NES Classic Edition To Go Back On Sale At Best Buy On April 24

Best Buy will sell units of the NES Classic Edition on Monday, April 24, quite possibly the last chance users will have of getting the now-discontinued product from a legitimate retail store.

Grab An NES Classic Edition At Best Buy While You Can

The sale will be in-store only, so there will be no online reservations or purchases. Units will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis.

Exactly how many units Best Buy has in stock is undisclosed, but the retailer says that it'll be "limited." Moreover, some stores may employ a ticketing process to prevent any potential lineup chaos from happening.

The NES Classic Edition Supply Problem

Upon its launch in November, the NES Classic Edition was a wild hit — stores quickly ran out of stocks. Even Nintendo itself was surprised, admitting that the overwhelming reception was not something it had expected. That sentiment showed.

In the months that followed, those looking to buy one simply couldn't. Every store had sold out their units, and there was no word from Nintendo when it'll restock the NES throwback. Units did trickle down, but slowly and scantily. Not long after its release, eBay scalpers took notice, peddling NES Classic Edition units with ridiculously high markups.

But the hype had not died down. Customers were still looking — looking, still — for units even when supply issues were more than apparent. Often, it would show up in legitimate retail stores but only in limited numbers and, more of than not, in a flash-style sale, where the first to come to the store will get it first. No online reservations allowed.

NES Classic Edition Discontinued

So what was Nintendo's response to the overwhelming and obvious demand for the NES Classic Edition? Well, it killed the product entirely. We're not kidding: Nintendo recently announced that it was discontinuing the NES Classic Edition, just five months after its launch. Many publications called it a baffling move, speculating that Nintendo didn't mean for the console to be such a wide hit.

Of the spate of guesswork, one idea seems to be rising from the cruft: that Nintendo only produced a limited run of the NES Classic Edition, intending for it to be a holiday gift that was nothing more than a plaything. Speculation suggests that, not expecting for it to be such a hit, Nintendo had only entered a limited contract with the manufacturer of the consoles. Nintendo probably saw that extending or renewing that contract isn't wise. After all, it still needs to produce millions of Switch units by the end of the year.

Now, all the NES Classic Edition the world will ever see are the ones already lying around, as Nintendo has stopped manufacturing them altogether. So if you've been meaning to get one for the longest time, hit up Best Buy and try your chances there.

The NES Classic Edition is a "mini" reiteration of the Nintendo Entertainment System released in the '80s. It's much smaller, has an HDMI port for compatibility with HDTVs, and it comes preinstalled with 30 NES titles. There's no way to add more games to the preinstalled library — at least not officially.

Mini SNES

Rumor has it that Nintendo plans to release a Mini Super Nintendo Entertainment System next, a mini edition of the SNES, released in the '90s. Hopefully Nintendo doesn't kill it after five months too.

AMAZON ECHO UPDATE - THIS NEW FEATURE COULD LITERALLY SAVE YOUR LIFE

Amazon Echo and Echo Dot took the UK by storm when they launched last year, racking up awards and praise.

The clever 360-degree omni-directional speaker is powered by virtual assistant, dubbed “Alexa”.

This talkative AI assistant lets Echo owners order dinner, check the weather, turn on the lights, adjust your thermostat, get travel updates on your commute, call a cab, and more, using only your voice. Amazon promotes the smart speaker with the tagline, Just Ask.

Alexa also has access to millions of tracks, albums and radio stations.

Third-Pray developers are building new Skills for the smart home device. And this latest one could be a really lifesaver.

The British Red Cross this week launched a new Skill which enables Echo owners to quickly get access to step-by-step first aid advice.

The new Amazon Echo Skill uses simple, spoken instructions to teach people a wide range of first-aid treatments, including how to deal with a severe bleed, a burn and a seizure.

Once the Skill is installed, which is handled via the companion smartphone app, users can access it by saying “Alexa, open First Aid”, and ask for advice, for example “Alexa, ask First Aid how to help someone having a seizure”.

The Red Cross is the first education provider in the UK to pioneer a first aid app for the device.

Recent research from the charity revealed that up to 59 per cent of “pre-hospital” deaths from injury could potentially have been prevented had more people stepped in with some simple first aid.

First Aid seeks to educate people in first aid as part of their daily lives, making them more confident and better equipped to step in and help in emergency situations, British Red Cross stated.

RAPPER’S RIDE REBORN: LINCOLN NAVIGATOR CHARTS COMEBACK AS FAMILY HAULER

The Navigator’s street cred helped it become the top-selling U.S. premium line, until it was passed up by the Cadillac Escalade. The latest Navigator has been designed for “family time” and aimed at affluent parents.

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS SAYS GALAXY S8 PRE-ORDERS EXCEEDED S7

Pre-orders for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone have exceeded those of its predecessor S7, mobile business chief Koh Dong-jin said on Thursday, suggesting many consumers were unfazed by last year's Galaxy Note 7 fires.

The S8, which begin sales in South Korea, the United States and Canada on April 21, will be central to the South Korean firm's recovery from the swift withdrawal of the Note 7 phablet.

The new device has been well-received, and some investors and analysts said it could set a first-year sales record for the smartphone giant.

"It's still a bit early, but initial response to the pre-orders that have begun at various places across the world have been better than expected," Koh said at a media briefing.

The S8 will be the safest Galaxy smartphone to date due to safety measures implemented to avoid the battery failures that caused some Note 7s to spontaneously combust, he said.

