Latest News - Page 1399

Elon Musk is on a tweet rampage again, this time it's not about space -- well, it is a little -- and more about... dinosaurs.

The boss man behind SpaceX and Tesla as well as being The Dogefather, tweeted a meme about dinosaurs and followed it up with "If only they had spaceships, they'd still be around". I get the meme, but even if dinosaurs had spaceships it's not like they'd be thinking "oh nice, there's a spaceship over there... let's get into it, and fly off this planet!"

I'm surprised Musk has the tweet up considering the dominant dinosaur says "I'm fuc*in tryin" while a comment goes for the politically correct "she/he/they has no hair" and gets a reply of "are you afraid to misgender a dinosaur".

Alright, it seems our Russian robotic overlords aren't too far away from total and utter enslavement of the human race... yet... with Russia developing autonomous weapons and AI-powered technologies for the future of war.

In a new report published by CNA nonprofit research and analysis group in Arlington, Virginia -- titled "Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy in Russia" the authors report: "the first major piece of US research that articulates contemporary Russia's main initiatives, achievements, and accomplishments in AI and autonomy efforts and places those initiatives within the broader technological landscape in Russia".

"Russian military strategists have placed a premium on establishing what they refer to as 'information dominance on the battlefield and AI-enhanced technologies promise to take advantage of the data available on the modern battlefield to protect Russia's own forces and deny that advantage to the adversary".

Aaaaaaaaaaand away we go!

NVIDIA has just kicked off its marketing campaign for the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards, both of which will be unveiled at the Computex 2021 keynote next week.

It's all started on Twitter, with NVIDIA saying "Get Ready" and dumping a video teasing the new graphics cards. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will be based on the Ampere GA102-225 GPU with 10240 CUDA cores, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory -- up from the 10GB of GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3080.

Sony plans to spend 2 trillion yen ($18.3 billion) on strategic investments in the next three years, and gaming should be a major focus.

In a recent annual corporate strategy meeting, Sony confirms it has allocated 2 trillion yen for major investments across its key segments including gaming, music, streaming, and film. It's likely Sony is eyeing more major gaming acquisitions, but the company will diversify its investments and is careful with studio buyouts.

For example, Sony only made two gaming-related purchases during its third Mid-Year Plan when it had allocated 1.4 trillion yen for investments: Audiokinetic (Wwise) in 2019 and Insomniac Games later in the same year.

Uncharted 4 is the next PlayStation console exclusive to make the jump to PC.

In a recent investors presentation, Sony Interactive Entertainment confirmed that Naughty Dog's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be the latest PlayStation game coming to PC. This follows a push to the platform that includes games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone. More games will follow, Sony says.

There's no word on the next titles coming to PC but it's possible more games could show up on the Epic Games Store at some point. Sony also affirms that PlayStation games arriving on PC has delivered a 250% return on investment, which should incentivize the company to bring many of its old-generation heavy-hitting PlayStation 4 games over to the platform.

Next-gen consoles remove constraints from previous generations, but resource balancing is always an issue. Unreal Engine 5 will reduce these demands with new features aimed at efficiency and flexibility.

With higher-end specs like 7nm+ AMD SoCs with Zen 2 CPUs and Navi 2X GPUs, 16GB unified GDDR6 RAM, PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles represent massive leaps over the PS4 and Xbox One. The new machines are much more capable of hitting native 4K 60FPS (and sometimes 4K 120FPS) in specific games. But not all games are made equal, and dynamic resolution scaling is still necessary in many next-gen titles.

Luckily Epic has developers covered. Unreal Engine 5, which is being used on console games from The Coalition and Ninja Theory, will feature upgraded anti-aliasing that's specifically designed to work with its new Nanite virtualized geometry tools.

Alien Isolation developer Creative Assembly has been working on a new online shooter since 2017, and now the devs share the first image of the game.

Creative Assembly's new FPS game is a turning point for the developer and for SEGA. Today the devs dropped a teaser image of the new game and said it would be "radically different" from other shooters. The image clearly hints at major crossovers of SEGA franchises and the shooter could be a metaverse that converges with major wholly-owned SEGA IPs.

We don't know specifics, but SEGA did outline key details about the project's scope: Apparently it's a "Super Game."

Epic shows off Unreal Engine 5 running in real-time on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X hardware.

