Latest News - Page 627

If you missed AMD's RX 7800 XT when the GPU had been reduced to a tempting $480 earlier this year, well, we've got some good news - the graphics card can be had at this asking price again.

VideoCardz was hawk-eyed enough to pick up on the RX 7800 XT dropping to $480 at both Newegg and Amazon in the US.

This is for the ASRock Challenger model of the 7800 XT and you'll need to use the provided discount code to get the price knocked down by a further $10 to hit $480.

A new study has found that humans can see the world at a higher "frame rate" than other humans, meaning some people see the world completely differently than others.

Humans see by converting light into electrical signals through cells called photoreceptors. These cells than then transmit the signals through the optic nerve to the region of the brain responsible for image formation, known as a the visual cortex. The speed, or frequency this process occurs is called temporal resolution, or a "frame rate". According to a new study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, the frame rate humans isn't standard across all humans and can differ vastly depending on genetic makeup.

A team of researchers took 88 volunteers and placed goggles on them and put a blinking LED light in their sight. The LED light blinked at different speeds. The test enabled the researchers to boil down the speed of which the test subject was no longer able to see the flicking light, and instead they saw a solid unmoving light. The results were surprisingly as some people weren't able to see past a flicking light above 35 times a second, while others were able to see up to 60 times per second.

America's heartland and some surrounding states will be subject to a massive invasion by trillions of singing bugs in an event that hasn't taken place for at least 200 years.

According to reports, trillions of cicadas will be surfacing from the ground at the same time this year as two groups known as Brood XIX, or the "Great Southern Brood," and Brood XIII, known as the "Northern Illinois Brood". For at least 200 years these groups of cicadas emerged at different times, but this year they will emerge simultaneously creating swarms of trillions of flying signing bugs. Notably, there isn't an extensive overlap between the two groups, but some regions in the center of the US will be battling against more than double the number of cicadas.

David Althoff, a professor at Syracuse University's Department of Biology, told ABC News that residents used to the annual occurrence of cicadas will need to prepare for this year's emergence as it will be a "far cry from the annual occurrences". Furthermore, Brood XIX, the largest geographic extent of all periodical broods, only surfaces once every 13 years, while Brood XIII emerges every 17 years. The last time these two broods emerged from the ground at the same time was in 1803, and the next time they will emerge at the same time won't be until 221 years have passed.

Samsung is committed to bringing the cinema experience to your couch with the official unveiling of its 2024 TV line-up.

At the top of Samsung's 2024 line-up is the Neo QLED 8K, which features the NQ8 AI Gen3 processor that the company says marks a "significant leap in AI TV technology" as it delivers twice as much performance as its predecessor. This TV features 8K AI Upscaling Pro, a new feature that takes TV shows and movies and upscales them into 8K. Additionally, Samsung writes in its press release the Neo QLED 8K has AI Motion Enhancer Pro, a feature that's designed to make fast action smooth and clear.

Furthermore, there's the inclusion of Real Depth Enhancer Pro, which adds depth to the picture, and also AI sound technology such as Active Voice Amplifier Pro, a feature designed to extract dialogue from background noise in an effort to make sure the viewer is able to hear every word. The Neo QLED 8K also has an AI Auto Game Mode that automatically optimizes visuals and audio to improve a gaming experience and switches on by itself when a game is fired up.

Artificial intelligence-powered systems are truly impressive, but what datasets are they trained on? OpenAI has kept the answer to the question behind closed doors, and now YouTube has issued a warning to the company ahead of its release of Sora, its AI-powered text-to-video generation tool.

Creators of AI models use large amounts of data to successfully train their tools into whatever they are designed for. However, there is a major problem with simply grabbing data off the internet and using it to train an AI model that will potentially be used to generate money - copyrighted IP. This problem isn't new, as The New York Times and Getty Images have already filed lawsuits against AI creators for the theft of copyrighted data used to train models that are then used to generate profit.

The copyright debate regarding AI models heated up again in March when OpenAI CTO Mira Murati told The Wall Street Journal that she wasn't sure if Sora's training included data from YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Now, in an interview with Bloomberg Originals, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan reminded OpenAI that any kind of data taken from the platform and used to train AI models is strictly against the platform's terms of service.

Making iMessage work on Android has been the holy grail for plenty of companies over the years with limited success. Sunbird was one company that seemed to have managed it, although there was some debate over how safe it actually was. However, Apple subsequently blocked Sunbird's route into iMessage but the company now says that it's back on track.

Sunbird's stability and security aside - it was found that the company's partnership with Nothing to bring iMessage to its phones was leaking data - it's easy to see why the idea was popular. Being able to use iMessage on an Android phone would be a big deal for those who don't want to use third-party apps like WhatsApp, and with Apple not set to support RCS until later this year, iMessage is still the best option around.

In a press release shared by Sunbird, we learned recently that the company is now starting to roll its iMessage features out in small phases with some able to try it out as of April 5. However, the press release hasn't explained what Sunbird has done to deal with the privacy issues that were highlighted last year before the service was taken down indefinitely. However, it has been confirmed that it now uses an updated AV2 architecture and those interested in the details can get them via that press release.

SpaceX recently announced the successful deployment of its Bandwagon-1 mission, which was launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The rideshare mission totaled eleven spacecraft from multiple companies around the world, with the Falcon 9 rocket deploying: KOREA's 425Sat, HawkEye 360's Clusters 8 & 9, Fleet Space Technologies' Centauri-6, iQPS's QPS-SAR-7 TSUKUYOMI-II, Capella Space's Capella-14, and Tata Advanced Systems Limited's TSAT-1A. More specifically, Fleet Space Technologies, the team behind the world's smallest voice-enabled satellite, Centauri-4, issued a press release about the achievement the company has made with the successful deployment of Centauri-6.

According to the South Australian company, which was named Australia's fastest growing company by the Australian Financial Review, Centauri-6 will add to Fleet Space's ever-growing presence in low-Earth orbit that's designed to provide solutions to critical mineral discoveries on Earth's surface without damaging the environment.

SpaceX has conducted a presentation at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, revealing some key details about its upcoming Mars missions that will feature the world's most powerful rocket, Starship.

The company's CEO, Elon Musk, has taken to stage to discuss what fans of SpaceX can expect out of the company in 2024 and what will be involved in creating a sustainable presence on the surface of Mars. Musk said that this is the first time in human civilization that Earth is capable of making the species multiplanetary, and all of this hinges of the success of Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket ever created.

Musk outlines that mass to orbit is a key factor in achieving a Mars base, and when Starship is complete, it will be capable of taking 200 tons to orbit while being fully reusable. The SpaceX CEO explains that once Starship is in orbit, it will need to be refueled by a tanker that's also in orbit. This new technology will be called Ship to Ship Propellent Transfer, and for every trip to Mars, Starship will need to be refueled six times, so a ratio of 5 to 1. Musk said that SpaceX plans on demonstrating Ship to Ship Propellent Transfer sometime next year.

SpaceX has issued a major update for what fans of the space fairing company can expect throughout 2024, and one of those updates is when Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket, will take to the skies once again.

The update was hosted by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who took to the stage at Starbase for a 45 minute presentation outlining all of what SpaceX is working on and what we can expect out of 2024. If you haven't been keeping up with Starship news, the world's largest rocket conducted its third orbital test flight last month and it was a major success, with the massive rocket successfully reaching orbit.

Now SpaceX is preparing for the fourth test flight and according to Musk the main objectives will be landing the rocket somewhere in the ocean on a virtual tower. Notably, SpaceX plans on "catching" Starship's booster Super Heavy on a tower SpaceX call Mechazilla.

Before we dig into ViewSonic's built-to-order 'Customizable All-in-One LED Displays, ' which are available in various aspect ratios and sizes of up to an incredible 760 inches (the modern big-screen TV comes in at only 65 inches) and a whopping 3,840 Hz refresh rate, these are designed as "video walls" for "business, commercial, and public spaces."

Still, you could order one for that "home space to play video games on." That is, until you dig into the full specs, realize that a display is created primarily for digital signage, and discover that the native resolution is a super low 512 x 384 pixels. Dreams = crushed.

Still, for businesses and shipping malls, it's a winner with ViewSonic's innovative mega LED Displays featuring an ultra-slim (31mm), bezel-free design (6mm), and an advanced Glue-on-Board (GOB) surface treatment to protect the display and provide resistance against dust and moisture. ViewSonic says this allows them to be installed in lobbies, bathrooms, and transportation hubs.

NVIDIA is expected to announce its next-generation GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs later this year, where it seems we'll be introduced to the new top-end GeForce RTX 5090 and high-end GeForce RTX 5080 at first.

In a new post about NVIDIA increasing the price of its GPUs by an average of 10% by UDN, the report added that as NVIDIA continues to dominate the AI GPU market, graphics card-related products will also see new products later this year.

AIB partners are expecting NVIDIA to unveil its next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series in Q4 2024, where initially, NVIDIA will focus on the new top-end GeForce RTX 5090 and high-end GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards. UDN says that its sources are optimistic that the launch of next-gen RTX 50 series GPUs will help AIB partners shipments, and drive up the average unit price of graphics cards.

MSI is expanding its GeForce RTX 4090D line-up for China with a new VENTUS 3X model that looks identical, design-wise, to the GeForce RTX 4090 24G VENTUS 3X. The release will present Chinese gamers with a more affordable GeForce RTX 4090D model compared to its GeForce RTX 4090D 24G Gaming X Slim or GeForce RTX 4090D 24G Suprim X variants. As affordable as an RTX 4090 can get.

The GeForce RTX 4090D 24G VENTUS 3X features the exact dimensions (322 x 136 x 62 mm) as the non-D version. Still, it has the lowered out-of-the-box RTX 4090D Boost Clock speed of 2,520 MHz (which can be pushed to 2,535 MHz with MSI Center software) and fewer CUDA Cores to comply with new U.S. regulations for selling GPU hardware in the region. The RTX 4090D does retain the same 24GB of GDDR6X memory at 21 Gbps on a 384-bit memory bus.

As part of the VENTUS line-up, the card still features a triple-fan cooling design with a metallic shroud, a focus on airflow, and a nickel-plated copper base. Visually, it follows the same black and silver aesthetics and style as other Ventus cards in MSI's GeForce RTX line-up.

The last Star Wars film to get a theatrical release and debut was 2019's The Rise of Skywalker, the ninth and potentially final release in the canonical mainline Star Wars Episodes. Although it was a financial success, critical and fan response to the film was lukewarm, with the JJ Abram-led trilogy and misfires like Solo: A Star Wars Story led to Disney shelving or postponing its cinematic plans for the franchise.

The drought is over or will be soon enough, with Disney planning to release The Mandalorian & Grogu on May 22, 2026. The film, set in the Star Wars universe, will be an offshoot of the popular Disney+ show starring Pedro Pascal as the title character. Series creator Jon Favreau (Iron Man) is also set to direct, with Disney and Lucasfilm viewing the project as a safe bet.

The post-George Lucas era of Star Wars has found most of its success on TV thanks to The Mandalorian, Andor, and The Book of Boba Fett. The Mandalorian & Grogu isn't the only Star Wars film in development at Disney (it's the only one with a release date); two more films are also on the way.

In a new report at Windows Central from Xbox and Microsoft reporter Jez Corden, a leaked email from Xbox President Sarah Bond outlines the company's plans for the future of Xbox. First, the company is committed to building a new next-gen Xbox console, with Sarah Bon reiterating that it will deliver "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation."

During a recent Official Xbox Podcast appearance, Sarah Bond first made these comments that outlined the company's plans to go multi-platform by bringing select first-party titles to Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Switch platforms. Talking about the next generation of Xbox consoles while hyping up performance was a way to reassure fans and Xbox players that Microsoft wasn't planning on leaving the console hardware business.

That said, "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation" is vague and could mean many things. According to the leaked email obtained by Windows Central, the answer could lie in Sarah Bond stating that the next-generation Xbox will feature something called Gaming AI.

