ROVEN

Forget the Stealth Boy and shadowed armor. A crummy corrugated container is all you need. Sometimes the best answer to a high-tech problem is a low-tech solution. Solid Snake showed us that when it comes to stealth, a simple cardboard box is all you need to bamboozle enemy guards, and now you can use a cunning corrugated container in Fallout 4. The Metal Gear Solid Cardboard Box mod gives you a comically large box to hide in as you scuttle your way across The Commonwealth. Equip it with your Pipboy as an apparel item and say goodbye to shadowed armor and Stealth Boys. It's time to get old-school, Snake-level sneaky. There are three different versions of the box contained in the mod, and you can only have one version installed at a time. The most basic version is quite simply just a box—there are no stealth benefits at all, it's literally just a giant box you can wear as a costume. The second version, Solid Box, will let you avoid detection while you're wearing the box and sneaking or remaining perfectly still. If you scuttle too quickly in view of enemies, however, they'll spot you. The third version (Big Boss Box) basically renders you invisible, allowing you to creep around right in front of your enemies, who will only detect you if they walk right into you or you do something stupid, like try and fail to pick their pockets. If you're detected, the box vanishes and you can't equip it again until you're hidden. With the mod installed, you'll find your new disguise just outside Vault 111, sitting in the blue trailer by the billboard. You can also craft the "Big Boss" version of the box at a chem station. You can grab Metal Gear Solid Cardboard Box mod here at Nexus Mods.

The US faces a huge task in reversing a culture of "crazy conspiracy theories" that have exacerbated divides in the country, Barack Obama says. In a BBC interview, the former president says the US is more sharply split than even four years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidency. And Mr Obama suggests Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 US election is just the start of repairing those divisions. "It'll take more than one election to reverse those trends," he says. Tackling a polarised nation, he argues, cannot be left only to the decisions of politicians, but also requires both structural change and people listening to one another - agreeing on a "common set of facts" before arguing what to do about them. However he says he sees "great hope" in the "sophisticated" attitudes of the next generation, urging young people to "cultivate that cautious optimism that the world can change" and "to be a part of that change". Why Donald Trump lost US election results in maps and charts The great dividing line of this year's election How has division been fuelled in America? Anger and resentment between rural and urban America, immigration, injustices like inequality and "the kinds of crazy conspiracy theories - what some have called truth decay" have been amplified by some US media outlets and "turbocharged by social media", Mr Obama tells historian David Olusoga, in an interview for BBC Arts to promote his new memoir. "We are very divided right now, certainly more than we were when I first ran for office in 2007 and won the presidency in 2008," the former president says. He suggests that this is, in part, attributable to Mr Trump's willingness to "fan division because it was good for his politics". Something else that has contributed hugely to the issue, Mr Obama says, is the spread of misinformation online, where "facts don't matter". "There are millions of people who subscribed to the notion that Joe Biden is a socialist, who subscribed to the notion that Hillary Clinton was part of an evil cabal that was involved in paedophile rings," he says. The example he uses here with Ms Clinton relates to a fake theory alleging that Democratic politicians were running a paedophile ring out of a Washington pizza restaurant. "I think at some point it's going to require a combination of regulation and standards within industries to get us back to the point where we at least recognise a common set of facts before we start arguing about what we should do about those facts." image captionMr Obama has said that Joe Biden, who he is greeting here with a socially distant "air elbow", has "all the qualities we need in a president right now" Mr Obama says that while many conventional mainstream media outlets have embraced fact-checking in recent years in an effort to tackle the spread of misinformation online, it is often not enough because "falsehoods had already circled the globe by the time truth got out of the gates". He says division is also a result of socioeconomic factors such as increasing inequality and disparities between rural and urban America. Such issues, he adds, are "paralleled in the UK and around the world" with "people feeling as if they're losing a grip on the ladder of economic advancement and so react and can be persuaded that it's this group's fault or that group's fault". The problem with misinformation is it's po[CENSORED]r By Marianna Spring, Specialist disinformation reporter Viral conspiracy theories have been a staple feature of this year's US election - and a more mainstream school of thought during the Trump presidency. That's because online disinformation with conspiratorial undertones is no longer limited to the dark corners of the internet. It's promoted by prominent figures, with huge followings - like those in charge across the world, including in the White House. The polarised world of the internet - where everything is a matter of opinion rather than fact, and we choose our tribe - has created a fertile breeding ground for conspiracies and misinformation. An increasing number of people who use social media to do their own research come to misleading conclusions - these can be exacerbated by one-sided coverage of stories by partisan media. As Barack Obama points out, these falsehoods or misleading claims - especially when amplified by the media or public figures - prove to be much more po[CENSORED]r than any debunk. The solution may not reside in just presenting the facts - as important as that remains. It's also about understanding why people turn to conspiracies online and how they were exposed to them repeatedly. I frequently speak to victims of online conspiracy theories about the damage they bring, and the divisions they cause. That has revealed how difficult and complex this damage is to undo. What about Black Lives Matter and race? Mr Obama, who made history as America's first black president, says the issue of race has been "one of the central fault lines in American history - our original sin". The events that unfolded over the summer, including the death of George Floyd - a black man who died in police custody - and the response to his death from communities not just in the US but around the world, created moments of both despair and optimism, he says. "Despair that the chronic lingering role of race and bias in our criminal justice system continues in such a blatant form... enormous optimism that you saw an outpouring of protest activism and interest that far exceeded anything we had seen previously - and was peaceful." How BLM went from Facebook post to global movement It was important that the protests were multi-racial, he says, adding that the response was different to that of the killing in 2012 of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Florida teenager who was shot dead by neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Mr Zimmerman was later cleared of the 17-year-old's murder in a high-profile criminal case. Mr Obama also mentions the fatal shooting in 2014 of 18-year-old unarmed black man Michael Brown, who was shot six times by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. He says that while those incidents inflamed passions across America, stirring up debate over race and justice, there still appeared to be "resistance among large portions of the white community to push back against the notion that this was more than just one incident or a case of bad apples". "What you saw this summer was some communities that had a very negligible black po[CENSORED]tion, folks going out there and saying Black Lives Matter and embracing the notion that real change has to come." Mr Obama was speaking ahead of the release of his new memoir, A Promised Land, which charts his rise to the US Senate and first term as president. Due for release on 17 November, it is the first of two books covering his time in the White House. You can see the full interview in a special programme, Barack Obama talks to David Olusoga, this Wednesday on BBC One in the UK at 1930 GMT or internationally from Saturday 21 November on BBC World News.

The stunning MV Agusta Superveloce gets a patritoic tricolore refresh for 2021 with the 75 limited edition models to be sold over 75 hours The MV Agusta Superveloce may already be one of the most evocative motorcycles on the market right now but that doesn’t mean the iconic Italian marque isn’t capable of making it just that bit more special when the time suits. Feast your eyes on the MV Agusta Superveloce 75 Anniversario, which has been launched to celebrate, as you’d expect, 75 years of the Varese manufacturer and its ‘Motorcycle Art’ methodology. Coinciding with the launch of a new look website, which in turn heralds a broader target to increase sales and dealership networks across Europe, this is certainly a ‘soft opening’ for MV Agusta’s much vaunted new era. Based on the running gear of the MV Agusta F3 800, the Superveloce packs 148hp @ 13,000rpm from its three-cylinder engine, with a maximum speed topping out at 240km/h (150mph). However, the Superveloce predominantly wears its heart on its silky sleeve with that porthole single circular headlamp fronting a funnelling frontal fascia, an appearance imitated towards the striking rear end. To celebrate those 75 years, the Superveloce 75 is decked out in patriotic Italian tricolore red, green and white colours, with gold detailing. With an Arrow three-exit exhaust system (for track use only), a control unit with a dedicated map and numbered steering head aluminium plate and painted tail-cover, the Superveloce is destined to look and sound fabulous. The make the occasion particularly special, only 75 will be produced and they will be sold over a period of 75 hours starting at midnight on November 15, Reservations cost 100euros and full prices start at 25,000euros. Who wants one? MV Agusta Superveloce 75 Anniversaro

A vaccine which can prevent nine out of 10 people getting Covid-19 is set to be put forward for emergency approval. Its developers, Pfizer and BioNTech, said it had been tested on 43,500 people, with no safety concerns raised. What is the new vaccine and how effective is it? The vaccine trains the immune system to fight coronavirus. It is a new type of vaccine called an RNA vaccine and uses a tiny fragment of the virus' genetic code. This starts making part of the virus inside the body, which the immune system recognises as foreign and starts to attack. It is given in two doses - three weeks apart - and early data suggests it protects more than 90% of people from developing Covid symptoms. Has this type of vaccine ever been used before? There are no RNA vaccines that have been approved for use in humans. The concept has been researched before and people have been given them in clinical trials for other diseases. The vaccine will be considered by regulatory agencies around the world, and they will decide whether the jab can be approved for use. Who will get it first and how soon can I have it? It depends how old you are, as age is the biggest risk factor for severe Covid-19. In the UK, older care home residents and care home staff are top of the preliminary priority list. They are followed by health workers such as hospital staff and the over 80s. People are then ranked by age, with people under 50 at the bottom of the list. The first jabs may take place before Christmas if everything goes smoothly. The vaccine will be delivered through care homes, GPs and pharmacists as well as "go-to" vaccination centres set up in venues such as sports halls. However, there are logistical challenges to overcome - such as the need to keep the vaccine at minus 80C during transportation from the manufacturing lab to vaccination venues. The jab must be thawed before it is given to a patient and can be stored in a normal fridge for a few days before being administered. First 'milestone' vaccine offers 90% protection Have we finally got a coronavirus vaccine? Who would get the vaccine first? Will it offer lasting protection? It is impossible to know and we will find the answer only by waiting. If immunity does not last then it may be necessary to have a vaccine every year, in the same way as for flu. The data did not show whether protection from Covid-19 was the same in all age groups. However, earlier studies did suggest young and old people could produce an immune response. There will also be some people - such as those with a weak immune system - who will not be able to have the vaccine. Could the vaccine have long-term health effects? Nothing in medicine is 100% safe - even something we take without thinking, like paracetamol, poses risks. The data so far is reassuring - trials on 43,500 people discovered no safety concerns, although mild side effects have been reported. If there were highly dangerous and common consequences of this vaccination, they should have become apparent. However, rarer side effects may emerge as millions of people are immunised. Will it mean we don't need lockdown? Hopefully yes, but not for some time. If enough people are immune then the virus would stop spreading and we would not need other measures for controlling the virus. The challenge, however, is getting from now to that point. There is still the monumental challenge of manufacturing enough vaccine and actually getting it into people. It is all going to take time and we need something to control the virus until then. So, testing, lockdowns, social distancing, and mask wearing are going to be a feature of our lives for a while yet. What if the virus mutates? Viruses mutate all the time, it's what they do. The question is, will they mutate in a way that changes their behaviour? So far there is no sign of that happening, but it is possible that in the future the virus may change so the vaccine becomes less effective. If that happens, then a new coronavirus vaccine may need to be designed. This is not unusual. A new flu vaccine is developed each year to try to match the strains of flu that are doing the rounds. And the RNA vaccine technology is very easy to tweak so this should not be a major problem. Why can it only be made by Pfizer? The vaccine has been designed and developed by Pfizer and BioNtech, and they own the intellectual property. They already have the manufacturing capacity to produce 1.3 billion doses by the end of next year, but could partner with others to increase capacity even further. What do we still need to know about the vaccine? The announcement gave us the headline, but there is a still lack of fine detail. We do not know if the vaccine stops you catching and spreading the virus or just stops you from getting ill. We also don't know how protective the vaccine is in different age groups. These will be crucial for understanding how it will be used. What does this mean for other vaccines? It is good news. It shows that a coronavirus vaccine is possible, which we didn't know a couple of days ago. As many of the vaccines are targeting the same part of the virus - what's known as the spike protein - it raises hopes they will work too. There are about a dozen vaccines in the final stages of clinical development. No vaccine has gone from the drawing board to being proven highly effective in such a short period of time. We are still waiting for the full data, but these results are even better than people were hoping for. A good flu vaccine protects around half of people, so 90% at the first attempt is a triumph.

iOS 14.3 will prompt some users to install selected third-party applications during setup, in what is likely an attempt to stifle any allegations of anticompetitive behaviour from regulators. The feature, which is buried deep within the beta version of the upcoming iOS release and was first spotted by 9to5Mac, is believed to be activated depending on the location of the user, and states: “In compliance with regional legal requirements, continue to view available apps to download.” Although iOS is not the most widely installed mobile operating system (that particular crown belongs to Android), it is unique insofar as the control exerted by Apple on the ecosystem, famously dubbed the Walled Garden. This limits where users can download third-party software - exclusively the App Store - and forces developers to use Apple’s payment processing methods, which take a 30 per cent cut of all transactions. Moreover, until recently, users were unable to select third-party products for their default browser and email apps. This has prompted antitrust investigations in several jurisdictions, including the US, Japan, and the EU, often prompted by the complaints of competitors, such as Spotify and Rakuten. This is in addition to the legal action taken by Epic Games, which has claimed Apple deliberately tries to disadvantage third-party developers through its app store policies. Apple isn’t the only phone manufacturer to incorporate third-party downloads into the setup process — Huawei and OPPO both recommend specific apps upon setup. Although these tend to be separate from the core phone experience, and are usually marketing outreach efforts designed to raise the profile of a particular app. More likely, one can draw parallels between the “browser choice” feature Microsoft was forced to foist upon users by the European Commission, in order to chip away at the then-dominant posture of Internet Explorer. Separately, the Commission forced Google to allow Android users to select their preferred search engine, in order to assuage antitrust concerns.

