Advertisement

The Morning After: Monday, September 25th 2017

Eat up.

Hey, good morning!

Over the weekend, you might have missed Nintendo's attempt to refresh its first major smartphone game, Super Mario Run, and the smart planner by Moleskine that requires a little too much mental investment.


Even after it's set up, the app probably won't recognize your chicken scratch. Moleskine's smart planner requires too much effort to use

Moleskine's latest product is a smart planner that builds on its existing connected writing set by letting you jot down appointments and have those meetings show up in your online calendar. But, as Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low found out after a few days of testing, the effort required to get the system up and running ultimately isn't worth it.


Self-aware algorithms and flexible joints help them move more like humans.
Robots learn to walk naturally by understanding their bodies

The challenge with bipedal robots isn't so much getting them to walk at all, as it is getting them to walk naturally. They tend to either step cautiously or quickly run into trouble. Swiss researchers think they can do better, though: They're working on COMAN (Compliant Humanoid), a headless robot designed to master walking. The automaton is more graceful through a combination of more flexible, elastic joints and a control algorithm that helps the bot understand its own body.


What? You already deleted it?
'Super Mario Run' update will try to breath life into Nintendo's mobile plans

Nintendo is about to spark a bit of life into its signature mobile game. It's releasing an update on September 29th that will add a new world (World Star) with new gameplay elements, and a Remix 10 game mode that randomizes parts of levels for a fast, perpetually fresh experience. You can also listen to your own music while you play, if you're finally tiring of the usual Super Mario themes. And if you haven't bought into it yet, Nintendo will half the game's price between September 29th and October 12th.

But wait, there's more...