• Amazon's AWS cloud services billing system went wild on Friday
• Customers saw bills in the trillions
• AWS apologized and is working on a fix

AWS, the cloud platform that serves millions who use Amazon's servers to run websites and businesses you use every day, just freaked out many of its customers with usage bills that literally went into the trillions.

"I just saw $1.5 trillion on my AWS bill and my soul left my body," wrote Bharath_uwu on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, and he wasn't alone.

The Guardian originally spotted the Tweet and multiple social posts relating to the seemingly widespread glitch.

AWS doesn't mail out invoices. Instead, customers logging into the Billing and Cost Management console spotted the billion- and trillion-dollar bills and expressed emotions ranging from concern to panic.

As Dan Harvey, who heads marketing at Learning Through Landscapes, told the Guardian, "I almost had a heart attack when I received an email alert from Amazon Web Services with the billing for our charity’s school grounds audit app."

Some tried to take the billing error in stride. Chinmay on X encouraged others to post their highest AWS bills. As of 10 hours ago, he was at $333B.

Others called out AWS for the error with something less than good humor. "I bet someone must have had a real heart attack. This shouldn't be legal...," wrote Mr Doob on X.

Amazon, to its credit, has been delivering multiple updates starting at around 1:30AM PDT on Friday, July 17, when they first spotted the error: "We are investigating issues with Cost Explorer reflecting inaccurate estimated billing data."

A few hours later, AWS reported it had found the culprit: "We have identified the root cause as an issue with unit pricing within the estimated billing computation subsystem, and we are working on a mitigation," they wrote on the AWS Status page.

However, hours later, AWS admitted, "Our efforts to backfill corrected estimated cost and usage data are still underway. We are progressing slower than anticipated."

The good news is that AWS is not asking anyone to pay these incorrect fees and that, while this has been a big frustration for services that run their websites and businesses on AWS, the cloud system has been working flawlessly, and there have been no reports of outages or performance issues on Friday (if you don't count the years shaved off freaked-out customers' lives).

AWS has even tried to make light of the mistake, posting this on X:

"Typo alert: Some customers saw quadrillion-dollar AWS billing estimates today. Slight miscalculation on our end (very slight ). We're fixing it now. No action needed on your end. Sorry for the confusion. Real question: what will you do with those trillions instead?"

Yes, everyone can all laugh now, though I'm not certain customers like Harvey, Bharath, and others are chuckling along with them.

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Posted Saturday 18 July 2026 at 7:36 am AEST (my time).

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Good news often comes in threes, and that could be true for fans of Starfield, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout today.

Just now, Xbox studio Bethesda offered a massive update on its plans for its big three properties, and we caught up with studio director, Todd Howard, to learn more context about what fans can expect.

"We love making these worlds as much as you love playing in them," the note reads. "Today, we want to share what's next for Bethesda Game Studios and what you can expect from us in the years ahead."

For forty years, we've built games that have entertained almost half a billion players. More than just games, these are worlds. Worlds for you to explore, shape, and make your own. Worlds we return to together. That's what's driving us forward."

Bethesda said that it's making the investments to bring its core teams "closer together" with a view of building titles faster, provide them support for longer, for "decades to come."

Here's an overview of what was announced.

Sim Update 6 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is on its way, and following the recent first beta release, there's now a newer one to try out with more new features.

In the Sim Update 6 1.8.8.0 beta there are two pieces of new content to take a look at, including the much-anticipated return of Bush Trips from Flight Simulator 2020.

It's not all of them at this point, but it sounds like a good chunk are available to try out before the public release, per the patch notes.

"As announced during FlightSimExpo 2026, bush trips are coming to MSFS 2024 and are now accessible in the Sim Update 6 Beta from the Activities menu. We have added a large amount of the bush trips from MSFS 2020 already and more will be added in the coming days."

The other fresh content concerns lighting, one of the already promised big upgrades for Sim Update 6. Generic airport lighting upgrades were made in the previous beta, while this latest one adds MastLights to those same generic airports, improving the illumination at parking spots.

This is on top of the features that came in the first Sim Update 6 beta, including DLSS 4.5, FSR 4, and the ability to skip walkarounds in Free Flight mode.

If you want to try the new beta for yourself, how you get in depends on where you're playing. Sign up to be a Flight Simulator Insider first, and then flights are managed through the XBOX Insider Hub app on console or PC.

Steam betas are managed through the game's Properties menu, and PS5 players can download the beta via the PlayStation Store.

There's no release date yet set for the public version of Sim Update 6, but the latest roadmap shows a July or August timeframe. So it's not too far away.

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Posted Saturday 18 July 2026 at 7:24 am AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of June) 2,475

RIP Matrix

Id Software has been through the wringer this month, as it was one of the many casualties of Xbox's big "reset" that laid off 3,200 game devs, which caused it to lose 136 of its workforce.

id Software quickly responded by saying that despite its loss of staff, it still has the essential crew needed to make more DOOM games and that its team is roughly the same size as it was when it made DOOM (2016).

Plenty of fans weren't entirely convinced by this statement, so id Software's Studio Head, Hugo Martin, decided to reassure the fanbase directly during a YouTube livestream playthrough of DOOM: The Dark Ages | Livestream hosted by id Software's Senior Community Lead, Joshua Boyle.

EA is almost ready to bring the fourth season of content to Battlefield 6, and alongside the major additions like naval gameplay and the biggest map yet, it has also announced the game's first crossover event. The Top Gun crew (minus Tom Cruise) is coming to Battlefield 6, bringing the F-18/Super Hornet, F-14 Tomcat aircraft, as well as fresh modes.

"Three characters from Top Gun come to life in-game, fully voiced by their original performers: Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd (Lewis Pullman), Adm. Solomon “Warlock” Bates (Charles Parnell), with Top Gun-inspired character skins and cosmetics available in-game," confirmed EA today for its hit shooter.

As part of the crossover, Carrier Strike is a new Battlefield 6 mode that has players fighting to destroy the other team's aircraft carrier. Fans of the series who are familiar with the classic Titan mode should be right at home here.

“Jets. Adrenaline. The drive to be the best. Battlefield’s unmatched sense of scale is the perfect way to bring Top Gun’s iconic and cinematic aerial combat to life,” says Ryan McArthur, Battlefield 6 executive producer. “We can’t wait for our players to experience the update when it hits on August 18, but our collaboration is also just a piece of Battlefield 6’s biggest season yet.”

However, that's just phase one of Battlefield 6 Season 4. The second phase will begin on August 18, introducing the aforementioned Top Gun crossover content while also bringing back the iconic map Wake Island into the mix. Lastly, Phase 4 will begin on September 15, bringing more events and rewards for naval gameplay, ending the season.

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Posted Saturday 18 July 2026 at 7:20 am AEST (my time).

