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I once heard a joke about a guy organizing a seminar on how to become a millionaire. He goes on a stage and asks 'how many people do we have in here?' to which the crowd answers 'about a thousand'. Then he asks 'how much were the tickets to this seminar?', to which the crowd replies 'exactly $1000' Finally, he says 'Thank you for coming to my lecture' and walks away.
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China extends its reach into the Solar System with launch of asteroid mission
Karlston posted a news in General News
Tianwen-2 will first return samples from an asteroid, then explore a mysterious comet-like object. A Chinese spacecraft built to collect specimens from an unexplored asteroid and return them to Earth successfully launched Wednesday from a military-run spaceport in the country's mountainous interior. Liftoff aboard a Long March 3B rocket at 1:31 pm EDT (17:31 UTC) from the Xichang launch base kicked off the second mission in a series of Chinese probes to explore the Solar System. This mission, designated Tianwen-2, follows the Tianwen-1 mission, which became the first Chinese spacecraft to land on Mars in 2021. Chinese officials confirmed the 2.1-metric ton Tianwen-2 spacecraft unfurled its fan-shaped solar arrays shortly after launch, marking an auspicious start to a decade-long tour of the Solar System. China's objectives for Tianwen-2 are two-fold. First, Tianwen-2 will fly to a near-Earth asteroid designated 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, or 2016 HO3. Once there, the spacecraft will retrieve a rocky sample from the asteroid's surface and bring the material back to Earth in late 2027 for analysis in labs. After the spacecraft releases its sample carrier to land on Earth, Tianwen-2 will change course and head to a mysterious comet-like object found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Tianwen-2 will become the first Chinese spacecraft to bring home celestial material from beyond the Moon, where China has landed two previous sample retrieval missions. China's exploits at the Moon have made its space program the world leader in 21st century lunar exploration, at least for now. Two in one But the Chinese space program lags behind the United States in exploring the Solar System. NASA and Japan's space agency have returned samples from asteroids before, while the European Space Agency has orbited a comet. Tianwen-2 will attempt to do both on a single mission. Scientists believe the asteroid selected for Tianwen-2 is less than 60 meters, or 200 feet, in diameter, and could be made of material thrown off the Moon some time in its ancient past. Results from Tianwen-2 may confirm that hypothesis. Artist's illustration of Tianwen-2 using one of its 11 scientific instruments to observe an asteroid. Credit: China National Space Administration Asteroid Kamoʻoalewa is a unique target for a sample return mission. The asteroid is a "quasi-satellite" of the Earth, meaning its orbit around the Sun closely matches that of our own planet. This keeps Kamoʻoalewa relatively close to Earth throughout the year, making it an attractive candidate for a sample return mission. That's one reason why Tianwen-2's roundtrip journey to asteroid Kamoʻoalewa will last just two-and-a-half years. Japan's Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission lasted six years from launch through its return to Earth, while NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission made the trip to an asteroid back in seven years. Both visited near-Earth asteroids more distant than Kamoʻoalewa, where Tianwen-2 will arrive in July 2026 and start searching for a location to retrieve samples. Tianwen-2 will try to collect samples in several ways. One method will involve maneuvering the spacecraft close to the surface and matching the asteroid's rotation, and extending a robotic arm to gather specimens. The spacecraft will also descend to the asteroid's surface for a "touch-and-go" similar to the way Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft and NASA's OSIRIS-REx sampled their asteroids. Scientists also hope to try another sampling method known as "anchor-and-attach," where the spacecraft will secure itself to the asteroid's surface using four arms with drills at the ends of them. Chinese officials have not said how much material they hope to bring back to Earth, but Tianwen-2 is reportedly designed to collect at least 100 grams of rocks and dust from the asteroid. Mission planners know little about the shape of Kamoʻoalewa, but long-range measurements suggest it spins once every 28 minutes, relatively fast for an asteroid. This spin rate, coupled with the object's tenuous gravity, will complicate Tianwen-2's maneuvers near the asteroid. Once it has the samples in hand, Tianwen-2 will depart the asteroid in early 2027 and head for Earth, where it will release a reentry module containing bits of Kamoʻoalewa for landing in late 2027. Researchers will study the specimens to determine their basic physical properties, chemical, mineral, and isotopic compositions, textures, and structures, according to a paper published in the research journal Earth and Planetary Physics. In the paper, four Chinese scientists write that results from the sample return will not only improve knowledge of asteroids, but could tell us about the Earth and the Moon. "Confirming the origin of Kamo’oalewa, from its prevailing provenance as debris of the Moon, could be a promising start to inferring the evolutionary history of the Moon," the scientists write in the journal. "This history would probably include a more comprehensive view of the lunar far side and the origin of the asymmetry between the two sides of the Moon." Comet 311P/PanSTARRS was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2013 with a set of six comet-like tails radiating from its main body. This object, also called P/2013 P5, is known as an active asteroid. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA) Tianwen-2's mothership, with 11 scientific instruments, will commence the second phase of its mission after dropping off the asteroid specimens at Earth. The probe's next journey will bring it near an enigma in the asteroid belt named 311P/PanSTARRS in the mid-2030s. This object is one in a rare class of objects known as active asteroids or main-belt comets, small worlds that have tails and comas like comets but loiter in orbits most commonly associated with asteroids. Tianwen-2 will be the first mission to see such an object up close. Stepping into the Solar System Until the last few years, China's space program has primarily centered on the Moon as a destination for scientific exploration. The Moon remains the main target for China's ambitions in space, with the goal of accomplishing a human lunar landing by 2030. But the country is looking farther afield, too. With the Tianwen-1 mission in 2021, China became the second country to achieve a soft landing on Mars. After Tianwen-2, China will again go to