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    Delta announces AI-powered assistant and 4K QLED seat displays at CES 2025
    html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Delta Air Lines has kicked off its centennial year with a bunch of attention-grabbing announcements at CES 2025.CEO Ed Bastian hit the stage in Las Vegas on Tuesday night to reveal plans for more premium offerings and personalized services aimed at enhancing the passenger experience.Recommended VideosFor starters, Delta Air Lines is launching an AI-powered assistant called Delta Concierge for its Fly Delta app, designed to give customers more control and confidence navigating their travel experience.Please enable Javascript to view this contentLike other AI-powered chatbots, youll be able to engage Delta Concierge using natural language text or voice input. You can even ask it to book a flight, just using your voice. In real-time, the tool will eventually have the ability to anticipate customers needs, provide contextualized guidance, and take actions on customers behalf. For example, itll let you know if your passport needs renewing, or if there any special entry requirements for an overseas trip that youre taking. Youll also gets tips on what to pack, according to the weather at your destination.The airline revealed a partnership with Uber, too, for deeper integration into its broader service, ensuring an Uber car is waiting for you when you walk out of the terminal building. And extra Sky Miles will be awarded via your Uber trips.Delta is also launching a first-of-its-kind, cloud-based in-flight entertainment system, with YouTube joining the Delta Sync experience to bring passengers fresh, ad-free content.Notably, beginning with select new aircraft deliveries in 2026, passengers will get to enjoy the next-gen Delta Sync experience, including 4K HDR QLED seatback displays. United Airlines made a similar announcement last year. With lousy seatback displays the bane of many a flight passenger, Deltas 4K QLED screens cant come soon enough. And the streaming experience will be powered up by a 96-terabyte storage system more than fifty times the average Delta inflight entertainment system capacity.Bluetooth capabilities are also coming to all cabins for easy pairing of wireless devices.Bastian also offered an update on its partnership with Joby, a leader in the field of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Delta Concierge will connect with Jobys promised air taxi service for hops to and from Deltas New York (LGA and JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX) hubs in the coming years, pending sign-off from federal and local authorities, Delta said.
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    Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs: everything we know so far
    NvidiaTable of ContentsTable of ContentsRTX 50-series: pricing and release dateRTX 50-series: specsRTX 50-series: mobile GPUsRTX 50-series: designRTX 50-series: architectureRTX 50-series: DLSS 4RTX 50-series: performanceNvidia has announced its new line of GPUs, the RTX 50-series. That includes four new graphics cards: the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070. Theyre nearly as insane in price and power as the rumors suggested. Nvidia is promising some huge leaps in performance, thanks to the new AI powers of DLSS 4.Heres everything we know so far.Recommended VideosNvidiaTo say there was speculation about the price of the RTX 50-series is a serious understatement. Well, the leaks and rumors can finally come to an end. Here are the prices of upcoming GPUs:RTX 5090: $1,999RTX 5080: $999RTX 5070 Ti: $749RTX 5070: $549Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming Thats a $400 increase on the top end, up from the $1,599 for the RTX 4090, which was already the most expensive Nvidia GPU ever made. That price jump is definitely an eyebrow-raiser, but further down the stack, the pricing actually isnt bad.RelatedThe RTX 5080 matches the price of the RTX 4080 (or RTX 4080 Super), for example. Meanwhile, the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 are actually $50 cheaper than the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4070. Hows that for a surprise?The RTX 5090 and 5080 both launch on January 30. The RTX 5070 Ti and 5070, meanwhile, will follow