Waze has partnered with Mindspace in the hopes of making your commutes a little more pleasant. The Drive with Headspace experience includes five additional moods — Aware, Bright, Hopeful, Joyful and Open — and the option to change the in-app car icon to a relaxing hot air balloon. You can also listen to a dedicated Spotify playlist, which features music and content from Headspace, through the Waze Audio Player.

If you use the Headspace theme, the company's mindfulness teacher and director of meditation Eve Lewis Prieto will read the driving directions. Waze's Headspace features are available for a limited time starting today in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You can switch on the experience by tapping the Drive with Headspace banner in My Waze. It might prove a bit more relaxing than the recent Halo and PAW Patrol experiences.

Seven years after it disappeared, G4 has a return date. The gaming and fandom TV network will be revived on November 16th on Xfinity TV, Cox and Verizon Fios (Verizon is Engadget's former parent company). You'll be able to stream the network on Philo too.

G4 also has a multi-year promotional and commercial deal with Twitch. The network will keep making dedicated content for social media channels, including YouTube, as well. G4 announced the return date in typically offbeat fashion, with gags about the Xbox Mini Fridge and the Nintendo Switch OLED.

Classic G4 series Attack of the Show! and Xplay are returning with their respective former hosts, Kevin Pereira and Adam Sessler. A weekly show called Boosted will focus on esports coverage, and you'll be able to watch ESL esports events such as IEM Katowice 2022. Also on the docket are a series in which G4 talent and guests play Dungeons & Dragons, along with all 167 episodes of Ninja Warrior (aka Sasuke).

As well as Pereira and Sessler, the G4 talent roster includes esports figures Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez, Ovilee May and Indiana “Froskurinn” Black; YouTube creators Kassem G, Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil and Gina Darling; Twitch streamers Fiona Nova and Will Neff; and WWE wrestler and gaming personality Xavier Woods (aka Austin Creed).

Carriers started dropping the original incarnation of G4 in September 2013. The network's gradual decline came to a head on November 30th, 2014, its final day on the air until now. Comcast announced plans to revive the brand in July 2020. Earlier this year, G4 started streaming shows on Twitch, YouTube and Twitter in the leadup to the relaunch.

Tile has unveiled its latest lineup of Bluetooth trackers and revealed some details about an upcoming ultra-wideband (UWB) model. Along with the brand new Tile Pro, revamped versions of Sticker, Slim and Mate are available today.

The Tile Pro is the company's most powerful tracker to date. It has a finding range of 400 feet, and it's lightweight and slim, so it could be ideal for helping ensure you don't lose your keys. Pro has a replaceable battery that should last for up to a year.

Sticker, Slim and Mate all have increased finding ranges of 250 feet. That's a 67 percent larger range for Sticker, and a 25 percent wider range for Mate and Slim. The three trackers have a louder ring than before too. Tile claims the latest Mate boasts a three-year battery life (as do Slim and Sticker) and a refreshed design. All four of the trackers have a water resistance rating of IP67. They should withstand being submerged in water up to one meter deep for up to 30 minutes.

Tile

Elsewhere, Tile Lost and Found is another way to help you recover missing items. Except for Sticker, every new Tile has a QR code on the back. Someone who finds a lost tracker can scan it and see the owner's contact details. They can then figure out how to return the device and attached item to the owner.

The new and updated models are available from Tile's website and other retailers. Tile Pro and the credit card-style Slim each cost $35, while Tile Sticker is $30 and a Tile Mate will set you back $25.

A safety feature is in the works that aims to prevent misuse of a tracker, which is not supposed to keep tabs on a person's location. The Scan and Secure feature will let anyone with the Tile app, whether or not they have an active account, detect nearby Tile devices and figure out if an unknown device is close to them. 

Tile will roll out the feature on Android and iOS in early 2022. The company says it's working with advocacy organizations to improve the feature and bolster safety, and notes it will provide resources to victims who believe someone may be tracking them.

Tile

Also in the pipeline is a Tile that uses both UWB and Bluetooth. A report earlier this year revealed the existence of the Tile Ultra. UWB devices can transmit directional and spatial data to narrow down their location more accurately than over Bluetooth alone.

