343 Industries is making steady progress on Halo: Combat Evolved's incoming Steam version.

Now that Halo: Reach has been unleashed on PC, next in line is Halo: CE, and work is well underway on the project. Today 343i dropped a new MCC PC dev update, outlining new features and tweaks coming to Reach while also teasing future games.

Right now Halo: CE is in a pre-alpha state across multiplayer and campaign. In its current iteration the game mirrors a lot of the performance targets of Reach, including 4K 60FPS with variable refresh rates as well as a unique progression system.

CD Projekt RED and Witcher series author Andrzej Sapkowski today signed a new agreement that satisfies both parties.

Back in 2018, Adrzej Sapkowski, the famed Polish author behind the Witcher books, demanded $16 million from CD Projekt RED in recompense for past Witcher game sales. Back in the early days of the Witcher games, Sapkowski originally sold the rights to his book series to CDPR for a pittance, a costly mistake for a franchise that's now sold over 40 million copies worldwide. So Sapkowski demanded more money.

Now CD Projekt RED and Sapkowski have reached an agreement. We don't know how much CDPR promised Sapkowski or what the exact terms are, but CD Projekt RED gets to keep the Witcher rights for new games and merchandise. A new Witcher has likely been in development for some time now, too.

There's a rumor floating around that Microsoft wants to buy CD Projekt RED. That's not going to happen for one simple reason: CDPR literally has no reason to sell.

Microsoft is buying up studios left and right to fill out its internal first-party brand. By picking up studios like inExile, Obsidian, and Ninja Theory, it's sent a clear message that it wants to prep its game-making foundries for its next-gen Xbox Series X console, and rightly so, because games sell consoles. In particular Microsoft wants to build up its RPG focus, and there's a rumor going around that it could buy some of the best RPG-makers on the planet at CD Projekt RED.

This isn't going to happen, and I'll break down some of the main reasons why. But the short gist is that CD Projekt RED is doing well and it has absolutely no reason to sell to Microsoft.

Bungie is still working on Destiny 3, and its brand new IP, but don't expect either of these projects any time soon.

Bungie isn't ready to move on to Destiny 3 just yet. Right now Bungie has one singular goal: To create a self-sustaining game with an over-arching storyline. It's a lot harder than you'd think but Shadowkeep and the subsequent free-to-play model has revitalized Destiny 2. Bungie is currently laser-focused on Destiny 2's new seasonal structure that'll lays the foundation for future games. In many ways, Destiny 2 is a practice run for the next game, a doorway to the IP's future.

In a recent interview with PCGamesN, Bungie's DeeJ says new projects are still a ways away.

Intel has secured yet another ex-AMD staffer, with Masooma Bhaiwala leaving AMD after over 15 years to help Intel and its discrete GPU products in 2020 and beyond.

Bhaiwala had a big hand in some of the semi-custom chips that AMD has made over the years, with these SoCs becoming a very important part of AMD's portfolio. Between Microsoft and Sony we have around 150 million Xbox One and PS4 sales, and then the upcoming (and very kick-ass) next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles will be continued success for AMD's semi-custom business.

Bhaiwala will be working inside of Intel's Graphics and Throughput Computing Hardware Engineering organization, which is a part of the Intel Architecture, Graphics and Software team that is run by ex-RTG boss Raja Koduri. Bhaiwala explained: "After 15+ amazing years at AMD, I have decided to take on a different opportunity... It was a truly fun ride, with an incredible team, during which we built some truly cool chips".

Information has been gathered by PreciseSecurity that reveals a list of the most commonly exploited applications in the third quarter of 2019.

According to PreciseSecurity, Microsoft Office solutions and applications are the most commonly exploited applications around the world. The data taken over the third quarter of 2019 shows that 72.85% of cyber exploits are done in Microsoft Office products.

The following software applications that come after Microsoft Office are: web browsers with 13.47%, Android with 9.09%, Java with 2.36%, Adobe Flash with 1.57%, and PDF with 0.66%. So, where are these cyber exploits coming from? PreciseSecurity traced the exploits back to five top countries. The United States with 79.16% of exploits, the Netherlands with 15.58%, Germany with 2.35%, France with 1.85%, and Russia with 1.05%. For more information about the exploits check out this link here.

At the moment, we are currently on a short break from Rick and Morty Season 4, so to make the wait just that little bit easier, Adult Swim has released some shorts.

Before I get into what is shown in each of these videos, I must warn you that if you aren't up to date with Season 4 Episode 5, then these videos will be spoilers of some episodes. I'd advise you to go and watch the episodes before checking out these videos, as I believe you will enjoy them much more after you have seen the episodes.

Moving on now to the contents of the above video. This video is from Season 4 Episode 3, 'One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty' where the whole episode is one big rip on Heist movies. In the video, we watch Heist-o-Tron attempt the greatest heist of all time - steal a planet's core without its inhabitants knowing.

