After almost 20 years away from the motorsport, Ford is returning to Formula 1. The automaker is teaming up with Red Bull to develop a next-gen hybrid power unit for Red Bull Racing and sibling team AlphaTauri. The teams will use the Ford-powered engines between 2026 and at least 2030. Ford will supply "expertise in areas including battery cell and electric motor technology as well as power unit control software and analytics," according to a statement.
Ford has a long history in Formula 1 dating back to the 1960s. As an engine manufacturer, it played a role in 13 drivers’ championships and 10 constructors’ championships before it stepped away from the sport in 2004. However, upcoming rule changes regarding increased engine electrification and fully sustainable fuels prompted Ford to make a comeback.
“Ford’s return to Formula 1 with Red Bull Racing is all about where we are going as a company — increasingly electric, software-defined, modern vehicles and experiences,” Ford president and CEO Jim Farley said. “F1 will be an incredibly cost-effective platform to innovate, share ideas and technologies and engage with tens of millions of new customers.”
Red Bull started building its own F1 engine for the first time as Honda, its current partner, is leaving the sport to place more of its attention on fuel cell and EV technology. Although Honda officially departed F1 at the end of 2021, it's continuing to support Red Bull until new engine rules come into force in 2026, as The Race notes. It was expected that Red Bull would need some assistance to build a hybrid system.
Audi announced last year that it will build a hybrid F1 engine. This week, it was revealed that the automaker has bought a minority stake in Sauber, which will become its works team.
With the third season of Overwatch 2 slated to start on February 7th, Blizzard is stepping up its efforts to combat cheating. In a blog post published Wednesday, the studio said it would begin identifying players who regularly play with known cheaters. Blizzard says the owners of those accounts will face repercussions, even if they’re not cheating themselves. It warns of “severe suspensions” and, in some cases, outright bans.
Next season, Blizzard will also introduce a system for moderating custom game modes. The company says the new technology will automatically remove games with inappropriate titles or content and sanction the accounts that create and post those modes. The system comes after the original Overwatch’s “sexual harassment simulator” custom mode made a brief reappearance last month. The mode tasked players with impregnating the game’s female heroes while playing as Cole Cassidy, the hero Blizzard renamed after allegations about its “frat boy” workplace culture came to light in 2021. After the mode appeared in Overwatch 2’s most popular list, Blizzard took action but didn’t say how it would prevent a similar incident from happening again.
Lastly, Blizzard says it’s taking action against a practice known as stream sniping. If you’ve ever watched a popular streamer play a multiplayer game like Overwatch 2 or Valorant, you know how frustrating it is for content creators when someone tries to queue into the same match and uses a stream to give themselves a competitive edge. Starting with season three, players will have the option to prevent their BattleTag, and the tags of anyone else in their match, from appearing in their game client. Blizzard will also allow players to hide or delay their queue time. The studio says those measures should prevent someone watching a stream from figuring out if they’re in the same lobby as a streamer. You’ll find the toggles to enable those features within Overwatch 2’s social settings.
Apple dabbled in live sports with weekly Major League Baseball games last year, but now the company is launching its most ambitious offering yet. Today, the company debuts MLS Season Pass, a subscription that gives soccer fans access to every game of the 2023 season, the Leagues Cup and both MLS Next Pro and MLS Next matches — all with no blackouts. While you can sign up today and start watching a library of archived content, the first games begin February 25th.
MLS Season Pass will be available to stream through the Apple TV app on the company's range of devices, game consoles, streaming gadgets, set-top boxes, smart TVs and on the web. Anywhere you find that piece of software you'll be able to access the subscription. The streaming plan costs $15 per month or $99 for the season. If you're an Apple TV+ customer, you'll get the discounted rates of $13/month or $79 a season. What's more, avid fans who are season ticket holders for an MLS club will get the all-inclusive streaming subscription for free. Apple's tie-in with MLS is part of a 10-year deal, so the US league's games aren't going to another network or streaming service any time soon.
If you're not sure if you want to commit just yet, "the majority" of the on-demand content already streaming is available for free. More importantly, Apple will offer every game on opening weekend free of charge and will follow that up with weekly free games. That library of on-demand items includes archived matches going back to 2019, documentary-style stories, the best moments from last season and curated highlights.
Apple
Each team has a club page with highlights, schedule info and archived games. Once you select the team(s) you want to follow, match reminders will display in the Up Next section of the Apple TV app. As the season approaches, you'll be privy to game previews and other team-specific content. During matches, updates will show on your iPhone lockscreen via Live Activities.
