The Verge

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images OpenAI worried that ChatGPT would be a dud two years ago. Now, the stakes have never been higher. Read the full story at The Verge.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Telefonica, one of the largest carriers in the world serving the UK, Spain, Germany, and Latin America with the O2 and Movistar networks, will begin preinstalling the Epic Games Store on every new compatible Android phone it sells - including Samsung phones.It's part of a long term partnership" to bring the store and smash hit Fortnite to millions" of the carrier's devices, according to Telefonica and Epic. It'll be the first time the Epic Games Store is preinstalled on consumer phones, and it could be the next big step in realizing Epic's dreams of challenging Google's app store monopoly and increasing its cut of revenue.Last December, a federal jury unanimously sided with Epic Games in Epic v. Google, finding that Google had turned its Android app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly. Epic originally sued in 2020, alleging that Google had blocked" or bribed" phonemakers and cellular carriers to keep games like Fortnite and alternative app stores from being preinstalled on phones.But now, roughly a month after Judge James Donato barred Google from any further potential blocks or bribes, one of the world's largest carriers will begin those preinstalls, adding an entire rival game store (one that may also carry non-game apps in the future) to Google's own.Technically, Epic only launched its Epic Games Store on mobile this past August. Previously, it wanted nearly every phonemaker and carrier to preinstall one of a couple different types of Fortnite installer apps to bring the game to their phones. It offered a variety of deals to tempt them, and Samsung, LG, OnePlus and Huawei all initially agreed to do so.But OnePlus only ever managed to do so in India, allegedly because it needed permission that Google wouldn't grant. (Google disputes that reasoning.) LG apparently backed out because of a Google contract as well.Telefonica wasn't one of the carriers that Google bribed," Epic spokesperson Natalie Munoz confirms to The Verge, so it's not like Judge Donato's order is making this newly possible.In fact, Telefonica has partnered with Epic in the past. In 2020, it began letting Movistar customers in Spain tack their Fortnite purchases onto their phone bill. That year, court documents revealed Telefonica could expect to earn five percent of the proceeds from those Fortnite players as a result. Verizon and Hutchison (Three, Wind Tre) were offered similar deals, but we don't know if they'll now follow suit.I wonder what Samsung thinks about Telefonica preinstalling the Epic Game Store on its phones - this September, Epic sued Samsung as well.

