Latest News - Page 1055

Today, while wandering around the halls of SIGGRAPH 2022 in Vancouver, we caught up with someone from Intel who told us that discrete Arc graphics cards would launch a lot sooner than the end of the year.

Although we just reported yesterday that Intel formally announced product shipments before the end of the year, we were able to grease some wheels here at SIGGRAPH 2022.

Although our source would not give the exact date, they could confirm that the current plan would see product availability by the end of summer.

Grand Theft Auto franchise revenues have dropped to pre-pandemic levels as the industry adjusts for an inflation market.

The games industry is starting to stabilize after record earnings during the pandemic. Major franchises like Grand Theft Auto are making less money as consumers face rising costs of living, and major platform-holders like Sony, Nintendo, Capcom, and Konami saw losses from unfavorable foreign exchange rates.

All the biggest players are getting hit, including Grand Theft Auto. While GTA V has sold nearly 170 million copies worldwide and now accounts for 44% of total GTA game sales, total series earnings dropped to pre-pandemic levels in the latest quarter. Take-Two's Q1'23 earnings show GTA revenues made $202 million, down 26% year-over-year.

A live bomb has turned up on the shores of Italy's Po river as a result of the latest European heatwave.

The bomb was found on July 25th 2022, near the Borgo Virgilio village, close to the city of Mantua, after it was dropped on land during World War II. It weighed 450 kilograms (992 pounds) before it was defused and destroyed in a controlled explosion carried out by the 10th Engineer Regiment of the Italian Army on August 7th, 2022.

The bomb was manufactured in the United States and contained 240 kilograms (529 pounds) of explosive material. It was transported 45 kilometers (30 miles) away to Medole, Italy, for disposal, after roughly 3,000 people were evacuated from the area. The areas surrounding the Po river have already been subjected to a state of emergency declared by Italy last month, owing to the worst drought the region has seen in 70 years.

A study on the human muscles and yeast titled "Full humanization of the glycolytic pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae" has been published in the journal Cell Reports.

Researchers from Delft University of Technology have placed human muscle genes inside the DNA of yeast cells, creating "humanized yeast." The genes are responsible for breaking down sugar and making the building blocks of muscle cells and are critical for human survival. They are also involved in many diseases, including cancer, and the similarity of yeast cells to humans means they can be used as a model for future drug and cancer research.

A study on the VR experience titled "Group VR experiences can produce ego attenuation and connectedness comparable to psychedelics" has been published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

Artist and computational molecular physicist David Glowacki had a near-death experience after falling in the mountains fifteen years ago, causing blood to leak into his lungs and suffocate him. While lying on the ground, Glowacki looked at his body and saw himself as balled-up light, and in his words, "I knew that the intensity of the light was related to the extent to which I inhabited my body." However, as he saw the light leak out of his body into the environment around him, Glowacki was not frightened.

In an attempt to recapture his transcendent experience, Glowacki has developed a VR experience called Isness-D. Based on the four key indicators used in studies of psychedelics, the experience had the same effects on users as a medium dose of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin, the primary psychoactive chemical in psychedelic mushrooms. Isness-D represents groups of four to five people from anywhere in the world, as diffuse clouds of smoke, with balls of lights representing their hearts.

A study on the jets titled "Upward propagation of gigantic jets revealed by 3D radio and optical mapping" has been published in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a detailed 3D of the "gigantic jets" of electrical discharge that appeared during an Oklahoma thunderstorm, reaching 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) towards space, reaching into the ionosphere, the last region of Earth's atmosphere, bordering with space. The jets moved an estimated 300 coulombs of electrical charge into the ionosphere, making them the most powerful of their kind that has been studied, twice as powerful as the next strongest one.

They carried about 100 times the electrical charge of a typical lightning bolt, which carries less than five coulombs between clouds or to the ground from clouds. Plasma streamers shot off into the atmosphere with temperatures of 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204 degrees Celsius) alongside structures called leaders, which are over 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4426 degrees Celsius). Gigantic jets are estimated to occur between 1,000 and 50,000 times yearly, though no observation system is dedicated to detecting them.

The new robot making its way to the International Space Station (ISS) is called MIRA, short for "miniaturized in vivo robotic assistant."

NASA has helped fund the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to ready MIRA to fly to the ISS to be tested in 2024, after being in development for almost 20 years. Virtual Incision, the company based on the Nebraska Innovation Campus whose co-founder invented the robot, has received over $100 million since it was founded in 2006.

Compared to other much larger surgical robots, the robot will be small enough to fit in an experiment locker on the ISS. MIRA's other advantages include its ability to operate through small incisions, allowing for minimally invasive surgeries, and its ability to be operated remotely. A previous experiment saw a retired NASA astronaut use MIRA to perform "surgery-like tasks" 900 miles away.

Google has taken to its website to take another swing at Apple over its text messaging and how videos appear blurry when sent from an Android device to an iPhone.

Google has swung at Apple over what it calls the company's failure to improve the user experience between iOS and Android users, citing the infamous down-scaling of multimedia sent from an Android device to an iOS, in particular, videos. This isn't the first time Google has openly come after Apple for its lack of updates between the two platforms, as the Android team released an "unofficial lyric" to the recently released Drake song "Texts Go Green".

Google is pushing for Apple to adopt what it calls the "modern industry standard" for text messaging - Rich Communication Services (RCS). Google states that the problem between Android and iPhone texting are because "Apple refuses to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other", per Google's website. Google calls for Apple to fix the green and blue bubbles as well as "texting for everyone".

An interstellar meteorite is an object that is from beyond our solar system, and on January 8, 2014, one crashed into Earth.

Astronomers have penned a new paper published on the pre-print ArXiv server where the authors put forward an argue that they are confident that the meteorite is interstellar (traveling between stars) and that recovering a fragment of the space rock would "represent the first contact humanity has ever had with material larger than dust from beyond the solar system", wrote first author of the paper, Amir Siraj, an astrophysicist at Harvard University.

In May 2022, the US Space Command confirmed that the meteorite officially called CNEOS 2014-01-08 is of interstellar origin. Notably, Siraj explains that it entered Earth's atmosphere 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea during the middle of the night. Furthermore, CNEOS 2014-01-08 was traveling at 37.2 miles per second relative to the Sun, meaning that it was traveling faster than the Sun's gravity, indicating that it's of interstellar origin.

Elon Musk has taken to his Twitter account to re-share an epic video of SpaceX conducting a static fire test on Starship 24

The SpaceX CEO recently posted on Twitter a re-shared video of the largest flying object ever made, the Starship launch vehicle. The static fire test is a part of the lead-up to SpaceX's first orbital test flight of Starship, a full-standing 230 feet rocket with the Super Heavy booster attached, capable of more than double the thrust of the Saturn V with more than twice the weight. Notably, the Saturn V is the rocket the largest rocket to reach orbit and is also the rocket that transported humans to the moon.

Following Musk's re-sharing of the Starship static fire test, the SpaceX CEO posted a meme that insinuates that Starship static fire tests are too 'sexy' or 'attractive' for him to "live a normal productive life". Musk's meme got several replies, with one Twitter user writing, "Tbh, conducting static fire tests of Starship is a productive day for you, Elon", with Musk replying, "True".

NASA has taken to its official social media to explain the difference between asteroids, comets, and meteorites as they are different.

Posted to NASA's Science Solar System Exploration on July 21, 2022, the space agency outlined the definition of different space rocks. Asteroids are different from comets as they are ancient pieces of the early formation of the solar system, mostly consisting of rock and coming in various sizes ranging from approximately the size of a car to as wide as a city.

While mostly consisting of rock, asteroids can contain metals that make them shine or carbon that makes them appear a coal-black color. Additionally, asteroids can also be "rubble piles", which are almost like sand held together by gravity. Comets are the cold version of asteroids as they mostly consist of ice. At the center of every comet is an icy nucleus, and when the orbit of the comet gets close to the Sun, its icy body heats up, producing large amounts of gases that cause a coma or tail to form around its nucleus.

A former Twitter employee is facing up to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of spying on behalf of the Saudi government.

According to a recent report from Bloomberg, former Twitter employee Ahmad Abouammo worked with another Twitter employee Ali Alazabarah to collect personal information on Twitter users based on their interests in 2015. The Saudi government offered both of the then-Twitter employee's cash and luxury goods for providing them with any of their requested data, with Alzabarah eventually fleeing to Saudi Arabia to avoid any trial.

Abouammo wasn't so lucky. During the trial, the prosecution argued that Abouammo was recruited by a high-ranking member of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's regime to spy on any enemies of the state, and during his recruitment, Abouammo gathered and sent back personal information such as birthdates, email addresses phones numbers and more. As for Abouammo's defense, they argued that the former Twitter employee only accessed that information when he was performing his regular work duties.

It has recently been revealed in Tesla regulatory filings that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold 7.92 million Tesla shares that is worth multiple billions.

The 7.92 shares that have now been sold are worth around $6.88 billion, with the weighted average share price being $869.09 and the sales occurring on August 5, August 8, and August 9. Musk was asked if he was "done selling" on Twitter, and he replied that he was finished selling and needed the money in case Twitter forced the deal between Musk and the second largest social media platform to "close." Musk prefaced the preparation tactic by writing that it's "hopefully unlikely" that Twitter will force the deal to close.

Notably, the possibility of Twitter forcing a closure of the deal isn't the only reason Musk sold his Tesla stock, as there is always the possibility of "some equity partners" not being able to "come through" with their promised amount of funding. Furthermore, Musk explains that it's better for him to sell his stock now "to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock". A Twitter user asked Musk if the Twitter deal doesn't close, will he be repurchasing Tesla stock - Musk answered by writing "yes".

NVIDIA has released its new GeForce Game Ready 516.94 WHQL drivers, which provide the best day-0 gaming experience for Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered.

