Microsoft today revealed its new lightweight Surface Laptop, a premium-priced notebook aimed at ousting Apple's Macbook.

Microsoft's new Surface Laptop features a stark disproportion of price versus specs that mirror Apple's hardware playback: the cheapest Surface Laptop costs $999, and comes with a measily 4GB of RAM (DDR3 or DDR4 or frequency not specified), a seventh-gen Intel Core i5 Kaby Lake CPU with Intel HD Graphics 620 eGPU, and a 128GB SSD. This indicates that the Surface Laptop is a "laptop" in name only: it's really a thinner, more optimized Surface tablet formed into a notebook's form factor, complete with a lightweight OS to match.

The Surface Laptop can be configured to higher specs including a Kaby Lake Core i7 and 8GB/16GB of RAM as well as 256GB or 512GB SSDs, but no pricing info was given on the upgraded models. The notebook features a 13.5-inch 2256 x 1504 (201ppi) PixelSense display with 10-point capacitive touch. Microsoft boasts the Surface Laptop's battery lasts up to 14.5 hours with the i5 8GB model, but only when watching video.

Today Intel is announcing two new SSDs for the Datacenter. Both are based on Intel's 384Gbit 3D TLC flash technology. Normally TLC Flash of any flavor indicates lower performance and low endurance, but not this time. Intel has architected a brand new 12-channel controller and new firmware to power the DC P4500 and DC P4600. The result? The DC P4500 and DC P4600 are the highest performing Intel NAND-flash SSDs to date.

The DC P4500 is designed for high performance, massively scalable mainstream storage. The DC P4500 is available in capacities of 1, 2, and 4TB and two form factors; U.2 2.5"x 15mm and HHHL AIC. The DC P4500 is rated for 0.7 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) and is warranted for 5-years.

Intel DC P4500 steady-state factory specifications:

Elon Musk's Gigafactories could change the world. In Leonardo DiCaprio's National Geographic documentary Before The Flood, Musk explains that the Gigafactory isn't built just to manufacture lithium-ion batteries, but he hopes is will serve as a template for how others could contribute to converting the world to clean energy.

He also said that they did a calculation to see what would it take to transition the entire world to sustainable energy. According to him, we would need 100 Gigafactories.

Of course, Musk has no intention of building those factories himself. He hopes to encourage others to follow his path and start building factories that would have a huge impact on the well-being of our planet.

Bandai Namco just released the first trailer for its new Dark Souls-esque action RPG Code Vein, and we're very, very impressed.

Code Vein seems to be a delicious cocktail of some of the best JRPGs: we have Dark Souls combat with tons of rolling, hacking and slashing, infused with Dragon's Dogma's co-op pawn system, a fresh style straight out of an anime series, dark gothic storyline, and a dungeon-delving mechanic to top it all off. The game is being developed by the team that makes God Eater games, but Code Vein is a completely new IP.

Although Code Vein is a"dramatic dungeon-exploring action RPG," it certainly reminds us of Dark Souls in many different ways. The in-game world of Vein is dark, macabre and infused with mystery, and the combat itself looks to satisfy the bloodlust of ravenous Bloodborne and Souls fanatics everywhere.

Toshiba has announced its latest HK4 Series SATA SSDs are now shipping on NetApp SolidFire SF4805, SF9605, and SF19210 all-flash arrays. All of the new drives arrive in the 2.5-inch form factor, with 2.6W of active operation power consumption.

The HK4 enterprise-ready SSDs are made for the datacenter, with low power consumption, latency, and high performance. The drives are made with Toshiba's fresh 15nm MLC NAND flash and their in-house controller, with enterprise class end-to-end data protection, and power loss protection.

Toshiba's new drives arrive in two different series: HK4R, and HK4E. Starting with Toshiba's new HK4R series, we have 240GB, 480GB, 960GB, and 1920GB - while the HK4E series has 200GB, 400GB, 800GB, and 1600GB. Toshiba backs enterprise clients up with 5-year warranty and 2 million hour MPOH, and easy to deploy purchase for the datacenter with the use of the 2.5-inch form factor.

UPDATE: For some reason, THQ Nordic let IGN announce Darksiders 3 with an IGN First reveal. The trailer can be found below along with info from the official Darksiders 3 press release.

Amazon has prematurely revealed Darksiders 3, a sequel in THQ Nordic's fan-favorite series.

Thanks to strong sales of Team Ninja's celebrated game Nioh, Japanese games publisher Koei Tecmo has reported boosted yearly earnings.

