Latest News - Page 1173

The genetically modified mosquitos are a project by the British biotech firm Oxitec.

Oxitec is seeking permission to release its mosquitoes in the Tulare County of Visalia, California, with potential expansions into Fresno, San Bernadino, and Stanislaus counties. It plans to introduce two million male mosquitoes over time, each with a "kill switch" built into their DNA that will mean any offspring they have will die before adulthood, eventually destroying the mosquito population in the area.

The modified mosquitoes are named "Friendly", and as they are male, they do not bite or spread disease. They have also been modified to only mate with the target population of mosquitoes first detected in Los Angeles County in 2011 and not California's native mosquito. The California native emerges at dusk, while the newer, target mosquito variety is active during the day.

The Artemis program has been plagued by delays, but the Artemis I mission seems to finally be making progress.

The integrated Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft that will fly as part of the Artemis I lunar mission are now due to roll out on March 17th. They will roll out onto Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for which live coverage by NASA will begin at 5 p.m. EDT (21:00 UTC). The event will be viewable on NASA Television, the NASA app, and NASA's website.

The rollout will involve a 4-mile (6.4 kilometers) journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad, which is expected to take between six and twelve hours. Beginning at 4 p.m. EDT (20:00 UTC), the Kennedy Newsroom YouTube channel will also be capturing the event. Once at the pad, NASA will conduct a final prelaunch test known as the wet dress rehearsal, conducting a launch countdown and loading the SLS propellant tanks.

The images were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The newly released image shows layering in the sedimentary rock in the Danielson Crater on Mars. From top to bottom, the terrain captured in the image spans just under a kilometer, and the image was taken while the MRO was orbiting 276 kilometers (171 miles) above the surface.

Scientists do not know exactly how the rocks formed but can infer from the regularity of the layers that a continually repeating process is responsible for their formation on an annual or even longer timescale. The regularity suggests that random phenomena like meteor impacts did not cause the layers to accumulate. Some scientists suggest their formation may be associated with climate changes related to orbital variations, while others suggest upwelling groundwater could be responsible.

The star is a pulsar named PSR J2030+4415, and resides approximately 1,600 light-years from Earth.

The beam ejected from the pulsar extends 40 trillion miles and has been imaged by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The beam was first detected in 2020, but astronomers could not determine its full length as it extended past the bounds of the Chandra detector. The record-breaking beam is the longest spotted from originating from a pulsar.

Russian journalist Kamil Galeev has reported that Roscosmos is prohibiting its employees from leaving Russia.

The order to prohibit employees of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, from leaving the country has come from the Roscosmos Director-General, Dmitry Rogozin. The move results from fears that critical staff, such as IT workers, will not return. The "brain drain" problem of educated personnel leaving the country is being driven by the sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion into Ukraine, crippling its economy.

According to Galeev, Russian border guards have instructions to prevent IT workers from leaving Russia. From Russia, flights to Georgia sold out first, followed by Armenia and Azerbaijan. People continue to want to flee the country, with more than 25,000 Russians having left for Georgia alone, so others are turning to anywhere one can get tickets.

The announcement by Ukraine authorities was made via Telegram where the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) announced it had detained a "hacker".

According to the Telegram announcement the hacker provided "the occupiers with mobile communications in Ukraine" by sending SMS messages to Ukrainian officials and civil servant officers offering them surrender terms. Additionally, the SSU alleges that this hacker also relayed military commands and instructions to Russian invaders.

The Ukrainian security agency said that in a 24 hour period the hacker made up to 1,000 calls and that some of these calls were with top Russian leadership. Ukrainian officials have captured the hacker and released blurred images of the individuals face while also not revealing any name or identifying information. The equipment used by the hacker has been seized by Ukrainian authorities and will be used as evidence, with the SSU stating that he would be "held accountable for all the severity of the law."

A Russian oligarch has begun targeting British police officers after protesters broke into his London mansion.

The Russian oligarch is by Oleg Deripaska, and his mansion is located in a luxury residential area in central London. According to reports, activists broke into the mansion located in Belgrave Square on Monday around 1 AM. The four individuals who climbed onto the mansion's balcony came down around 8 PM Monday night and were arrested by authorities.

Larisa Belyaeva, a spokeswoman for Deripaska, said that the Deripaska family was "appalled at the negligence of Britain's justice system shown by Boris Johnson's cabinet in introducing the sanctions and colluding with the sort of people who raid private property." These comments come after the United Kingdom laid heavy sanctions on Oleg Deripaska following Russia's invasion into Ukraine.

