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Everybody knows what a great year 2026 has been for the horror genre, specifically non-franchise horror titles. Movies such as Obsession and Backrooms have grossed a combined total of nearly $800 million worldwide. Directed by Curry Barker , Obsession emerged as a cultural phenomenon, having generated more than $400 million globally against a reported budget of less than $1 million. It also received excellent reviews and is now sitting at a "Certified Fresh" 94% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. In addition to Obsession and Backrooms , a handful of other horror films have also made an impression, either at the box office or among critics and fans. However, the year 2026 has been equally exciting for fans of action movies .

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The HyperMegaTech Super Pocket Rare Edition is the seventh Super Pocket device to date from Blaze Entertainment. Part of the Evercade ecosystem, it's the same hardware as previous Super Pockets, but with 14 built-in classic Rare-developed games, with a matching color scheme to boot. Although Rare is now part of Microsoft, this collection highlights some of the best games from the developer's earliest 1983 British computer releases up to the headlining 1998 Nintendo 64 classic, Banjo-Kazooie , which has been rebuilt to run natively. Thanks to its eclectic built-in games and ability to play any Evercade cartridge, this Super Pocket easily sustains the high relative value of its predecessors.

HyperMegaTech Super Pocket Rare Edition – Design and Features

The Rare Edition maintains the same design and features as its predecessors. It's a plug-and-play handheld that comes with a USB-C to USB-A charging cable, quickstart guide, and instructions for Banjo-Kazooie. The other 13 games have control summaries in-game, accessible when pressing the Game Menu button.

The Super Pocket is a compact Game Boy-adjacent size at 3.07 x 4.92 x 0.98 inches and 0.36lbs. Its 2.8-inch IPS display has a resolution 320 x 240, which is a 4:3 aspect ratio. Display options include Original, Pixel Perfect, or Full Screen aspect ratios, as well as Shaders/Scanlines. While you can't adjust the brightness, the screen is easily visible in bright sunlight, although the glossy screen cover is susceptible to glare.

Since many of the games on the Evercade platform are originally of a relatively low resolution with limited detail, the small screen size is generally fine. However, if you're in the 40+ demographic, you may not find it as comfortable as today's larger screens, particular with smaller text. Still, it works well for what it is, especially at the $69.99 retail price.

Below the display is a Game Menu button, direction pad, front speaker, Select/Insert Credit button, Start Game button, and the A, B, X, and Y face buttons. On the rear is a cartridge slot, which includes a blank dummy cartridge, volume control, and R1, L1, R2, and L2 buttons, the latter two of which are used to fast scroll in menus. All buttons are membrane-based, but there's still a good tactile response with a soft click when pressed.

Below the R and L buttons is a rear speaker, which together with the front speaker provides decent sound, even at high volumes. Naturally, for the best sound you'll want to make use of the 3.5mm headphone jack to the left of the power switch at the bottom of the unit. Unfortunately, Blaze hasn't chosen to support Bluetooth audio until the release of its Nexus handheld .

Between the power switch and charging port is a charging indicator light, which shows red when charging or green when fully charged. The 3000mAh battery gets up to four hours or so of run time.

HyperMegaTech Super Pocket Rare Edition – Built-in Games

The 14 built-in games are Atic Atac , Banjo-Kazooie , Battletoads , Battletoads in Battlemaniacs , Cobra Triangle , Conker's Pocket Tales , Gunfright , Jetpac , Knight Lore , Lunar Jetman , R.C. Pro-Am II , Slalom , Snake Rattle 'n' Roll , and Solar Jetman . These games originally appeared on the ZX Spectrum, Nintendo 64, NES, SNES, and Game Boy Color, respectively.

ZX Spectrum

Thanks in part to its low price, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum proved to be one of the most popular personal computers in the UK from its release in 1982 to its discontinuation in 1992. Although its base model featured limited memory, sound, and graphics, with the latter's color suffering from attribute clash that caused "bleeding" or flickering when a foreground character interacted with a background, there nevertheless proved a certain charm to the platform. Rare was among the best ZX Spectrum developers, taking good advantage of the bold color palette and crisp 8-bit visuals, and there's a good representation of its best output from this era here. Unlike the rest of the 14 built-in games, it's fair to say that most of these five will be an acquired taste, although arguably worth the effort for those with a more open mind.

