Latest News - Page 519

Heavy lay the crown is a great way to describe of the Call of Duty franchise, as the first-person-shooter continues to top charts in terms of popularity, but is constantly criticized.

One of the biggest griefs players have with Call of Duty is the sheer file size it requires, which has been a problem since 2022 when the decision to couple Call of Duty: Warzone with each new Call of Duty title within what is now called the Call of Duty HQ launcher. Unfortunately, with each new update, the COD HQ launch only gained more in size, getting to the point where Call of Duty was taking up the majority of space on hard drives and SSDs.

However, that is all about to change as Call of Duty has explained in a new blog post that it will be rolling out an update on August 21 as part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Season 5 Reloaded update that will be decoupling the download of Warzone from any Call of Duty title. Players will be able to opt-in to the Warzone download when downloading a new Call of Duty game or simply download Warzone at any point.

Microsoft has been pushing Windows 10 users to adopt Windows 11 since the new operating system was released in 2021, but the Redmond company has been hitting the marketing campaign especially hard since it announced Windows 10 support will be ending in October, 2025.

Windows 10 is still by a large margin the world's most popular operating system, according to data from Statcounter, and since the end-of-support announcement, Microsoft has been rolling out new advertisements in Windows 10 to push users over to Windows 11. Some of these advertisements came in the form of full-screen ads. Additionally, Microsoft has begun integrating more advertisements within Windows 10, which has caused many users to express negative feedback about the changes.

Microsoft has now officially recognized this feedback from both Windows 10 and 11 users, writing, "To honor our user's feedback, these invitations will no longer begin with the April 2024 monthly security update. We will share a new timeline in the coming months." Microsoft initially planned on rolling out these full-screen advertisements for Windows 11 to more swaths of Windows 10 users, but Redmon conceded in a Microsoft 365 advisory post that it will pause Windows 11 ads for managed Windows 10 devices.

It's always nice to see researchers and technology making progress in the field of renewables, especially in areas that aren't commonly thought of as big contributors to greenhouse gases.

The construction industry isn't the first area that comes to mind when someone mentions greenhouse gases, but perhaps unsurprisingly, it contributes quite a lot. The UN Environment Programme estimates that the buildings and construction sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for a staggering 37% of global emissions.

To reduce global emissions, researchers from the University of Tokyo penned a new process of making renewable concrete bricks out of old building materials and CO2 from the air. The team first revealed the process in 2021, and since then, it has significantly improved. The renewable concrete bricks were made out of demolished school building material, which was grounded down into a fine powerder before it was then mixed with CO2 over three months.

A new study that has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Science has detailed the origins of the asteroid that caused the Chicxulub Crater, or the impact crater left behind by asteroid that ended the rein of the dinosaurs.

The Chicxulub Crater is located off the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and is believed to be caused by an asteroid 66 million years ago that measured six miles wide. The impact was catastrophic for life on Earth, causing a mass extinction-level event that wiped out the already declining population of dinosaurs. Researchers have penned a new study that has examined the origins of the dino-killing asteroid, tracing back its origin to the far outskirts of the solar system beyond the biggest planet in the solar system, Jupiter.

Mario Fischer-GÜdde, who researches the origin of asteroids and planets at the University of Cologne in Germany, spoke to Mashable and said the dino-killing asteroid was a "C-type asteroid," which means its composition was mostly carbon. Notably, C-type asteroids are the most common variety of asteroid, accounting for 75% of all known asteroids.

Geekbench AI 1.0 is here, after years of feedback and test iteration with its customers, partners, and the AI engineering community, Primate Labs is proud to announce its latest machine learning benchmark is now ready, and it has a new name: Geekbench AI. You can download Geekbench AI 1.0 here.

Geekbench AI is a new benchmarking suite with a testing methodology for machine learning, deep learning, and AI-centric workloads, all with the same cross-platform utility and real-world workload reflection that Primate Labs' benchmarking software (Geekbench, duh) is known for.

The developer explains on its website: "Measuring performance is, put simply, really hard. That's not because it's hard to run an arbitrary test, but because it's hard to determine which tests are the most important for the performance you want to measure - especially across different platforms, and particularly when everyone is doing things in subtly different ways. At Primate Labs, we build our tests to reflect the sort of use cases that developers build their applications to do through detailed and ongoing conversations with software and hardware engineers across the industry, rather than just crunching basic math for hours".

