Amazon Studios is "nearing a deal" to develop a series based on Electronic Arts and BioWare's Mass Effect franchise, according to Deadline. No particulars have been released, but Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke told Deadline that it's "continuing to invest in fantasy genre of all kinds, we have a genre-focused team on the ground in Studios who work tirelessly with our creative partners on those slates, and you can look forward to more."

The success of the fantasy series Wheel of Time shows why Amazon is going in that direction. Salke revealed that it was "one of the Top 5 series launches of all time for Prime Video," adding that it saw "tens of millions of streams" and high completion rates, to boot. 

Mass Effect rumors have cropped up of late, with EA recently stating that it's "not a matter of if, but when" a TV series based on the game will be made. Witcher star Henry Cavill also hinted at a Mass Effect series in a cryptic Instagram post with (easily deblurred) text, as The Verge noted. 

Mass Effect Legendary Edition arrived earlier this year with updated gameplay and graphics, to generally good reviews. The series first arrived in 2007 with the original Mass Effect, a third-party shooter and role playing game that pits Commander Shepherd and the Systems Alliance against the Reapers, an ancient machine race invading the Milky Way. That was followed by two sequels (2010 and 2012), along with a fourth game, Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017). BioWare and EA are currently developing a fifth, all-new installment.  

With Tesla's latest FSD ("Full Self-Driving") release, it's asking drivers to consent to allowing it to collect video taken by a car's exterior and interior cameras in case of an accident or "serious safety risk." That will mark the first time Tesla will attach footage to a specific vehicle and driver, according to an Electrek report. 

Tesla has gathered video footage as part of FSD before, but it was only used to train and improve its AI self-driving systems. According to the new agreement, however, Tesla will now be able to associate video to specific vehicles. "By enabling FSD Beta, I consent to Tesla’s collection of VIN-associated image data from the vehicle’s external cameras and Cabin Camera in the occurrence of a serious safety risk or a safety event like a collision," the agreement reads. 

By enabling FSD Beta, I consent to Tesla’s collection of VIN-associated image data from the vehicle’s external cameras and Cabin Camera in the occurrence of a serious safety risk or a safety event like a collision.

As Electrek notes, the language could indicate that Tesla wants to ensure it has evidence in case its FSD system is blamed for an accident. It could possibly also be used to detect and fix serious issues more quickly.

FSD 10.3 was released more widely than previous betas, but it was quickly pulled back due to issues like unwarranted Forward Collision Warnings, unexpected autobraking and more. At the time, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that such issues are "to be expected with beta software," adding that "it is impossible to test all hardware configs in all conditions with internal QA, hence public tests."

However, other drivers on public roads are unwitting beta testers, too. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently investigating a driver's complaint that it led to a November 3rd collision in Brea, California. The owner alleged that FSD caused his Model Y to enter the wrong lane and hit another car, causing considerable damage to both. 

Tesla is releasing the new beta to even more users with Driver Safety Scores of 98 and up — previously, beta releases were limited to drivers with perfect 100 scores. Tesla charges drivers $199 per month for the feature or $10,000 in one shot, but has failed meet promised deadlines for autonomous driving. Currently, the FSD system is considered to be a Level 2 system — far from the Level 4 required to really be "full self-driving." 

Last year, Polestar announced that it's stunning Precept concept EV sedan would become a real production car. Now, the company has shown the first official images of the production version and confirmed that it will arrive in 2024 as the Polestar 5, Roadshow has reported.

Unlike many auto show concepts, the new vehicle strongly resembles the Precept that it's based on. That includes the long wheelbase, "shark" nose, fastback design and geometric creasing. "It makes me very proud to see how much of the concept car's design is making it into the Polestar 5," said Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath in a statement. It's likely to use a version of parent Geely's upcoming SPA2 EV platform also earmarked for the Polestar 3 SUV and next-generation Volvo XC90. 

With the Polestar 5, the company has nearly fleshed out its EV lineup that includes the current Polestar 2, upcoming Polestar 3 SUV and the original Polestar 1, a PHEV that will no longer be produced after 2021. A Polestar 4 is also in the offing as a smaller crossover-style SUV that could be the analog of Volvo's C40 Recharge, according to an Autocar report. 

That will give it a product lineup roughly equivalent to Tesla, with a sedan, hatchback, crossover and SUV. Given Polestar's design chops, and the excellent Polestar EV driving characteristics we've seen so far, it should be a formidable rival. 

