Latest News - Page 33

GTA V shipped with 60 random encounters, 20 Strangers and Freaks mission arcs, and nearly 42 minigames. But according to former lead producer John Riccitiello, that was only after Rockstar cut an enormous amount of content that never made it into the final game.

Speaking on the Kiwi Talkz podcast, Ricchio said, "There was so much stuff in GTA, particularly in GTA 5. Oh my god, there was so much stuff that was done. Like minigames that were completely done and ready to go, except for, like, animation, right?"

Those cuts came down to the animation team becoming a bottleneck. Every part of the game had to reach Rockstar's usual level of polish, and with animators already stretched thin, even finished minigames were left on the cutting room floor because there wasn't enough time to bring them up to that standard.

SpaceX and Foxconn were rumored to have penned a $52 billion order for 13,000 racks of NVIDIA GB300 AI servers from the Elon Musk-led company, with each rack priced at a blistering $4 million.

The deal, set to begin deliveries in Q4 2026, included up to 936,000 GPUs and would have marked a major expansion of SpaceX's AI compute footprint, which we discovered was already quite expansive when the company went public, as its compute prowess is one of the main driving factors behind its staggering $1.75 trillion IPO.

Foxconn, already a key player in the AI server market, expects to capture 40 percent of the global AI server market by year-end, and reports are now stating this new contract adds a material upside to its projections. The deal also breaks the Dell/Supermicro duopoly, signaling a shift in the hyperscaler manufacturing landscape.

TSMC is about to lose one of its biggest advantages - cheap, grid-based power, as a new energy law set to pass in Taiwan is going to cause a massive headache for the world's best semiconductor manufacturer.

The Taiwanese government is pushing an amendment to the Energy Management Law, which requires all large commercial electricity users to generate and store their own power, excluding only schools and hospitals. As one of the island's largest energy consumers, TSMC will now have to work out how it's going to generate approximately 9% of Taiwan's electricity over the course of a year, as that is how much the company used over the course of 2024.

TSMC's energy use has already grown 10 - 20% annually for the past four years, and industry forecasts suggest it could consume 24% of Taiwan's total electricity by 2030. Meanwhile, the island's electricity supply has struggled to keep pace with demand from expanding electronics manufacturing facilities and fabrication plants. This discrepancy is now threatening to stifle the growth of not just TSMC, but the broader semiconductor industry, and is putting strain on vital services across Taiwan such as schools and hospitals.

Netflix just paid $587 million in cash for Ben Affleck's AI startup, indicating the streaming giant's growing commitment to generative AI tools integrating or being used to assist in filmmaking. The acquisition of Affleck's company, called InterPositive, was revealed in a recent regulatory filing and marks one of the largest deals yet in the AI content creation space.

Affleck, who co-founded the startup in 2022, said his goal with InterPositive was to "protect the power of human creativity" through AI tools that assist in post-production challenges like missing shots and lighting corrections. Netflix stated that around 300 of its titles have already used InterPositive's tools, and the full team will now join the company, with Affleck serving as a senior advisor.

Netflix has been steadily ramping up its use of generative AI in production, and this acquisition gives it direct control over the technology, which it will undoubtedly roll out to its numerous projects in various ways. It also raises questions about how much further studios will go in automating creative workflows.

Apple discontinued the Mac Pro in March, ending a 20-year run for the machine that once defined the company's professional desktop lineup. Yet a new Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman reveals that the Mac Pro's fate could have looked very different.

According to the report, Apple developed multiple unreleased M2 Extreme and M3 Extreme chips, along with Mac Pro hardware built around them, before ultimately cancelling both projects. These processors were designed to sit above the Ultra tier, offering roughly twice the CPU and GPU core counts of their Ultra counterparts.

An M3 Extreme, for instance, would have doubled the M3 Ultra's 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU. The chips were ultimately abandoned due to high production costs and concerns that demand for a machine likely to cost well over $10,000 before upgrades would be too limited.

LG monitors are installing software through Windows Update without user consent, sparking privacy and security concerns among PC users.

According to GamersNexus, connecting an LG UltraGear 34GX900A-B monitor to a Windows PC will automatically install software that promotes McAfee antivirus subscriptions, all without any prompt or user approval. Essentially, plugging any Windows 11 PC into this LG monitor automatically installs what is commonly considered adware, software that is dedicated to displaying an advertisement for additional software.

