News: Technology News

Sometimes, it’s the little tech annoyances that sting the most

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 17:02:59 +0000

macOS wouldn't remember mouse settings? This means war!

Anyone who has suffered the indignity of a splinter, a blister, or a paper cut knows that small things can sometimes be hugely annoying. You aren't going to die from any of these conditions, but it's still hard to focus when, say, the back of your right foot is rubbing a new blister against the inside of your not-quite-broken-in-yet hiking boots.

I found myself in the computing version of this situation yesterday, when I was trying to work on a new Mac Mini and was brought up short by the fact that my third mouse button (that is, clicking on the scroll wheel) did nothing. This was odd, because I have for many years assigned this button to "Mission Control" on macOS—a feature that tiles every open window on your machine, making it quick and easy to switch apps. When I got the new Mini, I immediately added this to my settings. Boom!

And yet there I was, a couple hours later, clicking the middle mouse button by reflex and getting no result. This seemed quite odd—had I only imagined that I made the settings change? I made the alteration again in System Settings and went back to work.

But after a reboot later that day to install an OS update, I found that my shortcut setting for Mission Control had once again been wiped away. This wasn't happening with any other settings changes, and it was strangely vexing.

When it happened a third time, I switched into full "research and destroy the problem" mode. One of my Ars colleagues commiserated with me, writing, "This kind of powerful-annoying stuff is just so common. I swear at least once every few months, some shortcut or whatever just stops working, and sometimes, after a week or so, it starts working again. No rhyme, reason, or apparent causality except that computers are just [unprintable expletives]."

But even if computers are [unprintable expletives], their problems have often been encountered and fixed by some other poor soul. So I turned to the Internet for help... and immediately stumbled upon an Apple discussion thread called "MacOS mouse shortcuts are reset upon restart or shutdown." The poster—and most of those replying—said that the odd behavior had only appeared in macOS Sequoia. One reply claimed to have identified the source of the bug and offered a fix:

1. Set your Mission Control mouse shortcuts as usual.
2. Go to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Desktop-Settings.extension/Data/Library/Preferences folder.
3. Copy com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file.
4. Go to ~/Library/Preferences
5. Paste the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file. Re-writte the previous one.

The bug is the macOS core seems to save the shortcut preferences directly into the step 4 folder, but it should be saved in step 2 and 4 folders at the same time.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any such .plist file in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Desktop-Settings.extension/Data/Library/Preferences. However, a second intrepid user found the file in a different location, writing:

This solution worked for me but NOTE that to find the plist file to copy I had to go to ~/Library/Container/Desktop & Dock/Data/Library/Preferences instead. For whatever reason the other folder (com.apple.Desktop-Settings.extension) didn't exist. Perhaps they moved it in 15.3 (but didn't fix the bug!)?

Here, at last, was the answer. I found the proper .plist filed and I copied it over to ~/Library/Preferences, then I rebooted the computer. Everything worked.

Sweet success! Jovial victoriousness! Ebullient wonderment!

...and then I went on with my day.

Who moved my cheese?

This trivial annoyance reminded me of several things.

First, despite Apple's "it just works" ethos, it doesn't always work; Macs are computers like any other, their software filled with spaghetti code and poorly defined variables. Errors creep in. This one was a bit surprising, however, in that it has already persisted across three point releases of the operating system even though the fix is in Apple's own forums and appears to be as simple as storing a file in the correct spot. I am tempted to draw grandiose lessons from the incident about whether Apple's attention to iOS is leading to sloppiness in macOS—but I won't.

Second, we really take the working of these ultra-complex systems for granted. I'm old enough to remember the Bad Old Days of trying to get Wing Commander running on a PC and having to muck about with HIMEM.SYS files just to get the game to load. Young Nate, with his modem and shared phone line that could lose an hour-long download if someone else in the house picked up the phone, would have loved to deal only with small problems like a mouse setting not sticking. So perhaps Current Nate has gotten soft.

Third, it is really irritating to have one's muscle memory routine interrupted. Every time I clicked that middle mouse button and nothing happened, I felt the sharp shock of annoyance that my devices should betray me in this way. Even though my brain knew that the clicks were no longer producing their expected results, my fingers clicked anyway out of instinct until I broke down, went back into System Settings, and made the change again. The brain/body system rebels against anything that forces its expected reactions to change. (Though over time, of course, humans are great adapters. But in the short term... not so much.)

Fourth, the corollary to this level of irritation is the feeling of triumph when the problem—however small it might be—is successfully fixed. In the slightly less technical realm, our refrigerator has two sliding plastic doors that twist closed together in order to protect (?) the cheese drawer. But years of cheese consumption had apparently led to tiny bits of cheese getting down into the mechanism and gumming it up something terrible. Last week, I spent 45 minutes taking the doors and the drawer apart, washing all the pieces in hot, soapy water, and scrubbing at them for a good 10 minutes until the last of the ground-in cheese residue was cleared away. When I reassembled the whole contraption, and the doors swung as smoothly as if they were new, I felt the same sense of elation as when I defeated the macOS mouse bug. There's something about figuring out how a system works, identifying the current problem, and then addressing that problem that just tickles the brain in a certain way.

Fifth and finally, I was reminded that for all of the Internet's many (many!) problems, it is still full of people taking time to share their knowledge just to help others. So thanks, random Internet commenters who showed me how to fix my problem! I owe you a debt of gratitude.

Since I enjoyed fixing my little problem so much, I thought I'd share it with you, gentle Ars readers. What minor tech irritations have you overcome recently?

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Cloudflare turns AI against itself with endless maze of irrelevant facts

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 03:37:03 +0000

New approach punishes AI companies that ignore "no crawl" directives.

On Wednesday, web infrastructure provider Cloudflare announced a new feature called "AI Labyrinth" that aims to combat unauthorized AI data scraping by serving fake AI-generated content to bots. The tool will attempt to thwart AI companies that crawl websites without permission to collect training data for large language models that power AI assistants like ChatGPT.

Cloudflare, founded in 2009, is probably best known as a company that provides infrastructure and security services for websites, particularly protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other malicious traffic.

Instead of simply blocking bots, Cloudflare's new system lures them into a "maze" of realistic-looking but irrelevant pages, wasting the crawler's computing resources. The approach is a notable shift from the standard block-and-defend strategy used by most website protection services. Cloudflare says blocking bots sometimes backfires because it alerts the crawler's operators that they've been detected.

"When we detect unauthorized crawling, rather than blocking the request, we will link to a series of AI-generated pages that are convincing enough to entice a crawler to traverse them," writes Cloudflare. "But while real looking, this content is not actually the content of the site we are protecting, so the crawler wastes time and resources."

The company says the content served to bots is deliberately irrelevant to the website being crawled, but it is carefully sourced or generated using real scientific facts—such as neutral information about biology, physics, or mathematics—to avoid spreading misinformation (whether this approach effectively prevents misinformation, however, remains unproven). Cloudflare creates this content using its Workers AI service, a commercial platform that runs AI tasks.

Cloudflare designed the trap pages and links to remain invisible and inaccessible to regular visitors, so people browsing the web don't run into them by accident.

A smarter honeypot

AI Labyrinth functions as what Cloudflare calls a "next-generation honeypot." Traditional honeypots are invisible links that human visitors can't see but bots parsing HTML code might follow. But Cloudflare says modern bots have become adept at spotting these simple traps, necessitating more sophisticated deception. The false links contain appropriate meta directives to prevent search engine indexing while remaining attractive to data-scraping bots.

"No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense," Cloudflare explains. "Any visitor that does is very likely to be a bot, so this gives us a brand-new tool to identify and fingerprint bad bots."

This identification feeds into a machine learning feedback loop—data gathered from AI Labyrinth is used to continuously enhance bot detection across Cloudflare's network, improving customer protection over time. Customers on any Cloudflare plan—even the free tier—can enable the feature with a single toggle in their dashboard settings.

A growing problem

Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth joins a growing field of tools designed to counter aggressive AI web crawling. In January, we reported on "Nepenthes," software that similarly lures AI crawlers into mazes of fake content. Both approaches share the core concept of wasting crawler resources rather than simply blocking them. However, while Nepenthes' anonymous creator described it as "aggressive malware" meant to trap bots for months, Cloudflare positions its tool as a legitimate security feature that can be enabled easily on its commercial service.

The scale of AI crawling on the web appears substantial, according to Cloudflare's data that lines up with anecdotal reports we've heard from sources. The company says that AI crawlers generate more than 50 billion requests to their network daily, amounting to nearly 1 percent of all web traffic they process. Many of these crawlers collect website data to train large language models without permission from site owners, a practice that has sparked numerous lawsuits from content creators and publishers.

The technique represents an interesting defensive application of AI, protecting website owners and creators rather than threatening their intellectual property. However, it's unclear how quickly AI crawlers might adapt to detect and avoid such traps, potentially forcing Cloudflare to increase the complexity of its deception tactics. Also, wasting AI company resources might not please people who are critical of the perceived energy and environmental costs of running AI models.

Cloudflare describes this as just "the first iteration" of using AI defensively against bots. Future plans include making the fake content harder to detect and integrating the fake pages more seamlessly into website structures. The cat-and-mouse game between websites and data scrapers continues, with AI now being used on both sides of the battle.

