Ion Storage Systems is on the verge of a battery tech breakthrough. What began as a university research project is now rolling off the production line and being tested by the US Department of Defense.

Lithium-ion batteries could eventually be replaced by solid-state batteries, which Ion Storage Systems in Beltsville, Maryland, is developing and is currently being tested by the Department of Defense and other major electronics manufacturers. What is the difference? According to reports, solid-state batteries are typically described as the "holy grail" of energy storage, as they replace the liquid electrolyte and graphite in a lithium-ion battery with a solid ceramic material and lithium metal.

The difference between these two designs is severe, with solid-state batteries having higher energy density, faster charging, greater safety, and longer lifespan. For those who don't know, lithium-ion battery cells can overheat and, in some cases, combust, causing thermal runaway, which is an escalating series of exothermic reactions within a battery cell. An example of this is an electric car battery catching fire and firefighters being unable to put it out as the cells within the battery keep combusting, resulting in more fires and a domino effect occurring.

War Thunder is a free-to-play online military simulator that enables players to engage in simulated combat in air, land, and sea. The game is renowned for its attention to detail and has gained quite an audience, some of whom are former military personnel who seemingly still have access to restricted information.

Why does this matter? Because one War Thunder forum user was just banned after leaking a page of an AV-8B flight manual, which marks the ninth known case of classified or, at the very least, restricted information being released to the public via the War Thunder forums in an attempt to influence the technical levels of the game. The user uploaded a section from a NATOPS manual for the AV-8B and TAV-8B, Harrier, which are used by the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

The manual is marked with "Distribution Statement C," meaning it's restricted to government personnel only and not suited for public release. Why did this user leak this information? To win an argument, of course. The user wanted to prove they were right in a technical discussion about the vehicles and to hopefully influence the way the game is designed.

Microsoft has rolled out a new update to Snipping Tool that enables Windows 11 users to easily make memes to send to their friends with a push of a button.

The new feature is built into video screen capture, which can be accessed by pressing Win + Shift + R, or simply searching for it and launching the app. Users can then select the record a screen recording video option, highlight the area of their desktop they wish to capture, and begin the recording.

Once the recording is finished, a preview of the video will open up, and at the top right-hand corner of the window, there will be a small "Export GIF" option. After selecting this option, users will be presented with two quality options: Low and High.

New reports indicate that NVIDIA is moving up the launch date for its new entry-level desktop graphics card, the GeForce RTX 5050 8GB, to July 1. Known insider MEGAsizeGPU has taken to social media to confirm that the original launch window of late July has been brought forward, with NVIDIA notifying its partners of the new date.

The GeForce RTX 5050 8GB GPU is set to be positioned as an entry-level option for PC gaming. It is the first desktop 50-Class GPU release since the GeForce RTX 3050 8GB from 2022, and will feature 2560 CUDA Cores, which is 33% fewer than the RTX 5060 and 16% fewer than the RTX 4060. Interestingly, it's the exact CUDA Core count as the GeForce RTX 3050.

Other specs confirmed by multiple sources are that the GPU will ship with 8GB of GDDR6 memory in desktop form, not the newer and faster GDDR7 memory found in the rest of the GeForce RTX 50 Series line-up. The good news is that the GDDR6 memory will be clocked faster, delivering 320 GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

While current rumors point to the desktop GeForce RTX 5050 8GB GPU launching next week, NVIDIA has officially launched the laptop variant, with devices with the GeForce RTX 5050 laptop GPU now available for sale. The GeForce RTX 5050 laptop GPU ships with 2560 CUDA Cores, 8GB GDDR7 VRAM, 128-bit Memory Bus, and 115W TDP.

And with the embargo lifted on sales in China, we're starting to see some early benchmark results for the new RTX 5050 compared to the RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 laptop GPUs, all running at 115W. One outlet has posted synthetic 3DMark benchmark scores covering the FireStrike Extreme, TimeSpy, and Port Royal tests, and the results are interesting.

TimeSpy is widely considered one of the better synthetic benchmarks for determining real-world gaming performance, and here we see the GeForce RTX 5050 laptop GPU (with Core i7 14650HX CPU) deliver a score that is 17% lower than the RTX 5060 and 29% lower than the RTX 5070.

A trusted leaker has revealed some new details about Sony's and Microsoft's next-generation consoles. The leaker writes that Microsoft and Sony will use the same GPU technology for their upcoming consoles.

That leaker is KeplerL2, who posted to the NeoGAF forums and wrote that PS6 and the next Xbox are using the "same GPU architecture." Notably, Kepler stated earlier this year that both the PS6 and next Xbox are scheduled to use AMD's UDNA GPU architecture and that both consoles are slated for release in 2027. As for UDNA, that GPU architecture is currently codenamed "gfx13" and is the next GPU architecture after RDNA 4, which is the architecture in the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9060 discrete PC graphics cards.

For reference, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles use GPUs based on the RDNA 2 architecture, and Kepler writes that UDNA architecture should provide a leap of about 20% faster performance per compute unit in traditional rasterized rendering, and twice as fast in ray tracing and AI operations. Moreover, Kepler writes that these new consoles will increase HDMI bandwidth to 80 Gbps, which could enable higher refresh rates at 4K, or even 8K gaming.

No, Nintendo hasn't decided to start bringing its back catalog of games to PC, that will probably never happen. Instead, Mario Kart 64 has just received a PC port from the team at Harbour Masters, which was created using the same disassembly and recompilation template seen with previous native PC ports for Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

The game's original code is decompiled and recompiled in a PC-friendly codebase and language without containing any of the original game's assets. Harbour Masters calls the release Spaghetti Kart, requiring a ROM of Mario Kart 64 to work. As this is not an emulation of the Nintendo 64 hardware, the game benefits from modern PC gaming features.

This includes rendering the game at higher resolutions, with Ultrawide support, and with performance that can hit 120 FPS. It also means texture packs, new audio, and other remastered assets can easily be added to the game. This PC port includes a course editor and the ability to tweak several settings not present in the original N64 release.

An early build of Concord was uploaded over the weekend, and now reports are claiming the build dates back to November 14, 2023, nine months before the game was released to its tragic reception and ultimate demise.

For those who have never heard of Concord, or vaguely remember hearing the name within the gaming market, Concord was a flash in the pan that cost Sony reportedly $400 million in development, but was eventually pulled from marketplaces and refunds issued to those who purchased it.

The game was developed by Firewalk Studios, which has since closed, and debuted with a $40 price tag. It attracted less than 1,500 players concurrently, and due to it being a team-based shooter attempting to compete with Overwatch, Sony was forced to take down the live servers and essentially delete the game.

That's not a typo. Some rare GPUs with both GeForce and Radeon branding are making their way into gamers' hands. This looks to be limited to ASUS's TUF Gaming models, as both TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9000 Series and GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs now share identical shrouds and cooling.

As seen in our reviews of the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 OC Edition and ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 OC Edition graphic cards, the only thing visually separating the two is the 'AMD Radeon' and 'GeForce RTX' branding. With that, it looks like a production issue or assembly mix-up is causing Radeon and GeForce RTX-branded TUF Gaming components to be put on the wrong GPUs.

Over on Reddit, user Blood-Wolfe posted a picture of their brand-new ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, stating they would exchange it. The latest case occurred four days ago, with Reddit user Fantastic-Ad8410 posting images of their rare ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce Radeon RX 9070 XT.

Recently, tech outlet Digital Foundry posted an in-depth review of the Nintendo Switch 2's hardware, which offered a deep dive into all aspects of Nintendo's latest console. Naturally, this included a closer look at the console's 7.9-inch LCD screen, which boasts a 1080p resolution, VRR support with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, and wide color and HDR10 support.

On paper, it sounds like a significant improvement over the original Nintendo Switch's smaller 720p display. And for the most part, it is, with better contrast, color accuracy, resolution, and refresh rate. However, as seen in the Digital Foundry video, the LCD screen's motion clarity and response times are significantly worse.

This is a pretty big issue as it means that fast-moving images on the display can look blurry with noticeable ghosting. The video includes side-by-side comparisons of both the original Switch and Switch 2 displays browsing through game libraries, and it's clear that the Switch 2 is blurrier with more visible ghosting. There's also a demonstration of Super Mario Sunshine with the same outcome.

Samsung has confirmed it will be hosting an Unpacked event on July 9, where it will be unveiling, presumably, its latest Galaxy devices.

The Samsung event will be held in Brooklyn, New York, beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT. As with all of Samsung's Unpacked events, it will be livestreamed on Samsung's YouTube channel and website. Unsurprisingly, Samsung didn't reveal any details about what it will be unveiling at the event, but we can assume it will be the company's Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold foldable, as the video the company shared features the text "Ultra Unfolds."

Additionally, the teaser video suggests that whatever these new devices are will be super thin, presumably thinner than the current Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6. As with all of Samsung's devices, we can expect whatever new Ultra smartphones the company unveils it will feature the latest cutting-edge technology, and presumably the recently unveiled Exynos 2500 chipset, which features 4K at 120Hz support, 320MP camera image processing sensor, 8K at 30FPS support, and big improvements to AI capabilities.

In a game where you come across vast open fields or dense forest-like environments full of foliage and trees, these are often created using procedural algorithms that require large amounts of memory. AMD just released a new paper titled 'Real-Time GPU Tree Generation.' It could be a game changer for developers creating large open-world environments to explore.

AMD and Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany's approach shifts everything to the GPU, using Work Graphs with mesh nodes to generate "gigabytes-worth of tree geometry from kilobytes of generation code." What does that mean? Well, a detailed polygonal forest full of trees and complex leaves that could theoretically require 34.8 GB of memory to store all of that data is cut down to a remarkable 51 KB. Yes, that's Kilobytes.

AMD's paper tests its innovative approach to procedural tree generation by testing its performance on a Radeon RX 7900 XTX. It notes that rendering a scene with unique trees, fully animated, takes just 3.13 ms on the GPU.

Chinese laptop manufacturer MECHREVO seems to be ready to launch their new gaming laptop powered by NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU.

NVIDIA hasn't officially said its new RTX 5050 would be announced on June 24, but MECHREVO is preparing to launch their first RTX 5050 Laptop GPU-powered gaming laptop. We don't know if NVIDIA will announce its new desktop-based GeForce RTX 5050 as well as the laptop-ready RTX 5050 Laptop GPU, but we should know in the days ahead.

In a new post on X by user @realVictor_M we're hearing MECHREVO has just announced its new Kuangshi X gaming laptop that will be powered by the new GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU that's powered by the GB207 GPU. The launch of MECHREVO's new Kuangshi X gaming laptop will launch tomorrow -- June 24 -- but no other laptop manufacturers have teased, or released a gaming laptop with the RTX 5050 Laptop GPU just yet.

Samsung has officially unveiled the Exynos 2500 chipset, the company's latest mobile processor that's built on a second-generation 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process.

The latest chipset is equipped with a 10-core CPU and a new AMD-based Xclipse GPU and ushers in improvements in AI performance, power efficiency, and camera performance. The details for the new chipset can be found on Samsung's website, and according to the listing, the Exynos 2500 CPU is a tri-cluster architecture and features the following: 1x Cortex-X925 core clocked at 3.3GHz, 2x Cortex-A520 efficiency cores at 1.8GHz, and 2x Cortex-A725 cores at 2.74GHz, and 5x Cortex-A725 cores at 2.36GHz.

As for performance gains over the previous generation, Samsung claims a 15% improvement in CPU performance. Moving on to the GPU, the Xclipse 950 GPU has been developed in collaboration with AMD and is based on RDNA 3 architecture. The new GPU ushers in a dual-shader engine that comes with improved ray tracing performance and is capable of increasing frame rates by up to 28% compared to the previous generation.

Samsung Foundry has reportedly seen a significant multi-year delay of its new 1.4nm process node, putting its focus into "rapidly advancing" its new 2nm node, according to new reports.

In a new report from Korean outlet SEdaily, we're hearing that Samsung's new 1.4nm process node might not flow into mass production by 2028, which is almost two entire years behind Samsung Foundry's original timeline, underlining that Samsung's advanced process nodes simply aren't ready for mass production.

Samsung has gone through extensive restructuring of its semiconductor division for a while now, with its new chairman confirming prior mistakes. Recent reports indicate its new 1c DRAM yields are improving, leaving the company headed into mass production of its new HBM4 memory.

Apple is planning major collaborations with TSMC on advanced packaging, with reports that we will see TSMC's new advanced WMCM and SoIC packaging for its next-gen A20 and server chips.

In a new report from DigiTimes, we're hearing that TSMC's next-generation manufacturing process will be shifting into two new packaging forms in 2026. Apple will reportedly shift to WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module) packaging, while TSMC's new SoIC (System on Integrated Chips) will be used for Apple's new server chips.

The new WMCM packaging for Apple's next-gen A20 and A20 Pro chips has some serious flexibility using this new packaging technology, where Apple can add multiple dies -- including the CPU, GPU, memory, and other parts -- at wafer level, before they are sliced into individual chips. The new packaging will allow Apple to mass-manufacture more efficient SoCs.

Microsoft has confirmed that it will return to Gamescom this year, but we're still not sure what exactly will be shown at the event.

Now that Microsoft has grown to a gigantic Roman Empire-like entity in the games industry, it's no surprise that the company will be attending major video games trade shows. That's the case for Gamescom 2025, with Microsoft recently announcing it will attend the show in Cologne, Germany later in the fall.

Xbox's presence at Gamescom will run from August 20 to 24, and Microsoft's bustling stable of games publishers and developers will be in attendance. Blizzard says it'll be at the show with World of Warcraft in tow, offering "five days of non-stop community celebrations." Blizzard confirms it will reveal new details about World of Warcraft's eleventh expansion, known as Midnight.

You can now buy Nintendo Switch 2 motherboards from Chinese resellers directly from the production line for just $124 on local marketplaces like Goofish.

The Chinese resellers have shown images of a panelized PCB design, which is a manufacturing technique where multiple individual PCBs are arranged onto a single PCB during production. In the later stages, manufacturers and assemblers like Foxconn, separate or depanelize them.

The PCB that can now be purchased is identical to those in the official retail version of the Nintendo Switch 2 -- including the same market stamps which are usually applied during verification. Chinese marketplace variants are just missing some of the metallic shielding layers for important components, but that's about as close as we'll see to the official motherboards inside of the Nintendo Switch 2.

Buying a used car isn't just about spotting a good deal - it's about protecting your money, steering clear of mistakes, and walking away with confidence that you made the right call. Learning the real tips on how to buy a used car gives you control at every step, from your first search to the final handshake.

Before the shine of fresh wax or low mileage sways your judgment, take a deeper look under the surface. Use trusted tools like vingurus.com vehicle history to uncover what the ads won't say. Know how to compare financing options. And whether you're working with a private seller or car dealers, understand the details that can make or break the deal.

Budgeting isn't just about sticker price. It's about the monthly payment you can handle, plus car insurance, routine repairs, and optional extras like an extended warranty. Look into options from a credit union or bank; check the auto loan or car loan rates. Before you sign a financing agreement, be sure to know all the terms of the interest rate, hidden fees, and repayment terms.

ASUS has officially announced its ROG NUC 2025 Mini-PC which has been in the headlines for months now, with some high-end hardware inside with up to the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU. Check it out:

The company offers its new ROG NUC 2025 with not one, but four GPU options including the RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, RTX 5070 Laptop GPU, and finally, the RTX 5060 Laptop GPU. CPU-wise, ASUS offers two different CPU variants with the Core Ultra 9 275HX and Core Ultra 7 255HX, both based on Arrow Lake-HX.

ASUS supports up to 96GB of DDR5-6400 memory inside of the ROG NUC 2025, while the thermal system includes a triple-fan cooling design and dual vapor chambers for the CPU and GPU. There's support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, but unfortunately, we don't have any Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.