This week, on a more focused episode of The TT Show, Jak and Kosta break down and go through the crazy Helldivers 2 controversy on PC. If you were offline for a few days (and this all played out throughout a single weekend), the decision to force the Helddivers 2's PC players to link their Steam Account to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account caused a veritable backlash storm.

From the review bombing to developers being grilled to Sony and developer Arrowhead's damage control to the surprisingly swift happy ending, Jak and Kosta discuss the implications and consider what might happen in the aftermath.

This week's other big story comes from the world of Apple, with the company lifting the lid on its new iPad Pro lineup powered by the new AI-powered 3 nanometer M4 chip. The big thing here is that it represents Apple's first dip into the world of OLED displays, with a groundbreaking 1000-nit SDR and HDR screen that has two OLED panels in one!

The Sony PSP, or PlayStation Portable, is one of the most beloved gaming handhelds ever. Released in 2005, it received a backward-compatible follow-up in 2011, the PlayStation Vita. It sports a similar look and great PlayStation games from franchises like Final Fantasy, Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid, WipEout, and more.

With rumors pointing to Sony working with AMD to create a proper PSP follow-up with PS4-like performance, AYN Technologies, a creator of Android and Windows-based handhelds, is teasing a new lightweight 320-gram machine that looks exactly like a modern PSP.

The handheld has yet to be fully revealed, but it is rumored to be Android-based, so it can essentially play every PSP and PS Vita game via emulation. The most exciting thing about the new handheld, though, outside of the PSP shape, has to be the display.

In 2010, Rockstar Games released the classic open-world action-adventure western Red Dead Redemption for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Following the adventures of John Marston, a former outlaw, it presented a sprawling, bloody, and gritty look at life in the old West with the same charm and atmosphere as the studio's iconic Grand Theft Auto games.

Without a PC release, it's been one of those titles that PC gamers have been waiting to see for over a decade. Red Dead Redemption II got a PC port following its release in 2018, but the original has been one of those games seemingly lost to time - or limited to the console space.

In 2023, Red Dead Redemption received a modern remaster; however, this release was only for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Well, that looks to be changing, as the studio's PC Rockstar Games Launcher now includes hidden information stating that Red Dead Redemption and its Undead Nightmare expansion are "now playable on PC."

TSMC is urgently expanding its orders for CoWoS packaging equipment, with Taiwanese factories welcoming huge orders for equipment machines.

The unstoppable wave of AI is coming in many forms, with the AI GPUs and AI processors being made mostly at TSMC. TSMC estimates that the server AI processor revenue would more than double in 2024, accounting for around 11-13% of total revenue in 2024. However, server AI processors will account for 50% of annual revenue by 2029.

The server AI processor that TSMC mentions refers to the GPU, AI accelerator, and CPU that perform training and inference functions, but it does NOT include network, edge, or terminal device AI. TSMC emphasized at the North American Technology Forum that its 2.5D advanced packaging CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) is a key driving technology for the AI revolution, which allows for more processor cores and HBM on a single interposer layer.

Samsung has reportedly failed to pass specific stages of HBM3E memory verification standards from NVIDIA, which is surely going to cause a headache for the South Korean memory giant.

SK hynix has been pumping out HBM3 and now HBM3E while still preparing not just the next-generation HBM4 memory, but even HBM4E memory... while South Korean HBM rival, Samsung, can't get its act together with HBM3 memory for NVIDIA according to Korean news outlet AlphaBiz.

Samsung has reportedly failed qualification tests for its HBM3 8-layer memory, which is a serious situation to be in considering how bleeding-edge HBM is, and how Samsung has been acting in an emergency-style manner to get its HBM business flourishing... and now this gigantic roadblock, as NVIDIA prepares its beefed-up Hopper H200 AI GPU, and next-generation Blackwell B100, B200, and GB200 AI GPUs which all use HBM3E memory.

Arm is developing its own artificial intelligence (AI) chips, with the first AI chips made by the company expected to launch in 2025.

