Latest News - Page 839

Last month we reported on Seagate's new Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) tech for HDDs that will see the arrival of capacities with 32TB and even 40TB on a single drive, with the company planning to go all in on the new storage style. As part of its latest financial reporting and investor earnings call, Seatage confirmed that its HAMR HDDs are here.

"We shipped our first HAMR-based Corvault system for revenue as planned during the June quarter," said Seagate's CFO, Gianluca Romano. "We expect broader availability of these Corvault systems by the end of calendar 2023." The rollout for more HAMR drives going up to 40TB capacity for a single unit is on track for early 2024.

Seagate's CORVAULT storage systems are designed to deliver the highest capacity and efficiency. They are designed with hyperscaling in mind - with these first HAMR drives now in the hands of select customers. A 30TB or 40TB density solution is a significant step up, with this first rollout all about qualification in the lead-up to a bigger rollout.

Colorful has unveiled a pair of new GeForce RTX graphics cards, each offering something new and interesting to the company's iGame line-up of GPUs. The new Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC features a stylish white look with graffiti pink "Ultra" flourishes. It also marks the debut of Colorful's hidden cable management design.

With a custom PCB design, this new GeForce RTX 4070 opts for the more traditional 8-pin PCIe power connector instead of the new 16-pin 12VHPWR connector seen in many GeForce RTX 40 Series models. For the Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC, the power connector is hidden behind the removable backplate to deliver a cleaner look.

And in a very cool move, the GPU comes bundled with a white extension 8-pin power cable to ensure everything looks seamless. Unlike other hidden cabler designs from other companies, this won't require specialized hardware and is compatible with most motherboards. However, Colorful notes that "it is best paired with a case specifically designed to support this concept," allowing room to thread cables freely.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti launched with 12GB of VRAM back in 2021, and as is the case with all GPU models, the company went through various revisions before landing on the version that hit retail markets. One of these was a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with 20GB of VRAM that was scrapped at the last minute - to the point where partners were already producing 20GB RTX 3080 Ti cards.

Instead of scrapping these GPUs and not being sold at retail, these rare GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20GB variants were sold to crypto miners through third-party channels. One of these partner cards was the flagship MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X 20G - which has popped up for sale (via Facebook Marketplace) in Sydney, Australia.

The current listing price is AUD 1,100 (around USD 735), with the seller noting that it's an "extremely rare collector's item as NVIDIA canceled these a month before release." As for why the card was ultimately canceled, it probably came down to the additional production cost - so the model pivoted to the 12GB configuration we see today.

Earlier this week, we got word that there was a brand-new Ryzen 9 7945HX3D mobile CPU from AMD out in the wild, and today the company has confirmed that it is indeed real and the very first mobile CPU to feature its impressive 3D V-Cache technology. AMD's 3D V-Cache powered Ryzen CPUs deliver some of the best gaming performance in the desktop space, so this is great news for laptop and notebook gamers.

It's set to debut in a single product, though, the ROG Strix SCAR 17 X3D laptop from ASUS - the first device to use "exclusive AMD 3D V-Cache technology." The addition of 3D V-Cache stacked L3 cache technology brings the on-chip memory capacity up to an impressive 144 MB, and this is paired with a max boost clock speed of 5.4GHz in a 55W TDP package - making it one of the fastest mobile processors currently available.

With 3D V-Cache in the desktop space delivering a sizable boost to gaming performance in resolutions like 1080p and 1440p, it's the sort of product that makes perfect sense for gaming laptops. Not to mention the lower power draw of X3D CPUs being ideal for the efficiency-is-king mobile market.

Reports indicate that Sony's new PlayStation 5 model that's set to release in 2023 could use a new 5nm SoC, but the new revised console is more likely to use the chip found in the current lightweight models.

Sony is expected to launch a new PlayStation 5 model in 2023 that ships without a disc drive. Now there are reports that the new model could use a 5nm SoC from TSMC's N5 process technology. Rumors go on to say that the shift to N5 could alleviate the need for the PS5's liquid metal thermal interface material.

