Sunday-to-Monday onslaught fuels speculation over AI-assisted bug reports
If you’re responsible for Linux security, someone just dumped a pile of work onto your desk: 432 Linux kernel CVEs were published across Sunday and Monday this week. Linux watchers at nixCraft pointed out the volume on Monday morning, and it didn’t take long for seasoned sysadmins to start expressing concerns.
Jan Schaumann, chief information security architect at Akamai Technologies, took to the OSS-SEC mailing list Tuesday to express concerns over the sheer volume of Linux kernel CVEs published in recent days. Aside from noting that the CVE system isn’t the best way to track security changes, Schaumann also wondered in his post whether there was any good way to deal with so many kernel security issues.
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“This onslaught really shows it’s not feasible to attempt to prioritize individual kernel changes,” Schaumann said.
“You might attempt to process this large set of changes by pointing an LLM at the intake and asking it to prioritize them,” he suggested, “but if it spits out a dozen today and another 25 the next, you haven’t won much.”
Schaumann also suggested waiting to see which ones emerge as serious issues and focusing on those in the weeks to come, or updating one’s entire fleet of Linux machines on a weekly basis.
“I sure would like to be able to do [that], but reality keeps getting in my way,” Schaumann said. “I’m not sure what to do here going forward.”
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In an email to The Register, Schaumann said that individually reviewing vulnerabilities for patching was already difficult enough before things rose to this level, and that automation may be the only option – but it’s not a great one.
“Automated, regular, and frequent updates that pull in all changes within a given time window of tolerance seem to me the only reasonable approach, but that is very difficult for many large organizations,” Schaumann explained. Those orgs often rely on lengthy QA processes, slow and staged development cycles, and may even have contractual requirements for long-term support that make an automated approach an impossible one.
The nixCraft team speculated on social media that AI bug reports are a likely reason for all those kernel CVEs, which wouldn’t be without precedent – Linus Torvalds himself said in May that the Linux kernel security mailing list had become “almost entirely unmanageable” due to AI-assisted bug hunting. Nonetheless, Torvalds has described AI as a useful tool for Linux development while still noting it can be a drag for maintainers, both from a workload standpoint and the fact “it keeps finding embarrassing bugs.”
On that note, it’s worth understanding what a Linux kernel CVE actually means – many of the vulnerabilities included in the Sunday-to-Monday batch are small in scope, but they’re vulnerabilities nonetheless.
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As senior Linux maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman noted in a February blog post, the Linux kernel CVE team follows the CVE Program’s definition of a vulnerability: a weakness in a product that can negatively affect a system’s confidentiality, integrity, or availability.
“At the level that the Linux kernel runs, almost any type of bug that can affect a running system can be classified as a vulnerability,” Kroah-Hartman noted. The kernel team looks at every bugfix that is added to stable kernel releases, he added, and if it fixes an issue that meets that CVE criteria, a CVE is assigned.
AI-assisted bug hunting has increased the volume of reports reaching Linux kernel maintainers. We reached out to the Linux kernel team, but didn’t hear back. Kroah-Hartman did tell The Register earlier this year that AI bug reports had become worthwhile in recent months, and he predicted they’re likely to keep adding to his workload.
Unfortunately for Linux sysadmins, the position in which they find themselves in this current mess isn’t one that’s readily solved. CVEs might be a messy way to track and prioritize security updates, especially when hundreds of them are published over a short period, but without something better, it falls to IT and security teams to determine which vulnerabilities affect their systems and which kernel updates they need to deploy.
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Hope you’ve got the coffee machine filled up: The onslaught is unlikely to ease if other recent patch cycles are any indication. ®
Google has confirmed the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will not receive Android 17 QPR2 because the devices are reaching End of Life before the update’s December release.
That confirmation arrived alongside the launch of the Android 17 QPR2 Beta programme, marking the point at which Google’s five-year software commitment to the Pixel 6 series finally reaches its natural conclusion after almost five years on the market.
Going back, Google launched the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro in October 2021 with a promise of three years of major OS upgrades followed by two years of security patches, a policy the company extended to five full years of updates in 2024.
