The footage showed the game's main character, a thief and "scoundrel" named Kay Vess. We see her trying to escape a facility on an alien planet, with lots of third-person gunplay with cover fire features. We then see a race and battle on hover speeders before she makes it to her destination and turns in the merchandise that she stole to her client.

Finally, we see her and her companions board her spaceship and fly out of the system, battling some TIE fighters along the way.

Here's what else you can expect from Star Wars: Outlaws, according to Ubisoft:

Explore distinct planets with bustling cities and cantinas before racing across sprawling outdoor landscapes on your speeder. Each planet brings new adventures, unique challenges, and enticing rewards if you’re willing to take the risk.

Live the high-stakes lifestyle of an outlaw. With Nix by your side, turn any situation to your advantage: fight with your blaster, overcome with stealth and gadgets, or find the right moments to distract foes and gain the upper hand.

Take on high-risk, high-reward missions from the galaxy’s crime syndicates. Steal valuable goods, infiltrate secret locations, and outwit enemies as one of the galaxy’s most wanted. Every choice you make influences your ever-changing reputation.

Ubisoft has also posted another video that shows actor Humberly González, who voices and does the motion capture for Kay Vess. It also offers more info on the game itself.

Star Wars: Outlaws is due out sometime in 2024 for the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles, along with the PC.

Star Wars: Outlaws gameplay footage shows open-world ground, vehicle, and space combat

At the Ubisoft Forward presentation today, the publisher offered another look at the game, seen below. The extended gameplay segment shows off the return of the classic parkour systems, weighty combat, stealth elements, blending into crowds, and best of all, actual assassinations.

The title puts players into the shoes of Basim in ninth century Baghdad. Assassin's Creed Valhalla players should recognize the protagonist's name, but know that this is a prequel storyline set decades before his rise through the Hidden Ones.

Not everything is being kept in the original style though, with a new Assassin's Focus ability being shown off at the end of the gameplay segment. Basim was shown to be able to mark targets and quickly dispatch them with a teleporting-like animation. This is probably a powerful ultimate ability that cannot be used all the time.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is out on October 12, 2023. It is releasing on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, as well as Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+ subscriptions.

Ubisoft gives a better look at Assassin's Creed Mirage's returning classic gameplay

Ubisoft kicked off its Forward presentation today with a look at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the Massive Entertainment-developed open-world game that was first announced way back in 2017. Both a cinematic trailer and gameplay of the game were shared, catch the former above and the latter below.

Set in James Cameron's Avatar universe, the first-person open world game puts players into the perspective of a Na'vi that was abducted as a child to be trained into a weapon by the humans. After escaping and being in cryo-sleep for years, the now free Na'vi must battle against human forces in the world of Pandora.

"Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora lets you play as a Na'vi who awakens on Pandora years after being abducted as a child and raised by the human militaristic corporation known as the RDA," Ubisoft says describing the setting. "Now a stranger in your own birthplace, you must reckon with the return of the RDA and the threat they pose to Pandora while reclaiming your ancestral heritage and learning what it means to be Na'vi."

Following an original and standalone storyline, Frontiers of Pandora takes place in the world's Western Frontier, a continent that hasn't been seen before. This allowed Massive to create brand-new environments, flora, and fauna to populate the vast lands players will be exploring.

Many of the gameplay systems are very reminiscent of Far Cry, another popular franchise of Ubisoft. There are outposts to take down, resources to collect, and skill trees to upgrade. Players can utilize mounts to travel the world quicker as well as use Na'vi or human combat styles to suit their needs.

Aside from solo play, two-player cooperative play was also confirmed for the entirety of the campaign.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora launches December 7, 2023 across PC (Ubisoft Connect), Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Amazon Luna. Ubisoft+ subscribers will also receive the game at launch for no extra cost.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's Far Cry-like open world gameplay revealed, out December 7

Alongside the release date reveal, CD Project Red has also announced some changes to the PC system requirements on its Steam page. They will apply to both the main game and Phantom Liberty. The changes will be released as a free patch to Cyberpunk 2077 no earlier than 90 days from now.

The changes include using more up-to-date hardware for the game's minimal requirements. CD Projekt Red stated:

The changes to the minimum requirements are a reflection of our new standard of requirements, which we believe better represent the minimum PC configuration required to run the game at 1080p, while maintaining an average of 30 FPS at low preset. The reason for making these changes is that updating the requirements is an important part of the game improvement process, and of enhancing and adding new features.

One of those big changes is that the minimal requirements now include using SSDs for storage, rather than old-fashioned hard drives. While players with the current minimal PC hardware specs can continue to run Cyberpunk 2077, they won't be officially supported after the base update is released in a few months.

Here's the breakdown:

Non-ray tracing PC requirements

Minimum

• In-game graphics preset low.
• Resolution: 1080p
• Expected FPS: 30
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Core i7-6700 or Ryzen 5 1600
• Graphics card: Geforce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 580 8GB or Arc A380
• VRAM: 6 GB
• RAM: 12GB
• Storage: 70 GB SSD

Recommended

• In-game graphics preset: high
• Resolution: 1080p
• Expected FPS: 60
• OS 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Core i7-12700 or Ryzen 7 7800X
• Graphics card: Geforce RTX 2060 Super or Radeon RX 5700 XT or Arc A770
• VRAM: 8 GB
• RAM: 16 GB
• Storage: 70 GB SSD

Ultra

• In-game graphics preset: ultra
• Resolution: 2160p
• Expected FPS: 60
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Core i9-12900 or Ryzen 9 7900X
• Graphics card: Geforce RTX 3080 or Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• VRAM: 12 GB
• RAM: 20 GB
• Storage: 70 GB NVME.

