https://www.pcworld.com/article/2796822/nvidias-geforce-now-app-transformed-my-steam-deck-im-never-going-back.html

Valve’s beloved Steam Deck is a delightful little device that makes PC gaming possible anywhere, but it suffers from some significant limitations. The Deck’s custom AMD Ryzen “Aerith” processor requires severe graphical sacrifices to hit playable frame rates in intense games — if you can run them at all. When you’re playing, you’ll blow through the battery in just a few hours. And while non-Steam games can be added to the Deck, it requires wonky technical workarounds that normie gamers probably won’t bother to troubleshoot.

Enter Nvidia’s new GeForce Now native app for the Steam Deck, announced today and available immediately.

If your internet signal is strong, and you pay for a premium GeForce Now subscription with advanced prowess and features, Nvidia’s app transforms the Steam Deck from a delightful device into an utterly magical one.

How magical? Consider that Doom: The Dark Ages has been called a “nightmare” on the Steam Deck. Even with every graphics option turned to low, playing through the sparsely populated tutorial section results in frame rates in the low- to mid-20s — it not only looks ugly, it feels atrocious, like the Doom Slayer is a container ship you’re trying to steer while blackout drunk. Hard pass.

Then I flipped over to it on GeForce Now’s new Steam Deck app, using an early build (and GFN Ultimate subscription) provided by Nvidia. Oh. My. God. Suddenly, everything was beautiful and smooth, with the Doom Slayer ripping and tearing through demonic hordes like the finely tuned weapon he is. Even with graphics settings set to the strenuous Nightmare level and rays being traced everywhere, performance ran locked at the 60fps maximum that GFN offers on the Deck.

Brad Chacos/Foundry

GeForce Now made an unplayable game deliciously perky. But that’s not the only benefit: With my Steam Deck’s battery life lingering around 86 percent, the system’s performance overlay estimated I’d get around an hour and 44 minutes of play time before juice ran out. Streaming the game over GFN doesn’t tap into the Steam Deck’s resources nearly as heavily, and the performance overlay said the exact same scene with the exact same battery level would deliver over 7 hours of playtime.

Wowza. Now that’s transformative — though Nvidia only officially claims battery-life improvements of “up to 50 percent” over native Steam Deck performance.

GeForce Now on Steam Deck: Amazing performance and battery life

And Doom: The Dark Ages isn’t the only example. I also fired up Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a pair of CD Projekt Red’s heavy hitters that come with native Steam Deck graphics settings.

In a bustling Novigrad Square teeming with NPCs, Witcher 3 achieved surprisingly playable frame rates — I was cruising around with Geralt to the tune of 50- to 60fps. Not bad! …though the graphics looked muddier than I’d prefer, and the battery only expected to last around two hours.

Brad Chacos/Foundry

Then I booted into Witcher 3 via GeForce Now. What a difference. Using the game’s Ultra settings with ray tracing in full bloom, Geralt suddenly looked so much crisper and vivid — and once again, the game played locked at 60fps on GFN Ultimate’s hardware (equivalent to an RTX 4080), with a runtime estimate of over 7 hours. Transformative!

The story remained the same in Cyberpunk 2077, which includes a Steam Deck graphics preset that drops visuals low enough to run at a locked 30fps. It’s muddy but playable! Streaming over GeForce Now, however, lets me run the game’s gorgeous RT Ultra mode at a locked 60fps while looking crisp, clean, and even more responsive. (The in-game benchmark said the Steam Deck mode ran at locked 30fps; RT Ultra over GFN ran at 86fps per the benchmark, but Nvidia’s servers delivered it as a locked 60fps. Nvidia says a 90fps mode is “being evaluated for future release.”)

Better yet, estimated battery life increased from 1:09 in Steam Deck mode to 4:02 via GeForce Now — all while looking and feeling so much better than native performance.

GeForce Now plays Steam Deck games Valve won’t sell you

Another feather in the cap for GeForce Now’s new native Steam Deck app? It lets you play games Valve won’t sell you.

