Ubisoft is continuing to improve the experience for The Division players, with the company preparing its new v1.6.1 patch that will include the new loadouts feature, something that wasn't expected this early, but has been dragged up to May.

There are also two free expansions coming this year, but the first one won't drop until late July or August, but the new loadouts feature will make it into the v1.6.1 patch that's due next month - and is available right now in the Public Test Server (PTR). The new feature will let you "store up to six different character configurations, with each loadout reflecting the weapons, gear, skills, talents and mods you had equipped when you hit 'save'. You can swap between loadouts pretty much instantly from the menu, and pick from a established list of names ('Marksman', 'Assault' etc.) to help you remember which is which", reports PC Gamer.

The patch notes on The Division's upcoming v1.6.1 patch can be read here.

Cliff Bleszinski is preparing his own new game with Lawbreakers under his studio Boss Key Productions, but he is known for his work in developing Unreal and Gears of War, talked at the recent Dubrovnik's Reboot Develop 2017 saying that AAA games of today cost too much to make.

We know that game development costs are ridiculously high, with CliffyB saying: "$60 is still a lot of money to ask people for. And to ask them to make that bet multiple times per year? Gamers are picky, they're smart. This is a nearly unsustainable model, unless you're an Activision, 2K or a Sony". He even went as far to compare it to the restaurant scene in the US, saying: "They're not bad, they're not great, they're just there".

CliffyB said that this sees game developers wanting to imitate successful games or franchises, because big AAA developers can't afford for their game to fail. Instead of near guaranteed failure in the big AAA leagues, CliffyB said that developers could do something he calls AA game development, adding: "Games that look and play great but pick their battles in terms of budget and marketing".

SK Hynix has just teased the world saying that they're pushing out their new GDDR6 RAM, with up to 16Gbps of bandwidth - a massive increase from the already huge 11Gbps available on the GDDR5X that NVIDIA has on its new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and its refreshed GTX 1080 with 11Gbps.

In the PR statement, SK Hynix said: "SK Hynix Inc.today introduced the world's fastest 2Znm 8Gb(Gigabit) GDDR6(Graphics DDR6) DRAM. The product operates with an I/O data rate of 16Gbps(Gigabits per second) per pin, which is the industry's fastest. With a forthcoming high-end graphics card of 384-bit I/Os, this DRAM processes up to 768GB(Gigabytes) of graphics data per second. SK Hynix has been planning to mass produce the product for a client to release high-end graphics card by early 2018 equipped with high performance GDDR6 DRAMs".

GDDR6 will be a replacement for GDDR5 and GDDR5X, with SK Hynix "collaborating with a core graphics chipset client to timely mass produce the GDDR6 for the upcoming market demands". I'd say that the core graphics chipset client is NVIDIA, and that their new GDDR6-based graphics cards that I talked about in this report on the purported GeForce GTX 20 series, led by the GTX 2080.

Microsoft has crafted quite the technical wizardry for Project Scorpio, with a semi-custom chip made by AMD which includes 12GB of GDDR5 RAM that, according to Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has "no real technical limit on games".

Wardell was fielding questions on Twitter, where he said: "It'll take a couple years to make AAA level core-neutral game to fully utilize the power like Scorpio and APIs like DX12/Vulkan". He added that with Stardock's Ashes of the Singularity was their "first real test of Nitrous (our multicore engine). We love it but it's not AAA".

He added that "one big feature of DirectX12 and VulkanAPI that ppl don't hear much is that I can load gfx assets to the GPU from multiple threads", following this up a minute later on Twitter with "most of your loading screen time today is caused from processing textures and meshes. In DX12/Vulkan, this can easily be done in parallel".

The long running saga of when the next 'Avatar' films might finally be released has taken a new turn, as 20th Century Fox issue new release dates starting from 2020.

According to Deadline Hollywood, and later confirmed by the official Avatar Facebook page, James Cameron and co. are targeting Dec. 18, 2020 for 'Avatar 2', followed by the third installment on Dec. 17, 2021. Then there'll be a three year gap for 'Avatar 3' on Dec. 20, 2024 and then another year for the Dec. 19, 2025 finale 'Avatar 5'. I'm sure you're all chomping at the bit for that.

The ambitious modding project to put Red Dead Redemption's in-game world into GTA V has been shut down by Take-Two Interactive.

Rockstar Games' parent company Take-Two Interactive has forced the developers behind the anticipated "Red Dead Redemption V" mod to cancel the project. The mod itself aimed to offer a Red Dead Redemption experience on PC by bringing Red Dead Redemption's full in-game map into GTA V as a "story mode modification." The modders were extracting game assets--textures, models etc--from the Xbox 360 version of RDR using the .White (dot white) toolkit and importing them into a PC port of GTA V.

Sadly all of this work was for naught: Take-Two Interactive has reportedly issued a cease and desist letter to the team. "I know this is hard pill to swallow, but as you may have noticed we did get contacted , and we sadly have to say we are stopping this project," the project's leader Mr LeisureWear confirmed on the GTA forums. "So thanks guys, we were all so happy to see this, but it isn't going to happen, sorry."

