Twitter is finally flipping the switch on “Super Follows,” its new subscription feature that allows creators to charge their followers for exclusive content. Starting today, the company is making the feature available to a “small group” of creators, with plans to expand the lineup in the coming weeks (Twitter has been taking applications for Super Follows since June).

For now, creators can set monthly rates of $2.99, $4.99 or $9.99 in order to access “subscriber-only” tweets. Twitter says it will eventually incorporate other features, such as Spaces and newsletters. But until then the feature essentially amounts to.. paying for tweets, which might explain why the company is trying it out with just a few people to start. The initial lineup includes:

• @MakeupforWOC who will offer “client-level treatment” for subscribers with skincare questions

• @myeshachou who will provide exclusive “behind-the-scenes stories”

• @KingJosiah54 who will offer “in-depth sports analysis”

• @tarotbybronx who will provide Super Followers with “astrology, tarot, and intuitive healing advice” and “extra spiritual guidance”

Of course, if you’re especially interested in one of these topics or just a dedicated fan, there is an upside to buying a subscription. You’ll be able to interact with creators in a smaller, and slightly more private, forum. That could be useful if, for example, you’re hoping to get some personalized skincare advice. On the other hand, asking fans to pay for the kind of content they’re used to getting for free might be a tough sell.

Super Follows is one piece of Twitter’s strategy to reshape its platform as a destination for creators. Outside of subscriptions, the company is also experimenting with letting creators sell tickets to audio chats in Spaces. Twitter is also working on a newsletter platform — it acquired Revue earlier this year — and has opened up tipping features in its app.

The following contains spoilers for episodes three and four of 'What If...?'

There’s a Twilight Zone episode I’m particularly fond of called “A World of His Own,” where a writer discovers that everything he speaks into his dictaphone comes true, and he can undo it by simply burning the tape. By the end, even narrator Rod Serling is shown to be a creation of this character’s imagination, making this one of the few TZ episodes where the fourth wall is firmly broken. It took an entire season for that classic program to feel comfortable enough to play around with its format and premise like that. However, we’re only on the fourth installment of What If…? and it’s employing similar tactics, though with a less comedic tone.

The first two episodes of What If…? revolved around a simple switch, trading one character for another and seeing how things play out as a result. Last week’s hinged on a minor change — Hope Pym joining SHIELD — that spiraled out with huge consequences. This week shows us a simple substitution again, putting Dr. Christine Palmer in the car with Stephen Strange and killing her off in the accident that in another timeline, destroyed the gifted surgeon’s hands instead.

Her death ends up being the catalyst for Strange studying the mystic arts, and the events shown here pretty much follow the same lines as they did in the film. It’s kind of unlikely, given that a motive to fix one’s injured hands is small peanuts compared to an attempt to undo death. But we still see Stephen training in Kamar-Taj, learning about the Eye of Agamotto and eventually fighting Dormammu. As far as the timeline is concerned, everything is pretty much the same.

Marvel Studios

Except Stephen, who can’t get Christine’s death out of his head. He ends up going back to the moment of the crash and trying to save his girlfriend’s life, only to fail again and again. Since her death was the catalyst for him to learn magic, he can’t use his powers to save her. She is a fixed point, an unchangeable event (something Doctor Who fans will be well acquainted with).

For the viewer, this raises a big question: If Christine’s death is really such a concrete event in the time stream, how did we end up with “our” Stephen Strange back over in the regular MCU timeline? Here, the episode inspired an intriguing possibility: that perhaps this Doctor Strange will succeed in changing the timeline so that Christine isn’t in the car and he destroys his hands, in fact making this episode a prequel to the 2016 film. That would have been a rather mind bending twist that certainly would have made this series more important, though still not essential, to the MCU.

Alas, it was not to be, with Strange descending further and further into his obsession to the point where even our narrator is concerned. And for the first time, a character becomes aware that they are being observed and actually calls the Watcher out. Like in the Twilight Zone episode, the sequence is intended as a demonstration of power, showing that Strange has reached the level of awareness to notice the fourth wall. But still his powers are limited; he’s not cognizant of the audience (though Uatu the Watcher is, having addressed us directly earlier in the episode) and his pleas for assistance ultimately go unheeded.

Marvel Studios

Compared with the first three episodes, this one ends on a dark note. That’s actually truer to the original comic series the show is based on where, freed from the constraints of long-term continuity, the writers could take the story in whatever direction they wanted. If they wanted to kill everyone they could and would, since the main timeline was to go unaffected and future issues of What If…? would just hit the reset button.

Whether the animated version will go the same way remains to be seen, but with the fourth episode an underlying sense of continuity has started to develop: The tentacled creature from "What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?" makes a reappearance, and Uatu acknowledges to the audience the stories he’s already told, which at the bare minimum hints that these episodes are meant to be viewed in a specific order. What If…? may be a diversion, but there seems to be a destination on the horizon.

