Latest News - Page 1277

Reports indicate that NASA has warned of an asteroid estimated to be around the size of the Eiffel Tower approaching Earth.

The asteroid is dubbed 4660 Nereus and is deemed "potentially hazardous", which means that its orbit brings it within 4,647,790 miles of Earth and has a diameter of more than 460 feet. The space agency predicts that 4660 Nereus will pass within 2.4 million miles on December 11 and has a diameter of 1082.68 feet. However, the agency says that the asteroid doesn't pose a threat of impact to Earth.

Additionally, The Independent reports that the asteroid is predicted to make 12 more close approaches to Earth within the coming decades, with the closest being on February 14, 2060, when it will come 745,645 miles away from Earth. For a visual comparison of how close that is to Earth, the Moon is located around 239,000 miles from Earth. If you are interested in finding out if an asteroid has hit Earth before, check out a NASA expert answering that very question here.

Intel might have just launched its new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs but even in the months leading up we were enjoying leaks and rumors of the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs, and today we have a new tease.

The new Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs will arrive in 2022, and according to Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead, Raptor Lake will also support DDR5 and DDR4 memory, just like the just-launched 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs and the new Z690 chipset.

We will see Intel launch its new 700 series chipset with the flagship Z790 chipset lighting up next-gen Raptor Lake-ready motherboards in 2022. If you've got some good DDR4 memory now and didn't want to upgrade to Alder Lake, you should be fine when Raptor Lake launches and not need to buy new DDR5 RAM.

NASA is celebrating Nebula November, and the space agency is revisiting all of the incredible nebulae that have been observed throughout our Milky Way galaxy.

One particular jaw-dropping image captured by NASA and the European Space Agency's Hubble Space Telescope is of the Veil Nebula. NASA Hubble Space Telescope used its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument to observe the Veil Nebula that's located around 2,100 light-years away from Earth within the constellation Cygnus. NASA explains that the Veil Nebula is a result of a star that's estimated to have been 20 times the mass of the Sun exploding in a violent supernova around 10,000 years ago.

NASA writes that the star lived fast and died young, and when its life came to an end, it released a large amount of energy into the space around it. The shockwaves from the explosion and the debris "sculpted the Veil Nebula's delicate tracery of ionized gas - creating a scene of surprising astronomical beauty." Ionized oxygen can be seen in the blue colors, ionized hydrogen and ionized nitrogen can be seen in the reds. If you are interested in reading more about the Veil Nebula, check out this link here.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 GPU architecture is really going to open up a can of whoop-ass on NVIDIA in 2022, with the MCM-based (multi-chip module) graphics card now rumored with new 3D Infinity Cache technology.

In a new tweet, leaker Greymon55 simply teases "3D IFC" which would imply "3D Infinity Cache". The next-gen RDNA 3 architecture from AMD is expected to have multiple GPU chiplets (MCM technology, or multi-chip module) and should -- at least from this new rumor -- split the Infinity Cache across the GPU chiplets in its MCM design, to 256MB per chip.

AMD's next-gen Navi 31 GPU is expected to have 512MB of Infinity Cache, but now this could be split into a next-gen 3D stacked design through 3D Infinity Cache technology. 3D IFC hasn't been formally announced just yet, so this is rumor territory as usual. AMD is using its 3D V-Cache technology on its next-gen EPYC Milan-X processors, with a huge 768MB of L3 cache expected on the flagship EPYC 7773X (64 cores, 128 threads) processor.

A former NASA astronaut has explained how he thought he would be the first astronaut to ever drown during a spacewalk.

Former NASA astronaut Garret Reisman took to Twitter to give an "astronaut tip" where he said that all astronauts should make sure their bite valve is firmly attached to your water bag straw. Looking at NASA documentation regarding astronaut suits and helmets, spacesuits contain a drinking bag of water that has a straw running into the astronaut's mouth. Reisman goes on to say that during a spacewalk, he saw his water bag floating inside of his helmet.

Here's what Reisman said, "Astronaut Tip #217: Make sure your bite valve is firmly attached to your water bag straw. When I saw mine float by INSIDE my helmet I was less than thrilled at the thought of becoming the first astronaut to drown during a spacewalk." Reisman added, "Fortunately, the surface tension proved to be enough to keep the majority of the water in the bag."

NASA is celebrating Nebula November and is going back through some of the images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the crazy nebulas that have been found.

To kick this week off strongly, the Hubble Twitter account has posted an image of the Red Rectangle Nebula that is formally called HD 44179. NASA explains on its website that at the center of this nebula is a dying binary star system that has been shedding its outer layers for around 14,000 years. NASA continued to explain that the unusual shape is likely due to "a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes."

So, what about its color? Researchers are yet to understand the colors of the nebula fully, but speculation has led scientists towards assuming that the color may be provided by hydrocarbon molecules that "may be the building blocks for organic life", writes NASA. The Red Rectangle nebula is positioned 2,300 light-years away from Earth within the Unicorn constellation. If you are interested in learning more about this strange nebula, check out this link here.

NASA announced on Sunday that the launch for SpaceX Crew-3 that is headed to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed yet again.

