The landscape of Mars is rocky and barren, but the planet’s skies sometimes hold clues to its past in the form of clouds. NASA’s new Cloudspotting on Mars project is a science initiative that lets the public be a part of some new research as the agency studies what happened to Mars’ atmosphere, now much thinner than…
Source: Gizmodo – NASA Needs Your Help Finding Clouds on Mars
Anyone who has ever moved as an adult knows how expensive it can be. Between hiring movers, renting transportation, replacing lost or broken items, the bill that comes along with settling into a new home can be pretty steep. If you’re looking to save money on your next move, know that the little things add up. To…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Get a Slew of Free Moving Boxes
A British Virgin Islands court ordered the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital, the crypto hedge fund that bet big on everything from Bitcoin to the ill-fated Luna tokens and then succumbed to a $2 trillion wipeout of the digital-asset markets. From a report: The court, which made the order on Monday, has appointed two partners at consulting and advisory firm Teneo to handle the liquidation, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the information is confidential. Teneo will oversee talks with potential buyers that may be interested in Three Arrows’s remaining holdings, such as tokens or equity stakes in crypto startups, the person added. A website will be set up to locate creditors and determine who is owed what. Three Arrows has invested in a range of decentralized finance platforms such as Aave and dYdX, as well as crypto infrastructure firms such as StarkWare, according to its website. It’s not immediately clear what or how much of these holdings will be subject to a sale.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Crypto Hedge Fund Three Arrows Set for Court-Ordered Liquidation
If there’s one thing the villains of the Star Wars galaxy are good at, it’s cheating death. That’s both true in the fiction of the franchise as well as real-life, apparently, because Obi-Wan Kenobi series writer Stuart Beattie has revealed that the show’s antagonist, Reva (Moses Ingram), was supposed to die.
Source: Gizmodo – Obi-Wan Kenobi Had Many Other Plans for the Villain Reva, Including Her Death
Depending on when you ordered your Steam Deck console and just plain old luck of the draw, you could end up with a model configured with a downgraded solid state drive (SSD). Affected units cut the available bandwidth in half, impacting the theoretical maximum data transfer rate. However, Valve says it’s no big deal for gaming.
Valve updated
Source: Hot Hardware – Valve Quietly Gimps SSD Bandwidth On Some Steam Decks But Says Don’t Worry About It
Cyberpunk 2077 will always be a cautionary tale of how not to make and release a game. It was notoriously marred by technical bugs and developmental woes and now, according to a new report from YouTuber Upper Echelon Gamers, a QA firm allegedly misled CD Projekt Red during the game’s development. But in response, the…
Source: Kotaku – Cyberpunk 2077 QA CEO Claps Back, Says People Don’t Understand Testing
It’s no brainier that PHP is one of the most used server scripting programming languages. It makes sense for an attacker to find various ways by which he can manipulate PHP as it is often paired with MySQL and enable access to the private data of your users. So here are some tips for hardening PHP against attack.
The post Top PHP Hardening Security Tips for Linux Servers appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – Top PHP Hardening Security Tips for Linux Servers
The Windows 11 22H2 update is working its way through Microsoft’s Windows Insider testing channels, and we’d expect it to begin rolling out to Windows 11 PCs at some point in the next few weeks or months. But Microsoft has had almost nothing to say about the next major update to Windows 10 beyond the fact that the operating system will keep getting yearly updates for the foreseeable future. From a report: And the Windows 10 22H2 update is actually already out there for those who know how to install it. Neowin has published a list of commands that can be typed into the Command Prompt or Windows Terminal to turn a fully updated Windows 10 21H2 install into a 22H2 install. The commands use Microsoft’s Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool to make tweaks to your Windows install and require the optional KB5014666 update for Windows 10 to be installed first. The catch is that enabling Windows 10 22H2 doesn’t actually seem to do much beyond incrementing the version number on the “About Windows” screen.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Windows 10’s 22H2 Update Might Not Actually Do Much of Anything
Thanks to some internet sleuthing, it seems the release date for Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate game, Skull And Bones, has leaked online. According to data found on the Xbox store, the game is set to release this November, which lines up with information Kotaku has heard about the game’s rocky development.
