At the end of August, YouTuber Austin Evans posted a video on Sony's updated PlayStation 5 "CFI-1100" console. He was one of the first to obtain the revised model and what he found after tearing down the console was that Sony had equipped it with a smaller and lighter heatsink. In testing the unit, Evans found exhaust temperatures were higher than on the launch variant, leading him to claim it "worse" than its predecessor. That's a statement that led to controversy, and, in some cases, confusion over whether people should buy the updated CFI-1100 model.

Now we have a more definitive answer on what the new heatsink means for the PlayStation 5. Working together, Digital Foundry and Gamers Nexus conducted an independent teardown and analysis of the console. The short answer of what they found is that "in all practical terms, there is no meaningful difference between PS5s old and new." The longer answer is that the new PS5's cooling performance is more complicated than was first reported.

In addition to featuring a new thermal assembly, Sony tweaked the motherboard and baseplate found in the refreshed PS5. The result of those changes is some components run cooler while others get hotter. However, Digital Foundry states, "there is no evidence that this presents anything worth worrying about, assuming you are keeping your PS5 in a well-ventilated area."

Critically, the outlet found that once it installed the latest firmware from Sony, there was also no difference in performance between the new and old models. Both variants will pull as much power as they need to maintain a sufficient boost clock and throttle their fans to limit noise. Even as both consoles get hotter, you won't notice a dip in performance in the way you would with a PC GPU. Either way, should they hit a critical temperature where their components are in danger, both will automatically shut down to prevent damage.

"The core question of whether the new PS5 is better or worse than the launch model can be answered by saying that they're mostly much the same, certainly in terms of the end-user experience," according to Digital Foundry.

The main takeaway from the analysis conducted by the outlets is that you can safely buy the updated model. You don't need to go out of your way to find the launch variant. In fact, it's probably best you avoid doing so since many scalpers have tried to take advantage of the fallout from the initial video Evans posted by selling their launch models for even more money.

Are you tired of game developers releasing launchers that feel redundant? Too bad, you're getting another one. Riot Games has revealed plans to roll out a launcher for its games, Riot Client. It's not strictly new (games have been quietly using a limited version of the launcher for a while), but you now have access to all of Riot's desktop titles with a single sign-in. You can hop from Valorant to League of Legends with little trouble, for instance.

The client will first be available on September 20th. All gamers should receive the new software on October 4th, assuming Riot is confident in the client's stability. You'll still see dedicated pages for each game, including news and events.

Riot stressed that your existing shortcuts to individual games will still work, and that this won't chew up significantly more drive space. It's not quite the classic case of inserting another layer between you and the games you want to play. At the same time, there's little doubt this helps Riot control the experience. A client like this will make it that much easier for Riot to keep you within its game universe — why jump to Counter-Strike when Valorant is that much easier to reach?

David Bowie famously used a Stylophone on "Space Oddity" all the way back in 1969. Over half a century later, Stylophone maker Dubreq has released a Bowie version of the synthesizer.

Dubreq teamed up with The David Bowie Archive on the limited-edition Bowie Stylophone. It's not functionally different from a regular Stylophone, though. There's a Bowie logo and it comes with a booklet that dives into his music and features archive photos.

Still, given Bowie's long association with the instrument (he used it on the 2002 song “Slip Away” as well), it could be a neat memento for fans. You can buy the Bowie Stylophone from Dubreq's website for $40.

After GM shuttered all but four of its plants on account of the ongoing global chip shortage, the American automaker had to halt production at its Orion assembly plant, where its uncannily flammable Bolt EVs are built, on account of the vehicle battery recall. The Orion shutdown was only supposed to last until September 24th, to give GM time to properly address its battery issues, however, on Thursday, GM extended that shut down until at least the middle of October.

The company has not clarified when exactly Bolt EV production might restart but GM assured the public that sales will not resume until it has fully investigated and rectified the issue. Per Reuters, GM will continue "to work with our supplier to update manufacturing processes" until it is satisfied with the battery's performance and safety. There also still no word on when the six production plants that GM shut down due to the chip shortage will reactivate. These collective shutdowns have adversely impacted production of the Chevrolet Traverse, Equinox, Blazer, the Buick Enclave, and the GMC Terrain.

