Latest News - Page 619

Manor Lords is a game from a lone indie developer, and rather incredibly, it raced up the rankings of the most wish-listed titles on Steam - before taking the number one spot as the most-wanted game eventually.

Well, if you've been waiting for the game - on Steam or otherwise, as many folks evidently have - over the weekend the game had its release date announced as April 26.

So, it'll be out a week on Friday, but it's already building up quite the head of steam (so to speak) hype-wise.

Apple continues to change the way that it works and produces its many different products, with the latest news being that it has started to expand its presence and operations in Vietnam. The move comes as Apple continues to work with its supply chain partners to reduce the company's reliance on China.

According to a press release shared by the company, Apple has announced it will increase spending on suppliers that are based in Vietnam as well as progress an initiative to support clean water for local schools. The company says that it first started to operate in Vietnam more than a decade ago and is currently supporting more than 200,000 jobs across the country. Not all of those people are employed by Apple directly, however, with Apple also including supply chains and iOS app developers in the figure.

9to5Mac notes that Foxconn already produces a number of Apple products in Vietnam including iPads and AirPods, while there is also talk of Mac production moving to the country as well. Foxconn isn't the only Apple supplier with a presence in Vietnam either, with the company's other AirPods suppliers having been told to move production out of China with Vietnam one likely destination.

If you're buying a new flagship smartphone and want to be able to boast the fastest 5G connection around, you probably don't want to rush out to buy an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro. That's the news after the speed test experts at Ookla shared details about the fastest 5G smartphone speeds achieved by users of its speed test service.

According to that report, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro have been bested by none other than its biggest rival, the Samsung Galaxy S24 lineup including the S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra models.

The stats were conducted across February 1 - March 24, 2024, with Ookla saying that the Samsung Galaxy S24 family showed a statistically significant lead for median 5G download speeds in seven out of 15 countries in which the study was conducted. The S24 family managed to record the lowest median 5G multi-server latency in 10 of 15 countries. That's particularly notable when you read that the iPhone 15 family of devices was only able to manage the highest median 5G latency in 10 markets.

Apple's iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models have now been on sale since September of 2023 and a new report suggests that they might not be selling all that well, especially compared to the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro that came before them. According to that report, Apple has lost almost 10% of its global smartphone market share with some surprising companies picking up the slack.

That report comes via the analysts at IDC whose figures say that while global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% year over year to 289.4 million units in the first quarter of 2024, Apple's iPhones weren't to thank for the boost. In fact, the iPhone went from a 20.7% market share in the first quarter of 2024 to just 17.3% this year, a fall that equates to a reduction in shipments of more than five million iPhones.

Samsung now sits at the very top of the smartphone market in terms of mart share, but it's actually Xiaomi and Transsion that benefited from Apple's fall from grace the most. Xiaomi saw its market share increase from 11.4% to 14.1% while Transsion's figures are even more impressive - up to 9,9% from just 5.7% a year ago.

After years of preventing developers from releasing apps that emulate games from other devices into the iPhone's App Store, Apple made the decision earlier this month to change that stance. Now, such emulators are allowed into the App Store for the first time and developers are already starting to get their previously-banned apps ready. One popped up in the App Store yesterday, but just a few short hours later, it was gone. Nobody knew for sure why that happened, but Apple has now confirmed how things went down and why the app is no longer available for download.

According to a 9to5Mac report, Apple has clarified its decision, saying that the iGBA app violated two specific App Store guidelines: the copyright section 5.2 and spam section 4.3. MacRumors was also able to confirm that Apple did not disapprove of the iGBA app's functionality, suggesting that a similar app will be allowed into the App Store in the future.

Where the iGBA app fell foul of Apple's rules was the fact that it was an ad-filled clone of a popular open source project called GBA4iOS, an app that has been available for jailbroken iPhones. That app is also going to be available via an alternative app store in the EU soon enough, but this version wasn't the same app - it just looked and behaved like it.

Apple has long been rumored to have plans to preview a big new iOS 18 software upgrade during the WWDC on June 10, with many reports claiming that there will be a new AI focus for the iPhone update. What that will look like in terms of features and capabilities still isn't clear, but a new report now suggests that whatever Apple's software does, it won't use cloud servers to do it.

