In 2024, Microsoft caused a lot of head-scratching and general bemusement with the launch of its "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign. Now, though, it appears the quandary over what is and isn't an Xbox has been resolved. Game Developer noticed that the original blog post on Xbox Wire that kicked off the whole affair has been removed.It seems Xbox will be going a new direction with its future promotions. Maybe since the new Project Helix hardware it has in the works is more definite attempt to ..

Superhuman has taken its writing assistant Grammarly on quite the merry-go- round ride regarding its approach to AI tools. In August, the company launched a feature called Expert Review that would offer feedback on your writing, offering AI-generated feedback that would appear to come from a famous writer or academic of note. These recreations were based on "publicly available information from third-party LLMs," which sounds a lot like web crawlers of dubious legality were involved. The ..

The Steam Machine is back from the dead. Not as a Valve-supported program for manufacturers to create living room PCs, but instead as a home console sibling to the Steam Deck . Valve introduced its second attempt at ruling the living room in a surprise hardware announcement in November 2025, and paired the new Steam Machine with a new Steam Controller and a wireless VR headset it calls the Steam Frame . Since the announcement, as is often the case with Valve, some details remain elusive, ..

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 ..

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 ..

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 companys 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 keynotes ..

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 ..

Meta has announced that its 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 arent included. To set up an account, youll need to put your phone ..

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, ..

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 ..

Fortnite's original Save the World game mode will be free to play beginning on April 16 . This is not the battle royale mode that went on to take over the world, but rather a PvE co-op campaign that focuses on crafting and survival. It currently costs $9 but that ends soon. As a matter of fact, Epic Games will stop selling the paid version of the content tonight, March 11, at 8PM ET. If you have $9 burning a hole in your pocket to spend on something that'll be free next month, go for it. ..

When you think of an AI-forward PC, you might think of something like NVIDIA's $3,999 DGX Spark a computer with enough computing power to run complex large language models locally. That's not what Rabbit is trying to build with Project Cyberdeck. Instead, the company's goal is to produce a device tailored for vibe coding, and Engadget was given an exclusive first look at the upcoming PC. Rabbit began working on Project Cyberdeck after the company's CEO, Jesse Lyu, saw how much his software ..

Phil Spencer leaving his long-held role at Xbox might have made all the headlines last month, but a few years ago the big story was company veteran Larry "Major Nelson" Hrybs departure from Microsoft. Hryb recently seemingly hinted at a return to the company at which he spent more than two decades, but hes now landed at Commodore instead. The ex-Xbox icon joins the recently revived 80s computer brand as a Community Development Advisor, where his job will be to "help support and expand the ..

Looking Glass has been doggedly committed to making holographic displays the next big thing since 2019, and with its new Musubi digital photo frame, it might finally be offering its tech at a price that's hard to deny. Musubi is scheduled to start shipping in June, and unlike the company's previous, more developer-focused kits, the company's new display only costs $149. Musubi is a 7-inch frame with a glass border and white matte that acts as the home for whatever content you convert and upload ..

A good cordless stick vacuum cleaner gives you the freedom to move from room to room without dragging a cable or hunting for the nearest outlet. Theyre lighter than a typical corded vacuum and often easier to store, making them ideal for quick jobs as well as deep cleans. Many of the best vacuum cleaners now come in bagless designs, with powerful suction and smart features that make it simple to clean up anything from crumbs on the kitchen floor to dust on high shelves. Some models go beyond ..

Anthropic has launched a new research initiative called Anthropic Institute and has revealed that its Public Policy team is opening its first office in Washington, DC this spring. The company has made the announcement just a couple of days after it sued the US government to challenge the supply chain risk designation it received from the Defense Department. As Axios notes, Anthropic is tripling its Public Policy team at a time when AI companies are establishing a presence in Washington, so that ..

Meta announced new features today aimed at cracking down on scams perpetrated via its platforms. First, Meta is launching AI tools for identifying impersonator of brands and celebrities, as well as for detecting deceptive links, which should help it to quickly take down frauds. Second, it is adding new alerts to caution against interacting with a potentially fraudulent account. Facebook will roll out alerts for suspicious friend requests, WhatsApp is getting warnings for device linking ..

At the start of the year, Google brought a host of new Gemini-powered features , including built-in Nano Banana image generation, to Chrome. After debuting in the United States, those features are now making their way to Chrome users in Canada, India and New Zealand, with support for 50 additional in tow. Among the new languages Gemini in Chrome can now converse in are French, Gujarati, Hindi and Spanish. To try out Gemini in Chrome, tap the sparkle icon at the top right of the interface. This ..

