Latest News - Page 2143

With all of the issues going on in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the FCC fast-tracked 60 x Project Loon internet ballons to fly over both countries for six months.

Alphabet is behind Project Loon, with Google's parent company pushing cellular data capabilities from the skies. Project Loon would return internet connectivity to countless residents. Project Loon was recently deployed in Peru after floods affected the city, with Alphabet teaming with Peruvian network Telefonica to help get the signals from the ground and allocate them into the right spectrum and services.

An Alphabet spokesperson told Wired: "Things are a little more complicated because we're starting from scratch. Loon needs be integrated with a telco partner's network-the balloons can't do it alone".

Samsung had quite a year last year with the battery-related issues surrounding the Galaxy Note 7, all of which seem to be gone on the new Galaxy Note 8, seem to be somewhat present on the new iPhone 8 Plus.

Some users are experiencing the side of the iPhone 8 Plus display separated from the phone itself, something that normally requires an incredible amount of force to do manually. Both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were built using water-resistant adhesive that is hard enough to remove, let alone arrive like that out of the box.

Chinese site ThePaper.cn is reporting that an iPhone owner received their new iPhone 8 Plus on October 5, noticing that the screen has been popped open. Inside, there was no sign of an explosion at all, but an Apple spokesperson has chimed in saying that the company isn't commenting on the matter but are looking into it.

With its distinctive style and beautiful art, Cuphead is a charming game...but it carries with it a beastly difficulty that requires skill to tame. This difficulty adds vivacity to the experience, and gives it life...and I think it's important the game is hard. Not only does it add value to the experience, it adds character to the game.

Cuphead is the type of game that instantly steals the show. It's the kind of game that people gravitate towards. I showed the game to a few non-gamers in my life and they all loved it, wanted to know more; it spoke to them, pulled them in and engaged them. The style and amazing hand-drawn art was very enamoring and completely broke the awkward ice that can frost up any encounter. But when I let them try it...well that was another story. Some laughed when they died, a few were determined to get through the first run and gun level. While most people I showed it to gave up with a smile, saying things like "Oh this is too hard," and "DAMN!", one of them beat the level, and the look on their face was priceless. That's the face of triumph, and it's something that can't really be explained in words--it's a raw voltage current of elation that anyone who frequently plays video games knows well.

But without this difficulty, the triumph wouldn't be there. Without its harsh, brutal and un-endingly cruel bosses and levels, Cuphead would be just another beautiful indie. If gamers weren't constantly beaten at their own game by nefarious bouncing blue blobs, mermaids with octopus hair, or killer sunflowers, that spiking current of victory wouldn't ignite the best emotion you can ever feel while playing a video game. That feeling is magic. It's the feeling you get when finally beating that Dark Souls boss, or getting your first Killtacular in a Halo: CE LAN match, or finally taking down that cutely animated boss that's killed you 30 times in a row--it's enthralling, live excitement, and it's something gamers live for.

The Witcher 3's open-ended fantasy world is beautiful, vibrant, and dynamic--constantly shifting with new things to do, with the cities bustling with life and teeming monsters roaming the wilds. To keep the world feeling alive, and to keep players interested and engaged with the world, CD Projekt RED's dev team made the "40 second rule."

When building a massive open world, it's important to keep players actively engaged and interested in the content and interactive features the world has to offer. Lots of teams focus on dynamism to pull this off, or the world's natural alive feeling where things change; mercenaries sharpen swords, city guardsman roam the streets, men and women work fields while monsters and animals roam, hunt, and die in the wilds. Even with all of that, players still have to know about the shifting world state, and more importantly, they have to feel engaged.

To tackle this problem, The Witcher 3's world-building team created the "40 second rule" which stipulated that players have to see something every 40 seconds. "We did some tests and we found the player is focused on the stuff which we produce. Every forty seconds they should see something and focus on it, like a pack of deer or some opponents, some NPCs wondering about. So we have our rule of 40 seconds," said Bartosz Von Ochman, who worked on Living World Design for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, said in the latest episode of noclip's Witcher series. If only BioWare didn't try to up the ante from Dragon Age II and followed the 40 second rule with Dragon Age: Inquisition.

