Prepare your ‘Oh man, I am old‘ GIF of choice, because Toy Story is celebrating its 30th anniversary. We’ll let that gut punch sink in for a minute, but it’s not all bad news, because Digital Eclipse has announced that it’s got a pair of releases coming to mark the occasion.

First up, we have the Toy Story: Retro Roundup!, another Digital Eclipse compilation title that pulls together Toy Story, Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Toy Story Racer and the N64’s A Bug’s Life into one handy package. Being a DE joint, you can also expect a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews about the making of the games.

This one will launch on 15th October, with pre-orders starting today.

Here’s a brief rundown of what you can expect, plus some screenshots, from Digital Eclipse:

Rewind and retry instantly: Roll back gameplay to retry difficult sections without restarting.
Save and load anytime: Pick up and play exactly where you left off, and save progress when needed.
Customize gameplay experience with Rex’s Cheat Code: Use Rex’s cheat codes to immediately unlock characters, levels, and bonus play modes including invincibility and unlimited lives.
Learn with Practice Mode: Learn how to play by watching guided playthroughs or playing in practice mode.
Modernized “How to Play” guides: Get straight to the action with simplified, fully localized instructions adapted for modern systems.
Enhanced visuals with classic options: Play in upgraded, high resolution that brings the original look to life, or switch to the original PlayStation 1 presentation for a nostalgic feel.

Those after something from a little later in the Toy Story gaming world might prefer Toy Story 3 Complete Edition, a modern remake of the 2010 tie-in game. We have fond memories of this one from back in the day, too, and it’ll also launch on 15th October.

Once again, here are a couple more details and some screens:

Relive the adventure in Story Mode: Journey through locations, from Andy’s Room to Sunnyside Daycare, as Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie embark on an action-packed adventure.
Dynamic gameplay with co-op and character swapping: Switch characters on the fly to use each character’s unique abilities to overcome challenges. Team up with a friend in a local co-op.
Explore, create, and play in Toy Box Mode: Step into a vibrant Wild West town inspired by Woody’s Roundup. Take on missions, unlock new content, and complete rewarding missions.
Fun for all ages: Accessible controls, light platforming and open-ended gameplay provide a creative, low-pressure experience for new players, while still offering depth and charm for longtime fans.
Enhancements: Up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second on supported platforms.

The two releases will be available separately for digital purchases, but a physical edition will pack all six titles together in the one box. Pre-orders for the physical will also go live today, with the official launch coming — you guessed it — on 15th October, too.

Will you be checking out either of these on Switch (2) later this year? Let us know in the comments.

Blue Origin is planning to fly its New Glenn rocket again in 2026 despite last week’s massive explosion, according to CEO Dave Limp.

Limp said Monday that more of the launchpad’s infrastructure was in “good shape” than expected following the explosion, which happened during testing at the company’s site in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Limp also said that another previously flown New Glenn rocket booster that was at the launch complex, along with three of the rocket’s upper stages, “also look good.”

“We will fly again before the end of this year,” he said.

It’s an aggressive timeline for returning to flight after what was the largest and most visible failure of the company’s history. Many people in the space industry assumed it would take Blue Origin at least until 2027 before New Glenn would launch again, especially because it seemed like there was a lot of damage to the launchpad — the only one Blue Origin has at the moment that can support New Glenn.

Blue Origin has also not yet said what caused the explosion.

The company now finds itself in a unique strategic position. While SpaceX recovered in a matter of months after one of its Falcon 9 rockets blew up on a launchpad in 2016, that quick turnaround was due to the fact that it had a second pad nearly ready at the time of the mishap. Blue Origin is building a second launchpad at Cape Canaveral, but that project is in very early stages.

NASA is relying on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for its planned series of Artemis missions to the moon. Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company had completely shifted focus to this program in order to support those missions, announcing in January that it was pausing space tourism flights on the much smaller New Shepard rocket for at least two years.

New Glenn’s first launch took place in January 2025, after spending many years in development — and suffering a number of delays. That inaugural launch was largely successful, with the upper stage reaching orbit on its first attempt, but the booster stage exploded on its way back to Earth. The second New Glenn launch, in November, saw Blue Origin put a pair of Mars-bound spacecraft into space and land its first booster stage on a drone ship. The company flew that booster stage again in April on New Glenn’s third mission, but the upper stage suffered a failure and the customer payload — an AST SpaceMobile satellite — was lost.

Blue Origin was preparing to launch a batch of satellites for Bezos’ other company, Amazon, on the fourth launch. The spaceflight company had not put those satellites on board yet, so they weren’t destroyed in the explosion.

While there was some speculation that Blue Origin might proceed directly to the larger and more powerful New Glenn variant when it returned to flight, Limp shot down that idea on Monday. The company will, however, change how it carries its rockets to the launchpad, and how it stands them up. Previously, Blue Origin used what it called a “transporter-erector,” which could handle both tasks. Limp didn’t specify what Blue Origin’s new solution will look like.