The tracker's Point and Locate feature lets you use augmented reality to find the item with turn-by-turn directions and a visual indicator of where the tracker is. Tile's working with Google to refine the feature for Android 12 and UWB-capable phones

Tile says Ultra is the first UWB tracker that works on both iOS and Android. Neither Apple's AirTags nor Samsung's Smart Tags have full multiplatform support. Tile Ultra will be available in early 2022.

Even though both Apple and Samsung released competing trackers this year, Tile's business is still going well. The company says its revenue grew by over 50 percent in the first half of 2021. The latest trackers could put Tile in good stead for the short term, but the growing market might draw in more competitors in the future.

All Twitter users can now remove a follower without having to block them. The company started testing this option last month, and starting today, everyone will have access to it. To quietly stop someone from seeing your tweets in their feed, go to the Followers tab on your profile, click the three-dot menu next to the user in question and select the "Remove this follower" option.

This is part of Twitter's efforts to reduce harassment on the platform. Blocking someone you don't want to follow you could lead to retaliation from that person via their allies or their secondary accounts after they find out. Cutting them in this fashion and muting them will mean they're none the wiser that they're out of the loop.

This method won't prevent someone you boot from your followers list from seeing your public tweets. Only blocking them or making your account private will do that. Elsewhere, Twitter is testing a Safety Mode, which automatically blocks accounts that use “potentially harmful language.” It's also looking into more ways to filter and limit replies, so it seems the company is making its anti-harassment efforts a bigger priority.

Facebook has been making a big push into audio over the past several months. Now, it's bringing those features together. Users can access an Audio hub in Facebook's mobile app, from which they can access podcasts, live audio rooms and short clips.

The company has been quietly rolling out the hub on iOS and Android, as TechCrunch notes. All US users aged 18 and older should see the option in the Watch tab as of today.

Facebook initially launched live audio rooms, its Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces competitor, in July. It says that all verified public figures and creators can now host live audio rooms, not just those in the US. All Facebook groups will be able to run audio discussions too. The company is testing the option to create audio rooms on Android (it was an iOS-only feature until now) and you'll be able to listen to the conversations on desktop.

The short-form Soundbites audio clip feature is still in beta, though Facebook plans to roll it out more broadly in the US over the next several weeks. In addition, the company has been working on measures, such as tech that automatically flags harmful content, to detect and take action on audio that violates the Community Standards. Given Facebook's history as a breeding ground for misinformation, that'll be an important issue to address as the company pushes further into audio.

California could ban sales of some gas-powered devices, including lawn equipment, generators and pressure washers. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law over the weekend that orders regulators to prohibit the sale of small off-road engines.

The California Air Resources Board was already working on rules to that effect, but Newsom has given the agency deadlines for adopting and applying the regulations. The agency has until July 1st to adopt the rules. The regulations will apply to engines made on or after January 1st, 2024, or whenever is feasible in the state board's opinion — whichever is later. The law also stipulates that regulators will need to offer rebates to lower the cost of switching equipment. The latest state budget set aside $30 million to cover the costs.

The aim of the law is to reduce emissions. As the Associated Press notes, California brought in emission standards for those engines in 1990. Although emissions from cars have generally decreased over the last few decades, that hasn't necessarily been the case for small off-road engines.

State officials have said that a gas-powered leaf blower that's used for one hour emits the same level of pollution as a 2017 Toyota Camry that travels for around 1,100 miles. There are currently more than 16.7 million devices with small off-road engines in California — three million or so more than the number of passenger cars in the state.

California is tackling emissions from gas-powered engines on other fronts. Last year, the California Air Resources Board said all truck and van manufacturers will have to switch to electric versions by 2045. The state will also ban sales of new combustion engine cars and trucks by 2035. Many auto manufacturers are aiming to switch entirely to EVs by that time. Another zero-emissions rule for light-duty autonomous vehicles will come into effect starting in 2030.

There are already some electric pressure washers and lawn mowers on the market. Zero-emission generators might be harder to come by, though some companies have also attempted to make hydrogen-powered models.

Google hasn't completely given up on RSS. Earlier this year, it started testing a Follow button in Chrome on Android, which allows users to get updates from websites on the new tab page. As of today, the feature is available in the browser's stable build, so all Android users can try it.

