Latest News - Page 1118

Apex Legends has made over $2 billion in revenues since launching in 2019, making it one of EA's most valuable IPs.

Right on schedule, Apex Legends has made over $2 billion in three years on the market. The free-to-play shooter remains one of the most powerful games in EA's live service arsenal and is set to grow with a mobile version that's launching soon.

"Our healthy live services growth was driven by strength across our broad-based portfolio, most notably by Apex Legends and FIFA," EA chief financial officer Chris Suh said in a recent Q4 earnings call.

Snap shares have fallen through the ground, dropping by a hefty 40% and dragging other tech stocks like Apple, Twitter, and Meta (the parent company of Facebook) at the same time.

The huge 40% sea of red for Snap shares means we're looking at $13.42 at the time of writing, down from ~$30 or so back on April 25. Snap's market cap has dropped, down to $21.9 billion. A recent SEC filing seems to have dragged down the share price of Snap, but there are other moving parts.

The SEC filing reads: "Since we issued guidance on April 21, 2022, the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated further and faster than anticipated. As a result, we believe it is likely that we will report revenue and adjusted EBITDA below the low-end of our Q2 2022 guidance range".

A study on the socially aware robot titled "High-efficiency cooling via the monolithic integration of copper on electronic devices" is available on the pre-print server arXiv.

Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) have devised a new method for robots to move through the world without colliding with people. Their robot uses Spatiotemporal Occupancy Grid Maps (SOGM) to predict where dynamic obstacles like people will move to with time. This video shows a real-life perspective of the robot moving paired with its internal digital representation.

A study on the new cooling method titled "High-efficiency cooling via the monolithic integration of copper on electronic devices" has been published in the journal Nature Electronics.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have invented a new cooling solution for electronic devices, dramatically increasing space efficiency and the power per unit volume of the devices. The team sought to address three shortcomings they identified in current cooling solutions.

The first is that they "can be expensive and difficult to scale up." Secondly, conventional heat spreaders or heat sinks are attached to the top of a device, while most of the heat is typically generated underneath the electronic device, so the cooling solution is less efficient. Thirdly, thermal interface materials (TIMs) like thermal paste or pads are necessary to connect such cooling solutions to electronic devices and have their own inherent inefficiencies.

AMD has outed its enthusiast-grade X670E + X670 chipsets and a bunch of new motherboards are being announced, with MSI accidentally revealing AMD's new DDR5 memory overclocking technology.

MSI outed AMD's new "EXPO" technology, which popped its head up inside of MSI's own X670 launch slides... but AMD didn't make a mention of it. MSI has asked other websites to remove the post, as it seems mentions of EXPO is triggering alarm bells for the company, or it could be completely wrong.

We have no idea what AMD's new EXPO technology is going to do exactly, but there are some things that AMD didn't share, that MSI shared through the leaked slides. We know that AMD is claiming just 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes, but MSI is saying there will be 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes (this could change, could be a mistake, or could be a future SKU).

NASA's Lucy space probe had a unique perspective of the recent total lunar eclipse on the night of May 15th.

Here on Earth, during a total lunar eclipse, the Moon takes on a reddish appearance due to the remaining red wavelengths of sunlight that make their way around Earth and onto the surface of the Moon. However, the Lucy probe operated by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) was able to observe the Moon and Earth while about 100 million kilometers (65 million miles) from the latter.

MSI has proudly announced its new flock of X670E and X670 motherboards, ready for the new worlds of AMD's next-gen Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael" CPUs.

The star of MSI's new X670 family of motherboards is the new flagship MEG X670E GODLIKE, followed by the MEG X670E ACE motherboard. MSI's huge new MEG X670E GODLIKE motherboard features an E-ATX form factor, with 24+2 VRM phases and 105A Smart Power Stage.

MSI is cooling its new MEG X670E GODLIKE motherboard with its Stacked fin array design heat sink, as well as a heat pipe that takes away heat in the middle of gaming or benchmarking. We have 4 x DDR5 RAM slots for up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM, as well as 1 x PCIe 5.0-ready M.2 slot (PCIe 5.0 x4) while there's 4 x on-board M.2 slots on the board. MSI even includes an M.2 XPANDER-Z GEN5 DUAL add-on card with the MEG X670E GODLIKE motherboard, giving you another 2 x more PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slots.

The cancer-killing virus has been used in a human patient for the first time in a new clinical trial.

The experimental virus is called CF33-hNIS, otherwise known as Vaxinia, and was developed by Australian biotech-company Imugene and the City of Hope cancer care and research center in Los Angeles. The drug candidate is what's known as an oncolytic virus, meaning a virus that selectively infects and destroys only cancer cells.

