Nintendo turned its biggest flop into an expensive, uncomfortable novelty
I've written about a lot of different video game hardware over the years, from new consoles to retro gadgets to whatever you want to call the Playdate. But I can't remember ever being perpetually sore from testing a device; such are the joys of the Virtual Boy. Nintendo has turned its biggest flop into an […]
Meta will ruin its smart glasses by being Meta
Whenever I write about Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, I already know the comments I'm going to get. Cool hardware, but hard pass on anything Meta makes; will wait for someone else to come along. It's hard to imagine that sentiment changing anytime soon after The New York Times reported that Meta mulled launching facial recognition […]
Tesla’s cheaper $60,000 Cybertruck is still a Cybertruck
Tesla has announced a new all-wheel drive Cybertruck that starts at $59,990, the cheapest the controversial truck has been sold for yet - though still well above the $40,000 price tag Elon Musk had initially promised. It's been joined by a $15,000 price cut for the high-end Cyberbeast variant, as Tesla doubles down on its […]
Will Stancil, man of the people or just an annoying guy?
I met Will Stancil two days before he got booted from his neighborhood Signal chat. We were at the Uptown Minneapolis VFW at an event hosted by Rep. Ilhan Omar, a thank-you party for Minnesotans who fought ICE in ways big and small. There were tacos and drinks, and dancing, though I never saw Stancil […]
The executive that helped build Meta’s ad machine is trying to expose it
Brian Boland spent more than a decade figuring out how to build a system that would make Meta money. On Thursday, he told a California jury it incentivized drawing more and more users, including teens, onto Facebook and Instagram - despite the risks. Boland's testimony came a day after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the […]
The Pitt has a sharp take on AI
Each episode of HBO's The Pitt features some degree of medical trauma that almost makes the hospital drama feel like a horror series. Some patients are dealing with gnarly lacerations while others are fighting off vicious blood infections that could rob them of their limbs, and the chaos of working in an emergency room often […]
A $10K+ bounty is waiting for anyone who can unplug Ring doorbells from Amazon’s cloud
With Ring facing fierce backlash over its Search Party feature, a new program is challenging developers to move Ring doorbell footage off of Amazon's cloud - and into users' own devices. The Fulu Foundation, the consumer advocacy group cofounded by YouTuber Louis Rossmann, is offering an initial bounty of $10,000 to anyone who can integrate […]
Meta’s VR metaverse is ditching VR
Meta, after laying off about 10 percent of its Reality Labs division, closing three VR studios, stopping new content for VR fitness app Supernatural, and discontinuing its metaverse for work, is announcing a major change for its Horizon Worlds metaverse platform. Instead of attempting to make the 3D social platform work for both VR and […]
After Search Party backlash, Ring is still avoiding the bigger questions
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff has been on an "explanation tour," as The New York Times puts it, following the fallout from its Super Bowl ad and the introduction of its Search Party feature. In an interview with The Times this week, Siminoff explained that he understands people's concerns and that "maybe people were 'triggered' by […]
Sony is closing the studio behind the Demon’s Souls and Shadow of the Colossus remakes
Sony is shutting down Bluepoint Games, the PlayStation studio behind well-received remakes of games like Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls, according to Bloomberg. The change was made "following a recent business review," a spokesperson told the publication. About 70 staffers will be cut, and the studio will shut down in March. "Bluepoint Games […]