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The past couple of weeks we are starting to see rumors swirl about the Nintendo Switch 2, with many of these rumors pointing toward a massive performance upgrade.

The rumors came from select developers that were reportedly pulled into a private room by Nintendo employees and showcased the hardware that will be running the Nintendo Switch 2. The developers suggested that Nintendo's highly anticipated console will come with massive performance upgrades, which will put it much closer to the performance of Microsoft and Sony's consoles.

The jump in performance can be attributed to the rumored adoption of a NVIDIA Ampere GPU, which pushed select titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to 4K at 60FPS. This wild purported leap in performance has now been backed up by internal Activision emails that have been made public by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Apple's transition away from Lightning to USB-C is now in full swing after the Iphone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro announcements continued that process. But there are still plenty of accessories that are waiting for their time to shine and now a new report has hinted at when those products will wave goodbye to their Lightning ports for good.

Apple announced that the iPhone is switching to USB-C as part of that Wonderlust September 12 event last week and it wasn't the only product, either. As had been rumored Apple also announced a USB-C version of the AirPods Pro earbuds, but that was where the news stopped. That leaves Apple with plenty of devices and accessories still using Lightning for the time being, not least its $550 AirPods Max. Now, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman thinks he has the timeline for what comes next.

Writing in the paywalled version of the weekly Power On newsletter, picked up by MacRumors, Gurman says that the USB-C versions of Apple;'s Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard products will all be unveiled alongside the next iMac. That's a product that has already been heavily tipped for an October 2023 unveiling which suggests that we won't have to wait all that much longer for news in that regard.

Apple might have only just gotten around to announcing the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro devices, but the company is already hard at work on what comes next. We aren't talking about new iPhones, either. The Vision Pro headset was unveiled during an event in June and was tipped for a launch in early 2024, although some were skeptical as to whether that would happen. Now, CEO Tim Cook has sought to ease those concerns.

Speaking in a wider interview discussing Apple's future with CBS Sunday Morning, Cook let slip that he is already starting to use the Vision Pro in a number of ways - including watching the final season of the hit Apple TV Plus show Ted Lasso.

Speaking to John Dickerson, Cook said that he watched the entire season on his Vision Pro headset, admitting that he has access to some things that most people do not - hinting that the Vision Pro is perhaps just one of those things. He wasn't willing to discuss what those things were when pushed, but we somehow doubt that there's an Apple Car parked in his garage.

All of the attention might be on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro family of devices right now, but it sounds like we should already be starting to look forward to what will come next. The 2024 iPhones will likely be called iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max and the rumors are already starting to gather pace. Including the fact that there will be a slight size increase in terms of the displays that will be used.

Writing in a wider piece about Apple and its plans, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that the Pro iPhones will get slightly larger displays next year, although it isn't clear how slight those display improvements will turn out to be. Gurman says that new displays are a major driving factor behind iPhone hardware upgrades, suggesting that it could be a good reason for iPhone buyers to pick up a new model.

The iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max were only announced last week and won't go on sale until September 22. But with the overall size of the new Pro models shrinking thanks to smaller-than-ever bezels, it's possible that Apple is getting ready to increase the size of the displays next year. Whether that will mean smaller bezels or a return to slightly larger chassis remains to be seen, however.

Apple put the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max up for preorder last Friday, September 15. But if you weren't particularly quick when placing your order you're going to have to wait weeks for delivery. The reasons? It's complicated.

In a post to Medium, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that there are a few reasons why picking up a new iPhone 15 Pro Max is going to be harder than you might think. Delivery windows are already stretching into October or November, depending on the model that you might choose. Some colors and storage combinations are worse than others, but no iPhone 15 Pro Max can now be ordered for launch day - September 22.

Writing on Medium, Kuo notes that demand for the iPhone 15 Pro Max has been robust, as had been expected, and that it's already outpacing demand for last year's iPhone 14 Pro Max. Wait times for the iPhone 15 Pro Max are already significantly longer than other new models announced by Apple last week, but Kuo believes that strong demand can't be blamed alone.

