Ubisoft has issued quite the rebuttal to a pair of players who are attempting to sue the French publisher for shutting down multiplayer racer The Crew.Last year, two players in California filed a lawsuit against the company for permanently shutting down the title, claiming they and thousands of others had been left with a "skeleton of what you thought you paid for."They essentially argued The Crew should have been left in a playable offline state rather than being delisted and taken offline.Ubisoft claimed it was necessary to wind down the 2014 release because of "server infrastructure and licensing constraints," but noted it had maintained support for "almost a decade."For those two players in California, it was a decision they felt "totally barred access to the product they paid money for.""Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that the all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed," reads the original lawsuit (via Polygon)."Turns out the pinball machine manufacturer decided to come into your home, gut the insides of the pinball machine, and remove your ability to play the game that you bought and thought you owned."Related:Ubisoft puts the kibosh on the idea of outright ownershipIn a response filed in February, Ubisoft suggested the argument that The Crew would remain playable indefinitely is "misleading" and claims it was explicitly selling temporary access to a product rather than outright ownership."Plaintiffs do not allege that Ubisoft made any statements indicating that consumers, would, in fact, obtain unfettered access to The Crew if they purchased a physical copy," reads the company's response (thanks again, Polygon)."To the contrary, the packaging made clear that Ubisoft could limit access. This is fatal to Plaintiff's FAL, UCL, and CLRA claims. Plaintiffs' entire theory of the case is based on the faulty assumption that buying a physical disk entitles purchasers to infinite access to play the game."Ubisoft claims that "flawed" assumption doesn't equate to misrepresentation under California law. The company reiterated it was selling a license to a product as opposed to ownership rights.This isn't uncommon in the video game industry, but the lawsuit highlights a fundamental divide between the companies selling those licenses and consumers making purchasing decisions.The plaintiffs have since responded to Ubisoft's arguments with a photograph of The Crew's packaging, which notes the activation code for the title won't expire until 2099. They claim it's an example of Ubisoft indicating The Crew would remain playable "during this time and long thereafter."Related:You can read Ubisoft's full response here.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Microsoft’s 50th birthday party. Sure, cofounder Bill Gates and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would be there, but I was keen to see how Microsoft would create a party atmosphere while also launching new Copilot features. As it happens, having three CEOs onstage, some energetic hosts, and employee protesters sure kept things eventful.The day kicked off with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reminiscing about how cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen built Microsoft 50 years ago, including how the pair created the software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer. Nadella also looked ahead to the next 50 years and demonstrated some improvements to GitHub Copilot that allow anyone to code. “What started out as a developer tools company 50 years ago is now a platform company where everyone can be a developer,” said Nadella. “Our mission has not changed, it’s only expanded.”Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman appeared onstage next to walk through new Copilot features and reminisce on how important Microsoft had been to him growing up. At just 11 years old, he convinced his parents to buy a PC with a Pentium processor and 8MB of RAM, allowing him to install Windows 95. “It’s no exaggeration to say that that machine completely transformed my life,” said Suleyman.Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman introduces new Copilot features. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeSuleyman had barely discussed Copilot for five minutes before Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad approached the stage shouting, “Mustafa, shame on you.” In a moment of confusion, I thought this was somehow part of the event before quickly realizing that it was a protest from an actual Microsoft employee. “You are a war profiteer,” continued Aboussad. “Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocide in our region. You have blood on your hands.”Aboussad was protesting against Microsoft’s contracts with the Israeli government. Shortly after being ushered out of the event, she sent an email to thousands of Microsoft employees accusing the company of being complicit in the death and destruction in Gaza over the past 18 months.Microsoft edited this protest out of its official event video, but Suleyman responded by saying several times, “Thank you for your protest, I hear you.” Microsoft refused to provide an on-the-record statement to The Verge about Aboussad’s protest.Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad speaks to Agencia EFE reporters after being ushered out of the 50th anniversary event. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeSuleyman quickly moved on and closed the Copilot portion of the event with new features and a hint at custom appearances for the AI assistant — then the party really began. Local Washingtonian band Allen Stone provided the music, and actor Brenda Song (The Social Network, Running Point) was the energetic host for the employee-only portion. Song kicked things off with a lot of memes about Clippy and the Xbox, before Bill Gates appeared for the first time to geek out and explain quantum computing and recite 17 decimal digits of Pi. The talk show format continued with a brief interview with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who admitted, with his bosses in the audience, to playing games “20 to 25 hours” per week, while wearing a Minecraft jacket.Song then welcomed Bill Gates back onstage to discuss the early days of Microsoft and its big bet of putting a computer on every desk and in every home. “The new frontier is intelligence, which is even more profound than what came from the last 50 years,” he said. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in full swing at the event. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeSteve Ballmer was then invited onstage for his solo interview. Song urged him to show developers some love, and Ballmer went full Ballmer and shouted his iconic “developers, developers, developers!” chant, to much applause and laughter. A few moments later, he then led another chant: “50 more! 50 more! 50 more!” Ballmer’s appearance was definitely the highlight of the day for me personally.After the energy of Ballmer, the talk show format returned with Microsoft communications chief Frank Shaw reading out some hilarious mean tweets about his PR activities and a somewhat cringey game show that involved a Microsoft history quiz. One Microsoft worker won a coveted seat in the front row of the event, as most employees were watching on screens around campus or streaming the event from their desks.The mean tweets about Windows Vista and Frank Shaw had me in stitches. Photo by Tom Warren / The VergeThe moment we had all been waiting for wrapped up the event for the day, with Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella appearing onstage together for the first time in more than 10 years. Cleo Abram, who runs the series “Huge If True” on YouTube, led the fireside chat between the three CEOs.All three were asked, “What is one quality you admire about one of the other two CEOs?” Bill Gates responded first. “I wrote more code than either of these guys, but when it comes to picking people, motivating people, thank god for Steve and Satya,” joked Gates.Ballmer had high praise for Gates. “I’ve met a lot of smart people, and Bill is the smartest guy I’ve ever met. The ability to apply that and use that in all kinds of constructive ways, unparalleled and unmatched.”Nadella discussed the honesty of both Gates and Ballmer. “Yesterday I was sitting in the middle of them and it was my worst nightmare, a Bill and Steve review together, it’s like ‘oh my god, how did I end up here, take me out of here,’” said Nadella, laughing away. “The intellectual rigor and honesty both have, Steve’s passion, I feel like all of us who grew up in the company with Bill he just made us better. The standards they set for how you get prepared, the work you do, it gives me goosebumps.”Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella onstage together. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeThe sounds of megaphone protests outside the venue occasionally broke through during moments of silence. Nadella had just finished discussing the times he looked to Gates and Ballmer for advice and guidance when a second protester appeared in the audience to disrupt the event. “Shame on you all. You’re all hypocrites,” said Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal, as some in the crowd began to boo. Gates chuckled and said “alright,” before returning to the discussion. “I think Steve and I almost cared too much, and our life was the company, and Satya has this ability to care as much as we did, but with more of a team,” he continued.Shortly after disrupting Microsoft’s three CEOs, Agrawal also sent a mass email to thousands of colleagues, noting that she was resigning from the company and her last day would be Friday, April 11th. After the event, Microsoft fired the first protester, Ibtihal Aboussad, and Agrawal was dismissed ahead of her two-week notice period.The protests were a surreal part of the event, especially as it was Microsoft employees who organized these interruptions after feeling frustrated that company leadership had ignored their concerns. Microsoft continued on as if nothing had happened again on the day, and the boos and jeering for the final protester certainly left a weird vibe in the room as the company wrapped up its 50th birthday by looking ahead to its next 50 years.”It’s an amazing and exciting time,” remarked Gates. “The impact of this 10 years will be greater than any 10 year period in the company.” Ballmer agreed and was hopeful Microsoft would be alive and relevant in 50 years’ time. “That will be a testament to me, Bill, and Satya and probably three more CEOs, including Copilot,” said Ballmer. “You can decide whether Copilot is the CEO or the assistant, that’s to be determined.”“Well, I hope Copilot’s a good CEO,” quipped Gates.RelatedThe pad:Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Start menu is bigger and fixes a major pain point. Microsoft is working on a new Windows 11 Start menu design that’s a lot more customizable than what exists today. The updated Start menu has a larger layout and finally lets you disable the recommended feed of files and apps. I’ve always wanted to disable the recommended feed, but I’ve had to use apps like Start11 to fully customize the Start menu. Microsoft has started testing this new Start menu design in 24H2 builds of Windows 11, so it’s likely to appear for all users in the coming months.A first look at Microsoft’s 50th anniversary Surface. Microsoft has created a limited-edition 50th anniversary version of its Surface Laptop 7. It has the retro 1975 Microsoft logo etched into the palm rest area, a golden accent color on the Surface logo, and there’s even a golden Windows 11 wallpaper. Microsoft is giving away 50 of these special-edition laptops in competitions to mark its 50-year milestone.The Xbox summer showcase takes place on June 8th. Microsoft is getting ready to unveil its game lineup for Xbox, just a few days after the Switch 2’s launch. The Xbox Games showcase will take place on Sunday, June 8th, but Microsoft is making it an online-only event, so there will be no theater experience for fans or media this year. I suspect that’s because Microsoft’s strategy to bring more games to rival platforms will be even more obvious this time around.Microsoft updates Copilot with the greatest hits from other AIs. Microsoft marked its 50th anniversary with a host of new features for Copilot, bringing it more in line with ChatGPT or Claude. The AI assistant now supports memory, personalization, web-based actions, podcast creation, camera and screen analysis, deep research, and even more.Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake. Microsoft unveiled its Xbox AI era earlier this year with a new Muse AI model that can generate gameplay. While it looked like Muse was still an early Microsoft Research project, the Xbox maker is now allowing Copilot users to try out Muse through an AI-generated version of Quake II. The tech demo is part of the Copilot for Gaming push, and it’s a rather basic demo at that. Blurry enemies, a just playable frame rate, and a tiny 640 x 360 resolution don’t amount to much right now, but this experience certainly hints at what might be possible in the future.Microsoft starts testing Copilot Vision update that can “see” your screen and apps. One of the more intriguing announcements from Microsoft’s Copilot event was the introduction of Copilot Vision for mobile and Windows. You can now point your camera at objects and Copilot will answer questions about them, much like Google’s and Apple’s AI experiences. Microsoft has also started testing a similar experience in Windows that will help guide you through apps or games if you decide to share your screen with Copilot.These might be Microsoft’s new Office icons. Microsoft appears to be working on new 3D icons for its Office suite. New icons have been discovered in an email survey from Microsoft, and they all have a more 3D look and feel to them that’s similar to the 3D emoji that Microsoft added to Windows 11 in 2023. Microsoft hasn’t overhauled its Office app icons since the 2018 refresh that introduced a more modern design and Office apps with a more simplified ribbon interface.The Windows 95 startup sound is now historic. The US Library of Congress has added the Windows 95 boot sound to its National Recording Registry (NRR). That means the sound is now part of a list of recordings that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Minecraft’s