Latest News - Page 794

Getting hold of Apple just got a bit harder than it used to be after Apple stopped providing human support via direct messages on X, the social network previously known as Twitter. The company has also stopped offering support via its YouTube channel's comments, too.

The move was first spotted by MacRumors which reports that as of October 1, sending a direct message to the AppleSupport account on X will result in an automated reply with links to support avenues available via Apple's own website. Something similar will happen if you send a reply to AappleSupport, although you might get a link to Apple's support articles depending on the request.

This comes after a previous report that claimed Apple was ready to eliminate paid social media support roles across YouTube, X, and even Apple's own support forums. Instead, the company now wants people to get their help via the phone with support members being transitioned to those teams to help bolster their numbers.

Buying a second-generation HomePod just got cheaper, assuming you're in one of a handful of countries and don't mind buying a refurbished model, that is.

Apple's online refurbished store is now selling the second-generation HomePod in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and a handful of other countries. The United States is conspicuous by its absence, but MacRumors points out that the smart speaker is indeed listed in the US refurbished Apple Store, you just can't actually buy one yet.

Buying a refurbished HomePod means that you'll save around 15% on the original asking price. As an example, UK customers would pay £249 for a HomePod that would normally retail for £299. While refurbished HomePods aren't available to buy in the United States just yet, the speaker will sell for $249 rather than the original $299 in Apple's own back yard, too.

In a candid interview, Kevin Scott, Microsoft's chief technology officer, spoke at Vox Media's Code Conference, where he opened up about the recent rise and demand for GPUs for building new hardware and equipping data centers for AI. In addition to noting that NVIDIA's GPU line-up is currently the best fit to deliver AI processing power, he added that supply issues and shortages are improving.

"Demand was far exceeding the supply of GPU capacity that the whole ecosystem could produce," Kevin Scott said during a panel discussion. "That is resolving. It's still tight, but it's getting better every week, and we've got more good news ahead of us than bad on that front, which is great."

With Microsoft investing billions in companies like OpenAU alongside Google building its supercomputer facilities, the demand for NVIDIA's cutting-edge GPUs has seen its stock price rise by 190% in 2023 alone. With Microsoft adding weight to NVIDIA's financial reporting stating that GPU supply will steadily increase each quarter, Kevin Scott also had a few words to say about the competition - and Microsoft's ambitions.

BenQ's latest 4K HDR projector might be the one to turn you away from that TV life to the world of having a massive 150-inch cinema screen at home. The new BenQ X3100i is the company's flagship Gaming Projector, sporting excellent and vibrant color accuracy, low input lag (4ms), built-in speakers, and console and app support in a compact size.

With BenQ's 4LED light source, you're also looking at a very bright projector capable of working in most environments thanks to the 3300 lumens of brightness - which also means better HDR quality. And with 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut and a 600,000:1 contrast ratio, the specs here are certainly tasty.

For those with the room or space to install a projector (and the BenQ X3100i Gaming Projector is portable enough to fit on a coffee table), it's worth considering - especially with different picture modes to suit different gaming genres and the ability to save and remember profiles for various consoles.

The Steam Hardware Survey and Software results are in for September 2023, and according to the latest round of data from Valve, the desktop GeForce RTX 3060 is the most popular GPU out there in the PC gaming landscape.

This marks the first time the mainstream GeForce RTX 30 Series GPU has hit the top spot, taking the lead over the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 1650. In recent months, the mainstream Ampere GPU has seen sizable discounts thanks to the arrival of the new GeForce RTX 4070, which carries a similar MSRP.

The Top 20 GPUs are pretty much all NVIDIA GeForce RTX products outside of integrated Radeon and Intel graphics filling out the list. This includes mainstream cards like the aging GeForce RTX 1060, the GeForce RTX 2060, and more premium and high-end offerings like the GeForce RTX 3070 and GeForce RTX 3080. In fact, according to the latest data, NVIDIA now has more GPU market share, with AMD and Intel losing ground.

September marked the tenth anniversary of Grand Theft Auto V, and even though the game (specifically Grand Theft Auto Online) continues to be extremely popular, selling over 185 million copies - fans are clamoring for that official Grand Theft Auto VI reveal.

Developer Rockstar Games has acknowledged that it is working on the highly anticipated sequel. However, release windows, setting, and how it will look and feel - are all a mystery outside of leaks, suggesting a return to Vice City.

Rockstar is known for placing cryptic hints and teasers in games and other places, and some fans are convinced that Grand Theft Auto Online's Moon Festival event holds the key to when we'll officially get that big GTA 6 unveiling. Per the event's naming, the clues are about the moon and its connection to the Waning Gibbous phase.

AMD has released a special AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Preview Driver for AMD Fluid Motion Frames, bringing the frame generation and FPS boost technology to all DirectX 11 and 12 games via a single button click at the driver level. In addition, AMD has highlighted 20 titles as being optimized for the one-click HYPR-RX Fluid Motion Frames boost.

