Sony has been putting a bigger emphasis on accessibility in its first-party PlayStation games over the last few years with the inclusion of extensive options in the likes of The Last of Us: Part II, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Horizon Forbidden West. When it eventually arrives, God of War: Ragnarok will be no exception. To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Sony has detailed some of the options.

"Not only have we redesigned our UI to allow for more flexibility and readability, but we have also rebuilt controller remapping from the ground up and added more customization to our combat and interaction systems," Santa Monica Studio lead UX designer Mila Pavlin wrote in a PlayStation Blog post. "We have retained all our accessibility features from 2018's God of War and expanded upon them to include more than 60 ways to adjust gameplay to best suit your style and needs."

Among the settings is a customizable high-contrast mode. Players will be able to add a color layer to characters, targets, enemies and various items to make them stand out from the background. You'll be able to adjust the individual colors for each category and desaturate the background to help make the objects more visible. Pavlin notes that the visibility of traversal paint (perhaps referring to the environmental markers that show players where to go) and special effects can be enhanced in this mode too.

Some of the accessibility options added to the PC version of God of War will be included in the sequel. Those include auto sprint, an always-on reticle (which can reduce motion sickness by providing a persistent focal point) and a way to toggle aiming and blocking.

Subtitles and captions are being upgraded with more size and color display options and a way to blur the background behind the text box. There will be expanded captions for sound effects and directional indicators for critical gameplay information, including for puzzles that have sound cues.

The features also include settings for other UI text elements and icon sizes, in-depth controller remapping (including the ability to set shortcuts for more complex moves on the touchpad) and traversal assistance. A new feature for the God of War series, and one that's been included in games elsewhere, is a way to reorient Kratos toward the next story objective while not in combat with the press of a button.

These are just some of the accessibility settings that will be included in the game. "We can’t wait to tell you details about our other categories of accessibility features like combat/aim assists, puzzle/minigame assists, HUD adjustments, camera tuning, auto pick up and much more," Pavlin wrote.

To underline how important the accessibility features are, Sony has revealed them before even announcing the God of War: Raganrok release date. It's expected to arrive on PS4 and PS5 this year. Showing the accessibility options now suggests those are at least close to being finished. Hopefully, that means Sony won't have to delay the game again.

In the meantime, Sony has released an audio description version of the God of War: Raganrok reveal trailer from last year's PlayStation Showcase. If you're interested, you'll need to go to YouTube to watch it due to the age restriction settings.

All GeForce Now users can play Fortnite via NVIDIA's cloud gaming service, including those with iOS and Android devices. The company started testing the game on the platform in January. It says more than 500,000 people tried it out across "hundreds of mobile device types." The full launch of Fortnite on GeForce Now means that there's no longer a waitlist and anyone can drop into a match. 

Feedback from beta testers helped NVIDIA optimize the touch controls and menu system. To thank them, it's giving everyone who signed up for the beta a three-day trial for GeForce Now's Priority plan. That offers longer game sessions than those who use the free version, along with improved visuals and access to premium servers. A three-day trial isn't exactly the most generous perk, but it's better than nothing.

For the time being, the only way to access Fortnite on iOS (at least without playing a console or PC remotely) is through cloud streaming. The game is also available for free through Xbox Cloud Gaming. You won't need an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription if you go with that option.

Apple and Google pulled Fortnite from their mobile app storefronts in August 2020 amid a dispute with Epic Games. While Android users have still been able to sideload it, iOS players were effectively iced out until the cloud gaming options came into play.

Google's Russian division submitted a notice of intention to declare bankruptcy after officials seized its bank account. That "has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.

Like many other companies, Google suspended most of its commercial activities in Russia following the country's invasion of Ukraine in February. Despite that and the bankruptcy filing, it will continue to provide Russians with access to free services such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Android for the time being.

In May last year, Russia fined Google around $82,000 for failing to delete thousands of pieces of content it deemed to be illegal. Authorities then fined the company approximately $98 million in December for similar reasons. That was estimated to be around 5.7 percent of Google's 2021 turnover in Russia.

In recent months, telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor has been pressuring YouTube to lift restrictions on access to Russian media. A Russian TV channel reported last month that bailiffs seized around 1 billion rubles (approximately $15 million) from Google after it declined to restore the station's access to its YouTube account.

While Russia has blocked many other platforms and services, including Google News, it doesn't currently have plans to prevent users in the country from accessing YouTube. It said this week that residents would likely suffer as a result of such a move. Reutersreported that the streaming platform has around 90 million Russian users. 

Russia's minister for digital development also said that, despite testing its own, closed-off version of the internet, the country plans to stay connected to the global network.

A lawsuit has been filed against Apple alleging that a boy suffered hearing damage when using his AirPods Pro. A couple from Texas filed the suit, NBC News reports. According to the suit, their then 12-year-old son (referred to as "B.G.") was using AirPods to watch something on his iPhone at a low volume when he received an Amber Alert.

The alert "went off suddenly, and without warning, at a volume that tore apart B.G.’s ear drum, damaged his cochlea and caused significant injuries," the suit said. The boy's parents say he suffered from dizziness, vertigo, nausea and tinnitus following the incident in 2020 and that he'll need to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life.

They claim AirPods don't "automatically reduce, control, limit or increment notification or alert volumes to a safe level that causes them to emit" and that Apple doesn't provide instructions to limit the volume of alerts to prevent hearing damage. The couple argues that Apple hasn't fixed the problem and if it wasn't aware of the issue, it should have known.

Other Apple users have complained about AirPod volume spikes on the company's support website. Engadget has contacted Apple for comment.

Which of these has greenlit a documentary about HQ Trivia?

• Netflix

• CNN

• Quibi

If you read the headline and correctly chose CNN, congratulations! You've won some internet points, I guess.

An untitled documentary about the trivia app that everyone seemed to be playing a few years ago is scheduled for a 2023 release. It's based on a podcast by The Ringer called Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia. As Deadline reports, CNN has lined up a director, Salima Koroma (Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street). 

HQ Trivia, which was built by the creators of Vine, debuted in August 2017 and it initially ran two live trivia games per day. The concept was pretty simple. Answer several questions correctly in a row and you'd split the prize pot. Along with the chance to win cash through a mobile app, charismatic main host Scott Rogowsky helped turn HQ Trivia into a phenomenon. At one point, more than 2.3 million people were playing the game simultaneously.

The good times didn't last, however. Co-founder Colin Kroll died in 2018, while Rogowsky departed in 2019 to host a baseball show on DAZN. The app ran out of money in early 2020 and shut down, though it returned a month later thanks to the help of an anonymous investor.

HQ Trivia is still around, though it now runs just one game per week. The latest edition had a commendable 21,000 players. However, at $1,500, the prize was a far cry from the $300,000 the app offered at one point when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a guest host.

It also emerged during Warner Bros. Discovery's upfront presentation that Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico is moving to CNN. The docuseries was initially a CNN+ exclusive, but the high-profile streaming service was killed less than a month after its debut.

TikTok is rolling out a feature that will make it easier for users to give appropriate credit to a creator who inspired one of their videos. A new button that's rolling out over the next few weeks will allow you to tag, mention and credit a video in the description.

Users have long been able to tag each other, but this is a bigger push to encourage them to give proper credit to the original work. When you riff on someone else's dance move, joke, meme or audio, adding attribution for their TikTok will be more straightforward.

After you create or edit a TikTok, you'll see a new "video" icon on the posting page. Tap that, and you'll be able to choose a video that you've favorited, liked or posted, or that shares the same sound as your TikTok. Once you pick a video that inspired you, TikTok will add it as a mention in the caption. The app will explain the crediting feature after you tap the video icon for the first time. Users will also be notified when one of their videos is tagged in this way.

TikTok

"Today, we're introducing new tools to better enable creator credit and equitable attribution for our creator community and content originators," Kudzi Chikumbu, TikTok's creator community director, wrote in a blog post. "These features are an important step in our ongoing commitment to investing in resources and product experiences that support a culture of credit, which is central to ensuring TikTok remains a home for creative expression."

Attribution (or lack thereof) is a thorny issue on TikTok and other platforms. Last June, many Black creators on TikTok went on strike. They stopped sharing dance challenges and instead called out the lack of credit they were receiving in an attempt to gain more recognition.

Rick Lewis, for instance, appeared in one TikTok as though they were about to share a dance they created for a Megan Thee Stallion song, before flipping the bird at the camera and switching to a caption that read "Sike. This app would be nothing without Black people." Their TikTok, inevitably, was co-opted by another creator, who racked up nearly a million views (twice as many as Lewis' original) with their spin on it.

The move follows the rollout of the YouTube Shorts remix feature, which automatically includes attribution for the original video's creator. TikTok's approach, however, will require users to manually add credit for the original work.

Meanwhile, Chikumbu says TikTok is working to lift up the creators of trends through initiatives like its Originators series. The Creator Portal also stresses the importance of including proper attribution for trend originators, including tips on how to find them.

HP is sprucing up its gaming laptop lineup with an upgrade for an existing model and the addition of a new system. The company is refreshing the Omen 16, which it introduced almost exactly a year ago, with thermal upgrades.

The cooling optimizations include a fifth heat pipe and fourth outflow vent. HP said it found in testing that these can reduce GPU hinge and bottom SSD temperatures by three percent and 14 percent, respectively, while making the laptop five percent quieter. As such, GPU and CPU performance has been boosted, the company claims.

A Dynamic Power feature in the Omen Gaming Hub can help with that as well. HP says that, using a built-in IR thermopile sensor, it can monitor CPU and GPU capacity in real time and allocate power as needed. Not only will this optimize in-game framerates, according to the company, it should boost CPU performance by up to 36 percent compared with the 2021 Omen 16.

HP

The laptop can house up to an Intel Core i9-12900H series CPU or AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX Mobile Processor. On the graphics front, the Omen 16 will support up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti or AMD Ryzen RX 6650M. You'll also be able to trick out the machine with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and up to a 2TB SSD.

There are multiple display options as well, topping out at a 1440p 165Hz IPS screen with 3ms response time and 100 percent sRGB color gamut. Other features include a keyboard with per-key RGB lighting and a white color option for the shell.

Engadget Senior Reporter Sam Rutherford got some hands-on time with the new Omen 16:

Meanwhile, HP is expanding its mid-tier Victus line (which was also introduced last year) with a new model. The Victus 15 is joining the 16-inch version and a desktop system. Display options include a 1080p 144Hz screen with Eyesafe low-blue light tech.

You can have up to an Intel Core i7-12700H or AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU with 16GB of RAM. On the GPU side, the Victus 15 supports up to a GeForce RTX 3050 Ti or Radeon RX 6500M. You can also have up to 1TB of SSD storage.

HP

HP said it also made improvements to the thermals with this model. The Victus 15 has four-way airflow and a dual heat pipe design. The company claims these provide a seven percent overall airflow improvement and a 146 percent inlet vent area improvement over the previous model.

The Victus 15 will be available in three color options: mica silver, performance blue and ceramic white. It will have a standard backlit keyboard as well.

Both of the laptops come with Omen Gaming Hub software, which has a new optimization feature that can free up system resources and make adjustments to low-level operating system settings to max out performance.

The systems will both be available this summer from HP's website and other retailers. The Omen 16 will start at $1,200, while the Victus 15 will have a base price of $800.

The first Overwatch 2 PvP beta just wrapped up today, and Blizzard is already preparing to reveal what's next for the game with an event on June 16th. Details about what to expect are fairly thin for now, though the studio will provide some info on the next PvP beta as well as its plan for the coming months.

Blizzard could be hoping to use the event to address some of the criticism about the first beta. Along with new hero Sojourn and four fresh maps, the beta introduced another game mode, an upgraded game engine, major changes to many heroes and, most significantly, a shift in the number of team members from six to five.

I loved the beta, for the most part (I'm not a fan of the revamped scoreboard at all). It was only a slice of what Overwatch 2 will eventually become, but it still felt fresh. However, some critics felt that the beta wasn't enough after two years without significant content updates for the original game. Others suggested it was effectively a big patch.

"Overwatch as a world, as a universe, is deeply personal to the team; something that we pour our time, creative energies and passion into," game director Aaron Keller wrote in a letter to fans. "It can be scary putting something that means so much to you out there for other people to look at. Especially when you know that it’s not finished and you’re asking for people’s real and valid criticisms of what you’ve made. But the reason we do it is important — to make a better game, and it’s our players and our community that make it possible."

The Overwatch 2 team said it focused on testing specific elements in the first beta, such as the new maps, shift to 5v5, balance and stability of the build and servers. It promised that more features, heroes and maps will be introduced in upcoming betas. Blizzard will surely try to convince the doubters that it's on the right track with Overwatch 2, hopefully by revealing some more major updates next month. 

In the meantime, a new event just started in the original game, offering the chance to snag some new versions of fan-favorite skins and play some limited-time modes. That could help players pass the time until the next beta, whenever that may start.

