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Have you ever wanted to taste food without eating it? The future is nearly ready for you, with researchers from Meiji University in Japan using LED lighting to replicate taste on the human tongue.

The study was done by Homei Miyashita, who names the "taste gadget" the "Norimaki Synthesizer". How does it work? It uses uses ion electrophoresis in five electrolyte gels to (at least in its early stages) recreate the five basic tastes. The study kicked off being inspired by how our eyes can be tricked into seeing something that doesn't necessarily exist.

For example, the monitor or screen you're sitting in front of consists of red, green, and blue (RGB) elements that combine to create full-cover images and video. Miyashita thought that he could use a similar method to trick the human tongue into "tasting" something that isn't there -- thus, the taste display was born.

Can you imagine paying $45 million for a single pizzas? Yeah, me either -- but Laszlo Hanyecz did such a thing on May 22, 2010 -- buying a single pizza for 10,000 bitcoin.

May 22 is now known as "Bitcoin Pizza Day" because of it, with the 10,000 bitcoins at $9500 today, translating to a gigantic $45 million on just a single pizza. Hanyecz is known as the first person to use bitcoin in a commercial transaction, buying two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins back 10 years ago now.

The transaction was 10,000 BTC -- which today is worth over $90 million. Back on May 22, 2010, Hanyecz write on the BitcoinTalk forum: "I just want to report that I successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for pizza".

SpaceX will be launching NASA astronauts into space from the United States, which might not sound like much -- but it's the first time it has happened in nearly 10 years.

President Trump will be attending the historic moment in Florida, where he will be in-person (even during the COVID-19 pandemic) in Florida for the Demo-2 mission launch on May 27 from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. This is the first time that the US has sent astronauts into space from US soil since 2011, when the Space Shuttle Program was wrapped up.

The White House said in a statement to CBS News: "President Trump is continuing to deliver on his promise to reassert American dominance in space. Our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security".

Iron Man VR is shaping up to be a blast for PlayStation VR owners, with the PS VR exclusive now available to download in demo form from the PlayStation Store right now. First, check out the Iron Man VR gameplay video that was just released:

The video is very detailed on how the game works, how you fly and use your blasters, and how the developers created the game to not just let you fly around in some form of glorified tech demo -- but actually act like a hero. In this particular part of Iron Man VR dubbed the 'Out of the Blue' Stark Jet mission, your mission is to save Pepper Potts from a plane flying through the clouds.

Instead of just blasting bad guys out of the sky, you will fly up to the plane and have to repair panels, pull debris out of the way, and more. It is much more immersive than a traditional superhero game and that is all thanks to VR. The developers have done a great job there, and even the graphics don't look too bad for a game running on a PlayStation 4.

The PlayStation 5's and Xbox Series X's customized PCIe 4.0 SSDs have the potential to revolutionize gaming, and developers like Netherrealm's Ed Boon are excited to tap that raw power.

The Zen 2 and Navi 2X GPU upgrades in next-gen consoles are exciting, but that processing power would be hindered without an ultra-fast SSD to feed the system data and assets at blinding-fast speeds. The inclusion of SSDs in next-gen systems is big in itself, but the raw speed will push next-gen to a whole new level beyond current PC tech. The PS5 can transfer uncompressed assets at 5.5GB/sec, or 100x the PS4, and the Xbox Series X can hit 2.4GB/sec, 40x the Xbox One's HDD. This means no loading times, seamless gameplay, and will change how games are made and played.

Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon is just one of the many devs who see great things in next-gen SSDs. "I think it's funny when these new systems come out, these new consoles, everyone's always like 'okay what do the graphics look like?' I think people underestimate the impact the almost-zero load times will have. That's suddenly going to open up new doors that just weren't considered possible before," Boon said in a recent interview with Geoff Keighley.

The Embracer Group (aka THQ Nordic) already owns 163 IPs across 92 studios, but it's still hungry for more.

The Embracer Group might own more IPs than any other games company on the market today.The company has bought up a ton of IPs and studios, from Deep Silver's entire catalog under Koch Media (Saints Row, Metro, Dead Island) to yesteryear franchises like Kingdoms of Amalur, Timesplitters, and even Gothic.

But that acquisition spreed is far from over. Embracer is looking to grow, and it just got a big $161 million financing surge via a new share issue. Over 100 investors bought into the share issue so Embracer could "continue our buy-to-build M&A journey."