Atic Atac (1983) and Knight Lore (1984) are two notoriously difficult isometric 3D action-adventure games, and considered among the best in their class. The former is a fast-paced, gothic-themed maze game focusing on survival and item collection, while the latter is an atmospheric puzzle-platformer that relies more on precision movements. Although the sound can be grating, the high-contrast visuals against the black background really pop on the Super Pocket's display. I also found the controls to be spot-on.

Jetpac (1983) and Lunar Jetman (1983) are two very different games in the same series. The former is a stand-out single-screen arcade-like experience where you build a rocket while defending against waves of aliens. The latter is the vehicle-based sequel that adds gravity and terrain exploration, greatly enhancing the scope. I found both games a bit more difficult to control on the handheld than I'd like, with awkward use of the L1 or R1 buttons to hold a hover.

Gunfright (1985) is a western-themed shooter that has isometric 3D exploration and pseudo-first-person quick-draw sequences. It's a unique and ambitious game, although again, the sound is incredibly grating.

Nintendo 64

Banjo-Kazooie (1998) is the one Nintendo 64 game included, the obvious marquee title, and one of the most acclaimed highlights from Rare's 3D era. Strictly speaking, this is not standard emulation, nor a remake, but the original game logic running natively on the Evercade hardware. This is a good thing because of the obvious lack of the Nintendo 64's analog stick and button layout on the Super Pocket.

The game is a 3D platformer brimming with personality where a bear and his bird companion journey through diverse, puzzle-filled worlds to defeat a wicked witch and rescue a kidnapped sister. While many Nintendo 64 games can look a bit rough, especially on modern displays, this port has a sharper, more refined appearance without changing the original look and feel.

In terms of controls, there's a Replay Mode and Retro Mode. Replay Mode attempts to modernize the controls within the Super Pocket's limitations, while Retro Mode tries to more closely mimic the original control scheme. Whichever mode you choose, there's going to be a learning curve, as there's just no good way to duplicate analog or camera controls with just button combinations. Fortunately, in-game button prompts map to the updated control scheme.

While I can't say this is the best way to play Banjo-Kazooie, it's still a solid portable experience if you put in the effort to learn the controls and don't mind the lack of controller rumble. One thing to note is that, as with other "native" Evercade games, it works a bit different from most other titles in the library. Instead of the usual save states, Banjo-Kazooie uses the original "Witchywarp" pads and save pedestals. You also have to power cycle the handheld to exit the game rather than being able to exit from the Game Menu button.

NES

Although perhaps not as technically well-regarded as the company's ZX Spectrum era, Rare nevertheless made some genuinely fun, and legendary, games for the NES. Many of the releases feature a refined isometric 3D perspective seen in the earlier ZX Spectrum titles.

Slalom (1986) is Rare's first NES release and a simple, fast-paced third-person skiing title. Cobra Triangle (1989) is an ambitious, multi-genre isometric 3D boat combat game. Snake Rattle 'n' Roll (1990) features the popular "eat-to-grow" gameplay mechanic and uses its isometric 3D perspective for exploration. Solar Jetman (1990) is the third game in the Jetman series after Lunar Jetman, and is like an evolved, if overly difficult conclusion to the original series with RPG-like elements. Battletoads (1991), which looked at the difficulty of other Rare games and said "hold my beer," is an iconic, genre-blending beat-em-up. R.C. Pro-Am II (1992) is an elevated sequel to what was already one of the best isometric 3D racing games ever made.

Difficulty aside, I had a great time with these NES games on the Super Pocket. The display and controls are well-suited to the platform's requirements.

SNES

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (1993) is the one SNES game included and the direct sequel to the original NES Battletoads. It's the same type of game on the SNES, just more refined.

For obvious reasons, you won't be able to enjoy the co-op modes on the Super Pocket, but everything else is spot on.

Game Boy Color

Conker's Pocket Tales (1999) is the lone Game Boy Color representative. It's a top-down, action-adventure game that serves as a family-friendly spin-off to the Conker series.

