When 343 Industries set out to create Halo Infinite, it says one of its goals was to make the game more accessible to as many people as possible. As part of Microsoft’s recent Xbox Accessibility Showcase, the studio detailed the lengths it went to make that vision a reality. The included accessibility options that will come with Halo Infinite don’t look as comprehensive as they were in The Last of Us Part II, but they come close.

For example, in addition to the usual UI and subtitle options you find in many other games, Halo Infinite will include a feature called Linear Navigation. You can enable it to move through the user interface without the need to see how controls are positioned on the screen. Another new enhancement called Movement Assisted Steering allows you to use additional controls to steer vehicles if the traditional look-to-steer mechanic isn’t doing it for you.

Outside of those, there are options that allow you to tweak the colors of friendlies and enemies beyond the usual red and blue. Another setting lets players enable menu narration, and adjust the reading speed of the feature. It’s also possible to enable text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools to make party chat more accessible. The included options probably won't cover every accessibility need, but they should help make Halo Infinite playable for a much broader group of people when the game comes out on December 8th. 

During the same showcase, Microsoft announced it adding introducing accessibility tags to the Microsoft Store on Xbox. At launch, there will be 20 of these tags, with the company planning to add more with time. Each one will denote a specific accessibility feature. 

Some of the currently available tags include “Narrated Game Menus,” “Input Remapping” and Single Stick Gameplay.” Each one comes with specific implementation requirements. For instance, in the case of a developer that wants to point to the subtitle support in their title, they’ll need to allow players to resize them by up to 200 percent. Members of the Xbox Accessibility Insiders League (XAIL) will see the tags appear in the Microsoft Store starting today. In the coming months, the feature will roll out to Xbox.com, the Xbox app on PC and Xbox Game Pass apps.

Only a few months after we got our first look at Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Square Enix announced a release date at Tokyo Game Show. It will hit PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on March 18th.

Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is an attempt to bring a Dark Souls-style feel to the Final Fantasy universe. It's an action RPG from Nioh developer Team Ninja that by all accounts will be pretty difficult, which fits in with the Souls-like vibe.

A new trailer gives some hints at the story and a peek at some of the beings you'll encounter, including a pirate with an enormous ax and a multi-headed monster. The visuals still look a bit rough, but at least Team Ninja and Square Enix have a few months to polish things up.

Meanwhile, Square Enix has released a second demo. It's an expansion of the first timed trial that was available in June, only this time you can play with your friends on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. There are more enemies to test your mettle against, new areas to explore and additional playstyles and jobs to check out. The demo is available until October 11th at 10:59AM ET.

Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin has a free upgrade path from PS4 and Xbox One to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S respectively. Along with the base game, you can preorder a Digital Deluxe Edition, which includes extra missions and a digital artbook and mini soundtrack. Preordering either version will net you a few in-game goodies, and you'll have early access to the whole game 72 hours before the official launch.

Disney and Scarlett Johansson are no longer on the outs. The parties have reached a settlement for the lawsuit Johansson filed over the hybrid release strategy used for Black Widow. If you'll recall, the actor sued Disney over the company's decision to release her movie in theaters and on Disney+ at the same time, accusing the entertainment giant of breach of contract. 

Johansson's camp argued that Black Widow was supposed to be released in theaters exclusively under her deal with Marvel. According to the lawsuit she filed, she could lose as much as $50 million due to the hybrid release, seeing as her compensation is tied directly with the movie's box office success and doesn't include a cut from what Disney would make from streaming. People have had to pay $30 for a Premier Access pass to watch the movie on Disney+, and the company said Black Widow earned $60 million from streaming during its opening weekend. 

Her lawsuit also said that her camp tried to contact Disney and Marvel to re-negotiate their deal, but they were allegedly unresponsive. Neither party disclosed the terms of their agreement, but both issued a statement mentioning future collaborations. Alan Bergman, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said he looks "forward to working together on a number of upcoming projects, including Disney's Tower of Terror."

Meanwhile, entertainment workers are gearing up for a strike because studios like Disney are rapidly producing content after pandemic-related restrictions had lifted. The situation led to poor working conditions with long hours and no breaks for production crew. Entertainment unions are hoping to convince studios to make changes, including ending the lower pay scale for smaller streaming services. Under the current rules, streaming services with fewer than 20 million subscribers like Apple TV+ does can pay their workers lower wages.

