Native Instruments’ Maschine devices are up to $200 off

If you’re in the market for a music-making machine that just about can do it all, then it’s worth taking a peek at Native Instruments’ latest sale. The company is cutting the price of its Maschine hardware by up to $200 and tossing in some free software expansions for good measure. The pick of the bunch is the Maschine+, which is currently $200 off at $1,199. Even better, if you’re an existing customer, you might qualify for a bigger discount. You’ll find out after you log in.

Buy Maschine+ at Native Instruments – $1,199

With the Maschine+, which it released in 2020, NI stuffed its software into a groovebox — you don’t need a PC to use the instrument. It combines a synth, sampler, sequencer and drum machine.

We gave the Maschine+ a score of 83 in our review, finding it to be high-quality hardware with a respectable range of synth software. We appreciated the fact it can be used as a standalone device as well as a MIDI controller. However, we felt the input and output options were limited and that some of the instruments felt dated.

Elsewhere, you can get $100 off the Maschine (now $599) or $50 off the Maschine Mikro (which has dropped to $219). If you do buy one of these devices, be sure to register the serial number in the Native Access software or directly on the Maschine+. You’ll receive an email with a voucher that will allow you to unlock up to eight expansions at no extra cost. 

The sale and free software offer will run until May 5th. Voucher codes will expire if they aren’t used before June 1st.

Buy Maschine hardware at Native Instruments

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Amazon’s Prime Video and IMDb TV are staying on Roku

Roku users who might be used to major third-party services disappearing for a while (or taking forever to arrive) won’t lose access to Prime Video and IMDb TV any time soon. Amazon and Roku have reached a multi-year deal to keep the apps on the platform.

“Roku and Amazon have reached a multi-year extension for their distribution agreement,” Roku said in a statement. “Customers can continue to access the Prime Video and IMDb TV apps on their Roku devices.” It didn’t disclose terms of the deal.

The Amazon negotiations seem to have gone more smoothly than talks with other streaming services. It took months for Roku to reach a deal with WarnerMedia to get HBO Max on the platform. As for YouTube TV, that vanished from the Roku Channel Store for eight months. The company and Google aired their grievances in public while working on a new deal. Securing all those agreements means users will have access to more of the streaming services they might want to use under one umbrella.

Update 4/4 2:33PM ET: Clarifying that the YouTube TV app was removed from the Channel Store, not the entre Roku platform.

A Monkey Island sequel from creator Ron Gilbert is coming this year

One of the best video game series of all time is making a return in 2022 with some of its key original creatives on board. Return to Monkey Island is “a game by Ron Gilbert,” who conceived the point-and-click comedy-adventure saga in the late ’80s.

Gilbert wrote and directed the original game, The Secret of Monkey Island. He was director, programmer and designer on the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. He left Lucasfilm Games soon after the latter was released, but he was credited on 2009’s Tales of Monkey Island. Gilbert is now back at work on arguably the series he’s best known for as a co-designer and co-writer alongside fellow Monkey Island veteran Dave Grossman.

Return to Monkey Island is in development at Gilbert’s Terrible Toybox. The studio’s working alongside Devolver Digital and Lucasfilm Games on the latest entry. According to the description on a teaser video Devolver posted, it’s a “long-awaited follow-up” to the first two games.

The clip also notes that Michael Land, Peter McConnell and Clint Bajakian — all of whom have previously worked on the series — are handling the music, while Dominic Armato is reprising his role as Guybrush Threepwood. So, it’ll certainly sound like a proper Monkey Island game.

Gilbert tried for years to get back the rights to Monkey Island (and Maniac Mansion) from the Disney-owned Lucasfilm Games to no avail. Still, it’s great to see him and so many other Monkey Island veterans returning to the series. 

This just shot to the top of the list of my most-anticipated games in 2022. Sorry about all the game of the year awards you just lost, Elden Ring.

‘Fortnite’ players raised $144 million for Ukraine relief efforts

Epic Games and Microsoft have wrapped up their campaign to support Ukraine relief efforts through Fortnite after raising an impressive $144 million. Both companies donated their proceeds from the game for the last two weeks to humanitarian causes supporting people affected by the war. The funds will go to Direct Relief, UNICEF, UN World Food Program, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and World Central Kitchen.

The campaign aligned with the start of Fortnite‘s latest season, meaning that many players were buying V-Bucks to unlock the latest Battle Pass and scoop up new in-game items. Epic and Xbox donated their cuts of gifted Battle Passes, Fortnite Crew subscriptions and gift cards redeemed during that time to relief efforts as well.

Aurora from ‘Child of Light’ is the latest playable character in ‘Bloodstained’

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has a new playable character, and it’s one that contrasts a bit with the action RPG’s gothic vibe. In the latest free update for the spiritual successor to Castlevania, developer ArtPlay has added Aurora, the fairy princess heroine from Ubisoft’s Child of Light.

Her arrival could give seasoned Bloodstained players a good reason to play through the Metroidvania again. She has her own moveset and abilities as well as a new storyline with rhyming cutscenes and dialogue inspired by Child of Light. 

Aurora can use a sword and Light Ray ability, and get some help from her companion Igniculus, who can heal her and slow enemies. By defeating opponents, Aurora will gain Shards you can use to upgrade her abilities. The character will also become older and stronger after you kill certain bosses. She’ll be able to fly after she finds wings and swim underwater after she becomes an adult.

