The online servers for platform fighting game MultiVersus have officially been taken down. While players will no longer to match up with others online, WB Games had noted that players that had logged in between between February 4 and May 30 will still be able to play the title. WB Games had originally announced that May 30 would be the last day for the MultiVersus servers all the way back in January. In its announcement, the company had said that the game’s fifth season would serve as its final update. Along with taking the servers offline, MultiVersus will also be delisted from all digital storefronts, including Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation Store and Microsoft Store. This means that no new players will be able to buy the game going forward. “This decision was not made lightly,” posted developer Player First Games back when it had announced the servers being shut down. “All of us on the Player First Games and Warner Bros Games teams have put our heart and soul into MultiVersus, creating a unique social and cooperative experience from the ground up that brings together a variety of popular characters and worlds.” “We are very proud of the game we have built and are incredibly thankful for the support of the MultiVersus community throughout this journey. Your passion and enthusiasm have been unmatched.” The servers being shut down comes just a few months after Player First Games itself was also closed. The studio’s closure came alongside the closure of WB Games San Diego, and Monolith, as well as an in-development game based on the Wonder Woman franchise. “This is a strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these teams or the talent within them,” said the company in a statement announcing the studio closures. While MultiVersus had scene some success back when it originally launched in closed alpha all the way back in 2022, the game lost most of its player base quickly, before the alpha was shut down. It later got a full relaunch in May 2024 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. However, despite the relaunch, the game was never able to get back the traction it had originally built up. Rumours have indicated that the commercial failure of MultiVersus may have contributed to Warner Bros. Games facing quite a bit of heat in terms of its financial state, leading the company to shut down development on Monolith’s Wonder Woman game. MultiVersus, along with Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had been implicated in this by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. “Last year Suicide Squad was a humongous flop – they wrote off $200 million because of that. MultiVersus and Quidditch Champions, also both flops, [they] wrote off another $100 million because of that,” said Schrier, pointing out that WB Games’ forays into live-service games had just not been working out for the company under the leadership of former head David Haddad. Haddad has since stepped down from his position, being succeeded by JB Perrette, who also serves as the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery’s global streaming and games division.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. OpenAI: The power and the pride OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT 3.5 set in motion an AI arms race that has changed the world. How that turns out for humanity is something we are still reckoning with and may be for quite some time. But a pair of recent books both attempt to get their arms around it.In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, Karen Hao tells the story of the company’s rise to power and its far-reaching impact all over the world. Meanwhile, The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future, by the Wall Street Journal’s Keach Hagey, homes in more on Altman’s personal life, from his childhood through the present day, in order to tell the story of OpenAI.  Both paint complex pictures and show Altman in particular as a brilliantly effective yet deeply flawed creature of Silicon Valley—someone capable of always getting what he wants, but often by manipulating others. Read the full review.—Mat Honan This startup wants to make more climate-friendly metal in the US The news: A California-based company called Magrathea just turned on a new electrolyzer that can make magnesium metal from seawater. The technology has the potential to produce the material, which is used in vehicles and defense applications, with net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions. Why it matters: Today, China dominates production of magnesium, and the most common method generates a lot of the emissions that cause climate change. If Magrathea can scale up its process, it could help provide an alternative source of the metal and clean up industries that rely on it, including automotive manufacturing. Read the full story. —Casey Crownhart A new sodium metal fuel cell could help clean up transportation A new type of fuel cell that runs on sodium metal could one day help clean up sectors where it’s difficult to replace fossil fuels, like rail, regional aviation, and short-distance shipping. The device represents a departure from technologies like lithium-based batteries and is more similar conceptually to hydrogen fuel cell systems. The sodium-air fuel cell has a higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries and doesn’t require the super-cold temperatures or high pressures that hydrogen does, making it potentially more practical for transport. Read the full story. —Casey Crownhart The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The US state department is considering vetting foreign students’ social mediaAfter ordering US embassies to suspend international students’ visa appointments. (Politico)+ Applicants’ posts, shares and comments could be assessed. (The Guardian)+ The Trump administration also wants to cut off Harvard’s funding. (NYT $) 2 SpaceX’s rocket exploded during its test flight It’s the third consecutive explosion the company has suffered this year. (CNBC)+ It was the first significant attempt to reuse Starship hardware. (Space)+ Elon Musk is fairly confident the problem with the engine bay has been resolved. (Ars Technica)3 The age of AI layoffs is hereAnd it’s taking place in conference rooms, not on factory floors. (Quartz)+ People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before. (MIT Technology Review)4 Thousands of IVF embryos in Gaza were destroyed by Israeli strikesAn attack destroyed the fertility clinic where they were housed. (BBC)+ Inside the strange limbo facing millions of IVF embryos. (MIT Technology Review) 5 China’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have fallen for the first timeEven as energy demand has risen. (Vox)+ China’s complicated role in climate change. (MIT Technology Review) 6 The sun is damaging Starlink’s satellitesIts