Latest News - Page 1260

Black Friday has arrived! Corsair has listed a range of its products on Amazon for discounted prices; get them while you can!

For sale is a selection of headphones, keyboards, and a mouse and power supply. The HS80, HS75, HS60, Void Pro, Void Elite, and Void RGB Elite are available for between $119.99 and $54.99. The Void RGB Elite is available in wired and wireless versions, while the non-RGB variant is wired.

The available keyboards include the K95, a mechanical keyboard, with Cherry MX Brown switches or Cherry MX Blue variants available. The K55 has three available variants, RGB, RGB Pro, and RGB Pro XT. Both the K95 and K55 come with RGB and a detachable palm rest.

A crater may disappear long after a meteorite impact, but a new method of finding impact sites despite this has been uncovered.

Gunther Kletetschka of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has identified the significantly reduced level of natural remanent magnetization in rock as the key to defining a meteorite impact site. Rocks naturally have 2-3% remanent magnetization, referring to the number of magnetic mineral grains they contain, typically magnetite, hematite, or both. When collecting samples from the Santa Fe Impact Structure in New Mexico (pictured above), Kletetschka found they contained less than 0.1% magnetism.

Kletetschka determined that during a meteorite impact, the plasma created and changes in the electrons within the atoms of the rocks being struck decreased their magnetism. The Santa Fe Impact Structure consists of many shatter cones, which are believed to form only when rock is subjected to high pressure and high-velocity shockwaves, for example, a meteorite impact. Before these telltale shatter cones are uncovered, this discovery allows scientists to identify an impact site that has eroded and become unrecognizable or define the extent of an already identified impact site.

Amazon's expansive Black Friday deals continue, now serving up LG's C1 OLED series of TVs for up to 28% off.

LG continues to be the only company manufacturing OLED panels, so if that's what you're after, you can't go wrong getting it from the source. For between 9% and 28% off, you can get 48", 55", 65", 77" and 83" options.

All of the TVs in this series come with Alexa and other AI assistant support built-in, 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, upscale content using the Alpha 9 Gen4 AI processor, and do much more.

A milestone in the world of cryptocurrency has recently been reached as a blockchain investor has announced the acquisition of Metaverse "land".

Tokens.com has announced it has acquired a plot of "land" within the Decentraland metaverse, in a specific area that is titled "Fashion Street District". The land purchased within the metaverse measures in at 6,090 square feet of digital land and cost Tokens.com 618,000 MANA, which is about $2.4 million dollars. Token.com has said that it will use the plot of land to host virtual fashion shows where brands will show off their fashion designs digitally.

Update: Malicious actors gained access to the Google Cloud instances by taking advantage of poor customer security practices or vulnerable third-party software in nearly 75% of all cases. As shown in Table 2, 48% of compromised instances were attributed to actors gaining access to the Internet-facing Cloud instance, which had either no password or a weak password for user accounts or API connections. As a result, these Google Cloud instances could be easily scanned and brute forced. 26% of compromised instances were attributed to vulnerabilities in third-party software, which was installed by the owner.

Google's Cybersecurity Action team has released a report called the "Threat Horizons Executive Snapshot", which details ongoing online threats through trend tracking and other data pools.

The report was included threat intelligence observations from the Threat Analysis Group, Google Cloud Threat, Intelligence for Chronicle, Trust and Safety group, and other internal teams. Cryptocurrency mining abuse was specifically mentioned in the report, with it stating that bad actors were observed mining cryptocurrency within a compromised Cloud instance.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe has just completed its 10th pass of the Sun, and during its fly-by, it smashed two world records.

The NASA probe made an extremely close encounter with the Sun on November 21, 2021, at 4:35 am EST. The probe was just 5.3 million miles away from the surface of our star and passed by at a ridiculous speed of 363,660 mph, making it the fastest artificial object ever created. Additionally, the Parker Solar Probe also broke the record for the closest satellite to survive a near pass of the Sun.

The probe will continue to orbit and increasingly get closer to the Sun, eventually coming within 4.3 million miles from the surface at speeds above 430,000 mph. With each pass, the probe collects valuable data about our star and relays the information back to Earth for scientists to interpret. Information regarding solar wind, and the amount of dust particles in the area are two main sets of data the probe collects. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

A team of researchers has published a new study in the journal BioScience on November 17, and it details warnings for increasing Earth's biosecurity as the human race accelerates its push into space exploration.

The paper concentrates on how humans in the past have moved species to new environments only for those species to have a negative effect on the environment, driving out the native species. The researchers believe that humans can do the same thing with planets when we begin visiting them and that alien life on other planets could accidentally be brought back to Earth via astronauts. Humans spreading bacteria from Earth on a planet may cause devastating effects on the planet's evolution. The same way alien bacteria being brought to Earth and potentially becoming harmful to life would cause havoc.

The new study calls for more papers to be written as collaborations between astrobiologists that are hunting for signs of life in the universe as well as invasion biologists that are studying invasive species on Earth. Lead author Anthony Ricciardi, a professor of invasion biology at McGill University in Montreal, said to Live Science, "We can only speculate on what kinds of organisms might be encountered if astrobiologists were to find life. The most plausible life-forms would be microbial and probably resemble bacteria."

