Latest News - Page 1384

Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, largely known as the worst video game ever made, is coming back. God help us.

Old-school 3DO game Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is getting re-released on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC, complete with digital and physical launches. Limited Run Games is making this happen, and I don't know if I should be happy or utterly terrified. Calling it a "game" is a loose definition--it's more like an interactive slideshow that two teenagers could've put together in the early 90s.

The game has been hilariously lambasted by AVGN, the angriest gaming geek on the internet, and today the game remains one of the strangest cult classics of a bygone era of doomed video game consoles.

Intel is reportedly eyeing off acquiring semiconductor startup SiFive, with Bloomberg reporting that Intel has offered over $2 billion to acquire SiFive.

The site is reporting from anonymous sources "asking not to be identified because the matter is private", but that SiFive has "received takeover offers from multiple parties other than Intel" according to the source, who added that SiFive "has also fielded offers for an investment, which could be a preferable route".

SiFive raised funds back in 2020, where it was valued at around $500 million -- so it is a nice upgrade for the company to be fielding $2 billion acquisition offers just a year later. If you're not familiar with SiFive, the semiconductor startup designs chips based o the RISC-V architecture -- an open-source standard for semiconductor design that makes it much cheaper, and much more open to customers wanting to build chips.

The world of travel was decapitated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a frequent traveler myself (Australia to the US at least 4-5 times a year...) it was in-flight Wi-Fi that needed the biggest upgrade to make traveling those ungodly amount of hours a better experience.

SpaceX's Starlink is wanting to make that better, with the satellite internet network giant in talks with "several" airlines to have their satellites blast super-fast internet onto planes flying through the sky.

SpaceX vice president Jonathan Hofeller explained at a panel during the Connected Aviation Intelligence Summit: "We're in talks with several of the airlines. We have our own aviation product in development ... we've already done some demonstrations to date and [are] looking to get that product finalized to be put on aircraft in the very near future".

COLORFUL's new custom iGame GeForce RTX 3090 KUDAN graphics card is in the oven, and nearly ready to be taken out and the very tiny amount of them that are made will be sold.

The new COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 3090 KUDAN looks like an utter beast, but we know nothing about it outside of this single picture. QuazarZone forum members discovered the card, and that's the only reason it's even on any of our radars.

The picture was black, but once adjusted (adjusted picture above, the original image below) we can see a gigantic GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. It is definitely a triple-slot card, but it could be even thicker and could be a 3.5- or even 4-slot GPU.

Facebook has gobbled up yet another top-tier VR developer. This time, BigBox VR, the studio behind the increasingly popular VR shooter, Population: One, was the subject of Zuckerberg's sights. The studio is now part of the Oculus brand.

Population: One launched just nine months ago, but in that short period the studio has captured the hearts of many VR gamers. The studio has continued to pour resources into the game's development, and it regularly adds new content for its continuously returning player base. Evidently, Facebook's executives took notice and liked what they saw. On Friday, BigBox VR gave up its independence to become part of Facebook's team.

With Facebook's resources behind the game, Population: One is sure to continue to grow and likely in ways that wouldn't have been possible independently. With the resources of Facebook and Oculus Studios behind them, BigBox VR should be able to pour gas on the fire and accelerate the growth path for the game.

I don't know why, but someone has just paid $11.8 million for a non-fungible token (NFT) of a digital artwork called a CryptoPunk.

CryptoPunk #7523 is described as a "sought-after Alien variety with blue-green skin, and wearing a medical mask" according to Reuters, and was purchased with bitcoin, with the transaction taking place through Sotheby's, adding that "CryptoPunks are a set of 10,000 pixel-art characters made by Larva Labs in 2017".

Israeli entrepreneur Shalom Meckenzie, who is the largest shareholder of digital sports company DraftKings, is the one who purchased the CryptoPunk #7523 NFT. CryptoPunk #7523 was part of Sotherby's online auction Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale.

Schell Games revealed the sequel to I Expect You To Die with more elaborate puzzles and even more sticky situations to get yourself out of. The next edition is coming out this summer.

I Expect You To Die is one of the oldest VR games on the market, and to this day, it remains an excellent source of entertainment. If you like puzzles, especially of the escape room variety, I Expect You To Die, and its upcoming sequel I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar, are sure to tickle your fancy.

I Expect You Tu Die 2 adds new missions in new locations but keeps all the danger. One wrong move, and as the name suggests, you're not going to make it. Every puzzle in this game has fatal consequences for every mistake.

