Bloomberg reports Microsoft president Brad Smith is set to meet with UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt next week to discuss the block on the Microsoft/Activision merger placed by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. Word is there will also be discussions with the legal team over how to overcome this regulatory hurdle. There's also unconfirmed speculation that one approach could be the nuclear option of leaving the region entirely:

One extreme option could be to bypass the UK order and press ahead with the deal, or withdraw Activision from the UK market, one of the people said, confirming earlier reports by regulatory news outfit Mlex.

The company is also likely to draw on the EU’s findings in its legal arguments against the CMA, after EU merger officials conditionally approved the record-breaking gaming merger last month.

The Chancellor’s office declined to comment. Activision didn’t respond to a request for comment. The confidential discussions will take place as Smith takes part in London Tech Week, an event aimed at boosting the UK’s technology industry.

CodeWeavers has good news for Mac gamers, announcing reports DirectX 12 support is coming this summer to CrossOver, the software that enables PC gaming on Apple hardware (thanks 9to5Mac via Ant). The good news is that this will allow better performance, while the bad news is that this will arrive on a title-by-title basis. Here are some details explaining why this is the case:

While we are elated with this breakthrough, we acknowledge that our journey has just begun. Our team’s investigations concluded that there was no single magic key that unlocked DirectX 12 support on macOS. To get just Diablo II Resurrected running, we had to fix a multitude of bugs involving MoltenVK and SPIRV-Cross. We anticipate that this will be the case for other DirectX 12 games: we will need to add support on a per-title basis, and each game will likely involve multiple bugs.

Rest assured, our commitment to delivering DirectX 12 support on Mac remains unwavering. Our team is dedicated to pushing the limits one game at a time, and we look forward to continuing to make announcements as we add support for more and more DirectX 12 titles. Embrace the extraordinary and stay up to date on this journey towards gaming excellence by subscribing to our blog.

• WATCH DOGS FRANCHISE SALE on Steam.

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Update notes for June 2.
• Diablo IV Patch Notes — 1.0.2c Build 42122.

↑ Official patches. ↓ Unofficial games, patches, and mods.

• Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones gets an unofficial patch that completely fixes its mouse camera issues.
• WinUAE 5 Amiga emulator delivers UI and emulator improvements, numerous bug fixes. Thanks Ant.

• Apple To Issue Health Warnings To AR Headset Users, And There Are Quite A Number Of Them.
• This Skyrim VR Mod turns Bethesda's RPG into a Call of Duty game.

• Wild Diablo IV Bug Spawns Unholy Amount Of Boss Enemies.

• How Moving Out 2 Makes Removals Fun for Everyone With In-Depth Accessibility Design.

Thanks Ant.

• The Expanse: A Telltale Series Story Trailer.

↑ Official trailers. ↓ Content creator videos.

• Being A Gay Game Developer - Tim Cain.
• Honest Game Trailers - Fallout- New Vegas. Thanks RedEye9.
• RESIDENT EVIL- AFTERLIFE (2010) Behind-the-Scenes The Action of Afterlife.
• Can Adults Guess The 90s Video Game From The Sound? - React.

• Half-Life fan remake overtakes Valve’s original on Steam.

• F1: Finding Vettels of the future on the eSports circuit.

• Dota 2 - Dota Plus Update — Summer 2023.

• Tales Of Aravorn- An Elven Marriage by Winterwolves — Kickstarter. "The first spin-off game of the popular VN/RPG Loren The Amazon Princess. Play as Elenor or Saren again!"

• How to fast travel in Diablo 4- All waypoint locations.

• Kerbal Space Program 2 - Dragging Along.

Thanks Console General.

• Star Wars- Knights of the Old Republic 2 Restored Content DLC for Switch Canceled.
• Xbox Insider Release Notes - Alpha Skip-Ahead (2308.230531-2200).
• Xbox Insider Release Notes - Beta (2306.230531-2200).
• Xbox Insider Release Notes - Xbox App for Windows [2305.1001.6.0].

