Reigning Professional Women's Hockey League MVP and scoring champion Natalie Spooner will miss the start of the regular season for the Toronto Sceptres, GM Gina Kingsbury announced Tuesday on Day 1 of training camp.

Bev Priestman is out as head coach of the Canadian women's soccer team in the wake of an independent report into the Olympic drone-spying scandal.

Following its announcement a few weeks ago, the final major update for Dead Cells titled The End is Near, version …

Continue reading "Dead Cells’ Final Major Update 35 ‘The End Is Near’ Is Now Available on PC and Consoles, No Word on Mobile Yet"

One of the biggest advantages to PC gaming is having access to multiple generations of game releases. We’ve seen entire …

Continue reading "Musou Games on Steam Deck – Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors, Warriors Orochi, Empires, and Much More Tested on Steam Deck OLED"

Earlier this year, Feral Interactive’s superb iOS version of Alien: Isolation (Free) was updated to change the game’s business model …

Continue reading "‘Alien: Isolation’ for Android Is Now a Free To Start Release Just Like iOS Letting Everyone Try Two Missions for Free"

Another mobile reveal from Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024 was the latest trailer for the open world dress up game …

Continue reading "Open World Dress Up Game ‘Infinity Nikki’ Gets New Trailer With Closed Beta Sign Ups Now Live, Pre-Registrations Also Available"

Last week, Gameloft announced the next major and free Disney Dreamlight Valley update for PC and consoles alongside Disney Dreamlight …

Continue reading "‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’ Dapper Delights Update Now Available for Apple Arcade, Consoles, and PC"

Niantic and Capcom just detailed the next major update coming to Monster Hunter Now (Free). Monster Hunter Now Season 3 …

Continue reading "‘Monster Hunter Now’ Season 3 To Add Magnamalo, Heavy Bowgun Weapon, Cooking, and More on September 11th"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 27th, 2024. In today’s article, we kick things off …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Today’s Nintendo Direct, Full Review of ‘EGGCONSOLE Star Trader’, Plus New Releases and Sales"

With August in the rear-view mirror, taking the Young Avengers with it, we’re about due for another season in Marvel …

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Mobile games don’t have to make sense, as evidenced by the enduring popularity of a franchise that sees players catapulting …

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Balatro from developer LocalThunk and publisher Playstack is finally coming to mobile later this month on iOS, Android, and also …

Continue reading "‘Balatro’ Is Coming to Apple Arcade and Also iOS as a Standalone Premium Release Beginning September 26th"

The two-term governor of South Dakota has been a loyal Trump ally. In her new role, Noem would oversee immigration, an issue Trump campaigned heavily on.

Destiny 2's digital success could spell long-term trouble for discs

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You know the drill by now: cloud money good, consumer PC sales not.

Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft seek exemption from threatened Chinese tariffs.

Can’t do global work if the White House is forcing sale of US business, Mayer said.

The contract software company closed a $110 million Series D round in 2023, one of the largest venture capital deals in Washington last year.

By comparing early markings used for business purposes to 'proto' cuneiform, we can say language transitioned from symbols to writing.

There is not a ton of evidence of what education looked like in ancient society, but we do know it existed - although not for everyone.

Jason, 84, said senior actors had a ‘tremendous amount to offer’

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Screaming girls. Sudden riches. Your face on the cover of Smash Hits magazine. Life in a Nineties boyband sounds like a dream, but one survivor of the maelstrom likens it more to being in the military. Jessie Thompson goes behind the scenes of revealing new BBC documentary ‘Boybands Forever’

Bob Singleton revealed he was threatened with ‘death and dismemberment’ as music director for ‘Barney & Friends’

A man who authorities said was upset over his divorce settlement rammed his car into a crowd of people exercising at a sports complex in southern China, police said.

The jury also decided to hold a Virginia-based military contractor responsible for contributing to the torture and mistreatment of detainees at the notorious Iraqi prison two decades ago.

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The post Social distancing need not mean social isolation appeared first on Star Observer.

December 31, 2020 at 11.59 pm – across the world there was a collective sigh of relief that the ‘lost year’ is truly behind us. The end of a year, ...

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Throughout the fall, unusual white blobs have been washing ashore on beaches in eastern Newfoundland. A Memorial University chemist says the substance is a type of pollution that shouldn't have been in the ocean in the first place.

The U.K. based aerospace company, Space Solar, plans to launch its space-based solar power plant by 2030 to deliver clean energy to Iceland, which is already a renewable-energy powerhouse.

