News: Technology News

The Ultimate AIO Buyers Guide for Beginners! [Video]

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:46:07 +0000

JayzTwoCents (4.12M subscribers)

November 27, 2024

Video length: 26m 16s

AIOs used to be a simple purchase, but now with so many variations available it can become overwhelming to try and choose the right cooler... Today we discuss what is important, and what isnt regarding todays AIOs.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Flight Simulator 2024 reliability now at "99.999%", two more updates landing soon

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:43:37 +0000

When Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 released a week ago, its servers decided to crash land under the pressure of the massive amount of players trying to enter the sim's digital Earth. The development team at Asobo managed to wrangle things at least half-way online with a queue system a day later, but it took until the weekend for some stability and crash fixes to hit the experience.

Now, the team is confident about the game and its server performance. In an update posted on the official website, the head of Microsoft Flight Simulator development team Jorg Neumann posted a message with details on the current status of the sim as well as what updates are being planned for it.

"We are happy to report that the issues regarding access and streaming have been resolved," says Neumann. "The distribution layer capacity has been increased to handle the immense interest in the simulator and the reliability is now above 99.999%. Our servers and services are also all performing as expected."

One of the features Flight Sim 2024 touts is backward compatibility with almost all marketplace content from the 2020 edition of the simulator. However, the studio says that reports of 3rd party add-ons causing "significant" issues are coming from the community. As these issues are being looked into, the studio is disabling all non-aircraft content from Flight Sim 2020 in the 2024 edition for the time being.

The team will also have a new patch landing with stability improvements and bug fixes in the first week of December. Following that, another update landing on the second week of December. This will contain the previously announced ability to disable/enable owned content as well as a safe boot option for restarting after a crash.

Check out the known issues list for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 across Xbox Series X|S and PC platforms here.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

UK adults' daily internet time has increased since last year, says report

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:43:01 +0000

UK's telecom regulator Ofcom (Office of Communication) has supplied new data about what people do online and how much time they spend browsing the internet. In its Online Nation 2024 report, the agency revealed that UK adults spend an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes daily on the internet using devices like smartphones, computers, and tablets.

Almost half of the time UK adults spend online daily is on services owned by Meta or Alphabet. The latter has the biggest footprint, as virtually all online adults (99%) visit at least one of its services every day. YouTube alone is visited by around 94% of online adults, with an average screen time of 49 minutes per day.

On the other hand, all of Meta's top three services (Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram) combined are frequented visited by about 70% of UK online adults. Meanwhile, about 91% of online adults visit Facebook and Messenger each day, with an average of 39 minutes spent.

While adults might spend about 16% of their day online, the younger Britons aged between 18 to 24 take the lead with a daily average of 6 hours and 1 minute. Senior citizens aged 65 and above spend an average of 3 hours and 10 minutes online.

With that said, the internet time of UK online adults has increased by about 18% compared to last year, when it was 3 hours and 41 minutes. The latest report notes that women across all ages spend more time online than men.

While the internet keeps us connected to the world, about two-thirds (67%) of online adults think that, for them, the "benefits of being online outweigh the risks." The percentage of people who think that way has decreased from 71% in 2023, but only 40% of adults feel that the internet is good for society.

Compared to older people, young adults are less likely to agree that they have a good balance between their online and offline lives. The report found that being online can help adults with opportunities for connection, education, and creativity. About 72% of adults could learn a new skill, and 77% said internet access broadened their understanding or view of the world.

One of Ofcom's surveys shows that children's concerns about growing online time increases with age. About 35% of 8 to 9-year-olds and 51% of 13 to 15-year-olds reported concerns about their time spent on at least one service type.

Almost half of the children are also worried about the mental and physical health effects of too much internet usage. Speaking of harms, misinformation registered its presence, and about 39% of users aged 13+ reported seeing something that made them feel uncomfortable, upset or negative in the last four weeks (June 2024).

While services have increased their efforts to verify user age, the report notes that one in five 8 to 15-year-olds misreported their age as at least 18 on a social media platform. On the internet, teen boys are more likely to come across content that shows dangerous stunts. Meanwhile, teen girls might see potential harms relating to body image.

Google remains the undefeated winner in the search engine category, and ChatGPT has bagged the top spot in the race for the most popular generative AI tool. Many people who use a generative AI tool use it for "finding information or content," however, a minority has second thoughts about reliability.

Reddit has become the fastest-growing platform in the social media space in the UK, with a year-over-year growth of 47%, and reached over half of UK online adults by June 2024. Meanwhile, Meta's newest social network, Threads, became the 12th most popular social media service, reaching 5.3 million UK adults by July 2024.

Source and image: Ofcom

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Microsoft is being investigated by the FTC over antitrust concerns

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 02:59:45 +0000

It’s not clear what could happen to the probe once Trump appoints a new chair and Republican commissioner.

Microsoft is being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission in a wide-ranging antitrust probe, making it the fifth Big Tech company to fall under such scrutiny in several years.

The agency is looking into Microsoft’s cloud and software licensing business, cybersecurity services, and AI offerings. Bloomberg first reported the news and The Verge confirmed the investigation with a person familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak to a confidential probe.

The demand for information that spans hundreds of pages and culminates over a year of informal discussions with Microsoft competitors and partners. One focus is on how Microsoft bundles productivity and security software with its Azure cloud, per the source. The FTC’s interest in Microsoft’s cloud business picked up in the wake of several security incidents impacting its products, particularly because Microsoft is a top supplier of software to US government agencies. The FTC and Microsoft both declined to comment.

The government Cyber Safety Review Board concluded earlier this year that “Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul, particularly in light of the company’s centrality in the technology ecosystem.” Soon after, CEO Satya Nadella issued a memo to employees saying, “If you’re faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security.”

If the FTC brought a lawsuit against the company, it would put Microsoft back into a familiar position, if one from a bygone era. The company faced an anti-monopoly lawsuit from the Department of Justice in the late ‘90s over the bundling of its web browser and Windows operating system. But in recent years Microsoft has mostly escaped the kind of antitrust scrutiny applied to Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google, each of which is fighting its own monopoly charges from the government.

Still, a Democratic majority on the FTC is set to change soon when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in January. He will likely choose one of the agency’s current two Republican commissioners to serve as acting chair, and will ultimately get to nominate a new chair or commissioner to the agency who aligns with his viewpoints. It’s not out of the question they’d continue the probe, however — since Trump’s last DOJ and FTC respectively filed antitrust suits against Google and Meta.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Google’s plan to keep AI out of search trial remedies isn’t going very well

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 02:58:51 +0000

Judge: AI will likely play “larger role” in Google search remedies as market shifts.

Google got some disappointing news at a status conference Tuesday, where US District Judge Amit Mehta suggested that Google's AI products may be restricted as an appropriate remedy following the government's win in the search monopoly trial.

According to Law360, Mehta said that "the recent emergence of AI products that are intended to mimic the functionality of search engines" is rapidly shifting the search market. Because the judge is now weighing preventive measures to combat Google's anticompetitive behavior, the judge wants to hear much more about how each side views AI's role in Google's search empire during the remedies stage of litigation than he did during the search trial.

"AI and the integration of AI is only going to play a much larger role, it seems to me, in the remedy phase than it did in the liability phase," Mehta said. "Is that because of the remedies being requested? Perhaps. But is it also potentially because the market that we have all been discussing has shifted?"

To fight the DOJ's proposed remedies, Google is seemingly dragging its major AI rivals into the trial. Trying to prove that remedies would harm Google's ability to compete, the tech company is currently trying to pry into Microsoft's AI deals, including its $13 billion investment in OpenAI, Law360 reported. At least preliminarily, Mehta has agreed that information Google is seeking from rivals has "core relevance" to the remedies litigation, Law360 reported.

The DOJ has asked for a wide range of remedies to stop Google from potentially using AI to entrench its market dominance in search and search text advertising. They include a ban on exclusive agreements with publishers to train on content, which the DOJ fears might allow Google to block AI rivals from licensing data, potentially posing a barrier to entry in both markets. Under the proposed remedies, Google would also face restrictions on investments in or acquisitions of AI products, as well as mergers with AI companies.

Additionally, the DOJ wants Mehta to stop Google from any potential self-preferencing, such as making an AI product mandatory on Android devices Google controls or preventing a rival from distribution on Android devices.

The government seems very concerned that Google may use its ownership of Android to play games in the emerging AI sector. They've further recommended an order preventing Google from discouraging partners from working with rivals, degrading the quality of rivals' AI products on Android devices, or otherwise "coercing" manufacturers or other Android partners into giving Google's AI products "better treatment."

Importantly, if the court orders AI remedies linked to Google's control of Android, Google could risk a forced sale of Android if Mehta grants the DOJ's request for "contingent structural relief" requiring divestiture of Android if behavioral remedies don't destroy the current monopolies.

Finally, the government wants Google to be required to allow publishers to opt out of AI training without impacting their search rankings. (Currently, opting out of AI scraping automatically opts sites out of Google search indexing.)

All of this, the DOJ alleged, is necessary to clear the way for a thriving search market as AI stands to shake up the competitive landscape.

"The promise of new technologies, including advances in artificial intelligence (AI), may present an opportunity for fresh competition," the DOJ said in a court filing. "But only a comprehensive set of remedies can thaw the ecosystem and finally reverse years of anticompetitive effects."

At the status conference Tuesday, DOJ attorney David Dahlquist reiterated to Mehta that these remedies are needed so that Google's illegal conduct in search doesn't extend to this "new frontier" of search, Law360 reported. Dahlquist also clarified that the DOJ views these kinds of AI products "as new access points for search, rather than a whole new market."

"We're very concerned about Google's conduct being a barrier to entry," Dahlquist said.

Google could not immediately be reached for comment. But the search giant has maintained that AI is beyond the scope of the search trial.

During the status conference, Google attorney John E. Schmidtlein disputed that AI remedies are relevant. While he agreed that "AI is key to the future of search," he warned that "extraordinary" proposed remedies would "hobble" Google's AI innovation, Law360 reported.

Microsoft shields confidential AI deals

Microsoft is predictably protective of its AI deals, arguing in a court filing that its "highly confidential agreements with OpenAI, Perplexity AI, Inflection, and G42 are not relevant to the issues being litigated" in the Google trial.

According to Microsoft, Google is arguing that it needs this information to “shed light" on things like "the extent to which the OpenAI partnership has driven new traffic to Bing and otherwise affected Microsoft’s competitive standing" or what's required by "terms upon which Bing powers functionality incorporated into Perplexity’s search service."

These insights, Google seemingly hopes, will convince Mehta that Google's AI deals and investments are the norm in the AI search sector. But Microsoft is currently blocking access, arguing that "Google has done nothing to explain why" it "needs access to the terms of Microsoft’s highly confidential agreements with other third parties" when Microsoft has already offered to share documents "regarding the distribution and competitive position" of its AI products.

Microsoft also opposes Google's attempts to review how search click-and-query data is used to train OpenAI's models. Those requests would be better directed at OpenAI, Microsoft said.

If Microsoft gets its way, Google's discovery requests will be limited to just Microsoft's content licensing agreements for Copilot. Microsoft alleged those are the only deals "related to the general search or the general search text advertising markets" at issue in the trial.

On Tuesday, Microsoft attorney Julia Chapman told Mehta that Microsoft had "agreed to provide documents about the data used to train its own AI model and also raised concerns about the competitive sensitivity of Microsoft's agreements with AI companies," Law360 reported.

It remains unclear at this time if OpenAI will be forced to give Google the click-and-query data Google seeks. At the status hearing, Mehta ordered OpenAI to share "financial statements, information about the training data for ChatGPT, and assessments of the company's competitive position," Law360 reported.

But the DOJ may also be interested in seeing that data. In their proposed final judgment, the government forecasted that "query-based AI solutions" will "provide the most likely long-term path for a new generation of search competitors."

Because of that prediction, any remedy "must prevent Google from frustrating or circumventing" court-ordered changes "by manipulating the development and deployment of new technologies like query-based AI solutions." Emerging rivals "will depend on the absence of anticompetitive constraints to evolve into full-fledged competitors and competitive threats," the DOJ alleged.

Mehta seemingly wants to see the evidence supporting the DOJ's predictions, which could end up exposing carefully guarded secrets of both Google's and its biggest rivals' AI deals.

On Tuesday, the judge noted that integration of AI into search engines had already evolved what search results pages look like. And from his "very layperson's perspective," it seems like AI's integration into search engines will continue moving "very quickly," as both parties seem to agree.

Whether he buys into the DOJ's theory that Google could use its existing advantage as the world's greatest gatherer of search query data to block rivals from keeping pace is still up in the air, but the judge seems moved by the DOJ's claim that "AI has the ability to affect market dynamics in these industries today as well as tomorrow."

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Breaking down the DOJ’s plan to end Google’s search monopoly

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 17:29:35 +0000

Next year, a court might tell Google to do anything from syndicating its search results to selling the Chrome browser. These remedies and more were included in a request last week from the Justice Department, which is aiming to break up Google’s search monopoly.

The DOJ’s proposals clued in the public to what the government really wants out of Google. Though the complaint was filed in 2020, the first phase of the trial focused only on whether Google was liable for the antitrust harms the government alleged. After Judge Amit Mehta ruled this summer that Google is an illegal monopolist in general search services and search text advertising, the government has finally laid out its plan for how to restore competition, with proposals ranging from relatively simple tweaks in business practices to large structural changes.

The remedies the DOJ is seeking “would imperil Google’s ability to compete in its core business of search and search advertising,” says David Halliday, teaching associate professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington School of Business. Judge Mehta accepting these remedies wouldn’t be “quite as big a deal as breaking up Standard Oil, but this would be a bigger deal, I think, than breaking up AT&T.”

If Mehta accepts only some of these proposals after a two-week trial in April, Google might be in better shape. But it could still see billions of dollars shaved off its empire. And according to experts watching the case, attention-grabbing options like a Chrome sale may not be the biggest threat to Google’s power.

Selling Chrome

The DOJ says that Google should be forced to sell Chrome because, as the largest browser by market share, it serves as a critical access point for search. It’s installed by default on Android phones and captures around 60 percent of the US browser market.

The goal here is to keep Google from owning a crucial gatekeeping platform that it can use to funnel users to its own search engine and steer them away from others. In practice, the proposal raises a lot of questions about how a sale would impact the web.

There are several options for potential buyers: Rumble, the anti-“cancel culture” video platform, has already declared its interest. Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech analyst Mandeep Singh says most other big tech companies that might want it, like Amazon and Meta, would likely be blocked as potential antitrust threats. Apple might be an exception, Singh says, if the government wants to incentivize it developing a rival search engine — something Google highly discouraged with a lucrative revenue-sharing deal. (That said, Apple already owns a major browser, which would consolidate the tech market in a different way.) Depending on who buys Chrome, the court could also approve conditions that constrain how a buyer leverages it.

Outside the standard big tech players, Chrome could also be valuable to large language model companies like OpenAI or Anthropic, where it could provide a distribution channel for their AI chatbots. “Chrome as an independent entity doesn’t generate any revenue,” Singh notes — its value lies in having a huge audience to monetize. So plugging it into another search-based product, especially if the DOJ wins other remedies like data-sharing rules, is a likely prospect.

Will this actually create a better, more competitive environment for search engines? Or will it just give another company (perhaps even a massive one like Microsoft, which works closely with OpenAI) its own anti-competitive advantage? “There is definitely an issue about whether you’re just simply transferring a valuable asset from one company where these assets are too tightly integrated, to another company,” says Shubha Ghosh, director of the Intellectual Property Law Institute at Syracuse University. DuckDuckGo SVP of public affairs Kamyl Bazbaz says the judge and DOJ “should be thoughtful about how to make sure that a sale doesn’t result in creating another space that’s hard to compete for all search engines.”

But even if a company like OpenAI can tie a browser with its search product, Singh says it wouldn’t necessarily have the same impact on the market. “When you think about the time spent on the internet as an aggregate, Google still has the most time spent,” thanks to everything from YouTube to Gmail, says Singh. That makes it a unique powerhouse for advertising — which is, fundamentally, how search engines (and likely, eventually, some AI services) make money. “You can’t replicate engagement.”

The DOJ says Google would also need to spin out its open-source browser project Chromium — which helps power the Brave, Opera, and Microsoft Edge browsers — as part of the Chrome sale. The nonpartisan Consumer Choice Center has expressed concern over this outcome, saying it could put the project “in jeopardy.” Singh seems less concerned, saying the open-source project may “take its own course,” but that’s still a significant risk for browser makers that rely on it.

Depending on what restrictions a buyer faces, Chrome could offer a huge distribution channel for whatever other products they offer. For consumers, the browser experience will likely depend on who ends up buying it — a company that already has a savvy browser-building team like Apple or a company or group without that specialized experience, like a private equity firm.

Selling off Chrome won’t necessarily mean its users stop going to google.com, whose name has been synonymous with “search engine” for decades. “I think Google Search will still be the most visited page,” says Singh. “But it’s just the ad business. When you think about why the ads shown on Google are so effective, Chrome is a big part of that.”

Avoiding self-preferencing

The Chrome sale is part of a larger project: stopping Google from using all its many tools and platforms to unfairly promote each other. The government says Google should be barred in particular from preferencing its search engine on other services — that means avoiding things like making Google Search mandatory on Android or degrading the quality of competing products there.

