Roku has just detailed its first major platform update since it came out with OS 10.5 late last year, and it’s a big one. To start, Roku OS 11 adds an automatic speech clarity setting that Roku promises will make it easier to understand dialogue. At the same time, the update introduces new sound modes – dubbed “Standard,” “Dialogue,” “Movie,” “Music” and “Night” – that you can access by pressing the Star button found on both Roku remotes and the company’s mobile app. As you might have already guessed, these modes allow you to tweak the sound profile of Roku-branded soundbars and speakers to better suit a specific situation.

Roku

And speaking of the Roku app, you’ll also find a new calibration tool within the settings menu to help you sort out audio sync issues that may come up with a Streambar device. Roku has also tweaked the app to make it more visual. For instance, you’ll find new interface elements that will provide you with more information about where you can stream movies and TV shows. The idea here is to help you get the most out of any channels you may pay for.

Outside of audio improvements, OS 11 introduces a feature called Roku Photo Streams. If you want, you can now use your Roku device to turn your TV into a digital picture frame by using the feature to upload your favorite photos and turn them into a screensaver. You can share Photo Streams with friends and family members. And in turn, they can add their own photos, creating a shared album.

Roku

With OS 11, Roku also hopes to make it easier for you to find new content to watch. On the Home Screen Menu, you’ll find a new “What to Watch” section that will point you to movies and TV shows from a variety of sources, including the company’s ad-supported Roku Channel, with personalization based on your watch history and what’s popular among other users. Additionally, the update tweaks the recently introduced Live TV Zone to show content you’ve watched in the past and further aid with the discoverability. Lastly, you’ll find new voice-enabled keyboards to help you with device setup and channel logins. With OS 11, these will be available in Spanish, German and Portuguese in the US and other supported countries.

Roku will begin rolling out OS 11 in the coming weeks.

OneWeb will turn to a competitor to ferry its remaining first-generation internet satellites to space after Russia's Roscosmos space agency issued an ultimatum to the company at the start of the month. On Monday, OneWeb announced an agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The private firm will ferry the remainder of OneWeb’s constellation fleet, with the first launch scheduled for later this year.

“We thank SpaceX for their support, which reflects our shared vision for the boundless potential of space,” OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson said. “With these launch plans in place, we’re on track to finish building out our full fleet of satellites and deliver robust, fast, secure connectivity around the globe.”

On March 3rd, Roscosmos, just days before it was scheduled to put 36 OneWeb satellites in space, said it would not conduct any additional launches for OneWeb unless the company made assurances its network would not be used for military purposes and the UK sold its minority stake in OneWeb. The demand came in response to sanctions the UK imposed on Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th. At the time, the UK government said it would not sell its stake in OneWeb. To date, Russian Soyuz rockets have carried 428 OneWeb satellites to low Earth orbit. OneWeb’s first-generation network will eventually consist of 648 satellites.

After months of teasing, Formula E and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) announced today they will finally unveil their new Gen3 all-electric car at an event in Monaco on April 28th. The two organizations said fans would be able to watch the unveiling through their associated digital channels. Formula E teams will begin using the car at the start of the 2022-2023 season, with testing expected to begin this spring.

The FIA first shared details on the Gen3 at the end of last year, revealing it would feature a motor capable of outputting 350kW of power (about 470 brake horsepower) and a top speed of 200 miles per hour. It will also include front and rear powertrains, a first for a formula car. With a total of 600kW of power, the Gen3 will feature more than double the regenerative capability of Formula E’s current Gen2 vehicle. The FIA has also promised the Gen3 will be its most sustainable vehicle to date, with a net-zero carbon footprint thanks to recyclable carbon fiber parts and other design considerations.

CD Projekt Red is developing a new Witcher game. The studio announced the project today with a teaser it shared on Twitter. "A new saga begins," the teaser states, with an image of what looks like a lynx-like Witcher medallion in the center. 

