According to the service’s own numbers, there were a total of 30,012,957 Steam users online at the same time at around 14:00 UTC on Sunday, October 23, though SteamDB has the figure at 30,032,005. That beats the previous record of 29,986,681, which was set at the end of March 2022. The new record illustrates how quickly Steam has grown in recent times. It took 12 years after launching in 2003 before the service reached 10 million concurrent users in 2015, but just five more years to hit 20 million....

We have to admit until a few weeks ago we’d never heard of the game. Announced ahead of E3 2017, we didn’t catch wind of it until recently when AMD announced their “Raise The Game” for those purchasing a Radeon RX Vega, RX 580 or RX 570 graphics card. In case you’re unaware, the game bundle includes three upcoming games: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Star Control: Origins, and Strange Brigade. The promotion’s currently active and will run until November 3rd....

DigiTimes reports that Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) published a list this week of strategic high-tech commodities banned from exportation to Russia and Belarus. The latter country is included as MOEA believes it could help Russia import such goods. The list, which is in accordance with Category 3 to Category 9 of the Wassenaar Arrangement, covers not only modern chips but also technology that could make or reverse engineer them, including lithography equipment, scanners, and scanning electron microscopes....

TeamGroup announced that its T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 SSD, part of the Cardea series, is capable of maximum sequential read speeds of over 13,000MB/s and write speeds exceeding 12,000MB/s. The company added that it will be available in capacities reaching 4TB. Those speeds are similar to the upcoming PCIe 5.0 SSDs from Adata, Samsung, and Koxia, as well as the one Intel gave us a glimpse of before CES, all of which can touch 14GB/s reads and 12GB/s writes....

Tesla is recalling over 817,000 vehicles over a flaw that causes the seatbelt chimes to malfunction. The safety recall includes all Model 3 and Model Y cars. Model S and Model X vehicles 2021 and newer are also affected. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration describes the problem as a software error that causes the car not to warn the driver when the seatbelt is disengaged when starting the vehicle....

Pulitzer Prize-winning images will also be available to purchase as rare drops that take place once every two weeks. These photos will have increased scarcity to preserve their status and may be limited to the market’s most active collectors, we’re told. The news agency is partnering with Xooa on the project. The NFTs will be minted on the Polygon blockchain, an Ethereum-compatible layer two platform founded in 2017. AP digital collectibles will support secondary market transactions and will be purchasable using credit cards as well as crypto....

Update: See our latest Speakers Buying Guide here. The choice of PC speakers has evolved accordingly from standard systems to more audiophile oriented monitors and practical yet refined solutions covering all price segments. We’ve done the dirty work of researching a wide range of PC speaker offerings to bring you the best options in five major categories that should cover most needs including the best bookshelf/studio speakers, best 2.1 gaming speakers, best audiophile system that includes a subwoofer, and best budget system....

The only question is, what is a tablet? The inclusion of a touchscreen and the ability to work without a physical keyboard attached seem to provide a pretty good definition. In that sense, all modern phones are tablets, but with sizes and aspect ratios of devices that are meant to be used as phones, they are arguably not the best tablets. So what are the best? Whether you need a new tablet for work or study, content consumption or web browsing, this buying guide has got you covered....

Logitech G930 .mp3 mic sample Corsair H2100 .mp3 mic sample Astro A50 Gen2 .mp3 mic sample SteelSeries H Wireless .mp3 mic sample Turtle Beach i60 .mp3 mic sample Turtle Beach Z300 .mp3 mic sample Making Picks, Putting It All Together After spending much time exploring, using, testing and writing about these six headsets, I’ve come to the conclusion the perfect wireless headset for PC gaming doesn’t exist. Maybe I’m picky, but it was impossible to find one that had it all....

The non-profit organization developing Matrix seeks to provide an open messaging standard that other groups can use to build communication infrastructure. Some government institutions and other organizations have already started using the protocol to build custom messaging apps which offers advantages over relying on the main tech giants. Users on any messaging service built on Matrix can potentially communicate with users on other Matrix-based clients. That openness could allow people to stick with the software they prefer instead of the one where all their friends are....

Diehard Pokémon and Mario fans may disagree, but for me the most interesting of the three was without a doubt the tiny replica NES. Not only did it generate tons of buzz during the holidays due to how difficult it was to find in stores (not necessarily a good thing), but it sets the stage for what will hopefully be a series of nostalgia-inducing follow-ups modeled after Nintendo’s other popular consoles....

Throughout the years one of the best productivity boosters I found was adding monitors to my workstation. By doubling my desktop real estate, I could get a lot more done by not having to constantly resize and shift windows around. A few years later, I added a third display to the equation which meant I could keep even more information in front of me at once. With two 22-inch monitors and a 24-incher, I barely had enough room for my keyboard and mouse, but it was a trade I was willing to make....

This year we have divided stories in 12 heavily packed categories, with nearly 500 hand-picked headlines total. Feel free to jump around between your favored topics, but try not to miss the tech culture section where we revisit some of the most entertaining stories we covered this year. Here’s our take on 2012… Hardware Apple The Web CPU/Graphics Google Tech Culture Software Microsoft Gaming Mobile Patent Wars Security

In fact, the Level 10 is almost impossible to keep pristine and I quickly found myself spending more time washing it than I did my car. Like a shiny new smartphone, once you unbox it, it never looks the same again. Thermaltake acknowledges this issue by including a cleaning cloth in the package, but honestly, we would have just preferred lower maintenance paint. We get the feeling that the Level 10 isn’t supposed to be the most practical case, as Thermaltake has favored design over function....

Halloween is less than a week away and kids are no doubt gearing up for the big night of candy collecting. While arguments persist over costume choice or the best trick-or-treating strategy to maximize hauls, I think we can all agree that the long-running debate over the best Halloween candy has been settled once and for all. Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City that sells all sorts of DIY electronics and kits....

You can write a macro using a simple text editor, like notepad, or use the included macro recorder to create hotkeys for virtually any button or combination of keys. That may not sound like a big deal, but once you start grasping its potential you’ll see it can be incredibly handy. For example, you can assign a hotkey to launch any application you use regularly, or just switch to it if it is already running; assign abbreviations that expand as you type them; save time on repetitive tasks by setting the computer to auto-click a confirmation screen; or make the ‘Scroll Lock’ and Pause/Break keys do something useful for a change....

Most chipmakers believe the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict won’t worsen the global shortage of chips that’s been plaguing the tech and auto industries. The supply chain has been showing some signs of recovery as of late, but industry leaders still are, at best, cautiously optimistic about the entire situation. The chip industry is scrambling to diversify its supply of materials and gases and pouring billions of dollars into building additional manufacturing facilities and equipping them with cutting-edge lithography equipment....

According to The Washington Post, which cites interviews and documents obtained by the publication, Twitter is following in the footsteps of other tech giants in cutting its workforce during these times of economic uncertainty. The Post writes that should Musk’s acquisition fall apart, something that looks highly unlikely given his recent comments about the platform’s potential, Twitter’s current management plans to cut the payroll by $800 million by the end of the year....

While Stadia and Luna each have access to a couple dozen Ubisoft+ games, Xbox will get over 100 of them. That likely means every Ubisoft+ game that has an Xbox version. EA Play, however, is already available on Xbox, PlayStation, and even Steam (Ubisoft+ on PC still only works through the Ubisoft Connect client), most famously coming bundled with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass. Ubisoft’s announcement this week doesn’t suggest it’s bundling Ubisoft+ with Game Pass as well, but most of it is actually about how Rainbow Six Extraction will launch on Xbox and PC Game Pass day one at the end of this month....