2026-04-19 03:45:09
Not everyone had the money for the original Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System when it released in the '90s, but there's still a chance to experience it as an adult with disposable income. SNK and Plaion Replai, who is also behind the all-black remake of the Commodore 64, announced a faithful remake of the high-end retro console, called the Neo Geo AES+.
To bring the original console into the modern day, the collaborating companies added HDMI compatibility for resolutions up to 1080p and DIP switches on the bottom of the console to allow for language selection, overclocking and switching display modes. Rounding out the upgrades, SNK and Plaion Replai included a permanent way to retain high scores on a memory card and a low-power usage mode. For the purists out there, the Neo Geo AES+ still works on those chunky CRT displays since it has the original AV output.
Preorders are currently open for two versions of the Neo Geo AES+, including an all-white 35th anniversary edition bundle that includes an Arcade Stick, a limited-edition Metal Slug game cartridge and a memory card, for $349.99. The standard edition in classic black will only come with an arcade stick, but will be available for $249.99. Coinciding with the console release, Replai Plaion will release 10 modernized game cartridges, including Metal Slug, The King of Fighters 2002 and other classics, for $89.99 each. If you think those prices are high, don't forget the original Neo Geo AES' release price was $649.99. The Neo Geo AES+ is set to start shipping on November 12.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/snks-neo-geo-console-remake-works-with-original-cartridges-and-hdmi-194509442.html?src=rss2026-04-19 03:17:01
A judge has granted the makers of the "ICE Sightings - Chicagoland" Facebook group and the Eyes Up app a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump administration from coercing platforms to take these projects down. Judge Jorge L. Alonso of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois found that the plaintiffs, Kassandra Rosado and Kreisau Group, are likely to succeed in their case, which alleges that the government suppressed protected speech under the First Amendment by strong-arming Facebook and Apple into removing ICE monitoring efforts.
Both Eyes Up and ICE Sightings - Chicagoland use publicly available information to keep tabs on ICE activity. But after pressure from Trump officials, they were removed from Apple's App Store and Facebook, respectively. Similar apps including ICEBlock and Red Dot were also taken down from the App Store and Google Play. The lawsuit cites social media posts by former US Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem that demanded and took credit for the removal of these apps. In a document filed on Friday, Alonso called these posts "thinly veiled threats."
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is defending the plaintiffs, wrote in a post on X that it is "extremely encouraged by this ruling." It continued, "Even though it’s not the end of the case, it bodes well for the future of our legal fight to ensure that the First Amendment protects the right to discuss, record, and criticize what law enforcement does in public."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/judge-sides-with-creators-of-banned-ice-trackers-who-allege-dhs-and-doj-violated-their-first-amendment-rights-191701801.html?src=rss2026-04-19 01:56:00
Apple has secured a major victory for its redesigned smartwatches as per the latest decision from the US International Trade Commission. The federal agency ruled against reinstating an import ban on Apple Watches, allowing the tech giant to continue selling its devices with a reworked blood-oxygen monitoring technology.
The ITC decided to terminate the case and refer to a preliminary ruling from one of its judges in March that claimed that Apple's redesigned smartwatches don't infringe on patents held by Masimo, the medical tech company that has long been embroiled in lawsuits surrounding the Apple Watch. Apple thanked the ITC in a statement, adding that "Masimo has waged a relentless legal campaign against Apple and nearly all of its claims have been rejected." We reached out to Masimo for comment and will update the story when we hear back.
The latest decision could offer some closure to the longstanding legal feud between Masimo and Apple. The patent battle dates back to 2021 with Masimo's first filing against Apple that requested an import ban on Apple Watches. The ITC ended up ruling that Apple violated Masimo's patents, resulting in the previous import ban and the Apple Watch maker redesigning the blood-oxygen reading feature in certain models. However, Masimo wasn't satisfied with this conclusion and sought another import ban on the updated Apple Watch models. Now that the ITC has ruled against that, Masimo is left with the option to appeal the decision with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
While Masimo may currently be on the losing side of this legal battle, it's confronting Apple on multiple fronts. In November, a federal jury sided with Masimo and ruled that Apple has to pay $634 million in a separate patent infringement case.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-avoids-a-second-import-ban-for-its-redesigned-smartwatches-in-latest-court-ruling-175600668.html?src=rss2026-04-19 00:26:54
The US Department of Justice is siding with X, as the social media platform owned by Elon Musk navigates a criminal investigation unfolding in France. As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department characterized the French probe as "an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding aimed at wrongfully regulating through prosecution the business activities of a social media platform.”
