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Facebook revealed a new name for Horizons. The as-yet-unreleased virtual world-building platform will now be known as Horizon Worlds. Along with the rebrand, the company is dumping more financial support into developing Horizon Worlds' content, with $10 million earmarked for creators and developers over the next year.

Facebook launched the invite-only closed beta of Horizon last summer, and to this day, it remains closed to the public. Over the last year, Facebook has added more features and included more content creators and developers. Now the company is ready to pour some gas on the fire to inspire creators and developers to bring more rich content to the Horizon Worlds platform.

Facebook plans to distribute the $10 million Creator Fund through a variety of opportunities. There will be competitions for world creators with prizes of up to $10,000 for the top three entries for each category.

Varjo just revealed that it would be announcing a new product later this month. The company hasn't revealed any details at all, but it is making it seem like this will be a big deal.

Varjo is a long-time player in the enterprise XR space. The company is best known for making headsets with some of the most advanced technology available. They're also known for making headsets that cost as much as $10,000 per unit. Varjo's claim to fame is its bionic display technology, which embeds a micro OLED screen inside a larger LCD for incredible image clarity in your central focus area.

Varjo's most advanced device is the XR-3 headset, which includes dual Lidar cameras for stereoscopic passthrough and depth scanning. We have no idea what Varjo's upcoming announcement is, but the event signup page makes it seem like we're looking at a forthcoming headset announcement.

Varjo is building mixed reality tools that can bring physical objects into view in virtual experiences through its flagship XR-3 headset. The blending of reality with the virtual unlocks new possibilities for training and entertainment.

Varjo this week showed off a new real-time masking feature for its XR-3 headset, which will be part of the company's upcoming Varjo Lab Tools update. Varjo's real-time masking feature makes it possible to blend any physical object with a virtual experience to create new immersive interactions.

The next Varjo Lab Tools update will give developers the ability to map 3D vertices to physical objects to create a passthrough mask for the lidar cameras on the headset. The company's Varjo Marker tool enables you to anchor the traced mask to the object's physical shape, which allows you to move it around and have the passthrough camera track the changes.

Canon this week introduced an innovative new camera lens that combines two fisheye lenses into one housing. The new VR lens allows videographers to shoot stereoscopic 3D video with a single Canon R5 mirrorless camera.

Virtual reality headsets have been around for over six years now, but VR video has yet to catch on. Part of the problem is the challenge in producing valuable VR content. A few years ago, Google launched the VR180 platform, which made consumer-grade stereoscopic cameras with a 180-degree field of view. Professional videographers currently rely on niche products like Insta360's Pro 2 stereoscopic 360-camera or use two cameras mounted together in an elaborate rig.

Canon's new RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye lens will allow professional crews to drop the dual-camera rig and skip the complicated calibration process. This lens is the first product from Canon's new EOS VR System, which incorporates lenses and software to give content creators a full set of tools for VR video creation.

Gearbox corporate shifts leadership as the multi-pronged company plans to expand farther into publishing, games development, and transmedia production.

Gearbox is gearing up for big new things. Following its acquisition by Embracer--and a healthy $363 million influx of cash from the buyout--Gearbox is expanding and is changing leadership as a result.

Randy Pitchford is now handing off software development oversight to Gearbox veteran Steve Jones, who will now lead Gearbox Software, the company's games development branch. Pitchford will stay as Gearbox Entertainment's CEO and president, and is also overseeing Gearbox Studios, the branch responsible for transmedia like the Borderlands film.

Electronic Arts has expressed interest in possibly going rogue with its soccer/football simulation games.

FIFA is EA's biggest cash crop--at least in terms of revenues. FIFA's Ultimate Team earnings generated hundreds of millions a year (Ultimate Team made $1.632 billion in FY21, for example), and EA has sold over 9.1 million copies of FIFA 22. These are revenues before licensing, royalties and expenses are paid out to organizations like FIFA. There's a lot of money potentially left on the table for EA.

Now EA says they might not renew their licensing contract with FIFA. It's possible the next soccer/football game from EA won't be a FIFA title.

The PS3 and PS Vita digital storefronts will no longer accept direct purchases starting October 27, Sony has announced.

On October 27, Sony plans to cut direct purchasing options from the PS Vita and PS3 systems. That means gamers who access the PlayStation Store on the PS3 and PS Vita will no longer be able to buy games and content using attached credit cards or PayPal accounts. This also includes adding funds to your virtual wallet from these platforms.

Sony was careful to say that gamers can still load up their PlayStation Account wallets from desktop, mobile, PS4, or PS5 consoles. This wallet is shared across all platforms and the funds can be used to buy games across the full spectrum of PlayStation products including the PS3 and PS Vita.

Xbox Series X/S storage expansion is currently locked to one proprietary card, but this $30 adapter might be the ticket to adding more storage for a lower cost.

