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Amazon extending its work-from-home policies until 2021 over COVID-19
Amazon has just extended its corporate work-from-home policy, which has now been extended through to January 8, 2021.
Amazon explained in a statement: "We continue to prioritize the health of our employees and follow local government guidance. Employees who work in a role that can effectively be done from home are welcome to do so until January 8th".
The company added: "We have invested significant funds and resources to keep those who choose to come to the office safe through physical distancing, deep cleaning, temperature checks, and by providing face coverings and hand sanitizer".
Continue reading: Amazon extending its work-from-home policies until 2021 over COVID-19 (full post)
CDPR teases Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima in Cyberpunk 2077
If you didn't already know, Death Stranding has just hit the PC on both Steam and the Epic Games Store -- but now fellow developer CD PROJEKT RED -- the creators of The Witcher, and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 -- have just honored Kojima. Check this out:
The team at CD PROJEKT RED congratulated Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions on their recent release of Death Stranding on the PC. The developer posted a render of Kojima sitting on a radical-style futuristic bike that I'm hoping we see inside of Cyberpunk 2077 when it launches later this year.
This tweet from CD PROJEKT RED doesn't mean we're going to see Hideo Kojima in Cyberpunk 2077, but with Matrix and John Wick franchise star Keanu Reeves featured in the game -- it would be undeniably freaking awesome to have Hideo Kojima play a role of some sort in Cyberpunk 2077.
Continue reading: CDPR teases Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima in Cyberpunk 2077 (full post)
Xiaomi's new Mi Curved Gaming Monitor: 34-inch 3440x1440 @ 144Hz: $450
Xiaomi has just unleashed its new 34-inch 21:9 UltraWide gaming monitor, in the new Mi Curved Gaming Monitor.
Xiaomi's new Mi Curved Gaming Monitor features a 34-inch panel with a native 3440 x 1440 resolution, and super-slick 144Hz refresh rate. We have a 4ms response time for gamers, and a 1500R curvature for the 34-inch 21:9 aspect ratio panel.
The company is going with a barely-there bezel design, which also looks really nice as well. We have 121% coverage of the sRGB color space, 300 nits of brightness, and a 3000:1 contrast ratio.
Continue reading: Xiaomi's new Mi Curved Gaming Monitor: 34-inch 3440x1440 @ 144Hz: $450 (full post)
AMD's new Radeon drivers optimized for Death Stranding and F1 2020
AMD has just released its new Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers, with the new 20.7.2 beta providing optimizations for Hideo Kojima's masterpiece Death Stranding, which just dropped on the PC.
There's an additional 8% performance using a Navi-based Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card with these new Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.7.2 beta drivers in Death Stranding. F1 2020 also gets some optimizations on the Ultra High preset with the Radeon RX 5700 XT with 5% more performance.
Ubisoft just launched its new battle royale game Hyper Scape, with the new Hyper Scape beta recdeiving support from AMD inside of the new Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.7.2 beta drivers.
Continue reading: AMD's new Radeon drivers optimized for Death Stranding and F1 2020 (full post)
Twitter stops all 'Blue Tick' accounts from posting after major hack
Twitter has been hacked in a major way, with the accounts of prominent figures throughout the world including Bill Gates, Joe Biden, President Obama, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg and others hit.
Well, now Twitter has reacted by disabling all "Blue Tick" accounts from tweeting after the crypto hack storms through their network. Now verified Twitter accounts can't tweet right now, but they can retweet and like other tweets -- they just can't tweet, for now.
As for the attack, someone has hacked into Twitter and hit some of the largest accounts in the world including Bill Gates, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, his BFF Kanye, Kanye's wife Kim Kardashian West, President Barack Obama, his ex-VP Joe Biden, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and many others.
Continue reading: Twitter stops all 'Blue Tick' accounts from posting after major hack (full post)
Twitter hacked: Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Obama, Bezos, Apple compromised
Twitter has been hacked, with some of the largest public figures in the world hit -- including President Barack Obama, ex-VP and Democratic front-runner for the 2020 elections Joe Biden, and more.
