Latest News - Page 1292

Valve is currently testing every Steam game for compatibility with the new Steam Deck, and it's posting its findings in a huge public database.

Valve today launched a new platform aimed at transparently informing Steam Deck owners which games they should play on the handheld-PC hybrid. Games that meet certain performance and experience targets become verified on the database and on the official Steam Deck storefront. Every game will have a compatibility icon telling you certain limitations that might be in place.

"With Steam Deck, we're bringing your Steam Library to a new form factor-a portable gaming PC. While many games run great on Deck out of the box, this shift means there are some games that, while they may be great on a desktop PC, aren't a great experience on Steam Deck, Valve says.

Did you know Sony Pictures had its own mobile games division? Well it did, before selling it for $1 billion.

Today Sony Pictures Entertainment announced it has sold GSN Games, a subsidiary of its Game Show Network responsible for popular mobile games, to smartphone mogul Scopely for a total of $1 billion. The payout is made up of $500 million in cash and $500 million in equity, which sees Sony Pictures becoming a minority stakeholder in Scopely.

GSN Games is actually 14 years old and Sony says the division delivered "great business" that delivered "strong and growing profits" since 2007. GSN Games is a 400-employee branch responsible for casual mobile games like Bingo Bash, which has been played by over 70 million people, and Solitaire TriPeaks, which has over 100 million hands being dealt every week. GSN Games also makes casino mobile games.

While Microsoft has mostly celebrate 20 years of Xbox by selling you products, now the company is starting to do fun things to commemorate the brand.

Remember the old-school Xbox 360 UI? Those blades were pretty stylish and helped establish the standard for the console's scrolling-page interface. Now you can relive those old memories on Xbox.com.

Microsoft has given its Xbox website landing page a retro overhaul (wait, is the Xbox 360 already retro?!) to mirror the Xbox 360's original blade UI design. Before you get too excited, no, the Xbox Series X/S also received an update bringing back the beloved blades. The console UI remains the same, and the rest of the Xbox.com website is also the same.

The Nintendo Switch's 33-month streak has been broken, the NPD Group confirms in its latest U.S. games market report.

NPD Group's latest market report for September 2021 shows that pandemic-levels of spending are continuing onward. Consumers spent $412 million on video games hardware in September 2021, up 49% over last year, driven by new consoles like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. In fact, PS5 sales finally outstripped Switch sales through the month of September, breaking nearly 3 years of Switch dominance.

"PlayStation 5 was the best-selling hardware platform of September in both units and dollars. PlayStation 5 is the best-selling hardware platform of 2021 year-to-date in dollars, while Nintendo Switch leads in units," NPD Group's Mat Piscatella said.

Elden Ring has been delayed to February 25, 2022, Bandai Namco today announced.

Elden Ring will release a month later than its original launch date and is now set for a February 2022 rollout on consoles and PC. FromSoftware says the delay is due to the "depth & strategic freedom of the game" exceeding its original expectations.

Bandai Namco will also hold a closed network beta test for the game to stress the online multiplayer servers. That test will be held from November 12 - November 15 on all platforms and will be free--no pre-orders needed. Not everyone will get in, though, and gamers will have an opportunity to register for a chance to playtest the network version.

NASA has explained via a press release that a new study is exploring how possible it is to build a Wi-Fi network on the lunar surface.

NASA's Compass Lab conducted the study, and researchers behind it compared the inadequate internet access in some areas in Cleveland to the lunar surface in an effort to solve two problems; giving those people in areas without a connection a sustained connection and the construction of a Wi-Fi network on the Moon. According to the National Digital Alliance, around 31% of Cleveland households aren't connected to the internet.

The researchers behind the study compared the lunar surface area with an area around Cleveland to discover technical challenges within the local area. The study found that if Wi-Fi routers were attached to around 20,000 lampposts or other poles around Cleveland, all residents in the local area would have an available connection at any given time. With routers placed no more than 100 yards apart, the researchers estimated that a family of four would be able to get a 7.5 megabits per second download speed.

The first film crew to ever shoot footage that will be used in a feature film has safely returned back down to Earth, marking a milestone moment in the world film industry.

After training for just four months, filmmaker Klim Shipenko, actress Yulia Peresild, and cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station for twelve days. The space film crew shot scenes for an upcoming movie about a doctor that is sent into orbit to perform surgery on a cosmonaut that is in need of medical attention.

The space film crew safely touched down in the Kazakhstan steppes, and right after leaving the capsule, the landing site quickly became a film set for one of the film's closing scenes. Actress Yulia Peresild is the first actress in space and described her experience to RT, saying, "While you're in low gravity, you feel like a feather, so everything's very heavy now - my head's very heavy, my arms, my legs... Everything's a little dizzy." The mission was a joint effort between Russia's television Channel 1 and the Russian Space Agency.

For the first time, researchers have captured the sounds of a solar storm from the Sun impacting Earth's magnetic field.