“Google would essentially be forbidden from managing a search engine that did anything other than collect people who went to google.com or set their preferences as google.com,” says Halliday. “It would actually allow all of their competitors much more flexibility than Google.”

The DOJ wants the judge to prohibit Google from doing things like giving its own search, search text ads, or AI products “preferential access to Android or Google-owned apps or data” relative to competitors. That means Google couldn’t do things like make its Gemini AI product mandatory on Android devices or degrade the quality of rival products on Android.

Selling precious data

The demand that Google sell Chrome might be the DOJ’s most eye-catching proposal, but another section could be an even bigger deal. The government wants Google to syndicate the very data its search engine is built upon — disrupting a self-reinforcing cycle that helps Google stay on top.

The DOJ says that as Google gobbled up access points to search engines, its huge volume of search queries gave it another advantage. It’s got more information than any competitor about which search results people find useful, and the government argues that makes it impossible for anyone to catch up. The result is that Google faces little competitive pressure to keep making its service better — which, even if it’s got the best search engine in the business, may end up making users’ experience worse. (If you don’t like AI summaries injected on top of your search results, for instance, do you want the engine using them to be the only game in town?)

The government’s proposal would (in theory) change that. For 10 years, the DOJ wants Google to syndicate its search results, ranking signals, and query data to competitors at a marginal cost. That kind of information could let competing search engines like Microsoft’s Bing or DuckDuckGo very quickly improve their products. If that happens, search engines’ competitive edge would likely center more around the additional product features they offer — anything from privacy to user interface details.

Singh called the DOJ’s search results remedy “the strongest” of all the proposals. Google has been able to build up a robust moat through its extensive data collection over the years, Singh says, so “if you make that search index available to everyone, then potentially, you could see more competition in search as a result of that.”

Google will make money from syndicating this data, but Singh says it won’t outweigh losing its huge advantage in search. He predicts it could cut Google’s search revenue by up to 10 percent, comparing the impact to Meta’s $10 billion revenue hit after Apple started requiring stricter privacy settings on iOS.

“If that were to happen, suddenly your LLM search companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Perplexity, these guys will be a formidable competitor in search,” Singh says. “The reason why people go to Google Search is because their search indexes are just the best.”

Ordering so-called behavioral remedies is far more likely than a breakup and still quite threatening to Google’s bottom line, according to Bloomberg Intelligence litigation analysts Matthew Schettenhelm and Jennifer Rie. “A behavioral order is likely to result in loss of the default position and market share,” they write in a recent research note. “The ultimate impacts will depend on the injunction’s scope and subsequent user behavior,” but they predict a possible net loss upwards of $28 billion. While Google plans to appeal the ruling, Schettenhelm and Rie predict that the DC District Court decision will be upheld, calling it “well-reasoned, thorough and based on a straightforward antitrust framework.”

It may sound surprising for the government to make Google license some of its most valuable data, but Ghosh says it’s possible. “Data is not really protected, per se, by intellectual property,” he says. “It’s not like Google created the data. They created the platform that allowed the data to be generated.” It’s like asking who owns a news event, he adds. “The news is just what happens, and you just have an agency that collects it or observes it. But that doesn’t by itself create any kind of property right.”

That said, Halliday notes that syndication fees will still almost certainly make Google rich. “By rich, I mean less rich than today,” he says, “but still very, very rich compared to other companies.”

Goodbye to exclusionary search deals

Perhaps the most straightforward request is a ban on Google striking exclusionary contracts for preferred placement of its search products on browsers and phones. Google would be banned from entering revenue-share agreements to distribute its search product or offer anything of value to Apple, Android phone-makers, or browser companies for any kind of default preinstallation or preferred placement. That means an end to things like its multibillion-dollar deal with Apple for prime placement on Safari for macOS and iOS.

This isn’t surprising given how much of the trial focused on that Apple revenue-sharing deal. But ironically, Google may actually benefit from some of these changes. “Even if you prevent these contracts from being done between companies and introduce a bidding mechanism, there may not be any other bidder that is willing to pay $20 billion to Apple,” says Singh. “In that case, if anything, the traffic acquisition costs may go down for Alphabet, and people may still use Google because it has the brand and these habits are hard to change. And so that may actually be a net benefit to Google.”

Halliday says prohibiting Google’s default agreement for Apple is “probably a wash at the end for Google” since it gets to save the money it spent there. But it would likely still impact Google’s revenue by reducing the number of people searching on its service.

The proposed judgment would require choice screens on Chrome and Android for users to select their preferred search engine. This kind of remedy has been tried as an antitrust remedy in Europe, where it’s reportedly had little impact on Google’s market share. But some proponents have pinned the blame on how Google implemented it, something an independent committee could review here. The state plaintiffs led by Colorado are also requesting Google fund a national education program that will inform consumers about the remedies. That could even include “short-term incentive payments to users who voluntarily choose a non-Google default GSE [general search engine] on a Choice Screen.”

While competitors to Google Search and Chrome would certainly benefit from many of the remedies, Mozilla — which runs the Firefox browser and relies massively on payments from Google — warns that the DOJ’s proposal could “unnecessarily impact browser competition.” Mozilla spokesperson Brandon Borrman says in a statement that “as written, the remedies will harm independent browsers without material benefit to search competition.” During the trial, Google pointed out that Firefox actually did switch to Yahoo search at one point — only to come back to Google after users hated it.

But DuckDuckGo’s Bazbaz says the industry could see “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The theory goes that, over time, ad revenue would follow other search engines as they increase in size, helping their revenue-share payments to distribution channels like Mozilla make up for the large payments it would lose from Google. And Apple in particular could have a greater incentive to develop its own search competitor without the exclusive agreement, something the government has frequently emphasized.

More transparency for advertisers

Judge Mehta also found Google maintained an illegal monopoly in the search text ads market, charging more than a reasonable competitive price for ads while degrading their quality. To remedy that, the government is proposing that Google give advertisers more transparency and control. Under the proposal, Google would have to give advertisers more insight into their ad performance and costs and give them more options in how their ads are targeted. Google would also have to let advertisers export their search text ad data, making it easier to switch to rivals.

What about Android?

There’s one demand the government notably didn’t make: forcing Google to sell Android. But it says the option should be available should Google fail to comply with other remedies or if these remedies prove less effective than anticipated.

“Google is going to have a lot of incentives to not comply,” says Adam Epstein, president and co-CEO of adMarketplace, a search advertising marketplace. “That really is where the ball game is going to get won or lost for the consumer and the advertisers and the publishers.“ In that case, an Android sell-off is one of the final cards the DOJ could play.

Like Chrome, Google’s Android mobile operating system serves as an important access point for search. Losing Android, Singh says, would “really hit them in the gut,” since it’s where Google gets so much of its mobile distribution. It would put its dominance in search up for grabs in a new way.

“The only silver lining here for Alphabet is the DOJ is talking about a forced sale of Chrome and not Android,” says Singh. “[The] operating system is way, way more important than anything else for a tech company,” he says. “[The] operating system is the core of distribution.”

Even if the DOJ gets everything else it wants, Google isn’t likely to fall out of its position as a big tech company. “As long as they have their crown jewels — like YouTube, and Android, and Google Search — as long as they’re part of one entity, they will always be among the best companies.”

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Gamers Nexus - HW News - Intel Selling Offices, B580 GPU Leak, 5090 Imminent, & AMD 9950X3D Rumors [Video]

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 07:13:31 +0000

Gamers Nexus (2.3M subscribers)

November 27, 224

Video length: 21m 35s

00:00 - Recapping the Week

01:28 - ASRock Leaks Intel's GPU Plans

03:02 - Intel's Real Estate Spiral

07:11 - Threadripper Zen 5 Rumors

08:22 - RTX 40 Supply Limitations

09:38 - RTX 50 Series Rumors

11:44 - TSMC Can't Make 2nm Abroad

13:22 - ZeniMax Strike

16:13 - Solidigm's 122TB SSD

17:53 - Intel Penalized in CHIPS Act Funding

19:13 - Sony PlayStation Handheld Rumors

20:00 - 9950X3D & 9900X3D January Rumors

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Next Witcher saga is now in full-scale production, CD Projekt confirms

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 02:58:21 +0000

CD Projekt had some news to share for fans of The Witcher franchise today during its latest financial report release. It revealed that the next game in the franchise is now in full production, kicking off the development of the upcoming trilogy of RPG experiences.

"I’m proud to confirm that several weeks ago the Polaris team wrapped up pre-production and moved on to full-scale production – the most intensive phase of development," says CD Projekt RED joint CEO Michał Nowakowski. "We are very pleased with our progress on this project, and I wish to thank the team for its dedication."