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk was hit, so too was Amazon owner Jeff Bezos -- and even Apple were compromised by hackers. Their accounts all sent out a bunch of tweets like a traditional cryptocurrency scam: asking users to transfer Bitcoin to a particular Bitcoin wallet, and that they would have their money doubled.
Kanye West, his wife Kim Kardashian West, Michael Bloomberg, Apple, Uber, and a bunch of other accounts were also hacked. As the scam continued to spread, the Bitcoin wallet posted had over 11 BTC sent to it -- racking up over $100,000 very quickly.
Continue reading: Twitter hacked: Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Obama, Bezos, Apple compromised (full post)
Far Cry 6 may have jetpacks or rocket-shooting backpacks
Far Cry 6 is all about guerrilla uprisings, and that means creating your own makeshift weapons just like Dead Island. New screens tease some of these weapons, and might even show a jetpack of sorts (or maybe it's a rocket-shooting backpack?).
Ubisoft's latest Far Cry 6 announcement is teeming with chaos and an undercurrent of wackiness. On one side there's the brutally serious El Presidente Anton Castillo, a ruthless dictator played by Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito who's trying to quell a fiery revolution of the Jewel of the Caribbean called Yara. Then there's the fiery guerrilla uprising, which has the main protagonist Dani Rojas leading a charge with unique thrown-together weapons and whatever's lying around. Some of these weapons are pretty striking.
Read Also: Far Cry 6 won't be sold on Steam, only on Epic Store, uPlay, Stadia
Continue reading: Far Cry 6 may have jetpacks or rocket-shooting backpacks (full post)
New Oculus VR headset entering production soon
Oculus' new virtual reality headset is entering mass production, and Facebook plans to ship 50% more HMDs this fiscal year, sources tell Nikkei Asian Review.
Oculus is making big moves to further dominate the still-fledgling virtual reality market. Facebook is currently raising its production orders for new VR tech, and plans to make as many as 2 million headsets. A new HMD is set to enter manufacturing in late July, a source told the website. Oculus has yet to reveal official details of the headset, but it's fair to assume it should deliver inside-out tracking and may be a more powerful version of an all-in-one/PC-powered hybrid similar to the new Oculus Quest.
The move comes shortly after Facebook discontinued its mobile-powered Oculus Go headset to focus exclusively on the hybrid Quest and PC-powered Rift.
Continue reading: New Oculus VR headset entering production soon (full post)
Microsoft blurs gens: Xbox One games now labeled as just Xbox games
Xbox One games don't exist any more. Now they're just Xbox games.
Microsoft is changing how it labels its console games. In a bid to solidify Xbox as an ecosystem and not any particular console, Microsoft is converging of its generations together in a single banner. From now on there won't be Xbox One games. There's just Xbox games, or one game that's playable across multiple hardware gens. This new change-up is prompted by the Xbox Series X's hard pivot away from next-gen exclusives.
There won't be any first-party Xbox Series X exclusives. Games like Halo: Infinite and Hellblade II won't be locked to next-gen. Instead, Microsoft has made performance exclusive to Xbox Series X, not the game. First-party games will hit new thresholds like ray traced visuals, native 4K, up to 120FPS gaming, and all sorts of graphical wizardry and ultra-fast loading. Microsoft is also mandating all games must be playable on the current Xbox One family, PC, and next-gen Xbox Series X consoles (and possibly the rumored Xbox Series S, aka Lockhart).
Continue reading: Microsoft blurs gens: Xbox One games now labeled as just Xbox games (full post)
PUBG sells 70 million copies ahead of big season 8 update
The seminal BR PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has now sold over 70 million copies, cementing it as the top premium battle royale experience on the market.
PUBG has now broken 70 million copies sold on consoles and PC, and PUBG Corp celebrates the huge sales milestone by releasing a Sanhok map remaster. The new Sanhok map has been rebuilt from the ground up and original areas have been recreated alongside new locations. The Sanhok remaster will be part of Season 8, which goes live on July 22 on Steam and July 30 on consoles (and Stadia).
