Latest News - Page 1722

I don't know what it is about the internet wanting Shaggy from Scooby-Doo in fighting games, but I certainly love it and definitely don't want it to stop.

Bandai Namco just released its latest installment in the Dragon Ball franchise, Dragon Ball Fighter Z: Kakarot. So far, the game is getting above average reviews, but what if you want to spice up your gameplay just a little bit more? Don't worry, Beatz has your back as he is currently working on Shaggy mod that will replace Goku.

In the above video, we can see that Beatz has trained Shaggy to fight exactly the same as a Z fighter. At the moment, there is no word on what this mod will be released, but as soon as it is, I will be sure to follow up with another post that provides the download link. For now, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is available to purchase on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Engineers have stepped the camera game up to a new level with a brand new camera that is capable of not only taking one trillion images a second, but also capturing objects that are transparent.

Caltech's Lihong Wang developed the world's fastest camera, this device was capable of taking ten trillion images a second. While that might sound incredibly impressive, which it is, that camera did have limitations. Now, Wang has invented a new camera that has a slower speed (one trillion images per second), but can also capture images of transparent objects. This new camera combines the technology of the first camera mentioned (ten trillion images per second) with some older technology called phase-contrast microscopy.

Wang calls this combination of technology "phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography (pCUP)". Phase-contrast microscopy is quite old, in fact, its one-hundred years old and was created by Dutch physicist Frits Zernike to observe transparent materials. The method observes light waves that are slowing down as they are entering various materials. An example of this would be if a beam of light was shot into a plane of glass, the light would slow down upon impact of the glass and then speed back up once it has exited it.

If you are a science lover and enjoy the likes of space and conducting experiments, then you'd probably know what the floating laboratory is.

The floating laboratory is, of course, the International Space Station (ISS), and while most people might not be able to visit it in person, you can definitely build your own version at home. Your own version won't be life-sized (sorry to crush your dreams), but it will be extremely cool and something to show off to your friends.

Beginning on February 1st, LEGO will be releasing its own model of the ISS, and its absolutely packed to the brim with details that are present in the real-life version. Here's LEGO's official announcement, "Build and display this spectacular LEGO Ideas International Space Station (ISS). Packed with authentic ISS details, including a posable Canadarm2 and two rotating joints that coincide with eight adjustable 'solar panels,' this 864-piece set is a wonderful gift idea for space enthusiasts, adult LEGO fans or any experienced builder."

Since the release of the first season of The Witcher, fans have been speculating about who could fit the role of some pivotal characters in the new season. One of those characters is the legendary Vesemir.

The Internet is doing what it does best, sifting through a large pile of potentials and spitting out a selection that should fit the bill. One of the main actors that are being thrown into the mix to play Vesemir is none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. Back in March 2018, Hamill got caught up in a few tweets from Lauren S. Hissrich when she spoke out about the characteristics of Vesemir. Hamill replied to the tweets saying, "I have no idea what this is or what it's about but agree it could/should be played by me."

Hissrich has since spoken out about that moment a few years ago, saying "Mark has always been of interest to me and interest to the project. We have not contacted his agent yet because we're not casting the role quite yet, but that being said, I am loving what's happening on the Internet. And I'm loving all of the fan reaction to it. Obviously, we've seen what a huge fanbase The Witcher has, and to add that to a Star Wars fanbase... it makes my mind explode a little bit."

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO and the world's richest man, reportedly had his phone "hacked" by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

According to the report by The Guardian, sources who have remained anonymous have told the site that Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman sent a malicious file that infiltrated Bezos' phone through WhatsApp on May 1st, 2018. Before the file was sent, Bezos and Salman were said to be having a friendly exchange, then the file was sent over, and according to those same sources, large amounts of data were transferred off Bezos' phone.

At the moment, there's no knowledge of what was taken off Bezos' phone, but since the "hack" happened back in 2018, Bezos has had some private messages leaked online. The text messages reflected an extramarital relationship, which then triggered Bezos to put full force in discovering how these texts made it online. Bezos' own investigation team says they are "highly confident" that the Saudis had managed to "access" Bezos's phone and acquired "private information".

Netflix has released its Q4 2019 earnings, and from the stats, we have learned that The Witcher TV show is Netflix's best first season of television ever.

