Latest News - Page 1663

Gaming chairs could soon be the thing of the past, or at least that might be the case if you decided to pick up a gaming bed.

Kotaku has stumbled across an incredible invention by Japan's Bauhutte, a company that focuses on creating gaming furniture (yes, gaming furniture is a thing). This very well could be every gamer's dream, as shown in the pictures, the gaming bed comes with every need that a gamer wants.

There's side table access for snacks/drinks, an arm attachment for a phone or tablet, monitor and keyboard stands, a side drink shelf to replenish that energy, and of course, the comfy bed. The only thing I think it lacks is a toilet, while this might be disappointing, it could be the better hygienic choice not to have one installed where you sleep. What else would you add to this gaming bed?

Back in 2017, Apple admitted that it slowed down older generation iPhones on purpose, now the company is set to pay out a massive $500 million.

According to a new report by Reuters, Apple is set to pay out $500 million to settle a massive lawsuit regarding how the company decided to intentionally slow down the performance of older generation iPhones. The lawsuit covers US iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and SE models that were running iOS 10.2.1 or later. The suit also covers iPhone 7 and 7 Plus if those phones were running iOS 11.2 or later before December 12st, 2017.

Consumers can take part in the lawsuit and even get some money back from doing so. It's estimated that consumers could get $25 per phone, and in total, it's estimated that Apple will have to pay back $310 million to consumers. Reuters also mentioned that lawyers are seeking $93 million in legal fees with an additional $1.5 million in expenses. Lawyers also said that settlement for consumers is "fair, reasonable, and adequate" and that payment of $25 per phone is "considerable by any degree".

Activision Blizzard has teamed up with esports group Torque Esports on a new "Collegiate Clash" tournament, that will inspire the next generaiton of gamers.

The new Collegiate Clash will see college esports teams battling each other, with 8 teams competing against each other every week, for 8 weeks -- culminating in a total of 64 colleges taking part. The grand prize? $40,000 worth of prize money that instead of going into the winning gamers' pockets, will instead be given to the winning schools in the form of scholarship funds.

These funds, will be to help "further esports at each of the winning schools" with Torque Esports Corp's esports tournament and broadcasting operations group, UMG Media Ltd. signing a new contract with Activision Blizzard for the new Overwatch Collegiate Series. Torque and UMG's mission is to "support and grow the esports space and help create a clear path to professional competition for these players currently on collegiate teams".

Just as I finished up writing news that NVIDIA kinda pulled the plug on its GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2020), I saw some news that E3 2020 is reportedly still going ahead -- laughing in the face of coronavirus, at least for now.

Patrick Klepek from VICE reached out to the E3 organizers, ESA, who told him that there are no changes have happened with E3 2020 just now and that the team is "moving ahead full speed with E3 2020 planning". Remember, GDC 2020 was officially postponed just days ago until sometime in the summer. GDC 2020 was scheduled to take place between March 16-20 in San Francisco.

In a statement to Klepek, the E3 organizers said: "Everyone is watching the situation very closely. We will continue to be vigilant, as our first priority is the health, wellness, and safety of all of our exhibitors and attendees. Given what we know at this time, we are moving ahead full speed with E3 2020 planning. Exhibit and registration sales are on track for an exciting show in June".

Samsung's new Galaxy S20 Ultra has had some testing that I don't think I've ever seen before: a private investigator has used the Galaxy S20 Ultra's flagship 100X Space Zoom camera technology, and really put it to the test.

Michael McKeever, a private investigator, has used Samsung's new Glaaxy S20 Ultra and its 100X Space Zoom feature against the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max, Sony HDR-CX190, and a Nikon P100. McKeever has been a private investigator for 30 years, where his go-to for 125x zoom shots was the Nikon P100, but the new Galaxy S20 Ultra is providing some great pictures with 10-30x.

Samsung's new flagship Galaxy S20 Ultra easily beats Apple's iPhone 11 Pro Max in this private investigator testing, as Apple only has 2x optical zoom with its latest flagship smartphone. If you want some great zoom goodness on a new smartphone, Samsung has your back and McKeever provides the goods with this different level of testing.

NVIDIA has officially changed its plans for its upcoming GPU Technology Conference (GTC) with the company morphing the GPU-focused event into an online-only affair.

I woke up this morning to emails from NVIDIA informing me of the changes, and then just an hour or two ago another email seeing my hotel, etc canceled. NVIDIA's upcoming GTC 2020 event is due to take place between March 22-26, where the company will still have its CEO and founder Jensen Huang take the stage for a live-streamed GTC 2020 keynote.

NVIDIA published a press release handling the issues surrounding the changes to GTC 2020, where the company explained: "NVIDIA has decided to shift GTC 2020 on March 22-26 to an online event due to growing concern over the coronavirus. This decision to move the event online instead of at the San Jose Convention Center reflects our top priority: the health and safety of our employees, our partners and our customers".

Fallout 76 will continue expanding in 2020 with user-requested features like legendary perks, a huge enemy level scaling system, and CAMP enhancements.

