Crytek has just announced that its next-gen Crysis 4 is "on hold" as it lays off 15% of its global workforce, and puts its development focus into Hunt: Showdown 1896.

The developer announced the news in a post on X, saying that "complex, unfavorable market dynamics that have hit our industry these past several years. It pains us greatly to share today that we must lay off an estimated 15% of our around 400 employees".

Not only that, but the developer said "after putting the development of the next Crysis game on hold in Q3 2024" that Crytek has "been trying to shift developers over to Hunt: Showdown 1896". For now, let's hope that Crytek hasn't killed off its new Crysis game and that it's just on hold until the developer is in a better position, but it does NOT feel like good news for the infamous shooter.

Remedy has just announced that it has sold over 2 million copies of Alan Wake 2 as part of their full-year 2024 financial report.

Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said that the development and marketing costs of Alan Wake 2 have been recouped, with teh developer earning royalties for the game towards the end of Q4 2024. Virtala said that the continued support for Alan Wake 2 through Night Springs and Lake House expansions, as well as the beefy PS5 Pro update + RTX Mega Geometry updates, helped push sales of Alan Wake 2 up and over 2M copies.

Now that Alan Wake 2 is finished up, Remedy is now pushing full-steam ahead into its next projects including FBC: Firebreak, which Virtala confirmed for a 2025 launch. The Remedy CEO said in December 2024 that the development team had successfully conducted a closed technical test with external players, where they tested FBC: FIrebrerak and its matchmaking and backedn services, collecting as much data as they could to form the final game.

AMD's RX 9070 graphics cards are set to be released in March, but there will be some kind of a launch announcement beforehand, and it might be pencilled in for very soon - next week, in fact.

A new rumor from the Chiphell forums, as highlighted by Tomasz Gawroński on X, claims that AMD has an RX 9070 XT launch planned for February 20.

This would be the full reveal of the graphics card (and presumably the vanilla RX 9070 as well), and previous rumors have indicated that later in February we'll get some kind of RDNA 4 press announcement from AMD. So, this very much backs up that idea (and furthermore, there's also a hint Frank Azor recently dropped that the full details on RDNA 4 graphics cards are "coming soon").

NVIDIA might be about to delay its RTX 5070 graphics card, or that's the latest from the grapevine regarding the remaining Blackwell models that Team Green has on the boil.

As you're doubtless aware, the RTX 5070 Ti has been strongly rumored for a February 20 launch, but notably, the vanilla version, the RTX 5070, has been absent from all the chatter on the rumor mill.

While NVIDIA said both the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti will be out in February, back at the Blackwell reveal during CES 2025, it now appears that the vanilla RTX 5070 might be pushed back to March, as rumored by MegaSizeGPU on X.

Update to original story: The leaker has provided further info, asserting that this will purportedly be an RX 9070 XT variant with doubled-up VRAM to 32GB. So, technically it'll be a gaming graphics card, not a professional (Radeon Pro) product - however, the source on Chiphell claims that the GPU is still set to primarily target the AI market, and will be priced as such. (So the value proposition will not make much sense for gamers).

AMD might be developing an RDNA 4 graphics card loaded up with a potentially huge helping of 32GB of VRAM, but don't get overly enthusiastic about this prospect yet.

Before you go thinking that this could be the mighty RX 9000 gaming GPU to take on NVIDIA at the high-end - as tempting as that may be as a conclusion to leap for - we must bear in mind a couple of things. Firstly, this is only a rumor, and secondly, if true, this is most likely to be a data center board rather than a gaming graphics card.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently stated in an interview he feels sorry for Elon Musk's lifelong "insecurities" after OpenAI rejected Musk's bid to purchase the company for $97.4 billion.