OpenSea isn't wasting much time after its head of product was accused of exploiting insider information to turn a profit on non-fungible tokens. The marketplace has asked for and accepted Nate Chastain's resignation following claims he used secret Ethereum wallets to buy front-page NFT releases before they were available to the public. Chastain's reported actions broke a promise to foster the NFT market "responsibly and diligently," OpenSea said.

The company also tapped an unnamed third party to review its approach to unethical behavior and recommend changes. OpenSea promised to "quickly" implement any recommendations. It had already launched policies barring both the use of confidential info for NFT trading and for buying or selling from promoted creators and collections.

Chastain might not face further repercussions. As the law firm McMillan noted in a recent analysis, there aren't any laws in North America regulating NFT sales. This incident and the response do set expectations for other NFT marketplaces, though, and they might invite more regulation from governments that otherwise left NFTs untouched.

Former Bungie composer Marty O'Donnell owes his old employer tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees following a court case related to his 2014 exit from the studio. According to legal documents obtained by Eurogamer, a court found O'Donnell in contempt of a previous ruling on July 12th of this year.

The broad strokes of the case involve the lawsuit the composer won against Bungie in 2015. A court ordered the studio to compensate O'Donnell financially but said he couldn't publish any music from Destiny without Bungie's blessing. Additionally, he had to return all materials related to his work on the first-person shooter back to the developer.

All of that brings us to 2019 when O'Donnel began uploading to YouTube and Bandcamp demos connected to Music of the Spheres, the eight-movement symphony he co-wrote with Paul McCartney that formed the early musical identity of Destiny. In a court motion reviewed by Eurogamer, Bungie alleged O'Donnell's "very possession of such materials proves he did not comply with the order to return 'all material' to Bungie."

Judge Regina Cahan sided with the studio and imposed new sanctions on O'Donnell. Some of the more notable ones include the fact he has to hand over his electronics to a third-party firm that will conduct a forensic examination to ensure any assets related to Destiny or Music of the Spheres have been deleted. He also has to pay Bungie all the money he earned from selling tracks tied to the symphony on Bandcamp, in addition to compensating it for expenses it accrued during the contempt proceeding. That includes lawyer fees.

In all, Bungie is reportedly demanding nearly $100,000 from the composer, an amount his lawyers say is unreasonable. O'Donnell took to Twitter to lament the case several times in early June. "I'm thinking about retiring from the games industry for good," he said in a deleted message dated to the 3rd. In one tweet that's still up, O'Donnell asks fans to buy the soundtrack to Golem, the 2019 PlayStation VR game he worked on with Highwire Games. "The money will help with my huge legal bills," he said. "Thank you."

Netflix is continuing to experiment with storytelling formats. Filming is underway on a heist thriller series called Jigsaw (which has nothing to do with the Saw movies, as best I can tell). Although it won't be an interactive project like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, it's a non-linear show. According to The Hollywood Reporter, you can watch the first seven episodes in any order leading up to the finale, similar to Paramount+ series Interrogation.

Jigsaw is loosely based on a real story in which $70 billion in Wall Street bearer bonds were at risk due to flood waters caused by Hurricane Sandy. The story spans 25 years, from decades before the heist to a year afterward.

The show has a solid cast, with Giancarlo Esposito, Paz Vega, Rufus Sewell and Jai Courtney among those involved. Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian star Esposito will play a veteran thief who can't stay away from a life of crime. Vega, meanwhile, plays an attorney who goes above and beyond to protect those close to her.

Ridley Scott is among the executive producers of the series, which was created by showrunner Erica Garcia. There's no release date for Jigsaw just yet, but it's maybe worth keeping an eye out for so you can put the puzzle pieces together when it arrives.