The Steam Deck is amazing, but it’s obviously built around Valve’s storefront. Installing non-Steam games on the Deck involves heading to the gadget’s desktop mode and tweaking arcane settings, or installing third-party apps that (hopefully) automate the process a bit. It’s clunky.

Not with GeForce Now.

Brad Chacos/Foundry

Nvidia’s service lets you link your GeForce Now account with major PC gaming storefronts — Steam, yes, but also alternatives like Ubisoft, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, and the Epic Games Store. Once you’ve done so, any of the 2000-plus games supported by GFN will easily be playable by simply searching for them in Nvidia’s interface and launching the game.

Want to play Alan Wake 2 (an Epic exclusive) on your Steam Deck with full fidelity? Yeah, the GeForce Now app can do that. Want to stream Forza Horizon through your Game Pass sub? Yeah, you can do that too. The GeForce Now library isn’t exhaustive, but it is huge, and adds games every week. It’s an instant level-up for your Steam Deck’s capabilities if you have games stashed on other PC storefronts too.

Better yet, since GFN is now a native app, it’ll appear in the Recently Played section of your Steam Deck’s homescreen — making it dead simple to leap back into games you’ve streamed via Nvidia’s servers.

GeForce Now for Steam Deck: Details you need to know

Of course, you need to be a GeForce Now subscriber to take advantage of the new Steam Deck native app. The app supports all tiers, including the ad-supported free tier, but paying for higher tiers unlocks ad-free streaming, RTX capabilities, higher resolutions, ultrawide monitor support, and — if you pay for the Ultimate tier – DLSS Frame Gen, Nvidia’s latency-lowering Reflex tech, and HDR10 support that looks oh so good on the Steam Deck OLED that Nvidia sent me for testing. The paid tiers offer 100 hours of gameplay a month, with 15 rollover hours.

Nvidia is currently running a GeForce Now summer sale that knocks 40 percent off a six month “Performance” plan, down to $30 for six months. It lacks some of the features of the Ultimate tier, but should deliver a wondrous experience on your Steam Deck, even if Valve’s handheld can’t take advantage of its 1440p option — GFN streams at 1080p/60 undocked. If you connect a monitor to your Steam Deck, GFN can output at 1440p/120Hz, or 4K/60Hz when connected to a television.

As a streaming service, GeForce Now obviously requires a strong internet connection. In tests around my apartment in a small city, it held up well over my Comcast home connection, though performance sometimes suffered playing in the furthest reaches of my home. Your mileage may vary depending on your home network situation and whether you’re tethering off a mobile connection, but in general, Nvidia’s streaming service is fairly rock-solid these days.

Brad Chacos/Foundry

One tidbit to be aware off: Since GeForce Now relies on active internet streaming, it’s incompatible with the Steam Deck’s quick resume function. If you power off your Deck mid-GFN stream, it’ll crash when the system wakes back up. I wouldn’t want to rely on GFN for a morning bus commute unless your phone can power a banging Wi-Fi hotspot.

Just play it

Bottom line, though? Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can transform your Steam Deck from a low-powered, vendor-locked console into a full-blow portable PC gaming experience, complete with no-compromises ray tracing and a sublime uplift in both visuals and feel. Playing Doom: The Dark Ages is a nightmare on the Steam Deck — but it’s heavenly streaming to your Steam Deck via GeForce Now. Expanded game support and drastic battery life enhancements almost feel like cherries on top of the experience, but they’re just as crucial to the GFN app’s Steam Deck success.

In an age where graphics card prices are soaring and the PC market shivers around damning tariffs, Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can elevate the Steam Deck from a kick-ass sidekick to your primary gaming PC. That’s especially so if you dock your Deck with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, but the wildly long battery life makes it true in handheld mode, too.

