Latest News - Page 1706

Today BioWare officially confirmed Anthem is getting a big overhaul, complete with new progression systems, a better end game, and better loot mechanics.

BioWare is planning something huge for Anthem. The studio just announced Anthem is getting a massive reboot that extends far beyond the limitations of a simple expansion or an update. BioWare could be planning a huge A Realm Reborn-style resurrection of their failed live game, and promises to re-tool the game's current weak points like meaningful endgame activities and overall progression.

"We recognize that there's still more fundamental work to be done to bring out the full potential of the experience, and it will require a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion," BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson said in a recent blog post.

Tencent buys a minority stake in German game studio Yager to help fund its upcoming efforts.

Billion-dollar gaming titan Tencent is keen on grabbing up small pieces of pretty much every independent game studio, and now it's spreading the wealth to assist Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager. The Berlin-based studio plans to use this cash injection to bolster its self-publishing efforts and create a more stable foundation for new projects like The Cycle, an online service-based FPS game.

Yager says it currently has multiple projects in the works, including another major unannounced game outside of The Cycle. With Tencent's backing, Yager will be able to retain both the IP and publishing rights to its games and be in full control of its own destiny, similar to PlatinumGames and Bungie.

A robust PDF editor is an absolute must for businesses today, but with so many products on the market, it's hard to know which one to choose for your organization. Fortunately, there are several free as well as free trial products that you can take out for a spin before you settle on the best one for your document workflows. The PDF utilities here all have Windows versions, with some supporting macOS and mobile platforms like Android and iOS to deliver a true cross-platform experience.

If you're looking for a free PDF editor for the latest Windows 10 version, look no further than PDFelement. This robust utility is a workhorse document management suite that will handle large files, batch processes, and advanced functions like forms handling and OCR. It offers the full range of tools your company needs for creating, editing, annotating, converting, securing, optimizing, and sharing documents, with comprehensive options to convert files to and from PDF.

The best part about this software is that the free trial does not limit its basic PDF editing capabilities in any way. All you'll see is a watermark on created, edited, and converted documents, which is fine for internal use. And if you upgrade to a Standard or Pro paid license, the pricing is far lower than the market leader, Adobe Acrobat DC or its Pro version. You can download this application free for Windows 10 32-bit and 64-bit processors, and it even runs on older versions that go back to Windows XP and Vista, if that's what you have.

The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony has just wrapped up, and as expected, Joker actor Joaquin Phoenix has taken home a well-deserved award.

Above, we have the Tweet from the official 'The Academy' Twitter account, which states that Joaquin Phoenix has been award an Oscar for his lead performance in the billion-dollar movie 'Joker'. Fans of the movie expected that Phoenix would be taking home the 'Actor In A Leading Role'.

Phoenix is the second actor to win a Best Actor award in the role of Joker, as Health Ledger also won the award for his performance in the legendary 2008's The Dark Knight. If you have yet to see Joker, I can say that the performance Phoenix does playing Arthur Fleck, who is a troubled clown that tumbles down a road of misery, is next to none. He has a completely different take on the Joker character, and it's quite uncomfortable to watch him slowly descend into madness.

Who doesn't love a good map? I know I certainly do, and the more detailed the map, the better it is. So how about a map of our solar system?

Don't worry. Biologist Eleanor Lutz has gone out of her way to map out every single known object in our solar system greater than 10km in diameter. How did she do this? Well, the data was taken from NASA's five separate categories; TNO and Centaur Diameters, Small-body Database Search Engine, Planetary Satellite Physical Parameters, Planets, and Pluto Physical Characteristics and Horizons Batch-Interface.

Using this data, Lutz was able to map out all of the orbits of over 18,000 asteroids that are currently present in our solar system. She was also able to map out at least 10,000 asteroids that were bigger than 10km in diameter, and about 8,000 known objects of unknown size/diameter. It should be noted that this map shows the position of asteroids on New Year's Eve 1999.

