Latest News - Page 1411

ASUS has just announced its flagship new ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 gaming laptop, packing Intel's new 11th Gen Core i9-11900H processor -- but I think more importantly: a gigantic 17-inch 4K 120Hz display.

4K at 120FPS isn't easy so ASUS has paired the new Core i9-11900H processor with NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU that through Dynamic Boost can chew down 140W. ASUS has provided some monster cooling inside of its new ROG Zephyrus G17 gaming laptop in the form of its innovative "AAS Plus" cooling system, which will physically lift to keep the laptop running cooler.

Yeah, the actual keyboard raises at a 5-degree angle which opens up wide vents that let the Arc Flow fans have more room to pull more air into the laptop. ASUS also uses liquid metal thermal compound on the CPU that runs Intel's new Core i9-11900H as cool as it can -- but also more importantly, as quiet as it can. You don't want a huge, stomping 17-inch gaming laptop that's loud AF, either.

Razer has just unveiled its new Blade 15 gaming laptop which packs Intel's just-released 11th Gen Core CPUs codenamed Tiger Lake-H as well as NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs.

Inside of the new Razer Blade 15 we're looking at up to the Core i9-11900H processor (2.5GHz base block and up to 4.9GHz boost clock), a GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and up to a 4K touchscreen. There are plenty of 1080p and 1440p resolution options with super-fast refresh rates, too, so don't worry.

Razer has coated its new Blade 15 gaming laptops with a fingerprint-resistant coating, so you shouldn't get your grubby mitts all smudged across the laptop after a while. The company has also made the new Blade 15 Advanced gaming laptop thinner at the same time, at just 15.8mm thick -- Razer claims it now has the smallest 15-inch gaming laptop with a GeForce RTX series GPU.

Intel has just launched its new 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake-H" processors with the shining star of the show being the flagship Core i9-11980HK processor, which promises ultra-performance inside of the next generation wave of laptops in 2021.

The new Intel Core i9-11980HK offers up 8 cores and 16 threads on the new Willow Cove architecture, on Intel's in-house 10nm SuperFin technology. We have a fully unlocked processor with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) for "enthusiast overclocking" and Intel Speed Optimizer for easy overclocking.

There's 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes on the Core i9-11980HK as well as 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, more than enough to cover the fastest discrete GPU that can go alongside the new CPU -- being NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 GPU -- as well as a couple of ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

Valve could bring its old-school classics and new games over to consoles in some form...but the company plans to subvert all expectations.

After teasing more singleplayer Half-Life games are on the way, Valve's Gabe Newell is once again stirring up his fan base with soft-spoken words. This time Newell hints that Steam games could eventually show up on console platforms like PlayStation and Xbox.

In a recent on-stage event in what looks like a primary school, Newell was asked a particularly exciting question by a student: "Will Steam be porting any games on consoles or will it stay on PC?"

Intel has finally rolled out its new Tiger Lake-H processors in both 6-core and 8-core CPU form and all on the new 10nm node. The new flagship Core i9-11980HK processor is an 8-core, 16-thread chip at up to 5.0GHz and is the first overclockable 10nm CPU from Intel.

Intel is debuting its new Willow Cove core architecture inside of the new 11th Gen Core-H series CPUs and on its 10nm SuperFin technology. The company is touting a 19% performance improvement over the previous generation, with Intel using a 45W power envelope on the new 11th Gen CPUs -- except for the flagship Core i9-11980HK processor which has a TDP between 45-65W. The rest of the stack are 35-45W offerings with between 6 and 8 cores.

You've got Thunderbolt 4 support, up to DDR4-3200 memory support, and Intel Optane Memory H20 offering second-gen Optane + NAND hybrid SSD for what Intel says will deliver "amazing responsiveness in real-world client usages".

