Latest News - Page 1503

Lucasfilm Games is back, but Disney still has no plans to develop its own games in-house.

George Lucas' gaming division has gone full circle. Lucasfilm Games was first established in 1983 as a way to bring Star Wars and Indiana Jones to the video game world. Then in 1990, Lucasfilm Games became LucasArts and put out games developed in-house. When Disney took over in 2013, LucasArts' dev teams were shuttered and development on games like Star Wars 1313 was cancelled. Disney instead licensed these properties out; companies like EA made the games now, and Disney collects royalties.

Now the Lucasfilm Games brand has been resurrected. It's just a name change, though, and Disney won't be paying the big bucks to fund first-party games. There's no LucasArts or Lucasfilm Games development teams. IPs like Star Wars and Indiana Jones will continue to be licensed out to external studios who will pay for the bulk of development, publishing, and shipping of games.

Sony has unleashed its new families of BRAVIA XR TVs, which include some huge new 8K TVs but there are some new 4K OLEDs that Sony have just unveiled in their new BRAVIA XR range that are even better.

OLED is the future of TV technology, and while LG dominates it right now there are other players stepping into the OLED game with Sony and its new 4K 120Hz capable BRAVIA XR OLED TVs. The new flagship Sony A90J Master Series OLED is brighter than the previous-gen Sony OLED TVs and it's all thanks to a new aluminum heat shield on the panel.

Sony's new A90J Master Series 4K (OLED) are available in the monsteriosu 83-inch size, but they're also available in 65-inch and 55-inch TV sizes, too. It's a pity there's not 77-inch model here to match LG's 77-inch 4K 120Hz OLED TV offerings.

Sony has just unveiled its next-gen BRAVIA XR range of TVs for 2021, with a bunch of huge LCD and new OLED monitors -- all of which support the latest connectivity and technologies including HDMI 2.1, VRR, and so much more. Check it out:

The new flagship Z9J Master Series 8K (Full-array LCD) TV is a beast, offered at up to a huge 85-inch (as well as a smaller 75-inch model). Both the 85-inch and 75-inch 8K monitors offer a native 7680 x 4320 resolution @ 60Hz, but they can handle the super-smooth 4K 120Hz mode for gaming on the big screen -- both of which are thanks to HDMI 2.1 on-board.

All of Sony's new 2021 TVs including the flagship Z9J Master Series 8K TV use their in-house Cognitive Processor XR, which is the very latest video processing chip that Sony makes. Sony says that the new chip goes beyond normal signal processing, and beyond AI analysis that most TVs have.

Sony has just unveiled its new family of BRAVIA XR TVs, with a very interesting new feature: its new BRAVIA CORE platform. Check it out:

The new BRAVIA XR TVs will be capable of using the new BRAVIA CORE platform, which will see certain Sony Pictures titles being streamed using Sony's new Pure Stream technology. Sony's new Pure Stream technologies sees "near lossless" 4K Blu-ray disc quality video streamed to your BRAVIA XR TV.

The company says its Pure Stream technology can handle up to 80Mbps, but for Ultra HD streaming quality Sony says you'll need 15-25Mbps of bandwidth. Sony's new BRAVIA CORE feature is available on the new MASTER Series Z9J 8K LED, MASTER Series A90J and A80J OLED, and X95J and X90J 4K LED TVs.

LG first began work on its now Rollable smartphone back when it was known as the "Explorer Project" experiments, but here we are: LG's new foldable smartphone competitor to Samsung's growing line of foldables.

The new LG Rollable smartphone has what LG calls a "unique resizable screen" that extends the smartphone, turning it into a larger, more tablet-like display. The display slides in and out of its place, making the screen bigger when you need it. Reading a message? You might use the small screen, but replying to it? You might want to extend it to use the keyboard easier... or to watch a video on the bigger screen.

LG has confirmed it's branded the new roll-out smartphone as the Rollable, and will be releasing it later this year. We don't know the exact pricing just yet, but leaks have suggested that the upcoming LG Rollable smartphone will cost somewhere in the vicinity of $2350.

iBuyPower has just unveiled its new Revolt 3 MK3 chassis, which is giving me some serious Xbox Series X console vibes. Check it out in this slick new video from iBuyPower:

The new iBuyPower Revolt 3 MK3 is an 18.34-liter small form factor PC case that shrinks things down as much as possible, and even has a handle on top. There's a ton of ventilation which is great for keeping the innards of the system cool -- anything including the upcoming Core i9-11900K and Ryzen 9 5950X processors.

