On Monday, astronauts on the International Space Station had to seek safety aboard their transport craft when the station passed uncomfortably close to a field of orbital debris. According to the Associated Press, US Space Command started tracking the space junk in the early hours of the morning. The situation saw the station pass the debris field every 90 minutes, forcing those on board to close and reopen several compartments multiple times throughout the day. The four American, one German and two Russian astronauts aboard the ISS will need to stay on alert for the next several days.

"Thanks for a crazy but well-coordinated day, we really appreciated all the situational awareness you gave us," US astronaut Mark Vande Hei told NASA mission control before he and the other crew members aboard went to bed at 12PM EST. "It was certainly a great way to bond as a crew, starting off our very first workday in space." Four of the astronauts arrived at the station late last week. 

Neither NASA nor the US government has said what created the debris field that put the ISS in danger. However, later in the day, the US State Department condemned a Russian missile test that destroyed one of the country’s own satellites and created more than 1,500 trackable pieces of orbital debris. “The test will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. “Russia’s dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long term sustainability of outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia’s claims of opposing the weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical.”

The State Department said the US would work with its allies to respond to Russia’s act. Per Reuters, the country has yet to comment on the incident.   

Along with their partners, NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency frequently move the International Space Station to avoid incoming space junk. They did that last week when the station was threatened by fragments of a Chinese satellite that was destroyed in a 2007 missile test.

Snap has signed a music licensing deal with Sony Music Entertainment. The partnership means Snapchat users will have access to songs from Sony artists. With today’s announcement, the company has licensing deals with all the major music labels. And Snap plans to take advantage of the milestone by launching new AR music filters.

Sometime “soon,” the company says it will release a set that will feature pre-selected songs embedded in the filter. Additionally, they’ll be ones that allow you to make it look like you're singing along to a song and yet another set that adds you and a friend to an animated music video. In short, Snapchat is becoming more like TikTok and Instagram. You’ll know you’re about to add one of the new filters if there’s a musical note next to it.

You don’t have to look far to find out why Snap is doing this. Since launching the Sounds feature last year, the company notes its users have created more than 1.2 billion videos, leading to nearly 77 billion views. In other words, music has been great for Snapchat’s engagement metrics.

Twitter has acquired Threader. It’s one of a few apps that allow you to make threads easier to digest. By tagging Threader’s profile and typing “compile,” the bot will condense a series of tweets into an article-like form. “Today, we are bringing this experience to Twitter. We are both proud of what we’ve achieved together, especially as an independent team of two. We’re excited to bring the Threader experience to millions of people on Twitter,” the founders of Threader said.

As part of today’s announcement, Threader will shut down on December 15th, but its feature set will live on as part of Twitter Blue. Specifically in the Reader feature, which Twitter notes Threader co-founder Marie Denis helped build. Denis is joining the company's Longform team, where Twitter says she'll continue to work on ways to make it easier for people to read threads. Twitter did not disclose other terms of the acquisition. The deal follows the recent expansion of Twitter Blue to the US and New Zealand.

Microsoft is adding a total of 76 games to the Xbox backward compatibility program, the company announced today during the Xbox 20th anniversary event. Highlights include the entire Max Payne series and F.E.A.R franchise, in addition to Skate 2 and Star Wars: Jedi Knight II.

Every title Microsoft is adding today will support Auto HDR on Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. You'll also see an increase in resolution when playing original Xbox games. The Xbox Series X and Xbox One X will render those titles at four times their native resolution, while the Xbox Series S will do so at three times and Xbox One S and Xbox One at double. Additionally, 11 titles will support FPS Boost. The feature increases the framerate of a game up to 60 frames per second. 26 titles that were already a part of the backward compatibility library will now support FPS Boost as well. Included in that list are Fallout: New Vegas, The Elder Scrolls IV, Dragon Age: Origins and Dead Space 2.  

Before today, the last time Microsoft added any new titles to the backward compatibility program was in 2019. At the time, that was supposed to be the end of the road for the initiative. Now, Microsoft says this is the final update. "While we continue to stay focused on preserving and enhancing the art form of games, we have reached the limit of our ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past due to licensing, legal and technical constraints," Xbox Compatibility Program Lead Peggy Lo said. Hopefully the final list of approximately 700 games includes some of your favorite titles.

Exactly 20 years ago today, Microsoft released the original Xbox. At the time, it was hard to know how integral the company would become to the gaming landscape. Sure, Microsoft had played an important part in the development of PC gaming, but up to that point the console market had been dominated almost exclusively by Nintendo and Sony. Now in its fourth generation, the Xbox brand has never been stronger, in part thanks to smart decisions around Game Pass and studio acquisitions. 

At 1PM ET, Microsoft will look back and celebrate the history of the Xbox brand while likely looking to the future as well. You can watch the entire livestream on YouTube, Twitch and right here.     

Microsoft plans to update Windows 11 to block a workaround that has allowed users to open Start menu search results in a browser other than Edge. The loophole was popularized by EdgeDeflector, an app that allows you to bypass some of the built-in browser restrictions found in Windows 10 and 11. Before this week, companies like Mozilla and Brave had planned to implement similar workarounds to allow users to open Start menu results in their respective browsers, but now won't be able to do so.

When the block first appeared in an early preview build of Windows 11 last week, it looked like it was added by mistake. However, on Monday, the company confirmed it intentionally closed the loophole.

“Windows openly enables applications and services on its platform, including various web browsers,” a spokesperson for Microsoft told The Verge. “At the same time, Windows also offers certain end-to-end customer experiences in both Windows 10 and Windows 11, the search experience from the taskbar is one such example of an end-to-end experience that is not designed to be redirected. When we become aware of improper redirection, we issue a fix.”

Daniel Aleksandersen, the developer of EdgeDeflector, was quick to criticize the move. “These aren’t the actions of an attentive company that cares about its product anymore,” he said in a blog post. “Microsoft isn’t a good steward of the Windows operating system. They’re prioritizing ads, bundleware, and service subscriptions over their users’ productivity.”

Mozilla was similarly critical of Microsoft. “People deserve choice. They should have the ability to simply and easily set defaults and their choice of default browser should be respected,” a spokesperson for the company told The Verge. “We have worked on code that launches Firefox when the microsoft-edge protocol is used for those users that have already chosen Firefox as their default browser. Following the recent change to Windows 11, this planned implementation will no longer be possible.”

Other than the fact Microsoft should let Edge speak for itself, the company’s behavior here raises a question about its priorities. Windows 11 does not make it easy to switch your default browser. Someone shouldn’t have to go through the trouble of telling Windows they want to use a different browser only for the operating system to show them webpages in one they specifically decided they don’t want to use.

If you've been contemplating whether to purchase a subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud plan, now is time to do so. Between today and December 3rd, the All Apps plan is 40 percent off for first-time customers. The bundle includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro and Acrobat. With the discount, it costs $30 per month, down from $53. If you're a student, you can get almost 70 percent off the plan, making it $16 per month.

The promotion is also available to workplaces. Teams can get the All Apps plan for $50 monthly. All three discounts are only available to first-time Creative Cloud subscribers. The All Apps plan isn't for everyone, but if you depend on a handful of apps, it's worth picking up over the individual subscriptions Adobe offers.  

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.

IBM claims it has taken a major step toward practical quantum computation. On Monday, the company unveiled Eagle, a 127 qubit quantum processor. IBM claims it’s the first such processor that can’t be simulated by a classical supercomputer. To make sense of what that means, the company says to simulate Eagle you would need more classical bits than there are atoms in every human being on the planet. IBM is crediting the breakthrough to a new design that puts the processor’s control components on multiple physical levels while the qubits are located on a single layer. It’s a design the company says allows for a significant increase in computing power.

One aspect of Eagle the company isn’t talking about at the moment is quantum volume. Cointed by IBM, it’s a metric that attempts to measure the performance of a quantum computer by taking a holistic view of its different parts. Not only does it take into account qubits, but also the way in which they interact with one another. The higher the quantum volume, the more capable a quantum computer is at tackling difficult problems.

IBM

“Our first 127-qubit Eagle processor is available as an exploratory system on the IBM Cloud to select members of the IBM Quantum Network,” Jerry Chow, the director of IBM’s Quantum Hardware System Development unit, told Engadget. “Exploratory systems are early access to our latest technologies and so we do not guarantee uptime or a particular level of repeatable performance, as measured by quantum volume.”

Without knowing the quantum volume of the Eagle processor, it’s hard to say exactly how it compares to what's out there already. Last October, Honeywell claimed its System Model H1 had a quantum volume of 128 with just 10 connected qubits. For reference, earlier in the year IBM announced a 27 qubit system with a then industry-leading quantum volume of 64. Clearly, the company’s new processor is powerful, but qubits don’t tell the whole story here.

What’s also notable about Eagle is that IBM is not claiming quantum supremacy. According to the company, it’s a step toward that milestone, but the processor is not yet at the point where it can solve problems that classical computers cannot. In 2019, Google sparked controversy when it (briefly) claimed it had achieved the feat with its Sycamore system. At the time, IBM called the company’s claims “indefensible” based on the fact Google built the computer to solve one specific equation.

IBM will make Eagle available to select members of its Quantum Network starting next month.

Adidas isn’t the only clothing brand helping Microsoft celebrate the Xbox’s 20th anniversary. Italian fashion house Gucci has teamed up with the company to release a special edition Xbox Series X that will cost an eye-watering $10,000. The bundle will include the console, two wireless controllers and a very fancy carrying case. Oh, it will also come with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, in case you were worried.

As you might imagine, the package is an exercise in branding. The signature touch here is the console itself. Gucci has laser-etched it with its iconic Rhombi design. In this context, it says it’s a visual play on words with the pattern alluding to both the initials of Guccio Gucci and the shorthand for "Good Game." Well played, Gucci. The included carrying case has dedicated space for both controllers and the Xbox Series X, so your gaming setup can come with you in Darjeeling Limited-style on your next trip.

Gucci plans to sell only 100 hand-numbered units of the bundle through its flagship stores. It will be available starting on November 17th.

Move over, Mando. It's Boba Fett's time to run amok in Fortnite. Epic Games will add the bounty hunter on December 24th at 7PM ET. That's the weekend before The Book of Boba Fett makes its Disney+ debut on December 29th. Epic hasn't said much more about the crossover, but judging by the teaser art the studio shared, Fett's partner Fennec Shand will also make an appearance. Whether it will offer skins of both characters for players to purchase, Epic hasn't said yet, but that's probably a safe bet.

The announcement comes on the same day Disney shared all of its Disney+ Day news. That includes first looks at Obi-Wan Kenobi and Baymax!, and early details on a dozen new Marvel shows coming to the streaming service in 2022 and beyond. Ahead of the premiere of The Book of Boba Fett, Star Wars fans can watch Under the Helmet: The Legacy of Boba Fett. The documentary details the history of the character and is available to watch on Disney+ now.