Disney’s boardroom made a surprise announcement this morning of a three-year agreement with OpenAI. More specifically, a $1 billion investment for a chunk of OpenAI shares as well as the licensing rights to over 200 of their most iconic characters. The entire thing is being thrown into OpenAI’s video tool called Sora, which enables you generate short films with only a text prompt.
Microsoft knows how to time a release perfectly. With the second season of Prime Video’s Fallout series just around the corner, the company has released a pair of controllers that draw inspiration from the game’ most recognizable device: the Pip-Boy. The Xbox controllers are available in two versions: a normal Wireless model and a top-tier Elite Series 2 variant.
AMD has thrown a curveball at high-end gaming with the FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) refresh. Redstone arrived today, along with a new driver for Radeon RX 9000 graphics cards. Redstone is a bundled system made up of four primary components: upscaling, frame creation, ray regeneration, and radiance caching. To improve speed and detail, all four of these employ machine learning models trained on real-world game data.
Soft robots have long been considered the underdogs of the robotics world. They’re comprised of flexible materials that bend and stretch in ways that seem startlingly similar to living flesh, allowing them to fit into tight areas and handle delicate goods with far more care than a stiff bot could. The only hitch is that without a good method to see where they’re going, these adaptable machines slog along, half-blind and relying on cumbersome add-ons that kind of contradict the idea of their pliable design.
Every Christmas season appears to bring the same old scramble to find thoughtful gifts that don’t require too much effort. Then along comes Amazon’s Echo Show 5, a handy little smart display that slides into a bedside or kitchen counter and immediately begins earning its keep. Currently, with a 33% discount, the price has dropped from $89.99 to $59.99, enabling Prime members snag one today for delivery by December 11th, just in time for the holidays.
OneXPlayer has always been about pushing the limits with its hardware, and the Super X takes that ‘we want to be the best’ attitude to a whole new level. This 2-in-1 device appears as a 14-inch device that can transition fluidly between tablet and full-fledged laptop mode, all powered by AMD’s latest Ryzen AI processors. Crowdfunding begins tomorrow on Kickstarter, with costs lowering to a relatively low $1,899 for a build that is roughly comparable to most laptops.
Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia have activated their massive vacuum chamber to address one of the most pressing issues of landing on the Moon: what happens to the dusty surface when a spaceship touches down. They’re primarily looking at how engine exhaust stirs up the ground, or how all that dust, boulders, and soil gets kicked up high during those few frenetic minutes before landing. They want to sort everything out so that future missions won’t have to deal with the mess. This is especially crucial given that NASA is preparing to send people back to the Moon.
Photo credit: Igor Bogdanov
As December arrives, bringing with it all the Christmas happiness and regulatory red tape we’ve come to expect at this time of year, DJI throws another curveball into the mix. The Avata 360, their most ambitious attempt yet to combine the thrill of FPV with the all-around video recording capabilities we’ve grown to love, has cleared the final obstacle in its quest to enter US markets. Leaks from FCC filings, rumors from the supply chain, and new photographs of the packaging have all but revealed what’s in store: a drone that’s as content flipping between high-octane aerobatics and silky smooth spherical footage as it is evading the ban hammer that swings on December 23rd.
A tattered vintage iPod Classic rests on a workshop, its aluminum exterior bent like an overinflated balloon. Scratches mar the surface, and the screen has battle scars from being pushed into a too tight pocket. This little relic from 2007 was purchased on eBay for peanuts, held 80 gigabytes of songs on a spinning hard drive that weighed it down like a boat anchor, and was once an important part of a music lover’s everyday life. It’s now in the capable hands of YouTuber The Retro Future, who is resurrecting yesterday’s technology to become tomorrow’s best companion.
Fans of the Fallout series know the Mojave Desert as a location where it’s never safe to relax…every hill hides a sniper, and every station could be a battleground. A brand-new fan-made animation called Operation Sunburst has turned those distant memories into a brutal battle drama. SODAZ created this 45-minute fan video about the New California Republic declaring war on the Brotherhood of Steel over the Helios One power facility.