Latest News - Page 1300

Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will be getting out of California, moving its HQ from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas. The news was announced during Tesla's recent shareholder meeting.

Musk didn't detail when the move would happen, but Tesla will be continuing to expand its manufacturing capacity in San Fransisco. So, while the Tesla HQ might be moving from California to Texas, the company isn't fully pulling out of California. Musk also talked about Tesla delivering record numbers of vehicles this year, all in a world where there are massive chip shortages impacting Tesla's competitors.

Musk explained: "We're taking it as far as possible, but there's a limit how big you can scale it in the Bay Area. Just to be clear, though, we will be continuing to expand our activities in California. This is not a matter of leaving California".

DDR5 memory isn't even here yet and we've got ADATA breaking overclocking records with its new XPG Gaming DDR5 RAM, pushing it right up to DDR5-8118 speeds.

The new Intel Alder Lake CPU platform will be launching in the coming weeks with both DDR5 RAM and PCIe 5.0 support, with ADATA now teasing the overclocking side of its XPG Gaming DDR5 RAM. ADATA pushed their DDR5-4800 memory up to DDR5-8118 (CL50-50-50-160-210-2T) while the DDR5-6800 was pushed up to DDR5-8104 (CL52-52-52-96-148-2T).

ADATA explained: "XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces that its XPG Overclocking Lab (XOCL) has overclocked its upcoming DDR5 memory module to a frequency of 8,118 MT/s. XPG is the first DRAM provider to reach this milestone with a memory module. This achievement highlights XPG's know-how and expertise in pushing memory modules to their full potential. The record-breaking milestone was achieved with a memory module with a stock clock speed of 4,800 MT/s".

If you haven't heard about War Thunder by now, it's a massively popular free-to-play online tank war game that is one of the most accurate tank-related games ever created... and some people take War Thunder very, very seriously.

So much so, that a French Army tank crewman leaked out a classified military document on the French Leclerc Main Battle Tank and its variants, all to win an argument about tanks in War Thunder. The argument came down to the actual exact speed of the rotation of the turret on the tank.

The argument was over the turret and its rotation speed being 40 degrees per second, so the player started uploading parts of the gunner manual for the Leclerc to prove that they were right. The tank crewman leaked out portions of the manual to the War Thunder forums, before a mod removed it and explained: "Guys its not funnny [sic] to leak classified Documents of modern equipment you put the lives of many on stake who work daily with the Vehicles! Keep in Mind that those documents will be deleted immediately alongside sanctions. Thanks for reading!"

Seriously, we're so close to the launch of the PCIe 5.0 standard that will launch with Intel's next-gen Alder Lake platform -- and we're hearing more concrete details about the new PCIe 6.0 standard.

PCI-SIG has announced that the next-gen PCIe 6.0 standard is close to being finalized, with the new standard offering up to 128GB/sec of bandwidth -- double that of PCIe 5.0, and quadruple PCIe 4.0 and its 32GB/sec of bandwidth that we're just using now.

PCIe 6.0 has now reached the Final Draft version (version 0.9) allows members of PCI-SIG to review the new standards for not just patents, but IP. There are no changes allowed by PCI Express, so PCIe 6.0 has effectively 'gone gold'. PCIe 6.0 has some wicked speeds that it will be capable of, especially in the beast PCIe 6.0 x16 port with up to 128GB/sec of bandwidth -- double that of PCIe 5.0 x16 which is crazy.

We now have our first look at ASRock's new Z690 motherboards, all ready to rock and roll with Intel's next-gen Alder Lake CPUs.

ASRock's new flagship Z690 Taichi motherboard is looking mighty fine, with the company making good use of the tweaks it has done across the motherboard, including its use of RGB lighting. We've got some DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 goodness here as well, ready for the very latest technology.

