In its press release for its fourth quarter 2021 financial results, Activision Blizzard has revealed that it has plans to release Warcraft for mobile sometime this year. Company CEO Bobby Kotick told investors a year ago that the developer made "multiple, mobile, free-to-play Warcraft experiences" that were already in advanced development back then. Blizzard has yet to reveal more detailed information about the games and a more concrete timeline, so it's unclear if its release plans include all those experiences or just few. 

The only part of the company's earnings results that mentions the franchise on mobile reads:

"Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time."

There have been rumors about a Warcraft mobile game since at least 2017. In 2018, reports came out that Blizzard was working on a mobile entry for the franchise that will be similar to Pokémon Go, which presumably means that it's an augmented reality title. According to a Kotaku report, it was being developed by an "incubation" team that was formed when co-founder Allen Adham returned to the company 2016. The team was also behind mobile game Diablo Immortal that's coming out this year, as well. 

If you use TurboTax to file taxes, you now have the option to deposit your refund directly to a Coinbase account. The money can either be deposited in USD or be sent to your account already converted to any of the 100 types of cryptocurrency available. Coinbase says the choices include stablecoins that are pegged to a real currency and fluctuate much less than typical crypto coins. You won't be charged with any trading fees if you choose to get your refund in crypto, but you'll still be able to immediately convert your money into the cryptocurrency of your choice if you opt to get it in USD first. 

To be able to take advantage of the companies' partnership, you'd have to file from the Coinbase section of the TurboTax website. All TurboTax customers can file from the page, even those using the free option for simple tax returns that only need a W-2. It does have a maximum deposit amount of $25,000 per day, but that probably won't be a problem for most people.

TurboTax will help you set up a Coinbase account if you don't have one yet, and you'll have to follow the steps you see afterwards to be able to deposit your refund to the exchange's "MetaBank." The exchange said in its blog post:

"Coinbase is committed to giving everyone instant and easy access to the cryptoeconomy... We'll continue to enable new use cases that allow customers to transition more of their financial lives to the cryptoeconomy."

Coinbase has launched quite a few ways to make cryptocurrency more available over the past year, including opening up a feature that lets you deposit paychecks to its system and another that lets you link it to your PayPal account. 

A group of Republican Senators led by Mike Crapo of Idaho has sent the Internal Revenue Service a letter expressing concerns about the agency's partnership with facial recognition service ID.me. Starting this summer, taxpayers will have to register for an ID.me account to be able to access the online services IRS offers, including the ability to file taxes through its website. To be able to sign up, they have to send ID.me a copy of their government ID, a utility bill and a video selfie of themselves. The Senators called the last one the "most intrusive verification item," since it's more than just submitting a picture of one's face and can't be easily replaced like a password. 

In the letter, the group said that it's "deeply concerned for many reasons," starting with the government's "unfortunate history of data breaches." It mentioned the attacks on the Office of Personnel Management back in 2015 as an example. If you'll recall, two separate attacks on the agency compromised the information of millions of then-current and former federal employees and led to the theft of 21.5 million Social Security Numbers. 

The group also cited an IRS report in 2019, wherein it estimated that it faces 1.4 billion cyberattacks a year. "It is highly likely, with personal information on a reported 70 million individuals, including biometric data, ID.me could be a top target for cyber-criminals, rogue employees, and espionage," the Senators wrote. They've asked the agency a series of questions meant to shed light on the partnership in the letter. The Senators want to know if the IRS did due diligence to ensure taxpayers' information would be protected before it approved the partnership and what kind of oversight the agency has over the company. they also asked IRS if it made sure ID.me's system had gone through an independent cybersecurity audit, among many other things. 

The CEO of ID.me recently admitted that the system uses a more powerful method of facial recognition than previously claimed. In a statement, he said ID.me employes a 1:many approach, which means it matches images against those in a database. He previously said it only uses a 1:1 approach that compares one's face to a photo on their government ID. A Bloomberg report published after that said the Treasury Department is reconsidering the IRS's partnership with the company and is now looking for alternatives to its facial recognition software. 

Workers at LDJ5, an Amazon warehouse facility on New York's Staten Island, have filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board. It's the second facility Staten Island to make an attempt at forming a union after JFK8, and it's also seeking to be represented by the Amazon Labor Union, an independent group comprised of current and former company employees. According to CNBC, the ALU filed the petition on Wednesday. 

The ALU originally filed to form a union last year for JFK8 and three other nearby facilities, but it had to withdraw its petition after it failed to gather enough votes to proceed. It refiled its application in December, however, and focused only on JFK8. Former Amazon employee and ALU leader Christian Smalls said back then that the group was "taking a different approach" and hoping that it has "more than enough" support from employees in the facility. Smalls led a walkout at JFK8 over the e-commerce giant's handling of COVID safety at the warehouse. Amazon said he was fired after "multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines."

In late January, the ALU collected enough signatures to proceed with a union election vote at JFK8, a feat the e-commerce giant doubts. Reaching the threshold means the ALU was able to secure the support of 30 percent of the warehouse's workforce. Amazon told Engadget in a statement when the news broke that it's "skeptical that there are a sufficient number of legitimate signatures" and that it's "seeking to understand how these signatures were verified." An election has been set for JFK8 on February 16th. As for LDJ5, the ALU still will have to collect enough signatures from its 1,500 workers for an election to be able to proceed.

Twitter increased its character limit over the years from 140 to 280 to give users more leeway with what they want to say. That's not always enough, though, which is why the term "tweetstorm" to indicate a series of interconnected tweets was coined. People also sometimes post images of lengthy statements instead. Based on a new discovery by Jane Manchun Wong, though, Twitter is working on a new feature that would cater to the needs of those who want to share their thoughts on the website in one lengthy article. 

Manchun Wong, known for finding experimental features within apps, discovered the existence of a "Twitter Articles" tab. The name itself signifies a long-form format for the social network that has long only allowed people to post bite-sized text messages, but its exact nature is a mystery for now. It's also unclear whether it will be available to everyone, if it does make it to wide release, or if it will be exclusive to Twitter Blue subscribers. 

Not everyone's keen on the idea either. Someone pointed out that it might reduce engagement on Twitter, since a thread of tweets often get multiple reactions and responses from the same users. A Twitter spokesperson told CNET that the company is "always looking into new ways to help people start and engage in conversations" and that it will share more soon. 

The future of Microsoft's HoloLens is reportedly uncertain as the company struggles to put together a coherent mixed reality strategy. According to Business Insider, the tech giant has scrapped its plans for what would've been the HoloLens 3 in recent months. At least one of the publication's sources believes it's the end for the headset. In addition, the sources said Microsoft inked a deal to team up with Samsung to develop a brand new mixed reality device, which has caused an internal divide within the mixed reality division. 

Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw denied that the HoloLens is dead, however, calling it a "critical part of [the company's] plans for emerging categories like mixed reality and the metaverse." Shaw added: "We remain committed to HoloLens and future HoloLens development." The company declined to talk to Business Insider about the reported Samsung partnership.

The employees within the mixed reality unit that the publication talked to said different factions within the team are arguing about which area to focus on. Some believe the team should double down on its own hardware, while others think it's better to develop a software platform for the metaverse other companies can use, like the Windows OS. 

There are also people arguing whether Microsoft should continue focusing on creating products for enterprise customers or whether the tech giant should also create products for consumers. Some also argue that Microsoft's mixed reality team should fulfill military contracts. Rubén Caballero, the former Apple executive Microsoft hired to head up device engineering for the HoloLens and other projects back in 2020, reportedly wants to focus on consumers and the metaverse. There's apparently such a confusion on what the team's focus should be that Microsoft lost 25 mixed reality employees to Meta in 2021, including veterans who'd been with the company for over 20 years. 

One thing's clear, though: Microsoft has big plans for the metaverse. When it announced that it's purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, it said the acquisition will provide building blocks for the metaverse. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said: "Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms.

It didn't take long for Team17 to cancel its NFT plans after they were announced. The British video game developer and publisher has released a statement that it's no longer working on the MetaWorms NFT project after listening to "Teamsters, development partners, and [its] games' communities, and the concerns they've expressed." It added that it has "taken the decision to step back from the NFT space." 

As EuroGamer notes, the MetaWorms project was supposed to produce "limited edition" computer-generated collectibles of the company's Worms IP. They were supposed to be sold by the Reality Gaming Group that claims the ability to mint NFTs in an environmentally friendly way. One of the biggest controversies surrounding NFTs is their environmental impact due to the energy needed to sustain their blockchain activity. Team17 said that if it sold 100,000 Worm NFTs, the energy used to register them would equal "the average annual kettle usage of just 11 households."

