Tech

Apple and Epic Games duked it out in court recently, and Apple came away with an almost total victory. But Apple isn’t accustomed to not getting its way, and it’s not taking that minor loss laying down. With Apple forced to let developers , the iPhone maker has resorted to buying ads for high-value apps that send potential customers to its App Store, so it can keep getting its cut of subscriptions, . Epic’s lawsuit against Apple was officially about Fortnite, but Epic sought to make it a referendum on the entire App Store model. According to Epic, allowing Apple to rule over iOS software with an iron fist is a violation of antitrust regulations.

Thomas Nguyen, CC BY-SA 4.0 50 years ago today, on November 15 1971, Intel launched the 4004 and, by extension, the modern computer age. The 4004 was the first commercially-produced microprocessor, or CPU. It was an enormous technical achievement for Intel, and the design team, which was led by Federico Faggin, broke new ground in several ways. Intel hired Faggin to solve a problem: It had negotiated a deal with the Japanese calculator company named Busicom, in which Intel was to produce a four-chip calculator design for upcoming Busicom products. The problem was, nobody at Intel could actually build the CPU.

Rockstar was supposed to be riding high on the release of the remastered Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy right now. Alas, it was not to be. The publisher’s decision to make the character models look like a low-fi version of The Sims was unpopular, but the complete collapse of Rockstar’s online authentication system is even worse. With no way to confirm ownership on PC, gamers can’t even hold their noses and enjoy the GTA carnage. As a result, Rockstar . I know what you’re thinking: how could Rockstar screw this up? GTA 3, GTA: San Andreas, and GTA: Vice City are some of the most beloved games of the last 20 years.

Rockstar was supposed to be riding high on the release of the remastered Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy right now. Alas, it was not to be. The publisher’s decision to make the character models look like a low-fi version of The Sims was unpopular, but the complete collapse of Rockstar’s online authentication system is even worse. With no way to confirm ownership on PC, gamers can’t even hold their noses and enjoy the GTA carnage. As a result, Rockstar . I know what you’re thinking: how could Rockstar screw this up? GTA 3, GTA: San Andreas, and GTA: Vice City are some of the most beloved games of the last 20 years.

So far Intel has only officially released the “K” versions of its 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs (review incoming, btw), which are 125w high-end “unlocked” models designed for overclocking. For those who are more interested in the 65w lower-end parts, it’s been a waiting game so far, with no word from Intel on when it would spill the beans on its “regular” CPUs designed for the masses. Luckily for us, those beans have now spilled into the light of day thanks to Dell and other system integrators, which have posted the very likely embargoed information seemingly by accident. What’s really interesting this time around is it appears Intel will be selling lower-end CPUs without its integrated graphics, which is a bold-yet-questionable move from the tech giant.

(Photo: Credit: Laura Ockel/ Unsplash, PCMag)According to a Twitter account that posts rumors about upcoming tech, the next generation of GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia are going to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, both in terms of raw power and power consumption. The Twitter user has listed possible specs for what could be upcoming GPUs from both camps, and though they are obviously just rumors at this point, they point to what could be a massive leap forward for both companies, with the flagship cards effectively offering more than twice the power of today’s tentpole products.

(Photo: Boeing)Two and a half years after a plane crash involving one of its 737 MAX 8 jets, Boeing has accepted full liability for the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy which claimed 157 lives. In a US District Court filing from last week, Boeing accepted full responsibility for the crash that unexpectedly befell Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019. The filing goes so far as to absolve the pilots (and any other individuals aboard the flight) of responsibility. Boeing’s acceptance of liability opens the door for victims’ families to finally negotiate compensatory damages. Of course, given that this is a legal agreement with a very large company, there is a catch: victims’ families will be prohibited from seeking punitive damages from MAX supplier Rosemount Aerospace, as well as its parent company, Rockwell Collins.

PC gamers using the Windows Store and Xbox Game Pass for PC, rejoice. Your long national nightmare is over. Microsoft has announced in a that it’s bringing some huge and very welcome changes to gaming on the Windows platform. Chief among them is the ability to choose where games downloaded from Xbox Game Pass for PC and the Microsoft Store will be installed, as well as the ability to do whatever you want with the files. Previously Microsoft usually put games in a locked folder. The update, which will be available exclusively to Xbox Insiders soon, is expected to roll out to the rest of the customer base in the near future.

(Photo: Vizio)Vizio may be known as a television company, but one look at its books will tell you it’s raking in cash for far more than flatscreens. In its last , the newly publicly-traded company revealed that its advertising and viewer data segment is making more than twice as much money as the Vizio segment that sells actual devices. Since going public earlier this year, Vizio has operated its business in two distinct segments: Platform Plus and Devices. Platform Plus encompasses Vizio’s advertising and user data business, while Devices includes the sale of Vizio’s hardware. As it turns out, Platform Plus is responsible for more of Vizio’s revenue than its Devices segment; Platform Plus pulled $57.3 million in gross profit over the last three months, while Devices made $25.6 million.