February 22 Tech News Roundup: Apple iPhone 16e launched, GTA 5 for PC gets a major update, YouTube Premium Lite is coming back

Apple launches the iPhone 16e

After several years of leaks and anticipation, the next-gen iPhone SE is here, in the form of the Apple iPhone 16e. The smartphone was revealed this week as a budget-friendly option. This is Apple’s first phone with its own 5G modem, it’s called the C1 Modem. Apple’s in-house modem supports sub-6GHz 5G spectrum, but not the faster mmWave 5G. The iPhone 16e sports a 6.1-inch OLED display, and is powered by an A18 Bionic chipset, and a customizable Action Button.

It supports Face ID, and has a 12-megapixel front camera for selfies. The rear camera on the iPhone is a single 48-megapixel Lens. Apple has opted for a USB-C port on the iPhone 16e, to comply with regulations in various Countries.

Apple has priced the iPhone 16e at $599 / €699 / £599. The iPhone 16e price has drawn criticism from fans who have pointed out that the Notch design, a Single Camera, a 60Hz display does not make the phone special, and that one could buy an iPhone 15 for a similar price with better hardware. Another surprising flaw in the iPhone 16e is that it does not support MagSafe Charging.

iOS users have one more reason to rejoice, as Google has introduced its popular Circle to Search feature for iPhones. This functionality is available as part of the Google Lens integration in the Google and Chrome apps for iOS.

GTA V for PC to get a major graphics and performance update

Rockstar Games has announced a surprise update for Grand Theft Auto V for PC. The Windows version of the popular game will be upgraded with new vehicles, features that were previously available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox X/S consoles. The best part is that this upgraded version will be free for all users who own the game.

GTA 5 for PC will also gain some graphics and performance upgrades. The update also improves faster loading times. Rockstar is adding support for Ray Tracing, AMD FSR1 and FSR3, NVIDIA DLSS 3. The graphics supports higher resolutions, higher aspect ratios, and higher frame rates, while audio enhancement includes support for Dolby Atmos. GTA 5 is gaining support for DualSense controllers with adaptive triggers.

The GTA 5 PC update will be released on March 4, 2025. Players should take note of the new system requirements for the upgraded version of the game. The good news is that the older version will still be available for download.

YouTube Premium Lite subscription to relaunch as a cheaper option

Google discontinued YouTube Premium Lite in September 2023. But it seems that the company has had a change of heart, and plans to relaunch Premium Lite as a budget-friendly option for users. The subscription is currently being tested in Australia, Germany, Thailand, but is also expected to be made available in the United States.

Google’s crackdown on ad blockers to force viewers to subscribe to YouTube Premium has been largely successful. But, many people cannot afford the subscription that costs $14 per month, which is why the tech giant wants to reintroduce the YouTube Premium Lite tier with an affordable price tag. It is expected to be priced at $6 to $8 per month. However, it does not offer a truly ad-free experience. YouTube Premium Lite subscribers will see limited ads, such as ads before music videos, and some banners while browsing. The cheaper tier will not allow offline downloads or background playback.

Mozilla Firefox to support Windows 7 till September 2025

Windows 7 has long been abandoned by Microsoft, the legacy operating system reached its end of life support in January 2020. The Redmond company continued to provide Windows 7 Extended Security Updates for a while, and it received its final security update in January 2023. This was followed by several third-party applications discontinuing support for Windows 7, due to potential security problems.

Mozilla had originally planned to discontinue Firefox for Windows 7 in March 2025. But, the organization has announced that it is extending support for Windows 7 users.  Firefox’s Extended Support Release, commonly referred to as Firefox ESR will continue to support Windows 7 until September 2025. Users can continue using Firefox 115 ESR on their old PCs, which will receive security updates until the aforementioned date. This extension of support for security updates also applies to Windows 8.1 and macOS 10.12 to 10.14.

Mozilla has also released the Firefox 135.0.1 update for the stable channel. The update fixes an issue that affected scrolling on webpages, and could cause a jump to wrong locations. Another problem related to the mouse was also patched, this one fixes a drop-down menu on some websites not working correctly. Firefox should now be able to restore closed windows or tabs properly from the History Menu. Custom search engines added to Firefox should now display their icon in the correct size. This update also patches a high-rated vulnerability related to memory safety bugs that could be exploited by hackers.

NVIDIA RTX 50-Series Cards do not support 32-bit PhysX games

Gamers who have an NVIDIA RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 Ti will not be able to play 32-bit games that use PhysX. The GPU-accelerated PhysX technology was designed to simulate hair, cloth, glass, liquid, smoke, fog, and other particle effects realistically, but wasn’t particularly popular, and was only used in a few games such as Batman: Arkham series, Borderlands 2, Mirror’s Edge to name a few. The problem came to light when some people began reporting that their games were running too slowly, i.e. well below their normal frame rates. Some users discovered that turning on PhysX in games had resulted in additional CPU usage, instead of GPU usage.

While gamers expected this to be a bug in the software, an NVIDIA representative explained that this was a result of the deprecation of 32-bit CUDA applications. In other words, NVIDIA has quietly discontinued support for 32-bit PhysX. This issue only affects the latest 50-series GPUs, so gamers with older graphics cards need not be concerned whether their games would be unplayable.

Naturally, gamers have not been impressed by the move, especially considering that PhysX is NVIDIA’s technology, though it is worth noting that games that use CPU for PhysX should continue to work fine, even on the latest PCs.