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Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a side-scrolling action-adventure launching on January 18 for PC and console, and ahead of its launch, the publisher has outlined the PC hardware you'll need for the best performance. It's more of an assurance that most PC gamers will have no problem playing this game in 4K at 60 frames per second.

According to the PC specs for the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, to achieve 4K 60fps, all you need is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (8GB) graphics card. The CPU requirements for 4K60 are modest, too: an Intel Core i7-6700 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1600. Yeah, that's a mid-range first-gen Ryzen.

With such modest specs, you might think it doesn't look all that impressive, but that's not the case. With an evocative art style, detailed worlds, and fast-paced action, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown looks great. With its old-school side-scrolling presentation, it could become a sleeper hit and a great boost for the dormant Prince of Persia franchise.

Aker Solutions, a low-carbon and renewable energy projects company, has penned a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract with the Marine Energy Test Centre (METCentre) in Norway for a new subsea power system technology designed to reduce running costs of the MetCentre's offshore wind farms.

The new contract will introduce a new power transmission technology called the Subsea Collector to MetCentre's offshore wind farm, which currently consists of two wind turbines located approximately 6 miles off the coast of Karmøy, Norway.

The test area is expected to expand the fleet to seven wind turbines from 2026, and according to a press release, the Subsea Collector throws out the traditional daisy-chain pattern used to connect wind turbines, and offers a new star-shaped pattern that enables more flexibility architecturally within the designed wind farm area, reduced cable length between turbines, and reduces installation costs. According to Aker Solutions, the Subsea Collector is expected to reduce the costs of a 1GW floating wind farm by up to 10%.

LG has started up the CES 2024 hype train nice and early with the announcement that development on its "industry first" 480Hz gaming monitor has been completed, and gamers can expect an official showcase next week.

LG Display has published a new press release stating that it has successfully completed the development of a 27-inch 1440p (QHD) 480Hz OLED gaming monitor, and it will be hosting an official showcase at CES 2024 that will open a "new era of OLEDs" featuring "ultra-high refresh rates." Notably, the 27-inch display features a resolution of 2560 x 1440 (QHD), has an insane 480Hz refresh rate, and a 0.03ms response time.

For those that don't know, OLED panels enable each individual pixel to emit light independently without a backlight unit, enabling much more vibrant colors, thinner displays, and an overall more immersive experience. LG didn't give a specific launch date for the highly anticipated gaming monitor but did write that it will be launched sometime during the first half of 2024.

NASA has taken to its blog to share an incredible new image of a supernova remnant, or the leftover remains of an exploded star.

However, this new image doesn't feature just one of remains of a now-dead star, but at least two, with astronomers leaning on the side of more being discovered upon further inspection. The above image is 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B), and is a large region of space that contains millions of stars that have been forming for 8 - 10 million years. The region of space is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way.

NASA combined data from its Chandra X-Ray Observatory (represented in purple), optical data from the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile (shown in orange and cyan), and additional optical data from NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope (black and white). Studies astronomical objects such as 30 Dor B allows astronomers to learn more about the evolution of stars, and the overall universe.

A 13-year-old gamer has officially become the first known person to beat Tetris, according to reports citing confirmation from The Tetris Company, the developers of the iconic game that was first released in 1988 in the US.

Tetris beaten by 13-year-old Willis Gibson

The first known person to beat the iconic game is 13-year-old Willis Gibson, or Blue Scuti online, who reached level 157 with a score of 999999 while playing from home in Oklahoma. The gamer was livestreaming the attempt that later went to the "kill screen," which is when the game simply freezes up and crashes due to the blocks falling too fast. This screen has only previously been reached by AI-powered bots.

2023 was full of fantastic movies, and none were bigger than Greta Gerwig's Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

However, despite campaigning for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar Nomination, Barbie has been deemed to be an adapted screenplay by the Writers Branch executive committee of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences, a committee that determines films' eligibilities in submitted categorizations.

According to a report from Variety, when official Oscar Nominations open next Thursday, January 11, Voters will only be able to vote for the script of the film as an adapted screenplay. There has been an ongoing debate for months as to whether Barbie will be an original or adapted screenplay after news came out that the film would be campaigning as an original work.

Twitch has updated its attire policy once again, effectively putting an end to the viral topless streams and any other implied nudity on its site.

This change is in response to the rise of popular new topless streams, or "black bar" meta as they are also known, in which streamers would imply they are nude, but cover up any of the areas that would make them nude through the use of clever camera angles, framing, or just using black censor bars to cover their breasts or genitals. These streams were very controversial in the Twitch community and were tagged for "sexual themes," although they didn't actually breach Twitch's attire policy in which the site forbids streamers to display nudity.

As per the new policy set in place on Wednesday, streamers are no longer allowed to "Imply or suggest that they are fully or partially nude," Streamers are also not permitted to show visible outlines of genitals covered or not, with an additional prohibition on covering either breasts or genitals with objects or censor bars. Female streamers must have their nipples covered but are allowed to show cleavage as long as "it is clear that the streamer is wearing clothing."

