Latest News - Page 1195

SEGA and Paramount are going on a Sonic blitz.

The Blue Blur is coming back to the silver screen with a third Sonic film, Paramount and SEGA have announced. The second film, which is due out April 8, is expected to deliver another box office record with its all-star cast including Jim Carrey, Idris Elba, and James Marsden. The first Sonic movie is one of the best-earning video game theatrical adaptations of all time with nearly $320 million earned at the box office.

Paramount is also producing a live-action Sonic TV show exclusively for its Paramount+ streaming service, which recently broke 38 million paid subscribers. This rush of Sonic transmedia is part of Paramount's massive content push to accelerate its streaming and entertainment business, which so happens to be a great move for both companies; Sonic has a combined 1 billion games sold and downloaded across the last 30 years.

Nintendo plans to permanently remove NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and other retro classic games from sale starting in 2023.

From 2023 onward, Switch Online service will be the only place gamers can experience retro Nintendo games. Earlier today Nintendo announced it would close the Wii U and 3DS eShops in 2023. Starting next year, gamers will not be able to buy content from either the Wii U or 3DS storefronts, including a wealth of Virtual Console games across legacy systems. This effectively removes these old-school retro hits from the market.

In a now-deleted section of its announcement FAQ, Nintendo said it "currently has no plans to offer classic content in other ways" outside of Switch Online. Just a bit ago we discussed how Nintendo was evolving the Switch Online subscription service with additive value. This particular move sees the company is boosting value with the omission of choice rather than additional content.

A new study on psilocybin's effect in the treatment of major depressive disorder has been published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have previously demonstrated psilocybin's ability to relieve symptoms of major depressive disorder in adults for up to a month. A follow-up study of the same participants has shown "substantial antidepressant effects" that can last for at least a year in some patients after psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy treatment.

The DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) uploaded the teaser to Twitter just before the Super Bowl.

The announcement tweet, reading "The Future was never promised. Reimagine today.", includes a teaser video that features the iconic gull-wing doors, one of the memorable features of the original DMC DeLorean. You can sign up for updates on the DeLorean website, allowing you to receive information about the company's journey toward electrification ahead of a premiere sometime in 2022.

In addition to showing that the upcoming vehicle will be electric, the accompanying hashtags also suggest it will have a higher-end, luxury focus. Made infamous by the "Back to the Future" movie trilogy, the DeLorean was already out of production when the first of the movie was released in 1985.

A new report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and six other federal agencies describes the expected sea-level rise.

The 111-page report was issued on February 15th, and includes projections for sea-level rises on United States' shores to be 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 centimeters) higher than current levels by 2050. Parts of Louisiana and Texas are likely to see waters rise by up to a foot and a half (0.45 meters).

Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA's National Ocean Service, warned that the cost of such an increase would be steep, noting that forty percent of the American population and much of the economy is found along the coast. The report's lead author and oceanographer William Sweet notes that the worst of the long-term sea-level rise due to melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland isn't likely to kick in until 2100.

Bookings will open through Virgin Galactic's website on Wednesday, February 16th.

Virgin Galactic has announced that it will be reopening its waiting list for customers to book a space tourism flight, requiring a deposit of $150,000 and $450,000 total for the ticket cost. In November 2021, the company reported a pool of about 700 customers awaiting flights, with plans to have a thousand people ready to fly by late 2022, when they plan to begin commercial flights.

It is the third documented case of an individual entering HIV remission.

The previous two cases of HIV remission were males, who were known as the "Berlin patient" and the "London patient," who were Caucasian and Latino, respectively. The Berlin patient was in HIV remission for 12 years, having been deemed cured, before he died of leukemia in September 2020, and the London Patient has been in remission for more than 30 months. They both received stem cell treatments from bone marrow.

Now, a woman has been in HIV remission since receiving a different treatment, transplanting CCR5Δ32/Δ32 cord blood stem cells from an umbilical cord. Before her treatment, she had been on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for four years, making her HIV manageable but still detectable. She received the stem cell treatment in 2017 and, after 100 days, had no detectable HIV. At 37 months following the transplant, she ceased ART, and in the 14 months following ART cessation, no HIV has been detected, except for a trace detection 14 weeks after stopping ART.

A camera onboard China's space station has captured a robotic arm crawling along the outside of the station.

