NASA is looking for US citizens to sign up for an 8-month study into social isolation, something it is doing to prepare for future missions to both the moon, and Mars.

The US space agency will be studying the effects of social isolation and confinement on US citizens, where successful applicants would work towards completing simulated science missions. NASA will be pushing the boundaries of your mind during these times, where participants will be thrusted into the same environmental aspects that future astronauts will experience on Mars.

NASA is forming a small international crew that will be living together in isolation for 8 months "conducting scientific research", where successful applicants would be using VR and performing robotic operations, as well as a bunch of other tasks. The research will concentrate on the "effects of isolation and confinement as participants work to successfully complete their simulated space mission. Results from ground-based missions like this help NASA prepare for the real-life challenges of space exploration and provide important scientific data to solve some of these problems and to develop countermeasures".

We're getting close to the halfway point of 2020, with Microsoft hard at work on some new updates for Windows 10 -- but now we're hearing some rumblings about the first big update to Windows 10 in 2021.

Windows 10 21H1 which is also known as Windows 10 Iron (Fe) is the first big update of 2021 for Microsoft's flagship OS, and it should sport Start menu improvements, and more. Microsoft first teased the new Start menu and parts of a refreshed UI a couple of months ago that moved away from Live Tiles.

If you're a Fast ring insider then you're going to get access to Windows 10 2021 codenamed Iron (Fe) in June 2020, which is just weeks away. The news came directly from an official Microsoft blog, but it was quickly edited -- with the codename of the new Windows 10 21H1 removed.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is shaping up beautifully, with a batch of new screenshots released to prove it. The new screenshots come from the on-going alpha build of the game, and tease the new Boeing 747-8i, too.

The new screenshots of Flight Simulator come from a new post on the official website, with alpha testers submitting their screenshots. These alpha testers include Simtom112, King6EAR, Speedwoblz, Anark1a2004tj, Superdelphinus, OperatorLand468, SulfonicCarp982, R4microds, and BER811.

The Flight Simulator team teased that there will be new invites being sent out in the coming hours, with a new patch arriving to the game on May 28. A bunch of stuff was tweaked with the new Alpha 3 (built 1.3.9.0) that was released on May 14, with a gigantic list of full patch notes here.

EK has just announced something very special for its most patriotic American fans to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend, with a new limited edition Velocity CPU water block beautifully designed in a special red, white, and blue style like the American flag. Check it out:

The company will be making just 200 limited edition Velocity CPU water blocks, with 100 of them made with an Intel mounting frame while the other 100 have an AMD mounting frame. EK is hoping to sell all 200 of them, and will make a donation of $20,000 to Shellback Tech, a rapidly growing Disabled Veteran-founded charitable organization.

Edvard Konig, founder of EK explains: "Being a globally successful company also means that we have the ability and responsibility to make a difference and give something back to the community. We have decided to jump on a project that will make our most loyal fans happy, and at the same time, help those who are in need".

With millions at home right now, it is the time to strike if you're making malicious software -- and disguising coronavirus phishing campaigns through Excel spreadsheets? That's nasty.

Recently, the Microsoft Security Intelligence Team discovered that there are two rather large phishing campaigns that are fooling people into downloading, and then opening malicious Excel files. Once they do, hackers have remote access to their PCs and it is game over.

The emails get disguised to look like they're coming from the likes of Johns Hopkins University, while other emails coming through are personal COVID-19 testing solutions, and more. The emails themselves arrive with Excel documents attached, with click bait-y titles such as "WHO COVID-19 SITUATION REPORT" that once opened, will install NetSupport Manager -- a remote desktop access tool.

The US Navy has tested a new laser weapon system, with the video below showing the docked USS Portland testing its new laser weapon system that is capable of blowing an aircraft up out of the sky mid-flight.

In the video above, the US Navy has its USS Portland testing "the first system-level implementation of a high-energy class solid state laser". The laser disables a drone mid-flight, where you can see in the second half of the clip the drone burning from being hit by the laser.

We don't know how strong the laser itself is, but according to a report published in 2018 from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, it's expected to be at least a 150-kilowatt laser. That's some serious laser weaponary right there, but the US Navy hasn't provided any specifics.

There are hundreds of millions of people stuck at home right now over the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of them working from home -- and NVIDIA knows that, and embraces the fact.

During NVIDIA's recent Q1 2021 earnings call, company CFO Colette Kress said that gaming hours on their GeForce platform saw an uptick of 50% in the recent quarter. This is all thanks to those people forced to stay at home, and now many of them are gaming far more.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said that the work-from-home model that companies are pushing, with the likes of the largest social media company in the world -- Facebook -- wanting to see 50% of its workforce working from home by 2030.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) now has a staggering 118 projects in development across its myriad of studios, up from Q3's 96 projects.

In its recent earnings report, The Embracer Group outlined its new slate of in-development games. Embracer now has 118 games in the works, up 22 games from last quarter's numbers. And 69 of them haven't been revealed.

So what changed? Embracer's buyout of Saber Interactive raised the project count, along with other unannounced titles from other studios.

Atari has teamed up with Litecoin to help kick off their new Atari Token cryptocurrency, and you'll actually be able to use Litecoin to buy the new Atari VCS console.

Atari is kind of a strange company. First, they announced the Atari VCS, a new re-vamped console that merges old-school and modern gaming together for a rather steepish $249 price tag. Then they announced special gaming-themed hotels and resorts (which actually sound pretty awesome). Now they've confirmed more plans to jump into crypto and are partnering with the Litecoin Foundation to make it happen.

This team-up establishes an exchange between Litecoin and Atari Token. Users can trade Litecoin for the Atari Token, and even use Litecoin to buy Atari products like its upcoming VCS console.

2020's big Call of Duty game is called Black Ops: Cold War, sources familiar with Activision's plans tell Eurogamer.

There's been lots of rumors about Call of Duty 2020, and now we have multiple high-level sources corroborating past reports. While Activision has yet to formally announce the game, we actually know a fair amount about Black Ops: Cold War.

Rumor has it the game spans the multi-decade timeline of the Cold War, from the 1950s all the way to the Vietnam era. This year's Black Ops game, sub-titled Cold War, will be a prequel to the best-selling mainline series and should explore and connect the different timeframes.