Almost every music streaming service on the market offers a radio feature, allowing you to create an automatically generated playlist around a song or artist you love. For the most part, however, those features don’t offer a lot of flexibility. You pick a single song or artist and the platform does the rest – as is the case with Spotify and Apple Music.

Google has begun rolling out a redesigned radio feature on YouTube Music the company claims provides users with a lot more control over their listening experience. Among the new features the refreshed experience includes is the ability to pick up to 30 artists when creating your own radio station. You can also decide how frequently those artists repeat and apply filters that change the mood of the resulting playlist. For instance, a few of the selections include “chill,” “downbeat” and “pump-up.”

It’s also possible to adjust the parameters you set after creating a station by tapping the “Tune” option that appears at the bottom of the interface once you’re listening to your new playlist. Naturally, you can save the station to revisit it later. Once the new experience is available on your device, you will see a prompt in the main interface that says “Create a radio.” As with many of Google’s rollouts, it may take some time before you see the feature on your client.

On its own, it’s fair to say the feature won’t be enough to convince some to ditch Spotify and Apple Music for YouTube Music, but if you’re among the 50 million subscribers Google says has access to the service, it may prompt you to use it more frequently or convert the free trial you got with your phone into a paid subscription.

It appears SpaceX is preparing to offer global roaming. As first reported by PCMag, the company recently began emailing customers in countries where Starlink service isn’t available yet to invite them to try a new $200 per month package that allows its terminals to provide internet access “from almost anywhere on land in the world.”

As The Verge notes, it’s not clear how SpaceX will follow through on the promise to provide internet from nearly anywhere. Despite the company’s growing constellation of small satellites, it’s still waiting to obtain regulatory approval to offer internet access in many key markets, including India and Pakistan. To that point, the email SpaceX sent out notes global roaming services are “contingent on regulatory approvals.” It adds customers may experience “brief periods of poor connectivity, or none at all” while it works to expand its satellite network. Potential customers should also be prepared to pay an import fee for their Starlink terminal, on top of the kit’s $599 price.

SpaceX already offers a few, more limited roaming options. Most notably, there’s the company’s Portability package for existing residential users, which allows those customers to use their Starlink terminal while traveling within their home continent. At $25 per month on top of the company’s $110 monthly subscription fee, the package is cheaper than the global roaming service SpaceX recently began emailing potential customers about, but the company requires those who spend “an extended period of time” away from home to change their permanent address.

Starting in May, Amazon will require employees to work out of the office at least three days per week. The company announced the plan in a memo published on Friday and attributed to CEO Andy Jassy (via CNN). In advocating for the policy, Jassy said a hybrid work arrangement would “strengthen” Amazon’s corporate culture and lead to better collaboration among its workforce.

“It’s not simple to bring many thousands of employees back to our offices around the world, so we’re going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan,” Jassy said. “We know that it won’t be perfect at first, but the office experience will steadily improve over the coming months (and years) as our real estate and facilities teams smooth out the wrinkles, and ultimately keep evolving how we want our offices to be set up to capture the new ways we want to work.”

Shortly after the pandemic began, Amazon said it expected employees to return to the office in October 2020. The company went on to push back that date multiple times as successive waves of the coronavirus forced cities around the world to lock down. Amazon’s announcement comes in the same week that Activision confirmed it would require Blizzard employees to work out of the office at least three days per week starting in July. Like Blizzard, Amazon has seen many of its workers move to organize in response to the company’s policies. Most notably, there was JFK8, the Staten Island facility that became the first unionized Amazon workhouse when the majority of its workers voted to unionize last year. The move also comes after Amazon confirmed, at the start of the year, it would lay off more than 18,000 employees.

More than six years following the most recent entry in the series, Firaxis has confirmed it’s working on a new Civilization game. The studio didn’t share many details about the new title, but it did say that Ed Beach is the creative director of the project. Beach has more than 15 years of experience working on the franchise, including, most recently, as lead designer of Civilization VI.

Firaxis parent company Take-Two Interactive shared the news this week in a press release announcing a handful of staffing changes at the studio (via Eurogamer). Studio head Steve Martin is leaving Firaxis after serving nearly 17 years as the company’s president, a position he inherited from Firaxis co-founder Jeff Briggs in 2006. Heather Hazen, previously the studio’s chief operating officer, is taking over the day-to-day operations of Firaxis.

“I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to carry on the studio’s storied legacy, beginning with the announcement that Firaxis is in development on the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise,” Hazen said. “I’m lucky to be working with some of the best developers in our industry, and we have plans to take the Civilization franchise to exciting new heights for our millions of players around the world.”

On Friday, Firaxis also announced the departure of Jake Solomon. After 23 years, the designer, who was one of the studio’s best-known employees thanks to his work on the XCOM franchise and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, is leaving to pursue new opportunities. "I loved designing tactical turn-based games, but it's time for other, smarter people to push that space forward,” Solomon said on Twitter. “My brain is on fire with a new dream. Time to go chase it."

The rumors were true: Facebook parent company Meta is preparing to launch a Twitter Blue-like subscription called Meta Verified. On Sunday morning, Mark Zuckerberg took to his newly launched broadcast channel to share the news. He said the subscription service would give users a blue badge, additional impersonation protection and direct access to customer support. "This feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services," Zuckerberg said, adding Meta would test the subscription first in Australia and New Zealand before rolling it out to other countries. Meta Verified will cost $15 per month when users subscribe through the company's apps on iOS. On the web, where Apple's up to 30 percent commission on in-app purchases doesn't apply, the service will cost $12 per month. The subscription will cover both Instagram and Facebook accounts. 

Rumors that Meta was preparing to trial a paid verification service started to swirl at the beginning of February when reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi discovered code referencing "paid blue badge" and "identity verification."  

