We knew it was coming, but the War for Wakanda expansion for Marvel’s Avengers now has a street date. Square Enix will release the free DLC on August 17th, the publisher announced today. Billed as the largest content update to Marvel’s Avengers since the game came out last September, fans can look forward to playing as Black Panther, with God of War actor Christopher Judge there to lend his voice to the character. 

Additionally, the expansion will add two new villains and a host of enemies for players to challenge, as well as a brand-new environment to explore. When you add the expansion, the game includes about 25 hours of single-player story content.

Crystal Dynamics will share more details about War for Wakanda during a Twitch stream the developer has planned for August 16th. In the meantime, if you’ve been on the fence about Marvel’s Avengers, now is a good time to try the game. Until August 1st, you can download and play it for free on PlayStation 4, PS5, Stadia and PC via Steam. And if you decide you want to continue playing it past this weekend’s trial period, it’s currently 40 percent off.

GarageBand creators have a bunch more tools at their disposal as of today, including sound packs from Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga. You can learn how to remix Dua Lipa's "Break My Heart" and Lady Gaga's "Free Woman" in the app.

Along with videos of the artists telling the stories behind those songs, the Remix Sessions include step-by-step tutorials, which you can play picture-in-picture. An Apple Retail Creative Pro will give some pointers on how to remix the tunes using a GarageBand Live Loops version of each song. You can play around with isolated vocals, instrumental tracks and beats to create completely different versions of the hits.

Apple says these Remix Sessions build on the Today at Apple workshops that take place at its stores (and online over the past year or so). Big names like Alicia Keys, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift have previously been featured at in-store Music Labs.

There are also seven new GarageBand producer packs created by Boys Noize, Mark Lettieri, Oak Felder, Soulection, Take A Daytrip, Tom Misch and Trakgirl. Each contains royalty-free loops, samples, instruments, drum kits and more that aim to encapsulate the feel of each producer's work. The packs also include videos from the producers, in which they provide words of encouragement and info about their creative process.

Oak Felder said he hopes his pack can help even the playing field and make it easier for newcomers to start producing music. "There is a possibility that you, picking around and making beats on your iPad, can actually turn it into a side hustle," he said.

There's another producer pack which acts as a companion piece to Apple TV+ docuseries Watch the Sound With Mark Ronson. You'll be able to play around with GarageBand versions of samples, drum machines, vocal effects and other elements featured in the show, which premieres on Friday. All of these free downloads are now available from the Sound Library.

Hawkeye, the next live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe series, will debut on Disney+ on November 24th, with new episodes to follow every Wednesday thereafter. Disney shared the news in an interview Entertainment Weekly published with series star Jeremy Renner. The article also includes a first-look screencap (below) showing Renner opposite co-star Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Hawkeye’s protégé Kate Bishop in the series.

Marvel Studios / Disney

With Hawkeye, Disney looks to continue the recent success it’s had with Marvel content. In June, Loki had Disney+’s most-watched premiere, beating out an already impressive debut showing from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier earlier in the year. At the start of July, Black Widow brought in more than $60 million in revenue solely from people willing to pay $30 each to watch the film from the comfort of their homes.

The worlds of fashion and gaming are cozying up to one another. From Gucci selling digital items in Roblox to Vogue's virtual fashion spread starring Gigi Hadid, the two industries are increasingly overlapping to capture a young, tech-savvy audience. Now, Louis Vuitton is jumping on the bandwagon by releasing a mobile video game to celebrate its founder's 200th birthday. Louis: The Game stars the fashion house's mascot Vivienne, a wooden doll embellished with the company's flower insignia, on a journey through the brand's history, reports Austrian newspaper Kurier.

The iOS and Android game reportedly tasks players with exploring a colorful world by completing various quests — all pretty generic so far. Whether it turns out to be more than just an unashamed bit of promotional fluff remains to be seen. The game drops on August 4th. If LV goes all-out psychedelic like it did with its recent UFO-style speaker, then it could be worth a look.

According to WWD, the game will also feature "embedded NFTs." Though, that hardly sounds promising. The one-of-a-kind digital collectibles have gone from multi-million dollar auctions to freebies designed to promote throwaway pop culture, like Warner Bros. recent Space Jam reboot.

Facebook's booming business is dominated by digital ads, but it also has hardware ambitions beyond VR. During the company's latest earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said its next product release would be a pair of smart glasses from Ray-Ban. 

