When Oculus was bought by Facebook, many worried the social media platform would be forced onto HMD owners. Now it's finally happening.

Today Oculus managed to agitate most of its playerbase by confirming that Facebook accounts will be required to log in to use the HMDs. Oculus is merging its internal Oculus accounts with Facebook. All new Oculus owners will have to sign in with their Facebook accounts to set the hardware up, but existing owners won't be forced to use Facebook to sign in...yet.

Oculus says that current VR headset owners have 2 years before their Oculus accounts are no longer supported. On January 1, 2023, all Oculus account sign-ins will be discontinued and users will have to sign in with their Facebook accounts. Current owners have the option to merge their Oculus and Facebook accounts together to avoid any issues later down the road.

Starbreeze still hasn't secured a publishing deal for Payday 3, and it's running out of revenues. So now it's opened up a second offering for shareholders to raise more capital.

Payday game developer Starbreeze Studios is still in trouble. The company just reported its second-half 2020 earnings and while net sales are positive at 53 million SEK and overall EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation & amortization) was up to 25.9 million SEK, financial expenses amounted to 111 million SEK and loss before profits was -105.6 million SEK. These expenses were incurred by paying interest on and extending the convertible bond, which delays the bond maturity and also delays when Starbreeze has to pay out to investors.

The new share issue, also known as a second offering, is a way for Starbreeze to raise money without having to secure a loan. The second offering gives existing shareholders the option to buy shares at a discounted "subscription rate," effectively giving them more shares for less money. Companies then use this money to pay down debt or fund operating activities.

NASA has announced that an SUV-sized asteroid just made the closest-known approach to Earth, but it didn't collide with the surface.

According to a NASA blog post found on its website, an SUV-sized asteroid just fly by Earth, and as NASA states, this fly-by has marked the closest Near-Earth Asteroid. The asteroid is named Asteroid 2020 QG, and measures in at roughly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) across, which is very small by asteroid standards.

Asteroid 2020 QG passed Earth at just 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers), and if it happened to be on the trajectory with Earth, it would have become a fireball and broken up in Earth's atmosphere. Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said, "It's really cool to see a small asteroid come by this close, because we can see the Earth's gravity dramatically bend its trajectory. Our calculations show that this asteroid got turned by 45 degrees or so as it swung by our planet."

It's not every day that you hear environmental officials telling the public to kill life, but sometimes that is the best course of action to defend against an invading creature.

Wildlife authorities across the Eastern United States are now telling residents to be on the constant lookout for the bug seen in the above image. This species of bug is called a spotted lanternfly, and they are native to Asia, but unfortunately, they spreading in select areas across the United States. Wildlife authorities have warned that the spotted lanternfly can severely impact many native US plant species, including grapevines, apple trees, and hops.

According to the New York State Departments of Agriculture and Markets, Environmental Conservation, and Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, the spotted lanternfly is a big threat to over 70 plant species found in America. So, what is the correct course of action? Well, anyone who sees one of these bugs should file a report as officials want to keep track of the spread. Additionally, if you spot one of these bugs, you can always introduce it to the bottom of your shoe.

The Matrix 4 has resumed filming after production halted for the COVID-19 pandemic, but now Laurence Fishburne -- who played Morpheus in the original Matrix Trilogy, has said he's not coming back for The Matrix 4.

During an interview with SyFy Wire, Fishburne explained: "No. I have not been invited. Maybe that will make me write another play. I wish them well. I hope it's great". Although, Fishburne did have something to add when it came to his iconic role as Morpheus.

Fishburne explained: "It is probably the role that I'll be best remembered for, which is great; it's not the only thing I'll be remembered for, which is better. What I get with him is I've got Darth Vader in this hand, and I've got Obi-Wan in that hand. I've got Bruce Lee, I've got Muhammad Ali shuffled in there, and I've got kung fu".

Tesla Motors continues to go from strength to strength, with the Elon Musk run company now looking to expand its Full Self Driving technology.

The company is reporting teaming with Broadcom to make a new 7nm processor, something known as HW 4.0 -- which will power its next-gen Full Self Driving (FSD) computer. The new 7nm HPC chip will be made on TSMC's 7nm node and will be made later this year -- and put into cars in 2022 and beyond.

Mass production on the new Tesla Motors FSD chip will begin in late 2021, which is mostly because TSMC is absolutely flooded with orders for its 7nm node. AMD is building its entire Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU families of products on the 7nm node by TSMC, the next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles and their semi-custom APUs are being made by TSMC, and so much more on 7nm.

I've been a PC gamer since I was a young kid -- 5-6 years of age, and now I'm 37. Over 30 years of being a PC gamer, but I've had every console, VR headset, and portable in between.

