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Meow Wolf Enters the Mini-Golf Metaverse

Exclusive: Walkabout Mini Golf is adding a new VR course designed by immersive art pioneer Meow Wolf. The designers gave us hints of what’s to come.

Walkabout Mini Golf, one of the best multiplayer apps for VR headsets, is adding a course made by art collective Meow Wolf and based on the group’s real-world experiences. It’s Meow Wolf’s first big dip into virtual reality, and it’s scheduled to arrive later this year.

It’s not as strange a move as you might think for Meow Wolf, the group behind the cult hit House of Eternal Return, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a growing bunch of other in-person destinations (Omega Mart in Las Vegas, Convergence Station in Denver). 

Or maybe it is.

But in a VR/AR landscape that still doesn’t really know what a metaverse is supposed to be, this collaboration could point toward creative teams actually trying to figure this out ahead of a wave of new headsets coming later this year.

Let me back up a bit. I find well-built, custom-crafted VR experiences wonderful. I also love immersive physical spaces and theater experiences that take similar care with how groups of people explore strange new worlds together.

VR and AR’s metaverse push of the last couple of years, however, has tried to just create big open social tools with no real guidance or superstructure. These places — VRChat, the soon-to-be-closed AltSpace VR, Meta’s flailing Horizon Worlds, Rec Room — seem to either be spots where fun stuff emerges, or confusing and poorly run experiments that feel empty or alienating unless you know who you’re meeting with and where you’re going.

Sometimes, I find that it’s the in-person experiences that can craft what the virtual ones can’t yet. Meow Wolf’s in-person, multilayered, maximally dense art collective spaces struck me as the sort of way to guide more-elaborate social virtual worlds of the future. The Meow Wolf–Walkabout collaboration sounds like a bizarre and whimsical mirror-world experience that’s also a foot in the door for Meow Wolf’s future explorations in VR and AR.

meow-wolf-walkabout-vr-2meow-wolf-walkabout-vr-2

Meow Wolf’s course will involve an intelligent alien world called Numina that plays with reality.

Meow Wolf

Weird golf 

«We’ve been dreaming about making mini-golf forever,» Caity Kennedy, one of Meow Wolf’s co-founders and the group’s senior creative director, said to me during a Zoom chat. «Since a lot of our exhibits are a big thing compartmentalized with a bunch of little things, mini-golf is like a pretty hilarious and very accessible version of that.»

Another Meow Wolf co-founder, Vince Kadlubek, had been playing in VR games and experiences for years, which led to the collaboration with the team at Walkabout Mini Golf. Meow Wolf had made its own AR companion app for the House of Eternal Return installation years ago, but translating some of those designs into a VR mini-golf course is a different type of crossover experience.

Kennedy already uses some VR art tools, including Gravity Sketch, to work on designs for Meow Wolf’s physical installations. Gravity Sketch was also used as a collaborative place to dream up the VR course. «We have VR artists, we have VR developers that are working on things,» Kennedy hinted, suggesting that Walkabout’s relatively contained structure might be a good starting point.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Walkabout Mini Golf has already become one of the best social VR destinations if you have a small group of friends. This game, and Demeo, are where I tend to join a few old friends for a casual game that lasts about an hour, allows us to chat and explore, and then stop. It feels like going for a walk, or getting coffee, or going to a museum. Or playing mini-golf. Unlike more-intense VR games, or way too open social worlds with no real focus, it gives us something to do while we’re talking. It works.

«It aligned a lot with our sense of humor,» Kennedy said of the collaboration. «You can be good at golf, you can be bad at golf, you can just not play golf and go explore.»

Golf as a strange doorway

Walkabout’s golf courses have already been getting a lot more immersive over time, becoming more like walk-through theme parks or stories than just a bunch of golf holes. A course based on the classic Jim Henson film Labyrinth is like a tour of the film’s plot, and even has a side labyrinth to wander around in. There are Jules Verne courses. There’s a Myst course.

The Meow Wolf course, based on the living other-dimensional jungle world of Numina that’s part of Meow Wolf’s in-person Convergence Station experience in Denver, is meant to be a sort of parallel virtual visit, or maybe a golf course that ends up being visited by and mutated by Numina.

