At long last, iPhone users have access to Apple's AI image generation tools, Genmoji (for customized emoji) and Image Playground. But based on our testing, these Apple Intelligence features aren't fully baked. In this episode, Devindra and Cherlynn discuss why these AI tools aren't very useful and dive into some of Apple's most egregious image generation fails.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
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iOS 18.2 AI image generation arrives half baked. Genmoji are fun, but weird 1:13
OpenAIs Sora video generation model was finally released 37:17
GM kills its Cruise robotaxi project 45:43
Googles Gemini 2.0 is now available for preview 49:51
Tiktok is running out of options to avoid a ban in the U.S. 57:36
Working on 1:00:04
Pop culture picks 1:02:20
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Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn LowProducer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/engadget-podcast-apples-genmoji-are-ai-disappointments-123031877.html?src=rss
The Game Awards delivered. While the games I thought deserved to win did so (Astro Bot! Balatro! Metaphor!), we got some wildcard trailers, like an entirely new game from Last of Us studio Naughty Dog. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet takes place thousands of years in the future, and it stars bounty hunter Jordan A. Mun, played by Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actor Tati Gabrielle. Note: This is the first game from Naughty Dog since 2005 that isnt Uncharted or Last of Us .
There was also, many years on, another Witcher game. Witcher 4 will feature Ciri kicking magical ass, but theres no gameplay footage yet. Elsewhere, Virtua Fighter is getting a revival (part of Segas push to mine and relaunch its biggest hits) and a new brawler game from the makers of the Like A Dragon series.
Capcom too taps its gaming past, reviving the wolf god Okami and its magical ink strokes nearly two decades after the original, with the original games director, Hideki Kamiya, still at the helm.
And we have a new co-op game from the studio behind It Takes Two. Split Fiction is a co-op adventure where players leap between sci-fi and fantasy worlds. There is also a new sci-fi game from the creator of The Last Guardian, an Elden Ring co-op spin-off and, well, read on for even more.
Mat Smith
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Most US teens still use TikTok daily as ban looms
YouTube and Instagram are likely to benefit the most.
With a TikTok ban in the United States looking more and more likely, a new report from Pew Research on teen social media use underscores just how influential the app is among its youngest users. Its one of the most-used social media services by teens, with 57 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds scrolling TikTok every single day, according to the report.
TikTok is running out of options to avoid the ban in the United States. The company lost its initial legal challenge to a law requiring parent company ByteDance to sell the app or face a total ban in the country. TikTok has asked the courts for a temporary delay to the law, which is currently scheduled to take effect January 19.
Continue reading.
Adobes new Photoshop tool can clean away window reflections
Although it isnt perfect.
Adobe
Adobe has a new experimental tool for removing window reflections from photos. Originally announced at Adobe Max 2023 as Project See Through, the Reflection Removal tool is now available to preview in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Bridge if youre a Creative Cloud subscriber. The tool uses AI to isolate two separate images: the reflection and whatever is on the other side of the window or reflective material. Adobe says the Reflection Removal tool cant handle reflections from windows that are small or far away or reflections of wine glasses, car bodies or clouds reflected in a lake.
Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121552052.html?src=rss
The Game Awards are over congratulations to Team Asobi for Astro Bot taking home the Game of the Year award. As always, the long, long stream was a hybrid award ceremony, advertising reel and game announcement marathon.
There were countless announcements interspersed throughout the awards, including all-new games like Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet from Naughty Dog, The Witcher 4 from CD Projekt RED and Split Fiction from It Takes Two studio Hazelight. It was also a show of revivals, with long-dormant franchises like Okami, Onimusha, Ninja Gaiden and Virtua Fighter returning.
