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24.01.2025 00:50 Doom: The Dark Ages is set to come out on May 15 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It’s a single-player sandbox experience with an emphasis on exploration, bloodshed and upgrading skill trees, introducing massive mech battles and a ridable cyber dragon that spits fire on command. Doom: The Dark Ages is the largest Doom game id Software has ever made, but to be perfectly clear and possibly assuage some fears, it’s not open-world. In fact, the directive for developers was to edit down everything — controls, levels, menus, upgrade paths — in order to emulate the reactive rush that made the original Doom games so addictive. According to executive producer Marty Stratton and game director Hugo Martin, Doom: The Dark Ages is a refined and thoughtful return to the series’ classic loop, set in the medieval wastelands of Hell and starring a super tanky Doom Slayer. In The Dark Ages, the Slayer has three basic inputs: shield saw, melee and gun. The shield saw is a critical tool, allowing players to parry and block incoming attacks, and also acting as a boomerang-style projectile that can embed itself into enemies to rip through their demonic flesh. Parrying is a massive factor in the new game, and it’s also one of many aspects that players can customize in the difficulty settings. You’ll be able to change the size of the parry window, adjust the actual game speed and fine-tune a dozen other factors to make each run feel just right. The Slayer has a choice of three melee weapons and he carries just one at a time. There’s an iron flame, an electrified gauntlet and a spiked mace, and each one can be upgraded as you make your way through Hell. The final main input is the trigger, which controls all of the gruesome guns. There’s a wondrous array of weapon-based brutality on display in The Dark Ages, including the Skullcrusher, a gun that eats the bones of murdered enemies and uses the shards as ammo. Certain levels will support skyscraper-sized Atlan battles and allow the Slayer to ride on the back of a cybernetic dragon, spraying flames on the gathered demons. These abilities won’t be available at will, and are instead contained to specific regions of the map. There are also swimming levels — which, speaking as someone with a phobia of deep water, is possibly the scariest thing in the new game. id Software The Slayer in Doom: The Dark Ages is beefy. He’s thick, heavy and armor-plated, and as he hunts demons through the medieval wastelands of Hell, he’s going to feel different than the Slayers in 2016’s Doom and its 2020 follow-up, Doom: Eternal. In terms of development mottos, Doom was “run and gun,” Eternal was “jump and shoot,” and The Dark Ages is, “stand and fight.” Strafing and twitchy teleportation-like abilities are still on the menu, but the emphasis this time around is on holding your ground and strategizing while shooting. “What people didn't like in 2016 was that it was too repetitive,” Martin said in a media Q&A before Thursday’s Xbox Developer Direct, where id showed off new bits of the game. “And in Eternal, some people said it was too hard. I actually think it's too complex. I think that the complexity of the control scheme led to unnecessary difficulties. You really want to be fighting the demons, the bad guys, not your controls.” Martin and Stratton emphasized the importance of streamlining the core loop in The Dark Ages, while also building the largest, most adventure-feeling Doom game that id has ever made. There are skill trees, currency and more secrets to find than ever before, but there’s not a lot of filler — everything has a purpose and there are no unnecessary frills in the actual mechanics of combat, resource-collecting and upgrade paths. id Software “There is a lot of exploration in this game, and it's for power,” Stratton said. “That's one of the things that is really important. You're finding resources and other things that allow you to improve yourself, upgrade your guns, upgrade your shield, your melee. So it isn't just the secrets, just the toys, that kind of thing. It really is an exploration for power.” Martin added, “I want to feel strong. It's got to be a good amount of speed and exploration and power, but I'm okay with you changing what that power fantasy is, especially if the change you make brings it back closer to classic Doom. I'm super down for that.” The points of inspiration for Doom: The Dark Ages include Batman: Year One, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight, and the film 300, specifically that iconic tracking shot of Leonidas slamming and stabbing his way through hordes of Persian warriors at the Hot Gates. Miller's The Dark Knight was a particularly poignant source for Martin. “He drew an older, more powerful, thicker Batman,” he said. “And I just love that comic so much. And I always thought it would be so interesting to just, instead of a Ferrari, you'd be more of a monster truck. And that's what we’re working on, we've been talking about that for years and years.” Doom: The Dark Ages is due out on May 15 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, including Game Pass.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/doom-the-dark-ages-hits-pc-ps5-and-xbox-on-may-15-190015221.html?src=rss

24.01.2025 00:50  Today's Xbox Developer Direct kicked off with the announcement of Ninja Gaiden 4. Aside from the news of Ragebound, the series has been quiet for the past 13 years, and there's a mix of new and old in the latest entry. The protagonist is a new character named Yakumo, a member of the Raven clan, who will battle his way through a dystopian Tokyo. Longtime fans of the games will be glad to see that Ryu Hayabusa is returning and will play a central role. The new game is being co-developed by Team Ninja and Japanese action game specialists PlatinumGames . Ninja Gaiden 4's trailer shows all the flashy slashing you'd expect from a 3D action game, with aerial combat and lots of big power moves. Yakumo will also have traversal skills such as riding on rails, slinging across gaps and wall-running. The game is due out in fall 2025, and will be available on Xbox Game Pass at day one. It will also launch on Xbox Series X|S, PC and PlayStation 5. As an extra treat, Team Ninja has also dropped a surprise remaster of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. This new version of the 2008 game is available today on Xbox and PC.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/ninja-gaiden-4-is-coming-out-this-fall-184041420.