The Apple Vision Pro is an impressive piece of hardware, and the eye-tracking/hand gesture input combo is fantastic for navigating menus and the like. It’s not so great for gaming. There haven't been many easy ways to connect a third-party controller for playing iPad or cloud games. This is changing, however, as accessory manufacturer 8BitDo just announced Vision Pro compatibility for a number of its controllers.

These accessories are officially supported by Apple, so they should work as soon as you make a Bluetooth connection. No muss and no fuss. All told, eight devices got the Apple seal of approval here. One such gadget is the company’s Ultimate Bluetooth Controller, which we basically called the perfect gamepad for PC.

8BitDo

Other compatible devices include various iterations of the SN30 Pro controller, the Lite 2 and the NES-inspired N30 Pro 2. The integration isn’t just for game controllers, as 8BitDo also announced AVP compatibility for its Retro Mechanical Keyboard. Of course, the Vision Pro works out of the box with most Bluetooth keyboards.

This is pretty big news, however, as media consumption is one of the best parts of the Vision Pro experience. Video games fall squarely in that category. Just about every iPad title works on the device. If playing Cut the Rope on a giant virtual screen doesn’t do it for you, the headset also integrates with Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now for access to AAA titles. 

8BitDo announced official controller support for Apple devices last year, though this was primarily for smartphones, tablets and Mac computers. The integration was thanks to new controller firmware and Apple's recent iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, tvOS 16.3 and macOS 13.2 updates. It looks like all of the accessories that work with iPhones and iPads also work with the Vision Pro. 

Disney just pulled a fast one. Star Wars movies and shows are typically announced years before being released, but the company just revealed a new TV program that premieres next month. Tales of the Empire is an animated show produced by Dave Filoni, the man who cut his teeth on cartoons like Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels before moving onto live action stuff like Ahsoka.

As the name suggests, this is something of a companion piece to 2022’s Tales of the Jedi. It’s an anthology series that spotlights different characters within the empire as they, uh, heroically try to defeat the nefarious rebels and bring order to the galaxy. You can expect appearances by many of your dark side faves, including Grand Admiral Thrawn, General Grievous and the Grand Inquisitor.

Just like how Tales of the Jedi put the spotlight on two characters, Ahsoka and Count Dooku, this new series will have its own duo to follow. There’s Morgan Elsbeth, a primary antagonist in Ahsoka and one episode of The Mandalorian, with the trailer indicating that Tales of the Empire will reveal how Thrawn and Elsbeth became besties. The show will also focus on Barriss Offee, a former Jedi Knight who fell to the dark side during the Clone Wars.

Despite being animated, the characters will be played by their live action actors. Lars Mikkelsen returns as Thrawn and Matthew Wood is once again portraying Grievous, the evil cyborg who is in dire need of some cough syrup. Diana Lee Inosanto is back as Elsbeth and Meredith Salenger is voicing Offee.

The show premieres on everyone’s favorite corporate-sponsored pseudo-holiday, May the Fourth, also known as May 4. All six episodes will be available to stream on Disney+ upon the release date. The live action Star Wars: Acolyte follows this with a premiere on June 4.

Ford just announced some delays for electric vehicles, including the long-awaited three-row SUV. The car was supposed to come out next year but has now been delayed until 2027, with the company suggesting it will use the extra time to “take advantage of emerging battery technology.” Ford says it’ll be making moves to “mitigate the impact the launch delay will have on” the Canadian workforce.

The next-generation electric pickup, codenamed “T3,” is also being delayed from late 2025 to 2026. It’s being built at the Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center assembly plant at the company’s BlueOval City complex, though Ford says it's just now installing stamping equipment that will produce the sheet metal for the truck.

Alongside these announcements, the company has revealed a new push for hybrid vehicles. It has stated it plans on offering hybrid powertrains across the entire Ford Blue lineup by 2030. Despite the aforementioned delays and the pivot toward hybrid vehicles, Ford says it remains committed to EVs and that it's continuing construction of battery plants in Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.

However, it’s no secret that the EV market is not quite as robust as companies once hoped it would be. Maybe it’s the high price of entry, the spotty charging infrastructure or the fact that some EVs do not qualify for the federal tax break. Heck, maybe consumers are simply turned off by a certain CEO who shall not be named. 

In any event, the slowdown is real, though perhaps a bit overstated. Ford experienced a decline in EV sales of 11 percent in January, but the company says it bounced back and that sales have increased by 86 percent throughout the entire first quarter when compared to last year. However, the company's EV offerings lost $4.7 billion in 2023.

