Latest News - Page 1628

The one question that has been puzzling scientists' minds is, 'are we alone in the universe?'. While we haven't found any evidence to suggest that we aren't alone, it's still important to keep an open mind about it all and keep on searching.

One British scientist claims that we aren't alone, and that she is certain that there is at least some form of life out there in the vastness of space. This British scientist is Professor Monica Grady, and she claims that we should be looking for external life on Jupiter, in particular, one of Jupiter's moons Europa. The professor says that this life would resemble an "octopus", and wouldn't look like a human.

According to Grady, "When it comes to the prospects of life beyond Earth, it's almost a racing certainty that there's life beneath the ice on Europa". Grady goes on to explain that Europa could be home to new life below its very thick layer of ice, which stretches fifteen miles deep. The idea behind life being on Europa is that there's water below the thick layer of frozen water, and that the frozen water shelters the life from the harsh radiation and asteroid impacts from above.

Well, coronavirus is coming in like a wrecking ball in a bigger way than we thought -- where if it's not causing havoc worldwide through social distancing, quarantines, lockdowns, deaths, industries shuttered and businesses closed -- some permanent.

Yeah, it's not enough -- now it's time for social distancing to have its effect on what we're all sitting at home doing right now: binging TV series after TV series and movie after movie. Warner Bros. Television presidents Susan Rovner and Brett Paul recently held a conference call to talk about the studio and its future production in the weeks post-coronavirus shutdowns.

Variety spoke with a "source familiar with what was said on the call", with the site reporting that coronavirus and its social distancing impacting production from feeding the cast and crew of TV and movies, through to sex scenes and hand-to-hand combat.

AMD has been kicking some serious ass in the CPU business with its ever-evolving and continuously-improving Ryzen family of processors. So much so that AMD now commands over 50% of the premium CPU sales.

Intel has continued to see its CPU market share wither away to its competitor for 10 quarters in a row now, where in its recent financial report AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said that AMD has been pushing Intel for 30 months in a row now. Lisa added that AMD now has "more than 50 percent of premium processor sales at many top global etailers".

AMD recently posted record Q1 2020 re venues of $1.79 billion, which is up a considerable 40% over the same quarter of 2019. Su added: "PC demand in the rest of the world was strong, offsetting the softness in China. Client processor revenue grew significantly year-over-year as strong Ryzen processor demand resulted in significant double-digit percentage increases in unit shipments and ASP. As a result, we believe we gained client unit market share for the tenth straight quarter".

NVIDIA is expected to unveil its new Ampere GPU architecture during its GTC 2020 keynote, where it wants you to GET AMPED about it between now and especially on May 14, at 6AM PST.

We know that NVIDIA is one of TSMC's largest clients for its 7nm process node, while Samsung announced it was to begin production of its new 5nm (5LPE) EUV process in Q2 2020. Remember the mysterious 5nm chip NVIDIA was working on? Yeah, I would say it has something to do with that.

Samsung could be making NVIDIA's next-next-gen Hopper GPU on its new 5nm EUV node, with Ampere finding a home on the 7nm node by TSMC. We should expect NVIDIA to unveil its new GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 graphics cards sometime in August 2020, with a launch at Computex 2020 -- nothing is in concrete right now, but that seems like a viable launch window.

NVIDIA most likely would've unveiled its Ampere GPU architecture and this new DGX A100 system at its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in March, but it was canceled over the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. We are now told to GET AMPED for a GTC 2020 keynote presentation from NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang on May 14, at 6AM PST.

Still, we're now being teased with the new Ampere-based DGX A100 system that packs Ampere GPUs that, right now -- we don't know much about but can expect them to be monsters. A new entry has popped up in the Justia trademark database, with NVIDIA filing an application for the DGX A100 trademark.

The first DGX systems were named DGX-1 and DGX-2 but it seems that NVIDIA won't be naming the Ampere-based system DGX-3 but rather DGX A100. If this is true, we now have the GA100 teased -- the first GPU based on the new Ampere architecture.

