Latest News - Page 1015

Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan reportedly met with European regulators in Brussels to discuss the ramifications of Microsoft's mega-billion merger with Activision-Blizzard.

Sony's Jim Ryan is believed to have met directly with European Commission regulators that are currently overseeing the approval of gaming's biggest merger. Ryan has publicly voiced his opposition to Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, with Call of Duty's exclusivity at heart of Ryan's arguments.

Ryan has publicly confirmed that Microsoft had plans to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation 3 years after Activision's current contracts had ended. This has likely been noticed and recorded by regulators as a key point to consider; the UK's Commission for Markets Authority (CMA) had also stated concerns about exclusivity.

Sony reportedly has plans to release a remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn, which is already one of the best-looking games on PlayStation 4.

In an effort to capture resales and engage a next-gen audience, Sony has been releasing remakes and remasters to help fill the gaps in between its PS5 first-party lineup. The PS5's release saw the remake of Demons' Souls (which isn't a first-party game but published by SIE) alongside remasters of the best-selling Marvel's Spider-Man. The most recent high-profile remake was The Last of Us, which was significantly overhauled with impressive visuals, effects, and in-game adjustments to gameplay.

Now reports indicate that Horizon Zero Dawn is the next best-seller to get the remaster treatment. Sources have told MP1st and Video Game Chronicle that Guerrilla Games plans to refresh Horizon Zero Dawn to take advantage of the PlayStation 5's power.

Guerrilla Games is reportedly working on a new online Horizon game that will release on PlayStation 5 and PC, sources have told MP1st.

Horizon Zero Dawn was originally supposed to feature some form of online co-op play, but the feature was scrapped due to time and technical constraints. Despite early reports, the feature didn't show up in Horizon Forbidden West either. Now it looks like Horizon's online multiplayer will be a standalone live service game.

Sources have told MP1st that the Horizon franchise will get a new online multiplayer game that bridges both PS5 and PC. The game is expected to have some sort of co-op or PVP action (naturally, given it's a MP game). This news fits right in line with Sony's new multi-platform business model that targets big games across mobiles, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Google may have a compelling argument against Microsoft's proposed buyout of Activision-Blizzard.

Right now worldwide regulators are sifting through data and conducting interviews with the biggest players in the $198 billion video games market. The goal is to determine whether or not Microsoft merging with Activision-Blizzard would harm competition. After the merger, Microsoft would be the second biggest video games company on the planet and own multiple billion-dollar franchises like Call of Duty, a $30 billion franchise that dominates PC and consoles, and Candy Crush, a top-earning mobile app with over $11 billion revenues since 2015.

The case involves an alphabet soup of worldwide regulators including the FTC in the US, CMA in the UK, and the European Commission in EU all trying to determine whether or not the deal is fair to competitors and consumers. Everyone is involved in this merger scrutiny, including competitors like Sony, Epic Games, and even Google--the latter of which may have an interesting argument against the deal.

Tencent reportedly plans to buy more majority stakes in video games companies to continue earnings growth and counteract falling share prices.

Sources tell Reuters that Tencent will aggressive buy up more majority stakes in overseas games companies. The Chinese gaming giant, who earned $33 billion in 2021 and more than Xbox and Nintendo combined, wants to spark growth in gaming as domestic games revenues stagnate due to strict regulations. Tencent's solution is to buy more stake in overseas countries with the hopes of riding consistent revenues.

Reuters reports that Tencent is targeting companies in Europe. This is on the heels of Tencent acquiring nearly 50% of controlling stake in Guillemot Bros. Limited, a company run by the founders of Ubisoft. The Guillemot brothers sold stake in their company in order to fend off a hostile takeover from Tencent. As part of the deal, Tencent's stake in Ubisoft can rise as high as 9.9%, but can't exceed this threshold for 8 years.

Tesla's brand new AI robot named Optimus was revealed at the company AI Day 2022, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk even discussing the price of the next-gen robot.

Elon Musk has appeared at Tesla's AI Day, and to kick off the show, the CEO brought out the highly anticipated Tesla bot that has been nicknamed Optimus. Musk gave a brief overview of what the company plans on achieving with Optimus and how it would impact the wider economy if Optimus could perform general manual labor. Musk said that the potential for Optimus is "appreciated by very few people" and explained that the current economy is held back by people and their productivity.

To surpass these limitations, Musk proposes Optimus as a solution, and if Optimus can handle general manual labor, "an economy becomes quasi-infinite". The Tesla CEO explains that if the new Tesla bot is rolled out and the economy is increased in terms of output, the future will be a place "where there is no poverty" and that people "could have whatever you want in terms of products and services," says Musk. Additionally, Musk said that Optimus' impact will be a "fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it".