The video has been shared by the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) and showcases a 33.5-foot-long robotic arm crawling along the outside of the Tianhe module. In the above video, the arm rises up and is searching for a docking location on the side of the module, which can be seen in the foreground of the video. So, why is there a massive arm on China's space station? The large robotic arm is designed to assist astronauts that are performing repairs or upgrades outside of the station, as well as assisting in system checks.

Additionally, the robotic arm will be used to move new modules of the space station into their correct positions once more arrive in orbit sometime throughout Q3/Q4 of this year. The arm will move the modules from the front docking port to lateral ports on the space station, which will eventually complete the intended T-shaped design that engineers planned for. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway has sold a portion of its shares in both Visa and Mastercard in a move away from traditional credit systems.

Berkshire Hathaway has sold $1.3 billion worth of Mastercard and $1.8 billion worth of Visa stock. Through a securities filing it was discovered the conglomerate purchased $1 billion worth of Nubank Class A stock throughout the fourth quarter of 2021. In the past Buffet has been critical over investing in fintech, emerging technologies aimed at competing with traditional financial systems, and has even honed in on Bitcoin saying it "does not create anything."

However, these recent actions from Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway seem to indicate that the billionaire has at least changed his opinion to some degree about these emerging technologies, as Nubank is the largest fintech bank in Brazil and furthermore has been offering its users Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) since June 2021 through the trading platform it purchased in 2020 called Easynvest.

Reports indicate that the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange is under investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC has launched a probe into Binance for its relationship between trading firms Sigma Chain AG and Merit Peak. The report states that the SEC has requested information to be provided on Binance's relationship with the aforementioned parties that are constantly trading on Binance's platform and how that relationship was disclosed to users of the exchange.

The WSJ report cited documents from 2019 that revealed ties between Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and the two trading firms Sigma Chain AG and Merit Peak. This isn't the first time Binance has reportedly been under investigation by a government body, as in May 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), launched a probe into the cryptocurrency exchange regarding crypto coins being used to perform illegal acts.

Asteroids are a constant problem for Earth, but luckily NASA hasn't identified any extinction-level asteroids on track to hit Earth for the next 100 years.

This means all of the ones we will experience between now and 100 years from now will most likely burn up in Earth's atmosphere before reaching the ground. Earth's atmosphere protects us humans and any other life form on the surface from catastrophic impacts, as any space rock that is less than 82 feet in diameter most likely won't reach the surface. However, this grace period between large asteroids and Earth wasn't always the case as there are at least 190 impact craters on Earth's surface that have been identified.

Asteroids that are larger than 82 feet wide aren't very common, but there have been some instances throughout Earth's history where an asteroid far larger than 82 feet in diameter has reached the surface. Some of the craters found in the list below date back to before the dinosaurs even existed, and the asteroids that caused some of the craters caused global effects during their time of impact.

The data comes from WhaleStats, that reports one wallet recently purchased more than $4 million worth of a meme cryptocurrency.

According to reports and Tweets from WhaleStats that analyzes the behavior of the 1,000 largest Binance Smart Chain (BSC) wallet addresses, one wallet address that's total holdings are worth more than $2.38 billion, has recently purchased 139,929,254,883 of the meme cryptocurrency Shibu Inu ($SHIB), worth $4.23 million.

DailyHodl reports that SHIB recently rose to the top and temporarily held there for the 24-hour trading volume among the largest 1,000 wallets on the BSC, as it had an average purchase amount of $4,249 for 140,454,463 SHIB coins. Out of all of the top wallets on the BSC, the meme-cryptocurrency accounts for just 1.03% of their holding, or $26.25 million.

NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card is nowhere to be seen, now a month since I exclusively revealed to the world that NVIDIA had ordered AIB partners to "halt production" of the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

It's still not here... and no one knows why.

The Verge spoke with NVIDIA UK staffer Jen Andersson, who at least had some words to say... versus the total silence every single other person who works for NVIDIA. Andersson said: "We don't currently have more info to share on the RTX 3090 Ti, but we'll be in touch when we do". I'll tell you: this is more BS, kicking that can (of Whoop Ass) down the road a little.

Apple's new 2022 iMac Pro will be launching later this year, with a new Mini-LED display that will reportedly offer around 1000 zones and 4000 Mini-LEDs.

The news of the slick 4000 Mini-LEDs on the new Apple iMac Pro is coming from display analyst Ross Young, who has said that the redesigned iMac Pro with a Mini-LED display would debut in June 2022. It looks like Apple is ahead with its shipment timeline of the new iMac Pro, where it could launch in June versus August or September 2022.