Ray Tracing PC requirements

Ray tracing minimum

• In-game graphics preset: ray tracing low
• Resolution: 1080p
• Expected FPS: 30
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Core i7-9700 or Ryzen 5 5600
• Graphics card: Geforce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6800 XT or Arc A750
• VRAM: 8 GB
• RAM: 16 GB
• Storage: 70 GB SSD

Ray tracing recommended

• In-game graphics preset: ray tracing ultra
• Resolution: 1080p
• Expected FPS: 60
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Core i9-12900 or Ryzen 9 7900X
• Graphics card: Geforce RTX 3080Ti or Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• VRAM: 12 GB
• RAM: 20 GB
• Storage: 70 GB NVME

Ray tracing Overdrive

• In-game graphics preset: ray tracing overdrive
• Resolution: 2160p
• Expected FPS: 60
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Core i9-12900 or Ryzen 9 7900X
• Graphics card: Geforce RTX 4080
• VRAM: 16 GB
• RAM: 24 GB
• Storage: 70 GB NVME

CD Projekt Red also announced that both Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty will get native Ukrainian language text support as part of that same patch.

Cyberpunk 2077 updates PC hardware requirements for Phantom Liberty's release

While it may just be a coincidence, the entire Reddit site went down for many users earlier today. The official Reddit status page shows a record of the downtime reports. The latest message, posted at 8:47 am Pacific time, stated that the site has started to come back online:

We're observing improvements across the site and expect issue to recover for most users. We will continue to closely monitor the situation.

However, it's possible the site issues could come back, as more and more subreddits either go dark, or simply prevent users from updating on their forums.

As we reported last week, this protest from all these popular online communities is due to Reddit's current plan to raise the prices of its APIs. Those prices are supposed to go up starting on July 1. Many third-party apps and services that use those APIs have features that are not available on Reddit's current official apps.

Some of those third-party apps, such as Apollo and Reddit is Fun, plan to completely shut down on June 30 because their app developers say they won't be able to afford to pay for Reddit's APIs on July 1.

While Reddit management is aware of these complaints, and of today's protests, there's no indication yet they will change their minds. In fact, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman stated in an AMA last week that the company "no longer subsidize commercial entities" accessing its APIs for free.

Only time will tell if Reddit's decision, combined with these protests, will adversely affect the popularity of the online forums.

Reddit experiences outages on the first day of the two-day subreddit API protest

Reddit, which bills itself as the "front page of the internet," is among the 20 most popular websites and has an estimated 430 million active users each month. Because of the recent Reddit API protest, most of the subreddits have gone dark.

Reddit made the decision to substantially raise the costs for its API, which led to the closure of some of the most popular third-party applications, including "Apollo" and "rif is fun for Reddit." Thousands of Reddit groups, commonly referred to as subreddits, will go black from June 12 to June 14 in opposition to upcoming API changes that will basically kill off many third-party applications.

If you are still looking for a guide that will explain how to join a private subreddit, read below!

Shutterstock

How to join a private subreddit easily

Reddit is a well-known online community where users may post and debate a wide range of subjects in distinct communities known as subreddits. While some subreddits are secret, which only authorized members can access, others are public, allowing anybody to join and browse them.

1. Open your web browser.
2. Go to Reddit.com
3. Sign in using your credentials. (If you don't have an account, click Sign up and create your first account)
4. After logging into your account, click the white envelope that will appear near your username at the top right corner.
5. This will take you to your inbox, and once you are in there, click "Send Private Message."
6. You must now submit a message to the private subreddit's moderators. To do that, enter "/r/name of the private subreddit" in the "to" or "receiver" box. To learn the name of the private subreddit, go to its page and check the URL. The name will be visible at the end of the URL.
7. Fill in the Subject field.
8. Type your message, explain your reasons for joining the private subreddit and hit "Send."

Luckily, there is another way that you can try; here are the steps:

1. Go to Reddit.
2. Type the private subreddit's name into the search box.
3. Click the Message Mods button.
4. Type your message and hit Send.

If you are interested in a certain topic or group that is not available in public subreddits, joining a private subreddit might be a gratifying experience. However, you should also be conscious of and abide by the obligations and standards that come with belonging to a private subreddit.

How to join a private subreddit: Guide

• Sharing their modified NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPU benchmark results, Twitter user @wxnod increased its VRAM from 11GB to 48GB (44GB usable.)
• Graphics cards use VRAM (video random access memory) to help render complex visual effects in real time.
• The increase in VRAM didn't affect the card's processing performance in benchmarks or video games, likely due to bandwidth limitations.

NVIDIA graphics cards are renowned for the sheer processing power behind some breathtaking visuals rendered in real-time for video games. It also develops ultra-powerful workstation cards for rendering complex CGI, with NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPUs pushing for around a mind-melting 48GB of GDDR6 VRAM. Naturally, these industry-focused cards carry a similarly eye-watering price tag of around $6,800, excluding most folk from ever coming close.

That hasn't stopped Алексей (Alexei) from sharing their outrageous attempt at upgrading the VRM on an RTX card from two whole decades ago from a measly 11GB all the way up to 44GB. Yes, you read that right. As Tom's Hardware covered all the intricate details, this GeForce RTX 2080 Ti had its memory expanded into such ridiculous proportions, thanks to its physical similarities to NVIDIA's Titan RTX, though even that was capped at 24GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

What does any of this mean? This brave (yet relatively fruitless) project bumps the older GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPU up to 48GB of total physical modules. However, it can only access 22 of the available slots due to limitations with its GDDR6 memory interface setup, so it caps out at 44GB. Still, GPU-Z and DxDiag (DirectX diagnostic tool) screenshots show that Windows does detect all 44GB of VRAM, even if the question of using it for benchmarking or playing games yields a disappointing answer.

What a shame. Without proper BIOS or driver support, this roided-up RTX 2080 Ti is nothing more than a fascination, but it's nonetheless impressive. Considering the price tags attached to some of the best graphics cards sail far and above the supposed MSRP, it's admirable to see hobbyists pushing older cards to their absolute power limits.

User-modified NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti upgrades to a monstrous 44GB of VRAM

Read the new Twitter CEO’s first email to employees

The CNBC report, citing unnamed sources, says that while the FTC has already filed a lawsuit against the $69 billion deal in December 2022, this new injunction is sort of an insurance policy against Microsoft closing the deal. The case is set to be heard by an internal administrative law judge sometime in July. If that judge makes a decision against Microsoft, the company can still appeal its case to a federal judge.

