Noctua is preparing to launch a passive CPU cooler in the new year. We don't know much about it yet, but @FanlessTech on Twitter released the following image and said that mass production is about to start. Noctua has not confirmed this, but the company's roadmap lines up with the claim.

The fact that Noctua is making a passive cooler isn't exactly news. The company previously showed off a prototype of its passive CPU cooler at Computex 2019. On the Computex show floor, Noctua demonstrated that its passive cooler could keep a Core i9-9900k cool under full load from Prime95.

Noctua expected to have its passive cooler on the market in the first half of 2020, but it missed that launch window, with Covid19 likely contributing to the delays. Never-the-less, it looks like Noctua is on track for an early 2021 launch. The company's roadmap shows a passive cooler on the schedule for a Q1 release.

HTC has been quiet about its plans for its next VR headset to the point that many people have speculated that the company has shifted its sights away from the consumer VR space. While we don't know if it will be a consumer or enterprise device, HTC's Alvin Graylin confirmed that new innovative Vive products are coming next year.

Alvin Graylin, President of HTC China, recently sat down for an extended interview with Daniel Colaianni and Nick Rosa at The Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR). During the talk, Graylin talked about his history, including his family. He spoke about the early days of launching the HTC Vive headset. And near the end of the interview, he dropped one heck of a bomb of a scoop. He gave some hints about possibly more than one upcoming Vive headset.

One of the last questions that Colaianni and Rosa posed was an attempt to get Graylin to describe what the next Vive "would look like." Unsurprisingly, Graylin couldn't give a direct response to that question, but he did reveal more than we would typically expect.

Sam Miller, one of the founding partners at Magic Leap, has left the company he helped run for eight and a half years. He's now the President of a med-tech company.

Miller helped launch Magic Leap, and for the better part of the last decade, he has helped steer the company in one way or another. Miller joined the company as the Principal System Engineer in August 2012. He held various titles through the years, including Lead System Architect, Director of System Engineering, Sr. Director, Systems Engineering, and Sr. Director, Product Experience and Platform.

Miller's most recent and final role at Magic Leap was Vice President, Product Strategy, which he took on in April 2020, when the company when through a big shakeup that included Rony Abovitz, another Magic Leap founder, stepping down from his role as CEO.

VR Cover today revealed its new Controller Grips for Oculus Quest 2. These new grips transform your Touch controllers with Index-like hand straps that let you loosen your hold without dropping your controllers.

The Oculus Quest 2 is a fantastic VR system, but it lacks some creature comforts that some other headsets offer. For example, Valve's Index controllers offer an over-the-hand strap that attaches the controllers to your palm so you can loosen your grip for specific interactions. Primarily, the straps make it far less likely to throw your controllers when you try to throw something in VR.

The Index controllers are the only controllers with that strap feature, but VR Cover's new accessories bring that option to the new Touch controller. The VR Cover Controller Grip for Quest 2 features a fabric strap to secure the Touch controllers to your hand. They also feature a textured non-slip material to give you a more secure grip on the handles.

Are you tired of plugging in your Quest 2 when you're done playing with it? With Anker's new Charging Dock for Quest 2, you will never have to worry about that again.

When Facebook announced the Oculus Quest 2 headset, the company also revealed that it would work with partners to launch a series of officially supported accessories for the Quest 2 headset. At launch, we learned of the VR Cover face cushions and some Logitech headphone options, along with the Oculus brand Elite head straps.

Today, Anker joined the pack with a magnetic charge dock for the Quest 2 headset and the Touch controller.

The highly anticipated VR update for Microsoft's Flight Simulator dropped today. Flying a plane in your basement has never been so realistic!

Microsoft's Flight Simulator got a big update today, which included the long-awaited VR support. And it's not just a minor add-on. You can play the entire game in virtual reality, including everything from the beginning menu to the cockpit view.

The VR update for Flight Simulator is compatible with any OpenXR-compatible headset, which means it should be OK with basically any headset that works with SteamVR. Microsoft said that the VR update is currently optimized for the HP Reverb G1 and G2 and the Samsung Odyssey Windows Mixed Reality headsets. In other words, If you have one of those headsets, you won't need to do any additional setup.

Codemasters has just pushed out the v2.00 update for Dirt 5, which has the new 'Snow Limits' free content pack, and some tasty improvements for the 120FPS mode on Xbox Series X.

