Latest News - Page 727

AMD stayed committed to the AM4 socket for a considerable time, and now we're learning that the same will apply to the AM5 socket.

In a new interview with AMD's Vice President & GM of the Client Channel Business David McAfee and OverclockersUK, we learned that AMD is totally committed to the AM5 desktop CPU platform. The current AM5 platform supports all of the latest AMD processors based on the Zen 4 architecture, as well as supporting next-gen Zen 5 processors (and more) in the future.

AMD has its Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs as well as the Ryzen 7000 X3D processors both on the AM4 socket, with the likes of the best gaming CPU in the form of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D slotting into a mid-range AM5 motherboard and giving you PCIe Gen5, and more.

LG has some surprises in store with its next-gen UltraGear OLED 2024 gaming monitors, with two new designs in 32-inch and 39-inch that'll whet your OLED gaming monitor appetite.

First off, we have a new LG UltraGear OLED gaming monitor that will switch between high refresh rate (at 1080p) and high resolution (at 4K), which is a first. The upcoming LG UltraGear OLED 32GS95UE gaming monitor is a new 32-inch OLED gaming monitor with a native 1080p refresh rate and a whopping 480Hz refresh rate, but it can be tweaked to 4K at an ultra-smooth (and GPU-hungry) 240Hz... very cool to see, LG.

This won't be for everyone, but it is an awesome thing to have on an OLED gaming monitor... you can be playing a game like Overwatch 2, Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, or Rocket League at 1080p 480Hz while switching over to 4K 240Hz in games like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Better yet, you can be gaming at 1080p 480Hz and then want to watch TV or movies in 4K and switch it over.

Spider-Man 2's budget is more than what Sony paid to acquire Insomniac Games in 2019.

Previous SIE head honcho Shawn Layden tried to warn us: the AAA model is unsustainable. The costs for premium, high-quality games are getting out of control, commanding budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. And when a game doesn't perform, companies will pull all the levers at their disposal to cut costs. This means mass layoffs, studio closures, product cancellations--all of the unfortunate events that have plagued 2023's games news cycle.

The cracks have been noticeable behind the scenes for some time now, and with the recent Insomniac Games ransomware hack that led to millions of confidential files being disseminated publicly, gamers now have an idea of just how much money their favorite games cost to make.

KIOXIA has announced that it has started mass production of its new 2 Terabyte capacity microSDXC memory card, making it the smallest and largest storage solution. If you've put a microSD memory card in a Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, tablet, digital camera, or smartphone, then you'll no doubt be aware of how impressive this is - these things are tiny!

KIOXIA's new EXCERIA PLUS G2 2TB microSDXC memory cards use the company's innovative BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory with a specialized in-house controller to fit 2 TB of storage capacity within the microSD form factor. According to KIOXIA, it has stacked "sixteen 1 terabit dies of 3D flash memory" while staying within the maximum spec thickness of just 0.8mm - remarkable.

You're probably wondering about speed; the KIOXIA's new EXCERIA PLUS G2 2TB microSDXC memory cards meet UHS Speed Class 3, Application Class 1 (A1), and Video Speed Class 30 (V30). In real-world data, this is a read speed of up to 100 MB/s and a write speed of up to 90 MB/s.

Fans with RGB? Sure, nothing out of the ordinary. Fans that daisy chain and interlock for a seamless and tidy look? It's not unheard of, but it's a cool new trend we love to see. PC fans with 1.6" LCD displays with a 400x400 resolution at the center of the fan frame? Okay, now we're entering uncharted territory.

Yes, LIAN LI's new UNI FAN TL LCD not only sports LED lighting zones with gap-free edges, so the lighting is amplified when more than one fan is connected thanks to "large infinity mirrors on both frame sides," but you've also got a highly customizable LCD.

This works similarly to displays on AIO cooling pumps and motherboards, where it can alternate between showcasing your favorite GIFs and displaying system information like CPU temperatures or speeds. The display also supports MP4, JPG, and PNG files with customization handled via LIAN LI's L-Connect 3 app.

Besides adding DLSS and Frame Generation support on the PC version of Starfield, Bethesda's post-launch support for its massive sci-fi RPG has been a little quiet for the game's first three months since release.

The game has been extremely popular, with 13 million players, including a remarkable average per-player playtime of 40 hours. In raw numbers, that's close to two billion planets visited, with players spending over 26 million hours building new ships.

That's about to change, with Bethesda Game Studios set to release game updates every six weeks, starting in February 2024, alongside the release of the game's first expansion called Shattered Space, which is also coming next year. These updates will be more than just bug-related; they'll bring quality-of-life updates, improvements to content, and new features.

Sony has achieved a new milestone with worldwide PlayStation 5 sales.

