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Researchers have created a new map of Mars that shows off the Red Planet's geological features in incredible detail.

The new Martian map was created using data obtained by the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM), also known as Hope, operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency. UAE researchers teamed up with scientists from New York University Abu Dhabi to create the map, which showcases what EMM's onboard imaging system called the Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI), sees while it orbits the Red Planet. The map consists of more than 3,000 individual observations of Mars that were snapped over the course of one Mars year, which is two years on Earth.

These thousands of images were then carefully stitched together by researchers, color corrected, and polished. The final resulting map, as seen below, showcases many of Mars' sought-after geological features, such as the remnants of ancient river systems coursing across the Martian surface, lakes that have long since dried up in the harsh climate but may contain traces of ancient microbial life, valleys that likely contained water some 3.5 billion years ago, and the planet's polar ice caps.

A data protection authority has banned the immensely popular AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI over multiple safety concerns.

Italy's Italian Data Protection Authority (IDPA) announced its decision, which has immediately gone into effect, on Friday last week when it said that it had blocked OpenAI's ChatGPT over its lack of concern regarding user data and age verification. According to the data protection authority, OpenAI's app poses a risk to users, citing the March 20 event where the app experienced a breach that enabled users to see other users' contact information and chat history titles.

Notably, the data protection authority also cited potential exposure to minors as the reason behind its banning, saying that the app has no way to verify the age of users and, because of that, exposes them to "absolutely unsuitable answers compared to their degree of development and awareness". Furthermore, the IDPA said that OpenAI has just 20 days to respond to the regulator about how it will quash these concerns under the penalty of a $20 million fine, or 4% of the company's annual revenue.

AMD has officially launched its new entry-level A620 chipset for Ryzen 7000 processors, with models from ASRock, ASUS, MSI, and others making their way to market with pricing starting at USD 85.

Before the official release, early looks at models from motherboard partners like ASRock and MSI have detailed that going entry-level for AM5 means no overclocking for CPUs, so no Precision Boost Overdrive and Auto-OC. We've also got confirmation that A620 motherboards will only fully support Ryzen 7000 non-X CPUs with a TDP of 65W.

To keep costs down, the VRMs of these boards have been designed for 65W though AMD notes that Ryzen 7000 CPUs with higher TDPs will boot if the BIOS' AGESA version supports them. Even so, multithreaded performance will be limited, but AMD expects that this will have minimal impact on game performance.

US police have gained access to a database that contains 30 billion photos scraped from Facebook, and according to the CEO of the company developing the software, authorities have already accessed it more than 1 million times.

The company developing the software is Clearview AI, and what it created is a facial recognition database that is designed to track and identify individuals. The company attempts to sell its newly developed technology by saying it advances public safety, reduces crime, fraud, child abuse and exploitation, and exonerates people from crimes they were wrongfully accused of, which makes communities safer and commerce increasingly secure.

Despite these claims, Clearview AI has come under scrutiny by digital rights agencies that point to its database being obtained through Facebook and instances of authorities wrongfully arresting individuals that were identified through Clearview AI. Notably, Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That admitted in a BBC interview that the company obtained its 30 billion Facebook photos without users' knowledge, which enabled the company to expand rapidly.

Eric Schmidt, who served as the CEO of Google between 2001 and 2011, sat down for an interview where he discussed the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI).

Schmidt was asked to break down the promise and peril of AI, and the former Google CEO went on to give examples of both the positives and negatives of the new technology. Schmidt explains that there are many benefits of AI as it could be wielded to create an AI-powered doctor that is able to diagnose patients with much greater accuracy and speed or an AI-powered tutor that is able to increase the educational capability of everyone across every spoken language.

These large-scale achievements can come to fruition through the development of large language models (LLMs), the underpinning technology behind AI chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT or Microsoft's Bing Chat search companion. Schmidt says that on a long enough time frame, these LLMs are "clearly going to do this", becoming next-generation doctors, tutors, and other vital roles in society. However, while the development of these technologies continues, humans face extraordinary new challenges that will arrive in various forms.

Micron and Phison have collaborated to create the new Crucial T700 Gen5 SSD, which delivers results that make it the "fastest SSD on the planet" thanks to its impressive 12.4 GB/s read speed and 11.8 GB/s write speed.

According to Crucial/Micron, this makes it just about two times faster than the company's fastest Gen4 SSD and 22 times faster than SATA. Though really, we're now at the point where traditional SATA drives are considered entry-level in terms of the speeds they offer.

Like with all modern-day Gen5 SSDs, there's a chunky heatsink to keep temperatures below "melting" levels, though compared to some of the fastest off-the-shelf Gen5 SSDs we've seen, it looks pretty compact. Crucial proudly proclaims that it includes a "premium heatsink for maximum heat dissipation without noisy fans or liquid cooling blocks," adding that a non-heatsink version is also available.

