As we enter the end of the month of February and transition into March, we have a somewhat slower week, with a pair of remakes of a couple of classics being the headline titles and both are released on the same day. The rest of the games this coming week consists of a rather bizarre mix between a beat 'em up and tower defence game, a bunch of Greek things, a slightly different take on the zombie game genre and finally a rather good side scroller on an alien planet. In other words, no big releases, but hopefully something interesting nonetheless.

STAR WARS: Dark Forces Remaster / This week's first remake / Wednesday 28 February
The evil Empire is currently creating a doomsday army behind a veil of secrecy. However, they are no match for the Rebel Alliance's covert operations division. Your mission is to infiltrate the Empire and put an end to their plans for terror and domination.

NVIDIA has joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology's new U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium as part of the company's effort to advance safe, secure and trustworthy AI. AISIC will work to create tools, methodologies and standards to promote the safe and trustworthy development and deployment of AI. As a member, NVIDIA will work with NIST—an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce—and fellow consortium members to advance the consortium's mandate. NVIDIA's participation builds on a record of working with governments, researchers and industries of all sizes to help ensure AI is developed and deployed safely and responsibly.

Through a broad range of development initiatives, including NeMo Guardrails, open-source software for ensuring large language model responses are accurate, appropriate, on topic and secure, NVIDIA actively works to make AI safety a reality. In 2023, NVIDIA endorsed the Biden Administration's voluntary AI safety commitments. Last month, the company announced a $30 million contribution to the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource pilot program, which aims to broaden access to the tools needed to power responsible AI discovery and innovation.

Seizing the Edge: Cervoz Adapts to Shifting Data Landscape—The rapid emergence of technologies like AIoT and 5G and their demand for high-speed data processing has accelerated the data transition from the cloud to the edge. This shift exposes data to unpredictable environments with extreme temperature variations, vibrations, and space constraints, making it critical for edge devices to thrive in these settings. Cervoz strategically targets the blooming edge computing sector by introducing an extensive array of compact product lines, enhancing its existing SSDs, DRAM, and Modular Expansion Cards to meet the unique needs of edge computing.

Cervoz Reveals NVMe M.2 SSDs and Connectivity Solutions to Power the Edge
Cervoz introduces its latest compact PCIe Gen. 3x2 SSD offerings, the T421 M.2 2242 (B+M key) and T425 M.2 2230 (A+E key). These space-efficient design and low power consumption feature offer exceptional performance, catering to the storage needs of fanless embedded PCs and motherboards for purpose-built edge applications. Cervoz is also leading the way in developing connectivity solutions, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Serial, USB, and CAN Bus all available in M.2 2230 (A+E key) and M.2 2242/2260/2280 (B+M) form factors. The M.2 (B+M key) 2242/2260/2280 card is a versatile three-in-one solution designed for maximum adaptability. While it initially comes in a 2280 form factor, it can be easily adjusted to fit 2260 or 2242 sizes. It offers an effortless upgrade of existing systems without sacrificing connection capability, especially in edge devices.

Paradox Interactive, a publisher of challenging games about running empires, today announces their partnership with XperimentalZ Games to publish Escape the Mad Empire, a dungeon-crawling game with intense tactical pause combat and base management gameplay that will release in Early Access on Steam in 2024 under the Paradox Arc publishing initiative. You can try Escape the Mad Empire today by playing the demo, including a mini-campaign and a challenging boss fight! You can find the demo here.

Escape the Mad Empire is a rogue-like dungeon-crawling game where you control a party of heroes facing near-impossible odds in a series of procedurally-generated, apocalyptic dungeons, filled to the brim with foes, traps, and deadly boss fights. Leverage the tactical pause system to execute complex strategies in the blink of an eye and clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. As you overcome the threats of the apocalypse, manage your heroes' instability, grow your base, and fight to survive until you Escape the Mad Empire or fall to its horrors.

This week, Cisco and NVIDIA have announced plans to deliver AI infrastructure solutions for the data center that are easy to deploy and manage, enabling the massive computing power that enterprises need to succeed in the AI era. "AI is fundamentally changing how we work and live, and history has shown that a shift of this magnitude is going to require enterprises to rethink and re-architect their infrastructures," said Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO, Cisco. "Strengthening our great partnership with NVIDIA is going to arm enterprises with the technology and the expertise they need to build, deploy, manage, and secure AI solutions at scale." Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA said: "Companies everywhere are racing to transform their businesses with generative AI. Working closely with Cisco, we're making it easier than ever for enterprises to obtain the infrastructure they need to benefit from AI, the most powerful technology force of our lifetime."