It'll even house a super-fast NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card, with iBuyPower including a 700W 80 Plus Gold SFX-L PSU that will handle anything you throw at it.

Qualcomm has just announced its second-gen 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2 technology, with it being the next big leap in their ultrasonic fingerprint sensor technology.

The new ultrasonic sensor has a 77% larger fingerprint reader area, something that captures 1.7x more data than the first-gen fingerprint sensor. It's also 50% faster than the last-gen fingerprint sensor, so the chip itself will spend less time trying to find where your finger is -- because the sensor is larger, and the chip is faster.

Qualcomm's new 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2 is also thinner, at just 0.2mm (0.008-inch) thick which is perfect for edge-to-edge flexible OLED displays inside of foldable smartphones. Better yet, the new technology will also be better at recognizing your fingerprints when they're wet -- which we all know can be annoying at times on current fingerprint sensors.

Western Digital has just bumped up the maximum size of its external SSD offerings, boosting up its previously large 2TB external SSD up to a huge 4TB with its latest drive.

The new Western Digital's My Passport SSD is now coming in a 4TB capacity with a price of $680, offering up to 1050MB/sec (1.05GB/sec) reads and up to 1000MB/sec (1GB/sec) writes.

The new Western Digital's My Passport SSD will work with the new next-gen consoles as well, but you won't get full compatibility on them so be careful with purchasing these new drives for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S just for now. We are looking at the Western Digital's My Passport SSD coming with shock and vibration resistance, in color options that include gray, blue, red, gold, and silver.

Western Digital has just bumped up the maximum size of its external SSD offerings, boosting up its previously large 2TB external SSD up to a huge 4TB with its latest drives.

The new and super-fast Western Digital Black P50 Game Drive SSD 4TB costs $750 but you'll get read and write speeds of up to a super-fast 2000MB/sec (2GB/sec). You can use the Western Digital's Black P50 Game Drive SSD 4TB on consoles as well, including the Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation, and Microsoft Xbox consoles.

Now... there is an issue for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S owners with the new Western Digital Black P50 Game Drive SSD 4TB. You can connect the Western Digital Black P50 Game Drive SSD 4TB to the PlayStation 5, but you can only store PS4 games on it.

Sony teased its Airpeak last year, but now the company has just fully unveiled its first-ever drone at the all-virtual CES 2021 this week. Check out Sony's new Airpeak drone:

The new Airpeak is the smallest drone that is capable of mounting a full DSLR camera, with Sony saying that its Airpeak is "capable of dynamic filming and precise, stable flight" with the heavy DSLR camera attached. Sony isn't aiming at casual users with Airpeak, but more so professionals.

Sony President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida explained that its new Airpeak drone infuses both AI and robotics, which "enables video creators to explore new frontiers for visual expression". Sony adds that it already has a huge array of cameras ready for Airpeak, adding that with "Sony's Alpha camera, stable dynamic remote shooting is possible".

Everyone wants life before the global pandemic to come back, but unfortunately, 'normal life' globally won't be returning in 2021.

The devastating news came out on Monday from the World Health Organization chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, who said that even as countries around the world begin rolling out COVID-19 vaccination strategies, the world still won't achieve herd immunity in 2021. Dr. Swaminathan said, "Even as vaccines start protecting the most vulnerable, we're not going to achieve any levels of population immunity or herd immunity in 2021."

It was previously estimated that for the world to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 that 70% of the global population would need to be vaccinated. Now, scientists and researchers are worried that due to the extremely infectious nature of the virus, 70% may not be enough, and a higher percentage of population may be required to get vaccinated to reach the herd immunity threshold. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Patents for new Samsung headsets have surfaced in Europe. The patent documents include illustrations and renderings of two headsets, including one that looks like bug-eyes. They also include renderings for custom motion controllers.

Samsung has had its toes in the VR space since the very beginning of the consumer VR market, but it tends to have one toe in the water at a time. In the early days of this industry, Samsung partnered with Oculus to launch the GearVR smartphone-based VR headsets. The company later partnered with Microsoft to launch a Windows Mixed Reality headset called the Odyssey, and subsequently the Odyssey+.

The Odyssey+ WMR headset has been on the market for a couple of years now, and it's about due for a replacement. These new designs may point to Samsung doubling down on its VR offering soon.

Lenovo has a big announcement in the XR space this week at CES. The company revealed a lightweight, compact pair of Smartglasses for the business market.

