Latest News - Page 1236

The HDMI Licensing Administrator has confirmed that a new version of HDMI 2.1 is coming -- HDMI 2.1a -- and with it, will enhance and optimize the HDR experience through Source-Based Tone Mapping (SBTM).

This new technology requires source and target devices to both be supported in the new standard (as in, the console/PC and the TV/monitor) but the HDMI LA expects that there will be a slew of SBTM firmware updates throughout 2022. SBTM will be a boon for PC users and gamers, especially for those working with multi-window systems.

The source of the image (the GPU for example) has control of the tone mapping, as HDMI 2.1a-enabled devices will let users have separate windows with SDR or HDR optimized content... at the same time. HDR technologies like HDR10, HLG, etc will remain -- HDMI 2.1a isn't adding anything there -- instead, it improves the HDR experience across the board.

We've already seen ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI with custom Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-P" processors teased ahead of CES 2022 -- and now it's time for Lenovo -- this time with the new Legion 5 Pro gaming laptop.

Lenovo is dropping the Y-shaped Legion logo on the lid with its new Legion 5 Pro gaming laptop, where the company is pimping its own gaming brand on the new Legion 15 Pro laptop -- like it does with the Legion 7. The new Legion 6 Pro gaming laptop should have a high-end display, as the original Legion 5 Pro has a 16-inch 16:10 panel with a 165Hz refresh.

We should see the new Legion 5 series starting out with Intel Core i7-12800H through to the AMD Ryzen 9 6800H, offering the best of each camp -- Intel's new Alder Lake CPUs and AMD's upcoming Rembrant chip. We should expect NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU inside, with a TGP of up to 140W.

GIGABYTE is set to launch a slew of new gaming laptops at CES 2022, powered by Intel's new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs and NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 30 Ti Laptop GPUs.

The company will be splitting its new gaming laptops into two categories: DDR4 and DDR5 models that will offer different CPU and GPU combos. The DDR4-based GIGABYTE 2022 AORUS gaming laptop packs up to the Intel Core i7-12700H processor, and NVIDIA's soon-to-be-released GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU.

However, the flagship DDR5-based model will have Intel's flagship Core i9-12900HK processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU with 105-130W TGP (depending on the model). Inside, the display should be gorgeous: a huge 17-inch Mini-LED display with a native 4K resolution and super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

AMD is set to launch its new Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card in the coming weeks, powered by the new cut-down Navi 24 GPU on the fresh 6nm node by TSMC.

The smallest member of the RDNA 2 family of graphics cards is close, with the budget desktop gaming GPU -- the Navi 24 GPU itself with a die size of an estimated 141mm2 -- being smaller than the RDNA-based Navi 14 with 158mm2. We should see the new Navi 24 GPU with half the GPU clusters of Navi 23 (which has 16).

Each of the GPU clusters have 64 Stream Processors, with the full GPU offering 1024 shading units -- AMD has also reduced its Infinity Cache on the Navi 24 GPU -- down to 16MB Infinity Cache on a 64-bit wide memory controller. This should be the last GPU in the RDNA 2 family of chips, however, it is the first 6nm GPU that AMD will be launching (when it launches). AMD will also be most likely launching its mobile-focused "Rembrandt" APU on 6nm, too.

If you haven't seen The Matrix Resurrections by now, you're probably not the only one as it seems most people didn't since the movie has bombed at the box office -- especially up against Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has made over $1 billion so far.

In a new interview with Matrix Resurrections producer James McTeigue, we find out that there will be no Matrix 5 -- The Matrix Resurrections was the love letter to the original trilogy -- which is very, very unfortunate. Now, this is where there'll be mild spoilers: but the movie doesn't end neatly tied up.

At the end, there is unlimited potential -- hell, there's unlimited potential from the start, it suffers from bad writing, uneven performances, lackluster fights, and so much more -- for there to be many, many more Matrix movies. In a new interview with Collider, McTeigue says that even though The Matrix Resurrections' ending is open-ended... there are no plans for The Matrix 5... or any continuation from Resurrections.

NVIDIA will be detailing not one but two new mobile GPUs at CES 2022 next week, with the flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU receiving some more (leaked) details before its announcement.

The new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU will reportedly have 16GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 16Gbps, which is up from the RTX 3080 Laptop GPU variants and their 8GB/16GB of GDDR6 -- but only at 14Gbps. NVIDIA is expected to ramp up the TGP on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU to 175W (10W more than the RTX 3080 Laptop GPU).

We might see AIBs making custom gaming laptop solutions with NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU inside, with a few already teased ahead of CES 2022. But there's one thing to note here: the maximum TGP isn't some magic 175W ceiling -- but rather, laptop manufacturers could have the ability to boost past that -- we'll know more on that soon.

The world of 8K gaming is both simultaneously here, and oh-so-far away but now the 8K Association has published an updated performance specification of the 8K ecosystem.

