher Taber told Engadget that its solution "isn't overclocking, it's much better and more sophisticated." It revolves around Nintendo's original Rambus RAM set up, which is often the bottleneck for N64 performance. Solving this bottleneck "means that games can run without slowdown and all the classic issues the original N64 had," he explained.
By default, though, the Analogue 3D is set up to run exactly like original hardware, albeit with the RAM Expansion Pak attached. "Preserving the original hardware is the number one goal," Taber explained. "Even when bandwidth is increased, it’s not about boosting performance beyond the system’s original capabilities — it’s about giving players a clearer window into how the games were designed to run."
Analogue
The hardware
Analogue has a rich history of making very pretty hardware, and the Analogue 3D is clearly no exception. As with the Super Nt, Mega Sg, and Duo, the 3D calls back to the basic form of the console it’s based on, while smoothing out and modernizing it somewhat. It’s an elegant way to pull on nostalgia while also being legally distinct enough to avoid a lawsuit. (Analogue’s FPGA cores and software also don’t infringe on any Nintendo IP.)
The Analogue 3D has a similar shape to the N64, but the front pillars have been erased, the four controller ports match the housing and the power/reset buttons are slanted inwards to point toward the cartridge slot. Despite the tweaks, it still undoubtedly evokes a Nintendo 64. Around the back, you’ll find a USB-C port for power, two USB ports for accessories like non-standard controllers, an HDMI port and a full-sized SD card slot.
Analogue
A new operating system from Analogue, 3DOS, will debut with the system. It looks like a blend of the AnalogueOS that debuted on the Pocket and the Nintendo Switch OS, with the homescreen centered on a large carousel of square cards. The screenshots Analogue provided show options for playing a cartridge, browsing your library or viewing save states and screenshots. Some N64 games have the ability to save data to the cartridge, while others rely on a Controller Pak, but the ability to quickly save progress as a memory, as introduced with the Pocket, will be useful nonetheless. 3DOS can also connect to the internet over the console’s built-in WiFi chip for OS updates, which is a first for Analogue.
While you can browse your library in 3DOS, you won’t actually be able to load any game that isn’t physically inserted into the cartridge slot: The Analogue 3D only plays original media. It’s also worth noting that the Analogue 3D also doesn’t have an “openFPGA” setup like the Analogue Pocket did, which opened the door to playing with a wild array of cores that emulate various consoles, computers and arcades. It doesn’t usually take long for someone to jailbreak Analogue consoles to play ROMs (or other cores) via the system’s SD card slot, but this is not officially supported or sanctioned by Analogue.
The console comes with a power supply (with a US plug), USB cable, an HDMI cable and a 16GB SD card. As per usual, no controller will be packed in — it’s up to you if you want to use original hardware or something more modern. I managed to make at least one reader extremely mad (I’m sorry, Brucealeg) last time I wrote about the Analogue 3D and called the N64 controller a mistake. Personally, though, it feels really rough using one in 2024.
Analogue/8BitDo
If you enjoy the three-paddled original controller, the 3D has four ports for you, and the system will also support the myriad Paks that plug into those controllers. For everyone else, there's Bluetooth Classic and LE support along with two USB ports for wired controllers. Accessory maker 8BitDo has created what seems to be a variant of its Ultimate controller specifically for the Analogue 3D. (Analogue's CEO, Taber, is also 8BitDo’s CMO, and the companies have collaborated on controllers for many consoles at this point.)
The 8BitDo controller looks like a fairly happy middle ground between old and new, with an octagonal gate around the thumbstick, and nicely raised and sized C-buttons. It has a Rumble Pak built in, which works on both the Analogue 3D and Nintendo Switch. It’s available in black or white hues that match the console, and sells separately for $39.99.
Pre-orders for the Analogue 3D open on October 21 at 11AM ET, with an estimated ship date of Q1 2025. It’s unclear how many will be available, but if past launches are any indication, you should be ready to click buy as close to 11AM as possible if you want a hope of being in the first wave of shipments.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/analogues-4k-remake-of-the-n64-is-almost-ready-and-its-a-big-deal-150033468.html?src=rss
Uber Eats is adding a social element to ordering delivery tacos in the form of curated lists. Garden variety users can whip up one of these lists on the Account tab, pulling menu items from preferred local haunts.
