Latest News - Page 111

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Cinemersive Labs, a UK startup developing AI tools to convert 2D photos and videos into 3D volumes. The Cinemersive Labs team will join Sony's Visual Computing Group, a research and engineering team focused on graphical technology, including game rendering, video coding, and generative AI models.

Sony announced the acquisition on its website, framing the deal as part of its efforts to "push the boundaries of visual computing and deliver richer, more immersive gameplay experiences." "Following the acquisition, the Cinemersive Labs team will join SIE's Visual Computing Group and contribute to our broader efforts in advancing state of the art visual computing within games," Sony said. "This includes applying machine learning to enhance gameplay visuals, improve rendering techniques, and unlock new levels of visual fidelity for players."

Cinemersive's most recent product is Parallax, a virtual reality app that converts 2D images into 3D volumes and lets users look around them with natural head movements. The startup built custom AI tools to make this possible, and that expertise might be what Sony is after.

Google Meet is coming to Apple CarPlay, making it easier to join meetings directly from your car's dashboard. Google announced the feature on its Workspace blog as a way for users to stay connected with friends and family, or for professionals to attend meetings while driving without having to pick up their phone. In addition to taking calls, users can review upcoming meetings on the CarPlay display.

It's worth being clear about what this is and isn't. Google Meet on CarPlay is an audio-only experience with limited in-car controls. You can mute or unmute and leave the meeting, but features like Chat, Polls, Hand Raise, and Q&A are unavailable while driving. No video or presentations are displayed either, so participation is limited to listening and responding, reducing distractions while driving.

If you are hosting a meeting and need to admit or reject participants, or want to be part of a presentation, you'll have to park first and switch back to your phone. When you switch, the audio automatically moves back to your phone without dropping the call.

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for March 2026 are now available, and as we've gone over the big movements in the GPU space, there is one other notable shift worth digging into. And it arrives in the OS space, with Linux crossing the 5% market share barrier for the first time. According to the results, 5.33% of Steam gamers on PC are playing on Linux, with SteamOS being the number one distro.

And with that, Microsoft's Windows market share has dropped to 92.33%, with Windows 11 retaining the top spot as the most popular OS among PC gamers on Steam, with a 66.85% market share. Although Windows 11 saw the biggest shift, gaining 10.57% in March, Windows 10 saw the biggest drop, losing almost 15% of its market share, bringing that figure down to 25.36%.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey results tend to fluctuate from month to month because Valve samples only a portion of its 130+ million monthly users. However, with the SteamOS-powered Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine both being Linux-based, the non-Windows platform for PC gaming is definitely gaining traction, especially when you factor in several other gaming-focused Linux distros, like Manjaro, growing in popularity.

AMD debuted its latest generation of desktop graphics cards for PC gaming last year, with the mid-range RDNA 4 combo that is the Radeon RX 9070 and the Radeon RX 9070 XT. In addition to using a more power-efficient 4nm process and an overhauled architecture that brought notable improvements in ray-tracing performance, the Radeon RX 9000 Series also introduced AMD's new AI-powered FSR 4 upscaling, which delivers image quality finally comparable to NVIDIA DLSS.

With these mid-range cards presented as alternatives to the GeForce RTX 5070 and the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the value proposition has always been tied to their respective prices. Although GPU prices in the US have made MSRP a thing of the past since the memory crisis kicked into gear, it looks like PC gamers in Europe can pick up a Radeon RX 9070 or Radeon RX 9070 XT at a discount. This includes models sold at a price notably below the region's MSRP.

However, these deals appear to be limited to one country, Germany, where the ASUS PRIME Radeon RX 9070 OC GPU, the non-XT model, is reportedly available for €539, a significant discount from the launch MSRP of €629, including sales tax. Likewise, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Challenger GPU is reportedly being sold for €640, another notable discount from its €689 launch MSRP.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming library continues to grow this month, with some of the more notable additions being the action game Samson, out April 8, the visually impressive indie Replaced, which is out on April 14, Capcom's PRAGMATA, out April 17, and Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors, out April 21.

These titles join several games that were added to the service this week, including the highly anticipated arrival of Arknights: Endfield, the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection, Super Meat Boy 3D, and, for those celebrating Easter, I Am Jesus Christ. Yes, that's a Jesus simulator which got released today on Steam.

All of these titles, and more, are available to play via GeForce NOW's various subscription tiers, with the highest option offering access to playing PC games with their highest visual settings enabled, including ray-tracing, with DLSS 4, Reflex, and other technologies like G-SYNC, running on a GeForce RTX 5080-powered superpod.

