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Zotac will be on hand at Computex 2023, showcasing several new products, with one of the highlights being a range of new ZBOX Mini PC products. As per the headline, one of these is set to be tiny - with the ZBOX PI430AJ with AirJet being hailed as the world's first solid state active-cooled Mini PC.

AirJet is a new revolutionary bit of technology from Frore System, with Zotac noting that in the ZBOX PI430AJ, two AirJet Minis can remove a significant amount of heat thanks to their rapid airflow. Small and silent, users can boost performance with increased thermal limits to make the most out of the internal hardware. And all without increasing the unit's overall size - which, per the imagery, looks like a small external USB drive.

Hardware-wise, it features an Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of LPDDR5 memory, and M.2 SSD storage in a pocket-sized PC.

It sounds like Bungie is helping guide Sony on which live games could make the cut and which games should get the axe.

Sony acquired Bungie for $3.7 billion in 2022 specifically to help lead the new PlayStation live games initiative. Sony has seen other companies make billions of dollars from games like Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Call of Duty Warzone, and Apex Legends for many years and now Sony wants in on the action.

The acquisition has created a symbiotic relationship between the two: Bungie is helping Sony with its live service games, and Sony is helping Bungie market its lucrative IPs, including efforts to expand Bungie IP to Europe and Asia. In a recent investors briefing, Sony gives a better idea of how Bungie is assisting with PlayStation's new online-driven segment.

Sony's transmedia focus has paid off big time, with The Last of Us TV show on HBO driving up game sales of Naughty Dog's grisly survival epic.

The Last of Us television adaptation was a massive hit. Millions of people signed up to HBO Max and tuned in to watch the show every week, but the engagement didn't end there. Every new episode was also accompanied by an incredible surge in The Last of Us game sales on PS4 and PS5.

In a recent company strategy meeting, Sony Interactive Entertainment's Jim Ryan confirmed that The Last of Us TV show led to a significant spike in franchise game sales.

Sony is prepared to raise prices of its gaming hardware, software, and services if the company believes an increase is "justified and necessary."

Back in August 2022, shortly before the holiday season, Sony decided to raise the price of its PlayStation 5 console in nearly all worldwide markets except for the United States. The price hike helped Sony earn a record-breaking $8.3 billion from hardware, driven by a strong 19 million PS5 shipments made during Fiscal Year 2022. Sony had also been instrumental in raising the retail price of new PS5 games to $69.99.

It's possible Sony could raise the prices of its products once more. In a recent PlayStation gaming business meeting, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan was asked if management could raise prices of its content, hardware, and services in an attempt to drive up the LifeTime Value (LTV) of PlayStation 5 owners.

Sony's games division is doubling-down on cloud gaming in an attempt to help guide this nascent market using its tried-and-true technologies.

Cloud gaming makes up about 1-3% of the global games market, but it's been a major hurdle for the Microsoft-Activision merger. Regulators like the CMA and FTC have found that Microsoft combining with Activision could produce anti-competitive effects in the cloud gaming segment.

With all eyes now on cloud gaming, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan now says that PlayStation has some interesting new strategies for the early cloud sector.

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick uses the age-old "a rising tide lifts all boats" aphorism to describe how AI will affect the interactive entertainment market, but says any efficiencies may be short-lived as devs re-define what is capable in terms of quality.

The AI gold rush is upon us. Everyone is getting into AI, especially Microsoft and Google, who have spent billions to accelerate this new data-scraping market in the hopes of revolutionizing tech industries and ad-delivery. While AI poses a threat to specific existing jobs, it can theoretically ease the burdens of traditionally cumbersome jobs like game development for studios, including those under Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Technology, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick shares his thoughts on AI and says that artificial intelligence could indeed help streamline games production in a number of ways. That being said, the effects may be short-lived as developers simply double-down on trying to push the quality bar as high as possible.

Intellivision's new CEO Phil Adams delivers an update on the company's controversial Amico games console...and things don't sound great.

After record highs during the pandemic, the games industry is being hit by a great contraction point that has led to mass layoffs across multiple companies and entertainment sectors. Digital giants are laying off thousands of workers, and gaming has also been hit hard by current inflation-driven market economics, leading giants like Electronic Arts and Microsoft to make staff reductions.

The current market is making it harder for new entrants to break in, especially those that aspire to make their own video games console like Intellivision. Much like the Atari VCS, the Intellivision Amico always sounded like an iffy bet, and it didn't help that Intellivision had also made significant layoffs while also previously delaying the Amico console refunds.

