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Apple has already refreshed some of its Mac lineup with new M3 versions including the iMac, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. But those who are waiting for Apple to refresh the Mac mini and Mac Pro are likely to be left disappointed, according to a new report.

That report, a paywalled version of the Bloomberg Power On newsletter written by Mark Gurman, claims that Apple may choose to skip the M3 lineup entirely and instead focus on what comes next. This was a response to a question from a reader about what might happen with the Mac mini and Mac Pro, and Gurman believes that the M3 chips will be skipped with the company instead aiming for the M4 launch.

Expanding on expectations, Gurman said that he believed that Apple would be launching new M4 and M4 Pro chips as soon as the end of 2024 and 2025 with the Mac mini likely to be the beneficiary of that. If that is indeed the case it's unlikely that we should expect any time for Apple to ship a new M3 version of that computer before the M4 versions arrive.

Intel has released a new driver (31.0.101.5444 WHQL) for its Intel Arc graphics line-up, including discrete desktop GPUs like the Intel Arc A770 and the latest Intel Core Ultra range for mobile with in-built Arc graphics.

Intel Arc graphics driver 5444 is significant in that it brings notable performance improvements to a range of DirectX 11 titles, including Fortnite, and fixes some outstanding issues. Diablo IV will no longer "exhibit corruption on the terrain during gameplay" on Intel Core Ultra devices. At the same time, the recently released Early Access action RPG No Rest for the Wicked will no longer crash during the prologue (though it might still crash during gameplay).

As far as performance improvements go, a few of the most notable include Astroneer (DX11) getting up to a 30% boost to average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings on discrete Intel Arc GPUs, with Mass Effect Legendary Edition (DX11) getting up to a 48% increase to average FPS at 1080p with Medium settings on Intel Core Ultra devices.

The new TEAMGROUP MP44Q M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD uses the latest 3D QLC NAND with SLC Caching technology. With capacities of up to 4TB, this efficient storage option delivers up to 7,400 MB/s and 6,500 MB/s read and write speeds, respectively. TEAMGROUP has designed the SSD for low power consumption and to be a daily driver for productivity.

The TEAMGROUP MP44Q M. 2 PCIe 4.0 SSD uses the company's patented graphene heat dissipation sticker, which is less than 1mm thick, so it is also compact in size. The graphene layer also works with motherboard heat sinks to improve cooling further.

For those looking for a fast PCIe Gen4 SSD, the TEAMGROUP MP44Q delivers impressive read and write speeds across all capacity options. The 'up to 7,400 MB/s' read speed is found in the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models, with the 1TB model dropping the read speed to 6,200 MB/s from 6,500 MB/s.

Last week, LG was in Milan, Italy, showcasing its latest built-in kitchen appliances, including a Signature Kitchen Suite with a built-in oven, 'free zone induction hob,' and downdraft hood. Now, you might be wondering why we're suddenly bringing you news about a new all-in-one oven do-dad - that's because AI powers it.

LG calls it Gourmet AI. The oven can identify what is being cooked through video recognition and automatically select the suitable cooking mode from 130 recipes. With Gourmet AI, the oven also keeps tabs on the cooking process, watching how pizza or a steak is 'browning' and then alerting users via LG's ThinQ app to let them know what they were cooking is done.

There's also real-time video monitoring so that you can watch those cookies cook, and time-lapse recordings are also available - which is a pretty cool feature for an oven.

A top brain expert and a former CIA officer has said he was instructed to write a paper on the number of injuries sustained by US military serviceman after encountering a UFO, or UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).

Detroit Professor Christopher Green, a forensic neuroimaging expert who worked at the CIA since the 1960s, said in 2010, he was asked by an unnamed government defense program that was tasked with monitoring UFOs to write a paper on the injuries military personnel received after encountering an "anomalous" craft, or UFO/UAP. The doctor said he has dealt with "hundreds of patients" that range from special forces officials and other military serviceman, with some of these patients later dying.

Dr. Green's paper, titled 'Clinical Medical Acute & Subacute Field Effects on Human Dermal & Neurological Tissues' was released under the Freedom of Information Act and mentions patients developing the following symptoms post-UFO encounter: sclerosis, brain damage, and burns.

Capcom has let us know that there's a big patch coming for Dragon's Dogma 2, but it has disappointed a good number of players who were hoping that the well-publicized performance issues affecting the game might be addressed.

Sadly, smoothing over the wrinkles regarding performance hitches - and serious slowdowns in some areas of the game - is not part of the plan for the update coming later this month.

Instead, there are various gameplay tweaks and fixes, the headline one of which is an adjustment for the infection frequency of dragonsplague, reining that in somewhat - and making it more obvious when a pawn is infected (their glowing eyes, for example, will stand out more).

Fresh revelations on the rumor mill about the highest-end next-gen APUs from AMD have prompted excitement levels around Strix Point Halo to spike upwards.

If the info taken from the Chiphell forums is correct - and we should definitely add a whole load of salt to these claims, as it isn't the most reliable source in our experience - the Strix Point Halo APU will bristle with 16 cores.

