Tag Archives: Software

Switch Online adds Bionic Commando, Battletoads and more to NES and GameBoy offerings

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There continues to be no real discernible rhyme or reason to the way Nintendo distributes games on Nintendo Switch Online, but its latest drop brings some notable additions to the library for retro gaming fans. The NES and Game Boy apps — both of which are available to all NSO subscribers — have each got a pair of new games in the late-November update, and they’re all from well-known franchises.

Joining the NES app are Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos and Battletoads, while the Game Boy library gains Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters and Bionic Commando. The most significant of the four is probably Battletoads. Rare’s platforming beat ‘em up was a NES exclusive when it launched in 1991, before being ported to other platforms later on. It’s notorious for its extremely high difficulty, but with the NES emulator on the Switch allowing you to rewind any time you mess up, perhaps a few more people will see the game through now. Battletoads was also included in 2015’s Rare Replay collection, so it was admittedly already relatively easy to play, but there’s arguably a certain charm to playing NES classics on Nintendo hardware.

The Game Boy version of the side-scroller Bionic Commando is also worth a look. The handheld version was an adaptation of the NES original and features a different setting, while retaining the bionic arm mechanic that is essential for traversal, given the protagonist’s inability to jump. The grappling gun/hook is used to swing around levels and also doubles as a weapon.

The latest update also adds remappable buttons for the Nintendo Classics Game Boy and NES apps, and as spotted by Vooks, features an Easter egg that triggers the original Game Boy boot screen and sound when you wiggle the left analogue stick as you’re launching it. Nintendo previously added a similar feature to its Game Boy Advance and Switch 2-only GameCube app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/switch-online-adds-bionic-commando-battletoads-and-more-to-nes-and-gameboy-offerings-140507414.html?src=rss

DoJ agrees to settle with RealPage in rent collusion software case

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Last year, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against software company RealPage, accusing it of manipulating the rental housing market and driving up prices. Now, the DoJ has announced a proposed settlement that would put limits on RealPage's ability to collect and use sensitive information gathered from landlords. Under the terms, though, RealPage would pay no damages and admit to no wrongdoing. 

Texas-based RealPage’s software is said to manage over 24 million rental units globally. The DOJ’s original complaint accused the company of working with landlords who agree to share “nonpublic, competitively sensitive information” about rental rates and other lease terms. RealPage then uses that data to train algorithms for its YieldStar software, which generate pricing and other recommendations “based on their and their rivals’ competitively sensitive information,” according to the DOJ.

If approved by the court, the settlement would require RealPage to only used landlord data that's 12 months or older in its algorithm. RealPage would also need to "remove or redesign" features that discourage landlords from lowering prices or prompt them to match competitors' prices. Its software would not be allowed to offer "hyperlocalized pricing" information that can manipulate rents "block-by-block," according to the DoJ's assist attorney general, Abigail Slater. 

"Competing companies must make independent pricing decisions, and with the rise of algorithmic and artificial intelligence tools, we will remain at the forefront of vigorous antitrust enforcement," Slater said in a statement. 

However, as the dedicated real estate site Propmodo put it, the "outcome looks much closer to a reset than a punishment," adding that the government will likely focus enforcement on tools that steer collective behavior. "Algorithms will continue to shape pricing strategies, but with clearer boundaries." 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/doj-agrees-to-settle-with-realpage-in-rent-collusion-software-case-130002364.html?src=rss

OpenAI can’t use the term ‘Cameo’ in Sora following temporary injunction

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Cameo, the app that allows people to buy short videos from celebrities, has won an important victory in its legal battle against OpenAI. On Monday, a federal judge granted the company a temporary restraining order against OpenAI, CNBC reports. Until December 22, the startup is not allowed to use the word “cameo” in relation to any features inside of Sora, its TikTok-like app for creating AI-generated videos. The order covers similar words like “Kameo” and “CameoVideo.”

