Recommended Reading: Nintendo's NX sounds weird and that's okay

The best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web.

Based on the rumors so far, Nintendo's upcoming NX handheld console will be... unique. This piece from Eurogamer, a site that's been the source of some of the details, takes a look at why switching things up a bit may be the company's best bet. A touchscreen device with detachable controllers may sound strange, but if the reports are true, "we should savor and celebrate NX's weirdness" like Eurogamer explains here.

How 'Uncharted 4' fails Nathan Drake Phil Hornshaw, Playboy Uncharted 4 offers closure, but it's not as satisfying as it could be according to Playboy's Phil Hornshaw.	Meet Luca, the ancestor of all living things Nicolas Wade, The New York Times Scientists have learned more about how life started on Earth. It began with Luca, a single-cell organism that's estimated to be four billion years old.
'First Dude'? Why Bill Clinton could make a powerful First Spouse Mara Liasson, NPR The Democrats made the first female presidential nominee official this week. That means we could also see a male First Spouse for the first time. NPR discusses why a former president's role would be important. source: Engadget	All signs point to Russia being behind the DNC hack Thomas Rid, Motherboard You've likely read reports tying the recent DNC hack to Russia by now. Motherboard takes a look at the timeline of events and offers evidence that the breach was indeed the work of Russians.

Sony says numerous 'Uncharted 4' copies were stolen

A shipment of Naughty Dog's new game may have met a thief's end.

Sony's President of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has just announced that "a number of copies" of the upcoming game Uncharted 4: A Thief's Endhave been stolen in transit. A few copies have surfaced ahead of the game's official release on May 10th -- British site Videogamer reported yesterday that discs were appearing at second-hand stores in the country. Not acknowledging the irony, Yoshida says "Sony is continuing to to work with the police to resolve the matter, which is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation." He urges gamers to be vigilant for potential spoilers resulting from the theft, and says it will be "worth the wait" till May 10th.

There could be a quick end to this tale, depending on the intelligence of the parties involved. It's a policy of CEX, the second-hand store where one copy was purchased from, to require a valid photo ID when buying a game. If the thief in this case used their actual ID, the police will have a very simple job in identifying who was at fault. Additionally, the UK has very strict laws on handling stolen goods, and CEX itself may in trouble for not doing its due diligence (it doesn't seem to care, though). We've reached out to all parties involved for more information.

Keen-eyed among you may have noticed that this all seems to have happened on April 26th, which was once the release date for the game. Despite a criminal enquiry being opened, there's a possibility that this is not in fact a theft, and instead is an early shipment issue. For now, all we have to go on is Sony's word, but we'll update you on any developments to the story.

Source: Sony

Nintendo's 'Miitomo' app passes 10 million users

The game company's first app is turning into a legitimate social network.

Nintendo dropped a pile of news on our laps this morning. Along with its earnings, the Japanese game company gave us a release date for its new NX console, announced a pair of new mobile apps and delayed Zelda into 2017. Buried in among these bigger items is the detail that its first mobile app,Miitomo, now has over 10 million unique users.

That's an impressive number for an app that's been available for less than two months. During that time, Nintendo says over 20 million "Miifotos" have been saved. A Miifoto is a small, sharable images of user's in-game avatar, designed to be shared on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

It could be argued -- and my colleague Nicole has -- that Nintendo's app is a social network in and of itself. Although it differs in many ways, Miitomo employs the same hook of Twitter and Facebook likes by rewarding you with coins for answering questions or sharing photos. And in that way, it's certainly doing better at carving out a slice of the market than other app-based networks like Path.

For its next two mobile apps, Nintendo will be sticking more closely to its roots. A version of Fire Emblem will come to smartphones that'll be "more accessible in comparison to the Fire Emblem games for Nintendo's dedicated gaming systems." It strongly hints that another app, this time based on the popular Animal Crossing franchise, will link with existing titles in the series for dedicated systems like the 3DS and Wii U. "By playing both Animal Crossing games, users will find increased enjoyment," the company says. Compared to Miitomo, both of these are "pure game applications" and have "more prominent game elements." If it can match half of Miitomo's figures with Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing, Nintendo will definitely be on the path to mobile success.

Source: Nintendo

'Don't Starve: Shipwrecked' washes ashore on Steam

The adorable survival game is on sale during its launch period, too.

Don't Starve: Shipwrecked, the nautical themed expansion for one of our favorite survival games is finally out of Early Access on Steam and ready for your consumption. If you'll remember, this add-on is the result of a partnership between original developer Klei Entertainment and the folks behind Below and Super Time Force, Capybara Games. The single-player expansion (the co-op focused Don't Starve Together released last year) introduces plenty of new deadly goodies like sailing, seasons and crafting recipes -- all incredibly likely to put your ability to follow the game's name to the test. As an incentive to give it the old college try, Steam has the game on sale for $4.50 during its launch period.

'Aliens: Colonial Marines' mod may actually make the game fun

The mod tweaks Xenomorph behavior, overhauls the graphics and looks pretty impressive.

When it released in early 2013, Aliens: Colonial Marines was an absolute garbage fire of a video game. There was a lawsuit regarding the wide gulf in quality between what developer Gearbox Software (of Borderlands and upcoming Battleborn fame) and publisher Sega showed prior to release and what customers actually got, and Gearbox's CEO Randy Pitchford remains ambivalent about Colonial Marines' quality and development process. Gearbox was eventually dropped from the suit, but it was a wholething. The modding community sounds like it might've fixed some of the most egregious sins on the PC version, though.

In addition to a bunch of much needed graphical fixes (including better shadows and textures), the release notes mention that dead bodies, body parts, acid splashes and blood splashes will remain in the game world "indefinitely." Awesome. But this is more than just a surface-level overhaul -- TemplarGFX's mod addresses the severe issues ACM's gameplay faced, too.

Specifically, reworking the artificial intelligence for the Xenomorph soldiers by increasing alien decision-making speed by 1,000 percent which "greatly increases their ability to adapt to changing situations and react to new threats." That's saying nothing of the massive changes to other Xeno enemy types to make them as terrifying as their silver screen counterparts.

Honestly? It looks like a more action-oriented version of Creative Assembly's deliberately-paced Alien: Isolation from 2014. You know, the one with the ultra-smart alien terrorizing Lieutenant Ellen Ripley's daughter, Amanda, on the Sevestopol space station. In case the embedded videos are enough to pique your interest, the game is currently $15 on Steam.

Sony made a custom PS4 controller for a gamer with cerebral palsy

A staffer made a DualShock 4 that can overcome movement disorders.





It's tough to use gadgets when you have cerebral palsy -- few of their interfaces take the movement disorder into account. However, a Sony staffer went the extra mile to make sure this wasn't a problem for one gamer. When Peter Byrne wrote Sony complaining that the DualShock 4' stouchpad was difficult to use with his cerebral palsy (he'd inadvertently hit the pad and pause the game), the company's Alex Nawabi made him a custom version of the official PS4 gamepad. The modified controller, which took 10 hours to make, disables the touchpad and uses another button to fulfill that role.

It's an extremely kind gesture by itself, but it gets better: Nawabi built a second controller just in case the first one breaks, so Byrne likely won't have to worry about asking for another favor. While this isn't the same as a full-fledged production model, it shows that it's possible to accommodate gamers' special needs with relatively little effort.