During a Final Fantasy VII 25th anniversary celebration, alongside announcements of a Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core remake and news that Remake Intergrade will launch on Steam later this month, we got our first tiny glimpse of the next part of Final Fantasy VII Remake.

It’ll be called Rebirth, and seems to focus on some of the major plotlines of the original (we won’t get spoilery) all while throwing a wrench into our expectations.

We see protagonist Cloud and antagonist Sephiroth marching around a later area of the original game with lush vegetation, while fellow party member Aerith (we think) muses on whether she’s died. Or not. 

We also get a brief glimpse of Cloud resting on the shoulder of Zack – the hero of Crisis Core. So, er, yeah. Even if you’re totally up to speed with FFVII lore and spin-offs, this trailer is a giant question mark to get fans talking and theorizing for the next twelve months and beyond.

Producer Yoshinori Kitase said during the stream that: "Making the middle part of a trilogy has its own challenges, but there are plenty of classic second installments in the world of film that are defined by stunning story twists and deeper explorations of their characters.”

The game’s director, Naoki Hamaguchi, said: "The Final Fantasy 7 remake project will be a three-part trilogy, but Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is much more than just one installment in the series.”

There you have it. Final Fantasy VII Remake will be a trilogy. And so very manyspin-off games on the side.

Snap has started testing a paid subscription tier for Snapchat that will give users early access to new features, a company spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge. "We're doing early internal testing of Snapchat Plus, a new subscription service for Snapchatters. We're excited about the potential to share exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features with our subscribers, and learn more about how we can best serve our community," the spokesperson said. While they barely revealed anything about the service, reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has found some hidden information in the app that gives us an idea of what Snapchat Plus could offer. 

Apparently, it'll let users pin one friend as their #1 BFF and will give them access to some exclusive icons. Snapchat Plus users will also get a badge on their profile, will have the means to see their friends' locations over the past 24 hours — if those friends are sharing their location with the user — and will see how many friends have rewatched their stories. Based on the details Paluzzi has unearthed, the service will cost users €4.59 ($4.83) a month or €45.99 ($48.41) a year. 

Those features and prices could change by the time the feature is ready to launch, if Snap does decide to offer the service. Seeing as other social networks and apps are also offering or working on paid tiers of their own, it wouldn't come as a surprise if Snapchat Plus does become available. Twitter Blue made its debut in a US last year as a $3 option for users who want additional features, such as the undo button. Telegram also confirmed that it will launch a Premium tier sometime this month to give its most ardent fans access to bigger uploads, as well as more speed and resources.

Instagram is testing a new full-screen version of Instagram’s feed that would make scrolling through posts look and feel a lot more like TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg shared a preview of the test on his Instagram Story, saying that the new look would be available to some people “soon.”

The app began testing a version of a “full-screen” feed last month, but in that test feed posts didn’t actually take up the entire screen of the app. But with the latest version shared by Zuckerberg, posts extend all the way to the top of the screen, much as they do on TikTok. The new look also tweaks the shortcuts for accessing your inbox and creating new posts.

Though still an experiment, the new look is in-line with Meta’s stated desire to make competing with TikTok a top priority. On instagram, that’s meant inserting more Reels and “suggested” content into users feed, as well as emphasizing video more than static images. “Photos are still an important part of Instagram, and we're working on ways to improve the way they show up in a full-screen Feed too,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Meta is also planning a major revamp of Facebook’s app that would insert more “recommended” content in users’ feeds, rather than posts from friends and pages they follow. Zuckerberg has said the changes are part of broader pivot toward AI-driven recommendations rather than simply relying on users existing social graphs.

As suspected, the first phone from Nothing — Carl Pei’s new company — is going all in on the transparent gadget look. This seems to be Nothing’s design aesthetic, matching its wireless ear(1) headphones from last year.

