Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare officially trademarked by Activision

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 30, 2016 5:50 AM CDT

Activision has officially trademarked Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, pretty much confirming the next entry in the hit FPS franchise.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare officially trademarked by Activision

Activision filed two separate trademarks for "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare" and "Infinite Warfare" at the United States Patent Office on April 26, meaning the patents are actually four days old.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was originally outed by an accidental listing on the PlayStation Store, along with leaked pre-order adverts and in-store promos. The game is believed to take place in space, and may be set in the distant future. A special $80 Infinite Warfare Legacy Collection comes with a free copy of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered, which features the full campaign and 10 multiplayer maps.

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Vivendi buys more Ubisoft shares, takeover rumors begin

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 30, 2016 5:24 AM CDT

Vivendi has just purchased a larger stake in Ubisoft, where until now they had a 10% stake in Ubisoft, but have recently purchased more - now holding 17.73% of Ubisoft's capital, and 15.66% of voting shares.

The company filed documents this week which were reported on by Reuters, with the company saying that it had "no plans" to try and push for an Ubisoft takeover, nor would it make an offer for Ubisoft's outstanding shares. Rewinding back to 2015, Vivendi increased its hold on Ubisoft from 6.6% to 10%, which Ubisoft said was "unsolicited and unwelcome".

Ubisoft has since met with investors and the Canadian government to "fight to preserve our independence". Vivendi used to own Activision Blizzard, but sold its majority stake in 2012, and then fully in 2013. It still owns around 12% of the company in 2013, and now it has less than 6%.

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San Jose's Cogswell College announces VR/AR certificate program

The future is VR, with the San Jose Cogswell College announcing its new Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) Certificate Program with the school adding that it's the first of its kind to do so.

Jerome Solomon, Cogswell's Dean of the College & Director of Game Design and Development, explains: "We look forward to helping the industry make sense of the exciting recent developments in virtual reality. We recognize the pain of developing around emerging VR/AR systems while at the same time the gaming industry has always led the way in finding applications for new technologies".

The new program will also cover Perceptual/Cognitive Aspects of VR/AR; HCI Design; Design for VR; and Project-Based Iterative Application. Timothy Duncan, DMA, Professor, Director of Digital Audio Technology said: "VR and AR are quickly emerging as leading areas for content and technology development. In keeping with Cogswell's 130-year tradition of educational excellence, we are offering this brand new set of VR & AR classes to help our students bridge the preparation gap by working with these trending and ground-breaking new technologies today".

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Nintendo NX will launch with a 'full software lineup'

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 30, 2016 1:23 AM CDT

Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima promises the new NX console will launch with a full assortment of launch games, and that the system will have a long lifespan. In fact, the main reason Nintendo is releasing the NX in March 2017 instead of 2016 is so the NX has enough launch games. Nintendo is rightly choosing to expand the NX's debut library instead of rushing the console out for the holiday season.

Nintendo NX will launch with a 'full software lineup'

"The NX's software lineup will be built-up. Having a full software lineup when the hardware launches is one reason for the #NX launch timing," Kimishima said at Nintendo's investor's meeting (as translated by Cheesemeister 3K)."Also, we must be in a state to release titles not just at launch, but continually afterwards."

Nintendo has learned a lot from the Wii U business model. The company is taking its time to formulate a new plan of action based on careful consideration and methodical evaluation. One of the many changes sees Nintendo abandoning inconsistent, fractured games releases, instead pushing out a steady stream of content for NX owners.

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Apple stock is tanking, with large investor pulling his money out

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 30, 2016 1:11 AM CDT

Wealthy investor Carl Icahn, has pulled his entire investment out of Apple stock. With Icahn being one of Apple's biggest backers, claiming multiple times that Apple stock was undervalued, and offers more to investors than meets the eye - well, Icahn has pulled his stock and it's making headlines.

Just a month ago, Apple stock was trading at $110, and now it's sitting at $93.74 at the time of writing. How much did Icahn hold in Apple stock? Well, he owned around 0.83% of Apple stock - which is a huge portion of stock for a single investor, which was valued at an insane $4.5 billion. Late last year, Icahn sold around $700 million worth of shares, but this time it was a much bigger chunk.

