Department News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Tango Gameworks has seen some success over the past year thanks to the launch of Hi-Fi Rush (which recently arrived on PS5). While many awaited to see its next big project, perhaps the most surprising announcement to emerge was that Shinji Mikami would be leaving. As the founder, he would directThe Evil Within and serve as executive producer on The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush.

Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, reaffirmed their commitment to the 18A process node with Panther Lake & Clearwater Forest headed for a mid-2025 launch.

Kazuma Kaneko, whose career as a character designer at legendary JRPG studio Atlus has spanned almost four decades, has officially left the company. Kaneko has joined COLOPL, a developer and publisher headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, where he will work on a new IP.

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Aniplex has just spilled the beans on a new Madoka Magica game, Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Magia Exedra. Yep, you heard it right, they’re bringing the magic of Madoka Magica once again as a game. Are you a fan of the anime like me? Then, keep reading!

Like any fanbase, the Baldur's Gate 3 community has seen its fair share of discourse. One ongoing topic of debate is whether or not Gortash is a good-looking dude. And if he's not, why does the game tell us that he is in Act 1? Well, it looks like we finally have our answer.

The story of Class VII and the Cold Steel saga has been going since the early PlayStation 3 days. With each entry in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, the lore expands, and new consoles come out to experience that lore on. We’ve seen all four entries in the series come to Nintendo Switch recently after debuts on PS3 and PS4 – but now the last 2 entries in this JRPG epic are finally playable on PlayStation 5.

AI startup TensorWave, believes that AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerator is a far better option than competitors such as NVIDIA's H100.

Nier director Yoko Taro says the work that inspired Nier: Automata the most was Neon Genesis Evangelion, so much so that the RPG's story is "pretty much just a retelling of Evangelion, so there's not much originality to it."

Long-time Microsoft staffer Kareem Choudhry is leaving the company.

NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, have safely returned to Earth following a productive six-month research stint aboard the International Space Station.

Razer has pushed out its flagship Blade 18 gaming laptop, featuring a top-of-the-line Intel CPU & NVIDIA's RTX GPU with great I/O capabilities.

In a disturbing event that highlights the growing sophistication of cybercrime, S S Sarkar, a 58-year-old professor at NMIMS College in Mumbai, fell prey to a fraudulent scheme enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), resulting in a large financial loss. Sarkar became entangled in a web of deception engineered by individuals who were using AI technology for vile reasons.

Lego has been an industry leader in the toy department for almost a century. So much has been immortalized in Lego since then with almost endless options when it comes to choosing what you're going to build next. Let's be honest though, while a penchant for Lego is fun, it can also get pretty expensive. That's why Lego giving its customers something for free should not be sniffed at, and right now Lego is giving people an entire set free of charge provided you spend over a certain amount through its official store.

Grand Theft Auto fans who played San Andreas might be familiar with the random glitch of sorts that occasionally caused small airplanes to crash. While many believed this was deemed a myth by the community due to Rockstar Games never explaining why this happened, a former developer who worked on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has finally offered an explanation.

In recent years, there have been instances when governments around the world have asked Apple to aid in their investigations by unlocking the accused's iPhone, with some of them even approaching the court in a bid to convince Apple to follow their instructions. The company also revealed that it had indeed cooperated with governments in about 70 such past instances. However, in recent times, Apple has simply denied the requests, suggesting the importance it gives to privacy.

For smartphone users across India, be prepared for a shift in how to call forwarding functions on your Android or iPhone devices. The Department of Telecom (DoT) is taking action to tackle fraud and online crimes perpetrated via mobile phones. As part of this initiative, telecom companies have been instructed to cease the use of USSD codes (such as *401#) for activating call-forwarding features. This directive comes into effect on April 15, 2024, until further notice.

Apple did not announce any iPad upgrades last year, and it seems the company will take its time this year as well. The OLED iPad Pro has been delayed once again due to complex production techniques involved in manufacturing the display. The device was originally speculated to launch in November of last year alongside the M3 MacBook Pro models, but Apple decided to wait until this year, potentially due to some technical challenges. Now, prominent analyst Mark Gurman claims that the March to April launch time frame has been ruled out due to issues in the production department.

