Latest News - Page 1238

After 18 years, the telescope has gone up for sale on Craigslist for a cool ten million dollars.

NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia launched on December 2nd, 1990, from Cape Canaveral, equipped with four different telescopes. Three of the telescopes detected ultraviolet light, while the fourth detected light in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Once back on Earth, three were put on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

The fourth telescope, named the Broad Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT), was bought at an auction hosted by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 2003. Now, almost two decades later, it's been listed on Craigslist for $10 million.

T-Mobile has successfully identified or blocked over 21 billion spam calls in 2021 alone, which works out to around 700 calls every second.

The US telco giant identified 1.1 billion calls as Scam Likely in January 2021 alone, while by November 2021 those numbers had reached 2.5 billion. The reason why spam calls ramped from 2020 to 2021 was because of the on-going pandemic, with an average rate of around 425 million spam calls per week these numbers are up 116% compared to 2020.

Spam calls dropped off by 80% across the weekend, as well as slowing down during the holidays. According to a recent report from Truecaller, around 23% of Americans have fallen for the spam calls and lost money as a result. There was an average of $502 lost per person, up from $351 in 2020 -- in total, we're looking at just shy of $30 billion for 2021.

Intel has only just launched its new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, but now it looks like we're going to be introduced to the new Core i9-12900KS -- a pre-binned CPU with 5.2GHz all-core frequency.

What this all boils down to is Intel will effectively have a pre-binned SKU, have all-core (Performance core) boost at 5.2GHz which is 200MHz higher than the 5.0GHz all-core boost on the Core i9-12900K. This means that the Core i9-12900KS should be able to pump away at 5.0GHz at a bare minimum out of the box, 5.2GHz all-core, and possibly more depending on your chip and cooling.

This would be the first pre-binned CPU in 3 generations, the last being the Core i9-9900KS -- but there was no Core i9-10900KS or Core i9-11900KS -- so the Core i9-12900K will be the first in quite some time. We should see Intel launch the unlocked, and pre-binned Alder Lake-S flagship CPU right as AMD is launching its new Ryzen CPUs with its exciting new 3D V-Cache technology.

COLORFUL has just introduced two new custom GeForce RTX 2060 12GB graphics cards, with the introduction of the new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB iGame Ultra White and BattleAx Deluxe graphics cards.

The company is using its Ampere-ready GeForce RTX 3060 cooling solutions for the new Turing-based GeForce RTX 2060 12GB graphics cards in the new Ultra White and BattleAx Deluxe offerings. The new COLORFUL RTX 2060 12GB iGame Ultra OC White sports a premium design and factory overclocking, as well as a custom OC button on the I/O bracket.

The original GeForce RTX 2060 6GB version of the card had 2 x DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI, DVI, and USB Type-C, while the new COLORFUL RTX 2060 12GB graphic cards both have just a single DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, and DVI connector. DVI, in 2022, alright then. We have GPU clocks of up to 1665MHz on the Ultra OC variant, while there's 1650MHz GPU clocks on the BattleAx Deluxe.

Samsung's new Galaxy S22 family of smartphones is just a few months away if you can believe it, with our friends at LetsGoDigital teasing some new renders of the flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra and Galaxy S22+ variants.

We now know that Samsung's new flagship for 2022 will be the Galaxy S22 Ultra, with other models mentioned being the Galaxy S22 Note or Galaxy S22 Note Ultra -- both reportedly gone, and so it becomes the Galaxy S22 Ultra. The new Galaxy S22 Ultra has been teased in a new Turkish Rose variant, but there will be black, white, red, and green versions available.

Samsung will be equipping its new flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra with its S-Pen stylus support, but we knew that as the current Galaxy S21 Ultra supports the S-Pen. It looks like there's some slight design changes between the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy S22 Ultra -- but expect more under-the-hood changes. There's a nice little touch on the end of the S-Pen that matches the color of the Galaxy S22 Ultra you have.

Chinese GPU manufacturer Jing Jiawei has just announced that their new JM9 series processor is for sale, and while it doesn't have record-breaking performance, we do have a new player in the market.

Jing Jiawei will meet the premium requirements required for displays, AI computing, media processing, games, geographic information systems, CAD-based designing, and virtualization. The new JIM9 series processor is aiming at entry-level markets, with the company prompting an institutional survey that showed the JM9 series GPU was in contact with specifically targeted customers, and are prepared to start debugging and optimization in 2022.

8GB of memory at up to 128GB/sec of memory bandwidth, which should see the GPU on a 128-bit memory bus. This means the GPU is most likely coupled with older GDDR6 memory, but it could be GDDR6 -- I guess we'll find out soon enough. Maybe.

I can dare say things are changing very quickly with Intel's mid-range chipset launch, with some new ASUS motherboards based on the H670 and B660 chipsets teased.

ASUS has 4 new motherboards in the pipelines at the very least, with the higher-end of the two being the H670 motherboards and will come in DDR5 and DDR4 flavors. What we do have here today is the higher-end H670 motherboards in the ASUS TUF Gaming H670-PRO Wi-Fi D4 and PRIME H670-PLUS D4.

The flagship ROG STRIX brand only has two boards so far: the ROG STRIX B660-F GAMING Wi-Fi D4 and ROG STRIX B660-F GAMING Wi-Fi D4, both using DDR4 and both using the lower-end B660 chipset. The higher-end H670 chipset seems reserved for not-flagship TUF Gaming and PRIME motherboards.

We've all been hearing about DDR5 memory shortages, but now a much bigger player has stepped up and talked about it. Micron has now detailed some of the issues with DDR5 shortages.

Micron said that DDR5 memory module shortages are because of PMIC and VRM component shortages, with the company saying non-memory component shortages are the main reason DDR5 memory hasn't been properly adopted. Intel has recently launched its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs with the 600-series chipset, supporting DDR5 -- but there are DDR4 boards based on Z690, too -- but then whatever DDR5 supply there is, it's hella expensive.

There's something worth highlighting here: PMIC and VRMs were moved from the motherboard to the DDR5 modules -- and now that DDR5 modules are in scarce supply -- well, there are now more problems to deal with. Moving the PMIC and VRMs is a smart move from a technological perspective, but from a supply perspective, it sucks for DDR5.

ADATA is preparing some next-generation PCIe 5.0-ready NVMe M.2 SSDs in what has just been leaked as ADATA's new Project Nighthawk and Project Nightbird.

The two new SSDs will be compliant with the M.2 and NVMe 2.0 protocol, with what should be Phison's new PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. ADATA will have up to 14GB/sec (14,000MB/sec) reads on their new PCIe 5.0 SSDs, with other models that have slower transfer speeds of up to 12GB/sec and 10GB/sec.

We know that PCIe 5.0-based SSDs will be running much hotter than PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 SSDs, with improved thermal solutions expected from not just ADATA, but all companies that will be making PCIe 5.0-based NVMe M.2 SSDs in 2022 and beyond.

Treyarch is the latest Activision-Blizzard game developer to speak out against harassment, issuing a statement that decries many of the things its parent is accused of.

As Raven Software and other Blizzard employees continue their labor strike protest and make moves to formally unionize, Treyarch is also joining the fray to denounce harassment.

While Treyarch doesn't explicitly mention Activision-Blizzard, it's not hard to read between the lines; the billion-dollar games publisher faces multiple serious allegations against it regarding workplace misconduct, including sexual harassment, pay discrimination, and decades of "frat boy culture".

The NFT market has amassed a huge $22 billion in trading volume in 2021, analyst firm DappRadar reports.

A new report from DappRadar outlines the emerging NFT trends that've taken 2021 by storm. The firm estimates that NFT volume trading has hit $22 billion throughout 2021, with a market cap of $16.7 billion based on the top 100 NFT collections, including heavy-hitters like Bored Ape Yacht Club ($26.2 million), Beeple's renowned The First 5,000 Days ($69.3 million) and Human One ($29 million), and CryptoPunks ($37.17 million total).

The report succinctly outlines emerging trends in the blockchain gaming space, discussing play-to-earn and GameFi. Startups have raised over $4 billion in capital to fund play-to-earn blockchain games, including Animoca Brands, who received a hefty investment from Ubisoft (and who is also making a Bored Ape Yacht Club video game). Other play-to-earn proponents include Gala Games, who is publishing Peter Molyneux's new game Legacy with its minted land NFTs, and Certain Affinity's new FPS, which pledges to be the very first play-to-earn AAA shooter.

Twitch co-founder Justin Kan is launching an NFT trading marketplace called Fractal, and it's off to a rocky start.

Early adopters of Fractal have been scammed out of about $150,000 worth of Solana, and it's all because of a Discord vulnerability. Over 100,000 members have joined Fractal's Discord in anticipation for the first NFT mint airdrop. Hackers gained control of Fractal's admin account and put out a fake post telling everyone the NFT drop was happening, and they could mint if they linked their wallets.

The fake out only lasted about 10 minutes, but that was long enough. 373 people clicked the link (only 0.3% of the total userbase) which looked authentic but was actually FractaI, with an "I", and not Fractal with an "L". Users linked their accounts and clicked the mint button, losing a total of 800 SOL which amounts to $149,576 USD.

A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth has found a way to use tsunamis' magnetic fields to detect them sooner.

Magnetic fields are generated as tsunamis move conductive seawater throughout the Earth's magnetic field. Researchers had already predicted that detectable changes in the magnetic field would arrive before a change in sea level but had yet to measure simultaneous data on both parameters to observe the phenomenon.