According to the report, The Witcher TV show was watched by a whopping 76 million households. But what counts as "watched"? Netflix has given their definition of how they count a viewer, and originally "watched" meant that the viewer sat through 70% of a single episode of a series. Now, it means that the viewer sat down and streamed at least 2 minutes of the show.

So why the change in metrics? Easy, these numbers look much better than if Netflix was running off the old way to do the statistics. Netflix says that the choice to move to the two minute time period was because they felt this way of measuring is "long enough to indicate the choice was intentional." Netflix also acknowledges that measuring the viewers this way is "about 35% higher on average than the prior metric." It should also be noted that BBC's iPlayer, YouTube and The New York Times also follow this same way of measuring viewers.

Ready at Dawn had one of the best-looking games of the year when it released The Order 1886 in 2015, but rumor has it the developer is hard at work on a sequel destined for the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

The Order 1886 was a gorgeous game for the game and while the gameplay didn't match the gorgeous layer of graphics, it seems its sequel will be in a league of its own. The rumored The Order 1886 successor is reportedly in-development at Ready at Dawn, and has graphics that are so good you can't tell the difference between the cut scenes and actual gameplay.

According to NeoGAF poster 'BlackOsiris', The Order 1886 sequel is coming to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and this poster has seen the trailer for the game. He posted that the game looks out-of-this-world, where he said: "It is the best looking anything that I have ever seen and the character models lighting and physics are on another level. The main character is impossible to confuse with anyone else and this game has not been revealed but I have hinted at it several times. This is not a cut scene or a render target it is actual game play and it is very impressive. Well the end is a cut scene but man... You literally cannot tell the difference and Yes This was definitely all one shot".

Konami could be working on new Silent Hill games for next-gen consoles, sources tell YouTuber Dust Golem.

Following the cancellation of Hideo Kojima's ultra-terrifying Silent Hills horror game, the Silent Hill franchise has been notoriously dead for years now. Apart from annualized PES soccer games, Konami has barely stirred the decaying crypt that is its IP trove. This could change soon amid reports of two new Silent Hill projects that may now (or once have been) in development at the games-maker.

According to reports from Dust Golem, Konami has accepted multiple pitches from developers in an attempt to revitalize the Silent Hill IP. Apparently the two projects consist of a major AAA game that will softly reboot the series, as well as smaller episodic-style experience to reinforce the main game's narrative. These games may be made by third-party development teams and not by Konami's internal studios.

Following an 8-month stint at Epic Games, Maxime Beland will rejoin Ubisoft to lead the company's new re-focused creative teams.

Maxime Beland, who's had a transformative influence on some of Ubisoft's biggest games, is coming back to help guide new games, Video Game Chronicle reports. Beland has worked as creative director on a number of high-profile franchises for Ubisoft, including Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six, Far Cry, and Splinter Cell.

Now this may not mean what you think it does. Despite our previous coverage, a new Splinter Cell may not be in development. Sources close to the matter have told reliable reporters like Kotaku's Jason Schreier this isn't actually happening.

Every Half-Life game is going free-to-play on Steam until March 2020, Valve today announced.

Haven't played the Half-Life games, but want to buy the new Half-Life: Alyx VR game? Valve has you covered. Gordon Freeman's entire sci-fi saga is now free-to-play on Steam for the next few months, including the original 1998 PC classic, its spin-offs, and of course the excellent Half-Life 2 and its accompanying episode. You'll still have to buy them after the free period ends, though. They're not free to keep, just free-to-play.

Remember that Half-Life: Alyx is a prequel that bridges the original Half-Life and Half-Life 2, not an actual sequel. Valve wants you to play through the current games before you try out its new VR-only experience. And honestly if you've yet to play these games you really need to jump in. The original is pretty much timeless and holds up well today (my friends and I still fire up Sven Co-op for some hilarious antics).

Doom Eternal is shaping up to be the ultimate Doom game in content scope, execution, and raw

Gamers who buy Doom Eternal will have plenty to do on day one. The campaign itself is twice as long as Doom 2016, culminating in a story that has you unleashing total havoc on the bowels of hell to the highest reaches of heaven. The game also has double the demons as the yesteryear reboot, complete with old monstrosities like the cyberdemon, and new baddies like the Doom Hunter and the Marauder.

