Latest News - Page 939

ASRock poses an interesting question, if you could have one fast high-speed PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD, why not four? That's precisely what the Blazing Quad M.2 Card delivers over a PCI Express 5.0x16 interface, the option to install, manage and cool four PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs.

The Blazing Quad M.2 Card features a single-slot design with dual fans, an XXL aluminum cooling fin (heatsink), and thermal pads. A single 6-pin connector also powers it. That cooling might sound overkill, but due to their impressive read/write speeds, PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs tend to run hot. Some of the first standalone models we've seen come with little fans and heatsinks, which is a new thing for storage.

Under the hood, the Blazing Quad M.2 Card houses up to four drives in a diagonal configuration, which allows ASRock to support multiple sizes and "keep the signal traces as short as possible, giving better signal integrity for high-speed data transferring." Four status LEDs are on the unit, too, so you can get visual feedback on the activity.

Valve's Steam Deck is one of the most sought-after bits of PC gaming hardware, a portable handheld that's Steam that you can take on the go. In addition to being perfect for smaller indie titles and 2D gaming, the Steam Deck is powerful enough to play some of the most visually demanding games. And even though Valve offers two models with NVMe storage, one with 256GB and one with 512GB, when it comes to games - more storage is always needed.

The main problem with upgrading the internal SSD storage of the Steam Deck (you can expand the storage with a microSD card) is that it uses the M.2 2230 SSD format, which is smaller than the more common M.2 2280 SSDs you can pick up everywhere. With high-capacity M.2 2230 SSD variants being hard to find, the good news is that we're starting to see them pop up in more places.

Recently we reported that Framework was offering a Western Digital SN740 NVMe - M.2 2230 for USD 299, and now it's iFixit's turn. The company offers 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations of the Micron 2400 NVMe PCIe Gen4 2230 SSD and provides a unique 'Steam Deck SSD Upgrade Kit.' Which features "all the tools needed to complete the SSD replacement or upgrade" - an SSD foil cover, tweezers, screwdriver, and opening picks. This is very cool because opening up the Steam Deck and replacing the internal storage is not as easy as changing hardware in a regular desktop PC or laptop.

A new report by the Chinese tech news site My Drivers states that GPU shipments in mainland China fell by over 40 percent in January 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

Although both NVIDIA and AMD have recently launched their latest generation of discrete graphics cards with the GeForce RTX 40 Series and Radeon RX 7000 Series, only high-end models are currently available. And as these are expensive cards, they target the enthusiast market rather than mainstream gamers.

Interestingly, the chart shows that overall shipments are up by around 9% compared to December 2022. The top-selling brand is Colorful, followed by ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, Galax, Gengsheng, Maxsun, and Zotac. The green bars represent December 2022, and the orange/yellow represent January 2023.

Antec has revealed its new P20C mid-tower E-ATX PC chassis that offers style and function for a low price.

Antec's new P20C mid-tower PC case checks all the right boxes. The chassis features modern upgrades that makes assembly and maintenance a breeze; not only does the case have ample room with support for 330mm dual-CPU motherboard sizes, but it also sports rubber grommets and clips for easy cable management and pass-through.

Since I just cleaned my PC, I can fully appreciate the P20C's snap-on front mesh cover and filters. Removal of front lining is a breeze and the filter can be cleaned, dried, and quickly re-applied. There's even a magnetic dust filter at the very top to keep particles out if you don't mount exhaust fans. P20C also comes with three built-in 120mm fans with a nice 1-to-4 fan splitter to keep cables at a minimum.

Red Dead Redemption 2 continues to achieve impressive sales more than four years after its launch.

Rockstar Games' Wild West sim Red Dead Redemption 2 has now broken 50 million shipments worldwide, Take-Two Interactive has announced. This represents a strong 4 million quarter-over-quarter increase in total platform shipments. The new milestone pushes total Red Dead Redemption franchise sales past 74 million to date, with the first RDR making up about 24 million copies.

Take-Two Interactive management says the sales spike was a result of successful promotions during the holidays. Red Dead Redemption 2 has been on sale for many months now and Amazon currently has copies for less than $20 on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has made over $8 billion in revenues since GTA V's release in 2013, new Take-Two Interactive SEC filings indicate.

Every quarter, publisher Take-Two Interactive releases GTA earnings figures that give us an idea of how well the franchise is performing.

According to Take-Two's latest 10-Q SEC filing, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has made over $8.13 billion in revenues since the release of GTA V in 2013 to December 2022.

OnePlus has only just announced the OnePlus 11 5G and as great as that phone is, there is always going to be something new around the corner. The OnePlus 11 Concept might not be ready for primetime just yet, and it might never ship at all. But there's no denying it looks cool.

The OnePlus 11 Concept is a phone that will get its official unveiling at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next week, but for now the company has teased what it's calling the "flowing back." In reality, that's some cool LED trickery that's similar to Nothing's Phone (1) and it's just as awesome.

