If after six episodes it wasn’t abundantly clear, episode seven really hammered it home: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is not a narratively driven show. It’s a character driven show. For two weeks now the lingering questions of Jen’s supersuit and a Daredevil cameo have been hanging so that Jen Walters (Tatiana Maslany)…
Source: Gizmodo – She-Hulk Brings Back Tim Roth for Some Much-Needed Therapy
NVIDIA has made no bones about its embrace of AI to continue the march of graphical innovation. The company has developed and refined its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) techniques significantly since it was introduced way back in 2018. The latest incarnation introduced with the GeForce 40-Series cards has been put to an early test by
Source: Hot Hardware – NVIDIA DLSS 3’s Frame-Generating Magic Explored In Early Performance Testing
All new vehicles purchased in New York will need to be zero-emission models beginning in 2035, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced on Thursday. From a report: “We’re really putting our foot down on the accelerator and revving up our efforts to make sure we have this transition — not someday in the future, but on a specific date, a specific year — by the year 2035,” Hochul said at a press conference in White Plains, N.Y. After careening into the Chester-Maple Parking Lot in a white Chevy Bolt, Hochul announced a series of new electric vehicle (EV) initiatives for the state, beginning with the zero-emission requirement for 2035. To reach this target, she said that 35 percent of new cars will need to be zero-emission by 2026 and 68 percent by 2030.
All new school buses purchased will have to be zero-emission by 2027, with the entire fleet meeting these standards by 2035, according to the governor. “We actually have benchmarks to achieve, to show we’re on the path to get there,” Hochul said, stressing that the changes would not occur suddenly. New York is following in the footsteps of California in mandating zero-emissions vehicles by the year 2035. “We had to wait for California to take a step because there’s some federal requirements that California had to go first — that’s the only time we’re letting them go first,” the governor said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – New York To Mandate Zero-Emission Vehicles in 2035
Enlarge (credit: HHakim)
A common practice in the oil industry called flaring is believed to cut down on methane emissions by burning waste or excess gas in the process of extracting or processing oil. But flaring may not be as effective as once thought, according to new research published in the journal Science.
It’s a widely held belief that flaring is 98 percent effective at destroying methane emissions caused by oil and gas operations. However, according to Eric Kort, associate professor in the University of Michigan’s department of climate and space and one of the paper’s authors, this assumption has only rarely been tested.
Why burn a potentially useful fuel? “You might have a volume of natural gas, which is primarily methane, that you don’t have anything to do with. You don’t have the capacity to capture it and put it into a pipeline—it’s not economic, the pressure would exceed safety tolerances,” Kort told Ars.
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Source: Ars Technica – A glaring error in methane flaring
“The internet has a privacy problem,” isn’t a statement that’s likely to shock you. But just because we’ve all lost a lot of what we traditionally think of as privacy, doesn’t mean we need to resort to bad behavior. Case in point: If you’re sharing screenshots of people’s dating app profiles, you need to stop.
Source: LifeHacker – Stop Sharing Tinder Screenshots on the Internet, You Monsters
Sackboy: A Big Adventure has joined the rapidly expanding list of PlayStation games that Sony is bringing to PC. The PS5 launch title (which is also available on PS4) will pop up on Steam and the Epic Games Store on October 27th.
Sony says the PC version will support 4K resolution, have a targeted framerate of 120 FPS and offer variable refresh rates. You’ll be able to explore Craftworld in an ultra-wide format as there’s support for a range of screen ratios, including 21:9. Those with recent NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs should get a performance boost as well via DLSS2. There’s also haptic feedback and dynamic trigger support if you use a DualSense controller. Alternatively, you can play with a mouse and keyboard.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure won’t require an ultra powerful gaming rig. You will need at least an Intel Core i5-6400 or AMD FX-6300 CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R7 265 GPU, 8GB of RAM and 60GB of storage.
It’s shaping up to be a busy fall for PlayStation on the PC gaming front. The Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection will hit Steam and the Epic Games Store on October 19th. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is also slated to land on PC by the end of the year.
Source: Engadget – PS5 launch title ‘Sackboy: A Big Adventure’ is coming to PC on October 27th
An Amazon US listing for the upcoming Google Pixel 7 smartphone has been spotted and screen-shotted. At the time of writing, the Amazon retail page has been taken down, as someone obviously jumped the gun. However, we now have pretty solid information on the non-Pro device’s price, release date, and Amazon BO code.
Getting straight to the
Source: Hot Hardware – Google Pixel 7 Pricing And Release Date Leaks Out In Amazon Listing
Audiences will return to the Planet of the Apes in 2024. Fox just announced that the title of the next film in the franchise is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and it goes into production in October. As previously reported, it’s directed by Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) and stars Owen Teague (It, The Stand) as the…
Source: Gizmodo – Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Is the Title of the Next Apes Movie
The ‘90s rivalry between the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis was fierce, dividing playgrounds across the country. But three decades later, if you’ve managed to get your hands on an Analogue Pocket, you don’t have to take a side, as the handheld now plays both SNES and Genesis games with some easy updates.
