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SpaceX rescues NASA astronauts stranded on ISS for 9 months over 'political reasons'

Jak Connor | Science, Space, & Robotics | Mar 18, 2025 10:39 PM CDT

The two astronauts that NASA assured us weren't stranded aboard the ISS, but just didn't have a viable means of transportation back to Earth, have finally touched back down on our home planet after nine months of being aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

SpaceX rescues NASA astronauts stranded on ISS for 9 months over 'political reasons'

Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore took up Boeing's Starliner capsule to the ISS on June 5, and prior to launch and on the journey there, leaks were detected from the vessel. The leaks were helium, the fuel for the capsule, and after safely making it to the ISS to begin their week-long stay it was determined by NASA the capsule didn't meet the safety standards for a return journey.

The stay aboard the ISS extended from one week to nine months, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently stating the situation with the ISS turned into a political football for the Biden administration as SpaceX offered to bring the astronauts back home early but was denied as the Biden administration didn't want "anyone who is supporting Trump [to] look good," according to Musk. However, Suni and Butch finally made it back home with the help of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which also transported fellow astronauts Nick Hauge and Aleksandr Gorbunov, a cosmonaut with Russia's federal corporation Roscomos.

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Bethesda and Xbox take sides in a debate older than Fallout itself

Ille Smolanko | Gaming | Mar 18, 2025 10:11 PM CDT

Bethesda has just released the Ghoul Within update for Fallout 76, introducing the ability for players to become ghouls, complete with new perks and gameplay mechanics. However, in a divisive move from the Bethesda team, an item included in the update has weighed in strongly on an eternal household debate.

Bethesda and Xbox take sides in a debate older than Fallout itself

Among the new C.A.M.P. items added to the game-decorative objects for player bases - Bethesda has included two toilet paper holders. One dispenses paper from the wall (the correct way, in my opinion), while the other, labeled "Correct Toilet Paper Holder," which rolls it outward.

The items quickly made it over to Reddit, where Xbox's official account weighed in.

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Continue reading: Bethesda and Xbox take sides in a debate older than Fallout itself (full post)

NVIDIA introduces RTX PRO 6000 'Blackwell' GPU series: 24064 cores, 96GB memory and up to 600W

Anthony Garreffa | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 10:10 PM CDT

NVIDIA has just unveiled its new RTX PRO 6000 "Blackwell" graphics card, based on the same GB202 GPU and GDDR7 memory that the RTX 5090 uses, but with a whopping 96GB of GDDR7 memory.

NVIDIA introduces RTX PRO 6000 'Blackwell' GPU series: 24064 cores, 96GB memory and up to 600W

The new NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU features the GB202 GPU with 24,064 cores inside of 188 SMs, compared to the 21,760 cores and 170 SMs inside of the same GB202 GPU in the GeForce RTX 5090. The full-fat GB202 GPU features 192 SMs, so we're not even maxed out here with the new RTX PRO 6000.

We do have the full 600W of TDP support through a single 12V-2x6 power connector, offering 25W more TDP than the 575W on the RTX 5090. With all of this in tow, NVIDIA's new RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU features 4000 AI TOPs, 125 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance, and 380 TFLOPS of RT performance (a 19% increase over the RTX 5090 in all performance figures).

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Continue reading: NVIDIA introduces RTX PRO 6000 'Blackwell' GPU series: 24064 cores, 96GB memory and up to 600W (full post)

NVIDIA unveils next-gen Feynman GPU In GTC 2025 roadmap, should use HBM5 memory in 2028

Anthony Garreffa | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 9:36 PM CDT

NVIDIA has just announced that its next-gen Feynman GPU architecture will succeed Rubin and Blackwell, and will debut with ''next-gen HBM" memory in 2028.

NVIDIA unveils next-gen Feynman GPU In GTC 2025 roadmap, should use HBM5 memory in 2028

At its GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2025) event, NVIDIA unveiled its latest AI GPU architecture roadmap, extending beyond the just-detailed Rubin and Rubin AI GPUs. NVIDIA has now confirmed that its next-gen AI GPU will be codenamed Feynman, after renowned American theoretical physicist, Richard Phillips Feynman, who is known for his work on quantum mechanics

On his Wikipedia page, Feynman is explained as "an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and in particle physics, for which he proposed the parton model".