If you're running Chrome 94 or a pre-stable version, you might already see the Follow button in the menu. Otherwise, as Chrome director of engineering Adrienne Porter Felt wrote on Twitter, you can switch on the feature manually. Go to chrome://flags, search for "web feed" and enable the setting. Although the Follow button is only available on Android for now, Felt suggested it's coming to iOS next year.

The feature won't quite have the same level of utility as dedicated RSS readers, of course. It might not make up for the terrible decision to kill Google Reader all those years ago either, but it could be a handy way to stay on top of updates from your favorite websites.

One of the worst-kept secrets in the gaming world has been confirmed: Rockstar Games is re-releasing three more Grand Theft Auto games. The bundle includes Grand Theft Auto III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas.

The clunkily named Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition is coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC later this year. The bundle will also land on iOS and Android in the first half of 2022.

Rockstar says the revamped games will have upgraded visuals and "modern gameplay enhancements" while retaining the look and feel of the originals. More details about the changes will be revealed in the coming weeks. Although all three games are classics, their visuals perhaps don't hold up too well in 2021. Updated graphics might make them worth revisiting, while some fans will appreciate being able to play them on Switch.

Meanwhile, Rockstar will remove the original versions of GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas from digital storefronts starting next week. You'll still be able to download the games if you bought them previously.

Elsewhere, the publisher plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of GTA III later this month (sorry, it is that old). Some special events and commemorative gear are coming to GTA Online this fall.

The PS2-era games aren't the only GTA titles that Rockstar is reworking. An expanded and enhanced version of Grand Theft Auto V is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in March.

The Internet Archive is marking its 25th anniversary by peering into the future to predict what the web might look like a quarter of a century from now. The non-profit took the opportunity to rail against internet regulation by offering a grim vision of what lies ahead.

Punch a URL into the Wayforward Machine and you'll see a version of that page covered in pop-ups. The messages include one reading "Classified content. The website you are trying to access features information that the owner(s) have opted to restrict to users that have not shared their personal information." Another reads "This site contains information that is currently classified as Thought Crime in your region."

The way things are going, the Internet Archive suggests, free and open access to knowledge on the web may become far more limited. A Wayforward subsite includes a timeline of things that might go awry in the coming years, starting with the repeal of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites and internet platforms from being liable for things that users post. A repeal could have enormous consequences for the web, though some, such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have proposed that the provision should be reformed.

The timeline includes some other wild-but-not-inconceivable suggestions, such as a law allowing corporations to copyright facts, forcing Wikipedia to move to the Dark Web, and more countries introducing their own versions of China's Great Firewall. The Internet Archive teamed up with several digital rights organizations for this project, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future and the Wikimedia Foundation. The subsite includes resources on how to help protect freely available information.

The Wayforward Machine is, of course, a satirical version of the Wayback Machine, which has archived hundreds of billions of web pages over the last two and a half decades. It's an important resource for helping preserve the history of the internet, including things like Flash games and animations, so it's probably worth paying attention to the Internet Archive's vision of the future.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a reboot of the movie series, will hit theaters on November 24th, and Sony Pictures has provided a taste of what's in store with the first trailer. Writer and director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) indicated earlier this year that he was taking things back to the franchise's horror roots and the trailer offers some positive signs that he's achieved his goal.

The film is based on the first two games in the classic series and it's a complete reset following the six (6) Paul W.S. Anderson movies. In case there was any ambiguity about Roberts starting over, the trailer's opening voiceover puts that firmly to bed. "Every story has a beginning," one character, perhaps Claire Redfield, says. "Discover the origin of evil."

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is set in 1998, and we see the first game's creepy mansion as well as some of the city where the sequel takes place. The trailer hits a lot of the right beats and it includes some memorable moments from the games. There's a nod to the opening scene of Resident Evil 2, in which an infected truck driver plows his tanker into Raccoon City. Despite a couple of iffy CGI shots, there's some solid creature design too, including zombie dogs and even a licker. Add in some jump scares, and it's a promising first look.

If you're craving more Resident Evil until the movie arrives, you can check out a virtual-reality version of Resident Evil 4 on Oculus Quest 2 later this month. Elsewhere, a live-action show based on the franchise is coming to Netflix. The delayed multiplayer game Resident Evil Re:Verse will arrive next year, and Capcom is working on DLC for Resident Evil Village.