The hacker responsible for leaking in-development videos of Grand Theft Auto VI last year has been reportedly confined to a secure hospital — for an indefinite period. As per BBC News, an 18-year-old individual named Arion Kurtaj, who was part of the notorious cybercrime group Lapsus$, was deemed unfit to stand trial due to acute autism diagnosis. So, based on a mental assessment, the jury was asked to decide whether the heinous act was committed with criminal intent — resulting in the claim that the individual was ‘highly motivated’ to return to crime. As such, he has been sentenced to life in hospital indefinitely until he’s deemed as no longer dangerous to people.

Kurtaj was arrested back in September 2022 on suspicion of the Rockstar Games hack, during which he pled not guilty and faced trial for the crimes his cybercrime group committed against Nvidia and Uber. “The jury was told that while he was on bail for hacking Nvidia and BT/EE and in police protection at a Travelodge hotel, he continued hacking and carried out his most infamous hack,” the report states. The hack was seemingly carried out in a hotel room, which he performed using an Amazon Firestick, a television, and a smartphone. (His laptop was allegedly confiscated from a previous breach attack.) Having gained access to the company’s Slack group, he boldly threatened to release the GTA 6 source code within the next 24 hours unless Rockstar negotiated with him over the Telegram messaging app.

While not explicitly mentioned, Rockstar might have declined his requests, leading to Kurtaj releasing over 90 clips from the highly anticipated video game into the wilds, in what could be called one of the biggest leaks in gaming history. Earlier this month, the company dropped the first trailer for GTA VI, showing off some in-engine footage and a glimpse at our two leads, Lucia and Jason. That video garnered 62 million views within just 13 hours of release, causing Kurtaj’s defence team to argue that the leaks barely put a dent in the game’s success and that no serious harm was caused. However, Rockstar argued that the leak spoiled thousands of hours put into development and affected the team morale, causing $5 million worth of damage for recovery. In addition to Kurtaj, another unnamed 17-year-old male was convicted of partaking in the cyberattack on Nvidia and stealing cryptocurrency.

More recently, another AAA game studio Insomniac Games fell victim to a ransomware attack, with the responsible cybercrime group releasing 1.67TB of confidential data into the wild, including a fully functioning build of the upcoming Wolverine game, emails between employees and their personal information, presentations on future release slate, sales figures, and more. Game developers around the world have united to shower love and support to the affected and denounced hacks which could endanger people’s lives.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch on the current-gen PS5 and Xbox Series S/X sometime in 2025.

Realme GT 7 Pro was launched in China on Monday. The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s new octa-core Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset paired with up to 16GB of RAM. It is backed by a 6,500mAh battery with 120W wired fast charging support. The handset comes with IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance. It is equipped with a 50-megapixel Sony IMX906 main camera alongside a wide-angle as well as a periscope telephoto shooter. The Realme GT 7 Pro is confirmed to launch in India on November 26.

Realme GT 7 Pro Price, Availability

Realme GT 7 Pro price in China starts at CNY 3,699 (roughly Rs. 43,800) for the 12GB + 512GB option, while the 12GB + 256GB variant is priced at CNY 3,999 (roughly Rs. 47,400). Meanwhile, the 16GB + 256GB, 16GB + 512GB, and 16GB + 1TB versions are listed at CNY 3,899 (roughly Rs. 46,200), CNY 4,299 (roughly Rs. 50,900) and CNY 4,799 (roughly Rs. 56,900), respectively.

The phone is available for purchase in China via the Realme China e-store. It is offered in Mars Exploration Edition, Star Trail Titanium, and Light Domain White (translated from Chinese) colour options.

Realme GT 7 Pro Specifications, Features

The Realme GT 7 Pro sports a 6.78-inch 2K Eco2 Sky Screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate, 2,600Hz instant touch sampling rate, and 6,000nits of peak brightness level. The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 onboard storage. It ships with Android 15-based Realme UI 6.0.

In the camera department, the GT 7 Pro has a triple rear camera unit including a 1/1.56-inch 50-megapixel Sony IMX906 primary sensor, an 8-megapixel wide-angle shooter, and a 1/1.95-inch 50-megapixel Sony IMX882 periscope telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and 120x digital zoom support. The front camera comes with a 16-megapixel sensor. The phone supports underwater photography, live photos, and AI-backed editing features.

The Realme GT 7 Pro is backed by a 6,500mAh battery with support for 120W wired fast charging. It comes with IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance. For security, the handset carries an in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. Connectivity options include 5G, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, GPS, GALILEO, Beidou, QZSS, NFC and a USB Type-C port. 

I’ll start by saying that this is the most insane gaming laptop I’ve ever reviewed. While I’ve used several gaming laptops, including the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 (Review), this is on a different level. The ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D is a top-of-the-line gaming laptop with an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D 16-core processor. It features AMD’s exclusive 3D V-cache technology that boosts performance by at least 15 percent compared to the standard 7945HX chip. Apart from the new processor and additional Ryzen AI features, there’s nothing new with the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D compared to the non-X3D variant.

