Latest News - Page 327

A collaboration between Tusk and ShiftCam has spawned the Cinema Series, which is described as the world's first commercial-grade mobile lens and filter system.

The Tusk Cinema Series is aimed at filmmakers that want the portability of their smartphone but also want the quality of professional-grade lens and filters. According to the announcement, the Tusk Cinema Series kit states it will provide Hollywood-level cinematography for the iPhone 14 Pro to 16 Pro, but is particularly aimed at the latest iPhone models, so the iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The kit is launching on Kickstarter and offers seven lenses and eight magnetic filters. The Kickstarter had a funding goal of $10,295 with 43 days of donation time time to go. However, the project has already blown past that goal by a wide margin, as at the time of writing, it has reached $80,000 with only 66 backers. So, what's in the kit? Buyers will get a 8mm 200° fisheye, 25mm 10x macro, 16mm wide-angle, 15mm 1.55x anamorphic, 18mm 1.33x anamorphic, 75mm long-range macro, and 60mm telephoto.

The Pokémon franchise has attempted to branch into 3D gaming experiences over the last few years, led by developers Game Freak. However, the results have been shaky, with previous titles like Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet criticized for lackluster visuals and uninspired gameplay.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A appears to continue that trend, with the most recent gameplay trailer showcasing visuals that, as fans have pointed out, seem more reminiscent of the GameCube or PS2 era than a 2025 first-party title. Nintendo's former leads aren't impressed either.

As reported by TheGamer, Nintendo's former director of marketing and content, Kit Ellis, commented, "It doesn't look great. It's not high-end, pushing the performance of the Switch." Nintendo's former senior manager of creator relations, Krysta Yang, shared this sentiment, stating, "It looks pretty rough. Environments look pretty rough."

As announced by developers Pocketpair, Palworld's crossplay update will be arriving in late March. While an exact date was not specified, players will be pleased to hear that it's only a few weeks until they can take advantage of the feature.

Crossplay will allow players to play multiplayer across all released platforms, including Steam, Xbox, PS5, and Mac. The update will also allow players to transfer Pals between worlds - another highly requested improvement. A range of additional fixes and improvements will also be deployed, with full patch notes made available upon the update's launch.

The crossplay update comes part of a broader roadmap, which includes the above features, an end-game scenario, and a range of new content additions. Notably, the developers plan to establish collaborations with games like Terraria - presumably in the form of new mechanics, skins or exclusive events.

Intel stocks have had a resurgence, trending 12% since the company's new chief executive Lip-Bu Tan was appointed. The move follows the retirement of former CEO Pat Gelsinger in December 2024, who was later found to have been pushed out.

As detailed in a company press release, Tan will be stepping into the CEO role March 18th, taking over from interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus. Zinser will retain an executive role as Intel's CFO, and Holthaus will remain the CEO of Intel products.

The company outlined Tan's experience as a technology investor and widely respected executive in the sector. Tan has over 20 years of experience with semiconductors and software, and has established relationships across the ecosystem that the company believes to be beneficial.

Rumors regarding the remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion have resurfaced, with reputable leaker NateTheHate suggesting that we might get our hands on the title as soon as May this year.

When asked on X if he had any news regarding the remake, NateTheHate responded, stating that more news will be on the way over the next two months, with a potential release window before June. It's possible we'll see an announcement trailer later this month or in April.

Bethesda has expressed a preference to leave game announcements until close to release, as Todd Howard highlighted when discussing Fallout 4. On that basis, it wouldn't be surprising to see the studio drop a surprise launch a few months out. Ideally, a potential announcement would come with some news about The Elder Scrolls VI, which was first announced back in 2018. However, at this stage, anything would be better than nothing.

ASUS could be the first partner to make an official Xbox-branded PC handheld, sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren.

Microsoft is forging ahead with its bold new multi-platform plan for Xbox. The platform is evolving, and new reports suggest Microsoft will use the nascent handheld PC gaming market to help unify its console and Windows storefronts and UI.

