Latest News - Page 1697

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.

Sony today announced it won't be attending PAX East, and all of its plans for the show have been cancelled.

Sony is skipping PAX East to play it safe against the spreading coronavirus, which is spreading fast across the globe. The games-maker previously planned to show off key first-party games like Ghosts of Tsushima and even have a hands-on The Last of Us Part II demo, but those showcases have been scrapped. This is the second major event Sony has missed in February; first with Taipei Game Show's mandatory cancellation, and now the elective withdrawal from PAX East.

Sony gave a statement on the situation: "Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment made the decision to cancel its participation at PAX East in Boston this year due to increasing concerns related to the coronavirus. We felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily. We are disappointed to cancel our participation in this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern."

Gamestop is in trouble. It's been in trouble for a long time now as it bleeds money due to lower hardware and game sales. But the company isn't exactly making things better; higher-ups are panicking, leading to bizarre business decisions that restrict earnings in the long run.

In a new expose from Polygon, a number of Gamestop employees paint a bleak picture for the company's future. The retailer is endemic with strange business decisions that verge on the edge of mismanagement.

Store managers are tasked with lumbering responsibilities that don't actually equate to sales, like pushing phone-trade ins, many of which pester and bombard guests with offers and information. It's like going into a store for a product and only getting bombarded for advertisements for other products, but from an exasperated human who's needlessly stressed. Gamestop has been using its workforce as reverse door-to-door salesman for a while now, but the pressure has apparently gotten worse as Gamestop earnings slip, putting even more weight on managerial shoulders.

Saber Interactive is now part of THQ Nordic's massive stable of studios and game subsidiaries, which includes Deep Silver's umbrella of devs, Tarsier Studios, and indie devs like Coffee Stain.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) just bought Saber Interactive for $525 million in mixed cash and company shares, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. Saber, who is mostly known for World War Z, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the Ghostbusters remaster, Killing Floor 2, and Switch ports of games like The Witcher 3 and Vampyr, was an attractive prospect because they not only have their own proprietary games engine tech but pulled in a sizable $105 million in revenues in 2019.

Saber currently employs 630 workers across 5 teams around the world and will continue as a work-for-hire studio that gleans royalty-based revenues from its projects. In fact, that's another major reason why Embracer bought the company. The parent company wants to grow Saber to 1,500 employees to take on more contracts and work on new games.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is checking off milestones as it moves towards making commercial space travel a real thing. Now, we are hearing about when SpaceX will be taking its first tourists.

TheNextWeb has reported that SpaceX will begin to send tourists to orbit as soon as 2021, but the costs it won't be like a international flight -- they will be much higher than that. Space Adventures is the company that will be handling the bookings for SpaceX's orbital experience, and they also handled the brokering deal of tourists going into orbit throughout 2001 and 2009.

According to Quartz, the last space tourism flight by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte cost a whopping $30 million. Space Adventures expects that SpaceX will be taking four passengers on their first flight to space "late 2021 and mid-2022", but that won't happen until the Crew Dragon Capsule completes its first manned flight in just a couple of months. Once that is complete, SpaceX has set the runway for tourists entering space.

The upcoming Uncharted Movie has experienced several directors leaving, and at the moment, the film doesn't have an officially announced director, but it will begin filming anyway.

Star of the upcoming Uncharted Movie, Tom Holland spoke to IGN and revealed some details about the delayed movie. According to Holland, the movie will begin filming in the next four weeks, which slates it for sometime in March. Holland also mentions that the stunt team has already begun planning action sequences for shooting in Berlin.

Holland also teases that the movie will portray a young Nathan Drake that will give a fresh take on the character. The movie will also take heavy inspiration from the extremely successful game franchise, but more specifically, the last game -- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Here's a quote from Holland, "We didn't get to meet [Drake] all that much when he was younger," he said. "But it's a pretty awesome movie. It's global. We travel the world. We see some amazing place. And Mark Wahlberg and I are going to have a great summer together."

Back in late April 1986, a nuclear accident happened that shook the planet. This disaster was none other than Chernobyl, and the nuclear fallout was devastating.

