Youth Science Canada picks students to represent the country at Regeneron ISEF 2023 competition

Photo: Youth Science Canada

A group of eight high school students are all set to represent the country at the premiere youth STEM project competitions, the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. The students will compete in Dallas, Texas on May 14 to 19. They were picked by a panel of STEM professionals from across the country based on the "level of ingenuity, critical thinking, scientific excellence, and communication skill in developing their STEM project." You can see a rundown of the students competing under the cut.

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ASUS ROG Ally is a Steam Deck competitor

ASUS Republic of Gamers' surprise announcement was masked as an April Fools' Day prank at first. But the new ASUS ROG Ally is an actual product. We don't know when this Steam Deck-like console is coming. It's just we know that ASUS ROG plans to release this handheld gaming machine. According to the company, it'll be a Windows 11-powered device with a customized Ryzen APU from AMD, which ASUS claims is the fastest AMD yet. 

The ROG Ally will offer "full HD gaming," with a promise of a quiet dual-fan design. It gets the standard setup of dual analog sticks, a left-mounted D-pad, and four face buttons. There are also a few smaller buttons to access menus and settings. ASUS even advertises the chance to "experience Ally’s full potential" by plugging in the ROG XG Mobile eGPU it offers for use with its gaming laptops while streaming your games to a TV. Not much else is known beyond this, but buyers in the US can sign up with Best Buy to get alerts for when preorders start.

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Cheaper Xbox expandable storage cards spotted

Photo: Best Buy

It looks like cheaper expandable storage cards for the Xbox are coming. A new Western Digital 1TB expansion card for the Xbox Series S/X consoles was spotted on a now taken down Best Buy page. It'll be the first Xbox external storage not manufactured by Seagate. The price was at USD 179.99 (around CAD 244), which is USD 40 cheaper than Seagate's USD 219.99 (~CAD 298) option.

When the new Xbox consoles launched, Seagate was the exclusive manufacturers for expandable drives. But now, we're hoping this listing means we'll get better pricing on the rather expensive drives for Microsoft's console. The company opted to use proprietary storage for the Xbox Series X/S, while Sony used a standard M. SSD expandable storage slot that allowed PlayStation 5 owners to use different drives available on the market. Now, we just hope this drive officially launches soon.

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Netflix plans to release fewer original films to improve quality

Image: Netflix

At least that's what Netflix hopes. The streaming service is restructuring its movie division to release fewer films overall. Even with the number of titles it's released, only a few won accolades, reached millions of hours of streaming or achieved the cultural impact some big blockbusters have achieved. Netflix Film chief Scott Stuber reportedly decided to do this cut so the division guarantees it produces high-quality projects. 

Before this announcement, it debuted at least one movie per week in the past two years. Netflix plans to combine its team working on small projects with a budget of USD 30 million or less and the unit that makes mid-budget films costing between USD 30 million and 80 million. This restructuring will result in a "handful" of layoffs, but Netflix hasn't specified a number. It's unclear if Netflix's division for big-budget projects will be affected by this restructuring. But two notable executives are leaving the company after over a decade. Lisa Nishimura, who oversees documentaries like Tiger King and small-budget films, and Vice President for film Ian Bricke are departing.

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