As for what exactly that means, the CEO explained that the targets and plans set in pre-production will now be filled in during the full development phase, "It's a super oversimplification of course, but this is really what entering the production phase means," he adds. "We have a big chunk of game made that proves certain concepts, and now we can populate the whole game per plan."

The series' new director, Sebastian Kalemba, shared the news on social media:

The company gave an update on how its developer numbers are split across its projects too. First off, the new trilogy currently has 400 staff attached to it, which may go up later as production ramps up.

Next, 64 developers are working on Project Orion, the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel that is being worked on by the CD Projekt RED North America wing. Next, The Molasses Flood-developed The Witcher spin-off has 42 staff attached to it, while 18 members are working on a mysterious new IP codenamed Hadar.

The company also announced today that Cyberpunk 2077 has now sold over 30 million copies in under four years, while its expansion is now at eight million copies sold.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Cyberpunk 2077 sales hit 30 million, expansion at 8 million

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 02:57:12 +0000

CD Projekt RED's latest RPG may have had a controversial launch, but it has gone on to become the studio's second-best-selling game ever, only settling behind The Witcher 3 for now. During its latest financial results publishing process, the company revealed that over 30 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077 have now been sold.

It's not just the base game that's crossing major sales milestones either, with its spy-thriller expansion Phantom Liberty already selling over 8 million copies.

"In less than four years since release we’ve already sold 30 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077, and as for Phantom Liberty – in just over a year it has sold over 8 million copies," says CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski. "These are impressive figures. I’m very happy to see a large, dedicated community coalesce around our Cyberpunk games."

The game is slated to join a brand-new platform soon, too. A month ago, CD Projekt and Apple announced that Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion will be released on Apple Silicon devices in 2025.

As for continuing the franchise, CD Projekt RED has been working on a full-fledged sequel since 2022. Being made using Unreal Engine 5, the title, internally known as Project Orion, has a team of industry veterans working on it under the CD Projekt RED North America wing.

"We’re looking back at another very strong quarter," adds CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz, summarizing the company's 228 million PLN ($55 million) in revenue this quarter." Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion continue to sell very well, but The Witcher 3 is also performing admirably."

The game maker is also working with Netflix for another animated show set in the same universe. It's unclear if the creator of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Studio Trigger, will be involved with this project, too.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Frostpunk 2 roadmap has a console launch and multiple DLC packs incoming in 2025

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 02:55:53 +0000

A couple of months have passed by since 11 bit studios released Frostpunk 2, the survival city-building experience set in a post-apocalyptic, frost-covered scenario. Following a successful launch that saw the title sell over 350,000 copies within days and recouping its production and marketing costs, the studio is now looking toward the game's future.

The studio today unveiled its content roadmap for Frostpunk 2, saying, "your feedback, be it suggestions, ideas, or bug reports, has been invaluable on our path up to this point and has helped us shape our plans for the future."

As seen in the image above, the console version launch is finally slated to happen in 2025, bringing the currently PC-only city builder to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation platforms. "We know it’s something many of you are looking forward to, and we are extremely happy to bring New London to all the console players," adds the studio, though no exact time frame has been given yet for this release.

DLC packs are also incoming. The first two are codenamed Spectrum and Aurora, and they will both land in 2025. Another unnamed DLC will be landing in 2026 if the current plans hold. "Each DLC will add something completely new to the harsh world of Frostpunk 2," says 11 bit studios.

Major content updates are being promised by the studio, too, though no exact details about what features and changes these include have been shared yet. In the roadmap image, an April 24 date is highlighted in a corner, which may be hinting at a special announcement.

In Neowin's own review of Frostpunk 2, I found the game to be an excellent city builder with plenty of harsh choices to go through. Many of the issues I found in it, such as UI and optimization issues, are continually being addressed by the studio in updates, too.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Activision bans over 19,000 accounts for cheating in Black Ops 6, with help from AI

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 02:54:39 +0000

Multiplayer first-person shooters having cheaters is not an uncommon sight, but brand-new releases tend to have the most active concentration of them. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer is currently battling a whole lot of these scripting individuals that are ruining the game for regular players. With the Ranked playlist now being live, players can't simply leave matches with cheaters either.

Activision has noted the rise in complaints about cheaters in ranked play, and today, it released a response with some banning results. The company uses an in-house developed kernel-level anti-cheat solution named Ricochet for its Call of Duty experiences, which has been in use since 2021.

Per the latest update, over 19,000 accounts have been banned since the debut of Ranked play in Black Ops 6 on November 21. The social media post explains that "AI systems continue to ramp up with code optimizations to accelerate enforcement," helping the team catch more cheaters. The team added that "hourly sweeps to remove cheaters from the Ranked Play mode and leaderboard" are ongoing, too.

This is not the first time that Activision has mentioned the use of AI in cheater-detection methods. It said prior to Black Ops 6's release that behavioral models are being used to separate "God-tier" players from the cheaters hiding from sight:

Today, cheaters can run and hide but a trail exists. What if that trail disappears? That is what the team has been working on. Cheat developers can’t hide player behavior. How people play – the legit, the phony, the good, and the bad – gives us information and we use that to build ways to pick those bad folks out of a lineup.

The company plans to advance its detection tools enough to catch cheaters within 1 hour of them starting their first match. Aside from banning them, Activision is probably using other deterring tactics like its hallucinating tech, which it has previously revealed on these scripters, too.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

QNAP firmware update leaves NAS owners locked out of their boxes

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 02:53:25 +0000

Downgrading or customer support are your options if you caught the bad one.

A recent firmware pushed to QNAP network attached storage (NAS) devices left a number of owners unable to access their storage systems. The company has pulled back the firmware and issued a fixed version, but the company's response has left some users feeling less confident in the boxes into which they put all their digital stuff.

As seen on a QNAP community thread, and as announced by QNAP itself, the QNAP operating system, QTS, received update 5.2.2.2950, build 20241114, at some point around November 19. After QNAP "received feedbacks from some users reporting issues with device functionality after installation," the firm says it withdrew it, "conducted a comprehensive investigation," and re-released a fixed version "within 24 hours."

The community thread sees many more users of different systems having problems than the shortlist ("limited models of TS-x53D series and TS-x51 series") released by QNAP. Issues reported included owners being rejected as an authorized user, devices reporting issues with booting, and claims of Python not being installed to run some apps and services.

QNAP says affected users can either downgrade their devices (presumably to then upgrade once more to the fixed update) or contact support for help. Response from QNAP support, as told by users on forums and social media, has not measured up to the nature of losing access to an entire backup system.

Ars has reached out to QNAP for comment and will update this post with response.

QNAP's firmware push was intended, in part, to cover recent security vulnerabilities in their devices. QNAP devices are a rich and frequent target of criminal hackers. A severe vulnerability from February 2023 allowed for remote SQL injections and potential administrative control of a device, affecting nearly 30,000 devices seen in network scans. It was a follow-on from attacks by DeadBolt, a ransomware gang that infected thousands of QNAP devices and cornered QNAP into automatically pushing emergency updates, even to customers with automatic updates turned off.

Security researchers at WatchTowr said they found 15 vulnerabilities in QNAP's operating systems and cloud services and informed the company of them. After QNAP failed to patch some of those vulnerabilities far beyond the typical 90-day window (and then some), WatchTowr went public with its findings, dubbed "QNAPping at the Wheel."

QNAP devices, like any network-attached storage, should ideally only be connected to the Internet through a VPN or other security measures.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

The Atari 7800+ is a no-frills glimpse into a forgotten gaming era

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 02:51:10 +0000

Awkward controls and a lack of features make a device for Atari completists only.

Like a lot of children of the '80s, my early gaming nostalgia has a huge hole where the Atari 7800 might have lived. While practically everyone I knew had an NES during my childhood—and a few uncles and friends' older siblings even had an Atari 2600 gathering dust in their dens—I was only vaguely aware of the 7800, Atari's backward compatible, late '80s attempt to maintain relevance in the quickly changing console market.

Absent that kind of nostalgia, the Atari 7800+ comes across as a real oddity. Fiddling with the system's extremely cumbersome controllers and pixelated, arcade-port-heavy software library from a modern perspective is like peering into a fallen alternate universe, one where Nintendo wasn't able to swoop in and revive a flailing Western home video game industry with the NES.

Even for those with fond memories of Atari 7800-filled childhoods, I'm not sure that this bare-bones package justifies its $130 price. There are many more full-featured ways to get your retro gaming fix, even for those still invested in the tail end of Atari's dead-end branch of the gaming console's evolutionary tree.

7800HD

Much like last year's Atari 2600+, the 7800+ shell is a slightly slimmed-down version of Atari's nostalgic hardware design. This time, Atari took design inspiration from the rainbow-adorned European version of the 7800 console (which released a year later), rather than the bulkier, less colorful US release.

The 7800+ plays any of the 58 officially licensed Atari 7800 cartridges released decades ago, as well as the dozens of homebrew cartridges released by coders in more recent years (some of which are now being sold for $30 each by the modern Atari corporation itself; more on those later). The data on those cartridges is run via the open source ProSystem emulator, which seems more than up to the job of re-creating the relatively ancient 7800 tech without any apparent slowdown, input lag, or graphical inconsistencies. The 15 to 30 seconds of loading time when you first plug in a new cartridge is more than a bit annoying, though.

The HDMI output from the 7800+ is the updated console's main selling point, if anything is. The sharp, upscaled images work best on games with lots of horizontal and/or vertical lines and bright, single-colored sprites. But blowing up decades-old low-resolution graphics can also hurt the visual appeal of games designed to take advantage of the smoother edges and blended color gradients inherent to older cathode ray tube TVs.

Atari's new console doesn't offer the kind of scanline emulation or graphical filters that can help recreate that CRT glow in countless other emulation solutions (though a hardware switch does let you extend the standard 4:3 graphics to a sickeningly stretched-out 16:9). That means many of the sprites in games like Food Fight and Fatal Run end up looking like blocky riots of color when blown up to HD resolutions on the 7800+.

Beyond graphics, the 7800+ also doesn't offer any modern emulation conveniences like save states, fast-forward and rewind, slow-mo, controller customization, or high-score tracking across sessions. Authenticity seems to have taken precedence over modern conveniences here.

Much like the original Atari 7800, the 7800+ is also backward-compatible with older Atari 2600 cartridges and controllers (re-created through the able Stella emulator). That's a nice touch but also a little galling for anyone who already invested money in last year's Atari 2600+, which the company is still selling for roughly the same price as the 7800+. Aside from the nostalgic styling of the box itself, we can't see any reason why the less-capable 2600+ still needs to exist at all at this point.

A mess of a controller

In the US, the original Atari 7800 came with an oddly designed "ProLine" joystick featuring two buttons on either side of the base, designed to be hit with the thumb and index finger of your off hand. For the 7800+, Atari instead went with a controller modeled after the CX78 joypad released with the European version of the console.

This pad represents an odd inflection point in video game history, with a hard plastic thumbstick sticking out above a standard eight-way D-pad. Years before analog thumbsticks would become a console standard, this thumbstick feels incredibly fiddly for the console's completely digital directional inputs. In a game like Asteroid Deluxe, for instance, I found turning to the right or left frequently led to thrusting forward with an accidental "up" push as well.

The CX78 pad was also the first packaged Atari controller with two face buttons, a la the familiar NES controller. Unfortunately, those buttons are spaced just far enough apart to make it extremely awkward to hit both at once using a single thumb, which is practically required in newer titles like Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest. The whole thing seems designed for placing the controller in front of you and hitting the buttons with two separate fingers, which I found less than convenient.

The Atari 7800+ does feature two standard Atari console plugs in the front, making it compatible with pretty much all classic and revamped Atari controllers (and, oddly enough, Sega Genesis pads). Be wary, though; if a 7800 game requires two buttons, a lot of single-button Atari control options will prove insufficient.

The CX78+'s included wireless receivers (which plug into those controller ports) mean you don't have to run any long cables from the system to your couch while playing the Atari 7800+. But a few important controls like pause and reset are stuck on the console itself—just as they were on the original Atari 7800—meaning you'll probably want to have the system nearby anyway. It would have been nice to have additional buttons for these options on the controller itself, even if that would have diminished the authenticity of the controllers.

There are better versions of these games

The VIP package Atari sent me, along with a selection of cartridges. Credit: Kyle Orland

Since I've never owned an Atari 7800 cartridge, Atari sent me eight titles from its current line of retro cartridges to test alongside the updated hardware. This included a mix of original titles released in the '80s and "homebrew elevation" cartridges that the company says are now "getting a well-deserved official Atari release."

The titles I had to test were definitely a step up from the few dozen Atari 2600 games that I've accumulated and grown to tolerate over the years. A game like Asteroids Deluxe on the 7800 doesn't quite match the vector graphics of the arcade original, but it comes a lot closer than the odd, colorful blobs of Asteroids on the 2600. The same goes for Frenzy on the 7800, which is a big step up from Berzerk on the 2600.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that these arcade ports are better experienced these days on one of the many MAME-based or FPGA-based emulation boxes that can do justice to the original quarter munchers. And the more original titles I've sampled mostly ended up feeling like pale shadows of the NES games I knew and loved.

The new Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest (which is included with the 7800+ package) comes across as an oversimplified knock-off of Adventure Island, for instance. And the rough vehicular combat of Fatal Run is much less engaging than the NES port of Atari's own similar but superior Roadblasters arcade cabinet. The one exception to this rule that I found was Ninja Golf, a wacky, original mix of decent golfing and engaging run-and-punch combat.

Of course, I'm not really the target audience here. The ideal Atari 7800+ buyer is someone who still has nostalgic memories of the Atari 7800 games they played as a child and has held onto at least a few of them (and/or bought more modern homebrew cartridges) in the intervening decades.

If those retro gamers want an authentic but no-frills box that will upscale those cartridges for an HDTV, the Atari 7800+ will do the job and look cute on your mantel while it does. But any number of emulation solutions will probably do the job just as well and with more features to boot.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Intel and US government finalize $7.86 billion in funding

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:56:19 +0000

Intel has announced that it has finalized $7.86 billion in funding with the Biden-Harris administration and the US Department of Commerce. The investment is part of the US CHIPS and Science ACT and will support more than 10,000 company jobs, almost 20,000 construction jobs, and more than 50,000 indirect jobs with suppliers and supporting industries.

Intel said that this direct funding is in addition to a $3 billion contract that it was awarded as part of the Secure Enclave program that is designed to expand semiconductor manufacturing for the US government. In addition to the funding it received today, Intel also gets a 25% investment tax credit. The main benefit for America is that Intel is planning to invest over $100 billion in the country which will support US manufacturing and jobs.

With this funding from the US government, Intel is planning to improve its commercial semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, and Oregon.

Commenting on this development, Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said:

"With Intel 3 already in high-volume production and Intel 18A set to follow next year, leading-edge semiconductors are once again being made on American soil. Strong bipartisan support for restoring American technology and manufacturing leadership is driving historic investments that are critical to the country’s long-term economic growth and national security. Intel is deeply committed to advancing these shared priorities as we further expand our U.S. operations over the next several years."

Intel's plans focus strongly on sustainable and inclusive development. For example, it will set aside $56 million to create a more skilled semiconductor workforce. Intel plans to train students and faculty at all education levels to help support the industry's growth in the coming years. Included in this effort is its recently launched apprenticeship program for manufacturing facility technicians.

In addition to skills training, Intel will use $5 million to increase childcare availability near its facilities. This will help women with young children to return to the workplace more quickly so that their careers are not hurt by choosing to expand their families. A further $4 million will be used to support Intel's participation in the CHIPS Women in Construction Framework which will increase the participation of women and economically disadvantaged individuals.

Source: Intel

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

YouTube users report their recommendations are suddenly a total mess

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:55:47 +0000

YouTube users on r/YouTube are reporting issues with their recommendations. People are saying irrelevant videos are overtaking their feeds, abandoned "Watch Later" lists, or live streams from random channels they’ve never subscribed to.

One Reddit user, u/Whhheat, mentioned how their homepage went haywire in a span of 20 minutes, filled with content from channels with almost no subscribers. Several others reported similar experiences: subscription content disappearing, autoplay behaving unpredictably, and Shorts completely vanishing from the main page. For instance, u/Spiritual_Basil2832 found that scrolling far enough down the homepage eventually showed content from their subscriptions, but the top of the page was cluttered with unrelated suggestions.

This sudden change could mean YouTube is testing updates to its recommendation algorithm. If you've been around YouTube long enough, you know it frequently tweaks its algorithm to enhance user experience, though not always with the best results.

YouTube’s algorithm messing up isn’t new. Over time, there have been plenty of instances where things went completely off track. One major instance was the platform's struggles with its content moderation algorithms, which often failed to filter harmful or misleading content effectively. For example, inappropriate videos made it into YouTube Kids, causing backlash from parents.

More recently, YouTube and other platforms like TikTok have faced scrutiny from the European Commission under the Digital Services Act for not being transparent about how their recommendation systems work. This includes concerns about promoting harmful content or amplifying misinformation. Regulators are now pressuring these platforms to reveal more about how their algorithms mitigate risks like election manipulation and mental health issues for minors.

If you’ve been affected by this, it might just be part of a testing phase YouTube is running, and the recommendations should hopefully go back to normal. Until there’s an official explanation, your best bet might be scrolling way down your homepage to find something familiar—or just turning to your subscription tab for now.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

2K removes its launcher from all games, but some files need to be deleted manually

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 02:54:00 +0000

It was in August that publisher 2K and Civilization franchise developer Firaxis revealed that the widely detested 2K Launcher is being removed from existing and upcoming strategy games. Since then, the launcher has gotten the boot from all other 2K-published titles, including XCOM, Bioshock, Mafia, and other franchises.

