Uber’s self-driving policies, tech face questions after fatal crash

In the wake of a fatal crash where one of Uber’s self-driving SUVs struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, a New York Times report has dug into the company’s program and found it’s significantly trailing the competition. Specifically, while the former Google project Waymo could have its cars average 5,600 between incidents where a test driver needed to take control and GM’s Cruise averaged some 1,200 miles, Uber’s documents reveal it wasn’t consistently meeting an internal goal of averaging 13 miles.

Its report also confirms what Jalopnik found: that unlike every other companies testing self-driving car technology, it’s only using a single driver for both safety and performance monitoring. Toyota, Nissan and Ford all confirmed the use of two operators as their policy, while Waymo said that since 2015 it has a single driver when using “validated” hardware and software, but adds a second tester when any of that changes, or for new drivers, cities and types of roads.

The NYT report also notes that unlike California’s publicly available reports, Arizona has no such requirement, and Uber’s test in California haven’t been going on long enough for it to issue one there. Additionally, new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is said to have considered shutting down the program.

Another major question is when and if the car’s sensors picked up the victim, Elaine Herzberg. Velodyne Lidar makes the sensors that self-driving cars use to “see” their surroundings in addition to cameras, and its president wrote to Bloomberg about that. In an email after video of the crash was released, Thoma Hall said “Certainly, our Lidar is capable of clearly imaging Elaine and her bicycle in this situation. However, our Lidar doesn’t make the decision to put on the brakes or get out of her way…The problem lies elsewhere.” As part of the transparency that could help make or break public trust of autonomous tech after an incident like this, Uber will need to explain more about what systems were active during the incident, and what they responded to.

Source: Jalopnik, New York Times, Bloomberg

Golden Axe Classic review: Capitalization on nostalgia

If you’ve read some of my other Sega reviews, you know that I grew up with a Sega Genesis as my primary gaming console back in the ’90s. My favorite games were, among others: Sonic, Streets of Rage 2, and Golden Axe. And Sega, now without a first party console to call home, has turned to mobile as its platform of choice.

Sega has been slowly bringing its massive collection of retro games to the Play Store for a while now, something Nintendo should have been doing for years.

A faithful port of a golden age beat-’em-up

Sega’s done a good job of modernizing Golden Axe’s old-school title screen.

Golden Axe is one of the original Golden Age Side Scrolling Beat ‘Em Up titles. Released in 1989 along with Final Fight, Golden Axe took the formula of 1987’s Double Dragon and dropped it into a high fantasy, chainmail bikini setting reminiscent of Frank Frazetta’s art.

That formula is a simple, familiar one; throw waves of nameless baddies at the player(s) as they work their way from left-to-right across a level. At the end of said level is a big baddie, with lots of health and new movesets. Rinse and repeat, with more, recolored enemies.

As with nearly all beat ’em ups from the 16-bit generation, Golden Axe sports a barebones plot; an evil warlord has taken over the kingdom and must be stopped. Unlike other games of its ilk, though, it sported rich animations, and a beautiful world filled with fanciful enemies and environments.

Where Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of Rage all featured a dystopian urban setting, Golden Axe gave us the first look at video game high fantasy.

From choosing your character (there are three!) to the tactics and cheap-shots that made the game so fun and frustrating, Golden Axe has been painstakingly recreated for mobile by the Sega team. It is in every way the game that spawned two sequels and three spinoffs – blemishes and all.

On Infrastructure and Advertising

As fantastic as it is that Sega offers a free, ad-supported version of its classic titles, you almost spend more time watching ads than you do playing the game.

Upon pressing “Start Game” you have to watch. In between levels, you have to watch an ad. Saving your game, you have to watch an ad. Rewinding gameplay 15 seconds (which is a tremendously cool feature I’d have given anything for in my childhood), requires you to watch an ad. It’s exhausting.

You’ll be seeing this screen a lot.

In lieu of ads, you can buy the full, paid version – which also gets you access to Cloud Saves via Google Play – for $1.99. And as wonderful as the game is, it’s only going to take you an hour or so to beat once you get the hang of it. Not worth $2, these days.

I’d like to see a virtual pass from Sega. $10 for the entire current library and all subsequent Classics releases would do the trick. Even $20, probably. But $1.99 for each ad-free game, many of which that you can beat in an hour and likely won’t play again? Steep.

A single app – a virtual Sega Console, if you will – would allow Sega to compile all of its games into one place, rather than releasing them on the Play Store. Each game could be an in-app purchase via Google Play (or one purchase for all games, mentioned above) and each game could be accessed from inside the Virtual Console. A one-stop shop, if you will.

• Play This Game If…. You’re looking for a jolt of Sega Genesis nostalgia, or you love side-scrolling beat ’em ups.
• Avoid This Game If… You hate ads, or are looking for a long-lasting mobile game.

Tips

• Smack the little blue and green gnomes that run around – they drop health and magic items.
• Sprint and attack whenever possible. It results in a running attack that’s hard for enemies to dodge.
• Stay mobile. Enemies will actively try to surround you – and subsequently slash you to death.
• Basic Controls: A – Magic | B – Attack | C – Jump
• If you can tolerate the ads, Save and Rewind often.

