Latest News - Page 1257

Russia recently tested an anti-satellite weapon out on one of its decommissioned satellites, sparking global debate over the new space debris caused by the test.

The anti-satellite weapon test caused new 1,500 pieces of space debris to join the already thousands of pieces floating around low-Earth orbit. Some of these space debris are travelling at extremely high speeds and can be a hazard to satellites, the International Space Station (ISS), and astronauts. Shortly after the weapon test was conducted, astronauts aboard the ISS were told to take cover in escape vehicles by NASAas space debris from the satellite break up were in-bound.

Russia's Minister-general of the army, Sergei Shoigu, commented on the space debris having the potential to pose a threat to future space activities, saying "the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities". Now, the Pentagon has called for all global halt to testing anti-satellite weaponry, which was further backed up with condemnation for Russia's recent actions.

The American Meteor Society (AMS) has tracked another fireball event across the United States, as more than 50 people have reported a sighting.

The new listing appears on the American Meteor Society website and states the AMS received 52 reports about a fireball appearing in the night sky over several US states. Reports came from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Ohio, and Indianapolis. The AMS says that the sighting occurred on Wednesday, December 1st, 2021, around 03:14 UT.

Reports indicate that the fireball was visible for around 2.5 seconds before it disintegrated in Earth's atmosphere, seemingly disappearing in front of onlookers. For those that don't know, the AMS categorizes a meteor as a "fireball" if it is brighter than the planet Venus. There is two videos of the entry of the fireball, one above and one below. If you are interested in reading more about meteors, check out this link here.

Astronomers were trying to measure the dark matter profile for one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies and discovered a massive black hole at the galaxy's center.

Astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory were inspecting a Milky Way dwarf galaxy called Leo I in an attempt to find out of dark matter density increases or decreases towards a galaxy's center. Leo I lacks dark matter, hence its selection as an inspection candidate. The astronomers compiled the data and implemented it, along with models, into a supercomputer and were shocked at the results.

A NASA expert has answered the following question in a new video posted to the NASA YouTube channel, "What's it Like Landing on Mars?"

Answering this week's question is NASA thermal engineer Alex Scammell, who explains that landing on Mars is a complicated process that is quite challenging, but after every attempt, the agency gains more knowledge on how to execute the landing process more effectively and efficiently. The latest rover to land on the surface of Mars is NASA's Perseverance rover that went from traveling 13,000 mph to a soft landing in just seven minutes. This process included using parachutes, thrusters, and a sky crane.

Scammell goes on to explain that majority of the decrease in speed can be attributed to the Martian atmosphere creating drag on the rover's heat shield. The NASA thermal engineer explains that understanding what the heat shield experienced while it was plummeting towards the surface of the Red Planet would allow for NASA engineers to improve upon future design iterations, which is why NASA engineers equipped instruments under Perseverance's heat shield that measure its conditions.

Valve has confirmed that its upcoming Steam Deck portable handheld gaming device will not have any exclusive games; meaning there will be no Steam Deck exclusives that aren't available on the PC or other platforms.

Unlike every other platform which has exclusives like Microsoft with Halo, Sony with The Last of Us or Uncharted, Nintendo with Mario and Zelda, and so on -- Valve will instead not have any Steam Deck exclusives -- and there's a very good reason (from Valve themselves) on why.

Valve explains in its updated FAQ, with a question "Would Valve be interested in having any Steam Deck exclusive titles?" to which the developer answers: "No, that doesn't make much sense to us. It's a PC and it should just play games like a PC".

NASA 360 posted a video to its YouTube that's a part of its Planetary Defense series that is detailing asteroids that are close to Earth.

The video was posted to the channel back in October and was recently shared to the NASA 360 Twitter account, where NASA posed itself the question, "What do we know about the asteroids and comets in Earth's neighborhood?". The video showcases what NASA knows about near-Earth asteroids by the numbers, and explains that while the majority of the potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroids have been found, there are still some thousands of undiscovered asteroids still out there in our neighborhood.

For those that don't know, Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that are orbiting the Sun and come within 30 million miles of Earth's orbit. The space agency explains in the description of the video that NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office was conceived to track, study NEOs, and if the situation presented itself, provide guidance into deflecting a potential threat to Earth. Below are the numbers outlined by NASA in the video.

