Jump into the managerial hotseat this weekend with Football Manager 2023 now available to play for free. PC and Mac users will be able to try out FM23 on Steam completely free until 13:00 EST / 18:00pm BST on Monday, June 26th. Xbox Live Gold subscribers can access FM23 Console at no cost before 9:00am BST on June 26th. To continue your journey to footballing glory after the free play period, take advantage of both titles being available at 50% off until mid-July.

Football Manager 2023 provides you with the closest thing to being a real manager, delivering unmatched levels of detail and drama as you write your own headlines and dominate the competition. If you already have a Steam account, getting access to FM23 is straightforward. On Steam, head to the Football Manager 2023 page. Instead of there being a button labelled "Add to Cart," the game will be marked as "Free to Play" and the button will read 'Play Game'. Clicking "Play Game" will add FM23 to your library and it will remain playable until the free access period ends.
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Google Rumored to be Working on Premium "Chromebook X" Range
9to5Google has reported on the possible development of new branding initiatives for higher end Chromebooks—according to sources on the inside. The specialist news site proposes that leadership and marketing teams at Google are not happy about the current and broad labelling of ChromeOS devices. The "Premium" and "Plus" tags are said to be confusing to the customer base—feedback suggests that buyers are finding it difficult to identify higher-end Chromebook variants. There is a perception that models exist in a big indistinguishable pile.

Google is allegedly forming a revised set of new hardware requirements for premium ChromeOS devices—with an internal reference of "Chromebook X" marked for deployment later this year. Insiders did not provide specific details about upper tier laptop specifications, but the publication reckons that variants costing roughly $350 to $500 will sport more potent AMD or Intel SoCs, along with increased RAM allocations. Chromebook X hardware could have exclusive access to specially designed UI and OS functions—including live wallpapers, voice isolation, portrait blur effects and an "X" specific boot-up screen. An upgrade for build quality and materials is also expected, which would be welcome given the Chromebook's reputation for not lasting very long.

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(PR) Lexar Introduces Portable NVMe SSD and a Dual Drive USB Type-C Bundle
Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, is excited to announce its High-Performance Memory Storage bundle that includes two essential storage solutions in one high-performance, high-value set. The 1 TB NVMe Portable SSD delivers blazing-fast speeds up to 2000 MB/s read, 2000 MB/s write and is the perfect companion for laptops and desktop computers. For content creators regularly editing, transferring, and backing up massive video files and high-res images, both its accelerated performance and its generous capacity are designed to keep up with demanding workflows and enable professionals and everyday users to get more done.

In addition to the SSD, the bundle also includes a 64 GB Dual Drive USB Type-C which is perfect for moving files between traditional Type-A devices and Type-C devices and, with high-speed USB 3.1 performance of 130 MB/s read speed, transferring files is fast too. Both the SSD and the Dual Drive include Lexar DataShield, advanced security software that helps keep your files safe with 256-bit AES encryption and both products are compatible with Android, PC, and Mac systems.
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Yeston Unveils GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Game Ace GPU, with White PCB Design
Yeston introduced its first Game Ace RTX 40-series custom graphics card yesterday, with a product launch occurring soon after—only for the Chinese market it seems, so prospective Western buyers will have to carry out a few extra steps to acquire one. The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Game Ace is yet another example of the company producing a white PCB-toting graphics card, albeit in the lower mid-range tier. Yeston has released white boards in the past—most notably for its high-end Sakura Sugar series RTX 4080 and RX 7900 XT models.

The Weibo announcement outlines that the RTX 4060 Ti Game Ace will costs around $432 - 460 (3099 - 3299 RMB), and it offers a simple 2-color lighting system: "the combination of pure white and light blue is fresh and soft, and with the blue LED, it will bring you a little coolness in this hot summer." Yeston's press release was lacking in terms of technical details, but the photos show a very basic looking card that lacks a dual-BIOS switch.

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Quake II Remastered Outed by South Korean Ratings Board
Gematsu - a Japanese news site - has discovered that the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea uploaded its rating of an announced remake of Quake II (1997) on May 31—apparently "not suitable" for youths. This could repeat a pattern from 2021, where the same committee registered the original Quake's remastered version prior to an official unveiling at that year's livestreamed QuakeCon event.

QuakeCon 2023 is heading back to its roots—with a return to an in-person format "at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas from Thursday, August 10 through Sunday, August 13." It is quite possible that Quake II Remastered will get an unveiling at the late summer convention. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming remaster will sit beside the existing RTX version—the South Korean rating info mentions new online multiplayer options, 4K resolution plus widescreen support, as well as support for community modification.

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(PR) Oracle Introduces Next-Gen Exadata X10M Platforms
Oracle today introduced the latest generation of the Oracle Exadata platforms, the X10M, delivering unrivaled performance and availability for all Oracle Database workloads. Starting at the same price as the previous generation, these platforms support higher levels of database consolidation with more capacity and offer dramatically greater value than previous generations. Thousands of organizations, large and small, run their most critical and demanding workloads on Oracle Exadata including the majority of the largest financial, telecom, and retail businesses in the world.

"Our 12th generation Oracle Exadata X10M continues our strategy to provide customers with extreme scale, performance, and value, and we will make it available everywhere—in the cloud and on-premises," said Juan Loaiza, executive vice president, Mission-Critical Database Technologies, Oracle. "Customers that choose cloud deployments also benefit from running Oracle Autonomous Database, which further lowers costs by delivering true pay-per-use and eliminating database and infrastructure administration."
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(PR) SK hynix Launches Beetle X31, its First Portable Consumer SSD
SK hynix is set to release SK hynix Beetle X31, a portable solid-state drive (SSD) for consumers, in global markets starting with the U.S. later in June. As the company's first portable SSD, the X31 has been praised for its superior performance, convenient portability, and stylish design following its launch in South Korea in May 2023. In particular, the SSD can reach operating speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) while it also possesses exceptional heat management capabilities. Released amid a growth in the portable SSD market, the X31 meets the rising demand for storage devices to not only rapidly read and write but also store data safely on-the-go.

The X31 combines SK hynix's technologies which enabled optimal power consumption in the Gold P31 and the highest specifications for a consumer SSD in the Platinum P41. Moreover, while DRAM-less SSDs have become widespread as part of industry efforts to cut costs, SK hynix opted to maximize the performance of the X31 by applying DRAM as a buffer inside of the SSD. Accordingly, the X31 can deliver a maximum sequential read speed of 1,050 megabytes per second (MB/s) and a maximum sequential write speed of 1,000 MB/s. At these speeds, it is possible to transfer a 1 GB file in just one second. More specifically, the X31 is able to transfer 500 GB of data while maintaining an optimal speed of over 900 MB/s. This is because the X31 strikes a balance between managing heat generated from fast data movement and maximizing write speeds.
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