Download Golden Axe Classic

The story of the Duke, the Xbox pad that existed because it had to

Denise Chaudhari had never touched a gamepad before stepping onto Microsoft’s campus as a contractor. The first woman to join the Xbox team, Chaudhari had studied ergonomics and industrial design at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design but didn’t have any experience with joysticks. That’s part of why Xbox’s Jim Stewart was so excited to bring her on board: Her ideas wouldn’t be based on preconceived notions of what a gamepad had to be.

It was early 2000, and the company was preparing to enter the gaming world with the Xbox. In Nov. 2001, the console was released in North America alongside the Duke, a controller that seemed comically large compared to its contemporaries. Within a year, the oversize gamepad was abandoned by Microsoft and replaced with a smaller model, but the Duke has had an impact on every controller since.

Rather than starting from scratch, Chaudhari had to work from Xbox creative director Horace Luke’s concept sketches. They’d already been approved from up top, and a third-party supplier had built circuit boards based on those early drawings. Instead of coming up with the shape and ergonomics first and figuring out how to fit the device’s internals into the shell after, Chaudhari needed to work backward.

She got to work, sculpting physical models with a wood-like modeling material called RenShape. You can see the legacy of Chaudhari’s work in every Xbox gamepad that followed. Its A, B, X, Y face button layout and button style remain today, for starters. But it’s the thumbstick placement that has made the most lasting impression on controller design. While the DualShock had parallel sticks at the bottom of the controller, the Duke’s were offset, with the left sitting higher than the right by about two inches.

It wasn’t until her conversations with Xbox architect Seamus Blackley, J Allard (the “father” of the console’s follow-up, the Xbox 360) and her now ex-husband Rob Wyatt that Chaudhari realized the hand she’d been dealt: The circuit boards, already manufactured and ready to go, were comically oversized.

A large circuit board does two things. For one, it costs more to make. It also occupies more physical space. Looking over photos of the circuit board, longtime hardware hacker Ben Heck estimated that even in 2000, the board could’ve “easily” been a third smaller. He theorized that the circuit board’s size was a necessity given the Duke’s expansion slots for memory cards and an Xbox Live chat headset (also designed by Chaudhari).

“We were up against a wall,” Chaudhari said. “The best thing we could do was create a case that was ergonomically comfortable. If it’s gonna have to be that big, then it can at least feel good, right?” Case in point, the Duke’s analog sticks are offset rather than parallel, positioned where your thumbs naturally rest.

“It was no secret to us that it was big.”

According to Blackley, that decision was the result of a few Tony Hawk Pro Skater players on the team who thought it’d make virtual skateboarding more fun. Combined with developer Bungie’s Halo: Combat Evolved as a launch title, the placement also helped make first-person shooters feel like a natural fit for a console, which was laughable up to that point.

Chaudhari spent most of her days working with electrical engineers, negotiating button layouts and placements, and generally doing whatever possible to shrink the gargantuan gamepad down to size, millimeters at a time. Blackley would come into her office almost daily to check her progress on the new prototypes. Each time, his reaction was the same: The controller wasn’t small enough. Her immediate response never changed. She wanted to know how it felt in his hands. “And Seamus would say, ‘It feels great, but it’s huge,’” she recalled. “It was no secret to us that it was big.” The final product was nearly three times larger than the PlayStation’s DualShock controller.

At one point, the design team met with electronics supplier Mitsumi, which made the circuit boards for the DualShock. One of the reasons Sony’s gamepads were so much smaller was because they used a two-part board that connected via a ribbon cable. The separate pieces of silicon sat perpendicular to one another and allowed for a more modest design overall. When Chaudhari asked Mitsumi if Xbox could have a similar-style board, she was flat-out refused, presumably because of Japan’s nationalistic culture. “The takeaway was kind of like, ‘Sony is a Japanese company; Mitsumi is a Japanese company. Xbox is an American company, and you don’t get what you get because you want it, even if you’re willing to pay for it,’” she said.

Denise Chaudhari

Microsoft loves bragging about how much time it spends with gamers listening to their wants and needs for consoles. It’s why Xbox gamepads had nine-foot cables with in-line breakaways, for instance, while the DualShock’s was a one-piece 6.5-foot cord. But focus testing shouldn’t inform every aspect of design. “If you let gamers design a console, it would have built-in pyrotechnics and a machine gun,” Blackley said. He quickly added that he didn’t mean that as any disrespect — he considers himself a gamer and understands the mentality.

“Nobody at the time could possibly have asked for a broadband, hard-drive-enabled machine that works with an operating system so it can provide services in parallel with playing a game that are helpful and good for online gameplay,” he said. Same goes for easy game-development tools. “All of that stuff, intangibles, it’s not something you would get by interviewing gamers. It’s patent bullshit.”

Somehow, while Microsoft was studying people’s living rooms, it never took notice of how big the gamepads for competing consoles were or thought about how the console would be perceived outside the US. That domestic focus testing was top brass’ justification for the Duke’s size. Every time Blackley and his team would complain, they were told that people loved how big the gamepad was and that the design wouldn’t change. “You can prove whatever you want in consumer tests,” Blackley said.

