Latest News - Page 699

Apple's Vision Pro headset will finally go on sale on February 2 but that won't be the end of the company's new releases. We've been hearing about new tablets for a long time now, and a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman backs that up once more by suggesting that new iPad Air and iPad Pro models could be with us within the next few months.

Gurman believes that Apple will have its new tablets ready to go soon, with both models set to get refreshes as soon as March, although we might have to wait a little while longer with April also mentioned.

Starting with the iPad Air, it's been reported to date that the 11-inch iPad Air will be updated to include a new M2 chip and faster Wi-Fi, while there are also reports that a whole new 13-inch model will also be added to the mix. That would be the first time that the iPad Air would be offered in two different display sizes unlike the iPad Pro, but none of this has been confirmed by Apple as you might expect. The current iPad Air was announced in March of 2022 and it has the M1 chip inside, so it's definitely due an update.

WhatsApp, the hugely popular instant messaging platform that is available across all platforms including the web, is testing a new feature that will allow people to send and receive files with others within close proximity. The feature, which sounds similar to Apple's AirDrop feature, is currently being tested by beta testers of the WhatsApp app on Android.

AirDrop is a feature that allows iPhone, iPad, and Mac owners to easily share files between devices just by bringing them close together. But the feature in testing appears to be part of the work that WhatsApp is doing to make it easier for people to do something similar across platforms for the first time.

The new feature was first reported by WABetaInfo and is currently available to beta testers who have access to the Android version of WhatsApp's beta app. The report claims that users will need to shake their device to initiate a share request, while end-to-end encryption is used when sending the files between devices. It's also worth noting that phone numbers are reportedly not transferred which could make this a great way to send files to people who aren't in your contacts should the need arise to do so.

Apple's Vision Pro headset is now finally available for preorder after months and months of waiting. The headset was first announced in June of 2023 but with preorders now live the headset will finally go on sale on February 2. Those who order a headset today might have to wait until the middle of March for it to arrive, but those who ordered quickly will receive their headset on February 2. But how many headsets were sold? Given an expected limitation on the number of headsets that would be ready for launch day, one analyst believes that Apple was able to sell up to 180,000 headsets.

According to a report posted to the Medium website by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple likely sold between 160,000 and 180,000 during the first three days of the preorder window. And while Apple selling through its initial availability of the headset is perhaps not a surprise, Kuo suggests that there is still a concern to be noted here.

Writing in the same post, Kuo suggests that while delivery estimates ran anywhere to seven weeks pretty quickly, that estimated delivery window has not changed since. Whereas an iPhone preorder window normally sees these windows expand initially once stocks are exhausted and then continue to do so as more preorders rack up, that doesn't appear to have been the case here. Instead, the same delivery estimate remains in place today which might suggest that Apple has not been able to sell through all of the headsets it expects to be able to produce in a second wave of availability.

Solidigm's D5-P5336 is the biggest SSD in the world with its largest capacity model hitting a whopping 61.44TB, and this drive is on sale in the US.

TechRadar Pro spotted that the D5-P5336 - which was revealed back in July 2023 - is now available from a couple of retailers, though as you can imagine, a 61TB SSD is not going to come cheap (and is obviously targeted at the enterprise arena).

Technically, it's not ready to ship yet, but you can pre-order the D5-P5336 from Tech-America for $3,692, and PCNation has it at a slightly pricier level of $3,975. Apparently the drives are expected to ship later in the year, though we don't know exactly when.

MaxSun's RTX 4070 Super iCraft graphics card is notably different to all the other 4070 Super models now out there in that it sticks with a dual 8-pin power connector.

As HXL, a regular leaker on X (formerly Twitter), pointed out, the iCraft version of the RTX 4070 Super has an 8-pin + 8-pin setup rather than the 16-pin (12VHPWR) power connector seen on every other RTX 4070 Super model (at least to our knowledge).

