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Apple today asked a judge to throw out the order requiring it to hack the phone of an attacker in the San Bernardino case and followed it up with a request of its own: that its peers stand behind it to fight for privacy.

That's happened with Microsoft, whose President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith declared in a congressional hearing yesterday his company's "wholehearted" support of Apple's position, and that it would file an amicus brief next week to that end. (An amicus brief is a filing that allows those not directly involved in a case to have their say in it.)

Twitter has confirmed to us they "expect to be on a brief supporting Apple" and that the "filing deadline is Wednesday."

Armored Warfare lets you take command of a number of modern Main Battle Tanks and duke it out amongst your friends. The newest update puts in a number of great new features, a new intricate close-quarters map and new Chinese tanks, like the feared Type-98.

To sell you the new tanks there's a new Arms Dealer known as Zhang Feng who has some of the best deals on Chinese tanks around. His inventory is available to everyone who wishes to try out something new. A new Tier 5 premium tank has also been added, the WZ-1224, a 44-ton masterpiece with a 120mm smoothbore main gun.

The new Coastal Threat Map is a 1.2K square map with a mixture of open-spaces that allow for huge arcs of fire and a small city with its tight quarters to test your skills appropriately. For those that prefer PvE, the reward system has been modified so that it's almost as lucrative as playing strictly PvP. That way you'll be able to get some of the better loot while you practice and improve.

It's the weekend, there's a good chance that it'll be cold and dreadful outside in the majority of the world, so you might be looking for something new to play. And even though Call of Duty tends to get its fair share of criticism, Call of Duty: Black Ops III is having a free weekend. You can play the multiplayerr-centric Starter Pack for free until the 29th of February.

If you happen to get sucked in and enjoy the experience, Activision is selling the standard edition for 33% off the regular price, and the deluxe edition for 20% off. That's not a bad deal considering it unlocks the max level, which is capped at 55 in the starter pack, and gives access to the weapon paintshop, the gunsmith, emblem editor, arena, freerun mode, theater and the ubiquitous black market.

But you have only until the 29th at 1PM PST to try it out for yourself. Call of Duty has evolved considerably, making turns into new paths that some didn't quite like after Call of Duty 4, but Black Ops 3 might surprise you with the agile, fast-paced gameplay. Then again, you might completely hate it. But it's free.

You can already pre-order Battlefield 5, among other unreleased games, from an online retailer based in Switzerland already. On their site they've placed details that seem to presume what the game will be about, with no actual evidence to back up their claims.

While we know that that another Battlefield is coming this year, as sure as the wind blows in a storm, no details have been released and it's likely that this particular retailer doesn't actually have any real information from EA. Any details are assumptions based off of previous games. It's a safe bet to think that it's going to be an online, multiplayer shooter, and it's not a stretch to think that it could be set in an era we haven't visited in awhile, or at all, to keep it fresh.

Apparently the description has been changed since it was first reported by PCGamesN, and it no longer says anything about WW1. Though it would be quite refreshing to have something new, even if it isn't true to the actual combat style. Trench warfare, while deadly, frightful and not fun in real-life, probably wouldn't translate to a game very well. Verdun is a fascinating game, but it also takes some creative liberty to make it more interesting for gamers to play.

Ubisoft might be in financial danger, and in their weakest moment the French multimedia powerhouse, Vivendi, is attempting a hostile takeover to acquire the game company and add it to their extensive portfolio.

To stop the buyout from happening, Ubisoft is trying to appeal to the Quebec provincial government and even the national Canadian government to help keep from being absorbed. They're calling for investors around the world to help them in their endeavor.

"We want to increase the number of Canadian shareholders in Ubisoft to have better control over the capital. ... We feel it's a good defense." Yves Guillemot said in a statement about the current attempt by Vivendi to buyout their company.

DLC can be a precarious thing for all types of games, but it can be utterly terrible for those that focus on multiplayer and sharing the experience, tearing a rift in the community and causing a host of problems and issues that might push people away from the game, instead of drawing them in.

