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Playground Games initially announced earlier this year that Forza Horizon 6 would launch on PS5 in 2026, but the release has been postponed. As I noted last month, the game is now set to arrive in early 2027, with an official launch date of January 26, 2027.

Because of the delay, the PS5 version will line up with a new expansion for the title. Playground Games will also offer a PS5 Premium Edition of Forza Horizon 6 that grants up to five days of early access before the January 26 release.

Forza Horizon 6 first became available on Xbox and PC on May 15, and the upcoming expansion will also roll out to those platforms in January. Meanwhile, Forza Horizon 5 performed well on PS5 after Microsoft brought it to Sony’s console last year.

Tim Cook stepped down as Apple CEO in September, handing over the top job to former hardware chief John Ternus and taking an executive chairman role. Cook’s still a visible representative of the company, having been recently photographed attending a state dinner at the White House. But in an interview with The Independent, Cook says he’s “not meddling” in Ternus’ work.

“First of all, John and I have an incredible level of trust in each other,” Cook said. “The relationship must be based on trust, and the communication must be frequent and significant.

But other than that, what I’m focused on right now is worldwide policy. And the interface with governments around the world matters because there are lots of things where we’re trying to advance or advocate for change.

There’s a significant amount of work in that, and I’m doing that and helping John in any way he sees fit. I’m not meddling.

I’m not a meddler.”

Cook also said he’s told Ternus to “make it your own job. Put your time in the things that you can add the most value to around the company. And that means don’t mimic me. Just like I didn’t mimic Steve. We all have different strengths.” (Ternus told staff that, based on advice from Cook, “I need to spend my time where I can add the most value for Apple,” Bloomberg recently reported.)

In the interview, Cook discussed how he wanted to make the leadership transition to Ternus “the best transition ever, a textbook example that people could look back to and learn from.” The transition “actually started years ago,” according to Cook, and he said that “I think everything has gone sort of exactly the way I had envisioned it.” Ternus introduced the iPhone Duo just days after taking over, and Cook said

that he “wanted John to have some wind at his back.”

The Retro Song Bird may look similar to devices like Epilogue’s GB Operator with a slot on top for Game Boy cartridges, but it’s not designed for playing retro games. The featureless box is instead a media player designed to play through all the music and sound effect files on Game Boy cartridges using a basic set of play controls on board for skipping tracks and adjusting the volume of its built-in speaker.

It’s like a reimagined Sony Walkman that trades cassette tapes for your childhood game carts you refused to get rid of.

Created by a talented builder simply known as BJ, the Retro Song Bird includes additional functionality. While the built-in speaker reproduces the tunes close to how they sounded through the original Game Boy, there’s also a stereo line out connection for connecting it to better speakers or for recording and sampling purposes.

Each of the Game Boy’s four sound channels are available as separate USB audio streams, and the Retro Song Bird can be used to back up ROMs and save game data, or export music files as WAV files to a PC.

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Only a few prototypes of the Retro Song Bird have been created so far and they’re not for sale, according

Google has launched a new experimental note-taking application called Google AI Edge Foresight that can transcribe meetings and audio recordings entirely without an internet connection, as first reported by Techgeeks. The app is available at no cost and operates on macOS devices using Google’s on-device EmbeddingGemma 2 model.

Unlike many cloud-based AI tools, Foresight processes all audio and text data locally, ensuring that user content remains private and secure. The application offers features similar to other popular AI note-taking platforms such as Granola and Wispr Flow, including automatic summarization of meetings and a dedicated area for users to input their own notes.

During a meeting, users can enter brief bullet points which the app then enhances into more detailed and organized notes based on the recorded transcript. In addition to transcription capabilities, Foresight includes an integrated AI assistant that allows users to ask questions about their recorded content.

Users can also upload local documents that the assistant can reference when providing answers. Google emphasizes that all files, audio recordings, and notes generated within the app never leave the user’s device.

Currently, Google AI Edge Foresight is optimized exclusively for Macs equipped with Apple Silicon processors, distinguishing it from other AI note-taking applications by its strong focus on on-device processing.

Amazon is launching a new lineup of tablets that bear almost no resemblance to any tablet Amazon has ever launched before. They’re not even called Fire, the name Amazon has used for its tablets for the last 15 years. They’re called Alexa Tablets, and they’re designed to do two things: bring Alexa Plus to the center of your whole computing life, and be straight-up excellent tablets.

The most important thing about these new tablets’ software? They run Android.

Full, Google Play-supported, all-the-apps Android. There are plenty of preloaded Amazon apps, of course, and some built-in ways to quickly access Prime Video content or shop for basically anything anywhere at any time, but it’s finally offering a proper Android experience.

