Frontier Bundles offers $2K to play video games with friend for 21 hours - ABC7 Chicago - WLS-TV

If someone told you you could earn money playing video games, but you had to play for 21 hours, and you could only pick one friend to help you do it, who would it be?

Really, it's a serious question.

Frontier Bundles, an internet provider, is offering $2,000 to two pals willing to play 21 hours of video games together and report back on their experience.

The company wants to know if people do better playing solo or with someone on their side, CNN reported.

Snacks are also included.

It's a fun way to celebrate some big games coming out this year like "Resident Evil Village" and "Mario Golf: Super Rush."

There are also some significant video game anniversaries this year as "Donkey Kong" turns 40 and "The Legend Of Zelda" turns 35. "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Street Fighter II" also both turn 30.

If you want to cash in while you game, there's more information on the Frontier Bundles website.

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Fall Guys beans are the perfect height to pat Among Us beans on the head - The Verge

Turns out that the bean-like Fall Guys characters would be the perfect height to pat the bean-like Among Us crewmates on the head, should they ever exist in the same universe. The Among Us and Fall Guys Twitter accounts made the discovery on Monday. How?

Well, it all started with this question from Chris on Twitter:

It’s a good question. I can’t believe I’ve never asked it myself before.

The Among Us Twitter account then revealed that the crewmates in the game are three feet, six inches tall. Seems about right, though I honestly thought they were a little shorter.

dunno how tall our Fall Guys beanfriends are, but Crewmates are 3'6"

— Among Us (@AmongUsGame) May 31, 2021

The Fall Guys Twitter account quickly followed up with what people believe to be the canonical size of a Fall Guy: six feet, which is how tall one of the Fall Guys bean creatures is in the game development software Unity. The Fall Guys account also helpfully put a Fall Guy onto a chart next to a human.

The Fall Guys account then said the obvious next thing:

need an among us bean added to the chart now

— Fall Guys Season 4.5 (@FallGuysGame) May 31, 2021

And the Among Us account delivered, to hilarious results.

The chart shows that a Fall Guys bean is exactly the right height to be able to pat an Among Us crewmate on the head! Aww, they can be friends. (Though if I were a Fall Guys bean, I’d be cautious about standing too close to an Among Us crewmate.)

That’s not all, though. While I have you, I’d like to present my theory that Fall Guys beans are a many-years evolved version of the Among Us crewmates. Go with me here.

Let’s start with the height differences that we’ve learned about today. They could indicate that the Among Us bean species grows to become as tall as the Fall Guys bean species.

I understand if that might not be enough evidence for you, so let’s compare the anatomy of the two bean-like species. The skeletal system of an Among Us crewmate consists of a single bone, apparently:

A Fall Guys bean, on the other hand, has a significantly more complex (and horrifying) anatomical structure.

Well, you asked for it...

This is official lore now

Remember:

• Human shown for scale
• Fall Guys are 183cm (6ft)
• This Fall Guy is happy, look into his eyes
• We can't take it back

Official Fall Guys Artwork by Senior Concept Artist:https://t.co/OgiS6WXzno pic.twitter.com/eCLJu1DBpP

— Fall Guys Season 4.5 (@FallGuysGame) September 23, 2020

The different heights and anatomical complexities between the two types of very similar-looking bean-creatures lead me to one conclusion: the Among Us beans evolve into the Fall Guys beans.

Will someone give me a pat on the head for this bulletproof scientific theory?

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AMD DLSS Competitor, FSR 'FidelityFX Super Resolution' Demoed on Radeon RX 6800 XT - Wccftech

AMD has finally demoed its highly anticipated FSR 'FidelityFX Super Resolution' technology for Radeon RX 6000 RDNA 2 GPUs which competes against NVIDIA's DLSS. The tech was demoed within Godfall which is a first-party AMD title optimized around their RDNA 2 architecture.

