Xbox Console Sales Are Tanking As Microsoft Brings Games To PS5

In its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Microsoft reported a 30% drop in Xbox console sales, after reporting a 30% drop last April. “It blamed the nosedive on a ‘lower volume of consoles sold’ during the start of 2024,” reports Kotaku. From the report: In February, Grand Theft Auto VI parent company Take-Two claimed in a presentation to investors that there were roughly 77 million “gen 9” consoles in people’s homes. It didn’t take fans long to do the math and speculate that Microsoft had only sold around 25 million Xbox Series X/S consoles to-date. That puts it ahead of the GameCube but behind the Nintendo 64, at least for now. Given the results this quarter as well, it doesn’t seem like Game Pass and Starfield have moved the needle much. Maybe that will change once Call of Duty, which Microsoft acquired last fall along with the rest of Activision Blizzard, finally makes its way to Game Pass. Diablo IV only just arrived on the Netflix-like subscription platform this month. But given the fact that the fate of Xbox Series X/S appears to be locked in at this point, it’s easy to see why Microsoft is looking at other places it can put its games.

Sea of Thieves, the last of four games in this initial volley to come to PS5, dominated the PlayStation Store’s top sellers list last week on pre-orders alone. CEO Satya Nadella specifically called this out during a call with investors, noting that Microsoft had more games in the top 25 best sellers on PS5 than any other publisher. “We are committed to meeting players where they are by bringing great games to more people on more devices,” he said. If players there continue to flock to the live-service pirate sim, it’s not hard to imagine Microsoft bringing another batch of its first-party exclusives to the rival platform. Whether that means more recent blockbusters like Starfield or the upcoming Indiana Jones game will someday make the journey remains to be seen.

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Court Upholds New York Law That Says ISPs Must Offer $15 Broadband

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturned a prior district court decision, lifting the injunction that blocked New York’s law mandating that ISPs offer $15 broadband plans to low-income families. Ars Technica reports: The ruling (PDF) is a loss for six trade groups that represent ISPs, although it isn’t clear right now whether the law will be enforced. For consumers who qualify for means-tested government benefits, the state law requires ISPs to offer “broadband at no more than $15 per month for service of 25Mbps, or $20 per month for high-speed service of 200Mbps,” the ruling noted. The law allows for price increases every few years and makes exemptions available to ISPs with fewer than 20,000 customers.

“First, the ABA is not field-preempted by the Communications Act of 1934 (as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996), because the Act does not establish a framework of rate regulation that is sufficiently comprehensive to imply that Congress intended to exclude the states from entering the field,” a panel of appeals court judges stated in a 2-1 opinion. Trade groups claimed the state law is preempted by former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality rules. Pai’s repeal placed ISPs under the more forgiving Title I regulatory framework instead of the common-carrier framework in Title II of the Communications Act.

2nd Circuit judges did not find this argument convincing: “Second, the ABA is not conflict-preempted by the Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 order classifying broadband as an information service. That order stripped the agency of its authority to regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet, and a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and VACATE the permanent injunction.”

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Alphabet Shares Jump 14% On Earnings Beat, First-Ever Dividend

Alphabet has reported first quarter results that topped analysts’ estimates with soaring profits in its cloud division. It also announced its first-ever dividend. CNBC shares the results: Earnings per share: $1.89 vs. $1.51 per share expected by LSEG
Revenue: $80.54 billion vs. $78.59 billion expected by LSEG
Wall Street is also watching several other numbers in the report:

YouTube advertising revenue: $8.09 billion vs. $7.72 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.
Google Cloud revenue: $9.57 billion vs. $9.35 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.
Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $12.95 billion $12.74 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s revenue increased 15% from $69.79 billion a year earlier, the fastest rate of growth since early 2022. Alphabet said its board approved a cash dividend of 20 cents per share to be paid on June 17, to stockholders of record as of June 10. The company said it “intends to pay quarterly cash dividends in the future.”

