Latest News - Page 826

3DMark has added a new benchmark test to its repertoire, called Solar Bay, and it allows for testing ray-traced graphics on both PCs and Android devices.

This allows for comparisons between a high-end Windows rig and a powerful Android smartphone, which, of course, have already been carried out.

VideoCardz spotted the launch of this benchmark and ran a test of a PC with an NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics card, comparing that to the result from a Samsung S23 Ultra.

Those of us who lift weights don't typically get much help from our fitness watch in terms of actually tracking a workout properly, and that's true of the Apple Watch - but a new sensor that might be inbound for a future model could really help here.

MyHealthyApple spotted a job listing in which a future strain sensor is mentioned, floating the idea that this could be an addition for an Apple Watch down the line.

As it stands, Apple's Workout app's strength training feature only tracks active calories and heart rate, which is a pretty limited set of data to work out how much you're exerting yourself when lifting a weight. Sometimes even with heavy weights, your heart rate won't go up that much necessarily (certainly not as much as when hitting the cardio hard).

Most role-playing game fans are entirely concentrated on the incredibly popular Baldur's Gate 3 and the highly anticipated Starfield, but what about Ubisoft's newest Assassin's Creed?

In what seems like to be an effort to attract some eyeballs toward Assassin's Creed Mirage, Ubisoft has announced its newest Assassin's Creed title will be arriving a week early and at a discounted price. According to a new X post by the official Ubisoft X account, Assassin's Creed Mirage will be released a week early on October 5 and for $50, instead of the typical $70 price point for most other RPG titles.

For those that have been out of the loop when it comes to Assassin's Creed Mirage, players will be immersed within 9th century Baghdad, and according to Ubisoft, this installment into the long-time running franchise takes major inspiration from classic Assassin's Creed games, as Mirage is a stealth-focused title, indicating a shift away from more recent AC titles that force players into grinding/hack & slash combat Valhalla and Odyssey.

Back in May, Ford announced that it was expanding its software capabilities within its vehicles, and now the company has revealed that its hands-free driving hardware is going to become a staple in all of its new vehicles.

The company announced on Monday that its hands-free driving capabilities called BlueCruise will be rolled out into 500,000 vehicles for its 2024 model year across North America. The expansion of Ford's hands-free driving capabilities seems to be taking inspiration from Tesla's driver-assist subscription services, as Ford will be taking a similar approach, but with a price reduction compared to Tesla. Notably, Ford said it will be building its hands-free tech into the F-150 lightning, F-150, Expedition, Lincoln Navigator, and Nautilus.

Previously, Ford required buyers to request the hands-free driving tech ahead of the purchase of the vehicle. However, with this new announcement, buyers will have the option of opting in whenever they like, but with some caveats. As with most hands-free driver technology, it isn't cheap. Ford will be offering three years of BlueCruise for $2,100. If that price is too high for buyers, or if drivers just wish to try out the feature, there is the $800 per year option, or the $75 per month option.

The highly anticipated cage fight between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk has taken a strange turn after Musk took to his personal X account to say he's rocking up at Zuckerberg's house.

The post from Musk comes after the X owner leaked text messages between him and Zuckerberg where the Meta CEO expressed doubts Musk wants to participate in a fight, especially considering Musk's recent medical problems that may require surgery. The messages between the two billionaires revealed Musk taunting Zuckerberg, as he called the Meta CEO a "modern day Bruce Lee".

Zuckerberg's text states that he doesn't want to keep hyping up an event that he doesn't believe will even take place, which was followed by, "so you should either decide you're going to do this and do it soon, or we should move on". Musk responded by saying he was going to be in Palo Alto on Monday and that the two social media owners should have a fight in Zuckerberg's octagon at his house.

Sony confirms that at least one first-party PlayStation game has been delayed into next year.

PlayStation's latest quarterly report outlined what investors should expect from the games unit throughout the new fiscal year. Sony started its new Fiscal Year 2023 by delivering record-breaking PlayStation revenues and selling more PS5 consoles than any other Q1 period. However, operating income slid downwards as Sony continues paying towards the Bungie acquisition. Another big impact to operating profit was the delay of at least one first-party title, possibly others, leaving Spider-Man 2 as potentially the only big marquee game for Sony's Fiscal Year 2023.

It's highly likely that Naughty Dog's new Last of Us multiplayer game is the title that was delayed, however it's possible other games could have been delayed as well. Reports made earlier this year indicated the Last of Us game had been pushed back.

AMD might have plans to bring its Navi 31 chip - the top-end offering for RDNA 3 - to gaming laptops, if a new rumor is right.

As Wccftech noticed, this comes from Golden Pig Upgrade, a regular leaker over at Bilibili (add plenty of salt here), who reckons that AMD is going this route with Navi 31, albeit the cut-down version.

