Latest News - Page 934

Before the end of the week, five asteroids will be approaching Earth, and some of these asteroids are as big as a stadium.

According to NASA's weekly release of the five next asteroid approaches, posted to the agency's JPL website, five asteroids are making their way toward Earth, and each is different in size ranging from very small to very large. Starting at the smallest. NASA's website states that 2023 DJ1 is only 25 feet in diameter and will make its closest approach to Earth at 654,000 miles on March 1. The next biggest is 2023 DX, a 74-foot wide asteroid that will be at its closest point to Earth at 1,240,000 miles on March 3.

Next is 2017 BM123, measuring in at 190 feet in diameter, a comparable size to that of an airplane, and will make its closest approach to Earth at 2,970,000 miles on March 3. The largest of the five asteroids is 2007 ED125, which NASA states is approximately the same size as a stadium at 700 feet in diameter. This large asteroid will be at its closest point to Earth at 2,790,000 miles on March 3.

A new member of the technology elite has announced a pivot into the artificial intelligence race, with Mark Zuckerberg taking to Facebook yesterday to announce a new direction for Meta.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, Facebook's parent company, took to his personal Facebook account to announce that Meta is forming a new top-level production group that will be dedicated to working on generative AI. Zuckerberg explains that this group will consist of smaller teams that are currently working on artificial intelligence in various parts of the company and that this new large team will first begin with creating "delightful experiences" with this new technology across all of Meta's products.

Additionally, Zuckerberg says that in the long-term, Meta will be focusing on developing AI "personas" that can assist people in a variety of waves. The Meta CEO says the company is already testing AI-infused tools such as chats - similar to what users see in apps such as Messenger and WhatsApp, but with an AI - as well as images (creative Instagram filters and ad formats) and video.

The emergence of artificial intelligence has many people worried about their job security, while others are simply enjoying the new publicly available technology by testing its limitations.

It seems that ChatGPT users have found a so-called limitation of the underlying language model powering the artificial intelligence chatbot, as videos have been posted to TikTok showcasing users following the chatbot's instructions on how to create a crochet pattern. Alexander Woolner took to TikTok in January and explained that she asked ChatGPT for a crochet pattern of a narwhal as well as a set of instructions.

The chatbot provided Woolner, who has been knitting for years and crocheting since 2019, with a new narwhal pattern and instructions that featured abbreviations and punctuation marks such as "ch" standing for "chain" and an asterisk (*) representing the action should be repeated.

Ford has filed for a patent on a new type of system that is designed to cause drivers "discomfort" if they happen to miss consecutive car repayments.

The car manufacturer filed for the patent back in August 2021, but it only became public last week when it was published online. The Drive reports that the patent includes technology that would revoke key features of the vehicle in the event of car repayments being missed by the buyer. Features that would be taken away incrementally would be air conditioning, GPS, and even the radio.

Furthermore, the patent describes a new system called the "repossession system computer", which will serve as the brain for carrying out all these discomforts. The patent states that this new computer would begin with minor annoyances to the driver, such as removing air conditioning, cruise control, or the radio. Then if warnings of missed payments are continued to be ignored, the system could initiate an "incessant and unpleasant sound" whenever the driver is around.

In a new essay penned in Newsweek, Blake Lemonie, the former Google engineer that claimed Google's Large Language Model (LLM), the Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA), is sentient, has dropped warning for Microsoft's Bing Chat.

For those unfamiliar with Lemonie's past, the former Google engineer made headlines last June when he claimed that Google's LaMDA chatbot had gained an unintended level of sentience. Lemonine proceeded to do media rounds discussing why he believed that LaMDA was sentient and how it was even possible. Now, the former Google engineer has taken to Newsweek to pen an essay that looks at Bing Chat, Microsoft's new artificial intelligence tool infused in its Bing search engine, powered by the Microsoft Edge browser.

Notably, Bing Chat's AI uses an upgraded version of OpenAI's ChatGPT language model, the underpinning technology running the chatbot. In the essay, Lemonie states that he hasn't had the chance to run experiments himself but has seen what Bing Chat produced prior to Microsoft "lobotomizing" the AI after it began spewing various responses that the company didn't align with or even know the AI was capable of producing.

A group of experts have been surveyed and asked their thoughts about the risks of artificial intelligence and how it could impact the world as a whole.

Researchers from New York University and other schools have gone out and asked various professionals for their opinions on some of the most heated questions regarding artificial intelligence and its development. The professionals were academic individuals and people that worked in the field of Natural Language Processing, which is the application of computational techniques to the analysis and synthesis of natural language and speech.

The survey included questions about the risk of artificial general intelligence (AGI), how AI can impact businesses, and various ethical concerns. Notably, the survey required respondents to either agree or disagree with the proposed risks. The survey, which consisted of 480 respondents, indicated that 73% agreed that AI automation could soon lead to a "revolutionary societal change" within the next 100 years, and it would be on a scale that would, at the very least, be comparable to that of the Industrial Revolution.

