Speaking to YouTube channel Kallaway (via Tech Crunch), El Zuck took aim at what he sees as the competition's overly messianic approach to AI development.

"I find it a pretty big turnoff when people in the tech industry talk about building this 'one true AI,'. It’s almost as if they think they’re creating God or something. That’s not what we’re doing, I don’t think that’s how this plays out,” Zuckerberg said.

He also criticised what he saw as a monopolistic approach to AI development. "Some people are saying that there's going to be the one true big AI that can do everything and I just don't think that that's the way that things tend to go. I get why if you're in some AI lab you want to feel like what you're doing is super important, like 'we're building the one true thing for the future'."

"But I just think realistically that's not that's not how stuff works. It's not like there was one app on people's phones that people use. There's not one creator that people want all their content from, there's not one app that people want all their content from, there's not one business that people want to buy everything from."

He has a point, although he makes it without any sense of irony. After all, Meta gives every bit the impression of wanting to own absolutely as much of our digital lives as humanly possible.

Facebook started off as an online directory for college students to check out how hot their classmates were. Now it wants in on all your social activities, on everything you sell, the messages you send, who you date, the works. If Zuckerberg's Metaverse isn't his attempt to make Meta the universal app for pretty much everything, I'm not sure what it is.

Indeed, the cynical might suggest that what's really driving Zuckerberg's comments is his fear that Meta is increasingly being marginalised in the AI space. Apple recently chose to go with OpenAI for its AI technology on iPhone, iPad and Mac, for instance, which threatens to make Meta's products less relevant to a very, very large customer base.

Much of the rest of the interview covered Zuckerberg's vision of the future, which largely involves smartglasses gradually replacing smartphones. Zuckerberg doesn't see that happening immediately, he still thinks we'll have phones in our pockets in 10 years. It's just we'll be reaching for them a lot less often.

Add in head-up displays and wristbands that intercept signals from the brain, allowing users to do things like type with little to no actual hand movement, and you get an idea of the future according to The Zuck. It's a bit creepy.

Whatever, it's a broad ranging interview and you don't need to be a fan of Zuckerberg or really even think much of what he says makes sense to find it interesting. For better or worse, he's unarguably an extremely influential figure with an dominant position in social media and the ability to spend billions of dollars pushing technology and how we use it in whatever direction he fancies.

Actually, no. Security outfit 0patch (via Neowin) says it's going to effectively extend Windows 10's lifespan by at least five years with its own security updates. What's more, unlike Microsoft's Windows Update service, which is famously intrusive, usually requires rebooting and can eat up a lot of time, 0patch says it takes a totally different approach.

To quote 0patch itself, it aims to deliver, "miniature patches of code (“micropatches”) to computers and other devices worldwide in order to fix software vulnerabilities in various, even closed source products. With 0patch, there are no reboots or downtime when patching and no fear that a huge official update will break production."

Its updates are said to be as easily reversible as they are installable, making it straightforward to undo any changes that cause problems.

Of course, you also have the option of stumping up for what Microsoft calls its Extended Security Updates service for Windows 10. That kicks in immediately upon the end of Microsoft's standard support program for Windows 10.

What's not known for now is how much the Microsoft Extended Security Updates service costs. Meanwhile, 0patch charges 24.95 EUR (call that $27) for an annual subscription.

It's pretty hard to judge comparative effectiveness for this kind of product, especially as Microsoft's service doesn't begin for over a year. But we certainly like the sound of 0patch's lightweight approach that doesn't require reboots. Its five-year commitment also beats the three-year limit on Microsoft's paid service.

Either way, it's good to know that you have at least two options for keeping a Windows 10 box running a while longer after the standard security net is pulled away.

Steam's new Game Recording feature promises to reduce at least some of those headaches by building the whole thing into the client, and—this is big for people like me—automatically recording your gaming sessions in the background. Videos can be viewed directly through the Steam client or overlay, and clips can be easily taken and shared.

I tried the new system with a spot of Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and it worked quite well. After updating to the latest Steam client beta, I hopped into the settings menu and enabled automatic recording, then fired up the game and started blasting. 

There was no noticeable impact on performance, and the clips that came out at the end were smooth and sharp. Clips can be saved in Steam or exported to MP4 format, and there are also options to share through Steam chat, to mobile devices, or to send them to other devices.

Importantly, Steam Game Recording only records gameplay, not your desktop, so you don't have to worry about accidentally revealing your freaky desktop wallpaper in Steam chat. Even the Steam overlay doesn't show up in recordings: I tried it, and got a nice, quiet few minutes of my rugged super-soldier standing on the side of a hill while my cursor bounced around, seemingly pointing at nothing.

The default recording length is 120 minutes, and you can adjust through five levels of quality depending on how much space you want to surrender to your recordings. At default settings—120 minutes, high quality—the estimated drive usage is 10.8GB; at lowest setting that goes down to 1.35GB, and at highest it's 21.6GB of storage required. You can also opt to record audio only from the game, from the game and your microphone, or all system audio if you wanted to do that for some reason.

I did have an issue with some audio choppiness and popping at points, but I don't know if that's an issue with Steam's new recording system—which, again, is still in beta testing—or the fact that I was trying to play Breakpoint with a half-dozen other programs running and 40 browser tabs open. My rig is a little aged at this point, after all.

It's not a do-it-all solution: Steam Game Recording won't record anything outside of Steam, naturally, so it won't save you during those presentations that you really need to record. Nor will it do you any good with Epic exclusives or those retro beauties on GOG.

But it does greatly simplify the process of recording gameplay videos on the platform most of us spend the vast majority of our time on: You literally don't even have to think about it if you don't want to, it's just there. 

That's what I find most appealing about it. Serious video editors may find Steam's recording system lacking in features, but as a fire-and-forget system for sharing cool moments with your friends or uploading to Tiktok, I think it looks great. It's simple and convenient as hell, and for most of us that's a bullseye—although if you prefer to manually switch recording on and off, you can do it that way too. It's also fully Steam Deck-compatible, which is a pretty big deal all on its own.

To try out Steam Game Recording yourself, you'll need to be enrolled in the Steam client beta. Go to the settings menu, then select "interface," and choose either "Steam Beta Update" or "Steam Families Beta" from the beta option. Install the latest update, and you'll see a new Game Record option in the settings menu. Hop in and have fun.

That's according to a recent statement by the European Commission (EC), in which it reports its preliminary findings in an antitrust investigation into Microsoft and its cloud-based communication application, Teams. That all kicked off when Slack Technologies (now owned by Salesforce) lodged a complaint with the EC in 2020, in which it alleged that Microsoft had illegally tied Teams to its productivity software packages.

Three years later, the EC opened an investigation as to whether Microsoft was in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, essentially a law that prohibits companies from abusing a dominant position in the EU market. Around the same time, Alphaview (a developer of video-conferencing software) also lodged a similar complaint, and the EC has decided to adjust the investigation so that it covers both allegations.

In its statement, the Commission writes that Microsoft has been "restricting competition on the market for communication and collaboration products" and that the changes Microsoft had put into place when the EC commenced its investigation are "insufficient to address its concerns and that more changes to Microsoft's conduct are necessary to restore competition."

The changes in question were quite simple: Microsoft stopped including Teams with its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscriptions for Switzerland and countries in the European Economic Area (EEA). It also adjusted its software to allow companies, such as Zoom and Slack, to create integrated solutions for products like Exchange, Outlook and, of course, Teams.

However, the European Commission is still concerned that "Microsoft may have granted Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications" and that its "conduct may have prevented Teams' rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area."

If the EC's concerns are confirmed by the investigation, after Microsoft has carried out a defence of its actions, then the EC can impose a fine of up to 10% of the company's annual worldwide turnover. In 2023, Microsoft's total revenue was just over $210 billion, so the fine would be the largest ever issued, in the company's history with the EC, by a factor of almost 10.

Even for a company with the world's largest market capitalisation, twenty-odd billion dollars is hardly small change. Not that the news worried investors, as Microsoft's share prices showed no signs of dropping in value. I have no doubt that It will contest the Commission's findings, but whether it will just pay the fine or make Teams a completely separate package is anyone's guess right now.

In the meantime, I'll just munch on some popcorn and watch what happens. Popcorn's a healthy snack, did you know that? Tasty, too. Much nicer to eat than a certain cloud-based communications and collaboration tool, that's for sure.

In a post on its site, the Internet Archive calls the decision a "devastating loss" (via Ars Technica) and is in the process of appealing the ruling in order to return access to all users. The organisation claims that the service does not impact e-book revenue nor does it breach any particular law. At the moment, patrons with print disabilities are still able to borrow digital copies of the books in question.

Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive is perhaps best known for its first digital record of history, Wayback Machine. With over 800 billion web pages stored since its inception, the nonprofit service is perfect for seeing how the web has changed over the decades. Over time, the Internet Archive added more projects, keeping records of software, games, video, and digital scans of published materials.

The latter ultimately spawned the Open Library in 2006, with purchased books being offered on loan as e-books, under a system of controlled digital lending (CDL). This method is employed by many public and academic institutions to lend books to people who would otherwise not be able to borrow a physical copy, due to location or physical restrictions.

However, in 2020, four of the largest publishers—Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House—sued Internet Archive, claiming that the organization's actions were impacting the publishers' e-book licencing revenue and that the Internet Archive was breaching copyright law.

In a 2022 interview with Publishers Weekly, Maria Pallante, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, said that CDL is "a baseless justification for infringement and antithetical to both copyright law and common sense. The law is clear that formats are distinguishable, meaning that no one may distribute digital bootlegs of tangible copies, whether they are ripping hardcover books, vinyl albums, or compact discs."

Two months ago, a New York district judge ruled in favour of the publishers, dismissing the Internet Archive's claims that the lending of books in a digital format, falls under first-sale and fair use laws. Although the plaintiffs comprised four publishers, around 40 other publishers were also covered in the lawsuit, and the judge's decision resulted in the removal of access to more than 500,000 books in the Open Library database.

If the appeal is unsuccessful, it's almost certain that other publishers may also consider taking legal action against the Internet Archive, as its e-book database currently hosts over one million books and other published materials.

Chris Freeland, the director of library services at Internet Archive, wrote in a blog last week that "[t]he potential repercussions of this lawsuit extend far beyond the Internet Archive. This is a fight for the preservation of all libraries, and the fundamental right to access information, a cornerstone of any democratic society."

The views of the publishers on that particular matter are unknown but one thing is clear: Those companies are going to fight tooth and nail to ensure that all e-book libraries continue to pay licensing fees for all their published works.

On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we've gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2024 games that are launching this year. 

Murky Divers

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 20
Developer:‌ Embers

Here's a brilliantly morbid online coop game about erasing the evidence of your employer's heinous experiments. Trouble is, the evidence is the bodies of murdered colleagues, and the workplace is an abandoned lab at the bottom of the ocean. That means long dubious trips to the darkest reaches of the ocean, and then long dubious trips back with corpses in tow. It better pay well! And to make matters even worse, there are hideous creatures to contend with. Murky Divers is an Early Access game: studio Embers expects to add a lot of new stuff over the next 12 months, including new beasts, biomes and more. In the meantime, this is getting some great early reviews, and will probably appeal to people who found Subnautica a bit too chill.

Drug Dealer Simulator 2

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 21
Developer:‌ Byterunners

This first-person crime sim is set in the early 2000s on the tropical island of Isla Sombra. As the name of the game implies, this sleepy isle is where you'll be doling out contraband to all and sundry, while either avoiding (or perhaps colluding) with cops. The open world is apparently "six times" bigger than the open world in the first Drug Dealer Simulator, and there are even more ways to acquire and produce drugs. If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a drug dealer but, for whatever reason, have felt disinclined to enter that world IRL, why not simulate it?

Republic of Pirates

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 20
Developers:‌ Crazy Goat Games

It's been a good year for videogames about pirates, and this latest entry in the canon takes a different tack to most, with a focus on building a pirate utopia. Yes, it's a city builder essentially, but one with a big focus on developing and maintaining infrastructure that can facilitate waterborne robbery. Keeping pirates happy is also a pretty important component—I'm guessing you'll be building loads of distilleries—and never fear: naval combat is here, albeit from a top down perspective. If you're looking for something more complex and strategic than Skull & Bones' "go here and shoot this boat" format, this could be the ticket.

Dystopika

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 22
Developer:‌ Voids Within

Dystopika belongs to the burgeoning genre of stress-free city builder—think Townscaper—except instead of peaceful 'n' pastoral idylls, you're building a sprawling cyberpunk metropolis. Everything implied by cyberpunk is here: ginormous billboards, towering skyscrapers, flying vehicles, and endless rain. As someone who spent a lot of my time in Cyberpunk 2077 just slowly walking around at night, this definitely has its appeal.  I guess it also rubs shoulders with Cloudpunk,   in the sense that it's a mood-first, conflict-free cyberpunk experience.

It's Just a Prank

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 22
Developer:‌ Bober Bros

A fascinatingly creepy first-person horror game about kids playing pranks on each other. I don't really know much else about It's Just A Prank; I'm mostly including it because the face models here are among the most exquisitely disturbing I've seen for a while. Which is a good thing! This is a 40 minute narrative-driven affair, and I'm guessing that the less you know about it going in, the better.

The ban doesn't just apply to the sale of Kaspersky products, but also means that US customers will not receive updates to existing versions of Kaspersky software in general (via Bleeping Computer). Any US customers affected will need to switch to alternative antivirus and security software to stay protected from future threats.

As of midnight ET on July 20, 2024, Kaspersky will be banned from entering into new agreements with US customers, while updates will be prohibited from midnight ET, September 29.

Several reasons are given for the ban, primary of which is the assertion that Kaspersky is subject to the jurisdiction of the Russian government, and is therefore required to comply with requests for information. The BIS says that this could lead to the exploitation of access to sensitive information on devices using Kaspersky's software.

"Russia has shown time and again they have the capability and intent to exploit Russian companies, like Kaspersky Lab, to collect and weaponize sensitive U.S. information, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to safeguard U.S. national security and the American people" said US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo.

"Today’s action, our first use of the Commerce Department’s ICTS authorities, demonstrates Commerce's role in support of our national defence and shows our adversaries we will not hesitate to act when their technology poses a risk to the United States and its citizens."

Kaspersky Lab has repeatedly been accused of ties with the Russian government, allegations that it has strongly denied. In September 2017, the US federal government ordered government agencies to remove any Kaspersky Lab products from their internal systems, while the UK National Cyber Security Centre had previously warned UK government departments to avoid using any Russian-based antivirus software, citing similar concerns.

This, however, is a significant escalation, and a nationwide US ban on products for consumer use is a mark against any company's international reputation. While Kaspersky's AV has long been lauded as an effective antivirus solution—and often performs extremely well in independent testing—these latest developments are likely to shake confidence in the software for users worldwide.

How weird would that be in your actual day-to-day? Well, it's real, and a bank in the United States is rolling out this sort of system to its customer call centres, as American Banker's Penny Crosman reports.

First Horizon Bank is opting for this system as a way to keep its call centre agents relaxed over long shifts of dealing with the public—I get it, people can be horrible. The bank hopes the system could help deal with burnout among agents.

It all relies on Cisco's AI model for call centres, Webex Contact Center—after all, only AI could make something so intrinsically weird. It requires monitoring of an agent's stress levels through various markers, including responses to customers. Cisco says this information isn't retained. 

Altogether, the system is able to piece together a picture of an agent's day-to-day stress level.

"Different people basically break at different breakpoints," Aruna Ravichandran, SVP and customer officer at Webex by Cisco, says to American Banker.

When an agent is close to their breaking point, the system recognises this and runs—I can't believe this is actually what this is called—a Thrive Reset.

A Thrive Reset is a montage of personal photos, set to music, with inspirational quotes. Thankfully, agents pick their own photos and songs—it might be a little too bleak for an AI to generate some fake family vacation snaps set to Tiny Tim's Tiptoe Through the Tulips. 

Have you seen the Apple TV original Severance? It's the equivalent of the egg bar social.

At this point in writing this story, I assume this is entirely made up. There's no way it's called a Thrive Reset, I tell myself. Alas, the videos are made by very real 'productivity and health platform', Thrive Global. And yep, Thrive Global integrates with Webex Contact Center. And just to be extra sure, Ravichandran is a real person, too.

And, apparently, the system works. That's the thing I can't really get my head around. It sounds awful, but in a number of trials, First Horizon saw at least double digit reductions in levels of burnout in agents. In other pilot schemes for so-called Thrive Resets, agents preferred this sort of break to just having some free time. Customer satisfaction also increased a couple of percentage points.

Trialled earlier in the year, and with plans to roll out the system even further by March, First Horizon Bank should have the system handing out montages to 3,000 agents by now.

So, if agents are happier and customers are happier, who am I to turn my nose up at this burgeoning AI use case? Nope, sorry, this is all too alternate timeline Corporate America for me. I prefer getting my workplace rage out the traditional way: bottling it up until I can buy a new overpriced item of clothing or gadget to give me a fleeting sense of control over my own life. 

Phew, that's better.

On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we've gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2024 games that are launching this year. 

Troma Presents Poultrygeist

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 11
Developer:‌ Big Weasel Lil Weasel LLC, Mike Fallek

Troma is a cult film company specialising in schlocky comedy horror, and Poultrygeist (the game) is a sequel of sorts to the 2006 film Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. As you have probably gathered by now, the satire here is far from sophisticated. In fact, it's dumb as shit! That's the Troma way. This sequel-as-game is a visual novel about "the murder of a chicken and destruction of a lawn mower that teeters the city closer to a riot and an even more powerful looming magical threat." Notwithstanding any aversion to the visual novel as a genre, I cannot imagine why fans of narrative-driven computer adventures would not want to see how this one plays out. Or else, wait for the forthcoming Toxic Crusaders beat 'em up.

SunnySide

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 15
Developer:‌ RainyGames

SunnySide takes the core rhythms of cosy life games and drapes it in anime cloth. Set in a quiet town in the Japanese countryside, there's the obligatory farming, resource gathering, homemaking and socialising (yes, there's romance). Some aspects of your routine can eventually be automated, chiefly gardening: it may come as a relief to hear that watering systems exist in the SunnySide universe. Indeed, offering a modern spin on these chore aspects of life games is part of SunnySide's sales pitch, with the Steam page warning that "SunnySide is a Farm Sim with no watering cans, shipping containers, gift based socializing, mayonnaise machines, or endless walking". It also places a greater emphasis on a slowly unfolding narrative concerning the citizens of the town.

Messy Up

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 14
Developers:‌ Liquid Meow

Here's another one of those pastel-hued local multiplayer games that have become very popular in the wake of Overcooked. This one has a premise that appeals to me: one team plays as pets, the other as humans. The pets' objective is to destroy the world, chiefly because their human owners aren't giving them enough attention, while the human team needs to put a stop to their pets' nefarious ways. There are various game modes, lots of pets to unlock, and the levels take place in varied locales such as home, the beach, the office, and a castle. Watching cats destroy things (that don't belong to me) never gets old.

Psychroma

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 12
Developer:‌ Rocket Adrift

Psychroma is a neon-hued psychological horror sidescroller with some of the most meticulously detailed pixel art I've seen in a while. Set in a "haunted cybernetic house" somewhere in an unrecognisable future Toronto, you take the role of a drifter who has the peculiar skill of being able to experience time out of order. This strange house is a refuge of sorts for people rendered homeless by a ruthless housing crisis, and part of the appeal of Psychroma is the ability to absorb other inhabitants' "digital ghosts" to access their stories. This looks like a richly atmospheric experience, and there's a demo if you'd like to try it out first.

The Powder Toy

Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ June 15
Developer:‌ The Powder Toy Team

The Powder Toy has been around since 2008, but last week marks its first appearance on Steam. It's basically a particle physics sandbox with a huge emphasis on user-generated content, and with it you can simulate explosions, construct "miniaturized" power plants, and even build your own CPUs. Those are just the examples taken from Steam; the possibilities are limited only by your own curiosity. It's a weirdly powerful simulator, and a real labour of love, especially since it's completely free to download.

"I wanted to show that nature can still beat the machine and that there is still merit in real work from real creatives," the photographer told PetaPixel. "After seeing recent instances of AI-generated imagery beating actual photos in competitions, I started thinking about turning the story and its implications around by submitting a real photo into an AI competition."

Back in 2022, AI artist Jason Allen won first prize in the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition. An uproar followed, and we asked Allen for his thoughts. "I think the backlash is par for the course for any major advancement in technology as it pertains to art", he said. "Such was the case with the camera, threatening portrait artists in the past, where the guy 'didn't have to do anything except press a button.' Of course, we know that is ridiculous now, but it takes time to accept new eras of art advances."

Then in 2023 Boris Eldagsen won the creative open category in the Sony World Photography Awards before revealing his image was created by AI. "AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this", he said at the time. "They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award."

Eldagsen was trying to make the point that photography awards were not ready for AI, and he seems to have been right. The 1839 competition's judges include directors and managers from The New York Times, Christie's, Getty Images, and the Maddox Gallery, none of whom were able to tell the difference between an AI creation and a real photograph of a flamingo tucking its head away.