Years ago, one of the best or maybe only way to purchase games was through the physical media. This included game purchases via CDs and DVDs. Then came the internet and then various online gaming stores like Steam and others. This brought in a progressive change towards the digital media throughout the years.

These days, purchasing a game or any form of media via digital means is more common than purchasing them via CD or DVD. Which has its downsides too. It means that if a game publisher stops selling certain games, getting those games through legal means is almost impossible.

If that is not enough, a new method of playing games is becoming famous in previous few years. It’s the subscription model. In this model, people pay a subscription fee every month and play all the games available in the catalog of the company offering the subscription.

The games as subscription sounds good. Except one, these companies could significantly increase price later. But an even bigger problem with this is that people don’t own any games in it. Looks like Ubisoft wants that to happen.

Ubisoft – Get comfortable not owning games

A few days ago, Philippe Tremblay, director of subscriptions at Ubisoft, gave an interview to GamesIndustry.biz.

In that interview, he discussed the launch (rebranding) of Ubisoft’s new, more expensive tier of subscription service called Ubisoft+ Premium. The Ubisoft+ Premium is in addition to Ubisoft+ Classics (newly available on PC) and offers more and latest games.

In the interview, he spoke about the benefits of subscription services and other things. However, one of the most controversial parts in the interview was this statement:

One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That’s the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That’s a transformation that’s been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect. You don’t lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That’s not been deleted. You don’t lose what you’ve built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.

 

Philippe Tremblay, director of subscriptions at Ubisoft, in an interview to GamesIndustry.biz.

Meaning Of The Statement

Basically, what Ubisoft is saying that people are too used to owning games. Just like people made a move from physical media to digital one, now Ubisoft wants people to get comfortable not owning games at all. In other words, buy our subscription service, play games, forget about owning them.

While during the course of the interview, he explained that Ubisoft doesn’t want to force anyone to use any single method and Ubisoft will keep offering various method of purchase. He also mentioned that he himself has a lot of physical media with him.

But his statement of getting comfortable not owning games has led to massive outrage internet-wide. With people slamming the statement everywhere. If that is not enough, even GOG has joined the chorus.

GOG – Feel comfortable owning games

Reacting to Ubisoft’s statement, GOG made this tweet on X (via Overclock3D😞

The tweet is really simple. It says that players should feel very comfortable in owning games. Games can be bought on GOG without DRM. For record, GOG is owned by CD Projekt Red, which is best known for making games like The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.

What’s interesting here is that GOG directly takes on the idea behind Ubisoft’s statement. This is because all games hosted on the GOG gaming store don’t come with any DRM whatsoever. Simply purchase the game and it’s yours to keep always.

A big problem with DRM is also the preservation of games. There are some highly used DRMs which only work online and allow limited number of activations per device at a moment. Just think about it, what if the DRM servers stop working, the game will stop working even if it’s available for purchase. This is a known problem for many games.

Conclusion

Ubisoft’s statement shouldn’t be looked in isolation. It shouldn’t be looked as some sort of bad intent, either. Ubisoft claims that the subscription is an additional option and not a replacement.

However, it also shows a larger issue in hand. Companies after companies are pushing for subscription based service model over the purchase of media. They don’t want people to own anything. This isn’t limited to games, either. It’s an issue in movie, music and even software industry.

This trend of moving towards people not owning any purchased media is worrying and should be countered. The public has all the right to complain about it.

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According to Politico, both agencies are eager to investigate the deal, notably Microsoft's involvement and its impact on competition in the AI industry. However, neither will give up jurisdiction, creating a roadblock to a formal investigation.

At the heart of the matter is Microsoft's significant investment in OpenAI. Microsoft, which first invested money in OpenAI in 2019, has continued to pour money into the company over the years. Microsoft also integrated OpenAI's services, such as Bing and Office, into its products.

On the other hand, in an interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the company's partnership with Microsoft is solid. And he hopes that Microsoft will continue to invest in OpenAI. However, this raises concerns about unfair advantages for both companies, especially in large language models (LLMs).

In the past, the FTC and DOJ have avoided overlapping investigations to maintain harmony. In 2019, they reached a handshake agreement to split up the tech giants for antitrust investigations—Facebook and Amazon to the FTC, Google and Apple to the DOJ.

Recently, the FTC investigated Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard acquisition but agreed not to leverage it in future jurisdictional negotiations.

Politico reached out to Microsoft for comment on the partnership, but a spokesperson declined and pointed to a December statement from Microsoft President Brad Smith.

Since 2019, we’ve forged a partnership with OpenAI that has fostered more AI innovation and competition, while preserving independence for both companies. The only thing that has changed is that Microsoft will now have a non-voting observer on OpenAI’s Board, which is very different from an acquisition such as Google’s purchase of DeepMind in the UK. We will work closely with the CMA to provide all the information it needs.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership is under scrutiny in the US and by European and UK authorities. In December 2023, the CMA said it was "providing an early opportunity for the parties and interested third parties" to submit comments to the regulator on whether the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership "has given rise to a relevant merger situation."

Source: Politico

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Starting at around the 44:43 mark of the 2024 Developer_Direct video, as part of the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game reveal, the camera lingers on a whiteboard at what we assume to be located at developer MachineGames. On the far left, there's an unmistakable Quake symbol on the board, and we see "AKE 6" right above it.

The way the camera pauses on that whiteboard for a couple of seconds makes it fairly clear that MachineGames, and also Bethesda Softworks and Microsoft, wanted people to notice the Quake symbol and the name above it. It's looking like MachineGames is also working on a new game in the first-person shooter series.

Of course, MachineGames is well versed in working with id Software IP, as the developer has already made a number of critically acclaimed games in the Wolfenstein series. The team also made new episodes for the first two Quake games when they were remastered and released for the PC and modern consoles (Quake: Dimension of the Machine in 2021 and Quake II: Call of the Machine in 2023).

id Software developed the first three games in the sci-fi themed Quake series, starting in 1996. Quake IV, released in 2005, was mostly developed by Raven Software. A spin-off game, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, was developed by Splash Damage and released in 2007. The game that's considered to be the fifth mainline title in the series, the multiplayer PC shooter Quake: Champions, launched in 2017 in early access, and was co-developed by id and Saber Interactive. It was turned into a free-to-play game in 2018 and continues to get content updates.

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On January 24, Apple’s Macintosh computer turns 40. Normally that number is an inexorable milestone of middle age. Indeed, in the last reported sales year, Macintosh sales dipped below $30 billion, more than a 25 percent drop from the previous year’s $40 billion. But unlike an aging person, Macs now are slimmer, faster, and last much longer before having to recharge.

My own relationship with the computer dates back to its beginnings, when I got a prelaunch peek some weeks before its January 1984 launch. I even wrote a book about the Mac—Insanely Great—in which I described it as “the computer that changed everything.” Unlike every other nonfiction subtitle, the hyperbole was justified. The Mac introduced the way all computers would one day work, and the break from controlling a machine with typed commands ushered us into an era that extends to our mobile interactions. It also heralded a focus on design that transformed our devices.

