Although Electronic Arts has expressed hesitation concerning VR, the Battlefield devs at DICE are all too eager to explore the new dimensions and possibilities that virtual reality offers.

DICE's own Johan Andersson revealed that the company is recruiting active tech experts to flesh out its new "small and collaborative VR team". The VR ensemble will be part of DICE's Frostbite outfit, which is responsible for creating and developing a number of EA's AAA juggernauts from Mass Effect to Dragon Age.

According to info gleaned from DICE's jobs page, the company is hiring five different VR specialists including a creative director, technical artist, software engineer, gameplay engineer and a rendering engineer. "We have a small multi-disciplined team with Frostbite who will work on virtual reality projects and for that team we are now looking for a Sr Technical Artist," reads each job listing.

In a not-so-surprising development, reports indicate that the PlayStation 4's backward compatibility with PS2 games only extends to the digital realm. PS2 game discs won't be playable on the PS4, which was pretty much a given from the start.

The revelation comes straight from a PS2 emulation video published on Sony's own PlayStation YouTube channel. Sony quickly deleted the video after they realized what they had done, but not before a sharp-eyed Twitter user immortalized the content via a quick screen capture. The video announced that the PS2 game Dark Cloud is coming to the PlayStation 4 by means of backward compatibility emulation, but the description clearly says that "PS2 Classics and PS2-formatted discs are incompatible with the PS4 system."

As soon as Sony officially announced PS2 backward compatibility was coming to the PS4, I predicted that Sony wouldn't follow in Microsoft's footsteps and allow PS2 game discs to be playable. I knew that Sony's PS2 emulation would be digital only, and for good reason. Sony spent $380 million to buy Gaikai, the cloud-based game-streaming infrastructure, in order to power its similar online streaming PlayStation Now venture.

PCgameshardware.de has tested Intel's Skylake CPUs and found because of its thinner substrate versus its previous processors, coolers that apply a lot of pressure to the CPU and socket can damage both.

As of now, just Scythe -- who have confirmed damage to Skylake CPUs with their coolers is possible -- is the only company confirmed as affected by it as of yet. Arctic says it has verified no issues with its coolers, though it advises you don't travel with your cooler mounted; NZXT and EK Water Blocks both have stated their coolers do not experience the reported issues, with the exception of its older gen large tower coolers like the Havik 120/140 from NZXT and the older generation of compatible LGA-1151 water blocks with a "classic, undefined clamping force type mounting mechanism". These are compatible with Skylake CPUs, but both companies recommend erring on the side of caution and not using them with Skylake.

Scythe is redesigning its cooler mounting mechanism in light of it, changing screws to reduce mounting pressure. If you have a Scythe Ashura, Mugen 4, Mugen 4 PCGH-Edition, Fuma, Ninja 4, Grand Kama Cross 4, Mugen Max, or Kotetsu cooler, fill out this form to be sent a free set of these screws.

Capcom's action RPG Dragon's Dogma is a little late to the party on PC, but by the looks of a PS3 versus PC graphics comparison by Candyland, it's going to make up for it plenty.

Among the differences shown: massively improved texture quality, the addition of bloom, miles more precise shadows, less aliasing, and the addition of tessellation and light shafts. As well, you can observe much higher framerate and lower frame time latency. I don't hesitate to say these changes bring the game at least a half generation forward and make it much more digestible by the standards of today's PC gamers.

Dragon's Dogma launches January 15, 2016 on Steam. Be sure to check out the game's video options below, and the PC version of Dragon's Dogma will support 4K resolution as well as a cap-less frame-rate.

Engineers at the Oregon State University have devised a new method of integrating nanoparticles that could pave the way to ultra-flexible and efficient quantum circuitry.

Using a process called photonic "sintering", scientists are able to fuse ultra-tiny nanoparticles together into a functional 2-D film, which can then be fabricated into working nanocircuits. To understand sintering and the physics of quantum-scale mechanical effects, engineers have experimented with different substrate materials and thermal sources. As sintering is powered by heated light, some materials like plastic and paper were previously off-limits--until now.

During their experiments, the OSU team reported that xenon light was able to trigger the photonic sintering process twice as fast and was over ten times more efficient than other light sources. With such tremendous efficiency, scientists now have precise control over temperatures, meaning that thermal-sensitive substrates such as super-thin plastic wrap and paper could potentially be used.

Oculus VR teased that a "special announcement" was planned for The Game Awards 2015, leading many to believe that a release date for the Oculus Rift was finally coming. Instead of revealing a launch date for its VR headset, Oculus VR opened the door for a new kind of immersive experience to bolster its virtual reality hardware.

Oculus founder and VR pioneer Palmer Luckey revealed that Rock Band will be making the jump to virtual reality, bringing the explosive thrill of on-stage rockshows to millions of gamers worldwide. Oculus teamed up with Harmonix, the studio behind the Rock Band games, and hired real-life bands like Dragonforce to help make the game as authentic as possible.

The trailer reveal was vague in terms of actual gameplay mechanics, but it looks as if Rock Band VR will realistically merge actual guitar playing with virtualized play, so the on-screen queues might not show up. It'll be interesting to see how Rock Band VR actually works, and if it can avoid the semi-nauseating "VR sickness" which stands as a major roadblock for the new platform.

Amid recent financial woes and scandals, Japanese electronics company Toshiba today announced that it has sold its image sensor business to Sony for 19 billion yen ($155 million).

Starting in April 2016, Sony will take over Toshiba's semiconductor fabrication facility in Oita, Japan, which can ship up to 12,500 300mm wafers a month. Along with the Oita facility, Sony will take in all equipment and 1,100 employees who will now operate under Sony's own Semiconductor Corporation. The facility will focus "primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors."

This move sees Toshiba effectively pull out of the image sensor market. Negotiations for the takeover started back in October, and Nikkei notes that Toshiba turned right to Sony due to past business.

The controversy between estranged Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and Japanese games publisher Konami continues to roil across the games industry, culminating in a new incident at this year's The Game Awards showcase.

Metal Gear Solid V won Best Action/Adventure game at The Game Awards 2015, but the celebration was short-lived when gamers realized that Hideo Kojima wasn't in attendance. According to TGA 2015 host Geoff Keighley, Kojima was advised not to attend the show or accept any on-stage awards at the behest of Konami's lawyers.

"As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I want to tell you a little about that," Keighley said after the winners were announced. "Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight, but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight's awards ceremony to accept any awards. He's still under an employment contract. And it's disappointing and it's inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates."

XXIt may or not signal the return of fan favourite 'Game of Thrones' character Jon Snow, but the newly released tease for the show's sixth season does give a pretty good hint.

The brief teaser flashes through some of the more memorable scenes in the series first five seasons, before a shot of the seemingly lifeless Jon Snow that we saw in the season five finale.

Hitting screens in April 2016, the next batch of ten episodes will not be based on a George R.R. Martin plot, having exhausted all the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books in the last season. Instead, screenwriters have crafted the plot through discussions Martin, but may very well deviate from the material in the forthcoming sixth novel.

Up until now, Vimeo has been allowing its Pro members to upload 4K videos, with the video sharing company now allowing some users 4K adaptive streaming. Vimeo's 4K streaming will roll out to the rest of the world in Q1 2016.

The company has pushed out support for 4K streaming across its site, and its entire catalogue of apps. This rollout features support for adaptive streaming, where your Internet connection will be battling it out for allowing up to 4K (2160p) streaming - similar to how YouTube does 4K streaming right now.

Vimeo's rollout of 4K support will include the streaming player on Vimeo.com, with videos embedded on other sites, Vimeo on Demand, and all of the apps on iOS, Apple TV, Android, Amazon and Roku.