Hasta La Gadget!

I plan on spending the next three months tucked away watching movies, reading books and playing games while I try to stay as warm as possible. Black Friday and Cyber Monday may have passed, but there are a few good deals still lingering on the internet — and this one seems like it will help me in the pursuit of my gaming goals.

Woot currently has a three-month membership to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $29, down from $50. The deal comes courtesy of a 32 percent discount and an additional $5 off at checkout with the code GAMEPASS. The Xbox Game Pass is one of our favorite Xbox accessories and comes as a digital code. 

The Xbox Game Pass is a good deal with or without a sale (though we’ll take the discount happily). It gives you access to hundreds of Xbox and PC games. You can play games the day they come out and play online multiplayer through your PC, Xbox or the cloud. The sale is on for another five days or until Woot runs out of stock. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/a-three-month-xbox-game-pass-ultimate-membership-is-on-sale-for-only-29-right-now-143059079.html?src=rss

I’ve been finding myself consistently impressed by the experiences developers have managed to cram into the Playdate. It’s not that I expected little of the handheld and its potential offerings when I first impulsively pre-ordered it way back when, but I guess I didn’t really know what to expect beyond the crank-focused games Panic first teased ahead of its release, which seemed geared toward short bursts of play. Over the past few months, I’ve played lots of those and thoroughly enjoyed them, but I’ve also spent hours solving puzzles and exploring intricate maps in games with a surprising amount of substance. Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll, which recently came to the Playdate Catalog, may be one of the best yet.

Created by developer bumbleborn, Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll is a metroidvania, but don’t let that scare you off if combat isn’t your thing; it’s non-violent, putting the emphasis instead on tricky platforming, puzzles and finding your way around sprawling caverns. The map feels huge for a Playdate game — there over 250 rooms spread between its four levels, according to the developer.

In Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll, a sickness known as the Blight threatened to wipe out all life, forcing the inhabitants of three kingdoms to escape underground. Humans live on the bottom-most level, in a kingdom called Bottomrock. As the child protagonist of the game, you’re on a mission to deliver a scroll to The Archives, requiring you journey through the somewhat perilous Kingdoms Three. It’s a world that holds a lot of secrets, and you’ll have to interact with certain elements of the environment in unexpected ways in order to move forward or access seemingly inaccessible items.

But there’s a kind of haunting sereneness to it all, even with its challenging moments. The music sets just the right atmosphere, and visually, Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll is stunning. The artwork is so crisp down to the tiniest details, and I just love the style of it all. Larger characters especially — like the frog prince whose belly you can bounce on — really come to life. Between the music, the art, the lore and just the overall vibes, Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll completely drew me in. If there’s one Playdate game you should pick up right now, it’s this.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/echo-the-oracles-scroll-is-a-must-play-combatless-metroidvania-for-playdate-022534825.html?src=rss

Apple is being sued by victims of child sexual abuse over its failure to follow through with plans to scan iCloud for child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), The New York Times reports. In 2021, Apple announced it was working on a tool to detect CSAM that would flag images showing such abuse and notify the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But the company was hit with immediate backlash over the privacy implications of the technology, and ultimately abandoned the plan.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Saturday in Northern California, is seeking damages upwards of $1.2 billion dollars for a potential group of 2,680 victims, according to NYT. It claims that, after Apple showed off its planned child safety tools, the company “failed to implement those designs or take any measures to detect and limit” CSAM on its devices, leading to the victims’ harm as the images continued to circulate. Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment.

In a statement to The New York Times about the lawsuit, Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz said, “Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we are committed to fighting the ways predators put children at risk. We are urgently and actively innovating to combat these crimes without compromising the security and privacy of all our users.” The lawsuit comes just a few months after Apple was accused of underreporting CSAM by the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-sued-for-failing-to-implement-tools-that-would-detect-csam-in-icloud-202940984.html?src=rss

Apple and Sony have quietly been working on bringing PlayStation VR2 controller support to the Apple Vision Pro, Mark Gurman reports in the Power On newsletter. Gaming isn’t exactly the Vision Pro’s strong suit, thanks in part to the fact that it doesn’t support typical VR controllers. But Apple has reportedly approached Sony in hopes to remedy that. According to Gurman, the two partnered up earlier this year, and Sony has been working on the project for months.

Apple and Sony planned to have support for PS VR2’s Sense controllers ready by now, but the launch has been delayed as they iron out a few issues, Gurman notes — like the fact that Sony doesn’t produce and sell the controllers separately from its headset at the moment. Barring a scenario in which the project is “abruptly scrapped,” though, Gurman reports that we should still expect to see it happen. The ability to use Sony’s controllers with the Vision Pro headset would bring benefits beyond its gaming potential too, allowing for more precise input for tasks like media editing than is currently possible with its eye and gesture-based controls.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/apple-vision-pro-could-soon-work-with-playstation-vr2-controllers-161547953.html?src=rss

Telegram is taking a significant step to reduce child sexual abuse material (CSAM), partnering with the International Watch Foundation (IWF) four months after the former’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested. The French authorities issued 12 charges against Durov in August, including complicity in “distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors, in an organized group” and “possessing pornographic images of minors.” 

The UK-based IWF works with social media platforms, tech companies, governments and more to prevent the spread of CSAM. Telegram’s membership to the IWF grants it access to the organization’s tools that block links to CSAM content and “non-photographic depictions,” including AI-created images. It also provides Telegram with hashes of known CSAM content and any harmful content the organization detects. The IWF reports having found thousands of confirmed instances of CSAM on Telegram since 2022.

Telegram has previously refused to join any programs that could help limit CSAM. In a release, Telegram’s Head of Press and Media Relations Remi Vaughn claimed the platform “removes hundreds of thousands of child abuse materials each month” through reports and moderation through AI, hash-matching and more. Though Vaughn conceded IWF’s support will strengthen the company’s ability to delete CSAM before it reaches anyone.

Telegram has taken other steps since Durov’s arrest, announcing in September that it would hand over IP addresses and phone numbers in legal requests — something it fought in the past. Durov must remain in France for the foreseeable future.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/telegram-finally-takes-action-to-remove-csam-from-its-platform-134514444.html?src=rss