Latest News - Page 2090

Update: Qualcomm acknoledges it has received the massive bid, with a huge reply in a PR statement just now:

Well, here we are: if you're a customer of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, or Citigroup, you can't use your credit card to purchase cryptocurrency.

Bloomberg is reporting that the banks have now banned the purchasing of cryptocurrency using their credit cards, with BofA already denying use of their cards for crypto purchases on certain exchanges, while debit card transactions seem to still be fine. Citigroup has said that as of Friday last week, they won't be accepting crypto purchases, and JP Morgan Chase's new rules come into effect today.

The reason? JPMorgan spokesperson Mary Jane Rogers said that the bank doesn't want to deal with the risks associated with cryptocurrency, and they're saying they're trying to stop the risks of consumers' spending more than they can afford to pay back on cryptocurrencies, through their credit cards. Good guy banks? Pfft.

Razer has just announced a new limited edition version of their first gamer-focused smartphone, something that celebrates The Year of the Dog on the Chinese calendar.

The new 2018 Gold Edition Razer Phone is a limited edition version of the handset, and arrives in a beautiful red-sleeved box with gold foiling and even a certificate of ownership. There's the iconic triple-headed snake on the back of the phone, but it rocks an awesome gold style.

Razer says that the limited edition 2018 Gold Edition Razer Phone will be available at three Hong Kong-based telcos, the RazerStore Hong Kong, and RazerStore US while supplies last, and I'm sure that won't be long. There will only be 1688 of these new Gold Edition phones, so they will be gone in as fast as that 120Hz display can refresh.

Tesla has been using my home state of South Australia as its testing grounds for the future of its solar and lithium ion battery technology, with the SA government working out a deal with Tesla that would see at least 50,000 homes have their Powerwall technology installed.

SA Premier Jay Weatherill is running for the March state election, teasing that Tesla's next-gen solar systems and batteries would be supplied, and installed free of charge. The entire project would be financed through the sale of electricity, given that the solar panels would be taking in the power generated by the sun, with Weatherill saying it would be the largest project of its kind.

The retailer involved would have the ability of using the household batteries that would be installed, and use that power to throw it back into the state power grid. There will be a trial scheme run using Housing Trust properties (government owned), something that has already started, with 100 homes receiving Tesla Powerwall systems by June 30, and another 1000 properties in the next 12 months.

NVIDIA has been pushing the PC version of Final Fantasy XV for a while now, but with the PC version of the game right around the corner - March 6, we're now hearing just how good the PC version will be versus its console counterparts.

In a new video message from the director of Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition, Hajime Tabata, who said that the PC version is not a port, and that it has been developed for the PC from the ground up. This means that the PC version of Final Fantasy XV will be very, very special when compared to the console versions.

Square Enix will be unleashing Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition on March 6, and will include all of the released DLC, as well as additional content that is made for the Windows Edition - and will launch on the same day for the PS4 and Xbox One versions.

Tesla is wanting to see its Powerwall technology go mainstream, with the company pushing their Powerwall battery packs and new solar panels at 800 Home Depot locations across the US.

Bloomberg is reporting the news, stating that Tesla's solar panels and Powerwalls will be at 800 Home Depot locations soon, with this marking the first time Tesla has inked a major US retain chain to sell their products. Tesla won't be giving Home Depot all the power, as they will just be putting their products on Home Depot's shelves.

Tesla will have their own designated "Tesla-branded selling spaces" in Home Depots, similar to Samsung and Apple with their own specified spots in retail locations.

Qualcomm has been leading the 5G game for what feels like years now, and now we have news that Sprint has promised to launch mobile 5G services nationwide in the first half of 2019.

Sprint boss Marcelo Claure explained during their recent quarterly earnings conference call with investors: "We're working with Qualcomm and network and device manufacturers in order to launch the first truly mobile [5G] network in the United States by the first half of 2019. This development will put Sprint at the forefront of technology innovation on par with other leading carriers around the world... We believe our next-gen network will truly differentiate Sprint over the next couple of years".

