Latest News - Page 1005

Superman has been in limbo for a few years now, with Henry Cavill's iteration of the character starting out in Man of Steel back in 2013, and then again in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016. The highly controversial theatrical mess "Justice League" shouldn't even count, while Cavill's last movie as Superman was in Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Man of Steel 2 is something that should've been greenlit immediately after Man of Steel's success in 2013, but Warner Bros. pushed towards the directions of "OMG Marvel" and greenlit Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice instead. The rest is history, with WB screwing over major members of the cast as well as director Zack Snyder during a time of darkness in his life.

Fast forward to 2022 and we have The Rock starring in Black Adam, which is injecting a much-needed injection of life into the DCEU and fast-tracking Henry Cavill's Superman back into the DC movies. The Rock has personally met with Cavill over the years as friends, as he's wanted to play Black Adam for 15+ years now, and ultimately wants to fight the strongest character in the universe: Superman.

Mark Zuckerberg has taken to his personal Instagram account to throw some shade at Apple and its iMessage messaging service.

This isn't the first time jabs have been thrown by Zuckerberg toward Apple, and Apple has even retaliated, giving onlookers the perception that there is a degree of rivalry erupting between the two goliath companies. The most recent swing was by Zuckerberg, who took to his Instagram account on October 17 to tout WhatsApp being a superior alternative to Apple's iMessage, writing that it's far more private and secure than Apple's messaging service as it features end-to-end encryption that works across iPhones and Android devices.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to warn the public of a scenario that he says may very well cause the collapse of civilization.

Once again, Musk has chimed in on the events that are unfolding between Russia and Ukraine by taking to Twitter and showing his support for specific scenarios that may happen in the near future. The SpaceX CEO began a long back and forth on the social media platform when he was asked about the possibility of battlefield nukes being deployed or the chances of World War 3 erupting out of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Musk wrote that if Russia is forced to decide between losing Crimea or using tactical nuclear weapons, the nation will choose nuclear weapons.

Musk went on to say that in response to battlefield nukes being first used by Russia, the US may respond with its own tactical nukes, which would then cause Russia to nuke the United States. From that point on, we have World War 3, according to Musk. The Tesla CEO further explained that regardless of how someone feels about Crimea, Russia sees it as a vital part of Russia as its the nation's most southern navy base. Musk used an analogy in an attempt to get people to understand his point, with the Tesla CEO saying that Russia losing Crimea would be like the US losing Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin campus will launch a five-year study surrounding the creation and safe operation of a robot network on campus. Spot from Boston Dynamics and a model from Unitree will be used as part of the project.

Once ready for testing, people on the UT Austin campus can use an app to order free supplies, which robots will deliver to designated spots on campus. Throughout each delivery journey, researchers are curious to see how pedestrians on campus react to the robots.

Between observations and interviews, researchers want to gain insight into how humans feel about the robots sharing the world alongside them. This type of insight will prove beneficial to robot designers working on public-facing products and services.

Autonomous aviation company Xwing will work with NASA to create an infrastructure to support autonomous aircraft safety systems. Most hear NASA and naturally think of space exploration, but the agency might be able to facilitate competing aviation companies to collaborate on certain projects.

Xwing ground and flight operations data will be shared in the US National Airspace System (NAS), which NASA will provide risk assessments for. The SWS project also has a concentrated focus on the changes in aviation that rely on digital and data-driven information - and NASA will keep aviation safety at the forefront during the digital transformation.

If autonomous flights become more common, ensuring the industry has pilot/operator certifications, a new infrastructure, and safety data are all super important considerations. Flight hazards such as vision-based landing and runway detection will be important for safe processes involving aircraft localization.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is here and its nifty new 16-pin PCIe power connector (12VHPWR) can be annoying... it sits very high in your case, and can hit the side window... until Cablemod stepped up into the ring.

Cablemod has just announced its new 12VHPWR Right Angle Adapter, which plugs directly into the 12VHPWR port and turns it into a 90-degree angle, better fitting inside of your PC. The new 12VHPWR 90-degree cable requires just an additional 23.2mm of space to get it into your PC.

You can't buy Cablemod's new 12VHPWR Right Angle Adapter just yet, with the company having the 90-degree cable on pre-sale starting October 31... a great present to yourself, or your RTX 4090 that is, for Halloween. It doesn't really help if you're already using a GeForce RTX 4090, but if you haven't pulled the trigger yet, the new 90-degree right-angle cable from Cablemod is going to be your second purchase.

VESA has just announced the updated DisplayPort 2.1 specification today, also announcing that any DisplayPort 2.0-ready product is now a DisplayPort 2.1-certified product.... and those products do NOT include NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs (unfortunately, and very silly I might add).

The updated DisplayPort 2.1 specification means that any and all DisplayPort 2.0-certified products (this includes UHBR aka Ultra-High Bit Rate products) like GPUs, monitor scalar chips, docking station chips, DP40 + DP80 cables, and anything else that's DP2.0-ready is now DP2.1-ready.