Previous research conducted with animals has shown the potential for the drug also to spur the immune system to become more proficient in destroying cancer cells. If clinical trials go well and the drug is safe for use, more trials involving combinations with currently used cancer therapies such as pembrolizumab will be carried out.

The world's first unmanned seaborne drone carrier was unveiled and launched by China on May 18th, 2022.

The ship is named the Zhu Hai Yun, and construction for it began in the Huangpu Wenchong Shipyard in Guangzhou, China, in July 2021. The vessel is 88.5 meters (290 feet) long, 14 meters (46 feet) wide, weighs 2,000 tonnes, and can travel with a top speed of 18 knots (20.7 miles per hour, 33.3 kilometers per hour).

The ship can carry over fifty autonomous systems, "including unmanned boats, drones and underwater vehicles," according to Dake Chen, the director of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory. The ship and its onboard drone systems will be used to undertake marine scientific research and ocean observation.

NVIDIA announced at Computex 2022 today in Taiwan that Taiwan's leading computer makers are preparing their first wave of systems powered by NVIDIA's new Grace CPU Superchip and Grace Hopper Superchip.

The likes of ASUS, Foxconn Industrial Internet, GIGABYTE, QCT, Supermicro, and Wiwynn will have NVIDIA Grace-powered systems in the first half of 2023. The upcoming servers are destined for the world of AI, high-performance computing (HPC), cloud gaming, digital twins, and so much more.

Ian Buck, vice president of Hyperscale and HPC at NVIDIA said: "A new type of data center is emerging-AI factories that process and refine mountains of data to produce intelligence-and NVIDIA is working closely with our Taiwan partners to build the systems that enable this transformation. These new systems from our partners, powered by our Grace Superchips, will bring the power of accelerated computing to new markets and industries globally".

SpaceX has just announced its new "Starlink for RVs" internet service, which is available right now -- and better yet - there's no waitlist on dishes.

The company has taken to Twitter, announcing: "Starlink for RVs can be used anywhere Starlink provides service and is ideal for camping and other activities in rural or remote locations where internet access has been unreliable or completely unavailable".

You're looking at $599 up-front for the Starlink dish, and then $135 per month for the internet connection. This isn't too bad, considering the residential service is $110 per month, but a big key difference with the new Starlink for RV service is that you can 'pause' and 'un-pause' your service. This is a big deal for people travelling less, or more often -- being able to tweak your Starlink for RV service before you go, is pretty awesome.

ASRock has officially unveiled its next-gen X670E range of motherboards, with the new flagship X670E Taichi Carrara -- which isn't just a beautiful board -- but also celebrates ASRock's 20th anniversary.

The new ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara is a special edition motherboard that the company crafted for its 20th anniversary: combining the strength and aesthetic of Carrara marble. It looks astonishing in the photo, and I bet it looks even better in the flesh with some RGB lighting reflecting off of it.

ASRock is tapping the enthusiast-grade X670E chipset from AMD, which will be using the AM5 socket and capable of taking Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs in the future. There's next-gen PCIe 5.0 here as well, for future-gen GPUs and soon-to-be-released PCIe 5.0-powered SSDs... APACER just announced the world's first consumer-grade PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD, capable of up to 13,000MB/sec (13GB/sec) and it'll fit right in on the X670E Taichi Carrara.

New York City has just removed its last payphone booth from the city, a once iconic symbol across NYC -- where Clark Kent would turn into Superman -- has been replaced by the world of smartphones.

This isn't something that has happened overnight, with the de Blasio administration taking in proposals on how to reimagine the replacement of public payphones across New York City. The officials then accepted CityBridge to come in and develop + operate LinkNYC kiosks, which offer services to people like free phone calls, Wi-Fi, and even charging your device.

Commissioner Matthew Fraser said in the release said: "As a native New Yorker, saying goodbye to the last street pay phone is bittersweet because of the prominent place they've held in the city's physical landscape for decades. Just like we transitioned from the horse and buggy to the automobile and from the automobile to the airplane, the digital evolution has progressed from payphones to high-speed Wi-Fi kiosks to meet the demands of our rapidly changing daily communications needs".

TikTok's Live Creator page has published a new video that teases an upcoming feature that will allow creators to receive donations from viewers.

The upcoming feature is called "Live Subscription" and will introduce TikTok live streamers and viewers to a new program that allows fans to initiate a monthly subscription to a creator to receive a range of perks that will differentiate them from "normal" viewers. These perks are similar to perks seen on streaming platforms such as Twitch, such as subscriber-only chat, custom emotes, badges, and more.

Within TikTok's video, the company states that creators will be able to have a "predictable monthly income", which, if executed properly, will be a massive leg-up for the company as making money directly from TikTok has been extremely difficult since the platform's creation. TechCrunch reports that TikTok's subscription packages will also be similar to Twitch's in terms of pricing, with the basic package being priced at $4.99 a month and multiple tiers that range up to $24.99 a month.