Today, Sony updated sales figures for its PS5 family of hardware. The PlayStation 5 ecosystem has now sold-through over 50 million consoles worldwide (as of December 9) since its original release in 2020 (sell-through refers to hardware sold to consumers, not just shipped to retailers). This year's PS5 holiday sales have also set a new record as the largest November sell-through in PlayStation history, even beating the PS2's mighty numbers.

Looking closer at the sell-through figure yields interesting results. A bit ago, Sony published PS5 sell-through figures in its annual Games & Network Services strategic meeting presentation. As of the end of FY22, the PS5 had sold-through 36 million consoles. A bit of math shows that Sony has managed to sell-through over 14 million PS5 consoles in the last 9-month, 3-quarter period, with the majority of December's PS5 sales not counted in the figure.

Apple News+ subscribers now have a new source of sports news after Apple announced the addition of The Athletic, a subscription offering that would normally cost money if people wanted to read it. Now, those who already have Apple News+ or Apple One subscriptions get it for free.

Apple announced the news in a press release, bringing best-in-class team coverage from The Athletic to the News app on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. The Athletic has grown to become one of the go-to sources for in-depth sports news in recent years and employs more than 450 full-time writers, editors, and producers. It covers a whole raft of sports as well, not just the most obvious, including English Premier League, NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLS, PGA, National Women's Soccer League, NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, NCAA men's college basketball, NCAA women's college basketball, LaLiga, UEFA Champions League, and more.

Subscribers to Apple News+ in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia can now access The Athletic via the Sports tab in the News app and then easily follow scores and news for their favorite teams and leagues.

There are already tons of rumors flying around in relation to the 2024 iPad Pro, and it looks increasingly likely that it will be the biggest revision in years. We already thought that before a new report claims that the same iPad Pro will also offer MagSafe wireless charging for the first time.

That report, coming out of MacRumors and citing a source that is familiar with companies that build the magnets used for Apple products, claims that MagSafe will come to the 2024 iPad Pro.

The 2024 iPad Pro is already set to benefit from new displays in the form of OLED panels in 11.1- and 13-inch sizes. That will mean a slight increase in size, but the move to OLED itself will allow for improved brightness, better contrast, and improved color reproduction. Now, MacRumors says that wireless charging will be added, potentially via a new glass back. The iPad Pro would also likely support the Qi2 wireless charging standard, just like the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, which in turn should ensure 15W wireless charging support across a large swathe of accessories, not just those that have Apple's blessing. However, the fastest charging will still be done via a USB-C cable.

Intel is on track to launch its next-gen graphics cards (Xe2, or Battlemage) next year, or that's seemingly the case going by a slide that's just been aired.

Wccftech picked up on the slide which was shown at a Japanese press event (launching Meteor Lake processors for laptops) as flagged by 4Gamer.net.

It shows a roadmap and the discrete GPU range for Intel Arc, both this year and next, with Battlemage clearly shown in the 2024 timeframe.

In an exclusive report to 9to5Mac, Apple said it will be halting the sales of its Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 following a recent ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC).

The recent ruling by the ITC involves a long-standing patent dispute between Apple and medical technology company Masimo. The debate focuses on the ownership of the blood oxygen sensor technology found within the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. The recent ruling resulted in Apple informing the aforementioned publication that it would no longer be able to sell Series 9 and Ultra 2 after 3 pm ET on Thursday, December 21, with in-store inventory set to expire completely after December 24.

Now, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives has estimated that Apple will lose between $300 and $400 million if the company follows through with the sales halt of both watches. Notably, this blow to Apple's total sales will be similar to taking out a bucket of water from a lake, as Apple is expecting to generate nearly $120 billion in sales during the October-December period. Due to the company's solidified position, the announcement of sales halting for the two Apple Watch's didn't cause stock prices to drop.

Why buy a real iPhone 15 Pro Max when you can get a chocolate model of the smartphone - and pay almost the same price Apple charges for the privilege.

If you're familiar with Caviar - the firm which makes pricey versions of iPhones, Samsung handsets, and much more - you probably won't be surprised, as their custom hardware is always stupidly pricey.

Although usually that's because it's studded with diamonds, or dripping in something precious, which is not the case with the chocolate iPhone 15 Pro Max.

AMD's Radeon RX 7700 XT has never been cheaper, having dropped considerably with pricing over in the US right now.

VideoCardz spotted that the ASRock Challenger RX 7700 XT graphics card has been reduced to $399.99 over at Newegg, meaning it's the first time this GPU has ever sunk below the $400 mark (just).

The actual price is $449.99, but there's a discount code to get $50 off with no strings attached, you just need to apply it at checkout.

Godzilla Minus One is set to be re-released in a more old-school look reminiscent of the original, as seen in the release of a new trailer.

