Latest News - Page 955

Former United States President Donald Trump has asked Meta to reinstate his Facebook account as he prepares to ramp up his 2024 presidential campaign.

NBC News has reported it has reviewed a copy of a letter sent to Meta by Trump's campaign that urged Meta to reconsider its decision to ban Trump's account following the January 6 insurrection. Trump's campaign didn't announce a lawsuit against the company but instead explained it believes that the ban on Trump's Facebook account has "dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse". Additionally, Trump's team called for a meeting to be organized with meta to "discuss President Trump's prompt reinstatement to the platform."

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on the matter besides saying the company "will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out." For those that don't remember, both Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms the day after the January 6 insurrection, with Facebook banning the former president over inciting violence and breaking the platform's terms of service. Notably, Facebook's ban was only a provisional suspension and would come up for review after two years - starting January 7, 2023, hence the recent letter from Trump's team.

Apple has unveiled its second-generation HomePod, which the company claims sports "breakthrough sound and intelligence".

In a new press release published on Apple's website, the company explains that the second-generation HomePod comes with several upgrades in the audio and functionality department. Apple explains that users will now be able to create smart home automation through an upgraded Siri, inform users with alerts when carbon monoxide or smoke alarms are triggered while also being able to read the temperature and humidity of a room.

Additionally, the new HomePod offers advanced computational audio for a new listening experience, including support for immersive Spatial Audio tracks. For perspective, Apple launched the original HomePod at $349 but decided to reduce the price when it saw the success of smaller similar devices such as Google's Nest, and Amazon Echo. Reactionarily, Apple decided to cut the price to $299 in 2019 and roll out the HomePod Mini, which has been widely popular, according to the press release.

A college student has used Open AI's chatbot called ChatGPT to write an essay about burqa bans that they then submitted for grading.

According to a report from The New York Times, the student confessed to using the chatbot to write the essay after their teacher, philosophy professor Antony Aumann from Northern Michigan University, busted them. Aumann explained to Futurism that the student was instructed to rewrite the essay, which is what is done the majority of the time in plagiarism cases.

Chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT are free and have very powerful capabilities that are resulted in them going viral. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence designed to have human-like conversations where it remembers what was talked about earlier in the conversation. Additionally, users make improvements to the AI's answers, write code, essays, format data, create programs, and more. An example of a prompt would be, 'write an essay on burqa bans'. A more simpler request could be, 'Got any creative ideas for a 10 year old's birthday?'

NVIDIA provided an engineering sample of the new GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU to Jarrod'sTech to compare it to the last gen laptop flagship, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU. Although NVIDIA hasn't sponsored the video, it did provide both laptops, and the initial testing results are mainly limited to DLSS 3 performance in games. However, some impressive productivity results were also shown.

The RTX 4090 laptop featured in the video is the impressive Razer Blade 16 for 2023, which includes an Intel Core i9 13950HX CPU and 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory.

With DLSS 3 enabled, running five titles in 1440p - Portal with RTX, Microsoft Flight Simulator, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and Cyberpunk 2077 - the performance increase compared to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU is more than double. Going up to 2.6X in Portal and Flight Sim.

With the arrival of DDR5 technology into the memory space, extreme overclocking of RAM has seen some remarkable results in recent times. And we can add a new world record into the history books today as HiCookie - an in-house overclocker over at GIGABYTE - has managed to push speeds to an incredible DDR5-11136 OC (5567.5 effective), which is over 11 Gb/sec.

The results were achieved on a GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS Tachyon motherboard custom-built for extreme memory overclocking thanks to its dual-DIMM design with an Intel Core i9-13900K Raptor Lake CPU.

The memory used was GIGABYTE's own AORUS DDR5-8333 modules, representing some of the fastest DDR5 modules you can get. Well, you will be able to get - these modules are as-yet unreleased.

After January 31, 2023, you'll no longer be able to buy a digital license of Windows 10 from Microsoft's website. The news doesn't mark the end of support for the popular OS, which will continue from now until late 2025 - the news itself was quietly announced via a note at the bottom of Microsoft's official Windows 10 page.

Naturally, this marks an official push for Microsoft to get users and new builds onto Windows 11, the latest OS version. Windows 11 brings several features and updates to PC gaming, and as of the end of December 2022, 28.42% of Steam users are on Windows 11. This is a high adoption rate though the main OS of choice for Steam is still Windows 10, with 65.42% of users running the OS.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU is a beast of a GPU, the most powerful currently available. But all that performance comes in a sizable physical package, with both Founders Edition and AIB models having chunky 3.5 to 4-slot thicknesses. This can limit the number of cases and builds the card can comfortably slot into, not to mention requiring brackets and additional support depending on the orientation.

The existence of GeForce RTX 4090 cards using old-school blower fan designs for cooling is interesting for several reasons. It's a style of cooling that is no longer used because of the noise it can generate, not to mention that it is less efficient and capable of cooling a card when temperatures go high.

The silver lining is, of course, that the blower design means an overall smaller card, and that's one of the key reasons Redditor BottleneckEvader bought this custom USD 2675 variant of NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card. It fits inside their Fractal Torrent Nano case because it's a 2-slot RTX 4090.

A new update to the popular messaging app WhatsApp lets users start a conversation with themselves. Handy for notetaking, reminders, and keeping up with scheduling, it's rolling out to all users as part of the latest update. You'll even be able to leave yourself voice memos.

It's a feature seen in other messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and Instagram, both owned and operated by Meta, and will no doubt be a handy tool for those that use similar functionality to send themselves reminders or notes.

The update also brings attention to some of the lesser-known WhatsApp tricks where on iOS and Android, you can easily pin your location into a chat. Also, being able to drop notes to yourself will add a new layer to the chat search functionality - to find specific info.

If you want to start 2023 enjoying all the advantages of the original software without having to spend hundreds of dollars, you are in luck, thanks to the new year offers that Scdkey.com has launched, you can get Microsoft software OEM licenses at very low prices. These licenses are valid for life, which means that once you activate them, they will work forever, and they are so cheap that you can get Windows 10 for $14.70, and Windows 10 Pro for only $15.80. Do you want to know more about Scdkey.com offers? Well, keep reading.

To get the OEM licenses you need and enjoy this new offer campaign, you have to enter each of the links that you will find just below this paragraph, and you must make sure to enter the discount coupon "TT25", which will apply a discount 25% to the price of each of these licenses. The latter is essential since the prices you will see below only appear after applying said coupon.

Acquiring an OEM license is very simple. You just have to click on the product you need and add it to the cart. You must identify yourself as a user to complete the purchase. If you are not registered, don't worry, you will be able to complete the process in less than a minute and without entering sensitive data since you will only need an email address to sign up.

Former Halo developers speak out as Microsoft lays off key 343 Industries staff as part of its mass layoff of 10,000 workers.

Today many Halo developers have been let go from 343 Industries. Microsoft is shedding thousands of employees so it can "do more with less" and reduce overall costs as the tech market slumps. The layoffs punctuate years of turbulence at 343 Industries, and some former Halo devs are blaming Microsoft for the unnecessary issues.

"As a Halo fan I'm really tired of Microsoft business practices and policies slowly killing the thing I love," Halo 5 developer Tyler Owens said on Twitter. Owens worked on Halo 5 Guardians and Halo 5 Forge on PC.

Microsoft's contractor policy could slow down game development at Activision-Blizzard if the proposed merger goes through.

In our previous coverage I've expressed thoughts on how Microsoft's business plan could significantly disrupt Activision-Blizzard earnings by offering key premium games on Xbox Game Pass. I've also discussed that Microsoft could lay off many Activision Blizzard King employees post-merger, especially in "cost synergy" areas like marketing and HR. Now another interesting point could be worth exploring: How would Microsoft affect game development at Activision Blizzard King?

Microsoft's recent 10,000 employee layoff spree could give us a few clues. On Twitter, ex-Halo developer Tyler Owens reminded me of Microsoft's contractor policy, which got the wheels turning. "Between the contracting policies they abuse for tax incentives," Owens said, expressing frustration due to all of the 343i employees that were recently laid off.

343 Industries has been 'hit hard' by Microsoft's recent mass layoffs, sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

Microsoft has announced that it will lay off 10,000 employees across multiple divisions including Xbox gaming. The layoffs will affect first-party game development studios and branches like Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda Softworks, who is ramping up for Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI, and embattled Halo developer 343 Industries. Sources have told Bloomberg that 343i may have been significantly affected by the restructuring.

The news comes years after 343 Industries drew ire from the Halo faithful for Halo Infinite's tumultuous launch. The game released in 2020 with many features missing, some of which, like split-screen co-op, were cancelled outright. It appears Halo Infinite's campaign team was downsized--which could eliminate any possibility of story-based DLC for Infinite.

Depending on the workload, it looks like AMD's flagship RDNA 3 GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, can easily push beyond 3.0 GHz with clocks going as high as 3.5 GHz in Blender. These figures come from German outlet ComputerBase, using the Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX Nitro+ model instead of AMD's reference design.

The report notes that the card wasn't entirely stable with these settings, but still, it's an impressive showing for AMD's flagship RDNA 3 card mainly because the official specs list a 2.5GHz boost clock frequency - a full 1 GHz lower than what was achieved here.

It's also worth noting that these results were achieved at 374W of power, which equates to a 13% boost in frequency at around 20% more power usage than the reference model. Sapphire's custom 7900 XTX features improved cooling compared to AMD's design and is considered one of the best partner cards.