"The once familiar jungle destination is now an overgrown abandoned paradise that has been remastered to be leaner, meaner, and more deadly than ever before!"
Continue reading: PUBG sells 70 million copies ahead of big season 8 update (full post)
How to Combine Multiple Videos into One (2 Best Ways)
Over 90% of video converter and editing software apps can combine video files together. You are spoiled for many choices.
But there are several things you should take into consideration before editing multiple videos together. For example, are the added files encoded in the same way? What to do if the audio and video go out of sync? What if I want to cut and merge videos at one go? Can I customize the video to fit the requirement of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.?
Your choice depends on the real situation of your footages. We have screened out two best and easiest ways for you to meet different demands:
Continue reading: How to Combine Multiple Videos into One (2 Best Ways) (full post)
Kentucky Fried COVID: KFC close dining rooms in Florida over new cases
Florida reported a large 12,600 new coronavirus cases today, with KFC announcing shortly after that it would be closing its dining rooms down in the state because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Reuters reports that KFC would be closing its dining rooms in corporate-owned stories throughout Florida "because of the escalation in coronavirus cases in the state, according to a letter seen by Reuters". The letter that Reuters says that it has seen was from KFC U.S. Chief Operating Officer Monica Rothgery to franchisees.
Rothgery said in the letter that its restaurants in Florida would be drive-thru only for now, suggesting that owner-operators do the same thing in "hot spots" where COVID-19 outbreaks are happening. Rothgery suggested that states like Arizona, California, Florida and Texas do the same to their KFC restaurants -- close dining rooms.
Continue reading: Kentucky Fried COVID: KFC close dining rooms in Florida over new cases (full post)
Sony doubles PlayStation 5 production to 10 million to meet demand
Sony has doubled its PlayStation 5 production orders and now plans to ship 10 million units this fiscal year, sources tell Bloomberg.
PS5 console hardware shortages shouldn't be a problem on and shortly after the console's launch. Sources tell both Bloomberg and Japanese website Nikkei Asian Review that Sony has revised its original plans to restrict PlayStation 5 console stock due higher MSRP prices.
Now Sony has put in production orders to exceed the PS4's 7.5 million launch period sales, and sources say Sony is planning on making, shipping, and selling as many as 10 million PS5s in the same period. This would eclipse PS4 sales by 2.5 million units on a 33% volume increase.
Continue reading: Sony doubles PlayStation 5 production to 10 million to meet demand (full post)
Apple's rumored console could battle PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
Old school enthusiasts like me will remember Halo started out as an exclusive for the Mac, as Bungie was an Apple developer -- but then Microsoft acquired Bungie and turned Halo into a system seller for a new console at the time... called Xbox.
Well, it has been almost 20 years since the original Xbox launched and while Microsoft is months away from releasing the next-gen Xbox Series X console, it's time for some Apple console hype.
According to the latest rumors, Apple is reportedly working on its own ARM-based console according to MaruiQHD on Twitter. Right now Apple has its successful Apple TV 6 powered with its in-house A12X Bionic chip and its own dedicated cooling... so the company isn't too far away from having a console if it was to tap an ARM-based solution.
Continue reading: Apple's rumored console could battle PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X (full post)
Here's how to get your part of the $500 million 'Batterygate' lawsuit
Apple is coughing up a hefty $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit over Batterygate, which if you didn't know about already, saw the company throttling performance on previous-gen iPhones to improve battery health.
Where it all started: Back in late 2017, the company began intentionally slowing down their iPhones and explained it was about not degrading the battery inside of consumers' iPhones. Apple then offered cheap $29 battery replacements, and then added in a feature to let users check their battery health in real-time with iOS 11.3.
Back then the apology was pathetic, but then earlier this year Apple agreed to settle the class action lawsuit for $500 million. Affected customers would get $25 per iPhone, and now there's a website that lets all affected iPhone users submit a claim to get their $25 payment from Apple.
