Sony is finally releasing an Uncharted movie after trying to make one for over a decade. If you need more evidence that the film actually exists beyond a snap of Tom Holland in Nathan Drake's classic attire, here's the first trailer.

Even though Holland plays a much younger version of the character (which Mark Wahlberg's Sully jokes about in the opening moments) than in the games, the enjoyable-enough trailer incudes some of the most memorable moments from Drake's globe-trotting adventures. There isn't a bit where he clambers up a train carriage that's dangling over a cliff, but there's the cargo plane set piece from Uncharted 3 and a ship trapped inside a cave, just like in Uncharted 4. The clip includes some underground exploration too.

The film's set to arrive in theaters on February 11th, following several delays. Attempts to make an Uncharted movie stopped and started over the years, with directors including David O. Russell, Seth Gordon and Shawn Levy being attached at certain points before Zombieland and Venom helmer Ruben Fleischer saw the film through. The project had been in development for so long that, for a while, Wahlberg looked set to play Drake, rather than the character's mentor.

Some viewers might be coming to the franchise with fresh eyes (maybe because they need more Tom Holland in their lives), and they might want to play the games to see what all the fuss is about. Sony Pictures included a handy reminder at the end of the trailer about a remastered bundle of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy that's coming to PlayStation 5 and PC in early 2022.

In case the trailer doesn't quite match up to what you might have expected, or Holland doesn't seem like the right person for the gig in your opinion, it's worth checking out this short fan film from a few years back in which Nathan Fillion plays the rogueish treasure hunter. It's a blast.

Spotify might have a much wider video podcast selection in the near future. In July last year, it debuted the video podcast format for select originals, but now it's opening up access to the option to more people who want to launch their own. Creators can now apply to have their video podcasts published on the streaming platform via Anchor, which is Spotify's podcast creation tool. 

The company says it's rolling out video podcasts on a rolling basis with a number of key creators, including existing podcasters who are expanding into video and video creators who want to reach a new audience. It's putting approved applicants in a waitlist, however, and giving them the power to make their videos available on the platform at a later date. Those who do get approved can upload episodes through their Anchor account, which will automatically be published on Spotify.

Since not all video creators will be signing $100 million deals with the company like Joe Rogan did, Spotify is giving them a way to earn from their shows. Creators in select markets will be able to monetize their podcasts through subscriptions, allowing them to share exclusive content with subscribers or to only make their shows available to paying customers altogether. 

Former President Donald Trump has officially revealed that he's launching his own social media in 2022, a few months after his aide toldFox News about his plans. He's calling it TRUTH Social, and the platform is apparently part of his camp's efforts to fight back against "the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America."

Some of Trump's supporters believe that social networks are biased against conservative voices — in 2018, a group even sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, accusing them of breaking antitrust laws and violating their First Amendment rights by conspiring to suppress conservative viewpoints. The case was tossed out of court a few times. According to a New York University research published earlier this year, there's no evidence of conservative bias on the world's most popular social networks. There was even an Instagram bug in the months leading to the US Presidential Elections that favored Trump content over Biden's.

It is true, however, that Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms following the January 6th US Capitol riots. Twitter determined that his tweets at that time violated its policies. According to the website, his tweets (which you can view in an archive) "must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence..."

Earlier this month, Trump sued to get his Twitter account back, arguing that the ban violates his First Amendment rights. Indeed, his ban on the website gets a special mention in TRUTH Social's announcement. He said in a statement: "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced."

TRUTH Social will have a beta launch in November for invited guests. Trump and his team are expecting to roll it out nationwide in the first quarter of 2022.

Senator Richard Blumenthal is again calling on Mark Zuckerberg to testify about Facebook’s research into Instagram and child safety. “It is urgent and necessary for you or Mr. Adam Mosseri to testify to set the record straight and provide members of Congress and parents with a plan on how you are going to protect our kids,” the Connecticut lawmaker wrote in a letter addressed to Zuckerberg.

