Twitter is pushing back against an effort by the US House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack to get employees' internal communications related to the incident, Rolling Stone reported Tuesday. The messages the panel is seeking reportedly include Slack messages about moderating tweets about the attack.

The social media company is apparently asserting its First Amendment privilege to fight the panel's demand. Lawmakers think the internal messages would give them a better sense of how online extremism was linked to the Capitol riot.

The committee, which holds its first public hearing on Thursday, has been investigating the circumstances behind the riot and those who influenced the more than 800 people criminally charged in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 election win. 

"Since last year, we have had an ongoing, productive engagement with the Select Committee, and have provided appropriate, relevant information to contribute to this important investigation. We remain committed to continuing this work with the Select Committee," Twitter spokesperson Trenton Kennedy said in a statement emailed to CNET.

 "We take a principled approach to responding to requests for information from governments, and will continue to closely evaluate the merits of each request to protect the rights of the people who use our service, as well as the rights of Twitter and its employees."

The US House select committee couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Microsoft announced Thursday it intends to add Activision Blizzard games, like Call of Duty and Overwatch, to the Xbox Game Pass library. 

"Game Pass empowers developers to bring more games to more players, not fewer," Microsoft's CEO Phil Spencer wrote in a statement.

Microsoft also announced that games like Call of Duty will continue to be released on PlayStation consoles. 

"We are committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere," Spencer said. "We will continue to enable people to play with each other across platforms and across devices."

Sony anticipated this move in January, citing contractual agreements Microsoft will be bound by.

However, this all depends on whether or not Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard is allowed to go through. The purchase has come under scrutiny in the UK. The Competition and Markets Authority said Thursday it's concerned that the purchase would "substantially lessen competition" in the gaming industry.

"We will continue to engage with regulators with a spirit of transparency and openness as they review this acquisition," Spencer wrote. "We believe that a thorough review will show that the combination of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will benefit the industry and players."

For more gaming news, check out the biggest game releases coming in 2022, every new Pokemon coming to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and whether The Last of Us Part 1 PS5 remake is worth it.

Spotify's 2021 Wrapped experiences, which tap into your personal data to recap your musical tastes for the year, launched Wednesday in its mobile apps worldwide. This year's Wrapped includes new features like divining your "audio aura," playing "two truths and a lie" with your 2021 trends and making you the hero of your own movie soundtrack. As usual, the Wrapped experience also sums up your own top artists, genres, songs and podcasts, plus total minutes listened on Spotify. 

Wrapped is one of Spotify's most popular personalization features, as well as the hook for the company's biggest marketing campaigns of the year. Spotify itself is the world's biggest streaming music service by number of users, providing a pulse of the world's listening habits with its annual recap of the year. 

This year's personal Wrapped experiences include: 

• Audio Aura -- Spotify enlisted an "aura reader" to visualize your top two music moods of the year.
• "Two truths and a lie" playing cards -- An interactive data-based game displays three facts about your listening this year. You guess which one is bogus. 
  
• 2021: The Movie -- Spotify combed your data to create a movie soundtrack to your life this year, figuring out songs that suit your opening credits, your fight scene, your epic training montage and other cinematic moments. 
  
• 2021 Wrapped Blend -- Piggybacking on the Blend playlist feature Spotify launched earlier this year, this compares how your 2021 top music trends matched up with any friends'.

And you can share your Wrapped recap on TikTok this year. A new social-sharing "card" for TikTok joins ones for Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

People reported problems accessing their Wrapped experiences throughout the day of launch. Starting about one hour after Wrapped launched Wednesday, the top three trending Google search queries related to Spotify over the next 24 hours were "Spotify Wrapped something went wrong," "Spotify Wrapped crashing" and "Spotify Wrapped won't load." Down Detector also reported an influx of disruption complaints. 

Spotify declined to comment. 

Disruptions like these can be caused by a variety of factors. A company's servers can be overwhelmed by a surge in traffic, but a memory-intensive experience can also strain some devices' ability to process the demands of an app. 

How to see your Wrapped experience

Wrapped is available only in Spotify's mobile app for Android mobile devices or Apple iPhones or iPads. 

Spotify's Android and iOS mobile apps have banners for Wrapped near the top of the Home tab, where you can enter your personalized Wrapped.  

You can also visit spotify.com/wrapped using your Apple or Android mobile device, which has a button with a deep link that drops you into your Wrapped experience in the app. If you see a button that says "download the app," click on it even if you've already installed the app on your device. (The button's link will simply open the app where you want to be, or it may prompt you to update the app if you haven't done so in a while.) 