sometime in February.RTX 5090RTX 5080RTX 5070 TiRTX 5070ArchitectureBlackwell GB202Blackwell GB203Blackwell GB203Blackwell GB205CUDA cores217601075289606140Tensor cores5th-gen 3352 TOPS5th-gen 1801 TOPS5th-gen 1406 TOPS5th-gen 988 TOPSRay tracing cores4th-gen 318 TFLOPS4th-gen 171 TFLOPS4th-gen 133 TFLOPS4th-gen 94 TFLOPSBoost clock (GHz)2.412.622.452.51Base clock (GHz)2.012.302.302.16Max resolution4K at 480Hz or 8K at 120Hz4K at 480Hz or 8K at 120Hz4K at 480Hz or 8K at 120Hz4K at 480Hz or 8K at 120HzMemory interface width512-bit256-bit256-bit192-bitMemory32GB GDDR716GB GDDR716GB GDDR712GB GDDR7Memory speed28Gbps30Gbps28Gbps28GbpsTOPS3,4001,8001,4001,000TGP (watts)575360300250Required system power (watts)1,000850750650Price$1,999$999$749$549Theres a lot to take in here. We also know that the cards will all use a 16-pin connector and DisplayPort 2.1, which is where the support for 8K resolutions at 120Hz comes from. The cards are also using the 12V-26 power connector. This can almost be considered overkill for most of the lineup, but the 575-watt RTX 5090 may not have a lot of overclocking headroom with a single 600-watt power connector.While we have the official specs, theres a few more details that we likely wont have confirmed until reviewers get their hands on the cards.The initial announcement didnt deliver some key information, including memory speed and process node, which Nvidia has since supplied. As a result, we know that the RTX 5080 will have faster memory modules than any of the other GPUs. This has long been a subject of speculation, and has now been confirmed by Nvidia.Overall, were looking at gains all across the board here in many specs, but not in all of them. Unsurprisingly, the RTX 5090 scores the biggest wins, with a huge memory increase (to a whopping 32GB, no less) and a boost to CUDA cores. The other cards cant enjoy the same kind of treatment, with all three retaining the same VRAM and bus configuration. However, the entirety of the RTX 50-series uses much faster GDDR7 memory, which is an upgrade in itself.How these specs translate to real-world performance will be revealed only once we get to review these GPUs ourselves.NvidiaSomewhat unexpectedly, Nvidias keynote wasnt solely focused on desktop GPUs. In fact, gaming laptops played a big part in the presentation, and theres a lot for notebook gamers to get excited about.Nvidia and its partners are readying up laptops with almost the full range of RTX 50-series cards, including the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and the RTX 5070. The RTX 5060 Ti, RTX 5060, and the RTX 5050 havent been mentioned yet, but in all likelihood, some (if not all) will be coming at a later date.The only thing we know about these new laptop GPUs is the AI tera operations per second (TOPS) count for each, starting with 1,850 TOPS for the RTX 5090 (which is comparable to the desktop RTX 5080) and ending with 800 AI TOPS for the RTX 5070. That laptop is meant to be mighty impressive, though, as Huang claims that itll rival the performance of an RTX 4090. Desktop or laptop version? Its unclear right now, but Im guessing laptop.Nvidia has also shared the starting prices for each laptop. The RTX 5070 models start at $1,299, followed by $1,599 and up for the RTX 5070 Ti and $2,199 for the RTX 5080. Laptops equipped with the RTX 5090 get really expensive, with the cheapest models priced at $2,899.Many of these laptops will become available in March. Nvidias partners, such as MSI, have already teased some of their upcoming offerings.NvidiaRTX 5090RTX 5080RTX 5070 TiRTX 5070Length304mm304mmVaries242mmWidth137mm137mmVaries112mmSlot2-slot2-slotVaries2-slotPower connector4x PCIe 8-pin cables or 1x 600 W PCIe Gen 5 cable3x PCIe 8-pin cables or 1x 450 W or greater PCIe Gen 5 cable2x PCIe 8-pin cables or 300 W or greater PCIe Gen 5 cable2x PCIe 8-pin cables or 300 W or greater PCIe Gen 5 cableThe Founders Edition RTX 5090 might be the biggest surprise with its 2-slot design. In fact, the RTX 5090 and 5080 are the exact same size, much like the bigger RTX 4080 and 4090. The new design still uses two fans, but theyre now on the same side, unlike the previous generation, which used a dual axial flow design.Like in prior years, there is no Founders Edition of the RTX 5070 Ti.Of course, board partners will no doubt make much larger versions