Latest News - Page 1239

The human brain continues to keep the benchmark crown. Scientists have found that a colony of, 800,000 to one million, human brain cells stored in a petri dish can perform better at a simple video game than an AI counterpart can. These human brain cells that were cultured in a petri dish and assisted by microelectrodes have been able to to be "taught" how to play the video game, "Pong".

New Scientist has reported that researchers at Australian based Cortical Labs have been growing these "small puddles" of brain in petri dishes, and that they have now taught one such petri dish colony to play "Pong". It has been stated that typically it takes an AI around 90 minutes, but the "DishBrain" was able to be taught in an impressive five minutes. In the experiment, the colony sits on top of arrays of microelectrodes which provide stimulation by sending electrical signals to either the right or left array to indicate the location of the virtual ball.

The "DishBrain" responds by releasing impulses to move the paddle which allow the electrodes to analyze the activity and enable the simulation to respond. On the downside, the researchers have noted that a well written AI could still demolish the "DishBrain" colony, once properly trained. The researchers whom are cited by New Scientist, have referred that the colony is "living in the Matrix." This viewpoint is possible since that while the "DishBrain" plays the simplified, single-player version of 'Pong', the colony is actually tricked into believing they are the paddle that hits the ball in the game.

GM has just announced that it has made its first GMC Hummer EV pickup trucks, ready for customers' personal deliveries -- the second electric pickup truck to enter the market. Check it out:

The new GMC Hummer EV is an all-electric "supertruck" with up to 350 miles of range, with the base version of the car costing $80,000. There's a bunch of cool features inside, with a great range for an electric vehicle the size of the GMC Hummer EV. It's no Tesla Cybertruck, but that's exactly what GM needs to do.

GM is also using its new Ultium battery and drivetrain technology inside of the new GMC Hummer EV, with the company aiming for production of the electric vehicle before the end of 2021 and now we're here. GM said that Factory Zero produced the first few GMC Hummer EV pickup trucks for customer deliveries.

Malaysia's House of Representatives has just passed new amendments to the country's copyright laws, which would see people imprisoned for up to 20 years.

There are already laws that forbid the illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted content, but with the introduction of the world of streaming, there are changes that need to be made to the legislation. With the world of streaming through various means (which I won't go into here) has landed a new decision by the High Court in May 2021 that the sale and distribution of streaming devices (like piracy-ready Kodi-based devices) does actually constitute infringement under the Copyright Act.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi said: "Act 332 is amended to ensure copyright laws implemented will provide more efficient and effective protection in line with current demands and to fulfill the needs of the business community and stakeholders".

NVIDIA's new GeForce Game Ready 497.29 WHQL drivers are here, and with them include some rather hefty performance improvements to Horizon Zero Dawn when NVIDIA DLSS is enabled.

The company explains its new drivers: "This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-1 gaming experience for the latest new titles including GTFO as well as the latest update for Horizon Zero Dawn which utilizes NVIDIA DLSS to improve performance by up to 50%".

You can download the new NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 497.29 WHQL drivers here (831MB download).

Call of Duty: Warzone has received its 6th patch since the huge Caldera map update, with the Call of Duty: Warzone December 19 patch now being pushed onto servers.

The new Call of Duty: Warzone December 19 update squashes a bunch of bugs, and packs progress tracking on the current Festive Fervor seasonal event. The developer has also fixed collision issues that would let gamers peek, or shoot through things on the map. As someone who loves Warzone Pacific, that has been annoying to say the least.

In the patch notes, we have the developer explaining: "We understand those who have taken a liking to the Cooper Carbine (VG) will be sad to see it receive some rather impactful adjustments". The Cooper Carbine has received some big changes, with the popular Automaton assault rifle being nerfed.

AMD is reportedly launching its new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 series CPUs on March 8, 2022 according to VIdeoCardz.

VideoCardz reports that its source "Disclosuzen" has teased "so far very accurate information on AMD hardware in the past", and that according to this source "AMD is set to launch its Threadripper 5000 PRO series on March 8, 2022". The source continued, saying that there are 5 parts on the way, and their names have all been confirmed.

We can expect:

In news that isn't surprising at the least, Facebook -- or should I say Meta -- has been voted the Worst Company of 2021, as voted by participants in a recent Yahoo Finance survey.

The social networking giant has gone from one dumpster fire to another over the last 12 months, with Yahoo Finance noting that Microsoft won its Company of the Year 2021 award -- while Facebook won the Worst Company of 2021 award. I'm sure it's something Mark "Project LifeLog" Zuckerberg running the company that has been awarded Worst Company of 2021. What an honor.

