The Super Mario Bros. Movie is bumping up its release date. The animated adventure will now open on April 5th in over 60 markets (it was previously slated for April 7th). Giving the movie a five-day opening over Easter weekend is an old Hollywood trick that could help pad its initial earnings and lead to marketing-friendly headlines touting its early success.

The film stars the voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Chris Day as Luigi, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong and Jack Black as Bowser. It was initially scheduled to release in December, but Illumination and Nintendo announced early last year they were pushing it back to this April. Throughout April and May, the movie will release in ten additional Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European markets; Japan’s release is timed to coincide with the Golden Week Holidays on April 28th.

The movie will mark Mario’s first big-screen starring role since 1993's ill-fated Super Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, which bombed at the box office but became something of a “so bad it’s good” cult classic in later years. Before that, children of the late 80s and early 90s enjoyed The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, a live-action / animated series starring Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells.

The upcoming Mario film could be a barometer for audiences’ appetites for video game movies. Hollywood adaptations of gaming IPs have a long track record of (rightfully) bombing with box offices and critics. Still, HBO’s excellent The Last of Us series has been a notable exception that Nintendo and Illumination would love to continue on the big screen.

Now that IO Interactive (IOI) has wrapped up Hitman: World of Assassination, it’s moving on to the next logical step: a James Bond game. But the studio is also moving in a more surprising direction, as it announced today that it’s making an online fantasy RPG. “This idea — that a diverse group of individuals with different skills and strengths can work together and become more than the sum of their parts — is what inspires us,” the studio wrote in a blog post.

Of course, IOI didn’t go into much detail about the project, which it describes as “just the start of our journey into this new world we are making.” However, it did say memories of tabletop fantasy RPGs influenced the decision. “From the Fighting Fantasy books compelling you to choose your path, alone, against wizards, lizards, and thief kings. To the togetherness, camaraderie, agony, and delight found around the tabletop. For some it meant taking the role of a game master: Part storyteller, part AI opponent, part guide, part villain. For everyone around that table it meant creativity, imagination, building a world together, and a shared goal in creating a great game experience.”

The indie studio says the game will be a new IP designed to “entertain players and expand for many years to come.” It says all of its studios, including locations in Copenhagen, Malmö and Barcelona, will work together on the project.

IO Interactive

IOI will develop the RPG alongside its upcoming James Bond game, codenamed “Project 007,” which it’s working on with license holders MGM and Eon Productions. It seems a natural fit for the studio, as it could take the beloved core Hitman gameplay, create a new story with new maps, add a James Bond coat of paint and have a game many people would love to play. (It could change its formula more than that, but it won’t need a radical departure.) IOI has said its title would be its own Bond story that won’t use the likenesses of any established Bond actors; the studio even said it could become another spy trilogy. The title doesn’t yet have a release date.

Microsoft is taking its first steps towards bringing iPhone syncing to Windows 11. The company announced today that the Insider preview of Phone Link would support iPhones starting this week. The feature (which has undergone several name changes) has worked with Android phones since as far back as 2015.

The initial preview will only sync calls, messages and contacts from your iPhone to a Windows 11 PC. (It will show them like regular Windows notifications.) However, there are some limits: You won’t be able to reply to group messages, and sending media in messages is also unsupported. Still, it’s a big step in the right direction for a feature that has thus far excluded the countless people who use both iPhones and Windows PCs.

Microsoft says Phone Link for iPhones will only roll out to “a small percentage” of Windows Insiders this week; it explicitly states that not all Insiders will initially see the option. Instead, the company will expand the preview to more Insiders as it gathers feedback from the first batch of testers. Further, access is cloud-based, so there won’t be a specific version of the Phone Link app that instantly lets you use the preview.

Microsoft

If you’re one of the lucky few accepted, you’ll see an option to link your iPhone in the Phone Link app. After choosing it, it will guide you through the steps to pair your phone and PC over Bluetooth (including scanning a QR code). You’ll also need to confirm a code and grant permissions on both the Windows and iOS sides to ensure everything syncs up.

The feature follows Intel’s Unison app, which supports calls, messages, notifications and file transfers between phones (including iPhones) and Intel PCs. Several third-party apps like AirDroid have offered similar functionality for years.

