As part of Meta’s sweeping changes to content moderation announced today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that the company will also be moving its content moderation teams from California to Texas to “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content,” he wrote on Threads.

“We’re going to move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US-based content review is going to be based in Texas,” Zuckerberg says in a video about the changes. “As we work to promote free expression, I think that it will help us build trust to do this work in places where there’s less concern about the bias of our teams.”

Meta’s decision to move its content moderation teams to Texas follows Elon Musk bringing X and SpaceX to the state, though Musk’s move was driven in part by his opposition to a California law that’s intended to support LGBTQ+ students. (Employees who work for Meta in Texas will be subject to bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors along with one of the country’s most stringent abortion bans.)

Meta’s other moderation changes include ditching its independent fact-checking program in the US in favor of an X-inspired Community Notes feature, removing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, and bringing back civic content to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The company’s blog post about the updates was written by Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new Trump-friendly policy chief.

Nvidia plans to release a native GeForce Now app for Steam Deck “later this year,” according to a blog post. It’s already relatively straightforward to get Nvidia’s cloud gaming service set up on Steam Deck thanks to a special script from Nvidia, but a native app should be easier to install and will support up to 4K resolution and 60 fps with HDR when connected to a TV.

Nvidia also plans to bring GeForce Now to some major VR headsets later this month, including the Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3 and 3S, and Pico “virtual- and mixed-reality devices.” When GeForce Now version 2.0.70 is available, people using those headsets will be able to access an “extensive library of games” they can stream by visiting play.geforcenow.com in their browser.

The company also says that two major titles from Microsoft will be available on GeForce Now when they come out this year: Avowed, which launches February 18th, and DOOM: The Dark Ages, which is set to be available sometime this year.

Nvidia has spent the last two years showing off its digital “ACE” characters that can have in-game conversations with you using generative AI. But at CES 2025, the company is taking the ACE characters a step further by showing how they can be “autonomous game characters” — including, sometime this year, a teammate to help you get a chicken dinner in PUBG.

Nvidia says that ACE characters can use AI to “perceive, plan, and act like human players,” per a blog post. “Powered by generative AI, ACE will enable living, dynamic game worlds with companions that comprehend and support player goals, and enemies that adapt dynamically to player tactics.” The characters are powered by “small language models (SLMs)” that are “capable of planning at human-like frequencies required for realistic decision making” as well as “multi-modal SLMs for vision and audio that allow AI characters to hear audio cues and perceive their environment.”

As for how that will work in PUBG, you’ll be able to team up with the “PUBG Ally,” which Nvidia and PUBG publisher Krafton are calling the “world’s first Co-Playable Character (CPC).” The Ally will be able to “communicate using game-specific lingo, provide real-time strategic recommendations, find and share loot, drive vehicles, and fight other human players using the game’s extensive arsenal of weapons,” Nvidia says.

Basically, it sounds like an AI teammate you can talk with natural language who’s supposed to be as capable as a human. And a video shows the Ally indeed helping a player find specific loot, bringing over a vehicle, and attempting to flank opposing players. But the video is heavily edited and isn’t live, so I’m skeptical that the Ally will work as well as is being shown here.

AI characters built with ACE are coming to other games, too. Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile PC Version will get a “a local inference AI Teammate feature” in March 2025, while Naraka: Bladepoint on PC will get the feature “later in 2025,” according to Nvidia’s blog post. “AI Teammates powered by NVIDIA ACE can join your party, battling alongside you, finding you specific items that you need, swapping gear, offering suggestions on skills to unlock, and making plays that’ll help you achieve victory.”

Krafton’s upcoming life simulation game called inZOI will also get CPCs called “Smart Zoi.” And Nvidia says that ACE characters can be bosses, too, and they’ll be used for boss encounters in Wemade Next’s MIR5.

Inworld AI, Streamlabs, and Nvidia are partnering on a new AI assistant for streamers that can provide technical support for streams in real time and even act as a quippy cohost.

As a cohost, the “Intelligent Streaming Assistant” can understand what’s happening in games like Fortnite and offer “contextually relevant commentary,” according to a press release. “This awareness enables the assistant to do things like highlight a well-timed build, provide commentary during a dramatic Victory Royale, or shoutout audience members for sending tips.”