Major Nelson is no stranger to speaking his mind as part of his duties at Microsoft. DLC is a point of contention with many gamers, and he happens to agree that it isn't always a good idea. Particularly when it's paid. DLC, and Season Passes can be "really dangerous when it comes to multiplayer, because what happens is it fractures the community," he said during the latest Podcast Unlocked episode. "You have the maps, I don't have the maps, I didn't buy that map but you bought that map,' so when we all get together, 'Oh, you couldn't play the map."

It makes it difficult to have a coherent community that can actually enjoy the game together. And prohibiting those that already own the game from playing with their friends that own other parts that you don't have can potentially have the effect of diminishing the player-base completely. Free DLC, even if the content is small, can add significant value. A new map occasionally, new weapons, new skins. Those can bring people into the fold and keep them there, but making people pay for what might be considered (even though development time and cost of the items might be significant) trivial items can alienate users.

Although the recent leaks spoiled the surprise, The Pokemon Company proudly revealed the next generation of pocket monster action: Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon.

The latest Pokemon-centric Nintendo Direct didn't exactly reveal many details about Pokemon Sun and Moon, but we do know that the duo is slated to arrive in Holiday 2016 for the Nintendo 3DS. The reveal trailer (seen above) shows a few tidbits at the end, but we didn't get any new screens or actual in-game footage teases. Pokemon Sun and Moon will also feature online components across the 3DS like Pokemon X & Y.

Both games will be playable in nine different languages including English, Italian, Spanish, Korean, French, German, Japanese and Traditional and Simplified Chinese. "We hope that, through Pokemon, players can overcome langauge barriers and interact with other players from around the world," said Tsunekazu Ishihara, CEO president of the Pokemon Company.

In its current state, Microsoft's Windows Store is terrible for PC gaming. The spirit of PC gaming has always been about freedom--the freedom to push your hardware to its limits, to mod games, customize settings, etc. By restricting major features, the Windows Store isn't just jeopardizing the platform's core tenants, but it feels like Redmond is trying to console-ize PC gaming.

The Windows Store peddles "apps" that are designed to work across all Windows platforms--but there's a huge difference between, say, a consumer laptop and a high-end gaming rig. Storefronts like Steam sell games as traditional Windows desktop applications; the .exe files that can be modified with third-party tools and the like. The Windows Store, however, only sells universal apps designed for cross-platform use.

Universal apps have limited functionality. As all games on the Windows Store are universal apps, that means they're extremely limited. Windows Store flavors of Rise of the Tomb Raider, for example, don't support multi-GPUs via Crossfire or SLI. That's a huge blow for enthusiast gamers who want to flex the power of their gaming hardware, especially for demanding new games. We're also starting to see Windows Store exclusives: if you want to play Quantum Break, you'll have to buy it from Microsoft's hampered storefront. It's not coming to Steam.

Microsoft's latest timed-exclusivity deal has backfired. Despite having a month-long head start, Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox One has been outpaced by its bigger PC sibling in the sales department by a pretty hefty margin.

According to Superdata's latest research, Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC tripled the sales of its Xbox One counterpart in its first month of availability. "The game sold almost three times as many units on PC than it did on console during its first month," reads the report.

Although this is a pretty staggering loss for Microsoft, the company says it's happy with Rise of the Tomb Raider's performance, affirming the Xbox One game sold "over 1 million units" over the holidays. But why where sales so low? Microsoft released the game alongside Bethesda's open-world juggernaut, Fallout 4. Not exactly a good idea, was it, Redmond?

Virtual Reality is quickly becoming a mainstay in our future, something that's inevitable that we can't ignore. This isn't the 3DTV revolution that tried so unsuccessfully hard to make the screen pop-out and touch us. This is an immersive experience that can actually be done, with the right hardware and the right games that actually make use of the novel ways in which we can now interact with the environment.

