An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Some Dell and HP laptop owners have been befuddled by their machines' inability to play HEVC/H.265 content in web browsers, despite their machines' processors having integrated decoding support. Laptops with sixth-generation Intel Core and later processors have built-in hardware support for HEVC decoding and encoding. AMD has made laptop chips supporting the codec since 2015. However, both Dell and HP have disabled this feature on some of their popular business notebooks.

HP discloses this in the data sheets for its affected laptops, which include the HP ProBook 460 G11 [PDF], ProBook 465 G11 [PDF], and EliteBook 665 G11 [PDF]. "Hardware acceleration for CODEC H.265/HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) is disabled on this platform," the note reads. Despite this notice, it can still be jarring to see a modern laptop's web browser eternally load videos that play easily in media players. HP and Dell didn't explain why the companies disabled HEVC hardware decoding on their laptops' processors.

A statement from an HP spokesperson said: "In 2024, HP disabled the HEVC (H.265) codec hardware on select devices, including the 600 Series G11, 400 Series G11, and 200 Series G9 products. Customers requiring the ability to encode or decode HEVC content on one of the impacted models can utilize licensed third-party software solutions that include HEVC support. Check with your preferred video player for HEVC software support."

Dell's media relations team shared a similar statement: "HEVC video playback is available on Dell's premium systems and in select standard models equipped with hardware or software, such as integrated 4K displays, discrete graphics cards, Dolby Vision, or Cyberlink BluRay software. On other standard and base systems, HEVC playback is not included, but users can access HEVC content by purchasing an affordable third-party app from the Microsoft Store. For the best experience with high-resolution content, customers are encouraged to select systems designed for 4K or high-performance needs."

Roblox is rolling out mandatory facial age-verification for chat features to prevent children from communicating with adult strangers. The platform will restrict chat to verified age groups, expand parental controls, and become the first major gaming platform to require facial age checks for messaging. The BBC reports: Mandatory age checks will be introduced for accounts using chat features, starting in December for Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, then the rest of the globe from January. [...] Rani Govender, policy manager for child safety online at the NSPCC, said action had been needed because young people had been exposed to "unacceptable risks" on Roblox, "leaving many vulnerable to harm and online abuse."

The charity welcomed the platform's latest announcement but called on Roblox to "ensure they deliver change for children in practice and prevent adult perpetrators from targeting and manipulating young users." The platform averaged more than 80 million daily players in 2024, about 40% of them under the age of 13. [...]

Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer for Roblox, told a press briefing the age estimation technology is "pretty accurate." He claimed the system can make close estimates of "within one to two years" bracket for users aged between five and 25. Currently it can be used voluntarily by anyone in the world.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure, and Alphabet's Google Cloud risk being dragged into the scope of the European Union's crackdown on Big Tech as antitrust watchdogs prepare to study the platforms' market power. The European Commission wants to decide if any of the trio should face a raft of new restrictions under the bloc's Digital Markets Act (source paywalled; alternative source), according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plan for a market probe follows several major outages in the cloud industry that wrought havoc across global services, highlighting the risks of relying on a mere handful of players.

To date, the world's largest cloud providers have avoided the DMA because a large part of their business comes via enterprise contracts, making it difficult to count the number of individual users, one of the EU's main benchmarks for earmarking Silicon Valley services for extra oversight. Under the investigation's remit, regulators will asses whether the top cloud operators -- regardless of the challenge of counting user numbers -- should be forced to contend with a raft of fresh obligations including increased interoperability with rival software and better data portability for users, as well as restrictions on tying and bundling.

