Latest News - Page 1023

General Motors will sell up to 175,000 electric vehicles to rental car company Hertz over the next five years, the two companies recently announced.

Customers renting cars from Hertz will be able to select the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV starting in the first half of 2023, with the Blazer, Equinox, and other models to follow later. Once fully rolled out, GM aims to provide a variety in vehicles for Hertz, including compact cars and midsize SUVs to pickup trucks and luxury vehicles.

As noted by GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra:

NVIDIA unleashed its new GeForce RTX 4090 but now AIB partners are announcing their new custom RTX 4090 designs... and man... GIGABYTE's new custom AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER makes the word behemoth feel small.

The new AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER graphics card is one of the largest graphics cards that GIGABYTE has ever made, and I'm sure it's joined the club of one of the biggest graphics cards ever made, period.

We're talking about a card that is 35.8cm long -- not bad so far, but the AORUS RTX 4090 MASTER is 16.2cm wide making it a thick boi for sure. But when it comes to how tall the card is, that's where it's even chunkier: 75.1cm high.

NVIDIA showed off its next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card in a new test of Cyberpunk 2077 using a pre-release version of DLSS 3.

The performance improvement is absolutely astonishing with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 powered with DLSS 3 enabled in Cyberpunk 2077, with performance skyrocketing from 60FPS average at 1440p maxed out, to an almost unbelievable 170FPS average (with DLSS 3 set to Quality, not to Performance mode to be specific).

If we compare this to the current-gen GeForce RTX 3090 Ti with DLSS 2 disabled, the RTX 3090 Ti spits out just 36FPS average (compared to 60FPS on the RTX 4090) while with DLSS 2 enabled on Quality mode performance bumps up just to 62FPS average.

Mercedes-Benz continues its foray into electric vehicles with the AMG C63 S E Performance, dropping the 4.0-liter V8 previous model with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas-electric model.

The in-line turbocharged four-cylinder engine features an electric motor on the rear axle, to provide additional peak power to all four wheels through the fully variable all-wheel drive system.

Sporting a turbocharged engine, a massive 671 horsepower from the hybrid propulsion system far surpasses the 469 or 503 horsepower from the previous generation. Drivers with a need for speed will be able to accelerate 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.3 seconds, with a vehicle top speed of 174 mph.

NVIDIA has shown off its next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card during a recent demo, showing the GPU clocking close to 3.0GHz as Jensen promised.

The new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card was powered by an Intel Core i9-12900K processor, running CD PROJEKT RED's visual showcase: Cyberpunk 2077. The game was run at 1440p using Ultra Ray Tracing and Psycho settings (maximum).

Cyberpunk 2077 running at the native 2560 x 1440 resolution on the GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card -- without DLSS enabled -- was running at 60FPS average. The AD102-300 GPU inside of the RTX 4090 was running at over 2.8GHz during this demo, sitting between 2810MHz and 2850MHz with cool temps of just 50-55C.

United States House of Representatives Congressman Matt Gaetz (R, FL) is joining Twitch to promote his America First message to younger audiences.

Just yesterday Twitch announced that it would not enact a 70-30 revenue sharing split and would in fact reduce revenue splits to just 50-50. This new policy was massively controversial and has sent shockwaves through the billion-dollar streaming industry. Twitch's image fell even farther following a revealing Twitch expose from Bloomberg's Cecilia D'Anastasio.

Now Twitch is facing more pressure from audiences, fans, and social media followers as controversial Florida Republican Matt Gaetz has announced he will start streaming political messaging on his own Twitch channel.

SpaceX is gearing up for its first orbital test flight of the highly anticipated Starship launch vehicle that is poised to be Earth's mode of transportation to the Moon and eventually Mars.

Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO and founder, recently took to Twitter to give some updated details on Starship's development and when the public can expect the massive rocket to conduct its first orbital test flight. Musk shared details on SpaceX's plans for Starship and how the company is currently going through rigorous testing of Booster 7, which will be used in Starship's first stage. It was only earlier in the week that SpaceX tested seven of its Raptor 2 engines in a static fire test at its Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.

Booster 7, when equipped to Starship, will feature thirty-three of these Raptor 2 engines, and judging by SpaceX's progress and the comments from Musk, it seems that Booster 7 will be what Starship uses in its first orbital test flight. Leading up to the launch, SpaceX will be making several improvements to Booster 7 that will increase its reliability while simultaneously adding protections to the engines in case of a malfunction. It should be noted that the Raptor engines are the most expensive part of the rocket.

