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Pokémon with guns? All the latest on viral gaming hit Palworld
The multiplayer survival game Palworld was 2024’s biggest surprise, and now it’s being sued by Nintendo.
GTA V, one of the most popular Steam Deck games, is now ‘unsupported’
Grand Theft Auto V was one of the top ten most played games on Valve’s Steam Deck handheld this past week. It’s been in the top twenty for at least two years. But as of today, Valve now lists the game as “unsupported” — because developer Rockstar mysteriously broke compatibility with Valve’s handheld for its online modes.
As you can see in the image above, this is the latest fight around Linux anti-cheat: like the developers of Fortnite and Roblox, Rockstar has decided not to support the Steam Deck with its new anti-cheat software for GTA Online — a game that, by all accounts, badly needed to deal with cheaters. (Outside the Steam Deck, better anti-cheat was probably a good move.)
But unlike Fortnite and Roblox, Rockstar is...
Nintendo and Pokémon are suing Palworld maker Pocketpair
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, which makes the game Palworld.
From Nintendo’s press release:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto, Minami-ku, Japan; Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” hereafter), together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. (HQ: 2-10-2 Higashigotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, “Defendant” hereafter) on September 18, 2024.
This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.
Pocketpair didn’t immediately reply to a...
LinkedIn is training AI models on your data
If you’re on LinkedIn, then you should know that the social network has, without asking, opted accounts into training generative AI models. 404Media reports that LinkedIn introduced the new privacy setting and opt-out form before rolling out an updated privacy policy saying that data from the platform is being used to train AI models. As TechCrunch notes, it has since updated the policy.
We may use your personal data to improve, develop, and provide products and Services, develop and train artificial intelligence (AI) models, develop, provide, and personalize our Services, and gain insights with the help of AI, automated systems, and inferences, so that our Services can be more relevant and useful to you and others.
LinkedIn writes on a...
Google Workspace users will see their Calendars front and center in Chrome
Google is adding a new daily calendar overview in newly opened Chrome tabs for Workspace users with easy access to schedules and video calls. That way, when you’re signed in with your organization’s account, the first thing you’ll see is your appointments and meetings, in addition to files stored in Google Drive.
The new feature comes alongside several other Google Workspace updates, including new enterprise-managed site shortcuts, which let IT set up quick links to frequently used sites on the URL dropdown.
Regular Chrome users could already set up site shortcuts for themselves — for instance, you could program it to bring up a site search for Reddit just by typing “red.” Now, a group policy can be applied to departments and...
The best Nintendo Switch controllers to buy right now
From the unbeatable Switch Pro and comfy Joy-Con alternatives to a dongle that lets you use your Xbox or PlayStation controllers with your Switch, these are the best Switch controllers you can get.
House committee advances Kids Online Safety Act
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has advanced two high-profile child safety bills that could remake large parts of the internet: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The proposed laws passed on a voice vote despite discontent over last-minute changes to KOSA, in particular, that were aimed at quelling persistent criticism.
KOSA and COPPA 2.0 would give government agencies more regulatory power over tech companies with users under 18 years of age. The former imposes a “duty of care” on major social media companies, making them potentially liable for harm to underage users. The latter raises the age of enforcement for the 1998 COPPA law and adds new rules around...
14 people have been killed by a second day of device explosions in Lebanon
A day after exploding pagers targeting Hezbollah members killed 12 people, including two children, and injured nearly 3,000 people in Lebanon and Syria, the attacks started again. The New York Times reports 14 people have died, along with hundreds injured in the second wave of explosions. Lebanese state media agency NNA reports they resulted from wireless devices like walkie-talkies and fingerprint analysis devices that also damaged cars and motorcycles and started fires, including one at a lithium battery store.
At least one of the exploding devices on Wednesday went off in the middle of a funeral procession for several of the people killed in the previous attack, causing additional panic as people ran for safety and were asked to...
Soundcore’s new $24.99 waterproof speaker is almost an impulse purchase
Soundcore has launched another ultralight wireless speaker called the Select 4 Go. It’s priced at $24.99, making it the most affordable option in Soundcore’s current lineup of Bluetooth speakers and much cheaper than similarly sized options such as Ultimate Ears’ recently launched $79.99 Miniroll.
The Select 4 Go pairs a 1.75-inch 5W full-range speaker driver with a passive radiator to help bolster the intensity of lower frequencies. That’s only a slightly smaller speaker than you’ll find inside the pricier Miniroll, which has a claimed 12 hours of battery life. Soundcore says the Select 4...
YouTube confirms your pause screen is now fair game for ads
It’s been nearly six years since we warned you that ads were coming for your pause button and 18 months since Google revealed that YouTube would serve them up, too.
