Amazon’s Prime Video will stream New York Yankees games for in-market customers during the 2022 Major League Baseball (MLB) season. The first game, scheduled on April 22nd, is between the Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians. The streaming platform will air a total of 21 games in total, with 19 of them scheduled on Friday nights. The games will only be available to Prime members in New York state, Connecticut, north and central New Jersey and northeast Pennsylvania.
Amazon began simulcasting Yankees games on Prime Video shortly after it bought the Yankees Entertainment Sports Network (YES). While this is the third consecutive year Amazon has done this, it’s the first year that this selection of Yankees games will only air on Prime Video. Meaning that fans won’t be able to find the game on a broadcast station, the YES network or any other service.
MLB has gotten pretty cozy with streaming platforms as of late. Peacock will air a total of 18 exclusive Sunday morning baseball games in May, beginning with a matchup between the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox on May 8th. Apple TV+ will also begin streaming live Friday night MLB games this year, beginning with a contest between the New York Mets and the Washington Nationals on April 8th. The game will be exclusive to Apple TV+, but will also be available to non-subscribers for free (they’ll just need to download the Apple TV+ app).
Not everyone is a fan of the new union between streaming platforms and baseball. Baseball fans who have already paid for MLB TV or satellite TV likely won’t be happy about paying for a new streaming service just so they won’t miss a game. While games on Apple TV+ will have no geographic restrictions and be free to anyone with internet access, it’s obviously a ploy on Apple’s part to expand its subscriber base. And with games scattered across a number of different services — baseball season this year is likely to get confusing.
HBO Max is following through on promises to overhaul its underwhelming smart TV apps. Both Variety and The Verge say WarnerMedia is rolling out an updated Apple TV app that tackles some of the most glaring problems that remained. For one, it’s finally built on a modern platform that should be more reliable than the relatively ancient HBO Go/Now framework. You’ll also see a new home page with a “hero” banner you can scroll, the option to skip credits, more control over My Stuff watchlists and easier sign-ins.
The new version should reach your Apple TV device either this week or the next. You can already find the framework in many of HBO Max’s other apps, including for Android, PlayStation, Roku players and TV sets from LG, Samsung and Vizio. Similar revamps are coming for Amazon Fire TV devices and the web.
The flawed Apple TV client was the result of WarnerMedia’s desire to hurry the HBO Max launch. Rather than build its smart TV apps from scratch, the media company repurposed its HBO Go and HBO Now apps to cut development time. The company knew it would have to “replatform” the app to modernize it and accommodate both international expansion as well as more content, according to WarnerMedia executive VP Sarah Lyons.
That rushed approach might not have helped HBO Max’s initial growth. JustWatch estimated that the service had 7 percent of the world’s streaming market share in February versus 17.6 percent for Disney+. While we wouldn’t count on a surge in demand linked to the new apps, they might help HBO keep subscribers who would otherwise be frustrated enough to leave.
Myst, the classic puzzle game, is getting a unusual new lease of life. Developer Cyan Inc. has teamed up with Mighty Coconut to create a Myst-themed expansion for the latter’s VR game, Walkabout Mini Golf. The DLC will be released this fall and it’ll be available on Meta Quest, Steam VR and “and forthcoming VR platforms.”
We’re thrilled to announce a new partnership with the awesome folks at @Mighty_Coconut to develop Walkabout Mini Golf: Myst- a DLC for their game which will be released later this year! 🧵 pic.twitter.com/5iU73Pgfgh
Mighty Coconut says the expansion will be a 36-hole course with 18 easy and 18 hard-mode holes. It claims the DLC will blend realistic physics with “iconic settings, objects, and the spirit of puzzles from the Myst saga.” You’ll be able to play through the Myst course solo or with up to four other players as you hunt for 18 lost balls, take on a scavenger expedition and try to collect a commemorative putter.
