A team of researchers set out to answer a simple question - If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology similar to the level of the technology we have on Earth today, would they be able to detect Earth and the evidence of humanity on its surface? And from how far away?

The team was led by Dr. Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute, with collaborators from the Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures project and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center. Using a theoretical, modeling-based method, the team looked at the technosignatures emitted from Earth, such as radar emissions from observatories, and discovered the maximum distance a hypothetical civilization with technology similar to ours could detect them. What the team found was these technosignatures are detectable from up to 12,000 light-years away.

The team proposed the idea of how Earth would look to the rest of the galaxy through creating a hypothetical "mirror Earth." The team found that different forms of technosignatures have different ranges, such as atmospheric technosignatures, such as nitrogen dioxide emissions have increased in their detectability compared to a year ago, with the team finding instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is capable of detecting such signatures from as far as 5.7 light-years away.

Microsoft is continuing its plan to remove the walls of exclusivity surrounding Xbox games and bring some of its best first-party titles over to competing platforms such as the PS5 and the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2.

For quite some time, it has been rumored Microsoft is working on several ports for first-party Xbox titles that are destined for the PS5, and now a new article by The Verge's Tom Warren details PS5 ports for Halo, Gears of War and Microsoft's Flight Simulator. It was only last week Microsoft confirmed Forza Horizon 5 is coming to the PS5, and it was only yesterday that Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition and Age of Mythology: Retold were also confirmed to be coming to the PS5.

Notably, all three of these titles were announced via blog posts and not during a dedicated PlayStation or Xbox event, which seemingly highlights the normalcy of ports from Xbox's perspective. Warren writes he heard in June 2024 that Age of Empires and Age of Mythology were both coming to the PS5 and at the same time that Microsoft was currently "working on some form of a Halo: Combat Evolved remaster that [was] also being considered for rival consoles." The rumor of the Age games coming to PS5 ended up being true, which leaves us with Halo.

In mid-January, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai publicly declared that his goal for 2025 was to achieve 500 million Gemini AI users. In the battle for users and downloads, OpenAI and Google are taking their AI models to the biggest stage in advertising: the Super Bowl.

In a Thursday blog post, Google revealed its marketing plans for the big game, sharing with users their creative ads 'Dream Job' and 'Party Blitz'. In Dream Job, a father prepares for his upcoming job interview with the help of Gemini Live on his Pixel. In Party Blitz, a man prompts the assistance of Gemini to help him pretend that he understands football to impress his friends.

Google's campaign comes in a bid to showcase the Google Pixel 9, which was released in August 2024. More importantly, the ads aim to showcase AI applications to a wider audience.

NASA has confirmed its Mars rover has discovered a Martian sample unlike any other the rover has found throughout its travels across the plains of the Red Planet.

The Mars rover named Perseverance is making its way out of the Jezero Crater, which it landed in with the now-deceased Mars helicopter in 2021. Perseverance has been exploring the Jezero Crater in search of evidence of ancient microbial life. Part of its mission is to collect samples of the Martian environment, which will eventually be sent back to Earth for scientific analysis. NASA recently announced Perseverance has stumbled across and now collected a sample that is unlike any other it has collected before.

According to the space agency, the new "one-of-a-kind treasure" is a 1.1-inch rock sample collected from an area called "Silver Mountain". NASA wrote on the official Perseverance X account the rock sample has "textures, unlike anything we've seen before." According to NASA, the rocks in the area Perseverance is exploring are of great scientific interest as they have the possibility of offering a peek into Mars' past. As for the exciting sample, and others like it in the area, researchers believe they have been pushed up from deep within the planet after an asteroid impact that occurred billions of years ago.

The world's most powerful space telescope has captured stunning images of the minuscule objects surrounding a celestial object located approximately 450 light-years away from Earth.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has honed in on the newborn star known as Herbig Haro 30 (HH 30), which is located in the constellation Taurus. The European Space Agency (ESA) has taken to its website to detail the above photograph, which shows the young star seemingly encased in a dense cloud of dust. However, that isn't all that is present within the image. Astronomers are particularly interested in HH 30 and, by extension, these new images, as they show an example of outflowing gas from the star-forming a narrow jet.

