Latest News - Page 1739

NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella makes an excellent point about how the Nintendo Switch lives along consoles as well as rivaling them.

As a handheld, the Switch offers something current consoles don't. That's why roughly 40% of surveyed console gamers in the U.S. own a Switch as well as a PS4 or Xbox One, per NPD data.

This brief statistic underlines how the Switch simultaneously lives in between and on top of current-gen systems. Many gamers own just a Switch due to its portability, but a good portion of dedicated console gamers have also double-dipped on the Switch to take their habits on-the-go. And for mobile gaming, it doesn't get any better than Nintendo's handheld-hybrid.

Over the last ten years of car manufacturing, designers have no doubt increased the number of cameras added to vehicles. But what about three cameras added to a rearview mirror?

Aston Martin is doing that very thing and will be showcasing a new rearview mirror design that allows the driver to see three live video feeds simultaneously. Aston Martin developed the new unit with assistance from Gentex Corporation and have called the design the Full Display Mirror, or FDM for short.

So how does this work? Two cameras are positioned on the car's exterior mirrors, and the final third mirror is located on top of the car's roof. It should also be noted that if the driver is experiencing bad weather or the cameras happen to trip up and malfunction, the driver can adjust the rearview display to whatever fits their needs. At the moment, Aston Martin hasn't said when they would be rolling out this new rearview mirror design, but we might hear some updates at CES, so make sure to tune in for that.

Scientists use long particle accelerators to move particles close to the speed of light, this testing probes the capabilities atomic and molecular structures.

While most of the testing is done on long mile plus-long particle accelerators, scientists at Standford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created a nano-scale version. The teams created a vacuum sealed silicon chip that uses an infrared laser to accelerate particles, all within less than a hairs width. So how does this work exactly? Imagine a flat silicon chip, but etched in on its surface there are channels and flowing in these channels are electrons.

When the laser is activated it fires a burst of photons that then hit the electrons and accelerates them forward to almost the speed of light. So how does this help research in anyway? For the particle accelerator to be useful it needs to achieve 1 million electron volts (1MeV) or 94% the speed of light, and to reach that stage it needs to pass through 1,000 previous stages. Electrical engineer, Jelena Vuckovic explained that this might not be as difficult as it may seem due to the accelerator being a fully integrated circuit. Meaning all critical functions for it work are built right onto the chip.

The significance of The Hubble Space Telescope cannot be overemphasized, so in an effort to honor the telescopes numerous discoveries, the United States Mint might issue a 2020 coin dedicated to it.

The Mint's American Innovation $1 Coin Program, which was introduced in 2018, aims at honoring significant innovations and innovators by releasing new coins dedicated to the achievements. The program is a multi-year effort that will see the release of one-dollar coins representing each of the 50 U.S states and their specific achievements. In this instance, The Hubble Telescope will represent the state of Maryland.

April Stafford, director of the U.S. Mint's Office of Design Management, said at a Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) meeting, "I love the dichotomy within this portfolio. We have one set of designs that look microscopically inside us and then another that looks way outside and into the universe." The committee favored the design of Hubble orbiting Earth (seen above) as it depicts the telescope doing what it does best, observing distant stars. If you are interested in reading more on this, check out this article here.

Astronomers at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics located in Pune, India, have come across something that is currently a matter of debate.

The team used the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) to discover an extremely large ring of hydrogen gas that's bigger than the galaxy it's surrounding. The gas is estimated to have a diameter of about 380,000 light-years, which is equivalent to about four times the size of our Milky Way galaxy.

The galaxy that the gas is surrounding is called AGC 203001 and is located around 260 million light-years away from us. Usually, galaxies that are found to have an abundance of neutral hydrogen gas are actively forming stars. Shockingly, (here's the kicker) AGC 203001 is showing zero signs of being an active galaxy, puzzling astronomers at how the hydrogen was distributed. If you are after more information regarding this discovery, check out this article here.

Two Amazon employee's who spoke out against the companies current environmental policies say Amazon heavily warned them that they could be fired if they continued speaking out.

