Paul's Hardware (1.48M subscribers)

June 30, 2024

Video length: 11m 39s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - June 30, 2024

1:23 AMD X870E & X870 Motherboards To Launch Sept 30th - 9800X3D Too?

3:40 Battlemage getting ready: Intel adds 5 new Device IDs to Linux Xe kernel

4:49 Intel’s optical interconnect tech delivers 4Tbps of bandwidth from 100m away

5:53 AMD approached to make AI supercomputer powered by 1.2 million GPUs

TECH BRIEFS

7:34 Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Super Windforce MAX hides PSU cable better

8:20 Toys ‘R’ Us AI-Generated Ad Causes Controversy

9:02 Faces made of living skin make robots smile

9:42 NASA Selects SpaceX To Destroy The International Space Station In 2030s

10:19 Man flies nearly 1,000 miles to attack fellow gamer with hammer

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Table of contents:

1. Windows 10 and 11 news
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and 10

Here we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And of course, you may find a word or two about older but still supported versions.

This week's Windows section kicks off with some non-security updates for Windows 10 and 11. The latter received KB5039302. It is full of interesting new features that are rolling out gradually to users who are willing to install optional updates. Interestingly, soon after the release, Microsoft was forced to pause the rollout as KB5039302 was causing severe issues with users' PCs and infinite restarts. Luckily, the update is once again available for download, but there is another known bug you should beware of.

According to the official documentation, KB5039302 breaks the taskbar on systems with Windows N editions (those without the Windows Media Player app and some other components). Microsoft is working on resolving the problem as soon as possible.

Windows 10, on the other hand, received KB5039299, which fixed a bunch of bugs, including the one breaking jump lists.

Windows 10 will reach its end of life in less than two years, and analysts predict that the event will trigger a tidal wave of PC upgrades. Some of the users upgrading from Windows 10 will choose Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs with ARM processors, which earned some praise for their repairability. iFixit took those computers apart and discovered that modern Surface devices are now much more repair-friendly. Getting inside is now much easier; each component is labeled with convenient QR codes and additional information, plus users have access to the official guides and parts.

Overall, both the Surface Laptop 7 and the Surface Pro 11 scored 8 out of 10 on iFixit's repairability scale.

But if you are a Windows 10 user and you do not plan to switch from the beloved OS, you will be glad to know that 0patch will offer at least five years of additional support for Windows 10. The service won't be free, but it will provide you with a bunch of conveniences and a much longer support period compared to Microsoft's Extended Security Update program.

Going back to Surface, remember the Surface Duo, the quirky dual-screen Android smartphone that failed? The device pretty much died after its second generation, but a recent Microsoft patent might be a glimpse of what the next-gen could have looked like.

Finally, Microsoft announced that WSUS driver synchronization will be deprecated in April 2025. IT admins should already start planning to upgrade to newer systems.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft Released this week for testing in the Windows Insider Program:

Windows Server also received a new build under version 26244. However, the release notes only contain one small change. As for the Dev Channel, although there were no new builds this week, Microsoft started enabling quite a lot of new features for those on build 26120.961 (KB5038575). They include accessibility improvements, some reworked UIs, Start menu changes, fresh emoji, and more.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

Files, a popular third-party file manager for Windows 10 and 11, received a big update this week. Version 3.5 is now available for download with UI improvements (more rounded corners) and a bunch of small conveniences, such as a network drive widget, improved tooltips, and more.

Do you remember Project Natick from 2016? Eight years ago, Microsoft decided to sink a few servers to see if keeping them under the water was a viable alternative to standard data centers. Despite positive results, Microsoft quietly discontinued the underwater server project and decided not to proceed with building subsea data centers.

On the odd side, users discovered that a single line in a text file could trip Microsoft Defender and cause a false positive. Moral of the story: do not create text files with a "This content is no longer available" string if you do not want your antivirus to panic.

Speaking of text files, we published a short guide for those missing the good old WordPad. As expected, it is very easy to bring the removed app back to Windows 11 version 24H2. All you need is a bunch of files from a pre-24H2 installation.

If you noticed that your desktop is full of random shortcuts after a clean Windows 11 installation, that is because the OS is now enabling folder backup without asking or notifying users during the initial setup. Check out this article to learn how to deal with that.

Mozilla released a small bug-fixing update for Firefox. Version 127.0.2 resolved problems with YouTube video playback and misbehaving private mode on Windows. Microsoft Edge also got some updates. Version 128 is now available for testing in the Dev Channel, and its public release is scheduled for late August 2024. The Stable release received some fixes for bugs causing crashes and security patches.

Other notable updates include the following:

• The EU believes Microsoft has breached antitrust rules with its Teams bundles.

• Microsoft revealed that more emails were accessed by Russia-based hackers.

• Logitech has updated its Options+ software with new accessory support and Perplexity AI.

• Surface Laptop Go 2 received new firmware with connectivity and audio fixes.

• More Copilot features are now available in Microsoft Forms.
• Microsoft Designer received Frame Image and Collage Creator.
• Outlook for Mac received some contact improvements.

• Microsoft added even more functions for syncing up Forms data to Excel spreadsheets.

• Excel for Windows and Mac finally received checkbox support and some translation features.

And here are the newest drivers released this week:

• Intel 31.0.101.5592 WHQL with a single fix for PugetBench crashes.
• Intel 31.0.101.5593 non-WHQL with optimizations for Final Fantasy XIV and The First Descendant.
• Intel Wi-Fi and Bluetooth driver 23.60.1 with Windows 11 version 24H2 support.
• Nvidia 556.12 WHQL with The First Descendant support and more.
• AMD 24.6.1 with Windows 11 24H2 support, Once Human, and more.

Finally, here is the latest edition of Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly, a series where we track new features and changes that are coming soon to Microsoft's productivity apps. The latest additions include folder pinning in the new Outlook for Windows, PDF support in Word for iOS, new Copilot features for Excel, and more.

Reviews are in

Here are the hardware and software we reviewed this week.

Robbie Khan reviewed the Turtle Beach Burst II Air, a wireless gaming mouse that boasts incredibly low weight. Besides being lighter than a Mars bar, it offers excellent software, on-device storage for customization, great optical switches, and 50/50 weight distribution. However, there are some downsides, such as questionable side grips, poor DPI switch placement, and more. Check out the full review here.

The Burst Air II was not the only mouse Robbie reviewed this week. Check out his other review, this time of the Endorfy Liv Plus Wireless: a multi-device gaming mouse with a bunch of neat tricks up its sleeve.

Steven Parker reviewed the Beelink EQ13: a budget low-power mini-computer with the Intel Alder Lake N200 processor. This inexpensive small form factor computer offers solid connectivity, great power efficiency, and the ability to expand its storage with another SSD. A $259 computer cannot be perfect, though, so find out more in the review here.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts and more.

