The dog who inspired the famous meme coin Dogecoin has died, according to a post on Instagram by its owner. Kabosu, an adorable Shiba Inu, was likely around 18 years old, though owner Atsuko Sato doesn’t know the exact birthdate of the rescue pup.
“She quietly passed away as if asleep while I caressed her,” she wrote in a blog post published by The Guardian. “I think Kabo-chan was the happiest dog in the world. And I was the happiest owner.”
The Japanese dog not only inspired Dogecoin, but the iconic 2010 photo became the source of a vast collection of internet memes. Some have even called Kabosu the “Mona Lisa of the internet.” Sato snapped the photo two years after rescuing the dog from a puppy farm, in which she would have likely been put down. The image shows Kabosu with her paws on the sofa while giving the camera, well, a sort of grin.
The photo became an NFT digital artwork that sold for $4 million, back when NFTs were a thing that people paid money for. As for the memecoin, it started as a joke by two software engineers but has now risen to be the eighth-most valuable cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $23 billion. The price has ticked up today, likely by news of Kabosu’s passing.
Dogecoin was most famously backed by Elon Musk, even becoming available as currency to buy certain Tesla products. Other famous backers include Snoop Dogg, Gene Simmons and Mark Cuban, to name just a few.
Dogecoin has also inspired a bunch of other memecoins, from the spin-off Shiba Inu coin to cryptocurrency coins based on cats, Elon Musk and, sigh, even Donald Trump. These coins are known to be highly volatile, so invest at your own risk. Dogecoin, however, has remained mostly stable for a while now.
A statue of Kabosu was erected in Sakura, Japan in November of last year. Reporting indicates that it cost $100,000 to build. “In the last few years I’ve been able to connect the online version of Kabosu, all these unexpected things seen from a distance, with our real lives,” Sato wrote. She has used the virality of her beloved Shiba inu to donate large sums to charities, including more than $1 million to Save the Children. Godspeed, you adorable pup.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-doge-dog-has-died-162733508.html?src=rss
It's taken Nintendo two decades, but the company is finally ready to open a second store in the US. The new location in San Francisco’s Union Square is set to open its doors in 2025. Details about Nintendo San Francisco are thin for now, but the company said it will allow "visitors from near and far to experience the world of Nintendo, its products and characters." More information will be revealed in the leadup to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Nintendo opened its New York store at Rockefeller Center 19 years ago this month, though there was previously a Pokémon Center at the same location. Along with merchandise and kiosks where visitors can play some Switch games, the New York store has a mini museum featuring older consoles and a boatload of Amiibo.
The company didn't open any permanent stores in Japan until 2019, and it now has three in its home country. Nintendo also has a private outlet for employees at its American headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nintendo-is-finally-opening-a-second-us-store-155001183.html?src=rss
Lucid Motors has cut 400 jobs, according to a regulatory filing. This amounts to around six percent of the workforce. Incidentally, the company also cut a whopping 1,300 jobs last year. This all comes just ahead of the launch of its first electric SUV later this year, a crucial release for the auto manufacturer.
You can likely guess as to the reasoning given for the layoffs. The 400 people got pink slips due to the ever-useful and nebulous term known as “restructuring.” To that end, the company says it expects this restructuring to be completed by the end of the third quarter, though it didn’t say anything about rehiring anyone.
“As always we must remain vigilant about costs. We are optimizing our resources in a way we believe will best position the company for future success and growth opportunities as we focus on achieving our ambitious goals,” CEO Peter Rawlinson said in a company email published by TechCrunch.
Those ambitious goals include the aforementioned EV SUV, named the Lucid Gravity. The company’s calling it the “world’s best SUV” and it’ll feature two electric motors, all-wheel drive and an expected maximum range of 440 miles per charge. Those are some really good specs.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lucid-motors-cuts-six-percent-of-its-workforce-ahead-of-ev-suv-launch-152746970.html?src=rss
Epic Games has an uncanny habit of making sure Fortniteis in tune with the cultural zeitgeist and that's very much the case once again. After a strong season focused on Greek gods and monsters, the latest major revamp of the battle royale is taking a vehicle-heavy, post-apocalyptic turn in Chapter 5 Season 3.
The new season, which is dubbed "Wrecked," seems very much inspired by Mad Max, given the desert vibe and modded vehicles. It includes an official Fallout crossover too. Not only that, a wastelander take X-Men’s Magneto will be unlockable via battle pass quests at some point in July.
This is all very timely given the success of Prime Video's adaptation of Fallout, Furiosa: A Mad Mad Saga hitting theaters and X-Men ‘97capturing the hearts and minds of '90s kids all over again. The Wrecked season will run until August 16.
The sandstorm that had been looming in the horizon over the last couple of weeks has swept over the island, bringing destruction and a new biome in the south called the Wasteland. (I'm glad my favorite drop site last season, Mount Olympus, has survived for now.) You'll have three new locations to explore in the Redline Rig refinery, the Nitrodrome car arena and Brutal Beachhead, where you'll find a boss named Megalo Don.