The backlash against the project came swiftly regardless — because, really, environmental impact is just one of the many issues surrounding non-fungible tokens — and from developers Team17 had worked with in the past. Among the developers that published statements distancing themselves from NFTs are Playtonic, which published Yooka-Laylee titles under Team17, and Overcooked developer Ghost Town Games. Aggro Crab, developer of roguelike game Going Under, released a scathing statement saying it'll never work with Team17 again.

The statement did, however, implore fans not to harass Team17 employees, because they were most likely caught off guard, as well. According to Eurogamer, that's indeed the case. Several teams within the company reportedly didn't know that it had plans to release NFT collectibles, and those who did know voiced their opposition. 

YouTube has started rolling out a redesigned interface for mobile that includes quick access to Like buttons and other controls. In the past, when you watch full-screen on Android and iOS, you'd have to exit landscape mode to be able to see the thumbs up and down buttons, the option to share the video and the option to add it to your playlist. It was pretty troublesome having minimize what you're watching to see those controls. As The Verge has noticed, though, you can now simply tap on the screen for all those buttons to show up at the bottom of the full-screen video. What you're watching wouldn't stop playing either.

The new controls at the bottom also give you an easy easy way to access the comments section. There's now no need to go back to portrait mode and to scroll down — just tap the comments button and the section will pop up right next to the video in landscape view. You can keep watching while scrolling viewers' comments, as well. 

Engadget

Google spokesperson Allison Toh told The Verge that the new user interface started making its way to Android and iOS devices on Monday, so it'll likely hit your phones soon if it hasn't yet.

Yacht Club Games, the developer behind the popular throwback platformer Shovel Knight, has announced a brand new IP. It's a top-down "bone-chilling action adventure" entitled Mina the Hollower that's inspired by Gothic Horror and is set in a bizarre world full of monster. The company has announced the new game at an event, where it has also launched the Kickstarter campaign to help fund its development. According to IGN, Yacht Club Games director and designer Alec Faulkner said the developer is financing a majority of the project, but it's returning to Kickstarter to build a community and get feedback from backers.

Faulkner said:

"We want your feedback, collaboration, and support in making Mina the Hollower the best game it can possibly be. That's why we're returning to our roots and kicking off Mina the Hollower’s development as a Kickstarter campaign.

Though we're financing a majority of this project ourselves, we hope we can create a more expansive game this way. More importantly, we want to build a community around Kickstarter, much like we did with Shovel Knight."

Shovel Knight's Kickstarter campaign raised over $300,000 back in 2013. Yach Club has since released various DLCs, expansions and spinoffs for it and brought it to the Switch a few years after it was released.

Mina the Hollower will feature an 8-bit aesthetic in the style of Game Boy Color titles, with 60fps action combat. In it you play as Mina, an inventor who can burrow under her foes to pop up on the other side and take them down with her trusty whip. Mina belongs to Hollower guild, which is dedicated to studying the earth and its latent resources and which has members that can move faster underground. 

Yacht Club has yet to reveal a launch window for Mina the Hollower, but it took over a year for Shovel Knight to make its way to backers. You'd have to pledge at least $20 for a digital copy of the game and at least $100 for a physical copy. 

Pretty soon, you'll no longer have to see those weird reaction texts from your iPhone-using friends. Google has started rolling out a feature for Messages that translates iMessaging "Tapbacks" as emojis, according to 9to5Google. The publication first discovered the experimental feature in a deep dive of the Google Messages beta app last year. It's unclear where it'll come out for the stable version, but If you're using the beta app, you'll get the update that enables it soon enough.

When iPhone users react to messages sent from an Android device, the recipient gets text interpretations of that reaction. A "thumbs up" to a text that says "see you in ten?" will be translated to "liked 'see you in ten?'", for instance. It can make the chat thread a bit cluttered and confusing. 

With this new update, the Android user receives emojis instead, though as 9to5Google notes, they're not exact translations of the actual reactions. A "heart" reacts yields the "face with the heart eyes," for instance, while the exclamation mark reaction sends the recipient the "face with the open mouth" emoji. When you tap on the emoji, a note pops up explaining that it was "Translated from iPhone," along with the sender's name. 

The feature is enabled by default, but users can toggle it off if they want by going to Advanced under the Messages' Settings and switching off "Show iPhone reactions as emoji."