That's just the tip of the iceberg though. We've known for a while Doom Eternal would be a big, grindy game based on exploration with some RPG-like mechanics thrown in for good measure. But now we're seeing how this will actually manifest. Not only are the levels and maps absolutely massive with a new dimension of verticality thanks to the grappling hook shotgun, but there's tons of enemies and unlockables peppered throughout that incentivize you to keep on playing--and keep on racking up Combat Points to spend on upgrades.

Doom Eternal has a hub area called the Fortress of Doom where you can unlock armor variants and test out new weapons in a training room, further solidifying it as an engagement-driven game.

Doom Eternal is kind of like an RPG-FPS hybrid. It'll be a long, grindy experience with a lot of unlockables and upgrades, complete with material gathering and emphasis on non-linear exploration and replayability. "Engagement" is one of the core tenants of Doom Eternal, and id is somewhat taking the service game-like route by injecting tons of stuff to do. Thankfully all of this serves the brutal FPS action.

Another piece of this puzzle was revealed in some new previews. Doom Eternal features an interesting hub called the Fortress of Doom, a kind of floating hallow high-tech cathedral with lots of stylish explorable areas--one such area is called the Ripatorium--that house nifty upgrades including armor sets (even the classic original Doom Slayer garb is unlockable), new weapons, and new mods. There's just one catch: These upgrades are gated off, forcing gamers to collect items like Empyrean Keys and Sentinel Batteries as they play.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X could sell up to a combined 8 million units in 2020, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter predicts.

Next-gen consoles might not sell as well as their forebears. The systems will feature enthusiast-grade hardware to belt out 4K 60FPS gaming (as well as 8K gaming support) thanks to a beefy new Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU SoC from AMD, as well as a new kind of custom SSD storage tech. These kinds of specs should bring a hefty price point of up to $500, but there's also reports the PS5 could be lower-specced to hit the magical $399 launch price to conquer next-gen sales.

Based on historical current-gen data we can make some predictions, and that's exactly what analyst Michael Pachter has done. Remember next-gen systems are extensions of PS4 and Xbox One ecosystem that will support accessories and games from the current gen. That could buffer or hinder sales figures depending on the price and extent of inter-generation support (people may be less likely to adopt an Xbox Series X if it costs too much and doesn't have a lot of new games, for example).

If you know who Spider-Man is, then you have probably thought about how cool it would be to scale buildings like the web-head. Researchers thought about the same thing and decided to create the first robot that can do exactly that.

Researchers Xin Li and Kaige Shi from Zhejiang University in China have created a wall-climbing robot using a specially designed vacuum suction unit. Until now, climbing surfaces using suction required the surface to be unbroken, such as glass or marble. This was a requirement because the vacuum would leak through the gaps in the texture of the surface, leading to a complete loss of suction.

Scientists have solved this problem by implementing a high-speed rotating water ring that coats the space between the surface and the suction cup. This film of rotating water allows for the vacuum's suction to be unbroken, which means that suction levels are kept at an optimal rate for climbing. Li said, "There are many applications of our design, but we think the wall-climbing robot will be the most useful. Compared to other wall-climbing robots, the robot with our ZPD-based suction unit achieves surprising improvement in performance."

A team of astronomers have managed to figure out how the biggest and brightest explosions in the universe take place and why.

The explosions we are talking about here is gamma-ray bursts that are ejected from a star. These gamma-ray bursts have been recorded numerous times, but now scientists and astronomers have worked out why and how they are so bright and big. Researchers from the University of Warwick in the UK found that tidal effects such as the Moon's position next to Earth can cause this gigantic cosmic explosions.

The team of researchers examined thousands of simulated models of binary star systems, which are solar systems that have two stars caught in each others orbit. The examination led the researchers to believe that the orbiting of these stars can cause gamma-ray bursts to take place. When a star that's ten times bigger than our sun explodes it goes supernova and collapses either into a neutron star or a black hole.

The research which has come out of New York University's Grossman School of Medicine has found that an extremely large number of cases of IQ point theft in children.

