Eight years after its second entry, a new Company of Heroes game is in development at Relic Entertainment. Announced today by publisher Sega, Company of Heroes 3 will take the World War II real-time strategy series to the Mediterranean theatre. As before, the emphasis is on commanding squads of infantry and individual tanks, but new to this game is a strategic map that will allow you to decide how to approach the Allied invasion of Italy. How you plan your moves there will determine the forces you have at your disposal in the real-time battles that follow.

Relic is also introducing a pause button that will allow players to stop the action and queue up commands to all their units. In practice, it looks like the single-player campaign will play out a lot like one of Creative Assembly’s Total War games, which isn’t too surprising given that Sega owns both studios.

Company of Heroes 3 is due in late 2022. In the meantime, fans can sign up to play an early build of the game by linking their Steam and Relic accounts. Additionally, the entire franchise is on sale on Valve’s storefront, allowing you to get the second game for a mere $1.10.

Apple has quietly started selling a MagSafe Battery Pack for its iPhone 12 lineup. Spotted by 9to5Mac, the new accessory costs $99, with deliveries beginning early next week. Instead of a case you put on your iPhone, this latest battery pack attaches to the back of your device. 

The accessory is available in a single size that features a 1,460mAh battery, meaning it can’t change any model in the iPhone 12 family to full. When using the battery pack on the go, it will charge your phone at about 5 watts. Plugging it into a power adapter while it’s still attached to your iPhone will increase that speed to about 15 watts. Either way, it’s not the fastest way to top up an iPhone 12, but it should still help in a pinch.

Apple

According to an official support document, you need iOS 14.7 to use the battery pack. Apple has yet to release that update. The company also recommends using a 20 watt or higher USB-C power adapter and USB-C to Lightning cable for charging the device.

When it’s attached to your iPhone, you’ll see how much power it has left to give on the battery widget you can add to your Home Screen and Today View. Interestingly, Apple also notes you may get a notification from your device that the accessory won’t charge it past 90 percent. You can bypass that limit enabling by low power mode through the Control Center.

Apple isn’t the first company to offer a battery pack that attaches magnetically to the iPhone 12 and its siblings. However, after Amazon removed many of the most popular brands on its marketplace earlier in the year, those have been harder to find. And if you visit the website now, you’ll find that many of the battery packs listed don’t have an estimated availability.

Starting today, Instagram is introducing a new feature to help people secure their accounts following instances where they may have been hacked. Dubbed “Security Checkup,” the tool will prompt you to do things like check recent login activity, review your profile information and update your contact information in case you need to recover your account.

Instagram

Notably, one thing it appears the tool won’t recommend is adding two-factor authentication (2FA) to your account, but that’s something Instagram says it “strongly” recommends. On that front, the company notes sometime in the next few weeks it will start allowing people in some countries to use their WhatsApp number to authenticate their accounts. The WhatsApp integration is similar to Instagram’s existing SMS authentication feature. Anytime you attempt to log into your account, you’ll need to input the six-digit code that’s set to you over WhatsApp.

Later in the same blog post, Instagram notes its seen an increase in recent months of malicious actors trying to phish sensitive information from people like their account passwords. “They may tell you that your account is at risk of being banned, that you are violating our policies around intellectual property, or that your photos are being shared elsewhere,” the company said. “These messages are often scams and violate our policies.” Instagram points out if it ever needs to contact you about your account, it won’t send you a direct message. Instead, you’ll find any communication from the company in the “Emails from Instagram” tab found in the app’s settings menu.

The Acer Chromebook Spin 713, one of our more recent Chrome OS favorites, is on sale at Best Buy. The retailer has discounted the laptop by $80, marking one of the first times we’ve seen it on sale since it came out earlier in the year. With the discount, the Spin 713 is currently $619 instead of $699. The model that Best Buy is selling features an 11th-generation Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. It also comes with plenty of ports, including two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 connections, a microSD slot, as well as HDMI and headphone jacks.

Buy Acer Chromebook Spin 713 at Best Buy - $619

Engadget gave the Spin 713 a score of 85 when we reviewed it last month. Part of what makes it stand out in the crowded Chrome OS market is that it features a display with a 3:2 aspect ratio. Most Chromebooks feature 16:9 displays, making them well-suited for watching video content but less than ideal if you need to do any work on them. The display on the Spin 713 is also bright and sharp with a pixel density of 200 pixels per inch. The taller screen also means you get a more generous trackpad than you’ll find on your average Chromebook. Combine that with a solid keyboard, a capable processor and just the right amount of RAM for Chrome OS and you have a device that’s solid. Aside from average battery life, one of the few complaints we had with the Spin 713 was the asking price. At $619, it's a better value.  

