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Earlier this month, we shared the first part of our review of AMD's new RX 9070. It was about the gaming performance of the GPU, and we gave it a 7.5 out of 10. The 9070 XT, in contrast, received a full 10 out of 10. The main reason for the lower score on the non-XT was the relatively high price and thus the poorer value it offered compared to the XT. We thought the price was much closer to the XT than it needed to be. While the RX 9070 proved to be more power efficient than the XT, for a desktop gaming graphics card, value and performance typically take the front seat compared to something like power efficiency. However, that may not be the case in terms of productivity which also takes into account things like power savings. Thus, similar to the one we did for the XT model, we are doing a dedicated productivity review for the RX 9070 as well where we compare to against the 9070 XT, 7800 XT, as well as Nvidia's 5070 and 4070. AI performance is a very important metric in today's world and AMD also promised big improvements thanks to its underlying architectural improvements. We already had a taste of that with the XT model so now it's time to see how good the non-XT does here. Before we get underway, this is a collaboration between Sayan Sen (author), and Steven Parker who lent us their test PC for this review. Speaking of which, here are the specs of the test PC: Cooler Master MasterBox NR200P MAX ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4 Intel Core i7-14700K with Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut Pad T-FORCE Delta RGB DDR5 (2x16GB) 7600MT/s CL36 (XMP Profile) 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade SSD Windows 11 24H2 (Build 26100.3194) Drivers used for the 7800 XT, 9070 XT and 9070 were Adrenaline v24.30.31.03 / 25.3.1 RC (press driver provided by AMD), and for the Nvidia RTX 5070 and 4070, GeForce v572.47 was used. (From the left) Sapphire Pulse 9070 XT, Nvidia 5070 FE, and Pulse 9070 First up, we have Geekbench AI running on ONNX. The RTX 5070 gets beaten by both the 9070 XT and 9070 in quantized and single precision (FP32) performance. Similarly, the 4070 gets close to the 9070 in half-precision (FP16) performance, but the latter is an enormous 30% faster in quantized score and nearly 12.2% better in single precision (FP32). The reason for this beatdown is the amount of memory available to each card. The Nvidia GPUs have 12GB each and thus only do better in the FP16 precision tests since the other ones are more VRAM-intensive. Next up, we move to UL Procyon suite starting with the Image generation benchmark. We chose the Stable Diffusion XL FP16 test since this is the most intense workload available on Procyon suite. Similar to what we saw on Geekbench AI, the Nvidia GPUs to relatively better here as it is FP16 or half precision which means the used VRAM is lower. So this is something to keep in mind again, if you wish to float32 AI workloads, it is likely that graphics cards with greater than 12 GB buffers would emerge as victors. There is still a big improvement on the RX 9070 compared to the 7800 XT as we see a ~54% gain. This boost is due to improvements to the core architecture itself as VRAM capacities of both cards are the same at 16 Gigs. Following image generation, we move to the text generation benchmark. In this workload, we see the least impressive performance of the 9070 in terms of how much it improves over the 7800 XT. The former is up to ~7.25% faster here. The 9070 is also not as well-performing as the Nvidia 4070 in Phi and Mistral models, although it does do better in both the Llama tests. Another odd result stood out here where the 5070 underperformed all the cards including the 7800 XT in Llama 2. We ran each test three times and considered the best score and so we are not exactly sure what happened here. Wrapping up AI testing, we measured OpenCL throughput in Geekbench compute benchmark. The RX 9070 did not fare well here at all even falling behind the 7800 XT and it is significantly slower than the three other cards. Interestingly, even the RTX 5070 could not beat the 4070 on OpenCL so perhaps this suggests that OpenCL optimization has not been a priority for either AMD or Nvidia this time. It could also be an issue with Geekbench itself. Conclusion We reach the end of our productivity performance review of the 9070 and we have to say we are fairly impressed but there is also a slight bit of disappointment. It is clear that the 9070 as well as the 9070 XT really shine when inferencing precision is higher, and that is due to the higher memory buffers they possess compared to the Nvidia 5070. But on FP16, the Nvidia cards pull ahead. Still RNDA 4, including the RX 9070, see big boost over RDNA 3 (7800 XT). As we noted in the image generation benchmark, which is an intense load, there is over a 50% gain. So what do we make of the RX 9070 as a productivity hardware? We think it's a good card. If someone was looking for a GPU around $550 that can do both gaming and crunch through some AI tasks this is a good card to pick up especially if you are dealing with single precision situations or some other VRAM-intense tasks. And we already know it is efficient so there's that too. For those however looking for a GPU that can deal with more, AMD recently unveiled the Radeon AI PRO R9700 which is essentially a 32 GB refresh of the 9070 XT with some additional workstation-based optimizations. Considering everything, we rate AMD's RX 9070 a 9 out of 10 for its AI performance. Price is less of a factor for those looking at productivity cases compared to ones considering the GPU for gaming, and as such, we felt it did quite decent overall and can be especially handy if you need more than 12 GB. Purchase links: RX 9070 / XT (Amazon US) As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. 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

Scientists have discovered that trees near volcanoes change color when a volcano is becoming more active. Now, NASA and the Smithsonian Institution are teaming up to track these changes from space. Before a volcanic eruption, magma rising underground releases gases like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Trees absorb the carbon dioxide, making their leaves greener and thicker. Scientists are using satellite images from NASA’s Landsat 8 to detect this greening, along with data from airborne instruments in the Airborne Validation Unified Experiment: Land to Ocean (AVUELO). “Volcano early warning systems exist,” said Florian Schwandner, chief of the Earth Science Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “The aim here is to make them better and make them earlier.” Volcanic eruptions are dangerous and unpredictable. About ten percent of the world’s population lives in areas that could be affected. People living close to volcanoes face risks like flying rock, ash clouds, and toxic gases. Even those farther away can experience mudslides or tsunamis caused by eruptions. Since eruptions can't be stopped, finding ways to predict them early is important for safety. Spotting volcanic activity from space isn’t easy. Scientists can track sulfur dioxide because it’s easier to detect, but