Amid the deluge of all the Star Trek shows CBS has produced since bringing the franchise back to TV in 2017, Lower Decks has stood out for its fun and smart take on Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi universe. Last October, season two ended on a cliffhanger with the Federation arresting Captain Freeman for allegedly destroying the Pakled planet. An ominous “To be continued…” left the fate of the loveable crew of the USS Cerritos unclear.
On Saturday, we got a clue as to what happens next on the show, with CBS sharing the first trailer for season three of Lower Decks. And wouldn’t you know it, after stepping up to the occasion, it looks like Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford are back to their usual hijinks with an ill-advised plan to hijack the Cerritos from drydock. “This is for the captain,” one of them declares as the camera pans to a shot of the starship without its hull plating and another voice questions the sanity of the entire plan. “Are you stealing the Cerritos!?” they yell. We can’t wait to see how things pan out.
In the US, you can watch the first two seasons of Lower Decks on Paramount+. Alongside the premiere of Strange New Worlds on May 5th, season three is one of a handful of Star Trek properties that will hit the streaming service before the end of the year.
NASA has once again delayed the final test of its next-generation Space Launch System. The agency spent much of last weekend conducting a “wet dress rehearsal” of its upcoming Artemis 1 Moon mission. The test was designed to replicate the mission’s countdown procedure and was mostly moving along according to plan until NASA encountered a problem with the SLS’s mobile launcher platform.
The issue prevented the agency from safely loading the rocket with liquid propellant, and NASA delayed the critical test to troubleshoot the problem. It had initially planned to resume the test on April 9th to accommodate Axiom’s Space historic Ax-1 flight but announced today it was further delaying the trial to the start of next week. It also announced it would modify the test after engineers noticed a problem with a helium check valve designed to prevent the gas from escaping the SLS. The modified test will see NASA primarily focus on fueling the rocket’s core stage, with “minimal propellant operations” of its upper stage.
“Due to the changes in loading procedures required for the modified test, wet dress rehearsal testing is slated to resume with call to stations on Tuesday, April 12th and tanking on Thursday, April 14th,” NASA said.
Once the test is complete, NASA can finally move forward with Artemis 1. The mission will send an unmanned Orion capsule on a flight around the Moon designed to study how the trip will affect human astronauts. The agency won’t set a date for the mission until it completes the wet dress rehearsal. If it doesn’t encounter any further setbacks this week, Artemis 1 could lift off as early as this June.
Google has blocked Russia’s Duma TV YouTube channel, according to Reuters. On Saturday, the company said it had “terminated” the channel, which airs meetings of Russia’s lower house of parliament, for a violation of the platform’s terms of service.
“If we find that an account violates our Terms of Service, we take appropriate action,” a Google spokesperson told the outlet. “Our teams are closely monitoring the situation for any updates and changes.” The company added it was committed to complying with sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in late February.
The suspension quickly drew the ire of Russian officials, with a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry warning YouTube had “signed its own warrant.” Russia’s Roskomnadzor telecom regulator condemned the move and ordered Google to restore Duma TV’s YouTube access immediately. “The American IT company adheres to a pronounced anti-Russian position in the information war unleashed by the West against our country,” the agency said.
The response from Russian authorities suggests YouTube could become the latest Western internet service to face restrictions within the country. Shortly after the war in Ukraine began on February 24th, Russia moved to block access to Twitter. In March, it then cut off Facebook and Instagram – but not WhatsApp due to the chat app’s popularity among Russian citizens. It subsequently found the Meta-owned services guilty of “extremist” activity after the company said it would temporarily allow calls of violence in Ukraine and a handful of other countries.
This winter, I spent $160 (or, $200 CAD for me) to buy a new gaming mouse. I’ve never owned one that cost more than about $50. My previous one was the Logitech G305. And before that, I owned a SteelSeries Sensei 310. If you’re not familiar with the G305, it’s one of the best wireless mice you can buy for under $50. Thanks to its Hero sensor, it’s as fast and accurate as some of the most expensive gaming mice on the market. Another highlight is that it draws on an AA battery for power, meaning you can go up to 250 hours of uptime on a single charge. For most people, including those who play competitive games, I think the G305 is about all the mouse they need.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
So why did I decide to trade in a perfectly good mouse for one many times its price? For me, it came down to build quality. By the time I decided to pick up the Logitech G Pro X Superlight, the scroll wheel on my G305 was starting to get mushy, and the back battery cover would creak when I put the palm of my hand on it. And by that point, I had been eyeing the Superlight ever since Logitech announced it in 2020.
If you spend a lot of time watching videos on YouTube about PC gaming, you know the appeal of this mouse. Logitech claims it weighs less than 63 grams, making it one of the lightest you can buy at the moment. As someone who plays a lot of Valorant and League of Legends, a lightweight mouse is appealing because it allows you to be both fast and accurate with your mouse movements. The reason for this is that you can maintain a low DPI (a setting that determines the sensitivity of your mouse) while still quickly flicking it across your mousepad, thanks to its light weight.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
There are mice you can buy that are even lighter than the G Pro X, but almost all of them use a perforated design where the main body of the mouse features a honeycomb-like pattern of holes. But that can compromise build quality – a mouse with holes won’t feel as solid as one without because, well, it has holes.