The European Space Agency is launching a new Sun probe that is estimated to relay back to Earth unprecedented information about our star.

The mission in collaboration with NASA and the European Space Agency was set to launch the Solar Orbiter on February 9th from Florida's Cape Canaveral. The probe is equipped with bleeding edge instruments that will allow researchers and scientists to gain a better understanding of the Sun's polar regions and magnetic environment.

Once the orbiter is launched and it passes Venus and Mercury, it will reach a maximum speed of 150,000 mph before entering the orbit of our Sun. Once it's there, it's titanium heat shield that is designed to withstand temperatures as high as 930 Fahrenheit will protect its vital instruments from particle radiation and any coronal magnetic ejections.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players have been asking Nintendo for quite some time to add Kingdom Hearts main character Sora to the roster. Unfortunately, Sora is reportedly not coming.

In the latest episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, former senior editor at Game Informer and industry insider Imran Khan spoke about how Nintendo aren't the ones to blame for Sora not being included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Khan says that Nintendo has "absolutely approached Disney" about including Sora in Smash Ultimate and that "Disney Japan specificallly" denied the request.

Honestly, this isn't surprising at all. Since Kingdom Hearts is a collaboration project between Square Enix and Disney, Disney has to approve the use of Sora for Nintendo to get their hands-on him. Sora is one of the most requested characters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but most people forget that Disney is notorious for keeping their IP close to their chest. While this doesn't confirm that Sora can't come to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it does give some insight from a reputable source that his chances are unlikely.

At the end of last month, a new solar telescope produced the highest-resolution images of the Sun's surface ever. Now, we have a video to look at.

The new solar telescope that did the hard work of relaying these images and videos of the Sun's surface is called the NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope. This solar telescope is designed to give scientists and researchers unprecedented information regarding the Sun's surface and magnetic fields. Researchers believe that with this new information, they will be able to predict solar weather much better.

In the above video, we can see small sections that are divided up by black lines -- these are called cells. Each of the cells is about the size of Texas, and the video we are watching is taken at a wavelength of 705nm over a period of 10 minutes. The surface is seen as "boiling" solar material called "plasma". I'd recommend that when watching the video to reduce the sped down to 0.75 speed to really enjoy the movement.

Update: As it turns out on February 10th, 2020 the Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design released a public statement that is in response to the media coverage of this yacht and Bill Gates. They said that the hydrogen concept yacht, Aqua Ship is "not linked to Mr Gates (or his representatives) in any form or matter" and that Sinot has "no business relationship" with Bill Gates. I'd also like to personally apologise for this confusion, the statement was released overnight while I was asleep and at the time of writing the post Sinot had not commented on the matters.

Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, has reportedly ordered the world's first hydrogen-powered superyacht, proving his stance towards alternative fuels.

According to The Guardian, Gates has ordered what is called the Aqua Ship, which is a 370 ft superyacht that is completely powered by liquid hydrogen. Originally, the superyacht was showcased at last year's Monaco yacht show by the Dutch design firm Sinot. Sander Sinot, a designer of the Aqua Ship, said, "For the development of Aqua we took inspiration from the lifestyle of a discerning, forward-looking owner, the fluid versatility of water and cutting-edge technology, to combine this in a superyacht with truly innovative features."

If you played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, then you would most likely know both the campaign character Ghost and the extremely small map Rust.

Well, if you do and are playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, then you will be excited to know that Ghost is making a return back to COD. Rust, on the other hand, seems to be coming as a playable map, but it's not 100% confirmed. Last week, the Call of Duty Twitter account released a new video that teased Ghost is "confirmed" to be joining the game's operators in the Spec-Ops mode.

So how did Rust get thrown into the mix? The above video depicts three GIF images that appear to be extremely similar to what Rust looks like. We can see a crane, a dust-like map, and some structures in the background that are very similar to the ones that are on the Rust map. For now, we can confirm that Ghost is coming to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare as apart of Season 2, and we really, really hope Rust makes a nostalgic return as well.