Amazon Prime Day is back, it is four days long again, and, for the first time in Prime Day’s history, it’s kicking off in June rather than July. 

So, if you spent last summer waiting until mid-July to buy that thing at a discounted price, you now have about two fewer weeks to make up your mind.

When is Prime Day 2026 sale?

Prime Day 2026 runs through June 23–26, kicking off at 12:01 a.m. PDT on June 23. That brings it roughly two weeks ahead of the Prime Day 2025 sale, which ran July 8–11. 

Amazon has not explained the shift, but I think there’s a reasonable explanation here. Moving to late June positions the event squarely ahead of the back-to-school shopping season, rather than overlapping with it. 

The change, in my opinion, could benefit both buyers and sellers. What’s even more interesting is that you don’t have to wait until June 23 as early deals are already live across Amazon’s devices, books, Audible, Prime Video, groceries, and items sold by small businesses. 

What deals are available right now before Prime Day starts?

If you’re a Prime member, you can save up to 65% on select Kindle, Echo, Ring, Fire TV, Blink, and eero devices right now. In fact, Amazon Haul has deals starting at $1, which, if you ask me, add up quite fast to your cart’s bill. 

Books are up to 65% off in print and up to 80% off on Kindle for the e-reading enthusiasts. You can read more about the early Prime deals here. Apart from these, you should also get deals on products from other brands that the e-commerce platform would either unveil a few days ahead of the event or during the event. 

Prime members in other regions like Australia, Brazil, India, and Japan will get their version of Prime Day later this summer. The event otherwise covers 23 countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and others.

Mach Industries, the three-year-old defense tech startup run by 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, has raised a $300 million Series C at a $1.8 billion valuation, the company announced on Monday.

The raise nearly quadruples the valuation of the company in a year. In June 2025, Mach raised $100 million at a $470 million valuation. Other investors include Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Khosla Ventures.

The round was led by deep tech fund Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital, known for fintech and lately in hot deals everywhere — from AI coding startups like Cognition to neoclouds like Crusoe.

Since building autonomous weapons is a capital-intensive industry, Thornton began actively fundraising a couple of months ago, he told TechCrunch, and quickly discovered that the round would be popular with investors.

“We went out to raise 200 [million dollars] and we were extremely oversubscribed at 200 and happy with the price, so we decided to push up to 300. We’re still oversubscribed at the 300 mark,” Thornton said of the fundraising efforts.

Founded in 2023, Mach and its growth have been a wild ride for Thornton, who famously dropped out of MIT at 19 to start the company. VC enthusiasm is high for a few reasons. Other than AI, defense tech is a hot area for investment right now as newfangled autonomous weapons and drone defense systems prove themselves in battle in Ukraine.

Mach has also become prolific in its short time. The Huntington Beach, California-based company now has five autonomous vehicles in development: Viper, a jet-powered vertical takeoff vehicle; Glide, a high-altitude glider capable of launching weapons; Stratos, an airborne surveillance platform; Dart, a low-cost counter-drone interceptor; and Pike, intended for launching long-range munitions. Production is expected to begin next year on at least three of these systems, the company says.

Plus, just this week, it won a Department of Defense contract to create a new, sixth vehicle that the startup has never discussed publicly, Thornton tells TechCrunch. The contract is from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to develop the Navy’s new “runway-independent strike aircraft,” as the startup describes it.

This will be for a very large aircraft, Thornton says, that could have applications in the commercial industry, too.

It has also grown from about a dozen employees in its first year to about 350 employees today, has a 115,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Huntington Beach, and design and production facilities in a number of other locations.

“So by the end of this year, in 2026, we will have brought on four new production facilities,” Thornton said.

But another reason VCs wrote big checks is that last month, Mach orchestrated an industry coup (excuse the pun) when it acquired solid rocket motor (SRM) startup Exquadrum in a $50 million cash-and-equity deal, as TechCrunch previously reported. It beat out upward of eight other potential buyers, the startup said.

There’s an acute shortage of SRMs as drones create unprecedented demand in a market controlled by two of the major prime defense contractors, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman. The lead times for purchasing can stretch years.

With this buy, Mach controls its own destiny for rocket motors and also launched a new commercial business, Mach Energetics, to sell the engines. While Thornton declined to share revenue, he said the current mix is 50/50 between selling to the government and selling to other companies.

Thornton remembers a moment last year when all the fast growth of the company really hit him. Two years ago, the all-hands meetings were held in the conference room with “like 12 people,” he said. “At our two-year party we had like 200 plus chairs and it was standing-room only.”

Still, he said, he’s most proud of the speed of product development. That is, after all, the entire reason for his company and for the defense tech industry. The idea with these startups, backed by tech VCs, is to bring faster, more affordable products to the military and related commercial uses, as opposed to the expensive, bespoke offerings that legacy prime defense contractors offer.

“Traditionally, it’s four years to build a jet engine. That’s about the fastest you can find in this space. And we went from no team to building a team to a jet engine firing in about eight months,” Thornton said.