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Facebook is “restricting access” to two Russian state media outlets across the entire European Union, a move that will prevent the publishers from sharing content to millions of people in the countries. Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, announced the block of RT and Sputnik, saying that it was in response to “a number” of government requests from within the EU.

“Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time,” Clegg said. The change comes after the European Commission enacted its own ban on the outlets, and after Facebook had already blocked access to ads and other monetization features. The social network had also blocked the publications’ ability to post content inside of Ukraine. 

Clegg didn't elaborate on whether "restricting access" referred simply to these accounts' ability to post and share inside of these countries, or if the accounts would be completely inaccessible in the EU. We've asked Facebook for more details.

The move comes as Russian State media outlets, some of which have vast social media followings, find their reach increasingly limited. Facebook and other platforms have taken more aggressive measures to tamp down the influence of Russia-backed publications in recent days as there has been a sharp rise in disinformation. Twitter announced Monday that it would label tweets from Russian state media accounts, and would try to curb their influence on the platform. YouTube has also blocked the outlets’ ability to monetize their channels. 

Forza Horizon 5 is about to become more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. On March 1st, Microsoft will update the title to add support for both American and British Sign Language. Enabling the feature adds a picture-in-picture display of an ASL or BSL interpreter during cutscenes. By visiting the game’s accessibility menu, you can adjust the position of the display and decide whether to add a colored background.

Forza Horizon 5, like many other games, includes support for subtitles, but as Microsoft’s Athima Chansanchai points out, the two features serve different purposes. While subtitles are helpful to many, it turns out they’re not that useful to people who primarily depend on signing to understand a conversation. For those individuals, reading subtitles can be fatiguing since ASL and BSL feature a different structure to English. They also can’t convey tone and emotion in the same way a skilled interpreter can.

Outside of that accessibility addition, Forza Horizon 5’s Series 5 update includes bug fixes for issues related to the game’s photo mode, livery editor and more. Developer Playground Games has also added five new cars and a new festival playlist for players to check out.

Microsoft is joining Facebook, YouTube and others in limiting the reach of Russian state media following the invasion of Ukraine. The company is responding to the European Union's ban on RT and Sputnik by pulling those outlets from its platforms. Microsoft Start (including MSN) won't display state-sponsored RT and Sputnik content, while all ads from either publication are banned across Microsoft's ad network. The software giant is also pulling RT's news apps from the Windows app store.

Bing will still display RT and Sputnik links. However, Microsoft is "further de-ranking" their search results to make sure the links only appear when someone clearly intends to visit those sites.

The crackdown comes alongside an update on Microsoft's cybersecurity monitoring in Ukraine. The company noted that its Threat Intelligence Center spotted a wave of "offensive and destructive" cyberattacks targeting Ukranian online infrastructure just hours before Russia began its invasion on February 24th. The digital assault included new malware, nicknamed FoxBlade, and was "precisely targeted" like previous attacks. Microsoft said its Defender anti-malware tools was updated to counter FoxBlade within three hours of the discovery, and that it was advising the Ukranian government on this and other defense initiatives.

The bans on RT and Sputnik aren't surprising even without the EU's measures in place. Microsoft has fought disinformation campaigns for years, and it stressed that these attempts to manipulate the public are "commonplace" during wars when state propaganda ramps up. Simply speaking, Microsoft sees this as necessary to both present an objective view of the invasion and to avoid funding misinformation efforts.

Sony’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Twisted Metal has found a home. NBCUniversal announced on Monday it will stream the series on Peacock. News that Sony’s PlayStation Productions unit was developing an adaptation of the Twisted Metal franchise came at the start of last year.

In September, we learned Altered Carbon and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier star Anthony Mackie would play the role of series protagonist John Doe, a smart-talking milkman with no memory of his past but a penchant for driving as fast as he talks. PlayStation Productions is billing the show as an action-comedy, with Cobra Kai scribe Michael Jonathan Smith serving as showrunner, writer and executive producer on the show.

NBCUniversal didn’t say when Twisted Metal would premiere on Peacock. However, the show is just one of several properties Sony is in the process of adapting for television and film. It’s also working on a Ghost of Tsushima movie that John Wick’s Chad Stahelski will direct, and then there’s The Last of Us. HBO Programming President Casey Bloys recently told The Hollywood Reporter the series wouldn’t premiere in 2022.

Although it's one of the most important franchises for the fighting game crowd, Super Smash Bros. won't make an appearance at the community's biggest event of the year. "Since 2007, we’ve seen historic Super Smash Bros. moments created at Evo’s events," Evo, which Sony bought last year, said. "We are saddened that Nintendo has chosen not to continue that legacy with us this year.”

Evo 2022 will be the first full edition of the event since 2019, which featured a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament in place of Super Smash Bros. Melee. The 2020 event was canceled following accusations of abuse that were leveled against Evo co-founder and then-CEO Joey Cuellar. Evo 2021 took place as an online-only affair due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evo has a long history with the Super Smash Bros. series. Super Smash Bros. Melee, in particular, was a popular part of the event for several years. As Kotaku notes, Nintendo (which tries to control how other organizations use its games) failed in its attempt to prevent Evo organizers from livestreaming the 2013 Melee tournament. Melee was added to that year's event following a charity drive.

This doesn't exactly mean the end of Nintendo-backed Super Smash Bros. esports, though. In November, Nintendo and Panda Global announced plans to run their own competitive Smash series. The company also has a partnership with PlayVS, which runs Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2 high school varsity esports leagues.

As for what games will actually be present at Evo 2022, we won't need to wait long to find out. Evo will host a Twitch livestream on March 8th to reveal more details about this year's event, which will take place in Las Vegas in August.

FromSoftware’s Elden Ring launched last week to overwhelmingly positive reviews but a few issues have prevented some players from enjoying the game to its fullest. Over the weekend, one of those was resolved. If you’ve been playing through the title on Xbox, you likely saw that you couldn’t play Elden Ring online due to an error message that said “Network status check failed.” On Saturday, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb said the issue had been resolved. 

Neither FromSoftware nor publisher Bandai Namco said what caused the problem, but it prevented people from doing things like summoning other players to help them with boss fights. At its core, Elden Ring is a single-player game, but those elements add a lot to the experience.

As for some of Elden Ring’s other issues, particularly those involving the PC version of the game, FromSoftware and Bandai are still working to resolve those. If you’re waiting to play the game on Steam Deck, the good news there is that Valve said it was working on optimizing the game for its new handheld and would update Proton this week to improve performance.

Twitter is adding prominent labels to tweets from Russian state media outlets as it tries to limit the publications' reach on its platform.

“Today, we’re adding labels to Tweets that share links to Russian state-affiliated media websites and are taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter,” Yoel Roth, the company’s head fo site integrity tweeted. “Our product should make it easy to understand who’s behind the content you see, and what their motivations and intentions are.”

Roth added that since the invasion, links to Russian state media outlets have been shared more than 45,000 times a day. He said Twitter was also working to “significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter.” The company announced last week that it was pausing ads and recommendation features in Ukraine and Russia.

The company has labeled state media outlets at the account level since August 2020, but those labels only appeared on the account profiles. The new labels will be displayed much more prominently, appearing alongside tweets from these accounts, much like how the company has labeled election and COVID-19 misinformation. The labels will appear on tweets from state run media in other countries in the “coming weeks.”

Twitter isn’t the only platform trying to tamp down the reach of Russian state media outlets following the invasion of Ukraine. Facebook barred Russian state media from accessing ads and other monetization features, and has blocked some outlets’ ability to post within Ukraine.

Etsy is joining the ranks of tech companies offering support to Ukraine following the Russian invasion. The craft-oriented marketplace is writing off all outstanding fees for Ukraine-based sellers. The move is worth about $4 million and is meant to offset "tremendous financial hardship" for creators affected by the conflict.

The gesture comes amid a flurry of help for Ukraine. Airbnb has offered free housing for up to 100,000 Ukranian refugees. Elon Musk's companies, meanwhile, have offered free EV charging and Starlink terminals. That's not including initiatives to protect residents and limit misinformation.

Etsy's fee waiver isn't large compared to some of these relief efforts. It's not compensating sellers for lost business or waiving future fees, for instance. Still, this could be welcome for Ukranians who had to deal with outstanding Etsy bills on top of Russia's military campaign.

TikTok is once again increasing the maximum length of videos on the platform, this time from three minutes to 10 minutes. "Today, we're excited to start rolling out the ability to upload videos that are up to 10 minutes, which we hope would unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world," a TikTok spokesperson told Engadget in a statement.

The service tested the longer time limit over the last few months, as TechCrunch notes. TikTok bumped up the maximum video length from 60 seconds to three minutes last July.

The increased time limit could make TikTok a bigger competitor to YouTube (which countered TikTok with a competing feature called Shorts). The move should benefit creators who focus on makeup tutorials, cooking and other types of content that perhaps work better in a longer-form format. There also will be less need for users to split their more in-depth content across multiple videos.

