It seems like any and every industry can have its own awards show these days. And why not? Most of us appreciate a chance to bust out the sequins and satin from time to time. If you can celebrate excellent work or make some extra biz dev bucks at the same time, all the better. Snap is the latest social media company to launch its own take on the glitz and glam. The Snappy Awards Show will be held at the company's headquarters on March 31. Comedian and content creator Matt Friend will host the event.

Snapchat has been adding more tools for influencers to build audiences, most recently launching individual creator subscriptions. An awards show seems to be part of that same agenda, spotlighting popular personalities from many different fields. There will be Snappys handed out for categories such as Spotlight MVP, Best Storyteller and Breakout Creator of the Year, plus awards for collaboration, cultural impact and success in single subjects.

Snapchat isn't the first social media platform to honor the personalities using it. TikTok hosted its inaugural awards show in the US last year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/snap-is-hosting-its-own-creator-awards-show-221859681.html?src=rss

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Sony just divulged the list of PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for March, and there's a little something for everybody. These will all be playable on March 3 for subscribers on any tier. After downloading, the games will stay in a player's library as long as the subscription remains active.

First up, there's Monster Hunter Rise. This was initially a Nintendo Switch exclusive before making the jump to other platforms. This is a decent Monster Hunter game with a focus on verticality. There are tools to quickly scale large cliffs and engage in aerial combat. It can be played solo or via a four-person squad. The gameplay loop is as addictive here as ever. Fight monsters. Gather materials. Upgrade weapons and armor. Rinse and repeat.

Slime Rancher 2 just hit consoles last year, after some time in early access. This sequel improves upon everything that made the first game great, which included capturing and farming various slimes. There's a fresh location to explore and an absolute boatload of new slimes to capture. Sucking up dozens of slimes at once is a simple pleasure akin to completing a level in PowerWash Simulator.

The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road is the definitive version of the game, offering access to all zones, biomes and quest arcs. This online game can be played cooperatively, but there's also a lot of PvP content. It's set 1,000 years before Skyrim, but there are many iconic locations from that game to explore.

Finally, PGA Tour 2K25 is the latest entry in 2K's long-running golf sim. This one has an expanded solo mode, in addition to a course designer tool. It's also cross-platform.

As new games enter the catalog, old titles vanish. Subscribers have until March 2 to download Undisputed, Subnautica: Below Zero, Ultros and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/marchs-ps-plus-monthly-games-include-monster-hunter-rise-and-slime-rancher-2-182644562.html?src=rss

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Spotify is rolling out a new feature that’s meant to make transitions in between tracks even smoother. If you’ll recall, the streaming service released the ability to create customized transitions within playlists in August last year. It gave people a way to create uninterrupted progressions and eliminate awkward silences between songs. Now, Premium users will be able to make sure the songs in their playlists flow seamlessly even further by reordering tracks based on their keys and BPM or beats per minute.

The new feature can rearrange playlists with one tap. All paying users have to do is tap Mix on one of their playlists and then tap the Edit button. From there, they can scroll down to find the Smart Reorder option. Tapping Smart Reorder will automatically rearrange songs according to their keys and BPM without users having to do anything else. They just have to click Save so that the change to their playlist takes effect.

Spotify says users have streamed over 220 hours of their mixed playlists since it introduced custom transitions last year. It also listed some of the most popular ones on the platform, including The Weeknd’s Wake Me Up transitioning into After Hours and Flo Rida’s Low into Rihann’s S&M.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-can-reorder-your-playlists-by-bpm-and-key-140000101.html?src=rss

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Three years after announcing plans to produce a film based on the viral YouTube short, The Backrooms (Found Footage) in 2023, A24 has released the first teaser for its adaptation. Backrooms, as the film is now called, is directed by the short's original creator, Kane Parsons, and will be released on May 29, 2026.

The teaser offers little to go on for anyone who hasn't watched the original short or the series of videos Parsons made after it, but it is replete with The Backrooms' hallmark: ominous liminal spaces. Layered over footage of stranger and stranger rooms (or perhaps one room becoming the platonic empty retail spaces popularized by short), the voice of Chiwetel Ejiofor tells the film's other star, Renate Reinsve, about a "place" he discovered that's full of rooms.

