Latest News - Page 287

Australia's Qantas has confirmed it has suffered from a cyberattack that has now exposed six million Qantas customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and frequent flyer numbers.

The airline has confirmed the breach in a recent statement on Wednesday, with the attack being described as the biggest breach in Australia in years. Qantas explained the cyberattack can be traced to a third-party customer service platform (call center), but the airline didn't say where or which call center was targeted. The Australian airline said that it was made aware of the breach after it detected unusual activity on its network and that it acted immediately to prevent any further exploitation.

It was only last week that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said cybercrime group Scattered Spider was targeting airlines. The FBI warned that Hawaiian Airlines and Canada's WestJet have already reported breaches. Qantas didn't provide the name of the hacking group, so it's not confirmed whether Scattered Spider is behind the attack.

Read what Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said to employees this morning as Microsoft cut thousands of jobs.

Today, Microsoft started a layoff spree that could affect as many as 9,000 people, including its billion-dollar games division. The memo that Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer sent out to employees has now been published by IGN, revealing how management handled the delicate situation.

In the memo, Spencer outlines the harsh realities of the interactive entertainment business, especially for gaming in particular: "The success we're seeing currently is based on tough decisions we've made previously," he said, possibly underlining Microsoft's current goals of hybridizing the Xbox platform.

UPDATE: Microsoft has provided us the following statement:

"We continue to implement organizational and workforce changes that are necessary to position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace."

Microsoft has started its expected round of mass layoffs at Xbox, and the numbers are coming in.

Here we go, again: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan is considering massive changes for its semiconductor foundry arm, Intel Foundry, in order to win major customers... with its in-house Intel 18A process node on the chopping block.

In a new report from Reuters, we're hearing that Intel Foundry would no longer market particular chipmaking technologies, which the company has spent billions of dollars developing, to external customers. Lip-Bu Tan assumed the role of Intel CEO back in March 2025, quickly cutting costs and looking for new ways for Intel to be relevant again.

In June 2025, the new CEO started voicing that a manufacturing process that former CEO Pat Gelsinger bet heavily on -- Intel 18A -- was losing its appeal to new customers, according to Reuters' sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Hackers claiming to have stolen emails from US President Donald Trump's inner circle are now threatening to release the documents.

The hacking group is associated with Iran and previously distributed hacked documents from the Trump campaign in 2024 to both Biden staffers and select US media organizations. Those same hackers, who use the pseudonym Robert, are now threatening to do the same thing, but with files allegedly obtained from Trump's inner circle.

According to Robert, they have extracted 100 gigabytes of data that includes a trove of internal emails, specifically mentioning individuals such as the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, Trump adviser Roger Stone, Trump's attorney Lindsey Halligan, Stormy Daniels, and others. Notably, Robert suggested they could sell the material, but didn't specifically state what they will be doing with it.

Chinese tech giant Huawei is expected to beat Apple to incorporating HBM DRAM inside of its smartphones, with 3D stacking technology to improve efficiency and increase AI performance.

In a new post by tipster Digital Chat Station on Chinese social media site Weibo, it looks like Huawei will have a competitive edge over Apple, massively boosting AI performance thanks to HBM DRAM, all the while Apple continues to suffer with AI in general. Huawei might be lagging in using bleeding-edge semiconductor process nodes, with Apple tapped to use TSMC's new 2nm process node (N2) for its new iPhones, Huawei is held back using SMIC in China.

Right now, the latest memory inside smartphones and tablets today is LPDDR5X memory, with rumors that new LPDDR6 production to begin in the second half of 2026 with the likes of Samsung and Qualcomm to use LPDDR6 memory inside of their new smartphone chips in the future.

Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone has entered prototype production, with the P1 (Prototype 1) hitting production in the last few weeks.

In a new report from DigiTimes picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve on X, we're hearing that Apple's supply chain said the new P1 (Prototype 1) for the foldable iPhone went into prototype production in June, with the potential to complete the Prototype development process before the end of the year. After which, it'll enter EVT (Engineering Verification Test) and then the new foldable iPhone will reportedly launch in the second half of 2026.

Supply chain sources also teased that Apple's original plan for new products includes a larger-sized foldable iPad, which will join the foldable fray with the iPhone Ultra. Apple will be releasing its new foldable iPhone first -- which we've heard is called the iPhone Ultra -- with the foldable iPad reportedly "temporarily put on hold".

Apple has accused an ex-engineer of stealing company secrets for its Vision Pro headset, silently accepting a job at competitor Snap, and deleting evidence by wiping data from his work laptop.