Instead, the G Pro X represents a different kind of compromise. It features the same body design as Logitech’s incredibly popular G Pro Wireless, but it doesn’t have all of the same features. It doesn’t come with RGB lighting or even a DPI switch for quickly adjusting its sensitivity on the fly. But the most notable omission is that the Superlight doesn’t come with a second set of buttons on the right side of the mouse. Sorry, lefties.
But here’s the thing: I don’t mind that it’s missing those features. Maybe my opinion would change if I was left-handed, but I’m not, and I think the white model looks great without RGB lighting. It’s also not a deal breaker for me that it doesn’t come with a DPI switch since I can recall situations with my old G305 where I accidentally clicked that button during a crucial moment in a game.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
Put differently, I could live without those features, but I didn’t want another mouse that would wear down on me. And the G Pro X Superlight has yet to disappoint on that front. It features Omron switches that produce a satisfying click whenever you press down on the left and right buttons, and it has one of the best scroll wheels I’ve ever used on a mouse. The plastic also has yet to develop the shine you see when it gets worn down in certain areas. This thing is built to last.
I also found the features that make the Superlight a great gaming mouse lend it just as well to productivity use. It doesn’t include Bluetooth connectivity, but what it does have is a clever magnetized storage compartment for storing its wireless dongle. Pair that with its light design, and you have a great travel mouse. It also features a shape I find works well with my palm grip style, making it ideal for long Lightroom and Photoshop sessions.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
Yes, $160 is a lot to spend on a mouse, but it got me one of the best gaming mice on the market. When you think about how much it costs to buy the “best” graphics card, monitor or almost anything else gaming-related, you’re looking ahead at spending upwards of thousands of dollars. The G Pro X Superlight didn’t cost me that much, and I got a mouse that’s great not just for gaming, but for everything else I use my computer for.
At I/O 2021, Google announced it was using a new technology called Multitask Unified Model to enhance the capabilities of its search engine. Then, in September of that same year, it showed off how MUM would make it possible to search images and text simultaneously within Google Lens. At the time, the company promised that multisearch would launch “in the coming months.” And while it’s not using MUM to enhance searches just yet, it has started beta testing multisearch.
Google
Provided you live in the US, you can try the feature out in the Google app on Android and iOS. To do so, tap the Lens icon and then swipe up after snapping a new photo or importing an existing image from your camera roll. Then tap the “Add to your search” icon.
You can use this field to either ask questions about the image before you or to refine your search. For instance, you could take a photo of your bike’s rear derailleur (the component that moves the chain from one gear to another) and then search for how to fix or adjust it on your own. By combining text and images, Google suggests it’s making it easier to complete searches where doing so with words alone might be tricky. After all, even most casual cyclists don’t know what a derailleur is or what it does.
Google
As mentioned already, you can also use the feature to refine your searches. So say you see a shirt with a pattern you like but want to see if that same pattern is available on socks and other items of clothing. You could type “white floral Victorian socks” into Google, but again that would depend on you having the fashion vocabulary to know what you want from Google, and even if you accurately describe what you see, the search engine might not produce useful results. At the moment, Google suggests the feature works best when posed shopping-related searches such as the one pictured above.
“All this is made possible by our latest advancements in artificial intelligence, which is making it easier to understand the world around you in more natural and intuitive ways,” Google said. “We’re also exploring ways in which this feature might be enhanced by MUM – our latest AI model in Search – to improve results for all the questions you could imagine asking.”
Remedy is remaking Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, the Finnish studio said it was working with Rockstar Games to fully remaster the first two games in its cult classic third-person shooter series for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
We are pleased to announce that we will remake the iconic Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, in a new development agreement with Rockstar Games.
Under a new publishing agreement between the two companies, Rockstar will fund the project “in line with a typical Remedy AAA-game production.” What’s more, the studio will rebuild the games in its in-house Northlight Engine, the same engine Remedy used for its most recent title, Control. Nearly three years after its 2019 release, Control is still one of the best-looking games on both PC and consoles thanks to its implementation of ray-tracing.
“We were thrilled when our long-time friends at Remedy approached us about remaking the original Max Payne games,” said Rockstar Games co-founder Sam Houser. “We are massive fans of the work the Remedy team has created over the years and we can’t wait to play these new versions.”
Released in 2001, Max Payne was the game that put Remedy on the map and established the studio’s signature storytelling style. It was also one of the first games to include the bullet-time effect made popular by The Matrix. Two years later, Remedy released The Fall of Max Payne. Rockstar published both games before it went on to develop the third and currently final entry in the series on its own.
THQ Nordic will host its second annual digital showcase on August 12th, the publisher announced on Wednesday. The company said it would announce new games as well as share updates on previously announced ones during the event, with the entire proceedings available to watch via Twitch, Steam and YouTube starting at 3PM ET.
Based on the trailer the company shared, fans can look forward to updates on SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake and Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed, among other titles. With the Entertainment Software Association not moving forward with an E3 this year, it’s likely more publishers will soon announce similar events timed for the summer months of the year. In announcing its showcase so early and months after the traditional start of E3, it’s likely the company wants to create a space for itself where it doesn’t have to compete with bigger publishers like Microsoft and Sony for attention.
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