The Duskbloods is a new title being developed by FromSoftware, and where it's heading has caught the attention of many. It was one of the surprise reveals during the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, shocking many who witnessed its announcement as an exclusive for the next-generation Nintendo console. Given what people were teased with via the reveal, the game seems to bring the quality one would expect from the famous developer, causing much excitement and anticipation. Since it will be on the Switch 2, there is a chance The Duskbloods will use a particular feature of the console, one that could help it attain more success than its predecessors.

The Star Wars franchise boasts a huge amount of lore since the first movie A New Hope debuted in 1977. Since then, fans have been treated to many different eras across the timeline, from video-games exploring the Old Republic, to Disney's sequel trilogy exploring the battle against the First Order. As such, countless characters have become beloved and instantly recognizable even to people who aren't necessarily fans of the franchise.

Looking for a creative new game to play? You can currently pick up the Lego board game Monkey Palace on Amazon for only $27.23 thats 32% off its typical price of $39.99. Designed for two to four players ages 10 and up, Monkey Palace has players take on the role of monkeys building a tower out of Lego bricks with the goal of earning banana points. Using a combination of different types of Lego blocks, players work together to build up the existing structure, while additional game mechanics give players opportunities to block the paths of opponents or gain rewards to boost their own ascension.Though the process of figuring out the best building strategy can be frustrating at times, the collaborative, creative elements of Monkey Palace result in an overall very rewarding experience, as expressed in our 2024 review.Theres a tangibility in Monkey Palace that supercedes even the desire of winning. Sure, we kept score and celebrated our wins as much as rued our losses, but ultimately what we enjoyed more than anything was the 3D creation at the end something organically co-created together. I suspect after several games the shapes start to feel similar, such is the case with how the system encourages a gradual slope, but we still appreciated having something that we built together. And unlike other board games, I didnt find myself immediately tearing down the board and putting everything away. In fact, our most recent game remains intact, a temporary centerpiece for our kitchen table.At less than $30, this Monkey Palace deal seems like a good opportunity to snag a game and art project all in one.

