Latest News - Page 1188

Chinese online giant NetEase reports its full-year earnings for 2021, showing significant growth.

Strong post-pandemic spending on an even stronger games slate has helped NetEase generate $9.8 billion from online games. According to data provided by NetEase, the company made $6.9 billion from mobile and $2.9 billion from the PC across a mix of online-based and more premium titles like Naraka Bladepoint.

Data indicates that NetEase is #2 in total online digital/network game services revenues. Sony takes the top spot with $11.5 billion combined revenues from add-on content (microtransactions) and combined network services. NetEase remains one of the most powerful forces in the industry and a leading top mobile developer that serves gaming's most lucrative market.

NetMarble is working on six P2E blockchain mobile games, the company has announced.

Korean mobile games giant NetMarble is jumping into the blockchain sphere with a swath of new games. The developer plans to release its first crypto game in March 2022 followed by five other blockchain-based titles. One of these games may be based on Marvel characters--in 2020, Marvel Games teamed up with Wax to make custom NFTs.

"The company is also aiming to launch six blockchain games, with the first coming in March. These include A3: Still Alive Global, Golden Bros, Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds Global, Champions: Ascension, Monster Arena (TBD) and Everybody's Marvel: Meta World," reads a press release.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced the new sanctions on Russia on Thursday, February 24th.

The sanctions will seek to "degrade" Russia's space program in response to the Russian military's invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions will impact Russia's space program, military, maritime industry, financial institutions, and citizens close to the Russian president Vladimir Putin. Biden says they are "purposely designed" to maximize the long-term economic impact on the country.

A study on the family tree titled "A unified genealogy of modern and ancient genomes" has been published in the journal Science.

Researchers from the University of Oxford's Big Data Institute have developed a method to combine genome sequences from many databases to create a genealogy network of almost 27 million ancestors. By developing algorithms to handle the massive amount of data, the team has taken a major step toward mapping the entire genealogy of the human race and how we are all related to one another.

The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is concerned satellites may become a target for the Russian military.

Late last year Russia demonstrated its anti-satellite capabilities against one of its own satellites. Now, amidst the unfolding conflict in Ukraine, the head of the NRO warned commercial and government satellites are potential targets but did not mention any specific actions that might be taken against them, aside from citing GPS jamming as an example of a tactic Russia already employs.

A study on the problem titled "Death by Robots? Automation and Working-Age Mortality in the United States" has been published in the journal Demography.

Researchers from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania have found evidence for a causal link between increased automation of U.S manufacturing and rising mortality in adults in the U.S. They found this to be largely driven by more "deaths of despair," such as suicides and drug overdoses, particularly for males and females aged between 45 and 54.

The Russian military has captured the area after beginning its invasion into Ukraine.

After battling with Ukrainian forces on three sides, the Russian military has gained control of part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, including the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the abandoned city of Pripyat. According to Reuters, a Russian security source says the Russian military amassed in the exclusion zone before crossing into Ukraine, and wants to control the nuclear reactor to signal to NATO to not interfere militarily.

Astronomers will be able to watch a nearly 4,000 foot-wide asteroid pass by Earth next week, according to data provided by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

The asteroid is 2001 CB21, and according to the NASA database, it is estimated to be up to 3,940 feet in diameter and will make its closest approach with Earth on March 4 at 2:59 am Eastern Time. During its safe but close approach with Earth, the asteroid is estimated to be traveling at 26,800 miles per hour and will be about 3 million miles from Earth, or about 12 times the distance between the moon and Earth.

As the asteroid makes its approach Gianluca Masi, an astronomer at the Virtual Telescope Project located in Italy, photographed the space rock on February 23, when it was around 6.2 million miles from Earth. The image can be seen above. Masi spoke to Newsweek and said that due to the ever-increasing technological upgrades that come to space telescopes, astronomers are able to locate smaller and smaller objects, which is why the number of "near-Earth objects" is increasing.

Non-Fungible Token (NFT) scams are plaguing the industry, with it seeming like someone is falling victim to a scam at least every week.