Microsoft's president Brad Smith is quoted in the article, ahead of the filing, stating:

We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court. We believe accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the market.

Microsoft is already facing an uphill battle to close this deal. The UK Competition and Markets Authority decided not to approve the purchase in April. It claimed Microsoft would have an unfair competitive advantage in the cloud gaming market if the acquisition with Activision Blizzard were completed. Microsoft is currently appealing that decision.

On Sunday, Xbox head Phil Spencer stated to the media he was still "confident" that the purchase of Activision Blizzard would go through. He added, "We're out there to find solutions with the regulators that have questions, and that's what we're actively doing."

Microsoft has been trying to offer game cloud market remedies, including offering its games to competing cloud gaming providers. On Sunday, Microsoft said that "select" PC Games Pass games would be available on the NVIDIA GeForce Now gaming service sometime in the coming months. Details about the list of games, and how gamers would access them, have not yet been revealed.

FTC reportedly set to file an injunction against Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard

Microsoft’s GeForce Now Game Pass offering is aimed straight at UK regulators

Over six thousand subreddits, including many of the most-subscribed communities on Reddit like r/funny, r/aww, r/gaming, r/music, and r/science, have set themselves private to protest Reddit’s upcoming API pricing changes. It means these communities are no longer publicly accessible, even to Reddit users previously subscribed to them. Here’s a Twitch stream which is tracking the exact number of subreddits that have gone dark.

 

Moderators began planning the actions last week after the developers of some of Reddit’s most-beloved third-party apps said they wouldn’t be able to afford the platform’s updated API pricing. On Thursday, the developers for Apollo for Reddit and others announced they would be shutting down their apps on June 30th due to the API changes.

 

Many subreddits participating in the protest are going private for 48 hours, from June 12th to June 14th, but some plan to stay private until things change, according to a pinned post in the subreddit r/Save3rdPartyApps.

 

Attempting to access r/aww, one of Reddit’s biggest subreddits, shows this notice.

Screenshot by Jon Porter / The Verge

 

“This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love,” r/Toptomcat wrote in the post. And some subreddits didn’t wait until Monday: r/TIHI (Thanks, I Hate It) and r/polls were among those that went dark shortly after CEO Steve Huffman’s poorly-received Friday AMA.

 

Apollo app developer Christian Selig, whose post about Reddit’s API pricing generated much of the initial outrage, said it was “incredibly amazing” seeing Reddit’s community come together to push back against the proposed changes. “I really hope Reddit listens,” he wrote in a post on the Apollo subreddit. “I think showing humanity through apologizing for and recognizing that this process was handled poorly, and concrete promises to give developers more time, would go a long way to making people feel heard and instilling community confidence.”

 

While many subreddits are going private, others (such as r/NintendoSwitch, r/Frugal, and r/StarWars) are instead choosing to restrict new posts. Historical posts are still visible, but moderators won’t be allowing new content on these communities while the protest is taking place. One subreddit, r/DankMemes, is still public but only allows users to post memes about the API changes.

 

In r/ModCoord, four separate threads detail an “incomplete and growing list of participating subreddits” that includes numerous well-known communities with tens of millions of subscribers.

 

 

More than six thousand subreddits have gone dark to protest Reddit’s API changes

The experiment goes hand in hand with a major change regarding third-party applications on Reddit. Late last month, Reddit announced new pricing for API access. The API of the service is used by third-party applications and services to display Reddit content to users. This API was free to use up to that point.

While it is understandable that a service may want compensation for access to its data, Reddit appears to have set the pricing exorbitantly high. The developer of the iOS exclusive Apollo app claimed that he would have to pay $20 million per year to Reddit for API access.

The consequence is that many third-party application developers have announced that they are shutting down their Reddit apps on June 30, 2023. A protest movement on Reddit tries to force the hand of the company by locking access to thousands, of popular subreddits on the site for a 48 hour period.

Subreddits are like forums on Reddit. Some popular ones have millions of users and drive a lot of traffic to the site. Reddit's CEO already revealed that Reddit would not make changes to its plans despite thousands of subreddits going dark on the site.

Limiting Mobile Access

Reddit is running an experiment on the site currently that limits mobile access to some users. These users notice that they can no longer sign-in to the site using a mobile browser. Reddit asks them to use the official application on mobile to access the site while signed-in to their account.

Signing-in gives Reddit users access to their history on the site, to bookmarks, and the ability to interact on the site actively. They may post new threads or comments, or communicate with other users directly among other things.

A Reddit administrator confirmed here that the site was running an experiment currently on the site that is limiting access on mobile for some users. They stated: "It looks like you’re part of one of our experiments. The logged-in mobile web experience is currently unavailable for a portion of users. To access the site you can log on via desktop, the mobile apps, or wait for the experiment to conclude."

Some affected users were able to fix the issue by clearing Reddit site data and cookies.

The motivation behind the user unfriendly moves

Reddit is interested in getting users to use its application on mobile. Use of a dedicated mobile app gives the company access to valuable data, more control, and the ability to display advertisement to users.

Third-party applications or mobile browsers allow users to get rid of ads, e.g., by using content blockers, and they limit Reddit's tracking abilities also.

Closing Words

It remains to be seen if Reddit will indeed go ahead with the planned changes regarding API access, or if company and third-party application developers will find a compromise. The going dark movement will likely not be sufficient to convince Reddit, but the participating subreddits could consider extending the period of going dark further.

There is a subreddit for Reddit Alternatives, which users of the site may check out and monitor for potential alternatives. Some of these are picking up lots of users already, but it remains to be seen if that is going to be similar to Twitter users leaving for Mastadon, which appears to have had little impact on Twitter, or bigger than that.

One potential alternative, which has not been mentioned yet in the discussion, is the Usenet.

Now You: do you use Reddit?

Reddit is blocking logins on mobile for some users, asking them to use the official Reddit app

Microsoft announces new $350, 1TB Carbon Black Xbox Series S

Stormgate gameplay trailer - Stormgate was announced a year ago in June 2022, but on Sunday, we finally got to see this upcoming RTS game in action with the first gameplay footage. The game comes from Frost Giant Studios, made up of a number of former Blizzard team members who worked on Warcraft and Starcraft games, and you can definitely see some Starcraft influences in the trailer. There's no release date set for this game.

Warhaven trailer and demo reveal - Nexon showed off a new trailer for its 16x16 fantasy melee multiplayer game. It's due this fall, but you will be able to play a demo starting June 19 during the Steam Next Fest.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin trailer and open beta reveal - Frontier Developments showed off new gameplay from this Warhammer-based fantasy RTS game. An open beta for the game will be held from July 7-10.

Stampede Racing Royale game reveal - Developer Secret Mode revealed a new game during the PC gaming show. It combines kart racing combat with battle royale gameplay, with 60 players racing to become the final one standing. There's no release date yet for the game.

TerraTech Worlds game reveal - Developer Payload Studios has announced this cool looking sandbox sci-fi game. You build custom vehicles to explore a planet, gather and use its resources, and battle enemies while also continuing to modify your vehicles. There's no release date yet for the game.

Lords of the Fallen gameplay trailer - We continue to be impressed by this cool looking upcoming Unreal Engine 5-based fantasy RPG from developer Hexworks. It's due out in October 2023.

Path of Exile 2 gameplay trailer - Developer Grinding Gear Games showed off another brief gameplay clip for its upcoming action-RPG sequel. More info about this game will be revealed at a separate event on July 28.

You can watch the entire PC Gaming Show event on YouTube right now.

PC Gaming Show 2023 highlights: First gameplay from Stormgate, Warhaven demo and more

Bethesda’s “Starfield Direct” shows off a massive, galactic-scale space RPG

Windows 11, File Explorer redesign, and fresh builds

This week's biggest story on the Windows side is the redesigned File Explorer. It is available for those testing Windows 11's preview builds in the Dev Channel. The updated app features an improved and modernized address bar, better context menus, and other notable UI improvements. Note that the revamped Explorer is rolling out gradually, so some insiders remain stuck with the current File Explorer iteration. Not happy with such outrageous injustice? Check out our guide detailing how to force-enable the new File Explorer without waiting in line.

Here are the new Windows Insider builds released this week (did you notice that Neowin now has a dedicated widget for tracking preview builds?):

• Canary Channel: 25387.1200, a small servicing update without significant or notable changes.
• Dev Channel: 23475 with the redesigned File Explorer, Dynamic Lightning settings, and more.
• Beta Channel: KB5027305 with a new toggle that makes it easier to switch between cellular and Wi-Fi.

In addition to new preview builds, Microsoft released an update for the Microsoft Store app. The latest version makes downloading free games and apps on Windows 11 much more convenient and with fewer clicks.

The art of the deal

We should also mention that those needing a Windows 11 license should check out this deal: lifetime Windows 11 Pro key for up to three devices for just $49.99. Also, many games are currently up to 90% off for those subscribed to Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

App updates

As usual, this week brought us many app updates with new features and various changes. Vivaldi, a popular Chromium browser, stole the show with version 6.1 that masks itself to look like Microsoft Edge to let customers access Bing Chat without Microsoft's oppressive limitations.

Microsoft Word on Windows received a new comment-related feature: now users can place likes under comments for more engaging collaborative work. The change is currently available for Windows users, but Microsoft promises to bring it to macOS soon. Word is not the only app getting fresh features this week. The software giant announced new drawing tool improvements for PowerPoint on the web. And by the way, Microsoft's Office apps are coming to the recently announced Apple Vision Pro VR headset.

If you use Windows 8.1 or 8 (you probably should not), bad news for you: Google is about to pull the plug on the Drive app in August. Soon, now-dead Windows 8.1 and 8, plus all 32-bit operating systems, will lose access to Google Drive via its dedicated app.

AI updates and controversies

Let's talk about AI and Bing Chat. The service now supports voice chat on desktops, giving users another method to interact with Bing Chat. And since such tools are still a major novelty for most, Microsoft decided to launch a new marketing campaign to promote Bing and its new AI-powered capabilities.

Of course, Microsoft is still Microsoft, so it could not help but end up in another controversy. The company briefly made a lame Bing ad that looked like AI answering when you search for Chrome. Whatever it takes to stop you from downloading Chrome, smh.

Xbox accessories, new games, and a massive fine

This week, Western Digital finally unveiled the long-anticipated expansion cards for Xbox Series X|S. Until now, cards from Seagate were the only choice for those not satisfied with the default storage in Xbox consoles. New expansion cards are available with 512GB or 1TB, and you can already order one (or several, if you wish) from Western Digital's official website.

Speaking of accessories, Microsoft is cooking a new Starfield-themed Xbox Wireless Controller. The upcoming game from Bethesda will be unveiled today, so expect Microsoft to reveal the controller alongside. If you do not mind spoilers, check out the images of the gamepad spotted in the wild. And if a custom controller is not enough, prepare for a 300 euro-priced Starfield "Constellation" special edition.

Today's Xbox game showcase will be full of announcements and trailers (Microsoft has confirmed those would not be CGI), so we have prepared a dedicated Bingo you can play with us.

On the less exciting gaming news side, the FTC revealed Microsoft would pay a whopping $20 million fine to the regulator to settle issues with Xbox child privacy protection. FTC says the company should not have asked minors to provide full name, date of birth, email address, phone number, and other details.

Finally, you can tempt your luck and try winning a special Porsche 75th anniversary Xbox Series X, which will be a perfect device to play the upcoming Forza Motorsport.

Wallpapers, fun stuff, and wtf stuff

If you want to freshen up your desktop, check out this awesome wallpaper from Microsoft. The company has made a modern remake of the legendary Windows XP "Bliss" photo. Also, the leaked Windows 11 pre-release build revealed a unique take on Windows 10's classic wallpaperwith slightly dimmed lights and muted colours, arguably indicating the end of the Windows 10 era.