The opening cinematic for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot has been released by Bandai Namco and if you are a Dragon Ball Z fan you are about to take a trip down nostalgia lane.

The opening cinematic really does show everything Dragon Ball Z fans wanted to see in a cinematic: Goku/Kakarot smashing down some food and then going toe-to-toe with some classic villains. The cinematic trailer shows off some not-so-forgetable characters, such as Master Roshi, King Kai, Krillin, Frieza, Piccolo, Future Trunks, Cell, Gohan, Vegeta, Goku and more.

We also get a look at some of the locations players will be able to go. We can see city-scapes, mountain ranges, oceans, Kame's house and more. If you haven't seen any gameplay of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, check out this video here. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is expected to launch on January 17th, 2020.

A security researcher has reported that Facebook had more than 267 million users' sensitive information exposed online.

According to a report from Comparitech and a security researcher Bob Diachenko, more than 267 million Facebook users had their IDs, phone numbers and names exposed to the public online. This was discovered in a database that could be accessed without any means of a password or authentication, essentially being available to the public who would know how to access it.

Researchers believe this sensitive information was gathered as a part of an illegal scraping operation. According to Dianchenko, this data was exposed for nearly two weeks and was posted as a downloadable file in hacker forum. A Facebook spokesperson spoke to Engadget and said, "We are looking into this issue, but believe this is likely information obtained before changes we made in the past few years to better protect people's information".

Deadline has reported that Paramount Pictures has announced that the Jackass film-franchise will live on with another movie.

This will mark the fourth movie in the Jackass franchise, with the first being released back in 2002. Since then, there have been three more movies released, which in total bring the franchises gross to more than $335 million at the box office. Of course, this wouldn't be a Jackass film if the creator, Johnny Knoxville, wasn't involved. He will be returning for the fourth film.

So what will the fourth movie be about? Exactly what the other ones are about. Knoxville and his friends all playing pranks on each other and performing a variety of dangerous and strange stunts that should definitely not be performed at home. Jackass 4 will be arriving on the big screen on March 5th, 2021.

Most gamers are still using mechanical HDDs and once you step into the world of SSDs you can never, ever go back -- and finally, console gamers will enjoy those same fast storage freedoms, and even more.

We know that the PlayStation 5 will have super-insane loading times, with Spider-Man loading in just 0.8 seconds on a prototype PS5 versus 8.1 seconds on the PS4. We know that Microsoft and Sony have near-identical semi-custom designs from AMD with Zen 2/RDNA 2 hardware inside, and we're hearing about the new Xbox Series X packing the same super-fast storage as the PlayStation 5.

In a recent interview with GameSpot, Jason Ronald who is the Xbox Partner DIrector of Program Management said: "It's really about giving the developers the tools and the capabilities to use the hardware in the most efficient way possible. A good example of that is on the [solid state drive] side--we've basically reached the limit of [what's] possible with the traditional rotational drive. We're basically at the upper bounds of the raw performance we can get there. So we've invested in NVMe SSDs and we're also giving developers a lot of new capabilities on top of that to try to virtually eliminate load times".

Christopher Nolan is back, with WB dropping a trailer for his craziest movie ever -- Tenet. Check out the official trailer to Tenet below:

Until now, Tenet has been shrouded in mystery and even though the official trailer is here, Nolan's new movie is still shrouded in mystery. John David Washington heads up Tenet, playing what seems to be some super-spy saving the world from World War 3.

Nolan being Nolan, we have some time travel goodness here, stunning cinematography (it wouldn't be a Nolan movie without it), and oodles of mystery. Nolan shot Tenet across 7 different countries, so we should expect some truly beautiful shots throughout the movie.

Lyft has found itself in quite the bad position just before the holidays, with the ride-sharing giant seeing its algorithm flagging names and banning them, or going as far as asking them to change their name.

The algorithm itself is flagging names like "Dick", "Finger", "Cummings" and others as inappropriate and not meeting Lyft's "community guidelines". One Lyft customer, Michael Finger, was emailed by Lyft with the email stating the company "noticed the name on your Lyft account doesn't align with our Community Guidelines". Crazy.

Another was Kevin Cocks, who received a push notification with the same warning and asked him to "update" his name by 12/21 in order to continue using Lyft. Lyft's mysterious algorithm is also picking up non-English names with a user named Bubunyo, where he received the same email about the Community Guidelines -- he said "if you are expecting me to use an English name, it won't happen cos I'm not English. You might as well ban me".

NVIDIA has just announced it will be releasing PhysX 5.0 "soon in 2020" with the updated physics middleware SDK offering up support for a "unified particle simulation framework".