Yet another Facebook official just spent hours being grilled by members of Congress about the company’s policies, and whether or not it does enough to protect some of its most vulnerable users. And once again, the Facebook executive — today it was Head of Safety Antigone Davis — seemed to do her best to dodge the most difficult questions.

But the latest hearing on teen mental health, which came in response to reporting from The WSJ, was different from past hearings. That’s because, thanks to a whistleblower, members of the Senate Commerce Committee now have access to thousands of internal documents written by the company’s own researchers.

The documents, some of which have been made public, paint a very different picture of Facebook and Instagram’s understanding of how their services impact teens’ mental health than what they’ve publicly portrayed. Those documents are in the hands of lawmakers, making the findings that much harder for Facebook to spin. The disclosures have already forced Facebook to "pause" work on an Instagram Kids app.

“We now have a deep insight into Facebook's relentless campaign to recruit and exploit young users,” Senator Richard Blumenthal said at the start of the hearing. “We now know, while Facebook publicly denies that Instagram is deeply harmful for teens, privately, Facebook, researchers and experts have been ringing the alarm for years.”

This has forced Facebook into the uncomfortable position of trying to downplay the significance of its own research. “This is not bombshell research,” Davis repeated multiple times during the hearing. One day earlier, Facebook released heavily annotated versions of two of the documents, with notes that also tried to explain away its own findings. Those documents, which were just two of the “thousands” Blumenthal said he now has access to, used words like “myopic” and “sensationalizing” to try to minimize findings like the fact that Instagram makes “body images worse for 1 in 3 teen girls.”

The tactic didn’t go over well in the Senate on Thursday. “This research is a bombshell,” Blumenthal said. “It is powerful, gripping, riveting evidence that Facebook knows the harmful effects of its site on children, and that it has concealed those facts and findings.”

As with past hearings, there were some cringey moments. At one point, Blumenthal demanded to know if Facebook would “commit to ending finsta” — a reference to the secondary accounts often used by teens to stay anonymous. That forced Davis to awkwardly explain that so-called “finstas” are not an official Instagram feature. At another point, Sen. Ted Cruz demanded Davis explain why she wasn’t appearing at the hearing in person (she cited COVID-19 protocols).

But even with those moments, it was difficult to ignore the significance of these issues. It may seem obvious, but kids and teens are incredibly important to the company, which is consistently behind rivals like TikTok and Snapchat for that demographic. So much so that a former employee who worked on Messenger Kids recently said that “losing the Teen audience was considered an 'existential threat,'” for Facebook.

Worse for Facebook, there are very likely more bombshells coming. The whistleblower who provided the documents to The Journal and lawmakers, is appearing on 60 MinutesSunday night. And she is testifying at a separate Commerce Committee hearing next week. So while Facebook executives may be able to dodge questions and insist that their researchers’ conclusions have been mischaracterized, it will be much harder to rebut someone who was closely involved with that work.

Some senators hinted that there would be more to come at the next hearing. Senator Ray Luján asked Davis whether “Facebook ever tested whether a change to its platform increases an individual's or a group of users' propensity to post a violent or hateful language.” Davis said that it wasn’t her “area of expertise.”

“We might get more responses to that one next week,” he said.

This year's edition of The Game Awards will take place on December 9th. As always, you'll be able to stream it live in up to 4K on dozens of platforms. After last year's online-only event, Geoff Keighley's show will once again have an in-person audience. The ceremony is returning to its old haunt of the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

As always, The Game Awards will feature world premieres and new title announcements, as well as some musical performances. In addition to looking toward the future, the ceremony will reward the talent behind the best games of 2021 with awards across a bunch of categories. The Game Awards will also offer fans free playable game content and a way to interact with the show on some streaming services.

“We are very excited to return to the Microsoft Theater for a special night to celebrate the past, present and future of video games,” said Keighley, who is creator, host and executive producer of The Game Awards. “Our goal is to bring the entire community together to celebrate the most powerful form of entertainment in the world, and recognize emerging voices that represent the future of the medium.”

In the last year alone, almost 1.5 million podcasts have been added to Spotify. Fishing out something good from that ocean of content might not be easy, but Spotify wants to help you find a keeper. To mark International Podcast Day, it created a quiz to help listeners discover a show that matches their taste.

Users in the US, UK, Germany and Australia can now check out the Find The One tool. It asks questions such how a podcast can win you over — perhaps you prefer a conversational show or a narrative-driven murder mystery one — and how serious you like things to be. Spotify will then make a recommendation that's partly based on your listening habits.

