Latest News - Page 1086

A fresh new rumor on AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 GPU architecture has floated up into the rumor mill, with AMD software engineers pushing out new patches for the new GFX11 architecture -- otherwise known as RDNA 3.

The new patch teases AMD is working on its own instructions that can operate on matrixes, with support for advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, to super-power their super-resolution technologies on RDNA 3-based graphics cards, spotted by @0x22h on Twitter. Effectively, this would be like Tensor cores on an NVIDIA GPU, hardware-based assistance for DLSS.

AMDGPU is a backend for AMD GPUs for LLVM compiler library, which gets updated by AMD employees, and if you're keen-eyed enough you can get a sneak into what next-gen GPU architectures will bring. In this case, the Wave Matrix Multiply-Accumulate was added to the new GFX11 architecture, GFX11 being the codename of AMD's next-gen RDNA 3-based Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.

Lenovo has unleashed its new high-end gaming laptops with the introduction of the Lenovo Legion Y9000K and the Lenovo Legion Y9000X gaming laptops: both rocking Intel's new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-HX" CPUs and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs.

The new flagship Lenovo Legion Y9000K gaming laptop offers the new "muscle laptop" chip from Intel in the new Core i9-12900HX processor, offering 16 cores of CPU power. NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and up to 32GB of new DDR5 memory.

Intel's new Alder Lake-HX processor in Core i9-12900HX form offers 16 cores and 24 threads of CPU power at up to 5.0GHz Max Turbo frequency, using 115W on its own, while the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU with 16GB of GDDR6 memory uses another 175W on its own for 290W between the CPU and GPU inside of the Lenovo Legion Y9000K gaming laptop.

Halo Infinite's long-awaited co-op will finally start beta testing in July, developer 343 Industries today announced.

At long last, Halo Infinite is finally getting co-op. The game was the first major Halo mainline title to release without co-operative play (neither local or online-based co-op were available) and it's taken over 7 months before 343i was ready to start testing it. That wait will soon be over: Halo Infinite's co-op and mission replay will enter flighting (what 343i calls beta testing) on July 11 across PC and Xbox consoles.

The devs revealed a few details on what's to come. First, existing campaign progress won't be available in the beta test. Second, we're getting a kind of new game+ feature with mission replay where all existing upgrades and unlockables will carry over when you replay a mission (which is to be expected). This includes skulls that you or your teammates have unlocked. Third, 343i is adding new achievements specifically for co-op play. And last but not least, four players will be able to enjoy campaign co-op with full cross-play across Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Bungie has literally NERFed one of Destiny's most infamous weapons: The nefarious Gjallarhorn.

Gjallarhorn is one of the most polarizing weapons in Destiny 2, and for good reason: It's really, really good. Bungie has finally nerfed the gun, but not in the way you'd expect.

Bungie has teamed up with NERF to create a limited-edition Gjallarhorn rocket launcher that you can hold over one shoulder and pretend to be an interstellar space wizard. The toy launcher is absolutely gigantic and is a scaled replica of the in-game exotic, complete with a mini scope and all the fine-grain details found on the beloved (and hated) launcher.

Fire Emblem Heroes has passed $1 billion in revenues since its release in February 2017, analyst firm SensorTower has reported.

Nintendo's mobile division just reached its first $1 billion game. The Japanese games giant has raked in $1 billion from Fire Emblem Heroes since its launch in early 2017, making it Nintendo's most lucrative free-to-play game to date. The mobile sensation has been downloaded 17.8 million times on iOS and Android.

This marks a big milestone for Nintendo's mobile segment, which traditionally accounts for less than 10% of its total quarterly revenues. From Q4 2017 to present, Nintendo has earned $2.363 billion from mobile games, with Fire Emblem Heroes leading the charge with an exponential leap in earnings compared to other titles (Mario Kart Tour, the second most popular of Nintendo's mobile games, made $282 million in comparison).

A study predicting upcoming solar activity titled "Overlapping Magnetic Activity Cycles and the Sunspot Number: Forecasting Sunspot Cycle 25 Amplitude" was published in the journal Solar Physics.

Astronomers have observed daily changes in the Sun's surface for centuries and began to record phenomena like sunspots in 1749. By the mid-19th century, astronomers realized they followed a cyclic behavior and that the Sun operated on a roughly 11-year solar cycle. Twenty-four cycles have been completed since records began, and the twenty-fifth is currently underway.