Playground Games will soon delist Forza Horizon 4 from digital stores on Xbox and PC. The studio announced that due to license agreements, it is forced to take the game down on December 15, 2024. Fortunately, you have plenty of time to secure the game in your collection. And the best part is you can do that with a massive 80% discount. And it seems like a lot of people are taking their chance as the game spiked to over 70,000 concurrent players on Steam.

By the way, if you are an Xbox Game Pass subscriber who purchased one of the Horizon 4 DLCs, you will get the game from Microsoft for free so that you can keep it in your library. Neat.

Valve unveiled a bunch of updates for its PC gaming platform. Steam users can now try a new built-in system for recording and editing game footage. Called Steam Game Recording, it is now available in Beta. Also, the company shared some details about controller usage on the platform.

Nvidia has added a bunch of new games for GeForce NOW users. You can NOW play Resident Evil Village, Drug Dealer Simulator 2, and Beyond Good & Evil—20th Anniversary Edition.

Deals and freebies

The Epic Games Store is giving away Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition. You can grab that title for free until the next Thursday. If that is not enough, you better click that Steam icon on your desktop, as the platform is currently offering a massive wave of discounts as part of its annual Summer Sale. It will last until July 11, 10 AM Pacific Time. As usual, you can find more deals in our weekly Weekend PC Game Deals series.

Other gaming stories include the following:

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy for Xbox and PlayStation added mod support.
• Farming Simulator 2025 is now official with Asian farms, ground deformation, and more.
• The original Resident Evil games from the 90s are now available DRM-free on GOG.

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A remake of Riven: The Sequel to Myst launched this week, made by the original game's developers. It strikes a fascinating balance between re-creation and reinvention, and based on a couple of hours of playing it, it's a resounding success.

 

Myst was the classic most people remembered fondly from the early CD-ROM era, but for me, its sequel, Riven, was the highlight. After that, the sequels declined in quality. The sophomore effort was the apex.

 

It was certainly more ambitious than Myst. Instead of a handful of tightly packed theme park worlds, it offered a singular, cohesive one that felt lived in and steeped in history in a way that Myst couldn't quite match.

A worthy presentation

That was thanks to outstanding art direction but also to its iconic musical score.

 

For the most part, the remake nails both of those things. While the original game resembled the first Myst in that you had to click to scroll between static images to explore the game's world, the new one follows the 2020 Myst remake (and 2000's oft-forgotten realMyst) in giving the player full movement, akin to contemporary first-person puzzle games like Portal, The Witness, or The Talos Principle. Since it's easy to re-create a lot of the original camera angles this way, it might have been cool if there had been an option to control the game as you did originally, but I can see why that wasn't a priority.

It just so happens that today's graphics hardware does an outstanding job of replicating previously static visuals in full 3D. (There's even VR support, though I haven't tried it yet.) And the music is just as good as it used to be.

There are only two downsides on the presentation front. First, I've heard that folks running on older machines may struggle to achieve satisfactory fidelity and performance. I played it on both an M1 Max MacBook Pro and a Windows 11 desktop with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. The MacBook Pro ran the game at maxed-out settings at the laptop's native resolution at around 30 frames per second. The desktop did the same at 4K at 120 fps. But those are both high-end, recent-ish machines, so your mileage may vary.

 

Second, the full-motion video performances in the original game have been replaced with full 3D, video game-looking characters. It's a necessary concession, but I feel some of the character was lost. They did a pretty good job matching the motions of the original videos, though.

 

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If you're a free user in the current setup, Slack shows up to 90 days of messages and files you upload. You need a premium subscription to access the older history, which isn't deleted but kept hidden until you upgrade.

The latest change means Slack will only keep your message history and files for up to one year. You'll still get the 90-day full access for free and unlock the extra 275 days when you upgrade to a paid plan.

"Going forwards, this workspace data will be deleted on a continuous basis once it’s more than a year old," Slack said on a support page. It cautions that if you plan to upgrade to the paid Slack after August 26, it'll not be possible to restore messages and files once deletion occurs.

The said change also applies to people using the trial version of Slack. Once the trial ends, the data in their workspace "will be subject to our message and file deletion policy for free workspaces." However, it added that the new message history limit doesn't affect Slack Connect channels and they "will continue to work normally, and any messages and files that they contain will remain available."

Slack will also tweak data retention settings for free workspaces, where users will have to choose whether messages or files (including edits) are deleted after 90 days or kept for a year. They will no longer see an option to keep their data for the lifetime of their workspace.

The latest update comes a month after the team messaging platform was accused of using customer data such as messages, content, and files to train its AI models. However, in a statement to Neowin, Slack defended itself and said "those machine learning models do not access original message content in DMs, private channels, or public channels to make these suggestions.”

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Then, there was the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, Bard’s rebranding to Gemini, Google’s Find My Device network, Pixel 8a, new Apple iPads, and the long-awaited RCS support for iPhone.

OpenAI got its faster GPT-4o model on the market but landed in a controversy over its AI voice sounding like Scarlett Johansson. There is also a version of ChatGPT whose job is to find mistakes in ChatGPT’s responses.

While Apple jumped into a new product category, Microsoft called it quits on Windows Mixed Reality support but will continue to focus on enterprise customers and HoloLens. The Redmond giant introduced a new breed of devices it calls Copilot+ PCs, although, it might have gone too far with some features.

Two minutes of silence for the "Crush" iPad commercial and Google's AI suggesting people add glue to your pizza to stick cheese.

Not just the upgraded versions of traditional tech we have seen for years, 2024 also brought new devices like Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1. How long they’ll sustain on the market is a separate topic of discussion. Also, it’s far from unclear that AI is trying to fit in every nook and corner.

Having said that, we still have six months before calling it a year. Here is a roundup of some tech launches that are on the way.

Capcom Next (July)

Japanese video game company Capcom’s streaming event is just around the corner. Its 25-minute event Capcom Next will start at 3 pm Pacific Time on July 1, where the company will share details about three titles: Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, Kunitsu Gami: Path of the Goddess, and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard for Apple devices.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked (July)

Samsung announced that its second Unpacked event for 2024 will happen on July 10 at 6 am PT / 3 pm CEST in Paris, although, the date was pretty much a known secret. If we blow the dust off our memory, the second Unpacked event was previously known for the Note series, but that prime time has been taken by Samsung’s foldable devices.

This time, Samsung will raise the curtain on Galaxy Z Flip6 and Fold6. Other things expected to arrive include Galaxy Watch7, Galaxy Watch Ultra, and a Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tablet.

The rumor mill suggests that the South Korean tech giant could spill some beans about its upcoming XR headset and launch the Galaxy Ring wearable.

Made By Google Pixel 9 launch event (August)

Much like Samsung, Google is bad at keeping secrets and it often happens that important details of upcoming Google devices leak before the actual launch.

The search giant will introduce its newest flagship Pixel 9 series on August 13, 2024. For that, Google recently shared a teaser on social media to give a sneak peek of the unreleased smartphones. The company might also launch the Pixel Watch 3 at its Mady By Google event.