With Apple celebrating its 50th anniversary, retro-focused hardware maker 8BitDo is releasing a limited-edition version of its Retro 68 keyboard, inspired by the iconic Apple II personal computer. First released in 1977, the Apple II helped kickstart the PC revolution with an affordable and versatile device that quickly became one of the most popular computers of the 1980s.

The new 8BitDo Retro 68 Keyboard - AP50th Limited Edition sports a full metal body with a solid aluminum shell, aluminum keycaps, and aluminum buttons. It's also fully modular with multiple dampening layers, a hot-swappable PCB, Kailh BOX Ice Cream Pro Max switches, and gasket mounting. The 68-key keyboard also includes 8BitDo's large Wireless Dual Super Buttons that were introduced with the NES-inspired version, mimicking retro controller buttons from the 1980s - albeit, significantly larger.

As for the look, it's definitely retro and very Apple II in its design, with beige and brown tones and keys that look like they've been lifted from the early days of home computing. However, as a modern keyboard, you've got wired, low-latency wireless, and Bluetooth support with an added volume dial and buttons for secondary functionality.

With Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro hitting $900, gamers are speculating on what's next--the PlayStation 6, or even a PS handheld that's more powerful than the current-gen Xboxes? What about Steam Deck 2? A known leaker says that Valve could be targeting a tentative 2028 window for the handheld PC successor.

Back in August 2025, known tech expert and leaker KeplerL2 said that the second-gen Steam Deck could drop in 2028. A lot has changed since then, especially with the RAM-pocalypse, driving up prices of storage and memory, leading to a world where 32GB of DDR5 RAM costs almost as much as the PS4 did at launch.

In a post on NeoGAF, Kepler says that the last thing he heard about the Steam Deck 2 is the aforementioned 2028 timing, but things could get pushed back due to global tech shortages afflicting multiple sectors and industries--including gaming. Valve has delayed the reveal of its Steam Machine pricing due to higher costs, saying that it still plans to launch the console sometime this year.

According to a LinkedIn profile, it took Sony 3 years to make $300 million in revenue from PC. That's indeed true, and something that the company actually revealed way back in 2023.

Reports indicate that Sony may stop releasing its new first-party singleplayer games on PC. Instead, the company might double down on PlayStation exclusivity and lock these must-have games behind consoles in a bid to preserve the integrity of long-term sales.

Now we have more context on that report, and the truth is that the data itself--and the context around it--has been there for years. As per the LinkedIn page of former PlayStation division PC planner Jerry Liu, Sony earned only $300 million from PC sales across the first 3 years.

The much-anticipated LG 39GX950B has appeared on LG's website in select regions. LG presents it as the world's first 39-inch 5K2K gaming OLED monitor with AI upscaling. The screen debuted at CES 2026 in January, with a late-April launch window, and is now listed on LG Canada's store, giving us a more detailed look at its specifications.

The 39GX950B features a 38.86-inch 21:9 OLED panel with a resolution of 5120 x 2160 and a pixel density of 143 PPI. The screen curves at 1500R, which is much less aggressive than the 800R curve on LG's other ultrawide OLED monitors. Under the hood, it is built around a 4th Gen Tandem WOLED panel with a typical SDR brightness of 335 cd/m², 10-bit color, and 99.5% DCI-P3 gamut coverage.

For gaming, the monitor offers a 165Hz refresh rate and a dual-mode feature that boosts it to 330Hz at 2560 x 1080. It features a 0.03ms G2G response time, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, FreeSync Premium Pro, G-SYNC Compatible support, and VRR.

On Tuesday, multiple robo-taxis operated by the Chinese company Baidu were reportedly frozen and unable to move in the middle of highways in Wuhan. Passengers were trapped inside the automated taxis for several hours, afraid to exit the vehicles in the middle of busy highways. Local police said that the robotaxi outage was due to a "system failure," but further investigation is underway.

It is reported that more than 100 passengers were affected by this incident, with several calling the police for assistance. Some local media outlets reported that the outage lasted more than two hours, during which passengers were trapped inside the robo-taxis. Police officers said that, while at least one accident occurred due to frozen taxis, no injuries were reported.

In a statement to the Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper, a local police officer said that at least 100 Apollo Go robo-taxis were affected by what they are labeling a drastic "system failure." It is also reported that, although the taxi doors could be opened manually, passengers were afraid to do so because the car was stuck in the middle of a busy highway.

Space is no longer limited to trained astronauts and shuttles, as over the years, everyday products have also made the journey beyond Earth. In fact, initiatives like YouTuber Mark Rober's Space Selfie project have made it possible to send your selfies to space, and there's something genuinely charming about seeing yourself, or something you use every day, floating in the vast unknown.