of these cards that take up more than two slots. In fact, so far, the Founders Edition of the RTX 5090 is the only one thats ready for Nvidias SFF program, implying that partner cards are going to be significantly larger.We know for a fact that the follow-up to Ada Lovelace is called Blackwell, honoring American mathematician David Blackwell. The new consumer GPUs are manufactured based on TSMCs 4NP process, which is a 4nm node. Early leaks about the cards suggested that Nvidia would switch to a 3nm process, but that didnt pan out.The lineup includes chips starting from the high-end GB202 through the GB203, GB205, GB206, and entry-level GB207. We havent seen the GB207 yet, though. The RTX 5070 runs on the GB205 architecture, so presumably, the RTX 5060 will use GB207, but Nvidia has yet to announce the budget part of the lineup.The exact architecture of the Blackwell consumer GPUs is still a bit of an unknown. Although Nvidia shared the specs for each card and detailed what makes them better than the previous generation, not everything is crystal clear yet but it wont stay that way much longer. With the first two GPUs less than a month away, well learn more as the release date draws closer.However, Nvidia divulged some more information during CES 2025. As shared by Toms Hardware, the tech giant had to completely redefine the printed circuit board (PCB) to support the kind of power consumption (and just overall power, really) that the new architecture can provide. The GPU that Nvidia talked about was, of course, the RTX 5090 with the GB202 chip.The PCB is split into three parts, with the main PCB equipped with the massive 30-phase VRM, the copious amounts of VRAM, and the GB202 chip. This is the only part of the PCB that Nvidia unveiled during the presentation, which although small still houses a powerful 92-billion-transistor GPU. The missing pieces include display outputs, the PCIe grid, and power connectors for fans. Its truly a design we have never seen before.Considering that even the monstrous RTX 5090 is just a dual-slot card, Nvidia had to do more than just implement a new PCB design. It also gave the cooling system a bit of an overhaul, using a liquid metal thermal interface material (TIM) instead of thermal paste.Nvidia also introduced RTX Neural Shaders that bring AI to programmable shaders. This, in turn, will boost lighting and other quality-related features in games, all in real time.Although Blackwell is still so new, its already seen its fair share of troubles. A recent report from The Information tells us that Nvidias data center GPUs are running into problems with overheating, which has resulted in delays in the deployment of server racks used for AI training. Lets hope that with the wildly different form factor and the considerate approach to cooling, these problems will never make it to consumer GPUs.NvidiaJensen Huang says that Nvidias Deep Learning Super Sampling 4 can see into the future. Its a bold claim, but based on early information, the updated upscaling and frame generation tech sounds like itll play a large role in the success of this new generation of GPUs.DLSS 4, and its neural rendering capabilities, is how Huang can explain the fact that the $550 RTX 5070 can reportedly rival the $1,600 RTX 4090. During the keynote, Huang explained that most of the pixels are generated using Nvidias Tensor cores, and as a result, only the required pixels are rendered, while the majority is generated with AI.The future of computer graphics is neural rendering, Huang said.NvidiaDLSS 4 takes the frame generation weve grown to know (and mostly enjoy) with DLSS 3 and kicks it up a couple of notches. The latest update introduces Multi Frame Generation, which, as Nvidia says, will boost gaming performance by generating up to three frames for each rendered frame.This is said to boost frames per second (fps) by up to eight times, and Nvidias example benchmarks show that. The RTX 5090 is said to be able to hit an impressive 240 fps at 4K with full ray tracing, which presumably also includes path tracing.Nvidia first introduced frame generation with DLSS 3, but DLSS 4 comes with a new, significantly faster AI model that cuts back on the computational cost to deliver better performance. The model is said to be up to 40% faster while also being up to 30% less VRAM-intensive. Nvidia also