Apple's iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models will finally go on sale on September 22 but one heavily rumored feature won't be present when that happens. We'd been told to expect new and upgraded charging speeds for at least the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max but now a new report suggests that isn't the case at all.

For its part, Apple hasn't made any suggestion that the new iPhones can charge more quickly which suggests that they can't, despite rumors prior to the event that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max would gain new 35W USB-C charging. Now, a Mac Otakara report claims that the new models remain limited to the same 27W wired charging that was offered on the iPhone 14 models.

The original rumor dates back to August and it was thought that some of the new models would benefit from slightly increased charging capabilities. However, it's now been reported that all four models will top out at 27W when paired with the correct USB-C charger. One that's rated 30W or higher would be our recommendation.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an image snapped by the famous Hubble Space Telescope, showcasing the galaxy officially called NGC 3156.

The space agency explains that NGC 3156 is a lenticular galaxy, which is a galaxy that falls between an elliptical and spiral galaxy. Notably, this great galactic disk is located 73 million light-years away from Earth within the constellation Sextans, which belongs to the Hercules family of constellations. So, what makes this galaxy so special? Lenticular galaxies are believed to have used up or have lost most of their interstellar matter, leading researchers to believe they are home to much older stellar populations.

The ESA also explains that the equatorial constellation known as Sextans was named after the astronomical instrument, and not the instrument that was commonly used for nautical navigation. "Sextants are often thought of as navigational instruments that were invented in the 18th century. However, the sextant as an astronomical tool has been around for much longer than that: Islamic scholars developed astronomical sextants many hundreds of years earlier in order to measure angles in the sky," writes the ESA.

Following the release of NASA's official UFO report, the space agency has named the new director of the group dedicated to analyzing Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).

NASA released its highly anticipated UFO report last week, where it came to multiple conclusions based on data provided by the US government. One of the main conclusions was the data used in the study wasn't clear enough for researchers to determine the origin of the UFOs, which resulted in the team calling for improved instruments to collect data, along with better pipelines for data collection. Additionally, the report called for the implementation of AI-powered tools to siphon through data.

The report outlines many more improvements that can be taken by NASA to shed more light on the UFO phenomena, and the full independent study can be viewed here. Notably, NASA appointed Mark McInerney as the director of UAP research. McInerney previously served as a NASA liaison to the Department of Defense, covering limited UAP activities. The role of the director will be to devise data analytical capabilities to establish a robust database for the evaluation of future UAPs.

Apple pointed out during its Wonderlust event that repairing the glass back plate on the iPhone 15 Pro will be easier and cheaper due to a newly implemented design change to the smartphone's chassis.

Continuing on with the efforts made with the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, which were removeable glass back panels, Apple has announced that iPhone 15 Pro will be getting an even bigger upgrade in the repair department. During the presentation the company announced that "new internal chassis architecture" will enable the back glass to be "easily replaced".

As you can imagine, the new design change has impacted the price of Apple's official repairs on its support website, and according to the repair listing costs, the iPhone 15 Pro will cost less to repair than previous iPhone Pro models. Comparatively, the iPhone 14 Pro back glass replacement costs $499, while the iPhone 15 Pro costs $169. Notably, users that have opted in for the AppleCare+ plan will only need to pay $29 to replace the back glass.

NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on the surface of the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, and since then, it has been documenting its exploration while simultaneously looking for any evidence of past microbial life.

Throughout the time Perseverance has spent on the surface of Mars, it has run into some pretty interesting objects, most of them are rocks in unique shapes and sizes. According to NASA's official website, which publishes all of Perseverance's photographs, the Mars rover stumbled across an avocado-shaped rock on September 8.

The image was snapped using Perseverance's Mastcam-Z and shows a rock that resembles an avocado cut in half. One half of the avocado laying in the foreground of the image, with the second half laying upright with a nut still in the center.

Starfield is already getting attention from the modding community despite the game not having the official mod tools released.