GamersNexus replicated what many LG monitors were complaining about on Reddit, confirming that the monitor triggers an automatic software install that occurs silently during the monitor setup process, all without any user approval. This includes not only promotional material for McAfee but also additional adware-like elements, along with the approval of suspicious permissions such as granting access to "All system resources" and geolocation, online activity, and contact data.

Moonshot AI has been forced to suspend new Kimi subscriptions as demand for the new Kimi K3 open-weight model has overwhelmed its compute infrastructure.

The company announced the temporary halt via its official Twitter account, citing that demand for the 2.8-trillion-parameter open-source model had pushed its GPU resources to the absolute limit. To ensure current users can maintain access to Kimi K3, Moonshot has decided to prioritize its compute power for existing subscribers and delay new signups until it's able to access more compute to serve new customers.

Existing Kimi subscribers won't be affected by this change, but new users will be faced with a new system. Moonshot is making changes to its membership plans in two focused tiers: Kimi Membership for general use and Kimi Code Membership for coding workflows. The move aims to better allocate compute power and improve service stability, while also mimicking the structure offered by other AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

A man who paid $5.5 million for a cliffside mansion that later collapsed into the ocean is suing his bank, claiming the loan should never have been approved as he applied for it during a manic episode. The lawsuit accuses JPMorgan Chase of ignoring his mental health and violating its own lending policies for customers.

John G. Bonomi Jr. bought the Cape Cod property in 2021, only to have it demolished in 2025 before it was inevitably going to fall into the sea as the home sat on eroding cliffs, with professionals estimating the land beneath the home was expected to vanish at a rate of 3.8 to 5.6 feet per year.

Bonomi claims he was in the throes of a manic episode at the time of purchase, acting under "uncontrollable psychosis" due to his bipolar disorder. The lawsuit argues that no rational person would have made the purchase under such conditions, and that bipolar disorder can result in irrational risk-taking behavior, impulsive behavior, and reckless spending.

Some Amazon Web Services (AWS) users woke up to what would easily be one of the worst ways to wake up - a bill for more than a billion dollars. Amazon confirmed Friday its AWS billing portal fired off charges for some customers to the point of absurdity, with one AWS customer being told they owed $2.5 billion for the month.

Amazon has confirmed a system error was tracked back to a recent change to the billing computation subsystem, which Amazon said was rolled back but did not resolve the issue. Amazon emphasized that the inflated charges do not reflect actual usage, and customers affected are likely not financially responsible for the amounts. Screenshot evidence from Reddit shows a range of phantom invoices, from millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, and in some cases, such as this video, AWS customers receiving a bill for $2.2 billion of AWS usage they didn't actually use.

Amazon spokesperson Aisha Johnson declined to comment further on the matter, directing all questions to the company's status page, which outlines the error and how Amazon is dealing with it. AWS is a cornerstone of modern tech operations and one of the biggest cloud infrastructure players today, which only further compounds the severity of a glitch of this scale, which may be viewed by affected customers as a reason to trust Amazon less. While the billing system is expected to stabilize in the coming hours, the damage to Amazon's reputation may linger.

Sony announced in July 2026 that it would stop making physical copies of PlayStation games by January 2028, and now Mexican regulators have put PlayStation in their crosshairs over the decision. The move from Sony has drawn sharp criticism, with some arguing the decision could give Sony an unfair amount of control over the market.

Federal Representative Iraís Reyes and Senator Luis Donaldo Colosio are leading the charge against Sony,filing a formal complaint with Mexico's antitrust body against Sony Interactive Entertainment, in which they argue that Sony's decision to phase out physical copies of PlayStation games would mean digital software sales are the only sales channel for PlayStation games, and that would enable Sony to dictate prices and terms for its games without market competition. The complaint describes this as anti-competitive behavior.

Reyes and Colosio claim the removal of physical media could limit consumer choice and make it harder for smaller developers to compete in the market. The broader gaming industry has already seen a steady decline in physical media, but Sony's timeline - ending disc production in under two years - has amplified concerns and has turned many once die-hard PlayStation fans into critics.

A Florida student used Steam to distribute malware-laced games that siphoned crypto from victims' wallets, netting over $200,000, and now faces several heavy charges from federal prosecutors.

