Amazon has shared the first trailer for its long-awaited adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. If you’re a newcomer to the fantasy series, the clip sketches out the basics of the world the author created before his death in 2007. 

In the Wheel of Time, only women known as Aes Sedai can channel magic. A powerful sorceress named Moiraine (played by Gone Girl and Hostiles actor Rosamund Pike) comes across a small town called Two Rivers where she finds five young men and women. One of them she believes is the Dragon Reborn, an entity that could be either the savior or destroyer of humanity.

Amazon first announced it was working on a live-action adaptation of Robert Jordan’s 14-volume fantasy back in 2018, but like with the company’s other big-budget fantasy adaptation, filming was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first three episodes of the Wheel of Time will debut on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, November 19th, with new episodes to follow every week thereafter until December 24th when the season finale starts streaming.

How do you build on a filmography that includes disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day? If you’re Roland Emmerich, the answer is, quite simply, to drop the Moon on the planet. In the first trailer for his latest film, Moonfall, Earth’s natural satellite has decided to do humanity a solid favor and put it out of its misery by crashing into its anchor.

You might think its title says almost everything you need to know about Moonfall, but, sorry, the end of the world is only part of the story here. According to the film’s official synopsis, a “mysterious force” is what sets the Moon on its collision course with Earth. It’s up to a NASA executive, former astronaut and conspiracy theorist — played by Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley, respectively — to save the world. “These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is,” the film’s official summary says.

I’ll say it now. I hope it’s not aliens that are behind everything. Either way, Moonfall looks like it will be a fun and trashy way to spend an hour or two forgetting about all the real problems haunting humans at the moment. The film will debut in theaters on February 4th, 2022. We can't wait.

In 2018, Disney fired Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn over tweets he wrote between 2008 and 2012. While the company later rehired Gunn, he’s just one of many people for whom an old social media post came back to haunt him. In recent years, some Twitter users have turned to tools like TweetDelete.net to avoid something similar happening to them. Twitter could soon also offer its own solution to the problem.

Sharing part of its product roadmap with Bloomberg, the company said it plans to eventually test a feature that would allow people to automatically archive their tweets after a predetermined amount of time. The tool is currently in the concept phase and doesn’t have a release date, but Twitter said it’s considering a number of time options, including 30, 60 and 90 days.

The decision to give people the ability to archive their tweets is part of a broader “social privacy” push Twitter told Bloomberg is about giving people more control over their identity on the platform. To that end, the company plans to test a feature this month that will allow people to remove followers. By the end of the year, it will also trial a tool that gives individuals the option to remove themselves from public conversations people mention them in.

Twitter told Bloomberg many of the above tools come in response to creative workarounds its users have found to make up for missing features. For instance, people have found you can remove someone as a follower by blocking and unblocking them. Building on a concept it shared back in July (seen above), the company also plans to prompt people to review whether their accounts are public or private.

It will be interesting to see if Twitter decides to only give some users the option to archive their tweets. After all, the platform acts as a kind of public record, giving people a way to keep politicians accountable for things they said in the past.

McDonald’s McFlurry machine and its tendency to break down has been the inspiration for countless jokes and Twitter feuds, and now it could become the subject of a Federal Trade Commission investigation. According to The Wall Street Journal, the agency recently reached out to McDonald’s restaurant owners to collect more information on their experiences with the machines.

Why is the FTC looking into McFlurry machines, you ask? The answer may have something to do with the right to repair movement. At the start of July, President Biden ordered the agency to draft new rules to empower consumers and businesses to repair their devices on their own. Later that same month, the FTC made good on that order, voting unanimously to tackle unlawful repair restrictions.

By all accounts, McFlurry machines are a nightmare to repair. Moreover, Taylor, the firm that makes them, is at the center of a legal battle over measures it uses to prevent restaurants from repairing the machines on their own. When a McFlurry machine breaks down, only a certified technician from Taylor is allowed to fix it, leading to long wait times. Those wait times have increased during the pandemic. A federal judge recently sided with a company that produces a diagnostic tool that threatens Taylor’s monopoly on repairs.

The FTC hasn’t opened a formal probe yet. “The existence of a preliminary investigation does not indicate the FTC or its staff have found any wrongdoing,” the agency said in the letter it sent out this summer, according to The Journal. However, it reportedly wants to know how often restaurant owners are allowed to work on the McFlurry machines on their own.  

Add the Roadster to the list of delayed Tesla vehicles. On Wednesday, CEO Elon Musk said the performance EV wouldn’t make its previously announced 2022 shipment date. “2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn’t matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship,” he said in a tweet spotted by Roadshow. The executive added the Roadster should ship in 2023, “assuming 2022 is not mega drama.”

Tesla first announced its next-generation Roadster in 2017. Back then, the company expected to debut the car sometime last year. 2020 came and went without Tesla sharing much information on the supercar. Then, at the start of the year, Musk said production on the Roadster would start in 2022. Whether the car will make its new date is a big if. The global chip shortage that delayed the Tesla Semi is expected to continue until 2023, and Musk’s tweet hints at the possibility of further delays.

Apple has asked all of its US employees to share their vaccination status voluntarily. According to Bloomberg, the company recently sent out a memo requesting workers, whether they currently work out of an office or not, to share that information by September 17th. Apple reportedly plans to use the data it collects to inform its ongoing COVID-19 response. 

Bloomberg reports the company told employees it would keep their vaccine status “confidential and secure” by aggregating the information but said that could change in the future. “It is possible your vaccination status may be used in an identifiable manner, along with other information about your general work environment such as your building location, if we determine or, if it is required that, this information is necessary in order to ensure a healthy and safe work environment,” Apple said in the memo, according to the outlet. It's not clear what repercussions if any an employee will face if they do not provide their vaccination status by the deadline.

