"A shameful chapter"
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Itâs virtual E3 season, with dozens of major games announcements over the weekend. Hereâs just a few of that caught our eye.
Starfield wonât PlayStation: Bethesdaâs Starfield had its first game footage, though still incredibly vague apart from the obvious âyouâll be on spaceships visiting far away worldsâ vibes. But the big news was the confirmation this game is the first Bethesda title to be announced as a full Xbox exclusive, scheduled for release on November 11, 2022. It was notable that the combined Xbox and Bethesda event was opened not by Microsoftâs Phil Spencer but by Bethesdaâs Todd Howard, a big statement on the unification of the massive developer with the platform giant.
Xbox Cloud Gaming is a full fledged platform: In another crucial development during the Xbox event was the consistent foregrounding of how most every game was announced as day one on Xbox Game Pass, pushing the subscription service as the primary mode of access to Xbox first-party games, but also that Xbox Cloud Gaming is no longer being mentioned as a side project but as one of the âplatformsâ games are being launched on. At every end screen where platforms were mentioned, Xbox Cloud Gaming sat clearly alongside Xbox Series consoles and Windows 10 PCs. That pre-announcement of the increased cloud delivery format made it easy to just slide this in everywhere, but it is perhaps the most important development for the future of Microsoftâs gaming business â as a service you join, not a box you buy.
LOTS OF E3: Elsewhere in E3 news, dozens of games have had announcements and dates across the various conferences, including Left 4 Dead spiritual successor Back 4 Blood coming on October 12, Halo Infinite still coming âthis yearâ but getting an entirely free multiplayer mode, a Jack Sparrow crossover in Sea of Thieves, Ubisoft announced a new Mario + Rabbids game coming next year, Diablo II Resurrected is coming September 23, Rainbow Six Extraction is coming September 16, Tiny Tinaâs Wonderlands â a Borderlands fantasy D&D inspired spin-off â is coming early 2022, Forza Horizon 5 is taking this show to Mexico, and perhaps my personal favourite of the show so far is a vampire shooter called Redfall from the team behind Dishonored.
âIt should have been obviousâŚâ: The Federal Court has approved the $112M settlement in the robo-debt court battles, with presiding judge Bernard Murphy has delivered an unequivocal rebuke to the federal government, calling it an unlawful program. âThe proceeding has exposed a shameful chapter in the administration of the Commonwealth social security system and a massive failure of public administration⌠It should have been obvious to the senior public servants charged with overseeing the robo-debt system and to the responsible minister at different points that many social security recipients do not earn a stable or constant incomeâŚâ The settlement means the federal government does not have to admit any liability regarding the scheme.
NBN feels competitive heat: NBN Co is considering whether to pursue a request to have its monopoly broadband provider status revoked in markets where it is facing competition from 5G services. The National Broadband Network is held to a special access undertaking agreement until the year 2040, which must have any changes or updates cleared by the ACCC. The NBN points out that one in three homes are not using the NBN, calling this a reflection of the dynamic nature of the market and not that the NBN is delivering a poorer quality of service than alternatives in many locations. NBN has a long term target of of 73-75% uptake, which has been pushed outward over the years from an original target of 2021 out to todayâs target of 2024.
Google Workspace for everyone: Google has just opened up Google Workspace for everyone that has a Google account, allowing people to go beyond just collaborating on documents and folders toward a much more unified space for project work. Now you can create a shared Space for invited members to use a secured chat space alongside documents, to hold Google Meet calls, and to assign tasks amongst the group. Letâs pretend Google Wave never happened (I really liked what it was trying to do, personally) and see this as Googleâs best effort yet to create an accessible way for anyone to collaborate deeply with family, friends or community groups.
Byteside
What does the end of HyperX mean for Kingston? Righteous Fury
Kingston Technology sold HyperX to HP, but it still owns the memory lines â so it needed a new name. Turns out the name isnât all that newâŚ
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I built a tiny gaming PC and I'm never going back
Itâs a tough market for PC parts, but one intrepid gamer built an SFF PC and found it to be exactly the task he was looking for.
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Brain food
AI âdominated scientific outputâ in recent years, UNESCO report shows
The UNESCO Science Report 2021 discusses AI, robotics, Industry 4.0, and a spike in scientific research, patents, and spending.
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The dark, democratizing power of the social-media stock market
BitClout collapses everythingâart, humor, personhoodâinto money, laying bare just who, and what, we are willing to pay for.
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Appleâs iPadOS 15 breaks the app barrier
An interesting interview piece from Panzarino talking to two key members of the Apple team about the improvements to multitasking coming to iPad in the next big OS update later this year.
techcrunch.com  ⢠ Share
Billionaire Larry Pageâs Kitty Hawk is making an all-in bet on robot air taxis
The company is buying 3D Robotics, founded by ex-Wired Editor Chris Anderson.
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SurveyMonkey rebrands as Momentive to fuel its growing enterprise business
Smart move to, well, smarten up the name as it competes with âseriousâ sounding companies, while it keeps SurveyMonkey as a consumer brand.
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On this day...
1911: The Computing â Tabulating â Recording Co. (C-T-R) was founded on this day through the merger of three companies (the C, the T, and the R). 13 years later it would rename itself International Business Machines â IBM.
Trivia
Whatâs the name of the ship from the original Alien film?
Fridayâs answer: Bluetooth