However, some concerns have been raised about the timing of the move, given TikTok is being used to share misinformation related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. TikTok didn't respond to Engadget's questions about those concerns or what it's doing to mitigate the spread of misinformation about the conflict.

It's been two years since I reviewed the first ASUS Zephyrus G14, but my fondness for it hasn't waned. It's colored my view of every gaming laptop since: Why can't they all pack in great performance in a compact 3.5-pound case for under $1,500? Now, with its latest edition, ASUS is fixing the G14's major flaw: It's finally adding a webcam. Together with AMD's latest Ryzen 6000 chips and Radeon GPUs, the 2022 G14 sounds like a dream machine on paper. But, thanks to significantly higher configuration prices, it's no longer a value-oriented machine. And that’s a shame.

Aside from the pricing change, though, the new Zephyrus G14 builds on everything we loved about the original. The sturdy magnesium alloy case returns, and select models feature more of ASUS's "AniMe Matrix" LEDs, which can display images and text on the back of the screen. You can choose between 14-inch 144Hz 1080p and 120Hz 1440p screens, which offer 400 and 500 nits of brightness, respectively. That's a huge leap from last year's 300-nit screen, and it makes the displays much better suited for Dolby Vision HDR (another helpful addition).

And then there's the webcam. That's not something we'd usually highlight, but it's notable for the Zephyrus G14. The 2020 model was one of the first modern gaming notebooks that didn't feature any sort of camera, a move that helped ASUS achieve some impressively thin screen bezels. Given that many gamers already have better external cameras for streaming, it didn't seem like a huge deal at the time. But of course, now that many of us need to be ready to hop on a Zoom at the drop of a hat, that calculus has shifted a bit. The G14's IR camera also supports Windows Hello, so it can securely log you in without much fuss.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

With a webcam in tow, the Zephyrus G14 has just about all of the features we'd want in a gaming laptop. And it's bolstered by impressive new hardware under the hood: the Ryzen 9 6900HS, AMD's latest eight-core powerhouse chip, as well as either Radeon RX 6700S or 6800S graphics. Those GPUs aremeant for thin and light notebooks like the G14, with better performance-per-watt ratings than the previous NVIDIA RTX 3060. ASUS also ramped up cooling significantly this time around, thanks to a vapor chamber cooler and liquid metal thermal paste for both the CPU and GPU.

All of this new gear amounts to a bit more heft than the original 3.5-pound G14, unfortunately. It starts at 3.6 pounds without the AniMe Matrix LED display, and it scales up to 3.8 pounds with the LEDs. That's still relatively light compared to the competition, though. The Razer Blade 14 weighs 4.1 pounds, and the Alienware x14 comes in just under four pounds.

Once I saw the Zephyrus G14 in action, I didn't mind that it was slightly heavier. Our review unit was one of the most premium options: a $2,499 configuration with the Ryzen 9 6900HS, Radeon 6800S, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and the AniME Matrix. Not surprisingly, it was a significant upgrade from the 2020-era G14 I tested, though that was also a $1,499 build with an RTX 2060. The new G14 held its own against the Razer Blade 14 and Alienware x14 in PCMark 10, Geekbench and 3DMark's TimeSpy Extreme benchmark. If you're particularly interested in multi-threaded performance, though, it's worth noting that the hybrid 12th-gen Intel CPU in the Alienware x14 practically blew away the G14.

In Halo Infinite, my current multiplayer addiction, the Zephyrus G14 hovered between 80 and 100 fps in 1440p with all of the graphics settings cranked to the max. That's perfectly playable, though it's unfortunate that such an expensive machine can't completely fill the monitor's 120Hz refresh rate. I didn't notice any tearing or stuttering though, thanks to the display's FreeSync Premium support. Older titles like Destiny 2 and Overwatch surpassed 120 fps in 1440p easily, as you'd expect. Still, the cost of our review unit never left my mind. For $2,500, I'd expect something a bit more future-proof.

As for ray tracing performance, I was pleased to see that the G14 was only slightly behind the RTX 3060-equipped Alienware x14 in 3DMark's Port Royal benchmark. Unfortunately, it's still not powerful enough to keep Control above 60 fps in 1440p with medium ray tracing settings. NVIDIA's GPUs can hit that mark by relying on its DLSS AI upscaling technology, but Control doesn't yet support's AMD's alternative, FidelityFX Super Resolution.

Thanks to its improved cooling system, the Zephyrus G14 ran far quieter than the 2020 model, even when I was in a prolonged Halo Infinite Big Team Battle session. The CPU never surpassed 85 celsius, while the GPU typically stayed around 75 celsius under load. Most importantly, the "Silent" fan mode lived up to its name, which is a big deal if you ever need to bring your gaming laptop into a quiet coffee house or meeting room.

While I was gaming, watching videos or just bumming around the web, I genuinely appreciated the G14's revamped "ROG Nebula Display." In addition to the faster refresh rates and Dolby Vision support, it's also a 16-by-10 aspect ratio now, which gives you a bit more vertical space for scrolling documents. Halo Infinite's war-torn maps looked vibrant and detailed on the G14, and I appreciated having Dolby Vision while I watched a few Netflix shows. The computer's HDR support is a bit confounding, though. Windows 11 doesn't detect it as an HDR capable display, and I couldn't view any HDR YouTube videos. And yet somehow, I was still able to watch Netflix with Dolby Vision HDR enabled. I've asked ASUS for clarification on those issues, and will update this review as I learn more.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

As much as I love the idea of 14-inch gaming laptops, their cramped keyboards often leave me underwhelmed. Uncomfortable fingers could easily mean the difference between winning or losing a multiplayer match. Thankfully, the G14's keyboard, while small, handled my fast-moving digits just fine. There's a satisfying amount of travel too, which helps both during gaming and general typing. While I certainly wouldn't mind a larger keyboard, the G14's felt kinder to my gaming-battered digits than the Alienware x14 or Blade 14. But seriously, folks, if these companies can make luxuriously wide keyboards for their 13-inch ultraportables, why can’t they do the same for gaming hardware?

I'm more impressed with the Zephyrus G14's new trackpad, which is 50 percent larger than it was last year. I'm of the mind that you can never really have a trackpad that's too big, so I appreciated having more space to swipe around and use finger gestures. I never once mistakenly hit the wrist pad by accident, which is really all I'm asking for in a notebook these days.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Unlike other slim machines, the G14 is equipped with all of the ports you'd need: two USB 3.2 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Type-A connections, a full-sized HDMI 2.0 socket, a combination audio jack and a microSD card reader. The laptop's 240-watt power supply also pushes more juice than last year's, which means you'll see a faster charge than before. (You can also charge over USB-C in a pinch, but that won't deliver enough power while gaming.)

During our battery test, which involves looping an HD video, the G14 lasted nine hours and 46 minutes. That's almost two hours longer than the Alienware x14 lasted. And during my typical workflow of juggling dozens of browser tabs, editing photos, and hopping on Zoom calls, the G14 usually kept going for over seven hours. That's not impressive when ultraportables are well into double-digit battery life, but that's the price you pay for having a slim-yet-powerful machine.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Pricing is where things get sticky with the Zephyrus G14. It technically starts at $1,600, according to ASUS. But the cheapest model you can currently snag at Best Buy goes for $1,650 with a quad HD display, Ryzen 9 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and a Radeon RX 6700 GPU. You can also bump up to a Radeon RX 6800 GPU for $1,900. While those prices aren’t unreasonable when it comes to gaming laptops, they’re significantly more than the $1,050 starting price of the 2020-era model. Our original review unit came in at just $1,450 with an RTX 2060, Ryzen 9 4900HS, and 16GB of RAM.

While it started out as a surprisingly affordable 14-inch gaming laptop, the G14 is now firmly in mid-range or even premium notebook territory. Chalk it up to the global chip crunch, price inflation (which, admittedly, is affecting all PC makers) and all of the other supply chain issues we’re facing in 2022. If you’re looking for pure power, the Blade 14 starts at $2,000 with the Ryzen 9 6900HX, an RTX 3060, and a 144Hz 1080p screen. The Alienware x14, meanwhile, starts at $1,600 with a Core i7-12700H and RTX 3050 GPU (go up to $1,900 and you can add the RTX 3060). ASUS is still your best option if you absolutely need a quad HD display, but if you just care about high frame rates, you’ve got better options.

And when it comes to our review model, you’re basically just paying a huge premium to get decent hardware in a slim case. Personally, I’d opt for the heavier $2,500 Razer Blade 15 Advanced, which has an RTX 3070, Core i7-12800H and a 15-inch 240Hz quad HD screen. But that’s admittedly an unfair comparison – I realize some people don’t mind paying more for portability.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

The Zephyrus G14 is still an incredibly compelling 14-inch notebook, especially if you’re aiming for one of the cheaper models. It’s powerful, slim and it finally has a webcam. But it’s also lost much of what made the 2020 model so special. I suppose that’s progress, though. ASUS kicked off a trend, but now it’s racing to keep up with the competition.