Latest News - Page 1321

Most people are sick of hearing about viruses after the events of 2020 and the current events of 2021. But, viruses may play a pivotal role in humans colonizing new planets.

NASA and other private companies are striving towards making the human race a two-planet species, with the end goal being to colonize Mars. That goal is not easily achieved as Mars is a baron wasteland that has an extremely harsh atmosphere, making it very difficult for humans to grow food, store water, and produce breathable oxygen.

Another factor that NASA and other private companies may not have considered is viruses' role in the web of life. According to Professor Paul Davies from Arizona State University's Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, "Viruses actually form part of the web of life. I would expect that if you've got microbial life on another planet, you're bound to have - if it's going to be sustainable and sustained - the full complexity and robustness that will go with being able to exchange genetic information."

We've already heard whispers that Intel's upcoming Xe-based ARC Alchemist gaming GPU will fight NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3070 and AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT -- now we have some purported leaked slides with similar claims of performance.

The new slides tease that the Intel ARC Alchemist will be in the upper mid-range GPU market, with SOC1 having 175-225W of power at its disposal and gets compared to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti as well as AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT and RX 6600 XT graphics cards.

Intel will have a lower-end SOC2 chip that would have up to 75W TDP making it compatible to the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, which will be priced in the $100 to $200 market. The higher-end Intel "SOC1" ARC Alchemist should be priced somewhere in the $300 to $499 market.

I'm not waking up into this Clown World everyday thinking it is getting better, but news of the $69 million NFT (non-fungible token) being shown "in real life" and having NFT tickets to said party for $475, has me wanting to go back to sleep... how long until that is an NFT?

Anyway, there will be an "inaugural display" of the NFT that Beeple sold earlier this year for a whopping $69 million: The First 5000 Days. The image itself can be viewed right now, I've got it in the tweet above and a higher-res version below... but you really, really want to pay $475 for an NFT ticket to the IRL party of this $69 million NFT. I'm sure it's 420-friendly and 69-friendly, for the IRL event to the NFT that requires an NFT ticket for the LOLs and the ROFLs.

This event will mark the first "authorized" public projection of The First 5000 Days NFT itself, with crypto fund Metapurse -- the owners of the NFT -- will have its one-and-only authentic copy, with its nominally exclusive display rights, up for a night -- IRL.

If you thought it was painful paying the inflated prices of graphics cards today, then this new rumor on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series pricing isn't going to make you feel any better.

YouTuber "Graphically Challenged" is predicting the MSRP prices of NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, with the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 costing $2999 and the GeForce RTX 4080 Ti under that costing $1999.

The pricing situation doesn't stop there, with the RTX 4080 predicted to cost $1199 and ends at the RTX 4050 with a predicted price of $279. In between we have the RTX 4050 Ti at $329, RTX 4060 at $399, RTX 4060 Ti at $499, and RTX 4070 at $799.

Tesla is rapidly improving the semi-autonomous driving side of its electric cars, with the new Full Self Driving 10 beta being rolled out and it has some impressive upgrades.

The new Full Self Driving 10 beta saw an updated Tesla EV driving down Lombard St in San Francisco, a twisty-turn-y street that would be tricky for the FSD system to navigate. FSD 10 appears to have solved this, with a Tesla driver having FSD 10 take him and his passenger down the twists and turns, without a single intervention leaving him saying he's "flabbergasted".

You'll also be able to have a better idea of what your car can see, as it seems that Tesla has made some upgrades to visuals as well. There's not as many stats in your face, but when they're there they will be more accurate, and more stable without the glitches.

Google offers a few different storage tiers for its Google One cloud storage subscriptions, with the company adding a new 5TB tier for $25 per month.

Until now, there was the 2TB plan for $10 per month and 10TB plan for $40 per month -- so now Google One has the 5TB plan for $25 per month. You can pay $249.99 per year, where you'll save 17% paying up-front over the monthly cost.

You will get 10% on any Google Store purchases, improved Google support, family sharing, and even a VPN for an Android-based smartphone. This seems global for the most part, I'm based in Australia and it's available for me right now. Having cloud-based storage with your Google account is incredibly useful, especially if you have any Android devices -- and especially if you're an Android smartphone user.

Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro smartphones in less than 48 hours, with rumors surfacing of the company bumping up the max storage to 1TB on the flagship iPhone 13 Pro model.

In a new research note, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the new iPhone 13 family would drop the 64GB base model in favor of a 128GB base model. Apple will reportedly have 1TB of storage options for both the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max smartphones -- a milestone for Apple: 1TB storage in an iPhone.

Apple offering 128GB on the base iPhone 13 is good to see, and offering up to 1TB on the flagship iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max is nice to see. Even better in that there'll be a new chip powering the iPhone 13, new cameras, and a 120Hz refresh display -- which makes a big difference and will introduce an even smoother experience across the board.