The inspector general's office of the Social Security Administration is investigating allegations of a security breach by a member of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency operation spearheaded by Elon Musk. A whistleblower has claimed that a former software engineer from DOGE said he possessed two databases from the SSA, "Numident" and the "Master Death File." The person reportedly asked for help transferring the databases from a thumb drive "to his personal computer so that he ..

AI companies have been spending a lot of time in court arguing copyright cases over the past year and the latest plaintiff is Gracenote, the metadata company owned by Nielsen. Axios reports that Gracenote is suing OpenAI for the unauthorized and unpaid use of both its metadata and its framework for connecting that information. Gracenote specializes in entertainment metadata, creating descriptions and identifiers for content that clients such as TV providers use to help their own customers with ..

The real world price of impulse-buying Fortnite skins is going up, Epic has announced . Not because skins themselves are getting more expensive on paper, but because V-Bucks, Fortnite 's digital currency, is. The same prices you paid for bundles of V-Bucks in February will now effectively earn you fewer bucks starting on March 19, along with several other Fortnite -related pricing changes. Epic will still offer bundles of V-Bucks starting at $8.99 and running all the way to $89.99, but with a ..

Amazon has secured a temporary win in its fight with Perplexity over the use of AI shopping bots. Bloomberg reported that a San Francisco federal court has determined that Perplexity must stop using its Comet web browser's AI agent to make purchases for users on Amazon's marketplace. The AI company will have a week to appeal the decision, otherwise it has been ordered to stop accessing any password-protected areas of Amazon's systems and destroy its copies of Amazon's data while the two ..

Josh Wardle had a hell of a tough act to follow. His last game, Wordle , became incredibly popular thanks to its blend of simplicity, clarity and shareability. Over four years (and a seven-figure sale of Wordle to The New York Times ) later, Wardle has released his follow-up game. Like Wordle and its myriad clones, Parseword offers up one puzzle per day. It taps into the mechanics of cryptic crossword clues. So it might ask you to replace one of the words with a synonym, reverse it or find a ..

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is nearly upon us , as the hotly-anticipated sequel arrives in theaters on April 1. Nintendo recently dropped the final trailer for the film , which is filled with quick visual gags and nods to the source material. There aren't too many actual reveals in this footage, as it covers a lot of the same ground as previous trailers. However, it does show that fan favorite Lumalee is returning as a prison guard of some sort, reversing the storyline from the original film ..

OpenAI is rolling out new interactive responses in ChatGPT it says are designed to make the chatbot more useful for learners. Starting today, ChatGPT will generate dynamic visuals when you ask it to explain select scientific and mathematical concepts, including the Pythagorean theorem, Coulomb's law and lens equations. When ChatGPT responds with an interactive visual, you'll be able to tweak any variables and the equation itself, allowing you to see how those changes affect the solution. With ..

Nintendo's next platform adventure, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book , will be released for Switch 2 on May 21. The company announced the release date as part of its annual Mar10 Day celebration. This is a made-up holiday that exists because the date spelled out like that sort of looks like the word Mario. In any event, there's a new trailer for the perpetually hungry dinosaur's latest adventure . It looks super cute. It sort of resembles a children's picture book come to life . Yoshi games ..

Google is rolling out Gemini AI agents to the Department of Defense's more than 3 million civilian and military employees, according to Bloomberg . The agents will initially operate on unclassified networks, with talks underway to expand them to classified and top-secret systems, according to Emil Michael, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Eight pre-built agents will automate tasks like summarizing meeting notes, building budgets and checking proposed actions against ..

NVIDIA is reportedly working on its own open-source AI agent platform, according to Wired . The chipmaker has been pitching the product to enterprise software companies. Reporting indicates it's going to be called NemoClaw, suggesting that the entire industry is going to embrace this whole "claw" naming convention moving forward. Just like OpenClaw, this will be a platform in which users dispatch AI agents to perform a variety of tasks. However, NVIDIA's effort looks to have an enterprise focus ..

NVIDIA's GeForce Now game streaming platform has added a few minor but useful updates, especially for GOG and VR headset users, the company announced at Game Developer's Conference (GDC). The biggest technical improvement is for virtual reality headsets that support GeForce Now like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest. Starting next week (March 19), those devices will be able to stream at 90 fps for Ultimate members (up from 60 fps) for improved smoothness, responsiveness and realism. Another ..

