Following a slip-up, HBO has confirmed a release date for its long-expected The Last of Us TV series. The video game adaptation will debut through HBO and HBO Max on January 15th at 9PM Eastern. You'll have something to watch while you wait for Succession, then, although you may want to pace yourself when there are 10 episodes in this initial season.

As you're likely aware by this stage, The Last of Us stars The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal as cynical survivor Joel and Game of Thrones' Bella Ramsey as Ellie, the teen Joel has to smuggle out of a quarantine zone 20 years after a fungal zombie plague wrecks civilization. Big names like Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna and Anna Torv also star, while game voice actors Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker also make appearances.

The show is expected to largely follow the plot of the original game, with Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann serving as writer and executive producer alongside Chernobyl's Craig Mazin. Unlike many game-based productions, The Last of Us will have both the creative input of the developer and critically acclaimed talent behind the cameras. It's just a question of whether or not that combination works in practice, especially for newcomers who aren't attached to the story.

Twitter may soon charge users $8 a month for verification, but Elon Musk reportedly plans to give all users a long-requested feature for free: the edit button. According to Platformer’s Casey Newton, the move is in the works alongside the more sweeping changes to Twitter Blue that Musk previewed Tuesday.

For now, Twitter’s edit button is only available to subscribers in the current version of Twitter Blue, which costs $4.99 a month and is only live in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The feature gives users a 30-minute window to change their tweets, and includes a revision history.

Musk so far hasn’t publicly talked (or tweeted) about his plans for the edit button since taking control of the company. But the feature was one of the first Twitter-related topics he raised after he first acquired a large stake in the company this spring. And Twitter confirmed it was working on the feature just hours after Musk polled his followers on whether the platform should have an edit feature. (Millions of his followers vote "yse" in the poll — Twitter has previously said an edit button has long been its most-requested feature.)

At the same time, Musk is also planning more substantial changes to Twitter’s subscription service. He's said he qill allow anyone to get verified if they pay $8 a month, and will also show subscribers fewer ads. He’s also reportedly planning to nix the ad-free articles that’s currently included as perk with Twitter Blue, but wants to work with publishers to allow subscribers behind their paywalls.

Epic Games' Star Wars collaborations didn't end with Darth Vader. The gaming giant has added Luke, Leia and Han skins to Fortnite as part of "Skywalker Week," complete with appropriate accessories such as Luke's Landspeeder glider and Leia's R2-D2 back bling. Lightsabers are back if you can either open Imperial Chests or defeat Darth Vader, and fans of wildly inaccurate soldiers can pick up Stormtrooper blasters.

All the new Star Wars skins and accessories are available through the Fortnite Item Shop. Skywalker Week also revives the pulse rifle and "Junk Rifts" that can drop the Landspeeder. The event runs until November 8th at 9AM Eastern, and offers special quests to boost your XP.

This certainly isn't the first such team up. Epic held a Fortnite Star Wars event in December 2019 to mark the premiere of The Rise of Skywalker, and introduced both Darth Vader and a young Obi-Wan this spring. It may be one of the more important, though. This is the largest nod yet to the original movie trilogy (i.e. the most beloved trilogy) in the battle royale brawler, and may do more to reel you in if you're uninterested in Marvel heroes and game character crossovers.

It seems that those of us clamoring to see HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us won't have to wait too much longer to start watching the series. According to the show's page on HBO Max, it will debut on January 15th. For those keeping count, that's 75 days away.

With The Last of Us slated to arrive in early 2023 and the brilliant Succession not returning until the spring, the January timing makes sense. Even though the supposed release date appeared on an official HBO platform, it's worth taking with a grain of salt until there's a splashier formal announcement.

In any case, the first season of The Last of Us will run for 10 episodes. It's an adaptation of Naughty Dog's all-time great game of the same name, which the studio recently remade for PlayStation 5.

The Last of Usstars Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) as Joel and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) as Ellie, with Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv and Nick Offerman also featuring. Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, who played the main characters in the game, will appear as well. HBO released the first trailer in September and, from everything we've seen so far, the show is staying very faithful to the original game's story and visuals.

Amazon Prime members can now listen to much more music without any ads — as long as they do so in shuffle mode. They'll have access to Amazon Music's full catalog of more than 100 million songs (50 times more than before) without ads. Prime users can also check out on-demand All-Access playlists that are personalized for their tastes. It's possible to download these for offline listening.

It's not quite as positive a step forward as full ad-free listening, but it's still a change for the better. Amazon still needs to keep some features locked behind an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, after all. Those include on-demand access to the full catalog, more than 100 million songs in HD quality and an expanding selection of music in the Ultra HD fidelity and spatial audio lineups.

Elsewhere, the Amazon Music app is getting a redesign and a new feature called "podcast previews." You'll be able to listen to curated clips from podcast episodes. These could help you figure out if a show might be for you before listening to a full episode. Amazon offers some podcasts ad-free, including its exclusives, shows that premiere on its servicesbefore they're available elsewhere and other third-party shows, such as ones from The New York Times, ESPN and NPR.

You're not alone if you're unable to check your Instagram feeds. Instagram has confirmed that some users are "having issues" accessing their accounts. The social network hasn't identified a cause as of this writing, but some users have received notices that their accounts were suspended, while others have seen their follower counts drop.

We've asked Instagram for further comment on the outage and will let you know if we hear more. Reports of failures started spiking on Downdetector shortly before 9AM Eastern. They're not consistent, however, as many users (including here at Engadget) aren't running into problems.

