A new Resident Evil reboot from Barbarian writer and director Zach Cregger is in the works, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publication reports that Cregger is on board to write and direct the movie, which will be produced by Constantin Film and PlayStation Productions, with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapter 4 ) as co-writer. I’m probably not the only one questioning whether we really need another Resident Evil movie after half a dozen titles in the Milla Jovovich-led series and 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City, but as someone who loved Barbarian, I can’t say I’m not intrigued.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, “Cregger’s take is described by sources as a revamp that will take the title to its horror roots and be more faithful to the initial games.” There aren’t any details about the upcoming movie beyond that, but Warner Bros., Netflix and two other studios are reportedly in a bidding war for it.
When President Biden took office back in 2021, he issued severalexecutive orders to address climate change. Now, the reverse is happening. President Trump is in charge now and he is signing EOs at a fevered pace. Many of these actions seek to limit or reverse any changes made by the Biden administration, taking the oft-used “head in the sand” approach to climate policy. Trump’s first step was to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement… again.
Trump began the executive order deluge by rescinding 78 of the Biden administration’s EOs, including one on AI guidelines, before implementing a federal hiring freeze and mandating no new regulations. Keep in mind that an EO cannot change a law or regulation, but that won’t stop Trump from trying. In other words, some of this stuff will end up mired in lengthy legal battles.
Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement during his first term and then Biden reinstated it. Now, history repeats itself. The president has once again taken the US off the agreement roster. This puts the US as one of the few nations that aren’t part of the 2015 accord, joining Iran, Libya, South Sudan, Eritrea and Yemen.
This also means that the US is likely dropping any pledges it made under the pact, including a promise of climate aid for developing nations and a commitment to cut emissions up to 66 percent by 2035. The Trump administration has to notify the United Nations in writing of its intention to withdraw from the accord, which will take a year to become official.
Canoo said on Friday night that it has and “will cease operations effective immediately,” after failing to secure enough funding to keep it going. The writing was on the wall for the EV startup leading up to the announcement; the company has lost multiple executives in recent months, and reported to the SEC in November that it had just $700,000 in the bank, per .
In a press release announcing the filing, Canoo said it was unable to get funding from the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office or from “foreign sources of capital” that executives had been in talks with. “In light of the fact that these efforts were unsuccessful, the Board has made the difficult decision to file for insolvency,” it said. Canoo owes a total of over $164 million to hundreds creditors, and has about $126 million in assets, according to TechCrunch. Under the filing in Delaware, Canoo’s assets will be liquidated and the proceeds will be distributed to its creditors. In a statement, CEO Tony Aquila said, “We are truly disappointed that things turned out as they did.”
Xbox has announced a few more sustainability efforts, including an expansion of its repairability program. You’ll be able to buy official replacement parts for Xbox Series X/S systems from the and so you can repair your console yourself, even if it’s out of warranty. Until now, Microsoft had only through its own store, but now you can buy components for the Series S and both the and disc drive editions of the Series X. Along with various parts and step-by-step repair guides, iFixit also has an Xbox toolkit for sale.
Meanwhile, as of January 20, uBreakiFix by Asurion will be the first Xbox Authorized Service Provider. It will repair the consoles at nearly 700 participating locations in the US. Previously, authorized in-person Xbox repairs were only available at the Microsoft Store, so gamers will have many more places where they can go to get their console fixed without breaking the warranty.
These are positive steps forward for the right-to-repair movement. They should help reduce the number of games consoles that are consigned to the scrapheap.
“By expanding the number of ways players can get support and repair for their Xbox consoles, we also help extend the longevity of Xbox devices, reduce waste, promote re-use and ultimately reduce our environmental impact,” Trista Patterson, director of gaming sustainability at Xbox, wrote in an . In addition, there are no longer any single-use plastics in Xbox Series X/S packaging following a switch to fully paper- and fiber-based materials.
Elsewhere on the sustainability front, Microsoft says that, through recent efficiencies in how the Xbox Series S handles video content, there’s been an average power reduction of 10 percent while media apps are in use. As for the company’s game studios, they’ve been using the Xbox Sustainability Toolkit to make more energy-efficient games, Microsoft says.
