Latest News - Page 452

This new Apple Mac Studio-inspired Mini-PC packs some serious horsepower: an Intel Core i9-14900KF processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, all inside of a 3.8-liter chassis. This is the FEVM FN60G:

The new FEVM GN60G is a new Mini-PC with a Mac Studio-inspired look and style, inside packing Intel CPUs and configurations with discrete GPUs including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060M, AMD Radeon RX 6600M, and the GeForce RTX 4090M (RTX 4090 Laptop GPU).

Jack Stone has gotten some hands-on time with the new Mini-PC powered with an Intel Core i9-14900KF desktop processor and GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU. The FN60G WE is a 3.8-liter Mini-PC that measures in at 168 x 168 x 137mm, and uses a built-in liquid cooler made by Thermalright.

MSI has just unveiled its exclusive new "Memory Extension Mode" for its 800-series motherboards and Intel's new Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake" CPUs, offering up to 21% more performance.

The new MSI "Memory Extension Mode" has three different presets: Performance Mode, Benchmark Mode, and Memtest Mode. The new feature will choose the best memory configurations based on the CPUs integrated memory controller (IMC) and memory overclocking capabilities, which paves the way for the best performance depending on your workload.

MSI explains: "Starting with the 800-series motherboards, MSI introduces the new Click BIOS X, providing a more user-friendly interface. To activate Memory Extension Mode, enter BIOS (defaulting to EZ Mode), switch to Advanced Mode by pressing F7, and locate the Memory Extension Mode option on the Overclocking page. Select the desired mode from the menu to apply".

Supermicro is in even more trouble: financial strife, a large DOJ investigation, its Malaysian factory has been affected, and its expansion has been suspended. Now... Supermicro has stuffed a huge order of NVIDIA's new GB200 NVL72 AI servers, with a Taiwanese firm stepping up to help.

In a new report from UDN, we're learning that the first wave of substantive transfer orders were received by Taiwanese factories after the "US Supermicro storm". Wiwynn, a subsidiary of Winstron Group, was approached for assistance post-Supermicro issues, after shipping the highest-end NVL72 full container to NVIDIA filled with GB200 AI chips, and the order volume was "huge" adds UDN.

Wiwynn hasn't commented on the news just yet, with speculation that the transfer of orders from Supermicro would be led by NVIDIA, but this time the transfer of orders "comes from a large Supermicro customer".

Alright, this is kinda cool to see from Pizza Hut Canada: introducing the PIZZAWARMR, a new 3D-printed download for your PlayStation 5 console that sits ON TOP of the console and keeps your pizza warm using the heat generated from the PS5. You can grab your own PIZZAWARMR here.

Pizza Hut Canada announced its new PIZZAWARMR that will fit on your PS5 and take "several slices" of pizza, with some inspiration pulled from Pizza Hut's iconic red roof.

Pizza Hut Canada explains its new PIZZAWARMR: "Upgrade your console with the hottest pizza warming technology. Using the warmth from your gaming system to keep your slices warm while you play. Pulling inspiration from Pizza Hut's red roof, the lid seamlessly opens like a laptop for easy pizza access".

Valve is launching a Steam Deck OLED: White Edition PC gaming handheld that will be available in limited quantities beginning November 18 at 3:00 pm Pacific Standard Time. This will be a custom version of the 1TB model, priced at $679 USD, with a white and grey color scheme that extends to the all-new white carry case.

With white-colored peripherals becoming increasingly popular, this custom Steam Deck OLED will undoubtedly sell out quickly. Valve is allocating stock to every region where the Steam Deck is officially available - including Australia, which just got it in November 2024 - to give everyone a fair chance of picking it up.

Gamers in the US, CA, UK, EU, and the AU region can order one - and that's one literally, as Valve is restricting Steam Deck OLED: White Edition purchases to one per customer/Steam user.

A major new study on standing desks appears to indicate that they are pretty much a waste of time, and essentially miss the point in terms of health benefits.

We're all familiar with the idea of the standing desk, hopefully, which allows for its height to be adjusted.

The basic concept is that sitting all day is very bad for you, and that mixing in some standing time - we should note, the idea is to mix sitting and standing, not do the latter all the time - is good for you.

