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Volkswagen has teased a genuinely affordable EV for years (the ID.3 was originally meant to be that model), but now it's finally ready to make that machine a reality. The company has unveiled an ID.2all concept that previews a production compact car priced below €25,000 (about $26,000). It should be considerably more affordable than the second-gen ID.3 (€39,995 in Germany), but it won't be as compromised as you might think.

The ID.2all is based on an upgraded "MEB Entry" platform that promises more performance than you'd expect from an EV this size. The front wheel drive car will pack a 223HP motor good for a 62MPH sprint in under seven seconds, and it should muster an estimated 280-mile range. It's expected to take just 20 minutes to charge from 10 percent to 80 percent, too. While there are clearly faster and longer-ranged EVs, VW's offering is more capable than alternatives like the Mini Cooper SE.

Volkswagen

And like many EVs, the switch away from combustion power allows for considerably more interior space. VW claims as much room as a Golf despite pricing closer to the Polo supermini. The trunk isn't huge at 17 cubic feet, but the automaker claims it bests some larger cars. You might not compromise much on technology, either, as VW is promising Travel Assist, an EV route planner and smart lighting.

The production ID.2all should debut in Europe in 2025. Unfortunately, we wouldn't count on a North American release. Compact cars have been losing ground to crossovers and SUVs in the region for years, and VW's American branch only sells the sportier Golf GTI and Golf R in that category. Like it or not, you'll likely have to make do with an ID.4 if you want a reasonably-sized VW EV on this side of the Atlantic.

Even so, the ID.2all is an important car both for VW and the industry. It should play a key role in a stepped-up electrification strategy that will see VW launch ten new EVs by 2026, including the ID.7 sedan. This will also help the brand fend off competition from rival cars like the Renault Zoe (€35,100 in its native France). And importantly, this is part of a broader trend of making lower-priced EVs that don't feel like major compromises. Chevy's Equinox EV is poised to cost $30,000 when it arrives this fall, and Tesla is still clinging to dreams of a $25,000 model. Even if these cars are priced above combustion engine equivalents, they should help EVs transition into the mainstream.

Sling TV is preparing for March Madness with several new features that make it easier to keep tabs on the tournament. It’s adding picture-in-picture viewing on desktop browsers, a new iOS widget and enhanced sports scores.

Picture-in-picture lets you watch NCAA Tournament games in the corner of your screen without minimizing whatever you’re supposed to be focused on at work. Sling calls the feature “Side View,” and you can activate it by clicking a button labeled, “Browse your computer while watching video” in the top-right corner of the Sling player in desktop browsers. You can then move the resulting pop-out window around the screen, and it will remain on top of any other active apps or web pages.

Sling also added an iOS widget displaying a custom channel list. For example, you can create a widget showing only the channels broadcasting March Madness (ESPN for the women’s tournament; TBS, TNT and truTV for men’s), providing a home screen shortcut to the action. It’s available in two-row and four-row sizes, and you can create widget stacks with different channel collections for each.

Sling

Finally, Sling has updated its in-app guide. During the tournament, the Sling TV app will display a dedicated March Madness row with live scores and game times, letting you quickly glance for nail-biters you don’t want to miss. (However, Sling adds the caveat that the feature “may not be available on all devices.”)

Watching games on Sling requires a Sling Orange (including both men’s and women’s tournaments) or Sling Blue (men’s only) subscription. Although you may see sign-up perks for first-time customers, the standard cost is $40 per month for each package after a price hike last year.

When we learned that a BlackBerry movie was in the works last year, we had no idea it would be something close to a comedy. But judging from the the trailer released today, it's aiming to be a far lighter story than other recent films about tech, like The Social Network and Steve Jobs. The BlackBerry movie stars Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, Goon) and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton as Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEOs of the Canadian firm Research in Motion. They're not exactly household names, but they both played a huge role in the history of mobile communications. Without the BlackBerry's success, the iPhone may have never happened.

Judging from the trailer, the film will cover everything from the origins of BlackBerry as a crazy idea between a few college students (director Matt Johnson also co-stars as RIM co-founder Douglas Fregin), to its ignominious end as it failed to keep up with the iPhone and Android smartphones. It's a classic innovator's dilemma tale: RIM revolutionized the way we communicated by tapping into early cellular networks, but it failed to see the potential of touchscreen smartphones that didn't need physical keyboards.

BlackBerry is based on the 2015 book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, which was written by Globe and Mail reporters Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. 

After teasing some of the titles during the recent State of Play event, Sony has unveiled the full slate of additions to the PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium catalog for March. It’s shaping up to be another strong month for the service.

Tchia will be just the second game to debut on PS Plus Extra on its release date, following Stray. It’s a gorgeous-looking sandbox adventure in which you can take over and control animals and objects, likely in a far less sinister way than in Prey. When you feel the need to take a break from exploring the New Caledonia-inspired world, you can bust out a fully-playable ukulele. Play the right tunes and you can attract animals or cause rain to fall.

Also coming to the library on March 21st is Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection. It includes Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, both of which have been remastered beautifully for PS5. Life Is Strange: True Colors and Life is Strange 2 will join the original game and Life is Strange: Before the Storm in the lineup too.

The other games that will hit the PS Plus Extra and Premium catalog this month are:

• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction

• Ghostwire Tokyo (which is also coming to Xbox Game Pass in April)

• Immortals Fenyx Rising

• Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

• Street Fighter V Champion Edition

• Untitled Goose Game

• Final Fantasy Type-0 HD

• Rage 2

• Neo: The World Ends with You

• Haven

Premium subscribers will soon gain access to a few more older games at no extra cost. Sony will add Ridge Racer Type 4, Ape Escape 2 (both PS1) and Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (PSP) on March 21st.

On the downside, several games are reportedly leaving the Extra catalog on the same date. Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 5, Override 2: Super Mech League, Danger Zone, Dungeons 2, Ghost of a Tale, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Velocibox, Victor Vran: Overkill Edition and WWE 2K22 will no longer be playable through the subscription service after that time.

Meanwhile, Sony has revealed the first game that all PS Plus members will be able to claim in April. Meet Your Maker, an intriguing fortress-building and -looting game from Dead by Daylight studio Behavior Interactive, will be available on the Essential tier on its April 4th launch day.

In 2013, former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos predicted Prime Air, the company’s then newly announced drone delivery unit, would be flying within four to five years. A decade later, the service appears to be no closer to reality than it was in 2018. However, some drone startups have had more success. Among those is Zipline, which says it’s on track to complete about 1 million deliveries by the end of the year. By 2025, the company says it expects to operate more flights than most airlines, a feat it intends to accomplish thanks to its next-generation drone, the Platform 2 or P2 Zip.

Zipline’s latest drone consists of two autonomous vehicles that will work in unison with one another to deliver packages that weigh up to 8 pounds. The first is a UAV that can complete a 10-mile flight in about 10 minutes. When it arrives at its destination, P2 Zip will hover about 300 feet off the ground and deploy its sidekick, an adorable “fully autonomous delivery droid.” The latter descends from its counterpart using a tether – the company is called Zipline for a reason – and gently drops off your package. According to Zipline, P2 Zip is nearly silent in flight, producing a sound the company claims is similar to rustling leaves in the wind, and precise enough, thanks to its droid companion, to deliver packages to areas as small as patio tables and front steps. Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton told CNBC P2 Zip may even put an end to porch pirates since the drone is fast enough to enable on-demand delivery.

Zipline

For more distant deliveries, the P2 Zip can fly up to 24 miles one way from dock to dock, charging at each docking station before completing the next leg of its journey and picking up new cargo. The drone’s charging station looks like something from science fiction. It features a chute for the delivery droid to enter the building the station is attached to, and what looks like a net to catch one of the drones if they fall. The company told CNBC setting up a P2 Zip dock takes about as much time as installing an electric vehicle charger. It envisions restaurants and hospitals installing the dock to enable the fast delivery of food and prescriptions.

Zipline already has a few customers eager to test the P2 Zip, including restaurant chain Sweetgreen, Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, Michigan Medicine and Multicare Healthcare in Washington State. Before those companies gain access to the drone sometime next year, the startup plans to conduct more than 10,000 test flights with about 100 aircraft.

MIT engineers have designed a walking lunar robot cleverly inspired by the animal kingdom. The “mix-and-match” system is made of worm-like robotic limbs astronauts could configure into various “species” of robots resembling spiders, elephants, goats and oxen. The team won the Best Paper Award last week at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Aerospace Conference.

WORMS (Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System) is one team’s vision of a future where astronauts living on a moon base delegate activities to robotic minions. However, to avoid “a zoo of machines” with various robots for every task imaginable, the modular WORMS would allow astronauts to swap out limbs, bases and appendages for the task at hand. For example, they could snap together a spider bot to crawl inside hazardous lava tubes to drill for frozen water or assemble an elephant-like pack robot to haul heavy equipment. They could even make a goat / ox combination to transport solar panels. And when they finish the task, they can disassemble it and return it to storage until it’s needed for something else.

The system includes a worm-like appendage, which can snap together with a chassis through a twist-and-lock mechanism. Wok-shaped “shoes” can then snap onto the appendage’s other end. Finally, a small tool allows astronauts to release the block’s spring-loaded pins when it’s time to disassemble. The team has already developed a six-legged prototype, about the size of a go-cart, using software that coordinates multiple worm limbs. They’ve successfully demonstrated assembly, disassembly and navigation in a recent field test.

“Astronauts could go into the shed, pick the WORMS they need, along with the right shoes, body, sensors and tools, and they could snap everything together, then disassemble it to make a new one,” said George Lordos, Ph.D. candidate and graduate instructor at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “The design is flexible, sustainable and cost-effective.”

MIT

The team spawned the idea in 2022 as their answer to NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, an annual competition for university students to conjure innovative ideas. In that year’s edition, NASA challenged students to develop robots to move across extreme terrain without wheels. The MIT team focused on a lunar robot that could navigate the moon’s South Pole, which some suspect could include frozen water — essential for astronauts’ long-term survival — but also complex terrain with thick dust, rocky slopes and lava tubes.

As the students brainstormed solutions, they drew inspiration from the animal kingdom. “As we were thinking of these animal inspirations, we realized that one of the simplest animals, the worm, makes similar movements as an arm, or a leg, or a backbone, or a tail,” says deputy team leader and AeroAstro graduate student Michael Brown. “And then the lightbulb went off: We could build all these animal-inspired robots using worm-like appendages.”

Although each WORMS appendage weighs about 20 pounds on Earth, they would be only about three pounds in the moon’s atmosphere, making it easy for astronauts to assemble, disassemble and reassemble them like a high-tech Lego set. The team is already working on a second-generation model with longer and slightly heavier appendages, with an eye on heavy-equipment hauling bots.

“There are many buzz words that are used to describe effective systems for future space exploration: modular, reconfigurable, adaptable, flexible, cross-cutting, et cetera,” said Kevin Kempton, an engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center and judge of the 2022 BIG Idea Challenge. “The MIT WORMS concept incorporates all these qualities and more.”

Samsung is hoping to talk its way out of a controversy over its camera processing technology. The company has shared an explanation of the Moon photo detection system it has used since the Galaxy S21. If you have Scene Optimizer turned on, AI detects when you're taking a clear photo of the Moon at 25X zoom or above. The tech lowers the brightness, captures multiple frames (to produce a bright, low-noise picture) and uses a neural network to enhance the detail using a high-resolution reference image for comparison.

You can turn Scene Optimizer off. Samsung also notes that this won't work if you either take a snapshot of the obscured Moon or use an image that clearly wasn't taken on Earth. The Moon is tidally locked to the planet, so you'll always see the same lunar surface unless you go to space.

Samsung

The defense comes after Reddit user Breakphotos alleged that Samsung was faking Moon images by adding detail that wasn't present in the raw scene. To make the case, Breakphotos even snapped pictures of blurry, low-resolution images on a computer screen — there's no info the phone could recover from the shot. Even with blown-out exposure, the device appeared to add info that simply wasn't there.

This isn't an outright fake. Samsung is using the actual shot as a baseline. However, its algorithms are clearly going to an extreme by producing photos that don't represent what you get through the lens. The company appears to be aware of this, too, as it says it's refining Scene Optimizer to "reduce any potential confusion" between taking photos of the actual Moon and mere images of it.

This isn't the first time a phone manufacturer has received criticism for manipulating photo output, of course. Some brands have had beauty modes that mask perceived body and skin imperfections to create unrealistic portraits. However, Samsung is effectively claiming its phones can take technically impossible photos — you may buy a Galaxy S23 Ultra under the misguided impression that someone's sharp, crisp lunar image reflects what the phone can physically produce.

After debuting on PlayStation 5 and PC last year, Ghostwire: Tokyo is heading to Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass. Developer Tango Gameworks announced Wednesday that the game will arrive on Microsoft’s current generation consoles on April 12th. That same day, the studio will release the free “Spider’s Thread” update for all platforms.

The DLC adds a new game mode that will challenge players to complete a 30-stage gauntlet. As you progress through the mode, you’ll earn in-game currency you can spend to purchase upgrades for your run. Separately, the update adds new locales and missions within the game’s supernatural take on Tokyo for players to explore and complete. Complementing the new content are extended cutscenes designed to provide more insights into the game’s story. Good thing too because Engadget’s Mat Smith thought the game was begging for DLC to flesh out some of its more ambiguous plot points.

With today’s announcement, Ghostwire: Tokyo becomes the last Bethesda Softworks PS5 exclusive to receive an Xbox release date. Alongside Deathloop, Bethesda, before its acquisition by Microsoft, agreed to make the game a timed PlayStation 5 exclusive.

TCGplayer, the eBay-owned trading card marketplace, is facing its fourth unfair labor charge in the space of two months. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) claimed that, one business day after TCGplayer employees voted to form eBay's first union last Friday, the company fired a worker for engaging in union activity.

The CWA called the firing of worker Iris St. Lucy “retaliatory” in the wake of the election. The union claims that TCGplayer “management has escalated its anti-union war against workers” as a result of the vote. All non-supervisory workers at TCGplayer's authentication center in Syracuse, New York (who numbered 272 as of Friday) are now represented by the union.

Since TCGplayer workers announced their second unionization attempt in January, the CWA has filed three other unfair labor charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Among other things, the CWA has accused the company of requiring employees to attend anti-union meetings, interrogating workers and monitoring those who wore clothing or badges that identified them as supporters of TCGunion-CWA, the union they eventually formed under the CWA.

“Not only are eBay and TCGplayer violating labor law, the company is undermining its workers’ rights to union representation, fair wages, dignity on the job and the ability to support their families," CWA secretary-treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement. "TCGplayer needs to stop these attacks and commit to bargaining a contract in good faith.”

Engadget has contacted TCGplayer for comment.

LinkedIn is the latest platform to hop on the generative AI bandwagon. The company is adding AI-powered “writing suggestions” and job descriptions to its service as it looks for new ways to infuse AI into its platform.

The writing suggestions are meant to make it easier to fill out key profile fields that LinkedIn says can otherwise feel “daunting” to complete: the “about” and “headline” sections near the top of each profile. Now, with the new “enhance” tool, LinkedIn Premium subscribers can generate descriptions based on their experience.

The company says the tool, which uses the same OpenAI models that power ChatGPT, is meant to preserve “your unique voice and style” and will draw from your job experience and skills, as well as LinkedIn’s own “insights” into what makes a good profile. In an example of a completed “about” section provided by LinkedIn, the tool generated a first-person summary of an individual’s job experience that reads almost like the beginning of a cover letter.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn also says it’s starting to test AI-written job descriptions. In those cases, hiring managers will simply need to fill out the job title, company name and a few other basic details, and LinkedIn will create a detailed draft of a relevant job description.

Of note, the company is positioning its AI writing features as more of a starting point than a final product. In both cases, LinkedIn says that users should review and edit the AI-generated text to check for accuracy. But the company says that both could be a major time saver for members who want to offload some of the more tedious writing tasks associated with LinkedIn.

These writing tools aren’t LinkedIn’s first foray into generative AI. The company also recently introduced “collaborative articles,” which rely on a combination of AI-written text as well as contributions from individual LinkedIn “experts.” Elsewhere, the company is also adding new online courses dedicated to generative AI-related topics.