The reason Icahn sold his Apple stock? Apple is facing issues in China, which are struggling to create devices for the middle class - you know, the people who can't afford $1000 smartphones. This is why Apple has shifted into devices like the iPhone SE, but it hasn't been enough. Apple recently reported that their revenue decreased for the first time in 13 years, due to falling iPhone demand across the world.

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PC gaming continues to make more money than consoles

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 29, 2016 11:27 PM CDT

While the entire gaming market has shifted to mobile and consoles in terms of AAA game development, the PC is still a powerhouse when it comes to profits.

According to Newzoo's latest Global Games Market Report, we have the latest sales numbers on mobile, PC and console gaming. PC gaming is more profitable than console gaming, but mobile gaming blows them both away. Newzoo's Global Games Market Forecast Model projects gamer numbers and revenues per segment, region and screen on a global, regional, and country level. The report also shows the share of paying gamers and average spend in the same granularity.

The company explains in the report: "These projections are analyzed in various ways, comparing year-on-year growth rates, market share, CAGRs and absolute amounts in USD between the regions and segments, as well as the development of specific regions or segments in time. These projections are compared to available third-party sources on a local or global level. Given the pace of the developments in the games industry, Newzoo reviews its conclusions and assumptions every quarter, taking into account newly available data and insights. Before publication of any data, Newzoo also performs validation checks in various ways including comparison against historic internal data, comparison against market figures from alternative sources and validation from several Newzoo clients".

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NVIDIA to unveil next-gen GeForce on the same day as Battlefield 5

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Apr 29, 2016 9:21 PM CDT

Can you believe how exciting the next month is going to be? First, we've heard that NVIDIA will be unveiling its next-gen GeForce video cards in the next week, and on the same day - EA will unveil the next generation Battlefield 5. Yes, it's happening on the same day. We only reported a few hours ago that NVIDIA will have partner cards on retail shelves in June, too.

EA will be unveiling Battlefield 5 at its world premiere event this week on May 6, while NVIDIA is reportedly inviting select press from around the world to unveil its new next-gen Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080, and GTX 1070 video cards.

When it comes to the next-gen GPUs from NVIDIA, the GTX 1080 should be quite the beast - with it being much more powerful than the GTX 980 (think Titan X speeds), with it being built on the 16nm FinFET process, the new Pascal architecture and GDDR5X. The upcoming GeForce GTX 1070 will be slightly slower - think less CUDA cores, and the use of GDDR5, not GDDR5X.

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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided trailer details augmentations, and more

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Apr 29, 2016 5:17 PM CDT

The latest trailer to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is here, with Square Enix ushering in the new '101' trailer for its upcoming game, showcasing protagonist Adam Jensen as he "makes sure that the events of the past won't repeat themselves".

Because of the issues between humans and augmented people, the problems that arose in Deus Ex: Human Revolution reach a new tipping point. Jensen is then "forced to operate in a world that has grown to despise his kind". Jensen is investigating some issues in the new trailer, as well as a new look at Jensen's apartment.

Square Enix said in a press release for Mankind Divided: "Armed with a new arsenal of state-of-the-art weapons and augmentations, he must choose the right approach, along with who to trust, in order to unravel a vast worldwide conspiracy. You'll also discover both old and new acquaintances, all of which have their own agendas. Whether going rogue or by the book, choices never come without consequences. The truth is still yours to reveal".

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Apple Music update brings videos, family plan to Android

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | Apr 29, 2016 2:21 PM CDT

The features Apple Music has had for months are now finally on Android thanks to a new update.

First is video playback, allowing you to watch most music videos and soon, a Vice documentary called "The Score", a new Dr. Dre series named Vital Signs, and an Apple series about app developers.

Then there's family plans: if you're willing to drop $14.99 per month over the standard $9.99, you can share with up to five other people.

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New Apple Music API means endless integration possibilities

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | Apr 29, 2016 12:16 PM CDT

Apple has a new API for its Music service which offers a variety of exciting features for developers, allowing them to do all kinds of things they couldn't before.

Among them:

In turn, this added functionality opens up possibilities like Facebook creating playlists for you based on songs your friends have posted; fitness apps could create playlists based on tempo, and social music apps could pop up left and right. In short, every developer can now integrate Apple Music into their own apps and software in a ton of different ways without having to worry about things like licensing, since that's handled by Apple.

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