SoftBank was talking with Intel about making an AI chip that would compete with NVIDIA's dominant AI GPUs, but the plan "floundered" after Intel failed to meet the requirements of Japan's SoftBank.

In a new report from the Financial Times, we're hearing that negotiations to partner with Intel would've rapidly accelerated SoftBank's efforts to combine the chip design of its "crown jewel" as the FT puts it: Arm. Japan's SoftBank owns Arm Holdings, so with its Arm architecture and Intel fabbing the chip with SoftBank's production expertise of its latest acquisition -- Graphcore -- according to "people familiar with the matter".

SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son plans to dump billions of dollars into putting Japan at the center of the AI boom, where the Arm owner wants to create a rival to NVIDIA's dominant AI GPUs. Son has pitched his ideas to the usual Big Tech companies, with chip production and software through to providing power for the data centers that would be powered by its chips.

The Ryzen 9 9950X, 9900X, 9700X, and 9600X have officially launched, and recent reviews are putting AMD's generation in a bit of a mixed bag, as raw performance numbers were quite disappointing, while efficiency was impressive.

However, if you are on the side of being disappointed by the raw performance of the Ryzen 9000 series, MSI has your back, as owners of MSI AM5 motherboards will be able to tweak a few settings in their BIOS and get up to 22% more performance in select applications. MSI explains in a blog post that its introducing PBO Enhanced Mode, which builds on AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO).

According to the company, MSI's PBO was capable of pushing an extra 10% more performance out of the Ryzen 9 9950X in Cinebench R23, versus AMD's standard PBO of just 5%. Furthermore, the setting being enabled on the 9700X resulted in a gain of as much as 15%. Additional features such as Set Thermal Point enable a user to set a thermal max point - 85°C, 75°C, and 65°C. MSI claims setting these thermal points won't impact performance, and cited testing with a 9950X when Set Thermal Point was at 85°C. The temperature lock didn't result in a performance hit.

A new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a known and reliable Apple insider, has revealed the Cupertino company is planning on releasing a smart home command center sometime in 2026.

Gurman writes that Apple's new project is a tabletop robot that will have a display that's similar in size and design to a large iPad, but this display will be mounted on a "thin robotic arm". The display is capable of being rotated 360º and would be used to control smart devices around the house, FaceTime calls, and a home security monitoring tool. Additionally, the Apple command center will also come with Apple Intelligence and Siri functionality, and would be capable of distinguishing the different voices from each member of the house.

Reports indicate that Apple has thrown the company's VP of technology, Kevin Lynch, on the project, along with several hundred other Apple employees. Gurman writes the release date isn't solid and Apple is aiming for a debut sometime between 2026 and 2027 for a price tag around $1,000. Currently Apple is testing this device with a modified version of the iPadOS, with it remaining unclear if it would get its own dedicated OS or would continue using a modified version of iPadOS.

Eurocom has just unveiled its new Blitz Ultra enterprise-class workstation laptops, in both 14-inch and 16-inch display size, with oodles of security and manageability , with insane amounts of connectivity and expandability.

Inside, you'll have the new Intel Core Ultra 100 series "Meteor Lake" CPU with either the Core Ultra 5 125H (14 cores, 28 threads) or the Core Ultra 7 155H (16 cores, 22 threads). You can configure the new Eurocom Blitz Ultra enterprise laptops with up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 16TB of NVMe M.2 SSD storage.

This is a heavy-duty beast, with the new Eurocom Blitz Ultra laptops designed for the government, military, security, healthcare, and corporate professionals that are handling very, very sensitive data. This is why the Blitz Ultra laptops have built-in TPM 2.0 data encryption modules, BIOS support for SED (Self-Encrypting Drives) and a Kensington lock which make it the ultimate enterprise-class laptop for security, connectivity, and expandability.

Bethesda Game Studios is launching a new Elder Scrolls game in September. However, it's not the highly anticipated The Elder Scrolls 6 or a remaster or Oblivion. The Elder Scrolls: Castles launches worldwide on September 10 for Apple and Android devices. The game puts players "in control of their very own castle and dynasty in The Elder Scrolls universe."

