Netflix today closed one of its internal game studios, one which was poised to release a triple-A title, before it was able to produce anything. The studio was called Team Blue, founded in 2022 and based on Los Angeles, and was allegedly working on a PC game. As a result of this studio closure, the company has also lost the talent it very publicly hired, and has also reportedly made other layoffs in its games division.

Game File reported the closure, saying that Team Blue was working on a “big-budget multi-device strategy” at the time. To staff out this new studio, Netflix hired several recognizable names from major games companies — including studio lead Chacko Sonny, formerly Overwatch’s executive producer; creative director Joseph Staten, formerly creative lead on Halo; and art director Rafael Grassetti, formerly of Sony Santa Monica. According to the Game File report, all three have left the company with the closure of the LA studio.

Netflix has several internal studios where it’s building games for its platform. It acquired the likes of Night School, Boss Fight, Next Games and Spry Fox, and built two studios of its own — aside from Team Blue, it also has a studio in Helsinki. At present, those studios all appear to be intact, though a recent report from Business Insider suggests that Netflix has laid off several people within its games division.

The streaming company has also shifted its games strategy this year, as Mike Verdu, who spearheaded its games initiative, shifted to a new role. It also hired Alain Tascan as its president of games earlier this year. Shortly before Tascan’s hiring, Netflix’s VP of external games Leanne Loombe told the Washington Post that the company wanted to take a mobile-first approach to games launches, and mentioned that Netflix’s subscribers appear to favor short, “snackable” mobile games.

Almost exactly two years after releasing the Orba 2, Artiphon is completing the trilogy. The newly announced Orba 3 finds the Nashville-based startup baking live sampling into its clever handheld instrument. The feature arrives by way of a built-in microphone, which lets users record their voice, instruments, and other sounds.

All of that can be accomplished on-device, meaning there’s no need for an external system to load sounds onto the instrument. Instead, you click the big, red Sample button on the side, record a sound, and that’s pretty much it.

Switching the Orba into one of the four different modes — bass, chord, drum, lead — assigns different properties to the sound. It’s a clever addition to what was already an extremely fun little gadget.

“In Drum mode, each pad can hold a unique sample, while in Chord mode, samples are automatically tuned to fit musical chords,” the company explains. “This is made possible by a sophisticated sound engine that automatically crops, tunes, and perfects the audio.”

Advertisement

As with its predecessors, the Orba 3 can be used as a MIDI controller when connected to an external device via USB-C.

The instrument is available for $160 on Artiphon’s website. The Orba 2 is sticking around, meanwhile, now priced at $120. Artiphon announced the Chorda last year, which TechCrunch described as a mashup between Orba and the company’s first offering, Instrument 1.

Boox has announced the Palma 2, the next version of its popular smartphone-sized e-reader. The Palma 2 addresses some of the original’s shortcomings, with a faster processor to address the original’s laggy interface and by running a newer version of Android.

But it was the Palma’s compact size and access to thousands of apps that helped it become a popular Kindle and Kobo alternative, and Boox isn’t messing with that formula for the Palma 2. It features the same 6.13-inch 300ppi E Ink Carta 1200 screen as the original (a generation behind what’s found in the latest Kindle Paperwhite) and once again comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Although Boox hasn’t shared specific details, it says the new Palma 2 now runs a “faster octa-core CPU,” which will hopefully help speed up the new e-reader’s interface. It also runs Android 13 instead of Android 11. That’s still a few generations behind the latest version of Android, but it means the Palma 2 will get newer features like improved copying and pasting. It should also give the e-reader a few more years over the original before apps stop supporting its version of the OS.

The other notable upgrade for the Palma 2 is the addition of a fingerprint sensor integrated into its power button, making it easier to secure the device while still being able to quickly unlock it with just one hand.

Although leaked images from earlier this week suggested Boox could be eliminating cameras from its smartphone-sized e-readers, that was only the case for a version of the Palma limited to China. The Palma 2 has the same 16MP rear camera with flash as the original, which the company suggests is useful for digitizing documents.

Alongside the Palma 2, Boox also announced two new e-paper note-taking devices. The 10.3-inch Note Air4 C features the latest-gen Kaleido 3 color E Ink display with improved refresh rates and an octa-core processor that Boox says makes the tablet 50 percent faster than the previous model. The $499.99 Note Air4 C also runs Android 13 and has a new “tablet-like UI” that the company says makes it easier to customize its homescreen and organize apps.

The new Boox Note Max is a black-and-white, stylus-capable tablet featuring a larger 13.3-inch E Ink Carta 1300 display powered by a 2.8GHz octa-core CPU. At just 4.6 millimeters thick, the Note Max is almost half as thick as the Boox Palma 2. But unlike Boox’s other two devices introduced today, it won’t be available for preorder from the company’s online store for a few more weeks.

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket on Sunday on its boldest test flight yet, catching the returning booster back at the pad with mechanical arms.

Towering almost 400 feet (121 metres), the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after liftoff or while ditching into the sea. The last one in June was the most successful yet, completing its flight without exploding.

This time, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk upped the challenge and risk. The company brought the first-stage booster back to land at the pad from which it had soared seven minutes earlier. The launch tower sported monstrous metal arms, dubbed chopsticks, that caught the descending 232-foot (71-metre) booster.

The tower has caught the rocket!! Musk said via X.

Company employees screamed in joy as the booster slowly lowered itself into the launch tower’s arms.

Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic, SpaceX’s Dan Huot observed from near the launch site. I am shaking right now.”

Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books, added SpaceX’s Kate Tice from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

It was up to the flight director to decide, in real time with a manual control, whether to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in good, stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the gulf like the previous ones. Everything was judged to be ready for the catch.

The retro-looking stainless steel spacecraft on top continued around the world once free of the booster, targeting a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean, where it would sink to the bottom. The entire flight was expected to last just over an hour.

The June flight came up short at the end after pieces came off. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.

SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years, after delivering satellites and crews to orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating ocean platforms or on concrete slabs several miles from their launch pads not on them.

Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone. NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually Mars.