Apple has committed to English and Spanish commentary teams for every match. Additionally, MLS Season Pass will offer French for matches that include the leagues Canadian clubs. Apple has already announced a team of nearly 50 announcers, including a wide range of experienced broadcasters and former players. Maurice Edu, Cobi Jones, Taylor Twellman, Lori Lindsey and Danielle Slaton are just a few of the many. In addition to games, MLS Season Pass will offer live pre-game, halftime and post-game analysis in addition to a "whip-around show" with live look-ins at in-progress matches and detailed discussions of key moments from every game.
Interestingly, Apple will also provide radio broadcasts as part of the streaming plan. If you don't care for the broadcast team, or just prefer to listen to your favorite club's radio crew, you can opt for that alternate audio. The company promises that the sound will sync up with the live action so it will be a true replacement if you choose it. One of the key things that Apple hasn't announced yet is streaming quality. The company says that the "full production plan" will be announced ahead of the season's start, which will hopefully include that info. Apple's weekly MLB games were streamed in 1080p at 60fps, but since MLS Season Pass is a much more elaborate effort that includes literally every match, maybe the company will surprise us and upgrade to 4K.
Pro surfers will soon start using an Apple Watch during competitions. The World Surf League (WSL) has designated the wearable as official wearable equipment. The organization says it's the first time that Apple Watch is being "used as official competitor equipment in a professional sports environment."
Before each heat, every surfer on the Championship Tour will receive an Apple Watch that's preloaded with the new WSL Surfer app. They can use it to keep track of scores, wave priority and times. The app, which works on Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, syncs with the WSL's scoring system in real time. The WSL says Apple Watch fits the bill thanks to its durability, cellular data connectivity and large, bright screen.
"The noise of the wind and the waves can sometimes make it impossible to hear the announcers while competing, and that means you miss crucial information," Ítalo Ferreira, the 2019 WSL champion and an Olympic gold medalist, said in a statement. "Challenging conditions can make it hard to see the beach and a priority penalty could cost you the heat, so not needing to rely on seeing the beach or hearing the announcers makes a huge difference and prevents guesswork."
The WSL didn't say which Apple Watch model competitors will use, but the Ultra makes the most sense. It has the largest screen of any Apple Watch to date and it's the most rugged version the company has built. Apple says the Ultra has more accurate GPS and water resistance than its other models.
The 2023 WSL Championship Tour starts this weekend in Oahu, Hawaii. If you're interested to see how the Apple Watch is used in pro sports, you can watch the event on YouTube, the WSL's app or the organization's website. Meanwhile, the second season of docuseries Make or Break, which follows competitors on the Championship Tour, will hit Apple TV+ in February.
Google is rolling out a feature to Android that will add an extra layer of privacy when you browse websites in Incognito mode. The tech giant has revealed in a blog post (via The Verge) that the ability to lock Chrome Incognito sessions behind biometric authentication on mobile is currently making its way to Android users after debuting on iOS. When this feature is switched on, you will have to verify your identity through face or fingerprint authentication every time you return to an Incognito tab after exiting Chrome or navigating away to another app.
Locked Incognito sessions first became available on Android in 2022 — over a year after Google started testing it for iPhones and iPads — but as an experimental feature you'd have to activate via a flag. Based on 9to5Google's experience using it on Android last year, this feature will show you a gray screen with the Incognito logo at the center when you come back to a tab protected by the privacy feature. You'll then have to tap "Unlock Incognito" to open biometric authentication or choose to verify your identity with your PIN code.
While the feature isn't available for us yet, you can check out if you already have access to it by tapping on the three-dot menu at the top right corner of Chrome. Open Settings and then go to Privacy and Security to toggle on "Lock Incognito tabs when you leave Chrome" if you already see it as an option.
Niantic has created some of the most popular augmented reality games like Ingress and Pokémon Go. But this week the company is launching a new title called NBA All-World that might be the best application of its location-based tech to date.
For people who have played one of Niantic’s previous titles, NBA All-World features a very familiar formula. After installing the free app (available on Android and iOS), you are given a starter player and from there you can use the in-game map to navigate to real-world locations in order to collect items, earn cash or battle other players. The big twist for NBA All-World is that, instead of visiting random points of interest to battle others, you’ll need to visit real-world basketball courts to earn your spot on local leaderboards. And, of course, there’s a roster of big-name ballers like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Paul George to collect.
