Latest News - Page 1265

Apple actually made a wearable accessory for the Mac back in the 80s called the "WristMac" and it was made by Ex Machina Inc and Seiko, and now one of them is up for auction and could fetch up to $100,000.

The WristMac would've stored phone numbers, and executing or recurring one-time alarms, taking notes, exporting those notes to a text file, and then onto a disk. Users could've programmed their WristMac, and it would've worked -- and been tweaked on your -- Apple Macintosh computer.

NASA actually used the WristMac back in 1991, using them to communicate with a Macintosh Portable and Apple Link software on the Atlantis space shuttle. One of the super-rare WristMac wearables is now up for auction on ComicConnect, where it will be sold for somewhere between $1000 and $100,000 but given how rare the WristMac is, I don't think it will sell for a handful of Benjamins but rather some bundles of Benjamins.

Qualcomm is expected to unveil its next-gen flagship SoC which we've been hearing about lately, the new Snapdragon 898, but new rumors suggest it will be called the Snapdragon 8 Gen1.

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SoC is believed to power next-gen Android-based flagships of 2022 and beyond, with a larger and faster battery -- 4500mAh to start with, and 65W fast-charging. The new Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is reportedly being made on Samsung's 4nm process.

There could be smaller batteries inside of the new smartphones, but with new abilities (faster CPU + GPU, more RAM, faster storage, better camera sensors, faster charging, and more) then the bigger battery starting point -- 4500mAh on the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 -- will be a great thing for smartphone manufacturers, and customers.

AMD has a couple of new graphics cards are coming: the Radeon RX 6500M and Radeon RX 6300M, which will both feature the Navi 24 GPU.

We have heard about the Navi 24-powered GPUs before from Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead, with the entry-level Navi 24 GPU taking care of at least 6 new graphics cards from AMD. We should see the Radeon PRO W6500M, Radeon PRO 6300M, and then gaming SKUs in the Radeon RX 6500M and Radeon RX 6300M.

These 4 graphics cards are expected to join the already-known Radeon RX 6500 XT and Radeon RX 6400 series desktop graphics cards -- also powered by the same Navi 24 GPU. What we do know about the Navi 24 GPU is that it has a PCI Device ID of 7420-743F which has been spotted in Linux kernel/driver leaks previously.

Another year, another idiot has swallowed an Apple AirPod "accidentally" with a TikTok user accidentally picking up and swallowing something far, far bigger than some painkillers... and get this: the entire thing was recorded from within her stomach.

The TikTok user is of course warning everyone of her ordeal, saying that she thought she had taken some painkillers when she picked up the Apple AirPod in her left hand while the painkillers were in her right hand. She continued on her TikTok video: "I was crawling into bed. I like threw something back, took my water bottle and took a sip then realized it wasn't the Ibuprofen. I tried puking it up and it would not come out".

She eventually pooped the Apple AirPod out, while confirming she had an X-ray to confirm what had happened and to keep an eye on the situation. The TikTok user said that the AirPod was connected to her iPhone and she was on a call, after sending a voice message to her friend they could hear a gurgling sound from her stomach... yummy.

Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick tells executives that he may consider voluntarily resigning if the company's core culture can't be turned around.

In correspondence seen by The Wall Street Journal, Activision's chief executive officer told higher-level employees that he may step down and move away from the billion-dollar games-maker if he can't fix the tumultuous, abuse-ridden climate of the company. Kotick says his resignation could happen if the issues aren't handled "with speed," but gave no timeframe.

Advocate groups like A Better ABK, who is made up of current company employees, has called for Kotick's resignation. After all, Kotick was in power during these instances of abuse and even knew about abuse but didn't tell the board of directors. Employees also staged multiple walk outs to protest Activision's alleged sexual abuse issues, and gamers are likewise calling for Kotick's removal.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has approved a patent that grants Sony 15-year exclusivity on manufacturing and selling PS5 cases in the U.S.