AMD FSR 'FidelityFX Super Resolution' Official - DLSS Competitor For Radeon RX 6000 RDNA 2 GPUs, Four Modes, Huge Game Performance Uplift, 22nd June Launch

NVIDIA got the head start with its AI-based supersampling technology all the way back in 2018 when Turing based GeForce RTX 20 series was introduced. DLSS 1.0 had a pretty rough start & there weren't plenty of games that used the feature and while users got to see some impressive performance gains, those also came at a loss of image quality which was often too blurry when compared to playing at native resolution with standard AA methods.

Enabling FidelityFX Super Resolution at "Ultra Quality" gives a practically identical visual experience with around 59% more performance in Godfall. Or get up to 2.5x the performance in select games when you choose the #FSR "Performance" preset in 4K. The choice is yours. pic.twitter.com/zjShErY9KK

— Radeon RX (@Radeon) June 1, 2021

That changed over time and DLSS 2.0 showed the true form of the feature with still impressive gains while retaining almost similar image quality as the native resolution. Even as of now, the feature has seen major updates in the form of DLSS 2.1 runs like a charm in Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition.

The difference that DLSS makes put the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards a league ahead of AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series. But AMD has now officially unveiled their response to NVIDIA's DLSS and it looks very impressive. FSR is compatible with AMD Radeon GPUs starting Polaris and up to RDNA 2. The company is also supporting NVIDIA Pascal, Turing, and Ampere GPUs.

AMD FSR Performance on AMD Radeon & NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Cards

For the demo, AMD picked up Godfall for the live demonstration of FSR and had the title running at a 4K native resolution on the EPIC preset & raytracing enabled. Following are the performance results with FSR disabled & its several modes enabled:

• Native 4K Resolution - 49 FPS
• FSR Ultra Mode - 78 FPS
• FSR  Quality Mode - 99 FPS
• FSR Balanced Mode - 120 FPS
• FSR Performance Mode - 150 FPS

AMD FSR Performance Demo With Radeon RX 6800 XT Graphics Card:

AMD FSR Performance Demo With GeForce GTX 1060 Graphics Card:

As you can see the performance increase between the four FSR models is quite dramatic. Ultra on a Radeon RX 6800 XT is up to 60% faster while performance mode is over 3 times faster which is insane. For now, we haven't had access to use or see FSR in action so we'll see how this shakes out in the final gameplay image. But what about those running GTX Cards you say? well, we do get a taste of that with the ever-popular GTX 1060 6GB in Godfall with the game running at 1440p and EPIC preset we see the card climb 41 percent in performance from 27FPS up to 38FPS and that's nothing to sneeze at if you ask me.

In addition to this live demonstration, AMD confirmed that FSR will be supported by 10 studios across various engines while more information is expected to land on the 22nd of June when the tech officially launches.

• 
• 

The red team is working hard with developers for implementing the feature within games and engines. It is also stated that implementing AMD FSR within the same games would require less work when compared to NVIDIA's DLSS solution since its implemented early in the pipeline & requires minimal developer interventions. The technology also makes use of an algorithmic super-sampling method that upscales the image with minimal overhead. The thing that makes FiedlityFX Super Resolution most interesting is that AMD might be opening its compatibility to NVIDIA GPUs too. So while DLSS is proprietary to NVIDIA's Tensor Core accelerated hardware, AMD's FidelityFX will work on both the NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon GPUs.

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Google Photos ends unlimited free storage tomorrow. Here's everything you need to do - CNET

Google is ending its unlimited free storage policy June 1.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Google Photos will end its unlimited free storage policy for photos and videos on Tuesday, June 1 (tomorrow!). After that, any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15GB of storage that comes with every Google account. But don't worry: Any photos or videos you've uploaded before that day won't be part of the cap. And Google has added a new free tool to help you manage your storage quota.

The move, announced in November, is meant to encourage people to sign up for Google's storage subscription service, Google One. Google One plans start at $2 a month in the US for 100GB of storage and other features, like Google Store discounts.

Read more: 6 of the best photo storage options for 2021

It's a good idea to make sure your existing photos and videos are backed up in Google Photos before the Tuesday deadline, since those will be considered free and exempt from the storage limit. You can check your backup quality in the Photos app by going to Settings > Back up & sync. 

