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Nicholas Schmidt, the chief technology officer of Blueprint Power, is now the proud owner of the first Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck.

Schmidt already owned a gas-powered F-150, which he now intends to replace with the electric counterpart. Since collecting his new vehicle, he also took to Twitter to share he has cancelled his reservation for a Tesla Cybertruck, as he will no longer need it.

The Cybertruck was initially unveiled in 2019, with availability expected in 2021. However, recent updates from Elon Musk indicate that the development of the Cybertruck is only expected to finalize this year, with production beginning in 2023. Musk claimed that Tesla needed to focus on meeting the demand for its current vehicles so that it doesn't fall even further behind on future projects like the Cybertruck.

The zero-emission Bitcoin mining project is a collaboration between Tesla, Blockstream, and Jack Dorsey's Blocks (formerly known as Square).

The new facility will be capable of 30 Petahashes per second and powered exclusively by a 3.8 megawatt (MW) solar farm and a 12 megawatt-hour (MWh) Megapack battery system, provided by Tesla. A recent tweet from Blockstream shows that it has now received a delivery of four Megapack batteries.

Tesla previously invested $1.5 billion into Bitcoin in early 2021 and followed up that move with accepting Bitcoin as a payment option for new vehicles. Within a few days, Tesla reversed this decision, citing concerns regarding the use of fossil fuels and their associated emissions when it comes to powering Bitcoin mining and transactions.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is set to release in 2023 and will continue Cal Kestis' journey, EA, Respawn Entertainment, and Lucasfilm Games today announced.

VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb was right: Respawn's new Star Wars game is indeed called Jedi: Survivor, and it takes place 5 years after Jedi: Fallen Order (which puts it in the Obi-Wan series timeline). The sequel stars Cal Kestis and is described by Cameron Monaghan, who plays, Kestis, as a "complex, mature, and exciting progression for an audacious and ambitious game."

EA and Respawn are developing the game exclusively for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles--a PS4 and Xbox One version won't be available--as well as PC. The next-gen exclusivity will enable a "deeper, more expansive Star Wars experience." The team also promises new and innovative combat mechanics that push the original game's lightsaber action to a whole new level.

Online platform and gaming veteran Jerry Hook is leaving Microsoft after 18 years of industry-defining work.

Xbox LIVE storefront creator and Halo Infinite head of design Jerry Hook is leaving 343 Industries and Microsoft after nearly two decades of online services creation, the developer has announced. Hook has spent 18 years total with Microsoft's games division, helping establish the Xbox LIVE marketplace way back in the Xbox 360 days and being a part of the service for many more years.

Hook then moved to become an executive producer on various Halo releases, then jumped on to Destiny where he helped create the Eververse digital monetization storefront while also formulating the game's live team. Following a 3-year run with Bungie, Hook returned to Microsoft to serve three principal roles on Halo Infinite's development: first as online design director, then live director, and finally head of design from 2019 - present.

SEGA will reveal a new game during a special Japanese live stream on June 3, 2022, the company has announced.

A new SEGA title will be announced next Friday live on YouTube and Nico Nico. Company executive manager Hiroyuki Miyazaki and creative director Yosuke Okunari will showcase the new game, which could either be a new mainline title or a remaster/collection similar to Sonic Origins.

SEGA expects FY23 to be a massive year for both game sales and game releases with plans to nearly double both sales and releases throughout this fiscal year. It plans to release 13 new titles and expects to make 18 million sales throughout FY23 including new games and remaster sales, compared to 7 new game titles and 10 million total sales in FY22. This year's lineup includes announced games like Sonic Frontiers, Sonic Origins, and Soul Hackers 2.

Sony expects to make $300 million from first-party PlayStation games on PC this year, the company has announced.

PlayStation consoles are no longer the exclusive venue for Sony's first-party games. Sony is making a big effort to expand onto PC, starting with Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, and the more recent God of War. Sony has had middling success with its PC ports but earnings from the platform are expected to spike by 275% across the next year.

A recent PlayStation presentation shows that Sony will recognize $300 million in PC game revenues throughout FY22. It's unclear whether or not Destiny 2 is included in this amount, but it also suggests Sony could release multiple new first-party PS4 and/or PS5 games onto Steam this year.

The upcoming Horizon, God of War, and Gran Turismo TV shows do not have finalized deals with streaming services, Sony has today clarified.

In a recent business presentation, Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra confirmed that 10 new shows and films based on PlayStation games were in production. Vinciquerra revealed three new projects during the Q&A portion: shows based on Horizon, God of War, and Gran Turismo are in active development.