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Bill Gates says Satya Nadella almost missed the cut for CEO of Microsoft — Even with Steve Ballmer's support

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:37:48 +0000

Microsoft's co-founder praised how Satya Nadella has since proved a top choice with his impressive AI and cloud computing stats.

In 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that he'd never pictured Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates ever leaving the company while discussing his ascend to the top seat.

The executive revealed he'd never considered sitting at the helm of a Fortune 500 company, running its day-to-day operations. Nadella admitted that he was reluctant to take the position when a board member offered it to him.

He indicated he would only take the position if the board member genuinely wanted him to, but was informed that he "really needed to want to be CEO" to get the position.

In a recent interview, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that Satya Nadella almost missed the opportunity to become Microsoft's CEO (via Fortune).

Satya Nadella almost didn't become CEO

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

Satya Nadella became Microsoft CEO in 2014, taking the mantle from Steve Ballmer and making the company among the world's most valuable companies with over $3 trillion in market capitalization.

The tech giant's immense success can undoubtedly be attributed to its recent AI and cloud computing efforts.

Interestingly, Nadella was backed by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to become the company's CEO. As you may know, Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2000 but continued to be a member of its board before fully transitioning to philanthropic efforts through the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

However, the billionaire is reportedly intimately involved in the company's affairs, with some insiders claiming "his opinion is sought every time we make a major change," including AI and recruiting high-ranking executives.

Gates admits that he was haunted by intrusive thoughts about Microsoft's future after he stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Steve Ballmer:

"I'll tear up on this, ’cause it meant a lot to me. I've had two successors, and boy, do I feel lucky because as I went off to do the foundation work, the one thing that plagued me was: Was I going to see the company fade in terms of its excellence?"

The Microsoft co-founder indicated that when Steve Ballmer announced his planned retirement, the board of members faced the difficult task of finding the perfect candidate for what might be considered the most complex CEO position in the world.

The fact that Steve took us [Microsoft] to new heights and the fact that through a process that almost made the wrong decision—although you and Steve and I never wavered from knowing Satya would be good, and he's been even better at navigating what even today remains one of the most complex CEO jobs in the world—makes me feel so good that I get to just come in and play a very bit role of doing product reviews, learning about AI, getting some help from Microsoft on the work that I'm doing. It's allowed me to throw everything in and to have the incredible resources that my Microsoft ownership created.

Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates

Bill Gates also took the opportunity to tout Satya Nadella's empathetic leadership style as Microsoft's CEO and its contribution to the company's overall success.

"I’ve come to value empathy more over the course of my career," added Gates. "Early on we were speed nuts, staying all night [at the office, thinking], 'Oh, you’re five percent slower as a programmer? You don’t belong here.' It was very hard-core."

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Apple in trouble? Lawsuit seeks penalties for "false advertising" over Apple Intelligence

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:35:38 +0000

Axios reports that Apple has been sued for false advertising over Apple Intelligence. Now, if you remember, Apple Intelligence launched last October as a built-in feature of Apple's iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Pretty quickly, things got off to a rocky start.

For example, notification summaries, a feature in Apple Intelligence that summarizes your notifications for you, in true LLM fashion, summarized a BBC headline and falsely claimed that the UnitedHealthcare CEO's alleged murderer, Luigi Mangione, had killed himself; prompting a response from Apple and a pause in notification summaries for news apps.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division, accuses Apple of false advertising, fraud, and breach of contract, among other things. The plaintiff, Peter Landsheft, claims Apple misled consumers into buying the iPhone 16 lineup based on AI features that do not exist or at least not yet.

The lawsuit alleges Apple knew the features were not ready but went ahead with the marketing blitz anyway. The lawsuit points to Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign, which painted Apple Intelligence as a game-changer. Consumers were told they would be getting a significantly upgraded Siri with deep personalization, cross-app awareness, and more advanced natural language understanding.

Apple made big promises about how Siri could find a podcast episode a friend recommended even if it was mentioned in a text or email, cross-reference flight details with live tracking to give updated arrival times, and take hundreds of new actions across Apple and third-party apps, like pulling up a specific article from a reading list or sending photos from a recent event to a specific contact. But according to the lawsuit:

Recently, under mounting pressure from outraged consumers and industry scrutiny, Apple was forced to acknowledge that the heralded Apple Intelligence features, including the Siri enhancements that fueled the greatest consumer excitement, did not exist then and do not exist now.

The lawsuit also claims that if these features ever materialize, it will not be until 2026, leaving those who bought an iPhone 16 under false pretenses stuck with a phone that does not do what Apple said it would.

Some of the major Apple Intelligence features that were hyped but remain unavailable include the upgraded Siri experience, which reports suggest might not be ready until 2027 at the earliest, Priority Notifications, which was supposed to smartly filter and surface only the most important alerts, Genmoji on Mac, which allows custom emoji generation but is still missing for Mac users, Sketch Style for Image Playground, an AI-generated art style that has been announced but not yet released, and expanded language support, which is currently limited to English with broader availability delayed to April 2025 at the earliest.

The lawsuit argues that Apple’s marketing misled people into thinking these features would be available at launch, making the iPhone 16 a must-have device, while buyers instead got what the complaint calls a "mirage of innovation."

The plaintiff and the proposed class are seeking monetary damages, essentially refunds for customers who purchased new Apple devices expecting the promised AI features. They are also demanding injunctive relief, which would require Apple to stop its allegedly misleading marketing about Apple Intelligence. In addition to that, the lawsuit seeks punitive damages to penalize Apple for what it describes as “malicious, oppressive, and fraudulent conduct.”

So far, Apple has not publicly commented on the lawsuit, but given how much fire they are under from both regulators and consumers, it would not be surprising if they quietly settle this one.

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Anno 117's new modular ship building system detailed, revealing deep customization

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:34:24 +0000

Anno 117: Pax Romana is already confirmed to introduce brand-new mechanics to the series, like diagonal roads and buildings. And now, it's taking aim at the trading powerhouses that have been in the series since its inception in 1998: Ships. Building on top of Anno 1800's item system, the next installment will let players build ships for specific purposes with custom parts.

"The idea of introducing modular ships to the Anno was going around already for a while. With the Roman setting we had the perfect platform to do it, since it is very true to how the Romans themselves built their ships," says Anno 117 game designer Markus. "In Anno 1800, we made good experiences with the ship items and wanted to build on the experience of customizing your ships to the specific tasks you had in mind for them and represent your choices also in the visuals of your ships this time."

The shipyard in Anno 117 will offer three sizes of Roman ships for building: Penteconter (2 modification slots), Trireme (3 modification slots), and Quinquireme (4 modification slots).

The following modules can be used for filling in the available slots prior to beginning construction, as long as the player has the required resources and isn't going above balance limitations:

Mast: additional speed when sailing with the wind on long distances, reaching higher max speed and higher speed when sailing between regions

Rows: additional speed, reaching higher minimum speed and acceleration, with smaller turn radius; it’s perfect for short ranges and combat

Reinforced Hull: additional HP

Archer Tower: shoots many small arrows in all directions on short range

Scorpio: shoots high-precision spears and deals high damage mid-range, only on the sides

Onager: Shoots rocks with high range and highest damage, but low accuracy and towards the front

"The construction and maintenance costs of the ships change depending on the installed modules," adds Ubisoft. "For example, rows will be more labour intensive than sails—this means they will require more workforce. Same thing for the Archer Tower compared to the Onager, as there are more soldiers involved."

As expected, using up available slots will reduce the amount of cargo a ship can carry, but even on a fully decked-out vessel, some cargo space will always be free for materials. The vessel-building plans players come up with can be saved for future use on the shipyards too.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is slated to hit Steam, Ubisoft Connect, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 platforms sometime in 2025. Beta registrations for upcoming tests are currently open across all platforms too.

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Ubisoft reveals Assassin's Creed Shadows has passed one million players on launch day

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 03:33:57 +0000

Following a long wait, and a couple of delays later, Assassin's Creed Shadows finally launched to the masses earlier today, offering fans a feudal Japan-set open-world RPG experience. It seems only a few hours needed to pass before the title reached an important milestone, as Ubisoft has revealed that the game has already crossed the one million players mark.

The milestone was announced by the primary developer, Ubisoft Quebec, via a social media post, thanking its fanbase for the support.

"It's not even 4PM here in Canada and Assassin's Creed Shadows has already passed 1 million players," says the post on X, while also sharing some free game codes with fans. "Thank YOU from the bottom of our hearts for joining this adventure in feudal Japan. We are beyond excited to start this journey with you!"

The game's first day of launch on Steam has also been pulling decent concurrent player numbers. Per SteamDB, the launch day of Assassin's Creed Shadows had a peak of 41,412 concurrent players on the platform. This is the first game in the franchise to release as a day-one experience on Steam in many years. If the current trend holds, the title may be about to topple Assassin's Creed Odyssey's 62,069 concurrent peak record on Steam this weekend.

Steam reviews are also trending positive, with the title sporting an 81% 'Very Positive' rating from users on the platform. Most negative reports seem to be stemming from Ubisoft server issues affecting the game.

