Seamus Blackley is now more often found posting photographs of the beautiful sourdough loaves he bakes, or his recent Quixotic quest to make chocolate from scratch. But Blackley’s long and extremely distinguished career in tech will probably always be defined by his role at Microsoft in the late ’90s and early ’00s when, alongside others, he spearheaded the internal drive at Microsoft towards videogames, and specifically towards the Xbox.

I blew some minds (may be an exaggeration) in the PC Gamer Slack channel the other week by mentioning where the Xbox name originated: it was based on Microsoft’s DirectX technology, and was therefore christened the DirectXbox then Xbox internally, the idea being that this was a working title and when launch came around the marketers would come up with something better. In fact, in Blackley’s words, what the marketers came up with was “garbage.” So Xbox it was.

I think there’s always been something quite utilitarian about Xbox hardware d…

ฟุตบอลยูฟ่า แชมเปี้ยนส์ ลีก

จีโรน่า 2 – เฟเยนูร์ด 3

สนาม : มูนิซิปาล เด มอนตีลีบี

เริ่มเกมมา 19 นาที จีโรน่า ขึ้นนำ 1-0 จากลูกเตะมุมที่ วิคตอร์ ซีกานคอฟ เปิดมาให้ โบยาน มิออฟสกี้ โหม่งไปติดแนวรับทีมเยือนเด้งมาเข้าทาง ดาบิด โลเปซ ยิงซ้ำระยะเผาขนตุงตาข่าย

อย่างไรก็ตาม เฟเยนูร์ด มาตีเสมอ 1-1 ได้ในนาทีที่ 23 อีกอร์ ไป�…

เซบาสเตียน เฮอเนส เทรนเนอร์ สตุ๊ตการ์ท กล่าวถึงเกมรับมือ สปาร์ต้า ปราก บนเวทีแชมเปี้ยนส์ลีก วันอังคารนี้เป็นเกมพิเศษสำหรับเมือง, สโมสรและผู้คนที่นี่ เนื่องจากเป็นการลงเล่นรายการนี้ในบ้านครั้งแรกนับตั้งแต่ฤดูกาล 2009-2010 ตามรายงานจาก สกาย เยอรมนี เมื่อวันจันทร์ที่ผ่านมา

คำพูดจาก สล็อตเว็บตรง

สตุ๊ตการ์ท ประเดิมสนามใน�…

Y’know, I was always more of a Bratz girl, but something about the upcoming Barbie movie has an absolute chokehold on me. As if I wasn’t already prepared to dedicate my entire self to life in plastic, this Xbox collaboration including controllers and a gorgeous Barbie Dreamhouse console has me on my hands and knees, begging to be a Barbie girl in an Xbox world.

Upsettingly, it’s not something I can simply throw money at and gleefully display for all to see. They’re being given away in a competition starting on July 10 via the Xbox Twitter and Microsoft Rewards programme. Up for grabs is a bright fuschia Xbox Series S complete with Barbie The Movie branding. It’s tucked away inside a three-tier baby pink Barbie Dreamhouse with little loungers, a glittery bed and even a pool complete with little rubber rings and the classic Barbie “B” symbol. It’s garish in the best possible way.

There are also some interchangeable controller faceplates for the SCUF Instinct pad inspired b…

• XFX SPEEDSTER RX 6800 | 16GB GDDR6 | 3,840 shaders | $459.99 $369.99
• PNY Verto RTX 4060 Ti | 8GB GDDR6 | 4,352 shaders | $379.99 $364.99

The cheapest version of a high end GPU is often where the best pixel-pumping value is to be had. Give it up, therefore, for the XFX Speedster SWFT319 Radeon RX 6800, yours for a piffling $369 from Amazon. 

Lest you have forgotten, the plain vanilla AMD Radeon RX 6800 launched almost exactly three years ago, along with other members of the AMD RDNA family, with a list price of precisely $579.

Of course, a perfect storm of crypto madness and pandemic-fuelled stay-at-home demand drove prices to as much as three times that level at one point. So, this new lowest-ever sticker of well under $400 is a deal by any reasonable measure.

For your money you get cut-down version of the same excellent Navi 21 chip found in the …

The city of Wichita, Kansas, has reached a $5 million settlement with the family of Andrew Finch, who was shot and killed by police responding to a swatting call in 2017.

The incident arose from a dispute between two players in an online Call of Duty match, which led one to engage the services of a notorious swatter who went by the name of Swautistic. But the target of the swatting provided a false address, which led police to Finch’s home. They surrounded the house, but when Finch stepped out onto his porch to see what was going on, police officer Justin Rapp shot and killed him almost immediately. Finch was unarmed and unaware of the police action around his house.

Criminal charges were not filed against Rapp in the case, but the family understandably brought a lawsuit against the city in 2018. According to the Wichita Eagle, the city fought the family in court for five years through appeals and attempting to have it thrown out. Wichita was eventually removed from the …

When we review a gaming laptop, we really put it through its paces—and only the strong survive. Our Jacob knows his gaming laptops better than just about anyone, and he gave this particular Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 a score of 90 in his review.

I can’t think of a better recommendation than that.

This little lappy sits as the best 14-inch gaming laptop in our best gaming laptop guide, and you can pick one up right now for $1,700 at Best Buy. That might seem like a lot for a small machine, but what you’re getting here is a set of components that are set to stun, wrapped up in a chassis that feels miles ahead of the competition.

Let’s talk about the shining star of this machine: its 14-inch OLED 120 Hz display. It’s got fantastic color and contrast, and the fact it’s a slightly larger 16:10 aspect ratio means—even at such a compact size—you don’t feel too constrained for screen real estate. It’s a real looker in person, and games bring out its best quali…

After so many years of Sims series dominance, we’re about to have tons of Sims competitors in the life simulation space. The prettiest one of the bunch, announced late last year, is called “inZOI,” and it’s being made by PUBG publisher Krafton of all places. Inzoi is expected to launch at some point this year and the developers have just revealed a lot of features planned for the game in a new video this week.

As its developers note, we don’t know a ton about Inzoi yet, so they wanted to show off lots of things they’ve been working on in the upcoming life sim. Here’s the quick and skimmable list of what they covered:

• Drivable cars with color customization (and car accidents?)
• Autosave functionality
• Group activities like karaoke, chess, and visiting cafes
• Difficulty settings controlling how quickly you can progress relationships
• A reputation system based on your good and bad actions
• City editing features for controlling …
  

The PC servers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (the one from 2009, not the recent one, yes I’m still upset about this) have gone down temporarily after players of the venerable classic reported encountering hacked lobbies in the game’s multiplayer mode. Not ordinary hacked lobbies, mind you—the ones that just reset your settings or do something else mildly aggravating—these ones were apparently infecting players with a self-spreading worm virus.

A post last Wednesday on the official Call of Duty Updates Twitter account reads that “Multiplayer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) on Steam was brought offline while we investigate reports of an issue.” Eagle-eyed readers will note that the tweet very specifically does not mention which “issue” in particular the shutdown is related to, but given that it came a month after players began reporting encounters with a worm called Wacatac.B!ml in MW2 lobbies, it seems likely it’s related.

Either that, …