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Astro Bot, one of Sony’s greatest triumphs, is getting new content for those who live life (or at least play PS5) in the fast lane. Developer Team Asobi said on Wednesday that the first of five free speedrunning levels teased at Sony’s September State of Play will arrive on Thursday, October 17.
The first speedrun level is Building Speed, where you’ll get an assist from your robot bulldog friend Barkster. Team Asobi promises you’ll “blast your way through a sky-high city.” Dodging cranes, smashing through crates and zipping through a flying car wash are part of the festivities. It sounds like more of the cute, 3D-platforming fun that Engadget’s Jessica Conditt described as the equivalent of “Super Mario Bros. for a new generation of video game fanatics.”
Team Asobi / Sony
After tomorrow’s first level, a new speedrunning stage will arrive on each of the following four Thursdays. That includes Let it Slide on October 24, Spring-loaded Run on October 31, Helium Heights on November 7 and Rising Heat on November 14.
The speedrun levels are all free. You should see them starting at 9AM ET on their launch dates.
Each level will add two new bots to rescue. Team Asobi has already teased nods to Eve from Stellar Blade and the Helldivers, but you can expect more fun surprises beyond those.
Team Asobi sounds like it has more content on tap. In its announcement blog post, the developers invited you to stay tuned because “there may be even more surprises coming soon” for Sony’s latest PlayStation-exclusive success story.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-first-of-astro-bots-free-speedrunning-levels-arrives-on-thursday-162006557.html?src=rss

Astro Bot, one of Sony’s greatest triumphs, is getting new content for those who live life (or at least play PS5) in the fast lane. Developer Team Asobi said on Wednesday that the first of five free speedrunning levels teased at Sony’s September State of Play will arrive on Thursday, October 17.

The first speedrun level is Building Speed, where you’ll get an assist from your robot bulldog friend Barkster. Team Asobi promises you’ll “blast your way through a sky-high city.” Dodging cranes, smashing through crates and zipping through a flying car wash are part of the festivities. It sounds like more of the cute, 3D-platforming fun that Engadget’s Jessica Conditt described as the equivalent of “Super Mario Bros. for a new generation of video game fanatics.”

After tomorrow’s first level, a new speedrunning stage will arrive on each of the following four Thursdays. That includes Let it Slide on October 24, Spring-loaded Run on October 31, Helium Heights on November 7 and Rising Heat on November 14.

The speedrun levels are all free. You should see them starting at 9AM ET on their launch dates.

Each level will add two new bots to rescue. Team Asobi has already teased nods to Eve from Stellar Blade and the Helldivers, but you can expect more fun surprises beyond those.

Team Asobi sounds like it has more content on tap. In its announcement blog post, the developers invited you to stay tuned because “there may be even more surprises coming soon” for Sony’s latest PlayStation-exclusive success story.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-first-of-astro-bots-free-speedrunning-levels-arrives-on-thursday-162006557.html?src=rss

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The Federal Trade Commission has made it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions. In a decision that went down along party lines, the agency voted to ratify a “click-to-cancel” rule that will require providers to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one. First proposed last year, the rulemaking prohibits companies from misrepresenting their recurring services and memberships, as well as failing to clearly disclose any material terms related to those offerings.
“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” said Chair Lina Khan. “The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”
After considering more than 16,000 comments on the matter, the FTC decided not to write the final rulemaking as originally proposed. Most notably, the agency scrapped a proposal that would have required companies to provide consumers with annual reminders for subscription renewals. It also won’t mandate a rule that would have forced sellers to obtain the consent of those seeking to cancel a subscription before telling them about potential modifications to their plan or reasons why they should continue paying for a service.
A separate statement issued by Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter (PDF link) provides insight into the decision. Essentially, the agency felt the FTC Act doesn’t give it the authority to require a renewal notice. I’ll note here that the dissenting opinion (PDF link), written by Republican Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, contends that the entire rulemaking is overly broad, and accuses the Democratic majority of attempting to push through the change before next month’s election.
“Americans understand the importance and value of such a requirement; many have discovered that they or their parents had been paying for years or even decades for a service wholly unused, such as a dial-up internet service from the 1990s,” Slaughter writes in her statement. “… Of course, we are always mindful that our authority under the FTC Act to issue rules under section 18 has limits; sometimes, as here, those limits prevent us from codifying in a rule practices that we might, as a matter of policy, prefer to require explicitly.”
Slaughter points out that state and federal lawmakers do have the authority to mandate renewal notices, and notes some states, such as Virginia, have even recently gone down that path. “The comment record compiled in this rulemaking proceeding strongly supports the wisdom of federal and state legislators’ carefully considering adopting such a law,” Slaughter writes.
Provided there’s no legal challenge to the FTC’s decision, today’s rulemaking will go into effect 180 days after it is published in the Federal Register. When the agency moved to ban noncompete clauses earlier this year, a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction. That decision is still stuck in legal limbo. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/ftc-ratifies-click-to-cancel-rule-making-it-easier-for-consumers-to-end-subscriptions-160752238.html?src=rss

The Federal Trade Commission has made it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions. In a decision that went down along party lines, the agency voted to ratify a “click-to-cancel” rule that will require providers to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one. First proposed last year, the rulemaking prohibits companies from misrepresenting their recurring services and memberships, as well as failing to clearly disclose any material terms related to those offerings.

“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” said Chair Lina Khan. “The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”

After considering more than 16,000 comments on the matter, the FTC decided not to write the final rulemaking as originally proposed. Most notably, the agency scrapped a proposal that would have required companies to provide consumers with annual reminders for subscription renewals. It also won’t mandate a rule that would have forced sellers to obtain the consent of those seeking to cancel a subscription before telling them about potential modifications to their plan or reasons why they should continue paying for a service.

A separate statement issued by Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter (PDF link) provides insight into the decision. Essentially, the agency felt the FTC Act doesn’t give it the authority to require a renewal notice. I’ll note here that the dissenting opinion (PDF link), written by Republican Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, contends that the entire rulemaking is overly broad, and accuses the Democratic majority of attempting to push through the change before next month’s election.