GDDR memory prices are about to get more expensive, with TrendForce expecting an 8-13% increase in GDDR memory prices later this year -- which will hurt GPU and console prices even more.

Graphics DRAM (GDDR) prices increasing will hurt GDDR6 and GDDR6X-based products, with GDDR6 inside of all of AMD's new RDNA 2-based products: the Radeon RX 6000 series (Radeon RX 6700 through to the Radeon RX 6900 XT all use GDDR6 memory) as well as the next-gen consoles in Microsoft's Xbox Series X/S and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles.

On the PC side of things, NVIDIA uses the ultra-fast GDDR6X memory in half of its new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs: the newly-released GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards both use GDDR6X memory -- so too do the GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards.

China has just launched its first "asteroid hunter" satellite into space, with the new satellite taking its journey into the black beyond with three other satellites.

Lifting off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center located in north China, the Long March 2D rocket took off with the Yangwang-1 spacecraft at 11:03PM EDT (0303 GMT, or 11:03AM local time, Friday, June 11). Chinese space resources company Origin Space is the company behind the launch, with the satellite being China's first optical space telescope -- capable of collecting visible and ultraviolet light to detect near-Earth asteroids.

Origin Space wants to create a "treasure map" of potential space resources, using the new "asteroid hunter" satellite to scan around using its various sensors and wide field of view to take in all that data. The company launched its NEO-1 satellite in April 2021, designed to release and collect a small target -- chunks of an asteroid.

Why use humans to build next-gen chips when AI is so much freaking faster?

That's what Google is doing, with the everything giant saying that it has created artificial intelligence (AI) software that is so powerful it can design next-gen computer chips much faster than any humans can.

In a new paper published in the journal Nature, the authors of the paper explain that it takes humans months and months to design a new chip -- meanwhile, AI takes less than 6 hours to do the same thing. Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie are two of the authors behind the new paper, who are co-heads of machine learning for systems at Google. They explained: "Our method has been used in production to design the next generation of Google TPU".

Aldin dropped a surprise announcement about its flagship game, Waltz of the Wizard, over the weekend. The game's next expansion, Natural Magic, brings more than just new spells to learn. The developer has added "hours of entertainment" to Waltz of the Wizard, giving you new locations to explore, and enemies to put your new skills to the test.

Waltz of the Wizard is one of the most successful VR titles, with over 400,000 unique players. Aldin has created a unique interactive experience in Waltz of the Wizard, that lets you experiment with spell craft and magic casting. The new expansion, Natural Magic, takes you out of the wizard's quarters and into the world where you must put your magic powers to practice.

The new expansion includes an exterior courtyard where you can explore the new "natural magic" skills the expansion brings to the table. Once you've learned the basics, you can put your new magic powers to the test against magical enemies in a mysterious hidden fortress.

Up until now, we've been expecting AMD's next-gen Zen 4 architecture to have CPU cores topping out at the 96-core mark, but according to new rumors that's not the top -- 128 cores is the peak for Zen 4.

AMD's next-gen Zen 4 architecture will reportedly offer up to 128 cores and 256 threads, with the next-gen AMD EPYC "Genoa" CPUs offering up to 96 cores and 192 threads on the Zen 4 architecture. Genoa will still have 96 cores, but whatever this new CPU is, it won't be Genoa with its 128 cores and 256 threads.

A new Zen 4-powered EPYC or Threadripper CPU with 128C/256T will also support up to 12-channel DDR5-5200 memory. The current mockups of the AMD Genoa CPU have it with 12 CCDs, so a tweaked chip (and real, not the mockup) with room for 16 CCDs would unleash the 128 cores and 256 threads, up from the 96 cores and 192 threads with the 12 CCDs mockup of Genoa.

DOOM Eternal had its huge ray tracing and DLSS announcement just two weeks ago now, and at first we didn't have an ETA for the patch but now we do: June 29.

id Software will not just be polishing up the PC version of DOOM Eternal, but the consoles will also get some of that upgrade lovin' with some big changes coming to the next-gen Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles and DOOM Eternal.

The developer explains on its website that the "free update optimizes DOOM Eternal for next-gen machines, offering improved visuals, increased performance and support for ray-tracing, or 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, or an optional 120 FPS mode".

TSMC is reportedly expanding its plans of building facilities on US soil, with its planned Arizona fab plant most likely being joined by even more new facilities in the US according to the latest rumors.

