Latest Tech News

Careful out there, Genshin Impact players – the China server is awash with reports of hackers permanently "bricking" some players' progress.

Whilst not formally acknowledged by developer miYoHo just yet, fans have taken to social media to report issues with some malicious players using third-party software to delete important items like elemental totems, which essentially prevents them from making any progress, even if they delete their install and re-download a fresh version.

Although the issue seems to be confined to Chinese Genshin Impact players for now, all players across the world are being warned not to join "any stranger's co-op room until the bug is fixed". 

Take the examples in the Reddit thread below, for instance. According to one comparison, where one unaffected player can see a cannon and an electro tree, there's nothing but a large space in-game for the one who thinks they've been hacked. In another example, a geo pillar has been completely deleted from the game for one unlucky player.

PSA: There is a major bug in Genshin Impact CN server that can affect your account's exploration progress. from r/Genshin_Impact

"The new exploit has to do with deleting someone's world exploration points (so things like seele, chests, culi like hydroculus and the likes)," explains Redditor AntonioS3. 

"There is supposed to be an elemental totem there in the first seconds of the video, but it's not there because the guy actually deleted it from his world. It is actually an account-wide bug and not just the client, because later in the video, he logs in with his cloud account to check, and they are still not there, meaning that his world/account has been bricked and unable to get 100%."

The Redditor finishes by warning all players - whether playing on the Chinese server or not - to avoid joining the co-op lobbies of strangers "until the bug is fixed".

Genshin Impact is one of the hottest games on the planet right now, but it's not the only Chinese game worthy of your time according to our feature, Why aren't we all playing Chinese games?

"The importance of its success as a confidence boost to Chinese devs cannot be overstated," the feature states. "And while not reaching the lofty heights of Genshin Impact, Naraka: Bladepoint and FIST: Forged In Shadow Torch have both received positive reception abroad – as can be seen in reviews from critics and Steam users alike. 

"There is also a vibrant indie scene that often goes under the radar outside of China, and probably deserves more attention. So clearly, there are success stories for Chinese developers making their own games. But why do so few travel well?"

Here are 5 other great Chinese games for Genshin Impact fans.

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The person who leaked 45 minutes of Starfield has been arrested for handling stolen goods.

As spotted by Kotaku, 29-year-old Darin Harris was arrested and booked on a felony charge by the Shelby County Tennessee Sheriff's Office earlier this week after allegedly trying to sell stolen copies of the game ahead of its September 1 release date.

It took just four days for police to find and arrest Harris after he leaked a 45-minute segment of the game online, although, to be fair, Harris had plastered his social media with numerous videos about his ill-gotten gains, so he shouldn't have been too surprised when the police cars pulled up. 

He's since been charged for handling $2,500-$10,000 worth of stolen property - a felony crime - but also faces a misdemeanor charge for theft of goods up to $1,000 and marijuana possession. He was also allegedly trying to sell multiple stolen copies of the game, too. 

The sci-fi game recently went gold, and you can preload Starfield right now on Xbox Series X|S and PC (though Steam players still need to wait until August 30) if you've pre-ordered the game, or are planning on downloading it from the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

You may have to free up some space beforehand, though – Starfield is going to take up a sizeable 100.19GB on Xbox Series X|S for Standard Edition players, and 117.07GB for those rocking the Premium Edition. PC and Steam users have it worse still, with Bethesda's spacefaring RPG taking up an eye-watering 139.84GB.

Bethesda's head of publishing, Pete Hines, recently suggested that Starfield modders could create their own planets and stories. Speaking during the Bethesda MainStream Special Women in Gaming livestream during Gamescom 2023, Hines discussed the potential of player freedom in Starfield and implied that players could mod the game and create their own planets. 

"I get excited about this game because I love it so much and I love what we've made and what that team made, but there's a lot more coming," Hines said.

"When you start to think about the kind of communities that come around Bethesda Game Studios’ games, and putting a tool like that in the hands of people to go, 'How’d you like to make a planet?'"

Want to go all-in on Starfield hardware for your Xbox before the game launches? Here's where you can buy the Starfield Xbox Wireless Controller, as well as where to buy the Starfield Xbox Wireless Headset.

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Licenses to Microsoft Office 2021 for Windows or Mac Are Back Down to $35 Right Now - CNET

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Shortly after they were leaked online, AMD officially revealed its newest gaming graphics cards – the Radeon RX 7700 XT and the Radeon RX 7800 XT at Gamescom 2023. The gap between the 7600 XT and the 7900 XTX is finally being filled.

