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By Aditya Tiwari · Posted
7 Days: "Enough is enough," Computex 2026, and the next trillion-dollar company by Aditya Tiwari 7 Days is a weekly roundup of picks of what's been happening in the world of technology - written with a dash of humor, a hint of exasperation, and an endless supply of (black) coffee. This week's highlights are packed with hardware announcements from Computex 2026, Microsoft's BUILD developer conference, and lawsuits against OpenAI and Ring. Let's get started. You can check out the recent issues of the 7 Days weekly roundup. "Enough is enough" From "bribing" users to forcing Edge at startup, Microsoft has turned over every stone to make people use its web browser. Browser Choice Alliance (which includes Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi) is now after the Redmond giant once more and has penned an open letter to highlight dissatisfaction with its practices. The letter to CEO Satya Nadella emphasizes that "enough is enough" and Microsoft should respect browser choices on Windows. BCA laid down a list of actions to level the playing field and believes that browsers should compete on merit. In other browser news, a fresh update to Firefox fixed a massive VPN button and a bug that disrupted page layout. The Ladybird Browser Project announced that it will no longer accept public pull requests and limit changes to those made by its maintainers as it moves towards its first alpha release. Computex 2026 In one of the week's hottest stories, AMD is trying to make DDR5 RAM even faster on Ryzen systems with its new EXPO ULL (Ultra Low Latency). The feature will enable support for even lower CAS Latency DDR5, bringing significant performance gains over normal EXPO. AMD released new octa-core 3D V-cache CPUs in the form of the new Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Ryzen 7 7700X3D for AM4 and AM5, respectively. The company also brought the 9070 GRE to the USA and other countries. Compared to the NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti, AMD claims the 9070 GRE offers 22% faster performance and 26% better value. The expo also set the stage for Intel's Crescent Island GPU for data center AI workloads and inference. It can pack up to 480GB LPDDR5X VRAM, and the cooling department is handled by an air cooler with a 350W TDP. The silicon giant's AI-focused data center strategy also includes Clearwater Forest, which comprises new Xeon 6+ up to 288 E-cores. Intel unveiled its OpenVINO Physical AI framework to enable scalable, lower-cost edge robotics with improved efficiency. The company said it has found a way to fill the "missing link" that made it difficult to deploy physical AI at scale across the edge. The next trillion-dollar company? Image via DepositPhotos.com Hitting the trillion-dollar mark is the new fashion in the tech industry. NVIDIA has already done so by a wide margin, and now its CEO, Jensen Huang, says Marvell will be the next trillion-dollar company because of its key role in the AI revolution. Marvell is an American semiconductor company founded in 1995; its stock price jumped by 22% this week after Huang's comment. Backlash for employee tracking Meta previously rolled out the Model Capability Initiative (MCI) tracking system to track keystrokes and screen content within specific apps to train its AI models. It wasn't long before employees raised privacy concerns and complained that the software consumed excessive data and battery life. The company is scaling back by introducing controls that allow employees to pause the tracking for up to 30 minutes and request exemptions. In other news, Meta patched an exploit that reportedly allowed attackers to take over accounts by tricking the Meta AI support assistant. The attackers managed to take control of a dormant Obama White House Instagram account that hadn't posted since 2017. This week in software news Catch up on some of the latest software news updates that arrived throughout the week: Hard battle for AV2: The new AV2 video codec can reduce average bitrate by 30-34% compared to AV1, delivering substantial improvements at equivalent visual quality. However, according to VideoLAN's Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the increased efficiency would come at the cost of dramatically higher computational complexity, making the job for existing CPUs much more difficult. Ring faces lawsuit: The smart doorbell brand is in a legal battle over its "Familiar Faces" feature. The lawsuit claims that the feature collects facial data from millions of other Americans (think delivery drivers, neighbors, mail carriers, and pedestrians) who pass by a camera without their consent. Tuta joins Euro-Office: The German email provider has joined the European effort to break free from American-made software. The open-source office alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Docs is due for a release this month. Vim Classic: The new Vim fork has successfully launched its first stable version, 8.3.0, which is completely free of LLM-generated code. It's based on Vim 8.2.0148 because the developers wanted to dodge the heavy maintenance footprint of the newer Vim9 Script engine. However, some modern plugins may not work because of it. Fending off data scraping: Strava is done with data scraping for AI. The fitness platform put public data behind a paywall and a login screen to stop AI companies from hammering its servers. DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction: It brings an updated version of NVIDIA's transformer model that promises to deliver even better image quality than before in ray-traced and path-traced games. Fastfetch 2.64 released: The popular command-line system info tool has been updated with experimental scripting support, streamlined compilation options, a smarter logo renderer, and Codec module support. Shotcut 26.6 Beta: The latest beta of the free video editor adds OpenFX and VST2 plugin support, UI tweaks, HDR preview upgrades, and a range of bug fixes. KDE Plasma 6.8: A few changes slated for the next release include a warning on the lock screen that shows when the "Slow Keys" accessibility feature is active, so you don't type incorrect passwords. Improved Linux gaming: Canonical has promoted the Arm64 Steam Snap to the stable channel, using FEX emulation to bring PC gaming to Snapdragon and NVIDIA hardware. This week in hardware news Catch up on some of the latest hardware news updates that arrived throughout the week alongside Computex 2026: Surface Laptop Ultra: NVIDIA is back in the CPU chip game with the new RTX Spark, which debuted on the Surface Laptop Ultra. Promised to be the most powerful Surface to date, it packs a 15-inch mini-LED display, 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU, NVIDIA Blackwell RTX graphics, and 128GB of unified memory. More information is yet to arrive, alongside RTX Spark-powered computers from other brands. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box: It's a high-performance desktop workstation designed specifically for AI development. With 128GB of unified memory, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box can deliver 1 petaflop of AI compute and run models with up to 120 billion parameters locally, significantly reducing reliance on cloud GPU instances. ROG XBOX Ally X20: ASUS celebrated the 20th anniversary of the ROG brand with a new handheld device, featuring a completely redesigned mainboard, an upgraded display, better joysticks, and even a translucent chassis. Majorana 2: Microsoft unveiled its latest quantum chip, claiming it's 1000x more reliable than last year's Majorana 1. The new development has accelerated the timeline to achieve practical quantum computing from 2035 to 2029. Sony gaming accessories: Sony finally attached a release date to a few of its gaming accessories, including FlexStrike Wireless Fight Stick and 27” Gaming Monitor with DualSense Charging Hook. Both are releasing in August this year. Leaky Surface: Some leaked promo material of the upcoming Surface Pro hints at what the device could offer. The tablet will be powered by a 12-core Snapdragon X2 Elite processor paired with a new Neural Processing Unit operating at up to 80 TOPS. This week in Google News Catch up on some of the latest Google news updates that arrived throughout the week: How to train your AI? An AI model is as good as the data it's trained on. Google is reportedly reaching out to Android developers to get their private codebases to train models and improve development tools, while giving them some cash in return. Design your band: Google published the physical design blueprints for the Fitbit Air, opening doors for anyone with the required skills to customize the screenless tracker and build accessories. The search giant said that certified accessories can also get the official "Made for Google" badge. It's optional now: The UK's competition watchdog has enabled publishers to opt out of Google's generative AI search features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. It's also forcing Google to attribute content properly, using clear links to sources, in all AI-generated answers. This week in Apple News Catch up on some of the latest Apple news updates that arrived throughout the week: What to expect? WWDC 2026 is just around the corner. Alongside refinements to Liquid Glass, the iOS 27 update could be centered on the long-awaited upgrade to Siri. iPadOS 27 is also expected to get a major AI boost this year, among various expected updates. Apple smart glasses: If you're hoping to see Apple's new smart glasses at WWDC, you might have to wait. Those plans are reportedly delayed until late 2027. It's said Apple is cautious about launching hardware that