This exciting feature allows Radeon RX 7000 Series GPU owners to take advantage of AMD technologies without needing game-specific integration - including the new Anti-Lag+ feature to reduce system latency. AMD notes that for the best results, base performance is recommended to be a "minimum fps of 55 FPS for 1080p displays, and 70 FPS for 1440p or above displays."

Driver-level Fluid Motion Frames differs from FSR 3, as that's a more customized and optimized version with Super Resolution and AMD's new Fluid Motion Frames getting official integration in two games (so far): Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum. In these titles, Fluid Motion Frames can be enabled on Radeon RX 6000, RX 7000, GeForce RTX 20, 30, and 40 Series GPUs.

Microsoft sees the path to achieve 100 million+ Xbox Game Pass subscribers by 2030.

The recent FTC v Microsoft trial leaks were some of the biggest in the history of interactive entertainment. The erroneously-uploaded files offer a candid look at upcoming plans for Xbox, including new mid-gen refreshes and a potential hybrid compute console that could change the future of gaming.

The leaked documents show that Xbox Game Pass is a big part of this plan. Microsoft eventually wants to lead the Big 3 hierarchy and help usher the industry into a new age of disruption, and it wants to use Game Pass to help make it happen.

If you're a big Apple Pencil user you might be in for a treat when the next iteration is finally announced. It's long overdue - the last Apple Pencil release was in 2018 - and if a new leak is accurate the Apple Pencil 3 will come with something we haven't seen on an Apple stylus to date.

That leak comes via the X leaker Majin Bu and appears to claim that Apple will ship the new Apple Pencil with support for interchangeable tips that will be connected to the main body of the device via magnets. Apple uses magnets in a variety of its products and in all kinds of different ways, so this wouldn't be at all surprising.

The leaker claims that the new tips offered by Apple would be specifically designed for different things with tasks like drawing, writing, and painting all likely to get their own versions. The change would offer tips of different sizes and widths to suit their purpose, with the iPad also likely recognizing which tip is in use and then having apps change their behavior to match.

If you bought the Apple Watch Edition back in 2015, you're probably not going to want to keep reading this because we've got some bad news for you.

According to an internal Apple memo seen by MacRumors, the original Apple Watch has now been added to Apple's list of obsolete products. That happened on September 30 which means that you're now using an Apple Watch that you might want to consider replacing. The problem? Some people bought the Apple Watch Edition which, depending on the model bought, could have cost up to $17,000.

The list of obsolete models includes the 18-karat gold model which was discontinued in 2016 after, presumably, nobody bought it. It was replaced in Apple's lineup by the white ceramic model which was arguably nicer to look at and cost a lot less - just $1299.

The hugely popular video-based social network TikTok is testing a new ad-free tier that will allow people to pay a monthly fee and then browse videos without having to deal with ads.

The new feature is only in the testing phase right now but a new Android Authority report notes that the new ad-free tier is being tested at $4.99 per month in the United States, but there's no telling whether that price will remain the same throughout the testing process. It also isn't clear whether the price will be the same in local currencies when the ad-supported tier goes live in additional countries, either.

The Android Authority report says that there are strings in the latest TikTok for Android app that show the service is ready to ditch ads - but only for a price. TikTok has not yet publicly commented on any plans to charge a free to remove ads, but it's something that other companies already do.

A throwback post from one of PlayStation's former bosses gives a quick reminder of Sony's handheld production numbers.

There was a time when Sony challenged Nintendo in the handheld market. We all know how that went (while Sony has exited the dedicated handheld business, the spirit of the PSP and Vita live on with the new $99 PlayStation Portal remote play tablet), but gaming was way different nearly 20 years ago.

Sony's first handheld, the PlayStation Portable, was a big success. Official Sony shipment records show that the PlayStation Portable sold-in/shipped "over 76.4 million units." Now thanks to Shawn Layden, who was president of Sony Computer Entertainment America from 2014-2018, we know how many PSP units that Sony actually produced.

Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh processors are nearly here, or at least that's the rumor, and we've just had another hint of how these next-gen CPUs could be priced.

As VideoCardz spotted, this comes from a retailer in Canada (and not the first one to spill purported pricing).

That retail outlet was Canada Computers, with the product pricing no longer visible, as is usually the case with these sorts of leaks when they're widely reported. (Indeed, it should be noted that the Raptor Lake Refresh products weren't directly visible on the website, but could be viewed if the specific model was searched for).

SEGA has officially cancelled its first Super Game, and it's possible that the new business model is now under question.

SEGA has an ambitious vision. The Japanese publisher wants to create an entirely new genre to provide long-term sustainability--not exactly an original idea, but SEGA did come up with a term to describe this new genre: Super Games. So what is a Super Game? It's kind of a spin on the live service/games-as-a-service model, but there's some criteria.