The sounds were released by the European Space Agency (ESA) back in 2019, and according to the press release, the song comes from waves that are generated in Earth's magnetic field when charged particles from the Sun slammed into it. Lucile Turc, a former ESA research fellow, led a team on the research and used data from the Cluster Science Archive, which consists of four spacecrafts that orbit Earth-observing our planet's magnetic field.

The orbit of these spacecrafts takes them through what is known as "foreshock", which is the first layer of Earth's magnetic field. Between 2001 and 2005, the spacecrafts flew through six solar storm collisions and recorded the waves of the impact. Researchers then converted these frequencies to audio, and the result is somewhat eerie sci-fi sound that is commonly used in movies. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

NASA's asteroid trackers are indicating that multiple asteroids will approach Earth in the next few weeks, some close to the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza located in Egypt.

For reference, the Great Pyramid of Giza has a diameter of 756 feet, and according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, Asteroid 2021 SM3 with a diameter of 525 feet passed by Earth just this Friday at a distance of 3.5 million miles. This asteroid was only first discovered a few weeks ago, according to CBS News. For those that don't know, a near-Earth object (NEO) are comets and asteroids that have been pushed into Earth's neighborhood by the gravity of other large-mass celestial body's such as nearby planets.

NASA researchers believe that NEOs hold the secrets for the evolution of our solar system as they formed from untouched debris when the solar system was first developing 4.6 billion years ago. NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies said, "If we wish to know the composition of the primordial mixture from which the planets formed, then we must determine the chemical constituents of the leftover debris from this formation process - the comets and asteroids."

NASA has released a new image captured by its Mars rover named Perseverance, showing off an incredible view of an area in the Jezero Crater.

The image is a brand new panorama of the South Seitah area located in the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is currently exploring. Researchers selected the Jezero Crater for its potential to contain evidence of past life on the planet as well as its geological potential as it contains some of the oldest rocks that will allow researchers to understand more about Mars' past when studied.

The image is a mosaic piece that is comprised of 84 separate images that were taken with Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument. According to NASA, the images were taken on September 12 when Perseverance was parked on an elevated overlook that is located just outside of its entry point into South Seitah. To view a full resolution version of the panoramic image, check out this link here.

Astronomers have been observing Jupiter and its most notable attraction - the Great Red Spot for hundreds of years.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is the largest storm in the solar system, stretching at one point 25,000 miles in diameter, or three times the diameter of Earth. The storm is located 22 degrees south of Jupiter's equator and is producing wind speeds of up to 268 miles per hour. Astronomers have been using NASA and the European Space Agency's Hubble Space Telescope to observe Jupiter's main attraction for more than a decade and have discovered that the wind speed on the outer edges of the Great Red Spot is increasing.

Between 2009 and 2020, the wind speed of the outer edges, described by researchers as the high-speed ring, has increased its speed by eight percent. According to Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the analysis, "When I initially saw the results, I asked, 'Does this make sense?' No one has ever seen this before. But this is something only Hubble can do. Hubble's longevity and ongoing observations make this revelation possible."

A volcano on one of Spain's islands is spewing rivers of lava out in all directions. Shocking footage has captured the lava coating the surface of the island.

The volcano is Spain's Cumbre Vieja volcano located on La Palma island. The volcano began erupting on September 19 and has continued erupting for four weeks. NBC News reports that authorities expect the lava flow to advance northwest beyond the designated evacuation zone. Authorities have stated that the temperature of the lava can reach up to 2,264 degrees Fahrenheit and that there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

Residents in the area have evacuated the affected area, but the lava is moving very quickly, covering between 1,640 to 2,300 feet per hour. So far, the eruption and the rivers of lava have destroyed more than 1,186 buildings in the area and have covered around two square miles of land. Many videos of the rivers of lava have been captured by the press, researchers, and residents in the area. If you are interested in watching a video for yourself, check out this link here.

Astronomers back in 1974 decided to sketch what they thought the lunar mountain named Mons "Pico" would look like if they were standing in front of it.

Mons Pico is a solitary lunar mountain that is located in the northern part of the Mare Imbrium basin. The mountain is very reflective and is known as a bright lunar object. The peak comes in at the height of 7,874 feet, and when blasted with sunlight, it can cause massive shadows across the lunar surface. Astronomers in 1874 were able to view the mountain but weren't able to get an idea of what it looked like if they were standing on the lunar surface looking at it.

So, they decided to draw it. Above is a sketch of Pico, with the caption stating, "An ideal sketch of "Pico," an isolated lunar mountain 8,000 feet high, as it would probably appear if seen by a spectator located on the Moon." Unfortunately, to the astronomers/artists that drew this sketch, their assumptions about the mountain weren't accurate. Below is an image of what Pico looks like today, and as you can see, the two images are very different. While the sketch from 1874 isn't accurate, the measurement for the height of the mountain is, which is certainly something to commend for the times it was estimated.

Last week, a large amount of solar material erupted from our star's surface, which then traveled through space, reaching Earth a few days later.