Volume Alpha has also been added to the NRR.Apple was briefly dethroned by Microsoft as the most valuable company. This week has been a hectic one for the stock market after President Donald Trump’s tariffs rolled out, and it has impacted Apple and Microsoft stock differently. Apple briefly lost its position as the world’s most valuable public company to Microsoft, before the dramatic stock slide was reversed when Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs outside of China.Microsoft pauses $1 billion data center plans in Ohio. It’s another week and another report about Microsoft holding back on plans to invest money into data centers. Microsoft announced plans to invest $1 billion in data center campuses in central Ohio in October, but DatacenterDynamics reports that it’s no longer moving forward with those plans. It follows reports that Microsoft had pulled back on data center projects across the US and Europe.Microsoft Edge’s Game Assist now supports more titles. The Steam-like browser overlay for the Game Bar in Windows 11 is being updated this month to include support for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Monster Hunter Wilds, Split Fiction, World of Warcraft, and Genshin Impact. Game Assist also now automatically switches to new tabs created by the webpage instead of opening them in the background.Is Copilot about to look like Clippy? At the end of Microsoft’s Copilot event last week, Microsoft teased the ability for Copilot to have an appearance. It looks like you’ll be able to pick a customized character that will be your Copilot, and some of Microsoft’s examples even included a smiley face that looked very similar to the Chinese version of Cortana. Microsoft teased that you might be able to pick Clippy as your Copilot character, which will definitely be a full-circle moment once the feature is out of development.Moving a photo in Word gets its own meme. You’ll need to watch this TikTok a few times to really appreciate how wonderful it is. If you’ve ever moved a photo in Word in the past, then you’ll understand the pain of your entire document shifting around. Former Microsoft Office boss Steven Sinofsky gets it, too. “Mean,” he joked in a response to the meme.I’m always keen to hear from readers, so please drop a comment here, or you can reach me at notepad@theverge.com if you want to discuss anything else. If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s secret projects, you can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com or speak to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram, if you’d prefer to chat there.Thanks for subscribing to Notepad.See More:

In the Large Language Models (LLM) RL training, value-free methods like GRPO and DAPO have shown great effectiveness. The true potential lies in value-based methods, which allow more precise credit assignment by accurately tracing each action’s impact on subsequent returns. This precision is crucial for complex reasoning, where subtle errors can lead to catastrophic failures. However, training effective value models for long chain-of-thought (CoT) tasks face challenges: achieving low bias despite lengthy trajectories, managing distinct preferences of short and long responses, and addressing reward signal sparsity. Despite their theoretical advantages, these difficulties have hindered the full realization of value-based methods. Value-based reinforcement learning methods for LLMs face three significant challenges when applied to long chain-of-thought reasoning tasks. First, the Value Model Bias issue identified in VC-PPO shows that initializing value models with reward models introduces positive bias. Second, Heterogeneous Sequence Lengths in complex reasoning tasks create difficulties for standard approaches like GAE with fixed parameters, which cannot effectively adapt to sequences ranging from very short to extremely long. Third, the Sparsity of the Reward Signal becomes problematic in verifier-based tasks that provide binary feedback rather than continuous values. This sparsity is worsened by lengthy CoT responses, creating a difficult exploration-exploitation trade-off during optimization. Researchers from ByteDance Seed have proposed Value Augmented Proximal Policy Optimization (VAPO), a value-based RL training framework to address the challenges of long CoT reasoning tasks. VAPO introduces three key innovations: a detailed value-based training framework with superior performance and efficiency, a Length-adaptive GAE mechanism that adjusts the parameter based on response lengths to optimize advantage estimation, and a systematic integration of techniques from prior research. VAPO combines these components to create a system where the collective improvements exceed what individual enhancements could achieve independently.  Using the Qwen2.5-32B model without SFT data, VAPO improves scores from 5 to 60, surpassing previous state-of-the-art methods by 10 points. The VAPO is built upon the PPO algorithm with several key modifications to enhance mathematical reasoning capabilities. Training dynamics analysis reveals VAPO’s superior characteristics compared to DAPO, including smoother training curves indicating more stable optimization, better length scaling which enhances generalization capabilities, faster score growth due to the granular signals provided by the value model, and lower entropy in later training stages. While reduced entropy could potentially limit exploration, the method balances this trade-off effectively, resulting in minimal performance impact while improving reproducibility and stability. This shows how VAPO’s decisions directly address the core challenges of value-based RL in complex reasoning tasks. While DeepSeek R1 using GRPO achieves 47 points on AIME24 and DAPO reaches 50 points, VAPO matches DAPO’s performance on Qwen-32b with just 60% of the update steps and achieves a new state-of-the-art score of 60.4 within only 5,000 steps. Vanilla PPO achieves only 5 points due to value model learning collapse, but VAPO finally achieves 60 points. Ablation studies validated the effectiveness of the seven proposed modifications: Value-Pretraining prevents collapse, decoupled GAE enables full optimization of long-form responses, adaptive GAE balances short and long response optimization, Clip-higher encourages thorough exploration, Token-level loss increases long response weighting, positive-example LM loss adds 6 points, and Group-Sampling contributes 5 points to the final performance. In this paper, researchers introduced VAPO, an algorithm that utilizes the Qwen2.5-32B model to achieve state-of-the-art performance on the AIME24 benchmark. By introducing seven innovative techniques on top of the PPO framework, VAPO significantly refines value learning and creates an optimal balance between exploration and exploitation. This value-based approach decisively outperforms value-free methods like GRPO and DAPO, establishing a new performance ceiling for reasoning tasks. It addresses fundamental challenges in training value models for long CoT scenarios, providing a robust foundation for advancing LLMs in reasoning-intensive applications. Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 85k+ ML SubReddit. Sajjad AnsariSajjad Ansari is a final year undergraduate from IIT Kharagpur. As a Tech enthusiast, he delves into the practical applications of AI with a focus on understanding the impact of AI technologies and their real-world implications. He aims to articulate complex AI concepts in a clear and accessible manner.Sajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/TorchSim: A Next-Generation PyTorch-Native Atomistic Simulation Engine for the MLIP EraSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab Released Dream 7B: A Powerful Open Diffusion Reasoning Model with Advanced Planning and Flexible Inference CapabilitiesSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Sensor-Invariant Tactile Representation for Zero-Shot Transfer Across Vision-Based Tactile SensorsSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/University of Michigan Researchers Introduce OceanSim: A High-Performance GPU-Accelerated Underwater Simulator for Advanced Marine Robotics