Microsoft Japan was a different case. While American gamers were split between loving and hating the Duke, Eastern testers and developers unilaterally despised it. In the run-up to launch, Chaudhari and her team went to Japan to do some local focus testing. Before the trip, Chaudhari had heard Microsoft Japan was threatening to tell Eastern developers not to make games for the console unless the controller went through serious design revisions. “They were telling us, ‘We have no choice. We have to tell developers that this is no good,’” she recalled.

“We have no choice. We have to tell developers that this is no good.”

There was a catch to the testing though: The Americans weren’t allowed to talk to or interact with the gamers directly. The worry was that once the testers saw Americans, they’d “know this is not really to be taken seriously, because it’s not a Japanese product,” she said. Instead, the Xbox team had to watch the sessions through closed circuit TV.

The tests were naturally conducted in Japanese, and because they didn’t speak the language, the team had to rely on a Japanese Microsoft employee to translate. The wrinkle is that this translator had already told Chaudhari that he hated the controller. As an industrial designer, Chaudhari wanted to know if the buttons were close enough together or if the handles fit in the testers’ mitts, details that she could use to adjust the design. Instead, she was told the testers didn’t like anything about the Duke whatsoever. It wasn’t helpful. She described the trip as one long Lost in Translation moment, where minutes of speech from the testers was boiled down to, “Oh, he doesn’t like it; it’s too big.”

Did she trust that the translator was accurately relaying the feedback to her? “Of course not,” she said. “It was really very pointless.” The hardware had to go into production regardless of what the focus testing revealed, and so it did, with the caveat that there would be an immediate redesign for the staggered Japanese launch.

Blackley’s interactions with Japanese developers were similar. Images of the Duke began appearing in magazines and online, and the game makers started to “freak out” because they were imagining telling their native customers that if they wanted to play the next Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, they’d need this massive console and gamepad in their diminutive living spaces. The general worry among developers was that no one would buy their games and it’d damage their reputations. “There was actually a petition of Japanese game developers [against the Duke], and it had a lot of really famous names on it,” Blackley recalled.

Denise Chaudhari

On Nov. 15th, 2001, the Xbox hit store shelves in North America with Chaudhari’s Duke packed in. Three months later, it arrived in Japan with the svelte Controller S, designed by Microsoft’s on-staff industrial designers. Once they saw it, people all over the world naturally wanted the smaller gamepad, and that fall, Microsoft made it the default controller that shipped with every console.

Suddenly, the Controller S was roughly two-thirds of the Duke’s size because it used the two-piece circuit board Chaudhari had asked for initially. Other changes included the black-and-white face buttons being awkwardly moved away from the A, B, X, Y six-pack on the Duke’s upper right side, and the Back and Start buttons shifted positions and changed design as well. The gamepad also finally had a traditional cross-type D-pad rather than the Duke’s squishy wave style that felt like a leftover from one of Microsoft’s SideWinder controllers for PCs.

“It was very easy for [Microsoft’s designers] to be like, ‘See? Told you so. If we had designed it, it would’ve been a hit right from the beginning,’” Chaudhari said. “They were really proud that they had vindication, that they could design a controller and that my original controller was discontinued.”

“They were really proud that they had vindication, that they could design a controller and that my original controller was discontinued.”

At the time, Chaudhari thought the Duke’s legacy would be “shame.” Microsoft was quick to throw her work under the bus, killing the Duke wholesale a few short years after making the Controller S the Xbox’s pack-in gamepad. “It was this shameful thing that happened, that we launched a controller before we should have. We should have taken more time, we should’ve pushed harder for a different board. We should’ve waited and not launched when we did,” she said, a hint of forlornness in her voice. Chaudhari said that there wasn’t a jovial or congratulatory atmosphere surrounding the Xbox team’s efforts after launch.

She’s still incredibly proud of her work and doesn’t consider it a black mark on her resume, regardless of the duress. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. “It was probably the highlight of all the things I’ve worked on in my career,” she said, “and there’s been a lot.” She said clients for her design firm are typically excited about her work on Xbox.

To this day, Blackley has nothing but praise for Chaudhari’s talents. “She did a remarkable job making this thing that people love so much, given that it had to be the size of the island of Manhattan,” he said.

Denise Chaudhari

For Chris Gallizzi, the Duke calls a different memory to mind. “It always reminds me of Xbox Live,” he said. Gallizzi is a project manager and head of research and development at Hyperkin, the accessory maker bringing the Duke back to life. To him, it’s intrinsically tied to his first foray into online gaming, and the gamepad’s sheer size is what made the original Xbox as a whole so memorable. He speculated that if the console had shipped with a smaller controller that it wouldn’t have stood out nearly as much. When he first saw the Duke, he was enamored by the translucent jelly bean-style face buttons and the massive Xbox nameplate in the center of the controller.

“I’m like, ‘Wow! That controller must be so powerful for it to be so big,’” he recalled. “Then I grow up and find out that, no, there’s actually no reason [for the size]. The designer was just working with what she had.” He thought the gamepad was OK at the time but didn’t particularly love it. These days, though, he likes the Xbox One gamepad so much that he uses an adapter so he doesn’t have to play with a DualShock 4 when he’s using his PlayStation 4.