relies on underdeveloped visual intelligence systems. Keep in check: A recent court ruling that lifted an injunction on the Texas Age Assurance Law (SB 2420), Apple had to enforce strict age-verification and parental-consent rules for new Apple accounts created in Texas. This week in AI news Catch up on the latest artificial intelligence news updates that arrived throughout the week: OpenAI faces lawsuit: Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier took OpenAI to court, claiming that the AI lab released an unsafe product and misled the public about safety risks associated with ChatGPT. France gets cash for AI: SoftBank plans to invest up to €75 billion ($87 billion) in France's AI infrastructure, making it one of the largest investments in Europe's AI sector. Up to €45 billion will be used to build two AI data centers in Le Bosquel and Dunkirk. AI chaos slows down: After weeks of AI-generated noise and late submissions, Linus Torvalds said that things have quietened down for Linux 7.1 RC6, which is smaller than RC5, and we could be on track for a normal release cycle. ChatGPT memory upgrade: The AI chatbot got a major architectural upgrade to its memory system, significantly improving its long-term context retention. It improved factual recall from 67.9% in 2025 to 82.8% in 2026, and accuracy over time improved from 52.2% to 75.1%. Lockdown Mode expanded: OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT's Lockdown Mode to all personal and self-serve ChatGPT Business accounts. The feature improves security by disabling live web browsing, Deep Research, Agent Mode, and more. Codex on ChatGPT: The full Codex experience is now available in the ChatGPT app to support knowledge workers, who represent about 20% of Codex users. A new Codex feature called Sites enables users to create and share interactive hosted websites and apps. This week in Microsoft News You can download the Surface Laptop Ultra wallpapers in high resolution. Windows 11 is dominating the gaming market, and data from Steam showed nearly 70% of all participants were using a Windows 11 PC. A third-party tool called OfflineInsiderEnroll is for insiders who want to unlock Windows 11 features with a Microsoft account. You can check out Taras's freshly baked Microsoft Weekly roundup to catch up on all the interesting stories this week. This week in science news Image by Drew Rae via Pexels Catch up on some of the latest science and out-of-this-world updates that arrived throughout the week: How will the Sun end? Astronomers found that an ancient white dwarf star is still consuming rocky planetary debris after cooling for three billion years, proving systems remain active long after their host star dies. Eye of Sauron: Scientists solved a cosmic mystery. A distant black hole is pointing its intense jet straight at Earth, creating an optical illusion that makes the blindingly bright stream look surprisingly low. This week in gaming news Catch up on some of the latest gaming and virtual world updates that arrived throughout the week: Summer Game Fest: The event went live on June 5 from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The two-hour showcase was hosted by video game journalist Geoff Keighley and introduced games across multiple genres. New racing game: Some former Forza Horizon team members created a brand-new racing game called Clutch. The game offers a story-driven campaign, multiplayer action, and aims to be a "benchmark in car customization." FSR hits a new milestone: AMD announced that the latest generation of its FSR technology now officially supports 300 games, a considerable jump from just 30 at launch. What else in gaming? The latest issue of Pulasthi's Weekend PC Game Deals curates several exciting games on sale this week. The final leg of the Epic Games Store's mystery giveaways brings copies of Rogue Waters and Songs of Conquest to claim for PC gamers. Xbox Free Play Days welcomed ten new games this weekend from a single publisher, including Little Rocket Lab, Spirittea, Descenders Next, and Let's Build a Zoo. Meanwhile, Prime members can grab Mafia III, Tomb Raider remasters, and 13 more games in June to keep. That said, here are some more stories from the gaming world: Crystal Dynamics pushes Tomb Raider remake to 2027 A roguelike and a 4X strategy game are free to claim on the Epic Games Store Looks like EA's Star Wars Zero Company will be out this August God of War Laufey announced, introducing Kratos' wife as new protagonist From the review corner If you have been thinking about capturing the night sky, the DWARF mini is the world's smallest smart telescope for night-and-day sky captures, which Steven reviewed this week. For an amateur astronomer spending $399, the telescope offers premium build quality, automated tracking, and a low learning curve. However, the tracking may not always work straight away, and the connection