The most recent update to the extremely normal and not-at-all-weird driving simulator, Pacific Drive, adds a whole new layer of replayability. The Endless Expeditions update from developer Ironwood Studios is the largest update Pacific Drive has received since its launch last year, and delivers a brand new survival game mode in addition to a number of quality-of-life updates and a spread of new content, giving players a great reason to revisit The Zone once theyve wrapped up the story and fully souped up their Station Wagon.As the name suggests, the highlight of the new update is Expeditions. Available fairly early in the main story, this game mode presents you with a randomized map with different modifiers and rewards based on their difficulty. Many of these rewards are exclusive to Expeditions and can include rare tools or cosmetics to liven up your garage. While Expeditions let you use your Station Wagon in its current state, youll need to leave any stockpiled resources at home, scavenging as you go. While some of the Expeditions typically wouldnt be too difficult, going in with little more than the clothes on your back adds a whole new level of complexity. Unlike the main story, you can perform multiple circuits of an Expedition map in a single run, but the longer you stick around, the more unstable things get, presenting new anomalies and more dangerous modifiers. Youre only allowed to leave an Expedition once youve collected enough Anchors, and even as a seasoned Pacific Drive player, my first few expeditions sent me back to my garage with little more than a black eye to show for it.Expeditions arent the only new addition in this update though. For those particularly long treks through the zone, you finally have the option to suspend your run, saving your progress without forfeiting any of the resources you may have scavenged. Ironwood Studios has also added a number of new cosmetics to spruce up your ride and introduced 21 new tracks for you to jam out to.Between its weird, upside-down version of the Pacific Northwest and an awesome soundtrack, Pacific Drive quickly became one of my favorite roguelikes of last year, and thanks to the Endless Expeditions update, I have plenty of reasons to dive back in. If I go missing, dont come looking for me.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Garmin unveiled a subscription tier for its app last week featuring an AI that promises to provide insights on your training. I liked the companys policies around training and privacy, but hadnt seen much of the actual AI output when I wrote about it. Now, Ive spent a week with the feature, which Garmin says is still in beta. Here are my impressions.The AI insights are just one of the features that rolled out with the new $6.99/month Garmin Connect+ subscription. Some of the other add-ons look a lot more useful, like the Live Activities feature. I have a full rundown here on what you get if you pay for the upgrade. The subscription only covers new featuresnot existing app features, and not specific features that come with the watch you buy. AI insights only appear in one limited part of the appIve been poking everywhere in the Garmin Connect app, and I can only find AI insights in one place. That would be the home screen, where I get a little active intelligence paragraph right at the top, above my usual workout and health metric cards.If you dont check your Garmin Connect app frequently, youll miss out on most of the insights. They dont pop up on your watch or in notifications on your phone. Theres no chat interface like with Whoop or Oura, where you can ask questions about your data.I expected the AI to be more like Stravas, where a little description/motivational message appears on each activity you do. Stravas AI is notorious for restating the data from the run description, with added errors, though, so perhaps its best they didnt try to mimic that. Credit: Beth Skwarecki The AI "insights" arent very insightfulMy first few insights were pretty basicjust comparing my intensity minutes to a goal that I didnt realize I hadbut I figured more interesting analysis was yet to come.After a week, though, I havent seen it. The most exciting moment was when I caught the AI in a flagrant math error. You logged two activities today: running and indoor cycling for a total of one hour and twenty-seven minutes, it said. My activities were noted in their usual place, immediately below this insight, and the run was 40:10 while the bike ride was a quick test of this gadget that took less than three minutes. Thats 43 minutes, silly robot.(I'm not the only one who has encountered some bad math: Two scuba divers posted on Reddit that the AI told them they spent more than a month underwater in a single day.)The AIs obsession with intensity minutes may be to blame in my case. I cant make the math work out for this example, but in some other cases, the AI seemed to be adding up intensity minutes and not always including the word intensity. (One minute of vigorous exercise counts for two intensity minutes, an idea that comes from public health exercise guidelines.)Otherwise, the messages were just basic summaries of data that was already viewable elsewhere in the app. I did my best to screenshot every insight I saw, and heres the tally of topics:5 messages about intensity minutes, either comparing them to my goal or weekly or daily averages3 messages about my stress level or sleep stress, a metric Id never heard of and still cant figure out what it means2 messages about my Body Battery (a number that goes up with sleep and down with exercise or stress)2 messages about steps2 messages about run activities (with my mileage, pace, and/or time)2 messages about bike activities (with my time, heart rate, cadence, and/or power)1 message about my training status being in recoveryAfter a sentence or two with the metrics its describing, there would be a sentence generically encouraging me to keep up the good work. I could give feedback as to whether the insight was interesting or not, but there was no way to ask questions or get more information. I still dont know what sleep stress is, or how to get a quick overview of my intensity minutes if I did want to keep track of them.It doesnt seem like anyone is enjoying the AI featureIm always the wet blanket on AI hype, so I checked Reddit and Garmin forums to see if anybody is having a better time with it than I am. I couldnt find anyone who admitted to liking Active Intelligence or gleaning any useful insights from it.There is so much that could be done with AI and training software, but all Garmin does is using AI to simply rephrase existing data, a Garmin forum user said. Seems like 'Active Intelligence' is basically just the most basic summary of your workouts possible, said a redditor, adding, I was really hoping that it would be an actual chatbot that you could discuss training with etc to create plans.Other redditors wondered why the AI doesnt create or adjust training plans, possibly even analyzing users data to find which workouts tend to correlate with fitness increases. Garmin hasnt publicly said what future plans they have for AI, just that the feature is currently in beta.I received messages from AI throughout the day and I can say that they have no practical or informational benefit for me, one redditor said. Im afraid I have to agree.

