At the upcoming 2022 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Intel is scheduled to talk about its entry into the potentially lucrative world of Bitcoin mining with Bonanza Mine, an ultra-low-voltage (ULV) energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC it will soon offer. It’s not clear how close Intel is to having it ready, but it already
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel’s Not-So-Secretive Expansion Into Bitcoin Mining Hardware Is Already Paying Off
Monthly Archives: January 2022
Developers unearth the bones of an overhauled Task Manager for Windows 11
Enlarge / A look at the Windows 11-style Task Manager, with Mica theming and dark mode support. (credit: FireCubeStudios)
Microsoft’s piecemeal approach to updating and unifying Windows 11’s new look has led to updates for all kinds of old and obscure corners of the operating system, including everything from the volume indicator and the system icons to the humble Paint, Calculator, and Notepad apps. The next app to get its once-every-decade-or-two design renovation may be the Windows Task Manager, and it would be the first major update since Windows 8 came out a decade ago.
The Verge reports that engineering student Gustave Monce spotted the new Task Manager design lurking in a current preview build of Windows 11 (the FireCube Studios Twitter account later posted instructions for enabling it yourself). The app’s basic structure is visible in these builds—like all Windows 11-era apps, the window uses Mica theming and has dark mode support, and it trades the current Task Manager’s horizontal row of tabs for a vertical stack of navigation buttons that mirrors the modern Settings and Windows Security apps. Those text labels will also collapse into a vertical stack of buttons if the window is resized.
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Redesign aside, the new Task Manager looks like it does the same things that the current one does. Also note how the navigation buttons on the left have collapsed to hide the text labels and make more room for the window content. [credit:
FireCubeStudios
]
According to screenshots posted by users who have the new Task Manager working, it doesn’t look like the redesigned app includes significant functional improvements; the vertical buttons all correspond to the tabs in the current Task Manager, and the views for monitoring processes and resource usage all look pretty much the same as they do now. But the new design is clearly a work in progress, and Microsoft may have more changes planned before it formally introduces the redesigned app to Windows Insiders.
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Source: Ars Technica – Developers unearth the bones of an overhauled Task Manager for Windows 11
God Of War On PC, As Told By Steam Reviews
Last week, God of War (2018) ended its longtime PlayStation exclusivity with a splashy release on PC. Critics heaped praise on the port’s beefed-up visuals and found it a good excuse to return to one of the last console generation’s true masterpieces. But now that it’s been out for a week, what does the broader public…
Source: Kotaku – God Of War On PC, As Told By Steam Reviews
PlayStation's Wrap-Up is back to break down your PS4 and PS5 stats for 2021
Sony has at last flipped the switch on its PlayStation 2021 Wrap-Up, allowing players to delve into their PlayStation 4 and PS5 stats for 2021. After you log into your PSN account, you’ll be able to see how many hours you spent on PlayStation games last year, the five titles you played the most and how a breakdown of the trophies you scooped up.
The tool breaks down your playtime by PS4 and PS5 games, how long you spent playing on a console vs. Remote Play and how many hours you used PlayStation VR. You’ll also see the number of games you played and get a code for four avatars as a bonus.
Sony took the opportunity to promote some of its games by highlighting some global community stats. In Death Stranding Director’s Cut, for instance, players collectively traveled more than 45 million kilometers and delivered more than 9.4 million packages. They played more than 12 million hours of Returnal in total, while 34.6 percent of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart players unlocked all of the weapons.
Users need to be aged 18 or over and have played at least 10 hours of games on PS4 or PS5 to access their Wrap-Up. It may not work for PS5 players who haven’t enabled full data collection and those who haven’t consented to “Additional Data” collection on PS4 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australasia, India and Russia.
While the PlayStation’s year-end wrap-up feature is emerging much later than ones for other platforms and services, at least it takes the entire year into account. Spotify Wrapped, for instance, only covers listening data from between January and October. The latest edition of PlayStation Wrap-Up is actually arriving a little earlier than the one for 2020, which arrived last February. The tool will be available until February 20th.