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After a more than two-year investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Elon Musk over his delayed disclosure of the Twitter stock he amassed before announcing his intention to acquire the company in 2022.
In a court filing, the SEC says that Musk filed paperwork with the SEC disclosing his purchase of Twitter shares 11 days after an SEC-mandated deadline to do so. (Federal law, as the SEC notes in its statement, requires investors to publicly report when they have acquired a more than 5 percent stake in a company.) This delay, according to the regulator, allowed Musk to buy up even more Twitter stock at a time when other investors were unaware of his involvement with the company.
During the period that Musk was required to publicly disclose his beneficial ownership but had failed to do so, he spent more than $500 million purchasing additional shares of Twitter common stock. Because Musk failed to timely disclose his beneficial ownership, he was able to make these purchases from the unsuspecting public at artificially low prices, which did not yet reflect the undisclosed material information of Musk’s beneficial ownership of more than five percent of Twitter common stock and investment purpose. In total, Musk underpaid Twitter investors by more than $150 million for his purchases of Twitter common stock during this period. Investors who sold Twitter common stock during this period did so at artificially low prices and thus suffered substantial economic harm.
The regulator has been investigating Musk for years, and has long been at odds with the owner of X. At one point, the SEC accused Musk of attempting to stall and use “gamesmanship” to delay its investigation into his investment in Twitter. Last month, Musk shared a copy of a letter addressed to SEC Chair Gary Gensler in which Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, accused the regulator of “six years of harassment” targeting Musk. The letter indicated that Musk refused a settlement offer from the SEC related to its Twitter investigation.
Musk also faced a from other Twitter investors and an related to the delayed disclosure. However, as The New York Times, it’s unclear if the SEC’s latest action will amount to much, as Gensler is expected to step down following the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement to The Times, Spiro called the SEC’s action a “a single-count ticky-tack complaint,” calling it “an admission by the S.E.C. that they cannot bring an actual case.”
Amazon is shutting down its Try Before You Buy Prime program at the end of January. The move, first reported by The Information, was announced with a notice at the top of the Prime Try Before You Buy page, which puts its last day in effect as January 31. The service has been available to members since 2018, when it was first launched as Prime Wardrobe. With it, you could choose up to six items to try on, and send back whatever you didn’t want within a week for free. You’d only be charged for the items you decided to keep, and you could pick from select clothes, shoes, jewelry and accessories.
In a statement to CNBC, an Amazon spokesperson said, “Given the combination of Try Before You Buy only scaling to a limited number of items and customers increasingly using our new AI-powered features like virtual try-on, personalized size recommendations, review highlights, and improved size charts to make sure they find the right fit, we’re phasing out the Try Before You Buy option, effective January 31, 2025.” If you’re someone who still makes use of this service, you’d better get those last orders in quick.
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WeWalk introduced a new version of its smart cane for people with visual impairments at CES 2025, bringing a redesign that addresses many of the first model’s shortcomings and adds AI features and more advanced sensors from TDK. It’s positioned as an alternative to the traditional foldable white cane. Co-founder Kursat Ceylan, who has been blind since birth, says Smart Cane 2 can make mobility easier and safer, offering features like turn-by-turn navigation and obstacle detection, along with a ChatGPT-powered voice assistant that puts on-demand information in users’ hands without the need for them to also juggle a smartphone.
The WeWalk Smart Cane 2 has a slimmer handle than its predecessor, which should make for a more comfortable grip, and the company says it’s now about as lightweight as a standard white cane. It has tactile buttons to be more user-friendly, doing away with the touchpad of the previous model that some people found to be difficult to use. Ceylan says it can be used in different weather conditions, not just when it’s warm and dry (WeWalk describes the new cane as “rainwater-resistant”). The battery life is about 20 hours.
“You can fold and unfold it when you need it. There’s a speaker, a microphone, obstacle detection technology and a flashlight to make visually impaired people more visible at night. And also it has motion sensors in itself to provide a more accurate navigation experience,” Ceylan explained.