We should expect to see the larger 27-inch iMac Pro with the highest-end Mini-LED panel, while another 24-inch iMac Pro will be revealed at the same time. I wish Apple would shift up to larger displays, with a 32/34-inch iMac Pro and a 30-inch iMac Pro as the new baseline.

Sony receives criticism for using marketing materials to allegedly push gamers into buying a more expensive $69.99 Horizon Forbidden West bundle. But why is that?

Sony is selling two cross-gen bundles for Horizon Forbidden West. One is $69.99 and comes with a PS4 and PS5 copy. The other is $59.99 and comes with a PS4 copy and a digital upgrade to the PS5 version. Functionally, both options are identical. Sony splits cross-gen games into two SKUs, so any bundle that you buy will unlock both a PS4 and a separate PS5 version of the game.

So why does the $69.99 version exist at all? There's a few reasons. One is that the $59.99 version cannot be purchased on the PS5's storefront. Two is that the SKU existed before Sony made the announcement to honor their prior commitment and offer a free next-gen upgrade. Three, it's possible the $69.99 PS4 and PS5 bundle offers a permanent license to both versions of the game, and the $59.99 PS4 version offers a limited-time upgrade to PS5 that could expire.

Can you gaming PC handle Elden Ring? Let's find out.

FromSoftware just released Elden Ring's official PC spec requirements, and they're not too bad. The game will run on lower-end Xbox One and PS4 hardware from 2013 after all.

The devs haven't announced perf targets for the following GPU and CPU combinations, but it's implied minimum specs will hit around 720p 30FPS at low settings whereas minimum could be around 1080p 60FPS at medium settings. So far Elden Ring doesn't look like a crazy next-gen spectacle so the lower-end specs make sense here.

It's official: Netflix is making a BioShock movie...but exact details haven't been announced.

BioShock is the latest video game franchise to get a film adaptation. On the heels of multiple games-related successes, Netflix has announced that BioShock will be the next interactive IP to become a feature-length movie.

Netflix today confirmed the news but didn't announce exact details: "Netflix, 2K and Take-Two Interactive are partnering to produce a film adaptation of the renowned video game franchise BioShock."

Seagate's new Game Drives prep your console for one of the biggest PS5 games on the market.

Games are getting bigger and bigger, but luckily Seagate has you covered. Horizon Forbidden West, for example, clocks in at a massive 87GB on PS5 (even though the official PlayStation Store doesn't give exact file sizes). That's 13% of the PS5's available onboard SSD storage, which goes extra fast because the PS5 SSD's nefarious Other section fills up and takes lots of space.

Luckily Seagate has you covered with its Game Drive expandable storage. The latest lineup features Horizon Forbidden West's Aloy and comes in 2TB and 5TB capacities, which is plenty of space for the massive new open-world game.

Cyberpunk 2077 is finally playable on consoles thanks to a new free next-gen patch, offering tons of upgrades and optimizations for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S hardware.

After a full year of controversy, the definitive console version of Cyberpunk 2077 is now out on next-gen hardware. The new version is free for anyone who bought the game on PS4 or Xbox One and features a bunch of enhancements including a 4K 60FPS mode (with dynamic scaling) as well as 4K 30FPS with ray tracing on. Sadly the game runs at 1440p 30FPS on Xbox Series S without any other game modes.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been tweaked for both next-gen consoles. On PlayStation 5, the game supports the console's Tempest 3D architecture offering 3D audio, haptic DualSense feedback, activity card support. The game also supports smart delivery on Series X/S so there's no need for multiple downloads, and sadly the PS4 trophies don't transfer to the PS5 version because it's technically a different game entirely.

Cooler Master is joining in on the next-gen PCIe 5.0 power supply fun, announcing its next-gen flagship V-series PSUs with the introduction of the new V1300 Platinum and V SFX-L PSUs that both have PCIe 5.0 power connectors. Let's dive right into it.

The new flagship Cooler Master V1300 Platinum PSU looks gorgeous, rocking the new 30th Anniversary Edition design and 80 Plus platinum efficiency that's good for 1300W full load. Cooler Master is tapping high-quality Japanese 100% capacitors that have high operating temperatures of up to 50C.

Cooler Master has a hardware base single/multi-rail switch, as well as revamped PCIe cable connectivity -- there's 16AWG PCIe cables that are thicker than the standard 18AWG cables -- as well as offering 10A over 7A, with a fully modular design and huge 10-year warranty.