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 Subaru left open a gaping security flaw that, although patched, lays bare modern vehicles’ myriad privacy issues. Security researchers Sam Curry and Shubham Shah reported their findings about an easily hacked employee web portal. After gaining access, they were able to remotely control a test vehicle and view a year’s worth of location data. They warn that Subaru is far from alone in having lax security around vehicle data. After the security analysts notified Subaru, the company quickly patched the exploit. Fortunately, the researchers say less-than-ethical hackers hadn’t breached it before then. But they say authorized Subaru employees can still access owners’ location history with only a single piece of the following information: the owner’s last name, zip code, email address, phone number or license plate. Engadget emailed Subaru for comment, and we’ll update this story if we hear back. The hacked admin portal was part of Subaru’s Starlink suite of connectivity features. Curry and Shah got in by finding a Subaru Starlink employee’s email address on LinkedIn and resetting the worker’s password after bypassing two required security questions — because it took place in the end user’s web browser, not Subaru’s servers. They also bypassed two-factor authentication by doing “the simplest thing that we could think of: removing the client-side overlay from the UI.” Although the researchers’ tests traced the test vehicle’s location back one year, they can’t rule out the possibility that authorized Subaru employees can snoop back even farther. That’s because the test car had only been in use for about that long. The location data wasn’t generalized to some broad swath of land, either: It was accurate to less than 17 feet and updated each time the engine started. “After searching and finding my own vehicle in the dashboard, I confirmed that the Starlink admin dashboard should have access to pretty much any Subaru in the United States, Canada, and Japan,” Curry wrote. “We wanted to confirm that there was nothing we were missing, so we reached out to a friend and asked if we could hack her car to demonstrate that there was no pre-requisite or feature which would’ve actually prevented a full vehicle takeover. She sent us her license plate, we pulled up her vehicle in the admin panel, then finally we added ourselves to her car.” In addition to tracking their location, the admin portal allowed the researchers to remotely start, stop, lock and unlock any Starlink-connected Subaru vehicle. They said Curry’s mother never received notifications that they had added themselves as authorized users, nor did she receive alerts when they unlocked her car. They could also query and retrieve personal information for any customer, including their emergency contacts, authorized users, home address, the last four digits of their credit card and vehicle PIN. In addition, they were able to access the owner’s support call history and the vehicle’s previous owners, odometer reading and sales history. The security researchers say the tracking and security failures — stemming from the ability of a single employee to access “a ton of personal information” — are hardly unique to Subaru. Wired notes that Curry and Shah’s previous work exposed similar flaws affecting vehicles from Acura, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Kia, Toyota and others. The pair believes there’s reason for serious concern about the industry’s location tracking and poor security measures. “The auto industry is unique in that an 18-year-old employee from Texas can query the billing information of a vehicle in California, and it won’t really set off any alarm bells,” Curry wrote. “It’s part of their normal day-to-day job. The employees all have access to a ton of personal information, and the whole thing relies on trust. It seems really hard to really secure these systems when such broad access is built into the system by default.” The researchers’ full report is worth a read.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/subarus-poor-security-left-troves-of-vehicle-data-easily-accessible-182514123.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 The Samsung Galaxy Ring is on sale for $280 via Amazon. This represents a discount of $120, though the promotion doesn’t show up until checkout. Just pop the ring in your Amazon basket and start the checkout process to peep the discount. We were fairly positive about Samsung’s first smart ring in our official review, calling it “a surprisingly informative health-tracking device for those with compatible Samsung phones.” We came away impressed by the comfort-forward design, which doesn’t impede sleeping, writing that we “barely feel it” when trying to snooze. This is a boon for light sleepers. The health-tracking metrics are on point, especially when you consider that there’s a new software update that uses compatible SmartThings devices to create a “sleep environment report” that takes factors like temperature, humidity, air quality and light intensity into account. Samsung’s app lets users adjust any connected devices to improve local conditions. The major downside with the Galaxy Ring is the price, which has been somewhat alleviated by this sale. At least now it’s slightly lower than the rival Oura Ring. This is a great wearable for those already tied into the Samsung ecosystem, but not the best fit for everyone else. Some of the features require a Samsung phone. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-samsung-galaxy-ring-is-on-sale-for-120-off-174530918.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced this year’s Oscar nominees and Netflix’s Emilia Pérez leads the pack with 13. The musical crime drama has broken the record for the most nods for non-English language film, overtaking Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Roma , which each had 10. Emilia Pérez scored nominations in the categories of best picture, international feature, supporting actress, cinematography, directing, editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, original song , sound, adapted screenplay and best actress. That last one has extra significance as Karla Sofía Gascón is the first openly trans performer to earn an acting nomination. Although Elliot Page received a nomination for Juno in 2008, that was long before the actor transitioned. Netflix had the most nominations of any distributor for the second year in a row. An animated feature film nod for Wallace Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, documentary short The Only Girl in the Orchestra and original song nominee Diane Warren took Netflix's tally to 16. Perhaps Warren will finally win an Oscar this year at her 16th time of asking. Mubi, another streaming company, has six nominations this year, including five for the body horror film The Substance. Meanwhile, Disney+ scored one for Elton John and Brandi Carlile's song “Never Too Late” from the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late. This year's best picture nominees are Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part 2, Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance and Wicked. You can find out the winners of this year's Academy Awards when the ceremony takes place on March 2, with the wonderful Conan O'Brien taking on hosting duties.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/netflixs-emilia-perez-breaks-new-ground-with-its-oscar-nominations-173223767.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 Things aren’t exactly going swimmingly at Ubisoft right now. The publisher had a rough 2024, with Star Wars Outlaws failing to meet sales expectations and word of XDefiant’s demise coming around six months after the tactical shooter debuted. Skull and Bones finally arrived too, but it was a bit of a damp squib. Amid rumors of the company being sold or spinning out some of its assets into a joint venture with Tencent, Ubisoft really needs a win. It’s not going to have a better chance to do that anytime soon than with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. After a couple of delays, the latest entry in the company’s flagship series is set to arrive on March 20. After a few hours with AC Shadows, there are positive signs. The game at least looks and plays well enough for what Ubisoft needs it to be, with the company skirting the line between playing things extremely safe and trying something different. After the successes of AC Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla , Shadows marks new territory for Assassin’s Creed to a certain degree. It's the first game in the series that directly feeds into the Animus Hub project . Before you swan dive into Assassin's Creed Shadows, you'll enter the Animus Hub. From here, you'll be able to access various Assassin's Creed games from the memory section. They're placed on an easy to navigate timeline. The anomaly section of the hub includes missions for Shadows, which will offer exclusive rewards like weapons and gear. You can tweak your characters' loadout from the exchange section and explore the stories of modern AC games through the vault. The Animus Hub will expand in the years to come as Ubisoft releases more games. This is an ambitious project that aims to tie the series together. It had been reported that the company would try to turn the series into a live-service project with the Animus Hub, and we're seeing glimpses of that with those missions. There's not a ton to it as things stand, but Ubisoft clearly has grand ambitions here. Ubisoft Shadows brings the action to a long-awaited frontier for Assassin’s Creed: 16th century Japan. The other big twist this time around is that you can swap between two characters. Various points in the story will see you choose to play as either Yasuke or Naoe and, at least in the open-world, you'll be able to switch between them on the fly. Swapping can come in handy when one character is wanted by enemies, since the other can remain anonymous. Yasuke is the tank of the two, with the ability to ram though certain doors while sprinting. He can take advantage of ranged weapons such as guns and bows, so some players might want to use him to pick off a few enemies from afar at the start of a mission. He can knock baddies around using his kanabō war club as well. Naoe plays more like a traditional Assassin's Creed hero. She is far more agile and her parkour skills are on point. The shinobi can quickly clamber up the sides of buildings and she has a grappling hook to help her reach higher parts of structures and swing across gaps. In direct combat, Naoe can spin kick an enemy in the teeth, or flip behind them to slit their throat. Perhaps most importantly , Naoe is the only one of the duo to have the classic hidden blade. Yasuke can still sneak up on an opponent to eliminate them with a single button press, but his "brutal assassination" sees him ram his sword through an enemy and lift them skywards. Not exactly subtle. Ubisoft Switching between Naoe and Yasuke is almost as seamless as it is to swap between, say, Peter and Miles in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. The latter requires a couple of quick in-game actions, and the action swiftly moves to the other Spider-Man. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, swapping characters means going into the menu, holding a button and waiting just a couple of seconds for the other hero to replace them. There's no immediate character swapping in the prologue, however, which is one of the two sections I played. Unsurprisingly, this acts as an intro to the story and how to actually play the game. In a first for Assassin's Creed, one of the playable characters actually existed in real-life. It won't take players long to learn how Yasuke, a Black African man, came to be a samurai. After a brief lore drop, we skip ahead six months to a battle sequence. It's an effective way to start getting to grips with what Yasuke can do, including special attacks like a dashing sword slash. Once his brief action sequence comes to an end, we rewind to earlier in the night and Naoe's introduction. After an important box is stolen, she heads out to retrieve it from a compound. This short mission highlights some of the stealth features. One of the cooler additions to this game is the ability to take out light sources at night to create ad-hoc hiding spots in the shadows. Naoe can snuff out candles and destroy lamps from afar using a kunai or shuriken. That may not be needed depending on the terrain and how quickly you can hotfoot it over rooftops when you're spotted. The second section I played was an investigation mission. I had to get to the bottom of a mystery by completing some tasks and gathering information. All of this led to the inevitable but enjoyable boss fight and a satisfying resolution to the quest. The structure of Assassin's Creed Shadows will lend itself to multiple playthroughs for those who really dig it. I spent most of my preview as Naoe, but I'm interested to see how different things are playing as Yasuke. There are dialogue options throughout the game but there's a canon mode that will eliminate these choices and present you with the canonical story. Players might also be inclined to switch the dialogue languages to Japanese and Portuguese for deeper immersion after beating the game in their native tongue. Some of the gameplay changes Ubisoft implemented this time really shake things up. The eagle vision ability now enables Naoe to locate and tag enemies through walls. Her smoke bombs and distraction-causing bells come in useful when there are too many enemies for her to battle head on. Both characters can lie prone as well, which offers up more opportunities for hiding and sneaking. I quickly tried a couple of the side activities, such as the peaceful act of sneaking up on animals in certain situations to sketch them. In terms of slowing things down for a smidge of tranquility, this feels a little akin to the haiku composition sequences in Ghost of Tsushima Ubisoft It wasn't totally clear based on what I've seen, but it does feel as though Ubisoft has cut down on much of the cruft that typically populates Assassin's Creed maps, which would help this game feel less overwhelming. Climbing up to a viewpoint and synchronizing only reveals important locations, rather than everything worth seeing in the area. The company pulled back on the map bloat a bit in Mirage, so it may have taken some positive lessons from that approach. Add all of this up and I came away from the session feeling just on the right side of satisfied. The game seems absolutely fine. It’s just about what you’d expect from an Assassin’s Creed game these days, but with enough tweaks, new wrinkles and quality-of-life updates to make it compelling enough. It feels like a decent entry point into the series while still holding enough interest for long-term fans. For what it’s worth, I’m ready to play more, as someone who finished Assassin’s Creed Mirage but dropped off of Valhalla after about 10 hours. I'm looking forward to playing more of Assassin's Creed Shadows and seeing, for instance, how the weather system switches things up. Lakes freeze over in winter, removing the ability to swim or hide underwater. Icicles can be used as a distraction as well. I didn't get around to trying out the spy recruitment system, which can seemingly come in useful during investigations. Assassin's Creed Shadows inherently has a leg up on many other Ubisoft games given the popularity of the series. It already seemed poised to do well, but it appears to be in a good enough shape to become a success. If so, this could help Ubisoft finally redirect its ship away from the rocks. Assassin's Creed Shadows will hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, Mac , Ubisoft+ and Amazon Luna on March 20.