Latest News - Page 1171

The threat of nuclear weapons has reared its ugly head recently, with Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing his country's nuclear forces were placed on "high alert," but who else has them?

According to the Arms Control Association, the world has nine nuclear states: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is estimated there are about 13,000 nuclear warheads in total, though this number is based only on publicly available information.

A new study on the evolutionary force titled "Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover" in the journal Science.

The Global Urban Evolution Project (GLUE) has analyzed data from 160 cities across 26 countries from samples of white clover plants found in those cities and rural areas. The researchers behind the project found that humans in general, particularly cities, are a dominant force driving evolution globally. They found the white clover to be frequently evolving in response to environmental changes in its urban surroundings.

NASA has uploaded a new blog post addressing frequently asked questions about the International Space Station (ISS).

The blog post describes all the countries and their respective space agencies involved in the operation of the ISS. It also describes the ISS's interdependencies, highlighting a long list of examples of essential capabilities controlled or enabled by Russian technology on board. For example, all of the space station's propulsion is handled by the Russian Segment of the ISS, with the propellant supplied by the Russian Progress cargo spacecraft.

On Thursday, some stark warnings came out of Russia as Moscow claimed that it had enough power to put its enemies in their place.

The heated comments came from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, and now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, who said that the United States is attempting to force Russia to its knees while simultaneously creating a "disgusting" Russophobic in an attempt to dismantle the Moscow.

Since Russia's invasion into Ukraine beginning on February 24, many western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia in an effort to economically cripple it and remove it as much as it possibly can from the global economy. "It will not work - Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place," Medvedev said. Since the sanctions have been in place, Russian officials have been throwing insults towards the US, with Russia's Space Agency head Dmitry Rogozin even threatening to crash the ISS into the United States.

Russia is attempting to control and curate any and all information coming into Russia, specifically to create a narrative about its invasion into Ukraine.

It was only recently that Russia's communications agency Roskomnadzor claimed that Instagram moderators allowed content that encourages violence towards Russian soldiers depending on where they originated from, which eventuated in Instagram being banned throughout Russia. The Instagram ban came after the Facebook ban, where Russia cited "discrimination against Russian media".

Now Fortune reports that the social media shutdown have cost the Russian economy $861 million in 2022, or just 77 days. The findings come from independent research firm Top10VPN.com which found Russia was the number one country for online censorship impacting its economy, with the second country being Kazakhstan with $430 million. Notably, before the Ukraine War war, Russia's censorship was less than $1 million, but now the need for online censorship has increased with Putin's invasion into Ukraine.

A team of archaeologists and physicists have been received approval from the Egyptian government to scan the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The team has proposed using cosmic-ray technology involving telescopes that focus on muons, which are elementary particles produced when cosmic rays interact with Earth's atmosphere. In an interview with Live Science, Fermi National Laboratory scientist Alan Bross explained that muon observations had been used to scan the pyramids in the past, with the first scanning taking place in the late 1960s and the second being between 2015 and 2017.

The team of researchers has much more sensitive telescopes than the ones that were used between 2015 and 2017, with the scientists estimating "upwards of 100 times the sensitivity". The telescopes will be placed at each of the four corners of the pyramid and scan it from "nearly all angles," which the team anticipates will produce a "true tomographic image of such a large structure."

An astronomer has spotted an asteroid close to the size of a refrigerator only hours before it entered Earth's atmosphere.

Above is an image taken by an astronomer who spotted an asteroid just two hours before impact it entered Earth's atmosphere in January 21, 1999.

The asteroid has been dubbed 2022 EB5 and was discovered by Hungarian astronomer Krisztian Sarneczky located at the Piszkesteto Mountain Station that's joined onto the Konkoly Observatory located close to Budapest, Hungry's capital. According to reports, the asteroid is estimated to be around 10 feet in diameter and entered Earth's atmosphere at 21:22 UTC on March 11 over north Iceland.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has given a new update on when he thinks the human race will land on the Red Planet, Mars.

Elon Musk has famously discussed the future of humans landing on the Red Planet and has taken steps towards making that future a reality by constructing SpaceX's newest launch system, Starship. Musk's Starship launch vehicle is expected to help humanity return to the Moon and travel to Mars and beyond. With that in mind, Starship completed its first successful landing after launch back in May 2021, and Musk has teased that Starship could make its first orbital flight later this year.

A recent tweet from Space Hub asked Musk when he thinks humans will land on Mars in the 21st century, Musk replied to the tweet and wrote "2029". This new estimation from Musk is different from the prediction he gave in a piece by Time Magazine where he said that he would be surprised humans aren't "landing on Mars within five years". Musk added that the next great step will be constructing a base on Mars that's self-sustaining, which was described by Musk as "a futuristic Noah's ark".

The chief for Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has dropped yet another passive-aggressive tweet, suggesting that Russian cosmonauts are "in a fighting mood".

