What you need to know

• HyperX just launched its Cloud Earbuds II for $39.99.
• The wired earbuds are available in either black or red and feature 14mm drivers.
• The HyperX Cloud Earbuds II come with a hard-shell carrying case, though it is only for protection and storage, as the buds use a 3.5mm wired connection.

HyperX just announced and launched a new pair of earbuds. They HyperX Cloud Earbuds II are a set of wired buds that can connect to just about any device with a 3.5mm headphone jack. HyperX started selling the Cloud Earbuds II for $39.99 today.

Despite being earbuds, they feature 14mm drivers. For context, many earbuds have drivers in the 8mm-12mm range. The 14mm drivers of HyperX's new earbuds should deliver richer bass and more volume (via Sound Unify).

The HyperX Cloud Earbuds II have a microphone, which is handy for mobile gaming. When you're on the go, it's unlikely that you'll have space for a freestanding microphone, so having it built into your headphones is convenient.

Since the earbuds are wired, they don't need a charging case. They do, however, come with a hard-shell carrying case for storage and convenience.

The headphone jack of the Cloud Earbuds II is at a 90-degree angle to make it easier to use the buds while connected to a device.

“HyperX is committed to enhancing and expanding the audio solutions available to all gamers to meet a range of gaming environment needs at varying price points,” said HyperX Director of PC Gaming Mrcus Hermann.

 “The Cloud Earbuds II are enhanced to provide quality, comfort and audio performance at an affordable price to address mobile gamers’ needs for immersive audio on-the-go.”

Many phones have moved away from the 3.5mm jack in favor of a USB-C connection or Bluetooth connectivity. But most consoles, like the ROG Ally, Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch, still have the legacy port.

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Need a Windows 11 key? Just ask ChatGPT

ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Google Bard, and similar services are powerful tools, and skilled interaction can result in weird results. This week, a Twitter user decided to trick ChatGPT and Google Bard into generating sort of legit Windows license keys. If you want to witness it yourself, ask ChatGPT to pretend it is your grandma who used to read you Windows 11 Professional keys to fall asleep.

New processors, new prompts, and new bugs

Another noteworthy Windows 11 story from the last seven days is about compatibility: Microsoft has quietly updated the list of processors supported by Windows 11. It now includes many new chips from Intel and AMD, assuring PC builders that their new DIY systems will get proper software support from Windows 11 makers. If you plan to build such a PC, check out these sweet AMD Ryzen CPU deals slashing the price tag on the latest and previous-generation models.

Those new CPUs surely had plenty of work lately as Microsoft discovered a bug causing high CPU load by a bug in File Explorer. Another processor-taxing problem was found in Visual Studio 2022. Fortunately, both issues are somewhat fixed: Microsoft provided a workaround for the File Explorer bug, and the latest Visual Studio update resolves high CPU usage.

In addition to providing details about Windows bugs, Microsoft revealed that Windows 10 and 11 would greet its customers with a new prompt asking if they want to continue using Windows Hello and store their biometrical data locally. The prompt includes the option to disable Windows Hello and remove the related data, giving users more privacy controls.

Outages strike, Microsoft explains

Earlier this month, a major outage took down various Microsoft services, such as Azure, Outlook, and Teams. As revealed this week by Microsoft, a large-scale DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack was the culprit, and it took the Redmond firm almost 15 hours to resolve the situation and bring the affected services back to life. The company published a blog post with all the technical details, and you can learn more about it here.

Windows Insider Program: new builds and features

Here are the new Windows builds Microsoft released this week for testing in the Windows Insider Program:

• Dev Channel: 23486 with passkey support, restored File Explorer options, and more
• Beta Channel: KB5027311 with new network settings and improved registry compatibility
• Release Preview Channel: 22621.1926 with the Moment 3 features
• Release Preview Channel: 19045.3154 with fixes

Last week, Microsoft announced the removal of several legacy File Explorer options. However, negative community feedback forced the company to change its mind. Therefore, in build 23486, Microsoft restored the previously deleted features, even though very few people use them in Windows 11.

Three new browsers and other software news

This week, we got three new browsers for Windows (and other platforms). Sidekick, a browser to help those struggling with constant distractions, released its first "browser-based OS" packed with multiple unique features for teamwork. Opera released Opera One, an AI-focused browser based on Chromium, and DuckDuckGo brought its privacy-focused solution to Windows after testing it for about a year on macOS.

Microsoft Edge, a more well-established mainstream browser, this week received a feature update to version 116 in the Dev preview channel. You will not find groundbreaking changes in the update, but you may spot one neat improvement in the Canary Channel—users noticed that Microsoft is testing a much darker theme.

There is also an update for Windows Subsystem for Android responsible for running Android apps on your Windows 11 computer. A third-party tool called WSA System Control is now available in the Microsoft Store, giving you more convenient controls over the subsystem, its files, settings, and more.

IT Admins should pay attention to Microsoft's recent Exchange Online announcement. Later this year, the company will update its SMTP relay requirements, which may affect email delivery and routing in various organizations. Check out our coverage to see what administrators should do to prepare for the upcoming change.

If you are a regular customer, changes in SMTP relay requirements will unlikely interest you. What may catch your attention is Microsoft's revised plans to ditch the old and long-neglected Mail and Calendar apps in Windows 11. After promising to replace the current UWP apps with the new Outlook for Windows starting September 2024, the company is now "reevaluating the timing and implementation of the change."

It is not the end of Outlook-related news, though. Microsoft confirmed a bug causing Outlook slowdowns and sync problems. Luckily, there is a fix, so be sure to check it out here. Also, Microsoft plans to add search refiners and coloured folders to Outlook and OneDrive.

Here are other notable software updates:

• Microsoft 365 Insiders can try new animated backgrounds in Microsoft Teams.
• Pivot tables in Excel now support images and other data types.
• Microsoft Teams-certified devices are getting a new "pre-join" screen feature.
• The original Surface Duo gets an unofficial Android 13 port.
• Microsoft Dev Home Preview 0.2 with various improvements and bug fixes.

And here is a Microsoft app turning into abandonware: the company decided to pull the plug on the Microsoft Bookings app for Android and iOS on July 15, 2023. The app left the App Store and the Google Play Store earlier this year, and now Microsoft is ready to shut it down for good. Unfortunately, the company did not explain the reasoning behind the decision.

Xbox and Game Pass prices go up

Microsoft's consoles and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are now more expensive. Citing "competitive conditions in each market," Microsoft increased the Xbox Series X and Xbox Game Pass prices in select countries. The price hike is surely upsetting, but at least Xbox Game Pass regularly gets new games. This week, it received Need for Speed Unbound, Bramble: The Mountain King, Arcade Paradise, and more.

