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Never underestimate the chilling powers of grainy grayscale imagery and ethereal whooshing sounds. Outside Parties asks, "What if I Spy, but in an alien hell dimension?", and it is impressively unnerving despite the fact that nothing's really happening at any given time. It goes all in on atmosphere, to great effect. This is the Playdate horror game that I've been waiting for. Adams Immersive's Outside Parties is a sort of scavenger hunt across a massive image of a realm called the Outside, which can only be visited by astral travel, according to the lore. There are lots of unknowns about what or where it really is, though explorers have mapped it fairly extensively through out-of-body excursions and they've encountered thousands of different entities there, including the spirits of the dead. As the player, you have come across a Hellscryer K5 the communication device, psychic camera and recorder used for these trips and now you're combing through the mission logs, getting sucked into the mystery of it all. Think of the K5 as your Playdate, except powered by blood and runes. At the center of Outside Parties is a 1.44 gigapixel, 360-degree panoramic HDR image which has dozens of eerie scenes hidden within it: skeletons of human, animal and paranormal origin; scary robed figures and occult symbols etched all around; what appear to be fountains and rivers of blood; a Stonehenge of teeth. These are the targets you're meant to track down, and as you hone in and check them off your list, voice signals attached to each one will reveal more and more of the explorer's spellbinding story. But this isn't a straightforward "find the object" puzzle game by any means. When you first look at the zoomed-out photo, it's akin to a strip of TV static with some heavily shadowed areas throughout. You can zoom to up to 64 times magnification to get a better look at specific zones, but you also have to adjust the image brightness using the crank to improve the clarity of the objects. Making it brighter or darker will reveal more objects in certain spots while simultaneously obscuring others. There are 150 targets according to the developer, which should take players somewhere from 10-20 hours to complete. I've been at it for hours and still have plenty left to find. (If you're stuck, you can turn to the helpful target lookup page, which provides hints with varying degrees of specificity.) All the while as you're hunched over your Playdate, laser-focused on the screen to find targets that are buried in a sea of fuzz, unsettling audio transmissions are cutting in and out, disturbing images are flashing on-screen at random and a constant atmospheric whooshing is playing in your ear. The sound design of this game is seriously brilliant it's worth playing for that alone, not to mention all the other cool stuff. From the startup page to the menus where you'll find bits of a background story, to the creepy clips of people wailing and ominously reciting numbers, the sounds of Outside Parties make for a truly immersive, disconcerting experience that I previously wouldn't have thought possible on a Playdate. It's really something special. Outside Parties also comes with a screensaver that once again makes me yearn for the Playdate Stereo Dock. Pop on the Void Monitor, sit back, and enjoy the horrifying sights and sounds of the Outside. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/outside-parties-is-the-creepiest-playdate-game-yet-and-im-kind-of-obsessed-213142541.html?src=rss
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Microsoft issued another out-of-band update to fix a bug that caused Outlook to crash for Windows 11 users. This second emergency patch addresses issues seen with Outlook and files stored in the cloud following Microsoft's January 2026 Windows security update. According to Microsoft, this update fixes a bug where some apps that "open or save files stored in cloud-backed locations" became unresponsive or displayed error messages. Some users also experienced Outlook crashing or not opening when PST files are stored in cloud-based options like OneDrive. This is the second time this year that Microsoft had to issue a last-minute fix for bugs related to its January security update. Last week, some Windows 11 devices couldn't shut down or hibernate, while other devices running Windows 10 or 11 couldn't log in through remote connections. For more context, Microsoft only issues out-of-band updates when there's a serious issue that can't wait until its regular update cycle. Fortunately, the latest out-of-band update is cumulative, so you only need to download and install this one to fix the issues seen with the January update.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsoft-releases-second-emergency-windows-11-update-to-fix-outlook-crashes-192012812.html?src=rss
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A new and improved Siri may finally make an appearance, but this time, it could be with a Google Gemini glow up. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple wants to announce a new Siri in "the second half of February" that will show off the results of its recently announced partnership with Google and offer demonstrations of the Gemini-powered capabilities. After this reveal, Gurman reported that the new Siri will make its way to iOS 26.4, which is also slated to enter beta testing in February before its public release in March or early April. Apple has been meaning to launch its next-gen Siri ever since its announcement at WWDC 2024, but now we know that this Gemini-powered Siri will behave more like an AI chatbot, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, thanks to another Bloomberg report from last week. Following the reported demo that's scheduled for late February, Gurman said Apple will have a grand reveal of the new Siri, which is currently codenamed Campos, at its annual developer conference in the summer. After that, the latest Siri and the accompanying Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence features are expected to arrive with iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27, which are expected to be available as beta releases in the summer.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/apple-reportedly-plans-to-reveal-its-gemini-powered-siri-in-february-174356923.html?src=rss
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