If you still can't find your Wrapped, it's possible you haven't used Spotify enough to generate sufficient data to create a personalized experience. For users to be eligible for Wrapped, they must stream at least 30 tracks for more than 30 seconds, as well as stream at least five artists.

2021's top Spotify rankings

Spotify also uses its Wrapped rollout to reveal its rankings for the most-streamed audio on its service this year.

Global most streamed artists 

1. Bad Bunny
2. Taylor Swift
3. BTS
4. Drake
5. Justin Bieber

US most streamed artists

1. Drake
2. Taylor Swift
3. Juice WRLD
4. Kanye West
5. Bad Bunny

Global most streamed songs 

1. Drivers license, by Olivia Rodrigo
2. Montero (Call Me By Your Name), by Lil Nas X
3. Stay (with Justin Bieber), by The Kid Laroi
4. Good 4 u, by Olivia Rodrigo
5. Levitating (featuring DaBaby), by Dua Lipa

US most streamed songs

1. Drivers license, by Olivia Rodrigo
2. Good 4 u, by Olivia Rodrigo
3. Kiss Me More (featuring SZA), by Doja Cat
4. Heat Waves, by Glass Animals
5. Levitating, (featuring DaBaby) by Dua Lipa

Global most streamed albums 

1. Sour, Olivia Rodrigo
2. Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa
3. Justice, Justin Bieber
4. =, Ed Sheeran
5. Planet Her, Doja Cat

US most streamed albums

1. Sour, Olivia Rodrigo
2. Dangerous: The Double Album, Morgan Wallen
3. Planet Her, Doja Cat
4. Justice, Justin Bieber
5. Legends Never Die, Juice WRLD

Global most popular podcasts 

1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Call Her Daddy
3. Crime Junkie
4. TED Talks Daily
5. The Daily

US most popular podcasts

1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Crime Junkie
3. Call Her Daddy
4. The Daily
5. NPR News Now

Read more: Best streaming music service

The Apple Watch Series 7 has some new features, a bigger screen and upped durability. It charges a bit faster, apps load quickly and is fitted with WatchOS 8. But as I flick through it and its watch faces, I have to ask myself: Has anything really changed? 

Of course things have changed, a bit. But the newest Apple Watch feels like a careful polish on the same ideas the Series 6 had. Or, the Series 5 before it. There isn't one big new thing that stands out. Now that the Apple Watch feels like it's cleared the experimental zone of wearable tech and become a mainstream product like the iPhone and iPad, maybe this is the watch's destiny. I still see some clear areas where the Apple Watch should evolve, and the larger-screened, quicker-charging Watch 7 makes it more obvious than ever. Maybe the rumored Apple Watch Series 8 will bring some larger upgrades. 

Read more: How the Apple Watch 7 compares to the Apple Watch 6  and why you might want the Apple Watch SE instead.

Better battery life

There are clear limits on batteries and small devices. Some fitness trackers last up to a week, but make sacrifices when it comes to performance and features. High-powered smartwatches tend to never make it past two days, max. Still, the Apple Watch has hovered at about a day and a half of battery life for years. When will better battery life finally happen? That 18-hour-plus range keeps getting bonuses in performance: an always-on display, a larger screen, faster processor. When will the scale tip and allow longer battery life, like what's been happening on recent iPhones and MacBooks?

Some people are fine with daily charging. It seriously hampers the Watch's use as a sleep tracker, though. Apple suggests a quick recharge in the morning or a top-off at night to make it through a night's sleep. But a lower-power sleep mode seems like a clear need, or some other way to get the battery through to a couple of days (or more). Turning off the always-on display or other features could help the watch extend its battery life, sure. I think about that Apple Watch battery more than ever as something that needs to evolve.

A watch face store

Apple's watch face collection is extensive and customizable, and the watch faces look good. But it's also limited. With Apple investing so much in larger displays and high-performance processors, the lack of a watch face store is a wasted opportunity. I keep trying to find watch faces to show off the larger Watch 7 screen and use it in all sorts of new ways, and I hit limits. I want to show just how many bits of info I can layer (complications, they're called), for instance.

One of Apple's new Watch Series 7 faces, Modular Duo, shows two rows of rich information for apps that support it: a heart rate graph and a weather chart, for instance. There aren't that many apps that use larger complications like this. I'd prefer a way to show a bunch of smaller ones, but also lay it out the way I'd like. There's room on the screen now, so why not? I can't, though, not really.

I've said this a ton of times : Apple Watch is the only major smartwatch that doesn't have an open watch face store. There could be so many more interesting designs on tap, but right now Apple still hasn't made it happen.

