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Heading into 2023, The Day Before from developer Fntastic was one of Steam's most wish-listed games - hype and goodwill garnered from the game's impressive reveal trailer from 2021. A trailer that showed several minutes of what was described as an "open-world MMO survival set in a deadly, post-pandemic America." And it looked good, a little bit of Ubisoft's The Division, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us, and a dash of DayZ.

At a glance, it was easy to buy into the hype. However, those who took a closer look saw a game that was more concept than anything else, from shots copied and duplicated from popular game trailers to the revelation that its "gameplay" was all smoke and mirrors. Even the game's logo and artwork, being "inspired" by The Last of Us, were questionable.

Since its reveal back in 2021, some of the development milestones for The Day Before include being pulled from Steam due to not filing the proper trademark paperwork, gameplay demos and presentations looking worse than what came before, and revelations that the studio was exploiting "volunteers" to develop the game. This brings us to The Day Before hitting Steam Early Access on December 7, 2023-last week.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope snapped an image of a Cosmic Christmas Bauble located 10,000 light years away from Earth.

The space agency has taken to its website to share the newly snapped image of the Cosmic Christmas Bauble, explaining that the astronomical object is more commonly referred to as Cassiopeia A (Cas A). NASA writes that Cas A is the remnants of a supernova explosion and is located in the constellation Cassiopeia.

This object is the brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky and has been well-documented across the wavelength spectrum. However, despite previous observations, researchers are still discovering secrets within the star's remains.

Apple first unveiled its new Journal app at WWDC back in June, and now the company has rolled out the app in a new iOS update.

iOS 17.2 is here and can be downloaded across all compatible iOS devices, and new update has added a bunch of new functionality to the Action Button on the newest generation iPhone's, along with spatial video capture on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Notably, spatial video support being rolled out to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max appears to be for the coming Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset, as the iOS 17.2 release notes states, "so you can relive your memories in three dimensions on Apple Vision Pro". Other camera changes include improvements to the speed of focussing for the Telephoto camera on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

GALAX has just launched its new GeForce RTX 4070 20th Anniversary Edition graphics card, with a sleek look due to its hidden power connector. Check it out:

The company is celebrating its 20th anniversary, with GALAX China launching its GeForce RTX 4090 20th Anniversary Edition -- but having to pull it from the Chinese market after US sanctions saw the RTX 4090 banned in multiple countries, including China -- and now it's here with the GeForce RTX 4070 20th Anniversary Edition card.

GALAX uses a beautiful cooler design, with two fans on the front -- and to the left -- and another fan on the back, with an all-white design that makes me feel tingly. It's only a dual-slot design which I love as well, with the RTX 4070 20th Anniversary Edition measuring just 45mm thick, and with its hidden 8-pin PCIe power connector under a magnetic cover, GALAX really makes this an appealing RTX 4070 for gamers.

Sabrent has quite the KVM switch with its Thunderbolt 4 KVM Switch that is powered by a Thunderbolt 4 connector and can power 8K 60Hz and 4K 144Hz displays, and so much more... it's on sale right now for $298, a savings of 15%.

The versatile Sabrent Thunderbolt 4 KVM Switch allows you to connect up to three different Thunderbolt 4 devices, with transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps. Sabrent uses this bandwidth wisely, with its KVM switch supporting up to 8K 60Hz and 4K 144Hz displays, letting you seamlessly switch between two different computers with high-res and high refresh rate monitors.

If you're plugging two displays into the Sabrent Thunderbolt 4 KVM switch, you'll be limited to 4K 60Hz, which allows you to have huge productivity (dual displays through a KVM into two separate systems) and still have room for more through USB ports on the KVM.

AI, AI, AI... it's all you're going to hear in 2024, with PC and laptop makers both betting the farm on the AI PC trend in 2024 and beyond.

TechInsights reports that laptop shipments dropped a chunky 27% in 2023 compared to 2021; we're expecting a "joyful" year for 2024 when it comes to laptop sales. Shipments are expected to drive up because of a mix of next-gen hardware -- Intel with its new Meteor Lake processors and AMD with its new Hawk Point processors -- and both featuring AI hardware.

The report says that we can expect an 11% growth in laptop sales in 2024 from artificial intelligence (AI) entering the world of laptops, as well as the consumer upgrade cycle, which is expected to be bigger in 2024. We also have new competitors powered by the Arm architecture that are also heavily jumping into the race, with the likes of Qualcomm and its latest Snapdragon SoC.

We heard about CAMM memory modules last year, but now JEDEC has published the new CAMM2 memory module standard that will find us receiving higher capacities, higher speeds, and massive space savings.

First off, what's CAMM? CAMM stands for Compression Attached Memory Module and is a new memory standard that has been made specifically for laptops and portable platforms, where it's designed to pump the maximum performance while using the smallest amount of space possible.

