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Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing “numerous counts” against Elon Musk, according to a letter from his lawyer that Musk posted to X. It has also “reopened an investigation into Neuralink.”The letter is short on specifics — such as what the charges may be, and how many Musk companies are affected. Instead, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, complains that “the Commission Staff issued a settlement demand that required Mr. Musk agree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous accounts.” Even this is somewhat unclear; presumably, Spiro means that Musk would pay a penalty rather than accept money from the SEC.Oh Gary, how could you do this to me? pic.twitter.com/OoooQI77ZS— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2024Musk has a long and storied history with the SEC, which he has said he does not respect. In 2018, Musk briefly pretended he’d take Tesla private before admitting two weeks later Tesla would stay public. The SEC then sued him over a tweet saying he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. Musk reached a settlement with the agency, paying $20 million, stepping down as chair of Tesla’s board and agreeing to a “Twitter sitter,” or a lawyer who’d supervise his tweets. Musk then reneged on the Twitter sitter thing. That particular kerfuffle went all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case; Musk was stuck with his Twitter sitter.The letter characterizes this history as “more than six years of harassment.”More recently, the SEC sought to sanction Musk for no-showing on them in a separate investigation over his Twitter takeover. A judge declined to sanction him because he reimbursed the SEC for the airfare of the lawyers he stood up.It is unclear from Spiro’s letter whether the charges the SEC is pursuing have to do with the Twitter matter or something else. Reuters previously reported that the Department of Justice was probing whether Tesla’s self-driving claims were actually securities fraud. In 2023, Reuters reported that lawmakers had asked the SEC to probe Neuralink over Musk’s comments about the safety of the company’s brain device.Musk also asked his AI, Grok, to draw a picture of SEC chair Gary Gensler. The image depicted a snail in a business suit, seemingly a reference to Gary the Snail from Spongebob Squarepants, a television show for children.

Image: CD Projekt Red The 2024 edition of The Game Awards started with a bang — the very first look at the next Witcher game. It’s called The Witcher 4 and was revealed via a lengthy cinematic trailer that starred Ciri in place of Geralt, who led the original trilogy. There aren’t many details yet, but CD Projekt Red says that in the new game, “Ciri takes center stage as the protagonist, embarking on her own journey to become a professional monster slayer.” It will be a single-player, open-world RPG. The studio says that “the cinematic trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU.”It doesn’t sound like the trailer will necessarily be representative of the final game, however. Here’s how CD Projekt Red explains it:In the nearly six-minute trailer, viewers were introduced to Ciri, the adopted daughter of Geralt of Rivia, as she takes on a witcher contract in a remote village that has been terrorized for generations by a fearsome monster demanding human sacrifices. Framed as a short, self-contained Witcher story, the trailer showcases Ciri’s new abilities and tools, including a chain and advanced magic powers.At the heart of the trailer is Ciri’s perspective as an outsider to the village. As the villagers say goodbye to one of their own — a young girl they are preparing for a traditional ritual sacrifice — Ciri chooses to intervene. Aiming to slay the beast and save the girl at the same time, Ciri finds herself at odds with the prejudices and superstitions of the people she tries to protect, leading her to confront a painful witcher lesson: that monsters come in all forms.We’ve known for some time that CD Projekt Red was working on a follow up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is meant to kick off a new saga for the fantasy franchise. In November the studio revealed that the game, previously codenamed “Polaris,” was in the “full-scale production phase” of development.” It’s being built using Unreal Engine 5, which the studio shifted to following the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077. No word yet on platforms or release timing.

Not a photo of an Nvidia LAN, since I can’t find my old photos of them! | Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images It’s been 13 years since Nvidia hosted its last LAN party, inviting hundreds of people to physically haul their gaming PCs onto a decommissioned aircraft carrier and jack them in for networked gaming bliss. Now, the GeForce LAN is finally coming back — and you’re theoretically invited, should you manage to reserve one of the 400 available spaces right here on December 16th at 6AM PT / 9AM ET.The GeForce LAN 50 will run January 4th through January 6th, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with satellite events in Berlin, Taipei, and Beijing, and it promises to be a “online & in-person 50 hour gaming marathon” with contests, tournaments, raffles, and swag. It’ll kick off 4:30PM PT on January 4th, and you’ll need to provide a fully refundable $125 deposit to sign up. Nvidia tells me those 400 slots are for everyday gamers, and do not count the influencers who may also show up.If you can’t or don’t want to make it, Nvidia says it’ll offer one small set of rewards online — if you stream Diablo IV, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, The Finals, or WoW from its GeForce Now cloud gaming service “continuously for 50 minutes,” there’ll be some kind of in-game reward. Nvidia will also be offering prizes in a marketing celebration it’s calling “GeForce Greats”.The LAN party is happening right before Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote in Las Vegas, where we’re expecting the company to announce the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and possibly the RTX 5070 as well, and the fact that this is the “GeForce LAN 50” is probably a tease for those 50-series cards — the last LAN that Nvidia hosted was the “GeForce LAN 6,” not “GeForce LAN 49” or anything like that. Starting in 2004, the GPU company began to host major LAN parties almost every year until it stopped in 2011. Here’s one of my minor claims to nerd fame: I helped set a Guinness World Record for the largest, longest LAN party at one in 2008. Image: Sean Hollister Record scratch, freeze frame, yep that’s me (on the left)... That Nvidia LAN wasn’t held on an aircraft carrier, but rather the San Jose Convention Center, as part an event that Nvidia called “NVISION 08.” The company never held another NVISION, but it rebooted its event the very next year, at the very same location, as the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). There was a time Nvidia would sponsor third-party LANs as well. Apparently Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a soft spot for LANs, making a surprise visit to a small one in Vietnam last year. While gamers have largely moved online for multiplayer games, the LAN party subculture has been getting a bit of nostalgic attention as of late — there’s even a coffee table book now documenting the era.