Considering the studio specifically said 'players' instead of copies sold in its X post, this seems to be counting players that are jumping in from the Ubisoft+, the subscription program of the publisher. The $17.99 plan of the service offers access to the complete version of the new Assassin's Creed RPG, alongside almost every other game and DLC of Ubisoft. We should hear more about the launch performance of Shadows later this year during the company's investor calls.

This is also the first Assassin's Creed title in a while to offer a dual protagonist structure, a feature that was only seen in Assassin's Creed Syndicate back in 2015. This has been a point of controversy for the studio as well, alongside several others that have appeared in the recent months. A day-one patch from earlier today also disabled some interactions in shrines found in the game following concerns by the Japanese government.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is available across PC (Steam, Ubisoft Connect, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Apple Silicon Macs, and Amazon Luna.

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Painkiller is back, a "modern reimagining" of the classic announced for 2025

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 03:32:21 +0000

People Can Fly's debut shooter experience, Painkiller, landed back in 2004. Over 20 years later, the classic is returning from an unlikely source. Announced today during the Future Games Show showcase as a finale drop, catch the debut trailer (requires signing in due to gore) for this "modern reimagining" above.

The original developer doesn’t seem to be attached to the project though. Today's announcement reveals Saber Interactive subsidiary 3D Realms as the publisher of the project, while Anshar Studios is the development team behind it.

For those in the dark, Anshar Studios has primarily functioned as a support developer for projects by some major studios. This includes being involved with the development of Baldur's Gate 3, Silent Hill 2, Layers of Fear, Observer System Redux, Outriders, and others.

Here's how the studio describes its reimagined experience:

Trapped in Purgatory, you are sentenced for your transgressions against Heaven. But the Voice of the Creator gives you a chance to redeem yourself. As one of the Champions, you are to stop the fallen angel Azazel who is about to unleash his demonic armies onto Earth. You will face hordes of enemies, demons with unique powers and three monstrous children of Azazel – the Nephilim.

Cooperative play is confirmed for the project too, letting three players team up together as they battle hordes of demons and "titanic terrors" in the iconic gothic environments. Offline play will be available for play with bots taking the roles of the support characters.

The studio is also promising high levels of mobility, with jumps, dashes, and a grappling hook incoming, with tarot cards being used to upgrade abilities. Multiple characters will also offer various different play styles thanks to unique abilities they offer.

Painkiller is coming out across Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 sometime in fall 2025.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows release date: Launch time countdown, preloads, and when it comes out in your time zone

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 01:43:45 +0000

Ubisoft's latest Assassin's Creed has arrived — here's when you can play.

Ubisoft — the developer and publisher behind games like Rainbow Six Siege, Far Cry, Star Wars Outlaws, and more — has struggled in recent years, with many of the studio's projects underperforming financially or failing to hold public interest for long. The firm is working to try and turn its fortune, though, and one of the biggest new releases it's banking on is Assassin's Creed Shadows.

The latest entry in Ubisoft's legendary Assassin's Creed franchise is arguably its most ambitious ever, with the open-world RPG notably earning high praise from critics and content creators. My colleague Zachary Boddy hasn't finished it yet, but they've also spoken highly of the experience in their review-in-progress, calling it "a visually stunning action-RPG adventure with varied, endlessly fun gameplay backed by serious attention to detail."

Going into its launch period, interest in Shadows appears to be quite high — and that means there are lots of gamers trying to figure out when they'll be able to jump into the game. Thankfully, full details for the Assassin's Creed Shadows release date and launch times have been provided ahead of its arrival, so I've compiled all of that information below. Read on for everything you need to know, including release timing, preloading information, and more.

What is Assassin's Creed Shadows?

You'll have an idea of what to expect from Assassin's Creed Shadows if you've played a game from the franchise before. If you haven't, though, give this section a read.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is the latest open-world action RPG in the series from Ubisoft, with the new release following up on 2023's Assassin's Creed Mirage. From a gameplay standpoint, Shadows can be seen as a successor to both Mirage and 2020's Valhalla, as it gives players the option to lean more towards stealth like the former did or go all-in on action combat like the latter title.

This is achieved by giving the player two characters to embody as they adventure through the chaotic war-torn lands of Sengoku-era Japan: the legendary samurai and historical figure Yasuke and a lethal and covert shinobi named Naoe. Each protagonist has their own stories and side adventures to experience, with the two connected by an overarching narrative.

After a rather lengthy opening chapter with Naoe, players will gain the ability to swap between the two characters freely. As you'd expect, Yasuke is ideal for fighting head on and opts for direct strength over more clandestine approaches, while Naoe is for those who wish to skulk in the shadows to avoid detection and execute well-planned assassinations. Both wield a variety of different weapons and tools to achieve victory, and players can tweak and customize both extensively.

The open world of Shadows is also worth touching on, as it's reportedly more engaging and dynamic than previous settings in the series. I can't speak much on this since I haven't played the game yet, but in general, Ubisoft has made an effort to avoid bloating the experience with an icon-riddled map and has instead tried to craft more interesting and unique secrets for fans to discover on their journey.

When it launches, Assassin's Creed Shadows will be available to play on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5, with the game officially retailing for $69.99 on all of its platforms. However, you can get the Xbox and PC versions for discounts at CDKeys (check out the links below); alternatively, you can also play the game on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC through a Ubisoft+ Premium subscription.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows release date and launch times

Here are all the official release and launch times for Assassin's Creed Shadows.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

If you're reading this, I have good news for you: you'll be able to play Assassin's Creed Shadows in under 24 hours, and there's a decent chance that the game may actually be out already. That's because Assassin's Creed Shadows' is scheduled to release on March 20, 2025 — tomorrow, at the time of writing. The earliest time it will be playable is March 19 at 8:00 p.m. in China on Windows PC.

Some important things to mention are that Shadows is slated to go live at varying times on PC, while on consoles, it comes out at midnight in your local time zone. In other words, the time of day you can play at will be different depending on the time zone you're in — you may even get to play on the evening of March 19 — and within your region, you might get access a little sooner (or later) than someone else with a different system will.

It's all a little complicated, but for a complete look at when you can play Assassin's Creed Shadows in your time zone and on your platform, you can either check out the official graphic above or the table below; the latter includes all of the relevant information from the former.

Time zone	PC launch (Ubisoft)	PC launch (Steam)	Console launch (Xbox, PS5)
PDT	Mar. 19, 9:00 p.m.	Mar. 19, 9:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
CST	Mar. 19, 10:00 p.m.	Mar. 19, 10:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
EDT	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
BRT	Mar. 20, 1:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 1:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
GMT	Mar. 19, 10:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 4:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
CET	Mar. 19, 11:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 5:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
SAST	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 6:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
GST	Mar. 20, 2:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 8:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
CST (China Time)	Mar. 19, 8:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
KST	Mar. 19, 9:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 1:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
JST	Mar. 19, 9:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 1:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.
AEDT	Mar. 19, 11:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 3:00 p.m.	Mar. 20, 12:00 a.m.

Does Assassin's Creed Shadows have Early Access?

While many new single player games often include Early Access to the experience as a Deluxe or Ultimate Edition bonus to incentivize preorders, Ubisoft hasn't done this with Assassin's Creed Shadows. Therefore, there's no way to get Early Access to the game by paying extra for its Digital Deluxe Edition.

When can you preload Assassin's Creed Shadows?

Yasuke as he appears in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

With games getting bigger and bigger over time, it's become increasingly valuable for developers to offer preloading — a feature that lets you install games ahead of their launches. By doing this, you don't have to spend time downloading them once they're out, and can jump right into playing (as long as there's not a day one patch, anyway).

Most AAA games like Assassin's Creed Shadows support preloading, as does Shadows itself — and preloads for the game are now live on all platforms. That means you can start installing the open-world RPG as soon as you've preordered it, so get that download moving ASAP.

Assassin's Creed Shadows download size: How big is it?

A screenshot of Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Assassin's Creed Shadows isn't the largest game I've ever seen, but make no mistake — it's still going to take up plenty of space on your hard drive. Across its platforms, the game's installation size is roughly ~115GB, so there's a good chance you'll need to clear out some space if the drive you're using has a lot of games on it already. You'll also need an SSD, as older and slower hard-disk drives won't cut it for Ubisoft's latest title.

One way to get space would be to simply uninstall things you haven't played in a while, though you may also want to upgrade your console or PC rig with one of the best SSDs so you don't have to worry about your storage anymore. With how relatively affordable drives can be, these days, I definitely recommend the latter.

Looking for a new open-world RPG to play? One of the best Xbox games and best PC games of 2025 for you will likely end up being Assassin's Creed Shadows. The game is scheduled to go live on March 20 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5.

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Monster Hunter Wilds is the best-selling game of February in the US, and it's already crossed another huge milestone

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:02:44 +0000

Monster Hunter Wilds debuts as the best-selling game of the year so far in the U.S.

Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds was the best-selling game of February 2025 in the U.S, and is now the best-selling game of the year for the U.S, taking the crown from previous frontrunner Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

That's according to the latest report from Circana executive director and analyst Mat Piscatella, who shared details on the U.S. video game industry on Wednesday via Bluesky.