The HTC Vive seems to have the leg-up in interactivity at the moment with the ability to define a specific space to play in. Legend Studio is taking that and making a true room-scale first-person game inspired by some of the innate exploration and the hallmark rogue-like aspects of The Legend of Zelda. A Legend of Luca is what the new era of VR is made for.

Seriously. It uses the HTC Vive to its fullest, being almost the perfect example of how to integrate room-scale gaming into your life. Haven't you ever wanted to be somebody else? And not just vicariously through a 1-dimensional screen in front of you, but instead nearly being able to feel what it's like to be Link (or Luca in this guise) and actually take a romp through dangerous dungeons? That's what A Legend of Luca is aiming to do, and it's one of the first of its kind by an indie developer. And we had a chance to sit down and speak with them about their hopes, dreams and where they wish to take this grand idea of theirs in the future.

I fondly remember the days of id Software dominating the graphics engine market, where their competition became Epic Games when they released the original Unreal. The idTech engine was a tour de force of graphical power, which continued to evolve through new games like Quake II, Quake III and so on.

Well, id Software wants to bring those days back with the Doom reboot, with the company hiring several Crytek staff over the last few years. One of those acquisitions was Lead Rendering Programmer, Tiago Sousa. Sousa recently talked about the new Doom, and his goals with the new engine, where he said: "My hope is not a very humble one, but I'd like to help bring idTech back to the forefront of technology once again".

Lead Project Progammer at id Software, Billy Khan, said that the team is geared to make Doom the best looking game running at 1080p 60FPS - where we reiterate that's for consoles, where the PC version should run at 4K 60FPS and beyond if you've got the hardware to drive it. Khan said: "We want players to wonder how DOOM and idTech 6 games can be so visually stunning at 60 frames-per-second at 1080p on all platforms, when other titles cannot even achieve a similar look at 30 frames-per-second. Our goal is to be the best-looking game at 1080p at 60fps".

We all know that AMD will be showing something Polaris-related at the Game Developers Conference next month, teasing they wanted to "spice things up", even more so that an AMD board with a "C91101" codename receiving the RRA's proof of certification.

What does the RRA certification mean? Well, all ASIC boards need to go through South Korea, just like the US - but, the RRA publishes its certifications in the public domain. A new board has been certified, and it belongs to AMD - with this board not popping up on the Zauba database, but it looks like a Polaris-based board. We already know that AMD will be launching its new Polaris-based products in mid-2016.

With the release of Far Cry Primal this week on consoles, PC gamers are itching to not only play the game but find out what the performance is like - and if we're going to see a decent jump in graphics over the potato boxes. Well, now we know what hardware you're going to need to game at 1080p @ 75-90FPS.

According to TotalBiscuit's stream on Far Cry Primal for the PC, he reported that his NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X at 1080p and a custom graphics quality setting performed at around 75-90FPS. Increasing it to 2560x1440 saw 60FPS or so, and at 4K he reported only 30FPS. The game doesn't stutter, so there's that - but 30FPS at 4K on a freakin' Titan X? Far Cry Primal better look damn good.

Far Cry Primal drops on the PC on March 1.

It looks like AMD is about to hit an even rougher patch, with rumors from DigiTimes that "AMD is likely to suffer from a record low share of both markets in the first quarter of 2016", according to their industry sources.

DigiTimes reports: "Demand for standalone video cards has already been sluggish given a weak PC market, and the market for standalone gra[p]hics cards continues to decline. In the already-shrinking market, AMD's rival NVIDIA has eaten away at its market share, the sources indicated". The latter part is true, with NVIDIA having 82% of the discrete GPU market - something we reported on in November 2015.

But AMD has reportedly been hurting on the CPU side of things thanks to an onslaught from Intel - and nothing really worthy of consumers and gamers moving away from their Intel-powered systems. We have AMD's exciting new Zen architecture around the corner, with DigiTimes' sources stating that it's still unknown if Zen is enough to save the company from more troubles. I agree there, but I think if Zen is as good as it looks on paper - and AMD has enough support from their partners, which I think are going to be an issue thanks to Intel's stronger relationships with the likes of ASUS and GIGABYTE - then we can expect some big changes from AMD in the near future.

