Latest News - Page 1670

HTC is on a roll today, unveiling their new prototype Vive Proton headset -- but also detailing 3 new versions of its Vive Cosmos VR family of headsets.

The new VR headsets that HTC unveiled at the Vive Cosmos Play, Vive Cosmos Elite, and Vive Cosmos VR -- each of these headsets will join the Vive Cosmos family. Each of the new Vive Cosmos headsets have the same make up as the original Cosmos, including the flip-up, head-mounted design, 1440 x 1700 resolution LCD displays with hardware IPD adjustment, and more.

Vive Cosmos Play - $500

HTC is working on a totally new headset, something the company has teased today as its Vive Proton -- a prototype headset that seems to combine virtual reality, mixed reality, and augmented reality into a bug-eyed looking headset.

The new Vive Proton headset is built for the future of 5G smartphones, and is an all-in-one XR headset that packs the displays, cameras, and speakers inside of a glasses-like design. It looks like you'll be walking around like a big ant, with a bug-eyed style design but inside I'm sure it's using leading technology and features.

HTC wants to see its new prototype Vive Proton headset powered with high-end visuals and audio, where off-loading the CPU and GPU required for that is a big help -- this is where the 5G connectivity comes in. 5G gives huge speeds (both up and down) to handle the transmissions needed for high-end XR experiences. But... HTC won't be putting a crazy-fast 5G chip right next to a users head, either -- so what's the solution there?

The world of deepfake videos is getting scarily real, with one of my favorites being Avengers stars Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr being deepfaked into Back to the Future -- as well as Neo and Agent Smith from The Matrix being deepfaked into Office Space. But look what we have here:

Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos have been deepfaked into the original Star Trek, into the pilot episode 'The Cage'. Musk plays Captain Christopher Pike, who was the captain of the USS Enterprise before the legendary James T. Kirk -- while Bezos is deepfaked onto a Talosian alien with a gigantic bald head, which he kinda suits.

In this episode of Star Trek, the Talosian aliens capture Pike and enslave him where he'll be used to breed humans and rebuild a destroyed society. In the episode, Pike attempts to escape which leads the Talosians to come to the conclusion that humans resisting to captivity won't make them a good species to rebuild a destroyed society.

The director of the Super Smash Bros. series has spoken out about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's DLC content, as well as the next Super Smash Bros. game.

Masahiro Sakurai recently took to Japanese magazine Famitsu to discuss the coming six DLC fighters to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and to talk about the next Smash Bros. game after Ultimate. Sakurai says that all of the DLC fighters were chosen by Nintendo and that while working on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he can't direct any new game idea. Sakurai also mentions that he is ok with this, as he wants to work to make other people happy, and not himself.

Sakurai also touches on if there is a new Super Smash Bros. game in development already. Sakurai says that at the moment, Nintendo currently doesn't have any plans for a new entry in the Super Smash Bros. series and that he doesn't know what will happen with the franchise yet. It's highly unlikely that Ultimate will be the last entry in the Super Smash Bros. series, especially when you consider that Ultimate is the best-selling game out of the entire series, and out of every fighting game in US history.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has some concerns around it, and one of the most prominent names voicing those concerns if SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

If you didn't know, Musk founded a non-profit organization called OpenAI with Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman. The goal of the organization was to develop new and safe was to monitor and regulate AI development. Musk has since left the organization but is still voicing his concerns over the oversight on AI development.

Musk took to Twitter in response to a new MIT Technology Review profile of OpenAI. Here's what he said, "OpenAI should be more open imo (in my opinion). All orgs developing advanced AI should be regulated, including Tesla". Judging on Musk's responses, it can be assumed that Musk is now somewhat distant from the organization's operations. Back in 2019, OpenAI started a for-profit arm owned by the non-profit parent company, and also accepted a $1 billion investment from Microsoft.

If you are an avid competitive gamer, then you would understand the frustration of losing after pouring your heart and soul into your game. That frustration can easily be tipped over into anger once a fellow player says the dreaded words " it's just a game".

