After building hype for several years, Fisker says it’s nearly ready to bring its OceanSUV to market. At the Los Angeles motor show, the automaker unveiled a production-intent variant of the all-electric vehicle and said it planned to begin pilot production this week at a Magna-Steyr facility in Austria. According to Fisker, full-scale manufacturing will start a year from now, with deliveries following shortly thereafter.

As previously announced, the Ocean will start at $37,499 in the US before federal- and state-level subsidies. Fisker will offer the SUV in two additional trims. It will sell the Ocean Ultra for $49,999 and the Ocean Extreme for $68,999. The base-level Sport model features a single 275 horsepower motor capable of accelerating the car from zero to 60 miles per hour in 6.6 seconds. Meanwhile, the dual-motor Ultra model features a total output of 540 horsepower, allowing it to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.9 seconds. The slightly more powerful Extreme can complete that feat in 3.6 seconds thanks to its 550 horsepower powertrain.

Fisker has yet to share the exact battery capacities of each model but estimates the Sport trim will have the ability to go 250 miles on a single charge. On the top end, the Extreme variant will feature a 350-mile range. The Extreme model will also come with a solar roof that Fisker says can add up to 2000 miles of range. Inside the cabin, the Ocean has an all-vegan interior made from recycled fishing nets, old t-shirts and renewed rubber. Another nifty addition is a 17.1-inch touchscreen display that can rotate between portrait and landscape orientations.

With a year before the Ocean starts making its way to consumers, there’s still a long wait before the SUV arrives. However, once it does arrive, the Ocean will be available for sale globally.

It turns out Blizzard employees weren’t the only ones to express frustration with their company and CEO Bobby Kotick after The Wall Street Journalpublished an explosive report on the ongoing sexual harassment scandal at the publisher. In an email obtained by Bloomberg, Sony Interactive CEO Jim Ryan critiqued Activision’s response to the article. Ryan linked Sony employees to the report, and said he was “disheartened and frankly stunned to read” The Journal’s findings.

“We outreached to Activision immediately after the article was published to express our deep concern and to ask how they plan to address the claims made in the article,” Ryan says in the message. “We do not believe their statements of response properly address the situation.”

As the company that makes the PlayStation 4 and PS5, Sony is one of Activision’s most important partners. Their close relationship is highlighted by the fact Sony has first dibs on some Call of Duty content. The fact Ryan’s email leaked shouldn’t come as a surprise given that it was an all-hands message.

Broadly, The Wall Street Journal report claims Kotick was not only aware of many of the allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment at the company, but that he may have also intervened to protect some of its worst offenders, and that he mistreated women himself. In a statement to Engadget, a spokesperson for the publisher said the article presents a “misleading view of Activision Blizzard and our CEO.” Shortly after it started circulating widely on social media, Blizzard employees announced they would stage a walkout. Hours later, Activision Blizzard’s board of directors issued a statement expressing its continued support of Kotick’s leadership.

Following a limited test in September, Microsoft has begun rolling out cloud gaming support to additional Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles. While the feature is still in beta, it’s now available to select Xbox console owners in 25 markets. Over the coming weeks, the company plans to scale the service to all Xbox systems in those regions. As before, you’ll need a Game Pass Ultimate subscription to use the service, but it’s no longer necessary to take part in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha Insider programs.

Microsoft envisions a handful of scenarios where the ability to stream a game will be helpful. To start, it’s a way for people to try a Game Pass title without downloading it first. In much the same way, it also allows you to jump into a multiplayer game with your friends, even if you don’t have that title installed. Lastly, for Xbox One owners, it’s a chance to play Xbox Series X/S titles like The Medium and The Riftbreaker. For the best possible experience, you’ll still want to download your favorite games to your console. You’ll know if you can stream a Game Pass title if it has a cloud icon.

Most portable recorders come with an array of physical buttons, switches and toggles. It’s part of what makes them practical and charming to use. But with its new Portacapture X8, Tascam wants to make the case for a touchscreen interface.

The X8 isn’t the first portable recorder to go down the smartphone route. Zoom’s H8 has a touchscreen display too, but it’s smaller and the interface isn’t as modern as the one offered by Tascam. The X8’s software has an emphasis on presets that the company says help to simplify the process of picking the optimal settings for a specific situation. You can also control the device remotely with your smartphone if you purchase Tascam’s AK-BT1 Bluetooth adapter.

