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At CES 2023, Roland introduced a streaming mixer called Bridge Cast, which can give creators a way to pipe different audio feeds to different destinations and make it easy for them to create mixes, add vocal effects and remove unwanted audio. Now, the company has unveiled a follow-up to the device called Bridge Cast X that adds video support on top of all its predecessor's audio-focused features. The Bridge Cast X has two HDMI input ports and an HDMI Thru connector that can feed video up to 4K in resolution to an external monitor. 

As for audio, creators can plug in broadcast-quality XLR mic and headphones if they use those accessories. They can also adjust sounds to ensure that they can clearly hear the game's audio and voice chat more clearly than any background sounds. Meanwhile, they can broadcast a different mix that's optimized for maximum viewer engagement. The device has dedicated volume knobs for different input sources and audio output, and it has programmable buttons creators can use to mute specific sounds and to do various functions. 

On the software side of things, the BGM Cast service on Roland Cloud will give creators access to thousands of royalty-free music tracks that they can use as sound effects and background audio. They will need to sign up for a Roland Cloud Core membership that costs $3 a month or $30 a year to be able to use all those tracks, but a free account still gives them free access to 36 background music tracks and 16 sound effects. The Roland Bridge Cast X will start shipping in the US in February and will cost buyers $500.

Roland

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Philips Hue is expanding its outdoor smart lighting lineup with a new model called Dymera that beams both up and down, allowing dramatic effects for your home's exterior (or interior). The lights feature a black design and two individually controllable beams, letting you set illumination and individual colors for each using the Philips Hue app. You can also use the app's scene gallery to create a more cohesive look. The Dymera lights go on sale February 27 for $220. 

The brand (now under the Signify umbrella) also launched the Philips Hue pendant cord ($50, February 2024) designed to work with the Philips Hue filament bulbs. The idea is to create a lighting feature above a coffee or dining table, for instance, with colors and light levels controlled by the Philips Hue app. It's 3D printed with with bio-circular materials and comes in black or white and two sizes to best match your decor. 

Philips Hue

Also new are a couple of Perifo connectors ($35, April 2024) that expand what you can do with your track lighting. The Perifo T connector lets rails run in three different directions to illuminate a room, with the Perifo flexible connector gives you complete control over the shape of the track, letting rails run in any direction beyond the normal 90-degree angles. 

Along with those new products, Philips Hue added new black and white color options to the Being ceiling light, while adding three new color visions of the Philips Hue Go portable table lamp. The company also announced that its Philips Hue Secure camera starter kit and the Philips Hue Secure floodlight camera are now available. That kit includes the Philips Hue Secure wired camera, two Philips Hue Secure contact sensors, two Philips Hue bulbs and a Philips Hue Bridge to control all the devices. (For a complete list of all the new products, click here.)

Finally, Philips Hue said it would update the Hue app's security center in the first half of 2024, adding push notifications, automatic light and sound alarms and Alexa and Google Home compatibility. 

TikTok is one of the latest companies to be hit by layoffs sweeping across tech industry over the past year. A spokesperson from the short-form video platform told NPR that the company laid off around 60 employees, mostly from its sales and advertising division across its various offices in the US — Los Angeles, New York, Austin — and abroad. They told the media organization that the layoffs were part of a routine reorganization, but NPR said the company decided to let them go to cut costs. 

ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, reportedly cut hundreds of jobs at Marvel Snap developer Nuverse last year. According to previous reports, TikTok itself did a round of layoffs in mid-2022 due to global restructuring efforts and then again in early 2023 to let its recruitment staff in Dublin go. This round affects just a tiny fraction of ByteDance's global workforce that's around 150,000 strong, but as NPR notes, it's a "sign of pain in the tech industry."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently told employees to expect further downsizing this year, as the company allocates its resources. He said that Google is "removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas." Amazon also recently told Engadget that it's letting go of about five percent of staff in its Buy with Prime division. Twitch, a video-streaming platform owned by Amazon, was hit by a bigger round of layoffs affecting over 500 people earlier this year in order to reduce costs and run its business more efficiently. 

Earlier today, Riot Games announced that it is eliminating 530 roles globally, which make up about 11 percent of its workforce. The company publicly delivered this devastating news in two separate posts — one for players, and another for "Rioters," with the latter detailing severance package and some other benefits to treat the dismissed employees "with respect and grace."