eruptions are reducing the satellite’s lifespans. (New Scientist $)+ Apple’s satellite connectivity dreams are being thwarted by Musk. (The Information $) 7 European companies are struggling to do business in ChinaEven the ones that have operated there for decades. (NYT $)+ The country’s economic slowdown is making things tough. (Bloomberg $) 8 US hospitals are embracing helpful robotsThey’re delivering medications and supplies so nurses don’t have to. (FT $)+ Will we ever trust robots? (MIT Technology Review) 9 Meet the people who write the text messages on your favorite show They try to make messages as realistic, and intriguing, as possible. (The Guardian) 10 Robot dogs are delivering parcels in AustinWell, over 100 yard distances at least. (TechCrunch) Quote of the day “I wouldn’t say there’s hope. I wouldn’t bet on that.” —Michael Roll, a partner at law firm Roll & Harris, explains to Wired why businesses shouldn’t get their hopes up over obtaining refunds for Donald Trump’s tariff price hikes. One more thing Is the digital dollar dead?In 2020, digital currencies were one of the hottest topics in town. China was well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and many other countries launched CBDC research projects, including the US.How things change. The digital dollar—even though it doesn’t exist—has now become political red meat, as some politicians label it a dystopian tool for surveillance. So is the dream of the digital dollar dead? Read the full story. —Mike Orcutt We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.) + Recently returned from vacation? Here’s how to cope with coming back to reality.+ Reconnecting with friends is one of life’s great joys.+ A new Parisian cocktail bar has done away with ice entirely in a bid to be more sustainable.+ Why being bored is good for you—no, really.

Microsoft and Google are taking distinctive approaches with AI agents in their productivity suites, and enterprises need to account for the differences when formulating digital labor strategies, analysts said. In recent months, both companies have announced a dizzying array of new agents aimed at extracting value from corporate documents and maximizing efficiency. The tech giants have dropped numerous hints about where they’re headed with AI agents in their respective office suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Microsoft is reshaping its Copilot assistant as a series of tools to create, tap into, and act on insights at individual and organizational levels. The Microsoft 365 roadmap lists hundreds of specialized AI tools under development to automate work for functions such as HR and accounting. The company is also developing smaller AI models to carry out specific functions. Google is going the opposite way, with its large-language model Gemini at the heart of Workspace. Google offers tools that include Gems for workers to create simple custom agents that automate tasks such as customer service, and Agentspace in Google Cloud to build more complex custom agents for collaboration and workflow management. At the recent Google I/O developer conference, the company added real-time speech translation to Google Meet. “For both, the goal is to bring usable and practical productivity and efficiency capabilities to work tools,” said Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. But the differing AI agent strategies are heavily rooted in each company’s philosophical approaches to productivity. Although Microsoft has long encouraged customers to move from its traditional “perpetual-license” Office suite to the Microsoft 365 subscription-based model, M365 notably retains the familiar desktop apps. Google Workspace, on the other hand, has always been cloud-based. Microsoft users are typically a bit more tethered to traditional enterprise work styles, while Google has always been the “cloud-first darling for smaller organizations that still crave real-time collaboration,” Miller said. When it comes to the generative AI models being integrated into the two office suites, “Google’s Gemini models are beating out the models being deployed by Microsoft,” Miller said. “But as Microsoft expands its model ‘inventory’ in use across M365, this could change.” Microsoft has an advantage, as many desktop users live in Outlook or Word. The intelligence Copilot can bring from CRM software is readily available, while that integration is more complex in the cloud-native Google Workspace. “Microsoft still has an edge in a foundational understanding of work and the capacity to extend Copilot connections across applications as expansive as the Office suite through to Dynamics, giving AI a greater opportunity to be present in the spaces and presentation layers where workers enjoy working,” Miller said. Microsoft’s Copilot Agents and Google’s Gems and Agentspace are in their early stages, but there have been positive developments, said J.P. Gownder, a vice president and principal analyst on Forrester’s Future of Work team. Microsoft recently adopted Google’s A2A protocol, which makes it easier for users of both productivity suites to collaborate and unlock value from stagnant data sitting on other platforms. “That should be a win for interoperability,” Gownder said. But most companies that are Microsoft shops have years or decades of digital assets that hold them back from considering Google, he said. For example, Excel macros, pivot tables, and customizations cannot be easily or automatically migrated to Google Sheets, he said. “As early as this market is, I don’t think it’s fair to rank either player — Microsoft or Google — as being the leader; both of them are constructing new ecosystems to support the growth of agentic AI,” Gownder said. Most Microsoft Office users have moved to M365, but AI is helping Google is making inroads into larger organizations, especially among enterprises that are newer and less oriented toward legacy Microsoft products, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. Technologies like A2A blur the line between on-premises and cloud productivity. As a result, “Google Workspace is no longer perceived as inferior, as it had been in the past,” Gold said. And for budget-constrained enterprises, the value of AI agent features is not the only consideration. “There is also the cost equation at work here, as Google seems to have a much more transparent cost structure than Microsoft with all of its user classes and discounts,” Gold said. Microsoft does not include Copilot in its M365 subscriptions, which vary in price depending on the type of customer. The Copilot business subscriptions range from $30 per user per month for M365 Copilot to $200 per month for 25,000 messages for Copilot Studio, which is also available under a pay-as-you-go model. Google has flat subscription pricing for Workspace, starting at $14 per user per month for business plans with Gemini included.

