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Microsoft today announced the new Xbox 20/20 initiative, which will deliver new Xbox reveals and info every single month throughout 2020.

Microsoft is going all-out with their transparency plans. They've pretty much outlined the entirety of Xbox Series X's hardware (3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU, 12TFLOP 1.28GHz Navi 2X GPU, PCIe 4.0 SSD, etc) and software (DirectStorage, Velocity Architecture, Smart Delivery, etc).

All that remains now is games and info on optimization upgrades, and that info is coming in May. But that isn't enough. Starting on May 7 with the big new next-gen gameplay reveal, Microsoft will host Xbox events every month through the remainder of 2020. Microsoft says that "every month will bring something different," so expect info on services to be sandwiched between big announcements. That means events for the next eight months.

Samsung has long called its mobile devices by the Galaxy name in the smartphone and tablet realms. The company also has notebooks that fall into the Galaxy line, and one of its latest, the Galaxy Book Flex, is now available the United States. The machine is a two-in-one PC that has a screen able to fold back for use in tablet mode with the included S Pen.

Samsung uses the Windows 10 operating system inside the machine, and it comes in either 13.3-inch or 15.6-inch screen sizes. Both screen sizes use the same QLED touchscreen that supports high color accuracy. The display uses Quantum Dot technology allowing the screen to be viewable in direct sunlight.

One interesting feature of the Galaxy Book Flex for smartphone users whose devices support wireless charging is that a smartphone can be placed on the trackpad to get power directly from the laptop. The battery inside the Flex is good for up to 19 hours of runtime for the 15.6-inch version and up to 20 hours for the 13.3-inch version. Samsung coats the Flex in royal blue aluminum finish that's attractive and has a premium look.

HP has announced a new Chromebook that's aimed directly at enterprise users. The machine is called the HP Elite c1030 Chromebook Enterprise and has a 13.5-inch 3:2 aspect ratio display. HP brags that the screen has a 90.1% screen-to-body ratio, which is the highest ever on Chromebook.

A low screen-to-body ratio means that the display has very thin bezels. Under the hood, HP uses the latest 10th generation Intel processors promising high performance and utilizing an active-cooling system. The active cooling system will keep the machine running optimally during multitasking and video conferences.

The internal battery is good for up to 12 hours of use per charge, and the machine has a hinge that allows the display to be folded back like a tent. The portable is the world's first Chromebook that has an integrated privacy screen using HP Sure View Reflect technology that keeps people from being able to read your screen over your shoulder at the present button. A fingerprint reader and integrated webcam privacy switch are also integrated.

We're about to get lots of new Cyberpunk 2077 info: First in Microsoft's big Xbox Series X third-party showcase on May 7 (CP2077 has a marketing deal with Xbox), then more on June 11.

Today CD Projekt RED announced more Cyberpunk 2077 news is coming on June 11 in a new segment/show called Night City Wire, which is basically analogous to the Xbox Wire. We don't know what exactly CDPR is planning, but we should expect new gameplay footage from the finalized game. It's also likely this reveal is included in the new Summer Game Fest livestream show.

Basically the timeline should go something like this: on May 7, CDPR should talk about how Cyberpunk 2077 will use Xbox Series X hardware to push insane performance, then on June 11, we'll see more gameplay and info to set up the game's incoming September 2020 launch.

Apex Legends fan? Well, you better prepare yourself as the new character Loba is about to get a full reveal in just a matter of hours.

It was recently confirmed that the next Apex Legends character is going to be the little girl we saw in the Revenant reveal trailer. That little girl who watched her father and mother get murdered by Revenant is Loba, and she has now grown up and is tracking down Revenant for revenge.

So far, all we know about Loba is that her story heavily revolves around being a thief, so I think it's fairly safe to assume that her abilities will be related to the loot on the ground somehow. Above is a link to the Apex Legends YouTube Channel, where they will be showcasing the full Season 5 reveal, which will contain a bunch of new content that isn't just Loba. I'd expect cosmetic additions, possibly new changes to the map, gun tweaks, and more.