Source: Gizmodo – Sega Genesis Games Are Now Playable on the Analogue Pocket
Enlarge / The new Outlook client for Windows is creeping nearer to release, though it still doesn’t support some important features. (credit: Microsoft)
Earlier this year, Microsoft released a preview of a totally redesigned Outlook for Windows client. It was a step closer to something Microsoft has been working toward for a while—a unified Outlook client across all of its platforms, based on the design of the web version. Today, Microsoft is taking another step toward that goal, with an updated preview for the new Outlook client that will be available to all Office Insiders in the Beta and Current channels.
Outlook for Windows users signed up for the Office Insider program will be able to try the new app by hitting a “try the new Outlook” toggle in the upper-right corner of the app window; hit the toggle again to return to the old Outlook app. Microsoft says toggling between the two will result in “no data or email loss.”
The Outlook app will also eventually be replacing the free built-in Mail and Calendar apps preinstalled in Windows. Microsoft will make a similar toggle available to Windows Insiders “in the coming weeks.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Microsoft’s web-flavored update for Outlook begins rolling out to more testers
Komplete, Native Instruments’ flagship music production bundle, has a little bit of everything. That’s always been part of its appeal. It’s pricey, but you get monstersynths, a top-notch drum sampler, a virtual guitar rig and Kontakt — which is also a sampler, but calling it one seems incredibly reductive. Native Instruments is still one of the biggest names in the music software world, but it’s an increasingly crowded and competitive market. And much of it is moving towards a subscriptionmodel (even Native Instruments). So this year the company is adding some new software in hopes that customers will come back for at least one more big-ticket purchase.
Komplete 14 is the first version to be released since Native Instruments (NI) joined Soundwide, a collection of brands including Izotope and Plugin Alliance, among others. As such, one of the biggest additions to the Komplete library (at least in the $599 Standard version and higher) is Izotope’s Ozone 10 Standard. This mastering plug in has legions of fans thanks to its powerful feature set and simple interface. But for many, the biggest selling point is it’s AI-powered mastering assistance. Many amateur musicians (myself included) rely on Ozone to master their tracks. You simply play the loudest bit of your song, click a button, and the plugin will suggest a starting point for mastering including compression and EQ. You can then accept the settings, tweak them to your liking or toss them and start from scratch.
The new partnership also allowed Native Instruments to beef up the bundle with a handful of smaller items from Plugin Alliance and Brainworx like bx_Oberhausen, bx_Crispytuner and LO-FI-AF. None of these instruments or effects individually are likely to convince you one way or another that Komplete’s more expensive versions are worth the outlay. But I don’t know anyone who is going to complain about having too many plugins.
The only issue is it might not be immediately clear to many users how to get access to those. They’re not in the Native Access manager. Instead you’ll have to go to your products and serials list on the NI site to get the “Plugin Alliance Bundle for Komplete 14” code. Then you’ll head on over to Plugin Alliance and redeem it the code and download a separate plugin manager. Hopefully at some point the two platforms will be integrated to remove the addition steps.
The big centerpiece of Komplete, as always, is Kontakt. The new version — seven — isn’t a giant departure for this industry stalwart. The browser has been updated for better compatibility with HiDPI displays and improved search and filtering tools. The factory library has also been overhauled to take advantage of the graphical overhaul and for better sound. The process of building your own Kontakt instruments has also been simplified with improved creator tools.
Kontakt 7 may not be a significant change from version six, but if you spring for the more expensive versions, like the $1,199 Komplete Ultimate or $1,799 Komplete Collector’s Edition, you do get some unique and powerful expansions like Lores, Ashlight, Kinetic Toys and, one of my personal favorites, Piano Colors. The latter combines samples of a grand piano, various synths and textures, along with effects and modulation tools to create complex sounds that walk the line between organic and synthetic.
The one piece of bad news here is that Kontakt 7, while it is technically included in Komplete 14, isn’t available yet and wont ship until some point in October. Komplete 14 is available now starting at $199 for the basic Komplete Selects package, and going all the way up to $1,799 for Komplete Collector’s Edition.
Source: Engadget – Native Instruments pads out its Komplete 14 suite with some welcome new toys
Enlarge / Stadia is circling the drain. (credit: Aurich Lawson)
The moment everyone saw coming is finally happening. Google has officially confirmed that it’s killing Stadia, the company’s troubled game-streaming service. Phil Harrison announced today in a blog post that Stadia “hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.” Stadia will be laid to rest on January 18, 2023.
The good news is that the true Armageddon situation for Stadia customers is not happening. Google is issuing refunds, which will save dedicated Stadia players from losing potentially hundreds of dollars in lost games. The post says: “We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.” That notably excludes payments to the “Stadia Pro” subscription service, and you won’t get hardware refunds from non-Google Store purchases, but that’s a pretty good deal. The controllers are still useful on other platforms, too.
Stadia’s technology will live on as a Google Cloud product called “Immersive Stream for Games.” Google has made some headway pitching the feature as a way to run games on underpowered devices, like Peloton fitness equipment.
