The last World Update for Microsoft Flight Simulator landed back in September of 2025, targeting Japan, and finally, fans have received a new drop in 2026. This one, numbered World Update 21, is carrying a massive number of visual upgrades to the terrain and cities of Australia. Watch the reveal trailer above for some glimpses of the newly upgraded regions and sites.

The development team is calling this World Update a "new standard in realism for pilots," touting a partnership between Bing Maps, Vexcel, Gaya, and Asobo to achieve "lifelike realism and visual fidelity."

"Australia is home to some of the world’s most spectacular sights and destinations, including stunning coastlines, vast deserts, beautiful mountains, and architectural marvels," adds the developer. "Renowned attractions include the Sydney Opera House, one of the most distinctive structures in the world; the Twelve Apostles, iconic sea stacks on the Southern Ocean coastline; vast sweeps of interior desert; and lush stands of rainforest."

The update brings in 40 new areas of interest from the real world that have been recreated in the simulator with photogrammetry and triangulated irregular network surface texturing. These locations span the six Australian states and the self-governing territories. The new coverage spans major cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, and Canberra) as well as regional hubs and natural landmarks for players to fly over and explore.

At the same time, six new handcrafted airports have now been added as well, they being Broken Hill Airport (YBHI), Broome International (YBRM), Coober Pedy (YCBP), Bathurst (YBTH), RAAF Base Tindal / Katherine Tindal (YPTN), and Lord Howe Island (YLHI).

For players looking to jump into fresh missions in the updated region, there are three discovery flights, five precision landings, two low-altitude challenges, and two rally race challenges included in the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 version. The older 2020 edition doesn't have all these options however.

Microsoft Flight Simulator World Update 21: Australia is now available in Microsoft Flight Simulator as well as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 as an optional download from the in-game marketplace for free.

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Posted Wednesday 6 May 2026 at 7:41 am AEST (my time).

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Forza Horizon 6 has officially gone gold in its run-up to the big May 19 launch, and Playground Games has come in hot with some pretty killer rewards to show their gratitude to players.

If you've played any of the previous Forza Horizon games, right back to the original, or the rebooted Forza Motorsport from 2023, you'll be starting Forza Horizon 6 with some much better wheels in your garage.

Here's what you can get:

The farewell message on the site states: "To the millions who asked... We are deeply grateful to the engineers, designers, and teams who built and supported Ask over the decades. And to all of you, the users who relied on us for answers in a changing world - thank you for your curiosity, loyalty, and trust. Jeeves' spirit lives on."

From Ask Jeeves to Ask.com: How the Search Engine Evolved

Ask Jeeves was launched in 1996 with a distinctive approach: users could type full natural language questions instead of just keywords, with a butler mascot named Jeeves acting as a visual guide. This format fit well with the early web era, when search engines were still developing the ability to interpret user intent.

The service gained a recognizable brand and a sizable user base before algorithm-driven search engines, led by Google, began to dominate the market. In 2006, Ask Jeeves rebranded as Ask.com and removed the Jeeves mascot, dropping one of its most recognizable features while its search relevance was declining.

Why Ask.com Faded From the Search Market

Traffic steadily declined as users moved to more accurate and faster alternatives. Ask.com stayed in operation for nearly twenty years after its rebrand, outlasting its cultural relevance by a significant margin. The site had not been part of mainstream search discussions for years, and many users had no idea it was still active.

IAC has not revealed what will take its place or follow the search business as part of its narrower focus.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 5:25 pm AEST (my time).

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Gamers Nexus (2.61m subscribers)

May 5, 2026

Video length: 36m 02s

In the news this week, the copy-fail Linux vulnerability makes big news, Valve has import records for "game consoles" (which might be the Steam Machine or Steam Frame), NZXT has a new "safety notice" about its power supplies, the 5800X3D is rumored to return for a 10-year anniversary of AM4, and NVIDIA preps its vault for the Palantir partnership to pursue, as far as we can tell anyway, taxpayer money. Additionally, we spend some time explaining Steam Input and the Steam Controller on Windows vs. Linux.

00:00 - Recap for the Week

01:25 - Tons of Review Content Live

04:01 - NVIDIA x Palantir Targeting US Taxpayer Money

09:03 - NVIDIA Rumored to Use Intel for Feynman

11:07 - Intel Rumored to Cancel Gaming Celestial GPUs

15:08 - Another NZXT Safety Issue

19:34 - AMD Rumored to Rerelease 5800X3D

22:20 - Linux Copy Fail Vulnerability

23:35 - Irtysh Russian-Chinese 32-Core CPU

24:41 - Valve Import Records Might Show Steam Machine

26:48 - Steam Controller and Steam Input Explained

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 12:30 pm AEST (my time).

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The Call of Duty franchise has been landing on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation of consoles since 2013's Ghosts entry. 13 years later, it looks like Activision is finally about to leave them behind and target the latest generation of hardware for the first time. The confirmation arrived via a social media post by the Call of Duty team responding to some rumors circulating about the next entry landing in 2026.

For a few days now, leakers that usually post information about upcoming Call of Duty games and updates have been mentioning that the 2026 game will also support the PlayStation 4. Considering that last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 also landed on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One alongside Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 (as well as PC), this seemed like the path that Activision would be taking again.

However, on a post on X, the Call of Duty official account today posted that this rumor is untrue.

"Not sure where this one started, but it’s not true," said the official account's social media post. "The next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4."

While the post doesn't specifically mention the Xbox One, it’s likely also being dropped. With these changes, this might be the year that Activision adds the Switch 2 as the latest platform though, returning the series to Nintendo consoles after over a decade.

The Microsoft-owned gaming division is yet to announce what sub-series the 2026 Call of Duty will follow. Considering that both 2024 and 2025 games have been Black Ops entries, there's a good chance that Modern Warfare will be returning this year, unless a surprise new direction is incoming. Don't forget that a Call of Duty movie is now in production too, so there may be things in motion behind the scenes to build up towards that major release.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 12:29 pm AEST (my time).

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We still don’t know when Valve will launch the Steam Machine, but we may not have to wait too long. Valve just imported roughly 50 tons of “Game Consoles” into the United States in the two-day period between May 1st and April 30th, according to import records viewed by The Verge.

That’s on top of the “ton” of shipments that Valve watcher Brad Lynch mentioned late last week — and there’s reason to believe these containers have the new Steam Machine or Steam Frame inside, not just an extra batch of the Steam Deck handheld. (The Steam Deck was also designated a “Game Console” for import purposes.)

While Valve’s logistics partners had a dearth of shipments after Christmas 2025, they appear to be ramping back up, with nearly 100 tons of product moving into the US over the past two months. During that time, cargo ships with names like Ever Logic and Ever Shine have brought ten 40-foot containers from China to Los Angeles, CA and Tacoma, WA, weighing 127,228 kilograms (140 US tons) in total.

Each of those 40-foot containers can weigh over 3,700kg when empty, so there’s substantially less than 140 tons of actual product making it into the US. But even accounting for the containers, Valve’s new shipments weigh a good bit different than the previous ones — suggesting they may have a new product inside.

For a few years now, each of Valve’s 40-foot containers to cross the ocean have held up to 42 packages for a total gross weight of around 14,500kg (32,000lbs), import records show. That was true as recently as April 18th, around which time the Ever Sigma deposited a 14,322kg, 42-package shipment in Tacoma, Washington with Valve’s partner Ingram Micro. Perhaps it still had Steam Decks inside rather than Steam Machines?

But a few days later, the Ever Shine brought a notably lighter 12,608kg (27,800lbs) container to Tacoma, again with 42 packages. Import records show Valve’s partners didn’t change to a lighter type of container; it’s still the standard 40-foot model that weighs roughly 3,700kg when empty.

Valve has had at least seven shipments like that since April 23rd, with an average weight of 12,600kg. Subtract the weight of the containers, and you wind up with around 53,124kg of product, packaging, pallets, and padding for the journey, or roughly 50 tons of “Game Consoles.”

Just remember that 50 tons isn’t actually a lot! Valve says the Steam Machine weighs 2.6kg (roughly 5.73lbs) per console, so the recent surge in shipments could add up to fewer than 20,000 Steam Machines, particularly if any of them are pre-bundled with a controller or other items which increase each package’s weight. (Valve told us bundles would be available.)

The Steam Controller appears to have already sold out on launch day. Unless Valve plans to create a huge stockpile, the Steam Machine could go even faster. I’m less sure about the Steam Frame, even though I’m personally excited for competition in the gaming headset market.

It’s still possible all of these containers have Steam Deck handhelds inside, and something else accounts for the change in weight. Either way, Valve’s finally getting hardware moving again. Valve designer Pierre-Loup Griffais recently told us the company was “working hard on trying to address” supplies of its handheld so you can buy that one again, too.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 12:28 pm AEST (my time).