Starfield has been out for a little over two weeks now, and despite the lack of official modding tools, modders are rolling out mods in various forms, with one being the implementation of Stormtroopers. Now, we are starting to see mods surface that fix some of the most annoying aspects in Starfield. For instance, players have always wanted to be able to create a ship without size limitations. Vanilla Starfield ship construction is limited to 40 meters long and wide, which isn't enough if a player wants to build any large ship from Star Wars.

Thanks to NexusMods user AccursedPrism, players can now enjoy Starfield ship creation without a size limit, as the new mod overrides the default limitation of 40 meters and adds the following options - 60 meters, 80 meters, and 4/5 kilometers. The sizes below 100 meters are considered to be "safe", which indicates minimal or hardly any performance issues or in-game bugs. However, 4/5 kilometers will likely have a massive impact on performance/cause bugs. Check out this mod here.

Apple has announced that its newest iPhone, the iPhone 15, will be arriving with a USB-C port, which confirms the official departure from the iconic, yet annoying, Lightning port.

Apple has only changed its ports twice in its mobile devices, from the long 30-pin connector to the Lightning port, which first appeared in the iPhone 5. During its recent Wonderlust event, Apple debuted the inclusion of USB-C in the iPhone 15, and the change doesn't just mean you can now carry one less cable to charge all of your devices - it also means much more possibilities for iPhone accessories. Here's why.

Lightning ports in previous generations of iPhones were limited in terms of electricity output, meaning they weren't able to power many accessories. Specifically, Lightning ports were capped at 0.3 watts of output, which isn't enough to charge/power devices such as AirPods, or portable storage devices. Comparatively, the iPhone 15 with its USB-C port will be able to output 4.5 watts, which is enough to power storage drives, charging an AirPods case, and much more.

A US fighter pilot ejected from an F-35 jet over South Carolina, and now the military is asking the public to help them find the jet that's still flying around on autopilot.

Multiple reports indicate the fighter pilot safely ejected from the F-35 at approximately 2 p.m. on Sunday local time over North Charleston, and landed in a neighborhood. Since the ejection was confirmed, multiple military officials have taken to social media and the wider public to gather any information on the F-35 that's still, at the time of writing, reportedly flying around the region on autopilot.

The ABC reports that an investigation has been launched into why the pilot was forced to eject from the vehicle, with Major Melanie Salinas saying the pilot has been taken to a local hospital in a stable condition. So far, estimates have put the $80 F-35 Lightning II jet somewhere between Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie, according to Senior Master Sergeant Heather Stanton, at Joint Base Charleston.

As with many large-scale AAA game releases, there's a very vocal contingent that looks at all aspects of a release to see if there's anything "woke" going on - elements that promote or otherwise cater to a diversity of players. With the release of Starfield earlier in the month, the Steam forums for the game were briefly overtaken by conversation and toxic commentary about the game including an option to select a pronoun for your character.

In what amounts to maybe 15 seconds of screen time (text) for a game with well over 200 hours of content, the decision to let players choose from He/Him, She/Her, or They/Them was too much to handle - or a bridge too far. This is for a game set hundreds of years in the future, where They/Them makes a lot of sense to include, simply from a setting perspective.

As the discourse on the wokeness of Starfield has died down, and that YouTuber rant on the subject has become a meme, one of the most popular modding sites on the planet - NexusMods - has decided to remove a mod that removed the option to select pronouns in the game.

FurMark is a lightweight but intensive GPU benchmark tool that pushes graphics hardware (and your system to its absolute limit) and has been a staple part of GPU reviewing for well over a decade. It has also been a source of controversy, or at least a mixed reception, with several instances over the years of GPUs and PCs allegedly failing during or after FurMark tests to the point where hardware required replacing.

To the point where some consider the benchmark a true test of the quality of hardware and a way to test to see if there are any defects in a new product. It's been 16 years since FurMark got its last Version 1.X update, with the developer Geeks3D set to launch Version 2.0 of the application later this month. The latest beta release, v.2.0.10, was released via the Geeks3D Discord channel in late August.