These intense jets of gas cause shockwaves through the dust and gas that are forming a disk around the newborn star. The shockwaves heat the material surrounding the star, resulting in a luminescent glow. Astronomers are particularly interested in the evolutionary formation of these disks, as the same process is what created the solar system we are living in today.

Capcom's highly anticipated Monster Hunter Wilds is out later this month, and ahead of the launch, the developer and publisher has released a free Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmark Tool on Steam so you can see if your system is ready to go wild. The benchmark includes a couple of action-packed cinematic sequences, some simulated open-world and town exploration, and ends with the game's main characters sitting down for a meal.

As it's currently in our test rig, we decided to fire it up and see how the game performs on the brand-new MSI GeForce RTX 5080 VANGUARD SOC. After the game's beta was criticized for its performance and optimization, the Benchmark Tool running on the GeForce RTX 5080 was smooth and stutter-free. Running in 4K using the 'Ultra' graphics preset with DLSS 'Quality,' we got a respectable average frame rate of 86.74 FPS.

Interestingly, as the game's ray-tracing option only covers reflections, enabling RT on the highest preset saw the overall performance drop to 79.58 FPS - an 8% reduction. However, with Frame Generation enabled, this increased to an average frame rate of 116.97 FPS. Of course, the GeForce RTX 5080 is one of the planet's most powerful 4K gaming GPUs, so getting decent 4K performance is expected.

With the White House imposing a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports into the U.S., some tech companies, like ASRock, are not only considering their alternatives but actively planning to change their business models. In response to PCMag, the acclaimed PC components maker is planning to move the manufacturing of its GPU and motherboard products to other countries.

ASRock is known for creating high-quality AMD Radeon and Intel Arc graphics cards in the GPU space. Recently, we reviewed the ASRock Intel Arc B580 Steel Legend GPU and were impressed by its gaming and thermal performance, not to mention its RGB-lit all-white physical design.

At CES 2025, we got to preview and go hands-on with the company's new flagship ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi GPU that, according to the latest RDNA 4 rumors, is set to launch on March 6, 2025. By moving its GPU manufacturing out of China, ASRock can avoid the new 10% tariff on Chinese imports.

Amidst the rising competition from DeepSeek, OpenAI has been rushing to fortify its market share by making more features available to free users. In a recent development, OpenAI has announced it will be making AI-powered search available to everyone, regardless of whether they have an account. OpenAI posted the announcement to X on Wednesday. The feature was first released to paid users in October 2024, and made available for users with accounts in December.

The move follows a string of feature releases previously only available on paid plans. OpenAI's latest reasoning model, o3-mini, was made available for free on the 31st of January. Prior to that, OpenAI's o1-mini was also made openly available without a fee.

Since DeepSeek's r1 model burst onto the scene in late January, AI firms have significantly accelerated the pace of their feature rollouts. On Wednesday, Google released its Gemini 2.0 series of models, which included the freemium Gemini 2.0 Flash. Similarly, OpenAI quickly pushed out their AI agent tools 'Operator' and 'Deep Research' in rapid succession.

A new patent for the Nintendo Switch 2 has revealed new functionality with the joy-con controllers, and while Nintendo hasn't officially confirmed the functionality, the company did subtly showcase it in its most recent trailer for the Switch 2.

The new patent shows Nintendo has been exploring using its Joy-Con controllers like a computer mouse, which was briefly showcased in the above trailer with the Joy-Con's sliding around on their connector side. However, it wasn't touched on for the rest of the trailer and was left to ambiguity and speculation. But, the newly released patent provides more details on the proposed functionality, as the images included in the patent show the Joy-Con being held horizontally with both the SR and SL buttons facing downward, with a user's thumb placed on the joystick.

More specifically, an image shows the right index finger and middle finger placed over the R and ZR buttons, similar to the left and right buttons on a traditional mouse. This design has led to the assumption that an optical sensor within the joy-con is downward facing. The patent also includes the translation "mouse operation sensor" 28 times, according to The Verge.

EA recently announced that its fantasy RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to meet its sales targets, so the publisher adjusted its financial forecasts. This is another commercial miss from the veteran studio, whose most recent titles, Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda, also failed to make a critical and commercial impact.