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The Indian government has fined HP India and its partners a total of 1.4 billion rupees (about $14.4 million) for working with reseller partners in the “cartelization” of computers, ink cartridges, and toner.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said this week that it found HP India had colluded with some channel partners to drive up the cost of bids for government contracts for computers, as well as for selling ink cartridges, toner, and other printing supplies, including graphic and digital manufacturing supplies.

It said that HP was aiming to outcompete other OEMs and discourage resellers from selling “counterfeit” ink and toner.

In an order, the CCI said that HP India worked with five resellers to coordinate their bid prices for government contracts to increase the chances of an HP partner winning the contracts. The company was fined 1.3 billion rupees (about $13.1 million).

The order reads:

[C]ertain resellers approached HP India to help facilitate an arrangement that would enhance their chances of securing Government supply contracts against other competing HP India resellers. These requests included: (a) restricting participation of resellers from other territories in local tenders; (b) seeking support in dividing the accounts/relevant tenders amongst themselves; (c) restricting the number of MAFs [manufacturer’s authorization forms] issued to other resellers or to issue MAFs to some designated resellers only; (d) addressing instances where bid prices offered by other resellers were below the [Government e Marketplace, India’s online procurement platform] platform price or rate contract prices, through corrective action, and (e) facilitating “cover” bids.

HP was also fined 119.8 million rupees (about $1.2 million) for “indulging in cartelization in sale and supply of supplies products comprising of toner, cartridges, and other consumable used with print hardware products,” CCI said in its announcement.

The agency also fined 21 HP resellers 35.2 million rupees (about $365,335).

In a separate order, the CCI said that WhatsApp records showed that HP and 16 of its Tier-2 reseller partners operated “in a collusive arrangement” and that the messages show the companies engaging in “bid rigging, including cover bidding, price fixation, and customer allocation during 2017–2020.” HP India played a central role, the regulator said.

Per the order, HP India said that high printing supply prices led some resellers to threaten to “shift to low-cost counterfeit products to compete on price.”

“HP India was commercially forced into a position where it had to support the collusive arrangement adopted by the Tier-2 resellers,” the order reads.

For its part, the order said that HP India “humbly objects to HP India’s role being characterized as a ‘kingpin’ of the entire collusive arrangement.”

Still, the revelation that some HP resellers are struggling with the exorbitant price of printer ink and toner underscores a problem many printer users face. The economic challenge is exacerbated by HP’s tendency to block third-party ink in already-purchased printers through firmware updates. At the same time, with even its own partners threatening to take their ink business elsewhere, HP is pressured to get more HP printer users to only use HP-brand ink and toner.

The CCI also ordered HP India and its channel partners to “cease and desist from anti-competitive conduct” and to hold competition compliance training programs within 60 days.

HP hasn’t publicly commented on the fines.

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Posted Friday 17 July 2026 at 1:29 pm AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of June) 2,475

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My hype for Final Fantasy Resonance continues to build as Square Enix has released a new gameplay trailer showcasing more of its HD-2D pixel art style in its cinematic cutscenes, environments, and turn-based combat system.

I was already sold on the game for bringing back turn-based combat to the Final Fantasy franchise, but this trailer has cemented it on my wishlist.

It's a montage of various scenes from Final Fantasy Resonance. These include exploring towns and a classic open-world map seen in old-school Final Fantasy games from the NES to PS1 era, characters interacting with each other, and scenes of the turn-based combat system where the heroes summon spirits of previous Final Fantasy protagonists to aid them in battle.

All the while, it's all presented in an absolutely beautiful HD-2D pixel art style (a blend of 2D animated character sprites set against 3D animated backgrounds) that was made popular by Square Enix's Octopath Traveler series.

Windows Central's take

Being 2D makes characters somehow more expressive than most Final Fantasy characters in 3D(Image

credit: Square Enix)

 

Bow overdweller before the might of Titan.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

 

Tonberries are a Final Fantasy fan's worst monster (aside from Malboros)

(Image credit: Square Enix)

 

A scene where a player summons the Vision of Final Fantasy 3's Onion Knight to unleash their ultimate attack

(Image credit: Square Enix)

 

As someone who grew up playing 16-bit pixel-art games on the Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive and is a fan of other HD-2D games like Live a Live Remake and Dragon Quest 3 Remake, I absolutely adore this game's pixel-art.

 

It looks so clean, vibrant, and detailed, and superbly animated to boot. Not to mention, it gives the characters so much personality with their exaggerated, intimidating, or silly pixel-art facial expressions depending on the situation.

 

I honestly prefer this art style to recent mainline 3D Final Fantasy games, which tried to blend realistic graphics with fantastical aesthetics, with mixed results that sometimes either dull the contrast of the environments to make it look boringly dreary (e.g., Final Fantasy XVI) or make characters look bland (or, in some worse cases, look like lifeless dolls, like in Final Fantasy XIII).

 

In fact, it looks so good that it makes me wish Square Enix used this art style for its . Not that it's needed, as its PS1-era graphics have held up extremely well, but I would've loved to see what it would've looked like with HD-2D pixel art and modern animations for its over-the-top special attacks and summon spells.

 

Though I guess Square Enix wanted to play it safe with Final Fantasy Tactics since it's such a beloved game in the franchise, and they're probably using Final Fantasy Resonance to test the waters to see if people would want more HD-2D Final Fantasy games if it does well; I know I certainly do (here's hoping for an HD-2D remake of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance).

 

Either way, I can't wait to see more of Final Fantasy Resonance (or hopefully, a playable demo) before it releases on October 22, 2026, for |, , & , PC via Steam.

 

What do you think of Final Fantasy Resonance? Do you think its turn-based combat looks cool, or do you prefer Final Fantasy games with real-time combat, like the Final Fantasy VII Remake series?

 

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please let us know through the comments section.

 

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Posted Friday 17 July 2026 at 7:20 am AEST (my time).

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Back in 2023, the European Commission designated Google's Search, Play, Maps, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Shopping, and its online advertising services as core platform services under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Under the DMA, the European Commission today issued binding instructions requiring Google to give rival AI assistants and search engines greater access to Android and Google Search data.

This is a major decision that could affect Google from both technical and business perspectives. If enforced, AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic would have a stronger chance of competing with Google’s Gemini on Android. Microsoft could also benefit significantly from access to Google Search data, which may help it further improve the Bing search engine.

Under the first decision, Google must make key Android features available to competing AI services under the same conditions offered to its own products, including Gemini. This could allow third-party assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity to become more deeply integrated into Android devices.

For example, users should be able to launch their preferred AI assistant using a voice command and allow it to perform actions such as booking a taxi. Rival assistants must also receive access to relevant system features while running in the background. Google is expected to implement the required Android changes by July 2027.