Facebook has announced a new policy that allows it to take out networks of accounts engaging in “coordinated social harm.” The company said the change could help the platform fight harmful behavior it wouldn’t otherwise be able to fully address under its existing rules.

Unlike “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” which is Facebook’s policy for dealing with harm that comes from networks of fake accounts, coordinated social harm gives the company a framework to address harmful actions from legitimate accounts. During a call with reporters, the company’s head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher said the policy is necessary because bad actors are increasingly trying to “blur the lines” between authentic and inauthentic behavior.

“We are seeing groups that pose a risk of significant social harm, that also engage in violations on our platform, but don't necessarily rise to the level for either of those where we’d enforce against for inauthenticity under CIB [coordinated inauthentic behavior] or under our dangerous organizations policy,” Gleicher said. “So this protocol is designed to capture these groups that are sort of in between spaces.”

Gleicher added that the new protocols could help Facebook address networks of accounts spreading anti-vaccine misinformation or groups trying to organize political violence. In announcing the change, Facebook said it took down a small network of accounts in Germany that were linked to the “Querdenken” movement, which has spread conspiracy theories about the country COVID-19 restrictions and has been “linked to off-platform violence.”

Facebook said it could take “a range of actions” in enforcing its new rules around coordinated social harm. That could include banning accounts — as it did with the “Querdenken” movement — or throttling their reach to prevent content from spreading as widely.

The issue of how to handle groups that break Facebook’s rules in a coordinated way has been a difficult one for the company, which up until now has primarily focused on taking down networks that rely on fake accounts to manipulate its platform. The issue came up earlier this year following the January 6th insurrection as Facebook investigated the “Stop the Steal” movement. According to an internal report obtained by BuzzFeed News, Facebook employees suggested its existing policies weren’t equipped to handle “inherently harmful” coordination by legitimate accounts, which prevented it from realizing “Stop the Steal” was a “cohesive movement” until it was too late.

During a press call, Gleicher said that the “work on this policy started well before January 6th.” But he added that the company’s work against high-profile groups had informed their decision making. “If you think about our enforcement against QAnon-related actors, if you think about our enforcement against ‘Stop the Steal,’ if you think about our enforcement against other groups — we learned from all of them.”

Microsoft will release Office 2021, the next consumer version of its productivity suite, on October 5th. That’s the same day the company will launch Windows 11. Much like Office 2019 before it, Office 2021 is a one-time purchase that will be available on both Windows and macOS. It’s for people who don’t want to subscribe to the company’s Microsoft 365 subscription.

Microsoft promised to share more details on Office 2021 soon, but we know from reporting by The Verge’s Tom Warren that the release will feature many of the same improvements found in Office LTSC, a variant of the software the company released today for enterprise customers who can’t access the Cloud. Among other improvements, it adds accessibility features and dark mode support. We also know from a previous announcement Microsoft plans to support the software for at least five years, and that the software will work with both 32- and 64-bit systems out of the box.

Ford's electric F-150 Lightning is clearly in high demand, and the company is determined to keep up. The automaker has paired news of pre-production work with a promise to invest an extra $250 million and create 450 new jobs to increase production capacity. That should help Ford build 80,000 Lightning trucks per year — little comfort when the company now has 150,000 reservations, but the move should reduce wait times.

Most of the jobs will go to workers assembling the electric F-150 at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, while others will build more batteries at the Rawsonville Components Plant and motors at the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center. The first trucks should be available in spring 2022.

The production numbers won't compete with conventional trucks for a while. As Autoweekobserved, Ford averaged sales of about 900,000 regular F-150 trucks per year before the pandemic and chip shortages came into play. While the Lightning may be more than a niche product, it's not yet at the point where Ford would have to reconsider its conventional truck production.

There's also a certain amount of posturing involved with the news. Ford is clearly eager to please a government promoting made-in-America EVs. However, it's still a recognition of pent-up demand for electric pickups, both from Ford and from the industry as a whole. Not that Ford might have much choice. With Rivian already producing its first trucks, Ford risks losing sales to competitors if it doesn't ramp up manufacturing.