PC gaming is something that shaped my entire life (my online nickname is 'anthony256', after the GeForce 256 and before that it was 'Voodoo' after the infamous 3Dfx graphics cards), crafting my career in IT sales for 10 years before -- a now 10 years here working for TweakTown.

So to hear that there are over 1.5 billion PC gamers, at least according to DFC Intelligence and its new report, warms my heart. The report says there are over 3.1 billion gamers worldwide, with 48% of them being PC gamers -- over 1,500,000,000 people worldwide are PC gamers.

Intel is entering the GPU space in 2021 in a big way, with a detailed post on that here -- with Intel surprise announcing its new Xe-HPG, a new gaming-focused enthusiast graphics card arriving in 2021.

It seems TSMC -- or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, have secured the contract to make Intel's next-gen Xe-HPG graphics card on its 6nm process node. Intel's other Xe-based designs in the Xe-LP and Xe-HP will be made in-house by Intel, on their just-announced 10nm SuperFin process node.

Intel's new Xe-HPG graphic card is exciting, as the company teased it will have hardware ray tracing technology as well as super-fast GDDR6 memory. This instantly puts Intel's new Xe-HPG right at the (at least technologically) same level as NVIDIA and AMD's current, and soon-to-be-released next-gen GPUs.

NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce Game Ready 452.06 WHQL drivers, which have day one optimizations and enhancements for the just-released Microsoft Flight Simulator, and more.

Not only do we have the best performance possible right now in Flight Simulator, but NVIDIA has also added support for ray traced shadows in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands beta -- as well as adding 8 new G-SYNC compatible gaming monitors to the list of growing G-SYNC compatible monitors.

These monitors include: Acer XB273U GX, VG272 LV, XV272 LV, CP5271U V, X34 GS models along with the ASUS PG329, IO Data GC252UXm, and Lenovo Y25-25.

Microsoft has detailed a lot of the innards of its next-gen Xbox Series X console, codenamed Project Scarlett, at the Hot Chips 2020 virtual event. The semi-custom APU designed by AMD and Microsoft and made by TSMC on the N7 Enhanced node is a technological marvel. It's a truly exciting chip to power the next-gen Xbox Series X console.

This is it -- the delicious Xbox Series X 'Project Scarlett' SoC. The GPU is so massive that it takes up 47.5% of the entire die, consuming a huge chunk of those 15.3 billion transistors.

We have here the N7 Enhanced node from TSMC packing 15.3 billion transistors into a 360.4mm2 chip, with the chip co-developed between Microsoft and AMD and then made by TSMC. It's nice to see that 'Project Scarlett' nice and raw there on the chip -- which is super small.

Microsoft just launched Flight Simulator on the PC after months and months of teasing, with the game quickly impressing reviewers and gamers and becoming the highest rated PC game of 2020.

The feat took less than 24 hours, with Flight Simulator taking off with a Metacritic score of 93 -- where the only game close to that reception is Valve's VR exclusive Half-Life: Alyx. The new Flight Simulator has also quickly become the highest rated game in the series, too.

Flight Simulator didn't have the best launch on PC in the last 24 hours, with a turbulent start -- but things stabilized, and the drinks started flowing and snacks to gorge on. The game is breathtakingly beautiful, having just taken a quick flight across the Hudson River in New York -- from my hometown here in Gawler, South Australia.

It has barely been 72 hours since I wrote about NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card packing some serious heat: 24GB of ultra-fast next-gen GDDR6X memory at a rumored price of $1999.

But new rumors have the GeForce RTX 3090 priced at just $1399.

NVIDIA pricing its new GeForce RTX 3090 at $1399 would be an incredible feat, a $200 price hike on the Turing-based current flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti that debuted in Founders Edition form at $1199 back in 2018. It packed 11GB of GDDR6 memory, but the new RTX 3090 is said to rock a huge 24GB of GDDR6X memory from Micron.

The honkin' boys are back in town: Untitled Goose Game is getting two-player local co-op with a new update.

Two honks are better than one--at least that's what indie dev House House seems to think. Untitled Goose Game is getting multiplayer with a new update, which will roll out in September alongside the new physical releases and subsequent Steam release.

The update brings a second goose--a Chinese goose with its big yellow knobby-beak--to enact hijinks and to completely terrorize poor hapless townsfolk. The two goofy ducks run amok (bonus points if you get that reference) in the full campaign mode, and the update will be available on all platforms including PC (Epic, Itch.io, and Steam), Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

New reports say Microsoft's cheaper next-gen Xbox Series S console will feature a 61% reduction in compute units to power a ~4TFLOP GPU.