The ThinkReality A3 glasses are the successor to Lenovo's ThinkReality A6 headset. The smart glasses are a much more compact design than the outgoing headset. The A3 resembles a typical pair of glasses, but they come equipped with technology to help make your workday more productive.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 mobile SoC powers the ThinkReality A3 glasses. The glasses include an 8MP 1080p camera for VPV video capture, and dual 1080p displays for viewing content. The A3 smartglasses also have dual fish-eye lenses used for spatial tracking.

TCL has teased an incredible concept at CES 2021 this year, with its new "printed OLED" technology and a 17-inch rollable tablet concept that is right out of the future.

The company teased its new 17-inch rollable OLED tablet concept using their in-house printed OLED display technology, with the 'TCL CS0T' tablet just a few inches thick when it's rolled up. It can be put into a small case, and thrown into a backpack or bag easily.

But when it is un-rolled, it turns into a 17-inch tablet thanks to its dual spring-loaded rollers on each side of the device. When opened, we have a near paper-thin OLED tablet that looks like an old school scroll, which I'm kinda digging, but the company is also promising its printed OLED scrolling display has 100% color gamut, and would cost 20% less than current commercial display technologies.

Nightdive Studios is currently remastering System Shock 2, and the developer just revealed that it's building VR support into the remake of the game. The current state of the game's development is unclear, but the company shared a brief clip of a the game running with motion control support.

System Shock 2 was one of the scariest games that I remember playing when I was a kid, and I was very excited to hear the game would be re-released. Now that it's getting VR support, I'm a little bit nervous even to play it. Fighting off mutants with a pipe wrench was scary enough with a mouse a keyboard. A fully immersive version will be pretty intense.

There's no word on when the game will be available to play in VR, but we'll be sure to let you know as soon as we know.

John Carmack revealed on Twitter that Oculus is planning to do monthly software updates for the Quest platform. The company is looking for feedback from users to help Oculus prioritize update rollouts.

In a Tweet poster this morning, Carmack revealed that Oculus is "making it a priority in the near year to engage a lot more with the Quest User Voice." If you own an Oculus Quest or Quest 2 headset, Oculus wants to hear your thoughts about the platform and what you would like to see improved or changed.

The company plans to use the feedback to roll out regular updates for Quest headsets, which would include future software features. This is your chance to suggest a new Quest feature.

Uh, I don't even know what to say -- no car that I ever drive again will come anywhere close to how amazing this new Digital Cockpit 2021 concept that Samsung has made. Check it out:

The big star of the show there is the huge panoramic 49-inch QLED display that can be used for entertainment, think future 8K content over Netflix or YouTube being blasted to your car over 5G -- all with surround sound speakers that pop out from next to your ears attached to the headrest. Awesome stuff, Samsung.

Samsung co-developed the Digital Cockpit 2021 concept with Harman, with Samsung explaining that it is "transforming vehicles into places where passengers would love to stay" with its main goal of "simplifying communication and delivering fun on-the-go experiences".

ASRock is the latest to unveil its new family of Intel 500-series motherboards, led by the flagship ASRock Z590 Taichi motherboard.

Right out of the gate you can see the unique and super-slick design work that ASRock has crafted with the Z590 Taichi motherboard, something it offers "uncompromised performance" with. Inside you've got the very latest USB4 standard with Thunderbolt 4 technology offering 40Gbps of bandwidth.

You've got support for Intel's new 11th Gen Core CPUs with the new 8-core, 16-thread flagship Core i9-11900K processor ripe for the ASRock Z590 Taichi motherboard. For gamers, ASRock promises its Lightning Gaming Ports that "uniquely use custom engineered USB signal lanes to accommodate the latest gaming mice with ultra-high polling rates; whereas traditional USB signal design cannot fully support this high report rate gaming peripheral therefore limits performance".

Today Sony confirmed a few launch windows for PlayStation 5 games, including Square Enix's big new action RPG Project Athia, Capcom's new Pragmata IP, and other PlayStation exclusives.

Sony's recent CES 2021 livestream locked in a few launch windows for key first- and third-party PS5 games. According to the disclaimer at the end of the game sizzle reel, Project Athia, the ultra-fast and chaotic new action RPG from Final Fantasy XV developer Luminous Productions, is set to release in January 2022. The two-year exclusivity deal Sony signed will keep Athia off of Xbox for at least 2024. Project Athia will also come to PC though.

Capcom's new cerebral IP, Pragmata, has also been delayed to 2023 and will likely be exclusive to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S hardware.

AMD will kick off its CES 2021 keynote on January 12 @ 9AM PST, where AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su will be featured where she and her team will unveil new products, and talk of the success of AMD throughout 2020, into 2021, and beyond.

You will be able to watch it here, or in the YouTube embed above.

AMD explains: