Latest News - Page 908

The GeForce RTX 4070 launched last week, and with a price-point of USD 599, it marked the arrival of the most affordable GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU from NVIDIA to date. And with rumors pointing to a potential May 2023 launch (only a few weeks away) for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, we could be looking at another mid-range entry and the fifth SKU for the line-up.

There's no doubt that NVIDIA hasn't slowed down since launching the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 and GeForce RTX 4080 late last year, with new models and entries in the 40 Series arriving like clockwork. Which begs the question, where are AMD's more affordable RDNA 3 graphics cards?

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX launched in December 2022, built on AMD's latest architecture featuring a groundbreaking multi-chip or chiplet design. Both GPUs are based on the "Navi 31" GPU. AMD has positioned the flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX as an alternative to the GeForce RTX 4080, offering similar stellar 4K performance but with less of a hit to the digital wallet.

The days of displays with plenty of junk in the trunk - CRTs from the 1990s and earlier - are well and truly over. The new thing is flat screens built on LCD technology with thin profiles weighing less than 100 pounds. Still, several people swear by the image quality you get with a classic CRT, especially when playing retro games from the MS-DOS era.

And with that, János Kerekes has taken the classic Sony Trinitron beige CRT monitor and turned it into an all-in-one water-cooled gaming PC called the Oazis ROG. As featured on Custom PC, this Mini-ITX Intel Core i7 and AMD Radeon R9 Nano rig is impressive and would make for an excellent retro gaming PC.

The glass panel and innards have been removed, which János describes as a "huge headache" due to the precision and Sony using all of the available space inside the Sony Trinitron CRT. It turns out they were massive for a reason. And because CRT monitors are front-loaded in terms of weight, the PC parts had to be arranged in a specific way to maintain an even weight distribution via custom aluminum sheets.

Live11 is an optimized version of Windows 11 designed to fit on a 4GB drive and run entirely on RAM - which means it's the first version of the OS that can fit on a DVD. Not that you'd still have access to something like a DVD burner, Live11 can also be stored on a smaller-capacity USB thumb drive.

Live11 is still in the proof of concept stage, so there are issues. It will only boot on legacy MBR/BIOS devices and requires 8GB of RAM to load. Plus, it's limited to VMware and Hyper-V for those looking at running it on a virtual machine. Still, it's remarkable that you could try our Windows 11 on a PC without installing it on a hard drive or doing a complete format.

Of course, the concept of a Live disk is more common in the Linux space than in Windows, so this release is notable for what it achieves.

ASUS has announced a pair of new ProArt GeForce RTX 4080 and 4070 Ti graphics cards for creators with a sleek, compact 2.5-slot design and 300mm length. With the launch of both the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti seeing several partner models, including those from ASUS, with 3-slot and larger thicknesses - these new ProArt models offer compatibility with more cases.

ASUS notes that these GPUs have been created with creators and professionals in mind, so the 2.5-slot thickness means you'll still have access to a secondary PCIe x16 slot on a motherboard - something creators are more likely to look for when it comes to a GPU. ASUS notes that the 300mm length also makes them two of the shortest RTX 40 Series graphics cards on the market.

If you're wondering if the smaller physical real estate will affect cooling, ProArt GeForce RTX 4080 and 4070 Ti graphics cards have been "tuned for quiet operation." They feature three Axial-tech fans with dual ball bearings and can be further tweaked via ASUS's intuitive GPU Tweak III app. Like other GeForce RTX 40 Series cards, these new ProArt models feature 0dB tech where the fans will spin down completely for silent operation during light workloads.

Kingston Technology has been in the memory business for quite a while, and if you think back to the first time you built a custom PC using off-the-shelf parts, no doubt Kingston RAM was in the mix as a potential option.

In 2002, Kingston started releasing modules for enthusiasts under the Kingston HyperX name delivering high-performance overclockable options to PC gamers and creators. In 2021, after HyperX was sold to HP, the line-up was rebranded Kingston FURY. The company is still at the forefront of overclockable modules that break records and push system memory speeds to their DDR limit.

Recently, we reported on the release of Kingston FURY Renegade Pro DDR5 RDIMMs, overclockable plug-and-play server-class memory modules backed up with a lifetime warranty. The company's Kingston FURY BEAST DDR5 and high-speed Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5 memory modules were also recently given the white treatment for those putting together an all-white components build in 2023.

The Google Pixel Fold is set to be the next big thing not only from Google but also in the world of foldable as well. We'd been told by various leaks to expect that the bendy phone would debut at Google I/O on May 10. Now, another leak has confirmed not only when the phone will be announced but also when it'll go on sale.

Oh, and how much it'll cost as well. And it isn't great news, we're afraid.

