"Thank you not only for your passionate feedback around the Marathon reveal and Alpha playtest, but also for your patience while we took the time to listen closely and chart our next steps," said Bungie in a blog post regarding the delay. "Through every comment and real-time conversation on social media and Discord, your voice has been strong and clear."

The title went through an alpha test period a few months ago, letting content creators and some players from the public try out the extraction shooter gameplay loop for feedback. It's unclear if the studio plans to rehost more public alpha tests in the future, but it said that getting feedback is crucial for continuing Marathon development.

"We’re using this time to empower the team to create the intense, high-stakes experience that a title like Marathon is built around," adds Bungie. "This means deepening the relationship between the developers and the game’s most important voices: our players."

Here are the elements of Marathon Bungie is looking at improving:

Upping the Survival Game

• More challenging and engaging AI encounters
• More rewarding runs, with new types of loot and dynamic events
• Making combat more tense and strategic

Doubling down on the Marathon Universe

• Increased visual fidelity
• More narrative and environmental storytelling to discover and interact with
• A darker tone that delivers on the themes of the original trilogy

Adding more social experiences

• A better player experience for solo/duos
• Prox chat, so social stories can come to life

The game also went through a major controversy recently, with the studio confirming that it has been using stolen artwork following plagiarism accusations.

Bungie has not attached a new release date to Marathon just yet. It said that a progress update about the development will be given this fall, and it asked fans for patience as it works on the experience. Marathon is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 platforms.

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Gamers Nexus (2.46M subscribers)

June 17, 2025

Video length: 30m 35s

In hardware news this week, we talk about the NVIDIA ARM CPU leak for the so-called N1x processor, more dual-Arc Intel GPUs (this time from Matrox), the ASUS x Xbox ROG Ally Handheld, the FAA finally upgrading from... Windows 95 and floppy disks, and more.

00:00 - Recap for the Week 

01:23 - GN Trip to Asia for Special Report 

05:49 - Rumor: NVIDIA ARM N1x Processor 

07:37 - More Dual-Arc GPUs 

09:05 - ROG Xbox Ally Handheld 

16:19 - Nintendo Switch 2 Record Sales 

16:47 - iFixit Gives Switch 2 Poor Repair Score 

17:39 - Gigabyte and MSI Tariff Race 

19:41 - RTX 5050 Laptops 

20:53 - Apple Ending Intel Support

21:37 - TSMC Arizona Fab Plans Accelerated 

23:27 - FAA Finally Off of Floppy Disks 

25:56 - Reddit User Fixes 5080 with Tape 

27:14 - 720 Hz Display, Alienware Legos, Ayaneo

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Microsoft is confirming today that it’s working on a next-gen Xbox console in partnership with AMD. Xbox president Sarah Bond made the announcement in a minute-long video posted to YouTube, promising to deliver “an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device.”

Bond says Microsoft is partnering with AMD for a “strategic multi-year partnership” that will include the pair co-engineering silicon “across a portfolio of devices — including our next-generation Xbox consoles in your living room and in your hands.” The pair will also work together to build the next generation of Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Microsoft is making it clearer than ever that its next-gen Xbox platform will be focused on multiple devices and not locked to its own store for games. “This is all about building a gaming platform that’s always with you, so you can play the games you want across devices anywhere you want — delivering you an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device,” says Bond. “That’s why we’re working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming.”

The confirmation comes just days after Microsoft announced a partnership with Asus to launch two Xbox Ally handheld devices later this year — complete with a new full-screen Xbox experience on Windows. This new Xbox experience runs on top of Windows, and means that the Xbox Ally devices can access other stores like Steam, and it appears that Microsoft is signaling the same for its next-gen Xbox console.

I wrote last week in my Notepad newsletter that I’m more convinced than ever that Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox console will be powered by Windows and be part of a number of devices from third parties that Microsoft also considers Xbox consoles. Bond’s comments appear to suggest Windows is key to Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox console plans, but one missing piece of the puzzle was backward compatibility for Xbox console games.

Bond says this next generation of Xbox includes “maintaining compatibility with your existing library of Xbox games.” So while the Xbox Ally devices won’t run Xbox console games that don’t have a PC counterpart later this year, next-gen Xbox consoles will.

Here’s Bond’s full statement on Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox console plans:

At Xbox our vision is for you to play the games you want with the people you want, anywhere you want. That’s why we’re investing in our next-generation hardware lineup — across console, handheld, PC, cloud, and accessories. I’m thrilled to share we’ve established a strategic multi-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices — including our next-generation Xbox consoles in your living room and in your hands. Together with AMD we’re advancing the state of art in gaming silicon to deliver the next generation of graphics innovation, to unlock a deeper level of visual quality and immersive gameplay and player experiences enhanced with the power of AI. All while maintaining compatibility with your existing library of Xbox games. This is all about building you a gaming platform that’s always with you, so you can play the games you want across devices anywhere you want — delivering you an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device. That’s why we’re working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming. The next-generation of Xbox is coming to life and this is just the beginning, we can’t wait to show you what’s next.

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As reported by IGN, several Switch 2 players have taken to Reddit to highlight that they are intermittently getting system notifications saying that "Rumble has been turned off due to prolonged use". After this notification is displayed, the rumble effect of Joy-Cons gets automatically turned off.

While this proactive measure may be seen as invasive by some gamers, it wouldn't be entirely surprising since rumble effects likely consume a significant portion of battery life during certain gaming sessions and turning them off would allow you to enjoy more playtime. However, what makes the notification rather surprising is that there's seemingly no consistency to it.

Some gamers have reported seeing the notification after roughly 90 minutes of playtime, while others have even seen it after a few minutes. What makes the behavior even more wonky is that for some gamers, the rumble only gets turned off temporarily before kicking back in again. In order to get rid of persistent notifications, Switch 2 gamers have even taken to the system's settings to turn off rumble manually.

It is important to understand why this behavior may be annoying for many people. There are numerous games which utilize the rumble effect on the Switch 2, including Cyberpunk 2077, Split Fiction, and Sonic Generations, and persistently getting unwanted and unsolicited notifications doesn't really enhance the gaming experience. Nintendo is yet to comment on the matter or share details about its implementation logic for this notification mechanism.

Source: Reddit via IGN

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According to the leak, the top-end model will feature 52 cores without hyperthreading. However, those cores are not like "classic" cores found in HEDT chips like AMD's Threadrippers. Instead, those 52 cores are divided into three categories: performance, efficiency, and low-power. The upcoming Core Ultra 9 reportedly features 16 performance cores, 32 efficiency cores, and 4 low-power cores. The cheapest Core Ultra 3 has four of each, 12 cores in total.

Low-power cores are new to Intel's desktop processors. The current Core Ultra 200 chips feature the same hybrid configuration that was introduced with the 12th-gen Alder Lake chips: performance cores for demanding tasks and efficiency cores for lightweight tasks (up to 24 cores). Now, Intel wants to improve the efficiency of its chips further by adding another set of low-power cores, which were first introduced in the first-gen Core Ultra mobile chips (Meteor Lake).

@jaykihn0 adds that Intel Nova Lake-S will support 8000 MT/s memory speed by default and 32 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and 16 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, totalling 48 lanes in CPU + chipset configuration.

Today's leak aligns with previous reports about the upcoming Intel Nova Lake-S processors. However, Intel enthusiasts should probably get ready to switch platforms again, as the Nova Lake-S generation is rumored to require a brand-new LGA1954 socket.

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In a blog post, the site's creator, Robin Scott - also known as "Dark0ne" in the community -, has announced that he is stepping down from managing the site on a daily basis and is actually handing over Nexus Mods to a new owner. Interestingly, this owner has not been named yet, but it seems like the community will be seeing a lot more of Foledinho (Victor) and Rapsak (Marinus) in daily operations.

Scott says that ever since starting the site back in 2001, his adult life has been pretty much consumed by running Nexus Mods and managing its "major social network". This has almost been an on-call position, which has taken a toll on his personal wellbeing and health due to the accompanying stress and anxiety. As such, Scott has decided to step down from his executive role to avoid further burnout.

