Category: Tech News

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is now available through PS Plus, but is it worth checking out or revisiting almost one year after launch?

According to a new leak, the price of AMD’s RX 9070 XT could put some heat on Nvidia.

This Netflix movie will leave you pretty emotional, but that’s only because it’s so good. Here’s why you should watch it this January.

The creator of The Password Game has returned with another maddening browser game that threatens to break your brain in the worst way possible. Neal Agarwal’s Stimulation Clicker does what it says on the tin. You start by clicking a button to increase your stimulation, which is the game’s currency. It doesn’t take long before you start buying bouncing DVD logo animations, a news ticker, Subway Surfers gameplay and chill beats from Lofi Girl.

From there, you can toss in the likes of loot boxes, a true crime podcast and a meditation story (which, hilariously, you can double the speed of to turbocharge your stimulation). There’s an item shop that you can use to turn the clicker button into a Captcha prompt or Sign in with Google button, or convert your cursor into a cat’s paw. Mukbang videos, Duolingo language questions, a Twitch chat and reactions from famed streamer Ludwig add to the chaotic but oh-so-captivating sensory overload. As 80 Level points out, your progress won’t be saved, so if you close the tab you’ll have to start all over again.

Clickholding, another clicking game, was the most nightmare-inducing thing I played in 2024 but Stimulation Clicker has absolutely surpassed that. It’s a funny, bruising commentary on how practically every app, website and game is constantly trying to lock in your attention to boost engagement by making you momentarily and artificially happy. It’s a reminder for us to maybe leave the devices behind and touch grass (or, I suppose, snow for many of us in the northern hemisphere right now) once in a while.

I’ve long suspected that my mind started to fry when I first switched to Firefox to use tabbed browsing. Stimulation Clicker is a harsh reminder of how the constant dopamine hits of notifications, video game trophies and tiny increases in my investment portfolio have only made things worse. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/stimulation-clicker-is-a-nightmarish-free-browser-game-powered-by-internet-brainrot-134537169.html?src=rss

There’s more nuance to Doomguy than him just being a fella who eradicates hellspawn with the BFG. He’s quite the art connoisseur as well — or at least that’s what a new Doom mod might have you believe.

Modders Filippo Meozzi and Liam Stone turned E1M1, the first map in the original game, into an interactive art gallery. Doom: The Gallery Experience, which is a free browser game on Itch.io and Newgrounds, sees Doomguy wielding a glass of wine or can of beer as he peruses classic works of art, collects cash and listens to Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Suite No. 1 in G major.”

“Doom: The Gallery Experience was created as an art piece designed to parody the wonderfully pretentious world of gallery openings,” the game’s Itch.io page reads. “In this experience, you will be able to walk around and appreciate some fine art while sipping some wine and enjoying the complimentary hors d’oeuvres in the beautifully renovated and re-imagined E1M1 of id Software’s Doom (1993).”

You can use the cash to buy items like socks and a tote from the gift shop, and munch on hors d’oeuvres to fill up a cheese meter (there’s one for drinks too). Doomguy even sports a pair of fashionable glasses here. 

When you interact with artworks such as Jacopo da Sellaio’s Scenes from the Story of the Argonauts or Piero di Cosimo’s The Return from the Hunt, you’ll see a link to the relevant Metropolitan Museum of Art webpage. Alternatively, Doomguy might tell you he doesn’t want to look at a particular piece anymore. Maybe he just wants to get back to shooting demons. Same, Doomguy, same.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/modders-turn-doom-into-a-classic-art-gallery-133100725.html?src=rss

Google knows a lot about you and your interests, and it uses that information to try and get more of your time and attention. A new Search Labs experiment called “Daily Listen,” for instance, can turn your Discover feed into a professional podcast. Google’s Discover is a curated feed on mobile devices filled with articles and videos that the company’s algorithms believe are aligned with your interests based on your search queries and other activities. As 9to5Google notes, this feature is similar to the one Google released for NotebookLM last year. That NotebookLM tool can turn materials you feed it into a podcast with two hosts who even banter like they’re real people. 

Daily Listen can create a podcast episode around 5 minutes in length that you can listen to for an overview on the latest about the topics you typically follow. You will have to opt into Search Labs if this is something you’d like to try by tapping on the flask icon at the top left of the Google app. Once it’s on, you can find the Daily Listen Card underneath the Search bar in the Google app on Android and iOS. Click it to generate a podcast, which brings up a screen with a text transcript and audio controls. 

You can clearly see where each section of the podcast begins and ends in the audio scrubber, and you can pause, stop, rewind and fast forward it anytime. You can also give it a thumbs up or down to send Google your feedback. If you scroll down, you’ll see a bunch of related stories grouped together based on the sections of the podcast in case you’re looking for more information. 

The experimental feature is going live today in the US, according to 9to5Google, though it might take a while to start seeing the option to generate a podcast. It’s not clear yet if Google has plans to roll it out to other regions, and there are no guarantees that it will get a wide release. 

Google

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-can-automatically-make-a-podcast-based-on-your-discover-feed-131126522.html?src=rss

The world’s biggest tech show is approaching its end, and it’s been hard. Mostly. But it’s not without its perks. Perhaps you got to sit in and experience the first CES press event inside the fully screened Sphere, or maybe you’re getting a lovely facial treatment that combines cooling plates with LED light therapy, creating photos that will haunt you for the rest of your professional career? Or perhaps you’re fleeing the violence and… fungi of The Last of Us universe in an immersive experience. (Work hard, play harder.)

Engadget

It’s not just upgraded laptops and TVs — even if plenty of those have broken cover. And stay tuned: We’re selecting our nominees for the Best of CES — what is your pick? (And why isn’t it this solar beach umbrella?)

— Mat Smith

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The biggest tech stories you missed

• This spinning VR chair at CES 2025 somehow didn’t make me feel like throwing up

• LG’s OLED evo TVs for 2025 come with AI and a 165Hz refresh rate

• Faraday Future pitches a ‘fresh start’ with a minivan prototype at CES 2025

• This is a battery-powered plug-in induction oven

Delta changed the game for CES press conferences

Where are your indoor fireworks, Samsung?

Engadget

This week, Delta was the first company to host a CES press conference, or as the emcee called it, “a show,” at the Sphere in Las Vegas. You’ve likely heard about the high-tech venue, which usually hosts immersive concerts rather than trade show events. The “multi-sensory experience” has interior and exterior surfaces draped in LED displays and offering 4D effects like wind and smells. And Delta put all of those to use. Apple, Google, Sony and the rest of you, it’s time to up your game.

Continue reading.

The best CES gadgets you can actually buy right now

Got money to burn?

While a lot of the most significant announcements at CES aren’t going to land until later in 2025, there are a few cool things you can already order. Like Anker’s rebalanced four-port charger, which can output 140W and has its ports on the top/bottom, making it less likely to fall out of your power outlet. Segway’s first e-bikes are also available to pre-order if you’re feeling spendier, although specific pricing remains a mystery.

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This mechanical keyboard is built for pure, unadulterated writing

The latest Freewrite has some quirky features and a bright red joystick.

Engadget

Astrohaus has been making its “distraction-free writing tools” under the Freewrite name for about a decade. Until now, they were standalone single-purpose devices simply for drafting text, but the Freewrite Wordrunner is a keyboard designed specifically with writers in mind. The function row has been replaced by a custom set of keys, which includes find and replace, undo and redo, paragraph up and down as well as back, forward and reload keys. The device will launch with early bird pricing on Kickstarter in February, but we don’t know the price yet.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121554301.html?src=rss

Nearly 1% of Microsoft’s headcount is to be affected by latest job cuts.