EA announces its EA Play Live showcase will return July 22 and we should expect heavy hitters to show up.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on games development, but it's also messing up annual game showcases. E3 2021 is all-digital now, and EA's own sizzle event has been pushed back by nearly a month. EA Play Live will now be held on July 22, over a month after E3 2021 premieres on June 12-15.

EA is clearly ramping up big things. We should expect some gigantic titles at EA Play Live including but not limited to:

HTC revealed its new lineup of VR headsets, which includes a new Vive Pro 2 with improved resolution and refresh rate over the original. The company also revealed the Vive Focus 3, a standalone VR headset with similar features as Facebook's Oculus Quest 2, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 SoC driving it.

Unfortunately for gamers, HTC isn't kicking off the VR version of the console wars any time soon. This headset is targeted squarely at businesses, with the primary focus on workplace process training. To that end, HTC has put significant resources into building out an ecosystem that supports current businesses and will soon invest in VR solutions for training.

HTC's Vive Focus 3 is a Qualcomm XR2-based standalone headset with dual 2.5K RGB displays (the same ones found in the new Vive Pro 2) that operate at 90Hz. The headset features 6-degrees of freedom inside out tracking for both the headset and the controllers. The Focus 3 also includes adjustable IPD spacing, with the widest range available in any commercial headset. 57mm to 72mm with an analog adjustment dial for fine-tuning.

HTC just upped the ante for VR headset makers. The newly announced Vive Pro 2 cranks up the resolution, refresh rate and field of view. And this one supports SteamVR tracking and the Vive Wireless Adapter.

HTC today announced the next addition to its Vive Pro high-end VR headset lineup. The company currently offers the Vive Pro, Vive Pro Eye, and Vive Pro Secure headsets for business and arcade use, and by the end of the month, the Vive Pro 2 will join the line for use cases that demand the highest visual fidelity.

The Vive Pro 2 features the same overall design as the original Vive Pro, retaining the visor shape, head strap design, and SteamVR tracking compatibility. The big changes lie under the hood, with 120Hz 2448x2448 pixel fast-switching RGB LCDs, one for each eye, giving it a total resolution of 4896x2448. For comparison, HP's Reverb G2 sports a pair of 90Hz 2160x2160 displays.

Back in 1977, Voyager 1, a deep space probe, was launched, and since then, the space probe has been traversing the stars, gathering and relaying information back to Earth.

Voyager 1 is humanity's most distant space probe, and recently it detected what has been described as a "hum" from outside of our solar system. At the moment, Voyager 1 is located around fourteen billion miles from Earth, and while the space probe was exploring interstellar space, it detected a "hum" that is suspected to have been caused by plasma or ionized gas.

Stella Koch Ocker, a doctoral student in astronomy at Cornell University, discovered the sound in Voyagers data pool from its Plasma Wave System. The sound is expected to have come from plasma shockwaves and was "very faint and monotone," according to Ocker. While researchers believe that the sound is coming from interstellar gas, it's yet to be confirmed what the source of the sound is.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, alongside SpaceX, Axiom Space, and Virgin Galactic, will soon launch an entirely new industry - space tourism.

This year we could see Blue Origin and SpaceX take civilians to orbit, and while that would certainly be an incredible trip, a journey and multiple-day stay on the International Space Station (ISS) may be more appealing to some. NASA and Axiom Space have agreed that civilians can travel to the ISS, and Axiom's Mission 1 will take four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to the ISS to spend eight days aboard the floating laboratory.

The crew will include a former NASA astronaut and three businessmen, all of which will need to be approved by NASA and its international partners. Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA Headquarters, said, "We are excited to see more people have access to spaceflight through this first private astronaut mission to the space station. One of our original goals with the Commercial Crew Program, and again with our Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Development Program, is that our providers have customers other than NASA to grow a commercial economy in low-Earth orbit."

China's Long March 5B rocket recently re-entered Earth's atmosphere, with the majority of the rocket burning up before remnants hit the Indian Ocean.