The medical science field is pushing further and further into technology that is going to benefit everyone in the future. New discoveries happen all the time, sometimes they come in the form of vaccines or medical research, but today it's a handheld skin dispenser.

Scientists out of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT) have managed to create a printer that is able to print human skin. The first rendition of this new device was created back in 2017, then in 2018 Canadian scientists built upon the device and created a new device that was able to print sheets of artificial skin directly onto burn victim wounds.

The results, which were recently published in the Biofabrication journal, stated that the bio-printed skin contains healing properties and mesenchymal stromal cells, which assist the body in cellular re-growth of the affected area. The researchers tested this device on pig skin that had severe burns, and the results were very successful. Marc Jeschke, a researcher who worked on the paper, said, "We found the device successfully deposited the 'skin sheets' onto the wounds uniformly, safely and reliably, and the sheets stayed in place with only very minimal movement".

HBO Max will be competing on a much higher level going forward, with WarnerMedia's new streaming service partnering with Warner Bros. Pictures Group to form a new production wing -- Warner Max.

Warner Max exists for the sole purpose of creating streaming movies, where the company is aiming to make 8-10 "mid-budget" movies per year for HBO Max, which Warner Bros. will then distribute in places and formats where HBO Max isn't an option. Think Netflix's exclusive Bird Box with Sandra Bullock and Netflix's other exclusive 6 Underground.

HBO Max could have a major winner on its hands if it actually listened to its customers, and released the Snyder Cut of Justice League.

Elon Musk has come out slamming Facebook (again) in a new tweet, with the SpaceX and Tesla founder replying to actor Sacha Baron Cohen and his tweet condemning the largest social network in the world.

Cohen tweeted: "We don't let 1 person control the water for 2.5 billion people. We don't let 1 person control electricity for 2.5 billion people. Why do we let 1 man control the information seen by 2.5 billion people? Facebook needs to be regulated by governments, not ruled by an emperor!"

Musk replied simply: "#DeleteFacebook It's lame", which has of course made headlines around the world. But, this isn't the first time Musk has said something negative about Facebook. Rewinding the clock back to 2018, where Musk tweeted that he deleted his companies' Facebook pages and that he does not like Facebook, saying that it gave him "the willies".

LG, NVIDIA, and ZTE have all pulled out of Mobile World Congress 2020 completely... while organizers GSMA have laid out new ground rules over the current coronavirus outbreak.

But next up is now Samsung, with the mobile giant on the eve of its own Unpacked 2020 event where it will be unveiling a new family of Galaxy S20 smartphones. Samsung executives are cancelling their trips to Barcelona, Spain for MWC 2020 over coronavirus fears with the company itself "considering" its options and will change its approach to MWC this year.

Samsung won't be too affected by pulling out of MWC 2020 as it has its own Unpacked 2020 event on February 11 where it will detail all of its new phones including the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+, Galaxy S20 Ultra and the exciting new Galaxy Z Flip smartphone -- the latter might even be dropping 'Galaxy' from its name and will be called 'Z Flip' instead.

We all know Samsung will be revealing its Galaxy Z Flip on February 11 at its Unpacked 2020 event, but the company outed the Galaxy Z Flip at the Oscars... accidentally? Probably not. Check it out in the tweet below:

The 30-second ad from Samsung shows us everything we already know from the leaks, with the smaller secondary display on the back of the phone that will flash with caller ID when you've got an incoming call. Not only that, but you'll also be able to answer the call with the Galaxy Z Flip when it's closed -- which is pretty cool. It'll make for a super-small phone for regular phone calls.

Inside, we know to expect Qualcomm's super-fast-but-not-flagship Snapdragon 855+ processor, 3300mAh battery, and two primary cameras. Samsung is expected to price the Galaxy Z Flip at $1400 and a release as early as February 14 -- three days after its Unpacked 2020 event on February 11.

