 |
|
|
|||||
Were starting to hit our stride in 2026. Now that February is here, our reviews team is flush with new devices to test, which means youve got a lot to catch up on if you havent been following along. Read on for a roundup of the most compelling new gear weve tested recently from gaming, PCs, cameras and more. Nex Playground If you still have a fondness for the Xbox Kinect, the Nex Playground might be right up your alley. Senior reporter Devindra Hardawar recently put the tiny box through its paces and found an active gaming experience thats fun for the whole family. While I have some concerns about the companys subscription model, Nex has accomplished a rare feat: It developed a simple box that makes it easy for your entire family to jump into genuinely innovative games and experiences, he wrote. MSI's Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Devindra also tested MSIs latest laptop, the powerful Prestige 14 Flip AI+. While the machine got high marks for its performance, display and connectivity, he noted that the overall experience is hindered by subpar keyboard and truly awful trackpad. As one of the earliest Panther Lake laptops on the market, the $1,299 Prestige 14 Flip AI+ is a solid machine, if you're willing to overlook its touchpad flaws, he explained. More than anything though, the Prestige 14 makes me excited to see what other PC makers offer with Intel's new chips. Shokz OpenFit Pro Fresh off of its Best of CES selection, I conducted a full review of the OpenFit Pro earbuds from Shokz. I continue to be impressed by the earbuds ability to reduce ambient noise while keeping your ears open. And the overall sound quality is excellent for a product that sits outside of your ears. Sony A7 V Contributing reporter Steve Dent has been busy testing cameras to start the year. This week he added the Sony A7 V to the list, noting the excellent photo quality and accurate autofocus. The A7 V is an incredible camera for photography, with speeds, autofocus accuracy and image quality ahead of rivals, including the Canon R6 III, Panasonic S1 II and Nikon Z6 III, he said. However, Sony isnt keeping up with those models for video. Apple AirTag (2026) Our first Editors Choice device of 2026 is Apples updated AirTag. All of the upgrades lead to a better overall item tracker, according to UK bureau chief Mat Smith. There's no doubt the second-gen AirTags are improved, and thankfully, upgrading to the new capabilities doesnt come at too steep a cost, he concluded. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-review-recap-shokz-openfit-pro-nex-playground-sony-a7-v-and-more-123400089.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. As always, we've got a bunch of neat games to tell you about. Perhaps I'll tear myself away from playing as Chappell Roan in Fortnite or Jetpack Cat in Overwatch long enough to check more of them out.Thanks to the folks at Aftermath, I learned about a short, text-based game from Woe Industries from a while back called You Have Billions Invested In Generative AI. Surprisingly enough, you take on the role of a venture capitalist who has plowed gobs of money into genAI technology and might be starting to have doubts about that investment. Other characters warn you about the dangers of the tech and real-life headlines showing the impact of genAI hallucinations pop up. It's tagged as a horror game, for what it's worth. It's both satirical and all too real, and it's pretty funny. Plus, any game that allows me to yell at Noam Chomsky is A-OK in my book. You can play You Have Billions Invested In Generative AI for free on Itch.io.New releasesTackle for Loss had a very timely arrival this week, just ahead of a certain other big, real-life game. This is a football-themed take on action-heavy, top-down games like Hotline Miami. Developer Indifferent Penguin took some inspiration from the Taken film series as well you take on the role of a CTE-afflicted former football player who sets out to rescue his kidnapped daughter.The combat sounds pretty interesting here. You need to clear out all of the bad guys on each floor of a multistory building before you can progress, but you only have four offensive actions at your disposal each time (this draws from the four-down format of football). You'll need to plan things out before you go on the attack, not least because your character and the enemies all die in a single hit.Tackle for Loss is out now on Steam. It'll usually run you $11, but it's 15 percent off until February 12. Trust Me, I Nailed It is an intriguing turn-based strategy game from Team Afternoon and publisher Jungle Game Lab. A useless warrior hires you as a video editor to make them look like a true hero capable of slaying any beast. Enemy attacks and other actions appear on the edit timeline as pre-recorded footage, and the idea is to plot out the warrior's movements around those. You have post-processing visual effects tricks at your disposal, so you can let the warrior teleport and convert low-power strikes into critical hits.It's a fun idea, and a reminder (as if we should need one in the current climate) not to always take videos at face value. Trust Me, I Nailed It is on Steam now and it's free-to-play.Tomb of the Bloodletter is a spin on the roguelike deckbuilder genre that I haven't really seen before. Your deck consists of magic powers that are applied to letters of the alphabet. Spelling out words using these Magicks can result in powerful combinations, particularly if you use the same letter multiple times. That's right, this is a typing game a roguelike deckbuilder that the likes of Wordle players might be interested in.It's really about coming up with words that put the right letters in a specific order. For instance, certain letters are more effective if you place them at the end of a word. So, this should get your brain ticking. Tomb of the Bloodletter from Ethan's Secretions and indie.io debuted during the Steam Typing Fest. It'll typically cost $8, but there's a 20 percent discount until February 19.Upcoming Shadowstone is an upcoming turn-based tactical co-op roguelike for up to four players from developer Secret Door and