After doing the same for Disney, Spotify has launched a Netflix hub bringing all of the streaming service's soundtracks, playlists and podcasts into one place. While many of Netflix's soundtracks were already on Spotify, the new feature puts all content related to the service in one place. 

That includes playlists and soundtracks from series and films like La Casa De Papel, Narcos: Mexico, Outer Banks, Squid Game, tick, tick... Boom! and Cowboy Bebop. It also features podcasts around Netflix content like Okay, Now Listen, Netflix Is A Daily Joke, 10/10 Would Recommend and The Crown: The Official Podcast. 

Spotify launched some special material for the hub as well, including an enhanced album for the western movie The Harder They Fall and a refreshed content destination for La Casa De Papel. The latter also features a mobile-only character matching experience putting together La Banda characters and soundtracks. 

Feature-wise, the Netflix hub goes beyond what Spotify offered for Disney, though the latter's content is more iconic thanks to soundtracks from properties like Star Wars and Toy Story 4. In a case of reverse synergy, Netflix will soon release a Spotify drama focusing on co-founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, based on the non-fiction book Spotify Untold. 

Tile first arrived by a crowdfunding campaign and popularized the idea of using tags to locate lost items — but recently, it has faced formidable competition from the likes of Apple's AirTags. Now, Tile has been acquired family tracking company Life360 for $205 million in a move that could give it the resources to better contend with rivals. It will continue to operate with the same branding under current Tile CEO CJ Prober, Life360 announced.

Life360 said the acquisition will help it expand beyond family tracking to letting people "locate the people, pets, and things they love." It noted that the addition of Life360's 33 million smartphone users will increase the reach of Tile's Finding Network by around 10x. 

At the same time, Life360 will gain access to consumers in 27,000 retail stores where Tile trackers are sold. Tile's technology is also used in over a million third-party devices, ranging from wireless earphones to dog collars. The company will also acquire Tile's subscribers, boosting its total paid subscriber base by 45 percent to 1.6 million users.

The company emphasized that both Life360 and Tile are "platform agnostic," working on both iOS and Android. The subtext is that Apple's AirTags only work on iOS, though Apple does have plans to introduce Android compatibility by year's end. Last year, Tile filed an EU complaint against Apple for alleged anticompetitive behavior, claiming the iOS 13.5 update made its app harder to use. 

There's certainly synergy between the companies, as Life360 has operated as a multi-platform 'Find My Friends'-style service for years. Parents in the US, especially, have used the devices to keep track of their kids — so adding the ability to track objects and gadgets makes a lot of sense. 

Dodge is phasing out its gas-powered Charger and Challenger muscle cars by 2024 in favor of electric muscle cars, Motor Trend has reported. The company plans to introduce its first concept EV by 2022, followed by a plug-in hybrid and a third type of unknown vehicle. That follows Dodge's announcement in July that it would introduce its first "eMuscle" car by 2024, promising it will "tear up the streets, not the planet." 

At the time, the company and its parent Stellantis didn't say what would happen to its internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, but it has now clarified that. "These cars that you know today will go out of production by the time we get to 2024," Dodge Brand CEO Tim Kuniskis told Motor Trend in an interview.

I'm juggling knives because I've gotta keep two different huge factions happy because at some point those two factions will converge.

The new electric vehicles may use the '60s triangular Fratzog name and logo to differentiate them. The first concept arriving in 2022 will be an electric muscle car, revealed in the next four or five months as a high-performance, drivable vehicle. The next model, a plug-in hybrid, will be a new car but not a Durango as some expected, according to Kuniskis. The third vehicle is unknown, but will be a "very, very, very, significant car at the end of the year," he added. 

Diehard muscle car fans might not take the news well, though they can't deny the superior performance of EVs. Dodge previously advertised the Challenger in "Demon" trim as the quickest 0-100MPH production car in the world, with the rather large caveat that it "excludes non-mass production vehicles [supercars] and hybrids/electric."

Kuniskis acknowledged that the announcement could create friction. "I'm juggling knives because I've gotta keep two different huge factions happy because at some point those two factions will converge," he said. "The problem is no one knows when they will converge. My job is to provide confidence, over the next 24 months, that we're gonna do this."

Canon's EOS M200 is still one of the best budget mirrorless cameras thanks to features like the Dual Pixel autofocus system and 4K video. Now, you can pick one up with an EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 at Amazon for just $450 or $100 (18 percent) off the regular price. 

The EOS M200 is a top pick as a budget camera because it's so compact and versatile. It takes great photos thanks to the 24.1-megapixel APS-C sensor, which delivers sharp images with natural colors and skin tones. It also comes with Canon's Dual Pixel eye-detect autofocus tech, so most of them will be in focus, too. And for social or tourist shooting, it comes with a pop-up flash.

At the same time, it can handle 4K video at 24 fps, albeit with a 1.6 times crop. That, along with the flip-up display, makes it very useful as a vlogging camera — and it's even good for social media because it can also shoot vertical video. The 15-45mm lens, meanwhile, offers a decent zoom range for most types of shooting.

The downsides are the lack of a viewfinder, though that helps keep the size very small. It also offers a limited lens selection and relatively slow burst shooting speeds. However, it's a real bargain at $450, which is a cheaper price than most cameras without any lens at all. 

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Electric vehicle (EV) charging stations will be required for all new homes and businesses in the UK starting in 2022, the government announced today. The new measure aims to boost EV adoption in the nation by adding up to 145,000 extra charging points each year. 

 "This will mean people can buy new properties already ready for an electric vehicle future, while ensuring charge points are readily available at new shops and workplaces across the UK — making it as easy as refueling a petrol or diesel car today," the press release states.

The UK government has already backed the installation of over 250,000 charging points, so the new rules would increase that by over 50 percent in the first year alone. Buildings like supermarkets and workplaces are included in the law, along with large scale renovations that will have over 10 parking spaces. However, details of the rules, like specifications and power outputs of the installations, have yet to be released. 

Britain's opposition Labour party noted that London and the southeast part of the country have more charging points "than the rest of England and Wales combined," and the new law doesn't help in that regard. It also said that it doesn't include any provisions that would make EVs more affordable for lower- and middle-income families, the BBC reported.

The UK government aims to completely ban the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2030 — 10 years earlier than planned. The government previously said that it's prepared to spend £500 million (about $660 million) on building EV charging infrastructure in the country.

With features like a 3-chip design that delivers a full RGB color signal with no weird "rainbow" patterns, Epson's Home Cinema 4010 4K Pro is one of the best projectors available under $2,000. If you've been looking at one to get a true cinema experience, it's now on sale for $1,500 on Amazon, for a savings of $500 or 25 percent off the regular price. 

The Home Cinema 4010 4K Pro made our list of Best Projectors for 2021, thanks to features like 2,400 lumen brightness, a dynamic iris for crisper blacks, a motorized 2.1X zoom, focus and lens shift. It delivers in picture quality as well, offering both HDR10 and HLG, while covering 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color space in cinema mode. 

Short throw projectors might have all the buzz, but regular long throw projectors still have their place — especially if you'd rather mount the projector and screen on the ceiling. The only drawbacks are Epson's pixel-shifting technology that yields a bit less than 4K resolution, and a lack of support for 60Hz 4K due to the HDMI 1.4 ports. Still, it delivers where it counts with color accuracy and brightness, and the $1,500 price tag makes it a very attractive option. 

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Just two months after its maiden flight, Rolls-Royce's "Spirit of Innovation" has hit a top speed of 387.4 MPH, tentatively smashing the speed record for electric airplanes, Gizmodo has reported. It also claimed the top speed of 345.4 MPH over a 3 kilometer (1.86 mile) course and lowest time to a 3,000 meter (9,843 feet) altitude of 202 seconds. The records have yet to be certified, but if the 345.5 MPH speed stands, it would beat the current record of 213 MPH — held by a Siemens-powered Extra 330LE — by 132 MPH. 

Rolls-Royce (the aviation, not the car company), conducted the tests on November 16th. To have the records certified, it's submitting the trials to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the body in charge of world aviation records. If verified, the speeds would be pretty impressive considering that the plane only made its maiden flight in September — suggesting that with more time, it could go even faster.

The Spirit of Innovation is an old-school "tail-dragger" airplane (steering at the rear) with the canopy pushed way back, that looks as fast as it goes. It's powered by a 400 kW (535 HP), 750 volt motor. Rolls-Royce said it uses the "most power-dense propulsion battery pack ever assembled in aerospace," with 6,480 cells. 

As Engadget detailed in an explainer, electric airplanes aren't practical since current batteries are 50 times less energy dense than jet fuel. However, they do hold some promise for very short trips, like a 30 minute jaunt between Vancouver and Victoria in Canada. And unlike ICE engines, electric motors retain full power as an airplane climbs, making them ideal for time-to-altitude record attempts — as the Spirit of Innovation has just shown.