UN passes resolution to curb space debris from anti-satellite missile tests

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution today asking countries not to conduct direct-ascent anti-satellite tests (ASAT) that create space junk. The US spearheaded the measure after the International Space Station (ISS) had a close call …

Watch The Game Awards here at 7:30PM ET

Get ready for two and a half hours of game trailers, announcements, gameplay and maybe even a few award acceptance speeches. The ninth edition of The Game Awards is upon us. We’ll be covering all the big news from tonight’s event, which you can also watch live below starting at 7:30PM ET.

Vying for the top prize of Game of the Year are God of War Ragarnok, Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, A Plague Tale: Requiem and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. God of War Ragarnok has the most nominations with 10, while Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West have seven each. Among the other notable nominees are Marvel Snap, Immortality, Scorn, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Splatoon 3, Tunic, Cult of the Lamb, Sifu, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, MultiVersus, Vampire Survivors, Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2.

There’s a new category this year called Best Adaptation, which recognizes TV shows, movies, podcasts, comic books and books that are based on games. Arcane: League of Legends, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, The Cuphead Show!, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Uncharted are the inaugural competitors.

While most of the awards are about honoring the past year in games, the ceremony looks toward the future with fresh reveals. You can expect news on dozens of games and expansions, including Among Us, Baldur’s Gate 3, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Tekken 8 and lots more we don’t yet know about.

In addition to usual suspects YouTube and Twitch, the event will stream on dozens of other platforms. As a reminder, if you watch via Steam TV and you’re eligible to win, you might get lucky and score a free Steam Deck. Valve is giving one away for every minute that the show runs. Otherwise, you can catch the livestream in glorious 4K right here:

A new electrolyte mixture may prevent EV batteries from catching fire

Lithium-ion battery fires may not be all that common, but they are a concern — just ask electric vehicle makers and Samsung. Thankfully, research at Stanford might reduce the chances of those devices lighting up. Scientists have developed an electrolyte (the substance that carries lithium ions between electrodes) that won’t catch fire even at temperatures of 140F or more. The trick, it turns out, was extra lithium salt.

The team added as much of a particular lithium salt (LiFSI) as possible to a polymer-based electrolyte, bumping the mix from less than half of the electrolyte’s weight to 63 percent. The LiFSI served as an “anchor” for flammable solvent molecules, preventing them from catching fire. The combination lets a lithium-ion battery continue functioning at temperatures as high as 212F.

Unlike other attempts at non-flammable electrolytes, the polymer-based design is gooey and can fit into existing lithium-ion battery components. That lowers the costs and lets companies use their current manufacturing processes. You could see the technology reach real-world products quicker than rivals that would require custom (and potentially expensive) production methods.

There’s no mention of near-term attempts to commercialize the new battery tech, which was funded by the Energy Department. However, the researchers already see multiple benefits for electric cars. The design could not only lower the risk of EVs catching fire, but increase their range. Automakers frequently need to space lithium-ion battery cells to prevent them from heating each other. This advancement would let companies safely pack more batteries into a given area, allowing either higher capacities or more spacious interiors.

This could also prove useful for phones, laptops and other mobile devices where space and safety are priorities. You might eke out more runtime on a charge, or worry less about a fire in your pocket. This discovery wouldn’t prevent fires resulting from damage, but it could prove reassuring in everyday use.

All ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Valorant’ characters will be free on Game Pass starting next week

In June’s Xbox showcase, Riot Games teased that the company’s biggest titles were heading to Xbox Game Pass — and now we know when. Ahead of tonight’s Game Awards, Riot has announced that League of Legends, Valorant, Legends of Runeterra and other titl…

FTC sues to block Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard merger

The Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust complaint in a bid to block Microsoft’s planned $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. The FTC started looking into the deal and its potential impact on the video game market soon after it was announced in January. Evidently, the agency was concerned enough to try and pump the brakes on the buyout. The FTC said that, were the deal to go through, it “would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.”

“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a press release. “Today, we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”

The FTC’s commissioners voted in favor of the lawsuit along party lines, with the three Democratic members approving it. The lone Republican Commissioner Christine S. Wilson voted against the suit in a closed-door meeting.

“The FTC pointed to Microsoft’s record of acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles, including its acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (a well-known game developer),” the agency said in a press release. “Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda’s titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles.”

While the lawsuit doesn’t necessarily kill the deal, it’s unlikely to be resolved by July, as Politico, which had reported that an FTC bid to block the merger was likely, recently noted. That was the deadline Microsoft and Activision set for closing the deal. If the acquisition hasn’t closed by then, the companies will have to renegotiate the agreement or even walk away from the merger. Regulators in other jurisdictions have been taking a close look at the deal, including in the UK and the European Union (which should complete its investigation by late March). 

