After being unceremoniously turfed from Facebook in 2017 after being "outed" as a supporter of President Trump, Oculus VR creator Palmer Luckey has returned to Meta in a different way: partnering with the company to make the best XR headsets for the US military.

The big new deal was funded through private capital, without the use of any US taxpayer funds, and has been designed to save the US military billions of dollars by using high-performance components and technology that were originally created for commercial use.

Anduril explained on its website: "This partnership comes at a pivotal moment in the evolution of national defense. America's national security has benefited from U.S. technological leadership at every phase of the computing revolution, from the first microchips and PCs to today's internet and mobile devices. As a new era of computing takes shape-built atop AI and body-worn devices-Meta and Anduril are committed to maintaining America's technological edge while reinforcing our economic and national security".

As you may be aware, Apple's desktop OS may be renamed - it could be macOS 26, rather than macOS 16 - but whatever the name will be, rumor has it that the fresh version won't be compatible with some relatively recent Macs.

Apple Insider reports (and take this with the usual caution reserved for anything filtering down from the rumor mill) that pre-release builds of macOS 26 require a MacBook Pro 2019 or later, or a MacBook Air M1 or better. With an iMac, you'll need a 2020 or later model to be good to go with the new take on macOS.

This means that models as recent as the iMac from 2019 may be ruled out in the compatibility stakes, or MacBook Pro laptops from 2018. Moreover, the MacBook Air with Intel CPU from 2020 is also left out in the cold in theory.

While Intel's Nova Lake desktop chips are rumored to be ushering in a new socket when they arrive in 2026 - groan - you may be able to take a little solace from the latest speculation that at least your cooler might be good to go with this range of CPUs.

Yes, the theory is that Intel is set to shift to a different socket, LGA1954, with Nova Lake. Arrow Lake currently uses LGA1851, and of course Arrow Lake Refresh, if it exists and pitches up this year at all, as some rumors suggest, will doubtless use that socket too.

However, as Tom's Hardware noticed, Ruby Rapids on X has highlighted a shipping manifest from NBD (see above, and add salt appropriately) that shows us the LGA1954 socket has the same dimensions as LGA1851 (45 x 37.5mm).

Copilot for Gaming has arrived in beta form in the Xbox app for mobiles, with the AI designed to provide you with hints and tips, strategies, info on games, and more besides.

Microsoft announced (as flagged by Neowin) the debut of the AI feature in the US and Australia (as well as some other regions) as part of the latest beta version of the Xbox app on Android and iPhone.

The idea is that Copilot for Gaming is a second screen experience, so you can use it on your phone without cluttering the display of the TV (or monitor) hooked up to your console (or PC).

Apple is planning to reduce consumer confusion with a sweeping change to its operating system naming, with the company planning a rebranding of its OS's that is tied to a coming redesign.

According to a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is planning on making a widespread overhaul of its branding for its operating systems, with the company planning on changing its naming scheme to align with the years.

For example, if the change was made this year, it would mean the current iOS 18 would be swapped to iOS 2026. As you can probably imagine, Apple's other operating systems would also follow this same name change: iPadOS 18.5 to iPadOS 26, macOS 15 to macOS 26, watchOS 12 to watchOS 26, and visionOS 2 to visionOS 26.

DOOM: The Dark Ages released on May 15 and received extremely positive scores from numerous game critics and players alike, but, according to SteamDB, which tracks the number of players for titles, the game is seeing a massive decline.

There is some negative sentiment surrounding DOOM: The Dark Ages for its lack of glory kills, a prominent component of the previous game, DOOM Eternal, and the gameplay being generally easier than Eternal. However, despite these criticisms, the game has attracted extremely high scores from numerous reviewers, and now reports are surfacing following Bethesda's announcement that The Dark Ages has reached 3 million players, of those 3 million, only 1 million were actually sales, the rest were Game Pass.

According to Alinea Analytics, The Dark Ages has sold 800,000 copies, with 200,000 of those copies on PlayStation, 200,000 on Xbox, and 400,000 on Steam. The remaining players are enjoying the title on Xbox Game Pass. Notably, only Microsoft and Bethesda know the exact sales numbers for The Dark Ages, but something undeniable is happening with the Steam player base.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is confirmed to support 5.1 surround sound with headphones while in handheld mode, which wasn't available on the Switch 1.

Nintendo Switch 2 units are already out in the wild, and some people who have received them early, by unknown means, are posting videos of unboxing the console, and even the first boot up. However, PopsCulture has taken things a step further and posted a video of the entire first setup process for the new console, where he showcases what buyers will have to go through before getting into their first Switch 2-powered game, and what is available within the System Settings.

Popsculture showcased that the Nintendo Switch 2 supports 5.1 surround sound with headphones, a feature strictly locked to the docked mode of the original Nintendo Switch. This means Switch 2 buyers can snag a pair of 5.1 surround sound headphones and enjoy their games with better sound, depending on whether the game they are playing also supports 5.1 surround sound.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 gaming handheld has an NVIDIA T239 SoC inside, fabbed by Samsung on its 8N process node, and now rumor has it both Sony and AMD are eyeing off Samsung to have custom chips made for them in the coming years, signaling a possible shift away from TSMC (pretty much making all high-end chips).

