Microsoft has announced a new model of its Xbox One console, a digital-only version that will not be able to play discs and costs less than its siblings. The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition is functionally and visually identical to the existing Xbox One S console, apart from the absence of a disc drive. It's aimed at "digital natives", according to Microsoft's Jeff Gattis – primarily teens who grew up without the discs and cartridges that older games relied upon. It is out on 7 May, and will cost £199 in the UK and $249 in the US, significantly cheaper than the other Xbox One models. It will come with Minecraft, Forza Horizon 3 and Sea of Thieves pre-installed on it s1TB hard drive, and a discounted subscription to Xbox Game Pass, which offers a library of more than 100 games for a monthly fee.

Video game creators at Ubisoft Montréal – the development studio that rebuilt 18th-century Paris in its 2014 historical action game Assassin's Creed Unity – have joined the global outpouring of grief in the wake of Monday's devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. Ubisoft will be donating €500,000 to help with restoration efforts, and is also making Assassin's Creed Unity available free on PC for the next week, "giving everyone the chance to experience the majesty and beauty of Notre Dame the best way we know how", said a studio spokesperson. "We hope, with this small gesture, we can provide everyone an opportunity to appreciate our virtual homage to this monumental piece of architecture." Caroline Miousse, a level artist on the game, spent 14 months working almost exclusively on the cathedral, inside and out. It is furnished and decorated as it would have been in 1790, down to the paintings hanging on the walls.

Lack of diversity in the artificial intelligence field has reached "a moment of reckoning", according to new findings published by a New York University research center. A "diversity disaster" has contributed to flawed systems that perpetuate gender and racial biases found the survey, published by the AI Now Institute, of more than 150 studies and reports. The AI field, which is overwhelmingly white and male, is at risk of replicating or perpetuating historical biases and power imbalances, the report said. Examples cited include image recognition services making offensive classifications of minorities, chatbots adopting hate speech, and Amazon technology failing to recognize users with darker skin colors. The biases of systems built by the AI industry can be largely attributed to the lack of diversity within the field itself, the report said.

The ACLU and other groups urged Amazon to halt selling facial recognition technology to law enforcement departments. Lending tools charge higher interest rates to Hispanics and African Americans. Job hunting tools favor men. Negative emotions are more likely to be assigned to black men's faces than white men. Computer vision systems for self-driving cars have a harder time spotting pedestrians with darker skin tones.

Drone footage captured Notre Dame cathedral's beauty just five months before Monday's fire. Video game publisher Ubisoft, which recreated the Notre Dame Cathedral in its 2014 game "Assassin's Creed Unity," is willing to help in restoration efforts. The company announced Wednesday it is making a contribution of 500,000 Euros (about $565,000) to the rebuilding of the cathedral. And the Paris-headquartered game maker said Wednesday it will make its virtual rendition of the cathedral available to those involved in the rebuilding of the church. Ubisoft is also making "Assassin's Creed Unity" available free to players on PC for the next week.

Shares of Qualcomm soared 23% Tuesday – and remained up Wednesday – in the wake of a late-afternoon filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, wherein the company announced that it reached a "multi-year" "global patent license agreement" and "chipset supply agreement" with Apple that settles the companies' yearslong intellectual property litigation and appears likely to work out to the benefit of both parties. In said filing with the SEC, Qualcomm states that as of April 1, 2019, it has directly licensed its relevant patents to Apple for at least the next six years, with the option to extend the agreement for an additional two years. Moreover, Qualcomm will supply chipsets to Apple for use in the latter's devices for several years at least. In exchange, Apple will make a one-time payment of an unspecified amount to Qualcomm, and pay continuing royalties to boot – also in an amount unspecified. Robotic advances: Mush! Watch a team of Boston Dynamics' SpotMini robot dogs pull a truck down the street Finally, "all worldwide litigation" between the two combatants "will be dismissed and withdrawn," including lawsuits against Apple's contract manufacturers. Qualcomm is expected to report earnings on May 1, at which time the company promises to provide "further updates" on the details of its agreement with Apple.

A team of dog-like robots pull a massive truck down the street. No -- this is not a new episode of "Black Mirror." This is a video featuring the latest robot from Boston Dynamics, an American engineering and robotics design company. The four-legged robot, named SpotMini, weighs about 66 pounds, can carry a payload of up to roughly 31 pounds and can run for as long as 90 minutes, depending on what it is doing. In this case, ten SpotMini robots are show pulling a large delivery truck.

OSAKA - Electric motor-maker Nidec Corp. said Tuesday it will acquire component-maker Omron Corp.'s automotive electronics subsidiary for ¥100 billion ($893 million), as it seeks to speed up the development of technology for autonomous and other advanced vehicles. Kyoto-headquartered Nidec will take an entire stake in Omron Automotive Electronics Co. by the end of October, as it aims to combine its strengths in motors, radar and camera-related technologies with Omron Automotive's edge in auto components for self-driving vehicles. "We want to widen our product lineup through the acquisition and enhance our competitiveness in the automobile-oriented business," as the auto industry has been shifting its focus to more electrified and self-driving vehicles, Nidec Chairman and CEO Shigenobu Nagamori told a news conference in Tokyo. Omron said it will focus more on its industrial automation and health care businesses as it found it difficult to continue hefty investments in developing auto technology on its own amid the intensifying race to make next-generation vehicles. Nidec, founded in 1973, has grown in part due to its ambitious mergers and acquisitions strategy.

The PlayStation 5 isn't coming this year but could arrive soon after that, Sony has suggested. The console is coming along quickly, with many of its specs in place and developers already working with early versions to understand the kind of games they might be able to create, its architect Mark Cerny has revealed in a wide-ranging interview with Wired. Mr Cerny explicitly said that the console won't be arriving in 2019, in line with expectations but dashing the hopes of anyone who had hoped the console could be about to arrive by surprise. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

Microsoft has revealed a new version of the Xbox – missing what until now was one of its central features. The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition comes without a disc drive, meaning that people are only able to play games or films that they have downloaded over the internet, and are unable to use discs. In exchange for that missing feature, Microsoft says the new Xbox will always be at least $50 cheaper than the normal version of the Xbox One S. The All-Digital edition will cost $250 initially, but will receive price cuts whenever the traditional version does, the company indicated. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.