That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing via the paywalled version of his weekly Power On newsletter that was then reported on by MacRumors. According to Gurman, the first wave of new features will be limited to on-device processing rather than using server-side compute as is often the case. That's how generative AI apps like ChatGPT work, for example, but Gurman says that there will be no cloud server component for Appl'es fledgling large language model.

Apple had been rumored to be in discussion with OpenAI and Google about integrating their own services into iOS 18, but it now appears that such a feature will miss the iOS 18 release window. It isn't clear whether the integrations will still come further down the line, however.

Apple is expected to announce a raft of new iPhones later this year and a new report has shed further light on its plans for the very top of the lineup. According to the report, buyers of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max can look forward to a camera upgrade, but it won't be all about increasing megapixels or improving zoom capabilities.

Instead, we're told, the upgrade will be designed to fix an issue that iPhones have had for years and one that has been a problem for photographers both professional and amateur. The issue, lens flare, is caused by light hitting the lens and creating an effect that can sometimes appear to be a light orb floating throughout photos and videos. But now it's thought that Apple's best phones of 2024 will finally fix that problem.

MacRumors, reporting on a leak by a user on the Naver blog, says that Apple's supply chain believes that it will make use of new atomic layer deposition (ALD) equipment when creating the cameras that will be used in the new high-end iPhones. ALD is designed to make it easier for companies to add super-thin layers of material to semiconductor devices, including camera components.

Apple might have only started to sell some M3 Macs not all that long ago - October 2023, in fact - but we have already started to see more than a few leaks that suggest the new M4 chips are just around the corner. What's more, it now looks increasingly likely that Apple is getting ready to begin launching those M4 Macs sooner rather than later, with the entire lineup of laptop and desktop machines set to be refreshed.

If that is indeed the case, it would mark the first time that the entire Mac lineup has used the same generation of chips since the move to Apple silicon began. Previously, some Macs skipped entire generations - the iMac skipped the M3 and the Mac Pro skipped the M1, for example. But that's all going to change with the release of the M4 series of chips.

That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing in the weekly Power On newsletter this past weekend, at least. According to Gurman, Apple is getting ready to begin an entire lineup overhaul later this year and then continue that through 2025. In fact, Gurman has gone so far as to share the entire roadmap for all of this. However, it's important to remember that the plans could change before the rollout is complete depending on a variety of things, not least chip availability.

Sony's rumored PlayStation 5 Pro refresh is indeed real and we can expect a seriously pepped-up GPU with the console, but a tamer upgrade for the CPU, according to the latest from the rumor mill.

The Verge claims to have got hold of the full details of the PS5 Pro's spec and the upgrades are in line with previous chatter from the grapevine.

The refreshed console is referred to as 'Trinity' rather than the PS5 Pro, and apparently it'll use a GPU which is about 45% faster than the PS5, as previously rumored - so that's a major step forward for rendering

Microsoft is working toward moving Windows 10 users over to Windows 11 as the company recently announced it was officially ending support for Windows 10, it's most popular operating system.

Before the announcement of ending support for Windows 10, Microsoft implemented a compatibility hold on Windows 10 users that prevented them from upgrading to Windows 11. The problem was traced back to specific drivers for Intel Smart Sound Technology, and according to reports these drivers would cause Windows 11 to bluescreen. In response to the problem Microsoft put a compatibility hold on those Windows 10 users, preventing them from being able to upgrade. Until now.

Microsoft has announced via its website that it has lifted the compatibility hold as it has resolved the issue, meaning those restricted Windows 10 users can now simply open up their Windows Update, check for updates, download, and install them. After that is complete, wait 48 hours, and there should be an offer for an upgrade to Windows 11.

Oscar-winning movie Oppenheimer directed by the distinguished Christopher Nolan pushed practical filmmaking to its limits, and now a videographer has attempted to recreate an important part of the movie, the Trinity nuclear test.

For those that don't know, Christopher Nolan decided not to use any special effects to capture scenes, such as Oppenheimer imagining scientific processes interacting at the atomic level. Instead, Nolan thought of ways to capture it all in-camera. The same standard was applied to the Trinity nuclear bomb test, which took set teams various tests to get absolutely perfect for the movie.

Now, macro videographer Thomas Blanchard has decided to recreate that test with Nolan's same standard, zero special effects, and the results were very impressive. Blanchard used various lenses, liquids, and objects to create the above video, such as a Canon 100mm macro lens, gold powder, an electric screwdriver, alcohol inks, magic candles, paper clips, and a laboratory shaker. The project took the filmmaker three months to create, but as per a typical filmmaker's curse, the most difficult shot he captured wasn't included in the final edit.

After every solar eclipse the first question that everyone asks is "when is the next one?" Below you will find a list of all the solar eclipses scheduled to happen over the next 10 years.

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse captured the internet for a few days as millions of people across North America had a chance of witnessing the cosmic phenomena. How long will it be again before a total solar eclipse passes through North America? Unfortunately, it will be an eight year wait until the next North American total solar eclipse, scheduled to happen over Utqiagvik, Alaska in 2033. But what if you can't wait that long and don't mind traveling to catch one?

Within the next 10 years there will be seven total solar eclipses happening in various locations around the world. The next total solar eclipse will happen on August 12, 2026, and it will be in Europe, marking the first total solar eclipse in Europe for 27 years. The path of totality will pass over Greenland, western Iceland, and northern Spain.

Garner's new DiskMantler device is an impressive unit. It takes any 3.5-inch hard drive and automatically disassembles it into its various components in seconds. According to the company, the process takes up to 90 seconds per drive (60 seconds on average) and involves "shock, harmonics, and vibration."

It removes the "greenboard" found on older 3.5-inch drives in under 8 seconds. Garner has released a video of the DiskMantler in action, in which you can see a hard drive inserted into the machine like an old VHS tape into a VCR (for those born after 1995, watch this). From there, Garner provides some close-ups of what looks like the hard drive being shaken until it falls apart.

The patent-pending DiskMantler has definite value; it provides a way of recycling a hard drive without creating additional waste. The best part is that the hard drive's components are left intact for easy sorting, reuse, and recycling.

Chinese smart TV and device maker TCL wants to expand the original content found on its TCLtv+. One of the first productions, streaming this summer, is a new romantic comedy called Next Stop Paris. The title is befitting a movie on the Hallmark Channel or a new Netflix movie starring Lindsay Lohan - it screams rom-com.

What makes this notable, and reporting on new rom-coms isn't exactly something we do here at TweakTown, is that it was created with AI. It is a generative AI film, an "AI-Powered Love Story," and the first AI production from TCLtv+ Studios. TCL calls Next Stop Paris "an early experiment bringing tech and creative together in a hybrid entertainment format" using custom AI models and technology from Stable Diffusion.

It looks, well, not great. That might be subjective, but in the case of the first AI rom-com, I'd go as far as to say that's an objective take. The main female protagonist's face changes depending on the shot, and the video has that text-to-video AI look that makes many objects look off. Check it out.

Apple may give iPhone buyers much more choice when it comes to picking the color of their new device, according to a recent rumor.

A leak posted on the Chinese site Weibo and reported by 9to5Mac claims the new iPhone 16 Plus will arrive in seven different colors, with new shades being offered to consumers. Notably, the iPhone 15 Plus is available in pink, yellow, green, blue, and black shades, and the leak claims Apple will offer two new colors this year - white and purple.

It should be noted that the leaker doesn't have a healthy track record with being right about the internal workings at Apple, and Apple has never previously offered so many color options, which means to take this news with a healthy amount of skepticism. The leak only mentions the iPhone 16 Plus model, and if there is any truth to it, Apple would likely follow in the same pattern as they have previously - offer the same color variants for all iPhone models.

iOS 18 is expected to be Apple's biggest update ever to iOS as the company prepares to unveil a suite of new AI features that will undoubtedly play a big part in its next iPhone launch.