Hyundai's Genesis brand is now taking orders for its first electric vehicle, the GV60. The EV, which follows the G80 hybrid, starts at $58,890 and comes with three years of 30-minute charging sessions at Electrify America stations at no extra cost.

US sales will be limited at the outset, however. To begin with, the GV60 will only be available for purchase at select retailers in California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.

The EV will be available in two dual-motor trims, Advanced AWD and Performance AWD. It includes a feature called Face Connect, which will allow drivers to lock and unlock their vehicle using facial recognition if they really want to. The GV60 has a near infra-red camera that can scan the driver's face even in low light and takes advantage of deep learning tech to confirm the person's identity.

Face Connect can register two drivers and it supports individual profiles for them. Using the facial recognition system, the GV60 can automatically adjust the heads-up display, seat, steering wheel, side mirrors and multimedia based on that person's preferences and settings. Other features include Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Bang & Olufsen audio, four USB-C ports and a way to start the engine using your fingerprint.

The GV60 Advanced AWD has 74 kW front and 160kW rear motors that can deliver 314 horsepower. Genesis says the 77.4 kWh battery provides an estimated range of 248 miles.

The Performance AWD model, which starts at $68,980, has the same battery but a lower estimated range of 235 miles. That's because it's more powerful, with a 160kW on the front as well. The EV can deliver 429 horsepower, rising to 483 HP when the boost mode is active.

The higher-end model also supports Genesis Digital Key 2 with ultra-wideband tech, which works with a compatible iPhone, Apple Watch or Samsung phone. It pairs with Apple Wallet and Samsung Pass and allows owners to digitally share keys with other people.

Genesis has said all its new models will be EVs by 2025 and its vehicle lineup will be fully electrified five years after that. Later this year, Hyundai will start building EVs in the US with the Genesis G70.

Behaviour Interactive has shed some light on what's ahead for its massively popular horror franchise Dead by Daylight. One of the more surprising announcements was for a spinoff game that will take the horror-heavy series in a completely new direction — it's a dating sim.

I Love You, Colonel Sanders! developer Psyop is working on the visual novel, which is called Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim. Instead of desperately trying to avoid killers like The Trapper and The Spirit, you'll be able to flirt with them on Murderer's Island. Just don't expect to hook up with licensed characters like Pyramid Head or Sadako from The Ring.

Behaviour says the stories you'll discover in Hooked on You won't be canon, though they'll offer a blend of humor, romance and — since this is a DBD game after all — horror. The studio notes that many DBD fans have been asking for a dating sim set in that universe. They won't have to wait too long to play it, either. Hooked on You will arrive on Steam this summer.

A ton of other DBD news has emerged ahead of the game's sixth anniversary, including details about the next chapter, called Roots of Dread. It includes a new map called Garden of Joy, which is not quite as euphoric as its name suggests.

The latest terrifying killer, The Dredge, is an amorphous mass of limbs that can teleport between lockers to catch survivors unaware. Roots of Dread also introduces a new survivor named Haddie Kaur. PC players can try the chapter on the Public Test Build (PTB) today. It'll arrive on all platforms on June 7th.

Looking slightly further ahead, Behaviour announced a couple more upcoming crossovers, including an unexpected one with Attack on Titan. The studio says fans have been asking for content based on anime and manga. The first partnership of its kind will soon introduce 10 Attack on Titan-inspired outfits for DBD killers and survivors. Among them are an Eren Yeager skin for Dwight, a Hange-inspired look for Zarina and an Armored Titan outfit for The Oni.

Behaviour Interactive

In addition, DBD is delving back into the world of Resident Evil with another chapter based on that classic franchise. Nemesis, Jill Valentine and Leon S. Kennedy arrived last June, and more characters from the series will join them later this year as part of the Resident Evil: Project W chapter.

Elsewhere, Dead by Daylight Mobile is getting a major update that will include changes to leaderboards, social systems, the control layout and visual performance. The activities and rewards systems are being revamped too. The update recently debuted in Japan. It will hit the US in a closed beta in the next few weeks before a broader rollout.

Some changes are on the way to the core PC and console game as well. Behavior says it will soon rework around 40 killer and survivor perks to freshen things up. A new system to get folks into games faster will reward those who queue up for whichever role (survivor or killer) has a smaller player count.

Meanwhile, starting today on the PTB, players can try a useful new preset feature. You can create custom loadouts with preferred perks and outfits for killers and survivors. That could help speed things up before you start a match.