While developing the massive world of The Witcher 3, the devs at CD Projekt RED came across many bugs...but one of them, the zero-zero bug, was like the Bermuda Triangle of assets.

Bugs are common in games development, especially when the project encompasses huge open worlds like The Witcher 3. While making the game, CD Projekt RED's environment team had to deal with a unique glitch called the "zero-zero bug", which would see items, assets, renders and pretty much anything vanish in certain spots in the world. When the team hit CTRL+Z to move an item around in this spot, the physics bug would send the item falling through the map-- it was as if parts of the map were haunted, or there were windows to the Twilight Zone thrown open in the team's dev tools. Wormwholes that were swallowing up assets and putting them...somewhere.

"We were doing optimization passes, and part of that is figuring out physics, right? How many physical objects can we have actually move around in a space. And I remember we were being told that there's an area where there's a really weird house where items drop and disappear. We had to actually do research to figure out where the items went," said Miles Tost, level designer for The Witcher 3, in the most recent NoClip Witcher documentary.

Intel has finally launched its new Coffee Lake-based Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8600K processors, with pro-overclocker Der8auer and CaseKing.de teaming up to offer the new CPUs in pre-binned, and special designed IHS variants.

CaseKing is offering three different versions of the 6C/12T variant, with the Core i7-8700K being offered in the following options:

Any enthusiast who is looking to overclock will want to seriously consider this awesome offer, especially given the CPUs are pre-binned to hit 5.2GHz... looks like it's time to grab one myself.

Amazon wants to cut down on its reliance of third-party companies delivering its goods once they leave their respective distribution centers, with Bloomberg reporting the everything giant is testing its own delivery service.

This move would allow Amazon to reduce overcrowding its factory warehouses, as well as providing two-day Prime shipping on more of its products. Amazon is already delivering goods in India, but will be making its big splash in delivering goods in the US very soon with trials already kicking off near the West Coast. Bloomberg reports that Amazon's delivery services will be made available to other states soon.

Amazon's delivery service is reportedly called Seller Flex, which is... well... really odd. Amazon Delivery or Amazon To You (or something like that). The Verge received a statement from FedEx, one of two companies that would be directly impacted by Amazon's new Seller Flex program.

Intel's new Core i7-8700K has barely been out for 24 hours and it has already been thrown under LN2 cooling and cranked all the way up to 7.405GHz... a huge overclock from its maximum Turbo clocks of 4.7GHz.

HWBOT user Kovan Yang broke der8auer's record on the 8700K of 7.3GHz, with Yang's use of the 73x multiplier and 101.44MHz bus speed hitting the magic 7.405GHz mark. Yang hasn't said how much voltage was used, which would be something very important to know. We do know that Yang used the 6C/12T processor @ 7.405GHz on MSI's Z370 Godlike Gaming motherboard, though.

Most people should reach 5GHz with AIO or good air cooling on the Core i7-8700K, and with anything more serious, the sky is the limit for Coffee Lane... especially when it comes to LN2.

With a standardized platform, SteamVR support, and increased accessibility, Microsoft's wide net of OEM-powered Mixed Reality headsets will have significant advantages over its competitors at launch--which should see the headsets outselling the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift by two-to-one, analyst firm SuperData predicts.

Microsoft's new Windows 10 Mixed Reality platform is the first earnest push to cohesively meld big OEMs and low-cost headsets together into a standardized OS-level framework. OEMs like HP, Dell, ASUS, Acer, Lenovo and now Samsung are all making their own Windows 10 powered headsets that range from $299 upwards of $500, and all provide slightly different features while retaining a core experience. Big advantages include built-in tracking, Windows 10 support with a slew of software and development tools, SteamVR gaming support, and two wand controllers that come with every headset.

The real goal is to push Mixed Reality--which includes both Virtual and Augmented Realities--to new heights by abolishing key barriers that stand in the way of VR's mainstream adoption. Essentially Microsoft's MR platform aims to merge the ease-of-use and accessibility of mobile-powered VR headsets like the Samsung Gear VR, which sits at the top of the VR market, with the high-powered dedicated gaming headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, all while wrapping everything up into a neat Windows 10 package. Using the OS and various tools, OEMs can make lower cost headsets that can run on integrated laptop graphics instead of expensive discrete video cards while splashing in productivity and entertainment capabilities to boot.

The Evil Within 2, the sequel to 2014's cult macabre hit, comes out in a week and here's what hardware you'll need to run the game at minimum settings.

Bethesda today announced the PC spec requirements for the second chapter of its Evil Within series, and the results aren't too bad. While the publisher doesn't specify what resolution or frame rates the targeted spec configurations will support in-game, we should suppose that minimum requirements enable play on the lowest preset settings (possibly 720p resolution at 30FPS, etc), whereas recommended may enable 1080p 60FPS at the high preset.

In order to play The Evil Within 2 on PC you'll need at least an Intel Core i5-2400 or AMD FX-8320 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 GPU with 2GB of VRAM or an AMD Radeon HD 7970 with 3GB of VRAM. Recommended settings call for an Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X CPU (or better), 16GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of VRAM or an AMD Radeon RX 480 GPU with 8GB of VRAM (or better). The full game will also clock in at 40GB.

Activision have today announced a bonus multiplayer map for their upcoming Call of Duty: WWII, and it will bring a smile to all those veterans of Call of Duty. There is one catch however, you must have purchased the Call of Duty: WWII Season Pass...

Acitivision today announced that a new-old map will be made available to gamers who have purchased the CoD:WWII Season Pass, called Carentan. You may remember this multiplayer map from the original Call of Duty, Call of Duty: United Offensive, and Call of Duty 2.

The Season Pass for Call of Duty: WWII will feature four DLC Packs that will add new multiplayer maps, chapters for Nazi Zombies and new War Missions. Be sure to pick up the Season Pass prior to the official release on November 3.

G.SKILL have announced their new Trident Z and Trident Z RGB memory kits for 8th Gen Intel Core processors built on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture and Z370 chipset motherboards. These kits utilize Samsung's B-die integrated circuit components that focuses on performance. G.SKILL have introduced three impressive kits, including the two-channel DDR4-4600MHz Trident Z kit, the quad-channel DDR4-4200MHz Trident Z kit and the quad-channel DDR4-4000MHz Trident Z RGB kit for all those RGB lovers out there.

G.SKILL are out to prove they're the kings of DDR4 memory with their ultra-fast Trident Z DDR4-4600MHz kit that features timings of CL19-25-25-45 at 1.5V, this is insane performance.

If you want performance, but aren't willing to sacrifice memory capacity, the Trident Z DDR4-4200MHz is the perfect solution. This quad-channel kit runs CL19-21-21-41 timings at 1.4V and is a great all-round solution.

I love when innovation and technology come together, I work for an automotive manufacturer where our body-assembly plant is 94% automated and features 279 robots that assemble and weld the vehicles body-structure together. In Germany, Adidas have opened their first robotic factory, dubbed the "Speedfactory".

Adidas plan to use the German Speedfactory to manufacture a new series of Adidas shoes, the AM4 series. These specifically designed shoes feature six models that each reflect six of the world's biggest cities across the globe. First up is the AM4LDN, tailored for London and will be available on October 19. Next is AM4PAR, the Paris designed shoe will be available October 26. Unfortunately, the remaining models are all stated for 2018 releases including AM4LA (Los Angeles), AM4NYC (New York City), AM4TKY (Tokyo) and AM4SHA (Shanghai).

Adidas aren't holding anything back, already announcing that a second robotic Speedfactory will be opening in Atlanta in 2018, creating roughly 160 jobs for the city.

Google have announced that everyone's favorite assistant is back, in a new slimmed-down miniature version. The Google Home Mini is everything you've came to love from the Google Home range only in a smaller, more versatile miniature smart speaker. Featuring a 360 degree speaker with 40mm drivers, the physical size of the Google Home Mini is about the size of a mini-donut at 3.86inch diameter and 1.65inch in height.

A direct competitor to Amazon's Echo Dot, both smart speakers are very similar with Google Home Mini utilizing Google Assistant. Featuring Bluetooth, touch controls for volume and a physical switch for muting voice commands, Google have provided 3 colors to suit your preference- Chalk, Charcoal and Coral and is finished in a soft-touch mesh material.

