PlayStation’s next-gen VR headset is here. It’s high-spec and, boy, high priced. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says it’s a massive step forward from the original PSVR, thanks to its high-resolution screens and innovative features like headset haptics.

Engadget

Back in 2016, when the original launched, VR was making another push into the mainstream, which kicked off with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The tech has evolved at an incredible pace, so seven years later, this sequel headset feels more comfortable and comes with far more advanced controllers. (The first PSVR used Move controller wands originally launched for the PS3 back in 2010!) The new Sense controllers are actually purpose-built for virtual reality, with a large tracking ring, analog sticks, two face buttons, triggers and haptic feedback.

Hardawar adds that Horizon VR, one of few marquee launch titles, taps into the headset's eye-tracking sensors for foveated rendering, concentrating the PS5's power on what you're looking at. However, that $550 price and a potentially limited library could limit its impact – the same old story of what’s wrong with VR.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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• 'Octopath Traveler 2' review: Eight different stories, but not enough connection

Microsoft explains Bing's bizarre AI chat behavior

It can get confused during long chat sessions or when used for 'entertainment.'

Microsoft launched its Bing AI chat for the Edge browser last week, and it's been in the news ever since – but not always for the right reasons. Our initial impressions were strong, as it offered workout routines, travel itineraries and more without a hitch. However, users started noticing Bing's bot gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited “unhinged” behavior, calling users "unreasonable and stubborn" (among other things) when they tried to tell Bing it was wrong. Those “long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions" can send things off the rails,” Microsoft explained.

"Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone," the company said. That apparently occurs because question after question can cause the bot to "forget" what it was trying to answer in the first place.

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Google relies on human employees to improve Bard chatbot responses

The chatbot 'learns best by example,' a company exec said.

In a video ad for Google’s AI chatbot, Bard, the AI confidently spouted misinformation about the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, the tech giant is looking to improve Bard's accuracy, and according to CNBC, it's asking employees for help.

Google's VP for search, Prabhakar Raghavan, reportedly emailed staff members, asking them to rewrite Bard responses on topics they know well. The chatbot "learns best by example," Raghavan said, and training it with factual answers will help improve its accuracy. This memo came after Google CEO Sundar Pichai emailed employees, asking them to spend a few hours each week testing the AI chatbot. Google employees have reportedly criticized Pichai for a "rushed" and "botched" Bard rollout.

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Watch the trailer for Apple's 'Tetris' movie set during the Cold War

You could say it's a blockbuster.

Apple

The story behind how Tetris became a global phenomenon is the basis of an upcoming Apple TV+ movie. Instead of shoehorning the blockbusting antics of the game into a movie – we see you, Pixels – the fast-paced trailer (soundtracked by "The Final Countdown") highlights some of the inherent tension between Soviet Russia, US capitalist forces and everyone stuck between the two. Henk Rogers, played by Taron Egerton, encounters resistance from a British media mogul who wants the game, KGB agents and even Mikhail Gorbachev.

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Tesla admits its Full Self-Driving beta may cause crashes

It is recalling 363,000 vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Thursday that Tesla is recalling nearly 363,000 of its vehicles because the Full Self-Driving software may cause a crash. Specifically, the NHTSA cites a risk to "exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash." Tesla will release an OTA update, free of charge, to its customers to rectify the issue, Reuters reports. The recall impacts over 362,000 vehicles.

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Octopath Traveler 2 is a retro-styled RPG, set in another steampunk-esque fantasy world. Square Enix isn’t reinventing the turn-based RPG for this sequel, instead expanding and (mildly) correcting some of the weaker parts of the original. There are new battle dynamics and moves, a well-utilized day-and-night game mechanism, and shared stories that attempt to convey a connection between the eight narratives. But it’s still a casual one. If Final Fantasy XV was about four best buddies going on a road-trip, then Octopath Traveler 2 is more like an Uber Pool rideshare. There might be friendly small talk, but there’s still not enough of a meaningful connection between the eight protagonists.

Nintendo

Octopath Traveler 2 doesn’t offer any technical graphical upgrades I need to explain, although there seems to be a little more detail to both the sprites and environments. It’s still a pretty game. Half of the appeal is how games like this coax my memories of 16- and 32-bit games.