volcanic carbon dioxide—the earliest sign of magma rising—is harder to measure. "A volcano emitting the modest amounts of carbon dioxide that might presage an eruption isn’t going to show up in satellite imagery," said volcanologist Robert Bogue of McGill University. Traditionally, researchers have had to travel to volcanoes to measure carbon dioxide directly. But with over 1,300 potentially active volcanoes worldwide, many are in remote, difficult-to-reach locations. Checking tree responses instead offers a simpler way to monitor volcanic activity. "The whole idea is to find something that we could measure instead of carbon dioxide directly," said Bogue. Nicole Guinn, a volcanologist at the University of Houston, used satellite images from Landsat 8, NASA’s Terra satellite, and ESA’s Sentinel-2 to study trees near Mount Etna in Sicily. Her research found a clear link between tree leaf color and volcanic carbon dioxide. To confirm the accuracy of satellite images, climate scientist Josh Fisher led a ground study in March 2025. His team measured carbon dioxide and collected leaf samples from trees near the Rincon de la Vieja volcano in Costa Rica. “Our research is a two-way interdisciplinary intersection between ecology and volcanology,” Fisher said. Tracking trees as volcano indicators has some limitations. Some volcanoes don’t have enough trees nearby, and environmental factors like weather and plant diseases can affect tree growth. But past success has shown the potential of this approach. In 2017, scientists upgraded sensors at Mayon volcano in the Philippines, detecting signs of an impending eruption. They recommended evacuations, and over 56,000 people were safely moved before the volcano erupted in January 2018. “There’s not one signal from volcanoes that’s a silver bullet," said Schwandner. "But it will be something that could change the game.” Source: NASA This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. 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

Researchers at the University of Michigan have come up with a new idea that could make underwater and aerial vehicles move more smoothly and efficiently. Their inspiration? The dimples on a golf ball. Golf balls fly farther than smooth ones because their dimples cut down on pressure drag—basically, the force that slows things down when moving through air or water. The researchers applied this concept to a new spherical prototype with dimples that can be adjusted. They tested its performance in a wind tunnel. “A dynamically programmable outer skin on an underwater vehicle could drastically reduce drag while eliminating the need for protruding appendages like fins or rudders for maneuvering,” said Anchal Sareen, an assistant professor at U-M. “By actively adjusting its surface texture, the vehicle could achieve precise maneuverability with enhanced efficiency and control.” This could be useful for things like ocean exploration, mapping, and gathering environmental data. The prototype is made by stretching a thin latex layer over a hollow sphere filled with tiny holes. When a vacuum pump is turned on, the latex gets pulled in, forming dimples. Turning off the pump makes the sphere smooth again. To measure how well the dimples reduced drag, researchers placed the sphere inside a three-meter-long wind tunnel, holding it in place with a thin rod. They changed the wind speed and adjusted the depth of the dimples. A load cell recorded the aerodynamic forces, while high-speed cameras tracked airflow patterns. The results showed that shallow dimples worked better at high wind speeds, while deeper dimples were more effective at lower speeds. Adjusting dimple depth helped cut drag by up to 50% compared to a smooth sphere. “The adaptive skin setup is able to notice changes in the speed of the incoming air and adjust dimples accordingly to maintain drag reductions,” said Rodrigo Vilumbrales-Garcia, a postdoctoral research fellow at U-M. “Applying this concept to underwater vehicles would reduce both drag and fuel consumption.” The researchers also discovered that the textured surface could generate lift, a force that helps steer the sphere. By activating dimples on only one side, they caused the air to flow differently, creating a force that pushed the sphere in a specific direction. Tests showed that, with the right dimple depth, the sphere could generate lift forces up to 80% of the drag force. This effect was similar to the Magnus effect, which typically requires constant rotation. “I was surprised that such a simple approach could produce results comparable to the Magnus effect,” said Putu Brahmanda Sudarsana, a graduate student at U-M. Looking ahead, Sareen hopes to collaborate with other experts to improve this technology. “This smart dynamic skin technology could be a game-changer for unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles, offering a lightweight, energy-efficient, and highly responsive alternative to traditional jointed control surfaces,” she said. Source: University of Michigan, AIP Publishing This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. 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

Microsoft Edge version 136.0.3240.92 has been released to all users in the Stable Channel. This update brings some changes to the new tab page and a bunch of fixes. Starting this month, Microsoft Edge will show more "productivity-related Copilot prompts" near the search box on the new tab page. Additionally, there will be a new Copilot button that will send your current search query to Copilot. These updates are available across all Microsoft Edge channels and are rolling out gradually to all users. Here is what was fixed in Microsoft Edge 136.0.3240.92: Fixed an issue that may have affected extensions that bring up a window. Extensions designed to run continuously were being paused in the background when the window was minimized or occluded. Fixed an issue that caused the Microsoft Defender Application Guard window to automatically close 1 minute after launch without any user interaction. Fixed an issue that prevented text from being displayed and other rendering issues when viewing certain PDF files containing Japanese fonts. Besides the stable release, Microsoft pushed Edge 137.0.3296.39 to the Beta Channel. It contains the same updates to the new tab page, plus a new Web Content Filtering (WCF) for Educational and SMB organizations. Microsoft announced this feature at Build 2025, and it is aimed to give IT admins an easy way block inappropriate websites to keep students and employees safe online. With WCF, Microsoft allows carpet-blocking millions of websites by simply selecting the needed categories. WCF in Microsoft Edge is currently a public preview, and you can learn more about it in the official documentation. You can update Microsoft Edge by heading to edge://settings/help. The browser can also update itself automatically the next time you launch it. 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