On Tuesday, the United States Senate passed a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent, with supporters of the bill advocating for brighter afternoons and generally more activity.

The new bill is called the Sunshine Protection Act, and when voted on by the Senate, it passed unanimously. It will now go on to the House of Representatives, where it will need to pass before heading to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature. Biden has indicated whether he supports the new legislation or not, while a spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to comment on the bill.

Senator Mark Rubio is one of the bill's sponsors and said that if the legislation were to pass, the change to daylight savings time won't happen until November 2023. Supporters of the change advocate that the passing of the bill will allow for children to play outdoors later and will reduce seasonal depression. In response to the bill, the National Association of Convenience Stores said that "we should not have kids going to school in the dark."

A group of hundreds of thousands of hackers has been formed together to launch digital attacks against Russia.

A report from The Guardian reveals a group on the Telegram chat app titled "IT Army of Ukraine", which features around 300,000 members. Each of the group members are assigned tasks to digitally fight Vladimir Putin, with some attacks being successful as the group has caused interruptions for Russian web services, websites for Russia's lower house of parliament, sites for state-owned media service providers, a selection of banks and a large energy company called Gazprom.

Alp Toker, the director of NetBlocks, an internet connectivity watchdog, said that the group of hackers has been successful in taking down state-owned media websites. Mykhailo Fedorov, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, has made a public call for "digital talents" by posting onto his personal Twitter a link to the Telegram ground and stating "we are creating an IT army", and "there will be tasks for everyone".

The Russian government is now facing a digital storage crisis as Western cloud services have pulled their services from the country.

Western cloud storage providers have pulled out of Russia following heavy Western sanctions designed to cripple the Russian economy. According to reports, the Russian government is looking at several different ways to solve the problem of finding hosts for Russia's data, and some of those solutions include leasing all available data storage across Russia or seizing all data storage from Russian businesses that have left the country.

A Russian media outlet, Kommersant, reported that the following parties; Sberbank, MTS, Oxygen, Rostelecom, Atom-Data, Croc, and Yandex, believe they have just two months to find a solution to the data crisis before running out of currently available storage space. At the moment, Russian data firms are looking towards domestic data storage services to host data, with just one Russian mobile carrier MegaFon having to increase its storage capacity by five times its current levels.

A NASA astronaut has just broken the record for the longest spaceflight after launching from Earth in April, 2021.

That astronaut is retired Army colonel and now NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who has now been aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for more than 340 days, 8 hours and 42 minutes, which was the previous record for the longest spaceflight trip for a NASA astronaut, set by Scott Kelly on March 2, 2013. Hei is expected to break the record by 15 days as its expected he will make a return trip back to Earth on day 355.

While its certainly a celebratory moment for Hei, his new record is still quite far away from the world record that is currently held by Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov who stayed aboard the Russian Mir space station from January 1994 to March 1995, for a total of 437 days, 17 hours and 58 minutes. For Hei to break the record set by the Russians, he would need to stay another 82 days. The NASA astronaut did say he could stay aboard the ISS longer if he was required to, but not voluntarily.

Germany's federal cyber security agency has dropped warnings about the Russian-owned Kaspersky antivirus software.

The warnings come from Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) that announced a warning for German citizens, advising not to install Kaspersky antivirus software on the ground of the federal agency finding doubt in its "reliability of the manufacturer." The BSI now recommends replacing Kaspersky antivirus with alternative products.

A Kaspersky company spokesperson told The Register that the decision by Germany's cybersecurity agency is politically charged and is not based on a technical assessment of Kaspersky's products. Additionally, the Kaspersky spokesperson said that Kaspersky has shown support for the BSI and across Europe, while also being a private global company that doesn't have any "ties to the Russian or any other government."

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has commented on the recently viral video of a woman interrupting a live Russian news broadcast to protest the war.

The video has been acquired by numerous Western media outlets and has gone viral on social media's such as Twitter and Facebook. A reporter is seen running out during a live Channel One news broadcast to hold up a sign towards the camera. The sign called for "No war", and warned viewers not to trust the news they are watching as they are being lied to about the war. The sign also featured a sentence in English that read, "Russians against war".