Full watch independence

The Apple Watch is nearly a self-contained device, now: a fast wrist computer. It does a lot more than it did back in 2015. But you still need to pair it with an iPhone.

Recent Apple Watch updates allow you to pair a watch for someone else and have them wear it on their own, but you still need an iPhone for it to link to at the start. 

Opening up the Watch to Android would be great, but there's an ever simpler path: It should just work on its own without a phone. You should be able to set it up and fully operate it as its own device. And then, optionally, pair it with whatever phone you have.

More sensors, or a more complete sleep-to-wake awareness

The Apple Watch's fitness and health features keep expanding, but it still doesn't have a feature that I've started appreciating on a few other watches and rings: a daily health score.

Fitbit and Oura wearables both have a morning score that can be interpreted as a sort of barometer of wellness or stress levels. The scores can seem arbitrary, sure. They're dependent on multiple readings ranging from sleep quality to resting heart rate to even heart rate variability and daily activity the day before. And yet, over weeks and months, I came to love the idea. I find that these scores help remind me of some things I haven't been tending to (not getting enough sleep, not getting up or being active enough), but in ways that are more proactive than the end-of-day activity ring goals the Apple Watch has. 

Sometimes these scores remind me to take it easy, too. They can feel, at times, like a form of subtle alert system that can sometimes (not always) correspond with not feeling well.

The Apple Watch doesn't have onboard temperature sensors, and it still doesn't break down nightly sleep in as detailed a way as other trackers do. Sleep tracking is an imperfect science on smartwatches right now, but I still find sleep scores to be helpful reminders (and motivators).

The more I might wear an Apple Watch all the time, the more I'd expect a little more awareness of my health than the three-ring fitness metric I've started to ignore since being at home a lot.

Series 7 is the perfected Watch as we know it, but what's next?

I can see the Apple Watch as a fast, large-screen wrist successor to the iPod, and going a lot more places next. I love the bigger screen, but it also feels like an opportunity that's not being taken advantage of enough. And that makes me more frustrated than ever that I still have to take it off every day for a charge-up.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Wednesday released initial data on the nearly 400 crashes since last summer that involved vehicles with various levels of automated driving systems. In these crashes, six people died and five were seriously injured. 

Vehicles equipped with advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), which offer features such as lane centering assistance and adaptive cruise control, were involved in 392 crashes over a roughly nine-month period starting in July 2021, according to the NHTSA data.

Tesla accounted for 273 crashes, Honda 90 and Subaru 10, with other carmakers reporting five or fewer ADAS-equipped crashes. 

To be included in this data, the NHTSA said, "various levels of automated systems" needed to be in use at least 30 seconds before a crash.

NHTSA separately released crash data on cars with fully automated driving systems, which are intended to eventually operate without a human driver but aren't available yet to consumers. Over the nine-month span starting last July, 130 crashes were recorded, with Alphabet-owned Waymo accounting for 62 of them.

NHTSA said the initial data has limitations and isn't comprehensive. 

"As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world," NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff said. The agency plans to release monthly updates going forward. 

Vehicles with automated systems represent a small portion of overall car crashes in the US. In 2020, for example, 8.5 million passenger vehicles were involved in crashes, including more than 41,000 of them in fatal crashes, according to the NHTSA.

Tesla didn't immediately respond to CNET's request for comment. The automaker has no public relations department that can typically field such requests.

A Waymo spokesperson said there is benefit in releasing this information to the public.

"We see value in having nationally standardized and uniform crash reporting during this early stage of the development and deployment of autonomous driving technology, and there's public benefit in NHTSA sharing its findings," the Waymo spokesperson said in a statement, adding that reporting should be refined in order to "limit confusion and potentially enable more meaningful comparison."  

We all know Darth Vader is a fictional bad guy. A criminal recently co-opted the Sith Lord's look during the commission of a serious crime. The State Employees Credit Union in Pineville, N.C., was robbed on Monday, and what's generated attention across the globe is the costume robber wore.

The robber dressed as Darth Vader and carried an unusual long gun. A lightsaber would have been much less frightening. The outlaw didn't just opt for a Darth Vader mask (which doesn't appear to be terribly screen-accurate), but showed up wearing a full costume complete with the chest computer and black gloves.

The criminal got away with cash. Pineveille Police lieutenant Corey Copley told local station WCNC, "You see all kinds of disguises here and there, but this one in my experience is the most unusual."