The second decision focuses on Google Search. Google must provide eligible rival search engines with access to anonymized ranking, query, click, and viewing data generated through its search service. The requirement will also cover companies offering AI chatbot-based search experiences.

Access to Google Search data is expected to begin in January 2027. According to the Commission, this information could help competitors improve their services and offer alternatives to Google Search.

The Commission says both decisions include safeguards designed to protect user privacy, and Google will also be allowed to assess whether companies requesting access present legitimate cybersecurity or privacy risks.

As expected, Google was not happy with this decision. Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for Google & Alphabet, published a blog post explaining why this decision undercuts security and privacy for Europeans:

The reality is that AI assistants already safely access Android’s capabilities, with phone makers playing a key role in vetting them. This Android ruling threatens device security by granting external apps sensitive and powerful device permissions without these safeguards. This is occurring as the EU’s own cybersecurity agency warns that “security fundamentals matter more than ever in the age of AI”.

 

Of particular concern, Europeans’ private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymisation of the data and without user knowledge or consent. This would weaken citizens' privacy, risk business trade secrets, and endanger national security.

The EU believes the measures will encourage greater competition and give Android users more choice. Companies that fail to comply with the DMA can face fines of up to 10% of their worldwide annual revenue.

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Posted Friday 17 July 2026 at 7:19 am AEST (my time).

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Another Star Citizen alpha update is ready for all backers to play. With $1 billion worth of crowdfunding behind it, Cloud Imperium Games is continuing its updates schedule for the in-development sci-fi RPG. However, there is a reason for Alpha 4.9 being a little lacking in content compared to the usual drops.

The studio had been planning a big Siege of Orison event for this release, but that has now been pushed to August with Alpha 4.10. Star Citizen Alpha 4.9 still has plenty of additions, including fresh missions, an audio overhaul for ships doing fly-bys, combat UI enhancements, and more.

Those jumping in will now find a suite of new repeatable missions on their mobiGlas devices, which bring rewards like exclusive blueprints and weapon components. These are set to be expanded upon with a fully instanced mission giver in the next update.

"A new set of repeatable missions from Recco Battaglia, an independent mining logistics coordinator based in Levski," says the studio. "Take on a variety of contracts including prospecting, mining, recovery, salvage, investigations, ship reclamation, and more, while building your reputation with Recco to unlock additional opportunities in Alpha 4.9 and beyond."

Pilots that like to dogfight will be happy to know that a new set of indicators has arrived for understanding hits, penetration, and damage on the fly. Check out the image below for the enhanced versions:

Cloud Imperium has also touched up the thunderous sounds that ships make when they fly by a player. You can hear some of this in the video above.

"Rebuilt from the ground up, these enhanced sound effects deliver greater positional awareness and richer audio fidelity," adds the studio. "Every pass feels faster, heavier, and more cinematic, whether you're in the cockpit or watching a battle unfold from the ground."

Other changes of this update are missiles and torpedo cargo holders for easy placement and tracking, balance changes for missions to account for ship armor, two new player hairstyles, and the new Behring "CQ7" Bullpup Rifle as an FPS weapon. Find the complete changelog for Star Citizen Alpha 4.9 over here.

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Posted Friday 17 July 2026 at 7:18 am AEST (my time).

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ROCKVILLE, Maryland—Hundreds of Bethesda Game Studios and Zenimax Online Studios employees and their supporters braved nearly 100°F temperatures to protest sweeping layoffs across Xbox during a lunchtime rally in front of parent company Zenimax’s headquarters today. The rally was one of five organized today by Zenimax Workers United and its parent union, the Communication Workers of America, at offices across Texas, California, and Montreal.

Attendees held up signs with messages like “Layoffs… layoffs never change” and “Our players deserve better” as union organizers and employees rallied the crowd with speeches and songs. The overwhelming message was one of solidarity and a willingness to push back against job cuts they say have decimated their development and quality assurance teams.

“It’s about us building our movement and making sure that we get seen and we’re visible,” Bethesda technical producer and union volunteer organizer Nathan Hahn told Ars. “Because we want to make sure that we’re not okay with these layoffs and that Xbox knows.”

Coming to the table

Chief among the union’s demands is that Microsoft return to the bargaining table and resume contract negotiations with the remaining uncontracted members of Bethesda Game Studios (after reaching a separate agreement with QA testers last year that included guaranteed severance for laid-off employees). “We had … a reduction in force proposal on the table for months, and they ignored it,” Hahn said. “They never got back to us. So instead, they’ve chosen to do layoffs … without bargaining with us, and that’s something we’re fighting back against.”

“They can either come meet at the table [or] they can meet us in the street,” CWA District 213 vice president Mike Davis told the crowd. “They can meet us anywhere they want, but they’re gonna fight with us.”

It’s true: No devs would mean no games.

Kyle Orland

 

What happens if I test these testers?

Kyle Orland

 

I don’t remember that line from Skyrim…

Kyle Orland

 

Did people get laid off in the vaults?

 

What did you mantle Akatosh for?

Kyle Orland

 

Rallygoers spill into the street to gather support from passing cars.

Kyle Orland

 

A little light reading.

Kyle Orland

 

You’ve got to love a sign that rhymes.

Kyle Orland

 

Oh, did they rename the division?

Kyle Orland

 

In response to a request for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson said, “We respect our employees’ right to make their voices heard, and we recognize that this is a difficult time for many. We reached out to the union on July 6 to begin effects bargaining and are committed to that process. We remain focused on supporting impacted employees through this transition while positioning the organization for long-term strength.”

Jay Woodward, who was let go last week after nearly 20 years of AI programming at Bethesda dating back to Fallout 3, said he hoped union action could help break what seems like a “perpetual cycle” of layoffs at Xbox. “Obviously, in the business world, we understand that this is the sort of thing that happens,” he said. “[But] it’s absolutely not inevitable. That’s a complete nonsense concept, especially when the studio, when the overall company is doing fantastically well, there’s no need to say that this has to happen.”

In announcing the layoffs last week, Microsoft CEO Asha Sharma said the move was necessary to restructure a business that is “not healthy” and is operating at margins well below the competition. “These changes are about a bigger future for Xbox, not a smaller one, Sharma said. “This year, we’ll invest as much in Xbox as we ever have, but we’ll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making Xbox where the world plays and creates.”

Rockville Mayor Monique Ashton addresses the crowd and offers her support for the laid-off workers.

Credit: Kyle Orland

Rockville Mayor Monique Ashton appeared at the rally to offer her support for a group of employees she said are a key part of the local community and economy. “We have seen job losses related to issues in the federal government… [but] to see the gaming industry that has been blossoming, so this, it’s something that I’m concerned about,” Ashton said. “I know that there are jobs going overseas, and jobs going to AI. It’s going to touch every industry, and we, as consumers, have to say, we value people.”

