A film adaptation of Metal Gear Solid is in the works again, this time from filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the directors of Final Destination: Bloodlines, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The duo are reviving the project at Columbia Pictures as part of a new first-look deal with Sony, the latest attempt in what's been multiple decades of work to turn the blockbuster stealth game into a blockbuster film.
"Metal Gear Solid was nothing short of a groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece that forever revolutionized video games," Lipovsky and Stein said in a statement. "We are thrilled and honored to bring Hideo Kojima's iconic characters and unforgettable world to life."
Lipovsky and Stein's horror bona fides helped make Bloodlinesa critical and commercial hit when it came out in 2025, and the directors have a variety of other IP-focused genre films in the works, including a sequel to Gremlins for Warner Bros. and an animated Venom movie for Sony. It remains to be seen how exactly the duo will translate Metal Gear Solid's unique quirks to film, though.
Metal Gear Solid is heavily indebted to director Hideo Kojima's own taste in action and spy cinema, while also being in conversation with video games themselves in a way that wouldn't naturally translate to film. And even if you removed those metatextual rough edges, can it really be Metal Gear Solid without Kojima's equal parts charming and awkward writing?
Attempts to create a film version of the game date back to 2006, when Kojima first shared that an adaptation was in the works. Columbia Pictures announced a new version of the film in 2012, with Avi Arad, former head of Marvel Studios, producing. In 2014, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the director of Kong: Skull Island, was attached to direct that adaptation. And six years after that, Oscar Isaac was reportedly cast as Solid Snake. Arad and his son Ari Arad are still producing this latest take on the game, but with Lipovsky and Stein in charge, that older version of Metal Gear Solid is likely dead. Still, hope springs eternal that we’ll get to see a man hide in a cardboard box on the big screen someday.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-metal-gear-solid-movie-is-back-on-with-final-destination-bloodlines-directors-in-charge-214914374.html?src=rss
You're only able to edit comments you left with your own account, and the process of actually doing so is easy. Just tap on the word "Edit" under your comment to pull up a text box where you can tweak, rework or embellish what you've written, and then press the blue check mark to save it. Meta says comments can be edited as many times as you want in that 15 minute window, so if you need to make more changes, you have that option.
Comments can show up in multiple ways across Instagram — including Stories, as of 2024 — so offering a way to edit them is a welcome addition. The new option is just the latest in a series of changes Meta has introduced to the social app in the last month. Earlier in March, the company announced that it was removing end-to-end encryption from Instagram DMs. At the end of the month, Meta also began testing Instagram Plus, a subscription service that unlocks new features for the app's Stories feature.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-comments-can-now-be-edited-within-15-minutes-195000640.html?src=rss
Developer Klei Entertainment has announced a follow-up to Don't Starve that adds a new sense of depth to the popular survival game. And that's in a literal sense: Don't Starve Elsewhere translates the game's resource gathering and sanity management to a world with three-dimensional terrain at different elevations, a first for the traditionally flat series.
Don't Starve Elsewhere doesn't quite seem like the Super Mario 64 to Don't Starve's Super Mario Bros. but based on the trailer, having actual mountains, cliffs and plateaus does offer plenty of new opportunities to have your world rocked by an unfriendly goat. The game also incorporates new biomes, what looks like plenty of new animals, enemies and bosses and several features that were first introduced as DLC for the first Don't Starve.
Klei released the original Tim Burton-inspired Don't Starve all the way back in 2013, and has been remarkably consistent in supporting it with paid DLC introducing new characters, mechanics and biomes over the last 13 years. Additions like multiplayer support, from standalone expansion Don't Starve Together, and dynamic weather patterns, introduced in Don't Starve: Shipwrecked, appear to be built into the new game from the start. A mobile spin-off created by Tencent, Don’t Starve: Newhome, was announced in 2020 and appears to still be in active development.
Klei hasn’t announced a release date for Don’t Starve Elsewhere, but if the game is anything like the developer’s previous games, it will be released in early access on PC before it makes its way to a full release on other platforms.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/another-dont-starve-game-is-on-the-way-184400774.html?src=rss
DoorDash and Wing have announced a new partnership that will allow users in metro Atlanta to have food delivered by drone. Besides working with DoorDash in select regions of Virginia, North Carolina and Texas, Wing, Alphabet's drone delivery subsidiary, also recently expanded its agreement to make deliveries for Walmart.
