Latest News - Page 944

If you're looking at putting together a new enthusiast, gaming, or content creation PC, this new range of Corsair products should interest you. The company is updating its liquid CPU cooling options and introducing new cases designed for maximum airflow (and RGB goodness). It is introducing a new RGB fan in the form of the AF RGB ELITE.

The AG RGB ELITE fan is described as Corsair's highest-performing RGB fan, featuring eight addressable LEDs per fan. Available in 120mm and 140mm versions, speeds can top 2,100 RPM and 1,700 RPM, respectively, with the low-noise operation and a "Zero RPM" mode that is said to generate no noise. The new AF RGB ELITE is available in a kit with an iCUE Lighting Node CORE controller and as single-fan expansions.

This brings us to the new liquid CPU coolers in the form of the new AIO-based iCUE ELITE CAPELLIX XT and ELITE LCD XT, which incorporate these new fans. Coupled with Corsair's applied XTM70 Extreme Performance Thermal Paste, the company notes that these new coolers are perfect for the "thermally demanding" 13th Gen Intel and AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors. These new coolers are available in radiator sizes going from 240mm up to 420mm.

Corsair has introduced new software for those with a taste for RGB lighting called iCUE Murals Lighting. It uses what's happening on the screen to create immersive lighting for your desktop, peripherals, and any RGB-powered lights in the room - in an easy-to-use interface. Corsair has partnered with Philips Hue and Nanoleaf, so you'll have direct control over wall panels, smart light bulbs, and more from within the powerful iCUE software.

A fully decked-out example of the interface showcases everything from a keyboard to a mouse, desk mat, RGB lighting strips, Nanoleaf panels, and more, all arranged by the user to allow for easy and deep customization.

Combining all RGB lights within a single interface and powerful tools within the new Murals interface is undoubtedly impressive and a definite way to unify and get creative in a single space. It's fully interactive, and you can upload any image, GIF, or video to Murals and then intuitively place your RGB devices and lights over sections on-screen to create a new lighting setup. Some of the results in the images provided by Corsair look very impressive.

Microsoft is now actively promoting Windows 11 and has stopped digital downloads of the Windows 10 operating system as of January 31, 2023. This means that if you want to buy Windows 10, you'll need to purchase it from third-party channels. How to buy a cheap genuine Windows 10? You can choose GoDeal24, an online platform selling genuine Windows OS, MS Office, and other computer software. GoDeal24 guarantees that every license sold is safe and reliable.

During GoDeal24 Valentine's Day Sale, Windows 10 Pro is priced as low as $6.12/PC! Even though Microsoft no longer sells Windows 10, Windows 10 will continue to receive security updates until October 14, 2025, to protect the user's computer from viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. And Windows 10 also supports a free upgrade to Windows 11!

Windows 11 has been officially launched on the Microsoft Store with an official price of $199.99. During GoDeal24 Valentine's Day Sale, you can get the genuine Windows 11 Pro for only $10.25. If you buy more than one, you can take advantage of a cost-effective bundle of the Windows 11 Pro 5PC, where Windows 11 Pro is priced as low as $9.79 per PC!

From the PS1 to the PS5, PlayStation's total lifetime software sales should break 6 billion by mid-2023, our findings indicate.

Sony's video games division is set to break a staggering milestone in 2023. The company is expected to pass the 6 billion cumulative game sales mark by the end of Q1 FY23, or June 30, 2023. Sony data shows that historical PlayStation game sales are currently at 5.913 billion as of the Q3 holiday period.

This figure combines all PlayStation platform software sales data that Sony has provided. Interestingly enough, the PlayStation Vita's software sales are not published. It's possible that PlayStation has already sold more than 6 billion games depending on the Vita's performance.

Sony's PlayStation division saw significant player growth through the gaming segment's stellar holiday Q3 period.

MAUs, or monthly active users, is one of the most important metrics for the games industry. PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, and a myriad of game devs and publishers rely on this data to determine the overall health of a platform, whether it be subscription-based like Game Pass or even World of Warcraft or on a more general F2P level like Fortnite and Warzone. MAUs are an extremely useful tool that instantly quantifies the popularity of a platform, which in turn affects engagement and spending.

