#Hassan.

10

Voted.

Face ID finally works with a mask After the truly tiny update that was iOS 15.3, we're now learning about iOS 15.4, and thankfully this already looks to be a much, much bigger update for Apple's operating system. The first four betas are out now for developers, and with them comes news of several big included features, such as the long-awaited Universal Control, Face ID functionality with a mask, and more. With rumors of a March event by Apple, it was finally confirmed, with a March 8 date with the title 'Peak Performance', perhaps hinting to new Macs, but it wouldn't be a stretch to consider 15.4 releasing on the same day as the event. Below we've detailed everything we know about iOS 15.4, including when it's likely to launch, and we'll be updating this article when we hear more, so check back soon. Cut to the chase What is it? The latest iOS release When is it out? The beta is out now, we expect the finished version on March 8 How much will it cost? It's free iOS 15.4 release date and compatibility iOS 15.4 is already available, but only in beta form, and only for developers. While you don't technically have to be a developer to grab this version, we'd recommend at least waiting for the public beta, and if you want it to be bug-free then you should wait for the finished release. We're generally seeing roughly a four to six-week gap between new iOS versions, which means that given iOS 15.3 landed on January 26, we'll probably see the finished version of iOS 15.4 sometime around the confirmed March 8 event. As for compatibility, it's exactly the same as every other version of iOS 15, meaning that if you're on iOS 15 or above you'll be able to get iOS 15.4 as well. Specifically, that's all handsets from the iPhone 6S onwards, including the iPhone SE (2020) and the original iPhone SE, plus the iPod touch (7th gen). The Covid-19 pandemic presented a problem for iPhones, as with the whole world suddenly wearing masks, Face ID wasn't always viable. Apple addressed this problem a while back by allowing your iPhone to unlock if you were wearing an Apple Watch, but with iOS 15.4 it seems to have properly fixed the issue. The iOS 15.4 beta allows you to set Face ID to work even when you're wearing a mask, by having it just scan the visible parts of your face, such as your eyes. The second beta has also improved this feature slightly, by instructing users how to position their eyes when unlocking the phone. Apple warns that this is less accurate, and we'd assume also less secure, but it's a way to properly use Face ID with a mask on. It's also optional, so if you'd rather keep doing things the current way, you can disable this feature. link : https://www.techradar.com/news/ios-154 iOS 15.4 features Thanks to the betas we know many of the features that will probably arrive in iOS 15.4. However, it's possible that there might be other features too, or that some of these won't ultimately make the cut.