Eligible customers near Tanger Outlets Locust Grove will be able to order food for drone delivery and receive it in "as little as 20 minutes," according to DoorDash. Orders are limited to a selection of restaurants including Molinos Mexican Grill, Koji Japanese Steakhouse and Sabrosos Mexican Restaurant, and eligibility for drone delivery will depend on the size and weight of the order and whether a customer lives close enough for delivery. To check, Wing offers a website where you can enter your address to see if you're in range. Anyone who doesn't live close enough for a drone delivery can enter their information to be notified if the delivery area expands.
DoorDash, like plenty of other gig work platforms, is no stranger to experimenting with automation and robotics. The company offers its own delivery robot called Dot, and has partnered with companies like Coco Robotics to offer deliveries in cities like Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago. Wing, for its part, has also been working to expand the kinds of things it can deliver. The company introduced a new drone design in 2024 that can carry payloads that weigh up to 5 lbs, the exact kind of improvement that's likely allowed for the delivery partnerships it's pursuing now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/doordash-and-wing-are-expanding-their-drone-delivery-partnership-to-atlanta-201133191.html?src=rss
Microsoft is testing giving users more control over what games appear in their Xbox achievements and tweaking how achievements look when they're earned. The changes are being introduced via the company's free-to-join Xbox Insiders program, and will presumably roll out to all Xbox owners at some point in the future.
Coming later in April, select Xbox Insiders will be able to hide games from their achievement list, whether they've completed them or not. Hidden games will still count towards users' Gamerscore, but the option should serve as another way to curate your public profile. Microsoft is also experimenting with changing how it displays achievements. Xbox Insiders will receive redesigned achievements with new animations and notifications that match the custom color they've chosen for their Xbox interface. Games where Insiders have earned 100 percent of the achievements will also be highlighted in their achievements list, and insiders will be able to filter their list to only view the games they've fully completed.
Being able to hide games from the achievement list has been "one of the most requested features" from Xbox Insiders, according to Microsoft. The company's March update that allowed users to selectively exclude games from the Xbox's Quick Resume feature was similarly long-requested. It would likely be wrong to characterize these changes as being downstream of new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma's stated desire to "recommit" to the Xbox, but they don't hurt when it comes to winning over fans — especially if the company's continued presence in the console space ends up hinging on an expensive box that plays PC and Xbox games.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/youll-soon-be-able-to-hide-games-from-your-xbox-achievements-list-184719290.html?src=rss
X is rolling out an update to its in-app photo editor that gives users the ability to edit photos with xAI's Grok, blur faces and overlay text on images. The new editing features, in particular the addition of text-based edits via an AI assistant, bring it much closer in capabilities to dedicated photo apps like Google Photos.
As part of the update, users are able to prompt Grok to make edits to a photo just by typing out what they want to see. The example video shared by Nikita Bier, X's Head of Product, showed an image being edited so that it appeared to be hanging in a museum, but simpler tweaks are presumably possible, too. The feature is similar to the "conversational editing" Google added to Google Photos in September 2025, where users can prompt Gemini to adjust the background of an image or make other edits. X's new editor also includes tools for blurring or redacting parts of an image, drawing on images and overlaying text.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're launching a brand new Photo Editor in our post composer.
It has long-overdue features like drawing & text. But we also included special add-ons that are unique to X:
• Edit with words, powered by Grok • Add a blur to redact parts of the photo… pic.twitter.com/38Zaw8b5jl
X used to take a far more freewheeling approach to editing photos with Grok, by allowing any user to reply to a post tagging the AI assistant and requesting an edit. After users reportedly generated millions of sexualized images using the feature, including some of children, X limited Grok's image generating abilities to paying subscribers and removed the AI's ability to create images of real people in bikinis, underwear and other suggestive clothing.
xAI, the parent company of X, is currently the defendant in a class action lawsuit from three teenagers who allege their photos were used to create child exploitation material with Grok. X is also being investigated in the European Union over similar reports that its platform was used to create nonconsensual sexual images.
X’s updated photo editor is available on iOS now and coming to Android “soon,” according to the company.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/x-has-a-slightly-more-functional-photo-editor-now-210825833.html?src=rss
Intel has announced that it will help Elon Musk design and build his proposed Terafab in Austin, Texas, a joint venture between Musk's companies like SpaceX, Tesla and xAI to manufacture the chips necessary to power various AI projects. Musk announced Terafab in March 2026 with the plan of eventually creating a terawatt of computing power each year.