The investigation is ongoing and the Pineville Police are still looking for leads as to the robber's identity. The costume is uncommon, so the cops are hopeful it will help lead them to the suspect. "He has shown somebody that he's got this and hopefully the person, one of your viewers, will be able to see and call and give us some tips on that," Copley told WCNC.

The incident sets up an interesting real-life metaphor. The thief is Darth Vader, dedicated to the evil ways of the Dark Side. The Pineville Police are the crusading Jedi, set on bringing light to the galaxy. If the story holds true to form, then the bad guy will be apprehended and his Death Star of criminal activities brought to a close.

(Via Boing Boing)

August is here, and Pokemon Go has a lot in store for players this month. The mobile game is holding a variety of events over the next few weeks, including new legendary raids, Spotlight Hours and a World Championships celebration. On top of that, special PokeStops will be popping up at select retailers until Aug. 14.

Here are all the biggest Pokemon Go events happening in August 2022:

August Community Day

Pokemon Go's August Community Day is set for Aug. 13. The star of this month's event is Galarian Zigzagoon. The raccoon Pokemon will be appearing in the wild much more frequently throughout the event, and if you can evolve it into its final form, Obstagoon, it'll learn the dark-type Charged Attack Obstruct. On top of that, you'll get extra Stardust and candy for catching Pokemon, and there will be bonus four-star raids featuring Galarian Linoone.

August Research Breakthrough

Pokemon Go is changing up its Research Breakthrough reward in August. Each time you complete a Research Breakthrough this month, you'll earn a chance to catch Galarian Stunfisk.

Research Breakthroughs are tied to the stamps you receive from Field Research tasks. You'll receive one stamp for the first Field Research you complete each day, and once you've earned seven stamps, you'll achieve a Research Breakthrough.

August raid schedule

Pokemon Go is bringing back a handful of legendary and Mega Pokemon in August. Palkia and Mega Abomasnow will be appearing in five-star and Mega raid battles, respectively, during the beginning of the month, with Genesect and Mega Scizor set to follow afterward. Sword and Shield's legendary mascots Zacian and Zamazenta will also be returning during the second half of August. You can see the full raid schedule below:

Jul. 31 - Aug. 10

• Five-star raids: Palkia
• Mega raids: Mega Abomasnow

Aug. 10 - Aug. 18

• Five-star raids: Genesect (Chill Drive)
• Mega raids: Mega Scizor

Aug. 18 - Aug. 25

• Five-star raids: Zacian and Zamazenta
• Mega raids: Mega Slowbro

Aug. 25 - Aug. 31

• Five-star raids: Zacian and Zamazenta
• Mega raids: Mega Ampharos

August Spotlight Hours

Pokemon Go's Spotlight Hour events continue in August. Every Tuesday evening, the mobile game will be spotlighting a different Pokemon and bonus from 6 to 7 p.m. local time. You can see August's full Spotlight Hour schedule below:

Date	Spotlight Pokemon	Spotlight bonus
August 2	Hisuian Voltorb	2x catch Stardust
August 9	Nidoran (F)	2x catch XP
August 16	Joltik	2x catch candy
August 23	Nidoran (M)	2x transfer candy
August 30	Pidove	2x evolution XP

Bug Out event

Pokemon Go's Bug Out event returns from Aug. 10 to Aug. 16. This year's event will introduce a handful of new bug Pokemon to the game, including shiny Venipede and Grubbin and its evolved forms. On top of that, Mega Scizor will make its debut in Mega raids, and various bonuses will be active, including extra XP each time you successfully catch a Pokemon with a Nice, Great or Excellent throw. 

World Championships event

Pokemon Go is celebrating the 2022 Pokemon World Championships with a special tie-in event from Aug. 18 to Aug. 23. More details will be announced closer to the event.

Stellantis, the global automaking conglomerate that was once known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, hasn't exactly been at the forefront of the battery-electric zeitgeist in the US. That said, the company has been rolling out plug-in hybrids aplenty, and with a number of EVs just over the horizon, it'll need a lot of batteries. So, now it'll build those, too.

Stellantis and Samsung SDI on Tuesday announced a $2.5 billion investment in a joint venture that will see the two companies combining forces to build electric-vehicle batteries. The plant will be located in Kokomo, Indiana. It's not just for that sweet Beach Boys song, either; Stellantis already has engine, transmission and casting facilities there, so it makes good sense to add battery manufacturing to that portfolio.

The plant is estimated to begin producing EV batteries in 2025, and it should create approximately 1,400 new jobs in the process. Stellantis and Samsung SDI are targeting a 23-gigawatt-hour capacity to begin, with an eventual expansion to 33 gWh. The scope of the investment has the possibility to grow over time, as well, with both companies saying there's room to increase the overall financing to $3.1 billion.