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Huawei and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) have settled their long-standing patent dispute. The disagreement dates back to 2019 when Huawei said it approached Verizon about licensing some of its technologies. After nearly a year of negotiations, talks between the two companies broke down on January 21st, 2020, and Huawei went on to file multiple lawsuits against the telecom in courts across Texas. At the center of the feud were 12 standards-relevant patents that Huawei said Verizon was using in its infrastructure. At the time, Verizon dismissed the lawsuits, claiming they were “nothing more than a PR stunt.”

It has since changed its tune. “Verizon is happy with the settlement reached with Huawei involving patent lawsuits. While terms of the settlement are not being disclosed, our team did an outstanding job bringing this protracted matter to a close,” Verizon spokesperson Rich Young said in a statement.

For Huawei, this is precisely the type of outcome the company had hoped for when it announced at the start of 2021 that it planned to monetize its patent portfolio more aggressively. While the US and other parts of the world have barred it from their national 5G networks, the Chinese company is ideally situated to make money on licensing fees. It has among the most 5G-related standards-relevant patents of any company in the world. To that end, it estimated the licensing strategy could help it generate as much as $1.3 billion in additional revenue between 2019 and the end of 2021.

With Space Jam: A New Legacy coming out this week, LA Lakers small forward LeBron James is making his way to Fortnite. On July 14th, two days before the movie comes out in the US, Epic will start selling two different King James skins. The first draws inspiration from the star’s pregame style and sees him wearing a blazer, hoodie, shorts and shirt and tie. 

The second outfit gives lets you dress up James either in his Tune Squad uniform or a Taco Tuesday-themed getup. Naturally, all of the skins feature LeBron wearing his latest signature Nikes — which, as you might have guessed, come out this month as well. As a third option, you can buy the skins together in a bundle that comes with extra in-game items, an emote and a special loading screen.

LeBron isn’t the first real-life star to make his way into Fortnite. Previously, Epic released skins of Travis Scott and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. Given that Epic frequently does crossover events with other brands, it’s not surprising to see James get that same treatment now. At this point, Fortnite is another channel companies can use to market their latest products.

For the second time in the span of less than a year, the price of ESPN+ is increasing. Starting on August 13th, an annual subscription will cost $69.99 per year, up from $59.99 previously. At the same time, the price of a monthly plan is going up as well. Come August 13th, ESPN+ will cost $6.99 per month, up from $5.99 as of last year. Opting for an annual subscription instead of a monthly one will save you about $13 over the span of a year. A Disney spokesperson told Engadget the company will start informing existing customers of the price increase as early as later today.

Since April 2019, Disney has allowed UFC fans to watch pay-per-view events through ESPN+. The price of that programming is not going up at the moment. The company is also not increasing the price of the Disney Bundle, which includes ESPN+, as well as Disney+ and Hulu. That package will continue to cost $13.99 per month, following a recent increase in March.

Microsoft is buying RiskIQ, a cybersecurity firm best known for working with organizations like Facebook and the US Postal Service to identify where and how they’re vulnerable to online attacks. The company didn’t disclose the terms of the deal, but according to Bloomberg, Microsoft agreed to pay approximately $500 million. Outside of its software, RiskIQ is known for publishing an annual report called the Evil Internet Minute that looks at just how much malicious activity can happen in 60 seconds or less.

Following last year’s SolarWinds data breach, which saw state-sponsored hackers access its source code, Microsoft has bought several companies to bolster its security offerings. Just last month, it acquired ReFirm Labs, a company that specializes in IoT resilience. The need for better enterprise security was highlighted (yet again) earlier this month with the Kaseya attack. While Kaseya has tried to downplay the severity of the event, security response firm Huntress has estimated that “thousands of small businesses” could be impacted by what happened.

After a limited release in India late last year and a US beta at the start of 2021, YouTube is expanding the availability of Shorts, its TikTok competitor, to the than 100 countries. When the company first introduced the format, anyone could view a Short. However, only those in about two dozen countries could access the tools YouTube created for filming and editing Shorts. With today’s announcement, the company is making those tools widely available, meaning you’re likely to see more and more of the clips appear on the platform.

YouTube’s embrace of short-form videos comes just as TikTok itself becomes a bit more like YouTube. At the start of July, the company, following months of testing, gave all of its users the ability to record clips up to three minutes long. In dropping its 60-second limit, TikTok said its goal was to give creators more flexibility, especially for those making cooking and beauty tutorials.

Later today, Virgin Galactic will attempt to fly its founder and billionaire Richard Branson, as well as five other individuals, to the edge of space. You can watch the entire Unity 22 mission unfold here, the company’s website, as well as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The company hasn’t released an itemized schedule for Sunday’s flight yet. But should Virgin Galactic stick to its usual flight plan, the entire mission should take about 90 minutes. Either way, the official livestream is currently slated to start at 9AM ET.

Unity 22 will be Virgin Galactic’s fourth crewed flight. Outside of beating Jeff Bezos to space, the stated purpose of the mission is to evaluate the SpaceShipTwo’s cabin environment, seat comfort and the overall experience it will offer to customers. If the flight is a success, the company plans to complete two additional test flights before starting paid flights next year.