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Showing posts from January, 2025

Nvidia’s RTX 5090 leaks with 32GB of GDDR7 memory

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Nvidia’s RTX 5090 has leaked today in the form of a marketing image of the unannounced next-gen GPU. VideoCardz has obtained a box shot of the RTX 5090, which suggests that the rumors of 32GB of GDDR7 memory are true. While the packaging of the unannounced Inno3D RTX 5090 iChill X3 doesn’t reveal more specs about Nvidia’s flagship next-gen GPU, it does suggest that this particular model will ship with a 3.5-slot cooler. Image: VideoCardz Inno3D’s RTX 5090 packaging. The RTX 5090 is expected to have double the VRAM of the RTX 5080, which is rumored to include 16GB of GDDR7 memory. It’s also rumored to include 21,760 CUDA cores, nearly 1.8TB/s of memory bandwidth, and a TDP of 575 watts — 125 watts more than the RTX 4090. We shouldn’t have long to wait until details about the RTX 50-series of GPUs are official. Nvidia is hosting a CES keynote tomorrow night, where the GPU maker is widely expected to announce its RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 ...

How to watch Awesome Games Done Quick 2025

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Image: Games Done Quick A new year means a new Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) speedrunning marathon for charity, and this year’s event is just about to kick off. AGDQ starts today, January 5th, at 12PM ET, and is scheduled to end very early in the morning on January 12th. You can watch the event live on Games Done Quick’s Twitch channel , and runs are typically uploaded to Games Done Quick’s YouTube channel soon after they air. I’ve been perusing the schedule , and here’s a few runs that I’m excited about: Astro Bot, because Astro Bot rules A Metroid Prime race (perfect to get in the mood for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond ) The very bad Superman 64 A six-hour and fifteen-minute run of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth — when I beat it last year, the game took me about ten times that long to finish Crazy Taxi with a live band, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah And that only scratches the surface! This year’s AGDQ seems like it’ll be another great event, and I can’t wait to tune in. Th...

United Airlines now says first flights with Starlink Wi-Fi will take off spring 2025

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The Verge United Airlines is accelerating its plan to add Starlink-enabled Wi-Fi to its planes , with the first commercial flights now expected to arrive this spring. Last year, United announced its intention to upgrade its in-flight Wi-Fi using SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, with testing expected to start in the spring and the first equipped flights coming later in the year. Now the airline says it will start testing “next month,” followed by the first commercial flight on an Embraer E-175 aircraft — a narrow-body aircraft for regional flights that can fit up to 88 passengers — in the spring. On top of that, United now plans to outfit its entire two-cabin regional fleet by the end of 2025 and have its first mainline Starlink-enabled plane in the air before the end of this year. Ultimately, the airline expects to have its entire fleet of nearly 1,000 planes outfitted with Starlink Wi-Fi. Image: United Airlines United currently has four different Wi-Fi providers, according to tra...

How to choose which Apple Watch to buy

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Image: Cath Virginia. / The Verge Between the Apple Watch Series 10, the Ultra 2, and the second-gen SE, there are more options than ever. We’ll help you sort through them. Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/aKYLqZ7

Samsung and Google’s new spatial audio format will take on Dolby Atmos this year

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Image: Samsung Samsung and Google are ready to push a new standard, Eclipsa Audio. This format will enable 3D audio experiences on certain YouTube videos later this year, with support available across Samsung’s 2025 lineup of TVs and soundbars . Over the years, Samsung notably hasn’t supported Dolby Vision HDR for dynamic HDR metadata, choosing instead to promote its preferred alternative, HDR10 Plus . Now, it seems ready to make a similar competitive push for open-source 3D audio support. Eclipsa Audio could eventually serve as a free alternative to Dolby Atmos, the dominant 3D audio format that hardware makers like Samsung pay to license for TVs and other equipment. Samsung says that similar to Atmos, this audio format supports adjusting “audio data such as the location and intensity of sounds, along with spatial reflections” to create a 3D experience. The two companies first announced a partnership to develop spatial audio technology in 2023, initially calling it Immersive Aud...

Ford is extending its free at-home EV charging promotion

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Image: Ford Ford launched its “Power Promise” initiative in October that included a free home electric vehicle charger with installation for new EV buyers. The promotion was initially scheduled to end on January 2nd, but now Ford is extending it into the first few months of 2025. Starting today, Ford says its Power Promise promotion will run through March 31st, 2025, giving US customers who buy a new model year 2024 or 2025 Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, or E-Transit more time to take advantage of the perks. Those include the complementary home charger with “standard” installation, 24/7 customer support for charging questions, and complimentary roadside assistance. The Ford Power Promise extension comes following a “best ever” quarter for EV sales at the automaker, according to Ford spokesperson Susannah Evans. Ford Mustang Mach-E sales were up 27 percent to 51,745 units for 2024 compared to the previous year, while the F-150 Lightning was up 39 percent to 33,510, and the E-Tr...

Answering your questions about AI, smart glasses, TikTok, and more

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Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge As promised, I’ve got a special mailbag issue this week. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Like last year , I picked a handful that hit some of the themes I plan to continue covering in 2025. On to your questions… I’m really concerned / worried / curious about the near-term future. Between now and 10 years from now, I think it is very clear AI will be replacing many job functions. What are we all going to do? The leaders at the AI labs say that, yes, there will be job loss, but that doesn’t mean catastrophe. The optimistic take is that humans are creative and will invent new jobs, like they always have when technology changes things. At the moment, there’s also a macro belief among the CEOs driving a lot of the spending on infrastructure for AI that its impact will be deflationary and lead to GDP growth. Job displacement will still be painful, of course. Sam Altman and others believe that some form of universal basic income will be necess...