Parsons' original video is inspired by a creepypasta called "The Backrooms" that originated on the forum 4chan in 2019. The YouTube series expanded on the basic concept of a liminal space that exists outside reality with monsters and a mysterious company researching The Backrooms. It's unclear how much of that larger lore will be incorporated into the feature film adaptation, but since the teaser is missing the digital video filter that gave the YouTube short its distinct look, it seems possible Parsons could be going for something a bit different. Well that, and the fact the film stars two Oscar-nominated actors.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/heres-the-first-teaser-for-a24s-adaptation-of-the-backrooms-194300513.html?src=rss

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As spicy as the PlayStation State of Play that took place a couple of weeks ago was overall, there was one major first-party game that was notably absent from the showcase: Marvel’s Wolverine. Insomniac Games’ latest superhero blockbuster was already slated for a fall release and now the studio has revealed exactly when you’ll be able to get your claws on it. Marvel’s Wolverine is coming to PS5 on September 15.

That’s it. That’s the announcement. There’s no new trailer to accompany the news, other than a six-second release date reveal video that popped up on YouTube. Insomniac previously said it would reveal more details about Marvel’s Wolverine this spring.

Technically, this release date means that Marvel’s Wolverine will debut in the last week of summer rather than in the fall. Still, it’s one of the relatively few blockbuster games you can expect in the tail end of this year because many major developers and publishers will be staying well clear of GTA VI.

Insomniac’s game will have a couple of months of breathing room before GTA VI soaks up all of the air in the gaming world when it arrives on November 19 — assuming Rockstar doesn’t announce another delay. However, parent company Take-Two plans to rev up its marketing machine for the game this summer, so it’s looking like GTA VI’s release date will hold this time.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/marvels-wolverine-will-hit-ps5-on-september-15-175500927.html?src=rss

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Apple just dropped a full trailer for the fifth season of its hit sci-fi show For All Mankind. This is the first real look at the upcoming batch of episodes, which premiere on March 27. We got an extremely short teaser trailer last month but that only showed a guy on a motorcycle riding across Mars.

This is the first real-deal trailer and it's absolutely stuffed with footage indicating where the next season will take viewers. I'm going to get into some spoilers here, so read at your own risk.

For the uninitiated, For All Mankind is an alternate history show that started with a simple premise. What if Russia landed on the moon before America? That has since ballooned into all kinds of stuff which include, as mentioned above, a potential war on Mars.

For All Mankind is a show famous for its time jumps, and season five takes us all the way to an alternate version of 2012. Many of the show's original surviving characters are still kicking around, but they are old as paste and not exactly fit for high-octane space travel. Remember, the first episode started in the 1960s. Franchise lead Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnamen) looks particularly dusty.

Much of the footage features newer characters, including the grandson of Baldwin. Season four ended with a Mars colony asserting its independence via asteroid theft. Now it looks like Earth is striking back, which could lead to a full-scale war. This is giving me The Expanse vibes, which is never a bad thing.

The show must be clocking good numbers for Apple TV+, as the streamer recently announced a spinoff called Star City. Details are scant, but it looks to cover similar events of the mainline show from Russia's perspective.

New episodes of For All Mankind air each Friday. This season will feature ten episodes and concludes on May 29.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/for-all-mankinds-latest-trailer-teases-a-war-on-mars-174822481.html?src=rss

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YouTube is adding new features to its Premium Lite plan. The tier will offer background play and downloads for the mostly ad-free plan. The update comes a year after YouTube first launched the lower-cost plan.

The Premium Lite tier is notable because for $8 per month you get most videos ad-free, emphasis on most. Currently, it still uses ads for YouTube music (along with random other videos), but the new update is bringing more Premium tier features without the $14 per month price tag.

As a Lite user, you will be able to use background play on most videos. Notably, this announcement comes less than a month after Google cracked down on free workarounds to access background play on YouTube. "Background playback is a feature intended to be exclusive for YouTube Premium members. While some non-Premium users may have previously been able to access this through mobile web browsers in certain scenarios, we have updated the experience to ensure consistency across all our platforms," Google told Android Authority. Now, it's for Premium Lite users as well.

YouTube Premium Lite users are also getting access to downloads. They can watch — here it comes again — most videos offline. These new features will roll out starting today and in the coming weeks to Premium Lite subscribers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtubes-premium-lite-tier-gets-background-play-and-downloads-170051755.html?src=rss

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Blizzard is finally bringing Overwatch to mobile devices, but not exactly in the way you think. The company isn't making a port of the mainline game. Rather, it just announced a spinoff called Overwatch Rush, which is being described as a "top-down hero shooter designed specifically for mobile set in the Overwatch universe."

