Apple : Amazon Prime Day 2019: everything you need to know for the July deals event

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• Amazon Prime Day 2019: everything you need to know for the July deals event
• Critical flaw in WordPress live chat discovered
• AWS is about to make your cloud a lot more personalised
• Nintendo just single-handedly redeemed E3 2019 with nostalgia and new ideas
• Google Fuchsia release date, news and rumors
• USA vs Thailand live stream: how to watch today's Women's World Cup 2019 match from anywhere
• The best Steam games 2019
• US Customs data breach sees traveler information stolen
• Best Nintendo Switch games from E3 2019
• Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch: release date, news and features
• E3 2019 trailers: the best game trailers (updated today)
• E3 2019: schedule, press conferences, games list, and leaks
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons adds crafting and farming, gets delayed til 2020
• HTC launches two new phones, surprising everyone
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 announced at E3 2019 for Nintendo Switch
• Best budget smartphone 2019: our top cheap mobiles
• Amazon pledges support for future government work
• Pokémon Sword and Shield: everything we know about the 2019 Pokémon RPG
• Opera releases new browser specially built for gamers

Amazon Prime Day 2019: everything you need to know for the July deals event Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:39 PM PDT Get ready to mark your calendar because Amazon Prime Day 2019 is only a couple of weeks away. The tech giant hasn't officially announced the date, but based on previous years we know the big shopping event will be held in mid-July.  Prime Day first launched in 2015 and has grown into the biggest shopping day of the year with Prime Day 2018 even surpassing Cyber Monday and Black Friday. Last year's Prime Day had 89 million visitors that logged on to the site with 100 million products purchased during the sale event. Globally it was the biggest day of sales in Amazon’s history, and we expect Amazon Prime Day 2019 to be even bigger. It didn't just increase in terms of territories or numbers, but the sale itself lasted longer too. Where 2017's Prime Day ran for only one day (well, 30 hours), 2018 ran for a day and a half (36 hours). We expect this year's sale to last even longer, so Prime members will have even more time snag the hottest deals of the year. Last year's Prime Day was also the first year that discounts were extended to local Whole Foods Market stores. Prime members were able to save on popular grocery items and earned rewards and cash back through Amazon's site. Read on to learn what we can expect for this year's Prime Day and everything we've learned from last year's Prime Day. When is Amazon Prime Day 2019? Even though Amazon hasn't announced the exact date of the big day, we can take a pretty good guess based on previous years. Last year Prime Day went live on Monday, July 16 at 3 PM ET and lasted for 36 hours. Past years the event only lasted for 24  or 30 hours and happened between July 10 and 12. Thanks to the World Cup, Prime Day started later in the month last year. We predict this year they'll stick to last year's event date and start Prime Day on Monday, July 15. The big question is whether the sale will be extended beyond past years. Each year the sale has been lengthened so we're placing bets that Amazon Prime Day 2019 could be a record 48-hour event. Thanks to some snooping from the Real Homes team, we might unofficially already know the date. A PR email about a Prime Day vacuum cleaner seemed to suggest that Prime Day will begin on Monday, July 15. Top Amazon Deals You Can Buy Now Even though Prime Day 2019 is still a couple months away, that doesn't mean you can't find stellar deals now from the tech giant. We've scoured Amazon's site to find the best discounts that you can take advantage of today. We'll be updating this page regularly, so check back to shop the best deals up until the big shopping day. What were the best-selling items from Prime Day 2018? Prime members around the world purchased more than 100 million products during the 2018 Prime Day event. The top-selling items from last year's Prime Day included a mixture of home goods, electronics, and Amazon devices. In fact, it was the biggest event ever for Amazon devices with the Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot leading the pack of best-selling items worldwide. The top selling products in the US from Prime Day 2018 consisted of the 6-Qt Instant Pot, Fire TV stick, Echo Dot, 23andMe DNA Test, and the LifeStraw personal water filter. Image credit: Shutterstock How can I sign up for Amazon Prime? To participate in the big shopping event, you must be an Amazon Prime Member. Your membership will not only let you partake in Prime Day, but you'll also have access to Amazon Prime movies, books, music, photos, and more. You can sign up here for a 30-day trial and cancel at any time. All you need is an Amazon account with a valid credit card tied to the account. Once you sign up for your free trial, you'll have access to all the Prime benefits, receive free two-day shipping and partake in the biggest shopping event of the year. What other retailers participate in Prime Day? Every year more and more retailers are trying to compete with the tech giant by participating in their own version of Prime Day. You'll find discounts on clothing, tech, home goods and more from a variety of online and local retailers. Last year Walmart joined in on Prime Day by offering free two-day shipping without membership fees and free same-day pickup on qualifying items. They also discounted a wide array of products that included TVs, Google Home devices, kitchen appliances, laptops and much more. Other big retailers like Target, Best Buy, Macy's and eBay also promoted their own one-day sale with discounts on best-selling items throughout their site. We expect this year that more retailers will participate in the July event and will even extend the one-day sale to a weeks worth of discounts. Amazon Prime 1-day delivery Amazon just recently announced plans to offer free one-day shipping for Prime members on most orders. Amazon's CFO Brian Olsavky revealed the ambitious project during Amazon's first-quarter earnings call. To achieve this, the tech giant says they plan to invest $800 million in the second quarter of 2019 and continue its expansion of their fulfillment and logistics network. Amazon currently offers free 2-day shipping for all Prime members and offers free one-day and same-day delivery on certain items in eligible zip codes. Amazon's future plans include increasing the locations and available items so free one-day delivery replaces the standard two-day Prime delivery window. While we don't think the new one-day delivery will be rolled out in time for Prime Day, we do believe there will be more items available for one-day and same-day delivery in eligible zip codes for the big shopping day. Prime Day and Whole Foods Last year Prime Day extended its sale from devices and electronics to discounts on groceries at the Whole Foods Market chain. Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017 and Prime Day 2018 was the first time they promoted the big sale event at the grocery store. Savings included price cuts on popular food items and discounts for first time users of the grocery delivery service Prime Now. Amazon also offered $10 back in Amazon credits to use on Prime Day for members that spent $10 at Whole Foods. Amazon credit card users also received double the rewards when they used their card at Whole Foods during the week leading up to Prime Day. We expect this year to be more discounts on groceries in-store as well as promotions with the Amazon Rewards Card and Prime Now. How much money did Amazon make on Prime Day? Amazon was predicted to gross $3.4 billion on Prime Day last year, although we don’t know if that prediction is accurate as Amazon doesn’t release such information. However, it did announce that third party sellers shifted a billion dollars of product in just one day. As for its own sales, Amazon was content to say that “sales this Prime Day surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday and the previous Prime Day, when comparing 36-hour periods, making this once again the biggest shopping event in Amazon history.” That’s a little sneaky, mind you: last Prime Day only ran for 24 hours, not 36. What were the best deals on Prime Day? As ever, some of the best deals on Prime Day were on Amazon’s own devices. The Echo Show dropped from $229.99 to $129.99, the Echo Spot from $129.99 to $99, the Echo Dot from $49.99 to $29.99, the Echo from $99.99 to $69.99 and the Echo Plus from $164.98 to $99. There was a big drop on the Amazon-owned Ring video doorbell pro too, which went from $249 to $174, and on the Echo Look camera: that went from $199.99 to $99.99. Kindles and Fire ranges got deep discounts. The Fire Stick went from $39.99 to $19.99 and the Fire TV Cube from $119.99 to $89.99 (we told you it was worth waiting a few weeks before Prime Day) while Fire Tablets dropped significantly: the Fire 7 went from $49.99 to an incredible $29.99, the Fire 10 from $149.99 to $99.99 and the Fire 7 Kids from $99.99 to $69.99.  There were good deals on TVs too. In the US, the excellent TCL TVs were massively discounted and better known brands such as Hisense were chopped too: for example Hisense’s 43-inch 4K TV dropped from $349.99 to $239.99.  The best phone deal we spotted in the US was a big drop on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, which went from $799 to a much more affordable $549. Image credit: Amazon Why did Amazon crash on Prime Day? Did the crash cost it money? Amazon struggled to cope with traffic on Prime Day, an issue that affected not just the Amazon site but services such as Prime Video and Twitch. Customers found their shopping carts would suddenly empty, or links simply wouldn’t work, or they couldn’t access Amazon at all. The issues were largely confined to the US website and customers, although problems with Prime Video lasted well into the evening in the UK. Some sites got their calculators out and concluded that the worst outage, which lasted for 63 minutes, cost Amazon just under $100 million in lost sales. Amazon disagrees, saying that the effect on sales was “minimal”.  CNBC has seen internal documents that describe what happened. First, it didn’t secure enough servers to cope with the demand; secondly, that shortage caused a “cascading series of failures” that knocked out key services; and thirdly, Amazon temporarily killed all international traffic to reduce the load. All of those things happened within the first 15 minutes of Prime Day.  The outage wasn’t the only issue Amazon faced on Prime Day. There were also strikes in protest at the way it treats its workers. Why were workers striking and supporters urging Amazon boycotts on Prime Day? Prime Day wasn’t the first time Amazon has been accused of terrible working practices, but it was a great day to get the issue into the papers. Workers in Spain and Germany went on strike over working hours and conditions while activists urged people to send Amazon a message on Prime Day by boycotting it altogether over its treatment of workers and its tax arrangements. It was also marked by a surge in health and safety complaints from UK workers.  As you’d expect, Amazon denies the allegations, with a spokesperson telling us: These allegations and the data are just not accurate — safety incidents in our fulfillment centers did not increase around Prime Day, they actually decreased from the previous week. We’re proud of our team and our workplace, and invite anyone to come see for themselves – we offer public tours of our buildings and you can learn more at amazonfctours.com."   Amazon also told Wired that the Organise campaign behind the publicity was indulging in fake news. “To our knowledge, Organise doesn’t verify that respondents actually work for the company they claim to work for.” Image credit: Amazon What could Amazon have done better on Prime Day? It should have anticipated and been able to cope with the load not just on its ecommerce site but on its cloud services too: we weren’t the only ones irritated because we couldn’t get our Preacher fix on Amazon Prime Video. It’s all the more embarrassing when you remember that Amazon provides the cloud infrastructure for many high-profile sites and services: Prime Day wasn’t a great ad for that side of its business. Our main criticisms aren’t technological, though. Navigating the deals was hopeless and many of the deals were laughable, especially in gaming: we frequently found much better console bundles on AO.com’s eBay page than we did on Amazon.  Here’s a great example. On Prime Day, one of the flagship deals we identified was $50 off a set of Bose QuietComfort 25 headphones. That brought the price down from $299 to $249. Just three weeks later, Amazon US was listing the same headphones for $169. Will Amazon Prime Day 2019 do things differently? Yes. CNBC reports that Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO of worldwide retail, has already demanded improvements to prevent a repeat the previous Prime Day’s capacity problems: “tech teams are already working to improve our architecture”.  We’d like to think that Amazon will also improve the navigation and discoverability of its deals for Prime Day 2019, although we aren’t holding our collective breath: both factors’ general rubbishness didn’t stop Prime Day breaking all records, so there’s not much incentive for Amazon to change it unless it decides better navigation will drive significantly higher sales. But that's why we're here to show you the best Prime Day deals! It’s a safe bet that Prime Day 2019 will be longer. It’s already grown from one day to one and a half; further inflation seems inevitable. Image credit: Amazon What does all this mean for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? It’s clear that Amazon is prioritising Prime Day over Super Black Friday Deals Month or whatever convoluted name it’s going to give its Black Friday sales period in 2019: according to Digitalcommerce360.com, 67% of this year's Prime Day deals were lower than comparable deals on the preceding Black Friday.  That’s not to say Amazon won’t take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It will, and it’ll offer the same kind of discounting that we’ve seen in recent years. But Prime Day is more important to the firm, and we’d expect its discounts to be deeper, especially on its own devices. Prime Day: why does it matter more to Amazon? There are some crucial differences between Prime Day and Black Friday. The first is that Prime Day is Amazon’s own day. It’s right there in the name, which of course refers to Amazon’s Prime membership programme and associated services. Amazon doesn’t own Black Friday, and that means ultimately it’s just another retailer shouting for attention – a massive retailer with a really loud voice, of course, but Black Friday is a sales event for the entire retail sector. It’s much harder for rivals to muscle in on something that Amazon has effectively created from thin air. The second and more important difference is that Black Friday doesn’t create new spending. It just moves it slightly. As we’ve discovered in recent years, the money people spend over the Black Friday period is money they were probably going to spend anyway: all Black Friday really does is concentrates pre-Christmas shopping in the last week of November.  Prime Day spending is different in two ways. First of all, people aren’t spending the money they’d already planned to spend on Christmas presents. And secondly, they’re buying mainly for themselves, not for others. If you go back to the list of bestsellers there’s an awful lot of impulse buying in there: Instant Pots and Hue Lightstrips, frying pans and dishwasher tablets. This is new spending, not merely moving pre-planned spending.  There’s another key benefit for Amazon. Its best-sellers on Prime Day weren’t just Amazon devices; they were Amazon devices that connect to Amazon services. Fire TVs, Kindle Fires, Echo devices, Alexa remotes. Each one of them connecting to Amazon Prime, and each one of them requiring a Prime membership to buy in the first place. So when Black Friday rolls around, Amazon will have a whole bunch of Prime members for whom shopping on Prime is the default, and who might want to enhance their Amazon-powered smart homes with Amazon-branded Black Friday deals. Prime Day means that for Amazon, Christmas now comes twice a year. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Critical flaw in WordPress live chat discovered Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:11 PM PDT Security researchers have discovered a critical flaw in WordPress Live Chat Support which can be exploited by an attacker without the need for valid credentials. Over 50,000 websites have installed the WordPress plugin designed to provide websites with a free way to offer live chat support to their visitors. Alert Logic first discovered the critical authentication bypass vulnerability present in version 8.0.32 while investigating a set of other vulnerabilities in the WP Live Chat plugin for WordPress. The new vulnerability allows unauthenticated users to access restricted REST API endpoints as a result of critical authentication bypass flaw CVE-2019-12498. WordPress revamped with new security features 7 great reasons to choose managed WordPress hosting It's a jungle out there: Don't leave your WordPress sites in the wild In a blog post detailing the vulnerability, Alert Logic's researchers explained why the REST API endpoints are vulnerable to attack, saying: “The restricted REST API endpoints of the affected versions of WP Live Chat are vulnerable to abuse by unauthenticated remote attackers due to a flaw in the ‘wplc_api_permission_check()’ function.”  Live chat vulnerability As the REST API endpoints are exposed as a result of the flaw, potential attackers could extract full chat logs for all chat sessions logged on a website, inject text into ongoing chat sessions, edit injected messages and launch denial of service (DoS) attacks by “arbitrarily ending active chat sessions”. For admins that are unable to update the plugin immediately to mitigate the issue, Alert Logic has a fix in the form of “virtual patching using a WAF to filter traffic destined for the WP Live Chat Support REST endpoint”. According to the company, no attackers have yet attempted to exploit the authentication bypass issue so far and the developer of the plugin issued a patch for the vulnerability three days after it was initially disclosed at the end of May. If you or your company's website uses the WP Live Chat Support plugin, it is highly recommended that you update the plugin to version 8.0.33 or later to prevent your site from falling victim to an attack. We've also highlighted the best WordPress plugins and best WordPress hosting Via Bleeping Computer This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

AWS is about to make your cloud a lot more personalised Posted: 11 Jun 2019 12:08 PM PDT AWS customers will soon be able to add greater personalization to their online stores as the company has announced that Amazon Personalize, which was announced during last year's ASW re:Invent, is now generally available. Using its API, developers can easily add custom machine learning models to their apps, search results and direct marketing even without previous machine learning experience. Amazon Personalize actually utilizes algorithms originally created for Amazon's own retail business but the company says that all of the machine learning data will be “kept completely private, owned entirely by the customer.” AWS secures company data on the go with WorkLink launch Machine learning: more than a buzzword NASCAR picks AWS to power its cloud Vice president of machine learning at AWS Swami Sivasubramanian highlighted the fact that customers can implement AI services without prior machine learning experience in a statement, saying: “We are excited to share with AWS customers the expertise we’ve developed during two decades of using machine learning to deliver great experiences on Amazon.com. Customers have been asking for Amazon Personalize, and we are eager to see how they implement these services to delight their own end users. And the best part is that these artificial intelligence services, like Amazon Personalize, do not require any machine learning experience to immediately train, tune, and deploy models to meet their business demands.” Amazon Personalize Yamaha, Subway, Zola and Segment are a few of the AWS customers that have already added Amazon Personalize to their apps. The company's pricing model charges users five cents per GB of data uploaded to Amazon Personalize and 24 cents per training hour used to train a custom machine learning model with their data. Real-time recommendation requests though are priced based on how many are uploaded but the company does offer discounts for larger orders. Amazon Personalize is now available to AWS users in three US regions, East (Ohio), East (North Virginia) and West (Oregon), two regions in Asia Pacific (Tokyo and Singapore) and Ireland in the European Union. However, AWS will make the service available in more regions soon. We've also highlighted the best cloud hosting services Via TechCrunch This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Nintendo just single-handedly redeemed E3 2019 with nostalgia and new ideas Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:58 AM PDT After some middling but ultimately exciting press conferences from Microsoft and Square Enix, and some complete whiffs from Bethesda and Ubisoft, I have been wondering – with many others – “Is E3 a tired event?” Well, after seeing Nintendo’s online-only Nintendo Direct E3 2019 keynote address, my faith in E3 has been restored. Nintendo brought some enormous guns to E3 2019, with more details on games we already knew about, tied with release dates and surprise announcements tapping into nostalgia not just for old games, but classic movies. About 97% of these games are coming out in 2019 – and before the holiday shopping season. Of course, that leftover 3% belongs primarily the teased sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which has been announced to be in development alongside a flashy trailer. We also now know that Animal Crossing for Nintendo Switch will be out on March 20, 2020 as Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Finally for 2020, Square Enix will be bringing a 3D remake of its cult classic role-playing game (RPG), Seiken Densetsu 3, the third game in the Mana series of RPGs, as Trials of Mana in early 2020 exclusively for Nintendo Switch. Mining that sweet, sweet nostalgia Nintendo spent much of its 45-minute address announcing games that are lush remakes and entirely new entries in storied franchises – like a remake of Panzer Dragoon, a remaster of the Sypro trilogy, a brand-new Contra game, Rogue Corps, and a strategy game based on The Dark Crystal franchise: Age of Resistance Tactics. (The latter ties in with the new Netflix prequel series to the 1982 film of the same name.) Alongside these announcements, Nintendo used this occasion to drop same-date releases on its eShop digital store of two classic retro game collections: Konami’s Contra Anniversary Collection and Square Enix’s Collection of Mana. The latter game collection brings the original Seiken Densetsu 3, first released in Japan way back in 1995 for the Super Famicom, to the west for the first time as – you guessed it – Trials of Mana. Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention Nintendo’s ultimate nostalgia drug for 2019: its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. This gorgeous reimagining of the Game Boy classic is not only after long-time fans’ hearts, but brings a new game mode in Build-a-Dungeon. This allows players to build their own Zelda dungeons by combining rooms from the game’s existing content, likely with the ability to share them with friends. With these announcements, Nintendo has reminded people that the Nintendo Switch is the best place for long-time video game fans that are suckers for nostalgia (like this guy). However, the company is clearly paying respect to those fans with not just phoned-in re-releases, but gorgeous remakes and brand new takes on those classic franchises. Grasshopper Manufacture's No More Heroes 3 (Image Credit: Nintendo) A sprinkling of fresh ideas and stories Of course, Nintendo could have just left it at that and made me happy, but the company is taking things a step further in 2019 with brand-new games in both new and existing franchises. Games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Marvel’s Avengers: Ultimate Alliance 3 – both due out this July exclusively for Switch – will take those game worlds to the next level. Likewise, Pokémon Sword and Shield will elevate the storied series to a whole new echelon that it’s never experienced before, to be likely the ultimate Pokemon game to date.  Then, you have Daemon X Machina, a brand new mecha action game franchise and Astral Chain, a new action beat-em-up property from Platinum Games, ringing out the summer with new ideas and stories never seen before. Naturally, both are exclusive to Nintendo’s console. We’ve yet to even touch on Luigi’s Mansion 3, which brings plenty of new ideas to the series, like two-player cooperative play and up to eight-player competitively play either in-house or online. Not to mention an entire haunted hotel to explore rather than just another house filled with ghosts to suck up. Finally, we saw entirely new games from Nintendo third parties due out for 2020, like the ‘20s-era top-down shooter Empire of Sin. Nintendo is using its unique position with the Switch as both a handheld and home console to please the widest array of gamers possible, which no other console can do. The remakes and re-releases excite long-time gamers with new ways to play games they’ve loved, or never had the chance to, while on the move. Meanwhile, brand new games give existing players something entirely fresh to chew on and potentially lure in new fans. All told, Nintendo restored my faith in E3 as the annual event to which game publishers and developers bring out all of the stops to excite gamers for the year(s) to come – far better than even Microsoft did with its tease of the next Xbox. Boy, am I glad to have the Nintendo Switch as my only game console this time around. E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year. TechRadar is reporting live from LA, telling you all about the biggest announcements of the week, from epic game trailers to shocking release date reveals. Follow our expert analysis of the keynotes and what we see on the E3 show floor. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Google Fuchsia release date, news and rumors Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:43 AM PDT We were expecting to see Google announce Google Fuchsia, or Google Andromeda – a fusion of its Chrome and Android operating systems (OS) – back in October 2017. However, that announcement never happened, and for now, we can only speculate. What will Google Fuchsia look like? Well, there have been some Chromebooks, along with the Google Pixelbook, that can run both Android apps from the Google Play Store and even an early build of Fuchsia itself – which is also rumored to run Android apps. We think Google Fuchsia, if and when it finally sees the light of day, will be the ultimate Google operating system across all kinds of devices.  Nobody knows what Google Fuchsia will look like in the end. There’s very little in the way of hard information, and what is out there is pretty vague. However, we do know that Google Fuchsia revolves around the idea of being able to do whatever you want from whatever device you have handy. We can even see hints of this approach in Google’s recent endeavors, like bringing Android Messages and a VR video editor to a broad range of hardware.  In fact, the maligned Google Pixel Slate might actually provide a hint at what the future of Google Fuchsia will look like. Even if the tablet never runs the nascent OS, and doesn’t give a clue about the release date, it does provide some kind of marriage between Chrome OS and a mobile OS. Google changed the UI of Chrome OS to be more palatable on tablet – bringing it closer to a unified OS across different families of devices. Whether it relates to Fuchsia remains to be seen, but we look at it like a step in the right direction.  Regardless of what the final product is, or whether or not Google Fuchsia ever makes it to the devices, be sure to keep this page bookmarked, as we’ll update it with any new information comes our way. Cut to the chase What is it? An Android-meets-Chrome, multi-device operating system When is it out? An early form is available on the Google Pixelbook now What will it cost? Likely nothing, as is with Android and Chrome Image Credit: Ars Technica What is Google Fuchsia? Right now, there appears to be a divide within Google regarding what Fuchsia actually is. While the team working on it says they want Fuchsia to be the ultimate Google OS, running on all of its phones, tablets, laptops and smart home devices – Google’s leadership is still referring to it as an experiment. That basically means that we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, and what materializes out of all this experimentation. What we know for sure is that Google Fuchsia is a hybrid OS that is still very much in development. The entirety of Fuchsia OS is comprised of two distinct but connected user interfaces (UI): a phone-centric one codenamed ‘Armadillo’ and a traditional desktop UI known as ‘Capybara’ internally, according to 9to5Google. So far, more is known about the mobile version of Fuchsia than the laptop one, but ArsTechnica was recently able to get Fuchsia running on a Google Pixelbook in a very early state. And, it looks like both versions should be able to run Android apps, much like many Chromebooks in 2019. So, backwards compatibility looks to be something that early Fuchsia adopters can look forward to.  'Fuchsia is going to accomplish much of what Microsoft and Apple already have in Windows 10 and iOS-to-macOS Sierra Continuity, respectively, but in a very Google way.' Dividing the OS up into two separate UI based on the hardware it’s being used with is a classically Microsoft-inspired move. Windows 10 already scales depending on whether it’s being used with a desktop computer, phone, tablet or game console. In fact, Windows 10’s only unifier is its kernel, the root code that controls the bulk of the OS. In the case of Fuchsia, that kernel is known as ‘Zircon,’ and it’s developed to be consistently upgradeable – in addition to being safe from applications accessing it constantly, adding an extra layer of security and eliminating situations in which apps are rendered incompatible with OS updates. Whether it’s in the mobile or desktop mode, Fuchsia is laden with Google’s Material design found all over its Android and Chrome OS products. Shadows are a big focus on the design aesthetic, using a new Vulkan-based graphics renderer known as ‘Escher’ to do the job. The result is an interface with more depth to its look than traditionally flat OS products. Image Credit: Google In addition, Fuchsia is heavily focused on a cards-based interface, in which every app you open appears inside one of these cards – plus, you can place multiple apps into a single card. This orients the user around tasks at hand rather than apps. Those apps are expected to look the same across different devices because of a new cross-platform mobile app development framework, developed by Google, known as Flutter. Beyond that, Google Fuchsia revolves around Google Assistant more deeply accessing and working with your apps and information to provide even more actions and insights. Google has referred to these apps and pieces of information as ‘entities,’ according to a GitHub developer page, and they’re all accessible by Google Assistant on Fuchsia. We’ve even seen a recent demo that further illustrates how deeply ingrained Google Assistant is on Fuchsia. It also seems like Google will be changing how it collects analytic data within Fuchsia, according to a report from 9to5 Google. Fuchsia will see the implementation of a new analytic program called ‘Cobalt,’ which will gather information on how you use apps within the OS. Cobalt is supposedly a part of Google’s security-minded approach to the OS, but encryption hasn’t been worked in yet. Nevertheless, we’re sure Google will work better security into Cobalt eventually. Google Chrome, or at least an early build of Chromium, is up and running on early builds of Google Fuchsia, according to a report from 9to5 Google. And, while it’s not ready for the spotlight, this does mean that the fledgling OS is getting closer to being usable without days of preparation. Finally, Fuchsia wants to be the best cross-device OS to date. To achieve this, Fuchsia uses a new tool known as ‘Ledger’ by the GitHub community. Ledger, once you’re signed into a Google Account on a Fuchsia device, will automatically save your place in all installed apps across all Fuchsia devices. All in all, Fuchsia is Google’s attempt to get the best of Chrome and Android into a single operating system that’s more efficient and seamless both while you’re using it and when you’re away – not to mention in between those states or between devices. Google Fuchsia release date Ever since August 2016, we’ve seen a ton of rumors about Google Fuchsia’s release date – and each turned out to be false. These rumors usually come up before Google’s big Google IO developer event in California, or when we know a big hardware release is around the corner. Back in February, it was revealed that Google’s former head of Android platform security, Nick Kralevich, had left the Android team to ‘define security’ over in the Fuchsia department. Describing it as a “new, experimental operating system,” Kralevich doesn’t hint at any specific launch window. However, it does prove where Google chooses to put its most crucial resources. Today, all the speculation points to Google Fuchsia running within the next three years just on smart home devices, with a full public release coming within the next five years. Still, that seems to be an extremely shaky rumor – we’d be surprised if we saw it release before 2024 (or actual androids), if it ever actually comes out. Recent developer messages through the Android Open Source Project do suggest some movement. One of the commits mentions two repos, which the folks at 9to5Google take to be the “incorporation of the official Fuchsia SDK”. Another commit mentions the Huawei Honor Play smartphone, so we could see Fuchsia tested on actual devices soon.  We’ve also seen evidence of other developers doing work on the platform. Yang Guo from the Node.js project at Google tweeted, looking for someone to help port Node over to Fuchsia, according to a report from Android Police. This suggests that Google is looking to implement full Javascript functionality to Fuchsia, and may point to some progress toward an eventual release date.  What might help point to some movement for the Google Fuchsia release date, though, is a new hire from Apple. Bill Stevenson, a senior macOS engineer for Apple, announced on LinkedIn that he is joining Google to help in bringing Fuchsia to market. At any rate, keep it locked to this page as we draw closer to a possible release date, and therefore might have some new information for you. Image Credit: TechRadar What could Fuchsia mean for Android and Chrome – and Windows and macOS? Word on the street is that Google Fuchsia is Google’s answer to Microsoft and Apple’s united platforms. In turning Android into one of the two biggest smartphone platforms and later popularizing Chrome OS – not to mention G-Suite, Google’s web-based productivity programs – Google has already been evolving into a major player on all platforms. From the sound of it, Google is setting out to accomplish much of what Microsoft and Apple already have in place with Windows 10, iOS and macOS High Sierra – continuity, respectively, but in a very Google way. It’s easy to expect access to Google’s unmatchable search and data-tracking at your fingertips – Google Assistant and ‘entities’, anyone? – which it could boast as better than Microsoft and Apple’s, and an interface that evolves to meet the needs of the device from which it’s accessed. Will this eventually mean the end of Android and Chrome? In name, most likely, but their principles will almost certainly live on – there's too much solid foundation not to build on top of them. Just look at the Material design language found throughout these early builds of either version of Fuchsia. The end result – hopefully available in a preview form later this year – will be just one platform for Google to worry about. With Fuchsia, Google will be able to push new updates and features to all versions at once, simplifying support as well as user understanding and experience. With that, Google will become that much more formidable a foe to Microsoft and Apple, and that much enticing an option to Android and Chromebook users all over. Who knows, perhaps it will be enough to bring people over from the other side of Microsoft and Apple’s fences. Michelle Rae Uy and Gabe Carey have also contributed to this report These are the best Chromebooks we’ve tested to date This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

USA vs Thailand live stream: how to watch today's Women's World Cup 2019 match from anywhere Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:37 AM PDT Reigning champs the USA have never lost their opening match of a Women's World Cup - could Thailand pull off a soccer shock in their Group F showdown? Read on to find out how you can catch a USA vs Thailand live stream from anywhere around the world with our instructions below. Ranked No.1 in the world and enjoying a six-game winning streak (they've been beaten only once in their last 39 games stretching back to 2017) the USA are unsurpringly clear favourites to win today's match with the bookies. In contrast, Thailand have lost all but one of their last 12 games. Flanked by the double threat of Tobin Heath and Megan Rapinoe on the wings, all eyes will be on Alex Morgan up front for the USA. The game's current biggest star, Morgan hasn't perhaps lived up to her billing in the two previous World Cups that she has previously appeared in, and it's an albatross she'll likely want to eradicate as early as possible in France. For Thailand, hopes will be resting on striker Suchawadee Nildhamrong, and goalkeeper Tiffany Sornpao - the nation's two best players who both play club football in the US. The two teams have only met once before, a friendly in 2016 which saw the USA dish out a comprehensive 9-0 thrashing. The omens aren't good for Thailand, and them avoiding a cricket score against a confident USWNT will be seen as a major achievement.  We're expect a goal-fest and you can ensure you don't miss any of the action by following the instructions below and grabbing a live stream of USA vs Thailand wherever you are in the world. See how to live stream every single Women's World Cup game Watch a FIFA Women's World Cup 2019 live stream from outside your country If you're in UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, we've got your viewing options listed below. If you're out of the country for today's match, you may find that geo-blocking will prevent you from watching your regular domestic coverage from abroad. You don't have to risk watching the match on a dodgy stream, however. With the option of using a VPN service, you can tune into the match no matter where you are in the world, and its super easy to set up. Live stream the USWNT match in the US FuboTV $44.99 for the first month Hulu with Live TV $44.99 per month Playstation Vue starting at $44.99 per month DirecTV Now $50 per month Sling TV starting at $15 per month YouTube TV $49.99 per month - Discover our pick of all the US's best sports streaming sites As well as opening up your viewing options for the Women's World Cup, using a US VPN allows you to watch all your domestic sports coverage from abroad. How to stream USA vs Thailand live in the UK  How to watch USA vs Thailand: live stream in Australia How to watch FIFA Women's World Cup: Canada live stream  How to watch an Thailand vs USA live stream in New Zealand  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The best Steam games 2019 Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:15 AM PDT Steam is simply the best place for you to hunt for new PC games, if you're keen on getting into the very best PC games. That's because the platform touts more than 23,000 titles (and counting).  Though it’s more than just availability. One of the biggest advantages that Steam has is that it lets you buy a game, and install it as many times as you like on as many devices as you own. You’ll have access to automatic updates as well, so you won’t need to do the extra work of re-downloading and rechecking to see if everything’s updated. The only problem is that there’s too much on Steam these days. It’s definitely not the worst problem to have, but it does mean that you can get lost in Steam’s giant labyrinth of games and become tempted by its frequent sales. And, before you know it, you’ll end up with a stack of games you’ll probably never get around to playing or finishing. Fortunately for you, we here at TechRadar have your back. We’ve gathered what we think are the best Steam games, from recent releases to golden oldies. We update this list regularly, so be sure to come back soon for more suggestions. Image credit: Lo-Fi Games Kenshi Some of the best steam games are those that couldn’t really exist anywhere else. Complicated RPGs and strategy games need the unique features of a gaming PC, and Kenshi is a perfect example.  Taking inspiration from the old Mount & Blade games, Kenshi is a sandbox, squad-based RPG where you make your own story. You’re dropped in the middle of a massive world – think Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall huge – and you’re not limited by any of the gameplay systems. You can simply build a home for yourself, or set off on an epic adventure.  You’re going to get hours upon hours upon hours of gameplay out of Kenshi, because the world is the game, not just its setting.  Image credit: Annapurna Interactive What Remains of Edith Finch This indie smash arrived in 2017, but as it won a 'best game' BAFTA award, it’s time to give it another plug. What Remains of Edith Finch, the first best steam game on our list, is a narrative-led adventure in which you walk, first-person style, around as Edith Finch, exploring the house in which you grew up. You look over the preserved relics of dead family members and are sucked into vignettes that tell the stories of how various Finches died. We get it, it sounds grim. However, its charming style and magical realism tilt make What Remains of Edith Finch involving and touching rather than depressing.  It plays out a little like an interactive movie. You can’t fail as such, aside from getting lost, and the entire experience lasts 2-3 hours rather than 20.  Don’t buy this if you’re going to feel short-changed by its length, but if you’ve played and loved Firewatch, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture or Gone Home, you’ll definitely enjoy What Remains of Edith Finch. Image credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdon Though the first Ni No Kuni game was a collaboration with Japanese animation masters Studio Ghibli, Ni No Kuni II is not. However, it does retain the same charming art style.  It also changes the fighting mechanics. As opposed to training up avatars to fight for you, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom has a fun real-time battle system. You command three fighters with fast, slow and magic attacks, and the ability to dodge. And, there’s a more action-packed feel this time.  It’s not all about action, though. While Ni No Kuni II is an action-adventure RPG, you also build up a kingdom, which plays a role in earning bonuses for your characters. This part is surprisingly moreish. The story is more conventional than that of the first game, which might be down to Studio Ghibli’s limited involvement. However, there’s plenty of fantasy fuel, and it’s more immersive than your average game, deservedly earning it a spot among the best steam games. Image credit: Subset Games Into the Breach Not every top Steam game is an epic open world title that will set you back $60 on PS4 and Xbox One. Into the Breach is an elegant sci-fi strategy blast that you can play on your lunch break at work.  It is made by the team behind Faster than Light, still one of our favourite PC games of the last decade. And for the handheld gaming veterans out there, there are shades of Advance Wars to it too. Earth has been invaded – and almost taken over – by aliens. In Into the Breach, you control groups of mechs sent from the future to reverse this fate. That may sound like a mind-bending premise, but it actually proves that the plot doesn’t matter too much here. We know Earth will come out tops, it’s just a matter of how. Each encounter takes in an 8x8 block grid, your battlefield. Play unfolds in turns, and your mechs have to stop aliens from destroying too many of the field’s buildings and outposts. It has the tactical purity of chess. As you play, you can upgrade your mechs to improve your chances.  Like FTL, Into the Breach is moreish, smart and deceptively deep.  Image credit: Paradox Interactive Surviving Mars Some screenshots make Surviving Mars look like The Sims: Red Planet edition. However, this best steam game actually closer to Sim City meets The Martian. You build an outpost on a patch of Mars, and have to keep it running to avoid your colonists from dying on the planet’s harsh surface. And, it’s harder than it sounds.  That is, while mis-managing resources in Sim City or Civilization may make your inhabitants angry or lower your income, in Surviving Mars it can cause a chain reaction that sees life support systems fail. You’ll hear “a colonist has died”, and be left scrambling to fix the problem before other inhabitants start dying like bubbles popping as they touch the ground.  There’s work to be done on Surviving Mars’s interface, but its survivalist approach to “city” building is compelling. Image credit: Square Enix Final Fantasy XV After the massively-multiplayer Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix has finally turned back to the series’s single player roots with Final Fantasy XV. It came to PS4 in late 2016, but was only ported to PC in March 2018. However, you do get all the DLC released on consoles and, if your PC is beefy enough, better frame rates. Final Fantasy XV is slightly different to the FF games of old. You travel around an open world packed with Americana-style buildings, all your companions are human and the combat plays out in real time, not as turns. Still, you can tell this is a Final Fantasy game just by watching a 15-second clip of it in action. Image credit: No More Robots New Indie Notable: Descenders The PC tends to get associated with the kind of games you sit down in – for hours on end until your eyes are red and part of you start to regret your life choices. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  With Descenders, you can play in quick blasts. If you can drag yourself away from its moreish-ness, anyway. You’re a downhill free rider who has to get down procedurally generated courses with as much style as possible, preferably using a gamepad. It might remind you of the Tony Hawk games, when they were good, or snowboard console classic SSX.  The use of generated “tracks” means you can’t master courses, but it’s the mastery of the bike’s physics you’re aiming for anyway. A career mode pits you against a series of courses in the same style of environment, each with objectives. Finish the “boss course,” and you unlock a new terrain. But you have limited lives for the whole run. A mix of mobile game style and unforgiving old-school progression mechanics gives Descenders a fresh feel, just one of the many reasons why it’s made our best steam game list. Image credit: SCS Software American Truck Simulator Not every game has to be about destroying aliens or shooting off the faces of unnamed soldiers, and American Truck Simulator, one of the best steam game to play right now, is like mindfulness meditation compared to those titles.  You drive a big 18 wheeler-style truck over the long highways of the US, delivering cargo from A to B. Breaking the traffic codes doesn’t end in a GTA-style police chase, just a fine. This is the sort of game you can put on like cosy slippers after a long day at work.  Yet there’s also a business side to it. You start as a lowly contractor, and earn enough money to build your own shipping empire.  Image credit: Paradox Interactive Pillars of Eternity PC gamers who have been playing since the ‘90s will remember all the fuss made about the Baldur’s Gate titles. Some of their biggest fans will get teary-eyed reminiscing about the memories of their favorite side characters.  Isometric role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate don’t cut it in the AAA world anymore. However, Pillars of Eternity brings back their essence for the Steam crowd. This is a difficult, slightly throwback-flavoured RPG where you control a band of classic fantasy-style adventurers. It’s made by Obsidian, the team behind Fallout: New Vegas. Pillars of Eternity II is on the horizon too.  If you like your RPGs fantasy-themed, also consider Torment: Tides of Numenera. Image credit: Almost Human Legend of Grimrock II Another throwback to a style of game that has all but disappeared, Legend of Grimrock 2 is a dungeon crawler where you move in blocks, not freely. Why would you want that? It changes your relationship with the environment, making it feel more like an intricate puzzle rather than just an open world a texture artist has been let loose on.  There are an awful lot of actual puzzle involved here too, in-between the bouts of classic "Dungeons & Dragons" style combat encounters. Plus, as retro as the play style is, Legend of Grimrock 2 looks fantastic, with many outdoors areas to prevent you from getting bogged down in dimly-lit dungeons. Image credit: PUBG Corporation PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds When it comes to in-vogue games, few titles continue to capture the zeitgeist (and fill it full of bullet holes) like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. It may have one of the worst acronyms ever, but that hasn’t stopped PUBG from putting the ‘battle royale’ subgenre on the map and making itself into a phenomenon. Sure, there’s a lot of hype still surrounding it, but the game behind all the coverage and Twitch fascination is still one of the most addictive on Steam, not to mention one of the best steam games this 2019. That simple premise – parachute into a map with no gear, scavenge for weapons and armour, and fight for survival with a single life in a map that continually shrinks – is still gripping, even if it has a few too many bugs. Whether you’re teaming up with friends or braving its maps by your lonesome, PUBG remains one of the most fun shooters on the market right now. Image credit: Deep Silver Kingdom Come: Deliverance One of the most recent releases on our best Steam games list, Kingdom Come: Deliverance offers an experience that’s both comfortingly familiar and deeply alien. Set in a fictional Medieval Europe, it’s a first-person RPG where dialogue choices shape your world as much as your ability to problem solve and your skills in melee combat. It’s a game of incredible freedom, enabling you to carve a path through its Dark Ages setting however you see fit. You might get off your face on schnapps and get in a fight with the town drunk. You might start filling your pockets with the gold of unsuspecting townsfolk, Thief-style, or stain your blade with blood in the battlefield. Part Elder Scrolls, part Dark Souls, part something else entirely, it’s an action-RPG that punishes as much as it empowers. It also runs best on PC (with the right specs, obviously) so get it on the download pronto. Image credit: Ubisoft Rainbow Six: Siege Who knew, way back in 2015, that a Tom Clancy game would become one of the industry’s biggest success stories. But here we are, in 2019, with a game that boasts over 25 million registered players and its third year of consecutive content updates as well as premium bells and whistles. Rainbow Six: Siege one of those success stories that keeps on succeeding, and for one very important yet simple reason: it’s fun as hell to play. Dialling back the Rainbow Six formula to its roots - two teams fight in the same map, one protecting an objective while the other attacking and fighting their way in - no two matches in Siege are ever the same. You’ll be barricading doors, breaching through walls, blasting through ceilings and building an operator that’s attuned to your playstyle. It might not be groundbreaking, but add in the limited time Outbreak mode (think Siege plus zombies), and you’ve got one of Steam’s most complete packages. Image credit: Matt Makes Games Celeste From the indie team that gave us TowerFall and TowerFall Ascension comes one of the most rewarding pixel platformers in years. As you climb the titular mountain, flame-haired heroine Madeline will battle her innermost demons as much as the harsh and dangerous conditions around her. In its simplest form, Celeste is a tight, 2D, twitch-style platformer, but in reality it’s one of the most memorable games we’ve played in many years. As poignant in narrative as it is unforgiving in mechanics, Celeste comes with over 700 ‘scenes’ to traverse, countless secrets to uncover and a story that will grip you as much as the muscle-memory building formula of its platforming. For a game built around the simple mechanics of jump, air-dash and climb, there’s an incredible amount of depth to be found as you claw your way to the summit in more ways that one, which is why it deserves a spot on our best steam games list. Get it here: Celeste Image credit: Larian Studios Divinity: Original Sin 2 When Divinity: Original Sin 2 arrived in 2017, it had quite the task ahead of it: living up to the legacy of its predecessor, which just so happened to be one of the most accomplished RPGs of all time. Then what does developer Larian Studios do? It only goes and follows it up with one of the most important additions to the genre in years. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an enchanting fantasy world with a deep and complicated combat model and one of the most gripping stories you’ll experience outside of a 1,000 page tome. The big selling point, and the main ingredient of Divinity: Original Sin 2’s secret sauce, is the complexity of its combat. You control a party of characters alongside your own custom avatar, and utilise each one individually in battle. With countless skills and attributes to mix and match, the breadth of tactics available makes this an imposing yet deeply rewarding way to test your RPG abilities. Image credit: Paradox Interactive Stellaris The grand and operatic strategy genre has produced some true classics on PC, experiences consoles have consistently struggled and failed to emulate. From Crusader Kings to Europa Universalis, these are games with tactics and guile expected in bucket loads from the off.  Well, it just so happens the developer of those very games has taken that deeply immersive concept and transported it to the dark ocean of space. Enter Stellaris, an evolution of the genre that takes the space exploration of EVE Online and Mass Effect and hits the hyperdrive button. You’ll travel through myriad procedural galaxies, filled with thousands of planets and countless alien species, each one possessing unique traits, economies and social strata. Whether it’s the power (and consistent balancing act) of interstellar diplomacy or the deep customisation of starship designs, there’s a wealth of sci-fi lore and mechanics to delve into with Stellaris. Image credit: Valve Corporation Dota 2 By far one of the oldest games on the list - well, that is if you consider 2013 old - Valve’s MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), Dota 2, is still one of the most addictive titles on Steam. It’s also the only game on this list that’s free-to-play, so you don’t even need to have a healthy bank balance to enjoy its moreish battles. Valve has been consistently updating and overhauling the game since launch, making it one of the most evolved MOBAs on the market. If you’ve never played it before, it’s a simple yet intoxicating setup: two teams of five players face off in a large map. Each one is defending a base with an ‘Ancient; inside that must be protected at all costs. Find your opponent’s base and raze it to the ground to win. What plays are brilliant hero v hero showdowns, brutal ambushes, tactical plays and nonstop action. Get it here: Dota 2 Image credit: StudioMDHR Cuphead Run and gun platformers have carved a niche out for themselves on mobile, but they’re a rarity on PC. Thankfully, this one was built to be a Microsoft exclusive with Xbox One in mind and the result is one of the most unique gaming experiences you’ll ever have. Designed to capture the look and atmosphere of 1930s cartoons, Cuphead places you in the shoes of the titular hero and tasks you with battling across three distinct words and bosses that will capture your imagination with their ingenuity that crush your resolve with their difficulty. Recommending a notoriously tough game might sound counter-intuitive, but the steep difficulty curve is part of its charm. With a unique soundtrack and those standout visuals at your side you’ll earn every stage clearance like piece of territory in a war, each victory feeling that bit more rewarding. Brutal and beautiful in equal measure, Cuphead is a must have Steam title. Image credit: Unknown World Entertainment Subnautica Another relatively fresh release on this list, Subnautica is already making waves (pardon the pun) despite having only dropped in January of this year. A survival game set in the depths of an ocean on an alien world, it’s unique twist on the classic template makes for a game that’s both captivating to watch and challenging in its many interconnected mechanics. You’ll explore shallow reefs, dangerous trenches on the seabed and everything in between, all the while managing your precious oxygen supply. Oh, and there’s an entire ecosystem of alien marine life to contend with. Plenty of these fishy and mammalian critters want to add you to their menu, so you’ll need to outsmart and avoid them while searching for resources to build new equipment and tools. Like all the best survival games, the very best materials lie in the most dangerous of places. Dare you swim deep enough to find them? Image credit: Bethesda Softworks Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus With so many multiplayer shooters getting a focus in this feature, it seemed high time to pay homage to one of the best single-player FPS games ever. MachineGames gave Wolfenstein a bloody, alt-history revival in the form of 2014’s The New Order, so it had its work cut out for it when it came to bettering all that visceral Nazi slaying. Then along comes 2017’s The New Colossus, dialing up the violence and the depth of storytelling it would make most Call Of Duty titles look at the floor with embarrassment. What makes The New Colossus so essential is how it doesn’t deviate from its formula, but excels on it in almost every way. Bigger and more challenging bosses; intense set-pieces; myriad weapons that spit glorious death; a story that asks far more questions and presents some bold answers. It’s also rock hard, and consistently unforgiving, so lock and load at your peril... Image credit: Capcom Resident Evil 7: Biohazard  It’s not often a franchise as iconic as Resident Evil gets a new lease of life – especially when you consider the zomb-loving licence had descended into a lifeless farce over the past decade – but here we are with a genuinely frightening horror game with the words ‘Resident Evil’ in the title. What a world, eh? While us PC folk aren’t allowed to scare ourselves half to death in VR yet (RE7 is a PSVR at the moment), that doesn’t mean it’s any less terrifying. Dropping the third-person perspective that’s felt tired and rote for many a year, RE7 embraces the first-person view that’s helped Outlast and the like re-energize the horror genre, and boy does it make for one chilling 8-10 hour scare fest. With Capcom’s big budget, a creepy swamp setting (honestly, just go with it) and a storyline that feeds back into the series’ winding mythology, you’d be crazy not to add this to your Steam library. Image credit: 2K Games Sid Meier’s Civilization VI How could we put together a list of the games to play on Steam and not include the latest offering from the master of turn-based strategy and tactical simulation? The Civilization series has been through many a form over the years, but entry number six takes all the best bits from those previous incarnations, smoothes off the edges and serves up one of the most rewarding turn-based video games ever made. There’s nothing quite like building a nation from its fledgling roots and nurturing it into a cultural powerhouse, and Civilization VI gives you more freedom and control than ever. Removing the pre-set paths that hampered the still stellar Civ V, Civ VI transforms into a landscape that rewards plucky explorers and confident conquerors with the opportunity to expand their budding society with new technologies and alliances. Sid Meier’s name alone is part of PC gaming’s lofty heritage, so owning this little doozy is a no-brainer. Image credit: Toby Fox Undertale Undertale is one of those games that stays with you. A work of digital art whose charm and creativity never fail to lose their edge, regardless of how many times you play it through. And considering just how many innocuous JRPGs are out there right now, that’s a pretty impressive feat in unto itself. So why is Undertale so brilliant? It takes all of the best elements from the ever-evolving RPG genre and creates a world built on choice, consequence and compassion. As a child dropped into an underground world filled with terrors, you’ll have to face many a monster to make it home. How you face them, and what choices you make, define your journey.  And its Telltale-esque consequence system doesn’t just extend to dialogue choices – you can choose to spare monsters after a fight, forging potential vital alliances for later in the game. You can even end fights by telling your opponent jokes. It’s a game of such warm and affable quality you’d almost believe it was a JRPG from the earliest heydey of the genre. Get it here: Undertale Image credit: CD Projekt The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt For years, one game sat atop the dark and misty mountain of action-RPGs. Skyrim was its name, and no other franchise, be it Dragon Age or Dark Souls, could even come close to unseating its cast-iron grip upon the genre. Then along came Geralt of Rivia, riding atop The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with a confident swagger, ready to give The Elder Scrolls a good thrashing. If you’re looking for a game that strikes a perfect balance between length of play (you could easily spend 100+ hours across its incredibly diverse map – one that’s a good 20% bigger than poor old Skyrim) and sheer quality, The Witcher 3 is a must. There are just so many virtues The Witcher 3 has to its name – brilliant writing, unforgettable quests, genuinely challenging beasts and a pair of DLC expansions (Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine) make this one of the best games of this and any other generation. Image credit: Playdead Inside Inside will break your heart. Let that be your warning going in. Don’t see such words as a deterrent, but rather as a mystery to be uncovered scene by heart-wrenching scene. Created by the same studio that made the wonderful 2.5D platformer Limbo – you know, the one about a little boy stuck in a nightmare world where a giant spider chases him endlessly – it should come as a huge shock to learn that Inside will leave you just as tearful as its predecessor. Thing is, Inside is a brilliant piece of art. Without a scrap of dialogue, you’ll explore a world in a similar platforming vein to Limbo, overcoming various ingenious environmental puzzles and evading both the flashlights of an oppressive government and the shadow of a conspiracy that’s clearly not going to end well. But it’s worth every second. There’s a reason it won many a GOTY award in 2016, so you’d be a fool not to add this to Steam library. Just remember to pack a few tissues. Image credit: Psyonix Rocket League Once upon a time there was a little game on PlayStation 3 called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. It was all about using remote control-esque cars to knock a giant football around a makeshift pitch. Thing is, no one played it and the game slowly faded into obscurity. Then Rocket League came along, which was basically the same thing, albeit with tweaked physics and a greater focus on multiplayer. One trip into PlayStation 4’s PS Plus lineup later and the game went supernova. And with good reason, too. It’s simple concept just works – it’s a place where skill shines through as you boost your little RC car and hit the motorised equivalent of a bicycle kick. It’s glorious, offering one of the best ways to play online (whether with friends or a bunch of randoms). Come on, who doesn’t want to spend their evening chasing a football with a car? FIFA? Pfft. Image credit: Valve Corporation Portal 2 Portal, back in its day, was a game-changer. Sure, it sounds like we’re filling out boots with hyperbole, but back in 2007 all those portals, companion cubes and sociopathic AIs were blowing our minds on loop. Then Portal 2 came along and made the original look like a crossword puzzle in The Sun. Okay, the first Portal is still amazing, but Portal 2 took a genuinely revolutionary concept and redefined it. Everything in this game works perfectly - the ebb and flow of its story, the growing complexity of the puzzles and the new ways you’re forced to make your mind think with portals. It’s even got Stephen Merchant and JK Simmons in it! Portal 2 manages to take a brilliant recipe and somehow make it even more delicious, sprinkling in all new depths of platforming and puzzle flavour. If you haven’t played it, buy it now. If you have, play it again. Get it here: Portal 2 Image credit: Chucklefish / ConcernedApe Stardew Valley Charming indie farming RPG Stardew Valley sees you moving from the bustling city to your grandfather's old, run-down farm near sleepy Pelican Town. It's up to you to uncover the secrets of the mysterious town while growing a thriving farming empire. Stardew Valley's pixelated graphics, unique soundtrack and kooky characters make for a relaxed and fun game which combines elements such as farming simulation, adventure, dating simulation and crafting. Get ready to become emotionally attached because once you step foot in Pelican Town, it's hard to ever leave. Get it here: Stardew Valley Want to get the best deals on Steam games? Check out: Steam sales and deals: the best PC game bargains This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

US Customs data breach sees traveler information stolen Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:58 AM PDT US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has confirmed that tens of thousands of images of travelers and license plates have been stolen in a data breach raising concerns over how the US government handles the security of its subcontractors. At the end of May, an official at the agency learned that a federal subcontractor had transferred copies of the images on to its network and was subsequently hacked. The subcontractor did this without CBP's knowledge and was clearly in violation of its contract with the US government. The images stolen by hackers show drivers in their cars along with their license plates as they crossed through one port of entry into the US over a six-week period. According to one US government official, no more than 100,000 people had their information compromised as a result of the data breach. Google urged to work with US military US government data leak exposes years of investigations 2019 is the year we discover the true cost of poor data protection CBP also said that none of the images stolen in the breach have yet to appear on either the dark web or internet. Data breach The fact that the stolen images have not appeared for sale on the internet yet suggests that cybercriminals were not behind the breach. Instead it could have been the work of a foreign government looking to learn more about the agency's procedures or trying to track American citizens. CBP has since removed the equipment involved in the breach and has also informed Congress of the attack. However, the agency has declined to say which subcontractor was responsible. Another government official though, has identified Tennessee-based subcontractor Perceptics as the company behind the breach. Perceptics produces license plate readers and provides the US government with other border security services. Last month the company reported that it had been hacked but it is still unclear whether this incident is connected to the data breach that resulted in the loss of CBP's images. We've also highlighted the best antivirus to keep your systems protected from the latest cyber threats Via The New York Times This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best Nintendo Switch games from E3 2019 Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:51 AM PDT Nintendo hasn’t held a physical conference at E3 for some time now, and E3 2019 was no different. But it still knocked it out of the park with its online showcase for the Nintendo Switch this year, announcing a slew of incredible-looking new games, significant updates to existing favorites, smart ports and remakes, as well as at least one bombshell sequel. As for a Nintendo Switch 2? That'll have to wait, it seems... From a new Zelda game to a technically-near-impossible port of The Witcher 3, these are the best Nintendo Switch games at E3 2019. An (unnamed) Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel It was the final mic-drop moment of Nintendo’s E3 live stream, but what a moment it was. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn’t getting more DLC – it’s getting a whole new sequel. At this stage, there’s no name or release date to go on (we'll just have to call it The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 for now), just a momentary clip instead. It showed Zelda and Link exploring beneath Hyrule Castle, before encountering a resurrected warrior foe – potentially an undead Gannondorf. The camera cuts to a view of Hyrule Castle from a distant location. There’s a ground-shaking quake, Hyrule Castle is engulfed in dust. And that’s it. Very much looking to be in keeping with the new Zelda formula laid down by Breath of the Wild, this could be this generation’s Majora’s Mask. Luigi’s Mansion 3 You may not be afraid of no ghost, but Luigi still is. We got an extended look at Luigi's Mansion 3 during the Nintendo livestream, which introduced us to a few new mechanics for the game. Namely, it’s looking like it’ll be a much more kinetic outing for the scaredy-cat plumber, who will be able to use his ghost-catching vacuum cleaner thing to slam spectors against walls, while also doing an area-of-effect air blast. There’s also a new multiplayer mode announced for the game called ScareScraper, letting you compete for ghost-hunting prowess against your buddies, as well as a co-op mode that introduces a new character called “Gooigi”. Imagine a Flubber-fied version of Luigi, and you’re there, with the green gooey version of Luigi able to walk on spikes and squeeze through fences like a friendly T-1000 terminator. He’ll also be the secondary character couch co-op players get to play as.  Sadly, there’s still no firm release date for Luigi’s Mansion 3 beyond “2019”. We’ll keep you posted. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening  A little more information was revealed for the remake of the GameBoy classic, Link’s Awakening.  Still keeping to that top-down style that the series was once so famous for (but with a new, modernised, Pixar-like art style), Link's Awakening for Nintendo Switch has now been revealed to have a build-your-own dungeon mode. Drag-and-drop tiles will let you build new challenges within the game – here’s hoping there’s an online element so that you can share them with your friends. The Witcher 3 for Nintendo Switch Someone had better send a demon hunter to Nintendo HQ – there must be some sort of dark magic being cast in order to make The Witcher 3 run on the Nintendo Switch. But monster hunter Geralt is indeed headed to the hybrid console, both in its docked and on-to-go handheld modes. It’s the complete edition of the game, including all its expansion packs, and while the lengthy, engrossing adventure is perfect for mobile play-anywhere sessions, we’re still stumped as to how they’re going to make it work on relatively underpowered hardware. We can’t wait to see it in action for ourselves. Pokémon Sword and Shield We’ve seen a lot about Pokémon Sword and Shield, which is coming to Nintendo Switch November 15, 2019. The hype is high, the release date is soon, but Nintendo doesn’t have much more to show off than it did during its Sword and Shield-dedicated Nintendo Direct presentation released a week before E3 2019. The trailer shows off more of the Galar region that players will be exploring, and specifically showed off the vaunted ‘Dynamax’ feature that temporarily evolves your Pokémon to colossal size and power. We see the stadiums players will battle Gym Leaders in - huge arenas where both sides can Dynamax their chosen monsters in front of cheering crowds. And at the end... a look at the legendary Pokémon that give this generation its name, Zacian (sword) and Zamazenta (shield). Both are very good boys. Panzer Dragoon Panzer Dragoon originally came out for the Sega Saturn in 1995, which tells you how iconic the game has become as the only title from that doomed console to be remembered so fondly. The game has been completely remade for a Switch release later in 2019. The original Panzer Dragoon perched the player on the back of a dragon and gave them a gun. It’s a rail shooter on a dragon. Need we say more? Okay, the game didn’t just make its bones on then-novel 3D gameplay - its vibrant world and lore captured players’ imaginations, too. We knew the game was being remade by Polish publisher Forever Entertainment, but didn’t know the Switch would be included in its release plans. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order The Marvel's Avengers game from Square Enix made plenty of waves, sure, but Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: the Black Order deserves plenty of attention too. You’ll be able to play as one of countless characters from across the rich Marvel universe in an interesting-looking action RPG. Plus, we got to see Magneto wielding an Infinity Stone, and we can’t wait to see how that pans out.  Luckily, we only have to wait until July 19 to get our hands on it. And, if you’re a fan of non-Avengers Marvel lineups like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order season pass will have a ton to offer, too. Animal Crossing New Horizons Our first gameplay footage of Animal Crossing: New Horizons shows the villager farming and crafting new furniture – something that has never been an aspect of the main Animal Crossing games. Some of these features look like they’re lifted from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, while other aspects are completely new for the series.  The setup for the game, as was revealed by the trailer, is that Tom Nook is now chartering vacation packages to a deserted island which you, as the villager, must explore and cultivate into a thriving community. It’s a neat spin on the classic formula, and one that we’ll hear more about before it comes out on March 20, 2020. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch This one’s a match made in heaven for Nintendo’s portable machine. Ni no Kuni is, in our humble opinion, one of the most underrated JRPGs of the last decade.  With art direction helped along by some of the Studio Ghibli team, it combines beautiful anime visuals with a Pokemon-like battle system that has you training up companion monsters for turn-based battles. It’s also got an absolutely heart wrenching story. It’s a long and fairytale-like adventure, making it perfectly suited for on-the-go play. Doom Eternal The upcoming latest edition in the Doom series has been confirmed to be making its way to Nintendo Switch, meaning you can transverse the hellscape while on your work commute. A truly terrifying thought. Unfortunately we don’t know exactly when we’ll be seeing the Doomslayer making his way to Switch - seeing as Doom Eternal doesn’t actually have a release date yet - but we do know it’ll be later this year. While violent first person shooters don’t exactly have the charm factor that Nintendo is known for, the most recent Doom game went down a treat on Switch and we’re expecting Eternal to do the same. Who said the Nintendo Switch was just for kids? Alien Isolation Nintendo’s not known for its horror titles either, but it’s getting one of the best ever made in the shape of a port of Alien Isolation. Based on the classic sci-fi franchise, you play as Ellen Ripley’s daughter as she’s hunted down by a lone xenomorph aboard an abandoned space station. It’s more survival-horror than action, where hiding and holding your breath is a better bet than going in all guns blazing. And, with the Nintendo Switch being a hybrid handheld, you can bring the game on the toilet to play in case you get so scared that you… well. You get the picture. Dauntless Dauntless officially launched in May 2019 with a bang, drawing millions of players to the free-to-play monster hunting game. Sure, it seems to lift a lot from Capcom’s Monster Hunter franchise, but at least F2P makes it accessible to fans who can’t stomach the high price tag of a new game - and lets their friends try it at no cost. Dauntless exists in a world torn asunder by a cataclysm that releases gigantic monsters, Behemoths, that the players must hunt and destroy. Like Fortnite before it, Dauntless allows cross-platform play, so expect to link up with your buddies on WIndows, PS4 and Xbox One when the game launches on Switch later in 2019. E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year. TechRadar is reporting live from LA, telling you all about the biggest announcements of the week, from epic game trailers to shocking release date reveals. Follow our expert analysis of the keynotes and what we see on the E3 show floor. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch: release date, news and features Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:46 AM PDT Nintendo has finally given Animal Crossing fans what they want. During a Nintendo Direct in September 2018, the company announced (via a short teaser trailer) that Animal Crossing is coming to the Nintendo Switch sometime in 2019. Unfortunately, however, that news was overturned when Nintendo's Yoshiaki Koizumi announced that the game would be delayed until March 20, 2020 during the company's E3 2019 Nintendo Direct presentation.  While the Nintendo Direct and Koizumi brought us some disappointing news at the show, they also brought us our first look at actual gameplay, plus some needed story details of what we're doing on the island and why. Bringing Animal Crossing to the Switch will entice fans old and new, plus we think the game is a perfect match for Nintendo’s hybrid console. Animal Crossing’s sandbox nature makes it ideally suited to long play sessions on your TV, as well as shorter on-the-go bursts on the Switch’s handheld mode.  Here's what we know so far about Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch. Animal Crossing: New Horizons trailers While it doesn't hold a lot of information, the game's first trailer was shown off back in September of 2018 – promising a late 2019 release date that we now know won't happen. Still, it serves as a nice introduction to the game and one of its most illustrious characters, Tom Nook. The arguably much more important trailer came to us during E3 2019, when Nintendo dropped a slew of new details about the game. Based on the trailer we know that crafting will now play a major role in the game, and subtle tweaks like being able to place furniture anywhere on the island will really help make everyone's home base look different from one another – a huge step in the right direction for a franchise that can come off as a bit too vanilla.  Check out the E3 2019 trailer below:  Animal Crossing Switch release date Both a huge disappointment for fans and a huge relief for those working on the game, Nintendo recently announced that New Horizons will be available on March 20, 2020. We'll likely hear more about the game later this year, probably around September and October when Nintendo drops its next Nintendo Direct. Animal Crossing: New Horizons screenshots Animal Crossing Switch news and rumors Crafting We never thought we'd say this, but crafting will play a major role in the next Animal Crossing game. Shown off in the New Horizons trailer up above, we see the villager collecting sticks, woods and stones over to Tom Nook's crafting bench to create new items like axes and, assumedly, fishing poles. Without a shop setup on the island, we assume this is the way we'll get new furniture and tools in-game. Farming While it's not necessarily as in-depth as the farming system seen in Harvest Moon or the indie darling Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing does have a minor farming mechanic going on. In the trailer we can see the villager harvesting plant petals from around a tree, which we assume are either used as crafting materials or used to plant more flowers around the island.  Expanding the home One of the key gameplay mechanics in Animal Crossing is building up your abode – something we'll continue to see in New Horizons. First thing you'll have to do when you get to the island is setup your tent. Similar games in the franchise have started in this way, but it looks like you'll be keeping the tent for a longer period of time in New Horizons. Officially announced Nintendo officially announced Animal Crossing for the Switch during a Nintendo Direct in September, 2018.  Nintendo’s trademark In January 2018 it was revealed that Nintendo had applied for a new Animal Crossing trademark in Japan for a wide range of purposes, including software for a home video game machine, portable electronic game machine, and smartphone devices. Now, we already have the smartphone device application in the form of Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, but we’ve yet to see the portable and home game machines. A Nintendo Switch release will tick both of those boxes.  As well as this, the trademark also covers stuffed animals, game machine controllers, board games, playing cards, protective carrying cases, and trading card games, so it’s clear that Nintendo still has big plans for the series.  It’s been a long time since the last mainline release  The last mainline Animal Crossing release was New Leaf all the way back in 2012. That’s now seven years ago and, given before this the usual release gap for mainline titles was around three to five years, we’re inclined to say we’re due a new game. What’s also interesting is that the Wii U never received a mainline title (no, Amiibo Festival absolutely does not count) despite the fact that many fans expected to see one. It’s possible that Nintendo started work on an Animal Crossing Wii U or settled on waiting to launch one for the Switch. The success of previous releases Previous DS and 3DS Animal Crossing releases have sold extremely well for Nintendo – both Wild World and New Leaf each surpassed 11 million sales. While there is the caveat that previous home console releases for GameCube and Wii haven’t done nearly as well, we’re inclined to say that the Switch will buck the trend here thanks to its hybrid nature, and Nintendo will have a hit on its hands.  Given one of Nintendo’s most staunchly handheld titles, Pokemon, is now confirmed to be coming to the Switch, we don’t think it’s likely the company will keep Animal Crossing languishing on the 3DS for much longer.  What we want to see from Animal Crossing on Switch Wider, more dynamic, cast We love our Animal Crossing neighbors, but there’s no denying that they can become somewhat samey. It's a problem that’s not helped by repetitive interactions. We’d love to see a new Animal Crossing introduce even more new faces to the neighborhood and perhaps include a few more ways to get to know them. Seeing more dialogue and more well-rounded personalities would make us very happy players. More furniture  Decorating in Animal Crossing is one of the biggest and best parts of the series (just look at Happy Home Designer for evidence of that). But, we’d like to see even more pieces of furniture appear in a new game. New styles and themes would be welcome, perhaps with more customization options. Bigger spaces or more areas With the power the Switch offers, we think we could get the biggest and most expansive Animal Crossing ever. Although we love that Animal Crossing is all about being in a small town, we also enjoyed the move towards a city vibe that came with New Leaf. In Animal Crossing on Switch we wouldn’t like to take this a lot further, but it’d be nice to see some new areas or districts in town that offered a few more amenities or places to visit. More chances to craft your own story Moving into the mayoral role was one of the best aspects of New Leaf, but we’d like to see something a little different in the next installment. Perhaps more choice in what role you play in the town. Pocketcamp allows players to take up the role of a holiday camp owner, so perhaps in a new mainline game we could see a few more career options.  Of course, for those interested in continuing along the mayor route that would still be there, but it’d also be exciting to see shopkeeper or cafe owner paths open up. Creating your own designs or crafting furniture to sell to the locals, or collecting ingredients from your town and others to add some interesting flavors to your cafe menu – all of these sound like enjoyable pursuits in an Animal Crossing world.  Mobile tie-in Animal Crossing Pocket Camp was a welcome release after we hadn’t seen anything from the series in a while, but it doesn’t scratch the itch quite enough for us due to its shallowness. However, that doesn’t mean we’d like to see the mobile game abandoned entirely when a mainline release launches.  It’d actually be nice if Nintendo managed to tie the mobile and console releases together in some way so that players can get more depth out of the mobile game, and give us another way to enjoy the console release. Whether that’s unlocking and transferring items, earning money or improving relationships, we’d just like a way to keep playing even on days where we can’t carry our Switch. Now that we've seen it's possible with Pokemon Let's Go, our hopes are even higher.  (Image credits: Nintendo) The best Nintendo Switch games you can play right now This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

E3 2019 trailers: the best game trailers (updated today) Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:42 AM PDT New E3 2019 trailers have been added, including two fresh Nintendo E3 trailers – and one of them is for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. Miss the biggest E3 trailers? Good news: We have a list of every major E3 video so far, including new Square Enix trailers like Final Fantasy 7 Remake below. Day three of E3 press conferences gave us new video content from the PC Gaming Show and the Ubisoft and Square Enix press conferences that happened then too. The second day of E3 press conferences brought new trailers from Microsoft and Bethesda, including several never-seen-before games like Deathloop, GhostWire: Tokyo and Bleeding Edge. Plus we got to hear the first details about Xbox Project Scarlett. The first day at the show gave us game teasers and gameplay footage courtesy of Electronic Arts and EA Sports: Star Wars Fallen Order, Apex Legends Season 2: Battle Cry, FIFA 20 and Madden 20. What's left? Square Enix and Nintendo trailers are the only two we're waiting on now – Square happens Monday night, while the Nintendo Direct Video starts right before the E3 show floor opens on Tuesday.  Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 E3 2019 trailer Animal Crossing: New Horizons Final Fantasy 7 Remake E3 trailer Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered E3 trailer Marvel Avengers E3 trailer Outriders E3 2019 trailer Final Fantasy VIII Remastered E3 trailer Okami E3 2019 trailer Watch Dogs: Legion E3 2019 trailer Rainbow Six Siege E3 2019 trailer Rainbow Six Quarantine Gods & Monsters E3 2019 Tom Clancy's Elite Squad (mobile game) E3 trailer Evil Genius 2: World Domination E3 trailer Chivalry 2 E3 2019 trailer Midnight Ghost Hunt E3 2019 trailer Remnant: From the Ashes E3 trailer Shenmue 3 E3 2019 trailer Borderlands 3 E3 2019 trailer Maneater E3 2019 trailer Telling Lies E3 2019 trailer Conan Chop Chop E3 2019 trailer Baldur's Gate 3 E3 2019 trailer Baldur's Gate 3 was the surprise announcement just ahead of E3 2019, and it's coming out sooner than anyone had expected: November 2019, within the Google Stadia launch window. It's also coming to the PC, of course. Larian Studios, the developer behind Divinity: Original Sin, is handling this game. Deathloop E3 2019 trailer Wolfenstein: Youngblood E3 trailer The Elder Scrolls Legends E3 trailer GhostWire: Tokyo E3 trailer Commander Keen E3 2019 trailer The Elder Scrolls Online E3 trailer Fallout 76 E3 2019 trailer Doom Eternal E3 2019 trailer Halo Infinite E3 2019 CrossfireX E3 2019 trailer State of Decay Heartland E3 2019 trailer Gears POP E3 2019 trailer Gears 5 E3 2019 trailer Forza Horizon 4: LEGO Speed Champions E3 trailer Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 trailer Terminator: Dark Fate (character pack) E3 2019 trailer Gears 5 E3 2019 trailer Wasteland 3 E3 2019 trailer Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition E3 trailer Microsoft Flight Simulator E3 2019 Cyberpunk 2077 E3 trailer with Keanu Reeves Bleeding Edge (Nina Theory game) E3 trailer Minecraft Dungeons E3 2019 reveal trailer The Outer Worlds E3 2019 trailer Ori and the Will of the Wisps Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order E3 trailer Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was the big highlight out of the EA Play press conference at E3 2019, and this gameplay trailer tells you why. It has lightsaber battles, ample use of The Force, and enough jumping mechanics to rival the Uncharted series. It looks great, but we're waiting for true hands-on time with this one on the E3 show floor.  Apex Legends: Season 2 E3 trailer Apex Legends didn't get off to the best start, and Electronic Arts recognized that in its E3 live stream. Better yet, it's fixing a lot of the problems with weapon balancing and depth of challenges in Apex Legends Season 2. We also get a new legend, Wattson, and a backstory, as evidenced by this more nuanced storyline trailer. Battlefield 5 Chapter 4 E3 trailer Battlefield 5 Chapter 4: Defying the Odds is full of fresh content, including new maps, weapons, elite characters and skins. And if you've hit a ceiling at Rank 50, you have some work to do soon, as the rank will be raised to 500. FIFA 20 E3 trailer The official FIFA 20 E3 2019 reveal trailer focuses more on the new mode premiering than actual gameplay footage. However, you'll be happy to know that Volta Football is a part of this year's game, bringing FIFA Street like gameplay back into the mix. We'll hopefully have more gameplay video from E3 2019 as well as hands-on time. Madden NFL 20 E3 trailer New X-Factor abilities and Face of the Franchise showed up in the Madden 20 trailer, and that's going to excite a lot of fans. So is the Pro Bowl mode that's returning after vanishing in the 2014 season. The game launched on August 2, but you can join the closed beta this month to get an early taste of this season's football sim. The Sims 4: Island Living E3 trailer The Sims 4 has another expansion. It takes place on an island. You can go snorkeling (good) or get sunburnt (bad). There are also mermaids in this topical-themed Sims expansion for 2019. Okay, here's something worthwhile: EA partnered with the It Gets Better Project in order to bring new Pride and It Gets Better items. So you'll find new articles of clothing, a gender neutral bathroom door, and other items that will let Sims players show off their LGBTQ+ pride, according to PC Gamer. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint E3 trailer The Ubisoft press conference happens right as E3 2019 starts, but we have a trailer ahead of that event for the latest Ghost Recon game, Breakpoint. It's titled "We Are Wolves," and focuses on the main antagonist group, the Wolves, and has The Punisher himself, Jon Bernthal, voicing the nearly three-minute YouTube video. Baldur's Gate 3 E3 2019 trailer Destiny 2: Shadowkeep E3 trailer More Destiny 2 content is on the way in September, and this Shadowkeep E3 trailer shows that it's another major expansion, just like the Forsaken expansion before it. The good news is that you won't be required to own the original game in order to play this one. Bungie is considering this a whole new content experience. Destroy All Humans! remake E3 trailer Remember the 2005 game Destroy All Humans! and its various sequels? Well, there's a remake happening for newer consoles, the PS4, Xbox One and PC. It's not due out until 2020, so this official E3 trailer is just a teaser without actual gameplay footage. But it's enough to hold you over – if you've been running low on both Cryptosporidium 137 and late 1950s nostalgia. Darksiders Genesis E3 trailer Here's another E3 2019 trailer for a THQ franchise being carried on by THQ Nordic, which also handled Darksiders 3 a year ago. This E3-announced spin-off prequel has the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Strife, as its main protagonist and it's due out in 2019 for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and even Google Stadia. Control E3 trailer This Control teaser trailer showed up ahead of E3 2019 and it gives us just enough without actually spoiling the plot surrounding the Federal Bureau of Control. And, since this is a game from Remedy Entertainment (the developer behind the Max Payne and Alan Wake games), the story is a major component. We'll find out more on August 27 when this game launches on PS4, Xbox One and the PC. Gylt E3 2019 trailer Just ahead of E3 2019, we got a trailer for the first Google Stadia exclusive game, Gylt. It's supposed to be a haunting single player puzzle adventure game and stars the main playable character, Sally, who is searching for her missing cousin, Emily. Is this E3 reveal trailer enough to make you want to pre-order Stadia? We'll let you watch and decide. E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year. TechRadar is reporting live from LA, telling you all about the biggest announcements of the week, from epic game trailers to shocking release date reveals. Follow our expert analysis of the keynotes and what we see on the E3 show floor. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

E3 2019: schedule, press conferences, games list, and leaks Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:33 AM PDT E3 2019 updates are coming in real-time today, because all of the major E3 press conferences are over, including Nintendo Direct. The E3 show floor is about to open and our hands-on meetings are about to begin. Every new daily update adds to our best E3 games list, and we have amassed all of the major E3 2019 trailers on a dedicated page, and even have some beta and hardware announcements below. If you're just joining today, we got the chance to see new gameplay trailers and bug announcements from the PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft and Square Enix on Monday (all of which are available for your perusal down below), while Sunday's big E3 highlight was the Microsoft press conference, where we got a better idea of the next Xbox One, the Xbox Project Scarlett. It has powerful specs, a late 2020 release date window, and its first launch game, Halo Infinite. But nothing topped the E3 celebrity cameo from Keanu Reeves, who found his way into Cyberpunk 2077, as seen in the new extended E3 2019 trailer. The game has a release date, too: April 16, 2020. It's shaping up to be the best Xbox One games at E3 2019 (and good news, it's also coming to PS4 and the PC). We're updating this page in real-time because there's a lot more E3 news coming in the next few days, and our E3 2019 games list grows after each press conference. Bethesda had the latest E3 press conference, and we saw Doom Eternal, Deathloop, Ghostwire: Tokyo and vast improvements to Fallout 76. Some Final Fantasy 7 Remake news snuck in at the same time: it's coming out March 3, 2020.   E3 2019 leaks allowed us to see games before anyone was supposed to as well, like Watch Dogs 3: Legion and Elden Ring from George R.R. Martin and From Software. More E3 surprises are expected: Square Enix's ambitious Avengers game and Nintendo game to announced at its Nintendo Direct live stream Tuesday. E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year, no matter how much it changes or which companies show up (we're still running a best PS4 games at E3 2019 list, even if Sony isn't actually here). Here's what we've thought was newsworthy at E3 so far. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 (Image credit: Nintendo) Nintendo is at E3 2019, although it doesn't hold press conferences anymore. Instead, is hosts a Nintendo Direct live stream. It's jam-packed with games. The big Nintendo E3 news is the fact that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is coming to Nintendo Switch and it's a direct sequel to the console's launch game. No release date was announced, but we did get an 82-second trailer featuring Link and Zelda traversing a dark dungeon.   We also got to see more of Luigi's Mansion 3, which was announced at E3 last year, and this year's update on the game's progress shows off  a green gooey Luigi doppelganger. He can squeeze through steel gates and cross over normally deadly spikes. It's coming out in 2019, though Nintendo didn't give us a specific date at E3.  We also got a first look at another Zelda game: The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening, which does have a firm release date: September 20, 2019. It's around the corner. One Nintendo game not coming as quickly as fans had hoped is the next Animal Crossing game. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was delayed to March 20, 2020. The Nintendo Direct at E3 actually began with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC. It's getting a Dragon Quest 11 cross-over and, later in the E3 video, we got news of a Banjo Kazooie crossover. E3 stands for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and while that hasn't changed from year to year, the press conference schedule has gotten shuffled. So we'll explain it quickly. The official E3 2019 dates are Tuesday, June 11 to Thursday, June 13. However, that's just for the portion of the show held inside the Los Angeles Convention Center. You know, the massive show floor where game demos happen. E3 press conferences happen in the proceeding days, and this year it started with EA Play on Saturday, June 8 at the Hollywood Palladium. EA's full day event offered deep dive trailers into EA's biggest titles.  Sunday belonged to Microsoft and Bethesda, while Monday is being reserved for the PC Gaming Show, Square Enix and Ubisoft E3 press conferences. Nintendo has its video presentation Tuesday, right before the E3 show floor opens. EA E3 press conference time It's over, but we have the EA Play re-cap. It started on Saturday, June 8 at 9:15am PT for fans with tickets at the Hollywood Palladium. What happened? EA didn't come with surprises, but dedicated about 30 minutes to each previously announced game, providing ample time for game walkthroughs, not just simple trailers and sizzle reels. We actually got to learn about new modes and gameplay mechanics. It was meaningful. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news Apex Legends Season 2: Battle Cry Battlefield 5 Chapter 4: Defying the Odds – here's everything new coming FIFA 20: release date, news, Volta modes and everything else there is to know Madden NFL 20 release date, trailers and gameplay changes The Sims 4: Island Living expansion Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was the highlight from Respawn Entertainment looking a bit like Uncharted with a lightsaber and The Force powers (that's not a bad thing). There was no Titanfall 3, from the developer, but we did see Apex Legends Season 2: Battle Cry get a start date of July 2. EA Sports gave us deep looks into both FIFA 20 and Madden 20, while Battlefield 5 Chapter 4 and The Sims 4: Island Living expanded their respective (and very different) universes. What wasn't at EA's E3 2019? We didn't get many surprises – BioWare's Dragon Age 4 has been an E3 no-show, even though it did get a teaser trailer at last year’s The Game Awards. Likewise, we didn't see anything from PopCap (famous for Plants vs Zombies) and Ghost Games, the new stakeholders of the Need for Speed franchise. And, like we mentioned, Titanfall 3 was a no show, which is no surprise – Respawn is working on two other big games already being shown at E3. Project Scarlett is official. (Image credit: Microsoft) Microsoft E3 press conference time Microsoft started its press conference on Sunday at 1 pm PST, 4 pm EST and 9 pm BST, but it's one you have to know about, so here's the E3 re-cap. What happened? A lot. Microsoft had the biggest E3 press conference from the start, and then out walks Keanu Reeves – yes, that Keanu Reeves. He's starring in Cyberpunk 2077 from developer CD Projekt Red, and while it's a multi-platform game coming to the PC and PS4, too, Microsoft's keynote had release date news first: it launches April 16, 2020. We got the first Xbox Project Scarlett console specs, even if we didn't get to see the hardware or box it comes in. The release window is end of 2020, so there's another E3 to tease the form factor. We did, however, get an Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, which we plan to go hands-on on the show floor. Xbox Project Scarlett is the next-gen Xbox Two you've been waiting for Elden Ring from George R.R. Martin could be the Dark Souls Game of Thrones fans dream of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will collect all nine movies into one family-friendly game Keanu Reeves will channel his inner 'Neo' for Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 coming November 4 Xbox Game Pass for PC is now available as a beta Blair Witch is back at E3 as a videogame - and it actually looks good Other Microsoft surprises include the revival of the Blair Witch horror franchise in game form and the acquisition of developer Double Fine Games in the run up to its latest Psychonauts 2 trailer. Elden Ring, from George R.R. Martin and Dark Souls' From Software, was the biggest non-surprise (it leaked ahead of time). Finally, Microsoft ended the show with an extended teaser of Halo Infinite, or Halo 6, which will be exclusive to the company's forthcoming Project Scarlett console. Microsoft is the only one of the big three console makers that’s definitely at E3 2019 in full capacity – meaning they held a live press conference and a have booth presence at E3. What wasn't at E3 2019 for Microsoft? We got information on Microsoft's next Xbox console, but early rumors talked up two different versions of the console, one with a disc drive and one disc-less, like a more powerful version of the disc-less Xbox One S that came out in May. Microsoft's Fable franchise hasn't had a game since 2017, and we still have no official word on the rumored Fable IV game. Also, when Dragon Age 4 from BioWare didn't show up at EA's E3 press conference, we were kind up hoping it was because Microsoft wanted to save it for its showcase. That just wasn't the case.  Doom Eternal (Image Credit: Bethesda) Bethesda E3 2019 press conference time It's wrapped up, but it happened on Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 5:30pm PT What happened? No, Elder Scrolls VI or Starfield didn't show up, something Bethesda told us ahead of time and fans in the audience refused to believe. Hopes dashed, right?  Instead, they got some great news about existing games like Fallout 76 battle royal mode, Elder Scrolls Blades expanding on mobile with an update tonight and coming to Nintendo Switch later this year, and two brand new IP, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop – those two really stuck out. Deathloop seems like warped-world BioShock with a Groundhog Day twist Nintendo Switch is getting The Elder Scrolls: Blades, and it's going to be free Doom Eternal was the only game we got hands-on time with at the end of the show, but we expect to see Wolfenstein: Youngblood (announced to release on July 26) and maybe, hopefully Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot (the VR game set for 2019) on the E3 show floor. There's more Bethesda E3 news still: The Elder Scrolls Online, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, and Rage 2 are getting major content updates, Commander Keen is back and more colorful than ever, this time coming to iOS and Android. What wasn't at E3 2019 for Bethesda? Like we said, The Elder Scrolls VI wasn't here, and neither was Starfield – though you can expect Starfield before ES6, according to Bethesda's release schedule. Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard did mention the games by name on stage, but no extra details. Not this year at E3 – maybe next year. PC Gaming Show (Image Credit: PC Gamer) PC gaming Show press conference time Monday, June 10, 2019 at 10am PT (1pm ET, 5pm UK)   What happened? Well, PC Gaming Show delivered some of the coolest-looking PC games we've yet to see at E3, including Midnight Ghost Hunt, Remnant: From the Ashes and Baldur's Gate 3, plus big-name titles like Shenmue 3 and Borderlands 3.  On the hardware side, we saw a new curved monitor from Samsung – the company's first-ever monitor to support G-Sync. The Samsung CRG5 has a 240Hz refresh rate, 4ms response rate and a 1080p resolution. 10 most exciting PC games spotted at the PC Gaming Show 2019 Later in the show we saw a return of Maneater, a SharK-PG, and a new trailer for Shenmue 3 – which will be coming first on PCs to the Epic Games Store. Last but not least, there was a great new trailer for Planet Zoo, a spiritual successor to the old Zoo Tycoon games that many fondly remember from the early Aughts. What wasn't at E3 2019 for PC Gaming Show? It would've been nice to see AMD and Nvidia up on stage at PC Gaming Show, but AMD decided to hold a separate event on Monday instead. The same could be said for Microsoft, who plays a major role in the PC ecosystem. Final Fantasy VII (Image Credit: Square Enix) Square Enix press conference time: The Square Enix's E3 2019 conference will be held on Monday, June 10, at 6pm PT and 9pm ET or Tuesday, June 11 at 2am BST and 11am AEST. What happened? Square Enix was one of the better press events we've yet to see at E3 2019, packing in tons of new information on Marvel's Avengers, Final Fantasy VII Remake and the remastered version of Final Fantasy 8 – yes, it's finally happening.  First up, after the long-awaited release of Kingdom Hearts 3 in early January, Square Enix finally announced the game's first DLC content, Re:Mind.  The majority of the keynote was taken up by Final Fantasy VII Remake. There wasn't much news on the game that we didn't know (the release date actually slipped out a day before the conference) but we got the chance to see Tifa, Cloud, Aerith and the rest in live action against a boss – which was exciting to watch. We also got a very in-depth look at Marvel's Avengers. We got our first bits of story (it's entirely new, by the way) and learned a bit more about what the gameplay is like. We're likely to hear a bit more about multiplayer come Wednesday's E3 Coliseum chat, but so far we like what we've heard. We know now that it'll come out on March 3, 2020 – less than a year from now. We also know that Square Enix is currently working on Dragon Quest Builders 2 on Nintendo Switch, as that got a small spot in the keynote, as well as Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition. What wasn't at E3 2019 for Square Enix? The next episode in Life is Strange 2, plus more information about Just Cause 4 DLC and Oninaki. Was it too early to hear something about Final Fantasy 16? Probably. But it still would've been nice. Keynote time: N/A Sorry guys, unfortunately Sony is skipping the E3 festivities this year and has said that it will instead find another venue to showcase the games and hardware coming down the pipeline.  That said, we won't rule out another State of Play event, like the one Sony held back in March. If that doesn't happen, well, we’ll just have to wait to hear more about The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima. Beyond Good & Evil 2 (Image Credit: Ubisoft) Keynote time: Monday, June 10, 2019 at 1pm PT (4pm ET, 9pm UK)  What happened? Ubisoft may not have shown up with Beyond Good and Evil 2 or a new Splinter Cell, but it had more than enough Tom Clancy titles to make up for it. Over the course of the show, Ubisoft announced a release date and new trailer for Watch Dogs Legion – the newest game in the Watch Dogs franchise – plus a new mode for the ultra-popular tactical shooter, Rainbow Six: Siege. Ubisoft's E3 2019: the best games, from Watch Dogs Legion to Gods and Monsters While we didn't get a proper new Splinter Cell title (bummer, we know) we did get a new mobile game called Tom Clancy's Elite Squad that will include Sam Fisher.  To break up the explosions, Ubisoft showed off a new entry in the long-running Just Dance franchise – Just Dance 20 – that's coming to all of the major modern platforms plus the Wii. Yes, there are still Wii games being made in 2019. Ending the keynote were two bombshell announcements, Uplay Plus, a new subscription-based streaming service, and a trailer for Gods and Monsters that's coming from the Assassin's Creed development team. What wasn't at the Ubisoft E3 2019 event? There were two disappointing absences from Ubisoft's E3 event: Skull and Bones, the ship-focused combat game that looks to carry the torch from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and Beyond Good and Evil 2. You'll also be disappointed to hear that there wasn't any news about the next Assassin's Creed game. Ubisoft previously announced that is was skipping a release in 2019 and, unfortunately, followed through on that promise. Animal Crossing (Image Credit: Nintendo) Nintendo Video Direct Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 9am PT (12pm ET) What we expect While Sony won’t be at this year’s event, Nintendo most certainly will - first digitally in a Nintendo Direct that usually airs Tuesday morning and then physically when its massive booth takes over West Hall.  In terms of what games Nintendo is going to bring with it this year, the company says we’ll hear more about Pokemon Sword and Shield, as that’s due out by the end of 2019, plus the Link’s Awakening Remake and Mario Maker 2. We're hoping we'll also hear more about Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch, which was announced in 2018 and given a 2019 launch window, but there's no guarantee from Nintendo that we'll catch Tom Nook at this year's show.  Beyond those core games, we know Nintendo is developing Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Fire Emblem Three Houses, the latter of which should be available in August unless it’s delayed. Nintendo could also use the time to show off its next Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC character pack.  Either way, we'll find out more on June 11 at 9am PT. Devolver Digital E3 press conference time The video landed on Sunday night Pacific time. What happened... or didn't happen? Devolver Digital always has a weird and bloody E3 presentation, and this year was no different. It's a parody-filled direct video (not an actual press conference) that could be described as the exact opposite of a Nintendo Direct. It's kind of refreshing and always strange, care of their fictional CEO Nina Struthers. This year's announcement? They're selling bootleg versions of their own games at 1% off. This includes Hotline Milwaukee (really, Hotline Miami) and Catsylvania (really Gato Roboto).  AMD announced the Ryzen 9 3950X, a 16-core mainstream processor AMD's new Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT graphics cards to launch this July AMD E3 press conference time The AMD E3 keynote is already over, and it aired on Monday, June 10 at 3pm PT, 6PM ET and 11PM BST and Tuesday, June 11 at 8am AEST. What happened? At AMD's E3 2019 keynote, Team Red first reiterated its Ryzen 3rd Generation processor lineup, saying these next-generation processors will be the best processors for gaming. However, the star of the show was AMD Navi. Team Red revealed the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700, two mid-range graphics cards which aim to take on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2060, respectively.  And, at $449 (about £350, AU$650) and $379 (about £299, AU$550) for the RX 5700 XT and RX 5700, respectively, AMD just might succeed.  Then, to cap things off, AMD CEO Lisa Su pulled a 'one more thing' moment, and revealed the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, the first 16-core processor in the mainstream. It's expensive, at $749 (about £590, AU$1,080), but it may just be the most powerful CPU you can get without hitting the high-end desktop market. Google E3 press conference time Technically not a keynote, but the first Stadia Connect aired on June 6 at 9 am PDT What happened While it's not technically part of E3 as it doesn't have a partnership with the ESA, Google has shown that it wants to be part of the big show by leading the week's events with a Google Stadia announcement. In a 25-minute presentation held on June 6, Google Stadia boss (and former Microsoft VP) Phil Harrison gave us our first tangible details about the new streaming service coming later this year. The TL;DW? Stadia will cost $9.99 per month and will allow you unlimited game-streaming in 4K HDR at 60fps. You can play on your TV with a Chromecast Ultra, or your laptop or desktop in a Chrome browser. You'll also be able to game on your smartphone... as long as you own a Google Pixel device.  Want to know more about Google's ambitious venture into video games? We've got all the details in our complete Google Stadia guide. PS5: All the games, specs, news, and rumors for Sony’s Playstation 5 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Animal Crossing: New Horizons adds crafting and farming, gets delayed til 2020 Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:20 AM PDT After months of silence, Nintendo has unveiled the first gameplay footage of its new Animal Crossing game on Switch – now called Animal Crossing: New Horizons – at its Nintendo Direct E3 2019 event.  Our first gameplay footage of the game shows the villager farming and crafting new furniture – something that has never been an aspect of the main Animal Crossing games. Some of these features look like they’re lifted from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, while other aspects are completely new for the series.  Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t all good news for one of Nintendo’s biggest franchises: Once expected to release in late-2019, Nintendo’s Yoshiaki Koizumi announced that Animal Crossing: New Horizons now won’t be released until March 20, 2020.  Survivor: Animal Crossing The setup for the game, as revealed by the trailer, is that Tom Nook is now chartering vacation packages to a deserted island, which you, as the villager, must explore and cultivate into a thriving community. It’s a neat spin on the classic formula of you catching a train to a new town, and one that helps justify the new crafting elements. Other subtle new additions to the series are the ability to place items anywhere on the island and farming, which helps make Animal Crossing feel a bit more like the Harvest Moon franchise. That said, considering all of the world’s inhabitants are animals it’s probably safe to assume that traditional cattle farming is out of the question. Regardless, we’ll be excited to hear more about the game before it comes out next year. E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year. TechRadar is reporting live from LA, telling you all about the biggest announcements of the week, from epic game trailers to shocking release date reveals. Follow our expert analysis of the keynotes and what we see on the E3 show floor. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

HTC launches two new phones, surprising everyone Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:58 AM PDT Most people thought that HTC had silently departed the smartphone game, beyond its attempts to launch a blockchain phone in the HTC Exodus, but it seems most people were wrong, as the company has just launched two new smartphones. The HTC U19e and HTC Desire U19+ are the company's two new devices, and they'll be launching in Taiwan in June and July, respectively – no news on a release anywhere else, but we've asked HTC if and when we could see these devices elsewhere.  This is what we know about the new iPhone 11 What we want the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 to bring These are the best budget smartphones you can buy We haven't seen a new HTC handset since the HTC U12 Life and U12 Plus in 2018, but even then it felt like the smartphone manufacturer had been winding down its production. So, we're intrigued to see the company is back with more – even though we're curious as to what happened to HTCs 13 through to 18. The HTC U19e. Image credit: HTC What are the new phones? The HTC U19e has an impressive-sounding 6-inch OLED display, with a 2160 x 1080 resolution, as well as a 3,930mAh battery, 24MP and 2MP dual camera rear array, and 6GB – although it has a middling Snapdragon 710 processor. It's reportedly on sale for $475 (roughly £375, AU$680), so it's the high-end handset of the two. The HTC Desire U19 Plus will have a 6.2-inch display, three-camera setup consisting of a 13MP main sensor, 8MP sensor with ultra-wide angle lens and 5MP depth sensor, and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor as opposed to the U19e's in-screen sensor. Retailing at $315 (around £250, AU$450), the HTC Desire U19 Plus is the more affordable phone of the two, and its specs show. We've reached out to HTC to see whether these phones will release outside of Taiwan, and if there's anything else to know about them, so stay tuned to TechRadar to see if HTC can make a smartphone comeback. HTC isn't giving up on smartphones just yet This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 announced at E3 2019 for Nintendo Switch Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:57 AM PDT The fact that there's going to be a The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 was the biggest highlight in the long list of Nintendo E3 2019 announcements today. It didn't contain a release date, or even a name, but boy, did it get us excited. There's scant information about this new Breath of the Wild game, so we may end up waiting until E3 2020 to see it in action before it actually launches.  However, we do know that it's a full game and not simply DLC, and that it's coming to the Nintendo Switch, as opposed to the rumored Nintendo Switch 2.  It'll be the second flagship Zelda title on the console, not counting the Link's Awakening remake. Breath of the Wild 2 (as we're calling it for now) appears to follow on from the original game that launched with the Switch on March 3, 2017. Here's the first sneak-peek trailer: Breath of the Wild 2 trailer analysis The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 trailer is just 82 seconds long and there's no dialogue whatsoever. But there are some clues to be gathered from it. It features a torch-carrying Link and Zelda traversing a dark dungeon beneath Hyrule (no big surprise there). Spirit-like tendrils creep around the musty tomb they're exploring, with the pair riding a large elephant-like beast. Something shocks the pair, and then we cut to what appears to be the resurrection of some long-dead (and creepy looking) warrior. Could this be the return of Gannondorf? The video then cuts to a long shot of Hyrule Field, with Hyrule Castle in the distance. There's a tremor, the castle is smothered with dust... and that's the end. The clip finishes with a message that reads: "The sequel to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is in development." The best Nintendo Switch games from E3 2019 Nintendo's statement leaves it open to calling this game something besides Breath of the Wild 2, though it hasn't revealed an official name and there's very little story to suggest what it may be called in the end.  As it stands, it does seem as if this is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. But there's a darker feel to this reveal, with its zombie-like antagonist and underground setting. Could Nintendo be about to pull a Majora's Mask on Nintendo Switch fans? Like this sequel, it used the game engine from another mainline Zeda game (in that case, The Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time), and wove a dark tale around familiar-yet-twisted characters and locations. Majora's Mask went on to be a cult classic for the series. Could Breath of the Wild 2 do the same? E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year. TechRadar is reporting live from LA, telling you all about the biggest announcements of the week, from epic game trailers to shocking release date reveals. Follow our expert analysis of the keynotes and what we see on the E3 show floor. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best budget smartphone 2019: our top cheap mobiles Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:39 AM PDT Welcome to our round up of the best budget smartphones available. We've painstakingly reviewed all the top cheap phones in 2019 so far, to bring you our definitive ranking on the very best, so you can find the best cheap phone for you. Update: There's a host of new phones in our best budget smartphone round-up, so read on to find out what the 10 best cheap phones you can buy right now are. In the past, the term 'best cheap phones' was usually a warning rather than a tempting proposition, with shoddy build quality, sluggish performance, laughable screen resolution and woeful cameras typically featuring on such handsets. But this isn't the past, this is the present, and the market abounds with top budget phones. While the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S10, iPhone XS, Huawei P30 Pro and OnePlus 7 Pro steal headlines around the world, there's a lot of intriguing (and cheap) stuff going on in the world of budget smartphones.  Here are our favourite cheap phones that cost under £200 SIM-free. Best phone | Best Android phone | Best iPhone Image Credit: TechRadar The Huawei P Smart 2019 is the best cheap phone you can buy right now. It packs a usable camera, plenty of storage and great battery life as well as a screen and design that punch way above their weight.   There is very little between the Huawei P Smart and the Honor 10 Lite, they're practically the same device, but the P Smart tops our list with its slightly sharper design. Read our full review: Huawei P Smart (2019) Image Credit: TechRadar The Honor 10 Lite is a little unlucky to find itself second in our best budget smartphone round-up, as it can make a strong case for being first as it's almost identical to the P Smart (2019). If you're a frequent Snapchatter or selfie addict the 24MP front-facing camera on the Honor 10 Lite is the one for you. Read our full review: Honor 10 Lite Image Credit: TechRadar This is the best budget smartphone when it comes to battery, with the Moto G7 Power packing a mammoth 5,000mAh power pack. It’s also awkwardly big, but for those who want two days (and sometimes more) from a single charge no other smartphone around can match the Moto G7 Power right now.   Read our full review: Moto G7 Power Image Credit: TechRadar Sporting an eye-catching and robust design, along with a bright capacious screen, decent speakers, generous specifications and a powerful chipset, the Realme 3 Pro really does have an odd character of its own. Though its software design might be divisive, it has no major issues. It has a class-leading camera for the price point, along with dependable stamina and the handy option of very fast charging.  Read our full review: Realme 3 Pro Image Credit: TechRadar Xiaomi should be proud, the Redmi Note 7 is a real achievement - one that puts many other smartphone manufacturers to shame. It's difficult to find many other phones than can offer what the Redmi Note 7 does at its price point, and as long as you can look past the software with a few minor niggles and the services it tries to push, you'll be happy with your purchase. Read our full review: Redmi Note 7 Image Credit: TechRadar You’re unlikely to find many more compelling phones than the Moto G7 Play at its rock-bottom price. It’s well constructed, slim, has zippy internals, the camera is good when you factor in all the shooting modes and it lasts a full day.  The lack of NFC is a bit of a disappointment, but if that doesn’t phase you and you’re not put off by the clunky looking notch and practical design, go forth and pick one up, you won’t regret it. Read our full review: Moto G7 Play Image Credit: Motorola The Moto G6 is no-longer the best budget smartphone, but it's still a great buy for those looking for value for money. It may not feel or run like a flagship phone, but it’s not pretending to be one. The Moto G6 offers a lot of solid features, plus extras including some fun camera features, fast charging and it all adds up to make one of the best budget handsets on the market. Motorola has been a class-leader at the budget end of the mobile for a few years, and the pure Android software and solid build of the Moto G6 ensures you get a top smartphone experience without having to break the bank. Read our in-depth Moto G6 review Image Credit: TechRadar If you're after the best design and screen you can get for under £150, the Nokia 5.1 is best cheap phone you can buy.  The rest of the specs are fine, it's not going to dazzle you with performance or camera quality, but it's how it feels and looks that make it stand out.  Read the full review: Nokia 5.1 Image Credit: Motorola The Moto E5 Plus offers up a big screen, long lasting battery and a low price tag, making it an excellent contender for the best budget smartphone on the market. It just misses out on a top three spot thanks to its slightly weaker performance and lower resolution screen versus - but this is still a top budget buy. Read the full review: Moto E5 Plus Image Credit: TechRadar The Motorola One is a smart, well-balanced phone with few glaring weaknesses. While its design largely holds its own with rivals, there are a couple of shortfalls. The phone’s display isn’t sharp enough, while it also runs on a slightly outdated chipset. The presence of Android One is a plus point, but even then it’s not a massive departure from Motorola’s usual software efforts. All in all, a decent phone. Read our full review: Motorola One This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Amazon pledges support for future government work Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:37 AM PDT Tech giants often work alongside the government to help with a variety of projects and the head of Amazon's cloud computing division has revealed that the company is open to working with any government agency that follows the law. This is in stark contrast to its top rivals, Microsoft and Google, who have turned down government projects over ethical concerns. At the 2019 Code Conference, AWS CEO Andy Jassy responded to a question regarding the company's work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying: Amazon offers suggestions on facial recognition guidance Google withdraws $10bn Pentagon cloud bid amid ethical concerns Satya Nadella defends Microsoft's Pentagon contract “We will serve the federal government, and they will have to use the technology responsibly. Any government department that’s following the law, we will serve them.” At the same time though, Jassy hopes that federal regulators will hurry up or else we could soon have “50 different laws in 50 different states”. Rekognition Amazon has become entangled in a public debate over the use of facial recognition technology by governments over the past year with critics warning of false matches and arrests while proponents believe the technology would help keep the public safe. Jassy acknowledged that the issues surrounding facial recognition technology are indeed very real but said that “just because technology could be misused, doesn't mean you should ban or condemn it”. Amazon's face and image ID service called Rekognition has been used by law enforcement in Oregon and Florida and many are concerned that it will soon be deployed in other US states. Microsoft on the other hand, has taken a different approach than Amazon and the company has defended its $480m hardware contract with the US Army while holding off on selling its facial recognition technology when it believed that human rights would be at risk. We've also highlighted the best cloud hosting Via Reuters This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Pokémon Sword and Shield: everything we know about the 2019 Pokémon RPG Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:32 AM PDT Nintendo has finally revealed that Pokémon Sword and Shield will release globally on Nintendo Switch this November and will bring with them a brand new region, features and Pokémon for trainers to swoon over. 2018's Pokémon Let's Go: Pikachu and Eevee games acted as a sort of reboot of the original Red and Blue titles for the Nintendo Gameboy, and for many didn't count as a 'core' Pokémon experience. Pokémon Sword and Shield are the first mainline Pokémon games to come to Nintendo Switch, and expectations will be high. So what do we know, and what are we hoping to see when Pokémon Sword and Shield launch this year? Read on to find out. Best Nintendo Switch games: all the must-have titles for your console Cut to the chase What is it? The eighth-generation of Pokémon games When can I play it? November 15, 2019 What can I play it on? Nintendo Switch Image credit: Nintendo Pokémon Sword and Shield: release date During a special Pokémon Sword and Shield focused Nintendo Direct on June 5, Nintendo revealed that Pokémon Sword and Shield will release globally on November 15, 2019.  In addition, Nintendo announced pre-orders for a double-pack edition of the games will be available soon. Pokémon Sword and Shield: trailers The most recent (and best) glimpse we've had of Pokémon Sword and Shield was during a special Nintendo Direct in June. The Nintendo Direct shed a lot of light on what new features we can expect alongside some new Pokémon pals.  Check out the video below: The first Pokémon Sword and Shield trailer didn't give too much away, but you can see the first glimpse of the environments and art style. You also get a first look at three new starter Pokémon: the fire-rabbit Scorbunny, twig-monkey Grookey, and a sad-looking tadpole (sadpole?) called Sobble. Check the trailer out below: Pokémon Sword and Shield news and features Pokémon Ball Plus We didn't hear much about Pokémon Sword and Shield during Nintendo Direct at E3 2019, but it was teased that the Pokémon Ball Plus can be used to take your in-game Pokémon for "a stroll". However, the ball cannot be used as a controller. In addition, it was teased that "good things" will happen if you build up a strong connection to one Pokémon in particular. Release date revealed Nintendo held a special Pokémon Sword and Shield focused Nintendo Direct on June 5 that revealed both games will release globally on November 15, 2019. Max Raid Battles Much like Pokémon Go, Sword and Shield has a feature which allows trainers to team up with up to three others online to take on more powerful Pokémon. Legendaries Pokémon Sword and Shield's wolf-like Legendary Pokémon are Zacian (sword) and Zamazenta (shield). Dynamax Mode This new mode allows trainers to make their Pokémon giant and super-powered. This mode can only be activated once during a battle and lasts three turns before a Pokémon reverts to normal size. Image credit: Nintendo More new Pokémon Alongside the starter Pokémon, Nintendo has also revealed a few more new Pokémon joining Sword and Shield: Wooloo (sheep Pokémon), Gossifleur (a fancy lady Pokémon that evolves into Eldegoss), Drednaw (who resembles a snapping turtle) and Corviknight (a raven and glorified taxi service for the Galar region). Wild Area Galar features a Wild Area where trainers can explore, battle and capture Pokémon. Which Pokémon appear depends on the environment and weather. Stadiums Trainers will battle Pokémon leaders in Stadiums rather than the usual gyms. These stadiums are huge and packed with a cheering audience.  New characters Nintendo revealed your new rival is Hop, whose older brother is the Pokémon champion of Galar. Meanwhile Professor Magnolia and her assistant Sonia will act as your guides. Image credit: Nintendo Trainer outfit customization will be a feature While it's not a brand new feature, trainer outfit customization has been popular with Pokémon players since it was introduced in X and Y. And it's a feature which a recent Uniqlo competition has confirmed will be in Pokémon Sword and Shield.  In a collaboration with The Pokémon Company, the clothing brand asked fans to design a top which would then be sold in stores. Now that the winning entry has been chosen (a design featuring Magikarp and Gyrados) it's been revealed that the top will also be wearable in Pokémon Sword and Shield as a trainer outfit. Just how many more outfit options there'll be in the games isn't known yet, but we're hoping to catch a glimpse of some more if Nintendo shows us some new Sword and Shield footage during its E3 conference this year.  Made for handheld While the Pokémon Let's Go games were developed with TV mode in mind, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has stated that Pokémon Sword and Shield will "emphasize the fun of playing Nintendo Switch in handheld mode." Furukawa made the comments during Nintendo's March 2019 Financial Results Briefing (via Nintendo Life). Image credit: Nintendo A whole new world We know the game is set in a brand new region of Galar, rather than a rehash of Kanto or a previously visited territory. Galar seems to be loosely inspired by England's cities and countryside, with rolling hills and brickwork cities to explore. The trailer also showed glimpses of jewel-encrusted mines and what might even be a football stadium (see the kit below), though we're waiting to see whether competing in a Pokémon-themed Football World Cup will be possible for players. Brand new Pokémon Yup, this is a new generation of Pokémon, meaning you'll be seeing a lot of new faces – as well as a lot of old ones. The trailer gave us a mix of familiar Pokémon like Pikachu and Hoothoot along the new starters, and we're hoping Game Freak manage to keep the new designs interesting (no ice cream or candelabra Pokémon, please.) Modern to the core Sword and Shield look to retain the look and 3D animation style of the Pokeémon Let's Go games that launched on Nintendo Switch last year. Pokémon games haven't been flat 2D games in years, and has increasingly been moving towards full-size avatars and 3D environments. Some may miss the old-school pixel charm of the earlier games – and find the 3D creature models a bit bland – but for better or worse this is what we're getting. Pokémon Stars what? What still confuses us is that we've been waiting for the long-rumored Pokémon Stars game for over two years now, Eurogamer. published a report in late 2016 that said multiple sources had confirmed a new version of Pokémon Sun and Moon was being developed for the Switch under the code named Pokémon Stars.  While it never materialized, 'Stars' could well have been a code-name for what eventually became the Let's Go games, or could still prove a Switch port for the Sun and Moon games. We wonder where Pokémon Switch will land on our picks of the best Pokémon games This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Opera releases new browser specially built for gamers Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:31 AM PDT Opera has released a new version of its web browser specially designed for gamers. Opera GX includes a raft of features tailored to game fans, including Twitch integration, optimization tools and Razer Chroma-style customizable colors. Opera teased the new browser in May with a rather cryptic announcement that it was working on  "a new and special version of our browser made with those of you who play games in mind". The wait is now over, and an early access version of Opera GX is available to download and try for yourself. The best web browsers for your desktop Still using Chrome? Check out the best browsers for Android How to protect your privacy online with Tor Browser The browser's default homepage is something called GX Corner, which gathers deals on games from different retailers and includes a news feed with top gaming-related headlines from various sources (including TechRadar). Play on Opera GX also includes tools for limiting the system resources used by your browser, so you can keep it running in the background while you stream without it having a detrimental effect on your frame rate. You can limit both RAM and CPU usage, but the browser will prioritize maintaining a stable stream over sticking to hard limits. Meanwhile, a built-in Twitch sidebar lets you watch streams and receive notifications while you browse. Image credit: The Opera Foundation Some of Opera GX's features are just fun, including science fiction style in-browser sound effects created by acclaimed sound designer Rubén Rincón, a choice of accent colors, and a set of space-themed wallpapers. It's not all about playtime, though – Opera GX also includes the best privacy features from the company's main browser, including one-click ad-blocking and a built-in cryptocurrency wallet. You can also use My Flow to share links, pictures and videos securely between devices, and clear your browser history any time with the click of a button. You might not use all of its gamer-centric features, but Opera GX is a solid browser underneath all of the bells and whistles, and a perfectly reasonable choice if you prioritize privacy and like the idea of a browser that sounds like a spaceship. Google is limiting ad-blockers in Chrome, but Opera won't follow suit This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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