Latest News - Page 787

Sabrent has just launched a rocket -- pun intended -- at its previous pricing on its internal M.2 SSD storage, dropping their Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD family of drives... by up to a whopping 60% discount.

Amazon Prime Day sales are delivering some massive price cuts across many different families of products, with Sabrent using the time to discount its Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs. The 2TB model is enjoying a hefty 60% discount, bringing its price down to just $119.99. This means it's currently $10 cheaper than a competing model in the likes of the Samsung 980 PRO SSD in 2TB, which costs $129.99 right now.

Sabrent has the 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD discounted by 33% which lowers the price of the 1TB model down to $59.99, while the 500GB model has been slashed by nearly as much as the 2TB, with the 500GB SSD reduced by 56% bringing the price down to only $39.99. $40 for a 500GB drive is damn good, but not enough to get multiple games installed.

ZOTAC had some of my favorite custom NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, with the custom ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4080 AMP Extreme ARIO in particular, being one of the best RTX 4080 cards money can buy... and they just got cheaper.

Amazon Prime Day is right around the corner, and it brings huge savings across a multitude of products... ZOTAC is jumping on the price-cut goodness by slashing the cost of its GeForce RTX 4080 Trinity OC graphics card by 24% down to $990. While the cost of the GeForce RTX 4080 Ti Trinity OC gets cust by 13% bringing it down to $770.

The two best-selling GeForce RTX 40 series cards seem to be the ultra-enthusiast GeForce RTX 4090 and then after that, it's the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. However, the GeForce RTX 4080 with its $1099 to $1200+ pricing is not too much more for the RTX 4090, but it brings a helluva lot more GPU power over the RTX 4080, and it also comes with a better stack of 24GB of GDDR6X memory, versus the 16GB on the RTX 4080.

NVIDIA has just pushed out its new GeForce Game Ready 537.58 WHQL drivers, which are Game Ready for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's upcoming PC multiplayer open beta, as well as the releases of both Forza Motorsport and Lords of the Fallen.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III doesn't officially launch until November 10, but PC gamers can prepare their systems for the multiplayer beta, which is enhanced by NVIDIA DLSS 2 Super Resolution and NVIDIA Reflex technologies. You would have needed to have pre-purchased Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on the PC, with the multiplayer open beta kicking off on October 12.

If you didn't pre-order Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, then don't worry... you can still jump into the multiplayer open beta on October 14, with the beta ending on October 16.

Australia's #1 PC builder -- Aftershock PC -- had something truly unique to show off at PAX Australia 2023 over the weekend: an exclusive PC build in partnership with Samsung and AORUS for Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios.

The Aftershock PC team was honored to collaborate with Nick himself, going through every detail meticulously to create something truly unique for the tennis star. The Aftershock PC Ultra-Lab team outdid themselves with some of the highest-end components on the market, building Nick's PC into something he will be proud to have on his desk.

Better yet, Nick's new Gaming PC features custom artwork that has been heavily influenced by Nick's favorite gaming characters, with some beautiful 3D printed elements. Not only that, but Aftershock PC used a custom water-cooled open loop to emphasize the theme, as well as keep all of the important components inside of Nick's new system nice and chill.

Ooooh, it looks like NVIDIA is slowly outing its next-generation GPU lineup... where a slide from its recent NVIDIA Investor Presentation is bringing some much-needed attention to next-gen data center and AI GPUs. Check it out:

NVIDIA's new roadmap extends for a few years... covering the A100 "Ampere" GPU from 2023, the new H100 "Hopper" GPU that was unleashed this year, its upcoming H200 "Hopper" GPU in 2024, and then the "B100" Blackwell GPU that is penciled in for 2024. Not only that but we're being teased by "X100" for some time in 2025, too. Juicy.

We are to expect new data center GPU architectures each and every year, where the next one to expect after the just-released H100 Hopper GPU architecture is the upcoming H200 Hopper GPU architecture in 2024, after that we'll get the B100 Blackwell GPU architecture which will arrive for both data center and AI systems, as well as Blackwell-powered GeForce RTX 50 series desktop graphics cards... that's what I want to see.

NVIDIA has been a very tight partner of Remedy Entertainment, where back in 2019 the two companies worked on Control -- one of the first ray-traced games on the market, and one of the first DLSS-capable games, too -- and it STILL looks fantastic. But now, NVIDIA is giving away a free company of Remedy's upcoming game -- Alan Wake 2 -- with particular GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards.

The above video is a graphical showcase -- well, a quick tease -- of what to expect in Alan Wake 2 when you've got an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics card powering the game. Remedy is using Alan Wake 2 to show off the latest and greatest NVIDIA graphical technologies, including full DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction technology, and oh-so-much more.

Alan Wake 2 sees the technical partnership on the PC edition with NVIDIA even greater than it was a few years ago with control, with fully ray-traced, path-traced graphics that are "beyond anything you've previously seen". In order to push this along, Remedy and NVIDIA has announced the new Alan Wake 2 GeForce RTX 40 series bundle, which will run until November 13.

Patents can be particularly problematic when you try to figure out what Apple's plans for the future are, but that doesn't make them any less fun to delve into. Like this new patent which has now been granted and appears to show a keyboard key being used as a pointing device.

The patent is for a so-called Deployable Key Mouse and Apple first applied for it back in 2021 but it took until now for it to be approved. It's always difficult to really read these kinds of patents because of the language that's used throughout, but the idea appears to be that a MacBook's keyboard could have a hidden and removable key that would then turn into a pointing device thanks to an equally-hidden sensor.

The patent suggests that the resulting pointing device would be comfortable to use, which seems unlikely given the size. However, the company seems convinced.

It seems that the iPhone might have a new bug, and it's one that we definitely haven't seen before. In fact, it's such a strange bug that we can't even be sure that it's a bug at all.

The bug in question was first reported by 9to5Mac but has apparently been happening to people across social media. The story goes that people first notice that something is awry when they pick up their iPhone in the morning and notice that they have to enter their passcode because Face ID won't work. Why? Because their iPhone turned itself off while they were sleeping. And then it somehow turned itself back on, too.

People have reported similar issues on Reddit, with the discovery that iPhones are restarting seemingly confirmed by checking the battery charge graph. People say that their iPhones appear to simply not have any battery data for a period of a few hours overnight. The graph then mysteriously starts collecting data again, as if it had been powered back on.

Apple's iPad mini 7 hasn't been announced yet and it might not be for some time, but even now it might have a display controversy to overcome. That's following a leak that claims the tablet won't have 120Hz ProMotion support, suggesting it might still suffer from the same jelly scrolling issue that befell the iPad mini 6.

The iPad mini 7 is rumored to be on the way, potentially within the next few months. This latest leak comes via an X user who claims that the miniature tablet won't have a 120Hz display while suggesting that the A-series chip will be the only upgrade it receives.

The lack of 120Hz ProMotion perhaps shouldn't be all that surprising, but it does mean that the iPad mini might suffer from a similar problem to its predecessor. That problem was the so-called jelly scrolling situation that caused text and images on one side of the display to appear to move at slightly different times than those on the opposite side. Apple said that it's little more than a side-effect of using LCD displays, and that it's normal behavior.

Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs are about to be sprung on us, at least if the rumor of a mid-October launch is right, but one YouTube leaker is pouring some distinctly cold water on these next-gen desktop processors.

This is Moore's Law is Dead, who has produced another video on YouTube covering a whole bunch of topics, one of which is Raptor Lake Refresh.

The leaker has been chatting to his contacts recently, and to say there is a lack of excitement around Raptor Lake Refresh would be an understatement.

Intel has finally unleashed its A580 graphics card, a model that was announced way back, but little has been heard about since (save for a minor leak or two).

In all honesty, we felt this GPU had been canceled, especially when Intel said nothing about the graphics card at its recent Innovation show, which seemed like an ideal time to unveil it.

For whatever reason, though, Intel clearly wanted to wait until after the event to reveal the GPU, but at least we now have confirmation that it's going on sale.

Currently, Microsoft's Copilot AI sits in a side-bar in Windows 11, though it's a fairly slim panel - but you'll be able to make it a lot bigger in the future, should you wish.

According to Windows Latest, the ability to expand Copilot's panel is being tried out in preview versions of Windows 11 right now.

You might want a bigger area to interact with the AI if you're going to engage in a deeper, lengthier, session of queries, and if that's the case, the new ability simply allows you to drag out the panel to the kind of size you'd prefer.

After receiving a whole load of negative feedback around an incoming change to OneDrive, Microsoft has reversed direction on the move.

The idea was a simple one, but it could have had a major impact on the available storage for photos in the case of some users.

As Neowin spotted (via TechRadar), Microsoft had contacted OneDrive users and told them in an email that: "Soon, data from photos saved in your Gallery and in your albums will each count separately against your total Microsoft storage quota."

ASUS has once again pushed the boundaries of gaming display technology with the introduction of the ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD.

This gaming monitor boasts a jaw-dropping 49-inch QD-OLED display panel with a super-ultrawide resolution of 5120 x 1440 pixels. The curved display features an 1800R curvature for enhanced immersion and supports 10-bit color depth with Quantum Dot Color technology, delivering an impressive 99% DCI-P3 color space coverage. Users can expect a typical brightness of 250 nits, but the PG49WCD truly shines with its peak brightness of 1,000 nits, making it VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 compliant for stunning contrast.

ASUS has also addressed concerns about QD-OLED longevity and performance by incorporating a custom heatsink and graphene film, the thinnest and strongest nanomaterial in the world, which is located behind the entire QD-OLED panel. This innovation ensures efficient heat dissipation, reducing the risk of burn-in, which is a common concern for OLED panels. This change, according to ASUS will prolong the monitor's lifespan.

