For as long as I can remember, I've had trouble going to sleep. When I lay down, my mind inevitably starts racing a thousand miles an hour, thinking about anything and everything. On several recent nights, though, my pre-slumber thoughts had a singular focus. I mulled over possibilities like, "What if I fuse a ball that heals my character with one that splits into smaller balls with the same effect, and add a passive that fires a baby ball every time I'm healed?" Then I grab my PlayStation Portal and do just that until I doze off. This is the hold Ball x Pit has had over me. Kenny Sun and a small group of collaborators have cooked up a mesmerizing brick-breaking roguelite. Ball x Pit is a blend of dual-stick shoot-'em-up action, base building and about a dozen other things that keeps calling me back for one more run... and another, and another. After a cataclysmic event wipes out the city of Ballbylon and leaves an enormous pit, hunters descend into the depths in search of treasure. For our purposes, this means playing levels to collect resources in order to build structures in New Ballbylon. These buildings unlock perks, such as new characters, that help with future runs. The sickly chaos of the levels and the calmer city building aspect feed into each other smartly and combine for a satisfying loop. Base building in Ball x Pit Kenny Sun/Devolver Digital That’s not the only important interplay here. Like any good roguelite, Ball x Pit is all about finding synergies for maximum impact. It's right there in the title, with the "x" denoting a relationship between two things (it's derived from shipping in fandom parlance). In the pit, you battle monsters by — surprise! — firing balls at them. Along with regular “baby balls,” each character has a unique ability and a special starter ball. In the vein of Vampire Survivors , you'll unlock more special balls and passive abilities when you collect enough gems to level up. One ball has a chance to freeze enemies and another is slower but deals much more damage. There are dozens of others. The real fun comes in when you start fusing these balls and their effects together, freeing up space for another weapon. It gets even better when you're able to evolve a pair of balls into something new. It's possible to fuse evolved balls, or even evolve them again. There’s a strategic aspect to this, as you won’t want to fuse balls that can nearly cancel each other out, such as merging an area-of-effect ball with one that disappears on impact, or leave yourself with too few balls in the face of danger. Once I unlocked the option to take two characters on a run and combine their passive abilities, that's where things went into overdrive. The possibilities became very exciting at this point, and I ended up playing Ball x Pit way past my ideal bedtime as a result. It does take a while to get to that point, though. Progression is slow at first. The repetition can get to be a little much as you need to beat each stage multiple times before moving onto the next. Also, I wish there was a bit more to the game narratively than a basic setup and some character descriptions. But there's so much to consider on each run, and that’s what keeps me coming back. Each of the nine levels is set in a different biome, with its own hazards, enemies and bosses. Some late-game characters turn the game on its head by shifting playstyles in surprising ways, but I don't want to spoil those. Along with the absolute chaos and dopamine hits of slicing through enemies, discovering killer combinations between characters, special balls — especially the evolutions — and passives drives so much of the joy of this game. Whenever you do fuse or evolve a pair of balls, rather than having to click an "OK" button to get back in the action, the prompt reads "Whoa." That's on the nose, but funny. And I'll be damned if I didn't say that very thing out loud many times when I saw what a new evolved ball could do. Ball x Pit is out now on Steam , PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch for $15. It's available via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is coming later this fall with a free upgrade from the Switch version. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ball-x-pits-deeply-satisfying-grind-keeps-me-coming-back-for-more-171000754.html?src=rss

• Engadget
• 2 gün, 17 saat, 53 dakika

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac . 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app , Stitcher , TuneIn , Google Play , or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Sponsored by 9to5Mac Daily Plus : Get ad-free versions of every episode by visiting 9to5mac.com/join . more…

• 9to5Mac
• 2 gün, 17 saat, 56 dakika

The post Apple M5 Chip Delivers Massive Boost in Graphics & AI Power appeared first on Android Headlines .

• Android Headlines
• 2 gün, 17 saat, 57 dakika

The post Get 75 inches of pure joy with this Insignia TV that's down to $400 appeared first on Android Headlines .

• Android Headlines
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 1 dakika

But they're still unlikely to go on sale in the US.

