Latest News - Page 1403

Oculus recently rolled out update 1.8 of the Oculus Developer Hub, introducing a handful of new features that simplify the lives of VR developers building content for the Oculus Quest platform.

Oculus Developer Hub 1.8 includes a new home page with developer updates from Oculus. It also has a new App Distribution page, allowing developers to publish in-development apps for limited distribution for testing purposes. The distribution system includes four release channels: Alpha, Beta, and RC for internal testing and Production for submission to Oculus for store approval.

The new Oculus Developer Hub makes it easy for developers to open run the OVR Metrics Tool, which helps developers optimize the performance of their Quest apps. The latest version allows you to record and save the metrics graphs for analyzing performance issues.

The DecaMove locomotion peripheral is an early success for Deca, a new VR hardware company from Singapore aggressively bringing innovation to the consumer VR space. Deca this week revealed that it pre-sold more than 6000 units of its upcoming DecaMove device.

The DecaMove controller is a new locomotion solution for VR shooter games. It enables you to decouple your head and hand position from your movement direction by adding a hip-orientation tracker to your VR system. Deca sent pre-release DecaMove controllers called the Blogger Edition to a selection of VR influencers, and the response from reviewers was largely positive.

After reviews of the hardware started to come out, Deca opened pre-orders for a limited run of DecaMove controllers at a discounted rate, which would ship later this year. The full launch is planned for early 2022.

Telegram founder Paul Durov is taking a couple of big swings at Apple and the iPhone, where he recently made comments that Apple customers are "digital slaves" and that iPhones are in the "middle ages" up against Android-based flagship smartphones.

Durov made the comments on a public Telegram channel, where he said: "Apple is very efficient at pursuing their business model, which is based on selling overpriced, obsolete hardware to customers locked in their ecosystem. Every time I have to use an iPhone to test our iOS app I feel like I'm thrown back into the Middle Ages. The iPhone's 60Hz displays can't compete with the 120Hz displays of modern Android phones that support much smoother animations".

He continued: "You are only allowed to use apps that Apple lets you install via their App Store, and you can only use Apple's iCloud to natively back up your data".

The creator of the GTA5 R.E.A.L VR mod has done it again. This time he's making Red Dead Redemption 2 playable start to finish in VR. You can try it today if you subscribe to the developer's Patreon account.

Luke Ross, the indie developer who created the R.E.A.L VR mod series, which allows you to step into the worlds of No One Lives Forever 2 and GTA 5 through the lens of a VR headset, today released an early access version of a new mod for Rockstar's other open-world franchise, Red Dead Redemption 2.

The RDR2 R.E.A.L VR mod transforms RDR2 into a fully immersive old west VR experience, allowing you to play the entire game in first-person VR. The mod does not add motion controller support, so you will need a gamepad to play the game this way. If you're susceptible to motion sickness, you probably want to sit this one out, but if you've got a strong stomach, this mod could be the ultimate cowboy experience.

The world's largest iceberg has just broken away from Antarctica over the last few days, with the European Space Agency (ESA) reporting that the iceberg broke off the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica's Weddell Sea.

The iceberg itself is known as A-76, and it's big... we're looking at 105 miles (170 kilometers) long and 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) wide, which makes it 80x bigger than Manhattan, New York. Keith Makinson, a polar oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey was the first to notice the iceberg, confirming it with the US National Ice Center using ESA's own Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery.

This isn't something you need to be worried about and bringing in your tomato plants over, as iceberg calving -- which is what is happening here with A-76 breaking away from Antarctica, is part of a natural cycle. It happens, it's just that this particular iceberg is absolutely mammoth in size... so big in size that it is currently the largest iceberg in the world.

NVIDIA utterly dominates with its DLSS technology, but AMD is coming out with its own DLSS competitor soon in the form of the recently-teased FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology.

But now we have some more information, as a new patent has surfaced that teases "Gaming Super Resolution" or GSR. We might still see FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) in the future as a different technology to GSR, but I guess we'll see AMD clear that up over the coming months.

The patent itself has AMD's upcoming Gaming Super Resolution technology using interference to upscale images, as AMD explains the only available approach uses linear upscaling functions which will could see blurry and/or corrupt images because it doesn't use nonlinear information.

Elon Musk is back at it, with the SpaceX and Tesla boss tweeting out "How much is that Doge in the window" and seeing the people's crypto price leap by close to 20% instantly.

The post was out of nowhere after hundreds of billions of dollars was bled out from the entire cryptocurrency market and hundreds of billions of dollars of cryptocurrency market capitalization was wiped off the market in hours. The price of Dogecoin was at $0.36 before Musk's tweet and it flew up to $0.420 (of course) with his tweet.