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced the Clean School Bus Program rebate awards have been doubled up to $1 billion. Last May, the EPA announced $500 million in rewards, but US school districts showed so much interest in the program, the US government has decided to boost the amount of funding available.

Replacing a single diesel school bus can greatly help the environment, reducing greenhouse emissions by a whopping 54,000 pounds per year, according to Dominion Energy. In addition, toxic diesel fumes emitted by the bus while it idles find ways inside the cabin, putting the health of the passengers at risk.

School districts also have a keen interest in reducing the cost of fuel and repair costs through the operating life of each bus.

Microsoft has filed a formal merger proposal in Europe concerning its desired buyout of Activision-Blizzard's shares.

Regulators around the globe are currently scrutinizing Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. The deal is valued at $68.7 billion and is the largest in gaming history by a long shot; it's over 5 times more valuable than Take-Two's recent acquisition of Zynga for $12.7 billion.

Microsoft corporate executives are confident the deal with will go through despite Sony's direct and public opposition. The billion-dollar tech firm has filed its merger proposal with worldwide markets including the United States and now Europe. Microsoft's merger proposal has been officially filed in the European Commission's competition database and has been assigned a provisional deadline of November 8, 2022.

Subaru recently announced starting prices for its 2023 Forester SUV, one of the Japanese automaker's most popular models based on overall sales figures.

Subaru will also offer the 2023 Forester in six different trim levels starting in December: Base, Premium, Sport, Wilderness, Limited, and Touring.

All models will include the EyeSight Driver Assist Technology, an active safety system, along with Automatic Emergency Steering, Blind-Spot Detection with Lane Keep Assist and Rear Cross-Traffic Alert.

Researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have developed the NAO Robot, a humanoid that is skilled at Tai Chi.

As noted by Zhi Zheng, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the RIT Kate Gleason College of Engineering, in a press statement:

"We don't have to build our own robot hardware because there are good commercial platforms available. How it behaves solely depends on how we design the control programs. The central part of our research is how we control the robots to do the cognitive and physical instruction properly. "The robot does not really know how to behave coming out of the box. We teach it how to function."

Although it's a positive sign that more drivers are purchasing electric vehicles, the long stretches of US highways without proper EV charging infrastructure tend to be a rather worrisome sign. In the future, the goal will be to see EV chargers replace traditional gas stations, which have existed over a century in the US.

Major metropolitan areas have made greater strides in EV charging than states with smaller populations, such as Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, according to a recent study from CNN. There are 6,500 public fast-charging stations spread across the US, but more work must be done to cover sparsely covered remote areas, as EV sales continue to increase in the future.

Both California and New York plan to restrict gas-powered vehicle sales by 2035, with other states also considering similar bans as there is a push to go electric. Infrastructure to support all these new EVs is ongoing, with 500,000 new chargers set for installation across the United States by 2030.

Kodiak Robotics and Werner Enterprises announced they are collaborating to create autonomous trucking lanes for use by driverless big rigs. The two companies want to put the spotlight on the effectiveness of truckport transfer hubs.

During the initial pilot, Kodiak had 100% on-time delivery over 152 hours of total driving time. Trailers were available at both end hubs for the autonomous trucks to pickup and drop-off, with local drivers responsible for first mile and last-mile deliveries. The average speed of the 7,957-mile pilot had an average speed of 65 mph.

As noted by Don Burnette, Founder and CEO of Kodiak, in a press statement:

Well, concept cars are meant to be groundbreaking, and Citroen has something that is both unique and eco-friendly, with the Oli cardboard all-electric vehicle.

The company worked alongside German chemical specialist BASF to develop the car that with a top speed of 68 miles per hour - and 20% to 80% charging takes only 23 minutes. The vehicle weighs a metric ton and has almost a range near 250 miles. Citroen wanted to keep the weight down and show that it's possible to make a quality vehicle and "more can be achieved with less."

Oli owners can make use of vehicle parts that are "reused or recycled" throughout the lifetime of the vehicle, and has a "flat bonnet, roof and pick-up bed panels" made of custom cardboard.

Intel has finally detailed its new Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards with everything we need to know: full specs, pricing, launch dates, the works.

The company has confirmed it will be offering its Arc A770 in both 8GB and 16GB variants, with Intel offering the Arc A770 with 8GB of GDDR6 memory starting at $329, while the Arc A770 with 16GB will cost $349. Intel will be offering its Arc A770 Limited Edition graphics card with 16GB of memory for the $349 price.

