Not everyone is comfortable with using a photo of themselves as a profile picture, and others might find it tough to find an image that represents them appropriately. To help you find something that works, Google has revealed its first batch of Google Illustrations.

When you set your profile picture in Gmail, Google Workspace, Contacts on Android, you can select an illustration. Options include animals, mythical creatures, locations and hobbies. Google says the initial batch of illustrations "is inclusive of various cultures, interests and backgrounds." You can customize them by changing the colors and cropping the image.

Once you've selected and tweaked an illustration to your liking and saved it, your contacts will see it across several Google products. Google says it will expand the collection and bring illustrations to additional products and platforms, including iOS and the web.

Halloween's coming, and so too is a virtual-reality remake of a Resident Evil game. The latest version of Resident Evil 4 will arrive as an Oculus Quest 2 exclusive on October 21st at 10AM ET.

Capcom announced the remake back in April. The Gamecube classic has been retooled for VR by Oculus Studios and Armature Studio. You'll control Leon from a first-person perspective rather than looking over his shoulder. Several aspects, such as combat and inventory management, were reworked to take advantage of VR.

You can use physical movements to pick up and use weapons and items. Instead of switching to a menu to swap guns, you can grab a different one from your holster. Whether you play standing or seated is up to you, as there's support for teleportation and room-scale movement, though you'll primarily use the analog stick for navigation.

Apple is slowly but surely rolling out 3D city views in the Maps app. Starting today, you can now pinch and zoom your way across a three-dimensional render of London. Apple switched on the experience for New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles last week as part of the iOS 15 release.

The feature will be enabled in Washington DC, San Diego and Philadelphia by the end of the year. Apple is bringing 3D maps to Canada next year, in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

In the 3D maps, you'll see elevation details throughout each city, along with new road labels and landmarks such as LA's Dodger Stadium, the Statue of Liberty and the Royal Albert Hall in London. A nighttime mode casts a moonlit glow over the maps at dusk.

Apple says the app will soon offer improved navigation through CarPlay. Public transit riders might find it easier to get around too. If you enter your route, the app can notify you when it's time to get off the bus or subway. You can also see step-by-step walking directions in augmented reality after scanning nearby buildings to determine your position and orientation.

Square Enix has put Life is Strange: Remastered Collection back on the release calendar. The updated versions of Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm will arrive on February 1st, 2022.

The collection will include remastered visuals for characters and the environments, along with a new engine and upgraded lighting. There will be full motion-captured facial animations in Life is Strange, and you'll get access to the deluxe Before the Storm content, including the "Farewell" episode.

The publisher originally planned to release the bundle on September 30th, but delayed it in August to "alleviate any additional pressure on the Life is Strange team." Life is Strange: True Colors dropped earlier this month, and an expansion will be available this Thursday.

Life is Strange: Remastered Collection is coming to Steam, Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and, through backward compatibility, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Facebook will soon let folks who still have an Oculus Go do so much more with the virtual reality headset. The company will release an unlocked build of the operating system, which users can sideload to get full root access and do just about anything they want with the device.

Oculus consulting CTO John Carmack made the announcement in a tweet spotted by The Verge. Carmack clarified this only applies to Oculus Go, and not Oculus Quest. He noted that he'd been pushing for the move for years and that "getting all the necessary permissions for this involved so much more effort [than] you would expect."

Although Facebook discontinued Oculus Go last year to focus on Quest headsets, it's nice to hear it hasn't forgotten about the older model entirely. The unlocked OS could ensure that Go headsets won't be totally obsolete.

Carmack pointed out that the build will let anyone who finds an unopened Go in the future update the headset to the final version of the OS — even after the servers are closed. He also expressed hope that this will set a "precedent for when headsets go unsupported in the future."

When the build is ready, Carmack said it will likely be available through the Oculus website. However, he suggested Facebook has yet to finalize the distribution plan.

YouTube Music is rolling out to some Wear OS 2 smartwatches starting today. Gen 6 smartwatches from Fossil and Michael Kors will be able to stream music from the service, as will Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, Pro 3 Cellular/LTE and E3 models. The app was previously released for Wear OS 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.

It's the first YouTube Music smartwatch app that supports offline listening. If you're a YouTube Music Premium subscriber, you can download songs you can listen to offline and without ads. You'll be able to leave your phone at home and still listen to music while you work out or go for a walk.

The app includes the Smart Downloads feature, which updates the songs on your device when it connects to WiFi. Google says Premium subscribers can listen to more than 80 million songs and thousands of playlists from their wearable. The app, which is available through the Google Play Store, will hit more Wear OS 2 devices later this year.

Spotify rolled out an updated version of its Wear OS app last month. It also lets users download music to their smartwatch and stream tracks without the need to have a phone nearby.

Beyond Meat brought its plant-based “chicken” tenders to restaurants this summer, and soon you'll be able to enjoy them at home when Beyond starts selling them through retailers. You'll find the $5 tenders at Walmart and other major grocery chains starting in October, though only in select markets. Beyond expects to expand availability later this year.

