There are desks with just enough room to put a coffee next to your laptop without the risk of it spilling over the edge, and then there are desks that are big (and complex) enough that you could practically open up your own coffee stand. The upcoming Corsair Platform:6 Modular Computer Desk falls firmly in the latter category thanks to its six-foot wide surface, additional one foot by two and a third feet in extensions and further customizable options. 

Corsair's Platform:6 is a good option if you want a variety of features all from the same place — no cobbling around parts from different companies. Seriously, this desk might as well team up with Hasbro and learn to defend the planet because it would fit right in. It seems to have something for gamers, workers and creatives alike, with the last group getting flexible mounts for any 3D printing accessories they might want to use. The flagship Platform:6 Creator Edition also exclusively offers the new Elgato Multi Frame top-mounted pegboard for mounting anything from cameras to controllers. 

Every Platform:6 has a modular rail system, which brings an aluminum T-channel crossbar, side rails and a top-mounted rail. You can also opt to include dual electric motors for any Platform:6, adjusting the height using an LCD controller fitted with memory presets. Plus, each desk has plenty of wire storage, including a Corsair RapidRoute wire management tray that's big enough to hold power strips and a smaller in-desk cubby with USB Type-A and Type-C charging ports. 

The Platform:6 is available in sturdy black laminate or a more environmentally friendly classic dark walnut-stained rubberwood. You can pick one up sometime in Q4 of this year for a yet-to-be-revealed price (though our guess is this transformer won't come cheap). 

Atari is launching another retro home console, after its last effort. The Atari 2600+ pays homage to the original Atari 2600, launched in 1977, but this remake echoes the four-switch model from 1980. (Of course, we’re going to get specific.)

Atari

The console has been “lovingly recreated to the same specifications as the original” but is only 80 percent of its size. The console’s plus features are the HDMI output and widescreen support. It’ll have 10 titles in the box, but Atari die-hards will want to track down physical cartridges if they want to play the big hits of the era, like Pac-Man or Pitfall! The mini console also has a remade Atari CX40 joystick. The Atari 2600+ will launch worldwide on November 17 for $130, and pre-orders are already open. Now, to find a copy of E.T. the video game…

– Mat Smith

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Half-Life 2 is getting an unofficial RTX remaster

The community is using an NVIDIA toolkit to modernize the classic shooter.

NVIDIA

From cartridge games to ray tracing. NVIDIA has unveiled a community-led Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project that, as the name implies, will remaster the classic shooter for PCs with GeForce RTX graphics. The team isn't just adding ray tracing, though — this is an attempt to modernize the overall look and feel of the game.

The ray-traced lights are the star attraction, of course, but the modders are also using an early version of RTX Remix to add extra model detail (through Valve's own Hammer editor) and rework materials with physical-based rendering properties. The RTX port, so far, looks moodier and far more detailed, with light sources bouncing and diffusing in a far more realistic manner. Existing RTX conversions, like those for Portal and Quake II, are pretty but limited by either the age of a game or its relative scale. Half-Life 2 is a much bigger challenge.

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X plans to remove news headlines and text in shared articles

Elon Musk said it’s his idea.

According to Fortune, X (formerly Twitter) is planning to implement major changes to the way shared articles appear on a tweet, by removing their text elements and leaving just their lead images with an overlay of the URL. Musk confirmed the incoming change, saying it came directly from him, adding it would greatly improve the “esthetics.” It’s the latest big change, following news that user-blocking will soon go. I’m taking bets on what the social network will strip out next.

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Microsoft will sell Activision Blizzard streaming rights to Ubisoft to win UK approval

It said the deal makes for a 'substantially different transaction under UK law.'

Microsoft is significantly restructuring its Activision Blizzard merger proposal by selling cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard games to rival Ubisoft, it wrote in a blog late yesterday. That would address a key concern of UK regulators, who blocked the deal in part because of Microsoft's potential dominance in cloud gaming. The UK regulator will now examine the restructured deal and deliver a decision by October 18.

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Facebook and Instagram will offer chronological Stories and Reels to comply with EU law

Users will also be able to see search results not personalized to them specifically.

Meta will soon offer Stories and Reels in chronological order to comply with the European Digital Services Act (DSA). The changes were expected after the European Commission announced it had agreed in April to create new rules, demanding social media platforms offer alternative systems "not based on profiling." Starting later this month, Meta will offer Reels, Stories, Search and other parts of Facebook and Instagram unaffected by Meta’s existing AI recommendation process.

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Meta is considerably expanding Messenger's encryption feature, rolling it out to "millions more people's chats" starting today, the company announced. The end-to-end encryption (E2EE) standard, which first arrived a year ago, will be available as standard to all users by the end of 2023. Meta also described how it made the transition, calling it "an incredibly complex and challenging engineering puzzle." 

