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Following two public walk out protests, Activision-Blizzard employees are now signing a petition asking for CEO Bobby Kotick's removal from the company.

Activision's dirty laundry has been laid bare for everyone to see. Multiple lawsuits, insider reports, and public statements paint a sordid picture of Activision-Blizzard's billion-dollar empire, from harassment and pay discrimination to serious sexual abuse and rape claims. Now workers are sending a message to corporate.

Employees have formed the A Better ABK movement in an effort to rally workers together and call for change. A new petition has also been started that takes aim directly at Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who, according to a Wall Street Journal expose, knew of specific abuse allegations and hid them from the board. 1,337 employees have signed their names publicly to the petition asking the company's board of directors to oust Kotick from a leadership position.

The latest New Horizons update has totally ignited Outriders' stagnant playerbase with a huge 400%+ increase in players on Steam.

Gamers have moved on from Outriders...until now. The shooter-RPG mashup is back in the spotlight in a big way. The game's New Horizon update sees tons of players returning to try out the new content, and for good reason: the update is literally fulfilling a big wish list made by the community.

Players have responded in a big way. Outriders' active players have skyrocketed after New Horizon's release, jumping 464% one day after the update's launch. Outriders' playerbase on Steam went from 1,293 peak daily players to 6,617 daily players. That's a pretty huge jump and while it remains to be seen whether or not People Can Fly can retain these players...but for now the community is rallying behind the update.

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has put Activision in the hot seat and is directly asking Activision how they plan to change.

Billion-dollar games titan Activision-Blizzard is getting raked over the coals right now due to ongoing discrimination, harassment, and sexual abuse controversies. The company is under multiple investigations including securities fraud and a damning lawsuit from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing that alleges instances of rape, abuse, coercion, and heavy drinking within the publisher. A new report from the Wall Street Journal uncovers that CEO Bobby Kotick knew about multiple rape allegations and hid them from the board of directors.

The media (including TweakTown) have been covering this story for months, but now Activision's partners are starting to comment. Sony's Jim Ryan has sent internal emails (via Bloomberg) saying that he is "disheartened and frankly stunned" to hear about the publisher's conduct.

Embracer Group's 80 studios are going to be very busy over the next 5 years with a huge slate of upcoming AAA releases.

Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) just posted up its Q2'21 results, confirming strong sales driven by digital earnings and a look at the company's ambitious release pipeline.

The company plans to release 25 AAA games by March 2026, which is more than most companies release in 10 years. This makes sense considering Embracer has an immense arsenal of 80 studios with a total of 9,000 employees.

Northrop Grumman's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on August 12th, 2021, and after more than three months, it is scheduled for departure on November 20th, 2021.

Upon arrival, it delivered nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies, research, hardware, commercial products, and an assortment of other cargo to the station. The mission was Northrop Grumman's 16th commercial resupply for NASA.

Cygnus' departure is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. EST (15:45 UTC), and a livestream of the event will be available on NASA television, NASA's website, and the NASA app.

In 2020, SpaceX set its record for the most Falcon 9 flights in a calendar year at 26. In the first half of 2021, SpaceX was on track to outpace this record significantly with 20 Falcon 9 launches, averaging a launch every nine days.

However, the launch rate has slowed to only five launches so far in the second half of 2021, as SpaceX focuses on its new generation of Starlink satellites. As their production finalizes at the SpaceX factory in Redmond, Washington, the Falcon 9 launch schedule has picked up to accommodate at least five missions before the year's end.

The first of these, scheduled for November 24th in California, will tie the company's record, and the subsequent launch planned for December 1st will break it. Another three launches have confirmed December dates, with additional launches for Starlink possible at some point.

A new study has been published where for the first time, water has been turned into a new phase of matter referred to as superionic ice or superionic water, long enough to be studied.

Also known as ice XVIII, superionic ice is one of the nineteen known crystalline phases of ice. By compacting a water droplet between two diamonds and hitting it with a powerful laser, scientists subjected the droplet to such extreme temperatures and pressures. The water molecules then break apart, allowing the oxygen ions to crystallize and form an evenly spaced lattice through which the hydrogen ions may then float freely. As a result, superionic ice can conduct electricity, with hydrogen ions and electrons migrating towards anodes and cathodes, respectively.

After years of waiting due to technical and funding issues, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled for launch on December 18th, 2021, aboard Ariane flight VA256.

Set to survey worlds in our solar system and the greater universe, the James Webb Space Telescope will succeed NASA's esteemed Hubble Space Telescope. It is destined for the Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable area roughly a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth. After a month-long journey to arrive, the observatory will require another six months before it becomes fully operational. Onboard systems must find all instruments in working order, especially the giant folded mirror that must unfold and arrange itself.

Following the events of Russia testing an anti-satellite weapon on one of its satellites, and causing a swath of space debris that resulted in the ISS crew scrambling, a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces has committed $1.5 million towards cleaning up space.

