Month: March 2022

Enlarge / Don’t let this image fool you—Kirby‘s 3D adventure is far from an open-world game.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land was the first game I played for review after sinking dozens of hours into Elden Ring. That’s a bit like jumping from an ice bath straight into a pool heated precisely to your body temperature.

Like a warm pool, Kirby‘s first fully 3D adventure is so inviting that you barely notice you’re engaging with a game in the first place. In true franchise tradition, the game offers little resistance and loads of guidance through a veritable theme park filled to the brim with a wide variety of pleasant distractions and secrets to uncover.

In a sense, it’s the anti-Elden Ring, a perfect palate cleanser for those who have overdosed on video game punishment lately.

Enlarge (credit: Google Play Store)

Google Play Movies & TV—and the Google Play brand in general—seems doomed. Google already pulled the Play Movies & TV app from Rokus and other smart TV platforms last year, and it will now remove the Movies & TV section from the Play Store. The Play Store, which used to offer a large collection of content, now only sells apps and books.

Google posted a message to the Google Play Help community saying that the Movies & TV Play Store section will shut down in May 2022 and that the Google TV app will be the new home for buying movie and TV content from Google on phones and tablets. The company also sells video content through YouTube, and when it shut down the Google Play Movies & TV app on smart TVs, Google pitched the YouTube app as its replacement for purchased content.

So when you buy video content from Google, you use the Google TV or Google Play Movies & TV app to play content on Android, the Google Play Movies & TV app on iOS, and the YouTube app on third-party smart TVs like Roku. “Google TV” isn’t just the name of the phone app and video content store; it’s also the new name of Android TV OS, which you can get on the new Chromecast (it’s also integrated into some Sony and TCL television sets). On those devices, your purchases are built into the operating system. Google Play Movies & TV will be completely dead if Google chooses to shut down the phone apps, and that seems inevitable at this point.

Enlarge / Koch Industries Inc. headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. (credit: Larry W. Smith/Bloomberg)

Koch Industries—the conglomerate owned by Charles Koch and the heirs of David Koch, men who donated heavily to groups that helped politicize the science of climate change—is reportedly investing hundreds of millions of dollars in battery companies.

The privately held company has its fingers in a range of industries, from oil refining to chemical production, lumber and paper mills, glass, and electronics firm Molex, which created a popular computer interconnection. But according to a Wall Street Journal report, Koch Industries has become one of the largest investors in the battery world outside of automakers and their suppliers.

The firm has sunk at least $750 million into battery makers and battery material companies over at least 10 investments, the Journal reports. The sector has experienced rapid growth over the last decade, and battery technology continues to improve at a remarkably steady pace.

Enlarge / The new version of Dishy McFlatface. (credit: Starlink)

Starlink has raised its prices for equipment and monthly service, blaming inflation for the increases in an email to customers. The up-front hardware cost was raised from $499 to $599 (a 20 percent increase), and the monthly service price was raised from $99 to $110 (up 11 percent). People who preordered Starlink and paid deposits but haven’t yet received it will have to pay $549 for the user terminal if they choose to keep their orders.

“Due to excessive levels of inflation, the price of the Starlink kit is increasing from $499 to $549 for deposit holders and $599 for all new orders, effective today. In addition, the Starlink monthly service price will increase from $99 to $110,” Starlink said in an email to customers yesterday.

“Can’t even honor the preorder pricing on the equipment? Brutal,” Jon Guidry of Georgia wrote on Twitter. Guidry forwarded us the email he got from Starlink, which says, “The sole purpose of these adjustments is to keep pace with rising inflation.” People who preorder have to put down a deposit of $99. Those who already did that can cancel the deposit for a full refund on their account page, the email from Starlink notes.

Enlarge / Avery, 6, and Aidan, 11, got their second Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center on Friday, June 25, 2021, as part of the KidCOVE study evaluating the safety and efficacy of the Moderna vaccine in young children. (credit: Getty | MediaNews Group)

Wednesday brought some potentially positive news for the parents and caregivers of young children who have endured an agonizing wait for an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna announced Wednesday that its two-dose vaccine for children ages 6 months to under 6 years appeared safe and produced strong antibody levels that correlate with effectiveness in adults. The company plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the vaccine in the coming weeks.

The trial, a randomized, observer-blind, placebo-controlled study called KidCOVE, involved 6,700 children under 6 years old (4,200 children six months to 2 years and 2,500 children 2 years to under 6 years). Vaccinated children received two 25-microgram doses of vaccine—a quarter of the adult dose—which were given 28 days apart. Neutralizing antibody levels in the vaccinated children met or exceeded those seen in adults ages 18 to 25, for which vaccine is already approved.

Omicron hit

Though the primary objective of the trial was to reach those antibody levels seen in adults—a process called an immunobridging study—the trial also looked at efficacy against infection and severe disease amid the wave of omicron coronavirus variant infections. Phase III trial data indicated that the vaccine was about 44 percent effective at preventing an omicron infection in children ages 6 months to 2 years and 37.5 percent effective against an omicron infection in children ages 2 years to under 6 years.

Enlarge / The electric crossover market is starting to get crowded. This is one of the newest entrants: the Nissan Ariya. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Before Elon Musk and his Model 3, there was another auto executive with grand plans to electrify the car world. That man is Carlos Ghosn, and while he’s more famous these days for his departure from Nissan, he was a driving force behind the company’s Leaf electric vehicle. The Leaf never quite hit Ghosn’s demanding sales expectations—predictions of 1.5 million Leafs per year by 2016—but Nissan had still sold more than half a million by the start of 2020.

Expecting the Leaf to sell in big numbers here in the US was probably asking too much. Apart from small pockets of vocal Internet commentators, most Americans aren’t fans of hatchbacks unless they come with a high hip point and a commanding view of the road. That’s why Nissan’s next EV is landing in the hotly contested crossover segment. The vehicle is called the Ariya, and it goes on sale in the US this fall.

On the outside, it’s roughly the same size and shape as Nissan’s best-selling Rogue: 183 inches (4,648 mm) long, 74.8 inches (1,900 mm) wide, and 65.4 inches (1,661 mm) tall. But the Ariya’s axles are farther apart, and the inherent packaging properties of an electric powertrain mean that the Ariya’s interior volume is closer to Nissan’s larger, more upmarket Murano.