Latest News - Page 1223

343 Industries plans to fix some of Halo Infinite's biggest issues with a February patch.

In a long-winded post on the Halo forums, Halo community director Ske7ch confirms 343i is back from their holiday break and ready to start fixing Halo Infinite's myriad of issues. The first major fix will be Big Team Battle, which Ske7ch says is playable in its current state (our data shows an 80% failure rate), but a big BTB patch is currently in testing and certification process. There's no ETA on the BTB patch, however.

Another big patch is coming mid-February that will address cheaters and other unspecific problems. Ske7ch says 343i is "actively triaging" to determine what issues are the most important to fix and plans to "get as much as we can" into the February update. The goal is to fix things without breaking others...however that might be impossible due to how Halo Infinite has been developed.

LEGO is the latest company to re-evaluate its partnership with Activision-Blizzard in wake of the ongoing abuse scandals.

LEGO announces that it is contemplating its relationship with Activision and has delayed the release of a new Overwatch-themed LEGO product (the Overwatch 2 Titan) as a result. It's entirely possible LEGO could cut ties with the game developer entirely and cancel future sets--it's also worth noting the Overwatch sets are currently sold out on the LEGO website.

"We are currently reviewing our partnership with Activision Blizzard, given concerns about the progress being made to address continuing allegations regarding workplace culture, especially the treatment of female colleagues and creating a diverse and inclusive environment," LEGO said in a statement spotted by The Brick Fan.

In the first deal of its kind, American non-profit news agency The Associated Press (AP) will tap the growing NFT market to fund future journalistic endeavors.

Leading news firm AP plans to launch a new NFT marketplace on January 31 where it will sell cryptographically-signed versions of its award-winning photographs. The AP's vast library of photographs chronicle 175 years of American and world history, and the NFT collection will include both contemporary images of modern life as well as photos detailing historic events.

The AP's new photo NFTs will cover topics like space, war, climate, and worldwide developments complete with robust metadata details. "Each NFT will include a rich set of original metadata offering collectors awareness of the time, date, location, equipment and technical settings used for the shot," reads the press release.

Following the reports of Dying Light 2 being 10x as long as Breath of the Wild, Techland jumps in to add much-needed perspective on their new open-world game.

Dying Light 2 is a huge game--the biggest Techland has made--that can last up to 500 hours if you do and see everything in the game. If you're not a completionist and just want to play the main storyline, you're looking at around 20 hours of playtime. The developer also says that it'll take roughly 80 hours to beat the main story and complete all the side quests, which is about 60 hours worth of optional missions, quests, and content.

If you're a hardcore enthusiast then you can spend hundreds of hours in Dying Light 2. Techland says the 500+ hour figure comes from QA testers who have done everything possible in the game; every quest, side quest, multiple choice endings, uncovering the entire map and finding item and collectible within the huge world.

A new article published in the Journal of Transport Geography has examined the correlation between cycling and socioeconomic factors.

Dr. Ansgar Hudde from the University of Cologne's Institute for Sociology and Social Psychology (ISS) analyzed data spanning 1996 to 2018 from the German Mobility Panel (MOP) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), including over 55,000 people and totaling over 800,000 journeys.

The data shows that German city dwellers who had attained Abitur (completion of secondary education) cycled twice as much in 2018 on average compared to 1996, reaching 70 minutes per week. Citizens without Abitur living in less urbanized areas didn't have a marked change recorded over the same period, resulting in more highly-educated city dwellers cycling roughly three times as long comparatively.

The latest assessment comes from the European Union's (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

In its annual assessment, the C3S reported that 2021 adds to a now seven-year hot streak since 2015 of the hottest years globally on record. 2016 and 2020 were the hottest years, followed by 2019 and 2017, with 2021 coming in slightly hotter than 2015 and 2018. Accurate measurements are available from the mid-19th century onwards.

The C3S said the average annual temperature was between 1.1 to 1.2 degrees Celsius greater than pre-industrial temperatures, as measured between 1850 and 1900. It also observed significantly increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and growth rates. Methane reached an annual record of 1,876 parts per billion (ppb), and it was added to the atmosphere at rates of 14.6 ppb per year and 16.3 ppb per year for 2020 and 2021, respectively. These rates are more than double the average annual growth rate for the previous 17 years.

A new study published in Nature Physics describes the physics of Jupiter's enormous cyclones.

Oceanographers have used the images taken by NASA and Lockheed Martin's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter to understand the physical forces driving the massive cyclones covering the planet's surface. Lia Siegelman of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego noticed similarities between ocean vortices and the cyclones at Jupiter's poles.

Siegelman and her colleagues have now provided evidence to support the hypothesis that moist convection (hotter, less dense air rising) drives the cyclones, using images from Juno and principles of geophysical fluid dynamics. Infrared views allowed the researchers to determine the wind speed and directions of clouds, as well as their thickness. The data allowed them to tell how energetic the systems were, and they ascertained that the rising air within clouds acted as an energy source to produce larger-scale cyclones.

