GIVEAWAY: Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 RGB 32GB RAM Kit and KC3000 2TB M.2 SDD
Global entry! We have teamed up with Kingston to give away a couple of its awesome products to one very lucky winner.
The winner will take home a Kingston KC3000 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD and a Kingston FURY Beast DDR5-6000 RGB 32GB memory kit.
Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD delivers next-level performance using the latest Gen 4x4 NVMe controller and 3D TLC NAND. Upgrade the storage and reliability of your system to keep up with demanding workloads and experience better performance with software applications such as 3D rendering and 4K+ content creation. With formidable speeds up to 7,000MB/s1 read/write, it ensures improved workflow in high-performance desktop and laptop PCs making it ideal for power users who require the fastest speeds on the market.
Activision has made nearly $1 billion from mobile every quarter over the last year
Mobile gaming is huge for Activision Blizzard King, and revenues continue to grow across a trio of titles: Candy Crush, Call of Duty Mobile, and Diablo Immortal.
A bit ago, I delved into how mobile gaming has transformed Activision's video games business. In that coverage, I looked at the ways that Activision and Blizzard revenues have changed over time thanks to games like COD Mobile and Diablo Immortal. The data really speaks for itself--mobile gaming has significantly buffered these segments thanks to Activision's successful launches.
The company's latest Q2 2023 filing gives more opportunity to chart the effects that mobile has had on Activision's platform earnings split. The results are just as interesting. According to the filing, Activision Blizzard King has made over $900 million from mobile for four consecutive quarters over the last rolling 12-month period.
PlayStation 5 price could be about to drop in US - ahead of the release of a new PS5 model?
Sony is about to drop the price of the PS5 console in the US and Europe, or that's the latest chatter from the grapevine.
If this is true, the reasoning that springs to mind for some folks - and it's an obvious enough line of speculation - is that Sony wants to shift some more stock before the next incarnation of the PS5 turns up. And this long-rumored refreshed model is something a second piece of speculation has just popped up around.
The first rumor comes from billbil_kun on Twitter, and as you can see above, it's a slightly cryptic tweet, translating to 'watch out for a PS5 price drop in the US and UK/Germany [Europe] soon.'
PlayStation Pro: 'Project Trinity', 2024 launch, 8K performance mode
BREAKING: Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro may release in 2024 with some heavy mid-gen hardware upgrades.
New reports from gaming insider Tom Henderson indicate that Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro console will be a hefty hardware upgrade over the existing PS5 model. Sources have told Henderson that the PS5 Pro may deliver a new performance mode capable of 8K gaming output, complete with more robust and optimized ray tracing effects.
The console is codenamed Project Trinity, and 4K gaming is likely to be main target for the PS5 Pro. We could see the console enable more consistent 4K 60FPS gaming experiences due to new advanced SoC tech. Reports say that Sony has been developing the PS5 Pro model since 2022 and that most studios will receive devkits by late 2023.
Continue reading: PlayStation Pro: 'Project Trinity', 2024 launch, 8K performance mode (full post)
Call of Duty Mobile breaks $3 billion consumer spending
Call of Duty Mobile continues delivering powerhouse earnings with the game passing over $3 billion in spending since its launch in October 2019.
Call of Duty's mobile version has been incredibly successful for Activision's games segment. In its recent Q2 2023 earnings brief, Activision Blizzard King announced that COD Mobile has broken $3 billion in total worldwide consumer spending, doubling the previous $1.5 billion figure that Activision shared in February 2022.
"Call of Duty Mobile engagement and net bookings were stable year-over-year, with the team continuing to see a positive response to enhancements to the player experience and optimization of live operations. Lifetime worldwide consumer spending on Call of Duty Mobile since its October 2019 launch passed $3 billion in the second quarter."
Continue reading: Call of Duty Mobile breaks $3 billion consumer spending (full post)
ASUS could be making a ROG NUC mini PC and our wallet is already cowering in fear
We recently heard that Intel is no longer going to make its NUCs, and that Team Blue is passing the baton for this product line to ASUS - and apparently this means a ROG branded NUC is in the cards.
A ROG Strix graphics card from the Lovelace range will surely be on board this rumored NUC (Image Credit: ASUS)
This comes from Italian tech site Bits and Chips, so as ever with rumors - particularly from lesser-known sources - be careful about accepting it as the truth. But the gossip is that ASUS is developing a high-end ROG NUC to take over from the Intel NUC 13 Extreme.
