Latest News - Page 1699

UK's weather service called the Met Office has announced that it will be spending a whopping 1.2 billion pounds (USD$1.6 billion) on the world's fastest weather supercomputer.

According to the announcement, the Met Office will be purchasing the world's most powerful weather supercomputer that is estimated to be ten times the cost of their current one called Cray XC40. The new weather supercomputer will also have upgraded accuracy that blows UK's current forecaster out of the water. The new supercomputer will create a "digital twin" of our atmosphere with data and be able to create forcasts for area's that are just down to 1,000 meters (62 miles) in diameter.

This is impressive when compared to the current systems 10km forecast diameter. The report also states that the new weather supercomputer will go into service in 2022, and at the time of installation it will already be six times more powerful than the current Cray XC40. Power level jumps won't stop there, as in five years time the new supercomputer will get an upgrade bumping it up in performance by a further three times. This means that by the time the new supercomputer is at full power it will be nearly 20 times more powerful than the UK's current machine.

Back in late September in 2018, BOOM! Studios Co-founder and writer Andrew Cosby was reportedly in final talks about a possible Diablo TV show, and now we can basically confirm it.

According to the Linkedln profile of Nick van Dyk, co-president of Activision Blizzard Studios, both Diablo and Overwatch will be getting TV shows. Dyk's description of his current position at Activision says, "Executive producer of Diablo, a TV adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment's IP, rendered in anime style. The show is currently in pre-production for distribution worldwide through Netflix."

The important things to note out of that sentence is that Diablo's TV show will be for Netflix, and is "anime style". This makes me think that the Diablo show will look a lot like Netflix's already popular Castlevania TV show. Moving on to Overwatch now, here's what Dyk says, "With my creative partner, developed and sold an animated series based Blizzard's Overwatch franchise."

Samsung has the most upgrades inside of a Galaxy series yet with its new Galaxy S20 family of smartphones, but Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo isn't happy enough with that -- saying that he expects Samsung to sell around 32 million units in 2020.

Kuo adds that there's "a lack of significant innovation in user experience" for Samsung's new Galaxy S20 family of smartphones, which really knocked me off my feet to read. I feel like there is more innovation in this one series jump from the Galaxy S10 to the Galaxy S20 than many generations of iPhones.

The sales estimates of 32 million units is lower than the 36-38 million units that Samsung sold with the Galaxy S10 models, with Kuo underlining the "lack of significant innovation" for that. Another dent in the Galaxy S20 sales is reportedly going to come from the price cuts in Samsung's current-gen Galaxy S10 family of smartphones, which is still very competitive.

Now that Samsung's new Galaxy S20 family of smartphones have been revealed, the folks at DisplayMate have got their grubby mits on it for some display testing. Their findings? The flagship Galaxy S20 Ultra has the best smartphone display ever made.

Samsung gets massive praise for the OLED display stealing the show on the flagship Galaxy S20 Ultra, with the 6.9-inch OLED display and its native 3200 x 1440 resolution panel rocking 510 PPI and a gloriously smooth 120Hz refresh rate. DisplayMate said the Galaxy S20 Ultra broke 12 test records, smashing highest peak brightness, highest contrast ratio, and lowest screen reflectance.

DisplayMate saw throughout its testing of the Galaxy S20 Ultra setting a new record for Very High Absolute Color Accuracy, Very High Contrast Accuracy and Intensity Scale Accuracy, Peak Luminance that is Independent of the on-screen Image Content, Color Accuracy and Intensity Scales that are Independent of the Image Content, Natural DCI-P3 Screen Mode, Natural sRGB Screen Mode, and High Brightness Mode.

TCL is working on an exciting new smartphone that would be very different to Samsung's two foldable phones in the just-released Galaxy Z Flip and their first foldable in the Galaxy Fold as well as Motorola's new Razr -- a new smartphone with an extendable display.

CNET has the scoop that the new concept smartphone in its non-extended form looks like an ordinary smartphone, but then the display can be pulled out and it is more the size of a tablet. CNET's "trusted source" says that "this expandable phone is a device journalists would have seen at Mobile World Congress this month", which was canceled over coronavirus fears.

How would the TCL concept smartphone 'extend' exactly is not detailed here in the photos, but the slide-out display could bend or wrap around the back of the phone, making it thicker than a normal smartphone. But doesn't that just make it a foldable display rather than an 'extendable' display? Where does the extended screen find a home when it's not extended? Questions that need answers, people.

Duke Nukem 3D was one of my favorite games of all time, where I pumped hundreds of hours into the game but then 3D Realms rode the success of Duke into the ground... forever, pun intended.

But now news has flooded onto the internet that Slipgate Ironworks and 3D Realms were making a Left 4 Dead-inspired Aliens game, something that was called Aliens: Hadley's Hope. Hadley, named after the human colony that the Aliens movies was set in -- which by the way, was the best Aliens movie.