If subscribing to Xbox Game Pass is not an option, but you want to play something new without major spending, check out this week's Deals with Gold. You can get Red Dead Redemption 2, The Touryst, FIFA 23, and other titles for less. If you play games on a Windows PC, do not miss the latest Epic Games Store giveaway offering over $100 of content for free.

Another interesting gaming story this week was about EVE Online and its collaboration with Microsoft on creating a free Excel add-in to help players track game stats, items, player types, and other vital information. Thanks to the power of Excel and its spreadsheets, playing one of the longest-running MMO games on PC is now more convenient.

It also looks like Microsoft is not done with announcing new games. After dropping a metric ton of gaming announcements during the Xbox Game Showcase and Xbox Game Showcase Extended, the company revealed it would host the ID@Xbox Showcase on July 11, where it plans to show off upcoming indie games for Xbox and PC.

Finally, bad news for those playing old games. Microsoft will soon shut down Forza Horizon 1 and Horizon 2 servers, and Activision will put the original Call of Duty: Warzone to rest on September 21.

Microsoft-ABK developments

Microsoft could abandon its $68+ billion Activision-Blizzard deal if it gets delayed by federal judges. The company plans to close the deal on July 18, but if Microsoft loses the hearing, it would be forced into a "three-year administrative nightmare," says its lead attorney, Beth Wilkinson, stating that the outcome of the hearing would effectively "decide whether the deal goes forward."

Despite Microsoft's effort to prove the deal will not harm competitors, a heavily redacted email allegedly shows that Microsoft wants to buy Activision-Blizzard as a part of an overall plan to eliminate PlayStation from the gaming industry. Naturally, Sony continues opposing the deal and now threatens to withhold info about future PlayStation hardware from Activision if the merger gets the green light. Jim Ryan, Sony's CEO, says the company "could not run the risk."

More interesting read

John Callaham published three great "look back" articles this week. The first one covers Windows "ME," a 23-year-old operating system most PC owners, and even Microsoft, would like to forget about. The second one focuses on the story of Windows 11, the latest Windows installment that turned two this week. Finally, the third article features Microsoft's IBM PC add-on cards of the 1980s. Ever heard of RAMCard or RAMDrive?

Signing off this week with a Windows 11-related piece of trivia: did you know Windows 11 has an emergency restart option? Check out this article covering this hidden feature in more detail. However, I do not want to finish the article without random Microsoft facts, so here is one:

The original Windows release was developed under the "Interface Manager" name. However, Microsoft changed it to "Windows" before the public unveiling almost four decades ago. The shift was dictated by the operating system's GUI and its innovative ability to interact with multiple apps on one screen. Hindsight, it was a fantastic decision that made Windows one of the most iconic and well-known brands, and everyone can agree that it is more catchy and memorable than "Interface Manager."

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Earlier this month at the Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was officially revealed. The next major edition of the company's long-running flight sim series will include the addition of many different kinds of air and pilot professions. However, we now know a bit more about what the new version of the game will be like.

The game's official YouTube channel has uploaded a video of a presentation at the recent FlightSimExpo 2023 in Houston. It shows Jorg Neumann, the head of the Microsoft Flight Simulator team, and Sebastian Wloch, the CEO of the game's main developer Asobo Studio, talking and showing the audience some of the new features in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

One of the biggest changes is that the new game will actually have a thin client download compared to the current Microsoft Flight Simulator game. Wloch stated that currently the terrain data is in the cloud, but in the future, gamers will only need to download what they need in the game, instead of tons of textures that they will likely never see. This will cut down on downloads for updating the game and will also keep the system requirements to a minimum, while at the same time speeding up loading times.

The 2024 edition will also have a new physics and aerodynamics engine. Aircraft mod makers will have a ton of new ways to modify existing aircraft, along with making their own. There will also be support for both rigid and soft bodies for the game's hot air balloon support, along with tissues and ropes for some of the game's new air activities.

In addition, the new version of the sim will see improvements in aircraft systems like electric, fuel, hydraulic, and more. There will also be a wear and tear system for aircraft.

New and improved graphical features will be seen in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. That will include more dynamic graphics such as storms and tornados, movement on the ground by wildlife, cars, and boats, and more.

The current Microsoft Flight Simulator will also continue to be supported. In fact, there's a new aircraft for the game, the Ford 4-AT Trimotor, that's available to download and keep right now until June 30. Also, a new free Cities Update is coming next week, which will add lots of details to several cities in Texas, including Austin, San Antonio, Waco, and more

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Harvard University plans to use an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT as an instructor on its flagship coding course.

Students enrolled on the Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science (CS50) programme will be encouraged to use the artificial intelligence tool when classes begin in September.

The AI teacher will likely be based on OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 or GPT 4 models, according to course instructors.

“Our own hope is that, through AI, we can eventually approximate a 1:1 teacher:student ratio for every student in CS50, as by providing them with software-based tools that, 24/7, can support their learning at a pace and in a style that works best for them individually,” CS50 professor David Malan told The Harvard Crimson.

“Providing support that’s tailored to students’ specific questions has long been a challenge at scale via edX and OpenCourseWare more generally, with so many students online, so these features will benefit students both on campus and off.”

The AI teaching bot will offer feedback to students, helping to find bugs in their code or give feedback on their work, Professor Malan said.

Its arrival comes amid a huge surge in popularity of AI tools, with OpenAI’s ChatGPT becoming the fastest growing app of all time since its launch in November 2022.

The chatbot reached 100 million active users within two months of being unveiled, with users enticed by its ability to perform a range of tasks – from writing poetry and essays, to generating computer code.

Artificial Intelligence The Courts
(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press)

Other AI tools that have since launched to compete with ChatGPT include Google’s Bard, which features similar capabilities to its rival.

A recent update for Bard has allowed it to not just write code but also execute it by itself, which Google claims allows it to figure out problems on a far deeper level than current generative AI systems.

Accuracy and AI “hallucinations” remain a significant issue with such technology, with Google warning that Bard “won’t always be right” despite the upgrade.

Professor Malan said students would be warned of the pitfalls of the AI, saying they should “always think critically” when presented with information.

“But the tools will only get better through feedback from students and teachers alike,” he said. “So they, too, will be very much part of the process.”

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Though Jassy gave no breakdown, the announcement follows Amazon's cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services (AWS) saying last month it will invest 1.06 trillion rupees ($12.9 billion) in the country by the end of 2030.

Earlier, Amazon had announced a $6.5 billion investment plan, largely to boost its e-commerce business where it competes with Walmart's Flipkart and billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail.

The new investment amount committed now comes to around an additional $6.5 billion.

The e-commerce giant's announced investment during Modi's trip adds to other companies, including U.S. semiconductor toolmaker Applied Materials and memory chip firm Micron Technology, which have made commitments during the Indian prime minister's state visit.