Blumenthal is the chair of the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security that’s been holding hearings on social media and child safety in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Blumenthal said that a series of whistleblower disclosures about Facebook was the company’s “big tobacco moment.”

Since then, pressure has mounted on Facebook to address internal research that shows Instagram can have a negative impact on some teens’ mental health. The company has already “paused” work on a forthcoming Instagram Kids app, but lawmakers have said the company should end the project altogether.

In his letter, Blumenthal said that Facebook’s head of safety, Antigone Davis, who testified at a previous hearing, “appears to have provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.” He also said that Facebook “has continued to demean impactful and independent investigative reporting” and “downplayed its own research.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Epic Games Publishing is throwing its full weight behind two more indie studios, and really, they couldn't be more different — which is precisely the point. Epic has signed Eyes Out, the brand-spanking-new studio founded by Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, and also Spry Fox, a veteran, award-winning indie developer known for heartwarming games such as Cozy Grove, Alphabear and Road Not Taken. 

As a publisher, Epic offers to cover 100 percent of all development costs, and once a game comes out and breaks even in sales, the signed studio receives at least 50 percent of all profits. Epic doesn't exert creative control over its partnered games, and the developers retain the intellectual property rights to their work. Epic signed Remedy Entertainment, Playdead and genDESIGN in March 2020, and today's announcement marks the second batch of contracted studios.

"We’re open to publishing many types of games from the most talented developers, and the studios we’re partnering with are making some of the coolest, experimental and ambitious stuff out there," head of Epic Games Publishing Hector Sanchez told Engadget. "They have our full support – including Epic’s publishing and promotional services, resources, and experience – which means they can focus solely on making the best games possible."

Eyes Out is staffed with enormous creative energy, but it's unproven as a team. Davis, Finck and their collaborators are working on their debut title, a mysterious arthouse horror game with an emphasis on experimental audio and cosmic terror. The studio's teasers are filled with moody desert landscapes and unsettling layers of sound. In a chat with Engadget in September, Davis said he wants to "create mind-bending experiences that cause you to question reality."

The publisher relationship goes even deeper for Eyes Out, too — the studio received an Epic MegaGrant in 2019, which gave them the runway to build their first proof-of-concept. Epic further funded the studio's prototype, allowing them to expand their team in the process. And now, Eyes Out is officially part of Epic Games Publishing.

"From the very beginning, Robin and I knew that Eyes Out was going to require a unique publishing partner willing to empower our vision of the strange, ambitious worlds we would create together, and one capable of fueling it," Davis said about today's news. He continued, "Our collaboration with Epic continued to bear fruit. Working with Epic is really the first time I’ve felt entirely unleashed as a director, both technically and creatively. Together we’re aimed to create the thing that’s closest to my heart."

Spry Fox, meanwhile, is working on its most ambitious project to date, which it describes as a "non-violent multiplayer game designed to encourage friendship and reduce loneliness in the world." It'll come to multiple platforms, and support cross-play and cross-progression. The first bit of concept art from Spry Fox's new game depicts a pastel, Atlantis-esque world with a massive yellow whale floating across the sky.

"This is the first time in our history that we at Spry Fox have chosen to work with a publisher in this manner," studio co-founder and CEO David Edery said. "Up until now, we have only worked with publishers for much more limited regional publishing and porting arrangements. But we felt for a project as ambitious as this one, we needed more support than usual, and Epic seemed like the right company to provide that support."

Epic has positioned itself as the developer's publisher, with a goal of having "the most developer-friendly terms in the industry," emphasizing creative control and financial support for its studios. Epic also offers free access to Unreal Engine, a powerful game-development toolset, and it throws money at artists through programs like Epic MegaGrants, a $100 million fund for burgeoning creatives. The Epic Games Store went live in 2018 as a direct competitor to Steam, offering better financial terms for developers and challenging Valve to implement the same deal (spoiler: Valve didn't). 

More recently, Epic waged a very public legal battle against Apple, arguing the iPhone-maker enjoyed monopolistic control over the App Store and offered unfair terms to developers. In the end, the lawsuit played out like any other fight between multibillion-dollar corporations, resulting in little change and lots of press.