Apple changed the world as we know it over 10 years ago with the introduction of the iPhone, and no one can deny that -- but what about 10 years from now? Apple's new AR glasses will take over the iPhone in the next 10 years according to well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

In a new note to investors, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo teased: "Apple's goal is to replace the ‌iPhone‌ with AR in ten years". It will all begin in late 2022, where Apple will reportedly debut its new AR headset. The first-gen Apple AR headset will work on its own, without needing a Mac or iPhone, with Apple reportedly set to support a "comprehensive range of applications" that will eventually replace the iPhone.

Apple's new AR headset won't only support AR (augmented reality) content but also VR (virtual reality) with a pair of Sony 4K Micro OLED displays, which will require the silicon horsepower that Apple has inside of its M1-style SoC.

Recently, the longest plant experiment in the history of the International Space Station (ISS) came to an end, breaking records for plants grown on the floating laboratory.

A new blog post on the NASA website details the achievements made and states that on November 26 Expedition 66 Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei harvested some 26 chilie peppers that were grown from four plants grown aboard the ISS's Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) for 137 days. Hei, along with other crew members, sampled the harvested peppers, which broke the record for feeding the most astronauts from a crop grown in space.

Meta, formerly Facebook, has announced that its expanded its cryptocurrency advertising eligibility on Facebook and Instagram.

On Wednesday, Meta announced it will be giving companies much more room to operate by advertising cryptocurrency products and services on its social media platforms. Cointelegraph reports that "effective immediately", Meta will officially recognize 27 different regulatory licenses from advertising companies, which is a significant increase from the three licenses it was accepting before this change.

Very few companies advertise cryptocurrency products and services on Facebook and Instagram as the platform's advertising guidelines were quite narrow, but now that the guidelines have been widened, we can expect to see a larger variety of crypto-related products and services advertised. On top of products and services, a Meta spokesperson told Cointelegraph, "crypto news, education, payment methods, and merchandise can be advertised without prior written permission," writes the publication.

We all want it to happen, and we all fear it will never happen... Half-Life 3 will never come out.

In some fresh news, Valve insider Tyler McVicker talks about the future of the Half-Life franchise and highlights that no new entry in the Half-Life series is in development at Valve right now. Sure, Valve released the VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx, which was one of (if not the very) best game I've ev er played... but it doesn't mean Half-Life 3, or even Half-Life: Alyx 2 are in development.

McVicker added that Valve is full steam ahead on its portable gaming handheld, with the Steam Deck having Valve's full attention so that games work extremely well with most games.

Cyberpunk 2077 is already one of the best-looking games on the PC, especially when you've got the CPU and GPU hardware to handle it maxed out with ray tracing and DLSS enabled. But what about with the unreleased DLSS 2.3 update, and over 50 mods? Check it out:

Digital Dreams is using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card at 4K with DLSS 2.3 enabled on Cyberpunk 2077, as well as adding over 50 mods and turning up every single visual dial to maximum. The result? Absolute pixel beauty. I mean, it looks so damn good it makes me want to properly fire up Cyberpunk 2077 and play it through like this.

It's not completely flawless, but Cyberpunk 2077 has never looked better. It makes all the work developer CD PROJEKT RED put into the game stand out even more, and look far better in some (more so than others, really) and absolutely drool-worthy in other locations and situations in Cyberpunk 2077 as they explore the city in its improved graphical beauty.

Multiplayer is coming to The Witcher franchise, CD Projekt RED has reiterated.

The next Witcher game could have live service elements complete with in-game monetization, such as cosmetic or progression-altering microtransactions. In a recent Q3 earnings call, CDPR president Adam Kicinski reiterates that multiplayer will come "gradually" to both The Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises. This echoes previous statements made in March, but now Kicinski says that Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer may not come first.

CD Projekt RED plans to start working on two AAA franchises simultaneously as early as Q3 2022, the company has said.

Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch notwithstanding, CDPR is gearing up for big things in the next few years. The developer wants to start working on two big AAA projects at the same time with two main teams working in parallel with one another. This means new Witcher and Cyberpunk games will be developed at the same time, which is a big departure from the years' long dev cycles between Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 titles.

Previously CDPR has said this process will begin in next year, and now company president Adam Kicinski clarifies dual development won't begin until both next-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are released by June 2022.

