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Famous billionaire investor says Bitcoin is 'going to zero'
A famous investor that has been a business partner of Warren Buffet has said that the price of Bitcoin is "going to zero" and described the cryptocurrency market as a "venereal disease".
Famous investor 98-year-old Charlie Munger, who is the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Daily Journal chairman said during an interview with Yahoo that he doesn't regret not investing into the emerging cryptocurrency market. Munger says that he didn't invest into crypto and that he is proud he avoided it, describing it as a "venereal disease". The famed investor goes on to say that cryptocurrencies are regularly used for illegal activities such as extortion and tax evasion.
Munger says that he "admires the Chinese" for banning cryptocurrencies and that the US was "wrong" in its decision to allow them. Munger was asked to comment on the price of the largest and most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, where he said that the price of the digital currency "is going to zero" over the next 100 years. Munger has been a long advocate for the banning of cryptocurrencies and wished they were banned "immediately". Lastly, Munger warned investors to not treat the stock market as a "gambling parlor".
Continue reading: Famous billionaire investor says Bitcoin is 'going to zero' (full post)
YouTuber exposes massive NFT scam that was going to make $20 million
YouTuber Coffeezilla has performed an investigation into several NFT projects and found that the owners are working together to pump their project's value artificially.
Before the launch of the NFT project "Squiggles," a 60-page dossier was published that accused the owner of the project of being a "puppet owner" for a group of three individuals Gavin, Gabe, and Ali. The dossier not only accuses the three individuals of being behind Squiggles but also being behind past NFT scam projects such as League of Divine Beings, Vault of Gems, Sinful Souls, Dirty Dogs, and more.
Screenshots also revealed the owners communicating about conducting a fake giveaway by sending money to a friend's account. This fake giveaway was for marketing purposes to generate hype for one of the projects, in an effort to raise awareness and artificially increase the project's value. After being exposed for being behind several NFT scam projects, the team of scammers hired individuals to appear as the owners of new projects, and one of these projects was Squiggles.
Continue reading: YouTuber exposes massive NFT scam that was going to make $20 million (full post)
COLORFUL launches X15 XS gaming notebook: starts at $999
COLORFUL has just launched its new X15 XS gaming laptop which rocks Intel's new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs and NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU.
The new COLORFUL X15 XS gaming laptop is offered in two CPU configurations: the Core i5-12500H (12-core, 16-thread) processor or the Core i7-12700H (14-core, 20-thread) processor. COLORFUL's custom X15 XS gaming laptop will have NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU with support for NVIDIA G-SYNC ULTIMATE and 144Hz laptop displays.
COLORFUL offers 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, a 15.6-inch 1080p 144Hz display, 1GbE networking, Sound Blaster Cinema 6+ audio, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, 1 x USB 2.0 port, 2 x USB Type-C ports, 1 x HDMI out, 1 x mini DisplayPort 1.4 out, and a microSD card slot. The new X15 XS gaming laptop will be offered in either Pine Blue or Mist Grey.
Continue reading: COLORFUL launches X15 XS gaming notebook: starts at $999 (full post)
Intel teases Arc-based 'Beast Canyon' NUC Extreme with XeSS tech
Intel has had a lot to show off today during its Investors Meeting 2022, with a tease of an Intel Arc-based "Beast Canyon" NUC 11 Extreme PC.
You can buy Intel's beasty NUC 11 Extreme right now, but you can't buy an Intel Arc-based one. The codename "Beast Canyon" NUC was running an Intel Arc GPU and one of the newer Tomb Raider games with its Intel XeSS technology.
Inside, the CPU we're looking at is either the Intel Core i9-11900KB (8C/16T @ up to 4.9GHz) or the Core i7-11700B (8C/16T @ up to 4.8GHz). There's support for a full PCIe 4.0 x16 graphics card, and full-length at that -- but they have to be a dual-slot card -- something like the powerful GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition, or Inno3D GeForce RTX 3080 Ti X3 OC Dual Slot.
Continue reading: Intel teases Arc-based 'Beast Canyon' NUC Extreme with XeSS tech (full post)
Intel shows off 13th Gen Core 'Raptor Lake' CPU: 24C/32T of powah
Intel's current flagship 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU is the Core i9-12900K with 16 cores and 24 threads, but the company has just teased its new flagship 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPU with 24 cores and 32 threads that drops later this year.
