Latest News - Page 2110

French newspaper Le Pariksien has reported that a complaint has been made with the Paris Commerce Court against e-commerce super-giant Amazon for abusing their dominate position in the market.

This complaint will cause a two year investigation into Amazon from the DGCCRF which is a consumer fraud investigation company. The Economy Ministry is seeking a retribution stack of $10 million euros ($11.8 million USD), and they have also confirmed this complaint to be true and not taken as a warning.

A DGCCRF official named Loic Tanguy told Le Parisien that "The platform imposes unbalanced relations to its vendors."

For those who still use BlackBerry's Messenger app there has been an update that most will enjoy, Uber has become a in-built service within the app making for fast Uber calls and easier access.

It may seem strange as to why Uber and BlackBerry want to collaborate on what seems like a not so popular app let alone phone brand but for those wondering it is because currently there are 60 million users using the app in Indonesia alone, making it the most used app in the country.

Also, this update compliments the current surge in self driving vehicle services that India is going through right now, according to a report from Google and Temasek, 40 percent of the industry in South East Asia will become a ride-hailing business.

Project Loon is an initiative to connect as many of the planets population to the internet as possible through massive balloon technology that will use beams of light to deliver high-speed connectivity to remote places of the planet, such as some areas in India.

Currently over 53 million Indians are living in a state called Andhra Pradesh and less than 20% of the states population have access to standard broadband. To fix this issue the states government has decided to take action and has committed to providing the rest of residents that do not have access to the Internet a stable connection, to do this the Loon team partnered with Ap State FiberNet a telecom company in Andhra Pradesh to create Free Space Optimal Communications, or FSOC for short.

FSOC is basically optic-fiber speeds of internet just without the use of the cable, this was tested by Project Loon by sending a copy of the movie Real Genius between two balloons in the stratosphere 100 kilometers apart. Instead of laying optic-fiber cable to connect the state of Andhra Pradesh FSOC technology will be implemented by placing node boxes on roof tops or building towers.

Virgin Group invested into Hyperloop One earlier this year, which saw Virgin boss Richard Branson being placed onto the board, and adding Virgin's name to Hyperloop One.

Axios is now reporting that Branson is the new Hyperloop One chairman, replacing Shervin Pishevar who took a leave of absence after he was swept into sexual harassment allegations and an arrest for rape (that didn't result in a charge) just last month.

Now that Branson is the chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One, the company is reportedly receiving a bunch of new funding to the tune of $50 million from current investors Caspian Venture Capital and DP World. These two companies are based in Russia and Dubai, respectively, with Virgin Hyperloop One starting off on its capital and running out, with 300 employees at risk of losing their jobs if more funding wasn't secured.

EA is getting into the Christmas spirit by launching a new update to Need for Speed Payback, with the new Speedcross update adding a slew of new class of races, and much more.

Need for Speed Payback's new Speedcross races will see you driving through point-based competitions where all the cool stuff matters the most: jumps, high speeds, drifting, and destruction. NFS Payback developer Ghost Games is also throwing in new cars, steering wheel support (why didn't it launch with this?!), and multiplayer Drift Run competitions.

You'll need to own the Deluxe Edition version of the game in order to play the Speedcross races as it's paid DLC, but all of the new cars, multiplayer additions, and even steering wheel support are all free.

Ubisoft is working on what the future of autonomous driving could be like, teaming with car maker Renault on a VR experience for Renault's autonomous car.

Renault's concept car 'Symbioz' packs an Oculus Rift headset, with Ubisoft providing the VR experience that changes based on the immediate surroundings. So picture yourself sitting behind the drivers seat, with the car driving itself and you slide on your VR headset, playing games or watching a movie or TV episode.

Ubisoft explained in a news release: "The driver dives into an immersive universe which progressively changes from a realistic representation of both the vehicle and its immediate surrounding, to a futuristic and surrealist landscape".

Facebook has a bi-annual report that details all of the data requests the social networking company receives from the government, with their latest Transparency Report for the first half of 2017 being released.

We have information like account data, content restrictions and internet disruptions, as well as reports from rights holders related to copyright, trademark, and IP counterfeiting. The social networking giant said that government requests for users' data increased by 21% worldwide in the first half of 2017, compared to the first half of 2016.

Over half of those requests, some 57% of them included a non-disclosure order that stops Facebook from notifying the account holder of the request of data from the government. This number is up a whopping 50% from last year, with Facebook adding that there has been a massive 304% increase in the number of content restrictions around violating local law.