With their lower-end hardware and specifically-scaled chips, handhelds are a kind of missing link between consoles and fully-fledged gaming PCs. Microsoft wants to help innovate this space while also learning and expanding its business. Earlier reports from Windows Central said that Microsoft was teaming up with OEMs to make an official Xbox-branded handheld PC. Now sources have told The Verge that ASUS could be the first OEM partner to release such a device, which is the previously mentioned codenamed Kennan, and the handheld could come in 2025.

Apple's Safari and Google Chrome are the two largest browsers in the market at the moment - by quite a large margin. However, a recent investigation from the UK suggests that the large tech firms are holding back innovation and limiting growth in these markets.

The investigation, conducted by an independent inquiry group in the UK, was officially published on March 12. Margot Daly, the Chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), concluded that competition between different mobile browsers "is not working well" and that this is "holding back innovation in the UK."

The analysis set out to identify issues in the marketplace and outline potential interventions to facilitate the healthy functioning of digital markets. One of the key focuses was to identify whether Apple or Google have what they call 'strategic market status' (SMS) - which essentially refers to monopolistic power in a digital market. When firms are assigned this designation, the UK Government's Digital Markets Unit (DMU) is granted powers to implement pro-competitive interventions. While the investigation has flagged concerns, whether Apple and Google are designated with this status is part of an ongoing investigation expected to conclude later this year.

Microsoft is teaming up with third-party OEMs to make an Xbox-branded PC gaming handheld that's targeting release in 2025, sources tell Windows Central.

Xbox is everywhere these days, including new form factors like handhelds. Microsoft has already tried to push cloud-only handheld gaming by partnering with Logitech for its G Cloud device, and now reports say that Microsoft will do the same with dedicated PC handhelds.

The new device won't be official Microsoft first-party hardware, though. So the term 'Xbox handheld' is a misnomer--it's more of a handheld with an Xbox button-logo on it, one that likely runs a specific new OS with a UI optimized for handhelds (we know from experience that Windows 11 is not great for these screens). The new handheld is said be part of a hardware project that's codenamed "Kennan".

Apple is expected to release something new in the iPhone world later this year, with the introduction of the ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air rolling in at just 5.5mm thick... but 9.5mm including the camera bump.

In a new report from The Information, we're hearing the new iPhone 17 Air will be around 6mm thin which makes it a little bit thicker than the iPhone 6 which was released 10 years ago, coming in at 5.9mm thin. In a new post on Chinese social media site Weibo, leaker Ice Universe says that the camera bump on the iPhone 17 Air will be 4mm thick, meaning that we should have a total thickness of 9.5mm, not so ultra-thin, eh?

Apple's new iPhone 17 Air smartphone will feature a new camera bar on the back, housing all of the required components that you find on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max handsets. This means we can expect a single-lens camera sensor on the left side of the camera bar, with a mic and LED flash placed on the right.

Remember the crypto-mining insanity, where trying to buy graphics cards was nigh impossible? Well, NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5090 is being sold on Chinese black markets for $5000... with some listings on eBay seeing the RTX 5090 selling for between $5000 and an out-of-this-world $10,000... yeah, $10K for the RTX 5090.

The Information reports: "DeepSeek's skyrocketing popularity has boosted demand for NVIDIA's gaming chips in the underground market as tech firms realize they can run DeepSeek's models at a fraction of the price of AI chips, according to five chip smugglers".

It looks like Chinese companies have discovered that it's far cheaper running DeepSeek AI models on NVIDIA's consumer-focused GeForce RTX series GPUs rather than more expensive -- and hard, or impossible to get because of US export restrictions -- like the H20, H100, etc. China only has access to "stripped-down" variants of its GPUs like the GeForce RTX 5090D, and that demand is so strong that these models are now being sold at "black market" prices with the RTX 5090 (non-D) selling for up to $5000 or more.

Acer has teased its upcoming Predator Helios Neo 16S AI gaming laptop, powered by the unreleased NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop GPU.

French retailer PC21 and on Acer's Hong Kong website, we're learning that the new Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI gaming laptop will have the RTX 5060 Laptop GPU which rocks 8GB of GDDR7 memory. NVIDIA has only announced 4 of its GeForce RTX 50 Laptop GPUs so far: RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24GB GDDR7, RTX 5080 Laptop GPU with 16GB GDDR7, RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU with 12GB GDDR7, and finally, the RTX 5070 Laptop GPU with 8GB GDDR7.

The RTX 5060 Laptop GPU and RTX 5050 Laptop GPU haven't been announced, but we know they're coming -- and now we know Acer's new Predator Helios Neo 16S AI gaming laptop will be powered by the RTX 5060 Laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDRR7 memory. We should also expect the RTX 5050 Laptop GPU to feature the same 8GB GDDR7 memory, while the desktop RTX 5050 is said to feature the same 8GB framebuffer, but slower GDDR6 memory.

The newer breed of deep reasoning models - designed to 'think' before answering - are also more open to taking any route possible to solve a given problem, it seems, even if that means cheating.

Researchers submitted a paper to Cornell university entitled 'Demonstrating specification gaming in reasoning models' which tested AIs playing games of chess on Stockfish.

They found that the new models, such as ChatGPT o1-preview and DeepSeek-R1, would "often hack the benchmark by default" - meaning resorting to cheating of one kind or another.

NVIDIA hasn't announced its GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card just yet, but that hasn't stopped system integrators from preparing new gaming PCs... enter Acer with its upcoming Nitro 50 Gaming PC packing the new RTX 5060 with 8GB of GDDR7 memory. Check it out:

We've been hearing more and more rumors of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, which is expected to feature 8GB of GDDR7 memory and the GB206 "Blackwell" GPU. NVIDIA is expected to unveil its new RTX 5060 Ti, RTX 5060, and RTX 5050 in the coming days, with the RTX 5050 to drop down into GDDR6 memory.

NVIDIA's new mid-range GeForce RTX 5060 is expected to launch with the GB206 GPU packing 3840 CUDA cores, with 8GB of GDDR7 memory spread out on a smaller 128-bit memory bus. We should expect that NVIDIA will be using 28Gbps GDDR7 memory modules, resulting in similar bandwidth of the RTX 5060 Ti, at somewhere around 448GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

TSMC has reportedly pitched a joint venture foundry idea to US chip designers including NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcomm, and Qualcomm that would see the companies operating Intel's semiconductor fabs.

In a new report from Reuters, we're learning that TSMC would run the operations of Intel Foundry, but it wouldn't own more than 50% according to their sources. The talks are at an "early stage" and come after President Trump requested TSMC to help turn the US semiconductor market around as they've been bleeding out its semiconductor prowess to Taiwan and President Trump wants that business back.

Reuters reports that the details of the plan for TSMC to take "no more than a 50% stake and its overtures to potential partners are being reported for the first time. Any final deal -- the value of which is unclear -- would need approval from the Trump administration, which does not want Intel or its foundry division to be fully foreign-owned".

For the first time ever, Rockstar is rolling out software that will help modders.

Rockstar's Cfx.re team is rolling out a utility that will assist modders in converting old creations to the new GTA V enhanced edition. The news was announced on the forums, and the tool isn't ready just yet.

The new mod-friendly tools are part of Rockstar's approach of working with the modding community, a strategy which arguably started when the GTA-makeracquired the Cfx.re modding and GTA community group in 2023.

Overclocking legend "Der8auer" has had some hands-on time with PowerColor's new custom Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil graphics card and overclocked the hell out of the RDN 4 GPU with some undervolting and a 3.3GHz GPU clock and put it head-to-head against the GeForce RTX 5080.

PowerColor's custom RX 9070 XT Red Devil graphics card is the company's flagship RDNA 4 card, with Der8auer reporting that it features higher-quality components and a higher-end cooler. The card is so quiet that Der8auer said he thought he mixed up the OC and Silent BIOS switches, but in real-world testing both of those settings had nearly identical results (62-63C on the RDNA 4 GPU, and 85C hotspot temperatures).

