Microsoft Clarified Game Pass Availability
On December 1, Windows Central interviewed Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft’s gaming business and head of Xbox, who clarified that “Microsoft’s goal is to bring Xbox Game Pass to ‘any screen where you can play a game,'” as suggested by Tim Stuart, Xbox’s chief financial officer, in a speech last week. Spencer clarified that there are no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo platforms, and that the focus is on how to continue to serve buyers of Xbox hardware. Microsoft is looking into allowing players to stream purchased games through the cloud.
Regarding Activision Blizzard’s future plans, Spencer reiterated that he would not force the Activision Blizzard team to remake classic games such as Age of Empires and Starcraft, but would be willing to do so “when the right team is found and the right opportunity arises”.
Apple Launches Apple Watch Series 9 RED
On December 1, Apple announced in a press release on its U.S. website that it was launching the Apple Watch Series 9 (Product)RED in honor of World AIDS Day, and that like the rest of the (Product)RED lineup, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the watch will be donated to the Global Fund, which will be used to support the fight against AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Apple has also introduced a new red color option for both dials. In addition, Apple’s announced commemorative activities include: donating the full amount of revenue generated by MONOPOLY GO!, Gardenscapes and EA Sports FC Mobile games through December 4; donating $1 per Apple Pay transaction from a portion of Apple Pay transactions through December 8; and showcasing anti-AIDS related books on U.S. services, podcasts, movies and TV shows on U.S. services.
Meta Launches AI Real-Time Translation Model Seamless Communication
On November 30th, MetaAI announced Seamless, a new AI model that supports “real-time communication across languages” Seamless is a combination of three models: SeamlessM4T for cross-translating text and speech, SeamlessExpressive for preserving the style and rhythm of voices in a conversation, and SeamlessStreaming for starting a translation before listening to the whole sentence. SeamlessStreaming, which starts translation before listening to the entire sentence. Meta says Seamless supports nearly 100 input languages and 36 output languages, with translation latency as low as 2 seconds and the ability to preserve the pause, rate, style and emotion of the original speech. The models are publicly available on Hugging Face and GitHub.
XTX Markets Offers $10 Million Reward to Seek Olympic Gold Medal AI
Alex Gerko, billionaire and founder of XTX Markets, recently announced the AI-MO Prize, an open call and reward for AI models that can win a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual summer event for hundreds of top high school students from around the world. The competition consists of six problems in the fields of geometry, combinatorics, and number theory that do not rely on college math knowledge but require logic and creativity. Fewer than 10 percent win gold medals each year, and some gold medalists only complete four problems. Gerko believes that achieving this feat would be a milestone in the development of AI, and that the creation of the prize builds on a series of successful precedents, such as Netflix’s million-dollar bounty on recommendation techniques and the Vesuvius Challenge, which deciphered ancient Roman scrolls from the ashes, etc. Half of the $10 million challenge fund will be awarded to the first publicly-shared model to win the gold, with the remaining half distributed among other outstanding entries. Gerko thinks he can find a winner within five years.
Analogue Officially Starts Selling NEC-Compatible Console Duo
On December 1st, Analogue announced that after a two-year hiatus, it has officially begun selling the Analogue Duo, a console compatible with the classic NEC line of consoles, which retails for $249.99, supports both wired and Bluetooth controllers, and is claimed to be capable of running games up to 1080p resolution with zero latency. Like the company’s previous notable creation, the GBA-compatible Analogue Pocket, the Duo supports play of original game cassettes and discs via an FPGA chip rather than relying on an emulator.The Duo will begin shipping on December 11th, with deliveries expected by Christmas. Analogue also announced an update to Pocket OS 2.0 for the Pocket, support for analog CRT displays, and a limited edition white dock. NEC sold the TurboGrafx-16 (PC Engine), SuperGrafx, TurboDuo (PC Engine Duo), and PC-FX consoles in Japan, the U.S., and Europe, but ultimately withdrew them due to the lack of 3D polygonal support, high price, and limited developer support.
Other News
On December 3, Musk claimed via tweet that Grok, the first AI assistant from his new company xAI last month, will be phased in over the next week or so to Premium+ subscribers on the X platform.
The PlayStation 6 and the next-generation Xbox, which is currently in the early design stages, will be the biggest generational leap in gaming consoles, RedGamingTech claimed in a YouTube video on November 30th. Both are likely to utilize AMD’s upcoming Zen 5 CPU and RDNA 5 GPU architecture. The video also claims that the PS6 could feature a chiplet-based (multiple small chip packages) cache design and a unified CPU/GPU cache that works to reduce latency between the CPU and GPU, will rely on AI for real-time real-time tracking, could use GDDR7 memory, and more.
On December 1, Windows Report sent out renders of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which show it in black, gray, purple, and yellow, with titanium and a straight-screen design; a 50-megapixel telephoto lens with up to 5x optical zoom; a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor; a 5,000mAh battery, and an improved cooling system, among other things. Improved cooling system, etc.