Yahoo Finance writes that the open-ended survey was run between December 4-5 with 1541 people responding, showing the site that Facebook (now Meta) had 8% of the vote for Worst Company of 2021. The second-worst company was Alibaba, but Meta led them with over 50% more hate voted for them.

Intel is set to have a monster press conference at CES 2022, which will reportedly be when we see Team Blue unveil its mid-range B660 and entry-level B610 motherboards.

The new B660 and H610 motherboards will reportedly be announced on January 4, and be available on January 5 -- the day after its announced. ITHome is behind the new reports, also claiming that the pricing on B660 and H610 motherboards will be higher than their predecessors -- H560 and H510 series -- because of the usual supply issues worldwide.

Higher up the 600-series chipset chain is the also-mid-range H670 chipset has been canceled completely, according to MyDrivers, but the original source on the H670 chipset rumor only mentions that it wouldn't be released at the same time as the B660 and H610 motherboards.

NVIDIA is expected to launch its new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card at CES 2022 in just a couple of weeks time, and we're already seeing custom RTX 3090 Ti graphics card in the wild.

The new custom ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF Gaming graphics card has been spotted, with the folks at ITHome teased our first look at the ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF Gaming graphics card -- well, at least the box -- and on the box we can see that it seems there's no PCIe 5.0 support.

In previous rumors we heard PCIe 5.0 support would be featured on NVIDIA's new beefed-up GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, which will have the same 24GB of GDDR6X memory that the GeForce RTX 3090 has -- but it will be new single-sided GDDR6X, which should radically reduce the GDDR6X temperatures on the backplate of the RTX 3090 Ti.

REV's Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr plan to use 100 years of brand recognition to bring the DeFi (decentralized finance) world of cryptocurrency to mainstream consumer markets.

In a shocking move, RadioShack, the once-dead electronics titan, is being resurrected to embrace today's latest tech trends. Instead of selling gizmos and circuits, the new RadioShack will help facilitate DeFi with a new crypto swap--nomenclature for a cryptocurrency exchange. It's pretty complicated and the company has put out detailed documents here.

RaioShack's swap protocol, or decentralized exchange (DEX), is backed by Atlas USV (which is also run by REV's Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr), which has liquidity from the Atlas Treasury, which runs on the Ethereum-based USV token. In essence, REV wants to make an exchange like Uniswap using RadioShack's brand name.

A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin briefly recounts his experiences working with FromSoftware on Elden Ring.

To get help with Elden Ring's lore, FromSoftware enlisted one of the best in the business: Fantasy writer George R.R. Martin, who has tons of experience creating grisly, shadowy stories. Martin co-created Elden Ring's darkly enchanting myth and lore, from which FromSoftware wove a grand fantasy arc set in the Lands Between, a world replete with corruption, high legends, and sweeping medieval castles. The result is something both familiar and entirely new.

"Miyazaki and his team from FromSoftware were doing groundbreaking stuff with gorgeous art, and what they wanted from me was just a bit of worldbuilding: a deep, dark, resonant world to serve as a foundation for the game they planned to create. And as it happens, I love creating worlds and writing imaginary history," Martin said in a blog post.

Diablo IV's new paragon system is confusing at first, but could be just what the game needs to keep players interested for the long run.

Like all Blizzard games, Diablo IV is built with one main goal: To keep you playing as long as possible. After all, the more hours you put into playing, the more likely you are to spend on unique cosmetics to deck out your character. That's monetizing engagement, aka Blizzard's bread and butter. Diablo achieves this goal in two ways: Endless loot, and endless progression. Diablo III did this exceptionally well with its paragon system and massive amount of items. Diablo 4 is going to take both of these a step farther.

Diablo IV's new paragon system is a lot like Path of Exile's skill tree. Diablo IV's paragon boards have multiple "tile" types (not a great term, a better term is "node" like PoE) that range from normal, magic, rare, and legendary. Each class has multiple paragon "boards," too. So once you complete one board, or tree, you get another to complete. Hence never-ending progression.

Blizzard's latest Diablo IV quarterly update showcases new abilities, skills, and animations for the Barbarian, Druid, Sorceress and Rogue character classes.

Blizzard just dropped the fourth D4 update of the year and it's a doozy. A lot of info about the admittedly confusing paragon system was released, as well as confirmation of items that natively grant skill bonuses (think of how Enigma gives +1 teleport to any class).

The update is also a nice visual feast for gamers who want to see Diablo IV in action. Remember the project is in earlier phases of development (Diablo IV has been delayed again) and the footage is pre-alpha. So far everything looks really good and old-school skills have been modernized with impressive graphical upgrades.

Did you buy the Grand Theft Auto trilogy remaster on the Rockstar Store/Launcher? Then you get two free games.

