Roblox wants to make its avatars look less blocky and more realistic, and it has announced a couple of visual updates meant to achieve that goal during its annual developers conference. One of those changes is layered clothing, which it's been working on since at least 2020. It allows any type of character model to be outfitted with layered clothing items. TechCrunch explains that the feature ensures clothing items will fit avatars and will drape around them naturally, whether they're human- or dinosaur-shaped. At the moment, players can only access the feature in the beta version of Roblox Studio's avatar editor, and it's unclear when it'll be more widely available.

Roblox CEO David Baszucki said during the keynote:

"Self-identity is a crucial pillar of the metaverse, and the ability to precisely customize your clothing to your unique avatar is paramount in personal expression"

Roblox has also announced a feature called Dynamic Heads that can provide facial animations for avatars. The animations could link with facial tracking, so the character's mouth can move in time with its words. TechCrunch says the feature was made possible by the company's acquisition of digital avatar startup Loom.ai last year. 

It'll be a long time before facial animations become an official part of the game, though — Roblox has only given developers access to it right now, so they can play around with it and test it out. "These releases represent important stepping stones in a long line of innovations to improve the expressiveness and combinatorics in the metaverse," Daniel Sturman, Chief Technology Officer for Roblox, wrote in his recap for the event.

In addition to the experimental avatar features, Roblox has announced that it's giving creators a new way to earn money, as well. Creators will be able to put up items they designed for sale for a limited time, turning them into collectibles with higher value than the other goods they're selling in-game.

Mark A. Forkner, Boeing's former chief technical pilot involved in the company's 737 Max testing, was indicted for fraud by a grand jury in Texas. Due to his position with the company, he was in charge of coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration to determine the kind of training a pilot needs to fly a particular plane. The indictment accuses him of deceiving the agency's Aircraft Evaluation Group (FAA AEG) when it evaluated and certified the 737 Max model. If you'll recall, two 737 Max planes crashed within months of each other in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.

Forkner allegedly provided the FAA with "materially false, inaccurate, and incomplete information about a new part of the flight controls for the Boeing 737 MAX called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS)." In both crashes, the AEG determined after an investigation that MCAS, a system designed to push the plane's nose down in certain situations, activated during the flight. The planes that crashed — Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 — nosedived almost as soon as they took off.

According to the Department of Justice, Forkner discovered an important change to MCAS in November 2016, but he allegedly withheld that information from the AEG. As a result, the FAA removed all reference to MCAS in the pilot training materials for the 737 Max. Acting US Attorney Chad E. Meacham for the Northern District of Texas said in a statement that the former chief pilot's actions were financially motivated:

“In an attempt to save Boeing money, Forkner allegedly withheld critical information from regulators. His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency’s ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 MAX flight controls. The Department of Justice will not tolerate fraud — especially in industries where the stakes are so high."

Earlier this year, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle the criminal charge that it had conspired to defraud the FAA. It also agreed to work with the FAA's fraud section for any ongoing and future investigations. As for Forkner, he was charged with two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts and four counts of wire fraud. He's now facing a sentence of up to 100 years in prison. 

If you missed the chance to grab the new Echo Show 8 during Amazon's Prime Day event in July, you may want to check the smart display's listing on Amazon. It's currently on sale for $100, $30 less than its original retail price of $130. That's only $5 more than what it was listed for during Prime Day, and it's certainly not a bad deal for a relatively new device that was only released in June. 

We gave the Echo Show 8 a score of 87 in our review. Between this device and its smaller 5-inch sibling, it received more upgrades from the previous generation, including a faster octa-core processor. It also has a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera that's a huge improvement over the previous version's one-megapixel sensor. The smart display uses digital panning and zooming to follow you around during calls, and it worked well enough when we tested it out. It even works with every video calling platform the device supports, including Skype and Zoom.

Aside from its faster processor and better camera, we praised the Echo Show 8 for its minimalist design and its 1,280 x 800-pixel resolution display. It lacks the 3.5 mm jack of its predecessor that will let you connect it to a speaker, but it already has a powerful bass and impressive volume. The device's overall sound quality is also better than its smaller sibling's, since it has two speakers instead of one. 

We found the Echo Show 8 a great digital photo frame that's capable of displaying current time and weather conditions during our tests. In addition, we found it helpful in the kitchen, thanks to its large library of recipes with step-by-step instructions from sources that include the Food Network and Allrecipes. And in case you want to use the smart display to watch videos, you can do so, as well, since it supports video streaming from Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu.