In addition to Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro, Google is expected to launch an XL variant of Pixel 9 Pro. Previous leaks suggest the devices will feature a pill-shaped camera bump at the back, meanwhile, alleged benchmarks hint at modest improvements over the Pixel 8.

Apple iPhone 16 launch event (September)

The Cupertino giant is readying the iPhone 16 series (with a rumored Capture button) for later this year but there is no official word from Apple. However, it would be safe to say the launch event will happen in September. The majority of iPhone launches Apple has done so far have happened in September, including almost all of the models since 2021.

Apple’s smartwatch is completing a decade of existence this year and the company is expected to launch an Apple Watch X as part of the celebration. Last year, watchOS 10 became Apple Watch’s biggest software update since its debut.

Other than that, there might be two new AirPods models on the stage, while the existing ones will say goodbye. AirPods Pro already got the USB-C treatment in 2023 and Apple will take things slow this year, as per report.

What’s more, Apple releases stable versions of its software updates following the iPhone’s launch. At WWDC 2024, the company previewed Apple Intelligence features alongside updates for its respective product lines.

Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) (October)

SDC 2024 is another Samsung event planned for later this year where the company might launch One UI 7. The latest operating system upgrade will be based on Android 15 which has reached platform stability.

It was reported that the annual developer event is scheduled to happen on October 3 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in Downtown San Jose, California. Among what’s expected from the upcoming update, Samsung might bring a vertically scrolling app drawer with One UI 7.

So, these are some of the 2024 tech launches you might want to wait for. We’ll try to expand this list as more information drops.

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"The goal is to have Assassin's Creed games come out more regularly, but not for it to be the same experience every year," says Guillemot regarding Ubisoft's plans.

The company used to launch an Assassin's Creed entry every year. From 2009's Assassin's Creed II through 2015's Syndicate, Ubisoft had a new game for the series ready yearly. Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey also landed one after the other in 2017 and 2018, respectively, much like last year's Mirage and the soon-to-come Shadows later this year.

Guillemot adds that "there will be plenty of experience variety" for these upcoming games, with "a lot of good things to come." This includes the next mainline entry that's slated to land after Assassin's Creed Shadows: Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe. "We're going to surprise people, I think," added Guillemot regarding this mysterious RPG entry set during the witch trials.

Guillemot also confirmed in the interview that the future of Assassin's Creed will include remakes of older games:

"Players can be excited about some remakes, which will allow us to revisit some of the games we've created in the past and modernize them; there are worlds in some of our older Assassin's Creed games that are still extremely rich."

While no specific games were named during the interview, a report from last year said a remake of Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag is currently in development at Ubisoft. Considering the popularity of this entry set in the Golden Age of Piracy, it may be one of the projects the company is currently working on within its numerous studios.

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Windows 10 could be one of the driving forces behind increasing shipments as the operating system is reaching its end of life, as per the report, encouraging consumers and businesses to consider a new purchase.

“With a significant portion of the PC installed base still on Windows 10, the next four quarters are expected to bring even stronger momentum to the refresh cycle," said Canalys analyst Greg Davis while commenting on the situation.

PC shipments reached good numbers at the start of 2024 as device vendors continued to offer discounts after the holiday season. The analyst said that consumer and enterprise spending grew as "macroeconomic conditions in the US have been stable for several months."

An influx of AI-powered PCs in both the Apple and Windows ecosystems might catapult shipment numbers and meet forecast estimates. "This timing also coincides with greater availability of on-device AI capabilities in the market, with new products and user experiences set to excite consumers and businesses across both the Windows and Apple ecosystems," the analyst said.

PC vendors and their partners are expected to prioritize strategies to capitalize on potential consumers wanting to upgrade to premium devices, pushing the US to become a leader in AI PC adoption. Microsoft showcased its AI-fitted Copilot+ PCs last month, which was followed by Apple Intelligence features at WWDC 2024.

Speaking by the numbers, Mac computers ate a significant chunk of the US PC market share (14.2%) and recorded a 22% year-on-year growth in Q1 2024. Lenovo came up as the winner among Windows PC vendors with a 22% growth, while the numbers went down for Dell and HP. However, the two still have the highest market shares for the quarter.

Source: Canalys

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Gamers Nexus (2.22M subscribers)

53 minutes ago

Video length: 26m 07s

00:00 - Google Getting Worse

02:00 - Users Need to Suffer

06:57 - Reddit As Data

11:48 - Google's Competition & Alternatives

17:55 - Keeping People On Google

21:50 - What Happens When Websites Die

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Gaming news site PCGamesN has a web tool, SteamIDFinder, that can do a neat trick. If you buy PC games on Steam and have your user profile set to make your gaming details public, you can enter your numeric user ID into it and see a bunch of stats. One set of stats is dedicated to the total value of the games listed as unplayed; you can share this page as an image linking to your "Pile of Shame," which includes the total "Value" of your Steam collection and unplayed games.

 

Using data from what it claims are the roughly 10 percent of 73 million Steam accounts in its database set to Public, PCGamesN extrapolates $1.9 billion in unplayed games, multiplies it by 10, and casually suggests that there are $19 billion in unplayed games hanging around. That is "more than the gross national product of Nicaragua, Niger, Chad, or Mauritius," the site notes.

That is a very loose “$19 billion”

"Multiply by 10" is already a pretty soft science, but the numbers are worth digging into further. For starters, SteamIDFinder is using the current sale price of every game in your unplayed library, as confirmed by looking at a half-dozen "Pile of Shame" profiles. An informal poll of Ars Technica co-workers and friends with notable Steam libraries suggests that games purchased at full price make up a tiny fraction of the games in our backlogs. Games acquired through package deals, like the Humble Bundle, or during one of Steam's annual or one-time sales, are a big part of most people's Steam catalogs, I'd reckon.

 

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Then there's what counts as "Unplayed." Clicking on the filtering tool next to my Steam library and choosing "Unplayed" suggests that I have 54 titles out of 173 total that I have never cracked open. My own manual count of my library is closer to 45. Steam and I disagree on whether I've launched and played Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (I definitely did and was definitely overwhelmed), Mountain, and SteamWorld Dig. And Steam is definitely not counting games that you buy through Steam, mod in some way, and then launch directly through a Windows executable. I'm certain I've played some TIE Fighter: Total Conversion, just not through Valve's channels. One Ars editor played Half-Life 2 multiple times from 2004–2007, but Steam says they've never played it, because it didn't start counting gameplay hours until March 2009.

 

Even if they're not dedicated tools, Steam libraries sometimes end up with little bits of game that you didn't ask for and might never play, like Half-Life Deathmatch: Source. I have quite a few Star Wars games that I never intend to launch, because they were part of a bundle that got me Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast for cheaper than either game cost on its own.