Since the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, the radioactive site has become more of a real-life research site for scientists. Researchers have since sent in several robots to examine the site and how the nuclear fallout has affected both plant and animal life. In 1991, a team found that black-spotted fungi were growing on the walls of one of the nuclear reactors. The team also found that this fungi was slowly breaking down the radioactive graphite from the core, and was growing more strongly towards the center of the zone.

In 2007 a follow-up study was conducted by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, and found that certain types of fungi were "attracted" to radiation and actually grew more rapidly in radioactive conditions. The three fungi species were Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans, and Wangiella dermatitidis. These species of fungi and five others were then sent to the International Space Station in 2016 to be exposed to further radiation.

A new listing on the Steam Store has revealed that Grand Theft Auto IV will be returning back to Valve's platform under the new name of "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition".

According to the listing, the resurfaced game won't pack all of its features it had before. The listing says that starting on the 19th of March 2020, "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition will replace both Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City wherever it is currently digitally available." It also mentions that the Complete Edition will also be playable via the Rockstar Games Launcher.

Potential buyers should also note that the game will be arriving with no multiplayer mode, no leaderboards, and no Games for Windows Live. The game will also be coming back to Steam with some in-game radio stations being "temporarily disabled". Those radio stations are; RamJam FM, Self-Actualization FM, and Vice City FM. If you are interested in any more information regarding what Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition will or will not have, I've provided dot points in the entirety of this post. A link to the Steam listing can also be found here.

The Witcher TV show was undoubtedly a massive success for Netflix, but is that success still going even into the new year?

In short, yes, yes, it is. According to BusinessInsider, who received some more statistics from data firm Parrot Analytics, in regards to how the show was doing from January 14th to February 12th, The Witcher is still the most in-demand series globally across all platforms. The Witcher has remained the most in-demand show since it took first place from Disney Plus' 'The Mandalorian'.

So how did Parrot Analytics come to this conclusion? Well, they measure viewership, demand expressions, engagement, and the impact of the show. Netflix really wants to keep that ball rolling, so they have already greenlit season two of The Witcher, more on that can be found here. If you are after anymore Witcher news, check out this link here.

Corsair has just taken to their social media's to announce a new gaming mouse, this time around they are aiming it directly at MOBA and MMO gamers.

The new mouse is called the Scimitar RGB Elite, and it comes jam-packed with a bunch of programmable keys. Corsair is offering 17 programmable keys on the Scimitar RGB Elite, and it's mostly designed for gamers that are playing both MOBA/MMO games, but they can be used for whatever your heart desires.

The Scimitar RGB Elite also comes with Corsair's Key Slider control system that allows users to reposition the button cluster forwards or backward to a degree of 8mm. The mouse sports an 18,000 DPI optical sensor, Omron switches that have a click-rate of 50 million, as well as 4 RGB lighting zones that can be customized with Corsair's iCUE software. The Corsair Scimitar RGB Elite gaming mouse is priced at $79.99 USD, and if you are interested in more information, check out this link here.

The first Witcher game wasn't the greatest title in the series, but it certainly put a spotlight on Geralt of Rivia. While the game hasn't aged amazingly well, perhaps a new perspective is needed to re-spark people's interest.

That's where modder Patryk Loan has come in by announcing that he plans to re-create the entire first Witcher game in virtual reality. The new project's goal is to take the entire game developed by CD Projekt Red and allow players to experience it from the first-person perspective in virtual reality.

Loan, is currently re-building the game in Unreal Engine 4 and plans to have it compatible with a range of different virtual reality headsets. At the moment it supports, Oculus, HTC, and WMR. For players that want to jump into the action now, the game only lets you explore Kaer Morhen, but Loan is working on new maps and even adding a "fully playable plot, like a Prologue".

Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon X60 modem today, with Samsung winning the contract to manufacture the new X60 modem on its 5nm node.

Samsung will make the new Snapdragon X60 modem on its 5nm node according to Reuters, after early reports suggested that TSMC would handle the entire load for Qualcomm. Reuters reports that Samsung will fabricate "at least some of Qualcomm's X60 modem chips".

Samsung has quickly become the world's second-biggest chip manufacturing business in the world, making chips for companies like NVIDIA and IBM -- as well as itself, obviously. Samsung manufacturing Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X60 is an important step for the South Korean giant, especially in the tech-fueled race towards 5G dominance going forward.