The Portacapture X8 features two 14.6mm condenser microphones that support 32-bit float point recording. Since you can detach the microphones from the device, there’s the possibility Tascam will release optional capsules down the road. It’s possible to reposition the microphones in either an A/B or X/Y orientation. With four XLR/TRS inputs (and two mix tracks), you can use the X8 to record up to eight tracks simultaneously. You’ll also find a dedicated headphone jack on the device, in addition to external in and line-out connections. A built-in USB-C port also allows you to use the device as an audio interface.

Tascam hasn’t said how much the X8 will cost. But as an H8 competitor, we imagine it will fall somewhere in the $400 range. That’s a lot to spend on a portable recorder, but for prosumers, it comes with a lot of desirable features.

Motorola is refreshing the Moto G lineup with an updated Power model. Like the phone itself, it’s not the most exciting update. The 2022 Moto G Power once again features a 5,000mAh battery Motorola claims can provide up to three days of continuous use. This time around, the company has gone with a 6.5-inch display that features a panel with 720p resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate.

New to this latest model is a tweaked triple camera array highlighted by a 50-megapixel main camera. Motorola claims low-light performance is significantly improved. The 2022 Moto G Power trades the ultra-wide camera of its predecessor for a 2-megapixel macro camera and 2-megapixel depth sensor. For selfies, there’s an 8-megapixel with an f/2.0 aperture lens. With Motorola’s dual capture feature, you can record video footage with both the front- and rear-facing cameras.

Internally, the phone features an octa-core MediaTek Helio G37 processor supported by 4GB of RAM. Motorola will sell the phone in two storage configurations, with the 64GB model costing $200 unlocked, while the 128GB variant will set you back $250. A MicroSD slot allows you to add up to 512GB of additional storage.

Other notable features include IP52 waterproofing and a fingerprint sensor for authentication. One thing the Moto G Power doesn’t include is a NFC chip, so you won’t be able to use it with Google Pay to make mobile payments. One other thing to note is the Moto G Power is limited to 10W charging. That means it will take a while to charge its 5,000mAh battery. The phone will ship with Android 11 out of the box.

In the US, the Moto G Power will go on sale “in the coming months” at Republic Wireless and T-Mobile’s Metro flanker brand. At a later date, Verizon, Boost Mobile, Xfinity Mobile, AT&T, Cricket, USCellular and Google Fi will also carry the device, with unlocked availability at Best Buy and Amazon to follow sometime in 2022.

Employees at Activision Blizzard are calling for the resignation of CEO Bobby Kotick following new revelations into the role he may have played in creating the toxic workplace culture that has mired the company in controversy. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal published a comprehensive report on Kotick's handling of the sexual harassment lawsuit California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed against the publisher in July. In short, the outlet claims Kotick not only knew about many of the worst instances of abuse at the company, but in some cases, he may have also acted to protect employees accused of harassment.

"We have instituted our own Zero Tolerance Policy," Activision Blizzard employee advocacy group A Better ABK said on Twitter after the report came out. "We will not be silenced until Bobby Kotick has been replaced as CEO and continue to hold our original demand for Third-Party review by an employee-chosen source." The group plans to stage a walkout today.

The claims reported by The Journal are extensive and numerous, but a handful stand out. According to documents obtained by the outlet, Kotick penned the now-infamous email Frances Townsend, executive vice president of corporate affairs at Activision Blizzard, sent to employees after DFEH filed its lawsuit. In that message, the company said the complaint presented "a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago." The response drew the ire of many Blizzard employees, who said it was "abhorrent and insulting."

The report also provides insight into the recent departure of Jennifer Oneal. One month after her appointment, Blizzard's first female leader reportedly sent an email to the company's legal team in which she said she wasn't convinced Activision Blizzard would turn its culture around. Referencing a moment earlier in her career at the company, she says in the email, "I have been tokenized, marginalized, and discriminated against."

Elsewhere, the report describes an episode involving Dan Bunting, one of the heads of Activision's Treyarch studio. In 2017, Bunting was reportedly accused of sexually harassing a female employee. Following an internal investigation, Activision's HR department recommended he be fired, but Kotick reportedly intervened to keep him at the company.

A spokesperson for Activision Blizzard disputed The Journal's reporting. The company's full statement reads as follows:

We are disappointed in the Wall Street Journal’s report, which presents a misleading view of Activision Blizzard and our CEO. Instances of sexual misconduct that were brought to his attention were acted upon. The WSJ ignores important changes underway to make this the industry’s most welcoming and inclusive workplace and it fails to account for the efforts of thousands of employees who work hard every day to live up to their — and our — values. The constant desire to be better has always set this company apart. Which is why, at Mr. Kotick’s direction, we have made significant improvements, including a zero-tolerance policy for inappropriate conduct. And it is why we are moving forward with unwavering focus, speed, and resources to continue increasing diversity across our company and industry and to ensure that every employee comes to work feeling valued, safe, respected, and inspired. We will not stop until we have the best workplace for our team.