While Tesla and SpaceX have experience manufacturing in the US, chip fabrication plants like the ones Intel runs are expensive and time-consuming to build. Offloading the task of actually building the Terafab from Musk's companies to Intel makes sense. "Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power future advances in AI and robotics," Intel said in its announcement.
Intel is proud to join the Terafab project with @SpaceX, @xAI, and @Tesla to help refactor silicon fab technology.
Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power… pic.twitter.com/2vUmXn0YhH
WWDC 2026, the latest version of Apple's yearly developer conference, runs from June 8-12, and by all appearances the company has some important updates to outline. In comparison to Liquid Glass, the design material Apple introduced last year and now uses across all its operating systems, the new features the company is rumored to announce might not be aesthetic, but they could make just as big of a splash. Namely because Apple might finally be ready to show off its second stab at an overhauled version of Siri.
If you're curious to see the company's new plans for yourself, you can watch Apple's WWDC 2026 keynote live on its website, YouTube channel or the Apple Developer Bilibili channel in China. Apple will also host its Platforms State of the Union stream and individual developer workshops on its developer website if you want to learn even more details about the software updates the company will release later this year. Luckily, we do have some sense of what Apple has in store, and it looks like stability improvements and AI are the company's big focuses for the updates coming to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS and tvOS this fall.
A Snow Leopard-esque approach to stability and performance
Apple released Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009, primarily as a way to clean up the performance and refine the new features the company released with Mac OS X Leopard two years prior. The decision to essentially "take a year off" to focus on making everything about the company's desktop operating system feel better was well-received, and Apple is apparently planning to have iOS 27 serve a similar role.
Bloomberg reports that Apple's upcoming update will be "focused on improving the software’s quality and underlying performance" and that the company's "engineering teams are now combing through Apple's operating systems, hunting for bloat to cut, bugs to eliminate and any opportunity to meaningfully boost performance and overall quality." Those fixes will presumably extend to the company's other operating systems, too.
Some of this effort may also be focused on cleaning up the visual changes introduced in Apple's big switch to Liquid Glass. The design overhaul has been controversial among the company's diehard fans, and Apple has already introduced tweaks in updates that arrived after the release of iOS 26 to make Liquid Glass interfaces more legible. Bloomberg reports the company could go a step further in its next updates and add a system-wide slider that will allow users to adjust the intensity of Liquid Glass (visual effects like translucency and reflectivity) they want in the interface.
The chatbot-ification of Siri
While stability and performance improvements will be a major focus of this year's updates, Apple is also rumored to be making some major changes to Siri. When the company first introduced Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, it promised to launch an updated version of the voice assistant that could use your personal context (like the information securely stored on your iPhone) to act across apps. Apple delayed those features in March 2025 and then announced a partnership with Google in January 2026 to use Gemini models to presumably make them possible.
Those features might finally arrive in this year's updates, but Apple is reportedly also changing how users interact with Siri by making the assistant more like a chatbot, according to Bloomberg. This would make the assistant more interactive and natural to speak to, and could open up other possibilities, like letting users direct Siri to perform two actions at the same time. Developers will reportedly also be able to integrate their own AI assistants with Siri, much like OpenAI has with ChatGPT.
New places to talk to AI
The chatbot version of Siri will be accessible in the usual ways, but also reportedly through a standalone Siri app. The new app will let users prompt the assistant to take care of tasks on their device, search the web and even access news, not unlike current Gemini and ChatGPT apps. Bloomberg writes that the app will also be a way to review past conversations with Siri and receive suggestions of prompts to try with the new chatbot version of the assistant.
Users will also be able to interact with Siri inside Apple's other apps via a new feature called "Ask Siri." This may appear as an option in app menus, and allow you to ask the AI assistant questions about content in the app. It's not clear if this will be as in-depth or capable as Google's Ask Maps or Ask Photos features, but it at least seems like Apple's thinking along the same lines as its partner.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/what-to-expect-from-wwdc-2026-110000086.html?src=rss
In a letter shared with Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Tesla admitted that its robotaxis are sometimes driven remotely by human operators, Wired reports. Competing self-driving car companies sometimes rely on human operators to tell robotaxi software how to get itself unstuck, but letting operators actually drive those cars remotely is more unusual.
"As a redundancy measure in rare cases … [remote assistance operators] are authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control as the final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention actions have been exhausted,” Karen Steakley, Tesla’s director of public policy and business development, shared in a letter to Markey. In those situations, operators are reportedly able to take over Tesla's robotaxis when they're moving at speeds around 2mph or less, and then drive the car at up to 10mph if software permits it.