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Continue reading: NVIDIA unveils next-gen Feynman GPU In GTC 2025 roadmap, should use HBM5 memory in 2028 (full post)

NVIDIA's next-gen Vera Rubin NVL576 AI server: 576 Rubin AI GPUs, 12672C/25344T CPU, new HBM4

Anthony Garreffa | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 9:09 PM CDT

NVIDIA is hosting its GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2025) with an unveiling of its GB300 Blackwell Ultra, and a tease of its next-gen Rubin and Rubin Ultra AI GPUs, and its next-gen Vera CPUs... new ultra-fast AI platforms for AI computing deploying in 2026-2027.

NVIDIA's next-gen Vera Rubin NVL576 AI server: 576 Rubin AI GPUs, 12672C/25344T CPU, new HBM4

NVIDIA has increased performance by 50% with its new GB300 "Blackwell Ultra" AI systems over GB200 AI servers, as well as increased memory capacity to 288GB HBM3E on GB300 from 192GB of HBM3E on GB200. The new GB300 and current GB200 AI platforms are made into up to NVL72 solutions, but next-gen Rubin GPUs will scale up to a far larger NVL144 platform.

The new NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL144 platform will use two new chips, with the Rubin GPU using two Reticle-sized chips with up to 50 PFLOPs of FP4 performance and 288GB of next-gen, ultra-fast HBM4 memory. Alongside these chips will be an 88-core Vera CPU with a custom Arm architecture, 176 threads in total, with up to 1.8TB/sec of NVLINK-C2C interconnect.

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Continue reading: NVIDIA's next-gen Vera Rubin NVL576 AI server: 576 Rubin AI GPUs, 12672C/25344T CPU, new HBM4 (full post)

Stars Reach is an ambitious new MMORPG hoping to fill a 20-year-old void

Ille Smolanko | Gaming | Mar 18, 2025 8:31 PM CDT

Given the reign of free-to-play battle royale titles, and existing MMO players like RuneScape and World of Warcraft - the MMORPG space is a tough one to break into in 2025. This isn't stopping Raph Koster from making the game he's dreamed of making for 30 years.

Stars Reach is an ambitious new MMORPG hoping to fill a 20-year-old void

The former creative director of Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online, Koster is widely recognised as a legend in the MMORPG world. His next title, Stars Reach, he describes as a 'spiritual sequel to Ultima Online and to Star Wars Galaxies' - featuring a living galaxy sandbox, and vast landscapes that are somewhat reminiscent of No Man's Sky mixed with an old Zelda game.

The game was originally privately funded, raising $40 million over five years through private investment - and has since taken to Kickstarter, raising an addition $600,000 through community outreach. Currently in its alpha stage, the game promises a return to the roots of classic MMORPGs. Particularly, something for those players looking to scratch the itch left by the void of Star Wars: Galaxies.

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Continue reading: Stars Reach is an ambitious new MMORPG hoping to fill a 20-year-old void (full post)

NVIDIA GB300 'Blackwell Ultra' AI GPU: 288GB HBM3E, 1.4kW power, 50% faster than GB200

Anthony Garreffa | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 8:18 PM CDT

NVIDIA has officially unveiled its beefed-up GB300 "Blackwell Ultra" NVL72 AI server, with its new GB300 AI GPU featuring 50% more performance over GB200, and a larger pool of 288GB of HBM3E memory.

NVIDIA GB300 'Blackwell Ultra' AI GPU: 288GB HBM3E, 1.4kW power, 50% faster than GB200

NVIDIA's new GB300 "Blackwell Ultra" AI GPUs will continue the AI domination led by GB200, with memory capacity increased through using new 12-Hi HBM3E memory stacks, and even more compute power for AI workloads. NVIDIA is also coupling GB300 with the latest Spectrum Ultra X800 Ethernet switches (512-Radix).