We've covered Seagate's HAMR, or Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording, tech for HDDs, which is set to breathe new life into traditional platter-based storage by dramatically increasing the potential capacities. Last year, the company began shipping its first 32TB HAMR-based Corvault systems to customers, and with HAMR HDDs featuring more than 3TB per platter, that TB number will only increase. Dramatically.

New research from NIMS, Seagate Technology, and Tohoku University shows that multi-level dual-layer HAMR storage is possible, unlocking even more data density. Per the headline, 120TB of storage on a single drive is on track to become a reality - the only catch is that, based on Seagate's HAMR roadmap, it might take a decade to get there.

However, if this new 'multi-level' tech becomes a reality, current HAMR storage capacities will dramatically increase to 60+ TB. Let's examine how it works.

Samsung has reportedly won a contract with NVIDIA to provide the AI GPU giant with advanced 2.5D packaging.

The news is coming from TheElec, with their sources saying Samsung's Advanced Package (AVP) team will be providing an interposer and I-Cube -- its 2.5D package -- to NVIDIA. Other companies will produce the High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and GPU wafers, with the 2.5D packaging housing the chip dies-CPU, GPU, I/O, HBM, and others-placed horizontally onto the interposer.

Samsung calls its 2.5D packaging technology I-Cube, while TSMC calls its 2.5D packaging CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate). NVIDIA's entire fleet of A100 and H200 series AI GPUs uses 2.5D packaging, and more importantly, the monster new 208 billion transistor Blackwell B200 AI GPU uses the same advanced packaging.

The US government is demanding that ASML stop servicing some of the equipment it sells to Chinese customers.

In a new report from Reuters, the Biden administration wants Netherlands-based ASML -- who makes the top-of-the-line EUV lithography machines, with Intel recently buying one for $380 million to be installed in the United States -- to stop servicing equipment sold to Chinese companies "are a diplomatic and business headache for the Dutch government, but signs are it will continue to align with Washington on export restrictions," reports Reuters.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government doesn't want to make a blanket decision, but it seems that the country will now be slower in approving equipment servicing for Chinese customers, and quicker to deny them. The machines that ASML makes can't be made anywhere else, is virtually impossible to replace, and will eventually break down and need maintenance over time... something that will be much harder moving forward for Chinese companies.

NVIDIA is reportedly increasing the price of its GPUs used inside gaming graphics cards across its GeForce series of GPUs, with prices estimated to increase by around 10%.

The report comes from UDN, citing industry sources that the supply of NVIDIA's current GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics card has been "reduced recently" and that as the previous wave of market inventory was exhausted, "demand exceeds supply, resulting in price increases."

NVIDIA introduced its new GeForce RTX 3050 with 6GB of VRAM as an entry-level graphics card in February 2024, just two months ago now. At the time, it was expected that NVIDIA would increase the price of this chip. Fast-forward to April 2024, and we're hearing 10% price increases are coming.

YouTuber "noisycarlos" has converted his Framework 13 laptop into an interesting, battery-powered all-in-one (AIO) workstation system. Check out the full details in his video below:

During the conversion process of turning his Framework laptop into an AIO workstation, the YouTuber created -- and is selling, you can buy it here -- a Framework 13 Conversion kit, so you can make your own Framework AIO system if you wanted to, which is really cool.

Noisycarlos found himself traveling and working on the go, and laptops weren't good for what he needed and his specific requirements. He didn't like clamshell laptops with their keyboard designs and that a 15-inch laptop was too big for something like using it in long haul flights. So, he decided to "optimize" the laptop design into something super-portable, as long as there is a desk (or hanging hooks) at the destination: hotel, AirBnb, etc.

Intel has just kicked off a new round of layoffs this week, which will see a culling from its Sales and Marketing Group.

The news comes from CRN, which reports that an Intel spokesperson confirmed that the company had made job cuts as part of its reorganization but "did not provide any further details." Christoph Schell leads the Sales and Marketing Group and is the chief commercial officer of Intel.

An Intel spokesperson provided a comment to CRN: "With the objective of continuing to deliver on company strategy and drive outcomes for its customers, Intel's [Sales and Marketing Group] announced changes to its organizational structure. We are confident in Intel's future and are committed to supporting all employees through this process, including treating impacted employees with dignity and respect".