Although Scott has not revealed the identity of the new owners, he says that his exit is purely for personal reasons and not some corporate backdoor deal. The site's creator will still be around in the forums and Mod Author Discord, providing direction when needed without taking responsibility.

Scott's announcement has been mostly met with praise and thanks from the community. Though, as may be expected from a rather diverse and often polarized audience, the discussion did recently veer off-course and has now been locked from further engagement by community mods.

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IndyCar is back in the game, allowing you to get behind the wheel of the latest-generation open-wheel racing cars. New vehicles include the 2025 Chevrolet IndyCar and the 2025 Honda IndyCar. There is also the all-new IndyCar Series in Featured Multiplayer.

Career mode now has the Champions Cup, a new home for racecar-focused tours in single-player racing. There, you can drive a variety of modern and classic racecars from one-make series to endurance legends. Completing the Champions Cup will give you various high-reward cars like the 1979 BMW #6 BMW Motorsport M1 Procar, the 1998 Nissan #23 Pennzoil NISMO Skyline GT-R, the 2014 Dodge #93 SRT Motorsports Viper GTS-R, and more.

Developers also adjusted the in-game pricing for most racecars to make the Champions Cup more accessible.

Another change in Update 21 is the return of previous Featured Tours. The game will feature an additional Tour every month, allowing you to earn some of the previous reward cars and participate in the now-ended events.

Here is a brief overview of other changes and improvements:

• Featured Multiplayer has been reorganized, incorporating player feedback, with the goal of providing players with even more event variety. Click here for a rundown of these changes.
• We’ve implemented BoP Spec changes to the Forza GT2, Forza GT3, Forza Touring Car, and Forza Proto-H divisions with help from participants in the Forza Insiders Program. See the release notes for an overview of the adjustments that have been made.
• The Challenge Hub menu has been reorganized to more effectively communicate where rewards can be earned as well as the type of rewards available to unlock.
• We’ve fixed an issue for players using the Fanatec DD2 racing wheel that would assign the peripheral an incorrect mapping profile.
• All Builders Cup Tours are now immediately unlocked, which means you no longer need to complete the Modern Tour to access the 3 other Builders Cup Tours. In addition, select Builders Cup Series have been updated to feature additional eligible cars and post-launch tracks. A detailed overview of these changes has been included in the release notes.
• There are also numerous fixes to AI behavior and competitiveness in single-player racing.

You can read more about Forza Motorsport Update 21 in a post on the official Forza website.

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As I watch explosions rip enemy soldiers apart before ordering my companion to finish off a hulking mech, it becomes clear just how much of a step up The Outer Worlds 2 seems to be compared to its predecessor.

During my trip to cover Summer Game Fest 2025, I stopped by Xbox for a few appointments. After I watched this year's Xbox Games Showcase, I had the chance to play several games and chat with the developers making them. After playing The Outer Worlds 2 for 30 minutes and chatting with game director Brandon Adler, it's clear there's a lot to like as the team is working to address feedback players had for the first game.

Adler started as a producer at Obsidian before working his way up to game director on The Outer Worlds 2. He's excited about the game, openly saying that there was a lot that the team wanted to improve or fix.

"The Outer Worlds 1 is a great base to work from, I love the IP, I love all that stuff, but I was also like 'Hey, I think there's things that we could be improving that are going to be easy wins for us,'" he says.

Before the first game shipped, Adler made a list of things he thought the press and fans would both criticize. This list included things like the limited nature of the open zones, the frequent loading screens, and the combat.

"Lo and behold, when we did user research, every single one of those things came up," he says.

Take-Two and Gearbox today confirmed the launch of pre-orders for Borderlands 4, and front and center was the pricing information for the standard edition, which is set at $69.99. It seems the cooperative-focused looter shooter is not following in the footsteps of other high-profile $79.99 releases like Mario Kart World from Nintendo and the upcoming RPG The Outer Worlds from Microsoft.

As for why many were expecting the Borderlands title to also be $80, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford had alluded to the price hike recently. In a social media post in May, Pitchford answered a question from a fan regarding the game possibly being $80, to which he replied, saying that it was not his decision.

"If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen," he went on to say, defending a possible $10 price hike. "My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I found a way to make it happen."

In the end, Borderlands 4 is now confirmed to be releasing at $69.99 for the Standard Edition, with pre-orders available now. At the same time, a $99.99 Deluxe Edition and a $129.99 Super Deluxe Edition have also been confirmed, with each higher tier adding more cosmetic customizations as well as post-launch access to unannounced DLC content.

Borderlands 4 launches September 12, 2025, across PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. A Nintendo Switch 2 release is also planned to land later in 2025.

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Quick links:

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

Windows 11 and Windows 10

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

June 2025 Patch Tuesday updates are out. Windows 10 received KB5060533 with build numbers 19044.5965 and 19045.5965. Supported Windows 11 versions received KB5060842 and KB5060999 with build numbers 26100.4349, 22631.5472, and 22621.5472. Later, Microsoft released an out-of-band update to address problems with games with Easy Anti-Cheat, causing system restarts upon launch, and a couple of recovery updates.

Microsoft launched Copilot Vision with Highlights for Windows. This feature enables AI to see what is happening on the screen and offer additional information, analysis, and context. Copilot Vision currently works with up to two apps, but its availability is limited to the United States (more countries are on the way, says Microsoft).

Now, here is some useful stuff for Windows users: a neat third-party maintenance tool that can run various checks, troubleshooters, and repair utilities; a useful guide about personalizing OneDrive folders with a touch of color, and more.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

The redesigned Start menu is the most exciting part of the new builds, but as usual, it is rolling out gradually. You can mitigate that by force-enabling the new Start menu using the ViVeTool app as described in our guide.

Interestingly, the latest builds introduced a funny bug where Windows 11 plays the Windows Vista startup sound on boot. Microsoft acknowledged the issue and said it is working on a fix in future updates. Meanwhile, if you use the latest Dev and Beta builds, you will get to enjoy 2006 nostalgia each time you turn on your PC.

Updates are available

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

This week's browser updates include a fresh Dev Channel update for Microsoft Edge and secure password deployment in Edge for organizations. The latter arrived in the Stable Channel on June 13 with version 137.0.3296.83.

There was also a minor update for Firefox. The latter received version 139.0.4, which addressed several issues with the browser freezing when switching apps, failing to save wallpapers with proper names, and more. In addition to the update, Mozilla announced that Deepfake Detector is shutting down. The service will go dark on June 26, 2025.

Moving to Office updates, we have some changes to the new Outlook, which will block more files and allow you to perform more tasks when offline. OneDrive for Mac now supports external disks, Clipchamp lets you trim videos by cutting out parts of the transcript, and OneNote now supports Copilot Notebooks. Microsoft also announced an update on the removal of Exchange Online Basic Authentication in Office 365.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Rufus received an update to version 4.8 with performance improvements for Windows images.

• Microsoft is committing to upskilling 1 million UK workers in AI this year.

   

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• Intel 32.0.101.6881 WHQL graphics driver with a single fix for Overwatch 2.
• AMD 25.6.2 non-WHQL with support for FBC: Firebreak, The Alters, and more.

On the gaming side

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

A lot happened on the gaming side this week. At the Sunday Game Showcase, Microsoft and ASUS announced two Xbox handhelds: the ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X. These portable consoles are a big deal for the world of handheld devices, as they run a special version of Windows, which was optimized for portable gaming consoles with fewer processes running in the background. As such, they offer much better battery life and performance. You can read more about how Microsoft optimized Windows 11 for handhelds in a separate article.

Next, we have plenty of new games and DLCs announced at the showcase; here is a recap:

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle received a new DLC called The Order of Giants. It will be available on all supported platforms this September.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 made a surprise appearance at the showcase. Activision released a teaser trailer where the game takes players to a futuristic experience set in 2035.
• Grounded 2 was announced. The sequel of the game for people with arachnophobia is coming next month, offering gamers a new miniaturized survival adventure.
• Obsidian Entertainment revealed the release date of The Outer Worlds 2 and details about companions.
• At Fate's End by Spiritfarer was announced, a new action game about fighting family. It is coming to consoles and PC somewhere in 2026.
• Skybound Games revealed Invincible VS, a brutal 3v3 tag fighting game by former Killer Instinct developers.

