Hasta La Gadget!

Still Wakes The Deep is one of this year’s standout horror games. It’s a narrative-heavy survival title that pits you — an electrician stuck on an oil rig — against eldritch terrors from the briny depths of the North Sea. Not only that, but because you’re off the coast of Scotland, there’s some harsh weather to contend with too. If that all sounds overly cheery for you, there’s a new option to add to the gloominess, thanks to a black-and-white mode.

After you’ve installed the game’s latest update, you can toggle this so-called Silver Screen filter at any time during your playthrough via the video section in the settings. Developer The Chinese Room (Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture) has also added a chapter select feature, so you can now relive your favorite moments from this dark tale in monochrome if you choose.

Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt described Still Wakes The Deep as a modern horror classic in her review and called it one of this generation’s most beautiful games. It sounds great too — having actual Scottish actors voicing the characters certainly helps add authenticity.

Still Wakes The Deep is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It’s included in Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Game Pass for Console.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/still-wakes-the-deeps-eldritch-terrors-are-now-available-in-a-black-and-white-mode-173209350.html?src=rss

The Thanksgiving holiday might have come and gone, but one of the best pair of wireless headphones you can buy right now are back to their Black Friday price. Amazon has discounted Sony’s excellent WH-1000XM5 headphones. All four colorways — black, midnight blue, silver and smoky pink — are currently $298, or 25 percent off their usual $400 price.

At this point, the WH-1000XM5 likely need no introduction, but for the uninitiated, they strike a nearly perfect balance between features, performance and price; in fact, they’re the Bluetooth headphones Billy Steele, Engadget’s resident audio guru, recommends for most people. 

With the Sony WH-1000XM5, Sony redesigned its already excellent 1000X line to make the new model more comfortable. The company also improved the XM4’s already superb active noise cancelation capabilities, adding four additional ANC mics. That enhancement makes the WH5 even better at blocking out background noise, including human voices.

Other notable features include 30-hour battery life, clear and crisp sound and a combination of handy physical and touch controls. The one downside of the XM5 are that they cost more than Sony’s previous flagship Bluetooth headphones. Thankfully, this sale addresses that fault nicely.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/sonys-wh-1000xm5-headphones-are-back-on-sale-for-100-off-174551119.html?src=rss

Apple Music just announced that it’s expanding its live radio offerings and adding three new stations to the lineup. These channels are hosted by actual people and are available to everyone, even those without a paid Apple Music subscription.

First up, there’s Apple Música Uno, which celebrates the “wealth of stylistic diversity in Latin music around the world.” The station will play music from a wide variety of genres, including Música Mexicana, reggaetón, tropical, Latin pop and more. It’s being hosted by superstars like Becky G, Rauw Alejandro and Grupo Frontera, along with radio personalities Evelyn Sicairos and Lechero. It airs every weekday, though weekends will feature special programming.

Apple

Apple Music Club kicks things up a notch, with an emphasis on dance and electronic music. The show will be guided by Tim Sweeney, the host of WNYU’s Beats in Space and not the guy who runs Epic Games, along with DJ and artist NAINA. Apple says each playlist will be “thoughtfully curated into a set that is fully alive.” These playlists will be curated by a mix of luminaries, including Honey Dijon, Jamie xx and FKA twigs. Once aired, each broadcast will be available for revists via DJ Mixes on the platform.

Apple

Finally, there’s Apple Music Chill, which is described as “an escape, a refuge” and a “sanctuary in sound.” It’s something nice to have on in the background as you go about your day. This reads to me like it’s a version of the famous lo-fi girl playlists. Apple says that “programming will be a continuous flow of chill highlights across genres.” It all kicks off with a brand-new Beck song, a cover of the George Harrison classic “Be Here Now.” One of the hosts is Brian Eno, who is an absolute master of chill (among other things.)

All of these stations are available right now. They join pre-existing channels like Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits and Apple Music Country.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/apple-music-expands-its-live-radio-offerings-with-three-new-stations-184912171.html?src=rss

The crowd-sourced review site Yelp unveiled a new feature that uses AI and customer reviews to rate common facets of nightlife and food-related business. The new Review Insights feature is available now on the iOS version of the Yelp app, according to the company’s official blog.

Review Insights aggregates customer reviews and feeds them into a large language model (LLM), which will assign specific aspects — like the vibe or service time — a rating out of 100. Supposedly it will be able to infer customer sentiment about these parts of a business “even when a review doesn’t explicitly mention one of the topics.” Yelp will also be adding an AI-powered homepage in the coming weeks.

Yelp has been implementing new AI features over the past year. The business review site added an auto-generated summary feature in January and an AI-powered Yelp Assistant in April.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/yelp-adds-ai-powered-scores-to-business-pages-195131103.html?src=rss

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) secretly obtained the phone call and text message records of 43 congressional staffers, two members of Congress in 2017 and 2018 and members of the news media. DOJ prosecutors obtained call and text logs from telecommunications companies and third-party providers including Apple through subpoenas, search warrants and court orders.

It’s already known that President Trump’s DOJ tried to obtain communication records from Apple as part of an investigation into press leaks about stories that Trump associates made contact with Russian officials. The New York Times reported in 2021 that one of the subpoenas filed in 2018 demanded to see the accounts of 109 identifiers including Democratic Representatives Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California, congressional aides and family members including one who was a minor. Now it appears that the scope of those subpoenas was much larger.

The IG’s report says prosecutors attached gag orders to the subpoenas to prevent Apple and other companies from notifying their customers about the information orders. Most of the non-disclosure agreements were extended at least once, some of which stretched up to four years. The communication logs only showed the names of the parties involved in the calls and text messages.

Even though the OIG’s report found no political motivation for prosecutors’ requests, he noted the subpoenas and other legal means of obtaining communication logs “risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch.” The report also says the DOH failed to convene the News Media Review Committee, a Justice Department advisory committee formed as part of an overhaul of its news media policies in 2014, to review its information requests calling its actions “troubling,” according to the report.

Apple also took steps to limit the scope of legal requests following news of the subpoenas filed on Reps. Schiff and Swalwell. The tech company placed a limit of 25 identifiers per legal request on customers’ communication information in 2021.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/trumps-doj-obtained-more-private-communications-from-third-parties-including-apple-215738340.html?src=rss