Valve has changed Steam's refund policy, which featured a loophole that was undoubtedly abused by at least thousands of gamers.

Steam's refund policy is quite straightforward; at its most rudimentary, a user can purchase a game and play it for up to two hours. Before the two-hour mark, the buyer was able to refund the game at zero cost, and as you can probably imagine, this loophole was easily abusable by the millions of Steam users. However, Valve has now changed its policy by partially patching up the loophole, specifically in regard to titles that are in pre-purchase and offer "Advanced Access."

For those that don't know, Advanced Access can be granted to a player that pre-purchases a title. Sometimes developers and publishers will give early access to a game to those who pre-order. The duration of this access can sometimes be as long as a week or just 24 hours. Steam's refund policy didn't count any hours played of an Advanced Access title, and only began counting after it was officially released.

TSMC has announced its development of next-generation Compact Universal Photonic Engine (COUPE) technology, which will support the "explosive growth" in data transmission associated with the "AI boom."

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) unveiled its newest semiconductor process, advanced packaging, and 3D IC technologies for the next-generation of AI innovations with silicon leadership at TSMC's 2024 North America Technology Symposium.

At the event, TSMC unveiled its new A16 technology, which packs industry-leading nanosheet transistors with an innovative backside power rail solution for production in 2026, with "greatly improved logic density and performance." TSMC also introduced its new System-on-Wafer (TSMC-SoW) technology, which is an innovative solution that delivers "revolutionary performance to the wafer level" in addressing the future AI requirements for hyperscaler datacenterrs.

We somehow missed this, but ASUS recently launched its own external 4K game capture box, the new TUF Gaming Capture Box-4K Pro. This box supports full HDMI 2.1 4K 144 Hz HDR passthrough, variable refresh rates, and up to 4K 60 FPS capture. It's a stylish little unit with RGB flourishes and that signature rugged all-aluminum ASUS TUF Gaming look.

The TUF Gaming Capture Box-4K Pro supports a wide range of input signals, making it an excellent option for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X capture. On the PC side, it supports 1080p and 1440p 120 FPS capture and 1080p 240 Hz and 1440p 144 Hz passthrough. On top of this, there's VRR or Variable Refresh Rate support, so you can game with G-SYNC or FreeSync enabled.

All of this is handled via a single USB 10 Gbps port that connects to a compatible PC for recording and capture. The TUF Gaming Capture Box-4K Pro is also a certified OBS-compatible device. In addition, ASUS has announced that it has won a prestigious IF Design award.

Sony's gaming patents are now starting to coalesce into exciting new features for PlayStation consoles, and today's new addition could help pave the way for major next-gen upgrades on the PlayStation 6.

Community Game Help is now live on PS5, turning PlayStation users into tipsters along the way. The new feature is an evolution of the PS5's Game Help feature that gives users video and/or picture tutorials on how to complete certain activities in a game (e.g. boss fights). Think of it as a digital version of those old NES secrets books from the 1990s.

What does the Community Game Help feature actually do? How does it work? Sony explains: "Once you turn on the settings, your PS5 will automatically capture a video when you complete a certain activity in a game. Then, it will be reviewed by a moderator, and if approved, your video will be published as a Game Help hint for PlayStation players to watch, learn from, and rate."

Blizzard games have started appearing on GeForce NOW, thanks to NVIDIA's cloud gaming service supporting Battle.net. As part of its weekly GFN Thursday update, NVIDIA confirmed the addition of 16 new games to the GeForceNOW library. And there's more Blizzard love joining the service in the form of classic games from the Diablo and StarCraft franchises.

This includes StarCraft Remastered, StarCraft II, Diablo II: Resurrected, and Diablo III, all playable over the cloud with GeForce RTX hardware. And yes, you can stream games like the excellent Diablo II: Resurrected remaster/remake at up to 4K 240 frames per second if you've got a GeForce NOW Ultimate subscription - and access to a GeForce RTX 4080.

These Blizzard additions join Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, Call of Duty, and Hearthstone, which are all supported and available on GeForce NOW. Other new titles joining the library this week include Dead Island 2 (Steam), the retro-inspired shooter Phantom Fury (Steam), and the highly anticipated Manor Lords (Steam and Xbox/PC Game Pass).

AMD's next-gen Ryzen 9050 series "Strix Halo" APU specs have been circulating the rumor mill for a while now, but some new details have surfaced that are getting us excited.

The new Strix Halo APU will be quite the beast, offering 16 cores and 32 threads of next-gen Zen 5 processing power, with 1MB of L2 cache per core, and 32MB per CCD of unified L3 cache (MALL cache). We should see not one but two CCDs on the Strix Halo APU, which will see 8MB of L2 cache per CCD (8 cores per CCD, two CCDs = 16 cores = 16MB of L2 cache in total).

AMD's next-gen Strix Halo APU will feature an upgraded XDNA2-based NPU for AI workloads, offering a much higher 60 TOPS of AI workload performance. Remember: this is 60 TOPS just for the NPU, and not counting what will be capable from the CPU and GPU on Strix Halo. Speaking of the GPU, AMD will include an RDNA 3.5-based GPU with 20 Work Group Processors (WGP).