In an interesting turn of events, Apple has filed a lawsuit alleging a leak of classified information about projects including the recently launched Journal app. This development comes just days after the iPhone maker got hit with a lawsuit by the US Department of Justice for allegedly creating a walled garden with its devices and ecosystem. This time, Apple has alleged that Andrew Aude, a former iOS software developer, leaked details about its classified projects. Consequently, Apple seeks damages of over $25000 in addition to a jury trial.

If you happen to get a WhatsApp call from any unknown number and someone claims to be a government official from the Department of Telecommunications then take note that it could be a scammer trying to steal your personal data. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, has issued an advisory to Indians citizens that calls are being received by the citizens wherein callers, in the name of DoT, are threatening that all of their mobile numbers would be disconnected or their mobile numbers are being misused in some illegal activities. 

Swen Vincke, head of Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, has been vocal about the ongoing wave of layoffs in the games industry, and reckons that cuts affecting critical departments and senior developers are especially shortsighted. 

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Super Squirt is live for US/OCE realms today, March 28th (29th for Oceanic realms)! Super Squirt is a rare occurrence where the Sign of the Critter lines up with Squirt being active in the Garrison Menagerie. It is very rare for these two to coincide, usually only happening a handful of times a year. While plenty of pet trainers are viable to level pets with, Super Squirt is especially important to pet battlers for a few reasons:

The March 28 puzzle is ready to be solved and today's answers may go a little over your head. I'm sure that's some sort of pun for one of the daily categories. In any case, if you need some help with today's games we've got the category list and fully revealed answers below.

Apple has found itself in hot waters again, just months after it faced a lawsuit from Masimo over its blood-oxygen monitoring feature. This time, it faces the wrath of the US Department of Justice, whose lawsuit alleges that the iPhone maker has put up a walled garden that prevents its consumers from switching to rival brands.

Dragon's Dogma 2 may have only been out for a few days, but players have already found a way to earn a heap of gold in no time at all, thanks to how Pawn quests work.

Rumors of an Xbox handheld console have been a thing for over a decade. There was, after all, the so-called Xboy, a project pushed internally by several groups within Microsoft's Xbox Leadership Team (XLT). However, it never panned out under the leadership of former Microsoft Xbox lead Robbie Bach.

The A18 Pro is said to be found in the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max later this year, and according to an alleged Geekbench 6 benchmark run, Apple’s upcoming SoC delivers impressive performance results when compared to the A17 Pro, with the difference reaching double-digits. However, regarding the rest of the competition, we have some thoughts we would like to share with you.

The newly independent game studio Toys for Bob, which announced last month that it was splitting from Microsoft-owned Activision, has entered an agreement with Xbox for a new game, according to a report from Windows Central. Toys for Bob developed 2018’s Spyro Reignited Trilogy and was behind Crash Bandicoot 4, along with the Nintendo Switch port for the N. Sane Trilogy.

The U.S. has filed a lawsuit against Apple with the aim of increasing competition for the iPhone and giving a leg up to smaller companies whose apps work with the ubiquitous device.

New York developer Velan Studios is cutting jobs as part of a reorganisation.

It'll likely take years before the U.S. government's massive antitrust lawsuit against Apple is resolved — but the iPhone maker's troubles with European regulators offer a glimpse of what changes American customers may see down the line.

The US Department of Justice has launched a significant antitrust lawsuit against Apple, claiming the tech giant's iPhone has unlawfully monopolized the smartphone market, hindering competition, and innovation, and maintaining artificially high prices. Here are the 10 key points you need to know.

The biggest challenge that the Department of Justice has in winning its antitrust case against Apple Inc. is this: The iPhone is really, really awesome.

Apple is facing another antitrust lawsuit — this time from the US government.

The Department of Justice and 17 state attorneys general filed a massive lawsuit against Apple on Thursday morning, accusing the company of monopolistic smartphone practices. Meanwhile, Fortnite maker Epic Games has been accusing Apple’s iOS App Store of antitrust violations for years in an ongoing, arduous legal battle.

The US Department of Justice sued Apple on Thursday for illegally maintaining a monopoly for its iPhone by stifling competition and imposing exorbitant costs on consumers.

Bandai Namco has unleashed raw gameplay footage for upcoming brawler Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, and boy does it have potential. A true successor to the Budokai Tenkaichi games gives Dragon Ball FighterZ a run for its money in the visuals department, and it quite clearly captures the insane action of Dragon Ball.