Apple filed a lawsuit on June 24, 2025, in Santa Clara County against one of its ex-staffers, who reportedly transferred confidential files to his personal cloud account in his last days with the company. SiliconValley.com has the report, where ex-Apple engineer Di Liu allegedly violating Apple intellectual property, stealing some of the secret sauce for Apple's Vision Pro headset.

Liu worked at Apple for 7 years before moving to another company -- Snap -- serving in a position of a senior product design engineer, where he had access to the technology used inside of Apple's Vision Pro headset, and its upcoming headsets in the years to come.

Samsung Electronics is beginning its "counterattack" in the HBM market, with an executive discussing the company's 12-Hi HBM3E memory with NVIDIA.

In a new report from Seoul Economic Daily picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve on X, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and Head of the Device Solutions (DS) division proposed supplying 12-Hi HBM3E memory for NVIDIA's new GB200 "Blackwell Ultra" GPUs. Amplified by the recent success of supplying AMD with HBM3 memory for its new Instinct AI accelerators, Samsung is now knocking on NVIDIA's door.

Samsung is now launching a "full-scale counterattack" to push into the HBM market against competitors like SK hynix and Micron, where according to tech industry sources, Vice Chairman Jeon Yeong-hyeon, visited Silicon Valley last week for negotiations with NVIDIA regarding the supply of 12-stack HBM3E memory.

The new entry-level GeForce RTX 5050 desktop GPU is technically available now, even though NVIDIA's formal announcement put a second-half of July launch window for its launch. GeForce Game Ready Driver 576.88 is now available, adding support for the GeForce RTX 5050. However, as of now, there are no official reviews for the GPU, which is being marketed as a replacement for the GeForce RTX 3050.

Well, it looks like NVIDIA partner INNO3D has posted GeForce RTX 5050 desktop GPU performance, giving us our first look at how it compares when stacked up against the GeForce RTX 3060 and the GeForce RTX 4060, two of the most popular gaming GPUs currently available.

With charts covering the synthetic 3DMark benchmark suite of tests and games like Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel Rivals, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Black Myth: Wukong at 1080p with DLSS, the GeForce RTX 5050's performance is close to that of the GeForce RTX 4060.

Samsung Electronics has reportedly successfully developed a new DRAM chip using its 10nm-class 6th-generation (D1c) process technology, which will accelerate the development of HBM4 memory for the company.

The new D1c chip production will be used in the production process for HBM dies, which will help accelerate the development of its HBM4 memory, pumping some much-needed goodness into the competition of the global DRAM market.

Insider @Jukanrosleve picked up a new story that cites a source "well-versed" in the industry that said the Memory Business division of Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) group successfully developed the 6th-generation DRAM -- D1c -- and completed its internal Production Readiness Approval (PRA) this afternoon.

Powered by NVIDIA's Pascal architecture, the GeForce GTX 10 Series of graphics cards is almost a decade old. With cards like the GeForce GTX 1060, 1070, and the iconic GeForce GTX 1080 Ti from 2017, it's widely considered one of NVIDIA's most successful GPU lineups for gamers.

NVIDIA, whose GeForce Game Ready Drivers still support Maxwell-era GeForce GTX 700 and GTX 900 cards, in addition to the GeForce GTX 10 Series, has confirmed that it will end driver support for these GPUs in the coming months. Although it hasn't specified a date for when new GeForce Game Ready Drivers will no longer support cards like the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, it notes that the 580 series of drivers will be the last to support these cards.

For reference, the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver version is 576.88, which means support will end in a matter of months. The confirmation arrives via a post on the 'Unix graphics feature deprecation schedule' forum thread, where NVIDIA spells it out plainly.

ASUS is celebrating 30 years in the graphics card business with a new giveaway, where the company is giving away NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.

On its official ASUS ROG account on X, the company asks "does the ROG"Ares"or"Poseidon"ring a bell? If it does, you've been with us for a while! We've been in the graphics card game for 30 years now, and we're ready to celebrate. Starting July 8th -- we'll be saying"thank you"with an epic giveaway".

The ASUS graphics card giveaway to celebrate 30 years in the GPU business will kick off next week, and here's how you can enter:

GeForce Game Ready Driver 576.88 is the latest driver release for RTX gamers from NVIDIA. It brings DLSS 4 support to more games, alongside the addition of support for the new GeForce RTX 5050 desktop and laptop GPUs.

When it comes to new game support, the standout is Mecha BREAK, a new multiplayer third-person mech combat game launching with day-one DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support. Playing in 4K with DLSS 4, the GeForce RTX 5070 can achieve over 210 FPS, while the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 pushes performance into the 450+ FPS realm.