The company says it found correlations between some artists and podcasts. Lil Nas X, for instance, has a lot of gamer fans who also listen to the likes of the TommyInnit Podcast, while Olivia Rodrigo and Call Her Daddy have a shared audience. Spotify also discovered that many BTS and Queen fans listen to podcasts about... BTS and Queen.

The following contains minor spoilers for season two, episode eight of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks.'

The subject of “canon” has come up a lot recently. Marvel’s What If…? is a show that plays around but still mostly adheres to it, while Star Wars Visions disregards it almost completely. Meanwhile, Star Trek: Lower Decks is a humorous show that wasn’t expected to follow canon and yet, the writers seem to have made it their mission to fill out the gaps in Star Trek continuity. And this might be the cartoon’s greatest strength.

CBS

The show’s willingness to reference past adventures is on full display this week, as the USS Cerritos is tasked with running drills to test crew efficiency. Seeing a Starfleet crew put through its paces is something we’ve seen many times before, though this time around it’s for a particularly non-Starfleet-like reason: Captain Freeman accidentally leaves our core four cast members behind when jetting off on a rescue mission. To be fair, the quartet of ensigns did forget to sign their magnet boots out, which would have let their senior officers know they weren’t on the ship. But still, it’s a screw-up we don’t often see on Star Trek.

In response, the entire crew is gathered in a cargo bay to be tested by a Pandronian instructor — a species never seen in any live-action Star Trek productions, but familiar to anyone who’s watched the 1973 animated series. Pandronians are colony creatures that can split into three pieces, something that was harder to create when special effects were far less sophisticated. Animation has fewer limitations, and Lower Decks has taken advantage of that plenty in its two seasons to showcase species like the Caitians, Ariolo and Kzinti.

CBS

Though it utilized many of the cast and crew of the original series, the canonized status of the animated Star Trek was always a nebulous thing, with some writers saying that episodes like “Yesteryear” were in continuity, but no real on-screen confirmation of the show’s place in the timeline. One of show creator Mike McMahan’s stipulations for Lower Decks was that it take place in-canon, and he’s used that status to cement the 1973 cartoon in as well.

However, Lower Decks also has plenty to offer live-action fans, and this week’s episode is heavy on the references, with the Cerritos crew taking on simulations with names like “Natural Selection,” “Chain of Command'' and “Naked Time.” These aren’t just generic descriptions but also the names of episodes, and long-time fans will delight in seeing Mariner take on the Mirror Universe or Boimler face off against the Borg. We might be familiar with the scenarios, but seeing how these particular characters handle them adds a new twist.

CBS

While the whole drill plot might seem like a cheap way to pander to old-school fans, it’s also similar to how the military works in real life, with students often asked to study historical tactics and run tests based on real events. We’ve seen the holosuites used to recreate battles at the Alamo, Thermopylae and the Battle of Britain on Deep Space Nine, while Riker even used the holodeck to observe the Enterprise NX-01’s final mission. (And let’s not forget the time Troi had to kill Geordi to earn a promotion to commander.) From the beginning, Lower Decks has been a show that embraces Starfleet’s naval trappings more fully than we’ve ever seen, and putting the crew to the test here seems to be the logical endpoint of that.

But where Lower Decks shines brightest of all is when it chooses to glue the disparate parts of the Star Trek franchise together. The Star Trek universe is extremely weird and complex but, instead of rebooting the entire franchise (DC Comics) or throwing out huge swathes of past story (Star Wars), Star Trek has embraced the mess. The universe is weird, so it’s okay if everything doesn’t neatly fit together. It’s just funnier this way.

Spotify's quest to make podcasts more interactive is expanding. Today, the streaming service announced the polls and Q&A features that it has been testing will be available to all creators through Anchor, the podcast production service it also owns. Though the tools are open to everyone, Spotify explains podcast producers and listeners will see them in 160 countries. 

On the listener side, questions will appear at the bottom of episode pages in the Spotify app on both Android and iOS. From there, you'll be able to respond directly in the app to any prompts related to the show. As you might expect, you'll see on-going results of polls, but Q&A responses will only be seen by the show's creator. Producers and hosts will have the option of pinning certain responses below the question alongside the corresponding username in a stories-like format. 

Spotify has been testing polls for a year and it added a Q&A option to the trial in January. At the time, the company said 90 percent of users would see polls even though the number of shows on which they appeared was very limited. 