CD Projekt Red hasn't revealed exactly when it will roll out the long-promised PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades for Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, it says it's still on track to release them by the end of the year. The studio listed "late 2021" as the timeframe for those upgrades in its financial report for the first half of the year.

The timeline still fits with the Cyberpunk 2077 roadmap that CDPR published in January. At the time, it said the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades would arrive in the second half of the year. The studio also said at WitcherCon in July that a free current-gen upgrade for those who own The Witcher 3 on PS4 and Xbox One will arrive this year too, along with free DLC — perhaps in time for season two of the Netflix's The Witcher series in December.

After the abysmal launch of Cyberpunk 2077, which by all accounts ran poorly on the base PS4 and Xbox One, CDPR has released several patches and hotfixes to improve stability and performance. The game was in such a bad state at the outset that Sony swiftly yoinked Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store, and didn't allow the game back until six months later (albeit with a warning about performance on the base PS4).

The most recent Cyberpunk 2077 patch included the first batch of promised free downloadable content. However, this only amounted to cosmetic items and a new look for Johnny Silverhand, Keanu Reeves' character. There are still expansions to the game on the way, though.

Still, given the widespread spate of game delays we've seen over the last year or so, including a couple of delays to Cyberpunk 2077 itself, its encouraging that CDPR is still confident about releasing the current-gen upgrades for both games in the next few months.

Between around a third and 40 percent of CDPR's developers are currently working on Cyberpunk 2077 support and the current-gen upgrade, according to a chart in the financial report. It's hard to tell, since the chart doesn't include actual percentages. In any case, that's down from over half of the team as of the end of 2020 as the studio gradually shifts employees to other projects. One of those is the first expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, which doesn't currently have a release window.

CD Projekt Red

DrLupo isn't the only big-name Twitch streamer leaving for YouTube. TimTheTatman (aka Tim Betar) has announced he will stream "exclusively" on YouTube Gaming as of September 2nd. He didn't explain the reasons behind the leap, but it comes less than two years after he (plus DrLupo and Saqib "Lirik" Zahid) signed a multi-year deal with Twitch.

Twitch didn't issue a formal response. It wished TimTheTatman well on Twitter, though, saying the streamer would "always be a King" to the service he left.

It's not yet certain this represents a second wave of defections from Twitch. Microsoft spurred the first round, paying Ninja, Shroud and other top streamers to jump ship for Mixer. We wouldn't expect a similar outcome, though. Mixer struggled to compete against its livestreaming rivals, leading Microsoft to shut the service down. Creators had to quickly find alternatives, and some of them returned to Twitch with exclusivity deals. YouTube is in a considerably stronger position, even if it's not the dominant home for live game streaming.

Even so, the moves represent gambles for TimTheTatman, DrLupo and others who might follow suit. While many larger creators have an established YouTube presence for their on-demand videos, that doesn't guarantee they'll watch live shows on Google's service. Even so, this could be a coup for YouTube — and a blow to Twitch if it can't hold on to its best-known stars.

Twitter is experimenting with its most aggressive anti-harassment features to date. The company will start testing “Safety Mode” a new account setting that automatically blocks accounts using “potentially harmful language.” Twitter first previewed the feature back in February during its Analyst Day presentation, but is now starting to make it available to “a small feedback group.” It’s not clear when it might be available more widely.

When enabled, Safety Mode will proactively block accounts that are likely to be the source of harassment for a period of seven days. Twitter says the system is designed so that accounts of people you know or frequently interact with won’t be blocked, but trolls will.

“Safety Mode is a feature that temporarily blocks accounts for seven days for using potentially harmful language — such as insults or hateful remarks — or sending repetitive and uninvited replies or mentions,” Twitter writes in a blog post. “When the feature is turned on in your Settings, our systems will assess the likelihood of a negative engagement by considering both the Tweet’s content and the relationship between the Tweet author and replier.”

While Twitter has taken several steps in the past to address its long-running harassment problem, Safety Mode is notable because it takes more of the burden off of the person being harassed. Instead of manually blocking, muting and reporting problematic accounts, the feature should be able to catch the offending tweets before they are seen.

Because it’s still in a relatively early stage, Twitter says it’s likely to make at least some mistakes. And users are able to manually review the tweets and accounts flagged by Safety Mode, and reverse faulty autoblocks. When the seven-day period ends, users will get a notification "recapping" the actions Safety Mode took. 

