Topps Blog

Wednesday, 3 August 2022

Diablo Immortal Player Drops $100K, Becomes Too Powerful to Find a Match

Diablo Immortal has been available for several months, and it’s turning out to be quite the cash cow for Activision Blizzard. The free-to-play title has raked in more than $100 million, and it’s probably going to keep printing money. In the early days, gamers calculated it would cost around a hundred thousand dollars to completely level up a character, and now we have a real-life example. One streamer spent that, and he’s “won” the game. His prize: being too overpowered to play with anyone else.

Streamer Jtisallbusiness has posted dozens of Diablo Immortal videos since the game launched earlier this summer. Along the way, he’s put $100,000 into his character, making him what we call a “whale.” If you’ve ever looked at those $99 or $149 item packs in mobile games and wondered why the developers even include something so silly, it’s for people like Jtisallbusiness.

Diablo Immortal is free, and you can play the entire game without dropping any cash — you just have to grind for hours and hours to find powerful gems that will buff your character. Or, you can spend money. Immortal has a system of “Elder Rifts” that are essentially loot boxes wrapped up in a miniature dungeon. You might have to do a lot of rift runs before you’ll find the gems you need to advance, and that costs money.

Early on, gamers estimated it would cost over $100,000 to fully level up a character, and now we have real-world data on that. Jtisallbusiness spent that much, making him a steamroller in the game’s popular PVP Battlegrounds mode. After clobbering almost every opponent he faced, his MMR (match-making rank) has climbed so high that he can’t find anyone to battle anymore. This also interferes with his ability to complete special events, which tie into PVP, reports Kotaku.

According to Jtisallbusiness, he can leave the game searching for a match for two or three days with no luck. The streamer is now talking about asking Blizzard for a refund, but good luck with that. Blizzard has told Jtisallbusiness that the “problem” will be fixed, but there’s no movement so far. It’s not clear what the fix is, though. Will Blizzard just feed lesser players to the whales, knowing their massive financial investment makes them unbeatable? Even in a free-to-play game, that seems unfair.

No one should feel sorry for Jtisallbusiness, who did this whole thing to make content. He’s getting what he wanted because here we are talking about his antics. It’s not just about a streamer with a lot of disposable income — a lot of people are firing up this game expecting it to be fairly balanced, and that’s just not the case. Spending money in Diablo Immortal doesn’t just get you sweet cosmetics. The more you spend, the better you are at the game, which doesn’t seem very fair.

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Webb Telescope Captures Stunning Image of the Cartwheel Galaxy

For years, we’ve been talking about all the amazing things the James Webb Space Telescope could do, and now it’s actually doing them. From its vantage out beyond the moon, Webb is turning its infrared eye toward far-away objects we’ve never been able to see before. It’s also providing images of well-known objects like the Cartwheel Galaxy (above) with an unprecedented level of detail.

The Cartwheel Galaxy is about 500 million light years away in the Sculptor constellation. This galaxy is the subject of intense study because it’s a rarity — a survivor of a massive collision oriented to give us a perfect view. In the distant past, a smaller galaxy collided with this one before flying off into the infinite void. As a result, the Cartwheel Galaxy was left with two rings. There’s an irregular ring around the edge and a tighter spiral in the center.

The Webb telescope was designed to operate in the infrared range so it could peer through clouds of dust and gas, and that’s exactly what it’s doing here. The above image is actually a composite of two images. The blue, orange, and yellow tints come from the primary NIRCam instrument, which operates from 0.6 to 5 microns. The blue and white colors come from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

According to NASA, the central spiral is bright because it’s rich in established star clusters and hot dust. Following the collision about 440 million years ago, the external ring began expanding. As it expanded, it encountered intergalactic gasses that fueled star formation. Thus, the expanding ring is dominated by star formation and supernovas.

Hubble’s version of this image is much less sharp.

The image immediately above is Hubble’s most recent attempt at imaging the Cartwheel Galaxy from 2018. It’s certainly recognizable as the same object, but Webb picked up much more detail. For example, astronomers have noted the smoother distribution of older star populations in the core versus the clumpy nature of younger populations in the expanding ring. Neither of these was discernible in Hubble’s data. The red veins weaving through the galaxy are also much sharper in Webb’s image — you can barely see them with Hubble. NASA says these are like the skeleton of the Cartwheel Galaxy, composed mainly of hydrocarbons and silicate dust (similar to Earthside dust).

Astronomers believe the Cartwheel Galaxy was once much like our own Milky Way, and there are hints that Andromeda may be on a collision course with us (maybe for the second time). By studying the Cartwheel Galaxy, we may be getting a preview of what will happen to our little corner of the cosmos in a billion years or so.