There's also the ASRock Z690 Extreme, and Z690 Steel Legend motherboards which will make up the higher-end motherboards. There's also the Z690 PG Riptide motherboard, while there'll also be the Z690 Phantom Gaming 4 and smaller Z690M Phantom Gaming 4 for SFF gaming PCs.

NVIDIA is in the headlines again with the tweaked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with some interesting new parts that are slowly making up what will be the GPU to wrap up the year and kick start 2022 and NVIDIA's fight against AMD and soon, Intel with its Arc Alchemist graphics cards.

The current GeForce RTX 3090 features a 350W TDP while the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (or GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER) would have a 400-450W TDP. We'll have the same 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory but this time NVIDIA will reportedly moving with single-sided memory, versus the double-sided GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3090.

So, we have a new 450W TDP, new single-sided GDDR6X memory, and then even a new power connector. Yeah, a new power connector -- NVIDIA already shifted the game up a fair amount with their use of a 12-pin PCIe power connector on its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. But now with the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti they're expected to use a new standard for PCIe 5.0 -- possibly a new 16-pin PCIe power connector.

Diablo IV gets a new game director following the departure of Luis Barriga in August.

Blizzard is slowly recovering from big culture shocks that have led to multiple talent leaving the studio (the company is facing four high-profile legal battles centered around discrimination, sexual harassments, and possible securities fraud).

Diablo IV's dev team in particular was hit hard with the departure of former game director Luis Barriga and game designer Jesse McCree. Now the company has announced a new director for Diablo IV that has been with the company for nearly two decades.

Resident Evil 7 has sold-in over 10 million copies worldwide, Capcom today announced, making it one of the company's best-selling games of all time.

RE7 is doing exceptionally well for a four year-old game. The title has shipped over 10 million copies since 2017, making it the second best-selling Resident Evil game ever and the best-performing single-generation game in the franchise (RE7 is second only to RE5 which has sold-in a combined 10.2 million units across PS3 and PS4 eras).

Previous Q1 numbers had RE7's sales at 9.8 million, so a bit of math reveals the game has sold over 200,000 copies since June 30th to the present. Capcom should update its Platinum Titles sales list when it reveals its Q2'21 earnings figures.

It's official: Rockstar Games will release a remastered GTA trilogy bundle sometime soon.

After multiple leaks, Rockstar games today announced the GTA Definitive Edition collection. The new edition bundles remastered versions of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas together in one package across modern platforms including PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Rockstar says the bundle will have visual upgrades on consoles and PC, confirming the Definitive Edition "will feature across-the-board upgrades including graphical improvements and modern gameplay enhancements for all three titles, while still maintaining the classic look and feel of the originals." This won't be a re-release of the mobile versions offered previously, and Rockstar will de-list the existing versions of these games.

Ubisoft is making a never-ending Assassin's Creed game codenamed Infinity. Now it could be applying the same formula to the Far Cry franchise.

Far Cry 7 could be an online game with stronger emphasis on continued play, sources tell Axios Games' Stephen Totilo. Far Cry has traditionally been a singleplayer-driven experience with supplemental multiplayer content, ranging from competitive PVP to co-op.

A change could be in order with online multiplayer becoming the core of the game, marking a radical shift in the series. Not much is known about Ubisoft's potential plans but nothing has been set in stone yet.

Bethesda's new Starfield space odyssey could be yet another 100GB+ game.

In a recent Tokyo Game Show 2021 stream, Bethesda's Todd Howard confirmed Starfield will have over150,000 lines of dialog. That's almost as much as Fallout 4 (110,000 lines) and Skyrim (60,000 lines) combined. Considering we know voice-over and recorded dialog data takes up most of any game's install size, Starfield could end up being a huge game that squeezes even more space out of your Xbox Series X's limited SSD availability.

Also remember Starfield is being built on the new Creation Engine 2, complete with high-end textures, environments, and other effects--all of which require serious storage space. Back in 2019, Bethesda confirmed they're using ultra-detailed photogrammetry textures based on captures from real-life locations.