Nvidia's broken down AMD's Smart Access Memory feature, and is making it available to Intel-based systems too. Just don't get too excited about the fps gains... AMD announced a few key features for its upcoming Big Navi graphics cards ahead of launch, one of which has now been picked apart by Nvidia in what can only be described as a very AMD way. Where AMD's Smart Access Memory is a proprietary system, only to be available to members of the super elite Ryzen 5000 and Radeon RX 6800 club, Nvidia is offering a version that is potentially open for all. How times have changed. As the only company to be able to offer both its own graphics cards and CPUs—at least for now—AMD made a lot of noise about the potential performance boost it could offer when pairing the new Ryzen 5000-series processors with the Radeon RX 6800-series GPUs. On their own each should be a great standalone slice of silicon, but the idea is that they come together to form a gaming PC that's greater than the sum of its parts. The AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) feature promises up to 11% higher gaming performance across select titles by utilising both the company's new CPUs and GPUs working in unison. The basic theory is that currently the way gaming PCs are set up means that in Windows-based systems the processor can only gain access to a small part of the graphics card's memory at any given moment, which has the potential to limit gaming performance. AMD is widening that channel to allow its Ryzen 5000-series chips to be able to access far more memory at once, "to harness the full potential of GPU memory, utilizing the bandwidth of PCI Express to remove the bottlenecks and increase performance." That will only happen with AMD's 500-series motherboards running PCIe 4.0, and with the aforementioned new Ryzen and Radeon silicon. It also needs the latest motherboard BIOS as well as the latest GPU drivers, but if you're not keeping those updated with your new chips then you deserve all you get. The effect is that you get up to 11 percent higher gaming performance. In Forza Horizon 4. In other games you're looking at more like 5-6 percent, and in others less than that. So, hardly transformative on its own. But that hasn't stopped Nvidia from digging into it and fashioning its own response. In a statement sent around the tech press yesterday it essentially explained how AMD had opened the access floodgates. “The capability for resizable / larger BAR is part of the PCI Express specification," the statement reads. "NVIDIA hardware supports this functionality and will enable it on Ampere GPUs through future software updates. We have it working internally and are seeing similar performance results. Stay tuned.” So, by similar results, Nvidia tells us it is seeing the same sub-10 percent gains on most games, which isn't exactly going to set the world alight in frame rate terms. The Resizable BAR Support feature Nvidia is referencing was implemented in the PCIe specification a few years ago, and has historically been used in enterprise and workstation environments where access to large pools of graphics memory is more important than it has been in gaming. Where it was limited to 256MB before that was expanded to operate instead in terms of gigabytes. The important part of this is that if all AMD is doing with SAM is taking advantage of the Resizable BAR feature then it's not something that really needs to be limited to AMD's own hardware, and especially not only the latest goodies. Though there may be more to it than just hitting that feature in the PCIe spec. Speaking with Nvidia, however, it wants to widen its own version out to Intel hardware, and specifically to PCIe 3.0 systems too. It has the feature working in the labs right now, but Nvidia hasn't given us a final date for when it's going live. Though I'd be surprised to see the RTX 3080 getting support for the feature before the start of 2021. What that's going to look like, as with AMD's own Smart Access Memory, is going to be a compatible version of Nvidia's graphics driver, but it's also going to need a compatible BIOS update for whichever motherboard you're running. As such Nvidia is going to have to be working with both AMD and Intel to get this going; chatting up Intel surely won't be an issue, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall as Nvidia talks to AMD about it. But why now? Presumably it's because the green team saw the feature in the AMD presentation, has been trying to figure out what it was doing, and has now got to the stage of having its own Ampere cards running, on a platform agnostic level, in the labs. While Nvidia has been at pains to get the existence (whether planned or reactionary) of its own take on Smart Access Memory out into the public consciousness recently, it does bear repeating that it's not going to make a massive difference to the performance of your system. It's great that both companies are taking aim at potential bottlenecks, and it's also great that AMD has taken the lead and is encouraging Nvidia to make an equivalent feature part of its own new graphics card stack. But still, the idea that AMD is the one sticking to proprietary performance-boosting features, while Nvidia is the one trying to make it much more platform agnostic, feels like the world has turned on its head. How very 2020.

Cyberpunk 2077 is, without a single doubt, this year’s most anticipated title. It’s developer CD Projekt Red’s follow-up to the Witcher franchise, which has had more trailers and reveals than most AAA games out there, and has Keanu-freaking-Reeves in it. It’s almost like this game’s marketing campaign has marketing campaigns at this point, and next week we’re getting treated to another peek inside of Night City. Episode five the Cyberpunk 2077 Night City Wire is going live next week, and instead of focusing on the vehicles of the world, viewers will learn more about its music and the mysterious rocker boy Johnny Silverhand. For the folks who don’t know him yet, Johnny Silverhand is Keanu Reeves’ character in Cyberpunk 2077. The slick-haired, leather jacket-rocking bad boy somehow ends up living in the head of the game’s protagonist, V. It’s not clear what his goal is in the game, but from his line at the end of 2019’s cinematic trailer for the game, “We have a city to burn,” certainly doesn’t mean bringing everyone puppies and kittens. The life and tunes of Johnny Silverhand In the world of Cyberpunk 2077, Silverhand and his music are pivotal to the game’s story. Originally born as Robert John Under, Silverhand was a military veteran in the fictional 2000s, but came back from the Central American Conflict as a deserter and found refuge in Night City. He ended up changing his name to the one we know today and formed the band Samurai. After the band’s fall from grace, Silverhand found himself fighting yet again, this time in the Fourth Corporate War. He led a fateful charge on Arasaka’s headquarters in Night City, and legend says he died that night at the hands of Adam Smasher, a man turned killing machine. Somehow, Silverhand ends up in the mind of V, and it’s safe to say Arasaka is still on his hit list. As for the music of Cyberpunk 2077, much of is has been unexplored. CD Projekt Red has already revealed that parts of the score for the game will be completely original and span across genres, all while staying accurate to the game’s dystopian, futuristic setting. To tune in and learn more about the legendary rockerboy and his tunes in Cyberpunk 2077, catch the next Night City Wire as it airs on Thursday, November 19 at 6PM CET or noon ET. Pending yet another delay, Cyberpunk 2077 is due to launch on December 10. The game can be pre-ordered on the Epic Games Store or Steam.

The next-generation Kia Sportage SUV has been spotted testing in Europe for the first time, ahead of a likely unveiling in late 2021. In its current form, the Sportage is Kia's best-selling model in the UK, coming second to the smaller Niro this year only in September. It's available in four trim levels with a choice of three engines: naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions of a 1.6-litre petrol and a newly introduced 1.6-litre mild-hybrid diesel. It's unclear at this early stage whether all three engine options will be carried over to the fifth-generation Sportage when it goes on sale in 2022, but diesel still plays an important role in Kia's European line-up, so it's likely to continue. Any petrol options will likely be electrified, too, but there's no word on whether the Sportage will follow the larger Sorento in gaining a plug-in hybrid powertrain. This test mule has an electrified powertrain of some sort, as revealed by the legally mandated yellow sticker at the rear. Earlier this year, Kia detailed its strategy to launch 11 new electric vehicles by the end of 2025, among which will be a new crossover with performance-inspired styling and a range of more than 310 miles. That's unlikely to bear the Sportage badge, however, being geared more towards offering an engaging and premium driving experience. Despite the camouflage, this prototype hints at a radical styling evolution for the Sportage, comparable with the dramatic difference between the second- and third-generation models. A new design for the leading edge of the bonnet suggests heavy influence from the new Sorento, which wears the latest iteration of Kia's 'tiger nose' grille, while the headlights appear to sit lower and the front splitter to protrude further than before. Revisions to the side and rear will be equally extensive, with a reshaped roofline curving down towards a completely new boot lid design, topped by a prominent spoiler. Camouflage covers most of the rear-light design, so it's unclear whether the Sportage will adopt the Telluride-inspired vertical design seen on the Sorento or retain its wraparound light bar.

Iran has denied a report that a leader of terrorist group al-Qaeda was killed in its capital Tehran in August. The New York Times newspaper reported that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, was shot dead in the street by Israeli agents following a request from the US. Iran said it had no al-Qaeda "terrorists" living in its country. Abdullah is accused of planning the deadly attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998. Abdullah, who is more commonly known by his alias Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down along with his daughter by two assassins on a motorbike on 7 August, the New York Times reports, citing anonymous US intelligence officials. The report claimed that Iran had initially sought to cover up al-Masri's death, with Iranian and Lebanese media reports describing the victims of the 7 August shooting as a Lebanese history professor and his daughter. However, Iran's foreign ministry denied the report on Saturday, saying: "From time to time, Washington and Tel Aviv try to tie Iran to such groups by lying and leaking false information to the media in order to avoid responsibility for the criminal activities of this group and other terrorist groups in the region." There was no immediate comment from either US or Israeli officials. What's happened to al-Qaeda? Africa's Sahel becomes latest al-Qaeda battleground Al-Masri was one of the founding members of the jihadist group which has wreaked devastation across the Middle East and parts of Africa and carried out the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. He was accused of being behind the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people in 1998. He had been in Iran since 2003, initially under house arrest but later living freely, American intelligence officials quoted in the New York Times said. Any link between Iran and al-Qaeda would be highly unusual - the two sides have fought each other in conflicts, and represent the two main and sometimes opposing groups of Islam - Iran is largely Shia Muslim, while al-Qaeda is a Sunni jihadist group. Al-Masri still appears on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, where a $10 million reward is offered for information leading to his arrest.

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Microsoft is creating a new universal Office 2019 beta for Macs Microsoft has released a new universal build of its Office 2019 beta for Macs that will work with the recently-released Apple Silicon hardware. The news will come as a relief to Office fans that were worried about possible compatibility issues with Apple's latest releases. Back in June Apple confirmed during its WWDC event that it would be transitioning its Macs away from Intel processors to its own internal versions, called Apple Silicon. The first Apple Silicon processor will be known as the Apple M1 chip and will be included in the upcoming MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini devices. Here's our list of the best Windows 10 alternatives Looking for a change? Take a look at the best Microsoft Office alternatives Check out our list of the best Windows 10 VPN solutions Speaking ahead of the release, Microsoft’s principal software engineer for Apple products, Erik Schwiebert, tweeted that while there remains no public date for a final release of the software, the beta should serve as “an initial peek for customers to test on hardware they may be acquiring this week.” All change After the excitement over the new hardware had faded, Mac fans began to wonder what the change might mean in terms of using their favorite software. Microsoft’s recent announcement indicates that Office 2019 should function correctly – once any bugs discovered during the beta testing have been ironed out. When Apple announced its transition to M1-powered Macs, it confirmed that its own Rosetta software should enable apps that were built for the old Intel processors to work with the new Apple Silicon hardware, but that was probably only intended as a temporary solution. Because Microsoft’s Office 2019 beta announcement refers to a ”universal” build, it means that it should work for both Intel-powered Macs and those created for Apple Silicon hardware.