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Tuesday, 2 August 2022

TSMC Chairman: Fabs Would Be ‘Not Operable’ If China Invades

Tensions are running high as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi touched down in Taiwan today. The controversial visit was undertaken despite stark warnings from the Chinese government of “forceful measures” if she went through with it. She is the highest-ranking official to visit the self-ruled island since Newt Gingrich in 1997.

The Chinese government sees it as an unnecessary escalation by the West. That’s despite National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stating on Monday that the US doesn’t support Taiwan’s independence. It’s with this escalation in mind that CNN’s Fareed Zakaria sat down with TSMC chairman Mark Liu for a rare interview. The big question of course was what would happen to TSMC if China invaded? It’s a scenario that’s been envisioned for years, but now, for the first time, seems like a real possibility.

In the interview, Liu was defiant when asked about a theoretical invasion. “Nobody could control TSMC by force,” he stated. He added that if the military tried to take over TSMC’s factories, they’d become “not operable.”

This is due to the inherent sophistication of the manufacturing process. Liu said it depends on real-time connections with global supply chains in the US, Europe, and Japan. These connections are what keep the fab running with materials, chemicals, diagnostic software, and more. China also depends on TSMC as well, which he said is 10 percent of its business. He noted that TSMC only works with China’s consumer market, not its military. CNN said China buys 90 percent of its silicon from other countries.

TSMC 12-inch foundry. Photo by TSMC.

Liu said China’s dependency is “not a bad thing,” indicating he’s confident China wouldn’t invade solely for selfish reasons. Fears over the disruption of the Taiwanese chip supply and the resulting economic damage have been termed a “Silicon Shield” by analysts. It wouldn’t just be a Chinese problem though; US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned about it recently as well. She stated the US would go into a “deep and immediate” recession if US firms were abruptly cut off from TSMC’s supply. Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Intel all depend on TSMC for their most advanced products. It’s one of the primary reasons the CHIPS Act was passed this week. It seeks to bolster US silicon manufacturing in order to reduce our dependence on China and Taiwan.

Also, back in June a Chinese economist who works for a government-funded think tank said a takeover of Taiwan would be necessary if the US and the West imposed sanctions on China as they have against Russia. She also added that TSMC would be seized, according to TechSpot.

As of press time, Speaker Pelosi had just landed in Taipei despite Bejing’s saber rattling. The Washington Post reported Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, had accused the US of escalating tensions. She also warned of “disastrous consequences” if the situation was mishandled. In response, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby sought to lower the temperature by stating US policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged.

“Nothing has changed — nothing has changed — about our Taiwan policy,” Kirby said.

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Intel Says It Won’t Hit Arc Discrete Sales Goals, Blames Its Drivers

In last week’s quarterly earnings call, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger mentioned something we all kind of knew was the case: Its Arc drivers are not up to snuff. Because of this, the company will not meet its previous goal of shipping four million Arc GPUs to gamers in 2022. Who could have seen this coming? Aside from, you know, everyone?

Backing up a bit, in January Intel graphics Chief Raja Koduri responded to a tweet from PC Gamer imploring Intel to deliver Arc GPUs immediately. Back then, we were still in the grips of the GPU shortage, and COVID-19 was still causing mayhem. It was expected that Arc GPUs would be arriving shortly, and PC Gamer had seen this as the perfect solution to the GPU shortage. Indeed, if Intel had dropped its GPUs back then, at affordable prices, it would have had the market all to itself. Raja tweeted, “@IntelGraphics is working hard to find a path towards the mission – getting millions of Arc GPUs into the hands of PC gamers every year.” As it turns out, reaching that goal would be harder than Intel anticipated.

Someone should submit this to /r/agedmilk

According to a transcript of the call from Tom’s Hardware, Gelsinger pinned the blame on its drivers. The main issue, shockingly, is the company figured it could just tweak the drivers it was already using for its iGPUs on Intel CPUs. As it turns out, that did not work, at all.

“Our software release on our discrete graphics was clearly underperforming,” Gelsinger said. “We thought that we would be able to leverage the integrated graphics software stack, and it was wholly inadequate for the performance levels, gaming compatibility, etc. that we needed. So we are not hitting our four million unit goal in the discrete graphics space, even as we are now catching up and getting better software releases.”