Originally, NASA and SpaceX had planned to swap over the Crew-2 astronauts onboard the ISS with the Crew-3 astronauts before Crew-2 departed the station, but that now isn't going to happen as the space agency has changed its plans for how the two teams will swap positions. NASA has decided to send the Crew-2 astronauts back down to Earth before the arrival of the Crew-3 astronauts. Crew-2 is scheduled to return back to Earth on November 8 at 2:05 pm ET.

Following the return of the Crew-2, SpaceX will launch Crew-3 on the back of its Falcon 9 rocket, marking the third long-duration crew mission to the ISS. That launch is scheduled for November 10, and at the moment, SpaceX is estimating that there is 80% of the weather will be favorable for launch, according to a recent tweet from the space transportation company. If you are interested in reading more about this story or would like to learn more about the launch, check out this link here.

NVIDIA is having to compete with AMD in a totally different way in 2022 and beyond, with AMD moving into the world of MCM (multi-chip module) GPUs with multiple GPU chiplets making for a monster flagship Radeon RX 7900 XT. But NVIDIA won't take the fight laying down.

We've heard rumors that NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 under the new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture will offer twice the performance of the Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3090, but a new rumor from Greymon55 teases: "Double performance, double power consumption, can you accept it?"

Yes, Greymon55... I can accept this.

Apple's next-generation iPhone will use a new chip based on the 4nm according to new rumors, down from the 5nm chip inside of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 families of smartphones.

The new iPhone 13 uses an A15 Bionic chip on the new 5nm process from TSMC, while the iPhone 12 used an A14 Bionic chip was also made on the 5nm node at TSMC. But the next-gen iPhone 14, which is meant to be a "complete design" will also have a nifty new 4nm chip in the new A16 Bionic.

The Information reports that Apple and TSMC are having trouble making a 3nm chip, which might result in the new iPhone 14 rolling out with a "4nm" process instead. We already know that Apple has scooped up all of TSMC's production capacity fo its next-gen 3nm process, which should find a new home inside of the iPhone 15 and future releases of M1 chips for next-gen MacBook laptops and Mac desktops.

Qualcomm hosts its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit in early December, where I now miss attending the in-person events held in Maui, Hawaii. But this year, we're to expect the next-gen Snapdragon 898 SoC to be unveiled.

The next-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 should be unveiled on day one of the Snapdragon Tech Summit, on November 30, with the event running through to December 2 -- as it always did -- as a 3-day event. The new Snapdragon 898 will reportedly be mass-produced on Samsung's new 4nm process, and not TSMC's new 4nm process.

As for the performance upgrades, we should expect the new Snapdragon 898 to offer around 20% more performance over the current-gen flagship Snapdragon 888. Apple is on the scene in a big way with its new in-house M1 Max and M1 Pro SoCs that are offering tremendous performance in a mobile chip, made on TSMC's fresh new 5nm node.

Apple has made a very big splash into the industry by diving head-first into making its new in-house M1 Max and M1 Pro SoCs a force to be reckoned with, even against the mighty Intel -- but what comes next is going to be even bigger.

The latest rumor has Apple's next-gen SoC packing 40 CPU cores on the next-gen 3nm process, furthermore, Apple is working with TSMC to make its next-gen on an enhanced version of the 5nm process. The new chips will reportedly feature 2 dies that will let Apple cram in many more cores, making next-gen MacBook Pro laptops and Mac desktops much, much more powerful.

The new 3nm chips can have up to 4 dies that would allow for up to 40 computing cores, compared to the current-gen M1 Max with a 10-core CPU. The current-gen Apple M1 Max features a 10-core CPU, up to a 32-core GPU, up to 64GB of RAM, packs a huge 57 billion transistors, and is made on TSMC's new 5nm process.

Call of Duty: Vanguard has finally launched and with it Activision held a big launch event, with a new cinematic teaser for Call of Duty: Warzone's big update -- so big it's being renamed -- to Warzone Pacific. Check it out:

Warzone Pacific continues the free-to-play battle royale mayhem from Warzone, with a new Pacific-themed map called Caldera. This means that Warzone's current map, Verdansk, will be replaced and players will be in for a whole new world. Activision has worked with gamers and influencers on the new map for 2 years, taking in all of their comments and influence, and crafting Caldera for Warzone Pacific from that input.

The new cinematic trailer for Warzone Pacific sets the scene for the big update to Warzone on December 2, as for Warzone Pacific, the developer teases: "The usual playlists are also home to the "original" vehicles you've driven before - ATVs, SUVs, Helicopters, and the like. While the dedicated Vanguard modes will have all new ways to get around Caldera, such as planes and AA Truck, the original vehicle set, as well as any Vehicle Skins you've unlocked for them, will still exist in these other playlists".

Xiaomi has just unveiled its next-gen cooling technology dubbed Loop LiquidCool Technology, which is over twice as good at cooling devices as regular vapor chamber-based cooling.

The new Xiaomi Loop LiquidCool Technology borrows from cooling solutions and technologies used in the aerospace industry, where the company is using a capillary effect which drags liquid cooling agent to the heat source, vaporizes it, and then disperses the heat efficiently towards the cooling area -- it will continue this until the agent confesses, and then it is captured through a unidirectional closed-loop channel.