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has sent yet another stunning image from space.

The photo was taken when Cassini was 870 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) away from Earth, and it shows our planet between the rings of Saturn.

Although far and too small to be visible in the image, the part of Earth facing Cassini at the time was the southern Atlantic Ocean. Even Earth's Moon is visible in a zoomed-in version of the image.

The display on Samsung's new Galaxy S8 is already mind blowing, but the South Korean giant doesn't want to sit on its hands - with rumors flying that the company will begin production of its 7th generation AMOLED panels in Q2.

PhoneArena reports: "Samsung Display has continued research to diversify its OLED portfolio to include foldable OLED, chip-on-plastic OLED and 800ppi high-resolution OLED". Now this is pretty big news, as the rest of the OLED makers are still working on their 6th gen panels, while Samsung leads into its 7th gen. The big golden nugget of news is that Samsung is working on "chip-on-plastic OLED" displays, and "800ppi high-resolution OLED".

Now, where would Samsung use an 800PPI high-res OLED display? For me, the purported Galaxy Note 8 smartphone would make sense - as the Galaxy S9 won't see the light of day until 2018. 4K displays in smartphones aren't really a thing right now, except for Sony's current 'Premium' line of smartphones - so if I had to place any bets, I'd say Samsung's upcoming Note 8 will rock a massive, and oh-my-gosh beautiful 4K-capable 800PPI display.

AMD has launched their new Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards, led by the Radeon RX 580 and RX 570, and now it's time for HIS to unleash their new RX 500 series cards.

HIS leads their new cards with the Radeon RX 580 XTR IceQX2 Roaring Turbo, which is virtually identical to its RX 480-based predecessor - except that the refreshed RX 580 requires even more power. HIS has used a 6+8-pin PCIe power setup, thanks to the Polaris 20 XTR GPU sucking up so much power - something we went over in our review of the SAPPHIRE RX 580 Nitro+ and its high power consumption.

HIS has 4 different Radeon RX 580 graphics cards:

We've already written about Intel's next-gen CPUs launching two months early, but now we have a date: May 30. Intel will reportedly announce its next-gen CPUs and new X299 chipset during their conference at Computex 2017 in Taipei.

The latest news is coming from Bench.life, which is reporting that Intel's Senior VP Navin Shenoy will make the announcement during his keynote speech on May 30, while general availability of the new CPUs will start on June 26. Now, what new CPUs can we expect from Intel, especially now since AMD kicked them pretty hard in the pants with their new Ryzen CPUs.

Intel is reportedly preparing new 4, 6, 8, 10, and even new 12-core CPUs - so expect Hyper-Threading on most of them, making them 4C/8T, 6C/12T, 8C/16T, 10C/20T, and a monstrous 12C/24T. We should expect Basin Falls X-Series to include new Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors. Kaby Lake-X will be the family of quad-core processors, while Skylake-X will handle the higher-end SKUs.

Researchers and engineers are using Rockstar Games' huge open-world Grand Theft Auto V game to help autonomous cars drive better.

Anyone who's played GTA V knows the world is bristling with AI drivers who react and interact with the environment, and there's tons of randomized events that mimic real-world happenstance. Key researchers are using GTA V-derived code to power simulations and test scenarios to test the software that runs autonomous vehicles--in a sense the vehicles are "playing" the games, learning from interactions within the world itself, and more importantly the mistakes they make. This generates tons of data for the vehicle's "brains" to learn from, and gives engineers valuable information in the process.

The vehicle's machine-learning algorithms are put through their paces via simulations, which act as the other half of testing outside of the cars testing their skills on actual roads. With its myriad of cars, people, and dynamic physics-filled sandbox GTA V is the perfect virtual testing ground for driverless cars to learn from. Researchers at Intel Labs and Darmstadt started using GTA V for autonomous vehicle testing last year, and now other teams have picked up on it.

Twitch is giving streamers even more ways to make money and key YouTube Gaming streamers and content creators could be pulled over to the platform.

Since the recent controversy that caused major advertisers to break ties with YouTube, content creators are weighing their options. Amazon's Twitch platform took advantage of the situation by announcing its new revenue sharing system, which allows viewers to tip streamers via "Cheers" that use "bit" emotes. These "bits" are a virtual currency that represent actual cash values that viewers buy; prices range from 100 bits for $1.40 to 10,000 bits for $126, and even a whopping 25,000 bits for $308. Streamers, however, only earn a cent per bit.

Twitch promises that more streamers will get access to its new tipping system next week. Apart from tips, Twitch also allows streamers to sell games on their streams and gives 5% kickback for any games purchased this way. These initiatives make the platform more and more attractive for key content creators and Amazon no-doubt hopes that big-name YouTubers will jump ship and cross over to the service.

Crytek's Shanghai studio has reportedly closed down because the company couldn't pay its rent.

According to Niko Partners games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, Crytek Shanghai suffered a humiliating closure and was kicked out of its offices by the building's owner. What's even worse is that all of the company's remaining employees still remain unpaid despite promises of payment for their loyalty. Ahmad notes that employees hadn't been paid since September 2016.

An anonymous Crytek Shanghai employee corroborates Ahmad's claims with an older Reddit post. "After never been paid again in 7 months, today finally the landlord kicked us out as he must have not been paid either," the purported employee wrote on Reddit. "Thank you Crytek for destroying our lives."

As the first devices with Samsung's 10nm process start to hit the market, like the Galaxy S8, the company is already starting to spin up the next generation of their 10nm process in Korea.

Samsung has announced that they have already qualified their 10nm LPP manufacturing process which is expected to offer double digit improvements to performance or power.

Samsung started production for the current LPE process in October with devices hitting the market this week. That puts us at around a six month lead time between the beginning of production and an actual availability date. However, much of the equipment and processes should be the same as 10nm LPE, the current lead manufacturing process at Samsung which could mean a shorter time to market.

Only yesterday Activision officially confirmed Sledgehammer Games' new Call of Duty is set in World War II, and today we have a fresh batch of leaked campaign and multiplayer info.

According to the leaks, Call of Duty WWII's campaign should be told through the perspective of the Allies, and touts a "gritty, intense journey through the battlegrounds of war" with higher-end "bold, lifelike visuals found in cinematic blockbusters." We also get a tease of the game's co-op mode, which will be a "high-octane" standalone experience with its own storyline. The info also says Call of Duty WWII will release November 3, 2017.

Planning on playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on-the-go with a friend? You might want to grab an extra Switch Pro controller.

Polygon has confirmed that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe doesn't support the JoyCon Grip in local wireless multiplayer modes. That means players can't combine two JoyCons into the comfortable JoyCon Grip when playing split-screen--even if one player uses the Switch Pro controller, the other player still has to use a single JoyCon. Why? Because every JoyCon counts as its own controller, so a JoyCon Grip counts as two controllers for one person, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe apparently only supports a two controllers max for wireless split-screen play in Tabletop Mode.

Remember that the Nintendo Switch's two detachable JoyCon controllers are meant to be split up and used by two players while in Tabletop Mode, facilitating the popular arcade style play the system is known for. In fact, the official Switch reveal video shows people playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in wireless splitscreen using two individual JoyCons. Interestingly enough, Polygon doesn't answer the more pertinent question--is the JoyCon Grip supported in two-player splitscreen when the Switch is docked?--and I'm pretty sure this restriction is in place for a good reason.

The recent leaks were spot on: Activision has officially confirmed Sledgehammer Games' new Call of Duty game will be set in World War II.

Call of Duty WWII is the official name of this years annual FPS, and Activision is set to reveal the game during a livestream next week on April 26 at 10AM PST / 1PM EST. Sledgehammer Games' Michael Condry confirmed the game would release in November, as every Call of Duty game has before it.

Sledgehammer Games has teased that their new Call of Duty will "return to its boots on the ground roots" and make us go "absolutely nuts" when its revealed. Call of Duty WWII is Sledgehammer's biggest game project yet.

Google had some of its best engineers on its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) project, but some of them have departed the search giant for one of the most secretive AI projects in the world.

The engineers left Google, teaming with one of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists, Chamath Palihapitiya. The company that Palihapitiya lured the engineers to is called Groq Inc., at least for now - but there's little known about Groq. There are a few SEC filings from October and December, with the company raising $10.3 million. In its SEC documents, Groq named three principals: Jonathan Ross, who helped invent the TPU, Douglas Wightman, an entrepreneur and former engineer at the Google X "moonshot factory" and Palihapitiya, the founder of investment firm Social Capital. The listed address is Social Capital's headquarters, reports CNBC.

Palihapitiya said in an email: "We're really excited about Groq. It's too early to talk specifics, but we think what they're building could become a fundamental building block for the next generation of computing". The fundamental building block for the next generation of computing? Alright, now I'm excited.

Languages... who needs them? These are the thoughts that go through Tony Stark's Elon Musk's mind, so the Tesla and Space X founder and his think tank have devised a device that would plant a neural plant inside of your head.

Musk's grand plan would make AI assistants of today look like they were made in the stone age, for one big reason: languages. These brain implants would push through "uncompressed" communication between people, so that you could upload your thoughts instantaneously between your brains - without language barriers. It sounds fantastic, doesn't it?

During a recent interview, Musk said: "If I were to communicate a concept to you, you would essentially engage in consensual telepathy. There are a bunch of concepts in your head that then your brain has to try to compress into this incredibly low data rate called speech or typing. If you have two brain interfaces, you could actually do an uncompressed direct conceptual communication with another person".

HTC's latest flagship, announced in April last year, was called the HTC 10 so when we first started hearing about this year's flagship, the HTC 11 was a logical name choice.

However, shortly after the company announced the U Ultra and U Play in January, the rumors started floating around that the Taiwanese company would name their latest flagship the HTC U.

According to the latest report from Evan Blass, a trustworthy leaker, neither rumor is correct. Or both are true. Blass says that phone would be named the HTC U 11. This information reportedly arrived from an individual briefed on the company plans.