Forza Motorsport on PC includes DLSS, FSR 2, and DirectStorage support

Image: Xbox

Microsoft has shared the minimum PC specs you’ll need to play Forza Motorsport when it’s released on October 10th.While it looks like it’ll be playable across a range of PCs (in addition to Xbox Series X / S consoles), you’ll still need some high-end specs if you want to play the game on ultra settings.

Forza Motorsport can run at native resolutions up to 4K “and beyond,” as it also supports ultrawide resolutions. The game lets you leverage Nvidia’s DLSS 2 and AMD’s FSR 2.2 upscaling technologies. But if you’re looking for DLSS 3 support (or DLSS 3.5, now), a blog post says, “We will continue to optimize and improve Forza Motorsport on PC after launch.”

Additionally, it offers shader pre-compilation and pre-caching that should mitigate...

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Here’s our first look at the new Philips Hue security cameras

We’ll likely get a proper look at the cameras soon if Philips officially unveils them at IFA. | Image: Philips / FCC

The first images of what are believed to be Philips Hue’s new home security cameras have emerged online, just a few weeks after rumors first emerged that the company was entering the smart home security market. First spotted by the German-language tech site Hueblog, at least two of the four speculated camera models have now been granted regulatory approval by the FCC.

The registration documents contain some technical details alongside a breakdown of the cylindrical camera unit. The images show the black variant (though a white model will also supposedly be available) both with and without a battery unit. The battery adds some considerable length to the camera if you’re not looking to buy the wired version.

According to a warning...

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Meta releases multilingual speech translation model

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta released a new speech-to-text model that can translate nearly 100 languages called SeamlessM4T, as the company continues to try to make a universal translator.

SeamlessM4T, which stands for Massively Multilingual and Multimodal Machine Translation, that the company said can translate speech-to-text and text-to-text for nearly 100 languages. For speech-to-speech and text-to-speech actions, it recognizes 100 input languages and converts them into 35 output languages.

It is released under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license, allowing researchers to iterate upon it.

Along with SeamlessM4T, Meta also released the metadata for its open translation dataset SeamlessAlign.

“Building a universal language translator, like the fictional...

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The EU might need to reassess Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal after restructuring

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft announced a restructuring of its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition earlier today that involves transferring cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. It’s a big change in Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal that’s designed to appease UK regulators that blocked the acquisition earlier this year, but it might also trigger a refresh review from the EU.

“The Commission is carefully assessing whether the developments in the UK require another notification to the Commission,” says European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta in a statement to The Verge.

Another notification to the EU could signal a further review of a deal that regulators at the European Commission cleared earlier this year....

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Half-Life 2 is getting remade into a ray-traced beauty thanks to modders

That precious suit has never looked better. | Image: Nvidia

A community of modders is developing a ray-traced Half-Life 2 remake using Nvidia’s early access RTX Remix platform, and Nvidia is debuting its first trailer for Gamescom. Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project will not win any awards for good naming, but the beautified update to the PC’s iconic first-person shooter from 2004 may easily win the hearts of those of us with a soft spot for a little nostalgia and high-res headcrabs.

The project is the combined efforts of four Half-Life 2 mod teams, now formed as Orbifold Studios, using RTX Remix to rebuild the game using PBR (physically based rendering — not the cheap beer) properties and adding new geometric details. The remake uses RTX IO for fast and smooth asset loading, seen recently in P...

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Gillette x Razer gamer razor has no lights and has no lasers

Razer’s new razor has no RGB, but it’ll shave ya. | GilletteLabs

After all this time, Razer made a razor. Well. Technically, Gillette made a razor and put Razer’s branding on it. Finally, a razor for gamers!

Don’t confuse this with the Razer Razer, this year’s April Fool’s Day joke. That was an RGB gaming mouse with an electric shaver built into it. As fun as it would be to have a quick way to get a bunch of beard hair into your keyboard, the reality here is both smarter and more disappointing.