Additionally, Riot Games shared that it is sunsetting its publishing label, Riot Forge, which has worked on six titles — including Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story due to be released on February 21. In their joint letter to gamers, CEO Dylan Jadeja and co-chairman Marc Merrill described Forge as "an experiment to see what would happen when Rioters partnered with their favorite indie devs," but now "it's time to refocus" on their internal projects. Forge will cease operation once it's done publishing Bandle Tale.

The execs also admitted that their digital collectible card game, Legends of Runeterra, hasn't been doing well enough financially since its launch in 2020. In the hopes of making this title more sustainable, its development team will be downsized, with its focus shifted to its more popular "The Path of Champions" single-player game mode.

Riot Games' cutback is the latest blow to the video game industry, after a total of around 9,000 people lost their jobs in 2023 alone. Embracer Group and Unity both laid off around 900 people each, whereas Epic Games fired about 830 people, and EA dismissed more than 1,000 employees. 2024 has only just began, and we fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg for the entire tech industry.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has provided more details about how its official X account was compromised earlier this month. In a statement, the regulator confirmed that it had been the victim of a SIM swapping attack and that its X account was not secured with multi-factor authentication (MFA) at the time it was accessed.

“The SEC determined that the unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent 'SIM swap' attack," it said, referring to a common scam in which attackers persuade customer service representatives to transfer phone numbers to new devices. “Once in control of the phone number, the unauthorized party reset the password for the @SECGov account.”

The hack of its X account, which was taken over in order to falsely claim that bitcoin ETFs had been approved, has raised questions about SEC’s security practices. Government-run social media accounts are typically required to have MFA enabled. The fact that one as high-profile and with potentially market-moving abilities like @SECGiv would not be using the extra layer of security has already prompted questions from Congress.

In its statement, the SEC said that it asked X’s support staff to disable MFA last July following “issues” with its account access. “Once access was reestablished, MFA remained disabled until staff reenabled it after the account was compromised on January 9,” it said. “MFA currently is enabled for all SEC social media accounts that offer it.”

While the lack of MFA likely made it much easier to take over the SEC’s account, there are still numerous questions about the exploit, including how those responsible knew which phone was associated with the X account, how the unnamed telecom carrier fell for the scam and, of course, who was behind it. The regulator said it’s investigating these questions, along with the Department of Justice, FBI, Homeland Security and its own Inspector General.

The Day Before is no more. The spectacular trainwreck of a game, which saw developer Fntastic announcing its closure only four days after launch, closed its servers for good on Monday, reports IGN. Publisher Mytona has wiped all references to the much-hyped Steam Early Access title from its website.

To recap the timeline, the $40 game launched on December 7, Fntastic abruptly said it was shutting down on December 11 and Mytona pulled the plug on the game’s servers on January 22. After the studio’s closure, an official statement from Fntastic said, “Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue.”

A message from Fntastic CEO Eduard Gotovstev, allegedly posted on Russian social channels on December 11, claimed the game had sold over 200,000 copies. At the time, the title had garnered 81 percent negative reviews on Steam, and nearly half of buyers had requested refunds.

Fntastic / Mytona

As for how it played when it was available, users criticized its “bugginess, lack of originality and seemingly intentional slow in-game progress,” Engadget’s Richard Lai wrote in December. Gameplay videos posted online showed players walking tediously around an empty city with little to do.

Meanwhile, IGN’s Gabriel Moss had the misfortune of reviewing the barely playable fiasco, giving it a rare 1/10 score. “The Day Before is not an MMO or even an open world despite claims from its developer that it would be both of those things,” Moss wrote. “It’s fundamentally an extraction shooter with only one goal: sluggishly run around the mostly empty city, grab some loot and get to one of the extraction points before you die.”

Fntastic said in December it was working with Valve to allow refunds for anyone who requests one, even if they’ve played for more than two hours. You can ask for a refund by navigating to Steam Help > Purchases > The Day Before, then select a reason (probably “Gameplay or technical issue”) under the “What problem are you having with this product?” dropdown.

Just days after Alphabet and Google CEO Sudar Pichai warned workers of more downsizing this year, the former is laying off dozens of employees, mainly support staff, at its moonshot lab. Alphabet is also restructuring X (not to be confused with the platform formerly known as Twitter) to make it easier to spin out projects as independent startups with backing from outside investors. Alphabet confirmed these changes, which were first reported by Bloomberg, to Engadget.