“We are committed to scaling a profitable EV business", said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. To that end, the company announced last year that it would be delaying or canceling $12 billion in planned spending on electric vehicles. It’s unclear how today’s announcements will impact Ford's plans to ramp up production to 600,000 EVs per year. In any event, customers can now use Tesla Superchargers in the US and Canada, which should help assuage some of those infrastructure concerns.

Amazon is offering another decent batch of games to Prime members at no extra cost for the month of April. Leading the bunch is Fallout 76, a multiplayer take on the post-apocalyptic franchise. There’s also the hack and slash adventure Chivalry 2 and around a dozen more.

Fallout 76 is just the latest title in the series to hit Prime Gaming, likely to coincide with this month’s premiere of the Fallout TV show. It experienced mixed reviews upon release, with many complaining about an overall lack of purpose in the gameplay and a blandness in the design. Other people simply enjoyed wandering around a post-apocalyptic West Virginia with their buddies.

The game’s available for PC and, interestingly, Xbox consoles. People can download it from GOG for PC and Amazon will hand out a code to Prime members for an Xbox download. Fallout 76 will be available on April 11, the same exact day all eight episodes of the show drop. 

Chivalry 2, on the other hand, is available right now. This is a modern take on the hack and slash genre, with a first-person POV, multiplayer matches with up to 64 players at once and a grimy medieval setting. There’s also crossplay for every available platform. Prime members can download it at the Epic Games Store.

Other titles coming this month include Black Desert, Demon’s Tilt, Rose Riddle: The Fairy Tale Detective Collector’s Edition and many more. Click the link above for the full list. Additionally, Prime Members in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK can access some new games on Luna at no extra charge. These include LEGO Fortnite, Earthworm Jim 2 and Trackmania, among others.

There’s another Matrix movie in the works. Warner Bros. just greenlit a fifth installment of the saga, as reported by Deadline. However, neither Lana Wachowski or Lilly Wachowski will be handling directing duties. That honor falls to Drew Goddard, who adapted The Martian into a screenplay and directed the criminally underrated Cabin in the Woods. He's also writing the script. 

Goddard cut his teeth writing episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Lost, among others — you could say he knows his way around genre content. Lana Wachowski will be on board as an executive producer, so there will be some input from one of the franchise’s original creators.

There’s no word as to what the film will be about, but Warner Bros. says that Goddard came to the company with a “new idea that we all believe would be an incredible way to continue the Matrix world.” Goddard added that the original films inspire him on a daily basis and that he is “beyond grateful for the chance to tell stories” in that world.

Warner Bros. is also being cagey as to which, if any, cast members would be returning. The original trilogy featured Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne-Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving and Jada Pinkett Smith. Most of these actors returned for 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, with one story-based exception.

Speaking of The Matrix Resurrections, it received mixed reviews from both critics and audiences. We loved the film, going as far as to call it brilliant, but admitted that it wasn’t for everyone. That’s par for the course with this franchise. Every single Matrix movie beyond the first one is divisive. We’ll have to wait and see what Goddard brings to the table.

He’s also writing a film adaptation based on another novel by The Martian scribe Andy Weir. Project Hail Mary will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and will star Ryan Gosling as an astronaut trying to save the planet from a star-eating microbe.

Stability AI just unveiled Stable Audio 2.0, an upgraded version of its music-generation platform. This system lets users create up to three minutes of audio via text prompt. That’s around the length of an actual song, so it'll also whip up an intro, a full chord progression and an outro.

First, the good news. Three minutes is huge. The previous version of the software maxed out at 90 seconds. Just imagine the fake birthday song you could make in the style of that one Rob Thomas/Santana track. Another boon? The tool is free and publicly available through the company’s website, so have at it.

It primarily works via text prompt, but there’s an option to upload an audio clip. The system will analyze the clip and produce something similar. All uploaded audio must be copyright-free, so this isn’t for the purposes of mimicking something that already exists. Rather, it could be useful for, say, humming a drum part or extending a 20 second clip into something longer.

Now, the bad news. This is still AI-generated music. It’s cool as a conversation piece and as an emblem of a possible future that’s great for tinkerers and bad for musicians, but that’s about it. The songs can actually sound nifty, at first, until the seams start showing. Then things get a bit creepy.