Under the hood, the WeWalk Smart Cane 2 has an ultrasonic time-of-flight sensor, an inertial measurement unit with six-axis motion tracking, a pulse density modulated microphone and a barometric pressure sensor from electronics company TDK. When it detects something ahead, it alerts the user with both haptic and audio feedback, according to Ceylan.
He demonstrated this in the very cramped, noisy environment of the Las Vegas Convention Center, and I was able to hear over the crowd when the cane told him he was approaching an obstacle — in this case, a carpeted step marked with yellow and black tape that I saw multiple CES attendees stumble over during our conversation. It also can connect to headphones via Bluetooth.
Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget
Paired with your smartphone, it can give navigation instructions and information about your surroundings, as well as public transportation options. “You can hear the names of stores and restaurants you are passing by,” he says. In Starbucks, where he isn’t able to read the menu, he says he might ask the assistant if they sell chocolate croissants.
“You don’t need to hold your smartphone anymore while you are going somewhere,” Ceylan said. “You can put it into your pocket and then you can get all the information through your WeWalk smart cane.” There is a smartphone interface for those who want to use it, though, which he held up through the demo so I could see what was going on on the other end. Unlike the vast majority of products I’ve encountered at CES this year that seem to include AI or ChatGPT for no real reason other than the fact that they can, this actually felt like a situation where it makes sense and could even be pretty beneficial.
Since it’s brand new, we don’t yet know how all of this will translate to real-world use. Pre-orders are now open for the WeWalk Smart Cane 2, and the first wave is expected to start shipping before the end of this month. There are two price models: $850 for the smart cane plus a subscription for the voice assistant that costs $4.99 per month, or $1150 altogether with no additional subscription fee for full use of the AI. WeWalk Smart Cane 2 is available internationally.
The London-based startup also has a partnership with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) that kicks off in February, when the organization will start using the WeWalk Smart Cane 2 for its cane training program. The goal is to gather meaningful data for instructors so they can really understand how people are using mobility canes (AI-enabled or otherwise), and help them get the most out of the tools. That, Ceylan says, “is so important, because the better you get around, the better you engage in life.”
Update, January 9 2025, 11:55AM ET: This story has been updated to add details on the smart cane’s battery life.
At CES 2017, Faraday Future introduced its futuristic luxury EV, the FF 91. Seven years later, following repeated delays, bankruptcy, lawsuits and other controversies, the company has sold “15 or 16” FF 91s. Now the company is detailing its latest strategy shift, with a plan to sell cheap EVs under its new low-cost “FX” brand. FX CEO Max Ma came to CES, along with two prototype vehicles, to pitch the plan that he described as a “fresh start” for the embattled company.
As you might expect with Faraday, the exact details are somewhat hazy, but it involves sourcing parts from Chinese car-makers and bringing them to the US to produce “mass volume mainstream vehicles” with some of the premium touches Faraday is known for. “We want to take that $300,000-car expertise from a technology and features and performance [standpoint] into a $30,000, $40,000 car to try to upgrade the overall user experience,” Ma said during a briefing with Engadget. The first FX vehicle, the flagship product of the brand’s lineup, will be a minivan (or, as Ma referred to it, “an AI MPV”) called the “Super One.”
Faraday showed off two prototype minivans to demonstrate the concept. We were not permitted to take photos but the vehicles in the photo at the top of this post are the ones I saw.
One was meant to show the kind of premium in-cabin experience Faraday is envisioning for the low-cost car. It had two rows of white leather captain seats. The second-row seats had reclining footrests, heated seats and built-in massagers. There was also a small fridge underneath the center console for keeping drinks cold. The vehicle was missing its door handles and several other pieces. “Obviously, we’ll have door handles,” a Faraday rep assured us.