Dell was the first to show it off back at CES 2022, and then it was pushed into an open standard, and now JEDEC has adopted it as the newest memory standard. Where CAMM has advantages over SO-DIMM is that it's very thin, which means we have a slimmer design, making it perfect for laptops -- and even better for the modules and laptops to be field-repaired. It's great for both consumers (bigger capacities, higher speeds) and manufacturers (repairs, etc, are so much easier).

Free Radical Design, the studio behind the anticipated Timesplitters 4, has been shut down as video games industry layoffs continue.

The gaming market has cut over 6,000 jobs as publishers try to stabilize profits through cost control measures. Big-name publishers from Electronic Arts to Ubisoft have eliminated hundreds of jobs, but Swedish decentralized games empire The Embracer Group may lead the charge with over 900 people being laid off as of September 30, with more layoffs happening since.

At the time Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors warned that more layoffs are possible. Now parent company Plaion, who operates the Deep Silver publishing label, has apparently closed Free Radical Design (FRD). This comes shortly after Plaion also closed Volition, the developers of the Saints Row franchise. The FRD studio had been resurrected in 2021 after Embracer purchased the IP back in 2018, and Free Radical Design had been working on a new Timesplitters game.

Sony's beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console has been teased for a while now, where last week I pondered that the just-announced Grand Theft Auto 6 would be a huge system seller for an upgraded PS5 Pro console... and now we have more information on the PS5 Pro out of nowhere.

The new information on the PlayStation 5 Pro is coming from leaker Kepler and the ResetEra forums, where we've heard that the PS5 Pro is codenamed "Trinity". In contrast, the upgraded SoC inside of the console is codenamed "Viola". The APU will see the CPU side boosting at up to 4.4GHz, which makes sense as we heard about the "low 4GHz range" in rumors a couple of months ago now.

Viola still uses the Zen 2 architecture that is inside of the regular PS5 for compatibility, but the CPU will boost up to a higher 4.4GHz. There's also reportedly 64KB of L1 cache per core, 512KB of L2 cache per core, and 8MB of L3 shared cache (4MB per CCX).

Classic old-school Zelda games may become just a link to the past as Nintendo focuses instead on freedom, choice, and player agency.

It sounds like the open-world formula in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will now be the standard for future Zelda games. In a recent interview with IGN, the Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma indicates that linear and restrictive games with a set progression path are relics of the past.

"So I am in complete agreement with what Mr. Fujibayashi said in that games where you need to follow a specific set of steps or complete tasks in a very set order are kind of the games of the past," Aonuma told IGN's Kat Bailey.

Despite the commercial failure of Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, Disney is still open to future collaborations with Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics.

Years ago, Japanese games publisher Square Enix made a surprise announcement: It was working on two games set in the Marvel universe, and its Deus Ex and Tomb Raider teams were leading production. One was a live service game based on the Avengers, which ultimately flopped, and the other was an excellent singleplayer Guardians of the Galaxy game that also "failed to meet expectations."

Back-to-back sales misses led to significant losses, prompting Square Enix to sell its entire Western games division including the devs of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy games, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal. The Embracer Group snapped up these studios in a landmark $300 million deal, and Eidos is currently making a new Tomb Raider game with Crystal Dynamics believed to be returning to Deus Ex.

GTA 6 won't release on PC at launch, and now a former Rockstar Games animator explains why it takes so long to make PC ports of games.

Grand Theft Auto VI is only coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles in 2025. It's assumed a PC version is coming, but may not happen until years after launch. This revelation prompted PC Gamer to publish an article entitled "There's no technical reason Rockstar can give for why a PC version of GTA 6 isn't arriving with the console release." Now a former GTA animator explains why PC ports aren't made in tandem with console versions.

According to Mike York, who worked with Rockstar Games on titles like GTA 5 and RDR2, there's two main reasons why a PC port of GTA 6 will take a while: Focusing on what sells, and the large amount of meticulous and hard work that goes into PC versions of games.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has reportedly shipped out devkits to more distant third-party studios, and it may only be a matter of time before specs start to leak.

According to new reports from Insider Gaming, executives at Sony's game division expect the specs for its upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro console to surface throughout this month. Sources have told Tom Henderson that Sony is starting to distribute PS5 Pro devkits to third-party studios. It's assumed that some group, team, or studio will pass around the highly-confidential spec sheet for Sony's upgraded PS5.

Given this timing, it's highly likely that Sony has already distributed PS5 Pro devkits to its internal teams--studios like Insomniac Games and Guerrilla Games probably had early PS5 Pro iterations before the tech was matured. It's also possible that Sony has already shipped out PS5 Pro devkits to its closer third-party partners, including companies like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two Interactive to name a few. It's typically unlikely that these closer publishers would leak specific portions of the PS5 Pro's capabilities.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom won't be getting a follow-up title; Nintendo has exhausted all possible additions to that iteration of Link's story and universe.