An emperor penguin found malnourished far from its Antarctic home on the Australian south coast is being cared for by a wildlife expert, a government department said Monday.

Any avid traveler knows there are far too many gorgeous landscapes and jaw-dropping views to make one all-encompassing list of the most beautiful countries in the world. We're lucky to have such a diverse world, and beauty is subjective.

There is already a bunch of early Black Friday deals to check out, but if you're on the lookout for a great set of wireless headphones for yourself or a loved one, here's one that's absolutely worth your attention. Sony's WH-1000XM5 headphones have dropped to $298. That's a $102 discount.

This isn't quite the lowest price we've seen for the over-ear XM5s. They dropped to $280 at one point earlier this year. However, the headphones haven't gone back down to that point since, and this is still a great deal.

The XM5s are our pick for the best wireless headphones overall. We've long been recommending Sony's 1000X line and this is the best iteration to date. They earned a score of 95 in our review.

The redesigned headphones are much more comfortable to wear for extended periods than previous models. Sony has improved the active noise cancellation (ANC) feature as well, thanks to the addition of a new chip and four more microphones. We feel that the company's current flagship headphones do a better job of blocking out high frequencies and background noise (and even human voices) than the XM4s.

The XM5s can switch between noise modes depending on your location or activity, and they can pause audio automatically when you start speaking. They deliver better call quality than rival models and, in general, you'll get clear, crisp sound, including punchy bass. You won't need to charge the XM5s too often either, as they have a 30-hour battery life.

Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against a streamer called EveryGameGuru, accused of streaming gameplays of pirated games before they were even released — and of providing viewers access to piracy tools and illegal copies of the games.

EveryGameGuru allegedly streamed Mario & Luigi: Brothership across five days, weeks before its official release on November 7. After Nintendo had the videos taken down from various platforms, including YouTube, they continued live streaming on Loco and even included a QR code for their CashApp handle.

Nintendo said EveryGameGuru sent the company an email, saying it has “a thousand burner channels” and “can do this all day.”

Don’t anger the house of Mario! The company is asking for $150,000 in damages per violation of its copyright. 404media did the math: That could add up to millions, seeing as the suit cites at least 10 games, streamed on at least 50 occasions.

— Mat Smith

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HTC Vive Focus Vision review

An average-performing premium VR headset.

Sure, it’s not for most of us. The Vive Focus Vision isn’t for the same people as the PSVR2 or Meta Quest 3. This is meant to be high-end VR for businesses and creators: a cross between the Focus 3 and last year’s goggle-like XR Elite. The build quality is excellent, but it’s running on aging hardware. Worse, it’s riddled with software issues and is rather expensive compared to the Meta Quest 3.

Continue reading.

The voice of AOL’s You’ve got mail! dies aged 74

He recorded four phrases for $200 in 1989.

If you’re aged 30 and up, you know the voice of Elwood Edwards, realize it or not. He recorded the phrase, “You’ve got mail!” and three other lines for Quantum Computer Services in 1989. That company became America Online (AOL), Meg Ryan made the movie with Tom Hanks and everything else. (AOL is currently owned by Yahoo, Engadget’s parent company.)

Continue reading.

Latest God of War Ragnarok patch tells the son to be quiet

It reduces all the hints from Kratos’ offspring.

The latest patch for the PS5 version of God of War Ragnarok adds the option first seen in the PC port to tone down the boy’s excessive and unsolicited hints when Kratos is contemplating the game’s many puzzles. Enough, Atreus! (The patch also includes PS5 Pro upgrades, for smooth 60 fps and better visuals. But that’s not as funny.)

Continue reading.

2024 has been a rough year for Sonos. The company’s would-be triumphant entry into the crowded headphones market was overshadowed by a disastrous app redesign. In the fallout of the botched software update, the company decided to delay products that were ready to be shipped to give itself more time to right the course. Consumer trust eroded, and people who already owned Sonos gear were living in a cycle of constant frustration.

Thanks to a number of rumors, we already knew that one of the pending product releases was the Arc Ultra ($999). A few weeks ago the company decided not to wait any longer to reveal it. While the design is mostly unchanged from the Arc that debuted in 2020, there are several key changes on the inside that make this a better all-in-one solution for people who don’t want to add more speakers to their living room setup. Sonos is promising better bass performance thanks to new speaker tech that’s debuting in the Arc Ultra, but just how good can it be?