The new Dirt 5 update includes new Playgrounds items, new liveries, new Ice Breaker circuit, new customization options and the included option of Snow conditions in Playgrounds all added. The patch includes wheel support on the PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles including major brands like Thrustmaster, Logitech, and Fanatec.

But it's the visual improvements for Dirt 5 in the v2.00 update that are of note with "Further general visual and performance improvements across the board, including visual updates to the 'Prioritise Frame Rate'/120hz mode on Xbox Series X".

We know that Gran Turismo 7 will push the next-gen PS5 console to its limits, where back in June 2020 we reported that Sony Europe exec Simon Rutter confirmed Gran Turismo 7 would be the PS5's crowning game.

Rutter said at the time: "Gran Turismo 7 is going to benefit from almost every single technological enhancement that we have in PlayStation 5. The loading times will be next to nothing compared to what they have been in the past".

Now we have even more confirmation, with Gran Turismo 7 director and series creator and Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi said the team is "applying an incredible amount of attention" was what Polyphony Digital is all about.

Right at the beginning of 2020 we reported that Apple's next-gen A14 processor would be made on 5nm at TSMC, and it seems Apple has scooped up a huge 80% of TSMC's 5nm supply for 2021 as we round out the year.

But according to a fresh report from Taiwanese sources and then published by CnBeta, Apple has reportedly secured itself 80% of the 5nm production capacity at TSMC for 2021. We are to expect the third phase of TSMC's new plant to be in mass production in Q1 2021, with Apple securing 80% of TSMC's 5nm production capacity for 2021 against competitors like Qualcomm, MediaTek, Broadcom, and others.

Cyberpunk 2077 has sold an estimated 13 million copies after digital/physical refunds and returns, CD Projekt RED today announced.

Cyberpunk 2077's massive ongoing controversy hasn't deterred sales, and the game has moved a thundering 13 million copies after refunds were subtracted. The new FPS has outsold The Witcher 3 by 225% in a comparable period; Cyberpunk 2077 sold 13 million copies in less than two weeks of launch, and Witcher 3 moved 4 million copies in two weeks.

It's unclear if the game's pre-orders are included in this figure. CD Projekt RED previously disclosed Cyberpunk 2077 had 8 million pre-orders across all platforms since the company started collecting pre-orders.

Scalpers are once again taking advantage of short supply and manipulating markets with big markups. Data suggests scalpers made nearly $30 million from PS5 and Series X/S sales as of December.

Scalpers are using extensive bot networks and their knowledge of digital storefronts to take control over the next-gen console market. In a bad twist of fate, scalpers typically have more stock than most retailers and are selling consoles at big markups on sites like eBay.

To give an idea on how much profit scalpers are making, one industrious data expert put together some startling figures on console sales. According to Dev.to's Michael Discoll, scalpers made an estimated $29.12 million from PS5 and Xbox Series X/S sales on eBay in two months from October 1 - December 1, 2020.

Now that developers are working at home, Rockstar Games has put a greater emphasis on the quality of life for its employees.

Like practically every games developer, Rockstar Games has moved its work out of studios and into homes. Developers are now working in the comfort of their own homes and it seems to have a positive effect on morale. Certain things are harder, like putting together the new GTA Online Cayo Perico update entirely from home, but the new COVID-19 measures have gone a long way as part of Rockstar's new crunch reforms.

In a recent interview with GQ, Rockstar director of design production Tarek Hamad said that Rockstar's new work-at-home policies protect employee's quality of life. This is a big step towards stamping out the crunch that led to overwork during the development of games like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Remember the KFConsole we reported on in June? Well it's a real thing, and it's pretty powerful.

The new KFConsole wants to play a game of chicken with the PS5 and Xbox Series X. The system is real, and it packs some serious horsepower with Intel's NUC 9 platform alongside an ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 2070 MINI GPU. KFC boasts the chicken-bucket console can hit 240FPS, deliver 4K gaming with ray tracing, and is VR-ready to boot.

The rig is built in a specially-designed CoolerMaster case and features patented Chicken Bucket Technology that will literally warm up your tendies as you game. The future is here and it's pretty delicious.

Surprise: The PS5's liquid metal thermal compound increases longevity in thermal tests.

A new heat test by TronixFix illustrates some of the advantages of the PS5's new liquid metal cooling. The PS5's cooling solution is pretty advanced and uses three main parts: a dual-sided 120mm intake fan, a complex vapor-chamber heat sink design, and a layer of liquid metal that conducts heat from the PS5's main processor chip and passes it to the heat sink. The result is a remarkably quiet, efficient, and cool machine that can perform higher-end 4K 60FPS loads.