Mars with the Tianwen-3 sample return mission slated for launch in 2028. Tianwen, which means "questions to heaven," is the name given to China's program of robotic Solar System exploration. Tianwen-3 has a chance to become the first mission to return pristine samples from Mars to Earth. At the same time, NASA's plans for a Mars Sample Return mission are faltering. China is looking at launching Tianwen-4 around 2029 to travel to Jupiter and enter orbit around Callisto, one of its four largest moons. In the 2030s, China's roadmap includes a mission to return atmospheric samples from Venus to Earth, a Mars research station, and a probe to Neptune. Meanwhile, NASA has sent spacecraft to study ever planet in the Solar System, and currently has spacecraft at or on the way to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, a metal asteroid, and in interstellar space. Another US science mission, Dragonfly, is scheduled for launch in 2028 on a daring expedition to Saturn's moon Titan. But NASA's science division is bracing for severe budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump. In planetary science, the White House's budget blueprint calls for canceling a joint US-European Mars Sample Return mission and several other projects, including the DAVINCI mission to Venus. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend - Today
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Windows 11 gets big update with Settings, HDR improvements, and more in KB5058499
Skunk1966 commented on Karlston's news in Software News
KB5058499 is a Preview CU -
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No more separate app updates? Microsoft wants Windows Update to handle it all now
funkyy commented on Karlston's news in Software News
Yep, anything Microsoft does to supposedly make things easier or more convenient for users generally is only done for Microsoft's convenience and (monetary) advantage. I'm still extremely annoyed that they took a program that was free (Skype) and basically killed it for millions of users who depended on it for family and friend contact. Microsuck will never change. -
Microsoft restores missing Windows 10 calendar flyout features in KB5058481
Karlston posted a news in Software News
Although Windows 10 is a few months away from the end of support, Microsoft still releases monthly non-security preview updates for the outgoing operating system. Today, the company pushed KB5058481, build number 19045.5917, for version 22H2. It restores the previously removed calendar flyout clock (why it was removed remains unknown) and improves the Rich Calendar feature. Also, the update contains some fixes for GDI and WinSaS. Here is the changelog: Known issues only include one bug that causes Noto fonts to appear blurry in Chromium-based browsers on systems with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean localizations. You can download KB5058481 in Settings > Windows Update. The update is optional, so you need to download it manually. Alternatively, get it from the Microsoft Update Catalog. The support article for KB5058481 is available here. If you are on Windows 11, you can check out details about its non-security updates here (version 23H2 and 22H2) and here (version 24H2). Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend -
Remember jokes about Windows 9? Now Apple is reportedly upgrading iOS 18 to iOS 26
Karlston posted a news in Software News
Nearly eleven years ago, when Microsoft announced that Windows 8.1 would be upgraded to Windows 10, people joked about Windows 9 and Microsoft not knowing how to count, laughing at the company's awkward naming scheme (which continued throughout Windows 10's lifecycle and continues these days). Now, Apple fans are about to eat their own words as Apple is reportedly preparing a massive overhaul to its operating systems' naming. Bloomberg reports that on June 9, at WWDC 2025, Apple will unveil iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS 26, and tvOS 26, a radical upgrade from the current iOS/iPadOS 18, watchOS 12, macOS 15, etc. The idea is to streamline the naming and eliminate the confusion of having different OS numbers across the device portfolio. Although the current year is 2025, Apple is adopting the +1 approach, similar to how car manufacturers release their new vehicles or how Electronic Arts updates FC (formerly FIFA). Samsung did the same in 2020, when it launched the Galaxy S20 lineup, the successor to the Galaxy S10, which was released the year before. Therefore, in 2026, expect the announcement of iOS 27, macOS 27, you get the idea. Apple declined to comment on these rumors, like it usually does in most cases. However, a big naming change seems fitting in light of rumors about the company preparing big design overhauls for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and other operating systems. Should the rumor be true, it would be the biggest naming shakeup in iOS history. While iOS experienced big naming changes in the past (iPhoneOS to iOS and iOS to iPadOS on iPads), its versions followed the strict numerical progression. Now, however, Apple appears to be ready to make a leap and jump from iOS 18 to iOS 26. Still, nothing beats the upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows 2000. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend -
Another Google product is now 10 years old, if you aren't feeling old yet. The search giant has introduced new features for its photo-sharing app to celebrate the occasion and shared several insights as well. In a blog post, the company revealed that Google Photos now stores over 9 trillion photos and videos. The app is used by over 1.5 billion people every month, who make more than 370 million searches, edit 210 million photos, and share 440 million memories. Google Photos has got a redesigned editor with, of course, AI baked in. It provides helpful suggestions and puts different editing tools in one place for easier access. You can find tools like Reimagine and Auto Frame alongside controls like brightness and contrast. The revamped editor throws AI suggestions that combine multiple effects for quick edits. You can also tap on specific parts of an image to get suggestions to edit that area. It will roll out to Android users globally next month and to iOS devices later this year. Another feature that is now rolling out is an improved sharing experience. You can share albums instantly by generating QR codes in the app. Other people can scan the QR code to view or add photos to the shared album. This builds on top of the existing experience on Google Photos, where users can generate a link to share albums with countless photos and videos at once. Turning a few pages in tech history, Google Photos was introduced as a standalone app in 2015 and eventually became Google's primary photo management solution for Android users. It was a spin-off of the Photos feature in Google+, which was shut down in the same year. Google Photos was available for Android, iOS, and web from the start, and took a cloud-first approach to help users free up their local storage. It automatically backed up and synced photos and videos to the cloud, making them available across other supported devices that the users had. The search giant has previously made efforts to improve the sharing experience and media transfer to rival platforms. Moreover, Google promoted the app by offering unlimited original uploads with early Pixel devices and unlimited high-quality uploads for other users. AI-powered features began to appear on Google Photos in later years, including Magic Eraser, Magic Editor, Ask Photos assistant, and the ability to identify AI-generated photos. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend
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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt reaches 60 million copies sold as work continues on The Witcher 4
Karlston posted a news in Technology News
CD Projekt RED's 2015 fantasy role-playing game has sold over 60 million copies. CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt crossed 60 million copies sold since it launched back in 2015. CD Projekt shared the news on Wednesday as part of an investor update detailing its business operations, revealing a new sales milestone for the team's arguable magnum opus. That number is up 10 million from the last milestone, which was shared back in 2023. As part of the same investor update, CD Projekt also revealed that Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion has crossed 10 million copies sold, while the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel is now in the pre-production stage of development. Right now, the bulk of the development teams at CD Projekt RED are working on The Witcher 4, a game that entered full production late in 2024. The Witcher 4 stars Ciri as the protagonist and is being developed using Unreal Engine 5, but otherwise, there's a lot we still don't know. The Witcher 4 (previously codenamed "Polaris") is meant to be the start of a new trilogy of games. According to CD Projekt's staff breakdown, the team working on The Witcher 4 now numbers 422 staff, up slightly from 407 in 2024. Outside of The Witcher 4, CD Projekt RED is also overseeing a remake of the first Witcher game. This remake is being developed by Fool's Theory, a studio that was founded by former CD Projekt RED staff. A team at CD Projekt RED's Boston office is also working on a spinoff title for The Witcher franchise. I recently wrote about The Witcher 3's 10th anniversary, and how it's still one of the best games of all time. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is currently available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC (via GOG, the Epic Games Store, and Steam), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend -
It was probably always going to end this way for Amazon’s Wheel of Time show
Karlston posted a topic in Entertainment Exchange
Opinion: Wider TV trends helped kill a show that was starting to live up to its promise. Moiraine contemplates The Blight. Credit: Amazon Studios Late on Friday, Amazon announced that it was canceling its TV adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, after several uncomfortable weeks of silence that followed the show’s third season finale. Fans of the series can take some cold comfort in the fact that it apparently wasn’t an easy decision to make. But as we speculated in our write-up of what ended up being the show’s series finale, an expensive show with a huge cast, tons of complicated costuming and effects, and extensive location shooting only makes mathematical sense if it’s a megahit, and The Wheel of Time was never a megahit. Adapting the unadaptable I was sad about the cancellation announcement because I believe this season was the one where the show found its footing, both as an adaptation of a complex book series and as a fun TV show in its own right. But I wasn't surprised by it. The only thing I found surprising was that it took this long to happen. Two things conspired to make it impossible for this Wheel of Time show to ever reach the Last Battle. One has to do with the source material itself; the other has to do with the way the TV business has changed since Game of Thrones premiered in 2011. The Wheel of Time actively resists adaptation. It's a sprawling 14-book series spanning dozens of named point-of-view characters and impossibly dense politics. And it even spans multiple eras stylistically—the early books were more Tolkien-esque in their focus on small bands of adventurers and a limited number of perspectives, where later books could go for multiple chapters without putting you in the head of one of the series' half-dozen-ish main protagonists. And even among the series' die-hard fans, most will admit that there are storylines, characters, or entire books that feel inessential or annoying or repetitive or sloggy or wheel-spinning. Any adaptation would need to find a way to stay true to the story that the books were telling and to marry the tone and pacing of the early, middle, and late-series books while wrestling with the realities of a different medium (in particular, you cannot realistically pay for infinite episodes or pay infinite cast members, especially for a live-action show). By season 3, the show had become adept at translating big book moments for the screen. That high degree of difficulty was surely one reason why it took someone so long to decide to tackle The Wheel of Time, even in the post-Peter Jackson, post-Harry Potter, post-Marvel Cinematic Universe, post-Game of Thrones creative landscape where nerd-coded sci-fi and fantasy were suddenly cool, where multi-part book adaptations were drawing dollars and eyeballs, and where convoluted interconnected stories could be billion-dollar businesses. The only stab anyone took at an adaptation before Amazon happened a full decade ago, when a fly-by-night production company aired a hastily shot adaptation of the first book's prologue in an apparent attempt to keep the TV rights from expiring. It's also what makes the cancellation news so much more frustrating—over three seasons, showrunner Rafe Judkins and the cast and crew of the show became adept at adapting the unadaptable. Yes, the story and the characters had changed in a lot of major ways. Yes, the short eight-episode seasons made for frenetic pacing and overstuffed episodes. But if you grit your teeth a bit and push through the show's mess of a first season, you hit a series that seemed to know what must-hit scenes needed to be shown; which parts of the books were skippable or could be combined with other moments; which parts of later books to pull forward to streamline the story without making those moments feel rushed or unearned. It was imperfect, but it was a true adaptation—a reworking of a story for a much different medium that seemed to know how to keep the essence of the story intact. Ambition meets reality Like Rand al'Thor struggling with the One Power, The Wheel of Time struggled against the realities of the current TV landscape. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios The thing that doomed this particular Wheel of Time production from the start was the sky-high expectations that Amazon had for it. Both Wheel of Time and the heartbreakingly bland Rings of Power were born of Jeff Bezos' desire to find his own Game of Thrones, which became an unexpected smash-hit success that dominated the cultural conversation through the 2010s. Most TV shows either launch strongly before slowly fading, or they build an audience over a few seasons and then fade after reaching their peak. Game of Thrones defied these trends, and each new season drew a larger and larger viewership even as the show's quality (arguably) dipped over time. Asking Wheel of Time to replicate that success would be a tall order for any television show in any era—pop culture is littered with shows that have tried and failed to clone another network's successful formula. But it's an especially difficult hurdle to clear in the fractured 2020s TV landscape. Streaming TV's blank-check era—which ran roughly from Netflix's introduction of its first original shows in 2013 to 2022, when Netflix reported its first big dip in subscribers just as a long era of low-interest lending was coming to an end—used to give shows a ton of runway and plenty of seasons to tell their stories. Shows like Orange Is the New Black or BoJack Horseman that found some modicum of critical acclaim and ratings success tended to get renewed multiple times, and six or seven-season runs were common. A commitment to reviving old, critically beloved bubble shows like Arrested Development, Community, Futurama, and Gilmore Girls also sent a message: Freed from the restrictive economics of the Old TV Model and fueled by the promise of infinite growth, we can make whatever TV we want! Those days are mostly gone now (except perhaps at Apple TV+, which continues to leverage its parent company's deep pockets to throw gobs of money at any actor or IP with a moderately recognizable name). In the two years since TV streamers began cutting back in earnest, industry analysts have observed a consistent trend toward shorter seasons of fewer episodes and fewer renewals for existing shows. Those trends hit at the exact wrong moment for The Wheel of Time, which was constantly straining against the bonds of its eight-episode seasons. It's impossible to say empirically whether longer seasons would have made for a better show, and whether that "better show" could have achieved the kind of word-of-mouth success it would have needed to meet Amazon's expectations. But speaking anecdotally as someone who was just beginning to recommend the show to people who weren't hardcore book readers, the density and pacing were two major barriers to entry. And even the most truncated possible version of the story would have needed at least six or seven seasons to wrap up in anything resembling a satisfactory way, based on the pace that was set in the first three seasons. The end of Time Wheel of Time fans didn't get to see everything translated from book to screen. But we did get to see a lot of things. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Tellingly, the Wheel of Time's creative team hasn't released faux-optimistic boilerplate statements about trying to shop the show to other networks, the kind of statements you sometimes see after a show is canceled before its creators are done with it. The same economics that made Amazon drop the show also make it nearly impossible to sell to anyone else. And so The Wheel of Time joins TV's long list of unfinished stories. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But this is an ending. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend - Yesterday
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GoodSync is an easy and reliable file backup and file synchronization software. It is the latest software in a series of highly reliable, easy-to-use products from Siber Systems, the makers of RoboForm. It uses an innovative synchronization algorithm that offers true bi-directional synchronization that can automatically detect and synchronize creation, deletion, and all other changes, made by the user in folders, subfolders, and files. GoodSync is much faster than other synchronization programs and it takes less memory. It can analyze a job with 1M files and folders on each side in less than 10 minutes on only 500 Mb of memory. It automatically analyzes, synchronizes, and backs up your emails, precious family photos, music, contacts, financial documents, and other important files locally - between desktops, laptops, servers, external drives, and Windows Mobile devices, as well as remotely through FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and more. Download
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Vivaldi is a Chromium-based web browser for power users that is fast, rich in functionality, flexible and puts the user first. Vivaldi's interface is very customizable. Vivaldi combines simplicity and fashion to create a basic, highly customizable interface that provides everything an internet user could need. The browser allows users to customize the appearance of UI elements such as background color, overall theme, address bar and tab positioning, and start pages. Vivaldi features the ability to "stack" and "tile" tabs, annotate web pages, add notes to bookmarks and much more. Download
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CD Projekt says the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is now in the preproduction stage. The sequel, which until recently was known as Project Orion, is being headed by CD Projekt Red’s new North American arm, which has studios in Boston and Vancouver. According to a statement accompanying its Q1 2025 financial report, the publisher stated that the sequel, which it now refers to as simply Cyberpunk 2, has entered the next stage of the development process. “Several weeks ago the CD Projekt Red team responsible for the next big game set in the Cyberpunk universe completed the project’s conceptual phase,” the statement reads. “As a result, Cyberpunk 2 – previously known under the codename Project Orion – has progressed to preproduction.” CD Projekt also announced that Cyberpunk 2077‘s expansion Phantom Liberty has now sold more than 10 million copies, ahead of the release of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on Switch 2 (which also contains Phantom Liberty). “This result fills us with great satisfaction, especially given that a new addition is about to join our Cyberpunk portfolio [when] on 5 June the game’s Ultimate Edition will be coming to the new Nintendo Switch 2 console,” CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski said. “Positive reactions from gamers and media representatives who have had the opportunity to play the game at a series of global Nintendo events fill us with optimism. It’s worth noting that for the first time ever one of our games will become a launch title for a brand new platform.” Last week Mike Pondsmith, who created the Cyberpunk IP, said the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel features a new city that feels like “Chicago gone wrong”. Pondsmith revealed that he’s not as involved with the second game as he was with 2077, but said he’s keeping track of its progress. The game designer went on to claim that the sequel will feature Night City, as well as a second, unspecified location. “I’m not as involved directly, but I see the scripts,” Pondsmith said. “Last week I was wandering around talking to different departments and seeing what they had like, ‘this is the new Cyberware, what do you think?’ “I spent a lot of time talking to one of the environment guys, and he was explaining how the new place… because there’s another city that we visit, and I’m not telling you anymore than that, but there’s another city that we visit. Night City is still there. “I remember looking at it and going, ‘I understand the feel that you’re going for, and this really does work, it doesn’t feel like Blade Runner, it feels more like Chicago gone wrong’. And I said, ‘yeah, I can see this working’.” Also in its financial results, CD Projekt confirmed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has now sold over 60 million copies since its release 10 years ago. Source
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ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2024: The Creator’s Companion (1-Year License)
funkyy replied to Adenman's topic in Giveaways
I followed the instructions using a translator and got the license key and the download file. I uninstalled my 2022 version of ACDSEE and started the installation of this 2024 one. I then got an alert that Microsoft Edge was being installed on my computer !!!!!!! and that something was trying to hijack the executable !!!!! I'm on Windows 7 Pro (x64). Then I got a message saying "an error has occurred...." That did it for me..I'm going to uninstall this ACDSEE version and go back to the 2022 version. -
[Windows, macOS] Free audio plugin (Analog Empire: Plucks & Keys - full version)
Adenman posted a topic in Giveaways
Analog Empire: Plucks and Keys is a premium MSoundFactory instrument offering over 30 deeply sampled real synth multi-samples. It allows you to layer two distinct sounds and dynamically blend them based on the key played or velocity. Shape your sound with unique "pluck" and "drift" controls, a multi-mode filter, amp envelope, and an effects section including chorus, ducking reverb, and lo-fi tape. This versatile instrument excels at creating expressive plucks and keys with rich analog character. https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/64-Virtual-Instrument/14946-Analog-Empire-Plucks-Keys -
Microsoft has introduced a new update orchestration platform built on the existing Windows Update infrastructure, which aims to unify the updating system for all apps, drivers, and system components on Windows systems. The company explained that developers and IT product teams can onboard their updates to this new orchestration platform via Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIs or PowerShell commands after joining the private preview by contacting [email protected]. After registering as an update provider, the orchestrator will regularly run an update scan tool supplied during the registration process to discover pending updates. The orchestrator then queues downloads and updates at optimal times to minimize CPU and bandwidth spikes while also considering user activity, power status, and network conditions. Under this new update model, it will also handle restart requirements, notification deadlines, and rescheduling of failed operations without requiring developers to build a custom scheduling or logging solution. "Updates across the Windows ecosystem can feel like a fragmented experience. To solve this, we're building a vision for a unified, intelligent update orchestration platform capable of supporting any update (apps, drivers, etc.) to be orchestrated alongside Windows updates," Microsoft said. "Built on the Windows Update stack, the orchestration platform aims to provide developers and product teams building apps and management tools with an API for onboarding their update(s) that supports the needs of their installers." Currently in private preview Microsoft's new update orchestration platform is now in private preview for developers or anyone who builds apps or management tools for updates, and it supports applications packaged as MSIX, APPX, or traditional Win32 installers. Onboarding offers several key benefits, including a consistent notification experience through native Windows Update dialogs and centralized app update history in the Settings app together with official Windows updates. "Built on the Windows Update stack, the orchestration platform aims to provide developers and product teams building apps and management tools with an API for onboarding their update(s) that supports the needs of their installers," Microsoft added. "The orchestrator will coordinate across all onboarded products that are updated on Windows 11, in addition to Windows Update, to provide IT admins and users with a consistent management plane and experience, respectively." This new initiative adds to Redmond's Winget Windows package manager and Microsoft Store, as well as third-party package managers like Chocolatey and Scoop, which can also be used to install, manage, and update applications on Windows systems. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend
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Stardock releases Fences 6 with tab support, dynamic coloring and more
Karlston posted a news in Software News
Stardock released Fences® 6 today – a major update to its popular Windows desktop organization software with over 20 million downloads. Fences is the easiest way to organize your desktop workflow by neatly organizing apps, files, and icons on the desktop. Fences 6 introduces tabs, a feature that allows you to place multiple fence groups together in a tabbed experience for a modern layout. And with the ability to dynamically add, remove, and apply color to a tab, Fences 6 continues to raise the bar as the best desktop organizational tool for Windows. Fences 6 personalization options and selection tool Also new in Fences 6 is the ability to apply a color tint (here is a partial tint example) to all the icons on your desktop. This simple but innovative feature allows you to apply a color expression for all your desktop icons to create a stylistic and distraction-free layout or to help any individual Fence stand out. And combined with many of the quality-of-life updates like improved navigation for Folder Portals™, Fences 6 is another significant step forward for functionality and personalization. Fences is used by thousands of businesses, from healthcare to law offices and finance organizations. To help these businesses deploy organized dashboards of desktop icons, Fences 6 for Business adds advanced tooling to create templated