There are persistent rumors that both Diablo II and Diablo IV could drop before the end of the year, alongside the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands. Blizzard has reportedly come under pressure to show more return on investment on an ongoing basis over the past few years, and this push towards multiple simultaneous launches at the back half of the year could be the company’s way of moving in that direction. The rumor comes from French site ActuGaming, which has previously broken accurate rumors about upcoming Blizzard projects. Supposedly Vicarious Visions is supporting Blizzard on the remakes, which would make some sense; that company has been involved in a number of remastering efforts over the past few years.
A reader recently contacted us and asked a question worth answering in an article. How does Windows (and perhaps all OS’s) take advantage of multiple cores? Alternatively, if this function is built into the hardware, how do the cores know which apps to execute, and when? I assume that more cores are better, but how does this work, exactly? And are there ways that one could configure apps/Windows to better take advantage of more cores? When you turn on a PC, before the OS has even loaded, your and motherboard handshake, for lack of a better term.
If it feels like you’re progressively getting less and less sleep, you’re probably right. Researchers found the average American adult is than they were just two years ago, averaging only 5 hours and 30 minutes a night. Unfortunately, that’s a far cry from what medical professionals say you really need, which is closer to While there are plenty of reasons why you aren’t getting all your beauty rest, the reality is that you should be — and resources like Relax Melodies can help get the hours you spend sleeping closer to that magic eight hours you need. The app focuses on finding the best method for getting you to fall asleep in a matter of minutes.
Public health officials universally agree that the world needs much more coronavirus testing before we can safely ease current lock-down restrictions. Even at the low end, experts say we’ll need to do hundreds of thousands more daily tests, but the equipment and resources to make that happen are in short supply. An MIT spin-off company called Sherlock Biosciences has , which promises to be faster and easy to perform without access to a full lab. Current coronavirus testing is based on PCR (polymerase chain reaction), the same technology used in DNA tests. This involves repeatedly heating the sample to amplify the genetic material so technicians can detect viral RNA.
One of the downsides — or “downsides”, depending on your point of view — to living in the United States is that we don’t get a lot of the weird electronics gear that exists elsewhere in the world. Here, motherboards tend to exist in distinct and static categories, without much in the way of “unusual” products. Chinese manufacturer Zeal-All of one such board that they’ve recently launched — an Intel B150 motherboard, from the Skylake / Kaby Lake product family. What makes it interesting are the standards, features, and outputs it supports. The large secondary heatsink on the bottom of the board cools an integrated GTX 1050 Ti, while the board itself measures 9.25″ x 7.75″ (235cm x 197.5cm).
Mother’s day is just a few days away, and realistically you aren’t likely be able to buy anything for your mother online and get it in time. But better late than never, so if you still need something for your mother or for the mother of your children, here are some last-minute gift ideas that are sure to make her smile. Amazon’s Echo Dot smart speaker comes with the company’s Alexa virtual personal assistant, which is able to hear and obey numerous voice commands. In addition to being a speaker for listening to music, it also works as a hands-free device for making phone calls and it can control other devices that support Alexa as well.
Black holes have a reputation for being voracious monsters that tear apart stars and wreak easily recognizable havoc across the universe. However, most of them are pretty quiet and hard to spot. As such, astronomers haven’t found many of these objects near Earth, but a team from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) just found one that’s . It’s a mere 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Telescopium. Despite the name, you don’t actually need a telescope to see this solar system. Spotting black holes is harder than you might think. A is, by definition, black — they don’t release any detectable energy because anything that passes the event horizon remains inside it.
Whether you own a Nintendo Switch, a PS4 Pro, or an Xbox One X, you’ve got a platform capable of playing new, cutting-edge games — but what sets these machines apart from each other, or from mainstream gaming PCs? In many cases, less than you might think. Traditional PCs are designed as generalist systems with the option to add workload-specific accelerators, like high-end GPUs. Because consoles fit into smaller spaces and are purpose-built for gaming, they can take advantage of a higher degree of component integration. Smartphones, game consoles, and PCs all use a type of highly integrated processor known as an SoC, or System-on-Chip.
Out of all the video game companies, Nintendo seems to be the one best-positioned to ride out the pandemic sweeping the planet. While Sony and Microsoft are enjoying an increased wave of gamers in their ecosystems as well, the realities of the console cycle are working against each company. With the PS5 and Xbox Series X expected to launch in November, existing gamers may be buying more titles for the Xbox One and PS4, but they aren’t exactly rushing out to purchase hardware. (AMD has confirmed this already, by noting that it recorded negligible semicustom console revenue in Q1 due to drawdowns in preparation for future launches).
