Overwatch on Switch is digital-only, ships in empty box without cart

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 12, 2019 4:42 PM CDT

Overwatch retail copies on Switch don't actually include a cartridge, and ship in an empty box.

Overwatch on Switch is digital-only, ships in empty box without cart

Overwatch is coming to Switch, but it's basically a digital-only game even if you buy it in stores. Retailers and Nintendo themselves say versions sold on store shelves will be empty and instead include a code to download the game from Nintendo's eShop.

Luckily the game won't be ridiculously huge: Overwatch clocks in at roughly 12GB on Switch. It's not too bad unless you don't have an SD card for extra storage...then Overwatch will take a chunk out of the Switch's 25.9GB of available memory.

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Payday 3 coming in 2022 for PS5, Project Scarlett

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 12, 2019 3:45 PM CDT

Payday 3 should release in the next few years between 2022 and 2023, Starbreeze Studios today announced.

Payday 3 coming in 2022 for PS5, Project Scarlett

Despite its crushing financial woes, Starbreeze expects to bounce back with Payday 3. In a recent investor's announcement, Starbreeze revealed a roadmap to stable revenues that hinges on a publishing contract for the release of Payday 3.

The games-maker says it'll procure a publishing deal next year, and Payday 3 will release in 2022-2023, well into the lifecycle of next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett. Both systems will feature high-end AMD Zen 2 CPUs and Navi GPUs to push 4K gaming and beyond with high FPS and latency, so Payday 3 should be the best-looking and best-playing game to date.

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Olympian runs in a bubble FULL of hydrogen car EMISSIONS

Anthony Garreffa | Electric Vehicles & Cars | Oct 12, 2019 3:31 AM CDT

Hyundai has quite the marketing video for its Nexo: a hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV that emits just water and oxygen, getting an Olympian to run inside of a bubble in its emissions.

Olympian runs in a bubble FULL of hydrogen car EMISSIONS

It's hard to convey just how clean a hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV is, so getting a super-fit Olympian (in this case, Olympic swimmer and brand ambassador Mireia Belmonte) to run on a treadmill inside of a bubble that is sucking in the emissions from Hyundai's Nexo is a neat-o idea.

Hyundai makes it clear that the vehicle only emits water and 99.9% filtrered oxygen, with the South Korean car giant teaming with the Spanish National Centre on Hydrogen and a sports medical center to make sure the entire test was safe -- and in the end, we get an awesome display at how efficient and green the Nexo hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV is.

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ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER appears with dual-fan cooler

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 12, 2019 2:29 AM CDT

ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is smiling for the camera, with the world's first pictures of the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER being a big scoop for VideoCardz.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER appears with dual-fan cooler

The site has all of the images you need to see, of both ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics cards in both non-AMP and AMP editions. We have now been able to confirm that the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER definitely has GDDR6 memory, but we don't know what the non-SUPER variant will use just yet.

Both of ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics cards use dual-fan coolers and have 3 x DP and 1 x HDMI output for display connectivity. The GTX 1660 SUPER AMP is definitely a slightly larger card, but by slightly -- I truly do mean, slightly.

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Apple's first TV show: new Band of Brothers series with $200M+ budget

Anthony Garreffa | TV, Movies & Home Theatre | Oct 12, 2019 1:48 AM CDT

Apple has just announced its first TV series that it will be producing in-house, securing a new entry in the successful Band of Brothers franchise. Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman (and their respective companies) are all continuing their involvement with the new series over at Apple.

Apple's first TV show: new Band of Brothers series with $200M+ budget

The new Band of Brothers TV series will go for over 8 hours and have a budget of over $200 million. It will be based on Donald L. Miller's book 'Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought The Air War Against Nazi Germany'. The new Band of Brothers TV series will be centered around members of the Air Force during World War II.

Until now, HBO had been making the Band of Brothers and The Pacific TV shows securing a huge swath of Emmy awards during the series' run between 2002 and 2010. In total, Band of Brothers and The Pacific were nominated for 43 Emmy's and took home 14 of them.

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AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU teased, could be here in 1H 2020

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 12, 2019 12:29 AM CDT

Now that AMD has had a super-successful launch of its Navi GPU architecture inside of the Radeon RX 5700 series and soon-to-be-released Radeon RX 5500 series, all eyes are on the next-gen Arcturus GPU.

AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU teased, could be here in 1H 2020

AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU should find a new home inside of the next wave of Radeon Instinct accelerators, in which AMD is using Vega GPUs right now, adn even in the first half of 2020. But AMD needs to spice up the HPC market with a new GPU and now we're hearing proper whispers of the Arcturus GPU.

The news is coming from HWiNFO in its new beta build v6.13-3945) that "added preliminary support for AMD Arcturus". Komachi also posted on Twitter in what looks to be a new Arcturus-powered AMD Radeon Instinct M100 accelerator, replacing the current flagship Vega 20-powered Radeon Instinct M60 accelerator.

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AMD Navi GPUs rumored to get ray tracing support in December

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 11, 2019 11:50 PM CDT

The big buzzword with graphics cards and gaming right now is definitely ray tracing, but it has been (mostly) exclusive to NVIDIA graphics cards... but it looks like Team Red might be joining Team Green (and even Team Blue) with ray tracing support sooner rather than later.

AMD Navi GPUs rumored to get ray tracing support in December

The latest rumor is that AMD's new Navi GPUs will receive a new driver update that will add ray tracing support for Radeon RX 5000 series graphics cards (Radeon RX 5500 series and the flagship Radeon RX 5700 series) which has been spotted in AMD's latest Radeon drivers that support Gears 5.

AMD doesn't have full hardware ray tracing on its current first-gen Navi GPUs, but the second-gen Navi GPUs coming in 2020 as well as the custom Navi GPU that the company is making for Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Scarlett console and Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console will have proper ray tracing support, and they'll both handle ray tracing differently.

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Blizzard buckles under Chinese pressure, restores prize money

Anthony Garreffa | Current Affairs | Oct 11, 2019 11:27 PM CDT

Activision-Blizzard have been on seriously hot water, along with a large list of companies bowing to Chinese censorship pressure, but now Blizzard Entertainment (wholly owned by Activision, don't forget that) has buckled under pressure from gamers. Blizzard is even issuing 1000-year bans on their forums (yes, 1000 years -- that's not a typo).

Blizzard buckles under Chinese pressure, restores prize money

Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack said in a statement on Blizzard's website that Blizzard didn't make their decision to suspend pro-Hearthstone player Ng "Blitchung" Wai Chung or take his prize money because of his views of what's going on in Hong Kong.

Brack explained: "The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision. We have these rules to keep the focus on the game and on the tournament to the benefit of a global audience, and that was the only consideration in the actions we took. If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same".

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Chinese-owned Riot Games wants broadcasters to avoid sensitive topics

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 11, 2019 8:38 PM CDT

As Blizzard's image tanks and burns thanks to the recent Hong Kong controversy, Chinese-owned Riot Games cautions League of Legends esports players to avoid "sensitive topics" during on-air streams.

Chinese-owned Riot Games wants broadcasters to avoid sensitive topics

After seeing what's happening to Blizzard, Riot Games wants to stay completely out of any fiascos or PR nightmares. It's trying to stay neutral by reminding streamers and esports pros to avoid discussions of Hong Kong or any other geo-political or cultural incidents. But as a China-owned company, gamers are having a hard time believing Riot Games is doing anything but censoring outcry and kowtowing to Tencent and the Chinese government.

"As a general rule, we want to keep our broadcasts focused on the game, the sport, and the players. We have reminded our casters and pro players to refrain from discussing any of these topics on air," Global Head of League of Legends Esports John Needham said in a statement.

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Paralyzed man walks again using brain-controlled exoskeleton

The use of exoskeletons can and will be vast as the technology matures and time passes, with researchers over at the University of Grenoble releasing their results of a trial using a 4-limb robotic system that helps patients with tetraplegia, which is the loss of control of all four limbs.

Paralyzed man walks again using brain-controlled exoskeleton

The most tricky way of using the system is finding a patient with tetraplegia and getting them hooked into the system, with 28-year-old French man 'Thibault' using the suit. It's not a fully-baked and ready-to-use suit just yet, but in its current trial status the researchers along with the patients can train an algorithm that interprets brain signals which then converts them into physical movement.

Professor Alim-Louis Benabid, president of the Clinatec Executive Board, a CEA laboratory, and Professor Emeritus from the University of Grenoble, France, said in a press release: "Ours' is the first semi-invasive wireless brain-computer system designed for long term use to activate all four limbs".

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