Fortnite will let players hide mean emotes
Fortnite is rolling out an update on Tuesday that includes a new setting that filters out “confrontational” emotes. The v29.30 update will let players “choose not to see” the following emotes: “Laugh It Up”, “Take the L”, “Whipcrack”, and “Make it Plantain.”
The four emotes won’t exactly be hidden per se, they’ll appear as still images in the game — but players performing them won’t dance and they won’t play music. Players can opt to only see these emotes from friends, or hide them altogether.
Though Fortnite has hundreds of different emotes, this group of four are controversial because of how and when players will use them. Fortnite players will often play emotes like “Laugh it Up” and “Take the L” after killing another player or...
Why DolphiniOS’s Wii and GameCube emulator isn’t coming to the App Store
DolphiniOS, a fork of the popular Dolphin emulator for Nintendo Wii and GameCube games, has confirmed that it’s not coming to the Apple App Store even though emulators are now supported. In a post on Friday, the developer behind the emulator says it’s because Apple doesn’t allow DolphiniOS to use its underlying performance-boosting tech.
As explained by developer OatmealDome, DolphiniOS — along with other Wii and GameCube emulators — uses something called Just-in-Time (JIT). This is a compiler that “translates” the GameCube and Wii’s PowerPC-based code into a language other devices can understand, making emulations run a lot smoother.
Even with the recent App Store policy changes, DolphiniOS still cannot be submitted to the App Store...
Amazon is shutting down its drone delivery service in California as it looks to other markets
Amazon is winding down its Prime Air drone delivery program in Lockeford, California — an early testing zone for a service that allowed local residents to order products weighing up to five pounds and get them delivered to their location via drone in 30 minutes.
In the same press release, Amazon also announced that the company is launching a new Prime Air location in Tolleson, Arizona. The new location is expected to provide “same-day” deliveries to residents in the West Valley Phoenix metro area. Amazon expects to begin operations in Arizona starting later this year.
The press release doesn’t provide a clear reason as to why the Lockeford location, which opened for business in 2022, is closing, though it does say employees at the...
Anker’s 8-in-1 charging station is matching its lowest price to date
A cluttered desk can easily hijack your focus, which is why Anker’s Qi2-certified MagGo Magnetic Charging Station (8-in-1) can prove helpful. It’s small, but it can quickly clear up space by replacing a good chunk of your chargers while doubling as a sturdy phone stand. It normally runs $99.99, but now until 4:45PM PT / 7:45PM ET on April 28th, you can pick up the charger at its all-time low of $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2GPRWSL).
The speedy orb-shaped charger can supply up to 15W of power to MagSafe-equipped iPhones — specifically iPhone 12, 13, 14, and 15 models — while functioning as a versatile power strip that can charge up to seven other devices. It supports up to 67W total power output and comes...
Microsoft hires former Meta exec to bolster AI supercomputing team
Former Meta executive Jason Taylor is joining Microsoft’s AI supercomputing team. In a LinkedIn post on Monday, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott says Taylor will take on the role of corporate vice president and deputy CTO to help “build the next set of systems that will push the frontier of AI forward.”
Taylor worked at Meta from 2009 to 2022, where he most recently served as the company’s vice president of infrastructure. He handled AI, data, and privacy infrastructure, as well as managing the company’s server budgets, according to his LinkedIn profile. Taylor was also the chair of the Open Compute Project Foundation from 2015 to 2017, an organization that promotes open-source designs in data centers.
Microsoft and OpenAI need more robust...
Europe’s warming up at nearly twice the global average, says new report
Europe is warming up at twice the global average, leading to deadly heatwaves and severe flooding, according to the European State of the Climate (ESOTC) report for the year 2023, released Monday.
According to the report, temperatures in Europe are rising 2.3 degrees Celsius (or 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, according to a five-year average, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius (roughly 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) globally. The report, jointly issued by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization, covers the year 2023, which was the second warmest year on record for Europe. Parts of southern Europe experienced between 60 and 80 days of “strong heat stress,” with...
Meta wants to be the Microsoft of headsets
Meta has started licensing the operating system for its Quest headset to other hardware makers, starting with Lenovo and Asus. It’s also making a limited-run, gaming-focused Quest with Xbox.
On the theme of opening up, Meta is also pushing for more ways to discover alternative app stores. It’s making its experimental App Lab store more prominent and even inviting Google to bring the Play Store to its operating system, which is now called Horizon OS. In a blog post, Meta additionally said that it’s working on a spatial framework for developers to more easily port their mobile apps to Horizon OS.
Crucially for Meta, Horizon OS includes the Horizon social layer, a 3D, Roblox-meets-The Sims open-world platform. After a buggy and sluggish...
Is your PC having trouble? Your smart TV might be to blame
It turns out your TV can actually mess up your computer — at least if you’re using a Hisense TV and Windows.
Priscilla Snow, a sound designer and composer for games, wrote on Cohost that they’d been having trouble with their PC. The “Display Settings” menu didn’t open. The “Task Manager” started hanging. Then things necessary to making the computer work started to fail. Spelunking in hidden comments on Microsoft forums revealed the problem: Snow’s TV.
Basically, the TV had been generating Universal Plug and Play IDs and had, over the course of several years, convinced Snow’s computer that there were essentially an infinite number of devices on their network. Snow’s smart TV, a Hisense 50Q8G, had...
An Xbox VR headset is on the way, but it’s a ‘limited edition’ Meta Quest
Microsoft is teaming up with Meta to create a limited edition Meta Quest VR headset that’s “inspired by Xbox.” While both Microsoft and Meta aren’t sharing full details on this VR headset, it sounds like it’s simply going to be a skinned Meta Quest 3 (or future unannounced version) that comes bundled with an Xbox controller.
“We’re working together again [with Microsoft] to create a limited-edition Meta Quest, inspired by Xbox,” says Meta in an announcement today. It’s part of Meta opening up its operating system that powers its Quest VR headsets to third-party hardware makers. Asus and Lenovo are creating dedicated headsets that run the Meta Horizon OS, but the partnership with Microsoft sounds like it’s simply a limited-edition headset...
Billie Eilish will be the bad guy in Fortnite
Finally, you can bury a friend as Billie Eilish. Fortnite has revealed its next major musical collaboration, and it will see Eilish become a playable character starting on April 23rd. You should see her in a Victory Crown.
There aren’t many details just yet, but the singer will be the featured artist for the next season of Fortnite Festival, the Rock Band-like in-game experience that launched last year. That means you can expect her songs to be playable in that mode and her neon green character skin to appear in the in-game shop (presumably with a Lego variant).
Of course, this is far from the first big-name star to be featured in the game. Eilish follows the likes of Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Eminem; more recently, Fortnite held its...