Today, Neowin found that 2K sent out an update across Steam to its games, aiming to remove what remaining files it can from game directories related to the launcher. The folder that held the original launcher installation will only have a 2kLauncherRemoved.txt file now, which can also be manually deleted.

However, those who had the 2K Launcher installed for a game in the past will have some leftover files in their PCs, spread across two locations. These can be found in the Local and Roaming folders inside the AppData folder under the name "T2GP Launcher", and they have to be manually deleted.

Here are the instructions:

Open your computer’s File Explorer

Select “View” at the top of the window and toggle on the “Hidden items” option

Click “This PC” and open the C drive

From here, open the “Users” folder and choose your Windows profile username

Open “AppData”

Open the Local folder and delete the “T2GP Launcher” folder

Go back to the “AppData” folder

Finally, open the Roaming folder and delete the “T2GP Launcher” folder

The final step to make sure the 2K Launcher is gone is to restart Steam or the Epic Games Store fully, with the company even going on to recommend a full system reboot.

While most 2K-published games (like Bioshock Remastered, Bioshock 2 Remastered, Bioshock Infinite, The Quarry, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns) will now simply launch without an additional launcher login requirement, the removal does affect some games on a deeper level.

It's mostly good news, though. For example, XCOM 2 and Chimera Squad games will use a separate mod launcher instead of the 2K launcher built-in one, which also enables modding on the Steam Deck. However, over on the Epic Games Store, Civilization VI will now require a special launch option to run the game using DirectX 12. Head here to read the 2K Support page for details on each affected game.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Google’s empire is under siege

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:44:56 +0000

Today, Google will have a final chance to prove to a federal judge that its advertising business isn’t a monopoly. The US Department of Justice spent several weeks earlier this year arguing that Google maintains too much control over web advertising and uses that power to lock in customers, leaving little room for competition. The trial wraps up this week. If it loses, Google could have to make sweeping changes to the core of its business.

Even if the tech behemoth emerges from this trial unscathed, a spreading legal fire still jeopardizes everything it has created. For many years, Google’s sprawling empire has faced little legal scrutiny, allowing the company to freely build up its search engine, browser, operating systems, and line of hardware products that all intersect to bolster one another. It’s the overlap of Google’s massive businesses that has attracted attention from government agencies and tech industry rivals, who are set on taking apart Google’s stronghold piece by piece.

Google now faces threats from all sides: the European Union is probing its compliance with regulations on Big Tech, the US is suing over its search and advertising monopolies, Epic is pressing Google to open the Play Store, and Yelp is targeting Google over local search results. As President-elect Trump enters office, it’s unclear what will happen next. But one thing is certain: this is the most high-stakes moment Google has found itself in yet.

The biggest threat to Google is the government’s antitrust lawsuit targeting Google’s search business, which could result in a major breakup. In August, a federal judge ruled that Google operates a monopoly in the online search market. When laying out its case, the DOJ pointed to several aspects of Google’s business, including its billion-dollar deals with companies like Apple and Mozilla to keep Google as their default search engine. This, the DOJ argues, disincentivizes rivals from launching search engines of their own. Judge Amit Mehta agreed, saying this dominance also allowed Google to hike up prices on search text advertising — or the sponsored links displayed within Google Search.

To bring balance back to the market, the DOJ has proposed that Google make a drastic change: it wants Google to sell its web browser, Chrome. The web browser has been an integral part of Google’s business since its launch in 2008, but the DOJ wants it put into the hands of a third party approved by the court. And the DOJ’s asks don’t end there, as it also wants to prevent Google from favoring its search engine or browser within its own products, such as Android, YouTube, and even its AI chatbot Gemini. Other remedies include opening access to Google’s search syndication system to competitors and letting websites opt out of AI Overviews. If Google doesn’t want to comply with these solutions — or if the remedies don’t do enough to crack open Google’s monopoly — the DOJ proposes that Google divest Android, too.

Yelp is also targeting Google’s search engine with an antitrust case of its own, alleging Google gives preferential treatment to its own local results. The EU has opened an investigation into Google’s compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the company recently lost an appeal that would’ve allowed it to get around paying a $2.7 billion antitrust fine stemming from claims that it gave its own shopping results an unfair advantage in Google Search.

The Google Play Store is under fire, too. In 2020, Epic Games sued Google over claims that it created an illegal monopoly by making it harder for developers and users to access other app stores, while also preventing them from using alternative payment processors inside apps. The jury ultimately sided with Epic Games, determining that its Play Store and billing system are illegal monopolies. Last month, Judge James Donato ordered Google to distribute third-party app stores through Google Play, while giving third-party app stores access to all of the apps on the Play Store (unless developers opt out) for the next three years. Though Judge Donato originally asked Google to comply with his order on November 1st, Google won a temporary stay that will put most of these changes on hold while Google appeals the decision.

In the meantime, Google is facing yet another lawsuit from Epic, which accuses the tech giant of colluding with Samsung to suppress third-party app stores by allowing users to download apps from “authorized sources” on new phones.

Google’s ad tech trial poses similarly monumental consequences that could break up its lucrative advertising business, which raked in $237.9 billion in 2023. If the DOJ gets its way, a judge could force Google to create tools that would let third-party companies use its ad tech and give them access to Google’s customers. Closing arguments will be held today, but a verdict isn’t expected for several more months — and by that time, Trump will be in office.

All of these cases will likely conclude under the new administration, and that might affect their outcomes. While President Joe Biden has taken a tougher stance on antitrust enforcement, Trump is expected to take a more hands-off approach to regulation that hasn’t gone unnoticed by company executives. But this still doesn’t mean Google is safe from the Trump administration. The DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit over Google’s search engine was filed in 2020, while Trump was still president. Trump has also long lambasted Google for supposedly surfacing negative search results about him, something he was particularly vocal about in the months leading up to the US presidential election.

Trump called Google search results “rigged” and threatened to pursue criminal charges over claims that the search engine favored his political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Though Trump said he would “do something” when asked whether he would break up Google, he suggested the DOJ’s current antitrust lawsuit is “dangerous” because “we don’t want China to have” companies like Google.

Even if nothing comes out of these lawsuits, Google will have to change how it operates to ward off more ire and legal threats. Whether that means being more cautious about business acquisitions or thinking twice when preferencing results in one of its other products, that newfound reprehensiveness could result in damage. In 2019, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates said the company missed beating Android as the “dominant mobile operating system” because it was “distracted” by the government’s antitrust trial in the early 2000s.

A change in tone has already begun to set in at Google. CEO Sundar Pichai appeared to allude to the search engine’s perceived “bias” against Trump and right-wing politicians in an Election Day memo obtained by The Verge. “Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief,” he wrote. Trump has claimed multiple times that he spoke with Pichai on the phone, a possible sign the Google exec is looking to get on Trump’s good side before he assumes office.

Whatever the case, Google has a long fight ahead of it — and it might not get out of this legal web in one piece.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Google to face massive UK class action lawsuit over search dominance

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:43:04 +0000

The tech giant is facing a growing number of legal issues.

Google must face a £7 billion (around $8.8 billion) class action lawsuit in the UK that accuses the company of harming consumers by abusing its dominance in search. On Friday, the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled that the case can move forward, adding to the growing number of legal conflicts Google has to confront worldwide.

The class action case was initially filed in September 2023 by consumer rights advocate Nikki Stopford. It alleges that Google’s anticompetitive practices made it more expensive for companies to advertise on the platform, leading to higher prices for millions of consumers across the UK.

The lawsuit argues that Google “forced” Android phone makers to ship their phones with Google Search and Google Chrome, something the European Union has already gone after Google for. It also says Google paid Apple “billions” to make Google the default search engine on Safari — an issue that figured prominently in a recent ruling against Google in the US.

“Google continues to rig the search-engine market to charge advertisers more, which raises the prices they charge consumers,” Stopford said in a statement. “This UK legal action seeks to promote healthier competition in digital markets, and to hold Google accountable.”

Google asked a London tribunal to toss out the lawsuit in September, but the CAT now unanimously agreed that it should proceed. “We still believe this case is speculative and opportunistic — we will argue against it vigorously,” Paul Colpitts, Google UK’s senior counsel, said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “People use Google because it is helpful; not because there are no alternatives.”

Google is currently the subject of several lawsuits, including one from the US Department of Justice that could force Google to sell Chrome. In addition to lawsuits from Epic Games and Yelp, the search giant is facing more legal trouble from the DOJ over its advertising technology. It also recently lost an appeal to get around a $2.7 billion antitrust fine in the EU.

