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Sony Project Q handheld leak shows that it's running Android, but functionality will be limited
The Sony Project Q handheld is an interesting product currently in development, where at a glance, you've got a PlayStation 5 DualSense controller split in two with an LCD screen attached in the middle. For those dreaming about the Sony PSP days, back when the company released a dedicated PlayStation Portable gaming handheld, this device is very different.
Sony Project Q is being positioned as a pure streaming device to stream content directly from your PlayStation 5 console so you can play PS5 titles in handheld mode. So there's no native gaming action at all. A new leaked video over on Twitter (or X) posted by @Zuby_Tech shows the handheld in action, at least running a version of Android as its OS.
We see the user navigating the UI, which looks smooth albeit a little basic, though we see apps relating to testing, firmware, battery life, Wi-Fi, and even a video player. If this is real (and we'd wager that it wouldn't be that hard to create a fake Sony Project Q handheld), we should undoubtedly expect major revisions before the product is finalized and ready to ship.
Xbox is giving away pizza-scented Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Xbox Wireless Controllers
It's not often that gaming hardware is scented; that's the sort of thing relegated to the candle industry. But, as part of a new partnership with Paramount to celebrate the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Xbox has gone and created pizza-scented Xbox Wireless Controllers that it's giving away on Twitter. Or on X or whatever it's being called today.
Simply follow the Xbox Game Pass account, retweet the sweepstakes tweet (or X), and you're in the running to win a pizza-scented Xbox Wireless Controller that can be used to play Xbox or PC games. Per the images supplied by Xbox, it does look like you apply the scent to the pizza slice attached to the controller, so it's not the actual shell (yep) that gives off that pizza time smell.
If you're in New York, you can head to the Microsoft Experience Center on Fifth Avenue from 4-7 pm ET on August 2, 2023, to eat pizza while playing games with the pizza-scented controllers. Though, with all the pizza in the room, we're not sure how you'll be able to tell whether the fragrance is coming from a classic New York slice.
GoDeal24 July Sale: Genuine Microsoft Office and Windows 10/11 from just an incredible $7
Applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, One Note, Access, Teams, and Skype make it easier and faster to complete all of your projects with Microsoft Office 2021's numerous new features and optimized system. Office 2021 Professional has added new co-authoring features, data types, new functions, translation and editing tools, motion graphics, ease-of-use features, and much more. As has always been the case with Office, you can look forward to a new interface with a more contemporary design and a well-organized collection of work tools that are easy to understand. But advanced features mean expensive fees for the new Office productivity suite.
GoDeal24 can give you the most favorable software keys. You can get Office 2021 Professional Plus for $24.25, which means you can enjoy the whole application at a 90% discount. So for such a low cost, Microsoft Office 2021 Professional is an excellent option for the customer who needs an effective and efficient office suite. This is not the price floor of GoDeal24 yet. If you shop in GoDeal24 with your friends, there are multi-keys Office and Windows series packages for less money. You may find more surprises in the following.
Corsair and Phison release new Link State firmware update for MP700 SSD to fix heat issues
Corsair, like all purveyors of PCIe Gen5 SSDs to date, specifically states that its Phison E26-controlled MP700 must be adequately cooled by the end-user for the drive to function properly or even at all. However, that didn't stop some reviewers of the 10,000 MB/s capable SSD from posting benchmarks while running the drive without any heatsink or airflow because why not, right?
Whether or not this was intended to be malicious or just an innocent demonstration of what happens if the end-user doesn't provide any cooling, the result is the same. Some readers/viewers took it as an opportunity to trash the drive.
As we see it, Corsair could have just pointed to the "SSD cooling required" included in its advertisement and as stated on the back of the drive's packaging:
Confirmed: Spotify just hiked its prices in a ton of countries
If you're a subscriber to Spotify in one of its various Premium guises you're going to have to pay more the next time your billing period comes around. That's after the Swedish music streamer increased the price of all of its Premium subscriptions in a host of countries.
Spotify announced the change in a press release in which it confirmed that it will be emailing customers starting right now, warning them of the increase in price. Those who don't want to pay it can of course cancel their subscription and existing users will get a one-month grace period before the new price becomes effective.
