Latest News - Page 1611

What if Nintendo sold customized Switch docks made out of old-school consoles? One modder answers the question with this nifty NES Switch dock.

Redditor and skilled modder IMOKRUOK created their very own Switch dock out of an old-school Nintendo Entertainment System, adding some much-needed style to the console-handheld hybrid's charging/video-out station. The dock itself is made out of an actual NES shell, but the internals have been scooped out and replaced with the Switch's internal dock PCB. There's a push panel at the top to protect the USB-C connector when it's not docked, and the NES even lights up when the system is slotted in.

There's even USB extenders that plug up to the NES' controller ports for extra peripherals. Plus the buttons actually work and you can press them to turn the dock on and off. Check out this gallery of images to see how the dock was built.

Fujitsu has announced the launch of new notebooks in the LIFEBOOK range. The LIFEBOOK U Series mobile PCs include the 13.3 inch U7310/D, the 14-inch LIFEBOOK U7410/D, and the 15.6-inch U7510/D. All of the notebooks are easy to maintain and feature replaceable batteries.

The machines also feature a new privacy camera shutter function to cover the camera lens, preventing any unauthorized access physically. Fujitsu also offers a pair of notebooks, including the U9310/D and the convertible U9310X/D, that are ultra-portable PCs. The convertible machine features a 360-degree LCD screen and supports pen input. All of the new models support the latest 10th generation Intel processors.

Optional Secured-core models offer protection from unauthorized external access to the BIOS and firmware. Fujitsu also provides the LIFEBOOK E/A series that includes the 14.0-inch LIFEBOOK E5410/D, as well as 15.6-inch models LIFEBOOK E5510/D, LIFEBOOK A7510/D and LIFEBOOK A5510/D. All of those models also utilize 10th generation Intel processors and can be fitted with up to 64 GB of RAM. Machines also have an option for up to 512 GB of encrypted flash storage and support Wi-Fi 6.

It's not that hard to run Fortnite at 90FPS on the PC even at 1080p on a mid-range graphics card, but on a smartphone? It's a growing trend that the gaming smartphone companies like ASUS and Razer have been doing, thanks to Qualcomm's continued push in SoC tech with its Snapdragon range of processors.

But now OnePlus is joining the group -- with the flagship OnePlus 8 smartphone now capable of running Fortnite at 90FPS. The OnePlus 8 smartphone packs a flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, as well as a display that can pump away at 90Hz.

OnePlus worked with Epic Games in order to balance the optimizations needed for the OnePlus-specific build of Fortnite, with GameSpot getting an exclusive look at the Unreal Engine-powered battle royale champion running at 90FPS on the flagship OnePlus 8 smartphone.

Being an astronomer means you sometimes find things in space that you or no one else has ever seen before.

In a new paper published in Nature Astronomers details one of those findings, and funnily enough, the finding is a galaxy that is shaped like a donut. This galaxy is called R5519, and astronomers estimated that its distance is 11 billion light-years away, which means what we are observing happened 11 billion years ago. According to Dr. Tiantian Yuan, lead author of the study, "It is a very curious object that we've never seen before. It looks strange and familiar at the same time."

So what is this galaxy doing exactly? Well, researchers believe that it's working like a star factory, but its producing stars at a rate that's 50 times greater than our Milky Way galaxy. Researchers also believe that this galaxy formed differently than a typical galaxy, which is usually when a galaxy forms on its own without any outside influence. In the instance of R5519, researchers believe that this galaxy is a "collisional ring galaxy".

Quantic Dream unleashed their games onto the Epic Games Store not too long ago, but now it's time to release their games on Valve's digital storefront: Steam.

Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls will all drop on Steam on June 18 -- with demos to all 3 of those games available right now on Steam with some links below. The games were originally released as PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 exclusives, but now Quantic Dream is giving PC gamers the chance to play their games -- as the developer shifts into making multiplatform games.

The developer has received "tremendous" reception from teh PC gaming community following the news that it would be making their games available on the PC. You can read more about that here.

AMD came in like a wrecking ball with its Ryzen Threadripper a few years ago now, but the legendary creator of Linux -- Linus Torvalds -- has just shifted over to that Zen goodness.

Linus Torvalds is upgrading his main machine for the first time in 15 years, and in some very interesting news, Torvalds has moved away from using an Intel CPU. Torvalds has upgraded to a new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X processor, the first time in 15 years that he hasn't used an Intel-based CPU in his main machine.

The news of the upgrade came from the recent Linux 5.7-RC7 announcement, where Torvalds said: "In fact, the biggest excitement this week for me was just that I upgraded my main machine, and for the first time in about 15 years, my desktop isn't Intel-based. No, I didn't switch to ARM yet, but I'm now rocking an AMD Threadripper 3970x. My 'allmodconfig' test builds are now three times faster than they used to be, which doesn't matter so much right now during the calming down period, but I will most definitely notice the upgrade during the next merge window".

SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO and founder Elon Musk and his partner Grimes welcomed a baby boy into the world of May 5, shocking the world by naming their son "X Æ A-12". But in the words of Hillary Duff, that is so yesterday.

