Recorded just before they headed off to Taipei for the tech oasis that is Computex 2024, this week's episode of the TT Show sees Jak and Kosta discuss the latest news in gaming, tech, and science. Kicking off with Jak's impressions of Hellblade 2 (which he calls the best-looking game he's ever seen), the duo digs into Valve's next game - Deadlock.

Although it hasn't been officially announced, the next major release from the company behind Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Steam is significant news - even in leaked screenshot form. The game is described as a mix between the hero shooting of Overwatch and the MOBA lane-based gameplay of DOTA 2.

In the world of GPUs, AMD Anti-Lag 2 sees Team Red's latency reduction tech finally return after it was controversially disabled last year. This time, the tech requires game-specific integration, debuting in Counter-Strike 2 in Technical Preview form. In other Radeon news, FSR 3 Frame Generation makes its PS5 and Xbox Series X, bringing triple-digit performance to consoles.

Upgrading your computer can be an excellent way to enhance its performance and take full advantage of new features and improved security. For PC users looking to upgrade their operating system, Windows 11 Pro offers several benefits that can significantly elevate productivity and security. GoDeal24 is running a Mid-Year Big Sale where you can get the latest Windows OS at an attractive price. You can get Windows 11 Professional on sale for only $13.25 (reg. $199) from today.

Windows 11 Pro was upgraded with the hybrid working world in mind. It has new productivity, AI, and security features to help you do your best work. If you're an avid gamer, you'll appreciate DirectX 12 Ultimate, which improves the graphics of games to allow for a more immersive experience and 3D spatial sound, which makes the audio in whatever you're playing sound more realistic. Upgrading to Windows 11 Pro also means your system will continue to get future updates and features from MS, which Windows 10 won't get.

You can also snag a lifetime Microsoft Office Professional 2021 license for only $27.25 (reg. $299). That means you can create, organize, calculate, communicate, and more, all from this evergreen suite of apps for life, with no monthly subscription fees as you'd have with Microsoft 365. MS Office 2019 Professional is also at the lowest price this year - only $19.99 for lifetime use, which is great for those on a low budget. With your purchase, you'll get instant download and delivery of this suite on one PC, and lifetime updates are included.

Up until now X users could see what other content users have Liked on the platform, but that is all about to change according to a recent announcement from the company and it's owner Elon Musk.

In the past, public personalities and politicians have been caught with their pants down, Liking content that was considered by some to be inappropriate or, at the very least, unsavory. This outing of some X users resulted in the individuals in question being attacked online, and according to X, that is going to stop as the company has now launched the ability to hide user Likes. However, this new feature is locked behind the X Premium paywall.

When the feature was announced, X took to its official account to write, "Keep spicy likes private by hiding your likes tab," and provided an image of the new profile customization feature. The social media platform further explained that users will still be able to see posts they have liked, but others won't be able to. Additionally, Like count and other metrics for your own posts will still appear under notifications. Furthermore, the author of a post will be able to see who Liked their post.

Computex 2024 featured many announcements from AMD regarding its incoming next-generation Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, and with many excited about the performance uplift in specific tasks, gamers shouldn't be, or at least if you have a specific previous-gen CPU.

Toms Hardware interviewed AMD's Senior Technical Marketing Manager for Consumer Processors, Donny Woligroski. In the interview, he told the publication that the difference between AMD's new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs and the Ryzen 7000X3D chips in gaming is very little.

Woligroski stated that while its coming Ryzen 9000 series chips won't be the Ryzen 7000X3D chips in gaming, they will still be top-of-the-line CPUs for gaming, but the difference between chips will be extremely small. However, the Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will still beat the 7000X3D chips in non-gaming tasks, meaning the Ryzen 9000 series will be the overall better CPU in terms of overall performance.

Last week amongst all of the Computex 2024 news Starship conducted the fourth test flight for the world's largest and most powerful rocket, Starship.

The company blasted Starship off from its launch facilities on June 6, with the main objectives of the test flight being flying Starship further than any test previously, and demonstrating capabilities to return and reuse Starship and its Super Heavy booster. SpaceX achieved the desired reusability demonstration by calmly splashing down Super Heavy in the Gulf of Mexico. More specifically, SpaceX was attempting to simulate a "virtual tower" with the splashdown of Super Heavy, as the next step will be landing the megalithic booster on land.

Additionally, SpaceX just wanted the Starship vehicle to survive reentry into Earth's dense atmosphere, which, during its descent, gets extremely hot from generated friction. SpaceX achieved more than it set out to do as a minimum, as Starship also splashdowned within a designated target area. Now, Elon Musk is already talking about Flight 5, and during a live stream on X, the SpaceX CEO said that Starship will be taking to the skies once again in "about a month".

Apple isn't necessarily known for making products that are great at gaming, but with the rise of the company's own in-house chips that dream is becoming more of a reality.

At WWDC Apple showed its intentions to drive deeper into the gaming market, especially considering the popularity of the App Store and all of the games it offers. However, Apple isn't just looking at mobile, as the company explained it wants to expand the possibilities of its Mac product line to gamers that want to experience full AAA titles.

Apple stated during its keynote that its MacOS named Sequoia was going to usher in some considerable upgrades for gamers, such as the inclusion of Personalized Spatial Audio, which will arrive for games that support Game Mode. Additionally, this new audio feature will be launching on iPhone. According to Apple, Personalized Spatial Audio "significantly reduces audio latency with AirPods Pro (2nd generation).

The astronauts who were part of the first all-civilian space mission to orbit have been studied by scientists, and across three studies, it was found that they've become younger.

SpaceX was behind the Inspiration4 mission that was conducted in 2021, where four civilian astronauts were transported to orbit via a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The team of four only spent a few days in space and, upon return, committed their bodies to science, intending to understand how the environment in space affects human physiology. Now, three studies have been conducted, and it was found that astronauts got genetically younger during their stay in space, but the effects were only shortlived.

Scientists looked at the astronauts' DNA and found aging markers called telomeres, which are caps that protect chromosomes known to shorten with age after being exposed to certain environmental factors and stress. However, during the time spent in space, the astronauts' telomeres elongated, indicating the aging of DNA decreased. Researchers believe the telomeres getting longer is a response to the higher radiation environment in space.

According to NVIDIA and its CEO Jensen Huang, the AI PC era began with GeForce RTX and the 20 Series of desktop GPUs in 2018. For PC gamers, this meant using AI to make real-time ray-tracing a possibility with the arrival of RTX hardware and AI Tensor Cores. DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, is the not-so-secret ingredient.

Fast-forward to 2024, and AI-powered DLSS upscaling and DLSS 3 Frame Generation (which uses AI to generate entire frames) have pushed PC gaming performance to new heights across a wide range of hardware. With games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2, we're now at a point where full Path Traced lighting is a reality.

At Computex 2024, we saw two examples of how NVIDIA plans to empower game developers with new AI technologies. NVIDIA ACE helps create digital humans with whom you can interact. Project G-Assist uses AI and a general model trained by NVIDIA to provide in-game assistance, gameplay guidance, and even performance optimization, all through natural dialogue or text inputs.

The US government is considering further restrictions on China's access to chip technology required for AI, aiming at new hardware that's hitting the market: GAA (Gate-All-Around) technology and HBM, two key parts of AI chips.

China would have its access to Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor technology blocked, which is used to manufacture bleeding-edge chips, as well as access to High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which comes in many forms: HBM3 has been powering NVIDIA's current-gen Hopper H100, while ultra-fast HBM3E is inside Blackwell B200, and HBM4 is coming shortly.

GAA nanosheet technology improves density while providing power and performance improvements, but it's only used on the most cutting-edge process nodes. Samsung has been using GAA technology with its 3nm node, Intel will use GAA in its upcoming Intel 20A node, and TSMC will use GAA with its upcoming A16 process node.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf) is the long-awaited next entry in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare, and after a tasty reveal trailer during the recent Xbox Games Showcase, we now have close to 20 minutes of gameplay to chew through ahead of the game's 'Fall 2024' release for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

BioWare has been working on this for several years now, and even though what we see in the extended gameplay video is from the game's introduction, it all looks polished, promising, and authentic to the series (if a little cartoony). Like the original Dragon Age: Origins, you can choose your race (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Qunari), faction, and history (Grey Wardens!), which will play into relationships, conversations, and quests.

In the video, we see a familiar face in the form of Varric and the villain of the game - Solas, a pivotal character from Dragon Age: Inquisition. For fans of the series, there's some additional good news: you can import certain choices and decisions from Inquisition that will impact how the story begins.

Apple has recently held its WWDC event, where it unveiled what will be included in the highly anticipated iOS 18 update, and its contents have really bothered Elon Musk.

iOS 18 includes Apple's official jump into the artificial intelligence-powered race with what it's calling Apple Intelligence. The company showcased a slew of new AI-powered features without actually saying the word "AI" and also announced that ChatGPT will be integrated into iOS 18 for image generation and writing assistance. Apple made it clear users can opt out of Siri requests being sent to ChatGPT, and users are free to turn off any Intelligence features.

Despite these disclaimers, Musk took to his personal X account to deem Apple Intelligence's integration with OpenAI a "security risk," going as far as to say that user data will be sent to OpenAI, which isn't entirely the case. Apple says that for tasks that require more compute than what is available on-device, Apple will either use Private Cloud Compute, which is open to verify for privacy, or OpenAI, but will request additional confirmation by the user.

Although Microsoft Gaming chief Phil Spencer didn't outright come out and confirm that he and the Xbox team were developing an Xbox Gaming Handheld, he outlined what to expect from a potential portable Xbox device. One that we have to assume is in development.

"The future for us in hardware is pretty awesome," Spencer told IGN during a live interview following the company's big Xbox Game Showcase. "The work that the team is doing around different form factors, different ways to play, I'm incredibly excited about. Today was about the games, but we will have a time to come out and talk more about platform, and we can't wait to bring it to you."

When grilled for more information on what an Xbox "different form factor" handheld might look like, Phil Spencer stated that "being able to play games locally is really important," which means it will be more like the Steam Deck or ROG Ally than Sony's network-based PlayStation Portal.