A Powerful Partnership
Cisco, with its industry-leading expertise in Ethernet networking and extensive partner ecosystem, together with NVIDIA, the inventor of the GPU that fueled the AI boom, share a vision and commitment to help customers navigate the transitions for AI with highly secure Ethernet-based infrastructure. Cisco and NVIDIA have offered a broad range of integrated product solutions over the past several years across Webex collaboration devices and data center compute environments to enable hybrid workforces with flexible workspaces, AI-powered meetings and virtual desktop infrastructure.

IBM has announced IBM LinuxONE 4 Express, extending the latest performance, security and AI capabilities of LinuxONE to small and medium sized businesses and within new data center environments. The pre-configured rack mount system is designed to offer cost savings and to remove client guess work when spinning up workloads quickly and getting started with the platform to address new and traditional use cases such as digital assets, medical imaging with AI, and workload consolidation.

Building an integrated hybrid cloud strategy for today and years to come
As businesses move their products and services online quickly, oftentimes, they are left with a hybrid cloud environment created by default, with siloed stacks that are not conducive to alignment across businesses or the introduction of AI. In a recent IBM IBV survey, 84% of executives asked acknowledged their enterprise struggles in eliminating silo-to-silo handoffs. And 78% of responding executives said that an inadequate operating model impedes successful adoption of their multicloud platform. With the pressure to accelerate and scale the impact of data and AI across the enterprise - and improve business outcomes - another approach that organizations can take is to more carefully identify which workloads should be on-premises vs in the cloud.

Today, the following email was delivered to all Blizzard employees by Johanna Faries, the new President of Blizzard Entertainment: "Dear Blizzard, though my official first day with you all is February 5, I want to let you know immediately that it is an honor to join you next week in this new capacity. I do so humbly and in awe of all that Blizzard has stood for and delivered to the world for over thirty years. Today also brings some mixed emotions. The loss of talented teammates in recent days is hard to hold side-by-side with the immense excitement I feel about joining Blizzard - and building on the momentum you've created for Blizzard's next chapter.

I want to thank Matt (Booty) for the introduction, bring some further clarity to today's announcement, and share more about how I see our future together at Blizzard. I understand this is a lot to take in. The news of my appointment may no doubt bring up a range of reactions, questions, even concerns. Activision, Blizzard, and King are decidedly different companies with distinct games, cultures, and communities. It is important to note that Call of Duty's way of waking up in the morning to deliver for players can often differ from the stunning games in Blizzard's realm: each with different gameplay experiences, communities that surround them, and requisite models of success. I've discussed this with the Blizzard leadership team and I'm walking into this role with sensitivity to those dynamics, and deep respect for Blizzard, as we begin to explore taking our universes to even higher heights."

AEWIN is glad to announce our latest High-Performance Network Appliance powered by Intel latest 5th Gen Xeon Scalable Processors, SCB-1942 Series. It is a series of flagship products powered by dual Intel Emerald Rapids CPUs, having up to 128 CPU cores (64 cores per CPU) for the extreme computing power pursued in the market. SCB-1942 series has multiple SKU with various PCIe slots options for great expandability to fulfill customer's solutions.

The SCB-1942A is a 2U, 2-socket network computing platform having 16x memory socket of DDR5 up to 5600 MHz, and 8x PCIe 5.0 expansion slots for AEWIN wide coverage NIC cards with 1G/10/25/40/100G copper/fiber interfaces or other Accelerators & NVMe SSDs for flexible functionality enhancement. The SCB-1942A provides the flexibility to change the 2x PCIe slots to 1x PCIe x16 slot for standard PCIe form factor which can install off-the-shelf add-on card for additional function required. It can support 400G NIC card installed such as Mellanox PCIe 5.0 NIC. In addition, the SCB-1942 series support 10 SATA which make it also suitable for various kinds of storage applications.

Synopsys (NASDAQ: SNPS) and Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Synopsys will acquire Ansys. Under the terms of the agreement, Ansys shareholders will receive $197.00 in cash and 0.3450 shares of Synopsys common stock for each Ansys share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $35 billion based on the closing price of Synopsys common stock on December 21, 2023. Bringing together Synopsys' pioneering semiconductor electronic design automation (EDA) with Ansys' broad simulation and analysis portfolio will create a leader in silicon to systems design solutions.