Myst, which was released in 1993, was the best-selling PC game of the 20th century. Players were prompted to explore an island, solve puzzles and put together the pieces of the story. It’s one of the most influential games of all time and its impact can still be felt in modern titles like The Outer Wilds. Although a Myst remake came out not too long ago, it’s neat to see Mighty Coconut paying tribute to its legacy, albeit in an entirely unexpected fashion.
Twitter might not have an edit button just yet, but it’s still delivering at least one useful feature this week. The social network is now rolling out a previously hinted-at “Unmention” feature that lets you remove yourself from a conversation. The experimental offering is limited to the web for now, but you just have to choose “leave this conversation” from a tweet’s options to avoid constant notifications for a chat you never wanted to join.
Unmentioning is available for some people today, Twitter says. It’s not clear if or when the feature might be widely available, or when it might reach mobile apps. In its current form, the text for the mention remains — it just doesn’t send an alert.
The company has tested or deployed numerous features to keep mentions civil, including an anti-harassment Safety Mode that automatically blocks mean-spirited users. This, however, might be one of the most practical. Twitter users often deal with unwanted mentions from friends, spammers and others. This gives you more control over your participation and lets you focus on the chats you care about.
How do you say “Don’t @ me,” without saying “Don’t @ me”?
We’re experimenting with Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations—available on Web for some of you now. pic.twitter.com/rlo6lqp34H
Smart is finally ready to show the production version of its Concept #1 electric SUV, and you’ll be glad to hear that the distinctive design largely remains intact. The newly unveiled Smart #1 looks much like the prototype compact SUV inside and out, including the frameless windows and “floating halo” glass roof. You mainly give up usual concept car excesses like the scissor doors and giant 21-inch wheels (you’ll have to make do with 19-inchers), and there’s a standard three-seat bench in the back instead of two chairs.
More importantly, the performance appears healthy for an EV this size. While the 273 miles of maximum range (according to the WLTP test cycle) isn’t exceptional, it comes from a 66kWh battery that charges rather quickly. You can reportedly bring the Smart #1 from a 10 percent charge to 80 percent in under 30 minutes if you use a 150kW DC charger, and even a 22kW AC supply will accomplish the same feat in less than three hours. You could plug in at the end of a long day knowing that you’ll have plenty of range in the morning.
The mini-ute should be reasonably quick, too, with the equivalent of 268HP and 253ft/lbs of torque. The 112MPH top speed isn’t blistering, but it easily puts the 81MPH of Smart’s EQ Forfour to shame.
The in-cabin tech will also seem familiar if you’ve seen the concept. The finished Smart #1 includes a 12.8-inch infotainment screen, a 9.2-inch digital instrument cluster and a 10-inch heads-up display. You can also expect driver assistants (including for the highway and stop-and-go traffic), over-the-air updates and a “digital key” option to share your EV with friends.
Smart hasn’t narrowed down the release window or pricing, but said last fall that it would sell the #1 in China in 2022. It’s headed to Europe as well. We wouldn’t count on a North American debut when Smart backed out of the region years ago. With that said, this is the closest Smart has come to appealing to the continent’s SUV-centric tastes — it’s something you could imagine on American roads, however unlikely that may be.
The Surface Pro’s design has been with us for almost a decade, so it’s kind of a wonder that in all that time, no one has really ever tried to make a detachable 2-in-1 gaming machine. Pretty much everywhere you look, there’s a hybrid version of every type of gadget — from tablets to smartphones — aside from gaming PCs. And while ASUS teased us with the ROG Mothership back in 2019, now the company has finally returned to transform that concept into an actual retail device: the ROG Flow Z13.
