Latest News - Page 770

The iPhone 15 Pro Max changed the game when it comes to iPhone telephoto photography thanks to a new tetraprism lens design. That same 5x optical zoom capability is expected to come to the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max next year and now a new report claims that we should expect a redesigned lens as well.

That report, via the Economic Daily News, claims that Apple has plans for more advanced lens design which could equate to a thinner and lighter design - two things that are always going to be beneficial when you're putting a camera of this type into a smartphone.

The new updated glass element is thought to be more difficult to build while also costing more, something that could potentially lead to a price hike for next year's best iPhones.

Once upon a time, Google thought that it had a chance of getting Apple to preinstall its app on every iPhone that it sold. Perhaps unsurprisingly for anyone who knows Apple's stands on third-party cruft, that didn't happen.

The revelation comes after The Verge reported on the ongoing antitrust lawsuit between the United States and Google in which it was made public knowledge that Google CEO Sundar Pichai floated the idea of putting the Google Search app on every iPhone.

Apple did offer two Google apps in a similar way with the Google Maps and YouTube apps preinstalled on all iPhones that ran iOS 5 or newer. However, those apps were technically built by Apple and they were canned from iOS 6. And with Apple famously refusing to put any carrier apps on its iPhones despite Android phones often being full of them, it's a surprise that Pichai even thought that this request might have a chance.

If you didn't think that Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 5 could get any cooler, you were very, very wrong. That's something we now know after the company announced the Galaxy Z Flip 5 Retro, a phone that takes the popular foldable and turns it into an homage to the 2003 flip phone, the SGH-E700.

That SGH-E700 was a phone that became Samsung's first to feature a built-in antenna, which might seem like nothing in 2023. But 20 years ago it was a big thing, and while Samsung might not have been the first to do it, the move away from giant plastic antennas is always something to be celebrated. The Galaxy Z Flip might never have had an external antenna, but this retro model still gives us all the feels.

Samsung announced the new phone via a press release, saying that it will be a limited edition model and go on sale on November 1 in Korea, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Australia before going on sale in France a day later.

If you use Facebook or Instagram and live in a number of European countries, you're soon going to have the option to spend money to remove ads. parent company Meta has also confirmed that it will no longer show ads to people under the age of 18, although there is no guarantee that won't change in the future after the company said it was going to pause them rather than ditch them.

The move comes as Meta finds itself under increasing fire from the EU over the way it does business in its member countries, and it's taken the steps of offering people the chance to remove ads before being forced to remove ads altogether. However, this move only offers the ad-free paid tier to people in EU countries including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Notably, the UK is not included on that list as it is no longer part of the European Union.

After Apple announced it during the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro unveiling back in September, the Capcom console game Resident Evil Village is now available for download on the iPhone and iPad. And in our testing, it's pretty great. But that doesn't mean that there aren't a couple of catches to pay attention to.

The new game is available for download in the App Store right now, and it's free by way of a trial. You'll have to pay to get the full version and additional DLC if you want it, but right now that's all on offer with a 60% cut off the normal price to celebrate the launch. If you want the game, now is the time to get it.

However, you'll need to have one of Apple's latest iPads and its best iPhone to be able to do it. The new game is only playable no the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, while you'll need an iPad with Apple's M1 or M2 chip inside if you prefer the bigger screen. That includes most of Apple's most modern tablets including the excellent iPad Pro, but it's worth checking you have the required hardware if you want to get in on the Resi action.

A new report attempts to gauge how popular tech firms are by using the number of applicants for various jobs on LinkedIn, with Netflix coming out as the top place folks want to work at.

This comes from Resume.io which conducted a study of LinkedIn job postings, keeping tabs on the number of daily applications for a whole swathe of job ads for big tech companies.

Resume.io explained that to compile the figures for the survey, it collected a sample of job ads from big tech firms (and companies in other sectors, too), finding out the number of people who applied, and the time the advert had been in play (listings that were a month or older were discarded).

