Latest News - Page 2118

Star Citizen is currently within 3.0 alpha and the game seems nowhere near close to being complete, developers Cloud Imperium Games have also added microtransactions to the game even though they are the most successfully crowdfunded company to date, they have turned to what every PC gamer currently can't stand.

With the amount of ambition Star Citizen has and not to mention the pressure the company is on after receiving so much support, there is a clear fact that Star Citizen would benefit from having microtransactions as an option within the game.

Already, the game contains the option to purchase licenses for land plots on planets, moons and asteroids that are controlled by the United Empire of Earth. The plots are costing $50 for 4km x 4km and 8km x 8km for $100, through in-game currencies these plots can also be earned and will have no advantage when the game is fully released.

The Boring Company owned by Elon Musk plans to use underground pods to create a new way for cars to travel over long distances using underground pods that would avoid traffic congestion.

Musk has already begun the process of getting permission for projects to begin in Maryland and will bid on more projects in Chicago to link downtown Chicago with O'Hare Airport.

The City of Chicago is asking for initial proposals for a high speed rail that will reduce the time it takes travelers to get to the city by 20 minutes, underground or above ground trains are the conventional choice but Musk has other idea's and he plans to carry them out with having proposals due by January 23, 2018.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has had quite an increase in net worth over the course of the Black Friday sales, mixed in with Alexa sales taking off, Amazon have now added a subscription fee for Alexa's in-skill purchases.

In-skill purchases is the app store of voice commands for your Alexa device, allowing for third-party developers to contribute to the new platform is setting the foundations for a future mainstream adoption into voice commanded devices.

Games that will be featured on the new subscription side of Alexa will be Match Game, Heads Up and a trivia game from the History Channel. These in-skill purchases and the subscription are currently both in preview and will be made available to a larger number of people sometime next year.

Back in 2014 Yahoo experienced a hack that exposed close to 500 million accounts, and now a Canadian citizen has just recently pleaded guilty to assisting a Russian intelligence officers in the hack. 22-year-old Karim Baratov has been arrested while another three individuals are facing charges back in Russia.

Prosecutors have stated that two of the Russian hackers are working for the Russian spy agency FSB, while the third is known Russian hacker Alexsey Belan. Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin are believed to have directed the attack and are also the ones that contacted Baratov when their targets were compromised with email accounts outside of Yahoos system. California's U.S Attorney's Office dives deeper into the details of the case, fleshing out the scope of abundant charges.

"According to his plea agreement, Baratov's role in the charged conspiracy was to hack webmail accounts of individuals of interest to the FSB and send those accounts' passwords to Dokuchaev in exchange for money. As alleged in the indictment, Dokuchaev, Sushchin, and Belan compromised Yahoo's network and gained the ability to access Yahoo accounts. When they desired access to individual webmail accounts at a number of other internet service providers, such as Google and Yandex (based in Russia), Dokuchaev tasked Baratov to compromise such accounts."

Since its launch back in May this year Hulu have been rolling out its TV service to several different platforms, and now Hulu has plans to be apart of Samsung's TVs.

All of Samsung's Smart TV 2017 models will be universally updated to support the use of the Hulu app, this update will automatically be forced upon users once the next time that they use the Hulu app.

Apple TV, Xbox One, iOS, Android, chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox 360 and even the Nintendo Switch already feature this app, leaving Sony's PlayStation the lone service not featuring Hulu. The holdout from Sony would have to do with PlayStation already featuring a TV service on their console, PlayStation Vue. It is doubtful that Sony will cave into the service being on their console, if they were going to they most likely would of done it by now.

Apple boss Tim Cook has not given up on autonomous cars quite just yet, even with recent reports of engineers leaving - autonomous driving is still the main objective coming into the new year for Apples car plans.

Tim Cook said earlier this year in June that "We're focusing on autonomous systems, It's a core technology that we view as very important." Cook continued by saying that this is "probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on."

According to Jalopnik, Apple is ready to put these autonomous driving technologies to the test on roads. Reports from Jalopnik say that Apple is set to hire proving grounds in Arizona for road testing, this would include various driving conditions and an array of different scenarios.

Samsung is expected to unveil its next-gen Galaxy S9 smartphone sometime in early 2018, but what SoC will it be powered with? The company usually goes with its usual one-two punch of outsourcing to Qualcomm for their Snapdragon line of chips, while using their own in-house Exynos processor for different markets.

But according to the latest rumors, Qualcomm will be providing their Snapdragon 845 processor on the 10nm FinFET LPE node while the Exynos 9810 powered model will be made on the better 10nm LPP process. The difference between LPE and LPP nodes? Around 10% performance, and 15% better power efficiency, which when we're talking about smartphones - is a lot.

The additional performance and savings in battery life will be great, especially for those shooting 4K 60FPS video or smartphone users who are multi-tasking constantly. We will have to wait and see what Samsung does, and what SoC that Qualcomm provides in early 2018.