“We are gratified by the court’s decision, which recognizes the need to protect consumers from the confusion that OpenAI has created by using the Cameo trademark,” Cameo CEO Steven Galanis told CNBC. “While the court’s order is temporary, we hope that OpenAI will agree to stop using our mark permanently to avoid any further harm to the public or Cameo.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told Engadget: “We disagree with the complaint’s assertion that anyone can claim exclusive ownership over the word ‘cameo’, and we look forward to continuing to make our case to the court.”

Cameo sued OpenAI in October, claiming the company’s use of the term was likely to confuse consumers and dilute its brand. Before filing the suit, Galanis said Cameo tried to resolve the dispute “amicably,” but claims OpenAI refused to stop using the name. Sora’s cameo feature allows users to upload their likeness to the app, which other people can then use in their own videos. US District Judge Eumi K. Lee, who granted Cameo the temporary junction, has scheduled a hearing for December 19 to determine if the order should be made permanent.

Update, November 24, 7:25PM ET: This article was updated after publish to include comment from an OpenAI spokesperson.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-cant-use-the-term-cameo-in-sora-following-temporary-injunction-213431626.html?src=rss

Anthropic’s Opus 4.5 model is here to conquer Microsoft Excel

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Hot on the heels of Google's Gemini 3 Pro release, Anthropic has announced an update for its flagship Opus model. Now at version 4.5, the new system offers state-of-the-art performance in coding, computer use and office tasks. No surprise there, those have been some of Claude's greatest strengths for a while. The good news is Anthropic is rolling out a handful of existing tools more broadly alongside Opus 4.5. It's also releasing one new feature.  

To start, the company's Chrome extension, Claude for Chrome, is now available to all Max users. Anthropic is also introducing a feature called infinite chat. Provided you pay to use Claude, the chatbot won't fall to context window errors, allowing it to maintain consistency across files and chats. According to Anthropic, infinite chat was one of the most requested features from its users. Then there's Claude for Excel, which brings the chatbot to a sidebar inside of Microsoft's app. The tool is now broadly available to all Max, Team and Enterprise users, with support for pivot tables, charts and file uploads built-in. 

A table comparing Opus 4.5's efforts in various benchmarks.
A table comparing Opus 4.5's efforts in various benchmarks.
Anthropic

On the subject of Excel, Anthropic says early testers saw a 20 percent accuracy improvement on their internal evaluations and a 15 percent improvement in efficiency gains. As a complete Excel noob, I'm excited to for the company to trickle down that expertise to its more consumer-oriented models, Claude Sonnet and Haiku. 

Elsewhere, Opus 4.5 also delivers improvements in agentic workflows, with the new model excelling at refining its own processes. More importantly, Anthropic is calling Opus 4.5 its safest model yet. It’s better at rejecting prompt injection style attacks, outpacing even Gemini 3 Pro, according to Anthropic’s own evaluations.

If you want to try Opus 4.5 for yourself, it’s available today through all of Anthropic’s apps and the company’s API. For developers, pricing for the new model starts at $5 per million tokens.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropics-opus-45-model-is-here-to-conquer-microsoft-excel-190000905.html?src=rss

Amazon Alexa+ is now available in Canada

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Amazon has launched Alexa+, its next-generation digital assistant, in Canada. The company unveiled the new assistant in February, and it has been making its way to more and more people since. Canada is the first region outside the US to get access Amazon’s upgraded Alexa. Like the version that rolled out in the US, users can communicate with Alexa+ in natural language. They can say “I’m cold,” for instance, and the assistant will turn up the heat in their home. If they say “It’s dark,” Alexa+ can switch on the lights for them.

In Amazon’s announcement, Allison Siperco, the Alexa manager for Canada, said the assistant understands Canadian culture and regional expressions. It can understand distinctly Canadian topics, such as the country’s hockey teams and musicians. In addition, the assistant links with services Canadians use. It can make restaurant reservations for them through OpenTable, connects them to CBC news and help them look for and buy items from their e-commerce platforms. Siperco said the assistant will also support Yelp, Uber Eats, Suno and TripAdvisor in the country “soon.”

