Technologies

Your Guide to Epic Universe, the New Universal Theme Park Open Now

An insider’s guide to everything you’ll find at Universal Resort’s brand new theme park, including Donkey Kong Country, dragon drones and robotics, the Ministry of Magic ride and the werewolf roller coaster.

Universal Resort Orlando’s brand new theme park Epic Universe is now open, and CNET has all the details on the park and its immersive entertainment that ties in with movies, games and technology. We’re here to provide you with an insider’s guide to Epic Universe, which has five lands: Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon — Isle of Berk, Dark Universe, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic and Celestial Park.

Epic Universe is the fourth Universal Orlando theme park, after Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure and water park Volcano Bay. Universal says it’s goal is to be «a weeklong vacation destination,» much like its Orlando theme park competitor Walt Disney World, which has six theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, along with water parks Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon).

Part of Universal’s expansion also includes three new hotels: Universal Helios Grand Hotel, Universal Stella Nova Resort and Universal Terra Luna Resort, bringing its total to 11 hotels. (Disney World has more than 20 hotels, for comparison.)

Check out CNET’s guide below for what you need to know about Epic Universe, including ticket prices, new rides, restaurants and experiences. And read here for more on Universal’s planned UK theme park.

Super Nintendo World (featuring Donkey Kong Country)

Universal Orlando is finally joining Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Hollywood in hosting a Mario-themed land. Much like in the Japan and Hollywood parks, the marquee ride is Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, where you hop inside a kart, collect coins and throw shells to try to win the cup.

There’s also Mine Cart Madness, a Donkey Kong-themed roller coaster, and Yoshi’s Adventure, where you board a Yoshi and go egg-spotting through the Mushroom Kingdom.

There are meet and greets with Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Toad, and the Toadstool Cafe for your dining needs.

Buy a Power-Up Band and you’ll be able to collect coins throughout the land and rides on the wearable wristband. It works throughout all three Super Nintendo World locations.

How to Train Your Dragon — Isle of Berk

How to Train Your Dragon finally has some space in a Universal theme park, 15 years after the original movie (which still has 99% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes) was released in 2010.

The much-loved DreamWorks movie, which featured Hiccup the teenage Viking and his quest to befriend rather than kill a dragon he names Toothless, spawned two sequels (both with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes), as well as 10 seasons of two separate animated series and a live-action version of the first movie, which releases in June.

Now, you’ll be able to visit Berk (Florida’s version). It won’t be as cold, but it will be filled with Viking characters walking around the land, dragon robots you can greet on the ground and dragons flying over the colorful wooden buildings.

Hiccup’s Wing Gliders is the main attraction, a roller coaster that simulates the experience of riding on a dragon. A second ride, Dragon Racer’s Rally, will see each rider strapped into an individual dragon-shaped seat attached to a pendulum arm, flipping upside down as the arm swings up and around.

There’s also a water ride called Fyre Drill, where you’ll board a Viking longboat and shoot water cannons at the dragon targets and other boats you sail past, while you in turn get soaked.

For the younger visitors, Viking Training Camp is an adventure playground where they can climb, run, slide and play with interactive elements.

Rounding out the land is a live show starring Hiccup, Toothless, Astrid and Gobber, and Mead Hall, a dining option serving Scandinavian offerings like fish, meat, ale and mead.

Dark Universe, and Classic Universal monsters

This sinister-sounding land is dedicated to all the classic Universal monsters out there, with villains from Frankenstein’s monster to Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon roaming Darkmoor Village.

Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment is a ride inside a spooky Victorian manor, where you need to escape the experiments of Dr. Victoria Frankenstein. A second ride, Curse of the Werewolf, is a coaster that soars through the forest as you escape a pack of werewolves.

You can also experience the wonders of theatrical makeup and be transformed into a werewolf, vampire or mummy with the Monster Makeup Experience.

There are two dining locations in Dark Universe:

Das Stakehaus, a vampire-themed restaurant.
The Burning Blade Tavern, a more casual eatery inside a windmill that catches fire several times each hour.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic

This is the third Harry Potter location at Universal Orlando, after the Diagon Alley area in Universal Studios Florida and the Hogwarts/Hogsmeade area in Islands of Adventure.