• Ars Technica
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 3 dakika

Proton VPN currently tops my list of the best VPNs , and I gave it a glowing recommendation in my detailed Proton VPN review . It's easy to use, fast, cheap and secure, with a large server network and one of the industry's best scores at unblocking streaming sites. All that said, there's no such thing as a perfect VPN, and you may find that Proton isn't working for you. If that happens, here's how to cancel your subscription. How to cancel Proton VPN through a browser If you initially signed up less than 30 days ago, you can cancel your subscription and request a refund by contacting tech support. See "How to get a refund from Proton VPN" below for details. If more than 30 days have passed, use the following steps to cancel your subscription. Open your browser and go to protonvpn.com. At the top-right, click Sign in , then enter your username and password. You'll be taken to your account dashboard. At the left side of the dashboard, click the Subscription tab. Scroll all the way down to the section labeled Cancel subscription. Click the "Continue" button. A pop-up window will appear, asking if you're sure. Click Cancel subscription . Sam Chapman for Engadget Cancelling this way doesn't immediately terminate service — it just means your subscription won't auto-renew. You can still use Proton VPN's paid features, including the entire server network, until the current period expires. After that, you'll be automatically downgraded to the free plan. During this time, your account dashboard will still be active, so you can use it to turn renewal back on if you change your mind. This method also works in mobile browser apps. Just follow the same steps on your mobile device and you'll cancel in the same way, with service continuing until your subscription expires. How to downgrade from Proton Unlimited to Proton VPN only A Proton Unlimited subscription applies to all Proton products. Since it's mainly founded on Proton Mail, though, downgrading to VPN service only is tricky and requires some extra steps. First, downgrade Proton Unlimited to Proton Free from your main account dashboard. Log in at account.proton.me, then click Settings, All settings, Dashboard and Your plan. Under "Proton Unlimited," click Explore other Proton plans . On the next page, select Proton Free. This will effectively cancel Proton Unlimited, though you can still use it until the end of the pay period. Finally, go to the Proton VPN website (not the overall Proton site) and sign up for a Proton VPN Plus plan. Since you downgraded instead of deleting your account, you should be able to use the same account address. How to delete your Proton account on mobile You can also use the mobile app to delete your entire Proton account, instantly and irreversibly ending your subscriptions to Proton VPN, Proton Mail and any other products in the line. Taking this action permanently burns your Proton username, so you won't be able to use it again if you decide to re-subscribe (in that case, you’ll just have to make a new one). The process is the same on both Android and iOS — the apps have slight cosmetic differences, but everything is in the same place. Follow the steps below to nuke your Proton account from orbit. Open the Proton VPN app on your Android phone. Click Settings at the bottom of the window. At the top of the settings page, click your account email address. This will take you to Account settings . Click Delete account. A window will open in your web browser, showing your general Proton account page. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and click the red Delete your account button. Select a reason for deleting your account and leave feedback in the box provided. You have to pick an option from the menu and type at least 10 characters in the box, though feel free to keyboard mash if you don't want to say anything. Check the box on the next page beside "Yes, I want to permanently delete this account and all its data." Finally, click the red Delete account button. Sam Chapman for Engadget How to get a refund from Proton VPN Proton VPN has a 30-day refund policy. As long as you paid for your VPN less than 30 days ago, you can get your money back. To request a refund, send a message through the contact form on the website. You can also email protonvpn@support.zendesk.com. There's a minimum of 100 characters in the "What happened?" box. Unlike when you're simply deleting your account, I do recommend putting a brief real answer here, clearly stating that you would like to cancel your account and receive a refund. Sam Chapman for Engadget According to its terms of service , Proton will only refund you for the portion of the service you didn't use. If you spend $10 for a one-month subscription and cancel after 15 days, you'll get $5 back. The terms do state that the company "may also provide you with a full refund upon request" — directly asking for such a refund in your contact form makes this more likely. If you cancel after 30 days are up, you may still be able to get a prorated payment for your remaining time, either in cash or account credit. You'll have to ask for this specifically, as the default option is that your account just stays active until it runs out. What to do if you subscribed through an app store If you bought your Proton VPN subscription through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, then Apple or Google processed your money and you're subject to their refund policies. If you subscribed through Apple, go to your Apple ID profile in iOS settings, click on Subscriptions , scroll to Proton VPN and click on Cancel subscription. You'll then get the opportunity to request a refund. On Android, log into the Google Play Store, click on your profile picture, then click Manage subscriptions . Find Proton VPN, click Cancel subscription and provide a reason. As with iOS, the steps will walk you through the refund process. Proton VPN alternatives Once you've fully cancelled Proton VPN, you may be in the market for an alternative. I recommend a few of my other favorites, depending on why Proton didn't work for you. Surfshark is faster, ExpressVPN has some of the best app design and NordVPN has a wider range of interesting features. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/how-to-cancel-proton-vpn-and-get-a-refund-170014128.html?src=rss

• Engadget
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 3 dakika

The developer said the new Haiku outperforms its Sonnet 4 model at a third of the cost.

