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Coronavirus: Dutch shocked to be EU vaccination stragglers
Caution and bureaucracy have made the Dutch last in the EU to start vaccinating against Covid-19.
Lagos Third Mainland Bridge: Six months of traffic woe in Nigeria
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Covid travel: Why Instagram is still full of celebrities ‘on holiday’
Despite rising infection rates and restrictions in the UK, some celebrities have continued to travel.
Can rebel Republicans overturn the election?
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CES 2021: Dates, Conferences, And News We Expect
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed how conventions operate–or don’t–and this certainly applies to CES 2021. The event won’t be held in-person this year, but there will still be plenty of virtual presentations and announcements beginning Monday, January 11. The biggest names in technology will share news on upcoming products and services, including gaming brands. Here is everything you need to know about CES 2021, including the dates, key presentations, and expected announcements.
When is CES 2021?
CES 2021 will take place online from January 11 through January 14, and events are scheduled throughout each of these days. It kicks off with a keynote presentation from Verizon CEO and chairman Hans Vestberg on January 11 at 3:30 PM PT / 6:30 PM ET.
You can see a full list of when each event kicks off on the official CES website. Keep in mind that some of the scheduled events during these CES 2021 dates are actually replays of previously-streamed presentations. This is the case for every single event on January 14.
King Of Fighters 15, Samurai Shodown Season Pass 3 Announcement Delayed
Developer and publisher SNK has announced that the reveal of King of Fighters XV and Samurai Shodown‘s Season Pass 3 has been postponed, though a reason hasn’t been confirmed.
SNK had planned to officially unveil King of Fighter XV this week. The reveal of the latest entry in the King of Fighters series was to be followed by an announcement of the new characters coming to Samurai Shodown as part of the game’s Season Pass 3 bundle. However, the company said it will “inform our fans as soon as the new date and time has been confirmed.”
King of Fighters XV was teased in December, with SNK calling it the “most ambitious KOF yet.” The studio shared no gameplay at the time. King of Fighters creative director Eisuke Ogura revealed King of Fighters XIV newcomer Shun’ei is the franchise’s latest protagonist. As such, Shun’ei has a new outfit (shown off in some concept art), as well as an overhauled moveset.
Samsung Announces New 8K And 4K TVs With Drastically Improved Picture Quality
Ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show next week, Samsung has revealed its new line of 4K and 8K TVs set to launch later in 2021.
All the models announced today make use of brand new QLED technology that Samsung is branding “Neo QLED.” The biggest benefit is that Samsung has managed to reduce the size of the LEDs that act as the backlight in its display, allowing for drastically more dimming zones and the reduction of blooming. Traditional LED displays require backlighting for brightness, but the size of the LEDs has often led to distracting light bleed in scenes where only small portions of the image are overly bright or dark. This is one of the biggest benefits of OLEDs, which are self-emissive.
According to The Verge, Samsung is promising up to “up to almost 30,000 tiny LEDs” and “up to 2,500 dimming zones,” which will make backlighting in this year’s models noticeably better than those from 2020. Samsung announced to 8K models (the QN900A and QN800A) as well as numerous 4K models (QN95A, QN90A, and the QN85A). The number of dimming zones does decrease with less expensive models, but Samsung hasn’t detailed each individually yet.
Earth Is Spinning Unusually Fast, And We Might Have To Delete A Second
2020 was a rough year for many of us, but there was another crisis going on that you probably weren’t even aware of: a time crisis. Unfortunately, no light guns will save us here. According to TimeAndDate.com, the Earth spun faster than in 2020 than in any other time in the past 50 years, with the 28 shortest days since 1960.
As reported in the Telegraph, experts and astronomers warn that timekeepers may need to introduce a negative leap second in order to stay accurate. Leap seconds–which are used to accommodate differences between atomic time and less-precise solar time–have previously been used to solve such issues. However, a leap second in 2012 wreaked havoc across the Internet, with Reddit, Yelp, Mozilla, and others reporting Y2K-esque crashes due to the shift.
Some experts have called for an end to leap seconds entirely, opining that they are a relic of a past age, since much of the world relies on atomic time today. The World Radiocommuncation Conference may end up abolishing the practice in 2023, though it’s unclear how likely this is to happen. Earth’s rotational speed varies considerably due to the motion of tides, the atmosphere, and the planet’s core, as well as other factors, such as snowfall on mountains.
Hulu Announces Solar Opposites Season 2 Release Date
Season 2 of Solar Opposites, Hulu’s show co-created by Rick & Morty’s Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan, will be hitting the streaming service with eight new episodes on March 26. This is obviously great news for Solar Opposite fans, but also exciting news for Rick & Morty fans–a show notorious for long delays between seasons, made all the more kinda frustrating knowing there are dozens on their way in the coming years. Check out the expletive-laden trailer for Solar Opposites’ second season below.
Based on the trailer, Season 2 is a bit of a reset on Season 1–centered around a team of four aliens who escape their exploding home world only to crash land into suburban America, and their efforts to leave Earth have been thwarted, or at least temporarily delayed. The small squad are evenly split on whether Earth is great–“Korvo (Justin Roiland) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) only see the pollution, crass consumerism, and human frailty while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) love humans and all their TV, junk food, and fun stuff.”
Roiland has otherwise been keeping busy with other projects, including the now homeless Quibi series Gloop World (which might get snatched up by Roku in an acquisition) and his game development studio Squanch Games (which in 2019 released Trover Saves the Universe).