Twitter's newly improved tweet-reporting tools are now available to everyone on the platform. The company first began testing the new process for reporting harmful tweets in December, saying it was trying to take a “people first” approach that would make it easier to flag tweets.

Previously, Twitter’s reporting process required users to navigate a series of menus in order to identify the specific rule they believed had been broken. The process was confusing, even for those familiar with Twitter’s policies, and often resulted in problematic tweets not being properly flagged.

The revamped process instead begins each report by asking users to describe “what happened,” rather than prompting them to guess which rule may have been broken. It also makes it easier to report tweets in which someone else is being targeted, and gives users more options for reporting hate speech.

That simplified approach is already paying off, according to Twitter. The company says the new reporting process has resulted in a 50 percent increase in “actionable reports” since it began testing six months ago.

After a moody first trailer, Striking Distance Studios, a team made up of former Dead Space developers, has released new gameplay footage from its upcoming survival horror title, The Callisto Protocol. Shown off during Summer Game Fest, the clip was captured on current generation hardware, according to host Geoff Keighley. The trailer sees the game's protagonist fighting their way through a claustrophobic environment using an arsenal that will be familiar to any Dead Space fan.  

Striking Distance Studios will release The Callisto Protocol on December 2nd.  

Developing...

There's a new entry in the xenomorph video game catalog, this one called Aliens: Dark Descent. It's due out in 2023 from French studio Tindalos Interactive, Focus Entertainment and 20th Century Games. It'll come to PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series consoles and PC.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a single-player, squad-based action game. Here's how the game's YouTube description reads: "Drop into an original Alien story where players will lead a squad of marines in real-time combat against the deadliest creature mankind has ever faced."

Players will be able to customize their team's weapons, armor and abilities, but the xenomorphs will adapt to these decisions. These space monsters are no idle threat, either — in this game, death is permanent for your squad.

"Embark on high stakes missions in treacherous territory, all the while gathering resources to fix up the stranded Otago spacecraft and researching tech upgrades for your crew," the description continues. "Players will command a squad as one unit thanks to intuitive controls, allowing their Marines to automatically prioritize and execute complex actions in real-time, based on their respective skill sets and the environment around them."

The new game made its debut with a cinematic trailer during the Summer Game Fest kickoff stream. In fact, it was the first game shown off in the entire show, which must make it feel nice and special.

The trailer shows a squad of Marines hunting and being hunted by a handful of xenomorphs, complete with plenty of gunfire, creeping monsters and interpersonal betrayal.

Hertz customers in select cities nationwide will soon have the opportunity to rent a Polestar 2. The EV automaker announced Thursday that it has delivered the first batch of some 65,000 vehicles to the Rental corporation as part of a deal struck between the two in April. 

“Our partnership with Hertz is an exciting milestone that provides the opportunity for a significant number of potential new customers to experience an EV for the first time, and it will be in a Polestar,” Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO, said in a prepared statement. “With over 55,000 Polestar cars already on the road across our 25 live markets there is no doubt that our brand is growing at an incredible pace.”

Polestar is quick to point out that this deal is one of the largest single EV purchases in history, a not so subtle dig at rival Tesla which, last October, supposedly had its own deal with Hertz for a whopping 100,000 Model 3s. However, that agreement failed to get beyond Hertz' press release as Tesla CEO Elon Musk subsequently tweeted that "no contract has been signed yet" and the whole deal fizzled from there. 

In addition to the Polestar 2s, Hertz will also be acquiring a select number of Polestar 1s, giving its customers a hybrid option to choose from as well. As a Polestar rep told Engadget, the metro areas of "Seattle, LA, Burbank and Orange County CA, San Diego, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Miami, Islip NY, and Newark NJ" will all be among the first to receive the new EVs.

Triband, the studio behind early Apple Arcade standout What the Golf, is back with a new game on a completely different platform. What the Bat is a virtual reality title that's coming to Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets later this year

It looks like another ridiculous physics-based game where part of the fun is in figuring out what exactly is going on in each of the more than 100 levels. This time around, you'll have baseball bats for hands and you'll use them for cooking, petting a dog, painting, playing pinball, pickling, parking and brushing your teeth. Although What the Bat isn't really a baseball game, you will still get to do some batting too.

Apple's MacBook Air M2 might just be the start of a broader laptop renaissance. Bloombergsources claim Apple plans to release a 15-inch MacBook Air as soon as spring 2023. The company might return to tiny laptops, too. It's reportedly working on a new 12-inch laptop that could debut in late 2023 or early 2024 — if you miss the 2015 MacBook but wish it had modern hardware and a good keyboard, your dream could be fulfilled.