• CNET
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 3 dakika

The VSCO photo editing and sharing app has been around for nearly as long as Instagram, positioning itself as the serious photographer’s choice for mobile editing. The original focus was on tasteful filters and editing tools, all of which got significantly more powerful and flexible over time; VSCO has long been doing the same sort of film emulations that have made Fujifilm’s cameras so desirable in recent years. The company also built up a loyal community of photographers who share their edits far and wide, both in the VSCO app as well as on more mainstream platforms like Instagram itself. Now, the company is making an unsurprising but potentially controversial move: it is releasing its first AI-powered image editing tool . “Remove,” as the name suggests, lets you erase “unwanted elements” from your photos without compromising the image’s full resolution. At first glance, it feels quite similar to tools like Google’s own Magic Eraser. You just pop open an image in the editor and highlight the portion you want to remove, and VSCO will do its best to obliterate the offending bits and fill in whatever is in the background that it deems appropriate. I haven’t had a chance to test how effective this tool is yet, but VSCO is using Black Forest Lab’s FLUX.1 Kontext model to do its magic, combined with its own proprietary technology specifically focused on making results that the company says look authentic. A quick look at Black Forest Lab and the FLUX.1 model show a tool that does appear to be well-suited to removing unwanted parts of an image and properly filling in the space that remains — but we’ll have to see it in action to judge whether it does the job well. This new Remove tool isn’t the only AI-powered editor VSCO is working on. There’s also an Upscale tool in the works that the company says will “enhance image resolution” while keeping color and composition unchanged. These sorts of tools will live under a new umbrella the company is calling AI Lab, making it clear this will be an ongoing initiative and not just a one-off release. On one hand, I’m not at all surprised to see VSCO jumping into AI-powered editing; it has to keep up with the rest of the industry. But on the other hand, the company has made its mark by building a community of photographers who value authenticity in their work, something that cannot help but be in conflict with AI tools, at least on the surface. VSCO’s CEO Eric Wittman acknowledged that tension in a conversation with Engadget. “We have a very photographer-centric, creator-first point of view,” Wittman said. “But where we see AI fitting in is in support of those folks, and that work, and that vision. The intention isn’t to replace [that work], though — AI has a place, but it’s not to replace what creators, and photographers in particular, are doing.” That mindset makes sense with something like Remove, which duplicates something people have done with Photoshop for years. Rather than generating new images or radically changing the truth of a photo like you can do with some of Google’s tools on the Pixel phones, Remove is a bit more subtle. “You would use masks, you would manually painstakingly edit things at a pixel by pixel level,” Wittman said. “What a lot of Remove tools would do is basically like automate that.” Wittman also cited preserving image quality as a key part of the work behind its own Remove tool. “We know that many people who were attempting to use AI in the early days, especially photographers, a lot of their disappointment was just in the preservation of the integrity and the quality of the work,” he said. “So what we've really tried to do is continue to help automate where we can and make things easier, but also preserve the quality.” To that end, VSCO is stressing that all these edits are non-destructive and the output will be in full, original resolution. As VSCO starts dabbling in more AI editing tools, Wittman emphasized that the company wants to stay on the side of helping photographers realize a creative vision rather than helping them make entirely unreal images, while also avoiding the mess of copyright issues and inauthentic content that is flooding the internet thanks to AI. “When you think about things like copyright, and the incredible importance of copyright, integrity, and authenticity — we're big believers as a company in both the laws and the norms that have been around for many many years. But obviously on some platforms there are people who are maliciously manipulating things, and we don't want to be participants in that.” VSCO’s first AI Labs feature is available as of today in the VSCO app for iOS; it should come to Android eventually but there’s no word yet on specific timing. To use it, you’ll need an active VSCO Pro subscription , which runs $13 per month or $60 a year. A Pro plans contains a ton more than just AI Labs features, though — it unlocks a full editing suite on mobile and the web, professional profile and website creation, hundreds of presets and film emulation settings and a lot more. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/vsco-adds-its-first-ai-powered-photo-editing-tool-170000055.html?src=rss

• Engadget
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 3 dakika

The developer said the new Haiku outperforms its Sonnet 4 model and requires less computing power.