According to snippets of video from an event at Art Basel, where the phone was revealed (inside a box), segments of the back of the phone will even light up. This could just be a decorative gimmick, but Nothing’s narrative has been pushing intentional design choice — so it probably ties into notifications or something else I can’t quite imagine this early in the morning.

For now, the company is keeping the finer specifications (and crucial details like pricing and availability) under wraps, but Nothing says it’ll reveal everything in July.

-Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

• 'Time Flies' turns the life of a housefly into a cute game about existential dread | Engadget

• Qualcomm won't have to pay its $1 billion EU fine over LTE deal with Apple

• Samsung's Smart Monitor M8 falls back to a low of $600 | Engadget

• PayPal will let users split the cost of purchases over up to 24 months

• Puffco's Proxy packs the power of Peak Pro into a palm-sized pipe | Engadget

• DJI's RS3 mirrorless camera stabilizer unlocks automatically and is easier to balance

• Twitch opens up ads program to more streamers and increases payout

• I've fallen for Chrono Trigger's text adventure pseudo-sequel

• Senate considers ban on data brokers selling health and location info

Steam games are coming to Nreal's augmented reality glasses

'Steam on Nreal' is still in beta, though.

nreal

Nreal users can now play some Steam games on their augmented reality glasses. A beta version of "Steam on Nreal" gives users a way to stream games from their PC to their AR eyewear. Nreal admits that installing the beta release will require a bit of effort to set up, and the current version is not optimized for all Steam games just yet. It will work on both Nreal Light and Nreal Air models, though, and it already supports some popular games, including the Halo series.

Continue reading.

Elon Musk tries to wriggle out of SEC deal to have lawyers approve his tweets

He's appealing a ruling that upheld the 2018 agreement.

Musk has filed an appeal against a judge's decision not to let him out of an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which requires him to have lawyers review some of his tweets.

Musk's pact with the SEC stems from an infamous 2018 incident in which he tweeted that he had "funding secured" to make Tesla a private company, though that allegedly wasn't the case. The SEC laid securities fraud charges against Musk, who has not deleted the tweet in question nearly four years later.

Continue reading.

YouTube Shorts has over 1.5 billion monthly users

The TikTok rival apparently boosts viewers for full-length videos, too.

YouTube has hinted that Shorts are doing well, but it's now clear just what that means. The company says its mini-video clip service now has over 1.5 billion active, signed-in monthly users. It’s impressive: Arch-nemesis TikTok had racked up 1 billion monthly users as of September 2021 despite being around for considerably longer — and serving as a very obvious… inspiration for Shorts.

Continue reading.

'Self-driving' cars were linked to 392 crashes in 10 months

Tesla cars were involved in 70 percent of the incidents.

Getty

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its first batch of data for semi-autonomous driving technology. The agency linked 392 crashes to partial self-driving and driver assistance systems in the 10 months between July 1st, 2021 and May 15th, 2022. About 70 percent of those — 273 —, were Tesla vehicles using Autopilot or the Full Self-Driving beta. Honda cars were tied to 90 incidents, while Subaru models were involved in 10.

Continue reading.

Sony unveiled a new quick editing mode for PS5’s Share Factory Studio today that will allow users to create shortform gameplay videos with pre-set, Tik-Tok-like formats. In a blog post, Sony explained the new editing feature — which it has deemed “Bits”— lets gamers choose a curated Bit style for their gameplay clip, or customize their footage even further with the “Quick Edit” mode. Players can expect new Bits styles to roll out every week. Bits themes will be based on special events, holidays, seasons and trending content.

“Our goal with Bits is to make it super easy and fun for PlayStation gamers to create and share short-form gameplay videos for sharing cool achievements, jokes, stunts, and any other type of eye-catching content,” wrote the company in the official PlayStation blog.

For those who aren’t familiar, Share Factory Studio is PlayStation’s free editing app that lets players capture and edit gameplay footage right on their consoles and share to social media. The app is packed with advanced video and audio editing features, including support for HDR video and the ability to add animation, stickers, filters and voice effects. But for those who are overwhelmed by Share Factory Studio’s many options, Bits seems to be an easy way to churn out social media-friendly gameplay clips.

