Starting in 2027, smartphones sold in the European Union will be required to have user-replaceable batteries designed for greater durability and more charging cycles. Manufacturers must also provide spare parts and repair manuals for at least 10 years after a model is released. This is real pressure against planned obsolescence. It should mean phones that actually last longer, cheaper fixes, and a lot less electronic waste piling up. About time.

Natalie Vock, a Valve Linux graphics contractor, has open-sourced kernel patches that use Linux dmem cgroups to protect foreground games. Background apps and overlays now spill to system RAM first instead of evicting the game’s critical VRAM assets. In real testing with Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings, this resulted in stable frame times with zero gradual stutters, keeping around 7.4 GB in fast VRAM. It could make affordable SteamOS gaming far more viable than the specs alone suggest. Valve to make 8 GB enough in 2026 with optimizations like this

The Stop Killing Games movement has officially backed the proposed California bill focused on protecting players when online games are shut down. > Publishers must provide an offline mode or a way to keep the game playable after server shutdown. > If this is not possible, players should receive a full refund. > The goal is to protect digital ownership and game preservation. This proposal follows growing concerns over games becoming completely inaccessible once support ends, especially after shutdowns like The Crew. Most gamers think that if players pay for a game, it should remain playable or be fairly compensated.