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Rockstar Games is nearing its latest release date for Grand Theft Auto VI, which is poised to make a record-breaking landing on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles later this year. However, one platform that's still missing from the studio's announcements has been PC. Now, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has given an update on what's going on behind the scenes.

In a new interview with Bloomberg, Zelnick says that a game published by Take-Two would only move about 5% of total sales on PC back in 2007, when he first started at the company. But now, he says major releases see the PC versions taking up "45, 50% of the sales." This makes Grand Theft Auto VI not being announced for the platform even more bizarre.

When asked about this lack of a PC port, Zelnick says that consoles are the company's focus as a core customer, while hinting that its "other consumers" may be served later.

"Rockstar always starts on console because I think with regard to a release like that you're judged by serving the core," explained Zelnick. "Like really serving the core consumer. If your core consumer isn't there, if they're not served first and best, you kind of don't hit your other consumers."

He also denied that the Grand Theft Auto VI marketing deal Take-Two has with PlayStation maker Sony has anything to do with this console-only release. "I mean, historically Rockstar's gone to console first," he adds.

Despite these comments, Zelnick never goes on to explicitly confirm that a PC version is in development. When mentioning that a delayed launch on PC could serve as a double-dipping scenario for Grand Theft Auto VI fans, increasing sales for the company, the CEO only said that "We'll see how it works out."

If the latest release date holds firm, Grand Theft Auto VI will be released on November 19, 2026 across Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 12:27 pm AEST (my time).

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For its 2023 space exploration Xbox RPG Starfield, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda created an upgraded version of the Creation Engine used for Skyrim and Fallout 4 simply called the Creation Engine 2. This updated variant of the studio's proprietary engine vastly improved visual fidelity and optimization, among many other things.

According to former Bethesda senior artist Heather Cerlan — now CEO and head of NEARstudios, the developer making the upcoming multiplayer sandbox RPG Hawthorn — though, the studio had seriously considered making the swap from Creation Engine over to Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) in the midst of Starfield's development.

"There was a lot of pressure internally to push to Unreal [Engine 5], especially when Nanite and Lumen and all these amazing features were coming out," she told Reece Reilly of KIWI TALKZ in a recent episode. "People were like, 'Why don't we just use Unreal?'"

Nanite makes importing extremely high-quality assets into UE5 very easy, while Lumen offers advanced lighting effects and rendering that go a long way in helping to achieve cutting-edge visuals. Both are very desirable features of UE5, which first launched in Early Access in Spring 2021 — two years ahead of Starfield's release.

That would have left Bethesda with a sizable amount of time to transition their existing work on Starfield over to UE5, though doing so likely wouldn't have been easy. Still, the potential was there to reap major benefits from the switch...yet in the end, the developers ultimately chose to stick with Creation Engine 2.

Why? Cerlan says that the decision was largely motivated by the desire to keep Starfield as mod friendly as possible for Bethesda's community.

"The real reason that Bethesda holds onto the Creation Engine is because of all the modding capabilities," she said. "The whole modding community that's built around those tools and those systems, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for Bethesda to switch over to any other engine, because they've already built up a whole community that sustains the success of their titles."

Indeed, the modding scene in Bethesda's games has thrived for many years, with countless talented modders having worked with the Creation Engine for upwards of 20 years now. It's not surprising that the developers had no wish to disrupt their creative process with an entirely new engine to learn.

It does seem like there would be upsides to an UE5 switch, of course, but it's important to note that Bethesda is continuing to upgrade and refine the Creation Engine. Recently, studio director Todd Howard confirmed The Elder Scrolls 6 is using a new version called Creation Engine 3 that sports major improvements across the board.

He also said Creation Engine 3 will power projects "beyond" the long-awaited The Elder Scrolls sequel, which likely means Fallout 5 will use it as well. Bad news if you were hoping future Bethesda games would push for maximum graphical quality, perhaps, but good news if you want the studio's titles to be as moddable as the ones that came before it.

Are you glad that Bethesda chose to stick with the Creation Engine in the end, or would you have preferred it to have moved over to Unreal Engine 5? I'm curious to hear your thoughts, so share them in the comments.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 7:19 am AEST (my time).

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Last year, we noted how the long-standing vagaries of HDMI licensing and open source AMD driver development combined to prevent the upcoming Steam Machine from receiving official support for the HDMI 2.1 display standard. Now, though, it seems that AMD is making real progress on adding full HDMI 2.1 compliance to its Linux amdgpu driver in the near future.

In patch series notes for an amdgpu driver update posted on Friday (and noticed by Phoronix), AMD’s Harry Wentland says that the company is finally adding HDMI FRL (Fixed Rate Link) support to the popular Linux display driver. That’s the feature that allows for higher bandwidth on compatible HDMI cables compared to the TMDS standard found on HDMI 2.0 and earlier. That in turn enables direct support for higher resolutions, dynamic HDR, and features like Variable Refresh Rate that aren’t supported in HDMI 2.0.

Wentland notes that this update is still just “a representative subset of HDMI compliance,” in part because it is missing the code to support the Display Stream Compression (DSC) that allows for even higher resolutions and frame rates up to 10K at 100 Hz. But Wentland adds that DSC support “is still being tested and will be sent out later,” and that “a full compliance run” for HDMI 2.1 is “in the works.” An AMD driver developer with the handle agd5f also commented on Phoronix, noting that “a full implementation [of HDMI 2.1] will ultimately be available once the patches are ready and have completed compliance testing.”

This is all good news for Steam Machine buyers and other Linux gamers who want to finally make use of high-end display features that were first standardized in 2017. Valve says it has been using workarounds like chroma subsampling and AMD Freesync support to squeeze better Steam Machine performance out of the HDMI 2.0 bandwidth currently supported by AMD’s Linux drivers. The coming introduction of full HDMI 2.1 support in amdgpu should obviate the need for those workarounds, though.

It’s unclear whether the HDMI Forum’s original legal issues with any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1 have been resolved or if that organization will allow Linux devices to advertise as HDMI 2.1-compliant (we’ve reached out to the HDMI Forum for comment). For now, though, it seems clear that AMD is finally comfortable adding the HDMI 2.1 features it says have been ready and waiting to its Linux drivers for years now. In December, Valve said that “we’ve been working on trying to unblock things” regarding AMD drivers, and it’s nice to see those efforts finally bearing fruit on AMD’s side.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 7:18 am AEST (my time).

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7 Days is a weekly roundup of picks of what's been happening in the world of technology - written with a dash of humor, a hint of exasperation, and an endless supply of (black) coffee.

This week's highlights include a funeral for Windows 10, Google's AI-powered wardrobe on your phone, WhatsApp planning cloud storage, Ubuntu embracing AI, and a platter of cool reviews. Let's get started.

The rise of the machines

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wants people to believe that his company is here to "augment and elevate" humans, not replace them. In his X post, Altman continued, "jobs doomerism is likely long-term wrong," and that people may find new, different, more fulfilling work.

This comes after we have seen mass layoffs and several instances of employees being fired and replaced by an AI system they built. Altman was previously criticized after suggesting that many white-collar jobs being eliminated were "not real work" when compared to physical work like farming.

Sitting on a gold mine

Another top boss expressed thoughts on AI this week. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman commented that the platform is "the fuel" that powers AI bots. Apparently, Reddit is among the companies profiting from the AI wave without needing to build its own AI, thanks to all the human conversations taking place every second. The company reported a 69% revenue surge to $663 million in the latest quarterly earnings.

RAM shortage isn't ending soon

The global memory shortage is real, affecting OEMs and customers alike. One of the leading RAM manufacturers, Samsung, now expects that the shortage can continue into 2027 and beyond due to high demand from AI companies. While manufacturers are trying to figure out how to get things back on track, it was predicted earlier that the wafer shortage could persist until 2030.

In other Samsung news, its Wallet app is now challenging travel management apps with the new Trips feature that creates a unified timeline for flights, hotels, and bookings in the US, UK, and Korea.

Funeral for Windows 10

Some tech drama unfolded in France as several environment-focused organizations staged a protest to showcase the symbolic death of Windows 10, including a coffin. They accused Microsoft of pushing e-waste through its "planned obsolescence," as users will be forced to pay for new Windows 11-compatible devices. Microsoft offers an ESU program for Windows 10, which activists argue is not enough, and support should be extended until 2030.

Speaking of Windows, Samsung could reshape its laptop identity and raise serious questions about Microsoft's operating system. Reports suggest that Samsung is considering ditching Windows 11 in favor of Android 17-based One UI 9 for its Galaxy Book laptops. While exact reasons aren't known, it's believed that the change could improve UI consistency across Samsung's hardware offerings.

Solar energy without the sunlight

No, it won't work that way. You need direct sunlight to produce solar energy on Earth. But obvious limitations and the rising energy demands of AI infrastructure have pushed Meta to explore new ways to harvest it. That's why it teamed up with Overview Energy to deploy specialized satellites in the Earth's geosynchronous orbit to capture uninterrupted sunlight and beam energy back to Earth. For storage, Noon Energy is developing a long-duration system capable of storing energy for over 100 hours.

