Latest News - Page 1364

Back in 2017, an Australian researcher managed to crack the code of an ancient Babylonian clay tablet that forever changed the way we view human history.

Dr. Daniel Mansfield, along with his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia, managed to crack the code of a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet. The translation of the tablet revealed that the Babylonians were studying trigonometry, shocking many historians around the world as it was widely believed that trigonometry was founded by a Greek named Hipparchus.

The clay tablet named Plimpton 322 "describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles", said Mansfield. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius." The translation of the tablet and shows evidence of trigonometry being studied more than 3,000 years ago, predating Hipparchus by more than 1,000 years. If you are interested in reading more about this discovery, check out this link here.

Researchers have used DNA analysis on an old skeleton that was found in a grave in Connecticut back in 1990.

Since 1990, there was very little known about the skeleton, but researchers believed that the individual died sometime in the 1800s. When the skeleton was uncovered, the researchers found that the family that buried the individual rearranged the skeleton so the skull was above the rib cage and the rest of the bones were crossed over. GentSide reports that the reason the family orientated the bones like this was to prevent the deceased from leaving the grave.

The coffin had "JB 55" inscribed on it, which was later found out to be the name of the individual and his age when he died. DNA testing found for the first time in 200 years the identity of the individual - John Barber. Additionally, a diary from 1826 mentioned the death of a boy named Nathan Barber, whose grave was found to have the same type of initials inscribed on it "NB 13".

On July 5, NASA's Mars helicopter conducted its 9th flight, and throughout the flight, the helicopter snapped an image of a "heart" made by Perseverance.

The latest Ingenuity flight happened last Monday, and throughout the flight, Ingenuity came across some tracks that were made by the Mars rover Perseverance. The tracks showed where Perseverance made a slight detour before changing back to its original route. On the surface of the planet, we can see tracks that seemingly draw a rough sketch of a "heart" shape.

For those that aren't caught up with NASA's recent Mars missions, Perseverance and Ingenuity landed together in early February with the main objective of finding evidence of past Mars life in the Jezero Crater. Ingenuity chief pilot Havard Grip and Perseverance deputy project scientist Ken Williford wrote, "Captured in those images are rock outcrops that show contacts between the major geologic units on Jezero Crater's floor." For more information on this story, check out this link here.

It was a few years ago that Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) showcased live tests of a bullet that was able to hit its target no matter the environmental factors.

Now, the YouTube Channel Dark Footage has recently posted a video that explains how the bullet works and why it's both impressive and terrifying. DARPA, an arm of the Department of Defense, has a program running under it called Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO). EXACTO converted .50 caliber bullets into guided rounds, which allows for snipers to direct fired bullets mid-flight towards their desired targets.

These maneuverable bullets are able to bypass environmental factors such as weather, wind, or target movement that would otherwise cause difficulty for a sniper to hit their target successfully. The bullets are equipped with an in-flight guidance system which Dark Footage says are also equipped with optical sensors located on the nose of the bullet. These optical sensors reportedly hone in on the spot placed on the target by the sniper. Dark Footage also states that even recruits were able to score direct hits when using it for the first time.

The world thought that the most expensive video game ever sold at an auction was a copy of 1987's The Legend of Zelda, but now the title has been taken by another video game.

Two days before the title was snapped up by another video game, Heritage Auctions held an auction for 1987's The Legend of Zelda, which ended up selling for a ridiculous $870,000. The sale of the sealed The Legend of Zelda surpassed the previous record holder that was set three months prior. The previous record-holder was a rare, sealed copy of Super Mario Bros that sold for $660,000.

Now, both of those records have been smashed as Heritage Auctions hosted an auction for a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 that sold for $1.56 million. The N64 copy of Super Mario 64 included a special or rare print of the game that featured an uncommon Wata Games rating of 9.8 out of 10. If you are interested in checking out the game for yourself, images have been included below. If you want to see the auction website for the game, check out this link here.

Chinese researchers want to make a Hail-Mary attempt at saving Earth from a massive asteroid that has a chance of hitting our planet.

Chinese scientists are planning on launching a myriad of Long March 5 rockets to collide with the asteroid. The asteroid is named Bennu, and estimations have measured it in at 85.5 million tons of mass. As for its trajectory, Bennu is expected to come within 4.6 million miles of Earth's orbit, which is quite close in terms of how far away objects are in space.

Current estimates say the chances of Bennu colliding with Earth are just 1 in 2,700. However, China doesn't seem to want to roll the dice on a close fly-by. A new study published in the journal Icarus states that researchers at China's National Space Science Center have calculated that 23 Long March 5 rockets all hitting the asteroid simultaneous, and each of the rockets weighing 992 tons would be enough for it to be knocked off course by 6,000 miles or 1.4 times the Earth's radius.