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Seagate Joins the HDD Price Hike Party, Blames AI for Spike in Demand

Seagate has joined Western Digital in increasing the prices of hard drives, with rising demand due to the huge data requirements of AI taking the blame. AI is also behind a rapid growth in orders for Enterprise solid state drives. From a report: One of the big three makers of traditional rotating hard disk drives, Seagate informed customers that it is increasing prices effective immediately for new orders, but also for any changes to orders that are “over and above” previously committed volumes. This was disclosed in a letter from the company seen by analyst Trendforce, and comes just a couple of weeks after rival manufacturer Western Digital sent out a similar letter to customers informing them of price hikes.

According to Trendforce, the cause of the issue is two-fold: rising demand for high-capacity HDD products driven by the current craze for all things AI, and reduced production by hard drive manufacturers that means they are unable to meet the demand, leading to soaring prices. The rising demand comes from AI training requiring huge volumes of data: OpenAI’s GPT-3 model is said to have been trained using 45TB of data, which may have been surpassed for newer models. And while flash-based SSDs boast high-speed and low-latency, storing everything in flash would still be costly. Seagate launched a 30TB hard drive line last year. Hard drive production was cut by as much as 20 percent over the last two years or so because of falling orders during the pandemic, and now manufacturers are unprepared for a sudden uptick in demand.

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Open Sourcing DOS 4

Microsoft releases one of the most popular versions of MS-DOS as open source today. stikves shares a post:Ten years ago, Microsoft released the source for MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 to the Computer History Museum, and then later republished them for reference purposes. This code holds an important place in history and is a fascinating read of an operating system that was written entirely in 8086 assembly code nearly 45 years ago.

Today, in partnership with IBM and in the spirit of open innovation, we’re releasing the source code to MS-DOS 4.00 under the MIT license. There’s a somewhat complex and fascinating history behind the 4.0 versions of DOS, as Microsoft partnered with IBM for portions of the code but also created a branch of DOS called Multitasking DOS that did not see a wide release.

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Manga Site Blocks Adult Content, But Only For US and UK Users

Samantha Cole reports via 404 Media: A Japan-based online art platform is banning kink content for users based in the US and UK, as laws in these countries continue to tighten around sites that allow erotic content. Pixiv is an image gallery site where artists primarily share illustrations, manga, and novels. The site announced on April 22 that starting April 25, users whose account region is set to the US or UK will be subject to Pixiv’s new terms of use, “Restrictions for Healthy Expression in Specific Countries and Regions.”

The restrictions include several kinds of content that are illegal in the US, including sexualized depictions of minors and bestiality, as well as non-consensual depictions and deepfakes. But it also includes “content that appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive in light of community standards where you are located or where such content may be accessed or distributed, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, or otherwise violates any applicable obscenity laws, rules or regulations.” This is an invocation of the Miller test, which determines non-constitutionally protected obscenity. “I’d never say this a few years ago, but it’s my personal fear that the next step is most major internet hosting services implementing these policies on an infrastructure level,” said an artist who goes by kradeelav. “My colleagues are certainly planning for it by specifically looking for kink-friendly hosts, to actually making homebrew servers themselves in worst-case scenarios.”

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Apple Reportedly Developing Its Own Custom Silicon For AI Servers

Hartley Charlton reports via MacRumors: Apple is said to be developing its own AI server processor using TSMC’s 3nm process, targeting mass production by the second half of 2025. According to a post by the Weibo user known as “Phone Chip Expert,” Apple has ambitious plans to design its own artificial intelligence server processor. The user, who claims to have 25 years of experience in the integrated circuit industry, including work on Intel’s Pentium processors, suggests this processor will be manufactured using TSMC’s 3nm node.

Apple’s purported move toward developing a specialist AI server processor is reflective of the company’s ongoing strategy to vertically integrate its supply chain. By designing its own server chips, Apple can tailor hardware specifically to its software needs, potentially leading to more powerful and efficient technologies. Apple could use its own AI processors to enhance the performance of its data centers and future AI tools that rely on the cloud. While Apple is rumored to be prioritizing on-device processing for many of its upcoming AI tools, it is inevitable that some operations will have to occur in the cloud. By the time the custom processor could be integrated into operational servers in late 2025, Apple’s new AI strategy should be well underway.