Image: Inworld AI, Streamlabs, and Nvidia

As a producer, the assistant will be able to trigger “audio and visual effects to enhance high-impact gameplay” as well as capture clips. The assistant can also help set up Streamlabs Desktop and offer troubleshooting advice. And streamers will be able to pick from “assistant personalities” that can “complement the tone of their stream, whether they’re looking for subtle behind-the-scenes support or a lively co-host.”

The tool seems like it could be a useful and potentially entertaining way to improve your streams. But based solely on how it’s demonstrated in a video, the assistant might also look and sound like an awkward AI avatar, so I’m not sure how widely it might be used in practice.

The Intelligent Streaming Assistant is set to launch in Streamlabs’ app store later this year.

Meta is adding three new people to its board of directors, and one of them is UFC president and CEO Dana White, the company announced on Monday. Zuckerberg is a fan of MMA who has medaled in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and tore his ACL in a sparring session a little over a year ago.

As shown above, the Meta CEO has attended several UFC fights over the last few years and shared a picture with White on Instagram in February, as noted by Bloomberg, and White was mediating the proposed Zuckerberg vs. Musk cage match at one point. White also has a personal relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, who Zuckerberg met with at his Mar-a-Lago resort after Trump threatened “if [Zuckerberg] does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison—as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election” in a book released last September.

In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg said of White, “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”

White maintained control of that brand after a New Year’s Eve incident two years ago where he was captured on camera slapping his wife in a nightclub, as reported by The Athletic. Afterward, White said, “There’s no defense for this and people should not be defending me over this thing no matter what... I have to walk around for however long I live — 10.4 years or another 25 years — and this is how I’m labeled now.”

John Elkann, CEO of European investment company Exor (which has stakes in companies like Ferrari and Stellantis), and Charlie Songhurst, a technology investor and former Microsoft executive, will be joining Meta’s board as well.

Meta now has 13 people on its board. “We have massive opportunities ahead in AI, wearables, and the future of social media, and our board will help us achieve our vision,” Zuckerberg says.

Acer is revealing new all-in-one and mini PCs at CES 2025, and they’re among the first non-laptop computers to get Copilot Plus AI features.

The new Acer Aspire S AI all-in-ones, offered in a “minimalist white profile,” come in two sizes, according to a press release. The Aspire S24 AI has a 23.8-inch 1080p screen, and the Aspire S27 AI has a 27-inch panel in 1080p or 4K. You can get both with touchscreens, too. They’re equipped with “up to” Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2), support Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7, and have an HDMI 2.0 port, two USB 3.2 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port.

The Aspire S24 AI will start at $1,199.99, while the Aspire S27 AI will start at $1,299.99. Both are set to launch in Q2 of this year.

Acer’s new Aspire C AI all-in-ones also come in 23.8-inch and 27-inch screen sizes, and both can be configured with up to QHD (1440p) screens. They’re powered by AMD Ryzen AI processors and AMD Radeon 800M-series GPUs, and you can get them with up to 64GB of DDR5 memory and 1TB of M2 PCIe SSD storage. However, unlike the Aspire S all-in-ones, the Aspire C all-in-ones only support Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6.

The Acer Aspire C24 AI is set to start at $999.99, with the Acer Aspire C27 AI starting at $1,099.99, and both are also scheduled to launch in Q2.

Image: Acer

The Acer Revo Box AI is a new version of its mini PC line, and the company says this one “measures just 0.75 liters and weighs a mere 0.5 kg.” It also has Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) and can be purchased with up to 32GB of LPDDR5X 8533 memory. It will start at $799.99 and is also set for Q2.

In addition to supporting Copilot Plus features, Acer says these computers all have “Acer Intelligence Space,” which is “a central hub that automatically detects hardware and provides the appropriate AI tools to optimize performance, generate images, and enhance gameplay.”

Acer is announcing two new Nitro Blaze gaming handhelds at CES 2025, and one of them, the Nitro Blaze 11, is truly giant with a massive 10.95-inch screen.

Seriously, it’s huge — just look at this photo of a person holding it! It’s absurd!