Source: Kotaku – After Nearly A Decade Of Development, Ubisoft’s Pirate Game Likely Out November
Sony has revealed the three games that all PlayStation Plus subscribers can snap up in July. They are Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Man of Medan and Arcadegeddon — a notable leaker once again got all three games spot on.
Crash Bandicoot 4 arrived in 2020 and was the first new mainline Crash game in 12 years. It was pegged as a direct sequel to the original PlayStation 1 trilogy — meaning that it ignored all the PS2 games. Both the PlayStation 4 and PS5 versions will be available, with the latter supporting features like the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
Man of Medan is the first title in Supermassive’s Dark Pictures Anthology series. It’s an interactive horror game in which your choices determine whether characters live or die. However, we felt it didn’t hold up as strongly as the studio’s previous game, Until Dawn. Man of Medan is hitting PS Plus just after the arrival of Supermassive’s latest game, The Quarry.
Arcadegeddon, meanwhile, is a multiplayer shooter from Illfonic that has both co-operative and player vs. player modes. You’ll search for loot and unlock abilities as you take on the evil Fun Fun Co. megacorp, which is using an arcade for real-world weapons testing.
This is the first time Sony has refreshed the games on the lowest tier of the new-look PS Plus since it revamped the service. The company said it will continue to offer Essential tier users a couple of games a month that they’ll have access to as long as they remain subscribers. Sony will also update the Extra and Premium lineups in the middle of each month.
Crash 4, Man of Medan and Arcadegeddon will be available to claim on July 5th. Until then, you can still add the current batch of PS Plus Essential titles — God of War (2018), Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl — to your library.
Source: Engadget – PS Plus games for July include ‘Crash 4’ and ‘Man of Medan’
Autodesk 3ds Max is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It’s proprietary software that’s not available for Linux. We recommend the best free and open source alternatives.
Source: LXer – Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Autodesk 3ds Max
Netflix wants you to keep your account… No, Netflix NEEDS you to keep your account. So, in order to keep you around, the company needs to give you other reasons to paying your monthly tithe. And it seems to believe a pivot to mobile video games might do the trick.
Source: Gizmodo – Every Netflix Game, Ranked
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was a pleasant surprise. A charming game that married Nintendo’s Mushroom Kingdom with the chaos of Ubisoft’s Rabbid mascots and crammed it into a game that was, well, pretty much a cartoon interpretation of the tactical strategy series XCOM.
It was an unlikely early hit on the Switch. Ubisoft was able to offer a different kind of game than Nintendo was offering in its first-party titles. Apparently, that was the seed that led Ubisoft Milan Creative Director Davide Soliani to Mario + Rabbids. Talking to Engadget, he said, “[We] should create something that makes sense from Ubisoft’s point of view, something not happening in Nintendo’s catalog.”
Ubisoft fulfilled that brief with Kingdom Battle. Soliani added: “We can match the aesthetics [of Super Mario], using and misusing the elements…. The contrast is the drive.” That’s the context for this sequel, too.
In Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, Mario et al. (and their Rabbid equivalents) face a shared threat, called Cursa. The blended worlds of Mario and Rabbids are being contorted by darkness, but this time it’s a little more galactic. Expect to see varied worlds, à la Mario Galaxy, with the Lumas of that game being transformed into Sparks, elemental sprites that work like summonable magic attacks in the many, many battles.
That may sound new to anyone that played Kingdom Battle, but there are far bigger changes afoot. We’re yet to play the game, but judging from the new teaser and Davide Soliani’s explanation, it’s going to feel different – less of an XCOM tribute and something between tactical strategy conventions and the manic dashing and leaping of typical Mario games.
