Category: Technology

The mission effectively marked the start of NASA’s ambitious Artemis program, which plans to return astronauts to the moon by the end of this decade.

Google’s unknown tracker alerts system will now let users disable their phone’s location sharing and use a map view to find the hidden tracking device.

Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Messenger are coming back online after widespread “technical issues” took down many of Meta’s biggest apps for several hours Wednesday. “We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks,” the company wrote in an update on X nearly four hours after first acknowledging the outages. 

The company didn’t elaborate on the source of the issue, or when the problems might be resolved entirely. As of 4:30 PM PT Wednesday, Meta’s status dashboard still showed some “major disruptions” to its business and transparency tools, though other services were marked as “resolved” or “recovering.” Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads and Messenger seem to have largely recovered, though.

Earlier in the day, there were over 90,000 reports of issues for Facebook.com alone on Downdetector, as users across X and Bluesky reported problems loading and using Meta’s apps. For a while even Meta’s company site was displaying the text “This page isn’t available right now.” When Engadget first reached Meta for comment, the company pointed to a brief statement on X acknowledging that “a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps.”

Meta last dealt with a major outage in March 2024 that prevented users from accessing its apps and services for two hours. That outage was attributed to a “technical issue” by Meta communications director Andy Stone, which is the same explanation Meta has offered so far today. 

Update, December 11, 2024, 4:50PM ET: Added more details on outage length and impact on Meta enterprise tools.

Update, December11, 2024, 7:50 PM ET: Additional comments from Meta about the status of the outage were added.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-threads-whatsapp-and-more-down-as-part-of-meta-outage-184608535.html?src=rss

Make your holiday plans now, because Sony has announced which games will be joining the Playstation Plus Game Catalog starting in December. The biggest highlight for PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra subscribers is Forspoken, a parkour and magic-filled RPG released by Square Enix in 2023. We didn’t think the PS5 game fully matched the eye-popping visuals of other games like Horizon Forbidden West when we reviewed it, but a holiday vacation seems like the perfect time to bop around and experiment with some spells.

For a different take on open-world running and jumping, Sonic Frontiers is also joining the catalog. The game fuses high-speed platforming with a Breath of the Wild-inspired open world full of enemies and collectables. If you miss more of the traditional Sonic experience, there are bespoke challenge levels inspired by past Sonic games to run through too.

Both those games should hopefully be rewarding time sinks, but the two additions that most caught my eye were A Space for the Unbound and Coffee Talk. I’ve basically heard nothing but good things about A Space for the Unbound since it came out in 2023, primarily because of its unique setting in “late ‘90s rural Indonesia.” It’s “a slice-of-life adventure game,” according to Sony, but with some supernatural elements for added drama. Coffee Talk has been kicking around since 2020, and has some shared cultural DNA since its developer, Toge Productions, published Unbound and is based in Indonesia. Coffee Talk is a visual novel about running a coffee shop where you talk to patrons about their problems and make them drinks, a delightfully pleasant premise for a game.

Toge Productions

Rounding out the new additions to the catalog are a grab bag of sequels, racing games, multiplayer puzzle games, and more than one title where you play as a rabbit: Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly, Rabbids: Party of Legends, WRC Generations, F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow, Jurassic World Evolution 2, PHOGS and Biped.

If you’re a PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber, and like me, you’re looking to blow the dust off your PSVR 2, Sony is also throwing in Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge. It’s a virtual reality experience that gives you a sampling platter of Star Wars things to do in “immersive” first-person, like training to be a Jedi, blasting enemies, and palling around with droids. It’s much more cost effective to “live” Star Wars than going to Disneyland.

Premium members will also get to stream a few new games in the Classics Catalog, with the shared theme of PlayStation mascot duos: Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves, Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves, and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. I’m more of a Ratchet & Clank fan myself, but this is a great opportunity to play the very first Jak and Daxter game.

PS Plus Premium and Extra subscribers will be able to play these games starting December 17. If you’re a Premium subscriber with a PlayStation Portal, you’ll be able to stream some of them directly to your handheld as part of Sony’s cloud streaming beta test, too.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/playstation-plus-game-catalog-additions-for-december-include-forspoken-sonic-frontiers-and-vr-star-wars-232621272.html?src=rss

Secret Blizzard has used the resources of at least 6 other groups in the past 7 years.

What’s the difference between OLED and QLED TVs? Brightness level, picture quality, and price are just a few factors in deciding why you should buy one over the other.

Ahead of holiday sales, B&H Photo Video quietly marked down the MacBook Air M3 to just $1,049 – a savings of $250.

The Acer Swift 14 AI, a Copilot+ laptop that’s designed to take advantage of Microsoft’s AI assistant, is on sale from Best Buy for $800 after a $400 discount.