NVIDIA will play a central role in developing Japan's generative AI infrastructure, as the country seeks to capitalize on the technology's economic potential, and further develop its workforce.

The announcement from NVIDIA comes after Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on the future of AI with NVIDIA in the country. NVIDIA is collaborating with key digital infrastructure providers, including GMO Internet Group, Highreso, KDDI Corporation, RUTILEA, SAKURA internet Inc. and SoftBank Corp., which the ministry has certified to spearhead the development of cloud infrastructure crucial for AI applications.

The ministry announced plans to provide $740 million in funding to help 6 local firms in this new AI initiative, which means Japan is the latest nation to embrace the concept of sovereign AI by fortifying Japanese startups, enterprises, and research with advanced AI technologies.

Intel teased some more details about its next-generation Falcon Shores CPU at the ISC 24 event, with some rather huge power consumption numbers revealed.

The next-gen Intel Falcon Shores GPU will use up to 1500W of power, with no air-cooling variant planned. Falcon Shores is the true next-generation GPU architecture to Xe, with Falcon Shores originally planned years ago as an XPU th at featured both an x86-based CPU and GPU cores similar to how AMD's new Instinct MI300A APU.

Intel later downgraded Falcon Shores to be a GPU-only design, so it will now take the best parts of Intel's Gaudi AI accelerators, combined with next-gen Xe graphics architecture for HPC and other compute-heavy workloads. Intel's new Falcon Shores GPU will also be backed up by a huge software ecosystem called oneAPI.

Sabrent has a hefty 40% discount ($189.99 down to $114) on its USB-C Universal Docking Station (DC-UICA) which has near-limitless potential with a slew of ports and features that will amplify your computing experience.

If you've got a laptop, ultrabook, Chromebook, Android smartphone or tablet, Apple MacBook, iPhone, or iPad, then the Sabrent USB-C Universal Docking Station would be your new BFF. We've got the entire thing connected through a 10Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2x1) USB-C upstream host port that's designed for the latest systems.

Downstream, the Sabrent USB-C Universal Docking Station features 2 x 10Gbps USB-C ports, 2 x 5Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1x1 USB-A ports, and 2 x 480Mbps USB 2.0 USB-A ports. The first four of those can deliver 5V/1.5A, while the latter will be perfect for keyboards and mice.

Intel's next-generation Lunar Lake CPUs are still in the ovens inside of their labs, but now we're hearing about the new Core Ultra 5 238V processor with 32GB of LPDDR5X on-package memory.

If you don't know about on-package memory, Intel's new Lunar Lake CPUs will have 16GB or 32GB of on-package memory, right next to the CPU, GPU, and NPU on the chip. Lunar Lake is for low-power devices with 8W to 30W TDP designs, using Intel's latest CPU and GPU architectures combined with a brand-new AI accelerator.

Intel's next-gen Core Ultra 200V series will have LPDDR5X-8533 memory, in either 16GB or 32GB on-package. Intel's new Core Ultra 5 234V processor will reportedly have 16GB, while the newly-found Core Ultra 5 238V has 32GB of on-package LPDDR5X memory.

NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 5090 truly can't come soon enough, as TCL is preparing a monster new 4K 1000Hz panel. Yeah... 4K at 1000Hz means 4K at 1000FPS.

The folks from Blur Busters attended the DisplayWeek 2024 conference in California, with TCL CSOT showing off an incredible new 4K 1000Hz panel. There has been no official press release or details released about TCL CSOT's incredible 4K 1000Hz panel, which is unfortunate.

The company did have it headlined as "4K 1000Hz Highest Refresh Rate" at the show, as it would be the highest refresh rate on the planet, there's no monitor with anywhere close to 1000Hz. We have been inching towards 500-600Hz, but that's about it... and that's offred at 1080p.

Contrary to what you might've read, Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed Shadows game can be played entirely offline.

Assassin's Creed fans rejoice: Ubisoft is finally making a game set in feudal Japan. It's called Assassin's Creed Shadows, and it'll take place in 16th century Japan during Oda Nobunaga's bloody quest to unify the country by force. Shadows also features two protagonists--a samurai and a ninja--and you'll be able to switch between them as you play.

Since the reveal, there's been two somewhat new tidbits of info to come out. The first is that AC Shadows won't be on Steam, and will instead be on the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft Store on PC. That's despite the fact that all 3 of the most recent mainline Assassin's Creed games are on Steam, including AC Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla.

Xbox is reportedly under pressure to increase margins, and breaking exclusivity on more first-party games might be the solution.

Like most games companies right now, Xbox has a problem. The industry just isn't growing despite Microsoft's best efforts. Game Pass subscribers have stalled, and Xbox hardware sales are down significantly. Excluding Activision's contribution, Xbox games division revenues are flat year-over-year.