Unreal Engine 5 made its debut running on PlayStation 5, and Sony since invested $450 million into Epic. Now we get our first look at the engine running on Microsoft's new Xbox Series X hardware. Today Epic showcased more details about Unreal Engine 5 and the big benefits it offers developers. The new engine is incredibly efficient, powerful, and versatile, and while the latest video is more so aimed at developers, it gives gamers a good idea of what to expect from new next-gen exclusives.

Big highlights from the presentation include:

Microsoft confirms its E3 2021 event showcase for Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 10AM PST / 1PM EST.

Today Microsoft officially announced its E3 2021 plans. The company will stream a big 90-minute presentation full of first-party games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda, new reveals, third-party titles, and other service/feature updates.

Halo Infinite will be the major headliner and the teaser image shows various skins from beloved Halo generations as well as a glimpse at a new rifle, possibly a Brute carbine. Starfield will also be at the show (look at the lower left corner of the image).

Ubisoft plans to premiere Far Cry 6 gameplay footage during a special pre-E3 event on Friday, May 28 at 9:30AM PST / 12:30PM EST.

Ubisoft hasn't talked much about Far Cry 6 after it was delayed, but that's about to change later this week. The publisher plans to showcase in-game footage of Far Cry 6 possibly running on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X hardware. The game's screenshots look decidedly next-gen, but Ubisoft also confirmed the game is coming to PS4 and Xbox One as well.

We actually know a fair bit about Far Cry 6. The game takes place in the tropical Carribbean island of Yara, which is ruled by a cruel dictator named Castillo. Players start a guerrilla uprising against the presidente and use all kinds of crazy makeshift weapons including the Tostador, a flamethrower made out of old mufflers, as well as a CD-shooting gun. Expect lots of exploration, Ubisoft-style open-world encounters, lots of quests, and engagement-driven activities like crafting, collection, and customization.

Like its major competitors EA, Activision, Take-Two and Ubisoft, Sony is also doubling-down on mobile gaming.

In a recent annual corporate meeting, Sony confirms it will make more mobile games based on PlayStation IP. The company wants to use mobile games to reach more users and grow its influence while also monetizing the smartphone gaming market. Sony has enjoyed big success in the mobile market with Fate/Grand Order, which has generated $4 billion in lifetime revenues.

Sony Group CEO Kenichiro Yoshida confirms more anime-based mobile games are on the way.

Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan will discuss the PlayStation hardware, software, and services ecosystem today at Sony's annual investors event.

At Sony IR Day 2021, all of Sony's top brass are conducting presentations on the current state of Sony Group's segments. SIE President Jim Ryan will deliver a talk on the PlayStation business on May 27, 8:10 am JST, which is May 26 at 7:10pm EST here in the United States. The schedule was just made live on the IR Day website page.

"At the IR Day, which will be held for two days starting tomorrow, the heads of each of our business segments will talk about the direction of their businesses," Sony President Kenichiro Yoshida said in a recent corporate annual report.

Western Digital has unveiled its new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD, built on the kick-ass speeds provided to us by the PCIe 4.0 standard we have new SSDs with 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities.

The new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD offers PCIe 4.0-based speeds of up to 3600MB/sec (3.6GB/sec) which is pretty damn blistering. Western Digital notes that its new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD uses up to 30% less power than its predecessor, and is the perfect upgrade for your desktop gaming PC or laptop.

Western Digital also unveiled some new PlayStation 5-focused and Xbox Series X/S-focused SSDs under its WD_BLACK range, and you can read more about that right here. As for the new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSDs, they'll be available in Summer 2021.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, Cybershoes is now ready to sell the Oculus Quest version of its VR shoes on Amazon.com. The company also announced compatibility with a handful of new games.

Cybershoes recently fulfilled its Kickstarter obligations, and the company is now ready to sell the Quest version of the VR shoes to anyone who wants them.

"Launching on Amazon is huge for us because it allows easier access to Cybershoes for Quest gamers who might have been on the fence for our crowdfunding campaigns," said Michael Bieglmayer, CEO of Cybershoes. "Not to mention that fans will have a variety of fantastic games to choose from as soon as our box shows up on their doorstep! We can't wait for a whole new audience of VR gamers to experience what Cybershoes are all about."

