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Apple will allow developers in the European Union to distribute iOS apps outside its App Store, the company said Thursday in a bid to avoid escalating fines from Brussels regulators. The policy change came on the deadline for Apple to comply with EU rules or face new financial penalties that can reach up to 5% of average daily worldwide revenue. The $3 trillion iPhone maker has been negotiating with the European Commission for two months after receiving a $585 million fine for breaching the EU's Digital Markets Act. The landmark legislation targets the power of Big Tech companies and requires Apple to open its mobile ecosystem to competitors. The second change, set to go into effect in January 2026, would replace the current "core technology fee" model -- a separate charge imposed on developers -- with a commission-based structure.

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PlayStation will continue withholding its first-party games from PlayStation Plus on launch day, despite Xbox offering day-one releases through Game Pass. Nick Maguire, PlayStation's vice president of global services, told Game File the company remains committed to its current approach of adding first-party titles to the subscription service 12 to 18 months after release. "We've sort of stayed true to our strategy across the board, where we're not looking to put games in day and date," Maguire said. PlayStation instead selects four to five independent games annually for day-one PlayStation Plus releases, a strategy Maguire described as "working really well across the platform."

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The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) has held strong in Windows for nearly 40 years, but that's about to change. From a report: Microsoft revealed earlier this year that it was overhauling its BSOD error message in Windows 11, and the company has now confirmed that it will soon be known as the Black Screen of Death. The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified black screen. The simplified BSOD looks a lot more like the black screen you'd see during a Windows update. But it will list the stop code and faulty system driver that you wouldn't always see during a crash dump. IT admins shouldn't need to pull crash dumps off PCs and analyze them with tools like WinDbg just to find out what could be causing issues. The company will roll out this new BSOD design in an update to Windows 11 "later this summer."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Malaysia will ban plastic waste imports from the U.S. starting Tuesday because of America's failure to abide by the Basel Convention treaty on international waste transfers, in a move that could have significant consequences for California. Malaysia emerged as a major destination for U.S. waste after China banned American waste imports in 2018. California shipped 864 shipping containers, or more than 10 million pounds of plastic waste, to Malaysia in 2024, according to the Basel Action Network, an advocacy group. That was second only to Georgia among U.S. states. Under Malaysian waste guidelines announced last month, the country will no longer accept plastic waste and hazardous waste from nations that didn't ratify the Basel Convention, the international treaty designed to reduce the international movement of hazardous and other waste. The U.S. is one of just a handful of countries, including Fiji and Haiti, that hasn't signed the pact.

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