For context, Ford and SK Innovation are hoping to produce 43 gWh at one of their new joint-venture facilities outside Memphis, Tennessee, so Stellantis is definitely keeping up with the Joneses. But Ford and Stellantis are hardly the only automakers dipping their feet into US battery manufacturing. Mercedes-Benz's Alabama plant recently had its grand opening, and it will supply the EVs the company will build not too far down the road. Two years ago, Volkswagen also broke ground on a battery plant, located near its other facilities in Tennessee.

Stellantis might be behind when it comes to BEVs in the US, but it's working to shore up that gap across its many domestic brands. Jeep will launch its first electric SUV next year, and it looks pretty sharp, but the company is already producing plug-in hybrid variants of its popular models, the Wrangler and Grand Cherokee. Dodge has a PHEV in the works, and we'll see its take on an electric muscle car in the near future, as well. And don't forget about Ram, which is set to enter the electric-pickup arena in 2024.

Microsoft wants Halo Infinite to be many things, and it will be tricky to balance them all. It's the Halo team's first attempt at a free-to-play online shooter. It also has a dramatic new multihour installment in the saga of its primary hero, Master Chief, told in an "open-world" setting where players can wander and explore rather than being sent from mission to mission.

But that all was in jeopardy with the Master Chief's most hardcore fans a year and a half ago, when Microsoft showed off its first demonstration of Halo Infinite's gameplay. At the time, the game was to helm the launch of Microsoft's next big video game consoles, the $500 Xbox Series X and $300 Xbox Series S. Both devices focused on performance as their selling point, promising more intricately designed and better-looking games.

The fan outcry over the demo, which Microsoft had titled Ascension, convinced the company to delay the game another year to avert tarnishing one of the industry's most storied video game franchises. That year ends on Wednesday, when Halo Infinite's new story will go on sale for $60 for the Xbox and PC and will be made available for free for subscribers to the Xbox Game Pass. (The multiplayer online component of the game was made available as a beta on Nov. 15.)

Bonnie Ross, a Microsoft corporate vice president and head of Halo maker 343 Industries, said the challenge her team faced was that of overambition. Microsoft wanted to offer Halo Infinite on Xbox and PC at the same time, another first, requiring additional engineering to make it work well with different types of computers and with Valve's Steam online store, in addition to Microsoft's own Xbox service.

In an interview shortly before the game's launch, Ross discussed Halo Infinite's development, which has been difficult not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic. All its firsts, she said, amounted to a lot of demands on the team. And that's on top of the struggle any installment in a beloved longtime franchise faces: making a game that's approachable for newcomers while satisfying for fans.

"It should feel familiar and comfortable if you're a Halo player, and you should be able to see things other can't because of the lore, but it should also be a place where a new person can come in and have a story," she said. "This is our time to make sure we are paying homage to what is Halo."

It's been two decades since Master Chief, the primary hero of the Halo universe, blasted onto our screens. And to say it blasted is an understatement. As the launch title for Microsoft's then-new Xbox video game console, Halo was front and center, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon.

More than 81 million copies of Halo games have been sold so far. But it's so much larger than that. Halo has spawned toys, cartoons, live-action adaptations, an esports league, more than 30 novels and about a dozen games. There's a Halo version of Hasbro's board game Risk and even an official gold-plated necklace shaped like one of the game's most popular alien weapons, the energy sword.

Ross has been at Microsoft for more than three decades, earlier working on titles like the Zoo Tycoon simulation game and the action adventure Crackdown. She took over Halo in 2007, when the original developer, Bungie, split off from Microsoft in order to make the online shooting game Destiny.

Halo Infinite's development was different from previous installments in part because it was being built on new coding technology, called the SlipSpace game engine, which was designed to help Halo's developers create the expansive space-age world where Master Chief fights foes to save humanity. 

Ross said SlipSpace wasn't ready enough before the game began being built. "It's kind of like we're trying to fly the plane while we're building the plane," she said. The result was that it took longer to bring all the different images, designs and sounds together. "That just caused a lot of pain for people."

By the time of Microsoft's first big gameplay reveal in the summer of 2020, mere months before the game's planned full launch, the team was working to cut visual quality in an effort to get the game finished in time. Some people within the Halo team worried the cuts were too deep, Ross said. When fans reacted poorly to what they saw, Microsoft pushed the game to the fall of this year.