Since the AMD processor is the main hero here, I will focus mainly on the performance, gaming, and AI features this laptop supports. After using the laptop for about a week, here’s what I think of it.

Before I begin, I’d like to point out that the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D isn’t available for purchase in India and AMD sent us this unit to try out the processor and the Ryzen AI features. Our review unit (G733PYV-LL053X) came with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with 16GB VRAM, a max 175W TGP, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and 1TB of storage.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D Review: Design and display

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D looks exactly like the standard version. It has a stealthy look with a matte finish, ROG logo, and a strip on the lid. The laptop uses a mix of aluminium and plastic to provide a rigid chassis. It is thick at around 1 inch and weighs in at 3 kg. Yes, this is a big and heavy laptop, as are most gaming laptops with big displays. There’s some flex on the lid, but nothing concerning.

The ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D looks exactly the same as the standard variant

On the front, you get the RGB Aura Sync bar, and when you open the lid, you’re greeted with a large 17-inch display with slim bezels and anti-glare coating. There’s a web camera on the top, and the display is connected to the bottom with two heavy-duty hinges. You’ll find that the rear protrudes a little and has the ROG Armour cap, which is non-swappable this time.

Moving down, you get a full-sized keyboard with per-key RGB customisation and a 2mm travel. Below the keyboard lies an excellent sized trackpad. The underside of the laptop features ROG-styled cutouts and large rubber feet, along with the cutouts for the cooling system.

The laptop offers plenty of connectivity options. You get dual USB Type-A ports and a headphone jack on the left side, whereas the rear houses two USB Type-C ports, an HDMI 2.1 slot, and a 2.5G LAN port along with the AC input.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D Review: Specifications

Once again, most of the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D specifications are similar to the non-X3D variant, except for the newer chipset. This variant comes with the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D processor that gets 16 cores/32 threads, 144 MB total cache, 55W+ TDP, and up to 5.4 GHz max boost speed. It is based on the Zen 4 architecture. The chipset uses AMD’s exclusive 3D V-cache technology, which delivers almost twice the L3 cache (128 MB) compared to the standard Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU. AMD even claims that the updated chipset is up to 15 percent faster than the standard model.

This is the only laptop to currently house the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D processor

The CPU is paired with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 mobile GPU with 16GB VRAM and up to 175 W TDP with Dynamic boost. You also get up to 32GB DDR5 RAM with support for up to 64GB. It also comes with up to 2TB storage. For connectivity, the laptop features Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Asus has packed a 90 Whrs battery in the laptop and packs a 330W AC adapter in the box.

You also get a beautiful 17.3-inch IPS anti-glare display that offers WQHD (2560 x 1440) resolution and up to 240Hz refresh rate. The panel also supports Dolby Vision HDR and covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. There’s also a dual speaker setup with Dolby Atmos support and Hi-res certification for headphones.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D Review: Performance and Software

To make the best of the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D chipset and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, Asus has included its Armoury Crate software. You can use this tool to select between the different modes available or even manually play around with the clock speeds (within permissible limits).

You get several modes, including a manual mode to adjust CPU and GPU performance

I ran a couple of synthetic benchmarks on the laptop to get an idea of its performance, and the numbers confirmed that this is one of the best gaming laptops out there. The benchmarks were run in the Turbo mode with the GPU set to Ultimate. On Geekbench 6.3, the laptop managed a single-core CPU score of 2,770 and a multi-core score of 16,471. The GPU tests on the benchmarking tool delivered a score of 2,00,864 points.

Geekbench 6.3 scores for AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D

Next up, I ran Cinebench R23 to test CPU performance. The laptop scored 28,599 points in the multi-core tests, which is pretty impressive for a mobile CPU. In comparison, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, a desktop-class processor with a TDP of 250W, scored 30,054 points. With the single-core test, the laptop delivered 1919 points. That’s another impressive score and right up there at the top.

Cinebench R23 scores are impressive

In conclusion, and with numbers from other benchmarks (PCMark 10 – 8,228) that I ran, the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D is the best laptop processor at the moment, at least when it comes to multi-core performance.

This kind of stellar CPU + GPU performance also enables the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D to perform all kinds of AI related tasks. You get access to Microsoft Studio Effects, over 50 Adobe tools, 25+ Topaz Labs video and photo editing techniques, and 20+ video and audio editing features on Davinci. That’s not all, as there are over 50+ features offered by tools such as AVID, Zoom, Boris FX, Audacity, Bytedance, CyberLink, Luminar, Blender, and Arkruner.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D: Gaming

Gaming on the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D is insane. AAA titles run buttery smooth even when using the laptop in battery mode. You can game on WQHD+ resolution and still get excellent frame rates. I ran Hogwarts Legacy at full resolution with Ultra graphics settings, and the average FPS was above 100. The game looked great and had no lag whatsoever. You can run almost any AAA title at full blast and still get impressive frame rates from this laptop.

