Latest News - Page 704

The CEO of the developer of Cities: Skylines 2 has written a blog post about the growing toxicity in the game's community, and how that might potentially mean the devs pulling back from engaging with players as a result.

PC Gamer spotted the post, in which chief exec of Colossal Order, Mariina Hallikainen, writes:

Whatever your preferred search engine, sometimes you run a query and don't get a great set of returns - so off to another engine you pop to spin the wheel of search again - but Microsoft Edge is taking a new approach when this scenario occurs.

As highlighted on X (formerly Twitter) by Mikhail Parakhin, who is head of Advertising and Web Services at Microsoft, now when you search in Edge with Bing, you get Google results presented simultaneously in the browser's side panel.

Or vice versa, if you Google, you get Bing results, and the idea is you can glance across and easily see alternatives to what your primary search engine has dug up on any given search query.

Teams of researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center located in Houston, Texas, have finally removed the lid containing the space agency's first collected asteroid samples.

Back in October last year, NASA announced it was experiencing a problem with removing the lid from its asteroid sample collection mission officially dubbed OSIRIS-REx. While the mission was a success by almost all accounts, it was perhaps too much of a success, as NASA explained the lid to the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), or the container with the asteroid samples inside, proved much harder to remove than initially anticipated.

Since then, NASA has been working on a way to open the container, which it has seemingly now done. The space agency explained in a new blog post that teams developed new tools to open the lid, which are made out of "custom-fabricated bits made from a specific grade of surgical, non-magnetic stainless steel; the hardest metal approved for use in the pristine curation gloveboxes."

A new report by RespawnFirst has detailed a lawsuit by Take-Two Interactive that believes Remedy Entertainment's logo too closely resembles Take-Two's own trademarked logos, such as Rockstar Games.

Remedy applied for its current trademark back in May 2013 with the UK Intellectual Property Office, which was then publicly published in June 2023. In September of the same year Take-Two filed an opposition against the logo, claiming there is a chance the public could become confused between Remedy's logo and Rockstar Games' logo. `

Notably, this isn't the first time Take Two has gone after another company within the gaming industry over trademarks, as Hazelight came under fire when it attempted to file a trademark for "It Takes Two". The dispute between the two companies ended in Hazelight having to abandon its trademark. It doesn't stop there, as Take-Two have also gone after modders within the Grand Theft Auto community; AI-powered story mod for GTA V = shut down, Grand Theft Auto IV Definitive Edition Mod = shut down, and many more.

If you're picking up a new Vision Pro mixed reality headset in February and looking for new apps to try, there shouldn't be any shortage of options. In fact, one of them will be full to the brim with familiar faces and that app will be HBO's Max. Once installed, the Max app will offer Vision Pro owners quick access to a world of streaming content from not only HBO but also CNN, DC Universe, Food Network, and more.

MacRumors reports that Apple confirmed that Max would be one of the ways people with Vision Pros will be able to watch content in augmented reality, while it will be joined by others including Disney+ and of course Apple TV+, too. We can likely expect more to arrive in the coming months assuming that they aren't in the Vision Pro App Store on day one.

When confirming that the Vision Pro headset will go on sale on February 2, Apple said that its owners can expect to watch content on a display that feels like it's 100 feet wide. That content should look great as well, with full HDR support offered by the Vision Pro's dual 4K displays.

We've only just heard a rumor that Microsoft was going to introduce Copilot Pro, a subscription version of the AI, and it's officially happened.

Copilot Pro will cost $20 per month and is aimed at individual users who want the best AI experience, or as Microsoft puts it:

What do you get for your money? As mentioned in the leak yesterday, one of the major selling points is access to the latest AI models, and with this initial incarnation of Copilot Pro, users will get the benefit of GPT-4 Turbo (for faster and more accurate responses to queries).

Apple has a long history of being very much convinced that the only way people should be allowed to install apps on their iPhone is via the App Store. Web apps are also allowed, but real iPhones apps can only be downloaded via the App Store. Over on Android, apps can be sideloaded from just about anywhere with third-party app stores also available to companies who want to run them. Now, it appears Apple is closer than ever to allowing the same thing on the iPhone - but it isn't quite that simple.

With the European Union's Digital Markets Act set to force Apple to allow sideloading, the company is gearing up to do exactly that. However, reports suggest that anyone who had hoped Apple would open the door to all iPhone owners around the globe will be left disappointed. Instead, it looks likely that Apple will only offer sideloading to those in the EU, meaning iPhone owners in countries around the globe will have to make do with the App Store instead.

That's something that Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes, reporting in his weekly Power On newsletter that Apple will split the App Store in two. ONe version will be offered in EU countries, while the other will be used everywhere else.

Apple is finally set to make the Vision Pro available for preorder this week and then put it on sale in February, but it looks like there might be one feature that won't be there when the headset lands on people's heads. That's despite it having featured heavily in Apple's promotional imagery before being unceremoniously removed at an unknown time.

