Month: August 2019

One of Marvel’s most recent hit characters is reportedly getting her own show on Disney’s upcoming streaming service. Ms. Marvel aka Kamala Khan, the company’s first Muslim superhero, is said to be in the works with British writer Bisha K. Ali attached as writer and showrunner.

THR reports that the announcement will be made at Disney’s D23 presentation. Though the name “Ms. Marvel” has belonged to various heroes since the 1970s, Kamala Khan was introduced in 2013. The Pakistani American character opened up opportunities to explore themes of religious and cultural identity. Her powers allow her to change shape, and she’s known for being a fan of superheroes within the Marvel universe, allowing for some meta-commentary.

Kamala was added to the Marvel universe near other notable characters like Miles Morales as the Ultimate Spider-Man, and Spider-Gwen, an alternate version of Gwen Stacy in which she (rather than Peter Parker) was bitten by a radioactive spider. All three characters have become the faces of a new, younger Marvel universe.

D23 is Disney’s annual expo, full of news about its upcoming slate of entertainment projects, theme parks, and more. You can check out our D23 schedule for details about where and when to watch the variety of panels.

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Destiny 2‘s newly implemented cross-save feature went live this week, and it’s quite wonderful. Provided you own the necessary content on each platform, it allows you to take your Guardians from PS4 to Xbox One to PC, letting you enjoy the benefits of PC or play with friends on another platform. But it has an additional perk for those who have previously invested in the Xbox One or PC versions: the ability to get a new, PS4-exclusive Exotic weapon, Wavesplitter.

As is customary on Fridays, Xur has arrived. And while he’s always worth a visit (even if you already own every Exotic, the armor he sells might have better rolls than your version), cross-save brings a new benefit to Xur. In addition to directly selling four specific Exotics, Xur also allows players to purchase a Fated Engram, which decrypts into an Exotic you don’t already own. Using cross-save, PC or Xbox One players can now jump into the PS4 version of the game and buy the Fated Engram. Provided you already have every other Exotic available to your character, this should guarantee your Engram turns into Wavesplitter. We’ve tested this ourselves, and sure enough, we got Wavesplitter on what had previously been a PC-only character.

Wavesplitter

This comes with two big caveats. One, cross-save requires you to own Destiny 2 and Forsaken on PS4 in order to acquire the gun. And two, Wavesplitter can’t currently be used on PC or Xbox One. While you’re free to equip it while on PS4, moving back to the other platforms will render it unusable.

That will change later this year with a new update; one change we’re seeing now that Bungie is in full control of the game is the ending of platform-exclusive content. For years, Destiny and Destiny 2 players on Xbox One (and, more recently, PC) have had to wait upwards of a year to receive content that launched on PS4 first. This has included strikes and Exotics like Wavesplitter, which came to PS4 alongside Forsaken last year.

This Fated Engram trick of sorts is made possible through a change that happened earlier this year. Prior to an update, these Engrams were restricted to pre-Forsaken Exotics, but those added to the game as part of that expansion can now be acquired by buying the Engram. Exotics added to the game since then still must be obtained through normal means.

Wavesplitter is a trace rifle, of which there are very few in the game. Holding down the trigger causes its damage to change over time. It’s one of several pieces of Forsaken’s PS4-exclusive content that Xbox One and PC owners can look forward to gaining access to sometime between now and the release of Shadowkeep on October 1.

A new event is now underway in Pokemon Go. Niantic has brought the Water Festival back for a limited time, giving players around the world a chance to encounter more Water-types and even catch a couple of new Shiny Pokemon.

The Water Festival runs from August 23-30. During that time, Water Pokemon like Magikarp, Wooper, and Wailmer will appear in the wild more often than normal. If you happen to be near a body of water, you’ll also have a greater chance of encountering the Pokemon listed below.

Increased Water Pokemon Spawns

• Wartortle
• Poliwhirl
• Seaking
• Lapras
• Qwilfish
• Mantine
• Lotad
• Feebas
• Piplup
• Buizel
• Finneon

On top of that, Water Pokemon will be more likely to hatch from eggs during the Water Festival. Some Water-types such as Blastoise, Vaporeon, and Lapras will also appear as Raid Bosses, and if you’re lucky, you’ll have your first chance of finding Shiny versions of Carvanha and Barboach in the wild.

Returning Legendaries

That isn’t all that’s happening during the Water Festival; on August 28, the Legendary lake trio–Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie–will be back in Gyms in their respective regions for a special Raid hour. You’ll also earn twice the usual amount of Candy for hatching Pokemon throughout the week, and the distance it takes to earn Buddy Candy will be cut in half if your Buddy Pokemon is a Water-type. You can read more details about the Water Festival on the official Pokemon Go website.

Other Pokemon Go Events

It’s going to be a busy few weeks for Pokemon Go players. Niantic recently revealed the game’s Ultra Bonuses, which includes a new Thousand-Year Slumber Special Research quest that leads to the Mythical Pokemon Jirachi. Additionally, the first Gen 5 Pokemon are set to debut starting September 16. There’s also the game’s next Community Day, which takes place on September 15 and features the Gen 4 starter Turtwig.

In the wake of negotiations that may end Disney and Sony’s partnership–and take Spider-Man out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe altogether–at least one Marvel executive producer remains optimistic. Jon Favreau, who directed and produced the original Iron Man and has remained an executive producer through Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, says he’s still holding out hope.

