NASA made history this week when it safely landed asteroid samples for the very first time back on Earth, paving the way for researchers to develop a deeper understanding of these space rocks and the solar system's evolution.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered the capsule containing samples from the asteroid Bennu to the Utah desert at 10:52 a.m. EDT on September 24, 2023. Notably, Bennu is located approximately 4 billion miles away from Earth, and is the first asteroid sample NASA has ever collected, marking a milestone for the space agency.

The container containing the samples was immediately transported to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and has now been cracked open. According to a new blog post on NASA's website and posts on the space agency's social media channels, the lid was taken off the canister, and inside was "dark powder and sand-sized particles on the inside of the lid and base," per the NASA Astromaterials X account.

Intel's 14th Gen CPUs are set to arrive very soon, with rumors pointing to an October Raptor Lake Refresh launch. Although Intel has yet to announce the new generation formally, we've already seen benchmarks leak for the flagship Intel Core i9-14900KF and Intel Core i9-14900K flagship CPUs and seen that the new 6 GHz boost clocks on the high-end are delivering some impressive results.

Geekbench 6 scores for the upcoming Intel Core i9-14700KF CPU.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/93301/intel-core-i9-14900kf-cpu-benchmarks-leak-and-it-is-15-faster-than-the-13900k/index.html

Based on these results, the Intel Core i9-14900KF is set to be the world's fastest consumer CPU across single and multi-core tests. Today comes more info on the Intel Core i7-14700KF, which sits in the mainstream or more affordable region and is the successor to the popular Intel Core i7-13700KF.

A few days ago, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Client Computing Group at Intel, told PCWorld that the company's new Meteor Lake CPUs will make their way to desktop PCs in 2024. Turns out this is not the case, or at least the traditional desktop socket we're used to.

Clarifying the comments, Intel now states Meteor Lake is only coming to AIO desktop solutions like mini-PCs that use mobile chips directly soldered to the motherboard.

"Meteor Lake is a power efficient architecture that will power innovative mobile and desktop designs," Intel clarifies in a statement made to the German publication ComputerBase. "[This also includes] desktop form factors such as All-in-One (AIO). We will have more product details to share in the future."

PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan is leaving the company in 2024, Sony has officially announced.

Today marks the end of an era for PlayStation. Sony's gaming CEO Jim Ryan will depart the company when the FY23 timeline ends on April 1, 2024. Ryan will be temporarily replaced by Sony's Hiroki Totoki, who will step in as interim CEO of the games division while the board approves a new leader for SIE. Totoki also leads as Sony Corp's president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer.

Jim Ryan leaves behind a decades-long legacy at Sony. Having joined Sony's European games division in 1994, eventually rising to become president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. Ryan then became deputy president at the consolidated games branch in 2018, and eventually succeeded Shawn Layden when Layden left PlayStation in 2019.

Alongside the full reveal of the new Meta Quest 3 VR and mixed-reality headset today at Meta Connect 2023, the company unveiled its second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses collection, which "combines iconic style and cutting-edge technology." And they'll be here October 17, starting from USD 299.

Second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses launch on October 17.

Although smart glasses have been around for a while and haven't taken off, Meta's new Ray-Ban collaboration improves on the company's first-gen efforts while adding AI capabilities and revamping the audio with redesigned speakers optimized for bass, higher volume, and directional sound to deliver calls, music, and podcasts in noisy environments.

According to Meta, you'll get "double the bass," which sits on top of the ability to capture POV media with the new ultra-wide 12 MP camera that can capture 1080p videos of up to 60 seconds each. Meta adds that the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 Platform enabled higher-quality photos and video processing and faster access to features.

At Meta Connect 2023, Meta CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg was on hand to confirm that the Meta Quest 3 all-in-one VR headset is also now a mixed-reality device and is launching on October 10 starting from USD 499.99 for the 128GB version and USD 649.99 for the larger capacity 512GB model.

The Meta Quest 3 launches October 10, starting from $499.99, image credit: Meta.

Yes, the new Meta Quest 3 headset features cameras on the front, with full-color passthrough to deliver mixed-reality experiences on top of serving as the next-generation all-in-one VR headset from the company. Meta notes that this full-color Passthrough presents your surroundings with 10 times more pixels than the Quest 2.

Of course, the main functionality of the Meta Quest 3 will still be as a VR headset. On that front, the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 platform delivers double the GPU processing power than what's possible with the Quest 2 - alongside other features like faster loading for games.

The Apple Car is fast becoming something of a myth at this point, and it now seems increasingly unlikely that we will ever see it hit the roads. Especially not in the next few years, we're told.

With the Apple Car presumably still under development inside Apple using the same Project Titan name that we've been hearing for years, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has now hinted that the project has gone dark.

In a post on X, the social network previously known as Twitter, Kuo says that the Apple Car "seems to have lost all visibility," suggesting that there has been no movement on the project in terms of the supply chain and companies responsible for sourcing parts. The analyst goes on to hint that we won't see the Apple Car go into mass production within the next few years unless something dramatic happens.

Apple's 2024 lineup of new iPads and Macs will all use improved chips according to one well-connected supply chain analyst. But that might not be enough to make people actually buy them, they say.

Speaking in a larger Medium post about Apple's plans for next year, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple will use 3nm chips for its new models next year. That matches expectations that the new machines will all get upgraded M3 chips to replace the M2 family that is currently on sale. But the analyst also warns that a "lack of growth drivers" could mean that there will be a lack of growth for Apple's new products.

Growth drivers like the COVID pandemic and the initial switch away from Intel chips caused plenty of people to buy new Macs, especially of the laptop kind. But Kuo says that the lack of similar drivers could mean that the new Macs and iPads won't be as attractive.

When Apple announced the iPhone 16 Pro during the September 12 event it also announced that it would come with a new A17 Pro chip. The fastest chip it's ever put in an iPhone, the new silicon would power only Apple's best iPhones. The iPhone 15 would get the A16 Bionic of last year's iPhone 14 Pro, and things are set to continue in the same way next year - although with a slight twist.

Writing in a research note seen by MacRumors, Haitong International Securities analyst Jeff Pu believes that Apple will give the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro new chips next year. They'll reportedly be called the A18 and A18 Pro, with the lineup split between the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus and the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The analyst believes that both of the new chips will be based on the N3E fabrication process. That's chipmaker TSMC's new, second-generation 3nm process which is expected to be less expensive with improved yields compared to the current first-generation one. That first-generation 3nm fabrication process was behind the A17 Pro that powers the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

If you own an iPhone and live in the UK you could soon be able to see your bank balance in the Wallet app, according to a new report. While the feature is indeed coming, you'll need to be the proud owner of an account at one of a handful of banks to make use of the new feature.

The bank balance feature will be available to people who bank with HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, Monzo, and Starling, a 9to5Mac report says. What makes that interesting is that it's a mix of new fintech companies and traditional banks, with all of them using the UK's Open Banking API.

The use of the special API means that Apple never sees any of the data that is collected from the banks themselves, and all of it is stored on the iPhone in question. That means that it never touches Apple's servers either, something that will be a big positive for people who value their privacy.