There have been rumors about an Overwatch mobile game for what seems like a lifetime. Most people assumed this would appear as a straight port, but a brand-new game is also great. It's not being developed by Team 4, the group that works on the mainline game, but is being made internally.

Overwatch Rush features many of the heroes of Overwatch battling on familiar-looking maps, according to a gameplay video. The game offers 4v4 matches, though the characters are more cartoonish and stylized than the mainline game. This is likely to accommodate smaller screens and the top-down view.

This is a mobile game, so the battles are described as "bite-sized" and the controls are touchscreen-based. Blizzard says it's still in the early stages of development but that it's going to offer "fast-paced, on-the-go play, with hero-centric combat and playstyle customization that suits both team and solo players."

Overwatch Rush will be playable soon, as part of a beta testing process. It'll be free to play and available for both Android and iOS whenever the full game is ready to go.

Blizzard says that a "new, separate, dedicated team" will be "focused exclusively" on Overwatch Rush. That's industry code for "we aren't draining resources from the main game to make the mobile spinoff." Oddly, the company recently held a series of panels to discuss the future of its franchises and didn't mention this mobile game.

This isn't the company's first foray into mobile game development. It's had a hand in stuff like Diablo Immortal and Warcraft Rumble.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzard-finally-revealed-its-long-rumored-overwatch-mobile-game-162938590.html?src=rss

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Good news for all Ryan Coogler fans: The Sinners director is bringing back a beloved TV show. Hulu has officially green lit a pilot of Coogler's X-Files reboot, a project three years in the making, Deadline reports. Coogler has a five-year exclusive television deal with Disney, Hulu's parent company. 

Coogler is directing and writing the pilot episode, with Jennifer Yale coming on as showrunner. She previously held the role on The Copenhagen Test. Actress Danielle Deadwyler, known for roles in Till and The Harder They Fall, has signed on as co-lead. 

The show will follow the original storyline of two FBI agents who bond as they work on cases around paranormal and unexplained phenomena. No confirmation has come over whether former stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny will have any role in the reboot. 

The news came on Sunday, the same day Coogler won the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay for Sinners. Coogler made history this year with a record 16 Oscar nominations for Sinners, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. Coogler also wrote and directed Creed, Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/ryan-cooglers-x-files-reboot-gets-the-green-light-at-hulu-140735536.html?src=rss

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© Stuart Wilson/BAFTA via Getty Images

This week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a landmark social media trial, claiming the company only wanted to make Instagram "useful" and not addictive. In this episode, we chat about Zuck's testimony and the potential implications of this trial for social media companies. Also, we dive into the latest effects of the RAMaggedon RAM shortage, including a potential PlayStation 6 delay and a dire future for practically every consumer electronics company.

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Topics

• Mark Zuckerberg testifies that Instagram was meant to be “useful,” not addictive in social media addiction trial – 1:27

• Meta reportedly plans to launch a smartwatch later this year – 13:23

• The RAMageddon will likely kill some small consumer electronics companies – 15:54

• Apple could unveil a MacBook, new M5 Pro chip, and iPhone 17e at March 4th event – 26:26

• Google’s Pixel 10a arrives on March 5 – 32:17

• Email leaked to 404 media suggests Ring had plans to use its Search Party function for wider surveillance – 34:48

• Listener mail – 45:14

• Working on – 48:40

• Pop culture picks – 49:04 

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Host: Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/engadget-podcast-instagram-on-trial-and-the-ramaggedon-rages-on-131526178.html?src=rss

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Los Angeles County has sued Roblox for "unfair and deceptive business practices," claiming the platform's moderation and age-verification systems are inadequate. "Roblox portrays its platform as a safe and appropriate place for children to play," the complaint states. "In reality, and as Roblox well knows, the design of its platform makes children easy prey for pedophiles." 

Representatives accused Roblox of failing to implement adequate platform safety features to prevent child endangerment. "Specifically, Roblox has not effectively moderated game content or enforced age-appropriate restrictions and warnings established by the creators, allowing the predatory and inappropriate language and interactions between users to persist," the County stated. It also said the platform failed to disclose any danger to children, including sexual content and the risk of predators. 

