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Sony’s next batch of free PS4 and PS5 games is now available
Sony’s “Play at Home” initiative continues with a huge stack of excellent games, including Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Subnautica, that are free to own for a limited time. No PlayStation Plus membership is required, meaning you can keep these games forever.
From now through April 22nd at 11:59PM PT, the following titles will be free to claim for PS4 and PS5 users: ABZÛ, Enter the Gungeon, Rez Infinite, Subnautica, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Moss, Thumper, and Paper Beast. The last four games require a PSVR headset to play. PS5 owners will need a PlayStation Camera adapter to use the headset with the console.
Sony plans to offer more games as part of the initiative until sometime in June. Currently, Sony is offering Ratchet & Clank, which PS4 and PS5 owners can redeem at no cost until March 31st. The company is also planning to give away Horizon Zero Dawn for free beginning on April 19th.
Microsoft Is in Exclusive Talks to Acquire Discord
Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire messaging platform Discord Inc. for $10 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter, as the software giant seeks to deepen its consumer offerings.
Microsoft and Discord are in exclusive talks and could complete a deal next month, assuming the negotiations don’t fall apart, the people said.
Originally favored by gamers, San Francisco-based Discord offers voice, text and video chatting. The platform’s popularity has surged since the pandemic took hold as people stay home and connect online—as has that of other chat services, like Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp and Signal Messenger LLC. Discord has been considering an IPO.
Microsoft, which has a market value of more than $1.7 trillion, has been on the hunt for an acquisition that would help it reach more consumers. Last summer, it held talks to buy the popular video-sharing app TikTok amid a high-profile geopolitical standoff prompted by the Trump administration, before abandoning the effort.
VentureBeat reported this week that Discord was exploring a sale and had entered exclusive discussions with an unnamed suitor.
Sony Makes 9 PS4 Games Free No PlayStation Plus Required
Subnautica
“Subnautica is an underwater adventure game set on an alien ocean planet. A massive, open-world full of wonder and peril awaits you! You have crash-landed on an alien ocean world, and the only way to go is down. Subnautica’s oceans range from sun-drenched shallow coral reefs to treacherous deep-sea trenches, lava fields, and bio-luminescent underwater rivers. Manage your oxygen supply as you explore kelp forests, plateaus, reefs, and winding cave systems. The water teems with life: Some of it helpful, much of it harmful.”
Astro Bot Rescue Mission
“Astro Bot Rescue Mission is a brand new platformer, developed exclusively for use with PS VR. Take control of Astro the captain BOT and go on an epic VR rescue mission to save your fellow Bots who are dispersed all over space.”
The Witness
“You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you. You don’t remember who you are, and you don’t remember how you got here, but there’s one thing you can do: explore the island in hope of discovering clues, regaining your memory, and somehow finding your way home.”
Abzu
“From the art director of Journey, Abzu is a beautiful underwater adventure that evokes the dream of diving. Immerse yourself in a vibrant hidden world bursting with color and life as you descend into the heart of the ocean. But beware as you swim deeper as dangers lurk in the depths.”
Enter the Gungeon
“Enter the Gungeon is a bullet hell dungeon crawler following a band of misfits seeking to shoot, loot, dodge roll, and table-flip their way to personal absolution by reaching the legendary Gungeon’s ultimate treasure: the gun that can kill the past.”
Rez Infinite
“The legendary action-shooter finally comes to PC, and in style! Blast your way through mind-melting visuals and amazing beats, all in your quest through cyberspace to save a world on the verge of collapse. Playable on your desktop or in fully immersive VR.”
Moss
“In Moss, players meet Quill, a young mouse with dreams of greatness beyond the confines of her settlement. While exploring the woods, she finds a mysterious Glass Relic and an ancient magic is awakened. With her uncle now in grave danger, Quill must embark on an epic journey — and she needs you there by her side. Together, you’ll travel to forgotten realms, solve challenging puzzles, and battle menacing enemies. Alone, no one can conquer what you’re up against. But united, you just may defeat even the darkest of villains.”
