Latest News - Page 1672

It looks like Apex Legends will soon have console crossplay support, with developer Respawn saying it is "important" for the battle royale game.

In a recent interview with Game Informer, Respawn's chief operating officer and general manager for Apex Legends, Dusty Welch, said that crossplay for gamers on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is "important". He said: "I think on crossplay we see it's something that is kind of expected in the industry and is important to a game like ours".

Welch added: "Chad [Grenier, Apex Legends' director] and I are obviously big fans of playing our game at work and in our free time - and we go home on a Friday or weekend and want to play with each other and we're on different systems. On a personal level, yes, we'd love to do that and party up on the weekends. I think it's an important thing to get to".

It looks like Samsung's upcoming 3nm volume production has hit a snag, with the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak forcing Samsung to reportedly delay volume production into 2022.

According to DigiTimes, Samsung had projected volume production of the new 3nm process to begin in early 2021 -- but that has now slipped to 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic. But to be clear, this has nothing to do with Samsung and its production facilities, but more so the world.

The logistics and transportation involved in getting new EUV equipment and other critical production equipment is a big issue for Samsung, and without it, it will not be able to meet its goal of 3nm volume production in early 2021. Samsung will be hit in multiple ways because of it, especially if its competitor in TSMC can come out of the coronavirus pandemic relatively unscathed.

Origin PC just unveiled a beast new gaming laptop in the new EON15-X, which packs an AMD Ryzen 9 3900 processor which packs 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 2 goodness.

Yeah, a 12-core/24-thread CPU inside of a gaming laptop -- that's pretty insane, and it's matched with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, so you're able to drive that 1080p 144Hz display at 144FPS without an issue in virtually all games on the market.

Origin PC has gone with a 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 (1080p) 144Hz refresh display, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 MaxQ graphics card, and up to 2 x 2TB of M.2 PCIe SSDs as well as a 2.5-inch drive for storage. You can configure Origin PC's new EON15-X gaming laptop with up to 32GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, too.

AMD and NVIDIA have just joined the HPC COVID-19 Consortium, with the White House supercomputing partnership that is joining US tech companies together for the effort.

The HPC COVID-19 Consortium is a push by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the US Department of Energy, and IBM teaming with the US government, tech industry, and academic leaders who are volunteering free compute time and resources to COVID-19 researchers.

Researchers wanting to tap untold amounts of supercomputing power can do so by applying to the HPC COVID-19 Consortium, and if approved, will receive access to resources to help super-speed their research. 4th Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Michael Kratsios, also said that there are over 402 Petaflops across 105,000 nodes, 3.5 million CPU cores, and 41,000 GPUs -- and these numbers are only increasing.

China is leading the way in pushing out new technologies amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic bringing the world to its knees, with a new robotic 5G car that scans faces, checks for a fever, and it even makes deliveries.

In a world where we're all pretty much forced to stay inside of our homes, the Beijing Institute of Technology has deployed a robotic 5G monitoring car that is roaming its campus. Remote operators then control the 5G-powered car from a facility, while remotely driving the car to make deliveries and check your temperature.

When it's in basic delivery mode, the robotic 5G car can carry packages from one location to another -- with 1 out of its 4 side-mounted locker doors opening up so people can collect their packages. But wait, because there's a top-mounted camera that will turn around and identify you through facial recognition, and thermally scanning you to see if you have a temperature.

Microsoft has confirmed that all of its events, both internal and external, will be "digital-first" until at least July 2021.

First it was rumor, but then Microsoft confirmed the news with ZDNet, where they explain: "In light of the challenges presented by Covid-19, Microsoft has been closely monitoring the developing global situation and re-assessing the overall company-wide in-person event strategy".

Microsoft continues: "As a company, Microsoft has made the decision to transition all external and internal events to a digital-first experience through July 2021. This will include future MVP & RD Summit which is currently scheduled for March 28-April 2, 2021. We will continue to evaluate the situation and look forward to connecting in person when the situation allows".

We all know the next-gen console wars later this year, and possibly in 2021 if the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launches are postponed due to the havoc that coronavirus is having on the world, are going to be wild.

Well, now we have Crytek rendering engineer Ali Salehi being intervewed by Persian gaming website Vigiato, where he talked about the power differences between the next-gen consoles. Salehi said that developing for the PlayStation 5 was extremely simple, and that reaching the peak performance on the PS5 is much easier than on the Xbox Series X.

Salehi said: "The developers are saying PS5 is the easiest console they have ever coded on to reach its peak performance. Software-wise, coding for PS5 is extremely simple and has so many abilities that make the [developers] so free. In total, I can say PS5 is a better console".