The new information is coming from Nikkei Asia which says its sources tease that TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) will construct new chip packaging facilities on US soil as well, a required part (chip packaging) of any tech product.

TSMC's new facility in Arizona is expected to be operational by 2024, where it will be capable of making 100,000 wafers each month -- this new US-based facility will be churning out next-gen 5nm chips Made in the USA.

Halo Infinite's multiplayer will be monetized via battle passes that will never expire, 343i confirms.

Halo Infinite's multiplayer is F2P so that means monetization is included as well. The devs confirmed Infinite won't have REQ pack-style lootboxes that can be purchased, and random loot isn't in the game at all.

"There's no random loot in this. There's no lootboxes. It's very important to us that everyone understands how they unlock customization content, and we have a variety of places where they can do that,"343i said.

Halo Infinite's multiplayer is a big departure from existing Halo games and completely changes the PVP dynamic.

343i is having a lot of fun with Halo Infinite's multiplayer, and they hope we do too. The devs are adding in a lot of new things like weapon and vehicle airdrops, making camo and overshields active-use, and completely changing the landscape with new equipment. There's one gadget that will have the biggest effect on multiplayer: The new grappleshot.

The new Halo Infinite multiplayer trailers really drive one point home: The grappling hook might be the single biggest evolution in Halo multiplayer since the Battle Rifle. It's so versatile and powerful that I think 343i is going to spend a lot of time balancing multiplayer.

There is a "performance issue" with the Taishan nuclear power plant in China's southern Guangdong province, with a purported leak that French nuclear company Framatome -- who part-owns the nuclear plant -- saying that they're working to resolve the issue.

CNN reports that the French company warned of an "imminent radiological threat", which also included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was "raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection outside the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down, according to a letter from the French company to the US Department of Energy obtained by CNN".

The Biden administration doesn't think that the nuclear plant issues in China are at a "crisis level" according to one of CNN's sources. Radiation levels in Hong Kong, which is around 85 miles away from the Taishan nuclear plant, "were normal" on Monday according to the Hong Kong Observatory, which monitors radiation around Hong Kong.

Starfield is a deep story-driven RPG built on hope, deep-space voyages across the stars, and a message of interstellar optimism.

Starfield, Bethesda Game Studios' first new singleplayer RPG since Fallout 4, has an almost mystical quality about it. The project invokes themes of deep space travel in futuristic, yet somehow-janky ships, bringing to mind a mix of Star Trek's sophisticated tech with Star Wars' gritty style. Add in a spark of hope and Bethesda-level depth and you have Starfield.

We haven't seen Starfield in action just yet, but the developers have given us lots of clues on what to expect. Starfield is a grand sci-fi space fantasy built on the same kind of hope and optimism that led to NASA's moon landing. The fictional Constellation is a celebration of the golden age of spacefaring, bringing to mind NASA's expeditious spirit. Constellation's messaging is a clear callback to Armstrong's legendary quote: "For all, into the Starfield."

Today 343 Industries revealed a ton about Halo Infinite's multiplayer. Lots of things are changing from the classic shooter sandbox we know and love, including a lot of modernized tweaks.

Halo Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer looks fresh, frenetic, and fun. But it's a departure from the Halo we grew up with. The shooter is adding new equipment like the grappling hook that will fundamentally change the flow, scope, and tactical nature of the game. This hook can fling you across the map, grab nearby items, and even grab fusion cores for destructive chaos.

Another big change is how overshields and active camo work. In Halo Infinite these will be equipment-like power ups that go into your inventory, allowing players to activate them when they want. The downside is that if you die without using it, the enemy can pick it up and use it too.

The new Battlefield has finally been revealed and an awesome gameplay trailer has now been unleashed... check out the very first Battlefield 2042 gameplay reveal:

It looks pretty damn good, with the footage labeled as "pre-alpha" the Battlefield 2042 gameplay that EA has shown off is insane. We have beautiful environments that I really want to see EA dive into more when it comes to the inner workings of its tweaked next-gen Frostbite engine powering Battlefield 2042.

Inside, we have gigantic fights with planes, helicopters, rockets, buildings, storms, and everything in between. The storms in Battlefield 2042 play a gigantic part of the game -- as EA has placed players in a futuristic dystopian world that has been ripped apart from next-gen storms. The resource shortages triggered by this creates the Second Great Depression, and inside of that -- is Battlefield 2042.