Google addressed the cutoff directly, stating that Pixel 6 and 6 Pro users will not be getting this OTA since the device will reach End of Life and the Android 17 QPR1 beta series will be the last for these devices.
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That leaves Android 17 QPR1 as the final software milestone for both handsets, a smaller release than the QPR2 update now reaching newer Pixel hardware through the beta channel.
QPR1 is expected to roll out to existing Pixel devices in early September, shortly before it debuts as the default build on the incoming Pixel 11 series in late August.
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Before support ends, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will still receive an August security patch, a September Pixel Drop bundled with the QPR1 release, and one further security patch in October.
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Once that October patch lands, Google will stop issuing any further security fixes or feature updates for either handset.
The Pixel 6a, released a year after its siblings, sits on a separate schedule and will continue receiving security updates until July 2027.
Google has not detailed further changes to its Pixel update policy beyond this cutoff, with the Pixel 11 series expected to inherit the standard five-year support window when it launches in August.
Google may have accidentally confirmed the design of its next flagship phone ahead of schedule.
An image of the Pixel 11 Pro briefly appeared on the Google Fi website before swifty being taken down. This has given what appears to be the clearest official look yet at the upcoming handset.
The image, first spotted and preserved by Droid Life, closely matches renders that surfaced online last week, adding weight to earlier leaks ahead of Google’s expected August launch.
While the promotional banner referred to the Pixel 11 Pro XL, Droid Life reports the device shown is actually the standard Pixel 11 Pro, listing the phone’s microphone placement as the giveaway. That could mean Google might have uploaded the wrong marketing image before quietly removing it.
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The leaked image also showcases what appears to be Google’s new Dune colour option, alongside the familiar Pixel camera bar design. Aside from the new finish, there are no obvious design changes visible from the front-facing promotional image.
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Because the image originated from one of Google’s own websites, it lends considerable credibility to previous leaks. Earlier renders, which first appeared via an Amazon listing, featured an almost identical design. Therefore, it is increasingly likely that this is indeed what the Pixel 11 Pro will look like when it launches.
The premature listing doesn’t reveal anything about the rest of the lineup, however. There’s no sign of the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro XL or Pixel 11 Pro Fold, leaving Google’s wider refresh under wraps for now.
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The Google Fi page also hinted at a launch promotion. According to the leaked banner, buyers could receive $100 off the Pixel 11 Pro XL, though it’s unclear whether the offer will require signing up for a new Google Fi plan, trading in an existing device or meeting other eligibility requirements.
Pricing remains one of the bigger unanswered questions. Previous reports from Europe have suggested the Pixel 11 range could receive a €100 price increase. However, it’s not yet known whether similar hikes will apply in markets such as the US or UK.
Google is widely expected to unveil the Pixel 11 series in August. Therefore, there may not be long to wait before the company officially confirms the design, even if it may have beaten itself to the punch.
This week Jonathan chats with Michael Meeks about Collabora! What’s the origin story in this consulting company, why do they have an outstanding office suite, and where is the world headed to accomplish digital sovereignty? Watch to find out!
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.
Because what could be more appealing to humans than sharing virtual space with AI?
After cutting over 4,000 jobs due to AI, fintech biz Block is back with Buzz, a shared workspace where humans and bots can collaborate in ways that are more auditable, sovereign, and secure than what you can do in chat tools such as Slack.
Block’s human-bot co-op is built upon a turducken of tech jargon: The platform is free and open source. It’s based on the decentralized Nostr protocol, so there’s cryptographic identity. It’s “sovereign,” a naively optimistic term readers of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash should recognize, which in this context means self-hostable. And it’s intended as a replacement for Slack, GitHub, and various other communication and collaboration tools.
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If “Buzz” sounds familiar, that’s because Google used that name in a social media faceplant more than 15 years ago. For those who missed the first go-around, Google Buzz, a failed social media service, gave rise to Google+, also a failed social media service. Block appears to believe that a decade and a half is sufficient for a brand cleanse.