The Series X/S consoles only have 802GB of usable storage, and the only way to add more is to buy an expensive $219 1TB Seagate expansion card. While that cost isn't a whole lot for Gen4 SSDs, it's kind of high for a Gen4 x2 drive (1TB PCIe 4.0 Gen4 x4 drives used in the PS5 expansion bay, for example, are often cheaper than the Xbox Series X's card but can offer higher speeds).

This $30 DIY CFExpress adapter might let you cut a few corners and use a cheaper M.2 drive in your next-gen Xbox.

PS5 internal storage is premium real estate. If you've ever had to manage your PS5's storage space--since it's only 667GB, I'm sure you have--you'll probably have noticed the Other section. This is a maddening part of the SSD that can't be directly deleted or accessed. So far as I can tell no one knows exactly how this works.

Sony offers a cryptic explanation:

"This storage space is reserved for system data needed for games and apps to work properly. The amount of space reserved depends on how your console is being used."

Game install sizes are getting out of hand. Here's why they're so big.

With multiple high-profile games like Black Ops Cold War, Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and now Far Cry 6 commanding 100GB installs, M.2 expansion storage on the PS5 is no long negotiable. The console's 667GB internal SSD fills up fast. The sizes are just obnoxious even with the PS5's compression tech, which can substantially shrink data down to manageable chunks. So why are games so big?

I've become very acquainted with the PS5's storage management screen lately. I'm currently testing multiple M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs in transfer rates and loading speeds, which involves lots of migration of data back and forth. While browsing the screens I noticed that some PS5 games break down the installed data and tell you what's included. Apparently it's not the actual games that are huge, but the staggering amount of data for voice-overs and dialog.

NASA will soon be launching the first mission to explore two swarms of space "fossils" that may hold the keys to understanding the evolution of our solar system.

NASA's Lucy mission will be the first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojans, which are two swarms of ancient asteroids orbiting on the same plane as Jupiter. NASA describes these asteroids as "fossils" of planet formation, and researchers believe that understanding these mysterious objects will allow them to better understand the evolution of the solar system.

Lucy will be on a 12-year mission, and will visit a total of seven different asteroids. NASA has equipped Lucy with sensitive scientific instruments that will allow the probe to inspect asteroids to find out its geology, age, surface temperature, and composition of the surface. Each of the target asteroids is different from each other as NASA wants to be able to compare the different surfaces properties.

A new study has explored the possibility of having limited time to react to an asteroid that is on course with Earth.

The researchers behind the study performed calculations on what Earth would need to do to save it from impact with an asteroid that's 328 feet in diameter, which is around a fifth the size of the famous asteroid Bennu. The study found that a 1-megaton-yield nuclear bomb would be a "very effective" way of preventing a catastrophic impact. Researchers performed the simulation on five different asteroids and multiple time frames for impact.

According to the researchers, if an asteroid 328 feet in diameter was heading to Earth and we had just two months before its expected arrival, a nuke would be able to reduce the destruction it would cause to 0.1% of what it originally would have caused. Additionally, if a larger asteroid was on its way and Earth had six months to react, a nuke would still be able to reduce its impact mass to just 1%.

World View Enterprises has announced via a press release that it's aiming to dramatically reduce the entry cost of space tourism.

According to the press release, the Tuscon, Arizona firm, is constructing a massive balloon that will carry a capsule containing tourists to the stratosphere. The space tourism industry is just taking its first baby steps, and as with most things that are brand new, the cost of entry is expensive. For context, SpaceX's Inspiration 4 mission, the first all-civilian mission to space, cost $200 million. Virgin Galactic's mission to suborbital space with Richard Branson cost $250 million, and Blue Origin's suborbital trip with Jeff Bezos cost $450 million.

World View Enterprises states that it will be offering trips to the stratosphere via its balloon for a fraction of the price - just $50,000. World View has a goal in mind, and that is to bring humanity closer by allowing as many humans as possible to experience the perspective-changing Overview Effect, "World View's mission is to bring as many people as possible to the edge of space so that at 100,000 feet, they'll see a world without borders or species and come back driven to make the world a better place."

NASA announced on Wednesday that it was reassigning two astronauts to the Crew-5 SpaceX launch scheduled for next year.

According to the press release that has been published on the NASA website, astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada have been reassigned to the Crew-5 SpaceX launch to give Boeing more time to complete the development of Starliner. NASA states in its press release that it decided it was important to make these reassignments to "allow Boeing time to complete the development of Starliner while continuing plans for astronauts to gain spaceflight experience for the future needs of the agency's missions."

Futurism reports that the decision to reassign the astronauts is subtly throwing shade at Boeing for being behind its schedule as the development of Starliner encountered numerous delays that include failed launches, construction problems, and more. As NASA states in the press release, both Mann and Cassada need flight experience to keep the momentum of NASA's commercial flight program going. For more information on this story, check out this here.

A new space probe is currently in the works by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency, which plans to send it to an asteroid to land on.

