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Vampire Survivors is one of the biggest surprise hits of the last few years and while its developer could have easily kicked back and taken things easy, Poncle has been beavering away on a bunch of updates. The next one is a fresh game mode that'll give players even more to do.

The new Adventures are "self-contained miniature story modes" that will take the Vampire Survivors characters on some "wacky sidequests," according to Poncle. Each mission has its own progression path that's separate from the main game. You'll have a limited set of characters, weapons and power ups at your disposal as you take on custom challenges such as staying alive for a specific length of time or killing a certain number of enemies. Adventures will also have some "lore text" to tie the story together.

The first few missions will soon arrive on all platforms where the game is available (PC, Xbox, Switch and mobile). They should each take an hour or two to finish the first time around, though you'll be able to tweak some modifiers for subsequent runs. In addition, all of the missions are playable in co-op.

You won't need to fork over more cash for these Adventures, though some will be added to existing paid expansions. At the outset, Poncle will bring two missions to the base game and a third to the Legacy of the Moonspell DLC. Adventures will only unlock once you've reached certain parts of the base game and the expansions.

It seems like Poncle is experimenting a bit with these missions. One that it's adding to the base game will "explore how we’re reworking classic content, with a slightly serious storyline and a chance to earn unlocks earlier than normal." Not to worry if you prefer Vampire Survivors' usual absurdity, though. The other two missions will have the game's usual offbeat tone.

We’ve been hearing rumblings about Elon Musk’s new AI venture, xAI, for months, and now it looks like it’s almost here. The Tesla CEO and noted social media guru just took to Twitter/X to proclaim that his AI venture will launch its first model tomorrow, November 4.

This is a beta phase, of a sort, as it’s being released only to a “select group”, though Musk didn’t specify as to what went into the selection process. Will it be a random drop or will the AI model be reserved for “VIPs” like, uh, Tucker Carlson, Chaya Raichik or the indefatigable Catturd? It’s anyone's guess.

Musk is making lofty promises about his AI, announcing that “in some important respects, it is the best that currently exists.” It’ll be competing with big-time offerings by OpenAI, Google, Meta and numerous others, so we’ll see what “important respects” make it the best that currently exists.

The lofty promises started right from the get-go with xAI, as its intended purpose is quite literally “to understand the true nature of the universe.” That’s a far cry from asking a chatbot what hotel to stay at or what you can cook with two cucumbers and a bag of spinach. Musk has had an endless string of issues lately, including flagging Tesla sales and, you know, that whole Twitter thing, so we’ll see if he can successfully unravel the true nature of reality.

There’s a timing element at play here. OpenAI’s holding its first-ever DevDay on November 6, so Musk could be looking to take the winds out of the company’s sails. The two companies are not only rivals, but Musk was actually an initial board member at OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 before a falling out that led to a swift divestment.

In any event, we have mere hours before we understand the true nature of the universe. I’ll make the popcorn, if popcorn even exists after tomorrow. Exciting times!

ProtonVPN is running a Black Friday Sale on its VPN services, including a 30-month plan for 60 percent off, or $120 total. That works out to $4 per month for two and a half years of access, saving you $180 over paying full price. Proton VPN is our favorite VPN service and, unlike most VPN services that continually run promotions, Proton rarely hosts sales. Their email and other services are seeing discounts, too. 

In our tests, ProtonVPN passed with high marks — but so did most of the other services. What sets ProtonVPN apart is its overall security and privacy safeguards. The Swiss-based company employs an independently audited no-logs policy and has proven they don't comply with law enforcement requests to reveal data. It's also based on an open-source code and discloses potential vulnerabilities through an official peer-review program. Plus, we found it easy to use. 

While there is a free version, the Plus plan that's on sale grants access to more servers, with locations in more than 65 countries and lets you run the service on 10 devices at a time. Compare that to the free version which only has servers in three countries and protects just one device at a time. 

It's worth noting that Proton’s Black Friday sale extends to all of its services, including Proton Mail, which we've recommended in our guides, and Proton Unlimited, which gives you access to VPN, Mail, Calendar, Drive and Pass, the company's password manager. The everything plan is down to $105 for the year, which works out to just under $9 per month.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Apple just revealed some new hardware at a streaming event earlier this week, including Macbook Pro laptops equipped with the proprietary M3 chip. These laptops are still on preorder, as they don’t officially release until next week. Despite that, you can already get a pretty sweet discount of $200 for one of these ultra-powerful computers.

Retailer Adorama is offering the deal on pre-orders of nearly any configuration of the M3-enabled laptop. For instance, the basic Apple 14" M3 MacBook Pro costs $1,600 to pre-order anywhere else, but Adorama’s deal brings the price down to $1,400. The same discount applies if you beef up the storage capacity, add more RAM, swap the screen size or increase the number of available cores.

There is a slight hoop you have to jump through to get this deal. You must be an Adorama VIP member. Luckily, signing up for this program is fairly effortless and, more importantly, absolutely free. Once you sign up, log into the rewards page and the discount will show up as an option.

These new Macbooks look to be the most powerful laptops the company has ever made, thanks to the just-built M3 chip. They are available in multiple colors, including the new Space Black option. The Macbooks ship in 14- and 16-inch versions and some feature M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, in addition to the standad M3. Though the prices start at $1,600 (or $1,400 with this sale), they can balloon to thousands of dollars once you start making upgrades.

As for other specs, the screen’s a bit brighter, with a peak of 600 nits. The new chips should also drastically improve performance and speed. Beyond that, many features remain the same as last year’s models. You get the same 1080p FaceTime cameras and the six-speaker sound system. The computers aren’t out in the wild yet, so we don’t have information regarding battery life and other real-world metrics.