Image: Acer

In addition to that enormous screen — which is a 144 Hz WQXGA touch display that can top out at 500 nits of brightness — the Nitro Blaze 11 is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 8040HS processor, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 2TB of storage, according to a press release. The Nitro Blaze 11 also has detachable controllers, a built-in kickstand, Hall Effect joysticks, and two back buttons. (The original Blaze, announced last year with a 7-inch screen, lacked back buttons.)

Image: Acer

Acer’s other new handheld PC, the Nitro Blaze 8, is mercifully smaller, with an 8.8-inch screen. It has many of the same specs as the Nitro Blaze 11, though it lacks the detachable controllers and built-in stand.

Both new Blazes will be available in Q2 2025, Acer says. The Nitro Blaze 11 will start at $1,099.99, while the Nitro Blaze 8 will start at $899.99.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to some LG TVs “later this year,” Microsoft and LG announced at CES 2025. When the feature is available, if you have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, you’ll be able to stream games from the Xbox Game Pass library and select titles that you already own from the LG Gaming Portal.

LG says you’ll be able to use Xbox Cloud Gaming on its “latest Smart TVs,” but doesn’t specify exactly which models. In a footnote, LG says that “service and country availability will be announced at a later date.” Microsoft promises that it will share more details on the feature in the “coming months.”

Microsoft and LG’s promotional art for the news features Microsoft’s “This is an Xbox” tagline that shows how you can play Xbox games across a lot of different devices. Xbox Cloud Gaming is already available on some Samsung TVs.

A new year means a new Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) speedrunning marathon for charity, and this year’s event is just about to kick off. AGDQ starts today, January 5th, at 12PM ET, and is scheduled to end very early in the morning on January 12th. You can watch the event live on Games Done Quick’s Twitch channel, and runs are typically uploaded to Games Done Quick’s YouTube channel soon after they air.

I’ve been perusing the schedule, and here’s a few runs that I’m excited about:

• Astro Bot, because Astro Bot rules
• A Metroid Prime race (perfect to get in the mood for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond)
• The very bad Superman 64
• A six-hour and fifteen-minute run of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth — when I beat it last year, the game took me about ten times that long to finish
• Crazy Taxi with a live band, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

And that only scratches the surface! This year’s AGDQ seems like it’ll be another great event, and I can’t wait to tune in.

This year’s event is raising money to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Last year, AGDQ raised more than $2.5 million for the organization.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the next tech exec to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, according to Axios. Cook’s donation follows similar commitments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos through Amazon, and Meta as Big Tech companies and executives work to curry favor with the incoming administration.

Cook famously built a personal relationship with Trump during his first term that other tech CEOs are looking to replicate. He was one of many to congratulate Trump after his Election Day victory, and Axios reports that Cook has met with Trump at Trump Tower and his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Elon Musk, who dropped in on Bezos’ December dinner with Trump, joined “part of” Cook’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Axios says. The New York Times previously reported that Cook met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Unnamed sources tell Axios that “Cook, a proud Alabama native, believes the inauguration is a great American tradition, and is donating to the inauguration in the spirit of unity.” Apple is “not expected” to donate to the inauguration. The company didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

It seems like Nvidia might be about to reveal its RTX 50 series GPUs, and now Nvidia itself is teasing that the new graphics cards are nearly here. As spotted by VideoCardz, a video for Nvidia’s upcoming LAN party includes brief look at a shadowy PC that will be given as a prize, and if you brighten up the image, the GPU in the computer appears to be one that’s a new design.

See for yourself — I’ve included an image of the shadowed version at the top of this post, but here’s our take at tweaking the image to reveal what’s hidden:

Image: Tom Warren / The Verge

I’ll admit I am not an expert in GPU designs, but VideoCardz says the design is “unfamiliar” and that an RTX 5080 or 5070 Ti could be “among possible candidates” of what’s being shown.

Leaks last month from Zotac and Acer indicated that Nvidia may reveal as many as five RTX 50 series GPUs very soon, including an RTX 5090, an RTX 5080, and an 5070 Ti. VideoCardz also reported today on a leak of an RTX 5080 from MSI featuring 16GB of GDDR7 memory.

And Nvidia isn’t being particularly secretive about the potentially imminent launch of the RTX 50-series GPUs. The LAN party, which runs from January 4th through 6th, is called the “GeForce LAN 50”, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to deliver a CES keynote on January 6th at 9:30PM ET.

