Jess Weatherbed

News Reporter

Jess WeatherbedSep 26, 2024

Nintendo wants to buck the current AI gaming trends.

In an interview with The New York Times, Nintendo design guru Shigeru Miyamoto says the company has no interest in ditching originality to follow AI fads:

“It might seem like we are just going the opposite direction for the sake of going in the opposite direction, but it really is trying to find what makes Nintendo special,” Miyamoto said. “There is a lot of talk about A.I., for example. When that happens, everyone starts to go in the same direction, but that is where Nintendo would rather go in a different direction.”

Other companies like Embracer have embraced AI, and the likes of Ubisoft, Nvidia, and Microsoft are already experimenting with generative AI characters.

Jess WeatherbedSep 26, 2024

‘If you’re a top gamer or a coder, your country needs you’

That’s according to UK Defence Secretary John Healey, giving the iconic “Lord Kitchener Wants You” recruitment slogan (which inspired the Uncle Sam poster) a modern spin at yesterday’s Labour Party conference.

That said, both the UK and US armed forces aren’t strangers to using gaming prowess as a lure to entice younger folks to enlist.

VR artists can now buy Logitech’s pen-shaped Meta Quest controller

Jess WeatherbedSep 25, 2024

X obeys more government takedown requests under Elon Musk’s leadership.

The social platform has released its first transparency report in over three years, and we’ve linked the full document below so you can compare it against the last report from 2021.

Notably, X has suspended more accounts and obliged 20 percent more legal requests to take down or withhold user content since Musk purchased the platform.

X: Global Transparency Report

[DocumentCloud]

Duolingo now offers a portable piano for its music course

Jess WeatherbedSep 25, 2024

A repairable Pixel Watch could be on the horizon.

At a Climate Week NYC panel, Google policy manager Nicole Azores said the company is considering how to change its watch design, which currently has to be replaced entirely if damaged.

Here’s a snippet from Wired’s reporting which notes that Apple’s and Samsung’s watches are repairable:

Watches and wearables are still fairly nascent, and we are thinking through how to make this repairable,” Azores said on the panel. “We’re thinking about repairability on a broader scale, not just on phones and tablets, and we want to make sure that all of our products eventually become repairable.

Google Is ‘Thinking Through’ How to Make the Pixel Watch Repairable

[WIRED]

Jess WeatherbedSep 25, 2024

Gmail’s blue checkmarks are coming to iOS and Android.

The verification marks will now appear in Gmail’s mobile apps for senders who have adopted BIMI, Google’s Brand Indicators for Message Identification feature. They were previously only visible on the Gmail web client.

Gmail now also supports Common Mark Certificates (CMC) which will allow a “broader range of senders to utilize BIMI” according to Google.