Gallizzi first approached Microsoft about reissuing the Duke two or three years ago. Instead of an Xbox One controller, though, he pitched it as an accessory for the original Xbox. Hyperkin specializes in retro products for classic consoles, and while Gallizzi admits the Xbox is far from a classic, it was still a project he wanted to tackle.

Microsoft turned him down. Gallizzi was told that if Hyperkin was going to be a licensed partner, it should instead make accessories for the Xbox One. Fast-forward to early 2017 when Gallizzi got a phone call from Xbox’s licensing director, Gaylon Blank. Blank said he thought he’d “paved the way” for the project to happen and asked if Gallizzi was still interested in working on the Duke. “Without checking with my bosses, I said yes,” Gallizzi said.

After initial meetings with Microsoft, Gallizzi met with Blackley. Through a lot of what Blackley described as “good faith efforts,” the trio worked out an agreement for Redmond to grant access to the original Xbox logo, boot animation and the Duke’s industrial-design licenses.

Gallizzi and Blackley live a few minutes away from each other in Southern California, and over the next year they worked in secret to resurrect the gamepad. Between Feb. and June 2017, Gallizzi said Microsoft was largely quiet and he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he and Blackley kept plugging away regardless. The weekend before E3 in June, he and a coworker were building prototypes on Gallizzi’s balcony. The pair were under the assumption that Microsoft would debut the controller at E3 alongside its announcement that games from the original Xbox would be backwards compatible on the Xbox One. That never panned out.

That’s not to say Microsoft hasn’t played an active role in the Duke reissue’s development. In fact, the company’s participation was more intense than Gallizzi was used to with Samsung. After E3, things started moving quickly, and Microsoft began asking for progress reports more often and became very involved in general, asking for new rendering models on a weekly basis.

The internal design team wasn’t happy, and even though the new Duke was being made by a third party, because of the licensing agreement, Microsoft had final approval on every aspect. Like where the shoulder buttons had to be shoehorned in, because now as an Xbox One controller, it had to have the exact same inputs as a standard gamepad. “I don’t know how many samples we sent them for testing,” Gallizzi admitted. Once both teams came to terms on overall design, Microsoft started kvetching about the gamepad’s weight. The original Duke tips the scale at 425 grams; Hyperkin’s version weighs 419 grams — lighter by about the weight of a US quarter.

When the project started, Blackley gave Gallizzi a quick way to gauge how accurate the mock-ups were: The Xbox architect told him to put a dinner plate in his lap. If Gallizzi could replicate that feeling with his Duke reissue, Hyperkin did its job. By the end, Gallizzi wasn’t prepared for how Blackley would measure success when he walked into Hyperkin’s offices. “He didn’t plug it in; he didn’t play with it. He just put it in his lap,” Gallizzi said. “He’s like, ‘That’s all I need to know.’” Gallizzi was puzzled but said if Blackley was happy, so was he.

For the first six months, Gallizzi worked under the assumption that his version of the controller would be wireless — a feature Microsoft had introduced with the Xbox 360 in 2005. But then Microsoft changed its mind, because no third-party controller is allowed access to the company’s proprietary wireless technology.

“I pulled some shit to force Microsoft into allowing us to have the display,”

Hyperkin also toyed with the idea of repurposing the expansion slots as USB ports, but that ultimately didn’t past muster either. The black-and-white face buttons, however, remain intact, acting as redundancies if you don’t like the new shoulder-button placement near the triggers. An approximation of the terrible D-pad from the original controller is present as well. And instead of an in-line breakaway, Hyperkin’s Duke mates to the Xbox One or a PC with a Micro USB cable that connects to the controller like a cellphone charger.

The new Duke’s standout feature is an OLED screen that replaces the Red-Bull-can-size jewel from the original gamepad. Blackley wanted a killer feature that’d help the new Duke stand out from other third-party controllers. The display is something that he always wished the gamepad had back in 2001, in part because of his love for the Sega Dreamcast’s VMU, a memory card with an LCD that slid into the console’s controller. Gallizzi harvested LCD screens from cheap Chinese MP3 players for the prototypes he cobbled together on his balcony, while Blackley used OLED screens he had laying around at home.

To force Microsoft into approving the design idea, Blackley posted the infamous video of his work on Twitter. The video made headlines and racked up enough impressions that Xbox chief Phil Spencer direct messaged Blackley that night. “I pulled some shit to force Microsoft into allowing us to have the display,” Blackley said. Anytime you press the button, the Xbox’s boot animation plays, in tribute to the console’s legacy.

It’s this type of grit that defines the Duke’s legacy today, Chaudhari said. Where once it was “shame,” now it’s “Seamus.”

“There’s only one person who could resurrect [the Duke], relaunch it as nostalgic and get away with it,” she said. “And that person is Seamus Blackley.”

It’s easy to improve the Duke — Microsoft has been doing so for the past 16 years. But improving it wasn’t the point this time. While Blackley isn’t confident he and Hyperkin nailed the feel and placement of the shoulder buttons, he’s pleased overall.