"We just took on too much real estate," she said. "We had a very ambitious initial creative direction that I think for a while strayed us away from the core of what we wanted to deliver on: paying homage to Halo."

Today, Ross said she's proud of what the team's accomplished, and early reviews for the parts of the game that have been made public have been glowing.

"Given the slow burn recession the series has experienced over the past decade, it's impossible to read Halo Infinite as anything other than a shocking return to form," CNET's Mark Serrels wrote in his review of the game Monday. "Halo Infinite is a very special video game."

GameSpot's Jordan Ramée, who gave the game a "superb" score of 9 out of 10, said that while the story occasionally falters, it otherwise "feels like the best Halo campaign in years and an excellent evolution of what Halo can be."

Below are edited excerpts from our conversation with Ross.

Halo has one of the longest development times for a regular running series in the industry. Why does it take so long?
Ross: I'll be transparent: I think you could probably see it was not intended to be quite as long. We needed time to overhaul the engine, figure out free-to-play and figure out how to have a more expansive world. And so, just that tech infrastructure just took a lot more time than we had had planned. I think that there's a lot of learnings on doing both, as they were both new things for us to do. So I would just say that those just took longer than we had planned to do that. And then you can add COVID in there to make it even harder to do anything.

It seems from the outside that development was a struggle, COVID aside. What did your team run up against?
There's a lot of different things there. I'd say one thing would be that we made the commitment to create a new engine and overhaul. And there were pieces that were not done as we were moving into preproduction and even production. It's kind of like we're trying to fly the plane while we're building the plane. And I think that that just caused a lot of pain for people. Things just took way longer than they should to get the content into the game and make sure the content is polished. 

We had a very ambitious initial creative direction that I think for a while strayed us away from the core of what we wanted to deliver  on: paying homage to Halo. I think we just took on too much real estate.

Was that ambitious "initial creative direction" the open-world mechanics?
I want to say I'm super proud with where we are. And we took the time to get there. But if you could go back in time, there are some decisions -- maybe we shouldn't have tried so many new things at once. Like doing free-to-play and doing a more expansive world with your more traditional story, but you're also allowed to have a lot more agency in your play. Those two things are huge in and of themselves. And we decided to take them both on.

It just meant we had to be a lot more thoughtful on what is the most important thing to land with each of those. So again, where we are today, I'm so proud of what the team got to. And as far as a leadership perspective, there are probably decisions -- not probably, there are decisions I should have made earlier on that would have made an easier development path for the team.

And those decisions being whittling down some of the effort?
Yes, or even picking one and not both of them.

So COVID is this big thing in the room. I've heard a lot about how it's impacted work all over the place. I think a lot of people see game development as being hunched over a keyboard all the time because it's on computers, so why is it any different in the office or at home?
Ross: The positive was that it was incredibly impressive how quickly -- from the moment we were told to go home for just two weeks, and hopefully it wasn't going to be more than that -- we were actually able to get the team up and productive. I assumed we were a day-for-day slip [needing to delay the game's launch] being in the pandemic, but I would say that the team definitely pulled together and was able to be a lot more productive than I had anticipated. 

But what you lose: You talk about how yes, it's technology, but it's also art. You just lose that shared perspective. Even where we obviously stumbled on the Ascension demo, we shouldn't have. 

I do want to say there were multiple people on the team pointing out, "Hey, I think this is wrong." But we're all looking at it at home on whatever monitor with whatever color grading that we have. And that was a huge wakeup call for us. We did need to have those touch points with people coming in, sitting side by side -- at a distance -- and looking at monitors.

After Ascension, we cleared out a whole section of our fourth floor and then put monitors in with all the different versions of the game and then also set up cameras so people who didn't feel comfortable coming in could still work from home and participate from home. 

And then basically, we had someone that kind of controlled and said, "OK, we're looking at this build on this screen" and everyone can give input. And the team came in, and for both campaign and multiplayer, weekly to do those evaluations. And that, just I don't think at least for where we were in production for our game, we couldn't do that from home. 

Again, I'm incredibly impressed with what the team was able to do, but you know yourself and from your friends or family, COVID created additional life challenges and personal challenges. I definitely feel that a lot of focus was on just people contact and spending your time that you would have on a one-on-one making sure the team's OK. I don't know, I kind of meandered from what your question was.

But that's important. They are human beings, and as much as they're professionals and good at what they do, I think all of us had that fuzzy time in the middle of all this where we couldn't really get anything done. And multiply that by however large your team is, and that adds up.
Yup.