Your party of three heroes can now move around in real-time, no more grids. You’ll be able to see how far a character can move within their environment thanks to a white outline, but you’ll be able to figure out cover and optimal attacks on the fly. Each hero will get their turn before the baddies get to, well, return the favor. Soliani says this should help the game to feel more “natural”.
Crucial elements will include where you move your hero (as long as you don’t shoot), utilizing items to extend movement and even using some enemies against other enemies – like hurling a Bob-omb towards some unsuspecting enemies on the other side of an area. Like Kingdom Battle, the synergy with other heroes will be crucial in tackling the biggest enemies.
Alongside companion elemental Sparks, which will grow in abilities as your characters do, each hero will have their own unique weapon this time, running the gamut from melee weapons like swords through to dual pistols and even bows. (You can’t have a game in the 2020s without including a bow.)
You’ll be joined by some new characters, including a Rabbid with a sword called Edge. (Dumb, I love it.) and age-old rival Bowser, who’s apparently a heavy-hitter equipped with what appears to be a bazooka.
More freedom in battles is mirrored in the game too. The worlds you’ll explore should feel more open-ended than the areas of its predecessor. Explore planets, take on fetch quests (this is a Ubisoft game after all), solve the major darkness problems of this specific planet – or just do the bare minimum and move on to the next part of the game.
This should all help Sparks of Hope feel a little more contemporary – aided by a pretty incredible array of musical talent. Kingdom Battle composer Grant Kirkhope, who also contributed to Rare’s epic run of Nintendo 64 games, returns, joined by Gareth Croker (Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Halo Infinite) and Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XV). Those are some gaming music heavyweights which should help ensure all these different worlds sound as different as they’ll look.
Judging from the teaser and Soliani’s comments, Ubisoft is evolving Mario + Rabbids at a swift clip, modernizing the battle system and adding further strategic wrinkles and customization to fights. Sparks of Hope could feel like a different sort of tactical battle game, and if they nail the synergy like the first game, it could be just as entertaining.
Sony looks to take the smartphone camera title with its 1-inch sensor made specifically for smartphones, the IMX989. The Japanese company is looking to outperform its South Korean rival Samsung, which was the first to introduce cameras that went beyond the 100MP barrier.
Samsung has been leading the way in terms of megapixels when it comes
Source: Hot Hardware – Sony IMX980 Is World’s First 1-Inch Smartphone Camera And It’s Headed To This Handset
With Atari turning 50 this year, the brand’s current owner plans to celebrate with a collection that brings together five decades of games. Announced today, the aptly named Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration will include more than 90 titles spanning the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, ST, Jaguar and Lynx. What’s more, Atari hired Digital Eclipse, a studio that’s best known for its work on The Disney Afternoon Collection and the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, to oversee the project.
“When it comes to emulation or bringing classics back or doing really any sort of remastering or reimagining, I don’t know if there’s anybody who does it better than Digital Eclipse, so they were always our first choice,” Atari CEO Wade Rosen told Game Informer.
Atari has yet to share a complete list of the games that will appear on the compilation, but in addition to many classics, the collection will include six new retro-inspired games. One of those is a sequel to 1981’s Haunted House for the Atari 2600. Haunted Houses will feature modern 3D voxel-based graphics and new levels for players to explore. Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration will cost $40 when it arrives later this year on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC and Atari VCS.
The ripgrep-all is grep on steroids. Apart from searching in text files, it can also search in PDFs, Word documents, E-Books, Zip, Tar archives files, and more.
The post ripgrep-all Command in Linux: One grep to Rule Them All appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – ripgrep-all Command in Linux: One grep to Rule Them All
When you’re traveling or out and about, a single USB-C adapter is never enough. You probably need at least two USB-C ports—one for your iPhone and the other to charge your MacBook, iPad, or other peripherals. While you can get a plethora of third-party multi-port chargers, Apple has never made one—until now.