Despite all of these burdens, Xbox is still expected to deliver not only profit, but some measure of growth. The current games industry debacle comes shortly after Microsoft bought Activision for $72 billion. After the buyout, Xbox is on the hook for the merger and Microsoft's executives and board of directors expect returns. This extra pressure, combined with Xbox's general flagging presence in the hardware market and sluggish topline growth, see the games-maker encumbered by the heavy weight of financial pressures.

Grand Theft Auto VI is now expected to launch in Fall 2025, surprising no one.

Today, Take-Two Interactive gave an update on its upcoming release slate, including GTA 6. The billion-dollar games giant is planning to launch GTA VI in the Fall 2025 season, which is typically from September - November. The game is so highly anticipated that it is expected to significantly uplift the entire video games industry through massive game sales, monetization, and engagement across all platforms.

This release would put GTA 6 in Take-Two's FY26 period. The company expects to make up to $5.65 billion in net bookings this year, in the FY25 period, and FY26 is forecasted to sequentially one-up and outperform FY25's numbers.

Activision today announced the formation of Elsewhere, a new studio focused on making a fresh franchise for Microsoft.

A bit ago, Bethesda and Xbox executives made the decision to shut down three studios, including Arkane Austin (Prey), Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush), and Alpha Dog (Mighty Doom). Now another one of Microsoft's divisions, Activision, is opening up a new studio.

The new group is called Elsewhere Entertainment, and the studio is made up of "storytelling experts" that worked on some of the highest-profile games on the market including The Last of Us, Uncharted, The Witcher, Cyberpunk, Destiny, The Division, and Far Cry.

Microsoft has made a rather odd move in trying to promote Bing search in Windows 11 with a change to its PC Manager app.

If you're not familiar with PC Manager, well, we wouldn't be surprised, as it's not an app that all that many folks know about - partly because it's only available in certain regions for Windows 11 (and not the US, not officially yet - but that could well change).

At any rate, it's a PC performance boosting utility from Microsoft China, that takes a typical approach with file cleanup features to free up storage, memory, and so forth.

If everything goes the way that we expect it to Apple will announce a round of new iPhones this fall, likely in September. That'll bring the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max to the market and replace the outgoing iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max that were released in September of last year. We've been told to expect new features and faster chips, but it's the increase in display size of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max that could catch some by surprise.

If the rumors are true the iPhone 16 Pro will have a 6.3-inch display rather than the familiar 6.1-inch one, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max will see its display grow from 6.7 inches to 6.9 inches. With those display size increases we also expect the overall size of the devices to increase, too. That might not make all that much difference on the iPhone 16 Pro, but when you're dealing with a phone as big as the existing iPhone 15 Pro Max, any extra size makes a difference, fast.

That's clear in the images shared to the X social network by ZONEofTECH which appear to show an iPhone 16 Pro Max dummy unit alongside an iPhone 15 Pro Max. The size difference between the two devices is clear and obvious, suggesting that people who own an iPhone 15 Pro Max but already find it to be a little on the large side might want to consider sticking to the standard iPhone 16 Pro this time around.

Apple's brand new M4 iPad Pro is now on sale in both 11-inch and 13-inch display sizes. They're both identical bar the size of the display and some measurements, one of which is the thickness. The 13-inch iPad Pro is the thinnest coming in at just 5.3mm and that, Apple says, makes it the thinnest device that it has ever shipped. But given the fact that previous iPad Pros have been shown to flex and bend because of their lack of girth, many obviously wondered what this new thinness would mean for rigidity.

That was something that Apple apparently set out to address. Apple executives confirmed that there is a new cowling used in the iPad Pro that covers the entire logic board and, as a result, makes the device more rigid than you might think given its lack of thickness. But does that cowing work, and if not, how easily does the iPad Pro bend? That's what two YouTubers set out to discover.

One was JerryRigEverything, a YouTuber with a history of taking new devices and then ripping them apart to see what makes them tick. So when we heard that the iPad Pro was incredibly thin we knew that there would be a video dedicated to it. And, sure enough, here it is.

When Apple announced its latest iPad Pro with the fancy OLED display and superfast M4 chip it did so by using a new ad. That ad showed musical instruments and art supplies, among other things, being destroyed by a giant industrial press. But while the ad was absolutely impressive, it definitely didn't seem to send the message that Apple thought it would. Instead, creatives the world over argued that it was disrespectful and that Apple had completely missed the mark. Apple subsequently agreed and apologized for the misstep, but that doesn't seem to have been the end of it.

As it has done before, Samsung has now picked up the baton and mocked Apple with a new ad of its own. It's based on Apple's ad and sees a woman using a Samsung tablet to read music while playing what appears to be a bruised and battered guitar. The scene is made up to look like the aftermath of Apple's own ad, giving the whole thing extra weight. It's a cool ad, and it carries the tagline "Creativity cannot be crushed."

