Latest News - Page 2188

While there's a global GPU shortage because of cryptocurrency mining with Ethereum and other alt-coins, users of The Pirate Bay have found JavaScript code in the website that "borrows" your CPU to mine Monero.

Not every TPB user is noticing the Monero coins being mined, but when you feel your PC running sluggishly, check Task Manager and see if your CPU usage is maxed out. But it's not something nefarious, as the website has spoken with TorrentFreak and said it was testing the Monero mining feature as a new way to bring in revenue... eventually replacing ads.

You can block the miner for now, by modifying your browser settings, or ad-blocker add-ons for your web browser. It's an interesting way to drive revenue without ads, making me wonder if this is the future of ads on the web.

A few weeks ago there was a story that surfaced that AMD had intentionally disabled two entire CPU dies on their new Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, but AMD denied this and the world kept spinning.

Well, weeks later and we're back with the same overclocker delidding AMD's champion, the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, with der8auer pulling it apart to find out that it really is an EPYC server CPU underneath. This means that the single CPU dies on Threadripper are Ryzen 7 1800X, with 8C/16T - but times this by four and we have a huge 32C/64T.

We saw this in those early photos of the four CPU dies, but they were said to be dummy/non-working CPU dies. It might not make sense, but AMD would be making their EPYC server CPUs and then whatever yields can't handle the full 4 x 8C/16T gets knocked down to Threadripper 1950X by easily disabling the bugged-out CPU dies.

Turn10 Studios confirms that Forza 7 will clock in at a huge 95GB on Xbox One, but that huge install size is split between the game disc and a 50GB download.

Microsoft's first-party games are often juggernaut-sized leviathans that quickly eat up your internal data--Halo 5, Gears of War, Forza, you name it--and Turn10's racing opus Forza 7 is no different. Xbox One owners can look forward to almost 100GB of data being taken up by the game: the racer takes up 95GB of space, but the Blu-ray disc only holds 45GB and users will have to download the remaining 50GB on their own time. Luckily, that 50GB update is purely optional (for game disc owners anyway) and isn't required to play the game, but you'll need to download it if you want the definitive Forza 7 experience. Xbox One X owners can expect yet another big update for the 4K assets and performance tweaks.

"Ever since we announced Forza 7, we've called this our biggest game, and the numbers bear it out: more than 700 cars at launch, 32 of the world's greatest tracks (our largest lineup ever), a massive career in the Forza Driver's Cup, and of course a huge list of ever-changing multiplayer and competitive modes that will keep players busy no matter their skill level or driving preferences," Turn10 said on its official blog.

HP has just unveiled its new and improved dual-processor Z8 workstation PCs, with the new machines boasting two Intel Skylake-SP Xeon CPUs with 56C/112T, up to 3TB of DDR4 RAM, mega loads of storage, and 9 x PCIe 3.0 slots, oh and 10GbE networking.

HP's new Z8 workstations will be some of the best off-the-shelf (can I even say that with everything online these days) PCs you can buy, which is a dying breed with so much moving into the cloud and into supercomputers, and even the growing power of quantum computing with companies like D-Wave.

Inside of the new HP Z8 workstation PC are 2 x Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processors with 28C/56T of CPU power in total, both rocking 205W TDP each. This means 410W of heat needs to be moved from the CPUs alone, so HP has put some engineering efforts into the Z8 workstation so that the company didn't need to rely on liquid cooling.

Destiny 2's masterfully-crafted--and super addicting--engagement strategy is paying off big time.

Activision today announced that Destiny 2 has surpassed the original game's player engagement and concurrent player count since the sequel launched on September 6. "We hit some great milestones this week with our community," said Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. "We are blown away that we've had eight days in a row in Destiny 2 where we've seen more than one-million concurrent players grace our worlds. It's equal parts inspiring and humbling, and we're looking forward to showing everyone what's coming next!"

"With franchise pre-order records broken, and record day-one performance on PlayStation Store, it's exciting to see engagement at the highest ever week-one concurrency for the franchise. Destiny 2 is off to a strong start as the #1 console gaming launch week of the year to date," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision.

Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid system has enjoyed tremendous success in its first six months of availability, dominating sales charts off and on since its launch in March.