I think of your team as very attuned to your community. Did you already have a sense that you were going to need to delay before showing the summer 2020 demo?
What I would say happened before is we made a tremendous amount of cuts. And you see some of those cuts reflected in, I think, the Ascension demo. So we had people on the team already raising flags that we've cut too deep. 

And I think that was just more of a very public look in the mirror that, "Yes, we did indeed cut corners that we shouldn't have cut," and we needed to really take a step back and make sure that we were spending the time we needed.

But I would say, unfortunately, putting that out in public was not what the team wants to see. You know, I think the team wants to be proud of everything they put out and wants it to represent the quality of their work. And what we put out didn't. 

So I think that that was definitely a more visceral wakeup call than before, going, "Yeah, it's really important to be there for day one launch [of the new Xbox]. And "We can do it" to "We actually can't do it."

That's a journey for the team, but ultimately, what they were able to do with the additional year -- I'm really proud of what they've been able to do.

One of the things I constantly hear from you or someone on the team is that this is a Master Chief story. In the past, with the previous game Halo 5, there was some controversy about how you played as Master Chief for some of it, but not others. I'm curious what you've learned, because obviously you need to grow and change and innovate, but there seems to be a limit to what at least parts of the community will accept.
I think that the Halo 5 story was not a bad story. It's just not the story you want to have when you're looking at a numbered game that's sitting on Master Chief's journey. It's an interesting side story, but I think our learning is that we have to pay homage to what is Halo, and there are things that are sacred and Halo. And if you're going to change them, you have to have a deliberate, meaningful reason, and you have to bring the audience along with you. And we just kind of jumped into a disruptive story. I think we missed, you know, with our campaign story. Again, not a bad story, not bad gameplay -- I'm not criticizing the work there. It just wasn't the right -- that wasn't what users would expect and I think, really, what is iconic to Halo. And it doesn't mean that we can't go tell different stories, it's just you need to make sure you're being pure and true with your programming why you're making changes.

OK, a little off to the side, what is Infinite? We've had numbered games for a long time. Why Infinite now?
As we were looking at the console ecosystem and PC, I think that starting with a number means you kind of needed to be there for the whole series. And as we're starting a service -- a free-to-play service -- we want to start from a point where if you love Halo and you know Halo, it feels comfortable. If you've never been in Halo, you can jump in whenever and experience any part and we're gonna keep adding things, but we want to make sure that it's open and inviting to everyone. So, it's basically just, you know, a fresh start for how we look at Halo for the next 10 years. Like a platform upon which to build storytelling for the next 10 years.

So should I expect Halo 7 at some point? Or Halo Infinite Plus One?
I think we have our hands full in making sure that we stand up and support this game. So, infinitely Infinite.

Update, 11:36 a.m. PT: Clarifies name of Halo's new game engine.

Coming up with the down payment on a home can feel like an insurmountable hurdle, especially when you factor in all the other upfront costs. That's why a VA-backed home loan -- which requires no down payment and allows for lower credit scores -- could be your ticket to home ownership. To qualify for a VA loan, you or your spouse must be a current or former member of the US military.

Here is everything you need to know about what a VA loan is, VA loan eligibility requirements and whether it's the right choice for you. 

What is a VA loan?

VA home loans aren't issued by the US Department of Veterans Affairs -- they're just backed by the agency. By guaranteeing VA home mortgages, the government provides confidence to lenders and financial institutions that the loans are low-risk. You'll still go through a private lender to obtain a VA loan. But if you stop making payments on your VA home loan, the government will be held responsible for the loan.

Because the government shares the risk, you should also get better terms and interest rates for a VA-backed loan than you would on other loans, and no down payment is required. You can also qualify for a VA loan with a lower credit score than most conventional mortgages.

Who is eligible for a VA loan?

Veterans or service members who are or were on active duty must meet one of the following requirements to qualify: 

• Served at least 90 consecutive days during times of war
• Served at least 181 consecutive days during times of peace
• Were discharged from duty because of a service-connected disability
• Are currently on active duty

National Guard or Reserve members must meet the following requirements in order to be considered eligible:

• Served at least six years in the Selected Reserve or National Guard
• Served at least 90 days of active duty

Learn more about VA loan eligibility at the VA's website.

What are the different types of VA loans?

Purchase loan: If you're planning to buy a home, a basic VA purchase loan will help you get decent interest rates with private mortgage lenders.

Native American Direct Loan: This loan is available to Native American veterans or veterans married to Native Americans to buy, build or improve a home on federal land.

Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan: If you're struggling financially to keep up with your VA loan, an Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan can help make your monthly payments smaller.

Cash-out refinance loan: If you're looking to make improvements to your home, pay off debt, or make strides toward your retirement fund, the VA can back cash-out refinance loans.