Two potentially powerful CPUs CPU-Z has been officially updated to version 2.00, and with it comes support for a plethora of new CPUs and one new GPU. Most notably, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Intel Core i9-12900KS support is here. These two new CPUs haven't been released yet, but promise to push the performance envelope of their respected architectures as high as possible. The full details of version 2.00 can be found below. Other additions include support for several of Intel's P series and U series mobile Alder Lake processors, as well as the Intel Pentium 8500, 8505, and Celeron 7300 and 7305. Other additions include Intel's new mid-range and entry-level core i3 and i5 desktop processors such as the 12500, 12400, 12300, and 12100. On the AMD side, preliminary support for AMD's Ryzen 6000 series mobile APUs has been added, along with the newly released Radeon RX 6500 XT desktop GPU (which we must say is late to the party). Intel Core i9 12900KS Intel Core i7-1280P/1270P/1260P, Core i5-1250P/1240P, Core i3-1220P (28W) Intel Core i7-1265U/1255U, Core i5 1245U/1235U, Core i3 1215U (15W) Intel Core i7-1260U/1250U, Core i5 1240U/1230U, Core i3 1210U (9W) Intel Pentium 8505, Celeron 7305 (15W) Intel Pentium 8500, Celeron 7300 (9W) AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Preliminary support of AMD Ryzen 6000 "Rembrandt" APUs 5800X3D & 12900KS The Ryzen 7 5800X3D could be one of the last Zen 3 desktop CPUs to launch before Zen 4 arrives later in 2022. The 5800X3D improves on the already superb Zen 3 architecture by adding AMD's brand new 3D V-Cache technology to the chip, giving the speedy octa-core CPU an additional 32MB of L3 cache for a total of 96MB. In a recent AMD press event, CEO Lisa Su gave a demonstration of its Ryzen 7 5800X3D running several games in comparison to a Ryzen 9 5900X, and more interestingly, Intel's current flagship Core i9-12900K. According to AMD, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D offers a 1.2 to 1.4x average performance jump over its bigger brother, the Ryzen 9 5900X. When compared to the 12900K, the results were tied on three of the games, with the rest yielding a 1.1x to 1.2x performance improvement in favor of the 5800X3D. Overall, AMD measured an average 15% gain in performance over its current Zen 3 CPUs. That's a rather impressive gain considering the 5800X3D has a 400MHz clock speed deficit compared to the stock 5800X. However, pricing and availability remain unknown. Due to the additional material required to make 3D V-Cache a reality, we wouldn't be surprised to see the 5800X3D cost just as much as a 5900X. Plus, with Zen 4 just around the corner, the 5800X3D could be one of AMD's shortest-lived CPUs to date, with barely a couple of months in the limelight. The Core i9-12900KS will be Intel's new flagship for the Alder Lake generation, with the S marking the chip as a special edition product. The only thing changing with the 12900KS is higher clock speeds with a supposed 3.4GHz base clock and 5.2GHz all-core boost clock on the P cores. That is a 200MHz improvement compared to the 12900K's base clock, and it can only do 5.2GHz on a single core. According to recent reports we've covered, the performance of Intel's new special edition chip isn't that far off from its current 12900K twin, with 4% additional single-core performance and an 11% boost multi-core performance in a recent Geekbench 5 score. Other limited edition or special edition parts such as the Core i7-8086K and Core i9-9900KS featured slightly higher clock speeds to earn their namesake, but the difference in performance was so slight compared to their vanilla parts that they barely mattered at all. With Intel planning to launch the Core i9-12900KS soon, it'll be the first time that a special edition part has been released in two generations (the last being the Core i9-9900KS). Supposedly, Intel had plans to introduce a Core i9-10900KS Comet Lake CPU to the market during the Rocket Lake generation, but those plans never came to fruition. link : https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cpu-z-adds-support-5800x3d-i9-12900ks