Ashton told Ars she would speak with the County Council and the Maryland Department of Labor to advocate for fairness in how employees are treated.

“Trying to sing with half a choir”

Following a round of layoffs last year, Bethesda employees said they were still shocked at the depth and breadth of the job losses in this latest round, which affected hundreds of Maryland employees. Juniper Dowell, whose five-year tenure as a quality assurance tester ended with last week’s layoffs, told Ars that the reduced workforce continuing work on franchises like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls would be akin to “trying to sing with half a choir or a band with a drummer missing.”

“[Last year] we lost about 100 folks, and that was impossible to deal with,” Dowell said. “And this time we lost even more. … This is skilled labor. You can’t pull someone off the street and ask them to start developing games or to start testing games. These are skills that are learned and honed over time. And the people who do this matter. And to treat it like they don’t is absurd, frankly.”

CWA District 213 vice president Mike Davis raises his fist to rally the crowd.

Kyle Orland

 

Bethesda technical producer and union volunteer organizer Nathan Hahn leads the crowd in a bespoke song with the refrain: “It’s time to change the game.”

Kyle Orland

 

Organizer Juniper Dowell addresses the crowd after losing her QA position of five years to layoffs.

Kyle Orland

 

I had to step pretty far back to capture the full scale of the protest.

Kyle Orland

 

The rally crowd overflowed the grass and sidewalk and spilled into the street parking while gathering in the shady spots.

 

There were plenty of coolers on hand to keep the rallygoers hydrated.

Kyle Orland

 

Hahn added that continuing to develop the big Bethesda franchises that Xbox says is a priority will be difficult after “they laid off folks with decades of experience working on the types of games that we make. We had received some signals from Xbox that Fallout and Elder Scrolls were gonna be pivotal titles for them. And then to hear that our teams, who work on those games got cut, was a real deep cut for us. … Who do you ask that question to if they’re no longer here?”

Between the last round of layoffs and the promise of 1,600 more planned across Xbox for the coming fiscal year, the mood among the remaining employees at Bethesda is “bleak,” Dowell said. After surviving last year’s layoffs, Dowell said she remembers what it was like “to come to work the day after layoffs and try to keep going and be told, ‘Here are tasks that people that you know had relationships with were doing, and now you have to do them today.’”

System Designer Mandy Parker, whose position was not affected by the latest round of layoffs, told Ars that “it’s hard to be creative, it’s hard to be able to tell stories when we’re worried about people next to us and ourselves.” Parker also pushed back against the Microsoft narrative that these latest layoffs were focused heavily on reducing redundant layers of middle management, saying she wasn’t aware of any middle managers let go in her office. “These folks [being laid off in quality assurance], they don’t make a lot of money,” Parker said. “They’re taking home pizzas from our cafeteria, for their kids to eat, to help them. We don’t get the big Microsoft money.”

“If you weren’t caught this time, you’ll be caught next time,” Parker told the crowd during the rally. “I study systems, and [when] I see a broken system, I say it when it’s broken. This is a fucking broken system!”

Union organizers said fans should go to the Xbox Player Voice forums to express their support for the developers of the games they love. “They’re the people that pay their salaries in there,” CWA’s Davis said of the players. “You know, those managers can’t have jobs without those people.”

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Posted Thursday 16 July 2026 at 12:33 pm AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of June) 2,475

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Sheetz, a US convenience store chain, is moving its 838 locations off VMware.

Sheetz has used VMware virtualization across two Dell R440/R450-series servers at each of its locations since 2019. Now it’s migrating 12 to 14 virtual machines (VMs) in each of its stores from VMware vSphere to StorMagic’s SvHCI, “with an additional two VMs to be replaced over the coming months to transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11,” Scott Robertson, infrastructure team manager at Sheetz, told Ars Technica via email. Ultimately, Sheetz will move about 11,000 VMs from Broadcom’s virtualization platform. Sheetz is still running the original Dell server hardware.

So far, Sheetz has finished migrating more than 600 stores, averaging 200 per month, according to a company announcement today. Sheetz should be finished with the migration in four months, the announcement said.

Robertson said that Sheetz decided to quit VMware because Broadcom’s changes, which include eliminating perpetual licenses in favor of subscriptions to large bundles, forced the retail chain’s hand. He added:

The projected price hikes, coupled with a mandatory subscription model and a five-year commitment, simply created too much uncertainty around long-term budgeting and increased our vendor dependence.

There are numerous rivals trying to lure VMware customers left disgruntled by Broadcom’s takeover. But even frustrated IT departments are challenged to find replacements that match the breadth and capabilities of VMware, which has become synonymous with virtualization in its 28 years.

Sheetz settled on StorMagic after already using StorMagic’s virtual storage area network offering, SvSAN, alongside VMware for critical in-store applications since 2019.

“Our initial rollout proved StorMagic could deliver the resilience and centralized management needed across a large, distributed retail environment,” Gary Sliver, director of platform engineering at Sheetz, said in a statement.

Sliver also noted that migrating hasn’t required Sheetz to “send technicians to every site.”

Robertson told Ars that the ability to move from SvSAN to SvHCI remotely and without requiring hardware upgrades will save Sheetz a “significant” amount of money.

Still, as expected with a big IT project, migrating virtualization platforms still presents challenges. When asked about Sheetz’s biggest migration obstacles, Robertson told Ars:

Automation and [SvHCI’s VMware] VM Import Utility were absolutely vital to scaling this migration. Operating in a 24/7/365 retail environment meant that minimizing business disruption was critical. It required meticulous planning and heavy automation to ensure our store operations ran as smoothly as possible throughout the entire transition.

 

SvHCI product maturity in relation to APIs meant it was a small amount of extra work, and the main challenge of the migration was [finding] the time available to do it, for the scale of the environment. They were having to simultaneously plan, develop, and implement.

For many companies, the idea of moving off VMware is daunting due to the money, time, and staff that it may require. Some also report challenges in finding alternatives with the same capabilities and compatibility as VMware. Total or even partial migrations can seem particularly implausible for organizations that depend on VMware technology.

As a result, there are many VMware customers interested in quitting or reducing their use of VMware products, but have yet to make the move or are still in the planning phases. In September, Gartner estimated that 35 percent of VMware workloads would migrate elsewhere by 2028.

StorMagic targets VMware’s larger customers

StorMagic has a reputation for serving small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), but today’s announcement highlights its interest in winning over the enterprise-sized firms that Broadcom’s VMware strategy targets, especially enterprises with numerous SMB-sized locations.

“In reality, we have always focused heavily on two distinct markets: SMB/mid-market datacenters and the ‘edge’ environments of large, highly distributed enterprises, like Sheetz. A distributed enterprise with hundreds or thousands of retail, grocery, or branch locations actually faces similar IT challenges at each site as a local SMB,” Scott Mann, StorMagic’s SVP of global sales, told Ars via email, pointing to these organizations having limited physical space, power, on-site technical staff, and budget.

