Sony is gearing up to roll out the revamped PlayStation Plus in the coming weeks. Ahead of the new tiers being introduced, the company is reportedly placing more demands on certain developers. According to Game Developer, it's asking studios working on games with a price point of at least $34 to create timed trials that last at least two hours.

The report suggests that Sony informed studios of the directive through its developer portal and without advance warning. They can reportedly release their timed trial (which will need to be available for at least a year) up to three months after their game hits the PlayStation Store. The policy is said not to apply to previously released games, titles that will be sold for less than $34 or PlayStation VR2 games.

The highest tier of the overhauled subscription service, PS Plus Premium, will include access to time-limited game trials. Sony started testing such trials on PS5 in October. It granted players access to Death Stranding: Directors Cut for six hours and Sackboy: A Big Adventure for five hours at no extra cost.

While many folks appreciate game demos and being able to try out a title before paying for it, this move will require studios to dedicated precious time and resources to create the timed trials. That'll surely put more strain on smaller developers. 

It's not clear why Sony decided on a $34 threshold for this policy, but there's a case to be made that developers selling games at a higher price point are more likely to be larger studios with more resources. Engadget has contacted Sony Interactive Entertainment for comment.

Sony will be aware it has to make sure PS Plus Premium delivers good value to users. That tier will cost $18 per month, $50 per quarter or $120 per year (the lowest tier is the same as the current version of PS Plus and won't have a price increase).

The new PS Plus service is different from Xbox Game Pass in that none of the tiers will offer first-party games on their release day. Offering trials of many new and recent games on top of a library of several hundred games from every generation of PlayStation may make up for that, at least to some extent.

Samsung has expanded its lineup of T7 portable SSDs with a more rugged version. For one thing, the T7 Shield has improved drop resistance. Samsung says it should be able to survive a fall of 9.8 feet, in part thanks to rubberized exterior protection for the aluminum body. It's also IP65-rated for rain, dust and crush resistance.

The SSD is said to have low heat conductivity and it offers read/write speeds of up to 1,050MB/s and 1,000MB/s, respectively. Samsung says those are the fastest possible speeds for the USB 3.2 Gen2 standard (though the SSD comes with both USB Type C-to-C and Type C-to-A cables). The company claims the T7 Shield is almost 10 times faster than external HDDs and almost twice as fast as SATA-based portable SSDs.

As with other T7 models, the Shield is compact, measuring 88 x 59 x 13 millimeters. It weighs 98 grams. Along with computers, it's compatible with gaming consoles, mobile devices and broadcast cameras. The drive also has hardware encryption.

The T7 and T7 Touch are among our favorite portable SSDs, in part because of their zippy speeds and form factor. This more rugged version could become popular among travelers and action sports enthusiasts.

The T7 Shield has black, beige and blue color options. It's available worldwide today. The 1TB version costs $160, while the 2TB model is $290.

Samsung

The Department of Energy has finalized rules that will block sales of many incandescent light bulbs, The Washington Post reports. The measures bring in stricter efficiency standards, targeting light bulbs that emit less than 45 lumens per watt. Most halogen and incandescent bulbs fall under this distinction.

Officials believe the rules will cut carbon emissions by 222 million metric tons over the next three decades, which is said to be the equivalent of the emissions of 28 million homes. They claim the measures will save American residents around $3 billion per year.

More consumers are opting for LED or fluorescent alternatives, including smart light bulbs. Still, incandescent and halogen options are said to have made up 30 percent of light bulb sales in 2020.

The DoE will start enforcing the rules for manufacturers on January 1st next year. Distributors and retailers will have another seven months to sell off bulbs that don't meet the new standards.

The move reverses a decision by the Trump administration in 2019 to roll back stricter standards for bulbs. The Obama administration established rules that would have blocked sales of inefficient light bulbs as of January 1st, 2020. Several states have established stricter light bulb energy standards, and there have been efforts to do so in other parts of the country.

PlayStation 5 owners will gain access to the long-awaited variable refresh rate (VRR) feature in the coming days. Sony will this week start rolling out a system update that will enable VRR support.

VRR (a feature that's been available on Xbox Series X/S since those consoles launched) improves visual performance by mitigating visual artifacts like screen tearing. It does so by dynamically matching the refresh rate of your TV or monitor to the PS5's output. Sony says VRR can help render scenes faster and reduce input lag.

If your PS5 is connected to a HDMI 2.1 port on a compatible display, VRR will be switched on automatically for supported games. Several titles will receive VRR optimization updates, including Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Astro's Playroom, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Resident Evil Village, Call of Duty: Vanguard, DIRT 5 and Destiny 2.

VRR optimization patches may be released for other games in the future. However, Sony says you'll be able to switch on VRR for any other game. This might cause some issues, depending on the specific title, your TV and the game's graphics settings. You can toggle VRR on or off through the Screen and Video section of the system settings.

If Apple Music and the App Store aren't quite working as normal for you right now, you're not alone. Apple's status page notes that both services are dealing with issues that are impacting all users.

It states that Apple Music users may be experiencing some intermittent issues, which seemingly include song lyrics not being accessible. As for the App Store, Apple simply says users "may be experiencing a problem." The company hasn't provided more details, though Down Detector users started reporting App Store problems at around 9 AM ET.

The Apple Music and App Store problems follow an issue with Apple Pay on Sunday. For just over 40 minutes, Interac card holders were unable to make purchases with Apple Pay. Nor could they add, suspend or remove a card.

Seventeen days after they left Earth, the first fully private space crew has safely returned to terra firma. A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four AX-1 astronauts splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida at around 1:06 PM ET.

The capsule undocked from the ISS at 9:10PM ET on Sunday to begin a 16-hour return journey. Axiom Space, NASA and SpaceX agreed to an adjusted return plan based on the weather forecast at the landing site. The mission ultimately lasted almost twice as long as initially planned. Despite the delay, the return trip went smoothly.

The crew — commander and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría and businessmen Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy — conducted some experiments during their time on the International Space Station. They brought back more than 200 pounds of supplies and scientific materials, including some samples for NASA.

Axiom Space, which operated the AX-1 mission, is expected to launch more private flights to the ISS in the coming years. It will also build the first commercial module at the ISS as well as a connected module containing a film studio and sports arena. Axiom Station is expected to split from the ISS in 2028. It will then operate independently. NASA plans to deorbit the ISS in January 2031 and direct it to a capture trajectory over the Pacific Ocean.

Respawn is set to once again shake up Apex Legends next month when the battle royale's 13th season, called Saviors, gets underway. For one thing, there are major changes on the way to the competitive Ranked system. The studio says the new approach will reward teamwork and skill, as you'll "rise and fall through the ranks together."

A new season means there'll be another playable legend to get to grips with. The next character to join the ranks is called Newcastle. His abilities haven't been fully revealed, but he does have a shield. No word as yet as to whether he's a member of the Toon Army, though he seems to be Bangalore's brother.

Elsewhere, players can expect the Storm Point map to look significantly different after a security protocol is triggered by a monster from the deep. As yet, there doesn't seem to be a major new game mode this time around. Respawn added a big team mode called Control in February, at the start of the current season.

More details about map updates, Newcastle, the overhauled Ranked system and the new battle pass will be revealed in the coming days. Apex Legends: Saviors starts on May 10th.

All the way back at BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard revealed Diablo: Immortal, which would fill in the gaps of the story between Diablo II and Diablo III. However, the fact it was announced as a mobile-only game didn’t exactly go over well with the publisher's hardcore fans (to put it mildly). Fast forward nearly three and a half years and not only does the game have a release date, but Blizzard announced it’ll be available on PC after all.

Diablo: Immortal will arrive on PC, iOS and Android in most parts of the world on June 2nd. Folks in some Asia-Pacific regions will need to wait a few extra weeks. It's a free-to-play title with some optional in-game purchases. The PC version will initially be in open beta, but will have all content and features. All progress and purchases will carry over too.

It will feature cross-play and cross-save support for all platforms, so you should be able to switch between PC and your mobile device with ease. The MMORPG allows players to take on challenges with eight-person parties and it has a faction-based PvP system.

In a blog post, Blizzard says it was of two minds about creating a PC version, which it calls "an experiment." Ultimately, because a large section of fans would likely try to play it through an emulator anyway, the development team decided to create a dedicated PC build.

Unusually for a Diablo game (which are usually point-and-click titles), Diablo: Immortal will have the option of directional keyboard controls. The mobile control system allows for simultaneous movement and attacks, which Blizzard says wouldn't be possible solely through mouse control alone. There's also controller support on PC.

Diablo: Immortal was originally supposed to be released last year. However, Blizzard delayed it to 2022 to add some extra polish, including, evidently, on a PC port.

Word of the Diablo: Immortal release date comes at a particularly busy time for Blizzard. Last week, it announced the next semi-annual expansion for World of Warcraft, while the first closed PvP beta test for Overwatch 2 starts tomorrow.

Parent company Activision Blizzard announced this morning that its Q1 revenue was down 22 percent from the previous year. The company, which is facing lawsuits and accusations alleging harassment and misconduct, is the subject of a pending takeover by Microsoft.

On Earth Day, Twitter announced a ban on ads that promote climate change denial. It said misleading advertising that contradicts scientific consensus on the crisis won't be permitted on the platform under its policy on inappropriate content.

"We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis," leaders from the company's sustainability team wrote in a blog post. "We recognize that misleading information about climate change can undermine efforts to protect the planet."

Twitter says it will assess whether climate change ads break the rules based on reports from authoritative sources, such as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The company added that, in the months ahead, it will share more details about its "work to add reliable, authoritative context to the climate conversations happening on Twitter."

This move builds on some other measures Twitter is taking to address climate change. By the end of 2022, Twitter aims to only be using carbon-neutral power sourcing at its data centers. It also joined the EU climate pact earlier this year. Among other things, Twitter committed to switch to renewable electricity at its leased operations in the bloc and to increase its investments in carbon-removal tech.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has revealed its rollout plan for the overhauled PlayStation Plus service. It's targeting a launch date of May 23rd in select markets in Asia before expanding to Japan on June 1st. The new tiers are then expected to arrive in the Americas on June 13th, followed by Europe on June 22nd.

In addition, SIE is opening up access to cloud streaming in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Republic of Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Folks in those countries and the 19 others where PlayStation Now is currently available will be able to sign up for the Premium tier of PS Plus at launch.

Sony announced the long-rumored PS Plus restructuring in March. The current version of PS Plus will soon be the lowest tier of the updated service. As is more or less the case now, PS Plus Essential will offer online multiplayer access, cloud storage, PSN Store discounts and two claimable games per month (down from the usual three).

The middle tier is PlayStation Plus Extra, which adds a library of 400 PS4 and PS5 games that players can download to their console. At the outset, those are expected to include the likes of Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11 and PS5 exclusive Returnal.

At the highest end is PlayStation Plus Premium, which includes access to another 340 games from PlayStation, PS2 and PSP titles that you can stream or download. PS3 games will be available through cloud streaming. Premium will also offer limited-time game trials and cloud gaming on PC.

In countries where cloud streaming isn't available yet, Sony will offer a Premium tier replacement called PS Plus Deluxe. This will be a bit less expensive than Premium and include downloadable PS1, PS2 and PSP games as well as everything from the Essential and Extra tiers.

US pricing starts at $10 per month, $25 per quarter or $60 per year for PS Plus Essential. Extra costs $15 per month, $40 per quarter or $100 annually. As for Premium, you'll need to pay $18 per month, $50 per quarter or $120 for a year of access. PlayStation Now will be folded into the new PS Plus, and subscribers of that service will be moved to the Premium tier.

Unlike with Microsoft's Game Pass, none of the tiers will offer access to first-party PlayStation games on their release day. However, a year of access to PS Plus Premium costs $60 less than 12 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at the standard price.