Blizzard launched Diablo Immortal earlier this summer to a chorus of mediocre reviews and howls of anger from gamers. The mobile-optimized Diablo is free to download, but it’s . That hasn’t stopped it from becoming a huge money-maker for the company, and it’s about to rake in even more cash. Blizzard and its Chinese partners have reportedly been given permission to launch Immortal in China, which is the largest gaming market in the world. The game launched in most of the world on June 2nd, save for where loot box mechanics are effectively banned. It was supposed to arrive in China on June 23rd, but Blizzard .
Monthly bandwidth caps are common among internet service providers (ISPs) in the US, but two US Senators want to stop that practice. Ben Ray Luján and Cory Booker have introduced the Uncap America Act, which would ban most data caps. Naturally, there are some carve-outs for network management, but the real problem is the low likelihood of passage. (both Democrats) takes aim at the bandwidth caps ISPs use as a way to increase revenues. So, almost all of them, despite what the telecom industry might claim. The legislation says arbitrary caps that force people to pay more money for their connections “limit participation in the digital economy and are contrary to the public interest.
Installing apps on your smartphone means giving up some degree of privacy. Until recently, Google’s Play Store showed you all the permissions an app might request, but Google recently . Having developers divulge their plans for your data is a good thing, but relying on that exclusively to inform consumers is a very bad thing. Google seems to get that now — the company has announced that the full permission list is returning to the Play Store. Google started allowing developers to fill in the Data Safety box several weeks ago, and it became mandatory on July 20th. This feature includes information on what data an app collects, as well as how developers use (or don’t use) that data.
Intel has been trying to get its foundry services business off the ground since it launched in 2021, and today it’s reached a milestone in that effort. Intel Foundry Services has announced a new partnership with Mediatek to fab some of its future products. Mediatek has been known to previously use TSMC as its fab of choice. Given the diversity of its portfolio, that’s not likely to change, but it will be now using Intel Foundry Services (IFS) as well. The company says the new partnership will add some resilience to its supply chain given Intel’s presence in the US and Europe.
(Photo: Taylor R/Unsplash)An educational institution in Canada is now able to offer students a firsthand tour through video game history, thanks to the recent acquisition of a famous 14,000-title collection. The University of Toronto Mississauga was recently gifted what’s known as the Syd Bolton collection, an assemblage of thousands of video games and gaming-related magazines. Syd Bolton himself was a programmer from Ontario who took pride in collecting tech memorabilia and sharing his library with the public. Up until his death in 2018, Bolton curated and ran the Personal Computer Museum, which had more than 50 computers—from Atari and Commodore to Apple and Mattel—and a range of original software on display.
Foldable phones have been just around the corner for longer than you’d expect — I can’t even count the number of flexible OLED demos I’ve seen at trade shows over the years. Foldables are a reality now though, and they have been since Samsung released the first Galaxy Fold in 2019, but you probably haven’t bought one yet. Samsung is in its third generation of now, and it says sales increased 300 percent in 2021. Foldables might not be mainstream quite yet, but that day is coming. Samsung released the current third-gen foldables, the Z Fold3 and Z Flip3, in fall 2021.
It’s a nightmare scenario that looms over the global technology industry: the possibility of an invasion of Taiwan by China. In one fell swoop, the entire world could be suddenly cut off from its advanced silicon manufacturing technology. Most notably, no more chips from TSMC for US-based companies like Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. The impacts of such a move would be felt far and wide. Now, the US Commerce Secretary has weighed in on what economic harm it would cause here in the States. “It’s a deep and immediate recession,” the Secretary said in a recent interview. U.S.
Somewhere in Texas, an intern has (probably) just been let go from AMD. Over on the official AMD subreddit a video popped up yesterday titled “Elevate Your Audio Experience – AMD Noise Suppression.” The video is now marked Private, but like all things on the Internet people were able to save a version of it. As the title suggests, an upcoming driver will allow Radeon GPU owners to eliminate extraneous noise in video, voice calls, and when gaming. However, it’s not clear which GPUs will support this technology, or when it will launch. The Redditor who the illicit video posted some details before it was taken down.
Good afternoon, folks, and happy Friday! Holy heat wave. We’re not the only ones experiencing these torrid temperatures; another “canyon of fire” has opened up on the sun. Its associated solar flare let go when it was pointed directly at the Earth. In fact, much of this week’s space news is actually about Earthly developments. This may be because so many of NASA’s spacecraft are either in hibernation or experiencing power supply problems. Nevertheless, this week we’ve got updates aplenty. Apparently, everything that happened this week happened on Thursday. An international team of astronomers reported this week that they used images from the James Webb space telescope to find the oldest galaxy in the universe.