Source: Engadget – PlayStation’s Wrap-Up is back to break down your PS4 and PS5 stats for 2021
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Looks Absolutely Incredible, But…
It’s easy to watch this glorious, six-minute-long gameplay video of TT Games’ much-anticipated game Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and think, “This is definitely worth the wait.” Hell, we said the same thing back in August of 2021, when the second trailer arrived. Unfortunately, things regarding the game have…
Source: Gizmodo – Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Looks Absolutely Incredible, But…
What You Really Need to Survive a Blackout
When you’re a kid, blackouts are exciting—they instantly transform your boring old house into a dark world of infinite adventure. When you’re an adult, blackouts are anxiety nightmares, forcing you to consider how long your food will stay fresh and ask yourself why you let your phone battery drop to 23 percent before…
Source: LifeHacker – What You Really Need to Survive a Blackout
Peacock adds live local news channels to its streaming lineup
NBCUniversal’s Peacock isn’t going to let the live news from rivals like CBS go unanswered. The streaming service has added free, around-the-clock local news from NBC stations for all users. The broadcasts are initially available from stations in Boston (including the New England Cable Network), Chicago, Miami and Philadelphia. New York City and Los Angeles channels will be available in the “months ahead.”
The platform already has live and on-demand news from NBC’s self-branded services as well as Sky and Telemundo. You can also watch live entertainment TV from 11 local NBC stations, including those from cities in the news rollout.
The decision may have been an easy one to make. Airing existing news channels won’t cost much more, and could help Peacock serve cord-cutters who may still want local events in between The Office marathons. There’s also increasing competition. Live news is quickly becoming a selling point, including through Amazon’s free app on Fire TV devices. The NBC stations could reduce the temptation to switch to other channels and services.
Source: Engadget – Peacock adds live local news channels to its streaming lineup
Destiny 2 Gunsmith Materials Will Soon Disappear, What You Need To Know
Guardians, when was the last time you visited Banshee-44? A senior Bungie community manager recently stated that Destiny 2 players will want to turn in their Gunsmith materials, as they will likely be phased out with the upcoming Destiny 2: The Witch Queen expansion.
Senior Bungie community manager “dmg04” tweeted that the next “This Week
Source: Hot Hardware – Destiny 2 Gunsmith Materials Will Soon Disappear, What You Need To Know
We Should Turn Big Box Stores Into Solar Farms
Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and other box stores are home to acres and acres of sweet, flat rooftop space. That veritable sheet metal prairie is ripe for many uses, but there may be none better than as solar farms.
Source: Gizmodo – We Should Turn Big Box Stores Into Solar Farms
Elon Musk's Brain Implant Company Is Inching Toward Human Trials, Report Says
Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink is now hiring a clinical trial director, an indication that the company’s longstanding goal of implanting chips in human brains is coming closer. Bloomberg: The trial director position would oversee the startup’s long-promised human trials of its medical device, according to the listing. Neuralink’s brain implant — which Musk has said already allows monkeys to play video games with their thoughts alone — is intended to help treat a variety of neurological disorders, such as paralysis. The job description for the position, based in Fremont, California, promises that the applicant will “work closely with some of the most innovative doctors and top engineers” as well as with “Neuralink’s first Clinical Trial participants.” It also indicates that the job will mean leading and building “the team responsible for enabling Neuralink’s clinical research activities,” as well as adhering to regulations. Last month, Musk told the Wall Street Journal that Neuralink hoped to implant its device in human brains sometime in 2022.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Elon Musk’s Brain Implant Company Is Inching Toward Human Trials, Report Says
Photobombing Starlink Satellites Leave Image Trails That Disrupt Time-Critical Space Observations
As SpaceX celebrates launching its 2,000th Starlink satellite into space, astronomers are not as ecstatic about it. It seems all those satellites have began photobombing some astronomical observations.
Last week SpaceX launched 105 satellites from consumers in twenty different nations, including CubeSats, microsats, PocketQubes, and orbital
Source: Hot Hardware – Photobombing Starlink Satellites Leave Image Trails That Disrupt Time-Critical Space Observations
How to Make Yourself Sneeze When It Just Won't Come Out
When you feel a sneeze coming, you build up all this anticipation: you stop talking, the crook of your elbow is raised and at the ready, you have a tissue on hand, and then…nothing. The sneeze is stuck up there.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Make Yourself Sneeze When It Just Won’t Come Out
Oculus Update Brings Apple's Magic Keyboard to the Metaverse
Apple might not be interested in the “metaverse” just yet, but that won’t stop its products from finding their way in.
