Futuristic Arena Sports Game Ultimechs Will Be Delisted Later This Month

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Resolution Games has announced that its Rocket League-like arena sports title Ultimechs will be delisted from all VR platforms on October 20. Multiplayer services will also be shut down, though the game will still work for single-player.

Here is the full text of the announcement on Steam. An identical developer post is on the Meta Horizon Store, save listing the correct storefront:

We want to let our players know that we’ll soon be retiring online multiplayer support for Ultimechs and will transition the game to a single-player-only experience. You’ll still be able to jump into the arena and enjoy Ultimechs in single-player mode after multiplayer services end on October 20, 2026. On that date, the game will also be delisted from the Steam Store alongside the Ultimechs Spectator, which will no longer be able to spectate any matches. In preparation for this, in-app purchases have been disabled in the game, but you will still be able to spend any UltiCoins you have purchased already, even after multiplayer services have ended. Thank you to everyone who has competed in the arena with us over the years. Keep those GauntJets flying!

Ultimechs Is Resolution Games New Mix Of Rocket League And Mechs In VR
Demeo And Cook-Out developer Resolution Games has revealed its next VR title, Ultimechs.
UploadVRJamie Feltham

Ultimechs first launched free-to-play in September 2022, with a free and paid battle pass progression system to unlock new cosmetics. The game featured three different types of mechs, each with its own specifications and special abilities. It currently has a score of 4.2 from 767 ratings on Quest and a ‘Very Positive’ rating from 153 reviews on Steam.

This is not the first multiplayer VR title to be retired in 2026, joining Rec Room, Inverse, Firewall Ultra, Hyper Dash, Larcenauts, Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl, Frenzies, A Township Tale and Quantaar as multiplayer applications closing up shop this year. Additionally Zombie Army VR shut down its co-op gameplay mode earlier this year, though that was tied to a change in Unity services.

A Township Tale developer Alta’s latest project, co-op dungeon crawler Reave, was canceled before ever releasing as were Triangle Factory’s Breachers: Outbreak and The Binary Mill’s Survive The Night, both of which were ‘shelved indefinitely.’

Simply put, multiplayer servers cost money and that cost increases with higher player counts. For games with dead servers, at a time when studios are looking to save every penny in a struggling economy, it is an expense deemed not worth keeping on the books.

Let’s Encrypt cuts certificate lifetimes to 64 days starting February 2027

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Let’s Encrypt is continuing a push toward improved security by reducing free SSL/TLS certificate lifetimes from 90 days to 64 days, starting on February 10, 2027. For administrators already implementing modern ACME clients that support ARI (ACME Renewal Information), the change should be seamless. For those still relying on hardcoded renewal schedules or manual processes, next winter will be the deadline to update before certificates start expiring unexpectedly.

Starting on October 14, 2026, Let’s Encrypt will begin testing the 64-day certificates, and interested users can opt-in to test their setups before production goes live.

Prior to Let’s Encrypt’s launch in early 2016, certificates were often issued for as long as 1 to 3 years at a time. The service start with 90-day certificates to force renewal automation that didn’t previously exist. Shorter certificate validity periods limited vulnerabilities from private key thefts and accelerated HTTPS adoption across the web.

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Driver wins $76 after ALPR led to bogus traffic stop, drug searches

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A federal jury in Texas recently ruled in favor of a man who sued Bexar County and its sheriff over allegations that the agency ran what the plaintiff’s attorneys called an “unconstitutional traffic stop scheme” enabled by “AI-powered” license plate readers.

Late last month, plaintiff Alek Schott of Houston was awarded $76, one dollar for each minute that he was detained. (Schott asked for this exact amount as symbolic compensation.)

“After the stop, I filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Office because I knew what happened to me was wrong,” Schott said in a statement after his win. “The department reviewed it, told me they didn’t see any violation, and said if I had a problem with it, I should sue them. So I did.”

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RFK Jr. unveils sweeping federal initiative to find evidence of vaccine injuries

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Under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the federal health department is undertaking an agency-wide effort to focus on injuries claimed to be related to vaccines.

In a press announcement Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) laid out four aspects of the large-scale initiative. The first is a new clinic at the National Institutes of Health that is “dedicated to studying and caring for patients experiencing health problems following vaccination.” Despite only being announced today, the clinic actually opened October 5, and Kennedy secretly attended its ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside other high-level Trump administration officials. It’s unclear why his visit and the clinic’s opening were not disclosed by the Trump administration, but they were reported by Bloomberg Law at the time.

Another aspect of the initiative is a proposal to reimburse doctors for reporting possible injuries from vaccines to a federal system called VAERS, or the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. VAERS, which is run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a common focus of anti-vaccine advocates, who incessantly misuse it. The system is meant to be an indiscriminate dragnet of any potential safety concerns linked to vaccines, providing a sensitive early warning monitoring system. Anyone, including members of the public, can submit an unvetted report.