Under the new prices, the Spotify Premium Individual plan will sell for $10.99 per month while Premium Duo will increase to $14.99. Premium Family will cost $16.99 while Premium Student will cost $5.99.
Continue reading: Confirmed: Spotify just hiked its prices in a ton of countries (full post)
Dying Light dev Techland becomes Tencent's latest subsidiary
Techland, the Polish developer of the popular Dying Light games, has become the next subsidiary of Tencent.
Tencent's gaming empire grows with the addition of Techland. Management for the Polish game dev today announced that Tencent is "in the process of becoming Techland's majority shareholder," effectively making the dev team a subsidiary for the overseas gaming giant.
Techland founder and CEO Paweł Marchewka says that the Tencent partnership will essentially supercharge the developer's capabilities. Tencent's coffers are indeed deep, with the company's video games unit generating roughly $23.7 billion USD from both domestic and international online games. The Chinese firm is known for its ownership buyouts of studios like Riot Games (League of Legends), Leyou Technologies (Warframe), and Funcom (Conan Exiles), and is involved in 45 video games companies in some extent including full ownership, variable stake, majority shares, and minority shares.
Continue reading: Dying Light dev Techland becomes Tencent's latest subsidiary (full post)
Intel Arrow Lake CPUs rumored to not have hyper-threading, but that doesn't mean they'll suck
The rumors around Intel's Arrow Lake processors are starting to pile up, and the latest one is a bit of a shocker in all honesty - that the chips which will follow next-gen Raptor Lake Refresh will do away with hyper-threading.
Yes, you read that right - hyper-threading will apparently fall by the wayside with 15th-gen silicon, according to the latest video packed full of Intel leaks from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) on YouTube.
The good news is that MLID has aired rumors in the past promising huge gains for Arrow Lake - we're talking the CPUs being up to 40% faster than Meteor Lake (the Core i5 desktop offering that was supposedly canceled) in multi-core - and that kind of huge gain still holds true. In other words, the sample processors used to produce that major (rumored) uplift already had hyper-threading disabled.
NVIDIA underlines that its RTX IO tech is part of the puzzle for curing stuttering frame rates
NVIDIA recently announced its RTX IO tech is present in Portal: Prelude RTX, and will be in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart - and the company just underlined that it reckons this fresh innovation will help to fix stuttering in games.
Stuttering is one of the more frustrating experiences to blight a gaming session, as smoothness is everything when it comes to immersion - and indeed aiming in the likes of shooters.
As Wccftech reports, NVIDIA has shared a further statement on RTX IO to make it clear that Team Green is expecting the tech to do a good deal of heavy lifting in terms of minimizing any stuttering.
Elon Musk says Cybertruck demand is so 'off the hook you can't even see the hook'
During a recent earnings call at Tesla, company CEO Elon Musk touched on the amount of demand for the highly anticipated Cybertruck.
According to a recent crowdsource data tracker Tesla has received more than 1.9 million pre-orders for the cyber truck illustrating the demand for what could be Tesla's most anticipated vehicle yet. Elon Musk echoed these same sentiments during Tesla's most recent earnings call, who described the overwhelming demand for the Tesla Cybertruck as "so off the hook, you can't even see the hook."
For those that don't know, Tesla announced the Cybertruck back in 2019, but due to unfortunate production delays that can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic choking up material pipelines, the release of the first-of-its-kind EV had to be continuously postponed. However, recent news from Tesla suggests that the cyber truck will begin shipping by the end of the year, with the company planning to produce 500,000 cyber trucks annually at its peak manufacturing capacity.
Elon Musk is about to re-brand Twitter, the first steps to 'the everything app' have been taken
Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has announced that the iconic blue bird is about to fly away from the platform as the company ushers in a fresh rebranding to the letter X.
The news came from none other than Musk himself, who took to his personal Twitter account to announce a soft launch of the platform rebranding to the letter X. Musk is already changed his personal profile picture to what will be Twitter's official logo, indicating the first monumental step forward towards the Musk's overall goal of converting Twitter into "the everything app."
Musk posted to his Twitter account a request for designs on the new logo, saying that if a good enough design is posted, it will go live worldwide today. For those that don't know, Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October of last year. Since then, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has made several big changes to the platform, some of which have been met with healthy criticism while others were met with major support.
