Google is "aggressively" moving the production of its Pixel smartphones out of China, and into Vietnam, according to new reports from Nikkei.

The move by Google to get its Pixel production out of China seems to be over Trump's moves of slapping tariffs on the country, so Google is moving production out of the country for long-term benefits. Vietnam is also a new hot spot for cheap wages, since China can't offer the same slave labor rates it used to.

Google is looking to cut costs (from labor) the drama and risk associated with the tariffs, by moving Pixel production to Vietnam. More specifically, it looks like Google is eyeing off an old Nokia factory in the Vietnamese province of Bac Ninh. Google is reconditioning the plant, so it can crank up manufacturing there for future generation Pixel smartphones, I'm guessing beyond the about-to-be-released Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones.

I still remember getting my first 3dfx graphics card, the Orchid Righteous 3D -- a 3Dfx (capital D) Voodoo 1 with 4MB of RAM. I later had Voodoo 2 in SLI, and then a Voodoo 3 3000, but the Voodoo 5 was always a dream for me. But recently, TPU forum member 'SWZSSR' acquired a Voodoo 5 6000 Revision 3700A and it looks absolutely glorious.

3dfx announced and teased the Voodoo 5 6000 but it was never released, a halo product that rocked an insane 4 x VSA-100 processors each closed at 166MHz and each packing its own 32MB of 166MHz SDRAM. The Voodoo 5 6000 would've been the world's first graphics card with 128MB of RAM, but just 1000 test cards were made at the time.

In early tests the Voodoo 5 6000 was beating NVIDIA's at-the-time beast of a GeForce 2 Ultra, but it was just too expensive to make and in the end it didn't make it to market and 3dfx went out of business.

AMD has had a phenomenal past couple of years with it culminating better than anyone could've planned it to celebrate their 50th anniversary this year, with the company releasing their new 7nm CPUs and GPUs in the Zen 2 and Navi products.

The hype has become very real with AMD's new Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards, which has propelled the company into the headlines once again. According to Jon Peddie Research's new Q2 2019 GPU market reports, AMD shipped more graphics cards than NVIDIA for the first time in five years.

JPR's numbers includes all types of graphics processors, so we're not looking at just discrete graphics cards as this includes CPUs with integrated graphics. AMD has a boat load of those as well, but the new Radeon RX 5700 and Radeon RX 5700 XT have been immensely popular, even in a world where its competitor clearly has the superior product in terms of performance, technology, and feature set.

The Order 1886 devs move to a new studio in Irvine, California, presumably to work on their brand new AAA project.

Ready At Dawn just revealed its new studio on Facebook, showing off a nice complex with open workspaces, leisure areas (there's even an arcade section), and a stylish design. The devs are currently hard at work on their next game and this move could be indicative of the studio ramping up development for a next-gen console launch. Several pictures of office screens were blurred out, presumably showing evidence of RAD's next title.

The team is definitely on a hiring spree to bolster the new project. Right now the studio has 11 positions open for new hires, including senior-level design, engine programming, and QA testing.

Yakuza 7 trades the series' well-known action combat for a more turn-based RPG system straight out of Final Fantasy.

With its next big Yakuza game, SEGA's Ryu ga Gotoku team is trying something new. Yakuza 7 not only stars a new protagonist ( Ichiban Kasuga instead of Kiryu) but it'll sport turn-based JRPG fighting instead of the real-time chaos of the previous games, but the system should still bring a kind of hybrid action bent. Toshihiro Nagoshi says the team is trying something new with Yakuza 7 and that it'll be a "watershed moment" for the series.

The new RPG focus should bring more replayability and add even more gameplay mechanics to the Yakuza games. We've seen previous titles like Assassin's Creed merge into RPG hybrids for this express purpose (as well as monetization) but I expect Yakuza 7's new combat won't entirely break the themes, flow, and style of the series. It's definitely an experiment and SEGA will change things back if fans don't like the new turn-based fighting.

CD Projekt RED's new games will only be in one of two major franchises: Cyberpunk and The Witcher.

In its latest 1H 2019 earnings report, CDPR reiterates its current lineup of games and IPs. The company still plans to release another AAA RPG after Cyberpunk 2077 ships in April 2020, and previous reports indicated the new unannounced RPG is another Cyberpunk project. We originally thought CDPR would move from Cyberpunk onto another Witcher title, but the studio invested heavily into the next-gen Red Engine powering Cyberpunk 2077 and we could see some more assets and content from the FPS RPG recycled into the new game.

CD Projekt RED has multiple teams working on different projects including Gwent, Cyberpunk, and the unannounced project. The company is still a dual-franchise developer and each IP is separate from one another.

Capcom will debut its new Resident Evil game at Tokyo Game Show 2019 this September, but it may be an online live service game instead of a mainline sequel.

Capcom is no doubt working on the next big singleplayer Resident Evil game, but it probably won't drop before next-gen consoles. In the meantime the publisher will release Project REsistance, a new title that hints at a multiplayer focus. Although no details were confirmed we've spotted some thumbnail grabs that strongly hint at a four-player L4D-style gameplay mechanic.