Kennedy hints that the way Meow Wolf’s course will work is a lot stranger and more whimsical than even previous Walkabout courses, which of course excites me. Also, the presence of Numina as a character will loom large over the experience, a «living universe that is curious about us simple animals that are wandering around, falling down stairs and things.»

«It’s not just a duplicate,» Kennedy said of the VR version of Numina versus the physical creation in Denver. «There will be a familiar experience that is twisted and freed by the mechanics of virtual reality. People who’ve been to Numina in real life [at Meow Wolf] will see a lot of things that they got to see in real life, but a lot of people who have only seen pictures will get to wander around something akin to the pictures they’ve seen.

«But, lots of differences: I mean, gravity doesn’t exist in VR. We can make things slip. We don’t have to have electrical wires, or speakers or a lot of the things that limit what we’re able to do. And we’re able to have animation that we can’t do. There’s so much fluidity that is really only possible at the moment in VR.»

A massive furry art creature sculpture in a dim jungle world roomA massive furry art creature sculpture in a dim jungle world room

One of the areas in Numina at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station in Denver. The VR experience will refer to the real-world place in strange ways.

Scott Stein/CNET

Virtual and real winking at each other

Disney has explored crossovers of the virtual and real. It’s created a Star Wars Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge VR game that’s set in the outer realms of the same planet Batuu as the real-life Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge parks. In theory, visiting the virtual game could inspire you to go to the actual park, or the game could be a living souvenir. 

Future planned metaverse-ish explorations could have a similar vibe. Meow Wolf’s own physical spaces communicate with each other via telephones, and a ton of merchandise already extends the stories into some take-home souvenir directions. You can buy Omega Mart merchandise from the alternate-universe store’s gift shop, for example, or get books and artifacts, much like you can at Disney’s stores in Galaxy’s Edge. In some ways, Meow Wolf’s virtual spaces may aim to do the same.

«Mini-golf is not a collective world, so there can’t be live feeds into anything, but having connections between the two, where people can at least see one from the other, or use something they found in one to affect the other… this is going to be kind of our test case,» Kennedy said. «This is our first foray into connecting a real world exhibit with virtual reality.»

Lucas Martell, the director of Walkabout Mini Golf, said the Meow Wolf course «is going to be much more of an experience,» admitting that the company is starting to flex out with more experimental designs that start becoming more like one-hour excursions for groups, as opposed to just a casual sport. 

Even though Walkabout is a VR game, the company has also released a phone-based version that’ll use augmented reality, sort of: Courses can be seen through the phone screen, and swings happen by moving your phone like a real putter. The phone version is arriving ahead of Meow Wolf’s course, meaning more people could try it out.

«The irony is that a lot of people playing probably haven’t even been to an actual Meow Wolf,» Martell said. Considering Meow Wolf is still an organization some people haven’t heard of, much less seen, a little mini golf game like Walkabout could be a chance to open up awareness to a whole bunch more people. As someone who’s been lucky enough to check out the real-world Meow Wolf spaces, I’m looking forward to visiting a small virtual shard of it in my home.

Meow Wolf’s course isn’t available until later this year, but I can’t wait to play it with a few friends. We could explore those strange spaces together in VR as we talk, just like we’d do in the real world, too.

Technologies

MacBook Pro May Be Finally Getting a Touchscreen

The OLED MacBook Pro reportedly will break new ground with late 2026 launch.

Get your swiping fingers ready. According to a reliable insider, Apple will introduce touchscreen capability to the MacBook Pro for the first time with the launch of the OLED MacBook Pro in late 2026.


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Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with TF International Securities, posted on X that the cheaper MacBook, scheduled to go into production later this year, will not have a touchscreen. However, he said it’s probable that the model’s second generation, slated for production in 2027, could get a touchscreen.

A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After years of seeing how consumers use their iPads, Kuo believes that Apple realizes that «in certain scenarios, touch controls can enhance both productivity and the overall user experience.»

Read more: What exactly IS the best MacBook for you?