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/assassins-creed-shadows-preview-a-few-steps-in-the-right-direction-170028415.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 I love air fryers. They offer microwave-like convenience, but stuff actually tastes good. If you want to see what all of the fuss is about, a standout Cosori air fryer is on sale via Amazon for $90. This is a fairly substantial discount of 25 percent, as the original price is $120. This particular model made our list of the best air fryers, and for very good reason. It’s a great device that gets the job done. It’s a six-quart model that offers plenty of cooking space, which we found ideal for side dishes like sweet potato fries and onion rings. However, it’s no slouch with mains like chicken wings, tofu and more. The rounded basket is particularly roomy. The touchscreen is easy to use and there are plenty of preset cooking modes, including a handy preheating option for starting things off. Most people will rely on the standard air fry mode, I know I do, but it’s nice to have the option for broiling, baking and roasting. We also appreciated the basket release button, which is a nice safety feature. This is pretty much the ideal air fryer, so it’s tough to find complaints. There isn’t a see-through window, for those who like taking a look at tater tots crisping up. This particular unit is also on the wider side, which could make placement difficult in tiny kitchens. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/one-of-our-favorite-air-fryers-is-25-percent-off-right-now-161542670.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 Following a two-year wait, NVIDIA’s highly-anticipated GeForce 50 series of GPUs are nearly here. Engadget has published its review of the $2,000 RTX 5090, but if you’re reading this article, chances are you already know if you want to splurge on a 50 series card. The question then is how to buy one of them? Depending on when you read this story, the good news is that we’re at most a week away from major retailers, including Best Buy and Newegg, stocking the new cards on January 30. As for the bad news? If the 50 series launch is anything like the 40 series one before it, expect high demand and limited initial availability. If you’re set on buying an RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti or 5070 at release, be sure to use the notification feature Best Buy and other retailers offer to have the best chance of securing one of the cards before they all sell out. GeForce RTX 5090 for $2,000: The RTX 5090 is the most expensive consumer GPU NVIDIA has ever released. It’s also one of the most powerful and power-hungry, with the 5090 featuring 21,760 CUDA cores, 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM and a potential total power draw of 575W. Of course, as with all of NVIDIA’s new GPUs, raw specs are only half the story. In conjunction with DLSS 4, the entire 50 series is capable of multi-frame generation. With the tech, RTX 50 GPUs can generate up to three additional frames for every frame they render using traditional techniques. DLSS 4 is the reason the 5090 can produce an average of 246 frames per second with full ray tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077. If you prefer to buy from Newegg or B&H, both retailers will stock models from third-party OEMs, including ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and Zotac. GeForce RTX 5080 for $999: Despite costing half as much as the RTX 5090, the 5080 is no slouch. It features an impressive 10,752 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, with a memory bandwidth of 960GB/sec. Like the 5090, you get the benefit of DLSS 4 multi-frame generation. Moreover, total power draw is more modest at 360W, meaning you probably won’t need a 1,000W PSU to power the 5080. Again, both Newegg and B&H will stock third-party options. For a Founders Edition model, your best bets are NVIDIA and Best Buy. GeForce RTX 5070 Ti for $749. If I had to guess, the 5070 Ti is probably the model with the most interest from people who want to buy a 50 series card. That’s because it features 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM compared to the 5070’s 12GB. An extra 4GB of VRAM might not seem like much, but it will likely translate to the 5070 Ti being a much better purchase over the long run. Modern AAA games use a lot of VRAM, so much so that 8GB GPUs like the RTX 3070 are starting to show their age. Unfortunately, the 5070 Ti is the one model NVIDIA won't offer a Founders Edition version of, so finding one to buy may be tricky. Your best bet here is likely to be B&H. The retailer is showing a few 5070 Ti models on its website. GeForce RTX 5070 for $549: At launch, the RTX 5070 will be NVIDIA’s most affordable 50 series GPU. It’s also the GPU NVIDIA claims is as fast as the RTX 4090. Of course, that’s with DLSS 4 enabled. If you’re interested in the 5070, I strongly advise waiting for reviews to come out before you commit to buying one. As mentioned, with only 12GB of VRAM, the 5070 could quickly become a bottleneck to your system.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/how-to-buy-a-nvidia-rtx-50-series-gpu-160902797.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 Get enough Star Trek fans in a room and the conversation inevitably turns toward which of the series’ cinematic outings is the worst. The consensus view is The Final Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis are duking it out for the unwanted trophy. Each film has a small legion of fans who will defend each entry’s campy excesses, boldness and tone. Thankfully, any and all such discussions will cease once and for all on January 24, 2024, when Star Trek: Section 31 debuts on Paramount+. It is the single worst thing to carry the Star Trek name in living memory. Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Section 31. Star Trek: Section 31 is a made for TV streaming movie focusing on Philipa Georgiou after her departure from Star Trek: Discovery. It was originally greenlit in 2019 as a series but, for a wide variety of reasons, it languished in development hell until 2022. In the interim, showrunners Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, along with credited screenwriter Craig Sweeny, sweated the idea. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi told SFX Magazine that Sweeny would eventually write the project seven different times, first as a TV series, then as a movie. Trek head honcho Alex Kurtzman was eager to get production underway to take advantage of Yeoh’s 2022 Academy Award win for Everything Everywhere All At Once. The result is a film that, even if you’re unaware of the pre-production backstory, sure feels like a series hastily cut down to feature length. It’s not incoherent, but suffers from the same issue that blighted Discovery, where you’re watching a dramatized synopsis rather than a script. There are thematic and plot beats that rhyme with each other, but the meat joining them all together isn’t there. It’s just stuff that happens. It doesn’t help that the plot is very much of the “and then this happens” variety that they warn you about in Film School 202. So many major moments in the film are totally unearned, asking you to care about characters you’ve only just met and don’t much like. There’s a risible scene at the end where two people who haven’t really given you the impression they’re into each other have to hold hands and stare into their impending doom. The pair in question have shared their backstories with each other, but there’s no suggestion that they are anything more than just people working together on a job, let alone friends. Michael Gibson/Paramount+ Weak material is less of an issue if you have a cast who can elevate what they’ve been given but, and it pains me to say this, that’s not Michelle Yeoh. Yeoh is a phenomenal performer who has given a litany of underrated performances over her long and distinguished career. But she made her name playing characters with deep interiority, not scenery-chewing high-camp villains. Even in her redemptive phase, it’s impossible to believe Yeoh is the sort of monster Star Trek needs Georgiou to be. Rather than shrinking the scene, and the stakes, to suit her talents, the film makes the canvas wider and expects Yeoh to fill space she’s never needed. The rest of the gang is similarly underserved by the material and the sheer volume of clutter the film has little time to get past. Making the Section 31 team six people deep before they meet Georgiou means every character beyond her is a thumbnail sketch at best. There’s the broody one, the “funny” one, the uptight one, the robot one, the hot one and the one with the bad Oirish accent. If Section 31 was a series, you’d forgive the pithy introductions, knowing you’d get to fill in these characters over the coming weeks, maybe even grow attached to them. In the space of a movie, it doesn’t work since the shocking twists — like an early character death to raise the stakes or a sudden heel-turn in a moment of crisis, don’t work. Worse still, the dialog is so often indecipherable crosstalk that feels more like woeful improv than useful characterization. That, or it’s just characters reminding the audience of basic story points over and over again, like the fact Georgiou used to be a baddie. Olatunde Osunsanmi’s direction has always made an effort to draw attention to itself, with flashy pans, tilts, moves and Dutch angles. Jarringly, all of his flair leaves him when he needs to just shoot people in a room talking — those scenes invariably default to the TV standard medium. Worse still is his action direction, that loses any sense of the space we’re seeing or the story being told. There’s a final punchfight that requires the audiences to be aware of who has the macguffin at various points. But it’s all so incoherent that you’ll struggle to place what’s going on and where, so why bother engaging with it? And that’s before we get to the fact that Osunanmi chose to shoot all of Michelle Yeoh’s — Michelle Yeoh’s — fight scenes in close-up. When Yeoh is moving, you want to capture the full extent of her talents and allow her and her fellow performers a chance to show off, too. And yet it’s in these moments that the camera pulls in tight — with what looks like a digital crop with a dose of digital motion blur thrown in. All of which serves to obscure Yeoh’s talents and sap any energy out of the action. Jan Thijs/Paramount+ Before watching Section 31, I re-watched the relevant stories from Deep Space Nine and tried to interrogate their ethics. That series asked, several times over, how far someone would, could or should go to defend their ideals and their worldview. The Federation was often described as some form of paradise, but does paradise need its own extrajudicial murder squad? It wasn’t a wicked cool plotline, but a thought experiment to interrogate what Starfleet and its personnel stands for when its very existence is in jeopardy. If there’s one thing that Section 31 isn’t, it’s cool, and if you think it is, then your values are at least halfway in conflict with Star Trek’s founding ethos. Unfortunately for us, Trek honcho Alex Kurtzman does think Starfleet having its own space murder squad is wicked cool given their repeated appearances under his watch. Kurtzman has never hidden his love of War on Terror-era narratives, which remain as unwelcome here as they were in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Sadly, Section 31 is Star Trek in its face-punching, forced-interrogation, cheek-stabbing, eye-gouging thoughtless grimdark register. Fundamentally, it’s not a fun thing to sit down and watch, beyond its numerous deficiencies as a piece of cinema. The biggest tell that Section 31 wasn’t going to be a winner was when Rob Kasinsky, who plays Section 31's Zeph, started getting his excuses in early. He said he was worried the film would be received poorly given all the fans want is “just 1,000 more episodes of TNG.” I’ll admit, there is a chunk of fandom who do just want to be fed a conveyor belt of ‘memberberries. These are the people who thought season three of Picard was good and are clamoring for Star Trek: Legacy. I, and a lot of other people, just want something that’s halfway thoughtful, entertaining and well-made, and this is none of those things. I keep checking my notes for anything positive and the best I can manage is that the costumes, co-created with Balenciaga, are quite nice. They’re a bit too Star Wars, but I like the focus on texture and tailoring in a way that’s better than Trek’s current athleisure trend. Oh, and the CGI is competent and doesn’t slip below the standards set down by Strange New Worlds. There you go, two things that are good about Section 31. Fundamentally, I don’t know who this is for. It’s too braindead for the people who want Star Trek in any sort of thoughtful register. It’s not shot through with the fan-service onanism that would pander to please the Star Trek: Legacy crowd. It’s not quite shamelessly brutal enough for the gang who want Star Trek to turn into 24. And it’s not high camp enough for the folks who’d like to coo over Michelle Yeoh in a variety of gorgeous costumes. Remember how Warner Bros. junked several movies for the tax break? I wish Paramount’s accountants had been as ruthless here.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/star-trek-section-31-review-an-embarrassment-from-start-to-end-150051501.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 A $2,000 video card for consumers shouldn't exist. The GeForce RTX 5090, like the $1,599 RTX 4090 before it, is more a flex by NVIDIA than anything truly meaningful for most gamers. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said as much when he revealed the GPU at CES 2025, assuming that it'll be for hardcore players who have $10,000 rigs. Personally, I don't know anyone who actually fits that bill, not unless you count parasocial relationships with streamers. But we all know why NVIDIA is hyping up the unattainable RTX 5090: It lets the company show off benchmarks that AMD can't touch, once again cementing itself as the supreme leader of the high-end video card market. It's not just about gaming, either. The RTX 5090 is also being positioned as an AI workhorse since it's powered by NVIDIA's new Blackwell architecture, which leans on the company's Tensor Cores for artificial intelligence work more than ever. Realistically, though, the $549 RTX 5070 is the GPU more gamers will actually be able to buy. I'll admit, I went into this review with a mixture of excitement and disgust. It's astonishing that NVIDIA was able to stuff 91 billion transistors and 21,760 CUDA cores in the RTX 5090, and I couldn't wait to see how it performed. Still, I find it genuinely sad that NVIDIA keeps pushing the bar higher for GPU prices, in the process making the gaming world even more unequal. A $2,000 graphics card, in this economy?! But after hours of benchmarking and playtime, I realized the RTX 5090 wasn't much of a threat to gaming accessibility. Wealthy PC gamers have always overspent for graphics performance — I've seen people pay thousands more than consumer GPUs just to get extra VRAM from NVIDIA's Quadro cards. But the rise of PC handhelds like the Steam Deck, which are a direct offshoot of the Nintendo Switch's success, is a clear sign that convenience matters more than raw power to mainstream players today. I don't think many Switch 2 buyers are saving up for an RTX 5090. For the few who can afford it, though, NVIDIA's new flagship sure is a treat. Hardware: Leaning more on AI In many ways, the RTX 5000 GPU family is the convergence of NVIDIA's decades-long GPU expertise and its newfound role powering the AI hype train. Sure, they'll run games faster than before, but what makes them unique is their ability to tap into "neural rendering" AI for even better performance. It's at the heart of DLSS 4, the company's latest AI upscaling technology, which can now generate up to three frames for every one that's actually rendered by the RTX 5090. That's how NVIDIA can claim this GPU is twice as fast as the RTX 4090, or that the RTX 5070 matches the speed of the 4090. Does it really matter if these frames are "fake" if you can't tell, and they lead to smoother gameplay? Before I dive further into the AI side of things, though, let's take a closer look at the RTX 5090. Once again, it features 21,760 CUDA cores, up from 16,384 cores on the 4090, as well as 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM instead of the 4090's 24GB of GDDR6X. The 5090 also sports 5th-gen Tensor cores with 3,352 of AI TOPs performance, while the 4090 had 1,321 AI TOPS with last-gen Tensor hardware. RTX 5090RTX 5080RTX 5070 TiRTX 5070RTX 4090ArchitectureBlackwellBlackwellBlackwellBlackwellLovelaceCUDA cores21,76010,7528,9606,14416,384AI TOPS3,3521,8011,4069881,321Tensor cores5th Gen5th Gen5th Gen5th Gen4th GenRT cores4th Gen4th Gen4th Gen4th Gen3rd GenVRAM32 GB GDDR716 GB GDDR716 GB GDDR712 GB GDDR724 GB GDDR6XMemory bandwidth1,792 GB/sec960 GB/sec896 GB/sec672 GB/sec1,008 GB/secTGP575W360W300W250W450W I tested the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition GPU , which is dramatically slimmer than its 4090 counterpart. The 5090 has a sleek two-slot case that can actually fit in small form factor systems. The three-slot 4090, meanwhile, was so massive it felt like it was going to tear my PCIe slot out of my motherboard. NVIDIA also added another cooling fan this time around, instead of just relying on a vapor chamber and a single fan. The 5090's main PCB sits in the center of the card, and it's connected to other PCB modules at the PCIe slot and rear ports . Devindra Hardawar for Engadget DLSS 4: The real star of the show While multi-frame generation is the defining feature for the RTX 50 cards, there are several other DLSS 4 features that should help games look dramatically better. Best of all, those capabilities are also trickling down to earlier RTX GPUs. RTX 40 cards will be more efficient with their single-frame generation, while RTX 30 and 20 cards will also see an upgrade from AI transformer models used for ray reconstruction , Super Resolution and Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing . These transformer models should also fix some rendering artifacts present in earlier versions of DLSS. At NVIDIA’s Editor’s Day earlier this month, the company showed off how the updated version of Ray Reconstruction made a chainlink fence in Alan Wake 2 appear completely sharp and clear. An earlier version of the feature made the same fence look muddy, almost as if it was out of focus. In Horizon Forbidden West, the new version of Super Resolution revealed more detail from the texture of Aloy’s bag. DLSS 4 will be supported in 75 games and apps at launch, including Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Cyberpunk 2077, according to NVIDIA. For titles that haven’t yet been updated with new DLSS menu options, you’ll also be able to force support for the latest features in the NVIDIA app. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget In use: An absolute powerhouse, with fake frames and without I could almost hear my motherboard breathe a sigh of relief when I unplugged the RTX 4090 and swapped in the slimmer 5090. Installation was a cinch, though I still needed to plug in four PSU connectors to satisfy its demand for 575 watts of power and a 1,000W PSU. If you’re lucky enough to have a new PSU with a 600W PCIe Gen 5 cable, that will also work . I tested the RTX 5090 on my home rig powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and 32GB of RAM, alongside a 1,000W Corsair PSU. I also used Alienware’s 32-inch 4K QD-OLED 4K 240Hz monitor to get the most out of the 5090, and honestly, you wouldn’t want to run this GPU on anything less. Once I started benchmarking, it didn’t take long for the RTX 5090 to impress me. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad test, which is a demanding DX12 demo, it scored 14,239 points, well above the 9,250 points I saw on the RTX 4090. Similarly, the 5090 hit 15,416 points in the 3DMark Speedway benchmark, compared to the 4090’s 10,600 points. These are notable generation-over-generation gains without the use of frame generation or any DLSS sorcery — it’s just the raw power you see with more CUDA and RT cores. None 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme Port Royal Cyberpunk Blender NVIDIA RTX 5090 19,525 36,003/166fos 246fps 14,903 NVIDIA RTX 4090 16,464 25,405/117fps 135fps 12,335 NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super 13,168 18,435/85fps 80fps 8,867 NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti Super 11,366 15,586/72fps 75fps 7,342 Once I started gaming and let DLSS 4 do its magic, my jaw just about hit the floor. But I suppose that’s just a natural response to seeing a PC hit 250fps on average in Cyberpunk 2077 while playing in 4K with maxed-out ray tracing overdrive settings and 4x frame generation. In comparison, the 4090 hit 135fps with the same settings and single frame generation. Now I know most of those frames aren’t technically real, but it’s also the first time I’ve seen any game fill out the Alienware monitor’s 4K 240hz refresh rate. And most importantly, Cyberpunk simply looked amazing as I rode my motorcycle down rain-slicked city streets and soaked in the reflections and realistic lighting from robust ray tracing. Like Cypher in The Matrix , after suffering through years of low 4K framerates, I couldn’t help but feel like “ignorance is bliss” when it comes to frame generation. I didn’t see any artifacts or stuttering. There