How far is Intel willing to go to dominate gaming? 5.5GHz, it seems... Benchmarking and frame-time capturing specialist CapFrameX has posted a single-threaded Cinebench R20 result purporting to be from one of Intel’s upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs. At 655 points it’s just marginally ahead of AMD’s new wonderchip, the Ryzen 9 5950X, which CapFrameX pegs at 649 points. But there’s a catch. The Rocket Lake chip reportedly requires a clockspeed of 5.5GHz to achieve that score. The AMD Radeon R9 5950X has a maximum boost clock of just 4.9GHz, though in real-world testing can run a whisker over 5GHz. If the benchmark result and clockspeed are accurate, it shows just how far Intel is willing to go to regain the gaming performance crown. While Cinebench R20 is obviously not a game benchmark, its single-threaded runtime is a fairly reliable guide to per-core CPU performance. Moreover, relatively few games can scale well beyond the eight cores that the top Rocket Lake chip is expected to include at launch early next year. Which is why Intel's 10-core i9-10900K is competitive in games with 12 and 16-core Ryzen processors. Put it all together and the implication is that Intel could retake the gaming crown from AMD with Rocket Lake when it appears early next year. Or at least pull ahead in what is currently a very close race between Intel’s 10th Gen CPUs and AMD's new Ryzen 5000 chips. Of course, none of this should be a huge surprise. Overall, there’s virtually nothing in between Intel and AMD when it comes to gaming performance. Meanwhile, Rocket Lake will be getting a new architecture based on the Sunny Cove cores found in Intel’s 10th Gen 10nm laptop chips but backported to 14nm. AMD's Ryzen 5000 Independent testing shows that Sunny Cove is a tangible step forward in terms of performance-per-clock over the Skylake-based cores found in Intel’s 14nm Comet Lake chips, as seen in the likes of the Core i9 10900K and the rest of the 10th gen desktop Core family. While the backport to 14nm may see some of Sunny Cove’s advantage lost, it should still be a decent step forward in IPC and thus ought to beat AMD’s Ryzen 5000 for single-thread performance provided it can achieve the characteristically high clocks Intel’s 14nm chips achieve. In other words, Rocket Lake at 5.5GHz would be odds-on favourite to take the gaming crown. But at what cost? Rumours have circulated regarding the power implications of backporting large CPU cores originally designed for 10nm to the legacy 14nm node. Clocked up to fully 5.5GHz and the power draw implications are pretty scary. Indeed, it’s this very power-consumption conundrum which is thought to be the reason why Rocket Lake will only scale to eight cores, which represents a step back from the 10-core Core i7-10900K. Those backported Sunny Cove-based cores simply drink too much juice. Still, with AMD holding a huge multi-core advantage, single-thread and gaming performance are the only prizes available to Intel while it struggles to move beyond 14nm on the desktop. It won’t be at least until Intel solves its 10nm woes—and it may have to wait for Intel’s 7nm node—before Chipzilla has any hope of regaining the overall performance crown.

The day one patch for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War also adds a bunch of changes and new content following the beta. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will get a huge day one update when it drops on November 13 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S / Series X. The patch notes, which are outlined below, detail a number of changes, including a nerf to sliding. Specifically, the slide's distance and speed have been reduced. Developers Treyarch and Raven Software said the change will better align the slide with its true purpose: to be used as an escape mechanic, not during close-quarters engagements. Additionally, firing a weapon immediately after ending a sprint is now faster than sliding to fire. Though sliding in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has been nerfed, all in-game mantling speed has been increased. The sliding nerf comes after community outcry about the mechanic being too overpowered. During multiple beta periods, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War players found themselves frustrated by encounters with those who exploited the slide. Because of its distance, speed, and quick recovery, many opted to use the slide mechanic as a form of combat engagement. Another important movement adjustment pertains to melee weaponry, as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's knife spriting speed has been slightly reduced. The game will also see a bevy of new weapons added on day one. This includes the FFAR 1 assault rifle, Bullfrog submachine gun, M60 lightmachine gun, DMR 14 tactical rifle, and more. There are also more attachments in the gunsmith and the ability to dual-wield pistols. Other additions to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War include more scorestreaks, Finishing Move support, the ability to call for help while downed, and extra ping options for better communication. Full Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Day One Patch Notes Multiplayer Modes Additional Modes Added modes since Beta: Search & Destroy Free-For-All Hardcore Team Deathmatch Hardcore Domination Hardcore Kill Confirmed Hardcore Search & Destroy Hardcore Free-For-All Fireteam: Dirty Bomb Gameplay Added Ammo Caches to Ruka and Alpine. Added rappel lines to Alpine. Players can now continue sprinting while equipping Armor Plates. Players will now automatically be air deployed after 15 seconds in the overhead spawn view. Both the downed player and player reviving will be locked in place during a revive to avoid the revive from failing. Added the ability to Call for Help while downed. Added support for bashing a door when beginning to sprint next to a door. Added support for configurable squad wipe respawn delays based on squad size (squads of 1 have no additional squad wipe respawn delay). Made adjustments to objective placements. Dirty Bombs/Radiation Arming progress will now display on the charge when arming a dirty bomb. When arming the dirty bomb, lights on the charge will now show how many teammates are assisting in arming. Improvements made to radiation visuals when in the overhead spawn view. The line to safety while inside of a radiation zone will no longer point players toward out of bounds. Loot Radiation Vest item added to loot pool. This vest will prevent the wearer from taking radiation damage inside of the radiation zones. Combat Bow, VTOL Escort, Cruise Missile, and Gunship added to loot pool. Adjusted item spawn rates to reduce higher-end Scorestreak frequency. Vehicles Reduced frequency of Hind spawn. Adjusted vehicle drop timing to reduce the frequency of Hind, Tank, and FAV spawns. Directional damage indicators now point toward the vehicle when taking explosive damage from a Hind or Chopper Gunner. Ping Added the ability to Ping while downed. Added the ability to Ping from vehicles. Added the ability to Ping downed teammates. Added the ability to Ping Field Upgrades and thrown C4 explosives. Added a center dot while freefalling and parachuting for more accurate pinging. Miscellaneous Made adjustments to the fireteam intro scene to better highlight the fireteam. Added an in-game outro scene that highlights the winning fireteam. Killcams and Best Plays will now prioritize downs instead of clean-ups. Bug Fixes Addressed an issue that would prevent objective waypoints from displaying in the overhead spawn view. Addressed an issue where players could be killed as soon as they deployed via air. Addressed a number of issues that would cause a player to spawn away from their intended teammate on the ground from the overhead spawn view. Addressed an issue where players could not deposit Uranium into a dirty bomb. Addressed an issue where the player could be considered out of bounds when deploying from the infil plane. VIP Escort Players can now quick-deploy parachute in Crossroads and Armada in VIP Escort. The VIP is now taken into the helicopter by a winch operator upon exfil completion. The exfil notification is now triggered when the VIP gets near an exfil helicopter in order to give the defending team more time to react. Upon getting near the exfil site, the helicopter will begin lowering the fast rope, and all players in the match will be notified that the exfil process has begun. Once the fast rope is lowered, the VIP can interact with the rope to hook up for exfil. Combined Arms Players can now quick-deploy parachute in Combined Arms game modes (where applicable). Weapons / Gunsmith New Weapons Added new weapons in multiple categories: FFAR 1 assault rifle Bullfrog SMG M60 LMG DMR 14 tactical rifle M79 special launcher + more Weapon Balance Assault Rifles Tuned general assault rifle performance closer to Krig 6 and XM4 Beta performance for better balance across the class. Increased AK-47 recoil. Submachine Guns Reduced SMG effectiveness at longer ranges to counter the dominance of the class seen in the Beta. Light Machine Guns Increased LMG damage output to improve the effectiveness of the class. Increased LMG ADS times. Sniper Rifles Adjusted aim assist to feel smoother yet require more skill and precision. Slightly increased sniper rifle ADS times. Sniper scope glint will now display more regularly. Pistols Decreased burst-fire pistol hip-fire accuracy. Reduced burst-fire pistol max damage range. Shotguns Reduced semi-auto shotgun fire rate. Launchers Slightly increased inner damage of launcher rockets to allow for lethal damage when placed precisely. Melee Slightly reduced sprinting speed with the Knife equipped. Recoil and Sight Alignment Cleaned up issues with bullet direction and recoil to feel more intuitive and responsive. In the Beta, the location of the player’s bullet was always based on the direction of their weapon, which could have a slight deviation to their eye-view perspective through the sights. These should now line up better across all iron sights and optics, providing more precision when ADS-firing. Aim Assist Tuning Adjusted a number of aim assist parameters to provide a more expected feel across weapon classes. Aiming Down Sights (ADS) Adjusted ADS transitions to make them smoother and more fluid. Adjusted ADS sway to provide more dramatic feel while reducing weapon rotation. Adjusted weapon pushback when firing in ADS to address cases where optic models could get too close to the player camera. Attachments Additional Attachments Added more attachments to equip in the Gunsmith. Attachment Balance Updated balance for roughly half of the attachments across all weapons to increase viability across the board. Reworked bonuses and penalties on Barrel attachments to better reflect relationship between ranges, muzzle velocities, and barrel length. There are now Barrel attachments that offer shorter Barrel length for increased strafe speed movement, either when hip-firing or ADS-firing. This provides players with greater options for leaning into movement as a kit option. Increased enemy reveal range when using the mounted light attachment. Attachment Descriptions Updated names, descriptions, and statistics categories for weapons to provide a clearer picture of functionality and authenticity. Dual Wield Added the ability to dual-wield pistols. Weapon Levels Increased primary weapon levels from 40 to 55. Stationary Turrets Increased use radius of stationary turrets. Movement Sliding Shortened slide length. Reduced slide speed. Sliding is intended as an escape mechanic or quick entrance into crouch or cover. It’s not intended to be over-used during engagements, or to be too advantageous in close quarters. We’ve shortened the slide length and reduced its speed to address these goals. Ending a sprint to fire is now faster than sliding to fire. In the Beta, it was faster to fire your weapon from a sprint by sliding than by simply ending your sprint to fire. This has been fixed so that ending a sprint to fire is the faster way to get your gun up, and sliding to fire is no longer faster. Mantling Increased speeds for all mantles. Scorestreaks Additional Scorestreaks Added new Scorestreaks since Beta: Combat Bow Armor Care Package Cruise Missile VTOL Escort Gunship Earn Rate Improved score event tuning and Scorestreak earn potential across all modes. Increased score bonus thresholds at 10-kill and 15-kill streaks to make high streaks feel more rewarding, and to help boost score to higher-end Scorestreaks. In the Beta, Scorestreaks were being earned more often than intended in several game modes, so we’ve made tuning adjustments to bring the overall earn rate down. On the other hand, because even top players were having a hard time getting to the highest Scorestreaks, we’ve increased the score bonus thresholds for higher kill streaks. Scorestreak Tuning Attack Helicopter Increased Attack Helicopter damage from 5-hit kill to 3-hit kill. Chopper Gunner Slightly reduced Chopper Gunner duration and damage. Costs Balance adjustment to all Scorestreak costs. UI Added a numerical display showing remaining score required to earn your equipped Scorestreaks, which appears briefly on respawn and after closing the Scoreboard. Improved Scorestreak tablet cursor speed. Improved visibility of Scorestreak tablet red dots for indoor enemies. Cooldowns Added variation to Scorestreak cooldowns to allow for more interesting player choices and strategy, while also reducing low-end Scorestreak spam. Miscellaneous Updated default Scorestreak selection. Updated Scorestreak descriptions with more detail on new functionality. Improved rumble/camera shake on Scorestreak events. Spawns General spawn adjustments across all modes. Enemies in Gunboats will now properly cancel spawns within their line of sight. Perks Flak Jacket Flak Jacket damage reduction reduced by 5%. Paranoia Updated the sound for when an enemy is aiming at you with Paranoia equipped. Equipment Frag Improved Frag throwback speed. Stim Shot Cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds. Decoy Duration reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. Decoy will now play a static sound effect every few seconds, so attentive players can discern fake footsteps from real ones. Field Upgrades Field Mic Field Mic listening radius reduced by 10%. Field Mic cooldown increased to from 3:00 to 3:30. Features Added Military Ranks up to 55 in standard player progression. Added Seasonal Prestige player progression system, beginning at launch after completing Military Rank 55. Added Challenges for Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies. Added unlockable Weapon Camos. Player and weapon customization now available. Added Combat Record. Added Theater support. Added Multiplayer bot support. Added Finishing Move support. Added Weapon Inspect support. Audio Game Audio General Polished volumes and sound falloffs for weapons, foley audio, ambient systems, and map transitions. Additional map sound design improvements. Gameplay Audio Improved weapon and footstep sounds. Improved hit marker sounds. Improved player damage feedback sounds. Acoustics Polished acoustics systems that simulate how sounds travel through/around geometry. Since the Beta, we’ve created new reverbs for multiple areas, polished filter values so full occlusion now sounds more natural, and tweaked the way interior and exterior sounds blend as you move through spaces. Tuned acoustics of every map. This affects how the map geometry influences every sound, from reverb (how sounds bounce and echo) to occlusion (how objects block sound waves). Map acoustics are based on physical simulations of sound waves travelling through the map. As a result, all sounds should feel even more immersive and realistic, with a high level of fidelity. Music Player Added Music Player, allowing players to listen to music tracks unlocked by playing the game. Players can select tracks as their menu music or in-game music. Audio Presets Added multiple audio mix presets.

The updated and restyled 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP has been revealed featuring a host of new hardware, tech, and more power than before The 2021 Yamaha MT-09 has been announced with updated styling and the same Euro5, 889cc engine as the bike that was unveiled last week. That means just under 118bhp, and more peak torque at a handier 1,500rpm lower than before. The new model obviously gains the same styling update as the base model MT-09, and as with the previous SP, it also gets its very own R1 M-alike paint job to boot. For 2021, Yamaha has stepped up the game, giving the SP a host of superbike-derived tech that’s related to the electronics of the R1 M. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP video specs, features, and details Here are all the specs, features, and details of the new 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP engine The biggest mechanical update to the 2021 bike is the introduction of a new 889cc engine. The mill is now Euro5 compliant yet also the powerful version of the CP3 engine to date. The stroke of the bike has been increased by 3mm providing the unit with an extra 49cc that takes power up by 4bhp to 117.3bhp. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP The changes have also blessed the Yamaha with an improved torque figure of 68lb-ft, with the peak number arriving at 7,000rpm, a full 1,500rpm lower than before. The capacity hike is joined by a revised fuel injection system that sees the injectors shifted from the cylinder head to just after the throttle valves. The fuel is now injected directly onto the back of the intake valves. The design is claimed to enhance the atomisation of the fuel, improving combustion, increasing efficiency, and helping to gain that all-important Euro5 certification through a cleaner burn. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP Equipment and electronics Like the base model MT-09, aside from the styling, the SP is seeing the biggest change in the form of a hefty electronics update. The main news is the introduction of an R1 M derived IMU system. It’s governing ABS, lean-sensitive traction control, slide control, and wheelie control, along with multiple riding modes. All the rider assistance systems are adjusted through the new 3.5” TFT dash. The quickshifter fitted as standard to the MT-09 SP now allows shifts up and down the gearbox. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP Chassis The gap between the SP and stock MT-09 has mainly been felt through the higher-spec chassis components that grace the more exotic model. The SP gains a slightly miss-matched Öhlins and KYB combo. As before, Öhlins bring a rear shock to the party, and KYB offer up some trick-looking forks although now they feature very cool-looking DLC coated stanchions. The forks include full adjustability together with separate adjusters for high and low-speed compression damping. The rear shock is fully adjustable as before. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP Like the MT-09 that came before it, the new SP features Yamaha’s lightest ever Aluminium production bike wheels. They are created by rolling the rims in a forge at high pressure into they are only 2mm thick. The construction method reduces total un-sprung weight by 700g for better response and more agile handling. 2021 Yamaha MT-09 SP 2021 Yamaha MT-09 specs and features New 889cc inline 3-cylinder 40-valve DOHC liquid-cooled EU5 engine More power at all engine speeds 7% increase in maximum torque at lower rpm 4PS increase in maximum power New 2.3kg lighter CF die-cast aluminium Deltabox chassis Lower 189kg wet weight – 4kg reduction and the lightest in 900cc naked class Shorter wheelbase for more dynamic handling New lightweight aluminium swingarm Bare and beautiful ‘coverless’ new generation MT styling Premium quality throughout, with Crystal Graphite frame nish Full LED lighting with Y-shape brand signature icon front and rear New Quick Shift System with up and downshift functions Refined A&S clutch Light and compact new 6-axis IMU Lean-sensitive rider aids: TCS, SCS and LIFt with three intervention modes ABS and Brake Control system (BC) D-MODE switchable engine running modes New ultra-light Spin-Forged 17-inch 10-spoke wheels Larger 180/70-17 rear tyre with 120/70-17 front tyre Full colour 3.5-inch TFT instruments with remote handlebar switch Radial front master cylinder, 298mm dual front discs Colours, availability and price The new MT-09 SP will be available in an exclusive Icon Performance colour. Deliveries to European Yamaha dealers is set to happen in March 2021. Pricing as yet is TBC – we’ll update as soon as we know.

Australia says it will appoint a special investigator to consider prosecutions over alleged war crimes by its soldiers in Afghanistan. In recent years, reports have emerged alleging unlawful killings of civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers. A report into findings from a four-year military inquiry will be published next week. Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned it would bring "difficult and hard news for Australians". "There is a significant number of incidents or issues to be investigated further and that investigation will be inherently complex," he said on Thursday. Mr Morrison said the office of the special investigator would have powers to examine the Australian Defence Force (ADF) report and nominate cases for criminal prosecution. ICC backs Afghan war crimes probe Did UK Special Forces execute unarmed civilians? Since 2016, the ADF has held a closed-door inquiry into misconduct allegations linked to its elite soldier units serving in Afghanistan. Last week it was revealed the inquiry had investigated 55 incidents between 2005 and 2016, and heard evidence from 336 witnesses. While the majority of the allegations remain unknown, Australian media outlets have previously published alleged details of some cases. These include accusations of unlawful killings of Afghan civilians and mistreatment of prisoners of war. In March, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired footage which it said showed an Australian Special Air Service (SAS) soldier shooting an unarmed Afghan man in the head. IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES image captionAustralian soldiers on a patrol in Uruzgan Province in 2010 (file photo) Mr Morrison said the report had been handed to the government last week. On Thursday, he defended Australia's military personnel overall, but said there had been serious cases where "expectations and standards may not have been met". Police clear Australian soldier over 'severed hands' Australia soldiers condemned over Nazi flag He suggested that the report had uncovered serious problems within the ADF, and announced that a new panel would oversee a transformation of its culture. "It is the environment, it is the context, it is the rules, it is the culture and the command that sat around those things," he said. "And if we want to deal with the truth of this, we have to deal with the truth of that." Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the independent oversight panel would provide "accountability and transparency that sits outside of the ADF chain of command and outside of government". Australia maintains an operation of around 400 soldiers in Afghanistan as part ongoing peacekeeping efforts with the US and other allies.

TikTok is seeking some guidance regarding its upcoming US ban TikTok has asked the US Court of Appeals what exactly is going on with regard to its upcoming ban, having received “no substantive feedback.” With the clock ticking – the ban is due to be enforced from November 12 – TikTok fans in the US may want to get a secure VPN ready in order to keep creating content. After the US Government announced that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance would have to sell off its US assets as a result of national security concerns, TikTok offered to divest part of its business to Oracle and Walmart. That deal remains unfinished, subject to approval by the Chinese Government. Despite requesting further guidance from US authorities, it appears that nothing has been heard for a while. "TikTok has actively engaged with CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) in good faith to address its national security concerns, even as we disagree with its assessment," the firm said in a statement to the BBC. "In the nearly two months since the president gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalise that agreement but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework." Searching for an update A federal judge granted TikTok a preliminary injunction blocking the upcoming ban but it remains unclear what exactly will happen once the November 12 deadline passes. The company states that, in the absence of further governmental guidance, it had “no choice” but to file a petition with the US Court of Appeals in order to defend its rights and protect the livelihoods of its 1,500 US employees. Of course, TikTok’s appeal may also have been partly motivated by the shifting political landscape in the US. With Joe Biden set to take over from Donald Trump as the next US President, the app is likely to encounter a less hostile environment and may find that the enforced sale of its US assets is ultimately overturned.

Kingston cut the cord on one of our favorite gaming headsets. Kingston's HyperX Cloud II Wireless, a cordless version of what was once our favorite gaming headset, is now available to buy. It's priced at $150 in the US and $220 in Canada, undercutting the SteelSeries Arctis 9X, which we consider the best wireless gaming headset, by $50. We have not tested the wireless model, though if it offers the same overall sound quality and comfort as the HyperX Cloud II (which was a rebranded Qpad QH-90), then it will be worth considering, especially at the asking price. According to The Verge, that's exactly what it is—the same headset minus the permanently tethered cord. The specifications, however, are slightly different. Both headsets employ large 53mm drivers with neodymium magnets, but whereas the frequency response on the Cloud II is rated at 15Hz-25kHz, HyperX lists it as 15Hz-20kHz on the Cloud II Wireless. There is a difference in the rated nominal sound pressure level as well, albeit in the wireless model's favor—looking at the product pages, it's been increased from 98±3dB to 104dB at 1kHz. In theory, this means the Cloud II Wireless should be able to get a little louder than the wired model. Custom-tuned 7.1 virtual surround sound is part of the package, presumably with the same seven, algorithm-driven sound sources as the wired version. It also has a detachable, noise-cancelling microphone with built-in monitoring to make sure you're not inadvertently screaming at your teammates. According to Kingston, you can get "over a day's worth of gaming" from a single charge, which is another way of saying up to 30 hours. For comparison, the Arctix 9X is rated for 20+ hours, though SteelSeries says its claim is based on testing with pink noise at 90dB over Bluetooth and Xbox Wireless simultaneously, "conditions that would drain other headsets within a few hours." If you're interested in the Cloud II Wireless, you can order it directly from HyperX, and keep an eye out for our own review in the very near future.

Audi is marking 40 years of its quattro four-wheel-drive brand with a series of events and special editions – and the latest is this, the radically styled RS6 GTO concept. Developed by a group of apprentices at Audi's Neckarsulm factory, the GTO is based on Audi's 591bhp V8-powered performance estate and has been styled in homage to the firm's legendary 90 quattro IMSA GTO - a 2.2-litre five-cylinder racer that achieved success in America's IMSA series throughout the late 1990s with Hans-Joachim Stuck at the wheel. Technical details are thin on the ground and the car has so far been shown only on the Instagram page of Audi's 'Azubi' apprenticeship programme, but the pictures do suggest that modifications to the RS6 go beyond its radical paint scheme and bodywork package. The wheels, for example, wear white one-piece hubcaps with quattro badging and red centre caps, like the racer, and there's a prominent new rear spoiler finished in red. The livery itself stays true to the original car, with a slightly different design for the side stripes, and the number 40 applied in reference to the anniversary. The front end has been heavily reworked with an expanded, reshaped grille, GTO badging, a red conrasting lower splitter and new air intakes in the bonnet. The 90 racer had a sizeable side-exit exhaust, which the concept appears to share - although this could be fake as rerouting the factory system would require extensive mechanical modification. Inside, the RS6's rear seats have been removed to make way for a heavy-duty roll cage, while the front seats have been swapped out for carbonfibre Recaro race-spec items with red six-point harnesses. The centre console looks to have been left untouched, but the front side windows have been replaced by safety nets, in a further nod to its track-going ancestor. Audi says the ideas for the GTO came from its students, with head of design Marc Lichte producing the final concept. The RS6 GTO will likely make an appearance at an event in the near future but is extremely unlikely to make production in its current form. More likely, but also unconfirmed, is a toned-down commemorative trim option for the RS6. Last month, Audi unveiled the TT RS 40 Years of Quattro as an ultra-exclusive special edition of its sports coupé inspired by the Sport Quattro S1 that won the Pikes Peak hillclimb in 1987. Only 40 examples will be produced, all destined for Germany and priced from £103,000.

Joe Biden has said President Donald Trump's refusal to concede victory in last week's White House election is "an embarrassment". But the US president-elect - who has been making contact with foreign leaders - insisted nothing would stop the transfer of power. Mr Trump meanwhile tweeted he would ultimately win the race that all major TV networks have forecast he lost. As happens every four years, US media projected the election victor. None of the state-by-state results have yet been certified. Several vote counts are continuing, and the outcome will only be set in stone once the US electoral college meets on 14 December. What Trump could do after leaving the White House What happens now? How is President Trump challenging the result? The electoral college is made up of delegates from each state. They are tasked with choosing the next president according to how their state voted. Mr Biden is projected to win more than the 270 electoral college votes needed to secure the presidency. The Democrat has a period of transition until his inauguration on 20 January to choose his team and prepare to take the reins of power. How does Mr Biden see the transition? The president-elect was asked by a reporter on Tuesday what he thought of President Trump's refusal to acknowledge defeat. "I just think it's an embarrassment, quite frankly," Mr Biden, a Democrat, said in Wilmington, Delaware. "The only thing that, how can I say this tactfully, I think it will not help the president's legacy." "At the end of the day, you know, it's all going to come to fruition on January 20," he added. Mr Biden has been fielding phone calls with foreign leaders as he prepares to assume office. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among those he spoke to on Tuesday. Referring to those calls, Mr Biden said: "I'm letting them know that America is back. We're going to be back in the game." Election results in maps and charts Johnson congratulates Biden in phone call Americast: The election post-mortem But as he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris forge ahead, a little-known government agency led by a Trump appointee is stalling the handover. The General Services Administration is tasked with co-ordinating funding and access to federal agencies for incoming administrations. However, it has so far declined to formally recognise Mr Biden as president-elect, which means that the transition team is yet to receive $9.9m in federal funds and has not been able to send its staff to key departments. In a statement, the GSA said its administrator "ascertains the apparent successful candidate once a winner is clear based on the process laid out in the Constitution". In past transitions, the GSA recognised the new president soon after victory was declared. The only exception is the disputed vote in 2000 when it waited for a Supreme Court ruling on 14 December which decided the election in favour of George W Bush. Despite the delay, Mr Biden said: "We don't see anything slowing us down, quite frankly." media captionKamala Harris' ancestral Indian village celebrates the US vice-president-elect What do Republicans think of Mr Biden's declaration of victory? On Tuesday, Mr Trump took to Twitter to fire off several tweets in capital letters about "massive ballot counting abuse", asserting: "We will win!" His tweets were labelled by the social media network as disputed. The president has been making claims that Mr Biden was only able to win the election through electoral corruption, but no proof has emerged so far to support the allegations. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Trump loyalist, told a news conference at the Department of State on Tuesday that once every "legal" vote was counted a "second Trump administration" would begin. media captionMitch McConnell: 'Trump 100 percent within rights to look into election irregularities' Mr Trump's fellow Republicans have largely refrained from acknowledging Mr Biden's projected victory. Asked on Tuesday why he had not congratulated the Democrat, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said: "Nothing to congratulate him about." Missouri Senator Roy Blunt said Mr Trump "may not have been defeated at all". Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said Mr Trump has every right to launch legal challenges to the result in several battleground states such as Pennsylvania. Why most Republicans are tight-lipped Few Republicans want to attract the ire of the president by publicly accepting that Joe Biden has won. The ones who have spoken out already - Senators Susan Collins, Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney among them - broke with Trump a long time ago. For the rest, the president still has enormous power in the party's base, and he can - and has - wielded it against those he believes are insufficiently loyal. And so, from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on down, the name of the game is patience. Accept that the president has a right to make his claims, give him time to vent his frustration, but figure that there will be no evidence of sufficient magnitude to change the results of the election. Celebrate Republican down-ballot wins, without acknowledging the absurdity of alleged election-fixing that is massive enough to unseat a president but not to deliver a fully Democratic Congress. Through their actions, if not their words, the president's fellow Republicans are acknowledging that come January, there will be a new president. Mr Trump, too, shall pass. What's the latest with the fraud allegations? A Pennsylvania postal worker who claimed that officials tampered with mail-in ballots in the swing state has withdrawn his claims, according to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives Oversight Committee. Richard Hopkins alleged that a postmaster in Erie, Pennsylvania, had instructed workers to backdate late votes so they could be counted. He signed a legal statement under oath attesting to his claim, but the oversight committee said Mr Hopkins had disowned the allegation after questioning by a US Postal Service inspector general. A man claiming to be Mr Hopkins later denied retracting his story in a video posted to YouTube. "I did not recant my statement," he said. "That is not what happened and you will find out tomorrow." Mr Trump retweeted the video, lauding the purported whistleblower as a "brave patriot". Mr Hopkins' claim was cited in a letter from Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, to the Department of Justice, urging it to open a federal investigation. What's happening with Senate races? Republicans received a boost on Tuesday in their campaign to keep control of the upper chamber of Congress as a Democratic challenger conceded defeat in a North Carolina race. The state's Republican incumbent Thom Tillis narrowly held on after his Democratic opponent, Cal Cunningham, was engulfed by scandal over an extramarital affair. With North Carolina settled, all eyes now turn to Georgia, where the two Senate seats currently held by Republicans will be decided in a runoff election in January. If the Democrats win both seats - which won't be easy - they could still flip control of the Senate. That's because, in the event of a 50-50 tie, the vice-president is the tie-breaker, and Kamala Harris is due to take office in January. Last week, Republicans were also able to retake an Alabama Senate seat won by Democrats in 2018, though they lost seats in Colorado and Arizona. The Republican candidate is currently leading in Alaska's race, where votes are still being tabulated.

That Wizard came from the Moon! Destiny is known for having a somewhat confusing plot, so if you're a returning player coming back to Destiny 2's Beyond Light expansion, you might be fuzzy on the details--and if you're new, it might be really intimidating to jump into. Either way, don't worry; from vanilla Destiny and Destiny 2 through each expansion, we've covered everything you need to know about the story so far. Here we've outlined the main beats of your Guardian's story, leaving out a lot of superfluous details and information from the Grimoire and lore books, so you can get the basics down before starting Destiny 2: Beyond Light. Prologue Long before the events of the game was the Golden Age, when mankind discovered the Traveler. The gigantic, spherical entity terraformed planets throughout the solar system, though its true nature--sentient being, vessel, deity, or something else entirely--is unknown. Its discovery launched humanity into an era of prosperity, as it allowed them to colonize other planets. Top scientists founded the Ishtar Academy on Venus, while a genius industrialist named Clovis Bray founded a corporation by the same name on Mars, eventually developing Exos, machines with human consciousness. The many technological advancements during this time came from Clovis Bray, including that of powerful AI called Warminds charged with maintaining humanity's interplanetary defenses, one of which remained through Destiny's present day: Rasputin. One day, a dangerous but relatively unknown enemy of the Traveler known as the Darkness approached Earth, destroying nearly everything in its path and wreaking havoc upon what humanity had created. This is referred to throughout Destiny as the Collapse. The Traveler sacrificed itself to save humanity, using its Light to drive the Darkness away. After the Collapse, the Traveler remained hovering dormant over Earth, but even in its dormant state, it created Ghosts--small, floating AI robots imbued with its power. Ghosts scattered through the solar system, resurrecting a few chosen dead and gifting them the Light. These superpowered people had no recollection of their past lives, in the Dark Age following the collapse, many became warlords, fighting each other and the groups of angry, hostile aliens who had appeared during that time in search of the Traveler. But some of the Risen, as those with the Light became known, fought to help those less powerful than them. A group calling themselves the Iron Lords fought back the other warlords, sometimes even destroying them outright. They banded together with some other Risen heroes to found a huge walled stronghold called the Last City, beneath the Traveler, where survivors could congregate and live peacefully, protected. Over time, the Risen who protected the City took on a new name: Guardians. Over the centuries, the city thrived, but faced threats and attacks. It was besieged on more than one occasion by the Fallen, a scavenger race that had once been visited by the Traveler, much as humanity was, and seemingly abandoned by it to suffer through its own version of the Collapse, the Whirlwind. The Fallen scrounge across what's left of Earth, posing a major threat to any people who survive in the wilderness. Year One Much of vanilla--also known as Year One--Destiny's story consists of setup for things to come. At the beginning, you're a Guardian who has been dead for some time and is then revived by a Ghost. You wake in the Cosmodrome, an ancient spaceport in Old Russia, Earth. Like other Guardians, you can wield the power of the Traveler's Light. Your mission is to fight past the Fallen here and activate an old jump ship, which you can use to escape to the Last City. Once at the Tower, you learn about the Vanguard, the Guardian military hierarchy that protects the City. It consists of Commander Zavala, Cayde-6, and Ikora Rey, who represent each of the three playable classes (Titan, Hunter, and Warlock, respectively). You also learn of the Traveler through someone called The Speaker, a representative of the Traveler who helps to guide Guardians. Your job as a Guardian is to help protect the Last City from any threats, and while you're free to do as you wish, you're more or less under the Vanguard's command. You return to Old Russia to recover a drive for your ship that will allow you to travel to other planets in the solar system. While there, you encounter the Hive, an old species that worships death. The Hive presence on Earth is somewhat frightening, you discover. Some years past, the Hive attacked the Moon, creating structures and catacombs deep beneath its surface. Guardians mounted a major offensive to drive the Hive back and retake the Moon, but failed miserably and suffered enormous casualties. Since then, the Vanguard has declared the Moon off-limits--so the Hive showing up on Earth suggests they might be preparing an invasion. You fight past the Fallen and the Hive and open an Array that gives you access to more technology and information. Through this you discover the Warmind Rasputin, thought to be long-dead. You protect Rasputin from the Fallen and head to the Moon in search of the last Guardian that had gone there, in order to figure out what the Hive have been up to. In the process, you wake up the Hive (again). In the process, you meet an Exo known as the Stranger who tells you to meet her on Venus if you survive the Moon. Your adventure on the Moon helps you to slow the Hive's plans, but without fully uncovering them. On Venus, you learn about a complex, highly intelligent, time-traveling machine race called the Vex. The Exo Stranger shows up after you push back the Vex in the Ishtar Academy (but her story is largely nonsensical, so don't worry about it too much). What's important is that the Stranger warns you about the Vex, who are the biggest threat you're facing right now. From here you travel to the Reef, a sovereign collection of space trash and asteroids, which are home to the Awoken. These are the third race in Destiny after humans and Exos, who were created during the Collapse when the Traveler's Light converged with the energy of the Darkness. That energy hit a ship of humans leaving the solar system in a huge colony ship, fundamentally altering them. On the Reef, you meet the Awoken Queen, Mara Sov, and her brother Prince Uldren. You also learn that the Fallen who make their home there--the only Fallen in the game who aren't your enemies, since they serve the Queen--belong to a sect called House of Wolves. The Wolves tried to take over the Reef at some point in the past, but Mara and the Awoken put down the attack, imprisoning the leaders of the Wolves in their asteroid jail, the Prison of Elders. Some of the Fallen, including an adviser to the queen called Variks, were allowed to stay out of the prison if they pledged their fealty to the Awoken. With the queen's help, you learn what the Exo Stranger was warning you about: the Vex's origin point, a place that exists out of time and space called the Black Garden. The Heart of the Black Garden is a chunk of the Darkness, and left unchecked, it could destroy the Traveler. The queen offers to help you get into the Black Garden, but you'll need to head to Mars to retrieve a specific piece of a powerful Vex robot. So it's on to Mars, home of the warmongering rhino-like race known as the Cabal, who have turned the planet into a beachhead for their invasion of the solar system. You fight your way across the planet to find a Vex Gatelord to claim its eye. With that, the Awoken show you how to open the way to the Black Garden so you can destroy the Garden's Heart and save the Traveler. At the end of vanilla Destiny, The Stranger gifts you with her weapon, The Stranger's Rifle, and says she'll be in touch. It'll be years before you hear from her again, though. Destiny's original Raid, the Vault of Glass, involves an area where Vex have control over time and space. In the Vault of Glass, all timelines converge--there you find corpses of people who are long dead, but because reality is bent here, parts of them and their memories still exist. The Raid involves the battle and then defeat of Atheon, who is said to be the point where all of space-time converges. Expansion 1: The Dark Below After you've destroyed the Black Garden's heart, a former Guardian named Eris Morn arrives in the Tower. Lurking below the surface of the Moon is Crota, a Hive prince and the son of Oryx, the Hive's god-king. Crota is the reason the Guardian counterattack on the Moon failed all those years ago--he wields the power to destroy the Guardians' Light, and used it to murder thousands. After that battle, Eris Morn and five other Guardians delved beneath the Moon as part of a plan to destroy Crota, but one by one, they were all killed. Eris lost her Ghost, and thus her immunity, but survived for years in the darkness of the Hive caves, only to be changed and twisted by their power. Eris asks you for help to deal with Crota once and for all--his followers are working to bring about his return. (Like other Hive gods, Crota is effectively immortal thanks to his connection to the Ascendant Plane, which allows him to protect and hide his soul even when his body is destroyed.) You defeat his disciple Omnigul, a Hive Wizard, before destroying Crota's essence and stopping the attempted resurrection. In the Crota's End Raid, you summon, fight, and defeat Crota himself, finally avenging Eris's fireteam. Expansion 2: House of Wolves Remember the Reef and its queen? The Fallen House of Wolves had served Queen Mara Sov for years after she defeated them, but that changes in Destiny's second expansion. Skolas, a Fallen captain, is attempting to unite the fragmented Fallen sects under one House to become the legendary Kell of Kells, or king of kings. Under his command, the House of Wolves betrays Mara Sov. Only Variks of House Judgment remains loyal to the queen. Petra Venj, the queen's emissary, enlists your help as repayment for the favor the Awoken did you in helping you get into the Black Garden. Your job is to hunt down Skolas and prevent the formation of a united Fallen front against the Reef. You head to Venus, where he is studying Vex technology, to find him. You capture him alive and send him to the Prison of Elders, and later can head there and defeat him again for some reason. Expansion 3: The Taken King The Taken King expansion is widely regarded as the high point of Destiny's storytelling. The writing feels more cohesive, it strikes the right tone, and the characters have more presence than in previous iterations. The expansion sees the arrival of a new Hive adversary: Oryx, the Taken King, father of Crota, and God-King of the Hive. He arrives in the solar system looking to take revenge on the Guardians for the death of his son, Crota. He rolls into the rings of Saturn on his enormous ship, the Dreadnaught, which comes equipped with weapons of mass destruction. Mara Sov, Prince Uldren, and the Awoken fleet engage the Hive near Saturn, but they're wiped out by the Dreadnaught's weapon. All over the solar system, Oryx's army begins to appear. They're the Taken--members of other enemy races that Oryx controls and distorts by sending them into and back out of another dimension. The Taken resemble shadowy versions of existing enemies, but they move as if they're glitching in and out of reality. Oryx's arrival is what Eris Morn has been preparing for, and she and Cayde-6 work together to dispatch you to the Dreadnaught. When you arrive, you find the Cabal are already there, responding to Oryx "taking" their soldiers, but they're in a losing battle--they try to retreat from the Dreadnaught and even send a distress call that reaches outside the solar system. After your initial foray onto the Dreadnaught, you're sent to recover special cloaking tech from Cayde-6 that will help you reboard the ship, where you disable its weapon and, after several more missions, take down Oryx. But Oryx only retreats--you defeat him fully in the Raid, King's Fall. Defeating a Hive God isn't without consequences, though. Expansion 4: Rise of Iron The final expansion of Destiny fills in some of the story of the Iron Lords, the group of precursor Guardians from back during the Dark Age after the Collapse. In the present, we find out that the Fallen House of Devils started looking in Old Russia for something that could give them an edge against Guardians. There they found SIVA, a Golden Age nanotechnology created by Clovis Bray with the ability to make the Fallen more powerful. Those who use it are called Splicers. Lord Saladin, the last of the Iron Lords (and the guy who runs the Iron Banner tournament in the Tower), calls on you to investigate and secure the Iron Temple, which is under attack by a rebuilt Sepiks Prime (an enemy you fought for the first time in a Year One Strike). There you learn of the Fallen Splicers and enter the vault where they are replicating SIVA in order to stop the spread. Saladin sends you to the Plaguelands, a formerly closed-off section of Old Russia, where SIVA is on the loose. You fight to defeat the SIVA Splicers, but you also discover that the Iron Lords were killed by Rasputin. The Warmind seemingly misinterpreted the Iron Lords as enemies and unleashed SIVA on them, and they sacrificed themselves to keep it contained. In the Wrath of the Machine Raid, you finally defeat the Splicers and their leaders. The Plaguelands are quarantined by the Vanguard to keep SIVA from spreading, and it remains there to this day, as far as we know. Destiny 2 That brings us to Destiny 2. The sequel begins two years after the events of the original vanilla game. Remember those Cabal who sent a distress call during their battles with the Hive on the Dreadnaught? Someone responded: Ghaul, the leader of the Cabal empire, and his army, the Red Legion. Ghaul manages to sneak-attack the Vanguard and ravages the Tower, deploying a special net that allows him to capture the Traveler's Light. Suddenly, all Guardians lose their Light, and with it, their immortality and powers. The attack is devastating, scattering the City's people and the Vanguard. Ghaul takes the Speaker hostage in the fighting. Luckily, you survive--just barely--and escape the City and the Cabal onslaught. In the aftermath, you head into the wilderness of Earth's European Dead Zone, or EDZ, following a vision from the Traveler. There, you discover something Ghaul missed: a piece of the Traveler, broken off the huge robotic god during the Collapse. Ghaul might have captured the Traveler's Light, but the shard still holds some of its power--and so you are able to regain your Guardian abilities, making you the only hope of humanity to repel Ghaul's attacks. While you're there, you meet up with some humans who have been holding it down outside of the city, led by Suraya Hawthorne, a woman who's untrusting of Guardians. With your aid, though, Suraya and her sniper pal, Devrim Kay, secure a place for human refugees to hide out, called The Farm. The rest of the story takes you on an adventure around the solar system as you work to regroup with the scattered Vanguard leaders to retake the Last City. On Titan, you find Zavala, who has joined the fight against the Hive with one of his lieutenants, a Guardian named Sloane. Ikora Rey is found on the Jovian moon of Io, the first place touched by the Traveler, as she seeks answers about her lost Light and lost faith. There, she and a Guardian researcher named Asher Mir are studying the Light in hopes of returning it to Guardians. And on the rogue centaur Nessus, you discover Cayde-6, who has encountered a Golden Age colony ship's AI, called Failsafe, and is attempting to steal Vex technology so he can teleport onto Ghaul's ship and take him out. Once you've found and helped all the Vanguard leaders, they return to the Farm, where you put together plans for a counterattack. There's a major problem, though: The Cabal don't like to lose. If they can't conquer a star system, they destroy it, using a massive ship called the Almighty that has the power to overload a star and send it to supernova. No assault against the Red Legion can survive with the Almighty still in commission. The Vanguard hatches a plan to send you, the only Guardian with the Light, to deal with the Almighty. You can't destroy it, because even blowing up the ship would devastate the sun. But you can disable it. Meanwhile, with the help of refugee Guardians and Hawthorne's people, the Vanguard prepares to launch an assault on the Last City to drive back the Cabal and distract them from your attack on the Almighty. After the ship is disabled, your job is to join the fight and use your power to help defeat the Cabal and take out Ghaul. It almost works, but there are casualties, including the Speaker. You manage to get to Ghaul, but he enacts his final plan, siphoning the Traveler's Light into himself and gaining Guardian-like power. You nearly defeat him, but his power is too much, with Ghaul changing, Jaffar-like into some kind of Light being. Just then, however, something remarkable happens--after centuries, the Traveler awakens. It blasts Ghaul with a massive wave of Light, dispursing him into the universe. With the Traveler awoken, the Light returns to Guardians everywhere and the Red Legion is routed and scattered. But in a post-credits scene, a new threat looms. The wave of Light the Traveler released didn't just spread across Earth; it continued to travel through the solar system and beyond. And outside the reaches of human space, we got a brief glimpse of black, pyramid-shaped ships lying in wait, coming to life in response to the power of the Traveler--and turning toward Earth. In the aftermath of Destiny 2's story campaign, another shadowy figure gets in touch with the Red Legion, and later, with Guardians. That figure is Calus, the Cabal emperor who was deposed and exiled by Ghaul. Calus hangs out near Nessus in a giant, lavish, city-sized ship called the Leviathan. Destiny 2's first raid sends players to challenge Calus, but upon defeating him, they discover they haven't fought the emperor at all, but rather a powerful robot double. In the two additional Leviathan raid lairs, Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars, players help Calus first to eliminate a Vex intruder, and later to stop another Red Legion coup. Though Calus is a villainous character, it's still not clear whose side he's on or what his agenda is. Expansion 1: Curse of Osiris The first add-on for Destiny 2 adds a new destination in Mercury, a planet that has wholly succumbed to the Vex after centuries of work to turn the entire planet into a giant Vex machine. You're drawn to the planet by Osiris, Ikora's mentor and the former Warlock Vanguard leader. Osiris was exiled years earlier because of his obsession with the Vex. Osiris continued his study of the Vex on Mercury and drew a group of cult-like followers (the folks who were responsible for Destiny's Trials of Osiris multiplayer tournament). When you get to Mercury, you discover that Osiris has been exploring the Infinite Forest, a giant Vex computer that can simulate reality to allow the Vex to foresee outcomes and attempt to mani[CENSORED]te time. Osiris is trapped in the Forest, and with the help of his ghost, Sagira, and Osiris fanboy Brother Vance, you go looking for him. Eventually, you save Osiris from the Forest, mess up the Vex's plans for timeline domination, and wreck the Forest, giving it to Osiris to control. Occasionally, you have to return to the Forest in strikes to clean up Osiris's messes--he has a habit of accidentally recreating powerful Vex robots in his studies, which he then needs you to track down and scrap. Expansion 2: Warmind Mars is the destination in the second Destiny 2 expansion, but you visit the Hellas Basin. Guided by Ana Bray, a Guardian who has managed to piece together her past as the granddaughter of Golden Age industrialist Clovis Bray, you uncover what happened to Rasputin. It turns out, the Rasputin you've been interacting with around the solar system throughout Destiny and Destiny 2 were all pieces of the original, separated from the main computer. Back during the Dark Age, Rasputin was attacked by the second of Oryx's sons, Nokris, and a Hive army. Nokris had been exiled by Oryx and the rest of the Hive leadership for engaging in necromancy. That's a big no-no for the Hive--they worship death, but their guiding principle is the Sword Logic, the idea that anything isn't strong enough to survive must die, in order for them to reach perfection. By resurrecting dead Hive, Nokris rejected the Sword Logic, and so was exiled. But Nokris wasn't alone in attacking Rasputin: in tow was Xol, one of the Hive's huge worm-gods. The worm-gods are an interesting part of the Hive's lore. Long ago, the Hive were a weak, short-lived race, until Oryx and his sisters discovered the worms deep within the atmosphere of their gas giant planet. The worms were disciples of the Darkness and offered its power to the proto-Hive, taking the worms into them in a symbiotic relationship that turned the Hive into the monstrous conquerors they became. The Hive and the worms have a symbiotic relationship, in that the Hive have to constantly feed the worms through conquest or be destroyed by them. But eventually, Oryx became such a powerful creature on his own that he even killed one of the worm-gods, Akkis, and used its body to create his ship, the Dreadnaught. Nokris and Xol were a threat Rasputin couldn't put down on his own, so instead, the Warmind managed to freeze the whole Hellas Basin region under ice. That trapped the Hive, but it also encased Rasputin's complex for years. When you arrive to help Ana, you find that Rasputin is using his warsat network to thaw the ice, thus releasing the Hive. You eventually fight your way through the Hive army, defeating Nokris and apparently slaying Xol (although without much difficulty, which is weird). Ana makes contact with Rasputin and insists he's interested in helping humanity survive--Zavala, however, isn't as trusting of the giant unknowable computer intelligence. Later, in a secret mission called The Whisper, you can claim a powerful sniper rifle called Whisper of the Worm. Lore suggests this gun is actually Xol, or a piece of it. So it seems you didn't kill the Hive's worm-god, and by taking up the gun, you might be kicking off your own symbiotic relationship with it, just like the Hive. There might be more to Xol's story that we haven't seen yet--but there's definitely more to the story of Nokris. Expansion 3: Forsaken At the start of the second year of Destiny 2, things start to go bad, beginning with a jailbreak in the Prison of Elders. The Awoken's regent in the absence of a queen, Petra Venj, sends out a distress call to her Guardian pals--you and Cayde-6--for help in quelling it. Arriving at the prison, you and Cayde fight through waves of enemies in an attempt to get to the lower, high-security areas, and prevent the worst offenders from escaping. But things don't go well; Cayde winds up separated from you and Petra and alone with some of the prison's worst. These are the Scorn Barons, a group of powerful Fallen criminals from the Reef who have a bone to pick with Cayde. The most powerful among them is the Fanatic, a Fallen who has discovered a way to resurrect the dead. And, as it turns out, they serve Uldren Sov. The Awoken Prince survived the attack on the Dreadnaught, but the loss of his sister has messed him up pretty badly. He and the Barons execute Cayde and escape the prison. After Cayde is murdered, you form a plan to hunt down his killers. They're known to be on the Tangled Shore, a section of the Reef where asteroids have been chained together to make a tortured landscape. When you arrive, you're met by Petra, who introduces you to the Spider, a local Fallen crimelord. The Spider agrees to help you with the Barons if you'll help him with his own issues. Over the course of the story campaign, you hunt down and take out each of the Barons one by one, until you finally get to Uldren. What you discover when you reach Uldren is that he's been mani[CENSORED]ted all this time. Uldren has been seeing visions of his sister, and thought he was carrying out her wishes. You find him trying to unlock the Watchtower, a pathway to the Awoken's secret sanctuary, the Dreaming City. In actuality, Uldren was infected by the Taken and was being secretly driven by Riven, one of the legendary Ahamkara. These creatures were hunted to extinction by Guardians, or so it was thought--the Ahamkara has the ability to grant wishes, but preyed on those who relied on them. The Ahamkara Riven served Mara Sov, but at some point after Oryx's attack, Riven was taken by Savathun, one of Oryx's Hive-god sisters. You stop Uldren, but the damage is already done, and the way to the Dreaming City is open. Uldren is killed--although whether by your character or Petra Venj, it's not exactly clear. Though Uldren and the Barrons were stopped, the damage was done: Uldren managed to open the way to the Dreaming City, allowing the Hive, the Scorn, and the Taken to enter. The City is the Awoken's true home and has access to the Distributary, a pocket universe created by the interaction of the Light and Darkness where the Awoken were born. The Distributary is a place where time flows differently--the Awoken had been there for centuries, and now Savathun is trying to gain access to it in order to execute her plan to become more powerful than Oryx. The endgame of Forsaken has you working to help the Awoken free the Dreaming City from the Taken and Savathun's influence, but there's a catch. When the first Guardian team worked its way through Dreaming City raid, The Last Wish, Riven was destroyed--but that triggered a curse that affected the entire city, trapping it in a time loop that repeats every three weeks. The rest of the endgame for the Forsaken expansion concerns trying to break the curse, with players disrupting Hive and Taken rituals and venturing into the Ascendant Realm, the strange dimension the Hive leadership use to maintain their immortality, in an attempt to stop their plans. Forsaken also revealed a new twist: Mara Sov lives. Like Oryx, Crota, and the rest of the leaders of the Hive, Mara was able to access the Ascendant Realm and create her own "throne world"--so even when she's killed in the real world, her soul survives in the Ascendant Realm and she can potentially be revived. We don't know all the ins and outs, but Mara's death at the hands of Oryx all seemed like part of a greater plan to fight the threat of Savathun. That story continues, and as of right now, the Dreaming City is still cursed. In Forsaken, we also saw the arrival of the Drifter, a "rogue Guardian" who appeared in the Tower with a new event for Guardians to take part in called Gambit. The Drifter's past is shrouded in mystery, but lore suggests he came into contact with the Darkness while he was out beyond the solar system. Gambit seems to be more than just a fun multiplayer mode--it's a way for the Drifter to enlist Guardians to help him gather "motes of Darkness," which he stores in banks for some unknown purpose. It seems like the Drifter is preparing, in his own way, for the arrival of the Darkness pyramid ships seen at the end of Destiny 2's story campaign. The Black Armory (Season of the Forge) After the Forsaken expansion, Bungie shifted Destiny 2's storytelling to a seasonal model, dropping smaller pieces of content over time, rather than waiting months to release mid-year expansions. The first of those new seasons was The Black Armory. In it, the Spider sends Guardians to interact with someone he's done business with, an Exo woman called Ada-1. Ada is the last surviving member of a Golden Age group that manufactured powerful weapons for the defense of humanity, but a group of Fallen called the Kell's Scourge, (as well as other enemies around the solar system) are attempting to use them to create Golden Age technology they can use to attack humanity and the Last City. Ada doesn't trust Guardians, but she accepts your help anyway. Throughout the course of the season, Guardians found and reactivated the Black Armory's forges to create new weapons. The season culminated in defeating Siviks, the leader of the Kell's Scourge, and stopping his plans for the Black Armory. Later, in the Scourge of the Past raid, Guardians headed into a defunct section of the Last City to gain access to one of the Armory's old bunkers and stop the Fallen from resurrecting a huge, Metal Gear-like mech called Insurrection Prime. Destroying the mech kept it out of Fallen hands, but we might not seen the last of some of these Black Armory weapons in enemy hands.... Joker's Wild (Season of the Drifter) The next Destiny 2 season focused on the Drifter and some of Destiny 2's best lore. Gambit introduced a new mode, Gambit Prime, and Reckoning, in which players flew to the Drifter's ship and ventured through a strange portal into the "cargo" he'd brought back from outside the solar system. That place was closely tied to the Nine, otherworldly beings that are apparently living embodiments of the nine planets of the solar system, where players fought Taken enemies captured by the Drifter to gather more Darkness. While the Drifter's Gambit gained in po[CENSORED]rity, he drew the attention of a Guardian called Shin Malphur. Years earlier, Shin was a gunslinger who took down one of the most dreaded Guardians ever: Dredgen Yor. When he was alive, Yor was a powerful fighter who was the scourge of the Crucible, but eventually he fell to the Darkness and started terrorizing Guardians and regular people alike with his powerful Hive weapon, Thorn. Shin defeated Yor, but not before the fallen Guardian inspired followers--other Guardians who thought the power of the Light was not enough to defeat the Darkness, and wanted to wield both powers. Shin wouldn't risk another fallen Guardian, however, and he set out to kill those followers, called the Shadows of Yor. Among their number, however, was the Drifter, and through Gambit, he enlisted other Guardians to get his back. At the same time, some elements of the Vanguard were starting to get suspicious of the Drifter's activities. During the course of the season, you can investigate what the Drifter is up to, and where his loyalties lie, on behalf of the Vanguard. Eventually, you're asked to choose a side: Drifter, or Vanguard. Who you pick doesn't seem to have had much effect, and eventually, the Vanguard seems to come to the decision that the Drifter's activities, while suspect, are still helpful to the Vanguard and humanity. They might not trust him, but they don't think he's an enemy, either. Meanwhile, you can follow Shin's path as he investigates the Shadows. Eventually, you reclaim both a replica of Thorn and The Last Word, Shin's gun. He entrusts the latter to you after you stop the Hive from recreating its own version of Thorn, which is actually one of the Hive's deadly, legendary Weapons of Sorrow. Penumbra (Season of Opulence) Emperor Calus is back in the last season of Destiny 2's second year. He invites you aboard the Leviathan once again, where he showers you with gifts of new weapons and armor for taking part in his Menagerie, an entertaining gauntlet of challenges. It's all part of gearing up for the Crown of Sorrow raid, in which Calus enlists your help yet again to destroy a threat that's at least partially his fault. Calus routinely enlists powerful members of different alien races to serve as warriors and spies--his "Shadows." He attempted to enlist a Shadow from the Hive, but found them impossible to tame. Instead, he attempted to use a relic from the Ascendant Realm, the Crown of Sorrow, to control the Hive, forcing a specially bred Cabal named Gahlran to wear it. The Crown proved to be too much for Gahlran, corrupting him in a similar way to how Thorn corrupted Dredgen Yor. And yet again, Savathun attempted to use the opening to gain power, this time trying to use Gahlran as a wedge against the Cabal. In the raid, your team of Guardians heads to the Leviathan at Calus's request, eventually disrupting a number of Hive rituals and putting an end to Gahlran, and thus, Savathun's plans. Shadowkeep (And the Season of the Undying) At the end of Destiny 2's second year, Bungie launched another major expansion in Shadowkeep, which saw players return to the Moon. Yet again, it hinged on Eris Morn. On the Moon, the Vanguard detected a new, huge Hive structure called the Scarlet Keep, and Eris found that the structure hid something the Hive had discovered buried there: one of the massive Darkness pyramids. Through a mixture of the pyramid's power and Hive magic, Shadowkeep sees the rise of Nightmares--memories of the dead, both Guardians killed on the Moon during the age of Crota, and enemies you've bested over the years. These Nightmares flood the solar system, attacking you in public events, Lost Sectors, story missions, and Nightmare Hunts. Eris Morn is tormented by the ghosts of her lost fireteam from her doomed mission against Crota. To deal with the Nightmares, and to figure out what's up with the pyramid, you work to find a way inside it. When you finally get through Shadowkeep's story to dispel the Hive's plans, defeat Crota's daughter Hashladun, and find a way inside, you receive messages from the Darkness. It tries to persuade you to abandon the Light, which it sees as weak, and join the other side. You also find a strange artifact, which you give to Eris Morn to study. At the same time you're trying to uncover the secrets of the pyramid, a Vex group called the Sol Divisive launch an offense against the Hive on the Moon, hoping to take the pyramid for themselves. These are the same Vex who previously held the Black Garden before you stormed it at the end of the Destiny 1 vanilla campaign. They previously tried to retake the Black Garden with the help of a powerful Vex called the Undying Mind, but it was destroyed in a Destiny 1 strike. The Vex have resurrected it, so it becomes your job to destroy it again, using a Vex gate Ikora Rey builds in the Tower. Once the Undying Mind is dealt with, there's one last loose end to tie off. The artifact you found in the pyramid leads you to a signal in the Black Garden. To discover what's broadcasting it, you take on the Garden of Salvation raid, where you fight some powerful Vex bosses: the Consecrated Mind and the Sanctified Mind. Defeating them leads you to discover a statue at the heart of the Garden that's identical to one you found in the pyramid, suggesting the Vex worship the Darkness and might even be receiving orders from it. Season of Dawn With the pyramid under study and the Vex invasion thwarted, Osiris again pops up. He's been busy on Mercury, creating the Sundial, effectively a time machine, with the hopes of accessing the Vex's temporal network, the Corridors of Time. Osiris is hoping to find and rescue Saint-14, a legendary Guardian hero and his former friend who was lost in the Infinite Forest and killed by the Vex. Osiris scoured the Corridors but could never locate the moment of Saint's death in order to save him, and eventually gave up. In Osiris's absence, three Psion Flayers, survivors of the Red Legion, manage to take control of the Sundial, using it to attempt to find an alternate timeline in which the Red Legion was victorious in Destiny 2. Osiris calls on you to help stop them, dispatching you through the Sundial to defeat the Flayers in a variety of timelines. Along the way, you slowly start to uncover the story of Saint-14. As you fight through the past, you encounter Saint several times, before eventually finding the moment when he was killed by the Vex. You save him, returning a Guardian hero to the present. As you keep working on the Sundial, you eventually face down the Flayers, putting an end to the Red Legion's plans of rewriting history. At the end of the season, Saint-14 constructs a beacon to help guide any human survivors to the Last City in a gesture of hope for the future.

YAMAHA is looking ahead with a possible forced induction model that could, much further down the line, replace the current MT-10. The bike shown is being reported by multiple sources to be an 847cc triple that has been donated from the previous generation MT-09. The engine is not identical though, with Motociclismo claiming this powerplant has a smaller bore and slightly longer stroke – 73mm stroke and 67.5mm bore. Yamaha MT-10 video review Yamaha MT-10 Review Road Test | Visordown Motorcycle Reviews The longer stroke should go some way to shifting the window of performance away from a peaky top-end and towards a torquier delivery. That said, the claims being made about the output of the engine are no less substantial, with a claimed 180bhp at 8,500rpm and 130lb-ft at, with 90 percent of the torque available from 3,000rpm and up! Yamaha Turbo MT motorcycle The patents that accompany the images also paint a high-tech picture of the bike, with variable valve timing and direct injection both making and appearance. The variable valve timing is present on both the inlet and exhaust valves and is being credited with helping the unit to achieve 30 percent lower emissions than a comparable non-turbo engine. The direct injection is tech that is just on the cusp of finding its way onto production engines, with Honda and Kawasaki both working on similar systems. The benefit is that the injectors squirt the fuel directly into the combustion chamber just at the moment before the spark plug ignites. The bonuses is that the air/fuel mixture is burnt more efficiently and completely, with a more accurate amount of fuel being used for each combustion event. Yamaha Turbo MT motorcycle The rest of the bike makes it hard to distinguish this machine from the MT-10 that much of it is based on. Really the only clue is the large cowling mounted on the left side of the bike. It seems to be shrouding much of the plumbing away from view and also helping to channel air into the intercooler that helps to boost the power and torque numbers. While these images clearly show an MT-10 styled naked with an almost all-new engine, we don’t think fans of the 1,000cc naked should be too worried just yet. The chances of the MT-10 being replaced immediately by this machine are slim. It’s more likely that the engine is the focal point here, the fact it is slotted into an MT-10 chassis is merely more about finding a frame and suspension set-up that can cope with the power and torque.

The Brazilian clinical trial for a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine has been suspended after health authorities reported a "severe adverse" incident. Brazilian health regulator Anvisa said the incident took place on 29 October, but did not give further details. The CoronaVac vaccine, developed by the Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech, is one of several in final-stage testing globally. Sinovac says it is "confident in the safety of the vaccine". The firm has already been using it to immunise thousands of people at home in an emergency use programme. Brazil has been one of the countries worst affected by coronavirus, recording more than 5.6m confirmed cases - the third highest tally in the world after the US and India - and nearly 163,000 deaths so far, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University. Why was the trial halted? On Monday Anvisa said it had "ruled to interrupt the clinical trial of the CoronaVac vaccine after a serious adverse incident". It did not reveal what happened, nor where it took place. Late-stage trials for the Sinovac vaccine are also being conducted in Indonesia and Turkey, but neither of these countries have announced a suspension. Indonesia's state-owned Bio Farma said on Tuesday that its own Sinovac vaccine trials were "going smoothly", according to Reuters news agency. How will the world vaccinate seven billion people? Have we finally got a coronavirus vaccine? Dimas Covas, the head of Butantan, the medical research institute conducting the Brazilian trial, told local media that the trial's suspension was related to a death. However, he insisted that the death was not related to the vaccine, Reuters said. Sinovac said on Tuesday that it was communicating with Brazil about the reported incident. "We learned the head of Butantan Institute believed that this serious adverse event (SAE) is not related to the vaccine," it said in a statement. "The clinical study in Brazil is strictly carried out in accordance with GCP (Good Clinical Practice) requirements and we are confident in the safety of the vaccine." Butantan has said it will hold a news conference on Tuesday at 11:00 local time (14:00 GMT). A pause in a clinical trial is not unusual. In September, the UK paused trials for another Covid-19 vaccine after a participant had a suspected adverse reaction. The trials for the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University were resumed a few days later after regulators said it was safe to continue. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has been open about his preference for the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca, saying his government would not buy a Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccine. Where are we in the search for a vaccine? CoronaVac is one of around a dozen vaccines in the final stage of testing - known as a phase 3 trial - around the world. This is a crucial point in vaccine development, where some experimental vaccines will fail. The news of its suspension in Brazil came shortly after a rival vaccine developer, the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, said its own vaccine candidate had shown 90% effectiveness. Last month the Oxford vaccine trial reviewed the death of a volunteer in Brazil, saying an assessment had revealed no safety concerns. How has China used experimental vaccines? Separate to the phase 3 trials being held overseas, China is also administering experimental Covid-19 vaccines at home. CoronaVac is among three experimental coronavirus vaccines China has been using to inoculate hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency use programme. Last month the BBC filmed hundreds of people in the city of Yiwu queuing to get the vaccine after authorities approved the distribution to anyone who wanted the injection. media captionHundreds of people queued in Yiwu, China to get an experimental Covid-19 vaccine A businessman who is due to have the second of the required two jabs imminently told the BBC that he would go ahead with it, adding that it is "worth it considering the high infection rate abroad". Sinovac has previously said almost all of its employees and their families have received the vaccine. And a Chinese health official earlier said that serious side effects have not been observed in clinical trials.

ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark battle it out to see who takes the privacy and speed crown. Surfshark Jump to details $13 AT SURFSHARK ExpressVPN Jump to details $7 AT EXPRESSVPN NordVPN Jump to details $4 AT NORDVPN You're working from home. You're binging Netflix, you're listening to music, you're gaming -- and if you're here, you're probably looking for a virtual private network that can handle the manic data flood through your coaxial cable without slowing you down. No problem. We've tested some top performers and have you covered. Keep in mind, though, it's tough to speed test VPNs in a way that translates to practicable consumer advice. First, the use of any VPN, no matter how fast, will somewhat reduce your browsing speeds. Second, a VPN's speed can change from day to day, prompting some review sites to create automated monitoring processes. Then there's the impact of underlying internet speeds in the US, which vary widely by state and provider. Finally, if you eliminate all potential variables -- from network interference to individual machine quirks -- to create a lab-like test setting, you're essentially testing a product in a digital environment that bears zero resemblance to the operating environment most of us live and work in. Read more: The best VPN service of 2020 For these reasons and others, I'm more interested in creating a VPN testing environment that resembles what you, the regular user, are likely to experience. And that's also why I'm more interested in measuring the amount of speed lost with a VPN (which, for most VPNs, is typically half or more) across both high-speed and slower connection types. I want to know these products are going to perform when you're running multiple devices -- Mac or Windows -- on a residential connection that may or may not be shared by others, with an eye toward how well they can handle not just browsing, but the heavy traffic loads of gaming, streaming and torrenting. My speed tests are currently conducted manually using OpenVPN protocol -- generally considered the most secure and most widely used type of open-source protocol. To be clear, some of the brands have their own proprietary protocols that may well offer faster speeds, but I wanted to keep this an apples-to-apples comparison. First, I test my internet speed without a VPN. Then, I connect my machines to the VPN, and pick five servers in diverse locations across the world. I test those five servers, five times each, at intervals over two to three days via the widely used Ookla Speedtest. Then I average the download speeds of each to find out what percentage of my normal internet speeds are lost with the use of each VPN. (Find out more about how we evaluate and review VPNs here.) Because of the ever-changing roster of frontrunners in the VPN race, you can expect this list to change as it gets updated with our most recent test results. Among the VPNs we've tested so far, here are the ones that were the fastest at the time of publication. VPN SPEEDS COMPARED 2020 tested speed loss* 2019 tested speed loss* Net change Surfshark 17% 27% Faster in 2020 test ExpressVPN 51% 2% Slower in 2020 test NordVPN 53% 32% Slower in 2020 test *Lower number is better Surfshark 16.9% speed lost (faster than 27% loss in previous test) Fastest connections: US Slowest connections: Australia As a relative newcomer in the VPN world, Surfshark ended 2019 with just 27% speed loss in my review, positioning it far ahead of all of its competitors -- except for the seemingly uncatchable speed leader ExpressVPN, which dominated my 2019 testing with less than 2% speed loss. But at the close of 2020, Surfshark is surging ahead of the pack with 17% speed loss, as ExpressVPN speeds fall to 52% speed loss in my most recent tests. The remarkable thing about Surfshark's speed is that its average speeds aren't fighting to overcome major speed losses in any particular test region. This thing showed up on race day and stole the gold, seemingly without breaking a sweat. During testing, my base non-VPN speeds averaged 194 megabits per second, while Surfshark's overall average was 161 Mbps. After taking the averages of five testing locations, not one of the averages from those locations fell below 100 Mbps. That's an across-the-board win against its competitors in every test column. While the competitors below seemed to struggle with US speeds, Surfshark clocked a 204 Mbps average on US connections. Because Surfshark allows you to choose which server to connect to (with a handy visual icon to signal each server's overall crowdedness), one way I could have juked the stats here is by hand-picking servers across the US with the least traffic load. And I would have loved to report New York speeds, for example, specifically for you. But that wouldn't have been fair; NordVPN still frustratingly lacks that feature, so I used Surfshark's automatic server selection option (as I did with the other test subjects). NordVPN couldn't get close to Surfshark's American speeds during testing, though, averaging just 89 Mbps on US connections by comparison. Surfshark again outperformed its peers during UK and European tests, averaging 165 Mbps and 171 Mbps in each, respectively. While future tests might include other regions in Europe, I currently go for a mix of German and French connections. Usually, no matter the VPN, Frankfurt speeds weigh down the average, while connections in Orange and Paris bring on a major numbers boost. That was still the case with Surfshark's speeds, but even Surfshark's German numbers were higher than the average speeds of its competitors. Australia is normally where we see numbers take a dive -- the continent's distance from my test site in Kentucky provides for major latency. Latency was still high, but Surfshark seemed unfazed, clocking a 126 Mbps average download speed. For comparison, that's close to the 122 Mbps average I measured for ExpressVPN's European connections. Singapore is where speeds always get competitive. The speed testing site that I and most other reviewers use, Ookla, ranked Singapore's internet speeds the fastest in the world in 2018 with an average national speed of 181 Mbps. How did Surfshark do there? An easy, breezy 142 Mbps average. Was it a fluke? Was my connection just having a great day? Was Surfshark's overall server traffic particularly light that day? All of those things are possible. That's why I aim to keep retesting this newly crowned speed queen, and why I always recommend you opt for VPNs that offer money-back guarantees and allow you to test their services in your own non-lab settings for 30 days. But these are speeds I haven't seen from any VPN I've tested so far. Surfshark is a beast. If you're shopping for pure speed right now, this is the VPN you're looking for. Read our Surfshark review. $13 AT SURFSHARK ExpressVPN 51.8% speed lost (slower than previous 2% loss in previous test) Fastest connections: Western Europe Slowest connections: US It killed me to see ExpressVPN's pace fall from the jaw-dropping speeds I clocked for it last year. It's not only our Editors' Choice for VPNs but -- because it's one of the few VPNs proven to keep no usage logs during a geopolitical trial-by-fire -- it's my own personal favorite VPN. Its history and durable encryption, combined with its then-untouchable speeds, non-Five Eyes jurisdiction and streamlined user interface made this VPN worth the higher-than-average subscription cost. Last year, ExpressVPN gave me a less than 2% speed loss overall. This year, I clocked a 52% speed loss. Though that's a major dip, it's still a better-than-average score compared to other VPNs. To be clear, ExpressVPN is still a speed demon that consistently ranks in the top 10 for sites with massive automated VPN speed-test processes. Just because Surfshark beat it to the finish line this time doesn't mean ExpressVPN is at all sluggish. It still flies, and most people will have no problems gaming, streaming or even torrenting heavily. During testing, my non-VPN speeds averaged 193 Mbps, and ExpressVPN's overall global average speed was 93 Mbps. Peak speeds were reached on European connections, averaging about 122 Mbps between Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris. Australian speeds outperformed the UK with averages of 101 Mbps and 86 Mbps, respectively. Between the two, however, the UK caught the better individual high score, topping out at 157 Mbps in a single test compared to Australia's highest single-round score of 136 Mbps. Singapore's scores also edged out the UK's by just three points at 89 Mbps. US scores were where ExpressVPN's averages got dragged down: US speeds averaged just 66 Mbps, despite reaching up to 134 Mbps on a single test round. Because of ExpressVPN's history of smoking its opponents on speed tests, my first instinct was to check for a testing issue on my side. So I walked back through my testing process, double-checked my setup and retested to make sure I wasn't accidentally dipping ExpressVPN's numbers. When my results appeared consistent, I checked in with a couple of sites whose automated speed testing I trust and compared notes: Sure enough, as of late October, both Top10VPN and ProPrivacy speed tests show that ExpressVPN has struggled with consistency and slipped down the rankings in the past couple of months. I reached out to ExpressVPN to find out what's happening with the recent dips in its speeds. The company looked into it, and said several of its in-house tests were seeing speeds between 200 and 275 Mbps using OpenVPN protocol. Those results were far above my own. "We think one possible explanation is that there was network saturation between your ISP and our data center during the time period that you tested, which again should not be a typical result," an ExpressVPN spokesperson said. The company also pointed to its new protocol, currently in development. "We are transitioning our legacy OpenVPN infrastructure to Lightway, a VPN protocol that we developed in-house to deliver WireGuard-like speed but far superior security," the spokesperson said. "It's in beta right now as we're still applying tweaks so we can provide the Lightway benefits to our customers at scale, but once it goes into full release within the next couple of months, we are confident it will deliver speeds on par with or better than the fastest Wireguard setups from other providers." Is ExpressVPN still my favorite? Absolutely. And while the call isn't mine alone, I'd argue it takes more than a single speed dip to dethrone the Editors' Choice. All the same, if Surfshark ever gets its servers seized by a government and is found logless in public, ExpressVPN is going to have a problem on its hands. Read our ExpressVPN review. $7 AT EXPRESSVPN NordVPN NordVPN 53% speed lost (slower than previous 32% loss in previous tests Fastest connections: Singapore Slowest connections: US Right out of the gate, it should be said that NordVPN has been steadily improving its speeds since I tested it for the first time last year. While my latest tests show it falling 2 percentage points behind ExpressVPN, other speed testing sites have seen it routinely surge ahead. Since its embarrassing third-party server breach last year (which appeared to cause minimal damage), NordVPN has gotten aggressive. Along with a suite of fleet-wide privacy improvements to its servers, it's revved up its engine. Granted, some of that may have to do with a new security protocol NordVPN rolled out, called NordLynx. It's built on the still-developing protocol WireGuard, which some argue is less secure than OpenVPN (an option available in all the VPNs listed here, and one I use in testing), but which ultimately creates a faster VPN tunnel. The improvements earned it recommendations from both Ookla and AV-Test. Even with the accolades of others, NordVPN's overall global average speed was 91 Mbps during my testing, in a dataset with average non-VPN speeds of 194 Mbps, for a speed loss of roughly 53%. While it's normal for a VPN to cut your internet speed by half or more, the notable context here is that across the averages of my five test zones, I never saw NordVPN fall below 85 Mbps. It's still one of the most consistent, stable VPNs I've worked with. Singapore led the testing averages at 98 Mbps, while UK speeds beat European speeds by a hair's breadth. At 99.93 Mbps, UK connections squeaked ahead of French and German ones, which averaged 91.90 Mbps. NordVPN also had another photo finish during testing, with Australia beating US scores, 88 Mbps to 86 Mbps. None of these are scores that you can look down your nose at. Read our NordVPN review. $4 AT NORDVPN Boosting your speed No matter which VPN you're using, there are configurations that can help you max out your speeds. These suggestions aren't aimed at improving overall privacy, however, and some may come with privacy reductions depending on which VPN you're using. But if you're interested, here are three ways to boost your VPN speed: Check your protocol: If a VPN works by sending your internet traffic through encrypted tunnels, the VPN's protocol is the method it uses to dig that tunnel. VPNs use different types of security protocols for different reasons, and most VPNs allow you to switch between protocol options at will. Generally, the more secure a protocol is, the slower your VPN speeds. We usually recommend choosing the OpenVPN protocol because it's secure without being cumbersome, but you can amp your speeds by switching your VPN app to IKEv2/IPsec protocol. Choose nearby servers: The closer you are physically located to a server, the faster your information is going to travel. Select a server located as close as possible to you to get rapid-fire data return. If you're using a VPN that visually displays how crowded an individual server is, like IPVanish, be sure you're selecting a server that's handling a low amount of traffic. Split-tunneling: Split-tunneling is a feature offered by most leading VPNs that allows you to decide which of your apps' internet traffic is being sent through your VPN. Reducing the amount of device data you're sending through your VPN may improve speeds. All the VPNs listed in this article offer split-tunneling directly through their apps except for NordVPN, which only offers split-tunneling through its mobile apps and via desktop browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox.

For some reason, watercooling seems to be increasing in po[CENSORED]rity despite the marginal benefits, and now Inno3D is joining the fray with its own offering. In a press release Inno3d have announced that they are applying Alphacool's water blocks to its RTX 3080 and 3090 cards, calling them the Inno3D RTX 3080/3090 iChill Frostbite. The Alphacool waterblocks feature a unique design with as much acrylic as the company can muster, making lots of the PCB and electronics underneath visible. Because of this, they should respond to the built-in RGB lighting quite nicely. Naturally, the cold plate itself is made from nickel-plated copper for performance and corrosion protection, and Inno3D notes that you should be able to achieve 60 to 65c temperatures using 240 and 360mm radiators, though obviously this will also depend on which other components you have in the loop, pumps speeds, fan speeds, and ambient temperatures. To stand out a bit, Inno3D is providing its own backplate with Inno3D styling. The boost clock of the RTX 3090 iChill Frostbite sits at 1755 MHz, which is a hair above the reference 1700 MHz clocks. The RTX 3080 iChill Frostbite gets a slightly bigger bump to 1770 MHz over the stock 1710 MHz, though both cards should have a little extra overclocking headroom anyway. The memory clocks have been left untouched, leaving the 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on the 3090, and 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on the RTX 3080 iChill Frostbite running at factory clocks. Other than that, the graphics cards don't differ from the company's air-cooled variants, featuring dual 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors, three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and one HDMI 2.1 output. They come in at 226mm long and 135 mm wide, and despite being thin enough for single-slot use, they use a dual-slot faceplate for the rear IO. No word on pricing or availability. Expect a premium for these cards over air-cooled variants, and availability will remain difficult until the RTX 3000 supply issue resolves.