“I don’t think anything is perfect,” he said. “I don’t think this exercise was about making the perfect Xbox controller. This is about making the perfect Duke for 2018.”

Images: Denise Chaudhari (Original sketches and designs); Hyperkin (Hyperkin Duke CAD model); Steve Dent (3D textures and animation)

What to expect from Apple’s education-themed ‘Field Trip’ event

Normally, when Apple goes to the trouble of putting on an event, it’s somewhere near the company’s home base in sunny Cupertino. Not this time! After deciding not to hold a March keynote at all last year, Apple now has plans to hold court in Chicago’s prestigious Lane Tech College Prep school. This “field trip,” as Apple’s calling it, is far from business as usual, but with days to go before the event kicks off, we’ve got a few ideas about what you can expect Apple to unveil in the Windy City.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Cheap new iPad(s)

Around this time last year, Apple revealed its $329 iPad — no suffix, no superlative, just iPad — to entice tablet shoppers with a taste of modern iOS. That move paid off: in the first full quarter after that iPad launched, Apple’s tablet sales grew year-over-year for the first time since 2013. A sequel was inevitable, and a recent report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (you know, the guy with the amazingly accurate track record) all but guarantees we’ll see an inexpensive follow-up with loads of education appeal. Exactly how much this new tablet will cost is still a mystery, though: Some reports suggest the price could dip as low as $260. If true, Apple’s iPad line could suddenly pose a much bigger threat to the Chromebooks flooding schools.

And that definitely isn’t the only iPad Apple is working on at the moment. References spotted in iOS 11.3’s beta code back in January also point to the existence of so-called “Modern” iPads that are rumored to have Face ID sensors to replace the tablets’ traditional home buttons. Based on regulatory approvals that recently surfaced in Europe, it looks like Apple is indeed updating its two existing iPad Pro models, but we’re not convinced that Apple would unveil them at a specialized event like the one happening next week.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Some Apple Pencil news

Apple’s press invitations are usually pretty colorful, but this time we got a subdued design with what’s meant to look like a hand-drawn Apple logo. It’s hard not to see it as a reference to the Apple Pencil, an accessory that has only ever been compatible with the company’s pricey iPad Pros. It’s possible Apple could have added Pencil support into its new, cheap iPad, but the economics don’t make a ton of sense. One Apple Pencil costs $99, or about a third of an iPad. We’d honestly be surprised to get much in the way of Pencil news at the Chicago event, but based on that coy invite, we’re not ruling anything out.

UIG via Getty Images

A touch of ClassKit

iOS 11.3 is still in the works, but one fascinating tidbit appeared in the latest beta release. There are references in the code ClassKit, a framework tailor-made to help developers create apps for schools. Sounds like the perfect thing to discuss at length inside a high school, no? While Apple is surely courting developers, we’ve already heard a few things about one of Apple’s own ClassKit-powered apps. According to 9to5Mac, teachers will be able to assign work to students through an app called Classwork, which kids can also use to log their progress. More broadly, apps built on top of ClassKit can be used to evaluate students and issue tests, not to mention lock down the iPad into a sort of “kiosk” mode to prevent kids from jumping into Safari and Googling for quiz answers.

A less expensive MacBook Air?

Right now, the cheapest new Mac you can buy is a $999 MacBook Air, and it’s not exactly cutting edge. It received a spec bump last summer, but still uses a relatively old processor and lower-res display. Reports from famed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and elsewhere, however, point to the possibility of a MacBook Air with a “lower price tag” to launch sometime in the spring. A subsequent report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman confirmed Apple is indeed working on an Air sequel priced under $1,000. It’s not hard to see how a machine like that might help Apple move more laptops into classrooms, but the price gap between a cheap Macbook and a Chromebook is still pretty huge. Word is the new Air won’t be ready in time for an official reveal at next week’s event, but it would make for a fantastic One More Thing. (Hear that, Apple?)

Chris Velazco/Engadget

An updated iPhone SE?

This one might seem like a stretch, but we’ve heard some persistent rumors about a follow-up to Apple’s tiny, two-year-old smartphone. The company originally built it because there was no option for people who wanted to experience the latest and greatest iOS features in a small, easy-to-handle device. Since the phone’s size was one of its biggest selling points, it’s hard to pinpoint what Apple’s design priorities might be for a new SE. Would it feature a rounded body akin to the iPhone 8? Or would Apple just squeeze a more modern A-series chipset into the same iPhone 5-esque body? There’s little in the way of convincing answers so far, but we wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple decided to show off an SE sequel sometime this year. The real question is whether Apple will devote time during next week’s event to talk about it.

Atari shows its non-functional ‘VCS’ console prototype at GDC 2018

Last June, venerated gaming company Atari announced that it was making a comeback. Specifically, that it would be jumping back into the console market with a retro-style entertainment system it dubbed at the time, the Ataribox. Eleven months later, we can finally see the results of the company’s IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign: say hello to the 2600-inspired Atari VCS.

