Latest News - Page 997

Tesla is facing a federal criminal investigation over its claims its vehicles have "self-driving" capabilities, with reports now indicating that the US Department of Justice is getting involved.

The long-standing debate on whether Tesla's "self-driving" capabilities have been appropriately named has sparked interest from prosecutors with the US Department of Justice, according to a recent exclusive report from Reuters. The problem doesn't necessarily lay with Tesla's claim that its vehicles have "self-driving" capabilities, but with the naming/feature of its optional version of Autopilot called "Full Self-Driving", or FSD. Tesla specifically claims this optional feature provides buyers with "full self-driving capabilities".

The problem with these claims is that Tesla still requires drivers to have their hands-on the wheel at all times while using this feature. Reuters reports that three anonymous sources close to the matter informed the publication that prosecutors with the US Department of Justice are looking into the matter, and if found to be guilty, criminal charges could be laid against Tesla executives for defrauding consumers.

One of the observatories that are dedicated to looking at and monitoring the activity of the Sun has captured a stunning image.

The image was posted to NASA's Sun-dedicated Twitter account, where the space agency explained that NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory snapped a photograph that caught the Sun "smiling". The image seen in ultraviolet light showcases dark patches that make up the smiling face NASA is referring to, and, for those that don't know, these dark regions are called coronal holes that formed in the Sun's atmosphere. Large amounts of solar wind are spewed from these coronal holes and shot into space.

Depending on Earth's position, the Sun's solar wind shot out from these holes can impact our planet, causing solar storms in the planet's upper atmosphere. According to SpaceWeather.com, a triple stream of solar wind has already been shot toward Earth, and that first contact with it is expected to happen on October 29, with the chance of auroras occurring on the same day.

SpaceX has announced its bringing its Starlink internet service to any moving object, with the new feature starting in just a few months.

According to an announcement on the official SpaceX Twitter account, Starlink for RVs satellite internet service will soon be able to give internet access to people in moving objects, enabling connectivity while traveling from one location to another. Notably, individuals were already mounting their Starlink dishes to the outside of the RVs, but they weren't originally designed to be used while a vehicle is moving and was more so intended for stationary objects or resting places such as remote cabins or campsites.

So, what's the catch? Well, it costs $599 for a Starlink satellite dish, and if you are interested in using SpaceX's internet it while you are in motion, you will need the Flat High-Performance dish, which costs a staggering $2,500, as well as a $50 shipping and handling fee. Furthermore, the service will cost the standard $135 a month for the "Best Effort" internet connection, and Starlink RV users can expect to be de-prioritized from network resources if they are located in congested areas, with regular Starlink users receiving that prioritization.

Japanese automaker Honda plans to rejuvenate the midsize sedan market with the 2023 Honda Accord hybrid, providing better performance and sleek styling. Although we'll have to wait for specific details about the car until next month, Honda has released a few teaser images that give us a glimpse of what is expected during the company's press event.

As noticed in the picture of the rear portion of the Accord, the upcoming model has LED taillights that stretch further than previous models. The framed look is from the lights spread across the back of the car but ending short of the Honda badge on both sides.

The upcoming Accord is the 11th generation of the Honda midsize sedan and features a 12.3-inch touchscreen and full integration of Google for better connectivity. The screen is the largest that Honda has ever used in any of its vehicles, according to the company, and it does look to be sufficient for the interior of the car. As displayed on the infotainment screen, the Play Store and Google voice assistant will be accessible for driver and passenger use - and there is a physical audio on/off and volume control knob available.

American electric vehicle maker Lucid has recently launched a line of Lucid vehicle accessories designed specifically for its premier Lucid Air car model. The 2022 Lucid Air starts at $87,400 with the Pure trim, but can drastically go up in price with the Grand Touring Performance trim available for $179,000.

The couple of accessories that can be installed on top of the car were carefully designed to make sure aerodynamics didn't significantly hurt the Lucid Air's range capacity.

The Connected Home Charging Station is the first at-home charging station available from Lucid, which supports 19.2 kW of power - and provides up to 80 miles of driving range per hour it's connected. Lucid confirmed the Lucid Connected Home Charging Station can be purchased for $1,200.

Apple will be finally moving away from the Lightning connector on future-gen iPhones, with the company confirming it will buck to European regulators, which have decided to push all smartphones to use USB-C ports for charging in the next 2 years.

There are new EU laws that require all smartphones sold starting autumn 2024 will be forced to use USB-C connectivity for their charging ports, while Android-based smartphones are fine, Apple is being forced to shift from Lightning to USB-C connectivity.

Apple isn't a stranger to its products having USB-C connectivity, where the 12-inch MacBook back in 2015 moved over to USB-C, while the iPad started its move from Lightning to USB-C a few years ago back in 2018. Apple isn't wanting to use USB-C connectivity on its iPhones, with the company explaining: "strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world".