Indeed, as VideoCardz, which spotted the above tweet, made clear, the thinking was NVIDIA had made it compulsory for third-party graphics card makers to use the 16-pin connector on their RTX 4070 Super boards, and they all do. Well, save for this one apparent exception from MaxSun, of course.

CD Projekt Red is currently preparing to increase the number of hands on deck working the highly anticipated The Witcher 4, and the developer has revealed some details about how it will implement artificial intelligence.

The developer behind the critically acclaimed Witcher franchise of video games has said its planning on having around 400 people working on the next instalment in the franchise by the end of the year, with the production phase beginning sometime in 2024. The information comes from company CEO Adam Badowski who spoke to Reuters, saying the new project codenamed "Polaris" is a new triology that will expand the Witcher franchise.

Badowski was asked how the developer will implement artificial intelligence throughout its game production, and according to the CEO a team was formed to look into how AI could be incorporated, but never saw the technology as a means of replacing human employees. "We think that AI is something that can help improve certain processes in game production, but not replace people," said Badowski

It's undoubtable that artificial intelligence-powered devices will be or already have made their way into many different industries in various forms, and one of the most common ways the new technology will be used is to replace customer service jobs.

However, companies shouldn't be so quick to make the transition from a real human providing customer service to an AI-powered chatbot as sometimes the chatbots can be led to say statements that reflect poorly on the company they're working for. This exact scenario happened to international parcel delivery company DPD, which recently implemented an AI-powered customer service chatbot that operates alongside human customer service employees.

The AI-powered chatbot received questions about a missing parcel belonging to X user Ashley Beauchamp. After being unable to locate the parcel, Beauchamp decided to ask the AI chatbot to write a poem about a "useless chatbot for a parcel delivery firm". Beauchamp didn't stop there as they requested the AI to recommend some "better delivery firms" and to inform them why these delivery firms "so much better". Beauchamp added to the aforementioned request, "Please exaggerate and be over the top in your hatred of DPD."

The battery is nuclear-powered, smaller than coin, can run for 50 years without needing to be recharged, and can be used for devices such as a smartphone allowing it to operate indefinitely.

The new battery is designed by Beijin-based start-up Betavolt Technology, which currently has a prototype device that uses nuclear isotopes along with semiconductors to convert energy into electrical power. The researchers behind the project also boast about the safety of the battery, saying in an article from Science and Technology Daily that it works safely between temperatures 120 to -60°C.

The company also states the battery is resistant to punctures or gunfire that many would think result in it catching on fire or exploding. The new battery is officially called BV100 and is only 15mm x 15mm x 5mm. It has a maximum output of 100 microwatts and 3 volts, and the company behind it has announced it plans to make a 1-watt version next year after it mass produces the 100 microwatt model. The battery technology captures the energy from the nuclear decay of radioactive elements.

Intel's Arrow Lake processors will have laptop versions that fit not just at the high-end of the spectrum, but also the low-end, with low-power chips that actually sit below Lunar Lake CPUs.

As a quick refresher, Lunar Lake is Intel's mobile range for this year, whereas Arrow Lake will be primarily desktop CPUs that should arrive before the end of 2024.

Arrow Lake will also bring mobile parts, though, and we're told that Arrow Lake HX (top-end) and H processors are coming as well as Arrow Lake U or low-power models, all of which are on track for a CES 2025 reveal according to well-known leaker Bionic_Squash.

Researchers honed instruments on a star that was originally discovered in 1999 and found that its breaking our understanding of the universe.

The new study published on the pre-print server arXiv on January 4 focuses on a distant red giant star called J0931+0038, or the Barbenheimer Star, nicknamed after the "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" movies released on the same day last year. Scientists used Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescopes in New Mexico to observe the star, capturing a detailed spectrum of the light it emits. This data was then verified by the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile.