Aliens: Hadley's Hope would've been a "storyworld-driven PvE multiplayer adventure [first-person] shooter [that's] dripping with atmosphere, lore, and suspense". It was built as a 4-person cooperative shooter that would've seen gamers fighting through hordes of "alien protectors" before a bigger battle with the Alien queen herself, inside of her nest.

Samsung has only launched its new Galaxy S20 family of smartphones as well as its second foldable smartphone in the new Galaxy Z Flip, but the South Korean giant is hard at work on a successor to the Galaxy Fold -- codenamed Champ.

XDA Developers' Max Weinbach is back again with some leaks on the new Galaxy Fold 2 (which I'm presuming he accidentally referred to it as the Galaxy Z Fold 2 here). He tweeted that Samsung would use an under-display camera on the Galaxy Fold 2, which would also rock an enormous 7.7-inch Infinity Flex Display compared to the original Galaxy Fold and its 7.3-inch display.

In another tweet, Weinbach teases that the Galaxy Fold 2 would have a front cover 'Infinity V' display, with a surprise mention of a 'new form' of S-Pen, with the Galaxy S20+ camera setup, ceramic and stainless steel options as well as color options in Blue, Silver, Gold, Pink, and Black.

I can only imagine what it would be like to be a fly on the wall inside of Microsoft right now, with the Xbox team working overtime this year leading into the launch of the biggest, meanest, and best Xbox console yet -- Xbox Series X.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has come out swinging on Twitter as he normally does, replying to a question from someone asking about how all of the E3 2020 planning was going. Spencer replied: "Next E3 meeting is today, tons to talk about between now and E3 & deep portfolio of XGS games for E3". He added: "Console launch years are just special" -- yes, yes they are, Mr Spencer.

Spencer also added that Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg is leading the E3 2020 planning team, who recently tweeted out on February 11 about a meeting with Taco Bell. This could mean Microsoft is going to do something with Taco Bell during the E3 2020 launch of the Xbox Series X console, but we'll have to wait and see.

Just imagine your $150,000 new Porsche Taycan electric car exploding while parked, stationary and turned off, in your garage. I can't imagine it, and it is a scary thought but it has happened to one Porsche Taycan owner in Florida.

There are only 130 of them in the US so far, with the German premium car maker seeing one of its Taycan electric vehicles exploding, catching on fire and burning to a crisp in a garage in South Florida on February 16. Electrek reported with a video from Twitter, saying that "the electric car was burned down to the some parts of the frame, and the garage sustained significant damages".

Porsche has confirmed with Electrek that they are "aware of the incident and that no one was hurt". There's also one fact that Electrek drives home, and that's the bit where they say "Electric car fires often get a lot of attention from the mainstream media, despite the fact that they happen far less frequently than gasoline car fires".

Sony will have its next-gen PlayStation 5 console out in time for Santa Claus to have it under Christmas trees, where console gamers will get their proper first taste at 4K gaming -- as well as 60FPS, and beyond, gaming. It's also not the first time crazy stuff has been teased by Gran Turismo boss Kazunori Yamauchi, where he talked about 8K gaming on the PlayStation 5 back in 2017.

But, we should be excited as Gran Turismo series producer Kazunori Yamauchi is teasing that while 4K gaming will be awesome and all -- as well as 60FPS gaming on the PlayStation 5, he wants to see 120FPS or even 240FPS on the next-gen PS5 console. I'm totally with him there, and I think we could see backwards compatible (older PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4) games running at 120FPS all the way up to 240FPS.

In a recent interview with GTPlanet, Yamauchi said:

AMD launched its insane Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor recently, rocking 64 cores and 128 threads but what operating system do you need to squeeze everything out of the 128-threaded CPU? AMD has the answer.

Now that reviewers have had their time with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor, a few questions have been raised -- something that saw the 128 threads on the CPU being split into two groups of 64 threads each which saw a hit on performance. This is where reviewers and enthusiasts recommended higher-end versions of Windows 10 (Windows 10 Pro for Workstations and Windows 10 Pro for Enterprise) as well as Linux.

But now AMD has come out and addressed it, saying: "We wanted to clarify that AMD officially recommends Windows 10 Professional or Linux for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. Higher editions/versions of Windows 10 confer no additional performance or compatibility benefits to the processor. We do understand that this suggestion has been made in some articles, and our team is presently testing this further, but this is the official recommendation".

NVIDIA teased something breathtaking yesterday, but today has made it official -- the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 Edition graphics card. Check it out in all its glory in the video below:

NVIDIA has teamed with Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED on the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 Edition graphics card, with just 200 made -- but NVIDIA is giving 77 of them away in their 2020 #RTXOn sweepstakes. The 2020 #RTXOn sweepstakes run through to February 28, 2020. In order to win yourself one, all you have to do is:

An art cover for FF7 Remake was recently leaked in Korea, showing the game's astronomical install size.