Amazon's highly-anticipated live-action Tomb Raider TV show is reportedly "dead."As spotted by Eurogamer, the Daily Mail today reports that the show has "hit the buffers," with Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner — who was tipped to play the titular character — tied up with other projects for most of 2025.The Mail said the project — which would have been based on the long-running Tomb Raider video game franchise — may have been impacted when head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke, who greenlit the show, was "booted" from her position last week.However, Puck reports Salke provided "a brutal update" before she left Amazon, intimating Waller-Bridge had allegedly not produced a script despite the $20 million-a-year deal she signed in 2019. Nonetheless, the deal was renewed, with Puck reporting that Salke was "personally overseeing after announcing a series pickup last May," and the series "has now gone through two writers rooms and tens of millions of dollars in development costs. There’s still no script."Upcoming New Video Game Movies and TV Shows: 2025 Release Dates and BeyondAmazon formally announced its Tomb Raider live-action series for Prime Video in January 2023, revealing Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge was in place as writer and executive producer. At the time, it was thought Amazon also had plans to make a new Tomb Raider movie and at least one additional video game, hoping to make an MCU-like interconnected universe.Though best-known for Fleabag, Waller-Bridge is no stranger to the action-adventure genre after scripting the James Bond film No Time to Die and starring in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.It all went quiet, however, until reports that Waller-Bridge hoped to create something "dangerous and exciting" bubbled up last May as she opened up about her love of Lara growing up. "My parents were very smart because they didn't actually limit me," she recalled. "They could sense that I was going to just game myself into the ground, and I did. I packed the PlayStation away, and I was like, 'I've got to not do that because I've got to write and read and do other stuff.' "Amazon and Waller-Bridge have declined to comment on the rumors.Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

This article contains The Wheel of Time spoilers. At this point in The Wheel of Time television series, fans have become accustomed to the considerable liberties the show has taken to adapt the sprawling fantasy epic to the screen. But while some changes to the chronology and the locations are undoubtedly justifiable in this compressed storytelling format, every once in awhile a modification leaves us scratching our heads. Such is the case with “Goldeneyes,” the seventh episode of season 3, which depicts the pivotal Battle of the Two Rivers. More specifically, it follows the final climax of that particular campaign known as the Battle of Emond’s Field, and the episode is remarkably effective in immersing viewers in the skirmish between trollocs and farmers that was so important in the novels. In fact it’s the accuracy of details like the fortifications, the role of Padan Fain, the storms of Alanna Sedai, and the strong leadership of “Lord Perrin Goldeneyes,” that makes the contrast of the out-of-place conclusion so noticeable. The endings in question are that of Loial, who appears to make the ultimate sacrifice to close the Waygate and prevent trolloc reinforcements from arriving, and Perrin, who turns himself over to the Whitecloaks in exchange for their help during the battle. Neither of these things happened in The Wheel of Time books the way they unfold on screen, and the motives behind the modifications stand out as questionable at best and egregious at worst. “Why are these changes any different from, say, the absence of Mat Cauthon and Verin Sedai, both of whom were present for the battle in the books?” one might ask. But while the shuffling of characters and locations seems reasonable for narrative balance, the changing of a major storyline seems more speculative. In the books, for example, Loial simply locks the Waygate behind him and, although foiled by a later incursion, is left unscathed. So why make his effort to close the magical passage so seemingly permanent in this episode of The Wheel of Time, for him and the Waygate itself? The Ogier is not necessarily out of the picture for good, and perhaps his dramatic departure could be triumphantly undone in a future episode, but what about Perrin’s fate? Although his  deal with Dain Bornald of the Whitecloaks to help with the fight was straight out of The Wheel of Time books, he quite justifiably refused to honor his pledge in the original tale due to the fact that the Children of the Light didn’t lift a finger against the trollocs. It’s likely that, as with Loial’s disappearance in the Waygates, Perrin’s arrest is played for drama so that when he escapes or is let go, he’ll be all the stronger for it. But given how opposite both events are from their book counterparts, it feels wrong somehow to use such a 180 simply to make things more tragic for the viewing audience. The Women’s Circle of the Two Rivers, which picked up the Whitecloaks’ slack in the books, almost lost their moment in the sun! Fortunately, Faile specifically commented on the women’s prowess in battle, which was a reminder in turn of how her character’s arc differed from the novel. Without getting into book spoilers, there are deals made for Faile to flee but instead she brings reinforcements. That change, of course, makes much more sense given that, even in the Robert Jordan story, Faile could protect herself just fine. Maybe the fate of Perrin and Loial is a strange thing to nitpick. Some fans may be reading this article thinking, “You’re questioning that detail and not all the other over-the-top changes The Wheel of Time has been guilty of making?” But with seasons 2 and 3 hitting the mark so well otherwise (particularly in the fourth episodes of each season), a misstep this large feels very much out of place. It remains to be seen if the circumstances of these characters will be undone in future episodes to remedy the error.