What “shame” really looks like

Curious as to what people's backlogs look like, I asked friends and co-workers to run their own numbers after checking them for errors and oddities. Here's the Ars list:

 

• Kevin Purdy: 173 games, 45 unplayed (26 percent)
• Lee Hutchinson: 361 games, 109 unplayed (30 percent)
• Benj Edwards: 404 games, 148 unplayed (36.6 percent)
• Andrew Cunningham: 172 games, 79 unplayed (46 percent)

 

Friends who did a check ended up at 25 percent, 40 percent, and 52 percent. So nobody I could easily poll had fewer than 25 percent of their games unplayed, and those with higher numbers tended to have bought into bundles, sales, add-ons, and other entry generators. And nobody thought their dollar value total made any sense at all, given the full-price math.

 

Back in 2014, Kyle Orland went deep on Steam statistics. Among games released since Steam started tracking hour counts in March 2009, 26 percent had never been played at that point, while another 19 percent had only been played for an hour or less. That's roughly 45 percent of games having been played for an essentially token amount of time.

There is a much larger point to argue here, too: You do not have to feel "shame" about giving too much money to people making games, especially smaller games, if you do not want to. This applies to even broader understandings of "Unplayed," like checking out an intro level or two. Sometimes playing a game for a little bit and deciding it's not something you want to put dozens more hours into is worth it, whether or not you go for the refund. If you've looked up your own stats and feel surprised, you can keep your unplayed games as a dedicated collection in Steam, and it might inspire you to check out the most intriguing left-behinds. Or, like me, filter that list further by the games that are Steam Deck Verified and bring them on your next trip.

 

You can usually make additional money more easily than additional life. Nobody is going to inherit your Steam library (probably), so it's not really worth anything anyway. Play what interests you when you have the time, and if your unplayed count helps you stave off your worst sale impulse buys or rediscover lost gems, so be it. There are neat tricks, but there is no real math—and no real shame.

 

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A team of researchers, led by scientists from the University College of London (UCL) and the University Medical Center Goettingen, has developed a simple blood test that employs artificial intelligence (AI) to predict Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before symptoms appear.

Parkinson’s disease is the world’s fastest-growing neurodegenerative disorder and currently affects nearly 10 million people across the globe.

The condition is a progressive disorder that is caused by the death of nerve cells in the part of the brain called the substantia nigra, which controls movement. These nerve cells die or become impaired, losing the ability to produce an important chemical called dopamine, due to the build-up of a protein alpha-synuclein.

Early Detection and Treatment

Senior author, Professor Kevin Mills (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health), said: “As new therapies become available to treat Parkinson’s, we need to diagnose patients before they have developed the symptoms. We cannot regrow our brain cells and therefore we need to protect those that we have.

“At present we are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted and we need to start experimental treatments before patients develop symptoms. Therefore, we set out to use state-of-the-art technology to find new and better biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease and develop them into a test that we can translate into any large NHS laboratory. With sufficient funding, we hope that this may be possible within two years.”

The research, published in Nature Communications, found that when a branch of AI called machine learning, analyzed a panel of eight blood-based biomarkers whose concentrations are altered in patients with Parkinson’s, it could provide a diagnosis with 100% accuracy.

The team then experimented to see whether the test could predict the likelihood that a person would go on to develop Parkinson’s.

They did this by analyzing blood from 72 patients with Rapid Eye Movement Behaviour Disorder (iRBD). This disorder results in patients physically acting out their dreams without knowing it (having vivid or violent dreams). It is now known that about 75-80% of these people with iRBD will go on to develop a synucleinopathy (a type of brain disorder caused by the abnormal buildup of a protein called alpha-synuclein in brain cells) – including Parkinson’s.

When the machine learning tool analyzed the blood of these patients it identified that 79% of the iRBD patients had the same profile as someone with Parkinson’s.

Long-Term Study and Future Prospects

The patients were followed up over the course of ten years and the AI predictions have so far matched the clinical conversion rate – with the team correctly predicting 16 patients as going on to develop Parkinson’s and being able to do this up to seven years before the onset of any symptoms. The team are now continuing to follow up on those predicted to develop Parkinson’s, to further verify the accuracy of the test.

Co-first-author Dr. Michael Bartl (University Medical Center Goettingen and Paracelsus-Elena-Klinik Kassel) who conducted the research from the clinical side alongside Dr. Jenny Hällqvist (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery), said: “By determining 8 proteins in the blood, we can identify potential Parkinson’s patients several years in advance. This means that drug therapies could potentially be given at an earlier stage, which could possibly slow down disease progression or even prevent it from occurring.

“We have not only developed a test, but can diagnose the disease based on markers that are directly linked to processes such as inflammation and degradation of non-functional proteins. So these markers represent possible targets for new drug treatments.”

Co-author, Professor Kailash Bhatia (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery) and his team are currently examining the test’s accuracy by analyzing samples from those in the population who are at high risk of developing Parkinson’s, for example, those with mutations in particular genes such as ‘LRRK2’ or ‘GBA’ that cause Gaucher disease.

The team is also hoping to secure funding to create a simpler blood spot test where a drop of blood can be spotted on a card and posted to the lab to investigate if it can predict Parkinson’s disease even earlier than the seven years before the onset of symptoms in this study.

The research was funded by an EU Horizon 2020 grant, Parkinson’s UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research GOSH Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR GOSH BRC), and the Szeben-Peto Foundation.

Professor David Dexter, Director of Research at Parkinson’s UK, said: “This research, co-funded by Parkinson’s UK, represents a major step forward in the search for a definitive and patient-friendly diagnostic test for Parkinson’s. Finding biological markers that can be identified and measured in the blood is much less invasive than a lumbar puncture, which is being used more and more in clinical research.

“With more work, it may be possible that this blood-based test could distinguish between Parkinson’s and other conditions that have some early similarities, such as Multiple Systems Atrophy or Dementia with Lewy Bodies.

“The findings add to an exciting flurry of recent activity towards finding a simple way to test for and measure Parkinson’s.”

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Physicists have demonstrated quantum entanglement in top quarks and their antimatter partners, a discovery made at CERN. This finding extends the behavior of entangled particles to distances beyond the reach of light-speed communication and opens new avenues for exploring quantum mechanics at high energies.

An experiment by a group of physicists led by University of Rochester physics professor Regina Demina has produced a significant result related to quantum entanglement—an effect that Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

Entanglement concerns the coordinated behavior of minuscule particles that have interacted but then moved apart. Measuring properties—like position or momentum or spin—of one of the separated pair of particles instantaneously changes the results of the other particle, no matter how far the second particle has drifted from its twin. In effect, the state of one entangled particle, or qubit, is inseparable from the other.

Breakthrough in Particle Physics

Quantum entanglement has been observed between stable particles, such as photons or electrons.

But Demina and her group broke new ground in that they found, for the first time, entanglement to persist between unstable top quarks and their antimatter partners at distances farther than what can be covered by information transferred at the speed of light. Specifically, the researchers observed spin correlation between the particles.