The 8K Association has used its 8K rubber stamp of approval to add new decoding requirements, new image quality metrics, and a new game mode that will usher in the future of 8K gaming. New members that have joined the 8KA include Prime Video (you know, Amazon), as well as content creation company 4by4, testing service provider UL, and TV maker Changhong.

KG Lee, Chair of the Technology Work Group explained: "We have been discussing ACR more than a year as a new item and it was finally included in V2.1.0. While passing the ACR spec is optional now for certification, members are required to provide the data so we can optimize the pass/fail criteria for a future mandatory requirement".

TSMC is not slowing down at all, with the company now finalizing their plans for a 2nm semiconductor fabrication plant -- with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) boss C.C. Wei visiting the Taichung city government last week -- leading a team of TSMC suits in a meeting with Taichung mayor Shiow-Yen Lu.

Now that the TSMC CEO and Taichung mayor have met, we know more details of the purported new 2nm fab plant, after TSMC representatives "downplayed" the meeting to the media. TSMC is in a funny position right now -- as it needs to deploy new processes ASAP, but it is already stretched thin making the best chips for the most popular products on the planet.

TSMC doesn't want its competitors -- namely Samsung -- getting too close to them, so they have to move and they have to move now. The new super-advanced TSMC 2nm production facility will reportedly be placed in Taiwan's Hsinchu city, but if TSMC needs the room then they could move to Taichung city, where it already has facilities in the Taichung science and industrial park.

MSI is gearing up for a big CES 2022 next week, with the company teasing their new GS77 Stealth gaming laptop that features a bunch of huge upgrades and technologies under its mobile hood.

The new MSI GS77 Stealth gaming laptop rocks Intel's very latest 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-P" series CPUs, with up to 14 cores and 20 threads of processing power. We should expect to see multiple variants of the GS77 Stealth, with the new gaming laptop starting at the Core i7-12700H + GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Max-Q through to the flagship Core i9-12900H + RTX 3080 Ti Max-Q.

MSI's upcoming flagship GS77 Stealth and its Intel Core i9-12900H (14C/20T) and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU are joined by 64GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, 2TB of NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD, and the option of multiple displays, with all 3 resolutions and multiple refresh rates included -- oh, and they're all IPS-based panels, too.

Tencent and Remedy inked a huge multi-year deal to expand its new free-to-play online game franchise.

Remedy Entertainment has found a partner for its new online game (codenamed Vanguard), and it happens to be the biggest games titan on Earth. The deal is an interesting one: Remedy will handling development and publishing across worldwide markets outside of China, and Tencent will localize the game for Asian markets. Both companies will have their own independent budgets--which is great for Remedy, who wants to self-publish more games--and will also share revenues with one another.

What's interesting is that Tencent gained licensing rights to create a mobile game based on Vanguard. This means the IP is pretty big, and likely set in the shared Alan Wake-Control universe. Having such a high-profile games giant interested in a new wholly-owned franchise is something special.

NVIDIA is ready to unleash its new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card, and AIB partners are close behind with some slick new custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards which should knock our socks off.

Our friends at MSI have their new custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X in the silicon oven right now, with VideoCardz uploading some images and an NDA document from an anonymous source. The NDA itself covers the name of the card -- MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X 24G -- while the NDA embargo lift is on January 27, 2022 @ 6AM PT, 3PM CET, 10PM CST.

MSI isn't the only one preparing a new custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card, with ASUS also working on its custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF Gaming which was recently teased.

Samsung has entered the PCIe 5.0 SSD race with the announcement of its new PM1743 SSD for enterprise servers, based on the next-gen PCIe 5.0 standard and offering some blistering speed.

The new Samsung PM1743 SSD takes advantage of Samsung's own in-house 6th Gen V-NAND technology, with sequential read speeds of up to 13GB/sec (13,000MB/sec) and sequential writes of up to 6.6GB/sec (6600MB/sec). We're looking at improved power efficiency, with around 608MB/s per watt, which is a decent 30% improvement over its predecessor.

Samsung will be making its new PCIe 5.0-ready PM1743 SSD in 1.92TB through to huge 15.36TB capacities, in the regular 2.5-inch form factor, and also 3-inch EDSFF (E3.S) form factor.

Intel is preparing for a big fight in the GPU market in 2022, but the real fun -- and the gloves come off -- in 2023 when the company launches its next-next-gen DG3 "Battlemage" GPU.

In some fresh new rumors from Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead, Intel's next-gen DG3 Battlemage series of GPUs codenamed "Elasti" are going to be monsters. MLID's sources have said that Intel's new DG3 Battlemage GPU will be taking the good fight to both AMD and NVIDIA in the high-end flagship graphics card market, but we've got a year+ to wait for that.

We only heard about Intel's codename "Elasti" GPU a few days ago, but between now and then we'll have the launch of the Intel Xe-HPG "Arc Alchemist" GPUs in 2022, which will be followed by the Intel Xe2-HPG "Arc Battlemage" GPU in 2023 before we see the likes of Intel Xe3-HPG "Arc Celestial" in 2024+ while Intel Xe Next "Arc Druid" and Intel Xe Next Next "Arc Elasti" will probably launch in 2025 and 2026, respectively.

