ArduinoMania

Blizzard has published a long-awaited update on its monetization plans for Diablo IV. The short version of the blog post is that Diablo IV will be a full-priced title with an in-game shop and optional seasonal passes. However, the only way to make your characters more powerful will be by playing the game. Here's how monetization will work. 

Blizzard plans to structure Diablo IV’s endgame around seasons. The game will feature up to four seasons per year, with the first one launching shortly after the game’s release. Each new season will bring additional features, balance changes and quality of life improvements, as well as new quests to complete and items to collect. As in Diablo II and III, you’ll need to create a new character to participate in the latest season. That said, your previous ones will live on in the game’s “Eternal Realm,” where you can continue playing them.

Blizzard

A byproduct of that schedule is that there will be fewer seasonal passes for players to buy in Diablo IV than in Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2, where new ones are available to purchase every four and nine weeks, respectively. Each season pass will feature both free and paid tracks. Progressing through the former will earn you rewards that make it easier to level your characters. Specifically, the free tier will award “Season Boosts,” which Blizzard says will accelerate your progress for the duration of that season. You won’t be able to spend money to purchase additional Season Boosts or unlock them at a faster rate. 

By contrast, the paid track awards cosmetic items and the game’s premium currency. You can use the latter to purchase cosmetic items through Diablo IV’s in-game shop. “Nothing offered in the Shop grants a direct or indirect gameplay advantage,” said Kegan Clark, Diablo IV director of product. “So, while many of these may look like powerful pieces of gear, they have no in-game stats.”

Additionally, Blizzard claims some of the best-looking armor, weapons and transmorgs – items you can use to change the appearance of a piece of gear – will be found by playing the game. “The Shop offers more diversity of choices, not systematically better choices,” Clark added.

While one could argue purchasable cosmetics go against the spirit of an action RPG series like Diablo, the system previewed Blizzard for Diablo IV at least looks much better than its Diablo Immortal counterpart since it will allow you to mix and match individual items to create your own sets. Additionally, once you buy a premium set for a specific class, you can use the included items on every character of that class on your account.

Blizzard

Separate from the battle pass system is a progression mechanic called the Season Journey (pictured above). Like its Diablo III counterpart, the Season Journey will allow you to earn items and cosmetics by completing chapter tasks. The Season Journey is included with the base game, and filling out its pages will also earn you progress toward the current season pass.

Today’s blog post follows weeks of bad press around Diablo Immortal’s aggressive monetization. At the start of August, YouTuber Jtisallbusiness posted a video complaining that he couldn’t participate in the game’s endgame PVP after spending $100,000 to max out his character. Blizzard later said it would address the issue, but not before JT’s story added to the negative discourse around the game. But for all the vocal complaining around Immortal’s monetization, it doesn’t seem to have affected Blizzard’s bottom line. Eight weeks after release, the game surpassed $100 million in lifetime revenue, making it one of the fastest mobile titles to achieve that feat.

It was seemingly just a matter of time before streaming overtook at least one form of conventional TV, and now that moment has arrived. Nielsen data indicates that streaming TV viewership in the US surpassed cable for the first time this July. About 34.8 percent of viewing time went to shows on internet services, or slightly more than the 34.4 percent for cable. Streams haven't yet overtaken traditional TV as a whole (broadcasts still represented 21.6 percent), but it's clear online video is capturing more attention.

The shift was helped by a flurry of major releases. Netflix had the largest slice of streaming time (8 percent) thanks largely to demand for Stranger Things 4. However, Hulu also claimed a record 3.6 percent thanks to Only Murders in the Building and The Bear. Amazon Prime Video, meanwhile, thrived at 3 percent with help from The Boys' third season and The Terminal List. YouTube and YouTube TV earned a combined 7.3 percent.

Nielsen

Cable's dependence on sports also played a role. While the medium's overall viewership dipped 8.9 percent year-over-year, sports viewing plunged 34 percent without the help of the Summer Olympics and late-running playoffs for the NBA and NHL. Broadcast TV fared even worse, with a 9.8 percent overall drop and 41 percent for sports.

It's not certain streaming will preserve this momentum. Still, this represents a significant milestone that could affect the content you see. Creators and TV providers now know that you're more likely to stream than browse cable channels — don't be surprised if more money goes toward shows that are primarily or exclusively online.

Honda's Acura division has pulled back the curtain on a sleek Precision EV concept at Monterey Car Week. Acura took inspiration from Italian power boats for the design, which it says shows "a future vision of electrified vehicles with distinct manual and full driving automation experiences."

