Latest News - Page 1252

Intel's new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs are literally hot off the fab lines, and now we're hearing more concrete details about Intel's next-gen 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs making their first roar.

In a new leak, KOMACHI_ENSAKA teased on Twitter that he spotted an Intel "Rocket Lake" CPU on BAPCO's Crossmark benchmark database. Tom's Hardware was fast and secured the result before it was obviously taken down. It confirms that Intel will be cramming in 24 cores and 32 threads into its new Raptor Lake processors.

The listing includes "RPL-S ADP-S DDR5 UDIMM OC CRB" which is a test platform for Intel's next-gen Rocket Lake CPUs, which uses the same LGA1700 socket that the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs use with Intel's new 600-series chipset.

NVIDIA has officially launched its GeForce RTX 2060 12GB graphics card, with an upgraded Turing-based TU106-300 GPU and 12GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 14Gbps.

The new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB is a crazy card for the end of 2021, with pricing starting at the very least $560... and more like $700-$800 without an issue, that's if you can find one. NVIDIA has made the new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB as a Turing-based offering that pushes it into the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER territory, albeit with lower memory bandwidth.

GPU crypto miners will want to take a look at the new RTX 2060 12GB, as you're going to get around 31MH/s mining ETH with just 83W of power or so. This is up against the 36MH/s on the RTX 2070 SUPER for double the power at 168W, the 22MH/s from the RTX 3060 for 116W, and 28MH/s for 107W on the Radeon RX 6600 XT.

NVIDIA has announced that it is hosting its annual CES 2022 press conference on January 4, 2022 -- the same day as both AMD and Intel.

NVIDIA will kick off its CES 2022 press conference on January 4, 2022 @ 8AM PT where we will "Discover the latest breakthroughs in accelerated computing, from design and simulation to gaming and autonomous machines". In laymen's terms: expect the new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card, as well as the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPUs to be unveiled.

We should see NVIDIA introduce a new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition graphics card, which is expected to be an even beefier Ampere GPU with the same, but better 24GB of GDDR6X memory. Not only that, but the RTX 3090 Ti is expected to have a huge 450W TDP and single-sided GDDR6X memory that will help with GDDR6X memory temperatures (instead of having the GDDR6X super-heating the backplate on the RTX 3090).

Micron has just announced a gigantic new 93,000-square-foot facility in Atlanta, Georgia, USA -- a new state-of-the-art memory design center that opens up in January 2022.

The new memory design facility will see Micron having offices, a huge data center, and development operations in Atlanta. Micron is expected to open up around 500 new jobs across various STEM disciplines, which will include memory and storage R&D, computer hardware, electrical and electronic engineering, modeling and simulation development, and business support roles.

Micron is looking at building new partnerships with local institutions including Emory University, Georgia Tech, Morehouse College, Spelman College, and the University of Georgia. The memory giant is no stranger to the US, with Micron already having HQs in Boise, Idaho, and offices across the US including California, Colorado, Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia.

Samsung has announced a major reshuffling of its internal structure, removing multiple CEOs, and will now combine their electronics and mobile divisions with new executives taking over.

There will now be two co-chief executives at Samsung instead of three, where they will take the South Korean giant into the next phase of Samsung's business. Samsung is wanting to double down on its chip manufacturing and consumer devices -- think GPU memory, chip fabrication, smartphones, and more.

And so Samsung should... their Galaxy flagship brand of smartphones makes the South Korean electronics giant the world's biggest smartphone maker (by volume). The company is wanting to inject some growth into the mobile market, which shrank from nearly 70% market share around 10 years ago, to 21% last quarter -- Samsung wants to change that.

NVIDIA just launched its new Turing-based GeForce RTX 2060 12GB, a weirdly positioned refreshed GPU that is great for crypto miners but not-so-great for gamers... and now we have news of a card for gamers: a GeForce RTX 3080 with 12GB of memory.

In a new SKU list filing with the Eurasian Economic Commission regulatory office, GIGABYTE has confirmed multiple unannounced and unreleased NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. First off we have the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB, then the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 16GB, and finally the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT 4GB.

NVIDIA launched the then-flagship GeForce RTX 3080 with 10GB of GDDR6X, leaving many baffled -- the super-duper-expensive GeForce RTX 3090 had 24GB of GDDR6X and there was nothing in-between. NVIDIA then launched the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with 12GB of GDDR6X, but looks to be preparing a new GeForce RTX 3080 with 12GB... and it should be GDDR6X.