Microsoft has made a big revelation at its Build conference, with the software giant putting an AI assistant front and center in Windows 11.

Copilot is the name of the AI, which can be invoked by clicking its icon on the taskbar, then it pops up in a side panel, ready to assist with whatever it is you happen to be doing.

Or, in the usual style, you can simply ask the AI questions. Such as how you can adjust your system to focus on getting some work done, an example Microsoft gives, in reply to which Copilot suggests using Windows 11's focus timer feature and switching to the operating system's dark theme.

AMD's RX 7600 GPU is set to retail at $269 in the US, according to the latest chatter from the grapevine.

VideoCardz shares the details on this one, informing us that AMD has been in touch with reviewers and influencers to inform them that the decision has been taken to drop the price of the RX 7600.

Originally, as we reported with previous rumors, the AMD graphics card - set to debut in a couple of days - was pegged at a $299 price point. (Some rumors suggested slightly higher than that, even).

Intel has changed the packaging of its Core i9-12900KS processor, dropping the gold wafer that was previously included in the box with the Alder Lake flagship chip.

As VideoCardz spotted, the Core i9-12900KS now comes in a plain 'tier 4' box with no mock gold wafer (which is plastic, and not silicon, ahem - in case there was any doubt).

This is according to a Product Change Notification from Intel regarding the 12900KS, which is a highly-binned version of the 12900K that's pushed further with its clock speeds.

Scientists using ultraviolet photography have made an intriguing discovery in the field of biblical studies.

They have found an ancient version of a chapter from the Bible that had been hidden beneath another section of text for over 1,500 years. Historian Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences unveiled this groundbreaking finding in an article published in the prestigious journal New Testament Studies.

According to Kessel, "The manuscript offers a 'unique gateway' for researchers to understand the earliest phases of the Bible's textual evolution. It shows some differences from modern translations of the text." Kessel used ultraviolet photography to reveal the earlier text concealed beneath three layers of words on a palimpsest, an ancient manuscript that was often reused.

A fabricated image of an explosion near the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., believed to be created using tools powered by artificial intelligence, has recently gone viral on several social media platforms, causing a brief dip in the stock market.

The image, which showcased a massive cloud of smoke near a building seemingly close to the Pentagon, quickly circulated on Twitter on Monday morning, gaining thousands of interactions, accompanied by claims of an explosion near the Pentagon. However, the Arlington Police Department promptly confirmed that the image and associated claims were false and that the image was an AI-generated fake.

The Arlington PD took to Twitter to address the situation, stating, "There is NO explosion or incident taking place at or near the Pentagon reservation, and there is no immediate danger or hazards to the public." Despite this clarification, the image continued to be spread widely across social media platforms, including Twitter accounts associated with conspiracies and the war in Ukraine. As seen above, the image was even shared by the Russian state-media Twitter account, RT, which boasts over 3 million followers. However, the post has since been deleted.

AMD's incoming Radeon RX 7600 GPU is set to up power consumption considerably compared to its predecessor, according to the latest leak about the graphics card.

Spanish tech site HD Tecnologia spilled the details on the specs of the RX 7600, and the GPU is said to demand 165W (TBP, or Total Board Power), compared to 132W for the RX 6600.

That's a jump of 33W, or to look at it another way, the RX 7600 uses 25% more power than the 6600, which also translates into a heftier requirement for the power supply in the PC. Instead of a 450W unit, you'll need a 550W PSU to drive the RX 7600 (assuming this leaked material is genuine - as ever, we must be doubtful until we get confirmation from AMD on the spec).

One of the biggest figures in the cryptocurrency space has said that Bitcoin, the world's most popular cryptocurrency, has said that Bitcoin has bottomed out and a new bull run has started.

Michael Saylor, the co-founder and executive chairman of MicroStrategy, has become one of the few Bitcoin maximalists to publicly embrace Ordinals, a protocol that allows for arbitrary and non-financial information to be included on the Bitcoin blockchain. In an interview at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, Saylor discussed his views on Ordinals, its potential use cases, and the ongoing debates within the Bitcoin community.

Saylor sees Ordinals as a positive development for Bitcoin, although he acknowledges that many of the early use cases are more speculative than serious. He stated, "What if I was using them to tokenize all of the stocks and ETFs trading on NASDAQ so that individuals can take personal custody of their shares of stock instead of leaving them locked up with a centralized custodian? If it was presented that way, then Bitcoiners would love it."