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Whether you're assembling a PC, planning an epic Etsy crafts store, or just fixing a squeaky old chair, we found some handy tools that anyone can appreciate. Read the full story at The Verge.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Eight years and $10 billion later, GM has decided to pull the plug on its grand robotaxi experiment.The automaker's CEO, Mary Barra, made the surprise announcement late on Tuesday, arguing that a shared autonomous mobility service was never really in its core business." It was too expensive and had too many regulatory hurdles to overcome to make it a viable revenue stream. Instead, GM would pivot to privately owned" driverless cars - because, after all, that's what the people really wanted.Customers like to drive," Barra said in a call with investors. And there's times they don't like to drive."If some of this sounds familiar, Ford essentially made the same decision two years ago when it pulled its funding for Argo AI, the autonomous driving startup it had financed since 2017. It cited as one of its reasons a belief that partial autonomy - often described as Level 3 or Level 3-plus - will have more near-term payoffs.Automakers are tapping out of the robotaxi businessAutomakers are tapping out of the robotaxi business. With all the money being spent on electric vehicles, the auto industry has decided to cut its losses on autonomous mobility. Only one transformational, prohibitively expensive, once-in-a-generation shift at a time.I think this is more a recognition that autonomous vehicle technology is going to take a decade or more to provide driverless rides at a national scale," said Phil Koopman, an AV expert from Carnegie Mellon University. GM decided that they would rather make money selling private cars while waiting for the technology to mature than continue to invest billions of dollars standing up robotaxi businesses city by city." Turmoil behind the scenesTo be sure, there's been a lot of technological progress. Not too long ago, Cruise had driverless cars ferrying passengers across San Francisco. The company even said it was on the cusp of winning government approval to deploy its steering wheel- and pedal-less Origin shuttles in a bid to move even more people.But Cruise moved too aggressively, and it paid the price. The company had 5 million miles of real-world testing under its belt, but the embarrassing incidents were starting to pile up. Its driverless vehicles were blocking traffic or running into emergency vehicles in San Francisco. The city's fire chief said that the vehicles were not ready for prime time," citing over six dozen incidents in which robotaxis interfered with fire trucks.GM decided that they would rather make money selling private cars while waiting for the technology to mature"Behind the scenes, Cruise was also a mess. The company's first CEO, Dan Ammann, was sacked after sparring with Barra over the future direction of the company. Barra thought GM should be using Cruise's technology to power everything from luxury self-driving Cadillacs to commercial vans, according to Bloomberg. Ammann wanted to get the robotaxi service right before spreading resources to other parts of the company. He also wanted to take Cruise public so it could use its public stock to lure in top talent. Barra wanted to keep it in-house, so GM could eventually reap the rewards.Meanwhile, Cruise was continuing to rack up huge losses. The robotaxi subsidiary lost a staggering $3.48 billion in 2023. Kyle Vogt, Cruise cofounder and Amman's successor as CEO, was under mounting pressure to expand the service and bring in more money to help cover the losses. Plus, he was directly competing with Alphabet's Waymo, which had more vehicles and seemingly better technology. And Google's parent company was more willing to spend billions of dollars, without any near-term profits, to win the robotaxi race. With the screws tightening, Vogt publicly drew a line in the sand: Cruise would bring in over $1 billion in revenue by 2025.Instead, Cruise never made it to the end of 2024. Drag and dropIt all culminated in an incident on October 7th, 2023, when a Cruise vehicle in San Francisco struck and dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet, seriously injuring her. The victim was initially struck by a hit-and-run driver, which launched her into the path of the Cruise car.Cruise disclosed to regulators that its vehicle had struck a pedestrian but omitted key details about the accident. As a result, the California DMV suspended the company's permit to operate self-driving cars in the state, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission launched separate investigations. Cruise later agreed to a $1.5 million penalty.But more importantly, the incident damaged Cruise's effort to win the public's trust. San Francisco residents were already annoyed by the frequency with which the company's cars were blocking their intersections and bumping into their emergency vehicles. Urbanists and supporters of car-free transportation were peeved at the suggestion that robot cars, and not fewer cars altogether, were what was needed to improve street safety. And regulators didn't like being misled about a dangerous incident.The incident damaged Cruise's effort to win the public's trustBut even in the aftermath of the pedestrian-dragging event, GM still stuck with Cruise. It wasn't until the automaker realized it going to have to take a $5 billion hit on restructuring its business in China that Cruise was ultimately cut loose.Total ownership by a century old manufacturing giant controlled by stock buyback-seeking value investors was never going to be successful," Ray Wert, former communications director at Cruise, said on Bluesky.Ex-CEO Vogt was even more succinct: In case it was unclear before, it is clear now: GM are a bunch of dummies.," he wrote on X. Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi / AFP via Getty Images What's next?With Cruise out of the picture, Waymo is one of the only ones left aiming to prove that robotaxis can work in the real world. (Amazon's Zoox and Hyundai's Motional are also still in the game, albeit far behind Waymo.) Tesla is also pursuing its own robotaxi project, which it claims will launch in 2026.Meanwhile, GM will tackle a new risky experiment: personally owned autonomous vehicles. GM knows how to sell cars to people, and the company already has a hands-free highway driving feature called Super Cruise. Why not just leverage Cruise's fully autonomous technology to make Super Cruise even better?GM may have scrapped its Ultra Cruise" branding to develop a partially autonomous system that covers 95 percent" of driving scenarios, but it still thinks that people want a fully autonomous car of their own - on their own terms.I think the application of what the customer wants in a privately owned vehicle is very different," Barra said on Tuesday. But I also think... there's a lot of commonality [with Cruise's technology]. How it seamlessly moves back and forth, I think is something different in a personal autonomous vehicle."I think the application of what the customer wants in a privately owned vehicle is very different"Driver-assistance technologies, especially so-called Level 3 systems, carry their own risks. There have been studies that show that the handoff between a partially automated system and a human driver can be especially fraught.When people have been disconnected from driving for a longer period of time, they may overreact when suddenly taking control in an emergency situation. They may overcorrect steering, brake too hard, or be unable to respond correctly because they haven't been paying attention. And those actions can create a domino effect that has the potential to be dangerous - perhaps even fatal.The safety implications are enormous, as are the liability concerns. GM may eventually decide that robotaxis aren't such a bad bet after all.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The Department of Justice during the Trump administration defied agency policy in an attempt to identify journalists' sources, the agency's inspector general alleges in a new report.The IG alleges the agency sought non-content communications records" - information like email logs, rather than the content of those conversations - on eight journalists across The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN. The Times had previously reported that Trump's DOJ was looking into whether former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey had been the source of classified information that leaked in 2017 about Russian hackers.The report comes just over a month before President-elect Donald Trump is set to resume office following his election win and raises questions about how his administration will handle similar information requests in the future. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) attempted to pass the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act by unanimous consent on Tuesday, but was blocked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). If passed, it would help protect reporters from having to reveal their sources.In our judgment, the Department's deviation from its own requirements indicates a troubling disparity"The IG found that Trump's DOJ in his first term failed to follow policy in seeking the journalist's records, including neglecting to convene a committee to review the compulsory records requests. The alleged violation happened just a few years after the department under the Obama administration overhauled" its policy regarding the news media following backlash over its aggressive tactics toward journalists. We were troubled that these failures occurred only a few years after this overhaul," the IG's office writes.Trump's DOJ also sought similar kinds of records from two members of Congress and 43 congressional staffers across the political spectrum, the IG allegedly found, though the department did not have a policy at the time addressing this kind of information gathering.In our judgment, the Department's deviation from its own requirements indicates a troubling disparity between, on the one hand, the regard expressed in Department policy for the role of the news media in American democracy and, on the other hand, the Department's commitment to complying with the limits and requirements that it intended to safeguard that very role," the IG's report says.In a memo from DOJ Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer included in the report, the agency noted that much of the report focuses on matters undertaken before the Department's revised News Media and Congressional Investigations policies were put into place that changed the operative requirements." Still, the DOJ agreed with the core recommendations from the IG, including considering changes to how certain information requests are escalated to more senior officials.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge A bunch of Meta apps are down right now. For many staffers at The Verge, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads aren't loading right now and are showing error messages when you try to load them. Reports across Bluesky, X, and Reddit show that many people see the same thing.On Facebook, it simply says We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can."Downdetector is showing big and sudden spikes for Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram with a lot of people affected by the outages. On the Instagram Downdetector page, for example, there have been more than 23,000 reports of issues with the platform, indicating that this is a massive and widespread problem. And more than 25,000 reports have apparently come in about Facebook.Meta didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.This big outage follows another large Meta outage from March that took down Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Meta also saw a major outage affecting Instagram and Facebook in October 2022.