Far Cry 6 runs at a slightly higher maximum resolution on Xbox Series X than it does on PlayStation 5, but both consoles still use dynamic resolution scaling.

Far Cry 6 looks pretty good on PS5--although it should thanks to its huge 26GB+ HD Texture Pack--but apparently the game might look even better on Xbox Series X. According to findings from VG Tech, Far Cry 6 on the Series X can actually hit 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160p. Since the game is dynamically scaled in order to maintain 60FPS on both systems there's also a low point of 3072 x 1728 resolution on the Series X, which is still pretty good.

The numbers aren't that much different on PlayStation 5. The console pushes a comparatively lower max resolution of 3392 x 1908 and a minimum resolution of 2944 x 1656. The numbers show the PS5's resolution targets are roughly 12% lower than those on Xbox Series X. So if you have both consoles you might want to just pick the Xbox Series X version (of course the game looks best on PC, especially with higher-end cards).

The volcano located on Spain's Canary Islands has been erupting for weeks, and a satellite has snapped an incredible photo of it from space.

The eruption of the volcano on La Palma started on September 19 and has continued for weeks now, marking the first time an eruption has happened out of this volcano in more than 50 years. On October 1, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) that is equipped on NASA's Aqua satellite snapped a crazy image of the clouds above the volcano as it passed overhead. The image shows concentric cloud rings that look very much like a bulls-eye.

According to NASA's Earth Observatory, the concentric clouds that can be seen in the image are a result of a rising column of superheated ash and gases, which is described as an "eruption column". Additionally, NASA explains that "The buoyant column of water vapor and other gases rose rapidly upward until colliding with a drier, warmer layer of air at roughly 5.3 kilometers (3.3 miles) altitude. The unusually warm air above-a temperature inversion-functioned like a lid, preventing the volcanic plume from rising any higher. Instead, it flattened out and spread horizontally."

NASA is already planning on what kind of structures human colonists will live in when they arrive on Mars, and inflatable pods may be a viable choice.

NASA selected a design from Hassell Studio, an architectural firm, and Eckersley O'Callaghan, an engineering design team, and it's unlike any other proposed design for living quarters on the Red Planet. The design concept was posted to the Hassell YouTube channel back in March 2019, and it details a concept that concentrates on protecting the astronauts that live in it from the main dangers of Mars; dust storms, high amounts of radiation, low temperatures, and an unlivable atmosphere.

The team at Hassell proposes sending several robots to the surface of Mars before the astronauts arrive. These robots will be programmed to find a viable location for an outer shell made out of Mars regolith, or loose rock, to be 3D printed. This outer shell, constructed with Mars soil, will protect the astronauts from the elements of Mars and will essentially be a roof over the inflatable pods that will arrive with the astronauts. Once the shell is complete, and the astronauts arrive, the inflation process for the pods begins.

The United States Federal Reserve has said that it's planning on reviewing the risks/benefits of implementing a US digital currency.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal states that within the coming weeks, or as early as next week, the US Federal Reserve will be revealing detailed plans of a central bank digital currency that very well could shake up the global financial market. Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, if the Fed decided to release its own digital currency, it would be backed by the US central bank as US paper dollars and coins are.

It should be noted that the Fed is currently very divided on the release of a US digital currency, which means that it won't be implemented/released any time soon. According to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the US isn't rushing into releasing its own digital currency because it's currently weighing the benefits and disadvantages due to the power the US plays on the global financial markets. Powell states it's "more important to do it right than do it fast."

Researchers have published a new study that confirms that the Jezero Crater was once home to large amounts of liquid water and a river.

The study was published in Science, and according to the researchers, the images taken by NASA's Perseverance of cliffs show strong evidence of layers within the cliffs that are similar to Earth's river deltas. According to the researchers, the images show a presence and a steady flow of water, which caused the formation of the cliff/crater floor. Additionally, researchers inferred that Mars was once "warm and humid enough to support a hydrologic cycle" around 3.7 billion years ago.