The two employee's Maren Costa and Jamie Kowalski spoke to The Washington Post about how they believe that Amazon is currently attributing to climate change by still supporting the use of oil and gas with its cloud computing business. Costa and Kowalski said that they were called into official Amazon human resources meetings where they were accused of violating the company's explicit external communications policy.

Costa, in particular, said that an Amazon lawyer sent her an email that said if future violations were detected it could "result in formal corrective action, up to and including termination of your employment with Amazon." Engadget reached out to Amazon for a statement and received the following: "Our policy regarding external communications is not new and we believe is similar to other large companies."

If you have watched Star Wars or if you are even a little bit into science fiction or just general science for that matter, then you would know what light speed is. How would you like to travel at light speed?

If you aren't aware of what light speed is, then here's a quick science lesson for you. If you take a particle and accelerate it close to the speed of light which is 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second, the energy required to move that particle becomes infinite. Making it impossible for any form of mass to reach the speed of light or exceed it.

Luckily, Google Maps isn't moving particles, and can instead give us observers a novel hyperspace experience through a nifty effect. If you didn't know, Google Maps is now equipped with a new tool that allows users to navigate the solar system at break-neck speeds, and here's how to do it.

Since the release of The Witcher, many fans have been flocking to other forms of Witcher IP, whether that be the original book series of CD Projekt Red's games.

The reason for the love to overflow from the Netflix series over to the other forms of IP is the root cause of why the TV show did so well in the first place. At least, that's what analysts are saying. Since people were already heavily invested in the Witcher universe (games/books), the show was expected to be a success story even before it premiered due to there already being heavily established fandom.

Ashley A. Hinck, an assistant professor at Xavier University with an expertise in fandom, spoke to The Verge and said, " That's part of the love of being a fan; love and desperation. You want more even if it's not awesome. Having a built in audience and fans committed to viewing that universe across what platform it takes place in is important for companies." The Witcher's success story is making companies realize that if they want their shows to succeed regardless of whether they are deemed 'good' or not, that they will have to pay attention to what large communities of already established fans want to see.

3D printing has really taken off in recent years, but with Dubai wanting to be Dubai, they have taken it one step further than printing home use objects. They have decided to print an entire office...

Yes, you did read that correctly. Dubai is now not only home to the world's tallest building, but also the largest 3D printed building in the entire world. Above we have a top-down image of the structure, and according to Reuters, it will be used as an office.

The office was constructed by many 3D printers that combined traditional plastics with special cement. The structural integrity of the building was tested in Britain and China before printing began in Dubai. The office is one-story and has a floor space of 250 square meters. According to United Arab Emirates Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Mohamed Al Gergawi, "This is the first 3D-printed building in the world, and it's not just a building, it has fully functional offices and staff".

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has announced that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be the first with a transgender superhero, with Feige saying they're shooting a movie with the character right now.

During a recent Q&A session at the New York Film Academy, Feige was asked if there were any plans on adding more LGBT characters to MCU movies, with an asked-for focus on "specifically the T, trans characters". Feige replied, saying: "Yes, absolutely. Yes. And very soon. In a movie that we're shooting right now".

Rumor had it that Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would feature a transgender character, while we'll see the first gay character in the MCU in this year's The Eternals. Feige added: "You look at the success of Captain Marvel and Black Panther. We want the movies to reflect the audience and we want every member of our global audience to see themselves reflected on the screen".

Samsung might have its foot hold in the foldable smartphone game with its game-changing Galaxy Fold, but LG shouldn't be too far behind if a new patent is to be believed.

The folks over at LetsGoDigital have discovered a new LG patent that teases its own unique foldable design, with a fully flexible display that attaches to the smartphone itself. This means (at least in this patent form) LG's purported foldable smartphone could take on different designs in a way, all because of the unique way it uses the foldable display.

