The podcasts from Digital Foundry are always very entertaining if you like hardware and gaming performance. The technology experts are responsible for analyzing and comparing the main consoles and titles that come out on the market, which is why now it’s the turn of a poorly kept secret like PS5 Pro.
Playstation app is a free application specially designed for PS4 and PS5.
Although Sony has not announced it yet, it is known that multiple studios are already working with “her” at the specification level. Thanks to these leaks, Digital Foundry has pointed out that the new ray tracing features could be up to 4 times more powerful than those seen in PS5.
Thanks to the RDNA 4 architecture, as well as other previously mentioned features, ray tracing would experience a significant leap in all areas, with performance being one of the main ones.
PlayStation 5 Pro still has no announced release date. If it is to be released in 2024, Sony should announce it in a matter of weeks (otherwise, it will be pushed to 2025).
Sony has decided to release a collector’s edition of the PlayStation 5 controller, which is the most beautiful controller we’ve ever seen.
If there’s one thing we never expected, it’s for Sony to put eggs in Astro Bot’s basket. But here we are. They have announced a full Astro Bot game, which will be released on September 6th, and the first impressions of it are excellent. And it’s no wonder, because all of Team Asobi’s games and Astro Bot games so far have been excellent. But it seems that Sony has also decided to push the idea of turning this cute character into their mascot.
Sony Interactive Entertainment has just announced a limited edition of the Dual Sense, the PlayStation 5 controller, featuring Astro Bot. With the same colors as the character, including a typical blue accent on the buttons, they have included eyes imitating Astro Bot’s on the touchpad. A lovely detail that gives it a lot of personality and shows the care they have put into it.
This controller is now available for pre-order and will be officially released on August 9th. Its official price is €79.99 and can be purchased on the official Sony website, as well as other affiliated stores. It is the perfect accessory for any PlayStation lover. Or for anyone eagerly awaiting that near, yet so far, September 6th.
According to a research document, Apple and its Apple Intelligence chose Nvidia over other options when selecting the equipment to train Tim Cook’s AI. And that means a lot.
It seems that Apple no longer wanted to support Nvidia in the market by giving the task of training its AI, so it chose Nvidia’s long-time competitor and partner: Sundar Pichai and his company.
However, in its document, Apple shares that its Apple Foundation Model (AFM), with 2.73 billion parameters, is based on clusters in the cloud of tensor processing units (TPU) v4 and v5p that are usually provided by Google, from the Alphabet Inc. matrix.
Apple relied on chips designed by Google rather than industry leader Nvidia to build two key components of its artificial intelligence software infrastructure for its forthcoming suite of AI tools and features, an Apple research paper showed https://t.co/Q6PcrWufQApic.twitter.com/12pSDj6Z4e
Apple’s AI is based on the use of TPU instead of GPU, as is customary
The Apple research paper, published today, covers its training infrastructure and other details for the AI models that will power the features announced at WWDC earlier this year. Apple announced both on-device AI processing and cloud processing, and at the heart of these AI features lies the Apple Foundation Model, nicknamed AFM.
For AFM on server, or the model that will power the AI functions in the cloud called Apple Cloud Compute, Apple shared that it trains a 6.3 trillion token AI model “from scratch” on “8,192 TPUv4 chips”. Google’s TPUv4 chips are available in pods formed by 4,096 chips each.
Apple added that AFM models (both on-device and in the cloud) are trained on TPUv4 chips and TPU clusters in the v5p cloud. This v5p is part of Google’s AI “supercomputer” in the cloud, and was announced last December.
Each v5p pod is made up of 8,960 chips each and, according to Google, it offers twice the floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) and triple the memory than TPU v4 to train models almost three times faster.
For on-device AI model for functions like writing and image selection, Apple uses a 6.4 billion parameter model “trained from scratch with the same recipe as AFM-server.”
Apple also chose to rely on the old TPU v4 chips for the AFM server model. As mentioned earlier, it used 8,092 v4 TPU chips, but for the AFM model on the device, the company chose to rely on the newer chips. According to Apple, this model was trained with 2,048 v5p TPU chips.
If you are reading this, it means you are eagerly awaiting the Honkai: Star Rail patch 2.4 like a breath of fresh air. And we don’t blame you. Returning to Luofu in Xianzhou is something many of us have been waiting for, and to be honest, these last few hours can feel like an eternity. That’s why, even though the game will soon go into maintenance, we don’t want you to despair. That’s why we’re going to explain when you will no longer be able to play, when you can start playing again, and what new features the expansion includes. Because we don’t want you to miss a single minute of enjoyment.
What time will the Honkai: Star Rail maintenance occur?
Naturally, it will depend entirely on your time zone. Here we are going to include the most common ones and the ones that are easier to extrapolate to any other possible time zone. All of them are either Tuesday, July 30th, in the afternoon/evening or Wednesday, July 31st, in the morning and will last approximately 5 hours.
