Latest News - Page 584

Apple released iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1 to the public just a week ago but the company has now also released iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1. The unusually quick turnaround comes because Apple needed to fix a particularly troubling bug that has been reported for the last few days and has proven to be a real source of concern for some.

That bug saw iPhone and iPad owners report that they sometimes encountered the return of previously deleted photos in the Photos app. Users reported that photos, sometimes as old as 10 years old, had made an appearance despite having previously been deleted. The photos popped up as if they had only just been taken and could potentially have been problematic for a number of reasons depending on their content. The bug could also resurface photos of people that the user did not want to see for various obvious reasons, too.

Now, Apple has released iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1 to address the issue, saying that the update provides important bug fixes to address a rare issue where photos could reappear in the Photos app. The release notes say that this happened when photos had experienced a database corruption, but it isn't clear why that might happen or indeed what it actually means.

Apple isn't expected to announce the iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max until much later this year, likely in or around September. But expectations are already starting to grow and a new report has detailed which colors we should expect to be choosing from when the big launch comes around.

The information comes via the usually well-connected supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in a post on the X social network. According to the post, it seems that Apple is getting ready to ditch the popular blue titanium color in favor of its complete opposite - a new rose color that could be similar to the rose gold that was popular on previous devices.

In that X post, Ming-Chi Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple is expected to offer the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max in black, white or silver, and a natural titanium finish as well as that rose color we mentioned earlier. However, it's also worth noting that we could see some of the colors change even if they have the same name given the way Apple likes to tweak finishes. We only need to look at the various different space gray finishes of iPhones past.

If Apple sticks to a familiar pattern we can expect the company to announce a slew of new iPhones this coming September, starting with the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. Both handsets are set to go on sale alongside the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max and it's thought that they'll be powered by iOS 18, complete with a big new AI focus that is set to be announced at WWDC on June 10. Now, a new report appears to have outed the colors that iPhone 16 buyers can expect to be choosing from this fall.

Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is normally extremely well-connected which means that it's always worth paying attention when he shares details about upcoming iPhones. Now, he's shared details about the iPhone 16 colors in a post on the X social network.

According to the post, Apple will launch the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus in black, green, pink, blue, and white. However, he does note that it's possible that the colors will have different names - as an example, he says that white could be called Starlight as has been the case previously. It's also worth remembering that it's possible that even if an iPhone has the same color name as a previous model, it could actually be a very different color when you see it in person.

With Apple's WWDC event set to kick off on June 10, we're starting to hear more and more about what we can expect to be unveiled. For some time now the rumors have pointed to a big AI presence at the event, with iOS 18 in particular set to benefit from some new smarts that will be a big upgrade over what we're already familiar with. Expectations are high, and now a new report has added additional detail on what we should expect from Apple's big event.

The iPhone is one of the devices that is expected to benefit greatly from the new features and Apple is expected to preview iOS 18 at WWDC. That update isn't going to be released to the public until September, but WWDC will give us a flavor of what to expect while a developer beta will also be released for testing on June 10, too. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple intends to add features that will improve Siri's voice capabilities, among other things.

The Siri upgrades are set to include an improved, more conversational feel, we're told, while services like auto-summarizing of notifications will also be part of the unveiling. There's also talk of the ability to get a synopsis of news articles while voice memos will also be transcribed upon request. Gurman also believes that there will be improvements to existing features like the ability to auto-popular calendar data as well as suggestions for apps.

The current-gen iPhone SE has been around since 2022 and while it's a solid option for people who want to be able to get into an iPhone without spending too much money, there's no denying that it is starting to show its age. Even when the handset was released in 2022 the phone looked aged thanks to the use of a Home button and the relatively small 4.7-inch display. That's all expected to change when the iPhone SE 4 arrives and while we've been told to expect a price hike, a new report suggests that anyone concerned about a potential $500+ device need not worry too much.