This post contains spoilers for episode eight of Marvel's 'What If…?'

In physics there’s what’s known as the “observer effect,” wherein an object or system is changed merely by observing it. On Marvel’s What If…? each episode has been witnessed by an apparently omniscient narrator known as The Watcher, who seemingly believes himself to be above this simple rule. He’s seen the Avengers murdered, zombies overrun the galaxy and Steven Strange completely destroying his own universe, but the Watcher has always refrained from doing anything that would change the outcome — until now.

The twist in this episode is that in Age of Ultron, the titular villain managed to get control of the Vision body before it awakened as the hero we all know and love, taking it over and then, the world and even gaining the Infinity Stones. Somewhere in all this the Avengers are killed, with the exception of Natasha and Clint, finally giving us that Black Widow and Hawkeye adventure we should have had years ago. I haven’t been the biggest fan of either character, but here they’re a lot of fun despite the grim circumstances.

Marvel Studios

The real star here, however, is Jeffrey Wright’s Watcher character. We still know little about him, or the faction he serves. The Watchers, as a group, have only appeared in live-action during a brief scene in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. What If…? has been our first proper introduction to the concept and, after eight episodes, we’re still mostly in the dark about them.

But this week’s installment did shed some light, at least. We know that our Watcher has taken an oath to never interfere with the things he sees, though to whom we still don’t know, nor are we made aware of possible consequences of breaking that vow. And we now know he’s emotionally invested in the universes he observes, if only based on his reaction to Clint not finding the folder they need in the KGB archives (luckily, Natasha is there to save the day).

Marvel Studios

However, that observer effect comes into play regardless of the Watcher’s intentions, as his omniscient narration is overheard by the powered-up Ultron, who seeks him out and attacks. In the process Ultron becomes aware of the multiverse, which explains his sudden appearance at the end of last week’s episode. Previews for the finale hint at some sort of multiversal team-up, one involving Captain Carter, Party Thor and the other altered characters we’ve met over the first eight episodes.

While it’s certainly a fun concept — there’s an entire comic series called Exiles about a multi-reality team such as this — it raises questions about what, exactly, season two will be about. It’s already been confirmed, but Marvel has shown it’s not really interested in running What If…? as an anthology series like the comic it’s based on. The instance on making it part of the larger canon has led to the show having its own internal continuity, though it’s unlikely it will be needed to understand the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Marvel Studios

At least we hope it remains a side-story of the MCU: the power levels in the battle between The Watcher and Infinity Ultron puts even the massive conflicts shown in the last two Avengers films to shame. (Especially after Thanos is offed rather unceremoniously.) It’s a weird escalation in scale given that the teased villain of Phase IV, Kang the Conqueror, hasn’t even made a proper appearance yet.

Marvel Comics has a deep, expansive mythology and it’s nice to see the MCU finally explore some of those outer reaches. But right now the current approach to continuity feels a little cramped, and in danger of getting in its own way. Hopefully, next week’s finale will see the Watcher fully break free of his oath, and maybe help What If…? shed its remaining ties to its live-action counterparts to do something truly new.

At the start of the year, Google added a feature to its search engine called About This Result. By tapping on the three dots icon located next to most results, the tool allows you to find out more about a website before you navigate to it. With the initial rollout of About This Result, Google displayed information from Wikipedia, and, if that wasn’t available, it pulled what it could from one of its services. The panels also included details about the website like when it was first indexed by the company, and if you could expect a secure connection.

Today, Google is making those panels more robust by adding to the diversity of information they display. To start, in addition to a description from Wikipedia, you’ll see what each website has to say about itself in its own words. You will also see what others have had to say about them — be that through reviews or a simple news article. In the “about the topic” section, Google will include other coverage or results from different sources.

As before, the idea behind the About This Result feature is to save you an extra search when you want to find out more about a website you’re about to visit. Google also sees it as a way to help people make more informed decisions about how they use the internet and provide peace of mind if you’re looking for important information related to important topics. 

Aside from these "Information Literacy features," the company also announced new features coming to its results pages during its Search On event today. They're called Things to Know, Refine This Search, Broaden This Search and Related Topics to its results to make it easier to learn more about different topics. Things To Know, for example, will pull up the basics you'll need to understand a new subject, while refining and broadening your search can help you explore related issues.

Google Search users in the US will see today's expansion roll out over the coming weeks and months.