Square Enix has just released a benchmark for Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker on the PC, which will be released on November 23 not just for the PC but also the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles.

You will need the base Final Fantasy XIV game for the new Endwalker expansion, which has moderate PC system requirements. Square Enix is asking for Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 64-bit, an Intel Core i5 processor or better, just 4GB of system RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 or AMD Radeon R7 260X or better.

Those requirements aren't too bad at all, but you'll need a hefty 80GB of storage for Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker.

Cyber Polygon 2021 is wrapping up, with global cybersecurity being one of the main focuses of the annual event, with one of the more interesting things that happened during Cyber Polygon was that they connected with the International Space Station (ISS).

A direct line with the International Space Station was established during Cyber Polygon 2021, where deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank talked with astronauts Oleg Novitsky and Petr Dubrow. The astronauts on-board the ISS discussed how technology helps them with their work, and revealed the fact that even the most crucial data from the ISS was protected by encryption and cannot be decrypted during transfer, even if tapped.

There were over 200 organizations that were involved with Cyber Polygon 2021, with some of the largest financial and technology companies, representatives of public institutions, law enforcement agencies, telecommunications and energy organizations, and more.

Richard Branson is now up above us chilling in space, rocketing up into the black abyss in his own Unity 22 rocket ship, for a quick 15 minute trip.

While most people are told to stay home and inside from the pandemic, Branson got about as far as anyone can get from the planet with the 71-year-old billionaire has beat fellow billionaires in Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk into space. Speaking of Bezos, the Amazon founder and former CEO will be going up to space for his own trip in just 9 days time.

Branson was watched by his family and over 500 people watching in the crowd, there were 5 crew on-board the Virgin Galactic plane. The craft detached from the mothership at an altitude of around 13 kilometers, firing its engines to get Branson and the crew up to around 88 kilometers above our pale blue dot.

New job listings hint that id Software's next big first-person shooter will skip PS4 and Xbox One console gens.

Like practically every other developer in the industry, id Software is currently hiring a bunch of roles to work on new games. News of the openings was passed around by game devs on Twitter, and most of the postings on ZeniMax's job board don't give many clues on what to expect. Except for two.

Job listings for a UI Programmer and Senior Graphics Programmer specifically call for interested candidates who want to "work on legendary id games for PC and next-generation console systems."

Infinity Ward is currently hiring a bunch of developers for its next big Call of Duty game, and job listings confirm COD 2022 will have singleplayer and co-op modes.

Unlike Battlefield 2042, which will ship without a campaign for the first time in years, the Call of Duty franchise will keep its signature three-part campaign, co-op, and multiplayer combo intact for next year's release. Recent job listings from Infinity Ward show that Call of Duty 2022 are very likely to have both story-driven parts to complement the frenetic live multiplayer.

Infinity Ward is currently hiring two roles that outright mention both modes: a singleplayer game designer and a level designer for singleplayer and co-operative play.

Cyber Polygon 2021 kicked off this year once again, this year the training drill and event will react to a "cyber pandemic" and global response to ransomware.

With the months leading up to the annual Cyber Polygon event we saw many ransomware attacks in the real-world, large attacks even taking down the US east coast oil supply. Cyber Polygon 2021 will have governments, worldwide authorities, executives from some of the largest companies in the world, and speakers that talk about risks, their experience on tackling ransomware on a global scale, and more.

Strategic digital risk management company BI.ZONE, part of Sber's ecosystem, with full support from the World Economic Forum (WEF) where the last big scale event like this was Event 201. Event 201 took place in October 2019 and simulated a coronavirus outbreak, which then happened in the real-world weeks later and we're now living in that current world.

MSI is reportedly working on a new high-end custom GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, with rumors now beginning on the GeForce RTX 3090 Hydrogen card.

The GeForce RTX 3090 Hydrogen was mentioned in a new EEC filing from MSI, which mentions the "GeForce RTX 3090 HYDROGEN 24G" alongside a plethora of other graphics cards. There is a gigantic list of refreshed GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards under the new LHR (Lite Hash Rate) series that are ETH crypto mining gimped.

The last time MSI released a graphics card in its Hydrogen range was with the Fermi GPU architecture, and the GeForce GTX 580 Hydrogen. MSI had a pre-installed waterblock on the GeForce GTX 580 Hydrogen, something that wasn't very common at all back then.

Call of Duty former professional and Warzone stream "MuTeX" has been accused of cheating, so he sets up an elaborate rig to prove he's not. The streamer used 5 separate cameras, just to prove he wasn't hacking.

