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After voicing Mario for 27 years, Charles Martinet will no longer play the plumber. Nintendo announced in a tweet yesterday that he'll move into a newly created Mario Ambassador role and "continue to travel the world sharing the joy of Mario," the company said. Martinet also voiced Luigi, Wario, Waluigi and several other Nintendo characters over the years, with a few cameo roles in the recent Mario movie, where Chris Pratt voiced Mario.

Nintendo has confirmed to Kotaku that he is not involved in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which comes out on October 20. It’s the end of a gaming mascot era.

– Mat Smith

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The biggest stories you might have missed

The best PS5 accessories for 2023

Judge rules AI-generated art isn't copyrightable, since it lacks human authorship

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Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into the Moon

The country's last attempt to reach the moon was in 1976.

Roscosmos

Over a week after its August 10 launch, Russia's state-run space agency, Roscosmos, confirmed its Luna-25 spacecraft had spun out of control and rammed into the Moon. "The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon," Roscosmos explained in a statement. Luna-25 was heading to the south pole to find water ice and spend a year analyzing how it emerged there, and if there was a link with water appearing on Earth.

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Tesla says data breach was an inside job

The leaks detail thousands of Autopilot complaints over the past years.

A Tesla data breach earlier this year affecting more than 75,000 people was caused by "insider wrongdoing," according to a notification on Maine's Attorney General website. The 75,735 people impacted were likely current or former Tesla employees. In the employee letter, Tesla provided more information about the incident, confirming the May 10 breach date and that Handelsblatt had obtained Tesla confidential information. "The investigation revealed that two former Tesla employees misappropriated the information in violation of Tesla’s IT security and data protection policies and shared it with the media outlet."

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Hard sail test aims to reduce cargo ship emissions by 30 percent

With 123-foot solid sails.

BAR

A cargo ship equipped with rigid sails, each the height of a 10-story building, has departed on its inaugural journey. The Pyxis Ocean vessel will test WindWings sails, designed to harness old-school air power to help reduce fuel use — and the shipping industry’s CO2 emissions. The sail’s creators estimate the technology could decarbonize cargo ships by about 30 percent. The rigid sails are made from the same materials as wind turbines and can be added to cargo ships’ decks, providing an option for upgrading older, less fuel-efficient vessels.

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YouTube wants to benefit from AI-generated music without the copyright headaches

The platform and Universal have unveiled principles for handling the emerging category.

YouTube and partners like Universal Music Group (UMG) have unveiled a set of principles for AI music. In theory, the aim is to encourage adoption while keeping artists paid. YouTube also says AI music must include "appropriate protections" against copyright violations and provide "opportunities" for partners who want to get involved. While the video giant hasn't detailed what this will entail, it suggests it’ll build on the Content ID system that helps rights holders flag their material. It’s all rather vague at the moment, but at least the video service is aware of the incoming challenges of AI. Even if others aren’t quite getting it.

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Meta will soon offer Stories and Reels in chronological order, among other changes, to comply with the European's Digital Services Act (DSA), the company announced. The changes were expected after the European Commission announced that it had reached an agreement in April to create new rules that would require platforms like Facebook to offer alternative systems "not based on profiling" as a key requirement. 

Meta said it has mobilized over 1,000 people to "develop solutions to the DSA's requirements." Some of the changes will increase transparency about how its systems work and provide users more options to tailor their experiences on Facebook and Instagram. At the same time, it's establishing an "independent compliance function" to ensure it meets ongoing regulatory obligations. 

Starting later this month, Meta will offer Reels, Stories, Search and other parts of Facebook and Instagram that are unranked by Meta using its AI recommendation process. "For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest," wrote Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg. 

It's not clear how Meta will implement the change. The main Feed on Instagram already allows users to sort by Following instead of using the algorithm-based approach. However, the "Following" feature is effectively a secondary page on Instagram, and the app always defaults to the algorithmic "For You" option when first opened. Facebook is even more of a hassle, forcing you to select a menu, go into Feeds and tap "Friends" rather than "All." 