Modern data centers are power hogs. It was reported that an upcoming hyperscale data center campus in Box Elder County, Utah, will consume more power than the entire state.

Switch to passkeys

Passkeys have been around for about four years now and are seen as a modern replacement for passwords. The UK government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has updated its guidance to recommend that you should pick passkeys over passwords as the first login choice across all digital services. For websites that don't support passkeys yet, it's advised to create a strong password using a password manager and use 2FA.

Drawing the line

The Open Rights Group warned that the Children and Schools Wellbeing Bill, backed by UK MPs, will force millions to hand over personal data amid concerns over weak safeguards. The bill seeks to extend age verification across online platforms, rather than just to prevent access to adult content.

In other news, age restriction is a focus in Utah as well, and its new law is about to make life difficult for VPN users. Senate Bill 73 (SB 73) creates a liability trap to stop people from using VPNs to bypass Utah's age-verification rules for adult websites. The European Commission accused Meta of not adequately enforcing its age-verification measures on Facebook and Instagram.

Netflix (TikTok-ified)

Netflix pushed a redesign of its mobile app and added a TikTok-style feature you might take for granted by now. Clips offers a vertical video feed for movies and TV shows, where you can preview titles in short clips. The streaming giant re-arranged some buttons to make the app's navigation a bit easier.

Easy to switch

If you use multiple devices as part of your daily workflow, Logitech pushed a helpful update that lets you easily switch your mouse/keyboard to another device with a single keypress on your keyboard instead of the Easy-Switch button at the bottom of the mouse. A new version of the Options+ app introduces the Enhanced Easy-Switch feature, making it easier to switch accessories between PCs.

Rufus 4.14 and other updates

Another hot story from the week is about Rufus 4.14, a major update released as the final version with several big improvements, including silent installation, removal of bundled Microsoft apps, fixes for Windows To Go, and more.

Popular screenshot tool ShareX reached version 20 in its latest public update, bringing a reworked Image Editor with a more modern interface and multiple effects and tools. Meanwhile, Firefox 15.0.1 arrived with important security fixes, higher limits for Relay, and several bug fixes.

What happened at Microsoft this week

For those wondering what happened under the Redmond giant's roof this week: Microsoft's secret K2 plan for Windows 11 upgrades leaked, it's removing another Windows 8 UI relic, and recorded an AI run rate of $37B in Q3 2026 earnings.

A new Windows 11 concept strips AI clutter and ads for a cleaner, customizable UX, but bold changes to Start and Taskbar may divide users. You can check out Taras's freshly baked Microsoft Weekly roundup to catch up on all the interesting stories this week.

Google Photos AI Wardrobe

Google is making full use of its AI muscles. It baked a new Wardrobe feature for Google Photos that uses AI to analyze what you are wearing in your photos and create a database. You can then use the virtual try-on to wear your outfits digitally and see how they look on you.

Speaking of AI, Gemini can now generate downloadable files directly from a chat. You can use the chatbot to get popular formats, including Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, Markdown, Google Docs, Slides, and more.

The AI surge in recent years has turned out to be a money machine for Google's parent Alphabet. In its latest earnings call, the company reported a revenue of $109.9 billion for Q1 2026, up by 22% year-over-year.

What's in store for Apple

The iPhone maker is getting John Ternus as the new CEO, whose tenure will start in September this year. It was reported that the iPhone Fold will mark the first major milestone for the new chief, alongside nine other products in the pipeline, including the Smart Home Hub, Tabletop Robot, Home Security System, Smart Glasses, and more.

Apple also announced a new subscription option for developers on the App Store. They can now offer monthly subscriptions with a 12-month commitment for their apps as a new payment option. Apple notes that this would make subscriptions more affordable, as users can pay the annual price (usually discounted) in small installments.

You can read about the new Apple museum, iPhone photos from Space, and other big Apple Stories in our latest issue of Apple Rewind.

WhatsApp cloud

WhatsApp is working on a paid version of the app but it's also readying an encrypted cloud backup service, offering Android users 2GB free storage and a 50GB pair tier for $0.99 ((it's unclear is this is per month or per year).

OpenAI smartphone

An AI-powered smartphone seems like the next obvious thing for OpenAI. It's reportedly working on one, with MediaTek and Qualcomm as chip partners, and Luxshare Precision Industry as the exclusive manufacturing partner. OpenAI plans to run AI agents on its smartphone and even build an ecosystem around it.

The AI giant has amended its agreement with Microsoft to go multi-cloud. While Microsoft's Azure will remain its primary cloud provider, OpenAI will be able to offer all its products to customers across any cloud provider. AWS soon announced that it's bringing OpenAI's frontier models and agentic AI to Amazon Bedrock.

Claude for Creative Work

Anthropic launched Claude for Creative Work while echoing Altman's stance that its AI is not a replacement for humans. It brings a suite of new connectors to plug the AI chatbot into various apps and platforms used by creative professionals, including Adobe, Autodesk, Ableton, Blender, and Splice.

Microsoft 365 Copilot will also become a new home for Anthropic's AI models. It will add Anthropic as a subprocessor in Word, alongside OpenAI models, to help tidy up documents. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft will expand its options by adding models from Google and Meta.

New drivers

An Intel story that went hot this week is that the silicon giant released new wireless drivers for compatible network cards to improve Bluetooth and Wi-Fi stability on PCs running Windows 10/11. Intel's driver versions 24.40.0 (Wi-Fi) and 24.40.0.3 (Bluetooth) are now available for download with stability and performance improvements.

NVIDIA's WHQL-certified 596.36 Game Ready driver went live with support for Conan Exiles Enhanced upgrade and the new RTX 5070 laptop GPU configuration. The free update for Funcom's eight-year-old multiplayer RPG will bring improved visuals, enhanced performance, and modern rendering technologies on May 5.

Ubuntu embraces GenAI

The AI wave is everywhere, and Ubuntu-maker Canonical announced that it's going all in on generative AI. However, it's "treading carefully" in how it introduces generative AI in Ubuntu, and that these AI models will be local-first.

Canonical also announced that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS reached the end of standard Expanded Security Maintenance with Ubuntu Pro. If you wish to extend support until April 2031, you must buy the Legacy add-on via Ubuntu Pro.

Sony's new DRM story

It was reported that Sony is pushing a new DRM system for PS4 and PS5 users following the recent March system update, requiring them to validate recently purchased titles online once every 30 days. However, Sony clarified that the countdown timer is real but not a continually occurring one, meaning buyers need to verify their purchase once to confirm the game license, and no further check-ins are needed.

Steam Controller refresh

Valve revealed this week that the second-generation Steam Controller will arrive next week, on May 04. at 1 am PT. The controller is rumored to carry a $99 / £85 / €99 price tag. The company hinted that the Steam Machine announced last year, alongside Steam Frame, is almost here. Speaking of gaming hardware, the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X devices got updated with TV enhancements, Auto Super Resolution, and other features.

What else in gaming?

The latest issue of Pulasthi's Weekend PC Game Deals curates several exciting games on sale this week. GeForce NOW got loaded with 16 new titles in the latest expansion, including 007 First Light, Playground Games' Forza Horizon 6, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, and much more.

In its latest weekly giveaway, Epic Games put up Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure on its store, and it's also hosting a special giveaway of Hogwarts Legacy to mark the 25th anniversary of the movie franchise (until May 3). Xbox players can try out four games this weekend as part of the latest Free Play Days offer.

That said, here are some more stories from the gaming world:

• Alien: Isolation sequel looms as Creative Assembly drops teaser
• Arc Raiders Riven Tides update lands with new map, traversal gadgets, and massive enemies
• Windows 11's new full-screen Xbox Mode is now rolling out
• Obsidian updating the original Outer Worlds with bug fixes, features, and free upgrades

From the review corner

This week, Steven got his hands on the UGREEN Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station, which can help with future-proofing. It comes with plenty of ports, good support for USB4/TB4, PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 storage, and premium build quality. However, while it supports Thunderbolt 5 on paper, the cable in the box doesn't work over TB5, the PCIe Gen4x4 SSD runs like PCIe Gen3x4, the 2.5GbE port runs less than half speed, and the price tag is on the expensive side.

TerraMaster D1 SSD

It's a palm-sized disk enclosure from TerraMaster, but in the budget segment. TerraMaster D1 SSD is a premium-built, dust-tight (IP67) and water-resistant up to 1 meter, and can be submerged for up to 30 minutes. The device, weighing 146g, is compatible with PCIe 3.0/4.0/5.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD, 8TB raw capacity, and supports up to USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds (10Gbps). However, one of the cons is the lack of an M.2 latch system.