That feature is one called Open Sky Environment and it's a feature that replaces the ceiling in your room with an outdoor landscape, whether that's an open blue sky or something else. Apple had previously shown the feature off as being used in a home as a woman lays in bed, or on an airplane. However, Apple has now removed all references to the feature on its website.

The change was first spotted by the @M1Astra X account with Apple updating a promotional video to remove the feature. The company has also updated on-page text to remove any mention of the feature, too. At the moment it's unclear when these changes were made so it's possible that the feature was removed a while ago, but it's definitely a feature that has been removed, whenever it might have happened.

Apple has long been rumored to have a big update in the works for the iPad Pro in 2024, and now a new report suggests that not only will device shipments begin in April, but work to make that happen is already underway. Reports of new OLED iPad Pros have been circulating for months now, and a new industry report claims that those OLED displays are now in production with an eye on that April window.

The report comes via the Korean-language outlet The Elec and claims that LG Display recently began building the thin film transistor (TFT) for the new 13-inch iPad Pro. As for the smaller 11-inch model, it's reported that Samsung Display will start its own TFT production so that it's ready for the same launch. The TFT is reportedly the component that switches on and off the individual OLED pixels and is a key component as a result.

It's then reported that completed iPad Pro models will be in production around March time which fits well with an expected April release timeframe. That's also a timeframe that matches with other claims by analysts including supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, someone who is normally well-connected in terms of this kind of thing. It's also a timeframe that matches one provided by Bloomberg which suggested that Apple might announce its new tablets in March. If that happens towards the end of the month it's very likely that the tablets will actually begin shipping to customers in the early days of April.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League just revealed its PC system requirements and they aren't bad on the whole, but there is a thorn in the side for some, perhaps - this is another game that stipulates the need for an SSD.

Mind you, these days, if you haven't got an SSD, you're seriously missing out. The difference between SSD and HDD in terms of loading times and general system responsiveness is night and day, so it's the one upgrade you should definitely make if you haven't already done so.

At any rate, back to those system requirements, which were aired via Steam (hat tip to PC Gamer) and you can see in the above screenshot.

CES 2024 was definitely the year of the QD-OLED gaming monitors, with multiple companies making announcements for a range of different displays at various refresh rates and response times.

One of the biggest players in the space, MSI, announced a new fleet of QD-OLED gaming monitors, and one of the features attached to one of these monitors deserves the spotlight. MSI's MEG 321URX QD-OLED was demoed on the CES showroom floor, and it features a built-in AI processor designed to scan the game that is currently being played on the monitor and provide visual notifications such as enemy position and character health.

The new monitor has raised some important questions about how AI will be used in the future of gaming, as the MEG 321URX QD-OLED's feature, which MSI calls SkySight, pops up these visual indicates completely independent of your operating system, or game files - meaning it circumvents any potential anti-cheat software.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has shared another behind-the-scenes look at the development going into Optimus, the upcoming Tesla humanoid robot designed to replace monotonous jobs.

When the Tesla bot, later named to Optimus was first unveiled it wasn't capable of much. But since then many improvements have been underway on its design and back in early December Tesla announced the second generation of Optimus - Optimus Gen 2.

The issues seen in the first generation Optimus were seemingly ironed out as the humanoid robot is now able to walk 30% faster than its previous generation, its weight has been reduced by 10kg, big improvements on balance and body control, delicate object manipulation, tactile sensing on fingertips, along with much more.

Elon Musk has appeared in front of all SpaceX employees to congratulate them on their efforts throughout 2023, while also discussing what the company expects it will be able to achieve throughout 2024.

Musk's presentation saved Starship for last, the world's biggest and most powerful rocket, or the crown jewel of SpaceX's development. Starship is designed to be the mode of transportation to Mars, and has purposely been built with carry capacity in mind. Current estimates put Starships payload anywhere between 100 and 150 tons, which is enough to begin occupying the Red Planet with a small base. However, SpaceX needs Starship to get to orbit first.

During the presentation Musk said that Starship "down the road" will come with approximately 20 million pounds of thrust, which is three times the thrust of Saturn V, the rocket NASA used to take humans to the moon. Musk goes on to say that in the future when Starship can reach orbit it will "fly a lot", reaching "several times a day" from multiple locations around the world. Musk adds that he thinks there is a "pretty good chance" Starship will do "Earth to Earth transport as well".

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has held a meeting at SpaceX headquarters in Texas with all staff, and during this meeting, the company CEO celebrated all of the achievements the incredible team over at SpaceX made throughout 2023 while also touching on what the company wants to achieve throughout 2024.

Musk took to the stage in front of all SpaceX employees for a talk that went for just shy of an hour. During this presentation, Musk applauded all employees for their hard work in making SpaceX the world's most reliable rocket launching company. Saving the best for last, Musk began discussing SpaceX's crown jewel, Starship, and the expected improvements to be made to future iterations of the launch vehicle, as well as Starbase itself.

Musk illustrated the sheer size of Starship with the graphic below while also briefly mentioning that Starship will get bigger with future generations. Notably, Musk said that Starship's launch tower is "bigger than Mech Godzilla" and will eventually have "chopstick" arms that will catch a landing Starship rocket. Musk briefly mentioned that SpaceX would be constructing a second launch tower, which was revealed in the above graphic titled "Two Towers In Texas."