Intel has released a new non-WHQL driver for supported graphics cards and processors. You can now download version 32.0.101.6795 with optimizations for Dune: Awakening, Elden Ring Nightreign, and F1 25. Additionally, the driver brings Monster Hunter Wilds performance improvements to systems with the Intel Arc B-series graphics cards. Intel claims users will get up to 9% higher average FPS at 1080p and up to 6% more average FPS at 1440p. Other than that, the driver does not contain any fixes or additional changes. The list of known bugs, however, has a few new entries in addition to the bugs from the previous driver: Overwatch 2 (DX12) may experience an application crash while launching the game with High or Ultra graphics quality settings on systems with the Intel Arc A-Series graphics cards. Blender 4.4 may fail to complete rendering while using the Cycles render engine on systems with the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors. You can install Intel 32.0.101.6795 non-WHQL driver on PCs with 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11 with the following graphics products from Intel: Discrete GPUs Integrated GPUs Intel Arc A-Series (Alchemist) Intel Arc B-Series (Battlemage) Intel Iris Xe Discrete Graphics (DG1) Intel Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake) Intel Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) Intel Core 14th Gen (Raptor Lake Refresh) Intel Core 13th Gen (Raptor Lake) Intel Core 12th Gen (Alder Lake) Intel Core 11th Gen (Tiger Lake) You can download the driver from the official website here. Full release notes are available here (PDF). Keep in mind that this is a non-WHQL driver, which means it could be less stable than certified WHQL drivers. 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

The sole developer behind AnduinOS, a Windows-like Linux distribution, has revealed the path forward in terms of the upcoming releases. Anduin Xue revealed that AnduinOS 1.4 will be based on Ubuntu 25.10 and will arrive in late-October, while AnduinOS 1.5 will be based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and arrive in late April 2026. This Linux distribution has caught some significant attention recently. With the impending death of Windows 10, users that want to keep older devices running may choose to switch to Linux. With AnduinOS, they get a distribution that looks similar to Windows 11, reducing the learning curve. AnduinOS 1.4, just like version 1.3, will not be an LTS, but AnduinOS 1.5 will be, so that’s going to be the best for people who don’t want to keep reinstalling the operating system. The developer said that he’s aware of the issues people have with AnduinOS, such as the inability to smoothly update from AnduinOS 1.2 to 1.3, but said resources are limited, though, we can expect improvements in the future. This year, the project has extensive improvements planned, with the primary goal being to establish its own apt software repository that can manage all changes directly through dpkg. By doing this, it will simplify the process of using apt for system updates and will give users the option to smoothly transition to future AnduinOS releases. It’s expected that this will be available experimentally in AnduinOS 1.4 and fully implemented in AnduinOS 1.5. AnduinOS is not only trying to become just another Linux distribution, it has ambitions to set itself apart too. One of its objectives is to modularize and consolidate system components so that users can pick to add or remove features such as app stores, GNOME Shell, professional tools, container technologies, and WSL through “layered combinations.” It will also compile more of the system core components to give users more customization options. By the time of AnduinOS 1.5, it’s expected that there will be a Server and Lite Edition of AnduinOS. The Lite Edition will provide a basic GNOME Shell environment with only a little bit of pre-installed software so that it’s not bloated. There are no plans to charge for any of these editions and they’ll remain under the GPLv3 license. Another feature AnduinOS could offer in the future is a versatile customization tool and builder for Linux distributions. It said that this could cater to users looking for an ISO that meets all their personal requirements within a Live environment; Live environments are run directly from the installation media without Linux being installed on your computer. Regarding AI features, Anduin Xue said that they could be selectively integrated in future versions to give users more functionality. He specifically mentioned system-level MCP, which Microsoft recently added to Windows 11. For users who do not like artificial intelligence, AnduinOS says these features will be easily removable. Due to the fact that Anduin Xue is based in China (he's also a Microsoft employee), some people have raised concerns about whether the project is linked to the Chinese government in any way. Here’s what he had to say about transparency: If this is the first time you’ve heard about AnduinOS, be sure to check out Neowin’s coverage of the latest version, AnduinOS 1.3. 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 week has passed us by and the GNOME community has been as busy as always, improving core GNOME features, GNOME Circle and third-party apps, as well as the mobile experience of GNOME. This week saw improvements to the backup app Deja Dup, the Halftone image viewer, and a new extensible settings management center called Tuner. New GNOME Core App Updates This week we got two enhancements for core GNOME software. GLib, a foundational GNOME library, has been improved so that journal messages output by apps are easier to find. For developers using GNOME Web, there is now a preferences page for tech preview builds, allowing you to test WebKit features at runtime. Those using the regular version of GNOME Web can access these new settings by opening Web from the command line with this command: gsettings set org.gnome.Epiphany.ui webkit-features-page true GNOME Circle and Tuner: A New Extensible GNOME Control Center One of the GNOME-related apps that got a notable update this week was Deja Dup Backups. It now has an enhanced file restoration process that integrates with native file managers, giving you a more streamlined experience. This was achieved by adding support for the restic mount. Next up, the image viewer Halftone, which is now on version 0.7.0, has just added the ability to zoom in on images. It also brings improved error handling to enhance user interaction and reliability. In earlier versions, users were not informed well about errors occurring during image loading, resulting in endless loading screens. This is fixed now. The final update in this section is that a new extensible settings management center for GNOME, called Tuner, is now available. It has been designed with flexibility and convenience in mind, allowing GNOME users to build a personalized control center using plugins. With this, everyone can have a settings center with options they find useful. It was developed with the help of ALT Linux developers. The Tuner control center uses libpeas to deliver a dynamic and modular app allowing developers to build plugins for the community to install. While it doesn't do this yet, you could imagine in the future plugins being made available for Tuner to replicate the functionality of apps like GNOME Tweaks, as well as other settings, taking customization to another level. Tuner doesn't only give users a modular