The feud between Musk and Altman has certainly been heating up as of late and then reached a boiling point on Monday when the Wall Street Journal reported Musk offered to purchase OpenAI for a whopping $97.4 billion. However, that bid was rejected by OpenAI, and the company's CEO, Sam Altman, took to X to post a rebuttal offer for X, writing, "No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want." In response to that X post from Altman, Musk wrote, "Swindler."

But now things have seemingly taken a more personal turn, as Altman has stated during a recent Bloomberg interview at the Paris AI Action Summit that this recent offer from Musk is just one of the many tactics the Tesla CEO has attempted in the past. When asked what Musk's goal would be with this offer Altman said he believes Musk is trying to slow OpenAI down due to Musk's AI company, xAI, being a direct competitor. However, Altman said he wishes Musk would compete by "building a better product," but "I think there's been a lot of tactics. Many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff. Now this."

James Howells has been on a quest to recover his lost Bitcoin, which he claims is missing within a landfill site in Newport, Wales.

Howells' quest to recover the lost hard drive, which he says contains approximately 7,500 Bitcoins, worth approximately £586 million ($728 million USD) at the current time of reporting, has now resulted in the man offering to purchase the landfill site from the city council. The escape of events doesn't start there, though, as Howell has been trying to convince the Newport City Council to give him access to the landfill so he can begin sifting through the trash to look for the hard drive.

According to Howell, the hard drive's location has been pinpointed down to 100,000 tonnes of waste, which may sound large, but it's not as large as the landfills' approximate total capacity of 1.4 million metric tonnes. Howell has already been rejected by the city council for gaining access to the landfill, despite his promise to share 10% of the recovered Bitcoin with the city council if the drive is found. In response to the rejection, Howell filed a lawsuit against the Newport City Council, which was dismissed early last month as the judge ruled Howell had no reasonable grounds along with no realistic prospect of success at the trial.

Elon Musk has taken to his personal X account to warn he has discovered the the level of fraudulent federal entitlements exceeds the combined sum of every private scam anyone has ever heard of.

The post from Elon Musk has undoubtedly kicked off several alarm bells within the US government as the Tesla and SpaceX CEO continues to audit the US government books with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to Musk, he is "100% certain" that the magnitude of the fraudulent federal entitlements, which include services such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, and others, completely outweighs the combined sum "of every private scam you've ever heard by FAR."

The alarming post from Musk comes after the billionaire took to his X account on February 8 to share that he was informed there is currently more than $100 billion per year of entitlements distributed out to people with no Social Security Number or "even a temporary ID number." For those who don't know, individuals must have a Social Security Number in order to work, collect Social Security Benefits, and officially receive government assistance, according to the Social Security Administration website, per Newsweek.

We are, of course, very much used to Microsoft pushing folks to upgrade to Windows 11, but for certain users, some fresh advice from the company is the exact opposite - albeit there's a good reason for this.

The advice to downgrade to Windows 10 is being given (via a support document) to people who are running Windows 11 on an unsupported PC (that doesn't meet the hardware requirements of the OS).

The document in question is entitled 'Ways to install Windows 11' and is all about just that, but it previously contained some advice on implementing an installation on a PC that didn't meet the necessary system specs.

NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) officials have issued an update on an asteroid that is officially considered the most significant threat to Earth.

A NASA-operated telescope located in Chile detected a suspicious object on Christmas Day, and after human researchers conducted manual follow-up observations, the object was found to be an asteroid now referred to as 2024 YR4. Astronomers discovered the asteroid's orbit around the Sun is elongated, and it's currently traveling directly away from Earth, almost in a straight line.

Because of its position relative to Earth and its straight-line trajectory, researchers struggled to measure its characteristics and project its orbit into the future. Preliminary measurements stated that 2024 YR4 is anywhere between 130 and 300 feet in diameter and is traveling at a speed of 38,700 mph.

Engineers are attempting to discover new ways to leverage AI to make breakthroughs in various scientific fields, and one may have just happened that harnesses the power and speed of light.