If you have played and enjoyed the Dark Souls games and decided to pick up Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, then you were most likely not disappointed by FromSoftware's newest title.

Overall, it's a fantastic game it was so good that it won Game of The Year at the last Game Awards. While almost everything about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is amazing, there is one lacking factor, and that's an online PvP experience. The Dark Souls games had invasions online that allowed players to invade people's worlds and force an epic duel to the death mid-campaign. Luckily, a new mod has been created that brings online gameplay to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

This new mod adds support for up to 6 players, one player is the host of the party, and the other gives players are phantoms. There is also a PvP mode that pits players against each other, a co-op mode that allows two players to venture through the story together, a matchmaking system, and, most importantly, invasions. If you are a Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice fan, then it seems this mod is simply a must-have for you. It should be noted that this mod is still in its very early development stages, so expect bugs, crashes, and possibility some instability problems. Download link can be found here.

A store worker in Kentucky, USA has uploaded a video to TikTok showing a customer that walks in to pay for her gas with a face mask on -- but she's got a custom one where she cut a hole in it. Yeah, I'm not kidding around.

In the video called "Karen Mask", the woman walks up to the counter to pay for her gas, saying "Hi, there, can I get 10 on pump one please?" to which store worker Joe Samaan takes her payment and then replies: "Where did you get that mask from?".

The woman replies, saying: "Well since we have to wear them and it makes it hard to breathe, this makes it a lot easier to breathe". Samaan wants to make sure he's actually seeing what he's seeing, getting her to reiterate her changes to the mask by asking: "Cutting it?"

You should know that you aren't alone if episode six of Rick and Morty broke your brain, because it also broke the brains of the writers behind the show. How comforting.

In a new video uploaded to the Adult Swim YouTube Channel, co-creator Dan Harmon, and writer Jeff Loveness sat down to share their thoughts on episode six and its mind-blowing approach. Disclaimer: this article will contain spoilers, so if you haven't yet watched the new episode, I'd advise on not continuing to read this post. Writer Jeff Loveness, says that this episode "broke me", and that the whole idea got away from the writers by the end of the episode.

The writers explain that Rick is a representation of limitless potential, and that even though he can do anything that can be a trap, and he can be kept doing it forever. Loveness reveals that it was his personal fear that inspired the shirtless old men ripping their t-shirts off and being cut underneath, and Harmon threw his disgust of the "cumgutter" to complete the idea. The writers also talk about how they started to have "fun" with meta-structural stuff, which is more than apparent throughout the episode. Personally, this is one of my favorite Rick and Morty episodes yet; if you haven't seen it and are a Rick and Morty fan, you need to get onto it ASAP.

Australia has had its COVID-19 contact tracing app COVIDSafe deployed to Australians, but the government received a huge pushback from Aussies that didn't want the app being forced on them as mandatory.

Well, India hasn't been so pleasant -- with the Indian home ministry making it mandatory for all workers to download and use their new COVID-19 contact tracing app 'Aarogya Setu'. To makes matters worse, the Indian home ministry have warned that there will be "punishment" if there's negligence.

Over 80 million people across India have downloaded the COVID-19 contact tracing app so far, but the government has hopes to hit 350 million smartphone users throughout the country -- on top of basic phone users with an interactive voice system. Yeah, India is taking things to the next level with COVID-19 contact tracing.

It was barely two weeks ago that I wrote a story on the latest screenshots from Microsoft Flight Simulator looking breathtaking, but these latest screenshots just continue to play games with my heart. Check them out:

These new screenshots from Flight Simulator have been taken from the Alpha build, and members of the community who are lucky enough to be included in that with Microsoft. The screenshots all have watermarks from the users who took them, with some of them looking jaw droppingly good.

You will need a pretty serious PC to play Flight Simulator when it drops, with Microsoft requiring at least 150GB of storage space and a GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card as the "ideal spec". Yeah, the basic game needs 150GB -- with a 5Mbps internet connection at a minimum, and 50Mbps for the "ideal spec" range.