got rid of the hardware-based optical flow weve seen in the RTX 40-series and replaced it with an AI model.DLSS 4 is still a taxing thing for the GPU to run, but Nvidia is tackling the challenge with hardware improvements, too. It introduced fifth-gen Tensor cores, which are said to deliver up to 2.5x the AI processing power of the previous generation. Theres also hardware Flip Metering and an improved display engine.Overall, DLSS 4 will generate 15 out of every 16 pixels.Set to come out with the new GPUs at the end of January, DLSS 4 will see decent adoption from the get-go. Around 75 games will support DLSS 4, and this includes some of the AAA titles that will benefit from it the most, such asIndiana Jones and the Great CircleandCyberpunk 2077.1 of 4Nvidia Image used with permission by copyright holder Image used with permission by copyright holder Image used with permission by copyright holder Nvidia made some significant claims about the performance of these new 50-series cards, saying they double the performance of their predecessors. As you can see in the slides above, that includes games, yes, but also AI and creative applications. The only direct comparison Nvidia made was for the RTX 5070, which it claims is now on par with the RTX 4090.That sounds like quite a leap, but remember: its done on the back of DLSS 4s multi-frame generation feature. Most of Nvidias performance claims and graphs include DLSS 4, so its difficult to know exactly what the performance delta is when it comes to pure rendering.Editors Recommendations
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    Dont worry AMDs RX 9070 XT is set to launch in a matter of weeks
    html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" AMD barely touched on its new RDNA 4 graphics cards during its CES 2025 keynote, not even showing the new GPUs during its presentation. Instead, details about the new graphics cards have largely been shared by AMDs board partners. Its a strange move, and one that left some Team Red fans worried about the new cards.But dont worry. The RX 9070 XT is coming soon.Recommended VideosHow soon? Well AMDs Frank Azor says were talking about weeks before the graphics cards show up, saying, When we say Q1, you know, were not talking about March 31st.Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming Before I let speculation get out of hand, I need to point out that weeks is still pretty broad. We could be talking about late January, early February, or even some time in March. But Azor assured me that AMD has everything ready to properly launch its next generation of graphics cards, saying that they were largely left out of the presentation due to time constraints. And in fairness to AMD, it announced a lot, from the Ryzen 9 9950X3D to the new range of Ryzen Z2 chips for handhelds.RelatedConfirming some online speculation, Azor also said that AMD was waiting to see what Nvidia would do. We now know about the $2,000 RTX 5090, as well as three other cards from Nvidias RTX 50-series range, and it seems AMD wanted to see where its new GPU would fall in comparison to the green giant. That makes sense, as AMD has confirmed its ditching the flagship battle with Nvidia this generation in order to focus on cards in the midrange.Still, its not clear where AMDs new GPU lands. Nvidias performance charts dont share a lot of detail, and most of the performance is obfuscated by Nvidias new DLSS 4 multi-frame generation. While noting that he has immense respect for Nvidia, Azor said the performance charts are essentially worthless. And on that point, frankly, I agree. The charts are as vague as they come, and they certainly dont tell the full story about what PC gamers can expect out of Nvidias new graphics cards.AMD has already said that theres nothing wrong with the RDNA 4 range. Words are paper thin, but I saw both the RX 9070 XT and AMDs much-improved FSR 4 in the flesh. If there are serious troubles with AMDs new graphics cards, I highly doubt theyd be subjected to the horrors of the CES show floor.Editors Recommendations
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    Amazon Plans to Invest at Least $11 Billion on Cloud, AI Infrastructure in Georgia
    The investment aims to meet the increased demand for advanced cloud infrastructure and compute power, driven by generative AI, it said.