The Homey smart home platform, which works with the Homey Pro or Homey Bridge hubs, has launched a Home Energy Dongle and energy management tab for its app. Smart home company Homey has added a new energy management tab to its app to track and monitor energy use from compatible smart devices such as plugs, appliances, thermostats, and EV chargers. This week, the company also announced the Homey Energy Dongle for Europe, which can connect directly to a smart meter to monitor a home's energy consumption.Together, the software and hardware are a big step toward a full home energy management system. Homey says it plans to bring support for automatic dynamic energy pricing next year, so users could set up automations to do things like charge their EV when electricity prices are low.The new energy management tab is available in public beta to all Homey Pro and Homey Cloud customers, and the dongle can be preordered for 39 if you're in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Austria, Switzerland, and Hungary, with shipping expected in March 2025. Image: Homey The Homey Energy Dongle works with European smart meters and uses the P1 standard to monitor electricity and gas usage. Homey is a smart home platform centered around a smart home hub, either the powerful, locally based Homey Pro ($399) or the lighter Homey Bridge ($69). Depending on which hub you have, Homey can connect to and control a wide range of smart home devices thanks to radios for Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Thread, IR, and more; there's also the option of cloud-based connections and compatibility with other bridges, such as Philips Hue. Homey also supports the Matter smart home standard.The Energy Management functionality works with all devices connected to a Homey setup, no matter if they use a proprietary local/cloud API, Zigbee, Z-Wave or Matter to connect to Homey," explained Homey commercial director Stefan Witkamp in an email to The Verge. A full list of currently compatible devices is on Homey's website. Image: Homey The new energy management tab in Homey can track energy usage across connected devices in your home. The energy tab uses charts to show a home's live electricity, gas, and water usage (with compatible hardware) and can provide historical data. Homey says it can also track solar generation, monitor EV charging, and show energy supply to, or consumption from, the grid." It's compatible with smart batteries and can show a list of your top energy consumers, helpful for figuring out where to cut down on usage. You can enter your energy price to get cost estimates, and Homey says it plans to add support for dynamic pricing next year.LG acquired Homey earlier this year and has said it plans to incorporate Homey's connectivity and software into its ThinQ platform. However, Homey will continue to operate independently. While LG plans to integrate its appliances with Homey, official support is still on the roadmap, says Witkamp.Energy management is set to play a key part in the smart home as a compelling reason to connect all your devices. Allowing a system to automate energy use in your home could save you energy and money. Several smart home companies already offer some functionality here. Samsung's SmartThings Energy platform, which works with its appliances and several partner devices, was the first platform to be recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as an Energy STAR Smart Home Energy Management System. Others, such as Home Assistant, offer some energy management features, and Apple introduced an electricity usage page to its Home app this year (although it's limited to PG&E customers).The new Matter smart home standard just added energy management to its spec along with support for several key devices in the space - electrical vehicle supply equipment, solar panel inverters, home batteries, and more. All of this shows significant momentum in home energy management, and Homey's latest move is another option for people looking to use smart home tech to maximize the efficiency of their energy use and minimize their costs.