That legacy has been long-lasting. For the first half of its existence, the Mac occupied only a slice of the market, even as it inspired so many rivals; now it’s a substantial chunk of PC sales. Even within the Apple juggernaut, $30 billion isn’t chicken feed! What’s more, when people think of PCs these days, many will envision a Macintosh. More often than not, the open laptops populating coffee shops and tech company workstations beam out glowing Apples from their covers. Apple claims that its Macbook Air is the world’s best-selling computer model. One 2019 survey reported that more than two-thirds of all college students prefer a Mac. And Apple has relentlessly improved the product, whether with the increasingly slim profile of the iMac or the 22-hour battery life of the Macbook Pro. Moreover, the Mac is still a thing. Chromebooks and Surface PCs come and go, but Apple’s creation remains the pinnacle of PC-dom. “It’s not a story of nostalgia, or history passing us by,” says Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a rare on-the-record interview with five Apple executives involved in its Macintosh operation. “The fact we did this for 40 years is unbelievable.”

You could summarize the evolution of the Mac in several stages. The first version kicked off a revolution in human-computer interaction by popularizing the graphical user interface in a compelling package. Then came its design period, characterized by 1998’s iMac. Steve Jobs, recently restored as CEO, used it to put Apple on the path to recovery, and ultimately glory. That design acumen was extended into the realm of software with the development of Mac OS X, launched in 2001. The 2010s were marked with an accommodation of the Mac to the mobile-oriented universe that Apple had seeded with the iPhone. And more recently, the most exciting developments in the Mac have been under the hood, boosting its power in a way that unlocked new innovations. “With the transition to Apple silicon that we started in 2020, the experience of using a Mac was unlike anything before that,” says John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.

Ternus’ comment opens up an unexpected theme to our conversation: how the connections between the Mac and Apple’s other breakout products have continually revitalized the company’s PC workhorse. As a result, the Mac has stayed relevant and influential way past the normal lifespan of a computer product.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, quickly became an insanely successful device, dominating Apple’s bottom line. But the iPhone didn’t replace the Macintosh—it made the Mac stronger. At first, the effect could be seen in how the spirit of mobile interactions was transferred to the Mac, translating touchscreen gestures to the touch pad, and even allowing mobile and desktop apps to interact. “Our goal is to make those products work really well together, to create that consistency,” says Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of human interface design. (He hastens to add that all Apple products work as stand-alones as well.)

In the past few years, Mac innovations sprang from the transition to custom Apple silicon chips first pioneered to power iPhones. “I joke that we had to create the iPhone to create the scale to build the Mac we wanted to build,” says Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. Ternus also notes that the iPhone’s contribution to Apple’s bottom line has been very good to the Mac. “As the business has been successful, it's enabled us to invest and do the things we always wanted to do,” he says.

One example of that, I mention, must have been the recent boost to battery life in Mac notebooks. “When we broke physics?” jokes Joswiak. Indeed, the almost daylong span, 22 hours of battery life in some Macbook Pros, can feel life-changing. Again, this was a collateral effect of efforts to extend battery life in the iPhone.

“When we first started working with Apple silicon, it honestly did feel for us like the laws of physics had changed,” says Ternus. “All of a sudden, we could build a MacBook Air with no fan with 18 hours of battery life,” he says. “The best arrow in our quiver is efficiency. Because if you can improve efficiency, everything gets better.”

For the past few years, the form factors of Macintoshes have been fairly stable. Could a Mac in the future look totally different, as when the iMac morphed from a basketball to a lamp?

“There’s definitely the possibility for a revolution in the future,” says Molly Anderson, a leader in industrial design at Apple. “When we start a new project, we don't start by thinking of the constraints of how popular our existing products are. We're always focused on trying to design the best tool for the job.” Joswiak adds that it has taken courage to keep changing the Mac to keep it on the forefront—always, of course, in a deliberate fashion. “The road to tech hell is paved by people who can do things because they can, not because they should,” he says.

Could the next wave of big changes to the Mac spring from the same creative well that developed Apple’s newest product line, based on what Apple calls “Spatial Computing”? The Vision Pro, flag-bearer of that mixed-reality category, ships next month. Dye says that it’s 100 percent possible it influences the Mac, noting that the headset has already been shaped by the PC’s innovations. “The Mac experience already is on Vision Pro,” he says, referring to how it’s possible to navigate through apps or browse the web on the headset—or even tap a virtual keyboard—as you would with a Mac, but using a new set of gestures. “It’s bringing the Mac experience in your space with the freedom to have your windows anywhere you like,” he says. But I’m assuming that if the Vision Pro is successful, we might see its own interface conventions, like controlling the device without touching anything, migrate Mac-wards.

Dye says that this cross-product influence comes from having designers taking an Apple-wide perspective rather than being siloed into groups focused on individual products. “What’s been so successful for us is really one studio full of designers across hardware and software design, and also sound design, material design, colour design,” he says. “We're up to like 50 disciplines now, including haptics and things like that. We've worked really hard to keep it all together in one space, designing every product that Apple makes.”

Over the years, the range of Mac offerings has expanded and then narrowed. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he was appalled by a proliferation of vaguely differentiated models, some identified only by mysterious numbers. His solution was to limit the Mac to four models: one each in the consumer and Pro categories. These days, though, Mac buyers have to make some calculations before choosing. The price and performance curves of the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro series overlap. And desktop users have to figure out the comparative virtues of the iMac and the Mac Mini. And where’s the line between a high-end iMac and the super-pricey Mac Pro? At least that’s my view—the Apple execs don’t see it that way.

“I think it’s incredibly simple!” says Joswiak of the current Mac family. “We have a consumer lineup with an incredible Macbook Air available in two sizes, we have an iMac, and we have an iMac Mini. On the Pro side, we have this incredible MacBook Pro, we have Mac Studio, and we got the Mac Pro.” Uh, doesn’t that prove my point?

I remind the Apple folk of some of the Mac’s less triumphant models. Not surprisingly, they don’t want to dwell on the subject. When I utter the phrase “butterfly keyboard,” no one takes the bait. They shrug when I say that the most beautiful Mac might have been the ill-fated G3 Cube. But they do engage me on the subject of the recent cancellation of the Touch Bar, first introduced in the 2016 MacBook Pro. Can’t win ’em all! “In many cases, we're going to take bold swings at big ideas and work hard to see where they take us,” says Federighi. “Sometimes those learnings turn into future evolutions. Sometimes we take a step back.”

One trend almost certain to provide an evolution is AI. My mention that some companies—cough, cough, Microsoft—have added an “AI button” to their keyboards got a group guffaw. “Oh, that’s a huge innovation,” says Joswiak in a mocking tone. More seriously, Federighi says that Apple was an early AI adopter, and that Apple silicon made every post-2020 Mac AI-equipped. “We tend not to wag this in your face, but AI is an enabler of the scenes and features that just work, down to what I hope is the attractive portrait blur right behind me,” he says, referring to the fuzzy virtual background to his video window, one of a zillion visual effects Apple has implemented in recent years.

