Who doesn't love a bit of data mining, am i right? Well, I for sure do as we can see ahead of time what could be coming to a game.

According to That1MiningGuy, who recently data mined Apex Legends, a new SMG is on the brink of being released into the live game. At the moment, there are only three SMGs available to players: R-99, Alternator, and the Prowler. The data mine suggests that Respawn is currently testing the 'kick-back' of a new SMG, but what could this new be and where is it from?

Since Apex Legends is based in the Titanfall universe, this new SMG could be a weapon from the Titanfall games. GamesRadar says that it's possible that this new SMG could either be a CAR or the VOLT. The CAR is a fully automatic SMG that comes with decent accuracy, and the VOLT is an energy SMG that fires blue traces with its bullets. If I were to guess at which weapon they are going to add, I'd say the VOLT since the last new gun to come to Apex was the Charge Rifle with energy rounds.

A new social media platform has just launched called WT:Social and its premise to combat Facebook on the front of showing new content first instead of sponsored.

The new platform comes from Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales who has promised that any user signing up to the platform won't have their user data sold. WT:Social also won't be running advertisements or have algorithms like Facebook's, which prioritize content that is sponsored or receiving a lot of engagement. WT:Social will instead show users on the platform whatever content is newest.

According to Wale's Twitter account, the new platform has already gained 160,000 members, and "isn't slowing down yet". Wales also commented on how WT:Social will be different from other big platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, he said "I've come to the conclusion that the biggest problem driving low-quality media is that it has been purely advertising-supported, and that the social networks which provide so much distribution are also purely advertising supported."

One of the main problems with self-driving cars is that artificial intelligence inside the vehicle assumes all humans drive and act in the same way. This just simply isn't the case.

Luckily, researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have taken that issue and begun examining it for potential solutions. Through their examination of this issue, they began predicting the behavior of other drivers on the road using social psychology techniques. They then fed these techniques to the artificial intelligence to help classify drivers into two basic categories "collaborative or competitive".

Through these classification techniques, the system was able to predict drivers' movements better when it came to lane mergers, faster turning, and more. The paper says that after these techniques were implemented, the artificial intelligence's accuracy increased by 25%. Wilko Schwarting, the lead author on the new paper, said, "Working with and around humans means figuring out their intentions to better understand their behavior. People's tendencies to be collaborative or competitive often spills over into how they behave as drivers."

Ever wondered what it's like to be a shy pooper? Rick does, and in season 4 of Rick and Morty, we get to see what lengths he will go to keep his privacy.

Disclaimer - This is a season 4 spoiler, so if you haven't seen episode 2 yet, this will certainly ruin a part of it. The above video has been released onto the official Rick and Morty YouTube Channel, and it shows Rick tracking down the alien who used his private toilet on a remote planet. The alien then expresses that he missed his dead wife and that life has been "hollow" since he has passed. He also says that he is a shy pooper.

All of what the alien says Rick sees in himself as insecurities, eventually not killing Tony but instead abuses him and leaves a really strange bomb on the table. The bomb then turns into a bunch of butts, these butts then fart and then a middle finger raises from the center, flipping off Tony. Tony then returns back to Rick's planet to take another dump, and then things get really philosophically deep. Check out the above video to know what happens.

Sony's latest PS5 patent reveals key features of the DualShock 5, including a built-in microphone, USB Type-C charging, and no lightbars for improved battery life.

A new controller patent from Sony gives us an idea of what to expect from the next-gen PlayStation controller. Overall not much has changed, but there are a few noticable differences. There's a built-in microphone fastened to a metallic strip on the bottom that's likely used for the PS5's new voice-activated AI assistant feature, complete with two(?) auxiliary headphone ports, and USB Type-C charging for quick and easy battery top-offs.

The lightbar has apparently been nixed to ensure longer controller battery life (thank god), too.

Intel Xeon CPUs are not usually known for their crappy stock heat sink and fans, but it seems Intel is stumbling a bit lately with Chipzilla recently recalling their Xeon E-2274G over the not-so-great stock CPU cooler.

Intel includes a basic fan in the box for the Xeon E-2274G, a fan made by Foxconn and is boxed up with much lower-end CPUs like Intel's own Pentium Gold and Core i3 lines of processors. The stock HSF we're talking about is normally handling heat loads of up to 65W, but the Xeon E-2274G is a workstation/SMB destined chip with an 88W TDP.

People buying an Intel Pentium Gold or Intel Core i3 CPU will not be maxing out their CPU at 100% all day long, but most people buying a Xeon processor would be doing just that. So the stock HSF should be really, really good... right?! Well, you'd think so -- but not in this case.

Lord of the Rings fans patiently await any news about the coming Amazon show, and after some time, we have got another snag, and its a big one.

In an exclusive report from Deadline, Amazon Studios' 1 billion-dollar Lord of the Rings TV show is already moving forward with an early Season 2 renewal. According to Deadline, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke confirmed this news to them at a company holiday party this past Sunday and said that the studio currently has the second season in the works.