“After all that time, it took 10 years for him to get to a good relationship!” Favreau told ET. “It’s still early days. As a fan, [I’m] cautiously hopeful that something will come together, because I think all the fans wanna see those characters together. … Things don’t always–what you read isn’t always indicative of where things are now, so hopefully I’ll find out more while I’m here. Holding out hope that this isn’t the final chapter of that story.”

Favreau is certainly more plugged in to the workings of the MCU than the average fan, but he made sure to qualify his statements as hopeful and not insider knowledge. Another consequence of the deal falling apart, according to reports, is MCU head Kevin Feige will no longer serve as producer due to a dispute over financing and profits.

Sony and Disney had reached a deal to allow Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while Sony still retained rights to the characters. Sony itself responded to the reports of the dispute, saying that the conflict had been “mischaracterized.”

Favreau is another notable Marvel name to come out publicly hoping for a resolution. Actor Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye, also sent a note asking Sony to bring back Spider-Man. Favreau himself is very active in the Disney corporation as a whole, having directed the recent Lion King live-action remake and currently heading up the Disney+ series The Mandalorian. He has also played Tony Stark’s confidant Happy Hogan from the beginning, and appeared in the most recent Spider-Man film, Far From Home.

As is the case each week, Friday has brought Xur to Destiny 2. His randomized slate of Exotic items has changed, but each class–Warlock, Hunter, and Titan–can find one piece of Exotic armor for sale. Even if you already own all three pieces, they’re worth taking a close look at, as armor pieces feature randomized rolls, so you might find something superior to what you already own. Alongside that, you’ll find an Exotic weapon to add to your collection if you don’t already own it. You can check out what the mysterious merchant is selling in the video above, or check out our full Destiny 2 Xur guide for August 23-27.

Microsoft contractors have listened to audio recordings of Xbox users speaking in their homes, a report by Motherboard has revealed. Audio from Xbox One users was sometimes triggered and recorded by mistake when contractors were working to improve the console’s voice command functions.

The practise began at the beginning of the Xbox One’s life cycle but was only meant to capture audio following voice commands like “Xbox” or “Hey Cortana.” It’s the latest example of contractors working on behalf of Microsoft to listen to audio captured by several of the company’s products. An earlier Motherboard report revealed that human contractors were listening to some Skype calls and audio recorded by Microsoft’s virtual assistant, Cortana.

“Xbox commands came up first as a bit of an outlier and then became about half of what we did before becoming most of what we did,” one former contractor told Motherboard. “Most of the Xbox related stuff I can recall doing was obviously unintentional activations with people telling Cortana ‘No’ as they were obviously in the middle of a game and doing normal game chat,” a current contractor said. Each contractor signed an NDA so Motherboard has kept them anonymous to protect their identities.

The Xbox One launched in 2013 with the capability to be controlled via voice commands using Kinect. At the time, many were concerned with the idea of Kinect listening to Xbox users, but Microsoft released a statement addressing privacy concerns saying that “Kinect for Xbox 360 was designed and built with strong privacy protections in place and the new Kinect will continue this commitment.”

“The Xbox stuff was actually a bit of a welcome respite, honestly,” the former contractor added. “It was frequently the same games. Same DLCs. Same types of commands, ‘Xbox give me all the games for free’ or ‘Xbox download [newest Minecraft skins pack]’ or whatever. Occasionally I heard ‘Xbox, tell Solas to heal,’ or something similar, which would be a command for Dragon Age: Inquisition.”

The former contractor said that most of the voices they heard were of children, and that listening continued as the Xbox One moved from using Kinect for voice commands over to Cortana in 2016. A current contractor provided Motherboard with a document, describing how workers should work with different types of Cortana audio, including Xbox voice commands.

“A domain for controlling gaming features, such as finding friends lists, creating a ‘party,’ inviting players to a party. Most Xbox controlling will belong to this domain,” the document reads. A “domain” is a topic that transcribed Cortana audio should be sorted into to improve the system.

Microsoft has now owned up to these issues, and the service did gradually improve. “As time went on, we got less apparently accidental stuff as the feature improved,” the former contractor said. Microsoft removed Cortana from Xbox One back in July, but the virtual assistant can still be used to control the console via the Cortana Android and iOS apps.

A Microsoft spokesperson responded to Motherboard’s report, saying that the company recently stopped listening to audio to improve its products. “We stopped reviewing any voice content taken through Xbox for product improvement purposes a number of months ago, as we no longer felt it was necessary, and we have no plans to re-start those reviews,” the spokesperson said. “We occasionally review a low volume of voice recordings sent from one Xbox user to another when there are reports that a recording violated our terms of service and we need to investigate. This is done to keep the Xbox community safe and is clearly stated in our Xbox terms of service.”

“We’ve recently updated our privacy statement to add greater clarity that people sometimes review this data as part of the product improvement process,” the company added. “We always get customer permission before collecting voice data, we take steps to de-identify voice snippets being reviewed to protect people’s privacy, and we require that handling of this data be held to the highest privacy standards in the law. At the same time, we’re actively working on additional steps we can take to give customers more transparency and more control over how their data is used to improve products.”

Microsoft offers a dedicated page for users to delete any audio captured by the company’s products.