All lists are shareable by default, so users can send them to friends and family. I don’t want other people to know the shameful food I gorge while endlessly watching episodes of Frasier, but maybe that’s just me.
This could actually prove useful for certain scenarios, such as when you’re sick in bed and want someone else to handle takeout. Just point friends and family to the list. Uber Eats also said that there’s a chance any particular list could end up on the home feed, turning the creator into a local food influencer for the day.
Speaking of food influencers, the app will also feature curated lists by pseudo-celebrities. Uber Eats is advertising initial participation by Sam Roby of Chicago Food Authority, Ella Kahan and Emma Matarasso of Chew York City and others. It remains to be seen how this will work in smaller markets.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/uber-eats-will-now-let-users-create-and-share-lists-of-their-favorite-meals-140052032.html?src=rss
Sony announced in January that it planned to create a movie adaptation of its 2015 PlayStation game Until Dawn and the project is moving quickly through production. Earlier this month, director David F. Sandberg posted on Instagram that the film had wrapped shooting, and today Sony production house Screen Gems announced that the movie's release date will be April 25, 2025.
Until Dawn became a cult favorite among the horror game fans, with a branching narrative that offers dozens of different endings based on a player's choices. If you haven't had a chance to experience the original Supermassive Games title yet, the game recently received a timely spooky season remake from Ballistic Moon. One of the big questions around creating a film from the game source is which of the many possible outcomes will the team choose for the plot? And the other big question is whether Until Dawn will follow in the footsteps of successful game adaptations like The Super Mario Bros. Movie or be an absolute trainwreck like Borderlands?
So far, the signs seem promising. Director Sandberg has a solid track record in horror with Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation. The final script was written by Gary Dauberman, who worked with Sandberg on Annabelle: Creation as well as penning words for other Annabelle movies, It (2017), It Chapter Two and The Nun.
The game had some notable actors involved, including Hayden Panetierre and Rami Malek. For the movie, Screen Gems tapped a cast including Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Odessa A’zion and Maia Mitchell. Peter Stormare will also reprise his role of Dr. Hill in the film version.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/sonys-until-dawn-movie-gets-april-25-release-date-223735333.html?src=rss
Update 10/16/24 2:55pm ET: Amazon has raised the price by $5, so while the Pencil Pro isn't at a record-low anymore, it's still available at a good sale price. Also discounted now is the USB-C Apple Pencil, which has dropped to a new low of $65.
Apple doesn't offer many discounts for its product lineup, so seeing one of its tablet accessories on sale for a third off the usual cost is exciting. The Apple Pencil Pro is available on Amazon for just $90, the lowest price we've seen for it. This is the most recent stylus model from Apple, with a design overhaul that was just announced in May, and it quickly rose to prominence as one of our favorite accessories for an iPad.
The Pencil Pro has some useful features for optimal control and navigation, such as squeeze and roll gestures. The stylus boasts pressure sensitivity; in other words, it will make darker marks if you press harder and lighter marks if you use a light touch. It delivers haptic feedback to your fingers and if you have a habit of misplacing accessories, the Pencil Pro also can be tracked down with Find My. And as with other Apple Pencils, the Pro will attach magnetically to your iPad's chassis for charging when it's not in use.
There are a few downsides to the Pro model, most notably that it's still not universally supported across all iPads. We've got a rundown of all the different Apple Pencils' features and compatibilities, but the tl;dr is that this high-end version works with the M4 iPad Pro, the M2 iPad Airs and the latest model of the iPad Mini. So this may not be the right buy for every iPad owner, but it's a great tool for taking full advantage of everything those tablets can do.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-apple-pencil-pro-is-30-percent-off-taking-it-down-to-an-all-time-low-price-210311608.html?src=rss
Apple is reportedly going to add digital car key support in the Wallet app for some Volvo, Polestar and Audi vehicles. Currently, Apple’s digital car key support list includes vehicles from Kia, BMW, Lotus and several other manufacturers.
The digital car key function allows iPhone and Apple Watch owners to access, lock or start vehicles just by holding the device near the vehicle’s NFC reader. The Wallet app must also run in the background or in the foreground, but it’s not necessary to push any buttons.