To no one's surprise, the sources also indicate Apple is planning to launch updated 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros in late 2022 with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. These might slip into early 2023, however. The new Max chip would offer up to 12 processing cores and 38 graphics cores versus the 10 processing cores and 32 graphics cores of the M1 Max.

The tech firm had reportedly considered releasing a 15-inch MacBook Air this year, but scuttled those plans to concentrate on the 13-inch model it just unveiled this week. Murmurs of a larger Air circulated in March, when Display Supply Chain analyst Ross Young said one might be in the works.

A larger Air wouldn't be surprising. Apple confirmed at WWDC 2022 that the Air was its best-selling laptop, and a 15-inch version could appeal to buyers who want a larger screen but don't need the performance and features of the more expensive MacBook Pro line. It would also make sense in light of iPhone 14 rumors that suggest you won't have to buy a Pro model to get a giant screen. Simply speaking, Apple might be ending its long-time strategy of restricting large displays to its priciest devices.

E3 would normally be held around this time, but it isn't going ahead this year. Still, there are a ton of showcases over the next few days that will shine the spotlight on dozens, if not hundreds, of upcoming games. One of the biggest events on the docket is the Summer Game Fest showcase, which is set for 2PM ET today.

Host and producer Geoff Keighley has tried to keep fans' expectations in check by noting that, while there will be some new game announcements, the focus will primarily be on previously revealed titles. There will be details on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, The Callisto Protocol, Gotham Knights, Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course, Street Fighter 6, Marvel's Midnight Suns and much more.

Rumors suggest the stream will also feature Hollow Knight: Silksong and perhaps a release date for God of War Ragnarök. One thing that definitely won't be included is a Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, according to Keighley. Don't expect to hear a peep about Half-Life 3 either.

Keighley says the event will run for over 90 minutes. Be sure to stick around afterward for the indie-focused Day of the Devs event. The Summer Game Fest showcase is available to stream on a ton of platforms, including YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Steam and even in IMAX theaters. To make things even easier for you, the YouTube stream is right here:

Google has long been employing machine learning to improve its products, including Chrome. The company says it has been able to make the browser safer to use. In March, Google rolled out a new on-device machine learning model that's able to detect 2.5 times more potential phishing attacks and possibly malicious sites than the previous model. That should help protect users and their data.

Google

The company is also tackling annoying requests by certain websites to send you notifications. They can be useful for sites you want to receive updates from, but they're often just irritating. Chrome is already able to predict when a user won't grant a website permission to deliver page notifications and then block them automatically. The next version of Chrome will have an ML model that can handle these predictions on your device.

Google is also planning to use machine learning to make the Chrome toolbar more useful depending on what you're doing at a given moment. It might highlight a voice search option if that's something you do regularly or add a sharing option if you tend to catch up on news while on public transit and send links to your friends. It's not the biggest update in the world, but it could prove a handy timesaver for the things you most commonly do in certain circumstances. You'll be able to tweak the toolbar actions manually as well.

Google

You won't have to settle for PS4-era graphics to play the original The Last of Us on your PS5. As Twitter user Wario64 noticed, the PlayStation Direct online store has prematurely revealed that a The Last of Us Part I remaster is coming to PS5 on September 2nd, with a PC version "in development." While there aren't too many details, it's clear this represents a major visual upgrade — this isn't just a performance patch like you saw with the sequel.

The "rebuilt" game will apparently be available in standard ($70) and special Firefly Edition ($100) copies. The listings were otherwise empty apart from a trailer, and they disappeared while we were writing this. Clearly, Sony wanted to save them for a formal announcement in the near future.

The arrival of a Last of Us Part I re-do isn't shocking. Sony and Insomniac are bringing Spider-Man and Miles Morales to PC later this year, and that's on top of existing refreshes and PC ports for titles like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn. Sony is eager to profit from re-releases of the PlayStation platform's best-known games, and TLOU certainly qualifies for that treatment.

Love Hulten is fond of strange synthesizer projects, but his latest might be his most ambitious to date. The artist has unveiled a Doodlestation synth deck whose centerpiece display visualizes MIDI audio as rainbow puke — if you're playing, the poor person on-screen is likely hurling. Don't worry about that novelty fading away, though, as there are some surprisingly practical features.

Most of the space is occupied by a Sequential OB-6 analog synth (with a custom keybed), a Moog DFAM percussion synth and a Hologram Microcosm effects pedal. You'll also find a theremin setup, though, and you can add tape echo through a system that shows the tape bouncing around. Built-in speakers and a handy patch cord drawer also minimize clutter.

Like other Love Hulten projects, the Doodlestation is a one-off design. You aren't about to buy one for your studio. Still, this shows that synth suites don't have to be boring — this is equipment you might be proud to show to your fellow musicians.