If you've been looking at Shark's self-emptying robot vacuums, now's your chance to get one for almost half the price. The Shark AV2501S model, which comes with a base that has a 30-day capacity, is currently 45 percent off at Amazon: It usually sells for $550, but you can get it right now for $300. That's only a dollar off its all-time low from Black Friday last year. Shark's AV2501S is a cheaper version of the AV2501AE model that comes with a base that can hold 60 days' worth of dirt. 

The vacuum uses 360-degree LiDAR vision to accurately map your home and be able to effectively clean it while avoiding objects in its path. It can even adapt to the changes that happen in your house, which are most likely plentiful if you spend any amount of time in it. Once it has a layout of the floor, the vacuum cleans it in a precise matrix grid and takes multiple passes to ensure that it sucks up all the dust, pet hair, dander and debris that it can. 

This particular model can clean for two full hours before it needs to return to its dock and recharge. It has the capability to pick up from where it left off once it's done charging, and it can automatically empty the dirt it collected into its base, which you only have to empty once a month. In addition, the vacuum supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing you to set cleaning schedules and initiate on-demand cleaning simply by issuing voice commands. Of course, you can also do those via Shark's mobile app, which we found easy to use when we tested it out. 

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You probably wouldn't think of McDonald's if you're asked to guess which company would release a retro game this year. But yes, the fast food giant did indeed launch a 2D retro game seemingly in the style of Game Boy Color, and it's all in celebration of Grimace's 52nd birthday. The company teamed up with Krool Toys to develop the platformer that you can play on a modern PC or a mobile device. In it, you control Grimace on a skateboard as he searches for his missing friends — and collect enough milkshake for all his guests — before his birthday party begins.

While I fumbled a bit trying to control the purple mascot as he jumped over obstacles and slid across hand rails, I could only blame my own clumsy handling of the game's controls. The game worked smoothly on a computer, and you can even expand the screen if you don't mind getting blurry graphics, which truly do look like they were created for Nintendo's old handheld. The game was most likely created using a drag-and-drop tool for Nintendo handheld games called GB Studio. Indie developers like Krool have been using the program to create retro games, because doing so from scratch is typically very time- and resource-consuming. As a nice nostalgia-inducing bonus, even the website for the game is a throwback to the era marked by colorful and busy Angelfire, Lycos and Geocities web pages.

McDonald's only officially released Grimace's Birthday as a fun little game you can play on PC and mobile, but people were quickly able to find and share a copy you can download. While it's not an official release, it will allow you to play the game on a Game Boy emulator in case have one. 

The FTC has notched a win, albeit a temporary one, in its bid to prevent Microsoft from closing its deal with Activision Blizzard. According to The Financial Times and Bloomberg, a US federal judge has issued an order that temporarily blocks the companies from finalizing their $68.7 billion deal while waiting for the court to decide on the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction. If you'll recall, the agency has filed for an injunction in response to news reports that the companies were closing the deal "imminently" and that they had set July 18th as the target deadline for the acquisition.

Judge Edward J. Davila has ruled that the merger can't take place until five days after the court has decided on whether or not to issue an injunction against it. To note, the court is scheduled to hear the FTC's request for an injunction on June 22nd and 23rd, so the earliest the companies can proceed with their plans is the end of this month — if the court doesn't ultimately side with the agency. The commission said in its filing:

"With control of Activision's content, Microsoft would have the ability and increased incentive to withhold or degrade Activision’s content in ways that substantially lessen competition — including competition on product quality, price, and innovation."

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, however, seem to be unperturbed by the FTC's lawsuit. In a statement, Microsoft told us that the injunction request is "accelerating the legal process" that will help the merger move forward sooner. "A temporary restraining order makes sense until we can receive a decision from the court, which is moving swiftly," a spokesperson also told The Times. 

In May, the European Union approved the acquisition, as long as Microsoft agreed to release popular Activision Blizzard games on competing cloud gaming services. But the companies still have to convince US and UK authorities to allow the merger to push through. The FTC filed an antitrust complaint in December 2022 to block the deal over worries that it "would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business." That particular lawsuit was filed at the agency's in-house court, and the commission's administrative law judge is scheduled to hear the case in August. 

Amazon's Echo Studio usually sells for $200 and rarely goes on sale, but you can get the supersize Alexa hub right now in Charcoal or Glacier for $160. While that's not an all-time low for the device, it's still only $5 off its price from last year's Black Friday sales. We called the Echo Studio the "best sounding speaker Amazon has built" in our review when it was released in 2019. The company has released more speakers and smart displays since then, but the Echo Studio remains a solid option for immersive, high-resolution music streaming. 

We gave the Echo Studio a score of 88 in our review and praised it for having excellent audio quality best demonstrated by high-definition and Ultra HD tracks. While HD songs can show how much more detail you're getting with the device compared to normal tracks, the speaker can upmix regular stereo audio content with Dolby Atmos, giving it more "space, clarity and depth." Because it has excellent audio quality, the Echo Studio also works great as a home theater speaker, though only with Fire TV devices. In addition to Dolby Atmos, the speaker also supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus.

Like other Echo devices, the Echo Studio supports Alexa voice commands. You can ask Alexa, through the speaker, to play, pause or skip music, answer calls, play audiobooks and set alarms and timers, among many other things. One thing to note is that the Echo Studio requires more space than, say, the Echo Dot, at eight inches in height and seven inches in diameter. Amazon also recommends putting it in a place where it has six inches of clearance from walls. If space isn't an issue, the Echo Studio is an affordable option for what it can do, especially now that it's $40 off. 

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You soon won't have to dig out your old DS copy or your 3DS to replay Apollo Justice anymore. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is coming to newer consoles as a trilogy packaged with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice, Capcom has announced at Summer Games Fest. 

It's been a long wait for fans of the series, seeing as the first three Ace Attorney games were released for the PC, Steam, PS4, Xbox One and Switch way back in 2019. The Apollo Justice trilogy will be available for the same devices, so you will not be able to play them on a PS5 or an Xbox X|S. Still, you can now finally have all six games on one console. 

According to Gematsu, the games packaged in the trilogy will be remastered full high-definition versions of the titles. They'll also come in seven languages, namely Japanese, English, French, German, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. These language options will have their equivalent voice recordings, as well. 

The Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy doesn't have an exact release date yet, but it will be available in early 2024. 

Capcom has given us a glimpse at a new IP with a clear Japanese folklore theme and aesthetics entitled Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess at Summer Game Fest's Xbox Showcase. Now, the company has confirmed during Capcom Showcase that the single-player action RPG is also coming to the PlayStation 5, Windows PCs and Steam, in addition to the Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Game Pass. 

In Kunitsu-Gami, people have defiled a sacred mountain, and it has physically manifested as blight spreading across the lands. The diseased flora and fauna have attracted creatures called the Seethe, which you have to fight and vanquish to clear the path for the Spirit Stone Maiden so she can perform the rite of cleansing and restore the lands.

Capcom said the game follows in the footsteps of its previous titles with traditional Japanese themes, such as Okami and Shinsekai: Into the Depths. It was also developed using its RE Engine, which was originally designed for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard but was subsequently used for titles that include more Resident Evil games, Street Fighter 6 and Devil May Cry 5. 

That's pretty much all we know about the game so far — it doesn't even have a release date yet — but you can watch its trailer in the video below.

You can now talk to Bing on desktop, and it can even read its replies to you out loud. Microsoft has rolled out voice support for the search engine's chatbot on Edge for PCs, which is powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 technology. "We know many of you love using voice input for chat on mobile," the tech giant wrote in its latest Bing preview release notes. The feature first became available on Bing's AI chatbot for its mobile apps. Now it's also available on desktop — you just need to tap on the mic icon in the Bing Chat box to talk to the AI-powered bot.

The feature supports English, Japanese, French, German and Mandarin at the moment, but Microsoft says support for more languages is on the way. In addition to being able to ask Bing questions simply by speaking, the chatbot now also supports text-to-speech answers and can respond to your questions with its own voice. "Using voice input, ask Bing Chat, 'What’s the toughest tongue twister you know?,'" Microsoft suggested. And yes, it will be able to respond. 

As The Verge notes, Microsoft has introduced voice support for Bing Chat on desktop shortly after it announced that it's killing the standalone Cortana app for Windows, which serves as a voice assistant, later this year. In its announcement back then, Microsoft pointed out that users will still have access to "powerful productivity features in Windows and Edge, which have increased AI capabilities." In particular, it mentioned Bing Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot, which uses artificial intelligence to generate content within the company's apps. 

Porsche has unveiled its latest concept vehicle called the Mission X, and it says the model gives us "a glimpse into what the sports car of the future could look like." The Mission X is supposed to be an electric hypercar with a design that takes inspiration from the automaker's old models, including the 959, the Carrera GT and the 918 Spyder. With a body that's 177 inches long, 78.7 inches wide and 47.2 inches high, it's a relatively low-slung compact vehicle. 

The model Porsche has presented has a "Rocket Metallic" finish, though big parts of the vehicle feature a lightweight glass dome with an exoskeleton made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. Those parts include half of the passenger doors, which are made in the style of Le Mans sports cars that open forwards and upwards. Inside, there are two seats made of leather and carbon fiber reinforced plastic, an open-top steering wheel, as well as multiple cameras and clocks on the instrument panel that can display lap times and the driver's vital stats.

Porsche

Porsche has also designed the vehicle with staggered tires — 20-inch wheels at the front and 21-inch wheels at the rear — for aerodynamic purposes. If the Mission X ever goes into production, the automaker intends to make it the fastest road-legal vehicle around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, a popular circuit in Germany. Its battery will be installed centrally behind its seats, and it will feature a 900-volt system architecture that can charge the vehicle as twice as fast as the Taycan Turbo S. It if ever becomes a real product people can buy, of course. For now, it's just a concept, and you can look at more photos of the vehicle at Porsche's Mission X portal. 

Porsche

The Summer Game Fest featured a spate of new announcements and updates again this year, including the new Prince of Persia action-adventure platformer by Ubisoft. In Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown coming in 2024, you take on the role of Sargon to rescue the prince, not just by killing enemies and fighting bosses, but also by solving puzzles. Bandai Namco launched Sand Land, a new adventure game featuring character designs by Akira Toriyama wherein you'll have to play as the demonic prince Beelzebub, as well. 

Meanwhile, Sega revealed its new take on Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic Superstars, with updated graphics and a split-screen view, launching this fall. As for Remedy, creative director Sam Lake made an appearance at the event to show off some new gameplay for Alan Wake II. The game will have two protagonists — Alan Wake and FBI agent Saga Anderson — and the game will be split 50-50 between them. You'll play one or the other throughout the game, but there are parts where you'll have to choose which POV to see. 

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which is coming out on November 9th 2023, was also featured at the event. It's the next entry in the Yakuza series and will again star Kiryu, who previously faked his death. Epic Games also released a cinematic trailer for Fortnite's latest season, dubbed Fortnite Wilds, that's commencing on June 9th. Finally, Square Enix has launched a premiere trailer for Final Fantasy VII Remake: Rebirth, the second chapter of the FFVII remake, that has been pushed back to early 2024. 

You can watch all those announcements and more in under 20 minutes in the video above. 

The 2024 US Presidential race is heating up, and the candidates along with their supporters have a new weapon at their disposal: Artificial intelligence tools, which can easily generate realistic images and voices. As Semafor reports, the DeSantis War Room has shared images showing Donald Trump embracing Dr. Anthony Fauci, who became a controversial figure to conservatives following the COVID-19 pandemic. The short clip compares Trump as a reality TV star firing people in The Apprentice with the "real life Trump" who apparently refused to fire the doctor. 

While the video was marked on Twitter with a warning that says three of the still shots showing Trump embracing Fauci are "AI generated images," some people could believe they were real. DeSantis' camp didn't deny that they weren't real photos, but it didn't explicitly say that either. Someone familiar with DeSantis' political campaign told Semafor that the video was a "social media post" and not an ad, though it's unclear if that's the reason why the images were not clearly marked as computer-generated. 

The DeSantis camp isn't the only group using AI-generated images this election, though. When President Joe Biden officially announced his re-election bid, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released video ads created entirely using artificial intelligence. The video shows Biden and Kamala Harris at a victory party followed by several domestic and international incidents the RNC says might happen if they win. Donald Trump, Jr. also reportedly shared a video swapping DeSantis' face and voice over a scene from The Office in the past. Meanwhile, former President Trump shared a video mocking DeSantis' Twitter Spaces launch with AI voices that featured figures, such as Adolf Hitler. Clearly, Americans will be bombarded with AI-generated images and voices this election, and it's up to them to figure out what's real and what's not.