The Washington Post reports on a US Federal court's ruling that Google holds an illegal monopoly in internet search. The delightfully named Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia minced no words about the decision: "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." This is described as the "biggest victory in more than two decades" for the US Justice Department, which won an antitrust suit against Microsoft back in 2000. But of course Windows is still Windowsing after that, and the consequences in this case are not yet clear, as word is remedies will be decided in the coming months. This excerpt shows the fairly weak defense Google mounted and its game pivot to the impressive spin to brag about what the ruling says about its product:

Google argued throughout the trial that its search engine faces competition from people looking for information in other places, such as on Amazon, TikTok, Reddit and increasingly on chatbots such as ChatGPT. In a statement after the ruling, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said the court itself agreed that the company’s search engine is the best option.

“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker said. “Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal.”

A post on Ubisoft lays out a post-launch roadmap for Star Wars Outlaws, discussing the DLC that will follow the launch of the open-world Star Wars game at the end of this month. This will includes two story packs and a couple of smaller packs and there will be a Season Pass that includes a bonus quest from Jabba the Hutt. Here's word on the two Story Packs, which will also be sold separately:

Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card – Coming Fall 2024
Kay is hired to infiltrate a high-stakes Sabacc tournament, but as she crosses paths with the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, she soon learns that another game is being played.

When this first story pack is released, Season Pass owners will also get the Hunter’s Legacy Bundle and the Cartel Ronin Bundle with additional outfits for Kay and Nix plus cosmetics for Kay’s speeder and her ship, the Trailblazer.

Continue here to read the full story.

A post on Steam announces The Pilgrim Pack, new DLC coming on August 12th to Cult of the Lamb, the cult hit strategy game for Windows and macOS. This will take things in a new direction, as it's described as a comic book-style interactive adventure, and it will come with a free update for the base game. Here's a sans comic sans Reveal Trailer with a look at what to expect, and here's more:

In the story of Pilgrim you’ll join Jalala and Rinor as they journey across the Lands of the Old Faith, searching for a place to call home. If they can survive the dangerous Cultists looking for new sacrifices, the terrifying creatures hunting for a meal and the strange mushroom peddlers… not to mention rumors of a wicked beast who stalks the land, searching for its next victim… then they might just make it.

The Pilgrim Pack will be joined by Unholy Alliance, the latest free update for smash hit Cult of the Lamb, introducing a new playable character: the Goat. Summoned by blood and born in corruption, this wicked new ally can join the holy Lamb in local co-op. Crusade through dungeons, slay heretics, build your cult and seek new powers together on Aug. 12.

Continue here to read the full story.

• Hearthstone — Check in to the In-Game Shop for Free Gifts!

• Palworld's profits are so massive that its devs' next game could -go beyond AAA,: but its CEO doesn't want to wield "such such an enormous budget" - GamesRadar+. Thanks Max.

• Deluxe Dev Dream- 3D Unreal Engine and Unity Mega Bundle 4000+ Assets (pay what you want and help charity).*
• ONE PIECE Franchise Sale 2024 on Steam.
• Save 50% on ICARUS on Steam.
• Save 20% on Bears In Space on Steam.
• Save 85% on Hacknet on Steam.

*Blue's News may receive a commission on sales of this item.

• Warner Bros. Pictures Brings Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to Roblox with Ghostly Escape Experience and Platform’s First Virtual Fandango Box Office. Virtual box office to buy tickets for a physical movie theater. And here people thought Hollywood would struggle adapting to the metaverse!

Unofficial games, patches, and mods.

• A modder has created a cyberpunk city in No Man's Sky, featuring streets, bars, shops, apartments, a nightclub and a mini metro - DSOGaming.

• Disabled Gamers: Long History of Arcade, Video Game Access - Mirage News.

• How Outersloth is turning Among Us' success into funding for indies - GamesIndustry.biz.
• [AMA] I’m Jordan, developer of WW1 horror survival game, CONSCRIPT! Ask me anything! - Reddit.

• Dev repurposes Kindle as a portable E Ink monitor — provides instructions for the jailbreak - Tom's Hardware.
• Gamification gets drivers to put down their phones, study finds - Ars Technica. Thanks Max.

• Pensioner has last laugh after 40ft broadband pole erected at end of his driveway - - Metro News. Thanks Max.
• X is reportedly closing its San Francisco office - Engadget.

Thanks Console General.