That might not seem like much to go on, but it actually represents a substantial clue about what we can expect from the new game. Geralt of Rivia, the protagonist of Andrezej Sapkowski's dark fantasy novels and all the adaptations that have followed was a student of the School of the Wolf and subsequently wore a Wolf medallion on his adventures. The teaser suggests this new game will star a Witcher from the School of the Cat. They go about the business of monster hunting a bit differently from their Wolf School counterparts. Most notably, they don't have a policy that stops them from involving themselves in the politics of the Continent.

The new game does not have a release date yet, but as part of today's announcement, CD Projekt Red shared it's moving to Unreal Engine 5 for all of its future projects as part of a multi-year partnership with Epic Games. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077 ran on the studio's proprietary REDengine. After the mess of Cyberpunk, the move to UE5 may give some players confidence we could see the CD Projekt of old return. 

Almost exactly a year to the date Sony said it was working with Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios on a new gaming IP, the company has now acquired the developer. Financial terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but Sony and Haven did share a tidbit of information about the game they’ve been working on together for over a year.

“Our first new IP for PlayStation is on track to deliver a AAA multiplayer experience with a vision to build a systemic and evolving world focused on freedom, thrill and playfulness that will keep players entertained and engaged for years,” Raymond said. That’s not a lot to go on, but it sounds like Haven is working on a live-service game that the studio plans to support over many years. Sony did not share a release date for the project.

Sony’s acquisition of Haven is the latest sign the video game industry is consolidating around a handful of big players. We may only be a few months into 2022 but already both Microsoft and Sony have announced a couple of deals to carve out the industry into opposing camps. It all started in January when the former revealed it was buying troubled publisher Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Less than two weeks later, Sony surprised everyone with the news it was gobbling up Destiny 2 developer Bungie for $3.6 billion.

On Friday, cosmonauts Denis Matveyev, Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Korsakov arrived at the International Space Station wearing bright yellow and blue jumpsuits. They were the first Russian astronauts to travel to the ISS since the war in Ukraine began, and many saw their choice of uniform as a statement against their country’s invasion of its neighbor.

One day later, per Space.com, Russia’s Roscosmos space agency dismissed those suggestions. “Sometimes yellow is just yellow,” it said in a Telegram post spotted by the outlet. Roscosmos went on to claim the three cosmonauts were wearing the colors of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, their shared alma mater. And for what it’s worth, the school’s crest, like Ukraine’s national flag, features plenty of blue and yellow. 

“Under no circumstances will we force cosmonaut graduates of Bauman University not to wear the colors of the coat of arms of their alma mater,” said Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos. The space agency also later shared a photo of Artemyev wearing a white jumpsuit with the colors of the Russian displayed prominently across the chest.

The cosmonauts didn’t say too much about their choice of uniform. "It became our turn to pick a color," said Artemyev when asked about the subject during a subsequent press conference. “We had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it. That's why we had to wear yellow."

While astronauts from the US and Germany looked happy to see their new crewmates, tensions between the West and Russia threaten the future of multiple joint projects. This week, the European Space Agency said it was suspending its ExoMars mission while looking for a way to move forward without the involvement of Roscosmos.

Having helped bring properties like DotA 2 and Castlevania to TV, Netflix is once again turning to a historic gaming franchise to add to its content library. On Saturday, the streamer announced it would release Tekken: Bloodline, an animated adaption of Bandai Namco’s popular fighting game series, in 2022.

In the trailer Netflix shared alongside the announcement, we’re introduced to protagonist Jin Kazama, who joined the franchise as a playable character in 1996's Tekken 3. In the show, Kazama embarks on a quest for revenge when his mother Jun falls to what she calls a demon. Kazama subsequently turns to his grandfather, Heihachi Mishima, for help. If old man Mishima gives off a sinister vibe, it’s because he’s the main villain of the Tekken franchise. Kazama’s quest eventually leads him to The King of Iron Fist Tournament where we see some familiar faces.