You should absolutely, positively give the GeForce Now app a download on your Steam Deck. It’s damned near a must-have accessory if you want to play more strenuous modern games. Even if you only give the free ad-supported tier a whirl, it should provide enough oomph to get you through the new Doom — something the Deck itself isn’t capable of on its own. Giddy up!

via PCWorld https://www.pcworld.com

May 29, 2025 at 08:02AM

https://www.autoblog.com/news/byd-sued-over-slave-like-work-conditions

One of the world’s most prolific automakers, the Chinese giant BYD, has been formally accused by Brazilian authorities in a newly filed lawsuit of subjecting its workers to what they described as being akin to modern slavery and engaging in international human trafficking. The suit, which is being filed against BYD and two contractors, JinJiang and Tecmonta, seeks 257 million reais (~$50 million) in damages and individual restitution for the workers affected.

Withheld passports and crowded conditions are among the accusations

The suit itself stems from an investigation that started late last year, when the Public Labour Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) in the Brazilian state of Bahia halted work at the construction site of BYD’s new factory in Camaçari after they rescued a total of 220 Chinese nationals who were employed to help build the factory.

Authorities state that workers were subjected to abhorrent living and working conditions at the plant that they described back in December as "an alarming picture of precariousness and degradation," where workers slept in crowded dormitories with bunk beds without mattresses and only one bathroom per every 31 workers; which forced them to wake up at 4 a.m. everyday to prepare for their 5:30 a.m. shifts at the site.

"All the accommodations shared serious infrastructure and hygiene problems," the MPT wrote back in December, translated from Portuguese. "The bathrooms, in addition to being insufficient, were not separated by sex, did not have adequate toilet seats, and presented poor hygiene conditions. The lack of a suitable place to wash clothes led workers to use their own bathrooms for this purpose."

View the 2 images of this gallery on the
original article

In addition, the MPT wrote in its suit that due to the conditions that BYD and the two subcontractors subjected workers to, workers were at an increased risk of accidents due to the negligence of occupational health and safety standards at the site. In the MPT’s December 2024 report, they recorded that they recorded "several workplace accidents," including one where a worker suffered an accident "due to sleep deprivation caused by inadequate housing conditions and long working hours," as well as a worker who didn’t receive proper medical care following an eye injury.

The prosecutors also claimed that the BYD workers were brought to Brazil to build the factory without the proper visas, that their employers pocketed up to 70% of their wages, and subjected them to immense financial penalties to terminate their contracts. Many of the workers also had their passports taken away and worked under "employment contracts with illegal clauses, exhausting work hours, and no weekly rest."

Brazilian law says that debt bondage and work that violates human dignity are defined as "slavery-like conditions." In a statement seen by the Associated Press, BYD said that it is collaborating with Brazilian authorities and has been throughout the probe into its working conditions. The automaker also stated that it respects Brazilian law and international labor regulations. However, in December, BYD spokesperson Li Yunfei posted on Weibo that efforts were made to "smear" brands like BYD.

“In the matter of smearing Chinese brands, smearing China, and attempting to undermine the friendship between China and Brazil, we have seen how relevant foreign forces maliciously associate and deliberately smear,” Yunfei said about media reports about the situation.

Final thoughts

The BYD plant in Bahia was supposed to open in March, but the suit shows how much companies like BYD are willing to stick to a solid dollar and cents figure for foreign factories in emerging markets like Brazil. In a statement for Deutsche Welle, Paulo Feldmann, an economist and professor at the FIA Business School in Sao Paulo, found that BYD’s use of Chinese workers in Brazil is similar to how other Chinese companies operate in places like Africa and other Latin American countries. Still, they offer no tangible benefits to the local population.

"For Brazil, it would have been better if these workers had been local, because of the income they would have generated for themselves and their families, the positive impact on their communities, and the professional training they would have acquired. It would also be easier to monitor their working conditions," he said.

