It's finally clear just what the long-expected Super Mario Bros. movie will look like. Nintendo and Illumination have shared a teaser trailer (below) offering a peek at the computer animated blockbuster. The clip shows Bowser (played by Jack Black) terrorizing a penguin kingdom in his quest for an invincibility star. Not surprisingly, we know who will come to their rescue — Mario (Chris Pratt) makes an abrupt entrance to the Mushroom Kingdom, while his brother Luigi (Charlie Day) makes a cameo.
The movie also stars The Queen's Gambit's Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, among other big names. Super Mario Bros. is expected to premiere April 7th, 2023.
If the teaser is anything to go by, the creators aren't taking any chances. This appears to be a straightforward CG movie meant to appeal to a wide audience — you won't have flashbacks to the odd 1993 live action film. With that said, the top-tier actors and lavish visuals might help it stand out if the iconic gaming franchise isn't enough by itself.
Amazon has responded swiftly to the impromptu strike at its unionized Staten Island warehouse. The company and workers have confirmed to CNN that about 50 workers were suspended with pay at JFK8 after they occupied the human resources office and refused to work in allegedly unsafe conditions following a ship dock fire. One of the workers, Connor Spence, said the suspension would continue while Amazon investigated the work stoppage.
We've asked Amazon for comment. In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson said there was a "small fire" in a cardboard compactor, and that it asked night shift workers (including those in the protest) to report to their usual shifts after firefighters said the warehouse was safe. The "vast majority" of workers complied, Amazon said. Day shift team members were sent home with pay.
The suspensions won't help ease the conflict between Amazon and workers at JFK8, the company's only unionized warehouse. In May, Amazon fired several senior managers in a move that employees claimed was retaliation for labor organization efforts. There's also broader tension across the company. Staff at multiple American warehouses have pushed for unionization (albeit with limited success), while Amazon has been accused of using anti-union tactics.
The affected staffers won't necessarily lose their jobs. However, it signals that Amazon isn't keen to tolerate labor disruptions even with a union present.
At this point, we’re all pretty used to seeing Instagram copy TikTok. Now, in a new twist, TikTok is copying Instagram with a new feature called “Photo Mode.” The update allows TikTok users to share multiple still photos in a post, along with captions of up to 2,200 characters.
The new photo posts, which can also feature music, will appear in users’ For You page alongside videos. In a blog post, TikTok says it hopes Photo Mode, combined the recently-extended character count, will allow creators to “express themselves and more deeply connect with others.”
But Photo Mode is also making the For You Page more like Instagram in ways that may not be as creative. According to Mashable, the feature is already being used by creators to share recycled text memes and other content that’s often popular on... Instagram.
But TikTok now copying Instagram’s original premise is especially noteworthy given that Instagram has reportedly been struggling with engagement with its TikTok clone, Reels. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that TikTok is still vastly outpacing Instagram Reels in daily watch time.
It’s also the latest bout of every social media platform shamelessly copying each other until they all look kind of the same. In the last six weeks alone: Instagram,TikTok and Snapchat have come up with their own take on French upstart BeReal (Instagram’s hasn’t formally launched yet). Twitter introduced a TikTok-style feed for full-screen videos. While YouTube Shorts, itself a TikTok clone, added TikTok-style voice overs.
Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics and Unitree Robotics all joined Boston Dynamics in the agreement. "We believe that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or autonomously operated, widely available to the public, and capable of navigating to previously inaccessible locations where people live and work, raises new risks of harm and serious ethical issues," the group wrote. "Weaponized applications of these newly-capable robots will also harm public trust in the technology in ways that damage the tremendous benefits they will bring to society."
To that end, the industry group pledges to "not weaponize our advanced-mobility general-purpose robots or the software we develop that enables advanced robotics and we will not support others to do so." Nor will they allow their customers to subsequently weaponize any platforms they were sold, when possible. That's a big caveat given the long and storied history of such weapons as the Toyota Technical, former Hilux pickups converted into DIY war machines that have been a mainstay in asymmetric conflicts since the '80s.
"We also pledge to explore the development of technological features that could mitigate or reduce these risks," the group continued, but "to be clear, we are not taking issue with existing technologies that nations and their government agencies use to defend themselves and uphold their laws." They also call on policymakers as well as the rest of the robotics development community to take up similar pledges.
If you've been waiting for Valve to release its delayed Steam Deck dock instead of opting for a third-party version, there's some good news: the company has opened up pre-orders. The Steam Deck Docking Station, as the unit is officially known, costs $89.