How to apply for a VA loan

If you think you're eligible, you first need to apply for a Certificate of Eligibility, either through your private lender or the VA's eBenefits online portal. Veterans and former National Guard or Reserve members who have been activated must provide discharge or separation papers (DD Form 214). Current service members, as well as National Guard or Reserve members, will need to show a statement of service that's signed by their commander, adjutant or personnel officer.

The following information must be included in your statement of service:

• Full name
• Social Security number
• Date of birth
• Date you entered the service
• Any lost time
• Command providing the information

What are the pros and cons of getting a VA loan?

As with all types of loans, there are benefits and disadvantages to consider.

Pros:

No down payment: You can skip the scramble to come up with cash upfront, since the government is backing up your loan.

Reduced closing costs: Yes, you still have to pay closing costs even if you qualify for a VA loan. However, some closing costs will not apply to you and origination fees are limited up to 1% of the loan total. 

Low rates: Compared with traditional and Federal Housing Administration mortgage rates, VA loan mortgage rates are significantly lower. Currently, the average interest rate for a 30-year VA loan is hovering between 4% and 5%, whereas interest rates for a 30-year fixed-rate conventional mortgage are closer to 5.5%. Lower rates are beneficial because even a slightly higher interest rate can add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of your loan over its lifetime. A VA loan mortgage calculator will help you estimate your rates.

No mortgage insurance: With a VA loan, not only can you opt-out of a down payment, you can also skip paying for mortgage insurance since your loan is guaranteed by the government.

Cons:

Primary homes only: Let go of your dreams of financing a vacation home with a VA loan. VA loans can only be used for the borrower's primary place of residence and they must live there.

Property eligibility: Not all properties are eligible under VA home loans. An appraiser approved by the VA will need to evaluate your potential new home in order to make sure it meets the property requirements established by the VA. Unfortunately, this means if you were hoping to buy a fixer-upper, you may not be able to with a VA loan.

VA funding fees: One of the upsides of a VA loan is you won't have to pay for mortgage insurance. But you will have to pay a one-time funding fee when you close on your new home, which you can either pay up front or roll into the cost of your mortgage. The fee is based on the type and size of your loan, but is typically between 1.4% and 3.6% of the loan.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft continues to have trouble making it to the International Space Station, with its uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 to the ISS now getting pushed into next year. The test is part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which sees the space agency working with private companies like Boeing and SpaceX to shuttle astronauts to the station.

NASA said Friday that the team behind OFT-2 "is working toward launch opportunities in the first half of 2022." That follows a scrubbed launch this past August. In December 2019, the first major Starliner flight test didn't go as planned, with the uncrewed spacecraft launching but experiencing a timing glitch and failing to reach the ISS. It did, however, safely return to Earth.

The issue now, with OGT-2, has to do with an "oxidizer isolation valve issue on the Starliner service module propulsion system," NASA said Friday in a blog post. 

"This is a complex issue involving hazardous commodities and intricate areas of the spacecraft that are not easily accessed. It has taken a methodical approach and sound engineering to effectively examine," Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said in the post.

In addition to trying to achieve NASA's goal of "safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit," the Commercial Crew Program ties in with the space agency's Artemis and moon to Mars plans. Artemis calls for putting the first woman and next man on the moon sometime soon and eventually setting up sustainable exploration there. Knowledge gained from Artemis will be put to use in getting ready to send astronauts to the red planet.

So far, SpaceX and its Crew Dragon spacecraft have had better luck than Boeing when it comes to the Commercial Crew Program. After some delays of its own, the Elon Musk-founded company completed its Demo-1 uncrewed test mission in 2019 and has since shuttled astronauts to the ISS several times. Earlier this week, NASA said it was reassigning a pair of astronauts from Boeing missions to an upcoming SpaceX mission. In April, NASA announced it had selected SpaceX to provide the human landing system for the Artemis program. 

There's a space-tourism angle for SpaceX as well. In June, the company signed a deal to send space tourists to the ISS starting next year (at a reported $55 million price tag per seat). And last month SpaceX took a step in that direction when its Inspiration4 mission sent a crew composed of private citizens orbiting around the Earth.

It's not clear when, exactly, Boeing's Orbital Flight Test-2 will happen.

"Potential launch windows for OFT-2 continue to be assessed by NASA, Boeing, United Launch Alliance, and the Eastern Range," NASA said in its post. "The team currently is working toward opportunities in the first half of 2022 pending hardware readiness, the rocket manifest, and space station availability."