Mario Kart Live with real kart in your real home, and more tech news today

Your tech news digest, by way of the DGiT Daily tech newsletter, for Friday, 4 September 2020.

1. Mario Kart Live is Mario Kart AR for the real world

Nintendo pulled off a surprise yesterday, announcing a flurry of new Mario games to celebrate the 35th birthday of the world’s most well-known plumber. Loaannouncements galore, but the pick of the bunch is Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit.

The video here explains it better than any words, but I also made you a gif to explain, too:

• What we’re seeing is the new Nintendo Switch game enables you to race real-life RC cars through custom tracks in your home, using your Switch.
• You are buying a game, and a physical kart with a camera on board to add the mixed realities together as a sort of AR racing track with the Switch itself.
• The race track is set up using gates, and it looks like you’ll be racing against non-physical AI if you have one kit, but combine a couple of kits and you can have real-life races, Nintendo noting you can play with up to four players in local multiplayer mode.
• Nintendo confirmed the physical kart does what it would in the game: it goes faster if you get a boost in-game, stops when hit with an item, and so on.
• Will it work as well as it does in the video? Unlikely, but Nintendo is usually pretty good at releasing accessories that work well.
• Do I need to move house just to make a bigger track? What happens if your cat walks in and stops your kart?
• It’s out with either a Mario Set or Luigi Set, on Oct. 16, for $99.99.
• So, $100 gets you one Kart only, so playing with four Karts seems like it’ll run you $400: invite your friends.

Those other Mario games?

• Yes, there’s more too.
• Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, confirming rumors that Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy will be making a re-release return on the Switch.
• Some retro comebacks: Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros 2 and Super Mario Bros 3 will make it to the Switch in a re-release of Super Mario All-Stars. (The non-3D version.)
• There’s a Mario Battle Royale because of course there is, playing against 35 others.
• And Nintendo rounded out its victory lap with a novelty retro handheld (Game & Watch), Mario themed-crossovers over the next months. For example, in March 2021, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will get a new set of Super Mario furniture.

But this is not a Mario echo chamber! Kotaku gets it right by pointing out that Nintendo’s new Mario games have a weird purchase-by deadline, and it sucks. You only have five months to buy some of them. For no real reason, except Nintendo!

2. Here’s a great Labor Day deal: Save $100 on the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro series this week (Android Authority).

3. Speed Test G: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra vs OnePlus 8 Pro, and the winner is a bit of a shock given the Note 20 Ultra has the Snapdragon 865 Plus. It’s close, and doesn’t mean everything, but the winner is interesting.

4. On that note: OnePlus 8T may bring 120Hz and quad rear cameras to a lower-priced phone, but still a ways off seeing it come to fruition (Android Authority).

5. HUAWEI Watch Fit hands-on: The skinny Apple Watch (Android Authority).

6. Former Essential employees are building a startup called OSOM Products (Android Authority).

7. Source: Only the top-spec of Apple’s new iPhones support mmWave, the fastest 5G tech, and only the US, South Korea, and Japan versions (Fast Company).

8. Apple wants to stop advertisers from following you around the web by reducing tracking. Facebook has other ideas, and the fight affects developers and advertising across the web and apps. Now, Apple has extended the time before it makes these big changes (TechCrunch).

9. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 is out today on PS4, Xbox, PC! Review: Coming home feels great (Polygon).

10. The secret Avengers video game the world never got to play: THQ spent years working on an Avengers video game. CNET has the story of how it was torn apart (CNET).

11. Alphabet’s Loon balloons are helping scientists study gravity waves (Engadget).

12. SpaceX hops a full-scale Starship prototype for the second time, this time SN6 (Ars Technica).

13. Explore the world’s first-ever Sounds of the Forest map (timberfestival.org.uk)

14 “What’s a relatively unknown technological invention that will have a huge impact on the future?” (r/askreddit).

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