Apple halves App Store fees for mini apps

Apple has introduced a new plan for developers who offer mini-apps that could see the commission rate cut in half. Under the App Store Mini Apps Partner Program, devs would pay a reduced rate of 15 percent, compared to the current 30 percent, on qualifying in-app purchases. Apple has a bunch of more detailed explanations and an FAQ about how the partner program will work and what mini apps are eligible. 

Apple’s fee structure has been an ongoing subject of debate, and the company has faced global pressure from regulators to change its commission policies to prove it isn’t engaged in monopolistic, anti-competitive practices. We’ve already seen some changes at Apple this year, as its legal saga with Epic Games wound towards a conclusion and some of the App Store guidelines were changed to allow for external payment options.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-halves-app-store-fees-for-mini-apps-190251153.html?src=rss

Glassbreakers Review-In-Progress: Nuanced PvP Strategy With Adorable Whiskers

“Time is running out!” the voice declares urgently, and I glance up to see 30 seconds left on the clock.

I’m not concerned, though. The game is close but I’m in a strong position. I watch as my opponent pushes his champions down the left lane in a desperate gambit, and I pause to deliberate: do I defend and push the game into overtime, or do I go for the win now? With a single fluid motion, I make my decision, commanding my adorable squad to attack the enemy Glass. It’s risky, but what the hell. I’m all in.

Just as I pass the point of no return, I hear the sound of the already weakened Sway Stone breaking and realize that their attack had been a feint. My opponent is now pushing on my central Glass with a big damage advantage. For the first time in the match, I’m in trouble.

With an easy gesture, I put my squad into retreat, though I’m out of position and weakened by their defensive turret. I mount a valiant final attempt to defend my Glass, chaining special attacks to swiftly take down their tank, but it’s too little, too late. With seconds left on the clock, a brutal AOE spell finishes off my squad, and my Glass along with it.

But so it goes in Glassbreakers, a game where every decision matters, and it definitely ain’t over until it’s over.

The Facts

What is it?: A tabletop strategy battler set in the Moss universe.
Platforms: Quest 3, Steam, Apple Vision Pro (Reviewed on Quest 3)
Release Date: November 13, 2025
Developer/Publisher: Polyarc
Price: $19.99 (Quest, Steam) or Apple Arcade subscription

Mighty Mouse

Set in the same charming universe as the Moss series, Glassbreakers takes that world’s tiny woodland heroes and drops them into fast-paced, strategic tabletop battles. Each player commands a team of three champions – small but mighty creatures that range from a crossbow-wielding rat and an armored hamster to a mechanical insect and mischievous sprites. Fans of MOBAs will feel right at home and recognize the archetypes instantly: tanks, healers, damage dealers, support, and control – they’re all here.

The aim in Glassbreakers is simple: shatter your opponent’s ‘Glass’ before they destroy yours. Flanking the main Glass are two smaller ones: defensive turrets, of which at least one must be destroyed before the central base becomes vulnerable. It seems simple enough, deceptively so as with all good strategy games. Every match becomes a delicate ballet of micro-decisions, positioning, timing, and calculated risk.

Glassbreakers is a predominantly online competitive game. However, there are still options available for those who wish to play solo. While there’s no campaign to speak of, players can spar against AI opponents across three difficulty tiers. At first these will provide an ample challenge and ensure that there’s always something to enjoy solo, but experienced players will likely find the challenge dwindles after a few hours.

As with many online games, long-term success will likely depend on community strength and how active the player base is. This review-in-progress is based largely on a preview weekend that took place in late October, so it’s not been possible to comment on how active the servers are at launch. Nor have I been able to try the Steam or Apple Vision Pro editions yet for comparison.

There is also a co-op mode where players can team up, splitting control of the three champions between the players, though I’ve been unable to try that myself during this pre-release period. Glassbreakers also offers cross-platform support and a player base drawn from Quest 3, Steam, and Apple Vision Pro ecosystems.

In The Deep End

At a glance, it might be easy to miss the level of nuance and depth that Glassbreakers offers. The tutorials are well established to show players how to play the game, but what they don’t do as effectively is show you how to play the game well. My first few forays were graceless exercises in repeated, floundering assaults that, understandably, ended in my swift defeat.

With a little perseverance, however, it’s one of the most sophisticated and well-balanced strategy games that I’ve ever played, and I’m beyond glad I took the time to delve deeper than that first session.