Users will also be able to view Search results based only on the words they enter, rather than results personalized specifically to them based on their previous activity and personal interests. The company is also providing more information about how its AI systems rank content via 22 system cards for Facebook and Instagram, adding to its "Why Am I Seeing This" feature. 

"These cards provide information about how our AI systems rank content for Feed, Reels, Stories, and other surfaces; some of the predictions each system makes to determine what content might be most relevant to people; and the options available to help customize an experience on Facebook and Instagram," Meta said.

Meta is also expanding its Ad library to display and archive all ads (for one year) that target EU users, including date run, parameters used for targeting (age, gender, location), who received the ad and more. It's also rolling out two new tools for researchers that include publicly available content from Pages, Posts, Groups and Events. 

The company said that it "welcomes the principles of transparency, accountability and user empowerment at the heart of the DSA," adding it has "long advocated for a harmonized regulatory regime." However, Meta previously expressed extreme displeasure when Apple introduced changes that allowed users to easily opt out of targeted advertising starting with iOS 14. To that end, observers will no doubt be keenly interested in how the changes are implemented and whether they follow the letter, if not the spirit, of the new law.

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Microsoft is significantly restructuring its Activision Blizzard merger proposal by selling cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard games to rival Ubisoft, it wrote in a blog post late yesterday. That would address a key concern of UK regulators, which blocked the deal in part become of Microsoft's potential dominance in cloud gaming — but nothing is likely to be approved until October 18th. 

"As a result of the agreement with Ubisoft, Microsoft believes its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard presents a substantially different transaction under UK law than the transaction Microsoft submitted for the CMA’s consideration in 2022," Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote. 

If the merger goes through, Microsoft would transfer "cloud streaming rights for all current and new Activision Blizzard PC and console games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment SA, a leading global game publisher. The rights will be in perpetuity," Smith added. That means Microsoft wouldn't be able to make Activision Blizzard games exclusive for Xbox Cloud Gaming, nor have any say on how they're released on rival services. It will also allow Ubisoft to offer Activision Blizzard cloud gaming services on Apple and other non-Windows systems. 

As for the terms of the transaction, "Ubisoft will compensate Microsoft for the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard’s games through a one-off payment and through a market-based wholesale pricing mechanism, including an option that supports pricing based on usage," Smith said. 

In its own blog post, Ubisoft indicated that Activision Blizzard titles will be available across a range of services if the deal goes through. "With a single subscription to Ubisoft+ Multi Access, players will soon be able to play their favorite Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard games across multiple platforms including PC, Xbox consoles and Amazon Luna, and on the PlayStation platform through Ubisoft+ Classics," wrote Ubisoft's Daniel O'Connor.

The UK's CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) blocked the proposed merger earlier this year citing cloud gaming monopoly concerns as the primary issue. However, after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lost its own appeal to block the merger, the CMA agreed to extend negotiations until August 29th. "Based upon the discussion to date, both sides — Microsoft and the CMA — have confidence that Microsoft notifying a restructured transaction is capable of addressing the concerns that the CMA has identified," the CMA said in July. 

The UK regulator will now examine the restructured deal and deliver a decision by October 18th, it said in an article published today. "This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments," said CMS chief executive Sarah Cardell. "Our goal has not changed — any future decision on this new deal will ensure that the growing cloud gaming market continues to benefit from open and effective competition driving innovation and choice."

Those who follow publications like Engadget on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, will know that the articles they share on the platform appear with a text snippet, an image and a sometimes-truncated version of their headline. That may not be the case in the near future. According to Fortune, the company is planning to implement major changes to the way shared articles appear on a tweet (or a post, as it's now called) by removing their text elements and leaving just their lead images with an overlay of the URL. In a post about the update, Elon Musk has confirmed that X is working on the new format and that the idea came from him directly.