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care, shortly after being admitted to hospital in London on Sunday night with "persistent symptoms" of coronavirus. These symptoms have now worsened.

The Queen herself is being updated on Johnson's health, with BBC political correspondent Chris Mason saying he had been given oxygen on late Monday afternoon before he was taken into intensive care. A No 10 statement explains: "The prime minister has been under the care of doctors at St Thomas' Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus".

The statement continues: "Over the course of [Monday] afternoon, the condition of the prime minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the intensive care unit at the hospital. The PM is receiving excellent care, and thanks all NHS staff for their hard work and dedication".

Microsoft is holding an Inside Xbox showcase tomorrow, April 7, 2020 at 5PM EST, and we can expect new gameplay footage and light Xbox Series X discussion.

Tomorrow's Inside Xbox won't be special. Don't expect a big E3-level extravaganza with tons of hardware and game reveals. Instead, Team Green will dive into previously announced games like Obsidian's weird Honey I Shrunk the Kids-like game Grounded and Gears Tactics.

The real highlight should be the Xbox Series X tech discussion with Microsoft's Jason Ronald. The Xbox Wire is careful to say new console info won't be revealed at the event, though. Ronald will instead deliver more color around the Xbox Series X's new hardware, OS, and software functionalities and expand on how they create a true next-gen gaming ecosystem.

Love linear Cherry MX Red switches? Need a new keyboard that won't break your wallet? Don't care about RGB? We've got you covered.

The Microsoft Store is selling the HyperX Alloy FPS Pro mechanical keyboard for just $50 right now, making it a nice cost-effective solution for PC gaming. This model sports Cherry MX Red switches for linear presses, a tenkeyless design, so don't expect a number pad, red backlighting, and USB pass-through. The HyperX FPS Alloy sports anti-ghosting, n-key rollover, a 1000Hz polling rate, and a special game mode that locks the Windows key so you don't accidentally jump to the desktop in a frenetic firefight.

For tons more info including a detailed breakdown on why the keyboard is a must-have, check out our TweakTown review here.

AMC was in bad shape before coronavirus forced it to close its doors. But if it remains shuttered past June, it could die completely.

Like thousands of other businesses, the world's largest movie theater chain is teetering on the edge of oblivion. The company had a substantial $149 million loss in 2019 and is being challenged by digital streaming titans like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. Things are dire for AMC, but they may get a whole lot worse if closures continue throughout 2020.

Due to high debt and coronavirus outlook, S&P Global has downgraded AMC's credit rating to a CCC- rating, designating it as a risk for default and unlikely to recover. If AMC stays closed in the critical summer period from June to August, S&P analysts predict AMC would effectively shut down due to debt.

Games like off-roading racing sim Dirt Rally 2.0 and billion-dollar megahit Candy Crush are using in-game banners to promote global stay-at-home orders.

UK game devs like King and Codemasters are using in-game real estate in a unique way. These devs have replaced in-game ads that appear on signs, billboards, and banners with the coronavirus-combating mantra "stay at home, save lives." Dirt Rally 2.0 in particular has an opportunity to reach millions as part of this month's free PS Plus offering. It's refreshing to see these devs to their part in trying to convince consumers to stay in place and avoid transmitting or contracting the COVID-19 virus that's killing thousands.

"We came to realize that technology within our games, which enables the remote updating of banners within the virtual environment, could be repurposed to assist with the coronavirus communication effort," Codemasters told Forbes.

No Man's Sky has gone so far. Where can it go from here? How about zooming around planet surfaces with your own armored core suit?

Hello Games shows no signs of stopping with No Man's Sky updates. The game has already tremendously evolved with eight major updates, and now the ninth is on the way. It's called EXO, and it lets you build your own custom mech exosuits to roam around the wilds.

No Man's Sky's new EXO update has been leaked by German retailer JoyBuggy, confirming hulking mechsuits are coming to the game. At the time of writing, the video has been made private, but we saw snippets of it before it was locked. Exact details of the EXO update aren't known, but you'll be able to build your mech and roam around with friends on various planets.

Iceland lab testing is suggesting that 50% of coronavirus cases have absolutely no symptoms at all.

The 360,000 people in Iceland has seen around 5% of its population tested so far, with 17,900 people tested for coronavirus. Out of these 17,900 people, Icelandic officials noticed around 50% of them had no COVID-19 coronavirus symptoms whatsoever.