While you can hook the Steam Deck up to an external display directly, the dock should make life a little easier if you want to play games on a bigger screen. You can simply use it as a charging station as well.
The dock has three USB-A 3.1 Gen1 ports, but you can connect peripherals to your Steam Deck wirelessly too. It has a gigabit Ethernet port, which could help you to download games faster. As for connecting your Steam Deck to external displays, the dock has DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports. There's a passthrough USB-C charging port too.
Valve
The unit ships with the same power supply that comes with the Steam Deck — it won't enhance the Steam Deck's performance when it's docked. Even so, you don't actually need to plug a charger into the Dock. It can run off the Steam Deck's battery, but in that case the USB ports will have reduced throughput to conserve power.
Valve will provide ongoing support and make improvements to the Docking Station through software updates. A firmware installation wizard may pop up when you slot in your Steam Deck.
In June, Valve said it had to delay the dock indefinitely due to supply chain issues. Those who are pre-ordering may be able to get their hands on the device as soon as this quarter.
Meanwhile, the Steam Deck itself no longer needs a reservation in some regions. At least in the US and Canada, you can now simply order a Steam Deck from Valve. The expected shipment date is between one and two weeks. Over the last few months, Valve has been able to significantly ramp up production capacity and said it would be able to fulfill all reservations by the end of the year. It looks like the company is well ahead of that schedule.
On another note, I received my Steam Deck just as I started writing this story and, oh, look at that. It's suddenly lunch time. What a coincidence.
The Need for Speed series hasn't been heard from since 2019's so-so Need for Speed Heat, but Criterion and EA are ready to bring it back — and they're tinkering with the formula once again. They've revealedNeed for Speed Unbound, a follow-up to the fantasy racer that melds elements of street art (such as cel-shaded graphics and graffiti flourishes) with realistic-looking cars and a gameplay system that promises "true consequence[s]" for your decisions. And did we mention that A$AP Rocky plays a prominent role?
You play a new racer who has to rise to the top of a street racing league to recover a "priceless" car stolen from a family auto shop. A$AP Rocky will lead the Takeover Scene, a "precision driving" mode that rewards style. His music (along with other hip-hop artists) will soundtrack the experience, and the trailer hints that you might even get to drive his custom Mercedes 190E.
Unbound will include familiar Need for Speed mechanics like police "heat," but you'll also get nitrous-fueled speed boosts in return for stylish driving. To no one's surprise, you'll have virtual currency-based customization that extends to elements like clothing and license plates. Free updates will include new features, modes and raw content.
The new title will be available December 2nd for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Sorry, you're high and dry if you hoped for a PS4 or Xbox One release. The bigger question is whether or not Unbound will accomplish what Heat didn't — that is, restore some of the excitement from Need for Speed's glory days.
For the fourth time this year, Peloton has announced a round of layoffs. The struggling fitness company is cutting another 500 jobs, CEO Barry McCarthy told CNBC. In a memo to employees, McCarthy wrote that the company needed to make the move as part of efforts to reach break-even cash flow by the end of Peloton’s 2023 fiscal year (i.e by the end of next June).
“I am acutely aware many of those impacted by these changes aren’t just colleagues but are also close friends,” McCarthy wrote in the memo, which Bloomberg obtained. “I know many of you will feel angry, frustrated and emotionally drained by today’s news, but please know this is a necessary step if we are going to save Peloton, and we are.”
The latest cuts make up around 12 percent of Peloton’s headcount. In February, just as McCarthy took on the job, the company eliminated around 2,800 positions. In July, Peloton laid off approximately 570 people as part of a move to outsource all manufacturing. Then in August, it cut another 784 jobs to reduce costs.
Given that the latest round of layoffs leaves Peloton with around 3,825 employees, that means the company has reduced its headcount by more than half this year. That said, McCarthy noted that, with these cuts, “the bulk of our restructuring work is complete.”
However, Peloton plans to close most of its retail stores in North America starting next year, which will likely lead to further cuts. McCarthy noted that Peloton lost north of $100 million on its retail operations last year, so changes were necessary.
Peloton saw a boom in business following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were looking for ways to work out at home. However, as the world has opened back up and people have returned to offices and gyms, Peloton was left with excess inventory and the business has taken a significant hit. It incurred an operating loss of $1.2 billion in the April-June quarter. As Bloomberg notes, McCarthy sees subscriptions to Peloton's suite of fitness classes and services, partnerships and making content more broadly available on third-party devices as the keys to increasing revenue.
"A key aspect of Peloton’s transformation journey is optimizing efficiencies and implementing cost savings to simplify our business and achieve break-even cash flow by the end of our fiscal year. With that in mind, we have made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by approximately 12 percent," a Peloton spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "This will result in the reduction of approximately 500 global team members. Decisions like this are incredibly difficult and Peloton is doing all we can to help our impacted colleagues. As we pivot to growth, today marks the completion of the vast majority of our restructuring plan we began in February 2022."
A lot more people will soon be able to do what was once unthinkable: edit tweets. Twitter has begun to roll out its new tweet-editing feature to Twitter Blue subscribers in the United States. The expansion follows a launch in Canada, New Zealand and Australia earlier this week.
The feature gives users a 30-minute window to make changes to their tweets. A version history is also available, so others — regardless of whether they subscribe to Twitter Blue — can see a record of all the changes that have been made.
plus, a version history is available on every edited Tweet so you know what changed pic.twitter.com/E3eZSj7NsL
For now, the feature is part of Twitter’s $4.99/month subscription service, which also provides access to NFT profile photos and other specialized features. The company hasn’t confirmed if the edit button will ever be available outside of Twitter Blue, though the feature is categorized as part of “Twitter Blue Labs,” and Twitter has previously said some “Labs” features will eventually be available more widely.
Twitter first announced that it was working on the long-requested edit button back in April, following a poll from Elon Musk, who had recently become the company’s largest shareholder. The company said its work on an edit button predated Musk’s involvement with Twitter, which newly released text messages from Musk seemed to confirm. Interestingly, Musk’s messages also revealed that he was not a fan (to put it mildly) of Twitter Blue, at least in its original form. No word yet on if he has the edit button.
There weren't a lot of surprises in store at today's Google event in Brooklyn — after all, the company started teasing its Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro smartphones, the Pixel Watch and the Pixel Tablet months ago. Regardless, we now have all the details on Google's latest hardware, all of which you can pre-order now in advance of the October 14th launch date (with the exception of the Pixel Tablet, which Google still says will launch sometime in 2023). In the meantime, here's what you need to know about these new phones and watch.
The Pixel 7
Google
Just like last year's Pixel 6, the Pixel 7 is priced at $599, making it a phone that should give you a great bang for your buck. The display is just a tiny bit smaller than last year's model, at 6.3 inches, but it has the same 1,080 x 2,400 resolution. Also like last year, there are two camera modules on the back: a 50-megapixel standard camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide option. The front-facing camera got a nice upgrade, though — it's a 12-megapixel shooter with bigger pixels and a wider field of view than last year's model. It can also be used to unlock your phone, but there's still an under-display fingerprint sensor if you prefer.
As expected, the new Tensor G2 chip is on board here, enabling a handful of notable features as well as improving overall performance. For example, the Pixel 7 has a new feature called Photo Unblur, which uses the chip's AI smarts to do exactly what it says — make your blurry photos more legible. You can even do this to older photos in your Google Photos library, so you can touch up old memories that you might have shot on other phones or cameras. It also powers the Super Res Zoom features so you can shoot 2x photos that come in at a full 12.5-megapixel resolution, a trick that Google's had around for a while now. But as usual, the results will probably be better this year than before.
From a design perspective, the Pixel 7 largely keeps the look from last year's model, with the prominent camera bar on the back. It comes in three colors (snow, obsidian and lemongrass) and the aluminum body is made from 100 percent recycled material.
The Pixel 7 Pro
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Of the two new phones, the Pixel 7 Pro is probably the more exciting thanks to its three-lens camera system on the back. Both the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera and the 48-megapixel telephoto camera have been upgraded; the telephoto camera has the same Quad Bayer PD technology as the main 50-megapixel sensor. What this means is that, combined with the aforementioned Tensor G2 chip, the Pixel 7 Pro's Super Res Zoom capabilities should be significantly improved.
The camera itself has a 5x optical zoom compared to the main camera, and the high resolution sensors mean you can pull a 10x zoom picture here at 12.5-megapixels. Overall, Google says you can zoom in as far as 30x if you want — we'll have to review this phone before we can say how good these shots look in reality, but it'll be fun to see just how well this camera can perform in the wild. The ultrawide camera also has a new macro photography mode, thanks to the wider field of view and autofocus feature.