Unfortunately, we still don’t know all that much about the console itself as the company has remained tight-lipped about its prototype product. Atari promised that the VCS will retail for around $300, will play both classic Atari games as well as modern content, and that pre-orders for the console will begin in April 2018.

Luckily, thanks to a brief hands-on opportunity on Thursday at GDC 2018, we can infer a few more details about the console’s potential capabilities. As you can see in the gallery below, the VCS will offer ethernet connectivity, HDMI video output and support up to four USB connections. Given that the VCS’ Xbox-style “Modern Controller” is cordless, we can safely assume that the console itself will offer some form of wireless capability too.

Beyond that, who knows? We’ve yet to hear of any confirmed titles coming to the system, nor have there been any announcements of partnerships with developer studios. What’s more, the company previously touted a Spring 2018 release date, but that was before they ran into development problems back in December, so its arrival date remains unconfirmed as well. I suppose we’ll simply have to wait for the pre-order window to open next month for more details.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from GDC 2018!

Hands-on with coming-of-age puzzle game ‘Where Cards Fall’

Where Cards Fall looks like a dream. Literally, I’ve had dreams that feel like this game — the world is segmented into blocky platforms covered in grass, asphalt and clouds, as if a rudimentary algorithm was asked to create cities and forests, and it spat out gorgeous geometric interpretations of the real world. The game’s art style highlights this dreamlike quality, covering all those cubes and slopes in soft, hand-drawn colors and dramatic shadows while ambient music hums in the background.

Playing Where Cards Fall feels exactly like it looks — ethereal yet grounded in reality; shockingly complicated and soothing at the same time.

The game’s main mechanic involves building houses of cards to create pathways around the landscapes, though figuring out where and how to craft these buildings is easier said than done. The cards are human-sized and generally rest on the ground in black-and-white piles, with shapes on the top indicating which type of structure they’ll create, from sloped roofs to flat-tops. Drag out a pile and it expands to fill the space; let go and a building instantly pops up, changing depending on how big you decide to make it.

You can create cafes, record stores, houses, newsstands and all manner of spaces — and not only are they used as rooftop platforms, but you can actually enter the buildings and mess around with whatever (and whoever) is inside. Take a break and listen to some vinyl or pop into the coffee shop for a latte. The interactivity offered by these interiors brings the entire game alive — you’re not just making pathways to race to the end of each level. You’re actually building a living world, complete with neighbors, friends, strangers and enemies.

Not that there are discrete levels in Where Cards Fall. There are no loading screens and no cuts during gameplay whatsoever. It’s a single-shot game, another subtle design choice that lends the entire project a dreamy, floaty feel.

Building the card houses is simple enough, but actually figuring out the platforming puzzles is another beast altogether. The cards respond to the physics of the world, meaning you can’t simply pick up a deck and plop it anywhere you’d like — the pile has to be dragged up and down hills and across platforms, just like the main character. This means setting up two-, three- and four-step architecture plans, using one deck to transport additional piles to the appropriate spots, and then leaping on top of them from there.

Spatial puzzles are the heart of Where Cards Fall’s gameplay, but its story is deeper than physics alone. This is a coming-of-age narrative featuring an androgynous protagonist navigating life as a high schooler and beyond. There’s no way to die while playing, which means players get to focus on the puzzles and the story that’s taking shape around them (literally, at times).

Indie studio The Game Band is collaborating with Alto’s Odyssey house Snowman to develop Where Cards Fall and they’re trying to finish it this year. Whenever it comes out, it’ll be on iOS, Steam and Apple TV.

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Apple won’t livestream its March 27th education event

Apple’s education event next week is a break in tradition in more ways than one. Not only will it take place in Chicago instead of the company’s usual homestead in Northern California, it will also not be livestreamed. Instead, the video will only be available on the site after it’s over. It’s unclear just what Apple hopes to show off at this mysterious “field trip,” though signs seem to indicate that it plans to unveil computing devices aimed at students. You can read more about what to expect at the event in our preview, and since there isn’t an official livestream, we highly encourage you to bookmark our liveblog link and check back on March 27th.

Catch up on all of the news from Apple’s education event right here!

OnePlus is done selling its flagship 5T in North America

If you live in North America and you’d like to buy a OnePlus 5T, well, sorry — you’re out of luck. Not just temporarily, either — the startup confirmed to Engadget that it has sold every OnePlus 5T it made for the North American market, and well ahead of schedule to boot. Kyle Kiang, OnePlus’s head of global marketing and general manager of North America, said the stock outage was due stronger-than-expected demand, and as a result, people on this continent will have to sit tight and wait for the company’s next flagship phone to arrive.

For those keeping track, the 5T was only on the market in North America for about four months. While leaving would-be fans to wait for their chance to buy the OnePlus sequel doesn’t sound great, Kiang says the circumstances that brought the company to this point were much more positive. Last year, OnePlus doubled its global revenue to $1.4 billion and saw 139 percent growth in North America — it’s gotten to the point where North America accounts for about 25 percent of all the company’s online sales.