Rumors surrounding Nintendo's next-generation console have been swirling for quite some time now, and now to add even more fuel to fire a gaming industry insider has thrown out a price prediction and an approximate announcement window.

That industry insider is Kantan Games CEO and gaming industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto, who spoke to GamingIndustry.biz about Nintendo's upcoming console and what it could entail. The Kantan Games CEO told the publication that he expects Nintendo will likely be an iteration of the current Nintendo Switch and won't be a complete overhaul of its design. The next-generation console will feature additional "bells and whistles," but overall will be similar to the Nintendo Switch, per Toto.

Furthermore, Toto explains that since Nintendo has the juggernaut title Pokemon under its belt and how closely associated that game is with portability, there is "no way" Nintendo will choose to "drop the portability feature for their next big thing." Given these comments, Toto expects that the new Nintendo console will feature the same hybrid design as the Nintendo Switch but will come with noticeable performance upgrades and additional features.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 8700G has been teased, which will feature Zen 4 CPU cores and RDNA 3 GPU cores, and this new desktop processor has been benchmarked providing us with some juicy new details.

The new AMD Ryzen 7 8700G "Hawk Point" processor will feature the full 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 4-based processing power and was benchmarked on the ASUS TUF X670E-PLUS motherboard with 32GB of DDR5-4800 memory. The new results are on Geekbench, with the Ryzen 7 8700G processor featuring a 4.2GHz base CPU clock and a 5.1GHz boost CPU clock.

This means the new AMD Ryzen 7 8700G processor features a CPU boost that's 400MHz to 500MHz higher than current desktop APUs on the market, led by the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G processor that features 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 3-based CPU power.

With over 1,000 planets to explore, one of the big criticisms levied at Bethesda Game Studios' epic new space RPG Starfield is that all planetary exploration is done on foot. Sure, you've got a jetpack, but many players expected a customizable land speeder or vehicle to get to the various points of interest quicker.

Well, modders are coming to the rescue again, with the latest being one of the most exciting to date - mechs you can pilot, ala the iconic MechWarrior series. Starfield's universe includes tonnes of lore about mechs being used during wars, and you can even see one up close in an in-game museum.

Like Power Armor in the Fallout series, modder Jared Kohr is working on adding mechs that you can pilot in Starfield. With the mod a work-in-progress, he's uploaded a video showcasing the work so far (watch it above), and it's impressive. Yep, you can fire weapons!

XPG is the PC gaming and performance arm of ADATA Technology, one of the world leaders in memory and storage technology - and it is set to hit CES 2024 in a big way. XPG's Xtreme Gaming Exhibition will showcase several new exciting hardware and software solutions covering everything from PC cases to keyboards, cooling, and, as per the headline, DDR5 memory.

XPG's Project NeonMax 8000 DDR5 Memory not only supports speeds of up to 8,000MT/s for Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO platforms but also features a massive "luminous area." Sure, that might be fancy talk for RGB lighting, but it covers 60% of the module's surface area to deliver a stunning look. In the age of open cases with multiple glass panels, Project NeonMax 8000 DDR5 Memory is a definite showpiece.

Speaking of cases with multiple glass panels, XPG will showcase its new INVADER X PRO PC Chassis with curved tempered glass and enough room for "massive builds."

The last twelve months have been absolutely phenomenal for semiconductor companies, which just enjoyed their best year in over a decade.

Bloomberg reports that the huge numbers were driven by the insatiable demand of artificial intelligence (AI) chips, with the site reporting the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index rising 65% in 2023, which represents the biggest single-year gain for the index since 2009.

All of the stocks except for a single one in the 30-member index skyrocketed in 2023, with a single massive standout on the index: NVIDIA. The company had amazing sales throughout 2023, mostly driven by their extensive AI GPUs. Shares more than tripled, giving NVIDIA the title of the first chipmaker to hit a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.

Xiaomi is readying a new Redmi G Pro 2024 family of laptops, with the choice of either an Intel 14th Gen Core "HX" series CPU, or Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite SOC.

Xiaomi's new laptop will be configured with either the Intel Core i5-14500HX or Core i9-14900HX processor, both with 16GB of DDR5 memory. Xiaomi's new laptops will feature an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 discrete GPU, including the mid-range RTX 4060 Max-Q laptop GPU.

Inside, the Intel Core i5-14500HX processor offers up to 14 cores (6 x P-Cores and 8 x E-Cores) and 20 threads of Raptor Lake Refresh CPU power at up to 4.9GHz, while the higher-end Core i9-14900HX processor features 24 cores (8 x P-Cores and 16 x E-Cores) and 32 threads at up to a hefty 5.8GHz. Both of these Raptor Lake Refresh processors will have a 157W TDP (55W PL1).

As SSD speeds have increased with the arrival of PCIe Gen5 storage solutions, we've also seen SSD cooling and heat dissipation become major concerns. A fast PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD with an active cooling solution (a tiny fan) is common.