Once you get the hang of it, Glassbreakers offers a brilliantly layered system that forces players to adapt constantly, shifting between offense and defense, darting between risk and reward. It ebbs and flows in real time, where every decision matters and matches can turn on the tiniest miscalculation.

During the early game, battles tend to be cautious, cat-and-mouse affairs. Each time you knock out an opponent, your champion will level up, activating stronger abilities as they do. Playing recklessly gets you knocked out early on, and you’re handing your rival a power boost. There are also various objective points to compete for that, when captured, let you power up one of your champions. Then there is also the all-important ‘Sway Stone’ to contend with, which temporarily amplifies your damage output against the enemy’s Glass once destroyed.

With all these elements at play, each game of Glass becomes an evolving eight-minute balancing act of risk vs. reward. It’s an intoxicating blend of micro and macro-strategy. There’s always something to think about: who to engage, when to retreat, whether to press an advantage or turtle up and force your opponent’s hand. And because every match is short, defeat never feels punishing; it just makes you want to jump back in and try a new strategy immediately.

Squad Goals

The core of navigating this strategic depth lies in building and executing a cohesive team strategy. Players begin with just three champions, but as you play and level them up, more are unlocked, eventually providing access to a roster of twelve. Each champion has a distinct personality and play style, but it’s the synergies between them that define the real depth here.

One of the game’s greatest strengths lies in how differently it plays depending on your team composition. Two tanks and a healer can form a defensive wall that can grind down your opponent, while a high-risk, high-reward trio of damage dealers can obliterate a careless enemy in seconds. There is an excellent array of viable combinations and play styles for players to concoct, and crafting and trialing these is one of the real joys of playing the game.

Beyond this roster of champions, Glassbreakers also offers four maps that introduce different dynamics, changing the flow of battle and rewarding experimentation and creativity.

The VR Of It All

Most VR tabletop or strategy titles struggle with one key question: why does this need to be in VR?

Glassbreakers answers that question emphatically through its brilliantly tactile control scheme. Rather than relying on traditional gamepad-style commands or complex radial menus, it lets you control your champions using simple, physical gestures that feel instantly natural.

Standing (or seated) above the board, you direct your team by grabbing, reaching, and pointing in space. Want to send all three champions into battle? Reach over your shoulder and pull the trigger to select them all, then bring your hand down to point where you want them to go. Need a quick retreat? Just put your hand over your shoulder and double-tap the trigger, and your team will fall back and converge on your central Glass.

Additionally, using gestures like those in Demeo, you can rotate the entire battlefield around you, raise yourself up to get a better vantage of the action, and then zoom back in to move your champions around the board. It’s almost like handling a living hologram.

What really makes this shine is that it’s just as comfortable for gamers who prefer a couch-style experience. You can play seated, relaxed and still feel deeply engaged. It’s this hybrid design philosophy that makes Glassbreakers so special. Many VR games that rely on minimal movement end up feeling like glorified 2D experiences shoehorned into a headset. But here, Polyarc uses VR’s physicality to enhance the experience, not demand effort from it. The result is a perfect midpoint – a game you can play for hours without fatigue but that still leverages spatial awareness, physical presence, and immersion beautifully.

Here To Slay

Polyarc has always been synonymous with charm and artistry, and Glassbreakers continues that legacy with style to spare.

Each of the twelve champions is meticulously designed, bursting with personality and life. Their animations, gestures, and expressive reactions make them feel like living toys. Just as in Moss, Glassbreakers provides heroes you can’t help but get attached to. Even without a narrative, it retains the storybook magic of the Moss franchise.

Importantly for a game where there is so much to concentrate on at once, Glassbreakers is not only beautiful, but easy to read. Icons and symbols don’t clutter the board. Even in the most hectic of skirmishes, it’s easy to get the right information easily so you can make decisions quickly.

Even the menus and home space (set within the iconic Moss library) exude warmth and polish. Sitting there arranging your team, tweaking their colors and skins, feels intimate and personal.

Comfort

Glassbreakers is a tabletop game with movement controls similar to those found in Demeo. Players can pull themselves around the board or rotate it to gain a better view of the action. With very limited actual movement, Glassbreakers should be a comfortable experience for most players.

Sounds Like A Plan

Audio design in Glassbreakers is as impeccable as its visuals.