The company showed off an engineering sample of its next-gen Raptor Lake CPU, packed with 24C/32T of processing power with Intel's hybrid architecture and blend of Performance and Efficient cores. Intel said that its next-gen consumer CPU will have 8 Performance cores and 16 Efficient cores, meaning there's twice as many "small" cores than current Alder Lake CPUs.
Intel's new Raptor Lake CPUs will be made on its in-house Intel 7 process technology, the same Intel 7 process that is used for the current-gen Alder Lake CPUs. The new Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs will be socket compatible with LGA1700, something Intel also confirmed -- but it didn't add if you'll need a BIOS update -- something I'm sure we'll hear more about in the coming weeks.
Continue reading: Intel shows off 13th Gen Core 'Raptor Lake' CPU: 24C/32T of powah (full post)
Intel confirms next-gen 15th Gen Core 'Arrow Lake' CPUs for 2024
Intel has confirmed its next-gen 2024 processor series, with the tease of its 15th Gen Core "Arrow Lake" CPUs at its recent Investors Meeting 2022.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger confirmed that Intel's new 15th Gen Core "Arrow Lake" CPUs will succeed the next-gen 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPUs that are launching in 2023. Before that, we have the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs launching later this year, which succeed the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs that Intel just launched.
The new Intel 15th Gen Core "Arrow Lake" CPUs will be launching on not one but three different process nodes: Intel 4, Intel 20A, and External N3 technology... but spoiler alert: it'll be TSMC. After Arrow Lake, we have the 16th Gen Core "Lunar Lake" which Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead last year said would KILL the next-next-gen Zen 5 architecture from AMD. The next few years of CPU technology are going to be pretty radical, while Intel simultaneously launches a new GPU to compete with AMD and NVIDIA. Can't wait.
Continue reading: Intel confirms next-gen 15th Gen Core 'Arrow Lake' CPUs for 2024 (full post)
Intel Arc Celestial GPUs: 'Ultra Enthusiast' GPU market in 2024+
Intel has teased its very future-gen Arc Celestial GPU, its 3rd Gen Arc discrete GPU codenamed Celestial will enter the "Ultra Enthusiast" segment in 2024+.
The company revealed the plans of its next-gen Arc Battlemage for 2023-2024, and then its next-next-gen Arc Celestial for 2024+. Intel's first-gen Arc Alchemist GPU will be offered in multiple SKUs that will handle the Entry, Mainstream, Performance, and Enthusiast segments.
Intel's next-gen Arc Battlemage will handle everything and then reach the new Ultra Enthusiast segment, while in 2024 and beyond we'll have Arc Celestial that will burst through that Ultra Enthusiast.
Continue reading: Intel Arc Celestial GPUs: 'Ultra Enthusiast' GPU market in 2024+ (full post)
Crypto games actually aren't very popular, still very speculative
The Big Four of crypto gaming pull in less than 500,000 monthly active users, data from New World Notes suggests.
The crypto gaming market may be potentially lucrative, but it seems to be far from the bustling, multi-million user ecosystem that's hinted at in reports. In all actuality the digital NFT-based games landscape is still mostly speculative, with the Big Four--The Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium Space--attracting less than 500,000 monthly active users. Strong MAUs and concurrent users are the biggest indicator of a online live game's success. In this case (and all other cases), higher numbers mean more people are active in the space.
According to figures collected by New World Notes' Wagner James Au, the Big Four aren't as popular as you'd expect.
Continue reading: Crypto games actually aren't very popular, still very speculative (full post)
Team Ricochet serves just desserts to Warzone cheaters
Warzone's anti-cheat team has implemented a hilarious just desserts punishment for cheaters.
Cheating is a big problem in online games like Warzone (and even Halo). Activision's newly established anti-cheat team, Team Ricochet, wants to make an example of cheaters by demoralizing ne'er-do-wells by essentially turning cheats on for their opponents.
The punishment enables a "Damage Shield" which effectively a player invulnerable to a cheater's attacks (IDDQD anyone?). If the anti-cheat system detects a cheater, it will automatically turn on the shield for other players for the remainder of the match. The cheater can't kill anyone else--they can only be killed in a hunter-and-prey role reversal.