There are secrets buried in the first video from Eyes Out. It’s just two minutes long and filled with overlapping shots of drums, mics, guitars and snakelike cables packed into a lonely desert hideaway, all while an unsettling, ambient score gathers layers of sound. Over time, the scenes are flooded with red and the film is overcome by a horrendous groaning scream. Thin white text flashes across the screen, telling a disjointed story about burying bones and walking with the bloom of a burgeoning universe.

Among this vibrating chaos, there are hints about the kind of studio Eyes Out will be and even what the team’s first game might look like. Or, more aptly, what it might sound like.

Eyes Out is the new video game studio founded by Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck and veteran AAA director Cory Davis, and the team is already hard at work on its first title, a mysterious horror game with an emphasis on experimental audio.

“We want to create mind-bending experiences that cause you to question reality,” Davis said. “That's what we're really excited about. We’re all fans of horror, but specifically this kind of — it's a new and emerging space that doesn't just sit within the extremely violent and dark and terrifying, but also reaches into the vibrant and even surprises you with moments of bliss or self-reflection. Horror really has a lot of room to grow.”

Finck added on to that thought, saying, “We're playing in this field that provides an emotional and psychological response, which really, I feel, is heightened as a singular experience. And we're really fortunate to be attracting developers who are so genuinely passionate about these types of conversations.”

Davis has built a successful career as a video game designer, directing and crafting high-profile titles including Spec Ops: The Line and Here They Lie, but he’s also a composer. In fact, the first word of his Twitter bio reads, “musician.” Meanwhile, Finck’s Twitter bio has just two tags, both of which speak for themselves: @eyesoutofficial and @nineinchnails.

Note which one comes first.

Eyes Out

Finck got involved in the video game industry about six years ago, after striking up a friendship with Devolver Digital co-founder Mike Wilson at Burning Man. Finck ended up handling the soundtrack for Noct, a top-down horror game published by Devolver in 2015, and his interest in development was piqued. He dove further into the video game industry, attending conventions and connecting with creators.

“I was just really inspired by people and their enthusiasm, the forward tech of it all, and the collision of art and music, design, agency, narrative, and also the experience of really becoming immersed in all of this,” Finck said. “It really feels like the most focused and the most highly attuned experience to imbibe this sort of storytelling. And that continues to turn me on. And this led me, fortunately enough for me, to meet Cory as he and his team were completing Here They Lie.”

Eventually, Finck found himself at Sony Santa Monica, playing an early version of Davis’ VR horror title, Here They Lie. He was floored by it. Finck and Davis got to talking, and they haven’t stopped since.

“We immediately were talking about sound and music and the weight of that and the experience,” Finck said. “And we kept on in the coming days and weeks and months. And then eventually were working together on music for projects that Cory was heralding. We have a simpatico workflow and creatively sync in a lot of ways.”

Davis remembered feeling a spark at that first meeting, too.

“We started to go down the rabbit hole of distortion pedals and different synthesizers and stuff like that,” he said. “But that led us to this other type of discussion where I really felt this connection in terms of an understanding of the power of games as a medium and the impact and the possibility of what the medium holds for the future.”

Davis and Finck were both interested in building a single-player experience around music and tone, rather than starting with a narrative or visual style and applying sound later on in the process.

“From the first conversation with Robin, I could feel that he's this other type of creator that wants to be driven by his passion and his soul, rather than maybe what's trendy or what's even necessarily gratifying,” Davis said. “I just felt this kind of depth of possibility of what we could do together. I had other prototypes going on at the time at my old studio, but every time I got back together with Robin, our conversations would go deeper. And they'd go beyond the music and they'd go to places where I'd been hoping to go my whole journey as a game developer.”

Eyes Out is the result of this creative magnetism between Davis and Finck. They’ve attracted other developers, too, and have hired 15 collaborators from the industries of visual art, film and games to work on their first project.

“That's really what I've been looking for since way back in the Spec Ops: The Line days, was to build a team that has a diverse enough approach to both things like the difficulties in game development, as well as their acceptance and embrace of people that are from different parts of the world, from different backgrounds, that are of any kind of personality, and especially people that have been downtrodden and haven't had opportunities in the past,” Davis said. “We see those opportunities allowing us to have so much more depth in the types of stories that we're able to tell.”

There’s no name or release window for the studio’s first game, but Davis and Finck are dropping hints about how it’ll play and what they want players to feel. It’s not a VR game, it’s designed with complete immersion in mind, and it features creatures that behave strangely in response to generative audio cues. The team is playing around with rhythm mechanics and figuring out how to build creeping tension through sound.

“The type of horror that we're building has a lot to do with the horrors of the universe and the horrors that you kind of go to sleep with at night, the ones that are just around the corner and outside of our purview, but exist,” Davis said. “And the technology for building those types of soundscapes, the localized audio and reverb and the realism behind that, coming from VR before, I had a lot of opportunity to work with that stuff.”