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Last year, Apple launched a repair/replacement program for AirPods Pro units experiencing sound issues, such as crackling or static. It was only supposed to last for two years after the buds were first sold in October 30th, 2019, which means the program was going to come to a close in a couple of weeks. As first noticed by someone on Reddit, though, the tech giant has quietly updated its program's information page to extend its availability. "The program covers affected AirPods Pro for 3 years after the first retail sale of the unit," the updated page reads, giving people the chance to exchange their faulty buds within the next year.

Apple previously said that a "small percentage" of units manufactured before October 2020 may be affected by the issue. The program covers buds exhibiting cracking or static sounds in loud environments, or while the user is exercising or talking on the phone. It also covers units with faulty Active Noise Cancellation that show irregularities, such as the loss of bass or an increase in background sounds. According to a few commenters on the Reddit post, however, even their buds that were manufactured later than October 2020 were exhibiting sound issues. While those models are technically not covered by the program anymore, the users were still able to get them replaced by getting in touch with Apple.

A few months ago, Volvo teamed up with Swedish steel producer SSAB to develop a type of steel it can use for its vehicles that doesn't use fossil fuels. Now, the automaker has revealed what it says is the world's first vehicle made of fossil-free steel: A four wheeled fully electric load carrier made for quarrying and mining. In addition to having no greenhouse gas emission, it's also autonomous and can follow a pre-programmed route to transport materials at a job site.

SSAB produces fossil-free steel by replacing the coal used during the manufacturing process with hydrogen from electrolysis. As Forbes notes, though, the whole vehicle isn't exactly fossil-free, since the steel used for its components provided by third-party suppliers, such as its electric motor, were made using traditional means. Still, Volvo Group CTO Lars Stenqvist told the publication that "majority of the steel" in the vehicle is fossil free. He said three tons of the carrier's 8.2-ton weight is made of green steel from SSAB, and those eight tons include other heavy components like the vehicle's tires.

Volvo plans to start a small-scale production for the vehicle next year and to scale up production, depending on the availability of steel from SSAB. The Swedish manufacturer is hoping to start mass-producing its fossil-free steel in 2026, so we may see more Volvo vehicles made using the material by that time.

Martin Lundstedt, President and CEO Volvo Group, said in a statement:

"This initiative with SSAB sets the benchmark for a fossil-free future. Just as the nations of the world come together at COP26 to address climate change, so too must organizations and industries work in collaboration to develop innovative new solutions for a greenhouse gas emission free future. Volvo Group is committed to pioneering partnerships such as this with SSAB to develop attractive, safe and efficient new vehicles and machines that pave the way for a more sustainable transport and infrastructure system adopted for the future."

Reddit has launched a new feature called Predictions, which can make polls more fun by giving you tokens to bet with. The website has been testing the feature for a year, and now that it's widely available, community mods and mod-approved users will be able to create Predictions Tournaments with a series of questions that challenges you to predict the outcome of an event or conversation. 

You'll get 1,000 tokens for free when you join a tournament, which can consist of as many questions as a moderator wants — they can add more even after the tournament has started. When you vote for the prediction you want, you'll have to bet some of the tokens you get after you joined. How to distribute those tokens is totally up to you, and you will win more on top of the ones you used for every correct prediction. The larger the number of tokens you put in, the more you can win. However, you'll have to make your tokens last throughout the tournament, and there's no way to get more if it turns out that your prediction game is weak. It's a totally user-driven experience, since the tournament's creator will also be in charge of resolving the outcome and making sure you get your winnings.

So, what do you get for correct predictions aside from winning tokens? Mostly, recognition in the form of a leaderboard. Tokens are only for use in the Prediction experience, so you can't really do anything with them on the website. Reddit will start rolling out the feature today, and it will be available for all communities with at least 10,000 members. 

Reddit

Online games are rife with toxic behavior that can ruin the experience for players who just want to have fun. In an effort to curb verbal abuse in League of Legends, Riot Games has decided to disable /all chats for publicly matchmade games — temporarily, at least. The feature gives players a way to communicate with the opposing team and can be a source of fun banter. Game director Andrei Van Roon and lead game producer Jeremy Lee wrote in their announcement, though, that at the moment, negative interactions outweigh the positives due to the rise of in-game verbal abuse this year.