Redline Rig churns out Nitro Splash and Nitro Barrels, which you can find all over the island and use to power up your car and yourself. When you're Nitro-fied, you can bash through builds without needing to use your pickax. If you're lucky enough to find Nitro Fists, you can use those as a powerful melee weapon too.
Vehicles can be modded with things like machine gun turrets and spiked bumpers. There's the option to hijack one of two War Buses that are patrolling the island as well. These have cannons and an EMP pulse that can damage enemy shields and disable nearby vehicles.
As for the Fallout collab, that franchise's iconic Nuka-Cola is now in Fortnite. You can slurp some to replenish health and restore shields over time. In addition, you'll be able to unlock a T-60 Power Armor skin through the battle pass.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fortnites-new-post-apocalyptic-season-taps-into-fallout-mad-max-and-x-men-150816429.html?src=rss
Is it blasphemous to call a survival horror game “cozy”? Maybe so, but while thinking back on my playthrough of Crow Country, the word popped into my mind more than a few times.
From the jump, there's no question about Crow Country’s PlayStation 1 influences, which its creators at SFB Games have been upfront about: it is very intentionally the creepy-cute child of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Final Fantasy VII. The game, which was released on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox X/S on May 9, just about checks all the boxes for survival horror, but it takes a gentler approach to the genre, making it feel more like a test of mental endurance against some all-consuming bleakness than a constant fight for your life. (A Hard Mode, however, is apparently on the way).
You play as Mara Forest, who must painstakingly make her way through an abandoned amusement park in the year 1990 to find its elusive and evidently corrupt owner, Edward Crow. Resources, like ammo and health kits, must be scavenged. Skinless monstrosities may emerge from the shadows at any turn to grab at you and puzzles of varying complexity promise to stall your progress. There is an ensemble of characters who — including the protagonist — each seem to have questionable motives.
It’s a familiar formula paired with a familiar style of character design paired with a familiar unsettling atmosphere, yet Crow Country manages not to feel like it’s being propped up by nods to its predecessors. With more of an emphasis on mood and mystery than violence (and some humor sprinkled throughout), it’s just unique enough to stand on its own as a distinct work. The entire experience has this air of reflectiveness to it, and I think the developers describe it perfectly in their own synopsis of what Crow Country offers: “a beautiful, uncanny blend of tension and tranquility.”
The nostalgia did indeed hit me like a truck as I took my cautious first steps around the eponymous Crow Country theme park as Mara. Naturally, she walks at a snail’s pace and comes to a full stop whenever firing a weapon. Her running speed is fine, though, and you have 360-degree control of the camera angle, so it doesn’t weigh you down entirely with PS1-era limitations (a blessing).
I was prepared to be frustrated for the duration of the game by the stop-to-shoot bit, but I got over it once I realized the monsters are also slow as hell. Well, most of them. You can run right by them in almost every situation if you want to. That made killing a choice rather than a necessity, and immediately dialed down the sense of urgency I’d gone into my first enemy encounter with. This is not at all a bad thing. With the stakes lowered, I treated those fleshy monstrosities like target practice and picked them off mostly for the fun of it. That, along with the gradual realization that there weren’t going to be jumpscares every 5 seconds, sucked me into a much cozier experience than I was expecting.
Without anxiety fueling my every decision, I was able to take my time to pick through all the nooks and crannies of the amusement park, making sure to stop and read every notebook or piece of paper and examine every object on the ground or hanging on the walls. I could focus completely on the puzzles before me, some of which were really challenging. I even had to bust out a pen and paper at one point. It also wasn’t very difficult to stay stocked up on necessities like ammunition, health kits and poison antidotes, which could be found randomly all over the park and at vending machines, where they’d sometimes regenerate so I could return for more later.
The soundtrack by Ockeroid (which just got its own separate digital release) is eerily soothing, and helped to create an atmosphere that fully engrossed me. Crow Country’s save mechanism leans fully into the game’s contemplative ambiance, too: you can find respite at different sources of fire, which Mara will stare into before reciting a wistful thought about hope and dread in the face of uncertainty. I played Crow Country on a Steam Deck, snuggled up with my cats on a gray, stormy day, and I can’t think of a better way to take it all in.
SFB Games
In typical survival horror form, the environment gets increasingly hostile as you advance in the game; creatures start showing up in heavier numbers, a faster one joins the mix, it starts raining, it gets darker, someone shoots at you from the shadows. But any real heaviness in Crow County is balanced by just the right amount of playfulness. The characters are often so unserious, going back and forth with irreverent dialogue. And you cannot ignore the goofy crow-themed objects that are all over the place — you rely on some of them for resources and insight.
Initially, Crow Country hints that there’s more to Mara than we’re being told but makes no explanation as to who she is or why she’s really in this abandoned theme park. Nor does it explain early on why that park is filled with writhing abominations and conspicuously prevalent references to the number 2106. Those mysteries served to hook me, and keep me progressing deeper as things unfolded. The ending tied everything together in a way that felt really satisfying.
