It's no secret that Microsoft really wants to go multi-platform with its gaming division. Not only has it worked hard on its cloud gaming platform to turn any device with a screen into a console, but it's also open to bringing previously exclusive games over to Sony and Nintendo's camps. However, it seems that the company may not be done spreading its influence, as it seemingly has Steam in its sights next.

In a true sign of a vibe shift in Washington, a DC bar beloved by Republican staffers announced that it was shuttering its doors — and will reportedly be replaced by a bar that only accepts cryptocurrency as payment.Local news site PoPville first reported on Thursday that a DC outpost of Pubkey, a bar located in Greenwich Village that describes itself as a “vibrant bitcoin community,” had taken over the lease of Hill Country, a popular barbecue restaurant and music venue. Hill Country recently announced that it was closing its doors in Penn Quarter after 14 years.It’s part of a trend of crypto-centric social venues opening up across the country in the past several years. Pubkey, which opened in 2022 near New York University’s Manhattan campus, has a notably casual atmosphere: a subterranean dive bar-slash-podcast recording studio, with a pub grub menu designed by an Eleven Madison Park alum, where anyone could hang out – so long as they paid with cryptocurrency. (When Eater visited in 2022, they observed “a variety of regional styles” of hot dogs on the menu, as well as a stuffed raccoon next to “a television that appeared to be playing A Christmas Story”.) …Read the full story at The Verge.

PC gaming enthusiasts love pushing their hardware to the limits to get the best possible performance while gaming. Ever since the first bunch of PCIe 5.0 SSDs hit the market in early 2023, it has been a hot topic of discussion among new PC builders. With modern CPUs and motherboards from both AMD and Intel supporting the PCIe 5.0 standard, getting these faster NVMe SSDs seems to make more sense.

Google is taking down 10,000 fake business listings from Google Maps and suing a network of scammers who set them up, CBS News reports. The company’s lawsuit alleges that a man connected to a broader scam network created fake business profiles on Google Maps and sold them for profit. Google was tipped off by a Texas-based locksmith who said someone was impersonating them on Google Maps, which led to the Wednesday lawsuit.“Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated,” Google’s general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado said Wednesday on CBS Mornings Plus. “Once we’re alerted to the actual fraud, we take extreme efforts to identify similar fraudulent listings.”Scammers can use Google Maps to fool people in a number of ways. Victims may stumble upon a fake listing that looks real and call the number. Sometimes, the scammer provides the service when the victim shows up, but will upcharge them. Other times, the victim could be routed to a call center, where scammers can try to convince them to pay for something ahead of time but not actually provide the service. Scammers can use software to pad fake listings with positive reviews; they can also boost the likes on a fake Q&A with illegitimate contacts on a real listing to get the Q&A to the top of a search, a Reddit user has found.Google shared with CBS News that it removed or blocked 12 million fake business profiles in 2023. It also said it has seen one million more fake listings year over year. Google has also been cracking down on businesses that use fake engagement tactics and artificial reviews to boost their ratings. And in the UK, Google implemented restrictions on offending businesses that engage in deceptive review activity after mounting pressure from regulators to take action.

Ask any DIY enthusiast about the best utility for managing smart gadgets and IoT paraphernalia, and they’ll definitely point you to Home Assistant. While HASS is pretty useful on its own, you can pair it with a handful of plugins to automate every aspect of your living space.

Nightdive Studios is making good on a six-year-old promise: a remastered version of the classic Looking Glass game System Shock 2. Nightdive and Sony revealed a trailer for System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster, as well as a release date of June 26th for PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles.As the name suggests, this is a touched-up version of System Shock 2, not a total remake like Nightdive’s (very good) 2023 take on System Shock. The trailer and screenshots on Sony’s announcement blog post show off some light visual updates, but they look like sharpened versions of things like enemy models — maintaining the feel of a 25-year-old game with a little less blur. (Your weapons have visible hands holding them now, too.) A bigger deal for many people might be an updated, console-friendly version of its complicated mouse and keyboard interface, including DualSense support and a quickbar for weapons and abilities. If you’re nostalgic for the old RPG overlay look, though, the visual design appears nearly unchanged. There’s even cross-play support for the game’s notoriously rocky cooperative multiplayer mode.According to Nightdive’s website and comments from a moderator in the studio Discord server, the game is supposed to include some of the original’s existing community mods on top of offering broader mod support. The Discord moderator says the remaster will ship with the SS2 Community Patch or SCP, which rebalances some frustrating features, among other patches. (This was discussed by Nightdive back in 2020.) We’ve reached out to Nightdive to confirm the details on what exactly mod support will look like, including how the remastered version might play with the ShockEd fan mission editor. The System Shock 2 community has been essentially remastering the game for decades, but an official version makes those efforts a lot easier to find.

As reports of vandalism and even a supposed doxing website targeting Tesla locations and vehicles continue to appear, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a new warning about old crimes. In a Department of Justice press release, she “announced charges against three individuals responsible for the violent destruction of Tesla properties.” It didn’t mention that all of the arrests and charges listed had already been reported days or weeks ago.The charges Bondi touted as evidence that “The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended” include three alleged attackers using Molotov cocktails. Lucy Nelson is facing malicious destruction of property and firearms charges filed on March 5th in Colorado. Adam Lansky was charged on March 5th in Oregon with illegally possessing an unregistered destructive device. Daniel Clarke-Pounder was arrested and charged on March 14th in relation to an arson a week earlier at a Tesla charging station in South Carolina.If Bondi has any new news or information about the investigations into “those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes,” that she referenced after fires in Las Vegas and Kansas City, she hasn’t released it, choosing instead to rely on the previously announced arrests to drum up new headlines. The newest information about the crimes that we found is a report by 404 Media that looked into the indictments, showing how law enforcement used license plate readers and social media posts to help identify suspects.

3D printing is not merely a hobby but also a great way to print useful and functional objects at home. Not only is this a fun way to explore several interesting models that can add value to your home, but also an avenue to save money, since there are several objects you can print in a few minutes instead of heading to a store to buy them. Moreover, you may not find specific parts or accessories if they are of unusual sizes. In such situations, 3D printing is an excellent solution since you can design and model pretty much any object irrespective of its dimensions.

If you're looking for one of the best SSDs available, then Crucial's T705 SSD is going to be in the mix as one of the fastest out there. While we loved this SSD in our review, we did think that it was pretty expensive. Luckily, we're now seeing some excellent promotions on the drive, with the 4TB model getting a hefty discount from Amazon that knocks $324 off. That means you can now score this drive for just $390, which is the lowest price we've seen yet.

From the dawn of video game consoles, gaming handhelds, and PCs, one of the fandom's most hotly debated badges of honor has been completing notoriously difficult games. From Dark Souls to Cup Head, players get a sense of pride from finally toppling a terrible boss or reaching the end of a game on the highest difficulty level. While plenty of hard games exist today, any gaming veteran will agree that some of the most difficult titles reside on the NES.

The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are some of the best earbuds that you can buy in 2025. Not only do you get an all-new design from Samsung, but you also get excellent audio quality, along with premium features like ANC and spatial audio support. While these earbuds can be pretty pricey at $250, you can now get them for just $100 with trade-in deal from Samsung.

As a 3D printing enthusiast, I'm always exploring essential tools to enhance my projects, and one of the most valuable is a 3D scanner. My first scanner, the Revopoint MetroX, has been a great addition to my arsenal, and after using it for a while, I've gained a solid understanding of its capabilities. A 3D scanner helps capture real-life objects and turn them into digital objects. It significantly reduces the time required to recreate existing objects compared to manual modeling. When using 3D modeling programs, one has to define the shape, sculpt intricate details, and apply textures and materials to achieve the desired results. This is always time-consuming, but with 3D scanning, one can capture the object as it is in minutes, and it is faster and more accurate, too. After learning about this, I decided to get MetroX to prepare my files for 3D printing, and below are the main reasons why I keep using it.