Here are our top announcements from the show, in no particular order you can watch all the trailers below, or click on one of the headlines to get the full story.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is a new sci-fi game from Naughty Dog
Naughty Dog is pivoting from post-apocalyptic fungal drama to interstellar sci-fi bounty hunting with its newest game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The studio revealed its new title with a cinematic trailer at The Game Awards on Thursday. Intergalactic takes place thousands of years in the future and it stars bounty hunter Jordan A. Mun, played by Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actor Tati Gabrielle. Jordan finds herself stranded on the planet Sempiria, which has been cut off from the rest of the universe for more than 600 years. She's on a mission to escape Sempiria, but it looks like some vicious robots are going to get in her way.
The first Witcher 4 trailer sees Ciri kicking butt
Well, let's be honest: I don't think any of us expected to see CD Projekt Red preview The Witcher 4 anytime soon, and yet the studio did just that, sharing a lengthy cinematic trailer for the upcoming sequel at the Game Awards. Even if there's no gameplay footage to be found, fans of the series will love what they see.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a co-op spinoff coming in 2025
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is just barely in the rearview mirror and FromSoftware already has a new game in the wings. The first trailer for Elden Ring Nightreign, a standalone co-op action game, at The Game Awards 2024.
RGG reveals a Virtua Fighter revival and a brawler set in the 1910s
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio delivered a meaty one-two punch at The Game Awards. First came the news that the Like A Dragon studio is behind a revival of the Virtua Fighter series. Not only that, but the forever-busy studio (which, you may recall, has a Like A Dragon spinoff coming in February) is also making a Like A Dragon-style game set in the 1910s.
An Okami sequel is on the way, nearly two decades later
There were several major surprise announcements during this year's edition of The Game Awards, but perhaps none was quite as out of the blue as word of a sequel to Okami. Not only that, the original game's director, Hideki Kamiya, is at the helm.
Borderlands 4 gameplay trailer shows four new Vault Hunters having a bad day
Its only been a short few months since Gearbox announced Borderlands 4, the next game in its long-running looter shooter franchise. Back in August, all we had was a cryptic teaser, but at todays Game Awards, we got a proper look at the new game.
The Outer Words 2 gameplay trailer reveals it's coming to PS5 as well as Xbox
We told you back in 2021 that The Outer Worlds 2 was a thing that existed, and now, more than three years later, we have evidence in support of this claim: a gameplay trailer.
Mafia: The Old Country is a Sicilian prequel arriving next summer
2Ks consistently sporadic Mafia series will return in 2025. Mafia: The Old Country is set in Sicily in the 1900s, and will explore the origins of organized crime. Developer Hangar 13 announced that a new Mafia title was in development back in 2022, but gave few details beyond that. The game's first trailer is a melodramatic affair complete with a patriarch monologuing over candlelight, horses galloping across the plains and opera music as a backing track. This is drama, people.
It Takes Two studio returns with dueling sci-fi and fantasy worlds in Split Fiction
Swedish indie studio Hazelight is synonymous with co-op gaming, so of course its next project is built for two players but this time, it also features two genres. Split Fiction is a co-op adventure where players leap between sci-fi and fantasy worlds in a bid to escape the clutches of a greedy publishing corporation. It supports local and online co-op, and, fittingly, it plays out in split-screen.
The next game from the Sifu team is... a 5v5 arcade soccer title?
Brawlers Absolver and Sifu put Sloclap on the map thanks to their memorable looks, slick action and crunchy animations. So naturally the next project for the French studio is [checks notes] a 5v5 arcade soccer game. Uh, sure! Rematch, which is slated to arrive next summer, perhaps makes more sense for Sloclap than first meets the eye. The studio says the title falls within its remit of making challenging action games with a stylized look.
Thick as Thieves is a multiplayer stealth-action game from legends Warren Spector and Paul Neurath
Thick as Thieves is a new project from the team of immersive sim and stealth-action icons at OtherSide Entertainment, which includes Deus Ex creator Warren Spector, Looking Glass Studios founder Paul Neurath, and Thief: The Dark Project lead Greg LoPiccolo. Yes, that's a stacked lineup. Together, the OtherSide crew has created or worked on the System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief and Ultima Underworld series, and (along with Doug Church and Ken Levine) are largely responsible for the existence of immersive sims as we know them.