Intel's Meteor Lake processors are still some way off, and laptops with the 14th-gen chips inside won't arrive until mid-December - but we've just caught a glimpse of early product listings with purported pricing.

There are two laptops with Core Ultra CPUs inside which were listed by a Bulgarian retailer as flagged up on X (formerly Twitter) by leaker @momomo_us.

Both those models are next-gen Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 variants, a 14.5-inch (3K resolution) portable. They sport a hefty 32GB of RAM plus a 1TB SSD.

Popular Twitch streamer Amouranth has revealed she is working with a European beer company to develop a custom beer that's created using her own vaginal yeast.

In a new interview with Dexerto, the Twitch streamer Kaitlyn Siragusa, or better known as Amouranth, revealed she is working with a Polish brewery, "The Order of Yoni," to develop a new beer that will use her vaginal smear as the main ingredient to develop a new flavor. Siragusa explained that it is true she is working with the company to produce this beer and that The Order of Yoni has done this in the past with many models' smears.

The Order of Yoni website explains it doesn't actually use yeast but instead a bacteria called lactobacillus. This entire process, from smear to a bottle of beer made out of vaginal bacteria, is explained on the company's website. First, a gynecologist collects the vaginal smear, which is then transported to a laboratory where the lactobacillus bacteria is isolated, cleaned, analyzed, and then replicated. After this process is complete, the leftover is pure lactic acid that is then put straight into Yoni beer.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has honed its extremely powerful instruments on a region of space approximately 6,500 light-years away from Earth within the constellation Taurus.

NASA has taken to its website to showcase the new image from Webb, explaining the world's most powerful space telescope has imaged the Crab Nebula, the remains of a star that suffered its end-of-life explosion known as a supernova. NASA writes that this nebula was originally discovered in 1054 CE by 11th-century astronomers, and since then has been an attractive location in the cosmos to better understand the evolution of stars and what happens after they go bang.

Notably, NASA writes that Webb's instruments allow astronomers to accurately understand the composition of the ejected material, with the space agency writing its contents are mostly iron and nickel. NASA compared Webb's image to an image snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005. The space agency explains that Webb's infrared observations revealed in the central regions of the nebula emission from dust grains shown in yellow-white and green.

NASA has a plan for getting the multiple Martian samples collected by the Mars rover named Perseverance back to Earth, but a new report has found that may just be unrealistic.

The newly published report is by an Independent Review Board that took into account all of the issues that currently plague the Mars Sample Return mission. The report identified key problems within NASA's budgeting and overall schedule. For example, NASA's current plan for its Mars Sample Return mission is projected to cost $8 billion, with a total of $11 billion throughout its entire lifecycle. Additionally, the space agency plans to launch the mission in 2028 and get the samples back on Earth by mid-2030.

So, what are the problems? The report states that if the agency doesn't receive the funding it's requesting, it will be knocked off schedule. Notably, the Mars Sample Return mission received $822.3 million in a 2023 spending bill when NASA requested $949.3 million. Furthermore, NASA requested an additional $250 million this fiscal year and in 2024 to ensure development isn't delayed and the timeline of a launch/return isn't blown off course.

Masahiro Sakurai, the director of Nintendo's beloved fighting game franchise Super Smash Bros., has reflected on the development of the latest installment in the franchise, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, revealing some concern regarding future sequels.

Sakurai took to his own YouTube channel with a just over 10-minute presentation to reflect on how difficult development was for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Sakurai mentions challenging aspects of development such as the 16-gigabyte limitation on the Switch cartridge vs the 25Gb limitation for the Wii U disc, especially considering the tagline for Smash Ultimate was "Everyone is here!" which calls for more assets, etc.

While the video provides some really insightful information regarding the development of each Super Smash Bros. game, at the end of the video, Sakurai discusses the possibility of future Smash Bros. titles and how they will align with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Sakurai doesn't completely rule out a new Smash Bros. game, but he does remain skeptical that a development team would be able to create something that is bigger and better than Smash Bros Ultimate.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has taken to its website to explain an image snapped by the iconic Hubble Space Telescope.