343i teases our first glimpse at Halo 3 running on PC, and it looks pretty good.

Halo 2 isn't even out yet on the Master Chief Collection's PC port, but 343i is already showing off Halo 3. It looks like we'll get the full MCC on PC in 2020 after all. The screenshots are admittedly sparse, but they do showcase some impressive lighting effects and textures that've been re-touched from the Xbox 360 original. The visuals don't look as dramatic as, say, Halo 2: Anniversary, but these are in-development screens and not finalized images.

Halo 3: ODST is also on the way. This is a pretty big deal for me because I loved the Firefight mode (I still play it to this day on Xbox 360) and am psyched to try it out on PC with higher FPS and response timings.

Fans are petitioning EA to keep Battlefront II with new content, and they're even willing to spend money on it.

Battlefront II has officially been retired into maintenance mode and won't be getting new updates. That means engagement will stagnate, and the playerbase will eventually fall off. Some fans aren't happy about it, and are petitioning EA to consider selling DLC instead of giving it out for free as part of the games' current microtransaction-funded business model.

At the time of writing, the petition has 6,800 signatures. Every signature represents a gamer willing to spend money on new DLC, and the petition praises DICE for saving Battlefront II from the clutches of loot box controversy.

Call of Duty's new Warzone battle royale will get updates and content from all new future Call of Duty games, including this year's Vietnam-based shooter.

Warzone is the biggest thing Activision has ever made. It's the perfect storm of engagement: Not only does Warzone come baked into a premium-priced full Call of Duty game, but it's a free-to-play standalone download with monetization. The most powerful part of Warzone is how it connects F2P and buy-to-play (B2P) gamers together in one ecosystem. Progression and unlocks are shared between Warzone and MW's multiplayer. Warzone is also a big melting pot for Call of Duty's characters, locations, mechanics, and maps--it's the ultimate Call of Duty multiplayer game.

It's a 150-player playground that serves as the connective tissue that holds all Call of Duty games together, while monetizing nostalgia amid one of the most powerful gametypes in the industry today.

Great news for Star Wars nerds: The original 2004 Battlefront now has official multiplayer on Steam.

Now's the perfect time to relive some old-school chaos with the original Battlefront on PC. Battlefront II is retired into maintenance mode and Steam just added full online server play to Pandemic's original all-out war shooter. This is a pretty big deal for Battlefront fans who yearn from the classic insanity the originals have to offer; the ship combat, the explosive firefights, the nostalgic graphics and emphasis on gameplay rather than fancy graphics or visuals. No microtransactions, no insane progression grind, just plain fun.

This is the first time Battlefront received official online support since GameSpy, the original server infrastructure host, closed down in 2014. Since then gamers had to get creative and install hex editors and connect to unofficial servers of their own. Now Valve has taken over and switched on servers to host one of the best shooters ever made.

Hackers were responsible for leaking The Last of Us 2's controversial spoiler cinematic sequences, sources tell games reporter Jason Schreier.

The recent Last of Us 2 leaks have been pretty disastrous for Naughty Dog, and it didn't take long for the internet to make up an urban legend centered around the studio's crunch culture. Legend has it the Last of Us 2 leaks were from a jaded and overworked employee who had their compensation withheld. Sony has since confirmed this isn't true, and now more internal sources close to Naughty Dog say it was hackers, not one of their own, who leaked the content.

Instead of the dramatic rumors, hackers found a weak spot in Naughty Dog's servers, exploited that weak spot, and grabbed a bunch of sensitive copyrighted data to publish online. This is usually the case with all leaks. The infamous Nintendo Switch info dump was caused by a hacker, who was caught and sentenced to hefty prison time.

The Boeing designed X-37B plane is about to take off on a new mission, and as per usual, no one really knows what it's doing and why.