wasn’t anything that took away from my experience of playing Cyberpunk. And the game genuinely looked better than I’d ever seen it before. And if you’re the sort of person who could never live with “fake frames,” the RTX 5090 is also the only card I’ve seen that can get close to 60fps in Cyberpunk natively in 4K with maxed out graphics and no DLSS. I hit 54fps on average in my testing, whereas the 4090 chugged along at 42fps in native 4K. You could also compromise a bit and turn on 2x or 3x frame generation to get a solid fps boost, if the idea of 4x frame generation just makes you feel dirty. And if you can’t tell, I quickly got over any fake frame trepidation. When I used the NVIDIA app to turn on 4x frame generation in Dragon Quest: The Veilguard, I once again saw an average framerate of around 240fps in 4K with maxed out graphics. I’ve already spent over 25 hours in the game, but running through a few missions at that framerate still felt revelatory. Combat sequences were clearer and easier to follow, possibly thanks to better Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution, and I could also make out even more detail in my character’s ornate costumes. On the 4090, I typically saw around 120fps with standard frame generation. The 5090’s DLSS 4 performance makes me eager to see how the cheaper RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti cards perform. If a $550 card can actually get close to what I saw on the $1,599 4090, even if it’s relying on massive amounts of frame generation, that’s still a major accomplishment. It would also be great news for anyone who invested in a 4K 120Hz screen, which is tough to fill with other mid-range GPUs. Outside of gaming, the RTX 5090 also managed to convert a minute-long 4K clip into 1080p using the NVENC H.264 encoder in just 23 seconds. That’s the fastest conversion I’ve seen yet. In comparison, the RTX 4090 took 28 seconds. Add up those seconds on a much larger project, and the 5090 could potentially save you hours of repeated rendering time. Naturally, it also saw the fastest Blender benchmark score we’ve ever seen, reaching 14,903 points. The RTX 4090, the previous leader in our benchmarks, hit 12,335 points. 3Dmark Throughout benchmarks and lengthy gaming sessions, the RTX 5090 typically reached around 70 degrees Celsius with audible, but not annoying, fan noise. The card also quickly cooled down to idle temperatures between 34C and 39C when it wasn’t under load. Aiming to push the limits of NVIDIA’s cooling setup, I also ran several stress test sessions in 3DMark, which involves looping a benchmark 20 times. It never crashed, and achieved over 97 percent accuracy in most of the tests. There was just one Steel Nomad session where it scored 95.9 percent and failed 3DMark’s 97 percent threshold. That could easily be due to early driver issues, but it’s still worth noting. The only time I really got the RTX 5090 cooking was during an exploration of the Speedway benchmark, where I could move the camera around the ray traced scene and look at different objects and characters. The card hit 79C almost immediately and stayed there until I quit the demo. During that session, as well as typical gaming, the 5090 drew between 500W and 550W of power. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Looking ahead: AI NPCs and neural shaders On top of DLSS, NVIDIA is also planning to tap into its RTX cards to power AI NPCs in games like PUBG and ZooPunk. Based on what I saw at NVIDIA’s Editor’s Day, though, I’m more worried than excited. The company’s Ace technology can let NPCs generate text, voices and even have conversational voice chats, but every example I saw was robotic and disturbing. The AI Ally in PUBG makes a lot of sense on paper — who wouldn’t want a computer companion that could help you fight and find ammo? But in the demo I saw, it wasn’t much of a conversationalist, it couldn’t find weapons when asked and it also took way too long to hop into a vehicle during a dangerous firefight. As I wrote last week, “I'm personally tired of being sold on AI fantasies, when we know the key to great writing and performances is to give human talent the time and resources to refine their craft.“ And on a certain level, I think I'll always feel like the director Hayao Miyazaki, who described an early example of an AI CG creature as, "an affront to life itself." NVIDIA’s Neural Shaders are an attempt to bring AI right into texture shaders, something the company says wasn’t possible on previous GPUs. These can be implemented in a variety of ways: RTX Neural Materials, for example, can use AI to render complex materials like silk and porcelain, which often have nuanced and reflective textures. RTX Neural Texture Compression, on the other hand, can store complex textures while saving up to 7 times the VRAM used from typical block compression. For ray tracing, there’s RTX Neural Radiance Cache, which is trained on live gameplay to help simulate path-traced indirect lighting. Much like NVIDIA’s early ray tracing demos, it’s unclear how long it’ll take for us to see these features in actual games. But from the glimpses so far, NVIDIA is clearly thinking of new ways to deploy its AI Tensor Cores. RTX Neural Faces, for example, uses a variety of methods to make faces seem more realistic, and less like plastic 3D models. There’s also RTX Mega Geometry, which can help developers make up to “100x more ray traced triangles,” according to NVIDIA. Demos show it being used to construct a large building as well as an enormous dragon. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Wrap-up: The new unattainable GPU king The $2,000 GeForce RTX 5090 is not meant for mere mortals, that much is clear. But it points to an interesting new direction for NVIDIA, one where AI features can seemingly lead to exponential performance gains. While I hate that it’s pushing GPU prices to new heights, there’s no denying that NVIDIA has crafted an absolute beast. But, like most people, I’m more excited to see how the $549 RTX 5070 fares. Sure, it’s also going to lean into frame generation, but at least you won’t have to spend $2,000 to make the most of your 4K monitor.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-review-pure-ai-excess-for-2000-140053371.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 19:31 Google and Apple are having a bad day. The tech giants are facing a new investigation into their mobile ecosystems from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and growing pressure to adopt a new app store initiative in India. Let's start with the probe, which comes one day after the CMA named a former Amazon executive as its interim chair. The CMA is investigating whether Apple and Google's mobile ecosystems should have Strategic Market Status and thus can be subjected to greater regulation and pro-competition directives. However, they're not fully clear what aspects exactly are being investigated. This new designation stems from the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which went into effect on January 1. Google is also the subject of the first SMS investigation, launched earlier this month and focusing on possible antitrust practices around the company's search services. The CMA's SMS investigations can last up to nine months, with both cases currently accepting comments on the investigation and possible interventions. The regulator is accepting submissions around the joint Google and Apple probe through February 12. Now to Apple and Google's other headache. In India, the technology ministry is pushing Apple and Google to offer the state-backed GOV.in app store in their marketplaces, Bloomberg reports. The Indian government also wants the suite of apps to be pre-installed on all mobile devices, available for third-party downloads and not labelled with warnings such as "untrusted source." It is billing the push as a means for further distributing public-welfare services. These apps are currently available on Apple and Google's app stores, but as separate entities. The initial request reportedly came in a meeting last month but, as it stands, Google and Apple are unlikely to say yes. The Indian government is reportedly discussing using mandates or taking legal steps to force compliance. In 2021, Apple began offering a similar option for Russian users due to regulations. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/uk-investigating-google-and-apples-mobile-ecosystems-135204025.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 14:40 Google is paying HTC $250 million in cash for a deal that will give the bigger company's plans for Android XR a boost. Under the terms of their agreement, some members of the HTC Vive engineering team will be joining Google, which describes them as an "incredibly strong technical team with a proven track record in the VR space." HTC released the consumer version of its first Vive VR headset, designed in partnership with Valve, back in 2016. Last year, it launched the Vive Focus Vision more than a year after it released its first standalone headset for consumers, the Vive XR Elite. In addition to absorbing certain Vive team members, Google will also get a non-exclusive license to use HTC'S extended reality technologies. HTC can still use its own IPs, and it vows to continue developing and supporting its XR headsets. The companies will also "explore future collaboration opportunities." Google says the deal will help "its acceleration across the headset and glasses ecosystem." The company laid out its vision for a unified Android XR ecosystem in December, which will span a range of virtual and mixed reality headsets and glasses. We're bound to see the first Android XR devices this year, including one codenamed Project Moohan from a Google-Samsung collaboration. Google's and HTC's agreement is still subject to customary closing conditions and will be finalized sometime this first quarter.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-buys-part-of-htcs-vive-vr-team-for-250-million-130046567.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 14:40 Xbox is hosting its Developer Direct showcase today, and you'll be able to watch along live on YouTube, Twitch or our handy embed below. The stream starts as 1PM ET / 10AM PT and is supposed to feature updates from the developers of South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Doom: The Dark Ages. Xbox is also promising to "visit a surprise location to see another studio’s brand new game." Windows Central reports the mysterious unannounced game is "a new entry in a legendary Japanese IP which has decades of history," which certainly sounds intriguing. At the very least, the rest of the games featured are slated to launch in 2025. Xbox spent most of 2024 adjusting its strategy around releasing games, delaying some titles to this year, and bringing some formerly exclusive games to the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. The company seems like it's favoring timed exclusives over hoarding everything for Xbox and PC, so the job of this Developer Direct is a little bit different this time. Besides letting developers sell their games, the real test of the show is if it can get you excited about games that are coming to Xbox first, rather than only coming to Xbox at all. You can watch the Xbox Developer Direct showcase on YouTube, Twitch, or right here in the embed above when it starts at 1PM ET / 10AM PT.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/how-to-watch-the-latest-xbox-developer-direct-showcase-110013502.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 05:01 Canon announced that it has created a new 410-megapixel, 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor, "the largest number of pixels ever achieved" in a sensor of its size. Because of the level of detail the new sensor can capture, Canon expects it to be used by"surveillance, medicine and industry," where there's demand for "extreme resolution." With 410 megapixels, Canon's sensor has a resolution of 24K, 198 times greater than HD, and 12 times greater than 8K. That makes it simple to crop and then enlarge a photo captured by the sensor without losing detail. Typically, sky-high megapixel counts are limited to cameras with medium-format sensors. But the beauty of Canon cramming this many pixels into 35mm is that it should be able to be used "in combination with lenses for full-frame sensors." Canon had to make more than a few design changes to make this happen. The new sensor has a redesigned circuitry pattern and a "back-illuminated stacked formation" where "the pixel segment and signal processing segment are interlayered." That translates to a readout speed of 3,280 megapixels per second, and video at eight frames per second. A monochrome version of the sensor can bin four pixels together at once to shoot even brighter images and capture "100-megapixel video at 24 frames per second," Canon says. It doesn't sound like this kind of sensor is going to make it into a consumer camera anytime soon, but the fact this level of miniaturization is possible means one day it could, for the photography sickos who want it.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/canon-has-developed-a-410-megapixel-full-frame-sensor-001851969.html?src=rss

23.01.2025 05:01 Extremely OK Games has cancelled its upcoming game Earthblade. The followup to the team's beloved indie sensation Celeste was announced in 2022 and expected to release last year. Maddy Thorson announced the news on the studio's website today. "Noel and I…began to reflect on how the game has felt for us to work on day-to-day, and realized that it has been a struggle for a long time," she wrote. "Sure, working on one project for so long is bound to become a slog, but this feels like a deeper problem. Celeste's success applied pressure on us to deliver something bigger and better with Earthblade, and that pressure is a large part of why working on it has become so exhausting." The studio, led by Thorson and Noel Berry, parted ways with EXOK co-founder Pedro Medeiros in November. However, Thorson was clear in her message that the rift between team members was not the reason for cancelling Earthblade. In fact, all of the public conversation between the former colleagues thus far has remained amicable. Thorson offered firm support for Medeiros and his new game project Neverway in her post: "If you were excited about Earthblade and angry about its cancelling, Pedro and the Neverway team aren't the enemy and anyone who treats them as such isn't welcome in any EXOK community."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/extremely-ok-games-has-cancelled-its-follow-up-to-celeste-000352550.html?src=rss