As seen in the DLSS 4 gameplay trailer above, Mecha BREAK's 3v3, 6v6, and PvPvE looks fast, kinetic, and action-packed. GeForce Game Ready Driver 576.88 also brings optimizations and support for Diablo IV's Season 9 update and Monster Hunter Wilds, two titles that have added native DLSS 4 support into the game.

Intel and SK hynix are teaming up to jointly develop next-generation AI semiconductors according to new reports, where SK hynix's new 6th-generation HBM4 would be used on Intel's next-gen Gaudi AI accelerator codenamed Jaguar Shores.

According to industry sources, on July 1, SK hynix's Head of Software Solutions VP, Woo-sup Jeong, said at the Intel AI Summit: "we are collaborating on HBM related to Intel's Gaudi AI accelerator". The news was picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve on X, where if true, the use of SK hynix's new HBM4 on Intel's next-gen AI accelerator would remove the reliance on NVIDIA, which accounts for around 80% of SK hynix's HBM business.

SK hynix stated: "we have had a long-standing partnership with Intel. There are no specific confirmed details regarding HBM4 collaboration with Intel yet".

Red Dead Online's new Strange Tales of the West update brings zombies, robots, and other spine-tingling oddities to the 19th century Old West, culminating in the first RDO trailer in years.

Today, Rockstar Games announced a new Red Dead Online content update, and it seems to pack a punch. The update is called Strange Tales of the West, and it's a kind of anthology series where players will tackle supernaturally-altered areas of the online game where bizarre monstrosities roam--robots, undead zombies, heretics, and even cannibals. It's kind of like RDO has been taken over by The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt.

Strange Tales of the West features four telegram missions that each have their own supernatural focus. Players will investigate a mysterious plague affecting Armadillo, hearkening back to the Undead Nightmare expansion from the original Red Dead Redemption. You'll also tackle very old-timey bullet-proof robots that look straight out of the 1999 film Wild Wild West.

A portion of subscribers is willing to bite on Xbox's latest Game Pass freebie, showing the attraction of 40 year-old games.

Last month, Microsoft added a surprise bonus for Xbox Game Pass members: Access to a treasure trove of old-school games, including Atari games like Pitfall, Kaboom!, and even MS-DOS games like MechWarrior. Dubbed the Retro Classics collection, the plethora of 50 golden age titles is actually served up by a cloud game streaming service called Antstream, which had made a subscription deal with Microsoft shortly after 2023's FTC antitrust trial.

This program is getting sizable engagement from subscribers; New updates show that over 1 million people have actively played the Retro Classics since the freebie launched last month. The last official update from Microsoft put Game Pass subscribers at 34 million.

Amazon has announced that it now has a million robots working behind the scenes in its retail empire, and a new AI model to help make those bots a lot smarter - which will ultimately mean faster deliveries.

In a press release that Tom's Hardware picked up, Amazon made the revelation that its millionth robot just went live in a fulfillment center in Japan.

The bigger story here, though, is that Amazon is introducing a new generative AI model to make its robots smarter.

Reports recently surfaced regarding Xbox being hit with another round of layoffs, and now a date has emerged as to when the firings will begin.

The previous reports stated that Microsoft is preparing for a third round of layoffs within its Xbox games division, with this round, in particular, being described as quite significant. Following the news of Microsoft preparing for another round of layoffs, developers working under the massive umbrella of Xbox Game Studios began to take to social media platforms to share their concern that they were going to fall within Microsoft's crosshair, with industry insiders and media alike saying that multiple studios are expected to be hit.

The Verge's Tom Warren pointed to Forza developer Turn 10 being in the sight of Microsoft, and now Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has taken to his personal BlueSky account to write when the layoffs will begin. According to Schreier, Xbox's fiscal year ended yesterday, and the layoffs are expected to start on Wednesday. The Bloomberg reporter didn't provide any additional context on which studios are going to be hit with the layoffs, just the date for when they will begin.

Frame generation is a contentious topic among PC gamers, with some vehemently opposed to the idea of "fake frames" and others embracing the free performance boost.

Technologies such as NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) have ushered in this debate among PC gamers, and if you are still on the fence about whether or not it's good to turn on in your new game, Steam will now show you the difference between the "fake frames" being on and off.

The new feature comes with the latest update to the Steam Client, which is now available. However, Valve does state in the patch notes that this is the "first version" of the new feature, and focuses on "Windows users and on the most common GPU hardware."