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The Units’ Digital Stimulation is synthpunk perfection

The 1980 record from the San Francisco band is raw, infectious, and shockingly modern.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Warcraft III is getting a new campaign after 23 years.

The Warcraft III Reforged remake was widely panned. But since it launched in 2020, Blizzard has worked to fix many of the bugs. Now it’s finally delivering the promised new narrative content with the Forsaken Kingdom campaign, the first new campaign since 2003’s Frozen Throne.

Your car is selling your data

The amount of data about you that many cars collect — and sell to third parties — is staggering.

Andrew Hawkins
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Diablo V is coming in spring of 2029.

There will be a panel at 4:45 PM ET (1:45 PT) today at BlizzCon where more info will be revealed, but for now you’ll have to satisfy your thirst for fire, brimstone, and Sanctuary with this short teaser.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Netflix is making a Diablo animated series.

We’ve got almost no details beyond that, but Blizzard told Variety that ā€œthis is only the beginning, with even more taking shape across our universes.ā€ So we might finally get those Overwatch and World of Warcraft series as well.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Preorder the Nopia ā€˜harmony machine’ synth on September 15th for $650.

We finally got a real look at the viral Nopia in July after more than three years of development. Now the company is preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday, with super early-bird pricing starting at $650.

Sylvan Esso think you should splurge on good-quality yogurt

The band’s new, organic-sounding record Ow āˆž is out now

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Husqvarna gets the first exception to the FCC’s foreign robot ban for its mowers.

The ban, announced in July, has caused chaos for many manufacturers of robot vacuums, pool cleaners, lawn mowers, and more. Swedish company Husqvarna has secured the first exception to the rule for its 305v IQ, 310v IQ, 420v IQ, and 440v IQ after the Defense Department decided they don’t pose a national security risk.

OpenAI just wants to win

Two mathematicians at the heart of recent controversies tell The Verge how AI giants’ ā€˜childish’ rivalries are upending the field.

Robert Hart
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
A Quibi co-founder and the former boss of Sora are launching an AI video startup.

According to The Information, former DreamWorks co-founder (and co-founder of the quick bites video app) Jeffrey Katzenberg’s latest move is joining up with Bill Peebles, who left OpenAI after it pivoted away from the Sora team he was leading.

The unnamed venture will apparently ā€œtrain its own video models and try to win over filmmakers,ā€ once it secures enough funding. On the plus side, they already have a long list of things to not do this time around.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Twitch is testing an AI ā€˜Stream Coach’ that gives creators tips after their streams.

The AI coaching feature is only available to a small group of streamers right now. Unlike Twitch’s generative AI training toggle, which is opt out, the company says this feature would be opt-in if it’s ever expanded beyond this test.

A screenshot of a Twitch tweet responding to questions about an AI Steam Coach feature
Image: Twitch
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Microsoft is finally adding a setting for remapping the Copilot key.

After Microsoft removed the Copilot buttons from some Windows 11 apps, the latest Insider Release Preview builds (26100.9539 and 26200.9539) add an option for easily changing that dedicated AI key back to a control or Context Menu button, without using workarounds.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla Cybercabs turn up in NYC.

Miami is looking like the next market for Elon Musk’s steering-wheel-less autonomous vehicles. But a few of the gold two-seaters were spotted in New York City — albeit with steering wheels and human safety monitors driving manually. It’s likely just a marketing maneuver, since fully autonomous vehicles are prohibited in New York. Governor Kathy Hochul recently reversed a decision to allow Waymo to deploy its vehicles outside the city after pushback from labor groups.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
The Justice Department is looking into Steve Ballmer’s jumbotron corruption scandal.

The New York Times reported Thursday that federal prosecutors are in the ā€œearly stagesā€ of a criminal investigation into the Clippers’ shady sponsorship arrangements for Kawhi Leonard, using companies like Aspiration, Daktronics (which already revealed an ongoing SEC investigation), and Boingo Wireless.

Pablo Torre obviously chimed in with his take on the proceedings, saying ā€œthere is, in fact, more.ā€

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Polyarc, known for its VR series starring a mouse, appears to be shutting down.

ā€After nearly 12 years riding the joyous rollercoaster of emotions that is making video games, our time together has come to an end,ā€ Polyarc, the developer of the Moss franchise, wrote in a LinkedIn post on Friday.

Earlier this year, Polyarc laid off staff after it couldn’t secure funding ā€œfollowing the cancellation of a major project.ā€ It also released a flatscreen collection of the two Moss games, titled Moss: The Forgotten Relic.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Framework canceled its One Key Module for making custom Laptop 16 keyboards.

Framework announced the single-key module last year, but now says it can no longer turn it into a ā€œsellable product.ā€ The company says the module’s costs were too high and even the ā€œexpert DIYers and electronics tinkerersā€ in its developer program struggled with assembling it.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
A military aircraft reportedly caused the UK’s air traffic control outage.

Sources tell the Financial Times that ā€œspuriousā€ flight data entered by a UK military jet ā€œtriggered a series of eventsā€ that grounded flights across the country earlier this week:

The entry caused a meltdown within the wider air traffic control system that took hours — and several attempts — to restart, the people said.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Roblox will soon let you play games in your browser.

By the end of 2026, you’ll be able to hop into a Roblox game right from Chrome with support other browsers coming in the future, Roblox announced as part of its developer conference news on Friday. The company also revealed plans to let developers launch their games as apps on other platforms and offer offline modes.

TC Sottek
TC Sottek
NHL 27 will have AI generated announcing.

It’s reportedly with the permission of the human announcers John Buccigross and Darren Pang who do in-game voiceovers. As a long-time player of the series I’m very curious what you think about this. For me, it seems like one of the best possible use cases for AI generation, considering it’s annoying to hear the exact same commentary over and over, and because there’s no possible way humans could record VO for every possible scenario.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Google might be making a wearOS version of the Fitbit Charge.

9to5Google spotted this FCC entry for the Goertek-made SZGG8BL6, which lines up with other Google devices. Like the Fitbit Charge, it has Bluetooth and GNSS, but lacks Wi-Fi, while its e-label suggests it has a screen and could run wearOS similar to a mysterious wearable spotted in Google ads.

TC Sottek
TC Sottek
George Bush paints himself in the meme that went viral.

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the former president, who became a painter in his retirement, just shared a self-portrait from his most fateful day. (He also has a new collection of paintings related to 9/11.) The original image depicts Bush receiving news of the attack from his chief of staff, as the president was reading a book to Florida schoolchildren. The ā€œwhisperā€ image has become a potent meme over the years.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Does a streaming series’ absence make your heart grow fonder?

According to a new report from Luminate, lengthy gaps between s treaming shows are one of the reasons people stop watching them. That feels right, but we want to hear from you: does waiting a few years for a series to come back make you more inclined to move on?

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Genius is bringing Open Mic and Verified to Spotify.

The long-running lyrical breakdown and live performance series will now be available to stream on Spotify as it continues to grow its video efforts. Verified first came to Spotify last year as part of a limited rollout, but now archival episodes are being added alongside new installments every week.

We unfolded the iPhone DuoWe unfolded the iPhone Duo
Jacob Kastrenakes
Anthropic spent this week in hot water over cybersecurity

An Anthropic researcher’s resignation letter went viral, and the company released details of four concerning cybersecurity incidents.

Hayden Field