On the funny side, users noted that Microsoft has a hard time translating English to English. Windows 11 machine-translated to UK English says you should send your files to a postcode. The next thing it would probably ask you is to accept essential biscuits.

If you are up for some more interesting read, check out John Callaham's look back at the legendary Apple II, a computer released 46 years ago. John recalls how the old computer helped kick off the PC boom and made personal computers a common thing accessible to almost everyone.

Also, we published a review of Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus 8TB NVMe SSD. Check it out if you plan a massive storage upgrade for your computer or are just curious to see how such a gigantic SSD performs. Finally, Christoper White reviewed QNOAP's 4-bay NAS, the TS464, and Steven Parker published a review of a mini PC from Geekom. The latter packs sixth-generation AMD Ryzen processors, DDR5 memory, and up to 2TB SSD.

Microsoft Weekly: redesigned File Explorer for Windows 11, fresh builds, and more

CD Projekt RED's next project appeared at the Xbox Games Shocase today, revealing the release date of Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion and its launch date. Featuring more action-packed antics of V and Johnny Silverhand, the expansion launches September 26. Catch the trailer shown today at the event above.

The expansion has V heading to Night City's Dogtown, a brand-new district that's much more rundown and in disarray compared to the rest of the futuristic city players are used to from the base game. CD Projekt RED is promising hordes of new content including quests, gigs, new gig types, fresh vehicles, weapons, cyberware, and more to dive into in this expansion. There will even be a new skill tree.

"In Phantom Liberty, players once again take on the role of V, a cyberpunk for hire, as they embark on a mission to save the President of the New United States of America after her orbital shuttle is shot down over the deadliest district of Night City — Dogtown," the studio revealed regarding the "spy-thriller" experience's setting today. "What follows is a deep dive into an intricate story of espionage and political intrigue which connects the highest echelons of power with the brutal world of black-market mercenaries."

Keanu Reeves is returning to play the role of Johnny Silverhand for the expansion, and he will be joined by another Hollywood start this time: Idris Elba. Elba is playing the role of Reed in the expansion, an agent of a secret organization and a possible ally to V.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is launching across PC (GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 systems for $29.99, and pre-orders are live now. The expansion will not launch on last-gen consoles unlike the base game.

Despite fans hoping for a The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt-like double expansion situation, Phantom Liberty has been confirmed as the first and only expansion Cyberpunk 2077 will receive. However, CD Projekt RED already has plans laid out for a full-fledged sequel. The project will be developed using Unreal Engine 5, ditching the in-house REDengine solution the studio has used since The Witcher 2.

Cyberpunk 2077's spy-thriller expansion 'Phantom Liberty' releases in September

It was during the 2020 Xbox Games Showcase that Obsidian unveiled Avowed, its next major RPG project. After three years of silence, the fan-favorite studio returned to the latest 2023 edition of the showcase to reveal what it has been working on. Catch the gameplay trailer above.

Unfortunately, the launch is not happening this year, with Obsidian announcing a 2024 release window for the Microsoft platform exclusive AAA entry. This is slated to be the first AAA game by Obsidian for Xbox since Microsoft's acquisition of the studio.

"Unique to the world of Eora, the Living Lands is home to bustling port towns and rolling hills adorned with weird and fantastical plant life," the studio revealed today. "Every part of the Living Lands is home to its own ecosystem. Around every corner there are creatures, sentient mushrooms, or tribes of lizard-like Xaurips looking to make you their next meal… "

Avowed is set in world of Eora, the same planet that the studio's Pillars of Eternity CRPG series is based on. As can be seen in the trailer, the original two games' isometric control style has been ditched to go for a first-person experience this time. Players will be using swords, shields, pistols, magical spells, and other abilities, with dual wielding support, to take down foes.

Avowed is out on PC and Xbox Series X|S platforms sometime in 2024. Being a first-party Xbox studio launch, Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscribers are gaining access to the title on day one too for no extra cost. Obsidian is also currently working on The Outer Worlds 2, the sequel to its well-received RPG entry from 2019.

Obsidian's next RPG Avowed is out next year, gameplay trailer is here

The MacBook Air lineup comprises a 13-inch model introduced in June 2022 and a recently launched 15-inch variant. Both models utilize Apple's M2 chip, manufactured using TSMC's 5nm process. However, the M3 chip will be built on TSMC's 3nm process, leading to notable CPU and GPU performance improvements.

Gurman further notes that the M3 chip will likely have CPU and GPU core counts similar to the M2 chip. This continuity in core counts suggests that Apple's focus on the M3 chip optimizes power efficiency and overall system performance.

Additionally, Gurman reaffirms that Apple is concurrently developing new iMac and 13-inch MacBook Pro models with the M3 chip. The upcoming iMac, projected to launch early next year, is expected to maintain the current design language introduced in 2020.

Recently, a benchmark test showed the M2 Ultra performing 2x faster than the fastest Intel-based Mac. And the M3 chip is anticipated to deliver performance efficiency for the new MacBook Air models.

Expected to be priced at $1,299, the 15-inch MacBook Air offers several key differences compared to its 13-inch counterpart. Most notably, it boasts a larger display and an increased speaker count, with six speakers instead of four.

Also, Apple has started shipping a new 70W USB-C power adapter for the MacBook Air lineup, replacing the older 67W adapter. When buying the 15-inch MacBook Air, users can choose between the 35W Dual USB charger and the newer 70W adapter.

At WWDC 2023, Apple also talked about the new features and changes coming to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma, and more. However, the limelight of the show is the new Vision Pro AR headset that's set to release in early 2024.

Source: Bloomberg

Apple reportedly may launch an M3 processor-based MacBook Air in 2024

Now, a report from Platformer (Paywall) claims that Twitter is behind on its Google Cloud payments and could lose access to Google Cloud services on June 30. According to the sources, Google and Twitter had been engaged in a tug of war over payments for a while with Twitter asking Google to negotiate a better Google Cloud contract.