In NVIDIA's own PhysX 5.0 announcement video you can see the physics at play here, where we can see the soft cloth of the foldable chair influenced beautifully. It reacts to being moved around, and when laid completely flat the cloth physics are displayed in their best light. Even when a plastic chair is thrown into the air and lands on top of the chair, the fabric moves how it would in real life.

Capcom's next mainline Resident Evil game could be in development for next-gen systems.

On the heels of Resident Evil 3 Remake's announcement, Capcom is already teasing its next game in the horror IP. In a batch of emails sent out to Resident Evil Ambassadors (aka RE beta testers), Capcom said: "As limited offers to Ambassadors, we have invitations to a play test session of our unannounced title."

This isn't a surprise, though. Capcom has already confirmed it has multiple games in the works powered by the RE Engine, many of which are clearly destined for next-gen consoles in 2020. We expect one of these titles is Resident Evil 8.

What would Fallout 76 be like with mods? Crazy, unpredictable, and full of weird moments. Sounds like a Fallout game I want to play.

Hackers used a custom script to import Fallout 4 assets right into Fallout 76, leading to some rather awesome homebrew moments throughout the world. The script basically broke the game and gave a huge level of player freedom, injecting the guerrilla-style do-whatever-you-want attitude Bethesda used to promote. You know, before they started the whole paid mods thing and started selling you basic cosmetic features as paid DLC (which I still find ridiculous).

Armed with these hacks, users basically treated Fallout 76's Appalachia is a playground full of Frankenstein creations. Remember when that was a huge part of Bethesda games? The user-created modding scene where you bent and manipulated the game to do whatever you wanted? Yeah, I miss those days.

The Xbox Series X's new Mini-ITX tower design isn't just for show. Its shoebox shape is specifically for heat management, and the new Xbox could belt out some serious thermals as it gobbles up lots of power.

Microsoft touts their new Xbox SX is the world's most powerful console that will "eat monsters for breakfast." It also might eat your power bill. New calculations from DigitalFoundry peg the Xbox Series X's power consumption at up to 300W thanks to the new high-end components housed in the monolith-shaped box. This represents a huge 76% spike in power draw compared to the Xbox One X's 170W.

The TDP numbers are based on the Xbox Series X's new SoC hardware that includes a Navi GPU and Zen 2 CPU combo, which may be overclocked to higher frequencies and stacked with more CUs in order to hit the promised native 4K 60FPS and even 120FPS performance targets. Microsoft says the Xbox SX is twice as powerful as the Xbox One X, and it could pull in twice the power as a result.

It seems that long time the British online technology publication, TheInquirer.net, is shutting down. The announcement has come as a shock to many, including the staff who were informed only last week of the decision.

TheInquirer.net was founded by Mike Magee after his departure from The Register in 2001. In 2006, the website was acquired by VNU from Mike Magee. Currently TheInquirer.net is owned by Incisive Media, which has made the decision to shut down the website. Incisive Media made the decision due to a recent decline in digital advertising, along with a change of focus for their business.

During the lifetime of the TheInquirer.net, many major stories broke on the site, including the Sony laptop battery scandal, including coverage of CPUs, and GPUs many fiscal quarters before their release to market. Several journalists and analysts also got their start at, or worked for TheInquirer at one point or another including Charlie Demerjian (SemiAccurate), Fuad Abazovic (Fudzilla, ACA), and Rob Squires (TweakTown).

In almost half a decade, NASA's Mars 2020 rover has taken to the streets and successfully completed its first drive.

While the rover didn't literally take to the public streets, it did successfully complete a driving test where it steered and drive in three-foot increments. The initial driving took the rover over small ramps that were covered in special static-control mats. The ramps were at different heights, as this was a way for the rover to simulate rocks and other obstacles that will be present on Mars' surface.

The team behind the rover has equipped the vehicle with much better cameras that have a larger field of view and have a higher resolution. Not only does the rover get better cameras, but its also being equipped with better auto-navigation software that will allow the rover to travel up to 650 feet per day. NASA expects that the rover will land on Mars in 2021 and begin its search for life and information regarding Mars.

A new satellite called CHEOPS just launched into low-Earth orbit with the mission of observing and examining a number of exoplanets located outside our solar system.

CHEOPS was originally meant to launch this past Tuesday, but just as the launch was about to go underway, some problems occurred. After these problems were fixed, the satellite launched into low-Earth orbit on the Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. CHEOPS camera lens only measures in at 32 centimeters in diameter, but don't let its size fool you, as the plans for the satellite are to relay unprecedented information back to astronomers.

CHEOPS will be taking a look at some 4,000 different exoplanets that astronomers have located and measure their size, mass, and atmosphere. Through this examination, astronomers will be able to determine what the composition of the planet is and if it has the possibility of harboring life. CHEOPS will stand as a new tool for astronomers to use in the hunt for life outside of Earth.