"We have roughly 10 projects in development right now. God of War at Prime Video and Apple TV, and we have Twisted Metal at Peacock. We're also working on another one, a game called Gran Turismo. So we have lots of IP coming and many other projects we're thinking about putting into production," Vinciquerra said.

Sony is holding a new State of Play event on June 2, 2022 at 3PM PST / 6PM EST.

On the heels of a massive briefing on the PlayStation games business, Sony today announced a new State of Play showcase that will highlight upcoming PS4 and PS5 games. There's a caveat, though: The event may not include hotly anticipated PS5 games including God of War Ragnarok.

Sony officially says the State of Play will include 30 minutes of "trailers and announcements" but first-party games may not be shown. "We'll have some exciting reveals from our third-party partners, plus a sneak peek at several games in development for PlayStation VR2," SIE Senior Manager, Content Communications Brett Elston said on the PlayStation Blog.

May 25th saw the launch of the SpaceX's Transporter-5 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), at 18:35 GMT.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 used in the mission returned to land intact after delivering the Crypto-1 satellite to low Earth orbit (LEO) for Cryptosat, a U.S. satellite startup. The satellite is about the size of a coffee mug, assembled with readily available parts, and was launched alongside 58 other spacecraft, including "CubeSats, microsats, non-deploying hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles."

Up in orbit, the satellite is unreachable by bad actors to tamper with, but also more difficult to work with in case something goes wrong compared to something on Earth where "you just open a terminal and debug it," as noted by Cryptosat's co-founder Yan Michalevsky. Crypto-1 will enable secure cryptography for the blockchain in space and potentially facilitate the deployment of an entire space-based blockchain.

Tim Dodd from the YouTube account Everyday Astronaut has uploaded a continuation of his tour around Starbase with Elon Musk.

Musk accompanied Dodd on a tour throughout SpaceX's launch site in South Texas, known as Starbase. In the first part of his tour, Musk takes him through the High Bay, where Starship prototypes are assembled, and through the currently under construction MegaBay.

In the latest video, Dodd and Musk continue making their way through the facility and head up SpaceX's Orbital Launch Tower, also known as Mechazilla. The tower will support the launching and landing of the Starship spacecraft, which SpaceX plans to send to Mars, and is designed to release and catch the spacecraft with two large arms. The tower stands 469 feet (143 meters) tall, about 100 feet (30.4 meters) taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Russian cosmonaut Sergei Korsakov has shared a remarkable photo from his view through one of the International Space Station (ISS) windows.

The picture shows ice crystals forming in a pattern very reminiscent of the moon on the inside of a window in the space station, though the real moon is nowhere to be seen in the photo. Beneath the formation is an out-of-focus Earth, peeking into the shot.

After uploading the original photo to Twitter and Telegram, Korsakov posted a follow-up photo the next day. Korsakov's accompanying caption said, "the adventures of the frosty space pattern continue!" and noted that though "the frost has melted, but the condensation pattern remains."

A study on the new 3D-printed plant materials titled "Physical, mechanical, and microstructural characterization of novel, 3D-printed, tunable, lab-grown plant materials generated from Zinnia elegans cell cultures" has been published in the journal Materials Today.

Researchers from MIT have developed a method of generating "wood-like plant material" in a laboratory as a more environmentally friendly means of acquiring wood-like material than cutting down trees. Currently, about 10 million hectares of forest are lost to deforestation, an area roughly equivalent to the size of Iceland. Some scientists predict that if deforestation continues at the same rate, in 100 to 200 years, there will be no forests left in the world.

A study published by scientists in China's peer-reviewed Modern Defense Technology journal outlines recommendations for the nation's anti-satellite capabilities.

The researchers suggest in the paper that in the event of a war, the Chinese military needs the ability to neutralize or destroy SpaceX's Starlink satellite network. The satellites could pose a potential threat to China's national security in such a scenario. Thus, the nation would need to develop an advanced surveillance system to track every Starlink satellite.

Over two thousand Starlink satellites are already in orbit, and with the ability to continue operating despite losses, Starlink is relatively resistant to complete destruction. China has already developed various anti-satellite technologies involving microwaves, lasers, nanosats launched to target bigger satellites, and cyber weapons.

If you can imagine a not-too-distant dystopian future where crimes like VIRTUAL murder are punished in the REAL WORLD as REAL crimes... well, don't read this news... because that's exactly what some of the most influential people on the planet are talking about right now.