In case you are unaware, Google and Twitter had signed a multi-year contract in 2018, well before Musk took over. The deal included Twitter spending $1 Billion over the course of five years, including over $300 million in 2023. However, at some point during this year, Twitter stopped paying Google and the company is now planning to move away from Google altogether.

However, the plan to move away from Google is not going as expected and is behind schedule. According to the report, Smyte, an anti-harassment company that Twitter bought in 2018 is currently running on Google Cloud and will go offline on June 30. Not only that, but Google currently hosts Twitter services related to anti-spam, removing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and protecting accounts. These too, could be shut down unless Twitter moves them to its own servers before June 30.

Google is not the only company struggling to get its invoices cleared. Earlier this year, Amazon threatened to stop paying for advertising to Twitter unless the company cleared its outstanding Amazon Web Services (AWS) bill. Twitter has also received a series of legal notices over not paying its rental and vendor bills.

Recently, Fidelity released a report noting that Twitter is now worth around $15 Billion, one-third of what Elon Musk paid last year to buy the company.

Twitter has seen a huge turmoil since its acquisition by billionaire Elon Musk late last year. With the company facing lawsuits from former employees, advertisers leaving the platform, security breach that allowed everyone to see Twitter Circle tweets, and multiple outages, it has been a rocky ride for Musk's latest experiment.

Twitter refuses to pay its Google Cloud bills, puts Trust and Safety services at risk

Cold boot attacks, in which memory chips can be chilled and data including encryption keys plundered, were demonstrated way back in 2008 – but they just got automated.

That original type of attack has been improved and automated in the form of a memory-pilfering machine that can be yours for around $2,000, with a bit of self-guided electrical fiddling.

On Friday, at the REcon reverse engineering conference in Canada, Ang Cui, founder and CEO of Red Balloon Security, is scheduled to present a talk titled "Ice Ice Baby: Coppin' RAM With DIY Cryo-Mechanical Robot."

The presentation focuses on a Cryo-Mechanical RAM Content Extraction Robot that Cui and colleagues Grant Skipper and Yuanzhe Wu developed to collect decrypted data from DDR3 memory modules. The rationale for doing so is that hardware manufacturers have made it more difficult to reverse engineer their devices – by disabling JTAG debugging interfaces and UART circuitry, and through using ball grid array (BGA) packaging and encrypted firmware.

"We're seeing what I call product finishing, where manufacturers are removing a lot of debugging interfaces," Cui told The Register in an interview. "It doesn't necessarily increase the security of the product, but it does make introspecting the device and reverse engineering the device a whole lot more difficult. It's kind of just wasting time, getting around some of these hardware things.

"So we decided to kind of change that dynamic by going a different route," said Cui. "Instead of trying to do fault injection, which we've done in the past, or do some very invasive reverse engineering by laser ablation, we built this very affordable, surprisingly accurate robot that literally freezes one RAM chip on the device at a time."

"Then we pull the physical memory off of the device when we want to read the content of the physical RAM – we slam it into our little FPGA fixture. It's basically just reading physical memory by grabbing it from the device and then putting it physically into the reader. And it has actually worked surprisingly well," Cui explained.

"A lot of times in the bootloader, you're gonna see decryption keys. You're also going to see the bootloader code – which a lot of times, if you have encrypted firmware on flash, and you have a boot ROM that's secure even somewhat, you can have a really hard time even getting access to read the code. But with this approach, you get the code, you get all the data, you get the stack, you get the heap, you get all the physical memory," he recounted.

The original cold boot attack, Cui said, involved freezing a laptop's memory by inverting a can of compressed air to chill the computer's DRAM. When memory chips can be brought down to around -50°C, the data represented within can be temporarily frozen – so that it persists for several minutes, even when powered down.

"But if you look at embedded devices, they don't have modular RAM," said Cui. "It's all soldered on. We also worked on a number of very custom memory controllers. We used this approach to do the Siemens vulnerability disclosure work earlier this year.

"So once we got one memory chip pulling off reliably and then reading correctly, we had to do not one but five chips, because they're all interlaced together. And then three of the chips are on one side of the board, and two of them are on the bottom of the board. So we had to come up with a way to somehow magically either pull all five memory chips off at literally the same instruction – which is, you know, hilariously complicated and it's just not really doable."

Tricky stuff, timing

"We came up with this other really cool trick where we do this one at a time and we're looking for not just deterministic execution, but we're also looking at the electromagnetic emanation of the device to figure out basically where the device is going through CPU-bound operation periods. Because if you're CPU-bound, guess what you're not doing? You're not writing from memory," he recalled.

"So instead of needing to have like tens of nanoseconds of timing resolution when pulling the memory chip off, we got periods of tens of milliseconds where we can do this. And that was how we pulled off five memory chips at the same time, and then reconstructed memory for the bootloader, the code and the data, and got visibility to the device."

And tens of milliseconds, Cui, said, is long enough for a computer numerical control (CNC) machine – acquired for about $500 from AliExpress and modified – to perform the necessary chip manipulation.

The robot – a CNC machine attached to a memory reader built with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and a controller based on an ESP32 module running MicroPython – simplifies the cold boot attack technique, making it less onerous.

Cui said that the robot consists of a CNC that has been stripped of imprecise components, like the motors and X-axis actuator. What makes the attack possible, he said, is something called a conductive elastomer IC test socket.

In contrast to typical test sockets that are shaped like a clamshell and have metal pins, the elastomer test socket has the consistency of hard gummy bears and is printed with conductive pins.

The flexibility of the socket made it possible to have a piston push the memory chips into place with cheap hardware, without damaging the circuit board or memory chips. And these sockets, which cost hundreds of dollars each a decade ago, can now be had for something like $30 on Taobao.

By incorporating an FPGA-based memory readout system, there's no need to gain code execution via a custom bootloader to dump DRAM contents. The robot also simplifies the attack process by physically transferring DRAM chips between the target device and the readout system.

It works, but all is not lost

Cui and colleagues demonstrated their robot on a Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 PLC, from which they were able to recover the contents of encrypted firmware binaries. They also conducted a similarly successful attack on DDR3 DRAM in a CISCO IP Phone 8800 series to access the runtime ARM TrustZone memory.