While Child of Light is rooted in fairy tales, it too is a 2D action game with elements of darkness, so perhaps it’s not too much of an unexpected choice for a crossover and the final playable character. With her red hair and bright yellow dress, Aurora’s aesthetic might clash a bit with Bloodstained‘s look, but she certainly seems to pack a punch.

You can select Aurora from the main menu now on the PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One versions of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The Nintendo Switch patch will arrive soon.

Brandon Sanderson’s record-breaking Kickstarter campaign ends with $41.7 million

Appropriately enough, the famously fast writer Brandon Sanderson took no time at all to break Pebble’s record for the most-funded Kickstarter project ever. The fantasy and sci-fi author’s project, which is funding the self-publication of four secret novels, topped the $20.3 million that the Pebble Time smartwatch raised in 2015 within just three days. After 30 days, Sanderson’s campaign has now wrapped and, buoyed by his fervent fanbase, he has raised $41,754,153.

Sanderson plans to release all four books next year, three of which are set in his Cosmere universe. His backers will receive them as e-books, audiobooks or physical editions based on their level of backing. The campaign rewards also include eight boxes of swag that backers will receive throughout 2023.

To celebrate his success, Sanderson and his team have donated to all literary projects on Kickstarter that aren’t too unsafe for work and don’t break the platform’s terms of service. As noted by The Mary Sue, they donated to more than 300 projects altogether and highlighted some of them in a video, which should direct some more backers their way. One project the team backed is a parody of Sanderson’s record-breaking campaign called “Surprise! Four secret books NOT by a famous fantasy author!” — Sanderson backed it with $1.

Google tweaks Search and News results to direct people to trusted sources

Google is rolling out some updates for Search and News it hopes will reduce the spread of misinformation. Since last June, the company has applied labels to results for “rapidly evolving topics,” which include things like breaking news and viral videos that are spreading quickly. It may suggest checking back later for more details as they become clearer. Starting in the US (in English) today, the labels will include some information literacy tips.

The idea is to help people assess whether the information they see about a rapidly evolving topic is legitimate. It will suggest actions such as checking the publication date and searching the author’s name to find out if they’re credible. Taking information at face value is rarely the wisest approach, so it’s good to see Google encouraging users to dig a little deeper.

In Google News, there will be a new label in Top Stories to indicate sources that have been widely cited by other news organizations. It may be applied to things like a news story from local newspapers, an interview, an investigative feature, an announcement or even a press release that other publishers have linked to. Google says it’s interested in using the label to highlight original reporting as well.

Again, the aim is to help users find more relevant and helpful information. The label will initially be available on mobile in the US (again, only in English). Google plans to roll it out worldwide in the coming weeks.

Here are some of the best storage deals we’ve seen on World Backup Day

Today is World Backup Day and to mark the occasion, retailers including Amazon and Best Buy are offering some solid deals on storage. Amazon’s sale includes an all-time low price for SanDisk’s 1TB Extreme microSDXC UHS-I memory card. It has dropped by $35 from $175 to $140 in a one-day-only deal. If you’re looking to seriously upgrade the amount of storage available on your Nintendo Switch, that’s not a bad option.

Shop storage deals at Amazon

Also falling to an all-time-low price for today only is the 500GB version of Samsung’s T7 Touch SSD. The external drive has a fingerprint sensor you can use to keep your data secure. It’s currently $80, which is a temporary drop of $30. The deal only applies to the silver model, unfortunately, and not the black version. The larger-capacity models, which you can find on the same page, have been discounted too.

Elsewhere, SanDisk’s 2TB Extreme Portable SSD has been reduced to its second-best price ever. The price of the rugged drive has dropped significantly from $460 to $200 — you’ll save $260. Again, this deal is only available for today only.

Shop storage deals at Best Buy

Meanwhile, Best Buy’s World Backup Day sale isn’t quite as extensive, but there are still some good deals to be found, especially if you could do with adding a ton of storage to your backup process. Take, for instance, the 14TB version of WD’s Easystore External USB 3.0 Hard Drive. The price has dropped by $163 to $200. As with the Amazon deals mentioned above, the offer is only available today.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Google will use AI to better detect and address personal crisis searches

Google plans to use artificial intelligence in more ways to make using search safer. In the coming weeks, it will roll out some updates for its AI model, MUM. The upgrades should help it detect a wider variety of personal crisis searches about sexual assault, substance abuse, domestic violence and suicide.

The company says people search for information about these topics in a broad range of ways. By employing MUM’s machine learning capabilities, Google says it can better understand the intent behind queries to recognize when someone is in need. As such, it’ll be able to provide them with more actionable, reliable information at the appropriate time.

With the help of local partners, the company plans to use the AI to improve how it handles personal crisis searches in other countries in the coming months, since MUM can translate knowledge between 75 languages. Google says it will harness the model in other ways, including to improve spam protections and enhance safety measures in countries where it doesn’t have much training data.

Other companies have been making use of multimodal AI systems similar to MUM. Meta, for instance, said it has been using AI to tackle hate speech and misinformation across its platforms in recent years. Its AI models can also obtain knowledge by analyzing videos and use that information in new products. Meanwhile, China’s Wu Dao seems to be the Swiss army knife of AI models. It can write essays, poems and couplets in traditional Chinese, analyze images to generate alt text, create almost-photorealistic images from written descriptions and much more.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), 686868 (Canada), or 85258 (UK). Wikipedia maintains a list of crisis lines for people outside of those countries.