Latest News - Page 1431

China has recently become the second nation in the world to land a rover on the surface of Mars successfully.

NASA has released a statement on its website regarding China's Zhurong rover sending back its first images captured on the surface of the Red Planet. The statement comes from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who said, "Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover!". Nelson goes on to say that the world will be patiently waiting for the discoveries that come out of the Zhurong rover.

Nelson also stated, "As the international scientific community of robotic explorers on Mars grows, the United States and the world look forward to the discoveries Zhurong will make to advance humanity's knowledge of the Red Planet. I look forward to future international discoveries, which will help inform and develop the capabilities needed to land human boots on Mars."

If you heard about space companies opening up space travel to consumers, and you thought you would pick up a ticket - you are going to need at least $2.6 million for a sea on Blue Origin's rocket.

Jeff Bezos' space exploration company Blue Origin is currently auctioning off one of its seats aboard the New Shepard rocket for its first-ever crewed launch that is scheduled to take a place on July 20. Sealed online bidding for the seat began back on May 5, and on May 19 unsealed online bidding has commenced. Essentially, "unsealed online bidding" means that people can see how much the seat is actually going for, and wow, it's not cheap.

So far, the leading bid for a seat on Blue Origins New Shepard is sitting at $2.6 million, but that figure is bound to be topped as the "unsealed online bidding" phase runs through to June 10. If you think that the money from the auction will be going to Bezos, you are wrong. The auction money will "be donated to Blue Origin's foundation, Club for the Future, to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] and help invent the future of life in space."

Friends fans will scream with joy at knowing the highly-anticipated Friends reunion is real, as HBO has just debuted the official trailer.

The trailer definitely pulls on some heartstrings if you are a Friends fan, as you can see the main cast sitting back on the couch at Monica and Rachel's apartment, reminiscing on some of the greatest moments of the series. The show will also feature some other stars such as Lady Gaga, Cara Delevingne, and more.

All of the cast is back doing what they do best, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) are seen in their classic armchairs in their apparent, Monica (Courteney Cox) is seen trying to win a competition, and Jennifer Anniston talking about if Ross and Rachael were in fact on a "break". HBO Max will be exclusively streaming Friends: The Reunion on May 27. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

China has officially become the second country in the world to successfully soft-land a rover on Mars, and now we are getting the rover's first images of the Martian surface.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA), which is running the operations of the Tianwen-1 mission, has released two images taken by the Zhurong rover. One image is in color, and the other is black and white. The color image showcases the rear of the Zhurong rover, where you can spot solar arrays as well as the surface of some rocks and that classic red Mars dirt.

As for the black and white image, that Zhurong rover used its obstacle avoidance camera located at the front of the rover. The rover used a wide-angle lens to capture the Martian horizon and two subsurface radar instruments that can be seen on the top left and ride hand of the image. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

The price of Bitcoin has been hit hard recently, and there are many factors at play that may have caused the dip.

China recently cracked down on the cryptocurrency market by banning financial institutions and payment companies from providing any and all services to cryptocurrency-related transactions. Along with that announcement is Elon Musk saying that Tesla is no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles. Both of these announcements impacted the price of Bitcoin, and now the currency is seemingly in free fall.

Now, a 4Chan user who claims he is an insider for a massive financial firm has said that the price reduction "will be a coordinated sell-off to drop the prices below a certain threshold and liquidate one certain stakeholder (can't outright say who he is but he bought a lot at the dip that he was partly responsible for)." The 4Chan user goes on to say that once the price of Bitcoin is reduced "plan is then to buy up all the reserves and essentially leave him bankrupted".

Apple is already having trouble getting its new 2021 iPad Pro out and into the wild, packing a gorgeous new Mini-LED display that the very same Mini-LED technology would be gracing a display near you inside of a new MacBook this year... but nope.

According to the latest reports from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple might be postponing the new Mini-LED-backlit MacBook laptops until 2022. Kuo wrote: "Launch of Apple's mini LED-backlit MacBook series may be postponed to 2022, according to industry sources".

There are other reports that Apple would launch the new Mini-LED MacBook Pro in limited quantities sometime this year, but with the way things are going with Mini-LED + Apple + Taiwan/TSMC supply issues + global tech shortages + COVID-19 pandemic hitting Taiwan again then 2022 would be a better year for the Mini-LED MacBook.

SpaceX is doing some impressive things with its Starlink satellite internet service, with tests from not long ago now seeing 300Mbps+ connections even when the satellite dish was covered in ice. Now, we're seeing huge 560Mbps download speeds on Starlink in new tests in Germany.

A user on Reddit posted about his experience with Starlink and ran some speed tests through Ookla's Speed Test of course, with download speeds that were hitting 542Mbps and 560Mbps for the first and second speed test on Starlink, respectively. Upload speeds remained at 38Mbps, while the ping was somewhere between 9-13ms which is more than acceptable.

But this is where Starlink download speeds, upload speeds, and latencies are all factors that can be changed at a whim. SpaceX has limited amounts of bandwidth per Starlink satellite, so the speeds and latencies to a particular user can vary depending on different factors -- this can range from the number of satellites in orbit above you, and the ground networks transferring data between the servers on the internet.

GeIL has just stepped up and into the DDR5 memory ring with the announcement of its next-generation DDR5 RGB high-performance gaming memory: Polaris RGB.

The new GeIL Polaris RGB DDR5 memory will be dropping in Q4 2021 and arrive in capacities starting from 16GB (single stick 1 x 16GB DDR5 module) through to 128GB kits (4 x 32GB DDR5 modules). GeIL has been working closely with motherboard makers when it comes to its next-gen Polaris RGB DDR5 memory and compatibility, and reliability on Intel and AMD's next-gen CPUs and chipsets.

GeIL will be kicking things off at 4800MHz with CL40-40-40 at 1.1V, while higher-end 6000MHz CL32-36-36 and 6400MHz CL32-36-36. There'll be 6800MHz CL36-44-44 and then the flagship 7200MHz CL36-44-44, you'll also be able to buy non-RGB versions of GeIL's new DDR5 memory.

I didn't think I'd see this today, yet here we are -- Pornhub has announced its Remastured Film Library, with the porn giant using AI and deep learning to restore some of the oldest erotic films ever made.

Pornhub used the power of AI and machine learning letting it watch over 100,000 adult videos and images from Pornhub's swelling library, giving their AI a "sexual education" and "teaching it a new dirty trick". That new dirty trick is the ability to colorize vintage porn for a modern audience.

The site has even colorized the first kiss ever captured on film, with The Kiss dating back to 1886 -- 135 years ago now. The 18-second movie was "denounced as shocking and obscene to viewers" at the time, so just imagine what those same people would say at some of the videos you can find online in 2021. But now, The Kiss is in 4K 60FPS thanks to AI and deep learning.

Phison and Cigent have just jointly announced they have created the industry's first and only range of self-defending storage devices that have cybersecurity built into the firmware itself. This built-in protection shields you from ransomware, data theft, and malicious insider theft.

The new Phison Crypto-SSD will arrive in a range of TCG-enabled Self-Encrypting Drives that are designed to pass FIPS 140-3 Level 2 certification. Now if you didn't know what FIPS 140-3 Level 2 certification was, it is industry-best security that Phison can use in its arsenal of storage products. You can read more on that here.

Cigent has revealed its own Secure SSD drives that were originally developed for US government and military use, are now the world's first commercially available cyber-secure SSDs. The new Cigent K2 and Denali Secure SSDs include multi-patented firmware-based cybersecurity features built into Phison's own PCIe NVMe controller firmware.

The entire cryptocurrency market took a gigantic dive in the last 12-24 hours, with hundreds of billions wiped from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, XRP, and everything in between.

Why? Well, China did just completely ban financial institutions and payment companies from providing any and all services to cryptocurrency-related transactions, going as far as warning investors against speculative cryptocurrency trading. Banks and online payment companies cannot offer people crypto-related services, including registration, trading, clearing and settlement, and more. Goooo China!

National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association and the Payment and Clearing Association of China -- 3 industry bodies said in a joint statement on Tuesday: "Recently, crypto currency prices have skyrocketed and plummeted, and speculative trading of cryptocurrency has rebounded, seriously infringing on the safety of people's property and disrupting the normal economic and financial order".

Nintendo's latest amiibo offers massive convenience in Skyward Sword HD: instant teleportation from the surface to the sky at any point in the game.

Skyward Sword HD has two parts of its world: The surface and the sky. Gamers will frequently go between the two as they adventure, and the sky offers things like a shop, whereas the surface is more for adventuring. In the original game you can only travel from the surface to the sky at specific points. But if you buy the new Loftwings amiibo, you can go between the sky and the surface worlds at any time.

Nintendo is offering a distinct paid convenience option with the amiibo figure. This is the equivalent of having to pay extra to unlock a Mark and Recall spell in Morrowind, for example. The Loftwings amiibo will also be priced at a premium $25, so you'll have to pay about $85 in order to get a more full and convenient Skyward Sword experience ($60 for the base game, $25 for the amiibo).

It's finally here: The Last of Us Part II just got a free next-gen enhancement patch on the PlayStation 5 that allows super smooth 60FPS.

The PS5 can natively boost in-game performance of some PS4 games, but others require specific patches from developers. First-party devs have rolled out patches for games like Ghost of Tsushima and Days Gone, and now The Last of Us Part II gets an upgrade to 60FPS.

The new patch doubles frame rates from 30FPS to 60FPS without touching any graphical presets, effects, or visuals. The game still runs at a native 2560 x 1440 (upscaled to 4K) with the update installed. The only thing that changes is the frame rates, which can be boosted to 60FPS.

Update: Now the entire mining dashboard is broken for me, I can see all of my mining rigs but they're all disabled/off in the eyes of NiceHash. The "current actual profitability calculator is still ticking away in real-time, as well as my unpaid mining balance. But there's some funny stuff going on with NiceHash right now.

NiceHash is the world's leading cryptocurrency platform for mining and trading, and in the middle of a gigantic crypto crash the company has halted any and all crypto wallet withdrawals and people are pissed.

I noticed it myself personally when I refreshed my NiceHash dashboard and noticed the new blue bar at the top that reads: "Wallet withdrawals are disabled as per our security protocols. Please read this article for more details". Well, right in the middle -- in the exact moment that the crypto market crashes and hundreds of billions of dollars is wiped off the market -- NiceHash is hacked and wallet withdrawals are disabled because of it.

If you're into cryptocurrency at all you would've noticed the last few days hasn't been good at all, but in the last 8-12 hours it has been a total bloodbath. But never fear, Elon Musk is here -- and Tesla, too with their diamond hands.

The SpaceX and Tesla boss tweeted out something fairly simple, saying that Tesla has diamond hands -- using a diamond + hands emoji on Twitter to tell the world that Tesla HOLD'd their Bitcoin during that flash crash seeing Bitcoin fall into its own footprint from $40K+ to $30K in hours.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies including a Musk favorite in Dogecoin, recovered in the hours after -- with Bitcoin climbing back up from $30,000 to $38,000 or so at the time of writing -- meanwhile Dogecoin dipped into the dark world of $0.22 after falling from $0.44 and has since recovered to around $0.36 at the time of writing.

With $387 million in quarterly revenues, Roblox's community-driven business model is turning heads. Could user-generated content find its way into games like Grand Theft Auto Online?

GTA Online is already a powerhouse of engagement and revenues. Since 2013, the game has continued to gain momentum with new content and strong microtransaction earnings. Take-Two arguably doesn't have to adjust GTA Online's model--the money-making machine seems to be running fine. But competitors like Roblox do offer some interesting ideas.

Like all live games, GTA Online is driven by its community. Rockstar, however, makes all of GTA Online's content--a stark contrast to how Roblox's creators make their own games to share with others. What if Rockstar moved to this model and gave players the tools to make their own low-code mini-games and experiences?

In a strange bit of news, Bethesda announces that it will be closing down its Bethesda.net forums and moving to Discord and Reddit.

The Bethesda.net forums are used by countless gamers to connect, share feedback, and keep up-to-date on a myriad of games from Fallout 76 to Doom. It's a catalog of tips, tricks, complaints, and a unique time capsule that captures different eras of Bethesda games. Those forums will soon be taken offline. In a move that has frustrated lots of gamers, Bethesda says it will close the forums by July 6 and erase a big portion of its community legacy.

Fallout 76 players in particular are aggravated by this announcement. The forums' Fallout section is incredibly popular with over 156,000 discussions ranging from the original cRPGs to the new live service game. The Fallout 4 section in particular is used as a reference for mods (the mod section has over 10,000 discussions). Fallout 76, however, has over 128,000 discussions and 40,000 of them are support posts.

Shortly after Randy Pitchford teased a new IP, Take-Two confirms a new Gearbox franchise will launch by April 2022.

2K Games will publish a brand new Gearbox franchise in FY2022 (ends April 2022), Take-Two Interactive confirmed in an earnings report. Outside of annualized sports games like NBA 2K21 and WWE 2K21, the 2K Games label will release two non-sports games during the period: one new game from Gearbox, and another re-release. The Gearbox title is set in a new franchise outside of Borderlands and is described as an "immersive core" game, a categorization that includes long-winded premium experiences.

"Immersive core games offer highly engaging gameplay where people spend hours and hours at a time, things like Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands, RDR, also things like strategy games like Firaxis and sports simulations," Take-Two President Karl Slatoff clarified in the call.

CD Projekt Group gives an update on the securities fraud lawsuits it is currently facing.

In a recent press release, CD Projekt Group confirms that four class action lawsuits have been filed against the company in regards to possible securities fraud. These lawsuits have been combined into one and a single lead plaintiff has been appointed, CD Projekt's counsel has said.

NASA and the European Space Agency launched the Solar Orbiter Sun probe back in early 2020, and now the probe has returned its first video of a coronal mass ejection.

So, what is a coronal mass ejection or CME? A coronal mass ejection is when the Sun shoots out a burst of energetic solar mass from its surface. These CME send geomagnetic shockwaves all across the solar system, and when a CME crashes into Earth, it can cause disruptions in radio signals, satellite usage, and even knock out power grids.

Using its Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager instrument, the Solar Orbiter was able to capture its first video of a coronal mass ejection back in February. Due to the Solar Orbiter coming out from behind the Sun and reentering line of sight with Earth, the orbiter was able to send back the footage for NASA. Researchers didn't expect the Solar Orbiter to send back any images or video at this point as its primary mission doesn't begin until November this year. NASA has called this situation a "happy accident".