The cycles themselves vary from one to the next. Cycle 25 was forecasted by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to involve mild solar activity; however, the Sun has been much more active than expected. Now, cycle 25 looks like it could be one of the strongest cycles observed. Another team of researchers, however, made predictions in 2020 that are much closer to the current reality.

A study on Facebook clickbait titled "Click me...! The influence of clickbait on user engagement in social media and the role of digital nudging" has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen studied four thousand Facebook posts from various news organizations to gauge what constituted clickbait and how effective various techniques were than others. Though clickbait increases attention to certain articles, some previous studies have suggested that it erodes readers' trust in a given source.

The team collected the posts over seven consecutive days in 2017 from ten news outlets' Facebook pages based in the United States and the United Kingdom, which included "reputable" and "tabloid" sources. They found headlines including typical clickbait phrases were associated with about a quarter of reactions, shares, and comments compared to those without, e.g. "this will blow your mind."

A study on the chip titled "Electrical control of surface acoustic waves" has been published in the journal Nature Electronics.

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a chip that can use sound waves to carry data instead of electromagnetic (EM) waves. Though acoustic waves are slower than EM waves for a given frequency, they are still applicable in classical or quantum computing and communications technology, as short acoustic waves can keep interference relatively low.

A study on space travel and the atmosphere titled "The Climate and Ozone Impacts of Black Carbon Emissions From Global Rocket Launches" has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggest that the ever-growing rate of rocket launches may damage the ozone layer and change atmospheric circulation patterns. The NOAA says a "10-fold increase in hydrocarbon fueled launches," which includes kerosene-burning rocket engines that emit black carbon (soot) as exhaust into the stratosphere.

The stratosphere contains the ozone layer, which shields life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation, mitigating skin cancer, weakened immune systems, and disruptions to ecosystems and agriculture that would otherwise arise. Rockets are the only source of pollution above the troposphere, the lowest level of Earth's atmosphere, followed by the stratosphere, which could see 0.5 - 2° Celsius (~1-4° Fahrenheit) increases due to increased pollution from rocket exhaust, and atmospheric circulation slowing by up to 3.5%.

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a new public service announcement about deepfakes.

The IC3 has received an increased number of complaints alleging the use of stolen personally identifiable information (PII) and deepfakes to help individuals apply for positions that allow them to work remotely, typically from home. Incident reports covered positions associated with "information technology and computer programming, database, and software related job functions," and notably some with access to very sensitive data.

During online interviews, applicants reportedly used voice spoofing, potentially via deepfakes, and the video feed showed interviewees exhibiting lip movements and actions not aligning with the audio. The speech was noticeably out of sync, and in some cases, auditory actions like coughing and sneezing gave away the applicant when the video feed did not reflect the given action.

Atari is reaching far back into its treasure trove of retro classics with its new 50th Anniversary Collection, which includes games from the forgotten Atari Jaguar days of yore.

Today Atari announced a mega-bundle of games across six generations of hardware, including Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari ST, Atari Jaguar, and Atari Lynx. The last two are pretty exciting for retro buffs due to their rarity.

The Jaguar in particular is an interesting entry in the annals of gaming. The Jaguar was the world's first 64-bit console and released one of the most notorious video games of all time, Cybermorph, which was lampooned by the angriest gaming geek on the internet (AVGN). "Where did you learn to fly?" was the first introduction that many had to the strange experimental system. Still, though, the console is a charming look at the earliest age of home console polygonal graphics that helped usher in a new era of 3D gaming.

DolphiniOS and Switch hacker Oatmeal Dome was able to get Half-Life 2 to run on the Nintendo Switch.

Oatmeal Dome, a big player in the modding scene who uncovered the Nintendo Switch's VR mode back in 2018, just got Half-Life 2 running on the Switch...and it runs pretty good.

The modder used the newly released Portal Companion Collection on Switch to load Half-Life 2 onto the handheld-console hybrid. "The main reason why this works so well is that Portal 1 is basically just a glorified mod for Half-Life 2. (For example, the player code for Portal is based directly on the player code for HL2)," Oatmeal Dome explained on Twitter.

Sony has been shipping out PlayStation VR2 devkits and one developer has taken a snapshot of the headset.

While Sony already revealed exactly what the retail version of its next-gen PlayStation VR2 will look like, the first photo of the HMD out in the wild has been released. The photo comes by way of Bit Planet Games, the developers of space planet sim Sol Survivor and airflight sims Ultrawings 1 & 2.