The new NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 516.94 WHQL drivers will be ready for Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, which packs NVIDIA technologies like NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA DLAA, NVIDIA HBAO+ and beefed-up ray tracing effects. The new GeForce Game Ready 516.94 WHQL drivers also support Madden NFL 23 and the beta of SUPER PEOPLE.

There's also a boat load of support for newly validated G-SYNC Compatible displays, including support for Corsair's new XENEON 32UHD144 gaming monitor which rocks out with a native 4K resolution and super-smooth 144Hz refresh rate. NVIDIA is supporting 18 newly validated G-SYNC Compatible displays in total, from ASUS, AOC, LG, and Philips.

Wondershare launched UniConverter 14 recently, with greatly improved conversion speeds, compressing speeds, and other features and functions that are super-powered in the UniConverter 14 update.

The new Wondershare UniConverter 14 ushers in up to a huge 50% improvement in video converter speeds, as well as up to 50% speed bumps in 4K + 8K HDR video full-process GPU acceleration. Video editors will be happy with those upgrades, especially given that those improvements are just the beginning.

Wondershare also makes it easy for someone without video editing skills to be able to do things that someone with a much larger skill set does: we're talking about converting and compressing video, editing, recording, saving, and merging videos, as well as burning videos to permanent media like DVD, and so much more.

NVIDIA is taking care of its staff with pay increases instead of lay offs during some hard financial times, not just for the company, but for the US economy and global economies.

In a new email picked up by Business Insider, NVIDIA is sticking to its guns with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang keeping the can of whoop ass closed when it comes to hurting NVIDIA staffers during these hard times. Jensen explained in the email: "So what does this [THE REVENUE DROP] mean for us? Do we have a layoff? No. Instead, we have given raises to take care of your families as all of you are facing sky-high inflation".

He continued: "We will exercise extreme collaboration, a hallmark of our culture, finding every opportunity to leverage and reuse. We will find and eliminate all wasted time, process, and material. Take this opportunity to make NVIDIA even faster, leaner, and agile. So let's turn our alertness and agility to maximum, engines full-throttle, and fly through the challenges ahead while continuing to do our impactful work".

We are now getting an early look at the retail packaging for AMD's next-gen Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors, with VideoCardz getting the box shot from a source that was allegedly from an internal presentation at AMD.

The retail packaging you're seeing here is for the higher-end Ryzen 9 SKUs of the Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000 series family of CPUs, so we should expect different -- hopefully not too different -- with the retail packaging for the AMD Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 SKUs.

But there was also a little more information from the leaker, who said that AMD will be pricing its new Ryzen 7000 series CPUs not far from the pricing on the current-gen Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. The higher-end Zen 4-powered Ryzen 9 7xx0 series CPUs will be more expensive than their Zen 3-powered Ryzen 5000 series counterparts, and that's to be expected given how much ass the highest-end Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will kick.

Chinese company Biren Technology has just unveiled its new GPGPU architecture for next-gen computing at its recent Biren Explore Summit 2022 event.

Biren's new BR100 GPU is built on the 7nm process node at TSMC using their TSMC 2.5D CoWoS packaging technology, featuring 77 billion transistors, 300MB of on-chip cache, and 64GB of super-fast HBM2e memory that pumps up to 2.3TB/sec of memory bandwidth. We have up to 256 TFLOPs of FP32 compute performance, with the GPU supporting both PCIe 5.0 and CXL interfaces.

The new BR100 GPGPU is based on Biren's own BiLiren architecture, but with the BR100 the company is also introducing the whole family of OAM-compatible cards, as well as the PCIe-based BR104 GPU. Biren is also unveiling their own software platform alongside the BR100 GPGPU launch, which is called BIRENSUPA, with support for mainstream deep learning frameworks like Baidu's PaddlePaddle.

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card is rumored to use up to 320W of power, which is down considerably from the previously rumored 420W of power.

The news on NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU-powered GeForce RTX 4080 is from leaker "kopite7kimi" who tweeted: "We can expect RTX 4080 with 320W and RTX 4070 with 285W". The previous rumor for the RTX 4080 is that it would use 420W, so the drop to 320W is a lofty 100W... and that's a great thing.

NVIDIA has an additional 100W of power it can use for some monster overclocking on custom GeForce RTX 4080 graphics cards, something kopite7kimi addressed in a follow-up tweet, by saying: "Not much. The original power consumption limit is too loose which means great overclocking potential".

TEAMGROUP has just announced its new ELITE+ DDR5 RAM, with a new simple design that looks rather dapper I must say.

The new TEAMGROUP ELITE+ DDR5 RAM comes in DDR5-4800, DDR5-5600, and DDR5-6000 speeds with prices starting at $92 for a 16GB kit (2 x 8GB) of TEAMGROUP ELITE+ DDR5-4800 memory up to $352 for a 64GB kit (2 x 32GB). The fastest speed ELITE+ DDR5-6000 memory starts with a single 16GB stick for $135, while a 32GB kit of DDR5-6000 will cost $270.

TEAMGROUP says that its new ELITE+ DDR5 memory launches in early September 2022, which should be right alongside AMD's new Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series and X670E + X670 motherboards, which will be compatible with DDR5 memory.