Sony installed a pretty shitty amount of albeit super-fast PCIe 4.0-based SSD storage inside of its next-gen PlayStation 5 console, with just 667GB of usable SSD storage once the PS5 is up and running.

Luckily we have Western Digital to the rescue, with the company unveiling its new WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD that is designed to work with next-gen gaming consoles like the Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S consoles.

The new WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD comes in 500GB, 1TB, and its largest 2TB capacity. You're looking at up to 900MB/sec on the new WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD on the PlayStation 5 -- not bad, just short of 1GB/sec on the PS5. The company even provides a slick detachable stand for the drive, too.

Sony today confirmed its experimental AI division is currently working alongside first-party PlayStation developers to push new advanced technologies in upcoming PS5 games.

In a recent annual corporate report, Sony Group discussed how its internal divisions are teaming up and synergizing with one another. Many of these branches are partnering with the Sony Interactive Entertainment games segment to push new experiences, whether it be TV and movie adaptations of PlayStation IPs via PlayStation Productions, or big new breakthroughs in games-making technology.

The report announces that first-party SIE game studios will benefit from advancements in the Sony AI division. The R&D branch is currently researching Machine Learning dynamics, more specifically Reinforcement Learning, which could ultimately lead to ultra-realistic NPCs and incredibly immersive environments.

Astronomers have no discovered the oldest spiral galaxy yet, which has helped them answer a burning question in astronomy - "How and when did spiral galaxies form?".

Astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and located a galaxy that had a spiral that dated to 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery of this galaxy has broken all previous records before it and is now the most ancient spiral galaxy humans have ever observed. For those that don't know, 70% of galaxies are spiral galaxies, and one of those galaxies is ours - The Milky Way Galaxy.

However, looking back in time at the history of the universe, astronomers found that the proportion of spiral galaxies began to decrease, which suggests that there was a time when spiral galaxies began to form. Leading from that question is "why and how".

SpaceX will be using its Falcon 9 rocket to transport Firefly Aerospace's lunar lander that's carrying NASA payloads to the moon.

SpaceX has been awarded a new between Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based aerospace firm, and NASA. SpaceX will be using its Falcon 9 rocket to transport the Blue Ghost lunar lander, which was named after a rare species of firefly. Blue Ghost will be transporting 10 payloads for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, which is a part of a $93.3 million task order that NASA gave to Firefly Aerospace.

Shea Ferring, Firefly's SVP of spacecraft, said, "Firefly is excited to fly our Blue Ghost spacecraft on the highly reliable Falcon 9, which will deliver NASA instruments and technology demonstration payloads that support NASA science goals and NASA's Artemis program." Adding, "The high performance of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle permits a lunar transit using minimal Blue Ghost propulsion resources, thereby allowing the lander to deliver more than 150 kg of payload to the lunar surface."

One of Mark Cuban's websites has revealed that he has backed Polygon, a cryptocurrency that aims to transform Ethereum into a multi-chain ecosystem with secured Layer 2 chains.

Cuban has confirmed the news to Coindesk in an email where he said that he found himself using Polygon more and more, "I was a Polygon user and found myself using it more and more". Cuban also mentioned that he will be integrating Polygon into Lazy.com, which is one of Cuban's companies that allows users to show off their non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

However, Cuban did say, "Having more TPS and lower gas fees is not enough. There must be a CURRENT network effect and significant user growth. This is a challenge for most L1s and L2s because [with] few exceptions, marketing in the crypto universe is beyond awful." Polygon recently saw its user-base grow exponentially as investors are avoiding the painfully high gas fees that come with trading on the main Ethereum network.

A report from Russian state news agency Sputnik has revealed that Russia is planning on launching a nuclear-powered spacecraft towards Jupiter.

According to the report, Russia is scheduled to launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft that has been dubbed "Zeus". The spacecraft is designed to transport heavy cargo deep space, and is essentially a small-scale nuclear power plant. Currently, spacecrafts use solar power or gravity to accelerate in space, but according to NASA, nuclear-powered spacecrafts could speed up the return trips for astronauts.

With current means of acceleration, it would take three years for a return trip to Mars, but NASA says a nuclear-powered spacecraft could reduce that return trip time down to two years. Russia has launched more than thirty nuclear reactors into space, while the US has only ever put one nuclear reactor to space back in 1965. Zeus is powered by a 500-kilowatt nuclear reactor that it will use to propel itself.