Once the change takes effect, more than 80% of current Google Photos users should still be able to store about three years of content with that free 15GB. Google will notify you in the app and by email once you get close to hitting your 15GB limit. You can also find a personalized estimate for how long your free storage may last, based on how frequently you back up photos and videos to your Google Account. 

In May, Google added a new tool in the Photos app to help you manage the photos and videos you've backed up that count toward your 15GB storage quota. It will surface photos or videos that you might want to delete, like photos that are blurry or screenshots, or videos that are large, to better manage the storage you have.

More than 4 trillion photos are stored in Google Photos, the company said in November, with 28 billion new photos and videos uploaded each week. In May, Google unveiled new Photos features including the ability to remove photos from your Memories and new AI-powered techniques to make your photos come alive. 

For more, check out the best online photo book services of 2021.

Now playing: Watch this: iPhone 12 vs. Pixel 5 camera comparison

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Best Memorial Day 2021 deals: Sale prices on Vizio OLED TV, Neato robot vacuum, Myx Plus exercise bike, and more - CNET

Happy Memorial Day! This long weekend usually ushers in the summer with barbecues, fireworks and, of course, deals. If you're on the hunt for discounted appliances, mattresses, TVs and patio furniture, you're not going to be disappointed, but those aren't the only categories where you can score amazing deals during this Memorial Day weekend. It's also the perfect time to find sales on products from trendy water bottles to delicious meat -- especially if you shop online and skip the stores.

Below I've rounded up some Memorial Day sales and select items that caught my eye, including $150 off the Neato D7 robotic vacuum, $400 off a 65-inch Vizio OLED TV and free access to Ancestry.com. These deals can be found at online retailers like Best Buy and Lowe's, as well as individual merchants such as ButcherBox, Samsung and GlassesUSA. If there's a highlighted deal that requires a promo code, we've included that code below. Keep reading for the best Memorial Day sales you can find right now. We regularly update this post with additional sales and deals.

Sarah Tew/CNET

From large appliances to video games, Best Buy is slashing prices throughout the store for its Memorial Day sale. You can save up to 10% on LG appliances and up to $300 on an LG OLED TV. Been pining for an Apple wearable? You can save $70 on the Apple Watch Series 6 and $40 on AirPods. Samsung's Galaxy S21 5G phone is $350 off, while iPhone 11 models are $275 off. And if you need new games for your console, dozens of titles for Xbox, PlayStation and Switch are discounted, including many that are half price.

Vizio

Contrast ratio is arguably the most important aspect of picture quality, and OLED TVs produce the best contrast ratio with absolute blacks and extremely bright whites. TVs with newer OLED technology, not surprisingly, cost quite a bit more than older LCD TVs. Vizio's OLED line has some of the most affordable OLED TVs, however, and that's never been more true than for the 65-inch model that's $400 off at Best Buy.

Brian Bennett/CNET

'Tis the season for tracking dirt and sand (say, if you've been at the beach all weekend) into your house. Why not get some robotic help with keeping your floors clean? The Neato D7 is a lidar-guided robot vacuum cleaner that's one of the best robot vacuums CNET has reviewed. In his write-up, Brian Bennett declared it the "best midrange robot vacuum." And head-to-head against the iRobot Roomba S9 Plus, the D7 was called "the best all-around value." Usually priced at or around $600, the Neato D7 is discounted to $450 at Lowe's this weekend (the product page says the sale ends today, but it'll last through June 5, according to Lowe's).

Hydro Flask

The Hydro Flask is our favorite reusable water bottle for its double-wall vacuum insulation design, durable stainless-steel materials and cool color options. A Hydro Flask bottle can keep a cold drink cool for up to 24 hours and makes a perfect beach companion. For the winter months, it will keep hot beverages warm for up to 12 hours. You can save 25% site-wide with free shipping for orders over $30. The popular 32-ounce Wide Mouth bottle, for example, is also on sale for $34, down from $45, but now appears to be sold out.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Summer is not only beach season: It's also barbecue season. With ButcherBox, you can kick your summer grilling up a notch. It's one of our favorite meat subscription services and features 100% grass-fed beef, humanely raised pork and free-range organic chicken. For Memorial Day, new subscribers will get a free BBQ bundle with their first order that includes two New York strip steaks, six burgers and 5 pounds of drumsticks.

