Tech

It’s been almost 14 years since Donkey Kong Country Returns launched on the Nintendo Wii (followed by a 3DS port in 2012), and next year an HD version of the game is coming to the Nintendo Switch. The game debuts on January 16th.

The game, first announced in 2021, is coming out on November 14th, 2025, and it looks incredible in a new trailer. It’s set to release on Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Steam, and Windows.

And that’s not all: an HD-2D remake of the first two Dragon Quest games is coming in 2025.

Fantasian is an RPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi featuring composer Nobuo Uematsu that was previously only available on Apple Arcade. It’s coming out this winter.

After 10 years of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast is revamping the popular tabletop RPG with three new core rulebooks. The 2024 Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual kick off a new, non-numbered generation of the game when they launch September 17th, November 11th, and February 18th, respectively — with preorders available now.

Check out these snippets of art and pages from the upcoming books.

Un Kyu Lee’s Micro Journal Rev.6 is a purpose-built writing tool that trades the polish of Astrohaus’ Freewright devices for a cheaper price tag. The $169 kit pairs a hot-swappable keyboard with a monochromatic LCD display, a 30-hour battery, and wireless Google Drive syncing. The design files are also available through GitHub, eventually letting anyone 3D print and build their own.

Microsoft is launching its Copilot Plus PCs today, with Qualcomm-powered chips inside. If you’re wondering where our reviews are, Microsoft and most of its OEM partners haven’t seeded devices ahead of today’s launch because of Microsoft’s Recall... recall. I have started testing a Surface Laptop today, and we’ll have a full review of this new Windows on Arm hardware as soon as possible.

The Amazon Labor Union voted to ink an affiliation agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Workers at a Staten Island warehouse became the first Amazon employees to vote to unionize in 2022. They still don’t have a contract, as the union struggles to get Amazon to the bargaining table. Joining forces with the Teamsters infuses their fight with fresh resources, The New York Times reports.

Days after the Financial Times said that Apple would be found guilty of not complying with obligations under the DMA to allow app developers to “steer” users to offers outside its App Store, the bloc’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager had this to say:

We have a number of Apple issues, I find them very serious. I was very surprised that we would have such suspicions of Apple being non-compliant.

After warning it was running out of cash, the California-based company founded by designer Henrik Fisker has filed for Chapter 11 protection:

Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently. After evaluating all options for our business, we determined that proceeding with a sale of our assets under Chapter 11 is the most viable path forward for the company.

Slim and light and globally available in June for $79.99 / €89.99.

Keys-To-Go 2, available in Lilac, Pale Grey and Graphite, features scissor keys for a comfortable, efficient and more precise typing experience. Connect via Bluetooth with up to three devices via the Easy-Switch keys, and type seamlessly across tablets, phones and laptops. This compact keyboard is available in two layouts, Universal (Android, ChromeOS, Windows, iPadOS, iOS and MacOS) and dedicated Apple layout (iPadOS, iOS and macOS).

The marketing whiplash in this press release announcing the availability of the Galaxy Book4 Edge is really something. 

It starts by praising the magic of AI (14 times), saying Samsung’s “next-gen AI PC will change the way users work, create and play through the power of AI.” It ends with this teeny tiny footnote for its “popular Galaxy AI:”

Samsung does not make any promises, assurances or guarantees as to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the output provided by AI features.

To be fair, Samsung didn’t say the change was good.

Beats just posted a teaser featuring LeBron James and the heavily leaked Beats Pill refresh. More information is coming June 25th, apparently.

A new teaser for Motorola’s next-gen Razr gives us a brief glimpse at the foldable and confirms a June 25th launch date. So far, leaks suggest that the Razr 50 Ultra and its cheaper counterpart will come with larger cover screens.

I’m pretty skeptical that the “crypto voter” exists — there are plenty of other issues that weigh higher in people’s minds — but there’s a lot of spending happening. That said, Sam Bankman-Fried spent a great deal and got nothing, so...

And three instructors are leaving at the end of the month: Kendall Toole, Ross Rayburn, and Kristin McGee. An official Peloton statement pegs these departures as a “normal and ongoing part of the Peloton process,” while hinting that the company may hire new talent.

Real talk, Peloton is a media company now and that means instructor salaries are a huge cost in making content. It was only a matter of time before we saw this happen.

A remarkable essay on how an AI-generated video on kung fu led one family to order actual, physical encyclopedias.

Knowledge is not a market commodity. Moreover, “justified true belief” does not result from an optimization function. Knowledge may be refined through questioning or falsification, but it does not improve from competition with purposeful nonknowledge. If anything, in the face of nonknowledge, knowledge loses.

RCS isn’t in the current iOS 18 developer beta but that hasn’t stopped one enterprising tinkerer from getting it working. It’s early days so what we’re seeing now likely isn’t final, but file transfers and read receipts appear to be operational. Oh, and those bubbles are definitely still green, but we knew that would be the case.

This year’s Cannes Film Festival belonged to the madness of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, and now that Lionsgate has secured the film’s distribution rights, we can expect to see it in theaters on September 27th.