Technologies

Microsoft Tests New Bing AI Personalities as It Allows Longer Chats

Microsoft had restricted exchanges earlier after a series of news articles and social media posts about strange responses in long conversations.

Microsoft said it’s expanding the lengths of chats people can have with the test version of its Bing AI, while the company’s also begun testing different «tone» personalities for more precise or more creative responses. The company’s moves follow efforts to restrict access to the technology after media coverage of the artificial intelligence chatting app going off the rails went viral last week.

Bing Chat can now respond to up to six questions or statements in a row per conversation, after which people will need to start a new topic, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. Microsoft had previously imposed a conversation limit of five responses, with a maximum of 50 total interactions per day. Microsoft said it will now allow 60 total interactions per day and plans to increase that total to 100 «soon.»

Microsoft also said it’s testing options for people to choose the tone of their conversations, whether they prefer Bing to be more precise in its responses, more creative or somewhere between the two.

Ultimately, the tech giant said it hopes to allow longer and more intricate conversations over time but wants to do so «responsibly.»

«The very reason we are testing the new Bing in the open with a limitedset of preview testers is precisely to find these atypical use casesfrom which we can learn and improve the product,» the company said in a statement.

Microsoft’s moves mark the latest twist for its Bing AI chatbot, which made a splash when it was announced earlier this month. The technology combines Microsoft’s less-popular Bing search engine with technology from startup OpenAI, whose ChatGPT responds to prompts for everything from being asked to write a poem to helping write code and even everyday math to figure out how many bags can fit in a car.

Experts believe this new type of technology, called «generative AI,» has the potential to remake the way we interact with technology. Microsoft, for example, demonstrated how its Bing AI could help someone plan a vacation day by day with relative ease.

Last week, though, critics raised concerns that Microsoft’s Bing AI may not be ready for prime time. People with early access began posting bizarre responses the system was giving them, including Bing telling a New York Times columnist to abandon his marriage, and the AI demanding an apology from a Reddit user over whether we’re in 2022 or 2023.

Microsoft said that the «long and intricate» chat sessions that prompted many of the unusual responses were «not something we would typically find with internal testing.» But it hopes that improvements to the program, including its potential new choice of tone for responses, will help give people «more control on the type of chat behavior to best meet» their needs.

More on AI chatbots

Technologies

Highguard to Go Offline After Rapid Player Drop

Another live service game bites the dust.

Highguard found itself in the spotlight of the online video game discourse back in December during The Game Awards show, when host Geoff Keighley made a special introduction for the game’s trailer, which came very late in the show, a time reserved for some of the night’s biggest reveals. The next day, there were questions as to what this free-to-play multiplayer shooter from a new studio was. Now, less than two months after its release, Highguard is being shut down.

Developer Wildlight Entertainment posted on X about Highguard’s shutdown on Tuesday. The developer says it was unable to gain the player base it needed to get the game going, and it will shut down servers on March 12.

«Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term,» the studio said. «Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can.»

In his review of Highguard, CNET’s David Lumb described the game as a first-person shooter that had the lane-skirmish fighting found in multiplayer online battle arena games and base raiding mechanics found in titles like Rainbow Six: Siege. The developers described this new mash-up as a «raid shooter.» Wildlight has since acknowledged that the initial showing of the game at The Game Awards didn’t properly represent the game.

When the game was released on Jan. 26, Highguard started off strong. Nearly 100,000 people were playing the game on PC at launch, according to SteamDB. That number dropped significantly in the days that followed, and in the last week of February, it fell to slightly more than 400 a day. Things were looking bleak for Wildlight for most of February as the player count dwindled. On Feb. 11, members of the developer team posted on LinkedIn about layoffs, and the game’s website went down on Feb. 17.

«Negative press is a hard stink to clean off,» Lumb said today. «When gamers decide to hate a game, they’ll sink it, especially if it doesn’t have years of runway like No Man’s Sky.»

On the r/games subreddit, in a thread about the announcement, posters shared their problems with the game. Some pointed to dated visuals, while others said the gameplay was confusing and sorely needed refinement.

Former Wildlight developers told Bloomberg on Feb. 26 that they felt it was the «hubris» of the studio leadership that led to the game’s demise. The studio was made up of former members of the team that developed Titanfall, Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, and they were not aware of how the gaming landscape had changed since those games were released.

Wildlight says it intends to continue updating the game. A final update will be made available sometime on Wednesday or Thursday, and it will include a new character, a new weapon, account level progression and skill trees.

Technologies

Google’s Epic Settlement Brings Fortnite Back to Google Play, Plus Broad Dev Discounts

Welcome back, Fortnite: Google is already making improvements to the Google Play Store following last year’s Epic Games settlement.

Google moved forward on Wednesday with its agreement to settle a years-long antitrust battle with Epic Games, marking a significant development for Fortnite players. While the settlement still awaits final approval, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney posted the news on X.

«Fortnite will return to Google Play Store worldwide soon,» Sweeney wrote. «Epic Games Store continues supporting Android worldwide alongside Windows and Mac, and installation on Android will become much easier later in 2026.»

A Google representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Epic Games settlement included an offer from Google to change how the Google Play Store works.

«For new installs (first-time installs from users after the new fees are launched in a region), we are reducing the in-app purchase (IAP) service fee to 20%,» Google reported on its Android Developers Blog.

That’s a significant drop from the previous 30%, which could make buying apps more affordable for customers when the change rolls out to US customers by June 30. Google is also discounting its cut of recurring subscription fees to 10%.

Even more important for long-term Google Play offerings, Google is now adding the ability for developers to offer their third-party app store payment option, sideloaded with Google’s payment method, so users will have new choices regarding the platform on which they pay.

What this means for Google Play purchases

Keep in mind, Google has only just introduced its program allowing qualified alternative app stores on Android and is still in the process of lowering fees, so changes are unlikely to be felt for several months.

When the updates do roll out, developers on Google Play — including Epic Games — will have new opportunities to save money when selling their apps, and new methods to sell that didn’t exist before. That could attract more developers to the Google Play Store and make apps easier for Android users to access. If there’s an app you’ve been wishing was available on Google Play, it’s now more likely to become available.

The changes may also lead to lower prices for customers, although that’s not guaranteed. Google is lowering its profit share, but developers will have to decide whether to pass those savings along to buyers. Fortnite fans aren’t the only ones who have something to look forward to, but it will take time to see the final effects.