MIT biotech researcher Lauren “Ren” Ramlan has run the iconic computer game Doom using gut bacteria. It’s not doing the running of the game, per se, but it is running (barely) on a display inside a cell wall made entirely of E. coli bacteria.
The researcher dosed the bacteria with fluorescent proteins to ensure they lit up like digital pixels, reaching a heady 32×48 resolution. In their paper, Ramlan says “To run Doom, all one needs is a screen and willpower,” mentioning Doom running on the digital display for a pregnancy test.
However, this is not playable. It takes 70 minutes for the bacteria to illuminate one frame of the game and another eight hours to return to its starting state. So, nearly nine hours per frame. Your Switch doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?
— Mat Smith
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Mostly thanks to the Activision deal.
It’s earnings season, so we’re trawling through reports and press releases and suffering earnings calls to eke out what it all means. For Microsoft, it was a boost in gaming revenue, having finally adopted Activision Blizzard. The entire company reported revenues of $62 billion (up 18 percent on last year) and profits of $21.9 billion (a 33 percent increase). Microsoft says its overall gaming revenue increased by 49 percent, 44 points of which came from the “net impact” of the Activision deal. Xbox hardware sales were up only three percent.
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The company is banking on the Galaxy S24.
Samsung still hasn’t recovered from its 2022 decline in profit. In its latest earnings report, it revealed KRW 258.94 trillion ($194 billion) in annual revenue and KRW 6.57 trillion ($4.9 billion) in operating profit for the fiscal year of 2023. That’s markedly less than last year. The company says its memory business — often a money maker — showed signs of recovery but not enough to stop it from incurring KRW 2.18 trillion ($1.63 billion) in operating losses for Q4 2023. Samsung has high hopes for the Galaxy S24 series and believes the devices’ AI capabilities can help its mobile business achieve double-digit growth in 2024. Here’s what we thought of the flagship S24 Ultra.
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From portable PC powerhouses to mobile emulation machines.
There are enough of them now to warrant a guide. Yes, handheld gaming PCs are having a moment and, depending on what you want to play, the right handheld could range from a solid $100 emulation machine to a $700 portable PC more powerful than your existing laptop. My one tip: consider battery life.
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