Twenty-eight years after the original Windjammers hit the Neo Geo, the sequel will finally arrive on modern platforms. Windjammers 2 will land on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Stadia on January 20th. It'll be available on Xbox Game Pass and the newly renamed PC Game Pass, as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X/S via backward compatibility.

Windjammers is a souped-up take on Pong in which you try to send a disc past your opponent to score. But as well as simply tossing the disc along a predictable path toward the goal, you can harness curved shots, lobs and character-specific power moves — there's a reason the original was called Flying Power Disc in Japan.

We got some hands-on time with Windjammers 2 a couple of years back and it promises more of the same, albeit modernized for a current-day audience. Developer Dotemu has freshened up the graphics and peppered in some extra mechanics, including dropshots and slapshots. It's the kind of game that'll be easy to pick up and difficult to master.

It's probably just as well that Elden Ring has been delayed from its original release date of January 22nd. I'm not sure how it would be able to compete with the mighty Windjammers 2.

Nintendo is squeezing in one more indie game showcase before the end of the year. The next Indie World Showcase will take place on December 15th at noon ET.

As has been the case for the last fewof these events, the stream will run for around 20 minutes. Given what we've seen from these showcases in the past, you can probably expect to learn about indie hits from other platforms that are coming to Nintendo Switch. After a couple of years without much news about the game, here's hoping for more details about Hollow Knight: Silksong too.

You can watch Nintendo's December Indie World Showcase below.

Toyota now aims to roll out 30 electric vehicles by 2030, expanding on its plan to sell 15 fully electric models by 2025. It gave a taste of the future by previewing a broad range of EV concepts during a presentation.

Among those is a pickup, which could compete with the likes of Ford's F-150 Lightning and Rivian's R1T. As Autoblog notes, the Toyota Pickup EV looks very much like the Toyota Tacoma. As such, there could be an electric option for the next version of that pickup.

Toyota

Other models include a Sports EV and an FJ Cruiser-style Compact Cruiser EV. There are commercial models too, such as the Micro Box and Mid Box. Toyota once again showed off the self-driving e-Palette, which was used to transport athletes during this year's Summer Olympic and Paralympic games. The company pulled them from use at the Paralympics after the EV hit a visually impaired athlete. 

At the higher end of the spectrum, Toyota also revealed a lineup of Lexus electric EV concepts. It said the Electrified Sport should be able to go from 0-60 MPH in just over two seconds and have a range of about 435 miles. The brand also showed off an Electrified Sedan and Electrified SUV.

Toyota

Although Toyota has now committed to spend around $70 billion on electrifying its vehicles, its medium-term projections for EVs are relatively conservative. It expects to sell around 3.5 million EVs per year by 2030, which is around a third of its current volume of vehicle sales. 

By contrast, Volkswagen estimates that, by that time, half of its vehicle sales will be electric models, and by 2040, the majority of its sales in major markets will be EVs. After becoming an early leader in hybrid vehicle tech, Toyota is playing catchup with other automakers in the EV market, so making comparatively muted projections shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

Meanwhile, Toyota recently announced plans to build a $1.29 billion EV battery factory in North Carolina by 2025. The company last month declined to join other automakers, including GM and Ford, in pledging to phase out fossil fuel-powered cars by 2040. However, Lexus plans to only sell EVs by 2035.

All the way back at WWDC, Apple showed off a feature called Universal Control, which will let users control multiple Macs and iPads with a single mouse and keyboard or trackpad. When it released macOS Monterey in October, Apple said that feature and SharePlay would arrive on Macs later in the fall. Although SharePlay is now available on Mac, you'll need to wait a bit longer for Universal Control.

Apple quietly updated its website to state that Universal Control won't be available until spring 2022. The delay, which was spotted by 9to5 Mac, might come as a disappointment to those who were hoping for more seamless connectivity between their devices in the near future. Still, it's better to make sure the feature is working correctly instead of releasing a potentially buggy version.

When it does arrive, the feature will be available on MacBook and Macbook Pro (2016 and later), the 2019 Mac Pro, MacBook Air (2018 and later), iMac (2017 and later) and the 5K Retina 27-inch iMac from late 2015. As for supported tablets, you'll be able to use iPad Pro, iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad (6th generation and later) and iPad mini (5th generation and later) with Universal Control.

You'll need to be logged into iCloud with the same Apple ID on all devices. You can connect them over USB, or you can use Universal Control wirelessly as long as the devices are within 30 feet of each other.

