Tag Archives: author_name|Lawrence Bonk

Apple Vision Pro owners now have more decent controller options

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The Apple Vision Pro is an impressive piece of hardware, and the eye-tracking/hand gesture input combo is fantastic for navigating menus and the like. It’s not so great for gaming. There haven't been many easy ways to connect a third-party controller for playing iPad or cloud games. This is changing, however, as accessory manufacturer 8BitDo just announced Vision Pro compatibility for a number of its controllers.

These accessories are officially supported by Apple, so they should work as soon as you make a Bluetooth connection. No muss and no fuss. All told, eight devices got the Apple seal of approval here. One such gadget is the company’s Ultimate Bluetooth Controller, which we basically called the perfect gamepad for PC.

A person wearing a headset and playing Pac-Man.
8BitDo

Other compatible devices include various iterations of the SN30 Pro controller, the Lite 2 and the NES-inspired N30 Pro 2. The integration isn’t just for game controllers, as 8BitDo also announced AVP compatibility for its Retro Mechanical Keyboard. Of course, the Vision Pro works out of the box with most Bluetooth keyboards.

This is pretty big news, however, as media consumption is one of the best parts of the Vision Pro experience. Video games fall squarely in that category. Just about every iPad title works on the device. If playing Cut the Rope on a giant virtual screen doesn’t do it for you, the headset also integrates with Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now for access to AAA titles. 

8BitDo announced official controller support for Apple devices last year, though this was primarily for smartphones, tablets and Mac computers. The integration was thanks to new controller firmware and Apple's recent iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, tvOS 16.3 and macOS 13.2 updates. It looks like all of the accessories that work with iPhones and iPads also work with the Vision Pro. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-vision-pro-owners-now-have-more-decent-controller-options-150055872.html?src=rss

A new series of Star Wars shorts premieres on Disney+ next month

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Disney just pulled a fast one. Star Wars movies and shows are typically announced years before being released, but the company just revealed a new TV program that premieres next month. Tales of the Empire is an animated show produced by Dave Filoni, the man who cut his teeth on cartoons like Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels before moving onto live action stuff like Ahsoka.

As the name suggests, this is something of a companion piece to 2022’s Tales of the Jedi. It’s an anthology series that spotlights different characters within the empire as they, uh, heroically try to defeat the nefarious rebels and bring order to the galaxy. You can expect appearances by many of your dark side faves, including Grand Admiral Thrawn, General Grievous and the Grand Inquisitor.

Just like how Tales of the Jedi put the spotlight on two characters, Ahsoka and Count Dooku, this new series will have its own duo to follow. There’s Morgan Elsbeth, a primary antagonist in Ahsoka and one episode of The Mandalorian, with the trailer indicating that Tales of the Empire will reveal how Thrawn and Elsbeth became besties. The show will also focus on Barriss Offee, a former Jedi Knight who fell to the dark side during the Clone Wars.

Despite being animated, the characters will be played by their live action actors. Lars Mikkelsen returns as Thrawn and Matthew Wood is once again portraying Grievous, the evil cyborg who is in dire need of some cough syrup. Diana Lee Inosanto is back as Elsbeth and Meredith Salenger is voicing Offee.

The show premieres on everyone’s favorite corporate-sponsored pseudo-holiday, May the Fourth, also known as May 4. All six episodes will be available to stream on Disney+ upon the release date. The live action Star Wars: Acolyte follows this with a premiere on June 4.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-new-series-of-star-wars-shorts-premieres-on-disney-next-month-190007395.html?src=rss

A new series of Star Wars shorts premieres on Disney+ next month

Posted on by

Disney just pulled a fast one. Star Wars movies and shows are typically announced years before being released, but the company just revealed a new TV program that premieres next month. Tales of the Empire is an animated show produced by Dave Filoni, the man who cut his teeth on cartoons like Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels before moving onto live action stuff like Ahsoka.

As the name suggests, this is something of a companion piece to 2022’s Tales of the Jedi. It’s an anthology series that spotlights different characters within the empire as they, uh, heroically try to defeat the nefarious rebels and bring order to the galaxy. You can expect appearances by many of your dark side faves, including Grand Admiral Thrawn, General Grievous and the Grand Inquisitor.

Just like how Tales of the Jedi put the spotlight on two characters, Ahsoka and Count Dooku, this new series will have its own duo to follow. There’s Morgan Elsbeth, a primary antagonist in Ahsoka and one episode of The Mandalorian, with the trailer indicating that Tales of the Empire will reveal how Thrawn and Elsbeth became besties. The show will also focus on Barriss Offee, a former Jedi Knight who fell to the dark side during the Clone Wars.