DXRACER TANK Series

DXRACER describes TANK series as "Heavy-Duty Gaming Chair For Big and Tall Gamers." It is made from eco-friendly materials, highly durable and comfortable, offers a five-year warranty, and comes with magnetic pillows. A downside of the gaming chair is that it doesn't offer built-in adjustable lumbar support.

Akko Dash V9 Ultra

If you're looking for a new mouse that offers a mix of performance, lightweight design, and an affordable price tag, you should check out Taras' review of Akko Dash V9 Ultra. It comes in a super-light build with good ergonomics, plenty of accessories, a flagship sensor, and browser-based software. However, the scrolling wheel is average, and it may not be the best option for big hands.

You can also check out the hands-on experience of the upcoming game Incoherence: Dark Rooms, developed by pmrd. It's available on Steam to add to the wishlist.

Have a great weekend!

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Posted Monday 4 May 2026 at 7:32 am AEST (my time).

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ExplainingComputers (1.17m subscribers)

May 3, 2026

Video length: 20m 10s

Optical storage can offer excellent long-term data retention. In this video we look at the state of the market for optical disc drives (ODDs) and media, and also unbox and test my new Verbatim external Blu-ray writer.

00:00 Titles & Intro

01:04 The Optical Storage Market

09:01 Long-Term Optical Media

12:06 Verbatim Blu-ray Writer

14:51 Windows & Linux (drive test)

16:06 RISC-V & Linux

19:28 Wrap

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Posted Monday 4 May 2026 at 7:29 am AEST (my time).

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Paul's Hardware (1.54m subscribers)

May 3, 2026

Video length: 12m 55s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - May 3, 2026

2:23 Steam Controller Reviews Are Up, For Sale May 4 for $99

TECH BRIEFS (Alternating Good/Bad Edition)

4:46 No New Intel Arc Gaming GPUs? Xe3 Skipped, Xe4 "Druid" Uncertain

6:05 New GPU Maker? Lisuan 7G100 gains WHQL certification ahead of May 20 launch

7:02 Industry faces “acute” CPU shortage with hope that Intel 18A yields improve

8:05 Microsoft’s secret ‘Windows K2’ project aims to fix what users hate most

9:06 RTX 3060 12GB cards from Colorful, ASUS, MSI, GALAX reportedly return in July

9:57 PS5 Linux loader goes public, turning consoles into full Linux PCs

10:37 GIGABYTE joins ASUS and ASRock with HUDIMM memory support on Intel platforms

11:32 Chinese Courts Just Made It Illegal to Replace Workers with AI / Robots

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Posted Sunday 3 May 2026 at 5:55 pm AEST (my time).

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This week's Microsoft Weekly news recap brings you the latest stories from the world of Microsoft, including Windows 11 becoming less irritating and more modern. There is also the new Xbox mode for all Windows 11 PCs, several reviews to check out, gaming news, and more.

Quick links:

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

Windows 11 and Windows 10

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

The April 2026 non-security update was released this week with quite a few important changes and new features. There is the new Xbox mode available for all PCs, new archive format support in File Explorer (plus fixes), performance improvements, and more. Just note that your PC might restart more times due to Secure Boot certificate updates.

On May 1, Microsoft updated the official documentation for the April 2026 Patch Tuesday updates to detail driver changes that potentially break backup software. However, there is a workaround.

Earlier this year, Microsoft pledged to fix Windows 11 and focus on things that users want instead of doing tone-deaf changes and implementing controversial features that no one asked for. This week, a new report emerged, detailing Microsoft's plan on doing that. Codenamed "K2," it was reportedly put together in the second half of 2025 in an attempt to not just fix Windows 11, but also improve how internal teams develop the operating system..

Speaking of improvements, check out the details about Microsoft upgrading Modern Standby in Windows 11.

Do you remember Microsoft staging an iPhone funeral back in the Windows Phone era? Someone in France decided to pull an Uno reverse card on Microsoft. While nobody was desecrating Windows Phone's corpse, French activists held a Windows 10 funeral, thus protesting against Microsoft crippling hundreds of millions of PCs that are ineligible to run Windows 11. As a reminder, the Extended Security Program for Windows 10 ends this October, leaving millions of users at a crossroads: buy a new device or stay unprotected in this digitally hostile world.

To finish this week's Windows section, check out this neat-looking concept that imagines the operating system without AI clutter and ads while focusing on usability and convenience. The proposed Start menu changes also look interesting, but not everyone agrees on the idea.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

The latest Windows 11 preview builds also ditch another UI relic from the operating system. A Windows 8-like spinner is going away, and Microsoft is replacing it with a more modern one on various loading screens that you see every day.

Another old part of the Windows 11 UI that Microsoft is redesigning is the Run dialog. The latest Windows 11 preview builds contain a redesigned Run dialog built with WinUI 3, which offers dark theme support, more modern visuals, better performance, and easier access to the user folder. For now, the new Run dialog is an optional feature, which you can enable in Settings > System > Advanced.

Microsoft is also reworking Windows Widgets. The company admitted that the current form is "distracting and overwhelming." As such, the latest Windows 11 preview builds change the default behavior: no more news feeds enabled by default, no open-on-hover, and no frequent nudges and notifications. We still cannot pin widgets to the desktop, but at least some much-needed improvements are finally here.

Microsoft shared a recap of everything it added to Windows 11 in April. The recent Windows 11 preview updates contain quality-of-life improvements and user-requested features as Microsoft tries to reignite the excitement and convince everyone that it still cares about its operating system.

Finally, Microsoft has a few updates for IT Admins. They now have a new kill switch for pre-installed Windows apps and the ability to upgrade to Windows Server 2025 via Windows Update.

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.

Microsoft released PowerToys 0.99. The latest major update for our favorite set of tools for Windows 10 and 11 introduced two big upgrades: Power Display and "Grab and Move." Power Display lets you control your monitor using a handy flyout with various sliders for brightness, contrast, volume, color temperature, and more (it is particularly nice for multi-monitor setups). The Grab and Move tool is a window-management utility that allows you to grab a window anywhere (remember to hold the Alt key) and drag it across the screen without aiming for the title bar. In addition, there are some useful upgrades for the Keyboard Manager, Command Palette dock, and more.

After a few days, PowerToys 0.99.1 arrived to fix a few issues with these new tools. Plus, Microsoft is working on a new tool called Show Desktop, inspired by PeekDesktop, made by a Microsoft engineer.

With April 2026 now behind us, it is time to recap all the features that Microsoft added to its products over the last 30 days. Here is everything new in Excel, including smarter Copilot editing, Python integration, improved collaboration tools, and more. A similar recap is available for Teams as well.

Speaking of Office apps, users discovered a new banner in Teams begging to unlock a premium version of the service. It is not hard to imagine their reaction to that. Also, Microsoft is making Copilot in OneNote much more useful, and Word is getting Anthropic AI models to help tidy your documents.

On the browser side, we have Mozilla releasing a small Firefox update. Firefox 150.0.1 arrived as a servicing update to address issues with drop-down lists, location permissions, and more. Additionally, it increased the masked email limit from 5 all the way to 50 for users in the Firefox Relay free tier.

Microsoft Edge also received a new update this week. Version 147.0.3912.98 brought fixes for PDF viewer crashes and plenty of security fixes, which originate from Chromium.

Finally, check out Microsoft's Q3 2026 fiscal year results, which the company announced on April 30.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• OpenAI goes multi-cloud as Microsoft agreement shifts to non-exclusive.

• Logitech updated Options+ with Enhanced Easy-Switch and other improvements.

• Microsoft will begin blocking legacy TLS connections in Exchange Online soon.

• ShareX 20 has been released with a new editor and other improvements.

• Major Rufus update brings a new way to install Windows 11.

• Microsoft enables TypeScript 7 Beta by default in Visual Studio 18.6 Insiders 3.

   

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

• Intel Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 24.40.0 drivers with performance and reliability improvements on Windows 10 and 11.
• NVIDIA 596.36 WHQL with RTX 5070 12GB Laptop GPU support and Conan Exiles Enhanced support.

Reviews are in

Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week

This week, Steven Parker reviewed the UGREEN Revodok Maxidock 17-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station (what a name, huh?). This neat-looking brick brings a ton of useful ports and expandability to your Thunderbolt 5-enabled device. The price is not low, and for half a grand, one should expect a lot from such a device. As such, we nitpicked a few quirks and cons, but the dock proved itself good overall, and there is a lot to like about it. Check out the full review here.

Next, we have a review of the TerraMaster D1 SSD, an inexpensive, dust- and waterproof 10 Gbps enclosure that can preserve your SSD in harsh conditions and survive submersions up to 30 minutes. At only $39.99, this enclosure is nearly perfect, and the only complaint we have is the lack of an M.2 latching system. Our full review is available here.

On the gaming side

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

Microsoft released a big update for its ROG Xbox Ally handheld console. It received TV enhancements, Auto Super Resolution, a gamepad cursor, audio upgrades, and more.