The debut game from Eyes Out will be a focused, single-player horror experience built around sound — and silence.

“I'm really excited about the nuance and the subtlety of coming from silence, like a really impactful silence, and beginning to emerge from that silence towards an impactful embellishment of some sort, however great or greater,” Finck said. “And that play between the diegetic soundscape of the world within the tangible, physical space inside the game, and where it blurs with the score, the music of the game, can be really challenging and inspiring.”

Eyes Out's first project is poised to be otherworldly, introspective and experimental, just like the studio itself.

About a year ago, if you wanted to stream lossless audio tracks to your phone, you essentially had one option: Tidal. A lot has changed since then, with Apple recently rolling out support for lossless streaming in June, and Spotify promising to do the same later this year. But unless you’re willing to connect a USB DAC to your phone, more streaming services jumping on the Hi-Res bandwagon does you little good since Bluetooth headphones can only stream lossy audio. Thankfully, that’s about to change.

Chipmaker Qualcomm is adding a new flavor to its aptX Bluetooth codec, and it’s a lossless one that, in ideal conditions, the company claims delivers CD-quality 16-bit 44.1kHz audio streaming over a wireless connection. Qualcomm says it made improvements to its Bluetooth High Speed Link technology to deliver the required data throughput required to stream a lossless track wirelessly, but the codec can also compress a signal down to 24-bit 96kHz quality to ensure you don't experience any interruptions. You can also manually switch between 16-bit 44.1kHz and 24-bit 96kHz streaming modes, though the codec will automatically default to the former when it detects a lossless source.  

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets come with support for its aptX codecs built-in. That means almost any Android phone you buy in North America or Europe will support the standard. As with all Bluetooth codecs, it’s not enough for only your phone, tablet or computer to support the technology. You also need a pair of compatible headphones or earbuds. Qualcomm says the first ones to support aptX Lossless will arrive later this year.

Before today, the closest you could get to a lossless connection over Bluetooth were Sony’s LDAC and DSEE technologies. Those work well, but again you need a pair of Sony headphones to take advantage. 

Samsung is eager to court home theater enthusiasts who want high-end TVs at less-than-common sizes. The tech giant has introduced multiple new sizes for some of its premium sets. Most notably, the Neo QLED 4K QN90A series is now available in a huge 98-inch version (85 inches was the previous peak) alongside relatively tiny 43- and 50-inch models. This is ostensibly to allow for more flexible home theater installations, although we could see those smaller sizes proving useful for bedrooms, connected home gyms and dorm rooms.

There are additional size options for Lifestyle sets, too. The Frame is now available in an 85-inch size for fans of extra-large artwork, while The Terrace Full Sun can be had in a 65-inch edition for backyard viewing in bright sunlight.

The company didn't initially provide pricing for all of the new sets (we've asked for details). However, you can order the 50-inch QN90A today for $1,400 (normally $1,500), while the 65-inch The Terrace Full Sun is available for $10,000. None of these new sets is likely to be a trivial purchase, then, but they could be welcome moves if you don't want to sacrifice quality just to get a TV that fits your living space.

Microsoft will hold its next event on September 22nd, where it will show off the latest Surface hardware. The event starts at 11AM ET.

The company didn't explicitly say this is about Surface, but the signs are clear. A teaser image shows a side-on look at what appears to be a Surface Pro. Microsoft usually holds a hardware-centric event in the fall. On top of that, the event takes place two weeks before Microsoft releases Windows 11, and what better way to showcase the latest OS than on shiny new hardware?

As for what to expect, we might see a refreshed Surface Duo. Recent leaks suggest the Surface Duo 2 will have an upgraded camera system and it may be available in black. The Surface Book lineup is due for an upgrade, and, given the teaser image, it won't be surprising if we learn what's next on the Surface Pro front. In any case, Engadget will cover all the big news out of the event.

It took two years, but Netflix is finally ready to stream Seinfeld. Varietyreports that Netflix will make the show about nothing available on October 1st. All nine seasons and 180 episodes will be available, so you can start from the beginning or jump to memorable moments like Elaine's questionable dancing or Jerry's quest to remember a woman's name.

Netflix bought the rights to stream Seinfeld (albeit only for five years) in 2019, wresting the show away from Hulu with promises of access sometime in 2021. However, the eventual timing wasn't great — the series vanished from Hulu this June, leaving Festivus fans in limbo for all of the summer. It's still not clear what prompted that gap, although contract terms might have played a role.

Either way, the deal could be important for Netflix. The service has lost multiple "comfort food" shows to rivals in recent years, including Friends and The Office. Seinfeld might not drive many new subscriptions, but it could keep people from jumping ship as they look for a show to stream in the background while they wash dishes or finish their homework.