To be more specific: they took the five-blade GilletteLabs with Exfoliating Bar and slapped Razer’s acid-green-and-black color scheme and snake logo on it. No RGB, which feels like a missed opportunity to tie into Razer’s vast Chroma ecosystem and sync your razor to your laptop, headset, keyboard, mouse, mouse_p..._

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Threads on the web is here

Image: The Verge

Meta is finally launching a much more capable web app for Threads, the company announced on Tuesday. You’ll be able to post, interact with other posts, and look at your feed, spokesperson Christine Pai tells The Verge. It’s set to roll out over the next few days, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says.

So far, Threads on the web has essentially been a glorified way to look at somebody’s profile — you couldn’t even like or reshare a post even though the web app included the buttons to do so. (If you clicked them, Threads would show you a QR code to download the mobile app.) The new desktop web interface looks a lot like the one in the mobile app, though with some small differences; the navigation icons are on the top of the page, and to switch...

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Nvidia’s new DLSS 3.5 works on all RTX GPUs to improve the quality of ray tracing

Image: Nvidia

Nvidia is introducing DLSS 3.5 this fall with a new AI-powered Ray Reconstruction technique that’s designed to improve the quality of ray tracing. Unlike DLSS 3’s Frame Generation, which was limited to just RTX 40-series GPUs, DLSS 3.5 will boost ray tracing across all RTX-series GPUs going back to the RTX 20 series.

Nvidia is primarily targeting DLSS 3.5 at games that offer path tracing, often known as full ray tracing, as opposed to titles that use ray tracing just for select elements like shadows or reflections. Cyberpunk 2077 will get support for DLSS 3.5 with its Phantom Liberty DLC releasing on September 26th, which also adds the path tracing previewed earlier this year. Alan Wake 2 will also launch on October 27th with DLSS 3.5...

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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is bringing popular programming language Python to Excel. A public preview of the feature is available today, allowing Excel users to manipulate and analyze data from Python.

“You can manipulate and explore data in Excel using Python plots and libraries, and then use Excel’s formulas, charts and PivotTables to further refine your insights,” explains Stefan Kinnestrand, general manager of modern work at Microsoft. “Now you can do advanced data analysis in the familiar Excel environment by accessing Python directly from the Excel ribbon.”

You won’t need to install any additional software or set up an add-on to access the functionality, as Python integration in Excel will be part of Excel’s built-in connectors and Power Query....

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Microsoft’s PC Game Pass arrives on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service this week

Image: Nvidia

Nvidia is starting to roll out access to PC Game Pass and Microsoft Store titles on its GeForce Now streaming service this week. PC Game Pass subscribers will be able to start streaming titles through GeForce Now on August 24th, including first-party Microsoft games like Deathloop and Grounded as well asthird-party titles like No Man’s Sky and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.

While PC Game Pass and Microsoft Store games will be available on GeForce Now, not all of them will be available to stream immediately on Nvidia’s service. Nvidia has done the work to integrate the Microsoft Store into GeForce Now, but it still needs to onboard all the games that are available on a PC Game Pass subscription.

That means PC Game Pass subscribers and...

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It’s now easier than ever to get Windows apps running on ChromeOS

You can have Windows apps living alongside Google Drive ones on your ChromeOS hotbar. | Image: Cameyo / Google

If you’ve been hunting for a way to bring your favorite Windows apps to Google’s ChromeOS without a virtual desktop, your life might have just gotten a little easier. Today, software virtualization company Cameyo announced that its integration with ChromeOS now supports Virtual App Delivery (VAD) services, allowing Windows applications to coexist with Chrome ones on Chromebooks.

Cameyo claims its ChromeOS VAD integration enables organizations to deliver any application — including Windows, Linux, SaaS, and internal web apps — over the web, without access to specific cloud data centers or devices. It essentially looks like ChromeOS is running Progressive Web Apps, allowing companies to affordably make third-party apps more accessible on...

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Asus ROG Strix Scar X3D review: AMD’s new chip is a game-changer

AMD proclaimed that its Ryzen 9 7945HX3D would be the world’s fastest mobile gaming chip. It was right.