Der8auer started by tweaking the fan profile settings by forcing a 49% fan speed, which is the maximum that the overclocker's ears could enjoy. Once this was tweaked, the results were instant: the RDNA 4 GPU scaled past 2970MHz (2.97GHz) and hitting as high as 3030MHz (3.03GHz) which isn't as high as PowerColor's advertised 3060MHz (3.06GHz) that it says the RX 9070 XT Red Devil is meant to hit.

GALAX's new custom GeForce RTX 5090D HOF OC Lab XOC Limited Edition graphics card has been teased, with its dual 12-2x6 power connectors and overclock breaking 3DMark Speed Way's world record with the GB202 GPU clocking in at 3.27GHz.

The GALAX OC team and Micka have shown off the design of the GALAX RTX 5090D HOF OC Lab XOC Limited Edition graphics card that sports not one but two 12-2x6 power connectors, versus the old design with a single power connector. The GALAX OC team helped design the custom PCB design for the new RTX 5090D HOF OC Lab XOC Limited Edition graphics card, with "XOC" standing for "Extreme OC" which is a model that only GALAX will use in-house.

NVIDIA has to improve every single change to TGP and memory settings, where after approval, BIOSes are distributed confidentially. XOC BIOSes usually leak out to the public, but this is not something that should be done lightly as cards without a dual BIOS make it risky as it can cause failure and you'll have a dead card on your hands.

A survey on the new GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA has cast some further light on the Blackwell versus RDNA 4 battle, with some interesting revelations - including the surprising number of PC gamers out there who've had their enthusiasm for a new GPU pretty much stamped out.

Or maybe that isn't so surprising, depending on your viewpoint, but before we get into that, let's just remember that this is a single survey, so don't draw too much in the way of conclusions.

The poll - conducted by German tech site ComputerBase (and flagged up by 3D Center, via VideoCardz) - tried to feel out wider opinions on both sets of new GPUs, as well as gauging the level of sales.

Niantic, the makers of the hit app Pokemon GO have just been acquired by Scopely, a mobile gaming firm, for $3.5 billion.

Scopely has already established portfolio of mobile games, such as Monoloply Go, Stumble Guys, Star Trek TM Fleet Command, and Marvel Strike Force. Now, Scopely can add Niantic's video game business under its belt, which has been helmed by longtime leaders Kei Kawai and Ed Wu, who will remain on as studio heads. Pokemon GO launched in 2016 and quickly became a global phenomenon, drawing in millions of players, and even today, it still remains in the top 10 apps with more than 100 million players in 2024.

One of the main aspects of Pokemon GO and it's attractiveness is the social element, which has evolved into more than just catching Pokemon with your friends as themed festivals and events around the world have been setup in celebration of the game. Scopely even mentioned this in its press release, with the company stating that more people attended Pokemon GO Fest last year than Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Electric Daisy Carnival, and Tomorrowland combined.

It appears the leaks and rumors were correct, NVIDIA is planning on pulling the cover off three new graphics cards, an RTX 5060 and an RTX 5060 Ti, which will arrive in two models.

Reports indicate NVIDIA has briefed the press ahead of the official announcement of three new cards tomorrow, with gaming being able to expect the following to be unveiled: RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, and an RTX 5060. NVIDIA didn't inform the press what the specifications for the cards were ahead of the announcement, but leakers have already done the legwork for us there. Previous rumors indicate the RTX 5060 Ti will launch with 4608 CUDA cores, with 16GB and 8GB variants, both rocking GDDR7 memory.

As for the RTX 5060, we previously heard the new mid-range card will feature 3840 CUDA cores, and arrive with 8GB of VRAM. It will also feature GDDR7 memory. Notably, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and 8GB variants will have a 180W TGP, while the RTX 5060 drops down to 150W. What wasn't included in the reported NVIDIA briefing was mention of the rumored RTX 5050, which is slated to be NVIDIA's sub $300 Blackwell-based GPU aimed at entry-level PC gamers.