It almost feels like he's a celebrity face for FromSoftware's latest. Elden Ring is, so far, absolutely brilliant. I'm bumming around the Lands Between with a jolly tarnished on a horse, rather aimlessly going down whatever blind alleys I fancy, and having a whale of a time doing it. One of the things that has surprised me, however, and has done ever since the game was revealed properly, is that this world feels so thematically of-a-piece with the Souls games. It's almost a distant memory now, but for the longest time all we had of Elden Ring was a CG trailer and the promise of this collaboration between the Miyazaki-led FromSoftware and Game of Thrones creator and writer George R. R. Martin. At the time, the HBO show was reaching its somewhat divisive climax, but was arguably the biggest entertainment property around. Meanwhile, the Souls series had over multiple games built a reputation for quality, artistry, and sophisticated world-building. This was a match made in heaven. Point being: It wasn't always clear that this was going to be such a Souls game, which it most definitely is. Miyazaki to be fair did say it would be somewhat similar, calling it in 2019 "a more natural evolution of Dark Souls", but no-one at the time expected it to hew so closely in mechanics and spirit. This is not a bad thing by any means, because these games are among my favourite ever made. But as I'm exploring the Lands Between and coming upon Souls reference after Souls reference, in a world that clearly bears some narrative relation to what's gone on before, it does make me wonder: Where exactly is George RR Martin's hand here? Miyazaki says that the pair had "many free and creative conversations... which Mr Martin later used as a base to write the overarching mythos for the game world itself." So by this he's responsible for the world's founding lore. "This mythos proved to be full of interesting characters and drama along with a plethora of mystical and mysterious elements as well," added Miyazaki. "It was a wonderful source of stimulus for me and the development staff. Elden Ring’s world was constructed using this mythos and stimulus as a base." Martin himself, celebrating the game's success a few days ago, downplays his role—which may just be graciousness. "Of course, almost all the credit should go to Hidetaka Miyazaki and his astonishing team of games designers who have been laboring on this game for half a decade or more, determined to create the best videogame ever," Martin writes. "I am honored to have met them and worked with them, and to have played a part, however small, in creating this fantastic world and making Elden Ring the landmark megahit that it is." When I think of Martin's books, I think of jubilant descriptions of banquets and juicy capons co-existing with brutal, unexpected actions; threads of intrigue being woven together, suddenly sundered and re-configured, and rambling, witty digressions on experience. The Song of Ice and Fire series is one of those where, after finishing the first, I immediately went out and bought the next four volumes (and pre-ordered Dances with Dragons!). The question of whether he'll ever finish them doesn't especially bother me: I just loved being in that place, with its heroic, doomed characters and fantastical cut-throat villainy. In a way that does sound a bit like what the Souls games are doing, but there's a huge difference in tone. Appropriately enough, Martin's books veer between extremes: the warmth of kinship and unity, the uncaring deadliness of the world around it. The Souls games are much more muted in their expressiveness, and far less warm: The atmosphere and worlds are overwhelmed with sorrow and futility, with your own actions and their consequences morally ambiguous. Miyazaki does not tend to dwell on the pleasures of life, the moments we all snatch out of time's unceasing march to be with others, to relax and enjoy ourselves, whereas for Martin this is an important theme. That ebullience is no part of Elden Ring, which is not a criticism, and the manner and tone in which its story is told seems like no departure from Souls games past. One of the reasons this so surprised me is that Dark Souls 3 pulled off quite the narrative trick by twisting the previous games' cycles into its own, apparently final, doomed repetition: the only hint of redemption coming in a painter who, when granted the blood of the Dark Soul in the game's final moments, will finish painting a new and better world. Elden Ring is studded with similar paintings. Not only that, the world re-uses specific and meaningful assets from the Souls games at key locations: I've come across the Lordvessel, layouts that are re-mixed tributes to areas past, oblique references to characters from previous games and then much more explicit ones. There's a character called Irina that asks you take a letter to Morne castle, a reference to two Dark Souls 3 NPCs, while Slave Knight Gael lends his name to two locations in Caelid. I'm trying not to spoil elements of the lore by going too deeply into it yet, but the presence of a certain merchant, behaving in a certain way, is almost the Souls series' trademark: and in Elden Ring here he is, exactly the same, the constant between these broken worlds. The game's world just doesn't seem all that narratively or thematically different to what has gone before, yet Martin is one of the most revered fantasy writers of our time and has such a distinct style (to me, anyway). In another interview, Miyazaki referred to Martin's contributions being used like a "dungeon master's handbook in a tabletop RPG" which is one of those explanations that's kind of maddeningly ambiguous: Did Martin come up with concepts that were simply From-ified a little much? Thinking on it, the way he builds these huge arcs for characters is almost impossible within Elden Ring's structure which, as in the Souls games, features characters popping in and out along your journey and saying a few brief lines. It's not that I'm especially bothered by any of this: Hell, I love FromSoft lore and this is another huge helping of it, so fill my plate. It's more that I feel surprised that Martin's contribution is difficult to identify, which, you could argue, shows what a good collaboration it was. It's hard to shake this sense, however, that the narrative structure FromSoft uses and in particular the extreme economy of character interactions has rendered much of his world-building invisible, or subterranean at least. It's certainly not that I doubt Martin's involvement or hard work. It's just odd that, with this game having been marketed so heavily on the collaboration, it's hard to feel it in the final product. link : https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/what-did-george-rr-martin-do-for-elden-ring-anyway/

Shareholders reject Zendesk's plan to acquire SurveyMonkey Zendesk's billion-dollar plan to acquire Momentive, which runs the po[CENSORED]r SurveyMonkey tool, has failed after its own shareholders rejected the proposal. The deal was worth around $4.1 billion, with the news coming just days after the CRM giant turned down a $16 billion offer to be acquired by a consortium of private equity firms. "While we were excited by the potential of this transaction to transform the customer experience and create stockholder value, we respect and appreciate the perspectives of our stockholders," said Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svanek. Foiled bid In a blog post, Svanek explained a little more about what made Momentive an attractive target and Zendesk's future plans. Zendesk's business is sound, he said, but could've been augmented by Momentive. "We planned to acquire Momentive as a way to accelerate our ability to deliver the future of customer intelligence," he wrote. "While we will not be moving forward with that acquisition, we remain as committed as ever to helping our customers get more value out of their data." Investor hostility The deal was sunk largely by activist shareholders who opposed it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Jana Partners, which owns 3%, and Janus Henderson, which owns 5%, both opposed the deal. Jana called it a "reactive and impulsive decision". Faced with scepticism from its own shareholders, spending $4.1 billion is an impossible ask. Shareholders voted against the deal on February 25. For Momentive, the decision is not ideal. "While we are disappointed that Zendesk stockholders did not vote to approve the transaction, we are confident in our go-forward strategy," said Monentive CEO Zander Laurie. It remains to be seen what direction the two companies take but with intense pressure in the CRM market, Zendesk needs to find a bold new plan. Link : https://www.techradar.com/news/zendesks-plan-to-acquire-surveymonkey-is-officially-dead