Now we can add Apple's iPhone 17 Pro to that list of everyday products making it to space, thanks to NASA's Artemis Moon mission.

For those unfamiliar, Artemis marks NASA's first crewed return to deep space around the Moon, taking astronauts farther from Earth than anyone has been in over 50 years. Alongside missions like Crew-12 to the International Space Station, it's also one of the first times NASA astronauts have been allowed to bring personal smartphones along for the ride. And we're already seeing some of the fun that comes with that.

You'll now need at least 6GB of RAM to run Ubuntu 26.04 LTS comfortably, as Canonical has quietly raised the minimum memory requirements. According to the official specs, Ubuntu Desktop 26.04 LTS (Resolute Raccoon) now requires a "2 GHz dual-core processor or better, a minimum of 6GB RAM, and 25 GB of free hard drive space." Most of it remains unchanged, except, of course, the increased RAM requirement.

Experts at OMG Ubuntu call the change a "honesty bump," noting that the extra memory isn't going toward the core OS but rather system resources. With GNOME 50, modern web browsers, and typical multitasking workloads, 6GB of RAM doesn't feel like a stretch. Moreover, key apps such as Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and GIMP are updated in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

The last time Canonical added extra GBs to its memory requirements was in 2018, when Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) arrived, requiring 4GB. Prior to that, Ubuntu LTS RAM requirements had been sitting at just 1GB, as seen with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) in 2014.

Last year, the third-person shooter Arc Raiders faced criticism for using AI text-to-speech for NPC dialogue. Although Embark Studio brought back voice actors to record more lines, it never fully abandoned the AI-generated ones. The studio defended its approach, saying the goal was not to make games without actors but to speed up production by mixing recorded and AI-generated lines.

Fast forward to today, Embark Studio CEO Patrick Soderlund was recently promoted to executive chairman of publisher Nexon and is once again weighing in on the controversial use of AI in gaming, calling it a force that will "redesign game development." In a new capital markets briefing, Soderlund highlighted Nexon's broader AI approach.

Soderlund argues most companies have the wrong idea about AI's role in game development, and says Nexon has an edge because it understands the technology more deeply. "AI may be a race, but the winners won't be first movers. The winners will be the ones who understood the challenge," he said.

A big part of what makes Raspberry Pi's computers so appealing is that they are tiny and affordable, making them perfect for students, educators, hobbyists, and anyone looking to take on a weekend project without spending a fortune. Unfortunately, the ongoing memory shortage is undermining this very image, as the company has announced significant price hikes across several of its products.

The move, shared by Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton in a blog post, comes as the insatiable memory demand from AI data centers continues to push companies into a corner. Upton clarified that the increases are not permanent and that prices will come back down once DRAM costs go down. Until then, here's what getting a Raspberry Pi will cost you:

For the Raspberry Pi 5, prices are even more eye-watering.

A new leak from hardware sleuth Jaykihn on X (formerly Twitter) suggests that Intel's next-generation Nova Lake HX family of processors will top out at a 28-core configuration. These CPUs are set to replace the incumbent Arrow Lake HX series, which is scheduled to arrive by late 2026 or early 2027.

Following the architectural shifts seen in Meteor Lake through Panther Lake, Intel's Nova Lake is expected to further refine this modular approach. At the microarchitectural level, Nova Lake is expected to pair "Coyote Cove" P-cores with "Darkmont" E-cores. While Darkmont has debuted with Panther Lake, details on the specific IPC gains and structural changes in Coyote Cove remain unknown.

The flagship desktop configuration is rumored to be a massive 3D package with several tiles, with up to 52 cores (16P+32E+4LPE), 48 of which are split across two Compute Tiles (each housing up to 24 cores) expected to be fabbed on Intel 18A or TSMC's N2 node, a centralized SoC Tile (expected to house the 4 LPE cores), a GPU Tile, and potentially a dedicated I/O tile.

Valve is going to roll out a Steam Store Home page refresh designed to make it easier to find new games and to display more content and information. The Steam Store Home page refresh is also about modernizing the UI by using higher-resolution game art and taking advantage of modern high-resolution QHD, 4K, and ultrawide displays. Valve notes that the store is now wider and more responsive, with the updates also making their way to the Steam Deck and Steam's Big Picture mode.

Although the overall layout is similar, the refresh introduces notable changes. For example, the 'Featured & Recommended' section at the top includes more detailed information when you hover over the cover art, including a user review round-up and a summary of the game, while also displaying adjacent games in the carousel.

The 'Discounts & events' section is also getting larger artwork, with the new Discovery Queue feature getting a prominent fixture, where you can browse through these curated titles without leaving the home page. 'Your Wishlist' and 'DLC for Your Games' sections are also being added, highlighting any potential discounts right there on the home page.