Grimes was recently asked on her Instagram if she and Elon had changed their sons names because of California laws, with a fan asking: "What is the baby's new name". Grimes replied: "X Æ A-Xii".

Why did Grimes and Musk change their son's name? Because California law dictates that official names can only be spelled using the 26 letters available in the English alphabet, hyphens, and apostrophes. Grimes replied to another comment, saying: "Roman numerals. Looks better tbh".

I still remember wanting the NES Power Glove when it first debuted in the 90s, but the controller disappeared about as quick as it launched -- far ahead of its time. It's 2020 now, so let's re-visit, shall we?

Look Mum No Computer, or Sam Battle, has hacked himself an NES Power Glove into a quasi-gesture controller for his modular synth setup. Battle has to just slip his hand into the Power Glove, bend and wiggle his fingers, and he can make adjustments to the filter cutoff, pitch, pulse width, and volume of his audio.

Not just that, but he also made his own animatronic hand that takes input from the synth, to control the glove -- which, in turn, controls the synth. Geeky, garage band-y type of stuff and it's all with the Power Glove -- I love it.

The Switch Lite and transforming Switch have both sold over 800,000 units in the United States in April, the NPD Group reports.

April 2020 was a huge month for the games industry thanks to coronavirus lockdowns. Not only have digital earnings hit a new high of $10.5 billion, but game spending in the U.S. is up to an all-time new April high of $1.46 billion.

Now we have more insight on how these numbers break down. Hardware was up an incredible 163% YoY to $420 million, driven primarily by the Nintendo Switch's huge sales surge. The PS4 and Xbox One also saw a hefty uptick in sales too, despite being 7 years into their respective lifecycles and a brand new console generation on the way.

A neat little infograph from SatelliteInternet compiles Google Trends data to see which retro consoles U.S. states like the most.

The data compares current interest in three systems across the continental United States--Gamecube, Nintendo 64, and PlayStation 2. The info isn't representative of total historic console hardware or software sales, but moreso the overall current Google Trends data. Basically the idea here is to see what retro console that each state is currently searching for.

So far the PlayStation 2 is the most popular. These findings show gamers are more interested in replaying old PS2 games than other systems. Second is GameCube, which is interesting considering the Nintendo 64 has outsold the GameCube by 11 million units in lifetime sales. Still, though, the GameCube's game library is more mysterious and harder to find. The N64 takes last place in overall U.S. state interest.

According to a new graphic from Learn Bonds, the console and handheld hardware market has sold over 1.56 billion units since the Atari 2600's release in 1977. But some of the numbers are off.

So just how many consoles, Gameboys, Game Gears, and other handhelds have been sold to date? The latest findings from Learn Bonds give us ballpark figures of how 25 platforms sold across multiple geneartions, but there's lots of caveats.

Fist, some of the data is erroneous. The PlayStation 4, for example, has sold 110.4 million units to date, not 109.86 million. And the PS2's numbers from Sony are at 155 million, not 157 million. Other mix-ups include the 3DS' numbers, which at the time of writing sit at 77 23 million, not 75 million. Wii U sales are also slightly inflated--Nintendo's figures sit at 13.56 million.

Sony's PS Plus lineup for June gets a nice bump with Call of Duty WWII, but it's a bewildering move from Activision.

Today Sony confirmed Call of Duty WWII will be free on PS Plus in June. It's good news for gamers who can jump in and try it out and run through the campaign, but I'm curious why Activision greenlight this deal. Giving away CoD WWII will take attention away from Activision's real billion-dollar breadwinners: Modern Warfare and Warzone. It's a weird move because Warzone is already free-to-play and serves as an entry point to the franchise.

We've gone over why Warzone is such a big deal in our previous coverage, but ultimately it only works if everyone's playing it.

The worldwide digital games market raked in $10.5 billion in April 2020, a new record for one-month earnings,SuperData reports.

COVID-19 lockdowns have once again pushed digital game revenues to new heights. In April 2020, the digital market pulled in $10.5 billion, breaking March 2020's previous $10 billion record. April's earnings were up 17% YoY, and revenues have grown steadily quarter-over-quarter as key regions practiced shelter-in-place protocols.

Console was up a huge 42% YoY thanks to big monetization and sales across an array of games, including GTA Online, Fortnite, and Warzone. Mobile shot up by 14% YoY, and PC jumped by 12%. SuperData didn't release the per-platform earnings so we can't do a direct comparison. We have quarter-over-quarter numbers but not year-over-year.

Apple fans looking for a deal know that it's rare to find any significant discounts on Apple MacBook or other Apple items. Best Buy has a deal going today for Memorial Day that knocks a hefty chunk of money off the price of the mid-2017 MacBook Air. Shoppers can save $200 off the $999.99 standard price.

The discount brings the purchase price to $799.99. For the money, buyers will get the mid-2017 MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch display, Intel Core i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and 128 GB of storage. Graphics are handled by Intel HD Graphics 6000, and the machine has a pair of USB 3.0 ports along with a Thunderbolt 2 port.

It also has an SDXC port, multi-touch trackpad, and integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The battery promises up to 12 hours of use per charge. For those who don't want the older MacBook Air, Best Buy has a deal going on the latest version as well. The caveat here is that the discount is much lower at only $50 off the normal purchase price.

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, and while it's a day of remembrance, it's also a day of family get-togethers and good deals on all manner of items. Amazon has a special deal today that's only good for a few more hours that sees a hefty discount on the Microsoft Surface Pro X. The deal is good for approximately another 15 hours as of writing and knocks $249.01 off the regular price of the Surface Pro X tablet with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

For those unfamiliar with this tablet, it has integrated Wi-Fi and always-on 4G LTE connectivity. It's worth pointing out that this special price is for the tablet only, the keyboard accessory turning it into a laptop is an additional cost. The device is very thin at 7.3 mm and weighs only 1.7 pounds making it very portable and easy to use on the go.

It has a 13-inch screen and is powered by Qualcomm. The processor under the hood is the Microsoft SQ1 manufactured by Qualcomm for mobile productivity and always-on connectivity. For those wanting a full ready to go bundle, the Microsoft Surface Pro X Signature Keyboard with Slim Pen will add another $207.85.

We've been hearing about this new Matisse Refresh for the last few days, but it seems more details are emerging on the purported Ryzen 9 3900XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, and Ryzen 5 3600XT processors.

According to a new post on the Chiphell forums, AMD will be injecting a pretty decent 200-300MHz boost over the current CPUs. This means that the Ryzen 9 3900XT would have a CPU boost of 4.8GHz, up 200MHz from the Ryzen 9 3900X and its CPU boost of 4.6GHz.

The Ryzen 7 3800XT would boost at up to 4.7GHz, which is 200MHz more than the Ryzen 7 3800X with its current 4.5GHz boost -- meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 3600XT would boost at up to 4.7GHz, up from the 4.4GHz boost on the Ryzen 5 3600X: a boost of 300MHz.

Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, has said to reporters this past Sunday that the United States has been infected by a "political virus".

BBC reports that tensions between the United States' Washington and China's Beijing have become more escalated as the virus has continued to ravage the country. On top of that, President Donald Trump has laid the blame of the virus at the feet of the Chinese government, escalating tensions even further. Now, China's top diplomat has said that the United States needs to "stop wasting time and stop wasting precious lives" in its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr. Wang spoke at an annual news conference during China's parliamentary session and said, "some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage" and that they are trying to "push our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War". Mr. Wang went to the defense of China, saying, "Aside from the devastation caused by the novel coronavirus, there is also a political virus spreading through the US. This political virus is the use of every opportunity to attack and smear China. Some politicians completely disregard basic facts and have fabricated too many lies targeting China, and plotted too many conspiracies."

A big part of science is to make humans' quality of life better, and to do that, scientists create experiments and prototypes that can assist the instruments we use to interpret the world, or even replace them entirely.

Researchers from the United States and Hong Kong have developed one of the most important instruments the human body has - eyes. Yes, that's right, scientists have built a synthetic eye that was the potential of allowing blind people to see once again. The prototype is referred to as a "biomimetic eye", and is jam-packed with a whole bunch of sensors and an artificial retina.

One of the most difficult challenges the researchers face is interfacing the artificial eye with the brain, and making it so correct communication is occurring. At the moment, the biomimetic eye can render images, but the quality isn't fantastic, or even really close to what we see with our eyes. The biomimetic eye can render letters of the alphabet, and while that might sound extremely disappointing, the researchers behind the project say that as technology evolves, the biomimetic eye has the potential of being better than a real human eye.

If you thought every object out in the deep dark vastness of space was already discovered, you thought wrong.

Almost every day, astronomers spot something they haven't seen before, and only a few days ago, researchers from the University of Hawaii used the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System or ATLAS and found a Trojan asteroid called 2019 LD2. This asteroid was found to have a strange orbit, and also very active. On top of that it has an icy tail, and according to astronomers appears to be a unique "crossover" between an asteroid and a comet.

Trojans are usually found to be billions of years old, and most of the time, the ice has been melted due to exposure from the sun and they are no longer active. Astronomers also detailed that the newly found Jupiter Trojan has only been active for less than a year, suggesting that Jupiter may have captured the asteroid from a distant colder orbit. Another theory is that the asteroid was hit by another space rock that caused its once safe ice to be exposed. If you want to read more, check out the press release from the University of Hawaii here.

My wallet kinda cried a little when I originally saw ASRock's insane Z490 AQUA motherboard -- as it costs over $1000, but now it has been used by an overclocker to smash 4 world records.

Overclocker 'Splave' used the ASRock Z490 AQUA motherboard along with Intel's new Core i9-10900KF processor to secure himself 4 global first-place positions in benchmarks. The benchmarks in question are the wPrime-1024M, GPUPI for CPU, Cinebench R20, and Cinebench R11.5.

Splave smashed the wPrime-1014M benchmark, securing first place with the Core i9-10900KF with 35sec 562ms and the 10900KF processor clocked at 7070MHz. The GPUPI for CPU - 1B has a new record of 1min 25sec 15ms on the Core i9-10900KF and ASRock Z490 AQUA motherboard.