Microsoft is likely to face an EU antitrust investigation in the coming months after remedy discussions with the EU watchdog to avert such a move appear to have hit a roadblock, people familiar with the matter said.

Microsoft, which has been fined EUR 2.2 billion (nearly Rs. 19,670 crore) in the previous decade for practices in breach of EU competition rules, including tying or bundling two or more products together, found itself in the EU crosshairs after a complaint by Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack in 2020.

Microsoft added Teams to Office 365 in 2017 for free, with the app eventually replacing Skype for Business. 

Slack alleged that its rival had unfairly integrated workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product.

Microsoft kicked off talks with the European Commission last year in a bid to stave off an investigation. It recently offered to cut the price of its Office product without its Teams app.

The European Commission has been seeking a deeper price cut than that offered by the U.S. software giant, the people said.

The EU executive declined to comment. 

A Microsoft spokesperson said: “We continue to engage cooperatively with the Commission in its investigation and are open to pragmatic solutions that address its concerns and serve customers well.”

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Infinix Zero Flip — the company’s first foldable smartphone is all set to go official in India this week. Just days ahead of the formal launch, the Transsion Holdings subsidiary has revealed the price range and specifications of its flip-style foldable phone. The Infinix Zero Flip is confirmed to come with a 4,720mAh battery with support for 70W wired fast charging. The handset was launched in select global markets last month with a 6.9-inch inner display and a 3.64-inch cover display. The global version runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 8020 chipset.

Through a press release on Tuesday, Infinix has confirmed the price range and key specifications of the Infinix Zero Flip ahead of its india launch on October 17. The handset will be priced under Rs. 55,000 in the country. This price tag would make it one of the most affordable clamshell-style foldables available in India. Another Transsion Holdings company Tecno is selling its Phantom V Flip for Rs. 54,999 in the country.

The Infinix Zero Flip came with a price tag of $600 (roughly Rs. 50,200) in global markets.

Indian variant of Infinix Zero Flip is confirmed to ship with a 3.64-inch AMOLED cover display with 120Hz refresh rate, and a 4,720mAh battery with 70W fast charging support. The battery is claimed to perform well under extreme conditions and can charge in temperatures as low as -20°C. It is tased to carry up to 16GB RAM (including the virtual RAM) and 512GB storage.

The Infinix Zero Flip will feature several AI tools like AI Eraser, Smart Cutout and AI Sketch among others.

Infinix Zero Flip Specifications

The Infinix Zero Flip sports a 6.9-inch full-HD+ AMOLED main screen with 120Hz refresh rate. It runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 8020 SoC. It has a dual camera unit, including a 50-megapixel primary sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide shooter. The inner display has a 50-megapixel camera for selfies. It offers integration with GoPro cameras with a GoPro mode.

Valve has unveiled its annual ‘Best of 2023′ list on Steam, revealing which titles dominated sales on PC. The titles haven’t been numerically ranked, but have been grouped into tiers — Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze — based on data collected from January 1 through December 15, 2023. The Top 12 category is populated by both free-to-play multiplayer games and the biggest launches, with the award-winning Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077, and Hogwarts Legacy emerging as the best-selling titles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was disliked by both fans and critics alike, also made it to higher echelons, thanks to a dedicated fanbase wanting to experience its multiplayer segment.

The usual suspects like Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Dota 2, and Destiny 2 also made it to the Platinum rank — the last of them is getting a new expansion, ‘The Final Shape,’ in June, this year. Meanwhile, the Gold tier contains some absolute bangers like the Resident Evil 4 remake, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Elden Ring, for which the last-reported sales number was 20 million copies across all platforms. Its popularity was highly instrumental in plunking Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, a lesser-known FromSoftware franchise, among the top 24 best-selling games on the platform. Even FIFA 23 from last year made the cut, which shouldn’t be surprising considering its follow-up EA Sports FC 24 launched mid-year.

In addition to an overall Top-Sellers field, Steam has additional sections for New Releases by gross revenue, Most Played, Early Access purchases, and more. Multiplatform games that were received poorly seem to be the centre of attention among the latest releases, with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Payday 3 emerging on top, with the latter being criticised for lack of content. As you’d expect, multiplayer games held the highest player count (above 300,000 minimum), though some single-player affairs like Goose Goose Duck and Hogwarts Legacy charted alongside Baldur’s Gate 3, which at one point, peaked at over 800,000 concurrent players on Steam. Developer Larian Studios only anticipated 100,000, given the game had been out for nearly three years in early access. At the time of writing, over 176,000 concurrent players are logged into the expansive RPG, which is placed fourth among the most-played games on the platform.

2023 was also a great year for studios to test out their games in early access and gain feedback on them. The ocean exploration and fishing game from Mintrocket, Dave the Diver, was among the favourites, even turning out to be one of the most played games on the Steam Deck. While it’s only natural to expect less graphically intensive games like Vampire Survivor and Half-Life on there, somehow Starfield made it to the top despite its lack of optimisation causing heavy stutters in crowded areas like New Atlantis and the Wild West-themed Akila. Beat Saber and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR emerged among the favourites in virtual reality gaming, along with Half-Life: Alyx, pitting you in a vicious fight against the alien Combines.

Currently, Steam also has its annual Winter Sale going on, bringing steep discounts on new and returning games. It runs until January 5 at 10:30pm IST.

OnePlus Ace 5 and OnePlus Ace 5 Pro have been in the rumour mill for quite some time now. While the BBK-owned brand has yet to share details on the lineup, a new leak claims that the vanilla model will land in China next month. The OnePlus Ace 5 is tipped to get a 1.5K resolution display. It is said to run on Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC chipset. The OnePlus Ace 5 is expected to arrive in markets outside China with the OnePlus 13R moniker.

Digital Chat Station (translated from Chinese) claims in a Weibo post that the OnePlus Ace 5 will be launched in China in December. This indicates that OnePlus 13R will be released in global markets including India as a rebranded version of the OnePlus Ace 5 in the coming months, presumably in January.

The OnePlus Ace 3 was unveiled in China in January. In global markets, the handset is available as the OnePlus 12R.

OnePlus Ace 5, OnePlus Ace 5 Pro Specifications (Expected)

Previous leaks suggested that the OnePlus Ace 5 will come with a 6.78-inch BOE X2 8T LTPO display with a 1.5K resolution. It is said to be equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. The handset could pack a triple rear camera setup headlined by a 50-megapixel main camera.

The OnePlus Ace 5 may feature a 16-megapixel selfie shooter. It is said to come with an alert slider and carry a 6,300mAh battery with 100W fast charging support.

The OnePlus Ace 5 Pro, on the other hand, is speculated to run on the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. It is said to pack a 6,500mAh battery with 100W fast charging support. The Pro model could be exclusive to the Chinese market.

The United Nations is convening this week a global gathering to try to map out the frontiers of artificial intelligence and to harness its potential for empowering humanity.

The UN hopes to lay out a clear blueprint on the way forward for handling AI, as development of the technology races ahead the capacity to set its boundaries.

The “AI for Good Global Summit“, being held in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, will bring together around 3,000 experts from companies like Microsoft and Amazon as well as from universities and international organisations to try to sculpt frameworks for handling AI.

“This technology is moving fast,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the International Telecommunication Union, the UN’s information and communications technology agency that convened the summit.

“It’s a real opportunity for the world’s leading voices on AI to come together on the global stage and to address governance issues,” she told reporters.

“Doing nothing is not an option. Humanity is dependent upon it. So we have to engage and try and ensure a responsible future with AI.”

She said the summit would examine possible frameworks and guardrails to support safe AI use.

Listed participants include Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels, Google DeepMind chief operating officer Lila Ibrahim and former Spain football captain Iker Casillas — who suffered a heart attack in 2019 and now advocates for AI use in heart attack prevention.

They will be joined by dozens of robots, including several humanoids like Ai-Da, the first ultra-realistic robot artist; Ameca, the world’s most advanced life-like robot; the humanoid rock singer Desdemona; and Grace, the most advanced healthcare robot.

Benefiting humanity?

The Geneva-based ITU feels it can bring its experience to bear on AI governance.

Founded in 1865, the ITU is the oldest agency in the UN fold. It established “SOS” as the Morse code international maritime distress call in 1906, and coordinates everything from radio frequencies to satellites and 5G.

The summit wants to identify ways of using AI to advance the UN’s lagging sustainable development goals on issues such as health, the climate, poverty, hunger and clean water.

Bogdan-Martin said AI must not exacerbate social inequalities or introduce biases on race, gender, politics, culture, religion or wealth.

“This summit can help ensure that AI charts the course that benefits humanity,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said.

However, while AI proponents hail the technology for how it can transform society, including work, healthcare and creative pursuits, others are worried by its potential to undermine democracy.

‘Perfect storm’

“We’re kind of in a perfect storm of suddenly having this powerful new technology — I don’t think it’s super-intelligent — being spread very widely and empowered in our lives, and we’re really not prepared,” said serial AI entrepreneur Gary Marcus.

“We’re at a critical moment in history when we can either get this right and build the global governance we need, or get it wrong and not succeed and wind up in a bad place where a few companies control the fates of many, many people without sufficient forethought,” he said.

Last month, EU lawmakers pushed the bloc closer to passing one of the world’s first laws regulating systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. There is also growing clamour to regulate AI in the United States.

