Category: GADGET

Nintendo has shuttered another emulator, this time putting an end to Ryujinx. The program was an open-source emulator for playing Nintendo Switch games on Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. A message shared today with the emulator’s Discord server stated that the developer was contacted by Nintendo with a deal to cease work on the project. No additional details were given about the conditions of that agreement. The same message was also posted on X:

The emulator will still function for anyone already running it, but the Github repository has been removed. Ryujinx also made some headlines last month for running the new  game at more than , vastly outstripping the Switch’s capabilities.

Nintendo has taken an aggressive stance on emulators, even teaming up with in 2023 to try and curb game piracy. Ryujinx is one of the more popular emulators it has taken on, but the game company also reached a settlement with the emulator Yuzu in March. It issued a whopping in May to try and remove all the Yuzu code hosted across different Github repositories.

Apple tried at the last second to get out of producing a trove of documents by Monday as it was ordered to in its ongoing dispute with Epic, and Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson is not having it. In early August, the company was given a deadline of September 30 to produce documents relating to the this year, which was its attempt to satisfy an injunction. Apple initially told the court that the task would entail reviewing roughly 650,000 documents — but in a status report on Thursday, it said the number had ballooned to over 1.3 million, and asked for a two-week extension. Hixson denied the request on Friday in a strongly worded spotted by , and called out Apple’s move as “bad behavior.”

Apple and Epic have been submitting joint status reports to the court every two weeks, and the issue of Apple’s documents exceeding its earlier estimate never previously came up, the judge noted. “This information would have been apparent to Apple weeks ago,” Hixson said in the order. “It is simply not believable that Apple learned of this information only in the two weeks following the last status report.” The judge said the request raises other concerns, calling into question the quality of Apple’s reports and its intentions around complying in a timely manner. Apple has “nearly infinite resources” that it could have tapped to get the task done in the allotted time, according to Hixson.

“This is a classic moral hazard,” Hixson said in the order, “and the way Apple announced out of the blue four days before the substantial completion deadline that it would not make that deadline because of a document count that it had surely been aware of for weeks hardly creates the impression that Apple is behaving responsibly.”

Employees at an Apple Store in Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Mall have voted to ratify their first collectively-bargained contract. The store’s workers are part of the Communications Workers of America, operating as Apple Retail Union-CWA Local 6016. The employees’ three-year agreement with Apple includes the following, according to a press release from CWA:

• “Wage increases of up to 11.5% over the next three years.”

• “Worker involvement in scheduling and guaranteed paid time off to vote.”

• “A safer and more democratic workplace with a grievance and arbitration process and the establishment of joint Safety and Health and Working Relations committees.”

• “Job protection in the event of a store closure or relocation and severance pay.”

• “Guaranteed paid time off, health and other benefits.”

Today’s news caps off years of preparation to unionize and secure a contract for the Penn Square Mall Apple Store, which began organizing in early 2022. The parties reached a tentative agreement in early September after a unanimous strike authorization vote in August and a store picket.

The Oklahoma City employees are the second group of Apple retail workers to reach a contract through their union. An Apple Store in Maryland was the first of the tech company’s retail stores to unionize, joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in June 2022.

An Apple spokesperson said “At Apple, we work hard to provide an excellent experience for our team members and our customers. We have always paid our retail teams in the top tier of the market and we provide exceptional benefits for all full- and part-time employees. Throughout this process, we have bargained in good faith and this agreement allows Penn Square team members to enjoy similar performance-based wage increases this year as last year, along with the same medical and time away benefits our U.S. retail employees currently receive.”

Apple also shared more details around compensation and wages. Specifically, Penn Square Mall employees will be able to participate in the scheduling options that were provided to all other US stores in 2022, and held to the same availability guidelines as the rest of the fleet with no exceptions. PSQ members will receive the same medical and time off benefits as all US team members, and subject to the same documented coaching, discipline and misconduct practices that apply across all of Apple’s US stores.

Apple’s spokesperson also said the agreement includes the creation of a safety committee at the PSQ location, like the one at all its other stores. A working relations committee, made up of two representatives from the union and two from the company, will meet twice a year.

Update, September 25 2024, 4:55PM ET: This story has been updated to include Apple’s statement as well as details the company’s spokesperson shared.