Despite being animated, the characters will be played by their live action actors. Lars Mikkelsen returns as Thrawn and Matthew Wood is once again portraying Grievous, the evil cyborg who is in dire need of some cough syrup. Diana Lee Inosanto is back as Elsbeth and Meredith Salenger is voicing Offee.

The show premieres on everyone’s favorite corporate-sponsored pseudo-holiday, May the Fourth, also known as May 4. All six episodes will be available to stream on Disney+ upon the release date. The live action Star Wars: Acolyte follows this with a premiere on June 4.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-new-series-of-star-wars-shorts-premieres-on-disney-next-month-190007395.html?src=rss

Ford delays some electric vehicles, renews focus on hybrids

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Ford just announced some delays for electric vehicles, including the long-awaited three-row SUV. The car was supposed to come out next year but has now been delayed until 2027, with the company suggesting it will use the extra time to “take advantage of emerging battery technology.” Ford says it’ll be making moves to “mitigate the impact the launch delay will have on” the Canadian workforce.

The next-generation electric pickup, codenamed “T3,” is also being delayed from late 2025 to 2026. It’s being built at the Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center assembly plant at the company’s BlueOval City complex, though Ford says it's just now installing stamping equipment that will produce the sheet metal for the truck.

Alongside these announcements, the company has revealed a new push for hybrid vehicles. It has stated it plans on offering hybrid powertrains across the entire Ford Blue lineup by 2030. Despite the aforementioned delays and the pivot toward hybrid vehicles, Ford says it remains committed to EVs and that it's continuing construction of battery plants in Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.

However, it’s no secret that the EV market is not quite as robust as companies once hoped it would be. Maybe it’s the high price of entry, the spotty charging infrastructure or the fact that some EVs do not qualify for the federal tax break. Heck, maybe consumers are simply turned off by a certain CEO who shall not be named. 

In any event, the slowdown is real, though perhaps a bit overstated. Ford experienced a decline in EV sales of 11 percent in January, but the company says it bounced back and that sales have increased by 86 percent throughout the entire first quarter when compared to last year. However, the company's EV offerings lost $4.7 billion in 2023.

“We are committed to scaling a profitable EV business", said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. To that end, the company announced last year that it would be delaying or canceling $12 billion in planned spending on electric vehicles. It’s unclear how today’s announcements will impact Ford's plans to ramp up production to 600,000 EVs per year. In any event, customers can now use Tesla Superchargers in the US and Canada, which should help assuage some of those infrastructure concerns.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ford-delays-some-electric-vehicles-renews-focus-on-hybrids-172007210.html?src=rss

Ford delays some electric vehicles, renews focus on hybrids

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Ford just announced some delays for electric vehicles, including the long-awaited three-row SUV. The car was supposed to come out next year but has now been delayed until 2027, with the company suggesting it will use the extra time to “take advantage of emerging battery technology.” Ford says it’ll be making moves to “mitigate the impact the launch delay will have on” the Canadian workforce.

The next-generation electric pickup, codenamed “T3,” is also being delayed from late 2025 to 2026. It’s being built at the Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center assembly plant at the company’s BlueOval City complex, though Ford says it's just now installing stamping equipment that will produce the sheet metal for the truck.

Alongside these announcements, the company has revealed a new push for hybrid vehicles. It has stated it plans on offering hybrid powertrains across the entire Ford Blue lineup by 2030. Despite the aforementioned delays and the pivot toward hybrid vehicles, Ford says it remains committed to EVs and that it's continuing construction of battery plants in Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.

However, it’s no secret that the EV market is not quite as robust as companies once hoped it would be. Maybe it’s the high price of entry, the spotty charging infrastructure or the fact that some EVs do not qualify for the federal tax break. Heck, maybe consumers are simply turned off by a certain CEO who shall not be named. 

In any event, the slowdown is real, though perhaps a bit overstated. Ford experienced a decline in EV sales of 11 percent in January, but the company says it bounced back and that sales have increased by 86 percent throughout the entire first quarter when compared to last year. However, the company's EV offerings lost $4.7 billion in 2023.