Hence, the particles demonstrated what Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance.”

A ‘New Avenue’ for Quantum Exploration

The finding was reported by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, where the experiment was conducted.

“Confirming the quantum entanglement between the heaviest fundamental particles, the top quarks, has opened up a new avenue to explore the quantum nature of our world at energies far beyond what is accessible,” the report read.

CERN, located near Geneva, Switzerland, is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. Production of top quarks requires very high energies accessible at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which enables scientists to send high-energy particles spinning around a 17-mile underground track at close to the speed of light.

Quantum Information Science and Future Applications

The phenomenon of entanglement has become the foundation of a burgeoning field of quantum information science that has broad implications in areas like cryptography and quantum computing.

Top quarks, each as heavy as an atom of gold, can only be produced at colliders, such as LHC, and thus are unlikely to be used to build a quantum computer. But studies like those conducted by Demina and her group can shed light on how long entanglement persists, whether it is passed on to the particles’ “daughters” or decay products, and what, if anything, ultimately breaks the entanglement.

Theorists believe that the universe was in an entangled state after its initial fast expansion stage. The new result observed by Demina and her researchers could help scientists understand what led to the loss of the quantum connection in our world.

Top Quarks in Quantum Long-Distance Relationships

Demina recorded a video for CMS social media channels to explain her group’s result. She used the analogy of an indecisive king of a distant land, whom she called “King Top.”

King Top gets word that his country is being invaded, so he sends messengers to tell all the people of his land to prepare to defend. But then, Demina explains in the video, he changes his mind and sends messengers to order the people to stand down.

“He keeps flip flopping like this, and nobody knows what his decision will be at the next moment,” Demina says.

Nobody, Demina goes on to explain, except the leader of one village in this kingdom who is known as “Anti-Top.”

“They know each other’s state of mind at any moment in time,” Demina says.

Demina’s research group consists of herself, graduate student Alan Herrera, and postdoctoral fellow Otto Hindrichs.

As a graduate student, Demina was on the team that discovered the top quark in 1995. Later, as a faculty member at Rochester, Demina co-led a team of scientists from across the US that built a tracking device that played a key role in the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson—an elementary particle that helps explain the origin of mass in the universe.

Rochester researchers have a long history at CERN as part of the CMS Collaboration, which brings together physicists from around the globe. Recently, another Rochester team achieved a significant milestone in measuring the electroweak mixing angle, a crucial component of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which explains how the building blocks of matter interact.

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What you need to know

• iFixit shared its provisional repairability scores for the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 recently.
• Both devices received an 8/10, though they are rated as part of different form factors.
• iFixit praised Microsoft for making repair manuals available from day one, making it easier to remove and replace parts, and labeling parts with QR codes that navigate to repair manuals.

Microsoft shipped its Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 last week. The flagship devices, which run on the Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus, usher in the first wave of Copilot+ PCs. Those chips have dominated headlines so far, but as more reviewers and people get their hands on the PCs, more insight about the hardware trickles out. Well-known repairability experts iFixit shared their provisional repair scores for the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 recently, and early results are promising.

The Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 each received provisional scores of 8/10 from iFixit. Notably, iFixit has different scales for various form factors. The Surface Pro 11 received an 8/10 on iFixit's tablet scale, while the Surface Laptop 7 received an 8/10 on the laptop scale. The numbers being the same does not mean that ease of repair is the same for the new Surface PCs. The scores are relative to other devices within respective form factors. The scores are also provisional, so they could change after further inspection.

Both of Microsoft's new Surface devices are easier to repair than their predecessors. The Surface Pro 7 infamously received a 1/10 repairability score. The original Surface Laptop was called a "glue-filled monster" by iFixit. Microsoft has improved the repairability of Surface PCs steadily over the years, as is illustrated well by the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7.

John Romero remembers the moment he realized what the future of gaming would look like.

 

In late 1991, Romero and his colleagues at id Software had just released Catacomb 3-D, a crude-looking, EGA-colored first-person shooter that was nonetheless revolutionary compared to other first-person games of the time. "When we started making our 3D games, the only 3D games out there were nothing like ours," Romero told Ars in a recent interview. "They were lockstep, going through a maze, do a 90-degree turn, that kind of thing."

 

Despite Catacomb 3-D's technological advances in first-person perspective, though, Romero remembers the team at id followed its release by going to work on the next entry in the long-running Commander Keen series of 2D platform games. But as that process moved forward, Romero told Ars that something didn't feel right.

 

Catacombs 3-D is less widely remembered than its successor, Wolfenstein 3D.

 

"Within two weeks, [I was up] at one in the morning and I'm just like, 'Guys we need to not make this game [Keen],'" he said. "'This is not the future. The future is getting better at what we just did with Catacomb.' ... And everyone was immediately was like, 'Yeah, you know, you're right. That is the new thing, and we haven't seen it, and we can do it, so why aren't we doing it?'"

 

The team started working on Wolfenstein 3D that very night, Romero said. And the rest is history.

Going for speed

What set Catacomb 3-D and its successors apart from other first-person gaming experiments of the time, Romero said, "was our speed—the speed of the game was critical to us having that massive differentiation. Everyone else was trying to do a world that was proper 3D—six degrees of freedom or representation that was really detailed. And for us, the way that we were going to go was a simple rendering at a high speed with good gameplay. Those were our pillars, and we stuck with them, and that's what really differentiated them from everyone else."

 

That focus on speed extended to id's development process, which Romero said was unrecognizable compared to even low-budget indie games of today. The team didn't bother writing out design documents laying out crucial ideas beforehand, for instance, because Romero said "the design doc was next to us; it was the creative director... The games weren't that big back then, so it was easy for us to say, 'this is what we're making' and 'things are going to be like this.' And then we all just work on our own thing."

 

The early id designers didn't even use basic development tools like version control systems, Romero said. Instead, development was highly compartmentalized between different developers; "the files that I'm going to work on, he doesn't touch, and I don't touch his files," Romero remembered of programming games alongside John Carmack. "I only put the files on my transfer floppy disk that he needs, and it's OK for him to copy everything off of there and overwrite what he has because it's only my files, and vice versa. If for some reason the hard drive crashed, we could rebuild the source from anyone's copies of what they've got."

AI: Not just for enemy demons anymore

For all the talk of generative AI revolutionizing the process of game development, Romero said he is skeptical that such a system could or should be a truly creative force in the game design space.

 

"It's important for us to be super original," he said. "Generative AI depends on databases of information that is stuff that's already created, and we're trying to create a brand-new thing. Making brand new things is not what generative AI does yet—I know they're working on trying to do that—but it's important that when you're making an original game, you're using your design sense and working with people and coming up with things that you have not seen before. So you are limited by generative AI if you are trying to use it that way."

 

Romero said generative AI can be useful as a kind of "super-Google" to get direct answers to nitty-gritty programming questions or ideas for "a distribution of hit points on enemies that are boss-level and regular-level" for instance. "But when it's used to come up with images or creative concepts, that's problematic because that's not coming from your own data." Romero added that paying the sources that AI models use for training "is hard to do—not everyone can do it—but it's really important, the fact that people are ethically using AI."

