Latest News - Page 1851

Mass shooting are currently all in the news at the moment as America experienced two separate events in the past week. Now, a shooter threat has been sent to Twitch HQ, and police have responded.

According to Business Insider's report, a shooter threat was sent to Twitch's San Francisco headquarters Wednesday morning. Twitch spoke out about this threat, saying "We were made aware of a threat against our San Francisco HQ on Tuesday, and have been working directly with law enforcement as they investigate. The safety and security of our employees is our top priority, and we are focused on ensuring this is resolved quickly and safely."

Luckily, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) responded efficiently and effectively, by conducting a search at Twitch's headquarters in the morning at 8:33 AM. The police also said that this threat was made over social media and that they would be following up on the matter promptly. SFPD public information Officer Adam Lobsinger gave a statement, saying "As of this moment we do not have an active threat".

One of the most anticipated games of this year is no doubt Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding, and while PS4 gamers cannot wait to get their hands-on the title, what about PC gamers?

Originally, Death Stranding's reveal was on PS4, but if you didn't know the first press release in December of 2015 stated the title is planned to come to PC as well as PS4. While there was no official announcement for a PC version, many fans just concentrated on the PS4 release which raised questions to whether a PC release was still planned or just a mistake in the press release.

In May of 2019, journalist Antonio Fucito stated that a PC release will happen at a later date and said this will happen because Death Stranding isn't listed as PS4 exclusive. Many fans were confused, as Death Stranding is in fact NOT listed as PS4 exclusive, but Hideo Kojima or Kojima Productions have never acknowledged a PC version exists or is coming. Just recently, there is more confirmation for Death Stranding not being a PS4 exclusive, as ResetEra user Vestan noticed that Death Stranding isn't present on the official PlayStation 4 exclusive page.

Netflix is reportedly splashing cash around, and their most recent lure to their platform is no other than the writers for the legendary show, Game of Thrones.

A recent report coming out of Deadline has claimed that both David Benioff and D.B Weiss will be directing and produce some new shows and movies on Netflix's platform. Netflix's Ted Sarandos spoke to Deadline and said "They are a creative force and have delighted audiences worldwide with their epic storytelling. We can't wait to see what their imaginations will bring to our members."

According to Mashable, this deal was made is in the 9 figures range and if that rumor is correct, Netflix could of offered The Davids upwards of $100,000,000+. Honestly, that seems like an astronomical amount of money, and to be completely fair there has been no official documentation or statements regarding that figure, so I would certainly take that information with a hundred-million pinches of salt.

What is the universe? That question is currently being answered by numerous persons across the planet and a recent discovery of 39 ancient galaxies could add to the equation of answering that very question.

According to some researchers out of Institute of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo, a recent discovery has been made using The Hubble Space Telescope and has shed some light on some light on some pretty big questions in this scientific field. The astronomers have found 39 ancient galaxies that were around during the first 2 billion years of the universe forming. Even though The Hubble Space Telescope unlocked better vision into the cosmos, it cannot see everything and according to Professor Kotaro Kohno, "The light from these galaxies is very faint, with long wavelengths invisible to our eyes and undetectable by Hubble."

The discovery of these galaxies has led researchers to believe they will be able to get a better understanding of how dark matter is connected to the supermassive blackholes that are at the center of each of these galaxies. Researcher, Tao Wang said "This is the first time that such a large population of massive galaxies was confirmed during the first 2 billion years of the 13.7-billion-year life of the universe. These were previously invisible to us. This finding contravenes current models for that period of cosmic evolution, and will help to add some details, which have been missing until now."

Nintendo is without a doubt launching their Nintendo Switch Lite Console, as good as that will be for the Big N, what about gamers who want higher-resolution screens with more frames?

Recent rumors are circling around about Nintendo sitting on a more beefy console, and according to the rumors from WSJ this console release is designed "to make the platform lifecycle long". The VP for Sharp, Katsuaki Nomura might have dropped a hint towards an upcoming Switch, he said that the IGZO panels made by Sharp are going to be bought by a video game client, which WSJ assumes to be Nintendo.

