Latest News - Page 854

Twitch announced a bunch of new features at its TwitchCon Paris event, and according to the company's blog post, streamers and viewers can expect these features to be implemented sometime later this year.

The company writes in its blog post that it will be bringing Stories to Twitch, which will enable creators to interact with their communities when they are offline. Stories on Twitch will be similar to how Stories work on Instagram and Snapchat, as it will include the use of clips, images, text, and even polls. Creators will have the option of making certain stories only available to subscribers or the public.

Twitch explained that Stories will appear on the Following page within the Twitch app and that all Stories will fall under Twitch's community guidelines policy. "Because Twitch is all about live, interactive channels, it's not our goal for viewers to spend hours in a Clips feed," Twitch said. "Our investment in Clips is to help viewers discover your channel so they join you and your community when you stream."

Meta has released its answer to Twitter, and it's called Threads, a new text-based app that is a direct competitor to Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter.

Rumors circulated social media platforms in the days leading up to the launch of Threads, and while there was hardly any marketing, if any at all, for Threads, that didn't stop the app from seeing a massive rise in popularity within the first days of it being available to download. Now, reports are indicating, along with statements from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, that Threads is on its way to having 100 million users, as it's already reached 70 million within its first 5 days of being available.

Twitter owner Elon Musk has continued firing shots off at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg since the company debuted the Threads app, which has earned the title of "Twitter-killer".

While it remains to be seen if Threads will be the complete demise of Twitter, the owners of both apps are continuing their public back and forth on their respective apps, with Musk throwing the majority of the shots on his personal Twitter account. The most recently fired shots were only a few hours ago at the time of writing, with Muck responding to a screenshot of a Threads post from Wendy's that said, "Hey @zuck, you should go to space just to really make him mad lol". Zuckerberg replied with a crying laughing emoji.

The screenshot was then shared with Musk, who responded with, "Zuck is a cuck", and then followed up by adding, "I propose a literal dick measuring contest". At first, I thought it was the Elon Musk parody account that was posting these replies, which recently went viral for seemingly pulling the wool over millions of eyeballs. However, it's not the parody account, it's the real Musk, and he just called Meta's CEO a "cuck", or a weak servile man whose wife is unfaithful.

Here's a bit of a weird one, ASUS is launching a new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector that debuted with GeForce RTX 40 Series. The 'ATS-RTX3060TI-O8GD6X-GAMING-V2' or ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Atlas Shark initially made use of the 12-pin connector that we saw across many Ampere GPUs to minimize the need for multiple 8-pin plugs.

Pictures of the new connector on this GPU were posted by Extreme Player over at Bilibili, with confirmation that the new model was shipped to consumers and retailers in April 2023. The physical design looks unchanged outside the switch to the new 16-pin 12VHPWR connector.

Regarding the make-up of the GPU, the older 12-pin and newer 16-pin connectors share the same physical make-up. It's believed that no revisions were required to the rest of the GPU design outside of accommodating the new connector. With the controversy surrounding melting connectors and word of a revision to the existing 12VHPWR coming soon, you might wonder why ASUS has decided to ship a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with a 16-pin 12VHPWR connector.

Sure, DLSS support might not be coming to Starfield - at least based on rumors that the AMD partnership excludes competing upscaling techniques like DLSS and Intel XeSS - many other releases are getting NVIDIA DLSS on day one.

Launching this week with DLSS 2 Super Resolution support is Jagged Alliance 3 and Testament: The Order of High Human, with the highly anticipated sequel Remnant II set to get the AI-powered upscaling technology later this month. As part of its weekly DLSS state of things, NVIDIA also made note that the current Steam Summer Sale ending this week has several DLSS-powered titles on sale, including the likes of Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Cyberpunk 2077, and more.

As for the new DLSS-powered titles, let's take a look at them, starting with Testament: The Order of High Human. This is a new action-adventure game with touches of RPG and Metroidvania elements from indie studio Fairyship Games set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world with some impressive visuals. If this one is not on your radar, the good news is that there is a playable demo (that features DLSS) you can check out on Steam.

GEEKOM is back yet again with another big sales event, this time for summer. They are offering up its MiniAir 11 small form factor mini PC powered by Intel's 11th Gen Celeron-5105 CPU (4 Cores, 4 Threads, 4M Cache, and up to 2.9GHz), 256GB SSD, 8GB of RAM (expandable to 32GB) for just $194, and Microsoft Windows 11 Professional comes installed.

When not on sale, this system sells for $329, but right now, you can save a huge $135 when buying it from GEEKOM. That works out to be a massive 41% discount. Just enter coupon code summer5air at checkout to remove $5 from the price. The coupon code is valid from July 10th till September 10th, 2023.

GEEKOM's MiniAir 11 is a tiny PC weighing just 500 grams and measuring 117 x 112 x 34mm - it's small enough to almost fit in your pants pocket. It is powered by Intel's 11th Gen Celeron N5095 processor (4 Cores, 4 Threads, 4M Cache, up to 2.9GHz) with a TDP of just 15 watts and Intel UHD 605 Graphics. It comes installed with 8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM memory modules in dual-channel mode, with upgradability up to 32GB if required. Also included is a 256GB 2280 M.2 PCIe/SATA SSD, which is upgradable to a 1TB drive.

