Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was released back in November 2024, but it wasn’t a smooth launch. Not only did cloud server issues raise frustrations across the player base, but there were numerous bugs and other technical problems that ruined the experience. In our own test, we saw for ourselves that while Microsoft and Aerosoft had delivered a solid gaming experience, there were still some areas that needed improvements. Fortunately, the developers have been working on MSFS 2024 tirelessly in the months since. Last week, Aerosoft released a huge patch called Sim Update 2, which fixes over 5,000 bugs. The corrections involves everything from general game features to graphical glitches to aircraft model enhancements to improved overall stability and performance. Patch 1.4.20.0 is the biggest update for MSFS 2024 to date, rectifying most of the worst issues and making the game more than playable again. But will it be enough to convince players who turned their backs on the game to return? According to SteamDB, MSFS 2024 has been hitting a 30-day peak concurrent player count of about 4,000 players, which is a far cry down from the all-time peak of 24,000 concurrent players back in November. In addition, the Anniversary Edition of MSFS 2020 remains more popular among Steam users. And with the game’s availability on Game Pass, those numbers should be even higher than that. It’s been about a week since the Sim Update 2 patch dropped, and so far it doesn’t seem to have moved the needle on player count very much, and that’s despite useful improvements like weather effects and a new career mode. But the developers are nevertheless working hard on further updates. According to the blog post, the next big patch is already in the works and can be tested by beta players. Read...

Microsoft has begun testing a new power-saving technology within Windows, as well as assigning AI actions to a right-click menu within File Explorer. Microsoft is also tweaking the way in which widgets are laid out, letting Copilot handle the decisions itself. Microsoft published the changes as part of the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4151 (Beta Channel) and Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5603 (Dev Channel), which share many of the same features. By testing these features, Microsoft doesn’t necessarily have to commit to eventually rolling them out, although many appear to be under consideration for a more general release. Under the hood, Microsoft said that it’s testing out what it calls User Interaction-Aware CPU Power Management, “an OS-level enhancement that helps reduce power consumption and extend your battery life.” Laptops can drop into various power states, such as idle or hibernate; this appears to be slightly different. “After a period of inactivity on your PC, Windows now conserves power by automatically applying efficient power management policies, Microsoft says. But it’s difficult to say when this will happen, how sharp the decline in performance and power will be, and how much your laptop’s battery life will improve as a result. Microsoft does promise that when you begin working again, your device will regain full performance. Microsoft is also applying “Click To Do” assignments to File Explorer. Right-click a file, and you may see options for Bing Visual Search, Blur Background, Erase Objects, and Remove Background. Click to Do in File Explorer within Windows.Microsoft Essentially, what Microsoft is doing is using these right-click commands as a macro of sorts. Right-click a file and select “Blur Background,” for example, and Windows will open the Photos application, use AI to distinguish the subject from the background, and then blur the background. “Bing Visual Search” will “open” the file and then visually search for it, using Bing. Only JPEG and PNG files are supported. We will add Microsoft 365 files and actions over the coming weeks, summarizing files (without even opening them explicitly!) and creating FAQs. A Copilot-generated file summary.Microsoft Although the file name should serve as its summary, hovering over a shared file and seeing what it includes could be rather handy. How do you feel about widgets? I tend to forget that they’re hiding behind the small weather icon to my lower left. But if you do click them, several suggested stories and small apps open up. In this case, you might see a relatively mammoth block open up, as Copilot begins suggesting either stories or packages of stories. Here’s the way that will look: Microsoft’s new Copilot-authored design in Widgets.Microsoft This Copilot Discover view can be toggled on and off. Microsoft is also testing some smaller changes: Snipping Tool: Although WIN+SHIFT+S launches the Snipping tool, a new feature — Text Extractor — is receiving its own shortcut, WIN+SHIFT+T. Windows Share: When sharing documents, you can specify the image quality (affecting the size of the image) as either High, Medium, or Low Quality. Microsoft Taskbar Search: Microsoft will tell you whether a searched document is in the cloud or on your PC. Quick Settings: The accessibility settings now come with text descriptions. Developer settings are now available, under Settings > System > Advanced. Read...

A UK Health Security Agency spokesperson said the risk to the general public is `very low`. Read...

External GPUs are super freakin’ cool, at least to me. Plugging an ultraportable laptop into USB-C and then getting the phenomenal cosmic power of a gaming desktop is my pure, platonic ideal of personal computing. Asus has been at the front of this very small market, and its newest design for full-power desktop GPUs has got me drooling. The ROG XG Station 3 breaks from previous designs that had a fully encased GPU, instead opting to simply let you plug a card into a PCIe slot on a sturdy base and let it breathe free in the open air. That might cause some noise issues, but it gets rid of any size restrictions, as frame-style designs from smaller vendors have discovered. Tucked into that big beefy slab is a 330-watt power supply, though you can upgrade it with any SFX-compatible unit. If you’re wondering where the power rail is, the promo shots are using an Asus BTF card with a custom power delivery solution that can plug into the motherboard/dock. The XG Station 3 can also use a standard 12V 2×6 connector for wider compatibility with non-Asus BTF cards. So between the PCIe slot and the flexibility options, it should work with any card on the market right now, though you might need to swap out the power supply if you want an RTX 5090 or similar. Asus What about connecting to your laptop? The dock uses Thunderbolt 5, the newest, fastest standard that’s… actually really hard to find on any recent gaming or productivity laptop. Well, that’s a bummer. But the fact that Asus is making this product, even for an admittedly tiny niche of power users, would seem to indicate that the capability will be coming at least in the same general timeline, sometime later this year or in early 2026. Call it “future-proofing,” if you can stomach the term. With 80Gbps of throughput, it should be more than fast enough to take advantage of the most powerful cards, even at a lower level than a conventional desktop with the same hardware. Photos posted to Twitter/X (via VideoCardz) show at least three USB-C ports on the rear and two on the front, which should be enough to handle any external hardware you need on top of monitors, albeit with some adapters or extra docks. Of course, you’ll also need enough juice in the power supply to power both the GPU and your laptop at once if you want a one-cable solution. We don’t know the ROG XG Station 3’s price, release date, or availability. It wasn’t included in the US-focused press releases for Computex. The previous version was announced way back in 2016, so I wouldn’t even hazard a guess. Read...

Microsoft is waiving the fee to sign up and publish to the Microsoft Store beginning in June, as the company tries to appeal to Windows app developers and their pocketbooks. It would make the Microsoft Store on Windows the first “free” store for publishing apps, Microsoft said at its annual Build developer conference. Although it’s difficult to determine how many apps Microsoft sells via its Microsoft Store app, most sources place it less than a million — and those numbers are from several years ago. Even Phil Spencer, now the chief of Microsoft Gaming, has said that the Store “sucks,” primarily owing to its poor design and lack of popular applications. Since then, Microsoft has revamped the Microsoft Store app, but the problems remain. Now, Microsoft is trying to lure more publishers by streamlining the process and lowering the price. Individual developers will be able to sign up and publish to the Store for free in June, Microsoft said. “This will make Microsoft Store on Windows the first global digital store to waive the fee for publishing apps,” it said. The new plan promises benefits to users, too. Today, even when a publisher publishes a new version of a Win32 app — the traditional .EXE file — there’s no guarantee that the latest version will appear on the Store. That has led to a frequent user complaint that Store apps are out of date. Now, not only will you able to find the updated version, the Store app page will actually list the last time that the app was updated. You’ll be able to download the latest version from the Store’s “Downloads” page or just from the app’s page, itself. Given that the Windows Store was announced in 2011, and shifted to the Microsoft Store in 2017, it’s kind of ludicrous that Microsoft is just now trying to address these issues. Individual app pages on the Microsoft Store still don’t do a good job telling you how large the app is or when the most recent update was. Microsoft is working to fix at least part of this. Mark Hachman / Foundry Microsoft is also promising developers additional features like improved privacy policy hosting, additional help and support, and a “policy change to allow a noninteractive progress bar for Win32 app installation.” The company is also promising that developers will be able to run app campaigns to promote their apps, and receive better “health reports” that will provide insights into the crash rates, hang rates, and affected device rates. It’s not clear what fees Microsoft is waiving What isn’t clear, however, is what fees Microsoft is waiving. Microsoft already charges a one-time fee of just $19 for publishing an app to the Microsoft Store, or about $99 for a company. Microsoft already allows developers to keep all of the revenue from non-gaming apps if they use their own commerce platform. For games, Microsoft charges 12 percent for games or 15 percent for apps if the developers uses Microsoft’s own commerce platform. Are these the fees Microsoft is waiving? We’re not sure, and we’ve asked Microsoft for clarification. By contrast, the third-party app Steamdb.com says that Steam currently hosts 394,779 games at the time of this writing. No matter how many fees Microsoft waives, the company will be hard-pressed to overturn Steam’s reputation as the main storefront for PC games. For apps in general? Well, maybe. At least Microsoft is addressing some of its issues. Read...

Former Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand talks about the role`s relationship with Parliament and the Executive, and its use as a guard-rail for democracy. Read...

Labour has requested an inquiry by the Auditor General into the school lunch programme to go even further. Read...

General practice doctors are grateful the government is providing new funding but says its `reasonably light`. Read...

General practice doctors are grateful the government is providing new funding for after-hours urgent health care but there are major concerns about how it will be staffed. Read...

The Auditor-General said funding and contract changes at the agency last year lacked clear understanding of how changes would affect at-risk children and families. Read...