If Remnant II wasn’t on your radar before, it should be now. The sequel to a surprisingly great 2019 Souls-like shooter is even better than the original, breaking out on Steam at launch despite reports of bugs, performance issues, and, at least on PlayStation 5, problems with co-op. The studio behind it, Gunfire…
Source: Kotaku – The Souls-Like Shooter That’s Taking Over Steam Is Only Going To Get Better
If you’ve been thinking of picking up an Xbox Series X, here’s a rare chance to grab Microsoft’s console at a discount: Dell is selling a bundle that pairs the device with a copy of the open-world racing game Forza Horizon 5 for $450. That’s $50 off the console’s usual going rate. Dell offered a similar deal earlier this month, but that didn’t come bundled with a game. Forza Horizon 5, meanwhile, is included with an Xbox Game Pass subscription but typically retails for around $45 on its own (though it’s currently available for $30 at Xbox’s online store). As of this writing, the deal appears to be going in and out of stock, so you may need to act quickly.
As a refresher, the Series X is the higher-performing option in Microsoft’s Xbox lineup. It has a beefier GPU and more RAM compared to the $300 Xbox Series S, which allows it to more consistently play demanding games at higher resolutions and frame rates. Broadly speaking, the Series X is designed to play games in 4K at 60 fps (though some games can go further), while the Series S is aimed more at 1440p or 1080p displays. The Series X also has a disc drive, unlike the all-digital Series S, and it comes with twice as much storage by default at 1TB. You still have to use a proprietary card to fully expand that storage, however, and the console itself is much larger than its lower-cost counterpart. We gave the Series X a review score of 87 when it arrived in late 2020.
Microsoft itself has had its share of struggles producing blockbuster exclusives, particularly when compared to Sony’s first-party output on the PlayStation 5. Still, after a few years on the market, the latest Xbox has built up a fairly diverse lineup of quality titles, with big-budget hits like Forza Horizon 5 joined by smaller-scale gems like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment on our list of the best Xbox games. You still have access to most major third-party titles as well.
Looking forward, Starfield, the latest RPG from the studio behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, will arrive in September. And while a recent price increase has somewhat dented its value, Xbox Game Pass still pairs well with the console if you tend to hop from game to game. If nothing else, Microsoft’s looming merger with Activision Blizzard (owner of Call of Duty, Diablo and Warcraft, among others) will presumably add to that service, as the company’s prior acquisition of Bethesda Softworks has.
Whether you should buy the Xbox Series X over the PS5 largely comes down to how much stock you put in Game Pass, how much PlayStation-exclusive series like God of War, Horizon and Spider-Man appeal to you, and which platform your friends and family use most often. If you’re already settled on Xbox, though, this is a good chance to save on the best console Microsoft makes.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-xbox-series-x-is-50-off-at-dell-150920162.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – The Xbox Series X is off at Dell
Enlarge / iCorrect’s attempts to draw a straight line on an iPad Pro with a third-party replacement screen led them to look at the screen’s embedded chips for parts-pairing problems. (credit: iCorrect UK)
The latest part of an Apple device to demand a repair by its maker appears to be the screens on newer iPads. Reports from repair shops and customers suggest that Apple Pencils no longer work properly on non-genuine Apple screens, as they draw squiggly lines on a diagonal instead of straight.
Ricky Panesar, CEO of UK repair firm iCorrect, told Forbes that screens replaced on newer iPad Pros (fifth and sixth-generation 12.9-inch and third and fourth-generation 11-inch models) do not deliver straight lines when an Apple Pencil is used to draw at an angle. “They have a memory chip that sits on the screen that’s programmed to only allow the Pencil functionality to work if the screen is connected to the original logic board,” Panesar told Forbes.
A Reddit post from May 23 from a user reporting “jittery” diagonal lines from an Apple Pencil on a newly replaced iPad mini screen suggests the issue may affect more than just the Pro line of iPads.
Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Apple Pencils can’t draw straight on third-party replacement iPad screens
Designing chips for modern, leading-edge manufacturing technologies is an expensive endeavor. Still, dozens of companies have already adopted TSMCs N3 and N3E (3 nm-class) fabrication processes, according to disclosures made by TSMC and Synopsys.
“Synopsys IP for TSMC’s 3nm process has been adopted by dozens of leading companies to accelerate their development time, quickly achieve silicon success and speed their time to market,” said John Koeter, senior vice president of marketing and strategy for IP at Synopsys.
TSMC has been producing chips using its latest N3 (aka N3B) fabrication technology (with up to 25 EUV layers and support for EUV double patterning) since late 2022 and intends to start making products on its simplified N3E manufacturing process (with up to 19 EUV layers and without EUV double patterning) in Q4 2023.
