Technology

Blizzard Entertainment was forced to cancel its annual BlizzCon fan convention earlier this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the company has announced new plans for an online-only version of the show. BlizzConline will take place on February 19th–20th, 2021. BlizzCon — which is usually held in November as an in-person fan event — is where Blizzard typically makes some of the biggest announcements for its stable of popular franchises, including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Starcraft, Hearthstone, and Diablo. The moved event will likely provide the company a chance to offer updates on some of its previously announced titles from last year’s events, including Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4. While it’s no doubt disappointing to many that the in-person festivities won’t be taking place...

The League of Legends World Championship kicks off this week, and teams want to look their best — so Korean side Gen.G partnered with famed streetwear designer Heron Preston for their new Worlds jersey. The all-black Puma kit was unveiled today, and it’s a relatively simple design, with Gen.G’s logo displayed prominently on the front and a retro-inspired globe on the back. Preston’s involvement is also hard to miss; his name is in big blue letters just above the team’s logo. Worlds is one of the biggest events in competitive gaming, and teams that qualify for the tournament typically create special designs for their jerseys. So far, the likes of G2 and Flyquest have revealed dragon-inspired kits (the tournament takes place in Shanghai this year), while Nike is making all-new jerseys for th...

Insomniac Games’ hugely-successful 2018 hit Spider-Man is being remastered for PlayStation 5 with ray-tracing, faster loading, and support for the DualSense controller’s new haptic feedback. And better yet, it’ll be available on the PS5’s launch day as a pack-in with Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition. But if you’ve been waiting for the PS5’s new hardware as an excuse to dive back into Spider-Man’s virtual Manhattan, you unfortunately won’t be able to transfer your saves from the original game to the remastered version, Insomniac Games confirmed on Twitter. And because Sony hasn’t spelled out how PS4 saves will work on PS5 for any other game, we’re not sure if the Spider-Man situation is the exception or the rule. Save game transfers are now a big question There are still some ques...

After months of waiting, we finally know when the Xbox Series X, Series S and PlayStation 5 will launch, and some games that will be available on day one. But the new hardware requires some investment: the Xbox Series X / S will cost $499 and $299, while the PS5 and its discless Digital Edition will cost $499 and $399. And if you want to take the plunge, you’ll also need to be able to actually find a console, which hasn’t been easy with PS5 preorders so far. (Fingers crossed that the Xbox Series X / S preorders go more smoothly.) Are Microsoft and Sony offering enough to convince you to buy into the next generation at launch? Our newsroom is torn, so we wanted to share our thoughts in case it helps you make a decision — even if that decision is, “I’m going to wait a while.” Taylor Lyles: I...

This year has been hard. Wildfire smoke has engulfed the West Coast, hundreds of thousands are dead from an ongoing pandemic, and the US government is deadlocked to the point of illegitimacy, incapable of taking action against the economic, political, ecological, and medical devastation that threatens to engulf us. Even for those not directly affected, the perception of the ongoing crises has turned into a kind of psychic assault, challenging the limits of what we can express. Fortunately, a new crop of emoji has just been approved by the Unicode Consortium to help out. They probably won’t reach your phone until 2021, but they’re clearly influenced by the chaos of the year, whether it’s “face exhaling” (clearly exhausted), “face in clouds” (smoke?), or “heart on fire” (self-explanatory). A...

Since 2017, the Google Pixelbook has maintained a spot on our list of the very best Chromebooks you can buy, with tasteful design and processing headroom that keep it competitive three years later. Yet you can’t buy it from Google anymore — it’s out of stock, and the company is strongly suggesting it’s been discontinued for good. Here’s Google’s full statement: We are proud of the success of Pixelbook, which will continue to receive the latest versions of Chrome OS per our auto-update guidelines. While Pixelbook is out of stock on the Google Store, Pixelbook Go, which delivers similar high-performance elements in a familiar form factor, is available starting at $649. While Google declined to outright say that the Pixelbook has been discontinued, it seems unlikely that it would de-list ever...

One of the more prominent changes introduced in iOS 14, and one that is generating a lot of interest, is the addition of widgets that can be added to any page. There are all sorts of weird and useful things you can do with them (especially if you’re willing to play around with apps such as Shortcuts and Widgetsmith). To begin, here’s how to add an existing widget to your home screen: Touch and hold an empty area on your screen until your apps jiggle and show minus symbols Tap the plus sign in the upper-left corner, and you’ll bring up a menu of existing widgets Touch and hold your screen and tap the plus sign. You’ll get a selection of widgets to choose from. Tap on the widget you want to add. Swipe left and right to choose the widget’s size and shape. Tap “Add Widget” Once you’ve added th...

iFixit took apart the Apple Watch Series 6 today, getting an inside look at the new sensors added to enable blood oxygen tracking. There’s also one major piece of hardware that’s disappeared from the Watch: the tech used to enable Force Touch. Force Touch allowed the Apple Watch’s screen to recognize how much force you’re applying, and it’s been a part of the Apple Watch since the first model was released in 2015. But the latest version of watchOS removes Force Touch from prior models, and now it’s clear why: it’s not part of the Series 6 Watch at all. Apple had an equivalent feature, known as 3D Touch, for phones starting with the iPhone 6S in 2015. The tech giant began removing 3D Touch on its smartphones and replacing it with Haptic Touch in 2018. The smartwatch also has a bigger batter...

Microsoft’s priciest video game acquisition, a $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media, shocked the industry on Monday. The deal puts Bethesda, one of the industry’s biggest publishers and owners of some of the most successful gaming series, under the Xbox brand. It also raises a simple but powerful question: how does buying Bethesda fit into Microsoft’s overall Xbox strategy? The immediate and inevitable reaction from consumers focused, naturally, on competition, and whether future Bethesda titles will become Xbox exclusives. It’s a sensible concern — why, after all, would any company in an industry as cutthroat as gaming purchase a major entertainment brand if not to deprive its primary rival the ability to distribute coveted intellectual property on comp...

It’s September 21st — the final day of summer, the eve of the equinox, and far more importantly, the day memorialized by the 1978 Earth, Wind & Fire classic, “September.” It’s also the day when the internet impatiently tweets at comedian Demi Adejuyigbe, waiting for him to post his latest celebration of the day and date. Adejuyigbe has been making videos for five years now where he dances along to the most salient part of the song, and they have truly turned the 21st of September into a holiday worth celebrating. His latest is now here, and it is — as always — a remarkable celebration of Sept. 21, 9/21 (21/9, even), the 21st, or whatever you prefer to call it: But look, if you enjoyed this, do us all a favor and donate to the fundraiser Adejuyigbe shouts out because next year’s video i...

Marvel Studios’ first big Disney Plus project, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, is being moved back to 2021, making a rough year for Marvel fans a little bit rougher. Although Marvel hasn’t made any official comment on the matter, the description for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney Plus has changed to note it’s coming in 2021. The show, which follows Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, Sam Wilson (Falcon) and James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), was supposed to be released in August. A couple of things impacted The Falcon and Winter Soldier’s production, including earthquakes in Puerto Rico that affected a planned two-week shoot in January, and the pandemic. The show was originally delayed in July after it became...