Alexa+ is capable of adapting its tone to everyone in the household, suggesting different routines based on the user. It can suggest meditation, for example, to someone who’s had a long day at the office. And it can remember if someone has dietary restrictions when recommending restaurants. Alexa+ can also help users shop by finding items with the best pricing, by creating grocery lists for them while taking dietary restrictions into account, as well as by comparing features across products and summarizing reviews on Amazon Canada.

Amazon’s upgraded assistant is free during its Early Access phase, though those who are interested to try it out right now will have to purchase the new Echo Show 8, Echo Show 11, Echo Dot Max or Echo Studio. After Early Access, it will remain free for Prime subscribers, while everyone else will have to pay $28 CAD a month for it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-alexa-is-now-available-in-canada-050827689.html?src=rss

Microsoft brings the Xbox Ally X’s full screen experience to other handhelds

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A major selling point of the Xbox Ally and Ally X is that they ship with a full screen version of Windows that plays nice with handheld PCs. As part of the company's recent Xbox Partner Showcase, Microsoft has announced that the Windows "full screen experience" or FSE is finally rolling out to all other Windows 11 handhelds starting November 21.

For the most part, FSE lets you live inside a touch and controller-friendly version of the Xbox PC app, rather than the normal Windows desktop. The launcher collects games from a multitude of game marketplaces like Steam and the Epic Games Store, and gives you easy access to Game Pass, if you subscribe. As part of Microsoft's customizations, FSE also uses less resources, and offers simpler ways to switch between apps and setup Windows for the first time. 

All of these tweaks are supposed to make using Windows easier without a mouse and keyboard, and closer to what you'd get from a console. In comparison to SteamOS, which has gone through countless updates since Valve launched it alongside the Steam Deck in 2022, FSE still has a long way to go, but pushing the software to more devices could force Microsoft to iterate quickly.

While PC handheld owners will reap the benefits of these improvements first, Microsoft's announcement also mentions the company plans to bring the experience "to more Windows 11 PC form factors through the Xbox and Windows Insider programs soon." That could lend further credence to reports that the company plans to make the next Xbox an expensive PC rather than a traditional game console.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/microsoft-brings-the-xbox-ally-xs-full-screen-experience-to-other-handhelds-211500288.html?src=rss

Google’s Nano Banana Pro image generator leverages Gemini 3 for improved visuals and text rendering

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Google just unveiled its Nano Banana Pro image generation platform, which is also going by the name Gemini 3 Pro Image. The company promises this is an improvement over previous versions of the software in nearly every way. Google says it will "turn your visions into studio-quality designs with unprecedented control, flawless text rendering and enhanced world knowledge."

The text rendering portion seems to have gotten a big upgrade here, as Nano Banana Pro can create context-rich infographics and diagrams. The software can render legible text on top of a pre-existing image, making it a good option for generating posters and stuff like that. Google says that this feature is available in multiple languages.

The tool in action with a recipe.
Google

Google also says it can blend multiple elements into a single composition, with the ability to use up to 14 images at once. There are plenty of new editing controls. Users can select and edit any part of a created image. This can be used to adjust camera angles, change focus, adjust the color grade and even swap out the lighting from day to night.

Images created with Nano Banana Pro will have C2PA metadata embedded. This should, in time, make it easier to spot generative AI or deepfakes out there in the world. We'll have to see how that plays out. TikTok recently announced it would be using this metadata to better label AI-generated content, of which it currently does a very bad job at.