The very latest Windows Insider build for Windows 11 is here,r with built 22454 now available through updates, downloads, and ISO files if you want to fresh install Windows 11 onto your machine.

The new Windows 11 build 22454 IFOs are available for those in the Windows Insider program, and are signed up to the Dev Channel. Microsoft has a new OOBE (out of box experience) that the company details is "designed to build excitement for Windows 11 right from the moment you first turn on a new Windows 11 PC for the very first time".

If you want to know more about the Windows Insider Program, there's some info on that below -- while you'll need to download the Windows 11 ISO files here. The ISO file is a 4.5GB download.

In the middle of the whirlwind rumors of a beefed-up GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER graphics card, and even plenty of rumors on the next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture -- but prepare for a Turing-based GeForce RTX 2060 with 12GB of memory. Yeah. That's right.

The new GeForce RTX 2060 would be released with 12GB of GDDR6 memory, with the Turing-based PG161 GPU -- the regular RTX 2060 had 6GB of GDDR6 memory and used the PG160 GPU. Rumor has it that AIB partners have been told to expect the new RTX 2060 12GB by the end of the year, possibly January depending on manufacturing.

As VideoCardz depressingly points out, this is a "grim outlook for mid-range GPU availability" given that NVIDIA has to re-release a previous-gen GPU with double the VRAM for the mid-range market. This new card would sit somewhere above the RTX 2060 6GB and below the RTX 3060, meanwhile Intel will be striking that market -- and above -- with its Xe-based ARC Alchemist graphics card in 2022 and AMD with the Radeon RX 6600 XT and Radeon RX 6700.

You kinda need thermal pads on the thermal pads of the GDDR6X memory of your new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, or GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card -- but two Redditors have discovered the lack of thermal pads on their new cards.

One of them was the ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Ti TUF Gaming OC graphics card which Reddit user 'kamaloo922' saw his 12GB of GDDR6X memory running at up to 110C. He put some thermal pads down on the GDDR6X memory modules and the temps dropped down to 80C.

Another Redditor found that the GDDR6X memory modules on his NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition were misplaced, as well as the thermal pad on the GPU itself -- the GPU temps dropped from 76C to just 61C.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is already a beautiful game, and that's just in its regular form and at most resolutions. When you scale it up to 4K it looks even better, and add in DLSS and ramp it up to 8K and you have one of the best-looking games on the market.

But now we have the Beyond All Limits Raytracing Reshade and 50+ mods on Red Dead Redemption 2, running on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card at 8K -- so 7680 x 4320. That's 4x the pixels of 4K and 16x the pixels of 1080p, with totally maxed-out graphics.

Digital Dreams have done just that, and it looks absolutely incredible. Red Dead Redemption 2 looks scrumptious at 8K with over 50 mods enabled and the ReShade Ray Tracing effects. NVIDIA's magic DLSS technology has been used to hit desired frame rates, but you would be silly to not enable DLSS in RDR2 -- even more so with all these mods enabled, and even more so at 8K.

Gamers seem surprised that EA isn't involved with the new Knights of the Old Republic Remake, but why would they be?

On the heels of lots or rumors and reports, the new Knights of the Old Republic Remake was officially announced a few days ago. Sony Interactive Entertainment is producing the game--a contract that has allowed PlayStation 5 timed exclusivity--with Aspyr Media developing the project. Also remember that Aspyr is owned by Embracer Group, and of course KOTOR is owned by Lucasfilm Games (then known as LucasArts).

Fans speculation whether or not BioWare or EA are involved in the project. As revealed by a dodgy non-answer from the publisher, neither EA nor BioWare are attached to the KOTOR Remake (the reality is BioWare is super busy with Dragon Age 4 and Mass Effect 5). EA's exclusivity license with Star Wars has expired (Ubisoft, for example, is making their own action-adventure Star Wars game), but EA is actually developing new Star Wars projects. Also remember that KOTOR was released in 2003, and it's impossible that Luasfilm, one of the most over-protective entertainment companies on the planet, would let EA or BioWare have IP rights to a Star Wars property.

Sony's new PlayStation 5 model keeps internal components substantially cooler than the launch model new findings confirm.

New data from Igor's Lab and Hardware Busters show the new PlayStation 5 model (CFI-1100B) actually keeps internal components cooler than the launch model.

According to the findings, the new PS5's RAM runs up to 14 degrees cooler than the launch PS5's RAM under heavy load.

Spine, the first working PS4 emulator, has been released publicly and is reportedly able to play hundreds of PS4 games on PC.

Linux-based PlayStation 4 emulator Spine was updated on September 1 to add in support for new titles. Although closed source, users can download the emulator and launch it via Linux--of course you'll need the games, which obviously aren't provided.