Developing...

Meta has begun rolling out a major iOS update for WhatsApp. Spotted this week by 9to5Mac, WhatsApp version 23.3.77 finally adds picture-in-picture support for video calls. That’s a feature iOS users of Meta’s chat app have asked for a while and one that, as The Verge notes, the company began testing at the end of last year.

As with PiP modes on other platforms, WhatsApp will minimize your video call when you look at a different app, allowing you to multitask while still seeing the person you’re chatting with over the service. If you can’t access PiP immediately, Meta notes the feature, and other enhancements introduced with WhatsApp’s latest update, will roll out “over the coming weeks.”

Speaking of other features, WhatsApp 23.3.77 also allows you to add captions to documents you send over the app. Additionally, Meta has tweaked group chat settings, allowing you to add longer subjects and descriptions to better describe what your chat groups are all about. There’s also a new option to create an avatar you can use for your profile photo and stickers.

Russia has set a new date for when it will send a rescue ship to the International Space Station to retrieve the three astronauts whose Soyuz return craft was compromised in December. The country’s Roscosmos space agency told AFP on Saturday it is targeting a February 24th launch for MS-23, the uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft that is scheduled to bring back cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, from the International Space Station.

Roscosmos delayed the mission last Monday after Progress 82, a supply ship that had been docked with the ISS since last October, began leaking coolant over the weekend. Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio flew to the space station in September, and they were supposed to return on the same Soyuz spacecraft that brought them there. In December, however, the spacecraft sprung a leak, due to an apparent meteoroid strike. One month later, Roscosmos announced it would send a second Soyuz craft to retrieve the three astronauts. The timing of the leaks lead to some speculation that a manufacturing issue was at fault for the Soyuz leak, not an errant space rock as Roscosmos had said. Earlier this week, the agency shared images (seen above) showing the location of the coolant leak and reported micrometeoroid strike. 

On Saturday, Roscosmos said it had carefully inspected the rescue ship to ensure it was undamaged and ready for flight. One day earlier, Progress 82 separated from the ISS. Per Space News, video broadcast during the undocking procedure failed to show any obvious signs of damage to the resupply craft. According to NASA, Progress 82 will initiate a deorbit burn at 10:15PM ET tonight. Provided Roscosmos doesn’t delay MS-23’s launch, the spacecraft will arrive at the ISS two days before Space X’s Crew-6 mission is scheduled to launch on February 26th. That flight will bring two NASA astronauts, a United Arab Emirates astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut to the space station.

Blizzard will soon give Diablo IV fans the chance to play the upcoming action RPG ahead of its June 6th release date, the studio announced today during IGN Fan Fest. As it did during the development of Diablo II: Resurrected, Blizzard will host an early access weekend before giving everyone the chance to see the new game. The early access weekend will take place between March 17th and March 19th, and will only be open to those who have pre-ordered Diablo IV. A week later, the open beta begins on March 24th and is open to everyone.

The previews will be available on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Both will include access to the same amount of content. Specifically, you’ll get the chance to play through the game’s prologue and first act. That’s the same part of the game Engadget saw late last year. Blizzard promised to share more information about the Diablo IV open beta during a livestream the studio plans to air on February 28th.

Valve is giving Steam Deck users with slow internet connections or bandwidth caps a new way to install games on their devices. The latest Steam and Steam Deck betas add local network game transfers, a feature that allows you to copy existing files from one PC to another over a local area network. Valve says the tool can reduce internet traffic and lessen the time it takes to install games and updates since you can use it to bypass the need to connect to a Steam content server over the internet.

“Local Network Game Transfers are great for Steam Deck owners, multi-user Steam households, dorms, LAN parties, etc,” the company points out. “No more worries about bandwidth or data caps when all the files you need are already nearby.” Once you’ve installed the new software on your devices, Steam will first check if it can transfer a game installation or set of update files over your local network before contacting a public Steam content server. If at any point one of the devices involved in the transfer is disconnected from your local network, Steam will fall back to downloading any necessary files from the internet.

By default, the feature is set to only work between devices logged into the same Steam account, but you can also transfer files between friends on the same local area network. It’s also possible to transfer to any user on the same network, which is something you would do during a LAN tournament. Valve has published a FAQ with more information about local network game transfers, including details on some of the limitations of the feature, over on the Steam website.

Dead by Daylight features a roster full of memorable killers. If horror icons like Freddy Krueger and Pyramid Head aren’t your thing, you can turn to more original additions like Ji-woon, a K-pop star turned serial killer. The game’s newest killer fits in that latter mold. Adriana Imai, aka The Skull Merchant, is a wealthy tech executive who, when she’s not eliminating competition like any good monopolist, uses the skulls of her past victims to craft aerial drones to hunt her next kill. A bit on the nose? Definitely, but she looks to add something new to a game that has been around since 2016.

The Skull Merchant’s power, Eyes in the Sky, allows her to send up to four drones to scout for the survivors she’s tasked with eliminating. Once Imai finds her targets, she can use a hand claw to eliminate them. Alongside Imai, Dead by Daylight developer Behavior Interactive is adding two new survivors as part of the game’s upcoming “Tools of Torment” update. Thalita and Renato Lyra are siblings who hail from Brazil. Before they had the misfortune of being tossed into the hellscape that is Dead by Daylight's world, Thalita and Renato owned a kite-flying business that mentored kids in their local community. The two come with teamwork perks that prompt cooperative play.

Tools of Torment won’t introduce a new map, but it will come with a tweak to the game’s existing Shelter Woods arena that adds The Skull Merchant’s hunting ground. You can play the update starting on March 7th when it arrives on PC and consoles.