Bethesda has released a deep-dive video on what to expect. The development team describes it as a spiritual successor to the popular mobile game Fallout Shelter. The game's presentation and look are similar to Fallout Shelter, albeit with the Elder Scrolls fantasy theme.

Fallout Shelter was Bethesda's first mobile game, and it was a huge free-to-play success. The Elder Scrolls: Castles looks to be another winner, offering a similar experience.

World of Warcraft is a veritable institution that is still going strong after 20 years. The popular MMO's latest expansion, The War Within, launches on August 26, and ahead of its launch, NVIDIA has announced that World of Warcraft is now available to stream via the cloud on GeForce NOW.

NVIDIA simply hasn't added World of Warcraft to GeForce NOW; it has also partnered with CurseForge to support the top mods or Addons for the game. CurseForge Addons are popular with WoW players as they offer revamped UI layouts, combat tools, action bars, and even quest helpers. For veteran players, modding WoW is a key part of the experience, so it's great to see NVIDIA go all out and work with CurseForge to bring World of Warcraft to GeForce NOW.

How will Add-Ons work over the cloud? Just like they do on a gaming PC, you need to enable them from the game's menu and start playing. NVIDIA offers a quick guide on the feature that you can read here.

Valve is updating its User Review system to prioritize relevant reviews that "best help players make a purchase decision about the game." Valve calls it the 'Helpfulness System,' designed to push one-word reviews, reviews full of ASCII art, memes, and unrelated information to the bottom of the list.

Valve won't remove reviews deemed unhelpful, and the new helpfulness system can be toggled on or off within the user review section of each game - by default, it will be enabled.

"The primary goal of Steam User Reviews is to help potential players make informed decisions about the games they are considering purchasing by understanding the attributes of the game that other players like or don't like," Valve writes. "Historically, we've sorted reviews by the number of 'helpful' votes given to each review by other players. However, we've seen that many players use reviews for sharing jokes, memes, ASCII art and other content that might not be the most helpful for a potential purchaser."

TSMC's board of directors has just approved $37.1 billion in new capital spending, with $29.62 billion that will be used "to meet long-term capacity plans... and TSMC's technology development roadmap".

In this new injection of spending, there will be $7.5 billion for TSMC's new plant in Arizona, US, noting that in June 2024, TSMC approved $17.36 billion for fab construction and $5 billion for TSMC global. Ctee reports that we don't know exactly what this money will be funding, but the money is going towards long-term capacity plans and TSMC is pretty much booked deep into 2024, and even into 2025 with some companies.

TSMC isn't just expanding its operations in Taiwan, its home country, but also its production capacity and leading semiconductor technology worldwide, especially in the US with multiple fabs under construction (of which Intel is trying to poach senior engineers for its own Intel Foundry business, away from TSMC's new operations in Arizona).

Corsair has just launched its new family of next-generation AIO CPU coolers, the new iCUE LINK TITAN RX RGB. Check them out:

The new Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN RX RGB AIO coolers have new levels of performance, a slick new look, and unique iCUE LINK connectivity, which makes for the best-performing cooler that the company has ever made. Corsair says they poured "thousands of hours" into the in-house engineering, and years of experience bringing award-winning CPU coolers to market have culminated in the new iCUE LINK TITAN RX RGB, a generational breakthrough in cooling that "sets a new standard for the industry".

The company explains that the phenomenal performance of its new TITAN RX RGB cooler is found within the new FlowDrive cooling engine, which is powered by a 3-phase motor that improves power efficiency, quieter operation, and a higher flow rate than its predecessors.

SiFive has just announced its new SiFive Performance P870-D, a new RISC-V processor with up to 256 cores, designed for data center applications.

The new SiFive Performance P870-D continues the journey for the company from its regular P870, which had a six-wide out-of-order core with an RVA23 profile of the RISC-V instruction set architecture with vector and vector crypto processing acceleration.

The new P870-D adds an open AMBA CHI bridge for energy-efficient cross-cluster communications (each of the clusters has 1-4 cores with shared L2 cache) as well as cross-cluster reliability, and serviceability (RAS) features that enable building CPUs with up to 256 cores, all aimed at mission-critical applications.

NVIDIA has just introduced its new RTX 2000E Ada workstation graphics card, featuring a single-slot design and 16GB of GDDR6 memory with ECC support.

The company unveiled its new RTX 2000 Ada entry-level workstation GPUs earlier this year, but the new RTX 2000E Ada is something different: the "E" means it has ECC memory. The new NVIDIA RTX 2000E Ada is a low-profile, single-slot workstation GPU with ECC memory that will detect and fix single-bit errors in real-time.

ECC memory is a big deal in the professional world, where processing data accuracy simply can't be compromised, and that's exactly with the new entry-level RTX 2000E Ada workstation GPU is here for. Inside, it features 22 RT cores, 88 Tensor cores, and 2816 CUDA cores.

AMD is expected to unveil its beefed-up Strix Halo APU at CES 2025, which will succeed the just-released Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APU with a helluva lot more gaming performance.

In a new post on X by leaker @AnhPhuH, we're learning that AMD's new Strix Halo and Kraken silicon will be shown off at CES 2025 in January 2025. This is moving right along with earlier rumors of a CES 2025 release for Strix Halo, which will feature up to a higher 16 cores and 32 threads of Zen 5 processing power, and a massively upgraded RDNA 3.5 GPU system over the current Strix Point APUs that will deliver discrete GPU levels of gaming performance.

There's been some juicy leaked thermal design data for AMD's upcoming Strix Halo APU (links on that below), where we're to expect three different configurations: 55W, 80W, and 120W.

Ubisoft is rumored to be preparing for the launch of Nintendo's next-generation console, which is presumably called the Nintendo Switch 2, given the absolute homerun success of the Nintendo Switch.

The latest rumors come from Nintendo leaker Nash Weedle, who took to X, formerly Twitter, to announce that Ubisoft is currently working on a port of Assassin's Creed Shadows that is planned for the Nintendo Switch 2. In addition to the latest Assassin's Creed game, which is scheduled to release later this year, coming over to Nintendo's next console, Ubisoft is also rumored to be working on Switch 2 ports for the following Assassin's Creed titles: Mirage, Valhalla, Odyssey, and Origins.

Notably, Weedle points out that Ubisoft is planning on bundling Odyssey and Origins together, which is presumably going to be some kind of Greek and Egyptian-themed deal. Furthermore, the leaker added in follow-up posts that the ports would be outsourced. To add some credibility to this rumor, Universo Nintendo editor-in-chief Necro Felipe responded to Weedle's claims and said, "can back up the Shadows part". It appears at the very least, Nintendo's next-gen console will feature the latest Assassin's Creed game.

AMD's new Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series CPUs are officially here... but it's not the party we expected. There are some glaring issues and questions about Granite Ridge, where in some cases the new Zen 5 chips are SLOWER than Zen 4 chips.

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, who compiled a bunch of very good questions I'd like to see answers from AMD on, as well as pulling some quotes from the tech media that have reviewed AMD's new Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" processors.

The weird 'software issues' that come with Zen 5, with MLID pointing out that Tom's Hardware said: "AMD needs to fix its drivers. The situation with the chipset drivers making irreversible changes to the operating system is nonsensical and problematic for end users and reviewers alike. AMD has known about this issue for 16 months, and despite endless public complaints from end users and the press, it hasn't been addressed".

Google's next-generation flagship Tensor G5 processor will be made on TSMC's new 3nm process node, seeing the US giant moving away from Samsung, which even made its just-announced Tensor G4 processor that powers the new Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold smartphones.

In a new report from Ctee, we're learning that Google has tapped TSMC for its 3nm process node, of which it'll use for its new Tensor G5 processor. The new Tensor G5 processor is a fully self-designed chip by Google, and will use new InFO-POP advanced packaging, which will provide Google with an edge extending its software to hardware, to compete in the edge AI market.

Google's in-house chips aren't just limited to smartphones, with the TPU tensor processors deployed for a while now, hitting the 7th generation. Ctee's source believes that ANXION is also built with the help of TSMC and produced on its 5nm process node to "achieve excellent power saving effects" adds Ctee.