settings app, it also allows GNOME-based distributions to use Tuner as a hub for distribution-specific settings. ALT Linux has already started using it in fact by including the TunerPanel module for managing panel mode. It'll be interesting to see if other distros pick it up. One Linux distribution that could benefit from Tuner is Ubuntu which ships with a slightly tweaked version of the GNOME Linux desktop environment. Canonical could give users the options to disable its tweaks through Tuner if it ever decided to, which would appeal to fans of vanilla GNOME. As a new piece of software, the developers are inviting people to contribute plugins. There is a quick guide available with an example using the Vala language. There are also template repositories for making plugins available in Vala and Python, plus documentation in Valadoc format. Mobile Experience on GNOME Finally, Phosh has been updated to version 0.47.0 this week bringing with it a "Do not disturb" toggle and improved on-screen keyboard. Phosh, for those that don’t know, is GNOME designed for the mobile phone. The devices that can run this are pretty limited as it’s aimed at devices that come with Linux out of the box such as Purism and PINEPHONE devices. Devices that support postmarketOS can also run it. 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

As the release of KDE 6.4.0 draws near, the KDE team has been focused on squashing bugs, something we highlighted in last week's "This Week in KDE" issue. Even though Plasma 6.4 entered a feature freeze last week, the team still managed to squeeze in a new feature this week called Time of Day wallpapers. Thanks to this new feature, Plasma will now automatically switch compatible wallpapers between their light and dark versions based on the day/night cycle. Visual polish also improves the previews of these dynamic wallpapers, making them look better and clearly marked as dynamic. Previously, users had to rely on third-party projects, clunky slideshow setups, or shell scripts via cron jobs to achieve this functionality. Moving on to small improvements, the team has removed wallpapers and other add-ons from its search page. However, it is not gone entirely, as you can still find them as long as you initiate a search while on the "Add-Ons" page. Next, the Audio Volume widget which got small textual headers for audio input and output device sections, last week, has received several small visual tweaks. For one, the mute button is now indented to align with the radio button's label. Image via Christoph Wolk (KDE) The team also replaced the hamburger icon for item-specific menus in the Audio Volume widget with a three-dot/kebab icon. Looking further out to Plasma 6.5.0, development continues on several UI enhancements. The Sticky Note widget is being reworked for panel use, with smaller resizing, context menu colors, and a true transparent background. System Settings will warn against using "Display" fonts for global settings, as they are poor for screen text. The Emoji Picker (Meta+.) will now open showing all emojis on first launch, not an empty "Recent" page. The Networks widget's "Hotspot" button will always be visible, grayed out with a tooltip when unavailable, and debugging effects are moving to the KWin debug window. Plasma 6.4.0 will also deliver many important bug fixes. A critical one addresses a rare flaw that could bypass the lock screen's password. System Settings stability will improve, fixing crashes from refresh rate changes or dragging LibreOffice content. A WINE application freeze with custom window decorations is also being resolved. The color picker gets more accuracy with features like Night Light or HDR, and custom panel resize handles will work better. System Monitor sees fixes for network speed sorting, data display, and widget configurations. Finally, wallpaper grid previews will adjust their aspect ratio in real time if the screen's aspect changes, complementing dynamic wallpapers. Performance work continues. For Plasma 6.4.0, the clipboard popup (Meta+V) will appear faster, and non-native screen resolutions will see less performance penalty. 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

DOOM: The Dark Ages has received 'difficulty' balance changes that have made the demons of Hell even more dangerous than ever. DOOM: The Dark Ages, the latest entry in the DOOM franchise, has recently received a new patch that has made big balance adjustments to the game's difficulty to make it harder. According to DOOM's official website Slayer's Club, these balance adjustments are focused on making the game harder, as players have been leaving feedback saying it felt too easy even on Nightmare Mode. As a result, enemies now hit harder, health and armor item pick-ups drop less often, and certain enemies punish you more severely for mistiming the parry mechanic. The full notes for these balance adjustments (as taken from the Slayer's Club) are as follows: Update from 5/23/25 Adjustments to make the Hell Knight's arms tougher to sever when using the Pulverizer. Lowered Skullcrusher Ravager damage against Bosses and Komodo. Reduced how long certain health and armor drops linger in the world in the [spoiler] boss fight. Reduced how long health drops linger in the world when in the Atlan Rebalanced the Atlan final [spoiler] boss fight. Update from 5/22/25 "After a week of observing you play and hearing your feedback, we felt the game needed to be a bit harder overall, especially on Nightmare difficulty, so a Tunable pass was made live yesterday More specifically, we:" Buffed damage to certain attacks for the following enemy AI: Agaddon Hunter, Cosmic Baron, Hellknight, Komodo, and Pinky Rider. "We wanted the threat of these enemies to be increased and have higher impact when on the field, especially on certain damage scalers/difficulty settings." "As an example, on 250% damage (Nightmare default), missing a parry on the Agaddon Hunter’s overhead slash will now break your shield instead of simply doing a lot of damage to it." Adjusted certain player forgiveness systems to be less generous across most of the ‘Damage to Player’ sliders (100% - 500%) "There are systems under the hood that are designed to give players a better chance to survive when near death, and those systems were being too generous." "Players were able to brute force their way through situations that should’ve resulted in costing a Life Sigil or death, and we want to make sure we are keeping the player in check and asking for better tactical decisions." "These changes will have an impact on player survivability and will be more noticeable the higher up the Damage Scale slider you go." Ripping and tearing just got a whole lot more challenging Despite a mixed PC launch, DOOM: The Dark Ages has been one of the fastest-growing games in the franchise, garnering over three million players in just five days after its launch on May 15, 2025. The game has also been accumulating overtly positive critical acclaim and high Metacritic scores, including a perfect 5/5 review score from my colleague Samuel Tolbert, stating that, and I quote, "id Software proves it can still reinvent the wheel, shaking up numerous aspects of gameplay, exchanging elaborate platforming for brutal on-the-ground action, as well as the ability to soar on a dragon's back or stomp around in a giant mech." With this latest update, players who felt DOOM: The Dark Ages needed more bite to its difficulty will finally get the challenge they've been looking for in one of the best Xbox Games of 2025. DOOM: The Dark Ages is available on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (via Battle.net, Steam, and the Xbox PC app), Xbox Game Pass, and PlayStation 5. 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