Researchers have penned a new study published in Nature Photonics that builds upon an earlier concept initially unveiled in 2018, where researchers showcased the power of diffractive neural networks. For those who don't know, traditional computing is comprised of electronic circuit boards, and while extremely powerful in their own right, they do have limitations or concessions users must make. Electronic circuit boards have inherent latency as it takes time for the data to be moved. Additionally, this process can be extremely energy-demanding.

However, researchers have designed a new AI chip that manipulates light as it's capable of performing the calculation instantly versus a traditional computer that has to interpret light. As light travels through the new AI chip, it's directed, significantly speeding up the transmission process of data and also reducing the power needed for a calculation to be completed. While being a ground-breaking design that has many implications for numerous fields of computing, the new light-manipulating AI chip does face significant problems, and that is scaling it at the product.

Google and Apple have officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, following an executive order signed by President Trump.

Following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, tech companies in control of maps have begun changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, with Google announcing at the end of last month that it would adhere to the executive order and will apply the name change when official government sources have been updated.

Government resources have now been updated, and Google has rolled out the respective changes, with the company confirming in an update that anyone connecting to Google Maps from the US will see "Gulf of America," while the rest of the world will still see "Gulf of Mexico," but with "Gulf of America" in brackets.

An unidentified threat actor is conducting brute-force attacks targeting over 2.8 million VPN and network devices worldwide. Threat monitoring platform The Shadowserver Foundation posted the reports to X, highlighting a wave of intrusion attempts against networks using devices from Palo Alto, Ivanti, and SonicWall.

There's a specific concentration of attacks in Brazil, Turkey, Russia, and Argentina, with 1.1 million of the 2.8 million affected devices located in Brazil. The foundation also reports that the brute-force attacks are primarily targeting vulnerable edge (network) devices - particularly compromised routers from manufacturers such as MikroTik, Huawei, Cisco, Boa, and ZTE. Threat actors are leveraging a botnet or residential proxy network to disguise malicious traffic, making detection and mitigation more difficult.

The companies above often provide enterprise-level VPNs used for remote work and secure corporate access, making them targets for network infiltration. As reported by Techradar, the attack fits the profile of a conventional brute-force attack, during which threat actors submit large numbers of username and password combinations until breaking through. In that regard, devices with week or reused credentials are particularly vulnerable.

A Costco worker may have just leaked the price of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, and the leaked price has seemingly backed up recent statements from Nintendo.

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa recently stated during a Q&A with investors that Nintendo will be taking into account the exchange rate environment shifting since the launch of the Nintendo Switch and how buyers expect Nintendo products to come with a degree of affordability. These statements from the Nintendo president quelled fears the Nintendo Switch 2 was going to be priced similarly to other competing consoles, and while that was never going to be a reality, it was good to hear it from Nintendo itself.

The official statements of the Nintendo Switch 2 being affordable have now been purportedly backed up by leaked pricing, as reported by NintendoWire. A Canadian Costco employee shared an internal product listing along with a sales floor sign that states the Nintendo Switch 2 will cost $499.99 CAD, which is about $350 USD. However, the Nintendo Switch OLED is currently priced at $450 CAD / $350 USD, which means the Nintendo Switch 2 will likely be priced at $399 USD.

A Reddit user took to the r/NVIDIA subreddit to share an image of a melted 12VHPWR power cable that was plugged into a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition.

The Reddit user "ivan6953" posted photos of the melted 12VHPWR cable and explained that he recently upgraded from an RTX 4090 Founders Edition to an RTX 5090 Founders Edition. The Reddit user added that he is a PC enthusiast who's aware of the potential problems of not correctly seating the power cable.

As a result, he says he made sure the connector was secured tightly into the graphics card and the power supply. However, this didn't prevent the problems as the GPU's power socket had a single pin showing damage and evidence of melting, along with the corresponding pin on the PSU side showing evidence of melting.

