An international team of scientists has set a new data record, by transferring 1.8 petabits in a single second — the equivalent to twice the world’s global internet traffic for that period — using a cutting-edge optical chip paired with a single infrared laser.

Our modern-day civilization runs on torrents of data that are encoded into pulses of light from the binary computer language of ones and zeroes, and — where possible — transmitted around the world through a global network of fiber-optic cables.

In a new study published in the journal Nature Photonics, a team of researchers from the Technical University of Denmark has broken the record for the largest amount of data transferred in a single second. The researchers made use of a custom optical computer chip that was capable of using a single infrared laser to create hundreds of light frequencies, each of which can be imprinted with data.

These light frequencies are separated by a fixed, identical distance, like the teeth of a comb. This is the reason that this type of device is known as a frequency comb.

The researchers sent the data encoded on the light down a 7.9 km-long optical fiber and measured the amount of data transferred. It was discovered that the chip with its single infrared laser was able to transmit data at an astonishing rate of 1.84 petabits per second.

For context, 1 petabit is the equivalent of 1 million gigabits. According to a press release from the Technical University of Denmark, the 1.8 petabit per second transfer rate achieved by the team is the equivalent of sending the entire internet traffic usually sent in that period globally, *twice*.

Using the state of the art commercial chip technology in use today, the researchers estimate that it would take 1,000 lasers working in concert to transfer the same amount of data in the one second time frame, rather than the single laser used by the team. Furthermore, the newly produced chip wasn’t even optimized for the purposes of the study.

“In fact, some of the characteristic parameters were achieved by coincidence and not by design,” comments professor Victor Torres Company from the Chalmers University of Technology, head of the research group that created the new chip. “However, with efforts in my team, we are now capable to reverse engineer the process and achieve with high reproducibility microcombs for target applications in telecommunications.”

The new chip could also make the infrastructure of the internet more energy efficient.

“In other words, our solution provides a potential for replacing hundreds of thousands of the lasers located at Internet hubs and data centers, all of which guzzle power and generate heat,” explains Professor Leif Katsuo Oxenløwe from the Technical University of Denmark. “We have an opportunity to contribute to achieving an Internet that leaves a smaller climate footprint.”

A theoretical study was also conducted by the team, which suggested that a single chip of the new design could be scaled up to transmit as much as 100 petabits of data per second.

Further development of the technology will be needed before the chip can be used in a practical way. However, the scientists behind the study hope that their research will significantly influence how future communications systems are designed in the coming decades, in which time data use is expected to rise at a dramatic rate.

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN

Image credit: NicoElNino, Shutterstock

Over two decades after its initial release, Age of Empires 2 is finally headed to consoles, alongside the significantly more recent Age of Empires 4.

Announced today during the Age of Empires 25th Anniversary Broadcast, we learned that Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition will launch on Xbox consoles on January 31, 2023, while Age of Empires 4 will follow later in the same year.

We're also getting Age of Mythology Retold, a definitive edition of the original 2002 Age of Mythology. The game is currently in development with "updated graphics, features and more" but we have no further details on when we might finally see it.

Other announcements during the presentation included a teaser for Age of Empires on mobile, and the launch of Age of Empires 4: Anniversary Edition out today alongside an anniversary update with new civilizations, challenges, achievements, and features.

It will definitely be interesting to see how well the classic RTS series translates to consoles, both in its more retro (albeit spiffed up) format and the more modern Age of Empires 4. We thought Age of Empires 4 played it a bit too safe at times, but really excelled "when it wanders outside of its comfort zone" in our review last year.

Age of Mythology, meanwhile, we called a "real ornament for the genre and a benchmark that won't soon be surpassed," giving us all high hopes for Retold.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

If you're already missing looking forward to the next episode of House of the Dragon, you can look forward to the Blu-ray release of Season 1 on December 20. It's available for preorder on Amazon now.

House of the Dragon: The Complete First Season is already available to purchase on digital. The digital release and the upcoming physical release include over an hour of bonus features and two never-before-seen featurettes.

The physical release will come in many forms, including a 4K UHD Steelbook special edition (which includes Blu-ray), and standard releases of the season in 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD.

Here's a rundown of the titles of the included extra content, which amounts to about 73 minutes of footage:

• Welcome to Westeros (Exclusive to 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD)
• Returning to the Seven Kingdoms (Exclusive to 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD)
• A New Reign
• Returning to Westeros
• Before the Dance: An Illustrated History with George R.R. Martin
• Height of an Empire
• Noble Houses
• Familiar Places
• Introducing the Characters

House of the Dragon's first season just wrapped up this week, and it could be a long wait for Season 2. In our review of the season finale, we said the episode "kicks off the Dance of the Dragons in earnest with the best action scene of the season".

For more on House of the Dragon, check out how the finale altered one big move from the book, a shocking move that mirrored Game of Thrones, and a guide to every dragon in House of the Dragon.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

The first trailer for The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is here and it includes a special guest. The special will premiere on Disney+ on November 25, 2022.

Disney+ finally shared the first trailer for James Gunn's Guardians Holiday Special and like all good Holiday Specials, it's about friends helping each other out. Peter is still sad following the events around Gamora after Avengers: Endgame and it's up to Drax and Mantis to cheer him up by bringing him his childhood hero, Kevin Bacon.

You can watch the trailer below.

Kevin Bacon is a throwback to the first Guardians fo the Galaxy movie where Peter made references to the film Footloose. Not content with letting it be a one-off joke, it appears the Holiday Special will focus on Drax and Mantis' plan to kidnap, er, capture(?) Bacon as a gift for Peter.

To do so, Mantis and Drax travel to Earth where they will no doubt be caught up in all kinds of shenanigans and hijinks.

Other characters including Nebula, Rocket, Groot, and Kraglin will also appear in the special, but it seems this will be a Drax Mantis-focused special from the teaser.

James Gunn previously called the Holiday Special an "epilogue" to Phase 4 which is set to end with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

After that, Phase 5 will begin with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which released its first trailer just earlier this week.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Activision Blizzard has failed in its attempt to have the gender discrimination lawsuit filed against it by the state of California dismissed.

As reported by Axios, the Court of Appeal dismissed Activision Blizzard's claims that the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) - who filed the suit in July 2021 under its previous name, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing - broke its own rules "in its rush to file a lawsuit".

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson said the result was "disappointing" and the company's opinion on the lawsuit's legitimacy has not been changed.

The CRD is encouraged by the result, however, which allows its litigation to continue. "With the Court of Appeal’s denial of a writ of mandate, the CRD will continue litigating this case to enforce the civil rights guarantees in the Fair Employment and Housing Act and the California Equal Pay Act on behalf of women who worked for Activision," said CRD director Kevin Kish in an official statement.

"The Court of Appeal’s ruling allows the CRD to continue pursuing relief for the thousands of women in California who have suffered sex-based discrimination, harassment, and retaliation as Activision workers."

The CRD's suit is currently pending in Los Angeles Superior Court with an expected trial date in February 2023, though both sides are now reportedly requesting it be postponed. It accuses Activision Blizzard of fostering a "frat boy culture" and was the first of several gender discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits filed against the company.

Activision Blizzard settled one with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $18 million back in March, and the parents of a suicide victim named in the original lawsuit asked for their own suit to be dismissed in June.

Another lawsuit was filed earlier in October from an anonymous ex-employee that claimed "Activision Blizzard is a massive video game company with a massive sexual harassment problem," seeking damages alongside the removal of CEO Bobby Kotick, who was previously accused of knowing about but not reporting sexual harassment allegations at Activision Blizzard.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Black Adam is joining the likes of Batman, Rick and Morty, and Harley Quinn in Multiversus later this week, alongside a new arcade mode.

Multiversus announced the new additions on Twitter (below) with a brief teaser trailer, though didn't give much away as to how Black Adam will play or what the arcade mode will entail.

Despite releasing alongside the DC Extended Universe film, however, Black Adam doesn't appear to be based on Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's version of the character.

Extra, Extra: Unexplainable Lightning Surges Jolt Arcades Everywhere! Black Adam and Arcade Mode join #MultiVersus later this week! pic.twitter.com/gW2YGyWbhx

— MultiVersus (@multiversus) October 24, 2022

A pixel art version of the character appears in the new teaser trailer, matching a previously shared look at the character that appears to be based on the Black Adam comics.

A specific release date wasn't shared either, though both Black Adam and the arcade mode will arrive in an update by October 30 at the latest, and likely by October 28.

Multiversus was released in July and has received pretty frequent updates ever since, with Player First Games adding the likes of Gremlins' Gizmo and Stripe, Rick and Morty, and more.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "MultiVersus may not be a must-play at social gatherings, but its refreshing team-based battles make it a great platform fighter online."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

The idea of a crossover between Power Rangers and Cobra Kai is as ridiculous as it is appealing. And while we'll probably never see Johnny Lawrence and his students take on Rita Repulsa in live-action, Hasbro is giving fans a taste of how that mash-up could look with a new series of Power Rangers: The Lightning Collection figures.

The Mighty Morphin x Cobra Kai series consists of three figures that give Miyagi-verse characters a Power Rangers-flavored makeover. Daniel LaRusso becomes the White Crane Ranger, while his daughter Samantha becomes the Pink Mantis. The third figure, the aptly named Skeleputty, combines Rita's minion with the Halloween skeleton costumes seen in one of The Karate Kid's most iconic fight scenes.

Get a closer look at all three figures in the slideshow gallery below:

As with the rest of the Power Rangers: The Lightning Collection line, these figures at designed at 1:12 scale and measure about 6 inches in height. Each figure includes various accessories like alternate heads, weapons and energy pieces.

The entire Mighty Morphin x Cobra Kai series is exclusive to Target and is priced at $29.99 each. Preorders will open up at 9am ET on October 25, with an estimated Spring 2023 release window.

• Preorder the Daniel LaRusso: Morphed White Crane Figure
• Preorder the Samantha LaRusso: Morphed Pink Mantis Figure
• Preorder the Skeleputty Figure

Weirdly enough, this isn't even the first time Cobra Kai has crossed over with another iconic martial arts franchise in action figure form. Playmates Toys recently released a series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Cobra Kai figures that pit Johnny Lawrence and the gang against the Heroes in a Half Shell. If you prefer your Cobra Kai figures a little more grounded in reality, Diamond Select Toys has a line of Cobra Kai figures directly inspired by the Netflix series.

Cobra Kai is still going strong, with the most recent season having hit Netflix in September 2022. You can check out IGN's full Season 5 review and our spoiler-filled breakdown of Season 5's ending.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

FromSoftware has announced that the PC servers for Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition have been taken offline permanently, though the Remastered version will still be restored.

Also confirming that Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin's PC servers are back online after ten months, FromSoftware said in a tweet (below) that the infrastructure of the original Dark Souls is simply too old to be supported at this point.

"We have determined that we will not be able to support online services for the PC version of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition that was released in 2012, due to an aging system," it said. "We apologize for the long wait and ask for your understanding in this matter."

The Prepare to Die Edition was the original PC release for the game, launching almost a year after the original console editions.

Our sincere thanks to the people who have been playing Dark Souls since its launch.

— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) October 25, 2022

Dark Souls: Remastered will work again eventually, though it's still unclear when exactly FromSoftware will restore its servers after a serious exploit - which allowed other players to take over the user's PC - led to all three games being taken offline in January.

FromSoftware has released incremental updates ever since and restored the Dark Souls 3 servers in August. Now that the Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin's servers are back online, FromSoftware's attention should turn to restoring Dark Souls: Remastered, though it's unclear if it will focus on this or the base version of Dark Souls 2 first.

Work on the restoration of online services for the PC version of Dark Souls Remastered is still underway, and we will inform you when they return.

Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated.

— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) October 25, 2022

As the original exploit arose just a month before the developer released Elden Ring, fans looking forward to the game were worried it would affect its multiplayer components. Thankfully, however, Elden Ring was able to launch without major issues and became an incredible success.

It did have to deal with a few hacking issues though, after an infamous Dark Souls hacker appeared in Elden Ring and forced illegal items into players' inventories, causing them to be banned. Even weirder, the game's secret underwear was also being used by trolls to get other players banned.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

We now have an official release date for the new DualSense Edge, an elite wireless controller for PlayStation 5. It will release on January 26, and that means preorders are also set to go live very soon for the new gamepad (October 25 to be exact).

But, where can I preorder the DualSense Edge controller? That and more will be answered in our handy FAQ preorder guide just below. For more news on the DualSense Edge, makes sure you're following @IGNDeals and @IGNUKDeals on Twitter.

Where Can I Preorder the DualSense Edge Controller?

Preorders for the DualSense Edge Controller will be exclusively available from PlayStation Direct in the US, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Moreover, it will only begin to be offered at other participating retailers starting February 23, 2023, as well. The likes of Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and more won't be seeing the controller listed for several more months. So if you want to buy one, it'll likely have to be directly from Sony for the time being.

When Can I Preorder the DualSense Edge Controller?

DualSense Edge controller preorders will be live from October 25, exclusively at PS Direct until it releases in January. The official release date is January 26, 2023, and the controller will continue to be exclusive to PS Direct until late February (US, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg).

What is the DualSense Edge Controller?

Initially revealed at Gamescom's Opening Night Live, DualSense Edge is a high-end controller that appears to be Sony's answer to Xbox's Elite controller range. A PS Blog entry has detailed the highly customisable controller, which allows you to set bespoke control mappings and even deactivate specific buttons.

Visually, the controller is very much alligned with the normal DualSense, but with a few extra elements to bring it up to premium standards. As with the Xbox controller, you can expect swappable thumb stick caps and adjustable dead zones.

What Does the DualSense Edge Controller Include?

• DualSense Edge wireless controller
• USB braided cable
• 2 Standard caps
• 2 High dome caps
• 2 Low dome caps
• 2 Half dome back buttons
• 2 Lever back buttons
• Connector housing
• Carrying case

How Much Does the DualSense Edge Controller Cost?

The price for the DualSense Edge controller is as follows in the US, UK, and Europe: $199.99 / £209.99 / €239.99. Just for comparison, the new Xbox Elite Series 2 Core costs $129.99 / £114.99, while the complete Elite Series 2 package with all the bells and whistles costs $179.99 / £159.99.

DualSense Edge vs. Xbox Elite Series 2

To better understand the DualSense Edge, let’s take a look at the specs (so far), dig into its standout features, and see how it compares to the Xbox Elite Series 2, in addition to the base DualSense and Xbox wireless controllers. We'll provide a brief overview here, but check out our full feature on comparing the two controllers right here on IGN as well.

Adjustable Trigger Hair Locks

The DualSense Edge includes adjustable trigger hair locks on the back of the device, similar to the Elite line. This means you can adjust the travel distance of the controller’s triggers, which is useful when playing competitive shooters or when you want to minimize the dead zone while playing racing games.

Button Mapping

Button remapping is also available on both controllers. The Xbox Elite Series 2 offers three different ways for you to remap buttons, including one that requires going to the Accessories app on your Xbox. The DualSense Edge, as noted in the PlayStation Blog, features an “on-controller user interface” with a dedicated Fn button that will allow you to adjust your controller’s settings and other things like game volume.

Replacable Stick Modules

One thing that certainly provides a competitive edge for the DualSense Edge is the ability to replace the stick modules, something the Xbox Elite controller does not offer. Although the stick modules will be sold separately, the fact that you can change the thumbsticks entirely is a big deal, as there have been reports since the PS5’s launch of controller drift. The option to replace the thumbsticks will help increase the longevity of the DualSense Edge.

Both controllers come with removable thumbsticks, though. The Xbox Elite Series 2 offers a set of six adjustable-tension thumbsticks: two standard, two classic, one tall, and one wide dome. The DualSense Edge will offer three types of stick caps: standard, high dome, and low dome. For more premium controllers, check out our review of the Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Maisie Williams is “finally proud” of her role as Arya Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones, even if the series didn’t end on the same strong note it began.

During a Twitch Stream with her brother, James Williams, Variety spotted Maisie’s sentiment on the series finale, which she acknowledged “definitely fell off at the end.” After her recent rewatch, the actor and her brother discussed their feelings on the HBO series, and it sounds like her opinions on the show have evolved since its controversial ending.

“It was very good, and for a long time, I felt like I had to avoid it because it was too triggering,” Williams said. “But now, I feel like I’ve made peace with it all again.” she continued.

“It feels good to be proud of it; it was ten years of my life,” she continued after discussing the more emotional moments from season one. The youngest Stark sibling seems to reflect on it fondly now, while her real-life brother insists it’s still “great TV.”

In an April interview with GQ, Masie explained growing up with the show and her complicated relationship with playing Arya. It didn't always make for an easy childhood in the spotlight, but she hinted to warming to the idea of returning as Arya. When asked about reprising the role, she said, “it has to be the right time and the right people,” and “it has to be at the right time for me.”

Game of Thrones is still going in the form of spin-offs, with the House of the Dragon prequel wrapping up its first season now on HBO.

Andrea Shearon is a freelance news writer at IGN covering games and entertainment. Find her on Twitter (@Maajora) chatting about FFXIV and other RPGs