As you may have seen recently, AMD has a new spin on Navi 31 which is trimmed down compared to the original chip. This is the variant that resides inside the Radeon RX 7900 GRE (a freshly revealed graphics card).

Did you finish Baldur's Gate 3 during the RPG's launch weekend? You were among a very elite group of players if so, as not many managed this feat.

Larian compiled and shared a bunch of stats on Baldur's Gate 3 in its latest community update on Steam, including how many players completed the game in that initial three-day weekend - a grand total of 368.

Of course, there's a lot of game to get through, but still, we thought there'd be more dedicated hardcore RPG'ers out there who would be racing to be first past the finish line. Or at least one of the pack who got over the line in the launch weekend.

Microsoft announced that Cortana, Windows' digital voice assistant, was coming to its end of life back in May, and now the time has come to say goodbye.

Cortana has been "killed off" by Microsoft in its latest Windows 11 update in order to usher in Microsoft's replacement called Windows Copilot, which is an AI-powered personal assistant that takes advantage of generative language models like ChatGPT. However, it can be assumed that Windows Copilot will be specifically designed to answer questions about Windows rather than ChatGPT being designed to answer questions about everything.

If you are a big fan of Cortana and don't wish to have it removed from your computer, make sure not to update Windows 11, because if you do, your PC will no longer have access to the service. If you are sad about seeing Cortana going from Windows PCs, you will be glad to know that the robot isn't completely dead. Microsoft will still be running Cortana in "Outlook mobile will continue to be available," according to the End of Support for Cortana in Windows and Teams article on Microsoft Support.

A group of scientists have discovered a new species that certainly appears to be alien-like but is named after a fruit.

The new species is officially called Promachocrinus fragarius, or the Antarctic strawberry feather star, and it was discovered by researchers trawling the ocean near Antarctica. According to the newly published study in Invertebrate Systematics, the creature was named after a strawberry for how its body resembles the fruit, and after dragging a net along the Southern Ocean, the team discovered four new species that all fall under the group Promachocrinus kerguelensis, which then falls under the overall classification Crinoidea.

Other members of the Crinoidea classification are common sea life, such as starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. As for the Antarctic strawberry feather star, researchers determined that it has more "arms" than other feather stars, which typically have 10. The Antarctic strawberry feather star has 20. The study notes that the Antarctic strawberry feather star can be found between 215 feet and 3,840 feet below the ocean surface.

NASA and the European Space Agency's James Webb Space Telescope has revealed some interesting details about the closest galaxy to the Milky Way.

Webb has honed its extremely sensitive instruments on the neighboring galaxy Barnard's Galaxy, officially called NGC 6822, which is located 1.5 million light years away from Earth within the constellation Sagittarius. The galaxy stretches 7,000 light years from one side to the other and is officially categorized as a dwarf galaxy. Additionally, astronomers have determined that Barnard's Galaxy is very low in heavy elements, while most of its stars are born within the last 5 billion years.

So, what makes Barnard's Galaxy so interesting? The lack of heavy elements within the galaxy suggests that it has remained in isolation from other more active parts of the universe. For example, every element that is heavier than hydrogen and helium have been created by stars.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has slapped a $500 million fine on big banks that used private messaging apps to communicate.

Wells Fargo, along with several other big banks, have been fined a total of $549 million over employees using private messaging apps such as iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal. The SEC has cited a law that requires publicly traded companies to maintain auditable records of all business decisions and discussions. The Commodity Futures Trading COmmision (CFTC) also requires companies to keep an auditable record of trading decisions.

These rules were broken by big bank employees that reportedly conducted business-related discussions on the aforementioned apps. The employees used their personal phones for these discussions, which means there was no record of these discussions happening, or at least access to these conversations was only available through the personal accounts of these individuals.

New rumors indicate that Apple has already begun testing its M3 Ultra chip which comes with a big increase in CPU cores compared to the M2 Ultra.

These rumors come from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who wrote in the new Power On newsletter that Apple's M3 Ultra would come with a base CPU core count of 32 cores, up from the M2 Ultra's 24 cores. Additionally, developer logs indicate an increase in GPU core count, but the increase isn't as severe as the CPU side. Currently, buyers have two options for the M2 Ultra Mac, a 60-core or 76-core GPU.

Developer logs indicate that the M3 Ultra will come with a base of 64 GPU cores and a higher-end option of 80 cores. Gurman reports that Apple is preparing to release M3-based Macs in October, but M3-based computers such as the M3 Pro or M3 Max won't hit shelves until sometime next year. Furthermore, the Bloomberg reporter expects that the M3 Ultra chip will be released sometime later in 2024 "at the earliest", which would be in line with Apple's previous release schedule.

A family has in Maui has been saved from the wildfires by Apple's iPhone 14, which features an emergency SOS feature via satellite.