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How to watch Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023

Photo by Franziska Krug/Getty Images for game

It has been a busy summer of video game events, but we’re not quite done yet. Gamescom is currently underway in Germany, and that means a new edition of the Opening Night Live keynote (or ONL for short). The event is hosted by Geoff Keighley, he of the Game Awards and Summer Game Fest fame, and like those streams, it’s going to be a lengthy deluge of video game news.

Based on early teases, it seems like the show will be primarily focused on games that have already been announced. But that does include some major titles, like Mortal Kombat 1, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Sonic Superstars, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Zenless Zone Zero, and the recently unveiled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. There will also be some news outside of...

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Instagram is adding a chronological feed for Reels and Stories in Europe

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram and Facebook users in Europe are getting more options to opt out of Meta’s recommendation algorithms, the company has explained in a blog post today. According to Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg, European users will be able to access features like Reels, Stories, and Search on Facebook and Instagram without seeing content that’s been ranked by Meta’s recommendation algorithms.

“For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest,” Clegg writes. “They will also be able to view Search results based only on the words they enter, rather than personalized specifically to them based on their previous...

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Microsoft to sell off Activision cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft in bid for UK approval

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Microsoft is restructuring its proposed Activision Blizzard deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. The transfer of rights is designed to appease regulators in the UK that are concerned about the impact Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion deal will have on cloud gaming competition. The restructured deal has triggered a new regulatory investigation in the UK that could last until October 18th.

“To address the concerns about the impact of the proposed acquisition on cloud game streaming raised by the UK Competition and Markets Authority, we are restructuring the transaction to acquire a narrower set of rights,” says Microsoft president Brad Smith. “This includes executing an...

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X reportedly tests removing headlines from links to news articles

The Verge

A report from Fortune claims that X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, has tested stripping headlines from articles shared on the site_._ Postswould only include the lead image and the URL, unless the person or publisher posting the link adds their own text, per materials the outlet viewed.

The image would still serve as a link to the article, but there's no word on a timetable to roll it out or confirmation that it will ship at all. “It’s something Elon wants,” a source is quoted as saying, “They were running it by advertisers, who didn’t like it, but it’s happening.”

(if this text was not here, all you would see is this image with no context, no headline, no description — but it would be a clickable article) p...

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Ford’s Mustang Mach-E recall to prevent power failures is under investigation

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) is opening a query on Ford’s response to a recall last year that affected almost 49,000 Mustang Mach-E vehicles, as reported by Automotive News. The June 2022 recall was issued due to a malfunction involving overheating of the electric SUV’s high-voltage contactors, which, at worst, can make the EV suddenly lose power on the road, increasing the risk of a crash.

Occurances would often follow high-speed battery charging or repeated fast acceleration sessions.

Ford issued an over-the-air (OTA) software update to respond to the recall, which was designed to reduce power if the contactors got too hot — in hopes of preventing sudden power loss and possible damage to the contacts....

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The New York Times blocks OpenAI’s web crawler

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The New York Times has blocked OpenAI’s web crawler, meaning that OpenAI can’t use content from the publication to train its AI models. If you check the NYT’s robots.txt page, you can see that the NYT disallows GPTBot, the crawler that OpenAI introduced earlier this month. Based on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, it appears NYT blocked the crawler as early as August 17th.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

A snippet of the NYT’srobots.txt showing that the company has disallowed GPTBot.

The change comes after the NYT updated its terms of service at the beginning of this month to prohibit the use of its content to train AI models. The NYT and OpenAI didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment....

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Tell every PC gamer you know: Dough, formerly Eve, is ready to issue refunds

Eve’s promised products, circa 2020. | Image: Eve

Every time I write about Dough — the PC gaming monitor company formerly known as Eve — some people tell me to stop! They say Dough scammed them out of money or shipped their monitors too late to matter or ghosted their attempts to get customer support.

Today, I’m here to tell you about an opportunity and a promise.

The opportunity: Dough now wants to fix its bad reputation. The company now claims that if you fill out this Customer Issue Resolution Form, you can get your refund or other kinds of help fast. Dough tells The Verge it’s already issued 25,000 refunds without the form, with only 2 percent outstanding, and that it’s now taking care of customers as quickly as a few hours after they ask.