Following behind Monster Hunter Wilds is Warhorse Studios' Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Firaxis Games' Civilization 7. Rounding out a top ten list that has a refreshingly high number of new games, Obsidian and Xbox's Avowed fell in seventh place.

PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in dollar sales and units, with Xbox Series X|S consoles second in both categories.

Subscription spending was notably up 9% year-over-year, offset by declines in hardware and software. Total video game sales reached $4.5 billion for the month, a drop of about 6% year-over-year from February 2024.

As always, remember that Circana tracks game sales through dollar amounts, not copies sold. Some publishers like Nintendo also do not share digital data, while developers like Larian don't share any data at all.

Take-Two Interactive is back to sharing non-delayed digital information though, meaning the full impact of titles like Grand Theft Auto 5 is now accurately reflected in the charts.

Xbox | Walmart | Best Buy | Amazon

Buy for PC: GreenManGaming (Steam) | CDKeys (Steam)

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February 2025 Circana sales charts: Here are the top 20 best-selling games in the U.S.

1. Monster Hunter Wilds

2. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

3. Civilization 7

4. PGA Tour 2K25

5. NBA 2K25

6. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

7. Avowed

8. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

9. Grand Theft Auto 5

10. Madden NFL 25

11. Minecraft****

12. EA Sports FC 25

13. Marvel's Spider-Man 2

14. Red Dead Redemption 2

15. Hogwarts Legacy

16. EA Sports College Football 25

17. Helldivers 2

18. Elden Ring

19. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero

20. Astro Bot

February 2025 Circana sales charts: Here are the best-selling games of the year in the U.S.

1. Monster Hunter Wilds

2. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

3. Civilization 7

4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

5. NBA 2K25

6. PGA Tour 2K25

7. Madden NFL 25

8. Grand Theft Auto 5

9. EA Sports FC 25

10. Minecraft****

11. Red Dead Redemption 2

12. Marvel's Spider-Man 2

13. Avowed

14. EA Sports College Football 25

15. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

16. Hogwarts Legacy

17. Donkey Kong Country Returns*

18. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

19. Helldivers 2

20. Elden Ring

*Denotes no digital sales data
****Denotes no digital sales data on Nintendo Switch

Monster Hunter is at the top, and it seems to be staying there

The rise of Monster Hunter into one of Capcom's biggest franchises is something to be studied. Wilds' predecessor, the 2018 Monster Hunter World, is currently Capcom's best-selling game of all time.

I'm not sure if Wilds will be able to overcome World, but the game is certainly off to an excellent start, with Capcom previously confirming that it's already crossed 8 million copies sold worldwide.

If Capcom can roll out support with updates that bring new quests and monsters to fight, I won't be surprised to see Monster Hunter Wilds end the year in the top three best-selling games in the U.S.

It's also good to see Avowed launch in a strong place, considering many Xbox console players will no doubt be hopping in through Xbox Game Pass. Hopefully we'll see Obsidian Entertainment some sort of expansion before long.

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Want a Surface Pro 11 with a charger? Pay more or go home, says Microsoft

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:57:40 +0000

Microsoft is now charging users extra if they want a Surface Pro 11 with a charger in the box. Now, by default, the Surface Pro 11 ships in a slimmer box and no power adapter in the EU. This quiet change follows the recent trend of reducing e-waste and slimming down packages for more efficient deliveries. However, this only affects customers in the European Union.

While this environmental initiative won't affect customers who already have powerful enough chargers at home (the Surface Pro 11 uses a 65W charger and charges via USB-C) or adapters with the Surface Connect port, it's bad luck for first-time buyers. Now, in Europe, the Surface Pro 11 is 90 EUR ($98) more expensive if the buyer wants the tablet with a charger.

If you live in Europe and you want a Surface Pro 11 now, Microsoft is offering a generous 50% discount on the charger: 45 EUR ($49) instead of 90 EUR. Of course, Microsoft could have made the charger a free option (it is not mandated to charge users for a power supply unit), but the company decided to go the opposite way.

Here is how Microsoft explains the new option to include or not include a charger in the box:

To support EU initiatives to reduce e-waste, the power supply is now sold separately. 

Microsoft is not the only manufacturer that no longer ships its tablets with chargers in the EU. Apple and Samsung also charge extra for power adapters for their tablets and smartphones to comply with regulations. However, the EU's mandate to reduce e-waste does not currently include laptops, so the Surface Laptop 7 and laptops from other manufacturers, including Apple, still ship with bundled chargers.

Via Windows Central

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Nvidia cuts RTX 50-series prices across Europe

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:56:05 +0000

A stronger Euro has led to better exchange rates against the dollar and cheaper GPU prices in Europe.

Nvidia has cut prices on its RTX 50-series of GPUs across Europe this week. The price cuts are thanks to a stronger Euro against the dollar, allowing Nvidia to cut the price of some of its latest GPUs by nearly five percent due to better exchange rates.

Videocardz reports that the RTX 5090 has dropped by more than four percent to €2,229, down €100 from the €2,329 launch pricing. The RTX 5080 has also dropped by €50 to €1,119, and the RTX 5070 is now €619 instead of €649.

The only RTX 50-series card that hasn’t dropped in price is the RTX 5070 Ti, which Nvidia didn’t make a Founders Edition of, so it remains at €879. Prices in the UK have also benefited from the weaker dollar, with the RTX 5090 currently priced at £1,889 instead of its £1,939 launch pricing.

While prices have dropped, stocks haven’t improved so it’s still difficult to purchase an RTX 50-series card across Europe at these adjusted retail prices. Nvidia claimed earlier this month that it has sold more RTX 50-series GPUs than 40-series during the first five weeks of launch. The claim is slightly misleading though, because the RTX 4090 was the only RTX 40-series card available for more than a month during its launch period in 2022.

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Apple Loses German Antitrust Appeal, Faces Stricter Regulatory Oversight

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:55:07 +0000

Apple has lost its appeal against a German regulatory assessment, resulting in heightened antitrust scrutiny within the country. The Federal Court of Justice upheld the Federal Cartel Office's 2023 designation of Apple as a "company of paramount cross-market significance for competition," a status that subjects the tech giant to stricter oversight aimed at curbing potential market dominance.

This ruling aligns Apple with other major technology companies, such as Alphabet (Google's parent company) and Meta (Facebook's parent company), which have also been subjected to increased regulatory scrutiny in Germany. The decision empowers German authorities to implement measures ensuring fair competition, particularly concerning Apple's App Store practices and data collection policies.

In response, Apple expressed disagreement with the court's decision, emphasizing its commitment to user privacy and security. A company spokesperson stated, "It neglects the value of a business model that places the privacy and security of users at its centre." Apple also noted that it faces significant competition in Germany, suggesting that the ruling overlooks the competitive landscape.

The court dismissed Apple's request to consult the European Court of Justice, indicating confidence in its jurisdiction to enforce national antitrust laws. Andreas Mundt, president of the Federal Cartel Office, welcomed the ruling, stating, "This means that the highest court has confirmed that Apple is subject to stricter abuse control." Mundt emphasized that the decision reinforces ongoing reviews of Apple's practices, particularly regarding third-party app tracking and data collection.

This development underscores the growing regulatory challenges faced by major technology companies in Europe, as authorities seek to promote competition and protect consumer interests in digital markets.

Source: Reuters

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STALKER 2's new Patch 1.3 update has arrived with 1,200+ notes, but its biggest problem still isn't fixed

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 07:52:26 +0000

Patch 1.3 has come to STALKER 2, but it's missing something I was hoping for.

In keeping with the studio's monthly update cadence for its open-world survival shooter STALKER 2, developer GSC Game World has now released Patch 1.3 for the game. The update follows February's large Patch 1.2, and like that patch, this one brings well over 1,000 fixes, improvements, and tweaks to the Xbox and Windows PC exclusive title.

In total, Patch 1.3 features 1,200+ notes (check the section at the bottom of this article for a list), including improvements to mutant movement animations that make them smoother and more readable, tweaks to make their combat behaviors more consistent, the addition of new contextually chosen death screens so you don't always have to look at that ugly bloodsucker face, and over 400 fixes for main and side quests. On top of that, GSC has adjusted the exceedingly rare archiartifacts with some small nerfs and/or buffs and has also improved performance by resolving numerous technical issues.

Overall, very few of the patch notes are individually very significant or noteworthy, but all of them should come together to refine the overarching STALKER 2 experience. One additional that's crucial to mention, though, is the introduction of squirrels to The Zone. I mean, look at them; you'd best guard your nuts closely, stalkers.

All in all, Patch 1.3 seems like a pretty great update, though the more I've played STALKER 2, the more I've come to realize that the game still has a glaring issue with its in-game trade/repair economy. It's often frustratingly difficult to earn enough money from jobs and selling loot to keep your gear repaired, let alone buy new stuff like valuable armor upgrades, weapon attachments, and stuff like that.

This aspect of its gameplay hasn't meaningfully been adjusted much since STALKER 2 came out last November, and it's why community-made tweaks like hawkidoki's Reduced Repair Cost are some of the game's most popular mods. I was really hoping we'd finally see GSC ease our financial burdens with this update, but sadly, that didn't happen — and at the moment, it's unclear if it's something the studio even plans to adjust.