Built on the same RDNA 3 architecture as the high-end 7900 XTX, these two mid-rangers boast the ability to “deliver fully immersive 1440p (2560x1440 pixel resolution) gameplay at 60 Plus FPS”. Bold claim. The company goes on in the announcement to state that the 7700 XT and 7800XT sport 12GB and 16GB of “high-speed GDDR6 VRAM, respectively”. Because of this, they are said to have “50 percent [more] memory bandwidth than the competition”. Of course, there are a variety of software features to further boost the performances of these GPUs. 

Today, we're excited to share that we've been working hard on our next generation upscaling technology, FSR 3.🧵(1/3) Read more: https://t.co/fkKesf9GpJ pic.twitter.com/oyxnBVxphZAugust 25, 2023

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Chief among these is the third generation of AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution. This is a type of upscaling tech providing high-resolution imagery while ensuring games maintain a high frame rate. It’s said to offer a massive overall performance boost. Super Resolution 3, as it’s also known, is limited to a few games like Cyberpunk 2077 and the upcoming Black Myth: Wukong. A full list of supporting titles can be found on AMD's website.

Other notable software features include the AMD Radiance Display Engine for higher resolution on DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1-based monitors as well as improved encoders for better “streaming quality”.

Bang for your buck

One of the main aspects AMD is focusing on for the new graphics cards is their value as products. The company claims the two models offer “20 percent more performance-per-dollar on average” when compared to their Nvidia rivals. During the Gamescom presentation, AMD showed a graph comparing the RX 7800 XT 16GB model to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB card at maximum settings. From what we can tell, titles like Cyberpunk 2077 perform 23 percent better on the 7800 XT compared to the RTX 4070.

It did the same thing with the 7700 XT by comparing it to its Team Green counterpart, the GeForce RTX 4060 TI. Like before, AMD’s card is said to perform better than Nvidia’s product on most of the listed PC games. 

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(Image credit: AMD/IGN)

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(Image credit: AMD/IGN)

There are a couple of drawbacks, however. As reported by TheVerge, reference designs indicate the 7800 XT will take “2.5 slots’ worth of width in a desktop” motherboard. The RTX 4070 only takes up two. Also, AMD’s cards have a bit of an appetite. The 7700 XT requires 245W of total board power whereas the 7800 XT needs 263W. Again, looking at their Nvidia rivals, the RTX 4060 TI needs 115W of total board power while the RTX 4070 needs 200W.

We won’t have to wait for very long to get our hands on one of these cards. Launching on September 6, the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT will retail for $449 and $499, respectively. Stay tuned for our reviews. By the looks of things, we will have to update our list of the best 1440p graphics cards for 2023. 

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On the heels of the reveal of a different YouTube Music project, Google has announced that it's finally bringing live lyrics to the service.

Live lyrics is a feature that Spotify has offered for years, which automatically scrolls lyrics for you as a song progresses to make it easier to understand, as well as to sing along. According to Android Police, Google has been working on this feature for its own competing service and is finally making it available after months of testing.

In order to access live lyrics, first navigate to a song with lyrics attached to it. Then go to the Lyrics tab in the Now Playing screen and you’ll see the feature play out. The text is much larger in the updated version (on the left of the image below) versus the old lyrics screen (on the right of the image below), and the line of lyrics currently being sung is highlighted in a brighter white while the screen scrolls down as the song plays.

(Image credit: 9to5google)

Live lyrics for YouTube Music was added starting with version 6.15 on Android and 6.16 on iOS. However, unlike Spotify’s service that’s available for all users, this tool is still being rolled out to users on a wider basis. 

It's important to keep in mind that the service only works on Android and iOS, only locally, and not every song can use the tool. Meanwhile, Spotify has the feature available anywhere you can access its service, including the Nest Hub and other smart displays as of 2022.

YouTube Music is slowly evolving 

Though live lyrics feature is one not yet perfected, it’s still a useful one that can eventually be made available to all of Google’s platforms, similar to Spotify. It’s a great sign that Google is looking to continuously enhance its service, especially considering how it replaced its long-established Play Music with YouTube Music.

Another project that Google’s been investing in is being able to identify a song by either humming or  “recording a song that’s currently being played” into the voice search tool. The Google support page also states that humming or recording must last at least three seconds “in order for the song to be identified.” Once it’s identified, the website will bring up both relevant and official content from YouTube channels, “user-generated videos,” or Shorts featuring the track.

It’s an experimental feature right now, with only a “small percentage of people across the globe who watch YouTube on Android devices” having access right now, and it’s currently unknown whether you can request to join that small percentage of testers. 

There’s also a new program that will grant music industry professionals more protection against AI tools that train on music, as well as the new Samples tab that has its own algorithm to help discover new artists.

But more of these quality-of-life changes being tested and implemented is ultimately a great thing for this budding platform.