We never thought such a simple attachment would be so difficult to come by. | Image: Sony Sony's detachable disc drive for the PlayStation 5 has been hard to come by as of late, and it's disappointing that the $700 PS5 Pro doesn't include one. However, GameStop is now offering a rare window for GameStop Pro members to pick one up for its original MSRP of $79.99.GameStop's loyalty program costs $25 a year, so you can consider that an added premium if you're not interested in its other benefits. Those include a $5 welcome reward, two percent cash back rewards, free shipping, exclusive deals and discounts, and an extra $5 monthly reward.Whether you already own or anticipate purchasing a digital-only PS5, such as the newest Digital Edition or recently released PS5 Pro, it's a good idea to pick one up while you have the chance. Neither console requires the disc drive, but with no future guarantee that your favorite games will be available for download after the console generation runs its course, it offers nice peace of mind. The add-on also ensures that physical media preservationists can continue using physical game copies, although you may still have to download extra data to play many of them. It also allows you to play your entire Blu-Ray and DVD collection.What's neat about the PS5's Disc Drive is that it hides away under a cover that makes it look like a seamless piece of the overall hardware. Setup is easy, too, and only requires connecting a cable before pairing it to your console. You'll need an internet connection for the initial setup, but that's a small inconvenience to gain the long-term benefit.

The Series 10 has the biggest display of any non-Ultra Apple Watch. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you happened to miss out on the Apple Watch Series 10's all-time low Black Friday price, now is a good chance for redemption. The 42mm GPS model of Apple's latest smartwatch has dropped to $329.99 (about $70 off) at Amazon when you click a coupon. The 46mm GPS Series 10 is also on sale for $359.99 ($70 off) at Amazon with a coupon and matching its lowest price.The Apple Watch Series 10 would be a great jump from older models if your last upgrade happened more than a few cycles ago, and certainly a viable alternative to the Watch Ultra 2 if you're not interested in spending $800. Compared to the Series 9, it offers a slightly bigger wide-angle OLED display while being about 10 percent thinner and a touch lighter. It also has faster wireless charging than any Apple Watch before it (up to 80 percent in 30 minutes or eight hours of use from 15 minutes of charging). New to the Apple Watch lineup as of the Series 10 are underwater depth and water temperature sensors for tracking your aquatic activities. You can also play music over its speaker and enjoy clearer calls thanks to a voice isolation feature.Everything else will mostly feel familiar if you're coming from a Series 9, including the new FDA-approved sleep apnea feature that debuted late into its launch. We haven't had enough time to judge its effectiveness, but note that it uses the accelerometer instead of the blood oxygen sensors Apple was forced to remove from its watches in the US.A few more mid-week deals