Thumper
“Thumper is rhythm violence: classic rhythm-action, blistering speed, and brutal physicality. You are a space beetle. Brave the hellish void and confront a maniacal giant head from the future.”
Paper Beast
“An exploration and adventure game about wildlife sprung from the depths of the internet. An unknown power seems to upset its balance. Join forces with exotic creatures to unravel the mysteries of this universe.”
Amazon’s Fire TV update with a brand new home screen is out now
Amazon’s new Fire TV software
Amazon
Amazon on Thursday announced that its big new Fire TV software update is rolling out to devices now. It has a totally redesigned home screen and features like separate user profiles, so recommendations for what to watch are different for each person in your family.
The software was first announced in September and made its debut on the Fire TV Stick Lite and third-generation Fire TV Stick in December, but now everyone who owns Amazon’s Fire TV Cube (1st and 2nd Gen) and the 3rd-gen Fire TV, the Fire TV Stick 4K will be able to use the new features. Amazon says it’s updating smart TVs and the second-generation Fire TV Stick later this year.
The new features may help it compete more aggressively against Roku, which still has a 50% market share of global connected TV streaming hours with strong growth opportunities, according to an analyst note from Deutsche Bank in August.
Amazon’s new Fire TV software
Amazon
Up to six people can create different profiles with the new software. So, if you watch a lot of comedy shows, Amazon might recommend other comedies you’ll like. But if your spouse watches a lot of dramas, they’ll get recommendations for more of that type of content. Currently, with a single profile, Amazon just recommends more based on whatever has been watched, no matter who does the viewing.
The new Amazon Fire TV interface, which includes user profiles.
Amazon
The personalization also extends to the home screen, where you can pin specific apps to the top for quick access. Maybe you use Netflix, YouTube TV and Disney+ often, for example. You can put new smaller icons for those up top. Recommendations for the stuff you watch across services are displayed below that.
There’s also a new “Live” tab that shows you a channel-guide so it’s easier to jump right into live TV, if you pay for a streaming TV service like Sling or YouTube TV. Amazon told CNBC in September it designed this to make it a more familiar experience for people who are switching from cable to streaming.
The update also includes deeper integration with the Alexa voice assistant, so you can say “Alexa go to Live TV” and it’ll launch the live streaming TV service you pay for.
Amazon’s new Fire TV software
Amazon
Finally, there’s a new “Find” section that makes it easier to find something to watch. It shows movies, on-demand TV shows, live TV, your watch list and more.
You can update your Fire TV by opening Settings and selecting “My Fire TV,” then “About” and choosing “Check for System Update.”
Google Assistant’s ‘Memory’ feature could revamp reminders on Android
Google is working on a new feature for Assistant on Android called “Memory” that could transform it into into a handy organizer, according to a recent APK spotted by 9to5Google. The idea is that you can save screen content, images, reminders, ideas and more in one place, then find it again through a smart search function.
According to the app screens, you can store items in Memory using a verbal Google Assistant command or use a home screen shortcut. Those include articles, books, contacts, events, flights, hotels, images, movies, music, notes, photos, places, playlists, products, recipes, reminders, restaurants, screenshots, shipments, TV shows, videos, and websites. It will also save screenshots, URLs, location and other information happening in context.
Once you’ve saved items, you’ll be able to see them in a Memory feed located next to the current Snapshot menu. It will show up in reverse chronological order as cards labeled “Older Memories” and “Today.” For certain Google Drive items like Docs or Sheets, the card will show a preview. Depending on what you’ve stored, Google will let you do things like “Search flight status,” “Watch Trailer,” “Cooking Time,” “Track Shipment” and more. If you’ve created any reminders, they also get saved to memory.
All told, Memory looks like a supercharged, freeform voice reminder app with advanced search capability that could help users stay better organized. As of right now, however, it’s still in testing — so there’s no word yet on when or even if it will launch to the public.
Bang & Olufsen’s new HX headphones offer 35 hours of battery life for $499
Bang & Olufsen’s latest pair of headphones are the Beoplay HX. They’re over-ear, noise canceling, and offer up to a truly impressive 35 hours of battery life. The headphones launch in black today for $499 (£499 / €499), but there’s a white model coming at the end of April, to be followed by a white and brown version in May.
At $499, the Beoplay HX are among the more expensive wireless noise-canceling headphones available. But this isn’t unfamiliar territory for Bang & Olufsen: the previous Beoplay H9 headphones cost exactly the same — and this is the company that also sells an $800 pair of Bluetooth headphones.
Thirty-five hours of battery life beats pretty much all competitors (and it rises up to 40 hours if you turn ANC off). The $549 AirPods Max are rated at just 20 hours with ANC on, while our top pick $350 Sony WH-1000XM4 can go for up to 30 hours. Others, like the Sennheiser Momentum 3 Wireless or Shure Aonic are rated for 16 hours and 20 hours, respectively.
Beyond battery life, the other thing your $499 gets you is build quality. The Beoplay HX’s ear cushions are made from lambskin with a memory foam interior, while the headband uses cow hide and knitted fabric in its construction. The ear cups themselves feature an aluminum disc surrounded by a recycled plastic housing, and the arm sliders are also aluminum.
The rest of the Beoplay HX specs are typical. There’s a USB-C port for charging, a 3.5mm jack for wired connections, buttons on the left and right ear cup, and also touch controls on just the right side. The headphones support Bluetooth 5.1, and for codecs, you get aptX Adaptive, AAC, and SBC. Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair are both included for easy pairing with their respective platforms. And yes, the headphones come with a 3.5mm cable in the box, unlike the AirPods Max.
Samsung Develops DDR5 Memory Modules With 512 GB Capacity, Up To 7200 Mb/s
Samsung has announced the development of the industry’s first DDR5 memory module packing an insane 512 GB of capacity. The memory modules are targeted at AI/ML, exascale hyper-computing, analytics, networking, and other data-intensive workloads.
Samsung DDR5 Memory Modules Pack 512 GB Capacity – Based on HKMG Process Node & Offer Up To 7200 Mb/s Pin Speeds
Samsung states that the 512 GB DDR5 memory modules will expand its existing portfolio to offer the densest capacity ever produced. The memory modules will be featuring the HKMG or High-K Metal Gate process node which was also used by Samsung for the production of its GDDR6 VRAM modules. The process node allows the memory modules to use 13% lower power & also reduces power leakages.
In terms of specifications, the Samsung 512 GB DDR5 memory offers twice the performance of the DDR4 memory with speeds of up to 7200 Mb/s. The memory features a total of 40 DRAM chips with each DRAM chip featuring eight layers of 16 Gb DRAM modules stacked together & connected with TSV’s (Through-Silicon-Via).
512GB capacity DDR5 module made possible by an 8-layer TSV structure
HKMG material reduces power by 13 percent while doubling the speed of DDR4Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has expanded its DDR5 DRAM memory portfolio with the industry’s first 512GB DDR5 module based on High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology. Delivering more than twice the performance of DDR4 at up to 7,200 megabits per second (Mbps), the new DDR5 will be capable of orchestrating the most extreme compute-hungry, high-bandwidth workloads in supercomputing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), as well as data analytics applications.
“Samsung is the only semiconductor company with logic and memory capabilities and the expertise to incorporate HKMG cutting-edge logic technology into memory product development,” said Young-Soo Sohn, Vice President of the DRAM Memory Planning/Enabling Group at Samsung Electronics. “By bringing this type of process innovation to DRAM manufacturing, we are able to offer our customers high-performance, yet energy-efficient memory solutions to power the computers needed for medical research, financial markets, autonomous driving, smart cities and beyond.”
“As the amount of data to be moved, stored and processed increases exponentially, the transition to DDR5 comes at a critical inflection point for cloud datacenters, networks and edge deployments,” said Carolyn Duran, Vice President and GM of Memory and IO Technology at Intel. “Intel’s engineering teams closely partner with memory leaders like Samsung to deliver fast, power-efficient DDR5 memory that is performance-optimized and compatible with our upcoming Intel Xeon Scalable processors, code-named Sapphire Rapids.”
