Posted by from MMO Champion
Puzzling Cartel Chip Catch-up Coming June 10
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
With scheduled weekly maintenance in each region, we’ll deploy the following hotfix:
Quests
Players who have not completed the weekly quest “Turbo-Boost: Powerhouse Challenges” every week can now repeat the quest to catch up.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Chinese student enrollment at American universities has dropped to 277,000 in the 2023-24 academic year, down from a peak of 372,000 in 2019-20, according to data in a new report examining shifting global education patterns. The decline accelerated following the State Department's May 28th announcement of an "aggressive" campaign to revoke visas for Chinese students in "critical fields" of science and engineering, as well as those with unspecified Communist Party "connections."
The trend reflects broader economic and geopolitical pressures beyond visa restrictions. Chinese families increasingly view American education as too expensive amid China's economic downturn and property market decline, while domestic employers have grown suspicious of foreign-educated graduates. Meanwhile, Chinese students are choosing alternatives including Britain, which hosted nearly 150,000 Chinese students in 2023-24, and regional destinations like Japan, where Chinese enrollment increased to 115,000 in 2023 from under 100,000 in 2019.
Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Weekly: Legacy of Arathor, Lorewalking, Overcharged Delves & More
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
The Legacy of Arathor Goes Live June 17!
Take your adventures further in the Legacy of Arathor beginning June 17.
You’ll amp up the challenge in Overcharged Delves, go Lorewalking with Lorewalker Cho, get a helping hand with the new Combat Assistant and Single-Button Assistant… and more.
Read
our article for the complete Legacy of Arathor launch details.
Go Lorewalking With the Help of Lorewalker Cho
Meet with Lorewalker Cho in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, or Dornogal to experience iconic lore moments in Azeroth in the Legacy of Arathor content update.
Players level 10 and above can explore three storylines carefully curated by Lorewalker Cho to learn more about Xal’atath, the Ethereals, and The Lich King. Each storyline consists of previous quests and a few new ones.
More details on iconic Lorewalking moments await you in
our article.
It’s Electric: Power Up with Overcharged Delves!
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by from MMO Champion
It’s Electric: Power Up with Overcharged Delves!
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Power up with Titan machinery to explore new depths and face new challenges within six Delves throughout Khaz Algar in the Legacy of Arathor content update. You’ll be able to amp up the challenge with a new Delve-specific affix and earn some shiny loot.
Fungal Folly: Isle of Dorn
Kriegval’s Rest: Isle of Dorn
Nightfall Sanctum: Hallowfall
Skittering Breach: Hallowfall
The Spiral Weave: Azj’Kahet
Sidestreet Sluice: Undermine
Two Bountiful Delves each day will feature the Overcharged Affixthough Overcharged Delves can be completed as many times as you like. These Delves are easily identifiable on the map with a little extra spark added to the icon.
To get started, you can pick up the first of a short quest chain— Titanic Rumblings— from your Adventure Journal, then continue on by speaking with Dagran Thaurissan II in Dornogal for the Titan Consoles quest to unlock access to the Overcharged Console. Completing this quest chain will provide the
Durable Information Storage Container belt. Wearing this belt alone provides additional stat bonuses along with a Prismatic Slot. In addition, there are Miniature Titan Discs that can be added to the belt which are found at the end of select Delves.
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the billion-dollar-comma department: Apple will lose the ability to collect commissions on external iOS purchases in Europe starting June 23, following a European Commission ruling that hinges on the grammatical interpretation of a single comma in the Digital Markets Act. The dispute centers on Article 5.4, which requires gatekeepers to allow business users "free of charge, to communicate and promote offers, including under different conditions [...], and to conclude contracts with those end users."
Apple contends that "free of charge" applies only to communication and promotion activities, not contract conclusion, allowing the company to maintain its commission structure on external transactions. The European Commission interprets the comma before "and to conclude contracts" as creating an enumeration where the free-of-charge requirement applies to all listed activities, including purchases made outside Apple's payment system.
Under the new ruling, Apple can collect commissions only on the first external transaction between users and developers, with all subsequent purchases and auto-renewed subscriptions exempt from fees. The company faces daily penalties of up to $53.5 million for non-compliance and has already been fined $570 million. Apple's internal forecasts estimate potential annual losses of "hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars" in the US alone, though Europe demands stricter changes than those projections assumed.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the tough-days-ahead department: An anonymous reader shares a report: There are more than 1,000 technology unicorns, meaning venture-backed companies worth $1 billion or more, but at least one in 5 are likely to fail, said Rich Wong, a partner at venture capital firm Accel Partners. "I think maybe out of that thousand, 20% fully die. The end," Wong said on Thursday at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco.
The estimate reinforces what's become a grim calculus for many companies. Tech start-up valuations soared during the 2021 pandemic boom -- before crashing back to earth, as interest rates rose and venture capital investments fell. Of the companies that don't fail, about half will be stuck -- muddling along without being able to grow bigger or go public, Wong said. Some of those may "ultimately have reality set in," and sell themselves for lower prices than once seemed feasible. Others, not quite failing, "will be a bit zombie-ish and grind on," he said.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the would-you-look-at-that department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: My wife taught me something," Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told the crowd at London SXSW. He was addressing the headlines about the company looking to hire human workers after previously saying Klarna used artificial intelligence to do work that would equate to 700 workers. "Two things can be true at the same time," he said. Siemiatkowski said it's true that the company looked to stop hiring human workers a few years ago and rolled out AI agents that have helped reduce the cost of customer support and increase the company's revenue per employee. The company had 5,500 workers two years ago, and that number now stands at around 3,000, he said, adding that as the company's salary costs have gone down, Klarna now seeks to reinvest a majority of that money into employee cash and equity compensation.
But, he insisted, this doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity for humans to work at his company. "We think offering human customer service is always going to be a VIP thing," he said, comparing it to how people pay more for clothing stitched by hand rather than machines. "So we think that two things can be done at the same time. We can use AI to automatically take away boring jobs, things that are manual work, but we are also going to promise our customers to have a human connection."