Myths and prophecies about the moon stretch way back into the annals of history, but in the digital age, it's now being used for predictions relating to Grand Theft Auto 6.

The game has obviously hit the headlines in a big way with news that Take-Two Interactive has finally confirmed a fall 2025 release, but fresh speculation has fired up over some promotional material for GTA Online.

Eurogamer reports that all the fuss is around an image (see the top of this article) showing a character leaning on a car, in front of a factory, with the moon at the top-left of the pic. The moon is shown as waning gibbous, and the phase depicted corresponds to how the earth's satellite will look on November 22 in the real world.

The Australian government has announced its pursuing new legislation that would ban social media for anyone that isn't over the age of 16-years-old.

The announcement was made by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's office, which published a new notice on its website on November 8. The notice states the new Bill is aimed at addressing the online harms of social media on young people and builds upon already existing legislation designed at introducing new criminal penalties for "non-consensual sexual deepfakes." The Australian government's new plan received backing from the National Cabinet last week and will be introduced into Parliament in the coming weeks. The effects of the new legislation will be implemented next year.

Notably, services that provide education and health services won't be included in the new ban, and the eSafety Commissioner, Australia's independent online safety regulator, will oversee the new policies' implementation and regulation. As for what social platforms will be banned for users under the age of 16, the administration named the following platforms: TikTok, Facebook, and X. Moreover, YouTube will also fall under the new guidelines, according to Minister of Communications Michelle Rowland.

Ahead of publisher Take-Two Interactive's earnings call, company CEO Strauss Zelnick sat down for an interview with IGN, where he revealed the Borderlands Movie's box office flop translated into more sales of the games.

Zelnick said to the publication that it's obvious the Borderlands Movie didn't perform as intended, but the marketing for the movie, whether it be bad or not, translated into more sales for the catalog of Borderlands content. According to Zelnick, and, at least from the perspective of Take-Two Interactive, "I don't think it hurt at all, if anything I think it may have helped a little bit." Additionally, the Take-Two Interactive CEO said the failure of the movie highlights something the company has mentioned previously: the difficulty of bringing its intellectual property over to another medium.

More specifically, the Take-Two Interactive CEO said back in August to IGN that there is difficulty in correctly bringing gaming IP over to other mediums, and while there is very little risk economically (from Take-Two's perspective) when agreeing to license some IP to a movie, the result of the Borderlands Movie highlights this difficulty Zelnick has warned about.

Sony has taken to its official PlayStation YouTube channel to share a quick launch trailer for the PlayStation 5 Pro, the company's latest console, which Sony's CFO has confirmed is currently beating the PS4 Pro when it comes to sales during the same period.

Sony's latest fiscal financial report outlined many of the company's successes throughout the current financial year and offered a brief insight into the sales performance of the recently released PlayStation 5 Pro. The mid-gen refresh of the PlayStation 5 was released last week, and according to Sony's President, COO, and CFO, Hiroki Totoki, Sony isn't too bothered by the heavy criticism surrounding the price tag of the new console, as the company is aiming the PS5 Pro at its "core customers," which translates to enthusiast-level gamers that want the absolute best Sony can offer.

Additionally, Hiroki spoke on the number of sales the PS5 Pro has achieved since it launched, and surprisingly, especially considering the recent criticism surrounding the console, anecdotally reflected by the Like/Dislike ratio on the PS5 Pro launch video (7.1K likes to 9.7K dislikes, the PS5 Pro is selling better than the PS4 Pro did during the same period. Hiroki said, "I'm under the impression that the product is performing slightly stronger than the pre-orders of the PS4 Pro during the same period, so I don't think it is adversely affecting the product's sales plan."

Nintendo has outlined in its recent earnings report when it will be unveiling the successor to the Nintendo Switch, and how the Nintendo Account will be a big part of the next-generation console.

Nintendo recently published its second-quarter financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2025, and within that financial report, the company briefly touched on the successor to the immensely popular Nintendo Switch. Nintendo writes that it will be making the announcement for its next-generation console "during this fiscal year," which runs until April 2025. This technically isn't a new piece of information, as the company previously stated that it would be finishing off this financial year with the current Nintendo Switch.