Honkai: Star Rail’s gigantic v2.1 update will arrive on 27th March, and will celebrate the release’s first anniversary with 20 free Star Rail Passes and a further 1,600 in-game currency Stellar Jade – an announcement which is fuelling division between HoYoverse’s fandom. It’ll also continue the plot of Penacony, introduce an all-new VA-11 HALL-A inspired drink mixing minigame, and welcome the unmissable Acheron as a playable character.

The North American Apex Legends finals have been postponed after hackers appeared to give competitors cheats in the middle of tournament games, in an unprecedented attack on a major esports event.

Respawn's Apex Legends has suffered a significant RCE (remote code execution) exploit that was used maliciously to inject cheats in the machines of streamers who were participating in the Apex Legends Global Series tournament.

A number of professional Apex Legends players were hacked mid-match during the game’s Global Series, putting a stop to the tournament and sparking concern about the security of some EA games.

About 600 of Activision's QA staff have voted to unionize, formally becoming the biggest video game union in North America.

Dune: Awakening's developer says religion will have a reduced role in the upcoming open-world survival MMO compared to its source material.

In a groundbreaking stride towards precision weather forecasting, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is set to deploy 85 radars across the nation, with an additional boost from the recently launched ISRO satellite to amplify prediction capabilities. IMD Director General M Mohapatra, speaking on Wednesday, highlighted the remarkable accuracy of IMD's predictions, notably foreseeing the impact of last year's El Nino on the monsoon. Despite the challenge, IMD's predictions stood unrivalled, accurately anticipating the rainfall patterns.

X Corp. CEO Elon Musk is being sued for $128 million dollars in a lawsuit that alleges several former Twitter executives are still due unpaid severances. Multiple lawsuits have been lobbed at the social media CEO in recent months, including Grimes suing Elon Musk in October of last year. With Musk's personal and professional decisions continuing to raise eyebrows, this new lawsuit has once again fueled discussion among audiences.

AMD's AI ambitions face a new barrier as the firm's China-compliant Instinct MI309 AI GPU may not receive approval from the US Commerce Secretary Department.

Arrowhead Studios, the developer behind co-op hit Helldivers 2, has warned players about "fake" versions of the game and other popular titles after a wave of illegitimate copies hit Steam overnight. 

Valve has pulled a handful of fake Steam listings for Helldivers 2 that were different games, potentially even cracked games, disguised as the hugely popular co-op shooter to fool people into spending money.

Blizzard has responded on the topic of the Community Council, noting that that they're reviewing the 2024 applications, the 2023 council members will depart soon and new content is appearing in the coming weeks!

A new documentary has shown the brutal reality of quality assurance work on Resident Evil 4 Remake a month before it launched.

A new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth booklet is catching fans' attention thanks to one short story that holds clues to a mystery everyone has been mulling over since the original JRPG launched 27 years ago. 

The co-creator of Halo, Marcus Lehto, has seemingly departed Electronic Arts.

Elden Ring's director believes Dark Souls 2 ultimately helped the overall series, partly because it had different directors.

US Justice department appoints first AI officer to navigate technology challenges; Google halts AI generated people images over racial inaccuracies;  ITMO researchers utilise AI to accelerate carbon nanoparticle synthesis for cancer diagnosis; Majority of Indian consumers prefer AI over human interaction, reveals Adobe report- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

The next is available to solve and the Thursday word groupings might be fairly difficult to decipher. If you find yourself having trouble with the daily categories one of the better strategies is to take advantage of the 'Shuffle' key the game provides. It's easy to get lost in the closeness of some of the words, seeing patterns that are meant to be seen but used for distraction.

An international law enforcement operation led by Britain's National Crime Agency and the FBI has arrested and indicted members of the Lockbit ransomware gang, in an unprecedented police operation that has struck one of the world's most notorious cybercrime gangs.

Samsung today received a new accolade, as its current-generation 7-inch foldable display has successfully passed the highly stringent military standard ‘MIL-STD 810G’ test that the U.S. Department of Defense recognizes. Also known as the American ‘Military Specification’ (MilSpec), several parts are evaluated and then taken through a series of tests to see if they qualify for this certification. Despite a foldable panel being less durable than a flat counterpart, it is impressive to see that this rating has been officially awarded to the Samsung camp.

NVIDIA's supply chain of its AI accelerators has reportedly witnessed a massive improvement as the firm reduces delivery times drastically.