The Nintendo Switch is immensely popular. The machine, which allows users to play games both on-the-go and on a television at home, is selling at retails across the globe as demand quickly outpaces supply. This hot demand for the Switch has had a direct impact on the system's performance on hardware sales charts, which sees the hybrid dethroning Sony's titanic PlayStation 4 for many months since the handheld's launch in March of this year. We've already reported how the Switch has re-vitalized Japan's console hardware market, but the system is doing exceedingly well in Nintendo's biggest market: North America.

Analyst tracking firm NPD Group reports the Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console for August 2017 in the United States, beating out Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. This marks the second month in a row the Switch has beaten the PS4. In fact the Switch has dominated sales charts for four out of the six months of the system's availability, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella said.

Xur, that shadowy Santa Claus from the cosmos with a Cthulu-ian face, has made his first appearance in Destiny 2. Here's an in-depth look at what he's selling.

Xur's appearance in Destiny 2 is much like the original game: the mysterious merchant is still selling four exotics: one weapon and three armor-based items each for a Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. Unlike the original Destiny, however, Xur is actually found in the open world this time around and not in a safe space like a town. Also he's not exactly hidden this time, but marked with a "IX" indicator on a planet's map.

For Week 1 users can find Xur on Nessus near the Watcher's Grave region to the northernmost section of the planet. If you can't find him right away be sure to look up--Xur is conspicuously tucked away on an autumnal tree branch next to the crumpled corpse of a Hezen Collective Vex.

One thing that can kill a multiplayer focused game is cheaters. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has sold over 10 million copies and is a prime target for cheaters to employ hacks to gain chicken dinners, this is something game developer Bluehole has addressed and appear to be well on top of.

Mr. PlayerUknown, Brendan Greene, took to Twitter to inform us that PUBG's anti-cheat system BattlEye has banned over 150,000 cheaters, 8,000 of them in the last 24 hours.

Console gamers recently had the pleasure of accessing the multiplayer beta for latest entry into the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: WW2. Now, PC gamers will be given the chance to access the multiplayer open beta on September 29 through to October 2.

The PC beta, accessible via Steam, will be open to the entire PC platform with no pre-order required. This wasn't the case for the console beta as access was limited to pre-ordered editions only. Developer Sledgehammer explains this is due to "Stress test core gameplay systems and online backend infrastructure at scale."

The minimum requirements for the beta are below and are quite reasonable.

The new Parrot Mambo FPV allows pilots to get a first-person view of flying their mini-drone thanks to Parrot's HD camera, and all new Parrot Cockpitglasses 2 that provide a 96° field of view for the ultimate immersion. This puts the pilot at the heart of the cockpit, and in complete control of the drone.

The Parrot Mambo is a quadcopter that offers superior flight stability curiosity to state of the art technology features and is capable of reaching speeds up to 30km/h. The Parrot Mambo caters to all skill levels and features three piloting modes (easy, drift and racing). Racing mode deactivates all assists, allowing you to be one with the drone. A 120° FOV HD camera is the Parrot Mambo FPV's eyes, transmitting images to your attached smartphone in your Parrot Cockpitglasses 2. You can even share your experience with friends thanks to a live streaming feature.

Offering a precise flying experience, the Parrot Flypad controller features a customizable joystick and button controls that provide control for your Parrot Mambo up to 100 meters away.

Jaybird have announced their first, completely wireless sports headphone, the Jaybird RUN sport headphones. With collaboration with some of the top runners in the world, the Jaybird RUN offers a lightweight and compact set of headphones designed for physical activities without compromising sound quality.

"Jaybird RUN is inspired by our athletes, and tested and built with the runner in mind who listens to music or podcasts and wants to feel as free as possible," said Jeff Taylor, Jaybird athlete and partnership manager. "Being runners ourselves, we understand how bulky headphones can get in the way. The Jaybird RUN compact form factor fits securely and delivers music without a single wire. We've perfected the Jaybird RUN experience, so you'll forget you're wearing them, and we're excited to share them with runners everywhere."

Offering physical features that include sweat proofing, water resistance and interchangeable tips and fins for different ear sizes, Jaybird RUN also allows for connectivity via Bluetooth technology and provides 12 hours of portable battery life. One intuitive control-button allows to take calls, start and stop music, skips tracks and activates Siri or Google Assistant.