The findings from the Mars rover and the analysis provided by the researchers will assist NASA in guiding Perseverance to the location that has the highest chance of containing "bio-signatures" of ancient microbial life. NASA astrobiologist Amy Williams and her team, who found similarities between the cliff formation, crater floor, and Earth's river deltas, said, "From orbital images, we knew it had to be water that formed the delta. But having these images is like reading a bo/ok instead of just looking at the cover."

NASA's Perseverance rover that's stationed on Mars in the Jezero Crater has been spotted from above by a passing satellite.

Perseverance landed in the Jezero Crater back in February earlier this year, and since its landing, it has been exploring the area that surrounds it along with its helicopter companion Ingenuity. Perseverance is on the Red Planet to collect samples of rock and dirt to eventually transport them back to Earth for researchers to analyze.

Ultimately, Perseverance has been sent to Mars to hunt for signs of ancient microbial life, and recently studies confirmed that the location where Perseverance is stationed was once a large lake and a river. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over Perseverance exploring the Jezero Crater and managed to snap a birds-eye-view of the rover, the image is located above. Communication between NASA, the rover, and its companion has temporarily been paused as Earth and Mars move to opposite sides of the Sun.

China's Chang'e 5 mission collected 3.8 pounds of lunar material from a region on the Moon that was once a large plain of molten lava.

The first paper detailing the results of the samples being analyzed has recently been published in Science, and according to the findings, the volcanic rock located in the landing site is much younger than what researchers first anticipated. According to the paper, lunar volcanoes were erupting as early as 2 billion years ago, which means that researchers' current model of the Moon's history now needs to be adjusted to fit in the new data.

Study co-author Brad Jolliff, a planetary scientist, and mineralogist at Washington University in St. Louis, said, "So we got the stuff less than a billion, and the stuff older than 3 billion, [but] there's this big gap of 2 billion years - from 1 to 3 billion years ago - that we had no actually calibrated surfaces. And so this result now gives us that age - and it's right in the middle!"

With images acquired by NASA's Perseverance rover, the space agency has confirmed that the Jezero Crater was once a large lake.

NASA landed the Perseverance rover in the Jezero Crater back in February this year with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of Mars' history and identifying any potential signs of past life. Now, a new study published in the journal Science has confirmed through an analysis of images taken by Perseverance of outcropping rocks inside the crater that the crater was once a lake bed fed by a small river 3.7 billion years ago.

The researchers confirmed the existence of the lake and river by looking at the sedimentary layers in the outcrop and found that the river provided the lake with a steady flow of liquid water until a dramatic shift in climate caused mass flooding that was near the end of the lake's lifespan. Now that it has been confirmed that the Jezero Crater was once a lake, researchers hope to find traces of ancient aqueous life in the sediments. Perseverance will acquire sediment samples that will eventually be transported back to Earth to be scanned for Martian biosignatures.

NASA has locked in a launch date for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which is a mission that will collide a spacecraft with an asteroid at 15,000 mph.

The idea behind the DART mission is to see if it's possible to collide a spacecraft with an asteroid to knock it off course. The DART mission is a part of the agency's asteroid defense program and will be exploring the possibility of a potentially lethal asteroid lining its trajectory up with Earth. The asteroid that the DART spacecraft will be colliding with isn't lethal to Earth, but the results from the mission will allow NASA to know if direct impacts on an asteroid are a viable solution for diverting a dangerous asteroid in the future.

The asteroid that NASA is targeting is called Didymos, it's a binary asteroid which means its two space rocks moving in tandem. The larger asteroid measures 2,600 feet in diameter, and the smaller asteroid measures 525 feet in diameter. NASA is planning on colliding the spacecraft with the smaller of the two asteroids. NASA will launch the DART mission from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.