Halo Infinite's campaign will not have a pre-load option on consoles or PC, it has been confirmed.

Halo Infinite is a digital-based game that must be downloaded directly from Microsoft. This includes both the free-to-play multiplayer and the $59.99 singleplayer campaign. The retail Halo Infinite disc does not contain a playable game and is instead a physical DRM authentication check.

Despite being a forced download game, there's no way to pre-load the campaign onto Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, or PC. It doesn't matter if you're an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber or if you bought the physical disc--you still cannot pre-emptively download the full game in preparation for the December 8 release.

Sony has released new internal schematic diagrams showing exactly how its new DualSense controller works.

As part of its annual Technology Day conference, Sony reveals the engineering advancements used in its new PlayStation 5 DualSense controller. The footage highlights the DualSense's new dual actuation technology used for fine-tined controller vibrations as well as the pressure-sensitive haptic triggers.

Sony hardware engineer Takeshi Igarashi says the DualSense's multi-range vibrations are made possible by dual rumble systems that are housed in each of the DualSense's handles, making for roughly 4x the force of a DualShock 4. Sony has also developed an easy-to-use software suite that developers can use to add vibration features to their PlayStation 5 games.

Ubisoft is getting into NFTs, and they're calling it Ubisoft Quartz.

Ubisoft makes good on its promise to jump into blockchain and NFTs with a new program called Ubisoft Quartz. Ubisoft will use the Tezos blockchain for its Quartz platform for its NFTs, which are called "Digits". These are basically glorified cosmetic weapon and armor skins/textures that can be purchased and re-sold for cryptocurrency on NFT trading sites like Rarible. Ubisoft will receive a cut from every transaction on these sites. Although Digit NFTs are 100% cosmetic, the scheme is literally like the Real Money Auction House that killed Diablo III back in 2012...only for cosmetics.

Here's a baseline of how it works:

Australian computer scientist and businessman, Chris Wright, has won a civil trial against the family of his deceased business partner David Kleiman who said they were owed a fortune: over $50 billion.

In the end, the Florida judge found that Wright did not owe half of the 1.1 million bitcoin to the family -- worth around $50 billion at the time of writing -- but the jury did award $100 million in intellectual property (IP) rights to a joint venture between the two businessmen, a mere taste of what Kleiman's lawyers wanted.

Craig Wright claims that he is the notorious "Satoshi Nakamoto", the inventor of Bitcoin -- where with his brother Ira, claimed David Kleiman and Wright were close friends, and co-created Bitcoin through a partnership. Some of the very first bitcoins ever mined were at the center of the trial -- 1.1 million bitcoin, worth around $50 billion.

Marvell will ship its 5 billionth HDD controller next month, a milestone that took the company 25 years to reach.

The company explained in a press release that the "achievement is a testament to the longevity of Marvell's HDD business and underscores the company's ongoing commitment to investing in and developing cutting-edge Bravera™ HDD products and IP to address the ever-increasing need for greater storage capacity".

Marvell has been at the forefront of the new push of continued digital transformation across multiple industries: cloud services, digital payments, artificial intelligence, and 5G, requiring higher capacity data storage. Marvell's in-house Bravera HDD controller and preamplifier solutions power over 1500+ HDD-related patents, as well as 18 generations of Read Channel IP.

Halo Infinite's singleplayer campaign has two parts: 1) main story missions that can't be replayed, and 2) free roam with bases, objectives, and side missions.

Similar to most open world games like Breath of the Wild, Assassin's Creed, or even Far Cry, Halo Infinite will not allow gamers to natively replay story missions and levels once they are beaten. Infinite also won't have a NewGame+ mode like some of those other games. Infinite has four saves, and you beat the campaign missions for each save, you're done with them for good.

This is a huge departure from the classic Halo campaign experience, which has a linear playlist of campaign missions that can be replayed once they are beaten.

Halo Infinite's retail version only contains an installer and acts as a DRM check--it doesn't include a playable game.

Players who get their Halo Infinite discs early still won't be able to play campaign. That's because the disc doesn't have a full playable game and instead is basically a physical key that proves ownership of the game. Halo Infinite's full campaign still has to be downloaded and even then it can't be accessed until 343i activates the switch on December 8.

The news was discovered by Digital Foundry's John Linneman, who criticized Microsoft's decision on Twitter.

