Ten years, billions of dollars, multiple leadership changes, and dozens of rumors later, the Apple Car project is dead. A new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Apple has officially canceled the car, breaking the news to nearly 2,000 employees who had been working on it on Tuesday.

As part of the change, Apple will move “many employees working on the car” to the company’s artificial intelligence division where they will focus on generative AI projects, which Apple is expected to share more about later this year, according to a statement by CEO Tim Cook on the company’s earnings call earlier this month. But the car team also included hundreds of hardware engineers and car designers, some of who, Bloomberg reports, will be able to apply for jobs in other divisions of the company. The rest are likely to be laid off.

Apple has never spoken publicly about its efforts to build a vehicle, internally known as Project Titan. But a number of leaks over the years revealed the company’s ambitions to expand into a brand new product category it had no experience in. At the beginning of the project in 2014, Apple wanted to build fully self-driving car without pedals or a steering wheel with a remote command center ready to take over for a driver. But in recent years, Apple reportedly pared down its ambitions. As recently as last month, new reports suggested that Apple’s car, which could debut in 2028, would be an electric vehicle more akin to a Tesla than something completely new.

Project Titan also went through multiple leadership shakeups. In 2021, Apple appointed Kevin Lynch, the executive who previously oversaw Apple Watch development, to head the car division after Doug Field, Project Titan’s previous head, left for Ford.

Apple had reportedly considered pricing the car at around $100,000, in the ballpark of a high-end Tesla Model X. But Apple executives were reportedly concerned about profit margins at that price. The move is a rare setback for the company, which according to Bloomberg worked on “powertrains, self-driving hardware and software, car interiors and exteriors, and other key components” over the years.

In celebration of Pokémon Day (the first games launched on February 27, 1996), The Pokémon Company revealed the franchise’s latest “Legends” entry on Tuesday. Pokémon Legends: Z-A returns the series to Lumiose City, last seen as one of the regions in Pokémon X and Y on the Nintendo 3DS. The game arrives on Switch in 2025.

Developed by Game Freak, Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s trailer and press materials only provide a minimal glimpse at the upcoming title. The Pokémon Company describes it as “an exciting new adventure” and “an ambitious new entry” as the company tries to wrestle the narrative back from its guns-blazing off-brand counterpart Palworld. (That fast-growing title has already gotten the attention of The Pokémon Company’s legal team.)

The Pokémon Company

The trailer teases an urban redevelopment plan in a mysterious metro area, finally revealed as Lumiose City. Within the game world, a renovation project strives to help humans and Pokémon live together in the sprawling urban landscape. The trailer even teases Mega Evolutions, initially introduced in Pokémon X and Y.

The Pokémon Legends: Z-A trailer below — largely an extended teaser — doesn’t show any gameplay footage, and its shots of Lumiose City use wireframe models, suggesting an incomplete nature (or at least surprises reserved for another day). The game will have a simultaneous global launch when it arrives next year.

Pokémon Day also saw the announcement of a new digital trading card game. Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is a new mobile app (Android and iOS) set to arrive later this year. It will allow players to “enjoy the thrill of opening booster packs and collecting cards,” which will include “immersive cards” and visual effects unique to the app (in addition to classic artwork). The app’s trailer showcases a satisfying ripping animation when “opening” the digital packs (gotta get you hooked!).

Players using the app will receive two free booster packs daily. The company hasn’t officially announced the availability of additional packs through in-app purchases. However, the Pokémon Company’s language describing the app as “free-to-start” may provide a hint about its plans. The app will support trades and “quick battles,” using streamlined rules based on the card game’s battle system.

It’s another bleak day for the gaming industry as there’s more news of mass layoffs. This time around, its PlayStation that’s gutting its studios. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) says it’s laying off around 900 staff from its PlayStation division, roughly 8 percent of that department’s headcount.

Insomniac (Spider-Man and Ratchet and Clank), Naughty Dog (The Last of Us) and Guerrilla (Horizon) are all affected by the cuts. Those studios are behind some of PlayStation's most important franchises. For instance, within three and a half months, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 had sold 10 million units.

Sony's London Studio, which had been working on a co-op multiplayer game for PlayStation 5, is shutting down entirely, while Firesprite will also lose some staff. In addition, PlayStation will lay off workers from its Technology, Creative, and Support teams.