Last month, we released Atomfall, and it quickly became our most successful launch in the over 30-year history of Rebellion. But today, we wanted to shine a light on something else we’re proud of – how Atomfall is also Rebellion’s most accessible title to date. Atomfall might offer challenges for those that want them, but it shouldn’t be difficult to physically play. With that in mind, we want to showcase some of the standout accessibility features we’ve built to help everyone explore the mysteries of the Quarantine Zone. We’ve included features across motor, vision, audio and cognition, with many becoming accessibility firsts for the studio – including additional audio cues, directional indicators on subtitles, and more. We hope that the host of features, both in and outside of options, helps welcome more players to the Quarantine Zone.   Playstyle We’ve built a world full of choice and we want players to be able to play their own way. So, instead of difficulty, Atomfall provides a choice of Playstyle. There are five preset Playstyles to choose from, including Investigator for those seeking more survival gameplay, Brawler for a combat-focused experience, and our default Atomfall experience in Survivor. Sightseer, on the other hand, is a preset which will allow more players to explore and enjoy the Quarantine Zone. It lessens combat and survival aspects and provides a boost to exploration to help you through the expansive Lake District and all its mysteries. Rebellion is known for expansive customisation of difficulty, and this applies to Playstyles in Atomfall – each preset can be fully tailored  to provide an experience that suits you, and it can all be changed at any time during your playthrough. Navigating Leads A huge part of Atomfall is investigation; meeting the survivors in the world and following leads they give you. To help with reading and cognitive load, the Exploration section of Playstyle allows you to enable features like Navigational Hints, Flagged Leads and Waypoint Markers. We want the player to get wrapped up in the different threads and explore at their own pace without pressure to complete the main story, but we also recognise this isn’t for everyone. Turning on the Flagged Leads option will highlight the main story quests, and Waypoint Markers also assists with this, giving the option of markers on the compass to follow to your objective, if you enjoy that extra level of guidance. Lastly, Navigational Hints provide short, clear hint text which summarises a lead, reducing overall reading and complexity of language. Contrast & Text Scaling Atomfall includes options to boost the contrast of UI and gameplay elements, as well as expansive text scaling up to 104px at 4K resolution, in line with Xbox’s Adjustable Text Size accessibility feature tag. These tags have been key for us in finding impactful areas to work on for our players, as well as ensuring they can search for the features they need with confidence. For extra contrast with the UI, Atomfall offers several options for you to change the colour of UI elements, like the crosshair, and a backplates option allows you to set the opacity of backplates behind all text and UI in the game. For gameplay, you have options to turn on extra UI for traversal points, high contrast icons for enemy threats, and can set the colour of the outline of interactive objects in the game. There is also an NPC highlights feature, which allows you to set a strong colour overlay on all hostile and non-hostile NPCs in the game, to give extra visibility for players who need it. Directional Indicators As well as full subtitles and a host of customisation options like subtitle colour, speaker name colour, size and background, our subtitles in Atomfall include an option to enable directional and distance indicators. These indicators show an arrow which points towards the source of the dialogue and an approximate distance to the source. This will help anyone playing with reduced audio to locate who’s talking – especially in combat situations, where enemies may shout from behind your character. Alongside this, players can turn on the enemy icons option to show in-world icons above enemies, to assist in locating them visually. Informative Audio Atomfall has a lot of informative audio by design, such as distinct audio for pick-ups and unique shouts or cues for when an attack is incoming to the player. On top of this, Atomfall features additional audio cues for in-game interactions and to assist with combat. A layered set of features allows players to turn on snap aiming with cues, to know when they are snapped on to an enemy; aiming cues, which offer signals that help guide a player to their target using pitch and frequency; and passive NPC sounds, which provide spatialised audio for all NPCs, allowing engagement in melee combat through audio alone. Controls and Remapping Atomfall features remapping for both Keyboard and Controller and includes presets for one-handed play, made possible using our automated movement features and adaptive hardware. By default, Atomfall’s control scheme can be set to have no holds using expansive toggle options, affecting actions like aim, and short holds for interactions. All interfaces are also fully usable with a mouse or through button presses, giving players choice to use what is most comfortable for them. We’re so proud of what we’ve achieved with Atomfall, and we hope that these features help more people to play and enjoy the game. But, with accessibility, we can always do more – if you have feedback, please get in touch with us on Twitter @AtomfallGame or through our Help Centre, or join the conversation on our Discord. Atomfall is out now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, and cloud. It’s also available with Game Pass. And with Xbox Play Anywhere, play on Xbox consoles, Windows PC, and cloud with full cross-entitlements and cross-saves. Atomfall Rebellion ☆☆☆☆☆ 439 ★★★★★ $59.99 Get it now PC Game Pass Xbox Game Pass A survival-action game inspired by real-life events, Atomfall is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. Explore the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, fight and talk your way through a British countryside setting filled with bizarre characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue government agencies. From Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Army, Atomfall will challenge you to solve the dark mystery of what really happened. Player Driven Mystery: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives through exploration, conversation, investigation, and combat, where every choice you make has consequences. Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll need to scavenge for supplies, craft weapons and items, and fight desperately to make it out alive! Desperate Combat: With weapons and ammunition scarce, each frenetic engagement will see you blend marksmanship with vicious hand-to-hand combat. Manage your heart rate to hold a steady aim and ensure you have the energy you need to reach for your cricket bat and land the killer blow. Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you. Navigate cult-controlled ruins, natural caves, nuclear bunkers and more as you explore this dense, foreboding world. Reimagining Windscale: A fictional reimagining of a real-world event, Atomfall draws from science fiction, folk horror, and Cold War influences to create a world that is eerily familiar yet completely alien.