Source: LifeHacker – Buy These Adapters Instead of Apple’s USB-C Dual Charger
When TSMC initially introduced its N2 (2 nm class) process technology earlier this month, the company outlined how the new node would be built on the back of two new cutting-edge fab techniques: gate-all-around transistors, and backside power rails. But, as we’ve since learned from last week’s EU symposium, TSMC’s plans are a bit more nuanced than first announced. Unlike some of their rivals, TSMC will not be implementing both technologies in the initial version of their N2 node. Instead, the first iteration of N2 will only be implementing gate-all-around transistors, with backside power delivery to come with a later version of the node.
So far, TSMC has mentioned two distinctive features of N2: nano sheet gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, and backside power rails. GAA transistors have two unique advantages over FinFETs: they solve many challenges associated with the leakage current since GAAFET’s channels are horizontal and are surrounded by gates around all four sides. Meanwhile, backside power rail enabled improved power delivery to transistors, which increases performance and lowers power consumption.
But, as it turns out, TSMC is not planning to start with both nanosheet GAA transistors and backside power rails in the initial generation of its N2 process technology. As disclosed by the company last week at their EU symposium, the first generation of N2 will only feature gate-all-around transistors. Backside power delivery, on the other hand, will come later with more advanced implementations of N2.
At this point the company hasn’t said too much as to why they’re not rolling out backside power delivery as part of their initial N2 node. But, in discussing the bifurcation, TSMC has noted that backside power delivery will ultimately add additional process steps, which the company is seemingly looking to avoid on their first try with GAAFETs.
The lack of backside power delivery in the original version of the N2 fabrication technology perhaps explains rather moderate performance improvement of N2 when compared to N3E node. While for high-performance computing (CPUs, accelerators, etc.) a 10% to 15% performance improvement at the same power and complexity does not seem to be impressive, a 25% to 30% power drop at the same speed and complexity seems to be very good for mobile applications.
| Advertised PPA Improvements of New Process Technologies Data announced during conference calls, events, press briefings and press releases |
|||||
| TSMC | |||||
| N5 vs N7 |
N3 vs N5 |
N3E vs N5 |
N2 vs N3E |
||
| Power | -30% | -25-30% | -34% | -25-30% | |
| Performance | +15% | +10-15% | +18% | +10-15% | |
| Chip Density* | ? | ? | ~1.3X | >1.1X | |
| Volume Manufacturing |
Q2 2022 | H2 2022 | Q2/Q3 2023 | H2 2025 | |
*Chip density published by TSMC reflects ‘mixed’ chip density consisting of 50% logic, 30% SRAM, and 20% analog.
Considering that TSMC always offers multiple versions of its nodes, that TSMC has several variants planned for N2 is not all that surprising. Nonetheless, it is a bit odd to see that TSMC is taking a rather long road to backside power delivery.
Compared and contrasted to the competition, this will end up being a notable difference from how rival Intel is planning to handle their own GAAFET/backside power transition with the Intel 20A process. Intel intends to introduce its GAA RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia interconnects together in mid-2024 – going so far as to create an internal pseudo node just to focus on RibbonFET development. TSMC, on the other hand, is taking a more cautious approach to risks and innovations, one which potentially has TSMC moving at a slower pace, but is also an approach that has traditionally been a better fit for TSMC’s need to deliver more constant and consistent updates to its fab offerings.
And while we’re still a few years out, it will be interesting to see what this means for the competitiveness of TSMC’s first-generation N2 node. Will a GAAFET process without backside power delivery be at a meaningful disadvantage? Per current schedules, we’ll find out the answer to that in the second half of 2025, when TSMC’s first N2 node is slated to enter high-volume manufacturing (HVM).
Source: AnandTech – TSMC: N2 To Start With Just GAAFETs, Add Backside Power Delivery Later
Prime Video’s Paper Girls adaptation for Amazon just dropped a trailer that makes the beloved characters from Saga’s Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s critically acclaimed graphic novel series jump right out of the comics and onto our screens.
Source: Gizmodo – Paper Girls’ First Trailer Blasts From the Past to the Future