For a preview of what Bits looks like, check out the short trailer below.

Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives have made it clear for some time that competing with TikTok is their top priority. Now, we have additional details about how they plan to completely overhaul the Facebook app to accomplish that.

The social network is working on a major redesign of Facebook’s main feed that would heavily emphasize recommended content from pages, creators and people you don’t already follow, according to a memo from a Facebook executive that was published by The Verge.

The memo, from Tom Alison who heads up the Facebook app at Meta, states that the goal is to shift Facebook into a “Discovery Engine,” which would heavily rely on recommendations, similar to TikTok’s “For You” feed. Recommendations would mainly come from “unconnected” content, including Reels, and users would see fewer posts from friends and family in their feeds. The plan would also bring Messenger’s inbox back into the Facebook app in an effort to encourage users to share more content from said “Discovery Engine.”

It’s not clear how long it will take Meta to implement these changes, some of which mirror changes already happening at Instagram. But it’s not the first time Meta executives have hinted at big changes to come in Facebook’s app, or even the first time we’ve heard about an upcoming pivot from social network to “Discovery Engine.” Zuckerberg said in April that the company was in the midst of a “major shift” that would change the dynamics of feeds to emphasize AI-driven recommendations over users’ social graphs.

Still, the memo from Alison makes clear just how important the new priorities are for the company, which is desperately trying to catch up to TikTok.

But the shift to more recommendations could also be problematic for the company. The company’s current recommendation algorithms have been blamed for exploiting divisiveness and promoting misinformation. While Alison told The Verge that there would be stricter rules for recommended content, the company has often struggled to enforce its own rules. And, notably, in his memo Alison states that the company is changing the way it views its obligation to reduce “negative experiences.”

“‘Reducing negative experiences’ has been removed as a product priority since it’s more aptly tied to the product culture we are trying to build throughout our approach of being ‘Trustworthy,’ ‘People-Centric,’ and ‘Unified,’” Alison wrote. “Our focus is doing this holistically across all of our products as a permanent part of our culture as opposed to a short-term priority.”

Sony has confirmed a Gran Turismo movie is in the works and it's slated to arrive sooner than many folks may have expected. Its Columbia Pictures imprint will release the film on August 11th, 2023. District 9's Neill Blomkamp, who is far from a stranger to the world of video games, is directing. American Sniper scribe Jason Hall wrote the screenplay.

The movie is based on a true story, as Deadline reports. It will tell the tale of a Gran Turismo player who gets a shot at becoming a professional racecar driver. For several years, players had a path to real-life motorsport through the GT Academy.

This is the latest example of Sony adapting its gaming franchises for the big and small screen. That's become a bigger priority for the company over the last few years under its PlayStation Productions banner.

Shows based on The Last of Us and Twisted Metal have been in the works for a while, and Sony recently revealed Horizon and God of War adaptations are coming to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video respectively. The company at long last released the Uncharted movie earlier this year, while a Ghost of Tsushima movie is in the pipeline. Sony also mentioned that a Gran Turismo TV show is in development, but it's unclear whether that's still going ahead after the movie announcement.

Nreal users can now play some Steam games on their augmented reality glasses. The Chinese company has released the beta version of "Steam on Nreal," which gives users a way to stream games from their PC to their AR eyewear. Nreal admits that installing the beta release will require a bit of effort during the setup process, and the current version is not optimized for all Steam games just yet. It will work on both Nreal Light and Nreal Air models, though, and it already supports some popular titles like the entire Halo series. 

To note, users can already play games on Nreal's glasses by accessing Xbox Cloud Gaming on a browser inside the company's 3D system called Nebula. But Steam on Nreal will give users who don't have Xbox accounts the opportunity to see what gaming on the device would be like. Company co-founder Peng Jin said the beta release is "meant to give people a glimpse into what is possible." He added: "AAA games should be played on a 200-inch HD screen and they should be played free of location restrictions."