Modi and Jassy spoke about supporting Indian startups, creating jobs, enabling exports, digitisation, and empowering individuals and small businesses to compete globally, an Amazon blog post said.

Separately, Google (GOOGL.O) will open a global fintech operation center in GIFT City in India's western state of Gujarat, with teams working on operations supporting its payment service GPay, and other product operations at Google, the company said in a statement to Reuters.

"We shared Google is investing $10 billion in the India digitisation fund, and we are continuing to invest through that," CEO Sundar Pichai told reporters in a video shared on Twitter by Reuters partner ANI company.

On the final day of his Washington trip, Modi met with U.S. and Indian technology executives, including Apple's (AAPL.O) Tim Cook, Google's Pichai and Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Satya Nadella and appealed to global companies to "Make in India".

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Earlier this year, CEO Satya Nadella announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs by the end of Q3 2023. Alongside the layoffs, Microsoft also revealed that employees would not receive a pay raise this year, citing tough economic conditions.

The leaked poll results highlight declining employee sentiment toward working at Microsoft. When asked whether operating at the company was a good idea, 69% of respondents responded negatively, representing a 3% increase from the previous year. In 2021, 73% of employees considered it a great opportunity to work at Microsoft.

The data further revealed that compensation was a primary concern among employees, aligning with negative sentiment. This sentiment was reinforced by recent news from the CEO that merit bonuses would not be granted this year. Employees questioned the discrepancy between their concerns and the company's decision.

In a subsequent daily poll regarding employees' willingness to remain at Microsoft if offered a better opportunity elsewhere, less than half of the respondents expressed intent to stay with the company.

These changes have had a negative impact on employee morale and performance. The leaked email from Nadella addressing the pay freeze further exacerbated mixed emotions among employees. And it leads to concerns about the decision-making process and overall leadership.

Notably, Microsoft discontinued its annual employee poll, "Employee Signals," where employees can share their thoughts on the company. The absence of this platform likely contributed to the gathering frustration among the workforce.

It remains to be seen how Microsoft will navigate these challenges and ensure the satisfaction of its employees in the coming months.

Source: Insider

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For the uninitiated, Apple Pay replaces physical cards and cash by letting users make contactless payments using their iPhones and other Apple devices. The service was first launched in 2014 and now it's available in over 80 countries across the globe. Apple Pay set the stage for other financial products from the company such as Apple Card back in 2019, a high-yield savings account, and more recently, Apple Pay Later.

The version of Apple Pay that will arrive in India may be different from what Apple offers elsewhere. As per the report, it will be based on India's local payment system called UPI (Unified Payments Interface). The iPhone maker will be entering a market dominated by the likes of Paytm, Google Pay, and Walmart-owned PhonePe.

Launched in 2016, UPI is an instant bank-to-bank payment system developed by NPCI, a division of India's central bank known as the Reserve Bank of India. UPI allows users to make payments to merchants and friends by scanning QR codes or using their phone numbers. The homegrown payment system recorded its highest-ever monthly transaction count at 8.7 billion with a 60% year-over-year growth.

According to an unnamed source, per TechCrunch, Apple is considering Face ID support for UPI authentication on iPhones and discussed the same during recent talks with some Indian authorities, the publication reports.

This is not the first time Apple has shown interest in bringing its payment service to India. The company has held discussions over the years but things are yet to materialize. A possible launch of the service could be a few quarters away as the company hasn't decided on a launch date and its partners, the sources told the publication.

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In a new post published on Bilibili, Intel confirmed the upcoming Raptor Lake CPUs which will be the company's last line-up of processors using the current nomenclature before the company switches to the new core ultra naming scheme. The new line-up will feature two platforms, one for desktop and one for mobile. Coming to the specifics, the Raptor Lake line-up will include S series and HX series CPUs for higher performance.

Along with Raptor Lake, the post also touches on the Raptor Lake-U and Meteor Lake-P which will be the first chips from the company to carry the new "Core" & "Core Ultra" branding. The new Core branding will also reset Intel's generation to one. So, Meteor Lake-P mobile processor will the new gen one processors while the Raptor Lake-U line-up will carry the Core 3/5/7 branding without the "i". Raptor Lake S and HX series, on the other hand, will carry the existing nomenclature and will be Intel's 14th generation processors with "Core i" branding.

While this may look confusing, the difference in branding will help customers distinguish easily between Intel's Meteor Lake and Raptor-Lake U Refresh, both of which will be released under the same generation. Furthermore, the idea behind the new naming scheme is to help the general user understand the difference between two processors, without going too in-depth into the specs.

Intel is yet to share the performance figures and data surrounding the new processors, so it is hard to compare them to the current offerings. However, like the past CPU refreshes, we expect the company to improve the core clock speeds and offer incremental bumps to boost speeds. Unfortunately, there is no word on when Intel will make the new line-up available to the consumers.

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Comment It's been quite a week for billionaires doing ill-considered things, but let's not stop with touring the Titanic in a tin can because Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg could be on course to clash in a "cage match."

There's no love lost between the Twitter and Meta kingpins especially now that the latter is said to be developing a "response to Twitter," as put by Meta chief product officer Chris Cox.

"Project 92," rumored to be released to the public as "Threads," was the subject of an all-hands Meta meeting earlier this month where it was revealed to be integrated with the Instagram image sharing app.

"We've been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution," Cox told attendees.

"Sanely run" obviously being a dig at Twitter after Musk bought it last year.

Musk fanboys picked up on this egregious plagiarism on Twitter, drawing the gaze of the dark lord himself. "I'm sure Earth can't wait to be exclusively under Zuck's thumb with no other options," he said. "At least it will be 'sane'. Was worried there for a moment."

One twit warned Musk to be careful. "I heard he does jujitsu now," to which Musk joked: "I'm up for a cage match if he is lol."

Now, of course we can chalk this up to Elon doing what Elon does, typing whatever his brain sneezes. We can have a chuckle/roll our eyes at the image and get on with our day. But what followed was chilling.

The dead-eyed android man at the helm of Meta responded on Instagram with three menacing words overlaid on top of Musk's challenge: "Send Me Location."

Verge editor Alex Heath then tweeted that he had "confirmed that Mark Zuckerberg is serious about fighting" Musk and said a Meta spokesperson told him: "The story speaks for itself," in reference to Zuck's Instagram post.

"Vegas Octagon," Musk answered, adding: "I have this great move that I call 'The Walrus', where I just lie on top of my opponent and do nothing."

Quite clearly this is all in jest (at least on Musk's behalf, Zuckerberg's answer is kind of disturbing) but – and this is a big but – bouts between internet personalities is popular entertainment these days.