“Americans understand the importance and value of such a requirement; many have discovered that they or their parents had been paying for years or even decades for a service wholly unused, such as a dial-up internet service from the 1990s,” Slaughter writes in her statement. “… Of course, we are always mindful that our authority under the FTC Act to issue rules under section 18 has limits; sometimes, as here, those limits prevent us from codifying in a rule practices that we might, as a matter of policy, prefer to require explicitly.”

Slaughter points out that state and federal lawmakers do have the authority to mandate renewal notices, and notes some states, such as Virginia, have even recently gone down that path. “The comment record compiled in this rulemaking proceeding strongly supports the wisdom of federal and state legislators’ carefully considering adopting such a law,” Slaughter writes.

Provided there’s no legal challenge to the FTC’s decision, today’s rulemaking will go into effect 180 days after it is published in the Federal Register. When the agency moved to ban noncompete clauses earlier this year, a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction. That decision is still stuck in legal limbo. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/ftc-ratifies-click-to-cancel-rule-making-it-easier-for-consumers-to-end-subscriptions-160752238.html?src=rss

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is just around the corner, with a release date of October 25, and Microsoft has temporarily removed the $1 Xbox Game Pass 14-day trial from stores —‚ again. Some gamers may remember that Microsoft pulled a similar stunt last year just before Starfield’s release. Essentially, this keeps players from trying out a big new release like Black Ops 6 without paying for a full subscription.
The trial’s removal happened on October 8, but it was only caught by The Verge today. The most likely primary reason is to prevent gamers from playing through the campaign without paying the full price. Of course, even millions of $1 sales wouldn’t be profitable for Microsoft.
A decision like this isn’t without reasons, as Microsoft is hoping to increase the number of Game Pass subscriptions. Since the number of new subscribers over the last two years has slowed, Microsoft hopes that removing the trial forces gamers to purchase a full Game Pass plan to enjoy Black Ops 6.
The Game Pass trial isn’t back yet, so those who want to dip their toes into the water before plunging in will have to wait. It’s also good to remember that the trial used to be for a whole month before its current 14-day form.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/microsoft-removes-the-1-xbox-game-pass-trial-just-before-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-155058295.html?src=rss

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is just around the corner, with a release date of October 25, and Microsoft has temporarily removed the $1 Xbox Game Pass 14-day trial from stores —‚ again. Some gamers may remember that Microsoft pulled a similar stunt last year just before Starfield’s release. Essentially, this keeps players from trying out a big new release like Black Ops 6 without paying for a full subscription.

The trial’s removal happened on October 8, but it was only caught by The Verge today. The most likely primary reason is to prevent gamers from playing through the campaign without paying the full price. Of course, even millions of $1 sales wouldn’t be profitable for Microsoft.

A decision like this isn’t without reasons, as Microsoft is hoping to increase the number of Game Pass subscriptions. Since the number of new subscribers over the last two years has slowed, Microsoft hopes that removing the trial forces gamers to purchase a full Game Pass plan to enjoy Black Ops 6.

The Game Pass trial isn’t back yet, so those who want to dip their toes into the water before plunging in will have to wait. It’s also good to remember that the trial used to be for a whole month before its current 14-day form.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/microsoft-removes-the-1-xbox-game-pass-trial-just-before-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-155058295.html?src=rss

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Hosting a property on Airbnb is no longer a simple process. Customers can be finicky, ideal pricing can change on a dime, markets can become flooded and earnings can be difficult to track. The platform’s trying to simplify matters by introducing the Co-Host Network, which allows hosts to hire other hosts to manage properties.
Here’s how it works. Property owners can peruse the network for other hosts and scoop them up into a loving embrace of hospitality. The hired hosts can help with just about anything, including setting up listings, selecting prices and availability, cleaning, maintenance and guest management. It’s a disruption of the blazing-hot “building superintendent” industry.
Airbnb
These hosts for hire must be highly rated and local, with Airbnb saying it has only included hosts with a rating of at least 4.8 and a minimum of ten hosted stays. The would-be co-hosts/employees can set their own service rates on a profile page. The company says it has onboarded over 10,000 people so far, in countries like Australia, Brazil, France, Mexico and the US.
“One of the requests that we had from hosts is that they would really love to be able to find professional, high-quality co-hosts with a great track record in their area whom they can trust. And they can really be completely hands-off,” Judson Coplan, VP of Product Marketing at Airbnb, said to TechCrunch.
While this feature should be a boon for actual people who just need a little bit of help, the phrase “completely hands-off” gives me pause. It seems like it could easily be used by gigantic real estate monoliths that own hundreds and hundreds of properties across the platform.
This isn’t a bad thing, per se, as these mega-hosts are generally considered to be a reliable option for guests. However, this certainly doesn’t help the public perception that Airbnb and its ilk participate in the hollowing out of neighborhoods, turning them into ghost towns. There is, after all, a housing crisis across the country.
In any event, this could be a decent way for some people to make a few extra bucks. Airbnb introduced other stuff besides the Co-Host Network, including a feature for hosts to check out similar listings in an area. As for guests, there’s a new welcome tour in the app for first time users, updated search filters, local payment options and more.
The platform has been busy lately. Earlier this year, Airbnb started a program to provide discounts on EV chargers for hosts. It also now allows the app to display smart lock codes to guests.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/airbnb-now-lets-hosts-hire-other-hosts-to-manage-properties-153748730.html?src=rss

Hosting a property on Airbnb is no longer a simple process. Customers can be finicky, ideal pricing can change on a dime, markets can become flooded and earnings can be difficult to track. The platform’s trying to simplify matters by introducing the Co-Host Network, which allows hosts to hire other hosts to manage properties.

Here’s how it works. Property owners can peruse the network for other hosts and scoop them up into a loving embrace of hospitality. The hired hosts can help with just about anything, including setting up listings, selecting prices and availability, cleaning, maintenance and guest management. It’s a disruption of the blazing-hot “building superintendent” industry.

These hosts for hire must be highly rated and local, with Airbnb saying it has only included hosts with a rating of at least 4.8 and a minimum of ten hosted stays. The would-be co-hosts/employees can set their own service rates on a profile page. The company says it has onboarded over 10,000 people so far, in countries like Australia, Brazil, France, Mexico and the US.

“One of the requests that we had from hosts is that they would really love to be able to find professional, high-quality co-hosts with a great track record in their area whom they can trust. And they can really be completely hands-off,” Judson Coplan, VP of Product Marketing at Airbnb, said to TechCrunch.