While season 2 has already been renewed, shooting wise, the LOTR series will be having a 4-5 month break after the first couple of episodes are shot. This allows for everyone working on the film a different perspective of the footage, gauge fan response, and make correctional changes with a fresh set of eyes. Since this TV show is high-budget, this seems like the most responsible and sensible approach, considering that filming this level of show is not cheap.

Nintendo is doubling-down on its mobile gaming monetization, this time adding another paid subscription to a free-to-play game.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is getting not one, but two monthly paid subscriptions, Nintendo recently announced.

These two plans are part of the new Pocket Camp Club, and come on top of the randomized gacha-style microtransactions the game currently has and give access to extra in-game content. One subscription gives you an assistant to help you around the campsite, and the other lets you store furniture in a shed and gives free fortune cookies.

Stadia apparently won't streaming games in native 4K, instead opting for upscaled 1080p--at least in bigger games like Destiny 2.

A bit ago Google promised that every Stadia launch game would run at 4K 60FPS. But there's a catch: It won't always be native 4K. Some games use supersampling and upscaling tech to achieve the kind of 4K output by the PS4 Pro. One of the service's marquee games, Destiny 2, streams at 1080p resolution that's upscaled to 4K on PC and UHD TVs.

Bungie confirms to The Verge that Destiny 2 is not only upscaled from 1920 x 1080 to 3840 x 2160, the game only hits medium PC settings regardless of where you play it on (Chrome browser, Chromecast Ultra, or your phone).

What if Red Dead Redemption 2 were released in the 90s on the original PlayStation? It'd look a little something like this.

Thanks to LowSpecGamer, we have an idea of what Rockstar's beautiful Wild West masterpiece would look like if it were old enough to drink. The YouTuber managed to dramatically manipulate the game's textures and visual settings well past the low preset by changing up the settings.xml file with Notepad++, basically transporting us back to the early days of 3D gaming.

Weird polygons, fuzzy textures, heavily pixellated environments, and terrible draw distance are just a few things that early PlayStation gamers had to put up with back in the day. Needless to say not a lot of early PlayStation games aged very well.

Thanks to Game Pass, Microsoft no longer has to depend so much on microtransactions. That means not every game they release has to be monetized with cosmetics.

Microsoft is an interesting crossroads. Its Game Pass service, which charges $10 a month, is basically fulfilling the main function of microtransactions with recurring revenues. So many people are subscribing to Game Pass because of its tremendous value that games on the service can simply rely on monthly subs instead of piecemeal nickle-and-dime microtransactions.

This gives developers freedom to make the game they want to make, with or without live service elements or microtransactions. "You don't have to go make a service," Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg said in a recent interview with VG247. "Game Pass gives those creators a lot of flexibility. If you want your game to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and no DLC, and no other transactions, and just a single-player game, that's also fine."

The Nintendo and PlayStation rivalry is notorious, with both companies competing for the same player-base and refusing to work alongside each other. Putting all that rivalry aside, they are coming together for a friendly game of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

The Japanese magazine Famitsu is hosting a 'corporate' Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on November 22nd. Participants in the tournament are as follows; Sun-Star, Sugiko, and PlayStation. That's right. You are reading this correctly, PlayStation will have some employees joining in on a Nintendo IP tournament.

While the specifics of who the PlayStation employees were left out of the announcement, Nintendo Life do detail that the players attending will from Sony Interactive Entertainment. Imagine if team PlayStation takes home all the glory. Or better yet, imagine if team PlayStation has such a good time playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that they convince their superiors to let Nintendo bring Crash Bandicoot to Smash Ultimate. Now wouldn't that be a dream come true?

Bill Gates certainly has some dollars in the bank, and since he stopped working full-time at Microsoft back in 2008, most of those dollars have been going to charity and his philanthropy ventures. Despite that, Gates has reclaimed his seat as the world's richest person.

According to Bloomberg, as of November 16th, Gates has de-thrones Amazon head Jeff Bezos for the world's richest person seat. Gates, who is worth around $110 billion, took the lead ahead of Bezos, who is worth approximately $109 billion. Over the course of the years, Gates has distanced himself from Microsoft while still maintaining a hefty amount of the companies stock. Throughout his distancing, he has been replaced as the world's richest person on numerous occasions by; Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim, and Jeff Bezos.

Bloomberg says that Gates now 1st position is due to Microsoft earning $10 billion from a Pentagon contract, which ultimately raised their stock price. The contract was for cloud computing services for the Defense Department's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). Back in June, the Microsoft stock price was at $136, now the current price for the stock is sitting at a solid $150. Microsoft are also planning on releasing their next-gen Xbox soon, so they could increase stock prices further, which would then give Gates a more sturdy lead.

Reports have come out detailing a new on-demand music streaming service being developed by TikTok's owner, ByteDance.

According to Financial Times sources, ByteDance is currently planning a new streaming service app that incorporates a social media aspect. The Financial Times says that the app will include a library of short video clips that users can search for and then pair up with their desired songs. These video clips and songs can then be forwarded to users' friends.