The emotional 2011 indie game To the Moon will soon be playable on Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Developer Freebird Games and publisher Serenity Forge announced this week that ports for the consoles will arrive on October 8 for $10. At the same time, they released a new installment in the series — a short called Just a To the Moon Series Beach Episode that offers one of the series’ endings. It’s available now on .

To the Moon is a time travel adventure that follows two doctors who have developed a way to help dying patients fulfill their greatest dreams by taking them back in time within their minds. The patient at the heart of the story is an elderly man named Johnny, whose final wish is to go to the moon. The game, which originally launched for PC, has become beloved over the years and eventually and .

Freebird Games followed it up with another episode called Finding Paradise, which focuses on a different patient, and the time-travel murder mystery, Imposter Factory. There’s also a heartfelt short called A Bird Story. They’re all tear-jerkers. The developer has described the latest, Beach Episode, as “​​half of an ending” to the series.

Get ready to question humanity’s control over the technology that surrounds us because another season of Netflix’s Black Mirror is in the works. Earlier today, the official Black Mirror X page revealed the cast of the new season coming next year along with some other interesting clues and Easter eggs.

The video features an old, flickering computer screen that appears to unload a complete data dump of the entire cast for season 7. Some of the names that jumped out at us includes Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti, Doctor Who star and Oscar winner Peter Capaldi (he won in 1995 with his live action short film Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life), Awkwafina, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross and Rashida Jones.

The list also included some of the cast who played virtual crew members of the USS Callister from the iconic fourth season episode of the same name. The names from the USS Callister episode that appeared on the list include Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, Billy Magnussen, Milanka Brooks and Osy Ikhile.

We’ve known for a while now that series creator Charlie Brooker has been planning to . The season 4 opening episode starred Jesse Plemmons as the chief technology officer named Robert of a top tier game studio and a big fan of a Star Trek-esque TV show called Space Fleet. By day, he gets pushed around and little credit for the company’s success from his colleagues and staff. He uses immersive virtual reality technology to play as Space Fleet Capt. Robert Daly away from work on a virtual starship and takes out his frustrations and anger on the crew in increasingly cruel and inhumane ways. The crew members were replicated in the game using his boss and staff members’ DNA that Robert obtained without their permission or knowledge. The crew revolt and escape to the open Internet while leaving a seething “Capt. Robert” stranded in the game.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a true Black Mirror reveal if it didn’t contain some clues and hidden items in the teaser. The loading screen features the studio name Tuckersoft, a reference to the game studio in the interactive  movie. The cast names are listed in alphabetical order by first name but they’ve been broken into eight groups. There are some cryptic phrases between the scrolling group names like “Too soon?”, “A rose for a rose” and “Shields 58 percent.”

Could these be episode titles? The latter definitely sounds like a reference to the USS Callister and Brooker and company love symbolic episode titles taken from songs for their tech hell stories like “Shut Up and Dance” and “Hang the DJ.” The new Black Mirror episodes haven’t even landed yet and they’ve already screwing with our heads.

Hundreds of drivers in New York City have joined the union in the hope of obtaining better pay and working conditions. The union says a majority of drivers at each of three delivery service partners (DSPs) working out of a Queens warehouse have signed authorization cards.

According to a , the drivers have been organizing for a year to secure fair pay, consistent schedules, reasonable workloads and proper pay maintained trucks. They as part of a nationwide protest against Amazon’s alleged unfair labor practices and union-busting efforts.

At least on paper, joining the union should give the drivers more leverage as they push Amazon for better working conditions. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the company will play ball. The Amazon Labor Union, one of the within the company in the US, has yet to secure a union contract, . The group .

However, the union has found some success on behalf of Amazon workers. Last month, a regional National Labor Relations Board director that Amazon is a joint employer of some third-party drivers in Palmdale, California. The Teamsters hope that finding will set a precedent for the rest for DSP drivers elsewhere. The Queens drivers are the first Amazon workers to organize with the Teamsters following that decision.

Once you’ve decided which Apple iPad you want, the next step is finding the right accessories. For getting work done, you’ll likely want a mouse and keyboard. For drawing and note-taking, a stylus is the obvious choice, but we also recommend a paper-like screen protector for added texture. Power banks let you recharge your slate whenever you need to and a hub helps you get the most out of your iPad’s processing power with connections for wired peripherals. After testing (and owning) iPads over the years, we’ve singled out a dozen-plus accessories that help expand what Apple’s tablets can do.