France launched its investigation into X in July, accusing the platform of manipulating its algorithm and "fraudulent data extraction." Months later, French authorities raided X's office in Paris and issued summonses to Musk and Linda Yaccarino, the former CEO of X, to appear for interviews on April 20 as part of the probe. According to WSJ, French officials are also investigating X for other charges, including disseminating CSAM and Holocaust denial. However, France's latest move to ask the Department of Justice for assistance has been stonewalled.
“This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution," the DOJ wrote in letter, as seen by WSJ.
An xAI official told WSJ that it's "grateful to the Justice Department for rejecting this effort by a prosecutor in Paris to compel our CEO and several employees to sit for interviews." The company spokesperson also said there was "no wrongdoing" and that it was a "baseless investigation."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/doj-refuses-to-help-french-authorities-in-criminal-probe-of-x-162654518.html?src=rss2026-04-19 00:00:00
The Artemis II astronauts are settling back into life on Earth, but we're not quite tired yet of hearing about their amazing journey. There's a new PBS documentary now streaming on YouTube that dives into the Artemis program and the latest efforts to send humans to the moon again. Also this week, NASA shared some awesome images of a comet flying into the sun, the nonprofit American Rivers released its annual report on the most endangered rivers in the US and ESA posted a throwback image of Mars to highlight some interesting changes down on the surface. Here are the science stories that caught our attention this week.
Earlier this month, a recently discovered comet made a close approach to the sun — but it couldn't handle the heat. NASA has shared incredible images of the encounter that took place on April 4, showing the comet exploding into dust as it swings around our star. As NASA notes in a social media post, this was "its first and last observed flyby of the Sun."
The comet, C/2026 A1 (also known as MAPS) was first spotted on January 13 of this year. As it neared the sun, it was observed by a slew of instruments: NASA and ESA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft, NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) and NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere). This allowed for views of its passage from multiple angles. Seen in a narrow-field coronagraph view captured by SOHO, the comet appears to plunge directly into the sun. But, the wide view from NASA's STEREO shows it actually swinging closely around the sun before breaking apart.
🧵2/4
— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) April 16, 2026
This close-up coronagraph view from NASA/ESA’s SOHO spacecraft shows comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) approaching the Sun on April 4.
After the comet passes behind the disk, only a cloud of dust emerges. pic.twitter.com/PbkzqPnZ5F
MAPS was one of a family of comets aptly called Kreutz sungrazing comets, and according to Karl Battams, the principal investigator for SOHO’s coronagraph, its destruction occurred likely several hours before what would have been its closest approach.
The nonprofit conservation organization American Rivers has released its 2026 report on the most endangered rivers in the country, and data centers play a major role in the status of its top pick. According to American Rivers, the Potomac River is the most endangered in the US due both to the threat of sewage pollution from aging pipe systems and the "unprecedented surge in data center development" in its vicinity.
The Potomac River basin spans parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, DC. In January, the catastrophic failure of the Potomac Interceptor wastewater pipe in Montgomery County, Maryland dumped hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the Potomac River and the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal, causing bacteria levels to hit over 4,000 times the safe recreational limit at sites closest to the incident, according to the report. The Potomac Interceptor is over 60 years old, and is just one of many in the region that is at or past the 50-year service life, American Rivers notes.
On top of that, data center development in places like Virginia and Maryland has skyrocketed, which could put a strain on local water and energy sources. Data centers also have potential to cause further pollution to the river.
"The region currently has over 300 data centers and is on track to have a total of about 1,000 centers occupying roughly 200 million square feet of buildings — enough to cover 3,472 football fields — on an estimated 20,000 acres of land," the report explains. "These facilities pose a significant and growing threat to both water quality and water quantity, yet are being approved without meaningful transparency, regulatory review, and assessment of cumulative impacts."