Panos Panay, Amazon’s SVP in charge of all things hardware and Alexa, tells me that “Google Play was a necessity, end of story.”

But Panay picked Android as the second most important thing about the Alexa Tablet. The first, he says, is the hardware.

The Alexa Tablet is two and a half years in the making, Panay says, and he directed the team to start completely fresh in their tablet design. “Start from zero, don’t use any components we’ve ever used,” he says he told them.

“Just ask, what is it? What is a great piece of hardware and what is it supposed to do?”

There are three devices in the Alexa Tablet lineup, all of which go on sale October 14th. The Tablet 8 has an 8.7-inch

Amazon’s Fire tablets are notable for being dirt cheap. While they’re great for kids, they don’t offer a premium Android tablet experience. The company’s new $499 Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is an attempt to build a device someone might actually want to use. It’s one of a few new Android tablets Amazon announced today, and it’s the one you need to know about.

Unlike the Fire Tablet lineup, the Alexa Tablet doesn’t run some hobbled version of Android stuck with Amazon’s app store with ads for Amazon services at every turn. It has full access to the Google Play app store.

It’s powered by 8GB or 12GB of RAM with a MediaTek Dimensity 8400 8-core CPU. That’s more than enough for light gaming, powering Alexa, and running basic apps, but don’t expect Alien: Isolation to run super smoothly.

The aluminum unibody feels great. It’s light at 550 grams (1.2 pounds), but not flimsy.

It’s slightly lighter than the 13-inch iPad Air (617 grams) but heavier than the 11-inch (465 grams).

The screen is the truly exciting thing about the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro has a 12.3-inch 3:2 display that can be configured with Corning’s Nanomatte tech, similar to Apple’s nano-texture, which reduces glare and gives the screen a more paper-like feel.

It’s impossible to do it justice in photos or video. The Nanomatte coating doesn’t simply reduce glare; it almost completely eliminates it. Amazon held a briefing in a brightly sunlit room, and I thought the 12 Pro was a dummy unit when I first saw it. It looked like a cardboard placeholder image was placed inside. Then an Amazon rep started swiping around the screen.

There’s also a standard glossy option, and the difference is shocking. In the bright sunlight of the room, the glossy screen was basically a mirror and was easily washed out when viewed at an angle. The Nanomatte display, however, was clearly readable at any angle and barely reflected any ambient light. Only at extreme angles in the brightest patches of light did it become difficult to see.

The screen pairs particularly well with the immersive Kindle mode. Here, background activities are limited, notifications are silenced, and blue light is lowered to reduce eye strain.

There are three different Kindle-specific display modes. Standard delivers the full vibrancy of the screen; Color offers a softer, more muted experience; and Ink is full grayscale.

In Kindle mode, battery life is also extended from 16 hours to 20 hours.

Without having the two side-by-side, it’s hard to say how it compares to Apple’s matte display on the iPad Pro, but anecdotally it seems to retain slightly more contrast. Using a stylus with it is much more pleasant than on a glossy display, but I can’t say I noticed a difference between it and an iPad.

The Alexa Tablet Pro Pen and Pro Keyboard attach magnetically and seem serviceable enough. I wouldn’t want to type on its shallow, cramped keys all day, but they’re fine for knocking out a few emails. The keyboard case was a little clunky to get on and off, though. It’s actually two parts — the back cover and stand are separate from the keyboard base.

Alexa Everywhere

The tablet shoves Alexa down your throat at every turn. In the bottom right-hand corner is an “Ask Alexa” bar that lets you quickly chat with the AI assistant.

And in the top left-hand corner is what Amazon calls the Dynamic Tab. It offers up proactive suggestions from Alexa.

That can be something as simple as picking up where you left off in a book or movie, or offering an itinerary for a three-day trip to New York. This is, of course, powered by Amazon’s deep well of information it gathers from your reading, viewing, and shopping habits.

Amazon keeps some of Alexa’s more invasive features off by default. On-Screen Intelligence, which can see what you’re doing and take actions based on what’s actually on your screen, is strictly opt-in. There are also robust controls for limiting what Alexa can hear and remember.

If you do opt in, though, Alexa becomes a pretty powerful shopping companion. I was able to open random photos from the internet and ask Alexa to find me something in them, like a coffee table or a mirror, and, even if it couldn’t track down the exact thing, it found something close.

Then it would add it to my Amazon cart if I asked. How likely am I to ask Alexa to track down a bathroom fixture for me from a Pinterest photo and deliver it to my house in two days via Prime?

Not very. I’m also unlikely to have it automatically add school holidays to my calendar from the Department of Education site, but it will if you ask it to.