Fold3

To celebrate Memorial Day, Ancestry.com is opening its vaults and letting you search your family's military history for free this weekend on its Fold3.com site.

GlassesUSA is one of our favorite sites for buying prescription eyeglasses online. It has more affordable options for buying prescription eyeglasses online than a site like Warby Parker, and also offers premium designer frames from the likes of Oakley and Ray-Ban. For Memorial Day, you can get 60% off frames with basic lenses with code DEAL60 or 30% off your entire order with code USA30. You can also save 20% off Oakley and Ray-Ban with basic prescription lenses with code OKRAY20.

MYX Fitness

MyxFitness is a Peloton alternative service that includes a bike with a huge 21.5-inch display along with a mat, foam roller, resistance band and six-piece weight set for $1,499. And you can knock $300 off the price with code MEMORIAL300, which also includes free shipping and assembly (a $250 value, according to Myx's math).

Rumpl

My kids each got a Rumpl blanket for Christmas last year, and they take them everywhere. In the car. On the couch. Off to bed. And they were invaluable each weekend when we went skiing and our car was the closest thing we had to a lodge. Rumpl blankets are light and incredibly warm, and come in a variety of cool colors and patterns. And they're 25% off right now.

Brian Bennett/CNET

Have you experienced a sense of envy when hanging out in your friend's backyard around their Solo Stove? Now is your chance to get one for your own patio for gatherings around a smokeless fire pit. Solo Stove makes one of our favorite firepits, and all of the company's firepits are 25% off and come with a free stand for Memorial Day.

Samsung

You can save 30% on a refrigerator, washer or dryer and 25% on a range. And you can save $700 if you buy a four-piece kitchen package.

Google

You can knock $50 off the price of the Google Nest Hub Max at Adorama's Memorial Day sale with code EXTRA50OFF. With a 10-inch display, the Nest Hub Max offers a bigger screen and better sound quality than Google's standard smart display. It also includes a facial recognition camera, which you may or may not want. You can disable the camera when it's not in use, and it has some pretty cool tricks like following you around the frame when you're making a Google Duo video call and letting you pause or resume videos and music simply by raising your hand.

Read our Google Nest Hub Max review.

Stasher

Unless you plan to invite the neighborhood over for a cookout, you'll need a way to store some of the above BBQ bundle. Stasher provides a sustainable and stress-free way to do just that and is offering 25% off its entire site. It makes reusable storage bags to decrease single-use plastics. Stasher's storage bags are made of silicone and feature pinchable seals, saving you from ever having to search for a matching lid again.

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Intel at Computex 2021: Tiger Lake-U Refresh, Mediatek 5G Solutions, NUC 11 Extreme - AnandTech

Due to the global pandemic, this year’s annual Computex event in Taiwan is being held virtually, but all the big-name companies have keynotes to present their latest news and wares. Intel is no different, and this year the hot ticket items stem from an expansion or ‘refresh’ of their Tiger Lake-U series processors (as we exclusively confirmed at AnandTech in April) but also the first fruits of an Intel 5G solution developed through the partnership with MediaTek.

At the start of the year, the lay of the land for Intel in the second half of 2021 was confusing. The company was promising to deliver its 12^th Generation Core ‘Alder Lake’ portfolio to both desktop and mobile by the end of the year, and there was some confusion as to which market was going to get the hardware first. As Intel ramps up its 10nm product lines, and as silicon supply chain shortages are slowly rectifying themselves, the initial expectation was that Alder Lake was to be introduced first for mobile processors, given that these are usually smaller and easier to bring to market. With the Q1 2021 launch of Rocket Lake (11^th Gen) for desktop, it would also make sense to launch a mobile product first as that was launched back in Q3 of 2020 (Tiger Lake-U).

