Latest News - Page 477

Roblox Corp. has responded to claims made by Hindenburg Research that its metrics, including daily active users (DAUs), have been exaggerated.

A new lengthy report from Hindenburg Research alleges, among other things, that Roblox Corp. has drastically inflated a number of key metrics with its mega-hit games-as-a-platform title. Hindenburg, who is a known activist short-seller, has compiled data that alleges a portion of Roblox's reported playtime and daily active users (DAUs) are actually from bots.

Now Roblox has issued their own response, opening with: "The financial claims made by Hindenburg are misleading. The authors are short sellers and have an agenda irrespective of the substance of Roblox's business model and results."

Windows 11's latest updates have arrived - yesterday was Patch Tuesday, of course - and it appears that the painful bugs which were present in last month's preview of the cumulative update for 23H2 have been stamped out in the full release.

However, the update for Windows 11 24H2 doesn't look to have been so smooth for some folks thus far, and while there aren't quite such showstopping bugs, there are some annoyances for sure - and some oddness, too.

First of all, the good news on Windows 11 23H2, with the new update fixing the mentioned major problems with Blue Screens of Death (and Green Screens, too) and multiple forced reboots. There were other bugs too, with wireless peripherals and more.

Is Bethesda Game Studios getting too big for its own good, making game development more difficult and complex? That seems to be why one former veteran Bethesda game developer thinks.

ZeniMax Media, and its subsidiary Bethesda Game Studios, have both grown considerably over the years. The billion-dollar success of Skyrim injected tons of cash into the groups, and ongoing live service games like Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Fallout Shelter, and the new Elder Scrolls Castles sustain the group with consistent multi-million revenues. Starfield, which is hailed as one of Bethesda's biggest passion projects, was funded in part by these money-making endeavors.

This growth has caused issues internally, though. As teams grow, so too does the complexity of the chain of command, leading to conflicts in the sensitive content production pipeline. Games are not made linearly in a factory-like setting, but are often disparate parts mish-mashed together like Play-Doh; it's a messy process filled with lots of revisions. The more people there are working on a creative endeavor, the more difficult it is to have said project actually finished and shipped out.

Nintendo has announced its new hardware, and it's not the Switch 2, but an alarm clock that plays sounds from its games.

Nintendo's new Alarmo tech looks to be one of those innovate, yet small, additions aimed at improving quality of life and bringing some measure of joy in the process. The new alarm clock has a built-in motion sensor that will play various sounds from five Nintendo games based on movements while you're in bed. So if the alarm goes off, and you're still rolling around, Alarmo could play iconic coin sounds from Mario to help get you up.

It seems to be a very friction-free way to add variety and interactivity to the grueling process of waking up. With Alarmo, people can keep things fresh, opting for 7 different sound profiles across five games including Super Mario Odyssey, Pikmin 4, Splatoon 3, Ring Fit Adventures, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. More alarms will also be added for free, Nintendo says. Alarmo also comes with sounds to help you sleep, but we have to wonder why Donkey Kong Country's legendary Aquatic Ambiance wasn't included.

Artificial intelligence systems have now become so sophisticated they are being awarded Nobel prizes for their academic achievements, and now AI has gained its second Nobel prize, but this time for protein prediction.

Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist whose work on deep learning is the foundation of all AI models currently used today, was awarded a Nobel prize, along with Princeton University professor John Hopfield. Both researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their contributions to deep learning technologies, which have become the underpinning technology we now broadly call AI.

Now, AI has done it again, with a Nobel Prize being given to Demis Hassabis, the cofounder and CEO of Google DeepMind, and John M. Jumper, a director at DeepMind, for the creation of an AI capable of accurately predicting the structures of protein. Half of the Nobel Prize is awarded to Hassabis and Jumper, and the other half is awarded to David Baker, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, who was recognized for his work on computational protein design. Each of the prize winners shares a $1 million pot.

Hurricane Milton is closing in on Florida's west and as residents in the affected area prepare for its impact an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) passed safely by overhead and captured the monstrosity of a storm from space.

That NASA astronaut was Matthew Dominick, who took to his personal X account to share an incredible image and timelapse of Hurricane Milton as the International Space Station floated safely overhead at an altitude of approximately 250 miles. Both the image and the video showcase the immense scale of Milton and just how big of a hurricane Florida is about to get hit with.

It was only yesterday the National Weather Service Tampa Bay Area announced that if Milton kept its pace and reached landfall at its current intensity it would be the worst storm to hit the Tampa Bay area in the last 100 years. As for the footage from space, Dominick explained the ISS flew over Milton approximately 90 minutes before the image was uploaded.

Can you believe Interstellar was released into theaters 10 years ago? Paramount Pictures is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Christopher Nolan's epic space movie being re-released into theaters, into IMAX, and a new 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition 4K Blu-ray box set.

The new 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition was created with Christopher Nolan's participation and approval, which includes Interstellar in both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray disc, as well as a third Blu-ray. There's also a digital copy of Interstellar, reproductions of the 5 costume patches, 5 theatrical poster reproductions, and a never-before-seen storyboard sequence from Nolan's archives.

Interstellar's new 10th Anniversary set also includes over 2 hours of new and legacy bonus content that drives deeper into the science of the film, its groundbreaking production, and a brand-new discussion on the impacts Interstellar has had in the last 10 years.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced on X that communities hit by the devastating Hurricane Helene were able to get Starlink "without need for payment," or according to SpaceX's own statement, "Starlink is now free for 30 days".

However, it doesn't appear to be as simple as that as "free" comes with a few undisclosed caveats that were unfurled by The Register, which published a report detailing users attempting to sign up for Starlink in Helene disaster-stricken zones were being prompted for a $350 payment for the Starlink terminal. SpaceX discounted the terminals for users within the affected areas down to $299, which, after shipping and taxes, lands a Hurricane Helen victim attempting to sign up to Starlink with a bill approximating $400.

Starlink explains on its help page that qualifying Hurricane Helene victims will receive 30 days of free Starlink internet access, and after those 30 days, the user will be moved to a $120-a-month subscription. As for existing Starlink customers who wish to take advantage of the free 30 days of Starlink are required to lodge a support ticket with that will then be evaluated by Starlink and if qualifying, issue a waiver for an upcoming monthly payment.

SpaceX has taken to its website to post an update on when it plans to launch Starship again, the world's largest and most powerful rocket.

The Elon Musk-led company took to its website to state its targeting no earlier than October 13 for the fifth flight of Starship, and that after the success of Flight 4, where SpaceX conducted its first-ever booster soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico, the company is ready to take another step toward achieving full and rapid reusability. SpaceX explains Flight 5's primary objective will be attempting the "first ever return to launch site and catch of the Super Heavy booster."

SpaceX will be attempting to land and catch the 233-foot-tall booster on the Starbase launch pad with "chopstick" arms attached to the Mechazilla tower. While sounding like a sci-fi movie, SpaceX writes its engineers and various teams have "spent years planning and months testing". As for the Super Heavy booster going up in Flight 5, SpaceX says it has implemented new hardware and software into the booster to improve chances of success, and that infrastructure at Starbase has also been significantly improved.

Qualcomm is urging device makers that use a selection of its chips to implement the fixes the company has rolled out for vulnerabilities within chip firmware that reports state has been exploited in the wild.

The Register reports the vulnerability that affects the following Qualcomm chips: Snapdragon 660 and newer models, Qualcomm's 5G modems, FastConnect 6700, 6800, 6900, and 7800 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth kits, were subject to a vulnerability called "CVE-2024-43047," which was rated 7.8 out of 10 on the CVSS rating scale. The vulnerability was reported by Google's Project Zero team and Amnesty International's code testers, and reports indicate that the involvement of the latter group of code testers indicates third parties exploited the bug.

Other notable security flaws out of the 20 patches Qualcomm rolled out is CVE-2024-33066, an input validation issue with the WLAN resource manager. This flaw received a 9.8 CVSS ranking, but luckily hasn't yet, or at least publicly, exploited. Other flaws within the firmware involve memory corruption in the camera driver, and a similar memory flaw related to the device's operating system.

NVIDIA and MediaTek are expected to unveil their co-developed Arm-based AI PC processor in 2H 2025, with hardware partners in ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

In a new post by leaker 'Mobile Phone Chip Expert' on Chinese social platform Weibo, we're learning that the new NVIDIA x MediaTek AI PC processor is coming in 2H 2025, just in time for Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. The leaker teases that the new Arm-based AI PC processor has already reached the tape-out stages.

NVIDIA has been pushing more and more into the custom chip business, with the AI PC market a gigantic market that it wants to step into and dominate, just like it has utterlry dominated the AI GPU business with its Hopper and now Blackwell AI GPU architectures.

Google has responded to the recent report that its Pixel smartphone was relaying private user information back to Google servers every 15 minutes, with the company's response refuting the claims from the report and providing additional background on the overall process.

The report came from Cybernews, which looked at the web traffic between Google and its latest flagship smartphone, the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. The report stated that even before any app is installed, the device is sending private user data back to Google servers, with the researcher stating that every 15 minutes, a packet of data is sent back to Google servers, and within that packet is information such as an email address, phone number, location, network status, and other telemetry data.

Google has since responded to this report with a statement it has provided me, saying the report "lacks crucial context, misinterprets technical details, and doesn't fully explain that data transmissions are needed for legitimate services on all mobile devices regardless of the manufacturer, model or OS, such as software updates, on-demand features and personalized experiences."

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 5080 is expected to feature the fastest GDDR7 memory modules available, at 32Gbps, giving its 16GB of GDDR7 up to a crazy 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

In previous rumors we heard similar: that NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 5080 would feature 16GB of GDDR7 but we didn't know if it was 28Gbps or 32Gbps GDDR7 modules. But now, our friends over at Wccftech have talked with their sources that have confirmed the GeForce RTX 5080 will feature 16GB of GDDR7 at 32Gbps, which is 4Gbps faster than the 28Gbps GDDR7 modules on the flagship GeForce RTX 5090.

This means that the GeForce RTX 5080 with 16GB of GDDR7 at 32Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus will spit out a rather hefty 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth, matching the previous-gen flagship GeForce RTX 4090. It's also a gigantic leap over the RTX 4080 which features 16GB of GDDR6X at 23Gbps (RTX 4080 = 23Gbps, RTX 5080 = 32Gbps).

Yesterday, United States District Judge James Donato delivered a historic ruling that will change Google's mobile business for the next three years. Now Google is predictably appealing the decision.

The Epic v Google trial is officially over, and Epic won the fight. The district courts sided with Epic, and issued a permanent injunction that forces Google to open up its Google Play Store and allow competing third-party stores right on the marketplace for the next 3 years.

Google also has to allow third-party developers to use their own billing systems. These new orders will undoubtedly affect Google's mobile business to a significant degree as developers can now undercut Google and completely avoid the costly 30% commission fees that Google had been charging for years.

As part of its weekly DLSS update, which sees DLSS, Frame Generation, and ray-tracing technologies arrive in new releases like FragPunk, the Silent Hill 2 remake, and Starship Troopers: Extermination, NVIDIA also took time to highlight a very cool build from modder czuga.

Inspired by Fortnite's LEGO modes, the build includes over 1,000 LEGO bricks to support all components, including the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition graphics card and customer watercooling. With an entire LEGO Fortnite scene that includes characters, biomes, and the iconic Fortnite bus, it's a stunning one-of-a-kind build.

It didn't come together quickly either; it took countless hours to design the complete setup and around 14 days to build, test, and decorate. The fact that it uses LEGO for the case and all physical hardware support is awe-inspiring.

Blizzard's original vision for Diablo 4 would have changed the franchise in significant ways, bringing the dungeon crawler to the realm of third-person gaming.

Jason Schreier's new book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment chronicles some of the most interesting and pivotal moments of the game-maker's history. The book also discusses many of the cancelled projects and games, including Blizzard's own unique take on Minecraft.

One such story touches upon what kind of major departure that Diablo 4 could have been for the series. Blizzard sources tell Schreier that at the tail-end of Diablo 3's popular Reaper of Souls expansion, then-Blizzard president Mike Morhaime had put top leads in charge of pre-planning the next big Diablo game.

With the latest Amazon Prime Day sales underway, you can find several great deals on various PC hardware and peripherals, including GPUs. As of writing, you save a few dollars off the MSRP of most GeForce RTX 40 Series and Radeon RX 7000 Series cards - from the GeForce RTX 4060 up to 4K enthusiast options like the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

However, after reviewing most of the Prime Day GPU deals, the following two stood out for obvious reasons. First up is the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3X OC, an upgrade to the original RTX 4070 Ti that features 16GB of fast GDRR6X memory. Its Prime Day discount brings the price down to $749.99 USD from $839.99 - an 11% saving and one of the lowest prices we've seen for the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, especially for an OC model.

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is a powerful GPU that excels at 1440p and 4K gaming with ray-tracing, DLSS, and Frame Generation. And MSI's Ventus 3X variant runs quiet and cool even when stressed, which we highlighted in our review.

With PCs, laptops, smartphones, TVs, consoles, tablets, and a whole slew of smart home devices connecting to a home network, the quality or speed of the connection is often determined by how far you or the device is from the router. Most modern routers can handle small or medium-sized homes. However, it's not uncommon for apartments and houses to have that one area where the Wi-Fi is a little spotty.

This is where a Mesh System enters the picture. With two routers connected over a backhaul channel, you've got the power of two routers, creating a single seamless high-speed network. Having no Wi-Fi dead zones is fantastic for homes with multiple stories and rooms or backyards with smart speakers connected to a music streaming service like Spotify for that perfect summer barbeque.

An excellent mesh system is the key to unlocking a home network's full potential.

Previous reports indicated that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) could increase its stake in Nintendo's shares, but the wealth fund has actually decreased its amount of shares.

Two days ago, Japanese publication Kyodo News reported that Saudi Arabia could buy up more gaming stock in Nintendo, as per a small snippet of conversation with crown prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan Al-Saud during Tokyo Game Show 2024. As it turns out, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund has now reduced its stake in the Mario maker.

As per new regulatory documents filed in Japan, Saudi Arabia's PIF has shed an entire percentage point of its shares in Nintendo. The PIF now has 7.54% of shares as opposed to the 8.58% it previously had as of June 2024. This equates to roughly 97.6 million shares (worth about $5.3 billion) currently held by the PIF as versus the 111.45 million shares (about $6 billion) that it formerly held. This represents a decrease of approximately 1.69 million shares, or some $700 million in worth.

Halo moving to a multi-platform games engine could mean the franchise jumps over to PlayStation for the first time ever.

Halo is changing in a big way. 343 Industries has renamed the group to Halo Studios, and the franchise is now being developed in Unreal Engine 5. Now that the studio is no longer saddled with the development and upkeep of a proprietary games engine for its new games, Halo Studios can accelerate its production pipeline--and indeed that's what they plan to do.

There are now multiple new Halo games in development, and the leap to Unreal Engine 5 frees Halo Studios from the shackles of the archaic Slipspace engine. According to studio head Pierre Hintze, it's a shift-change for the team: "What we're doing right now is changing our recipe."