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NBA 2K21 – Official Age of Heroes Trailer – IGN
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For Honor: Shovel Knight Crossover – Official Trailer – IGN
Apple reportedly developing magnetic battery pack for iPhone
Apple is reportedly developing a new iPhone charging accessory in the form of a battery pack that magnetically attaches to the rear of the device using MagSafe, Bloomberg reports. Although some prototypes have a rubber exterior, the battery pack isn’t thought to act as a protective case like previous iPhone battery accessories from Apple. Alongside details of the new battery case, Bloomberg also notes that the iPhone lineup is unlikely to receive support for reverse wireless charging anytime soon.
The battery pack accessory is thought to have been in development for at least a year, but it’s reportedly faced development issues relating to the iPhone’s software thinking that the pack is overheating. Bloomberg notes that Apple is cautious about announcing charging accessories, after it was forced to cancel its AirPower charging mat in 2019, a year and a half after it was first announced. Development problems could mean that the new battery pack accessory is delayed or even scrapped.
The charging pack would be the latest in Apple’s lineup of iPhone 12 MagSafe accessories, which attach onto the back of the phone with the assistance of an embedded circle of magnets. Previous accessories have included wall chargers, as well as magnetically attaching wallets. MagSafe is said to be returning to Apple’s laptops as well, only with a connector reminiscent of the old pill-shaped design.
Rumors of the new battery pack first emerged after a reference to it was found in code in the iOS 14.5 beta, MacRumors reported earlier this week. Bloomberg notes that the reference has subsequently been removed.
As well as the new battery pack, Apple is reportedly interested in allowing its devices to charge one another. Bloomberg notes that it had planned for its 2019 iPhone lineup to be able to wirelessly charge AirPods, but the plans were later scrapped. The functionality is “unlikely in the near future,” according to Bloomberg.
Other accessory manufacturers are already attempting to offer similar functionality to the rumored MagSafe battery pack. 9to5Mac reported on one such pack late last year, which was being sold on Alibaba and Aliexpress under a variety of names.
Huawei turns to pig farming as smartphone sales fall
TipRanks
J.P. Morgan Says These 3 Gold Stocks Could Surge 40% (Or More)
Let’s talk about gold. The precious metal is the traditional safe haven investment, backed by its use – starting 5,000 years ago – as a reliable store of value. Investors looking to protect their portfolio and secure their wealth traditionally bought heavily into gold, and the price of gold has sometimes been used as a proxy (albeit an inverse one) for general economic health. In a recent report, investment firm J.P. Morgan took a long look at the state of the gold industry – specifically, the gold mining industry. Analyst Tyler Langton points out an underlying paradox in two basic facts about gold mines. “Over time, in a commodity business, the lowest cost producers with the longest life assets tend to be the relative winners… Gold mines, when compared to base metals, typically have much shorter mines (sic) lives, and the gold miners have to focus on replacing reserves to maintain levels of production,” Langton noted. At first glance, Langton’s paradox may seem to point away from heavy investments in gold mines. After all, these are high-risk commodity producers. But current times are actually pretty good for gold miners. Prices are elevated compared to recent years; the metal is running just under $1,800 per ounce now, but it peaked above $2,000 in August of last year, at the height of the corona shutdowns, and it was as low as $1,200 just 18 months ago. The current high prices bode well for producers. Langton states his belief that there is support for current prices, with gold and gold mines being seen as a hedge against ‘macro uncertainty.’ He believes that the main sources of support will be found in “real interest rates remaining lower for longer and COVID-19 related stimulus measures continuing to expand central bank balance sheets.” With this in the background, Langton and his colleagues have begun selecting the gold mining stocks they see as winners in the current environment. Unsurprisingly, they like the companies that show discipline on M&A activity, a focus on free cash flow, and solid returns to shareholders. Using the TipRanks database, we’ve pulled up the details on several of their recent picks. Are they as good as gold? The analysts seem to think so; all are Buy-rated and potentially offer significant upside. Let’s dig in. Kinross Gold Corporation (KGC) First up, Kinross Gold, is a mid-cap company– valued at $8.6 billion – with active mining operations in the US, Brazil, West Africa, and Russia. Taken together, these operations have proven and probable gold reserves of 29.9 million ounces. The company is guiding toward 2.4 million ounces in total production for 2021, rising to 2.9 million ounces by 2023. The company’s profitability can be seen by cost of sales per ounce, at $790, and the all-in sustaining cost, at $1,025 per ounce. With gold currently selling at $1,782 on the commodity exchanges, Kinross’s near-term success is clear. Two sets of statistics highlight Kinross’ profitability. First, the company’s recent record of quarterly results shows steadily rising revenues and earnings. Aside from a dip in 1Q20, at the start of the corona crisis, Kinross’ revenues have been gaining steadily since the start of 2019 – and even in 2020, every quarter showed a year-over-year increase. After 7 years without dividend payments, Kinross used its strong performance in recent months to restore the company dividend. Payments are still made irregularly, but since announcing in September 2020 that the dividend would be reinstated, two payments have been made and a third has been announced for March of this year. Each payment has been for 3 cents per share, which translates to a modest yield of 1.6%. The key point here is not strength of the yield, but rather, the confidence that management has displayed in the near- to mid-term by restarted dividend payments. Based on current production projections, the payments are expected to continue until 2023. Tyler Langton, in his notes on Kinross, comes to a bullish conclusion: “Given its expected growth projects and pipeline of additional projects, we think Kinross will be able to maintain average annual production of 2.5mm oz. over the next decade. The company has an attractive cost profile, and we expect costs to decrease over the next several years. The company should also generate attractive strong levels of FCF at current gold prices, and we expect Kinross to direct this cash toward internal growth projects and its dividend.” In line with these comments, he selects Kinross as JPM’s ‘top pick in the gold sector,’ and rates the stock as Overweight (i.e., a Buy). His $11 price target suggests a 61% upside potential in the coming year. (To watch Langton’s track record, click here) Kinross gets a Strong Buy recommendation from the analyst consensus, based on a 6 to 2 split between the Buy and Hold reviews. Wall Street’s analysts have set an average price target of $11.25, slightly more bullish than Langton’s, and implying a one-year upside of 64% from the current trading price of $6.85. (See KGC stock analysis on TipRanks) SSR Mining, Inc. (SSRM) Moving up north to Canada, we now take a look at Vancouver-based SSR Mining. This is another mid-cap mining company, producing gold and silver in quantity through four active mines in Canada, the US, Argentina, and Turkey. The Canadian, US, and Turkish operations produce primarily gold, while the Puna operation is Argentina’s largest silver mine. Although SSR missed on both the top- and bottom-line estimates in its latest quarterly report, for the 2020 full-year production numbers, the company met the previously set guidance. Gold production for the year hit 643,000 ounces, with 31% of that total coming in the fourth quarter. Silver production at the Puna mine reached 5.6 million ounces, beating the guidance figures. Fourth quarter production was 39% of the total. Last November, the company announced that it will be initiating a dividend policy starting in 1Q21. The ‘base dividend’ will be set at 5 cents per share, or a 1% yield; as with KGC above, the key point is not whether the dividend is high or low, but that management is starting to pay it out – a sign of confidence in the future. Langton bases his assessment of SSRM on its strong free cash flow forecast, writing, “At current gold forward prices, we estimate that SSR will generate close to $400mm of FCF in 2021 and around $500mm per year from 2022-2024. Furthermore, starting from a 2021 base, we forecast that SSR would generate cumulative FCF from 2021- 2025 of US$2.3bn, or roughly 59% of its current market cap…” In line with his comments, Langton puts an Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating on the stock, along with a $24 price target that indicates a 60% upside for the next 12 months. (To watch Langton’s track record, click here) There are 8 recent reviews on SSRM shares – and every single one of them is a Buy, making the Strong Buy analyst consensus rating here unanimous. The stock is selling for $15.25, and its robust $28.78 average price target suggests a high 89% one-year upside. (See SSRM stock analysis on TipRanks) Newmont Mining (NEM) Last on the list, Newmont, is the world’s largest gold miner, boasting a $45.78 billion market cap, and active production in a variety of metals, including gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead. The company has assets – both operations and prospects – in North and South America, Africa, and Australia, and is the only gold miner listed on the S&P 500. With that last detail in mind, it’s worth noting that NEM shares are up 29% in the last 12 months – more than the S&P’s gain of 16% over the same period. In 3Q20, the company showed $3.12 billion in revenue. While this missed the forecast, it did improve on the prior year’s Q3 by 5.4%. The Q3 results were also a company record, with a free cash flow of $1.3 billion. Results below expectations were a common pattern for the company’s 2020 performance in Q1 and Q2, as well. The corona crisis depressed results, but even the depressed results were up year-over-year. Newmont has an active capital return program for shareholders. Since the beginning of 2019, the company has used both dividends and share repurchases to return capital to stakeholders, to the tune of $2.7 billion. This past January, Newmont announced a $1 billion continuation of the share repurchases. Looking ahead to 2021, the company has also announced a new dividend framework, setting the base payment at $1 per share annualized, and reiterated its commitment to capital return. JPM’s Michael Glick led the note on Newmont, starting out by acknowledging the company’s strong production: “We are forecasting NEM’s attributable gold production to remain relatively steady over the 2021-2025 time frame at around 6.5-6.7mm oz…” Of the company’s mid-term production prospects Glick went on to say, “In terms of production, the ongoing expansion at Tanami should deliver incremental production and lower cash costs starting in 2023. Additionally, we expect Newmont to approve its Ahafo North and Yanacocha Sulfides projects this year, which should bring on incremental production for the company after the projects’ roughly three-year development time-line.” Glick likes Newmont’s FCF and production numbers, using them to back his Overweight (Buy) rating. His $83 price target implies an upside of 46% for the months ahead. (To watch Glick’s track record, click here) Newmont, for all its strength, still gets a Moderate Buy rating from the analyst consensus. This is based on 8 reviews, including 5 Buys and 3 Holds. The average price target is $74.97, suggesting room for 31% growth from the current trading price of $56.99. (See NEM stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for gold stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
Microsoft Announces the Next Subscription-Less Office Versions
Microsoft has announced an update to its productivity suite, Office 2021, for consumers along with a variant specifically geared toward businesses, Office Long Term Servicing Channel.
Like the version that came before it, Office 2019, Office 2021 is Microsoft’s standalone option for folks who don’t want to buy a subscription for the company’s cloud-enabled Microsoft 365. Office 2021 is set to roll out sometime later this year for both Mac and Windows, Microsoft 365’s corporate VP Jared Spataro said in a company blog post on Thursday. Meanwhile, Office LTSC will be available as a commercial preview beginning in April on both Mac and Windows, with a full release slated for later this year.
Microsoft will provide support for both products for five years, a slight downgrade from the seven-year warranty it’s offered with previous Office products. Each will come with OneNote and ship with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The one-time purchase pricing will remain the same for both personal and small business users, though there will be a 10% price increase for Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and individual Office app purchases.
The company didn’t offer many details about what kind of new features and updates we’ll see with Office 2021, but it did confirm what users can expect with Office LTSC.
“New Office LTSC features will include accessibility improvements, capabilities like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel, dark mode support across multiple apps, and performance improvements across Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint,” Shapiro wrote.
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While I’m sure Microsoft would prefer if businesses just switched over to the cloud already, it’s also clear that the company realizes not everybody can or even wants to do so. In Thursday’s blog post, Microsoft billed its one-time purchase version of Office as a “specialty product for specific scenarios.” These scenarios include where users are on regulated devices that can’t receive monthly updates, process control devices on a manufacturing floors that can’t be connected to the internet, or specialty systems that must stay locked in time and require a long-term servicing channel, it said.
In an interview with the Verge, Spataro framed the company’s decision as “a matter of trying to meet customers where they are.”
“We certainly have a lot of customers that have moved to the cloud over the last 10 months, that’s happened en masse really,” he told the outlet. “At the same time, we definitely have customers who have specific scenarios where they don’t feel like they can move to the cloud.”
Microsoft has previously maintained that even with its advertising push to convince users to move to the cloud, it plans to continue rolling out standalone, perpetual licenses for its Office tools for the forseeable future. And based on today’s announcement the company seems committed to that promise.
Second Extinction – Official Xbox Reveal Trailer – IGN
- Second Extinction – Official Xbox Reveal Trailer IGN
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- Second Extinction is coming to Xbox Game Preview in Spring 2021, drops new trailer Windows Central
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Nintendo Switch My Way – Weekend Getaway – Nintendo
Nintendo Switch eShop Digital Deals sale gets underway • Eurogamer.net
Up to 75% off hundreds of Switch favourites, indies and more.
Hot off last night’s Nintendo Direct where we were thrilled/disappointed (delete as appropriate) to hear that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is coming to Switch later this year, the Nintendo eShop has just kicked off a new round of Digital Deals. In it, there are savings of up to 75 per cent to be had on hundreds of games.
Put under the spotlight by the folks at Nintendo include Among Us for £2.72, Diablo 3 Eternal Collection for £24.99 and Sonic Mania for £11.19.
Digging a bit further, though, and there are some terrific bargains to be found amongst the full list of offers. There’s a whopping 66 pages of savings to sift through, so no doubt I’ve missed something here. Nevertheless, these ones immediately jump out to me.
- Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle for £11.09
- Overcooked 2 for £9.99
- Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition for £14.69
- I Am Dead for £10.49
- Torchlight 3 for £17.99
- We. The Revolution for £4.40
- 2064: Read Only Memories for £2.36
- Jenny LeClue – Detectivu for £3.99
- Gris for £5.79
- Not Tonight: Take Back Control Edition for £1.94
Definitely take a look at We. The Revolution, 2064 and Gris if you haven’t got around to them yet.
Meanwhile, in the physical world, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is £39.99 at Amazon UK. The re-release of the Wii U platformer and its brand new expansion has been out for less than a week, so £10 off the price already it a mighty fine saving.
Considering that Martin called it ‘Mario at its most madcap and inventive‘ then that early price cut might be enough to tempt you to pick it up. It’s certainly weakening my will a little.
Nevertheless, if there’s nothing there that takes your fancy, you can always keep an eye on our page dedicated to the best Nintendo Switch deals or the one for when the Skyward Sword Joy-Cons go up for order. You can also take a trip over to Jelly Deals for the latest offers across gaming, tech and more!
Razer Book 13 review: stop gaming, and get to work
For years, Razer has made some of the best gaming laptops on the market. They’re not uniquely famous for their high performance (Blades are powerful machines but not the fastest out there) or their prices (which are high). They’re famous for their high-quality build and their premium design. In short, Razer makes the best-looking gaming laptops on the market.
Razer has decided this year that this aesthetic shouldn’t be limited to gaming laptops. In its first notebook designed for productivity instead of gaming, Razer has combined its signature look and feel with a 60Hz 16:10 touchscreen and a lower-power processor with integrated graphics. The Razer Book aims to be a Razer Blade on the outside and a Dell XPS 13 on the inside — and it mostly succeeds. Razer has made an excellent laptop with performance rivaling that of the top Windows clamshells on the market. That said, it’s pricey for what it offers, and it has a few drawbacks that mean it won’t be the right choice for everyone.
On the outside, the Razer Book 13 borrows many of the Blade Stealth 13’s signature features. Razer’s three-headed snake adorns the lid. You may also recognize the customizable per-key RGB keyboard with speaker grilles on each side. (Unlike what you’ll see on some more garish gaming rigs, the lighting on these keys looks professional and adds to the sophisticated vibe.) The chassis is CNC-machined aluminum, with a smooth metallic finish. This is a fancy way of saying it’s quite nice; the MacBook Pro is made of the same material, as are many of the best Windows laptops including the XPS 13 and HP’s Spectre x360 14.
But some subtle differences make clear that this laptop is for the office, not for gaming. It’s slightly lighter than the Blade Stealth, at 0.6 inches thick and 3.09 pounds. The port selection is also better than that of the Stealth: there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, one microSD slot, and one combo audio jack. This is also a big advantage the Razer Book has over the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro, both of which have comparably limited selections.
The biggest change, though, is the 16:10 touch display. This makes the screen taller than the 16:9 panels you’ll find on the Blade (and on almost all dedicated gaming laptops). It lends you plenty of extra room for multitasking, with less scrolling and zooming necessary to see everything you need to. Aspect ratio aside, the 1920 x 1200 display on our review unit was quite bright, maxing out at 494 nits in my testing. It’s quite vibrant as well, with sharp and bright colors. While the panel has a glossy texture, it kicks back little to no glare in bright settings.
Miscellaneous laptop stuff: the glass touchpad is roomy and quite smooth — definitely one of my recent favorites. The speakers sound great, with strong percussion, though I did hear some distortion at higher volumes. And I almost never get to say this, but the webcam isn’t that bad; it delivers a decent and fairly accurate picture, though there’s no privacy shutter or kill switch.
In a vacuum, I have very few complaints about the Razer Book’s chassis. I will point out that I find it slightly worse than the XPS 13 in a few (subjective) areas. Not only is it thicker and heavier than Dell’s flagship, but it just looks and feels clunkier, lacking the XPS’s sleek portability. And while Razer’s keyboard and touchpad are both fine, they’re not as exceptional as either on the XPS; Dell’s keyboard has more travel and a more satisfying click, and its touchpad is a bit more comfortable. Most frustratingly to me, Razer provides less storage for the price. You only get 256GB of storage in the base and midrange models and can only get 512GB in the top-end $1,999 configuration — 512GB XPS models come as low as $1,399, and the $1,599 XPS has 512GB of storage while the $1,599 Razer Book has just 256GB (their specs are identical otherwise).
There’s one area where the Razer Book solidly beats the XPS, and that’s performance. All Razer Book models are Evo-verified, meaning Intel vouches for them as top performers. And our test model includes a high-clocked (up to 28W) version of one of the chipmaker’s top ultrabook processors, Intel’s Core i7-1165G7.
This system flew through the demanding tasks we threw at it. It took nine minutes and 21 seconds to complete our Premiere Pro media test, which involves exporting a 5-minute, 33-second 4K video. That’s the fastest time I’ve ever gotten from a system with the quad-core 1165G7 (which powers many of the best ultraportables on the market). The XPS 13 took 10 minutes and 43 seconds to complete the same task; the more powerful XPS 13 2-in-1 took 10 minutes and five seconds.
Razer still hasn’t quite caught Apple’s M1 systems, though. The most recent MacBook Pro finished the test in seven minutes and 39 seconds. And of course, integrated graphics can’t hold a candle to a midrange GPU, even in a thin and light chassis. The Blade Stealth 13 with a GTX 1650 Ti knocked out the export in just five minutes and 50 seconds.
In real-world performance, the Razer Book also shines. The laptop handled my fairly demanding load of Chrome tabs, Zoom calls, and other apps with no issue. It boots up from standby almost instantly and very quickly from the powered-off state as well. Of course, the XPS 13 is also quite good in these scenarios.
While the Book 13 is decidedly not a gaming laptop, it is a Razer-branded product, so some might wonder how it games. The answer is it delivers some of the best integrated graphics performance I’ve seen from a Windows clamshell. It solidly beats the XPS 13 clamshell and is about on par with the more powerful 2-in-1. In practice, it’s most suitable for lighter gaming and heavier titles at lower settings.
The Razer Book averaged 142fps on Rocket League’s maximum setting without dipping below 125; the XPS put up 111fps with a minimum of 100. Razer also wins on League of Legends, averaging 219fps to the Dell’s 205fps. Of course, since both machines have a 60Hz screen, you won’t observe a difference in the quality of these games — but these numbers should give you a sense of the Razer Book’s power.
Graphic performance will make something of a difference on heavier titles. The Razer Book beat the XPS on the more demanding Overwatch at Ultra settings, averaging 65fps to the XPS’s 48fps. It also averaged 32fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider at its lowest settings, where the XPS averaged 22fps. That’s significant because it means you could feasibly play Tomb Raider in 1080p on the Razer Book, which would be unpleasant to do on the XPS.
That result also makes clear that — to reiterate — despite aesthetic similarity, this laptop is not a Blade. The Stealth 13 averaged 45fps on Tomb Raider’s highest settings. If you want to game with this form factor, buy the Blade. You’ll also get way more storage for the price.
When it comes to cooling, the Razer Book has chops. It did a significantly better job of keeping its CPU cool than the XPS did in my testing. During the Adobe export, the 1165G7 stayed comfortably in the mid-60s to mid-70s (Celsius) with occasional spikes as high as the low 90s. It largely remained in the high 50s during the Tomb Raider benchmark, with spikes up to the mid-70s. All in all, I didn’t see any throttling or slowdown, and the keyboard never got uncomfortably hot under load.
But you’re making a trade-off for all this power: battery life. It’s not terrible, but it’s nothing to write home about. I got an average of six hours and 45 minutes while using the Book 13 for standard office work with occasional Zoom calls and streaming at 200 nits of brightness. (This was in the Battery Saver profile, which you can toggle in Razer’s Synapse software.) That means I can’t go a full day without charging, though your mileage will vary based on your tasks and settings. I’ve gotten over nine hours putting plenty of machines through that same workload, including the XPS 13.
The Razer Book 13 has a lot of things going for it, especially for Razer fans. It’s certainly one of the best ultraportable laptops you can buy — but whether it’s the best is a complicated question to answer.
In some areas (keyboard, touchpad, portability), the Razer Book is slightly worse than the XPS 13. In others (display quality and build quality) it’s about on par. And it brings a few nifty features (the port selection and the RGB keyboard) that Dell’s clamshell doesn’t have — but I doubt those are making or breaking the purchasing decision for most people. On net, I think Razer comes out slightly worse on the chassis front.
But that’s not where the Razer Book makes its case. That category is performance. Compared to other Windows clamshells I’ve tested in the past year, the Razer Book is top of the class. It stands out in productivity and media work as well as gaming. On the other hand, you’re making some sacrifices for that power, in addition to the hefty price tag it carries. You can get a few hours more battery life from a number of laptops in the Razer Book’s class (including the XPS 13) and significantly more storage as well. For folks in the Book’s intended audience (users looking for a portable work or entertainment driver) those trade-offs are probably worth considering.
Ultimately, the Razer Book 13 is an impressive new laptop from Razer with a lot to like, and I’m sure many customers will be happy with it. But those trade-offs mean I can’t quite call it the best product for most people.