We've also seen some solutions mimic what we've seen in the CPU space with full AIO cooling with radiators. At CES 2024, ADATA will showcase its XPG Project NeonStorm PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD with a patented built-in liquid cooling design- a self-contained water-cooled SSD.

With an aluminum structure and front and rear fans, it combines AIO liquid cooling with active cooling via fans. "Project NeonStorm is the first M.2 SSD in the industry to introduce water cooling and fans," ADATA writes. "After the coolant absorbs heat, it transfers the heat to aluminum alloy tubes, which then discharges heat through fans at both ends of the radiator, creating a complete convection system."

Minisforum has just announced its new V3 tablet, a new 3-in-1 slate that is powered by AMD's new Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" APU and will hit pre-sale in Q1 2024. Check it out:

Inside, the new Minisforum V3 features a 14-inch display with a 2.5K resolution and smooth 165Hz refresh rate, with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage to boot. Minisforum says that its new V3 tablet features the "Ryzen 7 flagship chip" with the Ryzen 7 8840U featuring 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 4 processing power, 16MB of L3 cache, 8MB of L2 cache, a base clock of 3.3GHz and boost clock of 5.1GHz.

Since the Minisforum V3 tablet has the latest Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" APU, it means that it features the beefed-up XDNA "Ryzen AI" NPU, because AI is important moving into the new year. We've also got an integrated Radeon 780M GPU with 12 Compute Units clocked at 2700MHz, while the NPU has 16 TOPs of AI performance, and a default TDP of 28W that can be tweaked between 15W and 30W if needed.

VESA has just announced an update to its Adaptive-Sync Display Compliance Test Specification (Adaptive-Sync Display CTS), which is the first publicly open standard for front-of-screen performance of variable refresh rate displays.

The newly-updated VESA Adaptive-Sync Display v1.1a provides updated testing procedures and logo support for future displays with "Dual-Mode" functionality. We've already seen a bunch of them teased from the likes of ASUS, Alienware, LG, Samsung, and others... with 4K 240Hz and 1080p 480Hz "Dual-Hz" functionality.

VESA's just-announced Adaptive-Sync 1.1a standard paves the way for monitor makers and their upcoming multiple-resolution and refresh rate features because, up until now, displays weren't capable of operating at different refresh rates when the resolution was decreased. Instead, they would run at the refresh rate that was supported by the maximum resolution of the monitor. If you wanted high-performance (high res + refresh rate) and content creation (video, photo editing, and more) you had to choose between the two... not anymore.

ASUS has teased its new Zenbook laptop design, with not one but two full-sized OLED displays and a full-sized keyboard to boot. Check it out:

We've already seen a similar design from ASUS in the form of the Fold 17 OLED laptop, which packed a foldable OLED display but featured a keyboard that needed to be separately attached. The new ASUS Zenbook teaser shows a dual-screen OLED laptop that should be cheaper and incredibly functional, too.

ASUS splashes its Zenbook logo on the laptop, meaning that they're aiming at regular and business users and not so much gamers. The company had its Zenbook Duo laptop, but this is different, as it features a larger, secondary OLED display. Dual OLED displays and a full-sized keyboard all in a single laptop sounds quite tempting.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series graphics cards are NOT far away anymore, and now the company is officially teasing that its new RTX 40 SUPER cards are "on the horizon".

The company has kicked off a teaser on social media without specifically mentioning the GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series itself, but new cards being "on the horizon" is a big enough wink to gamers. NVIDIA has its Special Address event at CES 2024 on January 8, where we'll be introduced to three new graphics cards.

Those new cards will be the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER with varying specifications and a staggered launch schedule. The RTX 4070 is expected on January 17, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER on January 24, and the fastest GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER on January 31.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 console may be more like a pro model than a fully-fledged next-gen system, one analyst predicts.

Like most of the internet, Japan-based video games analyst Dr. Serkan Toto believes that Nintendo will release a new console in 2024. Rumor has it that the new Switch model--dubbed the Switch 4K, Switch Pro, Super Switch, or Switch 2, depending on who you ask--will feature a new enhanced NVIDIA chip capable of 4K resolution upscaling. Having already completed the trifecta of Switch hardware, Nintendo's new hardware will apparently aim at a more modern audience now that 4K UHDTVs are so widespread.

Dr. Toto lays out his predictions in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, where he says that the new Switch could be more iterative than it is next-gen. This indicates that the Switch 2 could be somewhere in the middle between a Switch Pro and entirely new gaming platform, or even potentially sit in the same Switch family as the fourth, most-powerful system. This is supported by the fact that the Switch 2 is likely to use the same 4K-ready dock as the Switch OLED model.

If you've been following Windows 11 in terms of its battle with adoption, you'll have doubtless noticed that Microsoft's desktop operating system has very much struggled to recruit fresh users - and some new stats underline exactly how wonky progress has been in one major aspect.

We're talking about attracting upgrades from Windows 10 users, in the light of the latest monthly figures for December 2023 which have just been published by Statcounter.

Those stats show that Windows 11 has basically remained flat for its market share in terms of worldwide Windows versions (for the last three months, in fact).