Design

The refined design of the original Arc was a massive upgrade from that of the Playbar, and showed a progression from Sonos’ compact Beam soundbar. Honestly, the aesthetic is pretty timeless, in my opinion, and it’s a look that should age well for years to come. That said, it makes sense that Sonos would keep the design for the Arc Ultra, only making some minor changes to the exterior.

The Arc Ultra still comes in both black and white options, allowing you to choose what looks best in your living room or home theater. Sonos updated the controls to mirror what’s available on the newer Era 100 and Era 300 speakers, moving them to a top-facing bar at the back. There’s a volume slider on the right with play/pause and skip controls in the center. On the left side, Sonos gives you a microphone control so you can mute the built-in mics as needed.

And that’s really it in terms of design changes that you can see. The Arc Ultra is slightly shorter height-wise than the Arc, and it’s a little wider than its predecessor. Neither of which make a huge difference, and they won’t drastically change how you position the speaker beneath your TV.

Inside, Sonos has re-engineered the Arc Ultra to improve audio performance. The biggest piece of this overhaul is the new Sound Motion woofer that enables better bass performance before you add a standalone wireless sub. The achievement here, thanks to the acquisition of audio company Mayht, is that the new component lays flat, taking up less room than a traditional cone-shaped woofer. The Sound Motion driver also helps deliver increased clarity and depth, on top of doubling the bass output of the original Arc.

Sonos redesigned the entire acoustic architecture of the Arc Ultra during the process of adding the Sound Motion woofer. The soundbar now houses three more drivers than the arc, a list that includes seven tweeters (two of which are upfiring), six mid-range drivers (midwoofers, as Sonos calls them) and the aforementioned woofer for a total of 14. The company also employs 15 Class-D digital amplifiers along with far-field mics for tuning and voice control.

There’s still only a single HDMI (eARC) port, which allows most modern TVs the ability to control the soundbar’s volume and mute options from your TV remote. Moreover, the Arc Ultra is compatible with Wi-Fi 6 and newly-added Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity allows you to stream from any device. And of course, AirPlay 2 is still on the spec sheet. One last thing I’ll mention here is that the Arc Ultra doesn’t ship with an optical adapter if you prefer that connection. The company will sell you one for $25.

Software and features

Since the Arc Ultra is a Sonos product, there are a lot of core features that are the same as they are on the company’s other devices. You can use the soundbar as part of a multiroom setup and Trueplay tuning is here to adjust the audio to the acoustics of the room. There’s still an adjustable EQ with options for bass, treble and loudness and a Night Sound mode makes things less boomy when someone in your house may be trying to work or sleep.

While Trueplay will give you the best sound customization for the sonic characteristics of your living room, Sonos is enabling a Quick Tune feature for the first time on the Arc Ultra. Here, the soundbar will use its internal mics, as opposed to your phone, to offer a certain degree of improvement. The company says it wanted to give people the option of something quicker than Trueplay, although the full-fledged tuning process doesn’t take very long at all.

Speech Enhancement has been a handy feature on Sonos soundbars for a while, giving you the ability to improve dialog clarity as needed. Before now, it was an all-or-nothing feature, but on the Arc Ultra, the company introduced three levels of speech boost to give you more options to better suit your needs. This means the soundbar can help you hear clearly over background noise or simply follow along better by elevating dialog above the rest of the soundtrack mix.

The trademark feature of Sonos’ Ace headphones is the ability to beam the audio from a compatible soundbar to the cans for a private home theater. That TV Audio Swap tool is available on the Arc Ultra, so you can instantly send the sound to the headphones with the press of a button. In fact, Sonos bundles the Arc Ultra and Ace headphones in a $1,373 set. What’s more, the Ace supports spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, so you can count on immersive sound even when you’re employing it on an individual basis.

Despite all of the problems that Sonos has had with its app, some of which it's still working to resolve, I didn't encounter any issues during my testing. The software crashed on me once when the Trueplay tuning process completed, but everything had already run its course and I didn’t have to repeat it. Other than that, the app has worked reliably over the last week while I’ve been putting the Arc Ultra through its paces. Most importantly, the software is stable and the full suite of controls for the new soundbar is available at launch.

Sound performance

The original Arc already sounded great, so Sonos really had its work cut out for it to further improve the audio quality for the Arc Ultra. Thanks to the improved bass of the Sound Motion tech, a change that also takes up less space, the company says it had the ability to then overhaul the mid-range and high-frequency components as well. By using multiple sizes of mid-range drivers and tweeters, Sonos was able to tweak the speaker positioning inside of the soundbar for improved projection and more immersive sound.

