X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed today that video chat is coming to the platform. In an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen (viaTechCrunch), Yaccarino said, “Soon you’ll be able to make video chat calls without having to give your phone number to anyone on the platform.” The move reflects Yaccarino and Musk’s mission to build X into an “everything app” that includes long-form videos, payments and creator subscriptions.

The announcement follows a slightly cryptic post this week from X designer Andrea Conway. “Just called someone on X,” she posted, followed by four exploding-head emojis. Although that post didn’t clarify whether it was voice or video calls, it now appears she was referring to the latter.

It isn’t clear how X video calls would fill a burning need for consumers: The crowded video-chat landscape already includes Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Apple FaceTime and more. But as Musk and Yaccarino try to reshape the company, they increasingly view the platform formerly known as Twitter as expanding far beyond tweets into a real-time town square for various media, communications and payments.

“At the heart of the rebrand, X, we need to keep our minds open that it’s developing into this global town square that is fueled by free expression where the public gathers in real time,” Yaccarino said. “And I want to stop on that for a second because ‘in real time’ is what’s most important about the vibrancy of X and how people interact with it. And now it’s all in one seamless interface.”

One of the platform’s first moves into new areas was in long-form video. The company added a Twitter Blue perk in May that lets subscribers upload videos up to two hours long. Apple was an early adopter as it used the allotment to plug its series Silo by posting the entire first episode on the social platform. X also recently began paying content creators with enough of a following to generate income — with one user claiming to receive $24,000.

Yaccarino echoed the company’s previous comments about X as a payment platform. “Payments: There’s been a lot of talk about that,” she said. “Payments between you and a friend, between you and one of your creators. So there’s been a lot going on in the rebrand represented — really a liberation from Twitter. A liberation that allowed us to evolve past a legacy mindset and thinking and to reimagine how everyone, everyone on spaces who’s listening, everybody who’s watching around the world, it’s going to change how we congregate, how we entertain, how we transact all in one platform.”

Fans of shows like Andor and The Last of Us who are looking forward to finding out whether their faves will triumph at the Emmy Awards will have to remain patient for an extra few months. The Television Academy and Fox have announced that the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will now take place on January 15th — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — rather than September 18th.

That marks a delay of four months and it means the ceremony will air one week after the Golden Globes. The Television Academy and its broadcast partner have pushed back the Creative Arts Emmy Awards to the same weekend as the Golden Globes as well (an edited version of that two-night ceremony will air on January 13th).

The delay isn't unexpected. Rumors have been swirling for weeks that the Academy and Fox would have to postpone the Emmy Awards amid writers and actors strikes that have ground Hollywood productions to a halt. With no Writers Guild of America members available to write jokes for the Emmys host and actors in SAG-AFTRA unable to attend awards ceremonies due to union rules about promoting struck work, a rescheduling seemed inevitable at this point.

Actors and writers are on strike in an attempt to secure fair contracts with Hollywood studios that protect the future of their professions. One of the major points of contention is that both unions want to safeguard their members against advancements in artificial intelligence that could harm their employment prospects. For instance, SAG-AFTRA claims the studios wanted to scan actors and have the right to use their digital likenesses in perpetuity in exchange for a single day of pay.

As has been the case for several years now, shows and television movies from streaming services are competing with those from broadcast networks for Emmy glory. HBO and Max racked up a combined 127 nominations thanks to the likes of The Last of Us and Succession. Netflix has 103 and Apple (with a big helping hand from reigning Emmys champ Ted Lasso) has 52. Thanks in large part to its various Star Wars shows, Disney+ has 40 Emmy nominations this year.

The following article discusses spoilers for “Hegemony” and Star Trek more generally.

1. Bloody hell. I’ve repeatedly said that Strange New Worlds exudes a special sort of confidence this season. The cast and crew are working as a seamless whole, knowing that the conviction at which you sell is just as important as the quality of what’s being sold. The team has raised their floor and ceiling in equal measure, and even the worst episode was bad because of what it said, not because of how it said it. “Hegemony,” is a finale that, aided by the early commission of season three, acts as one part victory lap and one part set up for what follows.

2. The powers that be at Paramount didn’t signal ahead of time that this episode would end on a cliffhanger. In fact, Henry Alonso Myers’ screenplay is a brilliant feint, suggesting the episode will wrap up on a satisfactory, if brisk, ending before the rug pull in its final moment. You’d be forgiven for not noticing the different transporter energy when the survivors were beamed away on your first watch. Myers’ script and Maja Vrvilo’s direction is permeated with a low-level feeling of dread that suits the needs of both the Alien-esque horror and the raised-stakes of a finale.

