DARPA picks Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin to build nuclear spacecraft
DARPA has picked Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics to build and demonstrate a spacecraft driven by nuclear thermal propulsion. …read more
Author: Shivendra Singh
Sony’s new PS5 update includes surprise improvements to HDR and 120Hz support
Sony’s new PS5 software update is live right now, and includes some surprise improvements to HDR and 120Hz support. While Sony already detailed a big new feature to let players store — but not play — PS5 games on an external hard drive, there’s also a new option to automatically switch video output to non-HDR when you’re using a game or app that doesn’t support HDR.
This is a key improvement for those using HDR on the PS5, as it now means you no longer have to dig into the settings menu to manually disable HDR when you’re viewing SDR content.
Alongside these HDR changes, this update also adds two new HDMI controls in the system part of the PS5 settings menu. You can now toggle one-touch play, which will automatically turn on a connected…
‘Final Fantasy XIV’ PS5 open beta upgrades both graphics and sound
Final Fantasy XIV is now available on the PS5 as an open beta, and Square Enix’s Matt Hilton has detailed the enhancements for the new console on the PlayStation Blog. …read more
Next year’s iPhones will have 48-megapixel cameras and no mini option: Kuo
The 2022 iPhone lineup will feature substantial changes to the camera system, according to analyst Ming-chi Kuo in an investor note reported on by MacRumors and AppleInsider. Kuo says the high-end iPhones — presumably the Pro range — will use a larger 48-megapixel sensor for the primary camera. Separately, the analyst suggests that 2023 iPhones may start to use Face ID sensors under the screen as a way to get rid of the notch.
48-megapixel sensors have been common in Android phones for years, but this component will reportedly be larger than most. It’ll be a 1/1.3-inch sensor with a pixel size of 1.25µm, according to Kuo. That’s smaller than the 1.7µm pixels in the iPhone 12 Pro Max, but Kuo says that the equivalent pixel size will be…
Canon confirms a high-speed EOS R3 mirrorless camera is on the way
Canon has confirmed a rumor that it’s developing the EOS R3, a “high-performance, high-speed” full-frame mirrorless camera designed for news and sports, along with three new lenses. …read more
The FBI is remotely hacking hundreds of computers to protect them from Hafnium
In what’s believed to be an unprecedented move, the FBI is trying to protect hundreds of computers infected by the Hafnium hack by hacking them itself, using the original hackers’ own tools (via TechCrunch).
The hack, which affected tens of thousands of Microsoft Exchange Server customers around the world and triggered a “whole of government response” from the White House, reportedly left a number of backdoors that could let any number of hackers right into those systems again. Now, the FBI has taken advantage of this by using those same web shells / backdoors to remotely delete themselves, an operation that the agency is calling a success.
“The FBI conducted the removal by issuing a command through the web shell to the server, which was…
Rode’s Connect app simplifies recording multi-host podcasts on one PC
Recording a podcast with multiple guests on one PC is surprisingly difficult. Rode Connect makes it ridiculously easy — if you don’t mind buying one of their microphones. …read more
Ludwig Ahgren breaks the Twitch subscriber record with a 31 day live stream
Ludwig Ahgren’s month-long “subathon” ends tonight after the streamer broke Twitch’s all-time record for subscribers. …read more
US carriers have thankfully abandoned at least one bad plan for RCS
According to the telecom industry news site Light Reading, the big three US carriers are walking away from the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative. The CCMI was meant to be a joint effort to promote RCS, the next-generation messaging standard designed to replace SMS. But while that might seem like bad news on the face of it, what it actually means is that carriers have given up on a bad plan that would have been bad for consumers. Whether or not they will replace it with a good plan remains, as ever with RCS, to be seen.
The CCMI was launched in 2019 and by all indications was a joint effort that was spearheaded by Sprint. It initially seemed like a mixed bag of news. At the time, any effort by carriers to support proper…
Samsung is hosting yet another Unpacked event on April 28th
The event will be livestreamed on April 28th, and the invite teases that “the most powerful Galaxy is coming.” …read more
