Latest News - Page 796

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It's been another big week of news and happenings in the tech, gaming, and science space, and Jak and Kosta are back with a new episode of The TT Show - TweakTown's official podcast. This week, they go all-in on the massive Xbox leak that revealed console refresh plans, new games, new controllers, and a possible switch to ARM-based computing for the next Xbox console generation in 2028.

This week, Kosta sits down with the Head of Product over at XPG, Luca Fiore, to discuss to talk about the company's new Battlecruiser II chassis, what goes into the development of a case, industry trends, and why it's so important to engage and take on community feedback. And thanks to XPG, we've got a massive prize pack of gear to giveaway. Head here for more info!

Jak and Kosta also look at the state of mobile gaming when you can hook up the new iPhone to a TV to play Resident Evile with a PS5 controller. Plus, the GeForce RTX 4090 finally meets its match - and it's not Crysis or the latest Cyberpunk 2077 update. It's a display!

Today, we've got some new info on NVIDIA's new 'Blackwell' GB202 GPU that will power the upcoming GeForce RTX 50 Series - and serve as the basis for the GeForce RTX 5090 much like the AD102 GPU served as the basis of the GeForce RTX 4090.

The specs come via reliable leaker and insider Kopite7kimi, who confirms that GB202 will sport a make-up of 12 GPCs and 8 TPCs that results in 192 SMs or Streaming Multiprocessors. For most PC gamers, this is technical jargon that won't make a lot of sense. Still, if we assume that the SM structure is similar to what we've seen with the Ada Lovelace generation, then GB202 - the fully unlocked GeForce RTX 50 Series GPU - will feature a whopping 24,576 CUDA Cores.

This represents a 33% increase over the AD102 Ada Lovelace GPU, and switching to TSMC's 3nm process should also lead to a more efficient GPU.

MSI has a wide range of QD-OLED gaming monitors on the horizon, with no less than six models expected to hit the market in the coming months, according to this leaked roadmap from chi11eddog over on X. With a budget, ultrawide, 4K, 1440, and models that will feature an impressive 360 Hz refresh rate - MSI is going all in on the display panel technology.

It's hard to understand why the color accuracy, crisp blacks, infinite contrast, and near instantaneous response times of QD-OLED panels are hard to beat. According to the roadmap, the first model expected to hit the market will be the ultrawide MAG 341CQP QD-OLED with a resolution of 3440×1440 and a refresh rate of 175 Hz.

With the MAG branding, this model is expected to present a more affordable alternative to the current ultrawide MEG 342C QD-OLED Gaming Monitor from MSI. The roadmap also confirms that the 49-inch ultrawide QD-OLED Concept Monitor we saw at Computex is coming, though with a 144 Hz refresh rate instead of 240 Hz.

AMD's FSR 3, which includes the company's brand-new 'Fluid Motion Frames' technology, is Team Red's long-awaited answer to NVIDIA's DLSS 3 and Frame Generation. Like the company's FSR 2 Super Resolution technology, it won't require or use specialized AI hardware to work and instead will be open to all GPUs.

That said, as FSR 3 relies on (at least from our understanding) the new and impressive Anti-Lag+ technology exclusive to the Radeon RX 7000 series of RDNA 3 graphics cards, it might work best on the latest Radeon GPUs. However, we won't have long to find out, as AMD's Frank Azor took to Twitter/X to confirm that the first two FSR 3-enabled games will go live tomorrow.

Square Enix's Forspoken and the EA Original Immortals of Aveum from Ascendant Studios. As part of the technology's reveal at Gamescom, AMD showed Forspoken running on the new Radeon RX 7800 XT, where the 36 fps 4K Ultra-High RT jumped up to 122 fps with FSR 3 Performance mode.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Denny's CEO Kelli Valade got together at the chain's Silicon Valley restaurant to unveil a new plaque that went up over the booth where Huang and NVIDIA co-founders Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem came up with the idea to revolutionize 3D graphics in the PC space. And usher in the first GeForce products.

The plaque dedicates the booth to NVIDIA, calling it "the booth that launched a $1 trillion company." And with that, Denny's has announced a Trillion-Dollar Incubator Contest to celebrate the occasion, offering $25,000 in seed money "for the next $1 trillion idea." You can find more details over at: dennys.com/trilliondollarincubator.

No doubt, this would put a lot of pressure on you to do something productive if you sit down at this particular booth and order some bacon, eggs, and pancakes before noticing the plaque.

"The largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike's history" is here, with Valve officially launching the highly anticipated successor to CS:GO, simply called Counter-Strike 2. After an extensive Limited Test or Beta period, the Source 2-powered version of the popular online shooter presents map overhauls, new dynamic smoke grenades (that behave realistically), and more.