In the following days, reports of developer BioWare losing team members emerged, alongside reports of some moving to other EA studios. The developer confirmed that the downsizing wouldn't affect progress on the new Mass Effect game as it was still in the pre-production phase - confirming that the highly anticipated game isn't ready for 'all hands on deck' development.

However, the fate of Mass Effect 5 - which is being presented as a sequel and spiritual successor to the original trilogy - is currently up in the air thanks to comments from EA CEO Andrew Wilson. During a recent financial call with investors, Wilson blamed the lack of live service features and multiplayer for Dragon Age's failure to meet the company's expectations.

AI researchers from Standard and the University of Washington claim to have made significant progress in the development of low-cost AI models. Published in a recent research paper, the model entitled 's1' was reportedly built using a small dataset of 1,000 questions and a budget of less than $50.

The development was achieved through a process called distillation. Distillation allows smaller models to leverage the capabilities of larger models throughout the training process. In this instance, the s1 model was distilled from Google's Gemini 2.0 - utilizing the 'thinking' process behind each answer from Gemini Flash 2.0 experimental.

Google's terms of service prohibit using Gemini's API to develop models that compete with their AI models, leaving s1 in somewhat of a legal gray area. No official comments have been made in response to the development. The s1 model reportedly rivals the coding and mathematics performance of OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's r1, achieving strong performance in benchmark results. While it does not surpass the industry-leading models, it comes surprisingly close considering its budget.

Redditor 'EssDee3D' was lucky enough to purchase one of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics cards... except it wasn't the RTX 5080 FE, but the higher-end RTX 5090 FE... except it wasn't.

Once the Redditor opened the box, he noticed it was the far more expensive RTX 5090 Founders Edition... except it wasn't. The RTX 5090 engraving seems to be an error in manufacturing, as it's recognized as an RTX 5080 in Windows and GPU-Z. The packaging says RTX 5080 but the card itself is engraved with "RTX 5090" but there are big differences between the RTX 5090 FE and RTX 5080 FE coolers, even though they look the same from the outside.

The Redditor explained: "I ordered a 5080 and I got a graphics card with 5090 engraved on it. The outer box has the 5080 SKU on it. Wondering if anyone else has seen something like this before?".

Things are heating up in the world of Radeon, with RDNA 4 set to get its big reveal soon and the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT set to launch on March 6, 2025. Frank Azor, the Consumer and Gaming Marketing lead at AMD, has been quietly hyping up RDNA 4 recently, with one of his latest social media posts teasing a full presentation on RDNA 4.

The post responded to a question from content creator Dee Batch, who wanted more information on AMD's answer to the GeForce RTX 5070 and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. Frank Azor posted, "Yes, full details are coming soon," confirming that AMD will host a presentation or live stream that will go through all the juicy RDNA 4 details. Rumors are pointing to this happening in late February.

In addition, in response to a follow-up question about the price point for the RDNA 4 flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, Frank Azor also confirms that AMD is "listening" to the community when it comes to launching at a price that isn't simply a bit cheaper than NVIDIA.

MSI will soon release its fleet of new AMD B850-based motherboards, focusing on the budget gaming PC side of the market, but the new mobos will be tuned for Ryzen X3D processors and feature the latest I/O connectivity.

Our friends at Wccftech got their hands on an upcoming MSI AM5 B850 roadmap, with 5 new motherboards based on the B850 chipset arriving in Q2 2025. We can expect a new MPG-branded B850 motherboard, with a Mini-ITX design, and a full-sized ATX motherboard in the upcoming B850 Gaming PLUS Wi-Fi PZ. These motherboards will include:

Outside of the new MPG B850I Edge Wi-Fi and B850 Gaming PLUS Wi-Fi PZ motherboards, the rest of MSI's upcoming B850 motherboards are found in the PRO series. MSI's new B850 series motherboards will feature the latest I/O connectivity, including support for Wi-Fi 7, Gen5 PCIe and M.2 SSD slots, CPU and RAM overclocking, a bunch of EZ DIY features, and enthusiast-grade 5GbE ethernet.

Layoffs continue at Sony Interactive Entertainment, and this time nearly an entire UI/UX division has been let go.

Sony is trying to cut costs to improve profit margins and has laid off hundreds of workers in the process. Now the cutting continues as Sony's gaming segment orders more job terminations--this time affecting a group that's responsible for making big changes to what users see on the PS5's dashboard.

The new layoff report comes from Oscar Diaz, who operates under the handle Ryosuke said this on Twitter: "Most of my team was just laid off from PlayStation. It was a dream to get to work with Sony on the platform I'd grown up playing since the PS1 and contribute to the PS5, Portal, PSVR2, PS App, and future consoles. If you know anyone who needs an engineer, feel free to reach out."

The latest rumors suggest a March 2025 launch for the GeForce RTX 5060 and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, NVIDIA's mainstream RTX Blackwell options for the new 50 Series. According to a new report (via Videocardz) citing a source with close ties to NVIDIA partner ZOTAC, the GeForce RTX 5060 Series will use the traditional 8-pin PCIe power connector rather than the new 16-pin power connector.

The source also claims that the GeForce RTX 5060 Series, which covers both the Ti and non-Ti variants, will require a power supply with at least 650W - which indicates more power-hungry cards compared to the 550W of the current GeForce RTX 4060 Series.

There's also some preliminary pricing information for the GeForce RTX 5060 Series. Although it's in RMB (Chinese Yuan), it does look like we'll see a price increase of around 8% for the GeForce RTX 5060 and 3% for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. This could mean a price point of $329 USD for the RTX 5060 and $419 USD for the RTX 5060 Ti.

Apple has teased the future with a team of robotics researchers at the company designing and prototyping a robot with lifelike movements, that looks like a lamp that you'll have on your desk.

In a new video published last month on the Apple Machine Learning Research website, we get a look at something that resembles Pixar mascot Luxo Jr. The video shows the robot interacting with a person in a lifelike way, with the user asking the robot what the weather will be like today, and the robot looks out the window before responding with the forecast... a nice touch.

The user says that they'll be going for a hike that day, but the robot looks sad when it finds out it's not invited on the journey. In another situation, the robot responds to the user's hand gestures by moving to provide the desired lighting for iPhone photography. In another test, the robot pushes a mug on the desk towards the person, acting as a reminder to drink more water.

Take-Two Interactive is apparently so confident in Rockstar's perfectionism that it hasn't laid out exact sales predictions to determine GTA 6's success.

GTA 5 is one of the most successful games ever made. This trend is expected to continue with GTA 6, which could be big enough to lift up the entire video games industry through sales and long-term network effects. As for internal targets, Take-Two hasn't obsessed over recreating GTA 5's sales with in-depth predictions and strategies.

In a recent Q3FY25 earnings call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick made it seem that the company has total faith in Rockstar Games.

ASUS already has the most expensive custom GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card on the market, but has just one-upped it with the introduction of the new ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition, exclusive to the Middle East, with an absolutely gorgeous gold-themed design, check it out:

The new ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition is a super-luxurious collector's item with its all-gold finish, with the word Dhahab being Arabic for gold. ASUS has used the gold theme throughout the card, including the cooling shroud, backplate, and the GPU retention bracket. It looks stunning.

ASUS is also using a turquoise-like embellishment that refracts light into a beautiful blue-green tone, just like the real stone. The company also uses multiple cultural elements into the design of the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition, which includes Arabic calligraphy, with motifs teasing "strength, courage, and unity". There's also a gold backplate that features machined regional motifs that represent the desert and skyscrapers.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is indeed a console release with Rockstar publisher Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick making a statement during its earnings call today, where he said: "GTA 6 is a console release".

Zelnick was asked during the call about different generations of gamers wanting to play GTA 6, as dads would now be playing it with their kids who are old enough to play it. He said: "Rockstar Games seeks perfection in everything they do. If we do that right and focus on delivering for our consumers, that's our best opportunity to succeed".

He added: "GTA 6 is a console release and we know what the current console base looks like", meaning that there is no PC version that will see the light of day this year, but we could see a PC release of GTA 6 in 2026... if not, I bet we'll see it alongside NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 60 series that should drop in 2027.