Samsung’s DDR5 will utilize highly advanced HKMG technology that has been traditionally used in logic semiconductors. With continued scaling down of DRAM structures, the insulation layer has thinned, leading to a higher leakage current. By replacing the insulator with HKMG material, Samsung’s DDR5 will be able to reduce the leakage and reach new heights in performance. This new memory will also use approximately 13% less power, making it especially suitable for datacenters where energy efficiency is becoming increasingly critical.
The HKMG process was adopted in Samsung’s GDDR6 memory in 2018 for the first time in the industry. By expanding its use in DDR5, Samsung is further solidifying its leadership in next-generation DRAM technology.
Leveraging through-silicon via (TSV) technology, Samsung’s DDR5 stacks eight layers of 16Gb DRAM chips to offer the largest capacity of 512GB. TSV was first utilized in DRAM in 2014 when Samsung introduced server modules with capacities up to 256GB.
Samsung is currently sampling different variations of its DDR5 memory product family to customers for verification and, ultimately, certification with their leading-edge products to accelerate AI/ML, exascale computing, analytics, networking, and other data-intensive workloads.
Samsung only states that they are currently sampling different variations of its DDR5 memory but doesn’t provide any launch date. We can expect a launch by the end of this year as DDR5 memory platforms from Intel and AMD start hitting shelves and we can also expect some really high prices for memory modules of this much capacity.
Arizona Senate skips vote on controversial bill that would regulate Apple and Google app stores
The Arizona State Senate was scheduled to vote an unprecedented and controversial bill on Wednesday that would have imposed far-reaching changes on how Apple and Google operate their respective mobile app stores, specifically by allowing alternative in-app payment systems. But the vote never happened, having been passed over on the schedule without explanation. The Verge watched every other bill on the schedule be debated and voted on over the senate’s live stream, but Arizona HB2005, listed first on the agenda, never came up.
One notable Apple critic is now accusing the iPhone maker of stepping in to stop the vote, saying the company hired a former chief of staff to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to broker a deal that prevented the bill from being heard in the Senate and ultimately voted on. This is after the legislation, an amendment to the existing HB2005 law, passed the Arizona House of Representatives earlier this month in a landmark 31-29 vote.
“The big show turned out to be a no show. The bill was killed in mid-air while on the agenda with a backroom deal. Apple has hired the governor’s former chief of staff, and word is that he brokered a deal to prevent this from even being heard,” David Heinemeier Hansson, a fierce Apple critic who submitted testimony in support of HB2005, tweeted this afternoon.
Apple declined to comment.
It was well-known prior to today’s scheduled vote that both Apple and Google had hired lobbyists to combat the bill, according to a report from Protocol, because it directly threatened the companies’ industry standard app store commission of 30 percent. If the Arizona bill passed the senate and was signed into law by Ducey, it would have made the state a haven for app makers looking to sidestep the App Store and the Google Play Store’s payment systems, which are the mechanisms the companies use to take their cuts of all app sales and in-app purchases of digital goods.
It could have also caused all sorts of additional headaches for both companies by forcing them to either institute a patchwork system of state-specific enforcement, or by potentially forcing them to stop doing business in Arizona altogether while opening the door to lawsuits against the state.
In testimony in front of the Arizona House earlier this month, Apple’s chief compliance officer, Kyle Andeer, argued that the App Store provides enough value to developers justify the 30 percent cut. “The commission has been described by some special interests as a ‘payment processing fee’—as if Apple is just swiping a credit card. That’s terribly misleading. Apple provides developers an enormous amount of value — both the store to distribute their apps around the world and the studio to create them. That is what the commission reflects,” Andeer said in written testimony.
“Yet this bill tells Apple that it cannot use its own check-out lane (and collect a commission) in the store we built,” he added. “This would allow billion-dollar developers to take all of the App Store’s value for free — even if they’re selling digital goods, even if they’re making millions or even billions of dollars doing it. The bill is a government mandate that Apple give away the App Store.”
It’s worth noting that the bill also faced considerable opposition in the Arizona House not by big business-loving Republicans, but instead by Democrats. A number of Democrats publicly objected to the bill and voted against it on the grounds it was potentially unconstitutional for interfering with interstate commerce and also that it interjected Arizona into a California legal fight between game developer Epic Games and both Apple and Google over the removal of Fortnite from the Android and iOS platforms.