That corroborates Fortune's report, which says Musk is pushing for the new format. It also says that the change going to happen even though X ran it by advertisers who didn't like it. The company's main reason for removing the text in shared tweets is apparently to make posts look less compact and to fit more of them in the portion of the timeline that appears on screen. Musk also thinks it could help lessen instances of clickbait shared on the website. As the publication explains, X's current format typically cuts part of the headline in shared articles, which works to the advantage of websites that write clickbait headlines and posts. 

It's also very much possible that X is implementing this change to encourage not just news publications, but also individuals, to write meatier posts on the website itself. After all, they will have to add context to the URL they share in order to get readers to click through the lead image. Musk has been encouraging users to post long-form pieces directly on the platform and allows Blue subscribers to write as many as 25,000 characters in a single post. More recently, Musk tweeted that journalists who want "more freedom to write and a higher income" should publish directly on X. As 9to5Mac notes, though, X recently had some issues paying creators part of its ad revenue-sharing program, because the number of interested users far exceeded its expectations. 

It might not be an overstatement to say Rode's original Wireless GO microphone system changed how a lot of YouTubers work. It wasn't the first wireless mic system, not by a long long shot, but its focus on creators made it incredibly popular. That success would inspire a lot of competing products — such as DJI's — which have since won over fans in a category that Rode arguably defined. Today, Rode fights back with the Wireless Pro — its new flagship wireless microphone system for creators.

The headline feature is the inclusion of onboard 32-bit float recording which means you should no longer have to worry about setting mic gain levels (though it's probably best that you do). This feature means the onboard recording will be almost impossible to "clip" or distort through being too loud. Effectively you should always have a useable recording if things went a bit too loud on the audio in your camera, which will be a great anxiety reducer to anyone who's ever had a production ruined thanks to bad audio.

The Wireless Pro could arguably help bring 32-bit float into the mainstream. There are specialist audio recorders out there that already offer this feature. And Rode already included it on its NT1 hybrid studio microphone, but given that you can plug a lot of different microphones into the Wireless Pro transmitters, this opens the door for recording a wide variety of audio content in 32-bit float — as long as you can feed it into a 3.5mm jack.

In a further attempt at streamlining the creatory process, the Wireless Pro also has advanced timecode capability so you won't need an external device for this. Though you will need to set this up via Rode Central, the companion app for the mic (there's no option on-device for this setting).

Photo by James Trew / Engadget

The Wireless Pro borrows a few features from alternatives or aftermarket accessories by including a charging case as standard (Rode currently offers one as a standalone purchase). That case is good for two total charges of the entire system according to the company and comes as standard with the new model. The stated battery life for the transmitters and receiver is around severn hours, meaning the Wireless Pro should be good for at least 20 hours total recording onto the 32gb storage (good for 40 hours of material apparently).

Another key upgrade is the improved range. The Wireless GO II, for example, has an approximate range of 656 feet (200 meters). The new Pro models expands that to 850 feet (260 meters) which is, coincidentally, a shade more than DJI's stated 820 feet (250 meters).

When Rode unveiled its more affordale Wireless ME kit, it introduced the idea of the receiver doubling as a "narrator" mic via a TRRS headset in the headphones/monitoring port. That's a feature that carries over to the Pro meaning you can record up to three different speakers albeit one of them will be wired, rather than cable free.

There are a couple of minor, but welcome quality of life updates, too, such as locking 3.5mm jacks so you won't rip your lav mic out and plugin power detection so the system can detect when the camera its plugged into is active, using that info to optimize power usage.

At time of publication, DJI's dual-mic product retails for $330. The Rode Wireless Pro will cost $399. That's obviously a slice more, but the company decided to include two Lavalier II mics as part of the bundle. The Lavalier II costs $99 on its own, so from that perspective the entire bundle represents a decent value if you're looking for complete solution. 

Over the weekend, many X users noticed that older Twitter images had mysteriously disappeared from the site. Now, the company has confirmed that an unspecified “bug” is responsible and it’s working on a fix.