US telco competitor T-Mobile has promised nationwide 5G support in 2019, finishing it in 2020, with Sprint now in the lead for the next generation of mobile connectivity.

Final Fantasy XV will be one of the biggest releases on the PC this year, with the Windows Edition of the game to be the definitive version as Square Enix built the game from the ground up for the PC, and have confirmed it is not just a simple PC port.

Square Enix has released a benchmark tool so that you can see how your PC will handle Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition, which takes over six minutes to run. There are some NVIDIA GameWorks features in the game, with NVIDIA providing serious support to Square Enix for the PC version of Final Fantasy XV.

Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition launches on Steam, Origin, and the Windows Store on March 6, and will cost $50.

Corsair has just launched its high-end T2 Road Warrior gaming chair, something that comes in five color schemes: black, blue, yellow, white, and red).

The new T2 Road Warrior can handle up to 300 pounds, with Corsair using an aluminum seat base, steel frame that is coated in polyurethane foam and five rollerblade-style polyurethane. Corsair isn't using genuine leather, but that will also keep the price under $500 which helps for mainstream gamers.

Corsair provides a wider seat this time around, with a taller back and deep cushion that will ensure a great seating experience. The angle of the base and armrests can be tweaked, with the gas-powered light raising or lowering the seat by 3.3 inches.

With the recent release of Dragon Ball FighterZ, Bandai Namco have proudly announced Dragon Ball FighterZ has already reached the 2 million total units sold mark, just within the first week of release.

What is more surprising though, is that this number has not been even been influenced by the Asia or Japanese markets, as Bandai is releasing the title into those regions a couple of days ago. It can be almost guaranteed that once Dragon Ball FighterZ hits both of those markets that the 2 million units sold will turn into something much higher.

Already with the recent success of the title, Bandai Namco has deemed Dragon Ball FighterZ the fastest selling Dragon Ball game ever, across all platforms.

Nintendo's earnings call has been jam-packed full of new information, one of the biggest subjects that was discussed was the paid online service coming to Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo announced their Nintendo Switch Online service that will debut this September. The service contains a bunch of extra benefits for Switch players, such as online gameplay, lobbies, voice chat and a "Classic Game Selection."

The service is only going to cost $20, and that isn't a monthly payment either, the $20 covers for a entire year of membership. It can be expected that in the coming months Nintendo will release a specific date or more information surrounding their Online Switch service, until then enjoy Nintendos' online services while you can.

We saw the Nintendo Switch back in December sell more than 1.5 million units in a month and now we learn from Nintendo's earnings call that the Nintendo Switch has beaten the lifetime sales margin of the Wii U.

Released 10 months ago back in March, the Nintendo Switch has reached more than 14.86 million unit sales before the end of 2017. This puts the Nintendo Switch ahead of the Wii U which is counted at 13.56 million units sold.

Game sales on the Nintendo Switch shared similar success with a massive 52.57 million games being sold on the hybrid console. Super Mario Odyssey reached took first place as most sold game, coming in with 9.06 million copies sold. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was second with 7.33 million and finally, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with 6.7 million copies sold.

The head of Minecraft, Helen Chiang has told PopSugar that their game has reached an all time high in terms of active monthly players, she has said that Minecraft has pulled in 74 million active players in December.

Even with the massive growth that Minecraft is experiencing Chiang has said that their goal is to keep bringing more content to players which will both apply to older players as well as the new.

Here is what Chiang had to say: "We just recently set a new record in December for monthly active users, so now we're at 74 million monthly active users - and that's really a testament to people coming back to the game, whether it's through the game updates or bringing in new players from across the world, that's really our goal, to keep building the community that we have."

I never thought I'd see the day that I'm writing that the co-creator of CS:GO has been accused of the sexual exploitation of a minor, with Jess Cliffe appearing in a King County courtroom on Friday where his bail was set to $150,000.

King County Prosecuting Attorney's office originally set Cliffe's bail at $250,000 "for the community's safety and the victim's safety", after Cliffe allegedly talked to at least one minor on the internet, where he said he paid for sex "multiple times". During one of these events, Cliffe purportedly recorded the sexual contact with the anonymous witness "against her will".

