Less than a year after announcing the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, Apple reportedly plans to update those devices as early as this fall. Responding to a reader question in his latest Power On newsletter (via 9to5Mac), Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the company is already working on M2 versions of the 14- and 16-inch models.

According to Gurman, the design and features of the two computers are “likely to stay roughly the same” since Apple only redesigned the line last year to add MagSafe charging, more ports and better displays. The primary change will be the addition of M2 versions of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips the company offers through its current models. “Look for much of the focus to be on the graphics side, just like with the standard M2,” said Gurman of the upcoming SoCs. On the 2022 MacBook Air, graphics performance is about 35 percent faster if you go with the 10-core GPU variant. 

Although Apple reportedly hopes to release the new MacBook Pros sometime in the fall, Gurman notes the company could delay them to the spring of 2023. “Given the continued supply-chain challenges, it’s hard to predict exactly when these will hit store shelves,” he said. New Macs are just among a “deluge” of products Apple plans to release over the next year. In another recent newsletter, Gurman said the company was also working on a new HomePod and an extreme sports Apple Watch.

After nearly a decade of work on Warframe and more than five years since it canceled its most recent project, Digital Extremes is working on a new game. On Saturday, the studio announced Soulframe, a free-to-play MMO set in a fantasy world. Outside of an enigmatic teaser trailer, Digital Extremes has shared only a few details about Soulframe.

In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Geoff Crookes said the game draws inspiration from classics The NeverEnding Story and Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Like the latter, Soulframe will explore what happens when humans collide with the natural world. “The conceit [in Soulframe] is that the world itself is a little angry about what’s been done to it, and the grounds underneath tend to shift throughout the day,” Crookes told The Post. “So there’s going to be proceduralism within the cave networks and crevasses and so on underneath the world.”

From a gameplay standpoint, Soulframe primarily focuses on “slow and heavy” melee combat. Despite including “Soul” in the title, Crookes told The Post his team didn’t set out to create a Soulslike when they began work on the project – though it became impossible to ignore FromSoftware’s latest masterpiece. “Elden Ring has absolutely been a subject of some conversation — maybe to do with camera, maybe to do with how excellent their combat pacing is,” said Soulframe co-lead Steve Sinclair. “And you know, screw those guys, because damn, [Elden Ring] was absolutely fantastic.”

Soulframe doesn’t have a release date yet, and both Crookes and Sinclair emphasized the game is still early in development, but like with Warframe, Digital Extremes plans to involve the community in the creation process. So expect frequent behind-the-scenes Twitch streams. Moreover, some fans could receive early access to the game within a year.

Immortality, the next game from Her Story and Telling Lies creator Sam Barlow, has been delayed. Previously scheduled to arrive on PC, Xbox and mobile on July 26th, the game will now launch on August 30th. Barlow announced the delay on Twitter.

"Today we're pushing back the release date for Immortality to August 30th, 2022," he said this week. "It has taken decades for Marissa Marcel's work to find the light of day, so we're happy to spend a month more to ensure the experience is as polished as possible.”

Like Barlow’s past projects, Immortality is a full-motion video game. You’ll need to find out what happened to actor Marissa Marcel by watching lost footage from three films she stared in before her disappearance. Barlow hired Allan Scott and Amelia Gray – best known for work on Queen’s Gambit and Mr. Robot, respectively – to help with the project. Barlow previously hinted Immortality would make its way to other platforms after its initial release.

Most reviews agree: the Nothing Phone 1 is a striking device. But thanks to limited availability, good lucking buying one – especially if you live in the US or Canada. Enter Dbrand. The accessory maker has announced a new “Something” line of skins that promise to transform your iPhone 13 Pro Max, Pixel 6 Pro or Galaxy S22 Ultra.

You might think Dbrand is playing with fire here, and you're probably right. “Some might accuse us of theft. Here's our counter: we stole nothing,” the company says on its website. “That's not theft - it's plagiarism, which is definitely not a crime. We checked,” Dbrand adds after noting it spent “a lot of time” taking apart electronics, an investment the company says makes it “uniquely qualified to rip off an industrial design and ‘creatively reinterpret’ it for other devices.” 

Dbrand is no stranger to these kinds of marketing stunts. At the end of last year, the company made headlines when it stopped selling custom PlayStation 5 faceplates following a cease-and-desist letter from Sony. Days later, the company announced a new version of its “Darkplates” it claimed Sony would not have a legal case against. We wouldn't rule out the possibility that Nothing founder Carl Pei is involved. Pei is widely credited for the guerilla marketing strategy that put OnePlus on the map.  

Something skins are available to buy through Dbrand’s website. You can get one for $24.95. 

Elon Musk’s lawyers allege Twitter is pushing for an unreasonably fast trial over allegations the Tesla and SpaceX CEO improperly ended his $44 billion bid to buy the social media platform, reports Bloomberg. “Twitter’s sudden request for warp speed after two months of foot-dragging and obfuscation is its latest tactic to shroud the truth about spam accounts long enough to railroad defendants into closing,” Musk’s legal team wrote in a complaint filed Friday in response to Twitter’s July 12th lawsuit.

The two sides are pushing for the case to be considered on dramatically different timelines. Noting the deal has an October 24th “drop-dead date,” Twitter asked for a four-day trial that would conclude before the end of September. Meanwhile, Musk’s team says the case should go to trial no sooner than February 13th, 2023. 

“The core dispute over false and spam accounts is fundamental to Twitter’s value,” Musk’s lawyers wrote, reiterating the billionaire’s claim that Twitter falsely represented the volume of bots on its platform. “It is also extremely fact and expert intensive, requiring substantial time, requiring substantial time for discovery.”

Thankfully, neither side will have to wait long to find out when proceedings start. On Friday, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick scheduled a 90-minute hearing for July 19th. The session will see McCormick hear arguments for a September trial.

Removing Chinese equipment from American wireless networks will cost more than anticipated. On Friday, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told Congress the agency needs an additional $3 billion to reimburse carriers that “rip and replace” their Huawei and ZTE infrastructure, reports Reuters.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump signed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, mandating that US telecoms replace any “suspect foreign network equipment” from their networks. The bill also required the FCC to create a program for compensating affected carriers. That same year, the agency estimated it would cost telecoms more than $1.8 billion to comply with the order, though it eventually set aside $1.9 billion for reimbursements.

After receiving 181 applications at the start of 2022, the FCC said US carriers had collectively asked for $5.6 billion to replace all their Huawei and ZTE equipment. On Friday, Rosenworcel said that funding “all reasonable and supported cost estimates” would cost a total of $4.98 billion, indicating the FCC found merit in the majority of claims it received at the start of the year.

"Absent an additional appropriation, the Commission will apply the prioritization scheme Congress specified," Rosenworcel said in a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She added the FCC would begin processing reimbursements “as allocations are issued in the coming days.” Without additional funding from Congress, the FCC only has enough to reimburse companies about 40 percent of their costs.

As of July 1st of this year, Amazon has provided Ring footage to US law enforcement 11 times without user consent or a court order, according to a disclosure shared by Senator Edward Markey on Wednesday. The Massachusetts Democrat sent Amazon a letter last month with questions about the company’s policies related to Ring and its relationships with police. Amazon responded to the letter at the start of July.

The disclosure marks the first time Amazon has shared this kind of information with the public. In its law enforcement guidelines, Ring says it reserves the right to “immediately” respond to police requests in cases where someone could die or suffer serious injury.

“In each instance, Ring made a good-faith determination that there was an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to a person requiring disclosure of information without delay,” wrote Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice-president of public policy, of the 11 videos. Huseman didn’t say the specific footage Ring shared with police.

In his letter, Markey asked Amazon to agree not to accept financial contributions from police or participate in sting operations. The company did not agree to those restrictions. In the past, Ring has actively courted partnerships with law enforcement and even gone so far as to author statements shared by police.