"The glasses have their iconic form factor, and they let you do some pretty neat things," the Facebook co-founder said. "So I'm excited to get those into people's hands and to continue to make progress on the journey toward full augmented reality glasses in the future." 

Facebook's sunglasses have been the subject of rumors since 2019. Back then, sources told CNBC that Facebook was working with Ray-Ban owner EssilorLuxottica on AR eyewear nicknamed "Orion." The glasses were billed as a full-fledged phone replacement on which you could take calls, see information and even broadcast livestreams. That inevitably drew comparisons to Google Glass (another Luxottica collab) instead of the phone-tethered Spectacles from Snap. Last year, Hugo Barra, then VP VR at Facebook Reality Labs, confirmed that the glasses would land in 2021. But, we haven't heard much since.

For Facebook, the glasses hold the key to its future. Alongside virtual reality, augmented reality (AR) is integral to building the "metaverse," Zuckerberg said. In the future, Facebook will morph into a shared, liveable platform that lets you "teleport" between different social experiences using VR and AR, Zuckerberg explained. 

The term metaverse is the latest buzzword seized upon by Silicon Valley and futurists. While the concept has been around for well over a decade, it gained traction after the breakout success of multiplayer game creation platforms like Fortnite and Roblox. Earlier this week, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella mentioned an "enterprise metaverse" on his company's earnings call.

For Facebook, the metaverse is more than just a fad. The company is spending billions in order to build its shared universe, which will be populated with Facebook users and digital ads, according to Zuckerberg. In order for it to become a reality, the company needs more people to buy its computing hardware. Therefore, the plan is to make those devices more affordable.

"Our business model isn't going to primarily be around trying to sell devices at a large premium or anything like that because our mission is around serving as many people as possible," Zuckerberg noted. "So we want to make everything that we do as affordable as possible, so as many people as possible can get into it and then compounds the size of the digital economy inside it. So that's kind of at a high level how I'm thinking about this."

Sunglasses aren't the only hardware Facebook is reportedly working on. Multiple reports have claimed Facebook is developing a smartwatch with a built-in cellular connection and a detachable display. Initially, it was believed that the watch would be first out the gate, but it seems Zuckerberg had other plans.

Facebook users are spending a lot more time watching video, and short-form video like Instagram Reels is growing fast. Speaking during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that “video now accounts for almost half of all time spent on Facebook.” And on Instagram, TikTok competitor Reels is the “largest contributor to engagement growth.”

Though he stopped short of sharing more specific stats, the new details suggest Instagram’s Reels may be gaining more traction as the company vies for creator talent. Zuckerberg also noted that the company’s focus on creators and shopping would also help it reach its longer term goal of becoming a “metaverse company.”

Facebook revealed earlier this week that it was tapping an Instagram exec to start a new team focused on creating a metaverse. “You can kind of think about this as an embodied internet that you're inside of rather than just looking at,” Zuckerberg said. “You're basically gonna be able to do everything that you can on the internet today, as well as some things that don't make sense on the internet today like dancing.”

Zuckerberg’s comments come as the company reported some of its strongest growth in years, with revenue of more than $29 billion, an increase of 56 percent from last year. The company also reported more than 3.5 billion “monthly active people,” though user growth in the US once again remained flat.

Despite the strong numbers this quarter, the company warned that the rest of 2021 could look very different. Facebook expects revenue and growth to “decelerate significantly” in the second half of the year, said CFO Dave Wehner. He also noted that Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, which allows users to opt out of the social network’s ad tracking, would have a “greater impact” next quarter.

Developing...

Following nearly a week of internal unrest, Activision Blizzard has published a letter from CEO Bobby Kotick addressing the company’s original response to the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against it by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) on July 20th. “Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” Kotick says in the letter addressed to Activision Blizzard employees. “It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.”

Kotick claims Blizzard Activision is taking “swift action” to ensure a safe, respectful and inclusive working environment for women and other minority groups. The company has hired law firm WilmerHale to review its policies, and Kotick says Activision Blizzard will implement changes to its hiring practices. It also plans to make personnel tweaks and remove content from its games employees and players have said is “inappropriate” in light of the allegations against the company. On Tuesday, the World of Warcraft development team said it would remove specific references from the MMO. While the team didn’t elaborate, those references may involve items and non-playable characters named after Alex Afrasiabi, one of the former Blizzard employees singled out in the DFEH lawsuit for repeated inappropriate behavior.

