Microsoft

How to watch the Summer Game Fest’s ‘Kickoff Live’ event

Summer Game Fest 2021, hosted by Geoff Keighley, is getting started with new game announcements two days ahead of E3 2021 with its “Kickoff Live” event. In addition to news, it’s perhaps the only event to feature both an appearance from Jeff Goldblum and a musical performance by Weezer. The list of partners for the… Read more

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X is about to make xCloud gaming much faster

Microsoft is making some significant upgrades to its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service in the next few weeks. The Xbox cloud streaming service will be moving to Xbox Series X hardware on the server side, bringing dramatic improvements to load times and frame rates. Microsoft is also moving xCloud on the web out of beta,… Read more

You’ll soon be able to try Xbox games before downloading them

Microsoft is planning to let Xbox console owners try games before they download them later this year. The new Xbox dashboard feature will allow console players to stream games through Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service instantly. It’s part of a push to integrate xCloud more into Xbox consoles and into the Xbox app on… Read more

Asus Chromebook Detachable CM3 review: Duet redux

All in all, Asus’s Chromebook Detachable CM3 is a nice package. It’s a 10.5-inch tablet with magnetically-attached fabric cover and kickstand. It’s $389.99 as tested, which means it’s priced far below all kinds of convertible Chromebooks. I’m not the first to make this comparison, but it’s a slightly more expensive, and slightly fancier version of… Read more

Microsoft announces Xbox TV app and its own xCloud streaming stick

Microsoft is working with TV manufacturers to make an Xbox app available on devices soon. The software giant is planning to bring its Xbox Game Pass service to TVs through its xCloud streaming technology, opening up more ways to get access to Xbox games. This will be available as both an app on TVs, and… Read more

Graphics Memory Prices Expected to Increase Next Quarter

Home News (Image credit: Samsung) Just when you thought things were as bad in the GPU market as they could be, something new pops up. Demand for gaming graphics cards, game consoles, and GPUs used for mining cryptocurrencies have driven prices of graphics cards and graphics memory to new heights in recent months, but according… Read more

How to use a two-factor security key

Two-factor authentication is a good way to add an extra layer of security to online accounts. It requires the use of your smartphone, however, which is not only inconvenient, but can be a problem if your phone is lost or breached. Hardware security keys can offer an additional layer of security to password-protected online accounts… Read more

The pandemic might cut down e-waste but widen the digital divide

We now have evidence that staying home to game or stream and chill during the pandemic was pretty much a first-world problem (or privilege, depending on how you look at it). The proof is in a new report published today by the United Nations University and UN Institute for Training and Research that looks at… Read more

Will Apple end the newsletter boom?

Today, let’s talk about one of Apple’s many announcements this week at its Worldwide Developer Conference, which some see as a possible threat to the rise of journalism distributed by email. If that sounds self-indulgent, given that it’s coming from a journalist who distributes his work via email, I apologize. But it touches on so… Read more

Microsoft is getting back into physical retail — sort of

Microsoft is returning to selling products at brick-and-mortar stores, kind of. The software giant will start selling products at its “Experience Centers” in London, New York City, and Sydney next month. Select Microsoft products will be available on July 1st, but the global chip shortage will impact what’s available to buy. Xbox Series X /… Read more

Windows 11: What We Know About Microsoft’s Likely Next OS

Microsoft is getting ready to announce the biggest update to Windows since Windows 10’s debut in 2015, and even though the company hasn’t officially revealed anything about this update, all signs point to it offering a significantly different experience for PC users. In fact, the update is supposed to be so radical that it could… Read more

How to Fix CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED Errors in Windows

Home News (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED is one of the few Windows BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) that anyone can provoke at will. If you kill the process named svchost.exe in Windows 10 (right-click in Task Manager, and pick “End process tree” from the pop-up menu), it will immediately cause the machine to crash… Read more

Cruise gets permit from California to provide passenger test rides in driverless vehicles

The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) said Friday (pdf) it has authorized General Motors-owned self-driving vehicle company Cruise to provide driverless passenger service to the public in its robotaxis. The CPUC said Cruise is the first entrant in its driverless pilot program, which lets companies give test rides in vehicles without drivers. Under the terms… Read more

How to Clean Boot Windows 10

When you’re trying to fix a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) or resolve other critical Windows 10 errors, you want to follow a process of elimination. If you don’t know exactly what’s causing the error, one of your first steps should be performing a clean boot, which involves starting up without any applications or non-Microsoft… Read more

Microsoft says Bing’s ‘Tank Man’ censorship was a human error

On Microsoft’s search engine Bing, searching for “Tank Man,” the iconic figure from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China, turned up no image results in the United States for part of Friday. Vice was able to produce the same results in the US, and heard from multiple users from other countries who ran into… Read more