Like Spotify, Reddit and Nintendo, Twitch is offering users a snapshot of their 2021 activity. Among other stats, Twitch Recap tells users how long viewers watched broadcasts or how much time creators spent playing games for viewers or streaming from their hot tubs this year.

There was a catch, though. Twitch users needed to opt in to marketing emails in advance. "In order to receive the Recap you had to opt-in for marketing emails prior to them being sent," Twitch said on its support Twitter account. "Unfortunately, we aren't able to manually re-send recaps."

Naturally, the replies to that tweet are full of complaints from disappointed folks who didn't realize they'd switched off marketing emails or wereunaware they needed to opt in. Others suggested Twitch should have offered the recap on its website and app, as so many other services do.

Twitch is obviously free to send out the recaps in any format it likes, and if it wants users to sign up for marketing emails first, so be it. However, Twitch probably should have communicated that better to users who usually enjoy seeing their recaps and sharing them with others, and who now might have missed out. It could have sent them a notification if they were yet to opt in.

Meanwhile, Twitch shared its own recap. Viewers spent 1.2 trillion minutes watching streamers this year while more than 14 million channels streamed for the first time. It said the top categories was once again Just Chatting (which is self-explanatory), followed by Grand Theft Auto V and all of its roleplayers, League of Legends, Valorant and Minecraft.

Meta has released a new software update for Ray-Ban Stories that enhances the voice capabilities of the smart glasses. After installing the software, you can use the built-in assistant to send texts and make voice calls over Messenger. Additionally, it can now read out messages someone sends you over the chat platform.

One other new feature is the ability to use your voice to control media playback. For instance, if you want to skip to the next song in a playlist, say, “Hey Facebook, next.” It’s also possible to adjust the volume of audio in this same way, as well as pause and resume a song or podcast. Oh, and you can ask the assistant for a battery life update.

Meta says it’s rolling out the update to the accompanying Facebook View app in phases and notes it expects the software to be available to everyone soon. Before you can download the update, you’ll need to install the latest firmware on your Stories glasses. While this release enhances one of the less compelling aspects of the Ray-Ban Stories, the company promised it will add more functionality in the new year.

After some cameos and talk of an animated series, Ubisoft is finally ready to make a new Splinter Cell game — in a manner of speaking. The game developer has revealed plans for a Splinter Cell remake that aims to recreate the stealth action of the early games while embracing modern technology.

The project will use the Snowdrop engine present in newer games like The Division 2 and the upcoming Avatar title, but you'll play in small, linear environments rather than Ubi's signature (and frequently formulaic) open-world spaces. The company wants to meet present-day gameplay expectations, but is also aware that early Splinter Cell was appealing precisely because it rewarded truly stealthy players who demonstrated patience, intelligence and methodical planning. Don't expect to survive a full-fledged gunfight, in other words.

It's clearly too soon for Ubisoft to provide a release date for the remake, but the Toronto studio is helming the effort with a mix of veterans from previous Splinter Cell games and fresher faces that will include some new hires. Whether or not the team succeeds isn't clear. Ubisoft Toronto's one and only Splinter Cell game was Blacklist, which was well-received but not as revered as the original. The Toronto branch is also still grappling with the consequences of Ubi's misconduct scandals — VP and Blacklist co-director Maxime Béland resigned following assault allegations.

The gameplay promises might bode well if you were worried the remake would stray too far from what made Splinter Cell great, though. And crucially, this could be the launchpad for a true revival. The game's creative lead, Chris Auty, characterized the re-do as a "solid base" for the future of the franchise. Even if you don't like the thought of a rehash, this could lead to true sequels to a series that many had previously written off.

As part of its recently announced 2022 lineup, Volvo subsidiary Polestar introduced a new single-motor variant of its Polestar 2 electric sedan. If you were waiting on an EPA estimate before reserving one, wait no more. You can expect to get about 270 miles of range on a single charge from the car’s 75 kWh battery, Polestar announced on Wednesday.

That puts the FWD model in the company of vehicles like the Volkswagen ID.4 and Model 3. With the entry-level models of those two cars, you can expect 249 miles and 263 miles of range, respectively. That’s not bad given the Polestar 2’s $47,200 starting price, but not nearly as good as the 303 miles of EPA-rated range Hyundai will offer with the $44,875 version of its Ioniq 5.

The automaker also announced today it’s rolling out an over-the-air update for all Polestar 2 vehicles. The new software allows you to schedule when you want your car to charge, so that you can take advantage of off-peak pricing. The update also includes refinements for the car’s driver-assist systems. In the coming months, Polestar plans to release a software upgrade that will allow owners of the dual-motor Polestar 2 to unlock additional torque and horsepower from their car for a fee.

The latest Indie World Showcase stream has wrapped up, and while there was unfortunately no word about Hollow Knight: Silksong, Nintendo has revealed more details about other games that are coming to Switch. Among them is OlliOlli World, which will be released on February 8th.

The latest OlliOlli game from Roll7 (which Take-Two recently bought) is a skateboarding platformer, in which you score points by pulling off tricks as you make your way through the world of Radlandia. Along with there are two asynchronous multiplayer modes. In Gnarvana League, you'll duke it out for the highest score and the more you play, the more cosmetic items you'll unlock for your character. In the Gnarvana Portal mode, you can take on levels that are procedurally generated with a few customizable factors in mind, such as style, difficulty and length. You can share creations with other players using a code, which will work across all platforms.

Roll7 and publisher Private Division have also announced two expansions for OlliOlli World. The Void Riders DLC, which will arrive in summer, will add more levels, characters, gameplay options, cosmetics and a new biome. The second expansion is set for next fall, and more details will be revealed later.

As well as Switch, OlliOlli World is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Pre-orders start today and the base version of the game costs $30. The Rad edition, which costs $45, includes both expansions. Owners of the base game will be able to buy the DLC separately. 

Other titles featured during the Indie World Showcase include Chicory: A Colorful Tale. The game, in which you paint the world to explore and solve puzzles, was a critical hit earlier this year. It’s available on Switch today. Also coming to the hybrid console today are the excellently named action platformer Dungeon Munchies, party game Let’s Play! Oink Games and stealth puzzle adventure Timelie, for which a demo will be available.

Don’t Starve Together and Omori are getting ported to Switch this spring. Among the new games that are setting sail for Switch are Sea of Stars, an RPG prequel to The Messenger (which will arrive in holiday 2022), puzzle title Aliisha – The Oblivion of Twin Goddesses (spring), Figment 2: Creed Valley (February, with a demo available today) and River City Girls 2 (summer).

Meta is expanding its bug bounty program to reward researchers who report data scraping. The change will allow researchers to report both bugs that could enable scraping activity, as well as previously scraped data that has already been published online.

In a blog post, Meta says it believes it is the first to launch a bug bounty program to specifically target scraping activity. “We're looking to find vulnerabilities that enable attackers to bypass scraping limitations to access data at greater scale than what we initially intended,” Security Engineering Manager Dan Gurfinkle told reports during a briefing.

Data scraping is different than other “malicious” activity Meta tracks as it uses automated tools to mass-collect personal information from users’ profiles, such as email addresses, phone numbers, profile photos and other details. Even though users often willingly share this information on their public Facebook profiles, scrapers can expose these details more widely, such as publishing the information in searchable databases.

It can also be difficult for Meta to combat this activity. For example, in April the personal information of more than 500 million Facebook users was published on a forum. In that case, the actual data scraping had occurred years prior, and the company had already addressed the underlying flaw. But there was little it could do once the data started circulating online. In some cases, the company has alsosued individuals for data scraping.

Under the new bug bounty program, researchers will be rewarded for finding “unprotected or openly public databases containing at least 100,000 unique Facebook user records with PII [personally identifiable information] or sensitive data (e.g. email, phone number, physical address, religious or political affiliation).” Instead of its usual payouts though, Meta says it will donate to a charity chosen by the researcher in order not to incentivize the publishing of scraped data.

For reports of bugs that can lead to data scraping, researchers can choose between a donation or a direct payout. Meta says each bug or dataset is eligible for at least a $500 award.

They may not be a household name yet, but workers at Vodeo Games are trying to set a positive example for their industry. The studio, which was founded this year by Threes designer Ashley Vollmer, has successfully unionized with CODE-CWA — the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees.

Operating out of various locations in the US and Canada, the all-remote team of 13 is an unusual case for a few reasons. Foremost, about half of the bargaining unit are independent contractors – typically the exact sort of workers left out of, or deemed ineligible for, a union.

And while much of the push to unionize digital workspaces in recent years has focused on curbing abuses by management and pay imbalances, Vodeo's does not appear to stem from a need to course-correct away from imminent disaster. Rather, their desire to unionize seems rooted in wanting to maintain an equitable workplace. “They’re not organizing because there’s some big scary boss, like Bobby Kotick or someone,” campaign lead for CODE-CWA Emma Kinema told Polygon. “They’re organizing because they care so much about the work they do, and they want more of a say over how it’s done — the conditions in which they work to actually make those games that they care about.”