This might not be the case for gamers who play their games casually and are in the game for the pleasure of just playing it. For competitive gamers that want to better their craft and move forward towards getting better, they invest heavy emotion into the game. Investing emotion into the game has one of two pay off. The first being the satisfaction increase of winning, and the second being the frustration of losing. This is something that is not felt if you are just playing the game casually.

This same principle can be said for any sport that is played by a competitive player. Tyler "Ninja" Belvins highlights this principle in his latest Tweet, saying, "The phrase "it's just a game" is such a weak mindset. You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you've lost twice. There's always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle."

Seventeen members of a German parliamentary group have nominated whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

According to the full letter, which was published on the Courage Foundation's website, these seventeen members of the parliamentary group believe that Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning have shown extraordinary efforts towards deserving a Nobel Peace Prize.

The group believes that Assange's efforts to expose "the extent of harm and illegality behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars", Snowden's revealing of "illegal mass surveillance, in defence of the liberties", and Manning's disclosure of 750,000 "classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents" to WikiLeaks represents enormous sacrifice for these individuals. The group also believe that a Nobel Peace Prize would more than honor the actions of these individuals, and represent their own sacrifice of liberties.

Only moments ago, Hideo Kojima released a new video on his Twitter account. The consensus of the video is that something new is coming to Death Stranding this year.

At the moment, there's no confirmation to whether or not there will be any DLC content for Death Stranding, as Hideo Kojima and his studio haven't announced anything since the game's release. There have been some teasers, and what has been called 'cryptic messages', but no official announcement has been made. This means fans are under the assumption that the base game is all they are going to get, but what if that isn't the case?

Hideo Kojima just took to his personal Twitter account to release the above video. While the footage in the video has been seen before, there was an added addition - "2020". This could suggest one of two things. The first being the PC release of Death Stranding arriving sometime in 2020, or follow up DLC content that will be coming sometime in 2020. Kojima gave no context for what this video means, which leaves us fans waiting on the edge of our seats for even more.

Back in late January, Nintendo held their Nintendo Direct that was dedicated to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Throughout that Direct, they announced that six more DLC fighters would be coming to Smash Ultimate in the form of a second Fighters Pass - Vol. 2.

Now, Masahiro Sakurai, the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director, has taken to Japanese magazine Famitsu to reveal that Fighters Pass Volume 2 will be the last DLC content for Smash Bros. Ultimate. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players will receive six additional fighters to close out the DLC content for Ultimate. These fighters have already been chosen by Nintendo, which means no matter what the community says, no fighter changes can be made.

This isn't really that surprising considering Super Smash Bros. Ultimate post-content support has been going for much longer than expected. It's also a major secret who these six additional fighters will be, there's been talk about Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series making it to Ultimate's roster, but that talk was shot down by rumors about Disney Japan specifically blocking his addition. This doesn't mean Sora has zero chance of making it to the roster, but it does seem very unlikely at this stage. Personally, I'd love to see Sora.

Samsung just finished launching its new Galaxy S20 family of smartphones as well as the new foldable Galaxy Z Flip, but work is already under way on the new Galaxy Note 20 smartphone.

According to a new patent that Samsung was recently granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, the new Galaxy Note 20 will rock what should be a truly gorgeous ultra-curved waterfall display.

Samsung's current flagship smartphones feature buttons that come through the metal side edge -- whereas the Galaxy Note 20 here in these patents would see the physical buttons coming out of the side glass edge. Nifty. We should expect to see more and more on the Galaxy Note 20 as the months pass, but this is an exciting tease.

Google released the first Developer Preview for Android 11 earlier than usual, but with that earlier release it means the company has additional time for tweaks inside of Android 11 before its big release in Q3 2020.

According to Google, we'll have a new pre-release version of Android 11 each and every month between now, and July. The initial preview release will be followed up by another couple of Developer Previews before the Beta releases in May and June, heading into the Final release in July -- but before that, Android 11 will be teased with the Pixel 5 smartphones at Google I/O 2020 in May.

