November 15 Tech news roundup: Valve announces Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller, Red Dead Redemption is coming to consoles and mobile devices, Firefox wants AI features to be optional

Steam Machine gaming PC, Steam Frame VR headset, and new Steam Controller announced

Valve announced three new devices this week including a gaming PC, a VR headset and a new gamepad. The new Steam Machine is designed to offer a console-like gaming experience on a big screen TV or monitor. It runs on SteamOS, with KDE Plasma desktop, and supports fast suspend and resume, a desktop mode, notifications, Steam Input, Steam Store, Cloud Saves, among other features.

Steam’s hybrid PC/console semi-custom AMD Zen 4 CPU, a semi-Custom AMD RDNA3 GPU with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, a 512GB/2TB NVMe SSD and a microSD card slot. It is capable of playing games at 4K at 60 fps with FSR. A DisplayPort 1.4, an HDMI 2.0 port, 5 USB ports, and a USB-C port. It even has an LED strip with 17 RGB LEDs that can be customized.

Users can install any operating system they want if they don’t like SteamOS. The Steam Machine comes with a brand new Steam Controller that has dual trackpads, capacitive sensors in the sticks and on the back, and HD haptic motors. But, you can also plug in PC accessories like a keyboard and mouse to play games from your Steam Library.

Valve’s Steam Frame is a new virtual reality headset that runs on SteamOS. It comes with a pair of Steam Frame controllers, one for each hand. The headset is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon® 8 Gen 3 ARM64 processor, and can stream games from your Steam Library, or you can install games on a microSD card. The Steam Frame has pancake lenses with 2160 x 2160 LCD panels, and supports 72-144Hz. There are 4 hi-res monochrome cameras and infrared LEDs on the outer part of the headset for tracking.

Users may optionally use the new Steam Controller to play games on Steam Frame. The headset is not restricted to VR games, it can play non-VR games too. The Steam Store now has wider pages that fit better on widescreen monitors.

Firefox 145 brings new fingerprint protections

Mozilla Firefox 145 was released this week, and it comes with some new privacy protections to prevent fingerprinting. Websites track users by employing tracking cookies, by detecting the operating system, browser, time zone, etc., and use these data to profile users uniquely. Firefox has some built-in mechanisms such as Enhanced Tracking Protection, Total Cookie Protection, to prevent privacy-invasive tracking methods used by websites to serve ads or worse.

In order to improve its anti-fingerprinting technologies, Mozilla has introduced some new features to block font based and script based hardware tracking. Firefox will now report limited details requested by websites to allow them to work normally, but without compromising the privacy of users.

Firefox 145 also adds support for comments in PDF, you can add, edit and remove comments from documents. The browser will now display a preview of all tabs in a group, when you mouse over a tab group. Firefox no longer supports 32-bit Linux distros, users are advised to upgrade to the 64-bit version, or to switch to Firefox 140.5 ESR. Mozilla has added support for MKV in Firefox, the Matroska container (.mkv) is now supported for AVC, HEVC, VP8, VP9, AV1, AAC, Opus, and Vorbis codecs.

Mozilla outlines its plans for AI features in Firefox

Mozilla seems to be cautiously optimistic about adding AI features to Firefox. It is introducing a new option called AI Window, which Mozilla says is an opt-in experience. Users may join a waitlist to try the features, and provide feedback about them. This AI window is a separate browser window that users may open to access AI features to chat and other tasks.

While it is unclear what exactly the AI Window will do, Mozilla highlighted that it won’t lock Firefox users into a single AI-ecosystem. It wants to protect its users, provide more choice, while also being transparent about how the AI features.

Despite these reassurances, the news has drawn criticism from a subset of users.

Red Dead Redemption is coming to PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, Android, iOS and Netflix

Rockstar Games has announced that it will be releasing Red Dead Redemption for PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, Android, iOS and Netflix.

The cult-classic, third-person shooter which was launched in 2010. An updated version that was co-developed by Double Eleven and Cast Iron Games, was released for the Sony PS4 and Nintendo Switch in 2023. A PC port of RDR 1 was released in 2024.

Now, Rockstar is bringing the game to the Sony PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, with various improvements. The game will support 60 frames per second, enhanced image quality, HDR, 4K resolution on PS5 and Xbox, while the Switch 2 version will support DLSS, HDR, mouse controls, 60 fps high resolution. Android and iPhone users can buy the game from the Play Store and App Store respectively, and Netflix subscribers will be able to download Red Dead Redemption for iOS or Android. Red Dead Redemption is coming to modern consoles and mobile devices on December 2, 2025

Paramount Plus prices are increasing in early 2026

Paramount Plus subscriptions are getting a price hike for users in the U.S. This is the third price hike that the streaming service has seen in three years. The platform was acquired by Skydance Media a few months ago, and managed to bring in a good chunk of users in the previous quarter.

The ad-supported Paramount Plus Essential plan, which is the cheapest of the 2 plans on the platform, used to cost $7.99 per month. It is increasing by $1, to $8.99/month. And the Premium plan, which is ad-free, is also jumping up by a buck, from $12.99 to $13.99.

The new Paramount Plus prices will come into effect from January 15th, 2026.

Windows 11 adds native support for Bitwarden and 1Password to manage passkeys

Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 now allows using Bitwarden and 1Password to manage passkeys. The operating system has supported passkeys natively, but it is expanding the feature to third-party password managers. This will allow users to save their passwordless logins to Bitwarden or 1Password, and sync their passkeys across their devices.

Passkey management is available in Windows 11 as part of the November Security Update.