As Kinema alludes to, the games industry has been going through a period of great internal upheaval. Whistleblowers within Rocksteady, Riot, Wildlife and Quantic Dream, have detailed harassment and discrimination. There has also been increased pushback against industry practices such as “crunch,” in which studios demand herculean overtime hours from staff in order to hit targeted release dates. Some Activision-Blizzard workers walked off the job, demanding among other things, the resignation of their CEO, Bobby Kotick. They've set up a strike fund and are in the midst of their own union drive. 

“All workers deserve a union and a say in how their workplace is run, no matter where they work, what their employment status is, or what kind of conditions they work under," Myriame Lachapelle, a producer at Vodeo Games, wrote in a statement to press. "We have been inspired by the growing worker organizing within the gaming industry and hope we can set a new precedent for industry-wide standards that will better our shared working conditions and inspire others to do the same.”

Vodeo released its first game, the Peggle-like RPG Beast Breaker, in September to largely positive reviews. It's available for PC, Mac and Switch.

SiriusXM has been accused of doing too little to make its podcasts accessible. The National Association of the Deaf and Disability Rights Advocates have filed a lawsuit against SiriusXM (including its Pandora and Stitcher brands) accusing it of excluding the deaf and hard of hearing by failing to provide captions or transcripts for any podcasts. The company has allegedly violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York laws by denying equal access to its content.

The suit demands both damages and an injunction to force SiriusXM to offer podcast transcripts. The company would also have to "affirmatively" advertise the transcript option to deaf and hard of hearing people.

We've asked SiriusXM for comment. The lawsuit notably doesn't include other heavyweights, although Apple and Spotify already offer at least some form of captioning or transcription. Spotify has promised to auto-transcribe all podcasts, for instance. In a statement to The Verge, DRA's Christina Brandt-Young added the organizations couldn't sue "every bad podcast provider" in a single lawsuit. You may well see more complaints in the future.

The lawsuit is, effectively, a request for podcasts service operators to rethink accessibility. NAD and DRA want equal access to be a given, not a nice-to-have extra. In theory, the pressure on SiriusXM will prompt better treatment across the wider podcast industry.

Apple has hinted it might not revive its controversial effort to scan for CSAM (child sexual abuse material) photos any time soon. MacRumorsnotes Apple has removed all mentions of the scanning feature on its Child Safety website. Visit now and you'll only see iOS 15.2's optional nude photo detection in Messages and intervention when people search for child exploitation terms.

It's not certain why Apple has pulled the references. We've asked the company for comment. This doesn't necessarily represent a full retreat from CSAM scanning, but it at least suggests a rollout isn't imminent.

While Apple was already scanning iCloud Photos uploads for hashes of known CSAM, the change would have moved those scans to the devices themselves to ostensibly improve privacy. If iCloud Photos was enabled and enough hashes appeared in a local photo library, Apple would decrypt the relevant "safety vouchers" (included with every image) and manually review the pictures for a potential report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That, in turn, could get police involved.

The CSAM detection feature drew flak from privacy advocates. Apple stressed the existence of multiple safeguards, such as a high threshold for reviews and its reliance on hashes from multiple child safety organizations rather than government. However, there were concerns the company might still produce false positives or expand scanning under pressure from authoritarian regimes. Moreover, the only way to prevent on-device scans was to avoid using iCloud Photos altogether — you had to accept Apple's new approach or lose a valuable cloud service.

Apple delayed the rollout indefinitely to "make improvements" following the criticism. However, it's now clear the company isn't in a rush to complete those changes, and doesn't want to set expectations to the contrary. If local CSAM scanning reappears, it might take a long while (Apple expected a return in the "coming months") or bear only a partial resemblance to the original system.

You or your kids might now have a good reason to try Apple's SharePlay feature. Disney+ has released an update that adds SharePlay group viewing to its iPhone, iPad and Apple TV apps, letting up to 32 people watch and chat together. This will help you discover the latest plot twists in Boba Fett or Hawkeye, of course, but it could also be helpful for young ones who want rewatch Frozen with their distant friends.

Before you ask: everyone in the call needs Disney+ to stream, and this only works if a given title is available to everyone in your virtual gathering. You can still choose audio and subtitles separately from everyone else — the group only shares the image and playback controls. Apple TV users can also watch on the big screen while using their iPhone or iPad to stay in touch.

The launch conveniently dovetails with a flurry of Disney+ show and movie releases. It's still a welcome addition, though, and it might be particularly useful during a holiday season when the pandemic still poses challenges for some in-person family gatherings.