Like the first few months of the year, April is a relatively quiet month for sky watching, but it does bring one of the oldest meteor showers and a micromoon. April 13: Pink MoonApril's full moon is known as the Pink Moon, so named for the color of ground phlox, a wildflower that blooms during the monththough the moon itself doesn't actually appear pink in the sky. The Pink Moon is also a micromoon, meaning it occurs at that furthest point from Earth. The opposite of a supermoon, it will look about 5% smaller in diameter than usual. April 21: Lyrid meteor shower peakThe main event in April is the Lyrid meteor shower. It starts mid-month (around April 17) and will peak late on the evening of April 21 and into the early morning hours of April 22. The Lyrids are the result of debris from the Comet Thatcher, which was first observed in 1861. Typically, viewers can expect to see around 18 meteors per hour, though the shower can bring up to 100, according to NASA. This year, the moon will be about 40% full, which may interfere with visibility. The Lyrids are best seen in the Northern Hemisphere after the moon sets but before dawnand as always, areas with minimal light pollution are best for viewing. Planetary events in AprilMars, Jupiter, and Uranus will be visible in the evening sky in April; Saturn, Mercury, Venus, and Neptune will appear in the morning. The timing and placement varies slightly between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The best Mercury viewing of the year will be possible on April 21, according to Starwalk, especially for those in the Southern hemisphere. And on April 25, the crescent moon will align with Venus and Saturn just before sunrise to create a triangle that looks like a smile.

The original Switch started a revolution when it combined the portability of handhelds with the ability to play games on your TV at home like a traditional console. But with the Nintendo Switch 2, even though it's physically bigger, it feels like a sleeker, faster and more refined take on its predecessor to the point that Nintendo should have called it the Super Switch (which apparently almost happened). And after getting a chance to try it out, I'm sold on its abilities, even with its significantly higher starting price of $450. Editor's note: This hands-on focuses on our writer's experience with the new Nintendo Switch 2, covering the hardware, playing experience and changes from the original model. If you're looking for more info on Sam's impressions of individual games, start with his hands-on with Mario Kart World, which he calls a "perfect launch game for the Switch 2." Design and display: No OLED, no problem The Switch 2 has the same basic shape and layout as the original, including its signature detachable Joy-Con. But it looks more polished all around, thanks to tapered edges and slimmer bezels. Nintendo also increased the size of its joystick caps and the face buttons on the left controller, though the latter still doesn't feel quite like a traditional D-pad. Sam Rutherford for Engadget That said, the biggest upgrade is its larger 7.9-inch 1080p LCD display, which now supports a 120Hz refresh rate with VRR and high dynamic range. Frankly, it's super bright and very colorful to the point where I don't really miss having an OLED screen. Now there's a fair bit of grumbling that Nintendo, despite the existence of the OLED Switch, didn't opt for a similar panel type on the Switch 2. But if you remember, that model didn't support HDR, so it's not like we're looking at a downgrade in display quality, though the super deep blacks you get from OLED screens would have been nice. Also, the Switch 2 feels like it defies its dimensions because even though its display is larger than the 6.2-inch version on the base Switch, it doesn't feel that much bigger. It's only half an inch taller (4.5 inches) and a little over an inch wider (9.4 vs 10.7 inches). And while its weight has also increased to 1.18 pounds with its Joy-Con attached (up from 0.88 pounds), it never felt too heavy. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Elsewhere, there are a ton of quality-of-life upgrades, including a second USB-C port (though the one on the bottom is the only one that can do video out), a built-in mic and support for microSD Express cards. That last one is a big deal, because even though the cards are more expensive, they're also significantly faster than your standard fare and they should be a major boon to download speeds and load times. I admit the lack of analog shoulder buttons is a small downer, though Nintendo says it made that choice because analog buttons would introduce a tiny bit of input lag and it wanted to go with the more responsive solution. Joy-Con features: Expanded detachables During its livestream, Nintendo spent a lot of time talking about the C button on the right Joy-Con, which feels like a first-party solution that looks to recreate everything people like about Discord. But at Nintendo's hands-on experience, there weren't any chances to test out the console's new social features, so I wasn't able to dive deeper into that. Sam Rutherford for Engadget That's ok, though, because I think the Joy-Con's new magnetic mounting system is the hidden star. Not only is there a larger button around back for popping them off, they now detach simply when you pull them left or right. There's no need to slide anything up or down first. Granted, this sounds like a small change, but it makes the whole process so much simpler and the Joy-con seem to be more securely attached as well. Then there's the Joy-Con's ability to function as a mouse (for both the left and right controllers). I thought it was pretty gimmicky, until I played Metroid Prime 4: Beyondwhere I suddenly found myself favoring the mouse mode over standard gamepad controls. Everything feels a bit more precise and if you're a fan of shooters on PC, it's definitely worth trying out. The obvious limitation is that while you can use the Joy-Con on your leg, you really ought to have some sort of flat surface like a table, which may not be an option if your favorite place to game is on the couch. Performance: Nintendo's move to next-gen tech Sam Rutherford for Engadget Nintendo has kept relatively quiet regarding the Switch 2's processor and memory. But the company has said the system does support DLSS and hardware-based ray tracing. Now those features might not get used in every game, but it does seem to make it way easier for third-party developers to port their titles over to the company's upcoming console. When I played the new Switch 2 versions of Street Fighter 6, Cyberpunk 2077 and Civilization 7, they all ran really smooth. And without doing a straight-up side-by-side comparison next to a proper gaming PC, it was really hard to tell if the Switch 2 was cutting corners graphically, if it was even doing it at all. The only hiccup I noticed was rather long loading times in Civ, which isn't exactly uncommon for a Sid Meier game. The flipside to this is if you told me that some of Nintendo's new first-party games like Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World were actually being run on an original Switch, I wouldn't have blinked. In some ways, Nintendo's ability to wring every last bit of performance out of its hardware and its habit of eschewing hyperrealism in favor of more stylized graphics has almost put a ceiling on the company's ability to really show off its chops. But when you pay attention, you'll really appreciate how delightfully satiny Mario Kart looks when it's running at 120 fps. I still have questions about what's going on inside the Switch 2's new dock and how it's leveraging its increased performance to deliver 4K resolutions when connected to a TV. I also think it's a travesty that Nintendo is charging money for the Switch 2 Welcome Tour. It's barely a game, but it is a genuinely useful way to introduce the console's features to new owners and it really should be pre-installed on every system for free. It also remains to be seen how the Switch 2's battery life holds up. Nintendo says it has a larger power pack than the original Switch, but it also has increased performance and a larger screen, while the company claims runtimes may vary between two and six and half hours depending on the title. But all told, the Switch 2 is exactly what you want from a successor to Nintendo's legendary hybrid console. Aside from the price, that is, because in addition to the console starting at $450, almost all of its standard accessories cost more than before, too. From the Pro Controller, which now goes for $80 ($10 more than for the original Switch) or additional pairs of Joy-Con that cost $90 (another $10 hike). And that's before you factor in the cost of games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza that start at $80 and $70 as digital downloads (or $90 and $80 if you want physical carts). Update, April 3 2025, 12:35PM ET: This story has been updated to include an Editor's Note pointing out where readers can find our hands-on impressions of Mario Kart World. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/switch-2-hands-on-i-think-nintendos-new-console-is-worth-the-450-130819785.html?src=rss