PlayStation employees in the US who are losing their jobs will be informed today. Sony will adhere to local laws and regulations for carrying out layoffs in other territories — the company says people in all of its global regions will be affected.

"After careful consideration and many leadership discussions over several months, it has become clear changes need to be made to continue to grow the business and develop the company," outgoing SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan told staff in an email. "We had to step back, look at our business holistically, and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community. The goal is to streamline our resources to ensure our continued success and ability to deliver experiences gamers and creators have come to expect from us."

Meanwhile, Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, said that SIE leadership evaluated its studios and portfolio and looked at projects that are in various stages of development. Some of those projects have now been canceled. Hulst didn't provide more details, but the projects that have been canned surely include the one that London Studio was working on.

"I want to be clear that the decision to stop work on these projects is not a reflection on the talent or passion of team members," Hulst wrote in a memo. "Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan."

Hulst also noted that SIE is re-assessing its approach to delivering the kinds of expensive blockbuster single-player games that PlayStation has become known for over the last decade or so, and balancing that out with its desire to create long-tail multiplayer games. "Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate," Hulst wrote. "Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences — allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways — as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and mobile, requires a different approach and different resources."

Sony is working on multiple live-service games and had planned to release 10 of them by 2026. At least one of those — The Last of Us Online — was shelved. However, the company has seen some success on the live-service front, with Helldivers 2 becoming one of the biggest hits of the year so far.

However, it emerged this month that Sony doesn't plan to release any sequels for its major first-party franchises until at least April next year. It's relying on third-party titles such as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the Elden Ring expansion to help cover the gaps in its own pipeline. The company also lowered its PS5 sales forecast for the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. It expects to sell 21 million consoles in fiscal 2023, down from the previous estimate of 25 million.

This slate of layoffs brings the total number of job losses in the games industry so far this year to more than 7,000 (we haven't even reached March yet). That's on top of the more than 9,000 people who were laid off from the industry in 2023.

Microsoft conducted sweeping cuts in its gaming division in January, laying off around 1,900 people. Riot Games, Unity, Twitch (which is games-adjacent instead of a gaming company), Supermassive Games, Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive and Sega of America are also among those who have carried out layoffs.

After complaints that Google’s image generator built into its Gemini AI was (ugh) woke, Google explained why it may have overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s senior vice president for knowledge and information, said Google’s efforts to ensure a wide range of people generated in images “failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range.”

Users criticized Google for depicting specific white figures or historically white groups of people as racially diverse individuals. In Engadget’s tests, asking Gemini to create illustrations of the Founding Fathers resulted in images of white men with a single person of color or woman among them. When we asked the chatbot to generate images of popes through the ages, we got photos depicting Black women and Native Americans as the leader of the Catholic Church. The Verge reported that the chatbot also depicted Nazis as people of color, but we couldn’t get Gemini to generate Nazi images. “I am unable to fulfill your request due to the harmful symbolism and impact associated with the Nazi Party,” the chatbot responded.

Raghavan said Google didn’t intend for Gemini to refuse to create images of any particular group or to generate historically inaccurate photos. He also reiterated Google’s promise to improve Gemini’s image-generation abilities.

However, that entails “extensive testing” before the company switches the feature back on.

— Mat Smith

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The first phone reveal at MWC 2024 is this official Barbie Flip Phone

C'mon Barbie let's go party.

HMD

MWC 2024 kicks off this week, and while Engadget is covering it all remotely — no tapas for Mathew — this is one we’d be unlikely to book a meeting for. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices) has been making Nokia phones for the past few years and announced at MWC it’ll release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer, in partnership with Mattel. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.” It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” That also means it should be cheap.

Continue reading.

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring gets officially revealed at MWC

It’ll be on display alongside its Galaxy AI mobile experience.

Samsung

Samsung has put its Galaxy Ring on public display for the first time at its booth at MWC, which starts today. The health and wellness device, available in platinum silver, gold and ceramic black, will go on sale later this year. The company said little about the Galaxy Ring when it first displayed a render of the device at Unpacked last month. We learned that it would be a wellness-oriented wearable to rival Oura, and it would have a suite of unknown sensors.