deployments with multiple configurations ready out of the box. And with Stardock also offering customized deployment configurations with each enterprise rollout, Fences 6 is the most configurable, deployable, and scalable version of Fences ever. Fences 6 tabs and full icon tint with docked fence groups Top New Features in Fences 6: Tabs let you stack a fence on-top of each other for a modern workflow. Icon tint allows you to apply a color expression to all of your desktop icons to personalize your desktop and reduce distractions. A new color picker tool makes it easy to pick the perfect color a Fence group or icon tint color. Folder Portal navigation has been overhauled to provide a more natural workflow. Full Arm support means that Fences 6 is ready for the newest generation of devices powered by ARM CPUs. And many quality-of-life improvements like the ability to apply color to a tab for easy recognition, updates to quick hide, and a lot more. "Fences 6 is our biggest leap forward for the productivity tool," said Brad Sams, General Manager of Stardock Software. "Fences is widely recognized as the best way to organize your desktop and with the new features in Fences 6, it is now the best tool for managing not only your desktop but every desktop within your organization.” The Fences 6 is available today, starting at $9.99 and is also included in the award-winning Object Desktop package. Object Desktop includes programs such as Start11, Groupy, SoundPackager, DeskScapes and Multiplicity. Disclaimer: Neowin's relationship to Stardock Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend -
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Firefox 140 Beta: Custom search engines, tab unloading, and more new features
Karlston posted a news in Software News
Mozilla has recently released Firefox 139, bringing with it custom wallpapers, link previews, and more, which you can read about on Neowin. Alongside the release of Firefox 139, we also got the release of Firefox 140 Beta with some accompanying release notes. One of the big features in this release is the ability to add custom search engines. New features can be pretty subjective for users in terms of how much of an impact they have on the user’s experience. If you like using a smaller search engine, like Ecosia, then one major update you’ll like in Firefox 140 Beta is the ability to add custom search engines. To add a custom search engine in this release, right-click a search field of a supported website and select Add Search Engine. Alternatively, you can go to Settings > Search > Add (below the search shortcuts table) to manually enter a search URL. Another new item in this release is the ability to remove the Firefox Extensions button from your toolbar. When you hide the button, you can access the extensions panel again at any time from the Firefox menu by clicking the Extensions menu item. Some less notable changes, but present in the release notes nonetheless are improvements to vertical tabs allowing you to keep more pinned tabs in view by dragging the divider to resize your pinned tabs section. There is also now a “Select All” option for bookmarks in Firefox for Android. Finally, for users concerned about the resources being taken up by tabs, Firefox 140 Beta gives you the option to unload tabs by right-clicking on a tab and selecting “Unload Tab”. If any heavy tabs are slowing your computer down, you can use this feature to get your speed back. If you want to try out Firefox 140 Beta now, just head over to this page on the Firefox website. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend -
Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, announced a new partnership with Elon Musk, which aims to bring Grok AI to the messenger later this summer. In his post, Durov said that the one-year partnership will get "the best AI technology on the market" to over one billion Telegram users. A promo video attached to the post also revealed what features Grok will bring to Telegram. The service will be integrated into the search bar, allowing you to ask Grok about something without switching apps. Customers will also get a dedicated chat with Grok with a threaded experience to keep different topics and conversations separate. Smart Text Editing with Grok will let you generate and rewrite text, summarize long messages, entire chats, and documents, get insights about links, and more. Also, Grok AI will be able to moderate group chats, run business chats, and fact-check posts in channels. Of course, no modern AI goes without generative "creativity," so Grok in Telegram will be able to generate static and animated stickers and avatars. Durov revealed that his partnership with xAI will secure $300 million in cash and equity. The two companies will also equally split revenue from xAI subscriptions sold within Telegram. Pavel Durov and Telegram are known for pedaling online privacy, but details about the privacy aspect of the Telegram-xAI partnership are currently unknown. When a user asked whether Telegram plans to send data to xAI for training, Durov responded, "No, this has not been discussed." In another post, Durov announced that Telegram Premium now has over 15 million paid subscribers, and this number doubled in just one year. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend
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Judge expected to take months to weigh Meta monopoly trial verdict. After weeks of arguments in the Federal Trade Commission's monopoly trial, Meta is done defending its decade-plus-old acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp—at least for now. The seven-week trial ended Tuesday, with the FTC urging Judge James Boasberg to rule that a breakup is necessary to end Meta's alleged monopoly in the "personal social networking services" market, where Meta currently faces sparse competition among other apps connecting friends and family. As alleged by the FTC, Meta's internal emails laid bare that Meta's motive in acquiring both Instagram and WhatsApp was to pay whatever it took to snuff out dominant rivals threatening to lure users away from Facebook—Mark Zuckerberg's jewel. Talking to Bloomberg, Meta has maintained that the FTC's case is weak, seeking to undo deals that the FTC approved long ago while ignoring the competition Meta faces from rivals in the broader social media market, like TikTok. But Meta's attempt to shut down the case mid-trial was rebuffed by Boasberg, who has signaled he will take months to weigh his decision. In a statement, Meta's spokesperson told Ars that Meta spent six weeks defending its deals while the FTC showed "that no deal is ever truly final." Meta appears "confident" that the case will end in a win, Sruthi Thatchenkery, an assistant professor of strategy at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, told Bloomberg, noting that it's "very hard to unwind a merger." "The only thing the FTC showed was the dynamic, hyper-competitive nature of the past, present, and future of the technology industry," Meta's spokesperson