LG would have a near multiple monitor setup with the foldable smartphone shown here, with the possibility of two narrow displays, or a single larger display. Alternatively, you could use this LG foldable smartphone with its dual displays, leaving the traditional display on the front but adding one on the back. In this patent form, the hinge houses the dual cameras -- but we could see some under-display cameras if and when this LG foldable smartphone hits the market.

Samsung had a successful 2019 in many ways, but one of them was selling the most 5G smartphones in the world -- beating out expectations.

The company shipped over 6.7 million 5G smartphones in 2019 across its Galaxy S10 5G, Galaxy Note 10 5G and flagship Galaxy Note 10+ 5G smartphones. After these 3 smartphones hit the market, the new Galaxy A90 5G was launched and the future-laden Galaxy Fold 5G smartphone rounded out 5G dominance in 2019.

Samsung teases it will have the world's first 5G tablet debuting in Q1 2020, with the impending launch of the Galaxy Tab S6 5G -- of which we should see more of at CES 2020 next week. We should see much more 5G in 2020 than any year before it, and even more so going forward as Qualcomm is leading the charge with its new Snapdragon 865 processor which will power many of the next-gen smartphones of this year.

AMD has gone from stride to stride in the last few years, and all of that success has been towards this very moment -- AMD stock price just reached a new peak of $49.10.

The last time that AMD stock was this high was back on June 21, 2000 during the time of the 1GHz race with Intel. Things went down from there, but back up into the $35-$40 range in 2005-2006, when AMD was kicking some ass with its Opteron processors. But then things went really far south until Lisa Su took over as CEO in 2014 and turned things around, big time.

AMD now has some kick ass products all over the place, between the new Zen 2-based CPUs on 7nm with Ryzen 3000, Ryzen Threadripper 3000, and EPYC processors -- not to forget the new 7nm-based Navi-powered Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5500 series graphics cards. AMD is also powering the next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles with a semi-custom SoC on the 7nm node, meaning the company is literally firing on all cylinders right now in all the right ways.

Apple is expected to power its new iPhone with a next-gen A14 processor, something that TSMC will be making for the company on its new 5nm process, according to a new DigiTimes report.

The current generation iPhones are powered by the A12 and A13 processors, each on the 7nm from TSMC -- but the new iPhones will shift down to the 5nm node for its next-gen A14 chip. TSMC is expected to begin manufacturing the new A14 chip on 5nm in Q2 2020, and will power the 2020 iPhone.

TSMC got serious about its 5nm production in June 2018 where it invested a huge $25 billion, and now we're seeing the fruits of that labor two years on. Even back then, I wrote "Apple should be interested in TSMC's focus on 5nm as they've been using TSMC for chip production for years now".

LG has announced its new lineup of 2020 8K TVs ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2020), with 8 new TV sets that range in size between 65 and 88 inches -- all of which have built-in support for Apple HomeKit and AirPlay 2. The new 8K TVs expand on LG's existing 8K TVs.

There will be a few premium TVs in LG's ever-growing Signature OLED 8K range of TVs, as well as new 8K LG NanoCell TVs in both 65- and 75-inch. LG includes a new AI processor inside of each of its new 8K TVs, something that taps deep learning to improve picture and even sound quality. The AI chip LG uses will recognize faces and text on the screen, and the optimize and sharpen them for natural skin tones, better defined facial features, and cleaner characters.

LG bakes in support for Apple HomeKit and AirPlay 2, letting new LG 8K TV owners use their AirPlay 2 devices and control them through Siri voice commands. Apple's HomeKit on the other hand will see your new LG 8K TV turn up in Apple's own Home app.

Samsung has some great news ahead of CES 2020 with the company receiving certificates of premium display from Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), the largest inspection and testing agency in the world.

The agency awarded certificates for Samsung's new 4K OLED panel, with certificates provided for 'Premium Display (Content Creation)' and 'Premium Display (Gaming)'. SGS added that the certified specifications for Samsung's new 4K OLED provide an "optimized display environment for online game playing, content creation, and personal live streaming shows".

