Latest News - Page 845

Apple is reportedly working on its own framework that will enable the company to create its own Large Language Models (LLMs), the underlying technology powering services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing.

The news comes from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who reported that Apple is working on a framework called "Ajax," which will enable the company to develop custom LLMs that will power chatbots. Gurman reports that Apple employees are referring to the company's in-house chatbot as 'Apple GPT', and that AI has become a top priority at the company as Apple wishes to compete with the leading AI companies OpenAI and Google.

However, the Bloomberg reporter states that Apple has yet to land on a concise and clear strategy for rolling out AI-powered products to consumers. Notably, Apple considered partnering with OpenAI in an attempt to adopt its powerful technology running ChatGPT. However, both companies were unable to reach an agreement. Furthermore, this Ajax framework is built on Google's Jax learning framework that's powered by the Google Cloud.

Documents released by the National Archives has loosely tied the assassination of John F. Kennedy to UFOs, according to reports.

Popular Mechanics has reported that the National Archives has already released thousands of documents that include information about the assassination of JFK, which was sourced from the CIA, FBI, and the State Department, along with other government agencies. Moreover, these documents contained topics such as Lee Harvey Oswald's contacts with Soviet/Cuban officials, and, most importantly, the name of the CIA official who intercepted Oswald's mail in the months leading up to JFKs assassination.

According to these documents, the CIA official named Reuben Efron, who was intercepting Oswald's mail, had a UFO encounter while on a train through the Soviet Union. This CIA official was not alone, and the document names Senator Richard Russell, a Democrat of Georgia, Army colonel, and member of the Warren Commission. The CIA report describes the sighting as the individuals seeing two "flying saucers".

Samsung has been careful not to use the word affordable for the launch of its massive Samsung 98-inch QLED Q80C 4K Smart TV, now available in the US, Europe, and Australia - because we're not at a stage where displays this size are anywhere near affordable. But, using the word 'accessible' makes sense as the USD 7,999 and AUD 11,649 is almost half the price of its predecessor, the Samsung Neo QLED 98" QN90A 4K Smart TV.

It's a massive price drop, with the display still sporting the same high-end QLED features across Samsung's premium line-up - from Quantum Dot technology to improve colors to Quantum HDR+ and a 4K resolution at 120 frames per second via HDMI 2.1. 98 inches is huge for a TV, so if you've got the space (and the money to spare), getting one of the biggest TVs on the market could be the thing to take your gaming and movie watching to the next level.

Sporting the company's latest processor and Tizen Operating System, it's a display packed with great gaming features - including changing the 16:9 aspect ratio to an ultrawide 32:9.

Everything in the solar system orbits the Sun, every planet, every asteroid, every comet. The Sun's gravity is the glue that holds the solar system together, but what if Earth suddenly stopped orbiting the Sun?

The short answer, we would all die either immediately or in about a month's time, it depends on how fast Earth stopped orbiting the Sun. If the Earth stopped orbiting the Sun immediately, everyone would be hurled off the surface of Earth into space, similar to the inertia felt when a driver slams on their brakes. However, if the Earth came to a slow stop, no one would die immediately, and most people wouldn't even realize what had happened, but death would be guaranteed.

As Earth is rotating the Sun, its orbit is pushing against the Sun's strong gravitational pull. Removing the orbiting factor means there is no tug-of-war between the Earth's orbit and the Sun's gravitational pull, meaning the Earth will eventually be pulled into the Sun. This process would take approximately two months. The first two weeks would show hardly any change at all, but as the Earth gets closer to the Sun, the stronger the gravitational pull, meaning the faster the Earth travels towards its doom.

You might be wondering what Hall Effect Sticks are, and if you've ever heard about or experienced the phenomenon known as 'stick drift,' then all you need to know is that Hall Effect sticks are anti-drift. 'Stick drift' is when an analog stick on a controller moves in a direction without any input, with the issue making headlines in recent years due to Nintendo Switch JoyCon controllers being prone to stick drift and even the official PS5 DualSense.

GameSir G7 SE Controller includes Hall Effect Sticks for its analog controls, which feature non-contact magnetic sensors to improve accuracy and fine movement. This is paired with Hall Effect Magnetic Sensors for the analog triggers to ensure the same level of performance when aiming and firing in an FPS.

The licensed Xbox controller sports a physical design and make-up similar to the official pad from Microsoft and is available in black or white - with the option to change the look with magnetic faceplates. The good news is that it's currently on sale (via Amazon) for USD 44.99 - link below - so it won't break the bank, and it's compatible with Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC.

It's been a long time coming, but we're getting more and more info from different sources pointing to a September launch for AMD's new mid-range RDNA 3 offerings - the Radeon RX 7700 and the Radeon RX 7800. Cards that will fill the gap between the mainstream Radeon RX 7600 and the flagship combo, which is the Radeon RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX.

The latest comes from John Peddle Research, citing "various leaks from Asia," the cards will not only launch in September but will get an official unveiling from AMD at the upcoming Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany, in late August. Using Gamescom as a place to announce new products is not uncommon, and we've seen NVIDIA use the venue in the past to present closer looks at its upcoming GPU releases.