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Source: Ars Technica – Google Stadia officially shuts down January 2023, will refund game purchases
Enlarge / You’re limited to eight files and a word processor, but you can put them anywhere you want in NESOS’ rich (for 1985) desktop environment. (credit: Inkbox)
When you played the Nintendo Entertainment System, you were close to the hardware. It’s why you can pull off remarkable glitch hacks, like playing Tennis to hot-boot into broken Super Mario Bros. worlds. The chips, the memory, the board—everything was designed to service the little board inside your cartridge (that and prevent unauthorized games). There wasn’t much room for anything else in the early- to mid-1980s.
Room enough, however, for a custom-built operating system built in 2022, if just barely. NESOS 1.0 from Inkbox Software, a 48K OS, features “two core applications, the word processor, and the settings,” according to Inkbox. The settings app gives you seven cursors, 53 background colors, and the ability to delete the eight files that can fit inside a maximum 2K of NVRAM (i.e. on-board memory that doesn’t lose data when the system loses power). That’s 832 bytes each, or about one full screen’s worth of memory. You can drag those eight files anywhere you want on the desktop, however.
The creator of NESOS detailing how he built it—and why.
NESOS (pronounced “nee-sohs,” according to its creator) is entirely graphical. Inbox notes that there’s already a command-line system, Family Basic, for the NES and its Japanese progenitor, the Family Computer/Famicom. “I want NESOS to feel like an actual operating system that Nintendo might have made back in the day for the NES. What would it have looked and felt like?” the creator says in his video overview.
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Source: Ars Technica – NESOS gives 8-bit system a GUI desktop, 8 tiny files, and it’s amazing
A venture capital firm funded by the CIA has officially placed its bets on bringing back extinct species like the woolly mammoth and the thylacine, according to a public portfolio released this month and spotted by The Intercept.
Source: Gizmodo – The CIA Wants to Bring Back the Wooly Mammoth
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has made the closest approach to Jupiter’s tantalizing, icy moon Europa in more than 20 years. From a report: Juno on Thursday zipped within 222 miles (357 kilometers) of Europa, thought to have an ocean flowing beneath its thick frozen crust, raising the possibility of underwater life. Scientists hope to get lucky and observe possible water plumes shooting from the surface of Europa, close in size to Earth’s moon. “We have to be at the right place at just the right time, but if we are so fortunate, it’s a home run for sure,” Juno’s chief scientist, Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. John Bordi, deputy mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, expected the spacecraft to go “screaming by pretty fast,” with a relative velocity of almost 15 miles per second (23.6 kilometers per second). Pictures should be available by Friday, NASA said. The latest observations will help NASA plan for its Europa Clipper mission, due to launch in 2024. The European Space Agency also plans close encounters with its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, lifting off next year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – NASA Spacecraft Buzzes Jupiter Moon Europa, Closest in Years
Chucky is back October 5, and along with a certain killer doll, Zackary Arthur, Björgvin Arnarson, and Alyvia Alyn Lind will return as Jake, Devon, and Lexy. Newcomer Nadine (Bella Higginbotham) rounds out this imperiled but remarkably survival-prone teen quartet. At a recent press day, io9 got a chance to talk with…
Source: Gizmodo – Chucky’s Teen Stars Dish on the Hit Horror Show’s Second Season
Cardamom deserves more love as a baking spice. It’s unique yet versatile, warming and bold, and fit for both sweet and savory foods. Although you may not have cooked with cardamom yet, you’ve likely had it before, hidden in a sauce or mixed into a dough, and wondered how exactly the chef achieved that particular…
Source: LifeHacker – Cardamom Is the New Cinnamon
A handful of Democratic lawmakers led by Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren added their name to a growing chorus of activists calling on the Federal Trade Commision to slam the brakes on Amazon’s $1.7 billion iRobot acquisition. The lawmakers warned the deal if allowed to go through, would harm consumers and,…
Source: Gizmodo – Elizabeth Warren Wants the FTC to Stop Amazon’s .7 Billion iRobot Acquisition
It’s been nearly a year and a half, but you’ll soon get to find out what happens next in Mythic Quest. Apple has revealed that season three of its game developer comedy series will debut on TV+ November 11th. There aren’t more details about the plot, but the new episodes follow the impact of a studio shakeup. And of course, you can expect up-to-the-minute technology jokes. Let’s just say there’s a creative reinterpretation of “NFT.”
The series was created by and stars Welcome to Wrexham subject Rob McElhenney as Ian, with Charlotte Nicdao as Poppy. The show has drawn attention not just for making game development an enjoyable topic for a TV series, but its connection to the industry — Ubisoft is involved in the production alongside Lionsgate and 3 Arts Entertainment.
As it is, Apple has a number of high-profile season releases due this fall. The second season of spy production Slow Horses arrives December 2nd, while the immigrant anthology Little America (the work of husband-and-wife team Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon) continues December 9th. Apple now has a string of well-known shows in the pipeline, even if Ted Lasso remains its biggest attraction.
Source: Engadget – ‘Mythic Quest’ season 3 debuts November 11th on Apple TV+
