Latest News - Page 808

Starfield players are sinking their teeth into what the game has to offer, and with it being a little over a week since the game launched, a player has already discovered what seems to be the best ship build.

For those that don't know, Starfield lets players design their own ships to take out to the void of space and engage with enemies and even friendlies. However, ship combat can be tricky, and players can be blown up pretty quickly if they aren't adept at maneuvering. But what if I told you that you didn't need to dodge and maneuverer, just shoot?

Well, it seems you can, as a Starfield player noticed that all enemy ships fire their shots directly at the center of the the ship they are attacking. So, the player decided to make the center of his ship empty space, meaning that all enemy shots go straight through the ship, thus making the player immune to all enemy fire. The above video showcases the ship in action, while the below video is a guide on how to build it yourself.

A new Starfield mod that was uploaded to NexusMods on Sunday brings Star Wars over to Bethesda's newest title, which has been out just over a week.

It's no surprise that mods are already starting to pop up for Starfield, as Bethesda's titles are notorious for having some of the largest support from the modding community. Despite the official Bethesda modding tools not even being released yet, a new mod was uploaded to the NexusMods page on Sunday called "GALACTIC CIVIL WAR CONVERSION," which replaces the United Colonies' police force with stormtroopers from the Star Wars universe.

At the time of writing, the mod has gained more than 3,000 unique downloads despite the mod being entirely visually centered. It seems that not only do the United Colonies' police force get the visual switch to stormtroopers but also players, as the below image showcases a player wearing the iconic stormtrooper armor. It seems that the mod simply switches out the visual aspects of the United Colonies' police force gear, which, by that standard, means the above player is wearing that gear.

It turns out even robot dogs grow old or can no longer be cared for, as Sony Japan is launching a special Aibo Foster Parent Program to find new homes for aging ERS-1000 Aibo robot dog companions. The ultimate goal is to reduce e-waste, not because they're for real dogs, and the only alternative is to put them down.

Sony's Aibo Companion Robot dogs retail for USD 2,899.99, and according to the description, they develop a "unique evolving personality through everyday interactions" bolstered by "lifelike expressions and a dynamic array of natural movements." And with that, they form real bonds with their owners. Even so, the Aibo Foster Parent Program sounds bizarre.

For owners that cancel their Aibo plans (i.e., no longer able to care for their robot companion), they can donate them to Sony, who, after "providing necessary treatment," will send these robot dogs to Aibo foster parents - including medical facilities or other institutions that could use a lifelike robot dog.

Capcom's Street Fighter 6 has been one of the most well-received releases of 2023, and considering this is the year we got The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur's Gate 3, and Starfield - that's quite the achievement. It is a return to form for the franchise and one of the best straight-up fighting games you will likely play.

And, hey, with Street Fighter being as iconic as it is, this range of Street Fighter 6 gear from Cooler Master is sure to be highly sought by fans. In addition to stylish additions to the MasterLiquid and Halo cooling range, there's a custom keyboard, mouse, mousepad, gaming chair, case, and even a power supply modeled after Blanka.

That last bit is especially cool because Blanka is the electricity-powered character that dates back to the classic Street Fighter 2, so the fully modular MWE Gold V2 SF6 Power Supply comes in Blanka green. The full line-up is chock full of detail like this; it looks like Cooler Master has taken this collaboration with Capcom very seriously and delivered some excellent designs. Let's take a look.

In a surprise move, Microsoft is adding a cool feature to its long-running image editing and creation tool, Paint. The app, formerly known as MS Paint, is getting a one-click ability to automatically remove the background of any image to leave "a smooth cutout of the subject."

Per Microsft's announcement, the background-removing Paint version is now available for Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels to test out. No word on when it might arrive as part of an official Windows or app update, but odds are it's on the cards for a wider release in the coming months.

Background removal is a super handy tool for those who work with images and image editors and has been a staple and popular part of apps like Photoshop for a while now. Paint, Microsoft's lofi and rudimentary image app that first debuted in 1985, has been a part of Windows for so long that it feels like a relic from a different time.