The promise: If you contact Dough and do...

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X says it’s fixed the bug that broke links and images in pre-December 2014 tweets

Image: The Verge

Over the weekend, word spread about a problem affecting old tweets, and eventually, we narrowed it down to anything posted before December 2014, either with an image or a link that had been shortened by Twitter. A post by Tom Coates alerted many people to the problem and he noted that a 2014 Ellen DeGeneres selfie from the Oscars that took the crown as “most retweeted ever” was even missing its image.

Now the @Support account at X, the company formerly known as Twitter until Elon Musk rebranded it, says, “Over the weekend we had a bug that prevented us from displaying images from before 2014. No images or data were lost. We fixed the bug, and the issue will be fully resolved in the coming days.”

There are no details mentioned in the...

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FCC filing hints at a new Fitbit tracker — but which one?

The FCC filing seems to indicate a Bluetooth-only tracker. The Fitbit Inspire 3 (pictured) is a less likely candidate since it launched just last year. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

It looks like the Pixel Watch 2 may not be the only wearable that Google launches this fall. A new FCC filing for what appears to be a Fitbit tracker also surfaced today. The question is which one, and what does that say about where Fitbit stands?

In the FCC filing, the product is listed as a “Google LLC Wireless Device G3MP5” but doesn’t appear to have anything but Bluetooth connectivity. And while there are no pictures, 9to5Google points outthat the device’s e-label will be located in an app via “Settings > Device > Info > Regulatory Info.” That lines up with Fitbit’s previous trackers.

While there have been a ton of Pixel Watch 2 leaks and rumors recently, it’s been quiet on the Fitbit front, so it’s unclear as to which Fitbit...

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Samsung’s latest pitch for the Z Fold 5: two iPhones at the same time

Imagine if this were two iPhones in a trench coat. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Hey, wait a minute, that Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is actually just two iPhones in a trench coat!

That’s the idea behind the latest update to the Try Galaxy web app, which, when running on two iPhones, offers a Samsung One UI demonstration spread across both screens. Samsung says it lets iOS users try out the foldable’s benefits, like watching content on an “immersive” screen, or sample productivity features like dragging and dropping across both screens thanks to its multitasking abilities — something the iPhone could use work on.

To make it happen, you just have to visit the website or scan a QR code on two iPhones, add the web app to your homescreen, and then tape them together (the tape is my own recommendation) to start folding to...

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Microsoft kills Kinect again

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is discontinuing the Kinect — again. The company officially stopped manufacturing the depth camera and microphone in 2017 and brought it back in a new form in 2019 as the Azure Kinect Developer Kit. Now, Microsoft is ending production of that, too, but it has partnered with some outside companies to provide options available for people who need similar types of devices.

If you want to get one of the remaining Azure Kinect Developer Kits, they’ll be available to buy through the end of October or “until supplies last,” Microsoft’s Swati Mehta said in a post on the company’s website. If you already have one, Mehta promises that you can keep using it “without disruption.”

“As the needs of our customers and partners evolve, we...

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Should California expect more tropical storms like Hurricane Hilary?

Palms are hit by strong wind and rain from Tropical Storm Hilary in the deserts of Southern California on August 20th, 2023, in Palm Desert, California. | Photo by David McNew / Getty Images

California is notoriously dry this time of year. Yet, over the course of a single day this weekend, some desert areas were hit with more than a year’s worth of rainfall.

Hurricane Hilary threw California into a state of emergency after more than 80 years without a tropical storm making landfall there. This kind of storm is unusual for California, and it will probably remain a rare occurrence. Even so, strange and extreme weather is a hallmark of climate change. And experts say it could have more curveballs in store that the state should be preparing for.

“There probably will not be a whole lot more [hurricanes that move into the southwestern US] in the future. But when they do happen, they’ll be much more like Hilary,” says David...

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The new Metal Gear Solid collection is coming to PS4, too

Image: Konami

The new Metal Gear Solid collection that bundles Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater will be coming to PS4, Konami announced on Monday. The collection, which officially has the unwieldy name of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, had previously been announced for PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.

