Latest News - Page 1360

Massive demand and interest has emboldened scalpers to hike secondhand sales of Valve's new Steam Deck.

Pre-orders for Valve's new Steam Deck handheld-PC console went live today, and predictably, securing an order is pretty tough. Valve is doing a $5 reservation to gauge how many units they need to produce to meet initial shipments in December 2021 and throughout 2022. It's been a frustrating process so far.

Consumers who can't seem to secure a reservation pre-order or don't want to mess around with long queues have another option: Buy from a scalper. eBay listings have popped up commanding up to $5,000 price tags for the 512GB NVMe SSD Steam Decks. These auctions are extra tricky because no one has actually pre-ordered a Steam Deck yet--they've just bought a reservation, or a chance to fully pre-order the Steam Deck, for $5.

Microsoft has accused an Israeli group of hackers of creating and selling tools that can hack into Microsoft Windows.

According to Microsoft and technology human rights group Citizen Lab, the hacking group named Candiru has created software that is able to hack into Microsoft Windows to exploit it. Citizen Lab's security researchers showed how the tool has spread around the globe and how it was used to "target various civil society organizations, including a Saudi dissident group and a left-leaning Indonesian news outlet", per Reuters.

Microsoft has already fixed the flaws that Candiru was exploiting. However, Microsoft didn't give Candiru the credit of naming the group directly. Instead, Microsoft said it was an "Israel-based private sector offensive actor" that has been codenamed Sourgum. Microsoft wrote in a blog post, "Sourgum generally sells cyberweapons that enable its customers, often government agencies around the world, to hack into their targets' computers, phones, network infrastructure, and internet-connected devices."

New Zealand astronomers have detected the first activity of what very well could be the largest comet ever discovered.

The New Zealand astronomers were monitoring images taken by the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) that became available on June 23 at midnight EDT (0400 GMT). According to an LCO team member, Michele Bannister, of New Zealand's University of Canterbury, the reason the team was able to detect the first activity of the comet was because "The other folks were asleep".

Bannister explained that when she first noticed activity, she believed it cause by the ever-growing issue of satellites obscuring telescope vision. Bannister said, "The first image had the comet obscured by a satellite streak, and my heart sank. But then the others were clear enough, and gosh: there it was, definitely a beautiful little fuzzy dot, not at all crisp like its neighboring stars."

Researchers have detected methane on Mars, and almost all methane on Earth can be traced back to a biological source of life.

Back in 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover landed on the Red Planet, and since then, it has detected six methane blips in its landing in the Gale Crater. During that time, researchers have been unable to pinpoint the location or the source of the detected methane, but now a new study suggests the location has been found. These findings are extremely exciting for researchers as almost all of the methane in Earth's atmosphere can be traced back to a biological source.

At the moment, researchers haven't located the source of the methane, but even if the source isn't biological life forms, it will still be promising, as it could be signs of geological activity that may lead to the discovery of water on the Red Planet. Something to note is that the detectable lifespan of methane is only 330 years, meaning that whatever is producing the methane that Curiosity is detecting may very well still be producing it today.

An opinion piece with the headline "Tesla's Cybertruck Will Be Company's First Flop" has got a reply from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The opinion piece was written by Tim Healey on the website "The Truth About Cars" and goes list reasons why Healey believes that the Cybertruck will be Tesla's first "first true flop as a model". The article was then reposted by Tesla Owners Online, which then Musk replied to explaining that he doesn't care if the Cybertruck is a flop because "I love it".

Musk acknowledges that there is always a large risk taken when you are manufacturing a vehicle that is so unique and that even if it does flop, "I don't care. I love it so much even if others don't." Musk goes on to say that other trucks look similar and that Cybertruck stands out from the pack because it looks like it was designed by "aliens from the future".

The internet saw that Elon Musk posted a cryptic message on his Twitter account and moved to decode it, looking for a hidden meaning.

Elon Musk is no stranger to creating a stir online, and the billionaire CEO has even said that he finds amusement in it - and so do many other people. One of the most recent tweets had his followers in a doozy as Musk posted a cryptic reply to a tweet from Michi Lumin that stated, "I need to start tweeting obtuse and vague things in the hopes that some people will interpret them as coded, meaningful, and mysterious. This is already happening with @BillyM2k and of course @elonmusk."