• Report- NVIDIA used scraped video game footage to train AI products - Game Developer.
• Intel Will Provide 2-Year Extended Warranty on OEMs & Tray 14th-13th Gen CPUs Too - Wccftech.
• OpenAI has built a text watermarking method to detect ChatGPT-written content — company has mulled its release over the past year. Tom's Hardware. Thanks brother19.
• Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.1340 (Dev Channel) - Windows Insider Blog.
• Evernote10.100.1.
• Adobe Acrobat, Reader version 2024.002.20991.

Thanks Ant.

• Evasive Panda Compromises ISP To Distribute Malicious Software Updates - Information Security Buzz. Thanks DSLReports.
• Vulnerability Summary for the Week of July 29, 2024 - CISA.

• Court blocks net neutrality, says ISPs are likely to win case against FCC - Ars Technica.
• Florida firm sued over theft of 2.9B personal records • The Register.
• The Controversial Kids Online Safety Act Faces an Uncertain Future - WIRED (may require registration or subscription).

Last Link of the Day: The sun fires off 2 powerful X flares in less than 2 hours (video, photo) - Space.

A post on Reddit points to a voice actor's résumé that's prompted rampant speculation that Valve is working on a new Half-Life project (thanks VG247). This CV has reportedly since been edited to remove the reference to codename "White Sands" that started this all, but you can't read it because the page now shows a "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" message due to all the hubbub. Since nobody loves speculating about Valve rumors more that YouTuber Tyler McVicker, here's his reaction video making the case that this is the revelation of Half-Life 3. Here's the description of the clip:

It’s time. It is finally time. These last few days have been filled with leaks and new information coming to light about Valve’s next single player game, codenamed HLX. All evidence, including datamined strings from CS2 and DOTA 2, along with accidental leaks from former developers on the game, point towards this game being Half-Life 3.

Continue here to read the full story.

Early Access to Strike Protocol is now free-to-play on the Epic Games Store and Steam, providing Windows gamers an action/strategy mix that includes base-building and what's described as dungeon crawling despite the game's futuristic sci-fi setting. This is shown off in the Early Access Trailer that also subjects your ears to a aggressively grating audio track. Here's word from your union rep at GLOBAL DODO ENTERTAINMENT:

Get ready to explore the fascinating world of Strike Protocol. This groundbreaking multiplayer adventure seamlessly blends managing player-constructed bases in an open sandbox environment with the thrill of raiding other player-made bases. In this gripping experience, players go beyond just playing – they conquer, taking on the roles of skilled Infiltrators or strategic Commanders. Whether you are building challenging bases or embarking on daring missions to dominate the creations of other players, get ready for an epic gaming journey.

Continue here to read the full story.

Vacation Season is now available on Steam, allowing players to hit the holiday road in Highrise City, the city construction game for Windows. The game is also available on GOG.com,* and while the announcement says the DLC is there too, it hasn't arrived as of now. This comes with free content for the base game, adding the ability to create massive exhibitions and, oddly, the ability to create lawnmowers. The Launch Trailer shows off the setting in the United States of Generica, and the announcement has some details:

With the release of the DLC, the Highrise City base game has received a major free content update, introducing new resources and buildings as well. Players are now able to build massive exhibition halls to satisfy the needs of companies and they are also able to create mowing tools as certain developments, such as parks, will need this new service.

*Blue's News may receive a commission on sales of this item. Continue here to read the full story.

• Development build of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 leaks as footage floods social media - VGC.
• SEGA trademarks ‘Yakuza Wars’ in Japan - Gematsu.

• Game Informer on X: "Our 33-year legacy deserves a genuine goodbye, written by a former Game Informer member."

• Breast cancer support centre Future Dreams House announced as MCV-Develop Women in Games Awards charity partner. - MCV/DEVELOP.

• Coming to Max in 2024-2025 - The Penguin, The White Lotus, The Last of Us and More - YouTube.

Unofficial games, patches, and mods.

• Open Galaxy 3.0 is released news - IndieDB.

• The Call of Duty ban wave continues as Activision dishes out over 65,000 account bans across Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 - PC Gamer.

• Rust dev is bored of paying Unity '$500k a year' to fix its engine and promises that his Garry's Mod successor won't hoodwink devs with fees - PC Gamer.

• Monster Hunter Wilds- Basic Mechanics Overview - Monster Hunter.
• Pinball FX - Exclusive Goat Simulator Pinball Table DLC Reveal Trailer.
• Pinball FX - Exclusive Princess Bride Pinball Table DLC Trailer.
• The Smurfs – Dreams – Dev Diary.