3.Strange New Worlds has been smarter about setting up and paying off its threads than you might expect. “Among the Lotus Eaters” saw Ortegas feeling sidelined after getting bumped from an away team which forced her to accept her role as the ship’s pilot. Here, she finally gets her wish to go on a mission, but her initial enthusiasm is sapped when she realizes she’s more or less out of her depth. Her scene with Dr. M'Benga, where she admits she’s leaving the role of action hero to the captain, underscores this. The fact she’s one of the crewmembers taken by the Gorn at the end adds a darker weight to her finally getting her wish granted.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

4. Montgomery Scott’s voice-only cameo in last season’s finale was a neat hat-tip to fans with a basic fluency for Star Trek. I guess it was just too tempting not to follow up on that this time, with Martin Quinn as the young engineer. It’s gratifying to see an actual, Paisley-born Scot playing the role, and an amusing fact that he’s the second actor – after Simon Pegg – who has paid their dues playing roles in various British comedy shows. If Quinn hangs around, I can’t wait for Trek completionists to watch Limmy’s Show and Derry Girls to watch his early work, much like when I watched Brent Spiner on Cheers and Night Court.

5. I don’t want to harp on about the limitations a prequel imposes, because we all know the score now. It may bend the edges of Trek’s established narrative but Strange New Worlds can never escape its eventual destination. Young Kirk, Young Spock, Young Uhura, Young Chapel, Young Scotty and Young Dr. M’Benga will all be here, around and alive, to turn into their 1966 counterparts. You can’t put any of those characters in jeopardy, or base your episode around asking that question, because we already know who is safe.

That’s why the emotional beats of Spock’s dramatic rescue of Chapel worked perfectly, but asking the question of her survival did not. The show was smart enough to only leave the issue lingering for the first act before we saw Chapel working to stay alive. (Notice she also gets to do an EVA in a proper spacesuit after her emergency leap in “The Broken Circle.”) But I can only speak as a “fan” so maybe it worked better for those mainstream viewers who have made Strange New Worlds one of the biggest shows on streaming TV.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

6. Back in the ‘60s, Pike and Kirk were the same character with the serial numbers filed off, both drawn from the same template of rugged mid ‘60s masculinity. Two-fisted thinking men of action as comfortable on the back of a horse as they were quoting poetry or discussing naval history. This lack of distinction wasn’t really an issue back then, or even now, until Strange New Worlds made the conscious decision to let Kirk lurk on the periphery of Pike’s narrative.

It meant the production team needed to retrofit Pike as different from his successor, helped by Anson Mount’s gravitas and easy charm. And the first season finale made it clear that Pike’s reluctance to shoot first and ask questions later was his tragic flaw. One that Kirk didn’t have, which made him a better leader to take the Enterprise on its next set of missions. But Anson Mount’s paternity leave and reduced shooting schedule meant there wasn’t time to examine the fallout from “A Quality of Mercy” in any detail.

After all, he now knows his desire to find a peaceful solution single-handedly started a war that wiped out the Federation. He also knows he has to remain true to his principles or else he could pollute the timeline and not be in the right place to save future Spock’s life. The fact he’s unable to make a decision in the cliffhanger is entirely congruent with the journey Pike has been on, but it’s clear the steps leading to this moment would have been explored far more had Mount been available.

“Hegemony,” then, is the show’s first real chance to look at how Pike has tried to grow into Kirk’s mold, despite how ill-fitting he finds it. In his first talk with Admiral April, he advocates a policy of shooting first, but not long after he’s thinking about trying to find a peaceful solution. It’s those two competing urges that paralyze Pike in the finale, knowing there are lives on the line whatever he does. But, again, you have to praise the production team for trusting the audience will keep up with what happened in the previous season.

7. It’s not great that Strange New Worlds can only do so much to put clear water between Pike and Kirk. You can’t make Pike look too old-fashioned or useless without alienating him from the audience, especially given his forthcoming ultimate sacrifice. But go too far the other way and you make Pike a dove in comparison with the more hawkish Kirk which, to me, feels like the wrong message to be sending.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

8. It’s hard to know how long Strange New Worlds will run for, or what the plans are for its future. You could easily argue it never needs to end so much as just swap out characters until you’ve rebuilt the 1966 ensemble. Every generation of Paramount executives harbors a desire to get a do-over on Kirk and Spock in the hope their name recognition alone will carry a series.