MuTeX hosted a stream on July 7 where he accidentally showed his desktop during the stream, where people spotted that he had Cronus software installed. What is Cronus? It's a physical piece of hardware that requires installation, but then you can use the software to turn on macros, scripts, and tweak the inputs on the controller.

For hackers, Cronus can let cheaters make their buttons go into rapid-fire mode, improved recoil, aiming, and more.

GPU prices will still take many months to get anywhere near close to normal, but now second hand GPU and gaming laptop prices in China are coming down... at least for the GeForce RTX 3060.

The Block is reporting that a "large batch" of GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards with prices ranging anywhere between $336-$450 or so... but the seller didn't get many buyers, so the prices were reduced to $270. Another seller is getting rid of every single gaming laptop they purchased for crypto mining, and selling them for around $1000.

It all started around a week ago, where flash sales began popping up with bulk amounts of GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards -- as you can see from these pictures. I think you'd be find buying a second hand GeForce RTX 3060 right now, as it could only have had a few months on the market -- so a few months of use.

The world of cryptocurrency mining is a beautiful -- and sometimes strange one, with Ukrainian crypto miners busted using over 3800 separate PlayStation 4 consoles. Yes... over three thousand eight hundred PS4 consoles.

The Security Service of Ukraine officials discovered over 50 processors, over 500 graphics cards, and over 3800 PlayStation 4 consoles and seized them. You'd think that the PS4 wouldn't be the best at crypto mining, but it has 8GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5.5Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus which provides up to 176GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

This isn't too bad and would actually be pretty damn good if you had a lot o PS4s... you know, like 3800+ of them laying around and ready to be painstakingly installed, setup, and configured. The 3800+ PS4 consoles were discovered in the mine as it was drawing so much power the authorities noticed it, with the crypto miners using fake meters to hide that they were illegally pulling electricity from the grid.

A bit ago gamers spotted three Bloober Team projects on the European Commission website, and fans speculated one of them could be the new Silent Hill game. Bloober Team steps in to shoot down the rumors.

As per Bloober Team's website, the studio applied for (and received) European Commission grants for three games: H20, Dum Spiro, and Black. H20 turned out to be Layers of Fear 2, and the other two have nothing to do with the rumored Silent Hill project. Bloober has recently teamed up with Konami to make an unannounced game that's very likely to be Silent Hill.

Now the developer steps in to clarify the two mystery projects. Dum Spiro is no longer in active development--Bloober says it's incredibly tough to market something like that, and rightly so, given its controversial focus on WWII ghettos. Black is still in development but it's quite different than the initial project outlined in the grant.

All of gaming's major players are investing into online live-driven games--Sony, Take-Two, Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard, EA, and of course Ubisoft all earn billions from live games. Having transformed its business with digital monetization, Ubisoft in particular wants to double-down on live services for its upcoming games.

Ubisoft's latest 2021 annual report paints a clear picture of the company's future. Ubisoft promises to focus strongly on long-term player engagement using live services, and says that online multiplayer and live content will be instrumental in shaping its games over the next few years. This is the direct thinking that led to projects like Assassin's Creed Infinity, an online platform with multiple games that change over time, to be born.

"Over the coming years, Ubisoft will benefit from numerous solid drivers of growth with, in particular, significant opportunities in the digital sector generated by the extension of the multi-player and social gaming experience and by even greater integration of Live services," the report states.

Halo looked a lot different as a third-person shooter back in 1999.

Halo co-created Marcus Lehto just shared new footage of Halo: Combat Evolved's old-school 1999 Macworld build, showing fans what the pivotal shooter looked like 22 years ago. Lehto's short clip gives a closer look at the Forerunner facility shown off during the Macworld demo as well as some footage of Master Chief's sword--yes, Halo CE almost had a carbon sword-knife with a special sheathe on Spartan 117's back.

The Forerunner interiors haven't changed all that much, and die-hard Bungie fans will notice the health/shield UI indicator is a Marathon symbol (This is also seen throughout Halo, including Guilty Spark). The footage also shows a second tank called the Husk, which sits alongside the devastating Scorpion tank that shipped in the final build.

At this year's Witchercon, Superman and Witcher star Henry Cavill reveals some insights on how he portrayed Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix series.

Geralt now his three different personas: the introspective Geralt in books, the massive wall of muscle in the TV show, and the lithe, sly bantering swordsman in the games. There's a lot of source material to work from, and Henry Cavill talks about how he wants to make his Geralt both authentic and unique.

For Cavill, Geralt is a deadly survivalist with a bent towards philosophy and rationality--in other words he's not just a "white-haired brute."