As we expected, Microsoft took to the stage during the annual XO19 event this year and revealed official gameplay for Age of Empires IV.

Above, we have the gameplay trailer that has been released onto the official Xbox YouTube Channel. From the video, we are introduced to a moderately sized city, and at first glance, we can certainly see there have been massive graphical upgrades to buildings, units, vegetation, and lighting when comparing to Age of Empires III.

It can also be noticed that units are walking on top of walls, much like in the Stronghold games, this is the first time Age of Empires has done this. Other cool aspects that can be noticed are: buildings can be destroyed and crumble like in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, units can have battle cry (probably depends on civilization), and when some buildings crumble they leave fire on the ground. Since this is only a minute worth of gameplay, there really isn't much to go off of, but so far Age of Empires IV looks incredible.

Mortal Kombat 11 has dropped a brand new gameplay trailer, this time introducing us to an old-time character, Sindel.

Sindel, who is the evil mother of Kitana, was first introduced into Mortal Kombat back in the third installment of the game. Ever since then, Sindel has become a regular throughout the series, but didn't appear in the last game, Mortal Kombat X. Above you can find the official Sindel gameplay trailer that shows how she will be facing off against her opponents and what moves she has up her sleeve.

From the trailer, we can see that Sindel can utilize her hair to space out her opponent, combine those moves with the fact that she has a polearm, players will have a great mid to close range fighter on their hands. Sindel can also manipulate sonic waves, as seen during her fatality. Sindel will be available for $6 as apart of the $40 Kombat Pack and released on November 26th. Mortal Kombat 11 is available on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

A cybersecurity company has released its annual Voice Intelligence Report, and their numbers are quite shocking.

According to Pindrop's annual Voice Intelligence Report, voice fraud continues to be a major threat for people as the report finds that between 2014 and 2018 fraud rates have climbed by 350%. The report also mentions the fraud rate for 2018, and it says, "The 2018 fraud rate is 1 in 685, remaining at the top of a five-year peak".

So, what type of voice fraud is occurring? The report mentions that insurance voice fraud has been the main target with widespread increases by 248%. The industries facing the highest fraud risks include insurance with 1 in 7,500 fraudulent calls, retail with 1 in 325 fraudulent calls, banking with 1 in 755 fraudulent calls, card issuers with 1 in 740 fraudulent calls, brokerages with 1 in 1,742 fraudulent calls, and credit unions with 1 in 1,339 fraudulent calls.

The rest of our PC components and peripherals have RGB lighting, with one of the last pieces of the RGB puzzle being our display connectivity in DisplayPort and HDMI cables with RGB lighting... until now.

Vivify has announced their new HDMI cable with RGB lighting, with two lengths available -- a 9-foot cable for $80 (discounted from $150), or a longer 15-foot cable for $100 (discounted from $200). Vivify's new Arquus W73 (because people are going to call it that) is a 4K "gaming" HDMI RGB cable, with 7 different colors and a cycle mode to boot.

Vivify's new RGB laden HDMI cable isn't just an HDMI cable + RGB lighting -- the company adds that it has used high-quality fiber optics with the new Arquus W73 cable that allows for longer cables over passive copper HDMI cables. Traditional copper cables use electricity to transmit signals, versus fiber optic cables using lasers. Light (and thus, lasers) move much faster than electricity as well, on top of not being affected by electromagnetic interference (EMI) or radio frequency interference (RFI) like traditional copper-based HDMI cables.

We've been hearing more and more about NVIDIA's new Ampere GPU architecture, and now we're seeing an industry analyst come out and say that they expect NVIDIA ot launch a "litany of upcoming 7nm" launches in the "next nine months".

Given the naming system of the current Turing-based GeForce RTX cards, we should expect NVIDIA to call the new Ampere-based GPUs on the 7nm node the GeForce RTX 3000 series. This means we'll see a flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti that should utterly destroy the current flagship RTX 2080 Ti, and a new Ampere-powered GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 fashion as the Turing launch in 2018.

Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Christopher Rolland said on Tuesday: "We think NVIDIA faces the most reasonable Street expectations in quite some time, with potential tailwinds from improving DC [data center], Switch [Nintendo console], and high GPU [graphics processing unit] attach rates (laptops/desktops), all in front of a litany of upcoming 7nm [nanometer] launches over the next nine months".

The fight for console dominance is going to really kick off in 2020, as Microsoft doesn't want to behind in any sense of the word with the new generation of consoles. Microsoft plans to use its Xbox Scarlett to well and truly kick some Sony ass with its right-now-way-more-hyped PlayStation 5 console.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently talked with The Verge, where he talked about Project Scarlett and said: "I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or price. If you remember the beginning of this generation we were a hundred dollars more expensive and, yes, we were less powerful. And we started Project Scarlett with this leadership team in place with a goal of having market success".

Spencer continued, saying that Microsoft had talked internally about whether they would do another generation of consoles "years ago". He added that he personally thinks there will be more generations of consoles post-Scarlett, saying: "We're all-in on Project Scarlett and I want to compete, and I want to compete in the right ways which is why we're focused on cross-play and backward compatibility".

NASA has admitted that it is "struggling to explain" why oxygen is being created, and then consumed on Mars. The US space agency has been left scratching their collective heads since.

The reason behind this is that NASA's own Curiosity rover that is chilling on the Red Planet has returned some rather interesting data back to our Pale Blue Dot, showing that elevated methane levels were recorded, and NASA can't explain why. There have been tests conducted and completed to try and work out why these levels were so high, but NASA doesn't know why.

NASA's Curiosity rover "breathes" in the air on Mars, analyzes it and tells NASA what types of gasses are detected. But something interesting was discovered -- here on Earth the background levels of certain gasses will increase and decrease as the seasons change, and something similar is happening on Mars.

Obsidian Entertainment isn't giving up on RPGs--there's still more projects in the works.

Today Obsidian announced a new IP called Grounded, and it's a huge departure from the sprawling RPGs like Pillars of Eternity or The Outer Worlds. Obsidian's first project under Microsoft's ownership isn't a fantasy of sci-fi epic, but an online multiplayer survival game set in a whimsical Honey I Shrunk the Kids universe. Fans were a bit confused by the reveal; where was The Outer Worlds 2, or the next big RPG to save the Xbox brand?

Those games are still in development. Obsidian's Josh Sawyer confirms the studio has multiple projects in development at the same time. Grounded is a passion project made by just one of Obsidian's dev teams. RPGs are still very much a part of the developer's DNA, and new adventures are currently in the works.

Microsoft has been embracing PC in a big way, complete with Xbox Game Pass integration and simultaneous game launches on the platform. But Project xCloud is coming to PC too, and aims to essentially do what Stadia does for Chome browsers.

In 2020, Project xCloud will stream games to PCs, solidifying Microsoft's strong synergy of hardware and services. "We've heard your feedback loud and clear. You want more ways to play. We are delighted to announce that in 2020 we will bring Project xCloud to Windows 10 PCs," said Catherine Gluckstein, GM of product engineering and strategy at Project xCloud.

And there's a potential tease for Project xCloud coming to competing devices, too. Maybe Nintendo Switch? "And of course we won't stop there. We're working with lots of partners to bring Project xCloud to every device you want to play."

The reports were right on the money, and Halo: Reach will release on December 3, 2019 on PC, including the Windows Store and Steam.

Today Microsoft confirmed Halo: Reach will arrive on PC as a full package this December, complete with Firefight, campaign, multiplayer, and huge PC optimizations like uncapped frame rates, 4K 60FPS support, and full mouse and keyboard support. We'll see playlists borrowed from the original 2010 launch including Firefight's online Score Attack mode as well as the classics like Team Slayer. It'll also have online co-op campaign too.

Reach is included with the $40 Master Chief Collection, but you can buy it separately on Steam for $10. The full Master Chief Collection obviously won't be available if you pre-order the complete package--only Reach will drop in December.