Yacht Club Games, the developer behind the popular throwback platformer Shovel Knight, has announced a brand new IP. It's a top-down "bone-chilling action adventure" entitled Mina the Hollower that's inspired by Gothic Horror and is set in a bizarre world full of monster. The company has announced the new game at an event, where it has also launched the Kickstarter campaign to help fund its development. According to IGN, Yacht Club Games director and designer Alec Faulkner said the developer is financing a majority of the project, but it's returning to Kickstarter to build a community and get feedback from backers.

Faulkner said:

"We want your feedback, collaboration, and support in making Mina the Hollower the best game it can possibly be. That's why we're returning to our roots and kicking off Mina the Hollower’s development as a Kickstarter campaign.

Though we're financing a majority of this project ourselves, we hope we can create a more expansive game this way. More importantly, we want to build a community around Kickstarter, much like we did with Shovel Knight."

Shovel Knight's Kickstarter campaign raised over $300,000 back in 2013. Yach Club has since released various DLCs, expansions and spinoffs for it and brought it to the Switch a few years after it was released.

Mina the Hollower will feature an 8-bit aesthetic in the style of Game Boy Color titles, with 60fps action combat. In it you play as Mina, an inventor who can burrow under her foes to pop up on the other side and take them down with her trusty whip. Mina belongs to Hollower guild, which is dedicated to studying the earth and its latent resources and which has members that can move faster underground. 

Yacht Club has yet to reveal a launch window for Mina the Hollower, but it took over a year for Shovel Knight to make its way to backers. You'd have to pledge at least $20 for a digital copy of the game and at least $100 for a physical copy. 

You no longer have to be a GM employee to try Cruise's self-driving taxi service. TechCrunchnotes Cruise has opened fully driverless ride-hailing to the public in San Francisco. The company is initially accepting sign-ups for only"small number" of riders, but those early trips will be free. More slots will open as more cars become available, Cruise said.

Be prepared for an unusual pickup. A spokesperson told TechCrunch this first service operates between 11PM and 5AM, and you'll have to be content with rides in certain parts of the Chinatown, Haight-Ashbury, Pacific Heights and Richmond District neighborhoods. The nighttime runs will help Cruise have the most impact, the spokesperson said, and should expand over time.

The free rides aren't entirely voluntary. While Cruise has most of the licenses needed to offer driverless service, it doesn't yet have the California Public Utilities Commission permit needed to charge for those rides.

The launch comes at a good time for Cruise. While it abruptly lost CEO Dan Ammann in December, the SoftBank Vision Fund is investing another $1.35 billion in the company now that it's running truly driverless cars. Cruise can better afford those free rides and otherwise take the time to build out autonomous driving technology that includes the Origin shuttle van. The firm wasn't necessarily facing a crisis given GM's healthy financials, but this clearly reduces some of the pressure to make money.

You no longer have to be reminded of your latest true crime binge or alert houseguests to the fact that you watch Emily in Paris. Netflix just added the option for users to delete titles from their “Continue Watching” list, reported The Verge. While technically there’s been a way for savvy viewers to do this for a while now, this is the first time the option to do so has been displayed front and center.

Note: The ability to delete from the “Continue Watching” list isn’t available to all of Netflix’s users just yet; if your screen looks the same, you’ll have to sit tight. In order to remove a show, simply select the title you want to axe. You’ll see the “Remove from Continue Watching” icon under the menu of user preferences below the title. Netflix will allow viewers to use this option across its web, mobile and TV versions.

Prior to this, half-finished shows or movies would disappear from the interface eventually (when they'd been replaced by other, half-finished shows or movies.) The new feature is a welcome way Netflix is giving viewers more options to tailor their screens, though the service’s UI hasn’t changed much in the last few years.

Google's lineup of Pixel phones has usually been some of our favorite Android devices since the first Pixel arrived back in 2016 — but they've never been big sellers. While Google still doesn't compare with Apple and Samsung, the company says the Pixel just had its best sales quarter ever. 

On the Alphabet earnings call today, CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the company's hardware performance. "In Q4, we set an all time quarterly sales record for Pixel," he said. "This came in spite of an extremely challenging supply chain environment." All of Google's competitors had similar issues, but it's reasonable to think the company could have sold more phones if not for the supply chain.

Specifically, Pichai noted that the Pixel 6 was proving to be popular with both customers and carrier partners. In our estimation, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are probably the best Pixel phones Google has released in years, and it seems that these sales records back that up. Unfortunately, Google doesn't break out sales figures, but it's hardly alone in that regard. 

Pixel sales are lumped into a category simply called "other," which covers all Google hardware (among other things). Revenue from the "other" category improved 22 percent year-over-year, totaling $8.2 billion for the quarter. That's a small piece of Google's overall revenue — the company pulled in $75.3 billion in revenue overall in Q4 of last year, up 32 percent year-over-year. That speaks more to the health of the company's massive search ads business. 

In other financial news, Alphabet is splitting its stock. It's a 20-for-1 split, which means one Alphabet share will soon count for 20 much cheaper shares. Given the company's stock price ended the day at $2,757.57, this split means the stock will be much more affordable. Apple and Google have split their stock before, but a 20-to-1 split is pretty unusual. 

We're tuned into the Alphabet earnings call and will update this post with anything else we hear.

Strong sales of its existing pickup and SUV lines in Q4, despite decreased sales numbers due to the semiconductor shortage and supply chain constrictions, have GM positioned for a strong start to 2022 as the company works to electrify and automate its vehicle offerings. 

"With an improving outlook for semiconductors in the U.S. and China, we expect our 2022 results will remain strong," GM CEO Mary Barra wrote in a letter to shareholders Tuesday. "In fact, we expect our EBIT-adjusted earnings to remain at or near record levels in the range of $13 billion — $15 billion, all while investing more year over year in our growth businesses like Cruise, BrightDrop and our rapidly accelerating portfolio of electric vehicles."

Barra points to strong demand for GM's burgeoning line of EVs running on the Ultium battery platform — such as the currently available Hummer EV as well as upcoming Silverado, Equinox, Sierra and Lyriq EVs — with a portion of the company's financial performance. GM's Brightdrop EV6000 commercial vehicle is also seeing healthy interest from FedEx, Merchant's Fleet and Walmart as green additions to their respective delivery and cargo fleets, the company reported Tuesday.

The Hummer EV itself has reportedly seen more than 59,000 paid reservations to date. "Not surprisingly, some of the first owners are very prominent figures in the sports and entertainment industries," Barra said during Tuesday's call "Their initial feedback has been just incredible.” The company has also seen 110,000 Silverado EVs reservations so far, Barra explained, "including reservations for more than 240 fleet operators, and the numbers keep growing every day." 

GM's $35 billion EV and autonomy investment announced last June, is already beginning to pay dividends. "Battery cells will not be a constraint to our long term EV growth," Barra noted. The company expects its first battery cell manufacturing plant in Lordstown Ohio by the middle of the year, with two more expected to commence operations by the end of next year and the location of a fourth site set to be announced later this spring. These will work in tandem with the automaker's Michigan-based Factory ZERO and Orion EV assembly plants. 

On the autonomy front, GM has nothing but good news as its Cruise self-driving taxi service officially began offering driverless rides to the public in San Francisco Tuesday.

"This major milestone brings Cruise even closer to offering its first paid rides and generating $50 billion in annual revenue by the end of the decade," Barra noted. "It also means that the SoftBank Vision Fund will invest — as planned — an additional $1.35 billion in Cruise. This is another strong vote of confidence in the Cruise team, its technology and services."

The company also reiterated three of its ambitious climate goals during Tuesday's earnings call: going "carbon neutral in our global products and operations by 2040," eliminating "tailpipe emissions for new light-duty vehicles and offer all-electric heavy-duty vehicles by 2035" in line with California's upcoming emission vehicle sales ban, and sourcing 100 percent of its production power requirements "from renewable sources by 2035, and by 2025 in the US." 

While interest in GM's line of electrifieds helped propel sales, the lack of available processors to put in them hurt the company's overall numbers. GM delivered 441,000 vehicles to American consumers in Q4 2021, does from 447,000 in Q3 and 771,000 in Q4 of 2020. Still, that dip only translated into a minor drop in overall revenue of $3.2 billion from $3.4 billion the previous quarter. 

Looking ahead, GM expects the first of its Cadillac Lyriq to begin in less than 60 days while the first batch of its Hummer EV Pickups are already en route to their buyers. The company expects production on the EV600 to begin later this year with an initial capacity of around 30,000 units annually. 

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It took a few months, but Netflix is now offering its first high-profile mobile game. The streaming service has broadly released Riot Games' League of Legends spinoff Hextech Mayhem for Android and iOS. This isn't a MOBA like League, as you might have gathered — instead, it's a "rhythm runner" that has you playing LoL champion Ziggs as you light bomb fuses, disarm enemies and dodge obstacles in sync with the beat.

Netflix has also released Dungeon Dwarves, its first "idle" game. Hyper Hippo's title (available on Android as we write this) lets you explore monster-laden dens even when you're not playing, and upgrade abilities when you are.

Riot's decision to launch Hextech through Netflix isn't surprising. The two unveiled the game just as Arcane began streaming — even if it's not really connected to the animated series, it serves as a plug for both companies. Riot also hasn't been shy about gaming crossovers, having dropped League of Legends characters into games like Fortnite. It's just a question of whether or not a game like Hextech will be popular enough to grow Netflix's fledgling game business and encourage other big-name projects.

Google One's VPN hasn't been much use if you primarily surf the more secure web through your iPhone, but that won't be a problem from now on. Google is starting to roll out One VPN service for iOS users. So long as you've subscribed to the 2TB Premium plan in eligible countries, this should help you shield your internet activity. It won't give you an IP address in another country, though, so don't expect to browse foreign streaming service libraries.

There are new features for Android users, too. App Bypass lets certain apps use a regular connection if the VPN proves troublesome, while Safe Disconnect will only let you get online while the VPN is active. Snooze temporarily disables the VPN.

Google One Premium costs $10 per month and is currently available in 18 countries including the US, Canada and the UK. The iPhone launch probably won't reel you in if you're already using a VPN or a privacy-minded service like iCloud Private Relay. However, this might be just what you were looking for if you're steeped in the Google cloud ecosystem and want a secure service you can use across platforms.

Rocket League Sideswipe, a mobile spin-off from the hit car soccer game, is getting some new features and modes as part of its second season. Along with the latest free Rocket Pass and season challenges, a volleyball mode will go live in the iOS and Android game at 11AM ET on Wednesday.

The two-on-two mode has no goals. Instead, there's a net in the middle of the arena and a new ball. You'll score when the ball hits the ground on your opponents' side of the net. It's as simple a concept as "get the ball in the other team's goal," but offers a different dynamic to gameplay.

As volleyball arrives, players will need to bid adieu to Hoops, a basketball-style mode that has also been available in Rocket League. Psynoix says that these Extra Modes will cycle in and out of Sideswipe each season, likely to keep things fresh.

There'll be a bunch of new items to unlock in season two, including some Rocket League favorites like the Breakout car and supernova and dueling dragons goal explosions. You'll also have a way to practice against human opponents without worrying about your competitive rank. Casual playlists will arrive today at 7PM ET, ahead of the full season two update.

When the new season starts, Sideswipe will reset all competitive ranks. Players will be rewarded with titles and quick chat stickers that vary depending on their peak rank during the inaugural season.

Psyonix did a great job of translating the full Rocket League experience to a 2D mobile format with Sideswipe. It's a good way for fans to get their car soccer (or volleyball) fix while away from their console or PC, though I've found it easier to play with a controller than touch controls.

The first major update to Ableton Live 11 is now available to all users, bringing with it native support for Apple's M1 chips. Ableton had been beta testing the update and Apple silicon support since September.

The popular music production suite should run more efficiently on M1-powered Macs after users update to Live 11.1. The DAW will no longer need to use Apple's Rosetta 2 emulator, so users will be able to harness more of their computer's power. Tapping into several plugins simultaneously can strain system resources, and native support for M1 architecture may lighten the load on that front too.

Ableton is making other changes in Live 11.1. Among those are improvements to the arrangement view, which make it easier to navigate using arrow keys. You can customize the CPU meter to show both the average and current CPU levels or either of those.

There's a new Shifter audio effect in Live Standard and Suite, which is designed for pitch shifting, frequency shifting and ring modulation. Ableton has added two tools to Max for Live called Align Delay and MIDI Shaper. The former's all about lag compensation and you can use MIDI Shaper to generate modulation.

It's worth bearing in mind that Ableton Live 11 won't update to the latest build automatically. Users will need to log in to Ableton's website and download the new version from there.

You'll soon have a chance to try Google's simplified, integrated Gmail update in the (virtual) workplace. Google is making the new "integrated view" available to Workspace users as an opt-in choice starting February 8th. Don't expect to hold out for long if you prefer the existing view, though. Users will start seeing the new look by default no later than April, and by the end of the second quarter (that is, June), it will be the "standard experience" with no chance to go back.

The second quarter will also bring the "streamlined" web-based Chat client. Google has promised more exact timing in the months ahead.

The integrated view is meant to help you jump between mail, chats and meetings without switching tabs. You'll eventually have unified email and chat search results. Google is counting on notification "bubbles" to alert you to issues that need prompt action. This ideally provides a clearer focus, not to mention a less cobbled-together interface than you see today — albeit without the convenience of having everything on one screen in some cases.

Google's move also appears to be a partial response to rivals like Microsoft Outlook. The rework casts Gmail as a more cohesive, do-it-all app that helps replace Outlook for recent converts to Workspace. It's not clear the update will have that effect, but Google is at least confident enough that it's willing to transition its work customers within several months.