When compared to traditional vapor chamber cooling technology, Xiaomi's new Loop LiquidCool Technology will have 2x the cooling capacity, and "ranks as the most efficient smartphone cooling solution".

EA DICE have quite a beautiful graphics engine on their hands with Frostbite, and when used well it looks absolutely fantastic. But, it has never looked anywhere near as good as some of the work modders put into it, like this new look at Star Wars Battlefront (2015) with next-gen graphics, ray tracing, and running at the GPU-crushing 8K resolution. Check it out:

Giulio Guglielmi aka Massihancer has put some serious work into his new mod for Star Wars Battlefront, emailing me a link and video to his work. I watched it multiple times and I must say, it is some painstakingly good work. Massihancer explains that he used multiple dedicated graphic shaders -- some of which were created, some of which were modded.

He added in ray tracing which provides some beautiful, realistic reflections while improvements to lighting in general also help create a much more cinematic -- even photo-realistic environment. He didn't stop there, because he also added Pascal Gilcher's "RT Shader" beta that boost the ray-tracing effects, with custom shaders used on top to enhance lighting effects in both direct, and in-direct ones.

We know that God of War will be coming to the PC with NVIDIA DLSS technology upgrades, but the former Sony PlayStation console exclusive will also have AMD FSR support.

God of War was originally announced with support for NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) as well as its Reflex technology, but AMD is also adding FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution. This is a big deal as DLSS is only for GeForce RTX 30 series owners, while FSR opens the gate to most modern GPUs.

FSR is being added into a bunch of new games including Call of Duty: Vanguard, Farming Simulator 22, Hot Wheels Unleashed, No Man's Sky, The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and more. The inclusion of FSR tech in God of War is great for PC gamers, and we're not far away from the release on the PC with a launch of January 14, 2022.

EVGA has lost an entire truckload of GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards, where a thief has stolen a truck carrying EVGA graphics cards being taken to its distribution center in California.

The truck was filled with EVGA GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards including GeForce RTX 3060 through to the GeForce RTX 3090, with MSRPs of those cards ranging between $329 and $1960. We're talking about a gigantic amount of the most sought-after graphics cards -- an entire truckload of them -- out in the wild.

EVGA was quick to action, so if you purchase a stolen EVGA GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card you will want to ask for proof of purchase and a receipt -- because if you purchase that card and register for warranty, it won't happen. EVGA will also then investigate that, and want to know how you came to own a stolen graphics card.

The PlayStation 5's firmware has officially been cracked by legendary hacker TheFloW.

Today Andy Nguyen (aka The FloW) announced that he has successfully enabled Debug Mode on a retail PlayStation 5 console. This effectively means the console's firmware has been cracked and the PS5 can be jailbroken to potentially allow unlicensed .pkg files to be installed. For example, gamers can install cheat engines, mod menus, and even multiple emulators on jailbroken PS4s.

Nguyen is well-known for his work as a white-hat hacker who helps Sony identify vulnerabilities while also contributing to preservation, and is also responsible for a number of high-profile homebrew resources like the PSP emulator Adrenaline and other homebrews like Trinity and h-encore.

Four years ago, Ebb Software unleashed Scorn to ignite the weird corners of our imaginations. Sadly the game won't release in 2021 as planned and has been delayed even further.

Scorn has been delayed into 2022, developer Ebb Software has confirmed. The studio released a new Kickstarter update that details what's currently going on, why they've been so silent, and why Scorn is missing its original 2021 launch date.

The reasons are pretty simple. Ebb is working hard on the game, the team has been silent because they don't have much to show and progress is being made, and Scorn is being delayed because it's just not ready yet.

Halo Infinite's campaign is an Xbox Play Anywhere game on both PC and Xbox, offering gamers more cross-platform value.

Gamers who buy Halo Infinite's $59.99 campaign from the Microsoft Store will get two versions for the price of one. Infinite's premium campaign is part of the Play Anywhere initiative which gives players rights to both digital PC and Xbox versions of the game. Gamers will technically get access to three different Infinite SKUs--the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC versions of the game which all run at different performance targets.

This is just a quick reminder for anyone who might want to pick up the campaign when it drops on December 8. Remember Halo Infinite's multiplayer is free-to-play so you're paying for the massive RPG-FPS mashup that is Infinite's campaign. Also remember that the PC version is exclusive to the Microsoft Store SKU, not the Steam SKU, so don't expect features that are natively integrated into Steam.

Intel has confirmed a list of 52 games that won't natively work on machines with 12th-Gen Alder Lake CPUs on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Intel has recently published an expansive list of more than 50 games that can't run natively on PCs with its new Alder Lake CPUs. with Windows 10 or Windows 11 installed. The issue is that third-party DRM like Denuvo improperly recognize Intel's new efficient hybrid cores as another system, therefore not letting the games boot up.

The list of games is made up of 52 games affected on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, including games like Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey, Ghost Recon Breakpoint and Wildlands, Mortal Kombat 11, For Honor, Jedi Fallen Order, and many others. Check below for a full list.