Shortly after Microsoft released Windows 11 earlier this month, AMD warned that the OS could slow down apps on systems with Ryzen processors. The chipmaker promised to fix the bugs, and now AMD and Microsoft have issued patches that should do just that.

The latest chipset driver (version 3.10.08.506) should take care of the UEFI CPPC2 issue, which in some cases didn't "preferentially schedule threads on a processor’s fastest core," AMD said. That could have slowed down apps that are sensitive to CPU thread performance. AMD noted that the problem was likely more noticeable in more powerful processors with more than eight cores and 65W or higher Thermal Design Power (TDP).

Meanwhile, Microsoft is rolling out a software update tackling a bug that increased L3 cache latency. The issue impacted apps that need quick memory access, which in turn caused CPUs to slow down by up to 15 percent. The patch, Windows 11 update KB5006746, will be available starting today, but at the time of writing, a page containing instructions for installing it isn't yet live. You should be able to install it via Windows Update too.

Innersloth has been promisingfor months that it will bring Among Us to Xbox and PlayStation sometime this year. Sure enough, the Mafia-style social deduction game is coming to PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on December 14th.

Just like on PC, Among Us will be included with Xbox Game Pass on consoles. Those on PlayStation, meanwhile, will get an exclusive Ratchet & Clank cosmetic at a later date. Among Us has crossplay support, so you'll be able to play with friends across PC, Nintendo Switch and mobile.

Innersloth also revealed details about the physical editions of Among Us for PlayStation, Xbox and Switch. Along with the base game and all of the DLC, the $30 Crewmate Edition includes a poster of the Skeld map, stickers and a holographic card. That version will hit Europe on December 14, Japan and South Korea two days later, and then the US, Canada and Latin America on January 11th.

The $50 Impostor Edition includes the same gear as the Crewmate package, along with a purple crewmate plush, an enamel pin and a lanyard. The $90 Ejected Edition comes with even more goodies, including a steelbook case, a beanie and, best of all, a fleece blanket. Both of those editions will ship in spring 2022.

Among Usexploded in popularity in 2020, two years after its debut, as Twitch streamers and YouTubers started playing it en masse. People were also looking for ways to connect with their friends during COVID-19 lockdowns and, for many, lying to their buds about what they were doing in Among Us' med bay fit the bill perfectly. It's coming to Xbox and PlayStation just in time for more people to play and argue with their loved ones over the holiday season.

Google is cutting Play Store service fees for more developers. The company currently charges a 30 percent commission for the first 12 months of a recurring subscription, which drops to 15 percent after the first year. Starting on January 1st, Google will lower the service fee to 15 percent from day one. The company said it's making the change because developers say "customer churn makes it challenging for subscription businesses to benefit from that reduced rate."

Elsewhere, fees for music streaming apps and e-books will be as low as 10 percent. "The new rates recognize industry economics of media content verticals and make Google Play work better for developers and the communities of artists, musicians and authors they represent," Sameer Samat, vice president of product management for Android and Google Play, wrote in a blog post. The service fees for apps "primarily offering video, audio or books in which users pay to consume content" will be between 10 and 15 percent if they meet certain conditions as part of the Play Media Experience Program.

Earlier this year, Google reduced its Play Store fees from 30 percent to 15 percent for the first $1 million in annual income that an app generates. The company said that move would cut the fees that 99 percent of Android developers pay the company by half.

Apple has also slashed App Store fees in certain cases over the last two years. Apps that make under $1 million in annual revenue, news organizations who use Apple News and some streaming video services give Apple 15 percent of payments rather than the standard 30 percent. However, as CNBC notes, Apple still takes a 30 percent slice of subscriptions for the first year before lowering its cut to 15 percent, so Google's making its move before Apple this time around.

Google and Apple have been facing more intense antitrust scrutiny over their app stores in recent times. Dozens of state attorneys general filed suit against Google in July, in which they accused the company of maintaining a monopoly over Android app distribution.

Both companies are tangled up in litigation with Epic Games as well. Apple largely won its case against Epic, though it asked for a stay in the sole ruling in Epic's favor: a requirement to let App Store developers direct users to alternate forms of making payments. Google, meanwhile, countersued Epic this month for bypassing fees on in-app purchases and allegedly violating the Play Store developer agreement.

When Google shut down its internal Stadia game development studios earlier this year, Stadia general manager Phil Harrison said the company planned to "work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools." We're starting to see that strategy in action, as Google is now licensing Stadia tech to other companies.