The depth record for filming a fish at the lowest depth possible has been shattered as researchers have caught a specific type of snailfish at a depth of 27,349 feet.

The discovery was made off the coast of Japan within the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, where researchers dropped an autonomous lander to the extreme depths of the trench. Notably, the previous record holder for the deepest observation of a fish was achieved in Marina Trench in 2018 at a depth of 26,830 feet. The new record holder beat the previous record holder by 518 feet, and according to reports, its not likely to be broken, or if it does, it won't be by much, as the researchers believe this fish was swimming at the border between where fish are able to survive and where they are not.

Research from around the world confirmed a prediction made by Professor Alan Jamieson of the University of Western Australia, known for pioneering the study of life at the deepest places in the ocean and exploration. Jamieson said 10 years ago that life deep sea life would exist between 26,902 and 27,559 feet. Depths below this range won't harbor any fish but more so likely smaller microorganisms of life.

Over at Videocardz.com, a leaked slide, presumably from a presentation for the new GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, confirms several things about the GPU. One of the most interesting bits of info comes under the 'Average Gaming Power' header that lists 186W as the power draw for the GeForce RTX 4070.

We can only assume this number comes from a specific set of games running at one or multiple resolutions. Still, it points to the latest GPU in the Ada Lovelace-powered GeForce RTX 40 Series being incredibly power efficient.

Although there's no performance data with this info, the slide features comparisons between the GeForce RTX 4070 and the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070. And with that, the RTX 4070 is presumably a higher-performing GPU alongside being more efficient. For comparison, the 'Average Gaming Power' for the RTX 3070 Ti is 240W, and for the RTX 3070, it's 215W.

G.SKILL is one of the most trusted brands regarding high-speed memory that supports overclocking, and its latest range of Trident Z5 DDR5 memory kits makes full use of the new 24GB and 48GB capacity modules that have hit the market.

These new capacities offer expanded memory using kits of two - 24GBx2 for 48 GB and 48GBx2 for an impressive 96 GB. And these high-speed options from G.SKILL are available in a high-speed DDR5-8200 CL40-52-52 (24GBx2) kit and a 96GB (48GBx2) capacity kit at DDR5-6800 CL34-46-46.

G.SKILL has confirmed that these kits hit the speeds as advertised too. The new 24GB and 48GB module-based memory kits support Intel XMP 3.0 memory overclocking support for easy memory overclocking via the motherboard BIOS.

The new 80 PLUS Gold certified ENERMAX REVOLUTION ATX 3.0 Series of power supplies, available in 1000W and 1200W models, are tailor-made for the next generation of GPUs and high-performance CPUs.

With the GeForce RTX 40 Series from NVIDIA shifting to the new 12VHPWR connector for power, most owners have had to use the adapters for power supplies. With the new REVOLUTION ATX 3.0 Series from ENERMAX, a single native PCIe Gen 5 12+4pin (12VHPWR) cable can supply up to 600W to a graphics card.

These power supplies are ready for GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4080, and RTX 4090 graphics cards. And for good measure, ENERMAX also includes an extra dual 8-pin to 12+4-pin (12VHPWR) cable for high-performance users to connect an additional graphics card.

With all facets of society and technology looking to implement AI tools and models to improve almost anything you can think of, AI has now made its way into the PC cooling space. Specifically with be quiet!'s new range of Zero Wings AI cooling, which the company describes as its first AI-supported fan.

On top of the wingless design that does away with the need for fan blades and the introduction of state-of-the-art Controlled Airflow Technology (CAT) which can actively route air through a system, there's FANOS. An admittedly clever and ominous name for the artificial intelligence that sits at the heart of the Zero Wings AI fan system.

A proprietary AI has been trained to identify hot spots within a PC and direct air in those areas to keep cooling at optimal levels. It's a fascinating system that creates a live heatmap of the PC based on thermal sensors and what be quiet! calls "behavioral analysis of the user's habits." Which we assume means playing intensive PC games that put GPUs and CPUs to the test.

Earlier this week, our eyebrows climbed a fair distance up our forehead when we spied a rumor that maybe AMD's next-gen Zen 5 CPUs were coming out later this year - but this isn't happening.

As we wrote at the time, this seemed like a bolt out of the blue, and very much a stretch in terms of believability (particularly given that leaks would surely have been more prevalent at this stage, if it was true).

The rumor came from GIGABYTE, which published a press release on Ryzen-powered servers in which came a surprise mention that the "next generation of AMD Ryzen desktop processors ... will come out later this year."

Ryzen 5800X3D owners are doubtless aware that their CPU isn't supposed to be manually overclocked, with AMD having locked out the ability to up the voltage.

Now, though, it seems there is a possibility to perform such an overclock, but it isn't a feature, rather a bug in ASRock, ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI's apps, according to reports.

Before we go any further, we should stress the following: Do not use this flaw to experiment with overclocking the Ryzen 5800X3D, as you'll almost certainly nuke the processor irrecoverably.

Microsoft might have thought better about its apparent plan to push notifications relating to Microsoft Accounts - that effectively look like advertising - in the Windows 11 Start menu.

This is going by findings in a new preview build of Windows 11, and while it doesn't represent the abandonment of the idea, it does at least allow for a way that users can opt out of seeing these notifications (or ads, depending on how you look at them - we'll come back to that point).

Note that this is far from concrete - it's a hidden option in a test build of Windows 11 - but at least it's there in build 23419 (for the Dev channel).

A future MacBook Air could be smaller than the one that is currently on sale. Or, at least, the display that it uses could shrink from the current 13.6-inch panel that is used today.

That's according to a tweet by display analyst Ross Young that was sent to his paid subscribers on the platform. According to Young, the MacBook Air's rumored move to an OLED display technology could bring with it a slightly smaller screen - 13.4 inches down from the current 13.6-inch model that is on sale as the M2 MacBook Air. However, it isn't clear yet whether anyone will notice that shrink in size or if Apple could rejig the layout of the model including the notch.

In that tweet, reported on by MacRumors, Young is said to have added that the MacBook Pro isn't likely to get its own OLED display until 2026. That's when Young expects that the supply chain will be able to produce enough OLED panels for both lines of notebooks. Previously, it's said that suppliers of OLED displays have focused on other products and smaller screens - like the iPad Pro and other tablets produced under other brands.

After months of waiting, Netflix subscribers can finally watch their ad-supported content on the Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD streaming boxes. Before now, that tier didn't work thanks to an incompatibility with the tvOS version of the Netflix app. That meant that the only way to watch Netflix on the Apple TV was to pay for the tiers that didn't offer ads.

That has now finally changed after it was noticed by one Reddit user that a new Netflix app update has fixed things. The result is that those who have chosen to pay less and watch ads can now do so on their premium Apple streaming hardware.

The new update is version number 2.3.0 and if you have automatic app updates enabled you probably already have it installed without realizing it. The Apple TV doesn't do a good job of telling you when it has updated an app, unfortunately.

Apple had been expected to announce its first AR/VR headset during the WWDC event that will take place in June. But a new report now suggests that might not happen after all.

The headset, dubbed Reality Pro by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, has been heavily rumored for months with some suggesting that Apple could unveil it at the Worldwide Developers Conference so as to give developers a chance to take a look at what they'll be building apps for. It was never clear whether the device would go on sale at the same time, or if it would launch months later as Apple previously did with the Apple Watch.

However, a new report by supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo now suggests that might not happen. In a post to Twitter, Kuo said that Apple "isn't very optimistic" about its product, adding that it might instead choose to delay the announcement.

A new report at Wccftech indicates that the launch of entry-level A620 motherboards for AM5 Ryzen 7000 CPUs is happening this week, with an MSI A620 motherboard set to launch with a price point under USD 90.

And yeah, that's what we'd call entry-level and affordable, and something that will open the door to more budget-conscious Ryzen builds using the lower, more efficient SKUs of the Ryzen 7000 Series. Like, say, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600.

Of course, lowering the price does mean reducing the capabilities, with PCB images of the MSI A620 board showcasing a 6+2+1 VRM design and a single 8-pin power connector for the AM5 socket. Still, the board will feature VRM heatsinks and, per the AM5 spec, support DDR5 memory (with AMD EXPO overclocking) via two slots.

NVIDIA has announced what's being added to the could-streaming GeForce NOW in April 2023, and it's stacked with great-looking indie titles and a few high-profile releases.

NVIDIA also took the time to remind everyone that it has partnered with Microsoft to bring titles from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, Mojang, and Activision (pending the closure of the acquisition) and is currently in the process of onboarding Microsoft titles into the GeForce Now ecosystem.

But, until those titles arrive, plenty of goodness is coming - with 11 titles added this week and plenty more coming in April, including the highly anticipated Dead Island 2 and the entire run of The Dark Pictures Anthology interactive horror games from Bandai Namco.

Traditionally the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) has been one of the biggest events in the gaming calendar, covering consoles, PC, and anywhere games are played. And now, after a year since we got confirmation that the event was making a return, word of its cancelation has arrived.

So, what went wrong? The short answer is that there wasn't enough industry interest or support for the event to be the sort of large-scale gaming extravaganza it has been in the past.

Several notable players like Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Ubisoft, EA, and others have chosen to skip E3 2023 to do their own digital thing or shift their focus to the newly annualized Summer Game Fest.