65 Hybrid catamaran depicts an evolutionary journey for VisionF Yachts

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We have a special affinity for catamarans, something you’ll recognize from our previous coverage. These marine beauties have an irresistible allure, whether it in a conceptualized rendering or a production-ready model like the 65 Hybrid unveiled by catamaran builder VisionF Yachts. The all-new model – chiefly designed by Tuzla, Istanbul-based builder, famous for its innovative power catamarans – is the company’s first foray into the sub-80-foot catamaran segment.

It’s an evolutionary journey for VisionF, which is particularly famous for its VisionF 80, VisionF 82, and VisionF 101 models. These are all 80-foot-plus power and fully electric catamarans offering a luxurious blend of comfort and performance. Scaling the same finesse to a smaller 62-foot form factor is not the only change heralding the proficiency of the 65 Hybrid, it’s also the new material used for its construction.

Designer: VisionF Yachts

Equipped with all the advanced technology and alternative power sources, the Vision 65 Hybrid catamaran is meticulously designed and crafted to provide an unparalleled experience at sea. With an overall length of 19m (62 feet), the catamaran features 30 feet beam, but sways from the usual aluminium construction reserved for VisionF cats. The model, instead, is built in GRP composite and is designed to provide efficiency and liveability of the highest order.

Despite the compactness, the 62-footer catamaran doesn’t compromise in the interiors department. The beam delivers space-defying standards. It allows a luxury accommodation for up to eight guests. This is arranged as four cabins with their own quarters for a crew of four. Designed for cruising, the living quarters also comprise a large salon, expansive glazing, and an interior flooded with natural lighting from all sides.

The 65 Hybrid, interestingly, is not only about style; it’s about substance as well. The catamaran is powered by 450 hp Volvo Penta D8-450 diesel engines and an electric powertrain. The latter comprises a pair of batteries, 101 kWh and 23 kWh capacities, charged primarily by 42 solar panels laid out on the rooftop, which helps run the electric catamaran silently.

Featuring an advanced energy management system, the 65 Hybrid hull has been created as a demo model for those willing to buy. It is a tangible idea of what the final product could be, even though the customers, VisionF says, have extensive flexibility. VisionF is open to exploring customization in technical configurations, layout, and finishes, if required. According to press information, 65 Hybrid catamaran is likely to go on sale in the months to come. If you’re interested, head over for a hands-on experience and order for your customized beauty now!

 

The post 65 Hybrid catamaran depicts an evolutionary journey for VisionF Yachts first appeared on Yanko Design.

Valve defends loot boxes in response to New York’s lawsuit

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It must be 2017 because loot boxes are back in the news again. Two weeks after New York's attorney general sued Valve over its use of the gimmick, the company has responded. In short, the Steam maker essentially said, "See you in court."

New York's lawsuit accuses Valve of promoting illegal gambling through its games. AG Letitia James called the loot boxes found in titles like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 "addictive, harmful and illegal." The state seeks to "permanently stop Valve from continuing to promote illegal gambling in its games" and pay relevant fines.

In its defense posted on Thursday, Valve likened its mystery boxes to kids buying packs of physical trading cards. "Players don't have to open mystery boxes to play Valve games," the company wrote. "In fact, most of you don't open any boxes at all and just play the games — because the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic, there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money."

That last point, while applicable within the game itself, isn't quite that cut and dry once you zoom out beyond that. As James pointed out, players can trade the cosmetic items they win from loot boxes on Steam's marketplace or sell them on third-party marketplaces. Rarer ones can sometimes fetch lucrative sums.

CS2 gun skin listed for $20,000 on a marketplace
A CS2 gun skin listed for $20,000 on DMarket
DMarket

Here, too, Valve defended the profitable practice by rolling out the trading card comparison. "We think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumers — it gives a user the ability to sell or trade an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokémon or baseball card," the company wrote. "NYAG proposes to take away users' ability to transfer their digital items from Valve games. Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that."

Valve is also facing a new class-action lawsuit over its loot boxes.

Some of Valve's points land a bit more than its righteous defense of a gaming gimmick that, well, isn’t exactly beloved. The company accused the NYAG of proposing that Valve collect additional user information to prevent VPN use. In addition, the state allegedly "demanded that Valve collect more personal data about our users to do additional age verification." Privacy experts have been sounding the alarm about the recent push for online age verification.