Now, Chinese media is firing back at the United States and NASA, saying that it's "anti-intellectual" to claim that debris from the out-of-control Long March 5B rocket was "risky". Global Times has published an op-ed that states, "During the nearly 60 years of space activities, the calculated fall of rocket debris has not caused casualties so far. In addition, the risks of falling rocket debris are the same, no matter whose rocket it is. It is seriously anti-intellectual to claim that China's rocket debris is especially risky."

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that China was tracking the rocket's trajectory and issued public statements on its situation in advance. Additionally, Hua claimed that Beijing was being treated unfairly and pointed towards the debris that fell to Earth in Washington from a SpaceX launch in March. "American media used romantic rhetoric like 'shooting stars lighting up the night sky. But when it comes to the Chinese side, it's a completely different approach", said Hua.

Back in September 2016, NASA's $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission launched with the space probe arriving at the 1,650-foot-wide asteroid named Bennu in December 2018.

Once the OSIRIS-REx probe arrived at Bennu, it began a close-up study of the asteroid to determine the best possible location to spiral down and collect samples. In October 2020, the probe dove down to collect samples of the asteroid. The probe collected many samples such as dirt and gravel, so much, so the probe's sampling mechanism was unable to close correctly.

On May 10, the probe fired its main thrusters to begin its 1.4 billion-mile journey back to Earth, where its sample capsule will land in the Utah desert in September 2023. The journey from the asteroid to Earth will take probe two years, and throughout its journey, it will be traveling at a velocity of 595 mph. When the capsule is retrieved in 2023, it will be the biggest haul of space samples the US has received since Apollo moon rocks.

Twice within the last month, US military vessels have had to fire warning shots at Iranian war vessels for "unsafe and unprofessional" maneuvers.

According to TheGuardian, a US coast guard ship had to fire thirty warning shots at thirteen Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGCN) warships that were fast-approaching US navy vessels. According to John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesperson, the warning shots were fired at the Iranian ships after they came as close as 150 yards to US ships. Kirby said, "It's significant ... and they were acting very aggressively."

Kirby also stated, "After the second round of warning shots, the 13 fast attack craft from the IRGCN broke contact." As previously mentioned, this is the second time within a month that US ships have had to result in firing warning shots at approaching Iranian ships. In April, another US ship had to fire warning shots after three IRGCN vessels came close to an American patrol boat in the Gulf.

Netflix has just thrown three of its TV shows onto the chopping block. Each of the shows have been canceled with no further seasons to be renewed.

Cinemablend has reported that two newcomer TV shows and one fan-favorite of the platform won't be getting renewed for new seasons. The shows that have sadly been canceled by the network are; The Irregulars, The Last Kingdom, and The Duchess. Netflix has renewed The Last Kingdom a few times, and now the platform has said that season 5 will be the last season of the show.

As for The Irregulars, when the show was released, it made it #1 on Netflix for an entire day and placed in the Top 18 for 18 days. However, Netflix has found that the show isn't performing as it would have liked versus similar shows such as Bridgerton. Netflix has made the decision not to fund production costs for the second season of the show. The Duchess is in a similar boat to The Irregulars, as the streaming platform has now canceled season 2 of the show.

Elon Musk has been a long advocate for the now extremely-popular cryptocurrency Dogecoin. Now, the billionaire is asking if Tesla should accept payments in Dogecoin.

Back at the end of March, Musk announced that it was now possible to purchase Tesla vehicles with Bitcoin, which reinforced the idea that cryptocurrencies will eventually become more apart of everyday society. Now, Musk is publicly asking his 53 million Twitter followers if Tesla should accept Dogecoin as payment for vehicles. At the time of writing this, the public vote is sitting at 81% saying "yes", and only 22% saying "no".

Since the Tweet from Musk is so recent (10 minutes ago at the time of writing this), it's uncertain how the public vote will affect the price of Dogecoin. However, if the jump Bitcoin took when Tesla announced it was accepting the currency, is any indicator ($54K to $57K), we can expect that Dogecoin would have the same kind of reaction if Musk allowed purchases in Dogecoin.