CNN profiled the non-profit Internet Archive today — and included this tidbit about how they archive parts of the internet that are now "tucked in conversations with AI chatbots." The rise of artificial intelligence and AI chatbots means the Internet Archive is changing how it records the history of the internet. In addition to web pages, the Internet Archive now captures AI-generated content, like ChatGPT answers and those summaries that appear at the top of Google search results. The Internet Archive team, which is made up of librarians and software engineers, are experimenting with ways to preserve how people get their news from chatbots by coming up with hundreds of questions and prompts each day based on the news, and recording both the queries and outputs, [says Wayback Machine Director Mark Graham].
It sounds like a fun place to work... Archivists use bespoke machines to digitize books page by page, livestreaming their work on YouTube for all to see (alongside some lo-fi music). Record players churn out vintage tunes from 1920s and 1940s, and the building houses every type of media console for any type of content imaginable, from microfilm, to CDs and satellite television. (The Internet Archive preserves music, television, books and video games, too)... "There are a lot of people that are just passionate about the cause. There's a cyberpunk atmosphere," Annie Rauwerda, a Wikipedia editor and social media influencer, said at a party thrown at the Internet Archive's headquarters to celebrate reaching a trillion pages "The internet (feels) quite corporate when I use it a lot these days, but you wouldn't know from the people here."

An anonymous reader shared this post from the gaming news site Aftermath: Concord, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Firewalk Studios' Overwatch-like shooter, was live for just two weeks before it was pulled offline. Though Concord certainly had some dedicated players, it didn't have many — which is why it may be surprising to hear that a group of players are reverse-engineering the game and its servers to bring it back to life.

Publisher Sony removed Concord from stores and digital marketplaces, automatically refunded some, and, later, shut down Firewalk Studios. Two hundred or so people were laid off, and any hopes of Concord's return were dashed. Poor sales — estimated to be under 25,000 copies sold — and low player numbers marred the release. Firewalk Studios' game director Ryan Ellis said in a blog post that pieces of the game "resonated with players," but "other aspects of the game and [Concord's] initial launch didn't land the way [Firewalk Studios] intended."

Concord wasn't a bad game, but it just didn't generate enough interest with enough players. Now, a group of three hobbyist reverse-engineers, who go by real, Red, and gwog online, are trying to make it playable again... "Sometimes there's enough of the server left in the game, that we can 'activate' that code and make the game believe it's a server," Red said. "We do pretty much always need to fill in the gaps though..." Concord used an anti-tamper software to keep people from cheating, which also creates a problem for people reverse engineering. It's "nearly impossible" to crack, Red said, so the group didn't — they found an exploit to "forcefully decrypt the game's code" to "restore the game and start working on servers...."

It's not open to the public, but people can sign up for future tests. Even former Firewalk Studios employees have joined the server. They're excited to see Concord come back to life, too, the developers said.
"Friday morning, a video of the playtest was posted to the Concord Reddit page," according to the article. (Though ironically by Friday night YouTube had had removed the video "due to a copyright claim by MarkScan Enforcement."

A new survey of over 300 US and UK gaming executives found that 72% view Steam as a monopoly. "Furthermore, 88% said that at least three-quarters of their revenue came from Steam, while 37% reported that the platform accounted for 90% of their total revenue," adds Techspot. From the report: Atomik Research conducted the recent survey on behalf of Rokky, a company that helps game publishers minimize the impact of grey market key resellers on prices. In addition to opinions on Steam, developers also answered questions about the PC market's biggest challenges.

The increasing popularity of free-to-play games such as Fortnite, DOTA 2, Counter-Strike 2, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Roblox topped the list of concerns for 40% of respondents. Approximately a third mentioned market saturation and discoverability, echoing data that suggests there aren't enough players for the thousands of new titles released on Steam each year. A similar portion of survey respondents also expressed concerns regarding subscription services.

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: Sales of electric vehicles surged in September as shoppers rushed to take advantage of the $7500 federal EV tax credit before it disappeared at the end of the month. With the government subsidies now gone, EV sales were expected to take a hit in October. While only a few automakers still report sales on a monthly basis, the results we do have do not paint a rosy picture for EVs in a post-tax credit world.

The Korean automakers were hit particularly hard by the loss of the tax credit. The Hyundai Ioniq 5, which was the fifth-best-selling EV through the third quarter of this year, experienced a 63 percent drop, moving 1642 units in October 2025, down from 4498 in 2024. Its platform-mates saw similar declines. The Kia EV6 moved just 508 units, down 71 percent versus the same month the year before, while the luxurious Genesis GV60 only found 93 buyers, a 54 percent slide year over year. Things were even worse at Honda. While the Acura ZDX was recently discontinued after just a single model year, the related Honda Prologue remains on sale but registered just 806 units, down 81 percent from 4130 sales in October 2024. [...]

Obviously, this isn't the full picture, as several major players -- including General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, and Volkswagen -- only release sales reports on a quarterly basis, and others, such as Tesla and Rivian, don't break out individual sales at all. But with four of the top 10 bestselling EVs through Q3 all showing noteworthy declines in October, it spells trouble for the EV market at large. The end-of-year sales figures will provide a much clearer picture of whether October was just a blip or the start of a much more widespread problem for EV sales.

Computer scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have proved that pricing algorithms can drive up prices even when they lack the capacity to collude. Aaron Roth and four colleagues studied so-called no-swap-regret algorithms, which are designed to minimize losses and were previously thought to guarantee competitive pricing. The researchers found that when such an algorithm faces an opponent using a nonresponsive strategy -- one that randomly selects from predetermined price probabilities without reacting to competitor moves -- both players can end up in equilibrium at high prices.

Neither has an incentive to switch strategies because their profits are nearly equal and as high as possible under the circumstances. The nonresponsive strategy cannot express threats because it does not respond to opponent behavior, yet it effectively coaxes the learning algorithm into raising prices. Mallesh Pai, an economist at Rice University not involved in the research, said the finding matters because regulators have no clear grounds to intervene without evidence of threats or agreements. Roth conceded however that he lacks a solution to the regulatory challenge his team identified.

An anonymous reader shares a report: After last week's major AWS outage took Signal along with it, Elon Musk was quick to criticize the encrypted messaging app's reliance on big tech. But Signal president Meredith Whittaker argues that the company didn't have any other choice but to use AWS or another major cloud provider.

"The problem here is not that Signal 'chose' to run on AWS," Whittaker writes in a series of posts on Bluesky. "The problem is the concentration of power in the infrastructure space that means there isn't really another choice: the entire stack, practically speaking, is owned by 3-4 players."

In the thread, Whittaker says the number of people who didn't realize Signal uses AWS is "concerning," as it indicates they aren't aware of just how concentrated the cloud infrastructure industry is. "The question isn't 'why does Signal use AWS?'" Whittaker writes. "It's to look at the infrastructural requirements of any global, real-time, mass comms platform and ask how it is that we got to a place where there's no realistic alternative to AWS and the other hyperscalers."

An anonymous reader shares a column: As the AI boom develops, consultants are in a tricky spot. The pandemic, inflation and economic uncertainty have encouraged many of their big clients to tighten expenditure. The U.S. government, one of the biggest spenders, has been cancelling multiple billion-dollar contracts in an effort to conserve cash. In March, 10 of the largest consultants including Deloitte, Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM and Guidehouse were targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency to justify their fees. As a result, the largest listed players' shares have collapsed by up to 30% in the past two years, against the S&P 500's 50% jump.

AI is, in some respects, a boon. In September, Accenture said it had helped it cut 11,000 jobs, and CEO Julie Sweet is set to augment that with staff that cannot be retrained. Salesforce recently laid off 4000 customer support workers. Microsoft has halted hiring in its consulting business. Unfortunately, big clients are cottoning on to the advantages too. One finance chief of a large UK company outlined the issue for Breakingviews via an illustrative example. Say an outsourced project costs the client $1 million to do themselves, and Accenture and the like have historically been able to do the same job for $200,000. With the advent of machine learning, companies can do the same work for just $10,000. This gives clients considerable leverage. If consultants won't lower their prices to near the relevant level, the client can find one who will. Or just do the job itself.

"Around tables cluttered with dice, maps and character sheets, players are doing far more than playing," writes Phys.org. It's what sociologists call serious leisure — "a hobby that demands skill, commitment and personal fulfillment," according to an associate professor/program director for Florida International University's Rehabilitation and Recreational Therapy Program: To understand what makes D&D more than just a pastime, [associate professor Emily Messina] studies how games like this promote identity-building and connection... Beyond personal expression, Messina says the social and emotional benefits of D&D reflect the very traits that make serious leisure valuable: the sense of identity, the relationships built through shared experiences and the continued connection with the same group of people over time... The game can also provide structure and purpose for people managing mental illness who might not be able to hold a full-time job because of their symptoms. The game gives them structure versus filling their day with binge streaming...

Activities such as D&D can be used by young children as a reward structure or with older adults, such as retirees, to help provide a sense of purpose and daily rhythm. "Post retirement is one of the most dangerous points in an adult's life," she said. "They lose that sense of structure and possibly their social connection." Building structure through leisure pursuits after retirement has been shown to help maintain physical fitness, social interaction, cognitive processing and attention span and decrease depression. "The idea of structure and reward with desired pursuit can work for all ages," Messina said.
The research was published in Leisure Studies.

Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) has announced Halo: Campaign Evolved, a full Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved campaign, coming in 2026 for Xbox Series X, Windows PC, and -- shockingly -- PlayStation 5. "It's really a new era -- Halo is on PlayStation going forward," Halo Studios community director Brian Jarrard said on a livestream today. Polygon reports: Halo: Campaign Evolved is a from-the-ground-up remake of the first Halo game's campaign. It's being built in Unreal Engine 5 -- unlike previous Halo games, which have been developed with proprietary software. It aims to modernize the game without changing it on a fundamental level. [...]

As signaled by the name, Campaign Evolved will not feature PvP multiplayer, as its focus is on the campaign (Combat Evolved had splitscreen competitive multiplayer modes). However, you'll still be able to play Halo: Campaign Evolved with your buddies. It'll support splitscreen two-player local co-op as well as four-player online. Most notably, it'll support full crossplay and cross-progression.

Gameplay is being changed in ways that are more aligned with later entries in the series. Master Chief will be able to pick up and use enemy weapons that he couldn't use until later Halo games, like the iconic Energy Sword. He'll be able to pilot the Covenant Wraith tank in the original game for the first time, and can hijack vehicles (or get hijacked). Campaign Evolved is also implementing a sprint button, altering the way players can move about the battlefield. You can watch a reveal video for the game on YouTube.

Counter-Strike has long been known for two things: tight tactical FPS gameplay and a thriving player marketplace effectively valued at literal billions of dollars. Now, thanks to a recent update from Valve, the latter is in a downward spiral, having lost 25% of its value -- or $1.75 billion -- overnight. Polygon: First, some context. Counter-Strike is a free-to-play multiplayer shooter. As with most other F2P games, it generates revenue from selling cosmetics. They arrive in lootbox-like Cases, which are opened by Keys purchased with real-world currency. They can also be obtained through trading with other players and purchasing from Steam Community Market. Beyond Steam, unofficial third-party marketplaces for CS cosmetics have also popped up as channels for buying and selling items.

Because items are obtained at random through opening Cases, rarer items fetch the highest value on the open marketplaces. Items of lower-rarity tiers can also be traded in at volume for an item of a higher tier via trade up contracts. Previously, Knives and Gloves could not be obtained through trade up contracts, exponentially increasing their value as highly sought-after items. Prior to the most recent update, some Knives, like a Doppler Ruby Butterfly Knife, could fetch around $20,000 on third-party storefronts like CSFloat.

Following Valve's Oct. 22 update to Counter-Strike, the second-highest-tier, Covert (Red), can now be traded up and turned into Knives and Gloves. Essentially, this means that a previously extremely rare and highly sought-after cosmetic is going to be much more obtainable for those who increasingly want it, reducing the value of Knives and Gloves on the open marketplace. And this is where the market descends into a freefall. Now, that Butterfly Knife mentioned above? It's going for around $12,000, as people are essentially dumping their stock, with 15 sold over the past 16 hours at the time of this writing.

U.S. Grandmaster and beloved chess commentator Daniel Naroditsky has tragically passed away at the age of 29. "The news has sent shockwaves around the chess community, which is grieving the loss of one of the most beloved and influential voices," reports Chess.com. From the report: The devastating news was first shared by Naroditsky's club, Charlotte Chess Center, on Monday, and confirmed by Chess.com with multiple sources: "It is with great sadness that we share the unexpected passing of Daniel Naroditsky. Daniel was a talented chess player, educator, and cherished member of the chess community. He was also a loving son, brother, and loyal friend. We ask for privacy for Daniel's family during this extremely difficult time. Let us honor Daniel by remembering his passion for chess and the inspiration he brought to us all."

Naroditsky, who was three weeks away from turning 30, has long been known as one of United States' most talented players. He achieved his grandmaster title at the age of 18 in 2013, and placed fifth among the highest-ranked juniors in 2015. His last FIDE-rating is 2619, which places him among the top 150 in the world, or the 17th highest-ranked in the United States. He has a peak rating of 2647 from 2017. He leaves a legacy that spans strong over-the-board competition and highly popular chess instruction and commentary on streaming platforms.

The Sims is in a period of transition -- and as part of that, the ongoing mobile version will be shutting down in a few months. From a report: EA announced that today's update for The Sims Mobile will be its last, and that on January 20th, 2026 the game "will no longer be accessible to play and will be sunset." The mobile iteration of the franchise first launched in 2018, and has seen more than 50 updates since then. EA says that starting today players will no longer be able to spend real money in the game, and that it will be delisted on both iOS and Android tomorrow before the servers shut down completely next year, making it entirely unplayable.

EA employees and the Communications Workers of America union have condemned the company's proposed $55 billion private acquisition -- backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, "claiming they were not represented in the negotiations and any jobs lost as a result would 'be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors' pockets," reports Eurogamer. From the report: Following the announcement, there's been plenty of speculation around the future of EA and its multiple owned studios, split between EA Sports and EA Entertainment. Now, members of the United Videogame Workers union and the CWA have issued a formal response alongside a petition for regulators to scrutinize the deal. "EA is not a struggling company," the statement reads. "With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world."

This success has been driven by company workers, the union stated. "Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed." Citing the number of layoffs across the industry since 2022, workers fear for "the future of our studios that are arbitrarily deemed 'less profitable' but whose contributions to the video game industry define EA's reputation." "If jobs are lost or studios are closed due to this deal, that would be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors' pockets - not to strengthen the company," the statement reads.

"Every time private equity or billionaire investors take a studio private, workers lose visibility, transparency, and power," it continues. "Decisions that shape our jobs, our art, and our futures are made behind closed doors by executives who have never written a line of code, built worlds, or supported live services. We are calling on regulators and elected officials to scrutinize this deal and ensure that any path forward protects jobs, preserves creative freedom, and keeps decision-making accountable to the workers who make EA successful." As such, workers have launched a petition in a "fight to make video games better for workers and players -- not billionaires". The statement concludes: "The value of video games is in their workers. As a unified voice, we, the members of the industry-wide video game workers' union UVW-CWA, are standing together and refusing to let corporate greed decide the future of our industry."

Meta has officially launched Horizon TV, a virtual reality "smart TV" app for its Quest headsets. The app mirrors modern smart TV interfaces with deep-linked streaming apps and curated recommendations -- but it's still missing major players like Netflix and Disney+. From a report: Except Horizon TV isn't running on a TV or streaming stick, but on the company's Meta Quest headsets. Unveiled at Meta Connect last month, the app is a big part of Meta's push to attract older, less gaming-focused audiences to VR -- a push that also includes a partnership with James Cameron, and investments into sports, and other types of leanback entertainment content.

Re-creating the smart TV experience in virtual reality also represents a monetization opportunity for Meta, which has for some time now tried to figure out how to bring advertising to VR. However, the approach also means that Meta is inheriting some of the very problems smart TV platform operators have struggled with for a long time. And if consumers do warm up to watching more content with their headsets, they're bound to realize that even in VR, you can't escape the collateral damage of the streaming wars.