At the time of writing the price of Dogecoin was sitting at $0.405 and was on the uptick, we could expect Dogecoin to fly past $0.50 and back up towards its trajectory of $0.69 and beyond up to $1 -- but that might need many more random tweets from Elon Musk at this point.

PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles are expected to be hard to find throughout 2022, but Take-Two Interactive expects console supply to even out with time.

Since next-gen consoles are hard to find, publishers are hesitant to move to full next-gen exclusives. EA, for example, is going full cross-gen with new games like Battlefield 6 and its annualized sports games. The install base simply isn't big enough yet. Other publishers like Take-Two Interactive aren't incredibly worried about the situation.

"There is a chip shortage and console supply is disrupted. It's a good news bad news thing. The bad news is you can't get a next-gen console for love or money. The good news is people really want these consoles. We had a limited selection of next-gen releases. We have many more titles coming in the future, we think supply shortages will be resolved," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said in a recent FY2021 earnings call.

Bethesda's new singleplayer space epic Starfield won't release in early 2022.

Sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that Starfield, Bethesda's biggest new RPG, is "nowhere near done" and gamers shouldn't expect a release any time soon.

Although Bethesda's Todd Howard first teased Starfield when he described three "big and crazy projects" in 2016, Schreier asserts that Starfield's team was quite small until 2019. The reality is that Bethesda's main Maryland branch was helping its Austin studio work on Fallout 76's development. Those three projects that Howard spoke of ended up being Fallout 76, Starfield, and The Elder Scrolls VI.

The metaverse is huge in gaming right now, and billion-dollar games like Roblox, Fortnite, and even Call of Duty Warzone are doing their part. What about games like GTA Online? Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick comments on the metaverse idea showing up in certain games.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says he's allergic to buzzwords like AR, VR, and 3D...and he's somewhat skeptical on the nebulous idea of the metaverse, which sees millions of gamers coming together in a virtualized, social environment complete with fourth wall-breaking crossovers.

Zelnick has already commented on a Roblox-style community creation tool showing up in GTA Online, but he was also asked about the metaverse. The CEO says it's something they already do in highly engaging, social-driven online games like NBA 2K, GTA Online, and Red Dead Online (and he's right, GTA Online and RDRO both have a very active roleplaying community, for instance).

We are in the middle of a gigantic wave in the cryptocurrency market, with nearly $1 trillion in crypto market cap wiped in hours just a couple of days ago -- and now the U.S. Treasury Department is stepping in.

The Treasury Department has announced major crackdowns on cryptocurrencies, the crypto markets and exchanges, and every single crypto transaction. The Treasury Department has new rules that require Americans to report any transfer of cryptocurrency over $10,000 to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).

The U.S. Treasury Department explained in a press release: "Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion. This is why the President's proposal includes additional resources for the IRS to address the growth of cryptoassets".

Embracer Group (Deep Silver, Gearbox Software, Saber Interactive, 4A Games, etc) spent more to storefront owners like Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve than it did on games development.

Embracer owns 225 game IPs and currently has 160 projects in development, but without its own digital distribution platform or games store, the company must give a cut of its revenues to third-party companies. In a recent earnings report, the company expressed frustration with the current 70-30 revenue split on platforms like the PlayStation Store, the Xbox marketplace, the eShop, and Steam. The company says it will challenge the revenue policies and do its best to invest intelligently.

In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, the games titan actually spent over 200% more on commissions than internal games development. This says a lot considering Embracer owns 225 game IPs and currently has 160 projects in development.

Aspyr Media's Knights of the Old Republic remake may release throughout Embracer Group's Fiscal Year 2021 timeline.

Nestled in Embracer Group's (formerly THQ Nordic) incredibly positive earnings report is mention of the company's release slate. Embracer says its FY2021 timeline will include 90 completed games and directly mentions new projects from Gearbox and Aspyr Media.

"In the current financial year ending March 2022, we are committed to fulfilling our ambition to complete more than 90 game development projects with a total completion value in the range of SEK 2,800 to 3,300 million. This includes projects from Gearbox and Aspyr," the company said.

China has recently become the second nation in the world to land a rover on the surface of Mars successfully.

NASA has released a statement on its website regarding China's Zhurong rover sending back its first images captured on the surface of the Red Planet. The statement comes from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who said, "Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover!". Nelson goes on to say that the world will be patiently waiting for the discoveries that come out of the Zhurong rover.

Nelson also stated, "As the international scientific community of robotic explorers on Mars grows, the United States and the world look forward to the discoveries Zhurong will make to advance humanity's knowledge of the Red Planet. I look forward to future international discoveries, which will help inform and develop the capabilities needed to land human boots on Mars."