The report also says that ByteDance is currently in talks with big companies such as Sony, Universal, and Warner for music licensing purposes. While you might think that this new app is some years off from releasing, the reports indicate that it could be launching in places like Brazil, India, and Indonesia as soon as December this year. It's also said that ByteDance's new app plans to undercut the current market price of other music streaming apps like Spotify and Apple Music. Meaning the cost will be under $10, and more like $7, or even $5 a month.

As another year rolls on past we can expect another Game Awards show, this time something extremely big is planned, but what's bigger than the nominees for 2019?

Back in early September, The Game Awards showrunner Geoff Keighley said that for 2019's annual event will be "celebrating the act of creation" by turning the "stage over to a group of visionary teams selected to share their new projects with you". Keighley concluded his teaser by saying that 2019 will be "very special" for viewers and that it will mark The Game Awards 5th anniversary.

Before jumping into what those special announcement could be, The Game Awards wouldn't exist without the amazing titles that are given its awards. Keighley took to Twitter last night to tease that next Tuesday will be the date when we get the list of official nominees for this year. At precisely 12pm ET / 9AM PT the announcements begin. Stay tuned as I will be doing a follow-up article with the full list.

Super Mario Odyssey released back in 2017, and we are still hearing about how the game was developed. New information has surfaced regarding the development of Luigi and his almost full costume change.

According to Super Mario Odyssey Character Art Lead, Sho Murata, in the recently translated 'The Art of Super Mario Odyssey', Luigi was teed up for a full costume change. Murata explains that he and his team were initially thinking of a "drastic costume change for Luigi at first, but we ultimately went with a simple look". This was because they thought his original color scheme would "work well against the background of this game's world".

Murata also dropped some cool new facts about Luigi's design, saying that if players hadn't noticed already, the balloons that Luigi is holding in-game are the "same colors as Super Famicom controller buttons". The art lead also says that the designers wanted to make it apparent that Luigi directly came from the Mushroom Kingdom, so they sported his satchel with "only stickers from the Mushroom Kingdom. One of the stickers is actually out of circulation..."

Iran is currently under protest as thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the fuel price jump.

Iranian people have taken to the streets to express their concern over the fuel price jump that saw the prices of fuel rise over 50%. In response to the wide-spread disapproval of the fuel price hike, the Iranian government has decided to switch off internet access in the country in an effort to block communication between protesters. The blocking of the internet also makes it extremely hard for journalists to share news regarding the size of the protests.

At the moment, there are only small pockets of internet connection available, and people within these pockets are managing to get the word out about the recent events occurring at ground zero. While that might sound like there is still internet available, it cannot be stressed enough how rare the connection is. The Iranian government hasn't officially acknowledged that it has shut off internet access.

The answer to efficient and cheap space travel might just be simpler than you think; all it requires is a cable and a weight.

Above, we have a video from Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, and this time around, the scientific YouTube Channel is exploring the idea of cheap and effective space travel. The idea that is proposed begins with what is called a 'Tether,' which is simply a weight with a cable attached to it. Kurzgesagt suggests that humans build extremely long versions of these tethers and place them at a safe distance around our planet and use them as a 'free' means of propulsion to other planets.

Since the tether would be spinning around our planet, spaceships would be able to attach onto the tether and use its rotational force to be pushed towards a designated planet. The video says that there will be a few problems in doing this; humans would have to create smaller spacecrafts that would be able to match the tethers speed throughout our atmosphere (12,000km per hour). While that might sound extremely difficult, it should be noted that traditional spacecrafts need to reach 45,000km per hour to exit our planet's gravity.

A new means of storing renewable energy is being researched, and strangely enough in incorporates using mountains as big batteries.

The study by Julian Hunt and his colleagues of Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) details a new system of energy storage called "Mountain Gravity Energy Storage (MGES)". MGES places cranes on the edges of steep mountains and then moves sand/gravel from a storage site located at the bottom of the mountain to another storage site located at the top.

This process is much like a ski-lift and requires a motor or a generator to transport the storage vessels but instead it generates electricity when the sand is lowered back down from the top site. How is this done? MGES uses gravity to its advantage, converting energy into storeable electricity that is proportional to the sand's mass, gravity and height of the mountain its situation on.

Just last week, Microsoft and Forgotten Empires revealed Age of Empires IV, bringing it back from shadows of what was assumed to be development death.

The reveal was held at the Microsoft event in London, XO19, and during the event, one critical aspect was discussed 'how is Age of Empires IV going to be monetized after its initial launch?' Age of Empires' Creative Director Adam Isgreen tuned in to answer this question, and luckily, microtransactions aren't on the table for the upcoming RTS.

Here's what Isgreen had to say, "The idea of microtransactions in a real-time strategy game isn't a thing. DLC, expansions - all of that is things that we're going to be exploring for Age 4." He continued and said, "While we definitely already have ideas in terms of where we want to go past Age 4, in terms of expansions and stuff, a lot of that is going to be driven by the community and the players, where they want to see the game going".