PlayStation has a busy few weeks ahead with both Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 both set to arrive by the beginning of March. Sony Interactive Entertainment has previewed Horizon Forbidden West extensively over the last several months, and now it's time for a deep dive into Polyphony Digital's racing game in the latest State of Play showcase.

Sony will show off a little over 30 minutes worth of new Gran Turismo 7 PS5 footage and details about the modes and features. Don't expect to learn too much, if anything, about other PlayStation titles in the pipeline (though I'm holding out hope for a teaser for HBO's The Last of Us series).

You can watch the Gran Turismo 7-focused State of Play below at 5PM ET. Gran Turismo 7 is coming to PS4 and PS5 on March 4th.

With Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 and Sifu on the docket for the next couple of months, PlayStation owners already had a bunch of console exclusives to look forward to in the near future. You can now add another one to your calendar. The delayed Ghostwire: Tokyo at last has a firm release date: March 25th.

The paranormal action-adventure game, which is coming to PS5 and PC, was initially supposed to arrive in late 2021, but publisher Bethesda and developer Tango Gameworks pushed it back until this spring. As spotted by Wario64 on Twitter, PlayStation noted the release date in a YouTube video description.

That video, in case you were wondering, is a Ghostwire: Tokyo showcase, which will premiere at 5PM ET on Thursday (for those keeping tabs, that's 24 hours after a State of Play focused on Gran Turismo 7). We'll soon learn much more about the game, in which you'll team up with a spirit to save a desolate Tokyo from a supernatural threat. Those who pick up the deluxe edition will get three days of early access, as well as some bonus items.

Once it's live, you'll be able to watch the showcase below.

Bird is teaming up with Nashville with the aim of filling certain public transit gaps in the community with electric scooters. The company and the city's public transit agency hope to boost adoption of public transportation and eco-friendly transit options.

The two sides will harness WeGo Public Transit’s data and expertise about transit usage patterns as well as Bird's know-how to build their pilot program. Folks traveling to and from some areas of the city "will have consistent and reliable access" to e-scooters, according to Bird. The hope is that residents will opt for a scooter for the last-mile section of their journeys, which are often taken by car.

Bird noted in a press release that transit gaps can prevent people from having easy access to public transportation. Scooters can help those without cars get to and from bus stops and train stations. Bird didn't say when the program will ramp up or how much the scooter rides will cost.

The agreement marks Nashville's first private-public partnership based on expanding access to e-scooters. Bird has operated in the city since 2018. Other micromobility companies have a presence there, including Lime and Unagi.

Public-private partnerships aren't exactly novel for Bird, though. Spain, for instance, forged its first public-private micromobility partnership with the company back in 2020.

Review bombing is a practice in which many people (or a few aggrieved folks with multiple accounts) barrage a product, business or service with negative reviews, usually in bad faith. That can severely damage a small or local business that relies on word of mouth. Google says millions of reviews are posted on Maps every day, and it has laid out some of the measures it employs to stamp out review bombing.

"Our team is dedicated to keeping the user-created content on Maps reliable and based on real-world experience," the Google Maps team said in a video. That work helps to protect businesses from abuse and fraud and ensures reviews are beneficial for users. Its content policies were designed "to keep misleading, false and abusive reviews off our platform."

Machine learning plays an important role in the moderation process, Ian Leader, product lead of user-generated content at Google Maps, wrote in a blog post. The moderation systems, which are Google's "first line of defense because they're good at identifying patterns," examine every review for possible policy violations. They look at, for instance, the content of the review, the history of a user or business account and whether there's been any unusual activity connected to a place (like spikes in one-star or five-star reviews).

Leader noted the machines get rid of the "vast majority of fake and fraudulent content" before any user sees it. The process can take just a few seconds, and if the models don't see any problem with a review, it'll swiftly be available for other users to read.

The systems aren't perfect, though. "For example, sometimes the word 'gay' is used as a derogatory term, and that’s not something we tolerate in Google reviews," Leader wrote. "But if we teach our machine learning models that it’s only used in hate speech, we might erroneously remove reviews that promote a gay business owner or an LGBTQ+ safe space." As such, the Maps team often runs quality tests and carries out additional training to teach the systems various ways some words and phrases are used to strike the balance between removing harmful content and keeping useful reviews on Maps.

Google Maps

There's also a team of folks that manually evaluates reviews flagged by businesses and users. Along with removing offending reviews, in some cases, Google suspends user accounts and pursues litigation. In addition, the team "proactively works to identify potential abuse risks." For instance, it might more carefully scrutinize places linked to an election.

Google often updates the policies depending on what's happening in the world. Leader noted that, when companies and governments started asking people for proof they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 before being allowed to enter premises, "we put extra protections in place to remove Google reviews that criticize a business for its health and safety policies or for complying with a vaccine mandate."

Google Maps isn't the only platform that's concerned about review bombing. Yelp prohibits users from slating businesses for requiring customers to be vaccinated and wear a mask. In its 2021 Trust and Safety report, Yelp said it removed more than 15,500 reviews for violating COVID-19 rules last year.

Before it killed user reviews, Netflix dealt with review bombing issues. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have taken steps to address the phenomenon too.

Rocket League Sideswipe, a mobile spin-off from the hit car soccer game, is getting some new features and modes as part of its second season. Along with the latest free Rocket Pass and season challenges, a volleyball mode will go live in the iOS and Android game at 11AM ET on Wednesday.

The two-on-two mode has no goals. Instead, there's a net in the middle of the arena and a new ball. You'll score when the ball hits the ground on your opponents' side of the net. It's as simple a concept as "get the ball in the other team's goal," but offers a different dynamic to gameplay.

As volleyball arrives, players will need to bid adieu to Hoops, a basketball-style mode that has also been available in Rocket League. Psynoix says that these Extra Modes will cycle in and out of Sideswipe each season, likely to keep things fresh.

There'll be a bunch of new items to unlock in season two, including some Rocket League favorites like the Breakout car and supernova and dueling dragons goal explosions. You'll also have a way to practice against human opponents without worrying about your competitive rank. Casual playlists will arrive today at 7PM ET, ahead of the full season two update.

When the new season starts, Sideswipe will reset all competitive ranks. Players will be rewarded with titles and quick chat stickers that vary depending on their peak rank during the inaugural season.

Psyonix did a great job of translating the full Rocket League experience to a 2D mobile format with Sideswipe. It's a good way for fans to get their car soccer (or volleyball) fix while away from their console or PC, though I've found it easier to play with a controller than touch controls.

The first major update to Ableton Live 11 is now available to all users, bringing with it native support for Apple's M1 chips. Ableton had been beta testing the update and Apple silicon support since September.

The popular music production suite should run more efficiently on M1-powered Macs after users update to Live 11.1. The DAW will no longer need to use Apple's Rosetta 2 emulator, so users will be able to harness more of their computer's power. Tapping into several plugins simultaneously can strain system resources, and native support for M1 architecture may lighten the load on that front too.

Ableton is making other changes in Live 11.1. Among those are improvements to the arrangement view, which make it easier to navigate using arrow keys. You can customize the CPU meter to show both the average and current CPU levels or either of those.

There's a new Shifter audio effect in Live Standard and Suite, which is designed for pitch shifting, frequency shifting and ring modulation. Ableton has added two tools to Max for Live called Align Delay and MIDI Shaper. The former's all about lag compensation and you can use MIDI Shaper to generate modulation.

It's worth bearing in mind that Ableton Live 11 won't update to the latest build automatically. Users will need to log in to Ableton's website and download the new version from there.

The host and editor of Science VS, a podcast owned by Spotify, are no longer making episodes of the show — save for those "intended to counteract misinformation being spread on Spotify." In a letter to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, Wendy Zukerman and Blythe Terrell said their policy would remain in place until "Spotify implements stronger methods to stop the spread of misinformation on the platform."

Zukerman, who is also executive producer of the show, shared a copy of the letter on Twitter. She and Terrell said that, throughout the pandemic, Spotify had given them the resources they needed to publish a show containing accurate information about the coronavirus. "For more than six months, we've been encouraging our listeners to move to Spotify and telling them that this is the company that supports us to create factual episodes that are grounded in science," they wrote. "Spotify's support of Joe Rogan's podcast has felt like a slap in the face."

The pair said that, in an upcoming episode of Science VS, they'll show that information about COVID-19 vaccines is "repeatedly taken out of context" during a discussion between Rogan and Dr. Robert Malone on the former's podcast. "There's plenty of scientific evidence that contradicts some of the claims in the interview — but it's nowhere to be found in the episode," they wrote. "Rogan's show leaves the audience with a skewed and inaccurate view of the COVID-19 vaccines. And Spotify has done little to address this."

Zukerman and Terrell acknowledge that moderating content on a platform as big as Spotify isn't an easy ask, but argue that the company "has a responsibility to do more." They said they'll be examining the effectiveness of strategies that tech platforms are harnessing to tackle misinformation and were willing to share those findings with Spotify.

On Tuesday, the day after tweeting the letter, Zukerman said Spotify was willing to work with Science VS, which "feels like a step in the right direction." Science VS is produced by Gimlet Media, which Spotify purchased in 2019 as part of a major push into podcasts.

There's been a growing backlash against Spotify over claims that Rogan has been accused of spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on his enormously popular podcast. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music from the platform last week in protest, while Brené Brown has put her successful Spotify-exclusive podcasts on hold.

India Arie and Graham Nash (Young's Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate) also said they're removing their music from Spotify. "I find Joe Rogan problematic for reasons other than his Covid interviews," Arie wrote on Instagram. "For me, it’s also his language around race.”

On Sunday, Rogan apologized to Spotify over the backlash and said he'd do more to provide balance and differing opinions on his podcast. Spotify says it has removed more than 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. The company reportedly noted in an internal memo that Rogan's content did not "meet the threshold for removal.”

In a blog post published at the weekend, Ek said Spotify would publish its content guidelines publicly and add a content advisory to podcast episodes that include COVID-19 discussions. He noted that the company hadn't been clear enough about its content policies. Earlier in January, hundreds of doctors, nurses, scientists and educators urged the platform to ""responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation" and adopt a clear policy, in the wake of Rogan's discussion with Malone.

Spotify became the exclusive distributor of The Joe Rogan Experiencein 2020 as part of a multi-year deal worth a reported $100 million. It was the most popular podcast on the platform last year.

HBO Max will soon be available in 15 more countries as part of the platform's gradual global rollout. Folks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia can start using the service starting on March 8th.

Once WarnerMedia flips the switch in those locations, HBO Max will be officially accessible in 61 territories across Europe and the Americas, following its debut in Spain, Andorra and four Nordic nations in October. The service will arrive in six more European countries, including Greece and Turkey, later this year.

Word of the second phase of the HBO Max European rollout comes as AT&T announced more details of its plan to spin off WarnerMedia as a separate company as part of the proposed merger with Discovery. AT&T's shareholders will still own 71 percent of Warner Bros. Discovery (as the new company will be called). They'll receive 0.24 shares for each share of AT&T they own. Existing Discovery shareholders will own around 29 percent of the new endeavor. 

AT&T expects the move to be completed in the second quarter of 2022. There's talk that HBO Max and Discovery+ may be combined into a single service after the deal closes.

Starting today, PS4 and PS5 players can connect their PSN account to Discord. At the outset, that means you'll be able to display your PlayStation game activity on your Discord profile and let friends there see what you're playing — something Xbox players have been able to do since 2018. If you like, you can display your PSN ID on your Discord profile to make it easy for folks to add you as a friend there.

To get started, open the Discord app or website on PC or mobile, then go to the Connections section of the User Settings. If you can connect your PSN account, you'll see a PlayStation icon. Discord is gradually rolling out the feature to everyone, starting with folks in the US, so you might not have access right away.

These are useful features, especially with crossplay becoming more commonplace and friends playing games together on different platforms. If you're an Xbox owner, for instance, you'd be able to hop on Discord and see if your friends are playing Destiny 2 or Rainbow Six Extraction on PC or PlayStation, and hop in to play with them.

Discord

We're starting to see the results of a partnership Sony and Discord announced last May. "Our goal is to bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year, allowing friends, groups, and communities to hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together," Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said at the time. SIE also made a minority investment in the messaging and voice and video chat platform.

Microsoft was previously said to be in talks to buy Discord for at least $10 billion. Other suitors were reportedly interested, though Discord remains an independent company. Still, with so many enormousgamingdeals being agreed already this year, who knows what the future holds?

In the meantime, Discord and Sony are looking at other ways to collaborate. "We’re excited to continue our partnership with PlayStation and explore how we can collectively create great shared experiences for your friends and communities," Discord wrote in a blog post.

MLB The Show 22 will arrive on April 5th and, for the first time in the series, you'll be able to play on Nintendo Switch. There will be full cross-platform support between Switch, PlayStation and Xbox. You'll be able to transfer Road to the Show or Franchise save files between platforms and have access to items across various consoles (though Xbox Series X/S and PS5-exclusive content will remain locked to those systems).

As with last year's edition, which was the first to land on Xbox, MLB The Show 22 is coming to Xbox Game Pass on its release day. That continues an unusual arrangement where a Sony-published title is available to Game Pass members at no extra cost. Subscribers can play via the cloud as well as on consoles.

This year's cover athlete is Los Angeles Angels megastar Shohei Ohtani. The pitcher and designated hitter had an incredible 2021 season, racking up 46 home runs and 156 strikeouts. It's pretty hard to imagine anyone else gracing MLB The Show 22's cover.