Last week, ESPN put a price tag on the standalone streaming service it’s launching in the fall, and it’s not cheap. ESPN’s streaming service will cost $30 per month, with an option to bundle Hulu and Disney+ for $6 more. (A limited time offer at launch will throw in both services free for the first year.) By contrast, ESPN’s carriage fees—the amount it charges cable TV providers to carry its channels—are reportedly around $10 per month, amounting to a 200% markup for a la carte viewing. If you’re having trouble figuring out who would pay for such a thing, the answer might be “hardly anyone.” ESPN’s standalone service is supposed to unappealing enough that people don’t cancel cable to get it, and the high price is a signal that you should probably get the channel some other way, be it through a pay TV package or newer kinds of streaming bundles. You wanted a la carte TV, you got it Let’s say you want you watch all the NFL games that are normally part of a cable TV package. That would require ESPN ($30 per month), Peacock ($8 per month), Paramount+ (also $8 per month), and Fox (whose forthcoming Fox One service will reportedly cost around $20 per month). All that would add up to $66 per month. Opting for the ad-free versions of Paramount+ ($13 per month) and Peacock ($14 per month), which are required for local CBS and NBC feeds outside of NFL coverage, would push the price to $77 per month instead. That’s not much less than a full-size pay TV package. YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV each cost $83 per month. DirecTV’s new MySports bundle is a bit cheaper at $70 per month, but lacks CBS currently. A standalone ESPN subscription might still make sense in conjunction with an antenna, supplementing what’s available for free over the air. And perhaps there’s a certain kind of ESPN superfan for whom it’s the only thing keeping them glued to a pricier pay TV package. But for sports fans who want full coverage of what’s normally on cable, the a la carte route won’t add up. Unlike with general entertainment content, you can’t merely cycle through streaming services one at a time to save money. Outside of password sharing or piracy, bundling will be the only way to defray the costs. Back to the bundle That brings us to the real goal with ESPN’s streaming service, which is to serve as a starting point for new kinds of TV bundles. Just look to Disney’s own bundling strategy as an example. Hulu and Disney+ each cost $10 per month on their own, but $11 per month when bundled together. When you add them to ESPN’s flagship service, the cost for the pair goes down to $6 per month (and, at the outset, free for the first year). Disney’s been branching into bundles with other companies as well. It already offers a $17-per-month package with Disney+, Hulu, and Max (soon to be HBO Max again), saving $4 per month over each company’s separate ad-supported offerings. Disney hasn’t announced a tie-in with ESPN, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t happen given the bundle’s apparent popularity. Disney had also planned to collaborate with both Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox on a joint service called Venu Sports, which combined all three companies’ sports and broadcast channels for $43 per month. That plan died in court, but they could still work together on bundling their individual services at a discount. Wireless carriers have gotten into the streaming bundle business as well. Verizon in particular offers Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ (that’s the current ESPN service that excludes most cable content) for $10 per month with its newest unlimited plans. An option to include ESPN’s flagship service seems like the next logical step. Streaming companies like these kinds of bundles because they discourage subscription hopping, where you bounce between services every month to watch the best content on each. If they set a high enough price for their standalone offerings, like Disney is doing with ESPN now, those bundles start to look even more attractive. But none of this can happen if ESPN doesn’t actually have a standalone streaming service to offer. The new service is less about selling you a $30 per month plan for a single sports channel and more about setting the table for new kinds of streaming bundles. What sets the new ESPN streaming service apart from the ESPN+ Whether this is better than the old pay TV system is hard to say, but it’ll probably beat the alternative of paying for every individual service a la carte. That idea was never going to happen as cord-cutters imagined it. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter weekly newsletter to get more streaming advice every Friday Read...

A global study reveals 97% of general counsels now use generative AI to boost legal compliance and operational efficiency amid rising pressures. Read...

Sitting and gaming for long periods of time requires the right kind of chair – one that provides ergonomic support, comfort, and customization and allows you to focus on what counts the most – your game. Those four things come together most in a quality gaming chair made exactly for that purpose. But not all gaming chairs are made alike. Here’s what to look for to find a good one. 1. The right kind of back support You will hear the term “adjustable lumbar support” used a lot with gaming chairs, but what does that actually mean? To decode the term, it means ideally you want a chair that has a lot of mid-to-lower support in the back rest. The back rest should also be adjustable (both vertically and horizontally) to support the curve and depth of your spine, rather than being just a generic fit. Proper lumbar support is important because it prevents the ligaments in your spine from lengthening and causing a condition known as creep, which can lead to bad back pain. Back rests can be mesh, or upholstered. I recommend the upholstered kind, which is far more comfortable for long gaming stints. Also consider the kind of stability the frame will give you. Aluminum frames are preferable to plastic ones that can sometimes wobble and lead to fatigue as your body is forced to find its center. Chairs also come with different weight-bearing capacities (typically between 264 lbs. and 397 lbs.), and their heights differ too, so be sure to find one that supports your weight and is tall enough so that you can rest your head easily on the headrest. Your gaming chair should be tall enough that you can easily fit your head on the headrest. Razer 2. Padding that feels comfortable Gaming chairs come with different kinds of padding. You’ll find chairs with soft, cushiony padding and others with firmer cold-cure foam. You can also find gaming chairs that combine support and soft padding to offer the best of both worlds, like the Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen Edition. The experts will tell you that the firmer kind is better for your posture because it offers more support, but my advice is to go with one that has both; you want a cold-cure foam that’s supportive but you want it to still be soft enough that it won’t cause body aches if you’ve been in it a while. As a general rule, a gaming chair with a padding density of between 50 kg/m³ and 70 kg/m³ will provide a mix of support and comfort. If you can’t find this information in the product specifications, be sure to contact the company and ask for it. 3. Covering materials: What do you need? Another thing to consider is the type of material in the chair, how it feels and how breathable it is. Mesh fabric is the most breathable and effective at keeping you from getting too hot and sweaty, but it can be a little scratchy on your skin at times. If you live in a warmer climate, however — say, Florida or Arizona — cool mesh could be a real asset on hot days. Leather or leatherette covering material is less breathable and can cause heat buildup and excess sweat, but inversely it feels very luxurious. It can also be warm and cozy when the temperature drops — so if you know your house is always cold, it should provide a nice boost to your comfort levels. The CoolerMaster Caliber X2 is a good example of a gaming chair with material that can stave off overheating. It has a dense foam body but breathable PU leather material on top. Some gaming chairs go a step further actively cooling players via their inbuilt fans. The Thermaltake’s X Comfort Air is just such a chair to consider if you think even a cool mesh or breathable PU leather won’t be enough for you. Thermaltake’s X Comfort Air gaming chair.  Thermaltake 4. Extra features that complement your gaming Some chairs come with extra features like RGB lighting, speakers, Bluetooth functionality, and control panels that provide a little extra functionality. You can expect to pay a premium price for these features. When choosing a gaming chair with speakers you should read reviews that say the speakers have a high-fidelity audio with good-quality sound through the mids, bass, and treble tones. A minimum of 5.1 channels in the speakers will give you a surround sound experience that will be really immersive in your gaming. Bluetooth functionality is a great addition that allows you to hook up other devices to your chair’s speakers, like your phone, or your TV’s stereo system – so that you can listen to music or watch a movie. You just want to make sure Bluetooth connects easily to other devices. When looking for RGB be sure to choose a chair with accents in the positions you want them. They can be just about anywhere – in the headrest, armrests, and even the wheels. Programmability is also critical if you intend on syncing your gaming chair’s RGB with your other RGB gear. 5. Ergonomically sculpted seat The way the chair’s seat is sculpted can be important in determining how comfortable you will ultimately find it. Two features I look for in a seat are contoured side wings and gently sloping edges – like you’ll find in the Razer Iskur V2 X. The former guides your body to the middle of the seat so that it encounters a larger contact area, which in turn provides a lower, more uniform pressure distribution. That prevents pressure from building up in any one point and causing soreness. Sloping edges, on the other hand, allow you to assume different postures and still feel the kind of comfort you’d expect from a very expensive chair. Razer 6. A decent degree of recline After tense rounds of Counterstrike: Go, I’ll often just lay back in my chair and relax before I need to refocus again. For this, I need a gaming chair that has a decent reline that will easily hold my weight and that won’t go all jerky when I need to come back up to vertical. Gaming chairs have either partial or full reclines. For me, I like a full recline, so an angle of between 160 to 165 degrees, which allows me to get almost horizontal with my legs well off the ground but still feel in control. If the chair has a headrest, all the better for my comfort too. I hope that gives you a few pointers about selecting the right kind of gaming chair. There’s still a lot more to know, so be sure to read a few reviews before you buy. Read...

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The High Court granted an injunction to stop RNZ from publishing story. Read...

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...

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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...