The Embracer Group's annual operating income jumps 35% on the backs of strong game segment performance, and the company and expects this year will deliver strong earnings with a 10-game lineup.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) recently announced its FY20 financials, and the results are pretty good. Overall net sales are up slightly to $527 million, but operating income jumped 35% to $104 million due to sturdy games earnings--THQ Nordic saw a big 50% spike on the heels of big catalog earnings, Deep Silver was up thanks to Metro Exodus' latest expansion, and Coffee Stain was up over 100%.

Profit is down 10% year-over-year to $28.59 million due to increase expense spending of $602 million, and the lack of a big AAA release comparable to Metro Exodus (which was the company's record earner). We talk even more about Embracer's expense spending here, including depreciation and amortization of game dev and IP costs.

The Embracer Group (aka THQ Nordic) is ramping up expenses on games development and IP rights as it prepares a massive pipeline of games.

While scouting Embracer Group's latest financials, I noticed some interesting things on its spending habits. Expenses on intangible assets is up quite a bit, namely with game development and IP depreciation values.

Right now Embracer is working on 118 new games and 69 of them haven't been announced. So it makes sense the company is spending more to fund these projects across its 3,000-strong team of worldwide employees.

James Cameron and his team in New Zealand will be resuming production of Avatar 2 sometime "next week", now that COVID-19 calms down in the country.

Jon Landau, a long-time collaborator, producer and friend of James Cameron, shared a new image on his personal Instagram. The photo showed that the Avatar 2 sets are "ready" and that the production crew will be returning to New Zealand sometime "next week" post Memorial Day.

Landau writes: "Our Avatar sets are ready -- and we couldn't be more excited to be headed back to New Zealand next week. Check out the Matador, a high speed forward command vessel (bottom) and the Picador jetboat (top) -- can't wait to share more".

NASA is looking for US citizens to sign up for an 8-month study into social isolation, something it is doing to prepare for future missions to both the moon, and Mars.

The US space agency will be studying the effects of social isolation and confinement on US citizens, where successful applicants would work towards completing simulated science missions. NASA will be pushing the boundaries of your mind during these times, where participants will be thrusted into the same environmental aspects that future astronauts will experience on Mars.

NASA is forming a small international crew that will be living together in isolation for 8 months "conducting scientific research", where successful applicants would be using VR and performing robotic operations, as well as a bunch of other tasks. The research will concentrate on the "effects of isolation and confinement as participants work to successfully complete their simulated space mission. Results from ground-based missions like this help NASA prepare for the real-life challenges of space exploration and provide important scientific data to solve some of these problems and to develop countermeasures".

We're getting close to the halfway point of 2020, with Microsoft hard at work on some new updates for Windows 10 -- but now we're hearing some rumblings about the first big update to Windows 10 in 2021.

Windows 10 21H1 which is also known as Windows 10 Iron (Fe) is the first big update of 2021 for Microsoft's flagship OS, and it should sport Start menu improvements, and more. Microsoft first teased the new Start menu and parts of a refreshed UI a couple of months ago that moved away from Live Tiles.

If you're a Fast ring insider then you're going to get access to Windows 10 2021 codenamed Iron (Fe) in June 2020, which is just weeks away. The news came directly from an official Microsoft blog, but it was quickly edited -- with the codename of the new Windows 10 21H1 removed.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is shaping up beautifully, with a batch of new screenshots released to prove it. The new screenshots come from the on-going alpha build of the game, and tease the new Boeing 747-8i, too.

The new screenshots of Flight Simulator come from a new post on the official website, with alpha testers submitting their screenshots. These alpha testers include Simtom112, King6EAR, Speedwoblz, Anark1a2004tj, Superdelphinus, OperatorLand468, SulfonicCarp982, R4microds, and BER811.

The Flight Simulator team teased that there will be new invites being sent out in the coming hours, with a new patch arriving to the game on May 28. A bunch of stuff was tweaked with the new Alpha 3 (built 1.3.9.0) that was released on May 14, with a gigantic list of full patch notes here.

EK has just announced something very special for its most patriotic American fans to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend, with a new limited edition Velocity CPU water block beautifully designed in a special red, white, and blue style like the American flag. Check it out:

The company will be making just 200 limited edition Velocity CPU water blocks, with 100 of them made with an Intel mounting frame while the other 100 have an AMD mounting frame. EK is hoping to sell all 200 of them, and will make a donation of $20,000 to Shellback Tech, a rapidly growing Disabled Veteran-founded charitable organization.

