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Desta: The Memories Between is officially coming to the Nintendo Switch and PC on April 26th. If you haven’t gotten a chance to play the well-regarded roguelike, it's likely because it was previously tied to Netflix as an exclusive title for its burgeoning gaming platform.

Desta was developed by the company ustwo, which also created the mega-popular mobile title Monument Valley and its sequel. Beyond some slight graphical similarities, however, Desta is its own beast. The title combines a roguelike gameplay style with turn-based mechanics, with plenty of quirky surprises. The story involves a twentysomething returning home after their dad’s death. You help neighbors deal with pressing issues by solving puzzles and, well, playing a whole lot of dodgeball. The dodgeball challenges change from run to run, which is why this title is sometimes compared to games like Hades and Into the Breach.

This is the Dream Team Edition of Desta: The Memories Between, so it includes every content update that came down the pike since the original launch last year. This includes new story scenarios, updated abilities and a range of difficulty settings. You can also play as three new characters, including Alba from Alba: A Wild Adventure, another ustwo title.

Purchasing this game for Switch or PC also nets you a digital soundtrack and a 52-page digital artbook. Both the art style and the music are singled-out as positives in reviews, so these perks are likely to draw in pre-existing players. It costs around $20 to pick up on the Nintendo eShop or the Steam Store. 

“We’ve packed this bundle with so many new abilities, characters, game modes and more – I can’t wait for our community to get their hands on it,” wrote Lead Designer Joel Beardshaw in a press release when the port was officially announced in January.

A studio full of video game veterans is about to release its first big project. Ascendant Studios and EA have confirmed they're releasing the magic first person shooter Immortals of Aveum on July 20th for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PCs. You play a new battlemage who's thrust into a never-ending war for control of the world's magic.

This isn't Call of Duty with spells, though, or even a revival of classic fantasy shooters like Heretic. Immortals revolves around a combination system that rewards mixing up different magic types to defeat enemies. You can also draw on magical abilities to create shields or turn the environment against your foes. Ascendant is also promising a narrative-focused experience with an extensive backstory, not to mention recognizable voices like Darren Barnet (Never Have I Ever) and Gina Torres (Firefly).

Ascendant is part of a wave of indie studios formed by departing leaders at major game developers. It's helmed by Bret Robbins, the creative director from the original Dead Space, who formed Ascendant in 2018 with Immortals in mind. The team also includes former Telltale Games workers as well as people behind well-known games like Spider-Man and Tomb Raider. Like other well-known exiles, Robbins and crew are effectively trying to regain creative control — even if they're still publishing through major brands.

Researchers have used machine learning to tighten up a previously released image of a black hole. As a result, the portrait of the black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, over 53 million light years away from Earth, shows a thinner ring of light and matter surrounding its center in a report published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The original images were captured in 2017 by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of radio telescopes around Earth that combine to act as a planet-sized super-imaging tool. The initial picture looked like a “fuzzy donut,” as described by NPR, but researchers used a new method called PRIMO to reconstruct a more accurate image. PRIMO is “a novel dictionary-learning-based algorithm” that learns to “recover high-fidelity images even in the presence of sparse coverage” by training on generated simulations of over 30,000 black holes. In other words, it uses machine learning data based on what we know about the universe’s physical laws — and black holes specifically — to produce a better-looking and more accurate shot from the raw data captured in 2017.

Black holes are mysterious and strange regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape. They form when dying stars collapse onto themselves under their gravity. As a result, the collapse squeezes the star’s mass into a tiny space. The boundary between the black hole and its surrounding mass is called the event horizon, a point of no return where anything that crosses it (whether light, matter or Matthew McConaughey) won’t be coming back.

“What we really do is we learn the correlations between different parts of the image. And so we do this by analyzing tens of thousands of high-resolution images that are created from simulations,” the astrophysicist and author of the paper Lia Medeiros of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, told NPR. “If you have an image, the pixels close to any given pixel are not completely uncorrelated. It’s not that each pixel is doing completely independent things.”