The company says its tenders have 50 percent less saturated fat than ones made with actual chicken, and have no GMOs, antibiotics, hormones or cholesterol. Beyond uses faba beans rather than a soy-based recipe in its attempt to replicate the taste and texture of a chicken tender. It says you'll be able to heat up the pre-cooked tenders in under 10 minutes.

Along with Walmart, Beyond's tenders will be available at some Jewel-Osco, Safeway NorCal, Harris Teeter, Giant Foods and ShopRite stores at the outset. Meanwhile, Beyond says it's increasing availability of its products at Walmart. It'll bring Breakfast Sausage Patties to more than 1,300 additional stores, while more locations will offer Beyond Meatballs and Beyond Beef Crumbles.

It's been a busy month in the plant-based meat alternative ecosystem. Beyond competitor Impossible started selling its "chicken" nuggets in restaurants a few weeks ago. Impossible also announced that restaurants will offer its version of ground pork in their dishes this fall.

The NFL's long-standing Sunday Ticket partnership with DirecTV is coming to an end, following an eight-year agreement the two reached in 2014. The viewing package is probably on the move and the league has reportedly picked its preferred new home for Sunday Ticket: Apple.

It doesn't seem likely that DirecTV, which has been one of the NFL's main TV partners for nearly three decades, will renew its deal. The NFL is looking for north of $2 billion per year for Sunday Ticket rights, according to The Athletic, which is at least $500 million more than the satellite company is currently paying the league.

DirecTV has long been losing money on the package. It needs 5 million Sunday Ticket subscribers to cover the current fees, though CNBC reported the figure has been closer to 2 million on average. Combined with a sense that the NFL is diluting Sunday Ticket's value by shifting more games to other days, that doesn't exactly make reupping the deal an attractive proposition for DirecTV and parent company AT&T.

As such, potential suitors with deeper pockets appear to be stepping up. Apple, Disney/ESPN and Amazon, which will start streaming Thursday Night Football games on Prime Video next season, are among those who have reportedly shown interest.

It'll likely be several months before the Sunday Ticket bidding process is over, but Apple looks like the frontrunner. The Athletic reports that Apple is considering offering games on a more ad-hoc basis. It could let fans buy their own team's out-of-market games or even shell out for standalone games.

One factor in Amazon's favor is it has more experience than Apple when it comes to live sports. The company has streamed New York Yankees, Seattle Sounders, WNBA and some NFL games, as well as ATP tennis events.

Michigan State Police has put a version of the 2021 Mustang Mach-E SUV through its paces over the past week, and the Ford Pro all-electric police pilot vehicle seems to have met the agency's bar. According to Ford, it's the first EV that's passed the Michigan State Police's model year evaluation test.

The agency is one of two that runs annual evaluations of new model year police vehicles. Later this fall, it will publish the results of those tests for law enforcement agencies across the US. Michigan State Police assessed the EV's acceleration, top speed, high-speed pursuit and braking attributes, along with emergency response handling.

The pilot vehicle's success in the tests is a win for Ford. Through its Police Interceptor program, the automaker alters vehicles for police use, usually by bulking up the suspension, brakes and horsepower. Ford plans to use the test results as a benchmark while it considers eventually making "purpose-built electric police vehicles" as part of its pledge to invest $30 billion into EV tech. Meanwhile, the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has ordered two of the EVs to use as patrol cars.

The Department of Justice has reportedly reached an agreement with Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou that will let her return home to China. Meng was arrested in Canada in 2018 on behalf of the US for allegedly violating American sanctions against Iran. She's been fighting attempts to extradite her to the US.

Meng, who is in house arrest while on bail, will admit to some improprieties and in return, prosecutors will postpone and eventually drop bank and wire fraud charges, according to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Meng is scheduled to remotely appear at a federal court on Friday afternoon, with the agreement expected to be filed today.

Prosecutors claimed that Meng misled banks in 2013 about Huawei's connections to Iran. She denied the charges.

Meng's detainment caused an international incident. Two Canadians were apprehended in China within days of Meng's arrest. The WSJ reports the deal with Meng could prompt China to release Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.

Officials from the Trump administration are said to have offered Meng a similar deal last year, but she reportedly refused to admit to any wrongdoing. Biden admin officials reopened the talks in recent weeks, according to reports, and with Meng seemingly seeking a reunion with her family, she may have been more open to a compromise. A judge in Vancouver was expected to rule on Meng's possible extradition to the US later this year, following almost two years of hearings.

Huawei and its subsidiaries are still facing charges in the US, including conspiracy to steal trade secrets and racketeering conspiracy. The company is not said to be part of Meng's deal and it will reportedly keep fighting the charges.

The US and Huawei have been at loggerheads for several years. American officials have lobbied allies to avoid using the company's 5G telecoms gear due to national security concerns, though Huawei has insisted that its equipment is safe. US sanctions against the company led Google to block Huawei from Android updates, prompting its switch to HarmonyOS 2 (which is a fork of Android) on phones and tablets.