Apple has added warning labels to AirTags and their boxes to comply with a law requiring the labels on products with button cell or coin batteries that could be ingested by children, according to a US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) press release.

AirTags imported to the US after March 19th, 2024, which was when the law, known as “Reese’s Law,” went into effect, did not “have the required on-product and on-box warnings concerning the severe risk of injury from battery ingestion if these small batteries are not kept out of reach of children,” the CPSC says.

Now, the AirTag battery compartment has a “warning symbol,” and Apple has updated AirTags boxes to “include required warning statements and symbols,” per the CPSC. In the Find My app, Apple has also updated the instructions you see when you’re prompted to change an AirTag battery so that they include “a warning about the hazards of button and coin cell batteries.”

Apple launched AirTags in 2021 and is rumored to launch a new version this year.

Glasses may be more promising as the head-worn computers of the future — and there’s a chance Apple might be looking in that direction.

Apple’s Vision Pro headset is an incredible piece of technology, but even Apple’s design and marketing magic hasn’t been enough to convince many people to don a VR headset for an entire day. Instead, people seem more willing to use discreet wearables like Bluetooth headphones, smartwatches, and products like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses — so Apple’s headset isn’t making the waves the company would have wanted.

Of course, an instant transformation of the computing landscape wasn’t exactly the point of the Vision Pro. Apple was clearly launching its headset for Apple enthusiasts, first adopters, and people who love VR. At a starting price of $3,499, the barrier of entry was just too high to expect the device to be a hit from the jump. Even CEO Tim Cook called it an “early-adopter product.”

Nearly a year from launch, though, Apple hasn’t done enough to demonstrate why the Vision Pro should be a potential showcase of the future of computing. It’s taking a long time to put together its immersive content library, and while those are great demonstrations of what’s possible, the videos have been short and isolating. There aren’t many great games, either.

Yes, Apple keeps adding cool new software features. The wide and ultra widescreen settings for using a Mac display seem exceptionally useful. But those are pretty specific options for pretty specific use cases. There still isn’t an immediate, obvious reason to buy a Vision Pro the way there usually is with the company’s newest iPhones and Macs. If I bought a Vision Pro today, I wouldn’t know what to do with it besides give myself a bigger Mac screen or watch movies, and I don’t think either of those are worth the exorbitant price.

It seems Apple may have already acknowledged that the Vision Pro might not be the future, either. The company has reportedly scaled back production and focused efforts on a cheaper version of the headset (perhaps just called Apple Vision?).

If Apple still wants to make a splash in VR, the company might need to race to get its next product out the door. It can be argued that Meta has the best VR headsets and ecosystem on the market right now — and a very clear lineup for consumers to consider. Its most affordable offering is the $299 Quest 3S, which has the same chip as the $499 Quest 3, meaning you can access the same experiences across both headsets. The price difference between the two largely comes down to displays and storage, and I’d argue that the cheaper Quest 3S is an excellent VR headset for most people.

But like the Vision Pro, Meta hasn’t really found a way to make its headsets much more than a great way to play VR games. The Quest Pro, which Meta pitched in part as a headset for work, was such a flop that the company discontinued it only two years after it launched. Horizon Worlds, the company’s 3D social network, still feels amateur and barren, despite the company’s efforts to make it a better place to hang out.

When I put on a Meta headset, I find that I just want to play games, either serious titles like Batman: Arkham Shadow or lighter fare like Maestro, where you conduct a virtual orchestra. I don’t care about the mixed reality features except to glance at my phone or computer screen to make a note or check notifications. You can make a pretty solid living selling game consoles, as Sony and Nintendo know very well, but it’s a far cry from the full-fledged computing platform Mark Zuckerberg once promised.

I just don’t know if any tech company is going to crack the code on how to make VR headsets anything but solo technology. Yes, you can use VR headsets to interact with other people over the internet. But putting on a VR headset at home means I can’t look my wife in the eye; if I’m going to look at a screen, I’d prefer to look at one that we can share or that I can easily put off to the side. And even if you’re fine with VR being mostly a solo thing, VR headsets don’t fit neatly into everyday life unless you have a good amount of space in your home for them. (And hopefully your controllers haven’t run out of battery power!)