If you heard about space companies opening up space travel to consumers, and you thought you would pick up a ticket - you are going to need at least $2.6 million for a sea on Blue Origin's rocket.

Jeff Bezos' space exploration company Blue Origin is currently auctioning off one of its seats aboard the New Shepard rocket for its first-ever crewed launch that is scheduled to take a place on July 20. Sealed online bidding for the seat began back on May 5, and on May 19 unsealed online bidding has commenced. Essentially, "unsealed online bidding" means that people can see how much the seat is actually going for, and wow, it's not cheap.

So far, the leading bid for a seat on Blue Origins New Shepard is sitting at $2.6 million, but that figure is bound to be topped as the "unsealed online bidding" phase runs through to June 10. If you think that the money from the auction will be going to Bezos, you are wrong. The auction money will "be donated to Blue Origin's foundation, Club for the Future, to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] and help invent the future of life in space."

Friends fans will scream with joy at knowing the highly-anticipated Friends reunion is real, as HBO has just debuted the official trailer.

The trailer definitely pulls on some heartstrings if you are a Friends fan, as you can see the main cast sitting back on the couch at Monica and Rachel's apartment, reminiscing on some of the greatest moments of the series. The show will also feature some other stars such as Lady Gaga, Cara Delevingne, and more.

All of the cast is back doing what they do best, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) are seen in their classic armchairs in their apparent, Monica (Courteney Cox) is seen trying to win a competition, and Jennifer Anniston talking about if Ross and Rachael were in fact on a "break". HBO Max will be exclusively streaming Friends: The Reunion on May 27. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

China has officially become the second country in the world to successfully soft-land a rover on Mars, and now we are getting the rover's first images of the Martian surface.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA), which is running the operations of the Tianwen-1 mission, has released two images taken by the Zhurong rover. One image is in color, and the other is black and white. The color image showcases the rear of the Zhurong rover, where you can spot solar arrays as well as the surface of some rocks and that classic red Mars dirt.

As for the black and white image, that Zhurong rover used its obstacle avoidance camera located at the front of the rover. The rover used a wide-angle lens to capture the Martian horizon and two subsurface radar instruments that can be seen on the top left and ride hand of the image. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

The price of Bitcoin has been hit hard recently, and there are many factors at play that may have caused the dip.

China recently cracked down on the cryptocurrency market by banning financial institutions and payment companies from providing any and all services to cryptocurrency-related transactions. Along with that announcement is Elon Musk saying that Tesla is no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles. Both of these announcements impacted the price of Bitcoin, and now the currency is seemingly in free fall.

Now, a 4Chan user who claims he is an insider for a massive financial firm has said that the price reduction "will be a coordinated sell-off to drop the prices below a certain threshold and liquidate one certain stakeholder (can't outright say who he is but he bought a lot at the dip that he was partly responsible for)." The 4Chan user goes on to say that once the price of Bitcoin is reduced "plan is then to buy up all the reserves and essentially leave him bankrupted".

Apple is already having trouble getting its new 2021 iPad Pro out and into the wild, packing a gorgeous new Mini-LED display that the very same Mini-LED technology would be gracing a display near you inside of a new MacBook this year... but nope.

According to the latest reports from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple might be postponing the new Mini-LED-backlit MacBook laptops until 2022. Kuo wrote: "Launch of Apple's mini LED-backlit MacBook series may be postponed to 2022, according to industry sources".

There are other reports that Apple would launch the new Mini-LED MacBook Pro in limited quantities sometime this year, but with the way things are going with Mini-LED + Apple + Taiwan/TSMC supply issues + global tech shortages + COVID-19 pandemic hitting Taiwan again then 2022 would be a better year for the Mini-LED MacBook.

SpaceX is doing some impressive things with its Starlink satellite internet service, with tests from not long ago now seeing 300Mbps+ connections even when the satellite dish was covered in ice. Now, we're seeing huge 560Mbps download speeds on Starlink in new tests in Germany.

A user on Reddit posted about his experience with Starlink and ran some speed tests through Ookla's Speed Test of course, with download speeds that were hitting 542Mbps and 560Mbps for the first and second speed test on Starlink, respectively. Upload speeds remained at 38Mbps, while the ping was somewhere between 9-13ms which is more than acceptable.

But this is where Starlink download speeds, upload speeds, and latencies are all factors that can be changed at a whim. SpaceX has limited amounts of bandwidth per Starlink satellite, so the speeds and latencies to a particular user can vary depending on different factors -- this can range from the number of satellites in orbit above you, and the ground networks transferring data between the servers on the internet.