However, as we reported on last month, Intel’s route for processor updates has another stepping stone we hadn’t heard of before. As part of its Partner Connect conference to OEM and retail partners, Intel disclosed that it was preparing a Tiger Lake-U Refresh family for the thin-and-light notebook markets. During Intel’s presentation where the TGL-U refresh was mentioned, it was specified that the refresh will only apply for 15-28 W processors. Today as part of Computex, the first elements of that Tiger Lake-U Refresh are being put in place.

Intel 11th Gen Core Tiger Lake UP3 Class: 12-28 W
AnandTech	Cores	L3 MB	Base MHz at 12W	Base MHz at 28W	1C MHz up to 50W	nT MHz at 50W	Xe EUs	Xe MHz	DDR4	LP4x
i7-1195G7	4C / 8T	12	?	2900	5000*	4600	96	1400	3200	4266
i7-1185G7	4C / 8T	12	1200	3000	4800	4300	96	1350	3200	4266
i7-1165G7	4C / 8T	12	1200	2800	4700	4100	96	1300	3200	4266
i5-1155G7	4C / 8T	8	?	2500	4500	4300	80	1350	3200	4266
i5-1145G7	4C / 8T	8	?	2600	4400	4000	80	1300	3200	4266
i5-1135G7	4C / 8T	8	900	2400	4200	3800	80	1300	3200	4266
i3-1125G4	4C / 8T	8	?	2000	3700	3300	48	1250	3200	3733
i3-1115G4	2C / 4T	6	1700	3000	4100	4100	48	1250	3200	3733

Normally with a refresh we typically expect a full stack of processors, but this time around Intel is only providing two, at least to begin with. At the top of the stack is the new halo processor, the Core i7-1195G7.

The Core i7-1195G7 represents the first time Intel has enabled 5.0 GHz on a U-class processor (not counting the H35 series which aren’t H-series processors but U-series processors with a stupid name). Intel enables 5.0 GHz through the use of Turbo Boost Max 3.0, which is a ‘favored core’ technology and the best core of the processor can boost that high.

The other specifications of the processor include a 2.9 GHz base frequency (at 28W only, Intel hasn’t given the 12W or 15W base frequency), a 4.6 GHz all-core turbo frequency when inside the turbo window, and a new peak 1400 MHz graphics frequency on the X^e-LP Iris graphics configuration of 96 execution units.

The processor has four cores and eight threads, and supports up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 or 32 GB of LPDDR4X-4266. In our initial report, we had believed that the refresh processors might be the first to support LPDDR5, given that was part of Intel’s specifications when the Tiger Lake-U platform first launched in Q3 2020. We are still yet to see any Tiger Lake-U processor run with LPDDR5, so here’s hoping it comes to fruition perhaps later this year.

The second processor is the Core i5-1155G7, a new peak Core i5 processor in the family going above the Core i5-1145G7. Like the new Core i7 halo, it beats the incumbent by exchanging base frequency (-100 MHz at 28 W) for peak turbo (4.5 GHz, Turbo 2.0) and all-core turbo (4.3 GHz).

Intel is expecting 60+ new laptop designs with the updated Tiger Lake-U refresh processors this year, creating a total of 250 Tiger Lake-U designs overall in the global market.

In July 2019, Intel sold its 5G assets to Apple. At the time, Intel had been working on 5G technology for some time, but it was very late to the game. The company had a number of key design wins on 4G, but reports of a lack of performance and power efficiency compared to others in the market. Ultimately Intel decided to sell its faltering smartphone modem business that had never actually turned a profit to Apple in order for Apple to develop its own vertically integrated design. Intel, now without a 5G solution, had to call on third parties for cross-branding. Insert MediaTek.

