Iran is currently under protest as thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the fuel price jump.

Iranian people have taken to the streets to express their concern over the fuel price jump that saw the prices of fuel rise over 50%. In response to the wide-spread disapproval of the fuel price hike, the Iranian government has decided to switch off internet access in the country in an effort to block communication between protesters. The blocking of the internet also makes it extremely hard for journalists to share news regarding the size of the protests.

At the moment, there are only small pockets of internet connection available, and people within these pockets are managing to get the word out about the recent events occurring at ground zero. While that might sound like there is still internet available, it cannot be stressed enough how rare the connection is. The Iranian government hasn't officially acknowledged that it has shut off internet access.

The answer to efficient and cheap space travel might just be simpler than you think; all it requires is a cable and a weight.

Above, we have a video from Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, and this time around, the scientific YouTube Channel is exploring the idea of cheap and effective space travel. The idea that is proposed begins with what is called a 'Tether,' which is simply a weight with a cable attached to it. Kurzgesagt suggests that humans build extremely long versions of these tethers and place them at a safe distance around our planet and use them as a 'free' means of propulsion to other planets.

Since the tether would be spinning around our planet, spaceships would be able to attach onto the tether and use its rotational force to be pushed towards a designated planet. The video says that there will be a few problems in doing this; humans would have to create smaller spacecrafts that would be able to match the tethers speed throughout our atmosphere (12,000km per hour). While that might sound extremely difficult, it should be noted that traditional spacecrafts need to reach 45,000km per hour to exit our planet's gravity.

A new means of storing renewable energy is being researched, and strangely enough in incorporates using mountains as big batteries.

The study by Julian Hunt and his colleagues of Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) details a new system of energy storage called "Mountain Gravity Energy Storage (MGES)". MGES places cranes on the edges of steep mountains and then moves sand/gravel from a storage site located at the bottom of the mountain to another storage site located at the top.

This process is much like a ski-lift and requires a motor or a generator to transport the storage vessels but instead it generates electricity when the sand is lowered back down from the top site. How is this done? MGES uses gravity to its advantage, converting energy into storeable electricity that is proportional to the sand's mass, gravity and height of the mountain its situation on.

Just last week, Microsoft and Forgotten Empires revealed Age of Empires IV, bringing it back from shadows of what was assumed to be development death.

The reveal was held at the Microsoft event in London, XO19, and during the event, one critical aspect was discussed 'how is Age of Empires IV going to be monetized after its initial launch?' Age of Empires' Creative Director Adam Isgreen tuned in to answer this question, and luckily, microtransactions aren't on the table for the upcoming RTS.

Here's what Isgreen had to say, "The idea of microtransactions in a real-time strategy game isn't a thing. DLC, expansions - all of that is things that we're going to be exploring for Age 4." He continued and said, "While we definitely already have ideas in terms of where we want to go past Age 4, in terms of expansions and stuff, a lot of that is going to be driven by the community and the players, where they want to see the game going".

Activision is going big with Modern Warfare's future content, complete with a huge 200-player battle royale multiplayer mode with full cross-play.

A new Reddit leak confirms Modern Warfare will soon get a massive BR free-for-all with up to 200-players. The info was datamined from the game's source code, and contains references to playlists like solo, duos, and squads, and in-game maps.

The BR mode is designed to be a mix of tactical strategy and randomized chaos. It will have plenty of loot across all rarities scattered across the map including all weapons, attachments, and killstreaks from the base MW multiplayer, and it'll also have perks that boost efficacy in battle. There's even missions for teams to tackle during the 200-player warzone havoc.

A new report says Hangar 13 is working on the most ambitious Mafia game to date, and it picks off right where Mafia III left off.

Rumor has it Mafia IV is happening, and it'll take place during the 1970s when the mob ruled the casino-ridden streets of Las Vegas. The entire game centers around your ascension as a gang boss who eventually takes control over Sin City, building an empire of gambling, mayhem, and drug-fueled organized crime along the way. Apparently Hangar 13's fleet of studios is working on the project, and it'll be bigger than Mafia III but filled with more meaningful quests and activities--gone are the annoying repeatable missions from Mafia III.

All of this doesn't come from a reliable source, though. Jason Schreier, one of the most reliable sources in the industry, says the info sounds fake.

Dead Island 2 is still in development, but it could miss the original 2020 release date we had pegged for the sequel.

After years of development hell and trading hands, Dead Island 2 has found a new home at Homefront: The Revolution's Dambuster Studios. As for a release date, that's a bit more complicated. We've had no development updates on the game, and the only assurances it's still happening is from higher-ups at THQ Nordic and Deep Silver's Koch Media. But now it sounds like Dead Island 2 may not launch until 2021 at the earliest.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz strongly hints Dead Island 2 may not release in 2020. The CEO says Dead Island 2 won't launch close to Dying Light 2, another competing zombie game that Deep Silver is publishing. "It would be conflict if we were launching on top of each other. But that's not going to be a problem."

AMD is expected to unleash their second-gen Navi GPU at CES 2020 according to the latest reports, with a preview at CES of the second-gen RDNA-based Radeon RX 6700 family -- at least that's what I'll call it for now.

The new second-gen RDNA 2 architecture is expected to use an optimized 7nm+ process node, offer up enthusiast-grade graphics cards (YES!), hardware-level ray tracing support, both GDDR6 and HBM2 options, and even more power efficiency over the first-gen Navi products.

The note about AMD using HBM2 is interesting, which could be useful for the enthusiast-grade RDNA 2 cards that would not just compete with NVIDIA's current flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti but also whatever NVIDIA is cooking up for 2020 in their new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000 series cards that should see the RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3080 Ti released at Computex/E3 2020.

Just a couple of days ago, Golden Joystick Awards were held, and Nintendo representative fighter took home the crown prize.

You might be confused by the fact that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate had won a 2019 award when it was released back in December of 2018. Well, that's because the release of Smash Ultimate fell short of the cut of time for the Golden Joystick Awards of 2018, which is why it was run in 2019 awards.

Even though it might be a year out from its release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate still managed to scoop a really nice award up. According to Golden Joystick's official Twitter account, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate won the Nintendo Game of the Year award for 2019. This isn't the first time Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has got some decent awards, at the Japan Game Awards it got awarded the 'Grand Award', more on that here.

Back in September, Nintendo finally stepped into the mobile with an extremely strong IP, Mario Kart Tour.

Players started their engines on the 25th of September, and in just one day the app got 20 million downloads. Now some new statistics have been released by Sensor Tower who has revealed that just in September the app was downloaded 86.2 million times. Following the September release, Mario Kart Tour slowed down a bit in October, but still managed to pull in a further 40.3 million unique installs.

In comparison to Mario Kart Tour, Activision's Call of Duty: Mobile pulled in 148 million downloads in October. How much revenue was made off these installs? Mario Kart Tour managed to rake in $32 million in October, while Call of Duty: Mobile pulled ahead with $54 million. Mario Kart Tour currently doesn't have multiplayer support, so these numbers are sure to increase once Nintendo updates the game with that.