Spine's emulation isn't perfect, though. According to the compatibility list, the PS4 emu can run 346 games with actual gameplay including titles like Watch Dogs, The Talos Principle, The Surge, and the Borderlands Handsome Collection, but don't expect consistently smooth, high-end gameplay. Spine isn't finished yet and it fares better with low-demanding indies like Mega Man Legacy Collection, Undertale, and Hyper Light Drifter.

Apple's stock has fallen by over 4% after US District Courts order big sweeping changes to the App Store.

As part of the Epic vs Apple trial ruling, Apple has been court-ordered to change its App Store policies to allow developers to add third-party payment processing systems to their apps and games. This allows devs to avoid Apple's 30% commission, which was declared "excessive" and "supracompetitive" by the court. US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers aims to create competition within the App Store and ultimately help drive down Apple's high revenue split.,

The ruling has had an effect on the company's shares. Before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers delivered the ruling on September 10, Apple's shares were at $155.34, and today shares are at $148.97, a loss of 4% over the last few days. The ruling is expected to have a substantial effect on Apple's App Store revenues, which amounted to a colossal $15 billion in 2020.

Halo Infinite's second beta test will begin this month, but you'll have to sign up in the next two days in order to get in.

343i confirms Halo Infinite's second flight kicks off on September 24 on Xbox One, Xbox Series consoles, and PC. There's just one catch: You'll need to sign up as a Halo Insider before September 13 in order to secure a guaranteed spot in the beta. The second beta will be a "larger scale flight" that includes PVP on by default with both 4v4 and 12v12 Big Team Battle chaos.

"You can definitely expect another big-scale flight like this with even more people invited. We're going to include the same concept we had this time--the bots and weapon drills--but we're also targeting a full release of 4v4 PVP and we want to go even bigger and have big team battle. Those are our targets for the next flight," live operations producer Sam Hanshaw said in a recent dev steam.

Apple's current 30% commission has been declared as supracompetitive by US courts, leading to a sweeping court order that will change the App Store forever.

The most important thing to come out of the Epic vs Apple trial is a big win for developers. Reams of evidence and testimony led US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to determine that Apple's 30% revenue split is excessive and, combined with other practices, anticompetitive. The massive 185-page ruling outlines that Apple has not properly justified its 30% commission rate, which was arbitrarily decided upon in 2009 based on other platforms like video game consoles.

Judge Rogers argues that Apple's 30% cut has led to "supracompetitive pricing" and "excessive operating margins" that far exceed Apple's actual investment into the platform (case in point: Apple made over $15 billion from the App Store in 2020). Apple simply makes too much money compared what it spends on the App Store and what it charges developers, which Judge Rogers says stifles competition and innovation.

The Epic vs Apple trial is over, and US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has effectively changed the App Store forever. But that doesn't mean Apple violated any antitrust law.

In an expansive 185-page ruling, Judge Rogers details specifics on Epic's claims and Apple's counterclaims in the industry-defining trial. The court finds that Apple isn't in violation of antitrust law and isn't a monopoly. Apple did, however, break provisions set forth in the California Unfair Competition Law, which has led to a permanent injunction forcing Apple to allow developers to redirect consumers to buy content outside of the App Store and potentially avoid its costly 30% commission.

The court says that while Apple's "conduct falls within the purview of an incipient antitrust violation with particular anticompetitive practices which have not been justified" (essentially Apple was showing early signs of antitrust by keeping consumers in the dark about its 30% commission and prohibiting third-party payment methods), that Epic Games overreached with its antitrust claims.

Insomniac has cast the perfect villain for Spider-Man 2's release on PlayStation 5.

Tony Todd, one of the scariest horror movie actors in existence, will play Venom in the new Spider-Man 2 game on PS5. Todd appeared in fright films like Candyman (which utterly tortured my youth), The Crow, and even Final Destination We couldn't think of anyone better to play the snarling, vicious hellion.

"And speaking of villains, did you catch that final line at the end of the trailer? We're so happy to announce that Tony Todd (of Candyman fame) will be voicing the symbiote-fueled Venom in Marvel's Spider-Man 2," Insomniac confirms.

A new ruling in the Epic vs Apple trial could have a substantial impact on App Store revenues moving forward.

After months of testimony, the Epic vs Apple trial has been concluded and US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has delivered a ruling. The news is both good and bad for the computer titan; Apple isn't in violation of antitrust laws and is not a monopoly, the court declares, but the company has been ordered by injunction to allow third-party payment processing methods on the App Store.

This could potentially be a big win for developers, who can now directly link to their own payment processing systems within their games and apps. This means consumers can pay developers directly for apps and in-game microtransactions and bypass Apple's 30% commission, which Judge Rogers has called "excessive" and "supracompetitive."