Make sure to check for the best discount, and don't listen to those inflated before discount numbers! Storage space on a PC is one of those things that’s almost always in demand. Who doesn’t look at a nice speedy SSD and ponder how nicely it would work in their setup? Well, right now seems to be a pretty decent time to be doing just that, because Samsung M.2 SSD drives are popping up at mysteriously good prices, but some are definitely inflating the discount so buyer beware. First up I noticed that Amazon had both the 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD and Samsung 970 EVO Plus going at discounted prices. The 980 is marked down from $450 to $300 which seemed like a bit of a high asking price before the discount, but perhaps not totally unfair. Then while the sale price for the Samsung 970 Evo was a fair $200, the original listing for the 970 priced at $500, which is definitely a bit richer than the actual market price. Still, one of these for $200 USD didn’t seem too bad so I had a look around to compare and it seems like these Samsung M.2 SSDs are on sale in heaps of places. BestBuy has a 2 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus for $210 and you can pick up a Samsung 980 Pro for only $280. NewEgg are currently seeming like the best deal, charging the lowest $190 for the 970 Evo, and keeping in line with BestBuy with a $280 980 Pro. We saw the 980 Pro on sale in this storage size for $330 late last year, and the 2TB 970 Evo was also on sale for $250 not that long ago, so these are by no means bad prices, just perhaps not as excellent as Amazon may be making them seem. This serves a good reminder that just because a sale price looks good, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a particular good deal. Especially from big storefronts like Amazon, though it is a bit ironic with the Samsung 970 Evo Plus taking out our most affordable PCIe 3.0 SSD award. If these prices are the new standard, that handle might become even better earned. link : https://www.pcgamer.com/grab-one-of-these-speedy-samsung-m2-ssd-deals/

Reallocate your character's attributes without starting again. Looking to learn how to respec in Elden Ring? It's an an on-off feature of FromSoftware's games to have a method in the world that lets you reallocate your attributes without having to start the whole game again. In Dark Souls 2 it was those old fire keepers in the shack at the start of the game, but many Soulsborne games don't have the feature at all. Thankfully, Elden Ring does, and it's more important than ever in a game where it feels like some of the hardest late-game Elden Ring bosses require a particular build to even give you a chance of beating them. That, or you might just want to try any number of the cool weapons you find littered throughout the Lands Between. In this Elden Ring respec guide, I'll explain how to do it, and where to find the item you need. How to respec in Elden Ring To unlock the ability to respec, there are two things you need to do Elden Ring Larval Tears: Where to find them The easiest place to get a Larval Tear early on that I've found is in the Village of the Albanaurics in the south of Liurnia, in a big cave set into the lake cliffside. Head in here and up into the village itself. Once you've passed Nepheli, you should come to a place with lots of enemies located around some stone sarcophagi. The tear should be on a body there. Later in the game, depending on which path you choose, you can get absolutely loads of them. The best source is by killing the sentient stone boulders that you find in Nokstella, Eternal City in Ainsel River when heading there from the portal in Renna's rise as part of the Nokron quest for Ranni. link : https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/how-to-respec-elden-ring-larval-tear/