Hogwarts Legacy ran without any hiccups at Ultra graphics settings in WQHD resolution

What’s also impressive is the cooling setup on the laptop. During long gaming sessions, the keyboard never got warm enough to stop me from playing. The cooling is excellent on the machine.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D: Battery life, Keyboard, Web camera, speakers

This is a high-end gaming laptop, so I did not expect it to offer great battery life. These laptops aren’t designed for that. With regular usage that included using Chrome with multiple tabs and watching a couple of videos on YouTube, the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D lasted for about 2 hours in Silent mode. This number falls to about 45 minutes to an hour when using the laptop for gaming in Performance mode.

You get a full-size chiclet keyboard on the laptop that offers 2 mm of travel and per key RGB customisation. It’s an excellent keyboard, and I was very pleased with how comfortable it was for typing and gaming.

The web camera is not great, and once again, this is expected from a gaming laptop. It’s a 720p sensor that works okay in good lighting conditions and bad in low light. However, I don’t believe anyone uses a webcam on a gaming laptop, so this isn’t a negative.

The built-in speakers also have nothing to brag about. The dual speakers aren’t loud, but you get some bass and good separation.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D Review: Verdict

The AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D is the best mobile gaming processor available on the planet right now, and that’s not me being biased. And the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D is the only laptop currently equipped with the chipset, which makes it that much more special. Be it gaming or creative work, this laptop can handle it all without breaking a sweat. Therefore, the verdict is easy. If you have the money and it’s available in your region, you should buy it. There’s nothing like it!

Intelligent extraterrestrial civilisations might be utilising stars as massive interstellar vehicles to explore the galaxy, according to a theory proposed by Clement Vidal, a philosopher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. His research suggests that alien species could potentially accelerate their binary star systems to traverse vast cosmic distances. While such a concept is purely hypothetical and unproven, Vidal’s recent paper, which has not undergone peer review, raises intriguing possibilities about advanced extraterrestrial engineering.

Concept of Moving Star Systems

The study was published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. As per a report by LiveScience, the idea revolves around the notion that alien civilisations, instead of building spacecraft for interstellar travel, might manipulate entire star systems to travel across the galaxy. Vidal highlights binary star systems, particularly those involving neutron stars and smaller companion stars, as ideal candidates. Neutron stars, due to their immense gravitational energy, could serve as anchors for devices designed to propel the system by selectively ejecting stellar material.

Vidal explained in the paper that uneven heating or manipulation of magnetic fields on a star’s surface could cause it to eject material in one direction. This process would create a reactionary thrust, propelling the binary system in the opposite direction. The concept provides a way to travel while preserving planetary ecosystems, making it a theoretically viable method for species reliant on their home systems.

Known Examples with High Velocities

Astronomers have identified hypervelocity stars, such as the pulsars PSR J0610-2100 and PSR J2043+1711, which exhibit high accelerations. While their movements are believed to be natural phenomena, Vidal suggests they could be worth further investigation to rule out potential artificial influences.

This theory adds an unconventional angle to the search for intelligent life, expanding possibilities beyond traditional methods of exploration like searching for signals or probes. The research underscores the importance of considering advanced and unconventional methods aliens might employ to navigate the galaxy.

Microsoft Copilot appears to have been quietly rolled out to Android users. Copilot, driven by the latest OpenAI models GPT-4 and DALL-E 3, is capable of generating content and creating visuals from basic text descriptions and requests. It is Microsoft’s Bing Chat AI chatbot and other existing AI features rebranded and bundled together as a generative AI assistant. Although the company has not announced the release officially, Microsoft Copilot is currently listed on Google’s Play Store and is available for download to all Android users.

The Play Store listing (first spotted by Neowin) of Microsoft Copilot lists the app as free-to-use, suggesting there could be in-app purchases. As per the listing on the Play Store, the app was last updated on December 19. Microsoft rebranded its Bing Chat AI to Copilot in September this year. However, unlike Bing Chat, the new app is completely dedicated to providing access to Microsoft’s AI conversation helper. There is no distraction from Bing’s search engine or rewards, but advertisements will show up occasionally in this new app.

Copilot, as suggested by the listing, offers free access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 and DALL-E 3 artificial intelligence models, which are claimed to help offer users “fast, complex, and precise responses, as well as the ability to create breathtaking visuals” from simple text cues. 

The Microsoft Copilot app for Android does not require users to sign in to a Microsoft account. However, the company explains that signing in using a Microsoft email ID would allow “more questions” and “longer conversations” with the chatbot. The app also asks for an approximate location permission but it is not mandatory to share. A toggle within the Microsoft Copilot application enables users to turn on GPT-4 access, which the app also warns will be “slower while being creative.”

Meanwhile, a report by Windows Latest citing internal sources suggests that Microsoft is working on an iOS version of Copilot. The report claims that it is “nearly ready” and could launch soon although it does not detail a timeline. For the time being, iOS users can access Microsoft Copilot via the Bing Chat app.

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