NASA has provided the public with an update on its repaired Artemis 1 moon rocket named the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Last month NASA wanted to kick start its Artemis missions by initiating Artemis 1, a reconnaissance journey around the Moon that would provide the space agency with the foundational knowledge that'll be used in future Artemis missions. NASA attempted to launch the SLS rocket on September 3 but encountered an unexpected liquid hydrogen leak, specifically at the "quick disconnect" interface located on the SLS's core stage. The fuel leak was unable to be remedied in time for launch resulting in the space agency postponing the launch to a later date and repairs to be conducted on the malfunctioning area.

Artemis 1 teams were able to identify the issue and replaced two seals around the quick disconnect on September 9, and following the repairs, the space agency scheduled a fueling test to see if the improvements were adequate. The fueling test was conducted on Wednesday this week, and overall, NASA has deemed the repairs a success as "all of the objects that we set out to do we were able to accomplish today".

Florida has requested that the Supreme Court settle a dispute between social media companies and the potential of states violating Frist Amendment free speech rights.

In a new report from The Washington Post, Florida's attorney general sent a request to the Supreme Court on Wednesday to prompt them to determine if states have the right to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their platforms. The publication reports that depending on the conclusion from the Supreme Court will determine if social media platforms are prevented from censoring content on their own platforms in Texas and Florida.

The debate has already received two rulings from court systems, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit deciding to go against Florida's law that would prevent the censoring of certain content, while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld Texas's law. The divide between the two court systems warrants a determination from the Supreme Court, according to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.

A worldwide team of citizen scientists collaborated with professional astronomers along with NASA's Juno team to create animations of Jupiter's cloud tops.

The team gathered data from NASA's JunoCam, which is the visible light camera that is located on NASA's Juno spacecraft that arrived in Jupiter's orbit in 2016. The Juno spacecraft was specifically equipped with JunoCam to spark more public interest in the exploration of Jupiter and its surrounding moons, and now the aforementioned citizen scientists, professional astronomers, and Juno team have demonstrated that the camera can be used for credible scientific operations.

Citizen scientist and professional mathematician and software engineer Gerald Eichstadt presented the results at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada. According to the software developer, the Juno mission provides researchers with an opportunity to observe Jupiter in a way that is "essentially inaccessible" by Earth-based telescopes and that researchers are able to capture the same cloud features from different angles within only a few minutes.

NASA is about to collide a spacecraft into a distant asteroid and on its way to its target NASA's spacecraft has snapped images of Jupiter.

NASA has taken to its blog on its website to reveal images snapped by its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft that expected to collide with the binary asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos. The binary asteroid system doesn't pose any threat to Earth, but NASA want to test the first planetary defense technique that involves colliding a spacecraft into an asteroid in an attempt to change its orbit. The technique, called a kinetic impactor, if proven to be effective, may be used in the future to save Earth from an asteroid that is dangerous.

The DART spacecraft is equipped with an imager called the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation, or DRACO, and during its journey it has been used by researchers to snap thousands of images of stars. The images are used by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) team leading the mission to provide continuous support for the spacecraft in terms of making sure its trajectory lines up directly with the target asteroid. Furthermore, the images are used by DART's autonomous guidance system, which will also be used to make sure DART hits its mark.

NASA has launched an investigation into a technical glitch that presented itself on the James Webb Space Telescope's ultracold camera.

NASA took to its official blog to publish an update on the condition of the telescope's affected camera and how ground teams were forced into postponing certain observations while a remedy is created. The space agency explains that on Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), there are four separate modes, and the device or mechanism that supports one of the modes is called the medium-resolution spectroscopy (MRS).

This mechanism allows for researchers to select what wavelength of light they are observing in, and according to a NASA update, the mechanism experienced an increase in friction during its setup on August 24. In response to preliminary health checks on the instrument and mechanism, NASA formed an anomaly review board on September 6 to assess the situation and provide the space agency with the best path forward.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is honing in on planets in our solar system, with NASA's newest observatory focusing its instruments on Neptune.

NASA has announced in a new release that researchers have used Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to reveal an incredible view of Neptune's rings, which haven't been imaged at this level of clarity since NASA's Voyager 2 probe flew past the planet in 1989. Neptune is located approximately 30 times father from the Sun than Earth, making it our solar system's most distant planet.

Additionally, planets such as Neptune and Uranus are ice giants and are different to the gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn. Ice giants are mostly composed of gaseous methane versus gas giants being almost entirely composed of hydrogen and helium. The methane that is present in ice giants such as Neptune and Uranus give it the blue color when observed through the visual light spectrum.

Cyberpunk 2077 is back in the limelight for very good reasons this time.

Following a disastrous launch that tanked company share prices, CD Projekt has radically turned around Cyberpunk 2077 on all platforms. The studio has invested tremendous revenues into correcting the game's issues with a ton of patches, including a next-gen re-release. While gamers haven't entirely forgotten about Cyberpunk 2077's launch woes, they certainly are willing to buy and return to the game.