TikTok will reportedly face a fine of over 500 million ($553 million) for transferring Europeans' private data to China. Bloomberg said on Thursday that Ireland's data protection commission, which regulates TikTok owner ByteDance's EU operations, could dish out the penalty before the end of April.The fine results from a four-year investigation of TikTok's data handling practices. The probe reportedly concluded that ByteDance broke Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws by transferring private user data to China to be accessed by engineers. The country is known for its widespread, high-tech surveillance."TikTok tells us that EU data is transferred to the U.S. and not to China, however we have understood that there is possibility that maintenance and AI engineers in China may be accessing data," former Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said in March 2021 when the probe began.Ireland is taking the lead because, under the GDPR, the country where a company's European operations are located oversees compliance and enforcement. ByteDance's European headquarters are in Dublin. Bloomberg says the decision date and amount of the fine aren't yet finalized and could still change.Of course, this isn't even ByteDance's biggest drama unfolding this week. The fate of TikTok's US operations hangs in the balance as it approaches an April 5 deadline to find a buyer or face a ban in America. The list of likely outcomes ranges from finding a buyer (Amazon has even thrown its hat in the ring) to its US investors rolling over their stakes into a new independent global company or the deadline passing with another deadline extension.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/tiktok-reportedly-faces-a-%E2%82%AC500-million-fine-for-sending-private-user-data-to-china-162214079.html?src=rss

A new Apple patent reveals technology that can identify exercises and count reps during workouts using a camera.

Apple has now replied to Tuta's request, meaning it's set to be enabled as one of the default email apps in iOS. Here's all you need to know.