I'm far more comfortable with a Hollywood star being inserted into a game franchise with deepfake technology than I thought, with this new deepfake of Nathan Fillion being inserted into Uncharted 4 as Nathan Drake thanks to deepfake tech. Check it out:

Firefly star Nathan Fillion was born for the role of Nathan Drake in Uncharted, with plenty of fans of Fillion, Firefly, and Uncharted wanting him for the role in the movie. There's an Uncharted movie that is coming, with Spider-Man and Avengers star Tom Holland -- who is no stranger to being deepfaked into something, where he was deepfaked into Back to the Future with Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. recently.

Some will remember back in July 2018 that Nathan Fillion starred as Nathan Drake in "UNCHARTED -- Live Action Fan Film" directed by Allan Ungar. It was a short fan film that went for just under 15 minutes and racked up over 7.5 million views in that time. It showed that Fillion was born for the role, but now he has been "officially" deepfaked into Uncharted 4 with some great results.

A super hot new rumor starts the week with news that Intel will be using a new LGA1700 socket for its Alder Lake-S platform, with the LGA1700 socket to take a battle against AMD's next-gen AM5 socket in the future.

The new rumor sees Alder Lake-S succeeding Comet Lake-S, with the LGA1700 being a new socket that will reportedly support 3 new Intel CPU generations. It will feature a big core / small core architecture, and is rumored to feature Golden Cove / Gracemont cores. The news is coming from Lit-Tech, a Taiwanese-based manufacturer that handles Voltage Regulator Testing Tools for the Asian market.

The website lists unreleased architectures like the Ice Lake-S/H and Tiger Lake-H, but the news of LGA1700 isn't new. Earlier on in the year in January 2020, Komachi_Ensaka teased on Twitter of the new Intel LGA1700 socket.

Unreal Engine 4 has never looked better than it does right now, with Dekogon Studios revealing some rather incredible pieces in its portfolio of Unreal Engine 4-based environments. Check it out:

This one is a 90s high school science class room and it looks absolutely stunning. The team at Dekagon Studios built each asset for "realistic AAA quality visuals, style, and budget". It features a huge library of 461 Meshes, high quality and fidelity textures of up to 2K, fully baked lighting, and it's optimized for games.

Seriously, the detail right down to the crinkles that are on the paper on the poster of the planets on the back wall is just so damn good.

Intel is expected to drop its new 10th generation Core processors on May 20, but between now and then we have some exciting benchmarks from the mid-range Core i5-10400.

The new Core i5-10400 processor has been benchmarked by Chinese review channel Bilibili, TecLab. They have tested Intel's new Core i5-10400 processor against the current-gen Core i5-9400F and Core i7-9700F, with the new Core i5-10400 packing quite the punch in its 6-core/12-thread CPU.

The Intel Core i5-10400 is a 6C/12T processor, up from the 6C/6T in the Core i5-9400 (which doesn't have SMT, whereas all 10th-gen CPUs have SMT). The Core i5-10400 has a base CPU clock of 2.9GHz, single-core boost of 4.3GHz, and all-core boost of 4GHz. There's 12MB of cache on the Core i5-10400, with a price of just $182. You're looking at least double for the Core i7-9700F.

AMD is ramping up production of the 7nm custom Navi- and Zen 2-powered SoCs used in next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

Both Microsoft and Sony plan to ship their next-gen Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles on time in Holiday 2020, and mass production of each system's custom Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU-powered SoCs will soon begin to make it happen. In a recent earnings report, AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed production will start in Q2 2020 (April - June) in preparation for next-gen console launches later this year.

The company expects Q2 revenues to increase as Microsoft and Sony place high-volume chip orders ahead of launch, and then semi-custom earnings to spike further as both companies rev up for 2021 console supply. Sony and Microsoft make the orders 1-2 quarters ahead of time. Hardware availability may be constrained, however: Sony, in particular, plans to ship 5-6 million PlayStation 5 consoles in 2020, down 1-2 million units from the PS4's launch in 2013.

E3 2020 might be dead, but the annual EA Play show is continuing as a digital-based stream, and you should be excited.