Macworld At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Supports macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Android, and Windows Intuitive, modern user interface Flexible pricing Cons Mac client doesn’t offer features like cloud sync, AI chatbot, OCR, or file conversion Account deletion requires customer support Overpriced monthly plan is Our Verdict SwifDoo is free to download and use, but Apple’s built-in Preview app performs most of the tasks offered, including proper PDF editing, which SwifDoo doesn’t do. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Swifdoo PDF for Mac Retailer Price SwifDoo PDF For Mac Free View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket PDF editors are essential for Mac users living the paperless lifestyle. While macOS can view, annotate, and sign PDFs natively, the OS provides little control over the files’ core content. So, those wishing to tweak the text or images of a certain PDF document will have to rely on third-party solutions. With so many apps out there, however, finding the right pick may be tricky. SwifDoo PDF for Mac is one of the options you may come across when hunting for an editor. Is it any good, though? Pricing and availability SwifDoo PDF supports macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, and Android. Notably, however, the feature sets differ depending on the platform you’re using. So, for example, the Windows app packs distinct capabilities unavailable on macOS or the mobile clients. Similarly, the price differs based on the OS you’re running it on. In this review, we will be evaluating SwifDoo PDF for macOS specifically. The rating, pros, cons, and overall specifications only apply to this particular client. SwifDoo PDF for macOS is available to install and use as a document viewer for free. However, the paid version is required to unlock its core features, such as editing and annotation. At the time of writing, the monthly plan costs $10, while the annual one goes for $20. Alternatively, you could avoid the recurring subscription by paying a one-time fee of $50 or $70 to own a lifetime license for one or two Macs. Before committing to the purchase, you can create an account to claim a 7-day free trial and evaluate the service. Unfortunately, if you decide not to proceed, you’ll need to contact the company’s customer support to have them delete your account and its data. See our round-ups of of the best PDF editors for Mac and our best free PDF editors for Mac. Features Foundry While SwifDoo PDF was designed for Intel Macs and seemingly hasn’t been optimized for Apple silicon chips, it runs pretty smoothly on my MacBook Air M2. It features a clutter-free main page where you can interact with recently viewed files or open a different PDF via Finder. Once you load a document, you can tweak it using the standard annotation tools if you’re using the paid version. These include highlighting, inserting notes, underlining, striking through, drawing, adding text boxes and shapes, stamping, and more. Other SwifDoo PDF perks include page rotation, printing, and an auto-generated index that lets you quickly jump between document sections based on their headings. Beyond the basics, SwifDoo PDF supports simple document manipulation. The software provides full control over PDF files’ core content, letting you intuitively adjust the existing text’s font, alignment, and spacing. Similarly, you get to resize, crop, move, and rotate original images or insert new ones. If you’re handling sensitive files, SwifDoo PDF also enables you to protect documents with a password to prevent unauthorized viewing, editing, or copying. Notably, unlike the Windows client and other rival Mac apps, SwifDoo PDF for macOS doesn’t include an AI chatbot for assistance, optical character recognition (OCR), batch processing, file format conversion, cloud sync, etc. Foundry Should you use SwifDoo PDF? If you’re planning to use the free version of SwifDoo PDF, then the software is not worth it. Given that even annotation tools are now paywalled (a previous version offered them for free), you may want to rely on the built-in Apple Preview app instead. After all, macOS’ native solution requires no additional app installation and offers both viewing and annotation features for free. If you have short-term PDF editing needs and plan to subscribe to the service for just a few months, then you may want to look into alternative PDF editors for the Mac. At the steep price of $10/month, you can find more feature-rich solutions that support the excluded tools mentioned in the previous section. Otherwise, if your PDF editing workflows are limited to basic image and text manipulation, then the software is reliable and may be worth it when opting for the more reasonably priced annual or lifetime licenses. Update: This review has been revised to reflect the latest features and changes in the SwifDoo PDF app for macOS.

