News written by Petteri Pyyny (May, 2026)

We reported a couple of weeks ago on how digitally purchased PlayStation games would in the future regularly require online verification.

The findings showed that both PS4 and PS5 games required the console on which the game is installed to go online. At the time, this was interpreted to mean that the console would have to be connected to the internet at least once every 30 days or the game license would be revoked.

Now Sony has clarified the matter in a response it gave to GameSpot.

According to the company, games purchased digitally from the online store do indeed require a subsequent online verification even after the purchase.

But the check is carried out only once after the purchase. Apparently, the console should go online once, and this visit must take place within the first month from the purchase date, but after the end of the cancellation period for the game purchase - at least according to gaming media IGN .

Over the past couple of months, some strange things have been coming out of Microsoft's gaming division. And specifically in a positive sense.

The leadership of the gaming division was completely replaced with new faces over the winter and after that things have started to happen, quite a lot in fact.

First, in March, the first hints were announced about the upcoming next-generation Xbox, i.e. Project Helix.

Then in April, the leadership of the gaming division explained how players and games are being put back at the center of everything as the next steps for Xbox and Microsoft's entire gaming business are planned. In the same shake-up, the Microsoft Gaming unit was renamed back to simply Xbox - and Xbox Game Pass prices were lowered.

And now the rapid moves continue, as the head of the Xbox division, Asha Sharma, said this week (link goes to X/Twitter) that Microsoft's AI assistant Copilot will be completely removed from the Xbox platform and its development for Xbox will be discontinued immediately.

The world's most popular browser, Google's own Chrome, is now automatically downloading a huge additional file to every computer it's installed on.

The four-gigabyte weights.bin file automatically downloads to the computer and places itself in the same directory path where Chrome is installed.

This file is essentially the weight file for Gemini Nano, Google's own AI's local model, which tells the local AI model how it should function and what it can do.

So, in simple terms: a local Google AI model, running on the user's computer, is downloaded to (almost) every single computer with the Chrome browser installed.

It should be noted in this context that almost all: if the computer is too slow, has too little memory, or is otherwise incompatible with Gemini Nano, the local AI model will not be downloaded.

The issue was first noticed by The Privacy Guy, who wrote about it on his blog after first figuring out what was going on.

Chrome will henceforth use local AI to perform the browser's AI functions, such as suggesting what to write on social media or which tabs should be grouped together.

Microsoft has, over the past decade, delved into its history and released as open source some of the company's most important early products.

Previously, the giant has released as open source, among others, MS-DOS 4, released in 1988 and developed in cooperation with IBM, as well as the company's very first product, Altair BASIC.

Now the company has released a version of its DOS operating system that offers a glimpse into the events that ultimately led to the creation of the MS-DOS operating system, which grew into Microsoft's empire.

Microsoft, at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, was still a relatively small technology company. However, it had managed to secure a deal with the gigantic IBM to supply an operating system for IBM's soon-to-be-released, entirely new Personal Computer concept, which would use the 8086 processor.

Microsoft simply didn't have such an operating system in existence.

But another software company did: Tim Paterson had developed the 86-DOS operating system (formerly known as QDOS), which already ran on the 8086 processor, albeit in a different configuration than what IBM would later release.

Google is expanding YouTube's picture-in-picture function, or PiP mode, to all users worldwide. The feature has existed for years, but its use has been limited until now: previously it has only worked for American users - or elsewhere in the world through a paid YouTube Premium subscription.

Now the picture-in-picture function will be automatically enabled for all YouTube users, in all countries - meaning also for those using the free version of YouTube. According to the company, the feature will be rolled out in phases, "over the coming months".

However, the change does not make PiP mode completely identical for everyone, as the available features will continue to depend on the subscription type. Free users can only use the PiP feature when watching "long form" videos. This covers, for example, vlogs, documentaries and most other types of long videos - but music videos and YouTube Shorts are excluded.

Paying Premium subscribers will continue to get full benefit from picture-in-picture mode. They can use PiP mode for watching all kinds of videos, including music videos, allowing, for example, a single music video or a music video playlist to continue in the background, even if the user switches to other apps on their phone.