According to Koei Tecmo's FY2016 briefings, Nioh, Team Ninja's fresh new IP, sold 1 million copies worldwide in its first two weeks. This was in spite of the title being a PS4 exclusive, but Sony's PlayStation 4 reigns over the market with 60 million consoles sold to date.

Nioh spearheaded the publisher's games segment earnings, and the Japanese games-maker even said Nioh was its "most successful title in the west." I for one absolutely love Nioh and frankly think it's one of the best games ever made--if you own a PS4 do yourself a favor and pick it up.

For the first time in over 10 years, AMD is beginning to take back some of that glorious CPU market share pie from Intel - thanks to the release of their new Ryzen processors.

The latest quarterly market share report from PassMark, which is based on thousands of submissions that enter their database every quarter, AMD is making strides in CPU market share - even though it's a small uptick, it's a valuable one. You can see that the uptick is pretty large considering the slowly dwindling numbers from 2006, where AMD didn't really have anything worthwhile for consumers to buy in the CPU business.

Everything changed with Ryzen, and while a 2% increase isn't much - the new Ryzen 7 processors sold like hotcakes - selling out as soon as they hit. Keep in mind that AMD was also bottlenecked by AM4 motherboard availability, but we should begin to see all of this disappear as the weeks and months fly past - so the Q2 2017 numbers for AMD should be even more interesting.

We've been hearing more and more about AMD's first truly next-gen GPU architecture in years, Vega - but now the company is getting official in PR statements for the Q1 2017 results.

In AMD's recent Q1 2017 highlights release, the company said: "AMD's "Vega" GPU architecture is on track to launch in Q2, and has been designed from scratch to address the most data- and visually-intensive next-generation workloads with key architecture advancements including: a differentiated memory subsystem, next-generation geometry pipeline, new compute engine, and a new pixel engine".

Exciting stuff, that's for sure. I'm sure we're going to see something unveiled just before, or during Computex - with a physical launch in the weeks after, sometime in late June.

In order to playback 4K content on Netflix, you need a few things: Windows 10, an Intel Kaby Lake-based CPU, and you have to use Microsoft's oh-so-meh Edge browser. If you don't, Netflix will load up to 1080p and that's it.

But, things are changing - slowly, and in not such a good way with NVIDIA preparing Netflix 4K support in the near future. In order for the Netflix 4K content support, you'll need:

NVIDIA seems to be providing very access to Netflix 4K content, as there are some large caveats right now: you need a GTX 10 series card with over 3GB of RAM, and now you can use the Netflix app from the Windows Store (instead of requiring Edge only), and you won't be able to use SLI at all.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's first DLC is called The Master Trials, and features a new mode, new armor sets, and more.

The Master Trials features five major pieces of content that range from modes to equipment and new ways to play the game.

First we have the new mode called Trials of the Sword, which is an arena-style combat mode that pits players against spawning waves of enemies--but with a catch: they have to use armor and weapons found on enemies.

15 years ago today, Bethesda created one of the best games in its entire career: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

I've gone on record many times saying that Morrowind is the best Elder Scrolls ever made, and I'll do the same today. If you haven't played it yet, then remedy that right away. Morrowind is a true RPG, a game that plunges you head-first into a world replete with magic, fantasy, and more importantly, absolutely no hand-holding.

There's no compass, or waypoints: you have to find your way with a journal, and NPCs are absolutely vital. You actually have to take notes and pay attention, and it's all too easy to get lost in Vvardenfell's massive sub-continent. But that's the magic of Morrowind, and it's a place I'll always love to get lost in.

Mario Kart 8: Deluxe has smashed sales milestones and explodes onto the U.S. market with almost 500K sales in its first day.

Nintendo today announced that Nintendo Switch's new Mario Kart 8: Deluxe sold a total 459,000 digital and physical sales in a single day within the United States alone. The new racer is now recognized as the "fastest-selling game in the long-running Mario Kart series." The game has a high attach rate of 45%, which means that almost half of Nintendo Switch owners bought the game at launch.

A bit of quick math shows Nintendo made about $27.5 million in a single day's sales of Mario Kart 8: Deluxe in the United States. Remember that the Nintendo Switch's first-party market was sparse before Mario Kart 8 launched on the handheld-console, so it certainly makes sense why so many gamers purchased the title. It's absolutely one of the must-have games for the system, and Nintendo is gearing up its other first-party games like ARMS and Splatoon 2 to be system-sellers as well.

Samsung has received approval to test their self-driving cars on the public roads in South Korea.

According to The Korea Herald, Korea's Land Ministry has signed the approval which will allow Samsung to test the self-driving cars on actual roads. Until now, they have only tested their vehicles on a modified racetrack.

Not much is known about Samsung's self-driving cars, but the same report describes them as a "commercialized Hyundai vehicle equipped with the latest cameras and sensors."

After it postponed Saturday's launch due to sensor issue, SpaceX has successfully launched and landed yet another Falcon 9 rocket.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying NROL-76, a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, was launched on Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Around nine minutes after the launch, the rocket safely returned to Earth.

Ex-Ubisoft creative director and Assassin's Creed designer Patrice Desilets has always wanted to make an open-city game centered around the devil causing havoc in 17th century Netherlands. In a recent interview, the Canadian dev says his vision will come to light...some day.

"Eventually I will make 1666: Amsterdam," Patrice Desilets said in a recent interview with Gameology. A quick primer about Amsterdam: 1666: Desilets was making the rather interesting-looking game under THQ Montreal's label, but THQ went defunct and Ubisoft scooped up the Montreal studio and the IP. Desilets left Ubisoft and spent years wrestling with Ubisoft for control over the IP he had created, and eventually won the creative rights to it back in April 2016.

We had hopes that Desilets would one day make the game, and he hasn't forgotten about his original vision. He says that his smaller dev team, Panache, will make the game "eventually": "[Amsterdam 1666] is my game about the devil in us; we are all good guys, but sometimes we're not. But why are we evil sometimes? It's an international subject matter also, and in our culture the devil symbol is there so I want to attack that. Eventually we're going to make it here at Panache," Desilets said during the interview.

Most of a game's concept art is never used, but we can only imagine how awesome Mass Effect: Andromeda would look and feel if BioWare had used more of it in the final game.

As a gamer, I really like concept art. These drawings are a window into a game that never was, the purest form of imagination running wild, and visuals that give developers much-needed ideas to mold their game around. Eric Bellefeuille, Presentation Director at Eidos Montreal, worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda's UI, and just released some fresh concept art that frankly puts the actual game to shame.

One of the most stark differences between the concept art and the final game is how great the characters look. Cora looks fantastic, and Peebee looks much, much better. The character models are for the lack of a better word quite beautiful and barely resemble the grotesque half-finished mockeries found in the retail game.

Half-Life launched 19 years ago now, but when it first arrived in Germany, it was a censored version of the game that has right up until now, been the only version German gamers could play - unless they pirated it, of course.

The censored version of Half-Life saw robots instead of soldiers, barnacles spewing nuts and bolts instead of blood and gore, and sad looks from scientists if you shot them - instead of them dying. Germany has a history of strict limitations on gaming content, with Half-Life being a very big example of that censorship.

Schnittberichte reports that "it is now possible for the publisher to release the uncensored versions again in Germany officially".

Things aren't looking good for AMD with all of these lukewarm rumors on Radeon RX Vega, with the latest purported results of the HBM2-based graphics card barely edging out NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1070 in 3DMark TimeSpy.

The leaked result on Radeon RX Vega was powered by AMD's own Ryzen 7 1800X processor, with the system scoring 5950. If we compare this to our results, the GTX 1070 scores 5703, while the GTX 1080 pushes 6709, and the GTX 1080 Ti leaps ahead with 8312.

AMD's upcoming Radeon RX Vega seems to have its GPU clocked at 1GHz base, and 1.2GHz boost - at least in reference form. There's 8GB of HBM2 with 512GB/sec of memory bandwidth, and a TDP of 225W. If these results are true, Vega isn't exactly a GTX 1080 killer, let alone a GTX 1080 Ti killer. But then remember that AMD could be under delivering with performance right now, and things will change with tuned drivers and final hardware.

Neil Blomkamp's on-again off-again 'Alien' sequel looks to now be totally dead, according to the director who started it all, Sir Ridley Scott.

Speaking to French publication Allocine and translated by Screen Rant, Scott is pessimistic about the sequel ever coming to fruition, saying "I don't think it will ever see the light of day. There was never a script. Just an idea that evolved from a dozen or so pages. I had to participate as producer, but it didn't go farther because Fox decided it didn't want to do it. As far I was concerned, I had already done Prometheus and I was working on Covenant."

The film was apparently near to being greenlit back in 2015 before being shelved in favour of Scott's proposed films.