Having said that, the team behind this series has realized they can play with the scale a bit more: this is the Nintendo Switch, not a SNES. In some of the opening scenes for Hikari the warrior, characters rush past a crowd of 40 or so fighting in a desert. Developers Acquire and Team Asano have amped up the cinematic cutscenes a little more, too. Cameras will pan out and around your characters, as they brood on cliff faces, or as they’re forced to kill their abusive parents.

OP2 tries, only ever so slightly, to convey the idea that you’re on a collective journey. Once you’ve chosen your main character (who will be ‘locked’ into your party until you complete all five chapters of their story), you’ll bump into other travelers. Then you’ll be given the option to play through their origin story, or circle back to it at the local tavern at a time that’s suitable for you.

Nintendo

Occasionally there will be some minor banter elements, called “shared stories” where two characters will share a few scenes together. These often connect stories and offer up some rewards. Still, it’s a little too infrequent – and not enough to get the impression this is a team of heroes helping each other to save the world from various calamities – or become a global dance superstar. (Yes, that’s someone’s aim.)

Osvald, the scholar, starts his journey in prison, accused of killing his wife and child. He’s this game’s defacto black mag,e with an array of elemental attacks. Still, this time, given his gritty backstory, his path actions (abilities and interactions you can make with non-playable characters in towns, and generally any time outside of battles) aren’t your typical black mage traits. One is scrutinize, a risky way of gleaning information from characters, while the other is mug, where you can duel pretty much any NPC you come across, and steal their possessions if you win.

However, with eight characters, many path actions overlap. Castti, an item expert and apothecary, can inquire for the same information you can get from scrutinizing, without any risk – she just has to be a high enough level. Meanwhile, Throné, the thief, can steal during daylight hours, giving the same results of a mugging without the fight.

Alongside those skills, each character also starts with a unique talent, offering battle abilities or passive skills that others won’t be able to use, even after unlocking secondary classes.

Nintendo

Like the original, the battle system comes into its own once you can switch around job roles. To do so, however, you’ll need to find the guild for each job to unlock it. Some are easy enough to find – I came across two of the ‘secret’ jobs entirely by accident – while others are eluding me even now, 60 hours into the game, at roughly level 60 across my party. Where are you, hunter guild!?

More effort has been made to tonally differentiate the eight tales of Octopath Traveler 2 compared to its predecessor. With Temenos the cleric, who works as some sort of blasphemy hunter/mystery solver, gets a few scenes where he’s trying to solve crime scene mysteries. It’s not exactly Phoenix Wright, with all the clues there, twinkling away, waiting for you to walk up to them, but it helps to make the chapters feel different to the others.

Partitio, the merchant, likewise, has a story that feels like some whimsical K-drama, as this entrepreneur makes friends of enemies and travels the world striking deals. He gets an oddly bizarre montage of his final deal striking, hopping on ships and visiting a few secondary characters you probably already forgot. The aforementioned Castii starts the game with amnesia (ah that video game classic), and if there’s anything shared across most of the characters, it’s the sense that most of them are unreliable narrators. Rounding out the cast you have Agnea, the dancer, and Ochette, the hunter. (Not all eight will resonate with everyone, will they?)

Even the final chapters for each of the eight characters only results in a few extra banter scenes. I’m playing through the final chapters for each character, and if it's anything like OP1, this will probably unlock a true final area, dungeon and boss. At this point, I doubt all the themes and story will coalesce into a satisfying conclusion — there’s been some allusions to a ‘shadow’, but that’s true of 90 percent of all RPGs. /I’ll be happy with another challenging boss.

Nintendo

The battle dynamics follow the same formula of the last game: you aim to break the enemies’ defenses through applying elemental and weapon weaknesses. Break them, and they’ll stop attacking — or reset the charge-up to their high damage abilities – allowing you to do increased damage, or carefully heal and prepare for the next part of the fight. Once again, you’ll be able to boost attacks as a battle continues, augmenting damage or extending the length of strengthening spells and other boons.

The sequel adds latent powers, a limit-break styled super attack unique to each character. For some, this allows them to handily perform two actions at once, while others will deal augmented damage or supercharge spells and physical attacks. This was how I found my favorite characters and they seemed to stick around the squad longer. (Thank you for your service, Throné.)