Before our video conference ends, I pop a final question: Will Apple be selling Macintoshes 40 years from now?

“It’s hard to imagine there being an Apple and not having a Mac,” says Joswiak. “It is in our blood—it's a product that defines who we are.” Federighi takes a shot at explaining why, in an industry where the standard is ephemeral, the machine that Steve Jobs introduced might be immortal. “The Mac has been able to absorb and integrate the industry’s innovations,” he says. “With each major technology wave, from graphical computing to the internet to even creating tools for mobile, the Mac has taken potential and turned it into intuitive creative tools for the rest of us. With seemingly disruptive waves like spatial computing and AI, the Mac will renew itself over and over.”

Hey, if we can have an octogenarian president, why not an 80-year-old Mac?

Time Travel

My own first exposure to the Macintosh was in late 1983, when I was working on a Rolling Stone feature about the birth of Apple’s new computer. Later, on the 10th anniversary of the launch, I published Insanely Great, a history of the Mac. Not to brag—oh, hell, I’m bragging—but I think I captured the nature of the achievement as well as the oversized character of Steve Jobs, who led the team. Reading it today is a reminder of how the Mac established standards that are now taken for granted.

If you have had any prior experience with personal computers, what you might expect to see is some sort of opaque code, called a “prompt,” consisting of phosphorescent green or white letters on a murky background. What you see with Macintosh is the Finder. On a pleasant, light background, little pictures called “icons” appear, representing choices available to you. A word-processing program might be represented by a pen, while the program that lets you draw pictures might have a paintbrush icon. A file would represent stored documents – book reports, letters, legal briefs and so forth. To see a particular file, you’d move the mouse, which would, in turn, move the cursor to the file you wanted. You’d tap a button on the mouse twice, and the contents of the file would appear on the screen: dark on light, just like a piece of paper.

This seems simple, but most personal computers (including the IBM PC) can’t do this.

“When you show Mac to an absolute novice,” says Chris Espinosa, the twenty-two-year-old head of publications for the Mac team, “he assumes that’s the way all computers work. That’s our highest achievement. We’ve made almost every computer that’s ever been made look completely absurd.” …

This creative extension is the secret of Macintosh: It was not only designed to be easy to learn for people who recoil at the thought of working a computer, but it’s whizzy enough to delight its designers. “We are bringing computers to the people for the first time,” says Macintosh Software Wizard (as it says on his card) Andy Hertzfeld. “We want the man on the street to get Mac and feel the incredible potential. Like when I got my first stereo.”

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Meanwhile, Intel released the rest of its desktop 14th Gen lineup and these aren't as power-hungry as the K SKUs (A new driver is out as well). It also released Raptor Lake mobile U and HX parts. The latter, Intel has claimed is often faster than AMD's fastest mobile gaming APU, the one with the 3D V-cache.

Out of the three, Nvidia definitely had the most impressive product reveal as it launched three new top-of-the-line desktop GPUs and also knocked down the price by a significant amount. The trio of new RTX 4000 Super GPUs: the RTX 4080 Super, the 4070 Ti Super, and the 4070 Super boast higher shaders as well as more VRAM in some cases.

The reviews for the RTX 4070 Super are out and the tech press is mostly positive. The 4070 Ti Super is set to be available in a few days on January 24 while the 4080 Super lands a week later on January 31; Nvidia has also announced the end-of-life (EOL) status for 4070 Ti and 4080 non-Super models.

There will be no complaints about VRAM this time as the 4070 Ti Super has 16 Gigs of it and with its CUDA core count bump as well as its memory bandwidth rise, the GPU will be a decent 10-11% faster than its non-Super counterpart, which means it should be able to keep up with AMD's faster Radeon RX 7900 XT.

While the 4070 Ti was already a bit faster in ray tracing, the extra 8GB VRAM on the 7900 XT as well as better raster performance meant that the XT was still fairly enticing for most buyers at its market price of ~$800-850.

However, with the imminent arrival of the 4070 Ti Super AMD has realized it won't be as easy to compete which is why the company has officially announced a price cut on its RX 7900 XT GPU through a special promotional program. While the MSRP (SEP) of the 7900 XT was $899, which was criticized for being heavily overpriced at the time of its launch, the GPU will now be available for $749.

The company has also announced a price cut on the RX 7900 GRE as it is now down to $549. In an email sent to Neowin, AMD confirmed the new prices. It stated:

Gamers looking for an incredible high-performance, feature-rich graphics card designed to power demanding games and content creation applications today and for years to come can take advantage of AMD’s special promotional pricing program for select etailers and retailers this quarter for the following AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards:

 

• AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT – Enabling prices as low as $749 USD, over $100 less than SEP
• AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE – Enabling prices as low as $549 USD, over $100 less than SEP (available in China and from select global system integrators)

 

The program is being rolled out to etailers/retailers now and will enable promotional prices to be reflected in the market in the coming days.

The change is already starting to take effect in some places like Newegg US where the price on some of the variants is as low as $700. Amazon US too has some of these at fairly low prices as well.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Despite being a little late than originally intended, Bethesda has pushed out the latest beta update to Starfield today. As previously announced, only Steam owners of the game can try out the changes of this release, at least for now, and it is described by the studio as its biggest update to Starfield yet.

"This update brings over a hundred fixes and adjustments, most of which focus on quality-of-life improvements and quest fixes," says Bethesda on its blog. "We’re grateful for all the feedback we’ve seen and received and will continue to monitor and track your issues and critiques."

The companion asteroid bug seems to finally be fixed this time too. Here are the full patch notes:

FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS

 

• ANIMATION
  • Fixed player character’s eyes remaining closed instead of blinking in third person view.
  • Addressed rare cases where small animation pops could be seen in third person.
  • CREATURES AND ENEMIES
  • Fixed incorrectly invisible creatures on some planets.
  • Fixed an issue that could occur on some enemies causing them to stand instead of falling to the ground.
  • CREW AND COMPANIONS
  • Fixed crew members and companions positioning near the cockpit after fast traveling to the ship.
  • Companions: Fixed a possible control-lock when talking to a companion without entering a dialogue while simultaneously trying to exit the ship.

 

• GENERAL
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Windows users saving if their username featured certain characters (PC).
  • Fixed rare save game corruptions on PC (MSS and Steam).
  • Fixed an issue that could lead to a control lock or a crash after loading a quicksave while in the targeting mode.
  • Fixed player marker following the camera on the surface map.
  • Fixed a rare issue that could prevent access to the main menu on when prompted to “Press any button to Start” (Xbox).
  • Body type should no longer reset to default when loading a Starborn save from the main menu.
  • Fixed flickering on Neon’s Trade Tower elevator panel.
  • Improved the appearance of the Ryujin Kiosk material during nighttime.
  • Fixed rare issue with how Cydonia’s panel could display the hours without incident.
  • Added Optimizations to cloud syncing of save games (MSS/Xbox).
  • Improved how crowds behave when desired target is reserved.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause airlock doors to sometimes appear floating in sky when arriving at locations.
  • Fixed unintended text appearing on the shipbuilder’s UI.
  • Fixed game session not properly resuming from shutdown in Energy Save mode (Xbox).
  • Various stability improvements.