The new NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 rack-scale solution has 1.5x more performance than an NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 AI server, as well as increasing Blackwell revenue opportunities by 50x for AI factories compared to AI servers built on the Hopper GPU architecture.

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Continue reading: NVIDIA GB300 'Blackwell Ultra' AI GPU: 288GB HBM3E, 1.4kW power, 50% faster than GB200 (full post)

Phison unveils solution to reduce $3m cost of upcoming 1T parameter AI model to $100K

Jak Connor | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 3:20 PM CDT

NVIDIA's GTC conference has officially kicked off, and Phison, one of the world's leading companies in controllers for NAND flash memory chips, has unveiled what it's describing as an affordable path to supporting a 1 trillion parameter AI model.

Phison unveils solution to reduce $3m cost of upcoming 1T parameter AI model to $100K

The race to the first 1 trillion parameter AI model is nearing completion, at least according to Phison, which predicts we will see the first 1 trillion parameter AI model before 2026. Phison has briefly outlined the progression of AI models, with a 69 billion parameter model unveiled in 2023 with Llama 2, then a big jump to the 405 billion parameter Llama 3.1 model in 2024, and then the 671 billion parameter DeepSeek R3 model in 2025. Keeping on this same trajectory, Phison expects the world's first 1 trillion parameter model will be unveiled before the end of 2025.

With the increase in the size of these AI models, the hardware needed to train and support them will also need to be increased, which is why Phison is looking at ways to reduce operational costs, and the company has a solution. Phison expects the operational costs of a 1 trillion parameter model will be approximately $3 million in raw GPU power, but the company has outlined a plan to alleviate the cost down to just $100,000. How? A combination of SSDs, Phison's aiDAPTIV+ software, and an NVIDIA GH200 Superchip.

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Continue reading: Phison unveils solution to reduce $3m cost of upcoming 1T parameter AI model to $100K (full post)

Phison partners with Maingear for world's 1st laptop built for fine-tune AI training

Jak Connor | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 3:15 PM CDT

The world's first Large Language Model (LLM) training laptop is being showcased at GTC 2025, and it's a creation between Phison and Maingear.

Phison partners with Maingear for world's 1st laptop built for fine-tune AI training

Phison Electronics, a world leader in NAND flash technology, has teamed up with Maingear to bring its aiDAPTIV+ software stack to Maingear's ML-series laptop, creating the first AI laptop PC capable of Large Language Model Operations. The new laptop, which is being demoed at GTC 2025 with an RTX 4090 laptop GPU, will feature an NVIDIA RTX 5090 laptop GPU when it is released for sale. As for its capabilities, Phison has announced it will be able to train and inference LLMs that are up to 8 billion parameters, while also having support for fine-tuning, which enables users to inject their own data into the AI model.

Why does this laptop exist? Phison is setting out to reduce the cost of running AI models by offloading the processing, which is currently on high-cost GPU memory, to low-cost NAND flash storage, and by doing this the operational cost of the AI model shrinks, enabling larger models to be trained on cheaper devices. By utilizing the power of the company's aiDAPTIV+ software, users will now be able to customize an AI model with their own data, all within a device that can fit in your backpack.

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Phison announces support for the NVIDIA Jetson platform: edge computing + robotics

Jak Connor | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2025 3:10 PM CDT

Phison is expanding its aiDAPTIV+ software to the NVIDIA Jetson platform, enabling enhanced generative AI inference at the edge of robotics development.

Phison announces support for the NVIDIA Jetson platform: edge computing + robotics

Phison has created a specialized SSD for the NVIDIA Jetson platform and has integrated its aiDAPTIVE+ software to enable Fine-Tune training, which allows users to take an AI model and add their own data into the model. The idea behind this integration is to reduce the performance cost of running the AI by offloading some of the processing from the GPU VRAM over to the SSD.

Phison explained to me that with these upgrades to the Jetson platform they are able to provide up to 14x improvement on Time to First Token (TTFT), which is the time it takes for an AI to provide a response to a question. Moreover, these changes also increased the token length by 8x, which is the length of the response generated by the AI. Ultimately, Phison's improvements made to Jetson have unlocked the platform in a way that enables faster responses with a greater length, enhancing the quality of the AI chat.