Nreal launched its Light mixed reality glasses in 2020 after a US court ruled in its favor for the lawsuit filed by Magic Leap. The American company accused its former employee Chi Xu of using stolen secrets to set up Nreal, but the court decided that Magic Leap failed to make any viable claim. In 2021, Nreal launched a new model called Air that was designed with streaming shows and playing mobile games in mind. Air looks more like a pair of ordinary sunglasses than its predecessor does, and it also comes with a better display.

In an effort to offer more content and perhaps entice those on the fence to grab a pair of its glasses, Nreal has also announced AR Jam, an online international contest for AR developers that will kick off on June 27th. Developers can compete in various categories that include at-home fitness, art, games and video, with each one having a $10,000 grand prize. Those interested can head over to the company's Developer page for more information.

Netflix isn't just milking Squid Game's success with a second season. Varietynotes the streamer is creating a reality competition show, Squid Game: The Challenge, based on the Korean series. The 10-episode production will pit 456 people against each other in games both "inspired" by the show as well as new events. No one is dying here, thankfully, but there's still a good reason for entrants to persevere to the end — the winner receives a whopping $4.56 million prize.

The company is casting for English-speaking participants worldwide ahead of filming in the UK. While Netflix didn't say when Squid Game: The Challenge would premiere, the US casting page notes that candidates may have to commit to as many as four weeks in early 2023. The Circle production house Studio Lambert and ITV's The Garden are heading up the project.

A reality TV spinoff isn't exactly shocking. Squid Game remains Netflix's most popular show of all time, and earned Golden Globe and SAG awards. The company is also eager to turn its fortunes around — it posted its first subscriber loss in a decade last quarter in the wake of fiercer rivalries, limited growth potential and account sharing. The competition could help Netflix reel in subscribers beyond those eager to watch season two.

Meta is introducing new parental supervision features for Quest virtual reality headsets and Instagram. The VR safety tools, which were announced in March, are rolling out worldwide. 

The parental supervision process needs to be initiated on a teen's account (the minimum age to have a Facebook account is 13). A Parent Dashboard in the Oculus app will allow parents and guardians to block apps (including web browsers), see a list of apps on the teen's account and view their friends list. A teen can ask to buy an age-restricted app, then their parent can approve or deny the request. Parents can also view headset screen time, receive alerts when an app is purchased and block the Link and Air Link features to stop teens from using PC content on their headset.

On top of that, Meta is debuting a parent education hub, which includes information about the VR supervision options. The company says it worked with industry experts, teens, parents and policymakers on these controls. It will refine the tools over time.

At the start of this year, the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK said it would hold talks with Meta over how Quest 2 complies with a children's code that's designed to protect young users. These new measures could go some way toward addressing the watchdog's concerns.

Meanwhile, Instagram's parental supervision tools, which launched in the US in March, will arrive in the UK, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany this month with some expanded options. Parents can now invite teens to set up supervision tools (rather than requests solely coming from teen accounts).

Parents and guardians can limit access to Instagram at certain times by scheduling breaks. They can view more details about an account or post their teen reports, including the person in question and the type of report. They can also see which users their teen follows and who follows them. Instagram plans to roll out the tools globally later this year.

In the UK and Ireland, Instagram is testing a nudge feature. Teens will be encouraged to look at different posts if they spend too much time with the same kind of content in the Explore tab. The aim is to prompt them to be more mindful of their Instagram use. As part of a different test, teens in certain countries may see a prompt to turn on the Take a Break feature after watching Reels for a while.

Elsewhere, Instagram is adding more resources to its educational Family Center. There's a new page that provides teens with details about privacy settings for Quest, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. Parents and guardians can access information about how to talk to kids about online safety issues.