There are only a few truly infinite things: the size of the universe, Elon Musk's inability to handle criticism, the number of times Bethesda has released or remastered The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the length of WinRAR's "40-Day Trial." The popular and decades-old compression software is renowned for being that app you never have to pay for, even though it says that you do.

This is part of WinRAR's business model, which allows users to continue using it indefinitely - even after the 40-day trial period ends. Although some users and businesses pay for WinRAR, not paying for it has become a meme that the company has fully embraced.

Case in point, one of the company's recent social media posts highlights an officially licensed WinRAR bag that you can purchase. It is fashioned in the style of the iconic books, wrapped in a leather belt with the WinRAR logo and app icon.

Intel has released its 2024 Intel Product Security Report, which includes several findings and statistics designed to showcase the company's "competitive edge in security assurance." Especially when compared to its main competition in the CPU space, AMD, and especially when it comes to Intel's proactive approach to discovering vulnerabilities.

According to a detailed slide in the report, "Intel's proactive product security assurance efforts resulted in the discovery and mitigation of 94% of platform firmware vulnerabilities" compared to just 57% on AMD's side. This is for vulnerabilities discovered within CPU firmware, which is a significant concern. One of the highest-profile security stories of 2024 was the 'Sinkclose' vulnerability affecting millions of Ryzen CPUs.

Intel also outlines how its GPU security stacks up against NVIDIA and AMD, where Team Blue had the "fewest number of GPU vulnerabilities in 2024 at 10, while AMD had 13 and NVIDIA posted 18." And of those 18 for NVIDIA, they are all 'high severity.'

"Virtually inaudible operation," that's how German hardware maker be quiet! describes its new Silent Loop 3 all-in-one AIO liquid cooling solution for CPUs, which will launch later this month. When choosing a new AIO cooler, thermal performance is always high on the list; however, and silent operation should be there right along with it.

be quiet! Silent Loop 3 includes an innovative pump design with a 6-pole motor with three phases and a three-chamber design created for less vibration. Throw in sound dampening that effectively reduces the sound of the pump even when it's at maximum speed and up to three Silent Wings 4 PWM high-speed fans, and the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 AIO series more than lives up to its name.

This is an AIO cooler series built and designed for silent operation. It will launch with three radiator size options: 240mm, 360mm, and 420mm. And yeah, the 420mm variant is capable of cooling Threadripper processors.

Modern streaming culture has produced no shortage of viral gaming sensations. The most recent title to emerge is an unusual one - a Filipino horror game called Hapunan. The game throws you into the shoes of Niko, a vendor selling Filipino street food Balut (essentially fertilized duck eggs).

The premise is simple: you're a Balut vendor, and your job is to take care of your day-to-day responsiblities. Securing business permits, locking your windows and doors before work, selling food to customers. It features low-poly visual style similar to what you'll see in old games on the N64. So what is it that's actually grabbing people's attention?

Well, there's some cultural depth to the experience. The game, which starts as a 'work simulator,' devolves into a horror survival experience, with threatening figures lurking in the night. Gunmen equipped with threatening grins and heavy inspiration drawn from Filipino folklore.

Andural Industries is taking over the US Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program, with the Palmer Luckey-led defense contractor waiting for approval from the Department of Defense.

Palmer Luckey is the founder of Oculus VR which was purchased by Facebook (before it came Meta, and the Oculus Rift now the Quest VR family of headsets) and is the founder of Andural Industries. Luckey's company is taking control of the largest project of its kind in history, and for Palmer, "this announcement is deeply personal".

On a post on his own blog, Palmer explained: "Since my pre-Oculus days as a teenager who had the opportunity to do a tiny bit of work on the Army's BRAVEMIND project, I've believed there would be a headset on every soldier long before there is a headset on every civilian. Given that America loses more troops in training than combat, the Squad Immersive Virtual Trainer (SiVT) side of IVAS alone has the potential to save more lives than practically anything else we can imagine building".