BMW has announced it has partnered with battery developer Solid Power, which was a company that was 'spun-out' of the University of Colorado Boulder, and has been working on solid state rechargeable batteries since 2012.

Doug Campbell, founder and CEO of Solid Power said in a statement: "Since the company's inception, the Solid Power team has worked to develop and scale a competitive solid state battery paying special attention to safety, performance and cost. Collaborating with BMW is further validation that solid state battery innovations will continue to improve electric vehicles".

Solid state batteries are the in-thing right now for EV battery companies and the future of autonomous cars, as they pack larger energy density, which extends the range of EVs, and they have much less chances of catching fire and exploding - while supporting rapid recharging.

Inno3D has stepped up into the cryptocurrency mining scene in a big way with the introduction of their new GPU Mining System P104-100 which packs up to 9 graphics cards based on the P104-100 GPU from NVIDIA.

Inside, the new Inno3D GPU Mining System packs a CPU controller card that includes an Intel Celeron 3865U mobile processor, 4GB DDR4-2133 SO-DIMM RAM, and a 64GB M.2 SSD.

As for the GPUs, Inno3D is using their P104-100 Crypto-Mining Accelerator which packs an "optimized GPU and circuit board for mining purposes" with Inno3D maximizing the GPU and memory clocks in order to provide maximum cryptocurrency mining performance.

Following the big Battlefront II controversy which rocked the foundations of EA's monetization strategy for the game, gamers have been taking aim at lootboxes in general and have pushed local governments to regulate them as gambling.

First the ESRB stated that lootboxes aren't gambling, then the ESA shortly followed. Now on the heels of big player pushback, New Zealand's gambling commission has sided in favor of big-name publishers. Contrary to popular belief from tons of gamers worldwide, the country's officials say that lootboxes in fact do not constitute gambling under their specific laws.

"While the payment of money for a loot box with the contents of which are determined by chance may appear to be gambling, the Darpartment is of the view that loot boxes do not meet the legal definition of gambling. The Department therefore has no ability to regulate this activity under the Gambling Act of 2003," New Zealand official Trish Millward wrote in a statement.

Starbreeze Studios and Overkill are collaborating on a big The Walking Dead online co-op shooter, and now the dev has released a few new tidbits about the title.

Back in May the devs unearthed tons of new details about their Walking Dead game, highlighting key features like the character-driven story that follows the comic series and the co-op action players can expect from the FPS. In fact, from the lingo thrown around in the latest interview with ComicsBeat, the game should be an online service-based game possibly with Payday 2-style microtransactions (or a season pass maybe).

"We started on the project in 2014, exploring technologies to allow us to build our unique vision for the game," game executive producer Saul Gascon told ComicsBeat. "Since then, the game has evolved and grown into something more engaging and better than what we originally planned. It's been great for us to have the time to see the game evolve to its current state. We look forward to showing it off next year, and get people excited for its fall 2018 release."

Eidos Montreal, the team that handles Deus Ex games, is pivoting towards online-based titles rather than singleplayer-only experiences.

In a time where online service games reign supreme it's only natural that more and more dev studios and publishers embrace the lucrative business model. It appears that Square Enix may have pushed Eidos Montreal into the online service game arena in a bid to raise long-term sales and revenue. The publisher has been gearing towards online infrastructures for a while now and has experimented with games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and the episodic Hitman game from 2016.

Within Eidos Montreal's new mission statement, the developer affirms it'll be propelling itself towards online gaming. This could fold neatly in with the reports of a new Guardians of the Galaxy game from the dev as the Deus Ex franchise is put on hold.

AMD might be an entire generation behind with their Vega GPU architecture, but their next-gen Navi GPU architecture is due sometime in late 2018 and has turned up as the elusive "Super Secret" ID in AMD's new driver.

In the latest AMD's drivers, there is code that reads "new_chip.gfx10.mmSUPER_SECRET.enable[0:0]". Someone spotted the new Super Secret ID in the latest Linux release of Radeon drivers, but it could be Team Red having some fun with us.

Navi could be the first GPU from AMD that would see a scalable GPU design being deployed, with many smaller Navi GPU dies interconnected through AMD's super-fast Infinity Fabric technology. This means AMD could drop GPU cores from each die, resulting in less cores per die but multiple dies added together would give us a Threadripper-like GPU design.