To qualify as a Super Game, a title will target $1 billion in lifetime revenues. That's a pretty lofty target that takes publishers years to achieve--however, some like Activision can achieve it in a single year--and the closest thing that SEGA has right now is Phantasy Star Online 2.

Meta's metaverse avatars have come a long, long way, showing that the company's billion-dollar loser is starting to look like a winner.

At the behest of Mark Zuckerberg, Meta has spent tens of billions of dollars on mixed reality. The company is trying to create the metaverse, a nascent concept that combines digital avatars with mixed reality peripherals to deliver realism in a digital space. For Meta, the goal is to create a new digital world that can be monetized over time through advertising while also linking up to entertainment services, content delivery, and social experiences.

Meta has lost over $33 billion on the metaverse so far, burning through Facebook revenue in an attempt to grow the new digital realm. In the past, Meta has faced ridicule for its cartoony metaverse avatars--the digital representations of people in that metaphysical space. Now Mark Zuckerberg shows off just how far Meta has come with its new hyper-realistic code avatars...and things are looking pretty impressive.

Microsoft made the decision to roll out the revamped Dall-E 3.0 image creation capability to Bing AI users at the weekend - but demand means the feature is working slower than expected.

As Microsoft's head of Advertising and Web Services, Mikhail Parakhin, explained on Twitter, the company kicked off the broad rollout of Dall-E 3.0 to Bing chatbot users at the start of the weekend (on September 29, with it expected to reach everyone by the end of the day).

However, what Microsoft didn't count on was how many folks out there would want to head over to Bing AI and try out the new image generation.

Space is a weird and wonderful place, and instruments that space agencies have put out into the void are constantly at work documenting anything of interest to researchers.

One of those instruments is the famous Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in operation for more than 30 years. Despite its age, Hubble is regularly used to snap extremely impressive and scientifically valuable images of the cosmos, with NASA highlighting one such image of a pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 107. NASA explains in a recent blog post that Arp 107 is a celestial object that is in the midst of a collision, with one Seyfert galaxy on the left and a smaller companion galaxy on the right.

Notably, a Seyfert galaxy is a galaxy that contains an active nucleus, or an active supermassive black hole at its center. NASA writes that it can observe Arp 107's spiraling whorls, which are areas of intense star formation, along with a "bridge" that's connected to the smaller companion galaxy. NASA explains that this "bridge" consists of dust and gas, and is a result of the gravity of the larger Seyfert Galaxy. Furthermore, Arp 107 resides approximately 465 million light years away from Earth.

The iPhone 15 has been out for a few weeks now, and it seems many users are reporting overheating problems at odd times of use.

Some buyers who were quick to pick up the iPhone 15 took to social media platforms to report that the smartphone temperatures were reaching levels that caused pain upon touch. These issues presented themselves when the phone was charging, during general use, updating, and even during setup. According to some reports online, some users saw their iPhone 15 reach temperatures as high as 48C (118F).

These extreme temperatures at odd times were attributed to the new SoC (A17 Pro) inside the iPhone 15, as well as its new design. However, hardware may not be the problem, as Apple has told Forbes that its identified a few problems with iOS 17 that are causing the phone to "run warmer than expected" and that these issues will be ironed out in a coming update. Additionally, Apple said that this update will not impact the performance of the iPhone 15.

The world's largest LED display, called The Sphere, located in Las Vegas, recently held its opening night, where U2 performed.

The performance by the band wasn't the most impressive part of the opening night, as thousands of videos have popped up on various social media platforms showcasing the incredible visuals that played on the 360-degree interior display. Notably, The Sphere began construction in 2018 as part of a collaborative multi-year $2.3 billion project between Sphere Entertainment and Madison Square Garden.

The new entertainment venue measures 366-foot-tall by 516-foot-wide and features a staggering 580,000 square-foot exterior LED display, which uses approximately 1.2 million "pucks," each capable of producing 256 million different colors. The Sphere was turned on for the first time on July 4, where it captured the attention of millions with incredible displays of fireworks, the American flag, planets, and more. That seemed to have worked, as the opening night featured more than 18,000 attendees.

The creator of Facebook and now CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has sat down for a remote interview with Lex Fridman on the Lex Fridman podcast.

The first-of-its-kind podcast was conducted in the Metaverse, where both Zuckerberg and Fridman assumed photorealistic avatars that are spawned into a virtual world where they can seamlessly communicate. Notably, both Fridman and Zuckerberg undertook a complex computer scan of their face to create what Zuckerberg calls a codec, which contains a virtual photorealistic avatar.

Fridman and Zuckerberg discuss the nature of reality and how this technology could impact the future of remote communication. Fridman says that one of the first things that come to mind when using this technology is being able to communicate with loved ones, and the next thing is being able to talk to loved ones "that are no longer here".