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If you haven't heard about the Carrington event then I suggest you read up on it, but back in 1859 there was a gigantic solar flare that -- if it happened now -- would knock us back into the Stone Age.

But in a new study, Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi of the University of California, Irvine warned that a solar storm could knock the internet down for weeks if not more. In the presentation titled "Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse" found that local and regional Internet infrastructure could be hit but they would be fine -- the long undersea cables on the other hand, are at risk.

Why? The local and regional internet infrastructure isn't at a high risk because the optical fiber isn't affected by geomagnetically induced currents -- meanwhile, short cable spans are grounded regularly. But, undersea cables on the other hand... would be knocked out of operation. The reason is that there are repeaters under the sea that connect the internet cables, at around 50-150km apart.

Apple might have a truly big surprise with the next-gen iPhone 13, with the latest rumor teasing the new iPhone will have a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite communication mode.

The exciting and unexpected rumor is coming from a credible source: analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who said in his recent investor note, that he expects the new iPhone 13 to have support for LEO satellite communications. This means iPhone 13 owners will be able to make phone calls and send messages when they're in remote locations -- far away from traditional 4G and 5G tower coverage.

Inside of the new iPhone 13 will be a custom Qualcomm X60 baseband modem chip, which will support communications over satellite. The analyst says that he believes Apple will use LEO satellite communication technology inside of the upcoming Apple AR headset, the future Apple Car, and other products.

You might be chowing down on a 3D-printed Wagyu steak in the very near future, with Japanese scientists creating Wagyu steak with marbling "just like the real thing".

A team out of the Osaka University replicated some of the best-tasting beef on the planet -- Wagyu -- which even has fat, muscle, and blood vessels in an intricate structure producing a marble effect. Wagyu beef is known worldwide as one of the most famous (and delicious) for its high content of "intramuscular fat" and marbling, recreated with 3D printing.

The marbling side of things is what gives Wagyu beef its delicious, deep flavors and specific texture -- so 3D printing Wagyu beef is a true feat. The researchers used two types of stem stells: bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells, insulated from Wagyu cows. They then incubated and coaxed the cells into becoming the various cell types required for the individual fibers for muscle, fat, and blood vessels -- they were piled on top of each other into a 3D stack that re-creates the marbling of the delicious Wagyu beef.

NVIDIA is seeing its acquisition of Arm impeded in multiple ways, with the gigantic acquisition that is worth up to $54 billion hitting speedbumps with the FTC and now the EU.

The European Commission will raise their concerns from regulators soon, with NVIDIA saying it is ready to answer "any concerns" the board may have about its acquisition of Arm. NVIDIA is expected to notify the commission in early September of its plans to acquire Arm -- at this time, the EU regulators will look into the inner movements of the $54 billion deal.

There are the obvious concerns that a US company is buying a major UK company, with the UK government concerned of the deal over what they're calling national security, and the fact that NVIDIA will gain access to Arm and its vast IP... and block it from being used on their competitors' products. Arm chips are used in many more technology products than people know, and you'd be giving those keys to NVIDIA.

Intel's next-gen Alder Lake CPUs are not too far away, with some more testing and benchmarking being performed by Lenovo China Gaming Desktop Product Planning Manager, "Woldstame" on Chinese media platform Weibo.

He tested the new Alder Lake CPU with power and heat stability benchmarks run through AIDA64, where after just under an hour of benchmarking the unnamed processor -- probably the Core i9-12900K -- was running at an average of 86C, and up to 93C at times.

Not only that, but he notes that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card inside of his PC is now not the only thing that consumes 350W of power.

With the increased threat from Intel in the form of their upcoming Xe-based ARC Alchemist gaming graphics cards, and AMD's upcoming RDNA 3-powered Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs... rumor has it NVIDIA is moving their next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU from Samsung to TSMC.

Originally, NVIDIA had planned to use Samsung's new 5nm node for their upcoming Ada Lovelace GPUs which will arrive as the GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards -- but now leaker kopite7kimi has said that the new Ada Lovelace GPUs will "come out a little bit earlier" and that they will be made on TSMC's new 5nm node.

NVIDIA is making a monolithic GPU with its Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, with the flagship AD102 GPU powering the new flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

I stumbled onto someone sharing an anonymous post from 4chan, which might turn out to be totally full of shit, but with the way the world is going right now -- Afghanistan, is one large part, and secondly -- China invading Taiwanese airspace and the Taiwan government preparing for war, it kinda makes sense.

A new post on 4chan starts off with: "You're probably going to have to see it in action to believe it" and then dives right into what could be a horrific event in the very near future. The poster warns of China invading Taiwan, but that an "agreement in principle has been reached" between the US and China over this upcoming attack.