The Prologue, which will be Honda's first electric SUV, is scheduled to arrive in 2024 and will use this design language. The concept has a front end that fully lights up and 23-inch wheels, along with an exterior design that's intended to convey Acura's emphasis on performance. The brand says it has "a wide, athletic stance, expressive silhouette and sharp character lines dressed in eye-catching Double Apex Blue with a matte finish."

As for the interior, Acura took a cue from the cockpit of a Formula 1 car. The concept has a yoke-style steering wheel, a low driving position and what Acura describes as "high-performance driver sightlines."

The brand plans to offer two driving modes. The Instinctive Drive option is designed to highlight performance driving, with racing-style digital instrumentation along with red ambient and pipe lighting. When the Spiritual Lounge mode is enabled for autonomous use, the SUV will retract the steering wheel, switch to calming lighting with an underwater-style animated projection and pump in soothing scents for a more laid-back experience.

There's a focus on sustainability as well. Acura utilized marbled recycled plastic trim and 100 percent biomass leather. All the aluminum, along with the green cast acrylic used for the steering wheel secondary controls, was made from recycled materials. The concept also has a wide and curved transparent display with haptic feedback.

Honda

Google says it's doing more to downrank low-quality content that's designed primarily to generate traffic through search engine optimization. Over the coming months, it will roll out several updates to Search aimed at making it easier for people to find helpful content created primarily for humans rather than the attention of algorithms.

Starting next week, Google will unleash what it's calling the Helpful Content Update. This is designed to downgrade unoriginal content deemed to be of low quality. In particular, it will try to surface better-quality educational materials, along with more useful entertainment, shopping, and tech-related content.

As an example, the company notes that folks searching for info about a new movie will be more likely to see results for feature authentic and fresh information, rather than ones that offer aggregated reviews with no unique perspectives or details. In general, the aim is to surface more results with in-depth insights and better quality content. Google says that, as with its other systems, it plans to refine this approach over time. 

The company has offered some guidance to content creators in terms of what its search engine prioritizes. Google has long urged them to publish content designed for people while still using SEO best practices. Among the factors the company suggests they keep in mind is whether their intended audience would find the content useful and showing first-hand expertise and in-depth knowledge of a subject. 

It suggests avoiding "extensive automation" to churn out content on a broad range of topics or writing something with a specific word count in mind after hearing that's what Google looks for. Removing unhelpful content from elsewhere on a website will help too.

In addition, Google is planning another update for Search with the goal of surfacing original and high-quality product reviews (such as the ones you'll find on Engadget). This measure, which the company will roll out in the coming weeks, follows a series of updates Google rolled out last year to bubble up more useful and in-depth reviews in results.

Improving Search is an ongoing mission for Google. The company notes that it made thousands of changes to its Search systems last year. It said those were based on the results of hundreds of thousands of quality tests, some of which incorporated feedback from human reviewers.

Numerous third-party iPad styluses magnetically attach to your tablet, but they typically recharge through USB — not much help if you forget to top up before a writing session. Adonit may have addressed that flaw with its $45 Neo Pro, however. From what we've seen, it's the first unofficial pen to wirelessly charge on the side of an iPad Air, iPad mini or iPad Pro. You can pay less than half the price of a $129 Apple Pencil without giving up a major convenience.

The Neo Pro offers up to nine hours of use. It doesn't require a Bluetooth connection to get started, but setting that up will show your remaining charge in the iPad's battery life widget.

There is a reason the stylus is such a bargain. While the Neo Pro offers tilt sensitivity, palm rejection and replaceable tips, there's no pressure detection — this is more for note-takers than creatives producing detailed artwork. With that said, this might be a strong value if you need a pen for lectures and office meetings.

There's a good chance you want an external SSD you can take anywhere, whether it's extra storage for your school projects or backup for your can't-lose work files. Thankfully, you won't have to pay a lot for that extra space. Amazon is selling SanDisk's 1TB Extreme Portable SSD at a new all-time low price of $109, or less than half its official $250 sticker. There are steep discounts for 2TB (now $234) and 4TB ($460) models, too. At those prices, they may be easy choices if you want a speedy yet durable drive.

The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD is reasonably quick with 1GB/s read and write speeds, but the rugged design is clearly its main appeal. The toughened shell can survive falls from 6.5ft and boasts IP55 dust and water resistance — while you wouldn't want to drop the SSD off a cliff or dunk it in a lake, it can handle the rough-and-tumble of everyday life. A carabiner loop makes it easy to clip the drive to your backpack or camera strap, and optional 256-bit hardware encryption keeps your data more secure.