said. Boasberg is not expected to hold closing arguments, The New York Times reported. Instead, Meta and the FTC will file follow-up briefings over the summer, after which Boasberg has said he will work "expeditiously" to arrive at a ruling on whether Meta's purchases violated antitrust law. His ruling could come before the end of the year, Bloomberg reported. It's unclear which way Boasberg is leaning or if he would even require a breakup in the event of an FTC win. Bloomberg noted that the judge "will have some latitude to come up with his own solution," perhaps finding "that only one of the deals was illegal" and requiring "only a sale of that service." The FTC has also recommended requiring Meta to make its platforms interoperable with other platforms, which experts told Ars would spur competition by giving users an easy way to port their entire social network to a rival app if Meta's apps become too degraded. Experts note that there's also a chance the FTC and Meta reach a settlement before the verdict comes, although the FTC supposedly previously rejected Meta's $1 billion settlement bid, The Wall Street Journal reported. The FTC has said a breakup spinning off both apps is necessary, with a senior official last week telling press that the Meta case seemingly hits at the very heart of antitrust law, the NYT reported. "This case presents a very important legal principle, which is that a firm that is a monopolist cannot acquire its most threatening competitors," the FTC official said. "Antitrust law requires competition on the merits, even in digital markets, and it’s competition on the merits that drives innovation and ultimately helps consumers." Although the FTC has not commented on the trial ending, a spokesperson previously alleged that Meta's entire defense came from "primarily its own self-interested executives and paid experts." Whichever side wins, the other side is expected to quickly appeal, and if the FTC wins, the trial will continue as Boasberg evaluates potential remedies. Meta—which the NYT described as putting its future in Boasberg's hands—will likely defend its deals to the end, as "Instagram is now Meta's biggest money maker in the US," accounting for more than 50 percent of its ad revenue in 2025, The Guardian reported. "Meta is a proud American success story, and we look forward to continuing to innovate and serve the people and businesses who love our services," Meta's spokesperson said. Experts aren’t so sure Meta has clinched it Boasberg has said that the key question he must answer is whether the FTC's market definition is too narrow. Arguing against the market definition, Meta has said that connecting friends and family isn't even Meta apps' "core use" anymore, as an evolving competitive social media landscape has forced Meta to turn its newsfeeds into discovery engines to rival TikTok. Justin Teresi, an antitrust analyst, told Bloomberg that because the FTC failed to show that users primarily come to Meta apps to connect with friends and family, it may have strengthened Meta's case. Rebecca Allensworth, a Vanderbilt law professor and antitrust expert, told Bloomberg that the "FTC’s narrowly defined market was always the weakest part of its case," but the government "has done a nice job of minimizing that weakness" by showing that apps that don't connect friends and family aren't adequate substitutes for Meta's apps. "This was evident when Meta saw spikes in usage on holidays," Allensworth suggested, which is perhaps "a sign people were turning to its products to connect with loved ones." Teresi thinks Meta has a 60 percent shot at winning the trial, although he criticized Meta's seeming defense that any company competing for online ad dollars competes with Meta. That argument may have broadened the market definition too much, he suggested. "If you’re saying that the relevant market here is competing for advertising dollars, then you could throw anything in there," Teresi said. "You could throw TV in there, you could throw print in there if you wanted to, and there’s really no end to that concept." Allensworth was less confident in Meta's chances, telling Bloomberg, "I really actually think this could go either way." Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend
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ASRock says AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive was to blame for Ryzen 9000 CPU failures
Karlston posted a news in Technology News
A few months ago, users were reporting that their AMD CPUs were failing to boot. This was happening primarily on ASRock AM5 motherboards, and now the company says it has identified the problem. YouTube channel Tech Yes City claims that ASRock's investigation discovered that the issue is related to AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). This feature is an automatic overclocking feature for Ryzen CPUs, which uses an algorithm to dynamically adjust the power limits, voltages, clock speeds. Specifically, it appears to be an amperage problem that affects the Electric Design Current (EDC) and Thermal Design Current (TDC) on ASRock motherboards. ASRock representatives stated that the motherboards were configured too aggressively to handle the PBO for Ryzen 9000 CPUs. It would result in EDC and TDC being set at a higher range for early CPU samples, which ended up in the processors dying prematurely, especially on mid-range and high-end motherboards. ASRock says that the PBO issues have been fixed in the latest BIOS update that it has released. The company has also clarified that its budget motherboards should not be affected by the issue. But ASRock users were not impressed by this announcement, and have called out the company for trying to shift the blame. Questions are also being raised about the fix, and whether it actually solves the problem. AMD has not released a statement about this. Meanwhile, More than Moore's Dr. Ian Cutress says that an engineer told him that certain versions of Ryzen Master will put the CPU in PBO mode automatically when the app is installed. But, it won't tell you that the mode is enabled. This cannot be blocked via the BIOS, and the only workaround is to open the app, enable the feature and disable it manually. Tom's Hardware reports that ASRock had initially dismissed the motherboard failure reports as misinformation, and even denied that the problems were due to memory incompatibilities, and that it should release a public advisory to alert users about the BIOS update and protect potential failures. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend-
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U.S. Govt. Backs Cox in Landmark Supreme Court Battle Over ISP Piracy Liability
Karlston posted a news in File Sharing News
