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The unannounced Xbox Series S shaves off a bunch of features, but it won't skimp out on CPU speeds.

The Lockhart speculation saga continues to evolve with new developments, and things are starting to heat up. New reports from The Verge's Tom Warren, who has spoken to inside sources close to Lockhart's development, allege the Xbox Series S's CPU is the same as the Xbox Series X.

We previously believed everything on the Series S (Lockhart) would be downgraded in order to save costs, but it appears Lockhart will use the exact same 8-core, 16-thread 3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU as the Series X. If accurate, the Xbox Series S would be a smidgen faster than the PlayStation 5's 3.5GHz CPU.

Deck13, the team who made big indies like The Surge, The Surge 2, and Lords of the Fallen has been 100% acquired by Focus Home Interactive.

Focus Home Interactive is mostly known for smaller-scale AA hits like Greedfall, Vampyr, and The Surge 2, so buying out Deck13 makes a lot of sense. Not only are Deck13's games commercial successes (The Surge made €5.5 million in one year), the German games company brings 60 talented employees to the table.

The publisher has fully acquired the studio, its games IPs like Lords of the Fallen and The Surge, and its lucrative independent games publishing arm that's responsible for fan-favorites like the CrossCode RPG.

Samsung has officially announced that today marks the launch of its second-generation QLC SATA SSD. The drive is called the 870 QVO SATA SSD and is intended to offer a fast and high capacity consumer storage solution. The drive is available with up to 8TB of data storage capacity.

Samsung says that in the past, consumers had to choose between an SSD that offered superior performance and an HDD that offered superior capacity. The 8TB 870 QVO SSD was designed specifically was designed to skirt that gap between performance and capacity. The drive is aimed at mainstream PC users who want performance and value.

"Following the launch of Samsung's first consumer QLC drive - the 860 QVO - in 2018, we are releasing our second-generation QVO SSD which offers doubled capacity of 8TB as well as enhanced performance and reliability," said Dr. Mike Mang, vice president of the Memory Brand Product Biz Team at Samsung Electronics. "The new 870 QVO will allow more consumers to enjoy the performance benefits of an SSD at HDD-like capacities."

Best Buy has a sweet deal going on an Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch notebook. It's rare to get a solid discount on Apple hardware, and when you see them, anyone in the market should jump at the discount. Best Buy's deal shaves $200 off the standard cost of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

The normal price is $1,799.99, and with the discount, shoppers can get the machine for $1,599. Buyers get a MacBook Pro with a 13-inch display for the money. It offers 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. This is the latest model of the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The keyboard is backlit, and the screen measures 13.3-inches. Intel Iris Plus integrated graphics handles visuals, and the processor is tenth-generation Intel Core i5 operating at 2 GHz. The machine runs Mac OS and promises ten hours of use per charge.

The former director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given quite a grim warning about the current state of the coronavirus.

Tom Frieden, who was the former CDC director, recently sat down with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday to discuss the current state of the coronavirus in the United States. Frieden said that the reason some states are seeing spikes in coronavirus cases is not simply due to increased testing, but because of how "the virus has the upper hand". Frieden also went onto acknowledge that another factor would be that many people are tired of being isolated. However, Frieden reminded everyone that "the virus is not tired of making us sick."

On top of that, Frieden noted that the reason some states are seeing spikes in cases is due to them reducing restrictions prematurely. Here's what he said, "If you open when cases are still increasing, as many states did, it's like leaning into a left hook. You're going to get hit hard. And that's what's happening." Some government officials have attributed to the recent spike in coronavirus cases to more testing, but Frieden states that he has "100 percent certainty" that there is a true rise because of the increased amount of positive tests. Frieden concluded his talk by saying the numbers we are seeing now are "just the tip of the iceberg".

The second coronavirus stimulus check that's on the way might not be rolled out to everyone, but instead, it could be more specifically targeted.

Last week, President Trump confirmed that a second coronavirus stimulus check is on its way, and that Americans could expect the second round of payments heading their way sometime soon. Now, the main question on everyone's mind is how much will this second coronavirus stimulus check entail, and who will be eligible for it? Well, from the recent rumblings we have heard, we can expect that this second round of payments will be much more targeted towards specific people/businesses, instead of a widespread cash injection to every American.

Having a more targeted approach will allow the government to save taxpayer money, while also being able to throw in an incentive that gets Americans back out there spending money in the economy. If this is true, it could mean that people who received the first payment may not necessarily be eligible for the second round of payments. If we take into account the categories of people who received and didn't receive the first round of payments, we can predict the people in the following categories will get the second payment:

KIOXIA has just demonstrated the new EDSFF SSD form factor, a new next-gen SSD form factor for enterprise and datacenter SSD storage.

Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor, or EDSFF (and also known as E3 -- not to be confused with the gaming-focused E3 event) is designed to maximize system density, efficiency, and simplicity. KIOXIA itself is a member of the SNIA SFF-TA-1008 technical work group which is working on the new storage form factors.

EDSFF E3.Short (E3.S) and E3.Long (E3.L) solutions are the future of SSD storage for not just servers, but All Flash Arrays (AFAs) in cloud and enterprise datacenters.

A new virus that has the potential of triggering another global pandemic has been identified by Chinese scientists. This time around, pigs are the carriers.

According to a recent entry in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Chinese researchers have been able to identify a new strain of the flu found in pigs that has the potential of reaching a global pandemic level. Researchers are currently worried that the new strain of influenza might mutate into something that humans are more susceptible to, and according to the scientists that identified the virus, it has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans.

The virus is called G4 EA H1N1 and is very similar to the Swine flu that we saw back in 2009, but it does have some changes to it. This new virus can grow and multiply in the cells that line human airways, and researchers have already found evidence of infection in people who are working in abattoirs and the swine industry in China. At the moment, current flu vaccines don't protect against this virus, but researchers are hoping that with a few adjustments to the vaccine that they can provide protection.

As humans age, we, unfortunately, begin to deteriorate, and one of the aspects of us that are affected is our vision. But what if we can slow this decline down?

According to a new study published in the Journals of Gerontology, researchers have found that staring at a deep red light for three minutes a day can significantly improve declining eyesight. Lead author, Professor Glen Jeffery (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) explains that as humans age, our visual system begins to decline, and this is even more prevalent once a person is over 40.

"As you age your visual system declines significantly, particularly once over 40. Your retinal sensitivity and your color vision are both gradually undermined, and with an aging population, this is an increasingly important issue. To try to stem or reverse this decline, we sought to reboot the retina's aging cells with short bursts of longwave light." Researchers know that 40+-year-old humans are already experiencing aging in their retina's, and this is partly due to the cell's mitochondria, which produces energy called ATP.

This past Monday, Gilead Sciences announced its prices for the coronavirus treatment drug remdesivir, and the prices have been met with high criticism.

Gilead Sciences, the maker of the drug remdesivir, which has been shown to reduce recovery times in COVID-19 patients by as much as 31%, says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the US. For patients that have private health insurance, the price for a remdesivir treatment will be $3,120. The amount that patients pay out of pocket will depend on their insurance, income, and other factors.

Gilead's chief executive, Dan O'Day, told The Associated Press, "We're in uncharted territory with pricing a new medicine, a novel medicine, in a pandemic. We believe that we had to really deviate from the normal circumstances." The price of this treatment has been met with heavy criticism, Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic said, "This is a high price for a drug that has not been shown to reduce mortality. Given the serious nature of the pandemic, I would prefer that the government take over production and distribute the drug for free. It was developed using significant taxpayer funding."