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Google Delays Third-Party Cookie Demise Yet Again

Google is delaying the end of third-party cookies in Chrome — again. This marks the third time Google pushed back its original deadline set in January 2020, when the company said it would phase out third-party cookies “within two years” to improve internet security. Digiday reports: The announcement was made on Tuesday ahead of quarterly reports from Google and the ever-watchful U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), keeping tabs on how this whole situation unfolds.

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem,” according to a statement Google posted on its website for the Privacy Sandbox. “It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.”

Google did not outline a more specific timetable beyond hoping for 2025. […] “We remain committed to engaging closely with the CMA and ICO and we hope to conclude that process this year,” Google’s statement read. “Assuming we can reach an agreement, we envision proceeding with third-party cookie deprecation starting early next year.” “We welcome Google’s announcement clarifying the timing of third-party cookie deprecation. This will allow time to assess the results of industry tests and resolve remaining issues,” said a spokesperson from the CMA. “Under the commitments, Google has agreed to resolve our remaining competition concerns before going ahead with third-party cookie deprecation. Working closely with the ICO we expect to conclude this process by the end of 2024.”

At the start of the year, Google started purging third-party cookies for one percent of browser traffic.

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Try Something New To Stop the Days Whizzing Past, Researchers Suggest

Nicola Davis reports via The Guardian: If every day appears to go in a blur, try seeking out new and interesting experiences, researchers have suggested, after finding memorable images appear to dilate time. Researchers have previously found louder experiences seem to last longer, while focusing on the clock also makes time dilate, or drag. Now researchers have discovered the more memorable an image, the more likely a person is to think they have been looking at it for longer than they actually have. Such images were also easier for participants to recall the next day. Prof Martin Wiener, co-author of the study who is based at George Mason University in the U.S., said the findings could help develop improve artificial intelligence that interacts with humans, while they also offer opportunities to tweak our perceptions, given research has previously shown non-invasive brain stimulation can be used to lengthen a perceived interval.

The results from two groups, totaling about 100 people, revealed participants were more likely to think they had been looking at small, highly cluttered scenes — such a crammed pantry — for a shorter duration than was the case, whereas the reverse occurred when people viewed large scenes with little clutter, such as the interior of an aircraft hangar. The team also carried out experiments involving 69 participants that found images known from previous work to be more memorable were more likely to be judged as having been shown for longer than was the case. Crucially, the effect seemed to go both ways.

“We also found that the longer the perceived subjective duration of an image, the more likely you were to remember it the next day,” said Wiener. When the team carried out an analysis using deep learning models of the visual system, they discovered more memorable images were processed faster. What’s more, the processing speed for an image was correlated with how long participants thought they had been looking at it. “Images may be more memorable because they are processed faster and more efficiently in the visual system, and that drives the perception of time,” said Wiener. The team suggest time dilation might serve a purpose, enabling us to gather information about the world around us. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

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Oracle Is Moving Its World Headquarters To Nashville

Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said Tuesday that the company is moving its world headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee, to be closer to a major health-care epicenter. CNBC reports: In a wide-ranging conversation with Bill Frist, a former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Ellison said Oracle is moving a “huge campus” to Nashville, “which will ultimately be our world headquarters.” He said Nashville is an established health center and a “fabulous place to live,” one that Oracle employees are excited about. “It’s the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the health-care industry,” Ellison said. The announcement was seemingly spur-of-the-moment. “I shouldn’t have said that,” Ellison told Frist, a longtime health-care industry veteran who represented Tennessee in the Senate. The pair spoke during a fireside chat at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville.

Nashville has been a major player in the health-care scene for decades, and the city is now home to a vibrant network of health systems, startups and investment firms. The city’s reputation as a health-care hub was catalyzed when HCA Healthcare, one of the first for-profit hospital companies in the U.S., was founded there in 1968. HCA helped attract troves of health-care professionals to Nashville, and other organizations quickly followed suit. Oracle has been developing its new $1.2 billion campus in the city for about three years, according to The Tennessean. “Our people love it here, and we think it’s the center of our future,” Ellison said.

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