It was only recently that a notorious Twitch streamer scammed his community out of $500,000, and now reports indicate that a senior student at Shanghai's Tongji University has also fallen victim to a similar amount of money. Niq Chen, the senior student at the university, spoke to the South China Morning Post and said that he purchased the NFTs from a project called "LuckyCot 3D", and they consisted of around half of his total NFT collection.

Chen reports receiving a link, which turned out to be a phishing scam. Once Chen clicked on the link, his collection of NFTs worth around $548,000 disappeared, with the scammer then immediately selling an NFT to a private individual whose identity wasn't disclosed. After realizing what had happened, Chen attempted to purchase the stolen NFT back, but the buyer of the stolen asset said that what he received was "a good deal".

Sotheby's auctions are some of the most famous auctions in the world, selling off precious items such as this rock that may be from outer space to NFT collectibles.

Recently there was going to be an auction for a collection of 104 CryptoPunk NFTs that were, at the time, estimated to be worth around $30 million. The auction for the collectibles was meant to be hosted by Sotheby's, but leading up to the auction going live, the seller pulled out, leaving Sotheby's and the NFT community confused. The seller, which goes by the pseudonym '0x650d' took to Twitter to make light of the situation by writing "nvm, decided to hodl".

Following the initial tweet after the rug pull, the seller followed up with a meme that suggests he doesn't agree with Sotheby's trying to take NFTs mainstream by selling them and approves of "taking punks mainstream by rugging Sotheby's". It should be noted that this event isn't technically a rug pull since investors didn't lose any money. To more accurately describe it would be a stunt by the seller in an effort to highlight Sotheby's "high fees charged by auction houses like Sotheby's", according to Haralobos Voulgaris, a quantitative researcher for the Dallas Mavericks who described '0x650d' as a "clown".

Russia has officially begun its invasion into Ukraine, and amid the explosions caused by the missiles launched, NASA has commented on the work-life balance of US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia only recently began its move into Ukraine, with reports now saying that Russian troops are now moving into Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The Independent has reported that NASA has said that despite the actions taken by Russia, US astronauts aboard the ISS will continue to work alongside Russian cosmonauts in order to ensure research in space remains the same.

Backing up the statement from NASA was the head of Russia's space program, Dmitry Rogozin, who said that sometimes he is completely unhappy with the "sometimes openly hostile US policy towards my country", but "regardless of disagreements between our countries," Roscosmos "will make every effort to continue as before." If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

In a news post yesterday I reported about the "NVIDIA RTX LHR v2 Unlocker" tool that would reportedly un-gimp an LHR-based GeForce RTX 30 series GPU... but man, we could not have been more wrong.

The tool is actually made by a hacker and is actually filled with malware, and most likely connects to a remote server somewhere and the world and siphons data from your PC. I reported on it but didn't include a link to it, just the articles that had reported on it, so I won't include a link here.

In the original article, I stated: "The way this new tool works is that the software implements a modification extracted from BIOSes that are detected by mining operating systems like HiveOS. The modification is then added into the BIOS of cards that have limited hash rate performance, while the new Unlocker software modifies, flashes, and gives you a backup of your BIOS. It's safe, and reversible, says Sergey".

If you thought the 300W+ that your GPU uses now, or even the 450W+ of past dual-GPUs and even NVIDIA's maybe-it-might-release-one-day GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and its 450W power... but man, Ada Lovelace is power-hungry in the latest rumors.

NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPU will debut later this year with the GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, with new rumors from industry leaker "Greymon55" that there are 3 x TDP numbers of AD102: 450W, 650W, and a monster 850W.

We should expect the 450W TDP with the GeForce RTX 4080, the 650W TDP for the GeForce RTX 4080 Ti, and the bonkers 850W TDP for the GeForce RTX 4090. THis is all rumor mill right now, so I've included some salt in the Amazon affiliate link just in case. You can never be sure that you don't have enough salt, especially with these rumors. But then again, Ampere is a power-hungry GPU monster... and it seems NVIDIA is really having to dial things to 11 for Ada Lovelace and the GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs.

Sony's new PlayStation Spartacus subscription service will reportedly combine some of its competitor's best perks in one package.

Sony's new subscription, codenamed Spartacus, is said to merge PlayStation Now and PS Plus in one service. Official details haven't been announced but sources tell Venture Beat's Jeff Grubb how Spartacus might work (via Grubbsnax).