Check out the local job market trends with Career Coach Microsoft Teams app Finding a job could soon be a lot more straightforward for students thanks to a new Microsoft Teams update. The video conferencing service will be adding local job market trends to its Career Coach Microsoft Teams app, letting users find out what opportunities are on offer from employers near them. The trends will come directly from LinkedIn, with the Microsoft-owned social media network providing the latest information for job hunters everywhere. Career Coach Microsoft Teams According to the official entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the update is still in development, but should be rolling out to Teams users across the world before the end of February 2022. The tool will be available to faculty and staff license holders alike, presumably meaning that the target for the update will be university and college-level students. Career Coach already looks to assist students in identifying career goals aligned with their passions, interests, and strengths, as well as allowing them to make connections with alumni, peers, and faculty who can support them on their career path. The news is the latest in a long series of updates and upgrades for Microsoft Teams as the company looks to ensure it is as useful for users as possible. In a similar vein to today's news, Microsoft recently revealed that it is working on a new feature that will allow LinkedIn profiles to be displayed in Teams. The information will be displayed in personal chats, meaning colleagues can find out more about their co-workers, for example when planning for a project or looking to help with onboarding. Microsoft Teams continues to go from strength to strength, with the latest figures from the company showing that the service now boasts over 270 million monthly active users (MAUs). link : https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-teams-might-even-help-you-find-a-new-job-now

No wonder Steam stopped taking cryptocurrency. Steam wasn't on the Bitcoin train for long. Bitcoin was introduced as a payment method on Steam in April 2016 and removed in December 2017 due to the volatility of Bitcoin's price and "a significant increase in the fees to process transactions on the Bitcoin network," Valve wrote at the time. More recently Valve raised the ire of crypto fans by banning crypto and NFT games from the store. Last week while talking to Valve president Gabe Newell about the Steam Deck, I also asked about that rule and his take on cryptocurrency in general. Turns out: Not a fan, at least when it comes to Steam. "The problem is that a lot of the actors who are in that space are not people you want interacting with your customers," Newell said. "We had problems when we started accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option. 50% of those transactions were fraudulent, which is a mind-boggling number. These were customers we didn't want to have." Newell reiterated that Bitcoin's fluctuations were "a complete nightmare"—people weren't happy when a game could cost $10 one day and $100 the next. His opinion hasn't changed with the recent rise of crypto games and NFTs. "There's a lot of really interesting technology in blockchains and figuring out how to do a distributed ledger, [but] I think that people haven't figured out why you actually need a distributed ledger," Newell said. "There's a difference between what it should be and what it really is currently in the real world. And that's sort of where we were at with the blockchain-based NFT stuff: so much of it was ripping customers off. And we were like, 'Yeah, that's not what we want to do, we don't want to enable screwing large numbers of our customers over,' so that's what drove that decision. There's nothing inherently about distributed ledgers that makes them problematic. It's just so far that's almost always what our experience has been." link : https://www.pcgamer.com/50-of-transactions-were-fraudulent-when-steam-accepted-bitcoin-for-payments-says-gabe-newell/

You may "try fingers but hole" at your own discretion. As a veteran Souls-liker, I've just internalized the series' more baffling quirks. It can be easy to forget how truly weird and surprising some basic elements of these games are. One feature that can be a sticking point for some first-time players is the messaging system. Players can choose from a selection of templates and words to create little notes that show up on the ground in other gamers' worlds. The original intent seems to have been fostering cooperation, an in-game form of playground hint sharing and speculation. Messaging's real, time-honored function, however, is as a means to shitpost. Over the years, players have uncovered countless ways to mislead, misdirect, and crack wise with FromSoft's limited templates. My favorite has always been the messages of encouragement people left for environmental storytelling skeletons in Dark Souls 2: "Don't give up, skeleton!" and variations thereof proliferated throughout Drangleic. For the uninitiated who are still jumping off cliffs and slashing walls at the behest of strangers in Elden Ring, I've compiled some of the most common spoofs, goofs, and genuinely helpful messages I've seen. You almost never want to try jumping. If you see a message like this before a precipitous drop, it's gonna be a joke at your expense. You're going to fall to your death and somebody out there is gonna be laughing at you, figuratively speaking. One helpful clue that you're not at one of the rare locations where there is something hidden below a ledge is a massive pile of bloodstains nearby (that means players have died here recently). The message has timed out in the following screenshot, but you can see the bloodstains left by a host of credulous fools. link : https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/do-not-try-jumping-a-beginners-reference-to-elden-ring-messages/

HAppy birthday

Happy birthday!