However, what wasn't known was Nintendo's emphasis on the Nintendo Account and how that will be a big part of the next-generation console. The company writes in its financial report that it believes the Nintendo Account is "important for Nintendo's future" and that it will "carry over the good relationship that we have built with the over 100 million annual playing users on Nintendo Switch to its successor." This statement confirms that Nintendo Switch Online will be a service linked directly to a user's Nintendo Account and will be available on the Nintendo Switch successor.

Nintendo has recently released its earnings report where it revealed how many Pokemon game copies have sold on the Nintendo Switch throughout its lifespan.

The Nintendo Switch was released in 2017 and has become one of Nintendo's most successful consoles ever, selling more than 140 million units and becoming Nintendo's second best-selling console ever, right behind the Nintendo DS at 154 million units. According to Nintendo's recent financial results, the Pokemon franchise unit sales just on the Nintendo Switch have reached 99 million, which is an aggregated figure of all Pokemon game unit sales on the Nintendo Switch up until September 30.

For those wondering, the Nintendo Switch has seen a slew of Pokemon game releases, such as Pokken Tournament, Pokemon Quest, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Nintendo is slated to release one more Pokemon game on the Nintendo Switch before it presumably moves to its next-generation platform. That last Pokemon game is called "Pokemon Z-A," and content from it was recently leaked when Game Freak was infiltrated.

Researchers have injected an artificial intelligence program into an instance of Minecraft and left it to its own devices. The AI is now teaching itself how to survive.

The AI was developed by the company SingularityNET and the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI Alliance). The AI has been named Autonomous Intelligent Reinforcement Inferred Symbolism, or AIRIS for short. According to reports the AI essentially started from nothing within Minecraft and over time slowly taught itself how to play using nothing but the game's feedback loop.

The researchers explained how the AI is able to play Minecraft. The AI is given two types of environmental inputs and a list of actions it can perform. The first input is a 5 x 5 x 5 3D grid that blocks names that surround the AI agent. The researchers say this is how the AI is able to "see" the world around it. The second input is the current coordinates of the AI agent. The list of actions the AI has available to it is movement-based, which it can perform in one of eight directions - the four directions (forward, back, left, and right) and then diagonally for a total of 16 "actions".

Microsoft could be quietly planning a complete rebrand for its AI suite that is currently under the monkier "Copilot," according to reports from last week.

The report cites a template file for Microsoft's Group Policy Object Editor or AppPrivacy.adml, which makes reference to something called "Windows Intelligence". Notably, Apple decided to brand its AI features and services under the umbrella "Apple Intelligence," which was recently debuted across various Apple products in iOS 18.2 - and respective OS updates. As for Microsoft, the company may be internally referring to its suite of AI features as "Windows Intelligence," and this is no indication of a looming rebranding for Copilot.

Additionally, Microsoft has only been using the "Copilot" branding for a little over a year, and switching to "Windows Intelligence" would be an apparent play-by-play copy of Apple's approach. Microsoft recently rolled out a fleet of new AI-focussed laptops under the "Copilot" branding. These Copilot laptops are available in several prominent brands, such as ASUS, Acer, Dell, and more. Abandoning the Copilot branding would harm the marketing for each of these products.

On the heels of Dragon Age: The Veilguard being unlikely to receive its own DLC, we have now learned that the original Dragon Ages aren't likely to be getting remasters.

The classic Dragon Age titles such as Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 were built on outdated BioWare engines that was a custom version of the Eclipse engine. Reports indicate the Eclipse engine was upgraded version of the engine used to build other titles such as Knights of the Old Republic, and due to restriants with that engine its unlikely the old Dragon Age games will receive remasters.

The news was confirmed by Creative Director John Epler, who said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone that there are only "20 people left at BioWare who's actually used Eclipse," and due to the technological restraints of the engine, along with the lack of expertise on how to use it, it's unlikely Origins and Dragon Age 2 will ever receive remasters. However, Epler doesn't want to rule out the possibility altogether.

ASML was struck by an IT outage last week that disrupted its facilities globally, but was resolved quickly according to an ASML spokesperson.

In a story from Bloomberg, we're learning that the maker of the world's most advanced chipmaking machines -- High-NA EUV lithography machines purchased by semiconductor giants TSMC and Intel -- was hit by an IT outage that forced some staffers to work remotely.

Local Dutch newspaper Eindhovens Dagblad, ASML's clean rooms, offices, customer support departments, and communication with suppliers were disrupted during the IT outage. Bloomberg reminds us that ASML is a "critical part of the world's semiconductor supply chain, and as a result, has found itself continually caught in the middle of the escalating fight between the US and China over chip-market dominance. It has a monopoly on manufacturing the machines that help companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. produce the most-advanced chips that power everything from Apple's smartphones to NVIDIA's AI accelerators".

We finally have the integrated GPU naming for AMD's upcoming beefed-up Strix Halo APU: the Radeon 8060S will pack 40 RDNA 3.5-based Compute Units, taking integrated GPU performance on an APU to another level in 2025.

In a new video titled "2025 Platform Outlook" by Chinese leaker "Golden Pig Upgrade" we have some juicy new information on AMD's upcoming Strix Halo APU. We now know the naming scheme AMD is going with for Strix Halo, with the RDNA 3.5-based GPU inside of the APU dubbed the Radeon 8000 series, with the Strix Halo APU getting the Radeon 8060S GPU.

AMD's new Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APU features up to 16 Compute Units based on the new RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture, but the Strix Halo APU will more than double that from 16 to a huge 40 Compute Units based on the now-named Radeon 8060S GPU.

AMD's next-gen Radeon RX 8000 series "RDNA 4" mobile GPU details have leaked: 4 SKUs, 16GB, 12GB, 8GB variants with up to 175W TGPs coming to gaming laptops in 2025.

In a new post by leaker Golden Pig Upgrade, we're being told that the mobile RDNA 4 GPU offerings will arrive in two Navi 4X GPU camps: Navi 48 and Navi 44. We can expect two Navi 48-based SKUs which should materialize into a Navi 48 GPU with 16GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit memory bus, and a Navi 48 SKU with 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit memory bus.

Under that, we're to expect two Navi 44-based mobile RDNA 4 GPUs, both with 8GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit memory bus. The bigger difference between the Navi 44 mobile GPUs is that the "P25M-P6" variant will have a 75-150W TGP, while the "P25M-P4" variant will have a 50-130W TGP range. These new mobile RDNA 4 GPUs will launch in 2025, 2025 inside of new gaming laptops.

The AYANEO 3 is AYANEO's new flagship PC gaming handheld. It will be available in multiple display and APU variants, with a high refresh-rate 7-inch LCD or 7-inch OLED display and either the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U or the powerful AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor.

The AI 9 HX 370, or Strix Point APU, includes the latest RDNA 3.5 graphics with the Radeon 890M integrated GPU, so this variant is set to become one of the most powerful portable gaming handhelds on the market. The AI 9 HX 370 also features AI hardware, and with the AYANEO 3 set to be a Windows-based gaming handheld, owners with this APU will have access to a range of Copilot+ features.

Outside of the display and chip stuff, the AYANEO 3's physical design is incredibly stylish. It features a new ergonomic back button design and a trigger lock feature typically seen in pro controllers. It is available in black or white and has new front-facing speakers for 'immersive audio,' with more features and customization options still to be announced.

Taiwan's technology protection rules has stopped TSMC from producing advanced 2nm chips overseas, with Taiwan Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo stating yesterday that the country need to keep its most cutting-edge technology at home.

Kuo added: "Although TSMC plans to make 2nm chips (abroad) in the future, its core technology will stay in Taiwan". According to Taiwan law, there are limits to domestic chipmakers to produce chips abroad that are at least one generation behind their most advanced nodes that their fabs at home are making.

In July 2024, TSMC told its investors that its next-generation A16 chip will be entering volume production in the second half of 2026, after ramping production of its 2nm chips in 2025. TSMC's overseas manufacturing roadmap has the company making 2nm or more advanced chips in the US by 2030, with its new Arizona fab using its 3nm and 2nm process nodes, and will be operational in 2028.