The Emergency SOS via Satellite feature was introduced into Apple's line-up of smartphones with the release of the iPhone 14, and since its debut, there have been plenty of stories where the feature has truly come in handy for individuals. A family was recused from the wildfires in Maui with the Emergency SOS feature, according to Michael J. Miraflor, who shared on X that his brother's girlfriend's cousin and his family were trapped in a vehicle when the wildfires "suddenly erupted around them".

The five people that were inside the van were unable to call for help as there was no cell service within the area. However, one of the people inside the van had an iPhone 14, and according to Miraflor, "Apple Emergency SOS was the only way they could get in contact with first responders. Literally saved their lives."

Showing up as expected, right after their announcement, on the Siggraph 2023 expo floor, AMD is publically showing their latest professional graphics cards including one which features an innovative single-slot design.

The AMD Radeon Pro 7600 graphics cards are designed with budget-conscious professionals in mind while providing advanced features and performance. The launch of the AMD Radeon Pro W7600 not only showcases AMD's dedication to the professional graphics space but also highlights the company's commitment to making cutting-edge technology accessible to a wider range of creative experts.

Powered with dedicated GDDR6 memory, AMD Infinity Cache, AV1 Encode/Decode, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and advanced shading techniques, the cards provide enhanced visuals, accurate reflections, and an improved visual experience for entry-level professionals. The W7600 graphics cards leverage AI-powered enhancements to optimize tasks such as denoising, content creation, and basic image adjustments, streamlining the workflow for entry-level users.

The highly anticipated cage fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly heated up once again, with both of the billionaires taking to their social media platforms to fire back at each other.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken to Threads to post a comment that calls out Musk for not being "serious" about the cage fight, citing his initial request for the fight to happen on August 26, UFC president Dana White offering to organize the event for charity, and Musk's lack of confirmation for the date, which was followed by an announcement that he may need surgery. Zuckerberg also said that Musk contacted him about having a practice round in Zuckerberg's octagon in his house.

Musk responded to a screenshot of Zuckerberg's Threads post by saying, "Zuck is a chicken". Musk then leaked the text messages between himself and Zuckerberg, where it can be seen that Zuckerberg wants the fight to happen soon, if it's going to happen at all, as he doesn't want to continue hyping up an event that he thinks will never happen. Musk responded by saying he would be in Palo Alto on Monday and, "Let's fight in your Octagon".

A team of researchers has found that artificial intelligence bots are much better at finishing Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs) than humans, which are the website tests designed to verify users are human.

The team from the University of California, Irvine, led by Gene Tsudik, found that bots are not only much better at solving CAPTCHAs but also much faster as well. The paper, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, states that researchers asked 1,400 participants with various levels of technological knowledge to complete 14,000 CAPTCHAs. The results from that survey were compared to bots that completed the same number of CAPTCHAs.

Researchers immediately noticed that the bots consistently beat the human in accuracy, with humans scoring anywhere between 50 and 84% in accuracy, compared to the CAPTCHA-designed bots at 99.8% accuracy.

It's unclear whether or not Sony is still selling the PlayStation 5 console at a profit, or whether or not the console will be completely profitable throughout the current Fiscal Year 2023 timeline.

Sony's latest financial report indicates that PS5 profitability may be in jeopardy. The Games & Network Services' new revised operating income forecast indicates that the costs of console production may be outweighing sales by some degree.

In the report, Sony mentions that its flat 270 billion gaming operating income target (about $1.862 billion) is due in part to a "deterioration in profitability of PlayStation 5 hardware mainly due to changes in promotions by geographic region and the sales channel mix". It's unknown as to what extent PS5 profitability has been reduced, and whether or not the system is still sold at a profit.

Sony kicks off its new fiscal year with a new PlayStation 5 sales record.

Sony's latest Q1 Fiscal Year 2023 earnings report gives key updates on its gaming business, including hardware sales and overall revenues. The PlayStation 5 achieved its best-ever Q1 period by delivering 3.3 million shipments to all markets, bringing total cumulative lifetime shipments to 41.7 million.

The PS5 has yet to beat PS4 sales, with aligned shipments between the two systems tallying up to the PS5's shipments of 41.7 million against the PS4's sell-in of 43.7 million. Sony expects the PS5 to beat the PS4 in all relevant aligned metrics by the end of Fiscal Year 2023, including sales numbers.

Sony executive management explains the rationale behind the recent steep PlayStation 5 discounts.

A bit ago, Sony and multiple retailers decided to reduce the PlayStation 5's price tag by at least $50. This led to some pretty surprising deals with both consoles and accessories, with the base disc-based PlayStation 5 model selling for as low as $420.

Now in its latest Q1 Fiscal Year 2023 earnings report, Sony outlines the reasons for the sales. Apart from unconfirmed reports that a new PS5 model is believed to launch sometime this year, Sony Corp. essentially says that it hasn't sold as many PS5 consoles as it would have liked and the company is willing to take "necessary measures" to hit its lofty sales target of 25 million PS5s sold throughout the fiscal year.