For those that didn't know, Tears of the Kingdom was originally conceived as a DLC for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but following its years in development and the ideas Nintendo was planning on carrying out, the DLC grew too large and earned itself the title of a sequel. Despite being leaked on PC at launch, Tears of the Kingdom went on to be extremely well-received by fans, earning it a place as a nominee for Game of The Year at The Game Awards 2023.

Despite the positive reception for Tears of the Kingdom and this overall iteration of Link and Hyrule, Eiji Aonuma, a 30-year-long producer on The Legend of Zelda franchise, said in a recent interview with Game Informer that Nintendo doesn't have plans for a follow-up game, and that Tears of the Kingdom is the "apotheosis," or the highest point of development of the series.

A team of researchers at Northwestern University has developed tiny VR goggles for mice, which are designed to simulate overhead threats while mapping the brain activity of the rodent.

The researchers behind the project have put forward the goal of developing a virtual reality device that is capable of monitoring the brain activity of mice while they think they are under threat. The new virtual reality goggles are part of the quest to understand the brain activity of mice, both outward physical responses and inward responses through neural activity, to what is being displayed on the screen.

The results of the study were published in the journal Neuron on Friday and explain that, unlike conventional human-designed VR headsets where the entire device is worn, the team of researchers instead placed the Miniature Rodent Stereo Illumination VR (or iMRSIV) goggles right in front of the mouse while it was on a treadmill. The goggles take up the entire peripheral vision of the mouse and, according to the researchers, the mice involved in the study took to the method much more quickly than past attempts.

In the latest edition of Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, who pens his own Power On newsletter, the tech journalist explains that Apple has begun Vision Pro training sessions for retail employees.

In the newsletter, Gurman writes that Apple has started scheduling two-day Vision Pro training courses for Apple employees in retail stores. Apple has reportedly flown out at least one employee from every Apple Store in the United States to California, where they will undergo the training and then fly back to their respective stores to train the other staff. The goal behind the training, which is scheduled to take place in January, is to make each Apple employee fully competent in the Vision Pro setup, which is custom for each person.

One of the most iconic stars in the night sky will vanish out of sight today, as astronomers have tracked an asteroid that will be passing right in between our line of sight of the star.

That star is Betelgeuse, and it's the 10th brightest star in the night sky. Reports indicate that Betelgeuse will vanish for 12 second in what is considered an "ultra rare eclipse" caused by the asteroid 319 Leona passing directly in front of it.

Notably, the eclipse will be seen from Earth, and according to The International Occultation Timing Association a ring of fire will appear through its main path across Asia and southern Europe. The event will only be visible for a short time, which means its recommended to plan your day if you desire catching it. For those that won't be able to see the ring of fire event by going out their back door, you can tune into the Virtual Telescope Project that will be hosting a livestream that begins at 8:00 p.m EST on December 11.

Last week, we reported on the rumor that NVIDIA was planning to stop producing the entry-level GeForce RTX 3050 8GB graphics cards in favor of a cutdown GeForce RTX 3050 6GB refresh. This refresh is launching soon, too, sometime in January 2024, potentially around the same time as the new GeForce RTX 40 Series SUPER GPUs.

In addition to less VRAM capacity, the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB refresh will supposedly sport fewer CUDA Cores (a 20% reduction), a boost clock of 1700 MHz, and a power rating of 75W - which would mean that it would get all of its power via the PCIe slot.

It's an interesting move, and according to the latest slice of info from Taiwanese outlet Benchlife, The GeForce RTX 3050 6GB could launch with a price point of only $179 - a 28% reduction from the GeForce RTX 3050's launch MSRP of $249.

An eye-opening letter was sent to the Department of Justice by Senator Ron Wyden, and it stated foreign officials are currently spying on smartphone users through the push notifications sent to any device.

The letter was sent on Wednesday last week, and Wyden warns that foreign governments are requesting Apple and Google provide them with the data of push notifications sent across each of the company's servers. For those who don't know, push notifications aren't sent directly to your smartphone. They first travel over Apple and Google's servers, depending on what operating system you are running, iOS or Android.

Since the paper trail leads over the two companies' servers, they both have access to the metadata (Push Token) within those push notifications, such as which app received a notification, which phone it was sent to, a Google or Apple account associated with that device, and in some cases, the text that's within the push notification that's displayed on the devices wake screen.

A group of scientists discovered a region of Earth that has previously gone undocumented, and within this region is a unique ecosystem that may be a window for researchers to look back 3.5 billion years to the state of life on Earth.

The previously undocumented region is located in a remote Argentina desert at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet. The team of researchers that discovered it caught glimpses of the terrain through satellite images and decided to pack up a car, drive as far as the road would take them, and then, when the road finished, walk to what now appears to be a prehistoric world of its own.

The researchers discovered a series of lagoons surrounded by salt flats that are home to microbial communities of stromatolites. These stromatolites are created by cyanobacteria, formerly known as blue-green algae, and a photosynthesizing bacteria that grows alongside minerals to create unusual rock formations over time. Researchers described this region in Argentina as the "best modern examples of the earliest signs of life on Earth".