Zyaire Wilkins, a 21-year-old University of West Florida student, was arrested by the FBI after allegedly hiding crypto-draining malware in Steam games such as BlockBlasters, Dashverse, and PirateFi. Notably, I reported on PirateFi back on February 17, 2025, as Steam recommended that any players of the game reinstall their operating system after it was discovered the game contained "malicious files". Many unsuspecting players who saw the titles, which seemed legitimate, had their passwords extracted and cryptocurrency wallets drained. Over 80 cryptocurrency accounts were compromised during the 22-month duration of the scam.

The scheme was meticulously executed, with the group promoting the games on Discord, Telegram, and X. Wilkins and his accomplices even used bots to target high-net-worth crypto holders. What ultimately led to his downfall? A trail of stolen Bitcoin converted into Uber Eats gift cards, which Wilkins then used to carry out purchases of food on Uber Eats. Investigators traced those transactions and orders of food back to Wilkins' home address, along with his university address.

NVIDIA's RTX Spark system-on-chip (SoC) is on track to launch this fall, powering a new wave of Windows on Arm devices with its Grace CPU and RTX Blackwell GPU architecture. Announced at Computex 2026, RTX Spark marks NVIDIA's debut in the APU space, and the first devices will arrive as powerful premium laptops and mini PCs from companies like ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and more, with support for up to 127GB of unified memory.

Although specific dates, pricing, and even in-depth performance targets are still TBC, NVIDIA has released its first RTX Spark 'Developer Preview' driver so that developers can start porting their apps to Windows on Arm.

"Developers can begin preparing their applications for Windows on Arm and RTX Spark today," NVIDIA writes in a new post on its developer forums. "You do not need RTX Spark hardware to get started; an existing Windows on Arm development system can be used to port your application, identify incompatible dependencies, and bring up an initial Arm64 build."

Listed as 'The Jensen Jacket: Jensen Huang's Tom Ford Leather Jacket' on the official Sotheby's listing, this signed piece of clothing from the NVIDIA CEO and founder has apparently sold and raised $960,000 at auction this past weekend. The almost $1 million price for what's described as "the uniform of a 'first believer'" and a "symbol of his leadership style embodying authenticity, ingenuity, persistence, courage and joy" far exceeded the $40,000 to $60,000 USD estimate.

And per the listing, the Tom Ford jacket that went up for auction was actually worn by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at a tech day presentation in Taipei on October 18, 2023, verified by the PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator). Of course, $960,000 for a leather jacket is a lot of money, but the money raised went to charity. Namely, the philanthropic Edge Institute, which is all about helping fund the "next generation of young builders to pursue their passions and projects" in the tech, science, and culture space.

The jacket 'selling' at a price significantly higher than the estimate makes sense when you factor in the current AI boom and NVIDIA's rise to become one of the world's biggest companies. And with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang being the face of the company, while wearing Tom Ford leather jackets, he's become something of a celebrity in some circles.

AMD's next-generation Zen 6 architecture for its desktop and mobile CPUs and processors is on the horizon, and it will power the upcoming Ryzen AI 500 Series of APUs for laptops, mini PCs, and other mobile devices. Codenamed 'Medusa Point,' the lineup is generating a lot of buzz, as it will deliver the sort of generational upgrade many have been waiting for.

Although we've seen benchmarks and various references for a 10-core 'Medusa Point' processor leak, the latest Geekbench listing showcases Zen 6 in a more mature and consumer-ready state. And that's because the result for what could end up being the Ryzen AI 9 565 delivers performance that would make it the fastest AMD or Intel x86 chip seen to date.

The Geekbench listing has the 'AMD Plum-MDS1' name, which refers to an engineering sample comprised of a 10-core (4+6) chip, with 20 threads, and a boost clock frequency of 5.37 GHz. The single-core score of 3,329 is impressive because it beats the similar Zen5 'Strix Point' APU, the Ryzen AI 9 365, by around 35%.

SK hynix, alongside Samsung and Micron, is one of the big three in memory manufacturing. And with the insatiable demand for memory from the data center and AI market, which has led to an exponential increase in pricing, it's now one of the most successful and lucrative companies in the world, thanks to the DRAM crisis.

With the demand and price increases not showing any sign of slowing down, to the point where the consumer technology market is now in a state of unprecedented crisis, there is a limit and a negative side to the high prices and record profits for SK hynix. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, the parent company of SK hynix, shared this concern at the recent 'Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Summer Forum.'