Perhaps that’s why glasses seem like a much more promising option for computers that you wear on your face. Augmented reality glasses have been an aspirational goal for a long time, and you can see why. It’s much easier to make eye contact with somebody while you’re wearing glasses. Meta may have already proved that the glasses form factor works: its relatively simple Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which have a camera, speakers, and look fashionable, are already a huge hit.

If glasses-equipped cameras do truly go mainstream, I have some concerns that I’ve already written about. But I also wrote about the immediate appeal of the tech: whenever I wear the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, I find myself snapping tons of photos because it’s so much fun to capture my point of view without holding up a phone. And because they look like regular glasses, I can walk around and most people will think that they’re glasses, unlike a VR headset, which just looks silly in public.

It seems that Apple might be eyeing computer glasses as well; the company reportedly launched an internal study about the market. I think even glasses with some basic tech would make way more sense for Apple than a VR headset, especially if they let you easily snap photos and listen to podcasts. These devices could be years off, though, meaning that, right now, Apple is stuck selling VR headsets that barely anyone wants.

This year showed that a roguelike can be almost anything.

Read the full story at The Verge.

NSO Group, the organization behind the Pegasus spyware, has been found liable in a lawsuit brought by Meta’s WhatsApp over attacks on about 1,400 devices, as reported by The Record.

WhatsApp originally filed the suit in 2019, and investigations have found that Pegasus has been used to hack phones belonging to groups like activists, journalists, and government officials.

NSO Group is liable for charges of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, violation of the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, and breach of contract, according to today’s ruling. A trial will now move forward “only on the issue of damages.” The spyware maker has argued that it isn’t liable because Pegasus was operated by clients investigating crimes and cases of national security but the judge rejected those arguments, which could establish a precedent for other companies in the same business.

“This ruling is a huge win for privacy,” Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, says in a Threads post. “We spent five years presenting our case because we firmly believe that spyware companies could not hide behind immunity or avoid accountability for their unlawful actions. Surveillance companies should be on notice that illegal spying will not be tolerated.”

NSO Group didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Bluesky now has a specific tab for mentions in your notifications as part of the app’s just-released 1.96 update. With the mentions tab, it’s much easier to see your replies or conversations you’ve been tagged in on the platform.

Speaking of replies, update 1.96 lets you easily access settings that let you control how replies on posts appear to you. Replies can be linear, meaning they show up one post after another, or threaded, which means they will appear in indented threads (kind of like how they appear on Reddit). You can also sort replies by newest, oldest, most-liked, “hot,” and “random” (which Bluesky also calls “Poster’s Roulette”).

If you choose to set a custom domain as your username, with 1.96, Bluesky will also reserve your old .bsky.social name so that it can’t be picked up by someone else. I wish this feature had been available when I set my custom domain — when I did that, I made an alt account that’s parked on my old .bsky.social name so that it doesn’t get taken.

Bluesky saw a surge of new users in November, and although growth has slowed as of late, the platform surpassed 25 million total users last week. The company plans to launch a subscription service early next year and, at some point, its own payment platform.

And the platform has some big competition from Meta’s Threads, which seems to be doing everything it can to remind people that it can ship lots of features and that it’s much larger than Bluesky.

Thousands of delivery drivers who work for Amazon third-party contractors are now on strike, The New York Times reports. The workers are striking after “Amazon’s repeated refusal to follow the law and bargain with the thousands of Amazon workers who organized with the Teamsters,” according to a Teamsters press release.

Workers are picketing at Amazon warehouses from Atlanta, New York City, San Francisco, Southern California, and Skokie, Ill., with other Amazon Teamsters “prepared to join them,” the Teamsters say. “Teamsters local unions are also putting up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide.”

The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Amazon earlier this year, saying that Amazon and one of its third-party contractors are joint employers of delivery drivers and that it has “a legal duty to recognize and bargain with the Teamsters Union,” per another Teamsters press release.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel shared the following statement with New York City’s WPIX and with The Verge:

For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative. The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.

Amazon employees who have organized with the Teamsters voted last week to authorize a strike.

Update, December 19th: Added that Amazon sent us a statement.