The HMD's look and presentation isn't exactly a surprise...but what is still surprising is just how small the complete kit is. The original PS4-powered PSVR was a tangle of cords thanks to its required breakout box peripheral required for play. The PSVR2 significantly reduces these requirements and only runs on a single USB-C cable. Having used a base PSVR headset I can say that a single cord is a life-saver and will pretty much eliminate friction while playing.

Old-school RPG Swordquest will finally be complete: Airworld has appeared out of thin air.

Back in the 80s, Atari released the Swordquest series of games The plan was to release four games after each element: Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and Airworld. The games were a kind of interactive scavenger hunt where players would collect clues to win a contest with serious prizes: There was a chalice, a talisman, a crown, and a philosopher's stone--all of which were encrusted with gems and precious metals. Winners would also come back for one final competition with the ultimate reward: a silver sword full of gems.

Airworld was never made, though. The video game crash during the 1980s pretty much wrecked Atari's financial books. Now as part of Atari's 50th anniversary, Airworld is coming back. The infamous Swordquest game will be released in Atari's new 50th Anniversary Collection, which packs in 80+ classic games including Airworld.

Blizzard bought a new studio to help build World of Warcraft's future.

Blizzard Entertainment has purchased Proletariat, the Boston-based indie studio behind Spellbreak, to work on new World of Warcraft content. The move comes shortly after Blizzard had its lowest revenues and monthly active users in the last six years, and close to the successful yet highly controversial release of Diablo Immortal.

Under Blizzard, Proletariat will apparently have no time to keep hosting and updating its online game Spellbreak. The studio announced that Spellbreak will be pulled offline in 2023, and development of new content will cease. Proletariat is to work on Dragonflight, the next major World of Warcraft expansion, as well as other future content and updates.

A video shared by Jordanian state media shows security camera footage of the devastating incident.

A crane on the docks in the Aqaba port in south Jordan was loading tanks containing chlorine gas onto a cargo ship on Monday, June 27th, 2022, picking them up from trucks queuing up with additional tanks to be loaded. The container dropped from the crane as it was being loaded onto the ship, causing yellow chlorine gas to explode in massive plumes, covering the ship and the docks.

The tanks contained liquid chlorine, created by pressurizing and cooling chlorine. However, the tank rupturing upon impact with the ship allowed the poisonous gas to rapidly form and spread, causing dock personnel to flee on foot. The gas, used during World War I for chemical warfare, causes pain, difficulty breathing, and fluid in the lungs. In households, chlorine is useful in creating bleach and sanitizing things like water.

Animator Hashem Al-Ghaili has shown off a concept for the nuclear-powered sky hotel on YouTuber.

A video rendering shows off the vessel, called the Sky Cruise, which is described as a "futuristic hotel above the clouds. Animated by Al-Ghaili, the video features designs by Tony Holmsten of an aircraft capable of hosting 5,000 guests while remaining in the air for over a year continuously, with small aircraft able to ferry passengers and supplies to it by landing on its decks.

A study on cocaine titled "Muscarinic Acetylcholine M2 Receptors Regulate Lateral Habenula Neuron Activity and Control Cocaine Seeking Behavior" has been published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), discovered that blocking particular acetylcholine receptors in the brains of rats made it more difficult for them to resist seeking cocaine. In the experiment, rats were trained to recognize when cocaine was available based on a light being turned on or off and to self-administer cocaine by pressing a lever, resulting in the injection of the drug.

The researchers blocked the receptors in the lateral habenula (LHb), a brain area responsible for balancing reward processing and inhibition. The LHb is particularly interesting because it interfaces with various brain regions associated with reasoning, reward systems, and higher-order thought processes - factors associated with substance abuse disorders.

A study on influenza vaccination and Alzheimer's disease titled "Risk of Alzheimer's Disease Following Influenza Vaccination: A Claims-Based Cohort Study Using Propensity Score Matching" has been published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) have found that people administered at least one dose of influenza vaccine are 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease over the next four years compared to non-vaccinated peers. Their study involved a "large nationwide sample of U.S. adults aged 65 and older," with and without prior flu vaccination.

A study on the experiment titled "Rapid Radiolytic Degradation of Amino Acids in the Martian Shallow Subsurface: Implications for the Search for Extinct Life" has been published in the journal Astrobiology.

A recent NASA laboratory experiment indicates that potential signs of ancient life on Mars are more likely found about 6.6 feet (~2 meters) below the Martian surface. Researchers determined that ionizing radiation from space could quickly destroy small molecules like amino acids, erasing signs of life from the surface. Though amino acids can be created by non-biological chemistry or by life, their discovery on Mars would be strong evidence for terrestrial life.