Counter-Strike 2 was officially announced and unveiled in March 2023, and the hotly anticipated launch has been on the cards for quite some time. With the official launch coming without much warning on the first day, the game has seen close to 1.5 million peak concurrent players, with around 750,000 playing the game as I write this.

Considering the age and pedigree of Counter-Strike (even though this slaps a '2' on the end, it's not the second release or major overhaul to the game), the most immediate and noticeable change comes in the visual department. With new lighting, textures, and map detail all being upgraded without affecting the core gameplay - this is still the same old Counter-Strike, albeit much better looking.

There are big changes coming to your Xbox, with game captures set to be deleted after 90 days - and the clock starts right now.

In a blog published yesterday Jonathan Hildebrandt, Principal Group Product Manager, Xbox Experiences, confirmed that game captures stored on the Xbox network will automatically be deleted after 90 days. But don't worry, Microsoft already has a plan to make sure that you don't lose anything.

In the same blog post, it was confirmed that new changes will also allow the bulk upload of files to OneDrive or an external hard drive. Beyond that, the Xbox system can also be configured to automatically upload new captures to OneDrive to make sure that they're kept safe and sound. Making the change is pretty easy and there will be a "Tell me more" option in the Captures area of the Xbox software that will offer details on how to get started.

If you're reading this on a Google ChromeOS device, you're going to want to take a look at a new software update that might be waiting for you. ChromeOS 117 is now rolling out and it brings with it some pretty major changes and improvements.

The new update is of course free to download and we'd suggest that you do that as soon as possible. Not only are you going to get a brand new Material You redesign to look at but you can also look forward to a number of usability improvements that will make your Chromebook a different beast in use.

The biggest change is of course the new look which includes a number of changes throughout the system. The most noticeable one is probably the revamped Quick Settings, a change that makes everything easier to see and interact with. Gone are the circular buttons and in come new, rectangular ones that are easier to discern when looking at a glance. They're going to be easier to hit when making selections, too.

Fitbit is back with its new fitness tracker, the Charge 6. And it's now more like a smartwatch than ever with improved features and whole new ones that show Google's fingerprints are all over this thing.

The new fitness tracker was announced as an upgrade to the company's number one product of its type, and it's definitely going from strength to strength with a number of improvements.

At the top of Fitbit's list is an improved heart rate tracker that borrows innovation from Google's Pixel Watch. We're told that heart rate tracking during things like workouts, spinning, and rowing is now up to 60% more accurate, which is noteworthy to be sure.

If you're a Google Calendar user you're in for a good time because there is a new update being tested that might not seem like the hugest of deals at first, bit will quickly become one of your favorite app tweaks in some time.

That's because Google is now testing a change that will show the live date in the area between the search icon and the account switcher in the Google Calendar app. Previously, there was simply a button that you would press to take you back to today. Now the button still does exactly the same thing but you'll never be left wondering what date it is.

Now sure, that doesn't sound like it will be that big of a deal, but it can be. Especially if you spend a lot of your time in the Calendar app on your Android phone or tablet. Unfortunately, 9to5Google reports that the change is only rolling out to people using Android on their phones right now. Those using a tablet might have to wait a little while longer.

Windows 11 just got a big update, Moment 4, which delivers the Copilot AI (and much more besides, including 'never combine' for the taskbar), but Microsoft has taken one piece of functionality away from the OS with this upgrade.

As Windows Latest observes, that would be the ability to drag and drop files in File Explorer's address bar, which was previously a feature in Windows 11.

In short, before the Moment 4 update, it was possible to open a folder in File Explorer, and within that window, you could grab any given file, and drop that into a different folder via the address bar at the top of the window.

Reddit is changing the way it works in terms of the adverts the platform serves up to users, specifically making it so that some folks won't be able to opt out of targeted ads being served based on their activity.

A bunch of changes are coming in, as announced by Reddit's global head of privacy and assurance, Jutta Williams (well spotted, The Verge).

The controversial bit, though, is that at least for some regions, Reddit is going to remove the choice to not have adverts personalized based on what you do on the platform.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered new evidence of fragile astronomical objects that is making scientists question their own theories about how the universe evolved over millions of years.

Astronomers generally agree that our Milky Way galaxy is quite a fragile galaxy that couldn't have existed in the early tumultuous stage of the universe when galaxies were continuously colliding and merging into each other. So, what makes the Milky Way fragile? Astronomers recognize the Milky Way as a spiral galaxy because if you were to view the galaxy from the top or bottom, it would look like a spinning pinwheel.