Day and night affect the entire game, and thankfully it’s an easy trigger button that you can tap at any time outside of a battle. There are benefits to fighting during night, depending on the characters. Throné and Temenos offer debuffs and buffs at the start of nighttime fights, although it seems like fights are generally tougher than during the day. You will also come across different enemies depending on the time of day. This transition will also move NPCs around the town, or make them disappear entirely. The music also thoughtfully segues between the two states, which is a nice touch. Yet again, OP2 has a polished soundtrack, filled with orchestral bangers and several battle-theme earworms.

OP2 builds on the strengths of the first game, with lots of non-linear options to the story, with enough of a difference between chapters to break it all up. However, there still isn’t quite enough cohesion between the travelers and the tales they weave.

Octopath Traveler 2 launches on Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and Steam on February 24th.

If you've been using Twitter's For You feed this week, you might’ve noticed the algorithmic feed showed a lot of Elon Musk's tweets and replies. According to Platformer, which interviewed Twitter employees, engineers tweaked the social network to benefit their CEO. Elon's cousin and Twitter employee James Musk sent an urgent message on the company's Slack on Monday morning. He called the situation "high urgency" and asked everyone who can write code to help.

What had happened? President Biden's Super Bowl tweet about rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles got more engagement than Musk's. Apparently, the president's tweet generated almost 29 million impressions, whereas Musk's generated only 9.1 million before he deleted it.

The fix they came up with, Platformer says, was code that artificially boosted Musk's tweets by a factor of 1,000. Musk acknowledged the change in his own way, by posting the "forced to drink milk" meme. He also asked people to stay tuned while Twitter adjusted the "algorithm." According to the report, Musk's tweets are still artificially boosted, it seems, just not quite as much.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Oppo Find N2 Flip hands-on

Fixing the foldable's shortcomings.

Engadget

Oppo has been watching the foldable competition. Last year, it revealed its second generation of foldable phones would compete with the same form factors as Samsung. Now, while the West won’t be getting the bigger Find N2 Fold, in the UK and Europe, we will get the Oppo Find N2 Flip. In many ways, the Find N2 Flip attempts to address some shortcomings of the existing foldables, with a bigger cover screen and a larger battery. Sadly, however, there are no plans to launch the phone in the US.

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Our verdict on PlayStation’s ‘pro’ DualSense Edge controller

Customization and a higher price.

Engadget

The original Xbox Elite controller came out way back in 2015, so it's a wonder why Sony took so long to release its take on a premium, customizable gamepad. But now the PlayStation 5 is more widely available (kind of), the $200 DualSense Edge is here. It costs a bit more than its Xbox rival but offers a few nifty features you don't get on Microsoft's controller. However, it’s not perfect: Its short battery life is definitely a downer.

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Apple's MLS Season Pass will stream games in 1080p

The company and the league have more info on the service.

Apple already announced many details on its MLS Season Pass, the company's biggest entry into live sports streaming yet. However, the company and the league still had a few details they hadn't yet revealed. As the start of the new season draws closer, the two collaborators shared more info, including that every game will stream in 1080p. That's the same quality the company offered for its weekly Major League Baseball games last year.

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Final Fantasy VII’s Midgar is the latest grimy locale coming to 'PowerWash Simulator'

Five more filthy free levels are coming to the relaxing game on March 2nd.

PowerWash Simulator developer FuturLab will soon give players more stuff to clean up with their trusty pressure washers, as it's adding another free crossover expansion. Five levels set in Final Fantasy VII's Midgar are coming to the game on March 2nd. Yes, it’s a game where you powerwash stuff. And it’s wonderful.

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Samsung, in a few short years, became the foldable phone company. For now. Rivals have either been unable to launch their own smartphone origami projects or simply failed to match against the Z Fold (the horizontal folding one) or the Z Flip (vertical folding ‘flip-phone’.)

Oppo has been taking notes, however. It revealed last year that its second generation of foldable phones would compete with the same form factors as Samsung. Now, while the west won’t be getting the bigger Find N2 Fold, in the UK and Europe, we will get the Oppo Find N2 Flip. I prefer the flip-phone iteration of foldables, so I’m glad this is the one heading out of China.

In many ways, the Find N2 Flip attempts to address some of the shortcomings of existing foldables. (And I’ll say it now: I loved the Galaxy Z Flip 4), but there’s always room for improvement. Oppo’s focus appears to be the external display, which at 3.26 inches, is currently the largest cover screen on a flip smartphone. While this more accurately replicates the orientation of a smartphone screen, don’t expect icons or an Android-style interface like the one found on Samsung's Galaxy Z fold.