The UK-based company will spool up an AI chip division that will deliver a prototype AI chip by spring 2025 according to a report from Reuters. The mass production of Arm's new AI chip will be handled by contract manufacturers -- TSMC -- and is expected to start in autumn 2025.

Arm Holdings is a SoftBank Group subsidiary -- SoftBank owns a 90% share in Arm -- with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son preparing a huge $64 billion strategy to transform SoftBank into a powerhouse AI company. Negotiations are reportedly already happening with TSMC and others to secure production capacity.

Microsoft is ushering in fresh AI capabilities for its Edge browser, and this new work pertains to customizing the app.

Windows Latest was keen-eyed enough to spot that an incoming feature called the 'AI theme generator' for Edge is part of a Microsoft 365 roadmap.

It'll work pretty much as you'd expect: you tell the AI what kind of theme you want via a simple text prompt, and it'll knock up some concepts along those lines that you can peruse.

The Google Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL aren't expected to be released until later this year but that hasn't stopped them all from leaking ahead of time. Google has long had a problem with leaks, but this is early even by the company's standards - we don't expect Google to officially unveil these devices until October.

Regardless, new images shared by Rozetked appear to give us a full look at what these new phones will have to offer, huge Pixel 9 Pro XL and all. The new phones are set to replace the current Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, adding the XL to the lineup. And that big phone is clearly a big phone as the image below shows - that's an iPhone 15 Pro Max that it's making look small, there.

Questions will obviously now be asked about how these phones have leaked but if we ignore that for a moment, we can probably all agree that these devices look good. The camera bar around the back doesn't cover the full width of the device, which isn't necessarily anything more than a potential marketing problem.

Apple has historically come out on top in terms of the company that makes the most satisfied customers in terms of the phone that they bought. In 2023 Apple just about beat out Samsung according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) but things have changed in 2024.

The new report, shared by the ACSI, shows that Apple and Samsung are now both tied for the top spot with 82% customer satisfaction. Google is in third with Motorola (Lenovo) in fourth spot. Both companies have a score of 77%, while all other manufacturers combined were only able to manage a score of 72%.

The report came after ASCI interviewed almost 12,500 consumers who were chosen at random between April 2023 and March 2024. In terms of iPhone owners, customer satisfaction increased slightly from 81% to 82% while Samsung saw its score leap from 80% to 82% year over year. Overall, smartphone satisfaction increased by 3% while Google was the only company listed to suffer a fall - down to 77% from 78%.

When the European Union forced Apple to allow third-party app stores on the iPhone, Apple suggested that its own App Store was key to ensuring that the company could keep its users safe. It's the same argument that it's used whenever the topic of the App Store and its payment processing systems has come under fire by lawmakers, and now the company has shared details that it believes help back up that stance. According to Apple, the App Store prevented $7 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions across a four-year time span.

The time span in question ran from 202 to 2023, Apple's press release says, with the transactions including more than $1.8 billion worth in 2023 alone. In the same period, Apple says, the company blocked more than 14 million stolen credit cards and more than 3.3 million accounts from transacting again.

The press release goes on, saying that in 2023 it rejected more than 1.7 million app submissions that failed to stick to the App Store's standards for privacy, security, and content. Apple also terminated almost 374 million developer and customer accounts and removed close to 152 million ratings and reviews over concerns that they could potentially be fraudulent.

After weeks of beta testing, Apple released the iOS 17.5 software update to the world yesterday, bringing with it a couple of new features related to the Apple News app and support for early warnings related to potential item tracker stalking. But while the update might have been lacking in terms of the sheer number of new features, it certainly made up for that in terms of the number of security fixes it implemented.

Apple has now published a new support document that details the new fixes that have been applied as a result of iOS 17.5 and there's quite a lot of them. In fact, there are no fewer than 15 new security fixes that will be applied when people install iOS 17.5 on their iPhones at home.

We tend to suggest that people regularly update their iPhones and other devices to ensure that they are running the latest software for a variety of reasons. One of those is compatibility, ensuring that you and your apps can make use of the latest APIs and whatnot. Another is to make sure you're using the latest and greatest versions of the apps that Apple ships by default, including Safari, Mail, and others.