Category: Technology

Foldable phones are still kind of awkward, unknown devices. But over the last three generations (with a fourth presumably on the way), Samsung has made major strides with its designs, paving the way for innovative (though sometimes quite pricey) alternatives to the typical glass brick. And when you combine that with sales of nearing 10 million devices last year, it feels like Samsung’s foldables are finally beginning to break into the mainstream.

But despite a number of improvements over the years, there’s one aspect of Samsung’s foldable that still needs a lot of work: durability. Last year, after purchasing my own Z Fold 2, I documented some of the issues I faced after owning it for 10 months. And after upgrading to the Z Fold 3 last fall, I’m here to report back on how Samsung’s latest flagship foldable is holding up just shy of one year later.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Now at this point, some people might be wondering why I upgraded at all. The bubbles my Z Fold 2’s screen suffered from were certainly annoying, but they weren’t so bad I considered switching back to a standard candy bar handset. Instead, my main goal for buying the model (aside from professional curiosity) was to get a foldable that might better survive a newborn.

Compared to typical smartphones, the Z Fold 2’s lack of water resistance was all but guaranteed to become a problem after my son was born. It felt like I would have to keep the phone in a separate room, lest I chance some small amount of spit up or drool ruining the device. And that simply wasn’t something I wanted to do, which is what drew me to the Z Fold 3 and its IPX8 rating. I figured if a phone can withstand sitting in water for up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to five feet, it could handle anything a baby could throw (or spit) at it too.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Thankfully, I think my strategy worked, because even though it cost around $800 to upgrade after trading in my Z Fold 2, that money has already paid for itself. My Z Fold 3 has been peed on, it’s been vomited on and it’s had milk splashed all over it, and it’s been totally fine. The phone has also been gnawed on more than a handful of times to no effect. So while the addition of water resistance to Samsung’s foldables might not be all that exciting, considering regular phones that have had it for years, it’s a huge enhancement to everyday usability.

The rest of the phone’s body has held up pretty well too. There’s a relatively large scratch on its frame and a couple of scuffs on its hinge, but those are all cosmetic dings. I should also mention I’m not someone who puts phones in skins or cases, this thing has lived naked since the day I got it. So while I haven’t been traveling much, the sheer number of times this phone has endured being knocked out of my hand or fallen on the floor while rushing to grab my kid after a nap is kind of impressive. Even dust and crumbs have been handled by the extra bristles Samsung put inside its hinge.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The big exception to the Z Fold 3’s improved durability is once again its built-in screen protector. For this model, Samsung says it switched away from the TPU material it used on the Z Fold 2 to a new PET film while also using a stickier adhesive, which was designed to prevent bubbles from forming between the protector and the display itself. But in my experience, none of that helped.

For the first six months I had it, my Z Fold 3’s screen was pristine. There were no blemishes, bubbles or anything. But then one winter day while I was walking down the street, I opened the phone and heard a crack. At first, I feared the worst, thinking its exterior cover screen had shattered or something important inside had broken. But upon closer inspection, I noticed there was a fine line running down the middle of the phone near the crease, as if the protector had been pulled or stretched.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

And while I’m still not sure what the exact cause was, my theory is that after pulling the phone out of my pocket, the cold winter air made the screen protector unusually brittle, causing it to snap instead of bend when I opened the phone . This is an issue a number of other Z Fold owners have run into, and once you suffer that initial crack, it’s only a matter of time until bubbles begin to form. Over the past few months, those bubbles have grown into an air gap that runs down the entire middle of the screen, and no amount of pressing or trying to smooth things out has much of an effect. Recently, some dust has gotten wedged between the protector and the screen itself, which is frankly kind of gross. And because I’m trying to abide by Samsung’s insistence that the screen protector should only be replaced by certified technicians, I haven’t tried to fix it on my own.