When the court set the $250,000 bail, Zachary Wagnild, the defense attorney for Cliffe, said: "Even if the facts are true as claimed, this was a meeting on an adult website. He was not looking for underage women and had no idea this woman was underage".

We have all seen the headlines lately, with cryptocurrency in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and hundreds more cryptocurrencies, as well as crypto mining, but now we find out industry heavyweight Samsung is getting into the crypto mining game.

New reports from last week hit South Korean outlet The Bell, where they reported Samsung had started manufacturing ASICs that they would provide to a Chinese mining firm, that is anonymous for now. A company spokesperson has told TechCrunch that "Samsung's foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing cryptocurrency mining chips".

This is gigantic news as right now, TSMC is the king of ASIC miners that they ship a large majority to Bitmain, the China-based Bitcoin miner that has over 70% of the market share.

Microsoft has made some big changes to their next version of Office, with the company announcing that Office 2019 will be released later this year, but only Windows 10 users will be able to enjoy it.

Office 2019 will only work on select Microsoft operating systems, including:

Now that we know Office 2019 will only work with Windows 10, what happens with Office 2020 when it's released? Well, Microsoft are doing this so that both Windows and Office are tied to each other for the very latest updates, especially in the wake of security bugs in Meltdown and Spectre.

Ubisoft has unveiled new details from the Far Cry 5 season pass, something that will include a bunch of goodies including a detailed DLC path, and a free copy of Far Cry 3.

Instead of continuing the storyline of Far Cry 5 with the DLC, Ubisoft will be providing three different pieces of DLC with Dead Living Zombies, Hours of Darkness, and Lost on Mars. This move gives me the same feels as Blood Dragon did, and I'm truly digging what Ubisoft is doing with Far Cry 5 and its season pass.

Dead Living Zombies will throw Far Cry 5 players against "hordes of the undead" in a "zombie-infested wasteland", while Hours of Darkness will throw you into Vietnam where you will fight the Viet Cong. Lost on Mars sounds the most interesting, as it will put players into a spacesuit and have you fighting giant spiders on Mars.

AMD will be having a huge year this year, at least in their CPU department, with the release of their refreshed Ryzen CPUs and new 400-series chipsets in a couple of months. But now news is breaking of their upcoming Starship/Mattise CPUs that will be released late this year and early 2019.

HWINFO is now recognizing a bunch of new CPUs, AMD's upcoming 400-series chipset, and even Intel's upcoming Ice Lake-SP platform. AMD's next-gen Starship CPU is going to be a monster, offering a huge 48C/96T of CPU power rocking the refreshed Zen+ or Zen 2 architecture.

Here's what HWINFO32 and HWINFO64 v5.72 supports:

First Red Dead Redemption 2 was to release in 2017, then it got delayed to Spring 2018...not Rockstar Games has delayed the game once again but also attaches a firm release date as well.

Today Rockstar Games announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 will release on October 26, 2018, ahead of the big annual holiday season sales blitz. "We apologize to everyone disappointed by this delay," the dev wrote on the blog post. "While we had hoped to have the game out sooner, we require a little extra time for polish."

The Western sequel looks like Rockstar's most ambitious game yet thanks to its graphical fidelity and effects, as well as the online-based component that will likely mirror GTA Online's sentiments, mechanics, and microtransactions. The team released a few new screenshots (see below) to highlight just how much effort they're putting into the project. In fact Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive says that the dev has built Red Dead Redemption 2 from the ground up specifically for consoles, hinting that it might skip PC.

Recent news coming out about the New Game+ mode being on the way to Assassin's Creed Origins has been toppled by Ubisoft releasing patch 1.21, bringing improvements all round.

The patch fixes a variety of things, an example is the bug where quest objectives would not be correctly updated. Another fix that has been implemented is the scaling down of enemy level progression when players are in Horde Mode, while also improving character animations at the same time.

Gamers that are interested in what their hardware can do on Assassin's Creed Origins benchmark will be glad to know that the patch also adds a 'save results' button when the results are shown. Also within this patch, is a fix for the game still running in the background after closing it by ALT + F4.