can be finicky. GEEKOM Air12 2026 Edition It's a small mini PC from GEEKOM fitted with an Intel Tiger Lake Pentium Gold 7505, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to a 512GB SSD. GEEKOM Air12 2026 Edition comes with a lightweight chassis, a 15W TDP, supports up to three 4K 60Hz displays, and Type-C on the front. However, points are deducted for its single-rank (2666 MHz) DDR4 RAM, and the front USB port is data-only. AMD RX 9070 GRE Steven and Sayan joined their forces to put the new AMD RX 9070 GRE against the RX 9070, RX 9070 XT, NVIDIA 5070 FE, and some other cards in gaming as well as productivity. AMD has pitched it against the Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, which is typically sold at around this price range. The GRE performed quite well against both the 7800 XT and the 4070. It offers balanced performance, sufficient VRAM, and runs cool. However, the ray tracing might feel mediocre. Cuktech 10 Ultra How about a wall charger with a big screen that shows the stats in real time? Taras reviewed the Cuktech 10 Ultra charger, which features four ports, a large display, and up to 110W of power output. Its 1.57-inch display with 700 nits max brightness is the main highlight, capable of showing total output power, current temperature, power distribution across ports, and more. 007 First Light Pulasthi's review of 007 First Light said the game delivers an immersive, globe-trotting origin story for James Bond, packed inside a tightly choreographed action game. It features over-the-top action sequences, Bond's right amount of overconfidence, and satisfying gunplay. On the other hand, stealth can be too predictable, enemy AI is not very bright, and the missing FOV slider is a pain. More price drops! We got you covered with some hot tech deals all week. For some reason, if you missed out on a great discount, here is a summary of some recent deals that are still alive: Samsung 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe - $389.99 (39% off) Sonos Sub 4 - Wireless Subwoofer - $759 (16% off) Logitech MX Creative Console - $159.99 (20% off) To view all of our recent deals, click here. So, these were some of the biggest tech news and other updates from this week. There will be more issues of our 7 Days series in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing to extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option. Have a great weekend! -
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By leonsk29 · Posted
Thanks, Sony and Nintendo, you effectively killed platform-agnostic gaming. Long gone are the days when you could wish to play a specific game on whatever platform you were. Now, you have to buy the hardware just to play that single game. What, you're only interested in THAT game and nothing more? Bad luck, suck it and buy our console. -
By TheGodOfKratos · Posted
The AI data centers need it more than us so...let them gobble it all up at that price! -
By LoneWolfSL · Posted
"CRAZIER than ever!" Crazy Taxi: World Tour is officially coming soon by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Sega announced it is working on bringing back some of its classic franchises in 2023, and while it has taken some time, the company finally gave fans a look at one of these new projects at the Xbox Games Showcase today, which turned out to be a brand-new Crazy Taxi entry. Watch the debut trailer above, which has snippets of gameplay in between the cinematic bits while blasting a track from The Offspring. Dubbed Crazy Taxi World Tour, this installment is aptly being described as being "CRAZIER than ever!" The director behind the original, Kenji Kanno, is helming this new entry as well, which will come with access to five new cities to drive in, competitive multiplayer modes, a vehicle customization system, and more. Axel is returning as a protagonist as well, but this time a mystery driver is offering him the opportunity to take his adventures to the streets in other countries. This will involve Axel chasing down masked villains that have somehow stolen his taxi, which means even more extreme missions and challenges to overcome. "From transporting passengers at top speed to tackling unique side missions and odd jobs across dynamic maps, there are countless ways to drive crazy and rake in big money," says Sega about this new installment after over 20 years. "Perform outrageous drifts, catch insane air, and drive at crazy speeds across five different cities as you work to deliver passengers and complete a variety of missions and challenges." The studio has even confirmed an in-game Arcade Mode that players will be able to access containing the original games for plenty of nostalgic action. Crazy Taxi: World Tour is currently slated to release sometime in 2027 across PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
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