This isn't the first significant outage in the past year. Meta's social networks suffered a major outage roughly a year ago after a bug disconnected key parts of the social media giant's backbone network. More recently, Instagram fixed a bug in early October that prevented iOS users from accessing the service. These hiccups aren't frequent, but they suggest Instagram still has teething troubles as it continues to grow.

Developing...

With Elon Musk in charge, Twitter is planning to boost the price of its Blue subscription plan from $5 to $20 per month and make it mandatory for verified users, according to Platformer's Casey Newton and The Verge. If it launches the plan, verified users (celebrities, politicians, journalists, etc.) will have to sign up to the service within 90 days or they'll lose the blue check mark. And employees working on the project have reportedly been told they'll be fired unless they implement the changes by November 7th.

Twitter launched Blue late last year in the US for $3 per month, but boosted the price in July to $5. It offers subscribers features like top articles, custom icons and, most recently, the ability to edit tweets. The company hasn't revealed subscriber numbers, revenue or other details for Twitter Blue, but the vast majority of its revenue (89 percent) comes from advertising, according to Investopedia.

Musk telegraphed the move yesterday, tweeting that "the whole verification process is being revamped right now." As Newton pointed out, Twitter's @verified currently follows around 428,000 accounts that carry the blue check, a fraction of the site's 206 million daily actives users. 

A lot of those folks have tweeted about the change, and many wouldn't pay $20 to keep their verified status. At the same time, users have pointed out that the new system could increase Twitter's bot and spam issues that Musk seems to hate. "The point of Twitter verification is that... it's useful to be able to verify their statements are coming from them," tweeted cosmologist and writer Katie Mack. "It's supposed to help combat disinformation, not be a status symbol." 

Musk has been busy in the few days he's been "chief twit." He has reportedly ordered company-wide layoffs, according to The New York Times. On Saturday, the SpaceX and Tesla boss reportedly told managers to begin drawing up lists of employees to cut.

While The Witcher won't return until next year, Netflix has already renewed the show for a fourth season and announced a major change. On Saturday, the streaming giant said that Liam Hemsworth, best known for playing Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games film series, would replace Henry Cavill as protagonist Geralt of Rivia. The two actors posted about the casting change on social media. 

"My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords," Cavill said on Instagram. "In my stead, the fantastic Mr. Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf. As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam’s take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men.”

Cavill didn't share a reason for his departure. Earlier this week, the actor confirmed he would continue playing Superman following his recent cameo appearance in Black Adam. Netflix cast Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in 2018. In addition to lending his star power to the series, the actor brought a genuine love of the franchise with him that was apparent whenever he was interviewed about the role. "I really feel a connection to Geralt and who he is and his nature, especially from the books," he told Polygon in 2019. "And having played the game for many, many, many hours, it was something that I had a connection with."

Netflix did not share a release date for season four of The Witcher. Season three began filming earlier this year. At its recent Tudum fan event, the company said the show would return sometime in the summer of 2023. In the meantime, fans can look forward to watching The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel series starring Michelle Yeoh, starting on December 25th.    

General Motors has temporarily stopped paying for advertisements on Twitter after Elon Musk closed the $44 billion deal to take over the website, according to the CNBC. Musk, as you know, is also the chief executive at Tesla, which overtook GM and all its competitors to become the most valuable carmaker in the US a couple of years ago. The company told the news organization that it's engaging with Twitter to understand its direction under its new owner. Further, it said that it's normal for the company to pause paid advertising in the face of a "significant change in a media platform."

GM said in its emailed statement:

"We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership. As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue."

Over the past couple of years, the company had broadened its commitment to providing consumers more EV options in an effort to better compete with Tesla. The automaker announced an investment of $35 billion for its combined EV and self-driving development efforts in 2021. Earlier this year, the company also revealed that it's building a third Ultium factory in the US that will make batteries for its electric vehicles. 

Shortly after he officially took control of Twitter, Musk posted a message to advertisers on his account in a bid to ease their concerns. "There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong," he wrote. He also said that advertising, "when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you..." For that to be true, "it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs."

Here is Musk's complete statement:

One day before Elon Musk is expected to finalize his deal to buy Twitter, he’s attempting to reassure the platform’s advertisers that he won’t turn the platform into a “free-for-all hellscape.” In a message posted Thursday, Musk tried to explain why he wanted to buy the company, and that he doesn’t intend to blow up its advertising business.

“There had been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising,” he wrote. “Most of it has been wrong. Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”

Musk has previously said that he would like to loosen Twitter’s content moderation rules, and do away with permanent bans in most cases. But that stance has upset many Twitter employees, and worried the company’s advertisers. The Wall Street Journalreported that some advertisers have even threatened to “pause all their ads” if the company gives Donald Trump his account back — something Musk has said he would likely do.

While Musk didn’t walk back those comments, he said he wanted Twitter to “be warm and welcoming to all.” He added that people should be able to “choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”

Musk’s comments come just after he visited Twitter’s office and reportedly told employees that he won’t be axing 75 percent of its staff as earlier reports had suggested. He also apparently met with Twitter COO Sarah Personette, who tweeted that she had a “great discussion” with the Tesla CEO. “Our continued commitment to brand safety for advertisers remains unchanged,” she wrote.

Notably, Musk’s stance on advertising is very different from former CEO Jack Dorsey, who privately told Musk that Twitter “can’t have an advertising model” and suggested it should be a “foundation of sorts” like the messaging app Signal. But though Musk responded favorably to the idea at the time, his message to advertisers now sounds very different.

“I also very much believe that advertising, when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you,” Musk wrote. "For this to be true, it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs. Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content."

“Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise.”