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A lot is changing at ViacomCBS — which changed its name today to Paramount Global. In an investor presentation on Tuesday, the company announced that its streaming service, Paramount+ (formerly known as CBS All Access), hit 32.8 million subscribers during the last quarter of 2021. It’s a notable milestone for the platform, placing it ahead of Peacock (9 million paid subscribers), as well as other smaller platforms like ESPN+ (17 million subscribers) and Discovery+ (20 million subscribers).

That growth seems to be leading the company to consolidate some of its streaming offerings, specifically the now 12-year-old Showtime Anywhere service. Existing Paramount+ subscribers will soon be able to watch Showtime on the app itself, albeit for an extra fee. Instead of paying for Showtime’s standalone streaming app (which is $10.99 a month), users can bundle Paramount and Showtime together, for either $12 a month, or $15 a month for the ad-free tier. “Within Paramount+, it will be seamless to sign up for Showtime, and easier than ever to discover great shows. You’ll be able to simply upgrade your Paramount+ subscription to a bundle that includes the Showtime service and then view all that content in a single user experience,” Tom Ryan, head of streaming at Paramount, said today.

While it’s unclear how badly the world needed another way to subscribe to Showtime (you can currently purchase access as an add-on service through Apple TV+, Hulu, Prime Video, SlingTV and virtually every other OTT platform), it’s not a bad deal for existing Paramount subscribers. A spokesperson for Paramount told Engadget there are currently no plans to sunset Showtime Anywhere.

Another lure for Paramount+ subscribers is that the app will soon be the exclusive home for all Paramount movies, beginning in 2024. It’s not a surprising move, given that all the streaming platforms are gobbling up exclusive content in order to gain an edge. Netflix’s growth rate is slowing, which may be a positive sign for the competition. But there’s no sure formula for success in streaming. Streaming subscribers are notoriously fickle, and having a hit show or two is not a guaranteed path to returning customers. The new exclusivity deal and bundle with Showtime at least ensures that Paramount+ will have a steady stream of new content to keep existing viewers happy.

Paramount+’s live-action Halo adaptation has yet to debut, but that’s not stopping the streamer from renewing the series ahead of its March 24th premiere. On Tuesday, ViacomCBS announced it will work with 343 Industries, Showtime and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television to produce a second season of the show. David Wiener, known for his work on Homecoming, The Killing and Brave New World, will serve as showrunner and executive producer on the sophomore season.

At the moment, those are the only details ViacomCBS has shared. The company didn’t say anything about a potential release date. “This second-season pickup reflects the confidence we have in the power of this epic series to attract and engage viewers,” said David Nevins, chief content officer of scripted originals at Paramount+.

The early renewal of a promising series isn’t that unusual for a streaming service like Paramount+. We saw Apple employ a similar strategy in the early days of TV+ with For All Mankind and The Morning Show to ensure there was a steady stream of original content making its way to the service. More than ever, the streaming market is highly competitive and companies like ViacomCBS see exclusive shows and movies as an important tool in attracting and retaining subscribers.

San Francisco's wariness of Amazon might soon extend to the company's seemingly ubiquitous shipping network. Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton has introduced legislation that would impose an 18-month moratorium on new parcel delivery facilities in the city, whether from Amazon or others. Officials at the Board or the Planning Commission would use the pause to study the potential impact these locations have on the community, including health issues (like air pollution and traffic) and the overall public interest.

In a statement, the Teamsters and other unions backing the measure were concerned companies like Amazon would drag down pay, benefits and working conditions for the city. The proposed moratorium would help communities "set the standards" and decide if they want these facilities in the first place, Walton added.

The effort comes after San Francisco's Office of Economic and Workforce Development signed a January memorandum of understanding with Amazon to start negotiations for a Mission Creek delivery hub without informing or involving the community. These sorts of agreements are common, but Walton saw this as Amazon trying to enter the city without input from the very people its facility would affect.

There's no certainty the legislation will pass. It's also unclear how Walton and the Board would use any determination that Amazon and other delivery services' facilities would harm San Francisco residents.

We've asked Amazon for comment. The company has faced similar opposition in other parts of California, and backed out of plans for a second headquarters in New York City following criticism. Activists and politicians raised concerns about possible gentrification in New York, the city's $3 billion in proposed subsidies and Amazon's overall practices. Amazon has also been a staunch opponent of unionization, setting up a confrontation with increasingly pro-union workers and the politicians who support them.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration established the country’s first-ever Buy Clean Task Force. The organization will work with federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Transportation, to source low-carbon construction materials from American factories. In part, it will do so by producing recommendations on incentives and technical assistance the federal government can provide to domestic manufacturers to better report and reduce their emissions. It will also help the government identify materials it should use as part of federally funded projects, and establish pilot programs to purchase those materials.

“Focusing on industry is a really big deal,” according to David Hart, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Virginia. He told The New York Times the federal government had previously “neglected” to address greenhouse gas emissions produced by the “difficult and important” industrial sector. Part of the issue was that there was no single agency tasked with pushing companies that produce steel, aluminum, concrete and other important building materials to reduce their impact on the environment.

To that point, the US industrial sector is responsible for approximately one-third of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions. As the single largest consumer in the world, with an annual budget of approximately $650 billion to spend on goods and services, the federal government has a lot of buying power it can use to incentivize industrial players to change how they go about producing those essential materials.

With its landmark climate change legislation stuck in political gridlock, the Biden administration has turned to executive action to try and meet the president’s ambitious goal to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. For instance, it recently announced new measures to clean up and harden the US power grid by investing money in transmission line upgrades and smart grid improvements. Those efforts have put forward meaningful climate policy, but the scale of the climate crisis demands support from all parts of the federal government, not just the executive branch.

Valve may have cautioned Steam Deck buyers about repairing the handheld themselves, but you might not have to be quite so wary in practice. iFixit (which provides official parts for Valve hardware) has torn down the production model Steam Deck and discovered that it's relatively easy to repair, with a few notable exceptions. It doesn't require much effort to get inside, with clear labels for "basically everything." The design is modular enough that you can repair many elements without replacing or dismantling more components than necessary.

You can replace the SSD with a similarly small equivalent using one screw, and removing the display doesn't require much more than a suction cup and some heat. Valve is also keenly aware that Steam Deck owners may be worried about thumbstick drift — you can replace both sticks just by removing three screws. While drift won't necessarily be a real problem, you won't have to send in your machine if that problem ever crops up.

This isn't quite a self-repair paradise. Battery replacements are "rough," according to iFixit, with elaborate procedures that include draining most of the pack for safety's sake. That's a problem when the battery can drain in as little as 90 minutes.You may also want to be gentle with the USB-C port and microSD slot, as both are soldered to the Steam Deck's custom motherboard.

Despite this, iFixit found the Steam Deck easier to repair than some modern laptops. That might be heartening if you either prefer to fix devices yourself or hope to upgrade the storage. You might only need to send the Deck away for service if there's a truly serious failure.

Twitter is expanding access to its Safety Mode by bringing the beta to around 50 percent of accounts in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. The company started testing the feature in September with a small number of people. It's expanding the beta to additional English-speaking countries to gain more insights and look into ways of making further improvements.

Safety Mode is a setting that will automatically block accounts that Twitter thinks may be using harmful language. Those accounts won't be able to interact with you for seven days. There's a way for users to manually review the tweets and accounts Twitter found questionable, and to unblock that account if there wasn't actually a problem. Accounts that users follow or interact with often are never autoblocked. The idea is to cut down on harassment and prevent people from having to go through the process of manually reporting offending tweets and accounts and waiting for Twitter to take action.

A Twitter spokesperson told Engadget that, since the company started testing the feature in September, it discovered some people need or want more help to snuff out unwanted interactions. Going forward, its systems will keep a look out for possibly harmful or uninvited replies, and prompt users in the beta to switch on Safety Mode if it believes they might benefit. The idea is that there'll be fewer instances of people having to endure unwanted interactions.

You can count burger-flipping robots as one pandemic innovation that’s here to stay. White Castle announced today that it will be bringing Flippy 2, a robot chef that can essentially perform the same tasks as a team of fry cooks, to 100 more locations this year. This amounts to roughly a third of White Castle restaurants nationwide, so it’s likely Flippy may become a permanent addition to this burger chain’s workforce.

Last fall the burger chain first teamed up with Miso Robotics, the makers of Flippy, to launch a pilot program in its Chicagoland location. The company then unveiled Flippy 2, the latest iteration of the chef robot, back in November. Now it appears that the robot chef is ready for prime-time.

It’s unlikely the average White Castle patron will notice the new robots when they first arrive. Since Flippy 2 is designed to perform “back-of-the-house” kitchen functions, that’s where you’ll find them. The robot uses AI to identify the type of food (such as burgers, chicken fingers, or fries), picks it up, cooks it, puts it in its own fry basket and finally puts it in a hot holding area.

But it’s possible your White Castle order may come out slightly faster than usual. Flippy 2 can dole out 60 baskets of food an hour, according to Miso Robotics’ website, or roughly 300 burgers a day. Unlike the earlier model, Flippy 2 can operate entirely without human intervention.

Miso Robotics is primarily crowdfunded; the company raised more than $50 million with more than 15,000 investors and is currently in its Series E funding round.

It’s no secret we’re in the middle of an AI-enabled cooking revolution. Miso Robotics has come out with a wing-making version of Flippy which Buffalo Wild Wings is currently testing, according to CNBC. Since robots also minimize human contact in the kitchen, they’re also used as a pandemic safety measure. Beijing is even using robot chefs to feed athletes and guests in its closed Winter Olympics bubble. It’s likely we’ll see more robotic innovations popping up in the restaurant industry, especially given recent labor shortages.

Dead by Daylight is no stranger to high-profile crossovers. Icons like Leatherface, Freddy Krueger and Pyramid Head from Silent Hill are just some of the characters that have joined the game’s roster in the years since its release in 2016. And now you can add Sadako from Kōji Suzuki’s cult-classic horror novel Ring to that list.

She’ll join Dead by Daylight on March 8th when developer Behavior Interactive releases the Sadako Rising DLC. The studio didn’t share many details on the game’s latest playable killer other than to promise she’ll bring a greater emphasis on psychological horror to the matches she’s a part of. Dave Richard, the creative director of Dead by Daylight, said Sadako, known as The Onryō in-game, makes use of some “creepy and surprising” gameplay mechanics.

If you’re a fan of the Ring franchise, you can also look forward to the DLC adding Yoichi Asakawa as a playable survivor. If you’ve seen the original 1998 Japanese adaptation of Ring, you may remember Yoichi as the only character to survive his encounter with Sadako. He’s now an adult and a marine biologist in search of answers. It’s an unusual way to continue the story of a character but Behavior Interactive received the blessing of the Kadokawa Corporation, the company that produced the Ring films, to do so.

Sadako Rising will be available to play on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Stadia and PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store and Windows Store.

Universal Audio, which has long been known for its premium audio interfaces and plugins, is moving into a new market as it has revealed its first microphones. As with the company's other gear, expect to pay a pretty penny to get your hands on these.

Universal Audio

The SD-1 Dynamic is on the lower end of the initial lineup. Universal Audio says it's a broadcast-style mic geared toward capturing speech, vocals and instruments. It includes a "cardioid polar pattern and selectable low cut and articulation boost switches." It seems to be Universal Audio's attempt to cut into the market share of Shure's SM7B, a favorite among podcasters. You can pick up the SD-1 Dynamic starting today for $379.

Like the SD-1 Dynamic, the SP-1 Condenser has Apollo interface presets designed to help users attain professional-sounding audio quickly. The SP-1 comprises a pair of pencil microphones that Universal Audio designed to record drums, acoustic instruments and live performances. 

Universal Audio

The company says the SP-1 is designed to block out background noise and off-axis audio. The SP-1 Condenser will be available this summer and cost $499.

At the higher end of the scale is the Sphere L22 Modeling microphone. Universal Audio says that, when paired with the UAD Sphere L22 plugin, the device will be able to replicate 34 classic ribbon, condenser and dynamic mics. 

Universal Audio

It's a "large-diaphragm modeling condenser that pairs a dual-capsule design for stereo or blended mono recording with award-winning mic modeling technology," according to the company. With the ability to mimic many other "sought-after" microphones, it's not too surprising that the Sphere L22 Modeling microphone doesn't come cheap. It's available now for $1,499.

Looking further ahead, Universal Audio plans to release a series of tube and solid-state condenser microphones. The very pretty Bock Series mics are designed by David Bock and should arrive this fall.

Universal Audio

These products aren't really designed for creators who are just starting out (unless they plan to splurge on a high-end setup out of the gate). However, these mics should at least give experienced podcasters, streamers and musicians who want to improve the sound quality of their output more options to consider.

Ukraine is grappling with more cyberattacks as fears of an imminent Russian invasion reach their climax. Netblocks and Gizmodo report Ukraine's defense ministry and two state-owned banks, Oshchadbank and Privatbank, have suffered denial-of-service attacks flooding their sites with traffic. The country's armed forces website also appears to have suffered an attack. BuzzFeed's Christopher Miller described consequences for many Ukranians, including difficulties using some ATMs and other banking services.

The attacks weren't directly attributed to Russia, but they came a month after Ukraine blamed its neighbor for a campaign that played havoc with dozens of government websites. The perpetrators used purely destructive malware disguised as ransomware to inflict significant damage. Russia has previously been accused of relying on cyberwarfare to disrupt and influence political rivals like the European Union and the US, although it has repeatedly denied involvement.

The concern, as you might imagine, is that Russia might be using cyberattacks like these to cause havoc ahead of an invasion the US claimed could happen as soon as tomorrow (February 16th). In theory, it might be more difficult for Ukraine to mount an effective response. The January attacks came and went without military action, however, and these latest incidents wouldn't do much to thwart the Ukrainian military or its allies. If Russia is involved, the disruptions might represent pressure tactics to extract concessions, such as a promise not to join NATO.