Source: Gizmodo – Oculus Update Brings Apple’s Magic Keyboard to the Metaverse
Sony And Microsoft's Comments On Call Of Duty Exclusivity Are Clear As Mud
Here we go again. Will Activision Blizzard games be exclusive to Xbox after the recently announced $68.7 billion deal finally goes through? Probably. But in the meantime both sides are saying just enough to keep all possibilities open, with Sony being the latest to add its vague comments to the growing pile.
Source: Kotaku – Sony And Microsoft’s Comments On Call Of Duty Exclusivity Are Clear As Mud
Facebook Wants to Make It Easy for Your Grandparents to Get Into NFTs: Report
Facebook parent company Meta might be the latest entrant into the wild world of non-fungible tokens. Citing “several people familiar with the matter,” a new report in the Financial Times claims that teams across Facebook and Instagram are planning for features that would allow users to display the tokens on their…
Source: Gizmodo – Facebook Wants to Make It Easy for Your Grandparents to Get Into NFTs: Report
This Is What A $400 RGB Mechanical Keyboard Looks Like, You Buying One?
Let me say this right off the bat—I really don’t know how much I’d be willing to spend on a keyboard, but I’m fairly confident it’s somewhere south of $400. I didn’t pull that figure out of thin air. Rather, it’s how much Hyte expects to charge for a fully loaded version of its Keeb SR65 when it goes up preorder. How does Hyte justify such
Source: Hot Hardware – This Is What A 0 RGB Mechanical Keyboard Looks Like, You Buying One?
A New Wallace & Gromit Movie Is Coming to Netflix
Aardman Animations’ relationship with Netflix—from Shaun the Sheep to last year’s Robin Robin—has been in overdrive since the announcement of a long-awaited sequel to the studio’s poultry-liberation epic Chicken Run. Now the streamer and the worker-owned animation studio are teaming up to return to Aardman’s most…
Source: Gizmodo – A New Wallace & Gromit Movie Is Coming to Netflix
What Is a 'Buddymoon' (and Should You Take One)?
Traditionally, the honeymoon has been reserved for newlyweds as a time to celebrate, decompress, and, well, get it on. That’s at least partially because, once upon a time, many couples didn’t live together or have sex until marriage. Needless to say, times have changed—as relationship coach and counselor Jonathan…
Source: LifeHacker – What Is a ‘Buddymoon’ (and Should You Take One)?
Bank of Russia Calls for Full Ban on Crypto
Russia must ban cryptocurrencies, the country’s central bank said in a report released Thursday. From a report: The report, “Cryptocurrencies: trends, risks, measures,” was presented during an online press conference with Elizaveta Danilova, the director of the Bank of Russia’s Financial Stability Department. The report says cryptocurrencies are volatile and widely used in illegal activities such as fraud. By offering an outlet for people to take their money out of the national economy, they risk undermining it and making the regulator’s job of maintaining optimal monetary policies harder, the report says.
The bank, therefore, suggest Russia needs new laws and regulations that effectively ban any crypto-related activities in the country. In particular, cryptocurrency issuance and organization of its circulation in Russia must be banned. The ban should apply to exchanges, over-the-counter trading desks and peer-to-peer platforms. An existing ban on using crypto for payments should be reinforced, and punishment should be introduced for buying or selling goods, services and labor by Russian individuals and businesses, the report suggests.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Bank of Russia Calls for Full Ban on Crypto
Instagram now lets you create TikTok-like remixes using any video
You no longer need to dive into Reels to create TikTok-style collaborative videos on Instagram. The social network has expanded its remix feature to let you make collaborations and similar reworks from any video on Instagram. So long as the video was released after the update, you can choose “remix this video” from the three-dot menu to create your response to the clip. You’ll still need to share the result through Reels, but you’ll also have the same editing tools to create collaborations, voiceovers and effects.
Instagram is also doing more to court livestreamers. You now have the option of highlighting your next Instagram Live broadcast on your profile, giving viewers an easy way to set a reminder. You won’t need to attach a regular feed post to the scheduled stream, either. While you can’t yet tease later streams, this could help you build hype for an interview or ask-me-anything session.
The expanded remix feature could be important. Instagram hasn’t been shy about wanting to counter TikTok, and the Duet feature is a significant factor in that rival’s success. The option to remix any video potentially gives Instagram users a wider pool of videos to choose from than TikTok, including footage that wasn’t originally meant for that short-but-sweet format.
Source: Engadget – Instagram now lets you create TikTok-like remixes using any video