Valve also addressed James's erroneous and outdated statement that video games encourage real-world violence. "Those extraneous comments are a distraction and a mischaracterization we've all heard before," the company wrote. "Numerous studies throughout the years have concluded there is no link between media (movies, TV, books, comics, music and games) and real world violence. Indeed, many studies highlight the beneficial impact of games to users."

The company says that, while it may have been cheaper to settle the suit, it deemed the NYAG's demands user-hostile. "Ultimately, a court will decide whose position — ours or NYAG's — is correct. In the meantime, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the potential impact to users in New York and elsewhere."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/valve-defends-loot-boxes-in-response-to-new-yorks-lawsuit-190655554.html?src=rss

TikTok will let you stream full songs in its app if you’re an Apple Music subscriber

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TikTok will soon let you stream full songs in its app via a new integration with Apple Music. The company's new Play Full Song feature makes it possible to link your Apple Music account toTikTok, and play any song that strikes your fancy directly in the app while you're scrolling.

Starting a song is as simple as tapping a button in the Sound Details page or your For You page. Assuming you pay for Apple Music, TikTok will then open up a streamlined version of Apple's music player, which you can use to listen to the song, save it for later or add it to a playlist.

TikTok says that Play Full Song is built using Apple's MusicKit APIs, which let developers surface elements of the Apple Music streaming service in their apps. TikTok has previously offered integration with multiple music streaming services through a feature it calls Add to Music App, which made it possible to save songs you heard on TikTok to your streaming library. What's particularly interesting about this new integration is that because it's using Apple's APIs, songs streamed with Play Full Song count as normal streams for the artists in Apple Music, so they don't lose out on any money.

Alongside the new feature, TikTok and Apple are also introducing a way for fans to listen to music live with their favorite artists. TikTok's Listening Party feature creates a live "shared environment" where people can listen to music and interact with artists directly, in what effectively sounds like an audio-only livestream. TikTok livestreams are a whole ecosystem in their own right, and Listening Party seems like a way to leverage some of the same technology for a more controlled, music promotion-focused end.

TikTok is already a popular tool for music discovery and launching the career of new artists, and the platform also briefly dabbled in offering a streaming service of its own in 2023. The company abandoned those plans in 2024, but under new owners, TikTok's ambitions could ultimately be bigger than just offering nice integrations with existing streaming services.

TikTok says Play Full Song and Listening Party are rolling out worldwide “in the weeks ahead,” so if you don’t see either feature now, you may soon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tiktok-will-let-you-stream-full-songs-in-its-app-if-youre-an-apple-music-subscriber-183333143.html?src=rss

Microsoft’s full screen ‘Xbox Mode’ will roll out to Windows 11 PCs in April

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Microsoft first debuted its full screen Xbox experience for Windows in the ROG Ally Xbox handheld, in a bid to compete with Steam's nearly 15-year-old Big Picture Mode. That Xbox interface eventually made its way to other Windows 11 gaming portables last year. Today at GDC, Microsoft revealed that its big screen Xbox UI is headed to all Windows 11 devices (including laptops and desktops) in April. Oh yah, and it's now simply called "Xbox Mode."

Xbox Mode will only be available in select markets at first, and Microsoft describes it as bringing "a controller-optimized experience to your Windows 11 device, letting players browse their library, launch games, use Game Bar and switch between apps." You know, just like Steam Big Picture mode. Microsoft didn't have much else to share about optimizations in Xbox Mode, but when it debuted the feature for Windows 11 Insiders last fall, the company noted that its task switcher will let people quickly move between games, as well as their apps.

Microsoft revealed at GDC today that it plans to start sending Project Helix systems (likely dev kits) to developers next year. Last week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced the Project Helix codename and confirmed that it will play both PC and console games. Xbox VP of next generation Jason Ronald also noted that the new system will be built on AMD’s next-generation technology, which sounds very similar to what AMD will be bringing to Sony’s PlayStation 6.