The U.S Air Force is preparing to launch the Boeing designed X-37B, which is a space drone that is highly classified by the United States government. Due to the space plane being so classified, no one really knows what its missions are or what it's doing while it's off the ground, but what we do know is this will mark its sixth mission to date. The last mission the X-37B went on had the plane in the air for a total of 780 days, it was airborne from Sept. 7, 2017, until Oct. 27, 2019.

The missions are called OTV, which stands for Orbital Test Vehicle. This mission, in particular, is called OTV-6, and we can expect that the plane will be breaking the previous record it set. The Air Force hasn't disclosed what kind of payload the plane is carrying, but we do know that it isn't any kind of weaponry, or at least that is what the Air Force has said. The upcoming mission for the X-37B is scheduled to launch on May 16.

It was barely 24 hours ago that I reported on Intel teasing the 'Father of All' GPUs that is the Xe-HP, but now Raja Koduri is teasing the successor to that -- something he calls the 'Superman of All' GPUs.

In a follow-up tweet, Koduri explained "This was called the "baap of all" by our team... The "Baahubali of all" is baking as well. Let's hope the wait will be shorter than what @ssrajamouli put us through for @BaahubaliMovie". Wccftech decoded the post, translating it into the "Superman of All".

Any regular readers of TweakTown will know I'm one of the biggest Superman fans on the planet, as well as a gigantic geek and GPU nerd so this news is righit up my alley. In this tweet, Koduri is referring to the Baahubali movie, which is a superhero movie that Raja was involved with.

Microsoft plans to bundle all of its gaming services together in one neat package. Project xCloud game streaming, Xbox LIVE Gold, and Game Pass will be combined in a new penultimate gaming subscription.

Today Microsoft confirmed something we've long expressed in our coverage: Project xCloud is an extension of Xbox Game Pass. In a move that's quite genius (but also quite logical), the company plans to unionize the two services into a single subscription. "Later this year our cloud game streaming technology, Project xCloud, will come to Game Pass-so you and your friends can stream and play the games you love together on your devices," Microsoft's Phil Spencer said in a recent blot post.

This one-two combo is a knockout punch for Microsoft's billion-dollar service empire. Game Pass is already conquering with over 10 million subscribers to date (the recent $1 promos helped boost those numbers) alongside a huge thriving 90 million Xbox LIVE userbase (not all of those are paying for Gold subs, and PC integration helps too). This is par for the course for Microsoft.

The new Summer Game Fest is set to transform how games are presented to consumers, and more importantly, how they interact with them.

Now that E3 2020 is dead, the biggest names in gaming are teaming up to make something new: A huge four-month event held from May through August that promises tons of reveals, interviews, gameplay demos, and most importantly, interactive slices that gamers anywhere can play. The Summer Game Fest is a new all-digital event that could kill E3 once and for all, favoring smaller digestible Nintendo Direct-style showcases rather than huge explosive on-stage affairs at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

With next-gen consoles on the way, the Summer Game Fest is a perfect opportunity to broadcast new high-end games far and wide. If publishers use the event to show off their new explosive next-gen games, the Summer Game Fest has incredible potential to be the biggest game event of our time.

AMD partnered with Samsung in August 2019 where it would allow its RDNA architecture would power future Samsung devices, after announcing a multi-year strategic partnership in June 2019.

That new RDNA-powered design seems like it's on the right track, with new rumors from South Korean tech forum Clien which says the Radeon-powered chip "crushed" the Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU in GFXBench. There's quick a smack down from the AMD/Samsung chip versus the Adreno 650, check it out:

If these scores are real, then we're in for a gigantic surprise when Samsung releases its new phones. It could mean that a huge uptick in performance will come from Qualcomm's next-gen chips, with mobile graphics a big deal when it comes to next-gen gaming smartphones.

NVIDIA might have stolen the headlines with a hot new rumor of some pretty crazy GeForce RTX 3080 Ti specs, but now Intel is getting in on the fun and shoving AMD out of the way with some Xe-HP news.

It was barely 24 hours ago that the official Intel Graphics team tweeted out some photos, but the tweet was quickly deleted. Not because it showed anything important where Intel lawyers would tell them to quickly delete the tweet because it showed something it shouldn't -- but rather Intel was slammed for the incorrect use of face masks by major Intel staff like Raja Koduri and Jim Keller.

But don't worry, nothing is forever with the internet because I took a screenshot. Here you can see the original tweet from the official Intel Graphics Twitter account.

Morrowind is now officially 18 years old. Do you feel old yet? Let's take a quick trip back to the past and uncover one of gaming's best RPGs.

Remember when Bethesda made those unique kind of RPGs? I mean real RPGs, not casualized games like Skyrim (which are admittedly amazing, but quite different). Back in the day, Bethesda redefined what RPGs could and should be. They did this with games like Daggerfall, and my favorite Elder Scrolls game of all time, Morrowind.

Morrowind was ahead of its time in many ways. It was unique, exotic, weird. It was actually the first game I saw on the original Xbox back in the day, and seeing the water effects and the lighting blew me away. Yes, I was a console pleb, but I honestly like Morrowind more on console...although I missed out on tons of mods. Even today the graphics aren't so bad (although those screenshots are pulled from my original Xbox 360 BC save of the game).

Motorola is officially talking up the Edge+ smartphone touting the device as supporting the fastest 5G in the world. It supports the Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network and has Wi-Fi 6 integrated. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 mobile platform. The Snapdragon 865 platform has an AI engine able to process 15 trillion operations per second.

The Snapdragon processor is paired with 12 GB of DDR5 RAM, and 256 GB of UFS 3.0 storage. It has a 6.7-inch display that wraps 90-degrees around each side to produce what Motorola calls the Endless Edge display. The screen does support HDR10+ and has a 90 Hz refresh rate.

The rear the smartphone has a 108MP Quad Pixel primary camera sensor promising "unmatched quality." The triple camera system also has integrated Micro Vision capability for up-close details. The second sensor is an 8MP telephoto lens that has 3x optical zoom. The third sensor is a 16MP ultra-wide-angle lens that fits up to four times more of what's around you into the shot. The rear camera is capable of recording 6K UHD video at 30 fps.

Sony confirms The Last of Us 2 spoilers weren't published by a Naughty Dog employee. Someone from outside Naughty Dog got access to the files and published them online, and Sony knows who did it.

The rumors and reports are all wrong. The urban legend around The Last of Us 2's spoiler motivations goes a little something like this: Naughty Dog withheld a developer's pay, so the dev took revenge by leaking the game's most controversial cinematic sequences online for all to see. This rumor was predicated strongly on Naughty Dog's intense crunch culture, which apparently sees employees being hospitalized from mental breakdowns and overwork.

Sony recently set the record straight and confirmed the allegations are untrue. Sony tells GamesIndustry.biz that it has identified the perpetrator behind the leaks, but hasn't said whether or not it was a hacker, which is the most logical conclusion if the leaks weren't an inside job.

Many people who use Facebook have a huge number of pictures that have been uploaded to the site over many years of using the social network. Some of those users may want to back up their photos to the popular Google Photos service for sharing on other platforms or just keeping their pictures and video safe in the event something happens to their Facebook account. Facebook knows people want to keep their memories safe, and last year it launched a transfer tool for Google Photos in Ireland.

That Google Photos transfer tool is now live in the United States. The tool is found within the "Your Facebook Information" section of the settings on the user's Facebook account. Reports indicate that Facebook plans to expand the tool to work with other photo services in the future, but for now, it only works with Google Photos.

Facebook has said that the tool encrypts all data transferred between it and Google Photos and requires the user to enter their password before the transfer starts. The tool was previously available in Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Facebook plans to enable additional countries to use the tool in the coming months.