But I’m curious if that’s something people would actually want? I’m not sure I do, but then my dream would be an original series set in Trek’s present with no legacy characters at all. And I know that’s something of a minority opinion compared to all those folks who want yet another run on the nostalgia treadmill set in the safety of Trek’s past. (If nothing else, at least Strange New Worlds has kept its fan service to a minimum and tried, as best as it can, to set out on its own path.)

9. At the end of my season one finale review, I wrote “Whisper it, friends, but Strange New Worlds might actually be good?” That was a fair line at the time, since the show took a while before clicking into a high gear. Since then, however, more or less every episode has improved upon the last to produce a second season with barely any weak notes. We don’t need to whisper anything now, Strange New Worlds is the best live-action Trek of the streaming era.

The surprisingly emotional and strangely addictive “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please just turned ten years old and has officially sold five million copies across multiple platforms throughout the past decade. To celebrate the milestone, developer Lucas Pope and his company 3909 LLC released a web game called LCD, Please that allows players to go through certain aspects of the original title.

Just like the real game, LCD, Please tasks you with approving or denying passport and transit requests. As the name suggests, the graphics style emulates those LCD portable devices of yesteryear, like Nintendo’s Game & Watch series. The sound is monotone, the controls are simple and the gameplay is addictive, making it a great way to accidentally waste a few minutes during the work day.

The web game isn’t the only way the developer is celebrating the success of Papers, Please. There’s also an official soundtrack, available now on Spotify and Apple Music, a developer’s log with insider information chronicling the game’s original pitch and a store selling related merchandise. To the latter, you can pick up posters, shirts, stickers and more.

Since the game’s initial release in 2013, Papers, Please has gone on to launch on over 40 platforms, according to the developer. Most recently, the title was released for Android and iOS devices last year. The game’s success also inspired a short film, which was well-received and lauded for capturing the spirit of the source material. Since making Papers, Please, developer Lucas Pope has gone on to create the seafaring whodunnitReturn of the Obra Dinn.

Dead by Daylight has a new Killer in town, and it's one all horror fans know (and likely fear): the Xenomorph. Behaviour Interactive has released all of the details of its new Alien collaboration following a teaser that provided a glimpse into the new Nostromo Wreckage Map. The announcement confirmed not only the Xenomorph's role as Dead by Daylight's latest Killer but also the introduction of Ellen Ripley as a Survivor. 

This edition introduces seven Control Stations, a new Map feature that allows Survivors to get a Remote Flame Turret (another addition), which they can use to stagger the Xenomorph — though the Killer can destroy the tool. It can also stop the Xenomorph's unique Power known as Runner Mode, which lets it walk on four legs and shrinks its Terror Radius. 

The control stations sit on top of tunnels that the Xenomorph can enter and exit through. "Creating the Xenomorph's Tunnel system was very challenging as we had never created a sublevel that could only be accessible to the Killer. This new mechanic grants it Map-wide mobility and definitely amps up the scare factor – which feels very connected to the original character," said Janick Neveu, Game Designer on Dead by Daylight.

You don't have to wait long to wander through the Nostromo Wreckage in total fear (a perfect nighttime game, right?) as Dead by Daylight: Alien will be available across platforms starting August 29th. Impatient? You can already download the game's Public Test Build and try it out early. 

Since last year, Netflix has run a Discord bot that helps people find shows and movies to watch together based on what's available in their location. The company is expanding the "Hey, Netflix" bot's capabilities today with a text-based game.

This is the first time Netflix is bringing a game along these lines to Discord. As you might imagine, it ties into something that you'll be able to stream on Netflix soon, an action movie called Heart of Stone that stars Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan. The film will land on Netflix this Friday.

In Heart of Stone: Maze of Odds, you'll take on the role of a double agent (similar to Gadot's character in the film). Netflix says you'll need to quickly make decisions in "action-driven situations." Based on some details that Netflix shared in advance, it seems that you'll need to choose between some preset options, much like the interactive TV shows and movies it has released in the past.

Intriguingly, Netflix says Heart of Stone: Maze of Odds will be different each time you play it. The Discord bot randomly chooses scenarios from a bank of situations. Additionally, you'll be able to play it solo or ask friends to join in for multiplayer action. The game includes collectibles for you to pick up along the way too. Lastly, while Discord users around the world can check out the game, it's worth noting that it's only available in English.