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Continue reading: Phison announces support for the NVIDIA Jetson platform: edge computing + robotics (full post)

Need a top-notch new gaming CPU? AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is finally widely available at its MSRP

Darren Allan | Processors | Mar 18, 2025 1:30 PM CDT

AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D now appears to be in plentiful stock at its MSRP at major retailers in the US, finally.

Need a top-notch new gaming CPU? AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is finally widely available at its MSRP

If you recall, when the Ryzen 9800X3D came onto the market last year, it received a positively glowing reception.

In our review, we called the processor the "undisputed gaming champion" and also noted that it's a "capable all-rounder across a variety of workloads." (Remember that its predecessor, AMD's Ryzen 7800X3D, while also a great gaming chip, didn't do so well with other workloads).

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Continue reading: Need a top-notch new gaming CPU? AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is finally widely available at its MSRP (full post)

Purported leaked pic shows what could be a prerelease sample of AMD's reference RX 9070 GPU

Darren Allan | Graphics Cards | Mar 18, 2025 12:22 PM CDT

Another image of what's purportedly a reference RX 9070 board from AMD has surfaced online, though we should obviously be very careful about accepting the pictured GPU at face value.

Purported leaked pic shows what could be a prerelease sample of AMD's reference RX 9070 GPU

VideoCardz noticed the image (via Olrak29 on X), which comes from a forum member over at Chiphell, a Chinese source of plenty of hardware leaks, but far from the most reliable one it must be noted.

The picture shows a pretty plain black graphics card with two fans, and it's presumably a prerelease sample of what would be a 'Made by AMD' version of the RX 9070.

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Continue reading: Purported leaked pic shows what could be a prerelease sample of AMD's reference RX 9070 GPU (full post)

AMD RX 9070 stock could improve very soon - 'after April' according to one graphics card maker

Darren Allan | Graphics Cards | Mar 18, 2025 11:20 AM CDT

AMD's RX 9070 GPU may witness more robust levels of supply after April, according to info that comes direct from a Chinese graphics card maker.

AMD RX 9070 stock could improve very soon - 'after April' according to one graphics card maker

Yeston, who you've likely heard of, is a sizeable force in the GPU market over in Asia, and the firm made the revelation on X, as you can see above.

The wording leaves a slight question mark for us, though, as the arrival of a more stable level of supply could happen 'after' April begins or 'after' April is over. We assume it's the latter, as that'd make more sense, but to us, it could be read as the former, too.

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Continue reading: AMD RX 9070 stock could improve very soon - 'after April' according to one graphics card maker (full post)

PNY's new M.2 2230 SSD is for portable gaming devices like the Steam Deck

Kosta Andreadis | Storage | Mar 18, 2025 8:56 AM CDT

PNY has announced the new CS2342 M.2 2230 NVMe, a new PCIe Gen4 storage solution with one of the fastest read and write speeds for a 2230 SSD - 7,300 and 6,000 MB/s, respectively. With fast transfer and read speeds, PNY says it's perfect for portable PC gaming handhelds like Valve's Steam Deck and ASUS's ROG Ally.

PNY's new M.2 2230 SSD is for portable gaming devices like the Steam Deck

Available at retail in late March, in 1TB and 2TB capacities, it offers an upgrade option for gamers, creators, and enthusiasts with devices that feature an M.2 2230 slot for storage or expansion. The 2TB capacity option makes the most sense for gamers as game install sizes in 2025 aren't getting any smaller, and most affordable portable gaming handhelds are sold with 512Gb or 1TB capacities.

Of course, the big selling point here is speed. Having the capacity to store more games is one thing, but having titles load in a few seconds and not run into any throughput issues is key for a seamless experience. PNY notes that the CS2342 has been designed for seamless integration when installed in a Steam Deck, ROG Ally, or MSI Claw handheld.

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Continue reading: PNY's new M.2 2230 SSD is for portable gaming devices like the Steam Deck (full post)

KIOXIA brings its latest SSD innovations and cutting-edge AI solutions to NVIDIA GTC 2025

Kosta Andreadis | Storage | Mar 18, 2025 8:28 AM CDT

NVIDIA GTC 2025, the AI conference for developers, is underway this week. The industry is gathering to explore and share what's next in AI, robotics, and accelerated computing. KIOXIA, the inventor of flash memory, a key technology that helped usher in the AI era of computing, is at GTC 2025, showcasing its latest SSD innovations and AI solutions.

KIOXIA brings its latest SSD innovations and cutting-edge AI solutions to NVIDIA GTC 2025

This includes the recently announced KIOXIA LC9 Series NVMe 122.88 TB SSD, which is built for the AI era. The 2.5-inch form factor SSD is the first in KIOXIA's line-up built with eighth-generation BiCS FLASH technology, a 2Tb QLC die, and CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array) technology. This high-capacity PCIe 5.0 SSD is tailor-made for AI systems training large language models (LLMs) and cloud computing.

At GTC 2025, KIOXIA (located at booth #1811 on the show floor of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center) will also present a live demo of its groundbreaking KIOXIA All-in-Storage ANNS with Product Quantization (KIOXIA AiSAQ) technology. This technology leverages SSD storage instead of expensive DRAM to improve AI RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) performance dramatically.

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Continue reading: KIOXIA brings its latest SSD innovations and cutting-edge AI solutions to NVIDIA GTC 2025 (full post)

Half-Life 2 RTX - Here's 40 Minutes of the Iconic FPS with Full Ray Tracing

Kosta Andreadis | Gaming | Mar 18, 2025 8:02 AM CDT

Half-Life 2 RTX is a remaster and remake project from Orbifold Studios, a team of 100 modders, built with NVIDIA's impressive RTX Remix platform. In a nutshell, RTX Remix takes every scene and location from Valve's original Half-Life 2, transforms every material and surface into modern physically-based rendered (PBR) objects, and adds a suite of RTX technologies and AI tools to draw from, with the result being a fully ray-traced or path-traced version of a classic game that is now twenty years old.

Half-Life 2 RTX - Here's 40 Minutes of the Iconic FPS with Full Ray Tracing

Half-Life 2 RTX is a project we've been following closely for a few years, with early looks showcasing stunning and transformative results. With a fully playable demo now available for all GeForce RTX owners that includes two fully playable chapters from the game (Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt), we were given early access to the demo to get our first proper hands-on look at Half-Life 2 RTX.

Running on the GeForce RTX 5080, it's as impressive as we hoped it would be. Like all the best remasters and remakes that aim to stay faithful to the source material, Half-Life 2 RTX is like your fondest memories of the game brought to life with some of the most cutting-edge visuals ever seen in an interactive experience. It's like how you remember Half-Life 2 but with new assets and stunning ray-traced effects that only amplify and enhance what is still an all-timer.

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Continue reading: Half-Life 2 RTX - Here's 40 Minutes of the Iconic FPS with Full Ray Tracing (full post)

Baldur's Gate 3 director on single-player games being dead: 'They just have to be good'

Jak Connor | Gaming | Mar 18, 2025 7:31 AM CDT

Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke has taken to X, formerly Twitter, to share his thoughts on the claims that single-player titles are "dead". He doesn't think that's the case.

Baldur's Gate 3 director on single-player games being dead: 'They just have to be good'

According to Vincke, single-player games aren't dying the slow death that many studio executives are declaring they are, and for a single-player game to be successful, it first needs to be good. If there is any example of single-player games not being dead, it is Baldur's Gate 3, which, following its release, went on to win Game of the Year and retain a solid, consistent player base that's still extremely alive today, two years after its release. At the time of reporting Baldur's Gate 3 has 36,000 concurrent players on Steam, with its 24-hour player peak on Valve's platform being 68,000.