Design and display
For those familiar with Microsoft’s detachables, if you take one look at the Flow Z13 (which starts at $1,800) you’ll immediately see why I mentioned the Surface Pro line, because ASUS has basically taken that blueprint and made it all gamery. You get a bright 13.4-inch full HD screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a handy kickstand in back, and a magnetic strip for hooking up a removable keyboard cover. That cover also feels similar to a Surface, right down to the bounciness of the keyboard and its slightly too-small touchpad. This means any hardcore RTS or FPS gamers will definitely want to keep an external keyboard around. ASUS even hid a microSD card slot and removable M.2 cover behind the kickstand, just like the Surface Pro. You’ll also find an 8-MP camera around back, though its image quality leaves a lot to be desired (the cam in front is fine though). Elsewhere, we have one USB-C port with Thunderbolt 4, a USB A port and a couple of other ports hidden beneath a protective seal. But more on those later.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
That said, while its overall design is a lot like a Surface, the Z13 gives off a very different vibe. ASUS’ over-the-top cyberpunk aesthetic combined with a splash of red and black accents might be a bit much for some. But I kinda love it, especially that window with RGB lighting in back. In fact, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say we need more see-through gadgets in general.
Specs and performance
On the inside, we got some relatively beefy components, particularly for a system this size. We’re talking an Intel Core i9-12900H CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB M.2 SSD, and an RTX 3050TI. In normal use browsing the web or social media, the Z13 is rather quiet, though that changes when you launch a game. Fan noise is noticeable, but doesn’t become a real distraction. And while the back of the Z13 does get warm, ASUS’ tablet design and vapor chamber cooling system helps keep throttling to a minimum.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Now normally, pairing an i9 chip with a 3050 Ti doesn’t make a lot of sense. In most games, the Z13 is going to be bottlenecked by its GPU, which makes a high-end CPU seem like overkill. In benchmarks, I saw frame rates of 37 fps in Forza Horizon 5 on ultra settings, 64 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider on highest and 40 fps in Metro Exodus on high. So decent, but not exactly mind-blowing.
That’s where those hidden ports come in. Once you remove the protective seal, you can attach ASUS’ optional (and expensive) $1,400 XG Mobile graphics dock, which has even more ports (HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, Ethernet, four USB 3.2 Type-A ports and an SD card reader), along with an RTX 3080 graphics card. And after I hooked everything up, gaming performance basically doubled, with frame rates in Forza Horizon 5 jumping up to 87 fps at the same settings, with similar results for other titles (134 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and 95 fps in Metro Exodus).
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
So now, we’re looking at a portable gaming tablet that has the kind of performance you’d typically only get from a big 15 or 17-inch notebook. And because the dock is detachable, you have the option to leave it behind if you’re not gonna be gaming. It even has its own power cable, allowing it to send juice to the Z13 when connected. So theoretically, if you throw both of these in your bag, you can leave ASUS’ basic charging brick at home. And when you’re not using the dock, beneath that seal next to ASUS’ proprietary XG port, there’s a USB-C 3.2 connection that supports video out with G-sync.
However, there are a number of quirks about the XG dock. First, you can’t just disconnect it at will. Before you pull the plug, you need to manually disable it from the icon in the Windows system tray, which takes more than a moment. You also can’t pick what GPU goes inside, it’s either an RTX 3080 or nothing. That means if you want to upgrade in the future, you’re gonna have to buy a whole new dock, assuming ASUS even makes a second generation. And because of that proprietary port, the XG Dock is only compatible with this system and the ROG Flow X13, which is basically the laptop version of Z13.
Battery life
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
One of the biggest downsides of the Z13’s tablet design is not having a lot of room for a sizable battery. In our video rundown test, the system’s 56 Whr power pack lasted just five hours and 38 minutes. That’s four hours shorter than the Zephyrus G14 (9:45) and nearly two and half hours less than the Alienware X14. That means you will probably need to bring ASUS’ power brick whenever you leave the house, especially if you plan on actual gaming. And in the real world, even with the most casual workloads, I found the Z13 was often gasping for energy well before the end of the day. On the plus side, the Z13 uses USB-C Power Delivery, so at least the charger can top up other gadgets too.