Clash of Clans. | Image: Supercell Google just announced Gemini 2.0, and as part of its suite of news today, the company is revealing that it's been exploring how AI agents built with Gemini 2.0 can understand rules in video games to help you out.The agents can reason about the game based solely on the action on the screen, and offer up suggestions for what to do next in real time conversation," Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu write in a blog post. Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu also say that the agents can also tap into Google Search to connect you with the wealth of gaming knowledge on the web."Google is testing the agents' ability to interpret rules and challenges" in games like Clash of Clans and Hay Day from Supercell, according to Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu.I'm not surprised Google is chasing these ideas: in theory, an AI agent coaching you through a strategy or puzzle could be useful. It sounds like this work is very early, though, and I have many questions about whether or not these agents actually give sound advice.Google is also investing in video games and AI in another way: creating playable virtual worlds on the fly from a prompt image using a foundation world model" called Genie 2 that it showed off last week. That work seems early, too: Genie 2 can only generate consistent worlds for up to a minute," Google says.

Image: FTC President-elect Donald Trump has selected Andrew Ferguson to be the next chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Ferguson will take over for Lina Khan, who has earned praise from Vice President-elect J.D. Vance for her efforts to fight big tech.Andrew has a proven record of standing up to Big Tech censorship, and protecting Freedom of Speech in our Great Country," Trump says in a post on Truth Social.According to a document obtained by Punchbowl News' Ben Brody, Ferguson's pitch for the job included intentions to reverse Lina Khan's anti-business agenda," hold big tech accountable and stop censorship," and protect freedom of speech and fight wokeness." The document also said Ferguson would fight back against the trans agenda."Ferguson was first sworn in as an FTC commissioner in April, but Trump says that Ferguson will begin his role as chair on day one" of his administration.At the FTC, we will end Big Tech's vendetta against competition and free speech," Ferguson writes in a post on X. We will make sure that America is the world's technological leader and the best place for innovators to bring new ideas to life."Trump also announced that he is nominating Mark Meador, currently a partner at an antitrust law firm, to be an FTC commissioner.

Image: The Verge Microsoft is changing up how Copilot works on Windows yet again. After demoting Copilot to a Progressive Web App (PWA) earlier this year, Microsoft is now rolling out an update to Windows testers that replaces the PWA version of Copilot with a native" experience that includes a new keyboard shortcut and quick view UI.The new quick view for Copilot floats above the taskbar, much like Microsoft's new Companion apps that it's currently testing for files, contacts, and calendar entries. The quick view can be triggered using a new Alt + Space keyboard shortcut, or through the system tray. The quick view doesn't do anything special here, but it does float above all your other apps and remains always on top until you dismiss Copilot to the taskbar or trigger the Alt + Space shortcut again. Image: Microsoft The new Copilot quick view. The new keyboard shortcut here could get a little complicated though, depending on what apps you use. Other apps already use the Alt + Space shortcut, and it sounds like they're going to be fighting Copilot for control here. For any apps installed on your PC that might utilize this keyboard shortcut, Windows will register whichever app is launched first on your PC and running in the background as the app that is invoked when using Alt + Space," says Microsoft.I am not sure why Microsoft made the choice to move Copilot to this Alt + Space shortcut when it previously reused the Windows key + C shortcut from Cortana with Windows Copilot before downgrading the experience to a web app and giving up on the keyboard shortcut in favor of a dedicated Copilot key. Microsoft even says Copilot will continue to explore options related to the keyboard shortcuts for the app," which sure reads like the AI assistant is suddenly calling the shots over at Microsoft now.This new keyboard shortcut and Copilot quick view will also be available on Windows 10 as well as Windows 11 PCs, despite Microsoft's insistence that Windows 10 end of support really is happening in October 2025. Microsoft reopened beta testing for new Windows 10 features earlier this year as a way to make sure everyone can get the maximum value from their current Windows PC."Copilot originally started off life as Windows Copilot in Windows 11 last year, integrated into the operating system as a side bar that could appear across all apps. Microsoft then made Copilot less useful with its new Copilot Plus PCs, cutting the app back to a basic web app. Microsoft says this latest iteration is a native version," but it's still just a web view of Copilot wrapped in a slightly more native implementation.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple enabled non-emergency satellite messaging from iPhones earlier this year. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, it may do the same for the next Apple Watch Ultra in addition to adding the long-rumored blood-pressure monitoring feature.Satellite messaging on the Watch Ultra has been rumored since before we even knew what Apple's XL-sized sporty take on its smartwatch line would be called. According to Gurman's description, it would work like it does on the iPhone, letting you send text messages from the watch without a cellular or Wi-Fi connection.He also reports that Apple is swapping out Intel modems in the Apple Watch for a component from MediaTek but doesn't have any plans yet to use its upcoming in-house modems for the wearables. The new component included in at least some models" could also support RedCap, the 5G service intended for wearables and IoT that sacrifices extra antennas and maximum bandwidth to reduce cost and extend battery life.Adding satellite service could help Apple lure some Garmin inReach fans who might want to have one less thing to carry even if the inReach's hundreds of hours of battery life still win out for extended hikes. Presumably, service would be provided by Globalstar, Apple's satellite partner for the iPhone that it bought a 20 percent stake in last month.As for blood-pressure monitoring, Gurman says that it may arrive as soon as 2025 as well," but he reminds us that the feature has been delayed in the past. Like sleep apnea detection and other health features of the Apple Watch, this feature wouldn't offer specific measurements but could let you know if you seem to be experiencing hypertension.