Now that Intel's new Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" CPU is in the wild, it has been ripped apart and some absolutely gorgeous CPU die shots have been taken. Check them out below:

Fritzchens Fritz is back with detailed high-res die shots of the Intel Core i9-13900K processor, where we get some juicy up-close-and-personal nudes of the Raptor Lake flagship CPU. It's quite detailed, with every part of the silicon die next to each core measured with precision (and labeled) for the ultimate in Raptor Lake nerding out.

Intel's new Core i9-13900K has a top Intel B0 die that measures in at 252mm2, with 8 x Raptor Cove CPU cores with L3 cache sitting between them. There's also 4 x Gracemont CPU clusters that each pack 4 cores each, with L2 cache on the outer side, and L3 cache sitting in the middle.

SK hynix has just announced its new DDR5-6400 UDIMM + SO-DIMM memory modules, an industry first, with the company sampling to customers right now.

The new SK Hynix DDR5-6400 memory modules are the fastest DDR5 products for the PC so far, with the company using a new device called CKD (Clock Driver) which is used to provide more stable operation at the higher 6400Mbps speeds. SK hynix is the first company to use CKD, and the first to provide samples to customers, a PC SoC (System on a Chip) company, to conduct system evaluation.

Not only that, but SK hynix has said that it has completed customer certification for DDR5 in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities for servers in 10-nano class 4th generation (1a) microprocessing used. That was in August, while in September the company had customer certification for all DDR5 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB UDIMM memory modules for the PC and client were completed.

Elon Musk has certainly had an eventful 2022 with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO announcing that he's interested in purchasing Twitter, entering into a deal, attempting to pull out of the deal, then seemingly now following through with it, releasing his own fragrance, and oh, losing $100 billion.

In fact, Musk has lost more than $100 billion over the course of a year, according to Forbes, his massive fortune has fallen by about 35% from its peak of $320.3 billion on November 4, 2021, to approximately $209.4 billion as of October 20, 2022. Notably, throughout just October, Musk's total wealth has reduced by $28 billion.

This massive reduction in Musk's wealth throughout 2022 can be attributed to many factors, such as looming concerns of a recession causing investors to hold onto their money, factory troubles related to COVID-19 shutdowns, and the Twitter fiasco that began in March. Musk has actually lost $110 billion in just 11.5 months, according to Forbes, which means that his total net worth has reduced by $301 million every day during that period.

NVIDIA had had a shaky start to its new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, with the launch of the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card being successful -- selling quicker than most expected, but it's been hit with controversy as well -- RTX 4090 cards catching fire, and the 16-pin "12VHPWR" power connector melting.

Not only that, but NVIDIA also "unlaunched" the GeForce RTX 4080 12GB graphics card that surely pissed AIB partners off who were gearing up their custom GeForce RTX 4080 12GB cards (and retail packaging).

Now there are reports that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has flown to Taiwan, to meet with TSMC to make sure that the company secures 3nm wafers for its next-gen GPUs that won't see the light of day until 2024. Jensen also reportedly met with multiple AIB partners, giving them a personal update on their existing GeForce RTX 30 series "Ampere" GPUs.

American electric automaker Tesla is reportedly under criminal investigation related to self-driving claims, according to a report from Reuters.

The probe by the U.S. Department of Justice was launched sometime in 2021, due to crashes stemming from the Autopilot driver assistance system. The DoJ cites over a dozen crashes, including some fatal incidents, and the automaker needs to do a better job promoting current driving programs to car owners.

Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the "full self-driving" software will make it possible for owners to travel "to your work, your friend's house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel." This type of wording is one of the reasons Tesla has come under fire for confusing drivers to the full capability of what is currently available to them while on the road.

AMD has launched a few of its Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" CPUs now, but the mid-range Ryzen 3 7300X processor has now been teased and man, it sounds quite tasty.

The upcoming AMD Ryzen 3 7300X should arrive as a 4-core, 8-thread Zen 4 CPU that boosts at up to 5.0GHz if the recent leaks on Geekbench are correct. AMD's new mid-range quad-core Zen 4 processor was installed into a GIGABYTE B650 AORUS motherboard, with 32MB of L3 cache.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 3 7300X processor scores 1984 points in Geekbench's single-core benchmark, and 7682 points in the multi-core benchmark. If we put this up against the Zen 3-based flagship Ryzen 9 5950X (which is a monster 16-core, 32-thread chip) then the Ryzen 3 7300X demolishes it as the 5950X scored 1689 in the single-core test (versus 1984 on the 7300X).

Elon Musk has officially entered the Twitter HQ and he's done it in his usual troll way: holding a kitchen sink, yeah... an actual, real sink.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO and very soon boss of Twitter walked into the San Francisco-based HQ holding a sink, tweeting out "Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!" following it with another tweet saying that he met a lot of cool people at Twitter today.

There's absolutely no reason for the richest man in the world to walk into the second-largest social networking site in the world, carrying a sink... but he knows this will make headlines, and that's Elon's point. Why the hell not at this point... the media hates him, one side of the political spectrum is melting down, and most Twitter staff are shaking in their boots at being laid off.

