Battlefield 2042, the next entry in EA's long-running first-person shooter series, has been delayed. Instead of coming out on October 22nd as previously announced, the game is now scheduled to debut almost a month later on November 19th. EA announced the delay in a message attributed to Oskar Gabrielson, the CEO of series developer DICE. Like many other studios over the last two years, DICE blamed the delay on the coronavirus pandemic.      

"Given the scale and scope of the game, we had hoped our teams would be back in our studios together as we move towards launch," Gabrielson said. "With the ongoing conditions not allowing that to happen safely, and with all the hard work the teams are doing from home, we feel it is important to take the extra time to deliver on the vision of Battlefield 2042 for our players."

DICE promised to share details on Battlefield 2042's upcoming open beta later this month. While the delay means series fans will have to wait longer to play the sequel to 2018's Battlefield 5, it's still coming out in 2021. That's not something you can say of some of the games that were pushed back this year like Dying Light 2 and Horizon Forbidden West.  

Following a pandemic-related delay, the Unicode Consortium has finalized Unicode 14.0. In all, the update adds 838 characters to the text standard. Of those 838 characters, 37 represent new emoji that will make their way to your devices before the end of the year and throughout 2022. The selection includes all the emoji the Unicode Consortium included in its final candidate list back in July. That means characters like “beans,” “troll,” “mirror ball” and “melting face” made the cut.

Emojipedia

Notably, the finalized list also includes multiple skin tone variations of the handshake emoji. Due to some technical limitations, it was one of the few characters in previous releases you couldn’t modify to represent different skin shades. The Unicode Consortium and its volunteers spent the better part of two years working to fix that, and now they have.

Sony’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Twisted Metal has found its leading man. Altered Carbon and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier star Anthony Mackie will play the role of series protagonist John Doe. Deadline was the first to report on the casting. “We’re thrilled to have Anthony Mackie on board. His ability to blend comedy, action and drama is perfect for the Twisted world we’re creating,” Asad Qizilbash, the head of Sony’s PlayStation Productions unit, told the outlet.

News that Sony was developing a live-action adaptation of the Twisted Metal franchise first came out at the end of February. The company is billing the project as an action comedy, with Deadpool and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick set to produce the series. Cobra Kai scribe Michael Jonathan Smith is also on board to write and produce.

Twisted Metal is just one of the properties Sony is in the process of adapting for television and film. At the end of March, the company announced it was making a Ghost of Tsushima movie. Its The Last of Us series at HBO also recently found its Joel and Ellie in Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

One of the largest marketplaces for trading NFTs has found itself embroiled in controversy. In a blog post spotted by The Block, OpenSea admitted on Wednesday that one of its employees, Nate Chastain, had purchased NFTs he knew the company had planned to feature predominantly on its platform.

The admission came after a Twitter user named Zuwu accused Chastain this week of using secret Ethereum wallets to buy front-page NFT drops before they were available for the public to purchase, and then later selling them at a profit following the inevitable spike in interest.

OpenSea called the incident “incredibly disappointing,” and said it’s investigating what happened. “We want to be clear that this behavior does not represent our values as a team,” the company stated. “We are taking this very seriously and are conducting an immediate and thorough review of this incident so that we have a full understanding of the facts and additional steps we need to take.”

The company notes it has already implemented two new policies to prevent incidents like this from happening in the future. Moving forward, OpenSea employees aren’t allowed to buy or sell from collections and creators while they’re being promoted. They’re also prohibited from using confidential information to buy and sell NFTs on OpenSea and elsewhere.

Understandably, the incident has caused quite a stir among the company's customers, with some likening Chastain’s behavior to insider trading. More than anything, the episode highlights just how much of a wild west the NFT market is at the moment. According to an analysis by business law firm McMillan, there are currently no laws in either the US or Canada that regulate the sales of NFTs. This incident may push the Securities and Exchange Commission to change that. 

Less than a year after introducing Mode II, its first pair of true wireless earbuds, Marshall is expanding its lineup of Bluetooth headphones to include two new true wireless models: the Motif ANC and Minor III. As you can probably guess from the name, the former includes active noise cancellation, a feature you won’t find on Marshall’s Mode II earbuds. 

Marshall

With ANC turned on, the company claims you can get four-and-a-half hours of playtime from the Motif ANC earbuds on a single charge, and an additional 20 hours of battery life from the included charging case. The ANC feature is fully customizable, allowing you to set your own level of noise cancellation and transparency. Other notable features include IPX5 moisture protection, support for wireless charging, dual microphones for calls and touch controls.

Marshall

Marshall is positioning the Minor III as a no-frills pair of headphones. They feature 12mm drivers custom-tuned to deliver the company’s signature sound, in addition to touch controls, IPX4-certified water resistance and an open fit for claimed all-day comfort. On a single charge, you can expect five hours from the earbuds and an additional 20 with help from the included charging case, for a total of 25 hours of playtime. You can recharge the case using either a USB-C cable or by placing it on a Qi-compatible charging pad.

The Motif ANC earbuds are available to pre-order today from Marhsall’s website, with general availability to follow on September 30th. They cost $199, €199 or £180. As for the Minor III earbuds, you can purchase them today for $129, €129 or £119.

At the start of the month, Rivian achieved a major milestone. The Environmental Protection Agency published official range estimates for the company’s R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV, putting both vehicles one step closer to an official launch. Rivian has now hit another important milestone. 

