Snapchat on Wednesday unveiled a new partnership with Ticketmaster that will make staying updated on shows and inviting friends a little bit easier. The in-app Mini — a sort of micro-app inside the Snapchat app — functions a little bit like a dating service and can curate a selection of local shows tailored to individual users' interests.

Users are first asked to take a small survey, which allows the app to compile a list of artists and events they might like. They can then swipe right or left depending on if the show sparks an interest, and see if any of their Snapchat friends also liked the event. Snap Maps will also display upcoming concerts and events that are nearby.

Snapchat’s popularity with the under-25 demographic gives it a unique advantage in the live music space. Snap Inc. had a recent boost in popularity, gaining 13 million new users in the last quarter of 2021. The platform has already gotten its feet wet in the music space, partnering with Universal Music Group last year to launch a music discovery tool. Snapchat rivals only TikTok as the Gen Z app of choice, but the latter has stood out with its ability to make both new and old songs go viral. Given that Snapchat’s strength lies in connecting people in more intimate networks, a tool that matches users to shows and allows them to invite friends makes more sense.

Just last month the original Baby Shark video and its impossibly catchy song set a record with 10 billion views on YouTube. Now, Baby Shark is going to become a movie with a release date planned for 2023, Paramount announced. 

The film will be produced by Nickelodeon Animation and creator The Pinkfong company, but there are no details about the script, plot, etc. The character has been seen in the cinema before, as Pinkfong and Baby Shark’s Space Adventure had a limited run when it came to Netflix. However, that ran for just an hour, while Paramount described the upcoming release as a "feature-length film." 

Baby Shark was also developed into a Korean TV series called Baby Shark's Big Show, which debuted on Nickelodeon in December of 2020. The show was announced by Paramount Plus as part of an upcoming slate of kids/youth programs, including a Dora the Explorer series, new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and three new films in the SpongeBob SquarePants Universe. 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 won't hit theaters until April 8th, but a third movie is already in the works. Paramount confirmed that Sonic 3 is now in development, along with a Paramount+ streaming series based on Sonic sidekick Knuckles, starring Idris Elba. "We are delighted to announce that the third Sonic theatrical film and the first live action Sonic series for Paramount+ are being actively developed," said Sega CEO Haruki Satomi in a tweet.

Sonic 2's first trailer confirmed the existence of the titular character's new sidekick Tails, voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessy. We also saw the return of the first movie's villain, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carry), who's seeking to gain the Chaos Emeralds. Aiding his quest is none other than Knuckles the Echidna, who demonstrates his powers and posh Idris Elba voice. Elba will also voice Knuckles in the streaming series, set to arrive in 2023.

The first Sonic film was one of the most successful video game adaptations yet, making the launch of a sequel inevitable. Paramount must be pretty confident about that to have already announced Sonic 3 and a streaming series to boot. The trailer looked promising, but we'll find out when it arrives on April 8th. 

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.

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.

We got our first look at Dune: Spice Wars at the 2021 Game Awards, and now developer Shiro Games is giving fans of Frank Herbert’s seminal novels a better look at the project. In a gameplay trailer the studio shared on Tuesday, we see how a game of Spice Wars plays out. Unlike most 4X games, including Civilization VI and Humankind, Spice Wars is part real-time strategy game. That means you won’t have hundreds of turns where you can agonize over every possible move to decide how to lead your faction. That should make decisions like where to send your troops, what settlements to invade and how to engage in diplomacy more impactful.

Of course, each time you move your troops or fight in combat out in the open desert of Arrakis, you’ll need to keep in mind a Sandworm may come to snack on your units. Judging from the trailer, you’ll also have access to agents you can send to organizations like the Spacing Guild, CHOAM and even the Landsraad. When it arrives on Steam Early Access later this year, Spice Wars will feature four playable factions. Naturally, the noble House Atredies and fearsome House Harkonnen are among the groups you can lead.

That the first Dune game in two decades should include RTS elements is fitting. In 1992, Westwood Studios helped established the formula for the genre with the excellent Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty. While the popularity of RTS games has waned in recent years, Dune II’s legacy and influence persist. You wouldn’t have MOBAs like League of Legends if not for the work Westwood Studios and Blizzard did in the early ‘90s.

Facebook’s “News Feed” is no more. After more than 15 years, the company is officially renaming its central feature, which will now be known simply as “Feed.” The company announced the name change in a tweet.

The change, which comes just months after Mark Zuckerberg announced he was renaming the company to Meta, is yet another sign Facebook is trying to shift the perception of its core products. In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said the new moniker was meant “to better reflect the diverse content people see on their Feeds.” They added that the new name won’t change how the feature works in the app.

Still, the removal of "news" from the name will likely be seen as symbolic of the company's changing priorities as it looks toward a future centered on the metaverse, not its social networking app. Facebook’s handling of news stories has long been a thorny issue for the company. Company executives have for years argued that news is only a “small percentage” of what people share on the platform, and the company completely reoriented its feed in 2018 to focus on Facebook friends rather than publishers. (That change came with its own unintended consequences, according to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. ) 

More recently, Facebook has tried to counter perceptions that polarizing content, particularly from far-right personalities, dominates its Feed. The company has published reports on “widely viewed content,” that argue political content isn’t that popular. And in response to a widely cited Twitter account that ranks the top Facebook Pages using analytics data from CrowdTangle, the company has published its own take on which publishers have the biggest reach on the platform. Those questions have also been central to researchers' fight to understand how content spreads on Facebook. Of course, a superficial name change doesn't resolve any of those issues, but it could help Facebook further bolster its claims that the company is embarking on a new era that won't be defined by the social networking app now seeing declining engagement.

It looks like Netflix is headed to Rapture. The company says it's teaming up with 2K and Take-Two Interactive for a film adaptation of the BioShock series. No other details are available as yet, but based on the image Netflix shared in its announcement, it wouldn't be a surprise to see it tackling the first game.

There's a good chance that BioShock will translate well to the big screen (if Netflix does, in fact, opt for a theatrical release). The original 2007 game has a striking Art Deco/underwater setting and an unforgettable story. That's not to mention great characters — though it remains to be seen whether the filmmakers can truly capture the terror of a Big Daddy charging toward you.

The movie isn't the only BioShock project in the works. Cloud Chamber is working on the next installment, which will be the first full game in the series since 2013's BioShock Infinite.

Amazon used Super Bowl LVI to show off the first trailer for its ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. The 60 second teaser gives us our first look at some of the main characters, potential action and visual effects. "Haven't you ever wondered... what else is out there?" a voice intones to kick it off. 

As we learned earlier, the series is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. It will be drawing material from J.R.R.Tolkien's The Silmarilion, which details key events like Sauron's story and the forging of the rings of power.  

The new teaser briefly shows several principal characters including Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). Other stars include Benjamin Walker, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Owain Arthur, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Joseph Mawle, Sara Zwangobani and Megan Richards.

Amazon spent $250 on the rights to the material and reportedly spent $465 million on the first season alone, according The Hollywood Reporter. It's hard to tell from the trailer whether all that money made it to the screen, but we'll find out for sure when it arrives on Amazon Prime Video on September 2nd, 2022. The series has already been renewed for a second season.