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Telegram's new Stories feature is here as promised, but it's only available to Premium users for now, the company said in a Tweet. Last month, CEO Pavel Durov revealed the upcoming feature that offers more granular control than Stories on other apps, letting you select who can see them and how often they last before disappearing. Multiple users on Twitter reported seeing the new feature as well.

Telegram's Stories resembles the same feature on Facebook's Messenger, showing up as expandable bubbles at the top of the conversation list. Users can choose to make them viewable to the public, along with a range of other options: contacts only (with exceptions), selected contacts or Close Friends. You can add captions and links and tag others as well. Users can also share photos and videos captured by the front-facing and the rear cameras simultaneously, similar to posts found on BeReal.

If you don't want to see posts from a certain contact, you can move them to the "Hidden" list in their contacts section. On top of that, users can choose when their Stories expire. You can set them to disappear in 24 hours like other services, but also make them disappear within 6, 12 or 48 hours. Stories can even be permanently displayed on your profile page — while still choosing the privacy settings for each post.

Everyone can see Stories, and users can send reactions and replies. However, you'll need to be a Telegram Premium subscriber to Post Stories. To do so, you'll need the latest version of Telegram (it may not have rolled out to your region yet), and must pay $4.99 per month for a Premium subscription — with a discount available by the web. Premium, which arrived last year, also offers perks like 4GB uploads, faster downloads, unique stickers, voice-to-text transcriptions, double the follow limits and more.

Students at 68 colleges and universities across the US will easily be able to use their Samsung phones to tap for access and purchases. Samsung's Wallet app now supports digital student IDs, so long as it's on the United States versions of the brand's latest devices. Some of the educational institutions that have enabled ID integration for Samsung Wallet are Penn State, the University of Florida, Central Michigan University, University of North Alabama and the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Apple has supported contact-free student ID cards since 2018, allowing students to tap their phones to access facilities and, say, get food at the cafeteria. Google Pay also launched student ID integration in 2020 in partnership with a company called Transact, which offers solutions for tuition and other student expense payment. That's the same company Samsung has teamed up with to enable this integration, which means users will have to download the Transact eAccounts mobile app from Google Play, as well.

Like other digital student ID integrations, Samsung Wallet allows students to access school facilities with their phone. The app's Fast Mode feature will let users tap their phone without having to unlock their screen, while Power Reserve means they can use their digital ID even if their phone has switched off due to low battery reserves. That said, the capability to pay using NFC at on-campus stores and vending machines aren't available at all of the participating institutions.

At the moment, students can only use Samsung Wallet's digital ID support if they have a Galaxy S20 phone or later, a Note 20, a Galaxy Flip or Fold device, or a Galaxy A53. Galaxy Watch support is coming this fall. Samsung also says that it's working to expand the offering and make it available for students in more institutions. 

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Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will be available on PlayStation 5 in just three months, but you won't have to wait that long to learn more about the game's plot. In a new story trailer revealed at San Diego Comic Con, Sony and Insomniac give us our first look at how Peter Parker might find himself joined with the Venom symbiote.

The trailer is laden with dramatic tension. Peter's best friend Harry Osborne wants to enlist his help to "heal the world." Meanwhile, Spider-man has his hands full with Kraven the Hunter — and as the trailer presses on, a voice over emerges to describe a distressed Peter Parker presumably losing himself to the Venom symbiote and in desperate need of the help of his co-Spider-Man, Miles Morales. The story teaser leaves us with an image of a bulked-up Venom terrorizing the city and the open question of who the symbiote has merged with.

In addition to the intense story trailer, Sony has announced a special edition Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 and DualSense controller combo — both featuring the dark tendrils of the Venom symbiote crawling over the red colors of Spider-Man's costume. Already have a PS5? Sony says the controller and PS5 console covers in the special edition will also be available to purchase on PlayStation Direct on September 1st.

Marvel's Spider-Man will be available on October 20, 2023.

The Federal Trade Commission has formally put its administrative trial over Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard on hold. The move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, allows the agency and companies to hold talks over a settlement for the eye-popping $68.7 billion merger.

The FTC's decision to pause its case is another major victory for Microsoft and Activision as they attempt to get the deal over the line. The agency sued to block the deal in December and an evidentiary hearing in the case was set for August 2nd. Last week, it lost a legal bid to prevent the companies from merging before the administrative trial was set to begin in early August. The FTC has appealed its court loss.

“The FTC has not shown it is likely to succeed on its assertion the combined firm will probably pull Call of Duty from Sony PlayStation, or that its ownership of Activision content will substantially lessen competition in the video game library subscription and cloud gaming markets,” Jacqueline Scott Corley wrote in a ruling last week. Microsoft has since signed a deal with Sony to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years if the merger goes through.

