Technologies

Play Katamari Damacy and 5 More Games on Apple Arcade Now

Subscribers can also play Space Invaders and RollerCoaster Tycoon.

More than 20 years after the release of the award-winning game Katamari Damacy, Apple brought the colorful and quirky series to Apple Arcade, along with five other games.

Apple Arcade is filled with familiar and classic games, alongside exclusive titles, that you can play for $7 per month (£7, AU$10). You can find many of these games in the App Store, but they have paywalls and ads that might hinder your gaming experience.

With an Apple Arcade subscription, you can play each game without paywalls and ads, a feature usually denoted by «Plus» in the name. Here are all the games Apple Arcade subscribers can play now. You can also check out the games Apple added in March.

Katamari Damacy Rolling Live

Developer: Bandai Namco

After Katamari Damacy’s release in 2004, the game launched a series of sequels and ports to other consoles, VR headsets and other devices. This Katamari game is the newest addition to the series, and it launched exclusively on Apple Arcade. In this game you’re still rolling objects scattered across Earth to create stars, but this time your adventure is being streamed by the King of All Cosmos, who gives you challenges as your star grows. Plus, as you complete challenges and grow your fanbase, you’ll unlock new dynamic stages.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene Evolve

Developer: Taito Corporation

Space Invaders is another classic game series, and Apple brought the latest entry to Apple Arcade. The game begins with the same mechanics as the classic 2D shooter many people know and love, but evolves into a fast paced shooter. You’ll unlock more powerful ships and weapons as you advance through the game, but you’ll need good reflexes to keep the ships flying and take down invaders.

RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic Plus

Developer: Atari

This version of RollerCoaster Tycoon combines the original game and the sequel, as well as three expansion packs to help you build the amusement park of your dreams. You’ll construct new rides piece by piece on your own or with premade designs, expand your park, and balance the needs and desires of your park customers. Or you can see how high you can shoot a coaster full of patrons into the air. We won’t judge.

Puffies

Developer: Lykke Studios

This puzzle game reimagines classic jigsaws with puffy, 3D-looking stickers. There’s no overarching image to view in these puzzles, but every single puzzle features a pack of stickers that fits together on one sheet of paper. Play the game every day and unlock daily challenges and grow your sticker collection.

The Game of Life 2 Plus

Developer: Marmalade Game Studio

Subscribers can play this award-winning game and experience the board game in a whole new way. This version features different choices and paths than the original Life. You’ll still move around the board via a spinner, but in this version you can pick a career as a dolphin trainer, customize your character piece and explore space in the Lunar Age expansion. The choice is yours.

Sesame Street Mecha Builders Plus

Developer: StoryToys

Join Mecha Elmo, Cookie Monster and Abby Cadabby in this STEM-focused learning adventure. This game combines mini-games and other activities with science, math and creativity. You’ll embark on exciting missions where you’ll practice coding, create music and mix colors in a fun environment. I was admittedly very disappointed when I learned this game was not Big Bird and the gang building giant mechs to defend Sesame Street. Maybe one day.

You can access these games, and others, on Apple Arcade now for $7 per month or $50 annually. You can also try Apple Arcade for free for one month with your first sign-up, or you can get a three-month free trial when you buy a new Apple device. To access Apple Arcade, open the App Store on your iPhone or iPad, and tap the joystick in the menu bar.

Technologies

Verum E-SIM: Mobile Internet Without Borders or SIM Cards

Today’s travelers are choosing freedom — and eSIM technology delivers exactly that. An eSIM is a virtual SIM card built directly into your device, allowing you to connect to the internet without a physical card or a mobile phone number.

Verum E-SIM is an entire ecosystem of high-tech applications, bringing together solutions like World E-SIM, Euro E-SIM, USA E-SIM, Turkiye E-SIM, London E-SIM, and more. Each of them offers instant access to mobile networks in over 150 countries — no roaming, no overpayments, no paperwork.

The main advantage is simplicity. Download the app, choose your country and plan, activate your eSIM in just a few minutes — and you’re online. No stores, no waiting, no contracts. Just you, the internet, and the freedom to travel your way.

Verum’s eSIMs offer reliability, transparency, and full control of your expenses — all in one app. Whether you’re in Tokyo, New York, Paris, or Nairobi, you’ll always stay connected.

Verum E-SIM Apps:

Verum E-SIM – esim.verum.im

World E-SIM – worldesim.me

USA E-SIM – usa.esim.verum.im

Canada E-SIM – canada.esim.verum.im

Euro E-SIM – euro.esim.verum.im

London E-SIM – london.esim.verum.im

Ukraine E-SIM – ukraine.esim.verum.im

Balkan E-SIM – balkan.esim.verum.im

Africa E-SIM – africa.esim.verum.im

Turkiye E-SIM – turkiyesim.com

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 21

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 21.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword features a lot of one certain letter. Need help? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Bone that can be «dropped»
Answer: JAW

4A clue: Late scientist Goodall
Answer: JANE

5A clue: Make critical assumptions about
Answer: JUDGE

6A clue: Best by a little
Answer: ONEUP

7A clue: Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, etc.
Answer: GODS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Just kind of over it
Answer: JADED

2D clue: Beef cattle breed
Answer: ANGUS

3D clue: Shed tears
Answer: WEEP

4D clue: 2007 comedy-drama starring Elliot Page and Michael Cera
Answer: JUNO

5D clue: Refresh, as one’s memory
Answer: JOG

Technologies

Wikipedia Says It’s Losing Traffic Due to AI Summaries, Social Media Videos

The popular online encyclopedia saw an 8% drop in pageviews over the last few months.

Wikipedia has seen a decline in users this year due to artificial intelligence summaries in search engine results and the growing popularity of social media, according to a blog post Friday from Marshall Miller of the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that oversees the free online encyclopedia.

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In the post, Miller describes an 8% drop in human pageviews over the last few months compared with the numbers Wikipedia saw in the same months in 2024.

«We believe that these declines reflect the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information, especially with search engines providing answers directly to searchers, often based on Wikipedia content,» Miller wrote.

Blame the bots

AI-generated summaries that pop up on search engines like Bing and Google often use bots called web crawlers to gather much of the information that users read at the top of the search results.

Websites do their best to restrict how these bots handle their data, but web crawlers have become pretty skilled at going undetected.

«Many bots that scrape websites like ours are continually getting more sophisticated and trying to appear human,» Miller wrote.

After reclassifying Wikipedia traffic data from earlier this year, Miller says the site «found that much of the unusually high traffic for the period of May and June was coming from bots built to evade detection.»

The Wikipedia blog post also noted that younger generations are turning to social-video platforms for their information rather than the open web and such sites as Wikipedia.

When people search with AI, they’re less likely to click through

There is now promising research on the impact of generative AI on the internet, especially concerning online publishers with business models that rely on users visiting their webpages.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

In July, Pew Research examined browsing data from 900 US adults and found that the AI-generated summaries at the top of Google’s search results affected web traffic. When the summary appeared in a search, users were less likely to click on links compared to when the search results didn’t include the summaries.

Google search is especially important, because Google.com is the world’s most visited website — it’s how most of us find what we’re looking for on the internet.

«LLMs, AI chatbots, search engines and social platforms that use Wikipedia content must encourage more visitors to Wikipedia, so that the free knowledge that so many people and platforms depend on can continue to flow sustainably,» Miller wrote. «With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.»

Last year, CNET published an extensive report on how changes in Google’s search algorithm decimated web traffic for online publishers.