Some 23 years after its original run, Babylon 5 is making its way back to TV. According to Variety, The CW has ordered a reboot of the seminal sci-fi series. What’s more, original creator J. Michael Straczynski is attached to the project.

That’s good news because Straczynski penned 92 of the 110 episodes that make up Babylon 5. At the moment, there are relatively few details on the production, but what we do know is that it’s being billed as a “from-the-ground-up reboot.” None of the original actors from the series, including Bruce Boxleitner, are currently attached to the project, but that may change. With its sometimes dated visuals, it can be hard to see what makes Babylon 5 so special. However, in many ways, it was ahead of its time. It told a serialized story long before shows like The Wire popularized the format.

Mere hours after Facebook said it was pausing work on Instagram Kids, a group of Democratic lawmakers has called on the company to instead completely abandon the project. Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal and Representatives Kathy Castor and Lori Trahan say Facebook’s decision to halt development is “insufficient.”

“Facebook has completely forfeited the benefit of the doubt when it comes to protecting young people online and it must completely abandon this project,” the group said in a joint statement on Monday. They’re the same four lawmakers who told Facebook earlier in the year they had “serious concerns” about the project when they first learned about it.

Facebook said it was suspending work on Instagram Kids after The Wall Street Journalpublished a report that claimed the company had ignored its own research on the harm apps like Instagram can do to young people. The company quickly refuted that piece, saying its studies showed young people could have both positive and negative experiences interacting with social media. The company will have to answer questions on its research later this week when the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee holds a hearing on the matter on Thursday.

Back in June, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) hit Roblox with a $200 million lawsuit for allowing players to illegally use music on stream. Now, some three months later, the two have resolved their differences. On Monday, Roblox and the NMPA announced a settlement agreement that includes an opt-in option for NMPA members to negotiate their own licensing deals with the gaming platform. The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed by the two organizations.

The deal follows a similar one the NMPA announced with Twitch last week. That agreement doesn’t give creators access to songs they can use on stream. Instead, it creates a new reporting mechanism for copyright infringement that starts with a warning instead of a penalty. In an email, Twitch told users the new process is more forgiving to individuals who may have inadvertently played music they weren’t authorized to use.

Nearly five years after Twitter shut down Vine, TikTok has reached the coveted 1 billion monthly active user mark. The company announced the milestone in a blog post on Monday. Attracting 1 billion users to any platform is a significant feat. However, TikTok’s rise in popularity is especially impressive when you consider almost exactly a year ago the Trump Administration was threatening to ban the app if ByteDance, TikTok’s Bejing-based parent company, didn’t sell it to an American buyer.

Then you have the speed at which TikTok achieved the feat. The app has only been widely available since 2018 — though you could download it in select markets as early as 2017. It took Instagram nearly eight years after its initial release and almost six years after it was acquired by Facebook in 2012 before it passed the 1 billion user threshold. Granted, the internet was a smaller place then with fewer people connected to it through their phones, but none of that takes away from TikTok’s ascent.

With this year’s iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, Apple finally brought its ProMotion display technology from the iPad Pro over to some of its phones. The feature allows the new high-end iPhones to refresh screen content up to 120 times per second, thereby creating a much smoother interface experience. The effect is most noticeable when scrolling, but almost every aspect of a UI can benefit from a higher refresh rate.

Unfortunately, it looks like the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max limit their ProMotion displays in one notable context. According to reports spotted by 9to5Mac, the phones cap some animations in third-party apps to 60Hz. Scrolling and full-screen transitions render as expected but other animations do not. The effect is apparently jarring. What makes it worse is that it’s not something you’ll see when using any software from Apple; the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max do not enforce that same limitation on the company’s apps.

What makes the situation particularly confusing is that the iPad Pro does not have a similar limit. It has treated first- and third-party apps equally since it was released in 2017. A source told 9to5Mac the iPhone’s implementation may have something to do with battery life considerations. At the very least, code in iOS 15 suggests the limitation isn’t a bug. Either way, we’ve reached out to Apple for more information, and we’ll update this article when we hear back from the company.

Mention the name of Sunrise to a select demographic of nerds and you’re likely to elicit a visceral reaction. Before Microsoft purchased the calendar software in 2015 and shut it down about a year later, it was one of those apps people loved to praise. Thoughtful design and features helped it differentiate itself and earn a passionate fanbase in a crowded market that was dominated by heavyweights like GCal.

But then Microsoft shut down the app and fans were left to look elsewhere, with almost no alternative coming in to fill the void. But the good news is something similar could be on the way. Yahoo (Engadget’s parent company) is working on a standalone calendar app called Day. We know, not the most exciting sell, but stay with us.

According to TechCrunch, the company has recruited Jeremy Le Van, one of the co-founders of Sunrise, to help design the software. What’s more, the company has reportedly granted Le Van’s team the freedom to develop the software independent of other Yahoo properties. In its current iteration, the app apparently doesn’t feature any Yahoo branding or integrations. Moreover, the plan is to make it into something that can integrate with whatever email client and other tools people use.

Obviously, we’ll have to see what the final product looks like, but even if Day is only half as good as Sunrise it will make the calendar conversation more interesting.

Twitter is adding yet another feature to make Spaces more discoverable. On Friday, the company announced the addition of Topics. As the name suggests, they’re essentially pre-defined tags you can use to help like-minded individuals find your audio rooms. You can add up to three Topics to a Space. Some of the ones you can use currently include "entertainment," "world news" and "gaming."

At launch, the feature is somewhat limited. It’s only available to select Android users, there are only 10 total Topics to choose from and Topics only work in English. However, Twitter said iOS support is coming soon, and that it will expand the number of available Topics “as we build together.”

Like the API v2 update the company announced back in August, it’s safe to say Twitter’s hope here is to encourage greater use of Spaces by making it easier to find audio rooms, particularly the ones that align with your interests.

Netflix’s recent foray into video games continues. On Friday, the company announced the existence of Kate: Collateral Damage. Like Eden Unearthed, the VR experience we saw make the media rounds earlier in the week, the new game is a tie-in to a recently released Netflix original. In this case, it’s here to promote the release of action thriller Kate, which stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a deadly assassin.

Netflix describes Kate: Collateral Damage as an time-attack, action roguelike. If you’ve played games like Hotline Miami and Katana Zero, you have a good idea of the setup. Each enemy in Kate: Collateral Damage only takes a single hit or two to dispatch, but the same is true of your character. 

Much like in the movie, Kate is poisoned by a substance called Polonium 204, leaving her with only 24 hours to live. How that plays out in the game is that the more efficiently you can take out enemies, the more time you’ll have to complete a run. Since most firearms have limited ammo, you’ll also need to get creative and adapt your tactics to the moment.

Kate: Collateral Damage arrives on Steam on October 22nd. You can wishlist the game today.

The wait is nearly over. Jeep will debut the long-awaited 2022 Grand Cherokee, including the nameplate’s first-ever 4xe plug-in hybrid model, on September 29th at 9AM ET, the automaker announced today. Jeep had initially planned to debut the 2022 Grand Cherokee in August at the 2021 New York Auto Show, but that plan went out the window when the event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

We got our first good look at the SUV when Jeep shared its updated electrification plans in July. Unsurprisingly, it looked a lot like the Grand Cherokee L but with a shorter wheelbase. The upcoming 4xe model is expected to feature the same gasoline-electric powertrain as the 2021 Wrangler 4xe. That SUV can output a combined 375 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque.

Its 4xe models are becoming increasingly important to Jeep. In July, the automaker said it expects electric vehicles to account for 70 percent of all of its sales by mid-decade. To that end, it plans to offer a “fully electric” 4xe model in every SUV category it sells by 2025.

Starting in 2030, California will require all light-duty autonomous vehicles that operate in the state to emit zero emissions. Signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday, SB 500 represents the latest effort by the state to limit the sale of new internal combustion vehicles with an eye towards reducing greenhouse emissions. In 2020, Newsom signed an executive order that effectively banned the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035. That same year, the state’s Air Resources Board mandated that all new trucks sold in California emit zero emissions by 2045.

“We’re grateful for California’s leadership in ensuring this will be the industry standard,” said Prashanthi Raman, head of global government affairs at Cruise, in a statement to Engadget. “The AV industry is primed to lead the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in cities, and it’s why we’ve operated an all-electric, zero-emissions fleet from the start.” Cruise backed SB 500 through its involvement with the Emission Zero Coalition, a group that also includes autonomous delivery startup Nuro.

Per the Environmental Protection Agency, the transportation sector has been the single largest source of greenhouse emissions in the US since 2019, with light-duty vehicles accounting for more than half of that output. However, autonomous cars currently represent only a tiny fraction of the nearly 15 million vehicles on California roads. Moreover, both Cruise and Waymo, two of the most prominent companies testing fully autonomous taxi services in the state, utilize fleets made almost exclusively of electric and hybrid vehicles. This latest move from California then is about preventing autonomous vehicles from becoming major polluters in the future, particularly if driverless taxi services become popular among commuters.