In fact, this processor will supposedly run with a pair of CCDs with 8 cores apiece, meaning it'll be an APU with 16 full Zen 5 cores - effectively using the same chiplets that will be deployed inside 'Granite Ridge' (likely Ryzen 9000) next-gen desktop CPUs - quite a prospect.

FBI director Christopher Wray has said that a Chinese hacking group has infiltrated critical infrastructure systems in the US and is simply just waiting for the right moment to strike.

Wray revealed the news at the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats and said the group behind the attacks is called Volt Typhoon, and they have infested systems that are dedicated to controlling water, energy, and telecommunications. More specifically, Volt Typhoon has gained access to 23 pipeline operators, and according to the FBI director, China is developing the "ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing."

Wray says China's plan is to attack critical civilian infrastructure to induce panic among the population. "Its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic," said Wray. Additionally, the FBI director said it was difficult to determine if these hacks are part of China's overall intention to push the US away from defending Taiwan.

Microsoft has been preparing the release of new AI features for Windows 11 for quite some time now, and it appears at least one of those features will be hardware restricted.

Beta testers have already gotten their hands on these new AI features that are expected to be officially unveiled at the Microsoft event scheduled to take place on May 20. At the event, Microsoft is expected to unveil how AI will be integrated into Windows 11 and new Arm-powered Surface hardware. One of these beta testers has taken to X to share the requirements for a feature called "AI Explorer," which turns everything you do on your computer into a searchable memory through the use of natural language.

AI Explorer will be able to navigate to conversations you have had with people across various applications, locate documents, specific web pages, images, files, and even have the capabilities of understanding context and tasks that are on-screen. @thebookisclosed posted a screenshot of the requirements for AI Explorer, which appear to be an ARM64 CPU, 16GB RAM, 225GB storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite NPU. If these requirements are correct, AI Explorer appears to be exclusive to ARM-based PCs, cutting out any AI PCs built with AMD and Intel NPUs.

Those who are suffering at the hands of the well-documented issues with Intel's 14th-gen and 13th-gen high-end CPUs that are crashing when playing PC games might be interested to learn about some new advice given by a PC maker.

This comes from boutique PC outfit Falcon Northwest, which got in touch with Hot Hardware to share some potential tweaks and solutions for those running a Core i9 processor from the current or last-gen range in an ASUS motherboard.

You can check out the tips in the above post on X (formerly Twitter) which was recently updated.

If you're running Windows 10 and are using a local account - as opposed to being signed into a Microsoft Account with your OS installation - then prepare for a fresh round of nagging from Microsoft.

As Windows Latest reports, a change which has been in testing is supposedly coming through to arrive for the release version of Windows 10 with the next cumulative update for the OS (in May 2024).

What it means is that when you go into Settings, if you are working with a local Windows 10 install, there'll be a bar at the top of the panel - complete with a warning exclamation mark - telling you to sign in to a Microsoft Account.

This week, on a special AI-powered edition of The TT Show, Jak and Kosta examine the latest happenings in tech, gaming, and science - and AI is everywhere. Apple uses AI to give Siri vision and will integrate AI into many aspects of the upcoming iOS 18 update.

Also, with the PlayStation 5 Pro specs confirmed by multiple sources, AI could play a significant role in delivering the reported 4K 60 FPS gameplay target and boost to ray-tracing performance. In the world of Generative AI and LLMs, companies have pressure to disclose what data is being used (or is that harvested) for training.

And speaking of generative AI, TCL is creating the world's first AI-generated romantic comedy set to debut this summer on the company's TCLtv+ streaming service. How does it look? Well, be sure to tune into this week's episode of The TT Show to watch Jak's reaction in real-time.

NASA is preparing to launch its massive solar sail into space on the back of a rocket to test the power of sunlight and determine whether it will be a viable means of propulsion to traverse the solar system.

The technology seen in the 2002 animated Disney movie Treasure Planet is about to be tested in space by NASA, as the space agency has announced via its blog that its very own solar sail is about to be transported into space on Tuesday, April 23, aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. NASA explained that the CubeSat for the mission will be deployed 600 miles above Earth, which is about twice the altitude at which the International Space Station (ISS) orbits the planet.

Once in position, the CubeSat, which is approximately the size of a microwave oven, will undergo a two-month-long system check that will then be followed by the deployment of its solar sail. When fully unfurled, the solar sail will be as big as half a tennis court. The test will consist of many up and down maneuvers to hopefully prove the solar sail is able to use sunlight as a viable means of propulsion.

Humans are only so good at detecting details in art, which is why researchers have decided to train an AI algorithm to detect what humans can't and only suspect.

A team of researchers from the UK and US created a custom algorithm using a pre-trained architecture called ResNet50, which was developed by Microsoft. The team took advantage of a common machine learning technique to improve the algorithm, feeding it with authenticated paintings by the famous artist Raphael. The goal was to teach the AI to identify with a high degree of accuracy brushstrokes in paintings that were created by Raphael's hand and the faces of people within those paintings.

One painting, in particular, from Raphael, has been a point of debate among scholars. The Madonna della Rosa, or Madonna of the Rose, was painted on canvas from 1518 to 1520. Scholars have been debating for many years if the painting was an original work by the famed artist or if its creation involved another hand, specifically with the face of St Joseph. Some scholars have argued that St Joseph's face isn't as meticulously crafted as the Raphael's other pieces of work, leading them to believe it was done by another painter.

Dubai has been hit with a historic amount of rainfall this week, which some are blaming are a result of the United Arab Emirates' use of weather modification techniques.

Cloud generation is a real thing, and the United Arab Emirates has been leading the charge on technology for decades. The nation has been conducting experiments with the intention of assisting the generation of clouds in the region that lead to rainfall. The process works by cloud seeding planes releasing crystalline chemicals into already present clouds to increase rainfall, but now that technology has been thrown into question as Dubai has received an unprecedented amount of rainfall, the most in the region in the last 75 years.

Some areas received as much as 10 inches of rainfall within 24 hours, resulting in the unequipped region to suffer under intense flooding. Notably, neighboring country Oman has reported as many as 18 deaths as a result of the rainfall, with some of those deaths being schoolchildren.

Elgato has announced five new products as part of its new Neo range of peripherals designed for "high-end performance with plug-and-play simplicity." It's making its popular and award-winning gear for content creators and streamers more accessible with new user-friendly software support for various devices, including laptops and iPads.

Elgato notes that the Neo range is all about offering great value (prices range from $89.99 to $119.99 USD) while maintaining the company's high-quality standard. The five new Elgato Neo products sport a fresh, modern, white color scheme. And in an excellent move, each Neo product is made from 60% or more recycled plastic.

The Wave Neo ($89.99) is a new USB microphone compatible with laptops, iPads, and PlayStation consoles. It features a built-in foam pop filter and headphone jack, with hardware optimized for clear vocals that can be fine-tuned with Elgato's Wave Link app.

Generative AI and overall LLM performance are set to become significant elements in measuring CPU and GPU performance in the coming years. Intel's latest deep dive into Arc graphics highlights LLM performance on its current flagship Intel Arc A770 16GB graphics card for desktops.

The GPU is generally available for around $300, and Intel is comparing its AI performance against NVIDIA's mainstream GeForce RTX 4060 8GB graphics card, which is its nearest Team Green price competitor. "We've looked at two discrete GPUs positioned in a similar price segment," Intel writes in its report.

Intel's test includes various models running with IPEX-LLM, an LLM library for PyTorch. This library contains optimizations for Intel hardware and uses the XMX AI acceleration found on Arc graphics cards to boost performance. On the GeForce RTX 4060 side, CUDA Torch is used.

Boston Dynamics, one of the leaders in the robotics industry that has seen successful commercialization of its products, has unveiled its next-generation humanoid robot that replaces the well-known Atlas robot.

A few days ago, Boston Dynamics announced it was retiring the hydraulic Atlas robot, which has gone viral numerous times throughout its 10 years of development with demonstrations of its impressive mobility capabilities and human-like movement. Boston Dynamics writes in its blog post that all the data gathered throughout the past 10 years has gone into developing a fully electric Atlas robot that will be designed for real-world applications such as working with people.

This new version of Atlas is stronger, more dexterous, more agile, and has been designed to move in the most efficient way possible to complete any given task. This design choice is different from the previous generation of Atlas, which was built around replicating the human range of motion. Next-gen Atlas will have movement capabilities that exceed a human's range of motion, which was demonstrated in an extremely impressive and disturbing way in the above video.

Turtle Beach is refreshing its popular wireless gaming headset line-up for 2024, with three newly redesigned models coming launching in May: the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Wireless Gaming Headset, the Turtle Beach Stealth 500 Wireless Gaming Headset, and the high-end Turtle Beach Atlas Air Wireless Open Back PC Gaming Headset.

The new Stealth 600 replaces the existing model at the popular $99.99 USD price point and sports a funky, modern look. It has low-latency 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth 5.2 and an impressive 80-hour battery with quick charge capabilities. Sound-wise, it features Turtle Beach's 50mm Nanoclear drivers with a microphone now powered by AI noise reduction technology.

The new Turtle Beach Stealth 500 slots into the more affordable $79.99 USD pricing bracket, and like the Stealth 600, it has low-latency 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth 5.2 to support gaming on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and mobile devices. Audio-wise, it features smaller 40mm drivers but still supports surround sound - however, the battery life is cut in half to up to 40 hours.

Ingenuity, NASA's Mars helicopter was forced to end its mission after taking some critical damage in a landing, but the small helicopter will not be going gently into that good Martian night.

NASA landed its Mars helicopter in the Jezero Crater with its Mars rover named Perseverance in 2021, with the initial goal of Ingenuity being a flight demonstration. NASA simply wanted to see if flight was possible on another planet.

Ingenuity achieved this goal and became the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight. Ingenuity was only intended to make five flights, but went on to complete 72 across its three years of service, serving as a reconnaissance vehicle for Perseverance by scouting areas of interest and upcoming terrain which NASA can then use to map the safest path for Perseverance.