The bill, which was primarily sponsored by Rep. Regina Cobb (R-5), is one of many that have popped up in state legislatures around the country challenging Apple’s and Google’s longstanding policies around the mobile app economy. These bills can be traced back to growing antitrust pressure against Big Tech mounting in both Europe and Washington, DC, and they represents a new local and state front in the ongoing fight over the tech industry’s outsize power and whatever methods lawmakers may employ to try and reign it in. Other arenas include California, where Epic launched its own fight, and the European Union. which launched antitrust investigations into the App Store and Apple Pay over anticompetitive claims.
Both Apple and Google operate the two most dominant app stores in the world, and while the Google Play Store allows alternative app stores and therefore alternative payments systems, Apple does not. That means all digital purchases on iOS are subject to Apple’s mandated 30 percent cut, or in some cases a reduced 15 percent cut, though Apple has been criticized for cutting secret deals, like those it has made with Amazon over Prime Video subscriptions and later in-app purchases, to exempt certain types of purchases when it’s strategically convenient.
Both companies in the last six months announced changes to the commission structure that allows for smaller developers, which represent the vast majority of app makers on both Android and iOS, to claim a reduced 15 percent cut, though that has done little assuage the app store critics.
These antitrust proposals, like HB2005, are largely the work of the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF). The CAF is an industry group formed last year consisting of Epic, Spotify, Tinder parent company Match Group, and dozens of other companies that have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo of the mobile app economy and the app store owners’ ironclad developer agreements. Some of these companies, like Spotify, have for years complained of unfair treatment from Apple and have accused the company of prioritizing its own software over competitors through its use of App Store rules and iOS requirements.
The CAF began lobbying lawmakers earlier this year, first in North Dakota and now in multiple states including Arizona, to instigate the introduction of bills like HB2005. While the North Dakota bill failed, Arizona’s was seen as a more promising alternative because it focused solely on in-app payment systems, while the North Dakota one also mandated that operating system owners allow for alternative app stores, too.
But the bill’s fate is now in question, and it’s not immediately clear what happened. Rep. Cobb, the bill’s sponsor, did not respond to a request for comment. The Arizona governor’s office and the office of the Arizona State Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray (R-21) also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Amazon adds annoying streaming service buttons to its Fire TV remote
Amazon is coming out with a third generation of its Alexa Voice Remote, and it includes some unwelcome new buttons that will take you to the Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu apps. If you’re one of the people who subscribes to and regularly uses all of those exact streaming services, this remote could be a nice upgrade. But for everyone else, the buttons will only add friction and annoyance to the Fire TV control experience.
We here at The Verge have talked about why we don’t like these buttons before. They turn your remote into a canvas for permanent advertising for services you may not even use, and they take up space that could be used for buttons that take you to services you do use. If you, say, don’t subscribe to Disney Plus or Hulu, then the buttons are, at best, useless to you and, at worst, waiting to be accidentally pressed, leaving you to back out of an app that’s begging you to subscribe.
The obvious alternative is to make the buttons mappable to the services you use and not put permanent branding on them. If the remote instead came with four buttons you could use to open your preferred streaming services, this would be a very different story. Alas, it is not. But hey, now the voice control button is an Alexa button for even more branding! (I will concede that this isn’t that bad, given that it was already called the Alexa Voice remote.)
I don’t want to make it sound like a few annoying buttons (that could actually be useful to some people) are the end of the world or that this new remote has no redeeming qualities. There’s actually one more new button that takes you to a “guide” showing you a cable-esque timeline of all the content available from the live providers you have, such as Sling, Hulu, or YouTube TV.
Unlike the branded ones, it’s small and not brightly colored, so it’s easy to ignore if you don’t need it (and it won’t be as prone to accidental presses). I just wish remote manufacturers would let us choose the functions we want on our remotes, especially since the streaming service landscape is ever-changing, and people have taken to subscribing to one service for a few months then switching to another.