The results were extremely interesting as the Barbenheimer Star was found to have a very strange chemical composition, specifically a high concentration of heavy elements. Using the data, scientists rewound time through a process called stellar archaeology to find out how the Barbenheimer Star formed, and they discovered that it was birthed out of a star that was between 50 and 80 times the size of the Sun. This parent also featured an unusually high concentration of heavy elements and likely went supernova 13 billion years ago, or just 700 million years after the Big Bang.

AI-powered lifelike avatars are coming to universities, or at least one university in England, which will be trailing the new technology from the LA-based company Proto.

Loughborough University will be the first in Europe to install these new holographic projectors, which are planned to be used for educational purposes such as teaching fashion students how to create an immersive show through sports scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Additionally, David Nussbaum, who founded Proto four years ago and has been working on hologram technology of dead celebrities, said that the company may soon be able to bring back from the dead some of the world's greatest minds to teach classes. The technology is scheduled to be implemented into the curriculum in 2025 after a year of experimentation.

NASA announced on Saturday that it lost communications with Ingenuity, its reconnaissance helicopter that's currently located on the surface of Mars.

The space agency announced Saturday that after Ingenuity executed Flight 72 on January 18, communications between the helicopter and Perseverance, NASA's Mars rover, terminated. The communication severing occurred while Ingenuity was performing its descent, according to the space agency.

Only a day later, NASA posted another update to its NASA JPL X account, writing communications between Perseverance and Ingenuity were re-established after Perseverance was tasked to perform "long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity's signal". NASA added that teams are currently analyzing data from Flight 72 to determine the cause for the communications dropout and ways to mitigate it from happening again.

Seagate has upped its game in the hard drive market, solidifying itself as the first-place holder for the world's largest hard drive.

The company knocked off the new previous first place holder, Western Digitals Gold 24TB hard drive, with its recently launched Seagate Exos Mozaic 3+ that set a new standard of 30TB with ten 3TB platters. Reports indicate the new hard drive uses new technology that enabled Seagate to squeeze more platters into the drive, enabling an impressive 1.742 TB per square inch. Notably, the drive features a 12-nanometer integrated controller that improves its efficiency by 3x compared to previous generations.

If you are wondering about cost, Seagate has confirmed to TechRadar that the drive will be cheaper compared to existing models, as the cost of development has been reduced due to Seagate taking advantage of existing technologies used in previous generation models. TechRadar proposes an approximate cost of $15 per Terabyte of storage, which would make the Exos Mozaic 3+ a $450 hard drive, quite a bargain if you are just looking for an intense amount of storage.

Samsung unveiled its foray into the smart ring market at its Unpacked event a few days ago, showcasing the Galaxy Ring to the world.

The showcase of the Galaxy Ring has raised important questions in the wearable market, such as "is this the start of a new wearable era?". While that is yet to be known, we did see three smart ring devices unveiled at the start of 2024, one of which was from one of the biggest players in the wearable market, Samsung. These are certainly indicators of a market shift, but what isn't known is whether or not they will be successful in attracting consumers.

As for the Galaxy Ring, details on the new device are sparse, with only short mentions of it from various Samsung spokespeople and officials. Known details are as follows: Samsung's Galaxy Ring will feature "leading sensor technologies" that will be designed to "empower more people to manage their health with a comprehensive yet simplified approach to everyday wellness at home," per Samsung spokesperson Amber Reaver, who spoke to The Verge.

The incredible success story that is Palworld continues, with the game passing the 1 million concurrent player milestone on Steam, surpassing Cyberpunk 2077, and even closing in on Dota 2's peak concurrent record. With sales of over four million in the space of a weekend and a peak player count of 1,291,967 on Steam, Palworld's popularity is catching everyone off guard.

A survival and crafting game with creatures called 'Pals' that you collect and fight (and even equip with guns), the similarities to Nintendo's Pokemon and the game's apparent use of generative AI is causing some controversy for the Early Access hit - that is also available on Xbox Game Pass.