• Anno 117: Pax Romana received a November release date. Ubisoft also unveiled a special Governor's Edition.

   

Nvidia announced new games for its cloud-streaming gaming service, GeForce NOW. If you own one of the following games, you can play them on Nvidia's cloud. The new additions include Frosthaven Demo, Dune: Awakening, MindsEye, The Alters, Kingdom Two Crowns, and more.

Mojang finally has a release date for Vibrant Visuals and Chase the Skies updates. On June 17, Minecraft will get its long-anticipated visual overhaul, new features, fresh mobs, and more.

Deals and freebies

Steam is running a new Next Fest, during which gamers can try hundreds of games for free. The event ends on June 16, 2025. The Epic Games Store is giving away Two Point Hospital, a humorous hospital builder simulator. As usual, more deals are available in this week's Weekend PC Games Deals article.

Other gaming news includes the following:

• GOG store introduced the One-Click Mods feature with support for Fallout: London and others.

• Valve announced new accessibility details for game listings on Steam.

• Steam finally has a native client for Apple Silicon.

   

To finish this week's gaming section, here is an editorial from Paul Hill exploring the new $80 cost frontier in modern gaming.

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Paul's Hardware (1.52M subscribers)

June 15, 2025

Video length: 9m 43s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - June 15, 2025

1:48 NVIDIA RTX 5050 w/ 8GB GDDR6 Rumored to launch in July 

3:19 NVIDIA “N1X” CPU Benchmarks Leak

4:44 AMD “Stealth” Launches Ryzen 5 5500X3D

TECH BRIEFS

5:58 Arc B770? Battlemage GPU with PCIe 5.0×16 interface spotted

6:49 Steam finally goes native on Apple Silicon; Steam Store Search Updates

7:26 Disney, Universal sue image creator Midjourney for copyright infringement

7:52 AMD confirms 1400W peak board power for Instinct MI355X GPU

8:25 Scalpers list ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab GPU for up to $22,900

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The Ryzen 5 5500X3D (first spotted on EEC last year) is basically a clocked-down Ryzen 5 5600X3D. This six-core, twelve-thread AM4 processor operates at a base speed of 3GHz, and it can boost itself up to 4GHz. For comparison, the Ryzen 5 5600X3D has a 3.3GHz base clock and a 4.4GHz boost clock. L3 cache, however, remains unchanged: 96MB, which is a big deal for games (the more cache, the better performance). The same goes for the platform: it is built using TSMC's 7nm process and Zen 3 architecture.

Unlike the current AM5 Ryzen chips with 3D cache, the Ryzen 5 5500X3D is not unlocked, which means its modest clocks cannot be overclocked beyond stock values.

For comparison, here is AMD's current portfolio of AM4 processors with 3D cache:

Interestingly, the new Ryzen 5 5500X3D is listed as only available in Latin America (LATAM), which means you are unlikely to see it on sale in the United States or Europe. Therefore, you will have to look at other AM4 processors if you want to get more power without switching platforms.

Source: @Zed__Wang on X

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The issue has been largely mitigated. It started 17:52 UTC yesterday when the Workers KV (Key-Value) system went completely offline, causing widespread service losses across multiple edge computing and AI services.

Workers KV is a globally distributed, consistent key-value store used by Cloudflare Workers, the company’s serverless computing platform. It is a fundamental piece in many Cloudflare services and a failure can cause cascading issues across many components.

The disruption also impacted other services used by millions, most notably the Google Cloud Platform.

In a post mortem, Cloudflare explains that the outage lasted almost 2.5 hours and the root cause was a failure in the Workers KV underlying storage infrastructure due to a third-party cloud provider outage.

“The cause of this outage was due to a failure in the underlying storage infrastructure used by our Workers KV service, which is a critical dependency for many Cloudflare products and relied upon for configuration, authentication, and asset delivery across the affected services,” Cloudflare says.

“Part of this infrastructure is backed by a third-party cloud provider, which experienced an outage today and directly impacted the availability of our KV service.”

Cloudflare has determined the impact of the incident on each service:

• Workers KV – experienced a 90.22% failure rate due to backend storage unavailability, affecting all uncached reads and writes.
• Access, WARP, Gateway – all suffered critical failures in identity-based authentication, session handling, and policy enforcement due to reliance on Workers KV, with WARP unable to register new devices, and disruption of Gateway proxying and DoH queries.
• Dashboard, Turnstile, Challenges – experienced widespread login and CAPTCHA verification failures, with token reuse risk introduced due to kill switch activation on Turnstile.
• Browser Isolation & Browser Rendering – failed to initiate or maintain link-based sessions and browser rendering tasks due to cascading failures in Access and Gateway.
• Stream, Images, Pages – experienced major functional breakdowns: Stream playback and live streaming failed, image uploads dropped to 0% success, and Pages builds/serving peaked at ~100% failure.
• Workers AI & AutoRAG – were completely unavailable due to dependence on KV for model configuration, routing, and indexing functions.
• Durable Objects, D1, Queues – services built on the same storage layer as KV suffered up to 22% error rates or complete unavailability for message queuing and data operations.
• Realtime & AI Gateway – faced near-total service disruption due to inability to retrieve configuration from Workers KV, with Realtime TURN/SFU and AI Gateway requests heavily impacted.
• Zaraz & Workers Assets – saw full or partial failure in loading or updating configurations and static assets, though end-user impact was limited in scope.
• CDN, Workers for Platforms, Workers Builds – experienced increased latency and regional errors in some locations, with new Workers builds failing 100% during the incident.

In response to this outage, Cloudflare says it will be accelerating several resilience-focused changes, primarily eliminating reliance on a single third-party cloud provider for Workers KV backend storage.

Gradually, the KV’s central store will be migrated to Cloudflare’s own R2 object storage to reduce external dependency.

Cloudflare also plans to implement cross-service safeguards and develop new tooling to gradually restore services during storage outages, preventing traffic surges that could overwhelm recovering systems and cause secondary failures.

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Anker has announced that it is recalling "more than a million" power banks as they are potentially very dangerous due to burn and fire hazards. Both Anker as well as the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) have released guidance and advisories on how to check if the power bank you are using is affected and how to proceed further if that is the case.

First up, the affected model is the PowerCore 10000 power bank (Model: A1263) and CPSC notes that "Anker has received 19 reports of fires and explosions," which "includes two reports of minor burn injuries not requiring medical attention and 11 reports of property damage totaling over $60,700."

Anker explains how you can identify the affected model. It writes:

"This recall applies only to the Anker PowerCore 10000 power bank (Model: A1263) manufactured between January 1st, 2016 - October 30th, 2019 in black, blue, red and white, sold in the United States between June 1st, 2016, and December 31st, 2022.

 

Please check the label on the bottom of your power bank. If it reads Anker PowerCore 10000 power bank (Model: A1263) and was purchased in the United States between June 1st, 2016, and December 31st, 2022, your unit may be affected."

After checking and confirming whether your unit is eligible for the recall, Anker has recommended that you "stop using it immediately" and fill the form which provides you with either a free replacement Anker Power Bank (10K, 22.5W) (Model A1388) or a $30 gift card if replacements are back ordered, which is possible at the moment as it is a large scale recall with over a million affected units.

You can find the recall form at this link on Anker's website and the announcement posts linked below. You can find the detailed instructions there.

Source: Anker, CPSC

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Generative AI is permeating the Internet, with chatbots and AI summaries popping up faster than we can keep track. Even Wikipedia, the vast repository of knowledge famously maintained by an army of volunteer human editors, is looking to add robots to the mix. The site began testing AI summaries in some articles over the past week, but the project has been frozen after editors voiced their opinions. And that opinion is: "yuck."