Dreamhaven (Blizzard co-founder and ex-CEO Mike Morhaime's company). It's set in the same universe as Secret Door's Sunderfolk. The action plays out on a hexagonal board with randomized rooms and enemies. Positioning will be key, and finding synergies between the abilities of the playable characters will put you in good stead.Shadowstone will hit Steam in early access later this year for $15. It's also coming to the Epic Games Store.Meanwhile, a major update for Sunderfolk is set to go live on March 10. It will introduce a new tank-style character and two fresh sets of missions. Secret Door will also add two much-requested features to PC versions: online multiplayer and so you don't have to use your phone to play the game anymore mouse and keyboard controls.I really loved Planet of Lana and the sequel is among my most-anticipated games of this year. There's now a release date for the upcoming puzzle platformer. Wishfully and Thunderful Publishing are ringing it to Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch on March 5. It'll also be on Game Pass on day one.A Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf demo will hit Steam, Xbox and PlayStation on February 11. It will arrive on Switch a bit later.Is Sticker/Ball the first Ball x Pit-like? I'm not entirely sure. Still, it is now firmly on my radar. Instead of firing balls at a horde of constantly-advancing enemies, here you'll shoot them at dice to earn points. You'll unlock stickers that can be applied to said dice and theyll interact with each other too. For instance, spiders can create webs and these can catch flies that are attracted to poop stickers. The trailer describes another interaction, "frog jumped and triggered cigarette pack." Frogs can also hijack spaceships, apparently, and there's a bouncing DVD (well, "VID") logo. There are more than 100 types of stickers and dozens of different enemies.I don't really understand what's going on in the trailer, but it's somehow making my brain happy, so this is going on my wishlist. Solo dev Bilge is behind Sticker/Ball, which is coming to Steam soon through the help of publisher Future Friends Games. A demo is available now, so that's my weekend sorted.Skate City has long been one of the best games on Apple Arcade. Its creator, Daniel Zeller, (Zellah Games) has revealed a new project. Skate Style is billed as a "next-gen skateboarding game with high-end graphics." You'll be able to take to the virtual streets of Barcelona and Prague to show off your best moves. What could help Skate Style really stand out from the pack is the animation editor, which enables you to create completely new tricks. The game is slated to have an "advanced" character creation tool as well as mod support, so there'll be a high level of customization available. A Skate Style demo is available on Steam now. The full game should land on PC later this year. Here's hoping the soundtrack can match up to those from the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series.Crimson Capes is billed as a 2D Soulslike action RPG with four playable characters, elemental magic, more than 25 bosses, swordfighting, lots of secrets, co-op, optional hunts with randomized dungeons and invasions from other players. That all sounds neat enough, but most exciting to me here is the pixel-art, rotoscoped animation work. It looks modern and retro at the same time, and I'd love to see this sort of style in more games. I also dig that you get a PDF instruction manual and game guide as well as a printable world map when you buy the game.You (and I) won't have to wait long to play Crimson Capes, which is from Poor Locke. It's coming to Steam on February 12 for $15, though you'll get 10 percent off if you pick it up within the first nine days. Console versions are in the pipeline too. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hotline-miami-meets-football-the-power-of-video-editing-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-120000628.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Kris Marszalek, CEO and co-founder of crypto and stock trading platform Crypto.com, has bought an expensive website. In this case it's AI.com, valued at one point at $100 million, which will serve as the online home for his new company of the same name. The website launch is being paired with a Super Bowl ad that will air this Sunday.AI.com's main offering is an AI agent that "operates on the users behalf organizing work, sending messages, executing actions across apps, building projects, and more." It's a similar concept to what companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are promising with their own agents and agentic features, and notably lacking in hard details. Users can make multiple agents with AI.com and have them do a variety of tasks the company's press release mentions trading stocks and updating a dating profile, for example while remaining permission-based and private. It's not clear if AI.com is offering its own AI models or licensing those offered by other companies, but clearly whatever it offers, both for free and via a planned paid subscription, will be flexible.Like Crypto.com's big push into the mainstream during late 2021 and early 2022, AI.com is arriving at a particularly hype-filled time in the AI industry. Anthropic's Claude Code and Claude Cowork tools have been taken up as evidence that AI might actually make people more productive, so AI.com's decision to push an agent of its own is timely. Of course, after Crypto.com's big Matt Damon ad in 2021, and Super Bowl ad in 2022, Bitcoin prices hit an all-time low in June 2022. Ironically, Marszalek's AI.com is also launching during a particularly nasty "crypto winter" which has lowered the price of Bitcoin to under $66,000, a steep drop from the $127,000 it cost in October 2025. That's not to suggest the AI.com CEO is a groundhog for deflating hype balloons. More likely, it's a sign that the future of AI could be as unpredictable and volatile as cryptocurrency. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-cryptocom-guy-bought-aicom-and-a-super-bowl-ad-234325394.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||