The system keeps conversations safe from eavesdropping and interception using public key cryptography — meaning no one, even law enforcement, can access conversations. At the same time, your message history will also be encrypted. Meta first focused on WhatsApp, which now offers full E2EE, but Messenger will have the same level of protection by year's end.

Getting there wasn't easy though, apparently. "It quickly became apparent that transitioning our services to E2EE would be an incredibly complex and challenging engineering puzzle," the company wrote. "We not only needed to transition to a new server architecture but to rewrite our code base to work on multiple different devices, rather than just the server."

Citing an example of a rich preview from YouTube, Meta said its servers currently pull the URL data and then show the video preview in a Messenger chat. With E2EE, though, the app itself visits the shared URL, pulls the relevant image and text information, then sends it. That slows the process down a touch, but it means users still get a full feature set but with the privacy of encryption. 

Meta said it's also testing on-device recovery for encrypted chats, requiring users to set up a PIN or generate a code. It's also trialing an option to save chats on cloud storage services like iCloud. Meanwhile, Meta will complete its E2EE trifecta by also enabling it for Instagram DMs by the end of 2023. 

That will effectively catch the company up to services like Signal, bringing end-to-end encryption fully into the mainstream. It might also draw the ire of nations like Spain, which has advocated banning encryption within the European Union, ostensibly as a way to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other criminal activities. 

Blizzard Entertainment has released the trailer for the second season of Diablo IV along with the announcement that it's arriving on October 17th. According to IGN, Rod Fergusson, who oversees the development of the franchise, players will get vampire powers and will face against a vampire lord in the new questline during the opening night of Gamescom 2023. Season 2 of the online action role-playing game is called "Season of Blood," because yes, it does feature vampires. 

Gemma Chan, actor and producer who starred in Eternals and Crazy Rich Asians, voices the vampire hunter companion Erys, who leads the fight against the new threat in the game's universe. The new season will also feature five new and returning endgame bosses, as well as updates to renown rewards, gem and stash storage, making it so that gems no longer take up space, as well as to resistance and status effects. 

The main Diablo IV storyline that came out earlier this year featured a tale that takes place decades after the end of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. It puts the player in the shoes of a wanderer who, due to certain circumstances, must now go after Lilith. That's the daughter of Mephisto, who was prominently featured in Diablo II as one of the Prime Evils the player must defeat. Diablo IV became the best-selling game in June when it came out, and Fergusson said the game, with the first season that's still ongoing, boasts 12 million players. 

We'll have to wait and see if the second season will add more players to that number. For now, fans can watch the trailer for it below:

Hyper Light Breaker, the action rogue-lite previously scheduled to enter Steam Early Access this fall, has been delayed a second time. The launch window for the spiritual successor to 2016’s Hyper Light Drifter is now rescheduled for early 2024.

“So we need just a bit more time on Hyper Light Breaker before we launch into Early Access,” Alx Preston, founder and Creative Director for developer Heart Machine, said in a video announcing the delay. “This means we’ll be pushing our date to early next year in 2024.” He said the additional time will “allow us to bring the game to its full potential.” Preston thanked fans for their patience and support, promising “a new adventure that lives up to what fans expect from a Heart Machine title.”

Heart Machine / Gearbox Publishing

Hyper Light Breaker shifts gameplay from 2D to 3D while adding up to three players for co-op play. While the 2016 original honored elements from classic top-down Zelda games, the upcoming open-world installment incorporates some Breath of the Wild basics. These include exploring open countrysides scattered with ruins while soaring through the air with a glider and surfing down hills. However, Hyper Light Breaker uses procedurally generated environments, which should help with replayability. Its combat also appears to depart from Nintendo’s modern Zelda games. The game’s first trailer gives you a closer peek.

“We have a lot of wild ideas we want to put into the game, which is exciting and thrilling since the format and tech we’ve created allows so much possibility,” said Preston. “This short push will give us the best chance for a stronger first step into open development in early access next year.”

Internet retailers are receiving questions over their approaches to recalled products. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has sent letters to Amazon, Ebay, Meta, Walmart and other online shopping portals asking about their efforts to thwart sales of recalled and banned goods on their platforms. They're particularly concerned that Meta allegedly failed to stop Facebook Marketplace sales of two recalled child products, the Fisher-Price Rock 'n Play sleeper and Boppy Newborn Lounger.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled the Rock 'n Play in 2019, and the Newborn Lounger in 2021. However, it says the takedown request rate (an average of 1,000 per month) hasn't slowed, and that there haven't been any "proactive measures" to bar sales. The Rock 'n Play has been linked to roughly 100 baby deaths. The members of Congress, including committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, are concerned that online marketplaces may be putting children and all users at risk by doing too little to stop these sales.

The House representatives ask all the companies to detail their current efforts to block sales of recalled products, including the presence of dedicated staff. The politicians also want to know what the companies will do in the future and whether there's any legal uncertainty about how to tackle the problems. The letters ask if the companies are willing to work with the committee on a solution to the problem. The companies have been told to respond no later than August 31st.