Engadget has contacted Tesla to confirm the details shared in Steakley's letter. We'll update the article if we hear back.
As Wired notes, that's a bit different than how other self-driving car companies handle human intervention. For example, Waymo's Driver software can call on human help — Waymo calls them "fleet response" — to offer context and answer questions to help it navigate complicated driving situations. The company claims these workers never drive the robotaxi themselves, but they are able to see the car's environment through its sensors to help it get unstuck. Self-driving car companies typically avoid remote operation, Wired writes, because technical limitations like latency and the limited perspective of a robotaxi’s sensors can make it hard to drive them easily and safely.
Tesla's approach to self-driving has always cut against the grain, though. Whereas competitors continue to rely on a mix of radar and other sensors to navigate, Tesla has exclusively focused on using cameras for its Full Self Driving (FSD) system. The company has also had to deal with a number of high-profile crashes related to FSD, which prompted a probe by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in October 2025.
The company launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas in June 2025, in a limited capacity and with human safety drivers sitting in the driver's seat in case of emergency. Tesla is also reportedly testing rides without safety drivers in the same area, which might be why it has contingencies for remote operators to step in.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/teslas-robotaxis-are-reportedly-remotely-driven-by-humans-sometimes-200639550.html?src=rss
The White House has announced a new AI policy framework that calls for Congress to craft federal regulation that overrules state AI laws. The Trump administration has made multiple attempts to overrule more restrictive state-level AI regulation, but has failed so far, most notably in the passing of the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
The framework focuses on a variety of topics, covering everything from child privacy to the use of AI in the workforce. “Importantly, this framework can succeed only if it is applied uniformly across the United States,” The White House writes. “A patchwork of conflicting state laws would undermine American innovation and our ability to lead in the global AI race.”
In terms of child privacy protections, the framework ask for Congress to require companies to provide tools like “screen time, content exposure and account controls” while also affirming that “existing child privacy protections apply to AI systems,” including limits on how data is collected and used for AI training. The framework also says carveout states should be allowed to enforce “their own generally applicable laws protecting children, such as prohibitions on child sexual abuse material, even where such material is generated by AI.”
The energy-use and environmental impact of AI infrastructure is a going concern, but the White House’s policy proposals are primarily worried about the cost of data centers. The framework suggests federal AI regulation should make sure that higher electricity costs aren’t passed on to people living near data centers, while streamlining the process for permitting AI infrastructure construction, so companies can pursue “on-site and behind-the-meter power generation.” The framework also calls for fewer restrictions on the software-side of AI development, proposing “regulatory sandboxes for AI applications” and asking Congress to “provide resources to make federal datasets accessible to industry and academia in AI-ready formats.”
While a recently AI bill from Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Ten.) attempts to eliminate Section 230, a piece of a larger law that says platforms can’t be held responsible for the speech they host, the framework appears to propose the opposite. “Congress should prevent the United States government from coercing technology providers, including AI providers, to ban, compel or alter content based on partisan or ideological agendas,” the White House writes. The framework is similarly hands-off when it comes to copyright and the use of intellectual property to train AI. “Although the Administration believes that training of AI models on copyrighted material does not violate copyright laws,” the White House writes, it supports the issue being settled in court rather than by legislation. Though, the White House does think Congress should “consider enabling licensing frameworks” so IP holders can bargain for compensations from AI providers.
The clincher in the White House’s proposal is the idea that federal regulation should preempt state law, specifically so that states don’t “regulate AI development,” don’t “unduly burden American’s use of AI for activity that would be lawful if performed without AI” and don’t punish AI companies “for a third party’s unlawful conduct involving their models.” The idea that AI companies aren’t liable for the illegal or harmful uses of their products is particularly problematic because it lies at the heart of multiple intersecting issues with AI right now, including it being used to generate sexually explicit images of children and allegedly playing a role in the suicide of users.