Journalists weren’t allowed to photograph it, but some additional images from Samsung show it to be a chonky, concave ring about the same size as the Oura. The extra girth isn’t surprising, given the electronics cached inside. The company described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” So, a smart ring then?

Continue reading.

Let’s talk about Xbox

This week’s gaming news.

No one is suggesting Microsoft should stop making video-game hardware. But should Microsoft keep making generationally distinct consoles in the traditional hardware cycle? Does Xbox need a box? The company calls its cloud game streaming service xCloud for a reason, right?

Watch here.

After teasing it (again) yesterday, Samsung has finally shown off the Galaxy Ring in physical form at Mobile World Conference (MWC 2024) and revealed some additional details. The device is of course centered around health and wellness and will come in three colors, platinum silver, gold and ceramic black. It's set to go on sale later this year.

Samsung didn't say much about the Galaxy Ring when it first displayed a render of the device at Unpacked last month. All we knew at the time was that it would be a wellness-oriented wearable positioned to rival Oura and that it would have a suite of unknown sensors. 

Journalists weren't allowed to photograph it today, but some additional images from Samsung show it to be a chonky, concave ring about the same size as the Oura, according to a supplied image (below). The extra girth isn't surprising, given the electronics cached inside. 

Still, The Verge noted that it was lighter than expected and will be offered in sizes 5 to 13, marked S through XL inside the band. The size of the battery (and thus time between charges) will vary depending on the size, ranging from 14.5mAh to 21.5mAh. Battery life is unknown, but the Oura can go up to seven days between charges.

Samsung

According to a blog from Samsung VP Dr. Hon Pak, the ring will track sleep based on heart rate, movement and breathing, then provide users advice based on that. The company will also glean data from partner Natural Cycles, which already does fertility tracking on the Galaxy Watch, matching a key Oura feature. 

The Galaxy Ring will also offer a new tool called My Vitality Score that measures alertness so users can see if they're at their best. Feedback will be available via "Booster Cards" that offer science-based tips using sleep and other data gathered by the device.

The Galaxy Ring will be part of the Samsung Health ecosystem and be compatible with the Galaxy Watch. That means you'll be able to use both devices at once to track your health and get higher quality data as a result. That said, the advantage of a ring wearable is that it's far less annoying to sleep with it.

We'll learn more in the months ahead, including the exact sensor suite, pricing and sale date. The Galaxy Ring will only be compatible with Samsung Galaxy phones, though the company is planning to make it work with other Android devices later on. iOS compatible is still to be determined, though, Pak said. 

Samsung

If you were wondering when brands will finally stop trying to cash in on the Barbie craze, the answer is, somehow, not yet. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices), which has been making Nokia phones for the past few years, announced for MWC that it’s partnered with Mattel to release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.”

Aesthetically, it sounds a lot like the original hot pink Motorola Razr of the aughts. But while that phone eventually got rebooted as a smartphone for the era of modern foldables, the Barbie phone is keeping things pretty basic. It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” HMD hasn’t revealed much else about it yet, like pricing or actual photos, but the company says it plans to unveil the Barbie Flip Phone at MWC, so we'll likely see more of it as the week unfolds. 

Most people may not be ready to ditch their smartphones entirely just yet, but if you’re looking for a burner, this is probably one of the cutest you could get.

HMD

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2024 right here!

We’re about to get our first real look at Samsung’s Galaxy Ring. In a blog post this weekend ahead of Mobile World Congress, the company revealed it’ll have the Galaxy Ring on display at its booth at the Barcelona convention, which starts tomorrow. Samsung hasn’t said much yet about what the Galaxy Ring will be capable of since teasing it at the end of its Unpacked event in January, but we do know it’s a wellness-oriented wearable positioned to rival the likes of Oura.

Samsung today described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” All we’ve really seen of it so far is a rendering, though. 

Aside from the Galaxy Ring, Samsung’s booth will heavily promote its Galaxy AI, with a hands-on interactive experience. The company also says it’s expanding Galaxy AI to more of its products, including the Galaxy Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5 and Tab S9 series, plus the Galaxy Watch 6, Galaxy S23 series and S23 FE. It's also got plans for Galaxy AI applications in its new Galaxy Book 4 series and, of course, the Galaxy Ring we still know next to nothing about.