“We are committed to scaling a profitable EV business", said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. To that end, the company announced last year that it would be delaying or canceling $12 billion in planned spending on electric vehicles. It’s unclear how today’s announcements will impact Ford's plans to ramp up production to 600,000 EVs per year. In any event, customers can now use Tesla Superchargers in the US and Canada, which should help assuage some of those infrastructure concerns.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ford-delays-some-electric-vehicles-renews-focus-on-hybrids-172007210.html?src=rss

Amazon’s Prime Gaming titles for April include Fallout 76 and Chivalry 2

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Amazon is offering another decent batch of games to Prime members at no extra cost for the month of April. Leading the bunch is Fallout 76, a multiplayer take on the post-apocalyptic franchise. There’s also the hack and slash adventure Chivalry 2 and around a dozen more.

Fallout 76 is just the latest title in the series to hit Prime Gaming, likely to coincide with this month’s premiere of the Fallout TV show. It experienced mixed reviews upon release, with many complaining about an overall lack of purpose in the gameplay and a blandness in the design. Other people simply enjoyed wandering around a post-apocalyptic West Virginia with their buddies.

The game’s available for PC and, interestingly, Xbox consoles. People can download it from the Microsoft Store for PC and Amazon will hand out a code to Prime members for an Xbox download. Fallout 76 will be available on April 11, the same exact day all eight episodes of the show drop. 

Chivalry 2, on the other hand, is available right now. This is a modern take on the hack and slash genre, with a first-person POV, multiplayer matches with up to 64 players at once and a grimy medieval setting. There’s also crossplay for every available platform. Prime members can download it at the Epic Games Store.

Other titles coming this month include Black Desert, Demon’s Tilt, Rose Riddle: The Fairy Tale Detective Collector’s Edition and many more. Click the link above for the full list. Additionally, Prime Members in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK can access some new games on Luna at no extra charge. These include LEGO Fortnite, Earthworm Jim 2 and Trackmania, among others.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-prime-gaming-titles-for-april-include-fallout-76-and-chivalry-2-153731669.html?src=rss

Amazon’s Prime Gaming titles for April include Fallout 76 and Chivalry 2

Posted on by

Amazon is offering another decent batch of games to Prime members at no extra cost for the month of April. Leading the bunch is Fallout 76, a multiplayer take on the post-apocalyptic franchise. There’s also the hack and slash adventure Chivalry 2 and around a dozen more.

Fallout 76 is just the latest title in the series to hit Prime Gaming, likely to coincide with this month’s premiere of the Fallout TV show. It experienced mixed reviews upon release, with many complaining about an overall lack of purpose in the gameplay and a blandness in the design. Other people simply enjoyed wandering around a post-apocalyptic West Virginia with their buddies.

The game’s available for PC and, interestingly, Xbox consoles. People can download it from the Microsoft Store for PC and Amazon will hand out a code to Prime members for an Xbox download. Fallout 76 will be available on April 11, the same exact day all eight episodes of the show drop. 

Chivalry 2, on the other hand, is available right now. This is a modern take on the hack and slash genre, with a first-person POV, multiplayer matches with up to 64 players at once and a grimy medieval setting. There’s also crossplay for every available platform. Prime members can download it at the Epic Games Store.

Other titles coming this month include Black Desert, Demon’s Tilt, Rose Riddle: The Fairy Tale Detective Collector’s Edition and many more. Click the link above for the full list. Additionally, Prime Members in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK can access some new games on Luna at no extra charge. These include LEGO Fortnite, Earthworm Jim 2 and Trackmania, among others.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-prime-gaming-titles-for-april-include-fallout-76-and-chivalry-2-153731669.html?src=rss

Prepare for more red pill memes: a fifth Matrix movie is happening

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There’s another Matrix movie in the works. Warner Bros. just greenlit a fifth installment of the saga, as reported by Deadline. However, neither Lana Wachowski or Lilly Wachowski will be handling directing duties. That honor falls to Drew Goddard, who adapted The Martian into a screenplay and directed the criminally underrated Cabin in the Woods. He's also writing the script. 

Goddard cut his teeth writing episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Lost, among others — you could say he knows his way around genre content. Lana Wachowski will be on board as an executive producer, so there will be some input from one of the franchise’s original creators.

There’s no word as to what the film will be about, but Warner Bros. says that Goddard came to the company with a “new idea that we all believe would be an incredible way to continue the Matrix world.” Goddard added that the original films inspire him on a daily basis and that he is “beyond grateful for the chance to tell stories” in that world.

Warner Bros. is also being cagey as to which, if any, cast members would be returning. The original trilogy featured Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne-Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving and Jada Pinkett Smith. Most of these actors returned for 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, with one story-based exception.