The researchers say the new image is consistent with Albert Einstein’s predictions. However, they expect further research in machine learning and telescope hardware to lead to additional revisions. “In 20 years, the image might not be the image I’m showing you today,” said Medeiros. “It might be even better.”

NPR isn't the only public broadcaster to stop tweeting after Twitter applied a "government-funded media" label to its account. PBS has halted its use of the platform too. The organization hasn't posted on its Twitter account since April 8th.

Both PBS and NPR claim the label, which previously read "state-affiliated media," doesn't represent them accurately. Twitter previously reserved such labels for state-run outlets like China's Xinhua News Agency and Russia's RT and Sputnik.

“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” a PBS spokesperson told Variety. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”

Federal funding accounts for around 15 percent of public television system revenue, PBS says. The biggest chunk of revenue, 31 percent, comes from donations from individuals. NPR, meanwhile, says federal funding makes up less than one percent of its average annual budget. The broadcaster says it stopped using Twitter in large part to protect its credibility, suggesting the label implies that the government has editorial influence over it. NPR says it's "a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence."

Twitter also applied the label to the BBC's account. That organization also pushed back against the "government-funded media" descriptor. Following an interview that a BBC reporter conducted with Twitter owner Elon Musk this week, the company updated the label to read “publicly funded media,” a more accurate description of the broadcaster's license fee-based budget.

It’s been a long time coming, as it was first announced more than a year ago, but Ubisoft’s premium subscription service has finally arrived on Xbox consoles. Ubisoft+ gives players instant access to a large portion of the company's library, and heavy hitters like Far Cry 6, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Immortals Fenyx Rising are all in attendance. Ubisoft says subscribers will get day-one access to new releases moving forward. Browse the full list here.

Ubisoft+ has multiple tiers, and it's making the premium option, called Ubisoft+ Multi Access, available to Xbox owners. Once you subscribe, you can play on any platform that offers support. For instance, users can swap back and forth between the Xbox and PC without losing a save state. The service is also available for Amazon Luna, but PlayStation consoles are still out in the cold, though it is coming at some point. If you have a Sony console, you can sign up for a bare-bones version of the service called Ubisoft+ Classics.

Ubisoft+ Multi Access offers more than just the basic versions of games. You get access to any available DLC and various in-game perks. You also get ten percent off any in-game purchases, if you're into that sort of thing.

The service is not yet available worldwide, but it's currently accessible in nearly 100 countries, the United States included. Subscribing to the plan costs $18 each month, and it auto-renews until canceled.

Police have arrested a suspect in the killing of Cash App founder and former Square executive Bob Lee. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin has confirmed to The San Francisco Chronicle that someone is in custody in connection with the April 4th stabbing of the 43-year-old in San Francisco.

This might not have been a mugging or random murder. Mission Localsources claim the suspect is Nima Momeni, the Emeryville-based owner of outsourcing firm Expand IT. Lee reportedly knew Momeni and was a passenger in a car belonging to the suspect, the insiders say. A confrontation supposedly erupted in the car, and may have continued after Lee stepped out.

We've asked the San Francisco Police Department for comment. Lee was most recently the chief product officer of crypto startup MobileCoin. Before his time with Square, he helped create Android's early core library. He was also an investor in tech startups and helped develop the World Health Organization's mobile app during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If accurate, the report would explain why Lee was killed in a section of San Francisco that rarely sees pedestrian traffic in the early morning. It would also make the death a historical rarity. While there are certainly personal feuds in tech, they seldom escalate to violence.

Turning a radio show or any other live broadcast into a podcast isn't quite as simple as uploading the exact same file somewhere else. Downloading an episode from a radio platform, yanking ads, dropping in ad markers, making other edits and uploading it as a podcast typically takes up to an hour, Spotify said. To take some of the sting out of that process, the company has released a tool that can automatically create podcast episodes from existing broadcasts.

Spotify is using tech from Whooshkaa, a company it bought in 2021, to power the tool. Users of Megaphone, Spotify's podcasting platform for businesses, will have access to it. Several publishers are already using Megaphone to convert radio broadcasts into podcasts, including Fox News Audio. The tech can identify existing ad marker locations, and publishers can replace or reposition them before the podcast episode goes live.

According to data from Pew Research that Spotify cited in its announcement, Gen Z folks prefer to get news through digital mediums, such as podcasts. As such, radio publishers could use this kind of tech to reach new audiences without adding too much more to their workload. Spotify says more than half of Gen Z and millennials in the US use the platform, while it has more than 500 million users globally.

For consumers, the tool will likely bring an even wider selection of podcasts to Spotify. It could give YouTubers and Twitch streamers who host live podcasts an easy way to make their discussions available on Spotify too.

Nintendo has shared one last trailer before The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on May 12th, and this one is worth watching if you're looking for some insight into the story. The rather lengthy clip showcases not only a large and varied world (including the floating islands above Hyrule), but Link's allies. As Zelda makes clear, "you are not alone." There's even a moment where Link offers a wagon ride.

The plot appears familiar — surprise, you'll have to find Zelda and defeat Ganon. Instead, it's the gameplay mechanics that promise to help Tears of the Kingdom set itself apart from Breath of the Wild. The skyborne islands factor play a large role, of course, but the reliance on fused-together weapons and vehicles is clearer in this new trailer. You can even build a 'robot' to take on Bokoblins that have their own battle platform.

The game is arriving alongside Tears-themed Pro Controller ($75) and Carrying Case ($25) accessories. You can also buy a special edition OLED Switch on April 28th for $350 if you're new to the platform or itching to upgrade from an early-model console. As the hardware and flurry of trailers suggests, Nintendo wants to be sure you're paying attention to the company's most important game of the year.

Those who've been in the market for a video doorbell to add to their array of smart home devices may want to check out a sale on some options from Google Nest. A sale has dropped the prices of Nest video doorbells by 28 percent. That means the second-gen Nest Doorbell Wired has dropped to $130, which is a record low for that model.

The latest iteration of the device can continuously record footage for up to 10 days at a time if you have a Nest Aware Plus subscription. A Nest Aware subscription includes 30 days of event video history and a familiar face detection function.

Otherwise, Nest offers a free three-hour event history of video clips of up to five minutes in length, plus two-second previews. The device can detect motion, people, packages, animals and vehicles and provide you with intelligent alerts without the need for a subscription, Google says. You'll be able to chat with whoever's at your door or use pre-recorded messages.

There's the option to view a live video feed of what your doorbell's camera can see via Google Assistant- and Amazon Alexa-compatible devices. You'll be able to use compatible Nest and Alexa speakers as a doorbell chime — the Nest Doorbell Wired requires a chime and transformer to work. Oddly, this model does not support the Nest app or website. You'll need to use the Google Home app (or a compatible voice assistant) to manage it instead.

Meanwhile, the battery-powered Nest Doorbell is also on sale for $130, though that's $10 more than the all-time-low price. That version does not support continuous recording, but it does offer live video streaming with HDR and night vision (it captures footage in 720p resolution).

You'll still have the option to hook this device up to your existing doorbell wires. if you opt to stick with battery power and you suffer an outage or the WiFi cuts out, the doorbell will store up to 1 hour of recorded events.

In addition to the doorbells, the Nest Cam with Floodlight is also on sale. It's down from $280 to $220, which is the lowest price we've seen for it so far this year. It can capture footage at 1080p, including up to 10 days of around-the-clock recording for Nest Aware Plus members. The floodlight will activate automatically when the camera detects important activity. You'll be able to control the brightness of the lights through the Google Home app.

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Small outdoor pizza ovens have become popular backyard cooking options in recent years. While anyone with a decent-sized patio could have a permanent one installed, these versatile products are more compact and store easily in a bag when you’re not using them. That makes them great for people who have limited outdoor space and allows you to take them on the road as needed. There are also great options for having a dedicated pizza oven indoors. Here are a few specs you’ll want to consider before making a purchase, plus some recommendations to get you started.

What to look for

When shopping for an oven, you’ll first want to consider what types of pizza you plan to make. Most portable outdoor pizza ovens from the likes of Ooni, Solo Stove and others use wood and are primarily designed for the high-heat cooking required for light and airy Neapolitan-style pies. We’re talking temperatures up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. These units can certainly cook different styles at cooler temperatures, but they’re easiest to use when you’re running them wide open with a full load of wood.

If you purchase a propane or natural gas burner, you can adjust temperatures easily by turning a knob. For this reason, I recommend you spend the extra $100 or so on that accessory. It makes your pizza oven a lot more versatile and gives you the option to still have a freshly fired pie when you don’t feel like messing with wood or charcoal. If you only want to cook with gas, there are models available that only use propane or natural gas.

The other key consideration is size. Most companies make ovens that fit 12-inch pizzas, a perfect size for one person. They’re also great for parties, since people can customize their own without having to pick off toppings they don’t like. If you want to make larger pizzas or plan to use your oven for other things (pans, etc), consider a larger version that can accommodate more than just small pies. The interior dimensions – or at the very least the stone size – will be listed on most product pages.

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Plan for success

Making pizza at home requires a considerable amount of counter or table space. You’ll need room to stretch and prep your dough, lay out your toppings and load pizzas onto a peel. Of course, some folks will be comfortable working in the tight confines of a small kitchen, but I’ve found it much easier to use extra space to make sure I’m not constantly moving things around during the various steps in the process.

It’s also less hassle to set up your pizza station in close proximity to your pizza oven. As a rookie baker, I did the running back and forth from the kitchen to the back porch. It’s far from ideal. It’s difficult to maintain your fire (if using wood or charcoal) when you’re unable to watch it closely. The good news is a patio table can be easily converted into a pizza station with a large cutting board. This also gets your oven off the ground so it’s easier to access.

Ooni sells tables for its ovens that also offer shelving and storage for peels and other accessories. Solo Stove has a rolling stand for its Pi oven too, with small side shelves and a spot for your propane tank underneath. Of course, you can find other tables and stands to suit your needs, just make sure they can withstand any heat that may radiate from the bottom of the oven while cooking. Most ovens are either well insulated or don’t project too much excess heat toward the table, but you can never be too careful. For that reason, a stainless steel or metal surface is a good choice to set up an outdoor model.

Most of these pizza ovens cook quickly at high heat, especially if you’re making Neapolitan-style pies. Having everything you need nearby so you can keep tabs on the oven and quickly make the next pizza will ease a lot of unnecessary headaches. When your cook time is two minutes or less, you don’t want to venture too far.

Outdoor pizza ovens

A good multi-fuel outdoor pizza oven: Ooni Karu 16

If you’re looking to go all-in on an outdoor pizza oven, you can’t go wrong with Ooni’s Karu 16. It’s the company’s largest multi-fuel model, which means you can choose between wood, charcoal or gas (propane and natural gas burners sold separately). This one is equipped with a hinged glass door for keeping tabs on your progress and a digital thermometer monitors the ambient temperature inside. The larger size means you can not only cook bigger pizzas, but the Karu 16 can also accommodate pans and cast iron, so baking, roasting and searing are all possible here. It’s this versatility that makes the Karu 16 our top pick.

A solid outdoor pizza oven: Solo Stove Pi

Solo Stove may be on your radar for its fire pits, but the company also makes a solid pizza oven. Dubbed the Pi, this unit is made out of stainless steel and is round like the company’s trademark products. Solo Stove says Pi can hit temperatures of 850 degrees Fahrenheit with wood and 900 degrees with a gas burner (sold separately). It explains that those figures translate to maximum stone temps of 750 and 800 degrees respectively. The Pi’s big difference from the Karu 16 and other Ooni ovens is that it doesn’t have a front door and stays open the whole time like a brick oven.

A great smaller option: Ooni Fyra 12

The Ooni Fyra 12 was the first outdoor pizza oven I used and it remains one of my favorites. It’s compact compared to some of the alternatives (22 pounds), so it won’t take up quite as much storage space. It also runs on wood pellets instead of chunks, and once you get the fire going, you just refill the chute from the top. This means there’s much less tending a fire on the Fyra than other wood-burning models, so you can focus on making and cooking your pizzas. The Fyra does all the things other Ooni pizza ovens do well, including high-heat bakes (950 degrees) in as little as a minute.