MacRumors first discovered this possible future update in the Apple Wallet app’s backend. However, the publication hasn’t revealed any affected models or further details.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/apple-may-be-adding-digital-car-key-support-for-specific-volvo-polestar-and-audi-vehicles-163625563.html?src=rss
Yesterday, Leapmotor and joint venture partner Stellantis revealed the B10 SUV electric vehicle at the Paris Motor Show. This new vehicle will reportedly have a starting price between $14,000 and $21,000 (though there’s no word about US availability yet). This marks Chinese automaker Leapmotor’s latest foray into markets outside China, and it looks like this EV could sell well globally due to its lower price tag.
Xavier-Alexandre Pons/Leapmotor/Stellantis
The B10 SUV is Leapmotor’s first B-Series EV, and it uses the company’s LEAP 3.5 architecture, promising smart features geared towards tech-savvy customers. However, before it reaches European customers, the B10 SUV will first be available in China. As reported by CnEVpost, it will be sold for RMB 100,000 ($14,110) to RMB 150,000 ($21,070).
Leapmotor isn’t the most famous brand outside of China, but the fact that Stellantis, the fourth largest auto manufacturer in the world, is backing it gives Leapmotor more credibility. The company first sold vehicles in the European market this September and has 200 dealers in 13 countries. It plans to increase the number of European dealers to 500 before the end of 2025, signifying the start of a push into the European market.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/leapmotor-reveals-b10-suv-ev-priced-between-14k-and-21k-155016806.html?src=rss
There are few faster ways to improve your smartphone photo and video game than by snapping up a gimbal. This increases image stabilization, reducing hand shake to make for smoother shots and help ensure a still is framed just as you want it. DJI's Osmo Mobile 6 gimbal is an option worth considering, especially since it's on sale. This model is currently $20 off, which brings it down to a price of $119.
The Osmo Mobile 6 has a larger clamp than DJI's previous models, meaning larger smartphones and ones with bulkier cases can slot in. If you attach an iPhone, the Mimo app goes into camera view when the gimbal is unfolded so you can start shooting photos and videos with it faster.
The handle is said to be more comfortable to hold compared with earlier versions. DJI retained the built-in extension rod from the previous model, so you can use the Osmo Mobile 6 as a selfie stick. You can set it up as a tripod too.
DJI included an array of smart features, such as timelapse, gesture control, automatic dynamic zoom, panorama and story mode. Using a side wheel, you can adjust the focal length and zoom level manually.
There's a new status panel built in that displays battery levels and a button that lets you switch between various modes. DJI also upgraded its ActiveTrack feature. This supports stable tracking over longer distances and helps your phone's front camera to better track subjects as they rotate.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/djis-osmo-mobile-6-smartphone-gimbal-is-cheaper-than-ever-right-now-192859156.html?src=rss
Microsoft is bringing the latest Call of Duty game to Xbox Cloud Gaming on day one. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available to stream for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers at 10AM PT on its launch day, October 25. Modern Warfare III and the battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone arrive on the platform on the same day.
This will be the first time Call of Duty games have been playable on Microsoft’s cloud gaming platform. “Game Pass Ultimate members will be able to enjoy Call of Duty in more places than ever before, including on their consoles, PCs, mobile devices, select Samsung TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Meta Quest devices,” Xbox VP of Gaming Experiences & Platforms Ashley McKissick wrote in a blog post. “This opens up even more ways to play Black Ops 6 starting on day one at launch.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will have a full campaign set in the early 1990s. The game will add omnimovement, the new fluid mobility option that lets you sprint, slide, and dive in any direction.” Also new is Supine Prone, “the ability to rotate while prone,” which Activision describes as adding more freedom of movement and tactical flexibility. Its maps will span the Middle East, southern Europe, Russia and the US.
Modern Warfare III is last year’s installment, which came to Game Pass in July. One of the lowest-rated games in the franchise’s history, it’s a direct sequel to Modern Warfare II. The game follows a special operations unit tracking Russian ultranationalist war criminal Vladimir Makaro, who is (tsk, tsk) hatching a plot to start World War III. The game includes a single-player campaign, multiplayer and an open-world Zombies mode (just in time for Halloween).
Finally, Call of Duty: Warzone is Activision’s 2022 answer to the free-to-play battle royale trend. As with genre stalwarts like Fortnite, you parachute onto a shrinking game map and have at it. Locations include Urzikstan, Rebirth Island and Fortune’s Keep.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/three-call-of-duty-games-arrive-on-xbox-cloud-gaming-later-this-month-175819790.html?src=rss