While this feature should be a boon for actual people who just need a little bit of help, the phrase “completely hands-off” gives me pause. It seems like it could easily be used by gigantic real estate monoliths that own hundreds and hundreds of properties across the platform.

This isn’t a bad thing, per se, as these mega-hosts are generally considered to be a reliable option for guests. However, this certainly doesn’t help the public perception that Airbnb and its ilk participate in the hollowing out of neighborhoods, turning them into ghost towns. There is, after all, a housing crisis across the country.

In any event, this could be a decent way for some people to make a few extra bucks. Airbnb introduced other stuff besides the Co-Host Network, including a feature for hosts to check out similar listings in an area. As for guests, there’s a new welcome tour in the app for first time users, updated search filters, local payment options and more.

The platform has been busy lately. Earlier this year, Airbnb started a program to provide discounts on EV chargers for hosts. It also now allows the app to display smart lock codes to guests.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/airbnb-now-lets-hosts-hire-other-hosts-to-manage-properties-153748730.html?src=rss

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A year after it was first teased, Analogue says it’s nailed its most complicated project yet: rebuilding the Nintendo 64 from scratch. The Analogue 3D will ship in Q1 2025 — it was originally slated for 2024 — and pre-orders start on October 21 at $250.
Like all of the company’s machines, the Analogue 3D has an FPGA (field programmable gate array) chip coded to emulate the original console on a hardware level. Analogue promises support for every official N64 cartridge ever released, across all regions, with no slowdown or inaccuracies. If it achieves that goal, the Analogue 3D will be the first system in the world to perfectly emulate the N64, though other FPGA and software emulators get pretty close.
The company has been selling recreations of retro consoles for over a decade, starting with high-end, bespoke takes on the Neo-Geo and NES. Over time it’s gradually shifted over to more mass-market (though still high-end) productions, with versions of SNES, Genesis and Game Boy all coming in at around the $200 mark. All of the company’s systems support original physical media, rather than ROMs.
Analogue’s original unique selling point was its use of FPGA chips. Rather than using software emulation to play ROMs, Analogue programs FPGA “cores” to emulate original console hardware, and its consoles support original game media and controllers. Compared with software emulation (especially in the early ’10s when Analogue got started), FPGA-based consoles are more accurate, and don’t suffer from as much input lag.
FPGA emulation has come a long way over the past decade. Where Analogue was once the only route into the world of FPGAs for most people, there’s now a rich community of developers and hardware manufacturers involved. The open-source MiSTer project, for example, has accurately emulated almost every video game thing produced up to the mid ’90s. And plenty of smaller manufacturers are now selling FPGA hardware for very reasonable prices. The FPGBC is one good example: It’s a simple DIY kit that lets you build a modern-day Game Boy Color for a much lower price than an Analogue Pocket.

A DE10-Nano board produced by Terasic.

Terasic

Amid all these developments, Analogue occupies a strange spot in the retro gaming community, which has evolved into an open-source, people-powered movement to preserve and play old games. It produces undeniably great hardware that doesn’t require expertise to use, but its prices are high, and its limited-run color variants of consoles like the Pocket have both created FOMO in the community and been a consistent target for scalpers. Analogue is, in many ways, the Apple of the retro gaming hardware space.
With that said, it’s hard to deny that the Pocket has brought more players into the retro gaming world and attracted talent to FPGA development. And if Analogue comes through on its promise here, the Analogue 3D will be another huge moment for video game preservation, and could be the spark for another half-decade of fantastic achievements from the FPGA community at large.
Breaking the fifth-gen barrier
While the FPGA emulation of the first few video game generations is largely a solved problem, there’s a huge leap in complexity between the fourth generation (SNES, Genesis, etc.) and the next. Strides have been made to rebuild the PlayStation, Saturn and N64 in FPGA, but there is no core for any fifth-gen console that has fully solved the puzzle. The current state of the MiSTer N64 core is pretty impressive, with almost every US game counted as playable, but very few games are considered to run flawlessly.
So how did Analogue solve this? The studio does have a talented team, but it importantly has a leg-up when it comes to hardware. The Analogue 3D has the strongest version of the Intel Cyclone 10GX FPGA chip, with 220,000 logic elements. For context, the MiSTer project’s open-source DE-10 board has a Cyclone V FPGA with 110,000 logic elements, while the Analogue Pocket’s main FPGA offers 49,000 elements. There’s a lot more to an FPGA than its logic elements, but the numbers are illustrative: The 3D’s FPGA is undoubtedly the most powerful Analogue has ever used, which clearly gave it more flexibility in designing its core.
While we can’t verify Analogue’s claim of 100 percent compatibility by looking at a spec sheet, the company does have a good track record of programming fantastic FPGA cores, so it’s likely it’ll get incredibly close.

Kris Naudus for Engadget

Of course, if you just wanted to play N64 games accurately, you could plug an N64 into any TV with a composite or S-Video connector, or use one of many boxes that converts those formats into HDMI signals that modern TVs require.
The problem with running an N64 on a modern TV is that its games run at a wide range of resolutions, typically from 320 x 240 up to (very rarely) 640 x 480, the max output. There are countless oddball resolutions between, and some games run below 320 x 240. This is a nightmare for modern displays. Some will scale to a full screen very nicely — both of the common resolutions I listed multiply neatly to 4K, albeit with pillarboxing. The situation gets more confusing with PAL cartridges, which can run at fun horizontal resolutions like 288 and 576. There’s also the issue that the vast majority of these games were designed with the CRT displays of old in mind, taking advantage of the quirks of scanlines to, say, make a checkerboard pattern look translucent.
This makes playing N64 games on a modern TV a bit of a hassle. There are fantastic retro upscalers like the RetroTINK series, but when plugging in a game for the first time, you wind up deciding between integer and “good enough” scaling, dealing with weird frame rates and tweaking blending options to get the picture just right. Many people enjoy this fine-tuning and customization aspect, and all power to you! But it’s undoubtedly a barrier to entry, and much of the hard work done on upscaling has been focused on 2D gaming, rather than 3D.
Analogue says its scaling solution will solve many of these issues. The Analogue 3D supports 4K output, variable refresh rate displays, and PAL and NTSC carts. On top of those basics, it’s building out “Original Display Modes” to emulate the CRT TVs and PVMs of old. Calling ODMs filters feels a little reductive, as they’re a complicated and customizable mix of display tricks, but essentially you pick one and it changes the way the picture looks, so….
ODMs were used effectively on the Analogue Pocket to emulate various Game Boy displays. Perhaps the most impressive example is a Trinitron ODM that came to the Pocket in 2023 that, when used with the Analogue Dock, does a pretty incredible job of turning a modern TV into a high-end Sony tube TV. We don’t have a ton of information on which ODMs are coming to the 3D, but I will share the very ’90s ad for the feature below:

Analogue

The final piece of the image-quality puzzle is frame rate. The N64’s library is full of some spectacularly slow games. My memory may be scarred from growing up in a PAL region, which meant, while the US and Japan’s NTSC consoles were outputting a blistering 20 fps, I was chugging away at 16.66 fps. But even in the idealized NTSC world, lots of games outright missed their frame rate targets comically often. As an example, the majority of Goldeneye’s single-player campaign plays out between 15-25 fps, while a four-player match would typically see half that number. And let’s not speak of Perfect Dark.
These glacial frame rates are far less noticeable on a CRT than they are on modern displays with crisp rows of pixels updating from top to bottom. While the ODMs go some way to replicating the feel of an old TV, they can’t change the underlying technical differences. The Analogue 3D does support variable refresh rate output, but that won’t do much when a game is running at 12 fps, and instead is intended to help the system run like the original N64 did at launch. 
In its initial press push last year, Analogue told Paste magazine that you’ll have the option to overclock the 3D’s virtual chips to run faster — “overclocking, running smoother, eliminating native frame dips” — but the company hasn’t mentioned that in its final press release. Instead, Analogue CEO Christopher Taber told Engadget that its solution “isn’t overclocking, it’s much better and more sophisticated.” It revolves around Nintendo’s original Rambus RAM set up, which is often the bottleneck for N64 performance. Solving this bottleneck “means that games can run without slowdown and all the classic issues the original N64 had,” he explained. 
By default, though, the Analogue 3D is set up to run exactly like original hardware, albeit with the RAM Expansion Pak attached. “Preserving the original hardware is the number one goal,” Taber explained. “Even when bandwidth is increased, it’s not about boosting performance beyond the system’s original capabilities — it’s about giving players a clearer window into how the games were designed to run.” 

Analogue

The hardware
Analogue has a rich history of making very pretty hardware, and the Analogue 3D is clearly no exception. As with the Super Nt, Mega Sg, and Duo, the 3D calls back to the basic form of the console it’s based on, while smoothing out and modernizing it somewhat. It’s an elegant way to pull on nostalgia while also being legally distinct enough to avoid a lawsuit. (Analogue’s FPGA cores and software also don’t infringe on any Nintendo IP.)
The Analogue 3D has a similar shape to the N64, but the front pillars have been erased, the four controller ports match the housing and the power/reset buttons are slanted inwards to point toward the cartridge slot. Despite the tweaks, it still undoubtedly evokes a Nintendo 64. Around the back, you’ll find a USB-C port for power, two USB ports for accessories like non-standard controllers, an HDMI port and a full-sized SD card slot.

Analogue

A new operating system from Analogue, 3DOS, will debut with the system. It looks like a blend of the AnalogueOS that debuted on the Pocket and the Nintendo Switch OS, with the homescreen centered on a large carousel of square cards. The screenshots Analogue provided show options for playing a cartridge, browsing your library or viewing save states and screenshots. Some N64 games have the ability to save data to the cartridge, while others rely on a Controller Pak, but the ability to quickly save progress as a memory, as introduced with the Pocket, will be useful nonetheless. 3DOS can also connect to the internet over the console’s built-in WiFi chip for OS updates, which is a first for Analogue.
While you can browse your library in 3DOS, you won’t actually be able to load any game that isn’t physically inserted into the cartridge slot: The Analogue 3D only plays original media. It’s also worth noting that the Analogue 3D also doesn’t have an “openFPGA” setup like the Analogue Pocket did, which opened the door to playing with a wild array of cores that emulate various consoles, computers and arcades. It doesn’t usually take long for someone to jailbreak Analogue consoles to play ROMs (or other cores) via the system’s SD card slot, but this is not officially supported or sanctioned by Analogue.
The console comes with a power supply (with a US plug), USB cable, an HDMI cable and a 16GB SD card. As per usual, no controller will be packed in — it’s up to you if you want to use original hardware or something more modern. I managed to make at least one reader extremely mad (I’m sorry, Brucealeg) last time I wrote about the Analogue 3D and called the N64 controller a mistake. Personally, though, it feels really rough using one in 2024.

Analogue/8BitDo

If you enjoy the three-paddled original controller, the 3D has four ports for you, and the system will also support the myriad Paks that plug into those controllers. For everyone else, there’s Bluetooth Classic and LE support along with two USB ports for wired controllers. Accessory maker 8BitDo has created what seems to be a variant of its Ultimate controller specifically for the Analogue 3D. (Analogue’s CEO, Taber, is also 8BitDo’s CMO, and the companies have collaborated on controllers for many consoles at this point.) 
The 8BitDo controller looks like a fairly happy middle ground between old and new, with an octagonal gate around the thumbstick, and nicely raised and sized C-buttons. It has a Rumble Pak built in, which works on both the Analogue 3D and Nintendo Switch. It’s available in black or white hues that match the console, and sells separately for $39.99.
Pre-orders for the Analogue 3D open on October 21 at 11AM ET, with an estimated ship date of Q1 2025. It’s unclear how many will be available, but if past launches are any indication, you should be ready to click buy as close to 11AM as possible if you want a hope of being in the first wave of shipments.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/analogues-4k-remake-of-the-n64-is-almost-ready-and-its-a-big-deal-150033468.html?src=rss

A year after it was first teased, Analogue says it’s nailed its most complicated project yet: rebuilding the Nintendo 64 from scratch. The Analogue 3D will ship in Q1 2025 — it was originally slated for 2024 — and pre-orders start on October 21 at $250.

Like all of the company’s machines, the Analogue 3D has an FPGA (field programmable gate array) chip coded to emulate the original console on a hardware level. Analogue promises support for every official N64 cartridge ever released, across all regions, with no slowdown or inaccuracies. If it achieves that goal, the Analogue 3D will be the first system in the world to perfectly emulate the N64, though other FPGA and software emulators get pretty close.