Live translated captions enter general availability Google has rolled out an update for video conferencing software Meet that will help workers communicate more effectively with multi-lingual colleagues. In a blog post, the company announced that its live translation feature has now entered general availability, across all Google Meet platforms. Launched in beta last year, the feature introduces the ability to translate spoken English into foreign language captions in real-time. At launch, supported languages include French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. oogle Meet translation Among the various opportunities brought about by the transition to remote working is the ability to recruit from an international pool of talent. However, businesses will clearly need a way to address the communication barriers this may create. At the moment, Google is pitching the translation feature as a way to overcome disparities in language proficiency, rather than a way to facilitate communication between people who do not share a common language. “Translated captions help make Google Meet video calls more inclusive and collaborative by removing language proficiency barriers. When meeting participants consume content in their preferred language, this helps equalize information sharing, learning, and collaboration and ensures your meetings are as effective as possible for everyone,” explained Google. However, if the idea is taken to its logical conclusion, it’s easy to imagine the feature being extended in future to support omnidirectional translation between a variety of different languages. This way, workers could communicate freely with colleagues and partners from across the globe. The feature as it exists today will roll out over the course of the next two weeks, but only to Google Workspace customers that subscribe to the Business Plus plan and beyond. TechRadar Pro has asked Google whether customers on cheaper plans can expect to receive access to live translation at a later date, and whether the feature will be capable of translating other languages into English in future. link : https://www.techradar.com/news/google-meet-update-aims-to-tear-down-the-language-barrier-but-falls-short

Intel announces another immersion cooling development deal in several months. One of the main challenges for today's datacenters is efficient yet relatively cheap cooling. Air cooling and liquid cooling have their advantages and disadvantages, but as heat dissipated by CPUs and accelerators is getting to 270W – 500W (respectively), air cooling and liquid cooling tend to lose their appeal in terms of efficiency and costs. Some server makers have experimented with immersion liquid cooling for years, but now it looks like Intel itself is getting serious about immersion liquid cooling. This week Intel announced a collaboration agreement with Green Revolution Cooling (GRC), a developer of immersion liquid cooling solutions, to design and implement custom cutting-edge immersion cooling techniques in future datacenters and edge deployments. This is the second collaboration pact with an immersion liquid cooling specialist after Intel inked a deal with Submer in late August. Intel's Xeon CPUs for heavy-duty servers increased their thermal design power (TDP) from 165W per socket five years ago to 270W per socket today and they keep getting more power hungry and consequently hotter. Meanwhile AI and compute accelerators are looking at an up to 700W TDP with OAM form-factor modules. With such heat dissipation amid increasing server density, it is not particularly surprising that Intel is looking at immersion liquid cooling. GRC's existing off-the-shelf liquid immersion solutions can provide cooling performance of up to 200kW per rack, more than enough to cool down up to 42 1U machines packing high-performance CPUs and ultra-high-performance accelerators. As an added bonus, liquid immersion cooling can help reduce datacenters' impact on environment as generated heat can potentially be reused, converted into electricity, or monetized in some other way. "Through this collaboration, we are able to provide customers with custom solutions to meet their computing and cooling needs to help ensure that data centers operate in a more environmentally sensitive way," said Mohan Kumar, Senior Fellow at Intel. "Our collaboration with GRC aligns with Intel’s goal of supporting cutting edge technologies that provide increased efficiency and density for data center and edge deployments." With GRC, Intel will work with joint customers in a bid to offer custom and fully validated immersion liquid cooling solutions for racks powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Also, the companies will work together to ensure that new fluids entering this market are safe, efficient, and compatible with developing infrastructure. Finally, Intel and GRC plan to to educate the market on the benefits of liquid immersion cooling technology. The pact with GRC enables Intel to offer custom liquid immersion cooling solutions to select customers that need it the most. The company also plans to develop open industry-standard immersion liquid cooling solutions for datacenters with Submer. In addition to designing open-standard immersion liquid cooling technologies, Intel also wants to ensure that there is a supply chain that can build appropriate hardware in high volumes to support next-generation datacenters with Intel's upcoming Xeon processors and Xe-HPC compute accelerators. link : https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-liquid-immersion-cooling-for-datacenters