To give a better idea of how gaming's three platform holders compare with one another, we've compiled a quick head-to-head showdown between PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox.

Over the last few months, gamers have been treated to a much more transparent look at the video games industry. From the $200 million budgets of top-performing PlayStation games to actual concrete info on Xbox console shipments, we're able to use valuable info gleaned from recent events in conjunction with official company earnings to give a better idea of how effectively gaming's Big 3 competes.

Using Nintendo's recent annual report, I put together a quick comparison of the video games industry's Big 3 triumvirate hierarchy to clearly illustrate the revenue position of PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. Since Microsoft operates on a non-traditional fiscal year, which begins in July and ends in June, I've aligned Xbox revenues to match the April 2022 - March 2023 fiscal timelines of both Sony and Nintendo.

Nintendo's latest annual report sheds light on its performance metrics for the Fiscal Year 2023 period.

While Nintendo's FY23 period delivered lower results than a year prior, the company is still far from being in the red. The Japanese video game giant's operational performance for FY23 was still quite noteworthy and demonstrates its consistently strong presence in the Big 3 hierarchy (PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo).

During the fiscal year, Nintendo managed to generate $12.042 billion in net sales revenues, most of which was from the Nintendo Switch platform. On a breakout basis, Nintendo made $11.347 billion from the Switch, which includes hardware, content, and services, $268 million from the others category, which includes sales of amiibo and "platforms other than Nintendo Switch", $383 million from mobile gaming and IP-related income which includes smartphone games and royalties, and $42 million from playing cards.

The combination of new Xbox hardware allocation, a subscription price hike, and the release of Starfield could help the Xbox games division deliver record-breaking Q1 earnings.

Microsoft could be setting Xbox up for a big Q1 that leads into a strong Q2 holiday period. The company is using all of the tactics at its disposal to help boost revenues--and profits--across is three main business segments: Software, services, and hardware.

On the software front, Xbox raised the price of its first-party Xbox Series X/S games to $69.99, with Redfall being the debut game to get this hike. Starfield will be the next game priced at $69.99.

A fake account of Elon Musk has seemingly pulled the wool over millions of people's eyes as a post claiming Mark Zuckerberg is a "lizard boy" has gone viral.

An Elon Musk parody account has put out a tweet that has gained more than 30 million views, more than half a million likes, and even the attention of the real Elon Musk. The Musk parody account posted a tweet that said, "I spent $44 billion for this app, and now Lizard boy just decided to hit copy and paste. It's personal now. See you in the cage, Zuck."

It seems that despite the word 'parody' in the Twitter account's name, many people were fooled by the post, even to the point where the real Elon Musk jumped in and wrote, "So many people think this account is me". Furthermore, users have voiced some concerns within the thread about having parody accounts on Twitter at all, even if it's clearly displayed within the Twitter account's name.

Many subreddits are still continuing to protest the recent changes Reddit made to its API policy, and now the platform has issued a final warning to subreddits that choose to stand against the changes.

Reddit changed its policy around its API which forces third-party developers to pay the platform to use Reddit's data. These changes came after Reddit realized that its API was being used to train artificial intelligence tools that could be potentially very lucrative. Reddit didn't want these AI tools to freely get its data, but because of these changes, third-party developers, such as the popular Apollo app, now need to pay Reddit a substantial fee for access to its API.

Many of these third-party Reddit apps/tools are unable to afford to pay Reddit, resulting in them having to close down or face a legal battle. In protest of these changes, thousands of subreddits went dark, which prompted Reddit to issue a stark warning to subreddit moderators, saying if they don't reopen the subreddit, the moderators will be replaced with new ones. This warning resulted in many subreddits conceding to Reddit's demands, but it didn't stop the protesting.

The launch of Meta's new text-based app Threads has certainly shaken up the social media world as millions of users are flocking to the new app.

For those that don't know, Threads is Meta's Twitter competitor, and following its launch on Wednesday, large swaths of early adopters have already begun calling it the "Twitter killer". Notably, Twitter owner Elon Musk doesn't seem to be overly thrilled about the launch as Twitter lawyers, or more specifically, Alex Spiro, Musk's lawyer, has sent a heated letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that Threads was built unlawfully with confidential Twitter information and former Twitter employees.

Musk has stopped his hard-hitting approach to Meta's newest app as the Tesla CEO has recently taken to Twitter to voice his opinion about the app. The Twitter owner says that Threads is just Instagram without the pictures and that the main reason people use Instagram in the first place is because of "thirst pics". Musk continued by writing that Threads "makes no sense" since it's Instagram without images.

MSI has unveiled a new eSports-centered gaming monitor that will be placed in the company's line-up of offerings alongside its already released counter-part.