Sony has officially patented the PS5's case design and thwarted other third-party resellers who may want to cash in on the idea. Sony has been granted 15-year rights to this specific patent in the U.S. The patent, which was approved by the USPTO on November 16, 2021, is for an "ornamental design for a cover for electronic device" and specifically shows the PS5's two outer case plates that pop off in order to add an M.2 drive or clean the system's dual-sided fan.

It may not take long before Sony starts selling PlayStation-branded case plates with different designs, color schemes, etc. for higher markups. The PlayStation 5's console generation has been accompanied by price hikes across games (new titles are baseline priced at $69.99) and accessories like the $69.99 DualSense controller.

It's that time of year again, Black Friday deals have already begun, and just like every year, Amazon is leading the charge with major price reductions on Samsung TVs.

Black Friday deals have expanded into what seems like a Black Friday week of sales, and to start things off, Amazon has slashed prices on select Samsung TVs. Discounts range from 10% to 35% across a variety of different TVs. If you were looking to purchase a new TV for a Christmas present, or just need a replacement, there are many sizes and price ranges on offer.

Looking at the Amazon listing for all of the currently discounted TVs, you will be able to see 75-inch, 70-inch, 65-inch, 55-inch, 50-inch, 43-inch, and more. Additionally, each of the TVs varies in pixel quality, which is reflected in the price tag to a degree. But, with a large selection, there is plenty of options to choose from as prices range from $497.99 to $1,997.99.

A new study published in Nature Communications details the discovery of an enormous "barrier" located at the center of our Milky Way.

The team of astronomers behind the study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences located in Nanjing, looked at a map of gamma-rays in our galaxy. Space.com reports that gamma-rays are the highest-energy form of light in the universe and can originate when high-speed particles known as cosmic rays collide with matter. The map showed researchers that at the center of the Milky Way, there is something that is increasing the speed of particles, some even close to the speed of light.

Additionally, the map showed a large amount of cosmic and gamma rays just outside of the center of the galaxy. On top of that, the researchers detailed that while the galactic center of the Milky Way blasts out high-energy radiation into the space surrounding it, something is preventing large amounts of cosmic rays from entering. The researchers describe it as a "barriera" that appears to be wrapped around the center of the galaxy. This "barrier" keeps the density of cosmic rays within the region lower than the baseline amount seen throughout the rest of the Milky Way galaxy.

A group of astronomers discovered a hellish exoplanet where one year on the planet is really just a few days on Earth.

The team of astronomers from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) published a study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society back in October, and it details the discovery of exoplanet TOI 1789b. The exoplanet is estimated to be around 1.4 times the size of Jupiter, with around 70% of its mass. Additionally, TOI 1789b orbits its star extremely closely, completing one full rotation around the star in just 3.2 days.

Being so close to its host star, the planet gets extremely hot. The researchers estimate that the planet can reach temperatures up to 2,000 K, or 3,140 Fahrenheit. Planets such as TOI 1789b are referred to as a "hot Jupiter", as they are similar to Jupiter but have very short orbital periods around their host stars resulting in them being hot. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

In the coming days, the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter will perform its riskiest fly-by of Earth yet as it makes its way towards the Sun.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has detailed on its website the upcoming mission for its Solar Orbiter. The satellite is returning back to Earth before it makes it way back towards the Sun to observe the fiery ball in an attempt to understand space weather better. Before it can measure the Sun, the Solar Orbiter must pass closely with Earth in order to slow down and be lined up for a close pass with the Sun.

During this maneuver, the Solar Orbiter will come within 286 miles of the planet's surface, which is only a little bit above where the International Space Station orbits (250 miles). However, that isn't where the risk lies. The ESA detail in the infographic found above that the Solar Orbiter will have to pass through two layers of space debris that could potentially damage the satellite.

Humans are looking towards Mars as the next spot to settle down on, but being a barren wasteland with minimal habitable options, the Red Planet is a bit of a fixer-upper.

A new paper spotted by Universe Today on the pre-print server arXiv looks at how humans can achieve a sustained presence on the Red Planet that would include factors such as travel, research, visiting, tourism, etc. The paper states that for that level of colonization to take place, Mars would need a strong magnetic field capable of deflecting solar wind blasts from the Sun, which are deadly to humans. Earth's magnetic field comes from its core, but Mars' core is different from Earth's and would require either its core to be started up (as its cooler) or an artificial magnetic field to be created around the planet's surface.