It's a big firmware day for Apple. Not only is the company rolling out updates for iPhone, iPad and HomePod, macOS Monterey‌ 12.1 is now available. Perhaps the most notable new feature is SharePlay, which allows up to 32 people to enjoy the same TV shows, movies, music and livestreams and more in sync with each other on FaceTime calls.

Along with Apple services like TV+, Apple Music and Fitness+, a bunch of third-party apps support SharePlay, including Paramount+, TikTok, Twitch and NBA. Anyone on the call can pause, play, fast forward or rewind the content and Apple will automatically lower the volume of the music or video when someone speaks. You'll be able to share your screen through SharePlay as well.

Apple released SharePlay on iPhone and iPad in October. The company rolled out macOS Monterey on the same day, and said it would bring SharePlay to desktops later in the fall.

Many features Apple brought to iPhone and iPad today have landed on macOS Monterey too. They include support for the $5 per month voice-only plan for Apple Music and a safety setting that warns children when they send or receive an image containing nudity in Messages. The Digital Legacy program lets users denote a trusted contact who can access their iCloud account and personal information when they die, while iCloud+ subscribers can generate unique, random email addresses with the Hide My Email feature in the Mail app.

Elsewhere, Apple has redesigned the memories feature in the Photos app with a new interface, fresh transitions and animations and "multiple image collages." There are more memory types as well, such as extra international holidays, trends over time, ones centered around kids and improved memories for pets.

The company also squished some bugs in macOS Monterey 15.2. It said that, previously, "HDR video playback on YouTube.com could cause 2021 MacBook Pro computers to panic." That shouldn't be a problem anymore. An issue that prevented external displays from charging some MacBook Pro and MacBook Air systems via a Thunderbolt or USB-C connection should be resolved too, while some menu bar options will no longer be obscured by the dreaded notch on the latest MacBook Pro.

Apple has released its latest firmware updates for iPhone and iPad. One of the more notable features Apple is adding in iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2 is the Voice Only plan for Apple Music. For $5 per month, subscribers can access the full library of songs, playlists and radio stations via Siri. 

On iPhone and iPad, you'll be able to access an App Privacy Report, which provides details of the data that Apple and third-party apps accessed during the previous seven days. The report shows how often apps use things like location, photos, camera, microphone and contacts, as well as their network activity.

Also new is Apple's Digital Legacy feature. You can designate contacts who can access your personal information and your iCloud account when you die.

Elsewhere, there's another safety setting for Messages. It will provide children with warnings and helpful resources when they receive or send photos containing nudity. Apple announced this feature alongside CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) detection tools in August. It planned to release the updates as part of iOS 15, but delayed them following a backlash.

Other iPhone and iPad updates include a way to browse, buy, and rent movies and TV shows in one place in the TV app; a macro photo option for the ultra wide lens on iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max; an enhanced city map in Apple Maps on CarPlay; and the Hide My Email tool for iCloud+ subscribers in the Mail app.

A firmware update for HomePod OS is also rolling out that enables the Voice Only plan on HomePod mini. HomePod OS 15.2 also adds Siri voice recognition support for other languages. 

Adobe has rebranded its Spark multimedia creation suite as Creative Cloud Express and created a standalone version. The idea is to help folks create rich visual content like social media posts, stories, flyers and banners using a straightforward drag-and-drop interface. Along with a fairly generous free plan, there's a $10 per month or $99 a year premium option.

The free version includes thousands of templates, fonts and design assets as well as some royalty-free photos. You'll have access to some basic editing tools and photo effects on the web and mobile, including background removal and animation. You'll get 2 GB of cloud storage too.

While that might be enough for more casual users, professionals might find the premium plan more suitable. Along with everything from the free tier, they'll get access to all premium design assets and templates (around 50,000, according to a demo), more than 20,000 fonts and all of Adobe's 160 million+ royalty-free stock images.

A brand manager will allow paid users to include their logo, branding, colors and fonts with a single tap, which could be a major time saver and help maintain a consistent design language. There are more in-depth editing features, such as graphic groups, resizing and refine cutout. You'll be able to import and export PDFs and other file types.

There's integration with Creative Cloud Libraries. All Express assets and templates can be edited and managed across other Creative Cloud apps. You'll also get 100 GB of storage. In addition, the premium plan includes access to features from other Adobe apps. They include video capture and editing on mobile and desktop (Premiere Rush); combining photos and creating collages (Photoshop Express); video slideshows (Spark Video); and building web pages from text and images (Spark Page).