 

• GRAPHICS
  • Improved widescreen support (32:9, 21:9 and 16:10).
  • Added support for stars displaying sun disk geometry.
  • Shadows can now be seen on planet rings from planet surface.
  • Improved eyes and skin on crowd characters.
  • Improved reflection on water.
  • Improved contact shadows on character skin (Xbox and PC Medium/High/Ultra).
  • Improved contact shadows on character cloth (PC High/Ultra).
  • Improved contact shadows on first person (PC Ultra).
  • Improved lighting in character generation menu.
  • Reduced the appearance of some minor artifacts during cutscene camera transitions.
  • Fixed flickering on a number of VFX (Sandstorm, corrosive liquid pools, waterfall).
  • Fixed a rare issue where the camera would lock while in handscanner mode whenever watching flying fauna (Xbox).
  • Fixed potential control lock when opening a game menu a moment before triggering a dialogue with another character.
  • Addressed various shadow popping, flickering and artifact issues.
  • Improved the visibility of the sun’s lens flare during sunrise and sunset.
  • Fixed a rare issue where foam or grime would not show up.
  • Fixed rare flickering VFX that could occur in space (Xbox Series S).
  • Fixed rare hair flickering (Xbox Series X/S).
  • Fixed occasional flicker on digiframes and TV screens.
  • Adjusted the appearance of bloom when activating the handscanner.
  • Improved the appearance of clouds during weather transitions.
  • Fixed rare cases where alignment of grass and wind could appear disconnected.
  • Reduced bloom intensity effect while motion blur is active (PC).
  • Addressed issues with concealment effect not always applying when using the handscanner.
  • Fixed visible edge of the ocean in the distance when seen from a very high point of view.
  • Fixed rare white flickering dots around characters' hair during cut scenes.
  • Fixed a readability issue in the Starmap when using large menu font mode.
  • Fixed inventory menu occasionally failing to generate previews when using a mouse (PC).
  • Fixed a brief Depth of Field issue that sometimes occurred when aiming, alt-tabbing or leaving a dialogue screen.
  • Fixed occasional lighting transition issues after loading or exiting a location.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause intermittent bands to appear in distance fog.
  • Fixed a rare issue that could cause fog colour to appear inconsistent.
  • Fixed a rare issue that could cause rocks to disappear near the player on the surface of a planet.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when switching to DLSS with dynamic resolution active (PC).
  • Fixed flickering and delayed shadows sometimes occurring after unpausing the game.
  • Fixed various FSR2 and DLSS artifacts (noise, black dots, ghosting).
  • Fixed flickering when using the handscanner with DLSS enabled.
  • Fixed initial lighting conditions when landing on a planet.
  • Improved lighting at 73 locations.
  • Fixed various geometry, texture, and ghosting issues.

 

• OUTPOSTS
  • Fixed a rare missing terrain issue that could occur after fast traveling to an outpost near New Atlantis.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause bulldozed objects to reappear when returning to an outpost.
  • Fixed and issue that caused hazard damage to remain even when the hazard was removed by bulldozing in outposts.
  • Fixed an issue where outpost’s cargo links would be removed from the terminal list if connected, disconnected, then reconnected to another cargo link during the cargo ship landing sequence.
  • Fixed an issue where weapon cases built by the player in an Outpost would populate with weapons and ammo after reloading the game.
  • POWERS
  • Fixed a rare issue that could cause the Phased Time power to remain enabled.
  • Fixed the extreme speed that could occur in zero G when using the Phased Time power.
  • Solar Flare Power now accounts for critical hits.

 

• QUESTS AND RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
  • Absolute Power: Fixed missing slate in the safe preventing from completing the optional objective “Locate Evidence to Extort Ayumi Komiko”.
  • Background Checks: Fixed possible control-lock that could occur if caught by security.
  • Derelict Ship: Fixed an issue preventing the player from reaching the pilot seat if they did not have access to advanced locks.
  • Drinks on the House: Fixed rare occurrence where the door to Sub 12 could remain locked.
  • Echoes of the Past: Fixed Delgado getting stuck at bottom of stairs during "Continue Exploring the Lock" that could occur if The Lock was left during Delgado's history dialogue.
  • Echoes of the Past: Resolved an issue that could cause Mathis' and Delgado’s guns to be invisible.
  • Eye of the Storm: Fixed an issue that could cause data transfer to not start after placing the Data Core.
  • Eye of the Storm: Fixed an issue where the docking prompt would be missing on the Legacy ship if the player undocked with the Legacy and then reloaded a save before having started the mission.
  • Executive Level: Fixed an issue where players could get stuck on a chair in the Ryujin Industries HQ conference room.
  • Failure to Communicate: Fixed an issue that prevented the player from finishing the quest if they downed all the members of the defense pact (Alban Lopez, Jacquelyn Lemaire, and Chanda Banda).
  • Further Into the Unknown: Fixed a rare crash that could occur when trying to dock with The Eye.
  • Groundpounder: Fixed an issue where the door to Lezama could sometimes be locked if the player left the location during the quest and came back later.
  • Hostile Intelligence: Fixed blocked doors in the Steam Tunnels room where the Terrormorph transformation occurs.
  • Into the Unknown: Fixed a rare issue that could prevent the quest from starting after completing The Old Neighborhood.
  • Into the Unknown: Fixed a rare issue where a Temple location might not populate when receiving the “Go to” objective.
  • Legacy’s End: Fixed an issue that could prevent interacting with Delgado when he was behind the glass inside in the command center of The Key.
  • Legacy’s End: Fixed a debris pile where to player could become stuck while trying to reach the Mess Hall.
  • Missed Beyond Measure: Fixed a dialogue between Sarah and Walter not playing at The Lodge.
  • No Sudden Moves: Fixed companions not following player during personal quests.
  • On The Run: Fixed various issues related to Mei Devine becoming inaccessible the objective updated to “Listen to Mei Devine’s Introduction”.
  • On The Run: Fixed a possible control lock when sitting at the table to talk to Jade MacMillan.
  • One Small Step: Fixed a rare issue that could prevent Lin / Heller from exiting the airlock.
  • Operation Starseed: Fixed a bad view that could occur if the Beagle was boarded after a long idle.
  • Power From Beyond: Fixed an issue that caused missing Starborn temples and scanner disturbances that could prevent obtaining all Starborn powers from that universe.
  • Rough Landings: Resolved an issue that could occur during the “Meet up with Milena Axelrod” objective that could prevent ships from appearing at the desired location.
  • Shadows in Neon: Fixed an issue that could occur when repeatedly using the door to Jaylen Pryce's office before he progressed to Neon Core.
  • Supra et Ultra: Fixed a control lock that could occur when entering the Flight Simulator while a guard is attempting arrest.
  • Tapping the Grid: Fixed inaccessible junction boxes that could occur after the Hunter attacks the Lodge.
  • The Best There Is: Fixed an issue that could prevent objective from advancing when talking to Naeva and Jasmine in the engineering room.
  • The Empty Nest: Fixed and issue that could cause Sam Coe’s gun to be invisible when inside Jacob’s house.
  • The Heart of Mars: Fixed another location that could potentially prevent recovering The Heart of Mars.
  • The Pale Lady: Fixed rare case of inaccessible ship crew log data slate making it impossible to complete the encounter.
  • Top of the L.I.S.T.: Phil Hill should now accept survey data for Sumati.
  • War Relics: Resolved an issue that could prevent Kaiser from moving to the mission site.
  • Where Hope is Built: Fixed a crash that could occur with a specific set of player behaviors.
  • SHIPS AND SHIP CUSTOMIZATION
  • Fixed another case that could cause an asteroid to follow a ship in space.
  • Fixed ship hatch being marked inaccessible after swapping to a new home ship.
  • Fixed an issue where the ship could end up in an unintended state by simultaneously attempting fast travel during a grav jump.
  • Fixed a view issue that could occur when fast traveling during ship targeting mode.
  • Fixed an issue that could occur when entering Ship Targeting mode immediately after selecting a Grav Jump.
  • Fixed an issue that caused non-functional ladders to appear when the player modified their ship with a Taiyo All-In-One Berth Top A and a Deimos 1x1.
  • Fixed an issue where the Legendary ship could take too long to resume firing after the weapons were repaired.
  • Space combat should now match ground combat difficulty increase with successive trips through the Unity.
  • Fixed an issue where loading an exit save made while docked to a space station could cause names of ships to change.
  • Fixed marker not pointing to the current home ship after performing a save/load between different ships.
  • Fixed in issue that could cause the Frontier to incorrectly appear if a non-home ship was removed from a landing pad.
  • SKILLS
  • REJUVENATION: Rejuvenation skill VFX no longer replay whenever the handscanner is opened in third person.
  • SURVEYING: Fixed surveying challenge progress issue with mineral resource.
  • TARGETING CONTROL SYSTEMS: Fixed inconsistencies with level 3 and 4.
  • WEAPONS AND ITEMS
  • Fixed incorrect reload amounts that could occur when consuming a Trauma Pack.
  • Fixed FOV and zoom issues with weapon scopes.
  • Fixed weapon sound effects occasionally continuing to play after killing an enemy.
  • Fixed turret state not being restored properly after and save and load.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause the helmet light to not reappear in third person after a save and load.