Since it's originally a handheld game, Conker's Pocket Tales plays perfectly on the Super Pocket and is a refreshing change-of-pace from the usual punishing difficulty of most Rare games.

HyperMegaTech Super Pocket Rare Edition – Cartridge Games

The Super Pocket's cartridge slot opens up access to the 87, and counting, Evercade collections, which carry anywhere from one to 20 additional games. It's an impressive list that totals around 750 total games to date, although not every game is the best match for the Super Pocket's built-in controls. This is especially true as Blaze opens up more support for games that benefit from analog controls.

As stated in my previous Super Pocket review, besides certain missing features, like TATE mode, and awkward placement of its shoulder buttons, the other missing functionality is online connectivity. As such, the Super Pockets don't get access to firmware updates or free games of the month, and are also unable to apply any updates to cartridges. On the rare chance a cartridge needs an update to run properly on the Super Pocket, it needs to be done on a mainline Evercade console, handheld, or bartop.

With all of that in mind, the Evercade cartridge collection is generally friendly to the Super Pocket's display and controls. Along with the Super Pocket, Blaze sent over the cartridge for NeoGeo Arcade 4 , which features eight NeoGeo arcade games, and Activision Collection 3 , which features 13 Atari 2600 games. Both of those recent cartridges are near perfect examples of games that work great on the Super Pocket, thanks to matching controls for the former, and low resolution games for the latter (in fact, the eighth Super Pocket is confirmed to be an Activision Edition ). Of course, Activision Collection 3 features Kaboom! (1981), which would normally be a good thing, but not without a paddle controller. Otherwise, no complaints.

If you find you’d prefer to experience the marquee titles on a TV or with native analog sticks, it’s worth noting that Blaze is releasing a standalone Banjo-Kazooie Double Pack (which includes the sequel Banjo-Tooie ) soon, highlighting the versatility of this wider ecosystem. That cartridge is also included as a pack-in with the upcoming Evercade Nexus .

Purchasing Guide

The HyperMegaTech Super Pocket Rare Edition is available for $69 from Amazon and other retailers.

Bill Loguidice is a contributing freelancer for IGN specializing in video game and computer hardware and accessories. He has several decades of experience and has written for a wide variety of publications. Bill has authored a dozen mass market books and was a writer and producer on a major feature film documentary on the history of video games.

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A stolen Corvette launched a months-long organized auto theft investigation.

Authorities recovered luxury vehicles worth more than $1.3 million.

Two suspects now face multiple felony vehicle theft-related charges.

Auto theft rings have a problem. Any single vehicle that ends up tracked back to them can destroy the whole operation. A new story out of Southern California makes that point beautifully. In the process of tracking down a single stolen Corvette , detectives recovered more than $1.3 million worth of luxury and performance vehicles while arresting two suspects. It’s the kind of bust that reads more like a video game garage than a real-world evidence lot.

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According to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office , the whole situation began after a 2026 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray worth approximately $105,000 disappeared from a dealership in Thousand Oaks during the early morning hours of May 19. Over a month later, on July 1, detectives had enough evidence for a large action.

Read: A $1.2M Stolen Parts Operation In NYC Ran On Hondas And Toyotas, Not Exotics

They teamed up with the Ventura County Auto Theft Task Force, Organized Retail Theft Task Force, Property Crimes Unit, and the Camarillo Special Enforcement Unit to execute a coordinated operation in Los Angeles County.

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Ventura County Sheriff’s Office

Authorities arrested Brandon Taylor and John Ivy on allegations including vehicle theft, conspiracy, and possession of stolen vehicles. Both suspects remain in custody at the Ventura County Pre-Trial Detention Facility with bail set at $250,000 each while prosecutors review the case.

Search warrants executed at properties in North Hollywood and Los Angeles uncovered what investigators described as tools commonly associated with organized vehicle theft. Those included blank temporary license plates, high-end vehicle key fobs, fraudulent vehicle documents, electronic devices, and additional evidence connected to the investigation.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Office

Perhaps most impressive was the collection of vehicles investigators recovered or seized. The list includes a Lamborghini Aventador valued at around $450,000, a Porsche 911 Carrera and Porsche 911 Targa worth roughly $240,000 each, a Chevrolet Silverado 2500, a GMC Hummer , a BMW X7 M60i, a Ford Shelby GT500, and a Chevrolet Colorado.