Roblox rejected the allegations, saying the platform was built around safety. "We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications, and users cannot send or receive images via chat, avoiding one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online," the company told the AFP. 

The LA county complaint is the latest in a string of lawsuits from US regions including Florida, Texas and Kentucky. The Attorney General in Louisiana also accused the company of having a "lack of safety protocols" that endanger the safety of children in favor of "growth, revenue and profits." That state's lawsuit cited a specific example of a subject arrested last year that used voice-altering tech to mimic a younger feminine voice to lure and sexually exploit young players.

Roblox has said that it has about 144 million daily active users around the world, with over 40 percent of them under the age of 13. However, it has faced repeated accusations that it doesn't do enough to protect young players. In 2024, Roblox banned players under 13 from accessing some types of in-game content and restricted their ability to message with other players outside of specific games. Last year, the company also began asking tens of millions of children to verify their age with a selfie. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/la-county-lawsuit-accuses-roblox-of-exposing-children-to-grooming-and-exploitation-124523028.html?src=rss

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Formula 1 has been receiving star treatment from Apple for awhile, and now the racing series will literally be getting even bigger. Apple is partnering with IMAX to show five races from the 2026 season. The Miami Grand Prix on May 3, the Monaco Grand Prix on June 7, the British Grand Prix on July 5, the Italian Grand Prix on September 6 and the United States Grand Prix on October 25 will be aired live at select IMAX theaters in the US. 

Apple landed a five-year deal for the US broadcast rights to Formula 1 last fall and there's already a dedicated channel for the car races on Apple TV ahead of the season's start. It also got the rights for a splashy feature film about the racing league, which amassed more than $630 million at the global box office, including with some IMAX screenings. It's unclear if IMAX will be paying to host more live F1 races at its theaters in future years, but it should be a fun way for fans to get the most immersive experience possible short of actually attending the racetrack.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/apple-inks-deal-for-imax-screenings-of-live-formula-1-races-234003582.html?src=rss

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Meta is formally sectioning off Horizon Worlds, the closest thing it has to a metaverse, from its Quest VR platform, according to a new blog post from Samantha Ryan, Meta's VP of Content, Reality Labs. While the decision runs counter to Meta's original plan to own an immersive virtual world that could serve as the future home for all online interaction, it fits with the recent cuts it made to its costly Reality Labs division, and Mark Zuckerberg's public commitment to focus the company on AI hardware like smart glasses going forward. 

"We’re explicitly separating our Quest VR platform from our Worlds platform in order to create more space for both products to grow," Ryan writes in the blog post. "We’re doubling down on the VR developer ecosystem while shifting the focus of Worlds to be almost exclusively mobile. By breaking things down into two distinct platforms, we’ll be better able to clearly focus on each."

Meta has been developing mobile and web versions of Horizon Worlds in parallel with its VR app since at least 2023. Switching Worlds to being a mobile-first software platform isn't good for VR diehards, but it does make it a more natural competitor to something like Roblox or Fortnite, which also offer user-created and monetizable worlds and games. It's also a business Meta believes it can more easily scale because of its ability to connect games to "billions of people on the world’s biggest social networks."

While Meta shuttered several of its own VR game studios earlier this year, it still wants to support third-party developers publishing games on its platform. The company says new monetization tools, better discoverability, a "Deals" tab and more ways for developers to talk to their customers should help make a difference. Maintaining the Quest's library of games could also be critical going forward. Business Insider reported in December 2025 that Meta was working on a gaming-focused Quest headset, and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth confirmed earlier this February that the company still had multiple Quest devices on its roadmap.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/metas-metaverse-is-going-mobile-first-233030532.html?src=rss

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Sony is closing Bluepoint Games, the studio behind the Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls remakes, Bloomberg reports. Bluepoint's last major project was God of War: Ragnarok from 2022, which it co-developed with Sony Santa Monica. 

According to Bloomberg, Sony decided to shut down the studio following "a recent business review." Around 70 employees will lose their jobs as part of the studio closure, which will officially happen in March. "Bluepoint Games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community," Sony said in a statement to Bloomberg. "We thank them for their passion, creativity and craftmanship."

Following their work on Ragnarok, Bluepoint was reportedly tasked with developing a live-service game set in the God of War universe. That title was cancelled in 2025, alongside another game from Bend Studio. In the context of Sony's other live-service failures, the decision wasn't surprising. Sony shut down the servers for multiplayer shooter Concord just two weeks after its release. Not long after, it also closed Firewalk Studios, the developer behind the game.

