Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty Runs 31% Faster on AMD GPUs in Linux Compared to Windows 11

YouTuber Maximum Fury benchmarked Cyberpunk 2077's latest 2.0 update in a modified version of Fedora Linux known as the Nobara Project and unveiled that the OS is a whopping 31% faster running Cyberpunk 2077 compared to Windows 11, at least on an AMD RX 5700 XT.

Losing subscribers, Disney+ starts fighting password sharing, too

The enforcement is starting with Canada.

Meta launches consumer AI chatbots with celebrity avatars in its social apps

WhatsApp, Instagram add animated AI chat avatars, including Snoop Dogg as dungeon master.

Is the Meta Quest a Wii U-sized flop? Software numbers suggest it might be

Analysis: Meta's VR software sales are comparable to Nintendo's failed console.

Mark Zuckerberg Can't Quit the Metaverse

An anonymous reader shares a story: Almost two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg rebranded his company Facebook to Meta -- and since then, he has been focused on building the "metaverse," a three-dimensional virtual reality. But the metaverse has lost some of its luster since 2021. Companies like Disney have closed down their metaverse divisions and deemphasized using the word, while crypto-based startup metaverses have quietly languished or imploded. In 2022, Meta's Reality Labs division reported an operational loss of $13.7 billion. But at Meta Connect 2023, Zuckerberg still hasn't given up on the metaverse -- he's just shifted how he talks about it. He once focused on the metaverse as a completely digital new world. Now, he aims to convince the public that the future is a blend of the digital and the physical. At Connect this year, Zuckerberg emphasized that the modern "real world" combines the physical world and the digital world still being built -- and that it all builds up to "this concept we call the metaverse." He added: "Pretty soon, I think we're going to be at a point where you're going to be there physically with some of your friends, and others will be there digitally as avatars or holograms, and they'll feel just as present as everyone else. Or you'll walk into a meeting and sit down at a table. There will be people who are there physically and people who are there digitally as holograms, but also sitting around the table with you are going to be a bunch of AI guys who are embodied as holograms and are helping you get different stuff done too." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Swiss Glaciers Lose 10% of Their Volume in Two Years

Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume in just two years, a report has found. From a report: Scientists have said climate breakdown caused by the burning of fossil fuels is the cause of unusually hot summers and winters with very low snow volume, which have caused the accelerating melts. The volume lost during the hot summers of 2022 and 2023 is the same as that lost between 1960 and 1990. The analysis by the Swiss Academy of Sciences found 4% of Switzerland's total glacier volume vanished this year, the second-biggest annual decline on record. The largest decline was in 2022, when there was a 6% drop, the biggest thaw since measurements began. Experts have stopped measuring the ice on some glaciers as there is essentially none left. Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos), which monitors 176 glaciers, recently halted measurements at the St Annafirn glacier in the central Swiss canton of Uri since it had mostly melted. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Animated TV Show You Never See

The HBO series Young Love, about millennial parents in Chicago, has the instincts of an old-school Black sitcom but wears the skin of an animated world.

Is it Life, or is it Volcanoes?

Astronomers are working hard to understand biosignatures and how they indicate life’s presence on an exoplanet. But each planet we encounter is a unique puzzle. When it comes to planetary atmospheres, carbon is a big piece of the puzzle because it has a powerful effect on climate and biogeochemistry. If scientists can figure out how … Continue reading "Is it Life, or is it Volcanoes?" The post Is it Life, or is it Volcanoes? appeared first on Universe Today.

X Fires Its Election Team Before a Huge Election Year

The “last man standing” in X’s threat intelligence team has been fired, as the company guts its election integrity response ahead of a year in which more than 50 countries go to the polls.

First Evidence of Spinning Black Hole Detected by Scientists

Astronomers have captured the first direct evidence of a black hole spinning, providing new insights into the universe's most enigmatic objects. From a report: The observations focus on the supermassive black hole at the centre of the neighbouring Messier 87 galaxy, whose shadow was imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope. Like many supermassive black holes, M87 features powerful jets that are launched from the poles at close to the speed of light into intergalactic space. Scientists have predicted that the rotation of a black hole powers these cosmic jets, but until now direct evidence was elusive. "After the success of black hole imaging in this galaxy with the Event Horizon Telescope, whether this black hole is spinning or not has been a central concern among scientists," said Dr Kazuhiro Hada, of the national astronomical observatory of Japan and co-author. "Now anticipation has turned into certainty. This monster black hole is indeed spinning." M87 is located 55m light years from the Earth and harbours a black hole 6.5bn times more massive than the Sun. Just beyond the black hole is an accretion disk of gas and dust, swirling on the precipice of the cosmic sinkhole. Some of this material is destined to fall into the black hole, disappearing for ever. But a fraction will be ejected out from the poles of the black hole at more than 99.99% of the speed of light. The paper: Precessing jet nozzle connecting to a spinning black hole in M87 (Nature). Read more of this story at Slashdot.