Chinese labor conditions have been a pressing issue in other sectors besides construction and industrial factories. For instance, the 996 working hour system (which requires employees to work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days per week; or 72 hours per week, 12 hours per day) has been a significant issue surrounding major tech and internet companies in the country including Alibaba, Huawei and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

via Autoblog https://ift.tt/6ODU5bP

May 28, 2025 at 09:08PM

https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2025/05/22/drive-it-fly-it-cry-about-the-price-the-aircar-is-ready-for-takeoff/

Good news, future-dwellers! The Jetsons lied about the timeline, but flying cars are finally taking off — literally. Introducing the AirCar, the world’s first flying car going into mass production, brought to you by Slovak engineer Stefan Klein, a man who looked at traffic and said, “Nope, I’ll just fly over it.

This isn’t some sci-fi fever dream — it’s a real thing that transforms from sports car to airplane in under two minutes. One button. Boom. Wings. It’s like if Batman and Optimus Prime had a very expensive baby.

But before you start checking Zillow for sky garages, here’s the catch: you need a driver’s license, a pilot’s license, and somewhere between $800,000 and $1 million lying around. So unless you’re Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, or just very good at crypto, you’ll still be on the ground watching billionaires buzz by overhead — probably on their way to brunch.

It also needs a 300-meter runway to take off, which rules out your driveway (unless you live at an airport).

The AirCar, built by Klein Vision, is set to roll (and fly) off production lines this summer and hit the skies by 2026. It recently made a star-studded appearance at a Beverly Hills gala, where it opened its wings like a show-off peacock and stole the spotlight from astronauts and celebrities.

So yeah — the future is here. It’s fast. It’s shiny. And it costs more than your house.

[Via Neatorama]

Click This Link for the Full Post > Drive It, Fly It, Cry About the Price: The AirCar Is Ready for Takeoff

via [Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News https://ift.tt/rFzQoNj

May 22, 2025 at 12:18PM

https://www.autoblog.com/news/china-sodium-ev-battery-shift

China’s breakthrough sodium-ion battery — priced at $10/kWh (Bloomberg NEF, 2025) — is a technical marvel. It’s a direct challenge to America’s lithium-dependent auto industry. For context, today’s cheapest lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries cost $75/kWh, while Tesla’s 4680 cells hover near $100/kWh. At one-tenth the price, sodium-ion tech could make budget EVs like the $25,000 Tesla Model 2 financially viable overnight. American potential EV buyers hesitant because of cost will be comforted by this. When it comes.

How China’s Battery Factories Are Rewriting the Rules

Chinese engineers at CATL (the world’s largest EV battery maker) have begun mass-producing sodium-ion cells at their new 30GWh facility in Fujian province, with plans to supply automakers like Chery and BYD by late 2025. This isn’t lab hype: CATL’s first-gen sodium batteries already power 250,000 urban delivery vans across China, offering 120-160Wh/kg energy density.

For cars, more needs to be done about range. But a 10,000 life cycle, to Tesla’s 1500, lifespan speaks volumes. Best for grid storage and city cars, the economics are transformative. Sodium-ion production costs 70% less than lithium packs because of:

• Abundant materials: Sodium carbonate costs $200/ton vs. lithium carbonate’s $15,000/ton (2025 prices)
• Simplified mining: Extractable from seawater or Wyoming’s Green River Basin (90% of global reserves)
• No cobalt/nickel: Skips conflict minerals tied to Congo’s mines
• Extortion free: Cannot be held to ransom by anyone on lithium supply.

Implication for US Buyers: If adopted domestically, sodium batteries could slash entry-level EV prices by $8,000–$12,000, making models like the Chevrolet Bolt 2.0 or Ford E-Transit van accessible to millions.