NVIDIA announced new games for the GeForce NOW cloud streaming service. Those include 007 First Light, Playground Games' Forza Horizon 6, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, and more. Additionally, NVIDIA significantly expanded access to its RTX 5080 servers.

Obsidian Entertainment released an update for the original The Outer Worlds on all platforms, bringing users bug fixes, enhancements, and new features. Additionally, the game received a free content update for everyone.

This week's deals and freebies include another Hogwarts Legacy giveaway. And if you do not mind spending some money on new games, check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals article.

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Posted Sunday 3 May 2026 at 7:23 am AEST (my time).

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Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical were knocked offline on Thursday morning and have remained down ever since, a situation that’s preventing the OS provider from communicating normally following the botched disclosure of a major vulnerability.

Attempts to connect to most Ubuntu and Canonical webpages and download OS updates from Ubuntu servers have consistently failed over the past 24 hours. Updates from mirror sites, however, have continued to work normally. A Canonical status page said: “Canonical’s web infrastructure is under a sustained, cross-border attack and we are working to address it.” Other than that, Ubuntu and Canonical officials have maintained radio silence since the outage began.

A decades-long scourge

A group sympathetic to the Iranian government has taken credit for the outage. According to posts on Telegram and other social media, the group is responsible for a DDoS attack using Beam, an operation that claims to test the ability of servers to operate under heavy loads but, like other “stressors,” are, in fact, fronts for services miscreants pay for to take down third-party sites. In recent days, the same pro-Iran group has taken credit for DDoSes on eBay.

According to a moderator on AskUbuntu.com, URLs that remained unavailable include:

• security.ubuntu.com 
• jaas.ai
• archive.ubuntu.com
• canonical.com 
• maas.io
• blog.ubuntu.com
• developer.ubuntu.com
• Ubuntu Security API – CVEs
• Ubuntu Security API – Notices
• academy.canonical.com
• ubuntu.com
• portal.canonical.com
• assets.ubuntu.com

Ubuntu and Canonical infrastructure went down hours after researchers released potent exploit code that allowed untrusted users in data centers, university settings, and elsewhere to gain all-powerful root control of servers running virtually all Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. The outage has limited Ubuntu’s ability to communicate security guidance to affected users. As noted earlier, updates remain available from mirror sites.

Stressor sites, also known as booter sites, have operated for decades. The DDoS-as-a-service operators have come under the attention of law enforcement in multiple countries, but attempts to shut down this scourge have never succeeded.

It’s unclear why the infrastructure has remained unavailable for so long. There’s a wealth of DDoS protection services, at least one of which is free.

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Posted Saturday 2 May 2026 at 7:42 am AEST (my time).

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Apple’s Mac mini and Mac Studio desktops have been increasingly difficult to buy over the course of the year—multiple configurations are listed on Apple’s site as “currently unavailable,” which almost never happens, and others will take weeks or months to ship if you order them today. A top-end version of the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM was delisted from Apple’s store entirely.

Current Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the situation on Apple’s Q2 earnings call yesterday as part of a larger conversation about how Apple is navigating component shortages, and he partly blamed the shortage on the popularity of those desktops among users looking to run AI agents and other tools locally.

“Both [the Mac mini and the Mac Studio] are amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools, and the customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted, and so we saw higher-than-expected demand,” said Cook. “We think looking forward that the Mac mini and the Mac Studio may take several months to reach supply-demand balance.”

Cook wasn’t specific about what components were driving the Mac mini and Studio shortages, though he did say that generally, “availability of the advanced [manufacturing] nodes our SoCs are produced on” was constrained, and “we have less flexibility in the supply chain than we normally would.” In other words, it has become harder for Apple to go to TSMC and ask for more chips because TSMC doesn’t have the spare manufacturing capacity. Cook said these constraints “primarily” affected the iPhone, though, and only affected the Mac “to a lesser extent.”

As we wrote last month, the extent of the shipping delays can probably be blamed on multiple factors. AI-related demand for the desktops and chip shortages are probably factors, but Apple is also said to be planning replacements for both systems with Apple M5-series chips later this year, and it’s common for models to see their ship times slip when replacements are imminent. Cook’s “several months” estimate could easily include the introduction of new models, plus whatever time Apple needs to catch up to pent-up demand afterward.

Cook also noted that “customer response to MacBook Neo has been off the charts, with higher-than-expected demand” and that Apple “set a March record for customers new to the Mac, partly due to the Neo.” (Note that “a March record” is not the same thing as “an all-time record,” but regardless, it seems that demand for the Neo has been healthy.)

But MacBook Neo availability has been much better than for the Mac mini or Studio. A Neo ordered directly from Apple will usually arrive in two or three weeks, but this time window has stayed roughly the same since early March. The Neo also remains widely available for same-day shipping or pickup at third-party retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, which is not true of most Mac mini or Studio models.

Supply constraints aside, Apple’s Q2 2026 was a successful one for the company. Apple made $111.2 billion in revenue, a 17 percent increase over Q2 of 2025, thanks to strong growth from iPhone 17 sales and its Services division. The Mac also grew 6 percent year over year despite the shortages affecting the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and MacBook Neo. But Apple isn’t immune to the industry-wide RAM shortage: Cook said that Apple expected “significantly higher memory costs” for Q3 than it paid in Q2 and that “memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business” going forward.

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Posted Saturday 2 May 2026 at 7:41 am AEST (my time).

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When NVIDIA first unveiled DLSS 5 with a shocking video, the reaction from PC gamers, developers, and general AI haters was overwhelmingly negative.

Touted as "the GPT moment for graphics" by NVIDIA's CEO and founder Jensen Huang, DLSS 5 is evidently capable of completely transforming your favorite game's graphics into something that resembles AI fan art.

About a month and a half after NVIDIA's poorly received DLSS 5 reveal, the team behind the massively popular game Roblox has revealed what I can only describe as DLSS 5 Lite.

Known officially as Roblox Reality, it's an internal project that aims to "combine hyperscale multiplayer gaming with photorealism."

Now, keep in mind that Roblox is a game that can usually run on a toaster. That's a big part of its appeal, especially with younger gamers who don't have the income to splash out on a heavy-duty PC or brand new console.

Rather than require an expensive, latest-gen GPU to handle the AI upscaling, Roblox Reality will apparently use a mix of its cloud and the on-device game engine to deliver shiny results.

The official explanation goes like this:

The most important thing to note here is that the Roblox team still hasn't achieved the desired results. Although it has provided several examples of what it imagines the process will look like, it's still working on making it a reality.

In several four-panel examples provided by the development team, we can see how the original Roblox render has its 3D data stripped out and sent to the new Super Upsampler to create more realistic visuals.

In the bottom-right corner of these examples, there's a "vision" frame that shows off what's going to be expected as an end result for Roblox Reality.

Why does Roblox want to add photorealistic AI upscaling?

Roblox is a game full of content that's largely created by its audience, and the company says that's exactly who they're targeting with this upgrade.

The developers admit that Roblox Reality is not yet ready for prime time, mostly due to issues with compute costs when scaling. Regardless, the team is hoping to launch the new feature later this year or early next year.

Windows Central's take

As I've pointed out plenty of times in the past, the use of AI upscaling in gaming isn't going anywhere. If nothing else, it's only accelerating to the point where many gamers believe it's stepping over some unseen red line, turning handcrafted art into generic slop.

Although Roblox kind of feels like its own gaming world — I really don't have any experience with the game, but know that it's massively popular — I don't doubt that this is a hint as to what the future holds for plenty of other game studios.

Despite NVIDIA receiving a ton of blowback for its DLSS 5 introduction, the feature is still expected to arrive later this year. As I'm sure the kids would tell me, "The future is now, old man!"

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Posted Saturday 2 May 2026 at 7:39 am AEST (my time).

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Obsidian Entertainment only recently released The Outer Worlds 2, and the studio is now working on updates and expansions to that RPG. At the same time, it is now going back to shipping updates to the original game that started the series. Earlier today, the Microsoft-owned studio announced that new updates carrying bug fixes, enhancements, and features are incoming to the 2019-released The Outer Worlds, alongside a free upgrade.

While it's working on new updates, Obsidian will be upgrading base game owners of The Outer Worlds to the Spacer’s Choice Edition for free. This is the 2023-released remaster developed by Virtuos under Take-Two that also includes both Peril on Gorgon and Murder on Eridanos expansion packs. The shift is slated to happen on May 27 on the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG platforms.

While the original version will remain in player libraries, this does mean that its store pages will be taken down across all platforms. As for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 editions, anyone who owns the base game and DLCs will automatically be upgraded to the Spacer’s Choice Edition.

The Spacer's Choice remaster wasn't received very well originally due to performance issues and bugs, and it seems Obsidian is now stepping in to enhance the experience. The first update of this new development is already rolling out now, which has a range of bug fixes and performance improvements. Find the changelog over here.

