If you are in need of a large injection of funds, you can always put your white coat on and work something out for NASA in their newly-announced CO2 Conversion Challenge.

NASA's new CO2 Conversion Challenge will see a team of scientists and inventors discover a way to convert CO2 into molecules that can be used to produce many other things... if this discovery happens, there will be a winner who secures a huge $750,000.

The initial focus NASA has on the CO2 Conversion Challenge is for teams to convert CO2 to Glucose, in any way they can. NASA explains: "Help us discover ways to develop novel synthesis technologies that use carbon dioxide (CO2) as the sole carbon source to generate molecules that can be used to manufacture a variety of products, including "substrates" for use in microbial bioreactors".

Intel will soon enough be unleashing its next-gen-but-kind-of-not Z390 chipset, with GIGABYTE's upcoming Z390 Gaming SLI motherboard teased courtesy of VideoCardz.

As you can see, the Z390 Gaming SLI motherboard has one of its PCIe x1 slots upgraded to a x16 port allowing for two NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards to be installed in SLI. We're not looking at GIGABYTE's highest-end motherboard, as there are some models above this before we even enter the AORUS brand.

There's a pre-installed backplate which looks slick, and less connections on the I/O which is a shame - but expected on a more mid-range motherboard. Still, it will support two of NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 2080s or RTX 2080 Ti in SLI and not break the bank (at least on the motherboard, the GPUs are an entirely new argument on price, ha).

Fortnite's new update adds a new spin onto the massively popular game, with Epic Games' new 'High Stakes' update for Fortnite also adding in a grappling hook that will change the way you play the game.

Fortnite's new grappling hook is named 'The Grappler' and can be fired between 10-15 times and will see players firing it up or at something to get out of a fight. The Grappler lets you fly up hills and buildings at ease, especially if your enemy doesn't have one and you do.

The new High Stakes update includes an all-new Getaway mode, new skins, and so much more.

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards have built-in RT cores for ray tracing and Tensor cores for some very interesting AI-based goodies in the future... but what about more games using these RTX features?

Now we have Mass Effect developer BioWare addressing some questions over Twitter on whether their upcoming game Anthem will have support for DLSS, ray tracing or multiple GPU gaming rigs. Executive Producer on Anthem, Mark Darrah said "We're looking into it right now" when asked about DLSS, ray tracing and mGPU in Anthem.

EA will be publishing Anthem, so it would make sense for BioWare's next-gen game to support RTX since Battlefield V will have support for real-time ray tracing on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 20 series cards.

Mega Rumor and Trigger Warning: This is all rumor territory, and I'm just reporting from various sources who are providing the relative performance of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti against the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

Yesterday I reported about the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti being 35% faster in the 3DMark Time Spy run over the GTX 1080 Ti, but now new information has surfaced which drives the tease-o-meter up to 11/10. 3DCenter.org has compiled a list of relative performance gains over the GTX 1080 Ti from the it-still-doesn't-have-drivers GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Some of the results are freaking impressive with games like Far Cry 5 expected to receive a huge 55% performance upgrade at 4K, while PUBG will see a large 45% increase. The list includes Call of Duty: WW2, For Honor, GTA V, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Rainbow Six: Victories, The Crew 2, and The Witcher 3.

Anthem apparently won't follow Destiny's expansion model and carve up story content and fracture the playerbase: future story DLC will be free. Plus BioWare touches upon the game's post-story content.

As a live service game it only makes sense that Anthem won't have a season pass. Post-launch content will be funded by cosmetic-only microtransactions--lootboxes won't be in Anthem--rather than paid macrotransactions (expansions, passes, etc) and will include various endgame activities called Elder Content. Anthem's Elder Content umbrella enfolds numerous things to do when players finish the story, such as Strongholds, a high-level 4-player event that doles out strong gear, as well as rotating seasonal content to keep users engaged.

In a PAX West 2018 panel BioWare devs touched on Anthem's endgame:

BioWare explains why Anthem's two-choice conversation system is quite condensed and how it can potentially affect gameplay and NPC relationships.

In many ways Anthem aims to redefine BioWare games. Mostly known for rich singleplayer RPGs with expansive dialogue, Anthem is an action-based online multiplayer game that scraps Mass Effect's conversation wheel in favor of a more streamlined binary system. Gamers will only be able to pick two dialog options when talking to NPCs, but the studio says Fort Tarsis--the home to all mission-doling agents and NPCs--will change based on your decisions.

Game flow is one of the major reasons for Anthem's diminished dialog choice. BioWare says it wants to give action-oriented players a means of moving forward without necessarily being overwhelmed by conversation (as a live game it's important players are continually engaged and that BioWare caters to all sorts of fans).

We've known for a while now that BioWare is working on a new Dragon Age game, and sources tell Kotaku's Jason Schreier that it'll have live service elements. And there's evidence a new Mass Effect is in early planning stages. Now at a recent PAX West 2018 panel key BioWare devs assert that Anthem's online infrastructure could power certain storytelling elements in its future games--including new Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles.

Now that BioWare has put insurmountable effort into Anthem's online framework and live game infrastructure, the studio sees that its other franchises could benefit from a similar online path, at least when it comes to continuing story and lore.

Future Dragon Age and Mass Effect games could be quite different from what gamers are used to in this respect (and possibly in a good way). Thanks to a live game approach, which would require gamers to be online versus playing offline, BioWare could examine data and ensure post-launch DLC and stories are tailor-made to how gamers play and how much progress they've made with certain characters.

Final Fantasy XIV just got a lot more popular with a big influx of players, Square Enix has announced.

Few games have experienced a dramatic turnaround as Final Fantasy XIV. The MMORPG started out messy and alienated many core fans, but through countless hours of crunching, guidance, and player-driven feedback, Square Enix completely evolved the project. As of now the game remains one of the best (if not the best) MMOs on the market today, and with some 14 million users, it has the numbers to back it up.

Ahead of its fifth anniversary celebration, Final Fantasy XIV has now topped 14 million registered players. This milestone saw a whopping 4 million players join Eorzea in 2018 alone. Beloved game director and savior of Eorzea Naoki Yoshida had this to say about the achievement:

AMD has itself teased its upcoming next generation CPU and GPU architectures on the new 7nm node, with a press release teasing that AMD's "next major milestone is the introduction of our upcoming 7nm product portfolio, including the initial products with our second generation "Zen 2" CPU core and our new "Navi" GPU architecture".

We already know that AMD worked closely with Sony on the Navi GPU architecture for the next-gen PlayStation 5 console, but now AMD is officially talking about the Navi architecture filling out its 7nm portfolio and making a point that its one of their next major milestones in the family. AMD is a little cryptic and throwing some people off by saying that their first 7nm GPU will launch "later this year" with some thinking it'll be Navi, but this will be their Vega 20 GPU.

Interestingly, we see AMD has "already taped out multiple 7nm products at TSMC" which include not just the 7nm GPU, but their first 7nm server CPU that will be launched in 2019. AMD adds: "Our work with TSMC on their 7nm node has gone very well and we have seen excellent results from early silicon. To streamline our development and align our investments closely with each of our foundry partner's investments, today we are announcing we intend to focus the breadth of our 7nm product portfolio on TSMC's industry-leading 7nm process".

Microsoft is ramping up to the launch of Shadow of the Tomb Raider by unveiling a new custom Xbox One X console, with an awesome trailer to show it off - the attention to detail is stunning, with it being one of the best-looking consoles of its generation.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics worked with Microsoft on the custom Xbox One X console, with Head of Studio at Eidos-Montreal saying: "Shadow of the Tomb Raider will challenge Lara Croft in new and unexpected ways. Our team has created a diverse set of skills, combat techniques and equipment for players to master, and they'll certainly need them".

Don't think it'll be cheap as the custom Shadow of the Tomb Raider Xbox One X console is currently on auction on eBay for a current bid of $7600, and I'm sure it'll go up. 100% of the sale of the beautiful piece of technology will benefit the Best Friends Animal Society, which is a "leading national animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters".

The newly released open world survival game SCUM has had its developer release a new patch for the title, the update adds anticheat code, fixes memory leak issues and much more.

Gamespires, the developers behind SCUM have debuted a brand new patch to SCUM. Within this patch, server admin controls have been added, sentries have been slightly nerfed, disabled chat and mic icon while in single-player and anti-cheat code has been implemented. It should be noted that any exploits will be counted as cheating and result in a bannable offense if detected.

If you are interested in checking out the official SCUM Steam listing, a link can be found here. In other news about SCUM, just within the first 24 hours of release SCUM already managed to sell a whopping 250,000 copies, if you want to catch up on that story, visit it here.

As Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle reaches its one year anniversary from its release date, Ubisoft has unveiled some essential statistics and facts players have compiled together throughout playing.

According to the official Rabbids Twitter account, Ubisoft are celebrating the one year anniversary for Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Through this celebration Ubisoft has released some "essential statistics, facts of your adventure and more." An example of the statistics, is that players have traveled 674 million kilometers within the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario was the most chosen Team Leader and Rabbid Yoshi dealt the most damage.

Also in celebration of the Mario + Rabbids achievement, Creative Director of Ubisoft Milan, Davide Soliani said that he would shave his beard if Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle ever reached 2 million copies sold, fans are now holding the Director to his word. A fan replied to Soliani's Tweet about the newly released statistics, here is what was said "While we are talking about numbers? Didn't you once say that you would shave of your beard if mario + rabbids would reach 2 million sales? Because I think it might have hit that target Davide......." Soliani replied with "Btw, I did." If you are interested in checking out the official Ubisoft post on their forums, that can be visited here. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is exclusively available on the Nintendo Switch.

Binding of Issac players have no doubt heard about the Repentance DLC that is currently on the way, this DLC has now been deemed the final DLC by game developer Edmund McMillen.

A Twitter post has revealed that Edmund McMillen, The Binding of Issac developer has decided that Repentance is the final DLC (for real this time) for The Binding of Issac. For those that don't know, Repentance is a coming paid DLC that will feature a new soundtrack, new cutscenes, more story and "+ a ton more content that will make you sh*t your butts!"

It is unknown when Repentance will be released but what we do know is that the DLC will be published by Nicalis and that McMillen is currently working with modder FixItVinh on including the Antibirth mod as apart of the games canon story. This also includes the games soundtracks as well. McMillen answered a question regarding who would be doing the new tracks, here is what he had to say "we are going with Planet Ridiculon 100% so it all feels cohesive and part of the official game." The full details for the DLC will be announced at a much later date.

So you can't wait to get your hands-on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate just like every other fighting gamer, well you are in luck because Best Buy have announced Super Smash Bros. Ultimate weekend events for anyone to try the upcoming title.

Best Buy have announced that they will be featuring Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournaments every weekend for an entire month. The events will begin on the 8th of September and will roll over until the 7th of October. These events will give future players of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate a chance to get hands-on with the title before it releases on December 7th.

Best Buy released a statement, here is what they had to say regarding the events: "Here is your chance to play this highly anticipated game from Nintendo before it launches on Friday, December 7. Choose one of the many new characters or play as one of your favorite returning characters. Early access gameplay and prizes will be available only at select Best Buy locations. You could be one of the first to play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Nintendo Switch."

Over the weekend, Eminem surprised not only the entire rap game but anyone close to the genre with a brand new album. The album is focussed on anyone that disliked the artists' previous album "Revival", included within the album is a song that features samples from Square Enixs' Kingdom Hearts.

According to an interview with Rolling Stone, Eminem was asked what sample is featured on the track "Good Guy (feat. Jessie Reyez)" and the artist replied with "That's me doing my video game thing. Kingdom Hearts. It's a Japanese video game, and that's the theme song from it." It appears that Eminem is a very big fan of Kingdom Hearts' melodies and loved it so much that he deemed the melodies "It's one of the dopest melodies I've ever heard."

The artist continued by explaining how he went about sampling the video games' melody, here is what he had to say "Filtered it, did some chops, did some processing to it. I basically made it unrecognizable, but I know they would have still found it. That's why we had to deal with the clearance. But when I do anything I try to make it to where it's not fully recognizable." If you are wondering if this is the first time a Kingdom Hearts melody has been featured in a rap song, it is not. J Cole released Dollar And A Dream III which happened to have Kingdom Hearts II's Darkness of the Unknown behind the lyrics.

Gamers will have at least three different ways to try BioWare's big new multiplayer game ahead of launch, the developers have confirmed.

BioWare will be hosting at multiple phases of technical testing ahead of Anthem's February release, including alpha and beta tests alongside a polished VIP demo slice that sits closer to the finished product's quality. The Anthem demo launches February 1, 2019 on all platforms but you'll have to pay to access it. PS4 gamers who pre-order get in, alongside EA Access and Origin Access subscribers on Xbox One and PC. Origin Access Premiere subscribers get both demo and full game access.

"The demo is a demo. It's not a tech test, it's not a beta that comes out three weeks before the game where 'your feedback' - like, no, it's 'this is the game and we hope you love it,' and at that point that's really what we're showing," BioWare's Mike Gamble said in a PAX West 2018 panel.

Doom II was released all the way back in 1995 and there has been a secret that nobody has found... until now. Daikatana developer (who remembers that hot mess of a game) John Romero smashed up a tweet congratulating someone for finding a secret in Doom II that has remained unsolved since 1995.

Zero Master discovered the secret on Map 15 of Doom II, where a teleporter would be shown as a secret, but wouldn't trigger the secret itself. Why? Because a bug stopped the player from setting it off, a few secret herbs and spices needed to be used... which after reading it, sound ridiculous.

Thankfully there weren't any 100% completion notifications and achievements to unlock in games from the 90s, else we would've been driven mad. In order to complete the secret on Map 15 of Doom II, you had to have an enemy knock you into it... you couldn't just press the button. Unbelievable, but also awesome - 24 years on.

Can you believe it... Google released their first web browser 10 years ago now, with Chrome being a "fresh take on the browser" in 2008. Fast forward to today, and it's the most popular browser.

Internet Explorer was a thorn in internet users' sides, and for some people they might not even know that Chrome launched as a Windows-only beta app, but Google eventually ported it over to both Linus and macOS in 2009.

Google strapped together the Apple WebKit rendering engine and Mozilla's Firefox to build Chrome, with Google at the time not being so evil, and made Chrome's source code available to all through their Chromium project.

The developers at Epic Games must not sleep or even go to the bathroom, as there's a huge new Fortnite update around the corner called High Stakes, and it adds a bunch of exciting stuff to the beyond-popular game.

Fortnite's new update will include a brand new event called High Stakes, something that will add a new outfit and four new masks as you can see in the above photo. The High Stakes update will roll out with a new Limited Time Mode called Getaway, something that Epic will be showing off during their PAX West stream on Twitch today.

Expect a bunch of new challenges in the High Stakes event, which I'm sure will follow its theme of heists and gambling which will be an interesting twist on the usual flair of Fortnite.