Super Nintendo World will open in the US on February 17th

It's Thursday, December 15, 2022.

If you envy Universal Studios Japan and its Mario-themed area, the US equivalent is almost here. Hollywood’s Super Nintendo World is less of a self-contained theme park and more of a new area at Universal Studios, and it will open on February 17th, 2023. Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge will be the centerpiece attraction, an augmented reality-powered go-kart simulator inspired by Nintendo’s racing franchise. You wear an AR visor displaying a digital world with fantastical racetracks, Koopa Shells and familiar competitors, who you blast using your steering wheel trigger.

But, this will be the only ride inside the US’s Mushroom Kingdom tribute. The Japan equivalent has a second ride, and US work is already underway on a Donkey Kong-centric addition for 2024. That’s still enough reason to visit, right? The February opening should roughly coincide with the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

– Mat Smith

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Tesla launches Steam game portal integration for the new Model S and X vehicles

It will give owners access to thousands of games.

Tesla

Tesla is officially rolling out Steam integration for the latest versions of its Model S and X cars as part of its holiday update. In its promo video of the feature, you'll see Tesla's infotainment system running Steam Beta and even graphically demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077. By "new" Model S and X vehicles, Tesla likely means the "Plaid" versions, which started deliveries last year. Both models' infotainment systems use AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs, which are also the technology behind PlayStation 5, and AMD's Ryzen chips.

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Twitter is shutting down the newsletter platform it bought last year

It bought Revue at the start of 2021.

One day after Jack Dorsey took to Revue to share his thoughts on the Twitter Files, Twitter announced it would shut down the newsletter platform early next year. "From January 18th, 2023, it will no longer be possible to access your Revue account," Revue said on Wednesday. At the time, the company said the acquisition was a natural expansion of its platform. And for a while, it had a point, since paid newsletters were all the rage last year. At first, the company added Revue signup buttons to Twitter profiles. A month later, it rolled out a feature for users to sign up for Revue newsletters directly from tweets.

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YouTube users will get a 24-hour timeout if their toxic comments are removed

The video service will notify them first, too.

YouTube is rolling out updates today around toxic comments that violate community guidelines. Previously, it has used tools like popups to encourage "respectful" interactions, but it's now taking a (slightly) more assertive approach. If YouTube detects and removes abusive comments, it will notify users that they've violated community guidelines. If the same person continues to post toxic comments, they'll get a "timeout" and be unable to leave further comments for 24 hours.

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Eight charged in $114 million pump-and-dump stock scheme on Discord and Twitter

The fraud allegedly included a podcaster, too.

A federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission have charged eight men with allegedly operating a stock pump-and-dump scheme on Discord and Twitter between January 2020 and April 2022. They reportedly used their social media presences (including a combined 1.5 million Twitter followers) to artificially inflate the value of stocks, only to sell their shares without disclosing their plans. They made a $114 million profit off the campaign, the Justice Department said. The nature of the manipulation isn't surprising, but the scale is. It follows the meme stock saga on Reddit, which boosted stock prices, including GameStop, and showed how online communities can influence share prices in the right circumstances.

The group went beyond Twitter, supposedly using a Discord server (Atlas Trading) to share misinformation about stocks. One participant, Daniel Knight, also co-hosted a podcast that apparently played a role in the fraud.

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