Outside of knowing it will come out later this year, we don’t have an exact release date for Tekken: Bloodline. Netflix’s track record with video game adaptations has mostly depended on the companies it has partnered with to work on those projects. Productions like Arcane and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf have been a success for the company thanks to the involvement of studios like Fortiche and Studio Mir.

If you’re playing through Elden Ring on PC, you may want to disable the game’s online functionality for the time being. According to a Reddit report spotted by Eurogamer, some malicious individuals have found a hack that can send PC players into an endless death loop.

You can see the exploit in action in a video posted by Elden Ring Update on Twitter. A hacker will invade your game and use a specific ability that forces Elden Ring to crash. When you reload your save, your character will repeatedly fall to their death. Elden Ring is a big game, and some players have reported losing as much as 100 hours of gameplay in this way.

If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because FromSoftware was recently forced to disable Dark Souls 3’s multiplayer features after a hacker identified a vulnerability within the game that allowed them to execute code remotely. The studio has been working to address the issue since February.

FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have yet to comment on the exploit. We’ll update this article when they say something on the matter. In the meantime, your best bet is to play offline. Failing that, you’ll want to regularly backup your save in case someone uses the exploit on one of your characters. In the worst-case scenario, it’s possible to salvage a save, but the process isn't easy. You need to press Alt F4 before your character dies, and then quickly fast travel to a Site of Grace when you reload the game.  

Starting today through to April 3rd, Epic Games will donate all of its Fortnite proceeds to humanitarian organizations providing on-the-ground relief to Ukrainians affected by the invasion of their country. Players can support the action by making in-game purchases involving real-world money.

That means should you buy V-Bucks, select cosmetic packs and other items, whatever money Epic would usually get will instead go to organizations like Direct Relief and UNICEF that are providing emergency aid, shelter and other forms of support to Ukrainians right now. Epic will also donate proceeds from gift card purchases, provided they’re redeemed during the two-week period.

At the moment, four relief organizations are taking part in the effort. Outside of the two mentioned above, the UN’s Refugee Agency and Food Programme are also involved. Epic said more organizations would join in “the coming weeks.”

What’s more, Microsoft is taking part in the initiative. The company has agreed to contribute net proceeds from sales of all Fortnite content made through the Microsoft Store until April 3rd. Epic notes it will attempt to send any relief funds it generates over the next two weeks as quickly as it can. To that end, the company won’t wait to get the money from its platform and payment partners. Instead, it will send the funds as it logs transactions.

Epic is the latest video game company to offer its support to the people of Ukraine in this way. Riot Games recently ran a player fundraiser where it said it would donate proceeds from the sale of in-game passes and its latest League of Legends skins. As of March 9th, the studio said players had raised more than $2 million. Gaming marketplaces like Itch.io and Humble Bundle have also tried to help, offering bundles with all the proceeds going to relief organizations supporting those affected by the conflict.

If you missed the chance to buy Apple’s AirPods Pro when they were $175 in February, they’re now back down to that price once again. Amazon has discounted the company’s best-sounding earbuds by 30 percent for a limited time. You could probably get them for less if you’re patient, but we’re unlikely to see them drop to their previous low of $159 for quite some time.

While they’re a few years old now, the AirPods Pro are still one the best pair of wireless earbuds you can buy. We awarded them a score of 87 when Apple first released them in 2019. Since then, the company recently refreshed the included case to offer MagSafe charging in addition to the original Qi and Lightning options that came at launch.

As before, what the AirPods Pro lack in sound quality, they more than make up in utility. They feature active noise cancellation alongside a transparency mode that’s useful for ensuring you’re safe when out walking on a busy street. An IPX4 rating also means you can safely use them during workouts. With Apple’s included H1 chip, Hey Siri support allows you to control the AirPods Pro without reaching for your iPhone or one of the stems. That might not seem like much, but it’s one of those features that’s invaluable when your hands are full.

Last but certainly not least, since the AirPods Pro come with interchangeable silicone tips they're the Apple earbuds to buy if you’re unsure if the one-size-fits-all approach of the second- and third-generation AirPods will work with your ears.

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