At the end of the day, Nintendo has only officially announced one additional console to the base Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo Switch Lite. However, it would not be surprising if Nintendo decided to try and compete at the higher-end of the market. If they did it would be filling a void for gamers who want to play games handheld at 1080p, at 60FPS.

Disney is gearing up for the release of their new video streaming platform and what better way to pull viewers to their platform than to reboot some childhood heartthrob franchises.

According to Bob Iger, Disney's chairman and CEO, Disney will be rebooting four franchises for Disney+ and the four franchises that are in the pipeline are; Cheaper By the Dozen, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Night at the Museum and Home Alone. It is unclear what these reboots will look like, but according to Iger they will be a "re-imagined" for a "new generation" of children.

This is some risky moves by Disney, as many of the franchises mentioned above are extremely close to people's hearts and messing with their format could splash back into Disney's face. Whether or not the reboots are good or not, when Disney launch their Disney+ streaming service they are going to be a force to be reckoned with. Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime and all the other streaming platforms are going to be shaking in their boots at Disney's gargantuan library of content.

A new feature could be coming to Twitter and that new feature will allow for users to choose to whether or not they want to snooze their push notifications.

Above we have Jane Manchun Wong, she has screenshotted her Twitter feed showcasing the "snooze notifications" options. From the screenshot we can see that Twitter is testing out this feature by allowing users to snooze their notifications for 1, 3 and 12 hours. The snooze option can be found in the top right and corner of the app, under the bell option.

Wong came across this new feature while going through the Twitter background code on her Android device, she has gone into further detail in her blog post which can be found here. It is unclear whether or not this option will be here to stay or Twitter is just monitoring its usage, but hopefully it does stay because I think this feature is very needed as other social media platforms allow for users to mute their notifications.

NASA has used their Spitzer Space Telescope to capture an image of a distant galaxy, with this image scientists can now attempt to gather a better understanding of this galaxy works even though it will be challenging due to its angle.

The galaxy is called NGC 5866 and from the image that due to the way the galaxy is positioned we can only see its outer edge. This means we can only see a extremely small fraction of what the galaxy actually contains. According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory new blog post, scientists are "Trying to learn about the history and shape of NGC 5866 is challenging due to its orientation. Our view of this galaxy is somewhat like our view of the Milky Way galaxy: Because Earth lies inside the Milky Way, we can see it only edge-on rather than face-on."

The blog post continues and says "But our proximity to the rest of the Milky Way has allowed astronomers to reconstruct what our galaxy would look like viewed face-on." A quick history lesson on the Spitzer Space Telescope: This space telescope has been in use for nearly 16 years now which is much longer than its initial mission time. According to NASA, they are planning on retiring the space telescope as it is only operational for a few hours a day since it requires huge amounts of time to recharge.

It looks like new rumors are firing up the hype train engines for Bully 2, with Bully 2-focused YouTube channel SWEGTA reporting from its 'insider source' at Rockstar Games that Bully 2 is being developed for next-gen hardware.

Bully 2 being developed for the next-gen Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Scarlett consoles is an exciting one, and more so when you considering ComicBook.com backed it up with their own sources. The rumors suggest that Rockstar's next game after its mega-successful Red Dead Redemption 2 will be Bully 2, and not Grand Theft Auto 6.

All the way back in April 2017 there was a tweet from Rockstar insider Yan2295 that said "Bully 2 was in development" and that it is the next game after RDR2. There's no official news on Bully 2 yet, especially compared to GTA 6, but as it happens we'll bring you updates on Rockstar's sequel.

Samsung has launched its new Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ smartphones, but there were also a few surprises along the way, something that includes the Galaxy Book S -- the world's first with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx.

Both of the new Note 10 handsets feature Samsung's new Exynos 9825 SoC on the 7nm node, while the Note 10+ will have 5G support, and both have an "all-new" S-Pen stylus. The smaller Note 10 features a 6.3-inch display with a native 2280x1080, which is a lower resolution than the Note 9 from last year, but the larger Note 10+ packs a huge 6.8-inch display with a native 3040x1040 OLED panel.