Netflix has been making a big push into games in general over the last couple of years. Last month, it released Oxenfree II, the first game from one of its in-house studios. The company also just debuted a game controller app for iPhone and iPad. As such, you'll soon be able to play its games (which are typically included with a Netflix subscription) on compatible TVs as well as phones and tablets.

The beta version of Spotify’s AI-enhanced DJ feature is coming to 50 new countries, after soft-launching in the US and Canada back in February. In recent months, it’s rolled out in the UK and Ireland, but now the robotic Wolfman Jack is headed to more countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, in addition to Australia and New Zealand.

There’s a caveat, but it depends on some initial understanding of what this tool actually does. The Spotify DJ is available to premium subscription members and provides algorithmic recommendations of what to listen to, just like any music streaming app. However, these recommendations are accompanied by AI-generated DJ commentary on what you’re listening to. So what’s the rub? The DJ, based on Spotify’s Xavier Jernigan, only speaks English, no matter where you live. This is not a big deal for Australia and New Zealand, but an annoying constraint for listeners in Ghana, Singapore and most other parts of the world. A Spotify spokesperson told Engadget that the company has “no more news to share on new languages at this time.”

Despite the language limitation, it’s still a nifty toolset. It combines OpenAI’s proprietary large language model (LLM) technology, which powers ChatGPT, with Sonantic’s AI voice generation platform. Spotify bought Sonantic last year, largely due to its focus on generating realistic speech. In addition to the AI-enhanced speech, the platform also gives for written information as to why a particular song was chosen.

This tool is available today for Spotify Premium users across the world, but this is a beta, so expect changes and improvements in the short-term and long-term future. Spotify says that it is “continuing to iterate and innovate the experience.”

Apple has quietly launched a new feature for its music streaming service that could help you expand your playlists and find new artists to listen to. It's a personalized radio station called "Discovery Station," which picks the songs it thinks you'd be into from Apple Music's catalog. As Apple Insider notes, the tech giant's music service hasn't gone all in on algorithmic recommendations like Spotify, which has several playlists that can generate mixes based on your listening habits. 

An Apple spokesperson told us that Discovery Station will only play music you haven't played on the service before from both familiar artists and potentially unfamiliar ones it thinks you might like. And since its main purpose is to help you discover new music, it will never play the same song twice and will play continuously until you stop it. Like other playlists that use algorithms to recommend tracks, Discovery Station also bases its suggestions on your activity and will keep changing as your taste evolves. 

The feature is now live around the world. If you're an existing subscriber, you can access it by going to your Listen Now page and checking out the Stations for You section. If you don't have a subscription, it will cost you at least $5 a month in the US for an audio-only plan or at least $11 a month if you want access to Apple Music's video programming and other features, such as lossless audio and Dolby Atmos. 

TikTok is undergoing massive changes for users in the European Union in order to meet the August 28th deadline the region's authorities gave companies to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA). Perhaps the biggest change users will encounter is the ability to decide whether or not to let algorithms power their For You page (FYP). "Soon," the service announced, users in the region will be able to switch off personalization. If they do, then their FYP will be populated with popular videos within their location and from around the world instead of content tailored to them. 

When they search for any subject in particular, the results will also be comprised of popular videos in their region and content in their preferred language. They can still head to their Following and Friends feeds to see posts by people they follow, but both will now show a chronological timeline instead of one based on their profile. Under the DSA, "providers of very large online platforms," of which TikTok is included, are required to to ensure that users can "enjoy alternative options which are not based on profiling" as part of their "recommender systems." That means they have to offer an option that presents their content to users in a way that doesn't use their personal data. 

As TechCrunch notes, it'll be an enormous shift for TikTok, seeing as most of its success is credited to the algorithm that powers its For You Page. Its scrollable format filled with videos targeting specific users is what makes the app so addicting. 

In addition to introducing an alternative FYP, TikTok is rolling out an additional reporting option for European users for content they believe shouldn't be allowed on the platform. If the service decides that it doesn't violate its general guidelines upon review, a new dedicated team of moderators will then take a look at it to see if it violates laws in the region. TikTok can then restrict access to the reported video within that country or region only. 