The issue first cropped up Saturday, when older tweets that had originally included images began to show as un-clickable t.co URLs instead. X now says the bug affected “images from before 2014,” but as The Verge previously pointed out tweets from 2014 — including the iconic Oscars selfie from Ellen DeGeneres — were also at least temporarily affected.

The 2014 Oscars photo has since been restored but other older tweets still seem to have missing photos for now. “We fixed the bug, and the issue will be fully resolved in the coming days,” X said in a statement via its support account.

X didn’t respond to a request for comment, or provide further details on the cause of the bug. The company said it hadn’t lost the underlying images or data. But it’s hardly the first time some aspect of the service has been disrupted over the last several months. Photos and links on the platform briefly broke in March as the result of API changes. The company was also recently caught slowing down links to a number of competitors and other websites run by entities Elon Musk has previously attacked. Musk has repeatedly complained about the state of X’s infrastructure, but has also drastically cut its budget for servers and laid off many site reliability engineers in an effort to reduce costs.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured extraordinarily detailed images published today of the Ring Nebula. The gaseous cloud, also called M57 and NGC 6720, contains 20,000 dense globules rich in molecular hydrogen. It sits about 2,500 light years away from Earth.

The first image (above) was taken with the NIRCam (Near InfraRed Camera), one of the Webb Space Telescope’s primary sensors. It is designed to detect light in the near-infrared spectrum and can capture remarkably detailed images. NIRCam also took the equally hypnotizing updated image of the Pillars of Creation.

Meanwhile, the second image (below) was captured using the JWST’s MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument). It better highlights the nebula’s (roughly) ten concentric arcs beyond its outer edge, likely formed from its central star’s interaction with a lower-mass companion in its orbit. “In this way, nebulae like the Ring Nebula reveal a kind of astronomical archaeology, as astronomers study the nebula to learn about the star that created it,” the European Space Agency wrote in a press release.

ESA / Webb / NASA / CSA / M. Barlow / N. Cox / R. Wesson

The Ring Nebula was discovered somewhat serendipitously in 1779 by French astronomers Charles Messier and Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix while they searched for comets. It’s a planetary nebula, named as such because early researchers mistook their appearances for distant worlds. The Ring Nebula formed from a medium-sized star that shed its outer layers as it exhausted its fuel and approached its demise.

“The colourful main ring is composed of gas thrown off by a dying star at the centre of the nebula,” the ESA wrote. “This star is on its way to becoming a white dwarf — a very small, dense, and hot body that is the final evolutionary stage for a star like the Sun.”

Two of the standout indie hits of the past few years are Cult of the Lamb and Don’t Starve Together. Now, the pair of critically-acclaimed darlings are teaming up for a new game mode, unique in-game items and even some character cameos. This crossover impacts both games, though each receives different perks.

The biggest draw here is a brand-new game mode for Cult of the Lamb that’s directly inspired by Don’t Starve Together. The appropriately-named Penitence Mode ups the stress factor by giving your lamb protagonist the same mortal needs as your cute and poop-obsessed followers. In other words, you have to eat and shelter yourself, in addition to providing for your cult. You are given the same options as the criticality-acclaimed traditional game, so you can eat meat and veggies, or go at it Yellowjackets style (cannibalism.)

The games also now share some items to create a unique look, so you’ll be able to unlock decorations in Cult of the Lamb from Don’t Starve, like pig heads on sticks, and vice-versa. Look for new chest skins, tabernacle decorations and more.

Finally, there’s some characters making their way through a “crossover portal.” Webber, from Don’t Starve’s Reign of Giants DLC, is now an unlockable cult member, complete with a new “never hungry” trait so you can save that grassy gruel for someone that actually needs it. Additionally, Don’t Starve’s lamb-like ewelet critter/pets are getting even, uh, lamb-ier, thanks to clothing and design options inspired by the other game.

The update is available now for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The developers also note that a major content update is coming soon to Cult of the Lamb and that Don’t Starve Together will continue to receive more content in its ongoing From Beyond story arc.