The airport lounge is your reward for successfully navigating check-in, security, and sometimes long lines at immigration. Tucked away from the low-level chaos that is every airport terminal (even in the nicest airports), the lounge is a place to decompress from getting to and through the airport; a temporary office, a chance to shower, work out, or have a genuinely good meal. But these privileges aren’t available to everyone. Access to an airport lounge depends on airline status, what class you’re flying, and any travel credit cards you might hold that include lounge entry. And lounges vary greatly in design and amenities. Every lounge offers basics like WiFi, comfortable seating, and something to eat, but these six lounges are also genuinely well-designed, with lush plants, granite bathrooms, and even nap pods.Delta’s One lounge, which opened in June 2024 at JFK, got a design boost from Missoni; foodie-favorite Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul has vases of fresh flowers and live-cooking stations; and Atlanta’s stunner of an Amex Lounge boasts greenery everywhere. Whether you’re on a long layover or zipping in for a quick bite to eat, these six airport lounges are so gorgeous, airy, and welcoming that you’ll be tempted to linger—just don’t miss your flight.Find more travel inspiration here:

Today’s Apple gear deals are headlined by a couple notable open-box listings with full Apple warranties – the most affordable M4 iPad Pro is now $180 off and we have some rare discounts on the USB-C Magic Mouse (including both the black and white models). From there a new low has emerged on the 13-inch M3 iPad Air in brand-new condition alongside unlocked iPhone 15 Pro units at up to $650 off the original listings. All of that and more awaits below.  Deals on Apple gear have started to get a little bit tight over the last week or so in the wake of U.S. tariffs, but Best Buy’s open-box program remains a wonderful source of discounts on everything from the deals we spotted yesterday on Apple Pencil Pro to one of the lowest cash prices to date on the most affordable M4 MacBook Air. Today, however, we are looking at the M4 iPad Pro and more specifically the least pricey model in the lineup. We are yet to see this one go any more than $150 off, and those are limited-time holiday on-page coupon offers at Amazon, but you can now land one at $180 off in “excellent” open-box condition with a full warranty. Details below. Best Buy is now offering the 11-inch 256GB Space Black M4 iPad Pro down at $819.99 shipped. This is the “excellent” condition open-box listing that also ships with all of the usual accessories and a 1-year warranty – an actual “Apple One (1) Year Limited Warranty.” Regularly $999, and currently starting at $919 via Amazon in brand-new condition, this is $179 off the list price, the lowest we have tracked in 2025 from a dealer of Best Buy’s repute, and the lowest price we can find with a 1-year Apple warranty. This model, the most affordable M4 iPad Pro model, almost never drops more than $150, if that. Again you can score the “good” and “fair” condition open-box units for less, but it’s hard to recommend something that’s in just good condition at prices like this – we all really want our shiny new iPad Pro to be as shiny as possible if you know what I mean. All of that said, it is worth browsing through the rest of the M4 iPad Pro configurations at Best Buy right here – there are open-box deals on just about all of them that are well below what you will find in new condition right now on most models. Here’s a look at the best new discounts via Amazon across the lineup: Apple M4 iPad Pro 11-inch 256GB $919 (Reg. $999) Apple M4 iPad Pro 11-inch 512GB $1,099 (Reg. $1,199) Apple M4 iPad Pro 11-inch 1TB $1,449 (Reg. $1,599) Apple M4 iPad Pro 11-inch 2TB $1,869 (Reg. $1,999) Apple M4 iPad Pro 13-inch 256GB $1,099 (Reg. $1,299) Apple M4 iPad Pro 13-inch 512GB $1,299 (Reg. $1,499) Apple M4 iPad Pro 13-inch 1TB $1,649 (Reg. $1,899) Apple M4 iPad Pro 13-inch 2TB $1,999 (Reg. $2,299) Most affordable 13-inch M3 iPad Air just hit a new Amazon low at $730, more from $549 Upgrade to Apple’s USB-C Magic Mouse with these rare open-box deals: White $61 or Black $72 (1-yr. Apple warranty) If you have been holding off for a deal on the new USB-C Apple Magic Mouse, today might be your chance. While, historically speaking, deals are relatively rare on Apple’s official Magic Mouse – there has only been once good chance to score a price drop on the new black variant and the white USB-C model has yet to drop below $78. However, Best Buy now has some “excellent” condition open-box listings with full 1-year Apple warranties in tow at the best prices we have tracked to date on both the black and white modelsfrom a reputable dealer. Just as a reminder, the white model carries a $79 list price and the black fetches a premium at $99 from Apple, both of which are fetching as much at Amazon right now. But, as mentioned above, pricing on the Geek Squad-verified open-box units in “excellent” condition at Best Buy are much less than that: Open-box Apple Magic Mouse (USB-C) black $72 (Reg. $99 new) Open-box Apple Magic Mouse (USB-C) white $61 (Reg. $79 new) Alongside the “Apple One (1) Year Limited Warranty” they ship with, as well as being covered by Best Buy’s Return & Exchange Promise, here are the details you need to know about these open-box listings: Works and looks like new. Restored to factory settings. Includes all original parts, packaging and accessories (or suitable replacement). The newer USB-C edition of the Apple Magic Mouse is largely identical the Lightning versions, albeit with a USB-C port on the underside so you can finally be rid of those Lightning cables. I don’t know about you, but my Magic Mouse is the only piece of kit I still use that requires one and, while I really don’t need to upgrade, I really can’t wait to finally shed my reliance on the old Apple connector standard. Unlocked iPhone 15 Pro now up to $650 off orig. prices from $744 (Amazon Renewed Premium, 1-yr. warranty) Apple has already been flying in plane loads of iPhones to get ahead of potential tariff conundrums, but Amazon’s Renewed Premium listings on the existing iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max units can deliver some serious savings, coming in at hundreds below the original unlocked prices from Apple. They also ship with a full 1-year warranty and deliver units in better condition than the average refurb you might bump into on Amazon. We just spotted a new low on the heavily upgraded 1TB iPhone 15 Pro in Natural Titanium down at 846.45 shipped – that’s more than $650 under the original price or a comparable new condition iPhone 16 Pro – but there are deals on several configurations worth scoping out today down below. 