"The megatrends of AI, silicon proliferation and software-defined systems are requiring more compute performance and efficiency in the face of growing, systemic complexity. Bringing together Synopsys' industry-leading EDA solutions with Ansys' world-class simulation and analysis capabilities will enable us to deliver a holistic, powerful and seamlessly integrated silicon to systems approach to innovation to help maximize the capabilities of technology R&D teams across a broad range of industries," said Sassine Ghazi, President and CEO of Synopsys. "This is the logical next step for our successful, seven-year partnership with Ansys and I look forward to working closely with Ajei and the talented Ansys team to realize the benefits of this combination for our customers, shareholders and employees."

Welcome to the second week of new game releases in 2024 and yet another week full of minor releases. Don't let that put you off though, as there are plenty of new games launching, some of which are not quite what you'd expect. As such, you can look forward to a week of RPG titles, a game where things go boom, a lot of beer, some bonesaws and repairing computers.

Archaelund / Monday 8 January
Explore a vast open world and crawl through dungeons in first person, then fight tactical turn-based battles from a top-down perspective. Guide your adventuring party through Archaelund, mankind's last frontier, and uncover its many secrets.

NETGEAR, Inc., the leading provider of networking products that power businesses both large and small, today launched the cloud-managed NETGEAR S3600 Series Smart Switches, joining the company's cutting-edge portfolio of switches designed to meet the growing demands for faster networking that today's businesses require. The S3600 Series includes the 8-Port 10G/Multi-Gigabit (XS508TM) and 16-Port 10G/Multi-Gigabit (XS516TM) that provide flexible and auto-adaptive wired connectivity of high-bandwidth devices.

The growing networking demands of high-bandwidth applications and devices in the workplace often result in connectivity drops, slow speeds, bottlenecks, lagging content streaming and slow downloads. The S3600 Series of Smart Switches addresses these issues head-on and enables business owners to simply connect devices and instantly give each device exactly the speed it needs - either 1G, 2.5G, 5G, or 10G.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking, and storage solutions innovator, today released the new Half-width Rackmount 16-port 10GbE switch series, including the L2 Web Managed QSW-M3216R-8S8T and the Unmanaged QSW-3216R-8S8T. The built-in eight 10GbE SFP+ and eight 10GbE RJ45 ports with backward compatibility fulfills the versatile demands of interfaces and speeds in high-speed network infrastructure. The half-width rackmount compact design also allows SMBs to flexibly deploy them in IT rooms or even on desks in offices.

"QNAP's best-selling all 10GbE switch series now releases two new half-width rackmount 16-port 10GbE models, offering more 10GbE ports to satisfy requirements for multiple high-bandwidth network devices in SMBs and offices. " said Jerry Deng, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "Managed and unmanaged models are available for easily upgrading to a full 10GbE high-speed LAN at an affordable price, and their small physical footprint makes them especially useful for businesses and organizations that lack physical space for dedicated IT hardware."

As autumn continues, we have another week of big game releases to look forward to, hopefully with something that'll suit most gamers here. This week's AAA title involves a lot of sand, wars and monuments. As for the rest of this week's new games, you can be a tycoon, a driver of very expensive motor vehicles, craft your own stick, pretend to be a starship captain or you could be a monster slayer. Let us know if any of these tickle your fancy in the poll.

Total War: Pharaoh / This week's AAA title / Wednesday 11 October
In Total War: Pharaoh, the newest entry in the award-winning grand strategy series, immerse yourself in ancient Egypt at the zenith of its power and experience the dramatic events that threaten its destruction. With dynamic real-time battles and incredible turn-based empire management, can you rise above your adversaries to become Egypt's last great Pharaoh and stand against the collapse of an iconic civilisation?

It's high-time that we released the full demo for Tempest Rising. Get a taste for Tempest Rising in this playable demo! Experience the first mission of both the Global Defence Forces and the Tempest Dynasty in their desperate struggle for dominance and resources. The classic Real-Time Strategy experience that you love and remember.

Classic RTS action meets modern production and performance in Tempest Rising. Inspired by RTS greats of the 1990s and 2000s, Tempest Rising is a classic, base-building real time strategy game set in a modern day alternative history war scenario. It features 3 unique factions, each with its own approach to combat and economy and offering a variety of strategies for players of all stripes, maps with neutral structures to contest and neutral populations to contend with, deep and rewarding gameplay that keeps a focus on strategy while rewarding skill.

Corsair Gaming, Inc. ("Corsair" or the "Company"), a leading global provider and innovator of high-performance gear for gamers, streamers, content-creators, and gaming PC builders, today announced financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023, and reiterated its financial outlook for the full year 2023.