Notably, the letter doesn’t make mention of forced arbitration, saying only the company “will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action,” nor does it promise greater transparency when it comes to employee compensation. Those are two issues Activision Blizzard employees who are staging a walkout to protest for better working conditions highlighted in a statement of intent they shared on Tuesday.

In its initial public response to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard said the allegations from DFEH included “distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.” In a separate email to employees, Frances Townsend, executive vice president of corporate affairs at the company, claimed the lawsuit presents “a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago.”

Twitter is the latest social media platform to experiment with new shopping features. The company is allowing a handful of brands to place a “Shop Module” at the top of their profiles that links to products their followers can buy.

While it’s not the first time Twitter has tried out shopping features, it’s the first time the company has incorporated shopping directly into the profile. With the change, businesses can highlight a handful of products in a carousel in between the main profile info and their timeline. The feature is limited to only a few brands, including GameStop and bag-maker Arden Cove, in the US for now.

While up until now Twitter hasn’t pursued shopping as aggressively as some other platforms, the company has recently signaled that could soon change. A “shop” button for tweets has also been spotted, and the company recently introduced new “business profiles.” Shopping features could also have interesting implications for creators, a demographic Twitter has also made a recent push to pursue with new money-making features. Allowing creators to showcase their existing merch shop from their profile could provide an additional boost, and help the company compete with Facebook’s creator shops.

After a series of setbacks, a small batch of beta testers will be among the first to play Halo Infinite. From tomorrow, July 29th, until August 1st, a bunch of Halo Insiders will get to try the sequel's multiplayer preview. The invite-only test will see players sample gameplay including bot slaying in four-player teams across three maps, with the action growing fraught as players wipe out more enemies. 

Bots aren't the only first in the new Halo. Beta testers will also sample the new Academy experience at a firing range, where they'll try out a dozen weapons on strafing bots. As a taster of the customization on offer, players will be get a set amount of in-game credits to spend on items. This is so they can get accustomed with the Battle Passes, check their Challenges, use the Store, and apply their changes in the Armor Hall. However, these items won't carry over into the full game. 

Finally, chosen Insiders will also go hands-on with the Halo Waypoint web and mobile app experiences on iOS and Android. Offering some more insight into the invite process, 343 Industries' Brian Jarrard said the developer is targeting a large number of testers across platforms (including Xbox One, Series X/S, and different PC configurations). 

To meet that goal, preference may also be given to Insiders with valid profiles, those opted in to comms and the DXDIAG diagnostics tool, he added. The developer is also looking at tenure, with preference for long-standing Insiders. You can still sign up to the Halo Insider program. Though it may be too late to jump on this test, more Halo previews are planned in the lead-up to the game's launch this fall.

Back in 2015, before NFTs really became A Thing, the Wu-Tang Clan sold the only copy of the album Once Upon a Time In Shaolin for a reported $2 million at auction. The buyer, it later turned out, was former pharmaceutical exec and convicted dirtbag Martin Shkreli.

Perhaps better known as Pharma Bro, Shkreli became infamous for buying and jacking up the price of life-saving AIDS medication Daraprim from $13.50 to $700 per pill. He was later convicted on securities fraud and securities fraud conspiracy charges and sentenced to seven years in prison. A forfeiture judgment of about $7.4 million was also made against Shkreli, and the government later seized assets to satisfy the judgment — including the album.

All of which brings us to today. The government has soldOnce Upon a Time In Shaolin. Prosecutors didn't say who bought the album or how much they paid, but the sale covers the outstanding balance Shkreli owed the government.

So, after three years of being locked in a federal vault, and almost four years of being owned by the weaselly Shkreli (who tried to sell it on eBay before he was incarcerated), the album is once again in private ownership. Although snippets of the album have popped up online, you probably shouldn't expect it to hit Spotify any time soon, unfortunately.

One of the conditions for the auction sale was that the buyer couldn't use it for commercial purposes until 2103. It's unclear whether that stipulation is still in place, but Shkreli was allowed to play it at listening parties. Maybe the new proprietor of Once Upon a Time In Shaolin will feel generous enough to play it for Wu-Tang fans somewhere. Meanwhile, as is the way of things, Netflix is making a movie about the saga.