Samsung definitely went for the jugular here and it seems to have hit the mark. The ad was posted to the X social network carrying the #UnCrush tag and you can check it out for yourself above.

Ubisoft has revealed Assassin's Creed Shadows, a new journey into 16th century feudal Japan.

Ubisoft has unwrapped its latest Assassin's Creed game, and it takes place during Oda Nobunaga's unification war during the latter Sengoku period. Gamers will be able to play as two protagonists: a samurai named Yasuke, and a ninja named Naoe. Each are complete with individual backstories and gear types, and players will be able to switch between either characters on-the-fly similar to GTA V.

The characters also have their own unique trade-offs and traits: Yasuke is more bulky and armored, adept in chaotic combat and is more powerful, whereas Naoe is faster, more agile, and even has a grappling hook.

Microsoft's Xbox division plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) in gaming, but how exactly will this work?

AI is all the buzz right now in the tech sector, and gaming is no different. Publishers like EA have touted what AI can do to help the games industry, and we've also seen Xbox make strategic partnerships as its parent drastically accelerates AI development through various initiatives.

Last November, Xbox signed a multi-year deal to use Inworld's generative AI tech to help power games development. Inworld AI would be used to help automate specific things like quest creation, game stories, and character dialog.

Following Jim Ryan's retirement in March, Sony has now made a decision on who will lead PlayStation.

Sony has announced a new corporate structure for its games and entertainment division. Sony Interactive Entertainment has now been split into two parts: the Platform Business Group, led by existing Sony exec Hidaki Nishino, and the Studios Business Group, led by current PS Studious SVP and ex-Guerrilla Games head Hermen Hulst.

Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki took over as interim or temporary CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment in April. Totoki will retain some leadership over the new divisions as acting chairman of SIE, and both Nishino and Hulst will report directly to Totoki. The changes will go into effect on June 1, corresponding with with the last month of Sony's Q1 FY24 period.

Nintendo has published solid earnings results as the Switch enters its eighth year on the market.

Nintendo's Fiscal Year 2024 shows two clear trends: Switch sales are slowing down, but gamers are still voraciously consuming software and content for the aging system. A quick note before we delve into the financials - These values are based on yen to USD conversion rates listed in Nintendo's quarterly reports, which assumes the following rates: Q1 - 144.56, Q2 - 149.37, Q3 - 141.04, Q4 - 151.

Throughout FY24, which ran from April 2023 - March 2024, Nintendo generated a total of $11.6 billion in net sales revenue, down -2% year-over-year. This is due to a more pronounced drop in Switch hardware sales (15.7 million shipments, down -12.6%), and a smaller decrease in software purchases (down 6.7%).

Nintendo's Switch family of hardware breaks a new milestone in its eighth year on the market.

Switch sales are starting to slow down as Nintendo preps its new system. Total cumulative shipments for the 3-device Switch family have now reached 141.32 million, and by March 2025, Nintendo expects the Switch to dethrone the DS.

Nintendo shipped 15.7 million Switch consoles in Fiscal Year 2024, down -12.6% year-over-year, with Q4'24 delivering the lowest unit shipments for any Q4 period since the device's launch, or 1.96 million shipments.

Frostpunk 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the grim and frosty city-builder set to launch on PC and PC Games Pass on July 25. To celebrate, developer and publisher 11 bit studios have teamed up with our friends at SAPPHIRE Technology to create a very cool custom SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Frostpunk 2 Edition.

This looks to be a special edition of the Sapphire PURE AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT that we reviewed late last year, with a similar frosty-white color scheme to match the game's icy setting with a custom "oil-black metal backplate with rusty accents" to add some steampunk grit. Even the ARGB lighting is given a Frostpunk makeover and set to 'Orange' by default.

The special edition Radeon RX 7700 XT GPU comes with a few Frostpunk-themed extras - three enamel pins, three keyboard keycaps, a keycap puller, and a PC code for the Deluxe Edition of Frostpunk 2.

Rumors about NVIDIA working with various partners to enter the PC gaming handheld market are heating up. NVIDIA and GeForce are synonymous with gaming, especially when it comes to PCs. However, everything from the Steam Deck to the ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion GO, and handhelds from AYANEO are powered by AMD Ryzen with Radeon hardware.

It's a growing market, and Intel recently entered it by partnering with MSI to launch the MSI Claw gaming handheld. And now, it seems, it's NVIDIA's turn, with insider XpeaGPU claiming that NVIDIA is working with MediaTek to develop an Arm-based handheld SoC with integrated NVIDIA graphics.

This follows the news that NVIDIA and MediaTek are reportedly working on an Arm-based AI processor for AI PCs that could be revealed in a few weeks at Computex 2024. A SoC for PC gaming, running Windows 11 or Linux, would be something else entirely - and something that could blow the Steam Deck out of the water, performance-wise.