Speaking of The Matrix Resurrections, it received mixed reviews from both critics and audiences. We loved the film, going as far as to call it brilliant, but admitted that it wasn’t for everyone. That’s par for the course with this franchise. Every single Matrix movie beyond the first one is divisive. We’ll have to wait and see what Goddard brings to the table.

He’s also writing a film adaptation based on another novel by The Martian scribe Andy Weir. Project Hail Mary will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and will star Ryan Gosling as an astronaut trying to save the planet from a star-eating microbe.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prepare-for-more-red-pill-memes-a-fifth-matrix-movie-is-happening-184811691.html?src=rss

Prepare for more red pill memes: a fifth Matrix movie is happening

Posted on by

There’s another Matrix movie in the works. Warner Bros. just greenlit a fifth installment of the saga, as reported by Deadline. However, neither Lana Wachowski or Lilly Wachowski will be handling directing duties. That honor falls to Drew Goddard, who adapted The Martian into a screenplay and directed the criminally underrated Cabin in the Woods. He's also writing the script. 

Goddard cut his teeth writing episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Lost, among others — you could say he knows his way around genre content. Lana Wachowski will be on board as an executive producer, so there will be some input from one of the franchise’s original creators.

There’s no word as to what the film will be about, but Warner Bros. says that Goddard came to the company with a “new idea that we all believe would be an incredible way to continue the Matrix world.” Goddard added that the original films inspire him on a daily basis and that he is “beyond grateful for the chance to tell stories” in that world.

Warner Bros. is also being cagey as to which, if any, cast members would be returning. The original trilogy featured Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne-Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving and Jada Pinkett Smith. Most of these actors returned for 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, with one story-based exception.

Speaking of The Matrix Resurrections, it received mixed reviews from both critics and audiences. We loved the film, going as far as to call it brilliant, but admitted that it wasn’t for everyone. That’s par for the course with this franchise. Every single Matrix movie beyond the first one is divisive. We’ll have to wait and see what Goddard brings to the table.

He’s also writing a film adaptation based on another novel by The Martian scribe Andy Weir. Project Hail Mary will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and will star Ryan Gosling as an astronaut trying to save the planet from a star-eating microbe.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prepare-for-more-red-pill-memes-a-fifth-matrix-movie-is-happening-184811691.html?src=rss

Stability AI’s audio generator can now crank out 3 minute ‘songs’

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Stability AI just unveiled Stable Audio 2.0, an upgraded version of its music-generation platform. This system lets users create up to three minutes of audio via text prompt. That’s around the length of an actual song, so it'll also whip up an intro, a full chord progression and an outro.

First, the good news. Three minutes is huge. The previous version of the software maxed out at 90 seconds. Just imagine the fake birthday song you could make in the style of that one Rob Thomas/Santana track. Another boon? The tool is free and publicly available through the company’s website, so have at it.

It primarily works via text prompt, but there’s an option to upload an audio clip. The system will analyze the clip and produce something similar. All uploaded audio must be copyright-free, so this isn’t for the purposes of mimicking something that already exists. Rather, it could be useful for, say, humming a drum part or extending a 20 second clip into something longer.

Now, the bad news. This is still AI-generated music. It’s cool as a conversation piece and as an emblem of a possible future that’s great for tinkerers and bad for musicians, but that’s about it. The songs can actually sound nifty, at first, until the seams start showing. Then things get a bit creepy.

For instance, the system loves adding vocals, but not in any known human language. I guess it’s in whatever language that makes up the text in AI-generated images. The vocals sort of sound like actual people, and other times they sound Gregorian chanters filtered through outer space. It’s right smack dab in the middle of that uncanny valley. The Verge called the vocals “soulless and weird," comparing them to whale sounds. That tracks. 

Stable Audio 2.0 makes the same weird little mistakes that all of these systems make, no matter the output type. Parts can vanish into thin air, replaced with something else. Sometimes melodic elements will double out of nowhere, like an audio version of those extra fingers in AI-generated images.

There’s also the, well, boring-ness of it all. This is music in name only. Without a human connection, what’s the point? I listen to music to get inside the head of another person or group of people. There’s no head to get inside of here, despite constant proclamations that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is only months away.

So, this tech is an absolute gift for those making silly birthday videos or bank hold music. For everyone else? Shrug. One thing I can say from personal experience: It’s pretty fast. The system concocted an absolutely terrifying big band song about my cat in around a minute. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/stability-ais-audio-generator-can-now-crank-out-3-minute-songs-160620135.html?src=rss