This isn't the fastest external SSD you'll find, and you won't get perks like a Thunderbolt port (it's 'just' USB-C) or wireless connectivity. With a sale like this, though, those limitations are easier to accept. This is a good deal for any portable SSD, and the improved survivability is just a nice bonus.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Nexus Mods, a popular mod database, has posted a strongly worded update about the Spider-Man Remastered patch that was created to remove Pride flags in-game. The website's administrator, Dark0ne, has revealed that the mod was uploaded by a sock puppet under the name "Mike Hawk." They said the fact that it was added to the database by a secondary account shows the uploader's intent to troll and demonstrates their understanding that it would not be allowed on the database. As such, the website has decided to remove the patch from its repository and to ban both the user's main account and sock puppet.

Spider-Man Remastered was released for the PC a few days ago. It's a refresh of the original title developed by Insomniac Games, which has since been purchased by Sony Interactive, and was released back in 2019. In the game, you'll see Pride flags around New York as you swing around the city as Spider-Man, and some players were apparently offended by their presence. The mod Mike Hawk released replaces those Pride flags with the flag of the USA.

"We are for inclusivity, we are for diversity," Dark0ne wrote in their post. They vowed to do a better job of moderating their website and ensuring that their policy is followed more closely going forward. The administrator said that the website will take action if someone uploads a file with the intent to be deliberately against inclusivity and/or diversity. Based on how the website addressed this particular issue, it will likely hand out bans in the future if they're warranted. Of course, Dark0ne and their team can only police what's uploaded on Nexus Mods. Seeing as it's one of the largest repositories around, though, its team's stance could make an impact and help slow the spread of certain game modifications.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June, Alphabet was one of several major tech companies that attempted to extend some flexibility to its workers seeking care, including those who potentially would need to travel out of state. It likewise made the narrow decision to delete users' location data when they visited abortion providing clinics, albeit only in response to legislative pressure. Since then, however, Alphabet has been effectively silent on the issue, and a group of its own workers are stepping up to demand a broader response on behalf of their colleagues and users at large.

The petition (reproduced in full below) was sent on Monday to a group of six executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, and has been signed by over 650 workers at the company. Thus far, the executives have yet to respond. Responding to a request for comment Alphabet told Engadget "we have nothing specific to add on this letter."

First and foremost, the workers ask that Alphabet's new policies on travel and reimbursement for out-of-state care be extended to the company's temps, vendors and contractors (TVCs), a workforce which, by some estimates, outnumbers its full-time employees. This includes increasing the daily reimbursement from $50 to $150 and changing the minimum number of sick days to seven. "Many of our fellow TVCs have three days of sick leave, whereas full-time employees have unlimited [days]," Alejandra Beatty, a technical program manager with subsidiary Verily and a member of Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), told Engadget. "Everybody deserves seven, especially when we're still dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks." 

Engadget first asked Alphabet if these travel and reimbursement policies would extend to TVCs shortly after the Supreme Court's decision and received no reply. This implicit exclusion was immediately criticized by AWU and the company seemingly has not rectified the discrepancy in treatment in the two months since.

The petition further seeks to strengthen Alphabet's data privacy policies around these sensitive subjects. "Searching for reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, and abortion access information on Google must never be saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime," the document states. In practice, this would not only broaden the scope of the company's new policy on location data related to abortion providing clinics — both by expanding to new categories of sensitive information, as well as new kinds of non-locational data — but it would also de facto require it to change how that information is logged in the first place. Law enforcement, armed with a court order, could force Alphabet to turn over data in its possession, and the only viable workaround would be not having that data. "We think it's more important that we are on the side of 'let's just not have the data,'" Beatty said, "because you can't tell a company to just say 'no' to any subpoena."

Issues around the preservation of data related to abortion presented the worrying hypothetical in the immediate wake of Roe's overturning that a tech company might willingly, or might be forced to, provide data to law enforcement that would result in criminal charges. These companies have largely left that question unanswered. But a version of this grim scenario has already occurred, with Facebook messages provided to cops becoming key evidence in an abortion case that's being prosecuted in Nebraska. (Meta, Facebook's parent company, contends the warrants were received prior to the Supreme Court's decision and did not mention abortion specifically. Regardless, it bodes poorly for data privacy.) 

Among other dystopian schemes that have already come to pass: Google's own alleged complicity in pushing fake "abortion clinic" results to care-seekers on its Search and Maps products— something this petition also seeks to redress. A variety of recent reports have pointed out that queries on these products often push users toward so-called "crisis pregnancy centers," which are non-medical, often religious establishments with the express goal of convincing pregnant people to carry their pregnancies to term. 