There's three tiers with separate prices, and the most expensive $16/month tier will offer access to classic PlayStation games similar to Nintendo Switch Online's treasure trove of NES, SNES, and Genesis titles.

Microsoft, Obsidian, and Bethesda reportedly have "high interest" in making a Fallout New Vegas sequel.

Now that Obsidian and Bethesda Game Studios are under the same roof, Fallout New Vegas 2 might actually happen. Sources have told Venture Beat's Jeff Grubb that very early talks about a New Vegas sequel are under way and that everyone involved with the discussions has a lot of interest and confidence in the project.

"This is very early, but people have begun to have talks and say the words 'Obsidian' and 'New Vegas 2' in sentences," Grubb said in today's episode of GrubbSnax

A study on the extinction event titled "The Mesozoic terminated in boreal spring" has been published in the journal Nature.

An international team of researchers has determined that the meteorite that crashed into Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs struck during the boreal (relating to the northern hemisphere) springtime. Around 66 million years ago, the meteorite crashed into Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater on what is now known as the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, wiping out all non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ammonites, and most marine reptiles but allowing mammals, birds, crocodiles, and turtles to survive.

The team was able to study fossilized fish, which were buried by enormous waves resulting from the meteorite impact. The fossils were remarkably well preserved, with almost no geochemical degradation of their bones observed. Using the particle accelerator at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), the team analyzed the bones of the fish.

A study on the latest observations of the planet titled "BEBOP III. Observations and an independent mass measurement of Kepler-16 (AB) b - the first circumbinary planet detected with radial velocities" has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

A team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham have used the 193-centimeter telescope at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France to observe the rare exoplanet. The planet is called Kepler-16b and previously had only been observed by the Kepler space telescope. It is located roughly 245 light-years away from Earth and orbits around two stars, which both orbit each other to create a binary star system.

Existing in such a system means that any observer on the surface of Kepler-16b would witness two sunsets (and sunrises), as you would on the planet Tatooine in the Star Wars universe. Kepler-16b was the fourth confirmed circumbinary planet (orbiting two stars) found at the time of discovery in 2011, with nine currently known at the time of writing.

A study of the black holes titled "The Unanticipated Phenomenology of the Blazar PKS 2131-021: A Unique Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidate" has been published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have observed two supermassive black holes orbiting one another every two years, nine billion light-years away. Both are hundreds of millions of times greater in mass than our Sun and are separated by about fifty times the distance between our Sun and Pluto. They are predicted to merge in approximately ten thousand years, which will send massive gravitational waves across the universe.

The black holes are found within a blazar dubbed PKS 2131-021, a type of quasar. Quasars are a type of active galactic nuclei (AGN) where the supermassive black hole(s) within siphons material from the accretion disc encircling it and shoots out massive jets. PKS 2131-021 marks the second known candidate for a pair of supermassive black holes caught merging, with the first candidate pair being the quasar OJ 287, whose black holes orbit one another every nine years instead of two.

The artwork was made by Sacha Jafri, who made the world's largest painting on canvas over seven months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The artwork to be placed on the Moon was revealed at The USA Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on February 23rd, 2022. It will make its way to the lunar surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, marking the first commercial lunar mission under the initiative.

The mission has been brought together by Selenian, a company specializing in the curation of art in space. Selenian is working with Spacebit, a company developing space exploration technology, and Astrobotic Technology Inc., which provides end-to-end delivery services for Moon-bound payloads, to put the artwork on the Moon. The landing site for Jafri's artwork will become a world heritage landmark, to be preserved forever.

A study on the new technology titled "Quantum sensing for gravity cartography" has been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have made a breakthrough in mapping the underground using a quantum gravity gradiometer. The technology was developed under contract for the Ministry of Defense as part of the UKRI-funded Gravity Pioneer project and was used to locate a tunnel buried a meter below ground in real-world conditions.

The sensor detects variations in microgravity using the principles of quantum physics and has profound implications for several fields, including national security. The technology opens the commercial pathways to reduce costs and delays associated with construction projects, assist in studying and predicting natural phenomena such as volcanoes, and uncover hidden resources and structures such as precious archaeological finds without risking damage through excavation.