In a tweet spotted by Roadshow, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe announced on Tuesday that the company produced its first R1T EV for a customer. “After months of building pre-production vehicles, this morning our first customer vehicle drove off our production line in Normal,” Scaringe wrote on Twitter. "Can't wait to get these into the hands of our customers!"

Getting to this point has been something of a journey for Rivian. The company had initially planned to start deliveries of the R1T in 2020 but was forced to delay the truck’s debut to 2021 when it couldn’t get its manufacturing facility, a former Mitsubishi plant, retooled quickly enough. The coronavirus pandemic only added to the automaker’s problems, forcing it to push bach the launch of the R1T and R1S from July to September. "Everything from facility construction, to equipment installation, to vehicle component supply (especially semiconductors) has been impacted by the pandemic," Scaringe wrote at the time.

But even with you factor in those setbacks, the R1T is making its way to consumers before the Tesla Cybertruck and Ford F-150 Lightning. Both of those vehicles won’t debut before the start of 2022.

Apple kicked off its fall hardware release slate with “California Streaming,” an event dedicated to its newest iPhone and Apple Watch models. And while those devices obviously headlined the event, the company also announced a new iPad and iPad mini. Here’s everything the company showed off on Tuesday.

iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max

Apple

The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max include a host of improvements aimed at content creators, including a more capable camera system and a new Cinematic mode that can blur the background of your videos while keeping the subject in focus. However, the enhancement that’s most likely to get current iPhone owners to upgrade is the addition of Apple’s ProMotion display technology. The feature allows the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max to adjust the refresh rates of their displays up to 120Hz for smoother scrolling. The Pro lineup starts at $999, with pre-orders scheduled to open on September 17th and general availability to follow on September 24th.

iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini

Apple

Apple’s more affordable pair of iPhones didn’t get as many upgrades as their Pro siblings, but the ones they did receive are still notable. Internally, the devices feature the company’s new A15 Bionic chips and bigger batteries. Apple also redesigned its TrueDepth camera array to make it smaller, leading to a less prominent but still noticeable notch on both devices. The iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini will start at $799 and $699 when they go up for pre-order on Friday and then go on sale on September 24th.

Apple Watch 7

Apple

The Apple Watch is about to get bigger yes, but perhaps the more important story with the Series 7 is that Apple has made the wearable more durable. The Series 7 is the first Apple Watch to include dust resistance. The screen is also more crack-resistant thanks to the refreshed design. When it arrives sometime this fall, the Series 7 will start at $399.

iPad mini

Apple

After two and a half years without a refresh, Apple’s iPad mini got a substantial update on Tuesday. In short, the company took essentially everything that made the 4th-generation iPad Air so compelling and gave it to its smallest iPad. We’re talking about an updated design, USB-C connectivity, support for the company’s second-generation Apple Pencil and a brighter and more colorful display, among various other upgrades. You can pre-order the iPad mini starting today for $499 before it ships on September 24th.

iPad

Apple

It may not look different from the company’s previous entry-level tablet, but the 9th-generation iPad includes some handy upgrades. The most important of those is a new 12-megapixel front-facing camera with an ultra-wide lens that comes with the iPad Pro’s Center Stage feature. The inclusion of Center Stage allows the camera to crop into the subject intelligently so that they’re always at the center of the frame. The 9th-generation iPad will start at $329 when it becomes available on September 24th.

Everything else

Outside of new hardware, Apple announced it will release iOS 15 on September 20th. It will also push out iPadOS 15 and watchOS 8 that same day. Last but not least, the company said it plans to update Fitness+ to make it easier for users to take part in shared virtual classes with friends and family members.

Follow all of the news from Apple’s iPhone event right here.

The iPhone mini is staying in Apple's lineup for at least another year. At its California Streaming event, the company announced its base model iPhone will once again come in two sizes. And like its bigger sibling, the iPhone 13 mini features the company's latest system-on-a-chip, the A15 Bionic. According to Apple, the 5nm chip includes nearly 15 billion transistors. 

Critically, Apple claims battery life is noticeably improved on its latest iPhones, particularly on the new mini model. Compared to its predecessor, the company says most users should get an hour and a half of additional battery from the iPhone 13 mini. That increase in uptime comes courtesy of the phone's A15 Bionic chip, more efficient internal components and software optimizations the company has made under the hood.    

Developing...

Follow all of the news from Apple’s iPhone event right here.

Twitter has once again started accepting applications from the public for account verification, the company announced this week. This latest restart comes after Twitter temporarily “hit pause” on verifications at the start of August to implement improvements to the application and review process.“If you’re planning to apply and don’t yet have access, keep checking your account settings,” the company said. “Thanks for sticking with us.”

In recent months, Twitter has struggled with handing out blue badges. Since launching its latest system for public verifications in May, the company has had to stop accepting new applications twice. The first suspension came just eight days after the company launched the new system. And before the most recent step back, a fake Cormac McCarthy account was briefly verified. Here’s hoping Twitter doesn’t run into any further issues.

After expanding to Samsung TVs earlier in the year, Movies Anywhere, the service that allows you to keep your digital film collection in one place, is now available on Xbox consoles. Starting today, you can download the app on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. Movies Anywhere works with most digital storefronts, including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu and of course the Microsoft Store.

The Xbox version of Movies Anywhere includes support for the platform’s Watch Together feature, which means you can take part in online watch parties with up to nine other people and talk in a shared chat room. Screen Pass is also supported. If you’ve already accepted a rental invitation sent to you by a friend or family member, you can watch the movie on your Xbox. Moreover, once you connect your Microsoft Store account to Movies Anywhere, you can watch the content you purchase there on any other device that supports the platform.