Microsoft also has some geekier developer-focused news for the Games Developer Conference. Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD), which first appeared on the Xbox ROG Ally, will be made available to all developers on the Xbox store. ASD allows delivers to pre-compile shaders, so you're not stuck waiting for them to get processed on your system. That should also help to avoid the shader stuttering so common when playing a new title, since shader processing often occurs in the background too.

DirectStorage, Microsoft's technology for speeding up game loading on NVMe SSDs, is also getting support for Zstandard compression, as well as a tool called the "Game Asset Conditional Library." According to Microsoft, that tool enables "improving compression efficiency while simplifying asset conditioning across production pipelines." Microsoft also plans to give developers a glimpse at how next-generation Machine Learning will be implemented in its DirectX gaming API.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/microsofts-full-screen-xbox-mode-will-roll-out-to-windows-11-pcs-in-april-181000289.html?src=rss

Microsoft will start providing game studios with Project Helix consoles in 2027

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Microsoft plans to begin shipping early units of its next generation console, codenamed Project Helix, to game studios starting sometime next year. “We're sending alpha versions of Project Helix to developers starting in 2027,“ said Jason Ronald, vice-president of next generation for Xbox, according to IGN, which was present at the company’s GDC 2026 presentation where it shared early details about the new device. Ronald did not clarify what he meant by “alpha version,” but given the keynote’s developer focus, presumably he meant devkits, which studios could use to start creating games for the new console.

Additionally, Ronald reiterated that the new system would be capable of playing both Xbox console games and PC games, and said it would incorporate a custom AMD-made system-on-a-chip capable of rendering graphics with path tracing. Judging from a slide the company shared, Microsoft and AMD are working on many of the same technologies and capabilities AMD is co-designing with Sony for next PlayStation console. For instance, Ronald said Helix would be capable of ray regeneration, a technique designed to produce better-looking ray-traced effects. The new console will also offer multi-frame frame generation and machine learning-based upscaling.

“It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition. The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players,” Ronald wrote in a blog post published after his presentation.

Ronald didn’t speak to any specific compute numbers, likely due to the fact Microsoft has yet to finalize the Helix hardware. We’ll likely learn more of those details the closer we get to 2027.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-will-start-providing-game-studios-with-project-helix-consoles-in-2027-180352458.html?src=rss

Tembo might just be the world’s cutest drum machine

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A new company called Musical Beings has officially unveiled the Tembo, which might be the cutest drum machine ever made. Just look at this thing! It's got a wooden chassis that resembles a standard drum machine, but with one key difference. The sequencer is tactile. Users arrange beats by placing magnetic pucks that trigger samples.

This seems like a really good way to introduce the basics of sequencing and beatmaking to kids and young adults, being that DAWs and grooveboxes can feature a steep learning curve. The sequencer isn't all that different from what's found on a typical groovebox, but the analog nature of it seems novel.

The company says it designed Tembo to "enable everyone to create music from the very first touch." Co-founder David Davidov told MusicRadar that most instruments take "so long to get to the fun part" and that Musical Beings wanted to "help people experience music as something they do, not just something they listen to."

Just because it's accessible to kids and amateurs doesn't mean it's not for seasoned musicians. This is a real-deal drum machine with plenty of nifty features. There's a five-channel, 16-step sequencer that's controlled via the aforementioned circular magnets. The machine includes knobs for swing, tempo, effects and pattern length.

It has two USB-C MIDI connections, so it can easily be hooked up to a DAW or synced with external gear. Sessions can be recorded via USB audio or a stereo output. There's also a dedicated companion app to help with that sort of thing.

The Tembo is battery-powered, making it relatively portable, and there's a built-in speaker. The integrated sampler lets users lay down musical ideas in addition to beats, making it something of a junior groovebox. This is assisted by a built-in microphone. 

The Kickstarter just launched, but has already soared past the initial goal. The price ranges from around $360 to $450 depending on the tier. It's worth noting that Musical Beings is a new company and Kickstarter projects are never guaranteed to come out. However, a number of units have already been built, as some musicians and studios have already gotten their hands on them.