The PC port of JRPG Disgaea is seeing some concerning reports across the web, both from users and reviewers (most notable is this scathing Destructoid article).

Developer NIS has responded quickly to the issues in a Steam forums news post, defending its hard work but also acknowledging what's happening.

"We spent a total of ten months on researching and developing this game for PC users, two months of which were spent on rigorous testing," it writes. "However, we have been made aware of the fact that some of our customers have been experiencing issues when playing the game."

Taiwan's technology giant Foxconn was set to purchase struggling Japanese electronics maker Sharp for nearly $6 billion this morning until it discovered some concerning information released by the latter company yesterday. Now Foxconn is taking time to look over the details, but says it hopes to resolve the situation quickly and then complete the deal.

Its concern is understandable: Sharp released a list of approximately 100 contingent liabilities that would see Foxconn inherit a potential $3.1 billion worth of risk should it take the company over, sources close to the matter say.

This latest disturbance is just one of many in the long-running on and off negotiations which date back to at least 2012.

Google's Boston Dynamics has an impressive new version of its Atlas robot on display in the video below, which gives off a pretty strong AT-AT vibe. In it, you can see Atlas open doors, walk through rocky, snowy terrain, pick up and move boxes, and get up again when it gets knocked down. Pretty impressive, especially considering this failure at last year's DARPA Robotics Challenge.

As for the source of its mystical robot powers, it features articulated, sensate hands, and an articulated sensor head with stereo cameras and laser range finder.

Sources close to the company and security experts are saying Apple is currently working on upgrading its iPhone security measures, which would shield them from potential win by the government in the ongoing encryption war. It's said they've been working on it since before the San Bernardino attack.

The new security would be configured in such a way that a backdoor couldn't be created for it at the government's request (as is currently the case). Specifically, it addresses the vulnerability introduced by the troubleshooting system that allows Apple to update system software without a password. Once the new security in place, the government could request all it likes: Apple wouldn't be able to oblige even if it wanted to.

Experts believe Apple will be able to go through with it. Should the government win the fight, it's expected a new round of court battles would begin, at which point Apple may introduce yet more security measures, and round and round we go. In other words, Apple currently has the upper hand and will for the foreseeable future, barring Congress involvement.

Samsung is getting serious about mobile storage. They may have brought back expandable storage with the Galaxy S7, but they want native storage to grow exponentially as well. And they're doing that by producing 256GB embedded NAND using the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard.

The UFS 2.0 standard will allow phones to enjoy read speeds that are nearly twice as fast as SATA 6, though still lagging behind NVMe enabled PCIe SSD's. The new embedded UFS 2.0 NAND from Samsung will be able to read at around 850MB/s and write at a much lower, but still acceptable, 250MB/s. They're quoting that it'll be able to sustain around 45,000 IOPS, which is far faster than the previous generation.

Samsung says that this is the ideal solution to record 4K footage to, since more mobile phones are beginning to have 4K capabilities. The faster interface means you can actually record them without having to rely on buffering in RAM or otherwise.

Marvell just expanded their line of ARMADA SoC ecosystem, that are frequently used in NAS and other networking devices, to include native support for open-source software platforms like OpenWRT and openSUSE.

Before now Marvell didn't officially support any other software than that which was initially installed on their platforms. Adding support in the kernel of the various open-source OS's required a lot of time from volunteers to make it work properly. Because of that, support was always a bit precarious, and it could take quite awhile for new devices to be added to the compatibility lists.

Now, however, their 64-bit ARMv8 powered ARMADA 3700 Cortex-A53 device family and ARMADA 7K and ARMADA 8K Cortex-A72 device families are getting full-fledged support for the Linux kernel as well as U-Boot support. That means that it'll be compatible with a much wider range of OS's, anything that has ARM support baked in can run on their chips, essentially.