One of the most significant controversies surrounding the launch of the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 was the switch to a new 12VHPWR connector and how in some cases, the cables were melting and burning out.

This sparked a series of investigations from NVIDIA, board partners, and even tech enthusiasts and the media. Ultimately, it was deemed that the new 12VHPWR cable standard can be fragile at the connection point on the GPU side if there are any bends and the cable itself isn't pushed in or firmly secured.

All cards in the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series lineup come with a 12VHPWR connector, so the potential for them to burn up opened the door for alternative solutions. One came from CableMod, a company specializing in high-quality, durable cables. Its take on the 12VHPWR connector was one of the first to hit the scene, designed to resolve the clearance and bending issues with NVIDIA's cable. And as soon as the product went on sale, it immediately sold out.

Micron is introducing new DDR5 memory modules with 24GB and 48GB capacity, opening the door to enthusiast rigs with 48GB or 96GB of dual-channel memory configurations. They also support AMD EXPO and Intel XMP 3.0 profiles for easy plug-and-play setup with AMD Ryzen 7000-series and Intel 12th and 13th Gen CPUs.

The new DDR5 memory from Micron (aka Crucial) features data transfer rates of 5200 MT/s and 5600 MT/s, though it's the DDR5-5600 models that will have the new modules. These will be available alongside the standard 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB sticks. As for why? Well, outside of offering more choices and a cheaper way to boost memory without having to go the 64GB or 128GB route, the new module capacities are great for modern CPUs with 16 or 24 cores.

As for what this will bring for gaming or other desktop-heavy tasks remains to be seen; 32 GB is the gold standard and more than enough to run modern games. Still, the AMD EXPO and Intel XMP 3.0 support point to these new DDR5 options from Micron/Crucial, targeting the enthusiast PC market. And those building new PCs using the latest AMD and Intel processors.

A group of artists is banding together to seek damages from Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt for using copyrighted images to train AI art and image generators.

The US federal class-action lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco, with the group of artists represented by Joseph Saveri Law Firm. The suit takes aim at these specific AI companies, alleging violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act alongside unlawful competition. With Stability AI's Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and the DreamUp tool on DeviantArt being the focus.

The current debate around AI-generated art and what constitutes original work is at the heart of the suit. As AI art and image generators are trained by scraping millions of images, they can, for example, recreate something new specifically in the style of an established artist.

Malware in the form of an advertisement in Google or other search engine results is not uncommon. We recently reported on a case involving a shady ad impersonating AMD for a user simply looking to update their graphics driver.

As spotted by a user on the Linus Tech Tips forums, the FBI posted a new Public Service Announcement (PSA) earlier this month, explicitly calling out this issue.

As per the PSA.

Sony and Housemarque have released spec requirements for Returnal's incoming PC port, and they're more lenient than other newer games.

Want to try Returnal but aren't sure if your rig will support the game? Gamers with older hardware can breathe easy: Returnal's PC specs aren't extremely demanding. Users who are still rocking GTX 10 series GPUs can still get away with 1080p 60FPS in Returnal, but like any other game on the market today you'll need a hefty hardware boost to hit 4K 60FPS in Housemarque's bullet hell survival game.

Returnal's minimum PC specs will deliver 720p 60FPS gaming on the low preset. We're talking bottom of the barrel here. To play the game you'll need at least an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or an AMD Radeon RX 580, an Intel Core i5-6400 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and 60GB of HDD or SSD space.

Microsoft will lay off 10,000 workers as it attempts to cut costs and reduce spending during an uncertain economic environment.

Microsoft today announced that it plans to fire 10,000 employees from now until March 31, 2023 across its various divisions and segments, from app development and marketing to entertainment and cloud. Xbox video game developers at first-party studios like Bethesda Softworks will also be affected by the layoffs, sources tell Bloomberg, despite the Xbox games division generating a record-breaking $16.22 billion last fiscal year.

Here's what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the announcement: "First, we will align our cost structure with our revenue and where we see customer demand. Today, we are making changes that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of FY23 Q3. This represents less than 5 percent of our total employee base, with some notifications happening today."

Ubisoft workers may go on strike in protest of controversial comments made by company CEO Yves Guillemot.

Ubisoft is not in a good place right now. Years ago, the company's internal culture was rocked by a scathing sexual harrassment and discrimination controversy, putting many high-ranking Ubisoft executives under the crosshair. Developer morale was damaged in the process and CEO Yves Guillemot was criticized for not taking action on the issues sooner.

Now Ubisoft's CEO is in hot water again, this time for further hurting worker confidence and morale. Guillemot reportedly said that developers, not executive management, are responsible for Ubisoft's future: "The ball is in your court to deliver this line-up on time and at the expected level of quality, and show everyone what we are capable of achieving," Guillemot said in an internal email to employees that was acquired by Kotaku.