The executive sees further opportunity among VMware’s current enterprise clients.

“Historically, large enterprises tolerated the ‘VMware tax’ at their edge locations because it was the status quo. However, with recent massive industry shifts, specifically Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, enterprises are facing massive budget increases just to keep their remote sites running,” Mann said.

Other enterprises recently revealed to be migrating off of VMware include Allstate, T-Mobile, and UK grocery chain Tesco.

For its part, Broadcom has argued that changes to VMware’s licensing model are in line with the rest of the industry, and its acquisition of VMware is considered financially successful.

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Posted Thursday 16 July 2026 at 12:32 pm AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of June) 2,475

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Jurassic Park, while beloved as a film, has been the subject of snarky memes for the infamous line in which one of the characters declares, “This is a Unix system, I know this!” while using a computer with an unusual 3D file manager interface.

Despite the memes, the film’s production team was meticulous in accurately sourcing the right PCs (and adjacent details) for the sets—not too much of a surprise, given writer Michael Crichton’s background with computing and his obsessive attention to detail in the book the film is based on.

This was made clear by a little hobbyist investigation from Google software engineer Fabien Sanglard. He scanned the film and picked out every specifically identifiable piece of hardware he could see, listed what they were, and shared context from other sources on their specs, costs, and how they ended up in the production.

Truthfully, none of this is new information; people have been discussing the technology in Jurassic Park for years. But it hadn’t been put all in one place in a highly readable analysis in a long time, and it gained some traction this week on Reddit and Hacker News. Plus, Jurassic Park has been on our minds given the recent passing of beloved actor Sam Neill.

Identified hardware includes (among other things) five Thinking Machines CM-5 systems, a Motorola Envoy PDA, and multiple then-cutting-edge SGI workstations, including an IRIS Crimson and an R4000 Indigo. For additional background, Sanglard shared this quote from Jurassic Park special effects coordinator Cory Faucher, as seen in the book The Making of Jurassic Park:

Everything in the set was real. We couldn’t fake any of it, because audiences are so sophisticated now in their knowledge of computers. All told, $875,000 worth of computer hardware loaned by Silicon Graphics, $350,000 worth from Apple and some $500,000 in additional hardware and software went into equipping both the set and off-stage control room.

 

Two of character Dennis Nedry’s computers were Macs; each was a Macintosh Quadra 700. That’s a bit ironic, given the reported policy that today’s Apple has against product placement that puts the company’s devices in the hands of villains.

There was thought put into the software, too. Many of us recognized the QuickTime video player in the film. Sanglard observes that characters were working in a real CLI at various points, and of course, there’s FSN, the real experimental 3D file system browser that prompted the “this is a Unix system” line. (Yes, it is indeed a Unix system.)

Side note: If you want to experiment with the FSN file explorer yourself, you can. Earlier this year, computer historian and enthusiast Andrew Warkentin released a 174GB collection dubbed the “Virtual OS Museum” that includes some of the software you see in the film.

You can find more devices to investigate, their specs, and other interesting historical quotes in Sanglard’s blog post.

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Posted Thursday 16 July 2026 at 12:29 pm AEST (my time).

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These past couple of weeks have been beyond depressing for gamers.

From Sony killing off physical game discs and delisting 500 movies from people with no refunds, to Microsoft culling 3,200 Xbox game devs and repeatedly suspending gamers' accounts for no fault of their own, it's hard to feel optimistic when it feels like the biggest game companies are constantly stabbing their fans in the back while seemingly not giving a single care about preserving digital media.

However, not all hope is lost for legal digital preservation, thanks to GOG.com.

It's hard to find AI optimists these days.

AI-adjacent stocks have taken a battering in recent months, with Oracle and Microsoft particularly hard hit. Microsoft's stock is down over 20% from last summer's highs, as investors increasingly worry that the firm has over-extended and misjudged the opportunities therein.

Wider questions remain about the future viability of the tech. Cheaper Chinese models are pressuring the big U.S. hyper-scalers to find new efficiencies and strategies, as firms like OpenAI, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anthropic struggle to justify their more optimistic valuations. Some of the more dire warnings suggest the rife circular investments and financing could implode, threatening not only the associated companies, but potentially the entire global economy.

Recently, I caught up with Ed Zitron, head of EZPR and the , who has become a prominent journalistic voice in AI analysis. Zitron's industry-leading tech newsletter Where's Your Ed At has become a primary source for those navigating the complex (and shady?) financial deals these companies are weaving, cutting through the industry hype with an oft-times scathing dose of reality.

I asked Zitron specifically about Microsoft's bets in this space, as the hype train objectively begins to lose steam.

Microsoft occupies an odd space in the "AI race," if you can still call it that at this point. Why do you think Wall Street and the stock market are rewarding Google but punishing Microsoft this year?

Google Images has been around since July 2001, making it 25 years old this week. So to celebrate, Google has started rolling out a revamped interface to the image search experience on desktop.

The new Google Images now has a "dynamic, immersive gallery" of images from across the web that updates in real time and tailors itself to your interests, placing your saved collections as clickable tabs right above the main grid. Google said that this setup makes it easy to jump back in and continue exploring based on what inspires you as you browse. The new Google Images will roll out over the "coming weeks" to English users in the US.

One new feature Google Images is getting for its 25th anniversary is the ability to generate custom images directly within AI Overviews using Nano Banana. According to Google, this can come in handy when your search query requires a specific picture that does not exist on the web yet. The new feature will start rolling out over the coming weeks in all regions that support image creation in AI Mode.

Images have come a long way since 2001. Over the years, it's gained features like Similar Images in 2009 to find visual matches without text, and Search by Image in 2011, where you upload an image into the search bar and let the visual search term find its original source. Google Lens came along in 2018 to scan the physical world, followed by Multisearch in 2022, which lets you combine text and images.

The year 2025 saw the launch of Search Live and visual results in AI Mode. And at this year's I/O, Google announced the Intelligent Search box feature, reimagining the search bar with plenty of room to ask questions about images and upload multiple files at once.

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Posted Wednesday 15 July 2026 at 7:50 am AEST (my time).

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The highly anticipated upgrades to the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop just launched. Both PCs pack the latest Snapdragon X2 processors from Qualcomm, promising better performance while still delivering great battery life.

The biggest upgrade in the lineup is performance. Microsoft promises up to 53% faster graphics performance on the Surface Pro than the previous generation. The Surface Laptop sees an even larger bump of up to 58% when compared to the last generation.

Those improvements are thanks to the Snapdragon X2 processors inside the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro.

Now, Best Buy has a wide range of configurations available for the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro. I've included a mix of various colors, storage options, and processors. But there are plenty of other configurations up for grabs if you want to mix and match.