 

During his pre-id time at Softdisk, Romero said he and his colleagues kept things agile and avoided the dreaded feature creep mainly due to extreme time pressures. No matter what, they had to get out a new game every two months to go with the next Gamer's Edge magazine. "We weren't trying to throw everything in, [because] we've got another game we can try right after it," he said. "Maybe we experiment with that one. So there's no reason to feel like you're cramming everything into one game."

 

The formation of id Software in 1991 meant that Wolfenstein 3D "was the first time where we felt we had no limit on time," Romero said. That meant the team could experiment with adding in features drawn from the original 2D Castle Wolfenstein, things like "searching dead soldiers, trying to search in open boxes and drag the soldiers out of visibility from other soldiers, and other stuff that was not just 'mow it down.'"

 

But Romero says those features were quickly removed since they got in the way of "this high-speed run-and-gun gameplay" that was emerging as the core of the game's appeal. "It's violating the game whose character is now coming through as we make it. You kind of find the game while you're making it. You have a plan, but then the game itself is kind of coming out of what we're making. We can keep on shaping it or forcing it in a certain direction or let it go where it's going."

 

One of the last steps necessary to get Wolfenstein 3D out quickly, Romero said, was ignoring the publisher's suggestion that they double the game's size from 30 to 60 levels. But Romero said the publisher did give them the smart advice to ditch the aging EGA graphics standard in favor of much more colorful VGA monitors. "You're a marketing guy, you know what's going on, we trust you, we will do that immediately," Romero recalled saying.

 

Anything that got in the way of Wolfenstein's run-and-gun gameplay was removed.

From WADs to boomer shooters

It'd be easy for Romero to say that they were chasing an obvious market desire for a new style of game when making Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. But looking back, he said their motivations at the time were much simpler.

 

"We were making games that we wanted to play," he said. "We weren't worried about audience. We were the audience. We played every game on all the systems back then. We were consumers, and we knew what we wanted to make. We made so many games that we were past our learning years of how to make game designs. We were at the point where the 10,000 hours was over. Way, way over."

 

I wanna rock

Romero said that during the heyday of Wolfenstein and Doom, he felt useful fulfilling the company's many interview requests so the rest of the team wouldn't be distracted. "It was most helpful if I could talk to the journalists about the games since I knew every single part of the project from the business to the programming to the design and everything," he said. "It was like a one-stop shop, and I didn't have to take up other people's time."

 

But Romero said he was a bit mystified by the "rock star" image he acquired in some corners of the press at the time. "I think a lot of the rock star image came from my hair, which I wear long not because I want to be a heavy metal singer or something but because I'm Indigenous—Yaqui and Cherokee—and we all wear our hair long. Our memories are in our hair."

 

"It's funny because I never really considered myself much of a rock star," he continued. "I always looked up to Bill Budge, who was really the first [game development] rock star. The classic EA ad with all those awesome pioneers... He was just incredible, and everyone basically called him the rock star of the game industry. [Budge and Richard Garriott]—they're the ones I was looking up to. I'm just a super nerd. I'm a programmer."

 

That didn't mean the early id team ignored community feedback, though. Romero said that after Wolfenstein 3D's release, he quickly realized that "people were trying to mod Wolfenstein, and we had no idea until we saw people do it. And it was really hard for people to mod Wolfenstein because it was fully compressed in two different ways—just to make it smaller on disk, not because we were trying to stop people [from modding]."

 

"But when we saw the lengths people had to go to just to get access and make levels, it was like, we need to completely open the next game," Romero continued. "That's why Doom's WAD file formats were put out there, and our level formats were out there. That's what let people generate tons of content for Doom."

 

Romero said that looking back, he thinks Doom hit that sweet spot where players could create robust maps and content without getting bogged down in too many time-consuming details. "People who are content creators want to make something and see it within seconds. That's a payoff, and Doom allowed that. In ten seconds, I can make a room in Doom and run it. It's that fast, which is great. Anything past that point—like Quake is just ten times longer because it's full 3D, point sources for lighting, you have to run it through a process... it got to a complexity level."

 

Beyond quick WAD file creation, though, Romero expressed awe at what dedicated modders have been able to build on top of the now open source Doom engine over the decades. He specifically pointed to Selaco as a game that shows off just how far the updated GZDoom engine can be taken.

 

"It feels like you're in Doom just because it's using that engine, but what you're seeing and hearing has nothing to do with Doom," he said. "Every pixel is new and all the sound and gameplay. It's like a tactical shooter but with Doom's pixels and that kind of art aesthetic."

 

Romero identified that "dated retro look"—combined with "newer design sensibilities" that have developed since the '90s"—as the key to the appeal of the somewhat derisively named "boomer shooter" genre. "That aesthetic is on its 30-year cycle; it is now the thing... I don't know what it is about a 30-year cycle—it's an interesting generational thing; I'm sure someone has done an analysis of it—but it is what people are feeling. It's the reason why vaporwave is so big now. There is this thing that is in the water, basically, and people like it."

 

To Romero, the nostalgia sets a certain player expectation for a boomer shooter, but then, "I have a surprise because I have this 30 years of design language improvement that I can put into a retro look and surprise people... that's what gets people excited—they get the surprise of some modern design but in a package that feels like it's from 1995," he said.

 

Beyond the boomer shooter, though, Romero said he admires how the battle royale genre has made the shooter more accessible for players who weren't raised on the tight corridors of Doom and its ilk.

 

"If someone who's not good at a shooter jumps into [a game like Counter-Strike], they're dead, mercilessly," Romero said. "It's not fun. But what is fun is 'I'm not that good, I'm gonna jump into a game that is a battle royale, and I get to play with other people who are really good, but I actually survive for five minutes. I find some stuff; maybe I shoot somebody and take them out. You're gonna get shot, but you had an experience; you learn something, and you jump in and do it again."

 

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What you need to know

• Microsoft no longer has any active underwater data centers.
• The company experimented with underwater data centers as part of its Project Natick.
• Underwater data centers saw one-eighth of the failure rate compared to on-land counterparts.
• Microsoft explained that it will use what it learned from the project in other cases.

With the heat dome causing temperatures to soar in many parts of the world, jumping into a frigid sea may sound refreshing. But if you do jump into cold waters, you won't have the company of underwater data centers from Microsoft. The tech giant began testing underwater data centers in the North Sea in 2018, but it no longer has any active underwater data centers.

The undersea data centers were part of Microsoft's Project Natick, which aimed to test the feasibility of placing data centers underwater. The experiment saw giant tubes placed 117 feet below the surface of the Scottish sea. The unique environment of the datacenter allowed Microsoft to test several factors, such as filling the data center with nitrogen rather than oxygen.