For quite some time, we have been hearing that Apple has been internally considering iOS 18 its biggest update ever, with many reports from Bloomberg's Power On newsletter written by known Apple insider Mark Gurman, explaining iOS 18 will add more customization to devices and introduce a suite of new AI features that include a revamped version of Siri that will make her more intelligent, new AI features for Apple Music, AI integration into iWork apps such as Keynote and Pages, and much more.

iOS 18 is expected to be unveiled at WWDC on June 10, and according to Gurman's latest Power On newsletter, Apple won't have a cloud processing component in the company's large language model, the underlying technology powering the AI features. This means all of the processing, at least for the initial wave of AI features, will be done on-device, likely by dedicated AI hardware.

Western Digital is known for creating various storage solutions, especially hard drives and SSDs. The new 'Ultrastar Transporter, Edge Storage' device falls into this category (kind of), thanks to its massive 368TB of NVMe flash storage capacity. In reality, it's something of a data center on the go, a briefcase or suitcase with dual-port 200GbE ethernet ports that is TAA compliant for government and remote use.

Western Digital is positioning it as a high-performance server that businesses and organizations can set up in edge and data center locations. Weighing in at 30 pounds, it's definitely portable for something that can store hundreds of terabytes of data.

"The ability to have high-performance, large-capacity storage where you need it is critical in current times of edge use cases and the proliferation of multi-cloud, multi-datacenter infrastructures," the product description reads. "Organizations that can leverage data center or cloud-like storage services even when a network connection may not be feasible due to cost or poor connectivity have a real advantage in getting the job done."

The age of artificial intelligence-powered tools is upon us, and with the impressive capabilities of these tools many are worried about job security - and they would be right to be worried.

With tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot, many people around the world are worried about customized AI-powered applications making their positions within companies obsolete, as the company would simply adopt an AI-powered tool to perform all of the work for them. In many of these instances, AI-powered tools would perform the job much more efficiently, without complaints, with no days off, and would cost far less than hiring a human.

For all these reasons and more, people are concerned about the societal impact of AI tools, and it seems that not just the everyday worker is concerned, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates is also worried about being made obsolete. Gates spoke to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during an episode of the Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates podcast, in which he said that he was initially skeptical about AI and didn't believe it would advance as quickly as it has. More specifically, Gates said he didn't "expect ChatGPT to get so good".

The Xbox Series X is about to be pushed to its limits when Ninja Theory and Microsoft release Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, which could possibly be the best-looking Unreal Engine 5 game to date.

Digital Foundry, the gold standard of reviewing game technology and hardware, has released a new video taking a look at the latest footage released by Microsoft and developer Ninja Theory of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2. The footage that was analyzed is claimed to be raw footage directly from Microsoft, and according to the outlet, the game is one of, if not the best-looking Unreal Engine 5 game to date. For those that don't know, Hellblade 2 will take players through a stunningly visual cinematic experience that will be, at the time of reporting, exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC.

The outlet writes that Ninja Theory has decided to trade raw performance for visual fidelity, as Hellblade 2 has been confirmed to be capped at 30FPS. The trade-off is that it looks incredible, with Digital Foundry saying it will be an extremely "demanding" game on the Xbox Series X and one of the most "demanding pieces of PC software we've seen so far this generation." According to Ninja Theory's VFX director Mark Slater-Tunstill, Hellblade 2 will be capped at 30FPS to make the game feel more "cinematic".

Fallout: London is one of the most ambitious mods ever made. The fan creation presents an expansion-sized Fallout adventure in a new location (post-apocalyptic London) with a story, quests, factions, weapons, and more. The Fallout 4 mod was on track for an April 2024 release; however, due to Bethesda's upcoming "next-gen" update to the game Fallout: London's launch has been delayed.

The reasoning is simple: Bethesda's big patch will bring the game "stability improvements and fixes" and some much-needed performance improvements to the PC and console versions. With Fallout: London viewed by many as a brand-new game in the series due to its sheer size, the developers at Team FOLON want to make sure that the update doesn't, well, break their mod days after its debut.

"Fallout: London was due to come out in just under a fortnight on the 23rd of April," project lead Dean Carter said in a new video. "Everything has been set to go since our last update, and we've been tweaking and testing non-stop to get things as stable as we can for you all."