Solar storms can be a real issue, but luckily, Earth hasn't been smacked by an extremely severe one in many years. However, it was in the past, and the impact was tragic.

The most intense solar storm recorded in history was the 1859 Carrington Event that resulted in a global aurora display, telegraph systems being wiped out, fires, and overall chaos. These solar storms are caused by outbursts from the Sun. The charged particles ejected from our local star collide with Earth's magnetic fields and upper atmosphere, creating a geomagnetic storm or solar storm.

While these geomagnetic storms are relatively common on Earth, there is always the potential for a solar storm comparable to the Carrington Event, and that would be catastrophic. Infrastructure such as GPS systems, satellites, telescopes, and electricity grids could be at risk of being knocked offline. Researchers have discovered evidence of a solar storm that is now considered to be more intense than the Carrington Event.

A study that is yet to be published but reported by Science has detailed an argument for something beyond the Kuiper Belt that has since gone unnoticed, or the Kuiper Belt is far larger than researchers have previously measured.

The current understanding of the Kuiper Belt is that it extends from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units and is 50 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (AU) is the distance between Earth and the Sun. This circumstellar disc in the outer solar system is essentially a cosmic donut that is made up of icy objects that are all orbiting the Sun. Beyond 50 astronomical units, researchers generally believe there are no more objects.

However, according to the new study, researchers looked at the sensors aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently at a distance of 57 AU - far beyond the Kuiper Belt. These sensors are designed to detect levels of dust, which is used as an indicator for being close to an object. According to the team, New Horizon sensors are reporting an increasing level of dust, suggesting that something is beyond the outer perimeter of the Kuiper Belt.

Elon Musk has defended his decision to remove headlines from news links across X, following criticism of the change.

In what appears to be a soft roll out of the new change, X is now not displaying headlines on news links for a select amount of users. The update was first discussed last month by Musk that said the change was on its way and it's coming directly from him. Musk also revealed that the removal of headlines on news links will "greatly improve the esthetics", while simultaneously free up more space on the timeline.

Additionally, Musk has explained that removing the headline will free up more screen real estate, which will enable more posts to be seen. Furthermore, the removal combats inflammatory and click-bait-focussed headlines. Musk has recently replied to a criticism of the change by Aaron Levie, who wrote on his personal X account that the value of receiving news quickly on X just dropped, as viewers are unable to determine which post is worth clicking on.

The Apple Vision Pro headset is going on sale in early 2024, we're told. And when it does, it'll ship with a pair of displays that feature a variable refresh rate with a maximum of 100Hz. Although it probably won't spend much of its time at that rate.

That's according to a new report by MacRumors based on a tweet by a social media user going by the name of @M1Astra. They say, based on code that they've found in the latest visionOS beta, that the Vision Pro headset will feature two displays that can dynamically adjust their refresh rates based on their surroundings. In specific cases, they will increase it to 100Hz, but the majority of the time will be spent at 90Hz.

The code found in visionOS displays a string of text that suggests the headset will adjust the refresh rate to 100Hz in order to compensate for the 50Hz flicker caused by artificial lighting. The code also suggests that the headset will be limited to 90Hz when used in Travel mode, a feature that will be enabled whenever the headset is used on an airplane.

Espresso is an Australian tech company specializing in creating portable touchscreen displays that are easy to take with you on the road but offer fantastic features and build quality. The latest and greatest entry for the company is the new espresso 17 Pro, which features a 4K display with a peak 450-nit brightness and color accuracy that will appeal to creators.

It works with a single USB-C connection and is compatible with thousands of devices, including Apple and Windows laptops. I had the chance to check out a preview of the new espresso 17 Pro at PAX Australia 2023, and what makes this display (and other portable displays from espresso) stand out is the focus on function, form, specs, features, and style.

With its lightweight aluminum build, the new espresso 17 Pro is minimal and sleek long before you turn on the vibrant display. Still, throw in the ability to attach it to easily the magnetic and adjustable portable stand that takes it to the next level. In seconds, you can set up your second display in several configurations, including desktop. Impressive stuff.

ENERMAX's latest all-in-one CPU cooler series is definitely for those looking to cool their CPU and the surrounding VRM, as the new LIQMAX FLO series is the first from the company to add a VRM fan. It uses ENERMAX's latest Dual-Chamber Xtreme pump and silent fan technology, and as you can see in the image below - it not only cools the CPU but pumps out the air in four directions to cool your motherboard's components.

VRM cooling as part of a CPU AIO cooler is not something you see every day, so it's cool to see the addition of a 60mm VRM fan within the water block itself. ENERMAX notes that it makes a significant difference to "air circulation within the system and efficiently reducing the temperatures of CPU VRMs and surrounding components on the motherboard."

The radiator fans and the new VRM fan include PWM functionality to ensure maximum quietness when not used. And when in use, things will remain pretty quiet, too, with the ENERMAX LIQMAX FLO series utilizing the company's Silent Flow PWM fans that will top out at 23.46 dBA thanks to the improved blades and refined angle.