A reimagined version of Mattel Electronics’ Intellivision is scheduled to be released this fall. To help put the finishing touches on the Amico game console, Intellivision Entertainment — a separate entity than Mattel that owns the Intellivision brand — has hired J. Allard as the company’s global managing director. Allard is one of the fathers of Microsoft’s Xbox division, having served as chief experience officer and chief technology officer. He helped launch the original Xbox, Xbox Live, the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade. (He also headed up Microsoft’s failed Zune business.) Intellivision is hoping that the exec’s success carries over to its family-friendly console.
It’s not clear which aspects of the console Allard will be helping to improve, but his industry knowledge could be a benefit. The upcoming Intellivision Amico is designed to provide simple and family-friendly entertainment. It comes with two wireless controllers with built-in touchscreens and motion tracking, and includes six simple games pre-loaded. More games can be purchased separately and will cost between $3 and $10. It’s scheduled to be out in October for $250 and is currently available for preorder.
As expected, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 is the Epic Games Store’s latest free game. Starting today through to May 21st, you can download the 2013 open-world game for without paying anything — provided you’re willing to install the Epic Games Store launcher on your PC or Mac, of course.
Once you’ve claimed your copy of GTA 5, you’ll also want to check out the rest of the store. That’s because a lot of the games that are available through the Epic Games Store, including many of its exclusives, are on sale until June 11th. You can get up to 50 percent off games like Control, Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Outer Worlds. Additionally, Epic is giving everyone a free coupon. You can use it to get a $10 discount on games that cost $14 or more. If you end up using the coupon, you’ll get another one when you complete a purchase.
While this isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen the XPS 13 sell for, $117 off one of the best laptops you can buy at the moment is nothing to scoff at either. That said, keep in mind that what’s on sale here is the 2019 XPS 13, not the new 2020 model. The newer version features smaller display bezels and a bigger, more comfortable keyboard.
Since 2015, the XPS 13 has been one of our favorite laptops. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar gave the 2019 model a score of 93. He particularly liked the fact Dell redesigned the computer to move its web camera above the screen. His one chief complaint with the XPS 13 is that it comes with a microSD slot instead of a full-sized one. That’s an issue Dell didn’t address with the new 2020 model. The XPS 13’s closest competitor is the 13-inch HP Spectre x360. Together, they’re two of the best ultraportables you can buy, but we tend to prefer the more understated design of the XPS 13.
If the XPS 13 doesn’t do it for you, give the rest of Dell’s website a look; the company has discounted a lot of its laptops and monitors as part of the same sale.
There’s no question that losing your job is incredibly stressful, and since the COVID-19 pandemic began, millions of people in the US have been laid off or furloughed. In an attempt to ease some of the stress that causes, the mindfulness app Headspace is offering a free one-year subscription to anyone in the US who is now unemployed.
Anyone who qualifies can register at Headspace.com/unemployed. Headspace asks for the name of your most recent employer and your last date of employment, but it’s unclear if they do any cross checking or if this is an honor system. Once you sign up, you’ll get access to over 1,200 hours of meditation and mindfulness content, including sleep aids, kids content and mindful movement.
The partners are encouraging users to, for instance, take a virtual wine class together, visit an Amsterdam jazz club, join a tarot reading, learn about coffee from a professional taster in Colombia and more. Of course, since these are public experiences, other people may join your date, but you can request private bookings.
To celebrate this new offering, Bumble is sponsoring a contest where 100 Bumble users will be selected to go on virtual first dates through Airbnb’s online experiences. New and existing Bumble users can sign up through the app until May 28th.
The collaboration feels a bit desperate, but given the state of the world, it’s not surprising that Airbnb and Bumble are working together to remain useful. And at the very least, this might give users something to talk about, other than how they’ve been handling quarantine.