“It’s simply untrue that Ring gives anyone unfettered access to customer data or video, as we have repeatedly made clear to our customers and others,” a Ring spokesperson told Engadget. “The law authorizes companies like Ring to provide information to government entities if the company believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person, such as a kidnapping or an attempted murder, requires disclosure without delay. Ring faithfully applies that legal standard.” 

The news that Amazon shared footage with police without user consent at least 11 times this year is likely to add to the concerns many privacy experts have about the company. In 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported that the Los Angeles Police Department requested footage from Ring of Black Lives Matter protests captured by residential cameras. 

Markey used the disclosure to call on lawmakers to pass the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, a bill he introduced alongside Senator Jeff Merkley and Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley. “As my ongoing investigation into Amazon illustrates, it has become increasingly difficult for the public to move, assemble, and converse in public without being tracked and recorded,” said Markey. “We cannot accept this as inevitable in our country.”

Connected fitness equipment maker Tonal is laying off 35 percent of its workforce, according to CNBC. Like Peloton, the company grew its headcount significantly over the last two years as demand for its product, a home weightlifting system, skyrocketed due to pandemic lockdowns. Before the start of 2020, Tonal employed about 110 people. It now has closer to 750 workers, CEO Aly Orday told CNBC. Orday said the move would help put Tonal on track to start making money within the next few months as it looks to go public.

“As we head into a recession — and many of us believe we’re headed into a recession — it’s really important that we become a business that’s here for the long term,” Orday told the outlet. Tonal will provide affected employees at least eight weeks of severance pay and healthcare benefits through to the end of September. 

Relative to Peloton, Tonal is coming out of the pandemic mostly unscathed. The connected fitness industry’s best-known player laid off 2,800 employees, or about 20 percent of its total workforce, at the start of 2022. More recently, Peloton announced it would no longer build its own equipment.

Netflix has found a partner for its upcoming ad-supported tier. On Wednesday, the company announced it plans to work with Microsoft to expand its subscription offering. In a blog post published by Microsoft, the tech giant said it would provide Netflix with technological and sales expertise. 

As recently as last month, The Wall Street Journal suggested Google and Comcast were among the leading candidates to help Netflix build out an ad-supported tier. On Wednesday, Netflix said it selected Microsoft for the tech giant's "proven ability" to support its customers. "Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members," said Netflix Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters. Not mentioned is the fact that Microsoft doesn't operate a competing streaming service. 

Netflix co-CEO Reed Hasting first revealed the company was exploring cheaper plans this past April. The admission came after Netflix announced that it had lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. At the time, Hastings said the company planned to finalize the details of its plans "over the next year or two." Netflix is scheduled to announce its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday. According to CNBC, the company recently warned Wall Street it may have lost as many as two million subscribers in the past three months. 

Nintendo Japan will provide employees in same-sex domestic partnerships with the same benefits it offers to those in heterosexual unions, even though Japanese law does not currently recognize gay marriages. The company announced the policy in a July 12th update to its corporate social responsibility guidelines that was spotted by Go Nintendo (via Variety).

A new section titled “Introduction of a Partnership System” notes the policy has been in place since March 2021, and that the company has since begun recognizing common-law marriages in the same way as legal marriages. “At Nintendo, we want to create a work environment that supports and empowers each and every one of our unique employees,” the company said.

Additionally, the update notes that Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa sent a note to employees on gender diversity, asking workers to understand that their words and action can cause emotional pain, even if there was no harm intended. Nintendo says it’s also working on implementing new systems and training courses designed to create a more supportive working environment.

Among G7 nations, Japan is the only country that does not recognize same-sex marriage. While LGBT activists have made some breakthroughs in recent years, a court in Osaka upheld the country’s ban this past June. While there’s growing public support for legalizing same-sex marriage, LGBTQ individuals still frequently face discrimination, according to a 2020 survey. Of course, discrimination, particularly the kind that happens in the workplace, is not unique to Japan. You need only look at the all news coming out of Activision Blizzard – and before that Riot Games, Ubisoft and countless other examples – to know that gaming companies frequently fail to protect their most vulnerable employees.