Musk simply replied by posting, "48 61 68 61 20 74 72 75 65," which caused thousands of people to begin speculating what the series of numbers translated to. Many people that replied to the thread thought that the series of numbers translated into a signal that was telling people to purchase Dogecoin. However, that wasn't the case as one user managed to crack the code, and the translation was certainly disappointing for anyone that thought it was some kind of secret message.

A new "holy grail" type of technology has been created by researchers at the University of California that very well could revolutionize how we charge our devices.

Engineers from the University of California San Diego have developed a new way of charging devices through harvesting energy from the human body. The engineers created a thin strip that is worn on the end of a finger that converts human sweat into energy that can then be used to power devices. Professor Wang and other authors on the study have said that the new form of technology is the "holy grail" of energy harvesters" due to how it doesn't require any external energy source such as sunlight or movement.

Not only does the strip generate energy from the sweat accumulated on the end of a finger, the biofuel cells located on the strip can also harvest energy from light finger presses such as typing on a keyboard, playing piano. The biofuel cells are able to produce 300 millijoules of energy per square centimeter, and the engineers were able to successfully power a Vitamin C sensing system.

A United States satellite intelligence firm has accused China of dumping so much human waste into the ocean that it can be seen from space.

Simularity has published a new report on its website that connects the movements of more than 200 suspected Chinese ships located in the South China Sea and the concentrations of Chlorophyll-a, an indicator of a vessel dumping human waste into the ocean. Simularity founder and CEO Liz Derr said the satellite firm "can't definitively say that those are Chinese, but they seem to be the same ships that have been there since March and they look very similar so I think, in all probability, they are."

Not only are US satellites picking up on the waste that is being dumped into the ocean, Philippine government officials have also noticed. According to Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who spoke to Reuters, "While we are confirming and verifying these wastes being dumped ... We consider such irresponsible acts, if true, to be gravely detrimental to the marine ecology in the area." Lorenzana goes on to say, "China treating us as its toilet is a clear violation of both international and local environmental laws."

NASA Perseverance rover is scouting the plains of Mars, and every day the rover uncovers more vital information about the past life of the Red Planet.

In a new post on the Perseverance Mars Rover Twitter account, NASA has shown off Perseverance inspecting an "ancient lakebed". The rover's Twitter account is orientated in a way that makes the rover look like it's the one doing the posting, hence the caption, "Check out this patch of rock I found: looks kind of like garden pavers, and is probably exposed bedrock."

NASA goes on to say that Perseverance gathering vital data in the Jezero Crater, where it landed back on February 18, will allow for scientists to have a better idea of what the Jezero Crater, and Mars, was like millions of years ago. The primary mission for Perseverance is to search for evidence of past life of the baron Red Planet, hence the landing in the Jezero Crater as researchers believe that "the area was once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta," per NASA.

After spending $28 million on a ticket aboard Blue Origin and then pulling out at the last minute, it will now see 18-year-old Oliver Daemen become the youngest person in space.

Daemen will become the youngest person in space and enjoy the historic journey with an 82-year-old, who will become the oldest person in space -- they will be joined with Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. Daemen's father leads investment management firm Somerset Capital Partners, using his deep pockets to secure his son the wildest ride this planet has to offer.

Blue Origin said Jose Daemen "paid for the seat and chose to fly Oliver".

Remember that auction winner who spent $28 million on a Blue Origin mission to space? Yeah, well, he's busy... and he can't go -- scheduling conflicts and all that.

Blue Origin announced today that the anonymous winner wouldn't be able to jump on the Blue Origin New Shepard mission on July 20 over "scheduling conflicts". One would think after spending $28 million on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to space, you'd clear your schedule for it... not have something else come up on your schedule.

In his place will be 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, who will become the youngest person into space. His father purchased his Blue Origin ticket for an undisclosed sum of money, but I'm sure it would not have been cheap. Daemen will join Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, along with his brother Mark Bezos and Wally Funk -- who will become the oldest person in space at 82 years old.

Anonymous has just released a new video, announcing a brand new cryptocurrency out of nowhere: introducing Anon Inu.

In their video, Anonymous takes a few swings -- starting with China and the CCP squeezing Bitcoin, miners, crypto owners, and everyone in between. The CCP is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency, the digital Yuan, and once this is done there will be no other currencies accepted within its borders.

You can read all about Anon Inu here.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) isn't stopping, with the latest news teasing the semiconductor giant would build even more factories in the US -- and a new fab in Japan.

TSMC confirmed it would be expanding its production capacity in China, but also teased that it could kick off a "second phase" expansion of its US operations, a new factory worth $12 billion in Arizona, USA. TSMC is also looking at the possibility of opening up a specialty technology wafter plant in Japan, which comes at a very interesting time.