Still, it's nice that this is something you can easily address in the PC version of the game with mods, and that solution will be available on Xbox too once the developers bring mod support to console (we know it's coming). Until they do — or balance the economy in a future update — Xbox stalkers will just have to be frugal with their cash.

Selling artifacts you find in STALKER 2 is one good way to make money in The Zone.

(Image credit: @Steven_VP1 on X (Twitter))

Notably, GSC Game World says it's "already started working on the next update," and that it's eager to get feedback from players about how STALKER 2 plays on social media. If you encounter bugs or glitches, the studio also requests that you fill out a report on the STALKER 2 Technical Support Center page so that it can start working on a fix.

What might come in a hypothetical Patch 1.4 is anyone's guess, but we do know STALKER 2 is eventually getting some major content additions like PvP Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch multiplayer and a pair of story expansions. A roadmap was planned for Q1 2025, but it hasn't been shared yet; hopefully it comes soon, as I'm looking forward to learning more about what GSC is cooking.

STALKER 2 is available to purchase on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC for $59.99, though notably, it's on sale for just $38.79 at CDKeys thanks to a pretty killer deal. Alternatively, you can access it by subscribing to Xbox Game Pass, with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate letting you play it across Xbox, PC, and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

was ~~$59.99~~ now $38.79 at CDKeys (Steam, PC)

Despite a few issues with gameplay balance, STALKER 2 stands tall as a triumph for GSC Game World. It's one of the most captivating open-world shooters I've ever played, and is a must-play if you have Xbox Game Pass. It was already fantastic at launch, but since then, it's gotten even better with lots of helpful patches such as this one.

Xbox: Amazon (Physical)
PC: GOG (Digital) | Game Legends (Physical)

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STALKER 2 update 1.3: Patch notes

Stalkers relaxing by a campfire in STALKER 2.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

Below, you'll find the highlights from the patch notes of this update that were taken directly from GSC Game World's Steam news post about the patch. Note that the full patch notes are available on the studio's website; they're far too long to list here.

AI and Combat

Made mutants movements during combat smoother.
Improved the reaction of NPCs to the sound of footsteps.
Polished ambush behavior for mutants, when Player is hiding behind or on top of props.
Fixed an issue where mutants didn't attack other NPCs once Player was in the safe zone.

Balance

Archiartifacts rebalance:
- Weird Water: decreased radiation protection.
- Weird Nut: increased bleeding degeneration speed, further slowed down healing with equipped artifact.
- Weird Flower: Increased smell masking effect.
- Weird Ball: increased stamina gain, increased maximum weight of the artifact, but slowed down weight gain when being shot.
- Weird Kettle: Debuff received from consuming food is now not random, and corresponds to specific type of food.
- Non-Stop Limited Edition energy drinks now have an additional special effect when used with Weird Kettle.
Made A-life encounters a bit more rare on average.
Nerfed base anomaly damage protections for “combat” armors
Buffed anomaly damage protection for “science” suites
Slightly reworked anomaly damage for different anomalies
Increased damage from destructible explosive props.
Fixed an issue where the Weird Flower artifact was initially in a dried state instead of an active one after being picked up.
Increased overall durability for unique weapons found during missions.

Bug Fixes, Crashes, and Performance

Fixed a bug that could let players permanently stack the effect of unequipped artifacts.
Fixed a bug that could prevent players from being able to use sprint after chaotic movement.
Fixed an issue that caused some psy-phantoms of blind dogs to have misleading trails.
Fixed the crash caused by zombification of NPCs.
Fixed an issue when looting some story NPCs could block the mission.
Fixed an issue when players could be locked inside the Ranger Station.
Fixed an issue that could permanently keep visual effects of sleepiness if the save was made during a Main Quest line.
Fixed issue with light from the flashlights in cutscenes.
Fixed an issue where high ranked NPCs were able to spawn at Rookie Village location.
Phantom stalkers that appear under the influence of Psy-effect no longer can damage other NPCs by throwing grenades.
Fixed an issue where the HUD would sometimes appear transparent after closing the inventory or finishing a cutscene.
Fixed visual bugs on character costumes (texture stretching caused by awkward animation poses).
Fixed memory leaks issues when navigating inventory/looting menus (e.g. opening Player stash at Rostok).
Resolved issues where NPCs got stuck in one place and obstructed player movement.
Fixed the issue when the output device was resetted after restart of the title.
Fixed an issue where a guide NPC was missing at Yaniv hub after unlocking Prypiat region.
UI Update: Fixed localization issues, improved stability, resolved visual bugs in widgets, corrected text corruption, and SFX for a smoother experience.
Also, almost 100 crashes and EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION errors were fixed.

Main and Side Quests, Open World Encounters

Fixed an issue where player could not complete Escape from the Cage mission via the stealth path due to NPCs with high perception level.
Fixed an issue where the player could destroy the Jammer before the start of the In the Name of Science mission.
Fixed an issue where the Escape from the Chemical Plant objective did not complete if the call from the Strelok or Scar was interrupted by a loudspeaker during the Escape from the Cage mission.
Fixed an issue where no new journal objective appeared and Dark Times mission was stuck after killing Jarl NPC.
Fixed an issue with Eye of the Storm mission not progressing after reaching the Generators.
Fixed an issue where side mission A Big Score was not progressing if emission happened while Player was at the Car Park.
Fixed an issue when Player is not able to loot Faust's body after receiving a call from Scar during Visions of Truth mission.
Fixed an issue where Foma NPC could become invincible during the Chasing Ghosts mission.
Fixed an issue where an encounter mission with Headlight NPC near Bulba Arch anomaly was not starting after completion of Nightingale’s Hunt mission.
Fixed an issue where Yaryk Mongoose was hostile to the player during the For Science! mission.
Fixed an issue when the Snork collar was not counted as collected if snork was killed not by a player character during the "In the Name of Science" mission.
Fixed an issue where Korshunov could disappear at the start of 2nd phase of bossfight during the "Down Below" mission.
Fixed an issue where All That Is Left mission didn't cancel after Mateus death, resulting in redundant markers on artifact location.
Fixed an issue where Akopyan was non interactable at the car park during A Big Score mission.
Fixed an issue where plank bridges leading to Faust cell were collapsed for Players first arriving at Noontide base during Hot On The Trail mission.
Fixed an issue where a Chemical Plant encounter mission with wardens shooting fleshes was stuck after luring mutants out.
Fixed an issue when Jumper and Bluish sometimes was dead during Hot on the Trail mission.
Fixed an issue when the door to forestry was locked during Extreme Simplicity mission if Player was encountering the emission while leaving the swamps.
Fixed an issue when a quest NPC was able to be distracted by A-life enemies during the Three Captains mission.
Fixed an issue where the bayun in collar was at the Detention Center instead of the Boathouse location during the A Minor Incident mission.
Fixed an issue where the player could not progress through the mission if Heart of Chornobyl artifact was looted directly to the artifact slot from the Strelok's body.
Fixed an issue where Richter could be non-interactable at the Slag Heap location during the Back to the Slag Heap mission.
Fixed an issue where Doctorant Shcherba could be dead for some players during the In Search of Past Glory mission.
Fixed errors with some mission markers being not displayed correctly.
Fixed an issue that could stop the progression of Escape the Chemical Plant mission.
Fixed an issue that made players able to sell the key from the Northern Checkpoint which makes it unavailable to pass through.
Fixed issues with Help Solder and Talk to Solder mission objectives.
Fixed an issue where interaction prompt for dialogue with Richter could be missing after defending Yaniv during the The Boundary mission.
Fixed an issue when Richter stops at the beginning of the path through the river during the Through the valley of the shadow of death mission.
Fixed an issue where the doors to underground tunnel and Location D could be closed during the Once More unto the Breach mission.
Fixed an issue where the player could stay in a closed location after a cutscene in the Dangerous Liaisons mission.
Fixed an issue where the dialogue with prof. Ozersky was unavailable if the player killed Spark NPCs during the A Minor Incident mission.
Fixed an issue where Dalin could be missing at the infirmary at the Chemical Plant location during the Escape from the Cage mission.

Technical Updates

Added multiple new death screens that vary based on the cause of the death.
Improved facial animations in the mainline.
Improved audio obstruction for mutants' sounds.
Improved the positioning of various sounds.
Added a new night music theme for Slag Heap.
Added music for the elevator in SIRCAA.
Added missing localizations for tutorials.
Added descriptions that explain what is the difference between armor-piercing and expansive ammo.
Improved some bullet-caused decals.
Improved the visibility of enemies at nighttime by increasing the intensity of the NPC flashlights.
Improved the shadows cast by the player's flashlight.
Several attachments and upgrades have been moved from “point of no returns” end game sequence to Prypiat stashes.
Updates and fixes of NPC movement and shooting animations.
Added option to change Melee weapon attack button in control settings.
Added additional idle animations for NPCs with weapons drawn.
Added new VFX animals and a new type of a visual anomaly.

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Nvidia announces “Rubin Ultra” and “Feynman” AI chips for 2027 and 2028

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 07:50:15 +0000

CEO Jensen Huang says new chips will power robots and billions of AI agents.

