Hasta La Gadget!

The first Escape Simulator solved the biggest problem with VR puzzle games. Once you’ve solved everything, the game’s over. Unless you can erase specific memories a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind style, there’s zero replayability.

Pine Studio’s Escape Simulator added a custom builder mode where the community could build and share their own escape rooms with other players. Since the Internet has some of the most imaginative and insane minds on the planet creating custom games for the world, Escape Simulator is one of the few virtual puzzle games that you can keep playing. Now, Escape Simulator 2 is heading our way on Steam, and it’s got some new and potentially cool worlds to get stuck in by yourself or with friends.

Escape Simulator 2 has some impressive-looking environments that can hold up to eight players at once. So far, the game will have 12 brand new escape rooms. A new trailer that dropped today shows three of the new escape room environments including a stranded spaceship, Count Dracula’s castle and a cursed pirate ship.

The room editor mode also has a bunch of new toys, props and tools to create puzzles for the game’s growing community of escape addicts. Pine Studio also announced that Escape Simulator 2’s custom room maker has “a brand new lighting engine, building constructor and animation editor,” according to a press release. There’s no release date or price yet, but there’s a Steam page for the game up right now.

Pine Studio

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/get-trapped-on-a-pirate-ship-or-in-draculas-castle-in-escape-simulator-2-202157156.html?src=rss

Donald Trump has picked a crypto bull to advise him on AI and cryptocurrency policy. On Thursday evening, the president-elect took to Truth Social to share that he was appointing former PayPal COO David Sacks to serve as his “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.” Trump said Sacks would also lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.

“David will guide policy for the Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness. David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas,” Trump wrote, adding Sacks would “safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.”

As an appointee to one of the president’s advisory councils, Sacks does not need to go through the usual Senate confirmation process required for cabinet picks and federal agency leads. Sacks does not have previous government experience. Trump instead highlighted his business credentials, pointing to his tenure at PayPal and later Yammer, which Sacks founded in 2008 and Microsoft acquired in 2012 for $1.2 billion. Sacks is also a close confidant of Elon Musk and provided part of the funding Musk used to buy Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. Sacks has broadly advocated for smaller government and less regulation, though he also pushed hard for the Biden administration to intervene when Silicon Valley Bank became insolvent in 2023.

“Where is Powell? Where is Yellen?” Sacks tweeted before regulators moved to fully protect deposits at SVB. “Stop this crisis NOW. Announce that all depositors will be safe. Place SVB with a Top 4 bank. Do this before Monday open or there will be contagion and the crisis will spread.”

Alongside Paul Atkins, who Trump picked to lead the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Sacks is likely to reshape US policy on cryptocurrency and AI. Under the Biden administration, the federal government sought to regulate the crypto industry. Sacks, however, is a vocal proponent of the industry. He is also a major investor in Solana and other crypto-related ventures such as Multicoin Capital.

As for Trump, appointing Sacks to his advisory council shows just how much his stance on crypto has changed. As recently as 2021, he said he thought Bitcoin seemed “like a scam,” and advocated for “very, very high” government regulation of the currency. That was before the crypto industry funneled $131 million during the 2024 election to get 274 pro-crypto candidates elected to the House of Representatives and 20 candidates to the Senate. During his campaign, Trump promised to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/crypto-evangelist-david-sacks-will-serve-as-trumps-ai-and-cryptocurrency-advisor-170522273.html?src=rss

Three judges shot down ByteDance’s petition to overturn a law that could ban TikTok in the US. On Friday, The New York Times reported that the judges upheld the new law, which requires the company to sell the app to a non-Chinese company by January 19 or face a ban.

ByteDance argued that the law unfairly targets TikTok and that a ban would violate users’ First Amendment rights. The company has said a sale is impossible because the Chinese government would block it. In 2020, the country updated export control rules to give it more say over a potential transaction.