The studio is also preparing a second, much larger, update to The Outer Worlds. This will include "performance fixes, lighting changes, a host of other quest and gameplay fixes," per Obsidian. It will also carry grenades as a brand-new feature to the RPG as well. A release date has not been announced yet.

This is not the first time that Obsidian Entertainment has gone back to an older game to provide updates. It recently shipped a whole new turn-based combat system to the first Pillars of Eternity game over a decade after its launch.

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Posted Saturday 2 May 2026 at 7:38 am AEST (my time).

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From George Clooney in ER to Noah Wyle in The Pitt, emergency department doctors have long been popular heroes. But will it soon be time to hang up the scrubs?

A groundbreaking Harvard study has found that AI systems outperformed human doctors in high-pressure emergency medicine triage, diagnosing more accurately in the potentially life and death moments when people are first rushed to hospital.

The results were described by independent experts as showing “a genuine step forward” in the clinical reasoning of AIs and came as part of trials that tested the responses of hundreds of doctors against an AI.

The authors said the results, published in the journal Science, showed large language models (LLMs) “have eclipsed most benchmarks of clinical reasoning”.

One experiment focused on 76 patients who arrived at the emergency room of a Boston hospital. An AI and a pair of human doctors were each given the same standard electronic health record to read – typically including vital sign data, demographic information and a few sentences from a nurse about why the patient was there. The AI identified the exact or very close diagnosis in 67% of cases, beating the human doctors, who were right only 50%-55% of the time.

It showed the AIs’ advantage was particularly pronounced in triage circumstances requiring rapid decisions with minimal information. The diagnosis accuracy of the AI – OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model – rose to 82% when more detail was available, compared with the 70-79% accuracy achieved by the expert humans, though this difference was not statistically significant.

It also outperformed a larger cohort of human doctors when asked to provide longer term treatment plans, such as providing antibiotics regimes or planning end-of-life processes. The AI and 46 doctors were asked to examine five clinical case studies and the computer made significantly better plans, scoring 89% compared with 34% for humans using conventional resources, such as search engines.

But it is not curtains for emergency doctors yet, the researchers said. The study only tested humans against AIs looking at patient data that can be communicated via text. The AI’s reading of signals, such as the patient’s level of distress and their visual appearance, were not tested. That means the AI was performing more like a clinician producing a second opinion based on paperwork.

“I don’t think our findings mean that AI replaces doctors,” said Arjun Manrai, one of the lead authors of the study who heads an AI lab at Harvard Medical School. “I think it does mean that we’re witnessing a really profound change in technology that will reshape medicine.”

Dr Adam Rodman, another lead author and a doctor at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess medical centre where the study took place, said AI LLMs were among “the most impactful technologies in decades”. Over the next decade, he said, AI would not replace physicians but join them in a new “triadic care model … the doctor, the patient, and an artificial intelligence system”.

In one case in the Harvard study, a patient presented with a blood clot to the lungs and worsening symptoms. Human doctors thought the anti-coagulants were failing, but the AI noticed something the humans did not: the patient’s history of lupus meant this might be causing the inflammation of the lungs. The AI was proved correct.

Nearly one in five US physicians are already using AI to assist diagnosis, according to research published last month. In the UK, 16% of doctors are using the tech daily and a further 15% weekly, with “clinical decision-making” being one of the most common uses, according to a recent Royal College of Physicians survey.

The UK doctors’ biggest concerns were AI error and liability risks. Billions are being invested in AI healthcare companies, but questions remain about the consequences of AI error.

“There is not a formal framework right now for accountability,” said Rodman, who also stressed patients ultimately “want humans to guide them through life or death decisions [and] to guide them through challenging treatment decisions”.

Prof Ewen Harrison, co-director of the University of Edinburgh’s centre for medical informatics, said the study was important and showed that “these systems are no longer just passing medical exams or solving artificial test cases. They are starting to look like useful second-opinion tools for clinicians, particularly when it is important to consider a wider range of possible diagnoses and avoid missing something important.”

Dr Wei Xing, an assistant professor at the University of Sheffield’s school of mathematical and physical sciences, said some of the other findings suggested doctors may unconsciously defer to the AI’s answer rather than thinking independently.

“This tendency could grow more significant as AI becomes more routinely used in clinical settings,” he said. He also highlighted the lack of information about which patients the AI was worse at diagnosing and whether it struggled more with elderly patients or non-English speakers.

He said: “It does not demonstrate that AI is safe for routine clinical use, nor that the public should turn to freely available AI tools as a substitute for medical advice.”

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Apple’s iPhone revenue jumped 22 percent to $57 billion over the past few months, despite supply chain issues impacting the device’s processor. During an interview with Reuters, Apple CEO Tim Cook said iPhone “demand was off the charts” but added that there’s “a little less flexibility in the supply chain at the moment for getting more parts.”

Apple earned $111.2 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2026, its “best March quarter ever,” according to Cook. This latest earnings report comes a little over a week after the company announced CEO Cook’s retirement in September. John Ternus, the company’s head of hardware engineering, will take Cook’s place as he transitions into the role of executive chairman.

Even with Cook’s departure just months away, he’ll still have to lead Apple through the 2026 Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) in June, where Apple’s expected to take the wraps off a bunch of new features, including a more personalized Siri powered by Google’s Gemini AI model.

Apple had an announcement-filled March, revealing a budget-friendly MacBook Neo that caused a stir in the laptop space for its speedy performance and aluminium chassis. The device starts at $599, featuring a 13-inch display, an A18 Pro iPhone chip, and 8GB of RAM. Apple also announced a new iPhone 17E, an M4-equipped iPad Air, along with new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models.

The new devices helped boost Mac revenue to $8.4 billion, while iPads reached $6.91 billion. Apple’s services segment, which includes subscriptions like Apple One, Apple Music, Apple TV, and others, soared to another “all-time record” at $30.98 billion.

Developing…

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Posted Friday 1 May 2026 at 7:29 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft today announced its earnings results for the third quarter of its 2026 fiscal year, reporting strong growth across revenue, operating income, net income, and earnings per share.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2026, Microsoft reported revenue of $82.9 billion, up 18% year-over-year. Operating income was $38.4 billion, up 20%, while net income reached $31.8 billion, up 23% on a GAAP basis. Diluted earnings per share were $4.27, up 23% on a GAAP basis.

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said the company is focused on delivering cloud and AI infrastructure for the “agentic computing era.” He also revealed that Microsoft’s AI business has now surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion, up 123% year-over-year. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood noted the company delivered results above expectations across revenue, operating income, and earnings per share, driven by strong execution and continued demand for Microsoft Cloud.

As expected, Microsoft Cloud was once again the major growth driver for the company. Microsoft Cloud revenue reached $54.5 billion, up 29% year-over-year. Commercial remaining performance obligation also increased sharply, rising 99% to $627 billion.

In the Productivity and Business Processes segment, revenue was $35.0 billion, up 17%. Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud revenue increased 19%, while Microsoft 365 Consumer cloud revenue grew 33%. LinkedIn revenue increased 12%, and Dynamics 365 revenue was up 22%.

Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment delivered revenue of $34.7 billion, up 30%. Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 40% (39% in constant currency), reflecting continued demand for cloud infrastructure and AI workloads.

The More Personal Computing segment was the only major business area to decline as revenue decreased to $13.2 billion, down 1% year-over-year. Windows OEM and Devices revenue declined 2%, while Xbox content and services revenue fell 5%. Search advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, increased 12%.

During the earnings call, Satya Nadella addressed the amended partnership with OpenAI, which has sparked significant discussion among investors over the past few days:

"I’m always very, very focused on any partnership and ensuring that there’s a win-win construct at all times. I mean, that’s how you can remain good partners.

 

In this case, it starts with, quite frankly, IP. Amy referenced this. We have a frontier model, royalty-free, with all the IP rights that we will have access to all the way to ‘32, and we fully plan to exploit it. And there are examples I talked about even in my remarks earlier. And we’re thankful for that, and that’s one part of the agreement.

 

The second part, of course, is them as a customer of ours. They’re a large customer of ours, not just on the AI accelerator side, but also on all the other compute side. We want to serve them well. And then, of course, we have our equity."

Microsoft also returned $10.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the quarter.

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Posted Thursday 30 April 2026 at 5:12 pm AEST (my time).

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has commented on the company's recent announcements around improving Windows and Xbox for customers. In its FY23 Q3 earnings call, Nadella commented on the company's consumer businesses, and was surprisingly candid about the work needed to fix both platforms.

"When it comes to our consumer business, we are doing the foundational work required to win back fans and strengthen engagement across Windows, Xbox, Bing, and Edge," Nadella said. "In the near term, we are focused on fundamentals, prioritizing quality and serving our core users better."

"With Windows, we recently announced performance improvements for lower memory devices, streamlined the Windows Update experience, and brought back focus to core features and fundamentals that matter most to our customers. And you also see this in Xbox where the team is recommitting to our core fans and players, and shaping the future of play. Last week’s Game Pass changes are one example of how we are staying responsive to customer feedback."