FurMark 2.0 provides the same lightweight user interface to initiate or run custom tests across various resolutions, with expanded support for modern GPUs and resolutions.

You might have seen ASUS's new flagship liquid-cooled ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 all-in-one pop up in a few headlines in recent months. American overclocker Allen "Splave" Golibersuch used the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 to smash through the 4 GHz boost clock barrier back in July and then followed this up by beating the 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme world record with the same GPU.

So even though it's common knowledge that the GeForce RTX 4090 is the most powerful graphics card available in 2023, there are key differences between models - and some RTX 4090s are just more capable than others - with or without the aid of LN2. Enhanced power delivery and the best of the best components make the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 the sort of card overclockers look for.

Announced in May of this year, and we got the chance to see an early version of the card up close at Computex 2023, ASUS is finally ready to launch the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 - with the card's release date set for September 19.

Valve has released the beta or Preview for SteamOS 3.5 for the Steam Deck, and it's a pretty big one regarding new features and improvements to the PC gaming handheld. A couple of the big features relate to connecting the Steam Deck to an external display with HDR and VRR (variable refresh rate) now enabled in Display Settings if connected to a supported display.

The Steam Deck's display is also getting an update with Valve confirming that the default rendering will now emulate the sRGB color gamut for a warmer, more vibrant image. Users can adjust the colors across new Color Vibrance and Color Temperature settings or revert to the current pre-update settings if they're not feeling the sRGB look.

SteamOS 3.5 also updates the graphics driver with "many performance and functionality improvements," specifically calling out Starfield as one title that will see improved performance.

Since NVIDIA debuted DLSS, its AI-powered upscaling technology exclusive to GeForce RTX graphics cards, there have been several ongoing discussions (see: conspiracy theories) relating to whether or not enabling DLSS requires specialized hardware.

Powered by the company's groundbreaking work on AI supercomputers, with the aid of AI-based Tensor Cores in GeForce RTX graphics cards, DLSS can deliver a substantial performance uplift to games without sacrificing visual fidelity. Even though competing technology like AMD FSR and Intel XeSS can run on a wide range of GPU hardware, DLSS is limited to the GeForce RTX lineup - which now spans three generations of NVIDIA hardware.

Looking to investigate just how DLSS uses Tensor Cores (and if required), Redittor 'Bluedot55' used NVIDIA's development metric tool Nsight Systems to see what happened when DLSS was enabled. It turns out that DLSS does require Tensor Cores to do its magic - with some fascinating results.

Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh series is rumored to launch next month. CPUs from the new lineup are already starting to appear online - with the flagship Intel Core i9-14900KF popping up in Geekbench 6 results with impressive performance.

Earlier this month, we reported on CPU-Z benchmark results for the new 6.0 GHz Intel Core i9 14900K (with 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores), where it delivered a decent performance boost compared to the 13th gen flagship.

According to the flagship Intel Core i9-14900KF results, it's set to be the world's fastest consumer CPU across single and multi-core tests. The Geekbench results come from user OneRaichu, who looks to have run multiple tests on the new flagship Intel CPU - with the highest single-core score being 3,497.

The Unity controversy continues as the games company issues a new statement on its controversial new runtime fees.

Outside of the back-to-back hit game releases, 2023 has been a strange year for gaming. We've seen the United States government take on Microsoft's $68.7 billion Activision merger, the closure of Saints Row developer Volition, and we've also seen thousands of game developers being laid off despite companies reporting billion-dollar earnings. Now Unity has made one of the most controversial business decisions in the entire history of the industry and alienated practically its entire customer base.

In a quest to finally become profitable, Unity made a radical new policy: Game devs and distributors would be charged money on a per-install basis for specific popular games. The move was universally hated, and led to Unity issued several PR responses. The firm even evacuated its offices due to a death threat. While the heat is still very much on Unity, the company has now released another statement on the runtime fees.