July 30th at 3 p.m PDT for the East Coast of North America
July 30th at 6 p.m EDT for the west coast of North America
July 30th at 11 p.m BST for the United Kingdom
July 31st at 12 a.m CEST for Europe/Madrid
July 31st at 7 a.m. JST for Japan/Tokyo
July 31 at 8 a.m. AET for Australia/Sydney
What time does version 2.4 of Honkai: Star Rail start?
As we have already mentioned, the maintenance will last approximately 5 hours. In any case, remember that these hours are only tentative and could change. However, it is expected that version 2.4 of Honkai: Star Rail will be released around this time in each of these territories.
July 30th at 8 p.m PDT for the East Coast of North America
July 30th at 11 p.m EDT for the west coast of North America
July 30th at 4 a.m BST for the United Kingdom
July 31st at 5 a.m CEST for Europe/Madrid
July 31st at 12 a.m. JST for Japan/Tokyo
July 31 at 1 p.m. AET for Australia/Sydney
What’s new in version 2.4 of Honkai Star Rail?
To begin with, let’s return to Luofu of Xianzhou. Two new characters, Yunli and Jiaoqui, symbolize physical destruction and the nihilism of fire, respectively. There are numerous reasons to be thrilled about this recent game update.
It has been announced Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage will release an anime adaptation
It has recently been announced that Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage has big news on the horizon. Although we were skeptical—you never know when a big announcement means an update, or something that really represents a radical change—we admit that we were still intrigued. Fortunately, this time, it was the latter. The announcement turned out to be something that no one in the community remotely expected.
The great news is that Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage is going to have an anime adaptation. Specifically, a movie. Titled Project Sekai Movie: Kowareta Sekai to Utaenai Miku, a 30-second trailer has been released that gives us a lot of information about those involved in its production. We have high hopes about the quality.
The animation studio in charge is Studio P.A. Works, which is known for Skip and Loafer and Uma Musume Pretty Derby. Hiroyuki Hata is the director, Yoko Yonaiyama the screenwriter, and Yuki Akiyama the animation director and character designer. Although there is still more information to be revealed about the project, an exact date has been given: September 27, which coincides with the fourth anniversary of the game’s release.
If all of this sounds good to you, we’re afraid we also have some bad news. In principle, the movie does not have an official release date outside of Japan. While it is likely to be released at a later date, perhaps even on September 27th itself, there are currently no official plans for its release outside of Japan.
On the other hand, Project Sekai Movie: Kowareta Sekai to Utaenai Miku will be released on January 17, 2025, in theaters throughout Japan. We don’t know if it will be released outside of its home country, but given the success of this mobile rhythm game, it would be strange if it didn’t. That’s why we don’t lose hope of eventually being able to see the movie.
Google has made it clear that it wants its artificial intelligence assistant Gemini to be a part of your life as much as possible. Since AI has become the battleground for the Big Tech companies, companies like Google have to justify the investment in AI in any way.
And that’s what they’re doing at Google, who want us to use Gemini in every aspect of our lives. An unfinished code recently discovered by Android Authority shows how the upcoming Gemini extensions will serve that purpose.
These new extensions integrate Gemini with various Google services, and there are at least six new extensions on the horizon. This is all we know so far.
Gemini getting loads of new Google extensions, including Home, Phone, more (APK teardown) https://t.co/1fRs7uiF75
These are the extensions from Google Gemini that we will see soon
Gemini extensions are similar to those used by Chrome and other web browsers, as they are designed to enhance and streamline tasks while using the platform. Gemini already offers extensions that link half a dozen third-party services, such as Google Flights, Hotels, Maps, Workspace, YouTube, and YouTube Music.
These integrations allow Gemini to access real-time personal data and incorporate it into user requests. This can mean getting information about an upcoming trip from Google Flights or finding out how far a store is from a friend’s house.
The newly planned extensions expand the range of utilities available through Gemini. Among the most notable unannounced extensions is Google Home.
Gemini essentially replaces Google Assistant by giving AI direct control over smart home devices without having to ask Google Assistant first. That’s a subtle but important shortening of the time between a request to turn on the lights and the switch responding.
It is not clear how far the extension goes, according to the code, but it is a definitive step for Gemini to become the default voice assistant above Google Assistant.
The same happens with the extension of the Phone app that is seen in the code. Once again, the intermediary role of Google Assistant is eliminated. Gemini would be able to directly manage phone call commands.
Smartphones will also have access to the new Utilities extension, which will allow Gemini to adjust phone settings and mobile apps. For example, instead of using specific and sometimes limited commands from Google Assistant, a much more informal language can be used for Gemini to take photos, adjust volume, and open applications.
Meta has announced that it has started distributing AI Studio in the US. This is a tool that allows users to create versions of themselves adapted to AI, or customized AI characters of any kind.
There are two ways to interact with AI Studio: you can go to ai.meta.com/ai-studio or use the Instagram app on your phone. In Instagram, all you have to do is open the messages, start a new message, and then tap on ‘Create an AI chat.’
Next, you will be guided through a character creation wizard that will allow you to set the name, personality, tone, avatar, and slogan of your AI character. Meta has created an AI Studio Manual of 18 pages, a PDF document with instructions to make the most of AI Studio.
