AT&T begins enforcing broadband caps, offers $30 waiver option

Sean Ridgeley | Internet & Websites | May 24, 2016 11:07 AM CDT

AT&T began data capping its U-Verse broadband customers back in 2011, although it didn't enforce its new rules. That changes this week as May 23 has arrived: the date the company said it would begin enforcing caps.

Whereas the cap was 250GB per month in 2011, that's been increased to 300GB for those with 768 Kbps-6Mbps plans; 12Mbps-75Mbps plans will have a 600GB cap, and 100 Mbps-1Gbps means a 1TB cap. Should you exceed the limit (and you'll receive plenty of e-mail warnings before you do), you'll be charged $10 for each 50GB of extra data. Alternately, you can pay a flat $30 extra per month for unlimited data.

AT&T says about 4% of its customers go over the new limits.

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DOTA 2 now second game to support Vulkan

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 24, 2016 9:47 AM CDT

Valve's DOTA 2 is now the second game to support the Vulkan API, an evolution of AMD's Mantle that allows developers to squeeze a ton more performance out of a game. The first: 2014's The Talos Principle, which received support earlier this year.

Support is in the beta stage, so you'll need to grab it as DLC. And if you use the Steam Overlay, you'll want to opt in to the Steam Client Beta to have the newest Steam Vulkan Overlay to prevent issues. Also, Valve notes the first time you play with Vulkan, you might notice stuttering, but that should go away after a full match.

Minimum system requirements are as follows:

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Nintendo's next-gen handheld called 'MH', will co-exist with NX?

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 24, 2016 7:32 AM CDT

Nintendo's post-3DS next generation handheld might be codenamed the "MH", and it could co-exist alongside the Nintendo NX games console.

Nintendo's next-gen handheld called 'MH', will co-exist with NX?

According to Yahoo Japan, who cited a report from Japanese financial site Traders Web, Nintendo may be planning on releasing an upgraded portable handheld to accompany the Nintendo NX console. "The driving force up until now has been new business from "health services, theme parks and mobile games etc", but will switch over to the next generation game system (NX) and next-gen handheld game device (MH (temporary name))," reads a translation provided by IGN.

This doesn't seem quite right, especially considering the NX will likely have a Wii U-like gamepad controller that sports 3DS-like portability. It's also too soon for Nintendo to release a handheld. The New 3DS was released in 2014 in Japan, and February 2015 in North America, and the N3DS has yet to adopt its own exclusive games library.

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Radeon 16.5.3 drivers optimized for Warhammer, Overwatch, DOTA 2

Sean Ridgeley | Video Cards & GPUs | May 24, 2016 7:26 AM CDT

AMD's Radeon Crimson Edition 16.5.3 driver is out, and with it comes optimizations for top games, new Crossfire profiles, and bug fixes for various games and system issues.

If you're getting in on the Total War: Warhammer or Overwatch action (both newly released), AMD has you covered with this driver set, which is optimized and includes Crossfire profiles for both. As well, a longtime favourite in DOTA 2 gets some love with improved support for the Vulkan API (Valve has also enabled it on their end with a patch for the game).

As for fixes, that stuttering while playing Fallout 4 in Crossfire should be gone as should flickering in the Division while using Crossfire. Various niche system issues are no more, either.

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Extended 'Independence Day: Resurgence' trailer shares new secrets

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | May 23, 2016 6:40 PM CDT

It's been eagerly awaited for 20 years since the release of the original, but the marketing juggernaut for the 'Independence Day: Resurgence' is kicking up a gear today with the release of an epic, 5 minute long trailer which plays as a 'best-of' from the previously released trailers, alongside new footage.

Returning stars Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch and Vivica A. Fox are joined by newcomers Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe and Jessie Usher in defending the world from a second, much more powerful wave of alien attack, with the film promising to unleash visual effects as mind-blowing as they were in 1996.

'Independence Day: Resurgence' hits 2D, 3D and IMAX cinemas worldwide from June 23rd.

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Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 23, 2016 2:26 PM CDT

Uncharted 4 is a smashing success for Sony and Naughty Dog, selling an incredible 2.7 million global units in its first week. The game now holds the mantle as the fastest-selling first-party Sony game in North America.

Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units

Sony broke the amazing sale figures on the PlayStation Blog, and the company is understandably peacocking the feat to the rest of the gaming world. Uncharted 4's 2.7 million sales are actual "sell-through" sales, meaning 2.7 million people across the globe actually bought the game digitally or on disc. After a bit of quick math we see Uncharted 4 (just the game, mind you) generated an insane $172.8 million in its first week.

But wait, there's more: Uncharted 4's sale figures reportedly smash the first-week sales figures of Halo 5, despite Microsoft's claims that Halo 5 sold $400 million worth of global software and hardware sales during its launch week.

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Anniversary Update will let Windows 10 run on more devices

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | May 23, 2016 1:37 PM CDT

Microsoft has changed the hardware requirements of Windows 10 in light of the looming Anniversary Update. On the whole, these are for the better, allowing a wider range of devices to use the operating system.

Once the update is live, Windows 10 Mobile devices up to 9'' will be able to run it (versus the previous 7.99''), whereas the desktop version can be installed on devices with screens as small as 7'' (down from 8'').

RAM requirements are now up for 32-bit versions of the OS: 2GB versus the previous 1GB. As for storage, that's now at 16GB and 20GB for 32-bit and 64-bit devices, respectively.

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Homefront: The Revolution's CPU scaling is bugged

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 23, 2016 12:28 PM CDT

Homefront: The Revolution has been suffering from performance issues on both console and PC. On PC at least, it turns out a major factor in this is uneven CPU core utilization; according to DSOGaming's testing, the game puts a lot of stress on one core while others are left to lag behind, dragging framerate down considerably.

To get around it, do the following after booting the game: Alt-Tab > Task Manager > Details tab > right-click Homefront > Set affinity > disable all threads > re-enable all threads. Once complete, you should notice an approximately 25 FPS boost.

Unfortunately, you'll likely have to do this every time you play the game, so you may just want to wait for patches, which are on the way.

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Spotify matches Apple Music family plan pricing

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | May 23, 2016 11:39 AM CDT

Apple Music has been growing thanks in part to its $14.99/mo family plan, and Spotify has taken notice. As of today, the Swedish streaming service offers the same plan except it does Apple one better and supports up to six people instead of five.

At last count, Apple Music sat at 13 million subscribers (up two million over the previous count), while Spotify sat at 30 million.

If Apple's service continues to pick up Steam, both services should improve all the more for the competition, which is great news for users.

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Final Fantasy X/X-2 mod improves texture quality

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 23, 2016 10:21 AM CDT

The game just keeps getting better: first there was the Japanese voices, English subtitles mod for Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, and now there's a texture improvement mod.

Created by modder Fraggoso with the use of Kalaiden's also sweet Untitled Project X mod, this one reworks all the game's low-resolution textures to bring them up to par with the rest of a given scene. To compare the work, head here and here (likely the best example) and mouse over and under the different shots. While Square Enix's remastering is fine work, the mod shows there was still significant room for improvement.

Hit the source for downloads and installation instructions.

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