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Nintendo has released a new trailer for its upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie. After the short teaser the gaming giant offered at the start of last month, the new clip offers a better insight into what fans can expect from the film. Not only do we hear more of Chris Pratt as Mario, but also Anya Taylor-Joy and Seth Rogan make appearances as Princess Peach and Donkey Kong. Oh, and the best part is that the film will include a nod to the Mario Kart series with a visit to Rainbow Road.

According to Mario and Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo redesigned Donkey Kong's model for the first time since the loveable ape made the jump to 3D in 1994's Donkey Kong Country. "Some of you may have noticed, but for this movie, we seized the opportunity to give a comical personality and design reminiscent of the original character," Miyamoto said.

Super Mario Bros. will premiere on April 7th, 2023. 

Netflix has added three new mobile games to its catalog, and they're eclectic... with a distinctly feline theme. The highlight is Hello Kitty Happiness Parade, a relentlessly cute rhythm game from Rogue Games that has up to three players dance down the street while collecting coins and thwarting the fun-hating Kuromi. It's not the most complex game by any means, but you might not mind given the kawaii aesthetic.

Another title, Neowiz's Cats & Soup, tasks you with helping cats make (what else?) soup. Thankfully, this is more a low-key relaxation title than a weird Neko-Atsume-meets-Overcooked crossover. And yes, there is a game for the less cat obsessed. Devolver's Reign: Three Kingdoms is a card battler that has you waging war and politics at the end of China's Han dynasty.

As with other Netflix mobile releases, you just need a subscription and an Android or iOS device. The hook remains the lack of sales pitches you frequently find in mobile games — there are no ads, in-app purchases or other rude surprises. If there's content to earn, you'll do it strictly by playing.

Netflix has been ramping up its game efforts in recent months. The creators of Downwell and Her Story have contributed to the catalog, and the streaming giant has been establishing in-house studios in addition to buying developers like Next Games (The Walking Dead) and Night School Studio (Oxenfree). The company is also poised to expand beyond mobile with not-so-subtle hints of work on blockbuster PC projects. Gaming certainly isn't the main reason to subscribe to Netflix, but it may represent a better incentive before long.

Exactly 50 years ago today, Atari released Pong. It wasn’t the first video game ever created, nor the original take on virtual table tennis – a fact that would eventually lead to two decades of lawsuits. But in Pong, the early video game industry was born. Released in 1972, Atari sold more than 8,000 Pong arcade cabinets. A few years later, the home version of Pong would become an instant success, with Sears selling about 150,000 units of the console you needed to play the game.

Those are modest sales numbers by 2022 standards, but the success of Pong and Home Pong gave Atari the resources and expertise needed to create the Atari 2600. The second-generation console went on to sell more than 30 million units before the end of 2004. All things considered, pretty good for a project that was only meant to be a training exercise for designer Allan Alcorn, who was 24 at the time and had no prior video game experience. And if not for Pong, Nintendo would not exist, and a young Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak may have not gone on to create Apple.

Happy birthday, Pong, and thank you for inspiring countless sequels and knockoffs, as well as the careers of an entire generation of video game designers. 

Sony's PlayStation Tournaments are finally available to play on PS5, and the biggest upgrade may simply be the greater chance of joining an event. The eSports-for-everyone feature now centers around shorter tourneys at regular intervals — it should be easier to find a competition that fits your life. Sony will even create multiple brackets to keep the duration in check. You can sign up directly from your console, too, so you won't have to head to another device just to get started.

The new PlayStation Tournaments system also boasts a revamped interface that takes advantage of PS5 activity cards and notifications to help you find events, track (automatically updated) results, and let you know when it's time to play. You can locate competitions from games' home screen sections. And if you'd like to do more than just compete, a Discord community hub promises both chat as well as hosted interviews and game sessions.

Sony

Anyone in an eligible country with a PlayStation Plus membership can join, with the first PS5 tournaments focusing on FIFA 23, Guilty Gear Strive and NBA 2K23. Prizes range from in-game currency through to cash, PlayStation hardware and "experiences." To reel you in, Sony is running a "Win-A-Thon" leaderboard event between December 1st and January 31st that rewards you the better you fare in regional tournaments. The promo will also be available to PS4 owners.

As with Microsoft's Xbox Live tournaments, the PlayStation eSports offering is meant to keep you engaged and spending money. You might be more likely to buy the latest sports title if you know you can win real-world rewards. Even so, the PS5 expansion might be helpful by making eSports more accessible to current-gen console owners.

Two months after its chaotic launch, Overwatch 2 is in a much healthier place and Blizzard is gearing up for the game's second season. A gameplay trailer for the season, which starts on December 6th and will introduce another new tank character, provides a glimpse of an upcoming limited-time mode. It's called Battle for Olympus and it will run from January 5th until January 19th.

