Speaking of Microsoft hedging bets, it’s been doing that with VR since day one. The original Oculus Rift shipped with an Xbox One gamepad and could stream games from Xbox, while Microsoft simultaneously pursued its HoloLens and Windows Mixed Reality initiatives.
Microsoft recently brought Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Xbox Cloud Gaming to Meta Quest, too, perhaps in preparation for today’s announce.
It’s only been dead and buried for three months, and yet Microsoft has already glommed onto a new “we don’t have to make this ourselves, OEMs will do it for us” VR headset initiative. Last time, it was Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung with tethered headsets; this time, it’s Meta, Asus, and Lenovo with Qualcomm-powered wireless ones.
Microsoft sure knows how to hedge its bets!
When Nintendo shut down Super Mario Maker’s servers, it gave players over three years to enjoy and document their own work before the bitter end.
But PlayStation isn’t giving fans time to say goodbye: it’s yanking the rug. Hope you saved a copy of your level locally!
Asus has now extended its warranty, and will even reimburse for damaged cards if you send them (and your handheld) for repair.
But it’s not clear whether the card reader can be repaired — “devices returned from RMA as recently as this month still have the issue,” warns r/ROGAlly moderator duckydan81. I asked Asus if that’s changing; I’ll report back next week.
Bloomberg:
Almost 600 public fast-charging stations were switched on for US drivers in the first three months of the year, a 7.6% increase over the end of 2023, according to a Bloomberg Green analysis of federal data. There are now almost 8,200 quick-turn EV stations across the country, or one for every 15 gas stations. Tesla is responsible for slightly more than one quarter of them.
EV charging is still a bit more complicated than a fill-up, what with different charging speeds, competing standards, and rival networks, but alignment is underway.
Spyra recently sent me its new $54 SpyraGo electric water blaster, so I decided to bring back a literal blast from the past: a 1998 Super Soaker CPS 2500, one of the most effective hosers ever made.
Below, see how they perform against the flagship $179 SpyraThree and the $15 X-Shot Epic Fast Fill, one of the best budget soakers you can buy!
The Short Stack: a scale model of a Nintendo Wii one-thirteenth the size, with an actual trimmed Wii motherboard inside. Four headset jacks do duty as working GameCube controller ports, attached to custom PCBs that add USB-C power, HDMI output, and microSD storage.
Alex told us they were coming, but it looks like Meta is flipping the switch as we speak — adding Meta AI searches alongside traditional ones in each app’s default search box. Oh, and some Ask Meta AI mini-prompts, too. If Meta AI has an answer to something you type, it’ll show a blue-violet circle next to that search result.