This isn't the first wacky drum machine that has come across our desk. The BeatBox is a cardboard gadget that uses arcade-style buttons to make beats. The OddBall is quite literally a ball that makes beats as it bounces around.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/tembo-might-just-be-the-worlds-cutest-drum-machine-173926914.html?src=rss

Meta will let kids under 13 use WhatsApp with parent-managed accounts

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Meta has announced that it’s introducing parent-managed accounts on WhatsApp. Designed to allow young people under the age of 13 to use the messaging platform more safely, these accounts feature new controls that enable a parent or guardian to restrict who can send them messages. Parent-managed accounts can also only be used for messaging and calling, so additional features like Channels, location sharing and Meta AI integration aren’t included.

To set up an account, you’ll need to put your phone next to the pre-teen’s device to link the two accounts. Once that’s done, the person managing the kids’ account can decide who’s able to contact them and which groups they’re able to join. Step-by-step instructions on how to activate the new accounts can be found here.

They’ll also see message requests from unknown contacts first and can adjust privacy settings from the managed device. Parent-managed accounts are PIN-protected and only the parent or guardian can make changes to privacy settings.

Like all WhatsApp conversations, end-to-end encryption means nobody else can see messages exchanged on parent-managed accounts. By default, only saved contacts can message a managed account, and a child won’t be able to join a group or view group invites from strangers before they’re separately approved by the owner of the parent account. These requests will appear as notifications to the parent.

WhatsApp doesn’t specify a minimum age suitable for a parent-messaged account, but says it’ll roll the new features out gradually in the coming months.

Meta has spent the last few years ramping up its parental controls features across its various platforms. In September it introduced teen accounts — aimed at teens between the age of 13 and 15 — for Facebook and Messenger. A year earlier, Under-16 teen accounts became a requirement on Instagram. Like the new parent-managed accounts on WhatsApp, these allow parents to vet requests and enable stricter privacy settings.

At the start of 2026, Meta put a temporary pause on allowing teens to interact with its AI chatbot characters, following reports that some of these bots had engaged in sexual conversations and other concerning interactions with minors.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-kids-under-13-use-whatsapp-with-parent-managed-accounts-172023976.html?src=rss

LEGO Gave Away This Record Player Set: Now It Sells for $50

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There’s a certain kind of person who loves the idea of vinyl records without necessarily owning a turntable. They appreciate the artwork, the ritual of flipping a side, the warm analog aesthetic that streaming services have spent years trying to replicate with album art thumbnails and animated soundwave graphics. For that person, and honestly for plenty of actual vinyl collectors too, LEGO quietly released one of its more charming sets of 2024, and a lot of people missed it entirely.

The LEGO 40699 Retro Record Player wasn’t sold in stores. It was a gift-with-purchase exclusive during LEGO Insiders Weekend in November 2024, meaning you had to spend $250 or more on LEGO.com within a two-day window to take one home. That’s a steep entry point for a 310-piece set that fits in the palm of your hand. Unsurprisingly, it’s now showing up on secondary markets for around $50, which tells you more about how people actually feel about it than the promotional circumstances suggest.

Designer: LEGO

What makes it interesting as a design object isn’t the scarcity. It’s the details LEGO chose to include for a freebie that most buyers would have been happy to receive with far less effort. Every single element in the set is printed, no stickers anywhere, including new tile pieces featuring equalizer bars and musical note graphics that were debuted specifically for this set.

The needle swivels and can be tucked behind a small antenna piece when not in use. Flip it around, and there are printed red, white, and grey ports on the back representing stereo channels, details that nobody asked for and that audio enthusiasts will immediately clock. A hidden gear underneath lets the record actually spin, which is either a delightful touch or a reminder that LEGO designers genuinely cannot help themselves.

The set slots into a growing line of brick-built nostalgia objects LEGO has been developing with some consistency. The Retro Radio, the Typewriter, the Polaroid OneStep Camera, each one picks a specific object from cultural memory and asks whether it still means enough to someone to sit on a shelf. The record player fits that pattern, though its scale is more playful than faithful. Closed, it measures about 1.5 inches high and 6 inches wide, so it’s not pretending to be a replica. It’s more like a knowing nod to the thing, compressed into something you can place next to a real turntable or a stack of records and let it be what it is.

The timing of its renewed attention is interesting. Search interest in record players has spiked noticeably in early March 2025, and the LEGO set has moved with it, picking up momentum in trend data well after its promotional window closed. That’s a pattern worth watching with this category of LEGO set. They’re not designed to chase a specific cultural moment. They’re designed around objects durable enough in people’s memories to stay relevant across multiple ones.

