Latest News - Page 1641

Huawei is reportedly about to announce that it has been working on a new discrete GPU for the server and HPC market, according to a new report from a South Korean publication.

The Chinese giant has opened a new division in China called the Cloud and AI Business Group, where Huawei will begin its battle against NVIDIA and AMD -- and once Xe launches it will have Intel join the fight, for the GPU server and HPC businesses. Huawei is reportedly looking at a late 2020 release for its first-gen GPU, but it could have a gaming-focused GPU in the works and released in the next few years.

Huawei is pushing its new GPU-focused business with a home base in South Korea, with the Chinese giant acquiring local talent as well as acquiring a number of ex-NVIDIA engineers.

If you want to stay up-to-date with COVID-19 in the United States, then you'll want to check out John Hopkins University's recently updated COVID-19 dashboard.

The new COVID-19 dashboard focuses on the United States, and packs huge amounts of data including county-level data and infographics that you can't see in the global version. You can click into county-specific infographics that provide huge amounts of details like deaths, fatality rates, and more that are provided next to state-level data on testing, cases, deaths, and fatality rates of COVID-19.

John Hopkins University also includes information on county-level healthcare resources, with details like staffed hospital beds and ICU beds, as well as mitigation policies for COVID-19. There is an easy-to-read bar graph that shows the health insurance status of Americans by age group, with basic data for the local population and its size, race, and ethnicity breakdowns -- hell, there's even poverty status, and the number of Americans aged over 65.

With all of the current shelter-in-place, quarantines, and global lockdowns -- services like Zoom have seen a gigantic surge in popularity and use by companies and people around the world.

Well, did you know that over 500,000 Zoom accounts are being sold on the dark web and hacker forums for as low as 1c each, and in some cases, they're even free? Yeah, so new reports show that Zoom login details are happening through credential stuffing attacks, where hackers will login to Zoom accounts using leaked data from previous breaches.

If the login in successful, that Zoom account login goes into a list and is then sold to other hackers. Some of the Zoom accounts are offered up on a platter on the cheap, or for free -- where other hackers will use them for "zoom-bombing pranks" and "other malicious activities", reports BleepingComputer.

If you're a die hard Pokemon fan then you might want to check out the new Pikachu True Wireless Earbuds from Razer, a special edition version of their kick ass Hammerhead True Wireless Earbuds.

Razer made some changes to the charging case for the Pikachu True Wireless Earbuds, where the small fits-in-your-hand black case gets morphed into an awesome Poke ball. The front button lights up to indicate the charging level of your earbuds, while the wrist strap lets you carry it around on your... uh, wrist.

Just like the normal Razer Hammerhead earbuds, the new Pikachu True Wireless Earbuds have 13mm drivers, IPX4 water resistance, and Bluetooth 5.0 tech. If you want to get your gaming on, the Pikachu True Wireless Earbuds have low latency mode that reduces latency to 60ms. Razer goes more custom on the Pikachu True Wireless Earbuds, where the voice prompts are replaced by Pikachu's voice, which is actually really cool.

New PlayStation 5 renders are a mix of PS4 Slim, the V-style devkit, and a stylish spoiler because...why not? The PS5's gotta go fast.

After Sony revealed its new DualSense controller, we've seen some nice mock-ups try to recreate the style and guess what the PS5 will look like. Now Redditor robo3687 just made a batch of new PS5 renders using the DualSense as a template.

The mock-up accounts for sizing and cooling specifics too. robo3687 says their mock-up clocks in at 11.8 inches wide x 11 inches deep x 2.6 inches high, which is akin to the PlayStation 4 Pro's sizing. It can fit a 50mm fan and has special curvatures on the sides for airflow. "Yes it has a spoiler," the artist said.

There's apparently a rumor going around that Microsoft could acquire SEGA. That's not going to happen. At the most, we'll see a collaboration.

