Welcome to this week’s DC tech news! We’ll look at the hottest news of the technology and gaming world released this week. Starting with:

 

Hardware and software

 

4060 gains new lease of life through third-party ingenuity

 

 

image credit: Nvidia Newsroom

 

After a shaky start, the Nvidia 4060 and the 4060 Ti have been out for some time now, with their latest 16GB Ti model releasing this week. But what is more interesting than the official models themselves is the number of the third-party designs. Outlined brilliantly by PC Gamer, they look at the weird and wonderful world of custom RTX 4060 graphics cards, including a triple fan model and one with a physical x8 PCIe connector.

 

The reason the 4060 has undergone homebrews at the same level as the Nintendo Wii is because Nvidia’s RTX 4060 has lower power operation compared to some of its more powerful cousins, meaning there’s more room for third-party manufacturers to experiment a little more, allowing for some interesting designs and models.

 

Modding has always gone hand in hand with the PC gaming community, from overclocking to completely reinventing old games such as Skyrim with mods, so there’s no reason why that mentality hasn’t already transferred to the hardware side of the PC world, and we’ve certainly got our eyes on what else they can stick onto the 4060 in the months to come.

 

Nvidia releases firmware tool for all 64-bit Windows to fix DisplayPort black screen

 

image credit: Nvidia Newsroom

 

Some users using DisplayPort 1.3 and DP 1.4 have experienced black screen until their OS is able to load, as well as hang whilst booting can occur. Nvidia have released a firmware update tool that can detect if the GPU needs newer firmware to properly run DP1.3 and DP 1.4 and will address compatibility issues. Newer cards featuring Turing architecture and above already feature the updated firmware.

 

Industry

 

FTC withdraws its in-house challenge to Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard

 

Image credit: Unsplash

 

Recent developments from the Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard has meant the FTC has withdrawn its challenge to block the deal going ahead.

 

After what feels like months, Microsoft are ready to sign on the dotted line to purchase Activision-Blizzard – Sony and Microsoft have agreed a deal to have Call of Duty on Sony systems for at least ten years, in case you were worried – and are set to complete the acquisition by the agreed deadline of October 18th. It’s certainly been an uphill battle for Microsoft after being blocked by the FTC in the United States and the CMA in the UK. A federal judge recently denied an injunction request from the FTC that hoped to put an emergency hold on the deal. The FTC still have an option to re-file the challenge. For now, Microsoft remain optimistic that the deal will be completed on schedule without further delays.

 

Artificial Intelligence

 

ChatGPT under fire for decline in response quality

 

Image credit: OpenAI official website

 

 

In recent months, users have noted an alarming decline in ChatGPT’s ability to answer questions fed into it. Both anecdotal evidence and official papers released by academics have noted a significant decline in the bot’s ability to answer questions and distinguish items. In the research paper “How is ChatGPT’s Behavior Changing over Time?” One of its writers Matei Zaharia published their findings on Twitter and noted GPT-4’s success rate of identifying a prime number fell from 97.6% to 2.4% from the months of March to June. After OpenAI championed GPT-4 as its most advanced and capable model, the new findings by the paper could be seen as a little worrying to those who use ChatGPT on a daily basis in both business and personal use.

 

AI experts propose guidelines for the future of artificial intelligence.

 

Image credit: Freepik

 

 

A new voluntary framework has been released by the World Ethical Data Foundation, consisting of eighty four questions in the form of an open letter with hundreds of signatories, to developers considering using AI in their future projects. It’s split into three sections: one for individual developers, one for teams and one for people testing the product. The framework is also designed to prevent potential illegal activity using artificial intelligence such as terrorist activity. How does AI work? The program is fed as much data as is required, and then is trained to identify patterns and configure solutions from the data, using algorithms that need to be followed in a certain order to complete a task. AI has been in the news a lot this week due to the writers’ and subsequently the actors’ strike currently happening in America over concerns about copyright; there are worries that AI could potentially be fed actors’ voices for voice acting roles.

 

Gaming news: what’s new?

 

We are excited for Armored Core VI! Fromsoftware released a new trailer yesterday and we cannot wait to get our mitts on this game.

 

From the studio responsible for Elden Ring that won Game of the Year for 2022, Armored Core VI is a return to the series that Fromsoftware were creating before Dark Souls. It looks and sounds utterly phenomenal, and we are so excited for its release at the end of next month. What we’re even more excited for what builds are inspired by Armored Core, and what both we and our customers can dream up in the coming months! Do you have a dream build you've always wanted to create? Let us know in the comments or get in touch and start building today!