Detroit’s Lithium Trap: GM’s V8 Mistake Reborn

America’s automakers are repeating history. Just as GM clung to gas-guzzling V8s during the 1970s oil crisis, today’s EV strategies rely entirely on lithium—a mineral with 1,400% price volatility since 2020. If lithium supplies tighten again (e.g., Bolivia nationalizes reserves or Australia’s mines strike), the fallout would be catastrophic:

• EV price spikes: A $100/kWh lithium battery adds $6,500 to a 65kWh pack
• Production halts: Ford’s $3.5B Michigan plant depends on Chilean lithium
• Geopolitical blackmail: China controls 65% of lithium refining (according to the U.S. Geological Survey)

Sodium-ion batteries offer an escape hatch. According to statements by CATL executives, the company can switch chemistries like changing shoes—lithium today, sodium tomorrow. US automakers, shackled by IRA domestic sourcing rules, lack this flexibility. That must change. And fast.

The US Roadmap: Catch-Up or Collapse?

BloombergNEF predicts sodium-ion will capture 12% of the global storage market by 2030, but China’s head start is alarming. While the US has its first sodium battery factory (Natron Energy’s Michigan plant), its 600MWh annual output is a fraction of CATL’s 30GWh.

What Washington Must Do:

• Fast-track permits for sodium carbonate mining (Wyoming holds 47B tons)
• Expand IRA tax credits to include sodium-ion R&D
• Mandate dual-chemistry EVs by 2030

Without these steps, America risks ceding the next-gen EV race to Chinese automakers already testing 310-mile sodium-powered sedans.

Final Word: Your Next EV Might Run on Salt

The $10 battery isn’t really about the chemistry. It’s really a story about survival. For US buyers, sodium-ion could mean affordable EVs immune to lithium’s rollercoaster. For Detroit, it’s a wake-up call: innovate or watch your factories become relics, like Flint’s shuttered V8 plants. The question isn’t whether sodium batteries will disrupt the market, but whether America will lead, or follow, this salty revolution.

Read the full article here: BYD’s Sodium Bomb Just Blew Up the Lithium Cartel

via Autoblog https://ift.tt/8EJYSiP

May 22, 2025 at 08:54AM

https://lifehacker.com/tech/google-announces-live-translation-yet-again-this-time-in-google-meet

It’s that time again, for Google to announce that real-time translation has come to one of its communication apps. This time, it’s Google Meet, which can translate between English and Spanish as you speak in a video call. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s not the first time Google has announced something like this.

Google Translate has had features that let you speak to someone in another language in real time for a while. For example, back in 2019, there was a real-time translation feature called Interpreter Mode built into Google Assistant. It’s also been possible on Pixel phones for a while (and even Samsung phones). Most of these, however, have been either text-to-text, or speech-to-text. You can use the Google Translate app for a speech-to-speech experience, but like with Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode, that only works in person.

So, what’s different here? Well, during its I/O keynote, Google demoed two users in a video chat speaking in their native languages. Google Meet then translates and speaks the translation back in a relatively human-sounding voice. This new feature is available now for Google Workspace subscribers (plans start at $7/month), but unfortunately, it’s not in the free version. On the plus side, additional languages are promised to start coming out in just a few weeks.

While I haven’t tested it out yet, it does seem to be a more convenient way to access a feature that you might otherwise have to hack together with another tab, or by opening your phone and holding it up to a speaker. Plus, it can be a bit more natural to hear translations spoken out for you, rather than having to rely on translated captions. I do wonder whether it can keep up with the natural speed and flow of a conversation, though—nobody likes to feel interrupted.

via Lifehacker https://ift.tt/4aFWH5T

May 20, 2025 at 01:23PM

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-bots-streaming-music/

via Wired Top Stories https://www.wired.com

May 20, 2025 at 05:06AM

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/scientists-think-a-hidden-source-of-clean-energy-could-power-earth-for-170-000-years-and-theyve-figured-out-the-recipe-to-find-it

Huge Reservoirs of Clean Hydrogen Could Power Earth for 170,000 Years

Recent breakthroughs suggest that hydrogen reservoirs are buried in countless regions of the world, including at least 30 U.S. states

By Sascha Pare & LiveScience

Recent breakthroughs suggest that hydrogen reservoirs are buried in countless regions of the world, including at least 30 U.S. states.

