SNES Classic Pre-Orders Cancelled in US

Walmart has cancelled all pre-orders for the SNES Classic, meaning US buyers appear to be back to waiting until the September release.

The company had the console on sale for about 30 minutes last week which, in the age of social media, was long enough for word to spread. While some buyers had since received cancellation notices, others had heard nothing until today’s official statement reading:

Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, the Super Nintendo Classic Edition was mistakenly made available last Friday evening ahead of the official release date. We, regrettably, will have to cancel this item on your order. We know that this is incredibly disappointing to you, and we’re truly sorry for this mistake.

Credit card buyers won’t be charged at all. Those who used PayPal or a gift card will get a refund. There’s no mention of any goodwill gestures such as a gift card, discount or priority when orders do go live.

For now there’s still no official pre-order in the US before the scheduled September 29 release. The SNES Classic was on pre-order in the UK and quickly sold out, leading to some questionable eBay listing promising release-date delivery at inflated prices.



Beatastic Song Uses Star Wars Sound Effects Exclusively [Video]

From Eclectic Method:

Star Wars Sound Effects Remix. This song is made using only sounds from the 8 Star Wars Movies, no added sugars or samples. If you like this sort of thing you might like this other video remix too:

Note: Change the speed of the video below to 1.25 via the little gear icon, you’ll thank me later.

[Eclectic Method]

Mark Hamill: A Young Luke Skywalker Film Would be a Terrible, Terrible Idea [Video]

In this segment of The Late Late Show with James Corden, James and “Star Wars” super fan Anna Faris begin with some questions for Mark Hamill, including a discussion about Luke Skywalker’s sexual promiscuity in the galaxy, and the group discusses how boring a Luke Skywalker prequel film would be.

[The Late Late Show with James Corden]

DEAL: Get a 10,000mAh Power Bank With Solar Panel For Just $14.99

$14.99 is already a great price for a 10,000mAh power bank, but this one has a built-in solar panel and a 12-LED flashlight array on top of that. With all these features, that power bank is one hell of a great deal! Be sure to use promo code ICSOLAR2 at checkout!

–iClever 10000mAh Portable Solar Power Bank Dual USB Port Charger Battery with Led Light, IP67 Waterproof – $49.99 $14.99 (Use Promo Code ICSOLAR2 at Checkout!)

Adobe To Kill Flash In 2020

Adobe says it will ditch the Flash Player at the end of 2020. It says open standards such as HTML5 mean Flash is no longer needed.

Rather than use the verb “kill”, Adobe instead says it will “end-of-life” Flash, specifically that it will stop distributing the player and issuing updates in 2020, though it will continue adding security fixes until then, as well as working on any browser and operating system compatibility problems.

It also adds that it will “move more aggressively to EOL Flash in certain geographies where unlicensed and outdated versions of Flash Player are being distributed.”

Following the announcement, Google noted that in 2014, 80 percent of people running the desktop version of Chrome visited a site with Flash content each day. Now that figure is just 17 percent. It plans to continue its existing policy of increasing the range of situations where it will require the user to click to play Flash content rather than autoplay it. At some point in the next three years it will disable Flash by default in all cases, before simply blocking it completely in late 2020.

Most of the criticism of Flash in recent years has been over security and reliability problems. It was famously unsupported by Apple mobile devices from the outset at Steve Jobs’s behest. There’s a strong argument that the move towards mobile web surfing spelled doom for Flash.

There’s no denying Flash played an important part in the early development of multimedia web pages, particularly with an interactive element. However, as somebody who was taking an interest in the online world in the late 90s and early 2000s, I also recall the development of the term “Flashturbation” to describe situations where a web designer’s need to show off their skills and creativity took precedence over usability and helpfulness for the page visitor.