Wrap up
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
When it comes to summing up a product, I’m usually not this conflicted. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea, I love the way it looks, and I love being able to tack on a beefy GPU when I want extra performance. I also love being able to flip it open, pair a controller and just get to gaming – no need to worry about a keyboard. There really isn’t anything else like the Z13. The problem is that the whole kit isn’t very practical, and it’s not a great value either.
When you’re using it as a laptop – like you know, on your lap – because all of its guts are stuffed inside what is essentially a tablet chassis, it’s really top-heavy. Also, its battery life isn’t very good, lasting at least two to three hours shorter than every other gaming laptop we’ve tested recently. And while it’s relatively thin, when you think about all the accessories you might want to carry around with it, the Z13 doesn’t really let you pack that much lighter when compared to a rival 14 or 15-inch laptop.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
And then there’s its price. The Z13 starts at $1,800, or around $1,900 for one similar to our review unit with a 3050TI GPU, which is as high as you can spec it. And if you want the XG mobile graphics dock your all-in price climbs well above $3,000.
A similarly equipped traditional gaming laptop, like an Alienware X14 goes for about $200 less. Meanwhile, ASUS’ own G14 Zephyrus can be had for as little as $1,450, and that’s with a slightly more powerful RTX 3060. So if you just want to be able to game on the go, you can save a bunch of money simply by getting something less exotic. And if you need some extra performance now and then, you’re probably better off getting a regular external GPU enclosure that you can upgrade yourself down the line instead of ASUS’ proprietary dock.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Now all this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get one. But you should know what you’re getting into first. The Flow Z13 is a wildly interesting system, and for people looking for a portable and adaptable machine with big time performance, I’m glad that ASUS finally made a gaming tablet/detachable 2-in-1 into a real device after all these years. And while its high price will make the Z13 an incredibly hard sell for most people, I still think it’s impractically cool.
Activision Blizzard is converting all of its temporary and contract quality assurance workers in the US to full-time employees starting on July 1st. Many of the 1,100 workers will receive a pay raise — the minimum hourly rate is going up to $20 per hour as of April 17th. As permanent employees, the workers will receive benefits and can participate in a bonus plan.
The company says bringing those workers on board as staff will bolster its development resources and increase its number of full-time employees by 25 percent. It recently converted nearly 500 other temp and contract roles across its studios to full-time positions.
The move comes in the wake of a unionization drive spearheaded by QA team members at Raven Software. Workers from across Activision Blizzard staged a walkout in December after some Raven QA contractors were laid off. The following month, QA workers at the studio announced their intention to unionize, which would make them members of the first union at a AAA gaming company in North America.
Activision declined to voluntarily recognize the Game Workers Alliance union and shuffled some people to other departments. Executives also tried to convince workers not to form a union by questioning the benefits of organizing. Nevertheless, the Raven QA workers pressed forward with their plans and have filed for a union election through the National Labor Relations Board.
“Whether Raven workers choose to unionize has nothing to do with the salary increases elsewhere for Activision’s QA workers,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg. The spokesperson added that Raven workers won’t be eligible for the pay initiatives “due to legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act.”
Microsoft, which has agreed a deal to buy the company for $68.7 billion, said last month it respected the right of Activision Blizzard employees “to choose whether to be represented by a labor organization and we will honor those decisions.”
Workers at Activision Blizzard have been pressuring leadership on other fronts. Many staged a walkout this week after it lifted COVID-19 vaccine requirements. The company clarified it would allow its studios to set their own return-to-office policies.
Elsewhere, the company is the subject of multiple ongoing harassment and misconduct lawsuits. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision Blizzard last July, accusing the company of discrimination against female employees and fostering a “frat boy culture.” A wrongful death suit and a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit from an individual plaintiff have also been filed over the last month or so. Last week, a judge ordered Activision Blizzard to pay $18 million to settle a federal suit that accused it of enabling a sexist and discriminatory environment.
Activision Blizzard isn’t the only major company in the gaming sector that’s hiring temp and contract QA workers into permanent roles. In February, Epic Games said it would offer most of its US-based QA workers full-time positions.
Here’s the full statement Activision Blizzard provided to Engadget:
Across Activision Blizzard, we are bringing more content to players across our franchises than ever before. As a result, we are refining how our teams work together to develop our games and deliver the best possible experiences for our players. We have ambitious plans for the future and our Quality Assurance (QA) team members are a critical part of our development efforts.
Therefore, today we announced the conversion of all US-based temporary and contingent QA team members at Activision Publishing (AP) and Blizzard — nearly 1,100 people in total — to permanent full-time employees starting July 1. Additionally, we are increasing the minimum hourly rate for these team members to $20/hr or more effective April 17. These employees also will be eligible to participate in the company’s bonus plan and will have access to full company benefits.
This change follows a process that began last year across AP and Blizzard of converting temporary and contingent employees, including 500 at AP’s studios, to permanent full-time employees.
Update 4/7 3:12PM ET: Added clarification about the impact on Raven workers.
Epic Games and The Lego Group are building a new, family-friendly virtual world. The companies haven’t revealed too many details just yet, though they plan to “shape the future of the metaverse to make it safe and fun for children and families.”
The pair have agreed on three principles they’ll adhere to as they “build an immersive, creatively inspiring and engaging digital experience” for people of all ages to enjoy. They pledged to:
Protect children’s right to play by making safety and wellbeing a priority.
Safeguard children’s privacy by putting their best interests first.
Empower children and adults with tools that give them control over their digital experience.
Epic and Lego didn’t announce a timeline for when their collective vision of a virtual world will open for business. Of course, Epic runs perhaps the foremost example of a kid-friendly metaverse in Fortnite. The battle royale modes, countless crossovers, concerts, movie nights and creative islands have helped Fortnite become a massively popular virtual space where people go to hang out.
Lego has experience in virtual worlds as well. Along with its long-running series of licensed games (including one that just dropped this week in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga), it was behind a sandbox game called Lego Worlds.
While that didn’t prove to be quite the Minecraft competitor Lego would have hoped, perhaps its collaboration with Epic will stand a better chance. Their take on the metaverse is also likely to compete with Roblox. That platform has an enormous player base of mostly young people and measures in place to shield them from adult content.
Barnes & Noble finally has a direct answer to Amazon’s purchase of Audible. The bookseller has launched a B&N Audiobooks service in the US that lets you either buy recordings or pay $15 per month for a subscription that offers one recurring monthly credit. You’ll have access to more than 300,000 titles through the web as well as the Nook apps for Android and iOS.
The launch is arguably overdue. Amazon bought audiobook heavyweight Audible in 2008, and has both woven it into services and expanded its offerings with original books and services like the all-you-can-read Audible Plus plan. That investment has helped Audible dominate the market for years, and that’s not including longstanding competition from Apple, Kobo and others. Barnes & Noble is entering a very well-established market as a relative outsider.
The bookshop might not be deterred, however. Barnes & Noble chief James Daunt has been leading an e-book revival at the company that includes much-needed hardware upgrades. An audiobook service could help with that strategy by letting B&N match its competitors’ core features, even if it’s unlikely to topple its biggest rivals any time soon.
Confession time: I’d never read any John LeCarré until after I’d seen the 2011 film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s a brilliant movie, and one that sent me scuttling to read the Karla trilogy and then watch the two excellent Alec Guinness adaptations. After devouring the first two episodes of Apple TV+’s Slow Horses, I can think of no higher compliment than to say that I’m bulk-buying the book series it was adapted from in short order.
Slow Horses is an adaptation of Mick Herron’s series of Slough House novels, featuring a group of British spies trapped in administrative purgatory. MI5 agents who have committed high-profile mistakes but know far too much to be fired are dumped in the dingy Slough House. There, they are given harmless busywork too demeaning for real spies to undertake, all the while being tormented and demeaned by division chief Jackson Lamb, played by Gary Oldman.
