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Amazon published a blog post on Wednesday providing an update about its Just Walk Out technology, which it reportedly pulled from its Fresh grocery stores earlier this month. While extolling Just Walk Outs virtues as a sales pitch to potential retail partners, the article lists a startlingly minuscule number of (non-Amazon) stores using the tech. There are now more than 140 third-party locations with Just Walk Out technology in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Canada. Mind you, that isnt the number of companies or retail chains licensing the tech; thats the total number of locations. Nor is that the tally in one state or even one country. In four countries combined with a total population of about 465 million Just Walk Out is being used in more than 140 third-party locations. On average, that means theres one third-party Just Walk Out store for every 3.3 million people in those four countries. (They must be busy!) By contrast, there are over one million retail locations in the US, and, as of 2019, Starbucks had 241 locations in New York City alone, and there are over one million Amazon had reportedly already planned to remove Just Walk Out tech from its Fresh grocery stores for roughly a year because it was too expensive and complicated for larger retail spaces to run and maintain. The company now pitches its tech as ideal for smaller convenience stores with fewer customers and products like its own Amazon Go stores, which it has been busy shutting down over the last couple of years. Amazon The company reportedly gutted the team of developers working on Just Walk Out tech earlier this month. (You get one guess as to how the laid-off workers were instructed to leave the office.) As part of recent layoffs from Amazons AWS unit and Physical Stores Team, the company allegedly left only a skeleton crew to work on the tech moving forward. A skeleton crew to maintain a skeleton sounds about right. In fairness, some of those locations are at high-traffic venues. That includes nine merch stores at Seattles Lumen Field (home to the Seahawks and Sounders), near Amazons headquarters. Delaware North, a large hospitality and entertainment company, has opened more than a dozen stores using the tech. Amazon says stores adopting Just Walk Out have reported increased transactions, sales and customer satisfaction. Despite the reported gutting of Just Walk Outs development team, Amazon says it continues to invent the next generation of this technology to improve the checkout experience for large-format stores. Its next steps include improving latency for faster and more reliable receipts, new algorithms to recognize customer actions and new sensors better. If the reports about layoffs are accurate, the handful of remaining Just Walk Out developers will have their work cut out for them.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-a-whopping-140-third-party-stores-in-four-countries-use-its-just-walk-out-tech-191649492.html?src=rss
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Comedy Central just greenlit a cartoon based on the classic Sega arcade cabinet Golden Axe, further proving we are in something of a gilded age of video game adaptations. The animated show is getting a ten-episode first season and features a voice cast filled with comedic heavy hitters, like Danny Pudi from Community and Carl Tart from Grand Crew (RIP) and the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast universe. It also stars Matthew Rhys, from The Americans and Perry Mason, and comedian Lisa Gilroy. The pilot is being written by Mike McMahon, the creator of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Solar Opposites, and Joe Chandler, a regular writer for American Dad. Chandler is the showrunner and McMahon is on board as the executive producer. Interestingly, several big Sega names are also involved with the show, including Haruki Satomi, Shuki Utsumi and Toru Nakahara, the latter being largely responsible for shepherding the Sonic the Hedgehog cinematic universe. The plot looks appropriately zany, as there wasnt too much story in those old arcade cabinets. The show bills itself as a hilarious and loving homage to Segas 1989 video game series and follows several warriors as they attempt to save the realm from franchise antagonist Death Adder. It does look to be doing a deep dive on the franchise, as one of the characters is the panther/man hybrid beast from Golden Axe III. Comedy Central promises plenty of exciting cameos from the fictional world. Theres no release date yet and the show is still in the script-writing stage. Animation takes a long time, so hold your horses. Weve really gone from zero to sixty when it comes to game adaptations, right? In just the past year, weve had shows based on The Last of Us, Fallout, Twisted Metal and more. Theres also a little-known movie about two Italian plumbers that may or may not have set the box office on fire. A TV show based on another Sega property, Knuckles, premieres April 26 on Paramount+. As for Golden Axe, there hasn't been a franchise installment since 2008, though that's about to change. Sega recently announced that its rebooting the property, alongside other classics like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/theres-a-tv-show-coming-based-on-segas-classic-arcade-game-golden-axe-185336446.html?src=rss
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Blaze Entertainment has made a bunch of announcements regarding its Evercade retro gaming consoles. Among other things, the company has revealed refreshed and less expensive hardware. The Evercade -R range updates the VS and EXP with a new look. Each of the new consoles, which will arrive in July, comes with a bundled cartridge (more on that in a moment). The previous consoles have been discontinued but will be available while stocks last. Blaze redesigned the handheld Evercade EXP-R with the aim of reducing costs. To that end, Blaze has removed two features: 18 Capcom games that were built into the EXP and the Mini-HDMI out port. On the plus side, that means the latest version of the console is $100 (100 in the UK and 120 in Europe), $30 less than the previous system. The EXP-R has a new textured grip on the back that seeks to improve comfort for longer gaming sessions. The system is charcoal grey and there are turquoise accents on the power, menu, start and select buttons. Like its predecessor, the EXP-R includes Wi-Fi and a TATE button, which allows you to switch to vertical play while maintaining an accurate screen ratio. Rather than being a handheld, the Evercade VS-R plugs into your TV. It has the same color scheme as the EXP-R, with a turquoise power button and front LED light. Like the VS, it has a dual cartridge slot and four USB ports for controllers. The console now supports the TATE screen rotation function and there's Wi-Fi connectivity for firmware updates. The console comes with a controller and power cable, but you'll need to supply your own HDMI cable. The Evercade VS-R will also drop support for the Namco Museum Collection 1 & 2. That said, with these changes, Blaze has also been able to drop the price of the VS-R to $100, the same as the new handheld. You might want some games to play on those systems. To that end, Evercade has announced a new cartridge format. The Giga Cart is able to store larger games (such as ones that were originally available on CDs) and it will typically cost $25, compared with the $18 of regular Evercade cartridges. Blaze is planning to release two titles on the Giga Cart format this year, and we now know what one of those is: a collection of the first three Tomb Raider games. This isn't the so-so remastered bundle with upgraded visuals that hit other platforms earlier this year. Tomb Raider Collection 1 includes the original versions of the three games with the OG character models and textures. While you'll be able to buy the cart separately and play it on existing Evercade and Super Pocket devices, Blaze is bundling it in with the Evercade EXP-R and VS-R. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cheaper-evercade-retro-consoles-will-arrive-in-july-180459612.html?src=rss
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