A report from Wired states that the U.S. Space Force is prepared to give out contracts to companies that are devising methods of removing space debris or space junk. The U.S. Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network (SSN) is currently tracking more than 22,000 pieces of space debris in Earth's orbit, and as humans continue to expand off-planet with continued launches, that number is expected only to increase exponentially. That is without taking into consideration the possibility of Kessler syndrome.

The U.S. State Department has called "upon all responsible spacefaring nations to join us in efforts to develop norms of responsible behavior." Additionally, the U.S. Space Force's arm, SpaceWERX, will award $250,000 contracts to companies that are presenting ideas to develop technologies that will assist in the removal of space debris in a cost-effective manner. These awards are a part of the Orbital Prime program, the first phase being the $250,000 contract award and the second phase award being a $1.5 million contract to the most promising ideas.

We caught wind that Elon Musk is scheduled to give an interview at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and during it, the SpaceX CEO gave an update on Starship.

Starship is SpaceX's next-generation launch vehicle that is designed to be able to launch a large amount of mass anywhere in the solar system while also taking into account key features such as re-usability, rapid use. Musk gives a brief overview of all of Starships features and goes on to mention that SpaceX is currently preparing for the rocket's first orbital test.

Musk says that the upcoming orbital test has significant risks, saying, "There's a lot of risk associated with this first launch. So, I would not say that it is likely to be successful, but we'll make a lot of progress." However, the SpaceX CEO says that in theory, the designs should work, all of the calculations have been done, and they have "closed" for having a "fully reusable hundred ton to low Earth orbit capability". Musk says that SpaceX is hoping to conduct the first orbital flight for Starship in January, which coincides with the completion of the FAA environmental assessment of the Starbase launch site. He also mentions, "It's the biggest rocket ever, ever designed."

Forecasters are predicting that a storm may provide early Thanksgiving travels some problems as it rolls inland across several U.S. states.

AccuWeather meteorologists predict that an arctic blast is moving its way into the northern plains and will move across Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City as it continues through the Midwest. Experts believe that the storm will eventually move eastward over the weekend and develop into a winter storm. Cities from Washington, D.C., to New York City may experience rainfall that is expected to cause travel delays on Monday, as well as high winds that may cause airline travel delays.

Reports indicate that the biggest concern of this storm is the winds causing massive travel delays for Thanksgiving travelers, as many people will be hitting the road or the airport at the start of the week. On Monday, 35-50 mph wind speeds are expected in Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cincinnati. Wind gusts of up to 70 mph are expected on the shores of the southern and eastern Great Lakes. If you are interested in more information about the storm, check out this link this link below.

Newly released court documents between NASA, Blue Origin and SpaceX have revealed some stark details about how the court viewed Blue Origin's lawsuit.

The documents come from the US Court of Federal Claims and details the government body's decision to deny Blue Origin's lawsuit against NASA over Blue Origin losing the competition set out by NASA for a $2.9 Human Landing Systems contract. The competition involved companies presenting NASA with a design, to which NASA chose SpaceX over Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. This sparked time consuming litigation and halted all construction of lunar lander, which caused a delay to be announced for the entire timeline of humans getting back onto the Moon.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin argued that NASA didn't give Blue Origin a fair chance because NASA waived some of the required safety reviews before each Starship is launched. SpaceX's proposal includes more than a dozen launches, which includes launching a propellant docking port, while Blue Origin's requires just three launches. Blue Origin's argument was that it would have designed an alternative lander if they were giving the same flexibility. This was then rebutted by Blue Origin being required to prove it would have had a chance of winning the contract if NASA offered them the same safety waivers.

It seems that Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), or more commonly referred to as UFOs, are bringing the two US government parties together in an agreement.

Congress is moving towards creating a specific program that focuses on studying UFOs. According to the proposal, the program will create a "UFO Office", or "Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office". The proposal reads that the program would be designed to "gain as much knowledge as possible" into UFOs and develop technology capable of studying them.

The program isn't assuming that the UFOs seen by US military personnel are of extraterrestrial origin, or if they are from another country with unknown advanced technology, but they aren't ruling out either. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who is leading the push on this program, told Politico, "If it is technology possessed by adversaries or any other entity, we need to know. Burying our heads in the sand is neither a strategy nor an acceptable approach."

NASA's Perseverance rover has captured the most detailed look of the helicopter named Ingenuity flying across the surface of Mars.

The footage has been posted on the NASA JPL Raw YouTube channel and showcases Ingenuity taking its 13th flight on September 4. This flight for Ingenuity is certainly one of its hardest yet as the scout helicopter was scheduled to take images of a region of land from multiple angles, which would then be relayed back to the research team that decides what location is of most value to move Perseverance to. Ingenuity snapped these images from a height of 26 feet.