Nearly half of Iceland's tests for coronavirus have been completed by biopharma company deCODE Genetics, where their screen program "accepts everybody who is not showing symptoms and not currently in quarantine".

It was barely a week ago that I reported that the first pet cat had been infected with coronavirus in Belgium, and now a Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York has tested positive for coronavirus.

The 4-year-old Malayan tiger is called Nadia, the first tiger to test positive for COVID-19 coronavirus -- is the first known infection in an animal in the US, or a tiger anywhere. 6 other tigers and lions have also been struck down with coronavirus, with a zoo employee (who isn't showing signs yet) reportedly infecting the tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo.

Zoo Director Jim Breheny said in a statement: "These are extremely hard days for all of us -- no matter where we live and work". The US Department of Agriculture confirmed Nadia's test results at its veterinary lab, adding that there were no other known cases of coronavirus in US pets or livestock, yet.

Apple is renowned for having heavy security implementation on its devices, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to find an exploit.

A former security engineer named Ryan Pickren was the white-hat hacker who managed to find two security flaws in users' iPhones or MacBooks. The security flaws weren't small loopholes either and could have potentially allowed bad actors to gain access to the camera. According to the report, Pickren decided to "hammer the browser with obscure corner cases" and then focus on the camera security model, which he then admits was "pretty intense".

Pickren looked into the mobile Safari vulnerabilities and found seven separate vulnerabilities. Pickren linked three of the exploits together and managed to gain access to the iPhone camera. Pickren says that "A bug like this shows why users should never feel totally confident that their camera is secure. Regardless of operating system or manufacturer." Apple rewarded Pickren with $75,000 for locating these exploits.

When you install Windows, most users will use Microsoft's built-in internet browser, Microsoft Edge, to download Chrome or another internet browser - abandoning Edge altogether.

Perhaps that isn't the case anymore, as Bleeping Computer reports that Edge is now the second most popular internet browser in terms of usage. The report states that Edge has now overtaken Mozilla Firefox, and in regards to browser market share, now holds 7.59%, in comparison to Firefox's 7.19%.

If you were wondering what internet browser holds the first position in terms of popularity, and you guessed Google Chrome, then you would have guessed right as Google's internet browser holds the lions share of users with 68.5%. This recent popularity spike for Microsoft Edge could be a result of the browser becoming Chromium-based, which means that it has support for using all of the Google Chrome extensions in the Chrome Webstore, while also having the same compatibility and performance as Google Chrome.

ASUS has just launched its new GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6 graphics cards which if you couldn't already guess from the first sentence, have GDDR6 memory -- the original GeForce GTX 1650 launched with GDDR5 memory. And yes, I also had fun writing that headline... and ASUS really did use "space-grade lubricant".

The new GDDR6-powered GeForce GTX 1650 has memory bandwidth over 50% faster than the GDDR5-based GeForce GTX 1650. This means that the new GDDR6-powered GeForce GTX 1650 is much faster option for 1080p and 1440p gamers at a lower price point than the GeForce GTX 1660/GTX 1660 SUPER.

The original GeForce GTX 1650 with its GDDR5 memory was clocked at 8Gbps and offered 128GB/sec of memory bandwidth, but the new GDDR6 memory is clocked much higher at 12Gbps and offers 192GB/sec of memory bandwidth -- a win-win situation for gamers.

Acer has just unveiled a bunch of new gaming laptops powered by Intel's new 10th-gen CPUs and NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER mobile graphics cards.

The new Acer Predator Triton 500 packs an Intel 10th-gen Core CPU mixed with the option of a GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER or GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER graphics card. Acer has used a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS-based display with a super-smooth 300Hz refresh rate with 3ms overdrive.

Acer offers up to 32GB of DDR4 memory, up to 2TB of NVMe RAID 0 SSD storage for super-fast storage goodness, Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i wireless, E3100G ethernet controller, and 100% of the sRGB color gamut.

More sources corroborate past reports of supernatural themes for Resident Evil 8, including werewolves and mind-warping hallucinations.

Resident Evil 8, which is apparently due out in 2021 for current- and next-gen systems, will be more cerebral and bizarre than past entries. It looks like Capcom is taking the more psychological horror route with its new mainline sequel. Rather than relying on shock Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style horror, Capcom is pushing the envelope even further than Resident Evil 7's demented Baker family.

Instead of sticking with zombies and horrifying mutated monstrosities amid a confusing, deep story arc, Resident Evil 8 will have a horror-fantasy theme. Sources tell VideoGameChronicle that RE8's monsters are lifted right out of folklore, with werewolves and other story-time terrors creeping into view.