For Kiang, these numbers are validation for a production and marketing philosophy that often seem unorthodox. Remember: when it comes to smartphone production, OnePlus is a little unorthodox. It only builds one flagship model at a time, and it ceases production once it hits a target number forecasted in advance. And since OnePlus has recently gotten into the habit of pushing out two smartphones a year, that means each of those devices is only really on sale for a handful of months. It’s a weird system, but it seems to be working. OnePlus also relies heavily on word of mouth rather than mass marketing to drive growth, and while that prevents the company from rapidly expanding its reach, Kiang is fine with the progress made so far.

“In a category where no one is growing, we’re growing,” Kiang said.

Growth is certainly good, but since the company hasn’t announced a follow-up yet, it’ll be a while yet before the company’s growing North American fanbase gets to buy a new phone. Right now, OnePlus’s tentative plan is get another device out the door in late Q2 — that’s right around May or June. When asked why OnePlus couldn’t divert supply from other markets to help meet demand in the US and Canada, a spokesperson said the issue of swapping out AC adapters would’ve been too cumbersome. That’s especially true since the 5T supply ran dry by weeks instead of months — an indication that the phone’s days were numbered anyway. In any case, the OnePlus 5T may have had a short run, but it was a fine flagship that stacked up well against the competition — here’s hoping the wait for a sequel doesn’t take too long.

What to Expect at Apple’s ‘Let’s Take a Field Trip’ Educational Event on March 27

Apple is holding its first event of 2018 on Tuesday, March 27 at the Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago. According to invites sent out to members of the media last week, the event will focus on “creative new ideas for teachers and students.”

This is Apple’s first education-centric event since 2012, hence the unusual location. With most events, we tend to have concrete rumors on what to expect, but things are a little more up in the air with the educational event.

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Still, rumors have hinted at several products that could see a refresh at the event, and while some of them may primarily be of interest to schools and educators, there are some products on the horizon all of us have been eagerly anticipating. Announcement possibilities are listed below:

New Lower-Cost iPad

In 2017, Apple released a fifth-generation 9.7-inch iPad that was designed to be a low-cost but powerful alternative to the iPad Pro. The tablet is priced at $329, and in 2018, rumors have suggested Apple could release an iPad with an even lower price point, which would be enticing to schools.

The iPad could be priced as low as $259, $70 less than the starting price of the current 9.7-inch iPad.

Whether this iPad is an entirely new device or just a lower price for the existing 9.7-inch iPad remains to be seen.

Read more about the low-cost iPad in our iPad roundup.

New Low-Cost MacBook or MacBook Air

Along with a lower-cost iPad, Apple may perhaps be planning to introduce some kind of notebook that has a lower price tag, but again, the exact form that this will take is unclear.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who often has insight into Apple’s plans, believes Apple is working on a “more affordable MacBook Air,” which would perhaps be ideal for an educational market to compete with Google Chromebooks.

Kuo didn’t mention whether or not this cheaper MacBook Air would be a price drop on the current MacBook Air or a new machine, nor did he mention potential specs. The MacBook Air is highly outdated, so if changes are indeed planned, updated processors and other internals could be on the horizon.

Other rumors suggest the lower-cost MacBook Air could be priced at $799 to $899, and that price tag would likely be even lower for schools able to make bulk purchases.

The rumors have been confused by a report from DigiTimes suggesting Apple is working on an “entry-level 13.3-inch MacBook.” DigiTimes calls the notebook a MacBook, but lists the size of the MacBook Air, and goes on to say that it will feature a Retina display.

Updating the MacBook Air with a Retina display would make it difficult to keep costs low, and it would be a curious choice given the existence of the slimmer 12-inch MacBook line, which does come equipped with Retina displays. For that reason, it’s not entirely clear if DigiTimes is talking about an update to the MacBook Air line or the MacBook line. DigiTimes’ report says the new notebook would be priced at around $999, which is more expensive than other low-cost MacBook Air rumors.

Just this morning, Bloomberg also said Apple is working on a new MacBook that would cost under $1,000 and would replace the existing MacBook Air, but even that report didn’t specify whether this machine would be in the current MacBook Air family or part of the 12-inch MacBook line. What Bloomberg did say, though, is that this machine is not ready, and therefore we may or may not hear about it at the event. It’s possible Apple will make an announcement with a launch date to follow, but we also might not see any Mac-related news until WWDC in June.

Read more about the MacBook Air in our MacBook Air roundup.

AirPower and AirPods Wireless Charging Case

The AirPower isn’t an accessory that’s likely to be marketed to educational institutions, but rumors have been suggesting a March launch for the device, so it’s possible Apple will also use its March event to debut some products of interest to the general public.

First announced in September alongside the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus, the AirPower is an inductive charging mat that’s designed to charge Qi-based iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 3, and the AirPods all at the same time using one accessory.

Alongside the AirPower, Apple will also introduce a new AirPods Charging Case that includes new wireless charging capabilities. This revamped charging case will be necessary for AirPods to charge through the AirPower mat.

Existing AirPods owners will be able to purchase the new Charging Case as a standalone accessory, while new AirPods purchases will likely include it.

We don’t know what the AirPower will be priced at, but rumors have suggested it could cost somewhere around $199.

See all of our AirPower coverage here.

