Nuclear Monster

  • Lucas Matney writing for Tech Crunch:

    Today, Microsoft announced that it has received a contract to outfit the United States Army with tens of thousands of augmented reality headsets based on the company’s HoloLens tech. This contract could be worth as much as $21.88 billion over 10 years, the company says.

    Microsoft will be fulfilling an order for 120,000 AR headsets for the Army based on their Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) design. The modified design upgrades the capabilities of the HoloLens 2 for the needs of soldiers in the field.

    Microsoft has a long history of working with the government to help murder people and their GitHub unit famously contracts with ICE and helps to cage children.

  • It’s been almost 7 years since I reviewed Temple Gates Games’ Cannon Brawl, a Worms-like that adds a light real time strategy layer with resourcing and building construction. Since it was released in 2014 on Steam for Windows, macOS, and Linux, Cannon Brawl has also come to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and now Temple Gates Games and Blitworks are bringing Cannon Brawl to the Nintendo Switch eShop on April 14th for $10.

    I’m playing a pre-release version of the game and it is perfect for the Switch. The cannons are just as fun to fire, and the writing is still funny. The campaign is rewarding and teaches players one thing at a time in a fun way before unlocking new characters or other cannon types and upgrades but you can still just jump right into an AI battle or multiplayer. Using two Joy-Cons for single-Switch multiplayer works great. I highly recommend checking out Cannon Brawl on the Switch or revisiting it on any of the other platforms it is on.

  • Every year Apple has their World Wide Developer Conference and due to the current pandemic situation this year’s will again be solely online. Starting June 7th and running through June 11th, you can find out more and see Apple’s animated Memoji tribute to Phil Schiller’s M1 Mac opening here. Typically we hear about upcoming features for their operating systems and sometimes new hardware is announced.

  • Disney has been successful with their decades-old tradition of only releasing movies from the Disney Vault when they’d like more money please, so Nintendo has decided to do something similar and is not going to sell Super Mario 3D All-Stars after today. Super Mario 3D All-Stars was released on September 18th, 2020, and has Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy all either emulated and adjusted or just re-compiled and adjusted for the Nintendo Switch. The Mario compilation is already half back in the vault, several stores have stopped selling it already but there is the caveat that it will continue to be sold at some stores “…while supplies last.” What an odd decision that probably has something to do with their fiscal quarter also ending today.

  • Speaking of Valve’s game streaming technology, their Remote Play Together service that lets people share local multiplayer games over the internet through game streaming now lets up to four players join with just a link, no Steam account required. Valve says that it’ll work for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Only the host needs to own the game.