The Hubble photograph is of the spiral galaxy officially called NGC 1566, and according to the ESA, this spiral galaxy is also informally referred to as the "Spanish Dancer Galaxy". The space agency explains that NGC 1566 is located approximately 60 million light-years from Earth within the constellation Dorado, and is a member of the galaxy group called Dorado.

Notably, galaxy groups are different from galaxy clusters, as galaxy clusters can contain hundreds of galaxies all gravitationally connected, while galaxy groups are several tens of galaxies all gravitationally bound. The ESA explains that NGC 1566's nickname was given to the spiral galaxy for its dramatic swirling lines of spiral arms that resemble the movements of a dancer's arms swaying up and down while a routine is performed.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted a flight license to Google cofounder Sergey Brin for Pathfinder 1, a 400-foot airship that will soon be taking to the skies.

While other tech billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson are concentrating efforts on getting people to space, Google cofounder Sergey Brin is focussing on getting Pathfinder 1 to a reasonable altitude of 1,500 feet. Now Brin can officially do that as his FAA license gives flight approval for Pathfinder 1 to fly up to a height of 1,500 feet, but its flight tests will only be over the south side of the San Francisco Bay area, where it won't interfere with any regular air traffic going to from airports in the surrounding area.

For those that don't know, Pathfinder 1 is a next-generation blimp that will be the largest aircraft to take to the skies since the Hindenburg disaster that occurred in 1937. Notably, the aircraft is designed and built by the Brin-cofounded company Lighter Than Air, which has equipped the blimp with 12 electric motors and a frame that's made out of titanium and carbon fiber. These structural design choices mean the aircraft is light enough to fly with non-flammable helium, rather than the typical method of flammable hydrogen.

NASA has taken to its social channels to say that humans will never visit the biggest planet in the solar system, but we may visit one of its moons.

That planet is, of course, Jupiter, and according to NASA, humans won't be going there anytime soon - in fact, no human currently alive will be visiting Jupiter. Why? Well, the answer is simpler than you may expect, Jupiter is entirely made of gas, hence its categorization as a gas giant. Additionally, the scientific value of humans visiting isn't worth the risk when valuable observations can be conducted from space and ground telescopes. So, with Jupiter crossed off the list of potential locations to visit, what's the next best option?

Europa, one of Jupiter's 95 moons, orbiting the massive gas giant. NASA has already selected this moon as a location for a satellite to be launched. This mission is called "Europa Clipper" and is scheduled to launch next year on the back of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Europa is slightly smaller than Earth's moon and is the sixth closest to Jupiter. Furthermore, Europa is made of silicate rock and has a water-ice crust that researchers believe may have oceans beneath its surface that contain extraterrestrial life.

There is an obvious need to have as many instruments as possible monitoring the solar system for any potentially dangerous space rocks that have lined up their orbits around the Sun with Earth.

However, despite the ever-growing effort of looking for any asteroids that fit this dangerous description, there are still space rocks that closely pass our planet undetected that would cause extreme damage if they reached Earth's surface. One example is an asteroid that passed Earth in July. This space rock is estimated to be anywhere between 100 to 200 feet wide, and it passed Earth at a distance of one-quarter the distance between the Moon and Earth - quite close, relatively speaking.

This asteroid is officially called 2023 NT1, and while it never posed any danger to Earth, it did pass undetected for two days after its closest approach. If 2023 NT1 were to have collided with Earth, it actually wouldn't have made it to the surface due to its size. The extreme heat from the Earth's atmosphere would have heated the asteroid up until it exploded, likely generating a shockwave big enough to destroy buildings.

Apple is set to hold a new, streamed media event in just a few hours and the leaks continue as we get even closer to the big unveiling. Apple hasn't yet officially confirmed what it intends to show off, but the smart money is on a handful of Macs including laptops and desktops. Now, a new leak has added more fuel to that particular fire while also suggesting that there might be a surprise unveiling in the cards as well.