We shouldn't really have to write this article, and to a lot of you, the rumors of Microsoft buying SEGA are ridiculous. But we thought it prudent to illustrate why this won't happen. The reasons are pretty clear: Microsoft has no real reason to buy SEGA, and SEGA has no reason to sell. It's the same situation as the Sony buying Metal Gear Solid rumors, or the more preposterous Microsoft acquiring CD Projekt RED rumors.

First lets take a look at SEGA. Right now, SEGA is doing pretty good. The Japanese games-maker is an interesting company with a variety of revenue streams that stem from gaming to resort businesses. The latter will probably be hit hard thanks to COVID-19, but SEGA is nowhere near the red. That's usually when companies start eyeing buyouts or even selling off its IPs. SEGA is still making $1 billion+ in quarterly revenues; in Q3'19 during the holiday period, SEGA made $1.7 billion in revenues, and its profits were up a massive 52% YoY to $148 million. To put that into perspective, that's roughly 1/3 of what Xbox makes every quarter.

The ESRB has updated its new in-game purchases label warning with even more transparency and will now disclose a game's randomized elements.

The new label would specifically mark games with random microtransactions, namely lootboxes. This has huge implications for the live games market, which is thrived under blind awareness for years now. This is a particularly interesting move from the ESRB, especially since it said lootboxes aren't gambling back in 2017. Publishers have tried to circumvent the label warnings by delaying microtransaction roll outs until after a game box is printed and released in stores, and this has actually worked in the past.

Crytek once again teases Crysis remastered with a new two-word Tweet that speaks volumes. This is the first time the Crysis Twitter has been active since 2016.

Crytek hasn't been too subtle about teasing Crysis remastered. It's left more than a few clues in its latest CryEngine tech demos, and all the signs point to a re-release on current- and next-gen consoles and PC. We're talking high-end optimizations like 4K 60FPS+ and ray tracing, all wrapped in the beastly new CryEngine 5.6.

Throw in special attention to next-gen console SSD tech, and Crysis will be blistering fast, buttery smooth, and push the on-board APU's Zen 2 CPU and Navi 2X GPU to their limits. In short, Crysis could be back to utterly melt our hardware again.

Resident Evil 3 might have divided the fan base a little bit, but Capcom's latest remake is a big success on the market with 2 million units shipped worldwide in five days.

Capcom today announced some pretty beefy figures for its new Resident Evil 3 Remake. The action-based game has sold-in (shipped, not sold-through or actual sales) over 2 million copies globally in its first five days of availability. This figure includes both physical copies shipped around the world as well as digital purchases on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Capcom also confirmed 50% of RE3 Remake's sales were from digital, which is quite substantial but not necessarily surprising given the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Those are big numbers for any AAA game, but Resident Evil 2 Remake's 3 million copies sold in 3 days still conquers the sequel. At the time of writing, Resident Evil 2 Remake is now beating Street Fighter II with a whopping whopping 6.5 million copies sold on all platforms. RE2 Remake is now Capcom's fifth best-selling game of all time.

NASA is working hard towards the Mars 2020 mission, and every day the space agency is making progress. Now, a new announcement has come out regarding what will be aboard the Mars 2020 rover.

A new announcement on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory blog has shined a light on NASA completing one of the more critical steps towards the Mars 2020 mission, the Mars Helicopter. NASA has successfully constructed a helicopter that will mark the first time humans have flown an object on another planet besides Earth. NASA states on their blog that the helicopter will be deployed roughly two and a half months after Perseverance lands.

If you thought that the helicopter couldn't be full-sized, you thought right. NASA's Mars Helicopter weighs in at just four pounds (1.8 kilograms) and features propellers 4 feet (1.2 meters) in diameter. The helicopter is also cocooned within the rover's delivery system, and on April 6th, NASA engineers made 34 electrical connections between the rover and the delivery system located on the rover's stomach. If you are interested in reading more about the NASA's Mars Helicopter, check out the blog post here.