Bethesda is making a big commitment to salvaging, changing, and evolving Fallout 76. The big new Wastelanders update, which adds in human NPCs, dialog, and instanced areas, is a massive step forward for the game. But it's just the first step in a long series of content drops planned for the online-only Fallout.

In a recent PAX East stream, Fallout 76 devs outlined what's next for the survival sim after Wastelanders. As it turns out there's still quite a bit on the way, including an expansive new universal leveling system that automatically scales enemies to your level regardless of where you are, as well as an enhanced perk system that adds new avenues for creative builds.

Fallout 76's new ambitious Wastelanders expansion will transform the game into a singleplayer-multiplayer hybrid.

Wastelanders is the biggest Fallout 76 update to date, and it has one singular goal: To make Fallout 76 feel more like an actual Fallout game. Based on what I've seen so far, Wastelanders might actually do the job quite well. The transformation hinges on two major features including the new instanced dungeons and human NPCs with new dialog systems.

Fallout 76 isn't a reactive game. The game's loss of agency is one of the main reasons why I gave it such a low review score. Wastelanders wants to change that by creating special zones that are tailored specifically to your choices and character.

Riot Games' new hero shooter Valorant is putting speed and accuracy over everything else, and the devs promise servers with 128Hz tick rates for ultra low-latency chaos.

Today Riot Games officially announced Valorant, it's new free-to-play 5v5 hero shooter due out in Summer 2020 that has lofty ambitions of ruling the competitive FPS market. Valorant is kind of a mix between Overwatch, with its 10 hero characters with unique abilities, and also channels Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's precise gunplay.

A big part of Riot's focus with Valorant is attracting enthusiast FPS players with higher-end netcode and tweaked servers to drastically reduce latency. Riot's shooter will run on dedicated servers with 128Hz tick rates to optimize frenetic battles and push lag-free gaming, complete with response times lower than 35ms. Right now Counter-Strike: GO has 64Hz tick rate servers.

Valve just revealed three meaty gameplay videos for its new VR-exclusive Half-Life game, which looks to be VR's must-have killer app.

On the heels of Half-Life: Alyx's launch later this month, Valve has released over 10 minutes of new Half-Life: Alyx gameplay footage that shows just how incredibly dynamic the game actually is.

The big features shown off are locomotion and basic first-person shooter mechanics. The game looks admittedly wonky insofar as an FPS. But that's to be expected as VR sensors are tracking your movements and translating in-game. Alyx can crouch, hide behind walls as cover, and use nearby objects as weapons. All in all the game looks like it could give you serious anxiety and the fights are pretty tense--especially with the total immersion of VR projecting you in the creepy Half-Life universe.

Death Stranding's Steam version on PC is getting some exclusive cross-over items straight out of Half-Life.

Norman Reedus' wardrobe is about to get a whole lot weirder. Kojima Productions has teamed up with Valve to inject some Xen awesomeness to Death Stranding's PC port, complete with extra cosmetics from the Half-Life universe.

Sam Porter Bridges can wear such stylish Black Mesa gear as Gordon Freeman's iconic glasses, a headcrab helmet (my favorite), and Alyx Vance's new makeshift gravity gauntlets from Half-Life: Alyx, the new VR-exclusive Half-Life coming in April. Even the Steam-maker's signature valve can be attached to the back of Sam's head.

Death Stranding's big PC debut will happen June 2, 2020 on both Steam and the Epic Games Store, 505 Games today announced.

Kojima's ultra-weird walking-simulator slash Lynchian horrorfest is coming to PC in just three months, and comes jam-packed with optimizations like boosted frame rates for higher-end rigs, a built-in photo mode, and ultra-wide 21:9 monitor support.

The official press release was a little light on the PC features and settings but we've reached out to 505 Games for more clarification. PC spec requirements were also not revealed.

Gamers can now try out Final Fantasy 7 Remake's full action-based combat with a new playable PS4 demo.

It's finally live: Today Square Enix stealth-released the Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo on the PlayStation Store. The demo clocks in at roughly 7.5GB on PlayStation 4 and contains a small slice of the overall Midgar-based game. Sadly your progress and saves won't carry over into the main game, and although the RPG is mostly finished, the publisher can still change things between now and release.

"The demo allows players to experience first-hand the opening chapter from the game, and the events of the iconic Mako Reactor 1 bombing mission," reads a press release issued by Square Enix. Anyone who downloads the demo will also get access to an exclusive PS4 theme that releases alongside the game in April.

In a new behind-the-scenes development diary from Cloud Imperium, the developers behind the ambitious Star Citizen, we are introduced to what is called 'Actor Status'.

Star Citizen's developers explain exactly what 'Actor Status' is, and why they are adding it to the game. According to the developers, 'Actor Status' will add a new level of survival mechanics that will force players to regulate multiple aspects of their character. For example, if a player lands on a hot/cold planet, they will be required to equip specific clothing to compensate for that planet's environment.

While that might sound simple, many factors are taken into account to establish the planet and the player's overall temperature. The environment is influenced by weather factors such as wind, humidity, temperature, and more. These aspects then influence the players 'Actor Status', and players can view what is affecting their character through the UI. If players don't correctly compensate for the planets' environmental factors, they will begin to suffer the effects of it. Examples for this can include hyperthermia and hypothermia, which can lead to death.

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community is patiently waiting for who Nintendo has selected as the next DLC fighter.

Even though Nintendo already has the next DLC's fighters set in stone, this hasn't stopped communities from running polls to voice who they would like most. The Japanese Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community has run their own poll and judging by the results, Sora from the Kingdom Hearts franchise is by far the most-wanted fighter. If you didn't know, Disney was recently blamed for blocking Sora from coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Disney Japan specifically was deemed the ones to have blocked the extremely popular character from joining the roster. This news was sourced from gaming industry insider Ihran Khan, which means Disney hasn't officially confirmed Sora can't make it, giving fans a shred of hope that he still can. The Japanese poll was conducted by Inside Games and received hundreds of votes. 86.6% of those votes were from males, while the remaining 8.3% were from females. In the entirety of this article, I have provided the top 15 most-wanted characters.

Searching for planets in the vastness of space is time-consuming work for astronomers, but sometimes all you need on your side if a bit of beginner's luck.

University of British Columbia student Michelle Kunimoto had a little bit of that beginner's luck and has now officially found 17 new planets. Kunimoto has published a new paper in The Astronomical Journal detailing her discoveries, one of which is extremely promising as the planet is approximately Earth-sized and is located in the Goldilocks Zone of its neighboring star.

The planet is now called KIC-7340288 b it's about 50% larger than Earth, and its located in the Goldilocks zone of its star, meaning that it's at the right temperature to possibly have liquid water on its surface. Kunimoto said in a statement, "This planet is about a thousand light-years away, so we're not getting there anytime soon! But this is a really exciting find, since there have only been 15 small, confirmed planets in the Habitable Zone found in Kepler data so far."

During this year's Super Bowl, we saw a lot of technology-related ads, and one of those ads were for Jeep's ebike.

Jeep has now initiated pre-orders for its e-bike, and it won't be coming cheap... at all. Jeep's e-bike will cost consumers $5,899 and will sport a 750W motor, Fire-Link suspension, and a maximum range of 40 miles. Jeep has also partnered with QuietKat and has said that the new off-road mountain bike is the "most powerful" mountain bike yet.

Originally, Bill Murray was spotted in the e-bikes Super Bowl advertisement, and if you want to check out that video, it can be seen above. It seems that Jeep is following the likes of Tesla by transitioning to more electric-related vehicles. I won't be surprised if other vehicle manufacturers follow the same path, as consumers are now looking for clean alternatives. Jeep will begin shipping out their e-bike sometime in June.

Riot's coming first-person-shooter title has had a bunch of screenshots leaked, revealing what in-game looks like.

From the screenshots compiled in the above video, we know that Riot's first-person-shooter will be called "Valorant" and will resemble a team-shooter that is extremely similar to Overwatch or Team Fortress 2. A dedicated fan account has appeared on Twitter, and it's leaking a bunch of different images of Valorant's characters and in-game. The leaks are rumored to be coming straight from IGN, which means they could have broken an embargo early to get them up.

From the screenshots, we can see three characters; Viper, Brimstone, and Sage. We also get a look at Sage's abilities, which are the following; Barrier Orb, Slow Orb, Healing Orb, and Resurrection. Judging by what we can see on Sage's character select screen, it seems that each character will get four different abilities. If you are after more screenshots, check out the above video. The leaks also indicate that Riot will officially reveal Valorant on March 2nd.

Netflix has got all cylinders firing for the second season of The Witcher, and with only a few main characters yet to be announced, today we get to know who will be playing the influential Vesemir.

Netflix has revealed who will be playing Geralt of Rivia's teacher in the second season of The Witcher. At the end of the first season of The Witcher, we saw Geralt say that he's going to return back to Kaer Morhen to discuss matters with Vesemir, the oldest and most experienced Witcher and also Geralt's mentor. Vesemir will no doubt play a large roll in the second season of The Witcher due to how entangled his life is with Geralt's.

Netflix has chosen Kim Bodnia to play Vesemir, and we can expect to see him on-screen sometime throughout season two. Judging by the events of the first season, I would expect that he will be seen throughout the very first episode of season two, as Geralt should be getting close to Kaer Morhen. If you are after any more Witcher news, here's everything you need to know about season two.

Walmart is teaming with Verizon to make some big changes to their stores, with the two companies to pack 5G services into two Walmart stores this year. Why? Digital health services.

The faster 5G speeds would allow for Walmart to push digital health services that would include in-store video chats with doctors, and real-time medical data. It would improve your in-store experience by auto-registering you when you arrive, pulling medical data from your file online, and informing staff to restock any products you grab when you're there.

It wouldn't only benefit Walmart and its digital health services push, but it would also be able to provide faster internet speeds to those in the store. I guess you'd be able to walk around on your smartphone with super-fast connection speeds, while it will double as super-fast internet for its digital health services push. Weird flex by Walmart, but alrighty.