Today EA confirmed its EA Play event will go live on June 11, 2020. This show could be a pretty big deal for Electronic Arts. The company is working on a number of high-profile games right now, all of which could be enhanced for next-gen consoles. EA plans to ship 8 major AAA games between 2020 and 2021: four sports games, and four "other titles that draw from the breadth of our IP."

Many of these tantalizing projects are a ways off (Battlefield 6, for example, won't be ready until 2021), but we could see some teasers, announcements, and/or gameplay. Dragon Age 4 was shown off at The Game Awards 2018 so it's high time for some fresh info.

id Software finally speaks out on the big Doom Eternal soundtrack controversy and sets the record straight.

Fans aren't happy with id and Bethesda right now, and it all stems from a fallout between Doom OST creator Mick Gordon and id. The consensus is Bethesda shafted Mick Gordon by mixing his tracks and "ruining" the OST. But the real story is far more involved, and the truth is not any one person is to blame. id Software executive producer Marty Stratton reveals what actually happened and why.

According to Stratton, id's relationship with Gordon is quite complicated. Gordon is the reason for the soundtrack's delay. The rocker requested a 4-week extension, which ended up turning into a 6-week extension, and id was concerned the deadline wouldn't be hit. So Mick suggested a team-up with id's audio designer to help fill in the tracks. id didn't butcher Gordon's OST. The truth is, Gordon's OST wasn't actually finished in time, and had to depend on tracks and content created by id's lead audio designer.

If Nintendo won't do it, modders will: Mario 64 has been ported to the PC with full native 4K resolution support, ultra-wide monitor support, and ultra-smooth animations.

Remember when 64 bits and polygons were all the rage? Now that classic era has been reborn in high-end PCs, and skilled modders have successfully ported Mario 64 onto PC with Unreal Engine 4. This isn't emulation like the Super Mario Odyssey 64 mod, but a literal native port that uses reverse-engineered decompiled code from the N64 game. The project was built in Unreal Engine 4 with DirectX 12 support, which allows for high resolutions like 3840 x 2160, support for 21:9 aspect ratios, and compatibility with other graphics overhaul mods and shaders.

The results are smooth animations, high-def textures and graphics (even if they're polygonal), and a generally all-around improved experience. If Nintendo officially released Mario 64 on PC, it'd look and play something like this.

A key feature of the current generation Apple Watch wearable is its ECG function that has discovered heart conditions in people all around the world who had no idea they had the condition. Recently, an 80-year-old woman in Germany was warned of a heart condition by her Apple Watch that the hospital had missed in an ECG that was performed previously. The woman had visited the hospital at the University Medical Center Mainz of Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany with what the medical team called "typical angina symptoms."

The woman had experienced situations where she almost lost consciousness due to the reduced flow of oxygenated blood to the brain. The woman had previously been diagnosed with arterial hypertension, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, and she previously had a pulmonary embolism. Doctors at the hospital ordered a 12-Channel ECG, which didn't see any evidence of ischemia, which is a restriction in blood vessels that can restrict the blood supply.

The medical staff was reportedly convinced that the woman had some sort of issue due to previous ectopic heartbeat episodes that were recorded using the ECG function of her Apple Watch. The physicians opted to treat the woman based on the recordings that the Apple Watch made. In a nutshell, the Apple Watch was able to diagnose an issue that the hospital's equipment didn't find.

Streets of Rage 4 is local co-op only on GOG.com, and won't get online functionality, developer LizardCube confirms.

Streets of Rage 4 is all the rage right now, and there's tons of places to buy it. But if you want to play online with friends, you'll probably want to avoid the GOG version. The game is offline-only on GOG and can only played singleplayer or via local co-op. The devs say online play with friends simply won't be added to the game: "Hello, unfortunately the GOG version of the game won't be supporting online features," LizardCube wrote on Twitter.

The GOG storefront listing warns players about the missing online features, which is great, but it also hints online functionality could be added later on. "Please note that at this time, the DRM-Free version supports local co-op only with up to 4 players. The 2-player online mode is not available," reads the GOG storefront listing.