This latest leak comes courtesy of leaker and YouTuber Jon Prosser who has shared quite the leak bomb this time around. Normally known for his Apple leaks, Prosser seems to be growing into the Google and Android leaking world and this is a great example of that.

It's official: SEGA today announced that it plans to acquire Angry Birds game developer Rovio for roughly $771 million. Here are a few reasons why SEGA is making this big buyout.

On a surface level, it's pretty obvious why anyone would buy Rovio. The Finnish devs created one of the most popular mobile games of all time and still generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year. Logic dictates that Rovio would help supercharge any company's mobile gaming presence.

We have to look a bit deeper to really understand why SEGA is making this purchase. The company's official press release reveals the thought process behind the acquisition, but we still need more information to get a full picture. The reality is that SEGA doesn't just want to make more mobile games--it wants to create more games for all markets.

With Apple set to announce the next version of the iPhone's mobile operating system, iOS 17, during an event on June 5, 2023, we might be set to see something pretty momentous. That's if, as we're told to expect, Apple will set the wheels in motion that will end the App Store's monopoly on app installs on the iPhone.

Currently, the only way to install an app on an iPhone is to do so via the App Store. But a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing as part of his weekly Power On newsletter, that's about to change.

According to Gurman Apple's iOS 17 is going to be a big one for developers. He says that the announcement will see Apple unveil work to allow sideloading on the iPhone in an attempt to comply with incoming European regulations.

It's official: SEGA has announced that it has made a tender offer to buy 100% of Rovio's shares in a $771 million buyout deal.

Longtime Japanese games giant SEGA plans to buy Finnish developer Rovio (Angry Birds) in a sweeping acquisition that could help spark SEGA's flagging mobile business. The news comes shortly after the deal was leaked by The Wall Street Journal's sources, who had originally said SEGA could spend close to $1 billion to acquire Rovio.

SEGA is prepared to pay a 63% premium on Rovio's shares, and SEGA management has outlined its rationale behind the deal. The combination hits two birds with one stone: SEGA wants to push more into mobile, and Rovio wants to push outside of mobile confines. We could see an interesting synergy between the two companies similar to the Zynga-Take-Two combo that promises to deliver a host of game experiences outside of the smartphone market.

Windows 11's latest update was supposed to improve the taskbar with a bit of tweaking, but for some users, the patch has reportedly partly - or fully - broken the bar.

There are a couple of gremlins in the works with patch KB5025239, the cumulative update which is mandatory and was rolled out last week, as Windows Latest points out.

Firstly, some users are reporting that the auto-hide feature for the taskbar - whereby it gets out of the way unless you're actively mousing over the bottom of the screen - isn't working properly after the update has been applied.

People who use the wildly popular WhatsApp instant messaging app on their iPhones could be about to notice a big change in the way they deal with embedding media into messages.

While WhatsApp has long been the go-to app for people who want to stay in touch with friends and family, it can still stand to be improved in some key ways. Now, a new report notes that WhatsApp is testing a change that will make it easier than ever to see what photos and videos you're about to send.

According to the WhatsApp experts over at WABetaInfo, the instant messaging app's latest TestFlight beta includes a new bottom bar that displays recently-selected photos and videos that are about to be sent to a recipient or group chat. The new change means that people will more easily be able to see what media they have chosen, ensuring a couple of things; first, people won't send the same media twice and second, they won't send anything they didn't mean to.

The jury is still out on whether Apple will announce a new iPad Pro later in 2023, but the rumor mill is already moving beyond that and onto 2024. Now, a new report suggests that Apple will benefit from a new technology developed by LG Display that will allow for even better OLED displays.

Those OLED displays will likely be used in future 11 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models if previous reports are any indication.

This new report comes via Korea's The Elec website, with the news being that OLED panel technology developed by LG Display will allow for thinner displays and, as a result, thinner devices overall. It's also thought that the technology will allow for the overall cost of the panels to be lower which could potentially help Apple hit a price point for the tablets.

Windows 11's rumored AI-powered improvement to its snap layouts feature might be a step closer to fruition, with the functionality being discovered in working form (kind of) in the latest preview build of the OS.

The added AI capability, known as 'smart snap,' was spotted in Windows 11's preview build 23435 by a well-known leaker on Twitter, PhantomOfEarth, as well as Windows Latest.

Note that the feature isn't live in testing but is present in the latest preview of Microsoft's OS, and was enabled using a Windows configuration utility. It works, although not properly just yet, as you might expect with a piece of functionality that remains hidden in the background of Windows 11.

There's a certain level of nostalgia when it comes to classic tech, especially gaming hardware, from before the era of digital downloads. Xreart presents classic and discarded tech as hangable wall art, with examples including the classic Nintendo Game Boy from 1989 and the 1st generation Apple iPhone from 2007.