There might be websites tacking onto users' CPUs to mine cryptocurrency, but now we're seeing electric cars mining cryptocurrency - with the latest story seeing a Tesla owner using his Model S to mine cryptocurrency, inside of his trunk.

The electricity to mine cryptocurrency is free for this miner, as he's plugging his Model S up to Tesla's Superchargers. If the owner was using a bunch of GTX 1060s the power consumption wouldn't be too bad (150W x 24), but the trunk is small so the heat would be immense, and the airflow would be subpar. As a miner myself, I can't keep my garage cool enough... let alone the trunk of my car.

I don't know anyone who would spend $100K on a car to mine cryptocurrency in the trunk, from free electricity provided by the Tesla Supercharger network... I never thought I'd see the day, but here we are.

Nintendo for the first time in 28 years, as officially endorsed the new Super Mario Cereal. Yeah, that's not a typo. The company has teamed up with Kellogg's for Super Mario Cereal, as a limited edition cereal box that will reach the US next month.

Nintendo explains: "With Super Mario Cereal, Nintendo and Kellogg's have teamed up to take fans on a breakfast odyssey that will continue long after the cereal box is empty. This powered-up partnership with Kellogg's is another exciting way for us to expand the Nintendo brand in unique and creative ways. We are always looking for new opportunities to bring smiles to people of all ages, and this is a fun way to kick off the day".

The company continued: "The limited-edition cereal box will begin hitting store shelves across the US next month. Those playing the Super Mario Odyssey game can tap the cereal box on the Nintendo Switch system, like you would an Amiibo, to receive gold coins or a heart in the game. Even the cereal itself has a Super Mario twist, with colorful power-up marshmallows and a blast of mixed berry flavor in every box".

AMD is teasing its next major graphics driver software update, something the company is calling Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. The new drivers will be released in December, but we can't say when just yet.

As for the new drivers, AMD says that Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition "is where visible and invisible have been woven together to empower gamers and enrich the visual experience"... or whatever that means. The new drivers should feature OSD performance monitoring which will be a great thing for enthusiasts, and it's something I've wanted for years now.

Once AMD releases their new drivers we'll re-run all of our Radeon RX series graphics cards (RX 480, RX 580, RX Vega 56, RX Vega 64, RX Vega 64 LCE) and see what performance/power/temp differences there are. We shouldn't have too much longer to wait.

Battlegrounds will be launching exclusively to the Xbox One on December 12, but there will be some Xbox One X specific enhancements that will provide a much smoother chicken dinner experience.

During an interview with gamesTM issue 194, Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene said that PUBG will be running at 60FPS on Xbox One. He said: "Xbox is synonymous with gaming, you know what I mean? And there's a huge player base out there that prefer to play on console, so bringing it to the Xbox One systems is just great".

Greene continued: "It's like I can finally say yup, I have a game on Xbox. So I think we could see incredible numbers on console, but again, I don't want to jinx it. We're more focused on getting a good game out. Like, as much as it sounds a bit shitty, we're not focused on player numbers. Sure, from a server point of view we have to be, but that's what our goal here is. It's not to have millions of players, our goal is to put a good game onto both platforms".

In a highly-competitive market of mid-tower cases, its easy to get lost in the vast range of products on offer. SilverStone have added to the sea of products with upcoming release of the Primera PM02 case, this mid-tower case features your typical tempered glass side panel, great connectivity and a hypnotizing front design, but doesn't stand out from the crowd.

Featuring a mesh-like front, that is both bold yet aesthetically pleasing in appearance, the Primera PM02 is available in two color options- black with red highlights, or white with black highlights. The appearance is finished off with a full-sized tempered glass panel that looks fantastic.

Supporting graphics cards up to 415mm in length, the PM02 also supports CPU coolers up to 167mm and PSUs up to 190mm that is hidden away within the PSU shroud that also can house up to 3 HDD's. Storage support also features an additional three 2.5" drives hidden away behind the motherboard tray. Pre-installed with 3x120mm fans are included up the front and 1x120mm fan in the rear, with SilverStone's latest case allowing the ability to house up to six 120mm fans for excellent ventilation. Whilst on the topic of cooling, the PM02 can support up to 360mm radiator in the front, 140mm radiator in the rear and 2x120mm or up to 1x 280mm radiator up the top.

CHERRY have added a unique feature to their latest mouse, an integrated fingerprint reader. Aimed at business and public institutions, the MC 4900 is your typical everyday mouse with an exceptional ergonomic design that we've come to expect from CHERRY, but with the addition of an integrated fingerprint reader.

The MC 4900 utilizes an integrated Crossmatch TouchChip TCS2 sensor based on capacitive sensing technology, with the principle being that this mouse will excel in workstations that requires multiple users within the company or government agency to allow for easy, quick and secure log in identification.