According to CD Projekt, Cyberpunk 2077 has surged in popularity on consoles and PC. Over 1 million people have played Cyberpunk 2077 every day this week thanks in no small part to the new Edgerunners anime. This trend clearly validates CD Projekt's transmedia focus which stretches its key IPs and licensed franchises into merchandise and TV shows, including Edgerunners and the Witcher Netflix series.

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has announced he has joined Tencent Games as a strategic advisor.

With over $30 billion from gaming, Tencent is the world's largest video games company and the Chinese is only getting bigger with continued multi-studio investments. To help lead Tencent's evolution past live services and more into infrastructure and high-profile games, Shawn Layden, who helped Sony earn mega-billions during the PlayStation 4 era, has joined Tencent as a strategic advisor.

"Looks like LinkedIn leapt the species wall and the news is here. Nevertheless, quick update to say I've joined Tencent as a strategic advisor and am excited to be working with them as interactive entertainment drives technology and innovation," Layden said on Twitter.

Twitch plans to enact a blanket 50/50 split for all streamers regardless of size.

Twitch today announced a controversial change in how it will share revenues with streamers. The company currently offers two types of contracts to streamers: a "premium" contract offering a 70-30 split (70% to creators, 30% to Twitch) and the standard contract with a 50-50 split. In June 2023, Twitch will change all premium contracts to a 50-50 split. The change will not affect current contracts, the company has said.

The 70-30 split will still be honored for all premium streamers up until their first $100,000 in earnings. After that, the revenue share reverts to 50-50. Under these terms, premium streamers will keep $70,000 for every $100,000 earned, and then $50,000 for the same ratio thereafter.

Logitech's new G Cloud handheld may be a hard sell to consumers who already have game-ready mobile phones.

Today Logitech revealed its new G Cloud handheld that's aimed at merging cloud and mobile gaming together. It's a dedicated, ultra-light portable that runs Android games and connects to cloud services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, NVIDIA's GeForce Now, and Steam Cloud. With the Logitech G Cloud, gamers can play AAA games at 1080p 60FPS instantaneously through the cloud (if your Wi-Fi connection is strong enouhg) without buying or downloading the games.

However novel, the device seems redundant. These cloud services are already available on the millions of mobile devices that consumers already own. Overall the G Cloud is essentially a 7-inch tablet with a Snapdragon 720G SoC with controllers fused on the sides; consumers can replicate this with the myriad of slot-on hardware like the Razer Kishi, for example, while retaining full functionality of their mobile device (including cellular internet).

The new Logitech G Cloud is an interesting Android-powered handheld aimed at helping usher in a new world of cloud-first devices.

The Logitech G Cloud is portable handheld with controllers fastened to the side, not unlike a Nintendo Switch. But unlike the Switch or the Steam Deck, this isn't made to play big AAA games locally.

The G Cloud is essentially a quick-start device for consumers who want to try playing games on the cloud. The G Cloud is a smartphone/tablet that packs in the most pertinent game streaming apps like Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA GeForce Now into a portable screen-and-controller handheld. Pre-orders are up for $299, but the base MSRP retail cost will be $349, which is more than a base Nintendo Switch. The device will ship to North America first on October 17.

AERWINS Technologies has demonstrated its new XTURISMO hoverbike in flight at the latest North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit.

The CEO of AERWINS Technologies, Shuhei Komatsu, was inspired to create the hoverbike by a love of Star Wars and its low-flying vehicles known as landspeeders. Komatsu said that he "wanted to make something from the movie real," referring to the hoverbike as "a land speeder for the Dark Side." The XTURISMO made its first appearance in the United States last week and marked the occasion by flying a few feet off the ground at Coleman A. Young International Airport.

The XTURISMO is currently being sold in Japan, as the Japanese government does not classify it as an aircraft; thus, users do not require a pilot's license to operate it. Komatsu hopes that the United States government will also consider the XTURISMO not to be an aircraft. The company plans to bring a smaller variant of the XTURISMO to market in the United States in 2023, retailing for an estimated $777,000, which will hopefully be down to $50,000 by 2025.

NASA is about to attempt the very first planetary defense mission, where it will collide a spacecraft into an asteroid in an attempt to deflect it.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was launched on November 21, and since then, a small high-speed spacecraft has been traveling to the large binary asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, both of which currently pose no threat to Earth at all. NASA plans on testing a new technique called a kinetic impact, which, if proven successful, will be a technique used to save Earth from an asteroid that does pose a significant threat to the planet.

In a new article published in The Conversation, author Svetla Ben-Itzhak, Assistant Professor of Space and International Relations, Air University, explains that her job is to determine the likelihood of an object crashing into Earth and if world governments are spending an appropriate amount of money developing techniques to prevent catastrophe.