According to reports from CNN, the video has sent shockwaves throughout Russian society as the woman was immediately arrested and can face a jail sentence of up to 15 years, under the new laws passed by Russia's President Vladimir Putin that allows Russian authorities to imprison any individual that speaks out against the Russian government.

Elden Ring has sold over 12 million copies as of March 14, becoming one of Bandai Namco's best-selling games of all time.

FromSoftware's new masterpiece RPG has hit an incredible sales milestone of 12 million+ physical and digital copies purchased worldwide. With figures like these, it's implied that Elden Ring has made over $500 million in game sales revenues across all platforms in just 17 days (nearly 3 weeks).

Elden Ring is so successful that Bandai Namco has declared it a full IP series that will expand with more content. The publisher mentions that Elden Ring could cross over to other mediums outside of video games.

Two leading video game market analysts predict GTA 6 could release in 2024, but they disagree on exactly when.

A bit ago I predicted GTA 6 could launch in Take-Two's FY24, which ends in March 2024. Since then that prediction has been carried by analysts based on a substantial spike in net bookings for the period. A new SEC filing shows that both FY24 and FY25 will be big years for Take-Two with an estimated $5.2 billion and $5.5 billion in respective net bookings.

This suggests that GTA 6 could launch in either FY24 or FY25. Both of these include the 2024 calendar year. Jefferies analyst Andrew Uerkwitz believes that a major Rockstar title should launch throughout 2024: "Despite a significant multi-year content unlock that likely includes a major content release from Rockstar in 2024, Take-Two will still grow in FY25," Uerkwitz wrote.

EA has officially cancelled its annual EA Play Live summer showcase because its projects simply aren't ready to show just yet.

EA Play Live will not premiere in 2022 after all. The publisher issued a statement that strongly hinted that COVID-19 and work-from-home measures have impacted game development, and certain games won't be ready to show off.

"This year things aren't lining up to show you everything on one date. We have exciting things happening at our world-class studios and this year we'll reveal much more about these projects when the time is right for each of them. We look forward to spending time with you throughout the year!" EA told IGN.

Tencent has acquired a majority stake in Tequila Works, the indie studio known for video games like RiME.

Chinese juggernaut Tencent has just increased its hold on the games industry with yet another indie developer. This time Tencent has bought the majority shares of Tequila Works, the Madrid-based studio behind RiME and Deadlight.

Tencent's acquisition will inject new funding into Tequila Works, arming them with new resources to expand and develop projects in all-original IPs. Tencent will remain hands-off and allow the studio to continue on as it always has.

Keanu Reeves said it best: "It's ridiculous that there isn't [a new Matrix game]." Well now WB Games knows what to do.

A batch of mods for the new fighting game Sifu shows exactly what fans want from a new Matrix game. Just let us play as Neo, give us some awesome survival brawling combat, and watch as we wipe the floor with dozens of Agent Smiths. Yes, it really is that simple. Maybe throw in some shoot-em-up chaos and crazy stunts in an analog, green-filtered world and boom, there's your perfect Matrix game.

Graphics aren't super important but a dev could use the crazy next-gen tech from the Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5 tech demo. I'd say gameplay is what matters most in a game like this--especially with the fun of smashing tons of agents around.

Microsoft's breakthrough DirectStorage API tech, which promises to accelerate NVMe storage speeds, is now available to all PC game developers.

PC devs can now supercharge loading screens and rendering in their games with DirectStorage integration. The new API accelerates asset pipeline delivery by completely bypassing the CPU and blasting data directly to the GPU for on-screen rendering. The result will fully unlock the power of NVMe SSDs and deliver true PCIe Gen 4x4 (and beyond) levels of throughput. For an in-depth explanation on how DirectStorage works, click here.

DirectStorage is also compatible with Windows 10 games, however Microsoft notes that Windows 11 is the "recommended path for gaming" because it has certain optimizations built into the OS.

Daily NFT trading volume is down by 80% on digital marketplace OpenSea, the world's largest NFT trading platform, triggering what the media calls "the great NFT sell-off".

According to data gleaned by FinancialTimes, the daily trade volume for NFTs on OpenSea has dropped by 80% to $50 million throughout March, as opposed to the $284 million in trade volume reached in February.

NFT tracker DappRadar likewise shows an overall drop in traders and volume on OpenSea. Overall trading volume for the past 30 days has dropped by over 67% to $2.6 billion (by all means an incredible number that is more than some games companies earn every year) with traders also dropping some 23% to 489,796 users.