NVIDIA made the semi-custom T239 processor for the Nintendo Switch 2 which the Japanese company handed Samsung with the chip-making side of T239, and not using TMSC like other tech giants do (PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X/S consoles all have semi-custom chips inside designed with AMD, fabbed at TSMC).

The deal between Nintendo, NVIDIA, and Samsung Foundry is a rather big one for Samsung Foundry, with insider @Jukenlosreve reporting from a DigiTimes article that both Sony and AMD are now interested in working with Samsung Foundry to make new chips for them, which could be a small (for now) but (later on a) major shift away from TSMC.

President Trump's new export guidelines went into effect in April, and NVIDIA, the GPU powerhouse that is powering the massive push into AI through providing the necessary hardware to fuel data centers, is expected to feel the hit from the new trade restrictions.

According to reports, NVIDIA is set to be effectively cut off from the Chinese datacenter market, but it will still manage to realize approximately $4.6 billion of the ordered $7.1 billion worth of H20 GPUs in Q1. Moreover, NVIDIA lost $2.5 billion in H20 sales in Q1 and will have to reduce expected revenue by another $8 billion in Q2. The bleeding doesn't stop there, as NVIDIA will be unable to fulfill purchase commitments in Q1 for H20 iunventory that equates to $4.5 billion.

Despite the loss in revenue, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang praised the Trump administration's decision to unwhind the Biden Administration's AI Diffusion plan, as it would have cost NVIDIA even more money, as previous administrations plan was to implement a cap on AI chips to the rest of world, essentially setting a fixed number for NVIDIA's sales. Despite the trade restrictions, NVIDIA isn't going to give up on the market entirely, with Huang saying the company is currently exploring ways to still compete.

The Order: 1886 was supposed to be the start of a bold new trilogy of games for Ready At Dawn, but the game never gained enough traction and eventually the studio shut down.

PS4 launch game The Order: 1886 made waves in 2013 for its impressive cinematic sequences and eye-opening visuals. There was just one issue: the game was really short. As a result, Ready At Dawn's third-person action game didn't blow up as the studio had hoped it would--the devs ambitious plans for sequels.

We now have a better understanding of what could've been in The Order franchise. Former Ready At Dawn creative director Ru Weerasuriya recently outlined some of those ideas in a recent interview with French YouTuber Julien Chieze.

NVIDIA supply chain partners are accelerating the production of its flagship AI data center racks, after technical issues had delayed shipments, but now these issues have been resolved and supply of GB300 AI server racks will now flow.

In a new report from The Financial Times, we're hearing that NVIDIA supply chain partners including Foxconn, Inventec, Dell, and Wistron, have "made a series of breakthroughs" that have allowed them to start shipments of NVIDIA's high Blackwell AI servers. NVIDIA experienced technical problems that started at the end of 2024 that disrupted production, and their annual sales targets.

This new advancement is also seeing NVIDIA laying the groundwork of its next-gen GB300 NVL72 AI server racks, featuring 288GB of HBM3E memory per GPU and offering even more compute power than GB200 NVL72 AI servers, which will handle even more complex reasoning models including OpenAI O1 and DeepSeek R1 models. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said last week that GB300 will launch in Q3 2025.

Discord announced Orbs, a new currency that can be earned from Quests and spent on cosmetic content.

A bit ago, Discord CEO Jason Citron resigned, signalling changes for the company. Humam Sakhnini, the former president of billion-dollar mobile titan King, took over as Discord's new CEO at a pivotal moment. We speculated that this new CEO could introduce higher levels of layered ad-related monetization into Discord's business model at a critical point as the company nears its potential IPO. Now that appears to be happening.

Discord is currently beta testing what it calls Discord Orbs, a digital currency that isn't purchased with real money. Instead, Orbs are earned through Quests, which are game-ified calls to action that require users to engage with ads in some way. Interactions include streaming a specific game to friends or watching video ads. Quests are also expanding, the company said.

NVIDIA recently announced that it would be adopting a new 800V high-voltage DC power distribution system, which will power the waves of next-generation data centers.

In a new post on X by insider @Jukanlosreve we're hearing that 3 semiconductor companies have been officially named as NVIDIA partners in developing this new 800V high-voltage system, referred to as the "three major power IC players" with Infineon, Texas Instruments (TI), and Navitas.

NVIDIA's new 800V high-voltage DC power distribution system has an extremely complex design, with companies forced to offer robust and diverse power solutions to help NVIDIA achieve its lofty goals. NVIDIA is most likely preparing to introduce more power semiconductors in the future, but in the early stages of this new ultra-high-end battleground, these three companies will hold a very important competitive edge.

Little over two years after announcing the game, billion-dollar games publisher Electronic Arts has cancelled its upcoming Black Panther project and has shut down the studio that was making it, Cliffhanger Games.