Each champion’s voice lines are delightfully characterful – distinct enough to feel alive but used sparingly enough to avoid repetition. The soundscape of the battlefield is filled with satisfying detail: the muted crunch of Glass under attack, the metallic ping of Sahima’s chakram bouncing between your opponents, and the satisfying whoosh as Barnard’s spell lands.

The music sways from warm and inviting to building tension as the fight rages on, setting just the right tone for the world – playful, daring, and triumphant all at once.

Spatial audio cues are particularly well implemented. Take your eye off an area of the board, and you’ll hear enemies flanking you before you see them. Whether it’s objectives spawning behind you or your Glass taking hits from across the map, the sound design tells the macro while your eyes are focused on the micro. This attention to directional sound makes every match more immersive and helps maintain focus during fast-paced engagements.

Glassbreakers – Current Verdict

It’s difficult to overstate just how much Glassbreakers gets right. Polyarc has crafted a delightfully polished and truly unique experience – one that blends the strategic depth of classic RTS games and the character class/squad mechanics of a MOBA with the tactile immersion of VR.

Glassbreakers is smart, competitive, and highly addictive and stands as one of the best strategy experiences available in VR – and one of the most charming. I’ll update this review after spending more time with this in the coming days, but it’s a beautifully balanced and brilliantly designed small-scale masterpiece. It deserves a large-scale following and already comes highly recommended.


UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As a review-in-progress, this is currently unscored, and we’ll revisit this review soon.

Robinhood Offers To Bring Cash To Your Doorstep, for a Fee

An anonymous reader shares a report: Robinhood Markets is betting its Gen Z and millennial clientele are as eager to send out for delivery of a wad of cash as they are to order pizza or a pint of ice cream.

The brokerage is joining with food-and-drink delivery app Gopuff to allow customers to withdraw cash from their Robinhood bank accounts and have it brought right to their door. For a $6.99 delivery fee — or $2.99 if they have more than $100,000 in assets across their Robinhood accounts — users can skip the ATM and have money delivered in a sealed paper bag while they are at home.

It is a new feature that Robinhood first teased in March, when Chief Executive Vlad Tenev unveiled the company’s plans to roll out many traditional and — as with its cash-delivery service — unconventional banking services.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disney+ may start hosting user-generated AI videos

During Disney’s latest earnings call, CEO Bob Iger spoke about next steps for the Disney+ streaming service, and he noted that the entertainment giant has had “productive conversations” with potential AI partners. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+ might soon play host to user-generated short-form AI videos. 

“The other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user generated content — mostly short-form — from others,” Iger said. He didn’t specify which companies Disney has been in talks with or offer any particularly timeline for the arrival of gen-AI features.

There are already a bunch of ways for people to make and share AI slop videos, so this isn’t a new concept he’s touting. But it is a surprising direction for Disney, which has long been hawkish about protecting both its image and its IP. The company has already made legal moves against multiple different AI platforms, including a cease and desist sent to Character.AI and copyright infringement lawsuits against Midjourney and Hailuo. Iger said he hoped any partnership would “reflect our need to protect the IP,” and it would almost certainly be a lucrative deal for Disney. But even within the confines of its own platform, this is still quite an about-face for the company to now encourage gen-AI creations of familiar characters.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/disney-may-start-hosting-user-generated-ai-videos-185000745.html?src=rss

Arduino Nesso N1 Debuts as a Compact RISC-V IoT Controller with Wi-Fi 6, Thread, and LoRa Connectivity

Arduino has released the Nesso N1, a compact IoT controller developed with M5Stack and built around the ESP32-C6. The device integrates a touch display, onboard sensors, and multiple wireless protocols inside a small enclosure aimed at rapid prototyping and portable embedded applications. The system is built around Espressif’s ESP32-C6 microcontroller, a single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor […]

Privilege escalation in LightDM Greeter by KDE (SUSE Security Team Blog)

The SUSE Security Team has published an in-depth
article
on its findings after reviewing a D-Bus service contained
in LightDM
Greeter by KDE
(the lightdm-kde-greeter package)
for addition to openSUSE Tumbleweed. The team found a privilege
escalation from the lightdm service user to root, as
well as other attack vectors in the service:

In agreement with upstream, we assigned CVE-2025-62876 to track the
lightdm service user to root privilege escalation aspect described in
this report. The severity of the issue is low, since it only affects
defense-in-depth (if the lightdm service user were compromised) and
the problematic logic can only be reached and exploited if triggered
interactively by a privileged user.

The fixes are contained in the 6.0.4
release
of the project.