Sabrent has a new special offer for PlayStation 5 owners, with a free PS5 heatsink with the purchase of a super-fast Rocket 4 1TB or Rocket 4 2TB SSD. You can buy your Sabrent Rocket 4 1TB or 2TB SSD -- and get your free PS5 heatsink -- on Sabrent's website here.

If you want a super-fast Gen4 SSD or a larger Gen4 SSD for your PlayStation 5 console -- given that it comes with a standard 1TB SSD -- Sabrent is celebrating with a new special offer. With the purchase of a Sabrent Rocket 4 1TB or 2TB SSD, the company will provide a free M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5, which is worth $20.

You can grab the Sabrent Rocket 4 1TB SSD for $99.99 or the larger Rocket 4 2TB SSD for $199, both of them will come with the free PS5 heatsink.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a live keynote a few days before Computex 2024 kicks off, with the keynote taking place on June 2 at 7 PM Taiwan time at the NTU Sports Center (National Taiwan University Sports Center).

Huang will discuss how the era of AI is driving a new industrial revolution across the planet. NVIDIA will remind people that the keynote is free to attend and will also be live-streamed. NVIDIA's just-announced keynote is NOT part of the official Computex 2024 keynotes, and it will be mentioned only on NVIDIA's website.

NVIDIA hosted the opening keynote for Computex 2023 last year, but it seems that GPU competitor AMD is hosting the opening keynote of Computex 2024 with AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su taking the stage. Not only that, but Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger will also be presenting a keynote for his company. AMD's keynote will take place on June 3 (9:30 to 11 AM) while Intel will host their keynote with Gelsinger on June 4.

Microsoft confirms that its gaming hardware revenues are down significantly as consumers are buying fewer Xbox consoles.

Microsoft's latest Q3 results delivered both good and bad news for Xbox. The good news is that revenues are up +50% to $5.451 billion, driven by content & services, and that Xbox has now made more than it ever has before. The bad news? Hardware earnings are down, this time dropping by 31%.

Xbox consoles generated $429 million in revenue for the Q3 period, representing just 8% of the total quarterly amount. "Xbox hardware revenue decreased 31% driven by lower volume of consoles sold," reads Microsoft's new 10-Q SEC filing. While Microsoft may be getting outpaced on the hardware front, it's doing very well when it comes to gaming software and services.

Lenovo has just unveiled its latest ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 ultraportable high-performance AI mobile workstation, which is the first laptop with an Intel Core Ultra vPro "Meteor Lake" CPU and new LPCAMM2 memory. Check it out:

The new Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 laptops feature up to the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor with 16 cores and 22 threads clocking in at up to 5.1GHz, with 24MB of smart cache. There's an integrated Intel Arc "Xe-LPG" GPU with up to 8 Xe-Cores, but being an AI-ready mobile workstation, Lenovo bakes in up to an NVIDIA RTX 3000 workstation GPU with 4608 CUDA core and 8GB of GDDR6 memory.

Lenovo uses a 16-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 92% screen-to-body ratio, which looks great as the panel takes up most of the display area (which is what you want, huge bezels SUCK). The top cover itself is made from recycled aluminum which doesn't just make the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 roll out with an eco-friendly design, but also makes the laptop lighter and inside of a very durable body.

Xbox gaming revenues are being supercharged by Activision Blizzard King.

Microsoft just reported its Q3 FY24 results, and it's great news for Xbox. The games division generated $5.45 billion in the period from January - March 2024, up 50% year-over-year and driven almost entirely by software and services. Q3 earnings have been significantly elevated due to Microsoft recognizing Activision's revenues as part of its own--ABK made up 61 points of the 62% growth in content & services earnings.

Things get even more interesting when we tally up Xbox's 9-month results. Thanks to Activision's mighty multi-billion dollar influx, Xbox has now made more revenue in 3 quarters than it has for all previous full year periods. Xbox is currently at $16.481 billion for the Fiscal Year 2024 period, beating out the original $16.22 billion record set in Fiscal Year 2022.

HP has just unveiled its latest OMEN 17 gaming laptop, a new member of the ever-growing AI PC family of laptops on the market. It features AMD's new Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" APU, which features an NPU for AI workloads.

The new HP OMEN 17 gaming laptop AMD Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" APUs in three different SKUs: Ryzen 9 8945HS, Ryzen 7 8845HS, and the Ryzen 5 8645HS APUs. Each of the Ryzen 8040 APUs has a dedicated Ryzen AI-based NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI workloads.

HP includes a trio of GPU options for its new OMEN 17 gaming laptop, all from NVIDIA's family of GeForce RTX 40 series Laptop GPUs. We've got the option of the flagship OMEN 17 rolling out with the GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, and finally, the GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU.

New data released by Bethesda and Microsoft may indicate that Fallout 76's userbase primarily plays on consoles.