EA has closed another studio as continues spending cuts in a bid to stabilize earnings and avoid unnecessary risks. The announcement was made internally by EA Entertainment exec Laura Miele via email, which was then acquired by IGN.

According to Miele's memo, EA cancelled the game and closed the studio because the publisher is "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." EA also recently stepped away from licensing WRC games.

Anker has revealed a new set of sleep earbuds which advance on its previous efforts in multiple ways, including better dealing with a snoring partner sleeping next to you in bed.

Hat tip to Notebookcheck.net for noticing the Soundcore Sleep A30 which Anker has on Kickstarter. (And if you think that's odd, essentially it's a way of implementing an early bird offer that the company has used in the past with previous models).

The A30 offers a 3-stage snore masking system, no less, which consists of adaptive audio delivered by the earbuds to cover up the snoring of your partner. Anker also observes that memory foam ear tips ensure maximum noise reduction to the same end, and the A30 has a snore-tracking case. That means it can detect snoring and set the earbuds to block it out, apparently.

CD Projekt RED is currently working on three mysterious new projects, but only two of them are games.

Today, CD Projekt released its Q1 2025 earnings results, confirming 60 million copies of The Witcher 3 have been sold, that Cyberpunk 2 has entered the pre-production phase of its development, and also giving an update on the upcoming slate of incubation-level games.

The company has revealed it is working 9 projects total, three of which are shrouded in mystery and have yet to be announced. Management clarifies that these 3 mystery projects do not include the games discussed in the 2022 strategy update briefing; games like Hadar, Sirius, or even Cyberpunk 2 (formerly called Project Orion) don't count.

Pavel Durov, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Telegram, has announced that Elon Musk's xAI is paying the messaging platform $300 million for it to adopt Grok, the AI-powered chatbot created by xAI.

Durov explained in a recent X post the details of the deal, which when reading appear to be extremely in the favor of Telegram, as the $300 million the social messaging platform is getting paid is only for a year-long partnership, but it also includes other benefits such as 50% of revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram. This means that if any users sign up for Grok Premium or Premium+ subscriptions through Telegram, Durov's social messaging platform will take 50% of that sale, presumably for the subscription duration, or until the partnership is ended.

Telegram is home to more than 1 billion monthly users, which is about double the size of X. Perhaps X thinks of this deal as marketing expenditure to get Grok into many more hands, potentially attracting them to the subscription service. However, there could be another motive. 1 billion users = a lot of user data, and Grok is currently training on data on X. It remains to be seen if the deal between the xAI and Telegram includes Grok being able to train on Telegram user data.

The upcoming Cyberpunk sequel has now entered pre-production phases of development, CD Projekt RED has confirmed.

CD Projekt gives a quick update on the progress of its new games, announcing that the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel is now in early stages of development. The game was previously known as Project Orion but is now referred to as Cyberpunk 2 by CD Projekt and currently has 96 people working in the pre-production phase. This indicates that Cyberpunk 2 is still many years away from release.

While the studio didn't reveal any details on Cyberpunk 2, the franchise's original creator did. In a recent interview, Cyberpunk series architect Mike Pondsmith said that Cyberpunk 2 will take players to a new dystopian city that feels "less like Blade Runner and more like Chicago gone wrong."

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has now reached 60 million copies sold, CD Projekt today announced.

CD Projekt's latest Q1 2025 results are out, and nestled in the report is confirmation of The Witcher 3's eye-opening sales figures. The game has now sold 60 million copies on all platforms and generations across the last decade. The company has confirmed that this number only includes full game sales of The Witcher 3 and the more recent game of the year version.

Interestingly enough, these staggering sales figures aren't accompanied by thunderous revenues; CD Projekt says that The Witcher 3 has made around 2.4 billion PLN in revenue, which is about $688 million in today's PLN to USD conversions. This highlights the company's emphasis on high volume sales through well-timed discounts and price drops. The Witcher 3 is routinely on sale, and was discounted to $5 on the PlayStation Store as part of the game's 10-year anniversary. Capcom is another company that similarly emphasizes game unit sales.

The launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 is only a few days away and it appears some people have already got their hands on the successor to the Nintendo Switch, as videos are appearing online along with reports about first experiences with the new console.

It was only yesterday that a video surfaced online of an individual opening the Nintendo Switch 2 box showing off its contents, such as the diagonally-placed Joy-Con 2 controllers, console, and more. Additionally, this same individual said that after booting up the console, it was prompted with a message to update the console, which they were unable to do, effectively rendering the console completely useless.

Early holders of the Nintendo Switch 2 essentially have paper weights since Nintendo is planning a day-one update for the console's launch, which will presumably unlock all of the consoles by updating firmware and operating system software to the same activated version. That seems to be the case in the latest leaked video, which shows a Nintendo Switch 2 being booted up, displaying the Nintendo Switch 2 logo and then the language preferences, along with a request for an internet connection.