Elon Musk has addressed the SpaceX team at an All-Hands meeting that was recently posted to the company's X account. During this meeting, Musk touches on why Starship exploded during its most recent orbital launch attempt.

Starship is SpaceX's crown jewel, with it being the biggest and most powerful rocket in the world and set to be the transportation method to occupy Mars. With 150 tons of payload capacity, Starship is the biggest flying object to ever have taken to the skies, but unfortunately, both orbital launch attempts ended in critical failure or boom.

While this may be disheartening to those who want to see the human race touch down on Mars, don't lose hope, as this is simply the process with rocket development, and with each flight, SpaceX has made milestone leaps forward toward the end goal of landing on the Red Planet. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk explains that Starship was launched twice last year, and between Flights 1 and 2, there were massive improvements across the board, from Starship's internal design to the flight pad.

YouTube has been at war with ad blocker extensions since they came into popularity, and now the company behind the largest video platform in the world has moved to implement what is easily the most annoying change yet. Slowed video load times.

This isn't the first time YouTube has targeted popular ad-blocking software such as AdBlock Plus, uBlock Origin, or Ghostery, as it was back in November last year when the company annoyed millions of users around the world by disabling video-watching for select accounts. A recent video posted to Reddit indicates the company is now throttling video load times for accounts using ad-blocking software.

These suspicions were backed up by a report by 9to5Google, which stated there is "an artificial timeout written within YouTube's code to act as a laggy internet connection," and while this code has been within YouTube's software for quite some time, it appears it's being used to a much wider effect.

GIGABYTE has just unveiled its new AORUS 17X, which it says is crafted for AI gaming, packing up to an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU.

The new AORUS 17X laptop can be configured with up to the Intel Core i9-14900HX "Raptor Lake Refresh" processor, max TGP NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU with 16GB of GDDR6 memory powered by AI-accelerated for generative AI workloads.

Intel's new Core i9-14900HX processor has 24 cores of CPU power at up to 5.8GHz with 36MB of cache, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU will boost up to 2040MHz and chew down 175W of power on its own. If you opt for the RTX 4080 version of the AORUS 17X, you'll get GPU clocks of up to 2280MHz with the same power consumption.

ASUS revealed its new ZenScreen Fold OLED MQ17QH portable display, with a large 17.3-inch OLED display for on-the-go use alongside your laptop.

The new ASUS ZenScreen Fold OLED MQ17QH, when it's put into landscape orientation, offers a beautifully tall 2560 x 1920 resolution, providing more vertical pixels than you'd get with a 4K display in landscape (with its 2160 pixels high). The ZenScreen Fold OLED is a premium experience that is now offering portable OLED goodness with cinema-grade DCI-P3 color gamut for bold, beautiful colors.

Suppose you're sitting somewhere you've got ambient light coming in, for example. In that case, if you're sitting on your lounge or at the table with natural light coming in, you won't need to worry about losing that OLED beauty, as you'll still enjoy inky blacks and excellent contrast.

Last year, I reviewed the 'Elvish' version of the DROP + The Lord of the Rings mechanical keyboard collaboration. As far as keyboards go, they were a little limited without software support or much customization, but that's not what I wanted to check it out for - the attention to detail and little touches make it an awesome piece to put on display. As a Lord of the Rings fan who adores the books and films, I'll cherish it for years.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I'm now keen to pick up the latest DROP + The Lord of the Rings Rohan keyboard - which is inspired by the Rohirrim, the 'kingdom of horsemasters.' Like previous Lord of the Rings keyboards from DROP, this new collab is chock full of awesome little details from OSHETART, including galloping horses, authentic helms, and beacons of Minas Tirith.

This time, the keycap fonts are in English, too, so it'll be more usable, with a design inspired by Ye Olde English. Performance-wise, you've got Holy Panda X Switches, DCD-profile keycaps, and silent Phantom Stabilizers. Plus, it's available in green or brown.

While we were at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada, EKWB showed off some innovative new products, specifically in the world of watercooling. The image above is what caught my eye when I first walked into the suite at Mandalay Bay. Housed in a 360mm radiator housing, a 240mm radiator and FLT pump are combined, making a quasi-closed but open loop; just add tubing, coolant, and a CPU or GPU block, and you are done. This product is still in development, so there is no ETA available.

Next are some new fittings, specifically a few new color choices to the already popular Quantum Torque line, flat/matte gray and bronze. These new colors offer a dulled finish, which aids in preventing fingerprints.

Next is more of a revision to the FLT Kinetic 3 line of flat reservoirs, now with different inlet and outlet ports and being offered in 140mm sizing. On the far right is a glimpse of the new EK-Quantum Velocity2 Edge D-RGB CPU water blocks. Available for mainstream CPU sockets, LGA1700, and AM5 in black and silver variants. These new CPU blocks resemble the ones from the era of the Supremacy EVO CPU water blocks.