The seeds of this project were planted at Wikimedia's 2024 conference, where foundation representatives and editors discussed how AI could advance Wikipedia's mission. The wiki on the so-called "Simple Article Summaries" notes that the editors who participated in the discussion believed the summaries could improve learning on Wikipedia.

According to 404 Media, Wikipedia announced the opt-in AI pilot on June 2, which was set to run for two weeks on the mobile version of the site. The summaries appeared at the top of select articles in a collapsed form. Users had to tap to expand and read the full summary. The AI text also included a highlighted "Unverified" badge.

Feedback from the larger community of editors was immediate and harsh. Some of the first comments were simply "yuck," with others calling the addition of AI a "ghastly idea" and "PR hype stunt."

Others expounded on the issues with adding AI to Wikipedia, citing a potential loss of trust in the site. Editors work together to ensure articles are accurate, featuring verifiable information and a neutral point of view. However, nothing is certain when you put generative AI in the driver's seat. "I feel like people seriously underestimate the brand risk this sort of thing has," said one editor. "Wikipedia's brand is reliability, traceability of changes, and 'anyone can fix it.' AI is the opposite of these things."

An example of Wikipedia's Simple Article Summaries.

Credit: Wikipedia

Multiple comments question the underlying usefulness of Simple Article Summaries on Wikipedia. The amazing breadth of Wikipedia means that there are countless articles covering advanced technical topics, but the editors strive to make it accessible. The site's guidelines state that the lead section of articles should summarize the content of articles, giving the "basics in a nutshell." Many editors pointed out that the addition of AI summaries is simply redundant. "Leads are already a shortened version of a page," said one of the editors. "The best leads have been carefully crafted by dozens of editors and represent some of the best content in the world."

Wikipedia has confirmed it is pulling the summary test while it evaluates the deluge of feedback it has received from the editors who make the site work. "Reading through the comments, it’s clear we could have done a better job introducing this idea and opening up the conversation here on VPT back in March," a Wikimedia Foundation manager told 404 Media. VPT refers to village pump technical, a forum where the foundation and community members discuss technical issues on the site.

This probably won't be the last spirited discussion about Wikipedia's use of AI. Foundation representatives have confirmed they are still interested in finding ways to integrate generative AI into the Wikipedia experience, but they need buy-in from editors. If the initial reaction is any clue, that's going to be tough.

Source

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If you’re dealing with what appears to be poor battery life on the Nintendo Switch 2, the company has a support document with steps you can try to fix it.

The document spells out what you can try if “the battery amount displayed and the actual remaining battery use don’t match,” according to Nintendo. “For example, you are able to continue using your Nintendo Switch 2 console for a few hours even though the battery charge indicator displays the battery is almost depleted.”

Nintendo’s troubleshooting steps include making sure you have an “adequately powerful AC adapter” to charge your system, confirming that your console has the latest system update, and booting the system into recovery mode, which the company says “should reset the battery level meter.” If those steps don’t work and your battery life is still showing incorrectly, Nintendo suggests sending your console in for service.

Since last week’s launch, there’s been some chatter about poor battery life, but some of that might just be due to the Switch 2 not having a great battery. On the Switch 2 tech specs page, Nintendo rates battery life from approximately 2 to 6.5 hours, and it notes that those are “rough estimates” and that “the battery life will depend on the games you play.” For comparison, Nintendo rates the Switch and Switch OLED for about 4.5 to 9 hours of battery.

The differences are stark in a battery test on YouTube between the Switch 2, Switch OLED, and Switch Lite. With all three running Super Mario Odyssey under similar conditions, the Switch 2 was the first console to power down after about 2 hours and 45 minutes. The next was the Switch Lite, which lasted nearly 30 minutes longer. And the Switch OLED? It lasted for approximately double the time of the Switch 2, finally powering off at just about five hours and 30 minutes.

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During an interview with PC Gamer at Summer Game Fest 2025, The Outer Worlds 2 game director Brandon Adler stated that this sequel will be more serious than the original.

"You'll notice that there's a little bit of a less silly, darker tone that comes out. That's mainly because of Leonard [Boyarsky]. That's his kind of vibe, and so he has more of a push on that stuff. And so I think even the overall story feels a little bit like a darker take on what's going on there."

Boyarsky and Tim Cain were Fallout designers who went on to be co-creative directors for the original Outer Worlds. Cain has since stepped back from game development, so Boyarsky's darker vision has come forward.

Honestly, I couldn't be happier with this darker shift.

I'm seriously excited for this darker turn

While the first Outer Worlds game provided a good mixture of comedy and action, the offbeat humor was sometimes a bit distracting and didn't quite hit the mark.

Worst of all, it sometimes pulled me out of the gravity of certain situations.

Obviously, dark humor can be really important for fleshing out a gritty world, as has often been masterfully done with the Fallout series.

In 1965, Ted Nelson submitted a paper to the Association for Computing Machinery. He wrote: “Let me introduce the word ‘hypertext’ to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper.” The paper was part of a grand vision he called Xanadu, after the poem by Samuel Coleridge.

A decade later, in his book “Dream Machines/Computer Lib,” he described Xanadu thusly: “To give you a screen in your home from which you can see into the world’s hypertext libraries.” He admitted that the world didn’t have any hypertext libraries yet, but that wasn’t the point. One day, maybe soon, it would. And he was going to dedicate his life to making it happen.

As the Internet grew, it became more and more difficult to find things on it. There were lots of cool documents like the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Internet, but to read them, you first had to know where they were.

The community of helpful programmers on the Internet leapt to the challenge. Alan Emtage at McGill University in Montreal wrote a tool called Archie. It searched a list of public file transfer protocol (FTP) servers. You still had to know the file name you were looking for, but Archie would let you download it no matter what server it was on.

An improved search engine was Gopher, written by a team headed by Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota. It used a text-based menu system so that users didn’t have to remember file names or locations. Gopher servers could display a customized collection of links inside nested menus, and they integrated with other services like Archie and Veronica to help users search for more resources.

Gopher is a text-based Internet search and retrieval system. It’s still running in 2025!

Jeremy Reimer

 

Here is the multi-page result of searching for “Hitchhiker” on Gopher.

Jeremy Reimer

 

By hitting the Enter key, you can view the document you were looking for.

Jeremy Reimer

 

A Gopher server could provide many of the things we take for granted today: search engines, personal pages that could contain links, and downloadable files. But this wasn’t enough for a British computer scientist who was working at CERN, an intergovernmental institute that operated the world’s largest particle physics lab.

The World Wide Web

Hypertext had come a long way since Ted Nelson had coined the word in 1965. Bill Atkinson, a member of the original Macintosh development team, released HyperCard in 1987. It used the Mac’s graphical interface to let anyone develop “stacks,” collections of text, graphics, and sounds that could be connected together with clickable links. There was no networking, but stacks could be shared with other users by sending the files on a floppy disk.

The home screen of HyperCard 1.0 for Macintosh.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Hypercard came with a tutorial, written in Hypercard, explaining how it worked.

Jeremy Reimer

 

There were also sample applications, like this address book.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Hypertext was so big that conferences were held just to discuss it in 1987 and 1988. Even Ted Nelson had finally found a sponsor for his personal dream: Autodesk founder John Walker had agreed to spin up a subsidiary to create a commercial version of Xanadu.

It was in this environment that CERN fellow Tim Berners-Lee drew up his own proposal in March 1989 for a new hypertext environment. His goal was to make it easier for researchers at CERN to collaborate and share information about new projects.

The proposal (which he called “Mesh”) had several objectives. It would provide a system for connecting information about people, projects, documents, and hardware being developed at CERN. It would be decentralized and distributed over many computers. Not all the computers at CERN were the same—there were Digital Equipment minis running VMS, some Macintoshes, and an increasing number of Unix workstations. Each of them should be able to view the information in the same way.

As Berners-Lee described it, “There are few products which take Ted Nelson's idea of a wide ‘docuverse’ literally by allowing links between nodes in different databases. In order to do this, some standardization would be necessary.”