“We’re expanding our approach to focus on spinning out more projects as independent companies funded through market-based capital,” X division head Astro Teller told staff in a memo. “We’ll do this by opening our scope to collaborate with a broader base of industry and financial partners, and by continuing to emphasize lean teams and capital efficiency.”

“This approach will give us more opportunity to focus on what Xers do best: inventing breakthrough technologies to help solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” Teller added. “Because the world needs moonshots more now than ever.”

X is all about attempting to tackle major problems such as food waste, climate change and connectivity through innovation, but it hasn't found a ton of success through its spinoff businesses as yet. Last year, former Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat became the company's president and chief investment officer and now oversees X.

As Bloomberg notes, there has been a greater onus on X to turn its ambitious ideas into profitable businesses over the last few years, while Alphabet is cutting costs across the board. Earlier this month, Google laid off hundreds of workers from various divisions, including the hardware, engineering and ad sales teams, as it places more emphasis on artificial intelligence. A year ago, Google let go most workers from its Area 120 startup incubator.

Apple has released iOS 17.3 and iPadOS 17.3 to users. This is a modest refresh, so don’t go looking for anything too crazy. There is, however, a new feature called Stolen Device Protection. This isn’t used to locate a stolen iPhone or iPad, but rather to keep the thieves from accessing your personal data.

The feature first popped up in the developer beta of iOS 17.3 and it’s actually pretty handy. If someone manages to steal your iPhone or iPad, and you are updated to OS 17.3, you can lock them out of the system by forcing Face ID or Touch ID access. This works even if they have your passcode, so they won’t be able to put in their own biometrics and lock you out.

The software automatically mandates a one-hour security delay before changing the passcode if the phone or tablet is recognized as being in an unfamiliar location. Stolen Device Protection won’t stop thieves from doing their thing, but it will make things harder for them. The tool’s available for both iPhones and iPads.

The update also brings collaborative playlists to Apple Music, AirPlay hotel support, optimized crash detection and new wallpapers to celebrate Black History Month. It’s not the most robust update in the world, but it’s only been like a month since iOS 17.2 was released.

Like other iOS 17 releases, you need an iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max or iPhone XR from 2018, or any version of iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14 and iPhone 15. It also works on iPhone SE second- and third-generation models. As for iPadOS 17.3, a whole bunch of models are eligible for the update, including the iPad Mini fifth-generation and up, the standard iPad sixth-generation and up, the iPad Air third-generation and up and all iPad Pro models. Check your system settings to see if the update is available for download.

Today's a big day for Apple operating systems. The company dropped watchOS 10.3, with a new watch face, and macOS Sonoma 14.3, which also brings collaborative playlists to Apple Music. 

Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2024 has wrapped after a nonstop weeklong speedrunning marathon. This year’s charity raised over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Other highlights included four broken world records and a dog named Peanut Butter beating the oddball NES classic Gyromite.

This year’s AGDQ, which took place in Pittsburgh, passed the million-dollar threshold early on day five. Standout playthroughs included a no-hit run of Resident Evil 2 (2019), Super Mario 64 finished entirely on an electric drum kit (in 23 minutes!), and a blindfolded four-player / one-controller run of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

World records broken in this year’s event included speed runner Glitchcat7 finishing the insanely difficult Super Mario World mod Luminescent in 41 minutes, 36 seconds. Talia finished the Celeste mod Strawberry Jam Collab in 49 minutes, 13 seconds. Mechalink beat the Sega Saturn game Virtual Hydlide in 27 minutes and 11 seconds. Finally, Bobbeigh conquered the Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night — on hard mode — in 30 minutes and 24 seconds.

Games Done Quick / Ivan "Porkchop44"

Peanut Butter the Shiba Inu is now etched into the annals of GDQ history as the first canine-assisted speed run at one of the charity events. The well-trained pooch helped his owner (JSR_) finish the 1985 NES game Gyromite in 26 minutes and 24 seconds. He responded to well-timed commands, pressing his paws on a floor-pedal-operated controller to move the game’s red and green pipes up and down to lead Professor Hector to safety. (He was compensated with ham and cheese for his work.) You can watch Peanut Butter’s memorable run below.

This year’s AGDQ pushes the Games Done Quick fundraising total, stretching back 14 years, to more than $48.9 million. In addition to the Prevent Cancer Foundation, the showcases have raised money for organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Malala Fund, Organization for Autism Research and CARE. The next marathon will be an all-women speedrunning event called Frost Fatales, held online from March 3 to 10, with proceeds benefitting the National Women’s Law Center.