Despite the setback, Gelsinger remains optimistic about Arc’s future. “While we will not hit our GPU unit target, we remain on track to deliver over $1 billion in revenue this year,” he said. “COVID-related supply chain issues and our own software-readiness challenges caused availability delays that we continue to work to overcome. Intel Arc A5 and A7 desktop cards will start to ship in Q3.” Ah yes, “software-readiness challenges,” that old bugaboo. Back when Intel announced one of the earlier delays, it had blamed “software readiness delays.”

It’s remarkable Intel figured it could just tweak its existing software stack for an entirely new GPU lineup. Like most shortcuts, instead of saving the company time, it just made the problem worse. Still, it sounds like Intel has figured out what went wrong, so hopefully it’s full steam ahead now. Drivers seem like Intel’s Achilles heel for Arc, however. It not only has to compete against AMD and Intel’s hardware on performance but on software. That’s no small feat, as both companies have been refining their software packages for years now. Not only that but both Adrenaline and GeForce offer many ancillary features, such as Radeon Noise Suppression, Nvidia’s Ansel, RTX Voice, and Shadowplay.

We’ll find out soon enough whether Intel has fully baked its drivers. The company recently said the launch of Arc in the US is “now in sight.” This follows it saying it would be launching “later this summer,” which should mean soon. Ahead of its launch its PR reps have been making the rounds as well to explain Arc’s features and capabilities. Pricing and availability are still the big unknowns.

Intel is also facing an unprecedented market situation, with tons of GPUs languishing on virtual store shelves. How that will affect Arc’s launch is anyone’s guess. Many gamers will hold off on buying an Arc GPU, at least at first, because AMD and Nvidia will be unveiling next-gen GPUs soon. Once that occurs, we will have a rare event on our hands: a three-way battle for GPU supremacy. At this point, Intel is clearly the underdog.

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Sony: Microsoft Acquiring Call of Duty ‘Could Influence Users’ Console Choice’

(Image: Activision Blizzard) Sony is sweating as multiple countries’ antitrust watchdogs inspect Microsoft’s proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard. Just this weekend, Sony’s official responses to Brazil’s probe became public—and it’s clear the company is worried about one intellectual property in particular.

Idas, a member of the online video game forum ResetEra, found Sunday that Brazil is legally required to keep its regulatory reviews accessible to the public. Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (known locally as CADE) requested comments from various major tech companies about the acquisition, including Ubisoft, Riot Games, Google, Apple, and Sony. According to Idas—who claims to be a tenured IT lawyer and native Spanish speaker—the former companies are largely unconcerned about the merger. Sony, however, feels differently.

Call of Duty, which currently has about 100 million players across several different platforms, might “influence users’ console choice” if acquired by Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony told the CADE. Right now gamers can play Call of Duty on PlayStation systems 2 through 5, meaning the popular franchise doesn’t (yet) act as an ultimatum for those who feel they must dedicate themselves to a single console. If Microsoft acquires Activision, however, it could easily put an end to the franchise’s availability on PlayStation, along with other fan favorites like Diablo and Starcraft.

(Photo: Kamil S/Unsplash)

This wasn’t originally expected to be a problem. When Microsoft first placed its bid for Activision in January, Sony told the Wall Street Journal that it expected Activision games to remain multiplatform due to “contractual agreements.” Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Gaming, solidified this expectation. “Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward,” Spencer said. But when it comes to Call of Duty specifically, only the next three titles are committed on paper to multiplatform availability. (This includes Modern Warfare 2, which is slated for later this year.)

According to translations conducted by Idas and gaming news outlet VGC, Sony views Call of Duty as “an essential game: a blockbuster, an AAA-type game that has no rival.” Sony doesn’t think it can match the money and time (read: hundreds of millions of dollars and at least 2,700 full-time employees) it would take to create a true Call of Duty competitor. “No other developer can devote the same level of resources and expertise in game development. Even if they could do that, Call of Duty is overly entrenched, so that no rival—no matter how relevant they are—can catch up.”

Sony went so far as to project a bit of its melancholy into the future, telling the CADE that “given its plans to recruit 2,000 additional developers, Activision probably expects Call of Duty to become even more successful in the future.”

How much of an impact Sony’s concerns will have on Brazil’s probe of the potential merger is unknown. Regardless, the merger has plenty of other regulatory hurdles to jump: the US Federal Trade Commission has been reviewing Microsoft’s bid since February, and the UK started its own probe earlier this summer. Microsoft is said to require clearance from several other countries’ regulatory entities as well, from Japan and Australia to China and South Korea.

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MIT Engineers Develop Stamp-Sized Stickers That Can Perform Ultrasounds

(Photo: Felice Frankel/MIT) What if you could monitor a serious health concern by purchasing a box of stickers from your local pharmacy, then wearing those stickers on your body for up to two days at a time? That’s what a group of engineers at MIT asked themselves as they developed wearable ultrasound devices the size of a postage stamp.

