Latest News - Page 1163

In just 9 days, Epic Games, Microsoft, and gamers have raised $100 million in Ukrainian relief donations from Fortnite VBuck purchases.

Epic Games and Microsoft plan to donate over $100 million to worldwide humanitarian nonprofits to aid besieged Ukraine. On March 21, Epic Games announced it would donate 100% of all Fortnite proceeds to Ukrainian relief. Microsoft partnered with Epic to add 100% of Fortnite's Xbox revenues into the mix too. Just a day later, Fortnite players spent $36 million on in-game purchases, and in a week players had spent $70 million. Now nine days after the announcement, Epic and Microsoft reveal that players have raised an astronomical $100 million for Ukraine.

"As of today, we've raised $100 million USD together to support humanitarian relief for people affected by the war in Ukraine. In addition to UNICEF, the World Food Program, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Direct Relief, we are now also collaborating with the World Central Kitchen," Epic Games said.

Riot Games today announced that it has raised $5.4 million in funding to help Ukrainian relief efforts in Eastern Europe.

Riot joins major games-makers in donating multiple millions of dollars to aid Ukraine. The company has donated 100% of all proceeds (revenues minus publisher feeds/cuts) from various in-game purchases in games like Valorant, Legends of Runeterra, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift across a week's time. Riot also released a special Bee skin in League of Legends to help raise funds. In total, Riot has will donate $5.4 million

The games industry has now raised nearly $150 million for Ukraine, led by huge numbers from Epic Games ($100 million), Humble ($20.7 million), the Itch.io Bundle for Ukraine ($6.3 million), and Riot takes fifth place with its $5.4 million donation.

Today Nintendo has officially delayed Breath of the Wild's upcoming sequel to Spring 2023.

Breath of the Wild 2 won't release in 2022, Eiji Aonuma today announced (great news for FromSoftware and Bandai Namco as Elden Ring should secure GOTY 2022). The sequel has seen its first major delay to Spring 2023.

BOTW 2's timeline is quite similar to the original Breath of the Wild, which was delayed twice. Originally announced in 2014 for launch in 2015 on the Wii U, Breath of the Wild wouldn't release for another two years until March 2017 as a major launch game on the Nintendo Switch. The new Breath of the Wild sequel was announced in 2019 and then a release window was announced in 2021. Now roughly three years after the game was revealed, Breath of the Wild 2 has seen a similar development/release schedule.

Activision-Blizzard will settle its sexual harassment lawsuit for just $18 million, a paltry sum compared to how much money the company makes a year.

After months of back and forth between state DFEH and federal EEOC agencies, Judge Dale S. Fischer of the United States District Court for the Central District of California has approved Activision-Blizzard's $18 million settlement proposal for its recent discrimination lawsuit.

The settlement would see Activision creating a $18 million victim's fund that could be dispersed across those affected by sexual harassment or abuse as detailed in the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's lawsuit.

A study on the leaking substance titled "Primordial Helium-3 Exchange Between Earth's Core and Mantle" has been published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

Helium exists in two stable forms on Earth, the helium-4 isotope and helium-3 isotope. The former contains two protons and two neutrons and accounts for approximately 99.99986 percent of all helium on Earth. Helium-3 consists of two protons and one neutron and accounts for approximately 0.000137 percent of all helium on Earth.

Helium-4 primarily comes from the radioactive decay of heavier elements, while most helium-3 remains from the Big Bang, hence primordial. Helium-3 has been detected leaking out from the Earth's core into the crust at a rate of roughly two kilograms (4.4 pounds) per year. The detection of primordial gases escaping the core provides clues about the conditions of Earth's formation. When the Earth formed, it did so inside a solar nebula, the same molecular cloud that birthed our Sun.

The network the famous cryptocurrency game Axie Infinity is built on has been hacked for more than $600 million in one of the biggest cryptocurrency hacks ever.

The Ronin Network created by Axie Infinity publisher Sky Mavis has recently been infiltrated by hackers who managed to steal $625 million worth of Ethereum and USDC. According to Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff Zirlin who took to stage at an NFT conference held in Los Angeles, "It is one of the bigger hacks in history" and that the team behind Axie Infinity and the Ronin Network "believe in a future of the internet that is open and owned by the users."

The Ronin Network elaborated on the hack in a newsletter posted to its Substack, where it explained that on March 23, 173,600 Ethereum and $25.5 million in USDC were stolen after the attacker used "hacked private keys in order to forge fake withdrawals". In response to the hack, the Ronin Network has announced that it's currently working with law enforcement officials as well as forensic cryptographers to recover the stolen funds.

A study on the new message titled "A Beacon in the Galaxy: Updated Arecibo Message for Potential FAST and SETI Projects" published in the journal Galaxies.