On Tuesday at Nvidia's GTC 2025 conference in San Jose, California, CEO Jensen Huang revealed several new AI-accelerating GPUs the company plans to release over the coming months and years. He also revealed more specifications about previously announced chips.

The centerpiece announcement was Vera Rubin, first teased at Computex 2024 and now scheduled for release in the second half of 2026. This GPU, named after a famous astronomer, will feature tens of terabytes of memory and comes with a custom Nvidia-designed CPU called Vera.

According to Nvidia, Vera Rubin will deliver significant performance improvements over its predecessor, Grace Blackwell, particularly for AI training and inference.

Specifications for Vera Rubin, presented by Jensen Huang during his GTC 2025 keynote.

Vera Rubin features two GPUs together on one die that deliver 50 petaflops of FP4 inference performance per chip. When configured in a full NVL144 rack, the system delivers 3.6 exaflops of FP4 inference compute—3.3 times more than Blackwell Ultra's 1.1 exaflops in a similar rack configuration.

The Vera CPU features 88 custom ARM cores with 176 threads connected to Rubin GPUs via a high-speed 1.8 TB/s NVLink interface.

Huang also announced Rubin Ultra, which will follow in the second half of 2027. Rubin Ultra will use the NVL576 rack configuration and feature individual GPUs with four reticle-sized dies, delivering 100 petaflops of FP4 precision (a 4-bit floating-point format used for representing and processing numbers within AI models) per chip.

At the rack level, Rubin Ultra will provide 15 exaflops of FP4 inference compute and 5 exaflops of FP8 training performance—about four times more powerful than the Rubin NVL144 configuration. Each Rubin Ultra GPU will include 1TB of HBM4e memory, with the complete rack containing 365TB of fast memory.

Specifications for Rubin Ultra, presented by Jensen Huang during his GTC 2025 keynote.

For the near future, Nvidia will launch Blackwell Ultra B300 in the second half of 2025. This chip features two GPUs delivering 15 petaflops of dense FP4 compute performance per chip. When configured in a full NVL72 rack, Blackwell Ultra will provide 1.1 exaflops of dense FP4 inference compute—1.5 times more than the current Blackwell B200 configuration. Each B300 GPU has 288GB of HBM3e memory compared to Blackwell's 192GB.

Specifications for Blackwell Ultra, presented by Jensen Huang during his GTC 2025 keynote.

Huang briefly mentioned a next-generation GPU architecture called "Feynman," named after American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. He provided few additional details about Feynman's design or capabilities, only that it would use a "Vera" CPU instead of the expected "Richard" based on the naming pattern and that it would arrive sometime in 2028.

A roadmap of future Nvidia AI chips, presented by Jensen Huang during his GTC 2025 keynote.

During the keynote, Huang also laid out an optimistic roadmap for the future of AI—with its success vitally interlinked with the continued success of his company—where he called data centers "AI factories" that produce tokens (the units of data that AI models currently process) instead of physical objects. He shared his vision for the future of "physical AI" that will one day power humanoid robots to perform human-like labor. Nvidia currently provides software platforms that help robot-controlling AI models train in virtual worlds.

In the meantime, Huang speculated that Nvidia chips will soon power "10 billion digital agents" that perform helpful work for humans, and he mentioned that by the end of this year, 100 percent of Nvidia engineers will be assisted by AI models.

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RP2350 now generally available from Raspberry Pi, RP2354 stacked flash variants coming soon

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:16:35 +0000

Raspberry Pi announced the general availability of its RP2350 high-performance microcontroller months after it unveiled it on the Pico 2. Like all the company’s products, the RP2350 is available through the company’s approved retailers globally, making it easy to acquire.

The RP2350 has A and B variants with some slight differences and price points. The company said it’s also preparing the RP2354 series, which features stacked flash, giving you 2 MB and enabling small-footprint applications. The RP2350A costs $1.10 per unit when bought singly, while the RP2350B costs $1.20. You can save money by purchasing 13-inch and 7-inch reels, the costs of which fall to $0.80 and $0.90 per unit, respectively.

The A variant includes 30 GPIOs and is packaged in a 7x7 mm QFN60 package, while the B variant includes 48 GPIOs and is packaged in a 10x10 mm QFN80 package.

“RP2350 integrates dual Arm Cortex-M33 processors running at 150MHz, with floating-point and DSP support, and a security model built on Arm TrustZone for Cortex-M,” Raspberry Pi’s Eben Upton said. “These powerful cores, coupled with large amounts of on-chip SRAM, and our unique programmable I/O subsystem, make it an excellent fit for applications which require high performance, flexible interfacing, and robust security, from industrial automation to consumer electronics. Despite its impressive feature set, RP2350’s sub-$1 pricing allows for integration into high-volume low-cost end devices.”

For hobbyists or businesses wondering what can be done with this microcontroller, Raspberry Pi has put together a catalog of projects that early-access customers have made. It’s not only the hardware that the company has put effort into either, but it has also released several helpful pieces of documentation to help buyers of the hardware:

RP2350 datasheet — a detailed technical reference for the microcontroller
Hardware design with RP2350 — best practices for integrating RP2350 into your designs
KiCAD reference designs — minimal reference designs to jump-start your development

If you’re interested in the RP2350 and want to pick it up, you can do so by going to the product page. You should be able to pick up the hardware from most places around the world.

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Google announces plans to acquire Wiz for $32 billion

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:15:04 +0000

Today, Google announced an agreement to acquire Wiz, a leading cloud security platform, for approximately $32 billion. This will be an all-cash transaction subject to closing adjustments and regulatory approvals.

Wiz was started just 5 years ago and is headquartered in New York. Wiz offers an easy-to-use cybersecurity platform that works with all major clouds and code environments. Organizations ranging from startups to government agencies are using Wiz to protect their cloud services and applications.

Following the acquisition, Google promised that Wiz’s security services would continue to work and be available for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud. They would also be offered through partner security solutions. Additionally, Google Cloud will continue to provide security solutions to other partners in the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Google promises that the Wiz and Google Cloud combination will be able to deliver the following through this proposed acquisition:

Unified Security Platform: A next-generation unified security platform that combines Wiz’s Cloud Security Platform with Google Security Operations, securing cloud-native applications at every stage of development, protecting code, CI/CD systems, and infrastructure.

Threat Intelligence: Precise threat intelligence that gives customers visibility into their own systems through the eyes of their adversaries.

New Threat Protection: Protection against new threats that are emerging with the adoption of AI, including threats to and from models.

Cybersecurity Professionals:

AI Agents: The use of AI-powered cybersecurity agents to act as an extension of security teams.

Mandiant: Complementing cybersecurity teams with additional expertise from Mandiant with incident response, strategic readiness, technical assurance, and managed defense.

Measurable Defense: Ability to measure cyber defense effectiveness by proactively testing and validating the strength of security controls.

Assaf Rappaport, Co-Founder & CEO, Wiz, said the following regarding the acquisition:

"Wiz and Google Cloud are fully committed to continue supporting and protecting customers across all major clouds, helping keep them safe and secure wherever they operate. This is an exciting moment for our company, but an even more important one for customers and partners, as this acquisition will bolster our mission to improve security and prevent breaches by providing additional resources and deep AI expertise.”

Google currently offers threat intelligence, security operations, and expert consulting through Mandiant. This proposed acquisition of Wiz will enable Google to provide a more comprehensive security solution, enhancing its competitive position against Microsoft by integrating Wiz's cloud security platform.

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“Awful”: Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 02:49:22 +0000

Users are unimpressed, eager to toss devices if test sticks.

Owners of smart TVs and streaming sticks running Roku OS are already subject to video advertisements on the home screen. Now, Roku is testing what it might look like if it took things a step further and forced people to watch a video ad play before getting to the Roku OS home screen.

Reports of Roku customers seeing video ads automatically play before they could view the OS’ home screen started appearing online this week. A Reddit user, for example, posted yesterday: “I just turned on my Roku and got an ... ad for a movie, before I got to the regular Roku home screen.” Multiple apparent users reported seeing an ad for the movie Moana 2. The ads have a close option, but some users appear to have not seen it.

When reached for comment, a Roku spokesperson shared a company statement that confirms that the autoplaying ads are expected behavior but not a permanent part of Roku OS currently. Instead, Roku claimed, it was just trying the ad capability out.

Roku’s representative said that Roku’s business “has and will always require continuous testing and innovation across design, navigation, content, and our first-rate advertising products,” adding:

Our recent test is just the latest example, as we explore new ways to showcase brands and programming while still providing a delightful and simple user experience.

Roku didn't respond to requests for comment on whether it has plans to make autoplaying ads permanent on Roku OS, which devices are affected, why Roku decided to use autoplaying ads, or customer backlash.

“Unacceptable”

Most of the comments that Ars Technica has reviewed about the marketing “test” have suggested that customers would get rid of their Roku device if the software continues to force them to watch an ad before getting to the content they actually want to see. A user on Roku’s community forum wrote:

I hope this was a fluke. I trashed all of my Amazon boxes years ago because of this garbage. If it keeps up, my Rokus will be next.