Naturally, the next step was to take the phone to one of Samsung’s retail locations to have it serviced, at which point I discovered I’m far from the only person dealing with this. When I arrived, there were three other people already on the waitlist — and all of them were waiting to get the screen protector on their Z Fold replaced. Admittedly, this is merely an anecdotal observation, and I’m sure my choice to go to Samsung’s flagship 837 location in NYC had something to do with the unusually high concentration of $1,800 foldable phones.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

But, this wasn’t a coincidence either. After talking to two of the other customers, I learned that they were also running into issues with bubbles around the six to eight month mark. On top of that, one of the Samsung Care+ reps I talked to essentially confirmed that this was a somewhat widespread issue, saying that screen protector replacements are the most commonly requested repair for Samsung’s foldables. Unfortunately, because it takes about an hour to have the screen protector replaced and I was fourth in line, I couldn’t wait around to get my Z Fold fixed. So here’s a pro tip, if your phone needs to be serviced, make sure to schedule your appointment online, so you can avoid the line.

In the end, while I plan on returning to have my screen protector replaced, my big take away after owning both a Z Fold 2 and a Z Fold 3 is that there’s a good chance you’re going to run into bubbles after half a year or so And without some sort of radical upgrade to the screen construction, the company’s next generation of Z devices will probably suffer the same fate. That’s kind of a bummer, because having to sit around for hours to fix something that’s probably going to happen again sucks. And that goes double or triple for anyone who has to mail in their device because they don’t live near a certified repair location.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

As it stands, the bubbling is certainly annoying and not very pretty. Thankfully, the side effects are much less noticeable indoors or at night, so while it’s far from ideal, it’s tolerable. I will also admit that I had not been planning on writing this story, I would have gotten the screen protector replaced months ago. And if you’re running into a similar issue with your Z Flip or Z Fold, I’d highly suggest you address any bubbling as soon as possible, before any other related issues pop up.

But if Samsung ever wants its foldables to be as popular as the S or A-series phones, the screen protectors bubbling is an issue that needs to be solved sooner rather than later. As for me, while I haven’t decided if I want to upgrade again or not, I’m just hoping that anyone on the fence will now have a slightly more realistic idea of ​​what living with a foldable phone is actually like.

I’ve long been saying that the BMW M5 CS is the best driving sedan of the past few years, maybe even the past decade. It’s a sensational machine, one that feels so much better than the standard M5 that the standard car no longer deserves its M badge. I recently drove the M5’s toughest competitor, the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing and felt it far better than every non-CS M5 but that the CS was still better. But am I just a BMW fanboy or is it really that good? Motor Trend recently put the M5 CS up against the aforementioned Blackwing (a journo-favorite) and the Mercedes-AMG GT63 S.

The 2,000 Horsepower Test

Honestly, all three super sedans have their own unique reason for driving/buying them. I can see wanted to drive each under specific circumstances. For instance, the AMG’s thunderous V8 and luxurious cabin would make it a fine grand tourer. While the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is a raucous, fire-spitting hooligan that would make a fine burnout-ripping, tire-smoking monster. And the M5 CS is the sedan you want on a twisty back road, where precision and balance matter more than anything else. But which is best? First, let’s check the specs.

The BMW M5 CS uses a slightly tuned version of the M5’s familiar twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8, making 627 horsepower and 553 lb-ft. It’s paired with an eight-speed automatic and all-wheel drive. The AMG’s formula is pretty familiar at this point as well, with its twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 making 630 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque. It gets a nine-speed car and all-wheel drive. It’s the Caddy that’s the outlier, using a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 with an astonishing 668 horsepower and 659 lb-ft. Unlike the Germans, there are two transmission options—a six-speed manual or a ten-speed auto—and the latter was the one used in MT’s test and that’s important. The Blackwing is also the only car of the three to be rear-wheel drive.

So which one was considered best? Well, without spoiling it, it really only came down to the M5 CS and the Blackwing, both of which were far more enjoyable than the AMG. Having driven both, I will say that they’re both excellent and I’d love to own either. However, the Blackwing was let down by its ten-speed automatic. I firmly believe the manual is the only real choice for the Blackwing, unless you physically cannot use a manual transmission, as it’s an instrumental part of the car’s character. Having said that, even with the car, the Caddy is brilliant. But so is the M5 CS. Check out MT’s review to find out which is best.

[Source: Motor Trend]

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, announced on Aug. 5 that it will start blocking third-party Microsoft tracking scripts in its browsing apps and browser extensions in the next week. DuckDuckGo said its beta apps will also start blocking these third-party tracking scripts in the next month.