This new PS5 model may not actually use a 5nm chip and instead stick with the current 6nm Oberon Plus SoC that is found in the newest PlayStation 5 hardware revisions. Sony has released a number of new PlayStation 5 model with significant weight reductions in an effort to shrink overseas freight shipping costs and streamline console production.

Microsoft's latest 10-K SEC filing gives exact figures on how much revenue its operating segments generated in FY23, including Xbox gaming.

Microsoft's latest FY23 results saw the company generating $211.915 billion in annual earnings, driven primarily by growth in cloud and server.

Other segments like Xbox gaming were down year-over-year, but others including search and news advertising, dynamics, and LinkedIn saw healthy upticks of $617 million, $750 million, and $1.329 billion, respectively.

Reddit has announced that it is now testing a new way for people to identify when an account is legitimate and verified, potentially helping to prevent the spread of misinformation and scams.

The new 'Official' label will offer a visual indicator on specific accounts. And the number of accounts that will get that label is extremely small right now. In fact, Reddit says that the number of accounts that are currently testing the label is a small double-digit number. That suggests that the chances of you coming across one could be very small indeed.

Reddit says that the only profiles that now have the 'Official' label are those that belong to organizations with whom the company already has existing relationships. Those accounts are also apparently keen to engage with redditors and communities on the platform, so there's no doubt that some cherry-picking has gone on here.

WhatsApp has announced that it is now rolling out a new feature that will make it easier for people to send short video messages to each other. Users can already send short audio clips, but this new feature adds video to the mix for the first time.

The new feature, aptly called instant video messages, allows people to quickly record and then share short videos directly in the main chat window.

Each video can be 60 seconds long at most which does ensure that people won't be sending long videos to each other. This instant video message feature is clearly designed for those times when taking a photo of something just won't cut it, and a video becomes the best medium for explaining something.

Adobe just brought another AI feature to Photoshop, a smart new capability called 'generative expand' which is now in beta.

This follows the arrival of 'generative fill' and as the name suggests, the new Firefly-based capability taps the power of AI to expand an image.

You can see a demo of how it works in the video in the above tweet. If you have a small image, and you want to make it a larger canvas, you can simply define a new expanded boundary for the image, and Photoshop will literally fill in the blanks.

Google has announced that it is delaying the expansion of its Find My Device feature while it waits for Apple to get its ducks in a row for iPhone users.

The Find My Device network, similar to Apple's Find My, is designed to help people locate missing devices and items. They could be headphones or wallets thanks to the addition of AirTag-like item trackers, but Google says that it won't roll anything out until Apple is ready to ensure that people can't use Find My Device accessories to track people.

Google made the announcement in a blog post discussing other item tracker changes including the rolling out of anti-stalking features aimed specifically at Apple's AirTags. Now Google appears to have decided that it won't add new devices to the world, via its Find My Device network, until Apple is ready for iOS to also have similar protection in place.

After announcing them during the I/O 2023 event, Google has now started to roll out alerts that are designed to warn people if an unknown Apple AirTag is being used to track them. Apple also announced the same feature earlier this year.

Apple's AirTags are among the best Bluetooth item trackers around but they have also garnered a reputation as the tracker of choice for stalkers. Their long battery life and hyper-accurate tracking make them excellent for keeping tabs on people, which can be bad if you're being tracked by someone you don't want to track you. Apple already offers an app for Android users so they can identify unknown AirTags, but now Google is building the same feature into Android at an operating system level.

Android devices will alert people if an unknown Bluetooth tracker has been separated from its owner and is traveling with them. If that's the case, it's possible that it was planted and being used nefariously.

Samsung might have only just announced the Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, but it's already added a new version to the lineup, Say hello to the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic Golf Edition complete with a green rotating bezel.

The new model is only available on Samsung's Korean website right now and it comes with special features that make it more suited to use on the golf course. Those included a special band and caddy app to help people work on their handicap when out on the course.

The new watch is essentially the same as the standard Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, however. That means that it comes in 43mm and 47mm configurations and features a Super AMOLED display with a 432 x 432 or 480 x 480 resolution depending on the size that you choose. It also features a Sapphire Crystal cover to ensure that nothing gets scratched. Other specifications include a 300/435mAh battery and Exynos W930 chip. The whole thing is powered by Google Wear OS 4, too.

