Latest News - Page 1599

UPDATE: We also found this size comparison that groups together multiple generations of consoles:

If the Xbox Series X is a fridge, then the PS5 is a skyscraper.

According to new size approximations from artist EvilBorisHDR, the PS5 is actually a fair bit taller than the Xbox Series X. But the Xbox Series X is definitely more wide. That's saying a lot because the Series X is an absolute unit of a console.

NASA has recently announced the company that will be transporting it's water-hunting VIPER rover to the Moon.

VIPER stands for "Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover", and the purpose of the mission is to see if the Moon has any traces of water, specifically on the Moon's South Pole. VIPER discovering a source of water on the Moon is an extremely important step for the overall success of NASA's Artemis mission, which will take the next American man, and the first American woman to the lunar surface by 2024.

NASA has selected Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic to build the $199.5 million dollar water-hunting rover. Astrobotic CEO John Thornton commented on the landing the contract, saying, "It is an enormous honor and responsibility to be chosen by NASA to deliver this mission of national importance. Astrobotic's lunar logistics services were created to open a new era on the Moon. Delivering VIPER to look for water, and setting the stage for the first human crew since Apollo, embodies our mission as a company."

A black hole that is located 600 million light-years from Earth has been rediscovered to have a regular "heartbeat".

The new findings were discovered by researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, as well as researchers from Durham University, UK. The report was published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and details a black hole that was first detected to have a "heartbeat" back in 2007. Since then, astronomers haven't been able to pick up a signal from the black hole as our Sun was blocking it out.

Now, researchers used the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray satellite, and have confirmed that the black hole is still beating like a heart. So why does this black hole beat like a heart? According to Professor Chris Done, in Durham University's Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, who collaborated on the research, "The main idea for how this heartbeat is formed is that the inner parts of the accretion disc are expanding and contracting." Done also said, "The only other system we know which seems to do the same thing is a 100,000 times smaller stellar-mass black hole in our Milky Way, fed by a binary companion star, with correspondingly smaller luminosities and timescales."

I would only have just gotten home last week from Computex 2020 if it had gone ahead, which was postponed over the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Now the organization that runs Computex, TAITRA (Taiwan External Trade Development Council) have announced that Computex 2020 has officially been cancelled and that they look forward to seeing everyone at Computex 2021 which will run between June 1-5, 2021.

The next big IT trade show is CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) which we'll see in just over 6 months time in January 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

You might be salivating over our review on Sabrent's new champion Rocket Q NVMe 8TB SSD but if you can't afford $1500 on a new 8TB NVMe-based SSD... then maybe an 8TB 2.5-inch SSD will just have to do.

Amazon is now listing Samsung's QVO series SSD at up to 8TB, but the listing was quickly removed. There were two different varieties of Samsung's QVO series SSDs up for sale, with a 1TB and 8TB option -- but there will surely be 2TB and 4TB versions of the drive once they are officially on sale.

The pre-order price for the 1TB drive was $130 and is available starting June 30, while the much larger 8TB drive also costs a hell of a lot more at $900 -- and it will be available to purchase and install (literally) every single game you own on August 24.

ASUS has just unveiled its new ROG Strix XG17AHP portable gaming monitor, a new variant of the previous ROG Strix XG17AHPE which was launched in January 2020.

What's new here with the ROG Strix XG17AHP is that ASUS has included a nifty tripod stand, where you fold the feet that hold the stand (and your monitor) up and then attach the monitor onto it with a telescopic-like extension in height.

It actually looks like it would be a great addition to the portable monitor experience, so you can truly have a portable monitor.

Samsung's new QLED TVs are about to get an injection of super-awesome PC-enabled tech, and it's all thanks to the new HDMI 2.1 standard.

The company has just pushed pretty hard into its new "Next Evolution of Gaming Display" in its latest QLED TVs, with HDMI 2.1-powered connections enabling a huge 4K 120Hz for PC gaming and next-gen consoles with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

Samsung touts that input lag is a super-low 9.8ms and that it has the industry's first FreeSync Premium-applied TV, as well as "Auto Game Mode" which automatically optimizes your TV settings for the optimal gaming experience, lowest input lag, and of course: super-fast 120FPS frame rates.