Mat Smith/Engadget

You will get a more functional area for previewing shots with the primary cameras, however. The 17:9 ratio makes more sense for framing your photos than on the Galaxy Z Flip, with its horizontal screen. You might think that Samsung’s implementation is better for notifications, but with a bigger outright screen, the Find N2 Flip can display up to six lines of text in your alerts – plenty for text messages and even email previews. There’s more space to peruse notifications, calendar entries and more, too – it can be a finickity task on the Z Flip 4. Oppo offers a handful of pre-programmed replies too, so you can subtly (or lazily) send a response without even opening the Find N2 Flip.

You can quick-launch the camera by double-pressing the volume down button – you just need to make sure the phone is in standby, otherwise, it will just lower the volume. The cover screen also features a cute animated animal mascot – you can pick between a dog, cat, an unidentifiable bird, hamster or rabbit – and they’ll come alive when you activate the front display. It's a cute addition — it'd be nice if there was some Tamagotchi-style features, though, perhaps tagged to your step-count or even the device's battery life. 

One of the quirks of a flip smartphone is the fact that the primary cameras are also your selfie cameras. Like the bigger, China-only, Find N2 Fold, the array on the Flip consists of a 50-megapixel f/1.8 main camera, with an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide camera. That’s a higher-res main sensor compared to the Z Flip 4. However, while testing it out for the week, the most noticeable difference has been a 2X zoom toggle, which is admittedly a digital crop – but still, it's a benefit of having such a high-megapixel sensor to begin with.

Another benefit of the more expansive front screen is that you can turn on the preview mode even while someone is taking photos for you, making it easier to ensure that a stranger has managed to fit everyone into your group pic – or ensure they aren’t capturing video instead of a still image. (That has happened to me.) Oppo’s Hasselblad partnership informs its color calibration choices on the cameras again. If you like peppy color filters (I do), you’ll get a handful of these straight from the camera app.

Unfolded, there’s also a 32-megapixel f/2.4 front-facing camera if you’re feeling a little old-fashioned. Like Samsung’s foldables, some apps will adjust to fit if you position the phone with the screen raised at an angle. These include the camera app as well as video call apps and YouTube. The hinge itself isn’t quite as stiff as the Z Flip, so it’s more liable to collapse to flat, but once you figure out the right angle, you’ll be fine. Oppo says the hinge’s range of motion is between 45 and 110 degrees.

The company is also proud of its subtler crease, and that’s down to a more refined hinge. It claims that its second-generation flip phone has a crease that’s 63 percent less visible – which is… specific. It’s easy to scoff because, well, it’s still there, but it’s definitely smoother compared to the flip phones that came before it. Oppo’s new Flexion hinge is also smaller, and its waterdrop design leaves less space between the sides when it’s closed. This is especially notable compared to the Z Flip 4.

Mat Smith/Engadget

Another area where Oppo has made a wise upgrade is when it comes to battery capacity. The Find N2 Flip has a 4,300mAh cell – the biggest we’ve seen so far in this form factor, and closer to the Z Fold 4 than the Z Flip 4 – along with 44W fast charging support. That’s decent, again, for this form factor, but Oppo’s sibling/cousin/frenemy, OnePlus, is already showing off more typical smartphones with support for 100W. Still, it should fully charge in less than an hour, the company claims. (I'll be updating this story after further battery testing). However, just like OnePlus’ latest phone, there’s no wireless charging.

The device will launch in Astral Black and Moonlit Purple and in the UK, it will be priced at £895 (roughly $1,083), which would put it around the same price as the Galaxy Z Flip 4. For now, there are no plans to bring either Find N2 devices to the US.

Despite recently saying it would lay off more than 18,000 people, Amazon is still looking to expand its empire – which could mean more physical stores. CEO Andy Jassy told the Financial Times that Amazon still plans to “go big” on its brick-and-mortar grocery store business.

The company's physical store division accounts for 3.4 percent of the overall business and has grown only around 10 percent since the Whole Foods acquisition. Jassy noted that many Amazon Fresh locations opened in the COVID-19 pandemic, so Amazon hasn't "had a lot of normalcy" to see what works. That’s also been true for other facets of its physical retail business. Almost a year ago, Amazon said it was closing all of its pop-ups, bookstores and four-star shops across the US and UK.