This latest leak comes via a MacRumors report which notes that new Chinese regulatory database filings suggest that batteries for new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros have been added, while a new battery for the Magic Keyboard also appears to have been added to the database. To clarify, these filings are actually extensions of existing ones which suggests that the batteries themselves aren't set to change.

All of this matches what we've been told to expect from Apple's 'Scary Fast' event, including the new Magic Keyboard with Apple expected to ditch Lightning and launch a new keyboard with a USB-C port on the back. But the real oddity here is MacRumors' report that claims Apple also resubmitted the iPad mini 6's battery as well.

During the era of Doom, Quake, and Half-Life, console gamers got their slice of iconic first-person action on the Nintendo 64 with a little game called Goldeneye 007. Developed by Rare (now a first-party Xbox Game Studio), it revolutionized the genre as something more than games that are best experienced on PC.

The James Bond adaptation was released in 1997, with the team's follow-up - and original science fiction espionage IP by the name of Perfect Dark - hitting the console in 2000. As a first-person shooter for Nintendo gamers, it took what made Goldeneye 007 so popular and dialed it all up to 11, from the single-player missions to the multiplayer with bots and crazy weapons and rulesets.

With Xbox bringing Perfect Dark back to Xbox Series X|S via the newly formed The Initiative, the good news is that thanks to decompiling efforts that led to native versions of N64 games like Super Mario 64 being fully playable on PC - it looks like we can add Perfect Dark to the mix.

Things are taking an interesting turn in the world of Xbox accessories with a new policy uncovered by Windows Report noting that as of November 12, 2023, Microsoft will no longer allow unauthorized third-party accessories to be used on consoles like the Xbox Series X|S - specifically wireless controllers.

The revelation came after players were prompted by a new mysterious error code, "error 0x82d60002," when using certain third-party controllers, letting them know that after November 12, it would be blocked from use. It sounds like a pretty drastic move on behalf of Microsoft and something that will hurt the makers of third-party accessories like controllers long-term.

However, in an update to the news citing sources aware of Microsoft's plans, the company will expand its program for approving third-party wireless controllers.

Recently, we posted on several rumors and sources pointing to a potential and imminent merger between flash memory and storage giants KIOXIA and Western Digital. A union that would make the resulting entity the world's biggest producer of memory and storage solutions for consumers and enterprises alike.

With both companies being closely linked regarding operating plants and technologies, the deal had got to the point where the terms were being finalized before being publicly announced. According to insiders, Western Digital shareholders would have acquired a 50+ percent majority stake in the new company, with the remainder to be held by KIOXIA shareholders.

It turns out that it's the latter that has been the issue when it comes to the merger. SK Hynix wasn't too happy with the deal. As one of KIOXIA's key investors, SK Hynix is also one of the largest manufacturers of DRAM and NAND flash. Japanese publication Nikkei Business Daily also reported that top Kioxia shareholder Bain Capital could not agree to the terms.

We've reported on the efforts of NTDEV and its work to create leaner and more memory and space-efficient versions of Windows 11 multiple times in the past. The developer's Tiny11 is a lightweight version of Microsoft's OS that removes all of the bloat and telemetry to deliver a streamlined experience that still benefits from its key functionality.

Tiny11 is a great option for those with outdated hardware or limited storage space, not to mention those who simply want a no-fuss version of the operating system to run on a VM for testing. Tiny11 Core is the latest version from NTDEV, and it's another impressive feat because it uses LZX Compression to not only drastically reduce the size of the ISO but also the amount of space the full Windows 11 OS takes once up and running.

The team took to Twitter/X to announce that with Tiny11 Core and LZX Compression, this lightweight version of Windows 11 only takes up 3.25 GB of disk space after installation. Compared to the 20+ Gigabytes required for a standard Windows install, it's impressive.