Windows has frequently made managing multiple audio devices a hassle. Over the years, Microsoft has tried to improve the experience in a few ways. In 2021, for example, the company simplified how Windows 10 categorized Bluetooth devices. In spite of those efforts, it often feels like the OS doesn’t make switching between audio outputs and managing sound levels as easy as they should be. For instance, I wish Windows 11’s Quick Setting panel would allow me to adjust audio levels on a per-app basis.

Thankfully, Microsoft is finally preparing to solve that minor annoyance for Windows users. This week, the company detailed the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview and it just so happens to include a redesigned Quick Settings volume mixer. The updated interface element not only allows you to switch between audio devices but you can also use it to enable spatial sound and adjust volume output on a per-app basis, two things you can’t do with the current design. What’s more, Microsoft has added a dedicated shortcut to make accessing the feature faster. Once you have access to the volume mixer, press the Windows, Ctrl and V keys on your keyboard at the same time to open it.

"With this change, you can now tailor your audio experience with more control and fewer clicks to better manage your favorite apps," Microsoft says of the redesigned interface. As Bleeping Computer points out, the new volume mixer is reminiscent of the popular EarTrumpet mod. There’s no word yet on when Microsoft plans to roll out the latest Windows Insider features to regular users, but here’s hoping this one doesn’t take long to make its way to the general public.

Microsoft

More than a decade after the release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valve is reportedly preparing to announce a new version of its landmark tactical shooter. Moreover, a beta release could arrive as early as later this month. According to esports journalist Richard Lewis (via VGC), Valve has been working on a sequel to CS:GO for some time, and that game is "about ready to go." He says the studio recently hosted a secret playtest of the first-person shooter that involved a group of professional players who flew to Seattle. According to Lewis, Valve tentatively plans to begin beta testing the game with the broader Counter-Strike community by April 1st at the latest. "The big priority is getting this out and then polishing it, fixing any bugs and bringing it up to the level people expect from CS," one of Lewis' sources told him.

As for improvements, the new Counter-Strike will reportedly feature improved graphical fidelity thanks to a behind-the-scenes shift to Source 2, the latest version of Valve's in-house game engine. Additionally, Lewis says the game will support 128-tick servers, a feature that would bring CS in line with Valorant and reduce latency. Valve is also said to have significantly improved the matchmaking experience, which should make the community less reliant on third-party services like FACEIT. Valve did not immediately respond to Engadget's comment request.

Rumors suggesting that a new Counter-Strike game is right around the corner have been going around for years, but there are a few reasons to assign more weight to this latest report. To start, Lewis has a strong track record. In 2015, he wrote a report confirming rumors that one of the leading professional CS:GO teams at the time had purposefully thrown a match. There's also corroborating evidence to support his claims. At the start of the month, a few CS:GO fans found evidence that NVIDIA's GPU drivers have included references to "csgo2.exe" and "cs2.exe" since February. 

Apple is readying to release a new 24-inch iMac as early as the second half of the year, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman reports the development of two new iMac models has reached “a late stage,” with Apple recently beginning manufacturing tests. Gurman expects volume production of the 2023 iMac won’t start for at least another three months, but the good news is the refreshed models will feature a handful of improvements.

Most significantly, the 2023 iMac will reportedly include Apple’s next-generation M3 system-on-a-chip. Gurman notes the new chipset is likely to offer significant performance and power efficiency gains given that it’s expected to take advantage of TSMC’s upcoming 3nm process. Other changes could involve the iMac’s internal components, some of which have reportedly been redesigned by Apple. Gurman says the company is also planning to employ a “different” manufacturing process for attaching the iMac’s stand. That said, the all-in-one will still feature a 24-inch screen and come in the same cheerful colorways as its 2021 predecessor.

Alongside a new iMac, Gurman says the company is readying to release the long-rumored 15-inch variant of the MacBook Air, as well as a refresh of the 13-inch model and its first Apple Silicon Mac Pro. He expects those Macs to arrive will arrive between late spring and sometime this summer. Less clear is whether the new MacBook Airs will ship with M3 chips. Gurman speculates “at least” the 13-inch model could feature Apple’s latest chip given that the company already offers an M2 version of the ultraportable.

March 10th might not be for another few days, but that’s not stopping retailers like Amazon from offering Mario Day deals early. Ahead of Friday, the company has discounted a handful of Nintendo Switch titles that feature the mustachioed plumber. For instance, Super Mario Odyssey is 33 percent off, making it $40 at the moment. Meanwhile, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is $39 currently, down from $60. Given that discounts on first-party Nintendo games are rare, this is a great opportunity to fill out your Switch library.

Amazon has also discounted the more recently released Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. After a 50 percent discount, you can get the tactics RPG for just $30. If you’ve slept on Sparks of Hope, it’s one of the best Switch exclusives in recent memory. Outside of those games, it looks like Amazon will discount other Mario-themed titles, including Super Mario Maker 2 and Mario Party Superstars, closer to March 10th. So keep your eyes out for discounts on those games if you’ve been waiting to pick them up.

Last but not least, Amazon has also lowered the price of Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. The Mario set is $60, down from $100, after a 40 percent discount. Home Circuit allows you to create custom racetracks throughout your home and then race around them with a camera-equipped kart piloted by Mario or Luigi.

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With Diablo IV set to arrive later this year, 2023 will be a big year for action RPGs. But there’s more to look forward to beyond this year. On Thursday, Moon Beast Productions – an indie studio founded by Phil Shenk and Peter Hu, two former Blizzard North developers – announced the hiring of Diablo series co-creator Erich Schaefer. In an interview with GamesBeat, the studio said Schaefer will serve as lead creator director on a new action RPG. Details on the project are sparse, but what Moon Beast shared with Schaefer was reportedly enough to convince him to come out of retirement.

“We have ideas for changing the genre with a different approach to progression and trying to solve some of the problems that are beholden to PvE games, especially games, like the Diablo franchise has dealt with,” Shenk told GamesBeat. All three men worked on Diablo II. Notably, Shenk is credited as the game’s lead character artist, and was responsible for designing the appearance of a few of the game’s character classes, including the necromancer and assassin. Lord of Destruction, Diablo II’s excellent 2001 expansion, features a tribute to Shenk in the form of a monster you must slay to complete one of Act V’s quests.

Schaefer told GamesBeat Moon Beast currently employs about 12 people, making it smaller than many of the other studios working in the ARPG genre. The good news is Schaefer has plenty of experience leading small teams. At Runic Games, he made Torchlight with a team of about 25 people. "I want to work on projects that are fun and genuinely try to do something different," Schaefer said. "It’s impressive what the Moon Beast team has built in such a short time. It fired up my imagination with possibilities, and that's a huge part of why I wanted to come aboard."

One of 2022’s most surprising films will soon be available to stream. On Friday, NBCUniversal took to Twitter to announce that Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will hit Peacock on March 10th. As Gizmodo notes, the Shrek franchise spinoff has had an incredible run since arriving in theaters at the end of last year. To date, the film has grossed nearly $450 million, making it one of the most financially successful movies of 2022. It has also been a hit among critics, leading to a Best Animated Picture nomination at this year’s Oscars.

The Last Wish will join other Shrek films on Peacock, including the 2001 original and 2010's Shrek Forever After, the final entry in the mainline series. You can also use Peacock to watch a handful of other DreamWorks classics, including The Prince of Egypt. Unfortunately, NBCUniversal is making it harder to check out Peacock’s library of content for free. The service recently stopped offering its previously available free tier to new subscribers. Comcast subscribers will also lose free access to the platform later this year.

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried may be stuck using a dumb phone for the foreseeable future. In a letter seen by Bloomberg, prosecutors involved in his criminal case said Friday that Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had agreed to modify the terms of his bail agreement. Provided the judge overseeing the case agrees to the changes, SBF will be restricted to using a “non-smartphone” without internet connectivity. Unless a lawyer is present, he will also be forbidden from contacting current or former FTX and Alameda Research employees. Additionally, SBF won’t be able to use encrypted messaging apps, including Signal.

The proposed restrictions come after Bankman-Fried allegedly attempted to contact the general counsel of FTX’s US subsidiary over Signal at the start of the year. “I would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other,” he said in one message, according to the Justice Department.

Earlier in the week, Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering, pleaded guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges. Singh is the third of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against him. At the end of last year, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Zixiao "Gary" Wang pleaded guilty to fraud charges and said they would cooperate with investigators.

According to Bloomberg, District Judge Lewis Kaplan threatened to revoke Bankman-Fried’s bail and send him to jail before the start of his trial after learning that the disgraced entrepreneur may have influenced potential witnesses. Last month, Kaplan also banned Bankman-Fried from using a virtual private network (VPN) after his lawyers said he used one to watch a football game. According to Reuters, Kaplan said he did not want SBF "loose in this garden of electronic devices.”

Under the modified bail agreement, SBF would be allowed to use a laptop to surf the web, but his access would be filtered through a VPN that would limit him to two categories of websites. One category would include resources his defense team says are critical to his case. The other features a list of 23 websites SBF could use to order food, read the news and watch streaming content. No word yet if the proposed restrictions would limit him from playing League of Legends. 

Chipmakers hoping to tap into the Biden administration’s $39 billion semiconductor manufacturing subsidy program will need to sign agreements promising they won’t expand production capacity in China. The requirement was among a handful of funding conditions the US Commerce Department outlined this week after announcing it would begin accepting applications for money from the CHIPS Act in late June. Congress passed the $280 billion measure last July in a rare show of bipartisan cooperation and set aside $52 billion in tax credits and funding for US semiconductor firms to expand domestic production.

“Recipients will be required to enter into an agreement restricting their ability to expand semiconductor manufacturing capacity in foreign countries of concern for a period of 10 years after taking the money,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters, per the Financial Times. Raimondo did not name China by name. However, the superpower is among the nations the US government considers a “foreign country of concern.”

Additionally, Raimondo said CHIPS Act recipients cannot “knowingly engage in any joint research or technology licensing effort with a foreign entity of concern that involves sensitive technologies or products,” a requirement likely designed to discourage domestic firms from signing agreements like the one Ford recently announced with China’s CATL.

“I also want to be clear that no CHIPS dollars can be spent on stock buybacks,” Raimondo said. “This is about investing in our national security, not enabling these companies to use our money to increase their profits.” The Commerce Department will also require companies applying for more than $150 million to outline how they plan to provide affordable childcare to workers, a funding condition Raimondo said reflects the current labor market. In some instances, the agency may require those same recipients to return some of the money they receive from the CHIPS Act to the government if they generate excess profits. 

Like many other PC and phone manufacturers, Lenovo is at MWC Barcelona this week, sharing details about what it has in store for the rest of the year. The company’s 2023 lineup includes refreshed ThinkPad laptops and ThinkCentre monitors, but perhaps the most interesting announcement involves the IdeaPad Duet 3i.

Lenovo is updating the Windows 11 2-in-1 to add a larger 11.5-inch IPS panel with a 2,000 x 1,200 resolution, 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage and 400 nits of peak brightness. The new model also has upgraded 5-megapixel and 8-megapixel front and rear-facing cameras and an N200 processor from Intel. The four-core, four-thread processor features a boost clock of up to 3.7GHz. You can configure the IdeaPad with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. It also comes with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity, and with the option to pair the device with a stylus, Lenovo says the IdeaPad Duet 3i is perfect for students. The 2-in-1 will arrive in Europe later this year and cost €449 (about $473).

Lenovo

Lenovo is also updating its affordable IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook line. The company will offer the 14-inch laptop in three different display options. At the top of the stack, there’s a Full HD model with an IPS panel that offers 100 percent sRGB coverage and 300 nits of brightness. Another FHD model comes with a TN panel that peaks at 250 nits. And for those looking to spend as little as possible on their next computer, Lenovo will also offer a 1,366 x 768 option. You can configure the IdeaPad Slim 3 with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage. With a modest MediaTek Kompanio 520 processor powering everything, Lenovo says its latest Chromebook can go up to 13.5 hours on a single charge. The company expects the IdeaPad Slim 3 to start at $340 when it arrives in May.

You can read Engadget’s hands-on with the ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2 and Z16 Gen 2 to get the full scoop on those laptops, but the short version is that they feature AMD’s latest Ryzen 7000 series processors and Radeon GPUs. You can configure both devices with up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of internal storage. Lenovo will offer two screen options with the Z13. You can either go with an IPS panel or a 2.8K OLED. Both displays feature a 16:10 aspect ratio and 400 nits of peak brightness. With the Z16, meanwhile, your options are between an IPS panel and a 4K OLED. Both computers also come with WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 support, and Lenovo will allow you to outfit the Z13 with an optional casing made partially from woven plant fibers. The ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2 will arrive in July and start at $1,249. Lenovo expects to begin selling ThinkPad Z16 Gen 2 one month later. It will start at $1,749. 

For at least the fourth time since he said the company was done with layoffs, Elon Musk is reportedly cutting more of Twitter’s workforce. According to The Information, the social media website laid off “dozens” of employees on Saturday evening. The outlet put the number of affected staffers at approximately 50, a number Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer later said was likely much higher.

“Hearing that the Twitter layoffs last night were well above 50 and hit multiple departments including engineering,” Schiffer tweeted on Saturday, subsequently adding that product manager Esther Crawford was among those Twitter let go on over the weekend. Crawford’s departure is notable for a few reasons. Outside of Musk himself, she was one of the most recognizable faces at “Twitter 2.0.” She led the company’s Twitter Blue redesign and oversaw work on its upcoming payments platform. At one point, she even shared a photo of herself sleeping on the floor of Twitter’s office.

The company’s latest cuts claimed at least one other prominent employee. On Saturday morning, Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper tweeted he was among those who had lost their job. “Waking up to find I’ve been locked out of my email,” he said. “Looks like I’m let go.” Twitter shut down Revue at the start of this year. Musk did not address the cuts on Twitter. “Hope you have a good Sunday,” he tweeted early Sunday afternoon. “First day of the rest of your life.” Since his takeover of the company last year, it’s believed Twitter has cut more than 80 percent of its full-time staff. As of January, the company’s daily revenue was reportedly down 40 percent year-over-year.