If you have booked your tickets to become an astronaut with Blue Origin, you will be staying in Jeff Bezos' Astronaut Village.

Space tourists flying with Blue Origin will stay in Astronaut Village, located about 15 miles away from the launch site in Van Horn, Texas desert. Passengers will sleep in Airstream trailers, and according to Don DiCostanzo, a business owner who was Star Trek actor William Shatner's wingman told Insider in an interview conducted earlier that the campsite is located down a dirt road that has "tight security". Additionally, Chris Boshuizen, who joined Shatner on his space flight, said that Astronaut Village was a "perfect little campsite."

Future astronauts are given their own Airstream trailer to sleep in, which has had its interior outfitted to look more like a hotel than a camper van. According to Boshuizen, "It's not like a five-star hotel or anything. They have historic artifacts here and there in the different rooms, so you really feel like you're in a place with some connection to past and future". Astronaut Village is also equipped with its own restaurant and bar where future astronauts can enjoy a nice seating arrangement around a fire pit.

Researchers in many fields are yet to fully understand what they are studying, but every day we move closer to uncovering the answers to some of the most difficult questions.

Outlined in this article are just seven questions that have puzzled researchers for quite some time, and while they are extremely difficult to answer, they aren't impossible. In all of the questions, scientists have a basic understanding of the topic but haven't yet been able to fully answer the entire question.

As time continues and technology advances, it can be assumed that some of these questions will be answered and replaced by others.

A new press release has revealed that AMC and Sony Pictures will be giving out free NFTs to anyone who completes an advance ticket purchase for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The press release states that AMC and Sony Pictures will be giving out 86,000 NFTs to Stubs Premiere, A-List, and Investor Connect members as a part of a promotional investment. Individuals will need to go through the AMC Theaters website to buy or reserve a ticket for a Spider-Man: No Way Home showing on December 16. The ordering process will begin on November 29 and can be completed through the AMC Theaters website or the mobile app.

As Engadget points out, this move by AMC into the world of cryptocurrency is not unheard of as AMC has already expressed its interest in the crypto space. CEO of AMC Theaters, Adam Aron, said that both shareholders and moviegoers were "calling" for the inclusion of NFTs, and considering that this is the first time AMC has given away NFTs for a movie launch, we could consider this as a "test run" to see if movie fans are interested in digital collectibles of their favorite movies.

Just a small handful of crypto miners in Kazakhstan are causing quite the fuss, with reports that the country's electrical grid operator, KEGOC, would begin rationing electricity for 50 registered crypto miners in the country.

This is after the demand for electricity by these miners caused an emergency shutdown mode at 3 separate power plants across Kazakhstan in October 2021. From now on, those crypto mining farms will be the first ones that will lose their electricity if there are any issues with the electricity grid in Kazakhstan.

The Kazakhstan energy ministry has estimated that electricity demand has increased 8% in 2021 alone, which is a sharp increase over the annual 1-2% that electricity demand normally increases every year. The price of electricity in Kazakhstan is very cheap, which makes it a lucrative spot for crypto mining farms to set up operation to mine away for those precious Bitcoins.

We've been hearing more and more about NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB graphics card, a refreshed Turing-based RTX 2060 with 12GB of GDDR6 memory (up from the 6GB GDDR6 on the regular RTX 2060).

But it looks like it'll be more than just double the VRAM of a regular GeForce RTX 2060, as the new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB will reportedly have a higher TDP of 184W (with the RTX 2060 SUPER having a 175W TDP). This means that the RTX 2060 12GB will actually be around the same performance as the RTX 2060 SUPER.

The 12GB of GDDR6 memory on the new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB will be on a 192-bit memory bus, while the RTX 2060 SUPER has its 12GB of GDDR6 on a wider 256-bit memory bus. Not only that, but the overclocked AIB variants of the new GeForce RTX 2060 12GB could see GPU boost clocks at default 1650MHz and up to 1690MHz and beyond with OC.

Intel's new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs are here but they are all the K-series variants, while the new non-K series are now on the way with a slew of new processors.

In a new leak, we're being introduced to the Intel 12th Gen Core CPU non-K series including the flagship Core i9-12900, Core i5-12600, Core i5-12500, and Core i5-12400. In the middle of these processors and missing from the lineup are the Core i7-12700, the Core i3-12300, and Core i3-12100 processors as well as the F-series variants without integrated GPUs.

The new Intel Core i9-12900 is a 16-core, 24-thread CPU (8P+8E) with a 2.4GHz base CPU clock and up to 5.1GHz boost CPU clock and there will be 30MB of L3 cache, too. The Intel Core i7-12700 has its Efficiency cores cut in half, down to 12 cores and 20 threads (8P+4E) with CPU clocks down to 2.1GHz base, and 4.9GHz boost (this only applies to the Performance cores).

Sabrent's ultra-fast Rocket 4 Plus 4TB NVMe M.2 SSD is available on the cheap right now, down from $1000 to $750 with $250 discount.