The Developer Previews of Android 11 are not meant for regular phone users or even enthusiasts, and more so for developers so they can get their apps ready for Android 11 before it releases. Regular users will be able to use the Beta releases on their Pixel smartphones (except for the first-gen Pixel) when it drops in May 2020.

We've now hearing more and more about Google's new Pixel 5 smartphones, and thanks to the first Android 11 Developer Preview for Pixel devices, we might see the new Pixel 5 handsets featuring reverse wireless charging functionality.

Google released the very first Android 11 Developer Preview for Pixel devices, something that doesn't work on the original first-gen Pixel smartphones, where XDA Developers noticed in the Android 11 system dump for the Pixel 4 that Google talks about a new "Battery Share" feature.

This suggests Google is cooking up a new Battery Share function directly into Android 11, and thus for the next-gen Pixel 5 and Pixel 5 XL smartphones. Google's Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL all support Qi wireless charging -- but none of them support reverse charging at all.

We live in a world where subscription services are starting to replace virtually everything, but now Japanese auto giant Nissan wants to see us live in a world where car subscription services are a thing.

Nissan is testing out its new Switch service in Houston, which will let you swap your Nissan vehicle through a mobile app. You can order a new car at the time, where a Nissan dealership staffer will drive the vehicle out to you, and run you through how to use your new car. Awesome stuff!

Nissan starts off the pricing for its new Switch service at $699 per month, something it calls its "Select" plan -- which offers you up 4 different cars: Altima, Rogue, Pathfinder, and Frontier. For $899 per month you can be upgraded to the Premium plan, which offers up 6 more cars: the Leaf Plus, Maxima, Murano, Armada, Titan, and even the 370Z. If you want to get your mits on the Nissan GT-R then you will pay $100 per day on top of that, but you'll only get 7 consecutive days with that.

Microsoft will be packing in dedicated hardware-accelerated audio in its next-gen Xbox Series X console, which will add another layer of next-gen goodness onto its console.

It reminds me of the big push Microsoft did with its original Xbox, adding in Dolby Digital 5.1 technology which was a huge leap in audio back in the day. The new hardware-accelerated audio technology was confirmed when Microsoft teased its GDC 2020 presentation titled 'Building Audio Gateways Into Immersive Worlds With Spatial Sound'.

Microsoft explains: "Learn from the audio designers of Borderlands 3 and Gears of War 5 around how a collaboration between Microsoft, Dolby, and our middleware partners kicked off a revolution with spatial sound that turns any pair of headphones into a multi-dimensional gateway to another world. Attendees will dive deep into the audio design pipeline (Project Acoustics) and the relationship to dedicated hardware-acceleration on newer generation Xbox consoles".

Oppo was meant to unveil its new Find X2 smartphone during MWC 2020, but when the conference was canceled -- those plans changed, too.

But now, a bunch of leaks have teased the internal specifications of the Oppo Find X2 leading into today where a Vietnamese e-commerce website has "accidentally" leaked the entire specifications sheet for the smartphone. We now have some 'confirmed' specs to share and they are not too shabby at all.

First off, Oppo will be using Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 865 processor in its new Find X2, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Oppo will be offering up a higher-end model of the Find X2 with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, while we'll have a 48-megapixel rear-facing camera backed up by a 13-megapixel and 8-megapixel sensors.

We all know AMD is cooking up Big Navi right now, with CEO Dr. Lisa Su herself confirming it is in the oven and coming out in 2020 -- but it looks like Big Navi might have just turned up somewhere new. AMD's new Big Navi is meant to disrupt 4K gaming with NVIDIA, like its Ryzen CPUs did with Intel.

The Korean RRA has just listed a couple of AMD graphics cards for certification, which is perfect timing for AMD's upcoming Financial Analyst Day which takes place on March 5. AMD will be talking about its next-gen RDNA2 architecture at this event on March 5, where we're all hoping to hear about Big Navi.