It's an excellent idea, and the results are pretty impressive, with the classic hardware disassembled and arranged with annotations to let you know what a bit of silicon is.

I got my hands-on the Game Boy from Xreart recently, and although I'm no connoisseur of the finer things in life, like fancy artwork, there's no doubt this is the coolest thing I've had the chance to hang on a wall since that time I got a degree for learning the ins and outs of computing. So I thought I'd share it.

NVIDIA isn't planning to ramp up production levels of its Lovelace GPUs any time soon, or at least that's what a new report claims.

So right up front, we should note that this comes from DigiTimes, a source that picks up a lot of chatter from the hardware supply chain, but one with a patchy track record for accuracy - which is to say, apply a whole load of seasoning here.

The claim is that following the release of the RTX 4070, NVIDIA's supply chain partners do not see any indication that Team Green intends to scale up production for RTX 4000 graphics cards (the newest model, or any of the other existing Lovelace products).

Anyone worrying that Apple is going to kill the Mac Studio powerhouse desktop machine after just one release looks to have been doing so prematurely. A new report claims that Apple is not just working on refreshing the product, but it's also said to have two of the things in the works.

That means that Apple could be about to update the Mac Studio for the very first time, although details on what that will entail have so far been very hard to come by. We don't even know for sure when either of the two Mac Studios will arrive, but the fact that they're even being discussed is good news for many.

The Mac Studio first debuted a little over a year ago in 2022 and can be configured with a maximum M1 Ultra chip. However, with Apple thought to be keen to ship its first Apple silicon Mac Pro, it was worried that the Mac Studio wasn't long for this world. The Mac studio was considered to be something of a stop-gap solution for Apple, allowing it to offer something for high-end power-hungry users who didn't want to wait for that Mac Pro to ship.

Apple could be getting ready to announce a number of new portable Macs within the next few weeks according to a new report. But that report stopped just short of saying exactly which of those Macs we should be looking out for.

The report says that Apple has a lot going on for the upcoming WWDC23 event that will kick off on 5 June 2023, with a few MacBooks on the horizon. But it also says that some of them might not arrive just yet after all, leaving potential buyers a little lost as to what they should be saving their cash for

Writing in his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that Apple is working on a number of Macs. He says that the much-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air is still coming while a refreshed version of the current 13-inch MacBook Air is also in development. There's also an updated 13-inch MacBook Apro as well, we're told.

A big investor in artificial intelligence has dropped a warning about what's on the horizon in terms of AI development and how it will affect everyone.

A new op-ed published in the Financial Times details a recounted conversation between AI investor Ian Hogarth and a machine learning researcher that told Hogarth that engineers have already reached the point where they are close to developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The machine learning researcher said, "from now onwards," we are nearing AGI, and for those that don't know, AGI can be simply understood as creating an AI that is capable of performing or learning how to perform every task that a human can do.

Despite these warnings from the machine learning researcher, Hogarth admits that these views aren't widely held and that estimations for when humans will achieve AGI vary from a decade to more than half a century. Hogarth recounted the conversation with the machine learning researcher and said that if what he was saying is true and that humans could be on the verge of creating something that is truly dangerous, doesn't he have a responsibility to warn people?

Two actively feeding supermassive black holes are on a slow collision course, according to recent observations made by astronomers and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers detailed the discovery in a new study, and according to the paper, the supermassive black hole collision took place in the early universe when it was just 3 billion years old. According to the Keck Observatory, researchers from the University of Illinois led the study, which has now been published in the scientific journal Nature. According to the study, the two supermassive black holes are embedded in their own galaxies, which are also colliding.

These two merging galaxies are called J0749+2255, and a faint variation in light detected by the Gaia telescope revealed there was much more going on than researchers initially anticipated. To get to the bottom of what was happening, researchers turned to a variety of different telescopes that observe the universe in different ways. The team used telescopes and arrays that observe in X-rays, radio, and optical light.

Google may be slightly behind the 8-ball when it comes to the artificial intelligence race, but according to reports, the company behind the world's most popular search engine is preparing to release an "all-new" way to search the internet.

A new report from The New York Times has revealed Google is currently developing a new search engine that will be powered by artificial intelligence. According to the reports, this new search engine will offer users a much more personalized experience and be able to anticipate what the user wants to find out. Notably, Google is developing multiple new AI features for its existing search engine, and this new search engine, codenamed 'Magi' is still in its early stages of development.

As for the other AI-powered features that Google is currently working on, reports indicate the company is developing an AI chatbot that will be designed to answer coding questions from engineers. This chatbot, which is seemingly unnamed at this time, will be able to provide engineers with coding snippets. Additionally, Google is creating an AI chatbot that will be able to let users discover new music through what can be assumed to be a normal conversation.