Technology

Intel has now introduced its latest NUC model: the NUC 12 Extreme Kit. Hailed as its most powerful NUC yet, the new offering packs plenty of punch into an extremely compact case measuring just 4.720-inches by 14 inches. The kit itself is a DIY PC but comes equipped with the newest 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor carrying eight Performance-cores and eight Efficient-cores, 24 threads and up to a 5.1GHz turbo boost max frequency, which you can pair with a PCIe Gen5 x16 graphics card for top-end gaming performance if you’re not satisfied with its built-in Intel UHD Graphics 770. Of course, the slot is also backwards compatible with PCIe GEn4 and Gen4 GPUs if you’re hoping to reuse one of your current cards before upgrading further down the line. To flesh out the rest of your custom build, the...

CODA has become the first film from a streaming service to win best picture at the Oscars, in a sign of the growing dominance of streamers like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon at Hollywood’s most prestigious awards ceremony. The Apple TV Plus film follows the struggles of Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member in a deaf family, as she tries to explore a life away from her family. Apple acquired the rides to CODA for $25 million in a bidding war after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year. As well as winning best picture, CODA’s Troy Kotsur won best supporting actor for his role in the film, and its writer-director Siân Heder also took away the award for best adapted screenplay. Kotsur is the first Deaf actor to have won an acting Oscar since 1986, when his CODA co-sta...

NVIDIA‘s new Instant NeRF artificial intelligence technology can now turn 2D images into 3D scenes. In a new blog post detailing its latest research, the tech company explained that its NeRF AI is capable of taking numerous 2D images and generating a 3D scene with them in a significantly short time. The system uses neural networks that are capable of observing various images and then filling in the blanks in order to reconstruct a full scene, predicting both the light’s color and direction of radiation. It’ll even work around objects in the way, such as pillars. The original NeRF took much longer to train, taking hours before rendering a scene over a few minutes, but now Instant NeRF has revolutionized its speed. “Instant NeRF, however, cuts rendering time by several orders of magnitude,” ...

Apple will reportedly release its latest iPad Pro featuring the rumored M2 chip later this Fall. Apple trendspotter Mark Gurman recently reported for Bloomberg that fans can expect Apple to release a major update for its upcoming generation of iPad Pros. The 2022 release is slated to also support MagSafe charging on top of a significant revamp from its 2018 model. The last major update saw a newly designed Apple iPad Pro which sees the tablet come with harder corners, an edge-to-edge display as well as a USB-C connector. In May 2021, it launched the most recent generation which was the M1-equipped iPad Pro. The rumored release date for the iPad this year is between September and November, on track with Apple’s timeline of usually waiting one year and four months or six months to prep for i...

Elon Musk has let it be known that he is seriously considering a new social media platform. Already a large influencer on Twitter — where his tweets impact stock prices and crypto trading — Musk has long shared his displeasure on how the feels Twitter is operated in terms of free speech violations. While many point out that he could just try and buy Twitter, Musk went ahead and put out a poll asking the users’ thoughts on whether or not the platform adheres to the principles of free speech, followed by, “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” There’s no word yet on the outcome of the vote, but as the past has shown, Musk follows through on his ambitions. Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this ...

Meta appears to continue to expand the offerings of its visually-oriented platform, Instagram. A most recent discovery from developer Alessandro Paluzzi, who is known for reverse engineering applications to uncover evidences of new features, has found that Instagram might just be working on adding voice notes to its Story responses. Over the weekend, Paluzzi shared a screenshot of the app to his Twitter account which showcased a new interface feature. In the same message box that users can type to send a response to other people’s stories, there is now a microphone icon that signifies that the app might be making moves towards improving its engagement through voice messaging. The new update appears to come just months after Instagram said it was working on a new grid edit feature. In anoth...

Crunchyroll will no longer offer free ad-supported streaming for newly-released episodes, the anime streaming service announced in an update on its site (via Gizmodo). Viewers who want to watch episodes of new or continuing series will have to upgrade to one of Crunchyroll’s premium plans, which start at $7.99 / month. Users didn’t need a subscription to watch simulcast titles before the change, but there was a tradeoff — Crunchyroll would delay the release of new episodes by one week for free users, while subscribers could watch them one hour after their premiere in Japan. This was something I (and a lot of other people using Crunchyroll for free) happily dealt with as long as I actually got to watch the new episodes. The new policy goes into effect this spring But now, Crunchyroll is bar...