It’s short but not too short, taking in the ballpark of 5 to 10 hours to complete depending how thorough (or slow to figure out puzzles) you are, and has a lot of replay value. This game is full of secrets that aren’t vital to the plot but can make your life a little easier — there is even a map showing you where they are, if you can find it — and these add another layer of challenge to the overall scavenger hunt. The upcoming Hard Mode could also make revisiting it even more interesting. The game currently gives you the option to play in Survival Horror mode (the version I played), or Exploration Mode, in which “you will not be attacked.”
I missed a couple secrets on my first playthrough, so my main goals for the next run are to find the rest of those and hit 100 percent of the achievements. I’m also curious to find out how different choices in my interactions with other characters could affect how the story plays out. In the end, I found myself moved by Crow Country for reasons that had almost nothing to do with nostalgia.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/crow-country-is-a-darkly-meditative-callback-to-survival-horrors-past-130041405.html?src=rss
Challengers, the tennis movie starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor, is not the first movie you'd think of for visual effects. But the film uses them to a surprising extent: One shot in particular, a 24-second volley between two of the protagonists from the perspective of the ball, used extensive digital and practical effects, as VFX supervisor Brian Drewes explained on X.
The live plates were shot with an Arri Alexa LF on a 30-foot technocrane during a period of five hours with stunt doubles, according to Drewes. 23 individual shots were stitched together to create the final sequence.
Love it or hate it, you have to admit, it’s a new way to see tennis!
I oversaw all VFX on Challengers and thanks to great direction from Luca and amazing artists @ZeroVFX it’s unlike any sports movie ever made!
"Highly detailed LiDAR and photogrammetry scans of the tennis court environment were captured to help create the final models. 100+ actors and background extras were also photoscanned to populate the stands of our CG environment," according to Drewes.
After that, CG was used to smooth camera motion and correct time of day changes. The stunt doubles' faces were then replaced "with a combination of full CG heads and additional photography," Drewes added.
So why do all that? The sequence appears designed to convey the speed, chaos and passion in the sport, matching the movie's overall themes. It's also just a cool and exciting way to convey what would otherwise be a routine tennis match.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/challengers-vfx-artists-show-how-they-did-that-tennis-ball-pov-scene-120523596.html?src=rss
In the midst of beach trips and grilling sessions this weekend, it's worth briefly turning to the internet to see if you can save on any tech you might need. Memorial Day tech deals may not rival those of Black Friday (or even Amazon Prime Day, coming up in July), but they present decent opportunities to save on things like earbuds, chargers, robot vacuums and even season gear like fire pits and pizza ovens. To help you avoid spending too much time indoors on your phone or computer scouring for deals, we collected the best Memorial Day sales on tech here so you can keep your shopping trip quick and efficient.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-memorial-day-sale-tech-deals-we-could-find---save-big-on-apple-anker-and-ooni-gear-115046991.html?src=rss
Microsoft is leaning even more into AI after launching a new Copilot+ AI PC initiative earlier this year. It's a new set of standards for PCs with powerful neural processing units (NPUs), and it could be just as significant for Windows as Apple's move towards its M-series chips. In this episode, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss Copilot+ and the potential rise of Arm-based Windows systems, and we dive into the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.
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!
Topics
Microsoft announces a new chapter with Copilot+ and NPU-powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop – 0:51
Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI is just getting started – 37:17
Sonos Ace headphones take aim at Apple’s AirPods Max – 42:15
US Department of Justice makes its first arrest for AI-generated CSAM – 45:50
Bloomberg Report: Humane AI seeks a buyer for $700m–$1B, but will they get it? – 47:21
Listener Mail: Could you port the new ARM-based Windows to your Android handheld? – 51:42
That includes sending your details and device identification to HQ, including all of the details of your repair issue. And, if your phone is found to be using an aftermarket, or non-Samsung part, the store has to instantly disassemble it and raise the alarm. That’s quite problematic, and also probably in violation of US laws around the right to use third-party parts for repair.
The repair gurus at iFixit announced that it was ending its partnership with Samsung around the same time. iFixit said there were irreconcilable differences between the pair’s philosophies, like the high price of replacement parts and the mostly-unrepairable nature of Samsung’s phones.
Its alleged control of the live ticket marketplace harms consumers.
The Justice Department and 30 state and district attorneys general have slapped a big pile of legal documents down on Ticketmaster owner Live Nation’s desk. They allege the company has the live entertainment industry in a chokehold, harming fans, promoters and artists. And, if this lawsuit really was prompted by the issues people faced while trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour, then we all know who to thank if Live Nation gets broken up.
Why China Leads the Global EV Sales with 28% YoY Growth: Highlight Experts
PHEV sales saw a significant rise with a 46 percent YoY growth, while BEV sales increased by just 7 percent YoY as OEMs gradually pulled off their BEV supply targets.