• CNET
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 3 dakika

Apple has been expected to widen its smart home offering for a long time now, and if a new report is accurate, we could be getting a trio of new devices fairly soon. According to Bloomberg , Apple is working on an indoor camera and a smart display to arrive in 2026, as well as a tabletop robot, with the latter expected to launch in 2027. An Apple-made smart display in particular has featured heavily in the rumor mill for a number of years , but it appears to be closer than ever. Bloomberg ’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple’s new home hub will have a 7-inch square LCD display, a built-in FaceTime camera and an OS that dynamically adjusts depending on who’s using it. It will also ship with an improved version of Siri that will behave more like ChatGPT or other chatbots in how it uses the web to answer your questions. The product, along with the more advanced Siri chatbot, had been slated for release earlier this year, but Apple reportedly scrapped those plans in favor of a spring 2026 launch. Bloomberg claims there will be two versions of the home hub, one code-named J940 which takes the form of a display mounted on a HomePod mini-like speaker, and the other (J491) designed to be hung on a wall. With both you’ll be able to control smart appliances, play music and presumably interact with Apple’s various apps on other devices. Apple is said to be targeting a price of around $350, although the Bloomberg report does not specify which version of the device that price refers to. The tabletop robot scheduled to launch in 2027 will effectively be the smart display Apple could be releasing next year mounted into a motorized arm that can move the device to different positions, which sounds like the company’s take on Amazon’s (slightly creepy) swivelling Echo Show 10 , first launched in 2021. This product will have a larger 9-inch display, but is said to be delayed after Apple encountered engineering challenges with the motor. Bloomberg reports that all three of these devices will be built in Vietnam, which sources said represented a "major change" in how Apple launches a new product category, as it has traditionally relied on China at the outset. In 2020 it emerged that Apple was looking to diversify its production by moving some of its iPad and MacBook manufacturing to Vietnam, and the US’ trade war with China has only intensified during Trump’s second administration. Vietnam has not escaped tariffs of its own, but they’re less severe than imports from China. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/apples-long-rumored-smart-display-will-reportedly-cost-350-165801748.html?src=rss

• Engadget
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 5 dakika

Bloomberg : Sources: Orange is seeking to raise €400M-€500M by selling a stake of as much as 50% in its data center business, including its major facility in Normandy —  Orange SA is seeking to raise €400 million ($465 million) to €500 million in a stake sale in some of its data centers in France …

• Techmeme
• 2 gün, 22 saat, 8 dakika

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : X plans to show new info about accounts, including their creation date and which country they are based in, “starting next week” on select X employees' profiles —  As AI makes it easier to create bots that act ever more human-like, Elon Musk's X is developing a new feature …

• Techmeme
• 2 gün, 22 saat, 18 dakika

Apple TV debuted the new comedy The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin last year to critical praise, and a quick season 2 renewal . Reporting later indicated , however, that the new season had been canceled. Yet Apple just released a surprise new episode of Dick Turpin with no official announcement. more…

• 9to5Mac
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 19 dakika

Fujifilm just announced the Instax mini LiPlay+ instant camera , which is a refresh of the original mini LiPlay from 2019 . It's been six long years, so the company has added some nifty features here. First of all, there's a second camera on the rear that's intended for selfies. It features a wide-angle lens and joins the pre-existing front-facing camera. There's a new functionality that lets users combine the content from both cameras to create unique layered images. That's pretty nifty. Introducing the next generation of hybrid instant camera: instax mini LiPlay+™ The updated mini LiPlay+ adds new creative tools and a refreshed design, giving image makers more ways to tell their stories with photos and sound. Learn more at https://t.co/o9TNgyG12o . pic.twitter.com/cUArA0BeZt — Fujifilm (@FujifilmUS) October 15, 2025 The design is mostly the same as before, but the rear LCD is larger. This should make it easier to accurately compose images before printing them out. To that end, there's a new film type accompanying the launch of this camera. The Soft Glitter instant film is available in ten-exposure packs and offers gold accents and soft hues to "bring a calming shimmer" around the frames. Film packs cost around $18. There's also a redesigned app with plenty of new features, including the ability to add short audio clips to images. These multimedia creations can be viewed by scanning a QR code in the print, which will trigger the audio on a smartphone or similar device. The LiPlay+ app lets users further edit images before printing them via the camera. The camera will be available for purchase by the end of the month and costs $235. There will be blue and beige versions. The original mini LiPlay didn't quite make our list of the best instant cameras , but several Fujifilm Instax models did. The company makes good stuff. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/fujifilms-refreshed-instax-mini-liplay-has-an-extra-camera-for-selfies-164319167.html?src=rss

• Engadget
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 20 dakika

As the end of Netflix's long-running hit series approaches, the Duffer Brothers are dropping hints about what to expect.

• Gizmodo
• 2 gün, 18 saat, 23 dakika

David Pan / Bloomberg : US bank Erebor, founded by Palmer Luckey, Joe Lonsdale, and others, wins conditional OCC approval to offer services to emerging tech companies in crypto and AI —  A new US bank that aims to serve emerging tech firms in sectors such as crypto and artificial intelligence has received conditional approval …

• Techmeme
• 2 gün, 22 saat, 23 dakika