Samsung's larger Galaxy Note 10+ doesn't just have a larger and higher-res display, but it features the Snapdragon X55 modem from Qualcomm for 5G connectivity, a quad-camera rig, and a huge 4500mAh battery. The smaller Note 10 has a much smaller 3500mAh battery, so the Note 10+ is definitely a huge upgrade in many areas.

Samsung launched its new Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ smartphones with a surprise announcement of the new Galaxy Book S, the company's new premium, ultra-portable laptop powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx platform.

The previous iterations in the Galaxy Book and Galaxy Book 2 were 2-in-1 designs, but Samsung has changed it up with the Galaxy Book S making it into an ultra-portable laptop. The big ticket here is that the Galaxy Book S is the first laptop powered by Qualcomm's exciting new Snapdragon 8cx, made on 7nm.

We have the Snapdragon 8cx and its 8-core CPU at up to 2.84GHz joined by 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, either 256GB or 512GB SSD with up to 1TB thanks to a microSD slot. Samsung's new Galaxy Book S has a 13.3-inch 1080p touchscreen display, a 720p webcam, 2 x USB-C 3.1 ports, a microSD card reader, and 3.5mm audio jack.

Samsung has just unveiled its new Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ smartphones, with the company teaming with Acitivsion to get Call of Duty: Mobile preloaded onto the phones.

Samsung isn't a stranger to preloading the most popular mobile games on the market on its phones, where in 2018 it launched the Galaxy Note 9 with Fortnite Mobile for Android. This time, Call of Duty: Mobile is in beta and will be out in the next few months both on Android, and iOS.

Call of Duty: Mobile is meant to be the next big thing in mobile gaming, and could dethrone PUBG but Fortnite? We'll have to wait and see. The problem Samsung is having is that Call of Duty: Mobile is available in Australia and Canada, but not the US right now.

ASUS, OnePlus and Razer are already up in the 90-120Hz refresh rate on their smartphones, but it looks like they will be joined by Google with its next wave of Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones.

According to "a reliable source" of 9to5Google, the new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones will have 90Hz displays which Google will call 'Smooth Display'. We should expect the Pixel 4 to have a 5.7-inch Full HD+ display while a 6.3-inch Quad HD+ display will find a home in the Pixel 4 XL -- both will be OLED panels.

Google is expected to use Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chip, 6GB of RAM (in both) and will each come in 64GB and 128GB flavors in the US. Google will use the latest Android Q on the new Pixel 4 phones, somethign that I'm thoroughly enjoying the beta of on my Pixel 3 XL at the moment.

FMS 2019 - Silicon Motion has shown off its new SM2264 SSD controller at the Flash Memory Summit 2019 this week, with it being a new PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 SSD controller that will power the new waves of super-fast NVMe SSDs arriving.

The new SM2264 controller has an 8-channel flash interface with up to 16TB, while sequential read speeds reach up to 6.5GB/sec and writes get up to 3.9GB/sec. The random read and write IOPS on the Silicon Motion SM2264 are at 700K IOPS, with the new SM2264 powered by the latest 9x-layer 3D TLC/QLD NAND flash.

Silicon Motion also had the new SM2267 controller, which is also a new PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 SSD controller, but has a 4-channel flash interface and up to 8TB. The sequential read speeds on the SM2267 are up to 4GB/sec while the writes are at up to 3GB/sec. For random read and write IOPS we have 400K IOPS while it also use 9-layer 3D TLC/QLC NAND.

Lootboxes will soon be regulated not on a game level, but on a platform level thanks to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Gaming's Big Three will soon require lootbox odds disclosures on games sold on their respective storefronts, which could prompt the gambling-style tactics to be abandoned. At the FTC's event scrutinizing monetization and the games industry, the ESA confirmed that console platform holders will require lootbox probability odds to be disclosed to consumers before they buy. This applies to games with lootboxes on the PlayStation Store, Xbox LIVE, and Nintendo eShop.

"I'm pleased to announce this morning that Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have indicated to ESA a commitment to new platform policies with respect to the use of paid loot boxes in games that are developed for their platform," ESA's Michael Warnecke told the FTC. "Specifically, this would apply to new games and game updates that add loot box features. And it would require the disclosure of the relative rarity or probabilities of obtaining randomized virtual items in games that are available on their platforms."

Back on June 15th, Western Digital and Toshiba had a 13-minute power outage at their Yokkaichi operations campus in Japan which impacted the NAND production for both partners in a severe way.

Now we have news that nearly all production capacity is back up to normal operations. This was divulged as part of WD's Q4 2019 investor relations posting/notice. Back when the power outage happened, it was estimated that the total NAND capacity impacted was 6 EB or Exabytes of total NAND flash wafers. Just for reference, 6 exabytes is equivalent to 6 million Terabytes. That may seem like a lot, and that is because it is.

Toshiba and WD believe the impacted quarter will be in the September timeframe with a total hit of approximately $315 - $339 million. As AnandTech reports, the impact on Toshiba is unknown as they are a private company. So, we can only assume a similar financial impact bringing totals speculatively to anywhere between $630 million to $670 million.

The internet went abuzz a short while ago as speculation of cooling manufacturer CRYORIG shutting down. It has since been updated with more current information.

This was the start about a month ago as US markets started to show many CRYORIG parts out of stock and a severe lack of communication from the company.

Here we can see the co-founder and head of sales and marketing Steve Shen who according to his reply, has left the company. He notes that the USA tariffs have had a significant impact on the CRYORIG business. Steve has left for another venture he claims is unrelated, but the timing does seem like a sign. Add to this the fact that he claims the company is 'afloat' does not bode well.

Just like every year, there is a line of highly anticipated movies to come out, and one of those movies is the fresh new take on The Joker.

The upcoming Joker movie stars, Joaquin Phoenix and will be arriving in theaters around the globe in October. Cameron Bailey, the co-head and artistic director for the Toronto festival where the movie will be premiering this month has spoken out about the film to Toronto Sun. Bailey begins by saying "First of all it's terrific. So it should play on our largest stage. But it's a really original take on comic book movies and on the Joker character in particular".

For those that didn't know, this upcoming Joker movie is not based on the comic books at all and is instead a fresh new take on the character. Bailey continues and says "It's not based on an existing story, it has one of the greatest actors in modern cinema, Joaquin Phoenix, in the lead, and Robert De Niro is in it as well, one of the best actors that has ever lived." He continues and says "But it has an interesting tone and approach to it. It's set in the late '70s, early '80s and it feels like it was made then".

As humans we have no idea if there is life outside of our planet, but what we do know is that there is now at least some form of life on the Moon's surface and while it may not be alien, it certainly looks alien.

The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed into the Moon during a failed landing attempt on April 11th, the cargo that Baresheet was carrying was human DNA samples and tardigrades. The lander was also carrying 30 million very small digitized pages of information about human society and culture.

If you don't know what a tardigrade is, it's a microscopic moss piglet that measure between 0.002 and 0.05 inches (0.05 to 1.2 millimeters) long. Not only are these little forms of life tiny, but they are almost indestructible as they can survive extreme temperatures of 328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius), and more than 300 F (149 C). They can also survive exposure to radiation and the vacuum of space.

Just last week, one of the biggest moves in the game-streaming world happened, Tyler Blevins, or better known to gamers as 'Ninja' left his home platform of Twitch to join Microsoft's Mixer platform.

Ninja left Twitch in what can only be assumed as a paid deal by Microsoft, while the details of the deal have not be disclosed it can be assumed that there would of been an astronomical amount of money involved. Especially when considering how many paid subscribers Ninja had on Twitch's platform and his projected monthly donations.

Now, Ninja has taken to his official Twitter account to reveal that he has already reached 1 million subscribers on Mixer. He says "Today we hit 1,000,000 active subscribers on mixer ^-^ thank you for all the incredible support. I haven't felt this good in a long time." Ultimately, this is exactly what Microsoft would of wanted when striking this deal. Ninja has no doubt pulled over a massive part of his audience to Microsoft's new streaming platform. In the future I would say that Microsoft will be grabbing some other well-known streaming from Twitch's platform.