But when it comes to the two new Korean RRA certification entries, we're looking at D32310 and D30201 -- listed on February 3, and February 19, respectively. Perfect timing for AMD's upcoming Financial Analyst Day on March 5 -- and previously, we've had around one month between Korean RRA certification, and product releases from AMD.

Just imagine driving around through a 35MPH zone and some hacker manipulates your Tesla electric car and its Autopilot mode, tricking it into seeing that 35MPH speed sign and making it think it was an 85MPH sign.

Yeah, so a group of McAfee researchers did just that -- manipulated a speed limit sign that tricks the Autopilot self-driving technology that Tesla is a leader in. The researchers put a small sticker on a 35MPH speed limit sign, tricking both a 2016 Tesla Model X and Model S in Autopilot mode, into thinking it was an 85MPH sign -- both vehicles then began accelerating up to 85MPH.

MIT Technology Review says that this isn't the first time researchers have been able to manipulate Tesla in Autopilot mode, where they report: "In an 18-month-long research process, [McAfee researchers] Trivedi and Povolny replicated and expanded upon a host of adversarial machine-learning attacks including a study from UC Berkeley professor Dawn Song that used stickers to trick a self-driving car into believing a stop sign was a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit sign. Last year, hackers tricked a Tesla into veering into the wrong lane in traffic by placing stickers on the road in an adversarial attack meant to manipulate the car's machine-learning algorithms".

CD Projekt RED is hard at work on what should be one of the biggest releases of 2020, with Cyberpunk 2077 dropping on September 17, 2020 -- but now NVIDIA has some good news to share. It was only a couple of days ago that NVIDIA announced its GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 Edition graphics card -- you can win one of those here.

NVIDIA has announced it will have Cyberpunk 2077 available on its newly-launched GeForce NOW game streaming service, the first day it launches. NVIDIA explains: "Cyberpunk 2077 will be available to play on GeForce Now on the day it's released. GeForce Now members will be able to grab their copy on Steam and play the game the moment it's available".

NVIDIA continues: "GeForce Now Founders members can explore the streets of Night City with RTX ON, fully optimized and instantly available, even on your Mac laptop. We're thrilled to work with CD Projekt Red to bring its eagerly-anticipated game to GeForce Now".

NVIDIA shareholders would be smiling right now, with stock reaching a new all-time high for the company -- hitting $314 with a market cap of $192 billion.

The last time NVIDIA was on this trajectory was back in September 2018 as it launched its new Turing GPU architecture and the GeForce RTX brand. NVIDIA stock was hitting close to $280 at the time, but cratered just before Christmas 2018 reaching the lows of around $129.

NVIDIA didn't have quite the success that it expected with the GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards, but the shift down to 7nm and the upcoming Ampere GPU architecture that should be unveiled at its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in March will help that. We can expect the launch of the next-gen GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards this year, which will mark for an even more successful year for NVIDIA.

Before revealing gameplay footage for Halo: Infinite, 343i and Microsoft have announced NERF guns and plans to help bolster the franchise's ailing esports league.

343 Industries has big plans for Halo: Infinite's esports presence, a presence that's currently lacking a smidgen of the billion-dollar might of the Call of Duty League. The devs are teaming up with pro gaming company esports Engine to manage Halo: Infinite's competitive scene. This is an odd move on the surface, especially since the studio has yet to actually reveal any gameplay footage. The only two Halo: Infinite trailers we've been shown are a game engine demonstration at E3 2018, and a video of in-engine footage at E3 2019, not actual gameplay.

This pretty much underlines Microsoft's main goal for gaming: Engagement. The company is all-in on live services, online multiplayer, and engagement strategies that sell digital games, subscriptions, and of course microtransactions (and yes, Halo: Infinite will be monetized). Microsoft wants esports to be a part of this engagement strategy. Esports is a potent mechanism for exposure, events, and streaming viewership, all of which will tie into Microsoft's Mixer platform and make money via ad revenue and the tip system.