Something funky is going on at Ubisoft

It’s been clear for some time that all is not well at Ubisoft. Between games not meeting the company’s sales expectations, studio closures, downsizing elsewhere and sexual misconduct issues, it’s been a rocky past several years for the company. 

But now it seems something else may be going on at the publisher. Just before it was set to hold a call with investors on Thursday, Ubisoft said it was delaying its half-year earnings report and halting trading of its shares. It has asked Euronext — the European stock market on which its shares are listed — to halt trading from November 14 until it publishes its earnings results “in the coming days.”

This could mean any number of things. Other companies have delayed earnings reports due to things like accounting issues. But halting trading of the company’s shares could portend major news, such as a sale or Ubisoft becoming a private entity again. Engadget has contacted Ubisoft for comment. 

It was reported late last year that the founders of Ubisoft were looking to take the company private with the help of Tencent. That hasn’t transpired as yet, but Ubisoft (with the help of a Tencent investment) did this year form a new subsidiary called Vantage Studios. That is now overseeing Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six — three of Ubisoft’s most important franchises.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/something-funky-is-going-on-at-ubisoft-184058990.html?src=rss

Millions Of Dell PCs At Risk From High-Impact DDPM Exploit, Patch ASAP

Millions Of Dell PCs At Risk From High-Impact DDPM Exploit, Patch ASAP
Dell has just released a notice to users of its Dell Display and Peripheral Manager (DDPM) software, prompting them to update the software ASAP. Users of the software, which is preinstalled on most Dell business systems but available to all Windows users of Dell peripherals, are advised to update to at least version 2.1.2.12 to get a new patch

Lushfoil Photography Sim Gets Free PC VR Update Next Month

Lushfoil Photography Sim gets PC VR support in a free update next month on Steam.

After launching on Steam earlier this year, the atmospheric photography sim Lushfoil is making its VR debut next month on December 5. Announced in today’s VR Games Showcase, it features a diverse range of locations, from quiet mountainous areas to urban spaces, providing avid shutterbugs with opportunities to explore and snap their perfect shot. You can check out the new trailer below:

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Across the trailer, we can see the player wielding various cameras, including a traditional DSLR and a smaller digital camera, as well as non-photography items like a flashlight, umbrella, and paper airplane. We can also see them forming an L shape with their hands to create a rectangular frame, which provides an alternative means of taking a photo.

Those looking to get into the nitty-gritty of settings will be able to alter important features like the aperture, focus, and zoom, as well as the exposure, contrast, and white balance. Additionally, you can also alter the weather conditions as you please, adding moody effects like snow, fog, wind, and rain.

Lushfoil Photography Sim will make its PC VR debut on December 5 as a free update on Steam.

Bootstrap Island Adds New Sickness System In Last Major Update Before Full Release

PC VR survival game Bootstrap Island just received its last major update before next year’s full release.

Following four major updates during its early access period, the most recent one adding the Riverlands, a fifth update is now available for Bootstrap Island on Steam. Visions adds a new sickness and hallucinations system that warps reality as the illness spreads, which can only be cured through a Lotus Flower. Cures can also be found in the new Medicine Box, which contains six mysterious bottles with unknown contents.

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Release trailer

Visions is also introducing a new story-driven tutorial that reveals your character’s backstory, alongside new in-game item unlocks that appear across the island. New environmental features include subterranean sinkholes that may contain rare resources and quicksand. Dead shipmates killed in your shipwreck will now appear, too. Chests with new items gradually regenerate over time, and this update also promises a quality-of-life improvement for your grab pull.

“With ‘Visions,’ we wanted to push players beyond mere survival,” confirmed Rein Zobel, Creative Director of Bootstrap Island, in a prepared statement. “Illness, hallucination, and uncertainty become part of the experience. Just like in real survival situations, it’s not only the environment you must fight, but your own body and mind.”

As for what’s next, May’s full release roadmap confirmed that the full release will reveal the mysterious island’s deepest secrets, adding tribal inhabitants you can only communicate with via body language. Further updates are planned post-launch focused on new lands and dangers, though little else was confirmed at the time.

Bootstrap Island: Visions is now live on Steam Early Access, with a full release tentatively scheduled for Q1 2026.