In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Konami said it made the decision to release a PS4 version “in response to the many requests we have received from fans worldwide” but noted that it would only be available as a “download ver” (aka digital release). The post also doesn’t specify when the PS4 version might be released; on other platforms, the...

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All the Pixel Watch 2 really needs is good battery life

It’s a gamechanger if Google can figure out multiday battery life for the Pixel Watch 2. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

While reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6, I was surprised how much its small gains in battery life impacted my overall attitude toward the watch. It got me wondering whether my opinion about the Google Pixel Watch would change if its paltry battery life was just a smidge better. So, the second I wrapped up my Samsung review, I booted up the Pixel Watch.

I had reason tohope because Wear OS watches sometimes have the annoying quirk of getting better after the fact. For instance, battery life for the first day or two after setup is often the worst. Sometimes, it’s so crappy I wonder if I got a defective unit.Butafter a few days to about a week, the watch learns your usage patterns, and it gets a little better. Even more annoying is...

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Tesla points to ‘insider wrongdoing’ as cause of massive employee data leak

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla has determined that two of its former workers are responsible for a massive data leak that includes personally identifiable information on over 75,000 employees, TechCrunch reports. According to a filing with the state of Maine’s attorney general office, Tesla’s data privacy officer, Steven Elentukh, reported the breach as “insider wrongdoing,” leaking employee information including social security numbers.

The Maine filing includes a template letter by Elentukh written to send to affected employees in the state. It confirms that Handelsblatt, the German media outlet recipient of 100GB of Tesla’s data, had notified Tesla on May 10th that it had received confidential information.

“The investigation revealed that two former Tesla...

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T-Mobile’s new Go5G plan gets even more expensive and offers faster phone upgrades

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile announced it’s offering a yearly phone upgrade plan called Go5G Next for $100 per month for a single line. It’s a pricier companion to the $90-per-month Go5G Plus plan with bi-annual upgrades the carrier debuted earlier this year.

The prices from T-Mobile’s announcement assume you’re using automatic payments, which come with a $5 discount per line that’s separate from the company’s $5 fee for in-store payments.

Every other aspect of the plan looks to be the same as that lower-tier “Plus” plan: it offers unlimited calls and texts, Netflix Basic (or Standard if you’re on a family plan), Apple TV Plus, and “unlimited” data, with up to 50GB of broadband-quality data. After that, your connection slows to a crawl at 600Kbps. If you...

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Microsoft’s new Xbox Series X console wraps include Starfield and camo options

The new Xbox Series X console wraps. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft has created a series of Xbox Series X console wraps that are designed to be a more affordable option instead of purchasing a separate limited edition console. One of the first Xbox console wraps will be one for Starfield, which will launch on October 18th, priced at $49.99.

The console wraps aren’t stickers like you’d find from Dbrand; instead, they fasten to an Xbox Series X thanks to a velcro hook and loop enclosure. The plastic Starfield wrap includes panels that look similar to the limited edition Starfield-branded Xbox controller. “Key internal console components are highlighted through outlined access panel and game-inspired graphics,” explains Monique Chatterjee, senior design director at Xbox.

Image:...

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LG’s lovely 65-inch C3 OLED TV is now $700 off at Amazon

The LG C3 is the jack-of-all-trades OLED TV for most people who enjoy both watching TV and playing games. | Image: LG

The 65-inch LG C3 OLED TV is on sale for $1,896.99 ($702 off) at Amazon. The 4K TV is an exceptional jack-of-all-trades set with four HDMI 2.1 ports capable of up to 120Hz refresh with VRR, making it ideal for gaming. It’s also got those signature deep black levels for seeing detail even in dark cinematic movies and TV shows.

The LG C3 is the follow-up to one of our go-to TVs, last year’s C2. The new TV shares many similar specs with the C2, but it’s brighter, faster (thanks to a new processor), and has some user interface refinements in its webOS-based operating system — like a handy Personalized Picture Wizard that guides you through a step-by-step process to help set up the C3’s picture mode without as much fuss.

Between the NFL...

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