A US federal court has sentenced Canadian hacker Doug Bowser to 40 months in prison for his involvement in Switch hacking group Team Xecuter, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. Not to be confused with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser (or Mario’s nemesis, for that matter), Bowser was part of a collective that developed and sold devices people could use to play pirated games on their consoles.

The FBI arrested Bowser in 2020. One year later, he agreed to pay $10 million to Nintendo to settle a civil privacy lawsuit and another $4.5 million in restitution to the company. Leading up to today’s sentencing announcement, Bowser faced up to 10 years in prison. According to the Justice Department, video game publishers have lost more than $65 million thanks to Team Xecuter’s exploits. Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI are still working to apprehend Bowser’s accomplices.

Bandcamp has always had a serviceable if unpolished mobile app for streaming the tracks you buy from its platform. However, one thing you couldn’t do before today was queue albums and tracks. The good news is Bandcamp has addressed that shortcoming of its software with a new update that’s available through the App Store and Google Play Store.

To queue a song or album, navigate to your music library by tapping the heart icon located at the bottom of the interface, and then tap the album you want to play. You can queue the entire album by pressing the relevant button under the playback controls. To queue a single song, meanwhile, press the three dots icon located next to the individual track you want to listen to. You can also reorder what’s next at any point by dragging a song to another position in the queue.

We’ll be honest, it’s surprising Bandcamp’s app didn’t include a queuing feature before today, but then it probably wasn’t used for streaming music by as many people as you might think. Thanks to its support of musicians through the pandemic, Bandcamp has enjoyed an upswell in popularity and goodwill. At the start of the year, the company said approximately 800,000 people had spent more than $70 million buying music and merchandise through the 17 Bandcamp Fridays the company held throughout 2020 and 2021. While a lot of those people had probably bought music through Bandcamp before, at least some of them were new to the platform. And you have to imagine both groups want to listen their collections on the go.

In October, Artiphon released an iOS app to allow owners of its quirky Orba musical instrument to create and share music videos. A suite of built-in visual effects make the software a fun and easy way to create musical “selfies” and clips you can upload to places like TikTok and Instagram. If you want to check out the app, you can now do so without first buying the $99 Orba.

Artiphon has updated the software to add optional onscreen controls. Now all you need to do is tap the eight keys displayed on-screen to make music. At the top of the interface, there’s a toggle to switch between drum, bass, chord and lead modes, adding plenty of flexibility to your beatmaking. The app automatically generates visual effects that sync to the music you’re creating, and you have a variety of effects to choose from via a selection carousel. You’re also free to use either the front- or rear-facing camera on your phone to record footage.

You can download the updated Orbacam app starting today for free from the App Store.

In the months since Apple’s AirTags went on sale last spring, there have been stories of bad actors using the lost item tracker to stalk people. One of the most publicized incidents occured at the start of the year when model Brooks Nader said someone had placed an AirTag in her coat to track her movements for several hours. In an update published today, Apple said it would take additional steps to prevent incidents like that from happening.

In the immediate future, the company will update the device to add a new warning that every user will see when they set up their AirTag for the first time. The notification will remind you that tracking someone without their consent is a crime in many places and that police can request your information from Apple if you misuse the device. To that point, the company notes it has worked with law enforcement on multiple occasions in the past to trace misused AirTags back to their original owners.

At the same time, the company will update its AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and third-generation AirPods, as well as third-party devices that can connect to its Find My network, so that you don’t get an “Unknown Accessory Detected” alert on your iPhone. Instead, iOS will more clearly indicate you’re traveling with a pair of someone else’s AirPods to reduce confusion.

Apple has also updated a support document on its website dedicated to unwanted tracking to include additional on what to do if you believe someone is using its devices to stalk you. The company has additionally added links to organizations like the National Center for Victims of Crime to help those who believe their safety may be at risk.

Later in the year, the company will update the iPhone 11, iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 to add a precision finding feature that will allow individuals with those devices to find their way to an unknown AirTag. The tool will display the direction of and distance to an unwanted AirTag. Apple says it also plans to update its unwanted tracking alerts to notify people earlier that someone may be stalking. Lastly, the company will tweak the sound an AirTag emits to ensure it’s as loud as possible and add a backup visual alert you’ll see on your iPhone.

“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products,” the company said. “We design our products to provide a great experience, but also with safety and privacy in mind. Across Apple’s hardware, software, and services teams, we’re committed to listening to feedback.”

Salt and Sacrifice will make its way to PlayStation 4, PS5 and PC via the Epic Games Store on May 10th, developer Ska Studios announced today. Like its predecessor, 2016’s Salt and Sanctuary, Salt andSacrifice is an action role-playing title inspired by FromSoftware classics like Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls.

At the start of the game, your character is drafted into an organization known as the Inquisition and tasked with hunting down mages that have been corrupted by their magic into towering monsters. With each one you’re able to overcome, you’ll have the ability to craft new weapons and armor. Salt and Sacrifice puts a greater emphasis on multiplayer than its predecessor with the inclusion of sub-factions you can join within the Inquisition that focus on co-operative play and player-versus-player combat. That said, James Silva, the game’s creator, made a point of noting in a recent PlayStation Blog that you’re free to ignore that aspect of the game.

Between Elden Ring and Salt and Sacrifice, 2022 is shaping up to be another exciting year for fans of challenging action RPGs.

A remaster of Japanese role-playing classic Chrono Cross is coming to Nintendo Switch. The company announced The Radical Dreamers Edition of Chrono Cross on Wednesday during its first Direct of 2022. Like many of Square Enix's recent Final Fantasy remasters, you can turn off enemy encounters so you can enjoy the story without having to fight countless battles to level your party. What's more, in addition to better graphics, Nintendo said the remaster features an enhanced version of Yasunori Mitsuda's classic soundtrack. The title of the remaster comes from Radical Dreamers, a related 1996 text-based adventure Square released on the Satellaview.     

If you're a fan of JRPGs, Chrono Cross needs no introduction. It's an indirect sequel to the seminal Chrono Trigger, which first came out on SNES in 1995. Chrono Cross takes place in the same world as its illustrious predecessor but features an entirely new cast. As protagonist Serge, you can recruit more than 40 other characters to your party. And depending on the choices you make throughout the story, there are 12 different endings to experience.  

Nintendo will release Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp on April 8th, the company announced today during its first Direct of 2022. The remake bundles together "reimagined" versions of Advance Wars and Advance Wars: Black Hole Rising. The two games first came out on the Game Boy Advance in 2001 and 2003. Nintendo had originally planned to release the game on December 3rd, 2021, but delayed the title in October to give the game's development team more time to polish the experience. 

Disney’s Hulu is bringing Futurama back. According to Variety, the streamer has ordered 20 new episodes of the animated series. Series creator Matt Groening will return to lead the project alongside writer and producer David X. Cohen. The entire voice cast outside of one critical player has agreed to reprise their roles. John DiMaggio hasn’t signed on to voice Bender again. The good news on that front is that Hulu is reportedly finalizing his deal, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

As you might imagine, Futurama’s creators are excited to return to the series. “It’s a true honor to announce the triumphant return of Futurama one more time before we get canceled abruptly again,” Groening said.

For those counting, this latest revival will mark the fourth time the series has come back after supposedly ending. After it was canceled in 2003 following an initial four-season run on Fox, Comedy Central ordered four direct-to-DVD Futurama films. In 2008, the network re-edited those movies into what’s now considered the show’s fifth season. It then went on to fund two additional seasons that aired between 2010 and 2013. The fact it will continue on Hulu is fitting given that you’ve been able to watch all 140 episodes and four films of Futurama on the platform since 2017.

Production on the new episodes is expected to start this month. They're currently scheduled to debut sometime in 2023. 

Ubisoft reportedly plans to repurpose an Assassin’s Creed Valhalla expansion into a standalone release. According to Bloomberg, the company is working on a game codenamed “Rift.” What started life as DLC for the latest entry in the company’s long-running historical franchise apparently morphed into a full game sometime late last year.

Per Bloomberg, the game will star Basim Ibn Ishaq (pictured above), a character that appears in Valhalla. What’s more, it won’t be a massive open-world game and will instead focus more on stealth gameplay. Ubisoft may release Rift either this year or in 2023.

According to Bloomberg, Ubisoft made the decision to repurpose the expansion to fill out its near-term release schedule. The company plans to release Rift before Assassin’s Creed Infinity, the project that’s supposed to turn the franchise into a live online service like GTA Online. As the outlet notes, several Ubisoft projects have struggled in recent years. We haven’t seen Beyond Good and Evil 2 since 2018, and exactly a year ago this month, Ubisoft delayed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake indefinitely. And we may not see those release anytime soon either. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is reportedly stuck in pre-production after five years of development. 

In 1955, Harry Olson and Herbert Belar created the world’s first electronic synthesizer. Little could they have known then how much their invention would change the way people make music. From a song like Blue Monday from New Order to Midnight City from M83, so many era-defining tracks from the past few decades wouldn’t have been possible to record without synths in all their various forms. In honor of that legacy, Moog Music is launching a new documentary series. Dubbed Giants, it will tell the story of some of the people who helped shape both synths and electronic music as an art form.

You can watch the first episode starting today on Moog Music’s YouTube channel. It features Herb Deutsch, the co-creator of the Moog modular synth, talking about, among other things, how he and Bob Moog met. The footage of Deutsch talking is broken up with archival images and clips. It’s all pretty standard stuff, but if you’re a music nerd, you’ll want to check out the video.

In future installments of Giants, Moog has promised to feature individuals like Daniel Miller, the founder of legendary British music label Mute Records, and Bernie Krause, who alongside Paul Beaver, helped introduce people like George Harrison to electronic music. If you want to keep up with Giants, Moog suggests signing up for its newsletter.