Gift Kratos the frame rate he deserves with these tweaks. The one-time Playstation-exclusive, God of War, has finally made its way onto our beloved PCs. With the promise of higher frame rates, better visuals, and depending on your stance, better controls as well, this is the best way of playing the much-loved game. And the good news is that it does indeed play well on a range of hardware and resolutions. Morgan enjoyed a mostly consistent 90fps at 1080p on his RTX 3060 when reviewing it, while for testing here I've enjoyed a decent 50fps at 4K on an RTX 2080. Dropping the resolution down to 1440p resulted in 80fps, with 1080p returning up to 120fps. Much higher framerates are possible when you dive into the wealth of upscaling tech on offer too, with DLSS and FSR both present. Let's focus on which settings have the biggest impact on the frame rate at the resolution you are running at. You'll find these options under the Graphics menu of the main Settings screen, just cycle along to the Custom preset and you'll be able to select between Ultra, High, Original and Low. If you've got reasonably up to date hardware, you should be able to set all the settings to Ultra, or High depending on your resolution. There are a couple of surprises here, not least of which is the minimal impact Model Quality and Texture Quality have on the frame rate. When testing at 4K, there's a mere 2fps difference between the Ultra texture setting and the Minimum offering. Given that the higher quality textures can look better than their low-res counterparts, the fact it has such a small impact on performance means you want to leave this as high as possible. Reflections are a bit odd too, as reflective surfaces are used sparingly, particularly at the start of the game. It's also the only setting that has an Ultra+ option. If your performance is suffering in highly reflective areas later on, then dropping this down a notch or two is a wise move. link : https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/god-of-war-best-settings/

Giannis Antetokounmpo hit his third triple-double of the season as the Milwaukee Bucks secured a 118-99 win over the Golden State Warriors. The 27-year-old notched 30 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists to help the champions end a two-game losing streak and secure their second win in six. Khris Middleton hit five three-pointers in a 23-point haul while Bobby Portis scored 20 points. The victory helps the Bucks keep pace with the Eastern Conference leaders. Mike Budenholzer's side lie fourth in the standings, behind the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and the Brooklyn Nets. Stephen Curry made 12 points, eight rebounds and four assists for the Warriors, with Andrew Wiggins top-scoring for the visitors with 16 points. "We know we're the defending champs, everybody's going to come hard at us," Antetokounmpo said. "But at the end of the day, it's about us." Elsewhere, the Memphis Grizzlies pulled away late to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-108 and extend their winning streak to 11 games. The Grizzlies trailed by seven points at half-time but battled back to lead 90-84 going into the final quarter, with Ja Morant contributing 16 points with nine assists and eight rebounds in an another impressive display. Anthony Edwards led Minnesota's charge with 30 points while D'Angelo Russell scored 29. Having outclassed the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday, the short-handed Brooklyn Nets fell to a disappointing 130-109 home defeat by the Oklahoma City Thunder. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 33 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists to help the Thunder end a five-game losing run. The Nets were without two of their 'Big Three' as Kevin Durant was rested while the unvaccinated Kyrie Irving remains ineligible for home games because of New York's vaccine mandate. James Harden starred again with 26 points, nine assists and seven rebounds for the Nets, who fell to a sixth defeat in nine games. Thursday's NBA results Denver Nuggets 140-108 Portland Trail Blazers Brooklyn Nets 109-130 Oklahoma City Thunder New Orleans Pelicans 113-89 Los Angeles Clippers Memphis Grizzlies 116-108 Minnesota Timberwolves Memphis Bucks 118-99 Golden State Warriors. link : https://www.bbc.com/sport/basketball/59985184

"This was a bigger piece than the ones I usually do because every tiny bit has just so much detail that it takes FOREVER!" she wrote In her rather short career span, Alaya F has impressed everyone with not only her impeccable acting skills but also her on-point sartorial picks. But, did you know that Alaya has another special skill? One look at her Instagram and you would know that she’s an art enthusiast who keeps sharing her creations with her followers. As such, the 24-year-old, once again, left everyone gushing over her talent as she posted a stunning artwork on her social media account. “A long, long time later.. I’m finally done with this artwork!! This was a bigger piece than the ones I usually do because every tiny bit has just so much detail that it takes FOREVER!” she captioned the post. Asking her followers to interpret the sketch, she added, “To me, this piece is about the conscious and subconscious mind but tell me what you see!” Last month, Alaya had shared a snippet of this sketch, which was yet to be completed then, during a question and answer session with her fans. Her comment section immediately got flooded with appreciation from celebrities and fans alike. “Wow!” actor Sanya Malhotra wrote. Mouni Roy commented: “This is BEAUTIFUL” Prior to this, Alaya had also shared a detailed artwork as a “tribute to mother Earth“. “The wanderers of life are made of earth and sky. They see the universe with stars in their eyes,” she had captioned the post. link : https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/alaya-f-artwork-sketch-conscious-subconscious-7721394/