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2024 right here!

Panasonic's powerful full-frame mirrorless camera, the S5 II, is on sale at Amazon and B&H Photo Video at the lowest price we've seen yet. You can grab one with an 85mm f/1.8 prime lens for as little as $1,796, a savings of $800 over buying both separately — effectively giving you a discount on the camera and a free lens to boot. 

As I wrote in my review, the 24-megapixel S5 II was already a great value at $2,000 thanks mainly to its strength as a vlogging camera. It's the company's first model with a phase-detect autofocus system that eliminates the wobble and other issues of past models. 

Panasonic also brought over its new, more powerful stabilization system from the GH6. And it has the video features you'd expect on a Panasonic camera, like 10-bit log capture up to 6K, monitoring tools and advanced audio features. With the generous manual controls and excellent ergonomics, it's an easy camera to use. It also comes with a nice 3.68-million dot EVF and sharp rear display that full articulates for vlogging. 

For photos, it's reasonably fast and great in low light, thanks to the dual native ISO system. Other features include dual high-speed SD card slots and solid battery life, particularly for video. The main downside is noticeable rolling shutter, but that shouldn't be a dealbreaker for most users — particularly at that price.

The little console that could, Playdate, is getting a developer’s showcase on February 28 at 12PM ET. Manufacturer Panic promises a 14-minute presentation chock full of new games that may or may not make use of the console’s weird little crank.

We only know one game that’ll be featured at the event, but it’s a doozy. Lucas Pope, the creator behind Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, has been busy prepping a Playdate title called Mars After Midnight. We’ll likely get a new trailer for the game, which was first revealed back in 2021. Panic also says the event will include a “release update” on the title. So, the long wait is nearly over.

Mars After Midnight has been called a “spiritual sequel” to Papers, Please, though one set on an alien world and not in a fictional cold-war era country. You play as a door guard of an alien colony tasked with letting people in. That certainly sounds a whole lot like Papers, Please to me. As you can see, the graphics look absolutely gorgeous and the game certainly makes use of that crank.

Panic hasn’t teased any other games that will take center stage during the showcase, so its anyone’s guess. This is a quirky console that practically requires unique gameplay elements, so we could be in for some nifty surprises. The company has said the event will not feature any updates on hardware, for those looking for a Playdate 2.

To that end, the console is nearly two years old but only recently became readily available for purchase. Before last week, customers would have to wait months upon ordering the console before shipment. Now, you’ll get one within two to three days.

For the uninitiated, Panic has whipped up a really distinctive and magical portable gaming console. The bright yellow Playdate boasts a traditional D-pad, two buttons and, most importantly, a crank-based control mechanism. The console costs $200 and each purchase gets you 24 free games, with two unlocking each week for 12 weeks. This is the first developer’s showcase for Playdate since November of last year.

It's been a big few months for fighting games between the likes of Mortal Kombat 1, Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 all popping up. There's another would-be major player sitting in the wings though, as Riot is preparing to enter the fray. The publisher has provided an update on Project L, the long-awaited League of Legends spin-off it announced in 2019. The fighting game now has an official name: 2XKO.

Let's be honest, that's a real stinker of a name, It's isn't exactly going to roll off the tongue. Some of those commenting on a YouTube video in which Riot made the announcement suggested that "Double KO" would have been better. It's hard to disagree.

The name stems from the format of 2XKO. It's a 2 vs. 2 tag-based fighting game, borrowing an idea popularized by the Marvel vs. Capcom series. You can play solo or, in a nice touch, recruit a friend as your tag partner and battle another duo. Riot also says 2XKO will have streamlined controls and mechanics to help players jump in, but notes that there will be a "high level of depth and mastery."

In the gameplay teaser, 2XKO looks pretty solid. It appears to have Riot's trademark level of polish with smooth animations and distinct, eye-catching looks for each of the LoL characters. It's just a pity about that name.

Riot plans to release 2XKO on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2025. As with its other tentpole titles, 2XKO will be a free-to-play game.

The publisher will set up demos at fighting game events throughout this year, starting at Evo Japan in April. Riot is also hoping to run at-home playtests and you can sign up at the game's website.