Read more: DuckDuckGo Launches Its First Browser for Mac in Beta

The search engine has positioned itself as an alternative to other search engines, like Google Search. The big difference between the two is DuckDuckGo blocks tracking scripts and third-party cookies from tracking you across the web.

However, in May DuckDuckGo came under fire after Microsoft tracking scripts were found while using DuckDuckGo’s browsers.

“We were limited in how we could apply our 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection on Microsoft tracking scripts due to a policy requirement related to our use of Bing as a source for our private search results,” DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg wrote in a blog post . “We’re glad this is no longer the case. We have not had, and do not have, any similar limitation with any other company.”

DuckDuckGo’s 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection already blocks tracking scripts from companies like Facebook and Google. DuckDuckGo said it was already blocking most Microsoft tracking scripts and restricted Microsoft tracking through other protections, including blocking Microsoft’s third-party cookies in DuckDuckGo browsers.

DuckDuckGo also announced that Microsoft has committed to not profile DuckDuckGo users on ad clicks. Advertising on DuckDuckGo is part of the company’s partnership with Microsoft.

“When you click on a Microsoft-provided ad that appears on DuckDuckGo, Microsoft Advertising does not associate your ad-click behavior with a user profile,” DuckDuckGo writes on its website. “It also does not store or share that information other than for accounting purposes.”

DuckDuckGo does note that some advertisers use Microsoft scripts in order to see in Microsoft Advertising how often an ad click results in a purchase. While the 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection doesn’t block these requests from loading on the advertisers website, they are blocked in all other contexts. You can disable ads in DuckDuckGo in search settings, and viewing ads in DuckDuckGo is anonymous.

DuckDuckGo also unveiled a new webpage that explains what protections DuckDuckGo provides across all its products. DuckDuckGo published public directories of what is and isn’t blocked when using the browsers, too. Users can report any issues they see in the directories by emailing [email protected].

You can download DuckDuckGo’s Android and iOS mobile apps from the Google Play store or the App Store.

For more on privacy, check out what to know about DuckDuckGo and why you should switch to DuckDuckGo.

Here’s a sign of the times: Activision has confirmed via newly released financial documents that it made more money on its phone games last quarter than it did on all of its console and PC games combined.

As spotted by tweaktown, Activision’s quarterly report was published last week and sheds some light on how its biggest games across PC, console, and mobile are doing financially. And because of games like Devil Immortal, Call of Duty Mobileand Candy Crush Sagathe beleaguered Call of Duty publisher’s making a lot of cash off phone games. In fact, more than half of its total earnings for the second quarter of 2022 came from mobile titles and not console or PC games.

According to the report, about 51 per cent of Activision’s total earnings from the Q2 2022 period came from mobile games. That adds up to a total of $US831 ($1,154) million in mobile game earnings. Meanwhile, its console games earned around $US376 ($522) million and PC games brought in a bit less, $US332 ($461) million. Finally, it made $US105 ($146) million from events and esports.

What you might not expect, especially if you don’t realize how massive mobile gaming has become over the last decade, is that of the $US831 ($1,154) million made off phone games, most of it came from King’s titles and not stuff like Call of Duty Mobile. In the report, Activision says that King titles like candy crush and FarmHeroes brought in over $US680 ($944) million.

ReadMore: Lawyer To Pay Activision For Not Playing Call Of Duty

What these numbers reveal is that for big publishers like Activision, the future is likely one where it invests even more resources and money into mobile games and focuses less and less on console games. In an era where AAA games are more expensive to make than ever, take years to create, and often flop, mobile games have become a lifeline for large game companies looking to keep their heads above water.

For Activision it’s especially important as Call of Duty continues to lose millions of players and underperform. Seeing as the company has spent years focusing much of its energy on Call of Duty — at one point even having every studio it owned working on the franchise in some capacity — it’s likely it will seek to diversify into mobile more, not less, moving forward.

It should also be noted that Activision’s hugely successful mobile games are one of the main reasons Microsoft began the process of buying the company earlier this year following a huge, public fallout after the company was sued over years of sexual harassment and discrimination.

in some way, Call of Duty and warcraft are more like bonuses that Xbox gets top of King and his money-printing games.

