Новости за 29.06.2022

Pokémon Go developer Niantic is laying off eight percent of its workforce, which is said to be around 85-90 jobs. The augmented reality game company has also canceled four projects. CEO John Hanke reportedly wrote in an email to employees that Niantic was “facing a time of economic turmoil” and had to “further streamline our operations in order to best position the company" to weather any future economic turmoil.

Formula E’s Gen3 all-electric car will make its race debut on January 14th, 2023 in Mexico City. The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) announced the date on Wednesday and shared the preliminary schedule for Formula E’s upcoming ninth season.

Google is making it easier for new Android users to transfer their data from an old iPhone. As of today, the company’s Switch to Android app on iOS will work with all Android 12 devices. Previously only compatible with Pixel phones, the software is useful if you're about to move from iOS to Android.

Publisher No More Robots has announced that the next game from Crossy Road creator Andy Sum will be released on Steam on July 20th. While Crossy Road is a hit arcade-style title in the vein of Frogger, TombStar takes its cue from bullet hell roguelikes, such as Enter the Gungeon and The Binding of Isaac.

Sony has revealed the three games that all PlayStation Plus subscribers can snap up in July. They are Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Man of Medan and Arcadegeddon — a notable leaker once again got all three games spot on.

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was a pleasant surprise. A charming game that married Nintendo’s Mushroom Kingdom with the chaos of Ubisoft’s Rabbid mascots and crammed it into a game that was, well, pretty much a cartoon interpretation of the tactical strategy series XCOM.

With Atari turning 50 this year, the brand’s current owner plans to celebrate with a collection that brings together five decades of games. Announced today, the aptly named Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration will include more than 90 titles spanning the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, ST, Jaguar and Lynx. What’s more, Atari hired Digital Eclipse, a studio that’s best known for its work on The Disney Afternoon Collection and the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, to oversee the project.

It's a busy spell for Blizzard, with Diablo Immortal, Overwatch 2 and mobile game Warcraft Arclight Rumble all arriving this year. The studio has another major release lined up in the form of World of Warcraft expansion Dragonflight, which is expected to arrive by the end of 2022. To help get WoW expansions out on time and ensure they meet the bar in terms of quality, Blizzard bought Spellbreak studio Proletariat to bolster its ranks of developers, as GamesBeat reports.

Amazon has pulled another solid deal out of its hat ahead of Prime Day. Prime members can now snag a bundle of the Echo Show 5 and Ring Video Doorbell for $85. You'd essentially be getting the smart doorbell for free, as Echo Show 5 typically costs the same price. The Ring Doorbell normally costs $100 by itself. The standard price of the bundle is $150, which is already $35 less than the products cost separately.

Since the Supreme Court’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked, influencers, activists and privacy advocates have urged users to delete period-tracking apps from their devices and remove their information from associated services. With abortion now outlawed in several states, data from such apps could be used in criminal investigations against abortion seekers, and a missed period — or even simply an unlogged one — could be used as evidence of a crime.

Snap is launching an optional subscription service offering "exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features," it announced. The $4 a month service is aimed at "passionate" snapchat users and launching this week in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

If you missed Solo Stove's Memorial Day sale, you have another chance to pick up one of the fire pits for less ahead of the July 4th holiday. Solo Stove has knocked up to 45 percent off fire pits again, so you can grab the Ranger for $200, the Bonfire for $220 and the Yukon for $400. These are some of the best prices we've seen on Solo Stove's devices, and if you want to get all of the things you'll need to use the fire pit in your backyard, a number of bundles have also been discounted, too.

Hyundai has revealed the design for Ioniq 6, its upcoming electric vehicle that was inspired by the Prophecy concept EV it showed off in 2020. It retains the Prophecy's futuristic elements without looking like it was a prop made for a sci-fi movie, with its aerodynamic profile and clean lines. Hyundai says the vehicle will have an ultra-low drag coefficient of 0.21 — most modern cars have an average drag coefficient of 0.25 or 0.3 — thanks to its low nose and active air flaps, among other elements. Читать дальше...