At two centimeters across and three millimeters thick, the tiny ultrasound devices can be worn for up to 48 hours. They adhere to the body using a sort of elastomer sandwich; while one layer clings to the skin, the other attaches to an array of transducers MIT custom-designed for the project. Between the elastomer layers sits a thin spread of hydrogel—the same cold jelly spread on the skin during a traditional ultrasound—which acts as a medium for acoustic waves.

These acoustic waves are what form an ultrasound image, the applications of which are endless. While many associate ultrasounds with distinguishing the sex of a baby in utero, the technology is frequently used to find gallstones, guide biopsies, monitor tumor progression, and diagnose conditions from blood flow obstructions to kidney disease. Some of these applications are relatively quick and can be performed in a few minutes, while others require longer, steadier internal monitoring. That’s where the stickers come in.

A diagnostic ultrasound depicting the pancreas. (Photo: Nevit Dilmen/Wikimedia Commons)

It isn’t practical to require an ultrasound technician to hold a transducer over a patient’s body for hours at a time, between technician discomfort and staffing concerns. Longer ultrasounds like this also allow the hydrogel on a patient’s body to dry out, which interrupts the imaging process. Some hospitals have the privilege of attaching transducers to robotic arms for extended periods of time, but this doesn’t fix the hydrogel issue. Meanwhile, the two layers of elastomer in MIT’s ultrasound stickers keep the hydrogel contained, which prevents dehydration. It also frees ultrasound technicians to focus on patients for whom long-term monitoring isn’t required.

The engineers tested the stickers on a number of healthy volunteers, who wore the devices on the neck, chest, abdomen, and arms. Despite performing activities like biking, jogging, and weightlifting (as well as sitting and standing), the stickers remained attached to the volunteers’ bodies and continued to provide clear internal images. The team was able to use the stickers to monitor the volunteers’ blood vessel dilation and heart exertion during exercise, as well as watch their stomachs digest juice. They were even able to use the tiny ultrasound devices to detect microdamage in volunteers’ muscle tissue as they lifted weights.

The team at MIT is still working to make the devices 100 percent wireless, meaning it’ll be a long while before the public gets to try sticker ultrasounds for themselves. But the engineers have high hopes for their invention. “We envision a few patches adhered to different locations on the body, and the patches would communicate with your cell phone, where AI algorithms would analyze the images on demand,” the study’s senior author, mechanical engineering professor Xuanhe Zhao, told MIT. “We believe we’ve opened a new era of wearable imaging: With a few patches on your body, you could see your internal organs.”

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Samsung’s ‘Repair Mode’ Will Hide Your Data From Sketchy Repair Techs

No one likes to deal with a busted phone, but deleting all your personal data before you have it patched up makes matters even worse. Samsung has added a new feature to some of its phones that could alleviate this headache. The new Repair Mode will keep your private data private, no matter who’s going to be tinkering with your phone in the repair shop.

If you’ve ever needed to have your phone repaired, you might have been advised to reset it or remove your secure lock. Technicians often need access to the phone’s software to complete or test a fix, and you don’t want to leave your data accessible if you can avoid it. Some people will take any opportunity to snoop in search of racy pics and valuable personal data. Personally, I always remove all my personal data before I leave a phone with someone else, but Repair Mode could make things easier.

So far, this feature is only available on the Galaxy S21 family in South Korea. The feature lives in the Battery and Device Care menu of the settings, says Samsung (Korean). After enabling Repair Mode, your phone will reboot with all of your personal data locked down. Repair Mode gives techs access to the base Android OS along with the pre-installed apps. However, none of your apps, messages, or photos will be visible. That should provide everything they need to complete a repair, like swapping a display or battery.

Your data will remain intact on the phone. So, once you get it back, you can enter your password or PIN in settings to boot the phone into standard mode with all your stuff visible again. That’s bound to be much faster and less annoying than rebuilding from a factory reset. Samsung hasn’t offered many details on how Repair Mode works, but it’s probably tied into the company’s Knox security platform that controls data security and boot validation.

Samsung plans to expand Repair Mode to more phones in the future, according to Ars Technica. It’s telling the company started with last year’s flagship phones in just one market, so it might be a while. We are expecting a new version of Samsung’s One UI to arrive later this year based on Android 13. Perhaps Repair Mode will be bundled in that for more phones, but most devices won’t see that software until 2023. Or, you could just do repairs yourself with replacement parts made available through iFixit.

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