Combined, authorities estimate the recovered vehicles are worth more than $1.3 million. Police have not yet explained how the alleged theft ring obtained the vehicles or whether additional suspects could face charges. Either way, that single Corvette theft appears to have been the one that brought down the entire operation.

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Ventura County Sheriff’s Office

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The world's largest digital camera begins recording the changing universe every night

Giant Chile observatory discovers thousands of hidden asteroids during early testing already

A new sky survey captures fresh cosmic images every forty seconds overnight

A camera roughly the size of a small car has begun the most ambitious astronomical survey ever attempted from Earth.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory , perched atop Cerro Pachón in northern Chile, officially started its Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

Every 40 seconds throughout the night, the 6,600-pound instrument captures a new image using its 3200-megapixel sensor, the largest digital camera ever built.

A decade-long cosmic recording begins

Over the coming decade, the camera will return to each patch of sky roughly 800 times, building a living record of celestial change.

Željko Ivezić, head of LSST, said the launch followed extensive system optimization and a careful review of technical readiness across multiple performance measures.

"Important factors that played a role in this decision included image quality, effective survey speed, system uptime and reliability, and calibration accuracy," Ivezić said.

The $800 million observatory is jointly funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy's Office of Science.

“Today, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made…This moment reflects decades of vision, innovation and the power of federal investment,” said Brian Stone of the US National Science Foundation

Each night, the camera collects approximately 10 TB of data while generating as many as seven million alerts flagging changes across the sky.

During early optimization surveys lasting roughly six weeks, Rubin already discovered more than 11,000 previously unseen asteroids, including 33 near-Earth objects.

Mapping dark matter and the solar system

Scientists intend to use the completed dataset to build a new inventory of the solar system and the Milky Way galaxy.

The survey will also help researchers examine dark matter by studying the distorted light of distant background galaxies.

Bob Blum, director of the Rubin Observatory at NSF NOIRLab, said the project follows more than two decades of sustained engineering and scientific effort.

"Rubin Observatory is for everyone; the LSST will change how we do astronomy and astrophysics," Blum said.

Phil Marshall, deputy director of Rubin Operations for SLAC, noted that millions of alerts generated in recent months already demonstrate the system functioning as a genuine discovery machine.

Once complete, the final dataset will contain billions of astronomical objects and trillions of individual measurements, according to the observatory.

This data will be released regularly, marking the first time such a comprehensive astronomical archive becomes publicly accessible to researchers and the public alike.

“Rubin is bringing the universe to life, illuminating a treasure trove of discoveries: pulsating stars, supernova explosions, the fossil record of galaxies, clues to the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and entirely new phenomena never seen before,” the observatory team said.

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A years-long malaria control campaign in the Brazilian Amazon nearly eliminated the disease from a city — but then cases rebounded. Now, scientists think they've uncovered why.

The campaign took place in northern Brazil during the construction of the Belo Monte Dam in the Xingu River, one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world. From 2013 to 2017, the initiative slashed annual malaria rates from more than 1,200 cases to fewer than 60. But the program ended, and within a few years, infections had rebounded to more than 700 cases a year. This time, they were concentrated in the rural communities surrounding the river in the city of Altamira.

In a study published Thursday (July 9) in the journal GeoHealth , scientists analyzed 15 years of malaria surveillance records alongside satellite images of forests around Altamira. Earlier studies have pointed to deforestation and dam construction as a driver of malaria because they can provide habitats for mosquito larvae, which inhabit the forest edge. In Altamira, large stretches of rainforest have been cleared for cattle ranching, logging and settlement along the Xingu River in the decades since the region was first opened up by road-building, leaving a patchwork of cleared land pressed up against the remaining forest.

However, the study found that the malaria resurgence wasn't simply a result of how much forest had been cut down. Instead, cases tracked most closely with the forest edge , the boundary where intact forest meets cleared or open land. There, mosquitoes get everything they need to thrive: shade from the tree line, sunlit pools of standing water for their larvae, and people living or working close by.

