Posts Tagged: engine
Google paid $26 billion in 2021 for default search engine status
Vice president Prabhakar Raghavan testified Friday that Google paid $ 26.3 billion in 2021 for the purpose of maintaining default search engine status and acquiring traffic, Bloomberg reports. It’s likely the lion’s share of that sum went to Apple, which it has showered with exorbitant sums for many years in order to remain the default search option on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Raghavan, who was testifying as part of the DOJ’s ongoing antitrust suit against the company, said Google’s search advertising made $ 146.4 billion in revenue in 2021, which puts the $ 26 billion it paid for default status in perspective. The executive clarified that default status was the most costly part of what it pays to acquire traffic.
Raghavan didn’t mention how much of the $ 26.3 billion went to Apple. But CNBC reports that an estimate from private wealth management firm Bernstein ballparked that Google could pay Apple up to $ 19 billion this year for the default privilege.
A slide shown in court revealed that, in 2014, Google brought in $ 47 billion in search revenue while paying $ 7.1 billion for default status. Raghavan testified that Google’s overall default search engine payments nearly quadrupled from 2014 to 2021, while its search advertising revenue (roughly) tripled.
Google objected to making the figures public, arguing it would hurt its ability to negotiate future contracts. Judge Amit Mehta, overseeing the case, disagreed.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-paid-26-billion-in-2021-for-default-search-engine-status-203129384.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Epic made a Rivian R1T demo to show off its latest Unreal Engine 5 tools
In 2020, Epic Games publicly demoed Unreal Engine 5 for the first time. Nearly three years later, gamers are still waiting for the tech to go mainstream. Outside of Fortnite and The Matrix Awakens, there aren’t any UE5 games you can play right now, and the first salvo probably won’t arrive until the end of the year at the earliest. None of that stopped Epic from showcasing the engine’s latest capabilities with a handful of new demos during its recent State of Unreal keynote at GDC 2023.
Arguably the most impressive one saw Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 developer Ninja Theory show off Epic’s new MetaHuman Animator. The tool promises to make realistic facial capture accessible to indie developers by allowing them to use an iPhone, instead of dedicated equipment, to capture facial performances. As you can see from the two demos Epic shared, the tool makes it possible to quickly and accurately transform a closeup video of an actor into something a studio can use in-game. Epic said the animator would launch this summer.
Separately, Epic showed off some of the enhancements coming to Unreal Engine 5.2 with a demo that featured, of all things, a digital recreation of Rivian’s R1T electric truck. The EV turned out to be the perfect showcase for UE 5’s new Substrate shading system. The technology allows artists to create different shading models and layer them as they see fit. In the demo, Epic gave the R1T an opal body to show how Substrate can allow different material layers to interact with one another without creating lighting artifacts. The demo was also a showcase for Epic’s new set of Procedural Content Generation tools. They allow artists to create expansive, highly detailed levels from a small set of hand-crafted assets.
If all goes according to plan, it won’t be much longer before the first slate of Unreal Engine 5 games arrive. Provided it’s not delayed again, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is slated to release this year. Lords of the Fallen and Black Myth: Wukong, two other UE5 projects, don’t have a release date yet but have been in development for a few years now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/epic-made-a-rivian-r1t-demo-to-show-off-its-latest-unreal-engine-5-tools-214300199.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Blue Origin pins last summer’s NS-23 rocket failure on a faulty engine nozzle
Blue Origin now has an explanation for the booster failure that cut a New Shepard flight short last September. Jeff Bezos' company has determined that a "thermo-structural failure" in the NS-23 rocket's engine nozzle was to blame. Operational temperatures for the nozzle climbed higher than expected following cooling system design changes, creating fatigue that misaligned the thrust and activated the crew capsule's escape system.
Engineers are already taking "corrective actions" that include redesigning the combustion chamber and operating conditions. Blue Origin has also tweaked the nozzle design to improve its structural integrity. The capsule wasn't damaged and will fly again, Blue Origin says.
The company says it hopes to resume flights "soon," but hasn't provided an exact date. It intends to restart operations by re-flying the research payload from the aborted mission. The Federal Aviation Administration has to accept the incident findings before Blue Origin can move forward.
There's plenty of pressure on Blue Origin to address the issues. The company recently obtained a NASA contract to fly a science mission to Mars using its yet-to-launch New Glenn rocket, and has been pushing for a lunar lander agreement. The sooner Blue Origin can prove that its rocketry is trustworthy, the sooner it can secure customers that include governments and space tourists.
Rivals are facing problems of their own. Relativity Space's first 3D-printed rocket failed to reach orbit earlier this month. SpaceX, meanwhile, has yet to successfully fire all of Starship's engines at the same time. That's not including past problems like Rocket Lab's setbacks. Private spaceflight remains difficult, and Blue Origin is just the latest to illustrate that fact.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/blue-origin-pins-last-summers-ns-23-rocket-failure-on-a-faulty-engine-nozzle-195714293.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Korg’s Drumlogue is an analog drum machine with a powerful digital engine
After first teasing it way back on January 2021, Korg has released the much-anticipated Drumlogue, a hybrid drum machine with a digital multi-engine and expandability via the logue SDK used in its Minilogue XD and other products. It has both analog and digital drum synths and can also play back samples, with the unique ability to add third-party plug-in effects and more — making it one of the more versatile drum machines out there.
As mentioned, the Drumlogue has three sound engines, analog and digital synthesisers as well as sample-based instruments. The analog has a kick, snare hi tom and low tom, with controls to manipulate decay, tune and more.
On the digital side, it comes with the Nano virtual analog synth plugin or, you can load a multi-engine with VPM synthesis, a noise generator, or other custom algorithms via the logue SDK (multi-engine) found on the NTS-1 and other products. It also supports third-party logue plugins using Korg's SDK. From there, you can use the multi-fx engine to load effects including reverb, delay, equalizer, boost and compressor.
The sequencer offers 64 steps, chain functionality and other features. On the connectivity side, it comes with four assignable 6.3mm audio outputs and an audio input for routing external audio through the effects. Despite the audio input, it doesn't work as a sampler — you can only play back samples. It's now available on preorder for $ 600 at B&H Photo Video and elsewhere.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirms censored China search engine
When Google's chief privacy officer admitted to the Senate that the company is working on a secret project called 'Dragonfly,' he refused to say what it is. According to previous reports, Dragonfly is the codename for the censored search engine Googl…
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Senators grill Google over rumored China search engine
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World’s fastest bumper car tops 100 mph with a 600cc sports bike engine
British mad scientist Colin Furze likes to make things fast. His latest project is the world’s fastest bumper car for Top Gear’s. With a 600cc, 100-horsepower sports bike engine, it set a world record by averaging more than 100 mph.
The post World’s fastest bumper car tops 100 mph with a 600cc sports bike engine appeared first on Digital Trends.
Mozilla’s new Firefox browser engine to provide “quantum leap” in performance
Mozilla is currently working on a fresh new browser engine for Firefox called Quantum. It replaces the old Gecko engine that has been around since 1997 and will support new technologies and hardware from the ground up.
The post Mozilla’s new Firefox browser engine to provide “quantum leap” in performance appeared first on Digital Trends.
You can now search YouTube videos with emoji at Emoji2Video search engine
You can now search videos and images by emoji with a new search engine, Emoji2Video. The search engine lets you enter one or more emoji and then displays videos on YouTube according to the emoji selected.
The post You can now search YouTube videos with emoji at Emoji2Video search engine appeared first on Digital Trends.