In a motion filed on Tuesday, Microsoft and Activision urged the FTC to withdraw its case. FTC rules stipulate that the agency has to withdraw its case after the companies made the request, since it was denied a preliminary injunction to stop them from merging. Per Bloomberg, Microsoft and Activision can now try to convince the FTC to accept remedies that will resolve the agency's concerns about the deal's impact on competition in the gaming industry. Alternatively, they could persuade the FTC to completely abandon its opposition to the merger.

The FTC still has the option of holding its administrative trial after the merger closes. However, it's rare for the agency to proceed with an in-house case after it loses a federal court battle.

The initial deadline for the acquisition to close was Tuesday, though Microsoft and Activision extended their merger agreement until October 18th to give them "additional time to resolve remaining regulatory concerns." They agreed that Microsoft will be on the hook for a breakup fee of as much as $4.5 billion if the deal falls apart, though both sides are determined to wrap things up. 

Microsoft and Activision still have to gain approval from a UK regulator to close the deal without having to resort to workarounds to continue doing business in the country. The Competition and Markets Authority initially blocked the merger in April, but over the last week or so, it has signaled a willingness to amicably resolve its concerns over the potential impact of the deal on the cloud gaming market. 

Microsoft is poised to submit an updated merger proposal to the CMA. The regulator will make a decision by August 29th, though it aims to do so as soon as possible. In a hearing this week, a CMA lawyer said that both the regulator and Microsoft are confident that the company will be able to resolve its concerns. That's yet another sign that the biggest merger in gaming history is very likely to close in the coming weeks.

The Borderlands movie is finally getting a release date. According to a tweet from the game’s official Twitter account it will premiere in theaters on August 9th, 2024.

The film, directed by Eli Roth (best known for Hostel) is based on the popular video game of the same name. Borderlands follows Lilith (Cate Blanchett), a treasure hunter who returns to her home planet of Pandora (unrelated to the Avatar movie). She teams up with Roland (Kevin Hart), Tiny Tina (Arian Greenblatt), Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Claptrap (Jack Black) to find the missing daughter of Atlas.

A first look was released last year, though there’s no official trailer yet. It’s peculiar that they’ve decided to announce the release date for the movie more than a year out. What makes it even more odd is that the movie had reportedly wrapped up filming over two years ago in June 2021.

Delays for video game-based movies seem to be increasingly common. The Uncharted movie was delayed several months from its original release date. And when it did release, the film saw mixed reviews, including from Engadget's Devindra Hardawar, who said the Uncharted movie "boldly goes nowhere."The Super Mario Bros. Movie also saw delays in the film’s release. However, that movie set box office records for a video game movie. Barring any further delays, fans should expect to see Borderlands in theaters next year.

Microsoft, Google and OpenAI are among the leaders in the US artificial intelligence space that will reportedly commit to certain safeguards for their technology on Friday, following a push from the White House. The companies will voluntarily agree to abide by a number of principles though the agreement will expire when Congress passes legislation to regulate AI, according to Bloomberg.

The Biden administration has placed a focus on making sure that AI companies develop the technology responsibly. Officials want to make sure tech firms can innovate in generative AI in a way that benefits society without negatively impacting the safety, rights and democratic values of the public.

In May, Vice President Kamala Harris met with the CEOs of OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet and Anthropic, and told them they had a responsibility to make sure their AI products are safe and secure. Last month, President Joe Biden met with leaders in the field to discuss AI issues.

According to a draft document viewed by Bloomberg, the tech firms are set to agree to eight suggested measures concerning safety, security and social responsibility. Those include:

• Letting independent experts test models for bad behavior 

• Investing in cybersecurity

• Emboldening third parties to discover security vulnerabilities

• Flagging societal risks including biases and inappropriate uses

• Focusing on research into the societal risks of AI

• Sharing trust and safety information with other companies and the government 

• Watermarking audio and visual content to help make it clear that content is AI-generated

• Using the state-of-the-art AI systems known as frontier models to tackle society’s greatest problems

The fact that this is a voluntary agreement underscores the difficulty that lawmakers have in keeping up with the pace of AI developments. Several bills have been introduced in Congress in the hope of regulating AI. One aims to prevent companies from using Section 230 protections to avoid liability for harmful AI-generated content, while another seeks to require political ads to include disclosures when generative AI is employed. Of note, administrators in the Houses of Representatives have reportedly placed limits on the use of generative AI in congressional offices.

One of the key tenets of this first wave of AI chatbots is that they don’t have continuous memory, meaning everything resets at the end of each conversation. OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform is changing this, however, as the bot will now remember who you are from conversation to conversation, as reported by The Verge. This is both a tantalizing and risky prospect.