The second minivan was even less finished. The entire interior, including the dashboard and instrument cluster, was covered in black fabric held together with binder clips. But a Faraday rep took me and other reporters for a ride in it, driving in small, slow circles around a Las Vegas parking lot. Later, Faraday offered to let me take the minivan for a spin and I — apparently the “first lady” to pilot the vehicle — also drove it in slow circles around the parking lot. I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of it, though, it felt like driving a minivan.
There are two other vehicles planned for the initial FX lineup, the FX 5 and FX 6, which were previously announced by the company. Faraday is aiming for a $20,000 – $30,000 price for the FX 5 and $30,000 – $50,000 for the FX 6. There aren’t many other details yet about either, though Faraday shared a teaser image of an FX 6 prototype, which it described as an “extra-large luxury AIEV.”
Faraday Future
Faraday claims it will start producing one of its planned vehicles later this year, with the first “pre-production” model rolling off the production line by the end of 2025, according to a timeline shared by Ma. That’s a lofty promise considering the company’s past history of mismanagement and delays. Faraday Future CEO Matthias Aydt also acknowledged that the company has yet to finalize its partnerships with the companies that will supply its parts. He also didn’t address how tariffs may affect those plans.
Ma said he understood the skepticism. “Basically, this is a kind of fresh start. We really want to demonstrate that through our dedication of hard work, we can achieve what we promised.”
Belkin has a new phone accessory at CES 2025 that somehow brings something fresh to the crowded field of magnetic charging accessories (in other words, MagSafe and non-Apple-certified alternatives). The company’s Stage PowerGrip is a wireless power bank, camera-like grip and stand rolled into one. It even has a little screen and comes in several fun colors.
Belkin pitches the PowerGrip as an accessory for creators and travelers. While modern smartphones are all most people need for photography, holding a candy-bar-shaped handset in landscape mode for long periods doesn’t feel as comfortable or natural as the heartier grip of a dedicated camera. This accessory remedies that with a thick bulge similar to what you’d find on a DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Belkin
Inside that lump is its 10,000mAh battery, which offers 7.5W magnetic wireless charging. An LED on its backside gives you a quick way to check its battery level. And a retractable USB-C cable is tucked inside the accessory, so you don’t need to remember to throw a separate one in your bag.
Belkin says the PowerGrip will be available in powder blue, sandbox, fresh yellow, pepper and lavender (the company’s press images show a sixth black option, too). It’s scheduled to ship this May. Unfortunately, Belkin hasn’t yet announced pricing.
Be it for the Walkman portables and Trinitron TVs of old or the PlayStation consoles, Alpha cameras and superlative headphones of the twenty-first century, Sony has long been a mainstay at CES. But for the past couple of years at the world’s biggest electronics trade show, Sony has opted to focus on a different field: Automotive. The Afeela electric vehicle dominated Sony’s 2023 and 2024 CES press conferences, and we know that trend will continue for 2025, with an appearance at the Sony event (and a followup press conference) already confirmed.
What to expect at Sony’s CES 2025 press conference
The Afeela is the first product from Sony Honda Mobility, a joint venture between the Japanese electronics and transportation giants. After a surprise rollout at CES 2023, the Sony CES presser teed up additional details on the EV’s LiDAR-heavy sensor array and AI-enhanced cabin tech (the latter coming with an assist from Microsoft) at CES 2024. If the car’s previously announced scheduling waypoints — preorders in 2025 ahead of 2026 availability — remain intact, we’re hoping to hear which of the Afeela’s concept car niceties will actually make the cut once it enters the streets of the real world.
Of course, it won’t be all Afeela all the time in Vegas. Expect Sony to spend time talking up its imaging, gaming or maybe even its movie studio division. And with any luck, we’ll get more info on the company’s XR headset, which was shown off at the 2024 show, only to never be seen again. CES 2025 would be the perfect place to show off a meaty update of a possible competitor to the Apple Vision Pro.
Sony’s CES 2025 livestream
You can watch the Sony CES press conference as it happens below. The feed will start Monday, January 6 at 8:00PM ET.
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The separate Afeela press conference will take place on Tuesday, January 7 at 4:30PM PT, and will be streamed on YouTube as well.
