PS Plus July 2024 games are official: Borderlands 3, NHL 24, Among Us

On July 2, 2024, Sony officially revealed the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup for July: Borderlands 3, NHL 24, and Among Us. That settled it. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III wasn’t one of the three.

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Borderlands 3 was the main attraction. It brought frantic co-op shooting, mountains of weapon drops, and enough flexibility in its character builds to keep people experimenting for a while. Even so, some longtime PlayStation Plus subscribers felt the pick didn’t hit as hard as it could have, mostly because Borderlands 3 had already been available through PlayStation Plus Extra. That overlap keeps coming up whenever people complain about Sony’s service. Among Us still carries plenty of influence, but it also got some pushback because it’s already cheap on other platforms. NHL 24 fell into the familiar late-cycle sports-game category: useful if you’re into hockey, much less exciting if you aren’t.

If what you wanted was one recognizable multiplayer game, the update still felt worth claiming, and Borderlands 3 also showed up at a pretty convenient moment with the Borderlands movie set for August 2024.

July had a bit more for PlayStation Plus subscribers, too. A Genshin Impact bundle arrived on July 16, and the Extra and Premium catalogs picked up additions like Remnant II and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, even as some gaming coverage called it one of the weaker PlayStation Plus months of 2024. All three Monthly Games were available to add to your library on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 from July 2 through August 6, 2024.

Apple Maps in iOS 27 gets sharper city views: smarter search too

Apple says Apple Maps on iPhone is getting a solid refresh in iOS 27. The update brings sharper Flyover 3D city views, better place recommendations, more natural route searches, a Parked Car Smart Stack widget, some Offline Maps upgrades, and a new Liquid Glass app icon.

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For Flyover, Apple says it’s using updated rendering and new aerial imagery, which should make buildings, reflections, lighting, and greenery look more lifelike. Maps is also leaning harder into discovery with Local Lists, broader Suggested Places, and Trending Restaurants. A few limits matter, though: Flyover is only coming to select cities, Local Lists is U.S.-only, and Apple still hasn’t fully spelled out what the Offline Maps changes actually are.

This update sits on top of the work Apple has already done with rebuilt map data, Look Around, 3D landmarks, and more specialized routing, including U.S. national park hiking trails that you can save for offline use. Google Maps still does better on discovery, reviews, and planning trips with multiple stops. Still, Apple Maps has gotten a lot more competitive when it comes to basic navigation.

If you use Apple Maps often, this one looks worth downloading for the day-to-day convenience alone. You’ll get it in Apple Maps on iPhone with iOS 27, Apple says, though what you can actually use will depend on where you live and where you travel.

X launches Live Studio: $1 million creator fund is now live

X, the platform many people still call Twitter, has rolled out Live Studio inside Creator Studio. It’s available now, with a new dashboard for livestreaming and a $1 million creator payout fund built around live video.

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X says you can schedule streams, upload thumbnails, limit access to subscribers or verified users, and keep an eye on numbers like concurrent viewers and audience demographics from the same place. The company is pushing harder on live content, and this looks like a direct bid to look more competitive next to YouTube and Twitch.

The fund is meant to get creators trying live video right away. What’s still missing is the part people will actually want clarified before they commit real time to it: X hasn’t said what the long-term payout model will look like or exactly which benchmarks creators will need to hit.

If you stream on X often, this is something to pay attention to.

There are catches. The more advanced Live Studio features require an X Premium subscription, livestreaming itself is on track to become Premium-only, and X is also giving monetization preference to original creators over repost and aggregation accounts.

That all fits with X’s bigger video push, especially as video viewing on the platform keeps climbing and the X TV app has now joined the mix. But X still has to show it can support bigger streams without issues, and it needs to explain payouts in a way that isn’t so vague.

You can get to Live Studio now through X’s Creator Studio. If you want the advanced tools, you’ll need X Premium.