I’ve probably written this before on this very website, but whenever someone asks me what my favorite video game is, my default answer is half life 2. So any game that tries to capture half life 2‘s excellent mix of exploration, action, puzzle-solving, and emptiness has my attention. And if that game succeeds and also includes its own gravity gun, well, I’m over the moon about it. Lucky for me and others half life fans, the newly released indie shooter adaka is one of those games.

released last week, adaka is a first-person shooter that is a self-described throwback to the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was the era of the “linear-but-not-stuck-in-hallways shooter.” stuff like half life 2, Haloand farcry. The kind of shooters where you, yes, only have one path through each level and playspace, but the areas are larger than doom‘s hallways, are interesting to explore, and are often filled with environmental puzzles. and-while adaka is pulling from a lot of these shooters, it’s most similar of all to half life 2and not by accident.

Within the first 20 minutes of adaka, you’re given a gravity gun-like arm and forced to fight space cops who emit a loud blast of static and electronic screeching when killed. And like Gordon Freeman, the main star of Valve’s half life series, your main character never speaks on their long, unbroken journey from point A to point B. If you’ve played half life 2 or its subsequent episodes, all of this should sound pretty familiar. But if it ain’t broke…

The single developer who made adaka clearly understands what made half life 2 and its contemporary work. For example, an early section involves a train, a desolate bridge, and not much else but the sound of a distant crow. While limited, the level works, mainly because having to time when to move forward and when to squeeze to the side to let the train fly by is made more intense by all the space cops shooting at you. Of course, just like in half life 2, you can also grab a big box and use it to block some of the bullets. Or fling it at the bastard shooting at you, knocking him off the bridge entirely.

Another level features limited ammo and loads of small objects you can fling at zombie-like enemies. Or you can use bigger ones to create obstacles to slow them down while you figure out how to escape. You always have options in Adaca.

What makes this indie shooter stand out is how it routinely nails the flow and pacing of a half life game, even if some parts feel less polished than Valve’s classic shooter. This is most noticeable in some small areas, like stairways, where you’ll clip through walls or stairs. Other times I ran into performance issues or empty rooms that felt unfinished. And characters aren’t voiced; instead, they do the Banjo-Kazooie “chirping” thing. None of this made it harder to enjoy adaka, it just reminded me of the scale of the game and its limited resources. It was also a reminder of how much of a passion project this game appears to be.

when adaka is working and nailing that Half-Life 2-feel, it’s one of my favorite games I’ve played this year. Anyone who loved half life 2 or alyx or any of the episodes should at the very least check out the game’s free demo.

I’ve not even mentioned that this game also contains a full, alternate open-world campaign. So once you get tired of reliving the past, you get a whole other mode that plays more like a modern, large-scale shooter, like recent farcry games. What a value!

adaka is available on Steam and Itch.io for PC. It also has a free demo available to play now if you want to try it before you buy.

Developer Massive Monster and publisher Devolver Digital are gearing up for their anticipated release of the roguelike action-adventure game, Cult of the Lamb. In the game, which received its first look during the Devolver Digital Summer Showcase in June 2022, players will be stepping into the realm of cults as told through the eyes of a fluffy lamb.

Start a loyal following, discover cult secrets, and remain in the ways of your teachings while exploring your surroundings and eliminating those who seek to destroy your cult. We’ll look at everything you need about Cult of the Lamb, including its release date, platforms, gameplay features, and more.

Cult of the Lamb – Release Date, Platforms, and Trailer

Cult of the Lamb is a roguelike action-adventure scheduled for release on 11th August 2022 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.

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The game is available for Pre-Purchase, and a demo is available to download via Steam. In the meantime, interested players can watch the official game trailer for Cult of the Lamb, which debuted during the Devolver Digital Summer Showcase in June 2022.

Cult of the Lamb – Gameplay, And Features

Cult of the Lamb is premised around a lamb rescued by a mysterious figure from being sacrificed. As you are indebted to them for saving your life, they take possession of your fragile body and, in exchange, gift you with unique supernatural abilities and task with starting a cult.

Starting your cult from the ground up will require work, exploring new locations, and hordes of followers who will gladly proclaim your “gospel.” Some of the notable gameplay features players can expect during their playthrough of Cult of the Lamb includes the following:

Build your Flock: Gather or harvest materials needed to build new structures and furnishings which can be used during rituals and ceremonies in servitude to the gods and proclaim your gospel with inspirational words to instill the faith of your followers.

