Spitfire Beats Fusion To Win Overwatch League (And a $1 Million Prize)

The London Spitfire franchise has won the first Overwatch League season, picking up a $1 million prize before a live audience of 20,000 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The team faced Philadelphia Fusion in a battle to be decided by the best of three matches, each set being the best of five games. It […]

Windows Updates Could Get Less Frustrating

Microsoft is trying to make Windows more likely to install updates at a time that won’t annoy users. It says it’s doing this with a “predictive model.” At the moment, Windows will sometimes install an update (and even reboot the machine to complete it) after simply checking that nothing is actively running. Microsoft notes one […]

Private Browsing Mode Confuses Users

Many web users overestimate exactly how private a “private browsing mode” really is according to new research. That’s partly because of confusion in the way browser developers name and explain the modes, which also include “incognito.” Researchers at the University of Chicago and Leibniz University in Hannover ran a study with 460 participants. Each was […]

Japan’s Calendar Could Pose Computer Problems

Japan could be facing its own version of the Y2K bug, with Unicode also affected. It’s all to do with the upcoming abdication of Emperor Akihito. As The Guardian notes, Japan’s date system resets every time a new emperor take over, marking what’s considered a new historical order. Emperor Akihito announced last December that he’ll […]

Windows To Better Support Leap Seconds

Windows 10’s next major update will add support for leap seconds. It’s designed to make the system compatible with some regulatory requirements The leap second is necessary because of the way we keep track of time. Almost all timekeeping, including computer operations and the internet, is based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). That’s an atomic […]

Valve Bans Nearly 100,000 Accounts

Valve has banned a record 95,000 accounts from Steam games in a single week. It seems likely a specific cheating method was identified before the ban-hammer fell. The stats come from a third-party database, which tracks details of Steam activity including bannings. The figure for accounts banned via the Valve Anti-Cheat System normally hovers around […]