Second Quarter 2023 Select Financial Metrics

• Net revenue was $325.4 million compared to $283.9 million in the second quarter of 2022, an increase of 14.6%. Gaming components and systems segment net revenue was $246.7 million compared to $194.9 million in the second quarter of 2022, while Gamer and creator peripherals segment net revenue was $78.8 million compared to $89.0 million in the second quarter of 2022.
• Net income attributable to common shareholders was $1.1 million, or net income of $0.01 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $59.4 million, or a net loss of $0.62 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2022.
• Adjusted net income was $9.8 million, or net income of $0.09 per diluted share, compared to adjusted net loss of $19.0 million, or a net loss of $0.20 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2022.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $17.8 million, compared to a loss of $11.0 million in the second quarter of 2022.
• Cash and cash equivalents were $184.0 million as of June 30, 2023.

Samsung Electronics today announced the first step in a plan to reimagine mobile device security for business customers in partnership with Microsoft. This collaboration has led to the industry's first on-device, mobile hardware-backed device attestation solution that works equally well on both company and personally owned devices.

Device attestation can help ensure a device's identity and health, verifying that it has not been compromised. On-device, mobile hardware-backed device attestation—available on Samsung Galaxy devices and combined with protection from Microsoft Intune—now adds enhanced security and flexibility. For enterprises, this is an extra layer of protection against compromised devices falsely claiming to be known and healthy, gaining access to sensitive corporate data. Additionally, organizations can now enable employees to bring their own device (BYOD) to work with the confidence that they are protected with the same level of security as company owned devices. For employees, this means added flexibility for their personal Galaxy devices to safely access their work environment.

NVIDIA today announced that it has named to its board of directors Melissa Lora, who spent three decades as an executive at Taco Bell Corp., a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., before retiring in 2018 as president of Taco Bell International.

She has also been appointed to the board's Audit Committee.

"Melissa is a great addition to our board of directors," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "She brings senior management and operating experience, as well as extensive finance expertise, gained in a large corporate setting. We will benefit immensely from her guidance."

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, unveils the next generation of ColorPro Wheel - an innovative multi-functional color calibrator. Bundled with the VP2776 and VP2786-4K Professional Monitors, the ColorPro Wheel's color calibration and OSD control features are complemented by integrated access to Pantone's digital libraries with hotkey control of compatible creative editing software. This harmonization of hardware and software provides ultimate color control and empowers seamless creative workflows for professionals.

"Precise color management is of utmost importance to creators and therefore remains a top priority for ColorPro, our professional monitor solutions," said Oscar Lin, General Manager of the Monitor Business Unit at ViewSonic. "We are delighted to further strengthen our partnership with Pantone, providing creators with the freedom and convenience of accessing digital color data to elevate their creative endeavors. The updated ColorPro Wheel empowers creators to achieve unparalleled color excellence and enhance their workflows through its human-centered design."

A watershed moment on Nov. 22, 2022, was mostly virtual, yet it shook the foundations of nearly every industry on the planet. On that day, OpenAI released ChatGPT, the most advanced artificial intelligence chatbot ever developed. This set off demand for generative AI applications that help businesses become more efficient, from providing consumers with answers to their questions to accelerating the work of researchers as they seek scientific breakthroughs, and much, much more.

Businesses that previously dabbled in AI are now rushing to adopt and deploy the latest applications. Generative AI—the ability of algorithms to create new text, images, sounds, animations, 3D models and even computer code—is moving at warp speed, transforming the way people work and play. By employing large language models (LLMs) to handle queries, the technology can dramatically reduce the time people devote to manual tasks like searching for and compiling information.

Welcome to a new era for The World's Game. Feel closer to the game with three cutting-edge technologies powering unparalleled realism in every match—HyperMotionV, PlayStyles optimised by Opta, and a revolutionised Frostbite Engine. HyperMotionV captures the game as it's truly played, using volumetric data from more than 180 professional men's and women's football matches to ensure player movements in-game accurately reflect real-world action on the pitch. PlayStyles dimensionalise athletes, making them more authentic by interpreting real-world player data from Opta and other sources into signature abilities which heighten the realism and individuality of each player. The revolutionised Frostbite Engine delivers The World's Game in lifelike detail, bringing a new level of immersion to each match.

Develop your own club legends in Ultimate Team by improving your players with the brand new Ultimate Team Evolutions, and welcome women's footballers to the pitch alongside men as you craft your dream XI. Get closer to the touchline with new modern management features in Manager Career or pave your own path to glory in Player Career. Plus, connect and compete with more friends than ever through cross-play in both Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL. Pre-purchase EA SPORTS FC 24 Ultimate Edition by 22 August to get an untradeable UEFA Champions League or UEFA Women's Champions League Ultimate Team Hero Item on 27 November.

After four years away, BlizzCon is returning to Anaheim, California on November 3-4! We're so excited to get everyone together again, celebrate our communities, and share what we've been working on. This year, the goal is to make BlizzCon feel more experiential than ever before. It will be a one-of-a-kind immersive experience, bringing attendees into the universes of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch with massive installations, art, and thematic spaces where friends can connect.

Whether you're kicking back in Azeroth, exploring the mysteries of a dark cathedral of Sanctuary, playing alongside the heroes of Overwatch, or tuning in from home, we want you to feel you are entering universes alongside your friends as you celebrate and experience what we're building next, and hear from developers all across Blizzard about their vision for our games, their craft, and more. This is the first time we are building BlizzCon this way, and our vision is that building a giant playground for our communities will allow everyone to create memories, share stories, and celebrate what unites us. Here's what you need to know!

Oracle today announced the addition of generative AI-powered capabilities within Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM). Supported by the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) generative AI service, the new capabilities are embedded in existing HR processes to drive faster business value, improve productivity, enhance the candidate and employee experience, and streamline HR processes.

"Generative AI is boosting productivity and unlocking a new world of skills, ideas, and creativity that can have an immediate impact in the workplace," said Chris Leone, executive vice president, applications development, Oracle Cloud HCM. "With the ability to summarize, author, and recommend content, generative AI helps to reduce friction as employees complete important HR functions. For example, with the new embedded generative AI capabilities in Oracle Cloud HCM, our customers will be able to take advantage of large language models to drastically reduce the time required to complete tasks, improve the employee experience, enhance the accuracy of workforce insights, and ultimately increase business value."

This announcement was shared with Electronic Arts employees by CEO Andrew Wilson: "Team, the amazing experiences we create and deliver—across platforms, geographies, and business models—captivate hundreds of millions of players and counting. As more and more people around the world choose games as their first and most important way to come together, express themselves, and share their fandom, what we do together as leaders of interactive entertainment matters more than ever.

Engaging these growing audiences represents incredible opportunities for our teams to entertain massive online communities, create blockbuster interactive storytelling, and amplify the power of community in and around our games with social and creator tools. Creativity and innovation have always been the foundation of everything we do. Now, we must further empower our creative teams so that we might realize our strategic vision. Today, we are announcing the next step of our strategy by aligning our studios into two organizations that report to me—EA Entertainment and EA SPORTS. This evolution of our company continues to empower our studio leaders with more creative ownership and financial accountability to make faster and more insightful decisions around development and go to market strategies. These steps will accelerate our business, drive growth, and deliver long-term value for our people, our players and our communities.

Go beyond the fun with PARK BEYOND available now. Bandai Namco Europe and Limbic Entertainment are proud to announce the grand opening of Park Beyond, their theme park management simulation, available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. A free two-hour trial version is also available on Xbox Series X|S, as well as PlayStation 5 for PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers. Park Beyond has something in store for all types of players. Are they visionneers looking to find the future of amusement parks?

Impossification will allow them to transform rides, shops and event staff, making the mundane, incredible. Is management in their blood? A vast array of control panels will help them follow every parameter and penny spent to make sure their park runs perfectly, and visitors are thriving. Are they creative at heart with big ideas? Modular building with its extensive library of asset will give free reigns to their left brain to create amazing scenery for visitors to wander, while the roller-coaster creator will allow them to build the ride of their dreams.

Take advantage of the Open Beta and secure the exclusive Golden Omnicar. Park Beyond is park management, where you can build and manage the parks of your dreams. Whether you love to manage your staff, build crazy roller coaster, or decorate your own theme worlds. Park Beyond has something in store for you. PC gamers can download and play the Open Beta on Steam. This test period will be open until June 15 (3 PM). Be creative!

Park Beyond is a theme park simulation game that gives you the freedom to create and manage the Parks of your Dreams! Whether you love to manage finances and visitor experience or just create fun and cozy parks, the game has something in store just for you! In Park Beyond, you are the creative force behind a series of amusement parks, a Visioneer! You're a combination of a creator, a manager, and a designer, wrapped up in one powerful package. Every aspect of developing and maintaining successful theme parks will be under your control.