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Meta has released VR Glasses priced at $1,299, weighing around 100 grams, roughly five times lighter than a typical headset. Unlike fully enclosed headsets, the device shows a live video feed of the room centrally with actual unobstructed peripheral vision around the edges, even during use. The Verge's senior editor compared it directly against Valve's Steam Frame, Apple's Vision Pro, and Google/Xreal's Aura.
Kyoto Animation has released a new Netflix anime series, 'Sparks of Tomorrow,' set in a steampunk-inspired world where inventions are driven by love. A review notes the show juggles multiple storylines that strain its otherwise strong animation, while its humor, emotional depth, and drama still come through.
Valve released an Arm version of SteamOS following its Snapdragon-powered Steam Frame headset, and developers hashtagbasit and MaSieS4Fun quickly adapted it to run on Android handhelds. The port can be installed from a microSD card on devices including the AYN Odin 2 family, AYN Thor, Retroid Pocket 6, and several AYANEO Pocket models, letting users try SteamOS without wiping internal storage. Android Authority tested the MaSieS4Fun build on an AYN Odin 2 Portal and reported it booted and set up successfully after first installing the Rocknix ABL bootloader.
Remedy Entertainment's Control Resonant debuted atop Steam's sales chart and remained in the top 10 days after its September 24 launch, according to SteamDB. Its peak concurrent player count of roughly 42,799 is about four times higher than Control Ultimate Edition's peak of 9,193, and the game holds a 'Very Positive' rating near 4,000 reviews. It has also placed among PS5's top 10 sellers in 20 territories.
Valve has integrated Pyrowave, a video codec built by open-source developer Hans-Kristian Arntzen specifically for in-home game streaming, into the Steam beta client's Remote Play feature. Unlike general-purpose codecs such as AVC or AV1, Pyrowave is designed to cut encoding and decoding delays and avoid chroma subsampling artifacts that cause blurry text, though it reportedly requires roughly 5 to 10 times more bandwidth to do so.
Following Valve's official Arm64 SteamOS release for its Steam Frame headset, open-source developers have expanded the Armada project to bring a similar Linux-based Steam experience to Android gaming handhelds. The system combines the Linux kernel, Valve's Arm64 Steam build, the FEX emulator, and Proton to run Windows x86 games on Arm hardware, with support already available for devices from Ayaneo, Ayn, Retroid and Konkr.
Smartphone makers including Apple and Google caution that IP67/IP68 water-resistance ratings do not mean phones are waterproof, and that steam from hot showers or saunas can condense into liquid that seeps in through charging ports, speakers, buttons and seals. Apple's support documentation specifically advises against bringing iPhones into saunas or steam rooms, noting that liquid damage isn't covered under warranty; Google offers similar guidance and suggests using a Bluetooth speaker instead.
Remedy Entertainment launched Control Resonant on Thursday for $60 across Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox platforms, with a Mac version planned later this year. The sequel shifts protagonists from Jesse Faden to her brother Dylan, moves the setting from the confined Oldest House to an open world, and replaces the shape-shifting service weapon with melee combat.
Tom's Hardware tested AMD's BC-250, a 2021-era APU originally built from defective or downgraded PS5 silicon and later sold as a cryptomining card. A community-developed BIOS and driver set now lets hobbyists turn the card into a Linux-based gaming system with 16GB of shared GDDR6, at roughly half the cost of a comparable built system once a power supply and other parts are sourced.
Airbus is using a Steam Deck handheld PC to operate its prototype ExoMars rover during development and testing at its Stevenage, UK facility. The setup was shown in a video by YouTuber Tom Scott, with the Deck's thumbsticks, triggers and face buttons used to drive the rover, which is intended to operate autonomously once on Mars.
Valve is rolling out its $1000 Steam Frame headset slowly through a lottery-based reservation system meant to curb scalping, similar to its earlier Steam Machine launch. In the meantime, gamers with existing VR hardware from Valve, HTC, Meta or other brands can already play VR titles on Steam using the SteamVR app, which connects headsets to the Steam launcher and unlocks features like SteamVR Home and dashboard settings.
Airbus is testing its ExoMars rover prototype with a Steam Deck as a handheld controller, as shown in a video by YouTuber Tom Scott touring the company's UK facility. Engineers used the device's sticks, buttons and triggers to drive the rover in real time during ground testing, while a laptop was used for another prototype in the same demonstration.