In the interview, Jassy said: “We have a history of doing a lot of experimentation and doing it quickly. And then, when we find something that we like, doubling down on it, which is what we intend to do.”

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Update your Apple devices now to patch a security flaw

The issue “may have been actively exploited,” according to Apple.

Apple released security updates to its operating systems on Monday to resolve a security flaw. The company said the issue “may have been actively exploited,” meaning hackers could’ve taken advantage of the issue to access devices. However, Apple does not have additional details to share on the exploits beyond the update release notes, spokesperson Scott Radcliffe told Engadget.

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IKEA made a smart air quality sensor

It gauges particulate matter levels humidity, temperature and more.

IKEA is introducing a smart indoor air quality sensor, the Vindstyrka, which gauges pollutant levels. Vindstyrka works by itself, but it unsurprisingly becomes more useful when connected to IKEA's Dirigera smart home hub. You can check air quality through the company's app and have the monitor control other devices, like telling IKEA’s Starkvind purifier to increase fan speed based on particulate levels. There’s no price yet, but the sensor will launch in April.

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Watch the teaser for 'Ted Lasso' season 3

The biggest show on Apple TV+ returns March 15th.

Apple

Apple has revealed the third season of Ted Lasso will premiere March 15th, with a new episode (12 in total) arriving every week. In season three, AFC Richmond is now in the Premier League but pitted against one of its former allies — Nate is now working for Rebecca's ex, Rupert, at West Ham United.

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Google Fiber launches 5Gbps service for $125 per month

But it’s only available in four cities at launch.

Google Fiber is finally launching its 5Gbps internet plan in Kansas City, West Des Moines and Utah. Google says the $125-per-month service will expand to other areas later this year. The service offers symmetrical upload and download rates, an upgraded 10 Gig Fiber Jack and includes professional installation, a WiFi 6 router and up to two mesh network extenders. For comparison: Comcast already offers 6Gbps service in some areas, which costs $300 a month and doesn’t include symmetrical uploads.

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James Webb telescope captures a Milky Way-like galaxy a billion light-years away

A spiral star system like ours.

Astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) used the James Webb Space Telescope to capture an image of a spiral galaxy that resembles our home, the Milky Way. The star system, LEDA 2046648, is a billion light-years away and comprises thousands of galaxies, trillions of stars and countless planets. Of course, an image of anything one billion light-years away means we’re viewing the galaxy’s light from a billion years ago.

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An artificial intelligence agent recently flew a Lockheed Martin VISTA X-62A training aircraft for over 17 hours. VISTA (which stands for Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft) normally uses software to simulate the performance characteristics of other aircraft. On this flight during a testing period in December, however, it mimicked a human pilot. US Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) Director of Research Dr. M. Christopher Cotting said in a statement, "VISTA will allow us to parallelize the development and test of cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques with new uncrewed vehicle designs."

This is the first time AI has been engaged in such a way on a tactical aircraft, Lockheed says. It’s like they’ve never seen the 2005 box-office bomb, Stealth…

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Look at this tiny VR headset

Bigscreen's first VR unit boasts 5K displays.

Bigscreen

Bigscreen is best known for its namesake virtual social platform – which I’ve never heard of either – but it's now getting into VR headsets. The Beyond is a PC-only wearable it claims is both the "world's smallest" VR headset and extremely light at just under six ounces with a strap. Despite that weight, it includes two 5K (5,120 x 2,560) 90Hz OLED displays and six-degrees-of-freedom tracking. But some difficult choices have been made, too: You have to scan your face using an iPhone app (sorry, Android fans) to produce a custom-fitted design and buy custom prescription lenses if you normally wear glasses. Built-in headphones are only available with an optional "audio strap," all to keep the headset as compact as possible.

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Blue Origin made solar cells from simulated Moon dust

Lunar bases might not need resources from Earth.

Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company revealed it can produce solar cells and transmission wire using simulated Moon regolith. Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist technique uses molten electrolysis to separate the lunar soil's aluminum, iron and silicon from oxygen to build solar cells, cover glass and aluminum wire using only sunlight and the reactor's silicon. While the concept of using regolith to build outposts isn't new, it’s normally focused on large-scale habitat materials rather than power supply solutions.

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After one last release date change, 'Dead Island 2' will arrive a week early

"You asked for it. You got it."