Blizzard only offered a brief look at Battle for Olympus in the trailer, but it takes place on a revamped version of the Ilios map and shows Roadhog firing rocks (instead of his usual scrap) and Junker Queen raining lightning down onto the battlefield. To wit, Blizzard says heroes will be "imbued with awesome god-like powers" in this mode.

Speaking of Junker Queen, the tank who joined the lineup when Overwatch 2 launched, she's the recipient of a mythic skin in season two, which (perhaps unsurprisingly) has a Greek mythology theme. The Zeus look has customizable parts and new weapon models, voice lines and special effects. That rad skin is the reward for reaching level 80 of the next battle pass.

The Winter Wonderland and Lunar New Year events will return during the season as well, and they'll feature fresh skins. During last month's Halloween event, there was no way for players to earn new event skins for free, which led to a backlash from players. However, Blizzard has said that, starting in season two, every event will have a skin that fans can unlock by simply playing the game — just like they could in the Overwatch 1 days.

The trailer also offered a look at the new escort map for season two, Shambali Monastery, where Zenyatta and the latest tank hero, Ramattra, used to live (a deeper dive into the map is coming later this week). Ramattra is the game's first so-called "tempo" tank. He can change forms and gain access to alternate abilities. He's all about closing the gap between his team and the enemy. Ramattra will initially be gated behind the season two battle pass. Buying the premium battle pass will unlock him instantly, but you'll need to grind through the ranks to claim him for free.

Elsewhere, Blizzard will rotate the map selection for the core game modes. Two maps, Oasis and Nepal, will be playable at different times of day. Balance changes for some heroes are on the way and those who miss out on unlocking Sojourn, Junker Queen and Kiriko in season one will be able to add them to their roster by winning a certain number of games.

’Tis the season for music apps’ “year in review” rewinds that let you relive the songs and artists you streamed from the past 12 months. Only a few hours after the revamped Apple Music Replay arrived, YouTube Music announced its 2022 Recap, which begins rolling out today for iOS and Android.

This is only the second year Alphabet’s music service has offered its personalized retrospective, and this time, you’ll find it in both YouTube Music and the main YouTube app. Unfortunately, it isn’t yet live on our devices, but once it’s fully available, you’ll find it by visiting the Recap landing page in YouTube Music or searching for “2022 recap” in YouTube.

Like last year’s edition, the 2022 Recap displays your most-streamed artists, songs, music videos and playlists. Additionally, this year’s version adds a few new stats. These include Top Trends (highlighting artists you listened to before most other people), Identity (assigning you a “music personality” based on your musical selections) and Hard-to-Find Content (noting YouTube-exclusive streams like remixes and live performances).

Like other companies' annual rewinds, YouTube Music uses a story-style format with cards you can tap through or share. You can share your personalized recap by tapping the arrow at the bottom of each story. Exclusive to the YouTube Music app, you’ll also find shareable cards showing your most-streamed songs from each season. And if you want to personalize it further, you can add a slideshow of Google Photos images from each corresponding season.

With Apple and YouTube’s music rewinds now available, Spotify Wrapped likely isn’t far behind. It typically launches in early December, so we could see that as early as this week.

If history is anything to go on, Google won’t announce the next entry in its Pixel A series until I/O 2023. That means we could be waiting as much as six months before the company is ready to share any substantial information on the device. Of course, that’s not stopping the rumor mill from getting an early start on leaking details about the Pixel 7a.

Over on Smartprix (via XDA Developers), Steve Hemmerstoffer of OnLeaks fame has shared early renders of the upcoming device. Unsurprisingly, the images suggest the Pixel 7a will look a lot like its predecessor and Google’s 2022 flagships. According to Smartprix, the dimensions of the new device are nearly identical to the Pixel 6a, with the former reportedly coming in at 10.1mm thick at the camera bump. The phone also looks to feature relatively thin bezels, a not-so-prominent chin and a center display cutout for the selfie camera.

Steve Hemmerstoffer

Notably, the renders indicate the Pixel 7a will feature a SIM tray on its left side, suggesting – at least for the time being – Google won’t follow Apple’s decision to go all in on eSIM. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the search giant has decided to bring back the headphone jack; the analog port is nowhere to be found on the Pixel 7a.

The more interesting aspects of the Pixel 7a may be features that don’t show up in renders. According to Smartprix, the phone is likely to feature a 90Hz display from Samsung and an upgraded main camera sensor from Sony. It could also be the first Pixel A series phone to feature wireless charging. That's about all we know about the device at the moment. However, we’re certain to get a fuller picture of the Pixel 7a as more information leaks, or when Google decides to get ahead of the rumor mill like it did with the Pixel 4.

