Latest News - Page 756

The exoplanet NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has honed in on is officially called LTT 1445Ac and was first discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Reports indicate that LTT 1445Ac is the closest known exoplanet to Earth at a distance of just 22.5 light years away from our planet, residing within the constellation of Eridanus, the River. While light-years are certainly a long distance, LTT 1445Ac is actually considered to be in our galactic neighborhood, and according to reports, this exoplanet isn't alone, as it's joined by two other planets that are all orbiting a cool M-dwarf star.

Researchers discovered LTT 1445Ac by observing the M-dwarf star and recording any dips in light. A dip in the light means an object has been between the observing line drawn between Earth and the M-dwarf star. The bigger the dip in light, the bigger the object. After discovering the planet, researchers tasked NASA's Hubble Space Telescope with confirming the hypothesis that it was a planet causing the dips or transits.

The advertising situation over at X has seemingly taken a hit, with multiple publications reporting that Apple has joined a few other big-name brands in pausing advertising expenditure on Elon Musk-owned social media platform X.

A new report from Axios has detailed the events that have taken place over the last few days, explaining that the problems began when X owner Elon Musk replied to a post that claimed Jewish communities support "dialectical hatred against whites." These reports indicate that Musk's response to the aforementioned post, "[y]ou have said the actual truth," has led to big advertising brands such as Google, Amazon, Disney, IBM, Oracle, and now Apple being pushed to stop ad expenditure.

X is now attempting to clean the PR nightmare up with an executive speaking to Axios on Thursday night, saying internally X has scanned the accounts mentioned in a Media Matters report that showed ads by Apple, IBM, Amazon, and Oracle next to far-right posts. X's response to these now swept accounts is, "they will [no] longer be monetizable" and a "sensitive media" label will be placed on the specific posts in question.

Those wanting to use the Media Creation Tool to install the latest version of Windows 11, the 2023 Update (or 23H2), will be pleased to hear this is now possible.

Normally, this would be the case pretty much straightaway following the release of a new version of Windows, and indeed Microsoft updated the current version of the Media Creation Tool to indicate it would install 23H2 just after the upgrade was launched.

However, to the confusion of those using the tool, it actually fetched the 22H2 version of Windows 11 instead.

While you might be hopeful of scoring a good GPU deal now that the Black Friday price-cutting action is well underway, you can forget it with NVIDIA's Lovelace flagship in the US.

Prices of the RTX 4090 at US retailers are heading up, not being discounted, as a report on Wccftech outlines - backing up recent chatter on the grapevine that the cost of this graphics card was set to rise.

Looking at Newegg for example, there's one model of the RTX 4090 at $1,900, then the next cheapest is around $2,100, and the others on sale are $2,150 or upwards (at the time of writing). On Amazon US, you're also looking at over $2,000, and some other major retailers are simply out of stock (like Best Buy).

Thanks to AVerMedia, we have two amazing AVerMedia streamer and content creator packs to giveaway - including 1 x Live Gamer ULTRA 2.1 - GC553G2 capture card and 1 x Live Streamer MIC 350 - AM350. All you need to do is like, subscribe, and comment on the YouTube video for this week's TT Show and email us (details in the episode and below) with the subject 'AVerMedia Giveaway.'

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This is a giveaway you don't want to miss out on, and it's open to all viewers and listeners across the globe. Earning our highest Editor's Choice award, the Live Game ULTRA 2.1 is "a simple and powerful USB streaming and capture solution for content creators, the HDMI 2.1 pass-through makes the AVerMedia Live Gamer ULTRA 2.1 brilliant for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X gamers."

The TT Show is back after a short hiatus for another massive dose of news and happenings in the tech, gaming, and science space with Jak and Kosta. This week, the duo dives into the fact that we're weeks away from getting our first look at Grand Theft Auto 6, the GeForce 40 Series SUPER lineup, specs, and announcement coming at CES 2024, Blizzard's first BlizzCon as part of the Xbox family, and more.

Jak and Kosta also break down Nintendo pushing back on the Nintendo Switch 2 rumors, modding the Steam Deck with an insane 61 Terabyte drive, the new iOS 18 update that's supposed to be groundbreaking, Elon Musk and xAI's new "spicy" Grok AI, and even talk about space vegetables as astronauts do a little orbital gardening.

The latest episode of TweakTown's official podcast is brought to you by AVerMedia and the new Live Gamer ULTRA 2.1 capture card. In this episode, Kosta sits down with Taleeah Mesa from AVerMedia to talk about the groundbreaking HDMI 2.1 tech in the LIVE Gamer Ultra 2.1 and the current state of streaming.

When you think about a satellite, you typically imagine a radar that is likely made out of some tough metal material to protect it from the rays of the Sun. But what if it was wooden and cubed?

Introducing LignoSat, a coffee mug-sized satellite that is comprised of wood, specifically magnolia wood. The mission is a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which are planning on launching the LignoSat into Earth's orbit sometime in 2024, likely before summer. So, why is it wood? Researchers want to test if wood is a viable option for space objects, as it has many benefits over materials typically used to build satellites.