The pictures show four distinct survivors (possibly from Raccoon City) huddled together, hinting at a co-operative PVE focus. Nothing's been confirmed by Capcom, but don't be surprised if the game is a kind of multiplayer version of RE2 REmake's Survivors mode. REsistance should feature online-driven engagement with repeatable levels, challenges, and more, and will likely use the REmake's established third-person views, RE Engine graphics and physics, and assets.

LCG Entertainment has just announced that they have acquired multiple trademarks, assets, technology and some select IP's from Telltale Games.

LCG Entertainment has said that Telltale Games will remain under the same name and that this acquisition was made possible thanks to the contributions of various investors and buyers. Athlon Games was one of the main factors in making this acquisition possible and will be Telltale Games' main marketing and publishing arm.

According to Jamie Ottilie, the new CEO of Telltale, "All of us were big fans of the games Telltale created, as we strongly believe in games as a storytelling medium and nobody did it better...We believe there is still so much life to the brand and its franchises, and we look forward to building upon the company's storytelling legacy."

Spotify seems to be encouraging its user base to jump into creating their very own podcasts with a new button that has been leaked online.

The news comes from leaker Jane Wong who spotted the new button its Spotify's podcasts library. From the screenshot we can see if you press on Podcasts, then click on shows you will see the 'Create Podcast' button. Looking at the button description, we see that Spotify will allow for users to create their own podcast using Anchor, which is a podcast creation technology company that Spotify acquired earlier this year.

Spotify seems to be testing this button in select countries as I went to my own Spotify to check it out and it wasn't available. According to Spotify who spoke to The Verge, "We are always testing new products and experiences to improve the overall Spotify experience. Some tests will eventually make way for upgrades to our product, others are only tests. We have no further news to share at this time."

Microsoft, along with The Coalition have released the final system requirements for their upcoming Gears of War 5 title. The official PC system requirements are located below for both 'recommended' and 'minimum' PC's.

Right off the bat, Gears of War 5 will require 80GB of free HDD space, so clear off any old games you have on your hard drive before installing. A side note to the games size, this 80GB is not including the HD Texture Pack which can be assumed to increase file size considerably, especially if these textures are 4K.

Moving on, minimum graphics card requirements sit at the AMD Radeon R9 280 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760. Recommended are the AMD Radeon RX 570 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970. Obviously if you have a graphics card that is much newer than these models than the game will perform much better and you won't have to worry. For the official 'minimum' and 'recommended' requirements, check out the entire article below.

Microsoft has officially confirmed that they will be debuting a 'dark mode' feature for iOS and Android devices who use Outlook and Office.

The news was confirmed through an extremely cinematic trailer which has been released onto the official Microsoft Office 365 YouTube Channel. The trailer gives us some quick looks what the the 'dark mode' will look like on both desktop, iOS and Android devices.

According to Microsoft Office's head of design, Jon Friedman "A cross-company design collaboration propels us to seamlessly bring Dark Mode to the broader M365 product suite, and today marks the initial rollout of Dark Mode on Outlook for iOS and Android, as well as Office.com! The upcoming launch of iOS 13 will then extend this rollout to Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneDrive, Planner, and To-Do on mobile."

NASA has announced a new contest to engage students in, this contest will allow for students from public, private and home schools to name the Mars 2020 rover.

The premise of this contest is to encourage students into joining the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The contest is called 'Name the Rover' and will require students to write an essay and submit it to NASA for evaluation. Whoever is deemed the winner of this contest will be able to name the rover and also be invited to see the spacecraft launch in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine talked about the contest and said "This naming contest is a wonderful opportunity for our nation's youth to get involved with NASA's Moon to Mars mission. It is an exciting way to engage with a rover that will likely serve as the first leg of a Mars Sample return campaign, collecting and caching core samples from the Martian surface for scientists here on Earth to study for the first time."

Humans will forever be on this discovery chase of finding life outside of our own planet, and to do that we must invent the instruments that will make it much easier to detect potential life on other planets. Astronomers from the McGill University have just taken that step in the right direction.

These two McGill University students, Evelyn Macdonald and her supervisor Prof. Nicolas Cowan have devised a "fingerprint" for Earth. Both of the astronomers have used over a decade of observations of Earth's atmosphere which has been taken by SCISAT satellite that is currently monitoring the planet. With this data the astronomers constructed a transit spectrum of Earth, or a"fingerprint" containing information about Earth's atmosphere in infrared light.

Better known as a "bio-signature", the "fingerprint" also contains information about our ozone and methane levels which scientists expect to be the basic building blocks of life. Prof. Cowan said "A handful of researchers have tried to simulate Earth's transit spectrum, but this is the first empirical infrared transit spectrum of Earth. This is what alien astronomers would see if they observed a transit of Earth."

Yacht Club Games, the developers of Shovel Knight have announced a sequel for their extremely popular indie title. The sequel is called 'Shovel Knight Dig' and will take players (unsurprisingly) underground.

Above we have the Shovel Knight Dig trailer which reveals to us that Shovel Knight Dig will be a co-developed title. Not only are Yacht Club Games involved, but so is Nitrome, a fellow indie games developer based in London. Shovel Knight Dig has been in development for about a year now, and players should know that their main foe in this game will be Drill Knight who appears at the start of the trailer.

It has also been confirmed that Jake Kaufman will be returning to the sequel as the games soundtrack composer, this should please fans from the last game as the soundtrack was simply incredible. Yacht Club Games says that there will be new foes for players to battle against, new game mechanics, locations as well as some "familiar faces" to dig into. At the moment there isn't an announced release date yet, but we can assume that the title will be at least released on the Nintendo Switch

Ever wondered what it would take for someone in real-life to turn into the Joker? Well, you will have a chance of exploring that when the upcoming Joker film releases.

The Joker stars the brilliant actor Joaquin Phoenix, and despite not being based on the Joker comic books at all, the movie is gearing up to be unique, cinematically beautiful and full of acting talent. Above we have the final trailer before the film hits theaters, and just like a good trailer is meant to do - it shows off barely any story but still entices the audience to find out what the movies about.

Todd Phillips has directed this film and according to recent interview with Total Magazie, Phillips says that depending on the audiences reaction that he would love to do a sequel of some sort. Phillips must of loved working with Phoenix on this film, here is what he had to say about the actor "There's nobody like him. If he was willing to do it, and if people show up to this movie, and Warners came to us and said, 'You know what? If you guys could think of something...' Well, I have a feeling that he and I could think of something pretty cool."

Gearbox has just unveiled the PC requirements for Borderlands 3 that is right around the corner, with the minimum and recommended specs unveiled as well as what to best run it at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K.

But the more interesting thing is the customization and options that Gearbox gives you in Borderlands 3, with a huge laundry list of options to choose from. Some of the highlights for me are the display stats option which lets you display FPS, CPU, and GPU stats -- as well as the FidelityFX sharpening for Radeon gamers.

The biggest note here is that Gearbox is recommending AMD CPUs and AMD GPUs by default and highlighting them, as the developer teamed with AMD on optimizing and injecting AMD features and tech into Borderlands 3. You'll need a somewhat hefty 75GB of HDD space and at least 6GB of RAM to play Borderlands 3, with detailed system requirements below:

DARPA is on the look out for a new underground military tunnel or base, putting out a request for university-owned or commercially managed underground urban tunnels.

Why? Well, for research and experimentation purposes of course. DARPA is desperate, posting the request on August 20 and saying it wants responses by August 30 by 5PM ET. I guess the world might be ending on September 1, eh?

DARPA said that their ideal space would be a "human-made underground environment spanning several city blocks w/ complex layout & multiple stories, including atriums, tunnels & stairwells. Spaces that are currently closed off from pedestrians or can be temporarily used for testing are of interest".

Samsung didn't have the best time when it released its first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, which was met with awe and criticism -- and then quickly pulled from release and pushed into September.

The upcoming September release of the Galaxy Fold will roll directly into 2020 with Samsung not slowing with its foldable smartphone plans, and now LetsGoDigital have "come across" various Samsung patents for some crazy foldable phone designs. The site has done what it does best and offered a bunch of slick 3D renders of designs that Samsung could use with the Galaxy Fold 2 smartphone.

In this render, we can see the Galaxy Fold 2 possible folding vertically -- which would be very different, and very awesome. As long as there is no big crease in the middle, we could have it not being too thick and still feeling like a normal smartphone in your pocket.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is about to get a massive injection of new user-created maps, with over 6.6 million user-created "Forge" maps being pumped into the game.

The official Halo Twitter account tweeted the news, saying that the 6.6 million user-created Forge maps and game types have been crafted over from legacy Halo games like Halo 3, Halo: Reach and Halo 4 into higher-quality remastered form for Halo: MCC.

343 Industries is spearheading the move, using gamer-created maps and sprucing them up for Halo: Master Chief Collection. This means that your favorite map from the Xbox 360 versions of Halo 3, Halo: Reach and Halo 4 can be enjoyed with a fresh dab of paint.

Google is ramping for the release of its next-gen Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL handsets, and now we have a tease of the purported Google Pixel Watch from the good folks at LetsGoDigital.

The company filed the above patent back in mid-2017, but on August 27, 2019 the patent was published on the official USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) database. The patent includes a bunch of details on the 'smartwatch with built-in camera' giving away the most obvious thing -- it has a built-in camera.

We can see the round watch face style case with what appears to be analogue hands, which is an interesting style. The built-in camera would be an interesting thing to see, which could have Google using an under-screen camera or maybe have a slight gap in the screen at the top for a small camera. I wonder what applications and use cases there would be for that? Face recognition for payments on-the-go?