Sony has sold 40 million PlayStation 5 consoles to consumers, the company today announced.

Worldwide PS5 sell-through has passed 40 million units as of July 16, 2023. These figures are sell-through and are actual sales to consumers, so the data is more indicative of the PS5's installed base.

Sony Interactive Entertainment typically reports PlayStation 5 console shipments on a quarterly basis, but the games division has started to divulge key info on console sell-through as the system hits specific milestones.

The Apple Watch is getting some new software this fall when watchOS 10 finally ships. The update was announced during WWDC on June 5 and it's been in developer beta ever since. The latest beta includes one of the features that wowed everyone when it was previewed - a new animated Snoopy watch faces.

Apple has only just added the new animated watch faces and people have been enjoying it ever since the updated beta arrived a day or two ago.

The new watch faces show Snoopy and Woodstock but rather than be static images they're animated in such a way that they react to the time, The result is that the watch hands can knock the pair over while they're in position and the effect is as cute as it sounds.

Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 15 lineup this September and two of the four phones are going to have something new - an Action button - assuming all of the rumors are true. And if they are, iOS 17 might just have leaked what that Action button will be able to do.

The Apple Watch Ultra already has an Action button of course and it can be used for opening apps, launching features, and firing off shortcuts. With that in mind, we expected something similar from the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max when they get their own Action buttons. And sure enough, it looks like we were right on the money.

MacRumors reports that code snippets found in the iOS 16 beta 4 release have pointed the way to nine different options that users can choose when assigning an action to the new Action button. Many of them are exactly what you'd expect, with few surprises to be found.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max is already Apple's most expensive model and the iPhone 13 Pro Max was the same before it. But now the iPhone 15 Pro Max could be about to take things to a whole new level if one analyst turns out to be correct.

We've already heard rumors that Apple was planning to increase the price of its best iPhones this year but this particular analyst is the first to share numbers rather than simply say things would be going up. Unfortunately, the numbers they shared aren't great and it could be enough to make some people look elsewhere for their flagship phone.

The analyst in question is Tim Long of Barclays and in a research note seen by MacRumors he appears to have said that the iPhone 15 Pro will cost $100 more than the iPhone 14 Pro. But when it comes to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, that could cost as much as $200 more than the model that came before it. Thankfully, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus aren't expected to hike prices at all.

Intel was said to be considering price hikes for its Core processors, an idea floated by the rumor mill, and one which is wholly untrue, the chip giant has told us in no uncertain terms.

This started on the grapevine with a report from German tech site PC Games Hardware, citing word from wholesalers in that country (who allegedly received a letter from Intel). And after that got picked up elsewhere, Intel let Tom's Hardware know that it was completely false.

Intel stated: "Generally, Intel does not comment on speculation regarding price changes to its portfolio. However, we can confirm that Intel has not sent the letter described to customers or partners and has not initiated a price change to its CPU portfolio at this time. We have no further comment to share on the matter."

Diablo 4 players using any kind of mod might want to tread very carefully or even rethink that idea, in light of a new post from Blizzard on this practice.

PC Gamer spotted that Adam Fletcher, who is Global Community Development Director for Diablo, posted the following on Blizzard's forums:

Yet another rumor has emerged about how Intel's next-gen CPUs will turn out, and this time we've been treated to the full details - including clock speeds - of the non-K (locked) versions of Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh chips.

As ever, add your own seasoning, and don't be stingy with the stuff either, but you can see the purported line-up as outlined in the above tweet from leaker Chi11eddog (who has provided previous spillage on Intel's 14th-gen processors).

The details underline that only one processor will be changed in terms of its core loadout, despite other rumors floating around that were hopeful of beefier core counts for two or maybe even three of the Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs.

NVIDIA no longer plans to make an RTX 4090 Ti graphics card, we're told by a well-known leaker with their ear to the ground in the GPU industry.

There won't be a supercharged flagship Lovelace GPU - indeed, if there ever were firm plans for a 4090 Ti - or so Kopite7kimi informs us.

What we might get, though, is new versions of the RTX 4070 and 4060 made with "low-grade AD103 and AD106 chips."