The Overcooked team has a new creepy-cute co-op game called Stage Fright
There are two cool pieces of news here. First, the indie studio behind the Overcooked series, Ghost Town Games, is working on a new title called Stage Fright, and it'll support both online and couch co-op. Rad! Second, Stage Fright is being published by No Man's Sky studio Hello Games, a move that marks Hello's first foray into publishing other studios' projects. Double rad! Stage Fright is built around co-op, and its mechanics bring Overcooked-style chaos to a series of escape rooms in a spooky, Luigi's Mansion kind of world.
Ragebound is a new Ninja Gaiden game from the team behind Blasphemous
Resurrecting a beloved gaming series like Ninja Gaiden is always a tricky proposition. Anyone who might have worked on the franchise in its heyday has likely moved on to other projects or left the industry entirely. But judging by the talent working on Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, the new series entry revealed at the Game Awards, Ithink it's safe to say the franchise is in safe hands. That's because Ragebound unites two companies who know a thing or two about making quality games.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-13-biggest-announcements-and-new-trailers-from-the-game-awards-2024-043849892.html?src=rss
And now for something completely different. Naughty Dog is pivoting from post-apocalyptic fungal drama to interstellar sci-fi bounty hunting with its newest game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The studio revealed its new title with a cinematic trailer at The Game Awards on Thursday.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet takes place thousands of years in the future and it stars bounty hunter Jordan A. Mun, played by Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actor Tati Gabrielle. Jordan finds herself stranded on the planet Sempiria, which has been cut off from the rest of the universe for more than 600 years. She's on a mission to escape Sempiria, but it looks like some vicious robots are going to get in her way.
The reveal trailer is gorgeous, even if it is just in-game cinematics. It shows glittering galaxies and Jordan being sassy with her superiors in a Porsche spaceship, all set to droning lo-fi tones and upbeat '80s tunes. Once the camera reaches the planet level, there's a huge, multi-armed robot with a glowing red sword. Jordan pulls out her own weapon and the fight is on.
This is the beginning of a new IP for Naughty Dog it's the studio's first game that isn't Uncharted or The Last of Us since 2005. Game director and Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann shared just a little more insight into the game's story on the PlayStation Blog:
"What we can tell you is that this game lives up to the Naughty Dog tradition of creating an emotional, character-driven epic journey. Our narrative goals are rivaled only by our gameplay ambitions. This will be the deepest gameplay in Naughty Dogs history, taking our learnings from our previous franchises and pushing them beyond anything weve ever done before."
The soundtrack for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is being handled by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (at least when it's not literally just Pet Shop Boys).
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is in development for PlayStation 5 and it doesn't have a release window yet.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/intergalactic-the-heretic-prophet-is-a-new-sci-fi-game-from-naughty-dog-042920073.html?src=rss
There were several major surprise announcements during this year's edition of The Game Awards, but perhaps none was quite as out of the blue as word of a sequel to Okami. Not only that, the original game's director, Hideki Kamiya, is at the helm.
"Okami is a game critically acclaimed for its unique world, heartwarming story, and exciting adventures," publisher Capcom said in the teaser's YouTube description. "Now, a new adventure in the same vein as Okami has been set in motion." Details are thin so far. Production is just about to get underway.
Kamiya also directed Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe during his first stint at Konami, before leaving to form PlatinumGames. It emerged last year that Kamiya was departing the Bayonetta studio. Now we know that he's part of a new studio, Clovers, which is making this sequel alongside M-Two Inc Machine Head Works. (The shuttered Capcom subsidiary Clover Studio made the original.)
