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Meta has teamed up with UFC to bring live mixed martial arts (MMA) in VR to Horizon Worlds, the company announced in a Quest Blog post seen by The Verge. The experience, launching in November, will let UFC Fight Pass subscribers (via Xtadium and YBVR streaming) watch MMA action at 4K resolution and 180-degree VR capture on Horizon Worlds. “Enjoy the action alone or with friends and switch camera angles throughout the fight to get the best view of every matchup,” Meta wrote. 

Users will also be able to discuss UFC with other Horizon Worlds users, check out a virtual version of the Octagon and compete in single player and multiplayer in-world games to gain unlockable rewards — all with the goal of becoming a UFC “Hall of Famer.” 

The new experience is one of a number of ways Meta is attempting to lure users to Horizon Worlds. Recently, the company added Quests to keep users returning to the site, including mini-games like Giant Paddle Mini Golf,Arena Clash and Bad Roommates. It also recently introduced Rumble World, the first of many next-gen Horizon Worlds games featuring improved graphics and more complex gameplay. 

Meta said it latched onto UFC due to the “engagement and passion of this audience,” noting that fans enjoy not just the fights but also sharing the experience with other fans. “We tested this technology successfully with a handful of MMA events last year, and now we’re going further,” says MMA chief content officer Craig Borsari. “We’re just scratching the surface of how we can use this technology to create greater fan engagement and grow this sport.”

UFC also makes sense on Meta given CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s apparent interest in the sport (though his cage match with Elon Musk seems doubtful at the moment). In any case, live sports may be a potent way to attract new users to the reportedly flagging service, so it’ll be interesting to see if Meta adds others along with UFC. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-is-launching-a-ufc-themed-vr-experience-in-horizon-worlds-060904144.html?src=rss 

NASA estimates that its Earth science missions will generate around a quarter million terabytes of data in 2024 alone. In order for climate scientists and the research community efficiently dig through these reams of raw satellite data, IBM, HuggingFace and NASA have collaborated to build an open-source geospatial foundation model that will serve as the basis for a new class of climate and Earth science AIs that can track deforestation, predict crop yields and rack greenhouse gas emissions.

For this project, IBM leveraged its recently-released Watsonx.ai to serve as the foundational model using a year’s worth of NASA’s Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 satellite data (HLS). That data is collected by the ESA’s pair of Sentinel-2 satellites, which are built to acquire high resolution optical imagery over land and coastal regions in 13 spectral bands.

For it’s part, HuggingFace is hosting the model on its open-source AI platform. According to IBM, by fine-tuning the model on “labeled data for flood and burn scar mapping,” the team was able to improve the model’s performance 15 percent over the current state of the art using half as much data.

“The essential role of open-source technologies to accelerate critical areas of discovery such as climate change has never been clearer,” Sriram Raghavan, VP of IBM Research AI, said in a press release. “By combining IBM’s foundation model efforts aimed at creating flexible, reusable AI systems with NASA’s repository of Earth-satellite data, and making it available on the leading open-source AI platform, Hugging Face, we can leverage the power of collaboration to implement faster and more impactful solutions that will improve our planet.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ibm-and-nasa-teamed-up-to-build-the-gpt-of-earth-sciences-040116377.html?src=rss 

Now might be your chance if you’ve been in the market for a new gaming computer but haven’t found the right one. Alienware has announced the launch of its Aurora R16 desktop, an updated version of its flagship computer. Though the Aurora R16 is being released less than a year after the Aurora R15, it features a different design and features than its predecessor. 

At a quick glance, you’ll notice that the line’s former triangle shape is gone in favor of the rectangular Legend 3 design Alienware rolled out with its gaming laptops earlier this year. Yet, the Aurora 16 is 40 percent smaller than its predecessor while maintaining the same internal volume and, thus, upgradability. It also debuts the Alienware Command Center for desktops. 

Additional features of Alienware’s Aurora R16 desktop include 20 percent lower acoustics, seven percent lower temperatures and up to ten percent lower CPU than the Aurora R15. It also brings larger air intakes and exhausts, with a 54.5 percent larger open ratio. Plus, the Aurora R16 has two M.2 PCIe slots providing up to 8TB of storage and supports Wi-Fi 6E and 2.5 Gbps ethernet. Alienware’s Aurora R16 desktop is available now for $1,750. It will offer RTX 4070 or RTX 4070 Ti in the US and Canada, while European and Asian markets will also have RTX 3050 and RTX 4080. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/alienware-announces-a-new-look-aurora-r16-desktop-070153737.html?src=rss