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When Pokémon Legends: Arceus comes to Switch on January 28, it will bring with it a handful of new Pokémon. But my sick, anxiety-poisoned brain isn’t content to just be happy learning more about the upcoming game. No, I can’t help but question why these fresh faces aren’t present in other games, and the conclusion I’ve come to is, predictably, a huge bummer.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus takes place in Hisui, a vast wilderness that eventually becomes the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl region of Sinnoh. It’s unclear how much time separates these games, but a big part of Legends concerns your work both crafting the first Pokédex and settling the untamed land as part of the Galaxy Expedition Team. Sadly, this likely has some dire repercussions for the animals already living there.

During this week’s Pokémon Presents broadcast, the developers showed off some of the new Pokémon players will encounter in Pokémon Legends: Arceus next year. Kotaku staff writer Ethan Gach wrote at length about his love for Basculegion’s creepy origins, but my favorite is definitely Hisuian Growlithe with its eye- and chest-covering tufts of fur. I’m a sucker for fluffy dogs, even those with the ability to simultaneously conjure rockslides and burn me to a crisp.

When the serotonin rush of the stream’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus breakdown wore off, however, I wondered why these new Pokémon aren’t present in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The boring response is that the developers merely wanted to introduce new Pokémon to the series without paying much mind to how it affected continuity with 16-year-old games.

If you regard the Pokémon universe as a living, breathing world, however, the only real answer is that Basculegion, Hisuian Growlithe, and the others had to have died out sometime after Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Hisui is described as an area untouched by civilization, after all, and we all know what tends to happen when the natural world meets human ambition. It seems not even the magical world of Pokémon is free of these terrible consequences.

Pokémon as a franchise often sugarcoats the realities of nature for its young audience. Hints exist here and there of the Pokémon world’s sinister underpinnings, sure, but overall it’s a pretty cozy place for humans and wild animals alike. Pokémon are never shown eating other species, for example, even though you can bet a Charizard would absolutely go to town on a Wooloo if things worked like the real world.

In most Pokémon games, players are given the opportunity to revive long-dead species like Omanyte, Cranidos, and Tyrunt from carefully preserved fossils. But Pokémon Legends: Arceus may be the first entry in the series that allows us to witness the opposite side of this process by kickstarting (if not actually taking part in) several Pokémon species’ extinction events instead. Maybe a complete Pokédex isn’t that important after all.

Aug 19 (Reuters) – More than 90 policy and rights groups around the world published an open letter on Thursday urging Apple (AAPL.O) to abandon plans for scanning children’s messages for nudity and the phones of adults for images of child sex abuse.

“Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material, we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children,” the groups wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Reuters.

The largest campaign to date over an encryption issue at a single company was organized by the U.S.-based nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT).

Some overseas signatories in particular are worried about the impact of the changes in nations with different legal systems, including some already hosting heated fights over encryption and privacy.

“It’s so disappointing and upsetting that Apple is doing this, because they have been a staunch ally in defending encryption in the past,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, co-director of CDT’s Security & Surveillance Project.

An Apple spokesman said the company had addressed privacy and security concerns in a document Friday outlining why the complex architecture of the scanning software should resist attempts to subvert it.

Those signing included multiple groups in Brazil, where courts have repeatedly blocked Facebook’s (FB.O) WhatsApp for failing to decrypt messages in criminal probes, and the senate has passed a bill that would require traceability of messages, which would require somehow marking their content. A similar law was passed in India this year.

“Our main concern is the consequence of this mechanism, how this could be extended to other situations and other companies,” said Flavio Wagner, president of the independent Brazil chapter of the Internet Society, which signed. “This represents a serious weakening of encryption.”

Other signers were in India, Mexico, Germany, Argentina, Ghana and Tanzania.

Surprised by the earlier outcry following its announcement two weeks ago, Apple has offered a series of explanations and documents to argue that the risks of false detections are low.

Apple said it would refuse demands to expand the image-detection system beyond pictures of children flagged by clearinghouses in multiple jurisdictions, though it has not said it would pull out of a market rather than obeying a court order.

Though most of the objections so far have been over device-scanning, the coalition’s letter also faults a change to iMessage in family accounts, which would try to identify and blur nudity in children’s messages, letting them view it only if parents are notified.

The signers said the step could endanger children in intolerant homes or those seeking educational material. More broadly, they said the change will break end-to-end encryption for iMessage, which Apple has staunchly defended in other contexts.