Edvard Konig, founder of EK explains: "Being a globally successful company also means that we have the ability and responsibility to make a difference and give something back to the community. We have decided to jump on a project that will make our most loyal fans happy, and at the same time, help those who are in need".

With millions at home right now, it is the time to strike if you're making malicious software -- and disguising coronavirus phishing campaigns through Excel spreadsheets? That's nasty.

Recently, the Microsoft Security Intelligence Team discovered that there are two rather large phishing campaigns that are fooling people into downloading, and then opening malicious Excel files. Once they do, hackers have remote access to their PCs and it is game over.

The emails get disguised to look like they're coming from the likes of Johns Hopkins University, while other emails coming through are personal COVID-19 testing solutions, and more. The emails themselves arrive with Excel documents attached, with click bait-y titles such as "WHO COVID-19 SITUATION REPORT" that once opened, will install NetSupport Manager -- a remote desktop access tool.

The US Navy has tested a new laser weapon system, with the video below showing the docked USS Portland testing its new laser weapon system that is capable of blowing an aircraft up out of the sky mid-flight.

In the video above, the US Navy has its USS Portland testing "the first system-level implementation of a high-energy class solid state laser". The laser disables a drone mid-flight, where you can see in the second half of the clip the drone burning from being hit by the laser.

We don't know how strong the laser itself is, but according to a report published in 2018 from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, it's expected to be at least a 150-kilowatt laser. That's some serious laser weaponary right there, but the US Navy hasn't provided any specifics.

There are hundreds of millions of people stuck at home right now over the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of them working from home -- and NVIDIA knows that, and embraces the fact.

During NVIDIA's recent Q1 2021 earnings call, company CFO Colette Kress said that gaming hours on their GeForce platform saw an uptick of 50% in the recent quarter. This is all thanks to those people forced to stay at home, and now many of them are gaming far more.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said that the work-from-home model that companies are pushing, with the likes of the largest social media company in the world -- Facebook -- wanting to see 50% of its workforce working from home by 2030.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) now has a staggering 118 projects in development across its myriad of studios, up from Q3's 96 projects.

In its recent earnings report, The Embracer Group outlined its new slate of in-development games. Embracer now has 118 games in the works, up 22 games from last quarter's numbers. And 69 of them haven't been revealed.

So what changed? Embracer's buyout of Saber Interactive raised the project count, along with other unannounced titles from other studios.

Atari has teamed up with Litecoin to help kick off their new Atari Token cryptocurrency, and you'll actually be able to use Litecoin to buy the new Atari VCS console.

Atari is kind of a strange company. First, they announced the Atari VCS, a new re-vamped console that merges old-school and modern gaming together for a rather steepish $249 price tag. Then they announced special gaming-themed hotels and resorts (which actually sound pretty awesome). Now they've confirmed more plans to jump into crypto and are partnering with the Litecoin Foundation to make it happen.

This team-up establishes an exchange between Litecoin and Atari Token. Users can trade Litecoin for the Atari Token, and even use Litecoin to buy Atari products like its upcoming VCS console.

2020's big Call of Duty game is called Black Ops: Cold War, sources familiar with Activision's plans tell Eurogamer.

There's been lots of rumors about Call of Duty 2020, and now we have multiple high-level sources corroborating past reports. While Activision has yet to formally announce the game, we actually know a fair amount about Black Ops: Cold War.

Rumor has it the game spans the multi-decade timeline of the Cold War, from the 1950s all the way to the Vietnam era. This year's Black Ops game, sub-titled Cold War, will be a prequel to the best-selling mainline series and should explore and connect the different timeframes.

Doom Eternal's inclusion of Denuvo Anti-Cheat has been massively contested from PC fans, and now id is taking it out. But the developer asserts anti-cheat wasn't causing the performance crashes from Update 1.

In a recent Reddit post, id Software's Marty Stratton outlined some interesting info about Doom Eternal and DAC. After Update 1, which introduced enhanced demons alongside the kernel-level DAC, gamers reported crashes and other stability issues. id says these hitches were caused by VRAM/memory code changes, and a cosmetic skin bug.

"Through our investigation, we discovered and have fixed several crashes in our code related to customizable skins. We were also able to identify and fix a number of other memory-related crashes that should improve overall stability for players. All of these fixes will be in our next PC update. I'd like to note that some of these issues were very difficult to reproduce and we want to thank a number of our community members who worked directly with our engineers to identify and help reproduce these issues.