Creative Cloud Express uses Adobe Sensei, the same artificial intelligence and machine learning tech behind the company's core apps, such as Photoshop and Premiere. The framework powers features like the ability to turn videos into GIFs and merging videos. There are also plans to integrate ContentCal, which automates social media publishing and reporting, into Express. Adobe announced an agreement to buy ContentCal last week.

Until now, Express had only been available with Creative Cloud plans. A standalone version could help Adobe better compete with the likes of Canva, Prezi and Picsart, especially given that there's a free option.

Express is included with Creative Cloud All Apps and flagship single-app plans costing at least $20. The suite is free for K-12 as well. Creative Cloud Express is available now on the web and as an app from the Microsoft Store, Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Versions for Enterprise and Teams will arrive next year.

Universal Music Group is hitching its wagon more firmly to the metaverse hype train. The record company teamed up with avatar company Genies to create digital versions of its artists, as well as non-fungible token (NFT) outfits and accessories, for use in virtual worlds.

The idea is to give Universal's artists official virtual identities for the metaverse. Some of the roster, including Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes, had already asked Genies to make avatars of them. Now, the plan is for Rihanna, Migos et al to be able to take those facsimiles into various metaverses, or use the avatars across social platforms. In the coming months, through an NFT marketplace run by Genies, fans will be able to buy and sell virtual merchandise for the avatars.

This isn't Universal Music Group's first foray into the metaverse. Last month, it announced a virtual band comprising four characters from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, a bit like Gorillaz.

Other prominent brands are looking to make waves in the metaverse, including Adidas, which seems to be working on its own NFTs, and Nike, which built a virtual playspace and a store for digital goods inside Roblox. That platform is one of several in the gaming space (including Fortnite) that helped pave the way for other companies and brands to venture into the metaverse.

Since Twitter Spaces debuted earlier this year, hundreds of people have reportedly joined live audio discussions led by "Taliban supporters, white nationalists, and anti-vaccine activists sowing coronavirus misinformation." According to The Washington Post, Twitter didn't have the moderation tools necessary to combat bullying, calls for violence and hate speech in Spaces before rolling out the Clubhouse competitor — despite executives knowing that would likely lead to misuse.

Spaces doesn't have human moderators or tech that can monitor audio in real-time. It's much more difficult to automatically review audio than text. So far, Twitter has relied on the community to report Spaces they think violates the company's rules. However, if a host uses the feature as a soapbox to share transphobic, racist or otherwise bigoted views (as has reportedly happened), and their audience agrees with them, it seems unlikely that a listener will report the discussion to Twitter's safety team.

According to the report, Twitter's technology helped some of these discussions to go viral. Because these Spaces were amassing large audiences, the systems understood them to be popular, and promoted them to more users. Twitter spokesperson Viviana Wiewall told the Post the supposed bug has been dealt with.

“Ensuring people’s safety and encouraging healthy conversations, while helping hosts and listeners to control their experience, have been key priorities since the beginning of [Spaces’] development,” Wiewall told the publication. Wiewall noted that the company is "exploring avenues" in terms of moderating Spaces in real-time, "but it’s not something that we have available at this time.”

The spokesperson noted that Twitter did have some protections in place. It can scan the titles of Spaces to look for keywords that raise red flags, but modified spellings can ensure problematic words bypass the filters.

Twitter employees are said to have raised concerns about unmoderated live audio rooms, but some of those who suggested the company should slow down and work on technology to improve safety were reportedly dismissed from or left out of meetings. Leaders forged ahead with the Spaces feature anyway, at least in part to appease investors by speeding up product development and generating more revenue.

Since August, hosts who meet certain criteria have been able to charge for access to Spaces, with Twitter taking a cut. The company has been chasing other revenue streams beyond advertising, including newsletters and the Twitter Blue premium subscription. There have been issues with some of those products too. The Tip Jar feature, through which users can send payments to each other as tips, exposed some tippers' home addresses via certain types of PayPal transactions.

Engadget has contacted Twitter for comment.

Analogue will, at long last, start shipping its retro Pocket console on December 13th. If you weren't able to lock in a pre-order the first time around, you'll get a second chance, as the company will reopen sales the following day at 11AM ET.

Orders will be placed into three fulfillment batches — January-March 2022, October-December 2022 and 2023 — on a first-come first-serve basis. However, "due to industry wide component price increases," the price of the console is going up by $20 to $219. If you're on the fence, Analogue notes that reviews will be published on Monday. In any case, you can cancel your order at any time before it ships.

The Analogue Pocket has been a long time coming. The handheld — which can play Game Boy, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx games from their original cartridges — was originally supposed to arrive in 2020. However, complications brought forth in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as global supply chain issues, forced Analogue to delay the system multiple times.