Ultimately, though, the framework might be too contradictory to be useful, Samir Jain, the Vice President of Policy for the Center for Democracy and Technology, writes in a statement to Engadget:
The White House’s high-level AI framework contains some sound statements of principles, but its usefulness to lawmakers is limited by its internal contradictions and failure to grapple with key tensions between various approaches to important topics like kids’ online safety. It rightly says that the government should not coerce AI companies to ban or alter content based on ‘partisan or ideological agendas,’ yet the Administration’s ‘woke AI’ Executive Order this summer does exactly that. On preemption, the framework asserts that states should not be permitted to regulate AI development, but at the same time rightly notes that federal law should not undermine states’ traditional powers to enforce their own laws against AI developers. States are currently leading the fight to protect Americans from harms that AI systems can create, and Congress has twice correctly decided not to pursue broad preemption.
President Donald Trump has attempted to have an active role in how AI is developed and regulated in the US with mixed results, primarily because, as Jain notes, Congress has been unwilling to give up states’ right to regulate the technology on their own terms. Without that, its hard to say how much of the framework will actually make it into federal law.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-white-house-proposes-new-ai-policy-framework-that-supersedes-state-laws-192251995.html?src=rss
The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has charged three people with illegally exporting NVIDIA GPUs to China in violation of the Export Control Reform Act. NVIDIA's chips have become a critical component in the rush to train and run increasingly complex artificial intelligence models, one the US has sought to manipulate with export controls and profit-sharing schemes with NVIDIA.
The three people, Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw, Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang and Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun, two employees and one contractor working for US IT company Super Micro Computer, allegedly circumvented export control laws via a multi-step scheme that involved creating fake orders for servers with NVIDIA chips from Southeast Asian companies, that were then secretly sent to China. The plan involved paying a logistics company to repackage the servers in Taiwan, staging dummy servers to be inspected by Super Micro Computer's compliance team and falsifying records so Liaw, Chang and Sun's employer was unaware where the servers were actually being sent.
The DOJ claims Liaw, Chang and Sun facilitated the illegal purchase of $2.5 billion worth of servers between 2024 and 2025 in direct violation of US export laws. Super Micro Computer is not named as a defendant in the US Attorney's indictment, but the company's stock price has been impacted by the scheme, CNBC writes. In a statement released on Thursday, Super Micro Computer announced that it's distancing itself from Liaw, Chang and Sun. "The individuals charged are Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw, Senior Vice President of Business Development and a member of the Company's Board of Directors; Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, a sales manager in Taiwan; and Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun, a contractor," the company writes. "Supermicro has placed the two employees on administrative leave and terminated its relationship with the contractor, effective immediately."
This isn't the first time people have attempted to illegally smuggle NVIDIA's products out of the US, and it likely won't be the last time. Reportedly $1 billion worth of NVIDIA's AI chips were illegally sold in the three months after the Trump administration tightened export controls, and back in December 2025, Texas authorities seized more than $50 million worth of NVIDIA GPUs bound for China. As long as there's demand for AI, there'll be demand for the hardware that makes it possible.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/three-people-have-been-charged-with-illegally-exporting-nvidia-gpus-to-china-184928430.html?src=rss
California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York are leading a group of 20 other states in suing the US Environmental Protection Agency for renouncing its ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, The New York Times reports. The lawsuit specifically argues that the EPA's decision to rescind a 2009 study that determined greenhouse gases are dangerous to public health was illegal. The study, which is the source of what's called the "Endangerment Finding," was one of several justifications — along with things like the Clean Air Act — for the agency's ability to regulate emissions.
Rescinding the finding nullified the EPA's evidence for things like emissions standards and a variety of other regulations that attempted to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the automotive, coal and oil industries. The Trump administration framed the rollback as a cost-saving measure, but it was also a major blow to the government's ability to fight climate change. Greenhouse gases, which include things like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, collect in the atmosphere and warm the planet, upsetting weather patterns and negatively impacting the environment. Determining the changes caused by greenhouse gases posed a risk to public health gave the EPA the authority to regulate them under its existing mandate to address air pollution. An authority it could have again, depending on the result of this litigation.
Of course, winning a lawsuit isn't necessary to restore the EPA's role in fighting climate change. Congress could do that now by passing a new law. The legal route is just faster, and potentially riskier. The New York Times writes that this new lawsuit was filed in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and could ultimately be combined with an existing lawsuit from environmental groups. Depending on how the case fairs in the lower court, it may eventually be appealed to the US Supreme Court, who could decide on an even more restrictive interpretation of the EPA's role.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/states-are-suing-the-epa-for-relinquishing-its-role-as-a-greenhouse-gas-emissions-regulator-221425064.html?src=rss
Google is testing a version of its Gemini app for macOS, Bloomberg reports. The app would bring the AI assistant to uncharted territory, and in more direct competition with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, both of which offer standalone Mac apps.