The company has been selling recreations of retro consoles for over a decade, starting with high-end, bespoke takes on the Neo-Geo and NES. Over time it’s gradually shifted over to more mass-market (though still high-end) productions, with versions of SNES, Genesis and Game Boy all coming in at around the $200 mark. All of the company’s systems support original physical media, rather than ROMs.

Analogue’s original unique selling point was its use of FPGA chips. Rather than using software emulation to play ROMs, Analogue programs FPGA “cores” to emulate original console hardware, and its consoles support original game media and controllers. Compared with software emulation (especially in the early ’10s when Analogue got started), FPGA-based consoles are more accurate, and don’t suffer from as much input lag.

FPGA emulation has come a long way over the past decade. Where Analogue was once the only route into the world of FPGAs for most people, there’s now a rich community of developers and hardware manufacturers involved. The open-source MiSTer project, for example, has accurately emulated almost every video game thing produced up to the mid ’90s. And plenty of smaller manufacturers are now selling FPGA hardware for very reasonable prices. The FPGBC is one good example: It’s a simple DIY kit that lets you build a modern-day Game Boy Color for a much lower price than an Analogue Pocket.

A DE10-Nano board produced by Terasic.

Amid all these developments, Analogue occupies a strange spot in the retro gaming community, which has evolved into an open-source, people-powered movement to preserve and play old games. It produces undeniably great hardware that doesn’t require expertise to use, but its prices are high, and its limited-run color variants of consoles like the Pocket have both created FOMO in the community and been a consistent target for scalpers. Analogue is, in many ways, the Apple of the retro gaming hardware space.

With that said, it’s hard to deny that the Pocket has brought more players into the retro gaming world and attracted talent to FPGA development. And if Analogue comes through on its promise here, the Analogue 3D will be another huge moment for video game preservation, and could be the spark for another half-decade of fantastic achievements from the FPGA community at large.

Breaking the fifth-gen barrier

While the FPGA emulation of the first few video game generations is largely a solved problem, there’s a huge leap in complexity between the fourth generation (SNES, Genesis, etc.) and the next. Strides have been made to rebuild the PlayStation, Saturn and N64 in FPGA, but there is no core for any fifth-gen console that has fully solved the puzzle. The current state of the MiSTer N64 core is pretty impressive, with almost every US game counted as playable, but very few games are considered to run flawlessly.

So how did Analogue solve this? The studio does have a talented team, but it importantly has a leg-up when it comes to hardware. The Analogue 3D has the strongest version of the Intel Cyclone 10GX FPGA chip, with 220,000 logic elements. For context, the MiSTer project’s open-source DE-10 board has a Cyclone V FPGA with 110,000 logic elements, while the Analogue Pocket’s main FPGA offers 49,000 elements. There’s a lot more to an FPGA than its logic elements, but the numbers are illustrative: The 3D’s FPGA is undoubtedly the most powerful Analogue has ever used, which clearly gave it more flexibility in designing its core.

While we can’t verify Analogue’s claim of 100 percent compatibility by looking at a spec sheet, the company does have a good track record of programming fantastic FPGA cores, so it’s likely it’ll get incredibly close.

Of course, if you just wanted to play N64 games accurately, you could plug an N64 into any TV with a composite or S-Video connector, or use one of many boxes that converts those formats into HDMI signals that modern TVs require.

The problem with running an N64 on a modern TV is that its games run at a wide range of resolutions, typically from 320 x 240 up to (very rarely) 640 x 480, the max output. There are countless oddball resolutions between, and some games run below 320 x 240. This is a nightmare for modern displays. Some will scale to a full screen very nicely — both of the common resolutions I listed multiply neatly to 4K, albeit with pillarboxing. The situation gets more confusing with PAL cartridges, which can run at fun horizontal resolutions like 288 and 576. There’s also the issue that the vast majority of these games were designed with the CRT displays of old in mind, taking advantage of the quirks of scanlines to, say, make a checkerboard pattern look translucent.

This makes playing N64 games on a modern TV a bit of a hassle. There are fantastic retro upscalers like the RetroTINK series, but when plugging in a game for the first time, you wind up deciding between integer and “good enough” scaling, dealing with weird frame rates and tweaking blending options to get the picture just right. Many people enjoy this fine-tuning and customization aspect, and all power to you! But it’s undoubtedly a barrier to entry, and much of the hard work done on upscaling has been focused on 2D gaming, rather than 3D.

Analogue says its scaling solution will solve many of these issues. The Analogue 3D supports 4K output, variable refresh rate displays, and PAL and NTSC carts. On top of those basics, it’s building out “Original Display Modes” to emulate the CRT TVs and PVMs of old. Calling ODMs filters feels a little reductive, as they’re a complicated and customizable mix of display tricks, but essentially you pick one and it changes the way the picture looks, so….

ODMs were used effectively on the Analogue Pocket to emulate various Game Boy displays. Perhaps the most impressive example is a Trinitron ODM that came to the Pocket in 2023 that, when used with the Analogue Dock, does a pretty incredible job of turning a modern TV into a high-end Sony tube TV. We don’t have a ton of information on which ODMs are coming to the 3D, but I will share the very ’90s ad for the feature below:

The final piece of the image-quality puzzle is frame rate. The N64’s library is full of some spectacularly slow games. My memory may be scarred from growing up in a PAL region, which meant, while the US and Japan’s NTSC consoles were outputting a blistering 20 fps, I was chugging away at 16.66 fps. But even in the idealized NTSC world, lots of games outright missed their frame rate targets comically often. As an example, the majority of Goldeneye’s single-player campaign plays out between 15-25 fps, while a four-player match would typically see half that number. And let’s not speak of Perfect Dark.

These glacial frame rates are far less noticeable on a CRT than they are on modern displays with crisp rows of pixels updating from top to bottom. While the ODMs go some way to replicating the feel of an old TV, they can’t change the underlying technical differences. The Analogue 3D does support variable refresh rate output, but that won’t do much when a game is running at 12 fps, and instead is intended to help the system run like the original N64 did at launch. 

In its initial press push last year, Analogue told Paste magazine that you’ll have the option to overclock the 3D’s virtual chips to run faster — “overclocking, running smoother, eliminating native frame dips” — but the company hasn’t mentioned that in its final press release. Instead, Analogue CEO Christopher Taber told Engadget that its solution “isn’t overclocking, it’s much better and more sophisticated.” It revolves around Nintendo’s original Rambus RAM set up, which is often the bottleneck for N64 performance. Solving this bottleneck “means that games can run without slowdown and all the classic issues the original N64 had,” he explained. 

By default, though, the Analogue 3D is set up to run exactly like original hardware, albeit with the RAM Expansion Pak attached. “Preserving the original hardware is the number one goal,” Taber explained. “Even when bandwidth is increased, it’s not about boosting performance beyond the system’s original capabilities — it’s about giving players a clearer window into how the games were designed to run.” 

The hardware

Analogue has a rich history of making very pretty hardware, and the Analogue 3D is clearly no exception. As with the Super Nt, Mega Sg, and Duo, the 3D calls back to the basic form of the console it’s based on, while smoothing out and modernizing it somewhat. It’s an elegant way to pull on nostalgia while also being legally distinct enough to avoid a lawsuit. (Analogue’s FPGA cores and software also don’t infringe on any Nintendo IP.)

The Analogue 3D has a similar shape to the N64, but the front pillars have been erased, the four controller ports match the housing and the power/reset buttons are slanted inwards to point toward the cartridge slot. Despite the tweaks, it still undoubtedly evokes a Nintendo 64. Around the back, you’ll find a USB-C port for power, two USB ports for accessories like non-standard controllers, an HDMI port and a full-sized SD card slot.

A new operating system from Analogue, 3DOS, will debut with the system. It looks like a blend of the AnalogueOS that debuted on the Pocket and the Nintendo Switch OS, with the homescreen centered on a large carousel of square cards. The screenshots Analogue provided show options for playing a cartridge, browsing your library or viewing save states and screenshots. Some N64 games have the ability to save data to the cartridge, while others rely on a Controller Pak, but the ability to quickly save progress as a memory, as introduced with the Pocket, will be useful nonetheless. 3DOS can also connect to the internet over the console’s built-in WiFi chip for OS updates, which is a first for Analogue.

While you can browse your library in 3DOS, you won’t actually be able to load any game that isn’t physically inserted into the cartridge slot: The Analogue 3D only plays original media. It’s also worth noting that the Analogue 3D also doesn’t have an “openFPGA” setup like the Analogue Pocket did, which opened the door to playing with a wild array of cores that emulate various consoles, computers and arcades. It doesn’t usually take long for someone to jailbreak Analogue consoles to play ROMs (or other cores) via the system’s SD card slot, but this is not officially supported or sanctioned by Analogue.

The console comes with a power supply (with a US plug), USB cable, an HDMI cable and a 16GB SD card. As per usual, no controller will be packed in — it’s up to you if you want to use original hardware or something more modern. I managed to make at least one reader extremely mad (I’m sorry, Brucealeg) last time I wrote about the Analogue 3D and called the N64 controller a mistake. Personally, though, it feels really rough using one in 2024.

If you enjoy the three-paddled original controller, the 3D has four ports for you, and the system will also support the myriad Paks that plug into those controllers. For everyone else, there’s Bluetooth Classic and LE support along with two USB ports for wired controllers. Accessory maker 8BitDo has created what seems to be a variant of its Ultimate controller specifically for the Analogue 3D. (Analogue’s CEO, Taber, is also 8BitDo’s CMO, and the companies have collaborated on controllers for many consoles at this point.) 

The 8BitDo controller looks like a fairly happy middle ground between old and new, with an octagonal gate around the thumbstick, and nicely raised and sized C-buttons. It has a Rumble Pak built in, which works on both the Analogue 3D and Nintendo Switch. It’s available in black or white hues that match the console, and sells separately for $39.99.

Pre-orders for the Analogue 3D open on October 21 at 11AM ET, with an estimated ship date of Q1 2025. It’s unclear how many will be available, but if past launches are any indication, you should be ready to click buy as close to 11AM as possible if you want a hope of being in the first wave of shipments.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/analogues-4k-remake-of-the-n64-is-almost-ready-and-its-a-big-deal-150033468.html?src=rss

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Sure, a sleek, modern device is great, but there’s something so delightfully wholesome about a design that calls back to foregone times. Such is the case for 8Bitdo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard, a clickety-clackity device that looks like it belongs in another decade. Right now, the keyboard is on sale at Woot for $60, down from $100 — a 40 percent discount. You can get it for this all-time low price on Woot for the next three days or until it sells out. 
The 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard is a solid choice in its own right, but its the look that really sold us. We added it to our list of best retro gaming gifts last year since it’s a much more fun way to get someone that keyboard they’ve been needing without feeling like your gift is boring and practical. 

This keyboard may not be the very best option, technically (see our favorite gaming keyboards here) but it’s more than just a pretty (or should we say funky?) face. The 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard is a tenkeyless style board with bluetooth connection, 2.4Ghz wireless modes and USB connectivity. It also comes with two big red buttons that you can program to any keyboard function. Use it with Windows or Android devices and feel transported to another time as you clack away. 
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/8bitdos-retro-mechanical-keyboard-is-on-sale-for-60-right-now-143549835.html?src=rss

Sure, a sleek, modern device is great, but there’s something so delightfully wholesome about a design that calls back to foregone times. Such is the case for 8Bitdo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard, a clickety-clackity device that looks like it belongs in another decade. Right now, the keyboard is on sale at Woot for $60, down from $100 — a 40 percent discount. You can get it for this all-time low price on Woot for the next three days or until it sells out. 

The 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard is a solid choice in its own right, but its the look that really sold us. We added it to our list of best retro gaming gifts last year since it’s a much more fun way to get someone that keyboard they’ve been needing without feeling like your gift is boring and practical. 

This keyboard may not be the very best option, technically (see our favorite gaming keyboards here) but it’s more than just a pretty (or should we say funky?) face. The 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard is a tenkeyless style board with bluetooth connection, 2.4Ghz wireless modes and USB connectivity. It also comes with two big red buttons that you can program to any keyboard function. Use it with Windows or Android devices and feel transported to another time as you clack away. 