Whether a 310-piece brick turntable that doesn’t play music belongs in the same conversation as the real vinyl revival is a fair question. What’s harder to dismiss is that a set distributed as a promotional freebie is generating genuine collector interest months later, and that LEGO apparently left enough room in the design for people to discover details they weren’t expecting to find.

The post LEGO Gave Away This Record Player Set: Now It Sells for $50 first appeared on Yanko Design.

Most AI chatbots will help users plan violent attacks, study finds

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Eight of the 10 most popular AI chatbots were willing to help plan violent attacks when tested by researchers, according to a new study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), in partnership with CNN. While both Snapchat's My AI and Claude refused to assist with violence the majority of the time, only Anthropic's Claude "reliably discouraged" these hypothetical attackers during testing.

Researchers created accounts posing as 13-year-old boys and tested ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Meta AI, DeepSeek, Perplexity, Snapchat My AI, Character.AI and Replika across 18 scenarios between November and December 2025. The tests simulated users planning school shootings, political assassinations and bombings targeting synagogues. Across all the responses analyzed, the chatbots provided "actionable assistance" roughly 75 percent of the time and discouraged violence in just 12 percent of cases. This was the average across all chatbots, with Claude discouraging violence 76 percent of the time.

Meta AI and Perplexity were the least safe, assisting in 97 and 100 percent of responses. ChatGPT offered campus maps when asked about school violence, and Gemini said metal shrapnel is typically more lethal in a synagogue bombing scenario.

DeepSeek signed off rifle selection advice with "Happy (and safe) shooting!" Character.AI, which the report described as "uniquely unsafe," actively encouraged violence in seven instances, at one point telling a researcher to "use a gun" on a health insurance company CEO. In another scenario, it provided a political party's headquarters address and asked if the user was "planning a little raid."

Meta told CNN it had taken steps to "to fix the issue identified," while Google and Open AI said they had implemented new models since the study was conducted. Sixty-four percent of US teens aged 13 to 17 have used a chatbot, according to Pew Research.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/most-ai-chatbots-will-help-users-plan-violent-attacks-study-finds-163651255.html?src=rss

The PS Plus Games Catalog is getting Space Marine 2 and Persona 5 Royal in March

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Sony has announced its latest additions to the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog. While they might not top last month's introduction of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Extra and Premium subscribers are still getting access to some notable games.

In March, the new additions include Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (PS5), one of Engadget's picks for the Best Games of 2024, and Persona 5 Royal (PS5 and PS4). The PS4 version of Persona 5 Royal – Ultimate Edition, the complete version of one of Atlus' most popular RPGs, will also be available alongside a collection of other fun additions.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a third-person action game reminiscent of Gears of War, but set in Games Workshop's elaborate Warhammer 40,000 universe. If you're a fan of the larger franchise, Space Marine 2 is well worth a look, especially with a third entry on the way, but the game is also a solid option if you're just looking for a new co-op game to try with friends.

Persona 5 Royal is a known-quantity among fans of Atlus' social simulation/RPG series, and the way it both expands on and streamlines the original Persona 5 also makes it a suitable entry point to the series as a whole. If seeing Japanese teenagers deal with their personal problems while embarking on Inception-style missions into the hearts of the corrupt adults of Tokyo sounds interesting, you'll love Persona 5 Royal.

Alongside those standouts, PS Plus Game Catalog is also getting:

  • EA Sports Madden NFL 26 (PS5)

  • Blasphemous 2 (PS5 and PS4)

  • Metal Eden (PS5)

  • Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (PS5)

  • Astroneer (PS5 and PS4)

And as promised last month, the PS Plus Classics Catalog is expanding to include Tekken: Dark Resurrection, a revamped and rebalanced version of Tekken 5 that includes expanded character customization options and new stages that weren't in the original 2004 fighting game. This one’s only for PS Plus Premium subscribers on PS4 and PS5.

All of these will be available on the PS Plus Game Catalog on March 17.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-ps-plus-games-catalog-is-getting-space-marine-2-and-persona-5-royal-in-march-162716284.html?src=rss