Latest News - Page 4

Last month NASA updated its prediction for one of the most hazardous objects in our solar system colliding with Earth - asteroid Bennu.

The updated forecast, measured to extreme precision, detailed the chances of asteroid Bennu colliding with Earth are 1 in 1,750, which was slightly higher than previous estimations. For those that don't know, Bennu was originally discovered back in 1999, and is an asteroid estimated to be around the size of a regular building.

Updated predictions stated that there is a higher chance that Bennu will collide with Earth, but not a certainty. As previously stated, the chances of Bennu actually colliding with Earth are 1 in 1,750, and those odds will occur late in the twenty-second century. To put the odds of Bennu impacting Earth into perspective, the chances are the same as:

The elite have always had the attitude of "rules for thee, but not for me" but Facebook is in trouble, yet again, this time with its now-not-so-secret XCheck program.

Facebook's internal XCheck program lets whitelisted users break the same rules that would otherwise see a regular user, or someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum, get banned. XCheck, otherwise known as just Cross Check, has improved quality control when it comes to moderation from high-profile users like celebrities, and politicians.

XCheck is meant to see posts made by whitelisted users get flagged, and have them routed through better-trained moderators to make sure that Facebook's rules are upheld and enforced. Instead, XCheck users -- some 5.8 million of them -- were being protected in 2020. Just 10% of the posts that were flagged for XCheck got reviewed, according to a document witnessed by The Wall Street Journal.

Intel will have its new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs and 600-series motherboards launching in October or November 2021, just weeks away really -- and now we have some news on the ASUS Z690 motherboards in various forms.

ASUS will have a plethora of Z690 motherboards for you to choose from, with the choice between DDR5 + DDR4 RAM for some of the models. It all starts with the flagship ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme motherboard, which also includes the FORMULA, HERO, and APEX motherboards as well -- all of them will have DDR5, and only DDR5.

There are 3 x ROG STRIX Z690 motherboards, a TUF GAMING Z690 board, and a heap of PRIME Z690 motherboards that will have varying levels of technology, features, and sizes. In the middle of the ASUS Z690 avalanche of motherboards we have the ProART Z690-CREATOR 10G motherboard which sounds like a "content creator" motherboard that'll have 10GbE LAN and I'm sure a butt-load of I/O connectivity.

Activision is leading into the Open Beta of Call of Duty: Vanguard, otherwise known as Call of Duty 2021 -- with the full game launching on October 5, 2021 -- and now we're hearing about Call of Duty 2022 aka Project Cortez.

The codenamed Project Cortez is reportedly a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare, the revamped version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and where Warzone all started. Battlefield leaker Tom Henderson is behind the leak, and after a damn good track record with his leaks on Battlefield 2042, the first tease of Project Cortez is here.

Henderson said: "It looks like Call of Duty: 2022 is codenamed Project Cortez. It's expected to be a sequel to Modern Warfare 2019".

Apple announced a plethora of new products today during its "California Streaming" event, with the new flagship iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max announced.

Apple's new flagship iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max have a next-gen A15 Bionic chip, up to 1TB of storage -- a first for the iPhone -- brighter, smoother Super Retina XDR displays with ProMotion 120Hz refresh, and so much more.

The new iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max still retain their 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch displays as the previous iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, but they have an upgraded Super Retina XDR display with Pro Motion 120Hz support -- as well as the notch area being 20% smaller.

DEATHLOOP is now out on the PC and both the next-gen PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles, but now we have some more performance details on the PS5 version of DEATHLOOP.

Bethesda and Arkane have added AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) support, which helps out the PC version of the game on both AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. DEATHLOOP is using temporal reconstruction to scale the resolution on the PS5, with ray-traced shadows on offer that are generated by natural light and are part of the ambient occlusion.

In a video comparing the PS5 and PC versions of the game made by ElAnalistaDeBits, and that the PS5 has "stuttering issues" and that the Quality Mode runs between 40-60FPS average. I wouldn't be running this game, or any other game without 60FPS average -- especially since DEATHLOOP has a Performance Mode offering 4K 60FPS (without ray tracing).

If you're gaming away on an AMD Radeon graphics card, then you'll want to grab the very latest AMD Radeon Adrenalin 21.9.1 drivers.

AMD's new Radeon Adrenalin 21.9.1 drivers include support for Bethesda and Arkane's latest first-person shooter, DEATHLOOP, as well as support for the Call of Duty: Vanguard Open Beta. The new drivers also include AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) for the Radeon RX 5000 series (RDNA) graphics cards.

There's also Radeon Software support for Windows 11, which isn't far away with Microsoft unleashing its next-gen Windows 11 operating system on October 5. If you're using the Windows 11 Insider Preview build that you can read more about below, then the new Windows 11 driver from AMD is available and ready to rock and roll with your Radeon GPU.

The new AMD Radeon Adrenalin 21.9.1 drivers can be downloaded right here -- 466MB download.

Halo 5's mention in a GeForce Now database leads fans to believe the game is coming to PC, but 343i says otherwise.

Halo 5: Guardians was recently mentioned three times in a huge GeForce Now database leak of over 5,000 games and apps, but 343 Industries says it still has no plans to bring Halo 5 to PC. Right now 343 Industries is totally focused on Halo: Infinite's development.

"Maybe this was for H5:Forge but I can confirm there are no plans to bring H5 to PC. We know there's some demand for it, but as we've stated before, not in the cards as the studio is fully focused on Infinite and MCC. Will never say never, but nothing underway currently," 343i Community Manager Brian Jarrard said on Twitter.

The Xbox Series X's internal PCIe 4.0 SSD can technically be replaced, but only with a cloned drive from the exact same console...and a Series X SSD doesn't work on an Xbox Series S console.

The two Xbox Series X SSDs used in the test: the original WD CH SN530 SSD (left) and the donor XA1-31512 SSD (right).

According to YouTuber TronixFix, the Xbox Series X's internal SSD is apparently replaceable, but there's a catch: The replacement drive has to be a cloned version of the console's original drive.

Tests from YouTuber TronixFix confirm that the Series X's internal SSD has custom features that are essential to the console's operation, and the system won't power up unless the original drive--or a clone of the original drive--is installed. You can't just go out and buy a M.2 2230 SSD, slot it into the Xbox Series X's internal socket, and expect it to power up and operate. This is likely due to the custom ASIC that enables PCIe 4.0 (Gen4 x2) on the internal Xbox WD SN530 drive.

Epic Games has paid Apple its court-ordered fee of $6 million for breaching its Developer Product Licensing Agreement.

On August 2020, Epic Games went rogue and added its own direct payment processing system in Fortnite on iOS, breaching its contract and keeping all in-game revenues for itself. This maneuver kicked off the infamous Epic vs Apple trial. Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store, and then Epic sued Apple for anti-trust and anti-competitive practices. Now the trial is over, and the dust has settled with Epic being forced to pay back money that Apple is lawfully owed.

The courts ordered that Epic Games would pay back Apple 30% of the $12.167 million that Fortnite earned from direct payments from August through November 2020, alongside of 30% of Fortnite's iOS Safari browser earnings from November through September 2021. Epic was found breaching its contractual obligations to Apple, which called for 30% commission on all in-game revenues. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney confirms this amounted for roughly $6 million; roughly $3 million from the direct payments, and the remainder from Safari revenues and associated fees.