If you want some of the very fastest read and write speeds for your gaming and productivity storage, then Sabrent provides that in rocket loads with up to 7.2GB/sec (7200MB/sec) reads and 6.9GB/sec (6900MB/sec) writes if you've got a PCIe 4.0-capable motherboard.

The monster 4TB variant of the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is usually $1000 and currently has $250 discount on Amazon, bringing the price down to $750. I personally use a few of these across my systems and there is nothing faster, and once you go back to something slower it really feels like you're going back in time. $250 off right now? Beautiful. Remember, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB NVMe M.2 SSD will work in the next-gen Sony PlayStation 5 console, too.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has sold over half of his Microsoft shares, with Nadella offloading 838,600 shares across November 22 and November 23, 2021.

The 838,600 shares were sold in a price range between $334.37 and $349.22, with the 838,600 shares sold bringing his total Microsoft share count to 831,000. This means the Microsoft CEO has dumped over half of the stock he held in Microsoft, and there's no news about it.

The only pieces I could find was somewhere reputable at least, with Seeking Alpha only highlighting that the CEO of Microsoft selling over half the shares he holds in the company he literally runs, in a single sentence: "The shares were sold in a price range from $334.37 to $349.22, bringing his total share count to 831K shares". While CNBC reported: "Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella disclosed the sale of 839,000 shares in an SEC filing, leaving him with ownership of 831,000 shares following that transaction. Microsoft fell 1% in the premarket".

Despite the ongoing Cyberpunk 2077 controversy, CD Projekt RED still has no plans to sell itself to a large company like Tencent, Sony, or even Microsoft.

CD Projekt Group, which includes subsidiaries like CD Projekt RED (The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077) and Spokko (The Witcher Monster Slayer AR game), will stay independent and has no desires to be bought out or taken over. It's true that the massive Cyberpunk 2077 launch fiasco has tarnished the firm but company president Adam Kicinski is confident the game--and by extension, the studio--can be redeemed with enough time, patience, and hard work.

In a recent interview with Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Kicinski reiterates that there are no plans to sell outside of publicly-traded shares on the stock market: "We have been repeating for years that we plan to remain independent and do not plan to become part of a larger entity. We are also not looking for a strategic investor."

There's one silver lining to Cyberpunk 2077's huge global controversy: Everyone knows about the game.

As No Man's Sky has proven, infamy can generate massive brand awareness and also sets the stage for an even better come back story. The negative repercussions typically far outweigh the positives; with CP2077 there was tons of pushback from gamers, missed revenues due to de-listing on the PlayStation Store, and even a securities fraud lawsuit.

Even still, CD Projekt RED is confident that it will eventually redeem Cyberpunk 2077 and turn things around. In a recent interview with Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, studio president Adam Kicinski says that the game could transform into a hit...long-term, of course.

NVIDIA is reportedly hearing up for the launch of the lower-end GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card in Q2 2022 according to the same rumors.

The rumors are coming from the same source that first broke that NVIDIA is working on a new GeForce RTX 2060 with 12GB of GDDR6 memory, while in between we've been hearing plenty of rumors about the new mobile-focused GeForce RTX 3050 Ti.

VideoCardz is reporting that the non-Ti desktop GeForce RTX 3050 should come with 8GB of memory, but this could change -- we could see a 4GB variant as well. As for performance, NVIDIA's purported GeForce RTX 3050 would be faster than the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER but slower than the GeForce RTX 2060 12GB (which isn't here yet).

If you want one of the very ultimate TVs on the market, well you're in luck -- Samsung has shaved a huge $3500 its beautiful, and gargantuan 85-inch Class QN800A Samsung Neo QLED 8K Smart TV.

This is the very latest 2021 model with the 8K side of things giving you a huge 7680 x 4320 @ 60Hz, while 4K is offered at a much-smoother 120Hz. In Samsung's own words: "Feel the power of every frame with 33 million pixels that provide an incredible sense depth and clarity, all with four times the resolution of 4K".

For watching 8K content you're going to be stretching it... there's no native 8K movies out, but there are plenty of gorgeous 8K videos on YouTube and then there's 8K gaming on the PC. I've run a bunch of 8K benchmarks across the years, and you're going to need (not just want) the very best graphics card you can find which is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 with its 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory.

Intel has laid out its GPU roadmap right into 2025 and beyond, with what will start with the Intel 1st Gen Arc "Alchemist" GPU launching in Q2 2022 for the desktop and Q1 2022 for mobile.

But in a few years, we're going to see the Intel 4th Gen Arc "Druid" GPU arrive and that should be sometime in 2025. In a new tweet, Intel Arc Community Advocate and Driver Guru, @theBryceIsRt, replied to @Freeman2352 who joked and tweeted "2025: RTX 6090 Super | 800W".

Bryce replied, tweeting: "If all goes well, that could be when Intel ARC 'Druid' cards comes out" and ends it with adding "game on" with a controller emoticon and nice little wink tease. Interestingly, he used "ARC" in all caps which was recently noted to be "Arc" without the all-caps -- OCD to the side, the 4th Gen Arc "Druid" GPU should drop in 2025 which isn't tooooo far away.