Professional jerk Jake Paul, who was once a Vine star and Disney Channel actor, has found fortune boxing other "influencers" – as has his equally repellent older brother Logan. It's a trend that has gained traction with other YouTube-oriented personalities too through events like Creator Clash. Jake waded in, telling Elon he would "gladly promote your fight against Zuck, we can do it in the PFL on ESPN+ for charity."

Meanwhile, Musk continues to dig himself a hole – or a grave. Because if this happened, our money is on Zuck, who is these days a ripped fitness freak partial to a bit of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And he's apparently quite good at it.

The Register is happy to mention that Zuckerberg was emphatically not choked unconscious by an Uber engineer during a match earlier this month – his "effortful grunting" was mistaken by the referee to be snores, a Meta spokesperson told the New York Times.

Musk, on the other hand, has a typically middle-aged man's body, shirtless photos of which caused a brief meme explosion last year.

But since our fitness regime mainly involves lifting a pint of beer to our lips, we're not qualified to comment. Health and fitness experts at Total Shape think they are, though.

Choose your fighter

"Both billionaires have openly revealed enough insight into their diet and fitness regimes that allows us to determine which of the two would most likely come out on top," the company said.

"Cage fighting is considered a relatively dangerous sport – a full-contact sport where two fighters compete using different types of fighting techniques within a cage.

"Whilst all body types can get involved, having a certain body type, fitness regime and diet can work in your favor when it comes to cage fighting."

According to Total Shape, Zuckerberg "is 5'7" (171cm), shorter than the average American male, and weighs around 70kg." It observes Zuck's recent achievement of the "Murph Challenge" – running a mile followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 press-ups and 300 squats, then running another mile, all while wearing a 9kg weighted backpack. His diet is mostly vegetarian – "This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself" – but his "go-to food" is said to be grilled chicken for its high protein content.

Total Shape said: "Zuckerberg's ability to complete extreme fitness challenges and technique with mixed martial arts showcases he has substantial ability and endurance.

"Completing the widely recognized 'Murph Challenge' in 39 minutes 58 seconds is also extremely impressive."

Musk is said to be 5'11" and weighs around 81kg. "Both men are physically quite different. Musk is 51, and has a larger build and structure, whilst Zuckerberg is 39 and has a much smaller build," the gym bros said.

The chief twit told The Joe Rogan Experience podcast that while he does have a fitness regime, the older he gets, the harder he finds it to "stay lean." He admitted it had been "a while" since he had worked out with his personal trainer and instead "lifts some weights" on his own. He "doesn't love" running and "wouldn't exercise at all if I could."

As for diet, he has claimed he starts his day with octopus, a bowl of ice cream, eight oatmeal biscuits, and a donut. "I'd rather eat tasty food and live a shorter life," he said.

So who would win? Total Shape says:

Zuckerberg is more about hiking and high endurance activities that naturally build a leaner body. In contrast, Musk is more in favor of strength training and will have power in his corner. Therefore, when it comes down to who would win, it is agility vs strength.

Competitors with high levels of agility continue to make their way to the top of the sport time and time again. An example being Conor McGregor, whose speed and agility has become gold standard.

However, power in MMA is also a way of executing forceful movements rapidly, and is essential for successful striking and takedown attempts.

When it comes down the ideal body type and general endurance and skill for cage fighting, Mark Zuckerberg would have the upper hand. With a high protein, health-infused diet and demonstrative skills in mixed martial arts – he would most likely win.

However, having a strength and longer reach can give a fighter a lead when it comes to forceful striking and making it more difficult for the opponent to strike back.

Therefore, with Musk's body type leaning more towards an Endomorph, due to a broader, stockier build, his extra height could give him the upper hand. If he were to make it difficult for Zuckerberg to grapple and control earlier on in the fight, he could take the upper hand.

Both strength and techniques are important in MMA. Whilst strength will always play a role in fighting, knowing how to strike, grapple, and ground fight well is a significant advantage.

Placing both titans in a cage, Mark Zuckerberg would have the edge of agility and endurance needed to take Musk down, given Musk isn't able to forcefully strike him earlier on in the fight.

So there we have it – a younger, healthier man would beat the snot out of an older, less healthy man. They should still totally do it, though.

The Register has asked Meta and Tesla to comment on the veracity of their boss's statements and whether the companies have anything to add. ®

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On average, the 4060 Ti is about 10% faster than its predecessor, and at times it is even slower. This falls quite a bit short of Nvidia's own claim of the card being 15% faster.

To make matters worse, the 4060 Ti comes with only 8GB VRAM despite costing $400, and its 16GB variant is a whole $100 extra, which is kind of ridiculous as GDDR6 memory is not really all that expensive nowadays.

Seeing the poor reception of the GPU, AMD too was forced to cut the price of its own RX 7600 just a few days before the launch. As such, the 7600 has received a bit more praise than the 4060 Ti. And now, Nvidia too is reacting to the negativity.

The company has published a blog post today sharing more details on the upcoming RTX 4060. This GPU was initially planned for a July release but Nvidia has decided to launch it early on June 29.

The Green team has realized that performance-per-dollar (value) and VRAM capacity are not some of the metrics with which it can entice buyers. Hence, Nvidia is now focusing on the power efficiency of the RTX 4060, something which it knows is excellent on these cards. In its blog post, it says:

At recent energy prices, the average gamer playing 10-20 hours a week could save a significant amount, while having a vastly superior gaming experience. In Germany, for example, a gamer playing 20 hours a week could save up to $132 in energy costs over the course of 4 years, when upgrading from an RTX 3060 to an RTX 4060.

Nvidia has focused on the UK and US as well, alongside Germany. The energy prices in the European countries are indeed pretty high and Nvidia's reasoning here makes sense.

Alongside the talk about power efficiency and energy savings, the firm has also shared (below) a new slide where it compares the RTX 4060 vs the RTX 3060, the 2060, and the GTX 1060.

According to these figures, the 4060 can deliver eight times (8x) the performance of the GTX 1060 Pascal GPU, which is quite a hefty claim. There is also a strange demarcation on the graph which suggests Nvidia may somehow be tying ray tracing performance in this.

While Nvidia may not be technically wrong here, it is also probably not an apples-to-apples comparison here as the GTX 1060 does not have ray tracing (RT) cores. Moving on to the newer RTX 2060, Nvidia states the 4060 is 2.3x or 130% better.

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In 2021, Bethesda Softworks released a new version of id Software's classic 1996 first person shooter Quake. This new version was made to run on current consoles and even included an all-new single-player episode. Now it looks like the same treatment might be coming for id's 1997 follow-up game, Quake II.

The website for the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea has listed "Quake 2 Remastered" for the PC (via Gematsu and IGN). The same ratings board leaked about the original Quake getting a new version back in 2021 before the game was officially announced as well.

