It's been more than a decade since Alan Wake first captured gamers' attention, and now it's finally official: the game is getting a sequel. At The Game Awards, we got a first first minute-long look to set up Alan Wake 2, which Remedy Entertainment says will arrive sometime in 2023. Yep, it's going to be a long wait, but at least we know for sure it's coming. Remedy says that the game will be released for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and the PS5.

This announcement comes a couple months after Alan Wake was remastered and released across multiple platforms, and that game contained the tease found in the original game that claimed "Alan Wake's journey through the night will continue." Some speculated that it would be removed from the remaster, but it was in kept intact. Turns out, the line is correct — it just took a long time to come true. 

As for what we'll get from Alan Wake 2, the trailer doesn't give us a whole lot of detail. It's more of a vibe-setting video, and it does a great job at setting up some seriously creepy vibes. While there's not much more to learn about the game right now, you can plan the remastered original on the Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4 or PS5 now. Remedy also says that it'll have more details about the game to share in the summer of 2022.

You won’t find a clear distinction between organic search results and paid ads on Amazon, according to a complaint the Strategic Organizing Center filed on Wednesday with the Federal Trade Commission. The organization, which is a coalition of labor unions, analyzed more than 130,000 search results and found that about 28 percent of the results you see on Amazon represent ads. What’s more, SOC says those ads don’t comply with FTC guidelines designed to make it possible for consumers to distinguish between sponsored content and organic search results.

In 2013, the agency said companies should feature prominent shading or borders, in addition to clear text that is properly situated and sized to avoid confusion. SOC found that zero percent of Amazon’s advertisements featured prominent shading and only about 1.1 percent had an easily distinguished border. When it came to the company’s use of “sponsored” labels, SOC found that in about 22 percent of ads the disclosure was buried under more prominent labels, such as ones that said “Highly rated” and “Today’s deals.” Additionally, those disclosures used a font that was smaller and lighter than the ones the company employed to advertise if a product was liked by other customers or part of a deal.

Elsewhere, SOC claims Amazon employs a technique called “lazy loading” where sponsored labels take longer to appear, particularly on slower internet connections. Using a 12 to 25Mbps connection, the organization found those labels could take up to three seconds longer to load than the top banner ad. We’ll note here we had difficulty verifying that claim at Engadget.

SOC has asked the FTC to take “aggressive and swift action” against the company. "Amazon’s violations are so omnipresent that Amazon’s representation that its platform presents ‘search results’ to consumers is itself deceptive," it said.

Amazon disputes SOC's findings. “This report is incorrect and misunderstands FTC guidance – ads in Amazon’s store always include a clear and prominent ‘sponsored’ label, implemented in accordance with FTC guidelines,” an Amazon spokesperson told Engadget. “We design our store to help customers discover products we think may best meet their needs – sponsored ads is one of the ways to help them find products they may be interested in.”

It’s hard to say if the FTC will take up SOC’s complaint against Amazon. And, even if it does, what kind of action it could take against the company. Part of the problem here is that the agency’s own guidelines leave some room open for interpretation.

“We understand that there is not any one specific method for clearly and prominently distinguishing advertising from natural search results, and that search engines may develop new methods for distinguishing advertising results,” the FTC said in 2013. “Any method may be used, so long as it is noticeable and understandable to consumers.”

At the same time, this is exactly the kind of issue the agency is likely willing to take up under recently appointed chair Lina Khan. In 2017, Khan, then a student at Yale Law School, published an article titled “Amazon's Antitrust Paradox” in which she argued current US policies and laws weren’t enough to keep companies like Amazon accountable.

YouTube is shedding more light on the tidal wave of copyright claims it receives. The service has released its first copyright transparency report and it notes that of the more than 729 million claims made in the first half of the year, it overturned more than 2.2 million. Around 60 percent of disputed claims were resolved in favor of the uploader, versus just under 1.5 million in the claimant's favor.

Over 99 percent (722.7 million) of all copyright claims between January and June emerged through Content ID, which automatically monitors YouTube for potential copyright issues. Only 0.5 percent of these were disputed.

Other copyright claims were submitted via webforms and the Copyright Match tool. YouTube says claims that are filed manually are twice as likely to be disputed than automated ones. That indicates creators are perhaps more reluctant to appeal against Content ID claims, even though most disputes are resolved in their favor.

Copyright owners can opt to have a video that's deemed to violate their rights deleted, track viewership stats and/or receive revenue it generates. Earlier this year, YouTube started offering creators a way to check for potential copyright violations when they upload a video. The platform offers creators a way to remove sections of a video that cause issues.

YouTubers have long criticized how the platform handles copyright claims, as The Verge notes. They can lose money or even face having their channel banned as a result of claims, many of which are evidently incorrect. While the report provides more insight into how big an issue copyright claims are, YouTube acknowledges "no system is perfect" and that it's "impossible for matching technology to take into account complex legal considerations like fair use or fair dealing."