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    Ants vs. humans: Solving the piano-mover puzzle
    teamwork makes the dream work Ants vs. humans: Solving the piano-mover puzzle "People stand out for individual cognitive abilities while ants excel in cooperation." Jennifer Ouellette Jan 7, 2025 2:20 pm | 34 Ants maneuvering a T-shaped load across a maze Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science Ants maneuvering a T-shaped load across a maze Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn more Who is better at maneuvering a large load through a maze, ants or humans? The piano-mover puzzle involves trying to transport an oddly shaped load across a constricted environment with various obstructions. It's one of several variations on classic computational motion-planning problems, a key element in numerous robotics applications. But what would happen if you pitted human beings against ants in a competition to solve the piano-mover puzzle?According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, humans have superior cognitive abilities and, hence, would be expected to outperform the ants. However, depriving people of verbal or nonverbal communication can level the playing field, with ants performing better in some trials. And while ants improved their cognitive performance when acting collectively as a group, the same did not hold true for humans.Co-author Ofer Feinerman of the Weizmann Institute of Science and colleagues saw an opportunity to use the piano-mover puzzle to shed light on group decision-making, as well as the question of whether it is better to cooperate as a group or maintain individuality. "It allows us to compare problem-solving skills and performances across group sizes and down to a single individual and also enables a comparison of collective problem-solving across species," the authors wrote.They decided to compare the performances of ants and humans because both species are social and can cooperate while transporting loads larger than themselves. In essence, "people stand out for individual cognitive abilities while ants excel in cooperation," the authors wrote.Feinerman et al. used crazy ants (Paratrechina longicornis) for their experiments, along with the human volunteers. They designed a physical version of the piano-movers puzzle involving a large t-shaped load that had to be maneuvered across a rectangular area divided into three chambers, connected via narrow slits. The load started in the first chamber on the left, and the ant and human subjects had to figure out how to transport it through the second chamber and into the third.This version of the puzzle intentionally posed challenges for both humans and ants and was designed to maintain a similar ratio of body size to load size. "People are challenged by the precise length assessments, mental rotations, and symmetry comprehension that are required to distinguish between viable moves and dead-ends," the authors wrote. As for the ants, "Their pheromone based communication takes neither load size versus door size nor load rotations into account, and thus deems a major part of their collective navigation strategy useless." The ants were manipulated into trying to solve the puzzle by making the t-shaped load resemble food.Collective cognition Humans maneuvering a T-shaped load across a maze. Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science The experiment was run multiple times with different variations: a single ant, a group of about seven ants, and a larger group of around 80 ants; and a single person, a group of six to nine people, and a larger group of 26 people. Humans were instructed to hold the load only by handles that were carefully placed to mimic how the object would be held by ants, and the handles had sensors for measuring the pulling force applied by each person. In some of the runs, humans were not allowed to communicate verbally or with gestures, and in some trials, they even wore masks and sunglasses to avoid nonverbal communication. Each trial run was videotaped for analysis.It should come as no surprise that humans had the edge as individuals, given their superior cognitive abilities; as communicating groups, they also easily beat the ants at finding the optimal solution. And large groups of ants performed much better than individual ants. However, the picture changed when humans were limited in their ability to communicate; large groups of ants often actually performed better than humans in several runs, thanks to their emergent collective memory that helped them avoid repeated mistakes and maintain a particular direction of motion.Humans, when told not to communicate, tended to "pull toward the lowest common denominator, the greedy option, as would a newly attached ant," the authors wrote. "Once the load starts moving, people in restricted communication groups simply align their pull with its motion. This abandonment of their individual cognitive abilities is reminiscent of the collective ant behavior." Communicating human groups, by contrast, were able to discuss and collectively decide on their next move.An ant colony is actually a family, said Feinerman. All the ants in the nest are sisters, and they have common interests. Its a tightly knit society in which cooperation greatly outweighs competition. Thats why an ant colony is sometimes referred to as a super-organism, sort of a living body composed of multiple cells that cooperate with one another. Our findings validate this vision. Weve shown that ants acting as a group are smarter, that for them the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In contrast, forming groups did not expand the cognitive abilities of humans. The famous wisdom of the crowd thats become so popular in the age of social networks didnt come to the fore in our experiments.PNAS, 2024. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2414274121 (About DOIs).Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 34 Comments