Forum users who worried the change was permanent called the ads "unacceptable" and "intrusive."

If Roku increases its ad load on customer devices from still images to ads with moving pictures with sound, it will test customers’ limits. Some who have tolerated a static image on a neglected part of their screen may not be as accepting of more distracting ad formats.

“I could accept the static ad on the side. Forcing a loud commercial is awful,” one Redditor wrote.

As a budget streaming hardware brand, Roku has been known to push the boundaries on ads. Roku has even gone so far as to apply for a patent for technology that shows ads over anything you plug into your TV (Roku has never actually implemented this capability).

There are less ad-intrusive smart TV platforms available besides Roku. But in general, it’s getting increasingly difficult for smart TV users to avoid ads. All TV manufacturers, from budget brands to premium ones, are growing reliance on ads and tracking as ways to bolster revenue among declining hardware prices, sales, and innovation and increased competition.

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HW News - "Jailbreaking" AMD CPUs, RX 9060 Leaks, Steam Distributes Malware Game (Gamers Nexus) [Video]

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 20:37:42 +0000

Gamers Nexus (2.42M subscribers)

March 18, 2025

Video length: 30m 44s

In this hardware news episode, we talk about security research revolving around "jailbreaking" AMD CPUs with microcode hacking tools, NVIDIA trying to fix crashing, instability, and black screens with the RTX 50 series, and AMD RX 9060 leaks in public filings. Additionally, the USPTO has rejected most of Nintendo's patent applications in its fight against Palworld and Steam distributed a game (PirateFi) with malware in it.

00:00 - Recapping the Week

01:10 - GN Updates: Overhauls and Production Slow

07:14 - AMD CPU Jailbreaking Security Research

11:49 - NVIDIA Tries to Fix Crashes Again

13:09 - IDC Estimates 6 Million Handhelds Shipped

15:15 - Laptop with Expanding Screen

17:24 - AMD RX 9060 Leaks

18:27 - USPTO Rejects Most Nintendo Patents

22:11 - Malware Game Briefly Released on Steam

27:05 - Intel Commits to TSMC

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Microsoft Weekly: New features for Notepad, Xbox handheld, fresh builds, and more

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:49:25 +0000

In this episode of Microsoft Weekly, we look at the latest Windows preview builds with some interesting changes and Settings app improvements, quite a lot of browser updates, gaming news, new AMD product reviews, useful Windows utilities, an Xbox handheld (finally) and a lot more.

Table of contents:

Windows 10 and 11 news
Windows Insider Program
Updates are available
Reviews are in
Gaming news

Windows 11 and 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 but still supported versions.

March 2025 Patch Tuesday updates are now available for all supported Windows versions. Those on Windows 11 versions 24H2 and 23H2 can download KB5053598 and KB5053602 with build numbers 26100.3476 and 22631.5039. On the Windows 10 side, we have KB5053606 with build number 19045.5608. Microsoft also released new Windows Defender updates for Windows images.

This week, Microsoft fixed another known bug in Windows 11 version 24H2. The update is now available for users with AutoCAD 2022, assuming they have installed the latest version. AutoCAD has updated its software to resolve compatibility issues with Windows 11 version 24H2. In return, Microsoft lifted the update block.

Another piece of software that is now more friendly to Windows 11 version 24H2 is ViVeTool. This popular Windows-tinkering application has been updated to version 0.3.4, and the release notes contain fixes for Windows 11 24H2-specific issues, such as the inability to execute the full reset command.

Sadly, we also have some new known bugs in Windows 11 version 24H2. This week, Microsoft acknowledged a major D3D9 bug that prevents apps from launching. While the company is investigating the issue, you can try possible workarounds as shared by some affected users. Also, there is a rather hilarious bug where the operating system prints gibberish after recent Windows updates.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft Released this week for testing in the Windows Insider Program:

	Windows 11	Windows 10
Canary Channel	27813	Not Applicable
Dev Channel	26120.3380	Not Applicable
Beta Channel	-	Not Applicable
Release Preview Channel	22631.5116	19045.5674

Windows Insiders can also try a new update for the Copilot app, which makes it easier to talk to the assistant. The latest preview version features a new user interface for quick voice interactions, allowing you to press and hold Alt + Space without launching the full app. Speaking of Copilot, Microsoft also announced new ad formats for Copilot users and launched the assistant in GroupMe.

Moving from Copilot, we have fresh updates for Notes and Snipping Tool. Windows Insiders in the Dev and Canary Channels can try the latest releases that add shape straightening for inking and protocol handling in Snipping Tool, while Notepad now supports summarization and has a list of recently open files.

Finally, users noticed that Microsoft is porting more mouse features to the Settings app. The latest Windows Server preview build now lets you customize pointers, trails, pointer shadow, and other features in the Settings app (they were previously available in the Control Panel).

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.

If you use the Remote Desktop app for Windows from the Microsoft Store, get ready to ditch it. Microsoft announced that the app will be discontinued on May 27, 2025. Now, all users are urged to move to Windows App to keep access to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Microsoft Dev Box. Those using the app for remote control should resort to Windows' built-in Remote Desktop connection instead.

As usual, there were several updates to popular browsers. Mozilla released a small bug-fixing update for Firefox 136. Version 136.0.1 arrived with fixes for cookie retention issues and keyboard shortcut bugs. Also, if you use old Firefox releases (like significantly old), you may no longer have access to certain extensions, DRM playback, and other features. That is because Mozilla's old root certificate expired, and the browser requires a newer certificate that is present in more recent Firefox versions.

Next, we have Microsoft Edge. Insiders in the Beta Channel can now test version 135, while the Dev Channel received another weekly update with a new Copilot feature and fixes across the browser.

Stardock had a major release this week. Fences 6 is now available for download in beta. The latest release introduces several important changes and new features, such as icon tinting, tabs, a new color picker, overhauled Folder Portal navigation, and more. Also, Fences 6 is now fully supported on Windows on ARM.

Other notable updates include the following:

And here are the newest drivers released this week:

Nvidia 572.75 Hotfix with patches for clock issues and black screen crashes on the RTX 50 lineup.

Reviews are in

Here is hardware and software we reviewed this week

This week, Neowin reviewed the newly launched Ryzen 9 9950X3D, AMD's latest and most powerful processor, which boasts big gains in gaming performance, better memory support, overclocking, and compatibility with AM5 processors. You can check out our performance comparisons with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D here. Alongside the launch of new processors, AMD revealed some interesting updates, such as an improved chipset driver that now lets you swap processors without reinstalling Windows and fixes for VBS issues on Windows 10.

Steven Parker also published a hands-on with the Bob and Brad Back Massager (currently available for half the price), a handy accessory for those who spend many hours in their chairs working or studying.

On the gaming side

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

A new report emerged about Microsoft's long-coming Xbox handheld. Rumors indicate that Microsoft is working with its partners to produce Xbox-branded handheld for local PC gaming. However, a dedicated Xbox handheld is also in the works, and it may see the light of day in 2027. That year is also when the next-generation Xbox is expected to arrive.

Turn 10 Studios released a new content update for Forza Motorsport. Update 18 is now available on PC and Xbox, featuring high-performance motorsport vehicles. During the Velocity Month series, you can earn new exclusive cars by participating in various in-game events. Also, the update contains various fixes and improvements.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 finally received marketplace support and its first world update. World Update 19 is now available (also on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020), with multiple improvements for South American countries. Also, developers announced a partnership with Embraer, which will bring Brazil's iconic jets to the game expected in 2025.

Microsoft is now expanding its AI efforts into gaming. The company announced Copilot for Gaming, an "AI-driven sidekick" that should help you get through challenging places in your games, figure out various stuff, and provide other helpful guidance without you having to Google for it or read some manuals. Microsoft plans to launch the first preview in April on mobile devices.

Next, Epic Games has some good news for Windows on ARM users. The company is working with Qualcomm to port Easy Anti-Cheat to ARM-powered Windows PC, which will enable Fortnite and other multiplayer games with anti-cheat software to run on devices with Snapdragon processors. For everyone else, Epic Games has a traditional weekly giveaway. This week, Mortal Shell is available for free.

If one free game is not enough, check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals series. There are plenty of great discounts, especially on Steam, where Valve currently holds its annual Steam Spring Sale.

Other gaming news include the following:

Microsoft Weekly banner by 강춘성 on Pixabay.

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Paul's Tech News - CPUs Good, GPUs Bad [Video]

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 08:32:58 +0000

Paul's Hardware (1.51M subscribers)

March 16, 2025

Video length: 13m 20s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - March 16, 2025

1:37 Ryzen 9950X3D launches, is good, Ryzen 9900X3D less so

3:47 9070/9070XT Sold Out and Overpriced Now Too, Despite Increased Supply

6:39 GeForce RTX 5070 vs Radeon RX 9070/9070 XT Meta Review

7:36 Intel has a New CEO

TECH BRIEFS

9:35 AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Dies After Enabling EXPO

10:40 Oracle buys 30,000 AMD chips for AI cloud, laments component delays

11:17 GTC Starts Tomorrow, maybe 5060/5060Ti/5050 Announcements?