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Have you ever had a song stuck in your head so often you know how it goes but not its name? Well, YouTube may one day offer a solution as the platform is testing out a new search function that will be able to identify a song just from someone humming a tune.

While that sounds too good to be true, it does appear to be part of an ongoing project to introduce Shazam-like tech to YouTube. As seen on a Google support page, the feature would allow people to look up songs either by humming, as we just mentioned, or “recording a song that’s currently being played” into the voice search tool. 

The company states the humming or recording must last at least three seconds “in order for the song to be identified.” Once found, the website will bring up relevant, official content from YouTube channels, “user-generated videos”, or Shorts featuring the track.

Because it’s experimental, the platform is rolling out the test to only a “small percentage of people across the globe who watch YouTube on Android devices.” It’s unknown if it’s possible to request to join the program. We reached out to Google for more information. This story will be updated at a later time.

Old tech made new

The technology behind analyzing humming to find specific music tracks is not new. Both Google Search and Google Assistant for mobile rolled out this functionality back in 2020. YouTube’s version could well be using the same tech although it sounds like it has been vastly improved. To search for tracks on Google Assistant, for example, requires you to hum for at least 10 seconds straight versus three on YouTube.

Considering that Google is expanding its music recognition software, we can’t help but wonder if Apple will follow suit with Shazam. For the 20 some-odd years it’s been around, Shazam has relied on analyzing recordings to look up songs, never expanding its tech to include humming or singing even when it was bought out. 

Apple didn’t budge when smaller, third-party music recognition apps like MusixMatch began implementing this feature. But now that a major rival is jumping into the fray, we might see the long-awaited upgrade. 

Quality-of-life update

Google is also experimenting with another YouTube feature although it’s more of a quality-of-life upgrade than anything super substantial. The tech giant calls it “channel shelf”, and it will bundle together multiple uploads from your Subscription feed. Presumably, everything can be put together into a playlist of sorts. Google doesn’t explain exactly how it works.

It does explain why the company is adding this. One: YouTube wants to “make it easier for users to find” and engage with content. Two: it wants to take some of the pressure off creators who feel the need to upload videos multiple times a day. Like the humming upgrade, this is only available to “a small percentage of viewers to start.”

Listening to music on YouTube isn't the greatest experience. The platform compresses the audio, resulting in a dip in quality. You're better off listening to tracks on a proper streaming service. 

With that in mind, be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best music streaming services for 2023. We recommend Tidal if you want truly lossless audio.

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Continuing its trend of offering comically large TVs for cheap, TCL has launched a new 98-inch model to its Smart S Class line known as the S5. And it’ll go for the low price of $5,000.

Five grand for one of the best TVs, no matter how big it is, may not sound like a steal, but it is if you look at the competition. Samsung’s recently released 98-inch TV costs $8,000, Sony’s X90L costs $10,000, and LG’s G2 OLED costs five times as much as the TCL S5. So what do you get for $5,000? Simply put – visual immersion. The TV provides a 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) image with a variable refresh rate up to 120Hz. This quality is further boosted by a range of image-enhancing features including Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ high dynamic range. 

Everything here will be housed in a “FullView metal bezel-less” frame so all you’ll see is nothing but screen.

(Image credit: TCL)

Notable features

TCL states that inside the TV is the proprietary AiPQ Engine powering the model’s software features. It allows for “vibrant color, sharp clarity, and dramatic depth.” Thanks to this hardware, the S5 supports a Wide Color Gamut which, alongside the High Brightness LED Backlight, results in a “dynamic picture with high color volume”. 

There is more to the TCL S5 than just how pretty it looks. It has an audio system made up of two 15W speakers plus a 20W subwoofer. The speakers will be further enhanced by Dolby Atmos as well as DTS Virtual:X for immersive sound. Although if you want to take your audio quality to the next level, we recommend getting a soundbar.

For entertainment, there are several notable features we should mention. Along with 4K 120Hz support, there is Auto Game Mode for ensuring a smooth frame rate and fast response times while gaming. TCL's set uses Google TV for streaming from the best streaming services. These can be controlled via the Google TV app; however the TCL S5 is compatible with Android phones only.

Availability

You can pre-order the 98-inch TCL S5 right now on TCL’s official website, but only if you live in the United States. It’s unknown if or when the model will launch internationally although we did ask. This story will be updated at a later time. US footballs fans can also snag $200 off NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV with the purchase of a 98-inch S5 through September 19, 2023.

Although $5,000 may be cheap for a TV of this size, we understand that it’s still a big ask. If you’re looking for something more budget friendly, check out TechRadar’s latest roundup of the best TV deals for August 2023.  

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