Images for a prototype GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER have appeared online. Although NVIDIA ultimately shipped the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti towards the tail-end of the RTX 30 Series Ampere generation - the stealthy black design of the RTX 3090 SUPER is fantastic.

Like many of you out there, I'm a huge fan of the redesigned Founders Edition models that were first introduced with the GeForce RTX 30 Series, bringing a more stylish and sleek design to the standard GPU configuration, bolstered by a unique cooling setup with fans on either side. With a mix of various metals, with different models sporting different tones, it's a shame that that all-black look wasn't adopted for the more premium 'Ti' models.

NVIDIA's 'SUPER' GeForce RTX variants appeared during the Turing-based GeForce RTX 20 Series generation and have been missing since - with several reports indicating that NVIDIA has toyed with the idea of bringing the 'SUPER' range back over the years. If the Founders Editions end up sporting a stylish black look like we see here, I'm all for a GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER at some point in the future.

We think about OLED panel technology when we think about big-screen LG TVs or other big-name brands for that home cinema experience. OLED's self-lit pixels deliver vibrant colors and near-infinite contrast, with the added bonus of excellent response times for gaming. But there's another display panel technology that might just end up replacing OLED: MicroLED.

Like OLED, MicroLED panel technology features cutting-edge technology where LEDs the size of grains of sand work together to create bright, vibrant, and stunning images. The advantages of MicroLED over OLED are that you can get a brighter image and less chance of burn-in or other degradation over time. Plus, they can scale in size quite easily. The catch? MicroLED panels are very expensive to produce.

This brings us to the new 118-inch 4K LG MAGNIT, designed to deliver "immersive home entertainment" that's "befitting a super-luxury residence."

While Apple is getting ready to announce new iPhones and Apple Watches within hours, a new report claims that the company is already looking ahead to October - when it's expected to announce the iPad Air 6.

While unlikely to get its own event, the iPad Air 6 is set to be part of a wider announcement - possibly via a series of press releases - that will also include new M3-powered Macs. But the iPad Air 6 will be the only tablet that's part of the new product unveilings if this new report is accurate.

The report itself comes via MacRumors and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The well-connected reporter was speaking on The MacRumors Show when he apparently said that the new iPad Air 6 is coming soon, likely in October. That's also reportedly a timeframe that had been suggested on the Chinese social network Weibo, too.

As Apple gets ready to announce new iPhones and Apple Watches at its September 12 event, a new report claims that the company is getting ready to ditch some of its most popular accessories.

If the report is correct, Apple is planning to discontinue all of its silicone rubber and fluoroelastomer accessories in the name of the planet - it wants to switch to a more environmentally friendly alternative.

That's according to a MacRumors report citing a tipster known as Kosutamu. They previously shared information about iPhone cables and more, although their accuracy is yet to be fully proven. Still, MacRumors believes that Apple is set to cancel some accessories based on what they've been told.

As the world gets ready for Apple to announce the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro series' of devices tomorrow, September 12, it seems that the company is also on the verge of taking at least one old iPhone away.

While all of the talk is about the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max, it appears that the iPhone 13 mini is about to get canceled. That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, at least.

Gurman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, to say that he noticed that iPhone 13 mini stocks are running unusually low right now with some orders quoted as long as two months before delivery. That would suggest that the iPhone 13 mini is not long for this world, with Apple potentially canceling the product once the Wonderlust event comes to an end on Tuesday.

There have been plenty of rumors surrounding the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro of late with the switch to USB-C being at the center of some of them. Now, a new leak appears to contradict previous ones when it says that the new iPhones won't come with color-matched USB-C cables after all.

Previous leaks had said that Apple was going to ship color-matched braided USB-C cables with new iPhones, although it wasn't clear if that applied to the iPhone 15 series or just the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. But now one of the leakers who shared images of the cables says that they might not be for the iPhone after all. Instead, it looks likely that they are intended for Macs.