In November 2019, Intel and MediaTek jointly announced a partnership to bring 5G connectivity to its processors. At the time MediaTek was well underway with its 5G solution, especially with a burgeoning smartphone processor business to support and the need to have a competitive solution with Qualcomm and Samsung. Under the deal, rather than simply rebranding the solution MediaTek created, Intel would be defining its offering in a semi-custom-like arrangement. Today, a long while after MediaTek has been supplying 5G modems with its own mobile processors, Intel is disclosing the first Intel-branded productizable solution out of the partnership, likely based on the T700 announced in the middle of last year.

The Intel 5G Solution 5000 is an M.2 module with an odd size. Rather than being a standard 2230 or 2242 module, which means it would be 22x42mm, the unit is actually 30x52mm. Over a PCIe 3.0 interface, it supports 5G Sub-6 GHz (the wider slower version of 5G), 4G LTE and 3G WCFMA, with global geographical coverage to support the following carriers:

• AT&T
• Verizon
• VDF
• Telefonica
• CMCC
• Swisscom
• Deutsche Telekom
• SFB
• Docomo
• Orange
• Sprint
• CUC
• CTC
• Telstra
• Optus
• T-Mobile (EU)
• KDDI

The solution, branded as the Fibocom FM350-GL, is supported in Windows, Chrome, and Linux, and supports 4700/1250 for download/upload over 5G. With 4G LTE, the speeds are 1600/150.

Intel is targeting the platforms for Tiger Lake and Alder Lake, but Acer has already announced a home router/base station with the technology.

As a sneak peek, Intel also disclosed the next generation NUC Extreme kit, based on 11^th Generation Tiger Lake-H processors. The new design follows Intel’s PCIe Element strategy, whereby most of the machine is on one PCIe card and a full GPU is connected through a combination riser, all in a single box, allowing for a premium gaming experience with a mobile processor.

The preview we saw showcased the new chassis, with Intel’s RGB skull logo. We were told to expect more information later in the year from the NUC team.

Related Reading

• MediaTek Announces T700 5G Modem Powering Intel PCs Successfully Certified
• Intel and MediaTek Announce Partnership To Bring 5G Modems to PCs
• Intel Exits 5G Smartphone Modem Market; Other Client Modem Businesses to Be Reviewed
• Pictured: Intel and Qualcomm to offer 5G Modules for M.2 Slots
• Intel Confirms Tiger Lake-U Refresh Later in 2021
• The Modular PC: Intel’s new Element brings Project Christine to Life

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Xiaomi says it can fully charge a phone in eight minutes - Engadget

In the saturated world of smartphones, charging speeds have become another way for manufacturers to stand out from the crowd. Records have been smashed and milestones achieved by companies jostling for attention. Today, China's Xiaomi has put its new fast charging system to the test and beaten world records in wired and wireless charging in the process, according to Engadget Chinese. Using its new Hyper Charge tech on a modified M11 Pro with a 4,000 mAh battery, Xiaomi says it brought the handset from 0 to a 50 percent charge in 3 minutes and 23 seconds, and to a full charge in just 8 minutes over a 200W wired connection. In its 120W wireless demonstration, it took 7 minutes to reach half capacity and 15 minutes to hit 100 percent.

Offering some extra insight into the controlled demo, Chinese bloggers briefed on the tech said it was conducted using a GaN charger (originally bundled with an 80W version) and a new dual-coil wireless charger. The modified phone itself uses a 10C graphene battery, they added. Before you get too excited, though, there's still no word on when the Hyper Charge tech will go into mass production.

This isn't the first time Xiaomi has touted its world-beating charging speeds. Significantly, the latest breakthrough marks a major upgrade on the 120W wired charging on the Mi 10 Ultra, which can fully juice up the phone in 23 minutes. The company also previously revealed that it could wirelessly charge a modified version of the Mi 10 Pro over 80W in 19 minutes.

Not to be left behind, Xiaomi's rivals have also shown off their charging chops: Vivo has demonstrated its 120W fast charger fully charging a gaming phone with a 4,000 mAh battery in 15 minutes. And Oppo — which licenses its fast charging tech to OnePlus — charged a 4,000mAh in 20 minutes with a 125W system and in 30 minutes using its 65W wireless AirVOOC tech.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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