Suitable for both right and left-hand operators, this symmetrical mouse is also features full compatibility with Windows Hellow, 1375 DPI optical sensor and finished off with a 1.8m long USB cable.

During the recent Amazon Web Services re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, AWS boss Andy Jassy announced that the company will be enabling a suite of AI-powered tools. Jassy told the audience of over 40,000 people: "We have to solve the problem of making [AI] accessible for everyday developers and scientists".

These new cloud-based AI tools will be capable of measuring sentiment, tracking people in live feeds, translating languages, and much more. The list of things that the new AI enabled services AWS has is scary good, check them out:

The short-lived Pokemon GO phenomenon saw millions of players getting out into the real-world for a while, but the game also caused hundreds of accidents and even deaths because people weren't looking where they were going.

According to a new study titled 'Death by Pokemon GO' by Purdue University economists Mara Faccio and John McConnell, the AR-based game resulted in somewhere between $2 billion and $7.3 billion of vehicular damage alone, in its first 148 days post-release. The researchers collected the data from crash reports in Tippecanoe, Indiana during the first five months of Pokemon GO's release.

They discovered that there were not just two deaths, but between $5.2 million and $25.5 million in additional damages caused from events related to Pokemon GO. After that, they scaled the numbers up adjusting for the entire US population to have an average of 100,000 accidents.

Fortnite has been updated for the Xbox One X, with developer Epic Games increasing the visual quality of the game up to something that's said to be comparable to the PC running on "Epic" quality.

Epic Games' new v1.9.1 update for Fortnite also bumps the resolution to 4K on the Xbox One X, but it's not being rendered in native 4K. Instead, Fortnite is rendered at 80% of 4K resolution, and then upscaled to 4K using a high-quality software upsampler. But don't worry, Fortnite's UI is rendered in native 4K, hooray.

The improved "Epic" graphics quality setting will give Fortnite better looking reflections, greater draw distances, higher resolution textures and shadows, and higher quality post processes like motion blur, anti-aliasing, and depth of field.

It was only earlier this year that Microsoft boasted that there were over 500 million devices powered by Windows 10, but six months later the Redmond-based giant has added another 100 million users bringing the total to a whopping 600 million.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the new figures during Microsoft's annual shareholders meeting today, missing the mark that they planned on reaching by 2018. Originally, Microsoft expected to have Windows 10 running on 1 billion devices, but is now 400 million - or 40%, short of that number.

The Verge report that Microsoft revised its numbers for Windows 10 installations, targeting 550 million active Windows 10 devices by the end of June, and 575 million by the end of September. This means reaching 600 million by the end of November is falling into line, but will there ever be 1 billion Windows 10 devices? If so, it won't be in 2018 at this rate.

With all of the hoopla surrounding the record breaking price of Bitcoin (John McAfee has now said he'd 'eat his own d*ick' if BTC didn't hit $1 million by 2020), a federal judge in San Francisco ruled on Wednesday that Coinbase will be forced to provide the IRS with information on its users who are traded more than $20,000 in cryptocurrency in a year, between 2013-2015.

The IRS noticed a bunch of tax returns claiming gains from cryptocurrency that didn't line up with the emerging popularity of digital currencies like Bitcoin as an investment vehicle, so the IRS asked Coinbase to provide information on its users. Coinbase isn't happy, pushing the court into a compromise that the company has called a "partial victory".

The court documents read: "Coinbase itself admits that the Narrowed Summons requests information regarding 8.9 million Coinbase transactions and 14,355 Coinbase account holders. That only 800 to 900 taxpayers reported gains related to bitcoin in each of the relevant years and that more than 14,000 Coinbase users have either bought, sold, sent or received at least $20,000 worth of bitcoin in a given year suggests that many Coinbase users may not be reporting their bitcoin gains".

It has only been a few weeks since WB's release of Justice League, which hasn't been doing too well (and Superman's mouth has seen better days) - but now Marvel have dropped the hammer with the first official trailer to Avengers: Infinity War.

Avengers: Infinity War continues to epic tale of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a new enemy: Thanos the Mad Titan, which is voiced by the legendary Josh Brolin. Avengers: Infinity War has a release date of May 4, 2018 which isn't too far away and will see most of our beloved MCU characters duking it out. The story is so epic, it'll culminate in the second release on May 3, 2019.

I'm pumped for the movie, but need to see more of it before my hype meter blows up. Let me know what you thought about the trailer in the comments below.

Now that Bitcoin has reached its all-time high of over $10,000 we're now seeing plenty of people coming out making their own predictions of where Bitcoin will be in 2, 3, or 5 years time.

John McAfee, the anti-virus legend, has come out saying that he predicts Bitcoin will be priced at $1 million before the end of 2020, and if he's wrong he has said on Twitter to his 118K followers that he will "still eat my d*ick". Now I'm wanting to agree with McAfee that Bitcoin will indeed reach $1 million by 2020, but I wouldn't bet eating my own d*ck, but hey that's just me.