Video shooting has also been upgraded, as all the cameras on the Pixel 7 Pro (and the Pixel 7, for that matter) can shoot 4K video at 60 fps. There's also a new Cinematic Blur feature that automatically blurs the background in videos to make your subject pop more, not unlike what you can do with photos in portrait mode.
As for the rest of the hardware, the Pixel 7 Pro sports the same 6.7-inch screen as the Pixel 6 Pro. Like last year, it supports variable refresh rates up to 120Hz, compared to the 90Hz the Pixel 7 tops out at. Naturally, it also has the same Tensor G2 chip as the Pixel 7; the Pro does come with 12GB of RAM, compared to the 8GB in the standard model. It comes standard with 128GB of storage, but you can step up to 256GB or 512GB if you're going to shoot a ton of video or otherwise save a lot of content on it.
At long last, the Pixel Watch
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
The Pixel Watch has been rumored for years, and we finally know a lot more about it ahead of its launch next week. It comes in a single 41mm size case, but you can get it in three stainless steel finishes (silver, black and gold). As for other customization features, Google says it'll launch with 20 different bands and 19 different watch faces. It has a Gorilla Glass 5 crystal on top, a haptic crown and a second side button, the same essential controls you'll find on the Apple Watch.
Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of Fitbit integration here for activity and health tracking. Notably, the Pixel Watch continuously tracks your heart rate every single second, and it also has an ECG app and can track your sleep quality overnight. GPS means it can track activities like running without your phone, and Google says there are a total of 40 different exercise modes you can use to log different workouts.
Google says the Pixel Watch will last up to 24 hours with its always-on display, and it can be fast-charged to 50 percent in only 30 minutes. The basic model costs $349, while the LTE-capable Pixel Watch costs $50 more. While the Pixel Watch is naturally designed with Pixel phone users in mind, it'll work with any phone running Android 8.0 or higher. You'll also get six free months of Fitbit Premium and three months of YouTube Music Premium.
A quick update on the Pixel Tablet
Google
After a very brief tease earlier this year at I/O, Google gave us a little more detail on the upcoming Pixel Tablet. Unlike the other devices announced, the Pixel Tablet won't arrive until sometime in 2023. Unsurprisingly, we know it'll use the Tensor G2 chip found in Google's latest smartphones, but we didn't get any other spec details. We did, however, learn a bit about it's design. Google’s vice president of product management Rose Yao told Engadget that the company developed a new “nano-ceramic coating” that she said is inspired by “the feel of porcelain" for the Pixel Tablet. She said it feels like the coating on a Le Creuset dutch oven, with tiny pieces of ceramic embedded in the tablet's recycled aluminum frame. Ultimately, this should make for a device that has a good grippy feel.
Another neat feature we saw for the first time is the Pixel Tablet's docking station, which essentially turns the device into a Nest Hub. This magnetic stand holds and charges the Pixel Tablet and also provides it with improved speakers for a better audio experience, whether that's listening to tunes or making video calls. Unsurprisingly, it also has a photo frame feature, again similar to the Nest Hub.
There's no word on release date or pricing yet, so we'll have to be patient; hopefully we'll hear more about the Pixel Tablet early in 2023. But, it wouldn't surprise me if we have to wait until May for the next I/O conference to get all the details on this device.
There are already good deals for Google's Pixel 7 family mere hours after its debut. Amazon is including a free $100 gift card when you order the regular Pixel 7 by October 24th at 2:59AM Eastern. And if you'd rather buy the Pixel 7 Pro, Amazon is offering a free $200 card. This applies regardless of capacity, so it might do the trick if you want to buy a case or wireless earbuds to go with the Android flagship.
Both Pixel 7 models deliver modest but welcome improvements. On top of a more powerful Tensor G2 chip suited to AI-heavy tasks, they promise upgraded camera quality versus the Pixel 6 (particularly for zoomed shots, selfies and video). The 7 Pro gets the most comprehensive update with a 5X telephoto camera that purportedly maintains sharp photography across multiple zoom levels. There are subtler tweaks, too, including a more hand-friendly 6.3-inch screen on the base 7 and a flatter, brighter (1,500-nit) 6.7-inch panel on the 7 Pro.
You probably won't want to upgrade from the Pixel 6 or other recent higher-end Android phones. If you're coming from an older device, though, the appeal is clear — either Pixel 7 variant is a capable, 'pure' Android handset that undercuts the price of some comparable rivals. The gift cards just make the switch a little easier.