Previously, TSMC disclosed that its N3 nodes had been adopted by designers of high-performance computing (HPC) and smartphone SoCs and that the number of adopters was higher compared to N5 early in its lifecycle. Meanwhile, TSMC never mentioned the number of companies that had decided to use its 3 nm-class fabrication processes.
Synopsys is a major IP developer and electronic design automation tools provider, so it means a lot when it says that dozens of companies have licensed its IP for TSMC’s N3 fabrication technologies. But Synopsys is not the only IP designer out there, and companies like Cadence also supplied their N3-compatible IP to other fabless chip developers. It is safe to say that the number of their clients is also significant.
TSMC’s N3 family of process technologies includes baseline N3 (N3B), relaxed N3E with a bit reduced transistor density but widened process window for better yields, performance-enhanced N3P that is IP compatible with N3E will be production ready in the second half of 2024, and N3X for extremely high-performance applications that are due in 2025.
The IP licensed by Synopsys right now can be used for N3, N3E, and N3P production nodes.
Sources: Synopsys
Source: AnandTech – Dozens of Companies Adopt TSMC’s 3nm Process Technology
It can be daunting to wake up to a new day, then immediately remember that in under an hour, you’ll be squashed up against a stranger on a bus or train—or stuck in traffic, or maybe sweating it out on a long bike ride to the office. The commute can be a downer because so much can go wrong or simply bother you before…
Source: LifeHacker – My Favorite Gadgets and Tools for a Smoother Commute
Social media algorithms have been a point of contention for lawmakers and regulators for several years over concerns that users were being brainwashed by the flood of misinformation promoted on their feeds. As it turns out, while the algorithms do impact the person’s experience on social media, four studies published…
Source: Gizmodo – Facebook’s Influence on Political Views May Be Greatly Exaggerated, Researchers Find
In an exclusive report, Variety has learned that vendors for the 75th Primetime Emmys have been notified of a delay in the broadcast. It was originally scheduled for September 18, and the news of the pushback is no surprise, but with no timetable for when the AMPTP will return to the bargaining table with either the…
Source: Gizmodo – Emmy Awards Officially Delayed: New Date Not Set
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one hell of an epic adventure game, packed with satisfying opportunities to make the most of its dynamic and surprising physics and crafting systems. But while the internet’s full of examples of remarkable feats of engineering and unexpected means of surpassing challenges,…
Source: Kotaku – 19 Hilarious Tears Of The Kingdom Fails
Three months ago, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger was upbeat about the company’s IDM 2.0 strategy and what he said was a $1 trillion market opportunity for Intel Foundry Service (IFS) to grow into, even as overall earnings plummeted to an all-time low. Now we know why he was so optimistic. After two consecutive quarters of losses, Intel just posted
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Earnings Bring Surprise Return To Profit Ahead Of Foundry Services And AI Boom
Cyber attackers targeted a digital platform used by Kenya’s government to deliver services, the country’s technology minister said, highlighting the vulnerabilities of the system. From a report: The attack on the e-Citizen platform in recent days caused system outages that left users unable to access a broad range of government services, ranging from passport applications to electricity payments. Some private companies were also affected.
It was “an unsuccessful attempt to overload the system through extraordinary requests, with the intention of clogging it,” said Eliud Owalo, cabinet secretary for information technology, in a statement on Thursday. He said technical teams had blocked the source of the requests, adding that privacy and the security of data had not been compromised.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Kenya Reports Cyber Attacks Causing Government System Outages
Introducing the idea of role play in the bedroom could be embarrassing at first. Pretending to be a “naughty” pilot who wants to join the mile high club with a saucy flight attendant? Well, that can sound a little cheesy. But that’s precisely why you might want to try it in the first place—to let go of your…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Introduce Role Playing Into Your Sex Life
Systemd 254 has been released. As usual, there is a long list of changes,
including a new list-paths command for systemctl, the
ability to send POSIX signals to services, a “soft reboot” feature that
restarts user space while leaving the kernel in place, improved support for
“confidential
virtual machines“, and a lot more.
The announcement also notes the support for split-/usr systems
will be removed in the next release, and support for version-one control
groups and for System V service scripts will be deleted in the near
future as well.
