A new open-source project called OpenTIE reimplements LucasArts' Star Wars: TIE Fighter so it runs natively on Windows, macOS and Linux. Rather than including game assets itself, it requires players to own the original 1995 Collector's CD-ROM or 1998 Windows release, and lets users mix elements from both, such as pairing 1998 flight visuals with the 1995 adaptive iMUSE soundtrack. A companion project, OpenXWA, similarly ports X-Wing Alliance.
Rockstar co-studio head Rob Nelson told IGN that Grand Theft Auto VI will replace the series' simple hotwire button with varied theft methods tied to each vehicle's make and model. Some cars will require tools like key cloners, others will demand careful speed control to dodge GPS tracking, and an in-game app will help players identify what's needed and what a car is worth. Players can still carjack any driver directly, but stealing parked vehicles will be gated by story progress and acquired equipment.
System 3 Software unveiled James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough, a compilation bundling four classic James Pond platformers from the Amiga, Genesis, Commodore 64 and SNES. Fans quickly accused the collection's new artwork of being AI-generated, a suspicion reinforced when System 3's own blog post defending its 'human-led' art process appeared to include AI-style images itself. Series creator Chris Sorrell, who has no ownership or input over the franchise, publicly condemned the release, saying he hopes those behind it 'choke on an AI-generated fishbone.'
A wave of polls and news reports indicates widespread American opposition to data centers, Flock surveillance cameras, and Meta's AI-equipped Ray-Ban glasses, which critics have nicknamed 'pervert glasses.' Recent events, including a grand jury declining to indict a man filmed damaging Flock equipment and protestors against data centers gaining online praise, underscore how deep and public this hostility has become.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk responded to Meta's settlement with almost all US states, which requires the company to add child safety features like time limits and parental controls. Meta has urged TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar measures, but Türk argued governments should not wait for litigation to force such protections across the whole industry.
Apple is reportedly preparing a new Apple TV 4K that could debut at its September 9 event, after being delayed from last fall. Leaked code and reports point to an updated Siri Remote, a faster A-series chip, the new N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and integration of Siri AI alongside broader Apple Intelligence features.
Ubisoft apologized after shipping a digital release of Heroes of Might and Magic III and its expansions that contained no actual game data, just a 23.4-kilobyte file that produced an error on launch. The mistake sparked a wave of negative Steam reviews before Ubisoft issued a fix, which Engadget confirmed now runs properly.
Meta is rolling out a software update that stops its smart glasses cameras from recording if the indicator light is covered after recording has already started. VP of AR Alex Himel confirmed the fix on Threads, addressing a loophole that had been widely shared in online tutorials for covert filming.
SK Hynix held a groundbreaking ceremony at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, for its first U.S. facility, a $4 billion plant dedicated to packaging high-bandwidth memory chips. CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said the site will become a key American production base for HBM by 2030, with its first cleanroom expected to open in October 2028, though actual chip manufacturing will still occur in South Korea and China.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, AMD and over 100 other companies and organizations signed a joint letter urging businesses and governments to urgently strengthen cybersecurity defenses as AI-driven threats accelerate. The signatories called for stronger security tools, wider adoption of both low-cost and frontier AI models, and government funding to help under-resourced sectors like hospitals and water utilities defend themselves.
Anthropic introduced the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a new interface allowing AI agents to interact with any device that has a programmable interface, from lab instruments to manufacturing equipment. The company likened it to USB-C, standardizing communication between AI systems and hardware, and said it's model-agnostic so it isn't limited to Anthropic's own Claude models. MHS is currently in a research preview with select science, robotics and manufacturing partners, with plans to eventually open-source it.
A team built a fuzzer with heavy AI code-generation assistance ('vibecoding') and used it to discover a division-by-zero vulnerability in FFmpeg, the widely used open-source multimedia framework. The bug was found through automated input generation and crash analysis rather than manual code review.