Throughout the lawsuit, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney attacked Apple for engaging in greedy, anti-consumer and anti-developer practices. This is kind of his thing — since founding Epic more than 30 years ago, Sweeney has been consistent in his mantra that game development should be accessible to as many people as possible. Even his first game, ZZT, included an editor so everyone who played it could build their own levels.

"It was in those early days that Epic's kind of core philosophy was set," Sweeney told Engadget in 2019. "We both build games ourselves and we share all the results of our work with the world to build their own games. We're the both a game developer and a service company that works with partners throughout the whole industry. Everything we're doing now is this much larger version of that."

Including, it seems, Epic Games Publishing.

Facebook is rebranding and changing its company name as soon as next week, according to The Verge. Apparently, the social media giant will have a new name that will reflect its focus on creating a metaverse. It's also possibly connected to its unreleased social virtual reality world called Horizon Worlds. The social network itself will likely retain the Facebook branding and will be under a new parent company, along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. That would be similar to what Google did in 2015 when it put its various projects and divisions, along with itself, under its parent company Alphabet.

The Verge says the name change is a closely guarded secret at the moment and not even all senior leaders have knowledge about it. Mark Zuckerberg has long talked about wanting to make Facebook a metaverse company and has been taking steps towards that goal. Earlier this year, Facebook formed a team dedicated to building a metaverse, and just a few days ago, it talked about adding 10,000 "high-skilled" jobs across the European Union over the next five years to build its virtual and augmented reality experiences. It also released the Ray-Ban Stories augmented reality smart glasses in September.

We reached out to Facebook for a statement, and company spokesperson Joe Osborne said: "We don’t comment on rumor or speculation."

It's unclear how long Facebook been has planning on changing its name, but it's certainly a good distraction for the investigations it's facing and the bad press it's currently getting. Former executive-turned-whisleblower Frances Haugen provided the Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission with a treasure trove of internal documents, dropped several revelations about the company and accused it of choosing "profit over safety" — something Zuckerberg adamantly denied. 

In early October, she testified at a Senate hearing about research she says proves that the social network repeatedly lied about its platform, including the "efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems, and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages." Haugen has several ideas on what Facebook should change, but none of them has anything to do with changing its name. They include going back to chronological feeds from algorithmic ranking, adding some features that would prevent the spread of misinformation and opening Facebook research to people outside the company. 

It took years, but Instagram will finally let you create posts from the desktop web. The social network is issuing a flurry of updates that will culminate on October 21st, when users worldwide will have the option of posting photos and short videos (under one minute) from their computer browser. That's helpful if you'd rather not reach for your phone, of course, but it could be particularly useful for businesses and enthusiasts that want to make better use of their expensive cameras.

There are plenty of updates for mobile users, too. A Collabs test feature available today (October 19th) lets two people co-author posts and Reels. You just have to invite someone else from the tagging screen to get them involved. Followers for both users will see the post, and it'll even share views, likes and comments. It's safe to say this could be valuable for everything from superstar team-ups to sponsored posts.

Another test coming on October 20th will let you start nonprofit fundraisers right from the new post button, simplifying charity efforts. Everyone will see new music-driven Reels effects on October 21st, including Superbeat (special effects in sync with the beat) and Dynamic Lyrics (3D lyrics that flow with the track). They're not as flashy as the other additions, but they may help you focus on sharing content rather than editing it.

It'll be easier for Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers to listen to music with spatial audio starting today. You can now use any headphones to listen to songs with Dolby Atmos and Sony's 360 Reality Audio via supported devices.

Those include iOS, Android, Echo Studio, some other Alexa Cast devices and Sony soundbars and home theater speakers with 360 Reality Audio support. Later this year, you'll be able to stream Amazon Music's Dolby Atmos tracks to Sonos Arc and Beam (Gen 2) soundbars through the Sonos app.