The recent launch of the RTX 5060 was quite controversial, with independent media accusing the company of "rug pulling" its new budget graphics card by launching it during Computex and withholding the review driver. Add to that user discontent about 8GB of video memory (AMD has a few words about that) and multi-frame generation, high prices, and overall, quite a disastrous state of the recent driver releases. Not the way it's meant to be played... Now, we have yet another issue with the RTX 5060 graphics card. This time, Nvidia confirmed compatibility issues with certain motherboards, which cause black screens on reboot. The company says this happens with "legacy motherboards," and a firmware update is required to resolve the problem. Nvidia published a support page on its official website with detailed steps to perform if your system experiences black screens during reboots. Nvidia suggests doing one of the following steps to mitigate the issue: Shut down your computer before turning it on. Update your motherboard's BIOS to the latest version. Make sure the motherboard runs in UEFI mode, not Legacy / CSM. If your motherboard does not support UEFI, Nvidia recommends contacting your GPU's customer support, and it will provide the necessary VBIOS update for legacy motherboards. Boot using integrated graphics or another GPU. After booting to the desktop, you can download the Nvidia GPU UEFI Firmware Update Tool and get your RTX 5060 to the latest firmware with the necessary fixes. This applies to the RTX 5060 and the RTX 5060 Ti. Nvidia adds that the firmware update is only required on systems that exhibit black screen issues on reboots. There is no need to update GPU firmware if your system restarts without issues. You can find all the details and links to the firmware update tool in a post on the official Nvidia support 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

Feeds aren’t loading on X following a reported data center fire earlier in the week. X is back up for most users after what appeared to be a significant outage that spiked early this morning around 9AM ET. Global internet monitor NetBlocks posted this morning that X “has been experiencing international outages for some users for a second time in a week,” adding that the issue isn’t “related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.” Downdetector showed complaints of an outage rose sharply after 8AM ET before beginning to fall about 45 minutes later. As of this writing, those reports have dropped from tens of thousands of reports to only hundreds. Screenshot: Downdetector Elsewhere on social media, people had been complaining about issues with the network for a couple of days — one of the top posts on the r/Twitter Reddit community is a screenshot of an error message on the X login screen, with many replies complaining about login issues. The X developer platform site’s incident history log shows that a sitewide outage started Thursday and lasted roughly a day. At the moment, there’s still an error message on the platform status page that reads, “Login with X (OAuth) and other X platform login flows are experiencing degraded performance.” The issue comes after a fire reportedly broke out in an Oregon data center owned by X on Thursday morning. Wired writes that multiple unnamed sources told it that the fire, which forced “an extended response from emergency crews,” involved batteries in one of the data center’s rooms. Following reports of the fire, there were complaints that X was down, but the outage then seemed comparatively small. X did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. Update May 24th: Outage reports have mostly subsided. 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

Expressing grave concerns over Italy's Piracy Shield system, this January tech and telecoms advocacy group CCIA urged the government to withdraw planned legislation and engage TRIS, an EU procedure which aims to prevent internal market barriers. In a newly submitted contribution under TRIS, CCIA urges the European Commission to issue a detailed opinion to ensure Piracy Shield's compatibility with EU law. Praised by major rightsholders as progress in the fight against piracy, Italy’s Piracy Shield system made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Authorized under new legislation and promoted as a killer blow to piracy of live sports, Piracy Shield’s launch soon descended into a series of overblocking blunders and international news headlines. Realization that Piracy Shield was incapable of living up to the hype, led to legal amendments that contained direct threats against the tech sector. CCIA Intervenes On Behalf of the Tech Sector The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) represents global tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Google, and Meta, among others. In a January 2025 letter to the EU Commission, CCIA acknowledged that Piracy Shield exists to protect rightsholders but warned that the blocking mechanism is a “blunt instrument” that threatens businesses and the public alike. When telecoms regulator AGCOM launched a public consultation on proposed amendments to copyright regulations and Piracy Shield’s operations, CCIA took the opportunity to restate its concerns. Highlighting the risk of overblocking, CCIA turned to the blocking requests made by rightsholders and a requirement under Italian law to execute them within 30 minutes. “[W]e believe that the Piracy Shield poses significant risks to the principles of freedom of enterprise expression, as established by European and Italian law,” CCIA wrote. CCIA Urges European Commission to Intervene After months of engagement, including its letter to the European Commission back in January, CCIA’s latest submission calls on the Commission to seize the opportunity to publish a detailed opinion to address Piracy Shield’s apparent incompatibility with EU law. CCIA’s submission to AGCOM begins by highlighting the proposed amendments. “The Piracy Shield allows copyright holders to request site-blocking orders to be executed within 30 minutes, with limited transparency or recourse for affected parties. “These amendments, most notably changes to Article 10 and Article 8 (3-bis) of the Regulation, further consolidate the Shield’s role, including extraterritorial content-removal capabilities without clear coordination with EU law, particularly the Digital Services Act (DSA),” CCIA’s submission reads. “Given the serious implications of these proposals for the EU internal market, the freedom to provide cross-border services, and fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and due process, CCIA Europe urges the Commission to issue a detailed opinion under the TRIS procedure.” TRIS – Prevention of Technical Barriers to Trade One of the basic principles of the European Union is an internal market that embraces the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. Mechanisms that restrict or have the effect of restricting such movement, may create prohibited ‘internal frontiers’. The aim of the TRIS procedure (Directive 2015/1535) is to identify and prevent the appearance of internal barriers before they can have a negative effect on the market. Under TRIS, notifications sent to the European Commission may lead to a legal analysis in light of EU law. CCIA’s submission draws attention to key issues that it believes should be assessed by the Commission, summarized as follows: Lack of procedural safeguards and transparency in the Piracy Shield platform • Blocking requests processed automatically, does not seem AGCOM checks for accuracy. • No meaningful opportunity to contest blocking orders before enforcement. • No independent review or appeal mechanism that operates in a timely manner. • Piracy Shield technical specs and operational protocols have never been made public. • Development and governance lacked stakeholder inclusivity. • Platform incompatible with principles of proportionality and due process Risk of overblocking and collateral damage covers known incidents of overblocking, including the event that caused a widespread outage of Google Drive and the blocking of shared IP addresses at Cloudflare. In general, blocking of shared IP addresses “poses a high risk of unjustified interference with lawful online content and services” while domain name blocking “heightens the potential for overreach and content censorship, particularly when a single domain may host a mix [of] infringing and non-infringing content.” Questionable legal basis for cross-border removal AGCOM’s new proposal introduces a provision empowering itself to issue orders for the removal of content hosted in other EU Member States, vaguely referring to the Digital Services Act (DSA) as a legal basis. This raises several concerns: • The DSA provides for structured cross-border cooperation mechanisms and does not grant national authorities carte blanche to take direct enforcement action against hosting services in other Member States. • The proposal lacks clarity on which provisions of the DSA are being invoked and how these powers align with Articles 8 and 9 of the DSA, which govern the issuance and enforcement of orders to act against illegal content. • This extraterritorial enforcement risks undermining the DSA’s country-of-origin principle and creates legal uncertainty for service providers operating across the EU. The final section in the submission titled Ineffectiveness of network-level blocking notes that blocking is easily circumvented and does not remove any infringing content from the internet. Blocking can also “serve to obscure” rather than address the root causes of piracy. Overall, better options exist. That leads CCIA to its conclusions and a brief summary of its key points and concerns. No timeline is mentioned in respect of a decision for or against an assessment, or how long a subsequent opinion could take to arrive. The full CCIA submission 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

Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson talk to us about the Indy 500. This coming weekend is a special one for most motorsport fans. There are Formula 1 races in Monaco and NASCAR races in Charlotte. And arguably towering over them both is the Indianapolis 500, being held this year for the 109th time. America's oldest race is also one of its toughest: The track may have just four turns, but the cars negotiate them going three times faster than you drive on the highway, inches from the wall. For hours. At least at Le Mans, you have more than one driver per car. This year's race promises to be an exciting one. The track is sold out for the first time since the centenary race in 2016. A rookie driver and a team new to the series took pole position. Two very fast cars are starting at the back thanks to another conflict-of-interest scandal involving Team Penske, the second in two years for a team whose owner also owns the track and the series. And the cars are trickier to drive than they have been for many years, thanks to a new supercapacitor-based hybrid system that has added more than 100 lbs to the rear of the car, shifting the weight distribution further back. Ahead of Sunday's race, I spoke with a couple of IndyCar drivers and some engineers to get a better sense of how they prepare and what to expect. This year, the cars are harder to drive thanks to a hybrid system that has altered the weight balance. Credit: Geoff MIller/Lumen via Getty Images Concentrate It all comes "from months of preparation," said Marcus Ericsson, winner of the race in 2022 and one of Andretti Global's drivers in this year's event. "When we get here to the month of May, it's just such a busy month. So you've got to be prepared mentally—and basically before you get to the month of May because if you start doing it now, it's too late," he told me. The drivers spend all month at the track, with a race on the road course earlier this month. Then there's testing on the historic oval, followed by qualifying last weekend and the race this coming Sunday. "So all those hours you put in in the winter, really, and leading up here to the month of May—it's what pays off now," Ericsson said. That work involved multiple sessions of physical training each week, and Ericsson says he also does weekly mental coaching sessions. "This is a mental challenge," Ericsson told me. "Doing those speeds with our cars, you can't really afford to have a split second of loss of concentration because then you might be in the wall and your day is over and you might hurt yourself." When drivers get tired or their focus slips, that's when mistakes happen, and a mistake at Indy often has consequences. Ericsson is sponsored by the antihistamine Allegra and its anti-drowsy-driving campaign. Fans can scan the QR codes on the back of his pit crew's shirts for a "gamified experience." Credit: Andretti Global/Allegra Simulate Being mentally and physically prepared is part of it. It also helps if you can roll the race car off the transporter and onto the track with a setup that works rather than spending the month chasing the right combination of dampers, springs, wing angles, and so on. And these days, that means a lot of simulation testing. The multi-axis driver in the loop simulators might look like just a very expensive video game, but these multimillion-dollar setups aren't about having fun. "Everything that you are feeling or changing in the sim is ultimately going to reflect directly to what happens on track," explained Kyle Kirkwood, teammate to Ericsson at Andretti Global and one of only two drivers to have won an Indycar race in 2025. Andretti, like the other teams using Honda engines, uses the new HRC simulator in Indiana. "And yes, it's a very expensive asset, but it's also likely cheaper than going to the track and doing the real thing," Kirkwood said. "And it's a much more controlled environment than being at the track because temperature changes or track conditions or wind direction play a huge factor with our car." A high degree of correlation between the simulation and the track is what makes it a powerful tool. "We run through a sim, and you only get so many opportunities, especially at a place like Indianapolis, where you go from one day to the next and the temperature swings, or the wind conditions, or whatever might change drastically," Kirkwood said. "You have to be able to sim it and be confident with the sim that you're running to go out there and have a similar balance or a similar performance." Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood is the only driver other than Álex Palou to have won an IndyCar race in 2025. Credit: Alison Arena/Andretti Global "So you have to make adjustments, whether it's a spring rate, whether it's keel ballast or just overall, maybe center of pressure, something like that," Kirkwood said. "You have to be able to adjust to it. And that's where the sim tool comes in play. You move the weight balance back, and you're like, OK, now what happens with the balance? How do I tune that back in? And you run that all through the sim, and for us, it's been mirror-perfect going to the track when we do that." More impressively, a lot of that work was done months ago. "I would say most of it, we got through it before the start of this season," Kirkwood said. "Once we get into the season, we only get a select few days because every Honda team has to run on the same simulator. Of course, it's different with the engineering sim; those are running nonstop." Sims are for engineers, too An IndyCar team is more than just its drivers—"the spacer between the seat and the wheel," according to Kirkwood—and the engineers rely heavily on sim work now that real-world testing is so highly restricted. And they use a lot more than just driver-in-the-loop (DiL). "Digital simulation probably goes to a higher level," explained Scott Graves, engineering manager at Andretti Global. "A lot of the models we develop work in the DiL as well as our other digital tools. We try to develop universal models, whether that's tire models, engine models, or transmission models." "Once you get into to a fully digital model, then I think your optimization process starts kicking in," Graves said. "You're not just changing the setting and running a pretend lap with a driver holding a wheel. You're able to run through numerous settings and optimization routines and step through a massive number of permutations on a car. Obviously, you're looking for better lap times, but you're also looking for fuel efficiency and a lot of other parameters that go into crossing the finish line first." Parts like this anti-roll bar are simulated thousands of times. Credit: Siemens/Andretti Global As an example, Graves points to the dampers. "The shock absorber is a perfect example where that's a highly sophisticated piece of equipment on the car and it's very open for team development. So our cars have fully customized designs there that are optimized for how we run the car, and they may not be good on another team's car because we're so honed in on what we're doing with the car," he said. "The more accurate a digital twin is, the more we are able to use that digital twin to predict the performance of the car," said David Taylor, VP of industry strategy at Siemens DISW, which has partnered with Andretti for some years now. "It will never be as complete and accurate as we want it to be. So it's a continuous pursuit, and we keep adding technology to our portfolio and acquiring companies to try to provide more and more tools to people like Scott so they can more accurately predict that performance." What to expect on Sunday? Kirkwood was bullish about his chances despite starting relatively deep in the field, qualifying in 23rd place. "We've been phenomenal in race trim and qualifying," he said. "We had a bit of a head-scratcher if I'm being honest—I thought we would definitely be a top-six contender, if not a front row contender, and it just didn't pan out that way on Saturday qualifying." "But we rolled back out on Monday—the car was phenomenal. Once again, we feel very, very racy in traffic, which is a completely different animal than running qualifying," Kirkwood said. "So I'm happy with it. I think our chances are good. We're starting deep in the field, but so are a lot of other drivers. So you can expect a handful of us to move forward." The more nervous hybrid IndyCars with their more rearward weight bias will probably result in more cautions, according to Ericsson, who will line up sixth for the start of the race on Sunday. "Whereas in previous years you could have a bit of a moment and it would scare you, you usually get away with it," he said. "This year, if you have a moment, it usually ends up with you being in the fence. I think that's why we've seen so many crashes this year—because a pendulum effect from the rear of the car that when you start losing it, this is very, very difficult or almost impossible to catch." "I think it's going to mean that the race is going to be quite a few incidents with people making mistakes," Ericsson said. "In practice, if your car is not behaving well, you bring it to the pit lane, right? You can do adjustments, whereas in the race, you have to just tough it out until the next pit stop and then make some small adjustments. So if you have a bad car at the start a race, it's going to be a tough one. So I think it's going to be a very dramatic and entertaining race." 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

Ammonia aerosols from penguin guano likely play a part in the formation of heat-shielding clouds. This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. New research shows that penguin guano in Antarctica is an important source of ammonia aerosol particles that help drive the formation and persistence of low clouds, which cool the climate by reflecting some incoming sunlight back to space. The findings reinforce the growing awareness that Earth’s intricate web of life plays a significant role in shaping the planetary climate. Even at the small levels measured, the ammonia particles from the guano interact with sulfur-based aerosols from ocean algae to start a chemical chain reaction that forms billions of tiny particles that serve as nuclei for water vapor droplets. The low marine clouds that often cover big tracts of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica are a wild card in the climate system because scientists don’t fully understand how they will react to human-caused heating of the atmosphere and oceans. One recent study suggested that the big increase in the annual global temperature during 2023 and 2024 that has continued into this year was caused in part by a reduction of that cloud cover. “I’m constantly surprised at the depth of how one small change affects everything else,” said Matthew Boyer, a coauthor of the new study and an atmospheric scientist at the University of Helsinki’s Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research. “This really does show that there is a deep connection between ecosystem processes and the climate. And really, it’s the synergy between what’s coming from the oceans, from the sulfur-producing species, and then the ammonia coming from the