Okami is one of the greatest examples of video games as an art form. As Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess that takes the form of a white wolf, you use a paintbrush to help solve puzzles and defeat enemies. The 2006 game had an unforgettable look, but it was stylized to bolster performance on the PlayStation 2. With much more powerful hardware at their disposal, Kamiya, the studios and Capcom have the potential to deliver a sequel that's visually more than worthy of Okami. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/an-okami-sequel-is-on-the-way-nearly-two-decades-later-041658276.html?src=rss
The Singapore Land Authority, in partnership with dormitory provider TS Group and co-living brand The Assembly Place, is transforming a former primary school site into Singapores first intergenerational co-living space. Scheduled to open in 2025, it will feature 107 rooms with shared facilities designed to cater to older residents and students. Senior-focused amenities include ground-floor rooms with grab bars and fall detection sensors, along with on-site nurse aides and medical consultations. Other planned facilities include shared kitchens, a gym, a community garden and a pickleball court.
2K Games consistently sporadic Mafia series will return in 2025. Mafia: The Old Country is set in Sicily in the 1900s and will explore the origins of organized crime. Developer Hangar 13 announced that a new Mafia title was in development back in 2022, but gave few details beyond that. Now, we know it's heading to PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in summer 2025.
The game's first trailer, which debuted at The Game Awards on Thursday, is a melodramatic affair complete with a patriarch monologuing over candlelight, horses galloping across the plains and opera music as a backing track. This is drama, people.
Mafia: The Old Country is a linear, narrative-driven game with stealth and gunplay mechanics in purposefully cinematic environments. It stars Enzo, a new, original protagonist. Here's how publisher 2K Games describes his journey: "Enzo has survived a childhood of indentured labor in Sicilys hellish sulfur mines. Now, through a twist of fate, he has the opportunity to join Don Torrisi's crime family, and will do whatever it takes to carve out a better life for himself. By swearing an oath, Enzo has committed himself to the Torrisi family's code of honor, with all the power and hardship it entails."
The Mafia series started in 2002 as a more serious take on the GTA formula, set in a 1930s nod to Chicago. Mafia II landed in 2010 and took place in a fictionalized version of post-World War II New York City. Another long gap led to 2017, when Mafia III flashed forward to the '60s in not-New Orleans.
In 2018, 2K merged Hangar 13, the developer of the third title, with 2K Czech, the team that made the first two games, and that combined studio is now working on The Old Country. A 2025 release window will give us eight years between Mafia installments, which is right on target for the series.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/mafia-the-old-country-is-a-sicilian-prequel-arriving-summer-2025-034422942.html?src=rss
There are two cool pieces of news here. First, the indie studio behind the Overcooked series, Ghost Town Games, is working on a new title called Stage Fright, and it'll support both online and couch co-op. Rad! Second, Stage Fright is being published by No Man's Sky studio Hello Games, a move that marks Hello's first foray into publishing other studios' projects. Double rad!
Stage Fright is built around co-op, and its mechanics bring Overcooked-style chaos to a series of escape room environments in a spooky, Luigi's Mansion kind of world. It doesn't have a release date but it's available to wishlist now on Steam.
Overcooked and its sequel have helped re-energize the co-op genre in recent years, serving up frantic restaurant gameplay that always feels more fun and shouty with a friend. Overcooked supports cooperative couch play and Overcooked 2 introduced online co-op to the series. Stage Fright represents the culmination of everything that Ghost Town has learned about co-op gaming from Overcooked, complete with local and online play.
"Nothing else really played like Overcooked when it came out and Stage Fright is just as innovative, but in a really different direction," Hello Games publishing lead Tim Woodley said.
Ghost Town Games has a core team of just three people, founders Oli De-Vine and Phil Duncan plus writer Gemma Langford. They've been developing Stage Fright under the codename Project Attic because they've literally been building this game in their attic and their website lists six additional contributors. There's also the Hello Games of it all.
Ghost Town Games
De-Vine and Duncan have been friends with the Hello Games crew including founders Sean Murray, Grant Duncan, Ryan Doyle and David Ream for years. After Hello found success with Joe Danger in 2010, they helped connect Ghost Town with the eventual publisher of Overcooked, Team17. Overcooked came out in 2016 and the rest is culinary co-op history.
"Phil and Oli came to visit us for advice with the very earliest demo of Overcooked about ten years ago," Woodley said. "We have such fond memories of the four founders of Hello playing that Overcooked demo, screaming at each other about onions it was instantly obvious this was something special."
Hello Games is currently developing Light No Fire, a cooperative survival and exploration game that takes place on a fantasy planet as large as Earth, offering a mix of role-playing and sandbox mechanics. The studio is also still very much supporting and expanding its breakout hit, No Man's Sky (and things seem to be going really well). Stage Fright will be Hello's debut as a third-party publisher, but it doesn't mean the studio is pivoting to publishing full-time.
Ghost Town Games
"Hello Games has a bunch of experience we can lend behind the scenes, support we can give, but if were honest it really appeals to us to have fun working with a bunch of creative people we just love spending time with," Woodley said. "When we played an early version of Stage Fright we got the same buzz as we had with Overcooked all those years ago. Its just something we wanted to be involved in."
Expect more information about Stage Fright over the next 12 months.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-overcooked-team-has-a-new-creepy-cute-co-op-game-called-stage-fright-030009063.html?src=rss
Netflix announced at The Game Awards that its Squid Game multiplayer mobile title will be playable on Android and iOS without an active Netflix subscription when it arrives on December 17. However, the free-for-anyone period will only be available for an unspecified limited time.
Squid Game: Unleashed lets you play with friends online in a series of mini-games. The contests are either ripped directly from the series or thematically similar classic childhood activities (only with added death).
The party royale game takes cues from the Mario Party franchise, but its inspiration may have been much more direct and circular. In 2021, indie developer Dani published Crab Game for Windows, macOS and Linux. The title didnt try to hide that it was inspired by the Netflix series (crab, squid get it?), which was taking the world by storm at the time. Its Mario Party-style mini-games were initially Squid Game contests, presented in a cartoonish video-game form. However, it later expanded to include competitions distinct from the series.
Netflix
Although we havent yet played Squid Game: Unleashed, the gameplay in its trailer bears an uncanny resemblance to Crab Game, including (roughly) its cartoon-like art style. To be fair, the two may play much more differently than Netflixs trailer suggests. But based on what we see now, Netflix appears to have taken inspiration from an indie dev who took inspiration from its series. (Cue Xzibit.) But hey, at least Netflix doesnt seem to have sued an indie dev into oblivion.
Irrespective of such gaming industry tit-for-tats, Netflixs party royale game is timed to promote Squid Game Season 2. It starts streaming on December 26. Squid Game: Unleashed launches exclusively in the Netflix app for Android or iOS on December 17. You can check out its trailer below.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/squid-game-unleashed-will-be-playable-at-launch-without-a-netflix-subscription-025501236.html?src=rss
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio delivered a meaty one-two punch at The Game Awards. First came the news that the Like A Dragon studio is behind a revival of the Virtua Fighter series. Not only that, but the forever-busy studio (which, you may recall, has a Like A Dragon spinoff coming in February) is also making a Like A Dragon-style game set in the 1910s.
It appears to be early days for as-yet untitled Virtua Fighter game, since a reveal teaser included pre-alpha footage. The clip was mostly cinematic, but there was a brief clip of gameplay, which had swooshing, thudding sound effects that fans of the series may well appreciate.
We'll get more details during a VF Direct stream, which starts at midnight ET on Friday (i.e. in a few hours at the time of writing) on Sega's YouTube and Twitch channels. Or, you know, you can check it out below.
Like a good Virtua Fighter player, RGG just can't stay still. Another title from the studio was revealed at The Game Awards. For now, this one's called Project Century. It's not confirmed if this is a game that's officially in the Like A Dragon canon, but it sure looks like it is albeit one that's set over a century ago.
Our protagonist is attacked by a few hoodlums in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street, before we see him battle various goons using crowbars and broken bottles. It's pretty, bloody and (typically for an RGG game) appears to be bustling with life.
Again, the trailer contained pre-alpha footage, so this game is likely a couple of years away. But there's plenty to look forward to for fans of RGG's work.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/rgg-reveals-a-virtua-fighter-revival-and-a-brawler-set-in-the-1910s-025324254.html?src=rss