That might not sound like a major change, but it results in some very notable differences in how you play the game. The first is that instead of hanging out on random street corners like you often do while raiding in Pokémon Go, the need to go to local courts makes NBA All-World feel more grounded in reality. That’s important because Niantic says there’s actually very little overlap between people who play its other titles and more traditional sports gamers (just 10 percent according to Niantic senior producer Marcus Matthews). And after years of people playing basketball game series like NBA2K (or my personal favorite NBA Street) at home, Niantic sees All-World as one of the first games that encourages players to get off the couch and go back outside.
Because you have to physically go to real courts to take part in battles, NBA All-World feels better connected to the basketball community at large. While I didn’t get to try this out myself prior to launch, it’s not a stretch to imagine people going to a park to play All-World only to hop into a real pickup game. Then, when you sub out, you can go back to challenging leaderboards or playing minigames in NBA All-World on your phone while you catch your breath.
Niantic
As for the game itself, Niantic has also worked to integrate basketball culture into every aspect of the app. This includes partnering with companies like Adidas and Puma (but not Nike just yet) so you can buy virtual clothing or footwear that matches what star ballers wear IRL. Players in game are also modeled after their real-life counterparts, so centers like Domantas Sabonis are better at blocking while smaller guards are faster and better at stealing the ball. And while Niantic is keeping many elements of NBA All-World’s gameplay pretty simplistic (like defense, which is mostly automatic), the ability to move and juke in various directions, step back for a jumper or drive to the basket provides a surprising amount of depth.
I also really appreciate that because Niantic already has tons of info provided by users from its other AR games, NBA All-World is populated with tons of in-game locations and hot spots, from courts to places like banks and stores where you can grab items, energy and more. And when the game goes live this week on January 24th, gameplay won’t just be restricted to the US as NBA All-World is getting a full global launch, which really speaks to the international nature of the sport.
However, at this point it’s important to mention that while I think this might be the best use of Niantic’s location-based gaming tech so far, building a new community and playerbase of gamers is a challenge for any developer. This includes some of the company’s previous stumbles, like its ill-fated Harry Potter AR game which is slated to go dark later this month, or its Catan spinoff, which was discontinued in 2021 before ever seeing an official release. But for those looking to dive deeper into the basketball community, NBA All-World looks to offer the best blend of real life and AR integration yet.
Riot Games, the studio behind League of Legends and Valorant, says a recent security breach may affect its short-term content release schedule. In a tweet spotted by BleepingComputer, Riot disclosed on Friday its development systems were compromised in a social engineering attack that occured earlier in the week.
“We don’t have all the answers right now, but we wanted to communicate early and let you know there is no indication that player data or personal information was obtained,” Riot said. “Unfortunately, this has temporarily affected our ability to release content. While our teams are working hard on a fix, we expect this to impact our upcoming patch cadence across multiple games.”
Heads up, players. This may impact our delivery date for Patch 13.2. The League team is working to stretch the limits of what we can hotfix in order to deliver the majority of the planned and tested balance changes on time still. https://t.co/DJ8qAKSdQi
The studio promised to share more information as it becomes available. On Friday, the League of Legends development team said the incident could affect its ability to release the MOBA's upcoming version 13.2 update. Before this week, Riot had planned to release the patch on January 25th. Now, some aspects of the release, including a long-awaited art and sustainability update for Ahri, one of the game’s more popular champions, could be delayed until the arrival of patch 13.3 in February. “The League team is working to stretch the limits of what we can hotfix in order to deliver the majority of the planned and tested balance changes on time still,” the official LoL Twitter account said.
“Nothing that would have been in 13.2 will be cancelled, we might just have to move things that can't be hotfixed (e.g. art changes) to a later date instead,” Andrei van Roon, the head of Riot’s League Studio, added. Riot did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for more information on the incident. We'll update this article when we hear back from the studio.
Drive to Survivedid wonders for Formula 1. The hit Netflix series has drawn fans to the sport through its (sometimes manufactured) drama and beautiful cinematography. What you likely don’t know is that Formula E has its version, albeit with shorter episodes and massively condensed storylines. Even still, Formula E Unplugged is a great primer for the new season whether you’ll be watching the EV racing series for the first time or you’re a veteran fan.
Season two of Unplugged, which chronicles 2022’s Season 8 of Formula E,hit some broadcasters just before Christmas and all six episodes have made the rounds a few times here in the US already (CBS Sports Network). That’s a big change from season one’s 15 episodes which weren’t widely distributed and now live on the Formula E YouTube channel. The other difference with this new season is the episodes are 30 minutes with commercials, slightly longer than the 10- to 15-minute entries in the previous installment. But even with some added time, many of the narratives are condensed to the point they’re hard to follow at times.