The Xbox Series S will have a Navi GPU with 20 Compute Units and a 1.550GHz clock speed, The Verge's Tom Warren reports. This is a 61% reducing in CUs and will translate to lower perf targets, aligning with past reports that the Series S is targeting 1440p 60FPS gaming. There's also a 275MHz difference between the Series X (1.825GHz) and Series S (1.550GHz) GPUs.

The news comes in response to our Series X vs Series S table, and up until now, we haven't really had much info on the weaker system's compute unit count. Reports have only mentioned the GPU TFLOP perf target, which is about 4TFLOPs, or 66% weaker than the Xbox Series X's monstrous 12TFLOP of power.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) recently posted record Q2'20 net sales games earnings of $174 million, up a strong 153% year-over-year, setting a new all-time quarterly high.

Like most games companies, Embracer rode the coronavirus wave to record quarterly games revenues. Embracer notes a sharp 71% uptick in profits to $9.76 million on the back of $222.03 million in net sales revenues, This surge was thanks to over-performance in the games segment across Deep Silver, THQ Nordic, and the newly-acquired Saber Interactive.

Embracer attributes stronger sales revenues due to COVID-19 lockdowns, and favorable adoption of new games like SnowRunner, Spongebob Battle of Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, and Deep Rock Galactic, as well as digital sales of back catalog games in the Metro franchise.

If you have ever seen lightning before, you would know its color just how fast it is, but what if you looked up at the sky and saw red lightning?

Well, red lightning isn't fake; in fact, it's actually a phenomenon scientists have been studying since 1989 when it was first discovered. The red lightning is called "sprites", and has been spotted on every continent except for Antarctica. Sprites only last a tenth of a second and are generally never seen by those observers on the ground, unless you are hunting for them like Stephen Hummel is.

Hummel is an expert on dark skies at the Austin McDonald Observatory, and back at the start of July, Hummel captured an incredible photo while he was on his vantage point on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. Sprites usually look like alien jellyfish-style creatures hanging down from the above atmosphere, but in fact, they are the product of super-fast lighting bursts that occur 37 to 50 miles in the sky. If you are interested in more information, check out this link here.

Microsoft is getting closer to revealing its next-gen Xbox Series X console in all its glory, with the new console being spotted at the Xperion E-Arena by Saturn in Germany.

The images were posted on Twitter by @KeemaMr, who took the shots himself at the Xperion E-Arena by Saturn in Germany. Microsoft didn't have a final Xbox Series X unit, as you can see a clear 'PROTOTYPE - NOT FOR SALE' on the back of the unit.

These new images just give us a look at the Xbox Series X in the flesh, and damn does it look good. I love the design choice Microsoft went with for this generation of Xbox, and can't wait to see if the smaller Xbox Series S console is truly super-small or not.

With its new free multiplayer mode, Ghost of Tsushima just became Ghosts of Tsushima.

July's best-selling game in the U.S. is getting a free online co-op multiplayer mode called Legends so you can samurai slash with friends. It turns out that multiplayer was always planned for Ghost of Tsushima from the start, and Sucker Punch's new online mode is a spin-off akin to The Last of Us' Factions mode, or even the ill-fated Comrades mode from Final Fantasy XV.

Legends is entirely separate from the core game, and you won't play as Jin. Instead you'll pick a samurai and go slashing with up to 3 other players and build up different legends. There's four character classes that all behave differently in battle: Samurai, Hunter, Ronin, and Assassin.

The Xbox Series X represents a natural evolution in console hardware and planning, and its built-in SSD was planned as far back as 2007.

In 2007, just years after the Xbox 360 was release, Microsoft planned to switch to SSD flash memory to help reduce rising DRAM costs and supercharge data pipelines. In a recent Hot Chips presentation slide, Microsoft highlighted how the Xbox Series X's proprietary PCIe 4.0 SSD CFExpress flash memory is fruition of seeds sown 13 years ago.

The idea is that Microsoft wanted to use high-bandwidth NVMe flash memory as a backup, or a buffer/cache to hold high-resolution assets and data, to help offset a smaller DRAM footprint. This allows Microsoft to spend less on DRAM (which is 33x more expensive as flash) without losing performance.

The Xbox Series X will have an expensive price tag due to higher-cost chip production, Microsoft today confirmed in a presentation.

Today Microsoft released a bunch of new slides from its upcoming Hot Chips presentation. The Xbox Series X console's innards were laid bare, including GPU blocks, variable rate shading capabilities, discussions on the velocity architecture, and more. But one slide in particular caught my eye: Discussions on production costs.

The Xbox Series X's 7nm+ SoC costs more to make. Wafer prices are higher because of the newer 7nm enhanced process, which is optimized for higher transistor density in a smaller die. The Series X's SoC has 15.4 billion transistors on a 7nm chip, a 133% increase from those in the Xbox Series X's 16nm FinFet SoC.