As first reported by 9to5 Google and confirmed by IGN, AT&T is using the tech to offer wireless subscribers the chance to stream Batman: Arkham Knight (which isn't available on Stadia proper) for free. Customers can play the game for a limited time at up to 1080p through Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

"This is being powered by the Stadia technology," an AT&T spokesperson told IGN. "For this demo AT&T created a front end experience to enable gamers to play Batman: Arkham Knight directly from their own website and the game is playable on virtually any computer or laptop."

Oddly enough, subscribers can't take advantage of this offer on a smartphone, despite it seeming like a solid opportunity for AT&T to show off its network capabilities. AT&T even offered six months of Stadia Pro access to 5G and fiber internet customers this year.

Harrison said in February that offering game streaming tech to other companies (without Stadia branding in this case) was "the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry." Although Google isn't making its own games for Stadia anymore, it has continued to add third-party games to the store.

Beyond a special-edition Xbox Series X and controller, there's more Halo Infinite-themed hardware on the way, this time for PC players. Not only have Microsoft and AMD teamed up to add ray-tracing to the game sometime after launch, they created a limited-edition Radeon RX 6900 XTHalo Infinite graphics card.

The GPU’s design is based on Master Chief's Mjolnir armor, and it features a reflective, iridium gold border around a fan, a blue light that mimics the Cortana AI module on the character's helmet and the 117 Spartan call sign. Microsoft notes that the graphics card uses the same RDNA 2 architecture as the Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Here's the rub: you won't be able to buy the GPU. Microsoft, AMD, developer 343 Industries and some of their partners will be giving away the graphics card in the coming weeks. If you're interested, it's worth keeping an eye on the Halo and AMD Radeon Twitter accounts for more details.

AMD is 343 Industries' exclusive PC partner for Halo Infinite. They’ve been working together for the last couple of years to optimize the game for AMD’s GPUs and Ryzen processors. For one thing, there’s support for AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, which reduces screen tearing and boosts HDR visuals on compatible monitors. 

Elsewhere, Microsoft released a video showcasing what the Halo Infinite experience will look like on PC. It’s the first time the company is bringing a Halo game to consoles and PC on the same day. From the outset, there will be support for ultrawide displays and old-school LAN setups, as well as framerate customization and triple keybinds. Microsoft is also promising “deep integration” with Discord and in-game events that sync with lighting on Razer Chroma RGB devices. There are some Halo InfiniteRazer peripherals too.

Halo Infinite will hit Xbox consoles and PC on December 8th. As with ray-tracing, the campaign co-op and Forge modes won't be available at launch. 343 Industries will add those features later.

Sony is finally releasing an Uncharted movie after trying to make one for over a decade. If you need more evidence that the film actually exists beyond a snap of Tom Holland in Nathan Drake's classic attire, here's the first trailer.

Even though Holland plays a much younger version of the character (which Mark Wahlberg's Sully jokes about in the opening moments) than in the games, the enjoyable-enough trailer incudes some of the most memorable moments from Drake's globe-trotting adventures. There isn't a bit where he clambers up a train carriage that's dangling over a cliff, but there's the cargo plane set piece from Uncharted 3 and a ship trapped inside a cave, just like in Uncharted 4. The clip includes some underground exploration too.

The film's set to arrive in theaters on February 11th, following several delays. Attempts to make an Uncharted movie stopped and started over the years, with directors including David O. Russell, Seth Gordon and Shawn Levy being attached at certain points before Zombieland and Venom helmer Ruben Fleischer saw the film through. The project had been in development for so long that, for a while, Wahlberg looked set to play Drake, rather than the character's mentor.

Some viewers might be coming to the franchise with fresh eyes (maybe because they need more Tom Holland in their lives), and they might want to play the games to see what all the fuss is about. Sony Pictures included a handy reminder at the end of the trailer about a remastered bundle of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy that's coming to PlayStation 5 and PC in early 2022.

In case the trailer doesn't quite match up to what you might have expected, or Holland doesn't seem like the right person for the gig in your opinion, it's worth checking out this short fan film from a few years back in which Nathan Fillion plays the rogueish treasure hunter. It's a blast.

Despite CD Projekt Red insisting at the beginning of September it was still on track to release the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt by the end of the year, that's no longer the case. The developer now plans to ship the console and PC upgrades for Cyberpunk 2077 in the first quarter of 2022 (i.e by the end of March), and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in Q2 (between March and June).

"Based on recommendations supplied by teams supervising the development of both games, we decided to postpone their releases until 2022," CDPR wrote on Twitter. "Apologies for the extended wait, but we wanted to make it right."

In a Cyberpunk 2077 roadmap it published in January after the game's disastrous debut last December, CDPR said the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions would drop in the second half of 2021. The studio revealed at WitcherCon in July that the current-gen update for The Witcher 3 was scheduled to arrive this year too.

In its financial report for the first half of 2021, CDPR included a chart suggesting that around a third of its development staff was working on Cyberpunk 2077 support and the current-gen version as of June 30th, though it's gradually transitioning the team to new projects. Developers are still working on the game's first expansion too, following the lackluster first DLC in August that really only added a few cosmetic items and a car.

The free news app on Amazon Fire TV now offers local channels in another 60 cities, including Charleston, Wichita, Tucson, Reno, Raleigh-Durham and Honolulu. That means live and on-demand local news coverage is now available for 158 cities. Amazon has also almost doubled the total number of channels from 126 to 259.

Amazon launched the app in late 2020 with channels in a dozen cities, and it expanded to 88 cities in March. The app includes news coverage from regional divisions of ABC, CBSN, TEGNA, Cox, The EW Scripps Company and Altice USA. While the app doesn't yet offer coverage from quite as many stations as NewsON (which has more than 275 channels), it's baked into Fire TV — you don't need to download another app.

When you visit the Local News tab in Amazon's app, Fire TV will automatically add stations from the closest metro area. Viewers can also access live and on-demand coverage by asking Alexa to "play local news."

Razer has refreshed its lineup of microphones aimed at streamers with new versions of two Seiren models. The Seiren V2 Pro and Seiren V2 X are both plug and play mics with a high pass filter to mitigate unwanted low frequencies and an analog gain limiter to tackle voice distortion.

The mics each have a gain dial and mute button as well as a headphone jack, while the V2 Pro also has a volume dial. They’re both said to be fully customizable for mixing and sound profiles, and there’s integration with audio mixing software via Razer Synapse.

The V2 Pro is a dynamic microphone with 20 Hz frequency response to pick up a full range of audio, according to Razer. The company says it’s an improvement on its Elite offering and it delivers “rich and powerful vocals” with “superior clarity and noise dampening.”

Meanwhile, the V2 X is a new version of the Seiren X, which emerged in 2017. It's a 25mm condenser mic with a supercaridoid pickup pattern, which Razer suggests bolsters the device’s voice isolation capabilities. The company is promising “crisp and natural vocals” with the V2 X as well.

Razer recently introduced a webcam and capture card for streaming newbies and an entry-level headset for console gamers. However, the latest mics are aimed at professional and casual streamers who might want to improve the sound quality of their streams. The V2 Pro costs $150, while the V2 X is $100. Both are available now, as is the Seiren Mini, which Razer debuted a year ago.

The Food and Drug Administration is moving closer to making more affordable over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids a reality for millions of Americans with mild or moderate hearing loss. The agency issued a proposal to create a category of approved devices that people would be able to buy without a prescription, hearing exam or having to arrange a fitting with an audiologist.

"The proposed rule is designed to help increase competition in the market while also ensuring the safety and effectiveness of OTC and prescription hearing aids," the FDA said. Around 15 percent of adult Americans (some 37.5 million) have hearing difficulties, according to the agency.

The FDA's goal is to make it easier for those who could benefit from hearing aids to actually get one — it says only a fifth of people who fall into that category use such a device. The agency is hoping to tackle some of the barriers people might encounter, including cost, ease of access, social stigma and state and federal regulations.

In 2017, the federal government passed the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act with the aim of improving access to more affordable hearing aids. Hearing aids have only available with a prescription as the FDA classed them as Class I or II medical devices. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in July that, in part, instructed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish a proposed rule for OTC hearing aids within 120 days.

The proposal is now open to a 90-day public comment period. If and when the rule is finalized, it will come into effect 60 days after it's published in the federal register.

Several companies have already made moves to gain a foothold in the OTC hearing aid market. Earlier this year, Bose started selling its SoundControl hearing aids after gaining approval from the FDA, while Jabra unveiled its Enhance Plus earbuds a couple of months ago. Other companies are blending hardware and tech in hearing aids, including Bragi and Olive Union.

Apple, meanwhile, recently updated AirPods Pro with a feature that amplifies the volume of other people's voices in conversation while reducing ambient noise. The company is also said to be looking into ways of using AirPods as health devices.