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Reed Exhibitions, the company that organizes PAX and other events in the gaming and entertainment spaces (among other industries), has issued a statement regarding the Coronavirus. The group says all of its events are still planned to go forward “unless otherwise advised.”

This includes PAX East, which takes place starting next week in Boston, Massachusetts. Gaming giant Sony recently announced it was pulling out of the show, and canceling the world’s first public hands-on with The Last of Us: Part II, due to concerns around the virus.

“PAX East 2020 will take place as scheduled with enhanced cleaning and sanitization across the show, including adhering to the recommendations set forth in the U.S. EPA’s Emerging Pathogen Policy regarding cleaning disinfectants effective against the COVID-19 virus,” reads a statement on the PAX East website.

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Author: Eddie Makuch

After a long wait and a period of silence, we finally know when we’ll be able to play Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. The game, last seen at Gamescom 2018, will enter Early Access on March 31, developer Taleworlds has announced. This Early Access release window was promised back in August 2019, but it’s nice to have the date confirmed.

The game will cost $49.99/€49.99/£39.99.

The sequel to Mount & Blade: Warband (which is actually, chronologically, a prequel) was first announced in 2016, so fans of the original (released in 2010) have been waiting a long time. Like its predecessor, this is an action-RPG with some strategy elements, that can be played alone in its campaign mode or online against other players.

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Author: James O’Connor

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Feds took on Big Tech, online harassment, and encryption

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Author: Adi Robertson

Warface surprised us with its arrival on Nintendo Switch this week. To commemorate the occasion, we are partnering with My.Games to give our readers a chance to win a custom-skinned Switch and a copy of the free-to-play FPS.

To sign up for a chance to win, you have to be a legal resident of the US, Canada, or Puerto Rico, read our official rules, accept the terms and conditions of the giveaway, and fill out the form below. If you are not seeing the form, please make sure your ad blocker is disabled and refresh the page.

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Author: Tania Gonzalez

The SpongeBob prequel series, Kamp Koral, now has a premiere date. Nickelodeon has confirmed that the animated show will debut in July, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

As announced previously, Kamp Koral focuses on a 10-year-old SpongeBob, and specifically his adventures at an overnight camp called Kamp Koral. There will be 13 episodes in the first season.

Nickelodeon has also confirmed that Kamp Koral is bringing back the main voice cast, including Tom Kenny (SpongeBob), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick), Rodger Bumpass (Squidward), Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs), Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy), and Doug Lawrence (Plankton). The characters Mrs. Puff (Mary Jo Catlett), Karen (Jill Talley), and Pearl (Lori Alan) are also coming back.

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Author: Eddie Makuch

Photo by Avery White for The Verge

Google has released the first developer preview for Android 11, the next version of its mobile operating system. It’s the earliest Google has ever done a preview like this, so the updates here aren’t that front-facing, but Google’s making some big promises, like improved support for 5G, better privacy features, and new messaging interfaces.

Also: this is really, really a preview meant for developers only — it’s just for the Pixel 2, 3, 3A, or 4, and it can only be installed with a full flash that will wipe all your data. In other words, you shouldn’t install this on your main device, unless you like using a busted phone.

Fortunately, we’ve got a spare Pixel around and dug up some neat features in the early beta. Here’s what’s new so…

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Author: Chaim Gartenberg

Netflix has won the rights to a new movie from Anchorman director Adam McKay that will star Jennifer Lawrence as an astronomer who must inform the world about an asteroid that will kill everyone on earth. The movie has the excellent and appropriate title, Don’t Look Up.

“Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers, who must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching asteroid that will destroy planet earth,” reads a line from Netflix’s description.

It’s unclear who will play the role of the other astronomer.

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Author: Eddie Makuch

Catch up on the most important news from today in two minutes or less.
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Author: Alex Baker-Whitcomb

Image: Wikipedia

Larry Tesler, a computer scientist who is most well-known for creating the seminal computer concepts cut, copy, and paste, died on Monday at age 74.

Tesler was born in 1945 in New York and studied computer science at Stanford, according to Gizmodo. After working in AI research, he joined Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973, where he developed cut, copy, and paste. The concepts would later become instrumental user interface building blocks for both text editors and entire computer operating systems.

PARC is most famous for its early work on graphical user interfaces and how to navigate them with a mouse — and because Apple co-founder Steve Jobs saw this early research and used it as inspiration to develop better iterations…

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Author: Jay Peters

Epic is preparing to launch Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 2 (C2S2) on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and mobile. As always this will mean a period of downtime as the company prepares the big update, and according to the studio its proceeding patches will be bigger than usual. Server downtime will begin on February 20 at 4 AM ET / 1 AM PT.

Epic announced the downtime via the Fortnite Status Twitter account. In a follow-up, the account also noted that patch sizes will be larger than normal with the start of the new season.

Very little is known about the new season, other than some teasers that have accompanied an ARG with globe-trotting clues. Those all seem to indicate spycraft is the theme for this next season, although some teasers we’ve seen have referenced cats, bombs attached to rats, and other odd shenanigans. Just what it all means will be made clear tomorrow, when the new season launches at 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT.

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Author: Steve Watts