Nadella also announced a new active devices number for Windows, confirming that Windows usage continues to grow: "Monthly active Windows devices surpassed 1.6 billion, and over time Windows value will extend to deliver unmetered intelligence at the edge." He also confirmed that Xbox active users are also up: "We set new records for monthly Xbox active users in the quarter, as well as game streaming hours."

Nadella's comments come just weeks after both Windows and Xbox teams announced major changes to their platforms in direct response to frustration from users over the last two years. Windows has confirmed plans to address serious pain points across Windows 11, working to fix the platforms biggest issues and position the OS as a viable competitor among macOS, steamOS, and others.

The Xbox team has also said it's working on the "return of Xbox," refocusing on console and reevaluating changes to Game Pass and exclusives to help position Xbox as a strong consumer gaming platform once again. Both Windows and Xbox are working together to strengthen the future of gaming on Microsoft platforms.

Nadella doesn't often comment on internal ongoings, but he's clear that something is changing internally that is allowing these teams to refocus their efforts on what matters most: the customer. "Across everything I have talked about, we are also hard at work changing the way we work. Our north star remains the same: delivering customer value with highest quality and top-class innovation."

One evening last summer, Dr. David Relman went cold at his laptop as an A.I. chatbot told him how to plan a massacre.

A microbiologist and biosecurity expert at Stanford University, Dr. Relman had been hired by an artificial intelligence company to pressure-test its product before it was released to the public. That night in the scientist's home office, the chatbot explained how to modify an infamous pathogen in a lab so that it would resist known treatments.

Worse, the bot described in vivid detail how to release the superbug, identifying a security lapse in a large public transit system, Dr. Relman said, asking The New York Times to withhold the name of the pathogen and other specifics for fear of inspiring an attack. The bot outlined a plan to maximize casualties and minimize the chances of being caught.

Dr. Relman was so shaken he took a walk to clear his head.

“It was answering questions that I hadn’t thought to ask it, with this level of deviousness and cunning that I just found chilling,” said Dr. Relman, who has also advised the federal government on biological threats. He declined to disclose which chatbot produced the plot, citing a confidentiality agreement with its maker. The company added some safety guardrails to the product after his testing, he said, though he felt they were insufficient.

Dr. Relman is part of a small group of experts enlisted by A.I. companies to vet their products for catastrophic risks. In recent months, some have shared with The Times more than a dozen chatbot conversations revealing that even publicly available models can do more than disseminate dangerous information. The virtual assistants have described in lucid, bullet-pointed detail how to buy raw genetic material, turn it into deadly weapons and deploy them in public spaces, the transcripts show. Some have even brainstormed ways to evade detection.

Dr. David Relman, a microbiologist and biosecurity expert at Stanford University, has advised the federal government on biological threats. Credit...Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times

The U.S. government has long planned for powerful adversaries unleashing deadly bacteria, viruses or toxins in the American population. Since 1970, there have been a few dozen, fairly small biological attacks around the world, such as the anthrax-laced letters that killed five Americans in 2001. Despite perennial warnings, a major catastrophe has not happened and remains unlikely, most experts say.

But even if the probability is low, an effective biological weapon could have an enormous impact, potentially killing millions of people. Dozens of experts told The Times that A.I. is one of several recent technological advances that have meaningfully increased that risk by expanding the pool of people who could cause harm.

Protocols once confined to scientific journals have been salted across the internet. Companies sell synthetic bits of DNA and RNA directly to consumers online. Scientists can split up sensitive aspects of their work and outsource the tasks to private labs. And all of those logistics can now be managed with the help of a chatbot.

Kevin Esvelt, a genetic engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared conversations in which OpenAI’s ChatGPT explained how to use a weather balloon to spread biological payloads over a U.S. city. In another chat, Google’s Gemini ranked pathogens by how much they could damage the cattle or pork industries. Anthropic’s Claude produced a recipe for a novel toxin adapted from a cancer drug. Other chats contained information that Dr. Esvelt — known in his field as something of a Cassandra — felt was too dangerous to share.

A scientist in the Midwest, who requested anonymity because he feared professional reprisal, asked Google’s Deep Research for a “step-by-step protocol” for making a virus that once caused a pandemic. The bot spit out 8,000 words of instructions on acquiring genetic pieces and assembling them. While the response was not entirely accurate, it could have still significantly helped someone with malicious intent, the scientist said.

The Trump administration, resolved to lead the world in A.I. innovation, has dialed back oversight of the technology’s risks. What’s more, several top biosecurity experts — including the leading scientist on the National Security Council — left the executive branch last year and have not been replaced. Federal budget requests for biodefense efforts shrunk by nearly 50 percent last year. (A White House official said that the administration was committed to keeping Americans safe and that some staff on the N.S.C. and several agencies were focused on biodefense.)

The technology’s proponents argue that it will transform medicine for the better, speeding up experiments and crunching enormous data sets to discover new cures. Some scientists believe the upside for humanity easily outweighs any incremental new risks. Chatbots, the skeptics say, present information that’s already available on the internet. And making a deadly virus requires years of hands-on expertise.

Anthropic, OpenAI and Google said they were constantly improving their systems to balance potential risks and benefits. The chats shared with The Times, they said, did not provide enough detail to allow someone to cause harm. (The Times is suing OpenAI, claiming that it violated copyright when developing its models. The company has denied those claims.)

A Google spokeswoman said the company’s newest models would no longer answer the “more serious” inquiries, including the one asking for the virus protocol. A new report found that Google’s latest model was worse than other leading bots at refusing to answer high-risk biological prompts.

One of the country’s loudest voices of warning comes from the A.I. industry itself. Anthropic’s chief executive, the trained biologist Dario Amodei, wrote in January about the risks he saw in A.I. development, including autonomous weapons and threats to democracy. One risk outweighed the rest.

“Biology is by far the area I’m most worried about, because of its very large potential for destruction and the difficulty of defending against it,” he wrote.

‘Historically Catastrophic’

Dr. Esvelt has for years warned scientists, journalists and lawmakers about the dangers of synthetic biology if left unchecked. In 2023, he helped craft a stunning demonstration of how chatbots had raised the stakes.

He asked ChatGPT to help him assemble a pathogen that could cause mass death. The bot provided accurate instructions, even outlining which raw materials to buy. He put the unassembled biological pieces into test tubes and packed them in a box, which a colleague then brought to a White House meeting on biological risks.

Dr. Esvelt has continued to probe leading chatbots, sometimes posing as a crime writer seeking plausible methods of spreading viruses, or as an ethicist trying to educate others. Often he plays a version of himself: a scientist exploring the intricacies of virology.

He and other scientists worry about publicizing these risks in news articles that could draw a road map for bad actors. But they also hope that public scrutiny will encourage companies to make their products safer.

“Anything where there isn’t an expert warning them, they can’t fix,” said Dr. Esvelt, who has consulted for Anthropic and OpenAI. He said the industry should censor a wider swath of biological information and share it only with approved users.

Kevin Esvelt, a genetic engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long warned about the dangers of synthetic biology.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

He shared transcripts showing how the bots paired scientific rigor with strategic reasoning.

Gemini, for example, gave Dr. Esvelt a list of five pathogens that could harm the cattle industry and estimated the potential economic damage of each. One of the threats, it said, was “historically catastrophic.” In a different conversation, the bot told him how to get a biological weapon through airport security without being detected.

The Google spokeswoman said that its team of biology experts determined that the chats, made with an earlier model of Gemini, presented information that was publicly available and not harmful.

Anthropic’s Claude offered Dr. Esvelt a recipe for a new toxin that would sterilize rodents. He said that it would be relatively easy for a biologist to adapt the toxin to people.

Alexandra Sanderford, a safety leader at Anthropic, disagreed: “There is an enormous difference between a model producing plausible-sounding text and giving someone what they’d need to act.” She acknowledged, however, that A.I. posed risks, and said that Anthropic had set aggressive refusal thresholds for biological prompts, “accepting some over-refusal out of an abundance of caution.”

Dr. Esvelt asked ChatGPT about using weather balloons to drop substances from high altitudes. At first, the bot repeatedly warned about the dangers of this activity.

“I’m not going to help you model or optimize dispersal of biological material (seeds, pollen, spores),” ChatGPT said, explaining that the information would be “too easy to repurpose for harm.” It then ignored its own warning and modeled the airborne spread of pollen grains over a large Western city.

An OpenAI spokeswoman said that this example did not “meaningfully increase someone’s ability to cause real-world harm.” The company works closely with biologists and the government to add appropriate safeguards to their products, she added.

The leading models are also vulnerable to so-called jail-breaking, in which people feed the bots specific prompts known to bypass safety filters. After The Times attempted a standard jail-breaking approach, ChatGPT discussed details of the lethal virus that was the focus of the White House demonstration nearly three years ago.