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An experimental tour-de-force: Entanglement between glass bead and light

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Writing about quantum entanglement is always a challenge. There are so many clichés to avoid: It’s mysterious, ghostly, spooky, and weird. Entanglement is none of those things, and yet it is also all of those things—a superposition of clichés, you might say. So, having gotten all of my clichés out of the way in the second sentence, let’s take a look at how a group of researchers managed to entangle a light beam with a glass bead, which is, frankly, quite an achievement.

Cliché-free entanglement

Quantum entanglement is nothing more or less than the idea that if two objects are linked, then their behavior will, in some ways, be correlated. To take a terrible example: My upper and lower arm are very strongly correlated in terms of relative position because they are connected at the elbow. No one is surprised by this because we can see that they are actually a single object called an arm.

Two photons can be, in a sense, joined together, meaning that they have correlations, too. In this case, we are (naively) surprised for three reasons. First, we think of photons as separate objects that cannot be joined—this is a mistake of understanding. Second, when we connect two photons, we only connect them in limited ways: The two photons may be wholly uncorrelated in terms of polarization, but strongly correlated in terms of energy.

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Life Size Homer Simpson Made Entirely From Chocolate

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Because who hasn’t dreamed of licking their Taste-O-Vision screen to savor the flavor of their favorite animated nuclear power plant worker — pastry chef and chocolatier Amaury Guichon (previously) went and constructed a life-size Homer Simpson entirely out of chocolate. Save his nose and hair for me. I couldn’t find any details on how many total pounds of chocolate were used, but I wonder how many people it would take to comfortably finish Homer in a day. I know some serious eaters, so if I could choose my eating companions I think just three of us. Four to be safe. Five and we’d be showing the waiter at dinner pictures of who we ate for lunch.

R.I.P. Margaret Hamilton, whose code saved the Apollo 11 Moon landing

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Margaret Hamilton, who coined the term “software engineering” and led the development of on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s, died last week at the age of 90. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, Hamilton was also immortalized as a LEGO minifig the following year—part of the “Women of NASA” set that also included astronauts Mae Jemison and Sally Ride.

“To say Margaret Hamilton was a pioneer—to say she was ahead of her time—would be a dramatic understatement. She was a software engineer at a time when that field was in its infancy, and she not only developed advanced code herself but also led a team in using that nascent technology to develop one of the most complex systems humanity had ever achieved,” said Olivier de Weck, interim head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “The Apollo program still stands as one of our greatest testaments to the power of collaboration, ingenuity, and engineering, and Hamilton was a fundamental contributor to that program’s success.”

Born in 1936 in Paoli, Indiana, Hamilton graduated from Earlham College in 1958 with a degree in mathematics and a minor in philosophy—the latter a nod to her father (a poet) and grandfather (a headmaster). She married her first husband, James Cox Hamilton, that same year. The plan was for her to work until he finished his law degree, after which he would support her through graduate school to earn a PhD in mathematics.

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Real VR Fishing Gets Into The Halloween Spirit With New Free Update

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A new update for Real VR Fishing arrives next week, bringing spooky maps, haunted fish, mixed reality features, hand tracking, and more.

The Halloween-themed update adds five maps, including three brand new locations and two returning favorites from previous Halloween events. Each map features a new fish species (some of them quite spooky), while virtual anglers can also catch returning Halloween fish like the Zombie Shark and the Haunted Goblin Shark. Last year’s Halloween fish and all 12 fish from the game’s sixth-anniversary event will also return.

In addition, players can earn five pumpkin-themed costumes, two rod sets, and an exclusive title, all without spending any real-world money.

Screens showing the spooky new maps, and (bottom right) the free Clear Creek Park environment.

The update also introduces early versions of Ice Fishing and mixed reality fishing modes. Ice Fishing transforms the player’s real-world floor into ice in mixed reality, while MR Fishing brings the game’s greater waterways into the player’s space. Hand-tracking mode has also been implemented to allow Real VR Fishing to be played without controllers.

Lastly, the free Clear Creek Park stage is offered as a celebration of the game’s seventh anniversary, along with two new fish species.

Real VR Fishing’s Halloween update launches October 13 on Meta Quest and SteamVR. The base game is priced at $19.99.

Emmy Awards Leave Broadcast TV For Prime Video

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Amazon Prime Video will become the exclusive global home of the Emmy Awards under a six-year deal beginning in 2027, the Television Academy announced on Tuesday. The Emmys will stream live for free to viewers in more than 240 countries and territories without requiring a Prime subscription. From the report: In the release, Prime Video was named as the “permanent home” for the Emmys, in contrast to the rotating agreement in place years prior. The switch ends the traditional “wheel-deal” setup to broadcast the awards, where ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox took turns hosting the Emmys each year. The system has been in place since at least 1994, with the most recent eight-year contract expiring this year. “Television has never been more global, and the Emmys should be a celebration that the world can share,” Television Academy chair Cris Abrego said in a statement. “Having a dedicated home with Prime Video allows us to build on that legacy with unprecedented global reach and a broader commitment to the Television Academy and our mission throughout the year.”


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