Samsung Display's new notebook panels satisfied the "rigid evaluation standards by depicting color within the DCI P3 100-percent color range, as well as providing an unsurpassed HDR True Black 0.0001nit color level, and an incredibly fast 0.2ms response time".

So, we now know that STALKER 2 will be powered by the Unreal Engine -- something that Unreal Engine creator and game developer Epic Games pushed as we went into the New Year.

STALKER and STALKER 2 developer GSC Game World reluctantly announced the news over Twitter, explaining: "Frankly speaking, we wanted to hold this particular announcement for a while. But our colleagues at Epic accidentally made a New Year surprise for everyone, including us".

The developer then goes onto explain that yes, it will be using Unreal Engine for STALKER 2 and that it gives GSC Game World the chance to "make the game you wait for with the atmosphere of tension and mystery the flesh and blood of the STALKER universe". But it was the following part that was the surprise, that STALKER 2 will have a vast modding base thanks to Unreal Engine.

Have you got $100,000 burning a hole in your pocket? Got a significant other with (very) expensive taste? I present to you the Caviar Solarious Zenith Full Gold iPhone 11 Pro:

Super-famous YouTuber MKBHD got his hands-on the new Caviar Solarious Zenith Full Gold iPhone 11 Pro smartphone, with Caviar being a Russian company that takes normal products and makes them into uber-expensive pieces of luxurious goodness. The company has modified (and made more expensive versions of) iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods, and various Samsung smartphones.

If the $100,000 on a single iPhone 11 Pro wasn't enough, you might want to consider the iPhone 11 Pro Max in 512GB, with the flagship Caviar iPhone 11 Pro Diamond Christmas Star costing $144,660. The company describes the $144,600 custom iPhone 11 Pro Max as an "expression of special respect to this holy day, Caviar creates the only iPhone in the body of 750-content gold in the world. In the center of the composition, there is a shining diamond of 3 carats that symbolizes the Star of Bethlehem guiding the Magi to the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Eight small diamonds echoing the star endings frame it. The lower part of the body is adorned by a gold bas-relief with the scene of Jesus Christ's birth".

AMD was the first to get to 7nm with consumer GPUs and CPUs and while we know 5nm is on the way, Bitcoin ASIC design houses in Bitmain and Canaan will be the first with 5nm chips from TSMC to play with.

TSMC gave its freshly-made 5nm products to Bitmain in the last weeks of December 2019, while Canaan will receive some 5nm ASICs in the coming months of Q1 2020. Canaan is well on its way to become the second-largest cryptocurrency mining manufacturer, with the company being the only mainstream mining company that has support from both Samsung and TSMC.

Don't go thinking that 5nm is going mainstream right now, as the current average yield of TSMC's new 5nm process is at around 80% -- a 7-15% increase over the 7nm process. We should expect another year or so to pass before 5nm chips reach volume production, and while Bitmain and Canaan might be enjoying, or to soon be enjoying 5nm, it doesn't mean CPUs and GPUs will be on 5nm this year, or even in 2021.

A juicy new rumor on NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GPU (which I revealed back in April 2018) has arrived to kick start the New Year for Team Green, with the Taipei Times reporting that NVIDIA's new Ampere GPU architecture could be up to 50% faster, at half the power consumption of Turing.

NVIDIA will want to fight back big time against AMD's upcoming 'Big Navi' that will come in the form of the currently rumored Navi 21, with NVIDIA hitting the new 7nm node just like AMD is currently on with its Navi-based GPU and the Radeon RX 5500 and RX 5700 series graphics cards. But this news of a 50% hike in performance at the same power consumption is big on its own.

Taipei Times is reporting from a client note by Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co that NVIDIA's new Ampere GPU would have a 50% increase in graphics performance while "halving power consumption". NVIDIA has been king of efficiency for a while now and that is on the 16nm, 14nm, and 12nm nodes -- but it looks like it has struck lightning on 7nm if these rumors are true. We could well see the '50% faster performance' in the ray tracing (RT) side of things, and not a general 50% performance improvement.