↑ Official trailers. ↓ Content creator videos.

• THE BROKEN PORTAL - Corridor. Thanks Ant.

• World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic- Rise of the Zandalari Now Live.

• Microsoft’s new Xbox controller is more translucent than ever before - The Verge.

• All the small things- Lenovo's website may have hinted at an upcoming Legion Go 'Lite' - PC Gamer.

• Zoom Is Going After Google and Microsoft With AI-Driven Docs - WIRED (may require registration or subscription).

• Nvidia drivers confirmed to cause BSOD on Windows PCs without certain CPU instructions - Neowin.
• Newegg Launches Trade-In Program for Pre-Owned Desktop CPUs - PCMag. Thanks RedEye9.
• Map Reveals Smartest Cities in the US - Newsweek. Thanks Slashdot via Ant.
• Nvidia RTX 4070 with slower GDDR6 memory is on the way, according to rumors - Tom's Hardware.
• What is going on with Intel? - Vox. Thanks Matthew.
• What Are Color Gamuts and Color Spaces in TVs and Monitors, and Do They Matter- - WIRED (may require registration or subscription).
• Mosquitoes can fly but they can't hide from the Bzigo Iris - New Atlas. Everyone loves trusting cameras in their homes. Thanks Max.

• Millions of voter documents leaked online — fears of election interference rise following breach - TechRadar.
• Google gamed into advertising a malicious Authenticator.
• Sneaky SnakeKeylogger slithers into Windows email inboxes • The Register.
• China starts testing draft national cyber-ID scheme • The Register.

• Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and Sam Altman again - The Verge.
• CrowdStrike hits back at Delta over litigation threat • The Register.
• Tesla sued by family of motorcyclist killed in Autopilot crash - CNBC. Thanks RedEye9.

• CPU/GPU/AIO/SSD Cooler: Asus Ryujin III ARGB - 360 mm AIO cooler - Guru3D.
• Laptop: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 Review - ThinkComputers.org.
• RAM: Crucial Pro Overclocking 64GB (4x16GB) DDR5-6000 Setup - Mad Shrimps.
• Security Camera: TRENDnet TV-IP1515PI Indoor-Outdoor 5MP H.265 WDR PoE IR Fixed Turret Network Camera - Nikk Tech.
• Speakers/Soundbar: GoldenEar T66 Loudspeaker Review - This Gets Personal - Digital Trends (video). Thanks Dimitris.

I have a pretty good ear for music and voices, and recently it occurred to me to wonder if my ability to recreate songs in my head might be unusual (like the audio version of a photographic memory). I asked MrsBlue about it, who said she can do the same thing, and then it occurred to me I was being silly, as the idea of earworms and having a song running though your head is quite commonly discussed. In an odd twist, shortly after confirming this sort of audio imagination is commonplace, I learned I seem to be completely lacking in the corresponding ability to conjure visual mental images. This was spurred by a Quanta Magazine article asking "What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images?" This was new to me, and I'm still piecing through it, but it seems I have a pretty strong case of aphantasia, described as the inability to create mental images. It's a little tough to judge the absence of something you don't experience (I wouldn't know I am colorblind if I hadn't been told) and there are posts from other people struggling with figuring out the degree to which they are affected. But when I close my eyes I see black with residual smears of white from the light, and I have nothing at all like the ability to conjure images. I spent some time looking into this while working on this post, and dug up this video on the topic making it clear I'm missing out on something most people can do. In a really weird coincidence, in a post on Boing Boing inspired by the same story, the author also talks of being afflicted and links to the same video, making me think I have a clone out there (or maybe I have an alter ego moonlighting for other sites). Anyway, this was a pretty weird discovery, and I'm still digging into it to try and better understand the implications.

Imaginary Round-up
Thanks Ant, Neutronbeam, and Max.

Breakfast Links

• Official Results from the 2024 World Dog Surfing Championships.
• 3 remarkable trees- A living fossil, a deadly canopy, and the world's biggest seeds that were once mounted in gold by royals - Live Science.

Story

• Salad kits are convenient. But are they more likely to be contaminated than regular lettuce?

Science

• Study Finds Faces Evolve to Match Names Over Time - Neuroscience News. Thanks Matthew.
• These scientists want to safeguard Earth’s species by cryogenically preserving them on the moon - CNN.

Media

• Same Scene Done In 10 Different Directors' Styles. Thanks VideoSift.

Follow-up

• NASA May Be Forced to Send Boeing's Busted Spacecraft Back Empty - Futurism.