The United Arab Emirates minister of artificial intelligence, Omar Sultan Al Olama, said that he believes people who commit "serious crimes" in the metaverse should be punished as real-world criminals. Al Olama said at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos: "If I send you a text on WhatsApp, it's text right? It might terrorize you but to a certain degree it will not create the memories that you will have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from it."

He added: "But if I come into the metaverse and it's a realistic world that we're talking about in the future and I actually murder you, and you see it ... it actually takes you to a certain extreme where you need to enforce aggressively across the world because everyone agrees that certain things are unacceptable".

AMD's new Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will debut later this year, with previous rumors teasing a 170W TDP but that has now been cleared up by AMD's Robert Hallock.

The next-gen Zen 4-based architecture was teased in a 16-core prototype CPU at Computex 2022, but then Hallock cleared some things up on Reddit. Hallock explained: "The Computex processor was a 16-core prototype sample not yet fused to specific power/TDP values, but it was operating in a range below the new 170W TDP group we've developed. It's a conservative figure."

Hallock added: "The confusion stems from me misspeaking. I had misread some tech docs and got my wires crossed. Sorry to the community for that. Ryzen sockets are CPU_TDP*1.35 = PPT (maximum socket power). So 65W TDP = 88W PPT (no change from AM4), 105W TDP = 142W PPT (no change), and 170W TDP = 230W PPT (new option).

Cooler Master has launched two new gaming monitors, with the introduction of the all-new GM Series Curved Monitor lineup that the company says is for "work and play".

The new Cooler Master GM27-CFX features a 27-inch VA panel, but with a lower 1920 x 1080 (1080p) resolution, but an ultra-fast 240Hz refresh rate. I'm not a big fan of 1080p gaming monitors with ultra-fast 240Hz refresh rates, as this would've been a much better offering had it a higher 2560x1440 (1440p) resolution.

But then we have the higher-end Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB with a larger 32-inch VA panel, and 3440 x 1440 native resolution (21:9 aspect ratio, UltraWide), while being driven at a still-high 144Hz refresh rate. Both of the new Cooler Master GM Series gaming monitors have a 0.5ms response time, and both tap Quantum Dot technology. Both of the new monitors also feature a low blue light mode, which is great for all-night gaming sessions.

If you've been waiting for Microsoft Flight Simulator and its big -- and much-anticipated -- Top Gun: Maverick expansion, then it's finally here. FINALLY!

In a post on the official Microsoft Flight Simulator website, the team beams: "We are thrilled to announce that, today Microsoft Flight Simulator released the long-awaited "Top Gun: Maverick" expansion. Develop the skills required and navigate the complexities encountered by actual Top Gun pilots in authentic locations including the most challenging landing - on an aircraft carrier. This offering will push your piloting abilities to the limits-and beyond".

Once you've completed three training missions for the Super Hornet, you'll receive your Top Gun: Maverick Edition livery for the F/A-18E Super Hornet.

Sony has 11 TV shows and films based on key PlayStation IPs in development, the company has announced.

Sony plans to adapt most of its video games IP into film and TV show productions. Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra confirms that there are nearly a dozen

"Right now there are currently 10 additional film and projects with PlayStation [not including Uncharted] in various stages of production and development, including The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Ghost of Tsushima," Vinciquerra said.

Microsoft is developing a small dongle/puck that will bring Xbox gaming to all TVs, sources tell Windows Central.

Microsoft's new Project Keystone device is essentially a Chromecast that plugs into your TV and allows Xbox Game Pass streaming. The hardware is described as a dongle, or a puck, similar to a Google Chromecast, that acts as a receiver for streamed content. It's kind of like a Roku, only instead of streaming Netflix, you'll be streaming Xbox games.

"Xbox Keystone" originally appeared in a Windows OS list as an Xbox product.

Sony is chasing Fortnite and Apex's billion-dollar revenues and wants to have a dozen live service games up and running in the next 3 years. Bungie will help, but don't expect all of these games to be Destiny-likes.

Sony is doubling-down on live service games and plans to release 12 live titles on the market by 2025. Earnings projections show that Sony has massive confidence these games will be successful. The company expects add-on revenues (microtransactions) to reach $24 billion by 2025, which suggests a few things.

We know that Bungie is guiding Sony's live service plans. But this level of revenue growth strongly indicates a diversified slate of games that could be outside of the types of games Bungie is known for. The sheer volume of games coupled with the significant jump to $24 billion earnings (a 7.5% CAGR growth rate) suggests that Sony's live games will deliver a broad spectrum of experiences that appeal to different demographics/age groups and types of gamers across different platforms.