Civil war is brewing in the wasteland in Fallout S2 trailer

We got our first glimpse of the much-anticipated second season of Fallout (adapted from the popular video game franchise) in August when Prime Video released an extended teaser. We now have the official trailer, with all the deadpan humor, explosions, and mutant atrocities one could hope for—including ghoulish Elvis impersonators in New Vegas.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

As previously reported, in S1, we met Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), a young woman whose vault is raided by surface dwellers. The raiders kill many vault residents and kidnap her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), so the sheltered Lucy sets out on a quest to find him. Life on the surface is pretty brutal, but Lucy learns fast. Along the way, she finds an ally (and love interest) in Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire masquerading as a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel. And she runs afoul of a gunslinger and bounty hunter known as the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a former Hollywood actor named Cooper Howard who survived the original nuclear blast, but radiation exposure turned him into, well, a ghoul.

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Deadly Delivery Schedules Co-op Comedy Horror Soon On Quest & Steam

Deadly Delivery confirmed a release date on Quest and Steam early next month.

In Deadly Delivery, you and up to three friends take on postal jobs to earn cash, with the warning that the recipients of your precious parcels are located in sprawling, peril-filled mines. With monsters lurking around most corners and an all-important quota to hit, your hopeful group will need to work together – or against each other – to earn their keep. You can check out gameplay below:

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Release date trailer

Communication in Deadly Delivery relies on proximity voice chat. As such, if a teammate strays too far from the safety of the group, you won’t necessarily be able to hear them talking or screaming. To navigate, players can also take advantage of the realistic physics throughout the mines and can climb on top of one another to reach objects or evade danger.

The monsters across Deadly Delivery’s underground setting aren’t simple brutes alone, either, with some able to impersonate your teammates in looks and sound to lure you or trick you out of success. As you make more cash, you’ll eventually be able to upgrade your kit with new gear, cosmetics, and pets.

Deadly Delivery arrives on December 4 on Quest and Steam.

After years of saying no, Tesla reportedly adding Apple CarPlay to its cars

Apple CarPlay, the interface that lets you cast your phone to your car’s infotainment screen, may finally be coming to Tesla’s electric vehicles. CarPlay is nearly a decade old at this point, and it has become so popular that almost half of car buyers have said they won’t consider a car without the feature, and the overwhelming majority of automakers have included CarPlay in their vehicles.

Until now, that hasn’t included Tesla. CEO Elon Musk doesn’t appear to have opined on the omission, though he has frequently criticized Apple. In the past, Musk has said the goal of Tesla infotainment is to be “the most amount of fun you can have in a car.” Tesla has regularly added purile features like fart noises to the system, and it has also integrated video games that drivers can play while they charge.

For customers who want to stream music, Tesla has instead offered Spotify, Tidal, and even Apple Music apps.

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TikTok’s new ‘bulletin board’ feature lets creators send updates to their fans’ inboxes

TikTok introduced a new “bulletin board” feature for creators that allows them to blast out updates directly to their followers’ inboxes. The idea is similar to broadcast channels on Instagram or Telegram’s one-way messaging feature. 

People who opt to join a creator’s bulletin board will receive updates in their TikTok inbox. Updates can include text, links, polls or photos; as well as other TikTok posts or lives. Followers who join a board can react to messages but won’t be able to comment or reply like a typical DM or post. According to TikTok, the feature could be especially useful for musicians and artists, as it allows them to share new songs and give fans a way to “pre-save” an upcoming release.

For creators with a large following, having a bulletin board could help streamline their ability to interact with fans without having to wade through an overloaded inbox or post separate video updates. It also gives them a way to get their work (including links to non-TikTok content) in front of their biggest fans without relying on the whims of the app’s recommendation algorithm.  

Bulletin Board is available now to all creators over the age of 18 with 50,000 or more followers. TikTok users can find and join bulletin boards on creators’ profiles. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktoks-new-bulletin-board-feature-lets-creators-send-updates-to-their-fans-inboxes-181000448.html?src=rss

Mozilla Launches AI Window for Firefox

Mozilla announced on Thursday that it is building an AI Window for Firefox, a new opt-in browsing mode that will let users interact with an AI assistant and chatbot. The feature will become one of three browsing experiences in Firefox alongside the existing classic and private windows. Users will be able to select which AI model they want to use in the AI Window, according to a post on the Mozilla Connect forum.

The company opened a waitlist for users who want to receive updates and be among the first to test the feature. Mozilla described the AI Window as an “intelligent and user-controlled space” that it is developing in the open through community feedback. Users who try the feature and decide against it can switch it off entirely.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.