Thanks to the Amazon Prime show, everyone is playing Fallout games, including Bethesda's infamous comeback kid Fallout 76. The studio recently confirmed that Fallout games had nearly 5 million people all playing at the same time. The live game Fallout 76 had over 1 million players all raiding and surviving in irradiated West Virginia, making up about 20% of all Fallout players.

It's likely that the majority of Fallout 76's users are playing on consoles. This is based on the admittedly limited data from SteamDB that shows Fallout 76 hit an all-time peak of 73,368 users on Steam. That means Steam PC players accounted for 7.3% of total Fallout 76 players during this timeframe at a maximum. So where are the other 926,000 players?

In a 3-2 vote, the FCC has just restored Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality is officially back. Under the reinstated rule, internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T are now prohibited from "blocking traffic, slowing down content, or creating pay-to-play internet fast lanes."

Broadband internet has been deemed an essential service, and has been reclassified as a telecommunications service, making internet subject to Title II standards of the Communications Act (essentially, now that the internet is an essential telecommunications service, the FCC can impose specific rules on ISPs).

The Apple Vision Pro went on sale in February and now the man who led the marketing for the spatial computer, Frank Casanova, has reportedly left the company. Casanova had worked at Apple for 36 years across a number of different roles including leading the expansion of the iPhone to new carriers.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Casanova left the company last week to retire. He was named Apple's first head of marketing for augmented reality in 2019 before taking the lead on the headset, Gurman says. His role involved attending the release of Apple's new spatial computer at the Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles alongside Apple's services head Eddy Cue. Dan Riccio, currently the executive who oversees Apple Vision Pro development, is also nearing retirement.

The Apple Vision Pro was heavily rumored for years before it was finally announced in June of last year and then we had to wait until February for it to finally go on sale. However, the Apple Vision Pro is only currently available to buy in the United States although a global launch is expected to happen before the end of the year. Apple hasn't yet confirmed which countries will receive the Apple Vision Pro this year, however, nor has it offered any hard release timeframes, either.

Apple has shared the first trailer for the fourth season of the critically acclaimed comedy series Trying, starring BAFTA Award nominee Esther Smith and SAG Award nominee Rafe Spall. The show has been one of the hits of the Apple TV+ stable and is getting ready to premiere that fourth season.

Apple says that season four of Trying will premiere on Wednesday, May 22 with the first two episodes available on day one. Then, a new episode will be made available to stream online every Wednesday through to the season's conclusion on July 3.

In this new season, Apple says that the story will fast-forward six years to discover that Nikki (Smith) and Jason (Spall) are experienced adopters. However, their teenage daughter causes the pair to find themselves struggling again, and their parenting skills are sure to be put to the test.

Apple TV+ has today released the first trailer for Hollywood Con Queen, a new documentary series that will run across three different episodes and premiere on May 8.

The new series tells the story of a figure dubbed the Con Queen who impersonates the most powerful women of Hollywood. That sees the impersonator lure unsuspecting victims to Indonesia, Apple's explainer says, offering them the promise of a life-changing career opportunity. The con sees them use their personal finances to try and make it big while being explored in the process.

The whole thing continues until investigative journalist Scott Johnson of The Hollywood Reporter and private investigator Nicole Kotsianas set out to get to the bottom of things - only to find that the story is stranger than they might have originally thought.

MSI is the latest motherboard maker to pop up with advice for those who are experiencing PC games crashing with their Core i9 14th-gen or 13th-gen processors - and it includes "some workarounds recommended by Intel."

This advice is delivered in a blog post from MSI on the topic of 'Improving Gaming Stability for Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K' processors.

So, let's dive in: Suggested workaround number 1 is simply notching back the processor's power limit to Intel's default of 253W.

If you received a strange email earlier today saying that your Apple Store trade-in has been canceled, panic not - you can safely ignore it. The whole thing seems to have been an unfortunate glitch.

When buying a new iPhone, via the iPhone Upgrade Program or any other way, trading in your old device is a good way to save money. Buyers mail off their old handset and get a credit for the correct amount and everything normally goes well. But that hasn't been the case today, it seems, with Apple sending emails to people saying that their trade-ins have been canceled even if they haven't.

In some examples, the trade-ins took place months ago. One user took to the X social network to say that they traded in an old iPhone in September and have the receipt to prove it. But that didn't stop Apple from sending them an email today saying that their trade-in had been canceled because they didn't send their old iPhone in.

WhatsApp, the meta-owned instant messaging platform, has been testing support for passkeys for some time now and the feature is already available for Android users - in fact, it has been since October. Now though, WhatsApp has started to roll out passkey support for those who also happen to have an iPhone for the very first time.

The news was first reported by Engadget which reported that iPhone owners now have the option to use passkeys. It's rolling out to WhatsApp users right now, but it could take a few weeks for it to become available to everyone because of the way that WhatsApp tends to make these new features available.

In a statement provided to Engadget, Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp's head of product said that the support for passkey verification will make signing into WhatsApp easier and more secure. It's seen as an additional layer of security, she continued.