Latest News - Page 1155

Sony has invested $1 billion into Epic Games in a significant move that will supercharge the company's multimedia endeavors.

Sony believes in Epic Games' vague-but-early plans for the metaverse. Today Sony announced that it has strategically invested a whopping $1 billion into Epic to help establish its nebulous metaverse and also deepen the two's synergistic relationship. Sony utilizes Epic's Unreal Engine 5 in its full breadth of entertainment content including games development and TV/film production, and the tech giant has now invested a total of $1.45 billion into Epic.

The investment comes nearly two years after the launch of the PlayStation 5, a console that Epic Games has readily praised. Unreal Engine 5 has been specially optimized for the PlayStation 5 and was the very first platform to show off the engine's capabilities via a breathtaking real-time gameplay tech demo.

The simulation is playing up quite a bit today, with news breaking just now that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk will NOT be joining Twitter's board of directors after he secured a huge 9.2% stake in the social networking giant.

Musk was all set to join the board of directors at Twitter, after his 9.2% stake saw him have 4x what Twitter ex-CEO Jack Dorsey owns... but now he won't be joining the board. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said on Sunday that Musk's decision was "for the best".

Agrawal didn't provide a reason as to why Musk wouldn't be joining the board, but it seems Twitter shareholders have concerns... the Twitter CEO added: "We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our board or not". Musk did mysteriously tweet out an emoji of a smiling face, with a hand covering its mouth -- you know, as like a giggle -- something is happening at Titter.

Sabrent is really expanding out right now, with the storage giant bursting into the RAM scene with its first-ever memory: the new Sabrent Rocket DDR4 RAM.

The new Sabrent Rocket DDR4 RAM is only available in SO-DIMM right now, with the new high-performance SO-DIMM memory coming at DDR4-3200 CL22 speeds. Sabrent is offering its new Rocket DDR4 RAM in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB kits.

It wouldn't be a slick new product from Sabrent if it didn't have a kick-ass thermal design, with Sabrent offering its label as not just a label -- but rather a copper heat spreader that covers both sides of the memory. Something that's quite important for high-performance RAM in a small space like this.

AMD's next-gen SP5 socket is gearing up to take next-gen EPYC "Genoa" CPUs which will be using the new Zen 4 architecture, and now the first pictures of those validation boards are here.

A few next-gen SP5-based motherboards have been teased, with ServeTheHome snapping some photos showing the huge SP5 socket aka LGA 6096. We can see that there is room for the monster 12-channel DDR5 memory, as well as the heavy-duty latching and retention system for the huge SP5 processors.

The new SP5 processors will arrive as the next-gen EPYC "Genoa" CPUs, offering the new Zen 4 architecture and up to an insane 128 cores and 256 threads of processing power.

EVGA's new monster GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN has been teased in the flesh, with a look at it nude -- well, the PCB at least -- it's the same thing. Let's do this:

We can see that EVGA's new custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN is a beauty: there's an OLED monitoring screen, an insane dual 16-pin PCIe power connectors, an equally insane 28-phase VRM, and a 360mm AIO radiator to keep things cool.

EVGA will be cooking up a custom "XOC" BIOS with unlocked power, which should truly unleash the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN for professional overclockers like EVGA's in-house OC guru Vince "KINGPIN" Lucido. This is his crown jewel GPU until Ada Lovelace is released later this year by NVIDIA.

AMD is gearing up for its mid-range Radeon RX 6750 XT refresh GPU launch, which is reportedly taking place on May 10 -- where the new flagship Radeon RX 6950 XT will also reportedly be introduced.

Ahead of the launch, PowerColor's new Radeon RX 6750 XT Red Devil has been teased with a new filing with the RAA on March 29. The listing doesn't tell us much, as it is listed as the "AXRX 6750XT 12GBD6-3DHEOC". You can see the "6750XT" there and "12GB" as well, and "OC" of course -- so an overclocked Radeon RX 6750 XT with 12GB of GDDR6 (non-X) from PowerColor.

Inside, the Radeon RX 6750 XT will be using the Navi 22 GPU which has 2560 Stream Processors and 12GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit memory bus. AMD is refreshing all of its new GPUs with 18Gbps GDDR6 memory (up from 16Gbps on the other cards) which includes the lower-end Radeon RX 6650 XT, the Radeon RX 6750 XT, and the new flagship Radeon RX 6950 XT graphics cards.

Intel has kinda, (but don't call me) maybe launched its Arc GPUs in Q1 2022... except between you and I, they really didn't and they can't admit it... with a limp launch into South Korea.

It's now being reported that Intel Arc-powered laptops -- well, just the one from Samsung with their Galaxy Book2 Pro laptop -- according to Intel that is. VideoCardz has confirmed that "there are indeed Samsung Book2 Pro laptops currently in stock on official company website with Core i7-1260P Alder Lake CPU and discrete Arc GPU. Thus far, only one model "NT950XEE-XD72S" is listed with Arc A350M GPU and 1080p AMOLED screen".

So you're getting an Intel Core i7-1260P processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and the slowest Arc A350M GPU for $2137. That's pretty expensive, for a GPU that we kinda know nothing about in the real-world just yet... and there's only a single model powered by an Arc GPU "in the wild" right now. Hmm.

The price of Bitcoin is sitting at around $42,300 right now... with billionaire Peter Thiel hopeful that the leading cryptocurrency skyrockets by 100x which would see BTC at an insane $4 million.

Bitcoin going beyond parabolic and super-boosting 100x to the Federal Reserve-crushing $4 million per BTC would shift the entire financial system, not just cryptocurrency. Thiel's comments came from the Bitcoin 2022 summit down in Miami, Florida.

Thiel had some fighting words for the Old Money out there, throwing out fighting words against Warren Buffett -- who has called Bitcoin "rat poison" -- to which Thiel pushed against the "sociopathic grandpa". Thiel said during his address that Bitcoin is being deliberately undervalued, and that BTC is the most honest market in the world. Thiel said: "Bitcoin is the canary in the coal mine; it was telling us that inflation is coming; it is telling us that central banks are bankrupt; it is telling us that we are at the end of the fiat money regime".

The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience is probably the very best graphics available on any platform right now, and you can download it right now and play it on your rig.

But even with some of the fastest silicon on the planet, you're not going to be hitting 4K 60FPS easily, with even an Intel Core i9-12900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card incapable of hitting 4K 60FPS. You're going to get around 40-50FPS average at 1440p to 4K on that type of hardware.

The download itself is around 93GB, but you can get that down to a much slimmer 17GB thanks to developer Victor Careil from Unreal Engine plugin maker VoxelPlugin. Not too damn bad at all, eh?

The new Witcher game isn't being developed in CD Projekt's proprietary RED Engine and will instead use Unreal Engine 5. Now the studio discusses the main reasons why.

A bit ago, CD Projekt announced two big things: A new Witcher game is coming, and CDPR is using Unreal Engine 5 to make the game.

On a surface level it's easy to see why Unreal is being used; the engine is flexible, easily deployable, and has been streamlined specifically for optimized workflows across PC, mobile, and consoles. It also features new technologies like Nanite, which allows devs to easily import high-quality images right into scenes, and impressive new lighting systems with Lumen.

It's official: Kingdom Hearts 4 is happening and the series just got a massive visual upgrade.

Square Enix today celebrated 20 years of Kingdom Hearts with a look at the past and the future of the series, including a big Kingdom Hearts 4 reveal. The game is set during the new Lost Master Arc storyline and shows a very high-def Sora waking up in the Quadratum, a modern-day city that looks like something out of an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo (in fact the entire trailer looks like an engine tech demo).

The footage showcases visuals and graphical fidelity never before seen in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, suggesting a next-gen exclusive release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Donald Duck and Goofy are also in the game, alongside an incredible-looking model of Strelitzia from Kingdom Hearts Union X. Square Enix didn't reveal many details in the trailer and there's no release date or window, but we do know that Tetsuya Nomura is attached to the project (Nomura is also helping with the new Final Fantasy VII Remake episodic series).

SEGA's new games could transform the Twitch Plays concept and push viewer-based interaction to a whole new level.

SEGA is currently at a turning point. The company is creating what it calls Super Games, which are big innovative live titles centered around online gaming, engagement, and interactivity. In a recent internal company interview, SEGA management says it is currently experimenting with new ways to allow viewers to "intervene in the game," not unlike Twitch Plays.

"In fact, efforts that could be part of Super Game have already started for titles that are already in operation. For example, in terms of watching the game mentioned earlier, it's a system that allows viewers to intervene in the game. We are experimenting with new experience possibilities to broaden the range of players," SEGA general manager Katsuya Hisai said.

SEGA is using advanced next-gen technologies to build its new Super Games including Unreal Engine 5, AI, and procedural FX tools like Houdini, company management has confirmed.

SEGA has big plans for the future of gaming. The company created a new term called Super Games to describe its ambitious idea; Super Games are described as massive online-driven inter-connected titles that engage players on all platforms all over the world. Phantasy Star Online 2 is a great example of a Super Game.

SEGA wants to have multiple Super Games on the market by 2030 and is investing over $800 million into this new plan while also converging all of its game development segments to work on the multi-game initiative.

A new report suggests that SEGA's Super Game lineup could use NFTs, but SEGA didn't actually say this is the case.

SEGA has an ambitious plan to release multiple billion-dollar live games onto the market. SEGA actually created a specific new genre called "Super Games" for its new titles. The so-called Super Games are defined as titles with widespread multi-platform releases that deliver $1 billion revenues similar to Phantasy Star Online, and will be deployed using cloud and online networks complete with live game business models. The company is investing over $800 million into its new Super Games, and wants to have multiple titles on the market by 2030.

A recent report suggested that SEGA's NFT plans could crossover into its Super Games initiative. The report cites a recent interview with SEGA executives concerning Super Games, but company leadership doesn't actually say that the new live games will incorporate NFTs.

A study on the organ harvesting titled "Execution by organ procurement: Breaching the dead donor rule in China" has been published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

Researchers from Australia and Israel used computational text analyses to conduct a forensic review of 2,838 papers from a dataset containing 124,770 Chinese-language transplant publications. In 71 different papers, brain death was not properly declared before organ removal, where it is concluded that "removal of the heart during organ procurement must have been the proximate cause of the donor's death."

The event took place at the grand opening of Tesla's new $1.1 billion factory in Austin, Texas.

Tesla aims to produce half a million Model Y annually in Austin and will also be making Cybertrucks when they enter production next year if all goes according to plan. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the opening ceremony that turned on its side, the factory would be taller than the world's tallest skyscraper. According to Tesla's calculations, 194 billion hamsters could fit inside it.

Musk announced during the event that two new products are in development at Tesla; the Tesla Optimus (previously known as the Tesla Bot) and a "dedicated robotaxi." The robotaxi doesn't have a defined deadline but will be self-driving, "futuristic-looking," and strictly limited to taxi services. Musk also said that the first version of Optimus will hopefully begin production in 2023.

The strange orb was spotted in the sky around 5 a.m. local time in Alaska on March 29th.

The glowing orb was spotted moving through the sky amongst the northern lights by an automatic camera trap, operated by The Aurora Chasers, Ronn Murray and Marketa Murray, in Fairbanks, Alaska. The orb moved from the northeast to the southwest, appearing much larger than a full moon in the sky, with Fairbanks residents saying, "it seemed like it had something that was spinning inside it."

They also said the orb was taking its time to move across the sky gradually instead of shooting across. The camera trap takes photos every 45 seconds, with the orb appearing in six photos, indicating the orb was visible for at least four and a half minutes.

The Twitter account Ukraine Weapons Tracker has been "debunking & tracking usage/capture of material in Ukraine."

The footage shows a lone T-64BV tank operated by the Ukrainian army (shown in the video with the Ukrainian flag) firing on an unsuspecting Russian convoy passing by. The Ukrainian tank destroyed a Russian BTR-82A, slowing the convoy's movement and allowing Ukrainian forces to continue attacking it, ultimately forcing the convoy to retreat.

Reports show the engagement happened on March 31st, and the footage first appeared on Telegram. According to the original video, the T-64BV tank belongs to the Dmytro Korchynsky Brotherhood Battalion. The T-64BV weighs about 38 tonnes with between14.76-inch (375mm) and 19.69-inch (500mm) thick armor plating.

A study on the new brain map titled "Brain charts for the human lifespan" has been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers pooled a combined 123,984 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from 101,457 individuals, with participant ages ranging from a 16-week-old fetus to a 100-year-old adult, to create a comprehensive look at how the brain changes during our lives. The scans were collected from over a hundred previous studies and standardized for comparison in a database you can view here.

The Andromeda galaxy is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, and eventually, it will collide with our galaxy to form one large galaxy.

The collision between Andromeda and the Milky Way won't happen for around 5 billion years, so until then, we can still stand in awe at the beauty of the cosmos captured in various types of images. Recently, amateur astrophotographer Brennan Gilmore took to Reddit to share his image of Andromeda, saying that he had "finally taken a picture of the Andromeda Galaxy I'm proud of". The image blew up on Reddit, receiving more than 85,000 upvotes and numerous awards.

Gilmore explains that he began doing astrophotography in July 2020 throughout the pandemic lockdown. The above image was taken with a four-inch telescope over multiple nights in his backyard near Charlottesville, Virginia, US. Within the Reddit post, Gilmore writes that there are about 24 million pixels within the image when viewed in its full resolution and around one-trillion stars within the Andromeda Galaxy. "This means there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 21,000 stars per pixel in the galactic glow."