Update, November 25th: Added a statement from Google.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Build your next PC like it’s 1999

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:41:32 +0000

SilverStone’s new FLP01 PC case is a retro beige box you can fill with modern components.

Silverstone’s new FLP01 PC case looks like a relic from the late ‘90s.

Screenshot: X

SilverStone’s new FLP01 PC case looks it was created in a time when desktop computers had turbo buttons and bragging rights were earned by having a Pentium chip inside. In reality, the retro beige box is launching next year for all your modern PC-building needs, doubling as a stand for a monitor that’s probably not a 30-pound CRT.

The Japanese company SilverStone has been making PC components and cases since it launched in 2003, and last year, during its 20th anniversary, it shared the first details and images of the FLP01 on X timed to coincide with April Fools’ Day.

Over a year later, at an expo held by the company in Japan last week, SilverStone announced that the FLP01 case was more than just a prank and was actually being put into production. Shipping is expected to start as early as the first quarter of 2025, according to Impress, with pricing targeted at ¥19,800, or around $130.

The FLP01’s design is inspired by the NEC PC-9800 line of desktop PCs which were popular in Japan from the ‘80s to the early ‘00s. The 5.25-inch floppy drives on its front facade are sadly fake, but they flip down to reveal a DVD drive as well front-facing ports including a headphone jack, USB-A, and USB-C.

The box SilverStone had on display at its expo was configured with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU on a full-sized ATX motherboard with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GPU and three cooling fans, according to Tom’s Hardware. All it’s missing is a tiny pair of matching desktop speakers that start to click every time your cellphone rings.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Raspberry Pi announces the Pico 2 W, a wireless-enabled microcontroller board

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:36:04 +0000

Raspberry Pi today announced the new Pico 2 W, a wireless-enabled variant of the Pico 2. The Pico 2 W features the tried and tested wireless modem from the original Pico W and the new RP2350 microcontroller. Even with wireless support, this new microcontroller is priced at just $7.

The RP2350 microcontroller comes with faster cores, double the memory, floating-point support, on-chip OTP, better power consumption, and an improved security model built around Arm's TrustZone for Cortex-M.

The RP2350 features a unique dual-core, dual-architecture design. Developers can choose between a pair of Arm Cortex-M33 cores and a pair of open-hardware Hazard3 cores, allowing them to explore the RISC-V architecture in a stable environment.

The onboard CYW43439 Infineon modem supports 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless LAN and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. It also supports both C and MicroPython libraries.

Pico 2 W specifications:

Dual Arm Cortex-M33 or dual Hazard3 RISC-V processors @ 150MHz
520 KB on-chip SRAM
2.4GHz 802.11n wireless LAN and Bluetooth 5.2
Software- and hardware-compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico 1
Drag-and-drop programming using mass storage over USB
Castellated module allows soldering directly to carrier boards
2 × UART
2 × SPI controllers
2 × I2C controllers
24 × PWM channels
3 x ADC channels
1 × USB 1.1 controller and PHY, with host and device support
12 × PIO state machines
Operating temperature -20°C to +85°C
Supported input voltage 1.8–5.5V DC

Raspberry Pi confirmed that the Pico 2 series will remain in production until at least January 2040. With wireless support, the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W will be an ideal microcontroller board for enthusiasts and professional developers. Its affordability and extensive features make it a compelling choice for a wide range of projects. You can order it here from Raspberry Pi for $7.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Paul's Tech News - These RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti specs are unbelievable. [Video]

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 08:37:53 +0000

Paul's Hardware (1.49M subscribers)

November 24, 2024

Video length: 9m 53s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - Nov 24, 2024

1:47 RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti and 5070 - even more launch rumors

3:25 RTX 50-series GPU up for pre-order, RTX 40-series stock running out

4:19 9800X3D Update - no more fail reports, top CPU on Amazon but watch for fakes

TECH BRIEFS

5:51 Flight Simulator 2024 servers overwhelmed, Microsoft only planned for 200k users

6:55 Steam Controller 2 is apparently in mass production

7:38 April Fools’ joke results in Silverstone making a beige ’80s throwback PC case

8:20 Colorful's Colorfire MEOW series is a cat-themed motherboard with matching BIOS

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Microsoft Weekly: Recall is here, new Windows 11 features, Ignite, and more

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 03:17:22 +0000

In this episode of Microsoft Weekly, we look at Recall finally arriving for testing in the Insider program, new Windows 11 updates with many changes and features, a lot of Ignite news, misfired gaming launches, and more.

Table of contents:

Windows 10 and 11 news
Windows Insider Program
Ignite 2024
Updates are available
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.

Let us start with new non-security updates for Windows 10 and 11. This month's C-updates are the final in 2024, as Microsoft is skipping December non-security updates due to the holiday season.

Windows 11 version 24H2 received KB5046740 with new features for jump lists, taskbar, File Explorer, Settings app, and more. Windows 11 version 23H2 also got a fair share of updates for the Start menu, File Explorer, etc, in KB5046732. As for Windows 10, it received KB5046714 with fixes for activation issues and a few more bugs.

Also, Microsoft released new dynamic updates for Windows 10 (beware of the Recovery Partition bug) and the first hotpatch for Windows 11 version 24H2 LTSC.

Hands down, the biggest announcement from this week is the return of Recall. Microsoft finally opened the gates to its controversial AI feature, allowing Windows Insiders to test Recall on eligible hardware. Just keep in mind that the initial version has some limitations, including Recall ignoring filtered-out websites in certain scenarios.

Microsoft also launched Click to Do, a new AI-powered feature to complement Recall. Click to Do provides various quick actions for snapshots so that you can continue using separate applications.

All these goodies are only available in the latest Windows 11 Dev build on Copilot+ PCs. If you want to buy one, there are some solid deals on existing models. However, Qualcomm plans to announce new Snapdragon X chips for even more affordable Windows computers. They will have fewer CPU cores, but the NPU will be the same across the lineup, ensuring each device is eligible for AI features.

If you do not care about Recall and all the AI stuff, you might like this change coming soon to Windows 11: its Game Bar now has a dedicated browser that lets you browse the web while playing without alt-tabbing from the game. Called Microsoft Edge Game Assist, the feature is now available in preview for those with Edge 132 Beta, which was released this week.

Moving on, we have a few known issues in the latest Windows 10 and 11 updates. If you are on Windows 11 version 24H2, you might have problems with adjusting certain time/date settings through the Settings app (there is a workaround), and on top of that, the OS might blast you with a 100% speaker volume in certain scenarios.

There's is more. The update to Windows 11 version 24H2 is now blocked on some systems due to compatibility issues with USB network modems, printers, scanners, and even certain Ubisoft games. Microsoft is investigating the problem and promises to release fixes soon.

Also, Microsoft took down some of Windows 11's widgets to improve the experience. As a result, you can no longer use Calendar, To Do, Photos, Microsoft 365 Feed, and Family widgets.

On Windows 10, where users are currently bombarded with new full-screen ads promoting Windows 11, Microsoft acknowledged a problem with updating packaged apps. Luckily, this one was quickly fixed.

Windows Insider Program

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

	Windows 11	Windows 10
Canary Channel	27754	Not Applicable
Dev Channel	26120.2415	Not Applicable
Beta Channel	22635.4515	No longer available
Release Preview Channel	-	-

Users also discovered that build 22635.4515 contains some much-needed improvements for File Explorer. At last, you can turn off OneDrive backup notifications in the address bar and make File Explorer open links in a new tab instead of a new window.

Also, note that Microsoft temporarily turned off optical character recognition in the Photos app to improve the experience. Expect it to return somewhere in the future.

Ignite 2024

Here are the most interesting stories from this year's Ignite conference.

Ignite is one of Microsoft's biggest events each year, and the company usually announces a lot of developer- and enterprise-focused stuff. This year is no exception. At Ignite 2024, Microsoft announced a new in-house security chip and a DPU for Azure, a new hybrid infrastructure to replace Azure Stack HCI, Azure AI Foundry (a unified AI application platform), SQL Server 2025 with native vector support, and more.

For its apps and services, the company announced meeting transcription for Microsoft Teams, out-of-the-box agents for Microsoft 365, major upgrades to Microsoft 365 Copilot, a scareware blocker and secure password deployment for Edge, and Universal Print updates.

Some hardware was announced as well. Meet the Windows 365 Link, a thin client in a mini-PC form factor for accessing Windows 365 in the cloud. This box does not run Windows 11 locally—you only get a bunch of ports, local video processing, and some other minor stuff. Everything else runs in the cloud (Windows, apps, data, settings, etc). The Windows 365 Link costs $349.