The social network will also start giving users in Europe more details about its content moderation decisions, such as why posts with false information aren't eligible for recommendation. Finally, it said that it will no longer serve personalized advertising to users in Europe ages 13 to 17 based on their activities. 

Baldur’s Gate III is available right now — partially. To be clear, the game itself is complete, but its rollout is fragmented, with different release dates for each of its planned platforms. Following a lengthy Early Access period, the PC and Mac version of Baldur’s Gate III went live today, August 3, while the PlayStation 5 version is due out on September 6. The game’s developer, Larian Studios, hasn’t provided a release date for the Xbox Series X and S edition.

This isn’t a wholly unprecedented situation. After all, plenty of games come out at different times on various platforms, determined by licensing and exclusivity deals, or simply developer priority. In the case of Baludr’s Gate III, though, something went wrong — specifically with the Xbox version.

“We have no exclusivity deal that prevents us from launching on Xbox,” Larian Studios director of publishing Michael Douse said on X in July. “The issue is a technical hurdle. We cannot remove the split-screen feature because we are obliged to launch with feature parity, and so continue to try and make it work.”

Larian Studios

Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup. Microsoft requires all games to run, feature-complete and without changes in quality or mechanics, on both the Xbox Series X and Series S. With Baldur’s Gate III, this parity rule means the game will be console-exclusive to the PS5 for four months, at least.

“We have quite a few engineers working very hard to do what no other RPG of this scale has achieved: seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op on Series S,” Douse said on X. “We hope to have an update by the end of the year.”

Baldur’s Gate III is a highly anticipated role-playing game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, offering familiar classes and abilities in an expansive high-fantasy world. The original Baldur’s Gate landed in 1998 to critical and commercial acclaim, and Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn followed in 2000. The series spawned spin-offs and enhanced editions, but Baldur’s Gate III is the franchise’s first mainline installment in more than 20 years. Reviews for the PC version are already rolling in, and they’re looking good overall.

PS5 players will get to try out the console version on September 6, but Xbox Series X/S players will have to wait. Though Microsoft’s parity requirements have been in place since the Xbox Series consoles came to market in November 2020, Baldur’s Gate III is the ecosystem’s highest-profile loss directly attributable to these restrictions.

Larian Studios

Larian's issue is likely to be related to RAM. While both the Xbox Series X and PS5 have 16GB RAM, the Series S has just 10GB, running at a slower speed than the other consoles, which dramatically lowers its total memory bandwidth. (The Series S’ GPU is also significantly underpowered compared with the PS5 and Series X, but it’s much easier to “turn down the graphics” than to recode your game.) Clearly, there is potential for Microsoft’s parity requirement to limit the availability, scope and quality of games on the Xbox Series X.

The debate over this potentiality hit a fever pitch last year, with players asking whether the Series S was “holding back” the ninth console generation overall. There weren’t a ton of concrete examples to prove this theory, and the Digital Foundry team argued against the idea, citing the existing variance in the PC market and saying that lower targets could actually help games run even better on higher-powered consoles. Still, a handful of developers from the indie and AAA space went public in late 2022 with their frustrations around the parity rule.

“MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped,” Bossa Studios VFX artist Ian Maclure tweeted at the time. “Studios have been through one development cycle where Series S turned out to be an albatross around the neck of production, and now that games are firmly being developed with new consoles in mind, teams do not want to repeat the process.”

Rocksteady senior character technical artist Lee Devonald similarly tweeted about his experience building Gotham Knights — a game that shipped on consoles with a framerate locked at 30 fps and no performance mode. According to Gamerant, Devonald said that multiplatform developers had to “optimize for the lowest performer,” and, “we have a current-gen console that’s not much better than a last gen one,” referencing the Xbox Series S.

"[An] entire generation of games, hamstrung by that potato," Devonald tweeted.

Larian Studios

With the Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft pivoted away from the traditional console-upgrade cycle and instead focused on establishing its wider gaming ecosystem, which centers cloud play in a post-hardware future. Sony, meanwhile, stuck to tradition — its pitch for the PS5 is more power, faster loading, better graphics and smoother animations than the PS4. This has largely worked out for Sony: It’s leading in console sales, with more than 40 million PS5s in homes around the globe. Xbox said at a Brazilian game festival in June that it has over 21 million players on Xbox Series X and Series S consoles.

Regardless of whether the Series S is restraining the entire video game industry, Xbox parity requirements are literally holding back Baldur’s Gate III, and this system has accidentally created another console exclusive for the PS5, for now.