Since the latter of the two options is more feasible, the team of scientists, including NASA's own chief scientist James Lauer Green, proposes a ring of charged particles to be built around the planet. The study details using Mars' moon Phobos to create a magnetic field by ionizing particles from the moon's surface and then accelerating them to create a plasma torus, a doughnut-shaped region around the orbit that is filled with hot ionized gas (a plasma).

NASA is currently gearing up for its very first planetary defense mission that will include launching a spacecraft directly towards an asteroid in an attempt to redirect it.

NASA is targeting a binary asteroid system that features two asteroids; one smaller asteroid named Didymos and one larger asteroid named Dimorphos. Didymos, the smaller of the two asteroids, is orbiting its larger companion and will be the target of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The space agency plans to launch a vending machine-sized asteroid towards Didymos in an attempt to change its orbit slightly. The results from this test will answer the question if NASA is capable of redirecting an asteroid if it's on route to hit Earth.

The DART spacecraft will be traveling at 15,000 mph and will collide with Didymos, which is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. NASA expects that the impact should change Didymos' orbit by more than 1%, and if it does, the mission is considered a success. As the DART spacecraft is flying towards the asteroid, it will be taking images rapidly and relaying them back to Earth before it's completely destroyed.

The Hubble Space Telescope has peered out into the void and snapped an image of a celestial prawn drifting throughout deep space.

Located around 6,000 light-years away, the Prawn Nebula (IC 4628) is a massive stellar nursery that's located within the constellation Scorpius. A stellar nursery is a molecular cloud that houses all the ingredients that will eventually form into stars. The Prawn Nebula is 250 light-years across and doesn't emit light in wavelengths the human eye can detect, but Hubble can see it quite clearly.

The pristine image snapped by Hubble showcases the nebulas structure of energized, or ionized gas caused by the radiation of a nearby star. The radiation from the nearby star strips the hydrogen atoms located within the nebula, energizing the electrons and changing them from a higher-energy state to a lower-energy state. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out NASA's blog post on the Prawn Nebula here.

NASA's Perseverance rover is asking the public to take a second to marvel at its first-ever Martian sunset viewing.

NASA has posted the image of the Mars sunset on the Perseverance Twitter account while also detailing the observation on its website. Perseverance snapped the image of the Martian sunset using its Mastcam-Z camera system on November 9, 2021, and according to the blog post, Mars sunsets are usually blue due to the fine dust throughout the atmosphere allowing blue light to penetrate it more effectively than other wavelengths of light.

However, the sunset seen above is different, and NASA explains, "less dust in the atmosphere resulted in a more muted color than average. The color has been calibrated and white-balanced to remove camera artifacts." Perseverance will continue its search for signs of microbial life on the Red Planet, and throughout its journey, it will collect rock samples that will eventually be transported back to Earth for researchers to analyze. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

It's been a couple of hot weeks of rumors and news about Intel's new Arc Alchemist family of GPUs, with Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead has unveiled new details about the Intel DG2-128EU GPU.

We should see Intel's new DG2-128EU GPU in desktop form with the Arc Alchemist, so expect 6GB of GDDR6 memory and a 96-bit memory bus. This beats out previous rumors of a 64-bit memory bus, but Tom also notes that we could see a 4GB GDDR6 variant, as well as a 64-bit mobile Arc Alchemist SKU in the future.

Tom expects the DG2-128EU GPU will have GPU clocks of between 2.2GHz and 2.5GHz, with a 75W TDP while Tom "can't promise they won't overclock it for desktop like Navi 24, but so far everything is low power". With the notes on power consumption, Tom continues: "with such low power, and 6GB of VRAM instead of 8GB, this thing can cost $179 or less with decent margins".

Micron and MediaTek are the first to validate Micron's new low-power double data rate 5X (LPDDR5X) DRAM for the just-announced MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC, which you can read more about here.