The organization is calling for Congress to reauthorize infrastructure funding bills so aging systems can be upgraded, and for regulators in these states to require transparency about data centers' resource use, along with comprehensive environmental assessments before development plans are approved.
The European Space Agency this week shared a look at how a region on Mars has changed since it was observed by NASA’s Viking orbiters way back in 1976. New images captured by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft show how dark volcanic ash has encroached upon a swath of land in an area known as the Utopia Planitia basin. If you visit the blog post, you'll find a side by side comparison of images from the two time periods.
It's a rare example of an observable change on the surface of the red planet that's occurred over such a short period of time, ESA notes. The agency explains, "The spread of the ash over the last 50 years has two possible explanations: either it has been picked up and moved about by martian winds, or the ochre dust that previously covered the dark ash has been blown away."
2026-04-18 19:00:00
Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. Once again, there are some neat new games for you to check out this weekend. We've got a bunch of updates and announcements for upcoming titles to tell you about too.
There have been a bunch of solid indie showcases lately (and highlights from another one to tell you about below). If you want to learn about a ton of other games ASAP, you might want to set your alarm pretty early on April 25.
Starting at 5AM ET that day, the latest edition of Indie Life Expo takes place on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Bilibili and elsewhere. This one will feature more than 200 games! A rapid-fire Indie Waves segment will power through 160 of them. Organizers received 1,100 submissions for this installment, so hats off to them for featuring a sizable percentage of those.
Before that, you can check out another showcase on April 21. Top Hat Studios Presents: Spring Showcase 2026 will start at noon ET on the publisher's YouTube and Twitch channels.
The stream will feature Motorslice, Well Dweller and survival horror game Becrowned, as well premieres and other Top Hat games. I've been looking forward to Motorslice, which has a May release window. I wager we'll get a precise release date for that during this stream.
Meanwhile, there's an interesting Steam event taking place soon. InterfaceX26 will run from April 27 until May 4. This one is focused on games that deal with made-up operating systems and other custom interfaces. Organizers have brought together more than 150 developers and publishers, who are asking Valve to introduce an official "Fake OS" tag for games on Steam.
Some neat games will be included in a sale and a showcase on May 2, including Blippo+, TR-49 and The Roottrees are Dead. Expect demos and relevant new releases too. Speaking of which...
We've been waiting a very long time for Replaced. This cyberpunk adventure from Sad Cat Studios and publisher Thunderful finally landed this week on Steam, GOG, Xbox on PC and Xbox Series X/S. It's on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Otherwise, the base game costs $20. A supporter edition that includes the soundtrack is $25. It'll hit the Epic Games Store at a later date.
The game was initially supposed to arrive in 2022. It certainly didn't help that Sad Cat Studios was forced to relocate from Belarus to Cyprus after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the game is finally here and it debuted to generally positive reviews.
Replaced is a 2.5D action platformer set in an alternate version of 1980s America, in which you play as an AI trapped in a human body that may or may not dream of electric sheep. I haven't yet had a chance to properly jump into this gorgeous-looking game, but I'm hoping to do so this weekend.
Speaking of games I've long had on my wishlist, Gecko Gods arrived this week. I think I first clapped eyes on this around 2022. Various trailers charmed me with the idea of a puzzle exploration platformer that casts you in the role of a gecko that's able to run along walls and ceilings.
I've played around 90 minutes of this one so far. I dig the look and the gecko is very cute (being able to customize its appearance is a nice touch). I love that you "collect" different types of bugs by eating them. It's a fairly relaxing game, which is broadly what I need at the minute.
I think there are some issues here, though. I've explored two of the main five islands in the open world and it feels a bit sparse so far. The joy of being able to clamber up and around any object complicates things when it comes to more precise platforming sections. While the sailing sections are pretty, the boat is clunky to control on the choppy water. I ran into some mild technical issues as well on PS5 with occasional framerate dips and objects popping in. Hopefully, that's something the developers at Inresin are able to address.
Gecko Gods — from publishers Super Rare Originals and Gamersky Games — is available now on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It's normally $20, but there's a 10 percent launch discount until April 30 (on PS5, this only applies to PlayStation Plus members)
Another highly anticipated game landed this week in the form of Mouse: PI for Hire. We've had our eyes on this first-person shooter/detective game with sumptuous rubberhose-style animation for quite some time. Reviews have been generally positive so far, and it seems that there's enough substance here to live up to those stellar visuals.