They believe their technique is applicable to more sophisticated DDR4 and DDR5 if a more expensive (like, about $10,000) FPGA-based memory readout platform is used – a cost they expect will decline in time.

Cold boot attacks can be countered with physical memory encryption, Cui said.

"In modern sort of CPUs, and also in game consoles, they're actually already using full encrypted memory," Cui explained. "That would defeat this approach, because even if we were able to rip the physical memory, we would still need to have the physical key, which is somewhere else in the device."

"But the more important a thing is for the world, the less security it has," he said. "So guess what has [memory encryption]? XBox has it. PS5 has it. Guess what doesn't? Every PLC [programmable logic controller] CPU on the planet effectively. A lot of the critical infrastructure embedded things that we depend on, almost none of them are addressing this kind of attack." ®

Source

Computer users have two main options today when it comes to internal storage: buy Solid State Drives, which beat platter-based hard drives in all fields but storage, and classic platter-based hard drives, which may offer way more storage than SSDs.

Currently, computer users may purchase 20 or 22 Terabyte drives for their devices, with prices starting at around $300 depending on maker and model.

Soon, the first 30 terabyte hard drives will become available, increasing storage capacities by 8 terabytes. Seagate announced plans recently to release its first 30 terabyte hard drive in the third quarter of 2023.  The drive uses Seagate's Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology and consists of 10 disks and 20 heads according to Seagate.

The company has plans to extend storage to 36 terabyte and 40 terabyte in the near future, and is testing 50 terabyte drives in lab already as well.

Gianluca Romano, Seagate's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, confirmed at the Bank of America 2023 Global Technology Conference on June 7, 2023, that Seagate shipped HAMR hard drives for qualification already and that it is usually taking several months. Seagate expects to see these making an impact on revenue in the next three to four quarters.

Romana provided additional details on the HAMR technology during the call: "When you go to HAMR, our 32-terabyte is based on 10 disks and 20 heads. So same number of disks and head of the current 20-terabyte PMR. The following product will be a 36-terabyte and will still be based on 10 disks and 20 heads. So all the increase is coming through areal density. The following one, 40-terabyte, still the same 10 disks and 20 heads. And also the 50, we said at our earnings release, in our lab, we are already running individual disk at 5 terabytes".

He notes that the technology allows Seagate to increase capacity "without increasing the cost per unit". Seagate plans to stop developing Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology hard drives after the release of 24 terabyte capacity drives. Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology hard drives will stop at 28 terabytes, and everything above those capacities Seagate plans to be HAMR-based.

Seagate has not revealed pricing at this point, but hard drives with larger capacities are usually sold at a premium. The release of the first HAMR-based drives could drive the pricing of lower capacity hard drives down a bit. This would not happen overnight, but once the new capacity hard drives became available in sufficient numbers, it could reduce the price of 20 terabyte and lower capacity drives.

The average cost per Gigabyte has gone down since 2017, according to Backblaze, but has slowed down since 2020. The price per gigabyte dropped below $0.015 for the first time in 2021 for 14 terabyte drives and for 16 TB drives in 2022.

Large capacity hard drives are attractive to the industry and home users alike. Storage requirements have gone up in several key areas, including gaming and media. A single computer game may require hundreds of gigabytes of storage, or even more nowadays. While it may not be ideal to place these games on the slower platter-based drives, it may not make much of a difference depending on the type of game.

The rise of 4K video has also increased the requirement for large capacity hard drives. A single hour of playtime of 4K video takes up around 20-22 GB of storage already, with 8K video increasing that to 36-38 GB.

Now You: would you buy such a large capacity hard drive, if it would be priced reasonably?

Seagate launching 32 TB hard drives later this year and 50 TB on the horizon

Thousands of subreddits pledge to go dark after the Reddit CEO’s recent remarks

A year ago, AMD released the Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU. It wasn’t just any CPU, it was a game-changing CPU. It came with an extra layer of X3D cache on top of an existing L3 cache, taking the total L3 cache to 96MB.

This extra cache proved very important for the CPU as during the time of release, the CPU turned out to be the fastest CPU produced for gaming. All due to some games making a good use of the extra cache.

So impressive were the results that AMD decided to announce not one but three such 3D V-Cache based CPUs in the Ryzen 7000 series.

The ones which released earlier were AMD Ryzen 7950X3D and Ryzen 7900X3D CPUs. However, while both the CPUs came with two chiplets, totaling 8-Core and 6-Core in each one respectively, only one chiplet had the extra cache, while the other one was used for non-gaming tasks.

Then came AMD Ryzen 7800X3D, a successor to the Ryzen 5800X3D, with a similar single 8-Core chiplet too. So good were its benchmark reviews that the CPU not only defeated Ryzen 7900X3D, but it also defeated Ryzen 7950X3D in gaming. This is because in had a single, dedicated 8-Core chiplet with extra 3D V-Cache which the games could fully utilize.

However, what about the original AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor? As per @TechEpiphany, it’s still the highest selling CPU on German retailer Mindfactory. For a good reason, too. It’s not only cheaper, but it doesn’t require a new motherboard as any newer motherboard with AM4 socket will be able to support it, along with cheaper DDR4 RAM that it uses.

So AMD might be thinking, if Ryzen 5800X3D is selling so well. What if they release a cheaper version of it. Looks like that is a possibility.

AMD Preparing Ryzen 5600X3D

Well known Twitter based leaker chi11eddog has leaked an interesting image.

The image shows two CPUs in the list. One is the AMD Ryzen 5800X3D and the other is AMD Ryzen 5600X3D.

This suggests that AMD could be preparing a Ryzen 5600X3D processor with 6-Cores. It also shows that the CPU will come with the frequency of 3.3 GHz base clock and 4.4 GHz boost clock.

Interestingly, the image also reveals that the CPU will come with the same amount of total L3 cache like the other processors with the 3D V-Cache chiplet, that is 96MB.