NASA's JunoCam spacecraft has traveled 510 million miles around Jupiter and its moons, documenting as much as possible and relaying valuable scientific images back to Earth.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has completed its 51st close flyby of Jupiter, capturing breathtaking images of the gas giant's volcanic moon, Io. The flyby on May 16 brought Juno closer to Io than ever before, at a distance of approximately 22,060 miles (35,500 kilometers). The detailed images captured by Juno's visible light imager JunoCam reveal Io's scarred, red-hued surface, showcasing the moon's intense volcanic activity.

An infrared view obtained by Juno's Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) prior to the flyby reveals multiple hotspots of volcanic activity across Io's surface. Io, slightly larger than Earth's moon, is known as the most volcanically active world in the solar system. It hosts hundreds of actively erupting volcanoes, blasting lava dozens of miles into its thin, water-less atmosphere.

Twitter users are reporting a bizarre issue as deleted tweets, and retweets are reappearing on their timelines, causing users to fear the platform's handling of user information.

A significant bug on Twitter is causing deleted tweets to reappear, leaving users frustrated and raising concerns about data privacy. Security expert Richard Morrell reported that Twitter restored 34,000 of his deleted tweets, with over a million restored tweets estimated within the entire network. The issue seems to affect deleted retweets as well.

The bug primarily impacts users who deleted their tweets using third-party services like Redact or TweetDelete, although it is not exclusive to them. Users have noticed deleted tweets from November 2022 and earlier resurfacing. The cause of the bug remains unclear, but speculation suggests it may be related to server relocation and improper adjustments in the network's topology. Essentially, when Twitter moved data from one server to another, it didn't perform the transition correctly, resulting in these deleted tweets somehow resurfacing on Twitter.

The video games industry boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic as more consumers bought games and interactive entertainment during lockdown periods, but those record highs have cooled due to inflation.

Driven by pandemic spending sprees, the global video games market hit new all-time highs in 2021...but it didn't stay there. Data created by IDG and presented by Take-Two Interactive indicates that the global interactive software market delivered $216 billion in 2021 (excluding hardware), and then dipped to $204 billion in 2022, representing about a -5.5% year-over-year decrease.

Throughout 2022 and 2023, we've seen entertainment companies tighten their belts against the economic shifts that have occurred due to rising inflation costs. Consumers in particular are choosing to spend more money on necessities than on things like entertainment, which has led to a reduction in overall game sales on Sony's PlayStation platform, and the trends have prompted multiple CEOs to comment that consumers are choosing to buy blockbuster titles instead of riskier unknown games.

Ubisoft's untitled Star Wars game will release in the next 12 months, sources have told Kotaku's Ethan Gach.

In 2021, Ubisoft announced that its Massive Entertainment studio was developing a new Star Wars game. The Division 2 developer promised the Star Wars project would be an open-world title with story-driven beats that was developed in the studio's proprietary Snowdrop Engine.

It's been quite some time since Ubisoft has updated fans on the Star Wars game, but new reports indicate the project could be a part of Ubisoft's Fiscal Year 2024 slate. That means the Star Wars game could release from now until March 2024. In its recent report, Ubisoft did say that "another large game" would be a part of its FY24 timeline.

Alan Wake 2 has been in development for the better part of a decade, and now with the help with Epic Games, the sequel is coming out in 2023. Thanks to an accidental spoiler, we also know when the survival horror game will come out.

In a recent interview with podcast Monsters, Madness, and Magic, Alan Wake actor Matthew Porretta has inadvertently announced the release window for Remedy's new sequel. According to Porretta, Alan Wake 2 is due out sometime in October 2023, putting it firmly within spooky season.

"I've been working on [Alan Wake 2]...that's supposed to come out in October. We're in the middle of working on it now. In fact, I was just in Finland the last week--that's where the company is from, Remedy. They are amazing people," Porretta said in the interview.

Sony Corp. has made plans to explore a spin off its Financial Services segment to raise more capital for strategic investments in entertainment and image sensors.

In its 2023 Corporate Strategy Meeting report, Sony outlined tentative plans to spin off its financial unit through an initial public offering (IPO). The goal with this IPO is to raise more working capital that can be used to invest in Sony's largest businesses, including entertainment (which generated over 50% of total Sony Corp. FY22 earnings) and its lucrative I&SS image sensors group.

"In order to expand our growth over the medium to longer term, we will need the ability to invest in image sensors and the entertainment business at a completely new level," Sony Corp. President Hiroki Totoki said in a recent press meeting in Japan, the Financial Times reports.