Indoor pizza ovens

Let me preface this section by saying you probably already have an indoor option that you can use to make some great pizza. Whether that’s the main oven in your kitchen or a multi-function countertop unit, with some affordable accessories, you can easily up your game without spending $1,000 on a dedicated appliance. For example, my Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer has a convection pizza setting that automatically adjusts cook time based on the size, temperature and whether the pie is fresh or frozen. A key consideration here is size. These things are massive, about the size of a large microwave, so you likely won’t want to keep them out all the time unless you have a huge kitchen.

A versatile indoor pizza oven: Ooni Volt 12

Ooni made its name on outdoor pizza ovens that primarily burn wood or run on gas. For 2023, the company is taking things indoors with the Volt 12. Ooni’s first electric oven can also be used outside thanks to weather resistant construction, but this behemoth brings the company’s design and efficiency to your kitchen for the first time. Capable of temperatures up to 850 degrees Fahrenheit in as little as 20 minutes, the Volt 12 can fire up Neapolitan style pies in 90 seconds. Controls on the front give you the ability to adjust both the top and bottom heating elements. There are also cooking presets and a Boost function to quickly get the stone back to temp between pizzas. The 13-inch stone inside is square, so you can slide in pans for Detroit recipes or other baked goods.

A solid indoor pizza oven: Breville Pizzaiolo

If you’re set on buying a dedicated pizza oven, the Breville Pizzaiolo is another great option, but it’s just as pricey as the Volt 12. The Pizzaiolo cooks 12-inch pies as well, but the stone on this unit is perfectly sized for them and there’s a metal heat reflector panel inside that will also keep you from overshooting the cooking surface. This means you won’t be sliding larger rectangle pans in here like you can with the electric Ooni. Round pans fit just fine and some smaller square ones likely will too.

In terms of cooking ability, Breville offers presets for “Wood Fired,” New York, Pan, Thin & Crispy and Frozen pizzas with the added option to run the oven full blast at 750 degrees Fahrenheit. A second dial allows you to adjust the top heating element depending on how dark you want your pizza. Like it does on other Breville appliances, Element IQ tech adjusts the heating elements based on the selected style, creating the ideal environment for each one. For advanced users, the company offers a manual mode that turns the timer dial into a control for the bottom deck while the style preset selector manages the top. Breville includes a magnetic overlay for the front panel to show you temperatures for the converted controls. The instruction manual also gives you recommendations for where to begin with manual mode for the aforementioned styles.

The best pizza accessories for the oven you already have

If you want to make good pizza at home without spending hundreds of dollars on a dedicated oven, you can definitely do it with the oven you already have in your kitchen. With a few accessories, you can improve your game without splurging on a Breville, Ooni or Solo Stove. First, I’d recommend a high quality baking steel or stone.

Baking stones are great for getting better browning on the bottom of your pies than a pizza or sheet pan. You can also use them for bread, cookies and other items. The stone absorbs heat to cook pizza quickly, like the inside of a brick oven, which leads to a crisp crust. They’re also more affordable compared to baking steels. Those metal slabs do have one key advantage: higher heat conductivity. This means a steel will cook your pizzas faster since it can absorb more heat from your oven. While baking steels can be used as griddles on your stovetop and for other types of baking, they’re not ideal for some leavened breads.

The second item you’ll want is a pizza peel. These come in all shapes and sizes, made out of a variety of materials. I typically use a bamboo or wooden peel when topping and launching my pizzas and then a metal one for retrieving them. I’ve found that dough doesn’t stick as easily to bamboo during prep and the metal resists the high heat of the oven when turning or retrieving a finished pizza (bamboo will burn). There are also perforated peels which allow both steam and excess flour to escape. A peel is a great tool for loading and turning pizzas, and since you’ll typically be cooking them with your oven at 500 degrees or hotter, using something like parchment paper to move them around won’t work.