It’ll span both the Fantastic Beasts movies and the original Harry Potter series, meaning most of the land is themed after Paris in the 1920s, from where you can travel by the Métro-Floo network to the British Ministry of Magic in the 1990s.

The main attraction is the Battle at the Ministry ride, where you’ll help the trio fight Dolores Umbridge. It’s similar to the mechanics of the Hogwarts ride, except you’ll be in an elevator compartment at the Ministry of Magic, and it also features much-updated technology so it’s even more immersive.

There’s also Le Cirque Arcanus, a live show with performers, puppets and special effects, and is set in the Fantastic Beasts universe.

There’s plenty to explore in this new area, including a new wand store called Cosme Acajor Baguettes Magique, more interactive wand locations and a French restaurant called Café L’air De La Sirène.

It’s not connected to the Hogwarts Express train ride that goes between the other two Harry Potter lands in Orlando, however, due to the park’s distance from Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure.

Celestial Park

Celestial Park is themed as a cosmic getaway, where you can ride a rocket at speeds of up to 62mph on the dual-launch roller coaster Stardust Racers — or if something slower-paced is more your thing, you can ride the Constellation Carousel.

There are also two restaurants — Atlantic and The Blue Dragon Pan-Asian Restaurant — as well as a shopping location called the Nintendo Super Star Store.

Celestial Park is the hub of the new theme park: you’ll enter Epic Universe into Celestial Park, and from there can take one of the four portals into the other lands.

How much do Epic Universe tickets cost?

Ticket pricing depends on how many days you want to spend at Universal Studios Florida, as well as which parks you want to go to, and whether you want to visit more than one park each day. Here are the options and starting prices. Keep in mind that pricing will change depending on what day of the week and time of year you visit, too.

For now, you can only purchase multiday park tickets to visit Epic Universe, unless you’re a Universal passholder. In future, Universal will allow you to buy a single-day ticket to visit the new park, but that option is not yet available.

3-day park tickets

3 day, 4-park hopper: $452/adult, $442/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, while on the other two days you can hop between Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay).
3-day, 3-park hopper: $412/adult, $402/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, while on the other two days you can hop between Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure).
3-day, 3 parks, one park per day: $352/adult, $342/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, one day at Universal Studios and one day at Islands of Adventure).

4-day park tickets

4-day, 4-park hopper: $486/adult, $476/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, while on the other three days you can hop between Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay).
4-day, 3-park hopper: $436/adult, $426/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, while on the other two days you can hop between Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure).
4-day, 4 parks, one park per day: $421/adult, $411/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, one day at Universal Studios, one day at Islands of Adventure and one day at Volcano Bay).
4-day, 3 parks, one park per day: $371/adult, $361/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, one day at Universal Studios and one day at Islands of Adventure).

5-day park tickets

5-day, 4-park hopper: $522/adult, $512/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, while on the other four days you can hop between Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay).
5-day, 3-park hopper: $462/adult, $452/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, while on the other four days you can hop between Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure).
5-day, 4 parks, one park per day: $452/adult, $442/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, and then choose between Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay for your other one-day tickets).
5-day, 3 parks, one park per day: $392/adult, $382/child (Note: you can only spend one day inside Epic Universe, and then choose between Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure for your other one-day tickets).

Express Pass and VIP tours at Epic Universe

You can now also purchase a 1-day Express Pass for Epic Universe that’ll allow you to skip the lines at each attraction once. The cost is between $130 and $310 per person (on top of your regular ticket), depending on what date you go.

And if you want a truly luxe experience, you can fork over between $390 and $650 per person (also on top of your ticket) for a 4-hour VIP guided walking tour of the new park. With a VIP package, you’ll also get priority entrance to the rides, a discount on merchandise, complimentary valet parking and more.

A Photo Tour Inside Epic Universe

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Technologies

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Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
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Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
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The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
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Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
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Technologies

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Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

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The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
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Technologies

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Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

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Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.