Bluepoint Games was originally acquired by Sony in 2021, when it seemed like the studio's expertise in remaking and remastering classic PlayStation games could be a major asset going forward. Why that changed isn't entirely clear, but Sony's mismanagement of its pivot into and out of publishing premium online multiplayer games may have played a role. Some of Sony's studios are still experimenting with live-service mechanics. Guerilla Games recently announced an online co-op game set in its Horizon universe. Destiny 2 developer Bungie is also releasing its extraction shooter Marathon in March.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-is-shutting-down-the-studio-behind-the-demons-souls-remake-195234213.html?src=rss

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Meta is shutting down the standalone Messenger website, according to a company help page. The website will disappear in April, though web users will still be able to send and receive messages within Facebook.

"After messenger.com goes away, you will be automatically redirected to use facebook.com/messages for messaging on a computer," the help page reads. "You can continue your conversations there or on the Messenger mobile app."

Users will be able to restore their chat history after switching to the app by entering a PIN number. This is the same PIN that was used to initially create a backup on Messenger. It can be reset for those who simply don't have the bandwidth to remember yet another six-digit code.

Many users have expressed discontent over the decision to shut down the standalone website, according to a report by TechCrunch. This is particularly true for those who have deactivated their Facebook accounts but continued to use Messenger.

This comes just a few months after Meta shut down Messenger's standalone desktop apps. At that time, Meta directed existing users to Facebook to continue using the service and not the dedicated Messenger website. In other words, the writing has likely been on the wall since October.

Messenger has had a long and storied history. The platform first launched as Facebook Chat all the way back in 2008. Facebook Messenger became a standalone app in 2011. The company has long-tried to make Messenger a thing outside of Facebook. It removed messaging capabilities from the main Facebook app in 2014 and began directing users to the Messenger app. Meta began reintegrating Messenger back into the Facebook app in 2023 and now here we are.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/meta-is-shuttering-messengers-standalone-website-which-is-a-thing-that-exists-191808134.html?src=rss

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© Unsplash / Mariia Shalabaieva

YouTube's "Ask" button is making its way to the living room. The Gemini-powered feature is now rolling out as an experiment on smart TVs, gaming consoles and streaming devices. 9to5Google first spotted a Google support page announcing the change.

Like on mobile devices and desktop, the feature is essentially a Gemini chatbot trained on each video's content. Selecting that "Ask" button will bring up a series of canned prompts related to the content. Alternatively, you can use your microphone to ask questions about it in your own words.

YouTube

Google says your TV remote's microphone button (if it has one) will also activate the “Ask” feature. The company listed sample questions in its announcement, such as "what ingredients are they using for this recipe?" and "what's the story behind this song's lyrics?"

The conversational AI tool is only launching for "a small group of users" at first. Google promises that it will "keep everyone up to speed on any future expansions."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/youtube-is-bringing-the-gemini-powered-ask-button-to-tvs-173900295.html?src=rss

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Google has announced that using its newly incorporated Lyria 3 model, Gemini users will be able to generate 30-second music tracks based on a prompt, or remix an existing track to their liking. The new model builds on Gemini's pre-existing ability to generate text, images and video, and will also be available in YouTube's "Dream Track" feature, where it can be used to generate detailed backing tracks for Shorts.

Like some other music generation tools, prompting Gemini doesn't require a lot of detail to produce serviceable results. Google's example prompt is "a comical R&B slow jam about a sock finding their match," but after playing with Lyria 3, you can definitely get more granular about individual elements of a track — changing the tempo or the style of drumming, for example — if you want to. Outside of text, Gemini can also generate music based on a photo or video, and tracks can be paired with album art created by Google's Nano Banana image model.

Google says that Lyria 3 improves on its previous audio generation models in its ability to create more "realistic and musically complex" tracks, give prompters more control over individual components of a song and automatically generate lyrics. Gemini's outputs are limited to 30-second clips for now, but given how Google's promotional video shows off the feature, it's not hard to imagine those clips getting longer or the model getting incorporated into other apps, like Google Messages.

Like Gemini's other AI-generated outputs, songs made with Lyria 3 are also watermarked with Google's SynthID, so a Gemini clip can't as easily be passed off as a human one. Google started rolling out its SynthID Detector for identifying AI-generated content at Google I/O 2025. The sample tracks Google included alongside its announcement are convincing, but you might not need the company's tool to notice their machine-made qualities. The instrumental parts of Gemini’s clips often sound great, but the composition of the lyrics Lyria 3 produces sounds alternately corny and strange.