This is an early Black Friday deal and it's for pre-orders only. In other words, once the laptops officially release on November 7, the sale will likely end.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Even though its latest microcomputer bears its own chip designs, Raspberry Pi has been using Arm CPUs since its inception in 2008. The two companies have now formed tighter bonds as Arm has picked up a minority stake in Raspberry Pi. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. However, the companies say it's a "strategic investment" on Arm's part.

It seems that Arm wants to gain more of a foothold in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. "With the rapid growth of edge and endpoint AI applications, platforms like those from Raspberry Pi, built on Arm, are critical to driving the adoption of high-performance IoT devices globally by enabling developers to innovate faster and more easily," Paul Williamson, senior vice-president and general manager of Arm's IoT division, said in a statement.

Many IoT developers have long been using Raspberry Pi's low-cost, capable computers for a wide range of purposes. The Register reports that, since 2020, more than half of all Raspberry Pi devices are being used for industrial and commercial purposes. However, Raspberry Pi is said to have prioritized those partners, perhaps making it more difficult for students and enthusiasts to get their hands on its computers at retail price.

There's another reason why Arm and Raspberry Pi might want to be closer bedfellows. RISC-V is an open-source processor design that could make it easier for companies to build their own chips or lower manufacturing costs. Qualcomm and Google are working on a RISC-V platform to power Wear OS devices, for instance. In addition, several companies are also using RISC-V CPUs in would-be Raspberry Pi competitors.

As The Register notes, Arm has pointed out the potential threat of RISC-V to its business. The company mentioned in a pre-IPO filing that if market support for RISC-V rises, "our customers may choose to utilize this free, open source architecture instead of our products." To that end, the investment could help to bolster Raspberry Pi's position in the single-board computer market and perhaps ward off competition.

Home improvement retailer Ace Hardware still can't take online orders as of Friday while it recovers from "a malicous cyberattack." News of the outage first started circulating on Sunday, after a Reddit user shared a note from CEO John Venhuizen detailing the incident. Ace Hardware has not responded to a request for comment to verify the email, but the website confirms that it is "currently unable to process orders online" and directs customers to make their purchases in-store. 

The cyber incident impacted warehouse management, invoice and other delivery systems, according to Venhuizen's memo. "The impact of this incident is resulting in disruptions to your shipments," Venhuizen wrote. An update issued on Monday urged stores to stay open, and confirmed there were no known impacts to its in-store payment and service systems.

Out of the company's 1,400 servers and 3,500 networked devices, 1,202 were impacted by the attack, according to a notice obtained by Bleeping Computer. About half had been restored as of early Thursday morning. "This frustration and all of this effort is the direct result of a malicious cyber attack on Ace," the update said. "This was perpetuated by criminals. Though they are hiding in this shadows, they are no different than thugs who break into your store attempting to steal your stuff." The details of the attack, such as who is responsible and how they accessed the systems, hasn't been confirmed yet.

Ace Hardware also warned retailers to be aware of cybercriminals trying to take advantage of the chaos by spoofing email updates or trying to remotely access in-store systems. Ace Hardware operates on a retailer-owned model, in which store owners form the cooperative of shareholders behind the retail giant. The retailer operates more than 5,800 stores.

Board games are great gifts for anyone who wants to spend time with loved ones and disconnect from technology. But instead of pulling out the same old classics like Monopoly and Scrabble, we recommend giving some new board games a try. Thankfully, this space is full of unique sets that run the gamut from word puzzles to whodunnits to calming playthroughs that showcase the beauty of the little things in life. Here, we’ve compiled a list of games that you might not have heard of, but will still make excellent gifts this holiday season. From games with giant monsters to those with haunted mansions, we’re sure at least one of these will be a hit with friends and family.

Freelancers

Fiction

King of Tokyo

Wavelength

Betrayal at the House on the Hill (3rd Edition)

Clank! Catacombs

Ark Nova

Expeditions

Marvel Dice Throne

Azul

Votes for Women

Wingspan

Earth

Apple’s M3 chip is here, and the company is wasting no time shoving it into new computers. This week, we dive into the new M3-equipped MacBook Pros and iMac, which offer some notable upgrades over the M2 and M1 models. Also, we find time to celebrate the death of the old 13-inch MacBook Pro, and try to determine if the cheaper 14-inch MacBook Pro is actually meant for pros with 8GB of RAM. We also chat about Apple’s healthcare plans, as well as Lenovo’s ridiculous tablet fashion campaign.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

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Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Sam Rutherford
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

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Samsung only debuted its new SmartTag 2 in mid-October, but the device already has a great sale going. Right now, you can get four SmartTag 2 trackers for just $80, down from $92. The 13 percent price cut puts each one at just $20 — that's quite a saving compared to the $30 a single SmartTag2 costs. 

The original SmartTag came on the scene in 2021 as a counter to the AirTag and Tile — but only for Galaxy users. Now, with its newest iteration, Samsung has updated quite a few features, such as taking the Bluetooth and ultra-wideband (UWB) variants and combining them into one model. The SmartTag2 also does something Apple still hasn't mastered: providing a key ring for its smart tracker. The initial model simply had a punch hole. 

Samsung's SmartTag 2 is also IP67 dust and water-resistant, giving you an easier time for runs in the rain or letting your dog wander around with it in all sorts of weather. Plus, its battery life lasts 50 percent as long as its predecessor, giving you 700 days in Power Saving Mode and 500 days in Normal Mode. At the moment, the SmartTag 2 still only works for Samsung devices, but it's definitely a good option if you have one. 

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