Analysts expect Samsung to record its best-ever quarterly profit in April-June, buoyed by strong S8 sales and a memory chip market boom that is widely expected to deliver record revenue for the industry this year.

The new device, equipped with either 5.8-inch or 6.2-inch (14.73 cm or 15.75 cm) curved screens, sports the largest screens to date among all of Samsung's flagship phones due to a redesign.

Koh also said the firm plans to use the S8 to try to recover in China, where Samsung has been out of the top five vendors in recent years due to heightened competition from local rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.

He said Samsung will aim to regain market share in China even if it takes time, without elaborating on specific strategies.

(Reporting by Se Young Lee; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Christopher Cushing)

JAGUAR’S LATEST SPORTSCAR OFFERS POWER WITH RESPONSIBILITY - SEE MORE AT:

LONDON, April 13 — In a bid to prove that keen drivers put too much emphasis on cylinder count rather than torque, horsepower and weight, Jaguar has decided to take its F-Type sports coupé and jettison the usual V8 or V6 in favour of a four-cylinder engine.

But don’t panic, it’s not just any old four-pot. It’s one of Jaguar’s new hyper-efficient 2-litre Ingenium turbocharged units and therefore is capable of serving up 300PS (296bhp). Throw in the fact that the smaller block and some other adjustments have shaved 52kg off the car’s weight and that little engine is good for a 0-60mph time of 5.4 seconds (exactly the same as the V6 F-Type) and on to a top speed of 155mph.

Yet the car’s fuel economy is a 16 per cent improvement over the 340PS V6 model and emits 163g of CO2 per km.

“The 300PS Ingenium petrol engine is engineered to deliver a compelling blend of performance, refinement and efficiency,” said Ron Lee, Engineering Director of Powertrain, Jaguar Land Rover. “Not only is this the most powerful four-cylinder ever offered in a production Jaguar, it also develops the highest specific power and torque ratings of any engine in the F-Type range. It’s a natural fit for a Jaguar sports car.”

The lighter engine has also changed the car’s handling characteristics, turning it into a vehicle that craves country backroads as much as long highway straights.

“Most of the weight reduction is over the front axle, making the car beautifully balanced and really agile to drive — as you’d expect, the car is really at home on beautiful twisty roads,” said Erol Mustafa, Chief Product Engineer, Jaguar Sports Cars. “This particular F-Type has a character all of its own. I like to think of it as the feisty younger brother of the V6 and V8 models.”

And while the company has cut back on cylinders, it’s been generous with active safety and creature comforts. The car comes with a Touch Pro infotainment system, autonomous emergency braking and lane departure warning; other options include lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition and even a driver condition monitor.

The F-Type 300PS 2-litre will cost from £50,000 (about RM278,000) when it goes on sale later this year. — AFP-Relaxnews

THIS WEEK, NASA ANNOUNCES FRESH DISCOVERY ON OCEAN WORLDS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

NASA is holding a major press conference this week to reveal its latest results on ocean worlds in our own solar system.

At the said mysterious event, the U.S. space agency will disclose findings on its “broader search for life beyond Earth,” as well as things that could potentially affect “future ocean world exploration.”

News On Oceans Beyond Earth
Cassini’s Planned Demise
Other Recent Space Adventures

The announcements, to be given in a news briefing 2 p.m. EDT this Thursday, April 13, will relate to findings from its Cassini spacecraft as well as the Hubble Space Telescope. They will be made at the NASA headquarters’ James Webb Auditorium in Washington, with remote participation from experts across the United States.

“These new discoveries will help inform future ocean world exploration — including NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission planned for launch in the 2020s — and the broader search for life beyond Earth,” NASA said in a statement.

Participants in the media briefing will include Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for Science Mission Directorate; Jim Green, Planetary Science Division director; and astrobiology senior scientist Mary Voytek.

The panel and remotely positioned experts will entertain questions during the event, while the public can also ask their own questions using the hashtag #AskNASA.

The Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997 and which arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, is bound to end its two-decade mission on Sept. 15 with a planned probe kill. In a final maneuver, Cassini, currently facing a fuel crunch, will be set on a collision course with Saturn’s atmosphere and is expected to “break apart, melt, vaporize, and become a part of the very planet it left Earth 20 years ago to explore,” according to project manager Earl Maize.

This crash has been planned by the agency to avoid contamination of a nearby moon hoped to potentially harbor alien life.

Afterward, NASA’s planned Europa Clipper will position a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter to perform a detailed probe of moon Europa. The giant planet’s moon has exhibited strong proof of an ocean of liquid water, situated beneath icy crust and which could be hospitable to life.

Cassini has been deemed generally productive given the high-value investigation of Saturn, its rings, and moons. It transmitted, for instance, images that highlighted Enceladus’ geysers with a hint of an ocean underneath, as well as the Earth-like moon Titan.

Other NASA missions are marking their own milestones. Just recently, the New Horizons probe successfully reached the halfway point between Pluto and its second target for flyby, the remote Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.

The probe reached this milestone on April 3 at midnight UTC (April 2, 8 p.m. ET), at a distance of 486.19 million miles from Pluto and the same distance to the remote asteroid. New Horizons eyes swooping past the object, located about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019 — another record for space explorations.

New Horizons reached Pluto in July 2015 after its launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida back in January 2006. As Pluto’s first guest from Earth, it is currently 3.5 billion miles from our planet, taking radio signals five hours and 20 minutes to get from the control center in Johns Hopkins University in Maryland to the spacecraft.