12:00 GDC Starts Tomorrow, not to be confused with GTC

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Horizon Forbidden West actress Ashly Burch responds to AI-powered Aloy, raises these concerns for the future of this "art form"

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 06:47:00 +0000

Ashly Burch, the actress for Aloy in PlayStation's Horizon games, is concerned about the role of AI and what it means for actors in the gaming industry.

Ashly Burch, the performance actress for Horizon Forbidden West protagonist Aloy, has some things to say about a recent AI-powered character model demonstration from PlayStation.

The video, first reported by The Verge, was created by Sharwin Raghoebardajal, director of software engineering at PlayStation's Advanced Technology Group. The video showed off the model for Aloy utilizing different Sony technologies as well as GPT-4 and Llama 3 in order to let Aloy respond to player questions.

In a post on Instagram, Burch says that Horizon developer Guerrilla Games reached out to her, explaining that this demonstration "didn't reflect" anything currently in development, and that nothing from her performance was used in the training data for the model. Burch went on to explain that even with that in mind, she has concerns.

"All that said, I feel worried, and not worried about Guerrilla specifically or Horizon or my performance or my career specifically even, I feel worried about this art form," reminding people that SAG-AFTRA is still on strike, primarily because of AI.

Burch notes that the union is asking companies for guaranteed consent and compensation when making AI duplicates of actors, and that companies have to explain how it'll be used.

"I feel worried not because the technology exists. Not even because game companies want to use it, because of course they do, they always want to use technological advancements," Burch says, adding "I just imagine a video like this coming out that does have someone's performance attached to it, that does have someone's voice or face or movement. And the possibility that if we lose this fight, that person would have no recourse. They wouldn't have any protections, any way to fight back.""That possibility, it makes me so sad, it hurts my heart, it scares me. I love this industry and this art form so much, and I want there to be a new generation of actors, I want there to be so many more incredible game performances. I want to be able to continue to do this job. If we don't win, then that future is really compromised."

Burch is an accomplished actress, and outside of Aloy and Horizon, she's also known for voicing Tiny Tina in the Borderlands series, as well as Chloe Price in Life is Strange. She's also a part of the ongoing tabletop series Critical Role, as well as the Apple TV show Mythic Quest.

Generative AI continues to be a point of concern

Big companies haven't shown any signs of slowing down research into using AI in games, and indeed, the term "AI" is proving annoyingly broad even when referring to generative models.

Microsoft recently announced Copilot for Gaming, an Xbox chatbot that's meant to help players install games, find tips, and explain what they last did in a game.

Before that, the company also demonstrated Muse, an AI model that could generate low-resolution snippets of gameplay that are playable and react to real-time changes. Muse is primarily meant for rapid content ideation and testing, according to Microsoft.

Activision was also recently forced to disclose the use of generative AI by Steam, coming weeks after players already strongly suspected the technology was being used for some in-game assets.

For me, as someone that truly loves storytelling in games and the incredible performances that can be part of those narratives, the concerns that Burch raises are constantly echoing.

I continue to hope that actors will be able to get a deal that ensures if this technology is used with their performances, that it will be used ethically and with fair compensation.

Given what I've seen so far, that continues to seem like an uphill struggle, but a worthy one all the same.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Horizon Forbidden West are both currently available on Windows PC and PlayStation 5.

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Microsoft Flight Simulator gets Embraer jets as part of new partnership

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 19:10:19 +0000

The Microsoft Flight Simulator development team recently announced some much-needed updates for the latest version of the game. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 now provides access to the in-game marketplace, with plenty of content ported from the previous entry and optimized for the new one. Also, developers dropped another world update, giving some South American countries a lot more details.

Speaking of South American countries, Brazil's world-famous jet maker, Embraer, partnered with the Microsoft Flight Simulator developers to bring its iconic planes to the game. Embraer's jets are coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator as part of the game's "Expert Series," and it kicks off with the Embraer Praetor 600.

Jorg Neumann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, announced the partnership on the official website:

We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Embraer, one of the global leaders in the aerospace industry. Embraer’s state-of-the-art fleet and focus on innovation make them a perfect partner for Microsoft Flight Simulator and our goal for the collaboration is to bring many of the Embraer aircraft models to the simulator as part of our ‘Expert Series’. We are thrilled to announce that we are kicking off this collaboration with the widely popular Embraer Praetor 600, set for release in the simulator later this year.

The Praetor 600 is a super-midsize jet that was first introduced by Embraer in 2018 as an upgrade to the Legacy 500. This aircraft is capable of intercontinental flights, taking passengers from New York to London without refueling. It also features cutting-edge avionics, full fly-by-wire controls, and plenty of amenities and comfort for passengers.

Praetor 600's cockpit. Photo by Embraer

While not many people will get to fly this aircraft in the real world, PC and Xbox players will soon be able to experience it in Microsoft Flight Simulator without spending over $20 million on one.

As of right now, there is no information on when the Embraer Praetor 600 and other jets from the Brazilian manufacturer will be playable in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Embraer says the Praetor 600 will land in the game "later in 2025."

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Leaks say The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remake will be announced and released in April

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 05:59:39 +0000

It was 2006 when Bethesda Game Studios delivered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to the masses, offering an open-world fantasy RPG that takes players to the province of Cyrodiil. The title has been a part of leaks for some years now, with a remake reportedly being in the works for fans to jump into. Now, another round of rumors has popped up, and a release may be happening quite soon.

The latest reports comes from Video Games Chronicle and reliable leaker NatetheHate. Both parties say that the Singapore-based support studio Virtuos is currently preparing this remake of the iconic RPG. The studio has worked on a large number of notable games providing support and ports over the years, including being the primary studio behind the upcoming remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

It was in 2023 that mentions of Oblivion returning to modern platforms came up, all thanks to the leaked documents from the FTC v. Microsoft court battle. The massive leak namedropped new projects involving Bethesda's grand RPGs The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3, though no reports regarding the latter have surfaced since then.

Earlier this year, another report by MP1st revealed some additional details about the project, which said it's being fully remade in Unreal Engine 5. Stamina, Sneak, Blocking, Archery, Hit Reaction, and HUD are all being reworked according to this report, with some Souls-like ideas also being implemented.

While the latest leaks do not say any firm release date information, they do mention an April announcement for this remake project. Surprisingly, Microsoft is also said to be releasing the game on the same month, making for a rapid announcement and release schedule.

Despite the long history of leaks, as always, take unconfirmed reports with a grain of salt until Microsoft makes some announcements.

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Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 3 already in development at Saber, promises even more carnage

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 05:58:15 +0000

Many would consider Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 to be an almost perfect sequel, offering greatly expanded combat, action, setting, and carnage over the original experience that first arrived in 2011. It was only in September of last year that the hugely hyped sequel hit the Warhammer fanbase before quickly topping all sales charts. While post-launch updates continue to drop for it, now another sequel is already in development.

Jointly announced today by Focus Entertainment, Games Workshop, and developer Saber Interactive, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 has been officially confirmed as the next entry in the series, with development already underway.

Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive, said this in a statement regarding the latest venture the company is taking:

"Space Marine 2 has proven to be a transformative game for Saber. It is the culmination of everything we have learned about game development in our 25 years in the business. We are now starting to develop Space Marine 3, a game that carries with it tremendous expectations from our rapidly expanding fanbase.  While we will continue to support and grow the Space Marine 2 universe over the coming years, we will take all our learnings and apply them to an even bigger and more spectacular game for the third installment.  We view this as an opportunity to create a true love letter to the Warhammer 40.000 universe."

While not much information was shared about this next adventure of Titus and his armored Space Marine brothers, the announcement confirmed that the third entry will be even more immersive, featuring "intense, brutal, and spectacular gameplay."

Saber will be working closely with the Warhammer IP holder to make sure the next title stays true to its roots as well, while taking the "genre to new heights."

Space Marine 2's updates will continue for years to come as well, confirmed the studio today.

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HW News - More Missing ROPs, RTX 50 Supply Situation, EA Does Something Good, & Delidded 9800X3Ds (Gamers Nexus) [Video]

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 20:19:45 +0000

Gamers Nexus (2.42M subscribers)

March 14, 2025

Video length: 29m 00s

In this hardware news episode, NVIDIA addresses the supply and demand situation by saying it has sold "2x" the amount of RTX 50 series GPUs as 40 series. Also related to NVIDIA, there have been rumors of missing ROPS on upcoming laptops, rumors of RTX 5050 and 5060 or 5060 Ti GPUs, and news of its hotfix to resolve flickering and stability issues. In other news, Meta says it's not a pirate, Thermal Grizzly is selling 9800X3D CPUs that are pre-delidded, and EA releases source code for early Command and Conquer games.

00:00 - Recapping the Week

01:37 - NVIDIA Updates on Supply & GDC

05:47 - Rumor: NVIDIA RTX 5050, 5060

07:23 - NVIDIA Laptop ROPs Concern

13:44 - Thermal Grizzly Selling Delidded 9800X3D CPUs

15:52 - CPU-Z Missing ROPs Report

17:16 - Meta Employs Interesting Legal Strategy

20:52 - NVIDIA Addresses Black Screen Issues

22:14 - Rumor: Valve Working on VR Headset

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