Rockstar Games is giving out two free bonus games to anyone that buys or has bought the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition remaster collection on the Rockstar Launcher. Buyers get free copies of the original PC trilogy by default, and also get to choose one of the following free PC games or in-game content:

The Definitive Edition trilogy remaster is currently on sale for $47.99 on the Rockstar Store and Rockstar Launcher. There's also another bonus $10 discount coupon gifted to anyone who buys the trilogy on the Rockstar Launcher. This coupon can be used for any game that's priced at $15 or more, and has to be used by January 16, 2022.

The Matrix Resurrections star Keanu Reeves is doing the virtual media rounds -- if it's even him, I mean they could be using Unreal Engine 5 to render Keanu -- for the movie right now, with some interesting (and funny) remarks with The Guardian.

The Guardian reporter Tom Lamont sat down with The Matrix Resurrections star Keanu Reeves to talk about all things The Matrix, wherein the opening paragraph to his article Tom says he told Keanu he'd probably stream The Matrix Resurrections when it comes out -- on his laptop of all things -- and not go to the cinema.

Reeves pleaded with Lamont, saying: "Dude? Don't stream that movie... Don't you fucking stream that movie". Reeves started to joke around, saying "My GOD, man. I'm about to book a cinema for you, Thomas", after which he cooled down and added: ""I mean, sure, stream it if you have to".

Indian restaurant "Voosh" is doing things a little differently in India -- where the country has the highest number of cryptocurrency investors in the world -- has adopted cryptocurrency-themed food items on its menu.

Since the company made the crypto-fueled move, they've seen nothing but massive success and a huge influx of orders. Voosh's hottest-selling product is their regular Indian tea, but with a fancier cryptocurrency-themed name of "Crypto Chai By Voosh".

Varun Agarwal, the co-founder of Alma Mater, posted a screenshot on her personal Instagram of Voosh's menu, saying: "Ah Bangalore, you beauty". Crypto enthusiasts are super enthusiastic about Voosh's moves, with over 100 million crypto investors in the country making India the hottest spot in the world for digital currency. The Indian government is regulating cryptocurrencies and a bill might be introduced in February 2022, not too far away now.

I noticed that my notifications on Twitter was blowing up a few hours ago, and it was over something called DogeBonk -- a meme coin that has a bigger bark than Dogecoin right now, beating Elon Musk's favorite cryptocurrency to the moon.

DogeBonk is now marketing itself as the first meme coin in space, beating Elon Musk putting a "literal Dogecoin on the literal moon". DogeBonk is being launched into space, which gives the marketing team at DogeBonk the ability to market their meme coin at beating Dogecoin to space.

The team tweeted, with what I'm sure was a huge smile on their faces: "Sorry Elon, but we beat Dogecoin as the first memecoin in space. Watch us prove it tomorrow on our stream. DogeBonk is the first crypto in space. Ain't too late to join us though, truce?"

LG has just announced its "first gaming laptop" with the introduction of the new UltraGear 17G90Q, which packs some pretty beefy hardware that includes NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics card.

Inside, LG's new UltraGear 17G90Q gaming laptop rocks Intel's 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake-H" CPU (note: this is not the new Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake"), up to 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics card.

For the display, LG has opted for a 1080p IPS display with a huge 300Hz refresh rate. There's a 93wH battery, RGB keyboard, a fingerprint sensor on the power button, and a 1080p webcam. LG has used a wicked purple/gray color that actually looks nice (at least from the pictures). There are 2 x USB-C ports (including 1 x USB 4.0 port), 2 x USB-A ports, 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack, a HDMI port, GbE ethernet, and a microSD card slot.

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns made the boom of teleworking last year. Because of the uncertainties and global risks that the Omicron variant brings, businesses of all sizes are rethinking their plans of teleworking. Social distance and shelter-in-place have become priorities in some areas. Working from home without being affected and keeping you safe financially and physically is quite important.

Maximize productivity while working from home: keep a regular timetable, get yourself a comfortable working area, and don't forget breaks. Then we're able to make good use of the flexibility and safety of teleworking.

Also, don't miss the software support: GoDeal24 offers the best home Microsoft Office software. With the Christmas Sale, you can get Microsoft Office at a low price on GoDeal24. Besides, you will receive a Windows 11/Windows 10 key as a gift as long as you purchase Office suites.

BioWare may streamline Mass Effect 4's development by moving to the more standardized Unreal Engine 4/5.

A new Tweet from BioWare producer Brenon Holmes might indicate a game engine shift for the studio. Holmes specifically references Unreal Engine alongside the new Mass Effect sequel, and links a job posting for an associate technical director.

There's two job listings for an associate technical director at BioWare: One that's specifically for engine tech, and another for the base associate position. Both career pages require experience with Unreal Engine: "Full cycle AAA game development and experience with modern game engines (Unreal experience)".