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/8bitdos-retro-mechanical-keyboard-is-on-sale-for-60-right-now-143549835.html?src=rss

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Yesterday, Adobe announced its new Firefly Video Model, a generative AI model for video editing developed by the company, along with Generative Extend, a Premiere Pro feature. Today, Adobe is teasing some experimental photo and video editing tools for PhotoShop and Premiere Pro. Since they’re part of Adobe’s “sneaks” previews, they’re still being tested and no launch dates are available.
There are a total of nine features, and we’ll start with Project Perfect Blend for PS, which improves natural blending and makes shadow casting more realistic, creating more lifelike images. Project Clean Machine removes photo flashes, fireworks and objects blocking the camera’s view.
One feature that stands out is Project In Motion, which lets users transform custom shape animations into video by entering a prompt, while Project Know How is a content authenticator tool that can search for a video file’s source online.
Project Turntable lets users rotate 2D vector art in 3D, thereby allowing the 2D vector art to face a direction of their choice. The generative AI model fills in any blanks to create presentable 3D vector art.
Another standout tool is Project Super Sonic, which generates sound effects via prompts or clicking on objects in a video. The latter method can create sounds without typing prompts into the generative AI model. Project Super Sonic seems helpful for people looking to design the sounds they want.
Adobe is also working on Microsoft Copilot integration in Project Scenic. This tool creates 3D scene layouts using Copilot prompts, and the camera and objects in the layout can be tweaked.
Project Remix A Lot leverages generative AI to create images in various shapes and sizes, all fully editable. In other words, users can “remix” creations into shapes they like, including unusual ones.
Finally, we have Project Hi-Fi. With this tool, it’s possible to transform sketches and concepts into high-quality images. These images can easily be dragged into PhotoShop for editing.
If you’re curious about Adobe’s latest Sneaks, you can see and hear more about them all over on Adobe’s YouTube page.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/adobes-latest-sneak-previews-of-upcoming-features-include-ai-sound-generation-and-image-remixing-143019039.html?src=rss

Yesterday, Adobe announced its new Firefly Video Model, a generative AI model for video editing developed by the company, along with Generative Extend, a Premiere Pro feature. Today, Adobe is teasing some experimental photo and video editing tools for PhotoShop and Premiere Pro. Since they’re part of Adobe’s “sneaks” previews, they’re still being tested and no launch dates are available.

There are a total of nine features, and we’ll start with Project Perfect Blend for PS, which improves natural blending and makes shadow casting more realistic, creating more lifelike images. Project Clean Machine removes photo flashes, fireworks and objects blocking the camera’s view.

One feature that stands out is Project In Motion, which lets users transform custom shape animations into video by entering a prompt, while Project Know How is a content authenticator tool that can search for a video file’s source online.

Project Turntable lets users rotate 2D vector art in 3D, thereby allowing the 2D vector art to face a direction of their choice. The generative AI model fills in any blanks to create presentable 3D vector art.

Another standout tool is Project Super Sonic, which generates sound effects via prompts or clicking on objects in a video. The latter method can create sounds without typing prompts into the generative AI model. Project Super Sonic seems helpful for people looking to design the sounds they want.

Adobe is also working on Microsoft Copilot integration in Project Scenic. This tool creates 3D scene layouts using Copilot prompts, and the camera and objects in the layout can be tweaked.

Project Remix A Lot leverages generative AI to create images in various shapes and sizes, all fully editable. In other words, users can “remix” creations into shapes they like, including unusual ones.

Finally, we have Project Hi-Fi. With this tool, it’s possible to transform sketches and concepts into high-quality images. These images can easily be dragged into PhotoShop for editing.

If you’re curious about Adobe’s latest Sneaks, you can see and hear more about them all over on Adobe’s YouTube page.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/adobes-latest-sneak-previews-of-upcoming-features-include-ai-sound-generation-and-image-remixing-143019039.html?src=rss

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Uber Eats is adding a social element to ordering delivery tacos in the form of curated lists. Garden variety users can whip up one of these lists on the Account tab, pulling menu items from preferred local haunts.
All lists are shareable by default, so users can send them to friends and family. I don’t want other people to know the shameful food I gorge while endlessly watching episodes of Frasier, but maybe that’s just me.
This could actually prove useful for certain scenarios, such as when you’re sick in bed and want someone else to handle takeout. Just point friends and family to the list. Uber Eats also said that there’s a chance any particular list could end up on the home feed, turning the creator into a local food influencer for the day.
Speaking of food influencers, the app will also feature curated lists by pseudo-celebrities. Uber Eats is advertising initial participation by Sam Roby of Chicago Food Authority, Ella Kahan and Emma Matarasso of Chew York City and others. It remains to be seen how this will work in smaller markets.
Uber Eats has been making changes all over the place lately. The platform recently began to offer fresh produce from farmers markets in select cities. It’s also been experimenting with driverless vehicles for deliveries.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/uber-eats-will-now-let-users-create-and-share-lists-of-their-favorite-meals-140052032.html?src=rss

Uber Eats is adding a social element to ordering delivery tacos in the form of curated lists. Garden variety users can whip up one of these lists on the Account tab, pulling menu items from preferred local haunts.

All lists are shareable by default, so users can send them to friends and family. I don’t want other people to know the shameful food I gorge while endlessly watching episodes of Frasier, but maybe that’s just me.

This could actually prove useful for certain scenarios, such as when you’re sick in bed and want someone else to handle takeout. Just point friends and family to the list. Uber Eats also said that there’s a chance any particular list could end up on the home feed, turning the creator into a local food influencer for the day.

Speaking of food influencers, the app will also feature curated lists by pseudo-celebrities. Uber Eats is advertising initial participation by Sam Roby of Chicago Food Authority, Ella Kahan and Emma Matarasso of Chew York City and others. It remains to be seen how this will work in smaller markets.