Teams will still see the other's emotes and CTRL+1-2-3-4 spam, and the change doesn't affect the chat function between allies at all. Riot knows there's still verbal abuse going on within team chats, and that the move won't eliminate the behavior from the game completely. The developer deems team chats too important to disable, however, since that's what people use to strategize and coordinate their actions. 

According to Polygon, the reaction to the change has mostly been negative, with people mentioning the fun experiences they've had bonding with players from opposing teams. Some even claim that most toxic behavior happens within team chats instead. van Roon has since clarified on Twitter that the plan is to test the change for a couple of patches, starting with patch 11.21, and then ask players for feedback. Riot could choose to keep or reverse the change based on the feedback it gets, though it could also keep it in some regions where the response to it is largely positive

If you want to re-watch the original Cowboy Bebop show before Netflix's live adaptation drops, you don't have to go to another streaming service. Netflix has acquired the global streaming rights for all 26 episodes of the anime, and they'll be available for streaming starting on October 21st, just a few weeks before the November 19th debut of the live series' first season. The Cowboy Bebop anime first premiered in Japan in 1998 before making its way to the US via Adult Swim three years later. While it won't be available on Netflix until the 21st, it's currently streamable on Hulu. 

One might say that adding the anime to its catalogue before the live adaptation's debut is bold on Netflix's part, as it would make it easier to compare the two — especially since live anime adaptations haven't been typically well received. There's a way to merge the two shows if you think you'd enjoy it that way a lot more, though. 

According to Entertainment Weekly, the anime's original voice actors are reprising their roles for the Japanese dub of the live action series. They include Koichi Yamadera as Spike, Taiten Kusunoki as Jet and Megumi Hayashibara as Faye. It's also worth noting that original composer Yoko Kanno and original director Shinichirō Watanabe are both involved in the Netflix show. The live action adaptation stars John Cho as Spike, Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black and Daniella Pineda as Faye Valentine. And, of course, an adorable corgi as Ein.

Bowers & Wilkins has launched a new version of its iconic Zeppelin speaker, and the company says it was re-imagined for the streaming age. The audio device manufacturer describes the new Zeppelin as "smarter and more flexible" than its predecessors, with built-in support for Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, so users can simply ask it to play whatever they want instead of using its physical buttons. In addition, B&W plans to give it multi-room capability in early 2022 through a software update. Once that arrives, users will be able to link several Zeppelins together or link a Zeppelin with other B&W speakers in a multi-room environment. 

For now, the new model supports AirPlay 2 and aptX Adaptive Bluetooth to give both iOS and Android users an easy way to stream audio from their devices. Like the previous version, it features Spotify Connect and can be controlled using the Bowers & Wilkins app, which gives it access to more streaming services like Deezer, Soundcloud and TIDAL. 

The new Zeppelin comes with two Decoupled Double-Dome tweeters mounted at the far edges for "a wide, spacious and highly accurate sound." Plus, it has a new 150mm subwoofer for a deep, detailed bass. The 2021 model will be available starting today in Midnight Grey or Pearl Grey from retailers or from the company's website. As potential buyers probably already expect, the high-end speaker won't come cheap: It'll set them back $799, which is $100 more than the previous version's debut price.

HTC is expected to launch a new VR headset within the week, but you don't have to wait till then to see what it looks like. A collection of Vive Flow images has made its way online, courtesy of evleaks, before the launch event. According to Protocol, the Vive Flow is a lightweight headset developed for consumers under the internal name "Hue." The Bluetooth SIG consortium previously published documents describing Hue as a VR AIO (all-in-one) product, which means the device could be a standalone headset that doesn't need a phone or doesn't have to be tethered to a PC to work. 

The company reportedly wants to position the Vive Flow primarily as a way to consume media, with some access to gaming. Its chip is less powerful than the Oculus Quest 2's, Protocol says, but it will have six degrees of freedom tracking. The images leaked online also show more information about the device, including a dual-hinge system to make sure it fits most people, snap-on face cushion, immersive spatial audio, adjustable lenses and active cooling system. After you pair your phone with it via Bluetooth, you can use your mobile device as a VR controller and to stream content to VR using Miracast tech.

In addition, the images show that the Vive Flow will be available for pre-order starting on October 15th, with shipments going out in early November. The headset will set you back US$499, which is $200 more than the Quest 2's launch price, and you'll get seven free virtual reality content and a carrying case if you pre-order.