Meta is snapping up Moltbook, a Reddit-like social network for AI agents that has been around since January and remains completely ridiculous . The company hasn't disclosed the terms of the deal. Moltbook and its creators Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr will be joining Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) when the deal closes. That's expected to happen in the coming days, according to Axios . The Moltbook team joining MSL opens up new ways for AI agents to work for people and businesses," a Meta ..

Google is rolling out a batch of Gemini updates across its Workspace apps that give the AI assistant the ability to generate first drafts in Docs, build entire spreadsheets in Sheets, design presentations in Slides and answer questions about files stored in Drive. The features started rolling out on March 10 in beta for Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers and Gemini Alpha business customers, in English only. In Docs, a new "Help me create" tool produces a formatted first draft by pulling ..

It takes around 30 hours to experience everything Resident Evil Requiem has to offer. If you've already enjoyed all the thrills and spills and you're itching for more, there's some positive news. Capcom has some updates on the way. The biggest of those is a story expansion, which is now in development. Just don't expect it to arrive imminently. "In this story, we will delve deeper into the world of Requiem ," game director Koshi Nakanishi said in a short video message . "Were hard at work on it ..

Sonos has just announced its first new products since 2024, when the companys plans went sideways after a disastrous update to its app . First up is the Sonos Play, the companys latest portable speaker. Long-time Sonos watchers will recognize the name from the old Play:1, Play:3 and Play:5 speakers, but this new model has little to do with those products of the past. The $299 Play is a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker that sits between the $179 Roam 2 and $499 Move 2 and could be the goldilocks ..

I really don't know how Apple did it. The MacBook Neo is a $600 laptop that doesn't feel like an afterthought, which is a curse that has befallen so many cheap Windows notebooks. Sure, it has a slower A-series processor and it's limited to 8GB of RAM. But the MacBook Neo still feels as deeply considered as Apple's most premium hardware. Its screen, trackpad and overall usability is so far ahead of the competition, every Windows PC maker, including Microsoft, should be ashamed. I've argued that ..

X has told UKs MPs or Members of Parliament that it suspended 800 million accounts to combat state-backed campaigns on the website, according to The Guardian . Wifredo Fernndez, Xs head of global government affairs, told the officials that the suspensions happened over a 12-month period in 2024 and that the accounts were suspended for violating Xs rules on platform manipulation and spam. Russia was allegedly behind most of the accounts that were flooding the website with spam, followed by state ..

Shark has been making some intriguing devices lately, and its newest offering is one Im personally very excited about. The company has just announced the ChillPill a gadget its describing as a 3-in-1 personal cooling system. Its a modular system that offers a fan, mister and cold plate in one portable accessory, and is available today (March 10) for $150. Just in time for the summer, I guess. Ive had a ChillPill to test for a few days and while I think its a bit pricey, Im impressed by the ..

If vacuuming is your least favorite chore, employing a robot vacuum can save you time and stress while also making sure your home stays clean. While once most robo-vacs landed on the higher end of the price spectrum, thats not the case anymore. Sure, you could pick up a $1,000 cleaning behemoth with mopping features, but it would be incorrect to assume that you need to spend that much money to get a good machine. Now, you can get an autonomous dirt-sucker with serious cleaning chops for $500 ..

Shazam is now available within ChatGPT , if you dont want to launch the music discovery app on your phone for, well, reasons. You will have to link the Shazam app with the chatbot first from its Apps page , after which you can summon it in-chat to identify whatever song is playing. To summon Shazam in- chat, you can use prompts like Shazam, whats playing? or Shazam, what is this song? A box will pop up that you can tap on to launch the music discovery service, which will then listen to the tune ..

US regulators have approved eight pilot programs across 26 states that will allow Archer , Joby and other eVTOL companies to finally start testing aircraft this summer, according to a US Department of Transportation (DoT) press release . That will allow those manufacturers to run trials for use cases like urban air taxi services, regional passenger transportation, cargo, emergency medical operations and autonomous flight technology. The new projects were made possible by the White House's ..

Now that Apple is designing and engineering its own silicon, the updates come fast. Its been less than two years since the company released the M2-powered iPad Air and were already on our third iPad Air iteration, one with the M4 inside. Thats the same chip that was inside the iPad Pro in 2024. Thats one way of expressing how powerful 2025's iPad Air now is and it remains a step above the base iPad in most ways. However, theres room for improvement. Apple has stuck with the same display for ..