Meta has wanted to make AI something useful with this tool for its applications
The character you create is more than just an AI-modified avatar: it is a real AI-driven character with specific knowledge and personality. You can even set topics you don’t want your robot to talk about or accounts you don’t want it to interact with.
And yes, the responses from the AI characters are labeled as such, so you can’t make an AI replace you and interact with people pretending to be you.
To showcase what this tool can do, Meta has listed some characters created by celebrities and professionals such as chef Marc Murphy or photographer and videographer Angel Barclay.
Instagram creators can now build AI extensions of themselves to answer common DM questions and Story replies.
It’s part of Meta’s AI Studio launch (US only for now).
For now, it is only available in the United States
This means that users from, for example, Europe, will not be able to create their own characters, but it also means that they won’t even be able to see AI characters created by others.
The European Union, in particular, has a specific set of rules regarding AI, and companies like Meta and Apple are taking things very slowly when it comes to everything related to AI in Europe.
The latest beta version of iOS 18.1 for developers brings a highly anticipated feature. With the arrival of Apple Intelligence, we now have the ability to record phone calls and, if desired, transcribe them in a matter of seconds.
The process to activate recording is very simple: after starting a call, simply press the recording button located in the upper left corner of the screen. Once this is done, all call participants will receive an audio notification informing them that the conversation is being recorded. There is no confirmation dialogue; if any participant prefers not to be recorded, the only option they have is to hang up.
Once the call is in progress and recording is activated, the audio is automatically saved in the Notes app. From there, we can access the recording whenever we want. Just like with the rest of the recordings we can make from the Notes app, we can listen to the call again, but we can also request a complete transcription of the conversation through Apple Intelligence.
Once we have the text, we can process it in different ways, as Apple’s AI allows us to request a summary of the conversation, either by simplifying the text to keep the important information or through a bullet point list of the main ideas of the call.
On the other hand, if we decide to transfer the recording to the Voice Notes application, we can listen to its content, improve the audio quality, and at the same time, automatically reduce pauses and non-conversational fragments.
Currently, Apple Intelligence is only available in the beta versions of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, exclusively for developers. However, this fall, after the launch of the new operating system, since Apple Intelligence will not arrive with iOS 18, this function will be available to the general public.
A highly anticipated feature, as we were saying. There are several occasions where having a recording of a call, to be able to take notes later or review the conversation, is really interesting. Now, with iOS 18.1, it is possible and as easy as pressing a button, thanks to Apple Intelligence.
On August 16th, Alien: Romulus will be released in theaters worldwide, the new approach to the saga by Fede Álvarez that promises to take us back to the origins with a completely terrifying story. That means if you have never seen the Alien saga, you have a golden opportunity to do so. But which movies should you watch exactly?
Over the years, both Ridley Scott and his followers have twisted the plot of Alien in all sorts of different ways, and it’s normal to feel somewhat overwhelmed trying to catch up with the saga. But we’ll explain which movies you absolutely have to watch to understand Alien: Romulus without going crazy.
An expanding universe
Although not everything has been revealed about the timeline in which Alien: Romulus takes place, it is true that it has been said that the film will be a kind of interquel between the original movie Alien (1979) and its James Cameron sequel, Aliens (1986). This means that it is essential to watch the first part to understand it, and it is not a bad idea to watch the second part to understand where it is heading.
However, it is also true that Fede Álvarez is trying to present this film as something completely standalone. And, given that it is set 57 years after the original film, it may not be necessary at all to watch the original. However, it is evident that to immerse oneself in the universe created by Ridley Scott is practically essential.
Either way, it doesn’t hurt to marathon, even for the movies that came afterward, such as the underrated Prometheus (2012) and Covenant (2017). Still, Fede Álvarez’s film may serve to open the door to a universe that has been expanding since the seventies.
While we focus on movies, animated series are giving a lesson on how superhero stories should be told. This year we have seen X-Men 97′, the return of the classic 90s animated series of Marvel’s superhero group. And now we are facing a gem that seems to be even better: Batman: Caped Crusader.
Recapturing the spirit, once again, of the 90s Batman series, Caped Crusader is a new work by Bruce Timm that explores how, in Gotham City, the corrupt outnumber the good, criminals roam freely, and law-abiding citizens live in a constant state of fear. Forged in the fire of tragedy, wealthy Bruce Wayne becomes something more and less than human: Batman.
“The darkest Batman in years”
With just a little time left until its release, as Batman: Caped Crusader will premiere on August 1st on Amazon Prime Video, the series has already been seen by critics… and the truth is that it couldn’t look better. Literally. Batman: Caped Crusader has received a 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, being one of the very few fictions nowadays that achieve perfection. This is what some critics say about it:
“He plunges into the shadows to offer a more complete vision of Gotham and the people who live there (…) the Batman of this series remains complex, oscillating between a compassionate desire for justice and an obsessive need for revenge”, Ross McIndoe, Slant.
“Resurrects the look and essence of Batman: The Animated Series, albeit on a smaller scale and with its own interpretations of familiar characters. We won’t find as many stories about the origins of supervillains, but instead there are some interesting stories and the occasional unexpected guest“, Erik Adams, IGN