We're told this will use an Intel Meteor Lake processor paired with an RTX 4000 GPU (likely an RTX 4070), and it'll be a typically flashy ROG design which is heavy on the RGB.
Blizzard was Activision's top Q2 earner with record-breaking $1 billion revenues
Diablo IV's massive success helped Blizzard become the jewel in Activision's crown.
Activision Blizzard King just announced its Q2 2023 earnings, and the results are incredibly strong. Blizzard overperformed during the quarter thanks to the monumental sales revenue generated from Diablo IV. The demon-slaying ARPG helped Blizzard break $1 billion in quarterly earnings for the first time in the publisher's 32-year history.
During the second quarter, Blizzard made $1.049 billion in revenues, most of which was from the release of Diablo IV. The last figures pinpoint Diablo IV sales making $666 million in just 5 days across consoles and PC. This doesn't account for the remaining weeks of sales through the end of the month (Activision's Q2 period ends on June 30).
Diablo 4 'Season of the Malignant' is here - and already reverts an unpopular patch v1.1 change
The first season of Diablo 4 is now live, and Blizzard has already removed one of the less well-received changes made in its unpopular preseason patch (v1.1.0).
Sadly, this doesn't involve letting up on the nerfs made to the sorcerer class, which have been the most complained about element of patch 1.1.
However, as Wccftech spotted, with the release of Season of the Malignant, Blizzard has performed a U-turn on a change whereby level requirements were implemented for tackling Capstone Dungeons to level up to World Tier III or IV.
US lawmakers push to unveil secret alien technology and 'non-human intelligence'
Democrats and Republicans hardly ever agree, but there is one topic that both sides of the fence can get behind, and that's the unveiling of secret alien technologies and evidence of "non-human intelligence".
Early this month Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced an amendment to the National Defence Authorization Act, which would mandate and publicly disclose government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), more commonly known as UFOs. Schumer said in a press release that the American public has a right to learn about "technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena".
Additionally, the Senate Majority leader said that lawmakers are not working on declassifying information pertaining to extraterrestrial existence but also the creation of a pipeline for future research to be made public. The amendment would require the National Archies and Records Administration (NARA) to create a collection of records that will be called the UAP Records Collection, along with a UAP Records Review Board.
Local officials sound alarm on escaped individuals infected with rare deadly bacteria
Reports from the Russian state-run news agency TASS reveal that individuals infected with a rare bacteria have escaped hospitalization.
A family near a Siberian city
The reports state that individuals contracted the rare and deadly bacteria known as anthrax, and after being hospitalized, escaped their beds, resulting in a public health alert from authorities. The individuals are located in Russia's southern Siberian region, and reportedly escaped in late June. Where did the anthrax come from? Scientists theorize the uptick in anthrax cases can be traced back to increasing temperatures that thawed permafrost within the region.
Reports indicate that the most recently recorded anthrax case happened in a town called Bizhiktig-Khaya, Russia, where a herd of unvaccinated animals contracted anthrax. The shepherds were then sent to hospital after becoming infected with the bacteria. TASS reports that on June 30, a local resident of the area was sent to hospital for an anthrax infection after they visited the area. Notably, the area of the outbreak is known for horse meat consumption.
Elon Musk says Tesla can develop robotic limbs for humans to create cyborgs
In late 2022 Tesla showcased a prototype of Optimus, a humanoid robot that the company says will be able to relieve humans of monotonous jobs, such as those in a factory line.
Tesla's Optimus robot
During the showcase of the Optimus bot Musk said that Tesla's robot program is the most important project that the company is working on and that its anticipated to bring in as much, if not more revenue than the company's electric vehicles. During the most recent Tesla earnings call Musk was asked about the progress of the Optimus project, and more specifically, how many robots has Tesla developed since the showcase in 2022.
Musk didn't give a specific number of developed Optimus bots, but did go on to say that there was potential for robotic limbs to be developed and controlled through a brain implant. This brain implant would developed by Neuralink, one of Musk's other business ventures, and through the combination of robotic limbs and Neuralink implants amputees could receive full control of robotic arms and legs.