The film, which had the best opening for a foreign film in 2023, also blasted the United States records for the best opening weekend of a live-action Japanese film debuting to a whopping $11 million. As well as making high returns at the box office, Godzilla Minus One has been widely acclaimed by fans and critics alike with it also becoming a finalist for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards in 2024 and became the sixth highest-grossing Japanese film in the history of the US box office.

Minus One's writer/director, Takashi Yamazaki, who had waited 15 years until the technology was right to produce this film, also won the award for best director at the Hochi Film Awards in Japan, where Minus One was nominated for an additional 3 awards.

Netflix's live-action adaptation of the beloved series Avatar: The Last Airbender is set to hit our screens early next year, and the showrunner of this new take has revealed that the series will "remix" events from the original animated series.

The biggest question fans have had about this new adaptation is how faithful it would play out to the original when it debuts, even more so once it was announced the creators of the original animated series had exited the project moving forward due to creative differences, after spending two years on the production.

Michael Dante DiMartino, one of the two original creators of the series, called his exit from the project "The hardest professional decision I've ever had to make." DiMartino also added that he believed the Netflix live-action project has potential, but "Whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Byran and I had envisioned or intended to make."

In September, we were treated to the release of a new Ninja Turtles movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.

This new iteration of the turtles was accompanied by a beautiful new art style and animation. The film pitted this version of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael against a new foe in Superfly, voiced by Ice Cube. The turtles were able to put an end to Superfly's evil plan, but with the defeat of their first villain comes an even more formidable threat on the horizon.

The ending of Mutant Mayhem teased the arrival of long-time foe Shredder, and director Jeff Rowe has opened up about his take on the character and how he wants to make the well-known villain "100 times scarier than Superfly". Speaking with Empire, Rowe shared that Mutant Mayhem took inspiration from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy by choosing not to use Shredder as the main villain in the first film.

Elon Musk has said that Tesla is working on a new modification for the Cybertruck that will make it double as a boat.

The CEO of Tesla took to his personal Twitter account to reply to a post that showcased Tesla's Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, Lars Moravy, and car connoisseur Jay Leno inspecting the Cybertruck. Moravy was explaining to Leno that "Elon did want to make it a boat" and that Cybertruck currently almost floats. Moravy continues and says to make it a boat, it would need a little bit of extra buoyancy to keep it afloat, while also some creativity to implement a motor.

This post was replied to by Musk, who quickly said that Tesla is going to offer a mod package that enables Cybertrucks to "traverse at least 100m of water as a boat". The Tesla CEO added that the only big changes are the "need to upgrade cabin door seals". Notably, the Cybertruck is 6,603 pounds, and this isn't the first time Musk has floated the idea of the Cybertruck turning into the Cyberboat.

The founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, has sat down for the longest interview he has ever done, where he touched on many different aspects of his long career, including the iconic phone call he made during the early days of Amazon.

Bezos, who has since left his role as CEO of Amazon and moved on to his new concentration of space exploration through Blue Origin, responded to a question from Lex Fridman on the Lex Fridman Podcast where he was asked about the call he made to Amazon's customer service. Bezos first touched on one of his business philosophies: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."

Bezos continued to explain that typically, when you are faced with this issue, the wrong data is being collected, and there isn't a problem with the way it's being collected. The former Amazon CEO recounted an early problem for the company; internal metrics indicated that Amazon customers were waiting less than a minute to reach a customer service representative. However, Amazon was receiving a lot of complaints about wait times far exceeding the expected 1-minute wait time.

A group of researchers have identified and detailed a new type of rock that contains manmade plastic, with the new paper explaining this type of rock was discovered in several different countries, indicating a global issue.

The new study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology and details the discovery of rocks that contain artificial plastic polymers. These rocks were discovered along shorelines and inland across 11 different countries that are spread around the globe.

Co-author of the study, Deyi Hou, an associate professor of environment at Tsinghua University in China, spoke to Newsweek and said that the recent study was the "first to report the discovery of plastistones in the inland region and the first to report the chemical bonding between plastic and rock." So, how do they form? Plastistones form through a variety of different processes, some are from campfires on the beach that contained molten plastic that is then fused to sand granules, shells, wood debris, etc.

The GeForce RTX 40 Series SUPER is rumored to be launching in January 2024, with three SKUs: a GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. There is a massive influx of new, beefed-up GPUs, so you might think that would be it for NVIDIA's Q1 2024 GeForce plans. Well, that doesn't look to be the case, as early 2024 will present a big shake-up for GeForce RTX.

Granted, all of this is rumor - via sources that are said to be NVIDIA partners - but it does sound spot-on. First up, as previously reported, NVIDIA is set to sunset the GeForce GTX line-up of entry-level GPUs - no more GeForce GTX 16 Series cards will be produced after Q1 2024.

This brings us to the redesigned GeForce RTX 3050 for desktop gaming, a cutdown 6GB version of the 8GB model available today that will launch in February 2024 for $179 US.