• Some Google Pixel Watches are falling apart [Update]. Might be why real watches aren't glued together.
• Gmail is adding a -top results- feature for searching emails on mobile apps.

Thanks Ant.

• Meta to test blocking news in Canada. Thanks Slashdot.
• Charter Takes Home Almost a Quarter of $60M in Florida Broadband Funding Awards. Thanks DSLReports.
• Fidelity has cut Reddit valuation by 41% since 2021 investment. Thanks Slashdot.
• Happy 14th birthday to Microsoft's Bing. Here's a look back at its launch.

• TeamGroup Announces T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR5 Memory- Up to DDR5-8266.
• Gigabyte 600-700 Intel motherboards receive -next-generation: desktop CPU support.
• AMD's EPYC Rome Chips Crash After 1,044 Days of Uptime.
• Colorfire introduces GeForce RTX 40 "MEOW" series for cat lovers.
• Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25381. Thanks Console General.
• PowerColor Factory Tour - How Graphics Cards Are Made.

Thanks DSLReports via Ant.

• Don't keep your money in Venmo, PayPal, and other payment apps- CFPB warns.
• Burton Snowboards discloses data breach after February attack.
• The Strange Story of the Teens Behind the Mirai Botnet.
• How to enable Bitwarden biometric unlock (and why you should).
• AI Is Being Used to ‘Turbocharge’ Scams (may require registration or subscription).
• Malicious Chrome extensions with 75M installs removed from Web Store.
• There's a new Gmail verification scam; here's how to avoid getting caught up in it.

• Read the emails: Valve helped Nintendo kick the Dolphin Emulator off Steam.
• Microsoft sets aside $425M for potential LinkedIn data fine. Thanks DSLReports via Ant.

• Diablo IV PC Performance: 36 GPUs Benchmarked - Tom's Hardware.
• The System Shock remake is excellent - and Nightdive's most ambitious work yet - Eurogamer.net.
• The Lord of the Rings Gollum's as Miserable as a Trip to Mordor - Siliconera. One does not simply throw shade at Mordor.

Thanks Neutronbeam.

• Laptop: 2023 Dell XPS 17 (9730) Review - MobileTechReview (video).
• Monitor: RedMagic 4K Gaming Monitor Review - IGN.
• Mouse: Darmoshark M3 Review - TechPowerUp.
• PSU: SilverStone Decathlon DA1000R Power Supply Unit - Nikk Tech.

• The relaunch of this defunct medieval survival MMO is met with 95 cry-laugh emojis, 74 poops, 62 clowns, 42 letters spelling S-C-A-M, and 35 optimistic thumbs up…

We were in full summer swing yesterday, even though it's still a few weeks until the season officially begins in these parts. First off it was a million degrees. Okay, I exaggerate. It probably didn't get much past 100,000. But still. And second, it was our first trip of the year to the farm to pick up our CSA share. Thankfully this week did not involve us having to do any of the picking ourselves due to that heat and a thunderstorm that broke out right as we arrived. We have a "small" share in the CSA, but this still results in a lot of produce for two people. But that's fine. After a few recent bouts with stomach issues, I've vowed to work on improving my diet anyway. Lettuce hope that helps.

Productive Round-up
Thanks Ant and Neutronbeam.

Stories

• Odisha- Modi visits the scene of train crash that killed more than 280 in India.
• Harrison Ford: Deckard Was A Replicant. But did he shoot first?

Science
Thanks Max.

• The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns (may require registration or subscription).
• Why your brain hates other people.
• Can humans ever understand how animals think?

Media

• Succession but it's a Romantic Comedy (TRAILER) - Tom and Greg.
• First livestream from the Red Planet.

Creature Features

• Longest Tongue on a Dog - Guinness World Records.

Auction

• Massive collection of every single DC comic book from 1934-2014 to be auctioned.

Follow-ups
Thanks RedEye9.

• Churchill Downs, Home Of The Kentucky Derby, Shutting Down In Wake Of Horse Deaths.
• Destined to Fail: The Surfside Condominium Collapse 2021 - Plainly Difficult.
• Segway - Why It Failed.