The new study uses data from two tsunamis, one in 2009 in Samoa and one in 2010 in Chile, which have data relating to their magnetic fields and seafloor pressure. The research shows the magnitude of the magnetic field can be used to estimate the height of the tsunami wave.

A new study, published in iScience, has used the embryo to shed light on the link between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Digital reconstruction of the embryo (Credit: Lida Xing).

The embryo is between 66 and 72 million years old and is dubbed Baby Yingliang. The fossilized dinosaur egg it belongs to was found in the Late Cretaceous rocks of Ganzhou in southern China. The embryo is that of an oviraptorosaur.

Antarctica is home to some gigantic ice masses, including the Doomsday Glacier, and its time is running out.

The Thwaites Glacier, otherwise known as the Doomsday Glacier, is approximately the size of Florida. It is the widest glacier on Earth, spanning roughly 80 miles (120 kilometers) and extending down between 2,600-3,900 feet (800-1,200 meters) to its grounding line (where the glacier transitions from being primarily land-attached to free-floating in the ocean).

The glacier is known as the Doomsday Glacier because it could trigger a cascade of glacial collapse in Antarctica with its collapse. During a briefing on December 13th during the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) annual meeting, researchers have warned that it is at risk of collapse within the next three years. The ice mass is large enough to raise sea levels by more than two feet.

Comet Leonard is due to pass by the Sun early next year, and two spacecraft have observed it on its way.

The comet will make its closest pass ever by the Sun on January 3rd, 2022. One of the two Sun-observing spacecraft, watching the comet since early November, is NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A. The SECCHI/HI-2 telescope aboard observed the ion tail, the trail of ionized gases coming off the comets body, becoming longer and brighter, which you can see here.

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft also spotted the comet and will continue to observe it until it leaves its field of view on December 22nd, 2021. Captured between December 17th and 19th, the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) shows Comet Leonard against the backdrop of the Milky Way, with Venus and Mercury also visible in the top right.

Once again, the launch of the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been met with delays.

After being rescheduled to Christmas Eve, the launch of the JWST is now due for the morning of Christmas Day. Poor weather has been forecasted at the Guiana Space Center in South America, where the telescope will launch from, hence the delay.

The launch window opens at 7:20 a.m. EST (12:20 UTC) and lasts for 32 minutes. Initially slated for 7:20 a.m. EST on Friday, the delay extends the long-awaited launch by another 24 hours. Rain is not generally a concern for the Ariane 5 launch, but the possibility of high-altitude winds and increased risk of lightning gave cause for pause.

NVIDIA has done something a little -- well, alright... a lot -- different these holidays. The company has created the world's largest virtual winter wonderland experience inside of Minecraft.

The visual masterpiece was built by specialist artist Ushio Tokura, using NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs for real-time ray tracing that takes the lighting in Minecraft to the next level. It enables reflections, shadows, and other realistic lighting effects inside of the winter wonderland.

The world's largest virtual winter wonderland experience was created by NVIDIA and "Built by specialist artist Ushio Tokura using NVIDIA's GeForce RTX GPUs. Real-time ray tracing stunningly simulates the physical behaviour of light, enabling reflections, shadows and other realistic lighting effects, as visitors are transported to a world offering a full winter wonderland and Santa's grotto experience. The world will offer an opportunity to raise funds for NVIDIA's charity partner, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity (GOSH Charity)".

The Matrix Resurrections is now hours away from release, with Neo and Trinity now inside of Fortnite -- in the form of some Matrix-themed emotes and some skins.

Fortnite now has Neo's infamous bullet-dodging from The Matrix in the form of a new Neo Bullet Time Emote, while there's also the Trinity Kick Emote. On top of that, we have the new Sentinel glider which you can earn through the Winterfest event, as well as a new gun wrap in two varieties: Ones and Zeroes.

It's very, very, VERY unfortunate that there's no official Neo and Trinity skin... I mean, Keanu Reeves is literally already in the game with an official John Wick skin in Fortnite.

The United Nations met with governments of the world to talk about autonomous weapons systems -- also known as "killer robots" or in pop culture, we refer to Terminator or The Matrix -- but the talks didn't end well.

Negotiations on an international treaty that would govern the use of killer robots, but opposition from manufacturing states stopped that. Fully-autonomous weapons with no humans operating the "kill switch" are different from semi-autonomous weapons that include drones, which means the decision at the time of strike is left to sensors, software, and AI.

The industry needs regulation -- obviously -- with a UN panel report from March 2021 saying the first autonomous drone strike might have taken place in Libya. Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres encouraged the 125 parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to design an "ambitious plan" on new rules for "killer robots".