Researchers sent three wood samples to the ISS earlier this year, and studies showed each of the samples didn't deteriorate after being exposed to space, which has an extreme environment that shifts dramatically in temperature. This has led researchers to build the LignoSat, and the type of wood that was chosen was magnolia as it less likely to shatter compared to cherry or birch, which was also tested on the ISS.

The time has finally arrived. SpaceX has been granted a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to perform Starship's second orbital launch attempt.

The last orbital launch attempt took place on April 20, and while Starship managed to gain altitude much further than SpaceX anticipated it would, it did end in a fiery, purposeful explosion. A fire on the rocket unfortunately severed communications with ground teams, resulting in no separation between the first and second stages. This separation failure caused the rocket to begin to tumble, and ultimately, the decision to abort the mission and initiate the rapid disassembly protocol - boom.

Shortly after the first launch, SpaceX announced it had learned quite a lot from Starship's first orbital test flight and had implemented a range of new changes to the design to prevent the critical point of failure that presented itself during the first flight. Now it's time to take to the skies again, with SpaceX announcing that all the necessary regulatory I's have been dotted and T's crossed as it has been granted a launch license.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted a license to SpacX for its second orbital launch attempt with Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket ever flown.

The launch license has been highly anticipated by the public, SpaceX, Elon Musk, and basically anyone who is interested in the steps civilization is taking toward becoming a multi-planetary species as Starship is designed to be the transportation method to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

However, after the first orbital launch attempt, which ended in Starship being blown up mid-air after a fire severed communications, resulting in a tumble, the space fairing company has been knee-deep in regulatory bodies conducting investigations into Starship's design, impact on the environment, etc - all of which is to make the launch of the world's largest rocket as safe as possible for everyone and everything. Passing all of the regulatory checks takes time, but now it's finally over, and SpaceX can press that big red launch button.

Embracer Group's latest Q2 report has given us some insight on the struggling mega-game publisher, with news that 904 workers have been let go since the company began "restructuring." Also, the company is looking to reduce costs with more cancellations of games currently in development. As of September 2023, Embracer was overseeing as many as 200 game development projects.

One of Embracer's more high-profile games currently in development is the full remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, one of the most beloved RPGs of all time. This one has the backing of Sony, too, and will supposedly be a PlayStation 5 exclusive. However, with the game apparently in development hell, with Saber Interactive taking over from original studio Aspyr and Sony subsequently removing trailers for the game and references to it from its various channels - it might not see the light(saber) of day.

To make matters worse, as part of Embracer Group's Q2 earnings call, someone asked CEO Lars Wingefors about the game's status, and his response was a little concerning.

AMD is prepping to release a new flagship RDNA 3-powered laptop GPU, the Radeon RX 7900M. Designed for high-end gaming notebooks and laptops, it's set to go head-to-head against NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 Series laptop graphics cards. And based on some Geekbench 6 benchmarks (via @BenchLeaks), it could give the GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU a run for its money.

However, we're discussing theoretical performance and a single Vulkan API test where the Radeon RX 7900M outperforms the RTX 4090 laptop GPU by around 9%. When stacked up against the RTX 4090 laptop GPU in an OpenCL benchmark, it does fall behind by about 25%.

These benchmarks aren't always a good measure of in-game performance, but the numbers are still impressive. So, chalk this up as good news for those looking for a high-end gaming laptop with Radeon graphics.

The IT maintenance staff working in the Supreme Administrative Court of Warsaw, Poland, were busted with a hidden cryptocurrency mining operation underneath the Supreme Court.

Crypto mining hardware was found inside of the ventilation duct, and the technical floor was discovered in the last couple of months, with the investigation being conducted by the prosecutor's office, while the Internal Security Agency has been notified of the crypto mining operation being busted.

Investigators found computers and components placed inside of the technical floor near the devices supplying power to the building, so the crypto mining operators were sucking down power from the court while making moola on the side. The cryptocurrency mining operation under the Supreme Court in Poland might have been using their power. Still, they had their own networking hardware and modem, meaning they had their own internet connection to the mining rigs, too.

NVIDIA has reportedly discontinued the GeForce RTX 4080 and GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics cards, ending production of the two Ada Lovelace GPU-powered cards... preparing for the impending GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER and RTX 4070 Ti SUPER graphics cards.

We are going to see NVIDIA unveil its new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and RTX 4070 graphics cards announced during NVIDIA's own "Special Address" at CES 2024 in January. NVIDIA will have staggered releases throughout the second half of January 2024 and into February, of what I'm sure will be in this order: RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and RTX 4070 SUPER for maximum eyeballs on reviews.

The news is coming from Board Channels, a website that aggregates sources and information from board partners connected to AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. NVIDIA has reportedly sent its RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti graphics cards in the "discontinuation stage," with both of them stopping mass production, and now just the cards left in warehouses will be sold.