In response to the utterly baffling discussion as to whether people should be allowed to sing along with Wicked in theaters (absolutely not), Universal is rolling out a bunch of screenings specifically for the folks who fancy themselves background vocalists.Universal announced today that special interactive, sing-along Wicked screenings are making their way to theaters in the United States, Canada, and select international markets beginning December 25th. In addition to on-screen lyrics for people who aren't yet off-book, the screenings will feature a special message from stars Arianna Grande and Cynthia Erivo (who has previously come out in favor of audience participation).In a statement about the screenings, Universal's president of domestic theatrical distribution Jim Orr described them as a unique opportunity for fans to become part of the story they've embraced so enthusiastically." But for those of us who just want to leave the singing to the professionals, this sounds like the studio is making sure that we can watch the movie in peace.

Image: Lucid Lucid Motors began manufacturing its Gravity SUV last week, and now the EPA has finalized the vehicle's all-electric range, which is 450 miles on a full charge. The new official estimate is slightly above the 440 miles originally advertised by Lucid. The company's Air sedan can go up to 512 miles, depending on the trim.Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson announced the updated Gravity range figure today via LinkedIn and also boasted that the vehicle only uses half of earth's precious resources compared to some competitors."Last week, Lucid had a ceremonious start of production at its Arizona factory to commemorate the first Gravity SUVs coming off the line. The Gravity features three rows of seating plus a frunk that's good for storage or seating when parked. It is also the first vehicle from Lucid to get a native NACS port for charging at Tesla's Superchargers.

Image: CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077's new 2.2 update is out now, and it adds a lot of new ways to customize your character and your cars as well as some improvements to photo mode.For character customization, developer CD Projekt Red is introducing a bunch of additional options to make your V, as detailed in a blog post. One of those changes is an option to have horrifying / awesome double eyes: Image: CD Projekt Red The character creator is getting an improved randomizer that has a plain-to-punk" slider, too. Whether you're aiming for an understated, casual look or a bold, edgy style for your V, you can now use the slider to strike the perfect balance," CD Projekt Red says.CD Projekt Red has also expanded the ability to change a car's paint job to cars to more of the in-game brands. And if you see a paint job you like on another car, you'll be able to scan it so you can use it later. But perhaps the best car-related change with update 2.2 is that Johnny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves) will now sometimes show up in the passenger seat while you're driving. Image: CD Projekt Red Update 2.2 also brings some changes to photo mode, including a free camera and the ability to add characters to your shot.Cyberpunk 2077 launched four years ago today, and while it had an infamously rocky launch, the game is now in an excellent place. It's coming to Macs with Apple Silicon in early 2025.