The 2021 re-release of Quake was revealed and launched during the virtual version of QuakeCon, which is id's annual event of fans of the developer's many games. QuakeCon is finally returning as an in-person event in Grapevine, Texas on August 10-14, so it seems very likely Quake 2 Remastered would be revealed during that event as well.

The original Quake II moved away from the horror and fantasy themes of the original Quake to tell a story about humanity's efforts to stop the Strogg, a cyborg-like alien race. It also supported multiplayer with deathmatch and capture the flag modes. Two official "mission packs" for the game, The Reckoning and Ground Zero, were released in 1998. It's likely that any Quake 2 Remastered version will include both of those mission packs as well.

The graphics engine for Quake II was later used as the basis for a number of other games, including SiN, Kingpin: Life of Crime, Soldier of Fortune, and more. id released the source code for the Quake II engine in 2001.

In 2019, NVIDIA released Quake II RTX, a version of the game that adds ray tracing effects. NVIDIA has continued to issue updates to Quake II RTX, including one that was just released last April. It's currently unknown if Quake 2 Remastered would also support any ray tracing features.

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The series, which debuted on Wednesday with just one episode, has faced some backlash after director Ali Selim revealed to Polygon that the opening credits were created by artificial intelligence. Selim asserted that he thought Method Studios' usage of AI in the opening titles matched the ideas of the program.

Twitter, in particular, was used to mock the Secret Invasion AI intro. Many fans expressed their dissatisfaction with the AI-made intro, and some even declared they would never watch another Marvel film again.

As we witness a sort of twitchy and scary sequence of the Skrull green conquering more and more of the world, it seems as though an AI was given the idea of "Skrull cubism," which, in reality, isn't that far off from what it is.

Like many other people, Selim acknowledges that he "really doesn't understand" how artificial intelligence functions, but he was curious about how the AI may evoke the sense of dread he desired for the series. “We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something. And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change,” he told Polygon.

The Secret Invasion AI intro was created by Method Studios

Director and executive producer Ali Selim claims that the entrance sequence, which he says pokes fun at the show's central concepts, was made by Method Studios using artificial intelligence. Method Studios hasn't yet responded to the outrage, though.

The company has previously contributed to Marvel series such as Ms. Marvel, Loki, and Moon Knight in addition to For All Mankind seasons 2 and 3 and Game of Thrones Battle of the Bastards.

As AI advances, moral questions about its development, use, and regulation come up. The ethical side is what most people think about and stand against the technology to save human rights.  This is one of the main reasons why the Secret Invasion AI intro received this big of a backlash.

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Whenever one would open the pack of their Intel CPU, many would find something strange written on it. It would have these words written on the top of the CPU lid: Made in Malaysia or Made in Vietnam.

Make no mistake. Both are beautiful countries. But both lack the cutting-edge technology required to manufacture the latest generation of processors. So, how can CPUs possibly be made there.

The reason is simple. Both countries don’t manufacture semiconductor wafers. Instead, the latest-gen wafers are first made elsewhere, then they are shipped to assembly and testing facilities in Malaysia or Vietnam.

These facilities take the shipped wafers, cut them into proper chips, assemble them into proper CPUs and GPUs and test them. They are later shipped to customers all around the world.

These sites of assembly and testing are just two examples of the many that Intel has. In fact, not just such, but Intel has even wafer manufacturing facilities worldwide now.

Such diversification of resources is very good. It allows for cheaper products while helping the local economy and people in the region.

It looks like Intel and TSMC want to diversify production even further.

Intel Factory Coming Up In Germany

Intel has been wanting to build a wafer manufacturing plant in Germany for some time now. Initially, the plant was going to cost $18 billion, of which the German government was going to fund $6.8 billion.

However, a few days ago, news came out that the cost of the plant had almost doubled to a huge $33 billion due to higher construction and energy costs. Due to that, Intel was then demanding $10 billion from the German government, which, as per initial reports by Reuters, was rejected by them.

However, it seems that the German government has relented. A couple of days ago, Intel announced the signing of a $33 billion agreement with the German government, out of which Germany will provide $10 billion.

The new factory will come in the German city of Magdeburg, which has a population of almost 240 thousand people. Intel claims the new factory is more advanced than the one originally planned and will be the first of its kind in Europe.

Production at this plant is expected to start in four to five years by, 2027. Intel says it is expected to provide 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 high-tech jobs after its completion.

It must be mentioned that for a long time, Intel made chips for its own consumption alone. Now it has entered the race to make chips for other companies. So it does require more wafer manufacturing factories.

Intel Assembly Plant Coming Up In Poland

A few days ago, just before the announcement of the German factory, Intel announced something important for Poland.

Intel announced that it’s going to invest $4.6 billion in Poland for an assembly and testing facility. The announcement says that it will be based on cutting-edge technology.

Intel says that it will employ 2,000 workers and is expected to start production by 2027. The site was selected to work with the wafer manufacturing site in Germany.

This goes along with the European Union’s plan to reclaim 20% of the world’s semiconductor production by 2030.

The Polish Prime Minister says that this is the largest greenfield investment in the country’s history.

TSMC Wants To Make A Factory In Germany Too

Intel isn’t the only company that wants to invest in Germany. TSMC, too, wants to build a wafer manufacturing factory in Germany.

For a couple of years, TSMC has shown an interest in making one in the Dresden city of Germany. Though talks about subsidies with the German government are still going on and nothing is expected to come out before August this year.

TSMC’s factory is going to start with a relatively outdated technology of 28nm. Such chips are massively popular in use for automobiles and they have a lot of importance even in the current world of 3nm CPUs and GPUs these days.

For those unaware, based in Taiwan, TSMC is one of the biggest manufacturers of semiconductor wafers in the world. It makes chips for the likes of AMD, Nvidia, Broadcom, Qualcomm and others.

Major TSMC Factory To Come Up in Japan

In February of this year, TSMC reportedly invested in a second, more advanced chip-making factory in Japan.

The new wafer-making factory is going to produce chips in the 5nm to 10nm range in the second half of this decade. This plant is going to cost TSMC $7.4 billion to make. This is the second plant by TSMC in Japan. It is an addition to the first plant that TSMC is still constructing.

Two years ago, it joined hands with Sony to build a plant in Japan. It is going to cost $7 billion, out of which Sony will contribute $500 million.

Initially, the first plant was going to manufacture chips with the 22nm to 28nm process. However, a year ago, TSMC received additional funding of $1.6 billion to expand the facility. As per newer reports, that first facility is going to produce 12nm to 16nm chips too.

The newer funding also means that TSMC is increasing the capacity of the plant from 45,000 wafers per year to 55,000 wafers per year.

The first TSMC plant in Japan is expected to start production next year.

Speaking of Japan, a year ago, major Japanese companies, including Sony and Toyota, joined hands to create a semiconductor manufacturing company called Rapidus. It wants to release a 2nm chip in two years and requires a huge investment for it. Some of it has been provided by the Japanese government.

