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Why I’m reviewing 'Hogwarts Legacy'
In the lead-up to our review of Hogwarts Legacy, senior reporter Jessica Conditt discusses the controversy surrounding the game.
Elon Musk's humanoid robot is just another Tesla publicity stunt
It took Boston Dynamics nearly three decades to engineer their bipedal robots, Tesla thinks it can do the same in less than a year.
It doesn’t matter what the PS5 looks like
The PlayStation 5 is an unattractive piece of tech. Next to the clean, utilitarian and purportedly more powerful Xbox Series X, it's not a great look for Sony.
Is the NookPhone good or bad for your Animal Crossing island?
No, you're not hallucinating and this isn't a late April Fool's joke. That is in fact, the NookPhone from Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the top of this post. It's safe to say that the game has really taken off in the two weeks since its release. It's the perfect salve for our troubled era, and a great way to kill time when you're stuck at home.
The surveillance profiteers of COVID-19 are here
Our worlds are so upside-down and backwards right now that Wired claims Surveillance Could Save Lives Amid a Public Health Crisis, and privacy activist Maciej Cegłowski flat-out stated We Need A Massive Surveillance Program.
'Picard' finally shows us how Star Trek’s technology evolves
This article contains spoilers for the first season of 'Star Trek: Picard' up to episode nine. Star Trek: Picard is the show I've been looking forward to for 17 years. Not because I was particularly interested in finding out what happened to Picard, Troi, Riker and the rest. (But don't get me wrong, it's nice to check in with old friends.) Instead, it's because we finally get to see what happens next in the Star Trek universe. We finally get to see it grow, both ideologically and technologically.
How Engadget staffers are finding solace during the coronavirus crisis
Reality as we know it is very different now than it was just a few weeks ago. The coronavirus pandemic has forced all of us to stay inside, practice social distancing and find ways to cope with this newfound uncertainty. While Engadget staffers work from home to keep you up-to-date on the latest news, we, too, have come up with methods of dealing with this madness. We wanted to share them with you in the hopes that maybe some of these things can help keep you happy, healthy, and sane too. And let us know in the comments what you've been doing to stave off cabin fever. Home workouts and sweatpants I already lead a pretty isolated life. For the past year-plus, I have been working from home and living in a quiet town in Maine. Because the winter is especially cold and dark here, I've left the house even less in the past few months. Just when I could see the spring light at the end of the winter tunnel, we entered this new reality of social distancing. While I am not happy about it, I do feel well-prepared given my WFH experience.
Why streaming isn’t the savior of canceled film festivals
The cancellation of the SXSW festival came as a major blow to the film industry, bringing with it the postponement of 99 world premieres. To cut down on the spread of coronavirus, other film festivals soon followed suit. All this has led to a flurry of Twitter users suggesting film festivals should pivot to streaming. That isn't the easy answer viral tweets would have you believe. Still, there's a way it might work. Focusing on SXSW, there have been suggestions that film critics could create a DIY streaming festival by sharing the logins and passwords we are given to screen select films from home. Beyond being a breach of professional etiquette, sharing screening links could easily be shut down by the filmmakers and PR reps who oversee them. A password change or a pulled upload is all it'd take to cut a title from this proposed lineup.
Is the Pixel 3a your ideal budget phone?
As much as we loved the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, we were let down by their hardware, especially given how much they cost. Which is why the Pixel 3a and 3a XL were such a breath of fresh air: They offered the same great software features and excellent camera, but at half the price. They even had bigger batteries and a headphone jack!
We need to talk about sex, tech and COVID-19
For the horny and lonely, sex and dating continues during the coronavirus pandemic. While Big Tech sticks its head in the sand, forcing its users to adapt, the sex industry leverages tech to show us how to play safe.
My favorite PlayStation 2 game was DVDs
The PlayStation 2 was the first game console I ever bought. Heck, it was the first big ticket item I ever bought, period. That was a big deal at a time when I was only making $135 a week, and most of that cash was going toward college costs: tuition, textbooks and transportation. So I had to save up for months, while also finding a way to justify the high cost to myself (and my skeptical mother). The PS2 had one trump card in its deck, one thing that I could point at and say, "Look, it's not just a game machine, I didn't waste my money on such a single-use luxury!" It could play DVDs. It was in fact, my first DVD player.
Coronavirus bursts Big Tech’s bubble
Virus enthusiasts from all over the world converged in San Francisco this week for America's largest security event: RSA Conference 2020. Before it began, fourteen companies withdrew from RSAC over concerns about the impending Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. On opening day, organizers sent a message through the conference app asking attendees to stop greeting each other with handshakes.
It doesn’t matter if China hacked Equifax
On Monday the FBI and AG Barr announced "an indictment last week charging four members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) with hacking into the computer systems of the credit reporting agency Equifax and stealing Americans' personal data and Equifax's valuable trade secrets." China's military refutes the charges.
Why are we obsessed with Instagram's ‘What are you?’ filters?
We're barely one month into 2020, and one social media trend has truly taken the definition of 'viral' and rammed it down our collective throat: Instagram's "What X are you?" story filters.
Phishing scams leveled up, and we didn’t
More than a bit of "I'm smarter than you" politics creates the divide between hacking headlines and what we actually need to worry about. On one side, researchers present findings at conferences hoping someone will raise the alarm and practical things will get done before things get worse. On the other, we have Jeff Bezos and his iPhone.
Your online activity is now effectively a social ‘credit score’
Kaylen Ward's Twitter fundraiser for the Australian bushfire relief has ended. The Los Angeles-based model said she raised $1 million (by comparison Jeff Bezos donated $690,000). At the start of Ms. Ward's successful donation drive she had three Instagram accounts — none of which were part of the campaign.
Six ways to 'win' at CES
With more than 4,000 exhibitors, if you want attention at CES 2020, you have to work for it -- or at least give the herds of media, analysts and attendees something for paying a visit. This year, it was an unusual mix of approaches that won the crowds and the headlines here in Las Vegas. Whether you're in charge of a multinational tech company, a startup or a research group, here's how to grab all the headlines and hype at the Consumer Electronics Show.
How home assistants ruined us, an explanation
Our situation became clear when my friend ran through Trader Joe's screaming "ALEXA WHAT TIME IS IT?" This wasn't a cringey mockumentary comedy segment. It's the way we live now. I'm certain San Francisco's sea of terrified Postmates and Prime delivery runners parted for her, trampling an Instacart personal shopper already wallowing in the misfortune of crawling along the baked goods aisle, feeling blindly under tortillas for lost earbuds. Everyone wondering if they should yell at Google or Siri to call 911. Several cameras are trained on everyone, of course, to memorialize and broadcast these special moments forever.
The tech CEOs' year of reckoning
It wasn't so long ago that tech CEOs and their wares were changing the world. In fact, we heard that quite often: This or that "innovation" will make the planet a better place. Silicon Valley was clearly getting high on its own supply as it ramped up the hype that the earth was a wasteland until the titans of tech had graced us with an easier way to post a filtered photo or share our thoughts on the finale of Lost.
To all the books we hit this year
Hitting the Books has been running for nearly two years now, so first off, thank you all so very much for continuing to read along. 2019 has seen some solid science and technology nonfiction titles. Unsurprisingly, one of the most popular excerpts this year ran on 4/20 yet, oddly, nobody seemed interested in slinging cats through interstellar space. Just look how cute he is, his spacesuit has footpads and everything.