TEAMGROUP has just announced two new members of its new T-Force DELTA RGB DDR5 family of memory, with a new DDR5-6600 and DDR5-6000 kit.

The new TEAMGROUP T-Force DELTA RGB DDR5 memory is available in a new high-speed variant: DDR5-6600, while the company also has a DDR5-6000 low-latency kit with CL30 timings. Both of the new TEAMGROUP T-Force DELTA RGB DDR5 offerings are coming in 32GB kits (2x16GB).

TEAMGROUP uses its iconic 120-degree wide-angle RGB heat spreader, with smart RGB control. TEAMGROUP will have its new T-Force DELTA RGB DDR5-6600 and DDR5-6000 memory kits in July 2022, sending them to major motherboard manufacturers for verification testing. You'll need an Intel Z690-based motherboard or one of AMD's future X670E + X670-based motherboards.

APACER has announced the world's first consumer-grade PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, which are capable of up to 13,000MB/sec (13GB/sec) reads and up to 12,000MB/sec (12GB/sec) writes.

The new APACER PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs are available in two versions: a standard APACER design, and then the ZADAK one, which looks virtually the same. Both of the new PCIe 5.0-ready SSDs support the latest NVMe 2.0 standard, with reads of up to 13GB/sec and writes of up to 12GB/sec on both drives.

You'll need a PCIe 5.0-ready motherboard (Intel Z690 or AMD X670E/X670) to get the huge speeds of 13GB/sec+ but both the APACER + ZADAK PCIe 5.0 SSDs are backwards compatible, working on PCIe 4.0 at half the speed.

Yesterday, Elon Musk, the world's richest individual, praised FromSoftware's latest release that has captured many gamers, Elden Ring.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter yesterday to praise Elden Ring, writing that when experienced "in its entirety," it's "the most beautiful art I have ever seen". The praise comes as no surprise as Elden Ring has already been given extremely high scores across numerous independent review sources, with many gamers and even publications giving it a 10/10.

Now, Musk has followed up on his Elden Ring post by replying to a Twitter account that asked him his method of playing the game and what in-game damage build he opted for. Musk replied by writing, "power mage, but decent with a sword/katana". Closing out the tweet, Musk said he will post a picture of his build "tomorrow", which can be seen above. Elon Musk's character is level 111, and it currently holds 10899 runes.

Motorola has some new smartphones in the works and has recently taken to a Chinese website to tease some of their upcoming hardware.

Operating under Lenovo, Motorola has teased via Weibo some new details about its smartphones while also confirming when one of the devices will be launching. According to the first post by Motorola, one of its upcoming smartphones will be a foldable device that will feature a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Notably, this device will be launching sometime in July 2022.

Furthermore, the company teased another device which is depicted as foldable in the graphic and will also feature a 200 megapixel (MP) camera. According to Engadget, rumors have previously pointed toward Motorola's upcoming 200MP device being called the "Frontier," that's expected to sport 125-watt fast-charging and a 6.67-inch OLED display at a refresh rate of 144Hz. It should be noted that these are just rumors for the time being and that ahead of its launch in July, Motorola is expected to announce official details.

One startup company is proposing that all of Earth's most important data be gathered and transported off-planet to be kept safe.

The cloud storage provider Lonestar Data Holdings is planning that future services for the company will be storing Earth's most important data off-planet on servers located on the moon. Lonestar founder and CEO Christopher Stott explained the company's perspective, "It's inconceivable to me that we are keeping our most precious assets, our knowledge, and our data, on Earth, where we're setting off bombs and burning things. We need to put our assets in place off our planet, where we can keep it safe."

The theory is certainly an interesting one, and it makes sense on multiple levels for humans to have an off-world server that contains as much of humanity's achievements and failures as possible. However, storing a server on the moon that is accessible on Earth comes with its own challenges that will need to be overcome. For example, the moon has harsh temperatures that vary from -298 degrees Fahrenheit at night, to 224 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

Meta has taken to its website to announce that it will be bringing more transparency to social issue, electoral and political ads.

In a new update posted to its website, Meta states that it will soon be sharing data on the aforementioned advertisement categories and how those ads are targeted to individuals. Meta writes that researchers who are involved in the company's Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) program will be given access to data that will include "interest categories chosen by advertisers" for each individual ad.

Notably, this isn't the first time Meta has let select members of the public look under the hood of its advertising, as the company made political ad data available to FORT researchers for a three-month period just before the 2020 election. As pointed out by Engadget, some researchers may not be happy with the data provided to them by Meta ahead of the 2022 midterms, where it's likely that there will be some attention brought to how pollical advertisements impact elections, especially through platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.