China has said that it would take Taiwan by force if it needed to, and more recently the CCP military warned that it would drop nuclear bombs continuously on Japan if they interfered with China in any way, shape, or form. China could simply invade Taiwan and gain control of TSMC, something that was being discussed just a couple of months ago.

Intel is reportedly preparing a new family of Xeon CPUs with the new Xeon W-3300 series, with its flagship model packing 38 cores and 76 threads to better fight AMD's chiplet onslaught with the Ryzen Threadripper PRO family of processors.

The new Intel Ice Lake Xeon workstation CPUs would pack more CPU cores and threads, more cache, a new architecture that's based on the 10nm process node, more I/O and memory support, and more. We have the LGA 4189 socket, with Xeon W-3300 series CPUs coming in at up to 270W TDP.

We have 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes so you can throw in multiple Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer SSDs and a couple of high-end GPUs and still have PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare. There's also 8-channel DDR4-3200 memory support, which will offer support for up to 4TB of system RAM.

If you're out in the middle of nowhere or stuck with really crappy internet access... then this will be music to your ears.

Elon Musk has said that Starlink's satellite-based internet will offer gamers some very, very competitive connectivity with latencies that will be under 20ms. This is enough for competitive gamers, with Musk saying that Starlink engineers and SpaceX's production and launch teams have been working around the clock to get Starlink latencies under 20ms.

Musk explains: "Glad it's working! The sheer amount of work done by SpaceX engineering, production & launch teams is amazing. Ping should improve dramatically in coming months. We're aiming for <20ms. Basically, you should be able to play competitive FPS games through Starlink".

Today EA confirmed it will share its plans for new Star Wars games sometime next year.

EA clarifies that Star Wars won't be a part of the upcoming EA Play Live event on July 22. Instead the publisher will announce its "vision for the galaxy far, far away" sometime in 2022. This likely refers to multiple game reveals across EA's internal studios and not just one singular game.

EA is currently working on multiple new games, including Respawn's sequel to Jedi Fallen Order. In January, when Ubisoft announced its own Star Wars game, Lucasfilm also said that a "number of projects" were in development at EA.

id Software might announced its new FPS game at Quakecon 2021.

Today Bethesda outlined what to expect from Quakecon 2021 (August 19-21). The publisher says we can expect "livestreams featuring updates on existing and upcoming games," which could hint at a game reveal.

Recent id Software job listings mention a new FPS exclusively for next-gen consoles and PC, possibly aligning with the recent Quake reboot rumors.

Introducing the Steamdeck, a Valve handheld that plays PC games.

Today Valve announced the Steamdeck, a $399 handheld specced to play Steam games. The Steamdeck is marketed as an all-in-one PC handheld and features an AMD mobile APU with a 4-core Zen 2 CPU and an RDNA 2 GPU with 8 CUs alongside 16GB of fifth-generation LPDDR5 RAM, up to 512GB NVMe internal storage, and a 7-inch 1280 x 800 resolution display at 60Hz (full specs below).

"We partnered with AMD to create Steam Deck's custom APU, optimized for handheld gaming. It is a Zen 2 + RDNA 2 powerhouse, delivering more than enough performance to run the latest AAA games in a very efficient power envelope,"Valve says.

Netflix has opened a new games development division and hired ex-Zynga and EA mobile expert Mike Verdu to lead its new gaming initiative.

The reports were right: Netflix is getting into gaming, but we shouldn't expect the streaming giant to overpromise like Google or Amazon. Instead, Netflix plans to offer games within the Netflix ecosystem.

Bloomberg reports that Netflix will offer its games within its app and browsers for no extra charge, complete with a dedicated section. This could telegraph quite a bit about the company's gaming ambitions.

One of the co-creator of Dogecoin has dropped some bombs about reentering the cryptocurrency market on his personal Twitter account.

Jackson Palmer took to his Twitter account to talk about if he is planning on making a "return to cryptocurrency". In the tweets, Palmer states that after studying cryptocurrency for many years, he believes that cryptocurrency is "inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity."

Palmer continues to explain that he believes the cryptocurrency industry is controlled by a group of wealthy individuals that he describes as a "cartel". On top of that, Palmer says that the system has evolved into something that has begun to incorporate many aspects of the centralized financial system, which is the exact opposite of what the cryptocurrency industry set out to replace/avoid. For more information on this story, check out this link here.