Fortnite Chapter 2 has only just come to an end, but that isn't preventing sleuths from finding out what Chapter 3 will hold. As Kotakulearned, the game's official Polish YouTube channel briefly shared a Chapter 3 trailer revealing many of the planned changes to the battery royale brawler. You can expect a new island (and new characters, including Gears of War's Marcus and Kait as well as Spider-Man — there even appears to be web-swinging like you've seen in Insomniac's Spider-Man games, not to mention locales like the Daily Bugle.

Chapter 3 will add some new mechanics on top of fresh weapons and items. You can slide (seen in the Chapter 2 finale), and set up camps to both heal your squad and stash items you can carry over to future matches. And there's even a degree of star power: The Foundation, a character voiced by Dwayne Johnson, will carry over from the Chapter 2 shutdown.

It's not clear when Chapter 3 debuts. However, Epic wasn't afraid to repeat history and kick players out of Fortnite as the previous chapter came to an end. Chapter 2 closed in dramatic fashion, with The Foundation helping to defeat a Cube Queen invasion and flipping the entire island upside-down. If you stuck with the event, you were left treading water and with no option but to quit the game. Clearly, Epic is betting this dramatic ploy will work a second time.

On the same day Reuters published a report on how NSO spyware may have been used to target State Department officials, the Biden administration announced the US would work with other countries to limit the export of surveillance software and other technologies to authoritarian governments. In a media event involving The Wall Street Journal, White House officials said the administration wants to coordinate with allies on a code of conduct related to export-licensing policies. Those involved in the effort would share information on tools used against political dissidents, journalists and foreign government officials.

The Biden Administration will announce the effort at the upcoming Summit for Democracy. The event, set to run for two days between December 9th and 10th, will see national governments and the private sector meet to discuss some of the challenges facing democracies in 2021 and beyond. Notably, China and Russia weren’t invited to attend the meeting.

Officials told The Journal the effort is in part a response to a global increase in the use of digital surveillance tools. “Technology is being misused by governments to surveil and, in some cases— as in the case of the [People’s Republic of China] — to control their population,” an administration official told the outlet. The effort could include some of the existing members of the Wassenaar Arrangement, a pact that sets voluntary export controls on military and dual-use technologies.

The initiative would build on work the US government is already doing to limit the export and resale of cyber intrusion software to China and Russia. At the end of October, the Commerce Department announced a new set of rules that will require companies that want to sell their hacking tools to countries “of national security concern” to obtain a license from the department before they can do so.

Nintendo launched its paid Switch Online Expansion Pack tier with a very limited number of N64 games in October. And according to Kotaku, they were plagued with various technical issues, such as wonky layouts, poor graphics quality and bugs that cause crashes. Soon, though, the gaming giant will add a Nintendo 64 classic to the list of titles you can access with the subscription service: The original Paper Mario game that was released over 20 years ago. 

The base Switch Online subscription, which gives you access to NES and SNES titles, costs $20 a year. If you want to play the N64 games the expansion pack offers, you'll have pony up $50 a year or $80 for a family plan. In addition to getting access to N64 games, the more expensive tier also include retro SEGA Genesis games and the $25 Animal Crossing: Happy Home Paradise DLC. There's still a huge jump from $20 to $50, though, and the addition of Paper Mario could convince fans of the series to subscribe. 

Here's a summary of what the turn-based game is about:

"After Bowser steals the Star Rod and kidnaps Princess Peach, Mario plots to rescue the seven Star Spirits and free the Mushroom Kingdom from the Koopa's rule. As Mario travels from the tropical jungles of Lavalava Island to the frosty heights of Shiver Mountain, he'll need all the help he can get. Master the abilities of the seven Star Spirits and the other allies joining the adventure to aid our hero on the battlefield."

Paper Mario for the N64 will be available to Expansion Pack subscribers starting on December 10th.  

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to reverse Facebook parent company Meta's purchase of Giphy in the coming days, according to the Financial Times. If so, it would mark the first time that the country's competition regulator has unwound a major tech acquisition.

Meta (or Facebook, at the time) announced in May 2020 that it bought the GIF platform with the goal of rolling it into Instagram. Reports pegged the price of the deal at $400 million.

The CMA raised concerns about the acquisition, however. It opened an investigation into the deal the following month. The regulator ruled in August that the deal could prevent rivals such as TikTok and Snapchat from accessing Giphy's library of GIFs. It also said the deal could remove a potential competitor to Meta in the UK advertising sector. Meta ended Giphy's paid ad partnerships, which the CMA said halted the company's ad expansion, including to other countries.

The watchdog suggested Meta could be forced to sell the service. A CMA spokesperson told Engadget that it hasn't published it's final decision, but it has until December 1st to do so.

Meta has previously argued that because Giphy doesn't have any operations in the UK, the CMA has no jurisdiction in this case. In addition, it claimed Giphy's paid services couldn't be classed as display advertising according to the CMA's market definition.

The issue between Meta and the CMA grew more contentious in October, when the authority fined the company almost $70 million for breaking rules related to the deal. The CMA said it was the first time it determined a company breached one of its orders by "consciously refusing to report all the required information."