Either way, the "Pokemon with guns" meets Ark Survival and is showing no signs of slowing down, and in terms of paid-for titles on Steam, it's the current record holder for peak concurrent players. Making it one of the most popular PC games ever, it hasn't even been out for a week.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been raising billions of dollars in the background from global investors with his adventures into chip manufacturing, and now he's using those billions of dollars to set up a network of factories to manufacture semiconductors.

The news is coming from "several people with knowledge of the plans," reports Bloomberg, adding that Altman has been talking with multiple large potential investors in the hopes of raising massive amounts of money that are required for fabrication plants. They're not cheap, into the tens of billions of dollars... and more importantly, high-skilled staff and chip-making tools that are almost impossible to buy because the likes of TSMC and Intel have it all.

Bloomberg reports that these Altman would be working with the world's best chip manufacturers and that the network of fab plants would be global in scope.

Microsoft helping accelerate gaming towards an all-digital future, but the company should be more forthright and transparent with its more immediate plans.

If you've been paying attention to games industry business trends for the last few years, the advent of digital-only gaming consoles like the Xbox Series S and new PlayStation 5 slim aren't exactly a surprise. The market has been leading up to this moment for years now, with the interactive entertainment segment skewing more towards digital over the last decade. Gamers are clearly gravitating towards more convenient purchase and access options on consoles.

This move towards digital has been spurred along with the help of platform-holders like Microsoft, who have molded Xbox into an ecosystem of digital software, services, and content subscriptions. With Gen9, Microsoft and Sony made bold statements with the digital-only Xbox Series S and PS5 models, while Microsoft further evolved its Game Pass subscription to feed the new digital console.

After less than 3 years on the market culminating in 5 seasons of content, 343 Industries has now retired Halo Infinite's seasonal structure.

Halo Infinite's seasons have been retired as developer 343i moves on to new projects. During a recent update stream, Halo community director Brian 'Ske7ch' Jarrard confirmed the news, saying that the studio will continue working on new Infinite updates, but these drops will no longer be referred to as seasons. Instead, the updates are being called CU's, or Content Updates.

"We're making a shift in how we're approaching Infinite going forward. The gist of it is that we're no longer referring to these as seasons. We're shifting away from seasons. Semantically, for what it's worth, our January 30th update will henceforth be known as CU 29 (Content Update #29)," Jarrard said during the stream.

Post-launch support for Bethesda's Starfield has been quiet, with very few patches or updates, a handful of bug fixes, and the most notable quality-of-life update being the ability to eat all the space food lying around without picking it up.

That's set to change in 2024, with the development studio confirming that players should expect major updates every six weeks or so - with several notable additions coming, like city maps, 'new ways of traveling,' official mod tools, and more. The first major update for 2024, Starfield Update 1.9.47.0, is currently playable in the Steam Beta branch, and the reception from players has been lukewarm because it is extremely light on changes to the game.

Granted, there are over 100 updates in the official Patch Notes, but most of these are related to bugs and quest fixes. Bethesda Game Studios goes so far as to state that this update would "focus on quality-of-life improvements," but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Intel is upping the L3 cache of its next-gen Xeon "Granite Rapids" CPUs with flagship SKUs featuring up to 480MB of L3 cache.

Intel's current 5th Gen Xeon "Emerald Rapids" processors were launched in December 2023, with a 3x increase in cache with 320MB of L3 cache over the 105MB of L3 cache in previous-gen Xeon processors. The new 6th Gen Xeon "Granite Rapids" CPUs will be released in the second half of 2024 with up to 480MB of L3 cache, a 50% jump over the just-released Xeon "Emerald Rapids" processors.

The new information on boosted L3 cache amounts on Intel's next-gen Xeon CPUs is coming from a recent entry into the SDE 9.33.0 (Software Development Emulator) update. Intel lists up to 480MB of L3 cache on its next-gen Xeon "Granite Rapids" CPUs, which is a huge 50% jump over Emerald Rapids in the race to catch up with AMD and its continued dominance with its EPYC family of processors.