After far too many delays to count, Dead Island 2 has a new release date once more. This time, however, publisher Deep Silver is pushing the game up by a week. Instead of arriving on April 28th as previously planned, the game will now hit consoles and PC on April 21st. “You asked for it, you got it. Dead Island 2 went gold and it’s coming out a week early,” the company announced.

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TikTok creators might soon put some videos behind a paywall

A revamped Creator Fund could also boost pay for influencers.

A report from The Information suggests TikTok is developing a paywall feature so producers can charge $1 (or a price of their choice) for video access. While it's unclear exactly how the system would work, this would help influencers profit directly from their hottest clips. The social network is also considering a revamp of its Creator Fund amid complaints about low payouts. TikTok may require a much larger follower count (100,000 versus 10,000) but could pay eligible creators more as a result.

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The best gaming mouse in 2023

Picks for your FPS, MMO and general playing needs.

A good mouse will give you greater control over your cursor; add a few more buttons and you can customize it to make your clicking and pointing more comfortable. In competitive games, the best gaming mouse won’t magically make you unstoppable, but faster response time and extra inputs should make for a more pleasurable and responsive experience.

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Many people in Japan have been outraged by a recent trend dubbed "sushi terrorism." Videos across social media show people carrying out all kinds of unhygienic acts, like licking the spoon for a container of green tea powder. Another video, which has more than 98 million views on Twitter, showed a person licking the top of a soy sauce bottle and a teacup's rim before putting them back at a branch of the Sushiro chain. The company said it has replaced all the soy sauce bottles and cleaned every cup at the affected restaurant.

To combat this gross trend, one chain, Kura Sushi, said it would use artificial intelligence to look for "suspicious opening and closing of sushi plate covers," Nikkei Asia reported. The company plans to upgrade existing cameras, used to track the dishes customers take from conveyor belts to determine their bill, by early March. If the system detects suspicious behavior, it will alert employees.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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The second-gen HomePod may be easier to repair than the first

Much less glue.

The original HomePod was notoriously difficult to repair – cutting tools were sometimes necessary. The second-gen model, however, isn’t as bad. iFixit has torn down the new smart speaker and discovered the large amounts of glue are gone – you can get inside using little more than a screwdriver, and the internal components are similarly accessible. Combine this with the detachable power cord and it should be feasible to fix some parts yourself. However, Apple hasn’t yet added its newest HomePod to its Self Service Repair program, but at least it would now be a more realistic addition.

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'Hogwarts Legacy' review: A massive game, alive with magic

The world is beautiful and bursting with secrets.

Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy arrives with all the controversy of a Harry Potter project and a lot of anticipation. For many, this is, finally, a game that does justice to the magic and spectacle of the pop-culture phenomenon, with an open-world design, side quests, customizable characters and more. There’s a solid game, here, with an entertaining combat system and plenty of mysteries to solve.

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Sony A7R V camera review

Awesome images, improved video, unbeatable autofocus.

Sony’s full-frame A7R IV was one of the best mirrorless cameras Engadget’s Steve Dent ever reviewed, so there was a lot of pressure on its successor. Fortunately, this fifth-generation model is improved in pretty much every way. It’s a technological tour de force, featuring most of the company’s industry-leading tech. It has the best articulating screen on the market, the best autofocus system and much-improved video at up to 8K internally. The only real drawback is the rolling shutter effect that can mar video or photos taken in electronic shutter mode.

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Engadget Podcast: Microsoft and Google’s budding AI rivalry

A busy week of news from OnePlus, Nintendo, Samsung and more.

It was a busy week. Microsoft and Google both unveiled their AI products for the masses, with Microsoft holding an entire event this week to show off the new Edge and Bing. Google also had an event in Paris and unveiled the first Android 14 developer preview, while OnePlus launched its first-ever tablet alongside a new flagship phone. Cherlynn is joined this week by guest co-host Sam Rutherford to tear into the week’s onslaught of news and see how we feel about Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra while reviewing it.

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Samsung's flagship phone of 2023 is here – if you don’t count the foldables. The Galaxy S23 Ultra starts at $1,200 and has a big, beautiful OLED screen, better cameras, a new chip for even better performance and some revamped software. And, of course, there’s still a built-in S Pen for all your drawing and note taking. The highlight feature since last year’s S22 Ultra is the new 200MP sensor, which offers more options for advanced content creation. And, with five rear cameras, there are a lot of options.

In normal use, the S23 Ultra uses 16-to-1 pixel-binning from that huge sensor to help gather more light and produce sharp, colorful images without needing extra-large files. And in most situations, it seemed to produce better-looking photos. According to Engadget’s Sam Rutherford, the S23 Ultra images taken using the default 12MP mode featured more accurate colors and better details than those captured with the sensor's full 200 megapixels. However, this could be the most capable smartphone camera yet.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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NTSB: Autopilot was not a factor in fatal Tesla Model S crash

Two people died in the collision, though neither was found in the driver's seat.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that Tesla's Autopilot was not at fault in a 2021 crash in which two people died. The agency said the 2019 Model S accelerated just before hitting a tree in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston. Neither occupant was in the driver's seat when they were found, leading to questions about Tesla’s Autopilot function. The NTSB found the car's rapid acceleration from 39 MPH to 67 MPH two seconds before the crash was likely due to "impairment from alcohol intoxication in combination with the effects of two sedating antihistamines, resulting in a roadway departure, tree impact and post-crash fire."

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Meta restores Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts

He has yet to post on the platforms after the company lifted a two-year ban.

Meta has restored former President Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, two years after it suspended him from both platforms. The company previously said it would apply extra "guardrails" to his accounts to "deter repeat offenses." Trump has an agreement with the "free speech" app Truth Social, whereby he has to share social media posts there first and can't drop them anywhere else for at least six hours. Twitter restored Trump's account on its service late last year, but he hasn't returned to what was once his favored social media platform.

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Report: Twitter is making millions of dollars from previously banned accounts

It highlights how valuable a small number of highly polarizing users can be.

In related news, Twitter is making millions of dollars from a handful of some of its most infamous users, according to a new report. New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) estimates Twitter “will generate up to $19 million a year in advertising revenue” from just 10 accounts once banned from the platform. The report examined 10 accounts previously banned for “publishing hateful content and dangerous conspiracies.” The accounts were reinstated after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

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Realme's new phone can charge from zero to 20 percent in 80 seconds

Makes the OnePlus 11 look slow.

RealMe

While we’ve been impressed by the 100-watt charging on the OnePlus 11, it’s already been beaten, twice, in China. First, a Redmi phone featured a whopping 210W charging, and now the Realme GT Neo5 can charge its 4,600mAh dual-cell battery from zero to 20 percent in merely 80 seconds, to 50 percent in four minutes and to 100 percent in 9.5 minutes. Naturally, you’ll need this specific phone, its dual-GaN power adapter and its proprietary high-current USB-C cable to deliver 20V/12A of power. The phone is already available in China, priced at around $500, but the company says there are plans for an international launch, too.

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Netflix is rolling out changes to account sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain after trialing the change in Latin America. If you live in one of these countries, you must set a primary location for where you use it. Then, if you have friends or family who want to share your account, you'll have to subscribe to either the Standard or Premium tier and pay a fee ($8 in Canada and New Zealand, €4 in Portugal and €6 in Spain) for up to two extra users outside of your home.

In Netflix’s words, “Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films.” It's not clear how new regions will take to the policy. Many rival services don't have account-sharing restrictions, and given how many options there are now, this could coax users elsewhere. Or maybe people will rediscover illegal streams, torrents and all the other methods we used to watch video before the streaming boom.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Google’s Bard chatbot confidently spouts misinformation in Twitter debut

It falsely said the James Webb Space Telescope took the first pictures of exoplanets.

This week, Google posted an ad to Twitter showing off the natural-language AI model displaying false information. A short GIF showed an example of a Q&A with Bard: “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?”

Among a few facts, Bard says “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.” However, the JWST didn’t take the first pictures. That honor belongs to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004. Chatbots get things wrong, sure, as did search engines before them. However, stripped of much context, there’s a higher chance of picking up errors and not even knowing.

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Google Maps' Immersive View is rolling out in five cities

It should make it easier to view directions from your lock screen.

At I/O 2022, Google revealed an Immersive View feature for Maps that uses computer vision and AI to combine Street View and aerial photography into a 3D format. The feature rolled out today in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. The feature adds contextual information, including traffic, the weather and how busy a location typically is at different times of the day. You'll be able to soar over buildings and see things like the location of an attraction’s entrance.

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Twitter is shutting down its free API. Here's what's going to break

Change your logins before it's too late.