For instance, the system loves adding vocals, but not in any known human language. I guess it’s in whatever language that makes up the text in AI-generated images. The vocals sort of sound like actual people, and other times they sound Gregorian chanters filtered through outer space. It’s right smack dab in the middle of that uncanny valley. The Verge called the vocals “soulless and weird," comparing them to whale sounds. That tracks. 

Stable Audio 2.0 makes the same weird little mistakes that all of these systems make, no matter the output type. Parts can vanish into thin air, replaced with something else. Sometimes melodic elements will double out of nowhere, like an audio version of those extra fingers in AI-generated images.

There’s also the, well, boring-ness of it all. This is music in name only. Without a human connection, what’s the point? I listen to music to get inside the head of another person or group of people. There’s no head to get inside of here, despite constant proclamations that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is only months away.

So, this tech is an absolute gift for those making silly birthday videos or bank hold music. For everyone else? Shrug. One thing I can say from personal experience: It’s pretty fast. The system concocted an absolutely terrifying big band song about my cat in around a minute. 

Amazon is removing Just Walk Out tech from all of its Fresh grocery stores in the US, as reported by The Information. The self-checkout system relies on a host of cameras, sensors and good old-fashioned human eyeballs to track what people leave the store with, charging the customers accordingly.

The technology has been plagued by issues from the onset. Most notably, Just Walk Out merely presents the illusion of automation, with Amazon crowing about generative AI and the like. Here’s where the smoke and mirrors come in. While the stores have no actual cashiers, there are reportedly over 1,000 real people in India scanning the camera feeds to ensure accurate checkouts. 

It’s also incredibly expensive to install and maintain the necessary equipment, which is likely why Just Walk Out technology was only adopted at around half of Fresh stores in the US. There have been plenty of frustrating issues for consumers when using this system, from receipts being sent out hours after purchase to completely mismanaged orders. In other words, it took a vast array of sensitive equipment and 1,000 people staring at video feeds to do the job of one or two people sitting behind cash registers at each store. Ain’t modern innovation grand?

There’s also some major privacy concerns here. Remember those cameras and sensors? They are constantly collecting biometric information as people shop. This goes beyond Amazon’s palm-scanning technology, as the cameras and sensors measure the shape and size of each customer’s body for identification and tracking purposes. This led to a class action suit in New York that accused the company of collecting biometric identifier information without properly disclosing the practices to consumers.

The suit says that Amazon ran afoul of the state’s Biometric Identifier Information Law, which requires businesses to tell customers if they are collecting data used for identification purposes. Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, told The Seattle Times that “Amazon owes its customers an explanation about how it’s operating these systems before people enter — so that people can decide for themselves whether they want to provide measurements of the size and shape of their body as a condition of getting a sandwich.”

Amazon tried to sell the technology to other retail chains, but didn’t get too many bites. It teamed up with Starbucks in a few locations and there was a small launch in hospitals for medical staff, but that’s about it. One sticking point? These systems require high ceilings to accommodate the cameras and sensors. Reuters also suggested that many retailers consider Amazon a competitor and disruptor, souring them on a technology partnership. Those 1,000 off-shore cashiers probably didn’t help with the sales pitch either.

Just Walk Out technology will continue to be offered in select stores in the UK. As for the US, Amazon says the removal of these systems is part of a larger effort to revamp its retail grocery arm. The company plans on bringing its Dash smart carts to retail locations, after a test at several Whole Foods and Fresh stores. These smart carts are equipped with scales and sensors to track spending in real time and, of course, allow consumers to skip the checkout.

Dave the Diver is joining the PlayStation Plus catalog on April 16. If you’ve been on the fence about the ocean-faring adventure/restaurant sim, this is a good chance to check it out without spending any extra money, assuming your PS Plus membership hasn’t lapsed.

For those living under a coral reef, Dave the Diver is a wickedly addictive game that wears many hats. The gameplay splits into two primary components. During the day, you explore an ever-changing ocean, with fish to hunt, sharks to fight and mysteries to solve. The deeper you go, the weirder things get.

Once night falls, the action shifts to a sushi restaurant. You hire the staff, plan the menu and serve the guests. This is one part management sim and one part arcade game, with a hectic pace that recalls the coin-op classic Tapper.

The two gameplay mechanics shouldn’t mesh well, being so wildly different, but somehow they do. It’s like, uh, ocean-exploring peanut butter and sushi-making jelly. Dave the Diver is also surprisingly funny, with a large cast of oddballs both over and under the sea. Let me put it this way. You can hire an off-brand Jason Voorhees, a velociraptor and a ninja to be your waiters and sous chefs. There’s a reason why it made our list of the best games of 2023.

PS5 players are getting some slight improvements to suit the console, including haptic feedback that makes use of the adaptive triggers of the DualSense controllers. There’s also Godzilla-based DLC coming in May, which promises “even more enormous threats lurking in the depths.” The game’s already available for the Nintendo Switch and PC, though it remains absent from the Xbox catalog.

In addition to Dave the Diver, PS Plus members will soon be getting another treat. Sony just announced that the action-adventure title Tales of Kenzera: Zau will be a day one exclusive to PlayStation Plus on April 23.

OpenAI just announced that it recently conducted a small-scale preview of a new tool called Voice Engine. This is a voice cloning technology that can mimic any speaker by analyzing a 15-second audio sample. The company says it generates “natural-sounding speech” with “emotive and realistic voices.”

The technology is based on the company’s pre-existing text-to-speech API and it has been in the works since 2022. OpenAI has already been using a version of the toolset to power the preset voices available in the current text-to-speech API and the Read Aloud feature. There are a bunch of samples on the company’s official blog and they sound eerily close to the real thing. I encourage you to give them a listen and imagine the possibilities, both good and bad.

OpenAI says they see this technology being useful for reading assistance, language translation and helping those who suffer from sudden or degenerative speech conditions. The company brought up a Brown University pilot program that helped a patient with speech impairment issues by creating a Voice Engine clone pulled from audio recorded for a school project.

Despite the potential benefits, bad actors would certainly abuse this technology to engage in some serious deepfake tomfoolery, which is already a problem. With this in mind, Voice Engine isn’t quite ready for prime time, as there are serious privacy concerns that must be met before a full rollout.

OpenAI acknowledges that this tech has “serious risks, which are especially top of mind in an election year.” The company says its incorporating feedback from “US and international partners from across government, media, entertainment, education, civil society and beyond” to ensure the product launches with a minimal amount of risk. All preview testers agreed to OpenAI’s usage policies, which ban the impersonation of another individual without consent or legal right.

Additionally, anybody using the tech will have to disclose to their audience that the voices are AI-generated. OpenAI implemented safety measures, like watermarking to trace the origin of any audio and “proactive monitoring” of how the system is being used. When the product officially rolls out there will be a “no-go voice list” that detects and prevents AI-generated speakers that are too similar to prominent figures.

As for when that rollout will occur, OpenAI remains tight-lipped. TechCrunch uncovered some potential pricing data and it looks like it will undercut competitors in the space like ElevenLabs. Voice Engine could cost $15 per one million characters, which works out to around 162,500 words. This is about the length of Stephen King’s The Shining. It certainly sounds like a budget-friendly way to get an audiobook done. The marketing materials also make reference to an “HD” version that costs twice as much, but the company hasn’t detailed how that will work.

OpenAI has been making big moves this week. It just announced another partnership with its bestie Microsoft to build an AI-based supercomputer called “Stargate.” The project will reportedly cost a whopping $100 billion, according to The Information.

Amazon just launched an app that lets people sign up for its palm recognition service without having to head to an in-store kiosk. The Amazon One app uses a smartphone’s camera to take a photo of a palm print to set up an account. Once signed up, you can pay for stuff by using just your hand, ending the tyranny of having to carry a smartphone, cash or a burdensome plastic card.

The tech uses generative AI to analyze a palm's vein structure, turning the data into a “unique numerical, vector representation” which is recognized by scanning machines at retail locations. You’ll have to add a payment method within the app to get started and upload a photo of your ID for the purpose of age verification.

The app launches today for iOS and Android. Previously, you’d have to go to a physical location to sign up for Amazon One. Beyond payments, the tech is also used as an age verification tool and as a way to enter concerts and sporting events without having to bring along a ticket.

Once you hand over your palm-print to the completely benevolent Amazon corporation, you’ll have unfettered access to each and every Whole Foods grocery store throughout the country. Amazon, after all, owns Whole Foods. Amazon One payments are also accepted at some Panera Bread locations, in addition to certain airports, stadiums and convenience stores.

There are obvious privacy concerns here, as passwords can change but palms cannot. Amazon says that all uploaded palm images are “encrypted and sent to a secure Amazon One domain” in the Amazon Web Service cloud. The company also says the app “includes additional layers of spoof detection,” noting that it’s not possible to save or download palm images to the phone itself.