In a statement to Engadget, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it was disappointed in the decision. “Restricting the free flow of information, even from foreign adversaries, is fundamentally undemocratic,” an EFF spokesperson wrote. “Until now, the U.S. has championed the free flow of information and called out other nations when they have shut down internet access or banned online communications tools like social media apps.”

ByteDance’s options from here include appealing to the US Supreme Court (although there’s no guarantee they would take the case) or hoping President-elect Donald Trump follows through on a vague promise to “deliver” on a plan to save the app. ByteDance suggested on Friday that the decision amounted to censorship, saying it expects the Supreme Court to protect “Americans’ right to free speech.”

The NYT reports that legal experts don’t see much of a legal path for Trump to rescue the app after taking office on January 20, 2025. During his first term, he issued executive orders restricting American dealings with the app, citing national security concerns and suggesting the app could be a Trojan Horse for data harvesting by the Chinese government. Microsoft was ready and willing to buy it if given the chance. The ban faced a series of legal challenges, and President Biden revoked the order in 2021.

Trump reversed his position in early 2024, reportedly after meeting with a Republican megadonor with a significant financial stake in the app. The president-elect’s shift intensified after Biden signed the law that could lead to its ban in early 2025. By the time election season was in full swing, Trump had recast himself as TikTok’s savior and used it as a wedge issue to attract younger users to his campaign.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-inches-closer-to-a-us-ban-after-judges-shoot-down-appeal-172748902.html?src=rss

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are in the rearview mirror, but you can still find great deals this holiday season. Case in point: Apple’s AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation (ANC) have dropped to their lowest price to date. You can pick up a pair for $139, which is $40 off the list price.

While we think the AirPods Pro 2 are the best AirPods overall, the ANC-enabled AirPods 4 are still a solid choice. We gave them a score of 86 in our review.

Apple released two AirPods variants a few months ago, one with ANC and the other without. We gave the ANC-less model a score of 88 as they had a number of improvements over the previous generation AirPods while still being fairly affordable and delivering great bang for your buck.

Of course, the lack of ANC in the base model is a negative. The other variant delivers effective ANC performance overall. Other upgrades over the base model include Conversation Awareness, Adaptive Audio and Transparency mode. The AirPods 4 with ANC (unlike the base option) also have a charging case that supports MagSafe and Qi-compatible wireless charging, as well as a built-in speaker that emits beeps when you activate Find My.

One of our main reservations about the AirPods 4 with ANC is that the superior AirPods Pro 2 (which typically cost $249) often go on sale — we’ve seen them dip to $169. That’s cheaper than the list price of the AirPods 4 with ANC. However, this discount makes those AirPods easier to recommend.

Meanwhile, the base AirPods 4 have dropped to $119. That’s 10 bucks off the regular price.

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/apples-airpods-4-with-anc-drop-to-a-new-low-of-139-151521702.html?src=rss

Last week, Brazil’s antitrust regulator CADE ordered Apple to allow users to download apps and make purchases from outside its App Store, with a 20-day deadline and fines for not complying. Now, a Brazilian federal court has overturned that injunction, ruling that it was “disproportionate and unnecessary,” 9to5Mac reported. 

Cade ordered Apple to allow third-party developers to tell users about alternative ways to make in-app purchases (subscriptions, etc.) so developers wouldn’t be forced to pay Apple a commission. It also demanded that Apple open up its ecosystem to other stores or allow sideloading. If Apple didn’t comply within 20 days, it faced a fine of 250,000 Real (around $43,000) per day.

Apple appealed that ruling on the grounds that the changes would be too difficult to implement within that time frame and the court agreed. “[The] technical complexity of the changes and the global regulatory impacts in similar decision in other regions, such as the European union, reinforce the need for such changes to be discussed in greater depth,” a judge ruled.  

CADE began investigation following a complaint by local e-commerce company Mercado Libre, which accused Apple of anticompetitive behavior. The regulator can appeal the ruling and still force Apple to comply.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/brazilian-judge-overturns-ruling-that-forced-apple-to-open-up-its-store-130039766.html?src=rss