The company also commented on the impending walkout. "We are fully committed to fostering a safe, inclusive and rewarding environment for all of our employees around the world. We support their right to express their opinions and concerns in a safe and respectful manner, without fear of retaliation," a spokesperson for Activision Blizzard told Engadget.

Amid the unrest at Activision Blizzard, Kotick has presented himself as an ally of the studio's employees. "Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone-deaf," he said in an email he sent after the Townsend message. In that same message, he claimed he would take "swift action" to create a safe and inclusive working environment. When Kotick later announced the company's new zero-tolerance harassment policy, he said he would take a massive pay cut until Activision Blizzard's board of directors felt he had met the diversity and safety goals he outlined.

Even after today's report, it's hard to see Kotick resigning. He has been with Activision since the early 1990s, and he was the architect of the 2008 merger that created Activision Blizzard. The company's board of directors has also said it "remains confident" in his leadership. 

If you’ve been patiently waiting to install Windows 11 on your PC, Microsoft has good news. The company announced today it’s increasing the pace of the operating system’s rollout, and making it more broadly available. Provided your system is running version 2004 or later of Windows 10 and you recently installed the September 14th, 2021 servicing update Microsoft released, you can now upgrade directly to Windows 11.

If you plan to continue using Windows 10 for the time being. The company also announced today that it’s started rolling out the November 2021 update for the operating system. Looking forward, Microsoft plans to move Windows 10 to a yearly feature update cadence, aligning it with Windows 11.

As before, Microsoft doesn’t recommend installing Windows 11 on a device that doesn’t meet the system requirements — though you can still do so. One thing to keep in mind is you might not get updates on a PC with an unsupported processor. When Microsoft first released Windows 11 on October 4th, the company said it expected it would offer the upgrade to all eligible devices by mid-2022.

Instagram is expanding the availability of Badges to all eligible creators in the US. Starting today, users over the age of 18 with more than 10,000 followers can apply to use the feature. The company introduced Badges in May of last year. Then, in October, it expanded their availability to approximately 50,000 creators. Badges represent a way for Instagram creators to earn money from their fans. Users can purchase them to make themselves during livestreams. Instagram sells them in increments of $1, $2 and $5.

The company recently said it wouldn’t collect any fees on Badges until at least 2023. Down the line, the feature could help Instagram diversify its revenue beyond the advertising sales it depends on almost exclusively at the moment. More broadly, Badges could be the prelude to more perk-like monetization features making their way to the app in the future.

NVIDIA has released a major update for its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology. With version 2.3 of the software, the company says the AI algorithm makes smarter use of motion vectors to improve how objects look when they’re moving. The update also helps to reduce ghosting, make particle effects look clearer and improve temporal stability. The latter has traditionally been one of the weakest aspects of the technology, so DLSS 2.3 represents a major improvement. As of today, 16 games feature support for DLSS 2.3. Highlights include Cyberpunk 2077, Deathloop and Doom Eternal.

If you don’t own an RTX GPU but still want to take advantage of the performance boost you can get from upscaling a game, NVIDIA has updated its Image Scaling technology to improve both fidelity and performance. Accessible through the NVIDIA Control Panel, the tool uses spatial upscaling to do the job. That means the result isn’t as clean as the temporal method DLSS uses, but the advantage is you don’t need special hardware. To that end, NVIDIA is releasing an SDK that will allow any GPU, regardless of make, to take advantage of the technology. In that way, NVIDIA says game developers can offer the best of both worlds: DLSS for the best possible image quality and NVIDIA Image Scaling for cross-platform support.

At the end of September, Twitter said it would address a longstanding complaint. If you use the service frequently, you may have noticed tweets sometimes disappear from view just as you’re part way through reading one.

At the time, the company said it had several updates planned to address the problem, and the first of those is now available through the platform’s web client. You can now choose when you want it to load new tweets into your timeline. To do so, click the tweet counter at the top of the interface. Note that Twitter is in the process of rolling out the update so you may not see the associated interface element right away.

“We know it’s a frustrating experience, so we’re working on changing it,” the company said of the problem when it first promised to fix it. It noted at the time it would roll out a variety of updates over two months.