Steam owners of Starfield can enter the beta by going into the game's properties in the client and selecting the Betas option. From the following drop down selection, users can opt into the beta and begin downloading the new update right away.

"As we noted last year, we’ll continue to have a steady stream of updates about every six weeks, so if you don’t see your issue addressed below, don’t lose faith," the studio added. "Keep sharing your feedback and issues so we can do our best to prioritize."

As for when it will be out of beta, the update should be ready for all players in about two weeks across Xbox Series X|S consoles, Microsoft Store on PC, as well as Xbox and PC Game Pass variants.

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Companies like Google react to the Digital Markets Act, which aims to make digital markets fairer and open. The EU identified several large online platforms as gatekeepers and has created a list of obligations for these gatekeepers.

Gatekeepers, for instance, may not  prevent the removal of pre-installed apps on their systems or track end users outside of their core platforms without user consent.

Google lists four changes to its services on The Keyword blog as a direct reaction to the Digital Markets Act.

Consent for sharing data between Google services

Google collects and shares data between its own services by default. Search, advertising, YouTube and several others exchange user data. Users in the EU have to give consent to this form of sharing. By default, data will no longer be exchanged between services. EU users may already manage the Google Services that may or may not exchange data.

Affected services are: Search, YouTube, Google Play, Ad services, Chrome, Google Shopping, Google Maps.

Google notes that some features "may be limited or unavailable" as a consequence, but fails to mention any in particular.

Search results changes

EU users who searching with buying intentions, e.g., for a hotel or laptop, will get a new dedicated unit in the search results that shows group of links from comparison sites "from across the web" and "query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their searches".

Google will also test dedicated spaces for comparison sites and direct suppliers "to show more detailed individual results". The company notes that some current units, like Google Flights, will be removed from search as a consequence.

Choice screens

Users from the EU will get browser and search engine choice screens on Android and in Google Chrome.

These include a selection of popular options of the user's region. Suggestions are displayed in random order and users may pick any of the listed services.

Talks about browser and search choice prompts for users from the EU started in 2019 already.

Data portability improvements

Google is working on a Data Portability API that is linked to data provided by Google Takeout. The idea is to give third-party apps and services access to the data so that they may prompt users to import their Google data to these services.

Closing Words

Google is not the only company identified as a gatekeeper that is making fundamental changes to its products. Microsoft announced a range of changes in Windows for users from the European Union that include options to uninstall native apps like Microsoft Edge and make other changes to the system.

The changes are far reaching and not comparable to the browser choice screen that Microsoft had to display to users from the EU back in 2010 and then again in Windows 8.

Competing browser makers saw downloads increase significantly after the browser ballot screens were displayed to users.

Now You: what is your take on the DMA and the changes to Google services?

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However, it looks like the company is preparing for a Surface-centric event that will happen in March. Microsoft leaker "WalkingCat" posted a teaser earlier this week on X (formerly Twitter), writing simply, "Surface Event = 3/21 ??"

Windows Central claims that the March 21 date is indeed when Microsoft will reveal new Surface products. It added that, according to its sources, they will be new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices with current designs but with Intel's 14th generation chips and features designed specifically for business and commercial buyers. They will reportedly include "an anti-reflective display, a new NFC reader, and support for Windows Studio Effects." These products are rumored to launch in April.

Today's report also claims that Microsoft could hold another event in June. This one will be for the previously rumored Surface Pro "10" and Surface Laptop "6." These will feature all-new designs with both Intel's 14th-generation CPUs and Qualcomm's recently revealed Snapdragon X Series chips.

Finally, Microsoft could launch a third smaller wave of Surface devices this fall. They will reportedly include an upgraded Surface Laptop Go 4 and a Surface Go 4 made for consumers and not just for commercial buyers.

In the wake of Microsoft's long-time Surface leader Panos Panay departing from the company last fall for Amazon, it will be interesting to see how both commercial and consumer customers receive these new Surface devices from Microsoft.

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The Verge reports that in the memo, Pichai stated that Google has "ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year." However, it looks like in order to achieve those goals, Pichai stated that the company will "have to make tough choices." Pichai wrote in the memo:

Many of these changes are already announced, though to be upfront, some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions throughout the year where needed, and some roles may be impacted.

In January of 2023, Pichai revealed that 12,000 Google employees, or about 6 percent of its total workforce at that time, would be laid off. In his new memo on Wednesday, Pichai wrote:

These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team . . . But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted.

So far, the company has cut over 1,000 members of its workforce in January 2024. It started with a few hundred cuts in its Devices and Services division. It was part of an overall reorganization of that group, with the Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest hardware teams now merging under one leader.

Google also confirmed cuts in its Assistant teams and its core engineering group, again with a few hundred workers affected in each division. Yet another few hundred employees were laid off earlier this week in its advertising sales division. On Wednesday, about 100 YouTube team members were laid off. Again, based on Pichai's memo, we can expect more of these smaller, but still painful, job cuts to be revealed in the future.

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The layoffs, as first reported by Tubefilter, were revealed in a division memo today by YouTube's chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe. The team members that were affected by these cuts will be given a chance to reapply for open positions in the division.

In her memo, Coe stated the changes were needed to streamline the division in order to deal with the ever-growing number of content creators at YouTube, while also working to expand other features including AI-based content tools.

The story says that all of YouTube's content creator management teams will be merged under one leader in each country. It will also merge all of the division's music teams under one leader as well. All of YouTube's sports, media, film, and TV teams will be merged under one organization as well. That includes its YouTubeTV and NFL Sunday Ticket divisions.

Earlier this week, there were accusations that YouTube was slowing down videos for users who were allegedly using ad blockers. However, the problem was in fact due to buggy updates for Adblock and Adblock Plus.

This small layoff at YouTube is just the latest job cuts at Google that have happened in the past couple of weeks. It started with a few hundred team members who were laid off in the Devices and Services unit, mostly in its AR division.

Google also made a few hundred job cuts in its Assistant division, along with several hundred jobs in its core engineering division. On Tuesday, hundreds of people in Google's advertising sales team were given their notices. It remains to be seen if these new cuts at YouTube will be the last, or if other Google divisions are preparing layoffs of their own.

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Under the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the company will have to comply with by March 7, Google is obligated to treat rival services and products the same way as it treats its own when it ranks them in search results.

It is also required to allow business users to access the data that they generate when using Google's platform.

"We will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on comparison sites," Google said in its blogpost.

"For categories like hotels, we will also start testing a dedicated space for comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results including images, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights unit," it said.

Rival comparison sites have been among the most vocal critics of Google's search practices, with a complaint last decade resulting in a 2.42-billion-euro ($2.63 billion) EU antitrust fine.

Other changes in the coming weeks will allow Android phone owners to easily switch their default search engine or browser and users of Google services and products to move their data to a third-party app or service.

European users will see an additional consent banner to ask them whether some Google services can continue to share data targeted ads.
Google warned that some businesses and users may not be happy with its proposals, which are still subject to changes ahead of March 7.

"While we support many of the DMA's ambitions around consumer choice and interoperability, the new rules involve difficult trade-offs, and we're concerned that some of these rules will reduce the choices available to people and businesses in Europe," it said.

($1 = 0.9204 euros)

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Writing on his own X/Twitter platform, Musk warned that unless his ownership in Tesla increased to 25%, he would be "uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics."

Musk continued his threat by saying that without owning a quarter of Tesla, which he says is enough to be influential but not so much that he can't be overturned, he would prefer to build products outside of the automaker.

"You don't seem to understand that Tesla is not one startup, but a dozen. Simply look at the delta between what Tesla does and GM," he added.

Musk went on to question why large investors in Tesla who own similar stakes as he does, such as Fidelity, "don't show up for work." It's likely that investors already concerned by Tesla's declining profit margins, allegations of Musk's drug use, his duties to other companies, and the CEO's often erratic behavior won't be pleased to read his latest post.

Musk called the Tesla board "great" in a follow-up message, noting that the reason why he had not been awarded a new compensation plan is due to the Tornetta case – a shareholder said the CEO's previous $56 billion compensation was excessive and a breach of fiduciary duty by Musk and members of the board. The case was tried in Delaware last year but a verdict has yet to be reached.

Musk reiterated that 25% is the perfect amount of ownership in Tesla and that he would be fine with a dual-class voting structure similar to the one used by Facebook. However, this would be an illegal restructuring post-IPO.

Musk sold almost $40 billion worth of Tesla shares in 2022, using most of the money to help finance his purchase of Twitter.

Back in 2021, Tesla announced the general-purpose, bi-pedal Tesla Bot during its AI Day conference. A year later, Musk said it was probably Tesla's most important in-development product, potentially bigger than its vehicle business. There was a demo of its latest robot, Optimus Gen 2, last month (above).

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In brief: Turtle Beach is expanding its VelocityOne series of simulation game controllers with the introduction of the VelocityOne Race. The company's first wheel and pedal setup is billed as a complete, authentic racing setup for PC and Xbox. It features a K: Drive direct-drive force feedback motor that is adjustable on-the-fly for smooth, low-latency steering and an accurate representation of in-game terrain.

The pedal assembly includes a Dynamic Brake Tek load-cell braking system that applies stopping power based on how much pressure you apply to the pedal, which can be adjusted directly from the Race Management Display (RMD) or the companion tuner app.

The RMD is an advanced digital dashboard, much like variants you may have seen in the real world, that replaces old analog instrument clusters with a custom digital readout. Here, you'll have access to real-time race telemetry from supported racing titles as well as 10 onboard memory profiles with button mapping and force feedback preferences.

Note that game support is dependent on developer integration, so you'll want to keep an eye on the compatibility list for the latest additions.

Other noteworthy features include Mag-Shift gear paddles, dual analog paddles with magnetic Hall Effect sensors for clutch and handbrake control, a hand-stitched leather wheel, and a customizable modular control unit.

Turtle Beach is a well-known player in the gaming accessory market. Founded in the mid-70s, the company eventually built a name for itself in the PC audio space before moving on to become a leader in the gaming headset industry. Turtle Beach further expanded its reach into the PC market in 2019 when it acquired German peripheral company Roccat for $19.3 million.

The Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race is designed for PC and Xbox, and is available to pre-order from today priced at $649.99. Look for it to land in stores worldwide on February 26, 2024. Those in need for a cockpit to fully build out their racing sim might also want to have a look at the recently launched Playseat Challenge X - Logitech G Edition.

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One of the big differences that we saw in 2023 compared to prior years was the massive increase in popularity of generative AI. This greatly benefited NVIDIA’s semiconductor business as it sells AI chips for servers which process the generative AI applications.

The rapid rise of generative AI saw NVIDIA raise its revenue from $15.33 billion in 2022 to $23.98 billion in 2023. This sent it from rank 12 in the semiconductor market to fifth place.

Another notable company was STMicroelectronics as it moved up the revenue leaderboard three slots into eighth place. In 2023, its revenue rose by 7.7% due to its strong position in the automotive segment.

While Intel did manage to top the market, it also saw a decline in revenue from $58.43 billion in 2022 to $48.66 billion in 2023. Reclaiming the top place was more to do with Samsung recording a big 37.5% reduction in revenue

“While the cyclicality in the semiconductor industry was present again in 2023, the market suffered a difficult year with memory revenue recording one of its worst declines in history,” said Alan Priestley, VP Analyst at Gartner. “The underperforming market also negatively impacted several semiconductor vendors. Only 9 of the top 25 semiconductor vendors posted revenue growth in 2023, with 10 experiencing double-digit declines.”

The fact that the semiconductor market saw lower revenue is not surprising given the levels of inflation and the higher interest rates which make credit more expensive. If interest rates get cut in 2024 or 2025 that could give the semiconductor market a boost back to growth.