The mission includes a spacecraft being launched in 2028 that will travel for around five years to reach its destination of the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will slingshot its way around Venus and Earth to gain enough velocity to reach the asteroid belt sometime in 2030.

The exact goal of the mission will be announced sometime next year, but if the UAE is successful, it will join a small group of agencies such as NASA and JAXA, who have achieved a landing on a planetoid. Other UAE projects include the space agency sending a rover to the surface of the Moon sometime in 2022. The rover will have a payload that includes technologies from three private Canadian companies. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

One of the Soviet Union's earliest spacecraft may be traded for a specific human skull if a bargain is struck with a Kazakh businessman.

In 1988 the Soviet Union constructed the first Buran-class space shuttle, which was later superseded by the second Buran-class shuttle named Burya. The Burya shuttle, despite being a piece of Soviet Union space history, is now a bartering piece for Kazakh businessman Dauren Musa who claims he owns the shuttle. The Burya shuttle is in storage at a warehouse at Baikonur, and in early 2021, reports came out about it being covered in graffiti.

In a report from RT, Musa says he is willing to exchange the Burya shuttle for a specific human skull, the skull of the last Kazakh Khan, Kenesary Kasymov, who led a rebellion in an effort to separate Kazakhstan from Russia. So far, reports indicate that there is no known evidence for how Musa obtained the shuttle, or even where Kenesary Kasymov's skull is. Ars Technica translated a sentence from Musa, who said, "It is not water that flows in our veins, but blood, and it has the scent of wormwood."

The Milky Way is a weird and wonderful place, and as technology advances, researchers are beginning to discover more about the strange place in space we call home.

One planet, in particular, is certainly quite strange to say the least. It's called WASP-76b, and is described as a "hot Jupiter". Researchers found that on this planet, it rains iron from the sky, and it doesn't just drizzle it literally buckets down with iron regularly. Why does this happen? The short answer is heat, and quite a lot of it as well. According to researchers, the planet is quite close to its parent star and is tidally locked to it, only ever showing one side of the planet to its local star.

Temperature estimations on WASP-76b came out in early 2020, and researchers said that the planet probably reached around 3,800 Fahrenheit. However, those estimations may have been slightly incorrect. A new study has been published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, and within the study, researchers analyzed the planet's upper atmosphere with the Hawaiian Gemini telescope. The researchers found a strong signal of ionized calcium.

Taking pictures of the planets in our solar system can yield researchers valuable information about the formation of our planets.

A team of researchers has used NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is typically used to observe the surface of the Moon, to take a fantastic image of the largest planet in our solar system - Jupiter. The team of researchers directed the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter towards the region of space where Jupiter should be and used precise timings to capture the image.

The image isn't the highest resolution photograph of Jupiter, as Brett Denevi, an LRO team member, said on Twitter. However, Jupiter is located around 372 million miles from Earth, and the image that was taken still shows some of Jupiter's best qualities, such as its Galilean moons. "It is fun to take a look around our Solar System every once in a while from our perch in lunar orbit," added Denevi. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

Shiba Inu has absolutely exploded in price over the last 12 months, and in the last 24 hours alone the cryptocurrency has blown up by over 50% with a price of $0.00002522 at the time of writing.

Why the manic price increase? Crypto and meme lord Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, tweeted out a single image of his dog, Floki. Musk tweeted out on Monday a picture of his dog, with a simple caption of "Floki Frunkpuppy" and then the price of Shiba Inu skyrocketed.

Even though Musk didn't tweet about Shiba Inu specifically, but because Musk supports Dogecoin (a dog-focused cryptocurrency) we have Shiba Inu riding that high as well. Dogecoin has gone from around $0.20 to around $0.25 at the time of writing, but man has Shiba Inu gone nuts -- especially when you look at it over the last 12 months, with Shiba Inu and its absolutely insane 27,000,000% increase over 12 months.

I'm sure that most of us know someone who has lost money, and some of them considerable sums, over cryptocurrency. So, it should come as no surprise to hear the first rehab clinic for cryptocurrency addictions has opened up in Scotland.

The new rehab clinic in Scotland is one of, if not the first crypto trading addiction clinic, overseen by therapist Tony Marini. Marini claims to be the first physician that recognizes cryptocurrency trading is very similar to gambling. Marini adds that most addicts start out by trading occasionally, but this ramps up once you start making a bit of money, which pumps dopamine (feel-good feelings) and the hopes of making millions.

But then the habit-forming behavior kicks in and thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars can be lost. Marini talked with Decrypt, where he said: "If you say to somebody doing crypto, 'so you're occasionally gambling,' they're gonna go 'no, I'm not'. So take out the word gambling and say 'occasionally trading'. Commonly, people start because they want to buy stuff off the dark web. And the only way to do that is with cryptocurrency. The biggest problem is this cross addiction [with crypto] starting-through drugs and alcohol".