Former Google executive drops stark warning about robots replacing human for sex
A former Google executive has warned during a podcast that the emergence of artificial intelligence-powered devices combined with the power of augmented/virtual reality headsets will result in robots replacing humans for sex.
The stark warning was given by Google X's former chief of business officer Mo Gawdat who appeared on the impact theory podcast hosted by Tom Bilyeu. For those that don't know, Google Access X is the company's Semi secret research and development arm that was created in 2010 as an effort to develop moonshot-based businesses under Google's parent company, Alphabet.
Gawdat explained during the podcast that virtual reality and augmented reality headsets, such as Apple's recently announced Vision Pro or Meta's Quest 3, will soon be used to create sexual experiences.
Amazon to bring contactless palm-payment scanning to Whole Foods by end of 2023
Amazon has been pushing its biometric authentication system since 2019, and now the company has showcased its one palm payment system will be coming to Whole Foods by the end of the year.
The newly announced expansion will be the first of its kind as the contactless biometric payment processor called Amazon One will be introducing the new technology to more than 500 Whole Foods stores across the US by the end of 2023.
For those that are looking to use the new technology, Amazon has announced that it will be rolling out its sign-up either online or at the site of first purchase using the system. If you are signing up at a Whole Foods, the technology will scan your palm when you hold it over the device.
Researchers move to merge artificial intelligence with human brain cells
Australia's Office of National Intelligence has awarded a $600,000 AUD grant to a Melbourne-based startup focused on the merging of artificial intelligence and human brain cells.
The Melbourne-based startup called Cortical Labs successfully demonstrated last year that a cluster of approximately 800,000 brain cells within a petri dish is able to play a game of Pong. This scientific achievement attracted significant attention, resulting in the US $404,745 grant. According to a recent press release, the team is looking to grow human brain cells onto silicon chips, which would then be taught to perform goal-directed tasks.
According to the researchers that are working on the project, this new technology has the capabilities in the future of surpassing the performance of purely silicon-based hardware. Notably, the outcomes of successfully creating such a technology would have massive implications across multiple fields of technology, science, culture, robotics, and more.
NASA announces there are trillions of 'rogue' Earth-sized planets wandering through our galaxy
Research from NASA and Japan's Osaka University indicates that rogue planets, worlds that aren't linked by gravity to a star, overwhelmingly outnumber the number of planets that are gravitationally linked to stars.
The scientist's findings can be traced back to a nine-year survey called Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) which was conducted at the Mount John University Observatory located in New Zealand.
NASA explains in a blog post that due to the phenomena of mass warping the fabric of space-time, researchers are able to "microlens" objects, which is when an object comes in a near-perfect alignment with light from a distant star, the light bends around the nearest object it passes by.
Elon Musk explains the hidden meanings behind the Tesla and SpaceX logos
Elon Musk has said that there are hidden meanings behind the Space X logo as well as the Tesla logo, with the Twitter owner explaining on his platform each of the stories behind the iconic symbols.
Mosque has taken to his personal Twitter account to reveal some back story on the Tesla logo and the Space X logo, which both feature very prominent letters - Tesla's "T" and SpaceX's "X". These discussions from Musk come ahead of the recently announced changes of Twitter's rebranding from the iconic blue bird to Musk's new "X" platform.
The CEO of Tesla took to his personal Twitter account to explain that the inspiration behind the Tesla "T" logo comes from a cross-section of an electric motor". As for the idea behind SpaceX's branding, The company CEO said the inspiration is Similar to Tesla's as the X is "like a rocket trajectory". It's no secret that Musk has an affinity with the letter X as the Twitter owner recently launched a new AI company called xAI, which will be focussing on unlocking the mysteries of the universe.
SpaceX publishes two wallpaper-worthy photographs of the Starship Super Heavy booster
SpaceX is taken to its Twitter account to showcase 2 wallpaper-worthy images of its Starship super heavy booster located on its launchpad.