We've asked Amazon, Ebay, Walmart for comment. In a statement to Engadget, a Meta spokesperson says that sales of recalled goods aren't unique to Facebook Marketplace. The representative says Meta takes the issue "seriously" and pulls listings that violate its rules.

The enquiries come just as Amazon is facing a potential antitrust lawsuit over its sales practices, and amid greater effort to scrutinize tech giants' behavior. Meta has also been scaling back some of its shopping features, including the shutdowns of live shopping on Facebook and Instagram. Those closures are cost-cutting efforts, but they also leave the company's remaining commerce initiatives in a more fragile position.

We’ll soon learn if India will be the first nation to nail a soft landing on the moon’s south pole. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission, which launched on July 14th and entered lunar orbit on August 5th, will attempt to touch down on Wednesday at around 8:34AM EDT. It follows Russia’s attempt to beat India to the punch that ended badly. The ISRO’s live telecast (watch below) is scheduled to begin at 3:50AM EDT.

The Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander will try to touch down near the Moon’s south pole, which is believed to contain water ice. It could provide crucial water, oxygen and fuel for future lunar missions and bases. However, touching down could prove challenging as the region is known for rugged terrain and shadowy craters. This mission’s immediate predecessor, the Chandrayaan-2, crashed in 2019 as it descended to the lunar south pole.

Chandrayaan-3 uses a “failure-based design” to incorporate lessons from the 2019 “hard landing.” The new version includes an expanded landing area, software upgrades and more redundant systems to back up potential outages.

The IRSO’s X (formerly Twitter) account posted early Tuesday morning, “The mission is on schedule. Systems are undergoing regular checks. Smooth sailing is continuing.” It also posted pictures of the Moon’s surface taken from orbit.

You can tune in here early Wednesday morning (US time) to view the Indian lander’s descent.

Fighting game fans are eating well this year with the likes of Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1 and Guilty Gear Strive all arriving. The beat 'em up bonanza is set to continue at least into early 2024, as Bandai Namco announced at Gamescom 2023 that Tekken 8 will hit PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on January 26th. Pre-orders open today.

The tenth overall entry in the long-running series includes 32 unique fighters (King is thankfully among them). The latest trailer notes that the game marks the beginning of "a new Tekken saga," while the series' long-term antagonist Heihachi Mishima is dead. 

Tekken 8 will also introduce a brand new single-player mode called Arcade Quest. You'll create a character and it appears as though they can go to a virtual arcade and compete in Tekken tournaments. It all seems quite meta. 

Not only does Little Nightmares III exist, but it's also bringing two-player co-op to the series for the first time. Little Nightmares III is due out in 2024, and it's heading to PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Developers from Supermassive Games announced the new entry in the horror franchise at the very beginning of Gamescom Opening Night Live today.

Little Nightmares III looks like the stuff of dreams, if you're a twisted horror fiend. The game's reveal trailer showcases two shrunken, puppet-like characters named Low and Alone navigating an oversized world filled with terrors — it's kinda like the grimdark version of It Takes Two, at least in this initial video. Players have to make their way past vicious creatures and murderous monsters, and finally make their way out of The Nowhere.

Here's how publisher Bandai Namco describes the new game on the PlayStation Blog: "Low and Alone are each equipped with their own iconic items that will allow you to solve various puzzles and defend yourself against the new and dangerous challenges that await you. You’ll be able to interact with the world using Low’s bow and arrows and Alone’s wrench, but you’ll also need your wits, tenacity, and creativity to survive your trip across the Spiral."

The game isn't co-op only — it also has a single-player mode, complete with an AI companion. The co-op is online, specifically (sorry, couch pals).

If there’s one thing we can count on as a species is that people will figure out ways to squeeze ads into every single thing we look at. Case in point? TikTok is integrating ads into search results, so you’ll get branded content every time you look for a hashtag, a specific user or anything else. These ads are pulled from sponsored videos hosted on the platform and exist as a way to “further power brand discovery.”

Some users may find this annoying, but the announcement makes it clear that ads will be relevant to the search query and will be clearly labeled as a sponsored post. Ads will also likely be culled from your interests as represented by prior search queries and all of your various actions on the social media platform. In other words, the algorithm will do what the algorithm already does, but in a new location.

Clicking on a sponsored post will not interrupt your search, which is nice. The ad mirrors the in-feed experience and allows users to continue scrolling through the search results, whether you click on an ad or not. There’s likely to be no shortage of advertisers as TikTok says the feature is automatically enabled for pre-existing merchants. In other words, advertisers have to opt-out of appearing alongside search results.

Having an ad-free search bar was fun while it lasted, but this move has been a long time coming. It was something of an inevitability, as competitors like Instagram started doing the same thing earlier this year. It’s worth noting that ads already appear in the regular TikTok feed, nestled between videos posted by folks you actually follow. Don Draper’s search-bar fever dream is rolling out now to global TikTok users.