The post explains: "Low-level, preliminary negotiations have been completed and an agreement in principle has been reached between the United States and China concerning Taiwan. There are approximately 6 people who are aware of this in the United States up until right now".

Apple shifted into the beautiful, warm arms of OLED display technology with the iPhone 12 -- and even more so with the upcoming iPhone 13 -- while the company is looking to overtake Samsung as the largest OLED smartphone company in 2021.

There are around 630 million OLED smartphone shipments in 2021 according to estimates from the Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) where it's expected to ship 176 million shipments this year -- 28% of the market. Samsung on the other hand is expected to ship 145 million OLED smartphones or 23% of the market.

How has this happened considering Samsung is the company providing Apple with 120Hz OLED displays for its new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro smartphones? Well, Samsung's current flagship Galaxy S21 series has been the worst-performing Galaxy S family for the first 6 months, ever. Samsung has been experiencing some hiccups with the Galaxy S21 family, so much so that it has started an investigation into its smartphone business and will make changes if they're required.

And so it begins... Taiwan has just boosted its defense budget by 10% in 2021, with the Taiwanese government to spend a large chunk of that on new war-ready aircraft.

Taiwan has boosted its defense budget to $16.89 billion with $1.4 billion of that going into new warplanes, which should turn out to be US-made F16 fighter jets. Once it's all said and done, Taiwan should have 200 of the high-end war-ready aircraft -- more than any other country in Asia.

Why? Well, China really wants to take Taiwan over -- Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and the CCP military has reportedly said it would also drop nuclear bombs on Taiwan continuously if it stepped in between the fight between China and Taiwan... so Taiwan needs to be ready, and so too do its allies around the world -- including the USA.

We are in the middle of a global chip shortage that has affected graphics cards in a bad way, but that hasn't stopped GPU shipments hitting record levels in Q2 2021.

JPR has released some interesting data from its Q2 2021 market report, with discrete GPU shipments hitting 123 million units in Q2 2021. This is up 3.4% sequentially and 37% year-over-year, with Jon Peddie Research noting they believe the GPU market will continue to grow with a compound annual growth rate of 3.5% through to 2025.

Shipments are down in Q2 2021 compared to Q1 2021, with JPR noting: "In a year like no other, suppliers reported shortages of component parts, capacitors, substrates, and other items. Even companies with a diverse portfolio were forced to allocate to the various segments they served. No one was happy about it, and unfortunately, the upcoming inventory build-out for the holiday season that usually takes place in the third quarter will be constrained until the supply chain catches up with demand".

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a system-seller for the Nintendo Switch, where I personally purchased the Switch exclusively for Breath of the Wild and man, was it worth it. But what about at 8K with ray tracing?

Digital Dreams has teased The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild running at 8K -- so 7680 x 4320, which is orders of magnitude better than the 1152 x 648 that the Switch handheld mode runs the game. That's just 81% of 720p, and 720p is nothing against 4320p.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild running at not just native 8K but also with ray tracing reshade preset Beyond All Limits. It really does look awesome at 8K 60FPS and with the Beyond All Limits preset installed and makes me want to replay the game on my PC like this, so bad.

There were a bunch of rumors of the high-end GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards would pack 20GB of GDDR6X, but eventually shipping with 12GB of GDDR6X -- leaving a big gap for the RTX 3090 and its 24GB of GDDR6X memory.

I doubt we'll see them in the wild and if we do, it'll probably turn up more like the GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER that we've recently seen rumors on.

However, Alex over in Russia sent VideoCardz four photos of an AORUS EXTREME GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card with 20GB of GDDR6X memory on it.

Gearbox Software has spent a staggering $158 million to open a third studio in Montreal, Canada where it will focus on Borderlands 4 and new IP development.

Gearbox has made a massive power play to solidify its future. The company is spending $158 million to launch a new Montreal-based studio. To put that investment into perspective, Embracer Group paid $363 million to buy Gearbox in February (with a $1 billion bonus clause). Gearbox also earned roughly $51 million last quarter and made up 12.7% of Embracer's total Q1 2022 revenues.

While Gearbox is technically owned by Embracer, the parent takes a hands-off approach and lets its publishing labels and subsidiaries make their own business models. Saber Interactive, for instance, has made huge acquisitions with the likes of Metro developer 4A Games.

Since Halo Infinite won't be ready until December, Microsoft is celebrating Halo's 20th anniversary with a custom Xbox Series X console...that no one can actually buy.

It's not often that a games franchise stays active for 20 years, so when it happens, it's a big deal (or it should be). Thanks to COVID-19 and "complexities" with development, Halo Infinite won't be a part of the franchise's 20th birthday on November 15. Microsoft is instead releasing a special edition Halo Infinite-themed Xbox Series X that predictably sold out immediately.