The new chips from Qualcomm perform well and let your PC last all day. Exact performance will vary based on the full specs of a PC, but the Snapdragon X2 Elite competes with Apple's M4 Pro. The Snapdragon X2 Plus stands toe-to-toe with Apple's M3 Pro.

Benchmarks and spec sheets aside, any Surface with a Snapdragon X2 chip will handle a wide range of workloads and tackle productivity tasks easily.

While the Snapdragon X2 chips are the stars of the show, they're not the only upgrades worth checking out in the new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro.

What's new with the latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop?

OpenAI just used its new large language model GPT-5.6 Sol to solve a math problem that humans have struggled with for more than a half-century. And all it took was telling the artificial intelligence not to give up.

The company timed the proof of the “cycle double cover conjecture” to the model’s full public release last Friday. The achievement shows how OpenAI and other AI firms are heavily investing in pure mathematics as a way to benchmark the technology’s ascent towards reasoning—and the strange directions those efforts often take.

“It is a well-known conjecture, which received a considerable amount of attention over the years—and surprisingly, the proof is short,” says Noga Alon, a mathematician at Princeton University. Alon calls the breakthrough “yet another impressive example demonstrating that AI tools will change—and are already changing—mathematical research significantly.”

The conjecture is about graphs. A graph is just a bunch of dots (called “vertices”) connected by lines (called “edges”). Mathematical proofs about graphs have been applied to all kinds of real-world networks, including the Internet. In the 1970s several different mathematicians guessed that almost any graph you can imagine will have a “cycle double cover.”

A cycle is just a loop within a graph that ends where it started; a “cycle double cover” is a special set of loops that cover the entire graph exactly twice—each edge is part of exactly two loops. Over the years, a number of prominent mathematicians tried to prove this guess of their forebears. And prove it they did—for a number of specific cases, anyway, but never in general.

Last Friday’s AI-generated proof seems to have settled the question. It shows that any guess-applicable graph can be doubly covered with no more than eight well-chosen loops (for technical reasons, graphs with big sections connected by a single edge—like twin cities with a single road between them—are excluded). The proof, like other notable AI achievements in math, required surprisingly little in the way of new ideas. It just followed and combined methods humans had tried before and managed to squeeze a bit more out of them. As AI companies continue to scour the mathematical literature for open problems that their models can solve, they seem to keep digging out “easy” quandaries disguised as hard ones—conjectures for which a proof was always within reach but somehow never grasped by humans.

Once a problem gets a reputation for being “hard,” experts and students might spend less time on it, says Andrew Sutherland, a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This can make perceived difficulty a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. “My guess is we will keep seeing examples of this—supposedly ‘hard’ problems having ‘easy’ solutions found by LLMs,” he says.

OpenAI also released the prompt that led to the successful proof. It reveals some of the quirky tricks that engineers have discovered for coaxing chatbots to grapple with math. “Most of that prompt is scaffolding aimed at getting the LLM to actually put in the effort needed to solve the problem,” Sutherland says. The prompters directed their model to delegate its tasks to as many as 64 agents working in parallel. Combining efforts of many AIs in communication with one another is a known way to mitigate false proofs and hallucinated references. They also told it not to simply dismiss the problem as unsolved and hence unlikely to yield a solution. Perhaps most importantly, they gave it some firm encouragement: “Spend at least 8 hours on this before even thinking of returning or giving up.”

This aligns with many mathematicians’ anecdotal experiences with LLMs, in which the AI will try to wriggle out of finding novel proofs by noting humans’ failed attempts. The right approach seems to be something like a schoolteacher’s—a mix of affirming praise and stern directions.

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Intel has announced that it’s investing 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion) in its Leixlip campus in Ireland, marking the next phase of the plant’s capacity expansion. At this plant, Intel will focus on building its Xeon 6 and next-gen Xeon built on its Intel 3 node. This work should help to reduce the supply shortages in hardware capable of AI and HPC workloads.

With this money, Intel will expand its current production output, advance its research and development activities, and utilize capacity across existing cleanroom space to assist in strengthening Europe’s semiconductor supply chain. The American firm said that the expansion will involve upgrading existing fabrication facilities. It will also install new manufacturing equipment.

Intel said that the execution of this investment began earlier this year. Aside from boosting manufacturing capacity, this investment will also see tradespeople hired across construction and equipment install and then full-time high-tech job creation. And there are reports of Intel making a very significant portfolio of Apple's upcoming chips, thus this should help the former realize those plans.

Commenting on this development, Intel said:

“By investing in our existing fabs with state-of-the-art technology and installing cutting-edge tools, we are not just increasing output of critical products like Xeon 6 and next gen Intel Xeon processors built on Intel 3, we are ensuring that Ireland remains at the forefront of the world’s most advanced manufacturing ecosystems, while strengthening the region’s role in the global technology landscape.”

Meanwhile, the current prime minister of Ireland, Michael Martin, said:

“Intel’s latest multi-billion-euro investment in Leixlip is a powerful vote of confidence in Ireland, our skills base and our position at the heart of Europe’s most advanced manufacturing ecosystem. At a time of rapid technological change and global competition, this expansion strengthens Ireland’s role in securing resilient semiconductor supply chains and reinforces our ambition to remain a global leader in innovation, productivity and sustainable economic growth.”

Intel noted that it has invested more than 30 billion euros in Ireland since it began operations there in 1989. Intel’s Leixlip campus currently employs around 4,900 people and has contributed significantly to Ireland’s reputation as a global tech hub, the company said.

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Posted Tuesday 14 July 2026 at 4:28 pm AEST (my time).

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Earlier this month, we told you that TV Time was preparing to shut down its popular tracking service on the 15th of this month. Now, one of the app's founders, Antonio Pinto, has announced that he is working on a new platform called Bingers that he hopes will act as a home for TV Time refugees, who, by the way, can import their exported TV Time archives into the app.

Pinto sold TVShow Time to its current owners, Whip Media, back in 2016, when the app was still known as TVShow Time, after the buyer promised it could scale the user base using its Hollywood connections. Since then, the app has grown to over 25 million registered users.

The new Bingers app that Pinto is building will, according to him, perform better by resolving the chronic slowdowns that plagued the previous app during peak hours. The developer promises faster response times when marking episodes as watched, alongside a modern UI that brings back classic tracking features like upcoming calendars, a commenting system, and profile libraries.

Pinto said he felt sad when Whip Media decided to shut down TV Time because the old platform had defined a massive portion of his life and the community felt like a second family.

Sad because TV Time was part of my life for so many years. And sad because this community was like my other family. Reading the community reactions after each episode became a ritual for me, and for many others.

 

And so, like I learned in This is Us, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade". I decided to build the new home where the TV Time community could go. I wanted to rebuild all TV Time great features, but also fix everything that always bothered me.