Apple has not confirmed the report. However, on Wednesday, Kuo listed numerous reports that have come true, including the iPhone Air specs, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and the iPhone 17 Dynamic Island staying the same size.

What’s next for the MacBook?

It’s been nearly two decades since Apple introduced the first MacBook. CNET’s Scott Stein believes that the iPad and MacBook platforms will eventually merge.

YouTuber Jon Rettinger, who has 1.65M subscribers, agrees that the iPad and MacBook are «on a collision course with unity» and that consumers are always looking for the next level of interaction and form factors: in this case, a touchscreen.

But with the devices and their operating systems merging, Rettinger says a big question mark is what’s next for the iPadOS. «How will that continue to evolve?»

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Technologies

New PS5 Update Lets DualSense Controllers Pair With Multiple Devices at the Same Time

A software update brings the controller pairing feature to all users and also adds a power-saving option for some games.

All you PlayStation 5 players can now pair your wireless DualSense controllers with up to four devices at a time and toggle among them. 

For some time, you’ve been able to pair your DualSense controllers not just with PS5s and other PlayStation consoles, but also with PCs, Macs, smartphones and other Bluetooth devices. But that pairing could happen with only one device at a time; using a different device with a DualSense required pairing all over again.

That changes now, with system update 25.05-12.00.00. PS5 owners who download and install the update, which is now available, can pair their DualSense controllers with up to four different devices. The new feature also works with DualSense Edge controllers.

How to enable and use multidevice pairing on DualSense controllers

To enable the feature (which has been available to beta testers since June):

  1. Hold the PS button for 5 seconds and then hold one of the action buttons (triangle, circle, square or X) until the light bar and player indicator flash twice.
  2. Turn on Bluetooth pairing on your device and select the DualSense controller.
  3. Once pairing is done on the other device, the light bar and player indicator light should blink in one of four slots.

To use the feature once you’ve assigned other devices:

  1. Make sure the device you want to switch to is on and has Bluetooth enabled.
  2. Hold the PS button and the action button that was assigned (triangle, circle, square or X)for 3 seconds.
  3. The player indicator light (1-4) should flash according to which device pairing has been activated.

For more detailed instructions and troubleshooting, click here. 

Other PS5 system updates

The PS5 system update also brings another new feature: Some games will support power saving, which reduces power consumption by scaling back game performance. You can enable or disable that for specific games by going to Settings > System > Power Saving > Use Power Saver.

In addition, Sony says, the update improves messages and usability on some system screens, as well as software performance and stability.

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Technologies

Forget the iPhone 17, the 2025 Moto G Power Is on Sale for a Record-Low $250

This midrange Motorola is one of our favorite budget-friendly phones on the market, and right now you can snag one for $50 off the usual price.

There’s a lot of buzz about the iPhone 17, which hits shelves this Friday. But not everyone wants to spend $800 (or substantially more) on the latest Apple phone. Motorola has some great options for those looking for a more affordable alternative, and right now you can grab one for even less.

Amazon has knocked $50 off the 2025 Motorola Moto G Power, which drops the price to a record-low $250. It’s also on sale at Motorola, where you’ll get an extra $100 in credit if you’re trading in an old phone.

CNET’s mobile device experts named the Moto G Power as the best phone you can get for less than $300, with Mike Sorrentino calling it the «lowest-priced Motorola phone worth buying.» It’s not the most advanced model on the market, but can still has the hardware needed to «handle the basics without breaking the bank.»

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If features a vibrant 6.8-inch display with FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate, as well as an impressive 50-megapixel rear camera system that preforms surprisingly well in low light. Under the hood, it’s equipped with 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and a Mediatek Dimensity 8100 CPU, as well as a respectable 5,000-mAh battery. It also has a unique «RAM Boost» feature that converts a small amount of available storage into virtual RAM to temporarily boost performance. Plus, it supports 5G connectivity and has durable IP68 design so its resistant to water and dust.

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Why this deal matters

As one of our favorite affordable models, the Motorola Moto G Power is already a decent value at full price, and a bargain whenever you can pick it up for less — especially a record-low price. It features decent specs and hardware, as well as a fairly rugged design, making it well worth the money at just $250.

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