In addition to the enhanced bass performance, the second thing that was immediately apparent on the Arc Ultra was those improvements to the dimensional sound. Whether it was a quidditch match in a Harry Potter movie or zooming F1 cars in Drive to Survive, the soundbar now has better directional, immersive sound than its predecessor. Sonos says the Arc Ultra now renders Dolby Atmos content in a 9.1.4-channel setup, versus 5.0.2 with the Arc, which further contributes to the enveloping audio. Interestingly, I haven’t seen any of the competition claim four up-firing channels from the soundbar like Sonos does here (those that do are usually accounting for up-firing drivers in the rear speakers). You can really hear the difference from the second you fire up the Arc Ultra, and the effect is consistent across content sources.

The increased bass performance makes the Arc Ultra a much better speaker for music without a separate subwoofer. You won’t get the bombastic low-end tone the newly updated Sonos Sub 4 can produce, but there’s enough from the soundbar to give Kaytranada’s Timeless, Phantogram’s Memory of a Day and Bilmuri’s American Motor Sports plenty of booming backbone when a track demands it. There’s also still the trademark Sonos clarity I’ve come to expect over the years, which means finer details like the texture of synths, layered guitars and the nuance of acoustic instruments cut through the mix cleanly.

And speaking of clarity, the company’s new Speech Enhancement settings are also a big improvement. Being able to select how much of a boost this feature offered depending on either my needs right then or based on the overall tuning of the content is really nice. It allowed me to max out the dialog when watching movies after my toddler was asleep so that speech didn’t suffer when sound effects were louder during intense scenes of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

The competition

There’s no doubt the Arc Ultra packs in deeper, more immersive sound than its predecessor, but some people will still want a more robust setup to wring every ounce of audio out of a Sonos living room setup. The high-end choice for this is what Sonos calls the Ultimate Immersive Set, which includes the Arc Ultra, two Era 300s and the Sub 4. Right now, that will cost you $2,561. For something less expensive, you can get the Arc Ultra and the new Sub 4 (normally $799) for $1,708 (Premium Entertainment Set). And therein lies the biggest problem with Sonos soundbars: expanding your living room setup to get the most immersive experience gets very pricey very quickly when the centerpiece is already $999.

If you can live without all the conveniences of Sonos products, you can get an all-in-one package from Samsung for $1,500. With the Q990D, you’ll get the soundbar, two rear speakers and a wireless subwoofer in the same box. The setup offers 11.1.4 audio for excellent Atmos sound, thanks in part to up-firing drivers in the rear speakers. Samsung offers a host of handy features, from Q-Symphony audio with TV speakers, SpaceFit Sound Pro room calibration, Adaptive Sound audio enhancement, a dedicated gaming mode and more. The Q990D remains my top pick for the best soundbars for a lot of reasons, a key one being everything you could need comes in one all-inclusive package.

Wrap-up

The Arc Ultra is an obvious improvement over the Arc in the sonic department. New technology delivers on its promise to boost bass, clarity and immersive before you start adding extra components. Expanded features like Speech Enhancements and a quick-tune option offer new tools for dialing in the sound, while the stock Sonos experience remains intact. And thankfully, that includes an app that’s more stable than it was a few months ago. The Arc Ultra is still pricey at $999, but it exhibits a lot more sonic prowess than its predecessor for only $100 more.

Elon Musk's xAI launched its AI chatbot, Grok, at the end of 2023 and it has remained exclusively available to X (formerly Twitter) premium users since. Now, one year later, Grok is seemingly coming to free X users in select areas, TechCrunch reports. 

The news comes from multiple reports on X by researchers and users who spotted updates to Grok. According to X user Swak, there are stipulations to who can access Grok for free and how much they can use it. For starters, accounts need to be at least seven days old and have a phone number attached to them. Free users are also reportedly limited by how many things they can do in two hours. They can ask the Grok-2 model 10 questions and the Grok-2 mini model 20 questions within that time frame. Furthermore, free users only get three image analyses each day. 

The Grok-2 and the Grok-2 mini models are relatively new, releasing late summer of this year. Grok-2 is xAI's most advanced AI chatbot to date and pulls real-time information right from X, while the company claims the mini version "offers a balance between speed and answer quality." 

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