Continue reading: Team Ricochet serves just desserts to Warzone cheaters (full post)
Embracer has made 71 acquisitions, has $851 million for more buyouts
The Embracer Group has made a whopping 71 acquisitions, mergers, and buyouts from 2016 - 2021...and it has plans for more M&A in the future.
Embracer Group isn't just a name, but an ethos that's represented in the company's massive array of buyouts. It seems like every few months Embracer buys someone new, and major recent acquisitions include Dark Horse Comics, Asmodee, Gearbox Software, 4A Games--the list goes on and on.
In a recent earnings report, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors says these acquisitions will continue. The company has made 71 acquisitions since 2016 and plans to secure up to 8 billion SEK (roughly $851 million) for more M&A. However, Wingefors says the buyouts will be more selective as the availability of content, gaming's most valuable commodity, starts to shrink due to competing buyouts.
Continue reading: Embracer has made 71 acquisitions, has $851 million for more buyouts (full post)
Nintendo top 10 games: Pokemon smashes with nearly 14 million sales
The top 10 Switch games sales list grows exponentially during Nintendo's historical Q3 period.
Nintendo's Q3'22 period (holiday 2021) delivered record software sales, and a good portion of these games were first-party titles. Nintendo sold 85.41 million Switch games during the quarter, a new all-time high, and made $2.72 billion from software in the period. The top 10 most popular Switch games sold 29.77 million units during the quarter, making up 35% of total quarterly software sales.
The largest contributor to this huge first-party sales spike was Pokemon Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond. The duo sold 13.97 million copies during a single month across the Q3'22 period (the Pokemon games launched in late November, a month before the December 31 cutoff date).
Continue reading: Nintendo top 10 games: Pokemon smashes with nearly 14 million sales (full post)
Nintendo made $6 billion net sales, $1.7 billion net profits in Q3'22
Nintendo's Q3 FY22 performance nearly matches last year's record-setting holiday period.
Nintendo recently announced its Q3 earnings for the Holiday 2021 timeframe, and the results are stellar. Nintendo set new milestones for profit and software sales, and overall net sales nearly matched 2020 pandemic highs. In this article we'll be using USD conversions based on Nintendo's historical forex rates provided in its documents and investor briefs. All values given are rounded.
First let's take a look at net sales, which were roughly $6.047 billion (695.946 billion yen). Overall net sales delivered strong results and represent the second highest point in Nintendo history, driven by the full conjunction of Nintendo's entire operating business: games hardware, software, digital services and subscriptions, mobile games, and playing cards/accessories.
Continue reading: Nintendo made $6 billion net sales, $1.7 billion net profits in Q3'22 (full post)
Borderlands 3 sales hit 15 million, franchise sales at 74 million
Gearbox's mighty Borderlands franchise has sold 74 million units to date, making it one of the best-selling shooters on the market.
Embracer's latest financials give updates on key game sales, including Borderlands, which is now one of the 271 IPs the company owns.
Borderlands 3 has sold-in an impressive 15 million copies in two years, taking advantage of various sales, discounts, and re-releases to incentivize purchases. The franchise now sits at 74 million sales total, making it Take-Two Interactive's third best-selling franchise--and by extension one of Embracer's top-sellers.
Continue reading: Borderlands 3 sales hit 15 million, franchise sales at 74 million (full post)
Borderlands dev Gearbox plans to release 10 AAA games by 2026
Gearbox plans to release a whopping 10 AAA games by 2026, its parent company Embracer Group has announced.
Gearbox was once known as the dev behind Borderlands, but now its grown into a multimedia entertainment company with multiple segments. Gearbox now has three divisions: Gearbox Publishing, which has helped publish indie games like Godfall and Risk of Rain 2, Gearbox Software, its internal game studio responsible for Borderlands games, and Gearbox Studios, a branch focused on multimedia like the new Borderlands film.
Gaming is still Gearbox's bread and butter. The company has ambitious plans to release 10 major AAA games by 2026, compromising nearly half of Embracer's total 25 game pipeline for the period.
Continue reading: Borderlands dev Gearbox plans to release 10 AAA games by 2026 (full post)
Hot Wheels Unleashed broke even on second day of sales, Milestone says
Hot Wheels Unleashed was one of Embracer's most important games of 2021 and was profitable the second day of release.