Humans and machines have very different needs when it comes to creating an environment for optimal performance. Oxygen is essential for people, but it can cause damage to computers. Temperature requirements also differ greatly between mankind and machines. Keeping the data centers separate from humans also prevented anyone from bumping into components.

Gamers Nexus (2.22M subscribers)

June 23, 2024

Video length: 30m 25s

00:00 - Recapping the Week

01:48 - Computex and ASUS Recap

04:50 - Cybercriminal Might Possess AMD Data

07:01 - EVGA X670E Classified Board Leaked

09:54 - US Sues Adobe Over Consumer Protection

15:55 - DeepCool on US Sanctions List

27:39 - Hyte's New Case, Cooler, Fans,Colors

29:20 - Xbox New Models

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Paul's Hardware (1.48M subscribers)

June 23, 2024

Video length:10m 41s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - June 23, 2024

1:22 AMD working with law enforcement after reports of massive data breach

2:39 AMD Falsifies New AM4 CPU Benchmarks for No Reason

4:44 NVIDIA world's most valuable company, briefly

5:28 Gamers Nexus gets ASUS to put their RMA policy fixes in writing

TECH BRIEFS

7:08 Intel reportedly finds Raptor Lake instability bug, but actually no they didn’t

7:54 Adobe updates terms after backlash, DOJ sues Over 'Convoluted' Cancellation Process

8:50 Ryzen 8000G CPUs Get Price Cuts

9:32 YouTube’s Ad Blocker Ban Just Got Even Bigger

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Table of contents:

1. Windows 10 and 11 news
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Gaming news
5. Some interesting trivia

Windows 11 and 10

Here we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And of course, you may find a word or two about older but still supported versions.

Windows 11 version 24H2 is now available for download, but it is not what you think it is. KB5039239 is only available to those with Copilot+ PCs, not regular Intel or AMD-based computers. Version 24H2 for those systems is coming later this year.

Speaking of Copilot+ PCs, Qualcomm is reportedly working on more chips for Windows devices, including low-end models that will make it possible to lower the price tag and create more affordable Windows on ARM devices.

If you are still unsure whether you need to buy a Copilot+ PC or not, check out the list of exclusive features these computers will get you. It contains quite a lot of capabilities, which are currently available only on devices with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processors.

This week, Microsoft confirmed quite a few bugs in the latest updates for its operating system. For starters, KB5036979 and KB5037768 for Windows 10 break right-click for the New Teams, Outlook, and other parts of the operating system. Microsoft is working on a fix, and it will be available in a future update.

Upgrades from Windows 11 Professional to Windows 11 Enterprise do not work. An attempt to upgrade after installing KB5036893 will result in the 0x80070005 error. There are currently no workarounds, so affected customers should sit tight and wait for a fix.

Some Windows 11 users cannot open the Photos app due to group policy conflicts. Fortunately, this one does not affect regular home users. Therefore, you should be ok if you have a non-managed device.

Finally, Microsoft released an out-of-band update for Windows Server 2022 to address SQL issues caused by the June 2024 Patch Tuesday updates.

Moving from bugs, here are some interesting support documents and FAQ articles Microsoft recently published. For example, there is a detailed article on the gaming capabilities of Windows on ARM devices. There is a similar one for printers and app compatibility. Finally, a new support document suggests those wanting to upgrade their computers to Wi-Fi 7 should plan to install Windows 11 version 24H2.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft Released this week for testing in the Windows Insider Program:

The biggest change that was announced for Windows Insiders this week is, hands-down, the new sidebar for the Start menu. Insiders can try out the new Phone Link pane that shows brief information about your phone, quick access links, and other things.

One of the recent Canary builds in the Windows Insider program quietly introduced a bunch of upgrades for the Recall feature. It now has the so-called Screenray thing that can quickly analyze what is happening on your screen. Also, Microsoft reworked the home screen, introduced topics, search filters, a better Copilot integration, and more.

The latest Beta Channel build also has some interesting, albeit undocumented stuff. Enthusiasts discovered two feature IDs that allow switching the tray clock to a compact date view and turning off the notification bell.

Another change available for Windows Insiders in the Release Preview Channel (both Windows 10 and 11) is the Copilot app. It now behaves as a regular app, giving users a more flexible experience.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

PowerToys, everyone's favorite set of utilities for Windows 10 and 11, may soon get a new feature that will let you personalize calendar settings in the operating system by specifying what week should qualify as the first of the year and what day should be the first of the week.

The Dev Home app received an update to version 0.15 (still in preview). This release introduced SSH keychain widget improvements, accessibility enhancements, and various fixes.

There is also a new tool for making Microsoft Edge slightly less bloated. A new open-source script published on GitHub lets you set group policies to disable unnecessary parts of the browser for a more streamlined user experience. A similar app also lets you turn off parts of Windows and Edge if you do not need them.

Mozilla released a small update for the Release version of the Firefox browser. Version 127.0.1 is now available with fixes for installation issues on Windows, the bug with losing tabs in password-protected profiles, and more.

Vivaldi, a popular feature-packed Chromium browser, has been updated to version 6.8 this week. The main highlight of the release is the revamped Mail client with prefetch enabled by default. However, there are also additional quality-of-life improvements, such as real-time memory tracking, Chrome extension import, and more.

A bunch of Surface devices received new firmware this week. Day-one updates are available for the Surface Pro 11 and the Surface Laptop 7, which also received their recovery images for software troubleshooting. The original Surface Laptop Studio got some fixes, and three generations of Surface Pro tables received support for the recently announced Surface Pro Flex keyboard.

If you want to buy one of the new Copilot+ PCs but hesitate due to still-unknown app support, rest assured that app developers are busy optimizing their projects for Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered computers. Adobe, for one, is gearing up to launch its Illustrator and InDesign for Windows on ARM somewhere in July.

Microsoft is once again not the most valuable company in the world. This week, Nvidia became the most expensive corporation, overtaking Microsoft and Apple.

Other notable updates include the following:

• Nvidia Broadcast received fixes for Windows 11 version 24H2 preview builds.
• TypeScript 5.5 is out with new features and enhancements.
• Microsoft 365 Insiders can try new KeyTips in Office apps on Mac.
• Microsoft Edge 126 received patches for six security vulnerabilities.

• Microsoft Edge 127.0.2651.8 is out in the Dev Channel with various improvements.

• Microsoft Stream gets Copilot and other features.
• Skype for Business Server Subscription Edition is launching in Q3 2025.
• Microsoft 365 Education customers can now access more Copilot features.
• More improvements are coming to Microsoft Mesh 3D avatar and virtual spaces for Teams.
• Microsoft Designer now lets you quickly restyle images.

• Microsoft Loop now lets users join or share workspaces with just a link.

• Copilot in Teams received a new Custom Tone feature for messages.

   

Finally, check out the latest edition of Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly, where we track new features coming soon to Microsoft's productivity applications.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts and more.