AMD will be unveiling their next-gen RDNA 3 GPU architecture and at least a couple of members of the Radeon RX 7000 series graphics card family on November 3, but ahead of that the RDNA 3 GPUs get official Vulkan 1.3 support.

The Vulkan 1.3 specification was unleashed earlier this year in January 2022, supported by all three major GPU vendors: AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. NVIDIA's just-launched GeForce RTX 4090 powered by the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture has support for the latest Vulkan 1.3.3.1 specification, with AMD's new Radeon RX 7000 series and the new RDNA 3 GPU architecture supporting Vulkan 1.3, too.

The conformance list for Vulkan 1.3 has the Intel Arc A-series GPUs, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 and RTX 40 series GPUs, as well as AMD and its upcoming "RDNA 3 sGPU" product family. AMD themselves have confirmed that some of their "undisclosed products" based on the RDNA 3 GPU family have successfully completed Vulkan 1.3.3.1 conformity test suite.

German automaker Audi will team up with Swiss team Sauber, with the partnership starting for the 2026 Formula 1 season. Audi's strategic move will allow the company to test new product developments without investing the extreme monetary requirements for a Formula 1 team from the ground up.

In late August, Audi confirmed it would jump into F1 as a power unit supplier - once F1 rules make it so electrical power and 100% sustainable fuels are introduced starting in 2026. The power unit has an electric motor, battery, control systems, and a combustion engine - and is already in development at an Audi Formula Racing facility.

The project also has more than 120 workers currently participating, according to Audi - and the Neuburg facility transition is currently underway. The buildings and technical infrastructure is expected in 2023, and the power unit tests will begin in F1 test cars starting in 2025.

Xbox Game Pass makes significantly less revenue than we had previously reported, but the service is still profitable.

Phil Spencer recently confirmed that Xbox Game Pass is not only profitable, but it makes up 10-15% of Xbox content and services revenue. This percentage gives us a baseline range to determine Game Pass revenues, and based on our findings, the earnings are significantly lower than the $2.9 billion figure that Brazilian regulator CADE had included in its report (and that's likely why the figure was removed).

"Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 percent. I don't think it gets bigger than that. I think the overall revenue grows so 15 percent of a bigger number," Phil Spencer said during a Wall Street Journal Tech Live event, as transcribed by The Verge.

Bethesda's Todd Howard absolutely loves making games in the Fallout universe, hints that Fallout 5 will continue the series' penchant for "batshit crazy" ideas.

Fallout is known for its off-the-wall and wacky characters, irreverent storylines, and overall tongue-in-cheek tone that somehow co-exists with a grim world of ghouls and cat-eating hermits. Even back in the early cRPG days Fallout was goofy and outrageously bloody while also capturing that early 90s era mystique of PC gaming.

Bethesda wouldn't have it any other way. The developers love the Fallout world, with Todd Howard even claiming that Fallout is the most fun series to create games around.

Bethesda's Todd Howard reveals that Fallout New Vegas was originally supposed to be an expansion to Fallout 3, but Howard very much wanted it to be its own game.

The Fallout franchise turns 25 this year, and Bethesda is rolling out a series of retrospective videos to celebrate the series. One of these videos discusses Fallout New Vegas and how Obsidian's beloved RPG actually started off as a major game expansion to Fallout 3.

Years after Oblivion's success, Bethesda hit it big with Fallout 3, and the studio was eager to keep that momentum going. That's what led to Fallout New Vegas.

Something may be happening over at WB Games...and it might not be good news.

Rocksteady, the studio known for its Batman Arkham series of games, just lost its co-founders, signalling potential issues within the WB Games unit. Jamie Walker and Sefton Hill, who founded Rocksteady in 2004, are leaving the studio. The news was announced by WB Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad, who confirmed both Hill and Walker will leave at the end of 2022.

The news comes at an interesting time for WB Discovery. Following a mega-merger earlier this year, WB Games became a part of the new Warner Bros. Discovery brand. Fast-forwarding months later and the media giant is culling its spending en masse; WB Discovery plans to cancel and cut $2 billion worth of TV shows and films as well as firing more staff in order to reduce production spending.

The original Witcher game is getting a remake in Unreal Engine 5, but it won't be developed by CD Projekt RED.

The Witcher 1, CD Projekt RED's first game released in 2007, will be completely overhauled in Epic's powerful UE5 tech. The project is actually one of the many Witcher titles that the studio previously announced; the remake is Project Canis Majoris, or "greater dog," in this case referring to a bigger version of the White Wolf's original debut.

The Witcher remake isn't actually being developed by CD Projekt, though the game is definitely in good hands. The game is in early stages of development in a new studio called Fool's Theory, which is made up of many veteran Witcher devs who worked on the series at CDPR. And don't forget that CD Projekt will be overseeing the game's progress as a creative supervisor to make sure everything fits.