Destroy the non-believers: Those who deny or reject your word can be eliminated by fighting waves of enemies when exploring the expansive environments. Acquire their power and increase your cult’s preeminence by defeating rival cult leaders.

Spread your word: Teach your followers the cult’s ways and embark on missions while unraveling the mysteries of your world. In becoming the most powerful and influential cult leader, you must purify the lands from non-believers, expand your following and practice the teachings to assert dominance.

Cult of the Lamb – PC System Requirements

Becoming the most influential cult leader will require plenty of time and patience, but luckily for players, this game won’t demand high-performing PC specifications to run the game. Below, we’ve outlined the recommended and minimum system requirements to run Cult of the Lamb on PC:

Recommended PC Requirements

• YOU: Windows 10 (64-bit)
• processor: Intel Core i5-3470 or equivalent
• Memory: 8GB RAM
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 1050 or AMD Radeon R9 380
• Storage: 4 GB available space

Minimum PC Requirements

• YOU: Windows 7 or later (64-bit)
• processor: Intel Core i3-3240 or AMD FX-4300
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 560 Ti or AMD Radeon HD 7750
• Storage: 4 GB available space

For more related game content, check out our section dedicated to video game news, guides, features, leaksand more.

Featured image courtesy of Massive Monster / Return Digital.

What just happened? ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI revealed more details about their upcoming high-end X670 and X670E motherboards. Some of the most notable features include PCIe 5.0 and USB4 support, extreme power delivery designs, and wider M.2-25110 slots. However, the companies didn’t mention anything about their B650 motherboards, suggesting that these might not launch at the same time as AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors next month.

At AMD’s latest Meet the Experts webinar, board partners showed off some of the features and designs of their upcoming X670 and X670E motherboards. As a reminder, AMD’s AM5 platform will support CPUs with a TDP of up to 170W, 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes (x16 for graphics cards, x8 general purpose lanes used for storage and USB4/Thunderbolt 4 controllers, x4 to connect to the chipset), up to four DisplayPort 2 or HDMI 2.1 outputs, and dual-channel DDR5 memory.

ASRock only revealed one new model, the X670E PG Lightning, but also talked about some of the new features coming to their X670E motherboards, including USB4 ports with 27W fast charging, eight-layer PCBs, and an actively-cooled M.2 heatsink to keep PCIe 5.0 SSDs from overheating.

Asus showed off two of its upcoming motherboards, including the flagship ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme and the high-end ROG Crosshair X670E Hero. They will feature impressive VRM solutions with 110A power stages (20+2-phase design for the Extreme, 18+2-phase for the Hero), five M.2 slots each (with some being on separate add-in cards), and high-end audio solutions based on the ALC4082 codec.

On the rear panel, the Extreme has nine USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps), two USB4 capable of 40Gbps, 10GbE and 2.5GbE jacks, audio ports, and Wi-Fi 6E antenna connectors. The Hero trades the 10GbE jack for an HDMI port.

Meanwhile, Biostar’s X670E Valkyrie will have a 22-phase VRM design with 105A power stages, two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, and four M.2 slots (with two supporting PCIe 5.0).

Gigabyte showcased four motherboards, including the X670E Aorus Xtreme, X670E Aorus Master, X670 Aorus Pro AX, and X670 Aorus Elite AX. All models will come with at least one wider M.2-25110 slot and a THB_U4 Thunderbolt header. It’s worth noting that the X670E boards will each have one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics cards, while the X670 variants will use PCIe 4.0 instead.

MSI talked about four motherboards: the flagship MEG X670E Godlike, MEG X670E Ace, MPG X670E Carbon Wi-Fi, and Pro X670-P Wi-Fi. The Godlike will have the best VRM solution out of the bunch, with a 24+2+1-phase design and 105A power stages for the Vcore. Other notable features include MSI’s new screwless M.2 heatsink and a PCIe adapter card that supports two M.2-25110 SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface.

These motherboards will likely release next month together with AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series processors. The cheaper B650-based boards might arrive at a later time, considering the companies haven’t announced anything about them so far.