Engadget has contacted Meta for comment.

Pinterest will no longer enforce former employees' nondisclosure agreements when it comes to cases of racial and gender-based discrimination, according to NBC News. That's part of the terms the company has agreed to in order to settle the lawsuit filed by its shareholder, the Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island, for allegedly enabling a culture of discrimination. In addition, it has committed $50 million towards increasing diversity and inclusion within the company.

The shareholder sued Pinterest after allegations made by former employees Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks became public. In a series of tweets, Ozoma detailed how she fought for a year to be paid and treated fairly. She said Pinterest responded inadequately when one of her white male colleagues shared her name and phone number to racist/misogynistic parts of the internet. Her colleague reportedly doxxed her after she suggested adding a warning on content from Ben Shapiro, whom she'd described as a "white supremacist."

Meanwhile, Banks said her manager made disparaging comments about her ethnicity (she's Black and Japanese) in front of colleagues. Both Ozoma and Banks said they were paid less than their manager, a white man, despite having similar workloads. 

The Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island argued that by allowing those events to take place, executives perpetrated or knowingly ignored "the long-standing and systemic culture of discrimination and retaliation at Pinterest." Thus, they breached their fiduciary duty. Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner said:

"We pushed for these sweeping reforms to support Pinterest's employees with a fair and safe workplace, and to strengthen the company's brand and performance by ensuring that the values of inclusiveness are made central to Pinterest's identity." 

As NBC News notes, the fact that Pinterest agreed to release employees from their NDAs reflects the work Ozoma has accomplished since she left the company. She co-sponsored the Silenced No More Act that will make it easier for workers to speak out about racism and harassment in the workplace even if they had previously signed NDAs. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law in October, and it will be enforced starting on January 1st. 

Ozoma and Banks aren't the only former employees who spoke out against Pinterest. Former COO Françoise Brougher also said that she was fired after she told CEO Ben Silbermann that she was being given gendered feedback and was being paid less than her male counterparts. She sued the company last year and settled for $22.5 million.

It seems big changes are coming to Fortnite soon. Chapter 2, which started all the way back in October 2019, will wrap up with a one-time-only in-game event called The End at 4PM ET on December 4th.

"With The Convergence complete, The Cube Queen prepares her endgame for the Island and nothing will ever be the same," Epic Games wrote in a blog post. "Grab your weapons and fight the ultimate destroyer of all reality."

The Chapter 1-closing event was also named The End and it blew up the original island in spectacular fashion. Fortnite was offline for a few days before Chapter 2 started with an entirely new map. Among other updates, Epic also brought in a fresh user interface and new mechanics in Chapter 2. Given that the publisher says players will battle The Cube Queen "in one last stand for the fate of the Island" and that nothing will seemingly be the same, it seems likely more major changes are coming to the battle royale in the near future.

If you have any Bars or Battle Stars, use them before the end of the season, since they won't carry over to Chapter 3. Starting on November 30th, character services and exotic item trades will be discounted in Bargain Bin Week. Fortnite will automatically redeem unused Battle Stars for the earliest available rewards. If you have any remaining quests you want to complete, now might be the time to do that.

Squads of up to 16 players will be able to experience The End together. The event playlist will open at 3:30PM, so it's probably worth joining early to secure a spot. Meanwhile, since Epic is ending the season a day earlier than planned, everyone who logs into Fortnite before it wraps up will receive a 225,000 XP bonus. Those who take part in the event will unlock a special Loading Screen and Wrap too.

Bobby Kotick has reportedly said he may consider resigning as CEO of Activision Blizzard if he can’t fix the company’s cultural problems fast enough. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kotick held a meeting last week involving senior leadership at Blizzard Entertainment in which he said he was “ashamed” of some of the incidents that had occured at the studio under his tenure as CEO. He reportedly went to apologize for his handling of the current situation after he was told some employees would not be satisfied unless he were to resign. According to The Journal, Kotick left open the possibility of a resignation if he couldn’t fix the company’s problems “with speed.”

We’ve reached out to Activision Blizzard for comment.

Calls for Kotick to resign have steadily increased in frequency since The Wall Street Journalpublished a report last week which alleged he knew about many of the sexual misconduct incidents that had occured at the company over the years. According to the outlet, Kotick has also been accused of mistreating women himself, including one episode involving a voicemail in which he allegedly threatened to have his assistant killed.

After the report came out on November 16th, Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout and later started a petition calling for Kotick to be removed as CEO of the company. Since then, a group of activist shareholders has also called on Kotick to step down. In leaked emails, the heads of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft’s Xbox division both said they were troubled by the allegations that had come out of the publisher. In the latter case, Phil Spencer reportedly told employees he was “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard and making ongoing proactive adjustments.”

One group Kotick has seemingly not lost support among is Activision Blizzard’s board of directors. On the same day The Journal published its report, the company’s board said it “remains confident that Bobby Kotick appropriately addressed workplace issues brought to his attention.”