why would I want to go outside I got all the tech news I need right here tastes
good Dennis so we're all stuck inside for a while but at least it's a good
time to catch up on whatever videos you like to watch right well if you're in
Europe you might notice there's something off about your visual binge
watching experience as Netflix Amazon and YouTube are all reducing video
quality after European Regulators noted that more people sitting at home
streaming highres video could put strain on networks whatever that's what I'm
paying you for Netflix is keeping high def and 4K streams available but is
reducing bit rates similar to Amazon Prime videos approach while YouTube is
defaulting to 480p within the European Union for 30 days 480 hey we're just
going back to uh standard unsubscribe to this porn website
quality it looks like YouTube is still allowing you to switch back to a higher
quality manually but it's unclear exactly how much quality loss the
average user will perceive on the service you know normies let us know in
the comments if you've noticed a difference over in Europe you know other
than the world being cancelled if you look out your window you just see like
test tone it's canceled Nvidia made a huge deal about Ray tracing when they
debuted their RTX series gpus but of course developers had to write games
that supported it first before you and I could enjoy it all the Sparkles but you
may be seeing more of them in the near future as Microsoft has rolled out
direct X12 ultimate which supports new raate tracing methods that are expected
not only to run more efficiently but be easier and more flexible for developers
developers developers one cool feature is that while raate tracing the Shader
on your GPU won't have to talk directly to the CPU as much ultimately putting
less of a load on your PC the new direct X is being supported by both Nvidia and
AMD and it's also expected to be used by developers working on games for the new
Xbox series X so you can at least have some nice looking games if the outbreak
has hurt your dating life and dating is no game developers developers developers
developers developers on that subject you're definitely not alone if you've
been spending the Lion Share of your time during the pandemic sitting inside
gaming alone this week Verizon announced that us residents had played 75% more
video games than the previous week 75 with web traffic overall going up by 1
that's crazy actually well makes sense now they have the time to get more head
shots head shots live streaming is also getting a big boost with twitch
experiencing a 10% increase in traffic as people attempt to find ways to
socialize without going outside of course some of us were already quite
good at that anyway funnily enough more mainstream social media sites didn't see
a traffic increase since I guess people don't have much to post about except for
those memes about toilet paper hoarding yeah can we stop that now it's old now
but you know I would leave my house for the quick bits hey if you need more
games to play during the pandemic but are short on cash check out good old
games as gog.com has put together a new list of free old school games for you to
play and they're also DRM free sick a lot of them are from before the year
2000s so uh Jake if you're watching check it out if you want a bit of
nostalgia or if you want to just go back in time because you were born after the
year 2000 as with many Gatherings the game developers conference got cancelled
but it's still on scheduled to be held this year it was originally supposed to
take place this month but new dates of August 4th through 6th are now on the
calendar out in San Francisco with registration to open in the near future
though I still might uh I you got to be
able to get a plane ticket you know if you are planning to pass the time with silly Instagram post to your friends you
might be a little disappointed to know that you might not see any new filter
options for a while Facebook has sent many of its human reviewers home from
work so there won't be anyone around to approve new effects for the time being
which sucks because I was really looking forward to making my head look like a
big one company that's not on board with the shutdowns is GameStop at least the
locations outside of California as the company has told its employees to tell
the cops they're an essential business their stated rationale is that GameStop
sells things that can assist with distance learning and remote work and so
they need to stay open uh for the time being while many Americans are working
or studying from home I'm sure this is in no way related to them trying to make
money off of people that really want to use their quarantine time to play games
like Animal Crossing and doom probably they're relaxing this is essential I
need to make my garden perfect Tom Nook
needs me and razor razor razor has been
known for making a few offbeat products like that Infamous toaster but now
they're pressing some of their production capacity into service to make paper masks to help the stop the spread
of the Corona virus the company plans to make and donate a million masks but it's
unclear whether each one will also come with a free leather jacket but it's
unclear whether each one of them will also come with a free uh noise maker I I
mean razor blade oh got that's it for
today guys we're going to blast off so have a safe and lonely weekend and come
back on Monday to join your real friends your virtual luxurious Tech friends from
abroad we love you you're all I have