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for March 2026 are in, and there's some definite course correction after February's wild results. Last month, several GeForce RTX 50 and 40 Series cards shot up the market share ranking, with the GeForce RTX 5070 taking the top spot as the world's most popular gaming GPU. Now, based on the results, we were skeptical of their validity, as it represented one of the biggest single-month shifts to date.

The good news is that the March 2026 results look to be more in line with recent trends, which means the GeForce RTX 3060 has reclaimed the top spot as the most popular gaming GPU among PC gamers, followed by the GeForce RTX 4060. Now, the GeForce RTX 5070 is still proving to be the most popular GPU option in the current generation of GeForce RTX and Radeon RX cards, where it sits in the number five spot.

In the span of a year, it's become more popular than the GeForce RTX 3070, RTX 4070, and even the mainstream-focused GeForce RTX 5060. And speaking of Radeon RX cards, the first RDNA 4 model has made its way into the Steam Hardware & Software Survey results, with the Radeon RX 9070 appearing way down the list with 0.16% market share.

To its many fans, StarCraft is one of those Blizzard franchises that has remained dormant for way too long. That said, we've been hearing rumors of a new StarCraft game for years, and that it will arrive as a first- or third-person shooter. This dates back to 2024, when Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier said, "StarCraft is not dead," and that ex-Far Cry lead Dan Hay was leading development.

Fast-forward to 2026, and rumors that the game could be revealed and fully announced at BlizzCon 2026 later this year suggest the project is far enough along in development and design to be ready for a public reveal. This week, we've got word that Blizzard is hiring a "Lead Designer, Innovation" for an "Unannounced Game" that might be this new mysterious StarCraft project.

And we say that because the job listing is looking for a "Lead Game Designer to spearhead gameplay and content innovations for an upcoming AAA open-world shooter." Unless it's referring to a third shooter currently in development at Blizzard, counting Overwatch, there's a good chance this role could be related to the next StarCraft game.

Over the past year, a plethora of monitor manufacturers have announced a variety of extremely fast gaming monitors that come equipped with refresh rates well beyond 500Hz. AUO has introduced another monitor with such capabilities, with its latest offering featuring a blisteringly fast 800Hz refresh rate. AUO claims this new model is the world's first 24-inch gaming monitor with a refresh rate this high.

Very little was shared about the display's specs, but AUO confirmed the monitor will have a 1080p resolution and operate at up to 800Hz at native resolution. In this new bracket of extremely fast high refresh rate monitors, a monitor that can display its maximum refresh rate at both native resolution and 1080p is noteworthy. Just last year, more prominent display manufacturers were struggling to achieve such a high refresh rate-to-resolution ratio. This was obvious with LG's PG27AQWP-W and ASUS' PG27AQWP-W 720Hz dual-mode monitors, both of which can only achieve 720Hz at a paltry (though coincidental) 720p resolution.

As Videocardz noted, AUO appears to be stretching its claims about having the "world's first" 24-inch 800Hz monitor. Technically, there exists a 24.5-inch 1080p 800Hz monitor from HKC that was unveiled last year. Regardless, HKC's counterpart is 0.5 inches bigger, making AUO's claim legit (albeit barely). Other 800Hz panels similar to AUO's new 24-inch counterpart include AUO's own dual-mode 27-inch 4K panel that can run at 200Hz at native resolution or at 800Hz when downscaled to 1080p. But 800Hz is not the fastest refresh rate we've seen on monitors. HKC, TCL, Samsung, Antgamer, AOC, Philips, and Acer have all announced gaming monitors that reach up to 1000-1040Hz.

Although DDR5 memory pricing has recently dropped in the U.S. and China, a new report by TrendForce analysts says DRAM contract prices are set to increase in Q2 2026 as "high-capacity RDIMMs have become the primary procurement target" for AI deployment. And with supply still tight even after DRAM production and capacity have been reallocated to HBM and data center-first applications, contract pricing is set to increase by 58-63% compared to Q1 2026.

It's a notable increase in an industry where memory prices have continued to rise month after month. The report states that, even though DDR5 memory prices have recently trended downward due to lower demand, prices in the PC market will also rise as suppliers reduce shipments, forcing memory makers in the consumer space to procure what they need at higher prices.

And this extends to the GPU market, as GDDR6 and GDDR7 memory for PC gaming graphics cards are only being allocated "limited capacity," which means higher prices and scarcity in the months ahead. The AI arms race won't only affect DRAM pricing in Q2 2026; the report also states that NAND Flash contract prices will increase by up to 75% quarter over quarter, adversely affecting SSD pricing and availability.