CD Projekt RED says it will spend as much time and money as needed in order to fix Cyberpunk 2077 across all platforms.

CDPR is committed to fixing Cyberpunk 2077 for the long haul. The studio has been spending millions on the game's extra development costs, which include new updates, patches, and optimizations to fix the game's disastrous launch performance on PS4 and Xbox One consoles. This spending also includes the next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S systems.

In a recent Q3 earnings call, CD Projekt Chief Financial Officer Piotr Nielubowicz said this spending will continue as long as it's necessary. "Obviously we'll keep servicing the game for as long as necessary; however I strongly hope it will not take five years."

Congress wants to use legislation to stop bots from buying up all the electronics and manipulating the market.

COVID-19 has significantly disrupted supply lines and demand has skyrocketed as a result. This on its own led to higher prices, but bots and scalpers have pushed things to a new level as once-leisure products like PlayStations, Xboxes, Nintendo Switches, and graphics cards have doubled and tripled in price. Want an RTX 3090? You could have one...for the price of a used car. Everyone's trying to buy into a market that's already been bought up by automated bots.

In the good spirit of Christmas, Congress wants to put an end to the price-gouging madness with the Stopping Grinch Bots Act.

Titanfall 3 may be in the works over at Respawn as the developers tease the future of the beloved sci-fi shooter franchise.

Respawn has once again teased a new mainline Titanfall sequel. The developers today announced that Titanfall 1 is being de-listed and discontinued from sale on all digital marketplaces, but also confirmed that the franchise will continue onward.

"Rest assured, Titanfall is core to Respawn's DNA and this incredible universe will continue. Today in Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, and in the future," the studio said.

Rockstar Games has delayed all physical retail copies of its new GTA trilogy remaster as it works on updates and fixes for the controversial game.

The new GTA trilogy re-release collection is one of the most-hated games of 2021, and has been lambasted and outright lampooned across social media, YouTube, and pretty much everywhere else. Everyone knows about the weird character models, bad weather effects, and outright embarrassing in-game glitches and mess ups. Rockstar has released a number of patches since the trilogy's launch to help fix various issues, but their work isn't done yet, and that's why the physical versions of the trilogy have been delayed slightly.

Rockstar announced the trilogy's disk-based SKUs will now release on December 17 across PS4 and Xbox One, whereas the Nintendo Switch physical cartridge version has been delayed to early 2022--possibly the same timeframe as GTA V Expanded & Enhanced.

The original online-only Titanfall game can no longer be purchased in digital storefronts, Respawn today announced.

Titanfall has officially been discontinued from sale and will be removed from subscriptions like EA Play in March 2022. Starting today gamers will no longer be able to buy Titanfall from storefronts like Steam, the PlayStation Store, or the Xbox marketplace. Respawn and EA still plan to keep the online multiplayer servers up and running, however the infrastructure is absolutely festooned with cheaters and hackers.

"Titanfall is part of our DNA at Respawn. It's a game that showcased the ambitions of the studio when it was first released more than 7 years ago and it continues to be a beacon of innovation that we strive for in all of our games," Respawn said in an announcement post.

Ana Racoveanu is a scientist synthesizing energetic compounds with isotopic labels, a rare feat in the nuclear security enterprise.

Isotopic labeling uses various stable isotopes of given elements in the place of their most common isotope throughout a chemical reaction. The different properties of the non-standard isotope allow its progress through the reaction to be tracked, providing insight into the mechanics of the reaction itself. The goal of creating isotopically labeled energetic materials is to help make munitions safer to handle and use.

These days, transistors in classical computers are measured on the nanometer scale, but superconducting qubits used in quantum are still measured in millimeters.

Qubits exist in an infinite gradation of binary states, and for quantum computers to excel, their qubits need to be on the same wavelength. Traditionally, this has been a size-constrained issue, leading to massive processors and quantum computers. Much like shrinking transistors in classical computers, a way to shrink qubits will be necessary to make quantum computing more viable in the future.

Wang Fong-Jen Professor James Hone's lab at Columbia Engineering has recently collaborated with Raytheon BBN Technologies to shrink qubits by shrinking the capacitors used to power them. Planar capacitors have been used previously, but stacking them to save space would result in interference from the metals used with the qubits.