Now, YouTube confirms advertisers can broadly target your paused screentime: “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since widely rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers,” YouTube comms manager Oluwa Falodun confirms to The Verge.
Technically, YouTube started piloting pause ads in 2023 with a limited selection of advertisers, but Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler revealed this April that they were unsurprisingly a big hit with ad firms and lucrative for Google.
Last week, Redditors started posting that the pause ads seemed to be...
If you’ve struggled to see your new Nest Thermostat’s screen, a fix is on the way
Google is rolling out an update that’ll let you adjust the brightness levels of its newest Nest Learning Thermostat, fixing a key issue that made it difficult to read, according to Android Authority.
The Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) is Google’s biggest redesign of the smart thermostat since it launched in 2011. Released in August, one of the thermostat’s major new features was the 2.7-inch display, which was double the size of its predecessor and more customizable. For example, you can have the main display be a clock or show the weather or indoor temperature. As you get closer, it can then transition to display the humidity, outdoor temperature, or even the outdoor air quality index score.
There was one huge drawback, though: o...
Know the price-matching policies for Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and others
Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new pair of headphones, an OLED TV, or a laptop just to find out that you could have gotten it for a lot cheaper somewhere else. That’s why, in order to keep customers happy and prevent them from going elsewhere, many retailers offer price-matching policies in which they promise to match a lower price found elsewhere. That kind of information comes in handy no matter the time of year, but it’s especially helpful during shopping events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon’s upcoming Prime Day event — aka Prime Big Deal Days — which kicks off on October 8th.
What follows are the price-matching policies for a variety of major retailers. There are a few things to make note of here. First, all...
PayPal has a new logo that makes it look just like everything else
Roughly 25 years after it launched payment processing, PayPal is “ushering in a new era for customers” with some generic black text. The company has a new logo, designed by Pentagram, that looks incredibly plain — especially compared to previous iterations of the logo that featured a rakish slant, two shades of blue, and prominent PayPal P’s.
The company justifies the change by saying that the new black standalone wordmark won’t be confused with the rest of the payments processing world — especially “the blue that has become synonymous with fintech.”
And yet:
Substack is trying to turn its writers into streamers
Substack is now letting creators stream live videos as another way to connect with their audiences.
Substack has increasingly been expanding from its roots as a newsletter platform, including by adding Twitter-like Notes posts and the ability to publish video podcasts and even letting people follow other users without subscribing to them. As of last month, you don’t even need to set up a publication to share content. With live video, creators will be able to interact with their fans in real time without having to rely on another platform like Twitch.
When you go live, your subscribers will be notified immediately, and you can make your streams available to everyone, to all subscribers, or only to paid subscribers, according to a blog...
The best budget robot vacuums
You don’t have to spend a fortune to have a robot clean your floors. Here’s our pick of the most cost-effective bots you can buy right now.
HTC announces the Vive Focus Vision with color passthrough and an eye on gaming
HTC has announced the Vive Focus Vision, a new VR headset that builds on the Vive Focus 3 with features like color passthrough and better PC tethering support. The $999 Focus Vision is available for preorder from now until October 17th on HTC’s website.
The Focus Vision can be used either as a standalone device or tethered to your PC using USB-C. It’s essentially a beefed-up version of the Focus 3, which the company released in 2021 — it has the same 2448 x 2448 per-eye resolution and 120-degree field of view and also uses a Snapdragon XR2 chip. But it gains features like dual 16MP cameras with color passthrough, and it can now automatically adjust the lenses to compensate for the distance between your eyes.
HTC is going for gamers...
YouTube is adding ‘seasons’ to make your favorite channel more like Netflix
YouTube creators can now break their videos up into different seasons and episodes to make them easier for viewers to navigate — and binge-watch — on TV. The upcoming feature comes as YouTube has increasingly been pushing into the living room, with YouTuber revenue on TVs up 30 percent year over year, according to the company.
Content creators can soon tailor their uploads for viewers in a format that looks very similar to Netflix and other streaming services when viewed on the TV, with full-screen episode descriptions and a hierarchy of seasons and episodes to navigate.
YouTube has not described how the new formatting will translate to desktop and mobile UI, but expect to see it in some form on all...
Lionsgate signs deal to train AI model on its movies and shows
AI startup Runway has made a name for itself building generative models seemingly trained on unlicensed content from around the internet. Now, the company has signed a deal with Lionsgate that will give it access to the studio’s massive portfolio of films and TV shows.
Today, Lionsgate — the studio behind films like the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises — announced that it is partnering with Runway to create a new customized video generation model intended to help “filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work.”
In a statement about the deal, Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns described it as a path toward creating “capital-efficient content creation opportunities” for the studio, which sees the technology as “a...
