Artifact, the personalized news curation app from Instagram's co-founders, no longer has a waitlist. The app is live in the Apple App Store in most English-speaking markets, as well as on Android. Starting today, you'll no longer need a phone number to use Artifact unless you want to create an account and move to a different device. 

In addition, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger's team has added more features, including a social element. There's now the option to upload your contacts to see if a certain article has gained traction with your friends. A badge will appear next to an article that's popular enough among your contacts.

Systrom told TechCrunch that you can't see which of your specific friends have read a story or how many. There's a threshold before the badge appears too, so you won't be able to just upload a single contact and use the feature to track what they're reading. These, apparently, are privacy considerations, but they overlook the fact that you'll need to upload your contacts' details to use it.

In another time, Artifact might have tapped into Twitter to see what the people you're following are reading (akin to the Top Articles feature for Blue subscribers). But with Elon Musk severely restricting Twitter's APIs, that may no longer be viable.

Eventually, Artifact will have a way for users to share and comment on articles in the app. The beta version already has a Discover feed of things people are sharing. Naturally, users can like and comment on those shared articles.

The app now has a stats feature that visualizes the categories you've been reading most often, as well as the publishers you've been reading the most. Artifact is grouping articles into more narrowly defined topics as well. Meanwhile, you can now indicate when you don't like an article or publisher and the app will show you less of that. It's possible to block publishers too.

I've been using Artifact for a few weeks and I'm enjoying it so far. Unsurprisingly, the suggestions have become more attuned to my tastes the more I use it and tell it what I don't want to see. It reminds me a bit of Facebook's old Paper app, my favorite thing Meta has built to date. Artifact doesn't have anything like the social graph of Facebook, but given that the Instagram guys are behind it, it's hard to bet against their new app finding success.

Since it started opening up its generative AI-powered chatbot in Bing earlier this month, Microsoft has granted more than a million people access to a preview of the tool, while millions more are on the waitlist. Until now, the only way to access the chatbot has been through the Edge desktop browser. But Microsoft is already bringing it to more products, services and devices.

Starting today, those with access to the chatbot through their Microsoft account can use it on the Edge and Bing mobile apps for Android and iOS. Tapping the Bing button at the bottom of the namesake mobile app will start a chat session. In the Edge mobile app, you can fire up the chatbot from the homepage.

On top of that, you can start using the chatbot in Skype. Users can converse with it one-on-one or add it to a group chat. You might use the chatbot to help plan a trip and let everyone else see the suggestions at the same time, or settle a debate by asking it to clarify which movies an actor has appeared in over the last decade. It can translate information between more than 100 languages too.  

There's also another way to use the chatbot. Microsoft has added voice control on both mobile and desktop. While it's early days for the chatbot, it could finally spell the end for Cortana after years of the voice assistant gradually fading into the background.

Microsoft notes that it could (and probably will) bring the chatbot to other apps, such as Teams,. However, it said that it's still fine-tuning the chatbot, which has run into a number of speed bumps after more people got their hands on it.

Microsoft has expanded the Xbox Game Pass family plan to six more countries. Folks in Chile, Hungary, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden can now sign up for a membership that allows up to five friends and family members in the same country to access Game Pass Ultimate features via a single subscription. This is the first expansion of the Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan, which Microsoft debuted in Colombia and Ireland last summer.

There are a few things worth keeping in mind if you're in one of those countries and you're interested in the plan, which offers access to a library of hundreds of PC, console and cloud games and has other benefits. The primary account holder will be able to convert their existing plan based on the monetary value of the time they have left. A full month of an Ultimate subscription equates to 18 days of Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family access, for instance. People who are invited to join a group can't convert their remaining Game Pass time, however. Those with an Xbox All Access payment plan can't join a friends and family group.

Pricing varies by country. A good rule of thumb is that, based on the conversion rates, a regular Game Pass Ultimate subscription costs about three-fifths as much as the family plan. Given the US Game Pass Ultimate pricing, the family plan costs the equivalent of $25 per month. Split that cost between five people, and that's just $5 per month per person for Game Pass Ultimate access — around the same price as a single full game purchase each per year.

There's no sign of Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan coming to North America, the UK or elsewhere more broadly just yet. However, it's clear that Microsoft is interested in getting as many people as possible to sign up for Game Pass in one way or another, so it's likely the plan will expand to more territories down the line.

Microsoft has struck a 10-year deal with NVIDIA to bring Xbox games to the GeForce Now streaming service. The company's president, Brad Smith, made the announcement at a press conference in Brussels, where he, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan, Activision Blizzard head Bobby Kotick and other prominent figures attended a European Commission hearing over Microsoft's proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard.

Smith said that, if the deal goes through, Activision Blizzard games like the Call of Duty series will be available on GeForce Now as well. The publisher removed its titles from the cloud gaming service in 2020. Smith's GeForce Now announcement came hours after he confirmed that Microsoft will bring Xbox games to Nintendo platforms under a binding 10-year deal — and Activision Blizzard titles if the acquisition closes. NVIDIA is now supporting the Activision Blizzard deal, Smith said.

“Xbox remains committed to giving people more choice and finding ways to expand how people play,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in a statement. “This partnership will help grow NVIDIA’s catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games. We are excited to offer gamers more ways to play the games they love.”

Users will need to buy copies of games from the Xbox PC, Steam or Epic Games stores to play them on GeForce Now. It's not clear when Xbox games will be available to stream through the service, which has more than more than 25 million users. However, NVIDIA said it and Microsoft "will begin work immediately to integrate Xbox PC games into GeForce Now."

The agreement will afford players another way to stream Microsoft's games from the cloud almost anywhere that they have a sturdy enough internet connection. Currently, Xbox Cloud Gaming (which requires a Game Pass Ultimate subscription) is the main way to do that. The NVIDIA deal is an attempt by Microsoft to placate regulators' concerns over the Activision takeover by showing that Xbox Cloud Gaming won't be the only exclusive way to stream its games.

Earlier this month, the UK's competition regulator said that the proposed $68.7 billion Activision acquisition could result in a "substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles" and "harm UK gamers." The Competition and Markets Authority found that Microsoft already had a 60-70 percent share of the cloud gaming market and that, should the deal go through, it would "reinforce this strong position." In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger.

Sony has revealed when its first State of Play showcase of 2023 will take place. You'll be able to watch the stream at 4PM ET on February 23rd on PlayStation's Twitch and YouTube channels.

Don't expect too much in the way of news on big first-party games for PlayStation 5, such as Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Sony says the State of Play will include fresh looks at "some anticipated" third-party games, as well as a "first glimpse" at five titles on the way to PlayStation VR2 later this year — hopefully including Half-Life: Alyx. As a reminder, the impressive but pricey VR headset arrives this week.

Sony will round out the showcase with a deep dive into Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. You'll get to check out more than 15 minutes of gameplay and other details about the Batman: Arkham Knight followup, which can be played either solo or with up to three other people and is scheduled to land on May 26th.

Horror movie powerhouse Blumhouse is getting into video games. The company behind hits like M3GAN, Get Out, The Purge and Insidious is opening a production and publishing division that will work on original horror games for PC, consoles and mobile.

“We’re in the scary story business. We do films, we do TV and there is this massive, growing segment in media and entertainment called gaming,” Blumhouse president Abhijay Prakash told Bloomberg. “The space is hundreds of billions of dollars; we’re in a great position to try and access it.”

As with the film side of the production company, Blumhouse Games will keep the budgets modest. It plans to release games that cost under $10 million to make. Rather than adapting its own movies (something Blumhouse has tried in the past) into games, the company will look for projects that are in development and offer studios financial support, creative insight and the Blumhouse name to slap on their titles.

Veteran game producer Zach Wood — who was recently involved in Prey: Mooncrash and Redfall — will run the creative side of Blumhouse Games. Don Sechler, a former PlayStation executive who worked closely with indie studios, will oversee the operational and financial aspects.

It's hardly the first time that a movie studio has opened a gaming division. Disney used to have one, as did Lucasfilm (which now licenses its properties to external developers). Annapurna Interactive has perhaps set the template for Blumhouse Games to follow, though. The games division of Annapurna Pictures has an excellent track record as an indie publisher, having released the likes of What Remains of Edith Finch, Florence, Donut County, Outer Wilds, If Found..., Neon White, Stray and Sayonara Wild Hearts over the last six years.

Pokémon fans have something to look forward to early next week. The latest Pokémon Presents event is slated for February 27th (that's Pokémon Day, fact fans) at 9AM ET. As is often the case with these livestreams, The Pokémon Company hasn't given too much away about what's in store. However, it did say the livestream will run for around 20 minutes. You'll be able to watch it on The Official Pokémon YouTube channel.

The smart money is on news about paid expansions or other updates to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which arrived in November. The pair were in rough shape when they debuted and Game Freak and Nintendo have been working to resolve the technical issues. Still, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet sold more than 10 million copies between them in the first weekend (making it the fastest-selling game launch in Nintendo’s history) and over 20 million by the end of 2022. So, there's clearly a large audience that would lap up DLC.

Given how recently Pokémon Scarlet and Violet dropped and the buggy nature of the games, it may be a little too early to reveal the next mainline entries in the series. It's possible that we may learn details about Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Pokémon games coming to Nintendo Switch through the Switch Online service. This would make sense, as Pokémon Day marks the anniversary of the first games in the series — Pokémon Red and Green debuted in Japan on February 27th, 1996. The stream also may include details on updates to games like Pokémon Masters Ex, Pokémon Unite, Pokémon TCG Live and Pokémon Go.

Speaking of Pokémon Go, this past weekend saw developer Niantic ask players to stay away from a public park in Las Vegas unless they bought a $30 pass to join an event. An extra 17,000 people who did not pay for the event are said to have shown up, leading to spotty connections and a disrupted experience for many. Niantic offered players who paid for a ticket some in-game goodies to make up for the issues.

Over the 14 years since it debuted, Google Chrome has increasingly become a resource hog, vacuuming up more and more of your system's memory and battery life with seemingly reckless abandon. At long last, Google is doing something to make the browser less of a strain on your computer. As part of Chrome 110 for Windows, Mac and Chromebook desktops, the company is rolling out memory and energy saver modes.

The features, which Google announced in December, are both enabled by default. You can turn them off from the Performance section of the Chrome settings.

Memory Saver puts inactive tabs on ice to free up RAM for other pages and apps. When you click on a frozen tab, you'll be able to continue from where you left off. As Android Police notes, a speedometer icon in the address bar will show that the tab was inactive and now it's in use again. There's the option to exempt certain sites from Memory Saver too. Google claims that the feature reduces Chrome's memory usage by up to 30 percent. You know what else would help? Closing tabs you aren't using!

Energy Saver, meanwhile, can start limiting background activity, video frame rates and animated effects when you're using Chrome and your laptop or Chromebook's battery level drops below 20 percent. It's also possible to configure the feature to kick in as soon as you unplug the charger to improve efficiency. When Energy Saver is active, you'll see a leaf icon next to the address bar, not to mention fewer visual effects in the tab you're using.

It's perhaps not a huge surprise that Sonos has more speakers on the way, but a new report reveals what the company's next models probably look like, as well as some of the specs and approximate pricing. The Sonos Era 300 and 100 are slated to arrive in late March, according to The Verge. The latter is said to effectively be a replacement for the Sonos One, which has been around since 2017.

The Era 100 looks similar to the One, though it has a more spherical design. The physical controls, meanwhile, appear to be on an indented bar. The Era 100 could be a little more expensive than the $219 One (Sonos is said to have bandied around a price of $250), but it reportedly has extra features, such as Bluetooth audio and USB-C line-in support. It's believed that the Era 100 won't have upward-firing drivers, though it should build on the Sonos One's performance by including a second tweeter (to help deliver stereo audio) and larger mid-woofer for stronger bass.

Sonos

The drum-style Era 300, meanwhile, appears to have similarly indented controls and seems to be designed with spatial audio in mind. It reportedly has six drivers. The Verge indicated that, when a pair of the Era 300 speakers are combined with the Arc or Beam (Gen 2) soundbar — used as rear surround speakers in this case — they'll deliver Atmos surround sound with upward-firing audio. Like the Era 100, the 300 is said to support Bluetooth audio and USB-C line-in. It's anticipated that the Era 300 will cost around $450, which is less than the Sonos Five.

While the speaker reportedly supports spatial audio from Amazon Music Unlimited, it's believed that Sonos has not reached an agreement to stream Apple Music’s Dolby Atmos tracks directly on an Era 300. There are workarounds involving an Apple TV 4K and Sonos' soundbars, though for the time being, it seems that standalone Apple Music Dolby Atmos playback will remain an exclusive HomePod feature.

Both Era speakers are said to have WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 and AirPlay 2 support. The report suggests they'll work with Trueplay calibration on Android phones. They'd be the first Sonos devices to do so. 

Meanwhile, it's expected that Sonos will separately sell a line-in adaptor for USB-C audio. It's also understood that you'll need to buy a so-called combo adapter if you want to plug in an Ethernet cable as neither speaker has a built-in port. In any case, we should find out more details about both speakers in the coming weeks.

There's no such thing as having too much storage or too many backups, so it's never a bad idea to pick up storage while it's on sale. There are some good deals on Crucial solid state drives for President's Day, including on the 1TB MX500. That model is 48 percent off at $52, the lowest price we've seen for it to date.

The MX500 is a 2.5-inch drive that will fit into most desktops and laptops. It supports read speeds up to 560MB/s and write speeds up to 510MB/s. There's AES 256-bit hardware encryption to protect your data too. On top of that, the MX500 has integrated power loss immunity — if there's a sudden power outage, the drive should still automatically save what you were working on. There are several MX500 options with storage capacities ranging from 250GB to 4TB, but you'll get the most bang for your buck with the 1TB configuration right now.

Meanwhile, the sale includes a welcome discount on the Crucial P5, which is one of our favorite storage expansion options for the PlayStation 5. The 1TB version is almost half off at $81, though you'll need to pick up a heatsink separately and attach it to the SSD before installing it in your console.

Some of Crucial's external SSDs are on sale too. The 1TB X6, which supports read speeds up to 800MB/s, is $65 ($45 off the regular price). The X8, on the other hand, currently costs $73.09 for 1TB of storage. That model supports read speeds of up to 1,050MB/s. Both drives have drop, shock and vibration protection, according to Crucial.