Where it gets interesting is that John Peddle Research is claiming that AMD will launch "at least two" but maybe five new GPUs to fill out the RDNA 3 line-up now that the remaining stock for previous-gen RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards is being sold through globally.

Daniel Sheehan, a top attorney that is responsible for representing some of the biggest UFO whistleblowers before Congress, such as David Grusch, has told the DailyMail that the US government has in its possession a UFO capable of warping space-time.

Sheehan is representing a new UFO whistleblower that claims that the US government recovered a flying saucer approximately 30 feet wide that crash-landed into the Earth. The attorney told the publication that US government personnel attempted to extract the craft from the rock it was stuck into and stopped once it was successfully dislodged by several feet to preserve its overall integrity. Sheehan goes on to say that an individual was directed to enter the craft, and "Upon entering, the man discovered an interior as vast as a football stadium."

The attorney continued and said that not only was the craft larger on the inside, describing the enormity as large as a "football stadium," but also time was moving at a different speed within the spacecraft. When the individual exited the ship, four hours had passed, but only minutes from the individual's perspective, leading the attorney to suggest that the spacecraft has capabilities of warping space-time. When asked about the location of this spacecraft, Sheehan declined to comment, saying there is a lack of corroborated evidence to say any location.

MSI held a livestream that benchmarked the company's new MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X 16GB Slim, comparing its performance to the 8GB non-slim Gaming X model on the same system across a handful of popular games at 1080p. And the results were the same across Cyberpunk 2077, running with Ultra settings to CS:GO to Hogwarts Legacy with DLSS and Frame Generation. Actually, marginally slower in most cases.

The first title benchmarked, Cyberpunk 2077, delivered 91.4 fps on the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB versus 90.6 fps on the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Not that it's a title that demands 16GB of VRAM to play in 1080p but the only benchmark where the new GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB outperformed the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB model in MSI's 1080p benchmarks was CS:GO. In the popular competitive shooter, the frame rate increased from an already fast 419 fps up to 445 fps.

Ahead of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB's launch, which sees the price increase from an MSRP of USD 399 to USD 499, NVIDIA's information on the card's relative performance was that, for the most part, it would be the same unless there's a very specific VRAM bottleneck. Or for those taking advantage of its creator-friendly capabilities, where more VRAM is always better.

AMD and its AM5 motherboard partners are rolling out the new AGESA 1.0.0.7B BIOS, which improves DDR5 memory support. And early reports indicate that the previous limit of DDR5-6000 has increased significantly to DDR5-7000 and even DDR5-8000.

The new BIOS improves memory synchronization and stability with high-speed DDR5 modules with SOC voltage tuning within the 1.2-1.3V range, which is within the limits outlined by AMD. This post over on Twitter shows the new BIOS running on an ASRock B650 LiveMixer motherboard and DDR5 memory, hitting an impressive speed of 8000 MT/s.

This post on Twitter from chi11eddog also showcases an even faster DDR5-8200 result with the new BIOS on a more premium MSI X670E Ace board. Specs-wise, the build is rocking the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU with OLOy DDR5 memory rated at 7600 MT/s overclocked-a massive improvement over previous AM5 DDR5 speeds.

Owners of Google Wear OS-powered Smartwatches like the Pixel Watch can now download and install WhatsApp on their wrists for the very first time. The news was confirmed by Meta via a post to Twitter.

None of this should be all that surprising to anyone paying attention of course. The WhatsApp Wear OS app was teased during Google I/O so it was only a matter of time until the app was released.

Those hoping to install WhatsApp will need to have a smartwatch running Wear OS 3 (or later) but assuming that's all squared away there shouldn't be all that many problems. The release also comes just as Samsung is expected to announce its next generation of smartwatches. The Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic are expected to be announced on July 26 and there's some suggestion that they will be the first to run Wear OS 4. If so, this timing from Meta and Google, bringing WhatsApp to Wear OS today, is unlikely to have happened by accident.

Samsung is set to announce the Galaxy Watch 6 smartwatch during the Unpacked event on July 26 and now we know a little more about what apps it will have to offer. One of those apps will be capable of using the watch's built-in temperature sensor to measure the temperature of its surroundings.

That app will be called Thermo Check, and it will tie into the new Skin Temperature API to use the built-in infrared sensor. That means that it can be used to measure the temperature of things without even touching them, which sounds pretty cool indeed.

In fact, that's exactly what Samsung is advertising the app as being able to do, adding that it will be useful for meaning the temperature of meals before they are eaten or water before going for a swim. The lack of a physical contact requirement is a game changer, to be sure.

You'd need to have been hiding in a cave without phone signal to have missed the fact that large language models, or LLMs, are massive right now. ChatGPT is the most popular, but there are others and while Apple is behind in this market it's working to catch up, according to a new report.

That report claims that Apple has built a framework called Ajax that can be used to create new chatbots. In fact, it's already been doing it and one of those chatbots is being used inside Apple right now.