MSI wants to introduce gamers to the G274QPF, which is essentially a non-Quantum Dot version of the MSI G274QPF-QD, a gaming monitor that was reviewed very highly by TweakTown and even given our Best Value Award. MSI has outfitted the G274QPF with all of the specifications of the G274QPF-QD, but removed the Quantum Dot technology which results in narrower color space coverage of 121% sRGB, 96% Adobe RGB, 93% DCI-P3.

As for the panel its 27-inches at a resolution of 2560 x 1440 with Rapid IPS technology and a 1 ms GTG response time. Perfect for gamers that are looking to get buttery smooth gameplay in games that require higher frame rates, such as competitive first-person-shooter titles. The G274QPF offers 400 nits of brightness, AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-sync support.

DnD fans rejoice: Baldur's Gate III will keep you busy for a long, long time.

It's been two decades since the last mainline Baldur's Gate game, and Larian is making up for the lost time with Baldur's Gate III. The developers are creating one of the largest epic fantasy games ever made in terms of scope, cinematics, dynamism, and sheer volume of things to do. The game is so big that a rushed playthrough will take 80 hours...and it can be much longer if you engage more in the world.

"People ask...how much variety is there in a playthrough of Baldur's Gate III. How long is it, how many different ways can it go.

The price increase for Xbox Game Pass on console has gone into effect, and Microsoft has also adjusted the ratios for Xbox Live -> Game Pass subscription conversions.

Microsoft's value-oriented Xbox Game Pass subscription is now officially more expensive on console. The price hike is well-timed; Microsoft lawyers have said that Xbox has no plans to increase Game Pass if it should be allowed to merger with Activision, so the increase is happening before the potential merger. The price hike also precedes Starfield's release in September.

The base Xbox Game Pass subscription is now priced at $10.99 per month on console, representing a $1 price increase, whereas Game Pass Ultimate has jumped by $2 from $14.99 to the new $16.99/month price. The PC version of Xbox Game Pass has not been changed and remains $9.99/month.

Intel's Battlemage GPUs have a sizeable question mark hanging over their future, if one leaker is to be believed - and don't expect these graphics cards to debut any time soon (indeed, if the 2nd-gen products turn up at all - more on that later).

This is from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), who has got a whole bunch of info from sources with their ears to the ground, and the overall - worrying - message here is that Battlemage has had a whole pile of issues.

Apparently things are so bad with the 2nd-gen range from Intel that its future is "very uncertain," we're told - hinting that it may not even come out. (That cancelation rumor is something Intel has strenuously denied in the past, it has to be noted).

In a pre-hearing findings of fact document, the Federal Trade Commission says that both Microsoft and Activision have identified "large financial benefits from bringing Activision content to Xbox Game Pass."

As Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley prepares her decision on the federal FTC v Microsoft preliminary injunction case, we thought it pertinent to scan through the various documents that the FTC and Microsoft have entered in the case's docket. The principal filings include what is called findings of fact, which essentially sees both FTC and Microsoft/Activision laying out the groundwork arguments for their sides of the case.

In the FTC's findings of fact document (Doc. #175), the Commission outlines interesting contextual information surrounding Activision's views on Xbox Game Pass.

NASA has announced that its James Webb Space Telescope, the world's most powerful space telescope, has identified a supermassive black hole that existed just over 570 million years after the Big Bang, making it the most supermassive distant black hole discovered so far.

The previous record holder for the most distant supermassive black hole was a black hole detected in 2021 that measured 670 million years after the Big Bang. NASA explains on its blog post found on its website that this new record breaker identified as CEERS 1019 has also broken the record for the smallest supermassive black hole ever discovered in the early universe.

NASA writes that CEERS 1019 is relatively small compared to other supermassive black holes, clocking with 9 million solar masses, or 9 million times the mass of the Sun, which is tiny compared to other supermassive black holes discovered in the same era that typically have 1 billion solar masses.

Construction for the world's largest LED screen began in 2018, and after many years of development and budget increases, its creators have turned it on and welcomed it to the world.

Sphere Entertainment put together the $2.6 billion multi-year project in partnership with Madison Square Garden. The massive circular building was unveiled on July 4 with an eye-catching animation. The venue will be able to seat 17,600 people, has a standing capacity of 20,000, and is located in Las Vegas near The Venetian Resort.

Reports indicate that the screen located on the outside of the dome is the largest LED screen on Earth at about 580,000 square feet, with 1.2 million puck lights that each have 48 diodes capable of producing up to 256 million colors, according to Sphere Entertainment.

Intel's Core i7-14700K might be a key part of the incoming Raptor Lake Refresh line-up if a new leak is correct, as the processor is supposedly upping the ante to 20-cores.

Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) has tapped sources to discover that the 14700K could run with 8 performance cores and 12 efficiency cores (20-cores in total, and 28-threads), compared to its predecessor, the 13700K, which has 8 of both (16-cores in total).

MLID isn't certain on this - and we should always be careful about accepting leaks without bearing in mind that they could be wrong, anyway - but it seems like this is the route Intel will be taking (as backed up by a leaked slide detailing mobile CPU configurations for Raptor Lake Refresh).