ChatGPT has become a global sensation since it was launched late last year for its ability to produce human-like content, including essays, poems and conversations from simple prompts.

It has sparked a mushrooming of generative AI content, leaving lawmakers scrambling to try to figure out how to regulate such bots.

Juan Lavista Ferres, chief data scientist of the Microsoft AI For Good Lab, gave an example of how AI could be used “to make our world a better place”.

He compared the more than 400 million people diagnosed with diabetes, a major cause of blindness, with the small number of ophthalmologists.

“It’s physically impossible to diagnose every patient. Yet we and others have built AI models that today can take this condition with an accuracy that matches a very good ophthalmologist. This is something can even be done from a smartphone.

“Here AI is not just a solution, but it’s the only solution.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Nothing will launch its first Community Edition smartphone at the end of this month, the Carl Pei led brand confirmed on Tuesday. The upcoming handset is the culmination of the ‘Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition Project’ that started in March this year. As part of this initiative, the UK-based brand has taken design, wallpaper, and packaging ideas from the community. The original Nothing Phone 2a was unveiled earlier this year with a MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro SoC under the hood.

Through X, Nothing announced that it will unveil the Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition smartphone during their next quarterly update set for October 30 at 11:00 GMT (4:30pm IST).

For those new, the development of Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition started in March after the formal launch of Nothing Phone 2a. The project, where users are being asked to build a special-edition design of the Phone 2a, spanned over six months and involved four stages. The first stage focused on hardware design, the second involved wallpapers, the third included packaging for the new phone, and finally, the last stage focused on marketing campaigns.

Nothing has listed the winners of the Nothing Community Edition project on its website. The final design of the Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition has a Phosphorescence concept with a green finish that glows in the dark. The wallpapers, packaging, and marketing campaigns follow a similar theme.

Aside from the new design, wallpaper and packaging, the internals of the Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition model are expected to be identical to the standard Phone 2a.

Nothing Phone 2a Price in India, Specifications

The Phone 2a went official in India in March with a price tag of Rs. 23,999 for the base 8GB + 128GB RAM and storage configuration. It runs on MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro SoC and features a 6.7-inch full-HD+ (1,080×2,412 pixels) AMOLED display with an adaptive refresh rate ranging from 30Hz to 120Hz. It flaunts dual 50-megapixel dual cameras at the back and has a 32-megapixel selfie camera. The handset has an IP54-rated build.

Nothing has packed a 5,000mAh battery on the Phone 2a with support for 45W fast charging.

Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s expansive open-world game set in the galaxy far, far away, was briefly known to be eyeing a ‘late 2024′ release window, as per a recent Disney Parks blog. That has since been corrected to reflect a general timespan this year, with the publisher confirming to Kotaku that the timing was incorrectly displayed. First revealed during an Xbox Showcase last year, the title is set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi movies, and introduces Kay Vess, a space scoundrel with a bounty on her head after botching up a job. Joining her on the crusade is the adorable axolotl-like alien Nix, performing certain actions at your command — akin to the BD-1 droid from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

“This is a character who is just trying to get by—stealing, outwitting and conning folks,” Narrative Director Navid Khavari told Kotaku in an interview. “I would love for folks playing the game to really get a sense of what it might feel like to step into the underworld.” It’s a time when the oppressive Empire is ruling the galaxy tightly and warding off the Rebellion, forming a ‘power vacuum’ that allows the underworld to make the best of the opportunity — with Kay and Nix taking on risky contracts and interacting with crime syndicates to build up their reputation. This is reportedly Star Wars Outlaws’ faction system, opening ways to new questlines and changing relationship status based on prior interactions. For now, it’s unclear whether players will be able to join as many factions as they want in a single playthrough, but Jabba the Hut is confirmed to be one of the quest-givers.

Developer Massive Entertainment unveiled the gameplay footage for Star Wars Outlaws last year, revealing that the protagonist Kay doesn’t have any Jedi powers, forcing her to rely on her trusty blasters or pick up any weapons lying around to make quick work of enemies. Meanwhile, traversal is largely dependent on a hovering motorcycle that’s equipped with a nitrous booster for a quick push and the ability to slow down time and target enemies with bullets, similar to the Dead Eye skill from Red Dead Redemption 2.

As for interplanetary exploration, Ubisoft claims that players will be able to freely travel around in their ‘Trailblazer’ ship and ping-pong between planets. I desperately hope this isn’t similar to Starfield, where exploration largely revolved around fast travels and staring at a loading screen. Players might often bump into dogfights and just like most RPGs, going off the beaten path will yield special rewards. Activities will be divided smoothly across three gameplay experiences — dense cities littered with NPCs, shops, and cantinas; massive open-world environments like the deserts of Tatooine; and the vast outer space.

Star Wars Outlaws is still slated to release sometime in 2024, across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X.