Now why AMD could be making such a CPU when Ryzen 5800X3D is selling so nicely. We don’t know. But it’s possible that some Ryzen 5800X3D chips could be defective and some cores need to be disabled on them. So it’s possible that AMD could be use those defective chips and start selling them as Ryzen 5600X3D instead.

It must be mentioned that this is a common practice in the world of CPU manufacturing and it’s not something that should be looked at something wrong. This is how many CPUs are made in a lineup of a series and is done by both Intel and AMD.

Ryzen 5600X3D Performance And Pricing

What’s something to wonder is how will AMD Ryzen 5600X3D perform. As AMD has not released a single 6-Core CPU with X3D cache before.

But we can compare it with other options we have. The Ryzen 5600X of example, which doesn’t come with 3D V-Cache and comes with 6-Cores. It had an MSRP of $299 when it released. Now it costs $149.

But the most important CPU we can compare 5600X3D with is the Ryzen 7900X3D. That’s because the extra 3D-V Cache that it has, exists only on one single 6-Core chiplet, the other chiplet is without the extra cache.

As per Tom’s Hardware review for Ryzen 7800X3D, Ryzen 7900X3D is just 6% slower in gaming than the Ryzen 7800X3D. So could it mean that even 5600X3D will be just 6% slower than the 5800X3D? We never know. But that could possibly be the case.

But let us take it further. Let us look at the TechPowerUP’s review of Ryzen 5800X3D for example. If 6% less performance is considered at 1080p in gaming (page 16), then Ryzen 5600X3D would still beat the likes of Ryzen 5950X and 5900X, which is massive.

The pricing of the CPU can be interesting. The Ryzen 5800X3D came with an MSRP of $499. However, now it sells well under $290. So it’s possible that AMD could price it somewhere around $200. But at the same time, a 16-Core Ryzen 5700X is selling at $190, so we don’t know what could AMD be thinking here.

It’s possible that AMD could check its gaming performance and then decide on its pricing later.

Specs Table

We have made a small specs table for our readers to understand where this processor can stand.

Why we took Ryzen 5600X for comparison and not Ryzen 5600 which is cheaper. It’s because, in all the likelihood, it’s going to beat 5600X in gaming performance. So it’s best to compare what it competes with.

Conclusion

While chi11eddog has a good record, it’s always best to take this rumor as it is, a rumor. It’s entirely possible that AMD could be just testing the CPU and it might never be released to be public.

It’s also possible that AMD might actually release the CPU to the public. If so, then we will see many reviewing it, to check how it compares with the other Ryzen 5000 series processors, especially the Ryzen 5800X3D.

However, if AMD does release this CPU, then it would be important to see how it prices it. While it’s true that Ryzen 5800X3D is a great gaming CPU and if Ryzen 5600X3D exists then it could be a good one too. But there are good competitor CPUs out there which are quite cheap. So pricing it correctly would be very important for them.

AMD Could Be Making A 6-Core Ryzen 5600X3D CPU With 3D Cache

When Nvidia announced GeForce RTX 4060 & 4060 Ti graphics cards, a lot of people were angry at them.

The reason was simple. While RTX 4060 came with just 8GB of VRAM, Nvidia decided to release RTX 4060 Ti in two versions, 8GB and 16GB models. Not only that, Nvidia priced RTX 4060 Ti 8GB at $400 and it asked a $100 more for a 16GB card, making it to be priced at $500.

The question is, should an additional 8GB cost a $100 more? Not if the current graphics card VRAM spot prices are taken into consideration.

VRAM Prices Revealed

A Reddit user Balance- has shared the information (via @3DCenter_org) for the current prices for the graphics card VRAM. To show this information about VRAM prices, he uses the information from DRAMeXchange, a prominent memory chip price information site by Trendforce research.

The graph shows how an 8Gb (gigabit), that means 1GB (gigabyte), of a single GDDR6 VRAM chip used to cost an average of $12.9 about sixteen months ago. Now that price has been reduced to just $3.3 per 1GB chip.

Which means that if a graphics card comes with an 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, adding an additional 8GB on it should technically cost max $27 more. Add some extra wiring, packaging and other things, an additional 8GB of VRAM shouldn’t cost more than $50 per graphics card.

So if Nvidia sells a 16GB version of RTX 4060 Ti, it could price the card $50 more, not $100 more as it is currently doing. The problem is, 2GB chips however cost more than 1GB chips, something which 16GB graphics cards use. But even then the price isn’t justified.

But that’s not the whole story, either. Tom’s Hardware reports that these spot prices are different from contract prices. Basically, graphics card makers have long term contracts with VRAM chipmakers, who supply them these chips in bulk, at a far cheaper rate than the market price.

It means that graphics cards with higher VRAM should be even cheaper than the above mention numbers.

Conclusion

Nvidia has come under a lot of criticism these days for skimping out on VRAM. People are quite angry by it. It’s because some games like Hogwarts Legacy and others are requiring a lot of VRAM to run the game. They are using way above 8GB VRAM found in most budget graphics cards these days.

It becomes very important that newer generation graphics cards are not cheaping out on VRAM. In-fact, even AMD had joined the argument against Nvidia in this. It’s advertising how the cheapest AMD graphics card with 16GB VRAM currently costs just $500. But that was before Nvidia announced the 16GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti, costing $500. So Nvidia and AMD are on the same field now, no matter how much AMD contributed to Nvidia being forced to announce a 16GB version for RTX 4060 Ti.

We find AMD to blame here too. Ideally, AMD should have released the RX 7600 graphics card with 16GB or even 10GB or 12GB of VRAM for budget gamers, but it didn’t do so. It stuck with 8GB of VRAM. They could have forced Nvidia to make larger VRAM graphics cards available for cheaper graphics cards, too. But they didn’t do so.

Now we know that VRAM is officially quite cheap. It’s time all the consumers speak and tell graphics card makers that skimping out on VRAM is not something they will accept and that they need faster, better cards at a cheaper rate. Not something that we are getting these days.

VRAM Prices Show How GPU Makers Are Overcharging Buyers