Half-Life: Alyx is the best VR game ever made, and one of the best games I have played in my 37 years on this planet. But, you need a VR headset to play it and not everyone has, or wants to buy one for Half-Life: Alyx.

But now, you don't need a VR headset to play, enjoy, and finish Valve's masterpiece game in Half-Life: Alyx as you can play it with a new no VR mod. The new mod is called Driver, and it lets you play Half-Life: Alyx without a VR headset.

I would suggest playing it in VR if you can because it is utterly amazing, as Valve built Half-Life: Alyx from the ground up for VR and it would be a shame not to play it the way the developer intended. But still, if you don't want to or simply don't like gaming in VR -- now you don't need to and can play Half-Life: Alyx in all its glory.

The future of travel might involve something that some governments are already discussing, a new COVID-19 "immunity passport". This immunity passport would certify you, the traveler, as immune to COVID-19 and approved to travel.

Germany, Italy, the UK and the US are already considering a COVID-19 immunity passport, which would acknowledge that you've had the disease and are now immune to it. You won't be able to infect others if you travel to foreign countries, and it would give a government stamp of approval to those working in critical sectors and essential workers.

While a COVID-19 immunity passport would be super beneficial to those in specific industries like healthcare workers (nurses, doctors, surgeons), police, army, first responders, and other essential and emergency services, it isn't all good. How long does COVID-19 immunity last? Will it mutate like the flu does every year, requiring up-to-date vaccinations to comply with your COVID-19 immunity passport.

According to a new report from research firm Canalys, PC shipments are way down this quarter and it's all because of COVID-19.

The report sees companies shipping 53.7 million PCs (desktops, notebooks and workstations) worldwide in Q1 2020, which is an 8% drop in same period of 2019. But Q1 2020 and its 8% drop is the largest decline in PC shipments in a few years now, with the above chart from Canalys showing a 12% drop in Q1 2016.

The data shows that Lenovo came out on top with 12.8 million systems shipped, HP wasn't far behind with 10.4 million, and Dell in third place with 10.4 million. Apple is a huge drop below that with 3.2 million shipped, while Acer shipped 3.1 million -- "others" covers all the other brands and makes up 12.3 million systems shipped in Q1 2020.

Japan has announced a large $2.2 billion stimulus package that will help companies with production in China, bring it back home to Japan -- all because coronavirus is wrecking havoc on supply chains worldwide.

The Japanese government announced the new 220 billion yen ($2 billion) to see companies shift production back into the country, while 23.5 billion yen was put aside to help companies move production to other countries (not in Japan, but still out of China).

The news couldn't come at a more critical time as Chinese president Xi Jinping had a visit to Japan inked on his calendar for earlier this month, this trip would've been the first visit from Xi in over 10 years but it was delayed over the coronavirus outbreak.

Microsoft employees are pretty confident in the next-gen Xbox Series X, and aren't really worried about the PlayStation 5 dominating the landscape.

Microsoft's teams aren't really ones to crazily ignite the console wars. Yes, they've said things like the "world's most powerful console" in marketing promos, but actual employees are more level-headed and recognize the other side has some pretty big advantages. That being said, some of Team Green's members still think Xbox Series X is a better console.

In a recent Dealer Gaming podcast, Bill Stillwell, a mixed reality exec who worked closely with the Xbox backward compatibility team, says Xbox SX should be the overall better system. "I think what you saw was the unfortunate byproduct of a GDC talk being turned into a marketing event. I liked Cerny's talk, I think they've got some cool tech, I personally think we're going to have a better console. The other side if it is they have great IP, so I do expect they'll have a good experience," he said.

Recent PlayStation 5 mock-ups look pretty nice, but they might be totally off the mark. Sony's next-gen PS5 could look radically different than anything we've seen so far.

Like the Xbox Series X, the PlayStation 5 will require a pretty substantial cooling solution. PS5 architect Mark Cerny says we'll be pretty happy with the console's cooling and that the system's SoC was built from the ground up with proper heat dissipation in mind (the Navi GPU's and Zen 2 CPU's power draw was adjusted to maintain proper cooling).