For Windows 11 developers and IT admins, Microsoft announced a new Imaging API to enable developers to build applications with more advanced image capabilities. Windows Resiliency Initiative was unveiled, a project aimed to improve the reliability of the Windows ecosystem with features like Quick Machine Recovery for remote fix deployments on PCs that cannot boot.

Finally, Windows Subsystem for Linux received Intune compliance and Entra ID integration.

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.

Tiny11 Builder, a third-party script for creating debloated Windows images, has been updated with fixes for Windows 11 version 24H2. It now packs a new version of the tiny11 core maker, which is a special version for ultra-light Windows images that are good for experimenting in virtual machines with no need to service them later (network drivers and a lot of other parts are not included).

Other tools developers might find useful are the latest version of the Dev Home app, which now has File Explorer source control integration and other features. Microsoft also released new Windows Terminal updates with improved glyph rendering.

This week, Microsoft released its Bing Wallpaper app in the Microsoft Store, offering Windows 10 and 11 users a quick and easy way to get fresh wallpapers from its search engine. However, users quickly discovered that the app behaves borderline like malware. Plenty of dark patterns and quite offensive behavior make it extremely hard to recommend.

Other notable updates include the following:

And here are the newest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

Intel 32.0.101.6299 non-WHQL with S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chornobyl and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 support.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 31.0.82.0 GPU driver with optimizations for creative apps and several games like Baldur’s Gate, Strange Brigade, Ark Survival Ascended, and more.
Surface Laptop 5 and 6 received fixes for display flickering and audio failures.

On the gaming side

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

Microsoft is now testing a new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate perk. With the latest change, players can stream the games they own via Xbox Cloud Gaming even if those games are not in Xbox Game Pass. However, the number of available games is currently limited, with Microsoft promising to expand it in the future.

Microsoft announced new games for Xbox and PC Game Pass subscribers. The latest additions include Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, PlateUP!, Nine Sols, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and more.

Speaking of the first two...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 finally launched, or should I say crashed on Xbox Series X|S and PC. On November 19, 2024, the game became available, but it met pilots with infinite loading screens and truly atrocious world rendering bugs due to the onslaught of gamers and miscalculated server capabilities. This forced the dev team to apologize and scramble to fix all problems. Shortly after that, the game received its first hotfix.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl had a much better launch on November 20, with over one million copies sold on day one. You can play this long-expected title from a Ukrainian studio on PC and Xbox consoles (also available in Game Pass). If your PC cannot run the game and you do not have a modern console, you can try S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on GeForce NOW—support for the game arrived as part of this week's game updates for the service.

Starfield now has over 15 million players. Bethesda decided to celebrate the milestone with a new vehicle and a fresh November update that packs uncapped frame rates on consoles, lipsync support in Creation Kit, achievements improvements, and more.

Other gaming news from this week include the following:

Deals and freebies

The Epic Games Store is giving away Beholder, a dystopian indie game where you monitor tenants and report their behavior to the authoritarian government. If one game is not enough (it is available for grabs until next Thursday), check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals, which are packed with sci-fi shooters and other games across different PC storefronts.

Microsoft Weekly banner image by rperucho on Pixabay.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

STALKER 2 is getting a patch next week to fix these crashes and issues

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 03:15:19 +0000

GSC Game World finally let players loose on the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone again earlier this week with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. The game has seen a massive launch across PC and Xbox platforms, but there have been quite a few reports regarding buggy behavior and performance issues with the release. To remedy at least some of those problems, the studio today announced that the game's first update is coming next week.

The update will be focused on fixing critical crashes related to memory allocation failures. Fixes for main quest progression issues, balance, cutscene and graphics problems, UI quirks, and more are incoming with it too.

Here's what the developer detailed today as landing next week:

Crash Fixes, including:

Issues and memory allocation failures, which previously caused the game to exit unexpectedly, particularly around rendering, skeletal meshes, and quest-related cutscenes.

Main Quest Progression Fixes, including:

Several bugs blocking the main quest progression, NPCs getting stuck in objects, incorrect quest markers, and issues with quest cutscenes.

Revision of the main quests (like Visions of Truth or A Minor Incident) to ensure smooth transitions, avoiding rare cases of players not being able to proceed further.

Gameplay & Balance Adjustments, including:

Fixing the price of the weapons with upgrades installed compared to their value without attachments.

NPCs behavior, including the way they act when lacking a shelter during the Emissions.

Cutscenes & Visual Fixes, including:

Rarely missing facial animations, misplaced NPCs, and visual inconsistencies like detached heads and clothes clipping.

Quality and stability improvements of the visual effects.

Softlock Fixes, including:

Issue where players were unable to close the trade screen after putting ammo in a wrong slot while playing on a gamepad.

User Interface Improvements, including:

Quest notifications now showed correctly during dialogues.

Corrected texts and missing interaction prompts.

Looking towards the future, GSC Game World said it will be addressing the issues surrounding the A-Life simulation system, that seems to be quite broken at launch, in a later update. A prominent analog stick dead zone issue will also be fixed later.

For those looking towards what the studio has planned for 2025 in the new content side of things, a roadmap will be landing sometime in December.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is available on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store, and GOG) and Xbox Series X|S platforms as well as Game Pass. Nvidia GeForce NOW members can play the game via the cloud if they have the PC version it as well. The title has already passed one million copies sold just two days into launch.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Twitter’s heir apparent isn’t X or Threads — it’s Bluesky

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 17:01:50 +0000

Bluesky seems to have a real shot at becoming the next big place to get the pulse of the internet.

Bluesky feels like the big winner right now.

I’ve been covering Bluesky ever since I got my invite in April 2023. I’ve felt the platform has always had promise, especially with features like feeds with custom algorithms and the ability to let users pick their own moderation filters. But for a long while, it didn’t have the critical mass of users that I could follow to make it the first social network I load up every day.

Over the course of this month, that’s changed. It added 700,000 new users in a week. Then, it crossed the 15 million-user mark. This week, CEO Jay Graber said it crossed more than 20 million users and had been adding more than a million users per day.

Part of the interest in Bluesky is that it looks and feels like a better version of Twitter. But with Bluesky, it also feels like you can control your experience in the app. That isn’t always the case with Threads, where Meta makes the rules about what shows up in the algorithmic feed that it constantly pushes at you.

Things haven’t been perfect for Bluesky; the platform has had some hiccups, seemingly due to the influx of people, and one major outage due to a cut fiber cable. But Meta has clearly been feeling the heat.

Last week, the day after Bluesky touted its 15 million total users, Threads boss Adam Mosseri shared that Threads had already surpassed 15 million signups for November alone. (CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently shared that the platform has 275 million monthly users.) And Meta has aggressively introduced some significant Threads changes, including its own version of custom feeds, a major change to make the For You feed show more from people you follow, and some big improvements to search.

Even if Bluesky is my preferred place right now, it’s still comparatively small to Threads and X. It’s unclear if people will stick with it over the long term, especially since Meta seems committed to making Threads its next billion-user social network. And X is still going to matter, given that many companies post updates on the platform and because owner Elon Musk is set to have enormous power in the Trump administration.

I don’t think any of the platforms will fully replicate what Twitter once was — people are just too scattered across different platforms now — but Bluesky seems to have a real shot at becoming the next big place to get the pulse of the internet. I look forward to the skeets.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Flight Simulator 2024's first hotfix targets multiple crashing issues, missing cursor

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:32:09 +0000

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 landed, or more like crash landed, earlier this week on PC and Xbox consoles. This cloud streaming content-centered entry in the hit simulation series essentially buckled under the load of players on day one, with the studio saying it did not expect that much interest so quickly. As the title finally moves towards server stability, its first hotfix has now been pushed out.

"Good news," begins a message by Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann on social media. "We've made continued improvements that provide smoother access to the simulator … We will continue to investigate any issues and keep the community informed. Thank you again for your ongoing support and enjoy your time in the skies."

The update focuses mainly on fixing some critical crashing issues being faced by simmers. A minor but annoying bug that left the cursor missing on the sign-in window at the start of the title has also been resolved, finally letting PC players stop spamming tab or aiming blind for their profile.

Here are all the changes in the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 1.1.9.0 hotfix:

Stability & Performance

Fixed a crash when you selected “As Arrival” in the EFB

Fixed a crash that could occur when closing and invoking the Camera menu after changing the Drone focus mode option to a value other than undefined

Fixed various crashes across the title

General Bug Fixes

Fixed missing cursor on Xbox Live sign-in popup

Fixed an issue where you could lose focus when creating a new input profile.

Aircraft selection is accessible via the control menu, but can only be changed from the home page.

Fixed an issue where you could get stuck when accessing the menu bar from any help page.

The studio adds that moving any existing Community Packages from the title's folder to another location on the PC can resolve "stability issues or long loading times" as well.

Feedback on the update and the overall game can be provided to the development team via the official Flight Simulator forums.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend