Author: News Room

To counter Linux’s growing dominance in handheld gaming devices, Microsoft showcased Xbox mode, a lighter, gaming-focused version of Windows. Last month, Microsoft pleasantly surprised Windows users by announcing that Xbox mode would also come to Windows PCs and laptops. And that day is here. Xbox mode is finally rolling out to Windows 11 PCs, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. If you have ever wanted your PC to feel more like a console, this is the update you have been waiting for. What makes Xbox mode so exciting? Xbox mode is a full-screen, controller-optimized experience built for gaming. Think of it as…

Apple has a good problem on its hands: it simply cannot make enough Macs. On its fiscal Q2 2026 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook confirmed that demand for the Mac lineup has outpaced what the company can supply — and honestly, that’s not a sentence you’d have expected to write a few years ago when Mac growth was chugging along in iPhone’s shadow. The culprits are interesting. The Mac Mini and Mac Studio are flying off the shelves, and Cook attributes a big chunk of that to people waking up to how capable Apple Silicon is for running AI tools…

OpenAI recently started testing ads inside ChatGPT, and AI companies are already trying to figure out whether advertising inside an AI chatbot can work without annoying users. Now Google is making it clear that Gemini may not avoid that business model forever. During Alphabet’s Q1 2026 earnings call, Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler was asked directly about ads in the Gemini app. He kept the answer measured, saying Google’s current focus is the free tier, subscriptions, and AI plans, while the company is working on monetizing AI Mode in Search first. Could ads really come to the Gemini app?…

Apple has quietly discontinued the $599 Mac mini, making the 256GB model no longer available for purchase. Rather than raising its price to reflect rising memory and NAND costs, the company simply pulled it from the lineup, leaving buyers with a steeper entry point than before. Did Apple just raise the Mac mini’s price without calling it a price hike? Since Apple pulled the 256GB model from its website, the cheapest Mac mini you can buy now comes with a $799 price tag, featuring an M4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. Apple has not made an official…

Apple’s pricing strategy might be about to get… interesting again. Because after surprising everyone with the aggressively priced MacBook Neo, the company could be gearing up to pull a similar move with its next flagship iPhone. And this time, it’s the Pro models in focus. Apple reportedly going aggressive with iPhone 18 Pro pricing? A new report by analyst Jeff Pu suggests Apple is planning “aggressive pricing” for the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, but not in the way most people expect. As reported by 9to5Mac, instead of a blanket price hike, the strategy may be more nuanced. The idea seems…

For years, California’s streets have hosted a quiet double standard: a human driver caught making an illegal U-turn got a ticket, but a driverless car doing the same thing got away with it, with perhaps a call to the manufacturer. That changes now. The California DMV has announced what it calls the most important autonomous vehicle regulations in the United States. For the first time, self-driving cars can now be formally cited for breaking traffic laws (via Futurism).  What exactly can authorities do now? Quite a lot, actually. Under the new rules, authorities can issue a “Notice of AV Noncompliance”…

Microsoft Word is getting an AI legal agent, which sounds helpful until you remember how badly this has gone before. The new Legal Agent can review contracts, suggest edits, compare versions, and flag risky clauses inside Word. On paper, these features sound quite useful and convenient, however, cases of generative AI tools hallucinating and inventing entire cases, citations and quotes from thin air have dragged some real people in real court trouble before. What can Microsoft’s Legal Agent do? Microsoft says Legal Agent is available through Copilot in Word for users in its Frontier program in the U.S. It currently…

I rolled credits on Vampire Crawlers just in time to get my review for it posted this morning, but trust that I still have lots of dungeon crawling in my future. Yes, it offers plenty to do after seeing credits, with lots of unlocks still to go, but even if it didn’t, I’d still be playing. That’s because the core gameplay – building a card deck on the fly while engaging in fast, frenetic, casino-like combat remains a simple but effective blast. With so many crawlers to select, cards to utilize, and other run modifiers, no two dungeon crawls feel…

Amazon’s AI shopping assistant Rufus can now show you a full 365 days of price history for a product. In other words, you now have access to a full year’s worth of pricing data, including when the product was available for a higher or lower price, and when the last price change took place, before buying anything.  Previously, the maximum available price history was 90 days, enough to catch up on a recent sale, but not enough to know whether a limited-time offer is actually the best price a product has been available in the last year.  How do you…

In this week’s episode of The Game Informer Show, returning guest Brenden Groom (Pass The Controller) joins us to discuss why Poncle’s Vampire Crawlers and Double Fine’s new sculpture battle game, Kiln, are both great. Additionally, we dive into Charles’ review of Tides of Tomorrow, a story-focused adventure game with asynchronous multiplayer elements. It’s a neat concept, but how’s the execution?The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for chats about video game reviews, news, and exclusive reveals alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. Support the show by…