Now scalpers have listed the Halo console up on eBay at exorbitant markups. The system retails for $549, or about $50 over standard console MSRP because it includes a copy of Halo Infinite. There's a few listings for $1,000 but there are also a few for around $800.

Halo 3 custom games browser is coming with Master Chief Collection's season 8 update--a move that should prove to be massively popular if gamers don't like Halo Infinite.

If the recent tech test is anything to go by, Halo Infinite will be a total blast. The gunplay is smooth and satisfying and matches are tense and chaotic. Should Infinite's multiplayer falter (maybe because of the controversial shift to challenge-only progression) then gamers should have something really good to fall back on: Halo 3 customs.

Today 343i announced that it will soon start test flighting MCC's season 8 content. This update is absolutely massive for legacy Halo fans and includes a Halo 3 custom games browser. This will add a whole new dimension of engaging gameplay as players jump back in to relive old hilarious maps and gametypes. Halo 3 customs are revered as some of the most enjoyable experiences in Xbox gaming. Right now Halo Reach has a customs browser and I've found a ton of ridiculous gametypes like Fat Kid, Get to the top!, Desert Bus, Jump Rope, and even some great Invasion maps (yes, it is possible to have fun with Invasion).

Sabrent is about to unleash its biggest and most badass SSD yet -- the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB M.2 NVMe SSD.

The new Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB SSD will have the same crazy high read and write speeds as its 4TB variant, with up to 7200MB/sec (7.2GB/sec) reads and 6900MB/sec (6.9GB/sec) writes. The 4TB version of the drive is already one of the best that exists on the planet right now, but now there's an insane 8TB version right around the corner.

I can see this being the soul of my new Intel Alder Lake GPU test bench, where I will be updating to Intel's next-gen Core i9-12900K processor + DDR5 RAM + PCIe 5.0 on day one. Windows 11 will be used on it, and man I think I'm going to need more than one of these new Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB SSDs inside. I mean, it would be blasphemy to not do that, right... these new 8TB SSDs from Sabrent are going to be crazy.

EA's newly filed patent will reward genuine players with in-game rewards for proving they're human.

EA has outlined a unique non-invasive way to combat bots while also rewarding authentic players at the same time. A new patent aims to create an interactive Captcha where players solve a puzzle or complete an objective to get an item in return--maybe some in-game currency, points, or a special cosmetic skin. In the process EA will learn if they're actually human or not.

Make no mistake: EA loves bots, but only the bots it has made specifically for games. After all, Battlefield 2042 will be populated with AI bots to provide "24/7 Battlefield mayhem",

343 Industries is catching more flak for Halo Infinite, and this time the bruhaha surrounds a controversial change to multiplayer progression.

According to 343i's John Junyszek, Halo Infinite's multiplayer battle pass progression will be locked behind challenges. That means gamers will only earn XP payouts when completing or progressing towards specific in-game challenges, e.g. getting 50 kills with the pistol or 20 back attacks. Bear in mind gamers can only have a set number of challenges activated at once.

The move has divided the Halo faithful. Gamers find the new progression system to be controversial and some say users will play the game differently; instead of playing to win, users will be playing to unlock more XP from challenges.

NASA's newest Mars rover has captured on video a shiny object in the martian sky, according to a new post on Twitter.

The news comes from NASA's Perseverance Mars rover Twitter account, which posted a short video of the Perseverance rover aiming its cameras towards Mars' bleak sky. The shiny object seen in the video is one of Mars' moons, Deimos. Mars has two moons Deimos and Phobos, and according to current research, Deimos measures in at a diameter of 7.7 miles.

Deimos is located 14,576 miles from Mars and is the further moon of two that orbit Mars. As for its orbit, Deimos orbits Mars once every 30.3 hours and is also not spherically shaped like the moon that orbits Earth. If you are interested in reading any more news about space, check out this article about a study that suggests aliens could be thriving on these "super-Earth's".

NASA is planning on making the long venture back to the moon, but why is the space agency selecting the more for exploration?

In a new video posted to the NASA YouTube channel, the space agency details all of its reasons why it wants to go back to the moon. NASA researchers explain that the moon holds opportunities for humans to discover more about Earth, our Sun, and our entire solar system.

NASA says that its Artemis program that is set to put humans back on the moon by 2024 will pave the way forward for future generations to be inspired by its accomplishments. In more detail, NASA explains that the agency needs to learn how to establish a community on another cosmic shore because "Mars is calling". When a community is created long-term science will be underway to better understand our neighbors and the planet we call home.