Obsidian has taken to their developers forums to address the question of whether micro-transactions will or will not be featured in the new Fallout Developers game, the simple answer which Obsidian them self gave is "no."

Obsidian has posted a short and sharp answer concerning the use of micro-transactions throughout their new game, they said that "No micro-transactions, of any kind, in our game" and continued by saying that their new found partnership with Take-Two Interactives Private Division has not influenced their creativity and vision of the game at all but instead benefited it greatly.

"We also wanted to say a word about our partnership with Private Division, our publisher on this title. Far from "pushing" us to put anything -- microtransactions or otherwise -- into our game, Private Division has been incredibly supportive of our vision, our creative freedom, and the process by which we work to make RPGs. They have been fantastic partners, and we are extremely excited to work with them through release, to put what we know is going to be an amazing game into as many hands as possible."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics over 3.8 million Americans operate vehicles as their way of income, truck driving being the largest profession employing about 1.7 million people. With these statistics in mind it can be easily said that when self-driving cars become the norm a very substantial amount of Americans will be effected and may result in a country wide job loss across any industry that is in need of a vehicle to operate.

A report from Intel has surfaced and the company has predicted at least $7 trillion will invested into the Passenger Economy by 2050.

The report reads: "Autonomous driving technology will enable a new "Passenger Economy" worth US $7 trillion - more than the projected 2017 GDPs of japan and Brazil combined."

Maximum Games and Iron Galaxy Games upcoming game 'Extinction' is scheduled for a release in Q1 2018, and has now been confirmed by the developer to not be featuring any micro-transactions, to go with this announcement the publisher has released a video showcasing the games skills and mechanics.

From the above video we can see that players will have the option of a variety of different skills and traits each benefiting the main character in different ways overall giving the edge in battle. It is explained that the foes you are versing will sometimes require players to unlock these trains is in order for a successful kill to take place, this system of making players flee from some foes means that each combat encounter will be different and challenging.

In attempt to save humanity from these massive monsters players will not only be using their unlocked traits and abilities to their advantage they will also be using the environment around them as much as they can. Sprinting across roof tops and climbing trees will become the norm as strategy with placement of your character will be detrimental to survival.

Google started a trade-in programing leading up to the launch of the Pixel 2 with a goal in mind of lowering the initial cost of their flagship phone. This new program is a great idea but complaints across the Pixel sub-reddit surfaced as people were not happy with the packaging Google was sending out for customers to send their phone back to receive the discount.

Until Google addressed this issue, plastic bubble wrap sleeves were sent out to customers that desired to trade-in their phone to acquire the discount but now Google has upgraded their packaging to new cardboard boxes lined with padded foam.

Feedback from the Pixel sub-reddit has generally be very good for this new change, with many people worried their phone would become damaged throughout the shipping process now can rest assured that they will receive their discount.

Global entry! We have teamed up with IN WIN to give away an awesome case and RGB fan kit to one lucky winner!

One person has the chance to take home the above two prizes, the IN WIN 101 white mid-tower computer chassis as well as three IN WIN Polaris RGB fans (one twin pack and one single pack).

How to Win

North Korea might have been the first country in the world to actually land a man on the Sun (don't worry, they went at night time when it's dark), and now they're expert hackers who have been working on a spearphishing campaign that targets cryptocurrency industry workers.

The hackers are targeting Bitcoin, where they trick workers into opening their systems through a Word document that needs to be edited in order to view the document. If the crypto expert falls for this, they open their system to rogue macro that silently loads a PC-hijacking trojan while the crypto worker is viewing the document.

North Korean hackers have been playing these games for over a month now, but Secureworks' analyst have indicated that this has been happening since as early as 2016. Secureworks adds that North Korea's hacking attempts are still on-going, and that they will have more information as they continue to investigate.

If you have been waiting with your money in-hand for the Ataribox Indiegogo campaign, you'll be waiting a little longer as the team has explained that there is a "key element" missing that is holding them back from throwing the Ataribox up for pre-order.

Atari announced back in September that it would be launching its refreshed Ataribox console in a crowdfunding campaign in the Fall, with systems shipping in Spring 2018. Atari has issued an update that explains the delayed Indiegogo campaign that was meant to kick off on December 14, and is being placed on pause for now.

Atari's statement reads: "Because of one key element on our checklist, it is taking more time to create the platform and ecosystem the Atari community deserve. Building Ataribox is incredibly important to us and we will do whatever it takes to be sure it is worth the wait".