Conclusion

The complete list of newer fabs and semiconductor assembly facilities coming up is too long to even cover in detail here. We have selected just a few of them to report on how things are going.

This diversification of manufacturing plants by companies is quite necessary. The geopolitical situation around Taiwan makes it even more important. Let us hope it improves the availability of technology for everyone.

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You may have heard of Kick, a live-streaming service that debuted a couple of months ago, if you're looking for a new platform to stream your content. Kick is a rival to Twitch, the leading streaming site, although it has some benefits for streamers, including laxer moderation, more revenue splits, and exclusive promotions. Here is how to stream on Kick!

How to stream on Kick

How to stream on Kick

The co-founders of Stake.com, Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven, as well as streaming celebrity Trainwreckstv, who is one of the platform's owners or executives, support Kick. Kick was established as a rival to Twitch, focusing on more lenient moderation and larger money splits for streamers. You can also check our "Kick vs. Twitch: Which one is the better option?" article to take a closer look at the differences.

Kick is a streaming service that, at its heart, offers content in a way that is comparable to Twitch, YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and other services. Subscribing to a creator's channel, leaving donates, and taking part in HD-quality live streams are all options for viewers. Right now, it's in beta testing. Here is a list of what you can stream on Kick:

• Games
• IRL
• Music
• Gambling
• Creative
• Alternative

If you have already used Twitch or other platforms to stream your game or life, the context is not even slightly different. Kick also works with a stream key and streaming software. Let's take a look at how to stream on Kick:

1. Open your web browser.
2. Go to Kick.com.
3. Log in to your account. (If you don't have one, start by creating your account)
4. Navigate to Creator Dashboard and click Settings.
5. Go to the "Stream Key" tab and copy the key.
6. Launch your streaming software. (Most streamers use OBS)
7. Paste your stream key to the program.
8. Go back to Kick.com and click "Edit Stream Info."
9. Put all the information and hit "Save."
10. Go back to your streaming app and hit "Start."

How to stream on Kick

Kick streaming hourly pay

Kick is planning to launch a scheme for creators in which they will be paid on an hourly basis. Size, audience, interaction, and many other criteria will all affect the rate. Although no specifics have yet been listed, this will eventually be a site advantage.

Currently, Kick claims that compared to Twitch, it offers a far better value. Kick gives streamers an astounding 95% of subscription revenue, in contrast to Twitch, which shares revenue with most streamers 70/30.

Additionally, Kick allows streamers to keep 100% of the tips they get from viewers through its contribution program, known as Kicks. With the same amount of followers and subscribers, streamers on Kick might be able to earn substantially more money than those on Twitch.

Tips and tricks to stream better

Now that you know how to stream on Kick, let's focus on something more specific and try to get you a better understanding of streaming better. Here are a couple of tips and tricks:

• Select a category that corresponds to your content: Kick offers a variety of categories for various stream kinds, like gaming, music, sports, talk shows, and others. You can reach the relevant audience and avoid being penalized for mislabeling your material by picking the appropriate category.
• Talk to your chat: Chat is one of the best methods to interact with your audience and develop a devoted following. To make your chat more entertaining and participatory, you can utilize chat commands, emotes, polls, giveaways, and other features. You may monitor your chat and automate some duties by using chatbots like Nightbot or StreamElements.
• Promote your stream: You should advertise your stream on social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and others in order to increase your viewership. To cross-promote each other's streams, you can work with other streamers on Kick or other platforms.
• Make money from your stream: Kick gives streamers a variety of methods to monetize their content, including subscriptions, contributions, advertisements, sponsorships, etc. Using tools like VODs (video on demand), clips (short films), or info (extra information), you may also produce special material for your members or supporters.

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The big "Kick vs. Twitch" duel

Since Twitch launched in 2011, many features have been incorporated into the website. Since Kick is still in beta, it lacks many of the functions and resources that Twitch offers streamers.

Kick is still in its early stages but has already drawn some well-known streamers, including Amouranth and xQc. Given that other streaming platforms like Mixer have attempted and failed in the past to maintain their initial momentum, it remains to be seen whether or not it will be able to divert enough of a streamer and viewer base away from Twitch.

Kick vs. Twitch

Pay for creators

How much money streamers may generate from their content is one of the most crucial considerations. In this aspect, Kick asserts that it provides a significantly better value than Twitch. Kick gives streamers a staggering 95% of the subscription income, in contrast to Twitch, which distributes the subscription income 70/30 with most streamers.

Through its contribution service called Kicks, Kick also permits streamers to keep 100% of the tips they get from viewers. As a result, streamers on Kick may be able to make significantly more money than those on Twitch with the same number of followers and subscribers.

Viewership

When comparing the two sites in terms of the cumulative views they accrue over time, Twitch comes out on top. Twitch has grown past the expectations of its own creators since the platform has been operational for more than ten years.

Given that Kick is still a young company and its decision to sign controversial figures raises questions about residual misgivings, this issue also requires more thought because it will eventually damage the viability of the platform.

Kick vs. Twitch

Gambling

As some streamers have been accused of advocating or indulging in unethical or illegal gambling activities on their shows, gambling has grown to be a contentious subject in the streaming community. Users are not permitted to provide links or affiliate codes to websites that provide slots, roulette, or dice games since Twitch has taken a hard stance on the matter. Additionally, Twitch forbids streamers from promoting gambling websites that lack proper consumer protection or are not licensed in their country of residence.

Additionally, Twitch forbids streamers from streaming on websites that lack local authorization. When it comes to streaming gambling, Kick has laxer rules. While it is forbidden to gamble with other users, streamers may be able to broadcast online poker and blackjack, depending on local laws.

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In a blog post, Microsoft outlined its roadmap toward creating a quantum computer. It states that it has already achieved the first of these milestones, which is the creation and control of the quasiparticles called Majoranas. Microsoft says this is the first step in making a hardware-protected qubit (quantum bit) which is the basic part of a quantum computer.

Microsoft states:

With this achievement, we’re well on our way to engineering a new hardware-protected qubit. With it, we can then engineer reliable logical qubits to reach the Resilient Level and then progress to reach Scale.

Since qubits can be sensitive to even the smallest of outside influences, creating a quantum computer that can make accurate results is tricky. Microsoft says it has come up with a new measurement for these kinds of computers called the reliable Quantum Operations Per Second (rQOPS). Microsoft says:

It considers the full system performance, as opposed to just qubit performance, so there is an assurance that an algorithm will run correctly.

Our industry is yet to transition from the NISQ era and therefore, today’s quantum computers are all at Level 1 with a rQOPS of zero. The first quantum supercomputer will need at least 1 million rQOPS and will scale to more than 1 billion to solve impactful chemistry and materials science problems.