The document ended by describing the project as “practical” and estimating that it might take two people six to 12 months to complete. Berners-Lee’s manager called it “vague, but exciting.” Robert Cailliau, who had independently proposed a hypertext system for CERN, joined Berners-Lee to start designing the project.

The computer Berners-Lee used was a NeXT cube, from the company Steve Jobs started after he was kicked out of Apple. NeXT workstations were expensive, but they came with a software development environment that was years ahead of its time. If you could afford one, it was like a coding accelerator. John Carmack would later write DOOM on a NeXT.

Berners-Lee called his application “WorldWideWeb.” The software consisted of a server, which delivered pages of text over a new protocol called “Hypertext Transport Protocol,” or HTTP, and a browser that rendered the text. The browser translated markup code like “h1” to indicate a larger header font or “a” to indicate a link. There was also a graphical webpage editor, but it didn’t work very well and was abandoned.

The very first website was published, running on the development NeXT cube, on December 20, 1990. Anyone who had a NeXT machine and access to the Internet could view the site in all its glory.

The original WorldWideWeb browser running on NeXTstep 3, browsing the world’s first webpage.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Clicking links in WorldWideWeb would open up new windows. Nevertheless, there were options to navigate “forward,” “backward,” and “up.”

Jeremy Reimer

 

There were no inline images. However, you could link to images that would pop up in a new window as long as they were TIFF files.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Because NeXT only sold 50,000 computers in total, that intersection did not represent a lot of people. Eight months later, Berners-Lee posted a reply to a question about interesting projects on the alt.hypertext Usenet newsgroup. He described the World Wide Web project and included links to all the software and documentation.

That one post changed the world forever.

Mosaic

On December 9, 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the High Performance Computing Act, also known as the Gore Bill. The bill paid for an upgrade of the NSFNET backbone, as well as a separate funding initiative for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

NCSA, based out of the University of Illinois, became a dream location for computing research. “NCSA was heaven,” recalled Alex Totic, who was a student there. “They had all the toys, from Thinking Machines to Crays to Macs to beautiful networks. It was awesome.” As is often the case in academia, the professors came up with research ideas but assigned most of the actual work to their grad students.

One of those students was Marc Andreessen, who joined NCSA as a part-time programmer for $6.85 an hour. Andreessen was fascinated by the World Wide Web, especially browsers. A new browser for Unix computers, ViolaWWW, was making the rounds at NCSA. No longer confined to the NeXT workstation, the web had caught the attention of the Unix community. But that community was still too small for Andreessen.

“To use the Net, you had to understand Unix,” he said in an interview with Forbes. “And the current users had no interest in making it easier. In fact, there was a definite element of not wanting to make it easier, of actually wanting to keep the riffraff out.”

Andreessen enlisted the help of his colleague, programmer Eric Bina, and started developing a new web browser in December 1992. In a little over a month, they released version 0.5 of “NCSA X Mosaic”—so called because it was designed to work with Unix’s X Window System. Ports for the Macintosh and Windows followed shortly thereafter.

It wasn’t easy to get Mosaic working on a Windows computer in 1993. You had to purchase and configure a 

third-party TCP/IP application, like Trumpet Winsock, before Mosaic would even start.

Jeremy Reimer

But once you got it going, the web was a lot easier and more exciting to use. Mosaic added the tag that allowed 

images to be displayed inside webpages as long as they were GIFs. The GIF format was invented by CompuServe.

Jeremy Reimer

Being available on the most popular graphical computers changed the trajectory of the web. In just 18 months, millions of copies of Mosaic were downloaded, and the rate was accelerating. The riffraff was here to stay.

Netscape

The instant popularity of Mosaic caused the management at NCSA to take a deeper interest in the project. Jon Mittelhauser, who co-wrote the Windows version, recalled that the small team “suddenly found ourselves in meetings with forty people planning our next features, as opposed to the five of us making plans at 2 am over pizzas and Cokes.”

Andreessen was told to step aside and let more experienced managers take over. Instead, he left NCSA and moved to California, looking for his next opportunity. “I thought I had missed the whole thing,” Andreessen said. “The overwhelming mood in the Valley when I arrived was that the PC was done, and by the way, the Valley was probably done because there was nothing else to do.”

But his reputation had preceded him. Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, was also looking to start something new. A friend had shown him a demo of Mosaic, and Clark reached out to meet with Andreessen.

At a meeting, Andreessen pitched the idea of building a “Mosaic killer.” He showed Clark a graph that showed web users doubling every five months. Excited by the possibilities, the two men founded Mosaic Communications Corporation on April 4, 1994. Andreessen quickly recruited programmers from his former team, and they got to work. They codenamed their new browser “Mozilla” since it was going to be a monster that would devour Mosaic. Beta versions were titled “Mosaic Netscape,” but the University of Illinois threatened to sue the new company. To avoid litigation, the name of the company and browser were changed to Netscape, and the programmers audited their code to ensure none of it had been copied from NCSA.

Netscape became the model for all Internet startups to follow. Programmers were given unlimited free sodas and encouraged to basically never leave the office. “Netscape Time” accelerated software development schedules, and because updates could be delivered over the Internet, old principles of quality assurance went out the window. And the business model? It was simply to “get big fast,” and profits could be figured out later.

Work proceeded quickly, and the 1.0 version of Netscape Navigator and the Netsite web server were released on December 15, 1994, for Windows, Macintosh, and Unix systems running X Windows. The browser was priced at $39 for commercial users, but there was no charge for “academic and non-profit use, as well as for free evaluation purposes.”

Version 0.9 was called “Mosaic Netscape,” and the logo and company were still Mosaic.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Version 1.0 was just called Netscape, although the old logo snuck into the installation screen.

Jeremy Reimer

 

The new logo was a giant N. Images were downloaded progressively, making browsing much faster.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Netscape quickly became the standard. Within six months, it captured over 70 percent of the market share for web browsers. On August 9, 1995, only 16 months after the founding of the company, Netscape filed for an Initial Public Offering. A last-minute decision doubled the offering price to $28 per share, and on the first day of trading, the stock soared to $75 and closed at $58.25. The Web Era had officially arrived.

The web battles proprietary solutions

The excitement over a new way to transmit text and images to the public over phone lines wasn’t confined to the World Wide Web. Commercial online systems like CompuServe were also evolving to meet the graphical age. These companies released attractive new front-ends for their services that ran on DOS, Windows, and Macintosh computers. There were also new services that were graphics-only, like Prodigy, a cooperation between IBM and Sears, and an upstart that had sprung from the ashes of a Commodore 64 service called Quantum Link. This was America Online, or AOL.

Even Microsoft was getting into the act. Bill Gates believed that the “Information Superhighway” was the future of computing, and he wanted to make sure that all roads went through his company’s toll booth. The highly anticipated Windows 95 was scheduled to ship with a bundled dial-up online service called the Microsoft Network, or MSN.

The CompuServe Information Manager added a graphical front-end to the service. It helped cut down on hourly connection fees.

Jeremy Reimer

 

CompuServe Information Manager also came with a customized version of the Mosaic web browser, which 

let users surf the web while connected to CompuServe.

Jeremy Reimer

America Online was a new graphical online service that, among other things, let you send email to anyone on 

the Internet. It was wildly popular in the US but less so in the rest of the world.

Jeremy Reimer

Microsoft’s answer to services like CompuServe and AOL was the Microsoft Network, which came bundled with Windows 95.

Jeremy Reimer

 

At first, it wasn’t clear which of these online services would emerge as the winner. But people assumed that at least one of them would beat the complicated, nerdy Internet. CompuServe was the oldest, but AOL was nimbler and found success by sending out millions of free “starter” disks (and later, CDs) to potential customers. Microsoft was sure that bundling MSN with the upcoming Windows 95 would ensure victory.

Most of these services decided to hedge their bets by adding a sort of “side access” to the World Wide Web. After all, if they didn’t, their competitors would. At the same time, smaller companies (many of them former bulletin board services) started becoming Internet service providers. These smaller “ISPs” could charge less money than the big services because they didn’t have to create any content themselves. Thousands of new websites were appearing on the Internet every day, much faster than new sections could be added to AOL or CompuServe.

