When Nvidia launched the RTX family, the company’s messaging on GPU ray tracing performance was clear: The new RTX cores inside Turing GPUs were essential to high ray tracing performance, not because ray tracing literally requires them — it does not — but because they represented the only way to wring acceptable real-time performance out of the feature. Now, Nvidia has announced it will extend ray tracing support to its older Pascal family. Notably, it has not promised that such support will be particularly functional. Nvidia’s blog post positions this as a win-win situation for both GTX gamers and RTX adoptees.
Need a new PC? How about a keyboard or printer? Right now, HP is running a massive Spring Sale with deep discounts on computers and accessories. Not only can you save up to 59 percent off the list price of select items, but you’ll also be eligible for free shipping and simple returns. • While there are dozens of items currently on sale, we’ve picked out four of the very best deals below. • With a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U CPU, 4GB of RAM, 16GB of Intel Optane, a 1TB hard drive, and an HD display, this affordable 15.6-inch model is a solid option for tight budgets.
Apple has made some updates to its iMac product family, with improved CPU options and faster AMD Vega GPUs baked-in. The updates are only for the Retina-class versions of the product; the non-Retina entry-level model wasn’t updated. Apple’s new 21-inch iMac starts at $1,299 now, but you’ll pay an additional $300 premium to upgrade to a Core i7-8700. The machine still comes with just 8GB of DDR4-2666, and stepping up to 16GB will run you another $200. Overpriced upgrade fees are, of course, absolutely nothing new, but they ought to impact the overall attractiveness of the system. $1,299 also buys you nothing but a 5400 RPM HDD — a 256GB SSD is a $200 upgrade.
Google rolled out the last year, letting players experience the new Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey in a browser. We all suspected this was just the start of a major game streaming initiative for Google, and now we know for certain. At GDC 2019, Google has unveiled Stadia, its new cloud-based gaming platform. It lets you play AAA games on any device with Chrome including laptops, phones, tablets, and TVs. Gaming Anywhere Stadia is all about making games more accessible. Playing a high-end game right now involves buying expensive dedicated hardware and waiting through lengthy downloads. Some people simply won’t put that much time and effort into getting set up to play the game.
SpaceX is on a roll lately. After completing the last week, the company is on the verge of launching the interplanetary Starship on its first test flight. Before you send a spacecraft into space, you need to figure out how to get it back to Earth. The Starship will use a network of hexagonal tiles to guard against the heat of re-entry, and CEO Elon Musk just shared a short video of those tiles being tested under intense heat. In the video below, you can see the hexagonal tiles subjected to the flames from half a dozen torches.
Last December, the Earth got a Christmas present we weren’t even aware of. The second-most powerful asteroid detonation in 30 years struck on December 18, when a bolide exploded over the Bering Sea. The blast was an estimated 173kt — roughly 11.5x more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and more than enough to guarantee a really bad day for anything unlucky enough to be hit by it. We missed the explosion until now because it blew up over an unpopulated area of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. There are shots of it entering the Earth’s atmosphere, courtesy of Japan’s Himawari satellite.
Star Wars: Dark Forces enjoys an iconic reputation among PC gamers. It was the first major video game title set in the Star Wars universe to adopt first-person Doom-style controls — and unlike the myriad number of Doom clones that were flooding the market at the time, Dark Forces was actually good. Even better than that, it told a completely original story in the Star Wars universe at a time when the EU was barely in its infancy and nerds were hungry for new Star Wars, in any form. Now, that classic game is getting a remake — but not an official one.
Apple essentially owns the premium tablet market now that Google’s interest in Android tablets is waning. The updated iPad Pro models launched several months ago brought new designs and many of the features from the company’s new iPhones. Apple’s focuses on the lower end of the spectrum. The iPad Mini has gotten a much-needed update, and the 10.5-inch Air becomes the new middle-of-the-road tablet. The iPad Pro models are still safely out of reach for casual tablet users with a starting price of $800. Then there’s the $329 entry-level iPad with a 9.7-inch LCD. Both of the new Apple tablets are a little more expensive, but they’re far cheaper than the iPad Pros.
Star Trek: Deep Space 9 is my favorite Star Trek show. When Paramount announced that it would extensively remaster both Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was excited. When both of those remastering efforts turned out to be good, I was ecstatic. And then, Paramount declared that poor sales of TNG meant future remastering was off the table for later series. But what Paramount won’t provide might be achievable through other means. If you haven’t ever looked at the versions of DS9 available for streaming online, it’s not very good. It looks dull, muted, and there’s a tremendous amount of noise in the material.