A new article published in Nature Food examines the impact of more plant-based diets globally on the climate.

Researchers from Leiden University state that 98.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide could be removed from the atmosphere by the end of the century if high-income countries switch to plant-based diets. The removal would result from land used for agriculture returning to its natural state, allowing for carbon capture, resulting in a carbon profit worth 14 years of agricultural emissions.

Around 80% percent of agricultural land, or 35 percent of the total habitable land on Earth is taken up by animals and the feed being grown for them. The research team led by Leiden University suggests that 54 high-income nations transitioning to the EAT-Lancet 'planetary diet' would reduce annual agricultural production emissions by 61%.

The discovery was published in a recent paper in Nature Communications.

Researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) studied cells undergoing pyroptosis (cell death usually due to infections, resulting in excess inflammation throughout the body). They found that the process could be halted and controlled when it was previously thought to be irreversible.

This discovery will allow scientists to study diseases associated with malfunctioning cell death processes, such as some cancers. Pyroptosis is a process that utilizes a protein known as gasdermin to open pores in a cell membrane and subsequently destabilize the cell. The researchers engineered their own "optogenetic" gasdermin, which responds to light, allowing them to observe the pyroptosis in action.

NASA recently announced that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team has successfully deployed the observatory's 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror.

Now that the gold mirror has been deployed and the observatory has completed all major deployments, the team can move into preparing the telescope for science operations, which means snapping pictures of the vast universe. Researchers have already expressed their excitement for the data that Webb will be able to acquire, and with this data, scientists may be able to answer some of the biggest questions in the universe.

According to a new update on NASA's website, the Webb team will be breathing a little easier now that the major deployments are completed and will shift their focus onto aligning Webb's 18 primary mirror segments, a process that will take five months to complete. Simultaneously the Webb team will be preparing the observatory's instruments for science operations. NASA writes that Webb will deliver its first images sometime this summer.

The future of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and the Metaverse has been discussed on a recent episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience".

Comedian and commentator Joe Rogan sat down with Adam Curry, the host of the "No Agenda" podcast and referred to as the "podfather", for 3 hours to discuss a variety of different topics. One of the topics that were brought up was cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, and the Metaverse, where Rogan said, "It's either going to fall apart completely, or we're going to use this as an opportunity to right the ship and come up with a better way to live our lives."

As seen in the above video, Curry explained that many young people are not participating in the traditional financial system and deciding to "opt-out" while simultaneously adopting or building "parallel systems and parallel networks." Additionally, Curry went on to explain that the current monetary system is "broken," referencing aspects such as "inflation" and it being "linked to oil." If you are interested in getting the full conversation, check out the above video.

Elon Musk has taken to his official Twitter account to share a teaser video of the highly anticipated Starship launch and catch tower.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a video showcasing the "launch & catch tower" located at the Starbase facility located in Texas. The launch and catch tower will be used for launching the massive Starship rocket that's expected to be able to send 100 tons of weight into space and then catching it with its chopstick prongs when it returns back down for Earth. Musk has called the entire large structure "Mechazilla".

The tower is necessary for SpaceX to place the 160-foot-tall ship on top of the next-generation booster dubbed Super Heavy, combined the entire structure stands at around 400 feet tall. Super Heavy will be a big step in the space exploration and transportation industry as it will be the first project that may allow humans to walk on the surface of Mars. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently completed all major deployments, and now the Webb team is sitting in some well-deserved breathing room.

NASA recently took to its blog to announce that the Webb team is moving forward with aligning all 18 of the observatory's iconic gold-coated mirrors, a process that will take around 5 months to complete. At the same time, the Webb team will be preparing the extremely sensitive instruments that will then relay the first batch of images back to Earth in the summer of 2022.

Now that Webb is approaching its destination and is moving into the new phase of its process of unfolding to operational capabilities, some individuals are wondering how long the life of Webb will be. Bill Ochs, the Webb project manager, told reporters in a livestream that Webb's lifespan depends on the amount of propellant the observatory has.

PayPal has made a very interesting announcement regarding the cryptocurrency space and how the company plans on moving towards adopting it.

PayPal is no stranger to the cryptocurrency industry as the company approved trading of cryptocurrency to all its users on its platform back in 2020. This change allowed for US PayPal users to complete transactions with cryptocurrency while also allowing users to purchase cryptocurrencies on select exchanges.

Now, PayPal's General Manager of Blockchain, Crypto, and Digital Currencies, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, has indicated to Bloomberg that the company is considering releasing its own stablecoin. Engadget reports that a software developer Steve Moser discovered code and images for a "PayPal Coin" and gave it to Bloomberg.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is moving into a new period of its unfolding process that will gear it up for operations, but what if it gets hit with a piece of space debris?