Lian Li aren't new to the PC chassis game, and they know that not every person wants their PC case to feature RGB lighting and tempered glass panels. Lian Li have showed off their new range of all-aluminium PC cases, the PC-Q50, PC-V320, and PC-V720. Lian Li hold a reputation of exception build quality, and this range is no different. Crafted with high-quality materials and offering a spacious solution for high-performance desktop builds or for HTPC use.

All three models will be available in an elegant bare aluminium or black finish and feature an intake and exhaust fan for excellent performance. Compatible with Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX and ATX motherboards, this range offers PC enthusiasts a chassis that doesn't take their attention away from their PC screen while still offering a luxurious case to complement their desk or home entertainment unit.

With build functionality in mind, all three models feature a motherboard-centric design principle to allow for efficient space. The front, top, and bottom panels all feature an exorbitant amount of laser cut holes for optimal ventilation. The front panel features USB 3.1 Type-C connector, two USB 3.0 and HD Audio jacks to assist in functionality.

I recently posted the release ENERMAX's MaxTytan 750 & 850W PSU's, I'm sure some people were curious if we would see any high output power supplies. Well, it didn't take long for an answer, ENERMAX have announced the launch of the 1050W and the 1250W MaxTytan power supplies. These two top of the range full modular power supplies are 80 PLUS Titanium certified and feature some impressive technologoy including DFR (Dust Free Rotation), semi-fanless control, in-built wattage meter and COOLERGENIE.

ENERMAX have included a wattage meter with their top of the range MaxTytan models, this allows for real-time power consumption figures that provides excellent results for benchmarking or load balancing. The DFR technology associated with these MaxTytan PSU's ensures longevity and reliablitiy for your premium power supplies by spinning the PSU fan in reverse upon startup.

COOLERGENIE is an intelligent 2-in-1 fan controller that allows for users to adjust fan settings to run, or not run at a specific loads. The Fan-delay function of the controller means you can program your fan to run for an extra 60 seconds after shutting off your system, this allows your system to efficiently cool and dissipate any residual heat.

There's no better way of capturing consumers that haven't already purchased a Nintendo Switch than by offering up a bundle with Nintendo's upcoming Super Mario Odyssey.

Nintendo is working on a new Switch bundle that will include Super Mario Odyssey, something the company teased during its recent Nintendo Direct stream. The new Nintendo Switch bundle will include the console itself (duh), and a digital copy of Super Mario Odyssey. Not only that, but the Switch + Super Mario Odyssey bundle will also include a pair of Joy-Con controllers in red, with a special edition carrying case that charges the console.

Nintendo will offer up the Switch + SMO bundle on October 27 at $379.99.

Microsoft isn't far away from releasing its upcoming Xbox One X console, so Sony is nailing the praise of its beefier PS4 Pro and CCP's upcoming release with EVE: Valkyrie Warzone.

CCP's Lead Game Designer Andrew Willans explained some of the technical specs behind the PS4, PS4 Pro and PC versions of the game under traditional 2D modes recently, where he said: "On PS4 we use a dynamic resolution technique developed by Alex Vlachos at Valve where you change your resolution based on what's getting rendered on the screen or VR Headset".

He continued: "This is to render the game at high resolution when you're flying around the map and fallback to a lower resolution when you're in the heat of battle, where explosions and other effects slow down rendering. On PSVR we render between 1920×1080 and 2880×1620 at 60 frames-per-second, this is true for both the PS4 and the PS4 Pro. The PS4 Pro has extra graphics features like dynamic shadows and improved effects we can't run on the original PS4".

HP has been in this position before, where back in March 2016 the company was caught sending millions of Inkjet and Inkjet Pro printer owners with a fake "security update" that was a ticking time bomb for consumers.

It was only 6 months later that HP's "security update" began rejecting third-party ink, with over 15,000 complaints sent into HP. The company released a statement that didn't really apologize to consumers, with the company linking to a firmware update, something that was hidden on a website that wasn't really used anymore. There was a sign that read "beware of the leopard", and from there you could restore the use of third-party ink on your HP printer. Pretty sh***y of HP, but fast-forward to today and we're back again.