X leaker Majin Bu now says that, according to their sources, Apple will not put color-matched cables in the box with new iPhones. Instead, they'll come with white ones although they will at least be braided for the first time. They believe that the color-matched cables are instead going to be made available with new MacBooks. Rumors have already suggested that October could see the launch of at least one new MacBook powered by an upgraded M3 chip.

Apple and chipmaker Qualcomm have agreed on a deal that will see the latter's modems appear in the former's devices for at least the next three years. Qualcomm confirmed the news via a press release.

That press release says that Qualcomm will continue to provide Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF Systems for use in new iPhones in 2024, 2025, and 2026 which means that Apple won't be using its own modems in those models. That news comes after Qualcomm had itself expected to lose Apple's business with the iPhone maker already working on designing its own modems.

In fact, Apple bought Intel's modem business back in 2019 and has been working on its own modems ever since. However, despite continued rumors that a future iPhone would use in-house modems, that seems now to be highly unlikely within the next four iPhone generations starting with the imminent iPhone 15.

NASA collided a small high-speed spacecraft into a distant asteroid in an attempt to demonstrate that Earth is capable of deflecting distant asteroids that pose a direct threat to Earth. The test was successful and is called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

The test was conducted last September when NASA shot a vending-machine-sized spacecraft at the asteroid duo Dimorphos and Didymos. Dimorphos was the target and is the smaller of the two asteroids, orbiting its larger companion in a similar way the moon orbits Earth. The connection was successful, and NASA announced it slowed Dimorphos' orbit down by half an hour, from one full orbit of Didymos prior to impact taking 11 hours and 55 minutes to post-impact 11 hours and 23 minutes.

However, Jonathan Swift, a math and science teacher at the Thacher School in California has used the Tacher Observatory to observe the orbit of Dimorphos for a month following the impact, and found that the asteroid's orbit appears to be continuously slowing down, which is contrary to common astronomer predictions that said Dimorphos' orbit would return to its original speed after the collision.

An upcoming biography about Elon Musk has shed some light on the relationship between the Tesla CEO and Bill Gates.

The excerpt from the biography titled "Elon Musk" comes from Walter Isaacson, who shadowed Musk for three years. The passage that highlights the relationship dates back to early 2022 when Gates was discussing philanthropy with Musk, pushing the Tesla CEO to donate to curing AIDS, mosquito eradication, and climate change-reducing projects. However, Musk discovered that Gates had a $500 million short against Tesla, which, for those that don't know trading terminology, means Gates has a $500 million bet that Tesla's share price will go down.

Isaacson asked Gates about the disagreement between the two billionaires, which is mostly tied to Musk saying to Gates, "Sorry. I cannot take your philanthropy on climate seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change." Gates told Isaacson, "Once he heard I'd shorted the stock, he was super mean to me, but he's super mean to so many people, so you can't take it too personally." Adding, "I apologized to him."

Disney is celebrating a long 100 years of incredible storytelling with the release of what can only be assumed as its most expensive Blu-ray box set yet, the Disney Legacy Animated Film Collection.

According to a new report from The Wrap, Disney will be releasing the Disney Legacy Animated Film Collection on November 14, which will include 100 movies for a staggering price tag of $1,500. Only massive Disney fans will likely still be interested in the box set, which includes movies from both Disney and Pixar across three volumes. These volumes fold out into a storybook that takes buyers through Disney's animated studio history, showcasing original movie poster designs and digital codes for every movie.

Furthermore, the Blu-ray box set includes a lithograph from Disney's upcoming feature "Wish," a certificate of authenticity, and crystal Mickey Mouse ears that are engraved with "Disney 100". Looking at the certificate of authenticity, the box set also includes 18 Blu-ray discs with bonus content from Pixar. Pre-orders for Disney's biggest box set yet will become available at Walmart on September 18, and according to The Wrap, will be priced at $1,500.