Motorola has finally unleashed its foldable Razr smartphone, but the best thing I've seen on it would have to be the durability test by JerryRigEverything -- check it out:

Jerry does his usual great work with the Motorola Razr, using a razor to cut a razor into the Razr with a razor in the background. Not only that, but he slices and dices the entire phone including the fingerprint sensor, back cover, sides, the display, cameras, and more. It wasn't just a razor used to test the phone, but sand and even fire -- yeah, like, actual real flames.

Remember, Motorola itself has said that "bumps and lumps are normal" for its foldable Razr -- but I doubt they meant this. In the end, he destroys the Motorola Razr and its foldable display but it required an incredible amount of force on his part, and quite frankly I'm surprised by that.

Mobile World Congress is right around the corner, and with major companies like LG and NVIDIA pulling out of the mobile-focused event, MWC organizers GSMA have some new ground rules because of coronavirus fears.

GSMA has banned anyone coming from the Hubei province in China, where Wuhan is the capital and thought to be the origin of the coronavirus outbreak. Catalan health minister Alba Verges explains: "The Catalan health system is prepared to detect and treat coronavirus, to give the most appropriate response, and this must be clear to those attending MWC Barcelona".

As for the rules for MWC 2020, GSMA CEO John Hoffman laid them out:

It looks like System Shock 3 is in disarray, with new reports that the original team working on the game have disbanded.

According to RPGCodex member 'Kin Corn Karn', a former developer on System Shock 3, who explains: "The only reason I'm posting is because I saw so much confusion about the state of the company and the project. I thought some first person information would be welcome. I never suggested we were halfway done, core systems are a great foundation for a game but most of the work is content development which we were critically behind in, both in real assets and in tool support for an efficient pipeline".

All of the high expectations for System Shock 3 are being blamed on its messy development, with the poster continuing: "Those high expectations drove a lot of expensive experimentation. We were a small team and knew we couldn't compete with current immersive sims in production quality and breadth. So, we had to be creative and clever and weird. And we were on our way to make something unique and possibly fun, but probably not what the audience was hungry for".

Apple debuted its new high-end Mac Pro last year, which can be configured with some pretty wicked-fast hardware and can pack up to an insane 1.5TB of RAM and cost up to $50,000. That 1.5 terabytes of RAM is meant to be used for professionals and content creators, but what about Google Chrome?

Jonathan Morrison used his fresh new Mac Pro with 1.5TB of RAM and put it to the test, opening up countless Chrome tabs that started with around 2000 tabs chewing up 75GB of RAM. From there, over 5000 tabs were opened and Chrome was using over 170GB of RAM. But after leaving the system overnight, Morrison came back to see over 6000 tabs open and Chrome RAM usage hitting 857GB.

The testing continued, with Chrome pushing up past 1TB of RAM, into the max territory of 1.4TB of RAM -- simply insane. In the end, Morrison's new Mac Pro packed with 1.5TB of RAM eventually saw Chrome crash -- shocker -- but other apps within macOS were operating normally. A testament to Apple's own macOS, and a snicker towards Google and its web browser Chrome.

The PlayStation Network could start natively serving up convenience microtransactions on a platform level.

Sony's latest patent is extremely interesting. Basically it's an integrated system that automatically reminds gamers about time-saving microtransactions, and gives real-time stats on how said convenience shortcuts could help them save time. The patent also covers a lot of bases that aren't necessarily related to in-game purchases.

The system, for example, will give you tips on how to defeat the bosses via materials, weapons, and items found naturally in the game. Gamers can ask for help within the system itself, e.g. how to defeat a certain boss or get past a certain obstacle, and the system will give a solution. This version of the patent actually sounds pretty great, kind of like a built-in guide or on-screen tip system within the game that gives you key info on how to proceed.