Twitter announced it would no longer allow any developer to use its APIs for free. Other than confirming a February 9th cut-off date – that’s today – we don’t know much more. Musk has suggested Twitter could charge $100 a month “with ID verification,” but hasn’t elaborated. Once free access is shut off, thousands of apps, research projects, bots and other services will stop functioning. We break down what you should probably do – if things still work. Tweets and DMs were recently not functional for many users.

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Someone made the AirPods Pro case repairable with a USB-C conversion

He designed an open-source PCB available to buy online.

AirPod repair options are limited if something happens to the charging case, and your earbuds aren’t under warranty. Apple will replace the case for a fee – but that creeps close to the cost of an entirely new set of AirPods. There’s no easy way to repair a set of AirPods Pro and limit your electronic waste. Replacement parts are expensive, hard to find or non-existent. Engineer Ken Pillonel, who also created that USB-C iPhone, is trying to fix that. With his latest DIY project, you can swap the battery in your AirPods Pro case rather than replace it altogether.

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Watch Link ride a huge drone in the new Zelda 'Tears of the Kingdom' trailer

Other transport options are available.

Nintendo

Nintendo closed out yesterday’s Direct showcase (a remastered Metroid Prime is available to play now!) with a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, showing off the game's traversal mechanics and dramatic cinematics. Oh, and Link takes to the skies above Hyrule on a gigantic drone.

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Bing may be back. Microsoft announced yesterday it’s partnering with OpenAI to enhance Bing with its AI technology. However, Microsoft also had a surprise up its sleeve: The next release of Bing will tap into a new next-generation language model the company claims is "much more powerful" than ChatGPT and designed specifically to excel at search.

During its event, Yusuf Mehdi, the company's consumer chief marketing officer, demoed the new Bing, asking it to compare the most influential Mexican artists and their best-known paintings. Bing displayed its response in a new side panel with annotations and weblinks. Later, Mehdi asked the search engine to compare three pet vacuums while listing the pros and cons of each model.

With the chat feature, you can ask Bing to create a five-day travel itinerary for you, including links to accommodation, flights and things to do. The new Bing is already available to preview. You can visit Bing.com – which I haven’t done since 2009 – to try a few sample queries and sign up for the waitlist for when it launches in earnest.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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The Nintendo Switch has now outsold the PS4

It’s the third best-selling console ever.

The Switch just leaped over both the Game Boy and PlayStation 4 to become the third bestselling console of all time. The console had sold 122.55 million units by the end of 2022, Nintendo announced in its earnings report, so it’s now only behind the DS and PlayStation 2 in lifetime sales. Nintendo said last year the transition to its next console was "a major focus." It could start becoming a more urgent one soon.

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Microsoft's new Bing and Edge hands-on

It's like ChatGPT built right into your browser.

Through a partnership with ChatGPT -maker OpenAI, Microsoft is adding more advanced AI conversation models to power updates to both Bing and its Edge web browser. The company's keynote happened at a breakneck pace, but fortunately, Engadget’s Cherlynn Low got to test things out right after.

With the new Edge, a button on the top right gives you access to the new Bing's chat feature in your browser. But it goes beyond just answering your questions without having to leave the pages you're browsing. Edge can help make sense of the sites you're looking at and make research or multitasking much easier. You can use a new Compose function to create posts, emails and, apparently, even essays, and while the results are pretty similar to ChatGPT’s, they could be incredibly convenient.

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OnePlus 11 review

A back-to-basics flagship phone.

Engadget

The OnePlus 11 has everything we loved about OnePlus in the past: a powerful processor, a vivid screen and the return to a competitive price tag. The headline feature remains the fast-charging technology, cranked up to 100 watts. The cameras are improved, if not quite among the best smartphone shooters. But at this price ($699), it’s difficult to complain.

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Google will blur explicit images in search by default

It's one of several upcoming features the company announced on Safer Internet Day.

Yesterday was Safer Internet Day, and Google says it's working to blur explicit images in search results for all users as the default setting, even if they don't have SafeSearch switched on. SafeSearch filtering is already the default for signed-in users under 18. It’ll encompass nudity as well as violent content.

Elsewhere, Google is adding another layer of protection to the built-in password manager on Chrome and Android. The company says if you have a supported computer, you’ll have the option to require biometric authentication before filling a saved password into a form. The same feature will also let you "securely reveal, copy or edit passwords" you’ve saved in the password manager without having to punch in your main password first.

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