Simon Galloway/LAT Images
Episode one covers Mercedes-EQ in its final season (the team was purchased by McLaren). Eventual series winner Stoffel Vandorne has to contend with the fact his teammate is the defending champion. The second episode offers a biographical look at Jaguar TCS’ Mitch Evans, including interviews with his family, his disappointing end to Season 7 and the title push in Season 8 that goes down to the very end.
In episode three, Unplugged covers two teams: TAG Heuer Porsche and ROKiT Venturi Racing. While one banked an early 1-2 finish in Season 8, the other had to contend with drama during its home race. This is the first taste of anything close to Drive to Surive drama. The fourth episode is all about the rookies as Dan Ticktum tries to put his past behind him, Antonio Giovinazzi looks to move on from F1 and American Oliver Askew tries his hand at a global series with the aid of British teammate Jake Dennis.
“Formula E Unplugged presents a realistic picture of life inside the paddock and helps fans to understand more about what makes us tick and where we are coming from,” said Ticktum, who drives for NIO 333 Racing. “I can be pretty fiery, but I think the ‘behind the scenes’ nature of Unplugged will show that sometimes there is a lot more to what drivers are going through than can be seen during races or on social media.”
Sam Bloxham/LAT Images
More drama ensues in episode five when the series covers DS Techeetah, a team with two former Formula E champions in its garage. Things get heated on multiple occasions when both Jean-Éric Vergne and António Félix Da Costa have an equal desire to win. The final installment offers a look at the lead up to the final two rounds in South Korea. A four-way fight for the title, driver changes and a brief discussion of the Gen3 car round out the sixth episode.
There’s plenty to glean despite the compressed format. Even I learned new things as someone who follows the sport. However, Unplugged really focuses on the top four teams in the championship standings, with the exception of Porsche who looked strong at the outset and the episode about rookies. It would’ve been great to include Envision Racing’s Robin Frijns, who finished level on points in the driver’s standings with Di Grassi and Dennis. I can appreciate that Formula E likely has a limited budget for the show, which is why we only get a half dozen episodes, but it would’ve been nice to get to know the likes of Mahindra and Nissan eDAMS along the way (the latter is covered in S1). And there could’ve been an entire episode dedicated to the Gen3 car, especially when you consider how much more advanced it is (or eventually will be) over the Gen2 racer.
In the US, Formula E races are broadcast on CBS Sports Network and usually on a tape delay a few hours after the event. For example, the first race in Mexico City this weekend won’t air until 11:30PM ET Saturday night (race is at 2PM ET). Both practice sessions will stream on the Formula E YouTube channel (5:25PM ET Friday, 8:25AM ET Saturday). Qualifying, which is completed in a knockout-style format, is only viewable on CBSSports.com. If you’re outside of the States, select your country here for the broadcast info.
Formula 1: Drive to Survive, the docuseries that helped the motorsport become a bigger deal in the US, will return for its fifth season on Netflix on February 24th. That's smart timing, since the three-day preseason test for this year's F1 calendar will be be taking place that weekend.
Netflix has also released a teaser for the latest episodes. The clip focuses on the major rule changes that F1 brought in for the 2022 season and the potential impact that the regulations could have on the drivers' and manufacturers' standings.
Formula 1: Drive To Survive returns February 24 — and here's your first look at Season 5! pic.twitter.com/17R4SAGck6
Madden NFL 23developerEA Sports says it will remove CPR touchdown celebrations from the game in light of Damar Hamlin’s recent light-threatening injury. Hamlin, a second-year safety with the Buffalo Bills, suffered an on-the-field cardiac arrest on January 2nd during a Monday Night Football match between the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. Following a routine tackle of Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, Hamlin collapsed to the ground. The incident saw the Bills’ medical team administer CPR to Hamlin, and an ambulance eventually transport him off the field to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for critical care.
Not home quite just yet🏡🫶🏾. Still doing & passing a bunch of test. Special thank-you to Buffalo General it’s been nothing but love since arrival! Keep me in y’all prayers please! #3strong
“EA Sports is taking steps to remove the celebration from Madden NFL 23 via an update in the coming days,” a spokesperson for the studio told CBS Sports. Incidentally, the announcement comes just days after Pittsburg Steelers linebacker Alex Highsmith took part in a CPR celebration during his team’s Sunday win against the Cleveland Browns. The incident raised more than a few eyebrows on social media. “I just don't want people to think of me that way and think I was doing anything,” Highsmith said after the game, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Because I would never, ever, ever, ever want to do that intentionally, and I never ever would do that.” On Tuesday, Hamlin shared an update on his recovery, posting on Twitter that he was at Buffalo General Hospital and completing a series of tests to ensure his heart is okay.