Enthusiasm for Sora 2 "wasn't shared in Hollywood," reports the Los Angeles Times, "where the new AI tools have created a swift backlash" that "appears to be only just the beginning of a bruising legal fight that could shape the future of AI use in the entertainment business." [OpenAI] executives went on a charm offensive last year. They reached out to key players in the entertainment industry — including Walt Disney Co. — about potential areas for collaboration and trying to assuage concerns about its technology. This year, the San Francisco-based AI startup took a more assertive approach. Before unveiling Sora 2 to the general public, OpenAI executives had conversations with some studios and talent agencies, putting them on notice that they need to explicitly declare which pieces of intellectual property — including licensed characters — were being opted-out of having their likeness depicted on the AI platform, according to two sources familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment. Actors would be included in Sora 2 unless they opted out, the people said. OpenAI disputes the claim and says that it was always the company's intent to give actors and other public figures control over how their likeness is used.

The response was immediate.... [Big talent agencies objected, along with performers' unions and major studios.] "Decades of enforceable copyright law establishes that content owners do not need to 'opt out' to prevent infringing uses of their protected IP," Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement... The strong pushback from the creative community could be a strategy to force OpenAI into entering licensing agreements for the content they need, legal experts said... One challenge is figuring out a way that fairly compensates talent and rights holders. Several people who work within the entertainment industry ecosystem said they don't believe a flat fee works.
Meanwhile, "the complete copyright-free-for-all approach that OpenAI took to its new AI video generation model, Sora 2, lasted all of one week," writes Gizmodo. But that means the service has "now pissed off its users." As 404 Media pointed out, social channels like Twitter and Reddit are now flooded with Sora users who are angry they can't make 10-second clips featuring their favorite characters anymore. One user in the OpenAI subreddit said that being able to play with copyrighted material was "the only reason this app was so fun."
Futurism published more reactions, including ""It's official, Sora 2 is completely boring and useless with these copyright restrictions." Others accused OpenAI of abusing copyright to hype up its new app. "This is just classic OpenAI at this point," another user wrote. "They do this s*** all the time. Let people have fun for a day or two and then just start censoring like crazy." The app now has a measly 2.9-star rating on the App Store, indicative of growing disillusionment and frustration with censorship... [It's not dropped to 2.8.]

In an apparent effort to save face, Altman claimed this week that many copyright holders are actually begging to have their characters appear on Sora, instead of complaining about the trend. "In the case of Sora, we've heard from a lot of concerned rightsholders and also a lot of rightsholders who are like 'My concern is you won't put my character in enough,'" he told the a16z podcast earlier this week. "So I can completely see a world where subject to the decisions that a rightsholder has, they get more upset with us for not generating their character often enough than too much," he added. Whether most rightsholders would agree with that sentiment remains to be seen.
Business Insider offers another reaction. After watching Sora 2's main public feed, they write that Sora 2 "seems to be overrun with teenage boys."

NBC is developing a game show based on the New York Times' Wordle puzzle, with Today anchor Savannah Guthrie set to host and Jimmy Fallon executive producing through his company, Electric Hot Dog. The Times is also a production partner. From the Hollywood Reporter: Wordle, which the Times acquired in 2022 and logs billions of plays from the paper's games site annually, gives players six tries to guess a five-letter word, revealing only if letters are in the right place (via a green background) or part of the word but in the wrong place (with a gold background). Should it go forward, the Wordle show would join another Fallon-produced game show, Password, on NBC's unscripted roster. The Tonight Show emcee also executive produces and hosts the network's On Brand, a competition series that revolves around advertising and marketing.

An anonymous reader shares a report from The Verge: Microsoft is getting ready to announce an ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the software maker has started testing ad-supported games streaming internally, allowing employees to play select titles free without a Game Pass subscription.

I understand that the free ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming will include the ability to stream some games you own, as well as eligible Free Play Days titles, which let Xbox players try games over a weekend. You'll also be able to stream Xbox Retro Classics games. Sources tell me the internal testing includes around two minutes of preroll ads before a game is available to stream for free through Xbox Cloud Gaming. [...] The ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming version will be available on PC, Xbox consoles, handheld devices, and via the web.