The findings highlight how the environment contributes to malaria risk, suggesting that maintaining surveillance in these high-risk landscapes could be just as important as driving cases down in the first place.

"What made Altamira compelling was that the timing gave us something rare, close to a natural experiment," study co-author Eloise Skinner, an epidemiologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, told Live Science in an email. The results of that natural experiment could help Brazil in its efforts to eliminate malaria from the country in the next decade, she said.

A program tied to temporary funding

The researchers tracked malaria trends before, during and after the construction of the Belo Monte Dam. Before construction began, malaria was already a persistent problem in the region; Altamira city alone reported more than 1,200 cases a year.

As thousands of workers moved in, local health authorities and the dam's developers rolled out an intensive control program that involved spraying insecticides indoors, using mosquito nets, and deploying rapid diagnosis and treatment when cases did emerge. The goal was to head off outbreaks spread by Nyssorhynchus darlingi , the mosquito that carries the malaria-causing parasite in the Brazilian Amazon.

Mosquitoes pick up the parasite that causes malaria by feeding on the blood of infected people, and they can then spread that parasite to others they bite. Treating infected people quickly can help break that chain of transmission.

Cases plummeted despite the influx of workers, but once construction wrapped up and the program lost its funding, malaria came back.

Nyssorhynchus darlingi , the mosquito that spreads malaria in the Amazon, breeds in partially shaded bodies of water. (Image credit: Sabrina Simon) To understand what drove the resurgence, the researchers combined three streams of data. Case records came from Brazil's national malaria surveillance system and covered 150 health centers in Altamira over 15 years. The team layered on temperature, forest cover and rainfall data, since both shape how favorable an area is for mosquito breeding and how efficiently the malaria parasite develops inside mosquitos. Plus, they added an estimate of travel time between each cluster of cases and the nearest town, as a proxy for how easily people and the diseases they carry might move around.

From the observations, the forest edge consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of increased malaria cases. For every 1% increase in the perimeter of the forest edge, malaria cases rose by roughly 0.7%; for every 1% increase in Altamira's population, who are located at the forest edge, cases rose by about 1.4%.

The rebound wasn't evenly distributed. Before the dam was built, most of Altamira's malaria cases came from clusters inside the city itself. Afterward, that pattern flipped: by 2020, the roughly 700 annual cases were concentrated almost entirely in remote, rural clusters near forest edges. Meanwhile, Altamira's urban center stayed comparatively protected, much as it had during construction.

"When the funded program wound down, malaria came back to the communities that are hardest for the health system to reach," Skinner said. "The city stayed protected, most likely because fast diagnosis and treatment are easier to deliver and keep going in a town."

That leaves the same communities exposed twice over, Skinner said. The places that are already the hardest to reach with health services also sit where the ecological risk is the highest.

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But this pattern could point to solutions. The resurgence didn't scatter unpredictably. It came back to the same kind of place — rural communities at the forest edge — each time. That's the kind of risk that can be anticipated in the future.

Brazil aims to eliminate locally acquired malaria by 2035 . Skinner said Altamira's near elimination of the disease, and its rebound within a few years of the control program ending, is a warning for that effort. When a community contains a strong environmental driver for malaria, like forest-edge ecosystems, stopping a control program short is sure to let the disease climb back.

"Because the resurgence wasn't diffuse, we can predict where malaria is likely to return first," Skinner said. "The message for a 2035 goal isn't only that elimination needs sustained investment. It is that where the environment drives risk, that risk is predictable, and planning for it from the start is what lets the money go where it matters most."

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It's not just you: Steam is down right now. If this were a Tuesday around this time that'd be no big deal (Valve does maintenance every week), but on a Thursday, you have good reason to be looking for an explanation for the error that currently displays when you try to load Steampowered.com:

"You've made too many requests recently. Please wait and try your request again later."

No, you're not being blocked from Steam for reloading the store too many times. Something's wrong: SteamStat.us reports "too many requests" errors for both the Steam store and Steam community. Maybe something to do with the Summer Sale ending today?

Many of Steam's services are still showing a green light, and we're able to see friends online. Steam's matchmaking services are likewise still in operation, according to the status page. It's specifically the Steam website that's out of commission. We'll update this post as the situation develops.