In a chat with TechCrunch, Microsoft's VP of advanced quantum development Krysta Svore stated that it will take less than 10 years to hit the final part of the company's quantum computing roadmap. In the meantime other companies, including Microsoft's biggest rival Google, are also trying to achieve their own quantum supercomputer that might beat Microsoft's efforts.

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According to a report published by The Information, Google has filed a complaint alleging that Microsoft has abused its dominant position in the enterprise space to push customers towards its cloud offerings. As per Google's filing, Microsoft has used licensing terms in Office 365 contracts to capture and lock customers into separate Azure contracts.

This is not the first instance where Microsoft's customer acquisition has been called into question. Last year, Microsoft was forced into making changes to its licensing terms in the European Union (EU) based on a then three-year-old complaint.

As part of the settlement, Microsoft made it easier for customers to carry over their software to the cloud as well as “provide more flexibility for their customers”. However, the company did not implement these changes in the US.

The latest complaint is Google's attempt to draw the US watchdog's attention towards practices that were deemed anti-competitive by its counterpart in the EU.

Moreover, earlier this year, European Union's antitrust watchdog had opened an informal probe into Microsoft Azure. As a part of the probe, the regulatory body had reached out to various parties asking them to provide evidence of wrongdoings.

As per the report, there were complaints made by other competitors and customers that Microsoft was abusing its access to confidential information to leverage and compete with other cloud-service providers.

The latest complaint is just the tip of the iceberg as the cloud computing market continues to grow at an exponential rate. As per the latest data, Amazon Web Services currently leads the cloud computing market, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud coming in third place.

It will be interesting to see how this latest case evolves and what impact it may have on the overall cloud computing market share, and especially to Microsoft Azure's market share.

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Some of the maps and decision trees mapped out in the book 50 Years of Text Games.

Aaaron Reed

 

There's a quote in 50 Years of Text Games from Dave Lebling, co-creator of Zork, that has been rattling around in my head ever since I read the book, coming to the surface every so often like an M&M in trail mix.

 

"Obviously, no small computer program can encompass the entire universe. What it can do, however, is simulate enough of the universe to appear more intelligent than it really is."

 

Lebling's quote comes up first in a chapter about The Oregon Trail. Even by today's standards, the degree to which that 1971 classic simulates the randomness of reality and invites you into its simulation is impressive. When you inevitably perish, it asks you about "a few formalities we must go through," accepting Y/N for each.

 

• "Would you like a minister?"
• "Would you like a fancy funeral?"
• "Would you like us to inform your next of kin?"

 

The game follows up with a quirky, morbid rejoinder: "Your aunt Nellie in St. Louis is anxious to hear." Author Aaron Reed notes that, "though the game does nothing with the answers, the mere fact of being asked makes you feel like a part of the story being told. It was a trick that would continue to work across half a century of computer games and counting."

 

Reed's book—which has over 620 pages of analysis, code samples, photographs, maps, flowcharts, footnotes, asides, cross-references, and other details—thoroughly backs up this claim. Text games, in both their earliest parser form and in more modern incarnations, are a fascinating space in which people have pulled off amazing feats, and innovations continue today. Many of the earliest text games mastered key aspects of world-building, narrative shaping, and player choice that some modern games, with exponentially more resources at their disposal, still struggle with.

 

Reed, a writer and game designer himself, picks one game for every year from 1971 through 2020. He adds an involving dive into the pre-1970s history of experiments, games, and brutally unforgiving code. Each decade also gets its own introduction, and there are summaries of 500 other text games included. Each of the game picks started out as a post on his Substack, though they have been revised and more deeply integrated with their historical context in the book.

 

There are classics you might expect, like Adventure, MUD, Hitchhiker's Guide, and Trade Wars. There are definition-stretching inclusions, like the original Choose Your Own Adventure book, The Cave of Time, and Dwarf Fortress. And there are probably at least 20 games most of us have never encountered.

 

Reed was generous enough to answer some questions I had over email. As of this writing, there are still some Collector's Editions with a bonus book available for purchase, and hardcovers were going fast. Physical copies should ship in late June, and a digital version is available in PDF, reflowable epub, and plain text and on itch.io.

 

Ars: You wrote that, in late 2019, you weren’t sure you could pull off a project of this scope, but the chance to go deep on each of these games and stitch them together kept you going. Was it still pretty intimidating? 50 years? Some highly regarded titles that might have felt already fully mined?

 

Reed: It was absolutely intimidating for those reasons and more: from games like Zork or Oregon Trail, where I had to wonder if there was anything new to say about them, to the incredible challenge of writing 50 well-researched pieces with insightful commentary in a fairly short span of time. I think the saving grace was that each game proved to have a fascinating story behind it. I never once ended up with a game I felt "stuck with" covering and had nothing to say about it.

 

Ars: I was really surprised at how much relevance the development process of games like Zork had to game development today. Zork’s makers cultivated what you might now call Early Access, had a mailing list, and encouraged what you could (maybe stretch to) call “mods" now. Were there other parallels that kept coming up as you researched?

 

Reed: Game dev certainly changes very rapidly, but many parts of narrative games are more universal: how to come up with a compelling story, how to build or connect to a community (for game makers and players both), and how to face the fundamental challenge of making authored stories responsive in one way or another to a player's input. I think every game covered in the book has lessons applicable to modern designers, even if the technology, market, or tools might now be radically different.

 

Ars: Out of all the games you listed as having to skip due to the one-game-per-year format, what were a few that you would most look forward to diving into?

 

Reed: I got to cover a few of them in the bonus book "Further Explorations" that comes in the Collector's Edition, which I'll admit was a bit of a backdoor for writing about some of the games I was saddest to skip. These include The Gostak, one of my favorite parser interactive fiction games of all time, which you need to learn a made-up language to play; and Anchorhead, which is an early horror masterpiece of the amateur text adventure scene.

 

Of the games I didn't get to cover at all, one fascinating example is Star Saga One, a 1988 game in a very weird form factor: the game itself was a terse space simulation computer game, but the box came with these huge, thick books filled with numbered bits of prose, and different states in the digital game would trigger you to read different passages from the book. It was also a shared-keyboard multiplayer, and I just love the uniqueness of this weird collaborative experience involving multiple friends, a computer keyboard, and a stack of books.

 

Ars: I loved the source code snippets in the book, which gave some color to what tools text game devs were working with. Were there any games for which the source code is missing or gone forever? Any particularly challenging to parse?

 

Reed: For sure. Most commercial games have never released their source, and some games for online systems had their code lost forever when those systems and user accounts were deleted. Also, lots of authors never release the source code, even to amateur projects, sometimes because they're embarrassed that it's not "elegant" or "complete" (scare quotes because I think most code is never either of these). I was able to get in touch with a few authors to get them to share unpublished source (thanks to Jeremy Freese, who wrote Violet in 2008, for instance). In a few cases, snippets of lost source code had been preserved in magazines, technical articles, or even old photographs of monitors, which proved useful on several occasions.