The U.S. Solicitor General has urged the Supreme Court to accept Cox Communications' petition in a landmark piracy liability lawsuit. The USSG argues that ISPs are not necessarily liable for pirating subscribers and warns that the current precedent may lead to disconnections for many innocent subscribers. At the same time, the USSG urged the court to deny a petition from the opposing music companies, which seeks to expand the current liability verdict. In 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of dozens of record labels, including Sony and Universal. Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages. This case is one of many. Other ISPs have been accused of being similarly lax in their stance against alleged piracy. Rightsholders believe that ISPs are motivated by profit, while ISPs typically argue that they shouldn’t be held liable for the alleged wrongdoing of subscribers. Landmark Piracy Battle Cox challenged the verdict through several routes and last August filed a petition at the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to hear the case. The Internet provider stressed that the current verdict ‘jeopardizes’ internet access for all Americans. Around the same time, the music companies filed their own petition, hoping to strengthen the verdict at the Supreme Court. Specifically, the record labels argued that the ISP should also be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement. Both petitions essentially boil down to questions on liability. Are ISPs liable for copyright infringement if they don’t disconnect subscribers accused of copyright infringement? And can ISPs be held liable for infringing subscribers, even if they don’t directly profit from their activities? Last November, the Supreme Court suggested that it is indeed interested in the questions. Before deciding, however, the U.S. Solicitor General was invited to share the Government’s view on the matter. The Solicitor General is a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice who serves as the federal government’s primary lawyer before the Supreme Court. Needless to say, their input weighs strongly for the Supreme Court’s decision whether to accept these petitions or not. U.S. Backs Cox’s Petition Yesterday, the Solicitor General submitted its amicus brief in this matter, clearly siding with the Internet provider. The Solicitor General argues that the Fourth Circuit’s decision, which held Cox liable for contributory infringement, “departs from this Court’s contributory-infringement precedents” and is in “substantial tension” with the Supreme Court’s recent analysis of secondary liability in Twitter v. Taamneh. “The Taamneh Court’s reasoning reinforces the conclusion that imposing liability on Cox for copyright infringement committed by its users, based on Cox’s failure to terminate service to IP addresses associated with infringement, is incompatible with traditional common-law limitations on secondary liability,” the brief reads. The U.S. also cites the Sony and Grokster cases, which make clear that contributory liability for copyright infringement requires more than knowing about pirating activity. Instead, it requires “culpable intent” to cause copyright infringement. “If Cox had explicitly or implicitly marketed its service as being particularly useful for infringers, or if it had encouraged subscribers to use Cox’s internet service to infringe, liability might be appropriate,” the Solicitor General writes. According to the view of the U.S. Government, an ISP is not automatically liable for copyright infringement if it fails to terminate subscribers after receiving copyright infringement notices. This is a strong statement that targets the central issue in many similar lawsuits in U.S. courts. Not Liable Innocent Subscribers at Risk The amicus brief goes on to state that the current verdict of the Court of Appeals can have broad implications for ISPs and their subscribers. Cox previously argued that, based on this precedent, ISPs find themselves ‘forced’ to terminate subscribers who may have done little wrong. The U.S. Solicitor General acknowledges this potential threat. If copyright infringement notices from third parties can trigger liability, Internet providers may take more drastic action to avoid legal trouble. “Given the breadth of that liability, the decision below might encourage providers to avoid substantial monetary liability by terminating subscribers after receiving a single notice of alleged infringement,” the Solicitor General writes. “Losing internet access is a serious consequence, as the internet has become an essential feature of modern life. And because a single internet connection might be used by an entire family—or, in the case of coffee shops, hospitals, universities, and the like, by hundreds of downstream users— the decision below could cause numerous non-infringing users to lose their internet access.” No Willful Infringement Aside from the liability question, the brief also criticizes the Fourth Circuit’s finding of “willfulness” against Cox, which led to the enhanced statutory damages. The Solicitor General argues that the jury instruction was “erroneous” because it allowed a finding of willfulness based on the notion that Cox knew its subscribers’ actions were unlawful, even though Cox believed its own response was lawful. The Solicitor General notes that “willfulness” generally requires knowledge or reckless disregard that the defendant’s own conduct was unlawful. Simply knowing about third-party infringements should not be sufficient. This broad interpretation would essentially undermine the Copyright Act’s two-tiered damages scheme, which reserves higher damages for willful copyright infringement than for non-willful infringement. Music Companies’ Writ Should be Denied While the U.S. supports Cox’s petition, it has asked the Supreme Court to deny a related writ from the opposing music labels, who argue that Cox should also be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement. Defendants can be held vicariously liable if they had the right and ability to control the infringing activities and a direct financial interest in those activities. According to the Solicitor General, the lower court correctly concluded that is not the case here. “There was no evidence that Cox would be forced to collect a lower fee if the users of its internet service ceased to infringe; that subscribers were drawn to Cox’s internet service because of the ability to engage in copyright infringement using that service; or that Cox had used the opportunity for customers to infringe to lend credibility to the service it offered,” the brief notes. All in all, it’s clear that the U.S. Solicitor General, and thus the U.S. Department of Justice, supports Cox’s attempt to overturn the piracy liability verdict. While the Supreme Court has yet to formally decide whether it will take on the case, the brief suggests the chance is now significantly higher. Conclusion While Cox will be pleased to see the supportive brief, there are no guarantees that the Supreme Court will agree with the U.S. Solicitor General, should it ultimately decide to take on the case. — A copy of the U.S. Solicitor General’s Amicus Curiae brief for the United States is available here (pdf). Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend