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The Verge's review details weeks of testing Valve's new $1,059-$1,299 Steam Frame, a wearable PC positioned as more than a VR headset—an attempt at a full spatial computing device for playing flat Steam games alongside VR titles. The reviewer praises its comfort and lightweight design but reports frequent crashes, disappearing controls and audio, and full power failures during use.
Gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally run full PC operating systems—SteamOS or Windows—so they suffer from the same software buildup issues as desktop computers. Periodically restarting these devices can resolve problems like game crashes, frame drops, lag, and audio glitches by clearing background processes and giving the system a fresh start. Valve itself lists restarting as an early troubleshooting step on its official Steam Deck support page.
Developer FamBoy32-dev released LiveHaptics, a free app that routes a PC's system audio into the Steam Controller's rumble motors, letting hearing-impaired users feel movies, music and games as vibration patterns. The tool works on Windows and Linux, supports USB, Bluetooth and Valve's wireless receiver, and processes audio through a per-channel DSP chain before converting it into a haptic pulse stream.
Starting September 9, Australian law requires online game and app storefronts to verify that buyers are over 18. Steam is meeting this requirement by asking users to link a bank card rather than submit government ID or biometric data, mirroring the approach it already uses in the UK. Credit cards work reliably since Australian issuers only give them to adults, but debit cards—often held by minors—only pass verification under narrower conditions tied to specific bank and network flags.
Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek revealed that a 2009 trailer for Left 4 Dead 2, widely reported at the time as leaked footage, was actually deliberately released by Valve itself. The company took this route after the ESRB refused to approve the trailer for official release, citing its graphic violence, gore, and crude language.
Sonoff introduced a new Thermostatic Radiator Valve (TRV) at IFA 2026, a smart device that screws directly onto a radiator's valve pipe and connects via Wi-Fi to an app. Priced at $35, it displays temperature on a color screen and supports Celsius and Fahrenheit units.
SteamDB, the widely used Steam analytics and database site, has been sold to Chosen, the company behind Nexus Mods. Co-founder Pavel Djundik said running the site solo had become unsustainable after burnout following years of increasing workload since launching it in 2013 with Marlamin. Chosen CEO Victor Folmann said the site will be commercialized through partnerships and affiliate links rather than ads, while preserving what makes it useful to users.
California's Assembly passed Bill 1856, amending the Digital Age Assurance Act to exclude operating systems and software meant to be freely copied, redistributed or modified from mandatory age-verification requirements. This shields most Linux distributions, though derivative projects with proprietary layers like Valve's SteamOS may still need to comply. The bill also fixes the DAAA's overly broad definition of 'user' and restricts sharing of age data to law enforcement requests.
Roughly 12 terabytes of data from Valve's old Steam2 backend, covering games published between 2003 and 2013, has surfaced online after being left exposed in a public repository. The trove reportedly includes prototype builds like an early version of Left 4 Dead with a different HUD, materials tied to the canceled Half-Life 2: Episode 3, and files from non-Valve titles such as Grand Theft Auto 5. Content creators covering Valve say no hacking was involved, and only game data was exposed, not player information.
A 12-terabyte trove of Steam2-era content dating from 2003 to 2013 has appeared online, reportedly containing nearly every uploaded build for that decade, including cut Portal 2 assets, Half-Life 2: Episode 3 files, and beta versions of Left 4 Dead 2, CS:GO, Spore, and Dragon Age: Origins. Researchers say the material came from an unsecured public API tied to Valve's old distribution system, which was replaced by SteamPipe in 2013 and left this data exposed without any password protection.
A 12-terabyte archive of data from Valve's old Steam2 content servers, used between 2003 and 2013, has surfaced via BitTorrent in an incident dubbed the 'Teraleak.' The trove reportedly contains unreleased builds and prototypes from Valve and other developers, including early Portal 2 prototypes and a Sonic the Hedgehog 4 build, and appears to have been assembled from publicly accessible endpoints rather than a hack.
A massive 12TB torrent dubbed the Steam 'teraleak' has surfaced online, containing thousands of game depots from Valve's old Steam2 content distribution system used between 2003 and 2013. The trove includes public release builds as well as previously unseen prototype, pre-release, and playtest versions of games from Valve and third-party publishers. Data miner Gabe Follower says the material was pulled from a publicly accessible API endpoint, suggesting the exposure originated from Valve's own systems rather than a hack.