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  Much of the time, the game looks a lot like Civilization, like in this city view. [credit: Microsoft ]

We haven't written much about Ara: History Untold, a new historical turn-based strategy PC game that's been in the works for a few years now. Part of that's because its publisher, Xbox Game Studios, hasn't put much fanfare behind it; it wasn't even mentioned in Microsoft's not-E3 extravaganza last week.

But perhaps both we and Microsoft should be putting more of a spotlight on it, given that it now has a release date: September 24, 2024. The game will be released on Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC simultaneously.

The date was announced during an Official Xbox Podcast interview (and accompanying blog post) with Marc Meyer, president of Oxide Games, the studio developing Ara. The podcast covered more than just the release date, though, with Meyer offering up some new gameplay details—particularly about how multiplayer will work.

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  The Calculator app is finally coming to iPad. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

CUPERTINO, Calif.—After going into detail about iOS 18, Apple took a few moments in its WWDC 2024 keynote to walk through some changes.

There are a few minor UI changes and new features across Apple's first party apps. That includes a new floating tab bar. The bar expands into the side bar when you want to dig in, and you can customize the tab bar to include the specific things you want to interact with the most. Additionally, SharePlay allows easier screen sharing and remote control of another person's iPad.

But the big news is that the Calculator app we've all used on the iPhone to the iPad, after years of the iPad having no first-party calculator app at all. The iPad Calculator app can do some things the iPhone version can't do with the Apple Pencil; a feature called Math Notes can write out expressions like you would on a piece of paper, and the app will solve the expressions live as you scribble them—plus various other cool live-updating math features. (These new Math Notes features work in the Notes app, too.)

Enlarge / A Mac virtual monitor in visionOS 2. (credit: Samuel Axon)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple kicked off the keynote for its annual developer conference by announcing a new version of visionOS, the operating system that runs on the company's pricey but impressive Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

The updates in visionOS 2 are modest, not revolutionary—mostly iterative changes, quality-of-life improvements, and some features that were originally expected in the first version of visionOS. That's not too surprising given that visionOS just went out to users four months ago.

Vision Pro users hoping for multiple virtual Mac monitors will be disappointed that's not planned this time around, but Apple plans to add the next-best thing: Users will be able to take advantage of a larger and higher-resolution single virtual display, including a huge, wraparound ultrawide monitor mode that Apple says is equivalent to two 4K monitors.

Enlarge / The logo for WWDC24. (credit: Apple)

Apple's annual developer conference, WWDC, kicks off in Cupertino, California, next week. As always, it will start with a livestream keynote on Monday morning at 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. We'll be in attendance reporting on the event, so let's take a moment to take stock of what we expect to see next week.

But first, let's note something we don't think we'll see: Due to some peculiarities about Apple's upgrade cycles, as well as a push toward the M4, we're not actually expecting any major hardware announcements at WWDC this year.

That's OK, though, because it looks like it's going to be a big one for software news. iOS has seen relatively modest updates in the past couple of years, but that's about to change.

Enlarge / Sony's marketing image for PSVR2 on PC. (credit: Sony)

It doesn't seem like PlayStation VR2 is having quite the same success as its predecessor, which was a runaway hit at a moment when public curiosity and investment in VR were at an all-time high. Nonetheless, it's one of the most advanced VR headsets available—tied to a tiny library on the PS5.

That's about to change, as Sony has confirmed its plans to launch a PC adapter for the headset on August 7. It will cost $60, and it will, at a minimum, let PSVR2 owners play a large library of SteamVR titles, provided their PCs meet the minimum specifications.

Sony's blog post about the adapter says players will need a Steam account, so it's unclear how or whether you can use the headset to dive into PC VR experiences through various channels besides Steam.

Enlarge / OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. (credit: JASON REDMOND / Contributor | AFP)

Apple and OpenAI have successfully made a deal to include OpenAI's generative AI technology in Apple's software, according to The Information, which cites a source who has spoken to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the deal.

It was previously reported by Bloomberg that the deal was in the works. The news appeared in a longer article about Altman and his growing influence within the company.

"Now, [Altman] has fulfilled a longtime goal by striking a deal with Apple to use OpenAI’s conversational artificial intelligence in its products, which could be worth billions of dollars to the startup if it goes well," according to The Information's source.

Enlarge / ICQ in Windows 98. (credit: Samuel Axon)

After nearly 28 years in operation, messaging service ICQ will cease operations on June 26, according to its current owners.

You'd be forgiven for not realizing it still existed; the proto-IM service hasn't been in the mainstream since the 2000s. But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it simultaneously laid the groundwork for direct messaging and social networking as we came to know it in the post-Facebook era.

28 years of history

ICQ was something of an accident, as popular as it became. Created by four Israeli computer geeks, it wasn't even meant to be the original idea.

Enlarge / iPadOS 17.5.1 ready to install on an iPad Pro. (credit: Samuel Axon)

On May 20, Apple released iOS 17.5.1 to fix a bug users had found a few days prior in iOS 17.5 that resurfaced old photos that had been previously deleted. So far, the update seems to have resolved the issue, but users were left wondering exactly what had happened. Now Apple has clarified the issue somewhat, describing the nature of the bug to 9to5Mac.

Apple told the publication that the photos were not regurgitated from iCloud Photos after being deleted on the local device; rather, they were local to the device. Apple says they were neither left in the cloud after deletion nor synced to it after, and the company did not have access to the deleted photos.

The photos were retained on the local device storage due to a database corruption issue, and the bug resurfaced photos that were flagged for deletion but were not actually fully deleted locally.

It has been a tumultuous run for Netflix's popular adaptation of The Witcher novels and games. A series of setbacks and controversies led to a long delay after the show lost its star, Henry Cavill. Now a brief season four teaser gives us our first look at Cavill's replacement in the role of Geralt of Rivia, Liam Hemsworth.

The video above reveals little about the direction for the season beyond establishing that, yes, Hemsworth is now Geralt, and here's what it looks like. He looks the part, though it's hard for some fans to imagine him matching Cavill's pitch-perfect presence and delivery for the character.

See, Cavill is famously a passionate gamer. He's talked at length about his deep fandom of Warhammer 40K, his experiences playing World of Warcraft, and yes, his experiences with 2015's immensely popular open-world RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. He even has appeared in a video building a gaming PC.