Lenovo showed off a laptop concept with a rollable display last year, and in 2025, it might release one that you can actually buy. Leaker Evan Blass just shared images of what he says is a sixth-generation Lenovo ThinkBook Plus, and based on two of the images, it has a display that extends upward to reveal more display underneath.

It seems pretty similar to the concept from 2023, which also extended upward to show more screen. In these images from Blass, Lenovo is showing how the extended screen can be used for multitasking, such as by watching a YouTube video in the lower half of the screen or having a document on hand under a PowerPoint presentation.

Image: Evan Blass

Image: Evan Blass

Blass’ leak doesn’t include any specs, so we don’t yet know many important details about this rumored laptop. But if it’s real, and it does debut at CES, it could be one of the most interesting products at the show.

Here’s a video of the 2023 concept:

We’re fairly confident Blass knows what he’s talking about when he says it’ll debut at CES in January; not only does Blass have a very long track record of accurate leaks, he tends to leak products shortly before they’re announced, and appears to have a bead on Lenovo in particular right now.

Last week, we exclusively shared Blass’s images of a new revamped Lenovo Legion Go handheld, as well as a Lenovo Legion Go S that might wind up being the company’s first SteamOS handheld. Today, Lenovo substantiated those rumors by announcing a handheld event with Valve as "special guest."

The creator of the poker roguelike Balatro, who goes by the alias LocalThunk, has been sharing some frustrations over the game’s 18-plus rating in Europe.

“Since PEGI gave us an 18-plus rating for having evil playing cards maybe I should add microtransactions / loot boxes / real gambling to lower that rating to 3-plus like EA Sports FC,” LocalThunk posted on X over the weekend.

Balatro’s 18-plus rating isn’t new. The game was originally rated 3-plus, but shortly after its February launch, PEGI bumped it up to 18-plus, as spelled out at the time by Playstack, Balatro’s publisher. The game was briefly delisted from “a number of digital stores in some countries” as a result.

According to PEGI’s page for Balatro, the rating was given because the game “features prominent gambling imagery.” PEGI also spells out the following “content specific issues”:

This game teaches — by way of images, information and gameplay — skills and knowledge that are used in poker. During gameplay, the player is rewarded with ‘chips’ for playing certain hands. The player is able to access a list of poker hand names. As the player hovers over these poker hands, the game explains what types of cards the player would need in order to play certain hands. As the game goes on, the player becomes increasingly familiar with which hands would earn more points. Because these are hands that exist in the real world, this knowledge and skill could be transferred to a real-life game of poker.

While it’s true that the game does feature poker imagery and poker hands that a player could translate into an actual game of poker, it’s worth noting that Balatro doesn’t actually have any gambling as part of playing the game. (LocalThunk has even stipulated in their will that Balatro can’t be sold or licensed to a gambling company.)

Games like EA Sports FC include in-game purchases with randomized content, which is what LocalThunk takes issue with. “I’m way more irked at the 3-plus for these games with actual gambling mechanics for children than I am about Balatro having an 18-plus rating,” he said on Sunday.

LocalThunk said Wednesday that they attempted to discuss Balatro’s rating with PEGI, but “they do not see anything wrong Balatro being rated 18-plus, nor with EA Sports FC (and similar games) having a 3-plus rating.” PEGI was “blaming EU laws, blaming storefronts, waiting for the future,” LocalThunk said.

PEGI didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

So far, possible answers include aliens, an international conspiracy, secret military tests, or just planes.

2024’s drone hysteria has gone on for weeks across the East Coast, and we still have far more questions than answers. The sightings may have started in New Jersey, but reports of possible drone sightings have continued to spread.

The usual authorities haven’t helped much, with bland statements like “There continues to be no known threat to public safety,” failing to tamp down anxiety and interest. What we do know so far is that this is a perfect storm for clout-chasing politicians and that our phone cameras aren’t really up to the task of taking pictures of stuff flying around in the sky.

Meanwhile, social media-fueled misinformation has rushed to fill the information vacuum about what people are seeing. Even if, in many cases, what they’ve seen are planes, stars, meteors, or drones sent up by drone hunters to try to find the mystery drones.

We’ll keep track of the best information we can pull together right here.