The Elon Musk-led company took to its Twitter on July 21 to reveal the giant launch vehicle position on its launchpad at the Starbase facility in southern Texas ahead of the company's planned second orbital launch attempt. Starship Super Heavy contains 33 Raptor engines that are visible in the second image. Additionally, Booster 9, as shown in the second photograph, has its Raptor engines hidden by the launchpad, and both images display an upwards gorgeous upwards-facing orange light to resemble the firing of the booster.
For those that don't know, SpaceX's Starship is expected to be the transportation that will take humans from Earth to the moon and beyond. Predominantly the company is aiming to create a vehicle that is capable of landing on the surface of Mars with the capabilities of setting up the first base on the surface of the Red Planet, hence the 100-ton carrying capacity.
Intel Core i5-14600 CPU leak suggests it won't beef up core count, and we get a hint on pricing
Another leak has sprung around Intel's inbound Raptor Lake Refresh processors, and it again underlines that the Core i5-14600 won't up its core count.
You may recall that a previous rumor suggested the Core i5-14600 (and 14600K) would have 8 performance cores plus 8 efficiency cores (8+8), upping the performance core count by 2 from the 13600 - which would be a bold step.
However, that isn't the case according to another (more recent) leak from Benchlife, which claimed the 14600 will stick with a 6+8 configuration - and that's now backed up by this new leak from chi11eddog, a regular hardware rumor-monger on Twitter.
Overclocker pushes DDR5 speeds to over DDR5-9000 with AMD's game changing AM5 BIOS update
Last week we reported on the new AMD AM5 AGESA 1.0.0.7B BIOS update for Ryzen CPUs, with the new motherboard firmware opening the door to faster DDR5 memory speeds and overclocking. With the release already out in the wild, we saw several examples of boards and kits hitting DDR5-8000 - a massive increase over the previous limit of DDR5-6000.
The update brings memory performance and overclocking in line with what we've been seeing in the world of Intel hardware, with this new result showcasing that Zen 4 memory overclocking is right up there. Thanks to world-renowned overclocker HiCookie, we've got a new record for DDR5 memory kits on a Ryzen 7 7800X3D system.
As per this post on Facebook, we can see DDR5-9000 speeds at 1.4V on a B650E Tachyon motherboard. With an exact speed of 9058 MHz, we're well and truly on the way to seeing DDR5 memory on AM5 boards cross the DDR5-10000 barrier - and compete with Intel regarding OC action.
World of Warcraft player tricks AI news site into creating a fake story about Glorbo
"Since they started hinting at it in Hearthstone in 1994, it was obvious that they would introduce Glorbo to World of Warcraft sooner or later," writes kaefer_kriegerin over on Reddit. The post references a character that doesn't exist; it's totally made up. The replies were all on board with the fiction, with one reply adding that the addition of Glorbo was exciting, but the character was OP or overpowered and could present a problem for WoW's meta.
The goal of the post was to trick an AI newsbot into posting the announcement as real news, and it succeeded! The outlet The Portal picked up the story, or whatever AI model the site used to publish news, where the text "I just really want some major bot-operated news websites to publish an article about this" was also included in the write-up.
What's concerning is that there's no confirmation or text on the publication's page acknowledging that it uses AI to generate news stories - with The Portal crediting the piece to Lucy Reed. Glorbo isn't real, and this little exercise made headlines at popular Blizard destination Wowhead.com - which even led to the original post being taken down, but not before it was archived.
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB launches with lower than MSRP price in Germany as first reviews arrive
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB GPU, which doubles the VRAM capacity over the existing 8GB model, has launched with very little fanfare. The main issue, relative to performance, is that the increase in memory capacity has seen an MSRP increase to USD 499 and EUR 549, compared to USD 399 and EUR 439 for the 8GB version.
And, like we've seen with other GPU launches in recent memory, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is currently being sold at a price lower than the MSRP set by NVIDIA. So far, there's a single example in Germany, with retailer Mindfactory offering the MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Ventus 3X OC for €519, which is €30 lower than the MSRP - and even discounted from the launch price of €538.
The low price hasn't set the sales charts on fire, with Videocardz.com reporting that after 24 hours, the number of units sold was listed at 10. So then, what about the card's performance compared to the 8GB model when playing titles that could benefit from additional VRAM capacity?






