The new message is a successor to the famous Arecibo Message, a METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) signal broadcast on November 16th, 1974. Researchers have devised a new signal dubbed the Beacon in the Galaxy (BITG) message, which combines elements of the Arecibo Message and other METI attempts.

The BITG message consists of 13 parts, adding up to approximately 204,000 effective binary digits, or 25,500 bytes. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China and the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array in northern California, the research team chose a target to broadcast the signal to situated 4 kiloparsecs (~13,000 light-years) from the galactic center.

Russia announced on Tuesday that it would "dramatically reduce" the attacks on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, but that announcement may be a ploy.

According to the Ukrainian military, Russia's announcement and seemingly obvious withdrawal of troops from the region is "probably" a ploy to get the Ukrainian military to believe that they are withdrawing. Ukrainian military claims that Russia is attempting to "mislead the military leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and create a misconception about the occupiers' refusal to plan to encircle the city of Kyiv," according to a Facebook post from the Ukrainian armed forces.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said that Russia has pulled back its troops to "increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations". Russia states that its withdrawal of troops will lead to an environment where nations can come to a peace agreement. Ukraine's military isn't alone in expressing doubt on Russia's announcement, as the Pentagon claimed that the movement of troops is a "repositioning".

A study on the use of UV titled "A UV-LED module that is highly effective at inactivating human coronaviruses and HIV-1" has been published in the Virology Journal.

Researchers from the University of Toronto Scarborough found that UV-LED lights that can alternate between emitting white and ultraviolet (UV) light, of the same form factors used in offices and public spaces, could effectively decontaminate surfaces. The lights can be cheaply retrofitted, allowing easy implementation to make areas safer and help curb the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic more quickly.

The chief intelligence officer for Ukraine has warned Russia that it has people working for Ukraine "everywhere".

The claims have come from Ukraine's intelligence service, which took to Twitter on Monday to warn Russia that it has sources within the Kremlin and to request jets. According to Ukraine's intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov who was recently interviewed by Coffee or Die Magazine, the intelligence agency has people working for Ukraine "everywhere", adding there are individuals in "the army, in the political circles, and administration of the president."

Budanov explained that these undercover sources have been able to provide the Ukrainian military with information on Russian attack plans. Additionally, Budanov said that Ukraine received intelligence from Western countries such as the UK and US on Russian movements. "We have made considerable progress in cyber intelligence. We see the letters and all they write," said Budanov to the magazine.

A pre-print study on the Venus experiment titled "Cloud Continents: Terraforming Venus Efficiently by Means of a Floating Artificial Surface" has been accepted for publication in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.

NASA researcher Alex R. Howe has proposed a terraforming method for Venus to make it habitable, covering the entire planet's atmosphere in a plan the Daily Beast described as "absolutely bonkers." The project would likely take at least 200 years and centers on Venus as a terraforming target owing to its similar bulk properties to Earth, such as size, mass, and composition.

Howe's proposal suggests creating an artificial surface in the upper regions of the planet's atmosphere, where the temperature and pressure are more similar to Earth's. Previous proposals to terraform Venus have considered removing its carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and replacing it with a more habitable environment.

A ceremony aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on March 29th saw the change of command between Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronauts.

Livestreamed on the NASA Live website and elsewhere, Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov handed NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn "the keys" to the ISS. The physical key is a symbol in possession of the current commander of the ISS. Shkaplerov is returning to Earth on March 30th alongside the cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.

NASA's database indicates that a space rock will be approaching Earth in the coming days, and it is traveling nearly 30,000 mph.

The space rock is the asteroid labeled as 2007 FF1, and according to astronomers that have been tracking the asteroid, it's estimated to be between 360 and 656 feet in diameter. On March 24, the Virtual Telescope Project snapped an image of the asteroid when it was 7.2 million miles away from Earth, and with that image, astronomers were able to confirm that 2007 FF1 was going to make its closest approach with Earth yet.

The asteroid is officially classified by NASA as "potentially hazardous" because its diameter is 500 feet or greater, and its orbit brings it within 4.6 million miles of Earth, or about 19.5 times the distance to the moon. 2007 FF1 was first discovered back in 2007, and its last closest approach with Earth was in August 2020, when it came within 10.8 million of Earth. The next time 2007 FF1 is scheduled for its closest approach is on April 2, 2037, when it will come within 927,000 miles of Earth.

Individuals have been left shocked at the remains of a what is being described as an "alien-like" creature washing up on a beach in Australia.

Alex Tan found the remains of the unidentified creature on Maroochydore Beach, on the Sunshine Coast, located about 63 miles from Brisbane. Tan took to Instagram to post a video of the creature saying into the camera that "he has found something weird" and describing what he found as "one of those things you see when people claim they've found aliens." From the images and the video, all that can be depicted so far is that the creature features four limbs, a tail, and has a reptile-like skull.

At first, Tan thought what he found was a possum, but after a closer inspection, he ruled doesn't believe that to be the case. "It was just after we had all that stuff washed up on beaches from the floods. Its hands were really weird. I'm just calling it an alien," said Tan.

In the solar system, there are thousands of near-Earth asteroids, and sometimes one will have a close approach with Earth.

Krisztian Sarneczky, a Hungarian astronomer at the Konkoly Observatory, managed to identify an asteroid just hours before it was due to make its closest approach with Earth during the night on March 24/25. The asteroid, now labeled as Sar2594, soared past Earth at a safe distance of about 5,400 miles from the surface, which, to put into perspective, the International Space Station's altitude is about 250 miles, and the moon is about 238,900 miles away.

During its approach with Earth, the asteroid sped past at a ridiculous speed of 40,265 miles per hour. It was estimated to have a diameter of anywhere between 6.6 to 14 feet, making it a contender for the smallest asteroid ever found, which is approximately 6 feet in diameter. Due to its close approach with Earth, Sar2594's orbit has now changed forever, as showcased by Sarneczky in the below tweet.

A physics undergraduate and talented astrophotographer, Vincent Ledvina, has taken a stunning 8K video of the northern lights.

Ledvina recently went on a camping adventure to Fort Yukon, Alaska, where he spent three weeks above the arctic circle capturing auroras across several clear-skied nights. The astrophotographer is currently majoring in physics at the University of North Dakota with plans on becoming a space weather forecaster.

During Ledvina's time at the Fort Yukon Long Range Radar Site, his mission was to test a theory on how pulsating or flashing auroras are created. "The design of the mission was to have the sounding rocket launch into the aurora from the city of Fairbanks on a northward trajectory while high-speed cameras captured the pulsating aurora in two locations, Venetie and Fort Yukon," Ledvina explains.

NASA has observed multiple solar eruptions on the surface of the Sun, which have resulted in coronal mass ejections being sent toward Earth.

The solar flares are coming from the sunspot AR2975, which has been extremely active within the past two days by releasing at least 17 solar eruptions since March 28. The flares have sent coronal mass ejections (CME) in multiple directions, with some of the charged particles due to impact Earth and cause moderate to low geomagnetic storms.

According to both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there are at least two CMEs heading towards Earth, with there being a possibility of a third on the way as well. Reports from SpaceWeather.com indicate that the first CME is due to arrive on Thursday, March 31, and the second on Friday, April 1. As previously mentioned, officials expect that the Sun blasts will cause G2/G3 geomagnetic storms that result in an increased chance of auroras.

COLORFUL has just unleashed a trio of new custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards, with the new iGame GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Vulcan and iGame GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Neptune both capable of taking up to 510W of power.

The new flagship COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Vulcan rocks an LCD display on top, with a 480 x 128 resolution and can show real-time monitoring of your GPU and GDDR6X temperatures, custom GIFs, and images. You can use the 2-in-1 cable to connect the display to the card's interface, uploading to a customized display.

NVIDIA's tweaked GA102 GPU is pushed up to 1860MHz boost GPU clock, while the "One-Key OC" mode (the physical OC button on the back of the card) will push the GPU boost up to 1920MHz. I'm sure it'll sit somewhere around 2000MHz or so, overclockable up to 2050-2100MHz. But, with all that OC means the power numbers drive up: 480W default, 510W with OC... all over the single 16-pin PCIe power connector (which sprawls out to 3 x 8-pin connectors, like the other custom RTX 3090 Ti cards).

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is now official, with EVGA teasing its new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid graphics card... wielding dual 16-pin PCIe power connectors, and an OLED display.

We saw EVGA's exotic GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid earlier this year when the company teased it in January, but now it's been shown off in more detail now that NVIDIA has released the RTX 3090 Ti. There's no pictures of the AIO cooler, but you can see a huge bulky AIO cooler is going to be with the card... I didn't like it on the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition that I reviewed in the last 24 hours.

But what EVGA also does is include a slick OLED panel so that you can keep an eye on those GPU and GDDR6X temperatures, while the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid requires a truly ridiculous dual 16-pin PCIe power connector setup.

Today Sony announced its new three-tiered PlayStation Plus subscription model that will supercharge its services division.

Sony's new PlayStation Plus subscription model is a powerhouse move. The company has announced full details on its new subscription plan (better known as Spartacus) that should help spark new subscriber growth and retention. Sony earned $3.6 billion from network services in 2021 including subscriptions like PS Now (3.2 million subscribers) and PS Plus (48 million subscribers). Today's news combines both into one cohesive package with added value.

PS Now has been consolidated into PlayStation Plus in a new three-tiered structure--Essential, Extra, and Premium. The Premium tier is where the real value is: Sony is offering access to 740 games across six console/handheld generations including PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, and the PlayStation Portable. The offerings are strategically split between streamable and downloadable delivery methods (for example, PS3 games are streaming-only, and subscribers can't download games on PC).