The first glimpse of the prequel TV show to the award-winning Game of Thrones has been released by HBO. Introducing House of the Dragon.

House of the Dragon is based 300 years before the events of the now concluded TV series Game of Thrones. If you haven't already gathered it from the name, House of the Dragon will focus on the a time when House Targaryen ruled over Westeros. Daenerys Targaryen's ancestors Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Prince Daemon Targaryen, will be the show's centerpieces, Emma D'Arcy will play Rhaenyra, and Matt Smith will play Daemon (as seen above).

HBO has released a set of images showcasing some of the characters in the show. Actor Steve Toussaint will portray the Lord Corlys Velaryon, or "The Sea Snake". British actress Olivia Cooke will play Alice Hightower, and Rhys Ifans will play her father, Otto Hightower. House of the Dragon is scheduled to release at an undeclared date in 2022. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

The latest version of GPU-Z is here with GPU-Z 2.39 supporting Intel's new Rocket Lake and their integrated GPUs, AMD's upcoming mobile RDNA 2 chips, NVIDIA's new CMP crypto mining GPUs, and more.

GPU-Z now supports NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3050 and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPUs that are both based on the new GA107 GPU, as well as at least 5 of NVIDIA's new Crypto Mining Processor (CMP) cards and AMD's unreleased mobile RDNA 2-based GPUs.

The new software also supports AMD's just-released highly-binned Navi 21 XTXH GPU, which is powering the range of new uber-high-end custom Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards. There's also the usual list of bug fixes as well, which I've got detailed and listed for you below in the GPU-Z 2.39 changelog.

Samsung is hard at work on its next-gen Exynos SoC which will be competing against Qualcomm's next-gen SoC, and Apple's current-gen M1 chip and next-gen M2 chip.

But what will be inside of Samsung's new SoC is going to be interesting: it's aimed at notebooks and will pack an integrated custom GPU from AMD which I'm sure is based on the RDNA 2 architecture. The news is coming from The Korean Economic Daily which said an industry source told them: "The new Exynos will offer improved functions, including extraordinary computing power and battery efficiency, by utilizing a 5-nanometer processing technology. It's good for both laptops and smartphones".

We should expect Samsung to unveil a new family of Exynos SoC-powered laptops and smartphones using its new chip, which will be made on the fresh 5nm node. We should see the Exynos SoC scale up from smartphones with lower power and TDP through to laptops with varying power and TDPs.

Intel's largest launch in a very long time will be later this year with its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" CPU family, which will reportedly be launching in November 2021 according to the latest rumors.

The introduction of Alder Lake-S will usher in Intel as the first with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory support, after AMD held PCIe 4.0 over Intel's head for a couple of years there, Intel will be the first with both PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support. PCIe 5.0 will be on all 600-series motherboards, but we will see some boards launching with DDR5 or DDR4 support -- some of that will be up to motherboard makers.

Wccftech says that Intel has told its partners that it is "planning to launch Alder Lake S in November of 2021. As with all timelines, this can move backward or forwards depending on a few variables but for now this has been communicated to partners and is mostly fixed".

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an incredible game, a system seller for the Nintendo Switch... but what about BotW in the glorious 8K resolution with some enhanced ray-traced graphics. Check it out:

YouTube channel "Digital Dreams" has done just that: got The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild up and running on the PC through the Wii U emulator CEMU, on top of that they ran Revolvere's "REVO ReShade REDUX" shader that adds Pascal Glicher's "Screen-Space Ray Traced Global Illumination" shader for some software-based screen-space ray-tracing effects.

If you already loved Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch, which I found to be an incredible experience in portable mode and not docked -- then running it on the PC through CEMU and cranking the resolution to 8K (!!!) and flicking on juiced-up graphics is music to my ears.