That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman who says that the internal chatbot is only available to some employees who have been approved to access it. And even then, anything that chatbot creates can't be used in customer-facing products. Some inside Apple are calling it Apple GPT.

Samsung could be about to enter the smart ring market with the Galaxy Ring, according to a new report. And while we don't have concrete information on when the Galaxy Ring will go on sale, we do know that at least one manufacturing partner has been lined up.

Oura is perhaps the most famous company that works on smart rings today but it could be about to get some big new competition, and they don't come much bigger than Samsung. Apple has also been reported to have an interest in smart rings with various patents confirming as much. However, it appears that Samsung is the closest to having something ready to ship.

According to a report by the Korean website The Elec, Samsung has Japanese outfit Meiko lined up and ready to produce the printed circuit boards that would be used in a smart ring. We don't know for sure that Galaxy Ring is the name that Samsung will use, but that's the one being bandied around right now at the very least. And it does make sense given Samsung's other product names including Galaxy Watch.

If you own a Mac laptop and are worried about what might happen to your data if someone steals it, it turns out that you don't actually need to worry all that much after all.

That's because there are tons of security features already built right into macOS Ventura and Apple has detailed all of them in a swish new ad that runs for more than eight minutes and might just be worth every single one of them. Because it's pretty hilarious.

The ad follows The Underdogs, a group of people that we've seen in past ads of this kind and are out there trying to create a business using Apple devices and services. In this case, they're set to give a presentation to a potential business partner but the laptop housing that presentation gets stolen.

On the same day Microsoft announced that it would extend the Activision merger deadline, Blizzard confirms plans to break exclusivity on its Battle.net PC launcher.

For quite a long time, Battle.net has been the only place you could play Blizzard Entertainment PC games. There's a good reason for this: Blizzard's proprietary storefront/launcher allows the publisher to keep all revenues made from purchases and not pay a royalty to third-party platform-holders. After all, Blizzard already brings its games to Xbox, PlayStation, and the Nintendo Switch. But now with the $68.7 billion merger with Microsoft on the horizon, Blizzard is changing its tune.

Today Blizzard announced that it will bring a few of its games over to Steam, but the exact range of titles remains unclear. Blizzard says that Overwatch 2 will be the first game on Steam, and the store page is now live. "We're excited to announce that we are bringing a selection of our games to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2... which will be available on the platform on August 10!"

Netflix has just got rid of its 'basic' subscription plan for the US and UK, and while those who are currently signed up to it can stay on the basic tier, nobody else can take this option going forward.

The basic subscription was the cheapest way to watch Netflix without adverts, but now, as spotted by Cordbusters, that's the 'standard' plan in the US and UK (following Canada's lead, where this policy was already adopted).

The difference is that you'll pay $15.49 per month for a standard subscription, whereas basic was pitched at $9.99, a good deal cheaper.

The 16GB version of NVIDIA's RTX 4060 Ti graphics card is now on shelves, and the pricing of this new variant is pretty much as we feared - verging on the ridiculous, certainly in Europe at launch, and we don't imagine the US market will fare much better when more models emerge.

So, to Europe first, where VideoCardz spotted (via ComputerBase) that the initial asking price of the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is €659 at a German retailer (not MindFactory, but Nootebooksbillinger).

The interesting - and, well, rather ludicrous - reality is that you can purchase a baseline RTX 4070 model at the same retailer for less money. The asking price for the cheapest RTX 4070 is 10% less, in fact (well, almost - it's €599).

AMD's Zen 5 processors have been grabbing some limelight in the rumor mill of late, and a fresh sighting of the CPUs has been made.

As Tom's Hardware spotted, the developer of the AIDA64 benchmarking suite has just added preliminary support for Zen 5 chips.

Specifically, the AIDA64 Engineer 6.90 software release notes make it clear that Zen 5 (Ryzen 8000) processors can now be recognized.

BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft and Activision have officially extended their merger agreement into October.

Last night, the Microsoft-Activision merger deadline came and went. As UK regulators at the CMA weigh Microsoft's latest offers, both Microsoft and Activision have delayed the merger deadline in an attempt to safeguard the $68.7 billion deal from any further elongated investigations from the Competition and Markets Authority.

"Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have extended the merger agreement deadline to 10/18. We're optimistic about getting this done, and excited about bringing more games to more players everywhere," Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer said.

Despite being released in 2013, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V is still teeming with players, and now those players can push the game to its absolute limits graphically with this eye-watering mod.

While Grand Theft Auto V is certainly considered an old game, the Rockstar title is still one of the best-looking games available, even surpassing some of the most recently released AAA titles. However, those graphical achievements are reached through additional downloadable mods, and thanks to developers such as Digital Dreams, Grand Theft Auto V is still being talked about for its graphical potential.

As demonstrated by the above video posted to the Digital Dreams YouTube channel, Grand Theft Auto V can be seen running at 8K with multiple mods, such as the ReShade Ray Tracing mod, QuantV 3D clouds, and the GTAV Real mod. For those that don't know, the GTAV RealMod converts what was Los Santos into Los Angeles, and according to reports, the results are quite impressive. If you are interested in checking out this mod more, visit the Patreon here.