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    Inside the history of Activision Blizzard, the video game maker Microsoft bought for $69 billion
    Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, making it the third-largest gaming company.Activision Blizzard had some 10,000 employees as of 2022, but Microsoft has enacted mass layoffs.Here's the history of the company behind iconic games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.Activision Blizzard is one of the most well known publishers in the video game industry.Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, the company is best recognized for its popular franchises, including Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush Saga.Activision Blizzard made major international headlines following complaints about working conditions and its Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition in 2023. The all-cash deal saw shareholders of Activision receive a buyout of $95 per share. Following the purchase, Microsoft reported revenue from its Xbox division increased 61% by January 2024.Here's everything to know about the creation of Activision Blizzard, its successes, and the many controversies that have dogged the company over the years.The merger that created Activision BlizzardActivision Blizzard was formed in 2008 through the merger of Activision and Vivdeni Games. The Activision name dates back to 1979 when the previous company became the first independent, third-party console video game developer. The "Blizzard" portion of the company's name comes from Vivendi Games' subsidiary, Blizzard Entertainment.Following the merger, most of Vivendi Games' subsidiaries were shuttered, except for Blizzard Entertainment. Their games were either discontinued, published by other studios, or retrained and published by Activision Blizzard.In 2010, the studio Bungie entered into a 10-year, $500 million publishing deal with Activision Blizzard with the main goal of turning the "Destiny" franchise into a major franchise. The deal ended a year early in 2019, and Bungie split from Activision Blizzard on what appeared to be amicable terms that allowed Bungie to retain the publishing rights for the "Destiny" franchise.In 2022, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging widespread harassment of female employees and a "pervasive frat boy" culture. More than 1,000 Activision Blizzard employees signed a petition calling for CEO Bobby Kotick to resign. Even PlayStation head Jim Ryan and Xbox head Phil Spencer criticized Activision when reports emerged that Kotick personally intervened to save the job of a senior staff member the company's human resources department wanted to fire over sexual harassment allegations. Amid a major lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, over 1,000 employees called for CEO Bobby Kotick's resignation. Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair The Microsoft acquisitionWhen Microsoft declared its intent to buy Activision Blizzard, it said Activision was key to providing the "building blocks for the metaverse." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later said in an investor conference call that the company sees the metaverse as "a collection of communities and individual identities anchored in strong content franchises accessible on every device."In an effort to assuage regulator concerns, Microsoft and Sony struck a binding 10-year deal in the summer of 2023 to keep the Call of Duty franchise available on PlayStation consoles. Microsoft vice chair Brad Smith declared that the company "remains focused on ensuring that Call of Duty remains available on more platforms and for more consumers than ever before."The lawsuit brought by the state of California was settled for $54 million in 2023, and the settlement found the sexual harassment claims unfounded and cleared Kotick of any wrongdoing. Initially, it was reported that following the closure of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Kotick would stay on as CEO of the soon-to-be subsidiary. However, he ultimately ended up leaving the company upon the deal's completion.Microsoft's acquisition faced legal challenges from the FTC and European regulators but was ultimately allowed to proceed, making Microsoft the third-largest video game company and bolstering the company's Xbox division, providing access to Activision Blizzard's extensive catalog of games and franchises.As part of the deal, Activision's estimated 10,000 employees joined Microsoft under its Xbox division. Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard is its third purchase of a video game developer, following its previous acquisitions of Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, in 2014 for $2.5 billion, and ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, in 2021 for $7.5 billion.Layoffs in the post-pandemic landscape Activision Blizzard and the rest of the gaming sector has struggled to adjust to the post-pandemic landscape with plummeting sales and shrinking player bases. Daniel Boczarski/WireImage via Getty Images Despite Microsoft's market cap hitting a record-high $3 trillion in January 2024, the company laid off 1,900 workers across Activision, Xbox, and holding company ZeniMax. Activision Blizzard was reportedly the most affected by the layoffs, despite Microsoft earnings calls showing that Activision Blizzard generated billions of dollars in revenue throughout 2024.These Microsoft layoffs came after after the company enacted 10,000 job cuts in January 2022 and a further 1,000 that July. In September 2024, Microsoft laid off another 650 employees from its Xbox division, with the job cuts predominantly across its corporate and support roles.These job cuts come as the tech and gaming industries face significant challenges: plummeting sales, shrinking player bases, and rising competition. Companies across the sector are adjusting to the post-pandemic landscape, where the explosive growth in gaming seen during the lockdowns has returned to more pre-pandemic levels.
