Technology

Nvidia is releasing a new driver update today that will support Microsoft’s DirectX 12 Ultimate and the latest GPU scheduling feature of the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. Nvidia’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support means its latest RTX cards support Microsoft’s latest set of gaming and multimedia APIs, which promise to better unify the feature set and capabilities of Windows gaming with the Xbox platform. A key component for DirectX 12 Ultimate is ray tracing, which Nvidia has long supported on its RTX line of cards. This new driver support should make it easier for game developers to optimize games for the upcoming Xbox Series X and the latest Nvidia cards. It’s an important part of any next-gen games that will arrive later this year and beyond. Windows 10’s new graphics setting. In the meantime, ...

General Motors’ OnStar is branching out beyond the car. The automaker is launching a new smartphone app called Guardian for customers who want to access OnStar’s remote assistance service capabilities when they aren’t physically inside their car. Previously, OnStar’s operators were only accessible to subscribers of the service by pressing a button on the rearview mirror or infotainment screen of their GM vehicle. Now, with the new app, OnStar customers can connect to an operator where ever they have their phone, either in the car, at home, or out walking. And for a limited time, they have the option of extending those services to up to seven family and friends of their choosing. “We’ve got over 20 years of experience dealing with public safety, and we’ve been looking at ways that we can ex...

At first glance, narrowing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — one of the internet’s foundational laws — seems like a rare bipartisan issue in Washington. President Donald Trump and his presumptive challenger Joe Biden both want to scale back or repeal the law. The Justice Department just proposed its own changes. And a long list of lawmakers have sponsored reform bills, including the EARN IT Act, which is expected to be marked up this week in Congress. But building a consensus to change Section 230 will be harder than it looks. The law’s critics have vastly different and sometimes incompatible ideas about how the law should work. Republicans and Democrats alike have called for sites to bear more legal liability if users post illegal content. For many Republicans, though, that’...

Full-length movies are coming to Fortnite’s new party royale island. Today, Epic Games announced that it will air three different Christopher Nolan movies in the island’s theater on June 26th. The available movies include Inception, Batman Begins, and The Prestige, though what you’ll actually be able to watch will depend on region. (Inception will be broadcast in North America, but you can check out the full schedule here.) This isn’t the first collaboration between Epic and Nolan; last month, the director revealed the latest trailer for his upcoming film, Tenet, inside of the game. Get ready for Movie Nite at Party Royale This Friday, June 26, grab some popcorn and catch one of three full-length Christopher Nolan feature films depending on your region! Check out showtimes and what’s playi...

You can catch up on all of the Witcher games on PC, and snag a preorder copy of Cyberpunk 2077 for $88 altogether at GOG.com. This special bundle is called the Ultimate RED collection, as it’s a slate of developer CD Projekt Red’s titles. If you were planning to preorder its upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, this is a good way to keep yourself busy until it launches in November. Just to note, these games are DRM-free and don’t require Steam or any other game platform to run. Here’s what the bundle includes: Cyberpunk 2077 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Game of the Year Edition The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings – Enhanced Edition The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales The Witcher Adventure Game If you need a lot of power and ports at your desk to keep your tech charged...

Twitter has continued its policy of labeling — but not removing — rule-breaking tweets from President Donald Trump. The company restricted a Trump post promising “serious force” against a potential Washington, DC equivalent to Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone. “We’ve placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group,” writes Twitter’s safety team. The warning is posted above the tweet and appears if users try to retweet it. Following Twitter’s usual policy for world leaders whose tweets serve a “public interest,” however, it won’t be deleted. There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will ...

Apple is adding a new feature as part of its newly announced iOS 14 that will extend the lifespan of your AirPods. Apple says the operating system will reduce how quickly your AirPods’ batteries age by learning when you typically charge them and predicting when to stop charging them automatically. Instead of charging to 100 percent right away, the AirPods will stop charging at 80 percent, then resume later, so they don’t sit at 100 percent over an extended period of time. Arguably, the AirPods needed such a feature more than phones or laptops Most modern devices, including Apple products, use a lithium-ion battery, and experts agree that you shouldn’t always keep them 100 percent charged; you can extend a lithium-ion battery’s life by minimizing topping off. This isn’t a new idea: many mod...

After browsing for a new movie or TV show to watch on Netflix, people may throw something on before deciding 10 minutes in they’re just not that interested. Netflix’s new “remove from row” feature is designed to make it easier for people to remove those titles from their currently watching offerings. The goal is to give people more control over what appears on their Netflix homepage. The “continue watching” row is one of the most prominent, appearing at the top of the homepage. This makes it easy to jump back into a TV show that someone might be making their way through, or pick right back up where they left off with The Irishman (if you’re like me and it took a few sittings to watch). The annoying thing, however, is that if someone is no longer interested in watching a movie or a TV show,...

Amazon could be planning to bolster its Prime Video service, which is mostly known for its on-demand video offerings, with live TV, according to a report from Protocol and publicly available job listings. Details are light about what the new live TV services might entail, though the efforts appear to be in their early stages. One job listing says Amazon is looking for someone who can “redefine how customers watch 24/7 linear broadcast TV content.” That person will also be tasked with “designing the end-to-end customer experience for how customers discover and watch Linear TV content.” (Linear TV is another way to describe live TV, like what you might watch on a broadcast channel.) The Prime Video team is also apparently “building next gen linear catalog systems to provide best-in-class Lin...

Apple is bringing back the Mac’s iconic startup chime in macOS Big Sur. The company hinted it might return by playing the chime very prominently during yesterday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, and people who have installed the first Big Sur developer beta have reported that it’s back. You can see a Mac on Big Sur play the chime while booting up in the video at the top of this post. The startup chime was first removed from Macs in 2016 with the redesigned MacBook Pros released that year, and Macs released since then (with the exception of the 2017 13-inch MacBook Air) didn’t play the chime when you turned them on. [embedded content] However, earlier this year, it was discovered that Apple would let you enable the startup chime on those Macs if they were running macOS Catalina an...

Microsoft is launching a preview version of its antivirus software for Android today. The software giant revealed that Windows Defender was making its way to both iOS and Android earlier this year, but didn’t fully detail what to expect. We’re now getting a good idea of exactly why Microsoft thinks Android needs antivirus protection. The public preview for Android will include protection against phishing and go a step further than Google’s built-in malware protection to offer signature-based malware detection. “Scans are instantly performed detect malware and potentially unwanted applications (PUA),” explains Kanishka Srivastava, a senior program manager at Microsoft. “If a safe app is downloaded, the end user will see a lightweight notification letting them know the app is clean.” Microso...

For years, Apple has steadily revealed how the ARM-based chips in its mobile phones were catching up in performance to the beefier silicon you’d find inside a laptop or desktop — in 2018, the company claimed its new iPad Pro was faster than 92 percent of portable PCs. At some point, it seemed inevitable that Apple would turn the more efficient chips into the primary processors for its Mac computers, too. Now, it’s official: Apple is migrating the Mac to its own homegrown silicon, starting later this year. But are Apple’s ARM chips actually powerful enough now to replace the likes of Intel and AMD? That’s still an open question — because at Apple’s 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the company shied away from giving us any definitive answers. a handful of canned demos and vague p...