Continue reading: Here's how to get your part of the $500 million 'Batterygate' lawsuit (full post)
NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GeForce RTX 30 series: new 12-pin PCIe power
NVIDIA is expected to have many large design changes over previous-gen graphics cards, and not just design changes over previous-gen GeForce graphics cards -- but an entire new power connector.
A new rumor has surfaced from Chinese tech site FCPOWERUP, which claims NVIDIA will be using a new power connector on its next-gen Ampere GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards. I have heard something similar from sources, but thought it would come down to something different than this.
It looks like we're expected to see a strange new 12-pin PCIe power connector on the reference GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards. Not just that, but power will exceed 300W -- so with a 12-pin PCIe power connector and radically new design cooling (fans on the front, and back according to previous reports) big changes are coming with Ampere.
Continue reading: NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GeForce RTX 30 series: new 12-pin PCIe power (full post)
Hacker selling details of 142 million MGM hotel guests on dark web
Remember the MGM Hotel data breach in 2019? It was meant to be 10.6 million people, but it exposed a huge 142 million hotel guests.
Back in February 2020, a data breach affected 10.6 million hotel customers that stayed at MGM Resorts. At the time, the company said that the hackers bnreached their dfatabase in 2019, and that they'd notified people. Well, MGM might have notified a significant lower number of people affected because the numbers are baffling.
ZDNet is reporting that it wasn't 10.6 million customers that had their data breached, but rather over 10x that amount with 142 million customers details now hanging out on the dark web with a hacker selling them for $2939.
Continue reading: Hacker selling details of 142 million MGM hotel guests on dark web (full post)
Amazon's new smart shopping cart is awesome, but worst timing ever
Amazon dominates online shopping but retail shopping, not so much -- and with the COVID-19 pandemic and its 24/7 fear being reigned down on us, I don't see a return to norm anytime soon.
And by norm, I mean walking around the shops pushing a shopping cart around in the United States -- but hey, Amazon thought it would be the perfect time to unveil the Dash Cart.
What the hell is the Dash Cart? It's Amazon's new shopping cart that has a bunch of cameras, sensors, and a built-in scale that works out what is in your cart, totals it, and then charges the cart you've got attached to your Amazon account.
Continue reading: Amazon's new smart shopping cart is awesome, but worst timing ever (full post)
Intel Iris Xe graphics spotted: GPU could be used on Tiger Lake-U CPUs
Intel is back in the GPU headlines today with another leak for its Xe GPU architecture, with its Iris Xe Graphics spotted in the wild.
The new rumor has the Intel Iris Xe Graphics being bolted onto a future Tiger Lake-U family of processors, which will use Intel's upcoming Gen12 graphics. We're expecting twice the performance of the Gen11 graphics that were on Ice Lake with the upcoming Tiger Lake chips.
This particular rumor is about a device codenamed Iris Xe Graphics, which packs 96C Execution Units, which works out to 768 Shading Units. This particular variant was attached to 6.3GB of memory, so don't expect a Big Navi or Ampere killer just yet -- but more so low-power, ultra-thin laptops.
Continue reading: Intel Iris Xe graphics spotted: GPU could be used on Tiger Lake-U CPUs (full post)
Silicon Lottery: Core i5-10600K pre-binned 5.1GHz all cores for $420
If you've got a hankering for some of that mid-range 10th Gen goodness, and for whatever reason wanted one of the best Core i5-10600K processors you can get your mits on, then Silicon Lottery has the winner for you.
Silicon Lottery is now offering the Intel Core i5-10600K in pre-binned variants, offering 5 different variants: 4.7GHz, 4.8GHz, 4.9GHz, 5.0GHz, and the crazy 5.1GHz variant. Prices start at $290 for the Core i5-10600K @ 4.7GHz right up to $420 for the Core i5-10600K @ 5.1GHz.
10600K @ 4.7GHz up to 6 cores, 4.8GHz up to 2 cores.
Continue reading: Silicon Lottery: Core i5-10600K pre-binned 5.1GHz all cores for $420 (full post)





















