Geoff Keighley responds to and clarifies controversial statements he made to the Washington Post about speaking out on Activision-Blizzard's harassment issues live on stage at The Game Awards 2021.

On Twitter, Keighley points out that Activision-Blizzard will not be involved in the actual The Game Awards 2021 show. There will be no reveals, trailers, or content showcasing Activision-Blizzard games and products during the show itself--instead, the problematic publisher will only be included in the listed nominees.

"Beyond its nominations, I can confirm that Activision-Blizzard will not be a part of this year's The Game Awards. The Game Awards is a time of celebration for this industry, the biggest form of entertainment in the world. I also realize we have a big platform which can accelerate and inspire change. We are committed to that, but we all need to work together to build a better and a more inclusive environment so everyone feels safe to build the world's best games."

Halo Infinite is 343i's ambitious idea for a game-as-a-platform, but this vision won't come to reality any time soon.

Like Fortnite, Halo Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer will likely stay in beta phase for the foreseeable future. The reason for this is simple: the game simply isn't ready yet and needs a lot of work. Infinite's progression and monetization systems have stirred up mass controversy among Halo faithful and gamers want answers as well as changes to what's described as a "predatory drip-feed" business model predicated on "nickel and diming" consumers.

343 Industries has responded to criticisms saying that changes are coming. More immediate updates include more XP doled out for challenges and promises of upcoming playlist options. More significant changes--like those to the progression and monetization mechanics--will take a lot longer to implement, hence why we think this will stay in beta for a while.

BioShock 4 will reportedly take place during the 1960s and set in a brand new frozen city in the South Pole.

The next BioShock game will take place in the glacial surface of Antarctica, sources have told VideoGameChronicle and Sacred Symbols' Colin Moriarity.

BioShock 4, which is believed to be called BioShock Isolation, will trade the sunken city of Rapture in the Atlantic for the cold wastes of Borealis in the Antarctic. Sources also say it's set in the 1960s era which opens up all sorts of possibilities for pop culture references, and will be tied to the original BioShock games' storylines.

In a new paper published in Space: Science & Technology, a team of researchers have created a new lightweight robotic arm with precision controls.

As missions in space increase in scope and variety, so to will the tools necessary to accomplish them. Robots are already used throughout space, but robotic arms used on Earth do not translate well to space. A flat plane relative to the ground enables Earth-bound robotic arms to articulate freely in a three-dimensional coordinate grid with relatively simple programming. However, with constantly changing environments in space, a robotic arm would struggle to orient itself correctly.

Researchers from the Harbin Institute of Technology's (HIT) School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation have developed a robotic arm with the ability to adjust its position and speed in real-time based on its environment. The arm weighs 9.23 kilograms (20 pounds) and can move almost a quarter of its weight.

Researchers have found a way to trap a single photon in a cavity to aid in further research involving new quantum technologies, publishing their findings in Science Advances.

Previously, trapping photons in a cavity has involved using materials with an extremely large optical nonlinearity. Adding one photon from a laser significantly alters that cavity's resonance frequency, preventing another photon from entering. For this mechanism to work, extremely large optical nonlinearities are needed in conjunction with very low dissipation, which is extremely difficult to achieve.

Professor Aashish Clerk from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago, alongside graduate students Andrew Lingenfelter and David Roberts, devised a system with significantly weaker nonlinearity and two separate photon sources. With precise tuning, destructive interference between the two sources creates a "wall" that blocks photons from entering the cavity once the selected number has been captured.

A collaboration between researchers of Princeton University and the University of Washington has resulted in a tiny new camera the size of a grain of salt.

Traditional cameras use curved glass or plastic lenses to focus light rays onto a sensor, while this camera uses a "metasurface." The metasurface measures half a millimeter wide and is covered with 1.6 million cylindrical posts, each approximately 0.1 micrometers in diameter. Each post has unique geometry to allow the best capture of an optical wavefront yet. Using machine learning-based algorithms, computing the interaction of light with all posts generates images with the most detail and widest field of view of any full-color metasurface camera to date. The new camera produced images comparable to a conventional compound camera of more than 500,000 times the volume.

"It's been a challenge to design and configure these little microstructures to do what you want. For this specific task of capturing large field of view RGB images, it's challenging because there are millions of these little microstructures, and it's not clear how to design them in an optimal way," said Ethan Tseng, a computer science Ph.D. student at Princeton who co-led the study.

Arianespace's launch of two Galileo FOC (Full Operation Capability) global navigation satellites has been temporarily delayed.

The VS26 launch was 8 minutes and 22 seconds from lift-off but was scrubbed due to the risk of lightning in poor weather. It has been rescheduled for 21:19 local time in Kourou on December 4th (00:19 UTC on December 5th).

The rocket used for the mission is a four-stage Soyuz ST-B Fregat and will be launching from the Guiana Space Center, the first Soyuz rocket from there in 2021. Soyuz rockets have been used to launch Galileo satellites before. The first two test-bed Galileo satellites were launched aboard a Soyuz rocket in December 2005 and April 2008, respectively, and were ultimately retired in July 2012. Other Galileo launches have also involved Soyuz, but they can only carry two at a time, so Arianespace has also used its Ariane 5 ES to carry four at a time for multiple launches.

SpaceX is starting work on a launchpad for its Starship rocket in Florida, expanding its launch options from only Texas.

The launchpad is being built at Launch Complex 39A, part of NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral in Florida. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy already use the site for their launches, but new infrastructure is necessary to accommodate future Starship launches.

Some preliminary work at Pad 39A was completed in 2019 related to Starship but was put on hold as operations at Starbase, SpaceX's facility in South Texas, were scaled up. Starship is currently manufactured and tested at Starbase, and the site has played host to multiple prototype test flights in previous years.

A new study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlighting the discovery of more than a thousand potential gene editing iterations to CRISPR.

CRISPR-Cas are naturally occurring systems in bacteria that can be used to edit small portions in various genes. The sections of genes that use CRISPR to insert themselves into other places in an organism's genome are designated CRISPR-associated transposons (CASTs). Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have identified many more likely CASTs, up to nearly 1,500 from only about a dozen.

"With CASTs, we could potentially insert lots of genes, called 'gene cassettes,' encoding multiple complicated functions," said Ilya Finkelstein, associate professor of molecular biosciences at UT Austin.

Kojima Productions is currently hiring seven positions including a programmer, 3D character modeler, game designer, sound designer, writer, project manager, and a producer.

Hideo Kojima's Tokyo-based game development studio is expanding, and the job listings give an idea on what KojiPro is working on. One of the projects is likely a 3D open-world action game (possibly Death Stranding 2). The game designer listing calls for "experience of placement and balance adjustment of enemies in action games" as well as map design. Multiple listings say the projects are "high-end games".

The Metal Gear Solid creator also made an interesting comment on KojiPro's future games, saying they make "AAA original titles" and "new outrageous titles," the latter of which could refer to the studio's expansion into entertainment mediums like film, TV shows, etc.