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  • Study Canada Consultants
    IVY Overseas is the Best Study Canada Consultants in Hyderabad. Canada is renowned globally as a prime destination for international students, offering a blend of high-quality education, a welcoming atmosphere, and a high standard of living. Canada ranks highly globally in terms of quality of life. This includes a stable and peaceful society, low crime rates, and a clean environment....
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    Razer's New Bladeless Gaming Chair Fan Will Keep You Cool--Or Warm--While You Play
    Razer brought a bunch of new gaming hardware and accessories to show off at CES 2025 this week, including two big additions to its gaming chair lineup. The first of these gaming chair announcements is the Project Arielle Fan System, a bladeless fan add-on for Razer's Fujin and Fujin Pro mesh gaming chairs.The Project Arielle fan attaches to the Fujin and Fujin Pro backrests and, according to Razer's press release, can reduce the perceived temperature by between 2 to 5 degrees Celsius (roughly 3.5 to 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit) with fan noise "as soft as a whisper." It also features energy-efficient heaters that can deliver warm air up to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), making it helpful in any environment. Temperature and fan speeds are controlled via a touch panel on the side of the seat, and it can be easily attached or removed from the chair thanks to a quick-release connection.Razer's Project AriellePricing and release date information has not been revealed, though Razer is demoing Project Arielle in person at its CES 2025 booth, so we expect the fan add-on to launch in the near future. In the meantime, the Razer Fujin Pro is available now, starting at $1,050 at Razer's online store. The standard Razer Fujin gaming chair is available for a 25% discount at Amazon, which drops the price from $650 to $500. Both models feature similar mesh materials and chair dimensions, but the standard Fujin lacks a few of the features of the Fujin Pro, including a headrest. Luckily, there's an optional headrest add-on for the Fujin available for $130 at Best Buy.Continue Reading at GameSpot
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    GeForce RTX 50-Series GPUs - Nvidia's New Graphics Cards, Explained
    Nvidia revealed its next generation of graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 50-series, at CES this week. There are four new GPUs in the lineup: the Geforce RTX 5090, 5080, 5070, and 5070 Ti.The flagship card, the RTX 5090, is priced at $2,000, and Nvidia claims it's twice as powerful as the RTX 4090 but requires a 1,000-watt power supply--a huge leap from the RTX 4090's 450W baseline power draw. Despite its power demands, the RTX 5090 is more compact than its predecessor, fitting into smaller PC builds.The slimmer size and higher performance are true of all the cards in the lineup, with Nvidia claiming the $1,000 RTX 5080 to be twice as fast as the RTX 4080. The budget-priced $550 RTX 5070 offers performance comparable to the RTX 4090, at nearly a third of the price. The 5070 Ti, meanwhile, sits between the 5070 and 5080 in terms of price ($750) and performance.Continue Reading at GameSpot
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    Best Open-World Games That Let You Attend School, Ranked
    Moreso than other games, open-world titles need to have an incredible amount of detail added to their setting. Every aspect of a setting's geography, culture, and unique elements - if it's in the playable area - needs to be thought of and considered. This kind of attention to detail - if done properly - can make for some truly impressive and immersive titles.
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