The study, which was published in the journal of Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, measured the effects of children being exposed to different toxins such as lead, mercury, pesticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers. The study examined the effects of these toxins in children between 2001 and 2016 and found that lead exposure resulted in a loss of 78 million IQ points. Pesticides followed behind the lead with a loss of 27 million IQ points and finally, mercury with a loss of 2.5 million IQ points.

The study found over 738,000 cases of intellectual disability, with a total loss of 162 million IQ points. So how did the children become exposed to these toxins? Flame retardants, which are polybrominated diphenyl ethers, are found in common household objects such as furniture items, electronics, and children's clothing. Pesticides can be found on fresh produce or picked up at restaurants that have incorrectly washed their produce, and lead can be found in older homes with old paint or even playgrounds.

Microsoft has announced a new climate change imitative that plans on saving the planet from the ever-growing concerns of climate change.

In Microsoft's announce the company states that it plans to be "carbon negative" by the year 2030 and on top of that it plans on removing any carbon its created as a company since its fruition in 1975. The company has said that it will be pledging $1 billion to its "climate innovation fund" to assist its "aggressive program" aiming towards minimalizing climate affects. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "The scientific consensus is clear. The world, today, is confronted with an urgent carbon crisis. If we don't curb emissions and the temperatures continue to climb, the science tells us the results will be devastating."

Nadella continues and says, "Each of us is going to need to take action, and that includes businesses. No one company can solve this macro challenge alone, but as a global technology company, we have a particular responsibility to do our part. That's why today we're announcing an ambitious new plan to help address the sustainability of our planet." By Microsoft's "carbon negative" definition, the company plans on removing more carbon that it's emitting per year.

A mystery virus broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan in the last few days, with cases now being reported in the hundreds, evidence is suggesting that it's being transmitted "human-to-human".

The virus outbreak was reported back in December and was linked to a live-animal market in Wuhan called the South China Seafood Wholesale Market. Researchers who are investigating the origin of the virus confirmed that the virus was a never-before-seen coronavirus, which is in the same family as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The researchers suspect that the virus originated in the animals at the market and found viable human hosts, which then eventuated into the now current outbreak.

At the moment, China's state-run media has said that 218 cases of the virus confirmed, while that number seems low it's an important factor to remember is that China controls their media, so this number is likely much higher. According to SARS expert Zhong Nanshan, "Now we can say it is certain that it is a human-to-human transmission phenomenon. We expect the number of infected cases will increase over the Lunar New Year travel period, and we need to prevent the emergence of a super-spreader of the virus".

According to a couple of new contracts posted on the federal spending database, the United States military is cashing in on developing a new form of facial recognition technology.

If you assumed that the US military was already using facial recognition technology on the battlefield, then you would have been right. The current use of facial recognition technology today is to identify potential targets, but the current technology relies on images from standard cameras. The US military wants to move away from the traditional camera and jump into something that is a bit more technologically advanced -- such as facial recognition technology that reads heat signatures.

The new contracts reveal the US military's motivation towards developing a new technology that can analyze infrared images to identify individuals. Department of Defense (DoD) states the following when calling for contractors, "Sensors should be demonstrable in environments such as targets seen through automotive windshield glass, targets that are backlit, and targets that are obscured due to light weather (e.g., fog)".

Toshiba research scientists have created a new algorithm that is capable of sifting through extremely large number sets ten times faster than laser-based quantum computers.

The two Toshiba research scientists are Hayato Goto and Kosuke Tatsumura, and back in 2015, Goto originally created the idea for the new algorithm after noticing how some parts of a complex system can go through a bifurcation process once new inputs are implemented. It took Goto a further two years to implement the new algorithm, which has been called "Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm". Goto then partnered with Tatsumura, and with his knowledge, the researchers were able to make the new algorithm scalable.

After some time tweaking the design process, the researchers were able to get the algorithm to not only work on a traditional computer with off the shelf components but also a cluster of server CPU's and field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Using an FPGA, the reports of Toshiba's new algorithm is to be up to ten times faster than a laser-based quantum computer. Toshiba plans on selling the "Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm" to stock trading companies, social networks, and manufacturing companies. Toshiba is aiming this new algorithm at solving companies' combinatorial optimization problems.