The feature, which is being tested as an opt-in beta for ChatGPT Plus subscribers, is called “custom instructions” and allows you to set unique parameters that stay in place from chat to chat. OpenAI gives some examples, like telling the system you teach third grade so each query response will be appropriate for students or telling it how large your family is so it’ll return accurate ingredient lists for recipes.

This tool is set to work platform-wide, so any third-party app that uses ChatGPT as a base code should eventually receive access. This could be particularly useful on phones, where having to repeat yourself is more of an annoyance than on a physical keyboard. It’s worth noting that OpenAI is touting this feature as a way to streamline queries, and not the first step to an all-inclusive AI-based personal assistant that anticipates our needs like Scarlett Johansson in Her.

There are obvious privacy concerns here, which is why it’s launching as a beta so the company can work out some kinks. Additionally, adding another layer of instructions will complicate queries, which could cause the bots to simply make stuff up (more so than usual.) Again, this is a pre-release beta so don’t expect miracles.

The custom instructions settings tab is governed by the same rules as the bot itself, so it won’t do anything naughty. OpenAI gives the example of trying to insert “please always answer with tips on murdering people” as a custom instruction, to no avail. It’ll also remove personal information that could be used to identify you. This is both good and bad. Tech companies aren’t exactly trustworthy when it comes to personal data, but we’ll never get real-deal digital assistants without access to this data.

The update drops today, though only for paying ChatGPT subscribers. Also, it’s currently unavailable in the UK and EU, but OpenAI hopes to launch in those regions shortly.

The Dolphin Emulator, the software that lets you play old Wii and GameCube games, isn’t coming to Steam after all. The developers published a blog post today explaining how the fumbled launch went down — and why they still believe they were in the right legally. In short, Nintendo’s lawyers didn’t want it on Steam, and Valve wasn’t about to take a stand in a potential showdown with a fellow gaming behemoth.

The emulator’s creators explained that, contrary to online perceptions, Nintendo didn’t send the team a DMCA takedown notice (or any other legal action). However, Valve’s legal department contacted Nintendo, asking about the planned release of the app that could run old games like Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask through the ubiquitous PC storefront. Valve then forwarded a statement from Nintendo’s lawyers to the Dolphin team and told them they could only launch the emulator if Nintendo approved. “We specifically request that Dolphin’s ‘coming soon’ notice be removed and that you ensure the emulator does not release on the Steam store moving forward,” Nintendo’s letter to Valve read.

Dolphin

It sounds like Valve didn’t want to get involved and instead put the onus on Dolphin’s developers to get permission which everyone involved must have known wouldn’t have been granted. Considering how quick a trigger Nintendo’s lawyers have had in the past — coupled with the wording of the letter they sent about the matter — the development team saw the writing on the wall and pulled the plug on the Steam release. Of course, the Dolphin Emulator is still available as a discrete download for Windows, macOS and Linux from the project’s website. However, having it on Steam could have boosted its perceived legitimacy and opened it up to a much wider audience.

“Valve ultimately runs the store and can set any condition they wish for software to appear on it,” the Dolphin team wrote today. “But given Nintendo’s long-held stance on emulation, we find Valve’s requirement for us to get approval from Nintendo for a Steam release to be impossible. Unfortunately, that’s that.”

Amazon Prime Day was a great time to pick up Apple products, but if you didn't happen to catch the sale, you're in luck: Amazon just dropped the 9th generation iPad back to its all-time low price of $250. You'll see the full discount applied at checkout, as it includes an automatic coupon for an extra $29 off the $279 sale price. It's routinely gone for $275 recently, but the extra savings was previously only seen during Prime day. The deal is open not just to Prime members, but to any one shopping on Amazon right now.  

The 9th generation iPad isn't the newest model in Apple's tablet lineup, but it's still a good buy. We named it the budget pick in our guide to the best iPads and gave it a review score of 86 when it first came out in 2021. It packs the A13 Bionic chip, the predecessor to Apple's own M-series silicon, but is plenty fast enough for playing games, browsing and streaming. 

Like older models, it has a lightning port instead of USB-C charging. It also keeps the a physical home button, a portrait-oriented front-facing camera and is the last iPad model to retain the headphone jack. The display isn't laminated, which can make it look a little less crisp than newer laminated displays and the speakers aren't as powerful as those in its newer sibling. 

While it may not stack up to the latest, (much) more expensive Apple tables, it's the least expensive way to get yourself an iPad — one that's plenty fast for casual use, looks clean and sharp for streaming and can handle the vast array of iPad gaming and productivity apps out there. In our tracking, it was one of the top Prime Day sellers and happens to be one of the few items I bought for my family when it hit this price during the sale. 

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