Новости за 07.11.2022

Play just about any big competitive online game for long enough and you'll surely run into some toxic players who say offensive things in voice or text chat. Activision is doing a bit more to take on those jerks with more in-depth moderation tools in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Call of Duty Warzone 2.0.

Netflix's growing stable of video game adaptations now includes one of the Xbox's best-known franchises. The streaming service is teaming with series developer The Coalition to produce a live action Gears of War movie. There are no details for the cast, plot or release date, but Netflix is teasing an adult animated show and the possibility of "more stories."

Razer's 2022 base model Blade 15 gaming laptop is on sale for $250 off at the manufacturer's site. We named the Blade 15 our top pick for a premium gaming laptop in our best gaming laptop guide. At just $1,550, it's a great deal, considering the 2021 model, with an older processor, is holding steady at $1,700 on Amazon.

YouTube's attempt to mimic TikTok now extends to the living room. The company's vertical Shorts videos now have native support on TVs, with a player that makes better use of all that normally wasted horizontal space. It still feels like utter overkill to watch these mobile-oriented clips on the big screen (unless you have Samsung's rotating TV), but it's still much more elegant than trying to use the standard landscape player.

Twenty years ago this month, Konami released Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, an expanded reissue of MGS2: Sons of Liberty. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to revisit one of the most important games of the 21st century, now is the perfect time. Over the weekend, modder oct0xor released The Substance of Subsistence, a mod that adds a third-person camera to Hideo Kojima’s masterpiece.

Apple's latest 11-inch iPad Pro has received its first discount, with both Amazon and B&H dropping the 128GB version of the new tablet down to $749. That's a modest $50 off and still rather expensive, but Apple only launched this refresh a couple of weeks ago. If you were already planning on picking up the device ahead of the holidays, this deal lets you save a few bucks over buying from Apple directly. Just know that the deal only applies to the Space Gray model.

Rivian impressed car reviewers (and us) with its R1T pickup, and its R1S electric SUV is no different. The slightly smaller vehicle continues the automotive startup’s trend of building no-compromise electric vehicles meant for outdoor adventure.

Booking a stay through Airbnb can be a chore for a few reasons. Chief among those is the fact it's not always easy to tell at a glance how much you'll pay for your vacation rental, since the cleaning fee or security deposit may not appear until after you click on a listing. However, Airbnb is at last set to make pricing a bit more transparent.

The old adage goes that if something ain't broke, don't fix it. Now while that's often sage advice, obviously there's a limit to how long you can keep something going — especially a gadget — before it starts to lag behind. And with the Surface Laptop 5, it feels like Microsoft is beginning to test that boundary because while the notebook is as sleek and elegant as ever, even with the inclusion of a new CPU, it's easy to see where its aging chassis could use a few updates or quality of life improvements. Читать дальше...

French high-end audio company Devialet has a reputation for making powerful, interesting and eye-wateringly expensive speakers. Today, the company has announced its first portable smart speaker with an eye-watering price tag. Looking like a cannonball with its own carrying strap, the Devialet Mania is designed to calibrate its sound to the area it’s in. So, if near to a wall, it’ll tweak where its speakers are pumping to give you “expansive” and “powerful” audio while on the go.

Amazon is having a sale on its latest Watches, with a particularly good deal on the Series 8 cellular model. You can grab one of those in multiple colors for just $389, for a savings of $110 off the regular $499 price (22 percent off). If its a Watch LE model you're after instead, those are on sale too in both cellular and GPS versions for as little as $290 ($39 off) and $220 ($29 off) respectively.

Netflix and developer Tender Claws are releasing a Stranger Things VR game set to arrive in Winter 2023 on major VR platforms, the companies announced at Stranger Things Day 2022. The game will let you play as the fearsome Season 4 villain Vecna, with the goal to "enact revenge on Eleven and Hawkins," according to the press release. 

Before acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk said he was against lifetime suspensions, promising to reinstate banned users like Donald Trump. Now, Musk wrote that Twitter will permanently suspend account impersonators if they are not clearly labeled as parody. The move comes after several verified "blue-check" users changed their accounts to impersonal Musk himself. 

COVID-19 restrictions at Foxconn's primary iPhone 14 factory in Zhengzhou, China means shipments will be lower than anticipated, Apple said in a short press release. That means in turn that customers who've ordered one will experience "longer wait times to receive their new products," it added.

Mere days after cutting its workforce in half, Twitter is asking some employees to return, according to Bloomberg. Citing two sources within the company, the outlet reports management at Twitter has come to the realization it either let some workers off by accident or without realizing their experience was essential to building the features Elon Musk wants to bring to the platform.

Facebook parent company Meta could announce large-scale layoffs as early as next week, according to The Wall Street Journal. The outlet reports the company is planning to cut “many thousands” of employees, with an announcement coming as soon as Wednesday. Meta currently employs more than 87,000 individuals. The cuts could be the largest workforce reduction conducted by a tech company this year, surpassing the layoffs made by Twitter on Friday. The cuts would also represent the first broad restructuring in Meta’s history. Читать дальше...

Twitter has delayed the rollout of paid account verification until after the end of the US midterm elections, according to The New York Times. The company reportedly made the decision on Saturday after it briefly began rolling out its $8 per month Twitter Blue service. In the hours after the company released an iOS app update that gave people a preview of its new verification system, both employees and users raised concerns that paid badges could lead to confusion ahead of a pivotal election.