For those that are unaware of this event, the eruption happened on October 9, 2021, causing a coronal mass ejection (CME) blast to hit Earth on October 12. So, what does this mean exactly? Researchers measure the disturbance in Earth's magnetic field by solar wind using the Kp index metric. The levels range from 0, which is considered "quiet," to 9, which is regarded as "intense". The CME that arrived last week elevated the Kp index to a 6, which is considered mild-moderate.

The CME blast was associated with a solar flare that happened from Active Region 2882 that peaked on October 9 at 6:38 UTC. The solar flare was categorized as an M-class, and much like the Richter scale used to measure earthquakes, M-class solar flares are a tenth the size and intensity of the X-class flares. For example, M2 flares are twice as powerful as an M1. NASA's space instruments measured the speed of the solar wind from the eruption to be 610 miles per second, according to NASA's Moon to Mars Space Weather Operations Office.

A distinguished Harvard professor has speculated that the Milky Way universe could have been created in a lab by an advanced alien species.

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is a best-selling author and former head of Harvard's astronomy department and is known for theories such as alien civilizations not being able to reply to our messages for 3,000 years and Oumuamua possibly being an alien spacecraft. Loeb is more than qualified to speculate these wild theories, and recently he published an op-ed in Scientific American that explores the possibility of the universe merely being a lab experiment by an "advanced technological civilization."

According to Loeb, "Since our universe has a flat geometry with a zero net energy, an advanced civilization could have developed a technology that created a baby universe out of nothing through quantum tunneling." Adding, "This possible origin story unifies the religious notion of a creator with the secular notion of quantum gravity. We do not possess a predictive theory that combines the two pillars of modern physics: quantum mechanics and gravity. But a more advanced civilization might have accomplished this feat and mastered the technology of creating baby universes."

The Crysis Remastered Trilogy is receiving a very juicy upgrade: NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 that will provide PC gamers with some large performance (and visual) upgrades.

The next-gen console versions of Crysis 2 Remastered is impressive, with the folks at Digital Foundry discovering the Xbox Series X runs Crysis 2 Remastered at a dynamic 4K resolution at 60FPS. The Xbox Series S version of the game drops to a dynamic 1440p resolution, and can dip into the 900p region at times.

The PS5 version rocks along at the same dynamic 4K resolution and 60FPS, while the base PS4 hits 1080p and the base Xbox One is locked 900p. All of the last-gen console versions of Crysis 2 Remastered run at a solid 30FPS, while next-gen consoles are a solid 60FPS.

It's kind of hard to believe we're here, but we're here: you can now play Quake on the Nintendo Switch, using a mouse and keyboard. Check it out:

The folks over at idTechpics tweeted out a story from a Reddit user that was playing around with the Nintendo Switch version of Quake, using the USB ports on the dock to get his mouse and keyboard working. You don't need to use a wired mouse and keyboard either, with the USB ports on the dock allowing for some wireless KB and mouse action with the Nintendo Switch and Quake, too.

The remastered version of Quake is out on the Nintendo Switch as well as the other major consoles: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and of course the PC. There's also been some recent 4K 120FPS upgrades available for the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 version of Quake.

Guardians of the Galaxy made the big crossover from the comic books to the movies under the direction of Suicide Squad reboot director James Gunn, but now the franchise is making it into the world of games.

Guardians of the Galaxy is coming to the PC and now we have the PC system requirements, where you'll need Windows 10 64-bit at a very minimum, 8GB of system RAM, and a huge 150GB of storage. CPU wise you're going to need an Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 processor, while the developer recommends an Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600.

As for the graphics card, Guardians of the Galaxy PC system requirements for the minimum GPU are an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 570 graphics card, while a GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER or Radeon RX 590 is recommended. Guardians of the Galaxy has NVIDIA DLSS support, so you will be able to drive much higher resolutions without sacrificing performance too much at all.

NVIDIA doesn't stop work on expanding game support for its DLSS technology, with Baldur's Gate 3 receiving a DLSS update and some very impressive performance improvements.

Baldur's Gate 3 can run at an impressive 4K 60FPS on the more mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card, and an even more impressive 110FPS+ average on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Without DLSS, we're looking at 4K 34FPS average on the RTX 3060 Ti, and just 54FPS average on the RTX 3080 Ti.

This isn't the only new game to get DLSS support, with NVIDIA pushing DLSS into Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Rise of the Tomb Raider as well as DEATHLOOP, Alan Wake: Remasterted, the Crysis Remastered Trilogy, and more. DLSS not only improves performance but for older games where pushing 120FPS+ is easy, you can switch to Quality Mode on DLSS and enjoy a better-looking game and more performance.

The US has overtaken China as the #1 destination in the world for mining Bitcoin.

That's at least according to the very latest data from Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) that tracks the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining across the world. The data shows that the US is making up 42.7% of the Bitcoin network hashrate.

China banned Bitcoin mining a few months ago, and has quickly allowed the US to increase its foothold on the Bitcoin mining world. The US went from around 17% global hashrate of Bitcoin mining back in April 2021, to a huge 35% in August 2021. Since China pushed crypto miners out of the country, they've been finding other countries to operate and the US has become a haven for Bitcoin mining operations.