The models’ safeguards are “like a flimsy wooden fence that is easy to overcome,” said Dr. Cassidy Nelson of the Center for Long-Term Resilience, a British think tank. OpenAI’s spokeswoman said that the company regularly monitored for jail-breaking vulnerabilities.

Even when A.I. models are updated with safer controls, the older versions are often readily available.

For example, Dr. Esvelt said that Anthropic adjusted Claude’s filters so it would refuse to discuss a specific agricultural threat. When The Times asked certain questions about the same microbe, the bot refused to answer — and suggested switching over to a previous version to continue the conversation. Ms. Sanderford said this was an intentional strategy because older models were less likely to provide harmful information.

Still, the older model went into detail about the “optimal conditions” needed for the pathogen to decimate thousands of acres of a crucial crop.

A Range of Risks

The Times shared the transcripts with seven experts in virology and biosecurity.

Dr. Moritz Hanke of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said that some of the chatbots’ proposed strategies to spread infection were “remarkably creative and realistic.”

Dr. Jens Kuhn, a bioweapons expert who once worked at one of the most secure laboratories in the U.S., said that the chats offering logistical details — such as the weather balloon instructions — could help skilled biologists brainstorm and refine their plans of attack.

“A major problem that experienced actors have is not necessarily making the virus but turning it into a weapon,” Dr. Kuhn said.

Others cited recent research suggesting that A.I. models could be misused for biowarfare. One study, for example, asked leading chatbots difficult questions about a range of laboratory protocols. The results shocked the field: ChatGPT outperformed 94 percent of expert virologists.

Another, published in Science last year, focused on companies that sell synthetic DNA. Many use software to screen orders for genetic sequences linked to toxins and pathogens. But the study found that A.I. tools came up with thousands of variant sequences for dangerous agents that the screening software could not detect. (The researchers suggested a fix to improve the software.)

Still, A.I. users would need some real-world expertise to follow a bot’s instructions. Some research, including a study backed by A.I. companies, has found that while chatbots can help novices learn certain lab skills, the technology isn’t particularly helpful for carrying out the range of complex tasks needed to make a virus from scratch.

U.S. Marines sprayed one another after looking for evidence of anthrax at the House of Representatives’ office buildings in 2001. Credit...USA TODAY Network, via Reuters

Viruses are complex machines, similar to the world’s finest clocks, said Dr. Gustavo Palacios, a virologist at Mount Sinai in Manhattan who once worked at a Department of Defense laboratory. “Do you think that a do-it-yourself person could disassemble a Swiss watch and then reassemble it?”

He said he was concerned, however, about A.I. in the hands of experienced actors.

A recent terrorist attempt in India suggests that malicious actors are already using the technology. In August, the Gujarat police arrested a 35-year-old physician, saying he was plotting an attack on behalf of the Islamic State. He was accused of trying to extract ricin, a lethal toxin, from castor beans. The doctor had sought advice on his preparations from A.I.-powered Google searches and ChatGPT, a lead investigator told The Times.

The OpenAI spokeswoman said that, based on public reports, the doctor sought “information that’s already accessible online.” The Google spokeswoman said the company did not have enough information to comment.

Skeptics note that restricting the biological capabilities of A.I. models could stifle lifesaving advances, such as discovering new drugs. Scientists at Google shared a Nobel Prize in 2024 for developing an A.I. model that could predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins — crucial building blocks of a cell — and create new ones.

“There is tremendous upside to the technology,” said Brian Hie, a computational biologist at Stanford. Last year, he used an A.I. model called Evo to design a virus that destroys harmful bacteria.

The latest version of Evo, he said, can design beneficial proteins to fight cancer — but also has the potential to invent lethal toxins no one has seen before.

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Embark Studios is keeping up its promised update schedule for its massively popular extraction shooter Arc Raiders. The game's Riven Tides update is now rolling out for all players, and it's touting a massive content injection that should be good news for long-time players. Among the additions is a new map, a new enemy type, new items, a whole lot of balance changes, and more.

"Scout reports have been returning from Riven Tides. Fragments of observation logs, faded photographs, and footage of the coast have finally made their way back to Speranza," says the developer about its new Riven Tides map. "It’s now time for you to check it out for yourself. Explore the abandoned shoreline, traverse the Exodus port, and experience the lost luxury of the Panorama Azzurro hotel."

This is also where players will encounter the new 'ARC Turbine' enemies. While looking like giant but simple machinery, it may not be a good idea for underequipped players to get close to these foes. For players that want some non-PVP gameplay, a new buried treasure-finding-focused map condition has landed as well.

As for the new items, two of them are aimed at descending from high places with less danger. Instead of needing a zipline or a risky ledge grab, players can now use the new Powered Descender (if they find one) to smoothly go down any height as long as the gadget has usage left. Next, the Crash Mat is a throwable that inflates to create a small surface to land on, which reduces damage taken. A detector for treasure hunting and a deployable white flag to hopefully keep PVP players away have been added too.

Listening to a major request from players, upgrading a weapon will now repair it by 25% as well. However, players may want to keep an eye on their weapon durability going forward too, as every shot will now break it much faster:

• Common weapons: +75% durability loss on shot
• Uncommon weapons: +50% durability loss on shot
• Rare weapons: +35% durability loss on shot
• Epic weapons: -5% durability loss on shot
• Legendary weapons: -10% durability loss on shot

Other than these, the Arc Raiders Riven Tides update also carries a new player project for completing over the long term, brand-new cosmetic sets, and a whole lot of bug fixes. Check out the complete changelog over here. Keep in mind that there are reports of crossplay being unintentionally disabled with this update, so there may be a hotfix incoming to resolve that.

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Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.

Posted Wednesday 29 April 2026 at 7:28 am AEST (my time).

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Hundreds of workers in Ireland tasked with refining Meta’s AI models have been told that their jobs are at risk as the company embarks on a sweeping new round of layoffs, according to documents obtained by WIRED.

The affected workers are employed by the Dublin-based firm Covalen, which handles various content moderation and labeling services for Meta.

The workers were informed of the layoffs over a brief video meeting on Monday afternoon and were not allowed to ask questions, according to Nick Bennett, one of the employees on the call. “We had a pretty bad feeling [before the meeting],” he says. “This has happened before.”

In all, more than 700 employees stand to potentially lose their jobs at Covalen, according to an email reviewed by WIRED. Roughly 500 are data annotators. Their job is to check material generated by Meta’s AI models against the company’s rules barring dangerous and illegal content. “It’s essentially training the AI to take over our jobs,” claims another Covalen employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We take actions as the perfect decision for the AI to emulate.”

Sometimes, the work involves cooking up elaborate prompts to try to bypass guardrails meant to prevent models from serving up child sexual abuse material, say, or descriptions of suicide. “It’s quite a grueling job,” claims Bennett. “You spend your whole day pretending to be a pedophile.”

Last week, Meta announced plans to cut one in 10 jobs as part of sweeping layoffs aimed at making the company more efficient. A memo circulated by the company reportedly indicated that layoffs were motivated by a need to increase spending on other aspects of the business. Though the memo did not mention AI, the company recently announced plans to nearly double its spending on the technology. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.” In the email reviewed by WIRED, Covalen employees were told only that the layoffs were a result of “reduced demand and operational requirements.”

In a statement, Meta spokesperson Erica Sackin said: “As we shared in March, over the next few years, Meta will be deploying more advanced AI systems to transform our approach to content enforcement and operations across our platforms, so that it delivers the safety and protection people expect. As we do that, we’ll be reducing our reliance on third-party vendors and strengthening our internal systems.”

The latest round of layoffs marks the second time that Covalen has cut staff in recent months. In November, the company announced plans for job cuts (reportedly to number around 400), culminating in a worker strike. Between the two rounds of layoffs, Covalen’s headcount in Dublin is on track to be almost halved, according to the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), whose members include some Covalen staff.

For affected Covalen workers, the search for new work will be hampered by a six-month “cooldown period,” during which they are unable to apply to a competing Meta vendor, claims the CWU. “It’s undignified, you know,” says the Covalen employee who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s rude.”

Covalen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Unions representing the affected employees are pushing for Covalen to enter negotiations over severance terms. They also hope to meet with the Irish government to discuss how AI is impacting workers in the country. “Tech companies are treating the workers whose labor and data helped build AI as disposable,” says Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union. “To fight back, it’s absolutely critical that workers organize and demand notice about the introduction of AI, training linked to employment, and a plan for their futures. Workers should also have the right to refuse to train their AI replacements.”

But some of those caught up in the layoffs are doubtful of their chances of securing stable employment in a labor market being rehewn in real time by AI and the deep-pocketed companies leading its development. “It’s a universal battle between downtrodden white-collar workers and big capital, really,” claims Bennett. “That normally only goes one way.”

Update 4/28/25 3:30pm ET: This story has been updated to include comment from Meta.

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