It’s this world that former superstar spy River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is thrust into after his own notorious error while out in the field. There, he’s given jobs like searching a dodgy journalist’s trash can and acting as a courier between offices. It’s hardly a spoiler to suggest that Cartwright’s arrival triggers something of a major case for the rejects to handle, which has mostly kicked off by the time the second episode finishes.
What Slow Horses has to offer, beyond the enjoyment of a modern-day thriller done right, is a sense of pulpy fun. A sequence in the second episode I can’t spoil plays out with the beats of a Chuck Jones cartoon rather than an entirely gritty espionage potboiler. It helps, too, that the show isn’t trying to make everyone a two-dimensional cut-out, which can so often be the case when prestige TV attempts to make spy-fi.
The series was created by the unfortunately named Will Smith, the British standup, actor and writer who, far as we know, has never slapped Chris Rock on stage. The dialog sparkles, not surprising given that Smith has written for Avenue 5, Veep and The Thick of It. It’s also clear-eyed about its politics, offering something approaching nuance concerning the benefits and burdens of living in a surveillance state.
Much has already been made about the fact that this is Gary Oldman’s first starring role in a TV series. But Apple also spent big to recruit serial award-winner Kristin Scott-Thomas and Jonathan Pryce, who appears as a former spymaster who has lost none of his imperial pomp. Mentions too, to Olivia Cooke’s Sid Baker, a vastly more talented spy who, despite slumming it in Slough House, is actually allowed to undertake real espionage work, and Saskia Reeves’ as Lamb’s long-suffering assistant, Standish.
I’ll admit, I get a kick out of watching the once-and-hopefully-future George Smiley playing a cracked-mirror version of that same character. Lamb is trapped in the grimy whiskey and tobacco-stained late ‘70s, and Oldman has never looked grander than as a man in ruins. Even at this early stage, there are hints that Lamb was once a spectacular agent whose fall from grace was similarly staggering, but the series isn’t teasing it out in mystery-box fashion.
There are two reasons I’m recommending this to you. Firstly because I thought it was good, and I feel like sharing cool stuff is part of my job. But also because the only reason I even started Slow Horses was because I’d forgotten to cancel my TV+ subscription. I saw the email hit my inbox, and felt resentful at yet another £4.99 that I’d wasted on something I’ve not used at all. (I keep meaning to use that money to subscribe to Disney+ now that my kids are old enough to sit through a whole movie in one sitting.) Ted Lasso aside, TV+ in my mind remains the home of mostly middle-of-the-road fare that aspires to do well enough on either coast, and much of the middle.
It didn’t help that The Morning Show left me cold, and I can’t imagine myself watching Jason Momoa wandering around a forest in in See. You can’t fault Apple for not wanting to just throw a fortune at its TV department and flood its service with forgettable originals. But that deliberate process of slowly building up its catalog has always made me feel a bit like a chump for paying for the privilege of not wanting to watch what was on offer. And yet, after Slow Horses, I decided to take a gamble and watch Severance. I’m only a few episodes deep, and it’s not one of those shows you can, or should, binge over a couple of bloodshot nights, but it is good. It’s a left-field exploration of the nature of memory, personality and corporate life that defies easy explanation. (Also, check out our interview with creator Dan Erickson!)
If I needed to have a grand theory about All Of This (and I’m not sure at this point that I do), it’s that TV+ needs to get weirder. Yes, it has the cash to buy as many prestige-TV series as it wants, but we’re swimming in worthy, often dull series (looking at you, WeCrashed!). I’ve still not bothered with either of the two (two!) Tom Hanks films Apple rescued from the ignominy of a COVID-era cinema release. But shows like Severance and Slow Horses, one a highbrow exploration of something, the latter the televisual equivalent of a luxury dirty burger. Neither of which you could imagine HBO, even in its post-Netflix anxiety pomp, buying. Hopefully we’ll see more of this sort of thing in the future, and I can feel a bit less resentful about paying for TV+.
