Logitech announced the G Cloud Gaming Handheld earlier today. The new device comes with apps for some of the biggest cloud gaming services pre-installed, and you may be wondering what the point of it is when we all have very powerful phones with great screens. Don’t worry, I answered this question months ago when I wrote about just how bad phones are for serious cloud gaming! I cannot wait until we can run this thing through its paces and see if it gives us the cloud gaming hardware we need.

Deathloop’s perfunctory endings were a weak spot in a game full of great ideas, so I’m intrigued to hear that on top of new weapons and trinkets, the Goldenloop update contains an enigmatic “extended ending.” I’m not sure what that means, but it’s enough to make me consider booting the game up again. Besides, I could murder Aleksis much more elegantly this time.

It’s no secret that once Apple does something, the industry tends to follow, so it’s not much of a surprise that we’re already seeing Dynamic Island clones materialize. Last week we saw MIUI (the Android-based software on Xiaomi phones) themers incorporate Dynamic Island-like ideas into their software, and today 9to5Google reports that Redmi is asking its fans to come up with ideas for what a “Redmi Island” could look like. Apparently Redmi wants to use to display alerts like incoming calls, notifications, and more.
Sure sounds familiar.

Elon Musk’s company is getting ready to debut its supposedly not-fake humanoid robot, Optimus, during its “AI Day” event September 30th. What evidence do we have that it won’t just be another a person in a spandex robot costume doing an extremely awkward dance? There have been meetings! And job postings! And Elon tweeted that there may be a working prototype! Look, this will either be a major breakthrough in the field of robotics or a spectacular flop. But considering Musk has already solved the problem of self-driving cars, I’m inclined to— what’s that? [touches earpiece] I’m being told he hasn’t solved the problem of self-driving cars? And that humanoid robots could prove even more difficult? Oh well, then bring on the spandex dancers I guess.

You have to watch this video, and PC Gamer’s writeup is also great.

Accuracy and timing determine how well you play, with little words popping up to tell you how you’re doing. Words like Perfecto! Or Nice! If you’re sucking, as I typically do, you’ll get a Meh or sometimes a Nasty, which is maybe the funniest word to use to describe someone playing a trombone poorly.

The game has had 1 million players, “both new and returning,” each day this week, according to developer CD Projekt Red. Interest is likely up due to a big new update and the well-received Netflix anime.

The obvious example is Peter Thiel naming his surveillance company Palantir (after an unspeakably evil scrying artifact that irreversibly corrupts its users?) but once you notice one profile of an alt-right or extremist figure mentioning how much they love Lord of the Rings, you start seeing it everywhere — including the footnotes of specious lawsuits attempting to undermine the 2020 election.

Anyways, you should read this, about an ascendant hard-right politician in Italy, whose politics are intertwined with high fantasy fandom in a way that will be unsettling to nerds of good conscience. And if you want to read more about Italy’s neo-fascist Camp Hobbit youth rallies in the 1970s, Atlas Obscura has you covered.

The US government’s two biggest antitrust regulators — FTC chair Lina Khan and Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter — appeared for a Senate Oversight hearing on Tuesday, and there were two quick takeaways:

1) Republicans still are eager to notch some kind of win against Khan and the Democratic FTC majority

2) They don’t really know how to do it yet.

Expect a lot of fireworks here if Republicans take back the Senate majority in November.

“Hundreds of Twitter employees have fled since June,” according to Insider’s sources. That’s just over a month after Twitter agreed to sell the company to Musk — or, about as long as it’d take a highly qualified engineer to find a new job.

The company is down about 700 employees, according to the report, with many citing Musk and the acquisition as the reason why.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but it feels weird to release a slick trailer like this for a product without an official release date? Regardless, the ad offers a pretty nice summary of the headset’s key features, which you can also read about in our recent hands-on preview. The PS VR2 is currently scheduled for release in “early 2023.”

Going on The Talk Show to dive deep on our iPhone reviews has become one of my favorite yearly traditions. A little bit of Apple Watch Ultra conversation in there too — and yes, I asked John what he thought of our redesign fonts.

according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s a totally fascinating match: YouTube has always seen itself as a music service, even though nobody else really sees it that way, and talks a lot about how much it pays labels and artists. Warner needs to figure out how to get more money out of YouTube — and TikTok, and Fortnite, and the other platforms. Robert Kyncl’s going to be trying to improve the deals Robert Kyncl helped broker!