First God of War Ragnarok review, PSVR 2 pre-order date and the rest of today's tech news
Your 4-minute tech news break is here – completely banner-ad-free
Hello, subscribers. Your friendly neighborhood Swider-Man here in NYC 🕸️,
With an expanded team (I’m creating the MCU of tech journalism), here’s today’s news brief below ⬇️:
🪓 Our God of War Raganok review is below (finally, no Elon Musk Twitter news hogging the spotlight!)
🎁 My Jotnar Edition giveaway is coming soon
🥽 Sony PSVR 2 pre-order details
🐦 Twitter may get video paywalls for creators (OK, technically Musk related)
🚗 Mercedes Benz EQE sedan price (it packs in Apple’s spatial audio for the cheapest price yet)
🍎 Apple is also working on AR headset – further proof
🐀 Why RatVerified is trending
😉 Tumblr gets back to the “business”
⬇️ Let’s do this!
🛍️ Today’s top 5 deals before the news brief
✏️ Microsoft Office for $39.99 (Lifetime license)
Includes: 📝Word🔢Excel📐PowerPoint📧Outlook👥Teams📔OneNote
🤖 Walmart Deal of the Day: $139 Shark ION Robot vacuum cleaner
🌟 Also Walmart: 537 early Black Friday deals live Nov 7 like a $198 4KTV
🏷️ Best Buy: $200 off its top-selling Shark Air Purifier
📦 Amazon’s Thursday Night Football: Eagles (my team) vs Texans. You can get a 30-day Amazon Prime free trial here to access it (if you’re not Prime yet)
God of War Ragnarok review: Kratos’ PS5 debut looks glorious, but isn't god-like
Yes, our God of War Ragnarok review is live – the game launches next week – and it shows exactly why this is Sony’s most hyped PS5 game of 2022. It’s not perfect (it’s also available on PS4, which holds back the PS5 version), but Kratos brings god-like glory to PlayStation 5 nonetheless.
I bought the Jotnar Edition – it comes with Thor’s Mjölnir hammer “replica” (duh!). I’ll give it away to The Shortcut subscribers & my Twitter followers (starts tomorrow, ends next Friday). I just can’t fit Thor’s 🔨 in my NYC apartment. Stay tuned.
🛍️ Buy God of War Ragnarok here
From Adam’s full God of War PS5 review
God of War Ragnarok is a glorious-looking game – the bombastic set pieces and incredibly detailed cutscenes do a fine job of repeatedly hammering home that fact. And the game’s powerful story hits just as hard as you’d hope, with many of the eccentric cast returning with sublime voice acting in tow.
PSVR 2 pre-order date is Nov 15, release date is Feb 22, and it costs $549
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: the next big VR headset
📆 Sony’s PSVR 2 will launch Feb 22, 2023
💰 The next-gen PS5 VR headset cost $549
🛍️ PSVR 2 pre-order date Nov 15 (less than two weeks)
📦 Box includes VR headset, Sense controllers, stereo headphones
🏹 Horizon Call of the Moutain bundle adds a game for $599
Mercedes-Benz EQE sedan price: cheapest way to get Apple’s spatial audio on wheels
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Pricer than AirPods Max but comes with a free car
💸 Mercedes-Benz EQE sedan will start at $76,050
🍎 Now the most affordable way to get Apple’s spatial audio with Dolby Atmos in your car
🚗 Other supported vehicles: Benz EQE, EQS, S-Class, Maybach
🔋 Base EQE’s specs comparable to Tesla Model Y
🤷 But here are price, performance, and software compatibility trade-offs
Twitter may get video paywalls as a tool for content creators
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Twitter paywalls closing in
🧱 Twitter may soon allow users to put paywalls on top of videos
👷♀️ An internal email suggests the feature is already in development
💰 Users would be able to charge others to view video content, with Twitter taking a cut
📱 The tool appears tailored toward content creators, and would join other features recently added to the platform for the sake of influencers
Apple has reportedly hired more game devs to work on its mixed-reality headset
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Apple AR/VR headset
🍎 Apple reportedly hired 2 of Playdeo’s 3 co-founders to work on its headset
🥑 The mobile game developers worked on Avo, which was released in 2019
🧐 Apple has hired Playdeo staff in the past and has apparently approached other developers that deal with interactive TV-style games
🥽 Apple is rumored to be working on a high-end VR/AR headset
Play catch-up on the latest Apple mixed-reality headset rumors:
Apple’s mixed reality headset is rumored to include iris scanning for payments and logging in and will have 14 cameras that can even capture your legs – something which Meta’s Horizon Worlds has struggled to achieve.
🔥 Given the interest you’ve all shown in PSVR 2, this one will be one I follow
#RatVerified is a hilarious Twitter protest hashtag, but it should be #ratified
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: getting #ratified
🐀 Twitter user @tinysnekcomics made a delightful viral tweet on November 1 suggesting we all add rat emojis to our names instead of getting verified, using the hashtag #RatVerified
👉 They later corrected themselves with a follow-up hashtag: #ratified
🤦 It was too late; everyone latched onto #RatVerified, missing the superior pun
🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
Tumblr reverses its ban on nudity after four years
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Tumblr shows some flesh
🫢 Tumblr has backtracked on its nudity ban that was introduced in 2018
👀 The platform will now allow nudity, mature subject matter, and sexual themes
🙅♂️ However, explicit images and videos are still banned
🔑 Tumblr is now owned by WordPress.com owner Automattic, which bought the platform from Verizon