Latest News - Page 1773

NASA has admitted that it is "struggling to explain" why oxygen is being created, and then consumed on Mars. The US space agency has been left scratching their collective heads since.

The reason behind this is that NASA's own Curiosity rover that is chilling on the Red Planet has returned some rather interesting data back to our Pale Blue Dot, showing that elevated methane levels were recorded, and NASA can't explain why. There have been tests conducted and completed to try and work out why these levels were so high, but NASA doesn't know why.

NASA's Curiosity rover "breathes" in the air on Mars, analyzes it and tells NASA what types of gasses are detected. But something interesting was discovered -- here on Earth the background levels of certain gasses will increase and decrease as the seasons change, and something similar is happening on Mars.

Obsidian Entertainment isn't giving up on RPGs--there's still more projects in the works.

Today Obsidian announced a new IP called Grounded, and it's a huge departure from the sprawling RPGs like Pillars of Eternity or The Outer Worlds. Obsidian's first project under Microsoft's ownership isn't a fantasy of sci-fi epic, but an online multiplayer survival game set in a whimsical Honey I Shrunk the Kids universe. Fans were a bit confused by the reveal; where was The Outer Worlds 2, or the next big RPG to save the Xbox brand?

Those games are still in development. Obsidian's Josh Sawyer confirms the studio has multiple projects in development at the same time. Grounded is a passion project made by just one of Obsidian's dev teams. RPGs are still very much a part of the developer's DNA, and new adventures are currently in the works.

Microsoft has been embracing PC in a big way, complete with Xbox Game Pass integration and simultaneous game launches on the platform. But Project xCloud is coming to PC too, and aims to essentially do what Stadia does for Chome browsers.

In 2020, Project xCloud will stream games to PCs, solidifying Microsoft's strong synergy of hardware and services. "We've heard your feedback loud and clear. You want more ways to play. We are delighted to announce that in 2020 we will bring Project xCloud to Windows 10 PCs," said Catherine Gluckstein, GM of product engineering and strategy at Project xCloud.

And there's a potential tease for Project xCloud coming to competing devices, too. Maybe Nintendo Switch? "And of course we won't stop there. We're working with lots of partners to bring Project xCloud to every device you want to play."

The reports were right on the money, and Halo: Reach will release on December 3, 2019 on PC, including the Windows Store and Steam.

Today Microsoft confirmed Halo: Reach will arrive on PC as a full package this December, complete with Firefight, campaign, multiplayer, and huge PC optimizations like uncapped frame rates, 4K 60FPS support, and full mouse and keyboard support. We'll see playlists borrowed from the original 2010 launch including Firefight's online Score Attack mode as well as the classics like Team Slayer. It'll also have online co-op campaign too.

Reach is included with the $40 Master Chief Collection, but you can buy it separately on Steam for $10. The full Master Chief Collection obviously won't be available if you pre-order the complete package--only Reach will drop in December.

Obsidian's first game under Microsoft's leadership isn't a big new RPG. It's an online-oriented social survival simulator inspired by Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

Today at XO19 in London, England, Obsidian revealed a brand new IP. It's called Grounded, and it's basically a wacky mashup with platforming aspects, exploration mechanics, and first-person survival elements. There's even some Minecraft thrown in there too.

You play as a kid who's been shrunk down to the size of an ant who's trapped in a backyard, and to survive you have to team up with friends to hunt insects like ferocious ants, build communities, and scavenge the land--all while crafting your own settlements and weapons. It's kind of like the Sea of Thieves set in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids universe.

Rare showcased a brand new IP at the Inside Xbox festival in London.

Rare's new IP is called Everwild, and it looks a lot like Journey's enchanting art style set in a 3D open world. It's nature-based and may feature four-player co-op, but exact details have yet to be announced. The game may be focused on connecting with animals around you while surviving in an alien wilderness, and definitely has an indie look and feel to it.

"We are passionate about creating something special and truly original. I'm excited to share with you a glimpse of the new IP from RARE," said Louise O'Connor, executive producer at Rare.

The first season of The Witcher TV show hasn't even released yet, and we already hearing about how there is going to be a second season.

The news comes from the series' showrunner, Lauren S. Hissrich who announced on her personal Twitter that Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri "will be back for more adventures... in Season Two". The Tweet also came with a new image we haven't seen before, it features two swords next each other. To speculate a bit here, could one of these swords be the iron sword and the other be a silver sword? The same set up that Witchers carry?

If you have been following the Witcher news this announcement shouldn't really be that surprising for you as the hype for season one of the show hasn't slowed down since its announcement. Judging from what we have seen of the show so far, and how in particular Henry Cavil is playing Geralt, season two should be extremely welcomed. The only thing to worry about is if season one lives up to the hype following it, my bet is that it will, paving the way for a follow up season.

The days of gathering the family around a pen-and-paper shopping list could be over as Apple users can now use their voice to fill their Walmart shopping cart.