Researchers from the University of Adelaide have published a new study in Disease Models and Mechanisms examining the link between energy production in the brain and Alzheimer's disease.

The research team studied the brains of young adult zebrafish, which had genetic mutations associated with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Zebrafish were the ideal candidate for the study, as they produce large families in which subtle effects can be more easily detected.

The Alzheimer's disease mutations affected brain cell function in various ways but notably impacted the cells' ability to use oxygen to produce energy. Energy production is the most fundamentally important process within a cell, a necessary prerequisite for the rest of its functions. In highly active organs like the brain, impacts on energy availability have serious consequences.

Much like the black box found on aircraft to keep a safe record of its functions in the event of a disaster, a new black box will keep a record of the Earth in case of a calamity.

The new project, dubbed Earth's Black Box, is a collaboration between the University of Tasmania, Clemenger BBDO, and The Glue Society. Construction is expected to begin in early 2022 and intends to record all of the relevant data that could contribute to the world's collapse, keeping it safe in that event.

New research has demonstrated an increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders with increased sugar intake in mice models.

Simple sugars like sucrose and corn syrup are found in higher concentrations than ever before in modern diets. Yet, higher intake contributing to the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders in susceptible individuals hasn't been proven. There has been some evidence thus far that supports a correlation, with patients diagnosed with mental disorders on average consuming approximately two times as much sugar compared to healthy, age-matched individuals.

Researchers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science selected the Glyoxylase-1 and Disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 genes, susceptibility genes for psychiatric disorders, to make their mouse model deficient in the proteins encoded by those genes. By exposing the mice to excessive sugar intakes at the age of puberty, the researchers found increases in mental disorder-like symptoms, including decreased working memory, hyperactivity, and cerebral microvascular angiopathy.

Researchers from the Spanish Astrobiology Centre in Madrid have detected ethanolamine in space and published their findings in a yet-to-be peer-reviewed paper.

Ethanolamine forms part of the phospholipid molecules that comprise cell membranes. It forms the hydrophilic head of the PE class of phospholipids, which are found in all living cells, making up 25% of all phospholipids. In nervous system components of human physiology, they comprise 45% of all phospholipids.

The research team studied Sagittarius B2, a massive molecular cloud of gas and dust located 390 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. In search of ethanolamine, they simulated the expected spectrum produced by the chemical and looked for this in the light coming from the galaxy and found clear evidence for its presence.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has finally made it off Earth and into space, but there's a lot more to be done before its mission is deemed a complete success.

After more than a decade of delays and almost thirty years and $10 billion of development, the Ariane 5 rocket carrying the JWST launched from French Guiana at the opening of its launch window on December 25th at 7:20 a.m. EST (12:20 UTC). The rocket's upper stage separated from its lower stages to carry the folded-up JWST payload to the beginning of its trajectory toward the Lagrange Point 2 (L2), taking 16 minutes and 6 seconds. The JWST separated from the upper stage 27 minutes and 7 seconds after the rocket's launch.

LG has just unveiled its latest Transparent OLED display technology ahead of CES 2022, with the South Korean giant unleashing its innovative new display technology to "normal everyday spaces" like commercial facilities, offices, homes, and transportation.

LG Display will be showing off its new "Shopping Managing Showcase" during CES 2022 next week, where we'll see the new Transparent OLED display inside of a wooden display stand... which according to LG will "reinvent the offline shopping experience". The company says its new Transparent OLED display is ideal for "luxurious department stores, the Shopping Managing Showcase can display eye-catching visual content on the screen that harmonizes with the products on display behind to better grab the attention of shoppers and elevate the ambience of the place".

"To modernize home life, LG Display is preparing to take the wraps off its latest concept, 'OLED Shelf,' which combines two Transparent OLED displays, one above the other, and seamlessly blends into any living room decoration while adding a touch of elegance as it is hanging off from the shelf on the wall. The innovative OLED Shelf is perfect for displaying TV shows or gallery paintings while running in its Always on Display Mode, further demonstrating Transparent OLED displays' ability to transform any home interior into a living space that exudes modernity".

The Matrix Resurrections is now out in the wild in both theaters across the world, and streaming service HBO Max -- but man, it really hasn't done well at the box office -- Spider-Man: No Way Home has absolutely destroyed the fourth Matrix movie.

The very-meta, not-so-groundbreaking Matrix Resurrections has only clutched at straws to bring $22.8 million in the 5 days since it opened in theaters on December 21, but when you compare that to Disney and its new MCU entry with Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has made a staggering $1 billion since its release just days before The Matrix Resurrections.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is the first movie to break $1 billion at the box office post-pandemic, so that's a big deal -- making The Matrix Resurrections (a multi-billion-dollar franchise) and its $22.8M five-day haul look like Neo took the blue pill in comparison. Now, to be clear: these are US box office numbers -- global box office numbers for The Matrix Resurrections aren't much better, with the Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss-led movie bringing in $69.8 million during its debut weekend globally.