Earth has been bombarded by space rocks throughout its history, but we’re lucky no large ones have slammed into the planet lately. Astronomers keep a careful watch on the skies, hoping to spot potential impactors far enough in advance that we can do something about it, and one of the most worrying objects is 99942 Apophis. This skyscraper-sized asteroid , according to a new analysis from the University of Hawaii and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Scientists discovered Apophis in 2004, sounding the alarm when initial observations suggested it had a worryingly high 2.4 percent chance of hitting Earth in 2029.
Ever since AMD bought ATI, gamers have asked if there was an intrinsic benefit to running an AMD GPU alongside an AMD CPU. Apart from some of the HSA features baked into previous-generation AMD APUs and a brief period of dual graphics support, the answer was always “No.” From 2011-2017, AMD simply wasn’t competitive enough in gaming for the company to invest in that kind of luxury concept. AMD’s RX 6000 GPUs will be the first cards that can specifically take advantage of platform-level features inside the 500-series chipset. We’re going to talk more about that specific feature and several others later on, but it’s one of the most interesting things AMD discussed today, and I wanted to get it on the board.
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Spooky sounds are a mainstay of Halloween, but there’s no sound in space. That doesn’t mean it’s not scary, though. Black holes can vacuum up light and spaghettify matter, but it turns out they have a Halloween vibe if you give them a listen. latest data release turns signals from beyond Earth into spooky sounds that are sure to send a chill up your spine. NASA’s new spooky playlist is available on Soundcloud featuring “moans and whistles from our universe.” It consists of audio from several different sources, shifted as necessary to be inside the range of human hearing.
SpaceX’s fully reusable Falcon 9 launch system has given it the ability to get objects into space much less expensively than ever before, and it started using that capability to launch Starlink internet satellites in 2018. Now, there are hundreds of satellites in orbit, and SpaceX is ready to . Those lucky few who have gotten invitations to try the service will have to pay a hefty upfront cost, and the speeds aren’t amazing. Still, it’s a new generation of satellite internet. According to SpaceX’s official count, there are just shy of 900 nodes in orbit of Earth— of the low-cost spacecraft have failed since launch.
AMD has announced it will acquire FPGA developer Xilinx in a $35 billion-dollar, all-stock deal. The deal, which we earlier this month, will give AMD access to new markets that it hasn’t previously played in, including FPGAs and artificial intelligence. During its Q3 2020 earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su that Xilinx was an attractive acquisition target because it offers “industry-leading capabilities in SoC design, serdes and high-speed IO, mixed-signal RF, advanced 2.5 and 3-D silicon integration and packaging, as well as targeted software stacks for key verticals.” AI was not a major focus of the announcement, though it’s been a hot topic in the larger semiconductor world.
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AMD’s Q3 2020 results are in, and they paint an incredibly strong picture for the firm on the eve of launching two next-generation consoles: Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, and the Sony PlayStation 5. Before we dive into the modern figures, I want to quickly step back to the results AMD reported in , when both the PS4 and Xbox One were prepping for launch. AMD’s Q4 2013 would be slightly larger than its Q3, but you can see the console ramp very clearly in terms of revenue ($1.46B in Q3 2013 versus $1.16B in Q2). In Q3 2013, AMD reported $1.46B in revenue.
Ask anyone who has spent more than a few minutes inside a VR headset, and they’ll mention the screen door effect. This refers to the visible mesh you sometimes can see when viewing a screen at very close proximity, and it takes a lot of pixels to truly remove it, though this can vary depending somewhat on which screen technology you deploy. In this case, what Samsung and Stanford have developed is different from anything we’ve got on the market today. Right now, a high-end smartphone might have a 400-500 PPI (pixels per inch), while a monitor or TV typically lands between 100 and 200.
