Technology

Intel’s had a hard time competing with AMD lately. AMD’s Ryzen Zen 3 CPUs took the performance crown from Intel in gaming a year ago, and Intel’s response with its 11th Gen Core i9-11900K earlier this year was lackluster, to say the least. While it bumped some game performance, overall, it wasn’t enough to close the gap with AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X in both performance and power consumption. Some reviewers even labeled it “pathetic” and a “waste of sand.” Ouch. Intel’s 12th Gen arrives today and with it the flagship Core i9-12900K. It’s a new era of x86 processors that are designed similar to Apple’s ARM silicon in offering both performance and efficiency cores. This allows Windows to offload background tasks and keep the performance cores for the more demanding workloads. Intel is promising th...

Forza Horizon 5 is an absolutely stunning showcase of the Xbox Series X. Cars look incredible, and I’ve loved taking in the game’s lush and colorful landscapes as I’ve raced through the streets of Mexico blasting classical music. On a console that’s largely lacking in big-name exclusives, it’s one of the rare games that really shows what the latest Xbox is capable of. Turns out it’s also a fantastic portable game. Hear me out. Yes, the graphics are amazing and are a joy to take in on a big screen. But Forza Horizon 5’s accessible gameplay and bevy of customizability options means it translates really well to something the size of a smartphone. I’ve been playing the game via console streaming with my iPhone 12 Mini plugged into a Backbone One controller, and I’ve been surprised at just how ...

Nintendo had a relatively quiet quarter for Switch sales, with 3.83 million units shipped between July and September. That’s a big drop on the same period last year, when the company moved 6.86 million units. Nintendo has now sold 92.87 million Switch consoles to date. Nintendo says “the extended impact of both COVID-19 and the global semiconductor shortage creates a state of continued uncertainty” and is revising its Switch sales forecast for the financial year down by 1.5 million units. The company had previously expected to sell 25.5 million consoles between April 2021 and March 2022, but has now set the figure at 24 million. However, Nintendo isn’t altering its expectations for revenue, and actually expects operating profit to be 4 percent higher than previously predicted. The modified...

Retrospekt is tapping into childhood nostalgia and is appealing to retro tech enthusiasts everywhere with a new Pepsi x Polaroid 600 Instant Film Camera. The vintage Polaroid camera brings fans back to the nostalgic time of the ’80s and ’90s and is designed with the Pepsi blue exterior to celebrate the beverage’s iconic branding from years past. Retrospekt is known to revive vintage analog cameras and combine old and new by sourcing additional internal components from other antique Polaroid cameras before restoring them to be like new. This is not the first time Pepsi has partnered Polaroid. Retorospekt’s Creative Director Michael Kempen said, “In the 1980s, Polaroid produced a limited number of cameras that made use of the then-current Pepsi branding. As the years go by, they’re becoming ...

Continuing to expand into other tech gadgets, Swedish consumer electronics company Teenage Engineering has now crafted its very first computer case. Having been in development since 2014, the new computer-1 takes on Teenage Engineering’s signature design aesthetic to offer a simple yet playful take on the mini-ITX form factor. The case’s powder-coated aluminum panels are clad entirely in orange with minimalistic joints, curves, and bends all complementing its sleek exterior. Just like the company’s other products, the computer-1 comes flat-packed and ready for you to assemble yourself, which will include actually bending some of the components as well. Dimension-wise, the mini-ITX case stands roughly 12 inches tall and a little over 6 inches wide, giving you ample room for anything you’ll ...

The major 2.0 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available to download, which is somewhat surprising because Nintendo previously said it wouldn’t be released until November 5th. That means you’ll be able to dive into all the new features two days earlier than expected. The free 2.0 update was announced last month in a Nintendo Direct presentation. It includes a ton of expanded functionality including new house exterior designs, boat tours to other islands, more item, storage, a “pro” camera mode, the ability to cook food with grown ingredients, and more. Perhaps the most anticipated addition is Brewster’s coffee shop, a notable omission from the base game. In addition to the free update Nintendo announced a $24.99 expansion called Happy Home Paradise, but as of writing it’s no...

Ethereum reached an all-time high of $4,674 USD on Wednesday while Solana soared to a record $247 USD, according to Coingecko. In terms of market cap, the cryptocurrency data aggregator ranks Bitcoin as number one, followed by Ethereum, Binance Coin and Solana. The global cryptocurrency market cap today is $2.87 trillion USD. Over the last seven days, Ethereum’s value has risen by 15.8%, while Solana’s has jumped by 33.3%. Ethereum now has a market cap of $540 billion USD, while Solana’s market cap sits at $72 billion USD. Several popular coins have hit all-time highs in recent weeks, including Bitcoin, which soared past $65,000 USD and memecoin Shiba Inu, which hit $0.00007 USD. Ethereum celebrated the frenzy with a tweet on Wednesday. gm ? — ethereum.org (@ethdotorg) November 3, 2021 Eth...

More and more official papers are being turned into PDF documents, and you may be asked to sign one electronically while you’re away from your computer (here, by the way, is how to sign a PDF document using a Mac or a PC). If you’re using an iPhone, it’s actually not all that difficult; you can create a signature and reuse it by using the iPhone’s built-in Markup tool. Here’s what to do: Open the PDF document in Markup. Tap the plus sign at the bottom right. Tap on the Signature button. If you haven’t created any signatures yet, tap on the label at the top titled “New Signature.” (If you don’t see “New Signature,” tap the plus sign in the upper left corner.) In Markup, tap on the plus and then the Signature button. You can label your saved signature. You’ll be given the option of labeling ...