We're fast approaching Prime Day, one of the biggest online shopping events of the year, but Amazon isn't waiting to slash the prices of some of its own products. The company has discounted several Eero 6 routers exclusively for Prime members. The standard Eero 6, for instance, is down from $89 to $71 for Prime members. That matches the lowest price we've seen to date.

Mozilla's latest Firefox browser release has a new feature that prevents sites like Facebook from tracking you across websites, Bleeping Computer has reported. Called Query Parameter Stripping, it automatically removes strings of characters added to the end of an URL that allow Facebook, Hubspot, Olytics and other companies to track your clicks and serve targeted ads.

Google’s Gmail has generally rigorous spam filters, but they can sometimes be too rigorous. Google is working on a way to ensure emails from US political campaigns reach users' inboxes instead of automatically getting tagged as spam.

Bowers & Wilkins first introduced the Px7 noise-canceling headphones in 2019, effectively replacing the PX in its personal audio line. Now the British company that's perhaps best know for its high-end home speakers has returned with a new version of the over-ear model. With the Px7 S2, Bowers & Wilkins has completely overhauled the Px7, from the design to the sound and the active noise cancellation (ANC). What's more, the company offers all of the upgrades with the same $399 price tag. 

Facebook has been inconsistently enforcing its rule against buying or selling tobacco, marijuana, as well as medical and non-medical drugs in relation to abortion pills. Motherboard recently reported that the website has been flagging posts saying "abortion can be mailed" and has even been temporarily restricting some accounts. Engadget was able to independently verify the information. As social media companies start dealing with content related to the outcome of the Roe v. Wade ruling last week... Читать дальше...

Nikon has unveiled the 20.9-megapixel APS-C Z30, its smallest and lightest Z-series camera yet. Designed for vloggers and creators, it offers a flip-out display, 4K 30p video and a long 125-minute video record time when plugged in — but lacks an electronic viewfinder. 

"TikTok is not just another video app. That's the sheep’s clothing." That's what Brendan Carr wrote in his tweet along with a copy of the letter he sent Apple and Google, asking the companies to remove TikTok from their app stores. The agency's senior Republican commissioner references a recent BuzzFeed News report that examined leaked audio from 80 internal TikTok meetings. Based on those leaked audio recordings, China-based employees of TikTok parent company ByteDance had repeatedly accessed private information on users in the US. Читать дальше...

Amazon is limiting sales of Plan B and other emergency contraceptives to three units per customer in the wake of increased demand, the company confirmed to several media outlets. Last week’s US Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade prompted a spike in sales of Plan B and other generic brands of levonorgestrel morning-after pills. 

Tesla has reportedly laid off approximately 200 workers from its Autopilot team and closed an office in California. According to Bloomberg, the company notified staff of the move on Tuesday. Many of the affected employees were annotation specialists whose jobs involved evaluating and labeling Autopilot data obtained from customers. Along with the layoffs, Tesla closed its San Mateo location; Bloomberg reports what remained of the 350-person team was transferred to another nearby office.

After a massive $625 million hack, the cryptocurrency pay-to-earn game Axie Infinity is once again open for business. The hack took advantage of flaws in the Ronin network, an Ethereum sidechain the game's owner, Sky Mavis, propped up to facilitate faster transactions. Surprisingly, the news today is that Axie Infinity will... continue to use Ronin, which has been revived after a few audits. In a blog post, the company described a new “circuit-breaker” system designed to flag “large, suspicious... Читать дальше...

Sony has announced the launch of Inzone, a new brand of PC gaming displays and headsets. They'll be coming out of the company's Electronics division (not to be confused with its Interactive Entertainment unit) and its flagship product will be the Inzone M9, a 27-inch 4K monitor. The M9 boasts an IPS panel with full-array local dimming, a 144Hz refresh rate and a claimed 1-millisecond gray to gray response time.

I've always wondered why aside from a handful of peripherals like the Pulse 3D headset and that weird 3D display, Sony never really tried to expand the PlayStation brand outside of consoles. And while you won’t find any PS logos on its new line of headsets and monitors, with Inzone it really feels like Sony is finally bringing its wider tech expertise to gaming.