Revamped Apple Pencil?

There’s no real indication that Apple is working on a new Apple Pencil to debut at its education-focused event, but the design of the event invitation sent out to members of the media does appear to have been drawn with an Apple Pencil, and it could be a hint.

It’s possible Apple is planning to introduce a lower-cost Apple Pencil that could be used in tandem with the new low-cost iPad, which would indeed be appealing to schools.

Just this morning, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple Pencil support is likely for the new low-cost iPad, but it’s not yet clear if that means Apple plans to add support for the existing Apple Pencil or introduce a new, more affordable model.

If some kind of Apple Pencil announcement doesn’t happen at this event, we can perhaps expect to see a new model when Apple debuts new iPad Pros, something we believe will happen either in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference or September alongside new iPhones.

On the chance that Apple is working on an Apple Pencil for its low-cost tablet, it’s possible a lower-cost Smart Keyboard could also be included. Adding a keyboard and an input device like the Apple Pencil to the low-cost iPad would add a lot of utility for students.

Read more about the Apple Pencil in our iPad Pro roundup.

iPhone X in New Colors?

If Apple is indeed going to use its March event to focus on products unrelated to education, we could see the iPhone X and perhaps the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in new colors.

There have been rumors of a “Blush Gold” iPhone X floating around, and just this week, new images of the rumored device surfaced. Apple offered the iPhone X only in Silver and Space Gray at launch, and a new color could perhaps lure new upgraders mid-season.

An alleged “Blush Gold” iPhone X via Benjamin Geskin
In March of last year, Apple introduced a (PRODUCT)RED iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, and it’s possible the company could be planning to do the same thing this year, with a (PRODUCT)RED iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and perhaps X.

Read more about the iPhone X in our iPhone X roundup.

iPhone SE 2?

We’ve been hearing rumors of a new “iPhone SE 2” for some time now, and while it’s possible we could see a new iPhone SE at the March event, we don’t think it’s likely.

While some supply chain sources and sketchier rumor sources have suggested a new iPhone SE 2 is in the works with upgraded internals and other specs, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo does not believe Apple has enough spare development resources to dedicate to an iPhone SE in 2018 given the company’s work on the three iPhones planned for September.

A recent rumor from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News has also suggested Apple does not have new iPhones planned for the first half of 2018, which would mean no March iPhone SE 2.

If there is a new iPhone SE 2 on the horizon, major design changes and the adoption of features from flagship phones are unlikely given the iPhone SE’s position as a low-cost device.

For more information on a potential iPhone SE 2, check out our iPhone SE roundup.

New iPhone Cases and Apple Watch Bands

Apple already announced a new collection of spring Apple Watch bands in new colors, which could go on sale following the educational event. When announced on March 21, Apple said they would be coming later in the month.

Though not announced at the same time, Apple could also launch new iPhone and iPad cases in refreshed colors at the same time.

For more detail on the Apple Watch and Apple Watch bands, check out our Apple Watch roundup.

iOS 11.3 Release With ClassKit Framework

Apple promised to release iOS 11.3 in the spring, and well, it’s spring. iOS 11.3 is also near the end of its beta testing period, and thus far we’ve seen six betas. We haven’t had the GM version of iOS 11.3 yet, so it’s possible we’ll get that instead of an official release on Tuesday. A launch will come shortly after, though.

Though it’s received little coverage, iOS 11.3 includes a new Classroom 2.2 app, which is designed to turn the iPad into a powerful teaching assistant to help teachers guide students through lessons.

It also includes a ClassKit framework aimed at helping developers create educational apps that teachers can use with the Classroom app to deliver assignments to students and track their progress.

Classroom 2.2 and ClassKit haven’t been announced or covered heavily by Apple, so expect this to be a focal point of the event.

iOS 11.3, of course, brings a whole slew of other updates and features, like iCloud Messages, ARKit 1.5, new Animoji, and a Battery Health feature that will allow customers to better monitor their batteries and battery health as it relates to device performance.

For full details on iOS 11.3, make sure to check out our iOS 11 roundup.

Other Educational Announcements

As this is an educational event, expect other educational announcements. Apple is likely to give us an update on its Everyone Can Code curriculum for students. Apple has coding lessons for high schools and elementary schools, along with a dedicated App Development With Swift curriculum for community colleges, which is a full-year coding course.

The high school where Apple plans to hold its event, Lane Tech College Prep, was featured in a December announcement of the expansion of the Everyone Can Code program to 500,000 students in Chicago. Students at Lane Tech have been learning to build apps with Apple’s Swift programming language.

Other Details

There’s no guarantee that all of these products will be introduced at Apple’s educational event, but it’s likely we’ll see at least some of them.

Apple does not plan to live stream its educational event, but after it takes place, a video will be uploaded to Apple’s event site and event app on the Apple TV. MacRumors will have full coverage of the event, however, along with detailed information on each announcement. Make sure to stay tuned to the website for coverage and follow our Twitter account, MacRumorsLive.

Related Roundups: MacBook Air, iOS 11, iPadBuyer’s Guide: MacBook Air (Caution), iPad (Don’t Buy)
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