Anyone up for another beta? You guessed it, this weekend we'll run another technical beta of Payday 3. This time it will be OPEN for you to push our servers to the limit. Payday 3 is the much anticipated sequel to one of the most popular co-op shooters ever. Since its release, Payday-players have been reveling in the thrill of a perfectly planned and executed heist. That's what makes Payday a high-octane, co-op FPS experience without equal.

Second BETA
As you might've heard already, we're doing a second Technical BETA - in other words, a server stress test. Same build as last time—so no new UI or heists for now. We want to ensure that we have as few issues as possible ahead of our very imminent launch, so this test is meant to do just that. Between September 8th and 11th we're running an open BETA, just go to our store page, download the build and play.
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Cerabyte's Ceramic Storage Medium Hyped as Industry Disruptor
Cerabyte/Ceramic Data Solutions Holding GmbH, a German storage technology startup, is hyping up its nanolayer-based storage method: "creating the most reliable data storage ever. Data is safe in a wide temperature range of -273 °C (-460 °F) to 300 °C (570 °F) and even in corrosive or acidic atmosphere. Also radiation and an EMP can't destroy information stored on (our system)." The firm's leadership is comprised of self-described "pioneers," with a goal to disrupt the storage market (worth $500 billion)—they want to reduce data center storage total cost of ownership (TCO) by 75 %, while introducing their environment friendly solution that: "requires 99 % less energy. Sustainable long-term data storage is one of the most urgent problems in our world. Cerabyte is the solution for reducing 99% of CO2 emissions generated by conventional cloud data storage."

A product preview showcases the potential of CeraMemory cartridges (2025-30) capable of storing between 10 PB and 100 PB, and their CeraTape (2030-35) series offering up to 1 EB capacity per unit. Cerabyte representatives are set to discuss their technologies at the 2023 Storage Developer Conference, scheduled to take place later this month (September 18 to 21). Their "Ceramic Nano Memory - Data Storage for the Yottabyte Era" abstract is available to view in advance of the upcoming meet up in Silicon Valley.
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(PR) Disney Games Reveals Gargoyles Remastered, Launching October 19
Gargoyles Remastered is now available for pre-order on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Steam and GOG! Launching October 19th, Gargoyles Remastered is an artfully crafted revival of the 1990s classic 16-bit side-scrolling platform adventure. Relive the epic journey of Goliath and the Gargoyles featuring enhanced visuals, animations, and SFX, all inspired by the acclaimed animated series. The world of Gargoyles comes to life with a level of detail that will thrill fans of the animated series and retro gaming enthusiasts alike. Experience classic gameplay that stays authentic to its predecessor while including new features such as achievements, gameplay rewind, and more!

A true blast from the past! In 1995, Disney Software and Buena Vista Interactive teamed up to bring Gargoyles for the Sega Genesis. This platformer was based on Disney's animated TV series with the same title, which was known for its dark and mature themes, complex characters, and engaging storytelling. The game quickly became an absolute gem thanks to its faithfulness to the source material and fun-packed gameplay.
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Intel Demos 6th Gen Xeon Scalable CPUs, Core Counts Leaked
Intel's advanced packaging prowess demonstration took place this week—attendees were able to get an early-ish look at Team Blue's sixth Generation Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors. This multi-tile datacenter-oriented CPU family is projected to hit the market within the first half of 2024, but reports suggest that key enterprise clients have recently received evaluation samples. Coincidentally, renowned hardware leaker—Yuuki_AnS—has managed to source more information from industry insiders. This follows their complete blowout of more mainstream Raptor Lake Refresh desktop SKUs.

The leaked slide presents a bunch of evaluation sample "Granite Rapids-SP" XCC and "Sierra Forest" HCC SKUs. Intel has not officially published core counts for these upcoming "Avenue City" platform product lines. According to their official marketing blurb: "Intel Xeon processors with P-cores (Granite Rapids) are optimized to deliver the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) for high-core performance-sensitive workloads and general-purpose compute workloads. Today, Xeon enables better AI performance than any other CPU, and Granite Rapids will further enhance AI performance. Built-in accelerators give an additional boost to targeted workloads for even greater performance and efficiency."
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(PR) Cervoz Introduces T425 - a New M.2 2230 (A+E key) NVMe Gen3x2 SSD
The Power of Small: Evolution of Data Storage—since computers were built, making them smaller has never stopped. This is especially evident in the industrial sector, where compactness is highly valued. As a crucial component of computers, data storage has undergone a process of miniaturization as well, leading to the era of M.2 interface SSDs. While some ultra compact fanless PC and rugged mobile PC may adopt smaller embedded storage, such as eMMC (Embedded MultiMediaCard), they significantly lag behind M.2 PCIe SSDs in terms of performance. Therefore, M.2 PCIe SSDs have emerged as the superior choice for those seeking top-notch performance and efficiency in their computing experience.

Introducing the Cervoz T425 SSD: Unleash Power in a Tiny Package
To embrace this remarkable trend, Cervoz presents the latest T425, a new M.2 2230 NVMe PCIe Gen 3 x2 SSD. Designed with a compact M.2 2230 form factor (22 mm x 30 mm), it supports both A and E key configurations and utilizes PCIe Gen 3 x2 lanes for high-speed data transfer. With impressive sequential speeds of up to 815 MB/s read and 760 MB/s write, along with storage capacities of 64 GB, 128 GB, and 512 GB, the T425 is the ultimate solution for enhancing the performance of embedded computing systems with space constraints.
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Microsoft Refutes Existence of Upcoming Minecraft Visual Upgrade on Xbox Series X|S
A new version of Minecraft for Xbox Series X and S consoles has been registered with ratings boards around the world—as reported by Eurogamer, the first appearance arrived back in August through Germany's USK system, and more recently with the ESRB (USA). This lead to speculation that Mojang Studios was prepping a visually-upgraded variant of the game for current generation consoles. Microsoft and Xbox teased a significant ray tracing graphical option back in 2020, prior to Series X launching, but we have not heard much since then. Bedrock Edition, utilizing the RenderDragon engine, is set to improve graphics across most platforms, yet only PC gamers get to enjoy ray tracing features on capable/compatible hardware.

Microsoft has seemingly become fed up with the latest batch of news reports, and reached out to media outlets in order to shutdown further conjecture on the topic.
A company spokesperson informed Eurogamer and other sites about the situation: "Given the number of platforms and geographies in which Minecraft is available, we periodically go through rating reviews and updates with different regional boards. This recent rating is not indicative of any new versions or platform support for Minecraft in the near future." A 2022 test build inadvertently included "prototype code for ray tracing support on Xbox consoles," but was swiftly eliminated from public view soon after release. A spokesperson stated back then: "this early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring ray tracing support to consoles."

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