As for the flight video, Perseverance's two-camera Mastcam-Z captured the footage, which was a part of research into measuring the amount of dust clouds created by Ingenuity taking off and landing. Justin Maki, the deputy principal investigator for the Mastcam-Z instrument at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "The value of Mastcam-Z really shines through with these video clips. Even at 300 meters [328 yards] away, we get a magnificent closeup of takeoff and landing through Mastcam-Z's 'right eye." And while the helicopter is little more than a speck in the wide view taken through the 'left eye," it gives viewers a good feel for the size of the environment that Ingenuity is exploring."

Tonight an astronomy event will take place that hasn't happened for hundreds of years. The Moon will pass through Earth's shadow to create the longest partial lunar eclipse since 1440.

AccuWeather reports that an astronomical event will happen on the night of Thursday, November 18, into the morning of November 19. Many countries around the world will be able to take part in the event, including North America, Australia, New Zealand, eastern Asia, and parts of South America. It should be noted that this is the longest partial lunar eclipse since 1440 and not the longest total lunar eclipse as that title is held by the total lunar eclipse that occurred in July 2018, which was about 12 minutes longer than the one that will happen tonight.

Most of the United States is expected to have quite good viewing conditions, as AccuWeather meteorologists predict that parts of southern Plains and the lower Midwest will have "excellent viewing conditions" across the Southeast. If you are unable to enjoy the eclipse in person, but would still like to see what it looks like, there is the timeanddate livestream that can be found above. If you are interested in learning more about the coming partial lunar eclipse, check out this link here.

NVIDIA has just reported an absolute monster quarter, with Q3 FY22 numbers boasting a huge $7.1 billion in revenue for the 3-month period -- representing a gigantic 50% year-over-year increase over the same quarter of the previous year.

The company beat analyst expectations yet again, with NVIDIA smashing gaming revenue once again -- up a huge 42% from the previous year with $3.22 billion in revenue. NVIDIA's also gigantic data center business absolutely thrived during the quarter, setting a new record $2.94 billion in revenue -- up 55% from the previous year.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang explained: "Demand for NVIDIA AI is surging, driven by hyperscale and cloud scale-out, and broadening adoption by more than 25,000 companies. NVIDIA RTX has reinvented computer graphics with ray tracing and AI, and is the ideal upgrade for the large, growing market of gamers and creators, as well as designers and professionals building home workstations".

If you're trying to build yourself a new Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU, and a new Z690-based motherboard then you're going to have some trouble finding some DDR5 RAM.

Finding DDR5 RAM is hard because of the PMICs (Power Management Integrated Circuit) are facing "severe shortages" according to 12chip. The site reports: "Currently, there is a shortage of DDR5 sticks in the market, and sources from Boardchannels say that the main reason for the shortage is that the DDR5 memory is equipped with a power management chip PMIC, which is currently in very short supply".

"Sources said that the PMIC chip is currently in very short supply, while the purchase price of the PMIC chip to be used in DDR5 memory is 10 times more expensive than the corresponding chip in D4, and the procurement cycle is at least 35 weeks".

NVIDIA is about to have more competition than it has ever had in the GPU space in the history of computing, with AMD launching the industry's first MCM-based (multi-chip module) GPU that will offer an astounding amount of performance.

But never fear... NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang isn't scared, he's prepared. Huang was interviewed by The Next Platform recently, with Timothy Prickett Morgan talking to Huang about a few different things but one of the main question was that AMD is "much more competitive" with its MCM-based "Aldebaran" GPU.

Morgan asked: "Obviously, AMD is much more competitive with its "Aldebaran" Instinct MI200 series GPU accelerators than it has ever been. It is really two GPUs, not one, and I reminded everyone that AMD had "pulled a K80" by putting two GPUs on one device, but nonetheless, this GPU has won two exascale-class systems and many more smaller systems. I realize that there will not be new GPU announcements from NVIDIA until next year, based on the cadence, but what is your response to this competition from AMD, and soon, to a lesser extent, from Intel in the GPU compute arena?"

We're only just getting comfortable in the world of 4K 120FPS gaming monitors thanks to the recent adoption of the newer HDMI 2.1 standard on the latest TVs... but now we have TCL blowing that out of the water with their new 32-inch 4K 240Hz gaming monitor.

Yeah, 4K at 240FPS.

TCL unveiled the new 32-inch UD 240Hz R800 "Gaming Display" which looks to be a plain-ish affair, with a curved 32-inch 4K panel of some sort. Is it LED, Micro-LED, or something else? I'm guessing we'll know soon enough, but we do know that TCL CSOT (TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.) is making the 32-inch 4K 240Hz panel.

Roughly 500 light-years away in the Chamaeleon constellation, within its star-forming region is a reflection nebula designated IC 2631.

IC 2631 is the brightest nebula in the Chamaeleon Complex, where numerous protostars form and grow. Amongst the clouds of gas and dust, stars are born as clouds collapse under their gravity. The Hubble telescope can detect infrared emissions from the heat energy released from clouds contracting around a protostar. Once enough material gathers, and the protostar's core becomes dense and hot enough, it completes its transformation into a star.