Can you believe it has been almost 30 years since Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? It's now 2020 and Keanu Reeves has had a gigantic career as the star of The Matrix and John Wick franchises. But now, we have the first trailer to Bill and Ted Face the Music:

This is the third movie in the franchise, which will conclude the journey of Alex Winters and Keanu Reeves as Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan. They're stoner BFFs whose band -- Wyld Stallyns -- was meant to save the world. Except, it didn't.

Bill and Ted Face the Music is based a couple of decades down the path of Bill and Ted, where the two haven't written the song -- yet alone used it to save the world. In typical Bill and Ted fashion, the pair use time travel to solve the issue -- they attempt to go into the future, steal the song (from themselves in the future), and come back to save the world.

I still remember my friend down the road getting Alex Kidd on his Sega Master System, and playing it over weeks and weeks -- all the way back in the 80s.

Fast forward to 2020 and we have Jankenteam and Merge Games just unveiling out of nowhere, a revival and expansion of the 1986 classic on the Sega Master System in the form of Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX. The new game has a tentative release window of Q1 2021, and will hit the PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch.

The developers have promised that the updated "DX" version will have tweaked combat, movement, and even boss fights. But if you want to play it old school, Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX will have a "Classic Mode" that lets you play the way it was made in 1986.

Capcom's new ultra-bizarre Resident Evil VIII: Village isn't coming to the current generation of consoles, and will instead be locked to PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

Today Capcom announced Resident Evil VII.I.AGE, a new horror fantasy game that takes big cues from RE4. All the rumors you heard are true: There's werewolves, witches, a castle set atop a ghostly village, and all kinds of supernatural horrors like werewolves. Capcom has also confirmed the game will be exclusive to next-gen consoles, meaning it won't release on PS4 and Xbox One in 2021.

Capcom has been working on this game for a long time, and it's powered by the powerful RE Engine tech which has been optimized specifically for the new hardware like the 7nm AMD SoCs and PCIe 4.0 SSDs found in the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Sony just revealed the final PlayStation 5 console design, and it's pretty weird. Okay, the PS5 is really weird. And the internet has responded in the best way possible: With lots of memes.

Credit: Sephiroth 1204

Sony describes the PlayStation 5 as "our most striking console yet." It certainly is striking. All the fan renders and concepts couldn't have prepared us for the final design, which looks very fluid and futuristic. But it also looks extremely memeworhty, as evidenced by the handful of memes we've already seen pop up.

The rumors were right: Resident Evil 8 takes place in a faraway misty land of castles, villages, and horrible supernatural monsters.

Resident Evil VIII: Village is more fantasy-horror that straight horror. All the reports you heard are true: Ethan is the main protagonist (this is his last game), first-person returns, Chris Redfield comes back, werewolves are in, there's a terrifying undead witch femme fatale from the 1940's that stalks us, and the game has castles set in one of the most dark and foreboding atmospheres in gaming since Resident Evil 4.

RE: Village takes place a few years after RE7 and is a kind of demented fairy tale gone wrong. There's a distinct cultish feel to the footage as Capcom leans more heavily into the occult than the usual zombie horror we're used to. From what I've gathered, it looks like the village wants to bring the end of the world, and Mia might be the bringer of the Antichrist. The antagonist, the witch/vampire?/ghost woman, might have an all-female version of the four horseman of the apocalypse under her thrall.

Sony just officially unveiled the PlayStation 5's finalized console design, and it's weirder than we could've ever imagined. But the system will launch with a handful of very familiar peripherals and accessories, including a curious new camera that could be used for the upcoming PSVR 2.0 headset.

Sony's likely working on a next-gen PlayStation VR headset to complement the PS5's raw power boost. Nothing's been announced, but multiple patents hint a head HMD is on the way, possibly with wireless connectivity. Other patents hint the PSVR 2 could have inside-out tracking, alleviating the need for external cameras.

But why would Sony launch a new camera in tandem with the PlayStation 5? It's kind of a strange move. The PS Camera currently has a small place in the ecosystem and is mostly used with the PlayStation VR. It's also used for streaming, which might be a big thing for the new PS5 era.

Sony officially unveiled the PS5's console design today, showing a slight V-shaped thermal design in a form factor that stands vertically.

The PlayStation 5 is a very striking system, and has been designed with cooling in mind. Although it's presented vertically, it can also sit horizontally on its side. The ventilation system is the most advanced we've seen in a PlayStation console to date, and retains some of the original V-shaped design found in the devkits.

The vents have a light blue strip for accent lighting, and there's USB ports (plus a USB-C in the front for quick charging).