Downing Street staff held two parties the night before Prince Philip's funeral - at a time when Covid restrictions banned indoor mixing. The events, first reported by The Telegraph, took place on 16 April 2021 and went on until the early hours. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was not at either party - but it raises further questions about a culture of rule-breaking at Downing Street. The PM is facing calls to resign from the opposition and some senior Tories. He has urged MPs to wait for the outcome of an investigation into lockdown parties at No 10 by senior civil servant Sue Gray, which is expected as early as next week. One of the events on 16 April was a leaving party for the PM's then director of communications James Slack. A No 10 spokeswoman said Mr Slack "gave a farewell speech" to thank colleagues ahead of taking up a new role as deputy editor of The Sun newspaper. He has apologised for the "anger and hurt" caused by the leaving event, and acknowledged it "should not have happened at the time that it did". But he said he could not comment further as it had been referred to Sue Gray as part of her investigation. The latest revelation comes as the prime minister faces anger from his own party over attending a drinks gathering in the Downing Street garden during the first lockdown. Cabinet ministers have rallied round Mr Johnson, but five of his own MPs have called for him to step down. Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said "the buck stops with the PM" over the "culture and behaviours" inside No 10. According to the Telegraph, Mr Slack's leaving party coincided with another gathering in the No 10 basement for one of the PM's personal photographers. The reported events were held at a time when the UK was in a period of national mourning, which ran from 9 April to 17 April, following the Duke of Edinburgh's death. line Downing Street party row ANALYSIS: What was really going on in No 10 during lockdown? REALITY CHECK: What rules did Downing Street party break? PROFILE: Party investigator Sue Gray TIMELINE: Alleged government lockdown gatherings IAIN WATSON: Will two tribes go to war with PM? line The Telegraph said staff were sent to a nearby shop with a suitcase, that was brought back "filled with bottles of wine". During the basement gathering, sources claimed there was a "party atmosphere", with a laptop placed on a photocopier with "music blaring out". The two parties are then said to have joined together in the No 10 garden and continued past midnight. At the time, England was under "step two" restrictions that sti[CENSORED]ted people could not socialise indoors, except with those from their household or support bubble. People could socialise outdoors in groups of up to six people or two households. Other restrictions at the time included pubs and restaurants only being allowed to serve customers outside. A Downing Street spokeswoman said Mr Slack "gave a farewell speech to thank each team for the work they had done to support him, both those who had to be in the office for work and on a screen for those working from home". But asked about the other party and whether drinking and dancing had taken place, she said No 10 had "nothing further to add". Ms Rayner said: "The Queen sat alone in mourning like so many did at the time with personal trauma and sacrifice to keep to the rules in the national interest. "I have no words for the culture and behaviours at No 10 and the buck stops with the PM." The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, also reiterated calls for the prime minister to resign over the growing list of parties, tweeting: "The Queen sitting alone, mourning the loss of her husband, was the defining image of lockdown. "Not because she is the Queen, but because she was just another person, mourning alone like too many others. "Whilst she mourned, No 10 partied." Quit call made 'with heavy heart' This latest report adds to the growing list of alleged parties said to have taken place in Downing Street and other government departments during the pandemic. But Mr Johnson has faced particular criticism after it emerged he had attended one on 20 May 2020 during the first lockdown. The prime minister apologised on Wednesday in the House of Commons, saying he had joined staff for 25 minutes to thank them for their hard work. But he said he had "believed implicitly that this was a work event". On Thursday, backbencher Andrew Bridgen became the fifth Conservative MP to publicly say they had submitted a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson. He told BBC Newsnight he had submitted the letter with a "heavy heart", believing there was no sign the revelations about parties in Downing Street during lockdown would end soon. Mr Bridgen, who backed Mr Johnson in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest, said this was "preventing the government from functioning as normal and that's an untenable position". A minimum of 54 Conservative MPs must send letters to the 1922 committee of backbench MPs in order to trigger a leadership challenge. Chris Philp, minister for technology and the digital economy, said it was right to wait for the findings of Ms Gray's investigation. He told Newsnight: "I think the public deserve to have a proper investigation with the full facts." link : https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-59989946

Happy Birthday❤️