Robbie Khan's review of Still Wakes the Deep kicks off this week's gaming section. This Unreal Engine 5-based horror game delivers excellent voice acting, immersive story, photorealistic graphics, great optimizations, and other aspects of a well-made game. Check out the full review here.

Todd Howard from Bethesda confirmed that Shattered Space is not going to be the final content expansion for Starfield. In a new interview, he shared the studio's plans to bring more content to Starfield. He also spoke about the controversial $7 quest, which many argue is too small for the price. In addition, Todd revealed that Bethesda does not feel the need to rush the next Fallout game as the franchise is currently at its highest.

Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft's arcade racing game on PC and Xbox, has received a new free content update. Dubbed "Modern Horizons," it brings a bunch of modern EVs, fresh Event Lab props, general fixes, and a new car pack. The latter will let you drive some of the most iconic movie vehicles, such as all three versions of the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, and the famous Jeep from Jurassic Park.

Microsoft Flight Simulator also received a new content update with a bunch of reworked cities. City Update 8 reworked Las Vegas with the myriad of its lights and attractions. The update is now available for PC and Xbox users.

Sony's PlayStation 5 console is finally getting a native version of Minecraft, which recently turned 15. It is now available in preview (it also includes the latest Tricky Trials update), allowing PS5 owners to try it before the official launch.

If you are an Xbox or PC Game Pass subscriber, you will be glad to know that a fresh batch of games is coming to you soon. This week, Microsoft announced the next wave of titles for the subscription, promising users access to FC 24, Steamworld Dig, Steamworld Dig 2, Keplerth, My Time at Sandrock, and more. Some of the existing titles will soon leave the catalog, so check out the full details here.

GeForce NOW, another gaming service, also received a batch of new games. They include Still Wakes the Deep, Tell Me Why, As Dusk Falls, and Skye: The Misty Isle. Just keep in mind that you need to own those games to play them on Nvidia's cloud streaming service.

We have also updated our lists of the most anticipated games for Xbox and PC that are coming this year. Check them out here (Xbox) and here (PC).

Other gaming stories from this week include the following:

• Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Microsoft's former Xbox communication lead, is now working for Unity.

• Microsoft's Xbox marketing teams will get a big revamp as its leader departs for Roblox.

• Microsoft revealed a partial lineup of games at its Xbox Gamescom 2024 booth on August 21-25.

• Xbox exec said Diablo IV dominates Game Pass with the biggest launch ever.

• Paradox cancels The Sims rival Life by You, says it was "lacking in some key areas."

   

Finally, this week's Weekend PC Game Deals article features RPG specials, another giveaway from the Epic Games Store, some sweet DRM-free sales, and a lot more. Check those offers here if you have some bucks to spare on PC gaming.

Some Interesting Trivia

A touchscreen MacBook is considered a heresy among Apple fans, but Apple actually experimented with making one almost two decades ago. Someone got hold of a MacBook with a plug-in touchscreen and did the best thing one could do to it - installed Windows XP. Check out this article to learn what happened next.

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Earlier today, at the FlightSim Expo 2024 event in Las Vegas, a presentation on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was made and was live-streamed on the game's YouTube channel. The presentation was hosted by Jorg Neumann, the head of the Microsoft Flight Simulator game franchise, along with Sebastian Wloch, the CEO of the game's main developer Asobo Studio. They also mentioned that 25 other development teams will be contributing to the new game.

The presentation was over an hour long and has lots of new info on the game but here are just some of the highlights.

• The 2024 edition will not only include commercial aircraft and aviation missions, but the new version will allow pilots to do a walk around the aircraft to do pre-flight checks.
• Airports in the game will feature people walking around the terminals and also in walkways to and from parked airplanes.
• A number of the smaller development teams are creating new aircraft that will be available to fly in the 2024 edition. That will include gliders including the Stemme S12 model, which is technically a "powered" glider that runs on solar power.
• Climax Studios, a game developer based in the UK, is working on some of the air racing features in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. They will let flyers participate in races based on real-world events like the Red Bull Air Races and Reno Air Races.
• Finally, the presentation ended with the panel revealing that the most detailed plane ever put into a Microsoft Flight Simulator title will be the Boeing 737 Max, from Asobo Studio.

We will certainly learn more about the new features of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 before it launches.

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Microsoft revealed the new stats about the game during a presentation at the FlightSim Expo 2024 in Las Vegas that was live-streamed on the game's YouTube channel. Ironically, Microsoft Flight Simulator just released a major city graphical update on Las Vegas.

The presentation was hosted by Jorg Neumann, the head of the Microsoft Flight Simulator game franchise, along with Sebastian Wloch, the CEO of the game's main developer Asobo Studio. They began by announcing that the current Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 title now has 15 million unique users. They added that's the highest number of unique users for any flight simulator game in history.

The current game's players have also taken 1 billion flights since the game launch in 2020, and 230 million of those flights have happened in just the last six months. Also, people who create content for the game have now made almost 5,000 add-ons for the title. That includes new aircraft, city updates, airports, missions, and other content.

The presentation also mentioned the devotion of the fans to Microsoft Flight Simulator and how the development team tries to connect to the community. That includes virtual fly-ins and developer streams every week and even connecting at real-world aviation events such as Reno Race Days and also at Alaska Aviation Days.

Even though the development team plans to launch the next major version of the game, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, on November 19, the current 2020 edition of the game will still receive nearly monthly updates until at least 2028. That will include new aircraft, new city and world updates, and more.

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The Surface Pro Flex Keyboard offers several advantages over the previous-gen Surface Keyboards. Its main trick is the ability to work wirelessly thanks to Bluetooth connectivity and a built-in battery. There is also a larger haptic trackpad that you can customize in Settings and quieter clicks for more comfortable typing. The Surface Pro Flex Keyboard costs $349.

Here is the official changelog:

Improvements and fixes:

 

• Enables a seamless experience of using the new Pro Flex Keyboard with Slim Pen on the latest Surface Pro devices.

In addition, the Intel-based Surface Pro 9 received patches for three security vulnerabilities reported by Intel. They include the following:

• INTEL-SA-00923: Potential security vulnerabilities in the Intel Converged Security Management Engine (CSME) installer, Intel Local Manageability Service software and Intel Server Platform Servcies (SPS) may allow information disclosure, escalation of privilege, or denial of service.
• INTEL-SA-00929: A potential security vulnerability in BIOS firmware for some Intel Processors may allow escalation of privilege. Intel is releasing BIOS updates to mitigate this potential vulnerability.

• INTEL-SA-00950: A potential security vulnerability in some Intel Processors may allow escalation of privilege and/or information disclosure and/or denial of service via local access. Intel is releasing firmware updates to mitigate this potential vulnerability.

   

You can download the latest firmware for your Surface Pro tablet in Settings > Windows Update. Alternatively, get a manual installation package from the official Surface website here (Surface Pro 10 for Business), here (Surface Pro 9 Intel), and here (Surface Pro 8).

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