Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 6th, 2024. Well, this is the last one. You’ll …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku’, Plus New Releases, Sales, and Good-Byes"

Later this month on September 27th, NIS America will release FuRyu’s action RPG Reynatis for Switch, Steam, PS5, and PS4 …

Continue reading "Reynatis Interview: Creative Producer TAKUMI, Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima, and Composer Yoko Shimomura discuss the game, coffee, and more"

For a lot of folks who have been following Capcom’s fighting games over the years, the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting …

Continue reading "Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Review – Switch, Steam Deck, and PS5 Covered"

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ($49.99) As a fan of Marvel, Capcom, and fighting games back in the …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Review Round-Up: ‘Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection’, ‘Yars Rising’, & ‘Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland’"

Over the years, I’ve been able to interview some of my favorite developers ever including a few I never though …

Continue reading "Sukeban Games 2024 Interview: Christopher Ortiz AKA kiririn51 Talks .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, Inspirations, Fan Reactions, VA-11 Hall-A, The Silver Case, and Much More"

Back in December, I reviewed Square Enix’s monster collecting RPG Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch. I loved …

Continue reading "‘Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince’ iOS Review – Much Better Than Switch, but Lacking in Two Ways"

When I first wrote about boomer shooters last year on Steam Deck and also on Switch, aside from New Blood …

Continue reading "Andrew Hulshult 2024 Interview: DOOM IDKFA, Blood Swamps, DUSK, Iron Lung, AMID EVIL, Music, Guitars, Cold Brew Coffee, and More"

A lot of folks got into the SaGa series a long time ago through its many releases on prior console …

Continue reading "Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Interview With Game Producer Shinichi Tatsuke and Steam Deck Hands-On Preview"

For our last full controller review on TouchArcade, I’ve been using the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition …

Continue reading "Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller Review – Customizable, Comfortable, but Lacking in Ways"

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Republican primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new agency he's calling the "Department of Government Efficiency."

Replay our October 15 chat on, “Finding certainty in IT when the world is uncertain.”

Subscribers will have to opt-in to a pricier ad-free plan.

An activist investor with a $5 billion stake in Honeywell International is calling for the company to separate its Phoenix-based aerospace division into a separate business.

Sacramento-based Zennify, a tech consulting firm for financial service companies, has acquired Terazo, a digital engineering firm based in Richmond, Virginia.

Rivian is teaming up with Volkswagen in a $5.8 billion joint venture for EV innovation on its R2 model, which the company says will eventually be manufactured in Georgia.

Getting outside – without your phone – is one way to disconnect.

Combining DNA analysis, archeological techniques, and historical records overturns some assumptions of the people of Pompeii.

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

All-timer of a game show moment stunned audience into silence

An inquiry found abuse, torture and neglect of some 200,000 people in state care over 70 years. People with disabilities or from Maori and Pacific Islander communities were especially vulnerable.

ACON last week released a short video to highlight new evidence in the fight to end HIV by 2020. As part of the ENDING HIV platform, the [TREAT EARLY] campaign was ...

The post Video highlights new evidence to support treating HIV early appeared first on Star Observer.

FOR the first time ever, LGBTI Australians seeking fertility and IVF treatment will be able to attend newly-opened centres designed especially for rainbow patients and their families.

The post The path to achieving family dreams appeared first on Star Observer.

This Thursday and Saturday, BreastScreen Victoria is providing free LGBTI specific mammogram sessions to women and trans and gender diverse people over the age of 40, as part of their ...

The post LGBTI people can get a free breast screen with BreastScreen Victoria appeared first on Star Observer.

Given all the contradictory expectations we have for clothes, it’s easy to get your kickers in a twist, but finding the right clothes as a non-binary person challenges those expectations. ...

The post Navigating Non-Binary Fashion In A Binary World appeared first on Star Observer.

Scientists warn that this year could end 1.5 C hotter than pre-industrial times, surpassing the current record of 1.48 C set just last year. Some experts now fear Donald Trump’s less-than-friendly stance on climate change could make the crisis even worse.

A voyage in this kind of spacecraft — while still conceptual — would take multiple lifetimes, crossing unimaginable gulfs of interstellar space. The theoretical exercise puts aside technical problems, including the propulsion system, and focusses on the design of the habitat and society.

A dome-shaped device floating in Halifax’s Northwest Arm could easily be confused with a buoy, but it is actually a contraption meant to turn ocean water into fresh water. Two Dalhousie University researchers hope it can help with water scarcity in the real world.

Private ownership, consumer choice, and competition would deliver better benefits to veterans — and force policy-makers to confront the costs of military engagements.

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.

Madden NFL has been around for almost 40 years (really) so it’s high time the gaming franchise got the documentary treatment. Prime Video has got you covered. The platform just announced that It’s in the Game: Madden NFL will stream on November 26, which is just ahead of Thanksgiving.

The four-part docuseries will explore “one of the biggest video games of all time” that “became a worldwide phenomenon, spanning generations.” The show will explore Madden’s “archaic 8-bit origins to its success as an annual must have.” Prime Video says EA Sports has given it access to the vaults, so there should be plenty of new footage for diehard fans.

As the story goes, EA founder Trip Hawkins approached commentator John Madden back in 1984 for his endorsement and expertise, but the game took four long years of development before coming out in 1988. This extended development time was allegedly due to Madden himself, who demanded a realistic football experience. I’m sure the documentary will get into all of that.

Formerly known as John Madden Football, the franchise became an annual event in 1990 and changed its name to Madden NFL in 1993. These games have sold over 130 million copies worldwide since 1988. The latest iteration, Madden NFL 25, released back in August to fairly middling reviews.

NVIDIA has been testing a single app that merges the GeForce Experience and Control Panel over the past year. After rolling out several betas to make sure it works as intended, the company has officially launched the NVIDIA application, which is now available to download for users with its GPUs in their PCs and laptops. 

The company says the app is meant to make it easy to keep their NVIDIA Studio and GeForce Game Ready drivers updated and to give users quick access to its latest programs. In its home screen, users will find a prominently displayed section that will lead them to the latest driver downloads, as well as sections that will take them to other NVIDIA applications. At the bottom, they'll find a Library section showing their most recently opened games and programs that they can launch from there. 

Since it's supposed to provide a unified experience, users will be able to fine-tune the settings for their games and programs from within the app. Users will be able to access Optimal Playable Settings with relevant Control Panel options, and they'll be able to configure their displays, enable G-SYNC, enhance videos with AI and fine-tune their GPU's performance from within its interface. 

NVIDIA explains that it designed the unified application to be 50 percent more responsive than the GeForce Experience. It also installs in half the time. It's also worth noting that app will introduce a redesigned in-game overlay that simplifies access to gameplay recording tools capable of capturing video in 4K at 120 FPS, as well as AI-powered filters for those with RTX GPUs. They'll then be able to view their screenshots and new videos in the app's Gallery. 

Signal users may be familiar with the problem of creating group chats just for a group call, but that’s about to become a thing of the past. You can now share a call link and let up to 50 people hop in, all in the span of a few seconds. The days of selecting contacts one by one are over.

Now, all you have to do is create a call link after going to the Calls tab and send it to whomever you want. The link is also reusable, which is convenient if you have fixed call times. Participants can raise their hands and send emojis. Hosts can set the room up so people must be approved before joining the conversation.

Based on Signal’s blog post, the new group call experience highly resembles Zoom. Those interested in privacy yet desire a conference call-like experience may find the new update helpful. Like Zoom, the desktop app offers more options.

Besides Zoom, these features will be familiar to frequent users of Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and some WhatsApp users. Raising hands is found on all three platforms as a non-verbal way to signal the speaker. WhatsApp does have a lower participant count of 32 people after an update in June. While there’s no raise hands function, doing certain gestures can send emojis for all to see. It’s worth noting that many apps with group call functionality are adopting similar features.

These new features are available on Android, iOS, Windows and macOS. If you don’t see them yet, we recommend updating your Signal app.

If you use Chrome on your iPhone, you’re about to see some features sliding over from the Android version. Google Lens will let you add text to your image searches, and you can save files and pictures directly to Google Drive and Photos. You can get “Shopping Insights” for products you’re browsing.

Chrome for iOS now lets you add words to your Google Lens visual searches, allowing you to add nuance to your query or “perform more complex and specific searches,” as Chrome Product Manager Katia Muradyan wrote in a blog post. After activating Lens by tapping the camera icon in the Chrome search bar, you can ask questions about the object you’re snapping a pic of, and it will produce corresponding results. Google says AI Overviews will also appear for some of these search results.

The feature shares some common ground with an Apple Intelligence feature for iPhone 16 owners in iOS 18.2, which is currently in beta. Visual Intelligence lets you point your camera at something and get info about it, including asking ChatGPT questions about it or searching for it on Google.

Chrome for iPhone now has a feature that lets you save a file directly to Google Drive or Google Photos, sparing you from using your phone’s internal storage. When saving files from Chrome, you’ll see a new option to save the file to Drive. Similarly, when browsing a photo you want to save, long-press on it, and you’ll see a new “Save in Google Photos” option in the context menu. Of course, the feature requires you to be signed into a Google account.

Chrome for iOS also adds a feature that pops up a mini-map when you click on an address. Look for an underlined link to specific addresses; clicking on it will take you to the mini-map without leaving the browser.

Finally, Google is adding Shopping Insights for US users. The company frames it as a way to help you find great prices on items you’re shopping for, but it’s hard to imagine this feature exists strictly from the kindness of Google's heart. Regardless, you’ll soon see a “Good Deal Now” alert in Chrome’s address bar when browsing for products for which it’s available. You’ll see details like price history / tracking and buying options if you tap it.

Cadillac is adding to its fleet of EVs with a new luxury SUV. The 2026 Cadillac Vistiq is a three-row, all-electric SUV that will hit showrooms and dealerships sometime next summer with a starting price of $78,790.

The Vistiq’s dual-motor, all-wheel drive system runs on a 102 kWh battery pack with a range of 300 miles that produces 615 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. The Vistiq also supports vehicle-to-home (V2H) bidirectional charging capabilities: it can charge at home, and also deliver electricity to your house during a power outage. Using the features requires buying the GM Energy V2H bundle though.

The SUV’s design borrows aesthetically from other Cadillac EVs. Like the Lyriq, it has flush door handles, and features similar looking lights and side panels. It also matches the Lyriq’s 300 mile range. The “swept-back windshield” and “Black Crystal Shield grill” evoke the Escalade IQ.

Of course, the Vistiq's power and price are different from its Cadillac EV's. The new Cadillac EV SUV is less expensive than an Escalade IQ ($129,990) but more than a Lyriq ($58,595), and the Escalade IQ has a higher peak battery range at 450 miles.

The Vistiq comes with a 23-speaker AKG7 Studio Audio system with Dolby Atmos. The Android-powered infotainment system is baked into a 33-inch high resolution LED display. The Verge also reported that the new EV’s navigation system uses Google Maps and can run other apps from the Google Play Store.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto won’t be available in Cadillac’s newest EV. General Motors is phasing out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its EVs and plans to go with Android Automotive. GM’s Executive Director of Digital Cockpit Experience Edward Kummer said in a Reuters interview that the carmaker didn’t want any features in its EVs “that are dependent on a person having a cellphone.”

The initial buzz for Apple’s mixed-reality headset has died down, but new apps and experiences are still arriving for consumers who plunked down $3,500. The UK broadcaster Channel 4 just dropped a dedicated streaming app for the headset, which lets users watch stuff in “ground-breaking cinema-style.”

Channel 4 is the first UK broadcaster to take this step. The app leverages the tech inside the headset to overlay streaming content on the real world, which allows for a “full-screen viewing experience” of stuff like The Great British Bake Off and Taskmaster, in addition to multi-screen view.

Speaking of Taskmaster, the broadcaster also announced an environment based on the comedy game show. Environments on the AVP transform the world around the user, so people can watch Taskmaster while sitting in a room inspired by Taskmaster (cue that Xzibit Yo Dawg meme.) Other streaming apps have their own environments. Paramount+ offers one based on SpongeBob Squarepants and Disney+ now includes one set in Iceland.

This app doesn’t feature access to the recently-released Taskmaster VR experience. That one’s still tied to Steam VR and Meta Quest. By most accounts, it’s a pretty bad game, so the Vision Pro isn’t missing much.

Amazon is closing down Freevee, its free ad-supported video on demand service. This platform was home to original programming as well as more than 100 originals from the Prime Video roster. Freevee will be phased out over the coming weeks, and its content will become available as part of Prime Video. The ad-supported tier of Prime Video is included as part of Amazon's Prime membership for $15 a month.

"To deliver a simpler viewing experience for customers, we have decided to phase out Freevee branding," an Amazon spokesperson told Variety. "There will be no change to the content available for Prime members, and a vast offering of free streaming content will still be accessible for non-Prime members, including select originals from Amazon MGM Studios, a variety of licensed movies and series, and a broad library of FAST channels – all available on Prime Video."

The free viewing platform went through several rebrands since its original launch as IMDb Freedive in January 2019. It entered its final phase as Freevee in April 2022.

Miami a empêché les Rams de Los Angeles d’inscrire un touché et l’a emporté 23 à 15, lundi soir, au SoFi Stadium.

Amoureux du sport, Sylvain Croteau a décidé de consacrer sa carrière, depuis 10 ans, à prévenir et à contrer la violence et les abus dans ce monde.

Les Islanders ont une lourde tâche qui les attend ce soir.

Quel match de fou, hier après-midi, à Buffalo! Mais puisque c’est le résultat qui compte, ce n’est pas le temps de faire la gueule fine.

Jeremy Roenick nous a offert le moment le plus touchant de l’intronisation des membres de la cuvée 2024 du Temple de la renommée du hockey.

COMMENT: I am a father-of-three and a small-business owner in Oakey. Several days ago, The Courier-Mail conducted water tests on the irrigation bore on my property. I was extremely distressed by the results.

While buzzy social media moments, massive celebrity endorsements and viral memes were everywhere during the U.S. election campaign, those who study social media and pop culture say it's likely that smaller social media interactions had a larger impact on the outcome.

Following a mother and son during the the Blitz, Nazi Germany's bombing campaign on London during the Second World War, director Steve McQueen's new drama understands the war film — perhaps a bit too well.

Non aux rencontres amoureuses, au sexe, au mariage ou à élever des enfants avec un homme.

Depuis 35 ans, l’Université de Sherbrooke est présente à Longueuil.

Le corps ligoté en état de décomposition retrouvé le 30 octobre dans l’un des parcs les plus achalandés de Montréal est celui de Kevin Mirshahi.