Whip Media shut down TV Time due to high operating costs, explaining that maintaining a free service for millions of users created huge bills, and few users wanted a paid version. Bingers is coming to the App Store and Google Play by the end of this month.

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Posted Tuesday 14 July 2026 at 12:02 pm AEST (my time).

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As corporate AI bills spiral out of control, many companies are beginning to ask themselves a simple question: why pay a pretty penny for the US’s leading AI models when Chinese ones are far cheaper?

Major companies like DoorDash, Airbnb, and Siemens are adopting Chinese AI tools, the Financial Times reports, attracted not only by their lower costs but their “open-weight” approach that allows them to be molded to each company’s particular needs. 

According to data from OpenRouter, a platform that provides all-in-one access to major AI models and tracks their usage, leading Chinese models from DeepSeek and Z.ai have overtaken US equivalents like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Cost-cutting, it seems, trumps all geopolitical rivalries.

Chinese models are “the elephant in the room,” Eugene Cheah, CEO of the AI platform Featherless AI, told the FT.  “Enterprises are starting to realize, ‘Hey, we don’t need the best model, we can use the faster, cheaper models.'”

US-based AI models have frequently been seen as the most advanced, but that perception is shifting. The release of GLM-5.2 from the Chinese startup Z.ai last month caused a stir in Western tech circles, as major Silicon Valley figures hailed it as capable or nearly as capable as US systems despite being significantly cheaper to use.

Cheap Chinese AI couldn’t be coming at a more opportune moment. The corporate world, wooed by AI companies’ promises of supercharging their productivity, has spent the past year deploying AI across its workforces, and many are being put off by the costs. One organization reportedly blew through $500 million in a month on Claude usage fees. That’s an extreme outlier, but recent research from the Ramp AI Index found that the businesses most dedicated to AI are spending around $7,500 per employee every month on AI.

Considering the culture around AI, it’s no surprise why: some companies like Meta mandate their employees use AI systems as much as possible, factoring it into their performance reviews. Software engineers, now expected to produce more work than ever, often run multiple AI agents at the same time to complete tasks in the background.

If companies are unwilling to crank back the AI knob, then the next best choice is to look for cheaper models. DoorDash cofounder Andy Fang said on X last week that it was saving a lot of money by having “lower-level work” performed by a model from the Chinese startup Moonshot AI. San Francisco startup Lindy has completely ditched Anthropic’s AI tools in favor of DeepSeek’s latest V4 models.

“Enterprises have an incentive to shift some of their workload to cheaper models. Why would you pay a premium for Anthropic, OpenAI models when for a lot of the workloads you need, the Chinese models are generally workable?” Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told the FT.

But cost isn’t the only consideration: many Chinese models are “open-weight,” meaning their parameters or values are entirely visible to the user. That allows an organization to mold a model to its specific needs — and from a cybersecurity perspective, have more control and insight into how it might process sensitive company data.

For foreign companies disillusioned by US leadership, the choice is even easier to make. There’s less faith in the US as stewards of AI, especially after the Trump administration suspended access to Anthropic’s Mythos model overseas.

“The Mythos ban was certainly the most tangible event, and people having their access revoked,” Aidan Gomez, CEO of the Canadian AI group Cohere, told the FT. “It exposes the risk of relying on any one single entity for any of your workloads.”

Source

Playground Games has released a new update for Forza Horizon 6, bringing version 398.92.0 to Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox app on Windows PC, and Steam. The patch focuses heavily on bug fixes and exploit closures, and brings a full reset of the Rivals Leaderboards.

Players generally aren’t the biggest fans of AI in games, especially when that AI is acting weird. Horizon 6 had that strange problem with excessive collisions, which was caused by the in-game AI. The latest update should fix that.

The most significant change in this update is the full reset of the Rivals Leaderboards. Playground says the wipe was necessary because cheaters were posting suspicious entries using glitches or Drag Tires. The development team already introduced physics balance changes to tackle glitches in the June 15 update, and this will now reflect on the leaderboards.

It is actually bad news for players with legitimate scores, which the studio acknowledges. Still, any Collection Journal rewards already earned from those times are staying put. PR Stunts Leaderboards are expected to get the same treatment once the exploits behind them are patched, though there's no timeline yet.

The new update also fixes a few issues with existing cars. The 1995 Toyota MR2 GT no longer comes to a dead stop when hitting kerbs, and Treasure Cars can no longer be accidentally removed from My Cars. Playground also said that anyone who already lost one to that bug can file a ticket with Forza Support to get it back.

Playground also gave an update on the ongoing lost-saves issue affecting some players. Xbox has pushed fixes to Series X|S and PC, most recently on July 2, and players hit by data loss will now see a conflict dialog on next load that lets them restore their most recent cloud save.

The new update fixes numerous other bugs, mostly regarding audio, visuals, and gameplay. You can check the full changelog on Forza Horizon’s official website.

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Posted Tuesday 14 July 2026 at 8:09 am AEST (my time).

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If you've ever wondered what would happen if your gaming account was hacked and you lost access to everything you'd paid for, a recent court case in Brazil offers an interesting answer.

A Brazilian Xbox player has reportedly won a lawsuit against Microsoft after the company refused to restore access to his account, which had been compromised by hackers. The gamer, who goes by Ordo_Liberal on Reddit, first shared his story earlier this year. According to his posts, his Microsoft account was hacked in April 2026, even though two-factor authentication was enabled. After the attackers changed the account's security details, Microsoft suspended the account, reportedly deciding that it couldn't be recovered under its existing policies.

That left him locked out of far more than just his Xbox games. Because the same Microsoft account was tied to other services, he also lost access to files stored in OneDrive. What made the situation even more frustrating was Microsoft's reported response. Despite multiple attempts to recover the account, the company allegedly maintained that it couldn't restore access and suggested that he purchase the digital games again if he wanted to keep playing.

Rather than accept that outcome, the gamer consulted a lawyer and decided to take Microsoft to court. That decision appears to have paid off. According to the Reddit update posted on 10 July, a Brazilian court ruled in his favour. Microsoft has reportedly been ordered to restore the account and return access to his digital purchases, while also paying around USD 400 in damages. Reports add that the company has 15 days to comply with the ruling or face further penalties.

The case has caught plenty of attention because it touches on a question that more gamers are starting to ask: when you buy a digital game, how much control do you actually have over it if access depends entirely on your account? It's a conversation that has become even more relevant as the gaming industry continues moving towards digital distribution. Sony's recent decisions surrounding physical media and digital content have already fuelled debate about what players truly own when they purchase games, films, or other digital content through an online platform.

In that context, this Brazilian ruling stands out. While it doesn't automatically change Microsoft's policies elsewhere, it does show that courts may be willing to step in when consumers lose access to digital purchases through circumstances beyond their control. It's also worth noting that Brazil has some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the world, which likely played an important role in the outcome. Winning a similar case in another country could prove far more difficult, especially given the legal resources large technology companies can bring to these disputes.

For now, if the reports are accurate, this case offers one example of a court siding with a consumer over digital ownership. Whether it influences similar disputes in other countries remains to be seen, but it has certainly added another chapter to the ongoing debate over what it really means to own digital content.

Source: Notebookcheck

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Posted Tuesday 14 July 2026 at 8:08 am AEST (my time).

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A hot potato: We're used to hearing stories about AI taking admin, call center, and similar jobs, but it's not just white-collar workers who are at risk. In New York, 12 nurses were laid off on Sunday and replaced by AI-powered software, some of whom had worked at the hospital for decades. The move came not long after the city's nurses went on strike and won a three-year contract. It's also led to warnings about the quality of care the AI will offer.

According to the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the layoffs, made by the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, were a direct result of the AI-powered software provided by Datavant. Montefiore described it as a nonclinical program that helps facilitate the paperwork process.

The software replaces 12 utilization review nurses who examine patient records and demonstrate to insurers that the care provided is medically necessary and eligible for coverage.

AI-driven job losses spark outrage at the best of times, but what makes this incident even more controversial is the timing. On January 10, a 41-day nurses' strike began across several hospitals in New York. It led to a three-year contract, which included safeguards against AI.

"We are outraged about these layoffs because these dedicated nurses are being replaced by AI," said Shaiju Kalathil, a nurse at Montefiore and a union executive committee member. "This is a violation of the contract that we recently won by going on strike. It should also concern every practitioner and patient who cares about the future of healthcare and the quality of care they receive."

The NYSNA has also highlighted Datavant's reported ties to Palantir and a $900,000 payment to settle a class-action lawsuit over a 2024 data breach that affected thousands of people.

Marilyn Shuler, one of the affected nurses, said that when she and her co-workers returned to work after the strike, their workflows had changed without explanation. The union was notified, and it contacted management. Around three months later, all 12 nurses in the department received 45-day notices.

Shuler told The Guardian that her role often involves complex discussions about issues such as medication changes and discharge planning, which would be difficult to handle using AI.

"AI should be a tool used in conjunction with the clinical expert, not to replace," she said. "We're not against technology. There are several advances in healthcare utilizing technology. The issue is with new tech without evidence."

Unsurprisingly, the hospital has a different view from the union. "As is often the case, the claims by NYSNA are inaccurate and misleading," said Joe Solmonese, senior vice-president for government relations and strategic communications at Montefiore. "What is true is that we are always investing in new technology to ensure the best care and outcomes for our patients and will continue to do so for the betterment of the people we serve."

There have been several stories recently about AI execs and analysts claiming the technology's impact on jobs has been much less severe than expected – or there's been no impact at all – despite all the evidence to the contrary. The good news is that more companies are now rehiring workers they replaced with AI after the automation failed to deliver.

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We're enduring a particularly hot summer in the northern hemisphere, so it is understandable if powerful, pint-sized PCs are getting relatively toasty during long gaming sessions. However, Valve has confirmed that the Steam Machine's red light bar warning is bugged and being triggered prematurely. Redditor Pure-Outcome-5977 shared a Steam Support message that appears to confirm that a BIOS fix is on the way to raise the temperature and throttling red light warning threshold for the CPU/GPU from 95/90 to 100/100 degrees Celsius.

There appears to be a little miscommunication going on between the Redditor and Steam Support. Pure-Outcome-5977’s red warning light was coming on with system monitor tools showing the CPU was at 81°C and the GPU at 71°C. So the red light bar warning trigger temperatures of 95/90°C seem to be bugged. Thus, they got an answer to a slightly different issue than the one they raised.

“After discussing with our engineers, there is a known issue with the current BIOS that results in the red LED lights displaying much earlier than they should,” admits the Steam Support person in the message screenshot. “The issue is just with when the lights are set to come on. The Steam Machine itself is within normal operating temperature for the CPU/GPU, which they confirmed from your screenshots. For your awareness, the Steam machine will start throttling performance at 100C for CPU/GPU and will shut down to protect itself if temperatures rise past that.”

Importantly, this premature red warning light is just a temporary wrinkle that will be fixed soon via a BIOS update, adds Steam / Valve. After the update, red light warnings will only be seen after hitting a threshold of “100/100C for CPU/GPU instead of 95/90 for CPU/GPU that is currently happening,” concluded the official support message.

The nearest desktop alternative to the Steam Machine’s CPU, something like the Ryzen 5 7500F, has a TDP of 65W and a max operating temperature of 95°C. However, Valve uses a custom mobile-tuned 30W CPU, which is configured to throttle at 100°C and self-protect shutdown if temperatures continue to rise, hitting 105°C.

We don’t have a set date for the arrival of the new Steam Machine BIOS, but “soon” should be good enough for most users.

The Steam Machine’s light bar has previously been in media focus, being central to stories about the device suffering from a ‘Red Line of Death’ (RLOD). Happily, the pronouncement of death in that case was also premature. RLOD Steam Machines can be reanimated Lazarus-like by following a simple and officially described CMOS reset procedure (read more via the above link).

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When it comes to AI software, Apple might lag behind some of its competitors, such as Google and OpenAI. Despite launching an upgraded version of Siri powered by Google Gemini AI models, Apple's AI software still needs refinement. However, when it comes to AI hardware, Apple's chips may not bow out of the competition anytime soon.

The next generation of Apple chips could be about to get a massive boost for the AI era. Bloomberg already reported that Apple is apparently gearing up to launch M6 chips later this year, but the company won’t release the M6 Pro and M6 Max variants. Instead, Apple wants to jump to the M7 series.

In the latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman revealed that Apple’s decision is driven by AI and the processing power the M7 series is expected to offer. Gurman said Apple has been preparing “major neural-processing upgrades for the M7 family and ultimately decided those improvements were important enough to justify accelerating the next generation rather than completing the M6 lineup.”

The M7 Ultra is said to be Apple's high-end processor for next year, and Gurman claims that, in terms of performance, it is close to NVIDIA's Blackwell. It reportedly supports up to 1.5 terabytes of memory, which is double the capacity planned for the M5 Ultra. The M7 Ultra will also reportedly lay the groundwork for the next generation of Apple AI servers, codenamed J246, which are expected to debut in 2029.

Gurman added that Apple has begun developing M8 series chips with even more AI capabilities. These chips will reportedly use a 1.4nm manufacturing process and debut in 2028.

In March this year, Apple launched the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. As for the M5 Ultra variant, the chip is reportedly set to debut in the Mac Studio later this year with up to 768GB of RAM.

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Posted Monday 13 July 2026 at 6:17 pm AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of June) 2,475

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