The Orion spacecraft's record-setting distance from Earth made for stunning photography, apparently. NASA has shared a photo taken by the Artemis I vehicle on Monday showing both Earth and the Moon in the background. Much like some Apollo photography or Voyager 1's "Pale Blue Dot," the picture puts humanity's home in perspective — our world is just one small planet in a much larger cosmos.

Orion took the snapshot around its maximum distance from Earth of 268,563 miles. That's the farthest any human-oriented spacecraft has traveled, beating even Apollo 13's record of 248,655 miles from 1970. Notably, Artemis I represents the first time explorers intended to travel this far out — Apollo 13 only ventured so far from Earth because NASA's emergency flight plan required the Moon as a slingshot.

Ars Technicanotes that this early Artemis flight has so far surpassed NASA's expectations. While the mission team has only completed 31 out of 124 core objectives so far, it's adding goals like extended thruster tests. About half of the remaining activities are in progress, with the rest largely dependent on returning to Earth.

Orion is expected to splash down off the San Diego coast on December 11th. The Artemis program has dealt with numerous delays, and now isn't expected to land humans on the Moon until 2025 or 2026. NASA originally hoped for a lunar landing in 2024. Still, Artemis I's current performance suggests the space agency's efforts are finally paying off.

Apple Music users can now access a recap of what they’ve listened to on the service this year thanks to Apple Music Replay. Apple has redesigned the feature to make it a much sleeker experience, albeit one that perhaps isn’t quite on par with Spotify Wrapped just yet.

For one thing, you’ll only be able to access your full Replay details on the web rather than in the Apple Music app (which does have a playlist of your most-played tracks). At the top of the page, you'll see a stories-style highlight reel including how many minutes you've spent listening to music and your top song, artist, album and genres of the year. Further down the page are the lists of your top 10 songs, artists and albums, and your top five playlists. What's more, you'll see if you're in the top 100 listeners for a certain artist.

You can share your highlight reel or other stats on social platforms or with friends. There are share buttons dotted throughout Replay on iOS and tapping one brings up the usual share sheet. Curiously, Apple Music's desktop web player doesn't feature share buttons, which makes it slightly more difficult for me to share just how much Rammstein and Taylor Swift I've been listening to this year.

Meanwhile, Apple Music has released its year-end charts, including the most Shazamed songs of the year. The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber had the service's most popular song of 2022 with "Stay," while Bad Bunny's Un Verano Sin Ti was the biggest album on Apple Music. On the top 100 songs chart, hip hop led the way in terms of genres with 32 tracks, followed by pop (23), R&B/soul (11), Latin (eight) and J-Pop (six).

Twitter's long-running effort to fight COVID-19 misinformation is at an end, at least for now. As Twitter users and CNNnoticed, the social media firm has quietly updated its transparency site to reveal that it stopped enforcing its COVID misinformation policy on November 23rd. It's not clear if the company will restore any accounts banned for sharing misinformation as part of Elon Musk's planned amnesty, but this indicates that the company won't suspend further users or delete content including falsehoods about the coronavirus or vaccines.

Twitter started cracking down on COVID-19 misinformation in January 2020, as the disease began spreading worldwide. The social network has since banned over 11,200 accounts, pulled over 97,600 examples of false content and "challenged" 11.7 million accounts through efforts like warning labels. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy even pointed to the company's policy as an example of how other technology platforms could fight bogus medical claims.

The company has effectively disbanded its communications team and isn't available for comment. However, Musk has routinely voiced his opposition to bans and some COVID-19 safety measures. Tesla defied early pandemic lockdowns by keeping factories open despite shelter-in-place orders. Musk also insisted during an April 2020 earnings call that these lockdowns were "forcibly imprisoning people," and threatened to move Tesla's headquarters from California to Texas in response. While the entrepreneur supports vaccination, he opposes mandates and voiced support for the anti-mandate occupiers that shut down the Canadian capital city of Ottawa for weeks.

The news comes amid reports Twitter is scaling back other teams dedicated to catching toxic behavior. Bloombergsources claim Musk has gutted the team dedicated to fighting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) as part of his wide-ranging layoffs, cutting it from roughly 20 specialists to less than 10. The contacts say that the unit was already strained before, but is now "overwhelmed" despite Musk's assertion that fighting child exploitation is "priority #1." This could put Twitter in legal jeopardy as it's frequently required by law to remove CSAM — the UK's Online Safety Bill lets regulators fine companies if they don't move quickly to pull offending content.

The cutbacks may have also limited Twitter's ability to fend off bots and other fake accounts. The tech giant struggled to curb spam obscuring news of Chinese protests after Musk laid off Twitter's anti-propaganda team, for example.