If you're curious to try Lyria 3 for yourself, Google says you can prompt tracks in Gemini starting today, provided you're 18 years or older and speak English, Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean or Portuguese.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-can-now-generate-a-30-second-approximation-of-what-real-music-sounds-like-204445903.html?src=rss

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Netflix has been in the game adaptation business for a while now, but until recently most of its attention had been on adapting video games. That’s still very much happening, but the streaming giant is also now buying up rights for board game IP too, with the latest being Asmodee’s Ticket to Ride.

Netflix will look to greenlight a number of projects spanning TV, film and "additional formats," it wrote in a press release. The first of these will be a feature film written by Ben Mekler and Chris Amick. Ticket to Ride creator Alan R. Moon will serve as an executive producer on the project, which will be the game’s first on-screen adaptation. Exactly what it will look like is not yet clear, but the internet already has plenty of theories.

Ticket to Ride is a train-themed turn-based strategy and route-building game first released over 20 years ago. Since then it has gone on to ship more than 20 million copies and has been translated into over 30 languages. It’s also been given the video game adaptation treatment before.

This is actually the second of Asmodee’s IP that Netflix has acquired the rights to, after announcing last year that Catan will also be making its way to screens in various forms. And it isn’t just interested in scripted TV and movie opportunities. In early 2025, the company also signed a deal with Hasbro to adapt Monopoly into a TV game show.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/netflix-is-adapting-the-board-game-ticket-to-ride-180505164.html?src=rss

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© Asmodee

Web designers of the world: The Automattic-owned WordPress.com is further embracing AI on its platform. On Tuesday, it expanded its one-off AI site builder into a persistent AI assistant for editing and media creation.

In the site editor, the AI assistant can help with site-wide structure and design choices. For example, you can ask the chatbot to "give me more font options that feel clean and professional or “change my site colors to be brighter and bolder." It also includes image generation and writing assistance, such as "rewrite this to sound more confident." (Who needs learning when you have automation!)

The assistant can also now be integrated into your site's media library. It can generate new images or make prompted edits to your existing ones. Examples include "update this image to be black and white" or "replace this stack of pancakes with waffles." (Just don't fake that if your business sells breakfast food, okay?) WordPress says the assistant understands your website's look and brand and can tailor the media accordingly.

WordPress also added the AI assistant to the platform's team chat, Block Notes. You can summon the chatbot from within your team chat threads.

The tool is available for WordPress.com's Business or Commerce plans. (Or, if you made your site using the AI builder, it's enabled by default, no matter which plan you use.) The feature works best with the platform's block themes; it's much more limited with classic ones. You'll find the toggle to activate the AI assistant in your site settings under the "AI tools" section.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/wordpress-adds-an-ai-assistant-174719676.html?src=rss

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Fans of The Mandalorian and his tiny green apprentice Grogu are getting their best look yet at the duo's upcoming theatrical adventure, set for release this spring. It’s hard to believe that it's been just over six years since the last Star Wars movie was released in theaters, followed by wall-to-wall coverage of so-called Star Wars Fatigue.

The newest trailer, released today, clocks in at just over two minutes long and offers some new footage and details to sink our teeth into. Picking up after the events of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, the Empire has collapsed and Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu are tasked with taking out a bevy of baddies from gangsters to war criminals for the New Republic. Colonel Ward, new to the Star Wars universe and played by Sigourney Weaver, tells Djarin, "This isn't about revenge, it's about preventing another war."

Jeremy Allen White will also star in the film, as Rotta the Hutt, Jabba's son, who we briefly see battling Din Djarin in a colosseum of sorts. Notably, at one point we see Djarin on his knees before Jabba sans helmet, so we'll definitely be getting some moments of Pedro Pascal unfiltered by Beskar. Like any Star Wars adventure, we see flashes of some new creatures that our heroes will face. Most importantly, we see Grogu being downright adorable, playing with buttons on the ship, commandeering a flying bassinet, and snacking on a cookie.

The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters on May 22 and, according to the trailer, was shot at least in part for IMAX.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-first-full-trailer-for-the-mandalorian-and-grogu-is-here-164244117.html?src=rss

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