NASA recently extended its existing contract with SpaceX to include additional missions to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

SpaceX already has six crewed flights to the ISS using its Crew Dragon system planned as part of its contract with NASA. Now up to three more flights have been added to the contract. NASA solicited other companies before extending SpaceX's contract, but none met NASA's requirements.

NASA has launched a sounding rocket from Norway to help understand the dense region of the upper atmosphere on Earth's sun-facing side.

There is a gap in Earth's magnetic field in a region known as the polar cusp. This gap allows solar winds from the sun to reach Earth's atmosphere, causes radio and GPS signals to behave strangely, and slows down spacecraft as they pass through this region. The air in this region is denser than elsewhere in spacecrafts' orbits around Earth, but it is not understood how or why.

The Cusp Region Experiment-2 (CREX-2) is funded by NASA and headed by Mark Conde from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. The mission aims to understand the dynamics in the cusp, first set to do so in 2019 as part of The Grand Challenge Initiative's Project CUSP. However, it was delayed due to little solar activity, and the Covid-19 pandemic only served to delay the flight further. Now, CREX-2 was finally able to launch on December 1st from a launchpad in Andenes, Norway, at 3:25 a.m. EST.

On December 7th, 2021, NASA plans to launch and test its $320 million high-speed laser communications device.

The experimental device will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket as part of a US Space Force mission. It is attached to a Space Force STPSat 6 satellite, the primary payload for the Atlas 5 rocket, which is destined for a geosynchronous orbit above Earth.

Lift-off is due for a two-hour launch window opening at 09:04 UTC on Tuesday, December 7th, from Cape Canaveral. Previously scheduled for December 5th, the launch was delayed due to a leak in the launch pad's kerosene fuel storage system.

Researchers have recently used soft X-ray tomography (SXT) to render a high-resolution model of a cell and its internal structures in minutes.

Scanning electron microscopy is often used in cell imaging because it provides high-resolution nanoscale images. However, using scanning electron microscopes takes around a week to scan an individual cell, generating an enormous amount of data to analyze and interpret.

With SXT, scientists can create tomograms of a cell within five to ten minutes. When studying numerous cells, the significantly higher throughput makes SXT a much more practical analysis tool than the more data and time-intensive alternatives.

NASA has signed agreements with three separate U.S. companies to develop private commercial space stations.

Northrop Grumman's space station concept.

Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman have all been awarded contracts worth a combined $415.6 million. They come as part of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, which seeks to help the development of private space stations that may one day succeed the aging International Space Station (ISS).

An announcement from a CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange has revealed that $200 million in assets have been stolen from wallets.

BitMart CEO Sheldon Xia announced the news via Twitter, saying that the BitMart exchange has identified a "large-scale security breach" that involves the use of a stolen private key that was used to access an Ethereum (ETH) wallet and a Binance Smart Chain (BSC) wallet. According to PeckShield inc, a data analytics company, $100 million was stolen from the Ethereum wallet, and $96 million was stolen from the BSC wallet.

So, what was stolen? According to PeckShield, cryptocurrency coins such as Floki inu, Shiba inu, Elon, CRO, GALA, SAND, and more. As you can probably imagine, it wasn't very long after the hackers transferred the assets out of BitMarts wallets before they were on the market being sold, which resulted in a price dip for a range of coins. Following this hack, BitMart has suspended all withdrawals and deposits, and Xia has said that the company will compensate affected users with company funds.

Switzerland has officially approved the use of a coffin-shaped suicide machine that allows people to decide to kill themselves.

According to the company behind the machine, Exit International, the machine is called Sarco, which is short for sarcophagus and allows users to lay down in a coffin-shaped capsule that then reduces oxygen levels to fatal levels once the user initiates the process. The process takes less than a minute, and after the minute duration, death occurs through hypoxia and hypocapnia, which the Independent reports, "is intended to allow a person to die relatively peacefully and painlessly."

For those that don't know, assisted suicide is completely legal in Switzerland, as services such as Dignitas and Exit provide users with a digestible liquid drug that puts users in a deep coma that eventually results in death. Now, reports indicate that the Sacro has passed legal review, and according to Dr. Philip Nitschke, the creator of the Sacro, also dubbed "Dr. Death", "there are no legal issues at all" with the product and that discussions are currently underway with the goal to roll out the service to the public next year.