Which iPad generation do you own?

Before you splurge on a bunch of accessories, you should double check which iPad generation you own. There are a couple of ways to do this: first, you can check the back of your tablet for its model number, which will start with an “A” and end with a series of numbers. You can also go into Settings on your iPad, then General and look up the model number in the top section. If you see a series of letters and numbers with a slash (“/“) in it, just tap that to reveal the iPad’s true model number.

The most important iPad details to consider before buying accessories are the charging port, screen size and Apple Pencil compatibility. Most iPads now have USB-C charging, save for the 9th-gen iPad that still uses a Lightning connector (and is on the way out anyway). Make sure to double check your iPad’s screen size before buying a case or a screen protector. As for the Apple Pencil, check out this guide to how to choose the right Apple Pencil to make sure you’re getting the right one for the tablet you have.

Best iPad accessories for 2024

Paper-feel screen protectors

If you’re a heavy user of the Apple Pencil or some other stylus, you should consider getting a screen protector for your new iPad. They pull double-duty: Not only do they act as a first line of defense if your iPad goes careening onto concrete, but they can also enhance the digital drawing and writing experience. Using a stylus on an iPad is strange at first because gliding the stylus nib over a glass surface feels nothing like “normal” writing. Matte screen protectors can get closer to replicating the pen-on-paper experience, and they also prevent the stylus nib from wearing down as quickly.

The Xbox Game Pass Standard plan is starting today. Microsoft announced a revamp to its Game Pass subscription plans , introducing the Standard option alongside a price increase for the Ultimate tier. The Standard plan costs $15 a month, while Ultimate will run you $20 a month.

The Standard subscription tier will offer the essential features of the Game Pass program: online multiplayer gaming, access to a large library of games, and discounts on select game purchases. The big difference between Standard and Ultimate is that Standard plan members will not be able to play some blockbuster releases, such as and , on day one. The wait time on Standard varies by title, but can last up to or longer than 12 months. Ultimate plans also include membership to EA Play and access to Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Xbox has been struggling to compete with PlayStation in this console generation. That’s partially due to hardware differences: Microsoft offered to its console lineup this summer whereas Sony managed to for the announcement of its expensive new . But the Game Pass plan has also been struggling to generate continued revenue for Microsoft, with just subscribers reported in February.

Mattel’s latest Polly Pocket collab is a Stranger Things playset that houses the fictional town of Hawkins and the Upside Down in a compact shaped like a walkie-talkie. The set, introduced this week, contains figurines of the characters Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will — plus a very non-threatening interpretation of the Demogorgon. Pre-orders for the $50 collectible are now open through Mattel Creations and major retailers, including Walmart and Target. It’s expected to start shipping later this month.

The set also includes a few tiny walkie-talkies, bikes, a wig for Eleven and a little stack of waffles. There’s even a mini sensory deprivation tank on both sides of the compact with a cutout that the Eleven figurine fits into, and a chalkboard with a crack for the Demogorgon to burst through. The packaging it comes in is designed to look like a retro tape recorder. It’s all painfully cute. Now can we get that fifth season sometime soon, please?

Verizon is reportedly near a deal to buy fiber provider Frontier Communications. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal said that an announcement could come as early as this week, provided discussions don’t “hit any last-minute snags.”

Frontier has a market value of over $7 billion and provides broadband to around three million locations in 25 states. The company would help Verizon boost its Fios fiber network and better compete with AT&T. The carrier has seen slowing wireless revenue and views fiber investment as a growth area. Acquiring companies with existing infrastructure, like Frontier, is potentially less expensive and time-consuming than rolling out its own network.

Based in Dallas, Frontier is currently upgrading its copper landline system to fiber — enabling it to offer a 5Gbps symmetrical plan. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020. It pivoted to a “leaner business,” as the WSJ describes, before running into concerns that it would run out of money before it finishes its current upgrades.

The FTC sued the company in 2021 for misrepresenting its speeds. Under a 2022 settlement, Frontier was required to stop lying about its internet performance, dole out over $8.5 million and install fiber service in 60,000 California homes over four years.