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has finished excavating the second of two tunnels planned for the Las Vegas Convention Center’s underground loop transit system, according to The Verge. The city’s Convention Center (the LVCC) enlisted the company last year to develop the mile-long system, which could cost up to $52.5 million and is slated for completion in January 2021. It’ll be the Boring Company’s first foray into commercial transit.
The project — officially called the Convention Center Loop — will ferry people around underneath the venue via Tesla’s autonomous electric vehicles. It’s designed to move more than 4,000 people per hour across the facility, turning what is at least a 15-minute walk into a quick hop of less than two minutes. A future expansion linking the Strip, McCarran International Airport and Las Vegas Stadium is also on the cards, although a roadmap for that is yet to be announced.
A lot of people are excited about the new Xbox and the new PlayStation. Both are set to arrive later this year, with fantastical graphic fidelity, minimal load times and all kinds of hardware specs.
Then, last week, Microsoft revealed 13 third-party games heading to the Xbox Series X during the console’s launch window this fall. It also gave us a glimpse at ninth-generation console gaming, which left me a little cold. Maybe it’s because Microsoft is going to stretch out the teasers for the Series X across multiple livestreams and videos. Maybe it’s because stream quality is temperamental, and it’s hard to hit those crisp 4K visuals on even decent internet speeds.
I think the main issue is a lot of these games (Assassin’s Creed, Yakuza 7, to start with) will be on other platforms — including the rival PlayStation. A lot of the other teasers left me with more questions than answers and didn’t make me marvel at the future of gaming. (I might have to wait till July, when Microsoft plans to showcase Xbox Game Studios titles and hopefully a closer look at Halo Infinite.)
Why am I complaining about last week’s Xbox news on a Thursday? Well, it’s because a game engine gave me goosebumps yesterday.
Epic’s Unreal engine has powered an awful lot of games over the last few console generations — and Unreal Engine 5 is pitching itself as a tool for making immersive games even if you’re not a multi-million dollar studio. And if you are, hey, it’s a shortcut. Hopefully, this lays the groundwork for new unique games that’ll sell us all on getting a new console.
— Mat
Epic Games teases its new, nearly photorealistic Unreal Engine 5
It’s approaching movie-quality CG.
Epic
If you needed something to hold on to ahead of next-gen consoles actually getting here, Epic is happy to oblige. It’s released an early showreel of the Unreal 5 engine, showcasing its new Nanite system (in charge of generating tiny polygon geometry to add detail) and Lumen, which is a dynamic lighting system that can transform how scenes look on the fly.
Both will address two major factors in game development: money and time. UE5 should help small teams get a level of graphical fidelity closer to those of major gaming companies. But we will have to wait for it. Unreal Engine 5 will be first available to preview early in 2021 with full access expected by the end of that year.
And it wouldn’t be an Epic news event without something to do with Fortnite — yes, it’s behind that, too. The battle royale title will be a launch title for both the PS5 and Xbox Series X. The company plans to migrate Fortnite to the Unreal Engine 5 in mid-2021, which should enhance the game’s visuals (big time) and greatly expand its capabilities. Continue reading.
Sony’s new image sensors will make cameras smarter with onboard AI
Promising privacy and intelligence.
Sony
Meet the IMX500 and IMX501, two 12.3-megapixel sensors with onboard AI processing chips. They’ll be able to handle “light” machine learning tasks — like recognizing if a stray dog or cat enters your backyard — on their own, without sending any video to the cloud or another system. Instead, they can deliver anonymous metadata pings to alert you about what they’ve seen. Continue reading.
Dell’s modern design comes to the XPS 15 and revived XPS 17
Tiny bezels help make these big laptops smaller than the competition.
Dell’s XPS line has always been at the front of eliminating bezels. The 13-inch models recently expanded their screens to wipe out plastic along the bottom, and now the design language has reached larger models. That includes a redesigned 15-inch model with the new look, as well as a back-from-the-dead 17-inch version.
Additionally, thanks to the new design, Dell is pitching these as the “smallest” 15- and 17-inch laptops you’ll find anywhere. It turns out that not only does the screen give you more to look at with a 16:10 aspect ratio, it also shrinks the frame so they’re a little easier to carry around or slide into a bag. Naturally, they have 10th-gen Intel Core CPUs inside, as well as NVIDIA GTX 1650 Ti GPUs in the 15-incher and up to RTX 2060 GPUs in the 17-inch. Continue reading.
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Engadget’s Guide to Health and Fitness Tech: The best GPS running watches
Something for casual runners, marathoners and everyone in between.
Brett Putman for Engadget
As the weather turns nicer and many of us venture outside for the first time in months, runners will be out in full force (if they haven’t been already). If you’re a newbie runner or a seasoned athlete, you may be considering investing in a GPS running watch to map training routes, collect pace data and more. But there are a plethora of options out there, not to mention the many smartwatches that have built-in GPS — how do you choose? Engadget tested out numerous GPS running watches and highlighted the best of the bunch to make your decision a little bit easier. Continue reading.
Houseparty has become more popular than ever these past few months after serving as a way for people sheltering at home to go on group video chats. Now, it’s taking the chance to expand its services by hosting a 3-day online festival meant to encourage you to co-watch live videos with friends. According to TechCrunch, the event running from May 15th through the 17th is the first in a series of experiences called “In the House.”
It will feature celebrities singing, dancing, cooking and even working out. The lineup for this weekend includes Alicia Keys, Katy Perry, John Legend, Snoop Dogg, Dua Lipa, Zooey Deschanel, Neil Patrick Harris and Terry Crews. Houseparty’s new video player makes it possible to watch the event with friends, since it plays videos on your screen without covering other people’s faces. So, you’re actually watching videos with them and not just watching while in a group text chat.
A group of cybercriminals is demanding a $21 million ransom from a New York-based law firm representing megastars like Lady Gaga, Madonna and Elton John, according to The New York Post. The infiltrators, which are believed to be part of a group called REvil or Sodinokibi, claim to have stolen 756 gigabytes of data from Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks’ computers. They also claim that the data cache includes contracts, personal correspondence, phone numbers and email addresses.
Variety says the group already attempted to share a one-gigabyte collection of documents on Mega, but the file—sharing service took down the account. They also apparently released a screenshot of Madonna’s contract. A source told the Post that the hackers got in “while everyone was focused on the coronavirus.” The firm, which is reportedly not negotiating with the group, said in a statement:
In terms of design, the new A1 is slimmer and lighter than its predecessor with a redesigned grille pattern up top. B&O moved the on-board controls close to the leather strap and relabeled them for better clarity. The company also repositioned the LED indicator up top so you can see it from more angles. There’s also a new three-microphone array to better pick up your voice, which B&O says makes the A1 more suitable for use as a speakerphone.
The first A1 sounded great for its size, but B&O says it improved the sound quality for the 2nd-gen model. To further enhance the 360-degree audio, the company opted for a new 3.5-inch woofer, 0.75-inch dome tweeter and a pair of 30-watt amplifiers with DSP filtering. The new A1 also supports aptX to further expand its audio chops.
B&O increased the battery life to 18 hours “at typical volume,” which the company says is around 70dB. That’s up from four hours on the first-gen unit. If you decrease to “moderate volume,” or around 55dB, you should be able to eke out up to 48 hours of playtime. That’s up from 24 hours on the previous version. In case you’re wondering, the company says that three-hour window the speaker is still listening for you to summon Alexa won’t drain the battery prematurely. All of that listening time will be nice when you take the A1 outside, which you can do so worry-free since the 2nd-gen model is IP67 rated against water and dust. B&O says the new A1 can withstand water up to one meter (three feet) deep for 30 minutes, and it won’t be harmed by exposure to sand or dirt.
The 2nd-gen Beosound A1 is available now in black and grey color options from B&O and select retailers. Surprisingly, the company managed to pack in all of those upgrades without increasing the price, which remains $250 (£200/250 €).