A lawsuit against Activision Blizzard was dismissed last month because, according to a judge in the Southern California District Court where the complaint was brought, the plaintiffs didn’t play enough Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare to make an informed case against the maligned publisher. For once in Activision Blizzard’s many contentious legal battles, things ended smoothly.

According to a report by the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Activision Blizzard was sued in November 2021 by Brooks Entertainment, Inc., a California-based company specializing in film and TV production and other forms of entertainment. However, Kotaku couldn’t find an official website for the company. Brooks Entertainment and its CEO, Shon Brooks, who describes himself as an inventor, claim they hold the trademarks for the financial mobile games Save One Bank and Stock Pickers. It should be noted that Kotaku couldn’t verify the existence of these games, either. Regardlessall three of these entities, alongside Activision Blizzard and 2016’s Infinite Warfarewere at the center of the lawsuit.

In November 2021, Brooks Entertainment alleged Activision ripped off intellectual property from both Save One Bank and stock pickeras well as the identity of its owner, in Infinite Warfare. To be more specific, the complaint asserted the “main character” for the 2016 first-person shooter, Sean Brooks, was based on the company’s CEO and that all three games had “scripted battle scenes that take place in a high fashion couture shopping center mall.” There were other similarities, too, but these claims were the crux of the complaint.

But if you’ve played just an hour or so of Infinite Warfare, you’d know this is all wrong. For one, the main character isn’t Corporal Sean Brooks at all but rather his squadmate Commander Nick Reyes, a space marine who becomes the captain of the game’s primary militia. Moreover, while there is a scripted battle scene in a shopping mall, it takes place in far future Geneva, one of many in-game locations, and Sean Brooks ain’t in it. You play as Reyes the entire time.

In January 2022, Activision’s counsel wrote to Brooks Entertainment’s counsel that the complaint “contain[ed] serious factual misrepresentations and errors, and that the claims set forth therein are both factually and legally frivolous.” If the company didn’t withdraw the lawsuit, Activision would file Rule 11 sanctions, requiring the plaintiff penalties to pay a fine for submitting dubious or improper arguments without substantial — or, for that matter, accurate — evidentiary support. And that’s exactly what happened in March 2022, when Activision filed its motions for sanctions against Brooks Entertainment, saying the plaintiffs failed to play Infinite Warfare and provided inaccurate filings.

The Southern California District Court accepted Activision’s motions on July 12, dismissed Brook Entertainment’s lawsuit with prejudice (meaning the claim cannot be refiled in that court), and ordered the plaintiff’s counsel to compensate the troubled publisher for the money and time it wasted. In its conclusion, the court said the plaintiff failed to conduct a thorough and reasonable inquiry into the relevant facts about the game before filing the suit.

“Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is a first-person shooter game, not first- and third-person as alleged, and Sean Brooks does not conduct a scripted battle scene in a high fashion couture shopping mall,” the court said in its ruling in favor of Activision. “Plaintiff’s counsel could have easily verified these facts prior to filing the factually baseless Complaint, just as the Court easily verified them within the first hour and a half of playing the game.”

Kotaku reached out to Activision Blizzard for comment.

Richard Hoeg, a lawyer who specializes in digital and video game law, told Kotaku that unprotectable concepts like the names of people used in fictional entertainment are pretty difficult to copyright and claim infringement upon.

“It’s hard to say why the suit was brought up,” Hoeg said. “Certainly if a suit gets kicked out *with sanctions* it wasn’t a very good one in the first place. It might be simply hubris or it may have been counsel encouraging a suit against a well-resourced party. The suit itself says [Brooks Entertainment] pitched a game to Activision between 2010 [and] 2015. That all said, the infringement lawsuit is awful, alleging infringement on such unprotectable concepts as: ‘Shon Brooks navigates through both exotic and action-packed locations and Sean Brooks navigates through both exotic and action-packed locations.’”

Hoeg went on to say it’s hard getting “actual sanctions imposed on you” because that would be a level of bad lawsuit filing well above just a simple dismissal.

“The court basically finds the whole argument crazy,” Hoeg concluded. “Brooks Entertainment even included Rockstar Games for no reason (which didn’t help their cause with the judge). So, the sanctions here are Brooks Entertainment [has] to pay for Activision’s legal fees and costs.”

While things may have ended well for Activision this time, the disparaged publisher is still causing legal headaches. The company was just blasted by Devil devs for union-busting. Again. Ugh.