Mouse: PI for Hire — from Fumi Games and publisher PlaySide — is out now for $30. It's available on PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Thirsty Suitors developer Outerloop Games and co-publisher Outersloth served up the cooking-themed Dosa Divas this week. It tells the story of two sisters who set out on a journey with their mech to take down a fast food empire and reconnect communities through cooking.
It caught my eye when I saw it during a showcase a while back and it has a great concept, though I don't exactly love turn-based combat. I've read a few lukewarm reviews of the game, and the consensus seems to be that the cooking mechanics and combat perhaps needed some more time to simmer.
If you'd like to try Dosa Divas yourself, you can pick it up on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. It'll usually run you $20, but there's a 10 percent launch discount until April 28.
If you're looking for a puzzle game that can be relaxing or rather dark, depending on your mood, it might be worth checking out A Storied Life: Tabitha. As you pack up the home of a late loved one, you'll need to decide which items to keep in the limited storage space you have and discard the rest. You'll need to wrap fragile items in bubble wrap and vacuum pack soft items to save room in the boxes.
As you save items, you'll unlock words that you can use to fill in the blanks of your loved one's life and tell their story, Mad Libs-style. Given that you'll find items like a blackmail letter and a shirt with lipstick on the collar, it seems like there's a lot of variety to the kinds of stories you can tell.
A Storied Life: Tabitha is available on Steam now. It'll normally run you $15, but you can save 10 percent if you buy it before April 28.
To round out this section, I’ll quickly note that Hades 2 is out now on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S for $30, with a 20 percent launch discount. It's on Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium and PC Game Pass too.
I bought Hades 2 when Supergiant Games brought it to Steam early access two years ago, telling myself I'd wait until the full game was out. But I still haven't gotten around to it yet. There are always too many games tugging at my fragile attention span and Hades 2 faded into the background for me. I really ought to play it, I know!
I'm keeping an eye out for Agefield High: Rock the School from Refugium Games. This spiritual successor to Rockstar's Bully is set to arrive this summer on Steam. It emerged this week that it will hit PS5 and Xbox Series X/S later in the year.
It's a coming-of-age adventure in which you play as Sam, a young lad who has moved to a new school in the early 2000s. He wants to make his last few months of high school a time to remember.
There's a branching narrative with multiple endings here — you can opt to go to classes and be a good student, or skip school and cause trouble. As a mostly rule-abiding student way back when, I'd be tempted to go for the latter. This seems like a bit of a life sim with a broad array of activities and ways to get into bother. I’m looking forward to it.
The latest edition of the Galaxies Showcase — yet another indie spotlight event — took place this week and The Backworld caught my attention. This is a Mother-inspired RPG from Numor Games and publisher Top Hat with charming art direction (yes, I did see that one character doing a Naruto run), an intriguing mix of characters and...
Oh no, why did the music stop? Why did it get so dark all of a sudden? What are these horrifying beasts that are chasing my character? Yup, there's a heavy horror element here. Numor took inspiration from The Backrooms as well.
The Backworld will be released later this year. A demo just hit Steam.
A Study in Blue, from Relate Games, was another highlight of the Galaxies Showcase, thanks in large part to that impressive animation. This is a point-and-click adventure in which you play as two characters with complex pasts: private detective Kenneth and runaway Blue.
You'll explore a semi-open world and solve crimes by collecting clues and calling out characters' lies. There are three intertwined story acts and multiple endings. A Steam demo featuring a side quest from the main game that'll take around two hours to complete is available now.
I'm always going to be interested in any game that riffs on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. On the face of this trailer, Elementallis developer AnKae Games seems to borrow quite a bit of the design language and other ideas from the SNES classic. Still, if you're going to crib from anything, it may as well be the best game of all time.
This 2D action RPG, which is also published by Top Hat and has a heavier focus on elemental powers than A Link to the Past, looks very much like my kind of jam. It's coming to Steam, GOG, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One on April 28. Per the eShop listing, it'll cost $18.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cyberpunk-platformers-gallivanting-geckos-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000924.html?src=rss