Gemini remains accessible through the web, and it sounds like the macOS app offers the same set of features, with the ability to respond to prompts, search the web and generate text, images and code. The major differentiator of the Mac app could be a feature called "Desktop Intelligence," which gives Gemini a new source of information and context for its responses. According to a message in the app's code viewed by Bloomberg, "when you enable apps for Desktop Intelligence you are enabling Gemini to see what you see (such as screen context) and pull content directly from these apps to improve and personalize your experience only when Gemini is in use."
The ability to refer to information in apps and what's currently on your screen is offered by both the Claude and ChatGPT macOS apps, and something Gemini is capable of on mobile devices. It's not clear if Gemini for macOS will be able to actually take action in the apps it can view — like, for example, Anthropic's popular Claude Cowork feature — but Google has already started offering that experience in a limited form on smartphones, so who's to say that couldn't come to desktop operating systems, too.
Bloomberg reports that the Gemini app is being tested with non-Google employees, which could be a sign it's making its way to a public release. Thanks to Apple and Google's AI partnership, whether the app sees the light of day or not, some of the technology that makes Gemini possible will run on macOS in the future. Google and Apple announced in January that Google's Gemini models would power future versions of Apple Intelligence. Apple is also reportedly overhauling Siri into more of a chatbot, an experience likely made possible by Gemini.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-is-reportedly-testing-a-gemini-app-for-mac-203703372.html?src=rss
Google has detailed how users will be able to sideload apps from unverified developers once it implements its more restrictive policy towards downloading software on Android. The company originally planned to require all developers to be "verified" to distribute on Android, but softened its stance in November 2025 to allow carveouts for Android power-users and hobbyist developers.
For the average Android users, the ability to sideload apps will now be locked behind a multi-step one-time process. Users will first have to enable developer mode in settings, confirm they're not being coached into disabling security, restart their phone (to cut off any phone calls), then wait a day and confirm their identity with biometric authentication or a pin before installing any apps. Google says you can enable the ability to install apps from unverified developers for seven days or indefinitely, but regardless of what you'll choose, you'll still have to dismiss a warning telling you the app you're installing is from an unverified developer.
For hobbyist developers or students who want people to try their app but don't want to create a verified developer account, Google also plans to offer free "limited distributions accounts" that let you share apps without being verified. These accounts will let you share apps with up to 20 devices without having "to provide a government-issued ID or pay a registration fee."
Google is implementing its new verification process in the name of security, and has likened the requirements being asked of developers to "an ID check at the airport, which confirms a traveler's identity but is separate from the security screening of their bags." Neither the verification nor this new approach to sideloading entirely closes off getting apps from unverified developers onto your Android device, they just make it harder to download something dangerous directly from the internet onto your phone.
Google appears to be trying to split the difference on Android, tightening up what apps can be distributed via verification, while cutting its own Play Store fees and changing its stance towards third-party app stores. Requiring verification to distribute software extends Google's influence outside of its own apps and app store, which is why some developers and digital rights organizations have publicly pushed back on the company's plan.
Developers can sign-up for early access to the developer verification process now. Google says its new workflow for enabling sideloading and small distributions of apps will go live in August.
Correction, March 19, 2026, 3:44PM ET: The headline has been change to clarify that the new procedure does not apply to all app sideloading.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/android-will-hide-app-sideloading-behind-a-new-one-time-security-process-184651171.html?src=rss
NASA and ESA have released new images from the Hubble Space Telescope of a comet breaking up as it exits the solar system, captured as part of study recently published in the journal Icarus. The images are notable not only because they offer a more detailed view of the inside of a comet, which could offer new information about the early days of the universe, but also because they were taken by accident.
Photographing K1, or "Comet C/2025 K1" as it's officially known, wasn't the original intention of the study. "This comet [was] observed because our original comet was not viewable due to some new technical constraints after we won our proposal," John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University in Alabama said. "We had to find a new target — and right when we observed it, it happened to break apart, which is the slimmest of slim chances."
The comet broke up over a period of days into "at least four pieces," each with a "fuzzy envelope of gas and dust" around them, with Hubble specifically capturing the disassembly from November 8 through November 10, 2025. K1 was interesting before it started to crumble because at "around 8 kilometers across" (about 5 miles), it's larger than the average comet, and having footage of it shattering will likely offer new insights into the physics of comets in general. Additionally, the lack of carbon in the gases released by the comet as it broke is apparently "chemically very strange," which suggests the composition of K1 could bear scientific fruit, too.