Following 1 million sales in the quarter, Hot Wheels Unleashed was a powerful driver for Embracer's holiday 2021 earnings. The game did so well that it broke even after its first day on the market and became profitable on day two.
"Hot wheels has been a success for us, considering the very first day of launch, with our revenue we covered development, marketing and production costs. So in the very second day we were in the profit area," Milestone CEO Luisa Bixio said during Embracer's Q3 presentation.
Continue reading: Hot Wheels Unleashed broke even on second day of sales, Milestone says (full post)
Embracer Group now has 271 IPs and franchises across 88 studios
The Embracer Group now has access to a whopping 271 video game IPs and franchises.
Nordic-based games company the Embracer Group is one the biggest players in the video games industry. The multimedia giant owns and licenses an incredible 271 IPs, franchises, and series that range from heavy-hitting AAA titles like Borderlands to smaller, licensed multiplayer game like Saber's World War Z and the new Evil Dead game.
Now that big-name giants like Microsoft are buying up studios in multi-billion deals, Embracer's pool of intellectual property remains extremely valuable--content IP is the most valuable commodity on the market today. Some of Embracer's most profitable franchises hail from the Deep Silver branch, including Dead Island, Metro, and Saints Row, but Gearbox's Borderlands is very lucrative, too.
Continue reading: Embracer Group now has 271 IPs and franchises across 88 studios (full post)
Diablo 2 player breaks max life threshold with 33,000+ life barbarian
Diablo 2's max life threshold has been broken to an absolutely excessive degree.
Diablo 2 streamer MrLlamaSC is mostly known for its impressive speed runs and encyclopedic knowledge of the old-school 2000's era ARPG. Now he's pushing that know-how even farther with one of the craziest min-max builds in the game.
In a recent video, MrLlamaSC showed how to push a barbarian's max health to nearly 34,000. The feat takes a serious amount of specialized gear and sequencing of skills, and it's entirely realistic--it's not necessarily a usable build insofar as damage but more so a spectacle of what's possible.
Continue reading: Diablo 2 player breaks max life threshold with 33,000+ life barbarian (full post)
Enormous solar eruption caught on video by ESA satellite
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter (SolO) witnessed the giant solar prominence on February 15th, 2022.
According to the ESA, solar prominences are "large structures of tangled magnetic field lines that keep dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended above the Sun's surface." They are commonly associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can disrupt technology and life on Earth if directed towards us.
The CME from the February 15th event is traveling in the opposite direction to Earth, originating on the side of the Sun facing away from Earth. While the Solar Orbiter did not witness the eruption on the Sun's surface, its Full Sun Imager (FSI) and Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instruments allowed it to capture the solar prominence as it extended millions of kilometers beyond the Sun in the satellites field of view.
Continue reading: Enormous solar eruption caught on video by ESA satellite (full post)
Space 'rewired' the brains of cosmonauts, new study finds
A new study on space-related brain changes has been published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits.
The European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos, and researchers from the University of Antwerp in Belgium have collaborated to explore how cosmonauts' brains were affected by spaceflight and living aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The research studied twelve male cosmonauts who, on average, spent 172 days (five and a half months) in space, examining their brains shortly before leaving Earth, soon after returning, and again seven months after returning.
Continue reading: Space 'rewired' the brains of cosmonauts, new study finds (full post)
NASA: Tonga volcano eruption rose higher than ever seen by satellites
The Hunga Tonga volcano eruption occurred on January 15th, 2022.
Two weather satellites in a geostationary orbit overhead witnessed the eruption; the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's (NOAA) GOES-17 and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Himawari-8. According to NASA, the event was the largest volcanic eruption since satellites have been monitoring Earth.
Scientists from NASA's Langley Research Center analyzed the data from these two satellites and determined the plume of volcanic ash from the eruption reached 58 kilometers (36 miles) at its highest point. The plume reached into the mesosphere, the third layer of Earth's atmosphere, and reached its peak height around 30 minutes after the eruption. A secondary plume followed the first and reached more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) high.
Continue reading: NASA: Tonga volcano eruption rose higher than ever seen by satellites (full post)






















