Tech Digest daily roundup: Hogwarts Legacy set to become biggest video game release of 2023
Hogwarts Legacy, a major video game adaptation of the wizarding world created by JK Rowling, has arrived, following a fierce online debate. An open-world adventure title like this has been at the top of some Harry Potter fans’ wish lists for some time. But others are calling for a boycott because of Rowling’s public comments on issues about transgender people. Despite the controversy, it is predicted by some to be the biggest-selling premium release of 2023. The title has already broken records for the number of people watching streamers playing preview copies. BBC
Twitter stands to make millions of pounds a year via adverts for brands like Apple and Amazon appearing alongside the toxic tweets of controversially unbanned accounts, a new report suggests. A number of major companies pulled paid-for promotions from the platform in the wake of Elon Musk‘s takeover, but big spenders including Amazon and Apple have made a return despite Musk’s decision to reinstate several banned users like misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate and prominent neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin. According to new research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), tweets from such accounts have since appeared alongside promotions from major brands. Sky News
SpaceX’s towering Super Heavy booster, one half of the company’s Starship rocket system, briefly roared to life for the first time on Thursday in a test-firing that puts the behemoth moon and Mars vehicle closer to its first orbital flight in the coming months. Thirty-one of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor rocket engines fired for roughly 10 seconds at SpaceX’s facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, tweeted shortly after the test, shown during a live stream. “Team turned off 1 engine just before start & 1 stopped itself, so 31 engines fired overall,” Musk tweeted. “But still enough engines to reach orbit!” Yahoo!
An electric car battery that charges in one hour could be the answer to the lack of charging stations in the US – a nation looking to weed out the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2050. The innovation was made possible by growing uniform lithium crystals on a surface it doesn’t ‘like,’ resulting in dense uniformed layers that lack battery-performance-degrading spikes called dendrites. The new advance led by the University of California (UC), San Diego nanoengineers could eliminate a significant roadblock holding back the widespread use of energy-dense lithium-metal batteries for applications like EVs. Daily Mail
This is getting ridiculous. Realme has just announced a new smartphone, the Realme GT Neo 5, that supports up to 240W fast charging. According to GSMArena, that will make it the fastest charging smartphone on the market, faster than the 210W offered by the Redmi Note 12 Discovery Edition, and almost 100W faster than the 150W charging offered by OnePlus devices like the 10T. 240W is in line with the latest USB power spec announced by the USB-IF in 2021. The Verge
The type of factual error that blighted the launch of Google’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will carry on troubling companies using the technology, experts say, as the market value of its parent company continues to plunge. Investors in Alphabet marked down its shares by a further 4.4% to $95 on Thursday, representing a loss of market value of about $163bn (£140bn) since Wednesday when shareholders wiped around $106bn off the stock. The Guardian