Source: Gartner

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In a blog post, Blizzard offered up the storyline at the center of the new quest for Season 3:

A new threat lurks deep beneath the sands of Kehjistan, where the Loom, an ancient technology—designed by Zoltun Kulle and Ayuzhan of Caldeum—has been usurped by the forces of evil. The Demon Malphas is responsible for twisting the Loom for his cruel whims. Zoltun’s former companion Ayuzhan leads you through the treacherous Vaults, desperate to stop the formidable Malphas and his deadly constructs from overtaking Sanctuary.

The Constructs in Season 3's title refer to spider-like magical mechanical beings that your character has to deal with. However, you won't be alone. Season 3 will offer you your own Construct companion, called a Seneschal. You have to collect Governing and Tuning Stones to be able to customize your new pal. It will attack monsters, help heal your wounds, and more. Of course, there will be new dungeons to explore and new enemies to deal with.

Later on in Season 3, a new feature called The Gauntlet, will be added. It will give players a new dungeon to go through every week and players will be competing to be at the top of this leaderboard.

Besides the all-new content in Season 3, there will also be some new features and improvements made for all of Diablo IV. One of them is specifically for PC gamers as players will be able to use the classic PC gaming keyboard keys of W-A-S-D to move through the game, instead of only being able to use the mouse. This will likely be a welcome addition for hardcore PC players. Diablo IV: Season of the Construct will begin on January 23.

Speaking of the PC version, Diablo IV will release a patch in March 2024 that will add ray tracing effects to the game.

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The news, first posted by Business Insider, was confirmed by Engadget. According to a statement from a Google spokesperson:

Every year we go through a rigorous process to structure our team to provide the best service to our Ads customers We map customers to the right specialist teams and sales channels to meet their service needs. As part of this, a few hundred roles globally are being eliminated and impacted employees will be able to apply for open roles on the team or elsewhere at Google.

There's no word on the specific number of Google team members that were affected by this latest cut back. It's believed that a large number of those team members came from the division that sells ads on Google to large businesses.

Last week, Google cut a few hundred jobs each at a number of its divisions. One was its Devices and Services unit, where the company cut team members in its AR division. In that particular case, the cuts were part of an overall restructuring of Google's hardware engineering teams, bringing the Pixel, Fibit, and Nest teams under one big team. In addition, Fitbit's founders, who joined Google when it was acquired in 2021, departed the company.

Google also cut hundreds of jobs last week in its Assistant division, as the company is trying to transition its digital assistant into the new AI assistant age. Finally, the company confirmed it cut several hundred jobs in its core engineering division.

Close to one year ago, Google announced cuts of 12,000 team members, or six percent of its workforce at the time. While these latest layoffs from the company are not nearly as high, it goes to show you that many major tech companies are still trying to save as much money as they can.

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Finally, let's compare the 4070 Super to AMD's best competitor in this category, the Radeon RX 7800 XT. Generally available for just a hair over its $500 MSRP, the 7800 XT can usually match or beat the 4070 Super's performance in games without ray-tracing effects enabled. It's not always true, but it usually is. Per usual, though, AMD comes out worse in games with heavy ray-tracing effects, falling well behind the 4070 Super (or even the regular 4070) in Cyberpunk, Returnal, Hitman III, and the 3DMark ray-tracing benchmarks.

 

Like the 4070, the 4070 Super remains an incredibly power-efficient GPU. Its absolute power consumption in games is between 10 and 15 percent higher than the regular 4070 in our tests, roughly commensurate with the performance boost you can usually expect. The 7800XT uses an additional 30 W or so running the same games at the same settings (as ever, take software-reported power consumption comparisons between manufacturers with a grain of salt, but these numbers are in line with what both Nvidia and AMD list in their spec sheets).

Conclusions

The GeForce RTX 4070 Super is a pretty straightforward win for most GPU buyers. It's the same price as the 4070 and has better performance, and it's a $600 card that trades blows with cards like the 3080 Ti and 3090 ($1,199 and $1,499 at launch, respectively). Comparing it to the 3080 Ti, you can still see games where the 4070 Super's 192-bit memory interface seems to be holding it back, particularly at 4K. But the architectural updates and extra processing power generally help the 4070 Super keep up.

 

It simplifies matters for most GPU buyers that we are mostly past the transitional phase of this graphics generation where you wouldn't just have to factor in what the competition was offering but also all the last-gen GeForce and Radeon cards that were still sitting on shelves at reasonable prices. At this point, it's not worth considering the leftover, open-box stock of the 6800 XT or 3080 Ti.

 

One problem with the 4070 Super is that it still leaves a fair-sized hole in Nvidia's GPU lineup, where none of the options are particularly cost-effective. There are now three cards between the 4070 Super and the $299 RTX 4060: the 8GB 4060 Ti at $399, the 16GB 4060 Ti at $449, and the regular RTX 4070 at $549.

 

The 4060 Ti is generally between 10 and 20 percent faster than the 4060 for 33 percent more money, and the 4070 Super is usually between 12 and 22 percent faster than the regular 4070 for about 9 percent more money. Either card is one decent promotional discount away from being a solid deal, but at their regular prices, you should save a bit of money with the regular 4060, spend a bit more to get the 4070 Super, or consider one of AMD's offerings.

 

AMD remains pretty competitive here, offering its typical bargain: pay a little less for a card with as-good-or-better rasterized performance but higher power use and generally so-so ray tracing performance. If you want high-frame-rate 1440p or reasonably solid 60 fps 4K, the 7800 XT is still a viable option, and it costs closer to $500 than $600. The power consumption, better ray-tracing performance, and DLSS support are all strong arguments in favor of the 4070 Super or even the regular 4070, but if you don't need or care about any of those things, go ahead with the AMD card and save some money.

 

• Great GPU for high-fps 1440p gaming, with 60 fps 4K well within reach for many games
• Excellent power efficiency
• RTX 3080 Ti-esque performance for half the price
• Nvidia's retains its performance edge in ray-traced games

• Does rely on DLSS to hit 60 fps when playing at 4K or at 1440p with heavy ray-tracing effects on
• Relatively narrow 192-bit memory bus means it can't always beat the old 3080 Ti, especially at 4K
• If you don't care about ray tracing, DLSS, or lower power consumption, the $500-ish Radeon RX 7800 XT may be a better value

• $600 is still a price increase from older xx70 GPUs

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Fast forward two months, now in January we just had another similar incident with several user reports online of YouTube being slow with adblockers. As is usually the case in these instances, most netizens of course were quick to once again point the finger at Google.

The issue was first brought to attention by Reddit users and the thread blew up with many more chiming in to say they were experiencing a similar thing. As it turns out, the bug was not YouTube or Google and was in fact a problem with Adblock and Adblock Plus' recent update Version 5.17.0.

Hence if you were using something else like uBlock Origin (like me), you probably did not notice any slowdown.