These long spiral arms wouldn't have survived galactic mergers and would have been ripped apart, leading astronomers to believe galaxies such as the Milky Way wouldn't be able to survive in the chaotic environment of the early universe.

We reported a few weeks ago that Apple's high-end 2023 Mac Studio was listed in Apple's online refurbished store for the first time. However, while the Mac Studio was indeed listed in various configurations, it wasn't actually available for anyone to buy. That's now changed for the first time, making it cheaper for people to put Apple's best Mac on their desk.

The 2023 Mac Studio comes with Apple's best and fastest M2 Ultra chip inside, while the M2 Max is also an option for people who don't need the best of the best. The Mac Studio in its current form was announced back in June of this year with a starting price of $1,999 for the entry-level model. Prices soon increase from there when you add more storage and that fast M2 Ultra chip of course, but that's to be expected and it's still cheaper than the Mac Pro that uses the same silicon.

As for the refurbished model, prices start at $1.699 which is of course $300 less than the price that you'd pay if you were buying a brand-new model.

If you're binge-watching the latest must-watch Apple TV+ show you might find that actually watching it isn't all that easy after viewers started to report a number of issues relating to content on the streaming service.

The problem has the potential to prevent people from actually watching content at all, but it isn't one that's affecting everyone which means you might be one of the lucky ones. For those who aren't, you might find that you'll wind up watching the credits much sooner than you wanted to. Other issues include episodes skipping with the next one being started before the previous one has finished.

As reported by 9to5Mac, social media is currently full of people complaining about various issues. One of those is that they see foreign language dubbing credits appear at the beginning of watching a new episode rather than at the end, where they would normally live. That then seems to mean that the overall length of the show changes enough to make the Apple TV app believe that the episode has finished before it actually has.

The iOS 17 update has only been around for a little while but Apple is already working on what comes next. The iOS 17.1 update is now available to developers and it'll likely go through a few weeks of beta before it rolls out to everyone who wants it. And they will indeed want it after it was discovered that the first iOS 17.1 beta includes a specific feature that is making the move from the iPhone 15 Pro.

Why this specific feature is currently only available on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max isn't clear, but it's coming to the iPhone 15 and iPhone 14 Pro when iOS 17.1 arrives on public devices. The feature in question? A new icon which appears in the Dynamic Island when the flashlight is being used.

Seeing an icon in the Dynamic Island whenever you turn the flashlight on doesn't immediately seem like something that might be useful. But, how many times have you noticed that your flashlight is turned on without you realizing? Or you turn it on and then forget to turn it off, for example? It happens more often than we might realize so this new feature could well be something that we wind up using more than new realize.

The iPhone SE is Apple's budget model for people who don't want to spend a fortune but still want to be able to message their blue bubble friends. But it looks tired and aged alongside more modern handsets. Now, it would seem that Apple is ready to fix that with an updated model that will make the iPhone SE much more modern while giving it two features that are present on the new iPhone 15 Pro.

Those new features will not only make the new iPhones look and feel much more modern than the current Home button-laden model but also add improved functionality for buyers of what is sure to be an inexpensive handset.

The latest report comes via MacRumors which says that the new iPhone SE 4 will be based on the current iPhone 14 chassis and is being developed under the Ghost codename.

The Elon Musk-appointed CEO of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has said the company is expected to become profitable early next year.

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, announced on stage at the Code Conference that X will be profitable by "early 2024," which will be an incredible achievement when taking into account that Twitter wasn't profitable for the first 13 years of its existence, and Musk only gained control of the company less than a year ago. This statement from Yaccarino is in line with what the X CEO has previously stated about the inner workings of the social media platform, as she stated in July that X was "pretty close to breakeven".

These massive drops in revenue for X came after Musk took over the platform, spooking many advertisers and causing them to stop ad expenditure on the platform. The concerns from advertisers were a result of Musk's overhaul of the content moderation system on then-Twitter and the platform's general approach toward what content can and cannot be on the platform.

A new record has been set for the longest time spent in space by an American, with the welcoming home celebrations beginning immediately for Dr. Frank Rubio, who landed safely back on Earth with his fellow crewmates on Wednesday.

Rubio spent a record-breaking 371 days in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and on Wednesday departed the floating laboratory with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, at 3:54 a.m. EDT, eventually touching down southeast of the remote town in Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

Notably, Rubio launched from Earth on September 21, 2022, alongside Prokopyev and Petelin, and after a delay in his mission duration, which prolonged his stay, Rubio clocked up 371 days in space. More than any other US astronaut. During his time spent aboard the ISS, the NASA astronaut orbited Earth 5,936 times, journeyed more than 157 million miles, or approximately 328 trips to the moon and back, and saw 15 spacecraft arrive at the ISS.