Back in Q2 (July - September 2022), Sony saw a decline in PlayStation users as MAUs dropped to 102 million, which punctuated a sequential userbase decline from Q3 2021 onward. The games division saw a dramatic reversal in Q3 2022 where it reported its best-ever holiday earnings of $8.8 billion. Several other important milestones accompanied this historic earnings surge, including marked growth in PlayStation monthly active users.

Sony has re-captured enough users to stabilize PlayStation Plus after losing nearly 2 million subscribers in the Q2 period.

PlayStation Plus has bounced back. Sony just reported its best-ever Q3 period in the history of PlayStation with $8.8 billion revenues generated during the holiday 2022 period, and PS Plus numbers also surged by 1 million subscribers during the expansion point.

Sony has yet to recoup all of the 1.9 million PS Plus subscribers that it had lost throughout Q2, but did manage to pull in 1 million subscribers to push PlayStation Plus' total count to 46.4 million. These are hardly record numbers for the service--the current high for PS Plus was set in Q3 FY2020 with an all-time high of 47.6 million subscribers--but the quarter-over-quarter growth is quite important for Sony's long-term digital earnings.

One of NASA's most-famous space telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope has fixed its sensitive optical cameras onto a distant star cluster and snapped a gorgeous photograph.

NASA published the above image on November 29, 2022 and explained that its a Hubble photograph of a distant dazzling star cluster that is called NGC 2660. The space agency states that NGC 2660 is an open star cluster that is located 8,617 light-years from Earth within the constellation Vela.

NASA explain that an open star cluster is a group of stars that can contain anywhere between ten to a few hundred stars and that these stars are loosely bound together by gravity. There is a chance that this group of stars may eventually disperse and spread out from each other as a result of the small gravitational pull. It should be noted that the bright red object that is located in the upper left-hand corner of the image is much closer to Earth than the stars in the background and is not part of the open star cluster.

Saudi Arabia's state news agency SPA has reported on the nation's first-ever AI robot that can space Arabic and perform dances.

The robot is named Sara and was unveiled at the LEAP23 technology conference, where it was explained by engineers that the robot is able to recognize the differences between certain dialects within the Kingdom. Sara uses artificial intelligence to determine when people are standing in front of it and will begin listening when an individual prompts Sara with "Hello Sara".

Since Sara can detect different dialects and interpret what someone is saying, the robot can come up with an appropriate answer to many questions. These answers are sent in the form of text messages. LEAP explains via a video posted to its Twitter account that Sara is the very first Saudi human robot to be created and was born out of a partnership between Digital Government Authority and QSS. The creators behind the report explain that Sara has a long life cycle ahead of her and that she is designed to "serve humanity".

The US military announced on Saturday that it detected an unknown object on its radar system moving through airspace close to Montana, sparking officials to close a region of airspace above the state.

Recently released reports state that US military detected the object, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) sent a fighter aircraft to inspect the area. In response to this radar anomaly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) closed the airspace for the Department of Defense to conduct activities. The closed airspace stretched 50 nautical miles around Harve, Montana, located near the Canadian border.

The FAA issued similar flight restrictions when the US military brought down a Chinese spy balloon that was detected off the coast of South Carolina. Recent reports state that the fighter jet inspected the area where the object was detected and found nothing. NORAD issued a statement and said its aircraft "did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation." Since no object was found, the FAA has reopened the airspace.

How did gaming's Big 3 (PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo) fit into global video games market in 2022? We've calculated market share estimates using estimates from analysts and official figures from the companies themselves.

According to our estimates, gaming's Big 3 platform-holders saw slight year-over-year fluctuations in market share positioning throughout 2022. Using a combination of Newzoo's 2022 global video games market data and quarterly financial reports filed by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, we're able to weigh each company's calendar year performance against the backdrop of worldwide games market earnings. The results show a year-over-year decline in overall market revenues and individual company earnings.

Before we go into the numbers let's take a quick look at our basic methodology. Newzoo's market report estimates that the worldwide video games industry generated $184.4 billion throughout 2022, representing an $8.3 billion (-4.3%) decrease from 2021. To determine how Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo fit into the market, we've simply added up the appropriate quarters for each company to deliver total-year earnings and divided those against Newzoo's estimates.

Krafton opens a new game development studio in Montreal, Canada that will aim to do for a popular South Korean fantasy series what CD Projekt RED did with The Witcher.

Following its foray into the horror genre with The Callisto Protocol, PUBG parent company Krafton is now expanding even farther into the fantasy realm. The company is opening up a new studio in Canada called Krafton Montreal that is working on a rather intriguing project based on a unique fantasy world.

Krafton Montreal's first game will be based on the popular web series The Bird That Drinks Tears by South Korean author Lee Yeongdo. The devs have released early concept art for the game that highlights the fantasy series' myriad of mythical races including naga snake-people, giant birds (winner winner chicken dinner), goblins, and humans. The art also showcases enchanting locales from the four-book series.

Nintendo has officially clarified that not every new first-party Switch game will cost $69.99, as evident by the recent release of Metroid Prime Remastered for $39.99 on the eShop.

Nintendo recently stirred controversy by attaching a $69.99 price tag to the new Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game that's due out in May. There's seemingly no rationale behind the price increase (at least that we know of) other than Nintendo wanting to greater capitalize on its major AAA releases. Nintendo has not detailed any special new features to ease the shock of a $10 price increase and there's no mention of new optimizations or features like the ones used to justify the new $69.99 MSRP for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S titles.

The price just kind of...popped up out of nowhere. It's possible Nintendo could be waiting to announce why the game has increased in price. Or maybe it will stay silent on the matter. The only clarification that Nintendo has offered is that not all of its new first-party titles will be priced at $69.99.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to announce that he ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that was violating Canadian air space on Saturday, February 11.

The object that was invading Canadian air space was similar to the object that was taken down by another F22 aircraft on Friday, in the regard that officials weren't able to determine exactly what it was. According to reports, President Biden and Trudeau spoke on Saturday afternoon about the object and emphasized the importance of recovering what was left of the about to determine more details about its purpose and origin. So, what was the object?

Officially, there is no specific description of the object - at the moment. According to Canada's defense secretary, Anita Anand, the object appeared to have a cylindrical shape and was smaller than the Chinese spy balloon that was brought down by US military a week ago. Notably, the unknown object was detected on Saturday evening by Pentagon officials, which promptly dispatched American fighter jets that were later accompanied by Canadian fighter jets to monitor and track the object.

UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority have reason to believe that Activision isn't totally against the idea of adding its games to multi-game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass.

Back in November 2022, reports indicated that Activision-Blizzard games would not add its game to any subscription services if the merger didn't go through. It was indicated that the only way to get a big blockbuster AAA hit like Call of Duty on a subscription like Game Pass is if the Microsoft-Activision merger gets approved. In its response to the CMA's issue statement that was filed months ago, Microsoft said: "without the Merger, Activision content would not be available on multigame subscription services."

The CMA has apparently concluded otherwise. UK regulators recently published findings from its in-depth provisionary investigation of the parties and the games industry, and have found that Activision could very well bring its games to a multi-game subscription service if the merger does not go through. Regulators think that Activision-Blizzard would be very selective with what titles it chose to offer, however.

The White House has announced that the U.S. military has taken down an unidentified flying object off the coast of Alaska.

The news of the Alaskan object being taken down comes after the U.S. government announced it successfully brought down a Chinese weather balloon off the coast of South Carolina. The balloon was suspected of conducting intelligence operations, and President Biden ordered its removal from U.S. airspace. The wreckage from the balloon was recovered a few days ago, and officials said that the balloon was equipped with multiple devices capable of intercepting and geolocating communications.

On Friday, the Pentagon commented on the object detected off the coast of the northeastern part of Alaska, saying it was much smaller than the Chinese weather balloon brought down a week earlier and that F22 shot down the object at 1:45 pm E.S.T. Notably, the Pentagon said the object was flying at about 40,000 feet and posed a risk to civilian air traffic, hence the decision for it to be taken down. U.S. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, said that pilots that flew alongside the object determined that the object was unmanned, was unable to maneuver in the air, and didn't resemble an aircraft.

Microsoft says that PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is travelling all across the globe and speaking out against the Activision merger while Microsoft attempts to gather evidence to defend FTC claims.

Microsoft wants to buy Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, but the tech titan is facing severe scrutiny from key worldwide regulators. The CMA has found the deal could potentially be anti-competitive, the European Commission is taking the acquisition to a Phase II investigation, and the FTC has sued to block the merger and is bringing the deal before its internal administrative court.

Beset on all sides, Microsoft must now create a bulletproof, ironclad case that proves the merger will not adversely affect consumers and market competition. In order to do that properly, Microsoft requires information from competitors like Sony that will be used to reinforce its case. Data like active users, revenues, and game sales are integral to the case, and Microsoft is requesting quite a bit of info from Sony.

This year's new Call of Duty game will be a full mainline title with a campaign and multiplayer, sources have told Insider Gaming.

Call of Duty 2023 will be a full premium game after all. Reports indicate that Activision has shifted its plans and will now release a full Call of Duty title on November 10, 2023. The publisher was originally prepared to delay the game and break the series' annual cadence, but this plan had shifted towards launching a live service component that expanded and extended Call of Duty Modern Warfare II throughout 2023. Now the strategy has coalesced into a full standalone game.

Not much is known about the next Call of Duty. Sources tell Insider Gaming that the project will be "heavily connected to the Modern Warfare series," however the name hasn't been verified. It's unclear if the game will be called Modern Warfare 3 or not.

NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring the surface of Mars since 2012 and has just found evidence of Mars having a watery past.

NASA has taken to its blog on its website and its social channels to share a discovery by its Curiosity rover. According to the space agency, Curiosity team members believed that they'd seen the last evidence of ancient lakes covering the region the rover is currently exploring. The reason for the team's doubt was simply due to rock layers where Curiosity is station forming under much drier conditions than regions the rover has previously explored.

To researchers' surprise, Curiosity has now found the clearest evidence of Mars' watery past than it ever has in the past. Curiosity has been traversing the foothills of Mount Sharp since 2014, as NASA believes the 3-mile-tall mountain would have once had many streams and lakes, making it a rich environment for any ancient microbial life. NASA explains that Mount Sharp consists of layers ranging from the oldest at the base of the mountain and the youngest at the top.

Twitter has changed a lot since Tesla, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased the platform for $44 billion back in October last year, and now it's going to change again.

Twitter has taken to its 'Twitter Blue' account to announce that it's launching an upgrade for tweets, with the company writing that it's introducing longer tweets that will have a character limit of 4,000 characters. The account wrote the announcement in the form of a long tweet that explains that beginning on February 9, individuals that are Twitter Blue members will gain access to the long tweet feature.

Additionally, Twitter wrote that it's aware that the introduction of long tweets would mean users would be inundated with long scrolling, ruining the unique Twitter experience of being able to see multiple tweets from many users at once. To remedy this problem, Twitter has implemented a 'see more' button that will be attached to every long tweet. A user that wishes to read more of the tweet can simply press this button to reveal the remainder of the post.

A newly released satellite image has revealed the devastated region in Turkey that was only recently hit with a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

According to reports on February 6, a series of violent earthquakes struck southern and central Turkey, along with western Syria. The first was the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, causing hundreds of buildings to collapse and the death of what is estimated to be 11,200 people. Teams are still on the ground, attempting to find any survivors underneath the piles of rubble. The second earthquake came only hours after the first and measured 7.5 in magnitude, shaking both Turkey and Syria.

The above image was published on Twitter by Planet, where the company says one of its satellites captured a birds-eye-view of the disaster-stricken city Kahramanmaras, a city in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey. At the moment, there are few satellites images of the disaster, but companies such as Planet, Maxar, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the European Space Agency are working on capturing valuable satellite images of the region that will then be given to officials assisting the people of affected regions.