It appears not only gamers are with Vincke's take on single-player games, but so are some industry developers, with David Goldfarb, a known developer behind Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and PayDay 2, commenting on Vincke's post saying, "Can I bring you to all my meetings, Swen? F**king exhausted." Other indicators that single-player games aren't dying are titles such as Black Myth: Wukong, God of War: Ragnarok, STALKER 2, and what will be Grand Theft Auto VI when it releases at the end of this year.

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Continue reading: Baldur's Gate 3 director on single-player games being dead: 'They just have to be good' (full post)

Assassin's Creed Shadows reviews leak revealing startling scores

Jak Connor | Gaming | Mar 18, 2025 7:06 AM CDT

Assassin's Creed Shadows has been one of the most controversial launches for the franchise in recent memory, and now it appears reviews for the title are leaking ahead of when they should be posted.

Assassin's Creed Shadows reviews leak revealing startling scores

Screenshots have been posted on subreddits showing review scores from OpenCritic and IGN Brasil, with both of the sources giving the contentious titles a respectable 8/10 and 9/10. Notably, reviews for the title are scheduled to drop on March 18, which at the time of reporting is today, but the specific time remains unclear. As for the reviews that leaked early, they have since been removed from their respective sources.

The ConsoleCreatures review for the title sourced on OpenCritic states the title gives players a lot of freedom and "takes you on a journey of exploration and history of one of Japan's most famous periods". As for the IGN Brasil, the short review was translated from Portuguese and states Shadows is "one of the most iconic titles in the franchise," with the reviewer going on to mention it successfully juggles combat and stealth mechanics against a Japense backdrop that's been previously untouched by Ubisoft.

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Continue reading: Assassin's Creed Shadows reviews leak revealing startling scores (full post)

God of War TV showrunner confirms he hasn't played the games because of the controller

Jak Connor | TV, Movies & Home Theatre | Mar 18, 2025 6:40 AM CDT

Amazon has confirmed it's making two seasons of the God of War TV show, as the news has come from the showrunner Ronald D. Moore, who is overseeing the project that's currently in the works.

God of War TV showrunner confirms he hasn't played the games because of the controller

Moore appeared on The Sackhoff Show with Katee Sackhoff, where he was asked about what he's currently working on. The showrunner explained his current workplate consists of an "adaptation of this video game called God of War" and that his job is to be in the writer's room, adapting the video games to TV. Moore goes on to say the challenge is daunting with such a large and well-respected IP, and is especially daunting considering he doesn't consider himself a gamer.

Sackoff followed up by asking Moore if he has tried to play any of the God of War games, and the showrunner said he has taken a "stab at it" but gave up as he can't work out the controls. Moore goes on to explain that he grew up in '80s where video games were in arcades, making this whole business with what are traditional video game controllers nowadays extremely foreign to him. "The controllers now..." he laughs, "Press R1, which one's R1, oh I'm dead! I can't quite get a hold of that."

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Continue reading: God of War TV showrunner confirms he hasn't played the games because of the controller (full post)

Tesla Autopilot crash test against wall painted to look like a road

Jak Connor | Electric Vehicles & Cars | Mar 18, 2025 6:03 AM CDT

Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer and long-time YouTuber, has tested a Tesla's Autopilot visual imaging detection system against Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), which many other vehicle manufacturers use to detect their surroundings.

Tesla Autopilot crash test against wall painted to look like a road

The goal of the tests was to demonstrate the strengths/weaknesses of both detection systems, with Tesla being criticized for using visual data-only Autopilot as specific physical obscurifications can result in the system failing to detect a potential danger, resulting in the correct time to break being missed. On the other hand, LiDAR has been criticized by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has said it's "fricking stupid, expensive and unnecessary," despite its ability to see through physical tests such as fog or heavy rain.

Rober tested various environments on both detection systems and found both the Autopilot system and the LiDAR system stopped the vehicle for a motionless child mannequin in the middle of the road. Both systems also passed the "child running out onto the road test." However, the systems differentiated when the child mannequin was engulfed in fog, as the LiDAR system was able to detect the mannequin through the fog, while Autopilot wasn't. The Tesla failed this test and slammed directly through the mannequin.

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Continue reading: Tesla Autopilot crash test against wall painted to look like a road (full post)

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