According to the latest rumours, Nvidia may beat AMD to the punch by releasing the next-gen RTX 40-series GPUs first. That’s right, plural GPUs, because there might be more than one graphics card model in store this year after all.

AMD is also getting ready to launch the new RDNA 3 graphics cards, but it seems that, much like with Nvidia, we may not see the whole lineup in 2023.

It’s no secret that the GPU arena is slowly heating up, and today’s rumors once again gives Nvidia an edge over AMD, although both Team Green and Team Red are readying up some exciting new releases for this fall. In his latest video of him, Moore’s Law is Dead talked about what we can expect from both of the key players in the graphics card market. As always, Moore’s Law is Dead refers to insider industry sources as he reports on what’s going on behind the scenes.

Let’s start with Nvidia. Previous reports told us that Nvidia may only be ready to launch a single graphics card this year, the high-end (and presumably expensive) RTX 4090. While this would be rough for the customers, it makes sense seeing as GPU prices are dropping rapidly and retailers have a lot of graphics cards lying around that still need to sell eventually. However, Moore’s Law is Dead claims that both of those problems have now been addressed by Nvidia.

In line with what the rumor mill has been buzzing about, Moore’s Law is Dead also speculates that Nvidia’s next-gen GPUs may be launching in October. Nvidia has allegedly already started sending out however details this week, mentioning an October launch without committing to a final date. The YouTuber says that there might be more than one RTX 40-series model launching at the same time, so we may not have to wait until 2023 to see more of the lineup.

One source claims that Nvidia has done some “big things” to address the current oversupply problem that Nvidia’s add-in board (AIB) partners are experiencing. Both AMD and Nvidia are also allegedly trying to convince their board partners to buy up the next-gen graphics cards early instead of waiting for the current generation to sell off.

The YouTuber also talked about the rumored performance of Nvidia’s next-gen cards, and it all sounds quite promising — especially because it lines up with previous leaks, giving it more credibility. Nvidia is reportedly zoning in on delivering the best performance possible from the three top GPUs in the “Ada Lovelace” lineup: The RTX 4090, RTX 4080, and RTX 4070. The latter was previously compared to the current-gen flagship RTX 3090 Ti in performance, and now, Moore’s Law is Dead echoes that prediction. If this proves to be true, the RTX 4070 is probably going to be one of the best graphics cards in terms of performance per dollar.

I’m not a chatterbox, but I have to make some updates. I hope you don’t mind.
to possible RTX 4080,
PG136/139-SKU360
AD103-300-A1
9728FP32
256bit 16G 21Gbps GDDR6X
total power ~420W
TSE ~15000
Now I have completed the latest update for 4090, 4080 and 4070.

— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) August 5, 2022

We also have a bit of news about the RTX 4080, this time coming from Twitter leaker Kopite7kimi. The tipster predicted the specifications of the card, which is supposed to use a cut-down AD103-300 GPU, with the full version likely being put into the RTX 4080 Ti. Unfortunately, it seems that the specs might be worse than we initially thought, but the performance still sounds fantastic.

The rumored RTX 4080 is supposed to come with 9,728 cores as opposed to the 10,240 cores that previous leaks suggested we might be getting. Kopite7kimi also expects the GPU to come with 48MB of L2 cache and 16GB of GDDR6X memory as well as 21Gbps speeds and a 256-bit memory bus. Perhaps the juiciest piece of information is that Kopite7kimi predicts a TimeSpy benchmark score of around 15,000 for this GPU, which would make it up to 35% faster than the RTX 3090 Ti.

Moving on to AMD, it seems that while Team Red might beat Intel to launch the next-gen processors, it won’t make it in time to also beat Nvidia. Moore’s Law is Dead expects that AMD will drop RDNA 3 graphics cards in November at the earliest. In addition, it seems that AMD is also adopting a staggered release approach much the same way Nvidia seems to be doing. While we will get the high-end RDNA 3 graphics cards this year, such as the Radeon RX 7900 XT, we may not see the mid- to entry-level offerings until 2023.

These reports certainly bode well for Nvidia, but even if AMD will arrive at the party a little bit late, we will certainly see some competition between the two giants — which can only mean good things for those who want to buy a new GPU.

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