I grew up in urban areas where seeing birds “in the wild” are a rarity. That’s why I’m always amazed when I travel and I see different species just flying and hanging around window sills, the park, picnic tables, and some even perch on people. But urban areas are dangerous places for birds as they are filled with hazards for them like tall buildings, glass windows, and artificial structures. People who live in areas like this will probably see injured birds every once in a while but we don’t really know how to treat them on our own. What if giving first aid to these injured birds is as easy as treating mild human injuries? BirdAid is an innovative, biodegradable splint designed to provide immediate first aid to injured wild birds, particularly in urban environments. The project emphasizes sustainability and compassionate care for wildlife. It is made from natural materials including eggshell calcium, agar, and potato starch. The materials, specifically the eggshells, were chosen since they provide natural calcium for bone recovery while the rest are to control the decomposition rate. Designers: Zay Kim, Chaewon Lee, and Jungmin Park They developed three splint variants with different decomposition rates to help users identify the severity of the injury and which to apply to that wound. Each material has a different color, including gardenia (yellow), basil (green), and beetroot (red), and this intuitive system helps non-experts still render first aid when needed. Using it is pretty easy as you just have to take the pack from the kit and then crush it. Then you just gently wrap it around the bird’s wound and wait for it to do its work. If you’re still confused about what to do, you just need to scan the QR code on the kit and read and follow the instructions indicated. The QR code links to a simple, step-by-step guide—complete with visuals—to help anyone, regardless of medical or veterinary background, confidently provide first aid to an injured bird. This ensures that even in stressful or unfamiliar situations, users can take quick and effective action without hesitation. BirdAid represents a small yet significant gesture towards integrating compassionate care into daily urban life. It bridges the gap between professional wildlife rescue and ordinary citizens, empowering people to make a difference in moments that truly matter. By enabling city dwellers to aid injured birds using a tool that is both intuitive and environmentally friendly, BirdAid not only supports animal welfare but also fosters a deeper sense of empathy, responsibility, and connection to the natural world within bustling city environments. The post BirdAid concept brings biodegradable splint for injured urban birds first appeared on Yanko Design.

New cyber threat exploits abandoned cloud links and DNS records, hijacking subdomains to deliver malware and scams through scam web pages that look legitimate.

Age verification is coming to app stores in Texas, meaning that users could soon be required to provide some form of identification in order to download anything from the Google Play and Apple App stores, regardless of the app's content. Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas App Store Accountability Act, which is set to take effect at the beginning of next year. The new law, which purports to be about keeping children safer online, has significant implications for user privacy and data security. What will be required for app store age verification in Texas?The Texas law will require Google and Apple to verify the age of all users before they download any app through their app stores, even if the app has no sensitive or age-specific content. Parents will have to provide consent for minors to download apps or make purchases, and app stores will have to confirm that parents or guardians have the legal authority to make those decisions for their children. App stores will also have to share which age categories users fall into (child, young teen, older teen, or adult) with app developers. While the specifics are yet to be determined, that means Google and Apple will have to collect some form of user identification, whether that's a driver's license, passport, or other government-issued ID, or biometric data, such as a facial scan, for anyone using their app stores in Texas. Even more documentation will be required for parents proving legal guardianship of minor users. Utah passed a similar bill earlier this year making app stores responsible for centralizing age verification, and while its requirements are slightly less onerous, they're not much better when it comes to your privacy. How age verification compromises your privacyPrivacy experts—as well as both Apple and Google—have raised alarms about the implications of age verification, noting that requiring all users to turn over sensitive personal information included in data-rich documents that can prove your age is a form of digital surveillance. It creates an identifiable record of online activity and increases the risk that the data will be used, shared, or sold (unlike physical ID checks, which are momentary and impermanent). Age verification also presents security concerns with how sensitive user data is collected and stored. Data breaches are a fact of life in 2025, and individuals may have very little (if any) knowledge about whether and how their information is used and stored without their consent, and without recourse if it is compromised. Aaron Mackey, free speech and transparency litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), notes that the Texas law doesn't have any built-in protections for user data, such as minimizing what is collected and transmitted and for how long it is retained. Plus, there are risks present in the likelihood that app stores will utilize third-party verification services to comply with the requirements, meaning data is available to multiple parties. The EFF and the ACLU also argue that online age verification requirements violate users' First Amendment rights, as they may make protected free speech inaccessible—if adults don't have a valid form of identification, or facial recognition inaccurately estimates age, or minors can't get parental consent—or force people to choose between shielding their privacy and being online. "If I have to provide this level of personal information because the government mandates it just to download an app from an app store, I'm going to be significantly worried about what happens to my data, and I might just decide to not actually download the app or even use this app store," Mackey says.

How I learned to stop sweating every UI detail and ship fasterMade by the author with Midjourney.I wasted too much time early in my design career sweating the wrong details. Now I ask one question before every UI decision:“Default it, or design it?”This simple heuristic has saved me countless hours and arguments, especially in startup environments where resources are limited and speed matters.Every design project requires you to make hundreds of decisions. Some are big like the overall layout. Others are small like the hover state of a button. Facing too many choices can lead to analysis paralysis, making it hard to move forward.Why this mattersProblems arise when designers spend too much time on lower-value minutia at the expense of big, strategic decisions: projects stall, deadlines slip, and teams get frustrated.I’ve been guilty of this more times than I’d like to admit.Looking back, I used to get lost trying to solve details that weren’t immediately relevant. Like, I’d polish edge cases before the core flow was even solid. I thought I was being thorough but really, I was just misallocating energy.Now I try to spot where the real leverage is. Not every moment in the product deserves the same attention. Some things just need to work. Others need to shine.The two pathsWhen you default it, you’re leaning on existing solutions: design systems, platform conventions, or vendor tools. You’re not ignoring the problem, you’re delegating the decision to something (or someone) that’s already solved it well enough.When you design it, you’re choosing to spend the time because you believe that decision has the potential to differentiate. You’re investing creative energy where it can make a meaningful impact.Both paths are valid. The power comes from choosing intentionally.The “Default It” approachThe “Default It” approach is most valuable when you’re getting hung up on a micro-level detail while working on a macro-level project.It’s not that the detail is unimportant, but it’s not the intent of that work. By defaulting micro-level decisions to existing resources, you can expedite macro-level projects.In my experience, many product managers lean toward this approach. “Defaulting it” helps move projects along faster by reducing scope. But if we default every decision, we’re likely to miss opportunities to innovate.The “Design It” approachThe “Design It” approach is most valuable when you need headspace to work in-depth on critical choices that shape outcomes in significant ways.You can make time to “design it” with micro or macro-level work, but each requires your full attention. It can be difficult to toggle between these different points of view, so I find it helpful to scope projects intentionally to focus on one at a time.Designers naturally gravitate toward this approach. It’s where creativity and innovation shine. However, trying to design every small detail can slow projects to a crawl and lead to blown budgets.Finding the right balanceFinding the right balance means negotiating which decisions to default and which to design so your team can focus attention in the right places at the right times.Product managers might push for “defaulting it” to save time and stay on schedule, while designers might advocate for “designing it” to explore creative solutions. This healthy tension can lead to finding the sweet spot for product development.For example, on one product I worked on, we needed to visualize large graph databases. Building a vector-based visualization library from scratch would have given us flexibility, but it wasn’t going to move the needle for our customer experience. We decided to “default” that data viz solution to a third-party vendor whose entire focus was on building that technology. This freed our team to focus on applying those tools to solve our customers’ problems more quickly and effectively.How design systems fit InAs projects grow, certain decisions come up repeatedly. This is where design systems become valuable.A design system is essentially your collection of team approved defaults.While in the early days of a product you might default mostly to external industry standards, over time you’ll encapsulate more of your own decision-making into custom defaults specific to your service.By storing your “defaulted” decisions in a central repository, you reduce the overhead for making solid baseline design choices. This list evolves to reflect updated defaults as new projects demand new solutions, freeing up time to focus on unique challenges.Final thoughts“Default it or design it” helps me triage.It helps my team align. And it helps us ship.By intentionally choosing when to default and when to design, I save time, focus on what’s critical, and direct my creative energy to the most pressing problems.Some moments in a product just need to work. Others need to shine.“Default it or design it” helps me know the difference.Patrick Morgan is the creator of Unknown Arts and lead product designer at Sublime Security. If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to his newsletter and follow him on LinkedIn for weekly insights.Default it or design it was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.