Finding such reservoirs could help accelerate a global energy transition, but until now, geologists only had a piecemeal understanding of how large hydrogen accumulations form — and where to find them.

"The game of the moment is to find where it has been released, accumulated and preserved," Chris Ballentine, a professor and chair of geochemistry at the University of Oxford and lead author of a new review article on hydrogen production in Earth’s crust, told Live Science in an email.

---

On supporting science journalism

If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

---

Ballentine’s new paper starts to answer those questions. According to the authors, Earth’s crust has produced enough hydrogen over the past 1 billion years to meet our current energy needs for 170,000 years. What’s still unclear is how much of that hydrogen could be accessed and profitably extracted.

In the new review, published Tuesday (May 13) in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, the researchers draw up an "ingredient" list of geological conditions that stimulate the creation and build-up of natural hydrogen gas belowground, which should make it easier to hunt for reservoirs.

"The specific conditions for hydrogen gas accumulation and production are what a number of exploration companies (e.g. Koloma, funded by a consortium led by Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy fund, Hy-Terra funded by Fortescue, and Snowfox, funded by BP [British Petroleum] and RioTinto) are looking at carefully and this will vary for different geological environments," Ballentine said.

Natural hydrogen reservoirs require three key elements to form: a source of hydrogen, reservoir rocks and natural seals that trap the gas underground. There are a dozen natural processes that can create hydrogen, the simplest being a chemical reaction that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen — and any type of rock that hosts at least one of these processes is a potential hydrogen source, Ballentine said.

"One place that is attracting a lot of interest is in Kansas where a feature called the mid continental rift, formed about 1 billion years ago, created a huge accumulation of rocks (mainly basalts) that can react with water to form hydrogen," he said. "The search is on here for geological structures that may have trapped and accumulated the hydrogen generated."

Based on knowledge of how other gases are released from rocks underground, the review’s authors suggest that tectonic stress and high heat flow may release hydrogen deep inside Earth’s crust. "This helps to bring the hydrogen to the near surface where it might accumulate and form a commercial resource," Ballentine said.

Within the crust, a wide range of common geological contexts could prove promising for exploration companies, the review found, ranging from ophiolite complexes to large igneous provinces and Archaean greenstone belts.

Ophiolites are chunks of Earth’s crust and upper mantle that once sat beneath the ocean, but were later thrust onto land. In 2024, researchers discovered a massive hydrogen reservoir within an ophiolite complex in Albania. Igneous rocks are those solidified from magma or lava, and Archaean greenstone belts are up to 4 billion-year-old formations that are characterized by green minerals, such as chlorite and actinolite.

The conditions discussed in the review are the "first principles" for hydrogen exploration, study co-author Jon Gluyas, a professor of geoenergy, carbon capture and storage at Durham University in the U.K., said in a statement. The research outlines the key ingredients that companies should consider when developing their exploration strategies, including processes through which hydrogen might migrate or be destroyed underground.

"We know for example that underground microbes readily feast on hydrogen," co-author Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a professor of Earth sciences at the University of Toronto, said in the statement. So environments where bacteria could come in contact with hydrogen-producing rocks may not be great places to look for reservoirs, Sherwood Lollar said.

Hydrogen is used to make key industrial chemicals such as methanol and ammonia, which is a component in most fertilizers. The gas could also aid the transition away from fossil fuels, as hydrogen can power both cars and power plants.

But hydrogen today is produced from hydrocarbons, meaning manufacture of the gas comes with huge carbon emissions. "Clean" hydrogen from underground reservoirs has a much smaller carbon footprint, because it occurs naturally.

Earth’s crust produces "plenty of hydrogen," Ballentine said, and it is now a question of following the ingredient list to find it.

Copyright 2025 LiveScience, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

via Scientific American https://ift.tt/guU5GlS

May 20, 2025 at 07:32AM