AMD has its new Ryzen 6000 series with DisplayPort 2.0 compatibility, as well as Intel's did-they-even-release-it Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards have DP2.0 ports, which have now all been silently upgraded to DP2.1 overnight. NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 does NOT have DisplayPort 2.0, so there's no upgrade to DisplayPort 2.1, which is something that I've covered extensively before, during, and after the RTX 4090 launch.

Bayonetta 3 voice actress Jennifer Hale has delivered a response to the ongoing controversy surrounding the game.

A few days ago, original Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor revealed why she wouldn't be portraying the witch heroine in Bayonetta 3. Taylor alleges that PlatinumGames only offered an "immoral" $4,000 to voice the entire game and asked fans to boycott the game. This kicked off an industry-wide discussion around pay gaps in voice work and a big controversy ensued.

Now Jennifer Hale, who was brought on to replace Taylor as the voice of Bayonetta in Bayonetta 3, has issued a statement regarding the issues.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is the latest new-gen game with a hard 30FPS cap, however the visuals are quite dazzling.

Visuals versus frame rates--it's been an age-old battle since the beginning of gaming. Console-makers, engine crafters, and GPU wizards have been able to significantly reduce the trade offs over the years with technical magic like DLSS, Fidelity FX Super Resolution, and methods like Variable Rate Shading (see our Xbox Series X review for more info).

There's been lots of emphasis on frame rates with new-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, however some games are pushing for maximum visual quality and are willing to significantly sacrifice FPS in favor of dazzling graphics. That appears to be the case with A Plague Tale: Requiem, which looks to be one of the most beautiful third-party games released on the newer generation.

Hideo Kojima recently shared a photograph of himself sharing beers with PlayStation Worldwide Studios boss Hermen Hulst

Kojima Productions is pretty busy right now and the studio is playing both sides of the console market. Following his meeting with Phil Spencer at the Tokyo Game Show presumably to discuss his new innovative Xbox project, gaming auteur Hideo Kojima recently met up with PlayStation exec Hermen Hulst.

It's possible that Kojima and Hulst were discussing plans for Death Stranding 2, which is believed to be in development. Remember that Kojima Productions is using Guerrilla Games' proprietary Decima engine for both Death Stranding 1 and 2, and that Hulst used to lead Guerrilla Games.

Machinima group Rooster Teeth is currently at the center of an ongoing controversy stemming back multiple years.

Multiple former Rooster Teeth employees have come forward with allegations of mistreatment while working at the company. The news broke out over the weekend and spread rapidly on Twitter, with reports of slurs, poor wages, and over-work.

The most damning allegations come from Kdin Jenzen, a former achievement hunter who had made content for Rooster Teeth for 8 years. Jenzen alleges that while working at the company he was called slurs for years, worked 14-15 hour days, and that HR refused to help.

On October 9, astronomers' telescopes detected what is now considered to be the brightest flash of light ever observed.

Researchers say that the flash of light lasted for hundreds of seconds and was a burst of gamma rays likely caused by a collapsing star that transformed into a black hole. Notably, when a star explodes in a supernova, it can collapse into a black hole, and the leftover matter from the explosion then forms an accretion disk around the black hole. This matter eventually falls inside of the black hole and causes a large jet of energy to be shot out at speeds close to the speed of light. Some instances of this gamma-ray jet have reached 99.99% the speed of light.

Furthermore, the flash of light released photons that carried a record 18 teraelectronvolts of energy, which is 18 with 12 zeros behind it. Such power was even felt on Earth, with reports indicating that long-wave radio communications in Earth's ionosphere have been impacted by the flash. Astrophysicist Brendan O'Connor recently spoke to AFP and explained that he took observations of the event last Friday and found that the event itself occurred 2.4 billion light years away from Earth.

Russia announced its launch of a small military satellite on Saturday, October 15, which will be controlled by Russia's Ministry of Defense.

Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, which is the equivalent of NASA, took to Telegram to announce that an Angara rocket launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia Saturday at 3:55 p.m. The rocket was carrying a small satellite that the agency is calling EMKA-3, which was assigned the serial number Kosmos-2560. According to reports, the satellite is estimated to be approximately 330-pounds and is on its way to a sun-synchronous orbit of approximately 190 miles above Earth.

EverydayAstronaut has reported that not much is known about the EMKA series of satellites, with rumors indicating that they are optical reconnaissance spacecraft. However, that has hardly been confirmed by Roscosmos or Russia's Ministry of Defense, and it's likely to stay that way. Notably, Russia has now launched three of these EMKA satellites, the first was launched in 2018 but eventually fell back to Earth. Russia followed up by launching two more in September 2021 and April 2022. However, both of those reportedly fell back to Earth after a month of service.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has conducted yet another safe transportation of International Space Station astronauts back down to Earth.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-4 astronaut climbed aboard the Dragon spacecraft and safely touched back down on Earth last Friday, landing safely off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, and Jessica Watkins, as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, wrapped up their nearly six-month stay aboard the ISS on October 12 when they climbed aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft.

The spacecraft successfully deployed its parachutes throughout its descent and splashed down in the ocean at 4:55 p.m. EDT. During the astronauts' time on the ISS, they traveled 72,168,935 miles, completing 170 days aboard the floating laboratory and 2,720 orbits around Earth. During their mission on the ISS, the astronauts completed various scientific and maintenance tests as well as technology demonstrations, some of which they brought back to Earth for further analysis.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs first revealed the iPhone back in 2007 at MacWorld San Francisco, and only a few months after the reveal it released for $499/$599.

Jobs showcased the iPhone on January 9 2007 and announced that it would come in two version, an 4GB model and a 8GB model, hence the aforementioned price variation. The original iPhone debuted the now standardized innovative touchscreen, along with a 2-megapixel camera and a web browser, with Jobs describing the device as an "iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator" all-in-one simple device.

Following its public release it quickly became Apple's most successful product, while also causing massive ripple effects that are even seen to this day throughout the smartphone industry. Furthermore, Time Magazine named the original iPhone as the Time Magazine Invention of the Year in 2007. Being a relic of the technology industry, an original iPhone in the unsealed iconic packaging would certainly be of interest to an Apple fan, and it was, selling for nearly $40,000 to one lucky bidder.

Mercedes-AMG recently presented the 2024 AMG EQE SUV, the first all-electric SUV from the performance sports brand.

The AMG EQE SUV is the first Mercedes-AMG SUV and is the third vehicle of the Mercedes-EQ electric platform. Two electric motors give it a 677 horsepower rated output with 738 lb-ft torque all-wheel drive luxury vehicle.

That extra oomph to deliver that horsepower comes at the expense of travel range: The battery range is estimated between 233 miles and 292 miles supported by the 90.6 kWh battery. Mercedes-AMG will make improvements in range but believes buyers understand the trade-off when they pick this SUV.

NASA announced on September 27 that it had successfully collided a small spacecraft into a distant asteroid in the world's first planetary defense mission.

The success of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) marked the world's very first planetary defense mission, where the orbit of a planetary object was successfully altered, meaning Earth basically proved it has the capabilities of changing the orbit of distant objects. Famed astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on PBS NewsHour to discuss the mission and the implications of its success.

Tyson said that humans have known about the risk of asteroids for many years and that he is surprised that a mission such as DART has taken so long to happen, considering the overall risks asteroids pose toward Earth. However, Tyson says, "better late than never", and went on to explain that the DART team selected a small 500-foot-wide asteroid that orbits a larger asteroid, hence its definition of a moonlet. The smaller asteroid named Dimorphos has a very well-understood orbit, and after the DART collision, astronomers are able to check how much of that orbit has changed based on the impact.

In an effort to reduce carbon emissions, trucking companies will greatly benefit from the expansion of battery electric (BEVs), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) as a push away from diesel continues. Long-haul trucking also will benefit from operational requirements either meeting - or surpassing - similar diesel trucks.

It's not just electric cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs receiving attention for product launches, with delivery vans, moving trucks, and big rigs also gaining from EV advancements. Companies are anxious for the total cost of ownership (TCO) of electric to become more financially advantageous over current diesel models.

The majority of trucks on European roads travel less than 500 miles per day while in use, and truck battery range is improving.

The very first near-Earth asteroid was discovered in the 1800s, and since then, astronomers have been scouring the skies for more.

Over the course of many years, astronomers have continuously found more and more near-Earth asteroids, with researchers reaching a milestone number of more than 30,000 near-Earth asteroids only recently. As equipment increases in quality and accuracy, astronomers are exponentially finding more asteroids. To illustrate this, more than 15,000 near-Earth asteroids were discovered in just the past 10 years. So, are any of these dangerous?

Scientists believe that they have found all asteroids that would cause an extinction-level event if they impact Earth. These asteroids are considered to be "large" near-Earth asteroids (NEA), which means their orbit comes within 120,842,549 miles of the Sun, and their diameter is slightly larger than 1 mile. Researchers report that all of the asteroids of this caliber have already been discovered and that none as expected to hit Earth for at least the next 100 years.

Vehicles from Mercedes-Benz will become the first non-Apple devices to use Apple's Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, it was announced. The partnership also includes the Universal Music Group (UMG), so drivers will have a wider selection of music to listen to while out on the road.

Apple promotes Spatial Audio by saying it is able to deliver a listening experience that creates a theater-like sound that feels like it's coming from all around the listener. Apple said it is equipping Mercedes vehicles with "studio-quality sound" that is "better than in any concert hall, and giving drivers a fully immersive listening experience with unparalleled, multidimensional sound and clarity."

Over 70% of music consumers listen to their tunes mostly in a car, while the same number of people cannot imagine riding in a vehicle without music.