128GB iPhone 15 Pro from $750 (Orig. $999) 256GB iPhone 15 Pro from $744 (Orig. $1,099) 512GB iPhone 15 Pro from $796 (Orig. $1,299) 1TB iPhone 15 Pro from $846 (Orig. $1,499) While the pricing on iPhones (and about a million other things) is still up in the air at this point, Amazon’s Renewed Premium units remain a notable source of savings. We are talking about prices as much $650 under the original listings and Apple Store prices on unlocked iPhone 16 models. These certainly aren’t iPhone 16 models, but they are the only other Apple handsets that support Apple Intelligence features and still deliver a compelling iPhone experience – they were after all arguably the world’s great phone as of September last year before iPhone 16 launched. Satechi has now launched a sale eventon its official site featuring a range of its charging gear – everything will drop 30% at checkout using code CHARGE30. However, one of the standout deals is arguably its Qi2 Trio Wireless Charging Pad that will drop to $91 with the code above. That’s a solid price, but you’ll want to completely ignore it and head straight over to the brand’s official Amazon storefront instead where you’ll find it marked down to $87.12 shipped right now, and with Prime shipping benefits. This one carries a regular $130 list price via Satechi but has more recently been sitting down at closer to $100 on Amazon where it is now undercutting the direct sale price. The Qi2 Trio Wireless Charging Pad is easily one of the best models with this sort of form-factor I have ever used. The metal rimmed base with the vegan leather wrap up top is simply gorgeous for me. The fully-articulating main Qi2 15W MagSafe pad delivers ideal viewing angles and you can even fold it down flat if you ever needed to stick it in your carry kit. It, of course, also features a magnetic Apple Watch charger and a third Qi pad for AirPods or a second handset. It is a really good one if you ask me and a clear contender for top 5 on the internet. Hit up our launch coverage for a closer look. There are some notable deals worth browsing through in the direct sale on the Satechi site though, including desktop charger units and some of its higher-end USB-C cable solutions, but we also wanted to direct your attention to its wonderful 15W Qi2 Wireless Car Charger– we loved this one after getting to go hands-on for review and the CHARGE30 code will drop its down from the usual $60 to $42 to deliver the lowest price we can find. This is on par with the lowest price we have tracked on Amazon. Browse though the rest of the Satechi eligible for the code above on this landing page. Samsung’s all-new wireless 144Hz The Frame Pro smart TV is now up for purchase alongside new 2025 lineup Samsung just knocked a gigantic $1,800 off its 85-inch 2024 The Frame TV as new models go live Today’s accessories and charging deals: Apple’s most affordable new 16GB M4 MacBook Air is now up to $110 off (Open-box w/ 1-yr. Apple warranty) We are still tracking some straight up $50 price drops on the new M4 MacBook Air – these are best cash discounts we have tracked for folks without gear to trade-in against one to date in new condition. That said, we love our Best Buy open-box listings with the full 1-year Apple warranty attached and they are now offering the lowest prices to date on the most affordable model at up to $110 off. Details below. Now, you will find the entry-level 13-inch model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB storage capacity starting from $950 in brand-new conditionover at Amazon. However, all but the silver model are selling for much less than that as part of Best Buy’s “excellent condition” open-box listings with a full 1-year Apple warranty attached. We can certainly understand why some folks would rather a brand new unit, but if you’re looking to score the best deal possible from a reputable dealer in the early part of the year here, these open-box listings are worth a look: Sky Blue 13-inch M4 MacBook Air $896 (Reg. $999) Starlight 13-inch M4 MacBook Air $890 (Reg. $999) Midnight 13-inch M4 MacBook Air $927 (Reg. $999) Now you will find even lower prices on the “good” and “fair” condition units, but we tend to recommend the “excellent” models – if you’re going to be buying a brand new M4 MacBook Air, you’re also likely going to want one in more than just good condition. You will also find open-box deals on other configurations in the M4 Air lineup waiting right here – look for the small “Open-Box” link below the “Add to Cart” button. Here’s how the brand-new deal pricing works out at Amazon right now for comparison: 13-inch M4 MacBook Air 16GB/256GB $949 (Reg. $999) 13-inch M4 MacBook Air 16GB/512GB from $1,184 (Reg. $1,199) 13-inch M4 MacBook Air 24GB/512GB $1,359 (Reg. $1,399) 15-inch M4 MacBook Air 16GB/512GB from $1,139 (Reg. $1,199) 15-inch M4 MacBook Air 16GB/512GB $1,342 (Reg. $1,399) 15-inch M4 MacBook Air 24GB/512GB $1,549 (Reg. $1,599) Amazon clears out upgraded 24GB 15-inch M3 MacBook Airs at the $1,349 low ($550 under the orig. price), more Apple Pencil Pro now down at $88 in “excellent” open-box condition with 1-yr. Apple warranty Apple Watch Ultra 2 prices drop again: Black models up to $170 off (Best Buy open-box w/ full warranty), or new from $719 Tested: Journey’s Find My leather key organizer multi-tool – much more elegant than an AirTag keychain [20% off] Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Even as tariffs loom, big techIn numbers, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon combined will spend more than $270 billion in capital expenditures to build AI data centers in 2025 alone, according to a Citigroup estimate cited by The Wall Street Journal.But looking at Amazon as a case study, just a fraction of that