We’ve reached out to the company for comment.

Unlike Google, Apple currently does not require employees to be vaccinated before they can come to the office. Still, the company has started to nudge its workers in that direction more forcefully. For example, it recently began a campaign encouraging workers to get their shot.

The company’s request, and the admission that the information employees share with it may be used in an identifiable manner, come as Apple faces increasing scrutiny over how it handles the privacy of its workers. A recent report from The Verge detailed some of the company’s policies on that front. For instance, one such policy prohibits employees from wiping their work devices before returning them to the company. 

It looks like DJI is preparing to release a new smartphone gimbal. A leak shared by WinFuture and subsequently spotted by The Verge shows the Osmo Mobile 5. New to this model is a telescoping mechanism that will allow you to extend the gimbal. That’s something that should give those who buy the OM 5 more ways to compose their photos and videos. According to the outlet, the device will cost €159 (about $188) and stand approximately 6.7 inches tall when you collapse down the telescoping mechanism.

WinFuture

Judging by the images WinFuture shared, it doesn’t look like the Osmo Mobile 5 extends quite as long as a more affordable selfie stick, but that’s probably for the best since the weight of your smartphone and the included magnetic mounting system would make the gimbal unwieldy at best and prone to breaking at worst. Unfortunately, it appears that added flexibility will come at the cost of battery life. The new model can reportedly go six hours and 20 minutes on a single charge. By contrast, you can get up to 15 hours of use from the Osmo Mobile 4’s 2,450mAh battery.

If a high-tech selfie stick isn’t your thing, it looks like DJI also plans to release a more affordable version of its existing Osmo Mobile 4 gimbal. WinFuture’s Roland Quandt said the company is also working on a model called the Osmo Mobile 4 SE. It will reportedly forgo its predecessor’s handy magnetic mount, but only cost $99 as a result. We’ll note here Quandt has a solid track record when it comes to DJI leaks. Either way, the company plans to host a “Hi Five” event on September 8th, so we won’t have to wait long to find out what it has in store.

About a year ago, if you wanted to stream lossless audio tracks to your phone, you essentially had one option: Tidal. A lot has changed since then, with Apple recently rolling out support for lossless streaming in June, and Spotify promising to do the same later this year. But unless you’re willing to connect a USB DAC to your phone, more streaming services jumping on the Hi-Res bandwagon does you little good since Bluetooth headphones can only stream lossy audio. Thankfully, that’s about to change.

Chipmaker Qualcomm is adding a new flavor to its aptX Bluetooth codec, and it’s a lossless one that, in ideal conditions, the company claims delivers CD-quality 16-bit 44.1kHz audio streaming over a wireless connection. Qualcomm says it made improvements to its Bluetooth High Speed Link technology to deliver the required data throughput required to stream a lossless track wirelessly, but the codec can also compress a signal down to 24-bit 96kHz quality to ensure you don't experience any interruptions. You can also manually switch between 16-bit 44.1kHz and 24-bit 96kHz streaming modes, though the codec will automatically default to the former when it detects a lossless source.  

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets come with support for its aptX codecs built-in. That means almost any Android phone you buy in North America or Europe will support the standard. As with all Bluetooth codecs, it’s not enough for only your phone, tablet or computer to support the technology. You also need a pair of compatible headphones or earbuds. Qualcomm says the first ones to support aptX Lossless will arrive later this year.

Before today, the closest you could get to a lossless connection over Bluetooth were Sony’s LDAC and DSEE technologies. Those work well, but again you need a pair of Sony headphones to take advantage. 

With the holiday season quickly approaching, Google plans to surface the shipping and return policies of stores that list items on its platforms to help consumers quickly find out if they can get free delivery and returns on their purchases. You’ll see the labels appear across both free and paid listings. “Free delivery by Friday, December 24th,” says one of the example annotations the company shared. Merchants will need to meet a list of requirements before they can add the labels to their listings, so you won’t see them on every product.

Shipping and return annotations won’t dramatically change your shopping experience, but they make you decide to jump on a product you would have otherwise glossed over. Google has spent much of the last year adding these types of features to its shopping hubs. At I/O 2021, for example, it showed off a feature inside of Chrome that displayed shopping carts you abandoned before completing a purchase in a new tab.

Ghostrunner was one of the best surprises of 2020. It’s a stylish first-person platformer that takes the best elements of Titanfall’s parkour mechanics and adds a cyberpunk twist to the proceedings. It’s also a challenging game that demands precision and purpose from the player. Make a single mistake, and you’ll need to replay a section of a level again. That can get frustrating fast, so developer One More Level is adding a new feature called Assist Mode.

Assist Mode introduces three options you can toggle on and off. You can opt to shorten your character’s ability cooldowns, slow down the game to give you more time to react and play with an extra life to make mistakes less punishing. Accessibility modes are becoming more common in video games, and it’s always good to see another developer find a way to allow more people to enjoy their work.

For experienced players, there’s a new feature called Wave Mode that is essentially Ghostrunner’s take on a roguelike. You’ll need to complete 20 rounds in succession, with each one featuring different enemies — even when you attempt the same one multiple times. Make it all the way to the end, and you’ll earn a fancy new katana for your character.

Both Assist and Wave modes are available today for free on the platforms where you can already buy Ghostrunner. That includes PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store and GOG. When the game makes its way to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on September 28th, it will come with those modes included.