Cerny also says the PS5 will require a 'noticably larger' fan and power supply, which should transform the overall case design. How Sony designs this array--which is described as a lavish and more expensive option--will dictate the shape of the system itself. Sony has yet to reveal specifics on the PS5's cooling or fan setup, but the Xbox Series X conversely uses a 130mm exhaust fan to pull air from the bottom up in a kind of vortex of airflow alongside a vapor chamber APU cooler. But also remember power is handled differently between the two systems: Xbox SX locks the CPU and GPU frequencies, whereas the PS5 has variable frequencies.

Square Enix's big cash-crop subscription Final Fantasy XIV has been interrupted from worldwide coronavirus lockdowns.

Final Fantasy XIV's updates are currently at a standstill thanks to coronavirus disruption. Game director Naoki Yoshida confirms the MMORPG's planned 5.3 patch has been delayed as the game's worldwide teams are quarantined against COVID-19 spread. Yoshida explains that everything from QA testing, voice acting, and of course asset animation and generation has been affected as workers are stuck at home.

Yoshida affirms the update is still coming, but it won't meet its original June launch date--it could be delayed up to a month. The team is currently rolling out server maintenance from their homes, so don't worry, you won't be abandoned.

Backwards compatibility is one of the Xbox brand's biggest strengths. But Microsoft was faced with lots of resistance when first starting the legacy-supported initiative.

The Xbox One backwards compatibility program had a rocky launch. Developers weren't originally enthusiastic about Microsoft emulating their games and gave explicit instructions not to meddle with their creations. Publishers, developers, and IP holders all had the same sentiment: Don't touch our games and keep them the same. That meant re-creating everything the original game offered, including game-breaking bugs and other issues.

This actually proved to be tough for the Xbox back-compat team. Microsoft got so good at emulating older Xbox 360 games that they had to dial back certain things to reproduce certain errors found in the legacy games. In a recent podcast with Dealer Gaming, Xbox exec Bill Stillwell gives an interesting perspective on what it was like when BC first started, and how developers eventually warmed up to the idea of their old-school games looking and playing better on modern hardware.

Capcom has started early planning phases of development on a Resident Evil 4 remake with M-Two at the helm, sources tell VideoGameChronicle.

It's happening: The medieval-style, ultra-creepy Resident Evil 4 will be remade for current (and probably next-gen) consoles. Sources say the game is being made by Japanese game dev M-Two. Horror maven Shinji Mikami, who directed the original RE4 in 2005, was asked to direct the game, but Mikami declined. The diabolical dev will instead advise M-Two as it works on the game, which is apparently pegged for a 2022 release.

Fans are divided on the idea of a RE4 remake. Many argue that Resident Evil 4 is perfect the way it is and shouldn't be changed or altered. Capcom's remakes typically put a new spin on old concepts, characters, and locations, and the games are usually all the better for it. Right now Resident Evil 4 is regarded as the best in the series thanks to its over-the-shoulder combat, unique and original haunted village locale, and overall departure for the franchise.

The Dreamcast might be dead for good, but Retro-Bit is reviving SEGA's old-school controller for a nostalgic hurrah.

Retro-Bit plans to release its new Dreamcast controller sometime in 2020, complete with wired and wireless options for gamers to choose from. The controllers will mimic the original Dreamcast's weird polygonal peripheral while also packing some new add-ons, including an improved analog stick, a new D-pad, a six-button layout for fighting games, and re-positioned triggers. Retro-Bit's controller also features the original Dreamcast hookup so it can play with your old-school machine, as well as a USB converter for PC play.

There's nothing quite like the Dreamcast controller. If you ever held one in the 90s, you know what I'm talking about. They're just so...weird but oddly satisfying at the same time. Using one now would be awkward since it doesn't have a second joystick, but for the time, it was quite unique.