GravaStar, known for science-fiction-inspired speakers with surprisingly solid sound, introduced a new model today. In addition to playing music, the Supernova Bluetooth speaker doubles as a lantern — while resembling something that belongs in the Star Wars prequels. The company pitches it as a camping companion that ticks the boxes for music, lighting and oddball novelty.

The speaker has a metallic body made from a zinc alloy. Its lantern-like design can produce customizable lighting effects while changing color to the music’s rhythm. On the audio front, it has 25 watts of power and a rating of 90db with a three-inch full-range speaker and half-inch high-frequency tweeter. It also supports stereo pairing if you buy two of them.

The speaker weighs 2.2 lbs and has a handle with collapsible legs. GravaStar estimates up to seven hours of battery life and a Bluetooth distance of up to 20 meters. The Supernova speaker / lantern is available to order today for $180. The company tells Engadget that it will ship by the end of March.

GravaStar

GravaStar is also launching a 65W charger that looks like a cross between a mech and a prop from a B-grade 20th-century sci-fi film. The Alpha65 charger has one USB-A and two USB-C ports. In addition, it uses GaN (gallium nitride) tech, which should make it faster and more energy-efficient than standard silicon chargers. Finally, it includes a synchronous rectification chip to help reduce power loss when converting AC to DC. The Alpha65 charger costs $60 and is available to order starting today.

Amazon is adding new features to the Kindle Scribe. A new update gives the e-reader / digital notebook new brush types, including a fountain pen, marker and pencil — each with five thickness settings. The new tools respond to various pressures and angles, and you can use them anywhere you can write on the device. The update is scheduled to roll out today.

The Scribe update also enhances notebook organization, now letting you create subfolders you can move in and out of standard folders. After receiving the update, you’ll see a new “+” option when viewing a folder; press that to add a subfolder. To move one, tap on the three-dot contextual menu when viewing a folder or subfolder, select “move,” and drop it someplace new.

Amazon

Finally, the update adds the ability to navigate to specific pages. You can do that by clicking on the three-dot menu, selecting “Go to page,” and typing the page you want.

The Kindle Scribe arrived last November. In Engadget’s review, Cherlynn Low found the large-screened device to have a premium design while providing a natural writing experience better than paper. However, we found the Remarkable 2 to offer slightly better syncing and writing software (although Remarkable is far inferior as an e-reader). The Kindle Scribe starts at $370 for 16GB of storage.

Reddit announced today that it added the ability to search for comments within a single post. The new feature is now available on desktop, iOS and Android.

As Reddit mod u/anon-axolotl explained in the pinned announcement post in r/reddit, “So what does this mean? You don’t have to ‘cmd-f’ on the post page anymore and you can search comment threads without expanding them. No more long scrolling sessions — quickly get to the parts of the conversation you’re looking for and jump in where you want.” Previously, searching in a browser with Ctrl-F (Windows) or Cmd-F (macOS) required you first to expand any collapsed comments before it would yield the full results. Reddit’s enhanced built-in search will bring up all results without extra taps or clicks.

The new feature builds on the ability to search comments sitewide, which Reddit only added last year. Before that, Reddit’s search would only yield results from the original posts and topics within a community.

Reddit has been busy beefing up its search capabilities in recent months. It introduced the ability to search for text within images in October, which is handy for memes or other text-filled pictures. The company also improved the algorithm for its subreddit search, delivering “a larger number of and more relevant subreddits for most searches” along with better autocomplete results. Finally, it incorporated better navigation for video search results in Reddit mobile apps, letting you swipe up and down to browse between the results of a video search easily.

Snap announced today that it’s adding an OpenAI chatbot (similar to ChatGPT) to Snapchat. “My AI” is an experimental feature initially available for $3.99-per-month Snapchat+ subscribers, although the company reportedly wants to expand it to all users eventually. Snap’s bot rolls out this week.

My AI will appear as a regular Snap user profile, suggesting the company is marketing it less as an all-purpose writing machine and more as a virtual friend. “The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day,” CEO Evan Spiegel toldThe Verge. “And this is something we’re well positioned to do as a messaging service.” When it rolls out, you’ll find the bot pinned to the app’s chat section above conversations with friends.

Snap’s announcement says the bot runs “the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology that the authors have customized for Snapchat.” That reportedly refers to OpenAI’s Foundry, a recently leaked, invitation-only developer program for deep-pocketed developers; it lets them use GPT-3.5, the more advanced model on which ChatGPT is based. The company’s publicly available API currently only supports up to GPT-3, an older and less intelligent model. We contacted Snap for clarification on the model used and will update this article if we hear back.

Snapchat

Snap’s chatbot will include restrictions to stay within the platform’s trust and safety guidelines. Hopefully, it avoids a similar fate to CNET’s AI-written articles, the AI Seinfeld experiment or various other AI bot train wrecks. For example, My AI will reportedly steer clear of swearing, violence, sexually explicit content or political opinions. Snap reportedly plans to continue tuning the model as more people use it and report inaccurate or inappropriate answers. (You can do so by holding down on a troublesome message and submitting feedback.)

Even with those protections, Snap’s bot could still become a dumpster fire of misinformation and offensive content. “As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance!” the company said in its announcement post. “While My AI is designed to avoid biased, incorrect, harmful, or misleading information, mistakes may occur.”

Despite raising North American prices a year ago, Netflix is getting cheaper in over 30 countries. Although that seems to be a contradiction at first glance, the company appears to be experimenting with the right balance of global revenue and subscriber growth as viewer habits change post-lockdowns.

The company has cut prices by as much as half in parts of the Middle East (Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya), Europe (Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela) and Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines). Although periodic price increases have become a regular occurrence for Netflix, it also introduced a cheaper ad-supported plan in 12 countries last October.

The subscription price cuts come as several other streaming services (including Disney+, Hulu and Sling TV) have raised prices recently. “It definitely goes against the recent trends not just for Netflix, but for the broader streaming industry,” John Hodulik, media and entertainment analyst at UBS Group AG toldThe Wall Street Journal. “Some of these cuts on a percentage basis are substantial,” he said.

In Netflix’s January earnings call, co-CEO Greg Peters said the company wants to find areas where it can raise prices, helping to fund new content investments. “We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good,” said Peters. The regional price increases let Netflix add subscribers to global markets where its share could be higher. The fact that rival services, including Disney+, HBO Max and Paramount+, are expanding globally likely weighed in the decision.

Netflix is still rolling out a new monthly fee for people who share their login credentials outside their homes. After trialing the program in Latin America, the company has rolled out paid account sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. The new fee costs $8 in Canada and New Zealand, €4 in Portugal and €6 in Spain. It’s expected to come to the US early this year.

Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said a Palo Alto engineering hub will be “effectively a headquarters of Tesla.” The CEO added that the company’s plant in Fremont, which it bought in 2010 from a joint venture of General Motors and Toyota Motor Corp., will increase production to over 600,000 vehicles this year.

Tesla will use a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. “This is a poetic transition from the company that founded Silicon Valley to Tesla,” Musk said.

The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state. Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” He tweeted about California pandemic lockdowns the previous year, “Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be [dependent] on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.”

Following news of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives, Tesla will shift its battery-production focus from Germany to the US. Musk appeared with Gavin Newsom at an event on Wednesday, where the California governor poked fun at the move: “Eat your heart out, Germany.” California, which has more electric vehicles than any other state, provided tax bonuses to Tesla on its way to growing into the EV superpower it is today; Texas has minimal regulation and taxes by comparison.

Amazon and Cochlear have teamed up on a new feature that streams audio directly from Fire TV devices to hearing implants, using the Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol. It’s the first time a smart TV device can stream sound directly to a hearing implant processor.

Cochlear says television was the company’s natural next step after working on streaming audio from smartphones to hearing aids. “TV is a big part of our lives,” said Ryan Lopez, a product management and marketing director at Cochlear. “We get our news and information through television, our entertainment, sports, music. When we started to work with [Amazon], what really came to light was their dedication to accessibility, effective communication, and collaborating on how we can combine these technologies. At Cochlear, we were really proud to be a part of this.”

The feature will work with the Cochlear Nucleus 8, Nucleus 7, Nucleus Kanso 2 and Baha 6 Max sound processors. You’ll also need a Fire TV Omni QLED Series, Fire TV Omni Series, Fire TV 4-Series, Fire TV Cube (3rd Gen) or Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen).

Amazon

“When we talked to audiologists and customers who used hearing aids, and other experts in the field, the majority told us that the first thing you really want if you’ve got hearing loss is to be able to hear clearly the people around you,” said Peter Korn, director of accessibility for Amazon Devices. “The second thing you want is the ability to hear the television, to enjoy entertainment.”