The instruction manual that came with my first full Internet connection. It was a startup that had purchased my 

favorite local BBS, Mind Link!

Jeremy Reimer

The manual did its best to introduce new users to the World Wide Web. Windows 95 came with TCP/IP built in, 

so it was a lot easier to get online.

Jeremy Reimer

The tipping point happened very quickly. Before Windows 95 had even shipped, Bill Gates wrote his famous “Internet Tidal Wave” memo, where he assigned the Internet the “highest level of importance.” MSN was quickly changed to become more of a standard ISP and moved all of its content to the web. Microsoft rushed to release its own web browser, Internet Explorer, and bundled it with the Windows 95 Plus Pack.

The hype and momentum were entirely with the web now. It was the most exciting, most transformative technology of its time. The decade-long battle to control the Internet by forcing a shift to a new OSI standards model was forgotten. The web was all anyone cared about, and the web ran on TCP/IP.

The browser wars

Netscape had never expected to make a lot of money from its browser, as it was assumed that most people would continue to download new “evaluation” versions for free. Executives were pleasantly surprised when businesses started sending Netscape huge checks. The company went from $17 million in revenue in 1995 to $346 million the following year, and the press started calling Marc Andreessen “the new Bill Gates.”

The old Bill Gates wasn’t having any of that. Following his 1995 memo, Microsoft worked hard to improve Internet Explorer and made it available for free, including to business users. Netscape tried to fight back. It added groundbreaking new features like JavaScript, which was inspired by LISP but with a syntax similar to Java, the hot new programming language from Sun Microsystems. But it was hard to compete with free, and Netscape’s market share started to fall. By 1996, both browsers had reached version 3.0 and were roughly equal in terms of features. The battle continued, but when the Apache Software Foundation released its free web server, Netscape’s other source of revenue dried up as well. The writing was on the wall.

The dot-com boom

In 1989, the NSF lifted the restrictions on providing commercial access to the Internet, and by 1991, it had removed all barriers to commercial trade on the network. With the sudden ascent of the web, thanks to Mosaic, Netscape, and Internet Explorer, new companies jumped into this high-tech gold rush. But at first, it wasn’t clear what the best business strategy was. Users expected everything on the web to be free, so how could you make money?

Many early web companies started as hobby projects. In 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo were electrical engineering PhD students at Stanford University. After Mosaic started popping off, they began collecting and trading links to new websites. Thus, “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” was born, running on Yang’s Sun workstation. Renamed Yahoo! (Yet Another Hierarchical, Officious Oracle), the site exploded in popularity. Netscape put multiple links to Yahoo on its main navigation bar, which further accelerated growth. “We weren’t really sure if you could make a business out of it, though,” Yang told Fortune. Nevertheless, venture capital companies came calling. Sequoia, which had made millions investing in Apple, put in $1 million for 25 percent of Yahoo.

Another hobby site, AuctionWeb, was started in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. Running on his own home server using the regular $30 per month service from his ISP, the site let people buy and sell items of almost any kind. When traffic started growing, his ISP told him it was increasing his Internet fees to $250 per month, as befitting a commercial enterprise. Omidyar decided he would try to make it a real business, even though he didn’t have a merchant account for credit cards or even a way to enforce the new 5 percent or 2.5 percent royalty charges. That didn’t matter, as the checks started rolling in. He found a business partner, changed the name to eBay, and the rest was history.

In 1993, Jeff Bezos, a senior vice president at a hedge fund company, was tasked with investigating business opportunities on the Internet. He decided to create a proof of concept for what he described as an “everything store.” He chose books as an ideal commodity to sell online, since a book in one store was identical to one in another, and a website could offer access to obscure titles that might not get stocked in physical bookstores.

He left the hedge fund company, gathered investors and software development talent, and moved to Seattle. There, he started Amazon. At first, the site wasn’t much more than an online version of an existing bookseller catalog called Books In Print. But over time, Bezos added inventory data from the two major book distributors, Ingram and Baker & Taylor. The promise of access to every book in the world was exciting for people, and the company grew quickly.

The explosive growth of these startups fueled a self-perpetuating cycle. As publications like Wired experimented with online versions of their magazines, they invented and sold banner ads to fund their websites. The best customers for these ads were other web startups. These companies wanted more traffic, and they knew ads on sites like Yahoo were the best way to get it. Yahoo salespeople could then turn around and point to their exponential ad sales curves, which caused Yahoo stock to rise. This encouraged people to fund more web startups, which would all need to advertise on Yahoo. These new startups also needed to buy servers from companies like Sun Microsystems, causing those stocks to rise as well.

The crash

In the latter half of the 1990s, it looked like everything was going great. The economy was booming, thanks in part to the rise of the World Wide Web and the huge boost it gave to computer hardware and software companies. The NASDAQ index of tech-focused stocks painted a clear picture of the boom.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan called this phenomenon “irrational exuberance” but didn’t seem to be in a hurry to stop it. The fact that most new web startups didn’t have a realistic business model didn’t seem to bother investors. Sure, WebVan might have been paying more to deliver groceries than they earned from customers, but look at that growth curve!

The exuberance couldn’t last forever. The NASDAQ peaked at 8,843.87 in February 2000 and started to go down. In one month, it lost 34 percent of its value, and by August 2001, it was down to 3,253.38. Web companies laid off employees or went out of business completely. The party was over.

Andreessen said that the tech crash scarred him. “The overwhelming message to our generation in the early nineties was ‘You’re dirty, you’re all about grunge—you guys are fucking losers!’ Then the tech boom hit, and it was ‘We are going to do amazing things!’ And then the roof caved in, and the wisdom was that the Internet was a mirage. I 100 percent believed that because the rejection was so personal—both what everybody thought of me and what I thought of myself.”

But while some companies quietly celebrated the end of the whole Internet thing, others would rise from the ashes of the dot-com collapse. That’s the subject of our third and final article.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Nova Lake is a codename for future generations of Intel processors for desktop PCs and laptops, following the usual "Lake" pattern as its predecessors.

Meteor Lake represented a shift to a new naming system for Intel chips, which began with Core Ultra Series 1 mobile processors, including the Core Ultra 7 155H found in HP's highly rated Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop.

Now, Arrow Lake covers the current generation of Core Ultra Series 2 desktop processors, such as the efficiency-focused Core Ultra 9 285K, while Lunar Lake is the codename for its mobile counterparts, like the Core Ultra 7 258V in the phenomenal HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 (2024) laptop.

So far, everything I know about Nova Lake is based on speculation, leaks, and rumors, aside from a confirmation from Intel regarding its codename. Still, this future generation will likely follow upcoming Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" mobile processors, with Intel positioning Nova Lake as Core Ultra Series 4.

Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios have announced a release date for the upcoming action-RPG game The Outer Worlds 2: 29 October, 2025. The sequel to Obsidian’s 2019 sci-fi game, which notably featured anti-capitalist messaging, will also be Microsoft’s first US$80 video game.

Watch a new trailer for the game below:

This week’s Xbox Games Showcase gave us tons of The Outer Worlds 2-related news. During the presentation, Obsidian Entertainment dropped a new trailer to confirm that the sci-fi RPG is launching this October. The showcase was followed by a The Outer Worlds 2 Direct, which teased more details for the upcoming game. 

In the Direct, Obsidian confirmed The Outer Worlds 2’s setting: Arcadia, a new space colony that’s being torn apart by corporate ambition, rifts, and three different clashing factions. The game’s factions, companions, and even radio stations will react to the player’s actions, as the game features expanded RPG systems, new flaws, and more science gadgets. 

Here’s how the new trailer’s YouTube description describes the game:

As a daring and most likely good-looking Earth Directorate agent, you must uncover the source of devastating rifts threatening to destroy all of humanity. Your investigation leads to Arcadia, home of skip drive technology, where the fate of the colony, and ultimately the entire galaxy, rests on your decisions—your strengths, your flaws, your crew, and the factions you choose to trust. 