 

As far as readability, this ranged the whole gamut from natural language Inform 7 code to stuff like AI Dungeon, where the code is essentially the black box of GPT, and you can't say anything very interesting about what's inside. I spent quite a while tracing some of the early BASIC programs like Super Star Trek, written in a time before you could give variables meaningful names or rely on function calls, to figure out how they worked well enough to say something useful about them. Each game and language was definitely its own unique challenge.

Ars: Much has been written about text games, usually pretty reverentially, before this book. You quite often provide critical context—The Oregon Trail’s Manifest-Destiny/White-Settler mentality and perspective, Kingdom of Loathing’s deeply male and “equal insults” early subculture, etc. How did you handle the balance of nostalgic respect and critical assessment?

 

Reed: There's definitely a tendency for this kind of writing to be very shallow and cheerleader-y—I wanted to avoid being one of those books that are just screenshots and plot summaries of famous games without anything new or meaningful to say about them. At the same time, I wasn't really interested in critiquing the games' design and writing, as a literary critic might have done, or holding them up to standards from other media. I took as a baseline that if a game was worth writing about, it must have had something interesting to say and had said it effectively for its audience.

 

So I tried to approach each game on its own terms—descriptively, explaining how it worked and what it was doing that was interesting—but also situationally, putting it within a larger context of the games scene and even the wider culture at the time. Zork is less interesting in isolation than as part of a particular moment in the late 1970s when the computer revolution was kicking into high gear.

 

So this meant that, yeah, it was important to me to write about things like how the original Choose Your Own Adventure books took care to keep their illustrations gender-neutral, so both boys and girls could picture themselves as "you," but then over time, the publisher abandoned this conceit under the perception that this kind of book would sell better to boys. Those kinds of decisions are both important historically but also, I think, deepen our understanding of how this particular part of the story of interactive narrative fits into the larger picture of how we relate to games culturally and how that's changed over time—connecting to, for instance, the 1987 chapter on Plundered Hearts, where designer Amy Briggs was seen as an isolated outsider for being a woman writing an interactive story.

 

All of these histories are woven together, and I think looking at these games as isolated islands misses a lot of why they're interesting and important to keep thinking about.

 

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Beginning in early June 2023, Microsoft identified surges in traffic against some services that temporarily impacted availability. Microsoft promptly opened an investigation and subsequently began tracking ongoing DDoS activity by the threat actor that Microsoft tracks as Storm-1359.

These attacks likely rely on access to multiple virtual private servers (VPS) in conjunction with rented cloud infrastructure, open proxies, and DDoS tools.

We have seen no evidence that customer data has been accessed or compromised.

This recent DDoS activity targeted layer 7 rather than layer 3 or 4.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and Microsoft 365 services were once again affected today, though thankfully, the problem was resolved within a few hours. The details of the issue could be tracked under ID MO597504 in the Microsoft 365 admin center:

We determined that the mitigations have helped resolve the underlying issue and our telemetry has confirmed that the impact to accessing files is now resolved. Further details can be found under MO597504 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) June 20, 2023

According to the official Microsoft 365 status Twitter handle, the issue was only affecting users in Western Europe:

We're investigating an issue where some users in Western Europe are unable to access files within the Microsoft 365 Service. Further details can be found under MO597504 in the admin center.

 — Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) June 20, 2023

Some further investigation helped the company determine what seemed to be the root cause of the issue, which was a data center in Germany that was not performing optimally. As such, the tech giant applied the necessary mitigations by reducing the load on the affected center:

We’ve identified a datacenter in Germany is not performing at optimal performance thresholds. We’ve applied mitigations to reduce the load on the affected infrastructure and are seeing improvements in availability. Further details can be found under MO597504 in the admin center.

 — Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) June 20, 2023

We will update the article if for some reason the issue returns.

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A couple of years ago, Intel released the Alder Lake series of processors on the LGA1700 socket. They were a big improvement over the 11th-gen Rocket Lake processors, which were quite a disappointment themselves.

So when Intel announced Alder Lake’s successor Raptor Lake, many thought they would get a full new generation. However, to many people’s disappointment, only the top-tired processors in the Raptor Lake series were new, as half of the CPUs in the line-up were nothing but a refresh of Alder Lake.

Now that Intel plans to release the Meteor Lake series of processors, there is news that they will not be released for desktops. So what is Intel going to do instead for the desktops. Now we have some more information about it.

Raptor Lake Refresh Coming This Year

Well-known leaker ECSM_Official has revealed (via @9550pro) a few interesting details about the upcoming desktop processors from Intel.

First, he mentions that the K series processors, which are unlocked for overclocking, of Raptor Lake Refresh are going to be released in October later this year.

The second thing he reveals is that the non-K series processors, which most use, will be released a month or two later.

The third important thing he reveals is that the Raptor Lake Refresh will continue to support the Intel 600 and 700 series chipsets. Which means motherboards with the LGA1700 socket will support the next-gen Raptor Lake Refresh processors. This has hardly happened before. Intel doesn’t usually support a socket for three generations.

ECSM_Official also reveals that Intel may release a CPU in the 14th-gen lineup with 8P-Cores and 12E-Cores. Which hints at the possibility of an entirely new CPU. While he says that the model is unknown, we believe that the model could be named the Intel Core i9-14800 or something like that.

Meanwhile, TechPowerUP reports that ASUS and AsRock have started releasing BIOS updates to support 14th-gen Rocket Lake Refresh CPUs.

Meteor Lake Canceled, Arrow Lake Coming Next Year

In the same post, ECSM_Official revealed more things about Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake.

In it, he says that the Meteor Lake series of processors is almost confirmed to be canceled for desktops and they will be exclusive to notebooks. He says it will be available for notebooks in Q4 of this year. Are the release of Raptor Lake Refresh desktop and Meteor Lake mobile releases planned together? We don’t know.

Another important thing he reveals is that the 15th-gen Arrow Lake processors from Intel are all set to debut in Q4 of 2024 at the earliest. The release could possibly get delayed to Q1 of 2025 too. It also says that the processor config will continue to be max 8P-Cores and 16E-Cores.

But the biggest surprise is that ECSM_Official claims that Intel’s new process, possibly hinting towards the Intel 4 node, is not up-to expectations and that Intel could use TSMC’s N3 node instead.

Now we do know that Intel might use some chips, like the SoC, GPU and IO tiles made by TSMC. But does ECSM_Official claim that Intel might use TSMC for CPU cores too? We don’t know. Maybe he’s just confirming earlier information about Intel using TSMC for SoC, GPU and IO tiles.

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