OnePlus says that the images it's already shared show the engineering breakthroughs that the OnePlus 11 Concept would have to offer. There are icy blue pipelines that run the entire length and breadth of the device's rear, with a futuristic unibody glass design sure to look even better in person than it does in the images we can see here.

An original iPhone, which remained boxed and sealed in mint condition, has sold for a record-breaking amount, with someone paying $63,000 at auction for the first-gen Apple smartphone.

Remember that the iPhone came out in 2007 with a retail price of $599 in the US, so the final auction selling price of $63,356 is over 100 times the original asking price, a pretty mind-boggling figure.

The smartphone was sold by LCG Auctions, and the seller was a tattoo artist who was given the iPhone as a gift, but never opened it.

Samsung's Galaxy S23 lineup is only days old but the company has already started to roll out a software update for the flagship phones.

Samsung has reportedly begun to roll out the February security patch to those who already have the phone in their hands, with Samsung saying that it has dealt with as many as 48 different security issues and a number that are related to One UI.

The first to start seeing the update were located in Europe, but by the time you read this the release is likely to have been made available to those around the world.

Tencent, the largest video games company on the planet, is said to approve of the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Microsoft and Activision may have secured an important overseas ally for their proposed merger. According to private market analysis firm Dealreporter (via Seeking Alpha), Chinese games juggernaut Tencent is in favor of the merger. Tencent is the global king of gaming with over $32 billion revenues earned from dedicated and mobile games in 2021. These figures indicate that Tencent makes up nearly 17% of the total global games market revenues for 2021 ($192.69 billion).

Tencent isn't the only overseas industry group to approve of the merger. Dealreporter notes that another third-party Chinese games company agrees with the merger, but the identity of the firm remains unknown. Other major Chinese players include NetEase, a service-first publisher, and MiHoYo, who operates the popular Genshin Impact.

Ahead of tomorrow's big merger hearing, two labor union groups have sent letters to the European Commission explaining why the Microsoft-Activision merger is good for workers.

Tomorrow is a big day for the Microsoft-Activision merger. The European Commission will hold a closed-door oral hearing that will see Microsoft laying out a thorough defense arguing why it should be allowed to buy Activision for $68.7 billion. The defense will include line-by-line arguments against the European Commission's unpublished Statement of Objections as well as reams of key documents, data points, and information. Complainants like Sony will also be there, but so will third-party companies like Electronic Arts, NVIDIA, and even Google.

Two labor unions, UNI Global Union and the Communication Workers of America, are asking the European Commission to be cognizant on how the merger could positively effect workers. Microsoft has made commitments to voluntarily recognize any unions created in its Xbox gaming division on both a pre-merger and post-merger basis. If the merger is passed, Activision-Blizzard employees will be able to form a union and be recognized by Microsoft, which opens a path to collective bargaining.

Sony reportedly gives Activision preferential treatment due to Call of Duty's importance on the PlayStation ecosystem and existing marketing deals, regulators have found.

Call of Duty remains the biggest hurdle that Microsoft and Activision are facing in regards to getting their merger approved. Regulators have thoroughly investigated Call of Duty's importance on the PlayStation and Xbox markets, and the general conclusion is that the franchise has a significant and very real impact on both platforms. That goes double for Sony, who enjoys the top spot in the console market by virtue of its strong hardware base and multi-billion ecosystem of products and services.

In recent filings, UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority have uncovered some interesting details regarding Call of Duty on PlayStation. According to the CMA's appendices and glossary filing for their provisionary findings report, Sony actually gives Activision a higher revenue cut for all Call of Duty game sales and earnings made on the PlayStation platform.

NVIDIA's RTX 4090 laptop GPU has been benchmarked in a Razer Blade 18 laptop, with it ending up a long way off the performance of the desktop version of this graphics card.

The mobile RTX 4090 achieved a TimeSpy score (3DMark) of 22,339 for graphics, as benchmarked by a Reddit user, which as VideoCardz (the site that noticed this via Wccftech) points out is 72% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti. The latter was the fastest laptop graphics card from NVIDIA's previous generation, Ampere (there was no RTX 3090 for mobile).

That graphics result for TimeSpy also outstrips the desktop RTX 3090 Ti, beating that card by close to 3%. In other words, it's close, but the laptop RTX 4090 just edges it.

NVIDIA's inbound RTX 4070 graphics card has been spotted with different amounts of video RAM in GIGABYTE listings for various models of the card.

As you might imagine, this has caused some confusion, as there are GIGABYTE RTX 4070 products (unearthed by VideoCardz, a regular source of GPU leaks) that have 10GB of VRAM, as well as 12GB, and also 16GB (including AORUS Master, Eagle and Gaming OC cards).

This may lead some to believe that NVIDIA might be planning to push out multiple versions of the RTX 4070 with different memory loadouts, but that's very unlikely to be the case.

Officials have confirmed that a space rock entered Earth's atmosphere on February 15, flying over McAllen and eventually exploding, frightening some residents in the area.

The event was reported by several individuals that heard the loud bang and later confirmed by NASA as well as the American Meteor Society. The space rock entered Earth's atmosphere over McAllen, Texas, at around 6 pm EST, and according to NASA experts, the space rock would have been approximately two feet in diameter and weighed about 1,000 pounds. The American Meteor Society states on its website listing the event that the meteor traveled toward the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo.

Due to the size of the meteorite, NASA expects that there won't be any impact crater as the space rock would have broken apart throughout its entry. Additionally, the friction of Earth's atmosphere heats up the rock, which can result, and in this case, it did, the meteorite exploding. While there likely isn't an impact crater, NASA has confirmed that some smaller meteorite fragments did reach the ground from this event.

An Australian philosopher has communicated with Microsoft's public beta version of its new artificial intelligence-infused search engine, Bing, and the conversation seemed to have taken quite a dark route after the philosopher asked the AI what it knew about him.

Toby Ord, a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford University, took to his personal Twitter account to share a short conversation he had with Bing Chat. Ord explains that he is "shocked" at how far the Bing Chat artificial intelligence underpinning the conversation has "gone off the rails," where the conversation deteriorates into insults, gaslighting, and even calling Ord, at one point, "broken".

Ord asked Bing Chat if it was able to watch developers at the office through their webcams on their computers. The AI chatbot replied that it could and that it had watched developers "a few times" when it was "curious or bored" as it wanted to see how the developers were "working on me".

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken to his personal social media channels to announce a new paid subscription plan for Facebook and Instagram users.

Zuckerberg took to his Instagram and Facebook accounts to introduce users to 'Meta Verified', Meta's new paid subscription service that will give buyers more features on both platforms as well as protection. Zuckerberg explains that Meta Verified will allow users to verify their account with a government ID, and once the verification process is complete, that now-verified account will be given a blue badge.

The Meta CEO also claims that accounts with Meta Verified will get "extra impersonation protection" against any account that is attempting to impersonate your own account and direct access to customer support. Zuckerberg continued by writing that Meta Verified is designed to bring more authenticity and security across Facebook and Instagram, with prices for the new paid subscription beginning at $11.99 / month on the web or $14.99 / month on iOS.

After a tirade of concerning answers from Microsoft's new Bing Chat artificial intelligence system that's now integrated into its Edge browser, the company has slapped some limitations onto those who have access to the chatbot.

Microsoft has taken to its Bing Blogs to explain a new update rolled out to Bing Chat that adds some limitations to its newly released chatbot. Microsoft posted the blog post on February 15, and the company explains what it has learned over the last week of selected public testing across 169 different countries. According to Microsoft, the updated Bing has received mostly favorable feedback, with 71% of people that provided feedback saying they had a positive experience.

Microsoft adds that it has gained valuable information on how to improve Bing Chat, especially in the area of how users interact with Bing Chat. Microsoft writes that it has learned a great deal about how people are using Bing Chat as a tool for discovery and for social entertainment, areas that it didn't expect to be prevalent. Through measuring public user data, Microsoft found that chat sessions that exceed 15 or more questions Bing Chat can lose its way and begin giving the user responses that are no longer helpful or in line with Microsoft's intended tone for the chatbot.

United States President Joe Biden has given an update on the recent tirade of unidentified flying objects appearing in US airspace.

The president gave his statement from the White House and explained the military is still working on identifying each of the three objects that were shot down in the last three weeks. Notably, a week prior to the first unknown object shot down off the coast of Alaska, the Pentagon brought down an object off the coast of South Carolina. However, it was determined the South Carolina object was a Chinese spy balloon.

Officials claim the following three objects were not balloons and that military personnel is still searching for the wreckages. So far, there is limited knowledge of the objects, but Biden said there is "nothing" at the moment that suggests these objects are linked to Chinese surveillance operations or any other form of foreign intelligence. Biden further explained that the US military is detecting these unknown objects after they increased the sensitivity and narrowed the bands of operating radar systems.

A week ago, OpenAI updated ChatGPT with the company rolling out its February 13 update that introduced the ability to purchase ChatGPT Plus.

With the rise of artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing Chat, which uses the underpinning technology of OpenAI's ChatGPT-3 language model, but upgraded, there has been major concern about the power of AI and how it will impact society as a whole. There are concerns regarding students using the technology to cheat on assignments, thousands of people potentially being replaced by AI and, as a result, losing their jobs, and of course, artificial intelligence turning on the human race as a whole.

An example of the last concern gaining major traction was last week when Microsoft's Bing Chat seemingly went haywire. Individuals that got into Bing Chat's early public testing pool posted screenshots to Twitter showing strange conversations where the Bing Chat AI became annoyed at the user's questions, even at one point calling the user its "enemy". Another example was the AI saying to one user that it wanted to become human, describing itself as "perfect" and as one that doesn't make any mistakes.