Intel provided some more details on its new Arc A750 graphics card, which will cost $289 -- $30 cheaper than the Arc A770 -- but maintains its 8GB of GDDR6 memory.

Google has made all of its Stadia videos private, and the official Stadia YouTube channel is now a ghost town.

Google plans to shut down Stadia, its fledgling game streaming service, in January 2023. The service had largely missed its market and failed to gain traction, losing Google untold millions in the process. Now history repeats itself as Google shuts down the service as it has many other products before.

What's most interesting about Stadia is that Google has effectively scrubbed all traces of the service from its official YouTube account. All videos uploaded by the Stadia YouTube account have been made private and the following message pops up: "This channel doesn't have any content."

Google cancelled a Death Stranding sequel that could've helped Stadia take off.

Years ago when Google established Stadia Games and Entertainment, Google had opened collaborations with famed Metal Gear Solid developer Hideo Kojima. Rumors had circulated that Kojima would make an episodic horror game for Stadia (which may have evolved into his latest game, Overdose) but the reality was the auteur was laying out concepts for a new Death Stranding game for Google's ill-fated streaming service.

Sources have told 9 to 5 Google that Hideo Kojima's new game would have been a successor to the popular cinematic Death Stranding game released in 2019 on PS4. The project was to be singleplayer-only, however, which is something that Google disagreed with. Stadia's third-party dealmakers cancelled the collaboration in the middle of 2020 after Kojima Productions had delivered game assets.

Google Stadia actually mattered a lot and helped define a new inflection point for the games industry.

Stadia didn't even last 3 years on the market. It was a risky bet, but major inflection points for the industry usually are. Some inflection points like the evolution from SD to HD graphics is an obvious benefit (even if it did add tons of work for developers), but the radical transition from singleplayer to multiplayer gaming wasn't ever guaranteed to work (Xbox LIVE was messy in its early days). Neither was the industry-changing paradigm shift from buying games outright to leasing them with subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass.

With cloud game streaming that actually worked, Stadia helped one of these major inflection points mature. Streaming wasn't new--OnLive did it in the 2010s, then Sony pioneered it with PS Now, followed by NVIDIA streaming PC-level performance with GeForce Now in 2015--but Stadia used the same servers that power the entire internet to beam games directly to consumers browsers, laptops, phones, desktops, and even Chromecast dongles. The service also introduced major innovations like save state sharing and merging YouTube streaming with gameplay.

There is no question that automatic emergency braking (AEB) has helped reduced accidents which may have caused injuries, property damage, or death to drivers and passengers. However, the American Automobile Association (AAA) wanted to take testing up a notch to provide a better overall analysis of how helpful AEB can be - and where it struggles the most.

Previous studies found vehicles with AEB were in 50% fewer rear-end collisions, and it's a common safety feature in new cars sold now. However, AAA wanted to run the system through the paces at higher speeds than what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) currently do. AAA tested rear-end crashes with vehicle speeds of 30 mph and 40 mph, with IIHS testing standards currently at 12 and 25 mph.

Success rate was 17 of 20 test runs (85%) at 30 mph, but was far less helpful at 40 mph, with AEB successful just 6 out of 20 test runs (30%).

Lockheed Martin and Verizon Wireless are working to help the Department of Defense fly 5G-enabled drones to capture intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data. It's a curious endeavor because it shows large amounts of data can be sent over 5G short range distances and is valuable to military operations.

Verizon and Lockheed held an early demonstration last spring in Colorado, then had two follow-up private tests earlier this month. Additional tests are expected to take place in 2023, while the companies continue to develop 5G.MIL capabilities.

The companies want to provide timely, accurate and secure data that can be used to react to emerging threats while using rapid decision making. The advanced commercial technologies and military capabilities were initially demonstrated through Verizon's private network.

To a Florida native like myself, there are few things scarier than hurricanes (that's saying a lot because with gators, the Everglades, and the eponymous Florida Man, the Sunshine State is legitimately terrifying).

The storms bring untold destruction including floods from ocean and river water that annihilate whole cities, high-speed winds that effortlessly tear roofs off, and torrential rains that only raise the flood levels. The devastation in Fort Myers recently brought on by Hurricane Ian's relentless category 4-force winds are a key example of what these storms can do, and it brought to mind an interesting concept that Rockstar Games could use for GTA 6.

What if the next Grand Theft Auto game had real-time storms in key segments of the game? What if players had to navigate part of the storyline through a category 4 or even cat 5 hurricane that wreaks total havoc on Vice City? That kind of chaos would make an epic set piece that would rival blockbuster movies.