penguins.” Climate survivors Aquatic penguins evolved from flying birds about 60 million years ago, shortly after the age of dinosaurs, and have persisted through multiple, slow, natural cycles of ice ages and warmer interglacial eras, surviving climate extremes by migrating to and from pockets of suitable habitat, called climate refugia, said Rose Foster-Dyer, a marine and polar ecologist with the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. A 2018 study that analyzed the remains of an ancient “super colony” of the birds suggests there may have been a “penguin optimum” climate window between about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, at least for some species in some parts of Antarctica, she said. Various penguin species have adapted to different habitat niches and this will face different impacts caused by human-caused warming, she said. Foster-Dyer has recently done penguin research around the Ross Sea, and said that climate change could open more areas for land-breeding Adélie penguins, which don’t breed on ice like some other species. “There’s evidence that this whole area used to have many more colonies … which could possibly be repopulated in the future,” she said. She is also more optimistic than some scientists about the future for emperor penguins, the largest species of the group, she added. “They breed on fast ice, and there’s a lot of publications coming out about how the populations might be declining and their habitat is hugely threatened,” she said. “But they’ve lived through so many different cycles of the climate, so I think they’re more adaptable than people currently give them credit for.” In total, about 20 million breeding pairs of penguins nest in vast colonies all around the frozen continent. Some of the largest colonies, with up to 1 million breeding pairs, can cover several square miles.There aren’t any solid estimates for the total amount of guano produced by the flightless birds annually, but some studies have found that individual colonies can produce several hundred tons. Several new penguin colonies were discovered recently when their droppings were spotted in detailed satellite images. A few penguin colonies have grown recently while others appear to be shrinking, but in general, their habitat is considered threatened by warming and changing ice conditions, which affects their food supplies. The speed of human-caused warming, for which there is no precedent in paleoclimate records, may exacerbate the threat to penguins, which evolve slowly compared to many other species, Foster-Dyer said. “Everything’s changing at such a fast rate, it’s really hard to say much about anything,” she said. Recent research has shown how other types of marine life are also important to the global climate system. Nutrients from bird droppings help fertilize blooms of oxygen-producing plankton, and huge swarms of fish that live in the middle layers of the ocean cycle carbon vertically through the water, ultimately depositing it in a generally stable sediment layer on the seafloor. Tricky measurements Boyer said the new research started as a follow-up project to other studies of atmospheric chemistry in the same area, near the Argentine Marambio Base on an island along the Antarctic Peninsula. Observations by other teams suggested it could be worth specifically trying to look at ammonia, he said. Boyer and the other scientists set up specialized equipment to measure the concentration of ammonia in the air from January to March 2023. They found that, when the wind blew from the direction of a colony of about 60,000 Adélie penguins about 5 miles away, the ammonia concentration increased to as high as 13.5 parts per billion—more than 1,000 times higher than the background reading. Even after the penguins migrated from the area toward the end of February, the ammonia concentration was still more than 100 times as high as the background level. “We have one instrument that we use in the study to give us the chemistry of gases as they’re actually clustering together,” he said. “In general, ammonia in the atmosphere is not well-measured because it’s really difficult to measure, especially if you want to measure at a very high sensitivity, if you have low concentrations like in Antarctica,” he said. Penguin-scented winds The goal was to determine where the ammonia is coming from, including testing a previous hypothesis that the ocean surface could be the source, he said. But the size of the penguin colonies made them the most likely source. “It’s well known that sea birds give off ammonia. You can smell them. The birds stink,” he said. “But we didn’t know how much there was. So what we did with this study was to quantify ammonia and to quantify its impact on the cloud formation process.” The scientists had to wait until the wind blew from the penguin colony toward the research station. “If we’re lucky, the wind blows from that direction and not from the direction of the power generator,” he said. “And we were lucky enough that we had one specific event where the winds from the penguin colony persisted long enough that we were actually able to track the growth of the particles. You could be there for a year, and it might not happen.” The ammonia from the guano does not form the particles but supercharges the process that does, Boyer said. “It’s really the dimethyl sulfide from phytoplankton that gives off the sulfur,” he said. “The ammonia enhances the formation rate of particles. Without ammonia, sulfuric acid can form new particles, but with ammonia, it’s 1,000 times faster, and sometimes even more, so we’re talking up to four orders of magnitude faster because of the guano.” This is important in Antarctica specifically because there are not many other sources of particles, such as pollution or emissions from trees, he added. “So the strength of the source matters in terms of its climate effect over time,” he said. “And if the source changes, it’s going to change the climate effect.” It will take more research to determine if penguin guano has a net cooling effect on the climate. But in general, he said, if the particles transport out to sea and contribute to cloud formation, they will have a cooling effect. “What’s also interesting,” he said, “is if the clouds are over ice surfaces, it could actually lead to warming because the clouds are less reflective than the ice beneath.” In that case, the clouds could actually reduce the amount of heat that brighter ice would otherwise reflect away from the planet. The study did not try to measure that effect, but it could be an important subject for future research, he added. The guano effect lingers even after the birds leave the breeding areas. A month after they were gone, Boyer said ammonia levels in the air were still 1,000 times higher than the baseline. “The emission of ammonia is a temperature-dependent process, so it’s likely that once wintertime comes, the ammonia gets frozen in,” he said. “But even before the penguins come back, I would hypothesize that as the temperature warms, the guano starts to emit ammonia again. And the penguins move all around the coast, so it’s possible they’re just fertilizing an entire coast with ammonia.” 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