Image: Capcom Capcom had quite the surprise in store at The Game Awards. The developer announced a sequel to Okami, a beautiful and beloved action-adventure game that originally launched back in 2006.The sequel — which doesn’t currently have a name — was revealed in dramatic fashion with a musical performance. Original director Hideki Kamiya is returning for the game, which will be developed by his new studio Clovers. It’s still very early though; during the reveal TGA host Geoff Keighley said that “production is about to begin.” Capcom, meanwhile, says only that “a new adventure in the same vein as Okami has been set in motion.”Not only has it been quite some time since Okami debuted, its announcement also comes at a time when Capcom seems intent on doubling down on its biggest franchises. Right now that means a lot of Monster Hunter and Resident Evil. Up next is Monster Hunter Wilds, which is launching next year, as well as the mobile spinoff Monster Hunter Outlanders.However, Okami isn’t the only Capcom franchise being revived: the company also revealed a new entry in the action franchise Onimusha, which is launching in 2026. Here’s the very bloody debut trailer for that.

Image: Gearbox Software We already knew it was in the works, and now we have an idea of how it will look and play. At the Game Awards, Gearbox Software revealed the first proper trailer for Borderlands 4, which is due out in 2025. The trailer starts with a cinematic depicting a large-scale conflict of some sort, before getting into the actual gameplay — which is as colorful and violent as you’d expect from the franchise. The game is playable solo or co-op with up to three other players, and Gearbox says that there are “billions” of weapons to use.Here’s the basic set-up:Break free from the oppressive Timekeeper, a ruthless dictator who dominates the masses from on high. Now a world-altering catastrophe threatens his perfect Order, unleashing mayhem across the planet. Ignite a resistance and blast your way through mechanical monstrosities, bloodthirsty bandits, and vicious beasts. Amass an arsenal of death-dealing firepower to wreak havoc as you tear your way across Kairos. Borderlands 4 was first announced this summer, and will be the first new entry in the looter shooter series since Borderlands 3 in 2019. It also follows the franchise’s debut on the big screen, as the Borderlands movie hit theaters in August to less than critical acclaim. The game is also in development during an interesting time for Gearbox; in March the studio was sold to Take-Two by beleaguered publisher Embracer.While Borderlands 4 doesn’t have a specific release date yet, it’s coming to PS5, Xbox, and PC next year.

Image: The Verge Moderators of multiple Reddit communities say the company has banned posts that include the alleged manifesto of Luigi Mangione, who has been charged for murder in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.In a post on Wednesday, a moderator of r/popculturechat wrote (emphasis theirs):We wanted to reach out to tell you all that we have officially been notified by Reddit that we must adhere strictly to their site-wide rules regarding violent content. Specifically, Reddit has told us that we are not allowed to post Luigi Mangione’s manifesto, even if it is reported neutrally.The moderator says that if they do not enforce the guidelines “to the letter,” there could be site-wide permanent bans on user accounts and “the potential shutdown of this subreddit.”As a result, the moderator team is doing the following to adhere to Reddit’s rules:• Any posts or comments that repost or encourage the manifesto will be removed.• Any posts or comments that show support for violence, including expressing positive feelings toward the death of Brian Thompson or similar content, will be removed.• We will be extremely strict in moderating these discussions to ensure compliance with Reddit’s policies.• If rule violations persist, we will be forced to implement a “cool down” period, meaning we will temporarily remove any posts about Luigi Mangione for a period of time to allow the situation to settle.It’s unclear if r/popculturechat is the only subreddit to have received a specific warning from Reddit. A post from moderators of a subreddit about Mangione claims that “Reddit is prohibiting posting the manifesto” and that “the mods must remove if posted,” but doesn’t say where that information is from. A moderator of another subreddit, r/wineandcrimepodcast, posted a slightly modified version of r/popculturechat’s message but says that “they had gotten warnings that some of us did not.”Reddit appears to be taking some actions of its own: a user on r/esist says that Reddit is deleting posts with excerpts from the manifesto, “including my last post,” and that their account has “a warning on it for encouraging violence.”But Reddit also seems to be inconsistently removing the manifesto, as we were able to find a link to the manifesto in Reddit search without much work. Reddit’s new AI-powered Answers tool also showed me information about the manifesto and where I could find it. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Reddit didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The first rule of Reddit’s content policy states that:Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.In its content policy, Reddit also says that “we ask that you abide by not just the letter of these rules, but the spirit as well.”

Image: Bandai Namco FromSoftware, the studio that just this month said it was “not really considering developments such as an Elden Ring 2,” has revealed a game that looks a lot like it could be Elden Ring 2.Elden Ring Nightreign is the next entry in the Elden Ring series. The trailer, debuting during this year’s The Game Awards, didn’t share much narrative details, but from the game’s official announcement, it doesn’t seem like game director Hidetaka Miyzaki told a fib. Nightreign goes in a completely different gameplay direction from the base game and the Shadows of the Erdtree DLC. Described as an action survival game, Nightreign is a standalone co-op multiplayer game lets up to three players work together to survive a single day in a parallel universe to the Lands Between. Players, called Nightfarers, will have up to eight different characters to choose from each with unique abilities and ultimate attacks. Each day, they have to fight through a battery of monsters to ultimately face off against a tough boss. While we don’t yet know when this takes place in Lands Between chronology, the trailer did show off a ton of gameplay. It appears to be similar to Elden Ring but with a greater emphasis on aggressive, flippy-dippy martial arts moves rather than the slower, more thoughtful combat in Elden Ring and Erdtree. The announcement also mentioned a constantly changing map that shrinks with each day along with abilities and gear players can use to customize their characters upon death. Taken all together, it sounds like FromSoftware put a little Hades chocolate in the Elden Ring peanut butter with a dash of Fortnite co-op and Overwatch hero classes for flavor.FromSoftware has, so far, only confirmed Xbox, PlayStation, and PC platforms and, surprisingly, a release date. Elden Ring Nightreign will launch sometime next year.

Image: EA Josef Fares is back and so is his penchant for cursing. The director of Hazelight Studios has returned to The Game Awards to debut his next game: Split Fiction.Split Fiction is a game that feels very much in Hazelight’s wheelhouse. Like It Takes Two and A Way Out before it, Split Fiction is a two-person split-screen co-op game. In it, two game developers have been trapped in a world they created and must play together to escape.It’s been a quiet but massively successful handful of years for Hazelight Studios. In 2021, it took home Game of the Year for It Takes Two in which two players must work together to overcome the myriad dangers of their home (and their failing marriage) Honey, I Shrunk The Kids-style.Earlier this year, the studio announced that It Takes Two sold 20 million copies. Polygon did a deep dive into the game’s sales numbers, determining that it sold at an astonishingly consistent and enviable clip of half a million copies per month since its release in March 2021. A truly remarkable feat given the game had very little marketing outside its initial release window and at a time when most consumers’ multiplayer tastes were wrapped up in “forever games” like Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite. With bona fides like that, it’s safe to say folks will be looking at Split Fiction, launching March 6th on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, with great interest.

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DDR5 RAM is the current generation of system memory for laptop and desktop PCs. When building your next system, I recommend DDR5 memory for the best performance, lowest energy usage, and excellent processor support. DDR4 continues to be supported by older platforms, some even rocking new CPUs such as the AMD Ryzen 5800XT, but it's simply not as good as DDR5 RAM.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Brandon Bell, Getty Images Two of tech’s biggest leaders have plans to meet with President-elect Donald Trump soon. The Information reports that Google CEO Sundar Pichai is flying to Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, and Trump has said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is meeting with him next week.Trump has had a tumultuous relationship with Google, claiming the search engine is “rigged” to hide positive coverage about him. However, in recent weeks, Trump claimed multiple times that Pichai called him on the phone. Pichai said during The New York Times DealBook Summit last week that the calls had “nothing to do” with the government’s antitrust cases against Google.As reported by The Information, sources don’t expect Pichai to “make any direct overtures to Trump about the antitrust lawsuit or other regulatory topics.” Trump said in October he would “do something” about Google when asked whether he’d go as far as breaking the company up. Google declined to comment about Pichai’s reported visit.Additionally, Trump confirmed that Bezos “is coming up next week” during an interview with CNBC on Thursday. Despite Trump’s feud with Amazon during his presidency, Bezos said he’s “very optimistic this time around.” The Verge reached out to Amazon with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.Pichai and Bezos aren’t the only tech leaders trying to smooth over their rocky histories with Trump. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — who Trump threatened to put in prison — met for dinner at Mar-a-Lago in November. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, according to The Wall Street Journal.