In order to accomplish these and the other wide-ranging goals in the petition, the signatories "call on Alphabet to create a dedicated task-force with 50% employee representation, responsible for implementing changes across all products and our company, just like Alphabet did for handling the COVID-19 pandemic." The existence of that task force may not be familiar to the public. But Beatty says the volunteer team — which she believes numbered in the thousands — resulted in many recognizable changes to Alphabet products, like informational boxes about COVID on Search, testing locations being catalogued on Maps and even Google and Apple's joint contact tracing app (though granted the latter was not a resounding success.) "I want to see a plan that is similar to our response to COVID-19," Beatty said. "This is this is a healthcare crisis that has been created. I want to see a plan like that. And others agree with me."

Protect our worker's rights

We, the undersigned, recognize that all Alphabet workers, of all genders, are impacted by the overturning of Roe v. Wade and are disappointed in Alphabet’s response and influence on this ruling.

Alphabet has continued to make access to reproductive and gender affirming healthcare a “women’s issue” by only providing women@ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) with listening sessions, and using gendered language in their communication with workers when this is an issue that affects all of us.

In order to align with Google’s core values, we demand that Alphabet acknowledges the impact this Supreme Court ruling has on all its workers and to immediately do the following:

1. Protect all workers’ access to reproductive healthcare by setting a reproductive healthcare standard in the US Wages and Benefits Standards including:

a. Extending the same travel-for-healthcare benefits offered to FTEs to TVCs.

b. Adding minimum of 7 days of additional sick time because workers will need to travel for significant periods to obtain health services.

c. Increasing FTE & TVC reimbursement amounts for travel to $150 per night. $50 is NOT a viable reimbursement for a hotel stay in most states, and does not address childcare or lost wages.

d. Publishing a TVC transparency report, detailing vendors’ compliance to the Alphabet/Google US Wages and Benefits Standards. For example, details on why certain roles are exempt, and timelines for vendors to come into compliance.

2. Protect our government from corporate influence. Alphabet must stop lobbying politicians and any political organizations, through NetPAC or any other means because these politicians were responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and continue to infringe on other human rights issues related to voting access and gun control.

3. Protect our users and customers from having their data used against them and addressing the disinformation and misleading information as it pertains to abortion services and other reproductive healthcare services on all Alphabet platforms and products by:

a. Instituting immediate user data privacy controls for all health-related activity, for example, searching for reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, and abortion access information on Google must never be saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime.

b. Fixing misleading search results related to abortion services by removing results for fake abortion providers.

c. No longer working with publishers of disinformation related to abortion services who violate AdSense's publishers policies related to unreliable and harmful claims about a major health crisis.

d. Providing transparency into ad revenue sharing with Google custom search so that abortion services that pay for Google ads don’t inadvertently have their ad revenue go to organizations that are actively working against them.

In order to meet these demands, we call on Alphabet to create a dedicated task-force with 50% employee representation, responsible for implementing changes across all products and our company, just like Alphabet did for handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

NVIDIA is adding a new perk to GeForce Now’s most expensive tier. Starting today, you can stream games at 1440p and 120 frames per second through a browser. At the moment, the new performance setting is available exclusively through GeForce Now’s $20 per month RTX 3080 membership and only Google Chrome on PC. The more affordable $10 per month Priority tier will continue to max out at 1080p and 60fps for the time being.

Naturally, you’ll need a compatible display to get the most out of any game you decide to stream at 1440p and 120fps, making the utility of higher-performance browser streaming somewhat limited. If you were already using Geforce Now to stream games at 1440p and 120fps, there's a good chance you were doing it at home through the GeForce Now app. Other perks of the 3080 tier include priority access to NVIDIA’s best servers, support for ray-tracing and the ability to play games for up to eight hours during a single session. The 3080 tier also allows you to play games at up to 4K at 60fps and 120fps on compatible Android phones.

Cameo is now offering users a way to chat with celebrities via longer video calls. Last year, the company started offering virtual meet and greets that last two minutes. It's expanding on that with Cameo Live, a feature that enables fans to speak with stars for 10 minutes. What’s more, they can invite up to nine friends and family members to join the call.

The company said it built Cameo Live based on feedback from fans and its celebrity users. You'll be able to suggest three time slots for the call. Thousands of well-known names will be available for Cameo Live calls, such as Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings and Stranger Things), Chaka Khan, Brooke Lynn Hytes (RuPaul’s Drag Race) and St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright.

Cameo is rolling out the service only a few months after it laid off a quarter of its employees. According to reports, CEO Steven Galanis told staff that Cameo hired people too fast while failing to hit revenue expectations.