Hubble has tracked comets of different sizes and compositions for years. Studying them remains a focus because comets are frequently made of ice and rock from the primordial period when solar systems were first forming. The ESA hopes to dramatically expand our understanding of that period with its "Comet Interceptor" mission, which is supposed to launch in 2028 or 2029, and aims to use photos captured from multiple angles to create a 3D model of a comet.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/hubble-catches-rare-view-of-a-comet-crumbling-185817544.html?src=rss
Horizon Worlds, Meta's first pass at a metaverse, will be inaccessible via virtual reality headset after June 15, 2026. The company shared plans to separate Horizon Worlds from Quest VR platform and focus exclusively on the smartphone version of the app in February, and now in a new post on its community forums, Meta detailed when the VR version of Horizon Worlds will be deprecated.
By March 31, Meta says individual Horizon Worlds and Events will no longer be listed in the Quest's Store and headset owners will be unable to visit worlds like "Horizon Central, Events Arena, Kaiju and Bobber Bay." Then, after June 15, the app will be removed from Quest headsets and worlds will be completely unavailable to visit in VR. From that point on, the easiest place to visit Horizon Worlds will be in the Meta Horizon app for iOS and Android.
Additionally, Hyperscape Capture, a recently added beta feature that allows Quest headset owners to capture, share and visit each other in detailed 3D scans of real-life locations, is also being removed from Horizon Worlds. Meta says users will still be able to capture and view Hyperscapes, "but sharing, inviting, and co-experiencing Hyperscapes with others will no longer be supported."
While Meta's original blog detailing its 2026 VR strategy left open the possibility that a committed Quest owner might still be able to access some part of Meta's original VR metaverse, that apparently was never the company's plan. Meta saw enough "positive momentum" focusing on supporting the mobile version of Horizon Worlds in 2025 that it made sense to completely abandon the VR one in 2026. While that seems to run contrary to Meta’s positioning as a "metaverse company," it does reflect where the company is spending the most money and seeing the most (relative) success: AI and smart glasses.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-will-shut-down-vr-horizon-worlds-access-in-june-222028919.html?src=rss
Spotify is introducing a way for subscribers to get bit-perfect playback of songs if they listen on Windows. The company's newly announced "Exclusive Mode" gives the music streaming app complete control of audio processing on your PC so you can listen to songs exactly as they were mastered.
"Without Exclusive Mode turned on, your computer may alter audio before it reaches your DAC by resampling it, mixing other system sounds in, and changing the volume," Spotify writes. With the mode enabled, all other sounds from your computer are disabled so Spotify can deliver the highest quality and most accurate version of a song possible. Exclusive Mode will help maintain fidelity while you’re playing a song, but to make sure you're not losing quality anywhere else in the chain, you'll still want to listen with wired headphones connected to a DAC or digital-to-analog converter, and opt to use Spotify’s lossless streaming option.
Exclusive Mode is only available on Windows for now, but Spotify says it'll come to the macOS version of the Spotify app "in a future release." Provided you're a Spotify Premium subscriber, enabling the feature is fairly simple:
Open Spotify.
Click on Settings.
Scroll down to Playback.
Toggle Exclusive Mode to "On" under the Output section.
Spotify launched its Lossless streaming option as a perk for Premium subscribers in September 2025. The company was rumored to be working on the feature as far back as 2017 and even formally announced it as Spotify HiFi in 2021, opening up the possibility it could be a more expensive add-on to a normal subscription. Now both lossless audio and “bit-perfect” playback are included as part of the same $13 per month you pay for a Premium subscription.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-rolls-out-bit-perfect-playback-in-windows-app-211036176.html?src=rss
The real world price of impulse-buying Fortnite skins is going up, Epic has announced. Not because skins themselves are getting more expensive on paper, but because V-Bucks, Fortnite's digital currency, is. The same prices you paid for bundles of V-Bucks in February will now effectively earn you fewer bucks starting on March 19, along with several other Fortnite-related pricing changes.
Epic will still offer bundles of V-Bucks starting at $8.99 and running all the way to $89.99, but with a new "conversion rate.” The new bundle prices breakdown as follows:
$8.99 will get you 800 V-Bucks, down from 1,000 V-Bucks
$22.99 will get you 2,400 V-Bucks, down from 2,800 V-Bucks
$36.99 will get you 4,500 V-Bucks, down from 5,000 V-Bucks
$89.99 will get you 12,500 V-Bucks, down from 13,500 V-Bucks
On top of those changes, the cost of Epic's "Exact Amount Pack," which lets you buy the exact amount of V-Bucks necessary to complete a specific purchase, is changing from around $0.50 for 50 V-Bucks to $0.99 for 50 V-Bucks.
These new prices for V-Bucks are US-specific and will vary in other regions. They're also not entirely representative of the value Epic is offering with each purchase. As part of the company's Epic Rewards program, you get 20 percent back on purchases made in Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League when you use the Epic Games Store or Epic's payment system on Android, iOS, PC or the web. That means you can receive anywhere from $1.79 (for 800 V-Bucks) to $17.99 (for 12,500 V-Bucks) to spend in Fortnite or the Epic Games Store when you use the company's payment system.
Changes to the value of V-Bucks are also impacting Fortnite's various passes. The standard Battle Pass will now cost 800 V-Bucks and award 800 V-Bucks, down from its previous price of 1,000 V-Bucks. Meanwhile, the price of the OG Pass (for Fortnite's throwback game mode) is lowering from 1,000 V-Bucks to 800 V-Bucks, and both the Music and Lego Passes are going from costing 1,400 V-Bucks to 1,200 V-Bucks. For any subscribers to Fortnite Crew, Fortnite's monthly subscription service, your monthly stipend of the digital currency is also shrinking from 1,000 V-Bucks to 800 V-Bucks.
Epic claims that it's making all of these changes because "the cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot" and raising prices helps pay the bills, but the company is also in a much better position to make money on every transaction that happens in the game. In securing largely favorable outcomes in its lawsuits against Apple and Google, Epic now has a way to point users to its payment system on iOS and Android (all the better to avoid app store fees), and its won major concessions that seem poised to reshape how app store economies work.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/epic-is-increasing-the-price-of-fortnites-v-bucks-currency-185800744.html?src=rss
As part of a Year in Review blog detailing changes Valve made to Steam in 2025, the company shared a minor update on its hardware plans that doesn't sound good for anyone hoping to buy a Steam Machine, Steam Controller or Steam Frame in 2026. Specifically, the company is now opening up the possibility its new hardware won't ship this year at all.
In February, when Valve acknowledged the ongoing memory and storage shortage had delayed the launch of its hardware and could lead to higher prices, the company was still committing to a (fairly wide) window of when its hardware would ship:
"Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change."
As of the company's latest post, however, things somehow sound even less certain. "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us," Valve wrote in its Year in Review post. "We’ll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!"
While Valve's air of secrecy can make it easy to read too much into the limited information the company does share, moving from "the first half of the year" to "[hoping] to ship in 2026" certainly gives it wiggle room to not release new hardware this year. And considering the difficulties other companies are facing sourcing memory and storage, it wouldn't be all that surprising.
HP said in February that RAM accounts for a third of its PC costs, and industry analysts expect the RAM shortage could radically alter the PC landscape as companies are forced to raise prices. Valve's already struggling to keep the Steam Deck in stock due to its issues securing RAM, it stands to reason sourcing components for even more devices wouldn't make that process any easier. Then again, the company hasn’t updated its launch timing FAQ, so there’s still reason to hope the Steam Machine ships in 2026.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/valve-doesnt-sound-confident-the-steam-machine-will-ship-in-2026-221709517.html?src=rss
Netflix's library of streamable party games is expanding today with a custom version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat. Netflix launched its cloud gaming program with games like Lego Party and Tetris Time Warp, but Overcooked feels a bit unique because it features a roster of Netflix-affiliated characters from KPop Demon Hunters and Stranger Things.
For the uninitiated, Overcooked plays like a more manic version of Diner Dash, where teams attempt to prepare food together in increasingly elaborate kitchens filled with obstacles. The original version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat was released in 2020, and includes DLC and stages from previous versions of the game. Netflix's version bundles in the same content, and "10 Netflix celebrity chefs" including "Dustin, Eleven, Lucas, and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things," and "half-dozen faces from KPop Demon Hunters," like "Mira, Rumi, Zoey, Jinu, Derpy and Sussie." Like Netflix's other streaming games, playing Overcooked also requires you to use a connected smartphone as a controller.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/netflixs-version-of-overcooked-lets-you-play-as-huntrx-212515187.html?src=rss
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