Nano Banana Pro is actually free to use. Free users are limited to a daily quota of images, with the number expanding for Google AI, Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers. Just open up the Gemini app and create an image, but be sure to use the "Thinking" model. It's also available in Search and NotebookLM for some subscribers. This is all part of the recently-launched Gemini 3 model.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-nano-banana-pro-image-generator-leverages-gemini-3-for-improved-visuals-and-text-rendering-185505073.html?src=rss

Perplexity’s Comet AI browser is now on Android

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Perplexity is continuing the rollout of its AI browser to more users. Comet is now available to download for Android mobile devices from the Google Play Store. Comet initially debuted this summer only to Perplexity's high-rolling subscribers on the $200-a-month Pro plan, but it expanded access to all users last month. It's free on Android as it now is on other platforms, and has many of the same features as the desktop version. The mobile option has access to Perplexity's AI assistant, and it can summarize searches or be interacted with by voice. 

Perplexity has been forthright about its goals of launching a browser as a way to collect customer data so it can more effectively target ads, and it's not the only artificial intelligence company or tech company trying to integrate AI into the browsing experience. These efforts have already drawn complaints from Amazon, particularly around AI in shopping, but they could yield big paydays for scammers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/perplexitys-comet-ai-browser-is-now-on-android-184500885.html?src=rss

WhatsApp is bringing back its very first feature

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WhatsApp is going back to the past for its latest feature. In fact, it’s going all the way back, because it’s reviving the very first WhatsApp feature. You can think of About (the creators were really not very good at naming things, huh?) as a status update or WhatsApp’s version of an AIM away message. It’s designed to let your contacts know at a glance what you’ve got going on, such as something that’s keeping you busy and might make you slow to respond to messages.

The About message appears on both your profile and at the top of one-on-one chats. By default, the About message will vanish after 24 hours, but you can set it to vanish earlier or stick around for longer. You can do this by going to the “set about” option in the WhatsApp settings. You also have control over who is able to see your About message — you can restrict it to your contacts or allow anyone to view it from your profile.

This is a handy little update that apes the notes feature in sibling apps Instagram and Facebook. WhatsApp is starting to roll About (back) out to all users on mobile devices this week.

Illustration of the About feature in WhatsApp
Illustration of the About feature in WhatsApp
Meta

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/whatsapp-is-bringing-back-its-very-first-feature-170100513.html?src=rss

Bluesky revamps its moderation and reporting tools with transparency in mind

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Bluesky is looking to make its moderation and reporting systems more transparent as part of its efforts to forge a healthier social media ecosystem than some of the alternatives out there. The platform's userbase has doubled in size to 40 million over the past year, and with more users come more instances of toxicity and other types of harmful content. Bluesky is also subject to more regulatory requirements in certain jurisdictions. The team has been working to address those factors, and changes to the moderation system should help.

The platform is revamping how it enforces and tracks violations of its policies. In the latest version of the Bluesky app, the system for reporting posts now includes more granular options with specific options to flag content related to things like false information about elections, human trafficking and bullying. "This granularity helps our moderation systems and teams act faster and with greater precision," the Bluesky team wrote in a blog post. "It also allows for more accurate tracking of trends and harms across the network."

Rather than tracking community guidelines violations across individual policies as it did in the past, Bluesky will automatically track everything in a single system. As part of that, the platform will provide users clearer information about enforcement actions. Starting in the coming weeks, users whose accounts are actioned will learn which policy they violated, the severity level of their violation and how many times they’ve broken the rules. They'll also be notified as to the length and end date of any suspension, as well as how close they are to more severe penalties being applied to their account for repeated violations. There are appeals processes for both post takedowns and account suspensions.

Looking ahead, Bluesky plans to add a moderation inbox to the app rather than dealing with moderation decisions by email. The team says this will improve transparency and enable it to send a higher volume of notifications to users.

"These updates are part of our broader work on community health," the team wrote. "Our goal is to ensure consistent, fair enforcement that holds repeat violators accountable while serving our growing community as we continue to scale."

There are some other changes in the latest version of the app. The team says that a redesign makes the "who can reply" settings easier to use, including the option to save your selection as the default for future posts. There's also a dark mode app icon available. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/bluesky-revamps-its-moderation-and-reporting-tools-with-transparency-in-mind-193629692.html?src=rss