Adblock Plus developers noted the issue as performance regression on its GitLab repo. It wrote:

Recently, ABP released version 3.22 which upgraded the bundled extension engine version to 1.1.1. AdBlock released version 5.17.0 which also updated the extension engine to version 1.1.1. We've had several reports of slow response time since the update.

 

It appears to be an issue in the extension engine since ABP, AdBlock, and the EWE test extension all seem to experience a similar issue with the 1.1.1 version of the extension engine.

The issue has now been fixed with the latest eyeo's Web Extension Ad Blocking Toolkit (EWE) version 1.1.2, where the breaking change has been reverted.

• Name: @eyeo/webext-ad-filtering-solution

   

• New version: 1.1.2

   

  • Reverted "Content filters are now updated via the history.pushState() event, when single page apps navigate using the browser's history API (EE-14, EE-90)".

     

• Breaking changes: None.

   

• Other changes: Reverted performance regression.

Hence, if you are one of those users who is experiencing issues with Adblock and Adblock Plus, you should update your extension. It is also advised not to run multiple content filters or adblockers on your browser if you are facing performance issues.

As an online publication, Neowin too relies on ads for operating costs and, if you use an ad blocker, we'd appreciate being whitelisted. In addition, we have an ad-free subscription for $28 a year, which is another way to show support!

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(30 minutes to post this batch of 8 news posts)

As part of today's many Copilot announcements, including Copilot Pro and the expansion of Copilot for Microsoft 365, the company also announced Copilot GPTs. Like OpenAI's GPTs, Copilot GPTs will allow users to "customize the behavior of Microsoft Copilot on a topic that is of particular interest to you."

Microsoft added that it will offer up a number of previously created custom Copilot GPTs starting today. They will be able to answer questions from users on topics like fitness, travel, and cooking.

As part of the features that will be enabled for people who pay $20 a month to access the Copilot Pro service, those subscribers will be able to make their own custom Copilot GPTs. Microsoft plans to launch a new app called Copilot GPT Builder, which is made specifically for these kinds of tasks.

So far, Microsoft has not revealed anything more about how Pro users will be able to make their own chatbots with Copilot GPT Builder, saying only, "Stay tuned for more on this experience as we get closer to availability." There's no word on what the app itself will be like, how easy or hard it will be to use, and what platform or platforms it will support.

When OpenAI announced GPTs, it also revealed that users would be able to share their custom chatbots with the rest of the world via the GPT store. That store finally launched last week, and OpenAI indicated that later in the first quarter of 2024, creators of those custom chatbots would be able to get some revenue if people actually used their custom GPTs. Microsoft has yet to announce plans to offer a similar revenue path for custom Copilot GPTs.

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Microsoft has officially unveiled Copilot Pro—a subscription service targeting individual consumers to give them more advanced AI capabilities and "supercharge their Copilot experience." Copilot has been a free service for regular users so far, but now Microsoft is ready to step it up and offer a paid tier with more features.

Copilot Pro is now available for $20 per month for one user. For that price, customers get access to Copilot in Office applications, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on Windows, macOS, and iPad (currently in preview with English being the only supported language, plus you need an active Microsoft 365 subscription). You can type your request directly in the app you need, plus get additional features, such as email summary, etc.

The subscription also gives you priority access to the latest models, starting with OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo, which ensures fast performance during peak hours and gives you the option to toggle between different models to optimize your experience and interaction with the service.

Copilot Pro offers a few extra perks for image generation via Designed (also known as Bing Image Creator). You get 100 boosts per day for faster generation, more detailed outputs, and landscape mode support.

Finally, Copilot Pro will soon let you build a custom Copilot GPT tailored to your specific need or topic. This feature is coming soon in Copilot GPT Builder. However, Microsoft is rolling out an initial set of Copilot GPTs with a focus on particular purposes, such as cooking, travel, fitness, and more. All Copilot users can access Copilot GPTs, while Pro subscribers will soon be able to create their own using simple prompts.

In addition to Copilot Pro, Microsoft formally announced Copilot apps for iOS and Android, plus expanded Copilot for Microsoft 365 availability to small and medium-sized businesses, eliminating the minimum seat requirement for commercial plans.

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Adblock and Adblock Plus are two ad blockers created by the same developer for the Chrome/Edge browsers and have 113 million active users, according to figures reported on the Chrome Web Store.

A post on Reddit over the weekend claimed that Google had begun to slow the buffering of videos when an ad blocker was installed, causing video loading times, thumbnail previews, full-screen video transitions, and even scrolling to be significantly slower.

Some even reported that their Chrome browser was so stressed during the YouTube video playback that it impacted the performance of the entire operating system.

BleepingComputer confirmed the issues after installing the Adblock Chrome extension, which caused YouTube to become very slow, making the site hard to navigate and for videos to load very slowly.

Confused about the cause of the performance degradation, many users assumed they were having internet speed problems or memory leak issues.

However, it soon became evident that the problems specifically impacted users with active Adblock and Adblock Plus ad-blocking extensions. Some media reported that YouTube Premium subscribers did not report encountering any performance issues, further obscuring the source of the problem.

Due to Google's previous experimentation with aggressive ad-blocker restrictions, many assumed that YouTube was purposefully throttling performance for users with active ad-blocking tools in certain regions.

However, uBlock Origin, another popular ad-blocking extension for Chrome, isn't impacted.

Problem with Adblock extension

An issue opened on the Adblock project's GitLab page suggests that the performance problems are caused by version 1.1.1 of the extension engine, introduced in Adblock version 5.17 and Adblock Plus 3.22, which was released last week.

uBlock Origin developer Raymond Hill explained on X that the issues were not caused by a change in Google's code but by the Adblock extensions themselves.

Using browser profiler tools, he identified that the cause of the severe performance issues was the time consumed by the content script code of Adblock Plus on the YouTube webpage.

"I investigated a bit the performance regressions, and the cause is many distinct code paths, and affect many sites, those for which the problematic code paths are triggered," explained Hill.

Hill also notes that these performance issues are not exclusive to YouTube and may also impact other sites, especially those with dynamically updating pages.

Disabling Adblock Plus or Adblock is not enough to resolve the performance issues. Hill explains that you first need to reload the web pages a few times or open them in new tabs for the extension to be fully disabled.

However, in BleepingComputer's tests, once we disabled Adblock and refreshed the pages, YouTube once again loaded videos quickly, even with uBlock Origin enabled.

The Adblock developers are aware of the performance issues and are investigating them. However, they state that they can't reproduce the problem and request users provide feedback so they can determine the cause.

"Thanks for spotting that problem and for reporting it to us. We’re slowly getting similar reports from a few other users, so it does appear to be some problem with one of the changes included in version 3.22," reads a comment from Adblock team.

"Unfortunately, we aren’t able to reproduce the problem ourselves yet, but we’ve created https://gitlab.com/Adblockinc/ext/Adblockplus/Adblockplusui/-/issues/1576 to keep track of it to help us find the problem and develop a fix for it."

"In general, any additional information on this could be helpful, so I’d suggest contacting support@Adblockplus.org, if you’d like to help us with that."

BleepingComputer has contacted Adblock and Google with questions about the situation, but neither has responded by publication time.

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