The project’s GitHub repo offers a more apologetic assessment: “Yes, it’s another AI-adjacent developer tool. We’re sorry. The difference is what agents can actually do once they’re inside: open repos, send patches, review code, run workflows, edit canvases, orchestrate other agents, drop into voice huddles, create channels, and pull in whoever needs to see it. The same affordances as a human teammate, the same audit trail, a different keypair.”
You can already sic software agents on collaborative workspaces. Block’s main insight is that it would be useful to link AI agents with cryptographic identities. Others have already arrived at that conclusion. Hence OWASP’s Agent Name Service, DNS for AI Discovery, Estonia’s digital IDs for agents, and so on. But Buzz’s badging of humans and bots with cryptographic key pairs is bound to tick governance boxes.
“Every company is going to need a place where humans and agents work together,” said Bradley Axen, head of AI capabilities at Block, in a statement. “The question is whether that place is proprietary or open. We built Buzz because we believe it should be open.”
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Moat-seeking tech incumbents would probably disagree about the need for openness, even though they’re fond of using the word without applying it. We note that OpenAI sells closed AI. And Anthropic’s decision to disallow third-party tools from using Claude subscriptions highlights the seemingly inevitable path from openness to barriers when revenue is at stake.
What’s more, it’s not obvious that every company will need people and bots in the same space. There’s a strong case for keeping humans and agents apart because they work at different speeds. Git at least was built for handling many distributed code edits, pull requests, and merges. It’s hard to see how people and bots can share a text-based communication space unless the bots are rate-limited or just talk among themselves.
“The bet is that one community can do what teams currently fake with chat, forges, bots, CI dashboards, release tools, search indexes, and a pile of glue code,” Block’s Buzz developers state. “Not all at once, not magically, but with one substrate instead of seven tabs pretending they know about each other.”
If tools for these sorts of things didn’t already exist, and no large tech companies had designs on this space, Buzz might face less daunting odds. But it’s worth a shot. ®
The latest game from Seattle-based developer Harebrained Schemes, and its first since its return to independence in 2023, is a dark sci-fi/horror adventure where the player must constantly change and enhance their body in order to survive.
In GRAFT, players take the role of Tiger, a man with jumbled memories who’s trapped aboard the Arc, a massive, decaying space station. The Arc’s other inhabitants include failed experiments, crazed mutants, bands of human survivors that could be either allies or enemies, and a hostile AI.
To survive, Tiger must salvage new parts from his enemies and graft them into his own body, which gives him new weapons, abilities, and upgrades. However, each new body part comes with its own secondhand memories, which quickly impacts Tiger’s sense of identity.
That leads naturally to a cyberpunk-infused Ship of Theseus situation: how much of yourself can you replace before you’re no longer you?
Harebrained CEO Mike McCain describes GRAFT as a survival horror game, in the spirit of mainstream releases like Resident Evil and Dead Space. In order to succeed, players must ration their available resources, constantly scavenge for supplies, and carefully pick their battles. Sometimes it’s going to be better to simply run away.
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GRAFT is being developed in Unreal Engine by a core team of five at Harebrained, plus “key collaborators.” McCain also serves as GRAFT’s project director.
Harebrained Schemes was founded in 2011 by Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman, who’d previously worked together on the Crimson Skies franchise. After releasing two mobile games, Harebrained pivoted to the PC market with a trilogy of crowdfunded strategy RPGs based on the Shadowrun tabletop game.
(Harebrained Schemes press image)
In 2018, Harebrained released a new BattleTech game for PC and Linux via the Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive (Crusader Kings). Paradox subsequently acquired Harebrained for $7.5 million. Shortly afterward, Weisman stepped down as CEO; he would eventually leave the company to found the no-code game development platform Endless Adventures.
5 years later, Paradox announced that it would “part ways” with Harebrained, shortly after the release of Harebrained’s original strategy RPG The Lamplighters League and the Tower at the End of the World. McCain, who’d previously been the director on BattleTech, rejoined the company in early 2024 as Harebrained’s new CEO, while Gitelman stepped back to an advisory role.
Following the separation, Paradox owns and operates most of Harebrained’s previous catalog, including Shadowrun, BattleTech, Lamplighters League, and Harebrained’s 2016 action-RPG Necropolis. With GRAFT, Harebrained is effectively starting from scratch.
Samsung recently updated its foldable lineup of smartphones for 2026, and the highlight of the launch was an entirely new smartphone: The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. Despite inheriting its name from last year’s Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, it looks nothing like its namesake predecessor. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is smaller, stockier, and wider than the standard Galaxy Z Fold. Needless to say, it is a very different proposition from Samsung’s standard Galaxy S26, released earlier in 2026. So, if you are in the market for a new smartphone, you need to know some things before deciding to splurge your hard-earned money on either.
Beginning with the display, it is the S26 here which has a conventional 6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, compared to the dual display setup of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 which includes a 5.5-inch cover display and larger 7.6-inch internal display. Both phones support an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz, but the Fold 8’s ability to transform into a small tablet gives it considerably more display real estate. The S26, meanwhile, remains the more straightforward choice for anyone who simply wants a compact flagship.
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There is also a considerable difference in size and weight. The Galaxy S26 measures just 7.2mm thick and weighs 167 grams. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is only 4.5mm thick when unfolded, but inevitably becomes thicker when folded and weighs 201 grams. Samsung has attempted to address the durability concerns associated with foldables with a redesigned hinge, two titanium layers underneath the folding display, Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 on the front, and an IP48 rating. The Galaxy S26, however, has the advantage when it comes to protection from the elements thanks to its more robust IP68 rating.
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Performance, cameras, and battery
Ruslan Lytvyn/Shutterstock
Despite the massive difference in their form factors, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy S26 have several things in common. In the U.S., both phones are powered by the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. The Samsung Galaxy S26 is offered in 256GB and 512GB storage options, and comes armed with 12GB of RAM. The Fold 8 offers more storage flexibility, with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB options on offer. The top-of-the-line 1TB variant ships with 16GB of RAM, compared to 12GB on the other two options.
Moving on to the cameras, the Galaxy S26 gets a traditional triple-camera setup consisting of a 50MP main camera, 12MP ultrawide, and a 10MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom. The Fold 8 gets dual 50MP wide and ultrawide cameras, but lacks a dedicated telephoto camera. Samsung only advertises up to 10x digital zoom on the Fold 8, compared with 3x optical and up to 30x digital zoom on the S26. So, if your photography exploits regularly involve long zoom range photos, the S26 is actually the more versatile option.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 gets a 4,800mAh battery, which is slightly larger than the S26’s 4,300mAh unit. However, it is worth noting that the Fold 8’s battery needs to power two displays, with the main display being substantially bigger, so the overall battery life may be a lot closer than what you’d expect. Samsung itself rates the Fold 8 for up to 26 hours of video playback, while the S26’s smaller screen and conventional form factor give it an inherent efficiency advantage depending on how the phones are used.
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The $1,000 question: Which one should you buy?
The feature-loaded Galaxy S26 launched in the U.S. at $899.99 for the 256GB model, but can be purchased for a lower price from various retailers. The base 256GB variant of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts at a whopping $1,899.99 with the same amount of storage, making it exactly $1,000 more expensive before discounts, trade-ins, or carrier offers enter the equation. Opting for the 512GB variant takes the Fold 8 to $2,099.99, while the 1TB version will cost users a staggering $2,499.99.
Clearly, if you’re looking for the best price to performance ratio, the Samsung Galaxy S26 is no slouch. It gets the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor in the U.S., the same 12GB of RAM, and a more versatile rear camera setup. It’s also 34 grams lighter, has better IP68 dust and water resistance, while costing less than half as much.
That, however, doesn’t invalidate the existence of the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Its form factor is inherently cooler, and will turn a lot of heads. The phone’s internal display makes it much better suited to multitasking, documents, websites, videos, and running multiple apps simultaneously. Samsung has also specifically optimized the Fold 8’s larger display for side-by-side productivity, while retaining features such as Samsung DeX, although S-Pen support is still missing.
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In simple words, for most buyers, then, the Galaxy S26 is the more sensible choice. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 does make sense if you specifically want a device that can replace both a conventional smartphone and, to some extent, a small tablet. Whether that transformation is worth an additional $1,000 is ultimately the biggest question buyers will have to answer.
Amazon confirmed Wednesday that it laid off an unspecified number of employees in its artificial general intelligence (AGI) organization, the division working on the company’s advanced AI models.
The move, first reported by Reuters, comes as the company invests heavily in programs to help businesses implement AI effectively, including a $1 billion initiative to embed AWS engineers with customers building agentic AI systems.
It’s part of a larger shift in the industry as tech giants and AI frontier labs look to make sure the enormous sums they’re spending on AI pay off in tools businesses actually use.
In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said building large AI models remains “one of the most important things we’re working on,” but said the company is also “sharpening our focus on the initiatives that matter most for customers, so we can move faster on what counts.”
“That focus means some difficult decisions, including eliminating some roles within parts of our AGI organization, even as we continue to invest in the areas most important to our customers’ future,” the spokesperson said.
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It’s the latest in a series of changes in Amazon’s AGI group, which despite its name has always been focused more on frontier models than on what the industry considers AGI, the still-theoretical systems that would match or surpass human intelligence.
Rohit Prasad, the senior executive who oversaw Amazon’s AGI work, left the company late last year, and AGI Lab head David Luan departed in February. In December, Amazon folded the AGI group into a larger organization led by senior vice president Peter DeSantis that also includes chip development and quantum computing.
The cuts are the latest in a series of smaller reductions since January, when Amazon eliminated 16,000 jobs across the company. Amazon said U.S. employees whose jobs are cut will receive 90 days of pay and benefits, outplacement support and transitional health coverage, along with eligibility for severance.
Paul Hales does not do subtle. Fortunately, the Theory Audio Design founder is equally obsessive about sound quality, robust construction, long-term reliability, and making system integration less painful than the kidney stone currently trying to kill me. I have installed one of Theory’s systems in my own home, so I know the difference.
The new Theory Audio Design DLC-1500.8d and four-model PLC Series loudspeaker controllers add more channels, greater power density, Dante and AES67 networking, and advanced DSP for demanding residential, commercial, and professional audio installations.
Pricing has not been announced, but Theory Audio Design is now shipping five new amplified loudspeaker controllers: the eight-channel DLC-1500.8d and four models in its new Powersoft-based PLC Series.
The expansion gives Theory considerably more horsepower for large home theaters, distributed audio systems, outdoor installations, commercial venues, marine projects, and live sound applications. More watts will not rescue a poorly designed system, but the networking, DSP, power sharing, and deployment tools are arguably the more important parts of this announcement.
DLC-1500.8d Doubles Down Without Consuming More Rack Space
DLC-1500.8d
The new DLC-1500.8d is the larger sibling to the four-channel DLC-1500.4d introduced in 2024. The earlier model delivered a claimed 3,000 watts from a 2U chassis; the new version doubles both the channel count and total rated output while retaining the same 2U footprint.
Theory rates the DLC-1500.8d at 6,000 watts, with up to 1,500 watts into 4 or 8 ohms available from any channel pair. It is also specified to deliver 800 watts into 2 or 4 ohms with all channels driven.
High-current Euroblock outputs accept speaker cables up to 10-gauge, while four channels of Dante and AES67 audio-over-IP digital I/O simplify deployment in larger networked systems.
Theory says one DLC-1500.8d can power up to 32 of its 16-ohm loudspeakers in low-impedance mode or more than 300 loudspeakers directly in high-impedance mode without requiring an internal transformer. That is less about building an unnecessarily loud living room and more about reducing amplifier count in large estates, hospitality spaces, outdoor systems, and commercial installations.
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Configuration is handled through an onboard web interface using wired Ethernet or the controller’s integrated Wi-Fi access point. DSP tools include:
Matrix mixing
Priority routing and ducking
Parametric EQ
Delay and gain adjustment
Output limiting
Control modules are available for AMX, Control4, Crestron, Crestron Home, ELAN, Josh.ai, Q-SYS, RTI, and Symetrix.
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PLC Series Brings Powersoft Inside the Rack
The PLC Series was first previewed at CEDIA Expo 2025, but Theory had not released complete model specifications or pricing at the time. The company has now confirmed four models built around Powersoft amplification and signal-processing technology.
Model
Channels
Rated Output
PLC-4K8
8
500 watts per channel
PLC-8K8
8
1,000 watts per channel
PLC-9K4
4
2,250 watts per channel
PLC-16K4
4
4,000 watts per channel
Theory did not specify the load conditions used for those PLC power ratings in its announcement, so installers should consult the complete technical documentation before designing a system around the headline numbers.
All four models fit into a 1RU chassis and incorporate Powersoft’s Class D amplification, SmartRail energy-management power supplies, Power Factor Correction, advanced DSP, linear-phase FIR filtering, and Active Damping Control.
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The PLC platform also includes proprietary Theory loudspeaker presets, native Dante and AES67 networking, all-channel power sharing, three configurable Gigabit Ethernet ports with one PoE connection, USB-based amplifier configuration restoration, and maritime compliance.
Why This Matters for Theory Owners
Theory Audio Design does not treat amplification and DSP as accessories to be selected after the speakers. Its loudspeakers are designed as part of a complete system using Theory’s dedicated amplified controllers and optimized DSP presets.
That approach has already produced some rather convincing results.
When I reviewed the Theory Audio Design 5.2.2 surround system, it completely reset my expectations for what a soundbar-based home theater could deliver. Its combination of dynamics, scale, dialogue clarity, and control made it unmatched below $20,000 at the time.
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Theory continued to impress during our CEDIA Expo 2025 coverage, earning eCoustics Best in Show recognition for both the compact ic5 architectural loudspeaker and the ic6 deployed in its outdoor bollard enclosure. Its 9.2.4 system was also selected for Best Home Theater Sound at AXPONA 2026.
The common thread has been high efficiency, controlled dispersion, strong dynamic performance, and consistent voicing across different installation formats. The new controllers allow integrators to apply that same system-based approach to substantially larger and more complicated projects.
Theory Audio Design Soundbar, Speakers and Subwoofers
CEDIA Expo 2026
Theory Audio Design will demonstrate the DLC-1500.8d and PLC Series in Booth 1300 at CEDIA Expo 2026, which runs September 1 through 4 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. eCoustics will be there, and we will have the opportunity to try the new controllers inside a complete Theory system rather than merely admiring the power ratings on a rack sheet.
The Bottom Line
The DLC-1500.8d looks like a logical and useful evolution of Theory’s existing controller platform, doubling the channels and claimed total output of the DLC-1500.4d without demanding additional rack space.
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The PLC Series is the larger strategic move. Powersoft technology, substantially greater power density, Dante and AES67 networking, and more scalable system management could make Theory a viable option well beyond dedicated home theaters.
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Sixteen thousand watts in a 1RU chassis certainly gets attention. Pricing, thermal management, network reliability, noise levels, and ease of deployment will determine whether integrators keep ordering them after the demonstrations are over.
U.S. Lawmakers have written to President Donald Trump, hoping he will do something to help big tech companies being targeted by the E.U.’s Digital Markets Act.
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act has been a thorn in Apple’s side since its introduction. Lawmakers in the United States want something done to fight what they consider to be rules that target U.S. Big Tech firms unfairly.
A letter signed by 25 Republicans, including seven members of the House of Representatives Trade Subcommittee, has been sent to Trump, urging him to open trade investigations against the E.U. The letter, seen byReuters on July 21, focuses chiefly on the Digital Markets Act as a tool that works against U.S. firms.
Describing the rules as “anti-competitive acts, policies, and practices,” the letter accuses the E.U. of using them as tools of “economic extraction and regulatory coercion against American firms.” Trump is urged to take action before Europe “further entrenches this anti-American regime.”
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As an example, the letter proposes that the addition of the cloud units of Amazon and Microsoft under the Digital Markets Act would place “unprecedented regulatory burdens” on the companies. Burdens that European and Chinese rivals apparently wouldn’t face.
Apple’s designation as a gatekeeper under DMA rules is also raised, alongside Amazon and Meta’s inclusion. Meanwhile, China giants Temu and AliExpress are not classed as such, partly due to the rules relying on the number of European users who use them.
There’s also the apparent problem of firms in the E.U. having access to the U.S. market with less regulatory oversight than the U.S. firms in the E.U. This access should be limited if the E.U. continues to use discriminatory rules, it continues.
The letter said that the U.S. should use all available tools, including Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. This rule would combat perceived unfair trade practices by imposing tariffs, Trump’s favorite international economic weapon.
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E.U. “innocence”
While lawmakers are insistent that the transatlantic relationship between the U.S. and Europe is very much one-sided and grossly unfair, the EU thinks otherwise.
Thomas Regnier, European Commission spokesperson, said the European Union has the sovereign right to regulate economic activities taking place within its borders. This also applies to digital regulation, he continued, insisting they are being enforced in a “fair and non-discriminatory manner.”
This enforcement has included continuing to fight Apple over the App Store and iMessages. For the App Store, this has led to the fairly lukewarm creation of third-party app storefronts on the continent.
Apple has also caught the occasional break from regulation, too. When it comes to Apple Maps and Apple Ads, the E.U. doesn’t believe they are large enough to be subject to regulation under the DMA.
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The regulations have also led to Apple holding back from launching some products in Europe, because of DMA compliance concerns. While the rest of the world will get to use Siri AI this fall, the EU will miss out.
Reviving retaliation
The letter to President Trump and the reference to Section 301 is a carefully planned request, that effectively is a callback to a warning from September 2025.
At the time, Trump warned Europe that the U.S. would retaliate if the E.U. continued to fine U.S. companies and burden them with regulations. There was the same threat of invoking Section 301 to allow U.S. officials to investigate and respond to unfair foreign trade practices.
Trump insisted that Europe was unfairly targeting American companies, such as Apple. The penalties levied by Europe were deemed to be diverting money away from U.S. investment and jobs.
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By spelling out that the lawmakers want Trump to do what he threatened in September, the letter could be enough to nudge the President into following through.
Four classic Xbox games are heading to PC as part of a new program from Microsoft. These older titles, which are currently available on Xbox Game Pass, will now be playable on desktops, laptops and handhelds such as the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X.
On Wednesday, the Xbox Backward Compatibility preview went live, allowing owners of four titles first released for the original Xbox — Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Fuzion Frenzy — to play them on their Windows PC and handhelds. Microsoft says it will roll out more features for these games in the future, including Xbox Achievements.
Microsoft
The four games may be more than 20 years old, but Microsoft did add some options to improve the gaming experience. Players can change the graphics settings, including up to 4x resolution upscaling, VSync support, display mode options, anisotropic filtering, enhanced anti-aliasing and more customizations to improve the look of these older titles.
Each game is available for purchase for $10 from the Xbox Store, and once owned on Xbox, the games can be played on PC or handhelds via Xbox Play Anywhere or streamed with Xbox Cloud Gaming. The titles are also available on Xbox Game Pass.
In order to play these games on a desktop, laptop or handheld, it must meet certain hardware specs:
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Minimum system requirements:
GPU: Nvidia GTX 950 or AMD Radeon RX 550 or Intel UHD 770 or Intel Arc A310
CPU: Min 4 Cores Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or AMD Ryzen™ Z2 A Processor
RAM: 8GB
OS: Windows 11
Drivers and Versions: Latest Version as of January 2026
Recommended specifications:
GPU: Radeon RX 68005 or Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti or Intel Arc A770
CPU: 6 cores and 12 threads Intel Core i5-10400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme
Drivers and Versions: Latest Version as of January 2026
Microsoft says the Xbox Backward Compatibility program is a form of game preservation, which has become a concern for gamers. With Sony announcing it will phase out physical discs and Nintendo’s Game-Key Cards that don’t contain the actual games, many worry that game ownership will become entirely dependent on publishers rather than having a physical medium to hold onto. There is a growing number of delisted games that are no longer available to those who purchased them, and with the future of gaming looking increasingly uncertain because of the current memory shortage, many fear their digital game collections could simply disappear from their accounts.
Oscar Gonzalez
Contributing writer
Oscar Gonzalez is a Texas native who covered video games, conspiracy theories, misinformation and cryptocurrency.
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