Uber Eats has been making changes all over the place lately. The platform recently began to offer fresh produce from farmers markets in select cities. It’s also been experimenting with driverless vehicles for deliveries.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/uber-eats-will-now-let-users-create-and-share-lists-of-their-favorite-meals-140052032.html?src=rss

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Amazon has announced three new agreements to build small modular reactors (SMRs). These nuclear reactors are smaller than traditional ones, allowing them to be closer to the grid and be built faster. Microsoft and Google have recently announced their own investments into nuclear power. 
One of the agreements works towards developing four SMRs with Energy Northwest, a Washington-based consortium of state public utilities. It should initially generate about 320 megawatts, with the potential to reach 960 megawatts. The second is with X-energy, which is providing an advanced nuclear reactor design for Energy Northwest’s undertaking. On the opposite coast, Amazon is working with Dominion Energy to investigate whether the development of an SMR project is possible near the utility company’s existing nuclear power station in Virginia. It could bring 300 megawatts of power to the area. 
Amazon shared further information about these developments in a video shared to YouTube. Amazon also claims these agreements will bring new jobs, with Energy Northwest, for example, reporting the agreement will lead to 1,000 temporary construction jobs and 100 or so permanent jobs upon completion.

This summer, Amazon announced it had reached its goal of matching its worldwide energy consumption with renewable energy sources seven years ahead of its 2030 goal. However, some Amazon employees and environmental experts accused the company of “distorting the truth” as the claim relies on billions of dollars in investments to solar and wind initiatives. The problem? These sources aren’t exclusively used by Amazon, instead funnelling into a general power grid. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-plans-to-build-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-135335184.html?src=rss

Amazon has announced three new agreements to build small modular reactors (SMRs). These nuclear reactors are smaller than traditional ones, allowing them to be closer to the grid and be built faster. Microsoft and Google have recently announced their own investments into nuclear power. 

One of the agreements works towards developing four SMRs with Energy Northwest, a Washington-based consortium of state public utilities. It should initially generate about 320 megawatts, with the potential to reach 960 megawatts. The second is with X-energy, which is providing an advanced nuclear reactor design for Energy Northwest’s undertaking. On the opposite coast, Amazon is working with Dominion Energy to investigate whether the development of an SMR project is possible near the utility company’s existing nuclear power station in Virginia. It could bring 300 megawatts of power to the area. 

Amazon shared further information about these developments in a video shared to YouTube. Amazon also claims these agreements will bring new jobs, with Energy Northwest, for example, reporting the agreement will lead to 1,000 temporary construction jobs and 100 or so permanent jobs upon completion.

This summer, Amazon announced it had reached its goal of matching its worldwide energy consumption with renewable energy sources seven years ahead of its 2030 goal. However, some Amazon employees and environmental experts accused the company of “distorting the truth” as the claim relies on billions of dollars in investments to solar and wind initiatives. The problem? These sources aren’t exclusively used by Amazon, instead funnelling into a general power grid. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-plans-to-build-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-135335184.html?src=rss

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Amazon’s latest version of its popular Kindle Paperwhite has arrived, marking the sixth iteration if you’re keeping score at home. The new model is the thinnest Paperwhite yet and has a refreshed 7-inch screen that’s a touch larger than the previous model’s 6.8-inch display. It also has the highest contrast of any Kindle thanks to the oxide thin-film transistor display tech. 
Amazon boosted the speed as well, promising 25 percent faster page turns. It’s waterproof as before but uses a new material with a premium soft touch grip. The Kindle Paperwhite comes with 16 GB of storage and is available in three colors, Raspberry, Jade and Black. It’s now available at Amazon for $160.
As before, the company also released a premium version with more bells and whistles, the Paperwhite Signature Editing. Storage doubles on that model to 32 GB and it features an auto-adjusting front light along with optional wireless charging. The Paperwhite Signature Edition comes in Metallic Raspberry, Metallic Jade and Metallic Black for $200. 

Amazon

If it’s a budget reader you’re after, Amazon has refreshed the entry-level Kindle, too. The new 12th-generation model comes with an updated 6-inch screen, offering a higher contrast ratio for more legible text, plus a front light that’s 25 percent brighter at the maximum setting. It also gets a performance update that boosts page turning speeds. It comes in black or a new “Matcha” color and is now on sale for $110. 
Along with those models, Amazon also unveiled its first color Kindle, the Colorsoft, that could be ideal for graphic novels and other digital color-oriented content. It promises “rich, paper-like color” using an oxide backplane display, plus high contrast on both color and black-and-white content. It’s now on pre-order for $280 with shipping set for October 30th. Finally, Amazon is releasing its second Kindle Scribe reader that doubles as a note-taking device (not unlike the reMarkable tablets). It’ll arrive on December 4, but you can pre-order it now for $400. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/amazons-new-kindle-paperwhite-reader-has-a-larger-screen-and-faster-page-turns-130050515.html?src=rss

Amazon’s latest version of its popular Kindle Paperwhite has arrived, marking the sixth iteration if you’re keeping score at home. The new model is the thinnest Paperwhite yet and has a refreshed 7-inch screen that’s a touch larger than the previous model’s 6.8-inch display. It also has the highest contrast of any Kindle thanks to the oxide thin-film transistor display tech. 

Amazon boosted the speed as well, promising 25 percent faster page turns. It’s waterproof as before but uses a new material with a premium soft touch grip. The Kindle Paperwhite comes with 16 GB of storage and is available in three colors, Raspberry, Jade and Black. It’s now available at Amazon for $160.

As before, the company also released a premium version with more bells and whistles, the Paperwhite Signature Editing. Storage doubles on that model to 32 GB and it features an auto-adjusting front light along with optional wireless charging. The Paperwhite Signature Edition comes in Metallic Raspberry, Metallic Jade and Metallic Black for $200. 

If it’s a budget reader you’re after, Amazon has refreshed the entry-level Kindle, too. The new 12th-generation model comes with an updated 6-inch screen, offering a higher contrast ratio for more legible text, plus a front light that’s 25 percent brighter at the maximum setting. It also gets a performance update that boosts page turning speeds. It comes in black or a new “Matcha” color and is now on sale for $110. 

Along with those models, Amazon also unveiled its first color Kindle, the Colorsoft, that could be ideal for graphic novels and other digital color-oriented content. It promises “rich, paper-like color” using an oxide backplane display, plus high contrast on both color and black-and-white content. It’s now on pre-order for $280 with shipping set for October 30th. Finally, Amazon is releasing its second Kindle Scribe reader that doubles as a note-taking device (not unlike the reMarkable tablets). It’ll arrive on December 4, but you can pre-order it now for $400. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/amazons-new-kindle-paperwhite-reader-has-a-larger-screen-and-faster-page-turns-130050515.html?src=rss

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