Source: LWN.net – Systemd 254 released
NASA is taking a giant leap forward as it prepares to launch its digital platforms to the next level of entertainment for the benefit of all. The upcoming changes will be taking place on its flagship and science websites, as well as adding the space agency’s first on-demand streaming service and upgrading its NASA app, all for the low price
Source: Hot Hardware – NASA+ Streaming Service Prepares For Blast Off And You’re Going To Love The Price
The new AMD EPYC Bergamo and Genoa-X processors have been very fascinating in the lab from the performance angle and the many different features and knobs provided by these new high-end server processors focused on dense cloud and energy-efficient deployments and HPC/AI, respectively. With Bergamo the flagship AMD EPYC 9754 provides 128 cores with SMT and the Zen 4C cores still boast AVX-512. Another nifty aspect on this high core count CPU catering to cloud service providers is the adjustable TDP from 320 to Watts. Prior Phoronix benchmarks have looked at the default 360 Watt performance and the 400W at the high-end with power determinism mode while today’s article is looking at the efficiency gains made possible by pulling back to a 320W cTDP.
Source: Phoronix – Running The AMD EPYC 9754 “Bergamo” CPUs With A 320W cTDP To Enhance Power Efficiency
California-based Rocket Lab—the company voted most likely to compete with SpaceX—appears to be tinkering with its Neutron blueprints, as new artwork suggests.
Source: Gizmodo – Latest Design Tweaks Reshape Rocket Lab’s Upcoming Neutron Rocket
Peacock launched in mid-2020, largely on the promise of The Office reruns, but it also brought the power and checkbook of NBCUniversal to bear in creating some solid original content (“creating” being, in some cases, a euphemism for “importing”). Even though the library of originals is still relatively small, there’s…
Source: LifeHacker – 20 Peacock Originals That Are Definitely Worth Watching
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Aurich Lawson)
Over the last several years, there have been growing concerns about the influence of social media on fostering political polarization in the US, with critical implications for democracy. But it’s unclear whether our online “echo chambers” are the driving factor behind that polarization or whether social media merely reflects (and arguably amplifies) divisions that already exist. Several intervention strategies have been proposed to reduce polarization and the spread of misinformation on social media, but it’s equally unclear how effective they would be at addressing the problem.
The US 2020 Facebook and Instagram Election Study is a joint collaboration between a group of independent external academics from several institutions and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The project is designed to explore these and other relevant questions about the role of social media in democracy within the context of the 2020 US election. It’s also a first in terms of the degree of transparency and independence that Meta has granted to academic researchers. Now we have the first results from this unusual collaboration, detailed in four separate papers—the first round of over a dozen studies stemming from the project.
Three of the papers were published in a special issue of the journal Science. The first paper investigated how exposure to political news content on Facebook was segregated ideologically. The second paper delved into the effects of a reverse chronological feed as opposed to an algorithmic one. The third paper examined the effects of exposure to reshared content on Facebook. And the fourth paper, published in Nature, explored the extent to which social media “echo chambers” contribute to increased polarization and hostility.
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Source: Ars Technica – Did Facebook fuel political polarization during the 2020 election? It’s complicated.
It’s now easy to show your WhatsApp friends what you’re doing without putting in the effort to create a Story or a similar clip. The service is rolling out Telegram-like instant video messages that let you respond in chat with videos up to a minute long. You just have to tap and hold a button to capture footage, and you can swipe up to keep the recording going while hands-off.
Videos will automatically play on mute, so you shouldn’t startle anyone until you’re ready to turn on sound with a tap. Like most anything else in WhatApp, the instant messages are end-to-end encrypted to add a layer of privacy. The feature should be available to all users in the “coming weeks,” the company says.
This likely won’t replace Telegram Snapchat for many people. WhatsApp is still dominant in the messaging space, and driven largely by calls and texts. Even so, the feature might be appreciated if you’d rather not switch apps just to send rapid-fire videos. You can quickly share news when text or an audio message won’t cut it, or simply react to a friend with something more personal than a sticker.
There’s an incentive for parent company Meta to act. While WhatsApp has over 2 billion active users as of last year, Telegram is expanding quickly with an estimated 700 million active users each month. Snapchat is still growing despite fierce competition from other social platforms. Apple’s iOS 17 will introduce FaceTime video voicemail to iPhone users, too. While instant video messages might not persuade users to sign up, it might keep WhatsApp fans from drifting toward the competition.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/whatsapp-adds-telegram-style-video-messages-141005605.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – WhatsApp adds Telegram-style video messages
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up k3s Kubernetes cluster on Ubuntu 22.04.
The post How to Install k3s Kubernetes Cluster on Ubuntu 22.04 appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – How to Install k3s Kubernetes Cluster on Ubuntu 22.04
Billy the puppet returns in a new look at Saw X. New Last Voyage of the Demeter clips herald Dracula’s awakening. Scooby Doo and Krypto the Superdog are ready to team up in a new movie. Plus, what’s next on Riverdale and Outlander. Spoilers away!
Source: Gizmodo – The Star Wars: Acolyte Cast Tease the Show’s Epic Lightsaber Duels