The new feature is called Walmart Voice Order, and it's now available in the company's Grocery App for iOS. This means that Siri can listen to users' requests for products, and they will automatically be placed in Walmart's shopping cart, removing the necessity of touch.

Users can follow this voice process; "Hey Siri, add to Walmart" then list out the items you want to be placed into the cart and boom; they should be ready to order. It should also be noted that Apple users can tell Siri on a range of different devices such as an iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, or in a CarPlay-enabled vehicle. Due to Walmart being a direct competitor with Amazon, it can be assumed that Walmart won't be adding this feature for Alexa devices now or anytime soon.

Sony's upcoming movie adaptation of the hit video game 'Uncharted' already has a big name attached to it, Tom Holland. But now, another name is reportedly in final talks about joining the cast.

According to an exclusive report by Variety, Mark Wahlberg is teed up to co-star with Tom Holland in the upcoming 'Uncharted Movie'. Travis Knight, director of Bumblebee will be directing the Uncharted Movie and for those that haven't played the notoriously popular games, the story follows Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who adventures to remote locations to uncover mysteries.

Wahlberg will reportedly be playing the role of Victor 'Sully' Sullivan, another treasure hunter, businessman, and, most importantly, a father figure to Nathan Drake. If you are unaware of how popular the Uncharted gaming series is, it's developed by Naughty Dog, published by PlayStation, and went on to sell more than 41 million copies worldwide, becoming a staple series in Sony's exclusive library. Now that you know that, you can understand why Sony wants to get an all-star cast for the movie, as there are literally millions of fans worldwide that are expecting nothing but the absolute best.

Scientists out of Britain have managed to create realistic 3D holograms that can be seen with the naked eye, heard and even felt.

A team of scientists working at the University of Sussex in southern England has managed to use technology to create a prototype called Multimodal Acoustic Trap Display (MATD). This prototype has the ability of "simultaneously deliver visual, auditory and tactile content". This is done through using sound waves or "acoustophoresis" that move and manipulate particles to form an image.

The team spoke out about how they achieved this, saying "Our system traps a particle acoustically and illuminates it with red, green and blue light to control its color as it quickly scans the display volume." Due to the system being developed with sound waves, it allows the hologram to not only be seen but also heard and felt.

The long wait for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is almost over, and ahead of the title's launch, we have been given the option to pre-load the game.

For those that don't know about the Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Microsoft has decided to remaster the classic Age of Empires games. The first Age of Empires: Definitive Edition has already been released, and now we are up to the second game with the third possibly being in the pipeline. The AoE: Definitive Edition features three brand new civilizations, 4K textures, three new campaigns, revamped building destruction, adjustable zoom controls, and more.

The release of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is November 15th, but ahead of the game's launch, gamers can pre-load the game via Steam and the Microsoft Store. Not only can gamers pre-load the game, but we also have the launch times for each and every region. I have provided an image in the entirety of this article detailing each of the times for the different locations across the world. It should be noted that the game will be launching at the exact same time everywhere, so there will be no specific region ahead of another. A link to the Steam Store listing can be found here.

The Kuiper Belt object located deep in our solar system has had its named changed from MU69 Ultima Thule, to Arrokoth.

Why have NASA decided to make the name change? Well, 'Ultima Thule' means "farthest place", but it also has the same term that white supremacists and Nazi's in particular used to refer to a mythical homeland. The 'Thule Society' was a German occultist group founded in Munich right after World War I.

The society was also heavily recognised by Adolf Hitler, and as you can imagine many people that knew these facts didn't think that NASA's name for the object fit. So in an effort to side-step the controversy, NASA decided to rename the object from 'Ultima Thule' to 'Arrokoth'. This new name is derived from Powhatan/Algonquian language and it means 'sky'. Above is a video of Dr. Phoebe Farris of the Powhatan-Pamunkey Tribe officially renaming the Kuiper Belt object.

We all knew the launch of Disney Plus was going to shake up the streaming market, but by how much exactly? 10 million individual shakes, according to Disney's recent announcement on Wednesday.

Disney Plus launched this past Tuesday, and the company has taken the streaming wars by the horns by already pulling in 10 million subscribers. For comparison on how much that exactly is, the Disney-owned Hulu has more than 28 million subscribers as of May this year. Another comparison is Netflix, who has 97 million subscribers internationally, as of the third quarter of 2019.

The reason for the massive influx of subscribers to Disney Plus is due to it being not only significantly cheaper than the other streaming services at $6.99 a month, but it also offers a gigantic library of content that attracts not only children but adults. With Disney moving this many paying subscribers within just the first couple of days of being live, other streaming services such as Netflix are going to be shaking in their boots at what the future holds for them.

Disney+ just released and Netflix is already making some knee jerk reactions by signing a multi-year deal with none other than Nickelodeon.

Netflix and Nickelodeon have just announced a new multi-year deal that will feature original animated content based on some of the Nickelodeon's library of shows. According to The New York Times, Nickelodeon will produce animated films and series' on both new and existing Nickelodeon characters. NYT also reports that there has been not details shared with the public on what specific characters will be coming or how many years the deal is signed for.

This deal is clearly a tag-team effort to combat Disney Plus which has already amassed 10 million subscribers since its launch on Tuesday. Since Disney are pulling their large library of content from other streaming platforms, Netflix and other streaming services need to compensate for the loss and start production on both new and old shows. In this regard, the deal between Netflix and Nickelodeon makes sense, and I would expect other streaming services to breathe life back into some classic old shows.

It was only a couple of days ago that we caught wind of a new update planned to arrive for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. That update is now live, bringing the game up to version 6.1.0.

The patch has hit the live servers prompting every to download the update if they want to play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online. So what is included in the patch? According to SSBUBot, the new update is directly targeting the new fighter, Terry Bogard.

According to the SSBUBot, Terry Bogard is receiving a fix for his special move "Buster Wolf" and how it connects with opposing fighters. The update details say that when players used the move, sometimes a rare issue would occur that caused both Terry and the opposing fighter to become unable to move from their positions. Just like every Smash Bros. Ultimate update, replays from the previous version of the game are not compatible with the new one. If you want to keep your replays, make sure to have converted them into a video format before updating.

The day is almost upon us. Age of Empires fans can now finally rejoice as we have an official teaser revealing that Age of Empires IV will be shown off at XO19.

The official teaser was released onto Microsoft's General Manager's Twitter account, Aaron Greenberg's. The tweet features a gif that shows off an eagle soaring over a new land. While it might only be brief, we can see trees and a mountain to the far right.

Greenberg captioned the tweet with the following message: "A new Age is upon us at #XO19", confirming that Age of Empires IV will be shown off at the coming Microsoft event in November. Diving into the Twitter thread, a fan asked what time fans should tune in for the livestream and then the official Age of Empires Twitter account replied, saying "Inside Xbox is at Noon PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK." In other news about Age of Empires IV, here's everything we know about the game so far.

Motorola has officially rebooted its infamous Razr smartphone after the initial teases, with the new 2019 handset dipped in the future and coated in magic -- the new Moto Razr has probably the best foldable display yet.

Samsung's revised Galaxy Fold and Huawei's new Mate X have their own unique take on the hinge design, making their respective foldable use questionable over time -- but Motorola has something special in store for the new 2019 Razr. Motorola has the 6.2-inch OLED display on the new Razr opening more like a book, a throwback to the foldable design of the original Razr, but without the physical keyboard.

The new Razr opens and closes just like the classic Razr did, except this time when it's closed its the size of a large smartphone -- but the foldable display is really something else. Inside, Motorola won't break any speed records with its use of Qualcomm's not-so-flagship Snapdragon 710 processor, no 5G connectivity, a modest 2510mAh battery, and Android 9.

Tesla will build its new Gigafactory in Germany rather than the UK, with Tesla and SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk saying that the on-going battle of Brexit in the UK was the deciding force for Germany being the location of Gigafactory 4.

Musk spoke with an English car enthusiast publication about the matter, telling Auto Express that Brexit is the reason he and his executive team decided to not build Gigafactory 4 in the UK. Musk explained: "Brexit's [uncertain future] made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK".

He added that Tesla will be building a new research and development center in Europe, meaning that both Gigafactory 4 and the new R&D center will not be built in the UK because of Brexit. This means the UK misses out on billions of dollars, and the creation of thousands of high-skilled jobs with the Gigafactory 4 and R&D center being built in Germany instead.

Apple's new 16-inch MacBook Pro is here, and if you max out its internal specs then you'll be coughing up an eye-watering amount of money with the fully-loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro costing $6099.

What will you get for $6099 exactly? Well it's not exactly slow, with a huge 64GB of RAM and 8TB of all-flash storage on offer -- this is on top of an Intel Core i9 processor at up to 5GHz, and an AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. The 64GB of RAM comes in at DDR4-2666MHz.

The upgrade from 1TB of SSD to 8TB of SSD is a big one, coming in at a huge $2200 upgrade while the Radeon Pro 5500M comes in 4GB and 8GB varieties, with the additional 4GB of GDDR6 costing $100. Apple's new 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2399 with a 6-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, Radeon Pro 5300M, and 512GB SSD.

Joe and Anthony Russo are fresh from their directors chair for Avengers: Endgame, with the MCU directors now producing a new streaming docu-series over the fierce rivalry between Marvel and DC.

Entertainment Weekly reports that streaming service Quibi has the series rights to Slugest, which will be inspired by the book "Slugfest: Inside The Epic, 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DC", written by Reed Tucker and released back in 2017. Slugfest "tracks the rise of two groundbreaking creative companies who went on to become the comics-publishing powerhouses, Marvel and DC".

Slugfest will be produced by the Russo Brothers and directed by Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce who directed Believer and Framing John DeLorean. Slugfest will feature behind the scenes stories, including some iconic moments like the first official Marvel and DC crossover comic in the 1970s between Superman and Spider-Man.