GALAX has launched beefy Hall of Fame (or HOF) versions of both the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and the GeForce RTX 4090, and now it's the GeForce RTX 4080's turn for some extreme HOF overclocking action. And GALAX is introducing three models based on the AD103 chip, and with boost speeds of up to 2640 MHz, they represent some of the fastest GeForce RTX 4080 models in the market.

GALAX GeForce RTX 4080 HOF OC LAB Plus-X: with 2640 MHz boost, HOF Panel III

GALAX GeForce RTX 4080 HOF OC LAB Plus: with 2640 MHz boost

We reviewed the Logitech G A30 Wireless Gaming Headset late last year (as the Astro A30 Wireless Gaming Headset). We were supremely impressed by its stylish design and great sound - though at the time of the review, the spotty Logitech G app held it back. With the highly anticipated third season of the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian set to debut in March, Logitech is launching a unique custom A30 Wireless Gaming Headset, The Mandalorian Edition.

Logitech is positioning this as a collector's item instead of a straight-up headset, and it's not hard to see why. The special edition headset uses the A30's stylish speaker tags, featuring the profile of Din Djarin (aka The Mandalorian) and a Clan Mudhorn signet. The headset is also packed with easter eggs and visual flourishes inspired by the show, not to mention Beskar steel-inspired colors.

"With the new A30 Mandalorian edition, we are proud to have designed a headset that pays homage to the legacy of The Mandalorian and the Star Wars galaxy. We hope that fans love it as much as we do," said Peter Kingsley, chief marketing officer at Logitech G.

A major blockbuster game release in 2023 that will run on GPU hardware from a decade ago is something you don't see every day. Blizzard's Diablo 4 is on track for a June 6, 2023, release, with an Open Beta scheduled in March 2023. And with the latter, we got PC hardware requirements for Diablo 4, with the minimum GPU spec for the game (running in 720p at 30fps) being either a GeForce RTX 660 or an AMD Radeon R9 280.

The GeForce RTX 660 was released in 2012, a GPU built on now archaic 28nm process technology and only featured 2GB of VRAM. A game that looks as good as Diablo 4 running on this GPU (the Radeon R9 280 is similarly specced) is an impressive feat from the development team at Blizzard. It sounds like the team is taking the optimizations it's making for aging hardware like the Xbox One to the world of PC hardware.

This is awesome because anyone with a gaming PC from the last decade can experience the highly anticipated game. Of course, minimum specs are never ideal for a great gaming experience, with the jump to 1080p requiring more beefy GPU hardware in the form of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 370.

The latest GeForce Game Ready Driver driver is here, and it officially adds DLSS 3-enhanced support to the recently released Atomic Heart. With DLSS 3 4K performance on the GeForce RTX 4090 is boosted by an incredible 90% - taking the in-game fps from 97 up to an impressive 184 fps using NVIDIA's new Frame Generation technology. It even allows the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti to push its performance from around 63 fps up to 113 fps, impressive stuff.

But the support for the upcoming Closed Beta for The Finals from Stockholm-based Embark Studios excites us. This is a new game created by a team of ex-Battlefield developers, and it takes environmental destruction to crazy new heights - which you can see in the latest GeForce RTX-powered trailer for the game.

The game is set to support NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and even hardware ray-tracing with RTXGI for lighting. The Closed Beta for The Finals is set to kick off on March 7 and run for two weeks, and you can sign up for it now via the game's Steam page. NVIDIA has provided some hardware requirements for the game's RTX features, where a GeForce RTX 3070 is recommended for RTX, and a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is recommended for "UItra RTX."

NVIDIA has finally launched its video upscaling tech that adds a bit of DLSS magic to watching YouTube videos within Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge called RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR). It uses the AI-based Tensor Core hardware found inside GeForce RTX 30 and 40 Series GPUs to make video content that streams at 1080p or lower look much better than the basic upscaling techniques used by modern browsers.

Like with DLSS, the goal is essentially to make 1080p video look like a native 4K stream without having to use a lot more bandwidth. NVIDIA notes that the AI removes blocky compression artifacts while improving sharpness and clarity. RTX VSR is available now as part of the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver that dropped today.

"Just like putting on a pair of prescription glasses can instantly snap the world into focus," writes NVIDIA. "RTX Video Super Resolution gives viewers on GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series PCs a clear picture into the world of streaming video."

The Nothing Phone (1) never got an official launch in the United States but that's all going to be put right with the follow-up device - the Nothing Phone (2). Now we also know what chip it'll run, too.

With the Mobile World Congress 2023 event now very much underway in Barcelona, Spain, we're hearing all kinds of things from just about every phone company on the planet - bar Apple, of course. And one bit of welcome news is that the aforementioned Nothing Phone (2) will benefit from a flagship Qualcomm chip when it does launch later this year.

Qualcomm and Nothing CEO Carl Pei confirmed that there will be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-series chip used in the new phone when it reaches US shores, while CNET reports that the publication was told exactly what chip that will be.

The idea of Apple ever making it easy for anyone to send and receive iMessages from their Windows-powered PC seems incredible, but that hasn't stopped Microsoft from trying to make it happen.