UPDATE: Insomniac has confirmed the new Spider-Man game isn't a sequel, or an expansion. It's a smaller standalone game.

Insomniac's next big game will be a Spider-Man PlayStation 5 launch game starring Miles Morales.

Today Sony announced a new PlayStation exclusive Spider-Man game launching alongside the PS5 in 2020. The new game is a direct sequel to Isomniac's mega-hit Spider-Man PS4 game and stars Miles Morales, Peter Parker's pupil who picked up the suit. The footage was captured completely on a PlayStation 5 and features some incredibly fluid cinematic sequences.

Today Square Enix announced Project Athia, a new next-gen PlayStation 5 fantasy game that's one part Final Fantasy and one part Devil May Cry.

Not a lot was revealed about Project Athia, but looks to mirror Dragon's Dogma-levels of scope and fantasy lore, complete with immensely streamlined action and death-defying jumps lifted right out of something like Devil May Cry or Gravity Rush. The game reminds me a lot of a supercharged Final Fantasy XV, and the main character, in this case a kind of ultra-quick sorceress (Athia), looks a lot like Noctics in the animations.

Rockstar Games is releasing GTA V on PS5 in 2021, complete with new enhancements and extra upgrades.

The second best-selling game of all time is coming to PlayStation 5, surprising no one. While Rockstar didn't actually show off how the game will look on PS5, they did promise GTA V will be "enhanced and expanded" on the next-gen system. This means a next-gen SKU with high-end optimizations, possibly including native 4K, higher frame rates, ray tracing, the works. GTA Online will of course be included with every PS5 copy of GTA V.

"With a range of technical improvements, visual upgrades and performance enhancements, GTAV & GTA Online will take full advantage of the PS5 hardware and its new features, making the game more beautiful and more responsive than ever," Sony said in a press release.

Earlier this week, we mentioned that rumors are going around, suggesting Apple would be unveiling a new iMac that had a design similar to the iPad Pro at WWDC 2020. The rumor claimed that the new iMac would have bezels similar to the Pro display. The new machine is also reportedly to feature a T2 chip, AMD Navi GPU, and to ditch the Fusion Drive.

No Fusion Drive means that the iMac will go all SSD for storage. More weight has been added to the revamped iMac rumor with Apple pushing the ship date of the 27-inch iMac computer until after WWDC 2020 later this month. That suggests that the new machines will be ready to ship on June 22 when they're expected to be announced.

Something interesting is that ship times for the smaller 21.5-inch iMac haven't been changed. That suggests either the smaller machine won't be updated or Apple simply has more of them on hand than it did the larger machine. Either way, Apple iMac fans should be excited as this is even more evidence that refreshed machines are coming.

Mention of Lockhart, the rumored cheaper next-gen Xbox, has been found in Windows 10 code and ignites speculation about the system.

Back in 2018, we heard Microsoft's next-gen Xbox would be a family with two systems: Anaconda, the announced higher-end Xbox Series X with its 12TFLOP GPU and 4K 120FPS gaming; and Lockhart, a cheaper, more cost-effective system with a 4-6TFLOP GPU that targets 1440p 60FPS.

Microsoft has yet to announce Lockhart, but the company probably will at some point, especially now that it's listed in Windows 10 OS code. The snippet of code mentions codenames for all Xbox consoles, from Durango (Xbox One) to Anaconda (Xbox Series X) and Lockhart.

This week Intel announced the official launch of its Core processors that feature the Intel Hybrid Technology that are known by the codename "Lakefield." The processors are built using Intel's Foveros 3D packaging technology that features a hybrid CPU architecture able to deliver power and performance scalability. Intel says the Lakefield processors are the smallest able to deliver Intel Core performance and full Windows compatibility.

"Intel Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology are the touchstone of Intel's vision for advancing the PC industry by taking an experience-based approach to designing silicon with a unique combination of architectures and IPs. Combined with Intel's deepened co-engineering with our partners, these processors unlock the potential for innovative device categories of the future," said Chris Walker, Intel corporate vice president, and general manager of Mobile Client Platforms.

Intel says that these new processors deliver full Windows 10 application compatibility in up to a 56% smaller package area enabling up to 47% smaller board size and extended battery life. The small form factor allows OEMs more flexibility in product design for single-dual, and foldable screen devices while being able to deliver the PC experience people expect.