This is according to a new post by the X leaker Revegnus which claims that the US price of the iPhone SE 4 will see a price increase of around 10%, although there is still the possibility that the price won't increase at all. However, if it does, Apple is reportedly very keen to ensure that the price doesn't increase beyond $499.

The reasons for the iPhone SE to get more expensive for this fourth generation are pretty obvious. The rumors currently have the handset coming with a large 6.1-inch OLED display while Face ID is also thought to be part of the spec sheet. Both of those things will cost Apple more to produce than the Touch ID and LCD display combination that is currently in use.

ASUS has launched a new gaming monitor and the company has claimed its the world's first WOLED gaming monitor to come to market.

The company has just taken to its YouTube channel to share a trailer for the ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG, the world's first glossy WOLED gaming monitor. The XG27AQDMG arrives with a 2560 x 1440p resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms (GtG) response time, and a 20% brighter image in SDR mode, according to ASUS. Additionally, ASUS also claims the XG27AQDMG will have deeper blacks and more vibrant colors.

Notably, the XG27AQDMG packs ASUS's third-generation OLED technology, which includes a custom heatsink, a clear pixel edge algorithm to clean up any text fringing, and "extreme low motion blur". As for color, ASUS claims the XG27AQDMG supports 99% of the DCI-P3 color space, or 135% of the RGB color space. There is also support for 10-bit color.

A stunning meteor passed through the night sky at speeds of more than 100,000 miles per hour, causing a bright flash of blue-green light.

Skywatchers over parts of Spain and Portugal were reminded of the incredible beauty of the cosmos when an asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere at extreme speeds. The European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed the space rock was traveling at around 27.96 miles per second, and the space rock was actually a small piece of a comet. Additionally, the space agency said the chances of finding fragments of the astronomical object was very low as it likely burned up over the Atlantic ocean at an altitude of 37 miles.

What is most impressive about the comet fragment is how streaked across the sky, with the Scientists at the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) estimate the fireball covered more than 310.69 miles before "going extinct". The event was captured by many people in both Spain and Portugal, and has since gone viral on social media as hundreds of videos were posted showing incredible light display from various locations.

New research from the University of New Mexico has confirmed that microplastics have now been found within human testicle tissue.

A team of scientists analyzed testicular tissue taken from both dogs and humans and found microplastics in every sample. More shockingly, the human testicle tissue had a presence of microplastics three times higher than what was found in the dog testicle tissue. More specifically, the team discovered an average of 122.63 micrograms of microplastics per gram of tissue in canines, while human tissue was 329.44 micrograms.

The discovery of microplastics entering the male reproductive system has raised concerns about its presence impacting fertility, particularly after the team found canine samples that contained a higher quantity of polyvinyl chloride, correlated with lower sperm count in dogs. The team was unable to test the impact of polyvinyl chloride in the human tissue samples.

Astronomers published a new study in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy detailing the discovery of an exoplanet called SPECULOOS-3 b.

The newly found exoplanet is approximately 55 light-years away from Earth, which is in the world of astronomy is extremely close to our planet, given the vastness of the Milky Way. SPECULOOS-3 b orbits its host star once every 17 hours, and astronomers expect that its also tidally locked, meaning one side of the planet is perpetually being blasted by host stars light, while the other side is stuck in perpetual cold darkness.

Due to its proximity to its host star, SPECULOOS-3 b is being bathed in high amounts of radiation, peeling away any form of atmosphere the planet may have had at one stage. The lack of atmosphere and the impossibility of hosting water due to its extreme temperatures make SPECULOOS-3 b inhospitable to life as we know it, but that isn't why astronomers are excited about it.

Microsoft is preparing to announce one of, if not the biggest change to Windows in its existence, which is the inclusion of artificial intelligence-powered tools.

The company is set to showcase its latest integrations of AI into PCs at the Build developers conference on Tuesday. According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who said in January 2024, AI will become the "first-class part of every PC". That shift has already begun with the inclusion of Copilot chatbot assistant in Microsoft's Bing search engine, and direct integration into Windows 11.

What users can expect out of tomorrow's conference is Microsoft explaining how AI will become fully integrated into Windows, specifically Windows 11, and what users will be able to do on the next generation of AI PCs. More specifically, AI PCs will have a two-purpose goal: increase the number of PC sales and maintain Microsoft's position in the AI industry via AI being rolled out to millions of Windows users.

Intel has released Intel Graphics Driver 31.0.101.5522 (WHQL Certified) for its Arc graphics cards for desktop and mobile Intel Core Ultra processors. It brings day one support for this week's big PC release, the highly anticipated Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, alongside optimizations for Starfield's big May 2024 update and support for Wuthering Waves and Ubisoft's XDefiant.

Starfield performance for Intel Arc GPUs has been something of a disappointment for months, so it's good to see progress being made here - with Intel noting that desktop Arc owners should see an 8% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings and a 7% average FPS uplift at 1440p with High settings. It's not a game-changer, like some previous Arc driver releases that have brought massive 100%+ improvements, but welcome nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the driver's release notes still list several outstanding Known Issues related to games like No Rest of the Wicked, DOOM Eternal, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora crashing and software like the popular video more upscale Topaz Video AI having issues exporting videos.

Creative Assembly, the developer and studio behind the Total War series of PC strategy games, is rumored to be working on multiple new entries in the franchise - including one set in the Star Wars universe.

According to the publication DualShockers, citing sources within the studio, three new Total War games are in development - although it's uncertain how far along the Star Wars-themed entry is.

If true, development would have commenced after a deal with Lucasfilm Games was struck. Although there's no word on a potential setting, timeline, characters, or storyline, all of that has probably already been decided. The odds are it will feature Stormtroopers with blasters and Jedi with lightsabers.

Two college students discovered a security exploit within the API of a washing machine that is currently in use across several countries.

Alexander Sherbrooke and Iakov Taranenko discovered the security flaw within the API created by the company behind the washing machines, CSC ServiceWorks. The two students claim the vulnerability within the internet-connected API enabled them to remotely turn a machine on without payment, and update their laundry account to display millions of dollars. Reports indicate that CSC ServiceWorks has more than a million machines across college campuses, housing communities, and laundromats in the US, Canada, and Europe.

The two college students contacted CSC ServiceWorks about the security flaw and didn't receive a response from the company, but noticed shortly after their laundry account balance was changed from millions of dollars back to $0. The two students spoke to The Verge and said the lack of response from CSC ServiceWorks led them to tell other people about the vulnerability, which resulted in the posting of the list of commands that enables anyone to access CSC's network-connected laundry machines.

Barring the big Helldivers 2 controversy, PlayStation is having a massive year on PC, with the release of Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut already cementing itself as Sony's most successful single-player PC game on Steam.

Regarding peak concurrent player counts, Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut's 77,154 figure is higher than those of God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part I, and Marvel's Spider-Man. All of these are considered successful PC ports and are used as examples of why Sony is going all-in on and moving toward a multi-platform future for PlayStation.

As far as popular PlayStation PC games go, it is second only to the juggernaut, Helldivers II, one of the most talked-about co-op shooters in years and a game on track for a few Game of the Year awards. Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut is currently the best-selling game on Steam, with the enhanced PC version supporting features like advanced graphics settings, uncapped frame rates, ultrawide support, and tech like NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 3, and Intel XeSS.

Game Science, the developers behind Black Myth: WuKong have released a new trailer for the highly anticipated title, showcasing some incredible graphics and gameplay all powered by Unreal Engine 5.

The new official trailer was revealed at the WeGame Event, and showcases the iconic Chinese legend about the Monkey King, otherwise known as WuKong. The trailer shows incredible visuals, some cutscenes and gameplay of the title, all of which has been developed entirely in Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5.

As for the game itself, Black Myth: WuKong is a third-person game that is based on Journey to the West, a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty that follows the travels of the Tang dynasty Buddist monk Xuanzang, who travelled to "Western Regions" (Central Asia and India) to gather sacred texts.

What would happen if you installed Windows XP in 2024, set the internet connection to be fully open without any firewalls or anti-virus software, and just let the computer sit there idling? If you answered, malware and hackers would obtain full access to the file system and admin privileges in minutes - then you'd be on the right track.

YouTuber Eric Parker decided to run an experiment to see how dangerous running Windows XP in 2024 is, and the results were alarming. Without browsing, downloading, or opening suspicious files, the PC (a virtual installation) was almost immediately infected by malware. Granted, the Windows XP Firewall was disabled, too, but it's wild to think how vulnerable XP was/is to attacks.

All you need to do is go online with Windows XP, and you're open to all manner of malware, Trojans, new admin accounts being created, and even an FTP server starting, which all happens here.

As part of its AYANEO REMAKE product lineup, the company has announced a pair of new portable gaming handhelds inspired by classic Game Boy hardware - albeit far more powerful. The AYANEO Pocket DMG is a new vertical handheld modeled after the iconic Game Boy Pocket or Game Boy Advance SP and powered by the Snapdragon G3x Gen 3 Gaming Platform.

The sleek and minimal design is optimized for vertical gaming, and the 3.92-inch OLED display sports an impressive resolution of 1240x1080 and a pixel density of 419 PPI. As a handheld geared toward sprite-based retro gaming and emulation, having an OLED display is a definite selling point - it will make many games look better than ever, thanks to the brilliant contrast and color accuracy.

AYANEO's second retro-inspired handheld that got revealed is the new AYANEO Pocket MICRO - which is reminiscent of the pocket or keyring-sized Game Boy Micro that played Game Boy Advance cartridges on a tiny 240×160 pixel 2-inch screen.

Microsoft will soon offer AMD's new Instinct MI300X AI accelerator for its cloud computing customers, as well as introducing a preview of its new Cobalt 100 customer processors during its upcoming Build conference this week.

The new clusters of AMD's flagship Instinct MI300X AI accelerator will be available for purchase by cloud computing customers through Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service, where they'll be an alternative to NVIDIA's family of H100 AI GPUs, which absolutely dominate the AI GPU market, but they're getting harder to purchase in big numbers.

Microsoft will also be offering AMD's new 4th Gen EPYC processors adapted for general purpose, memory-intensive, and compute-optimized virtual machines. Microsoft's new Cobalt 100 processors that the company will show off next week at the Build conference will feature 40% more performance compared to other processors based on the Arm architecture.

AMD is reportedly setting up a new research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan, with an investment of 5 billion yuan (around $155 million USD).

The US chip manufacturer will also seek subsidies from Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs' new "Big A+ Project" and that AMD CEO Lisa Su will be in Taiwan in the coming weeks for Computex 2024, where she'll also meet with the Taiwan government and discuss the new R&D center.

AMD's main GPU competitor, NVIDIA, recently applied with the Ministry of Economic Affairs for teh "Leading Enterprise R&D Deepening Plan" (referred to as the Big A+ Plan) which sees Asia's first R&D center in Taiwan, and Taiwan's largest AI supercomputer, the Taipei-1.

Taiwanese lawmakers are reconsidering the current regulations of nuclear power in the country that would heavily help TSMC.

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) consumes most of the power generated in Taiwan, with the Taiwanese national legislature, the Executive Yuan, showed willingness to change laws after the new economic minister succeeding Weng Mei-hua, J.W. Kuo, said in the Executive Yuan that he thought nuclear energy was a clean power source.

The outgoing government has been stalling the increase of the share of nuclear power on Taiwan's national power grid, with data from national regulator TaiPower showing nuclear power makes up less than 7% of Taiwan's total energy. The recent comments regarding nuclear power regulation changes were made by outgoing NDC minister, Kung Ming-hsin, just as his government was handing power over to its successors.