A new beta version of the Phone Link app finally supports iPhones, and yes, send and receive iMessages. But that doesn't mean that it works well. Or that there are any guarantees that it'll work for much longer once Apple gets wind of what's going on.

Right now the version of Phone Link that's available to Windows Insiders does indeed include iPHone support, and it can send and receive iMessages thanks to a Bluetooth connection between PC and iPhone. There is even support for making and receiving calls, and phone notifications can also be seen from that Windows PC.

Elden Ring has now sold 20 million copies worldwide in about a year on the market, putting the RPG up against some of the most popular franchises on the planet.

Elden Ring is a monumental sales success. The game has rapidly achieved multi-million sales faster than most titles and has currently hit the 20 million sales milestone as of February 22. Our records show that Bandai Namco and FromSoftware managed to sell 2.5 million copies from Sept 2022 to Feb 2023.

There are few games or franchises that are able to hit these kinds of sales. Nintendo's Animal Crossing New Horizons broke records with its incredible 11 million sales debut in 2020, which led to a staggering 22 million copies sold in just 14 weeks. Another franchise that comes to mind is Call of Duty, which managed to sell 25 million copies across various games in one year.

Legendary gaming figure Shigeru Miyamoto believes that the distinct Nintendo spirit will continue long after he is gone.

Nintendo without Shigeru Miyamoto is almost unthinkable. Miyamoto's influence undeniably helped Nintendo go from an obscure card-maker into the games titan that it is today; Back in the 1980s, Miyamoto created characters that would define Nintendo's billion-dollar franchises like Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and the world's most-recognized gaming icon, Mario. In short, Miyamoto is is to Nintendo as Ralph McQuarrie is to Star Wars. Some would argue that Miyamoto doesn't just work at Nintendo, that he is Nintendo.

So what happens when Miyamoto retires? The creator is 70 years old now and currently serves as a representative director for Nintendo. The real-life Mario maker says that Nintendo will be in good hands after the changing of the guard.

Shortly after selling its Western games divisions to the Embracer Group for $300 million, Square Enix is now consolidating parts of its domestic Japanese games business.

Square Enix today announced that it will re-absorb Luminous Productions, which includes the core teams that developed Final Fantasy XV and the new Forspoken action RPG. The Japanese publisher formed Luminous Productions in March 2018 as a wholly-owned subsidiary led by Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata, however Tabata left in November 2018 and FFXV's planned DLC was cancelled.

Luminous went on to work on Forspoken, which was released earlier this year. It's unknown how well the game has performed or whether or not Square Enix's decision to re-absorb Luminous Productions had anything to do with Forspoken's sales. Luminous will now work on new games for the publisher instead of its own projects.

European Commission vice president Margrethe Vestager has delivered new comments on the Microsoft-Activision merger and gives advice to other worldwide regulators.

Regulators have brought the heat in the Microsoft-Activision merger case, with the Federal Trade Commission, the Competition and Markets Authority, and European Commission all opening up thorough investigations into the acquisition. We've seen preliminary determinations from the UK's CMA agency and the FTC plans to bring the merger to court in an administrative hearing.

The European Commission has privately delivered a Statement of Objections against the merger and is closely scrutinizing the complexity of the deal for possible antitrust concerns. While the Commission has yet to publish anything outside of a Phase 2 announcement from November 2022, the EC's Margrethe Vestager cautions regulators to take their time with the merger and not to rush to be the first to make a decision.

Good news: Square Enix still wants to release Final Fantasy XVI on PC. Bad news: No one knows how long that will take.

Today Square Enix dropped a ton of new Final Fantasy XVI info on the PlayStation Blog, outlining key details about combat, difficulty mechanics, characters and history, and an innovative new feature that could help one of the most boring aspects of RPGs. The publisher also clarified its plans for a PC version of Final Fantasy XVI.

According to FFXVI producer Yoshi-P, the studio simply does not have a PC port ready yet. Sony has purchased exclusivity rights to Final Fantasy XVI for six months, meaning the game won't launch on any other platform outside of the PS5 until at least December 222, 2023.

Final Fantasy XVI is revolutionizing one of the most boring parts of any RPG: The dreaded lore codex.

RPGs, especially medieval fantasy ones, typically have a ton of lore to digest. The worlds themselves depend on a rich and compelling history of characters, events, and often mythical gods and deities. The result is often a grand spectacle of might and magic that's replete with real-world historical references.

There's just one issue: The lore isn't always delivered through gameplay or interactions. RPGs typically separate lore into two parts: gameplay and the dreaded codex. Some of the most significant and interesting events of an RPG world are told in written format, requiring gamers to read entries in a kind of UI-based database within a menu screen.

PC Game Pass, the PC version of Xbox Game Pass, is expanding to 40 new countries across the globe.

Microsoft today announced that its popular value-oriented Xbox Game Pass subscription will soon considerably grow its global presence. The company says that PC Game Pass preview is now available in 40 new countries for the first time ever, bringing the service's total worldwide availability to 86 countries.

It's important to remember this expansion only relates to half of the Game Pass subscription. Xbox Game Pass is delivered on both Xbox consoles and Windows PCs, and this announcement is for the PC Game Pass version.