The co-founder of Australian studio League of Geeks, Adam Duncan, has died.

Super Squirt is live for US/OCE realms today, February 12th (13th for Oceanic realms)! Super Squirt is a rare occurrence where the Sign of the Critter lines up with Squirt being active in the Garrison Menagerie. It is very rare for these two to coincide, usually only happening a handful of times a year. While plenty of pet trainers are viable to level pets with, Super Squirt is especially important to pet battlers for a few reasons:

Mike McCain has made a return to Seattle-based developer Harebrained Schemes.

The founders of Until Dawn maker Supermassive Games are departing the company after 15 years.

As more employees use instant messaging at work in lieu of email, federal antitrust enforcers issued a warning Friday: Companies under investigation must turn over those records. 

Content Warning: This piece contains some descriptions of sexual assault.

Microsoft's decision to cut 1900 staff members has reportedly seen the company's games retail teams reduced, prompting fresh questions over Xbox's future in the physical games business.

Microsoft has reportedly shut down its division for physical game releases as part of yesterday's mass layoffs. This comes as an increasing number of new releases opt to release digitally, skipping a physical launch entirely.

Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 members of staff from its games division.

The president of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra, is departing the firm.

Earlier this morning, Microsoft dropped a bomb, announcing the cutting of 1900 jobs from their Xbox and Activision Blizzard teams – nearly a 10th of their gaming division. It seems Blizzard was hit particularly hard by these layoffs, with president Mike Ybarra resigning and their upcoming survival game “Odyssey” being canceled. Well, we may now know a bit more about who was on the chopping block, and it’s not good news for those still holding onto the dream of physically owning their games.

There’s been a few notable headlines today based around Microsoft. If you caught the news earlier this morning, you discovered that Microsoft cut an astonishing 1,900 jobs in their gaming division. This came shortly after the finalization of Microsoft’s acquisitions. For nearly $70 billion, Microsoft managed to pull in Activision Blizzard. After a long battle with regulators, Microsoft was able to finalize the deal, and it left some wondering what these teams might be working on. However, it looks like quite a few individuals are now finding themselves without their jobs under the Xbox banner.

The president of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra, has announced that he’s departing the company today (January 25). 

Microsoft is reportedly laying off 1,900 of its 22,000 video game staff following the $69 billion Activision Blizzard King acquisition.

Away from the media spotlight, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is silently steering his latest project, White Stork, towards the production of AI attack drones in the United States and Ukraine. The startup, shrouded in secrecy through a network of LLCs, is actively working on mass-producing drones with advanced AI capabilities for target identification.

Infinix Smart 8 review: Time and again, Infinix has rolled out competitive smartphones in the mid-range and budget segments with the promise of delivering on users' basic requirements and then some. So, even as we talk about its smartphone's capabilities, know that Infinix has gained its reputation for bringing high-performing gaming smartphones. Now, with latest handset, Infinix Smart 8, the company has brought new features and a special design and still managed to keep it in the budget segment. So, although it is a smartphone that falls under the Rs.10000 segment, it features a Dynamic Island-like feature called Magic Ring that provides as many as four functionalities. Additionally, the LED ring light and its textured plastic design will be a standout feature that should put it ahead in the budget phone market.

Amazon.com Inc.'s Ring home doorbell unit says it will stop letting police departments request footage from users' video doorbells and surveillance cameras, retreating from a practice that was criticized by civil liberties groups and some elected officials.

Apple has been constantly making improvements to its camera sensor with each generation of iPhone it rolls out. Recently, with the iPhone 15 series, we saw massive improvements and the latest iPhone 15 Pro Max stays one of the best cameras in the market for professional photography. The new year has begun and talk about the iPhone 16 series has already started. Now a new rumor is circulating that states that the iPhone 16 Pro Max may get a bigger and advanced camera sensor for its primary camera. Check what the leaks say about the upcoming Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max camera.

Following a lengthy investigation, the United States Justice Department is set to file a lawsuit against Apple for potentially breaching antitrust laws. The department alleges Apple is using hardware and software limitations that make it harder for rival companies to compete with iPhones and iPads. If the filing goes ahead, it will mean each of the “big four” tech companies – Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple – will have been sued by the US federal government within the past five years for monopolistic business practices.

To the casting department of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender, I would like to lodge a formal complaint: Why did you make Fire Lord Ozai so damn hot by casting Daniel Dae Kim?