Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Ubisoft's The Crew Lawsuit: A Fight Over Game Ownership

2025-04-11

Ubisoft's shutdown of The Crew's servers has sparked a legal battle over game ownership. Plaintiffs argue that Ubisoft's removal of the game from their libraries and the inability to play after server closure constitutes deceptive business practices, pointing to the game's activation code validity until 2099 and in-game currency as further evidence. Ubisoft counters that the purchase agreement clearly grants only a license, not ownership. The lawsuit has ignited calls for legislation protecting players from server shutdowns and the loss of access to purchased digital games, highlighting the ongoing debate over ownership in the age of digital distribution and live-service games.

(www.techspot.com)

Game game ownership digital games

Mozilla Launches Thunderbird Pro: A Paid Upgrade for its Open-Source Email Client

2025-04-01

Mozilla is launching Thunderbird Pro, a paid suite of services designed to enhance its open-source email client, Thunderbird. The suite includes Thundermail (a Gmail-like email service), Thunderbird Appointment (a scheduling tool), Thunderbird Send (a file-sharing service), and Thunderbird Assist (an experimental AI service). Initially, Thunderbird Pro will be free for active community contributors, but will eventually require payment for others. Mozilla may introduce limited free tiers later. This move aims to offer a fully open-source, freedom-respecting alternative to competitors like Gmail and Office 365.

(www.techspot.com)

Development Paid Services

AMD's Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs Sell 10x More Units in First Week

2025-03-25

AMD CEO Lisa Su announced that the Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards have been a phenomenal success, selling ten times more units than their predecessors in their first week on the market. This success is attributed to AMD's focus on delivering top-tier gaming performance at competitive prices. While current supply is limited and prices are exceeding MSRP, AMD is aggressively increasing production. More RDNA 4 cards are on the way, with the rumored RX 9060 potentially included in the lineup.

(www.techspot.com)

Hardware

TCL Overtakes LG in Premium TV Shipments

2025-03-05

TCL has surpassed LG to become the world's second-largest premium TV vendor in Q4 2024, according to Counterpoint Research. TCL's premium TV shipments more than doubled year-on-year, capturing a 20% market share, exceeding LG's 19%. While Samsung remains the leader, TCL's impressive growth, along with that of Hisense, signals a significant shift in the global TV market. Despite strong premium TV growth, the overall TV market saw slower growth, and new tariffs on Mexican-produced TVs could impact the industry.

(www.techspot.com)

Hardware Premium TV Market Share

Atari's Limited Edition Asteroids Watches Sell Out Instantly

2025-01-30

To celebrate the 45th anniversary of the iconic game Asteroids, Atari and luxury watch brand Nubeo have collaborated on a limited-edition watch. This unique timepiece displays time in an unconventional way using a Japanese automatic movement that drives three discs. The smallest central disc features the original Asteroids triangular ship firing, acting as the second hand. The outer two discs, filled with asteroids, represent the minute and hour hands. Priced at $499 (originally $1650), each of the five styles is limited to 125 pieces and has already sold out. The design is inspired by the Atari 2600 console, and features Swiss Super-LumiNova glow-in-the-dark ink, 21 ATM water resistance, and comes in a retro-styled protective case.

(www.techspot.com)

Game Limited Edition Watch

Hubble's Epic Panorama: 200 Million Stars in Andromeda Galaxy

2025-01-25

The Hubble Space Telescope has created its largest-ever panorama of the Andromeda galaxy, showcasing over 200 million stars after more than a decade of work. Composed of over 600 individual Hubble images, this 2.5-billion-pixel mosaic reveals unprecedented detail of our galactic neighbor. Astronomers will use this data to study Andromeda's age, heavy element abundance, stellar masses, and its merger history with other galaxies. This monumental achievement provides invaluable data for understanding the evolution of the universe. The successor to Hubble, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is set to launch in 2027 and will capture even higher resolution images.

(www.techspot.com)

Tech

Nvidia Unveils RTX 50 Blackwell GPUs: A $2000 Flagship and DLSS 4's Ambitious Claims

2025-01-07

Nvidia launched its highly anticipated GeForce RTX 50 series at CES 2025, featuring the new Blackwell architecture and DLSS 4. The lineup includes the $2000 RTX 5090, $1000 RTX 5080, $749 RTX 5070 Ti, and $549 RTX 5070. While Nvidia boasts impressive performance claims – notably the RTX 5070 allegedly matching the RTX 4090 with DLSS 4 – real-world benchmarks are needed. The cards feature increased CUDA cores, memory bandwidth, and VRAM, but also significantly higher power consumption. DLSS 4's multi-frame generation raises questions about latency and image quality. Overall, the RTX 50 series shows decent performance improvements and value, although the gap between the top-tier and others is vast, and the RTX 5070's 12GB VRAM might prove limiting.

(www.techspot.com)

Hardware

AMD CPUs Now 40% of Steam Users: A Record Year for Team Red

2025-01-05

The latest Steam survey reveals AMD CPUs have reached a record-high 40% market share among users, driven by the success of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Intel's struggles with 13th and 14th-gen instability. While AMD GPUs are making gains, Nvidia's RTX 40 and 30 series remain dominant. Windows 11 leads in Steam users, but Windows 10 maintains a stronger global market share.

(www.techspot.com)

Tech Steam Survey

Streaming Fatigue Hits Americans: Spending on Subscriptions Decreases

2025-01-04

Americans spent an average of $42.38 per month on streaming subscriptions in 2024, a 23% decrease from 2023. The abundance of streaming services has led to "streaming fatigue," with users feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. Many are sharing accounts, reducing subscriptions, or turning to free services to save money. The average American has two subscriptions and watches 3 hours and 49 minutes of content daily. Facing economic pressures and streaming fatigue, consumers are seeking more affordable entertainment options.

(www.techspot.com)

Tech subscriptions consumer trends

Russia's Homegrown Consoles Fail to Match PS5, Xbox Series X

2024-12-31

Russia's attempt to create its own game consoles is facing difficulties. One console, powered by the Elbrus processor, lacks the performance to compete with the PS5 or Xbox Series X. Another, a cloud-gaming console from MTS, costs only $45 and relies on a cloud gaming platform. The Russian government admits these consoles can't compete with current-gen machines but aims to promote domestic game development.

(www.techspot.com)

Game Russian consoles Elbrus processor cloud gaming