Amazon switched on spatial audio in Amazon Music in 2019. It's now available to Unlimited subscribers at no extra cost and it'll be on by default. Earlier this year, Amazon rolled HD and Ultra HD music into the standard Unlimited individual, family and student plans, rather than asking users to pay extra for those tracks, as was previously the case.

Until now, Amazon's spatial audio has only been available on a limited selection of devices, including Echo Studio and Sony's SRS-RA3000 and SRS-RA5000 speakers. So, bringing the feature to a wider selection of headphones should mean far more people are likely to try it.

Apple Music also started offering spatial audio this year with Dolby Atmos. However, that streaming service has at least one trick Amazon does not: dynamic head tracking for spatial audio using AirPods Pro or AirPods Max.

A part of Donald Trump's campaign website looked different than usual until Monday morning. Its "action" subdomain, which usually houses his calls to action, contained a Turkish message instead. "Do not be like those who forgot Allah, so Ally made them forget themselves. Here they really went astray," the message in Turkish said, according to Newsweek. The page also contained a video embed of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as a link to the hacker's Instagram and Facebook pages.

A hacker calling themselves RootAyyildiz has claimed responsibility for the defacement — and for many others in the past. The National Intelligence Council released a report earlier this year linking them to the defacement of Biden-Harris' presidential campaign website, as well. Back then, Biden's website showed a message in Turkish, the country's flag and a photo of the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid II. 

RootAyyildiz told Motherboard that they used a technique called Server Side Template Injection (SSTI) to inject their own code into the site's template and that they had control of the site for three months. According to Forbes, references to RootAyyildiz first appeared on the website on October 9th, at the latest. The hacker added in a statement to Motherboard: "There are many areas of hacking attacks, for example, hacking social media accounts or websites, I am a hacktivist and I have been working on websites for a long time and I choose this management to have my voice heard." 

Before the US Presidential Elections last year, hackers were also able to gain control of Trump's website. They replaced its About page with a message threatening to discredit the then-POTUS by sharing incriminating data. 

Disney has shaken up its movie release calendar, with several Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks being delayed. The revamped schedule, which Variety reports is due to a production-related snowball effect, affects the slate for 2022 and beyond, and it will have a knock-on effect on Disney+.

All of the MCU films Disney had on the docket for 2022 have been pushed to a later slot. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was penciled in for March 25th, but now it's taking Thor: Love and Thunder's old date of May 6th. The next Thor movie will arrive on July 8th, in turn pushing back Black Panther: Wakanda Forever to November 11th.

The schedule shifts mean there will only be three Marvel movies next year instead of the planned four, as Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels now has a release date of February 17th, 2023. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has moved from that date to July 28th, 2023. On the flip side, Disney brought one mystery Marvel movie (hopefully Guardians of the Galaxy 3) forward by a week from November 10th, 2023.

Elsewhere, the next Indiana Jones movie has been delayed by 11 months. You'll need to wait until June 30th, 2023 for Harrison Ford's fifth stint as the iconic archeologist. Ford sustained an injury while filming this summer, though he's now back in action. A live-action Disney movie, a 20th Century film and two Marvel flicks (all untitled) have been removed from the 2023 schedule. 

Remarkably, given how many times the film has been delayed over the years, Disney hasn't shifted Avatar 2's release date. It's still on the schedule for December 16th, 2022.

It remains to be seen what impact these changes will have on Disney+. For the rest of 2021, Disney has committed to an exclusive theatrical window for its films before they're available to stream, but it hasn't divulged how things will work in 2022 and beyond.

The company adopted a simultaneous release strategy for some of its movies over the last year or so amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon, Cruella and Black Widow requiring a $30 Premier Access pass for early access on Disney+. Disney's decision to let viewers stream Black Widow at home on the same day it hit theaters prompted a now-settled lawsuit from star Scarlett Johansson. Pixar movies Soul and Luca went straight to streaming as part of regular Disney+ subscriptions in some countries.

Elsewhere, some MCU shows on Disney+, such as Loki and Hawkeye, tie into the theatrical movies. As such, the scheduling of future series might be impacted by the overhauled theatrical slate.