centibillion sum will return revenue. John Blackledge, a tech analyst at TD Cowen, told the WSJ that the cloud computing division of e-commerce giant, Amazon Web Services, has historically earned $4 in incremental revenue for every $1 spent. With generative AI, the ratio is inverted: around 20 cents for every dollar, according to Blackledge, who nonetheless maintains that within a few years, Amazon will get closer to a $4 return.It's difficult to extrapolate a specific amount that's being spent on AI, because Amazon doesn't break down its specific spending. But last year, AWS reported an operating income of $39.8 billion, and it's been a cash cow long before the AI boom.That AI is a money pit shouldn't be surprising. It's been clear for some time now that generative AI's road to profitability will be a rocky one, if it even leads to that destination at all. As evidenced by the above figures, it's an enormously expensive technology, both to develop and to run. Vast amounts of data are scraped to train the AI models, and the pricey data centers that run them rack up huge energy bills, water bills, and maintenance costs even after they're constructed.The other side of the equation — how the AI services will generate money — is also fraught with uncertainty. OpenAI, which is charging customers an eye-watering $200 per month for full access to ChatGPT, for example, reeks of desperation. Power users may think it worthwhile, but most people might have second thoughts about paying even just a $20 subscription fee.Above all, big tech hasn't convinced customers and some of its own investors on what AI will be out-and-out useful for. Chatbots are great at writing emails, but many attempts to implement AI models into business settings, such as customer service roles, have fallen flat on their face. Evincing an industry bereft of new ideas or clear direction, Apple's stab at the technology has been lackluster — a tool to generate custom emojis does not suggest at a company at the height of innovation — being a dud at best and a disaster at worse. Meanwhile, serious questions about the tech's proclivity to hallucinate, or generate false information, persist.Despite talking a big game, some in the tech sector are showing cold feet amidst the tariffs. Microsoft, which still insists it plans to spend $80 billion in AI infrastructure this year, signaled as much by scaling back or pulling out of numerous data center projects across the globe.Whether Amazon will blink remains to be seen. It's indicated it will spend a total of $100 billion this year in capital expenditures, with the majority of that going towards AWS. In its splashiest move yet, Amazon is building one of the world's largest data center clusters, codenamed Project Rainier, for Anthropic AI to train its models on with hundreds of thousands of custom-built "Trainium 2" chips, achieving five times the processing power used to train current leading AI models. Nonetheless, Amazon is keeping the specific costs associated with the project a closely guarded secret.More on AI: Quartz Fires All Writers After Move to AI SlopShare This Article

Apr 10, 2025Ravie LakshmananContainer Security / Vulnerability Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a case of an incomplete patch for a previously addressed security flaw impacting the NVIDIA Container Toolkit that, if successfully exploited, could put sensitive data at risk. The original vulnerability CVE-2024-0132 (CVSS score: 9.0) is a Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) vulnerability that could lead to a container escape attack and allow for unauthorized access to the underlying host. While this flaw was resolved by NVIDIA in September 2024, a new analysis by Trend Micro has revealed the fix to be incomplete and that there also exists a related performance flaw affecting Docker on Linux that could result in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. "These issues could enable attackers to escape container isolation, access sensitive host resources, and cause severe operational disruptions," Trend Micro researcher Abdelrahman Esmail said in a new report published today. The fact that the TOCTOU vulnerability persists means that a specially crafted container could be abused to access the host file system and execute arbitrary commands with root privileges. The flaw impacts version 1.17.4 if the feature allow-cuda-compat-libs-from-container is explicitly enabled. "The specific flaw exists within the mount_files function," Trend Micro said. "The issue results from the lack of proper locking when performing operations on an object. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of the host." However, for this privilege escalation to work, the attacker must have already obtained the ability to execute code within a container. The shortcoming has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2025-23359 (CVSS score: 9.0), which was previously flagged by cloud security firm Wiz as also a bypass for CVE-2024-0132 back in February 2025. It has been addressed in version 1.17.4. The cybersecurity company said it also discovered a performance issue during the analysis of the CVE-2024-0132 that could potentially lead to a DoS vulnerability on the host machine. It affects Docker instances on Linux systems. "When a new container is created with multiple mounts configured using (bind-propagation=shared), multiple parent/child paths are established. However, the associated entries are not removed in the Linux mount table after container termination," Esmail said. "This leads to a rapid and uncontrollable growth of the mount table, exhausting available file descriptors (fd). Eventually, Docker is unable to create new containers due to fd exhaustion. This excessively large mount table leads to a huge performance issue, preventing users from connecting to the host (i.e., via SSH)." To mitigate the issue, it's advised to monitor the Linux mount table for abnormal growth, limit Docker API access to authorized personnel, enforce strong access control policies, and conduct periodic audits of container-to-host filesystem bindings, volume mounts, and socket connections. Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter  and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. SHARE    