The Outer Worlds 2 will be Microsoft’s first US$80 video game

After Nintendo ripped the band-aid off video game price hikes with the US$80 Mario Kart World, it looks like Microsoft is now following suit. According to an official Xbox post, The Outer Worlds 2’s Standard Edition will cost US$79.99.

Its Premium Edition, which adds five-day early access, two future expansions, cosmetics, gear, a digital artbook, and a soundtrack, will cost US$99.99.

Given that The Outer Worlds 2 is getting a price hike this year, it’s likely that the rest of Xbox Game Studios’ first-party titles–including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7–are looking at US$80 price tags too. 

Source

Quick links:

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

Windows 11 and Windows 10

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

This week's Windows 11 section kicks off with some stats. StatCounter published its monthly report, showing that Windows 11 slowed its climb a little bit in May 2025. On the gaming side, however, things are much better, with Windows 11 occupying the majority of PCs on Steam.

Now, here are some Windows updates you might have missed. Windows 11 versions 23H2 and 22H2 received KB5062170, a small emergency patch that resolved errors when installing recent updates. The patch is available only through the Microsoft Update Catalog, and the company recommends installing it only if your system experiences the 0xc0000098 code when installing the May 2025 security update.

Finally, Microsoft released a new Defender update for Windows 11 and 10 installations, fresh recovery updates, and a script for recovering the inetpub folder, which showed up unannounced on systems in April.

As Windows 10 is getting closer to the end of support, more companies are urging users to switch. AMD, Dell, and ASUS all urge users to prepare for the "mandatory Windows 11 upgrade," while other companies shamelessly poach Windows 10 users, luring them to Linux.

To finish this week's Windows section, here is an ancient CD-burning app that made a surprising 64-bit comeback and now works on modern operating systems, including Windows 11.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

Besides new builds, Microsoft announced a new update for the Windows Photos app, which is now available to Windows Insiders in all channels. The update introduces AI-powered light controls (Relight), which let you place and control up to three light sources on your photo, and AI-powered search with natural language support.

Updates are available

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

Microsoft announced a batch of new features for the Microsoft Store. The app is getting an improved Home page with personalized recommendations based on your recent activities, region, and deals. Search now considers additional information when ranking apps in the results, and a Copilot button lets you ask AI about a certain app. Microsoft also brags about significant performance improvements under the hood.

This week, we had plenty of various Office updates. Microsoft 365, for one, is getting significant changes to its update channels beginning July 2025. Rollback support will be expanded to two months, the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview) is being deprecated, and the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel will be supported for eight months instead of the current 14.

Microsoft also announced the general availability of the new Message Trace in the Exchange Admin Center in Exchange Online, some big updates for the new Outlook for Windows in the June 2025 update, and acknowledged a few issues with Outlook after a recent Calendar feature upgrade. Teams is also getting a "major" change for third-party app settings, and Word is getting SharePoint eSignature support.

Bing received a surprising update this week. OpenAI's Sora video generator is now available for free in Bing Video Creator. Now, you do not have to pay for an OpenAI subscription to generate short videos using AI. Way to boost Bing stats, Microsoft!

PowerToys Run, a useful and convenient launcher for Windows 10 and 11, recently received three new third-party modules that let you test your internet speed, download videos from hundreds of websites, and check out word definitions, usage, synonyms, and more.

Microsoft announced some long-requested changes for Microsoft Edge, but only for those living in the EEA region. Windows will no longer annoy you with setting Edge as your default browser, and Windows Widgets will respect your default browser. Also, Microsoft will let you uninstall the Microsoft Store app, and Windows Search will be able to use other search providers.

Speaking of browsers, Microsoft published a blog post that explained why Edge is a faster and smarter alternative to Chrome. If you are picking between the two, the article might help you make the choice (Google has an answer to that with its own article explaining that Chrome is now faster than ever). Also, the company released Edge 138 in the Beta Channel, bringing some important changes and new features, such as a new (sort of new) media control center, AI-powered history search, and more.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Microsoft expanded LinkedIn's CEO role to manage Office apps.
• Microsoft announced the general availability of two new reasoning AI agents: Research and Analyst.
• Microsoft and Crowdstrike announced a partnership on threat actor naming.
• Microsoft will invest $400 million in Switzerland to bolster cloud and AI infrastructure.
• The annual Build conference is moving away from Seattle.

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• Intel 32.0.101.6876 non-WHQL with support for four new games and a single fix for intermittent display artifacts.
• Nvidia 576.66 Hotfix with patches for FC 25 crashes, video bugs in browsers, and more. In addition to that, Nvidia released a new version of the Nvidia App, which introduced a light theme (and automatic theme switching), support for more games, and some bug fixes.
• AMD Software Pro Edition 25 Q2 with support for Windows Server 2025, new Ryzen processors, and a few fixes.
• AMD Radeon Software 25.6.1 with the RX 9060 XT support and FSR 4 support for more games.

On the gaming side

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

Hello Games continues relentlessly improving No Man's Sky. The game's latest update, "Beacon," was announced this week. It offers space explorers overhauled settlements, player overseer duties, and much more. The update is now available on all supported platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2.

The Witcher 4 from CD Projekt RED might be a few years away. Still, at the State of Unreal 2025 keynote, the developers revealed a tech demo showcasing the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5 on the base PlayStation 5, which managed to pull it off at a solid 60 FPS.

Nvidia announced new games that are now available in the GeForce NOW cloud streaming service (you have to own them to play them). The latest drop is a massive one: 25 new games, including FBC: Firebreak, Dune: Awakening, 7 Days to Die, DREADZONE, and more.

Game Pass is also getting new games, and the first drop in June is also a pretty big one. You will soon get access to Kingdom: Two Crowns, EA Sports FC 25, FBC: Firebreak, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, The Alters, and more. Some games are leaving the service, so check out the full list here.

Xbox Games Showcase 2025 is happening today. With the show kicking off in just a few hours, check out our recap of what to expect at the show and how to watch it.

On the hardware side, we have a new Xbox Storage Expansion Card from Seagate. At a whopping $429.99 price tag, the new card offers an immense amount of space for your games, doubling that of the previously biggest expansion card. Now, you can get an Xbox Storage Expansion Card with 4TB. By the way, it costs as much as the 1TB Xbox Series S.

Deals and freebies

If you are looking for some new games at lower prices, check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals, which covers multiple specials and discounts, including some freebies, such as Deathloop from the Epic Games Store.

Other gaming news includes the following:

• Ubisoft is skipping its Forward game showcase for the first time since 2020.

• Valve released a new beta version of Steam for Linux to address sluggish update installations.

• Elden Ring Nighteign received its first update with reduced difficulty for solo runs.

• The Expanse TV show is getting a narrative-driven sci-fi action RPG.

• Black Myth: Wukong is coming to Xbox in August.

• Atomic Heart is getting a sequel and an MMO RPG spin-off.

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Owlcat Games has announced a new partnership with Alcon Interactive Group to bring a narrative action RPG set in The Expanse universe to PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. Titled The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, the game is an original story that is expected to expand the lore of the current TV series available on Amazon Prime Video.

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn follows the story of a Pinkwater Security mercenary who becomes trapped on Eros Station during a lockdown event that has turned catostrophic. With no other options for survival, the mercenary will have to take command of the system's most advanced ship and its crew as the solar system teeters on the brink of chaos.

Owlcat Games is the developer and publisher behind critically acclaimed RPGs and narrative-driven experiences, including Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Starting as a small team of industry veterans, Owlcat Games has ballooned to 450 employees worldwide. The team has several other titles currently in development, including Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy.

 

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn will feature third-person combat. 

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

In a statement announcing the new title, Yuliya Chernenko, Game Design Producer from Owlcat Games, provided a statement on the development inspiration behind Osiris Reborn.

 

“The original Mass Effect trilogy was absolutely an inspiration to the team. It was iconic for the Xbox 360 generation of gamers. Many of us first played it in our teenage years, and it left a lasting impression,” said Chernenko, "“We are building on that legacy and expanding what players anticipate from this experience. Our story is deeply rooted in hard science fiction — one of the core reasons The Expanse universe resonates so well with its fans. The combat reflects the standards of modern action gameplay. The narrative emphasizes political tension and moral complexity. And yes — there’s romance too.”

 

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn revealed by Owlcat Games.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is considered by Owlcat Games to be it's flagship title.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

The Mass Effect trilogy is considered as inspiration for the new title from Owlcat Games.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

Owlcat Games and Alcon Interactive Group have partnered on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

The ship is one of the most advanced in the story universe for The Expanse.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

Two companions will accompany the player in combat, while the remaining crew provides off-screen support.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

Third-person combat sequences allow players to engage in strategic maneuvering during action.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

The game will expand on the lore from The Expanse's TV series and novels.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

Explore a solar system on the brink of chaos.

(Image credit: Alcon Interactive Group)

 

Players can look forward to creating their own captain in Osiris Reborn and shaping their journey as an Earther, Martian or Belter by developing their character's identity, leadership style, and ability to withstand the pressures of survival. Companion characters will feature pasts and motives, and player actions can shift squadmate loyalties.

 

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person action RPG that utilizes a real-time strategic cover mechanic, and players are accompanied by two companions for combat while the remainder of the crew provides support off-screen.

 

A release date for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn has not yet been announced, but players can wishlist the game on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, or on PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG. A collector's edition has been announced, which will include in-game skins and digital goods, while the physical edition includes an 8-inch spaceship figurine and a printed art book.

 

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It’s early June and the vibes are decidedly off in Cupertino.

The hype leading up to Apple’s last two developer conferences felt much different. There was anticipation in 2023 for a potentially groundbreaking new headset. In 2024, there was a sense of urgency leading up to the company’s AI announcements and whispers that Siri might actually, finally be good at something. But 2025?

Well, things are different.

The Vision Pro was the big announcement at that 2023 show, and it’s, uh, still around. Apple has reportedly cut production due to slow sales, and you can get one at a steep discount on eBay. Maybe the price is wrong. And the big AI announcement last year? How’s that going? As it stands, Apple Intelligence is stalled out. The features that Apple managed to deploy are underwhelming, and the meaty update to Siri has been delayed — maybe even for years. It sounds like the whole thing was a real fiasco inside Apple, and publicly, the company took down an ad showcasing Siri features that simply don’t exist yet. Ouch.

And then there’s the legal stuff. In 2021, a court in California ordered Apple to let developers add links allowing customers to make purchases outside of their apps. The company was also supposed to come up with a rationale for whatever commission it decided to take on those purchases.

Apple’s subsequent compliance with this order was so poor that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers got fed up and blocked the company from taking any fees on those purchases and recommended the case for criminal contempt proceedings — all detailed in a seething 80-page decision. Meanwhile, in the EU, regulators have fined Apple for practices that fail to comply with the DMA’s antitrust rules, Fortnite is back in the App Store, and oh yeah, President Donald Trump keeps waving tariffs around in Tim Cook’s face with a cockamamie plan to convince him to build iPhones in the US.

What’s a beleaguered tech CEO to do in times like these? Here’s what I’d like to see at WWDC: Apple showing a little humility. I do not want to see a two-minute Hollywood production of Craig Federighi jumping out of a helicopter or whatever with his expensive haircut flapping in the wind. I would like to see Tim Cook take the stage and own up to the company’s recent missteps. Doesn’t he owe this particular audience some kind of apology after a judge put him on blast for choosing the worst option for developers at every turn? Shouldn’t he at least acknowledge that the company got out over its skis showing us Apple Intelligence demos on the same stage last year that, by some accounts, were pure vaporware?

It would be the right thing to do, but one early indication makes it seem unlikely Apple will choose this path. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber’s annual Talk Show episode usually features guest appearances by Apple executives who provide color on the big WWDC announcements. But Gruber says that this year, for the first time since 2015, Apple has declined the invitation to join. Notably, Gruber published a blog earlier this year taking critical aim at Apple’s mishandling of AI features. Coincidence, I’m sure!

This is a strong indicator that Apple will choose the more familiar option: project confidence and keep smiling. Instead of a sincere acknowledgement of its misjudgments, we’ll probably see it paper over the disastrous Apple Intelligence rollout with a sleek new redesign and a new OS naming convention for funsies. They’ll keep pretending that the Vision Pro is a beloved innovation and not just collecting dust on the shelves of early adopters. They’ll keep insisting that notification summaries and a text prompt image generator constitute a worthwhile AI feature set.

The new Siri capabilities featured in this demo from last year’s WWDC still haven’t arrived.

Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge

 

The trouble is, I don’t think it’ll be enough this time. Apple’s force of personality has sustained it through past missteps, but I don’t think the same playbook will work through the current crisis. The stock price is down from its highs earlier in the year — about flat from last June — a federal judge is breathing fire at Tim Cook, and it’s obvious to anyone with an iPhone 16 that Apple Intelligence is half-baked at best. And the vibes? Way, way off.

But the thing about a vibe is that you can turn it around. WWDC is Apple’s chance to talk directly to arguably its most important audience: developers. Apple executives would do well to remember that it was apps that made the iPhone what it is today. If developers are going to follow Apple into the next era of AI or XR or whatever the shift may be, then now would be a good time to show them a little humility.

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Summer Game Fest is well underway, and among all the new game premieres, Techland has shown a new trailer complete with a release date reveal for the third entry in the Dying Light franchise. Dying Light: The Beast will drop on August 22, 2005.

The new trailer didn't stop at just a reveal date, it also gave us a fresh new look at what we can expect in Dying Light: The Beast. The game is a highly anticipated return to the Dying Light franchise, which originally began as an expansion before expanding in scope to become a full standalone title. It brings back popular Dying Light protagonist, Kyle Crane, for another parkouring romp through a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Crane will have a few new tricks up his sleeve, though, as he won't just be parkouring his way through the world—he can park, too! Kind of, at least. We did see some vehicle driving among copious amounts of gun play. Dying Light: The Beast's predecessor, Dying Light 2, was surprisingly light on firearms, much to the chagrin of the game's fan base. While this was eventually improved in later updates, Techland put firearms front and center during the latest trailer to prove to its fans that the Dying Light team would not repeat past mistakes.

Dying Light: The Beast brings back the series' original protagonist, Kyle Crane, for a new adventure.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

Its not an apocalypse unless you can plow through zombies with a vehicle.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

I am going to need Techland to borrow the State of Decay "door smash" mechanic. 

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

The vehicle parking was fun, but we all know parkour is the heart of Dying Light.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

There is still a lot up in the air about what fans can expect when Dying Light: The Beast launches in August. Techland has yet to confirm a price for the game. However, it has been confirmed that those who purchased Dying Light 2's Ultimate Edition will receive access to Dying Light: The Beast at no extra cost, likely due to the game's early days as an expansion.

 

Techland has shared some behind-the-scenes looks at preparations for an upcoming hands-on preview of Dying Light: The Beast, so more information should begin trickling out in preparation for the August release date.

 

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Gamers Nexus (2.46M subscribers)

June 7, 2025

Video length: 30m 53s

In this hardware news episode, we talk about the AMD RX 9060 XT launch embargo issues, ASUS' router vulnerabilities and malware, the RTX 5050 rumors, and Lian Li's new Vector V100 case. We also cover GPU market share of AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel, per a new Jon Peddie Research (JPR) report, plus the Unreal Engine 5.6 updates.

00:00 - Recap for the Week 

01:07 - AMD RX 9060 XT Post-Mortem 

11:49 - AMD RX 9070 Falls in Price in Europe 

15:52 - NVIDIA RTX 5050, Which is Probably 5030, Rumored 

17:46 - Lian Li Vector V100 Case Launches at $60 

19:58 - AMD GPU Market Share Continues to Dwindle 

24:05 - ASUS Routers Compromised with Botnet 

28:04 - Unreal Engine 5.6 Update for RT

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