“Once this backdoor feature is built in, governments could compel Apple to extend notification to other accounts, and to detect images that are objectionable for reasons other than being sexually explicit,” the letter says.

Other groups that signed include the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, Privacy International, and the Tor Project.

Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Edwina Gibbs

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Half a decade ago, dronemaker DJI realized its miniature aerial steadicams might be handy to carry around on foot — but it’s not the only company monopolizing on the shrinking tech. Rival FeiyuTech now has a DJI Pocket competitor that ups the ante by letting you detach the entire motorized gimbal, so you can stick a lightweight self-balancing camera to your car, helmet, wrist, or any magnetic surface up to three feet away.

It’s called the FeiyuTech Pocket 2S, and it’s on crowdfunding site Indiegogo right now for $399, or a little less if you take advantage of its early bird discounts.

According to the company, the camera shoots up to 4K footage at 60 fps with a Sony IMX 317 sensor, and can do up to 3 hours of continuous recording at 1080p. While you only get a square video preview on the handle, you can sling a full view to a phone, and there’s a Micro HDMI port to plug into a monitor or TV. Charging and data transfer happens over USB-C, and there’s a built-in 1/4-inch tripod socket. Footage is stored on a UHS-1 microSD card, up to 512GB. More specs here.

Judging by some of the early reviews on YouTube, image quality may leave something to be desired, particularly when it comes to crispness and dynamic range. I wouldn’t expect Feiyu or DJI to stop selling their larger motorized gimbals for phones, mirrorless cameras and DSLRs anytime soon.

But it’s pretty slick to be able to just throw one of these detachable cameras atop a mount like a GoPro, or slap one atop a ferrous metal surface and instantly get stabilized footage.

It’s a great way for these camera companies to compete with GoPro, for that matter, whose in-camera stabilization has been dramatically improving the last few years. And without any obvious tradeoffs beyond a visible coiled cable, I wouldn’t be surprised if DJI and others follow Feiyu’s lead.

Microsoft is redesigning its Paint app in Windows 11. The app will be updated with a new command bar that borrows most of the same options and tools as what exists in the ribbon interface for Paint on Windows 10. It’s the first major update to Paint in years, and it even includes a dark mode.

Microsoft’s head of Windows and devices, Panos Panay, teased the new Paint redesign on Twitter today. The teaser video includes a brief look at improvements to the font picker, brushes, and a dark mode for Paint. The tools look a lot more usable now, with a quick picker that shows all the different brushes and their effects. Microsoft’s font tool for Paint also floats now, with options for size, alignment, and more.

There doesn’t appear to be options for layers, but this is the first major update to Paint since it gained the ribbon interface. Microsoft had been planning to remove Paint from Windows 10 at one point, before reversing course and keeping it as part of Windows. Instead, Microsoft has started removing 3D Paint from installations of Windows 10, a program that was designed to modernize and even replace the traditional Paint app.

It’s not clear exactly when Windows Insiders will be able to test out this new Paint design, but Panay says it will be available to test “soon.”

The Nissan Z and Toyota 86 will soon be vying for the hearts and minds of drivers everywhere and even though they’re not 1:1 competitors, it can be assumed that they’re aimed at more or less the same person.

I won’t say that the Nissan Z is going to save Nissan, and I won’t say that the GR 86 will vindicate those who swore the previous version of the car just needed more power. But I will say that both of these machines look like they’ll do their nameplates justice.

I like the idea of the 86 more than the Z. I’ll take a naturally aspirated engine over forced induction all day because I’m a romantic, but forced induction has come a long way, too. The near elimination of turbo-lag in recent years really weakens the argument against turbocharged power plants.

Then again, while I like the idea of the 86, the design of the new Z is awesome from front to back. The interior is exciting! The cabin actually shows creativity, but not for its own sake. The changes look genuinely functional — like those awesome air vents on the door that clean up the dash.

Making something different and functional is not always easy. When I look at the rest of the Z, in aggregate, I think it’s better designed than the Toyota, which strikes me as OK but lacking the Z’s stand out features.

Also, I have to say that they kind of look similar. Am I the only one that’s seeing this? Sure, both are sports cars, but overall I think they have very similar front ends and you can’t say the same about the previous generations of these cars. Though, because of the cool design bits on the new Z, the 86 just ends up looking a little boring in comparison.

How about you? What do you think of these new, old cars? What’s your take on the new Nissan Z and Toyota GR 86?