Microsoft is now worth $3 trillion
For the first time in 48 years Bill Gates’ piggy bank, Microsoft, has officially hit a $3 trillion market cap. That’s three more zeroes than a billion — which, incidentally, has nine (nine!) zeroes attached to its end. We’ll just let that sink in for a moment. It might be a first for Microsoft, but it’s not a first for history, with that honour going to Apple more than two years ago. Honestly, we’re not surprised. Have you seen the price of an iPhone 15 Pro Max recently?
But what caused the nearly historic jump to its third trillion? Specifically, the company’s 1.5% jump on the NASDAQ caused its stock to sell for $405 per share on Wednesday, ultimately pushing the valuation over the milestone threshold. But what caused that? Our guess is artificial intelligence. Microsoft has seemingly been all-in on AI ever since OpenAI’s meteoric rise last year — a company Microsoft has invested in heavily itself.
In that time, we’ve seen Microsoft become as much of a face for AI as OpenAI — largely in part due to OpenAI’s tech backing up Microsoft’s AI efforts. We’re of course talking about Copilot and the significant improvements to Bing’s search engine, which, despite its AI-touting prowess, hasn’t yet convinced us to give it a go. We don’t see Microsoft slowing down anytime soon and unless Apple could catch up, Microsoft might be leading the race to $4 trillion.
Dungeons & Dragons really wants to sit on your face
Ah, Dungeons & Dragons. The game that relies on, and thrives off its player’s imagination, is coming to VR. The creators of the game that’s older than most of our readers (and writers), Wizards of the Coast, recently announced their partnership with Resolution Games — the makers of Demeo — who’ll be tasked with bringing the incredibly popular IP into virtual reality.
“Dungeons and Dragons offers one of the richest fantasy worlds that has ever been created, and it only gets bigger with every new sourcebook and adventure. We’re beyond humbled to have the opportunity to work with such an incredible IP and look forward to sharing the first details of this new project in the future.”
Unfortunately, that’s about the gist of the announcement. Details are scarce, and we mean real scarce. Hell, there isn’t even a working title to go off of here. We’ll stick with the mundane (and probably accurate) title of Dungeons & Dragons VR to be safe. Even without much knowledge of the project, Resolution Games and Demeo being what they are, we reckon the IP will be in good hands until it releases. Eventually.
Move over; there’s an Until Dawn remaster on the way
Following the disappointing report of an Until Dawn film adaptation, the Gods have blessed the world with some news that’ll put things right again: there’s an Until Dawn remaster on the way. At least, that’s what the leaks are saying, though it’s said that Supermassive Games will confirm the remaster themselves sometime over the next two weeks.
This is all the word of Dealabs’ billbil-kun (via Eurogamer), a leaker who reckons Until Dawn will be re-releasing and will be a “brand-new version”, not only for the PS5 but for PC too. Despite the big talk of a “brand-new version”, the leaker wasn’t able to ascertain whether it’d be a remake akin to that of Dead Space (2023) or a plain ol’ remaster with some new textures thrown in.
As it stands, that’s the only reputable source for an Until Dawn remake/remaster out there. That’s not a bad thing, though. Billbil-kun has proven themselves to be an ultra-reliable source in recent memory, only yesterday providing what looks to be some solid information surrounding Kojima’s upcoming Death Stranding 2 (which, if the rumours are true, will be titled Death Stranding 2: On the Beach).
Phillips has some new headphones, and they’ll charge with sub-par vitamin D
We at Stuff love a good pair of headphones. Some of us more than others. What we don’t love is charging times. Who does? You best believe we’d rather be going deaf than have to put up with load shedding’s constant roar of generators around us. But Phillips wants to make that a problem of the past. Or at least, as much as it can. Say hello to the Phillips A6219 GO solar-powered headphones that aren’t fussy about where it’s getting that vitamin D.
They won’t exactly last forever — but if the 80-hour battery life that Phillips is promising turns out to be accurate it won’t matter, either. It’s getting that power from a Powerfoyle solar cell, which is reportedly able to charge from indoor light as well as outdoor light, meaning you’ll be able to phase out that desperate search for a compatible charger soon enough.
A long-lasting battery isn’t much help without decent sound to go with it. Fortunately, Phillips has delivered. It’s rocking some 40mm drivers that can be found in the company’s Fidelio series which have been praised for good sound for quite some time. It’s also meant to stand up to some abuse with an IP55 rating, so that’s cool.
Phillips hasn’t yet delved into pricing and availability details, but we’ll keep you posted if these make their way into the country at some point down the line.