How does Tencent compare against gaming's Big 3 platform holders? We run the numbers to find out.

Tencent just published its Q3 2023 earnings report, showing a moderate games revenue increase to $6.47 billion (+5.5% year-over-year). Having just converted PlayStation's JPY figures to USD, this figure stood out to me because PlayStation actually beat Tencent's July - September earnings by delivering $6.61 billion in gaming revenues.

This brought to mind some questions: How many other times did PlayStation beat Tencent? And how does Tencent compare to the other platform holders?

AMD looks to be refreshing its Ryzen 7040 series "Phoenix" APU family with the upcoming Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" APUs, with the new Ryzen 9 8940HS processor spotted in new Geekbench results.

AMD's new Ryzen 9 8940HS processor was in engineering form, identified as 100-000001319-50, with an 8-core, 16-thread CPU with a base clock of 4.0GHz, a boost clock of over 5.1GHz, topping out at 5.2GHz. The Hawk Point APU will have Zen 4-based CPU cores and RDNA 3-based GPU cores, just like the previous-gen Phoenix APU.

That means we have the same 16MB of L3 cache and 8MB of L2 cache with a TDP of between 35W and 45W of power. On the graphics side of things, we have the same Radeon 780M GPU with 12 compute units based on the RDNA 3 GPU architecture. A refresh with a small performance bump for 2024 laptops powered AMD's new Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point," it seems.

AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX processors are being put under the pump right now, with liquid cooling keeping the 96-core, 192-thread CPU cool enough to drive 5.2GHz, using 1000W+ of power and breaking multiple world records. Easy stuff, for the 7995WX that is.

We already had AMD using its in-house overclocker "SAMPSON" pushing its new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX processor during its unveil, and then again yesterday under air-cooling which saw the 96-core, 192-thread beast using 980W of power. AMD and SAMPSON are back again. This time, the 7995WX is liquid-cooled and pushed to 5.2GHz for some new world records... as well as 1000W+ of power consumption.

SAMPSON used the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX processor to break world records for Cinebench R15, $20, R23, and 2024. The new 7995WX processor was also used to break the world record for the GPUPI benchmark.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card prices are starting to leap in China after US sanctions officially banned NVIDIA's faster GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card in China.

Chinese retailers are now shifting the price of the RX 7900 XTX price up, as it's the Team Red alternative to the RTX 4090... well, the closest one, at least. The Navi 31-based Radeon RX 7900 XTX also has 24GB of VRAM, just like the RTX 4090 with its 24GB (although the RX 7900 XT has 24GB of GDDR6 while the RTX 4090 has 24GB of faster GDDR6X memory).

AMD's flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX can be found for around $950 on Amazon, while during the recent 11/11 deals in China, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX was priced at around 7000 RMB ($1000 USD or so) with prices expected to be up to 500 RMB higher, close to 10% higher. We should expect higher prices on higher-tier graphics cards like the RX 7900 XT, RTX 4070 Ti, and RTX 4080 in China as gamers across the country who now can't buy the RTX 4090 want something with performance at least close to it.

Embracer Group telegraphs that it will start culling more of its planned video game projects in an effort to reduce capital expenditures and reduce investment costs.

Embracer's latest Q2 report paints a much more lean diet for the gaming giant. On the heels of laying off 904 people, including over 700 game developers, the company has outlined the next steps of its cost-savings plan. This new restructuring program has already helped Embracer deliver positive free cash flow of about $36 million, driven by a reduction in both capital and operational expenditures.

On the capex front, Embracer says this second phase will draw more scrutiny in what titles that are being funded, including a "global review" the content pipeline. At the end of September, Embracer had 201 game development projects in the works. This number is likely to be culled as the company looks at ways to drive down spending. Embracer also conducted a $108 million write-down of "intangible assets related to restructuring," which should include any titles that have already been cancelled as part of the first wave (including Volition's new projects, among others).

Embracer Group's new restructuring program has taken the toll of 900+ layoffs at the company.

The Embracer Group's latest Q2 report gives an exact number of how many people have been laid off as part of its new cost-saving initiative. The earnings update confirms that 904 workers have been let go since Embracer started its restructuring program, the vast majority of which were game developers.

The decentralized interactive entertainment empire went from 11,356 game developers and 16,605 total headcount in the first quarter, to 10,654 game developers and 15,701 total headcount in the second quarter of the 2023/24 fiscal year. This shows that total game developers were reduced by 702, due to the closure of Saints Row developer Volition and other reductions. As outlined in the report, Embracer's total headcount was reduced by 904, or about 5%.

AMD is outmaneuvering NVIDIA to considerable effect in the battle of the current-gen graphics cards according to some fresh sales figures.

Okay, so we must treat them with some caution, but these are the sales numbers from a large German retailer, MindFactory, which are often referred to in trying to gauge the popularity of CPUs and GPUs.

TechEpiphany supplies the figures regularly on X (formerly Twitter), and you can see the number of graphics card units sold during week 45 of 2023 in the above tweet.