"Memory prices are currently at an abnormally high level," Chairman Chey Tae-won said during a press conference. "While AI companies can absorb increased costs through investments, PC and smartphone manufacturers have no choice but to pass rising semiconductor costs onto product prices." Seeing SK Group acknowledge the effect the DRAM crisis is having on the consumer technology market is good news, even if the solution boils down to more supply, which would take years.

When it comes to the memory crisis facing the consumer technology market, whether that's laptops, desktop PCs, or even smartphones, it can be hard to understand the sheer scale of the unprecedented demand. According to analysts, current and near-term demand for DRAM and memory from the data center and AI industries actually eclipses all DRAM in circulation.

This is one of the main reasons we're continuously hearing and reporting new data on how the situation is getting 'worse' and that there's currently no quick fix or solution on the table. Case in point, PC and hardware makers are looking to Chinese memory companies like CXMT for DDR5 and LPDDR5X memory. However, even here, PC OEMs like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and even Apple are having to secure large long-term DRAM supply at high prices.

Even as CXMT expands its DRAM wafer production to reach an impressive 350,000 per month by the end of 2026, which is right up there with companies like Micron, it's still not enough to meet the demand. Especially for smaller companies and vendors looking to secure memory. As reported by DigiTimes, there's virtually no CXMT allocation available for the smaller brands.

Regulators in the European Union are expected to give their nod of approval for EA's proposed $55 billion take-private deal.

EA, one of the biggest games companies in the world, is going private. A consortium of investors pooled $55 billion to buy out all remaining EA stock and take the company private for the first time since EA's inception. The deal is being financed principally by the Saudi PIF, a sovereign wealth fund that has been spending billions to acquire significant portions of the games market, including Scopely, Moonton, and Niantic's gaming assets. It's estimated that the Saudi PIF will fund 93% of the deal, granting major voting rights in the process. Other partners include Affinity Partners and Silver Lake.

The deal has been scrutinized by regulators, but is making headway behind the scenes. Sources tell Reuters that the EU is ready to approve the take-private deal under its Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) division. The decision is expected to be made public on July 30, however, an unconditional approval of the deal under merger guidelines could be announced when the initial investigation ends on July 22.

A user was able to recover their account from Microsoft, but only after going viral--the company previously said there was nothing they could do to help.

Digital entitlements are a valuable currency, but it's only a one-way trade. There's no real way to get redemptive value back from the content that a consumer buys, and worse, this content can be taken back at any time should the rights expire (hello, Studio Canal). As users rack up thousands of dollars in purchases, including games and media, the value of their account skyrockets. But what happens when you lose access?

That's what happened to streamer Joshua Khane, who was recently locked out of his Microsoft account. The company had told Khane that his account, which included access to precious irreplaceable data via OneDrive and a full games library, could not be retrieved and would be deleted. Khane posted the issue on Twitter, gaining mass support and going viral.

Bethesda's Todd Howard comments on the Creations paid mods program, likening it to classic D&D campaigns from back in the day.

Back in 2017, Bethesda made one of its most unpopular and controversial announcements: Paid mods were coming to Skyrim and Fallout 4. The idea was to bring both free and paid mods to consoles, and give mod creators a way to make money. The program hasn't exactly taken off--Bethesda recently confirmed Creations have only facilitated $10 million in creator royalty payouts--but even still, the studio has no plans to stop with paid mods.

In a recent interview with Windows Central, Bethesda's Todd Howard briefly waxed poetic on the design philosophies around Creations, saying that the mod microtransactions are kind of like little ways to create that custom Dungeons & Dragons experience from early days.

Xbox's Game Pass has been polarizing among publishers since its launch, but gamers famously love the service. It is one of the most convenient and user-friendly features that currently exists in the gaming industry. However, it looks like not all parties agree. Turns out the people making the games at Xbox and the people running the business side of Xbox have very different feelings about Game Pass.

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier said on his Triple Click podcast that a lot of Xbox studio leadership absolutely detest Game Pass, arguing it destroyed the value of their games and has been a broader detriment to the industry by training players to expect games for free on day one. Schreier's sourcing lines up with what former Xbox studio leads have said elsewhere, describing Game Pass internally as feeling "like a race to zero."

That thought process lines up with what's actually happened at Xbox this year. Microsoft hiked Game Pass Ultimate from $19.99 to $29.99, then walked it back to $22.99 after subscriber counts reportedly dropped from around 35 million to 30 million. The tradeoff for that price cut was pulling new Call of Duty games from day-one Game Pass access, something Bloomberg previously reported was controversial internally long before this price hike ever happened.