Dmitry Rogozin is the head of Roscosmos, and since the US imposed sanctions on Russia following its invasion into Ukraine, Roscosmos' chief has been publishing passive-aggressive threats interpreted by many as threats to the safety of the astronauts aboard the ISS. Rogozin has threatened to crash the ISS into the United States, abandon NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, and completely decouple the Russian segment of the station in a bizarre video released by state-owned Russian media.

Now Rogozin has tweeted, "The State Commission at Baikonur approved the main and backup crews of the Soyuz MS-21 manned spacecraft," adding, "The boys are in a fighting mood." The choice of words from Rogozin is certainly something to wonder at, as it would certainly be a tragic event if a physical altercation broke out aboard the ISS. At the moment, there are four NASA astronauts, one German astronaut, and two Russian cosmonauts. An additional three cosmonauts are expected to arrive at the station later this week as they are launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan tomorrow.

The head of NASA has commented on the now strained relationship between the U.S. and Russia amid subtle threats from Russia's space agency head.

Dmitry Rogozin, the chief of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has published a flurry of subtle threats on his Twitter account that threaten the safety of NASA astronauts working on the International Space Station (ISS). Rogozin has recently suggested that Russia could allow the ISS to crash into the United States and demonstrated abandoning NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on the station, who recently broke the record for the longest single stay in space for a NASA astronaut.

These nefarious suggestions from Rogozin came after the U.S. imposed heavy sanctions on Russia following the nation's invasion into Ukraine. The comments from Russia's space agency chief have caused tensions to heighten between the two countries and have now sparked comments from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson who pledged to be committed to all astronauts aboard the ISS. Adding that the U.S. space agency "remains committed" to all seven astronauts and cosmonauts and is "continuing to work with all our international partners to continue safe operation of the ISS."

The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a distant spiral galaxy that is located many million light-years away from Earth.

The spiral galaxy is NGC 1097, that's located 48 million light-years from Earth and resides in the constellation Fornax. At the center of the above image, you can see what the European Space Agency (ESA) describes as an "eye", or the heart of the galaxy. ESA officials said in a statement that this picture showcases the "intricacy of the web of stars and dust at NGC 1097's center, with the long tendrils of dust picked out in a dark red hue".

The image was captured with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which allows astronomers to capture both light that humans can see and infrared light the human eye can't detect. ESA officials explain that after the galaxy is captured in several different wavelengths of light, the image is colorized for public viewing. If you are interested in reading more about galaxy NGC 1097, check out this recent release by the ESA here.

NVIDIA is dropping the price of its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs across the world, with the current flagship GeForce RTX 3090 dropping to under 2000 EUR in Germany and Austria... for the first time since August 2021.

3DCenter.org has been keeping track of the prices of the GeForce RTX 3090, where the RTX 3090 was a bonkers 3199 EUR back on May 16, 2021 -- floating down to around 2500 EUR in the first few days of 2022 -- and now under 2000 EUR for the first time since August 29, 2021 (when they dropped down to 1999 EUR, but freaking blew up to 2800 EUR on November 21).

It's not just in Europe, but Down Under here in Australia my fellow Aussies at HardwareUnboxed have seen the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 drop by 35% in a single day. The GPU dropped from $2299 AUD ($1685 USD or so) down to $1499 AUD ($1100 USD or so). That's still expensive, but hey... a huge 35% price drop can't be sneezed at.

Samsung has just unleashed the pre-order floodgates for its new Galaxy Book2 family of laptops, including the Galaxy Book2 360, Galaxy Book2 Pro, and Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 laptops. But get this... you get a free gaming monitor with any of those pre-orders.

Yep, that's right: Samsung is giving away a 32-inch Odyssey Gaming Curved monitor worth $330 if you pre-order the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 or Galaxy Book2 Pro laptops. The regular Galaxy Book2 360 doesn't come with a free 32-inch gaming monitor, but a 24-inch CRG5 Gaming Monitor that's worth $260.

Oh, and you also get 30% off of Samsung Care+ with any pre-order of the new Galaxy Book2 laptops, as well as that free gaming monitor. Not too bad, hey. If you've got an eligible trade-in, then the starting prices of Samsung's new Galaxy Book2 laptops start at just $549. Without all of that, the Galaxy Book2 Pro laptop will cost around $1350 -- without the free monitor (B&H listing).

AMD has officially launched its new Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology, teased its next-gen FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) and now launched its new Radeon Adrenalin 22.3.1 driver... which packs RSR tech support, right now.

The new Radeon Adrenalin 22.3.1 driver has its star: Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology, which is a new "in-driver spatial upscaling feature that is built on the same algorithm as AMD FidelityFX™ Super ResolutionGD-187 technology. It delivers near-native resolution and increased performance across thousands of games that run in exclusive full screen mode on AMD RDNA-based and newer discrete graphics".

AMD has also updated its AMD Link Play feature, which now lets 4 users connect to an AMD Radeon GPU-powered PC from an Android- or Windows-based PC, phone, tablet, or TV... so you can play local multiplayer games together. Very cool.

AMD has just announced that its FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 technology will be launching in Q2 2022, using temporal upscaling.

The new FSR 2.0 technology will shift away from spatial technologies that FSR 1.0 uses, and into temporal upscaling -- but while NVIDIA DLSS and Intel XeSS use machine learning algorithms -- there is Tensor Core or XMX acceleration required.

AMD explains: "Like FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0 does not use Machine Learning (ML) in its upscaling algorithm. While ML is one vehicle to solve a number of problems, it is not a requirement to achieve good quality upscaling. Therefore, FSR 2.0 does not require dedicated ML hardware which means more gamers can benefit from it. FSR 2.0 will work across a wide range of products and platforms, and like FSR 1.0, that includes select competitor graphics cards".

It looks like there might be some quick price relief on NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards, with NVIDIA reportedly lowering the cost of its GPUs by up to 12% to AICs, which will then filter down to you: the consumer.

NVIDIA has reportedly informed AICs of a "decrease in its cost basis which it will be passing on to AICs and who will be passing it on to SIs (system integrators) in return", according to Wccftech. We might not see the price drops instantly, as there are still supply issues, cryptocurrency mining is still very popular, and more.

Wccftech continues: "we have received word that NVIDIA has informed AICs that it saw a lowering in its cost of manufacturing by around 8 to 12% which it will pass on to AICs. AICs in return will pass this saving on to SIs where it should eventually end up saving a few dollars in the gamer's pocket".

Samsung is launching its new Galaxy Book2 Pro laptop which will pack not just one but two technologies from Intel: an Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU and Intel Arc GPU.

The new Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro laptop features a 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 AMOLED-based display, and an Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU in Core i7 form (12 cores, but the model isn't listed). There's 16GB of LPDDR5-6400 RAM, a 512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD, and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

The reason we know about this is that retailer BHPhotoVideo posted, but the part I want to see is the Intel Arc GPU -- which is an unnamed model -- but we should expect the Intel Arc A350M or A370M, both of these GPUs are based on the DG2-128EU GPU. We should expect much more details on Intel Arc Laptop GPUs on March 30, but Samsung's new Galaxy Book2 Pro laptop is for sale early... oops.

Intel's new Core i9-12900KS processor isn't out yet, and it's still under embargo, and yet customers are getting their new pre-binned chips ahead of its launch.

With some beautiful new photos from "DAGINATSUKO" who managed to purchased Intel's new Core i9-12900KS processor before it has launched. The first batch of Core i9-12900K chips have an OPN code of SRLDD, supporting AVX-512 instructions (something Intel said would be fusing them off in the future).

The listing for the new Core i9-12900KS processor is around $790, but that price was wiped when the listing was removed. "DAGINATSUKO" seems to be one of the very lucky few who received their unreleased Intel Core i9-12900KS processor, a new pre-binned 16-core, 24-thread CPU with a maximum single-core boost of 5.5GHz. It's here to compete with AMD's new Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, which packs their new 3D V-Cache technology.

Apple unleashed its new M1 Ultra SoC last week, powering the new Mac Studio -- which can cost over $10,000 when configured high enough -- but the GPU inside of the new SoC was meant to beat the GeForce RTX 3090.

Inside of Apple's new Mac Studio is the M1 Ultra SoC with up to 21 TFLOPs of compute power, 128GB of unified memory, and a GPU that Apple marketed as offering performance of flagship GPUs like the RTX 3090 in "industry-standard" benchmarks... spoiler alert: it doesn't.

Diving right into some benchmarks, if we look at something like Shadow of the Tomb Raider... at 1080p the Apple M1 Ultra is doing alright, with 108FPS average. 96FPS average at 1440p is impressive, and 60FPS at 4K isn't bad at all for a tiny little SoC. The RTX 3090 rips it apart though... going against everything Apple said in its marketing. But that shouldn't surprise people at this point.

Hisense have just announced their next-gen 65-inch gaming TV, which is designed for next-gen enthusiast-level gaming with a native 4K resolution and insane 240Hz refresh rate.

The new Hisense Gaming TV Ace 2023 has a 65-inch 4K panel, 240Hz refresh rate, and a quad-core ARM Cortex A73 processor with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Display connectivity is driven through an HDMI 2.1 port, but there's also 2 x HDMI 2.0 ports. If you want that huge 4K 240Hz goodness, you're going to need HDMI 2.1 connectivity and a PC with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPU or AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPU.

Hisense's new Gaming TV Ace 2023 will only pump out 4K 240Hz on the PC with the right GPU, while next-gen console owners with a Sony PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S, then you will enjoy up to 4K 120Hz mode. The ULED-based panel has 1.07 billion colors, up to 178-degree viewing angles, Wi-Fi 6 and Ethernet connectivity, too.