The new MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC has the most advanced mobile memory in the industry, with the first batch of samples of LPDDR5X already inside of smartphones for testing. The faster LPDDR5X-based DRAM will super-speed artificial intelligence (AI) and "5G innovation".

The new Micron industry-leading 1α-based LPDDR5X "solidifies its product innovation and leadership in the mobile ecosystem, following industry-first launches for LPDDR5, 1α-based LPDDR4X, 176-layer NAND-based UFS 3.1 and uMCP5 solutions. This most recent milestone follows quickly on the heels of JEDEC's July release of the LPDDR5X extension to LPDDR5, created to offer higher bandwidth and memory speed for enhanced 5G communication and performance while still conserving power. Micron has validated samples supporting data rates up to 7.5 Gb/s, with samples supporting data rates up to 8.533 Gb/s to follow. Peak LPDDR5X speeds of 8.533 Gb/s deliver up to 33% faster performance1 than previous-generation LPDDR5" according to the PR from Micron.

El Salvador has been far out and ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting and advocating for cryptocurrencies, mostly Bitcoin, but this news takes the place.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told a crowd on Saturday night during El Salvador's recent Bitcoin Week that the new "Bitcoin City" would be made near a volcano, along the cost of the Gulf of Fonseca. The government plans on placing the power plant near a volcano, which would be great for both mining -- low power costs, great on the environment -- and for the city itself.

The exciting new Bitcoin City would be a "full-fledged metropolis with residential and commercial areas, restaurants, an airport as well as a port and rail service. The city will be laid out in a circle (like a coin) and in the city center will be a plaza that will be host to a huge bitcoin symbol. The city will have no income, property, capital gains or payroll taxes" reports CoinDesk.

EA DICE has pumped out the delayed-a-few-times Battlefield 2042 and surprise, surprise -- Battlefield 2042 is one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam, ever.

Battlefield 2042 is the #8 worst game on Steam according to Steam250.com, with -- at least at the time of writing -- had over 35,600 negative votes. At the top of the shit games list is eFootball 2022, which I wrote about not long ago and is still the loud-and-proud worst game on Steam.

If you haven't heard much about the drama and meh-ness of Battlefield 2042 then you're missing out -- it's not in the best shape, and gamers (including myself) aren't happy about it. There's close to 40,000 reviews of Battlefield 2042 on the PC on Steam and around 30,000 are negative -- mostly complaining about a lack of weapons, features, and crap performance on the PC.

Intel's next-gen Sapphire Rapid-X architecture isn't far away with the new HEDT platform, which will be made on the new Intel 7 node.

According to the very latest rumors from Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead, we're to expect up to 56 cores and 112 threads of CPU power and DDR5 RAM + PCIe 5.0 support. We are to expect an edition of Sapphire Rapids that will rock super-fast HBM2e memory and a nifty new Ponte Vecchio GPU for the new Aurora supercomputer.

The new rumor from MLID teases that Intel is actually going to drop the Core-X branding with Sapphire Rapids, and launch it as the new Xeon Workstation family of processors. With up to 56 cores, 112 threads, 8-channel DDR5 support, 350W of TDP, and an insane 112 x PCIe 5.0 lanes... Intel is back.

MediaTek has just unveiled its new 5G-powered Dimensity 9000 SoC which features 8 cores of CPU power, an ARM Mali-G710 MC10 GPU, ray tracing abilities, 5G connectivity, and it's made on TSMC's new 4nm process node.

The new MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC has 1 x Cortex-X2 at 3.05GHz, 3 x Cortex-A710 at 2.85GHz, and 4 x Cortex-A510 at 1.8GHz on the CPU side of things -- joined by 8MB of L3 cache and 6MB of system-wide cache. This some high-end CPU grunt here, which should see MediaTek better battling Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple in the mobile high-end SoC battle.

We have LPDDR5X memory clocked at up to 7500 MT/s although JEDEC has support for up to 8533 MT/s, but even at the higher LPDDR5X-7500 memory is 17% faster than the LPDDR5-6400 standard.