Like most modern games released today, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is absolutely huge and could take up to 100GB of free PS4 hard drive space to install. A new Korean game cover suggests the Remake will claim at least 1/9th of a stock PS4 Pro's 1TB hard drive. Square Enix has confirmed the game ships on two Blu-ray discs which clock in at 50GB each. Remember, this is just the first chapter in the multi-volume series.

If the install size is accurate, here's how FF7 Remake stacks up against other gigantic game install sizes:

The PlayStation 5 will sell roughly 1.5 million less units than the PlayStation 4 at launch, Ace Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda predicts.

Ace Securities just published a letter to investors outlining PlayStation 5 hardware sales forecast from launch up until March 31, 2021. The firm expects the PS5 will sell 6 million units in that period, as opposed to the 7.5 million PS4s Sony sold at launch, representing a 20% decline.

This number is actually pretty high considering the relatively higher cost of the console's expected retail pricing (Sony is spending about $450 to make every PS5) and the availability of lower-cost PS4s on the next-gen system's launch.

Sony is currently working on a next-generation PlayStation VR headset to complement its new PlayStation 5 console, sources tell Bloomberg.

The news of an upgraded PS5-powered PSVR headset isn't a surprise. The headset has sold over 5 million units to date, making it one of the leading VR HMDs in sales, driven by its comparatively lower cost and hardware accessibility.

Sony has also filed numerous experimental VR headset patents over the years, many of which show inside-out tracking, wireless connectivity, and advancements to curb motion sickness.

Modern Warfare's new Warzone battle royale mode is coming in March, and will be offered as a standalone free-to-play download as well as a game mode in Modern Warfare, sources tell Video Game Chronicle.

It looks like our suppositions were right about Call of Duty's ambitious new Warzone battle royale mode.

Warzone will be available in two forms: A free-to-play version that anyone can download and play on PC, PS4, or Xbox One, and baked right into Modern Warfare itself as another gametype. Everyone who owns Modern Warfare will be able to play Warzone without downloading anything extra--the assets, textures, and files were included in the massive new 68GB update.

Key industry trends give us major clues on how gaming's billion-dollar titans will approach next-gen game releases, including backwards compatibility, PS5 and Xbox SX ports, and other key business models.

Ubisoft, EA, Activision-Blizzard, Capcom, Take-Two Interactive--all the major publishers are gearing their projects for next-gen consoles. So what can we expect with upcoming games? Nearly every major publisher says they're working on next-gen games. But will they also come to current-gen systems? Most likely yes. Will every current-gen game get re-released? Probably not. But then again every publisher loves the opportunity to re-release and re-sell their games (the Switch is proof of this, as is the early remaster fusillade that accompanied the PS4 and Xbox One).

To make the most out of next-gen without disrupting current-gen, devs have to occupy both the present and the future at the same time. This could mean many things, whether it be launching their games simultaneously on both generations, embracing layered cross-play, and picking and choosing which titles get re-released on the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

According to key sources familiar with Nintendo's manufacturing plans, Switch supply could be stalled in overseas regions like the U.S. and Europe in the coming months.

Despite Nintendo's assertions the coronavirus won't interrupt Switch production, sources close to the supply chain tell Bloomberg console shipments in the United States and Europe may be affected in the coming months. Nintendo had recently announced the coronavirus has constrained Switch supplies in Japan.

The coronavirus outbreak is expected to interrupt the supply chain between Chinese manufacturing facilities and Nintendo's Vietnam branch, the latter of which supplies Switch shipments to North America and Europe. Internal sources now say Switch inventory could be affected as early as April, restricting stock to these critical regions. Nintendo pulls in most of its sales from the U.S. and Europe--the company made 77.8% of its total net revenues from overseas sales in Q3'19.

Researchers have created a new 3D printing technique that could replace traditional 3D printers that take far to long to create desired objects.

The problem with traditional 3D printers is that they work in horizontal layers. This process is the bane of 3D printing, as it means that, depending on the size of the object, it will take time to construct. What if the printer could build the entire model all at once, instead of layer-by-layer? Researchers from Switzerland's Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have done just that with their new invention.

This new printing technique uses lasers to project an image onto the photosensitive resin. To put it simply, the researchers use a rotating chamber that is filled with the resin, and an image that the laser blasts onto the chamber to quickly start the building process. The chamber spins in tandem with the laser, activating the entire model of the object all at once, building it in seconds. In the above video, it's explained that this new form of 3D printing can be used for the construction of softer materials such as organ shapes and hydro-gels.

NASA has announced that Rocket Lab will be the company to provide launch services to get their 55-pound satellite to the Moon's orbit.

More specifically, Rocket Lab will be taking the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE), or CubeSat to the Moon's cislunar orbit. Once it has arrived, it will learn the Moon's seven-day cislunar orbit cycle, and relay valuable information back to Earth that will allow engineers and NASA to better prepare for future missions.

The CubeSat will be aboard the Electron rocket and blast off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. At the moment, the mission is targeted to launch sometime in early 2021, and the firm-fixed launch contract is valued at $9.95 million. If you are after anymore information regarding this new contract, check out the official NASA press release here.