The James Webb Telescope will be orbiting the Sun the same as Earth does, and as Earth experiences shooting stars or meteorites, the James Webb Space Telescope will likely encounter micrometeorites that may damage the observatory. During a livestream over the weekend, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Michelle Thaller explained that the agency took into account the likelihood of the observatory being impacted by space debris, and said that these impacts might damage the large mirrors.

Julie Van Campen, a NASA engineer, explained that if a micrometeorite was to damage and break one of Webb's large mirrors, there isn't much that can be done about it, saying, "What you see is what you get". However, if the observatory's large protective sunshield was hit with a micrometeorite, tearing the first layer, there would still be four more layers of protection in space.

The fossilized remains of a giant "sea dragon" that once walked the surface of Earth were discovered by a conservationist in February 2021 while doing routine landscaping at the Rutland Water Nature Reserve in England.

Over the course of several weeks, the fossilized remains of the were excavated by paleontologists who were later able to identify that the remains were of an ichthyosaur, an ancient marine reptile that swam and occasionally walked on land during the Triassic period around 250 million years ago. The specimen was found to be almost completely intact and is now the biggest complete Ichthyosaur ever found in Britain.

A team of paleontologists, conservationists, and volunteers safely removed the fossil that ended up having a backbone that stretched 32 feet and included more than 150 individual vertebrae. The fossil was able to remain in almost perfect condition due to it being embedded in clay. Researchers believe that Ichthyosaur would have ranged in size from around 3.3 feet to more than 85 feet in length, and are believed to look similar to a dolphin of today but much larger in size.

A NASA researcher has explained how the agency is constantly looking for intelligent alien life and that this life could be detected through what is called "alien megastructures".

In a new interview with Vice, Ann Marie Cody, a research scientist at NASA Ames and the SETI Institute, explains that SETI is the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" and encompasses a range of micro-fields and that her field concentrates on the search for "techno signatures", which is the hunt for advanced civilizations that have created megastructures that give off a detectable signal.

Cody explains that her colleagues take observe thousands of stars every day, and during the observation, images are taken and then organized into a sequence that showcases the star's brightness of a period of time. If an object has passed in front of its host star, it will cause a dip in brightness that will be seen in the previously recorded sequence. From this, researchers can infer that an object has passed in front of the host star.

Researchers are on a quest to link quantum gravity with the world we live in, and have suggested the universe, or spacetime, consists of individual "pixels".

A new press blurb outlines a team of researchers coming together to conduct a new experiment that will attempt to link the conventional laws of general relativity established by Albert Einstein with the world of quantum physics. These two realms of physics are yet to be unified in one cohesive theory, and Rana Adhikari, professor of physics at Caltech, and fellow colleagues believe that the universe is made of incredible small units described as a "spacetime pixel".

"A spacetime pixel is so small that if you were to enlarge things so that it becomes the size of a grain of sand, then atoms would be as large as galaxies," explains Adhikari. The researchers believe that discovering these "pixels" would allow for the unification of the two theories and answer the big question of whether gravity and spacetime can be broken down into individual components when observed on the smallest scales.

CyberPowerPC unveiled its new Trace VI Edge Pro Liquid Cool series laptop, powered with Intel and NVIDIA's latest chips but get this: active liquid cooling, built into the laptop but externally... check it out:

The new CyberPowerPC Tracer VI Edge Pro Liquid Cool gaming laptop packs a 15-inch 1440p 240Hz LED display, Intel's latest Core i9-12900HK processor, NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 30 series Laptop GPU, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, up to 2TB of NVMe M.2 SSD storage, 1 x HDMI 2.1, 3 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A, and 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C ports.

The company hasn't detailed which GPU will go into the liquid-cooled gaming laptop, but with an external liquid cooler, I would expect to only see NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU with 16GB of GDDR6 memory. CyberPowerPC will have mean external reservoir that connects to 2 x quick-release connectors on the back of the laptop. The CPU and GPU temperature drops are massive... meaning you'll continue to hit max CPU and GPU clocks thanks to the chips running far cooler being cooled by water.

BLUETTI unveiled its next-gen NA300 and B480 expandable sodium-ion battery pack family, with a sneak peek of the future of their power storage devices at CES 2022.

The new BLUETTI NA300 represents the world's first sodium-ion solar generator, with its compatible battery pack in the new B480. BLUETTI kicks things off with 4 x 20A plugs and 1 x 30A L14-30 output port which is driven by the built-in 3000W pure sine wave inverter... enough juice to get your house up and running, and running for a while at that.

BLUETTI's current EP500 Pro has 2400W of solar input, with the new NA300 beating that by offering 3000W. BLUETTI's new NA300 is also the fastest charging solar generator, re-charging from 0-80% in just 30 minutes. How the hell is it doing that? That's thanks to the huge 6000W AC + PV dual charging technology, driving 3000W through AC, and 3000W through PV.