We're nearly at the 12-month anniversary of this story breaking, and HP has been caught yet again with more fake "security" updates for its printer that once again disable third-party ink. Gizmodo reports: "But according to ghacks.net, a new firmware update for HP Officejet printers released yesterday appears to be identical to the reviled DRM update released exactly one year ago. When you try to use third-party ink after installing the new/old firmware, you apparently run into an error that says "One or more cartridges appear to be damaged. Remove them and replace with new cartridges." Depending on how many cartridges your specific printer uses, it may be possible to insert one or two without getting an error. But it seems when all of the ink cartridge slots are filled up, the warning message will be displayed again".

Astronauts on-board the International Space Station should be frightened and/or excited that they've found a new "shape-shifting" bacteria on-board the floating technology fortress.

The "clever shape-shifting" was detected in bacteria that was being experimented on in the near-weightlessness of space, something that scientists believe the bacteria was doing to survive. In what feels like as a scenario ripped right out of a movie 'Life' with Ryan Reynolds (trailer below), the space bacteria showed a 13x increase in cell numbers, and a 73% reduction in cell column size.

The study's lead author, Dr Luis Zea, explains: "We knew bacteria behave differently in space and that it takes higher concentrations of antibiotics to kill them. What's new is that we conducted a systematic analysis of the changing physical appearance of the bacteria during the experiments".

Apple is the first with a smartphone that shoots 4K 60FPS footage with their new iPhones, but Samsung is going to be joining the 4K 60FPS party with their larger than life Galaxy Note 8 smartphone.

Samsung is now teasing that it will ha ve 4K 60FPS video shooting abilities on the Galaxy Note 8, something that popped up on the promotional page for Samsung's latest flagship. Samsung teased: "Go beyond FUll HD with 4K UHD video. Galaxy Note8 shoots 4K Ultra High Definition video at 60fps, so everything you capture looks stunning and vibrant".

Shooting 4K 60FPS video is going to chew through some serious internal storage, so it's great that Samsung includes expandable storage through microSD cards on the Note 8. Apple might have the 256GB of storage on its tapped out iPhones, but 256GB isn't that much these days - especially when you're shooting 4K 60FPS.

The Japanese Cartivator project aims to have a big spectacle ready for the 2020 Olympic Games: a real flying car.

Many old sci-fi films predicted the 21st Century would give rise to amazing inventions, including a Jetson's-like flying car. While our day-to-day transit is mostly earthbound, the Cartivator project aims to make those sci-fi dreams a reality. The project, which is backed by Toyota, sees a number of key Japanese engineers working on the Skydrive, a prototype flying concept car that's been in development since 2012.

According to reports from Nikkei Asian Review, the engineers hope to have the Skydrive flying car ready for the 2020 Olympics, which will be held in Tokyo, Japan. To accelerate the project the team is developing a two new bases of operation in Tokyo and Toyota City, and Fujitsu will also lend efforts to the project. The team has released a finalized specification for the Skydrive prototype which is included below. If the engineers are successful, the 2020 Olympic Games will be a true milestone in human history.

Microsoft is rolling out a new feature called Intelligent Delivery across the family of Xbox One consoles in an effort to keep game installs and downloads as low as possible.

Xbox games are huge, and Microsoft's own games typically reach--or break--the 100GB barrier. One of my biggest worries about the Xbox One X was games becoming too big; these titles are already huge, but with 4K HDR assets added in, your included 1TB hard drive would be filled in no time. So how will Microsoft combat this? With the new Intelligent Delivery system. According to Digital Foundry, who acquired developer notes for the new ID system, Intelligent Delivery will give developers the power to carve up key portions of their games into "chunks". This allows developers to, say, have users install only a single audio language pack, and even allows multi-disc support for the Xbox One family of systems.

But that's not it: Intelligent Delivery automatically detects your console type and the resources you need to download. For Xbox One S or Xbox One users, ID will avoid the native 4K textures that Xbox One X can utilize, thereby reducing the file sizes. Since all three Xbox One consoles vary in power and efficacy, Intelligent Delivery is a tool that dictates and manages games, resources and assets across the family of machines on the consumer side, effectively allowing users to download "shrunken" games. On the developer side, however, ID can do some interesting things that may very well revolutionize console gaming--if, of course, devs and publishers opt to use it.