Sony is the merger’s most prominent opponent. It has expressed concern that Microsoft would make games such as Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox platforms, which could cost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars a year. However, Microsoft has said it wants to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation and it claims to have offered Sony a 10-year agreement to that effect.

Just ahead of the FTC’s vote, Microsoft said it struck a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty games to the company’s systems if the merger closes. Call of Duty will also remain on Steam as part of a separate pact with Valve.

Microsoft and Activision have been downplaying the significance of the deal in an attempt to appease regulators and push it through. For one thing, Microsoft has claimed that Sony has more exclusive games, “many of which are better quality,” in a filing with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It also said Activision Blizzard doesn’t have any “must-have” games, despite having some of the most popular titles in the world (including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft) under its umbrella.

The FTC refuted those suggestions in its complaint. The agency claimed that Activision is “one of only a very small number of top video game developers in the world that create and publish high-quality video games for multiple devices.” It noted that between franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, Activision has more than 154 million monthly active users.

Microsoft has suggested that the acquisition the deal is more about gaining a foothold in the mobile gaming market, where Activision’s King division is a major player. For instance, Candy Crush Saga has had more than 3 billion downloads.

Ultimately, the FTC believes that the merger would likely harm competition in the video game market. “With control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises, Microsoft would have both the means and motive to harm competition by manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers,” the agency said.

Noting that the FTC is suing to block the merger, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in a note to employees that “This sounds alarming, so I want to reinforce my confidence that this deal will close. The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn’t align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge.” 

Kotick added that “a combined Microsoft-[Activision Blizzard King] will be good for players, good for employees, good for competition and good for the industry. Our players want choice, and this gives them exactly that.”

“We continue to believe that our deal to acquire Activision Blizzard will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers,” Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote on Twitter. “We have been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC. While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present it in court.”

Update 12/8 2:58PM ET: Added comments from Bobby Kotick and Brad Smith.

Jeep recalls over 62,000 Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrids over engine shutdowns

Jeep’s first foray into electrified vehicles hasn’t gone quite as smoothly as planned. The brand has recalled 62,909 Wrangler 4xe off-roaders over a fault that leads to unexpected shutdowns of the 2.0L plug-in hybrid engine. The powerplant may switch off when the diagnostic system reacts to a loss of communication, possibly leading to a crash if the failure occurs mid-drive.

The flaw affects Wrangler 4xe variants from the 2021 through to 2023 model year vehicles produced before August 17th, 2022, when Jeep started shipping units with updated control software. The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) says there have been two crashes and one injury potentially linked to the problem, as well as customer assistance instances, warranty claims and field reports.

Jeep will fix the affected Wranglers by updating calibration software for their hybrid control and transmission processors. It expects to formally notify owners starting January 12th. The NHTSA started investigating reports as early as September 2021, but it wasn’t until November this year that the investigation wrapped and Jeep’s parent Stellantis decided to launch a voluntary recall.

The glitch is unlikely to represent a major setback to Jeep’s electric vehicle push. However, the timing is less than ideal. It comes just a few months after Jeep unveiled Grand Cherokee and Wrangler Willy PHEV models, and previewed its all-electric Avenger SUV. The Stellantis-owned badge is just now trying to establish its EV reputation, and a recall won’t help matters.

EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ now extends to inaccurate claims about people

Your “right to be forgotten” (or rather, right to erasure) in the European Union now extends to bogus claims about you. The EU’s Court of Justice has ruled that Google and similar providers must remove search results on request when they’re “manifestly inaccurate.” People making the demands will have to prove that there are significant falsehoods, but they’ll only have to provide evidence that can be “reasonably” required. They won’t have to obtain a judicial ruling, in other words. The search engine creator can’t be forced to actively participate in the investigation.

The judgment is a response to a case where two investment managers asked Google to delist search results for their names that linked to articles criticizing their business model. The managers argued the claims were false, and also objected to thumbnail images that were allegedly taken out of context. Google declined to honor the request, contending that it didn’t know if the information was accurate.

In a statement to Politico, Google said it “welcome[d]” the ruling and would review the Court of Justice’s decision. It stressed that the affected search results and thumbnails haven’t been available for a long while.

The determination could help shape interpretations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You’ll not only have the right to remove search data on privacy grounds (such as reports of an old conviction), but to pull content that’s demonstrably false. This could theoretically help European residents reduce access to misinformation and slander, even if they’re uninterested in filing lawsuits.

There are questions that remain. Notably, the court decision doesn’t directly address parody. It’s not clear if someone could ask Google and other search engines to delete content that’s fake, but intended as a joke. It’s also unknown if this could be used to hide content that’s largely accurate, but includes a glaring error. A complainant could theoretically use this to minimize criticism by targeting less-than-perfect stories. However, the ruling at least lays a groundwork that could be used for future disputes.