AI-powered tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT have certainly attracted a lot of attention through their raw power and seemingly endless capabilities.

With their popularity, there has been growing concern from researchers regarding the honesty and truth levels of tools and the underlying AI models powering these tools. These concerns stem from the real possibility that AI tools will be able to spread disinformation at an alarming rate, manipulate users into specific results, or even intentionally mislead or deceive users with a lie. A new article penned in The Conversation details an example with Meta's CICERO AI, which the company says was designed to be "largely honest and helpful".

Researchers put the AI model to the test and instructed it to participate in a game of Diplomacy, and the results were published in a new study in Science. Unlike Chess, Poker, and Go, Diplomacy requires an understanding of competition players' motivations, leading to negotiating complex, forward-thinking plans. The underlying idea is to see if CICERO was able to participate in the game at the level of a human.

A movie insider has taken to their personal X account to reveal that Universal Studios is working on a new live-action Nintendo movie.

The movie insider is called MyTimeToShienHello and recently took to X to claim that Universal Studios is developing a live-action movie of The Legend of Zelda, which has no doubt thrown Nintendo fans into a 50/50 situation where they aren't sure if they should be excited or simply terrified of an awful adaptation. The leak of a live-action The Legend of Zelda movie isn't too surprising considering the massive success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie., Nintendo's first movie with Illumination, an animation studio owned by Universal.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie quickly became one of the biggest animated movies of all time. Additionally, Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider previously stated that Nintendo began working with Universal on the upcoming Zelda title back in June, with the insider saying on the Hot Mic podcast, "I'm told that Universal is, in fact, closing a 'big deal' with the Nintendo corporation for The Legend of Zelda."

The Apollo missions between 1969 and 1977 were the first to detect seismic activity on the surface of the moon, revealing that the moon was much more complex than meets the eye, with geological activity still occurring deep within its core.

Now, India's Chandrayaan-3 mission, the nation's first mission to the lunar surface, which has so far been successful with the landing of the Vikram lander on the moon's south pole on August 23, has detected what the Indian Space Research Organization are claiming as a "natural" moonquake.

Vikram's Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), a device designed to detect seismic activity beneath the lunar surface, detected the movements of the Pragyan rover, but then recorded an event on August 26 that appears to be a "natural one". It's data such as this that will help researchers paint a much clearer picture of the inner workings of the moon and its overall evolution since its formation.

Results from a test conducted nearly 50 years ago are still the subject of question, with one group of scientists claiming NASA's testing methods may have killed Martian life forms living inside rocks.

The re-heating of the debate regarding these test results comes from Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Technical University Berlin, who penned a June 27 article in Big Think discussing the possibility of NASA's landers accidentally discovering and then killing Martian microbes. The astrobiologist claims that Martian microbes, forms of life known to survive in extreme environments, are possibly present in Martian rocks and that the testing process by the Viking landers involved the use of too much water, resulting in skewed test results.

Here's the ongoing debate. The Viking landers carried out four tests that ended in a general consensus that Martian soil didn't have the necessary ingredients for life as we know it. However, some scientists call into question the inclusion of water throughout the tests. The idea behind including water was to see if life would show itself, which Schulze-Makuch says was a reasonable presumption considering Earth is a water planet. However, there are some microbes on Earth that die when exposed to too much water.

"We would also like to reaffirm that the system malfunction was not caused by a cyberattack and apologize to all parties for any concern this may have caused," writes Toyota in an announcement regarding its factory operation in Japan where last month production stopped for multiple days due to unforeseen issues.

It turns out that the company's servers simply ran out of disk space, with the "insufficient disk space" issue causing "the system to stop." Toyota's Japanese factories and production lines halted due to the server maintenance thing that all big systems experience - with this example of a complication arising undoubtedly being a very costly one.

"During the maintenance procedure, data that had accumulated in the database was deleted and organized, and an error occurred due to insufficient disk space," Toyota said. "Since these servers were running on the same system, a similar failure occurred in the backup function, and a switchover could not be made."