Apple’s AirTags add new child safety battery warnings

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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple has added warning labels to AirTags and their boxes to comply with a law requiring the labels on products with button cell or coin batteries that could be ingested by children, according to a US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) press release . AirTags imported to the US after March 19th, 2024, which was when the law, known as “Reese’s Law,” went into effect, did not “have the required on-product and on-box warnings concerning the severe risk of injury from battery ingestion if these small batteries are not kept out of reach of children,” the CPSC says. Now, the AirTag battery compartment has a “warning symbol,” and Apple has updated AirTags boxes to “include required warning statements and symbols,” per the CPSC. In the Find My app, Apple has also updated the instructions you see when you’re prompted to change an AirTag battery so that they include “a warning about the hazards of button and coin cell batteries.” Apple launched Air...

Asus, Samsung, and MSI announce world’s first 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz monitors

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MSI’s new 27-inch 4K OLED monitor. | Image: MSI 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz monitors seem to be like buses: you wait ages for one and then three turn up at once. Asus, Samsung, and MSI are all announcing the industry’s next-generation QD-OLED gaming monitors that offer the benefits of 4K OLED 240Hz panels at the smaller 27-inch size instead of 32 inches. All three appear to be using the same fourth generation QD-OLED panel from Samsung Display, which Asus says offers “a longer lifespan over previous-gen OLEDs.” Both the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM and the MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED (who names these things?) include DisplayPort 2.1a (UHBR20), which offers 80Gbps of bandwidth to support 4K at 240Hz without the need for Display Stream Compression (DSC). Samsung’s press release about its Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF) doesn’t mention DisplayPort 2.1a compatibility, but it’s reasonable to assume it’s part of the spec list. Image: Asus Asus’ latest OLED monitor has a 26.5-inch viewable display. ...

US soldier arrested after allegedly posting hacked Trump and Harris call logs

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Illustration: Beatrice Sala The United States has arrested a US Army soldier and charged him with being part of a hacking scheme to sell and distribute stolen phone records. An indictment alleges that 20-year-old Cameron John Wagenius knowingly sold “confidential phone records” over online forums and other communications platforms last November. The indictment doesn’t detail the hacked material, but KrebsOnSecurity reports that Wagenius appears to be connected to a series of high-profile data breaches linked to the online alias “Kiberphant0m.” Kiberphant0m claimed to have hacked 15 telecom firms and was working with the person allegedly behind the Snowflake data breach to sell the stolen information. In November, Kiberphant0m posted what they claimed were AT&T call logs for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s not clear if the data was genuine, but AT&T did suffer a major theft of customer data as part of the Snowflake breach last year. I...

A Cybertruck ‘blew up’ outside Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas

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A Tesla Cybertruck appeared to explode outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on Wednesday morning. A video shared on X shows the truck engulfed in flames just outside the hotel’s lobby, with the person who captured it saying the Cybertruck “blew up.” It’s still not clear what caused the fire, or if there were any injuries. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said they are “investigating” and that the fire had been put out. Local news station KSNV News 3 Las Vegas said a vehicle fire was first reported at 8:41AM local time and that police and firefighters were responding. The news of the fire comes amid numerous reports about Tesla CEO Elon Musk getting closer to President-elect Donald Trump. Musk spent New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago and reportedly sat in during Trump’s dinner with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos . Musk has also been staying at a cottage on Trump’s Florida property since around Election Day, according to a report from The New York Times . Cybertruck blew...

US sanctions Russian group over AI-generated election disinformation

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Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The US has issued sanctions on organizations in Russia and Iran for attempting to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. The Treasury Department said on Tuesday that the groups tried to “stoke socio-political tensions” and influence voters. One group, the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise, has ties to Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), and built a server to host its own AI tools “to avoid foreign web-hosting services that would block their activity.” The organization then used these tools to “quickly create disinformation” that it spread across dozens of fake online news outlets, while also providing US-based companies with money to maintain its AI server and operate a network of “at least 100 websites” used in its campaign. Additionally, the Russian organization manipulated a video to “produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate”. In October, the US...

Popeye and Tintin are now in the public domain

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Popeye’s first appearance in E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip. | Image: King Features It’s a new year, and that means more works are headed to the public domain. This year, thousands of copyrighted works created in 1929, including the earliest versions of Popeye and the Belgian comic book character Tintin, are now free to reuse and repurpose in the US. Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of Public Domain has once again rounded up all the most iconic works that have been freed from the bounds of copyright, which also includes sound recordings from 1924. As pointed out by Duke Law School, 1929 was a particularly pivotal year for film, as it was the first with sound. These are just some of the works entering the public domain this year (you can view the full catalog here ): The Skeleton Dance from Disney’s Silly Symphonies short film series Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film Blackmail Nacio Herb Brown’s Singin’ in the Rain and the film it appeared in, The Hollywoo...

Is Sleep’s Dopesmoker still the heaviest album of all time?

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A sojourn though the heaviest music I could find | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Tee Pee Records An attempt to crush myself to death. Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/B2heCgX