The stress test aims to see which thermal interface material (TIM) is better at conducting heat and maintaining longevity. The test includes two PS5s: A stock model with liquid metal, and an altered model with traditional thermal paste. Steve from TronixFix disabled both fans from each PS5 and ran the consoles to see how long they would last before shutting down. Predictably, the PS5 with liquid metal lasted longer.

Humans have been searching the vastness of space for quite some time for any signs of extraterrestrial life, and now we think we have found the first serious candidate for alien communication with Earth.

Astronomers have detected a narrow beam of 980 MHz radio waves back in April and May 2019 at the Parkes telescope in Australia. According to Scientific America, this signal appeared once and was never detected, and is important because that band of radio waves is usually lacking signals from human-made craft and satellites.

Breakthrough Listen is the $100 million effort being made to hunt for radio signals that are not Earthly. As you can probably imagine, Breakthrough Listen detects many radio signals bouncing around space, examples include the Sun's natural radio output. The signal that has astronomers scratching their heads appears to have come directly from Proxima Centauri, the closest star system to the Sun. Additionally, Space.com reports that "The signal reportedly shifted slightly while it was being observed, in a way that resembled the shift caused by the movement of a planet".

It's official: we have Soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and now... Guardians. The US Space Force will be calling its members Guardians, Vice President Mike Pence announced.

During a recent White House event, VP Pence marked the one-year anniversary of the US Space Force by announcing the news of Guardians. Pence said: "It is my honor, on behalf of the President of the United States, to announce that, henceforth, the men and women of the United States Space Force will be known as 'Guardians'.

There are around 4000 Guardians in the US Space Force, all from the Air Force. The Trump administration signed the first US armed force since the Air Force was created in 1947. VP Pence said: "That historic moment was a culmination of an effort that began from the early days of this administration - from almost the first moment that the president and I spoke about space when we were campaigning for these jobs".

NVIDIA has reportedly signed a new deal with Samsung for the production of more Ampere GPUs on the 8nm process technology.

The Korea Economic Daily reports that "Samsung, the world's second-largest foundry player, has clinched a deal to make NVIDIA's next-generation graphic processing unit (GPU), the Ampere GeForce RTX30 series, using its 8-nanometer process technology".

"Analysts said the contract is significant in that Samsung won the deal amid market talk that NVIDIA's new GPU has been in tight supply due to unsatisfactory 8 nm process yield rates at its foundry partner Samsung, raising speculation that the US company may award the contract to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the industry leader".

Sabrent's tool-free Thunderbolt 3 NVMe SSD enclosure is currently on sale, with the Sabrent EC-T3NS (our review here) down from its price of $90 to $60.

Store4PC via Amazon.com has the Sabrent EC-T3NS on sale right now for $59.99, down from $89.99. You'll need to use our own TweakTown code to get the discount, with the code being "20TWEAKT". That's a decent discount of $30 if you're in need of a super-fast, thin Thunderbolt to M.2 NVMe SSD tool-free enclosure.

You're going to see speeds of up to 1600MB/sec out of the Sabrent EC-T3NS, which is pretty damn good, with a nice and easy tool-free installation.

SpaceX has just launched a new Falcon 9 rocket carrying a classified payload known as 'NROL-108' for the US government agency that controls spy satellites, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Spaceflight Now reports that the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) normally sends payloads into space through the US Space Force's National Security Space Launch Program -- but this time did it on its own and commissioned SpaceX and used the Falcon 9 for its new mysterious payload.

The site explains: "In some cases, the NRO uses alternative methods to procure launch services after making a cumulative assessment of satellite risk tolerance, needed launch dates, available launch capabilities, and cost - all with a purpose of ensuring satellites are safely and securely delivered to orbit in a timely manner".

Apple Car rumors are hot right now, with rumors flying that production on the Apple Car will begin in Q3 2021 -- unveiled at the same time, and released in the years after sometime near 2024.

Reuters is now reporting from unnamed sources that Apple is developing a next-generation battery design that could not just "radically" reduce the cost of the batteries, but increase the range that the Apple Car can drive on a single charge. Apple is working on a "monocell" design that will see more battery cells packed together, ope

The site reports: "Apple plans to use a unique "monocell" design that bulks up the individual cells in the battery and frees up space inside the battery pack by eliminating pouches and modules that hold battery materials, one of the people said".