Google Home Mini grants you can control of your Chromecast streaming devices, access to Google Play Music, and YouTube. Unfortuntly, Google haven't included an audio output jack, this means you cannot use your Google Home Mini as an audio source for your home theatre setup or as media streaming center.

ASUS ROG have announced two new motherboard series based on Intel's Z370 chipset, the Maximus X and Strix Z370 series. These motherboards support up to 6C/12T 8th Generation Intel Core Coffee Lake processors to deliver exceptional performance, unmatched versatility and impressive overclocking potential. The Maximus X is designed for enthusiasts and gamers while the Strix family provides performance to a wide range of builds and budgets.

The Maximus X range is designed for gamers who demand exceptional performance with the latest games and for overclocking enthusiasts. The Maximus X Apex is an overclocking beast and perfect for hardcore gamers. While the Maximus X Hero is a premium balanced choice of performance and premium extras. The Maximus X code is the perfect balance for gaming and enthusiasts and the Maximus X Formula is the centerpiece of a showcase PC.

The Strix Z370 range provides everything gamers need in a motherboard without breaking the budget. Full-sized ATX options include the Strix Z370-E, Z370-F Gaming and the retro-revival of the Strix Z370-H Gaming. Smaller form factors are served by the mATX Strix Z370-G Gaming and Mini-ITX Strix Z370-I Gaming.

Airbus will be taking to the skies with its new flying taxi concept, with its first flight to take place by the end of 2018, according to the company.

The first flips will be unmanned, I'm guessing for safety concerns, but there are plans for human pilots and a four-person aircraft that will fly people around in cities by 2023, before they become completely autonomous.

Airbus announced the autonomous flying taxi concept back in August 2016, with the company looking at using quad-rotor designs. Airbus is using a VTOL method (vertical take-off and landing), mixed with an electric-powered aircraft, it should fly four people around very easily through cities.

Battlegrounds might be the only one getting into the headlines right now, but Fortnite is doing a good job of getting similar fan fare, especially after its new Battle Royale mode was released.

Developer Epic Games announced on Twitter recently that Fortnite had passed 7 million players. Two new features were also announced for Fortnite: Battle Royale, with Duos and Supply Drops now up for grabs. Duo lets you get into Fortnite: Battle Royale with another player, while Supply Drops see well... supply drops falling from the sky in random places, with the "best look you can find".

Remember that Fortnite is a free-to-play game, so those 7 million players aren't all paying customers. Epic Games announced in July that 500,000 people purchased the paid tiers of Fortnite in the days after launch, with the base version of the game costing $40 on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

There are hundreds of millions of Netflix users, with most of them using the most popular $9.99 per month plan.

Netflix has just increased this plan by $1 per month to $10.99 per month, while the Ultra HD plan goes from $11.99 per month to $13.99 per month. While consumers probably aren't happy with the news, Netflix stock reached an all-time high of $194.39 after the price increase news was released.

Are you happy with the price increase?

Google might have unveiled their next-gen Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones with the usual bang, but the biggest surprise might just be their new Google Pixel Buds.

Pixel Buds are Google's new Bluetooth neckbuds that feature a circular like design that loops into your ear, with up to 5 hours of listening time. Google even offers you a charging case, something that will provide Pixel Buds with 24 hours of charge... enough for a few recharge sessions.

Google's new Pixel Buds have Google Translate built-in, with support for over 40 languages in real-time translation during your conversations. The most unfortunate part of Pixel Buds is that Google has locked down the real-time translation to Pixel smartphones, but as neckbuds they'll work with any Bluetooth-enabled device.

Epic Games' own Unreal Engine 4 graphics engine powers countless games, some of them you're playing are probably powered by UE4 and you might not even know it. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is a UE4-powered game, which is absolutely killing it right now, and so is another Battle Royale game: Fortnite.

Unreal Engine 4 is one of the most, if not the most popular third-party engine on the market with massive games like Paragon, PUBG, and more powered by the engine. Epic Games is now working on optimizations to Unreal Engine 4 for larger maps, the perfect time for UE4 optimization now that Fortnite: Battle Royale is here, and PUBG killing the Steam most-played games chart constantly.

There are some huge changes for the console, with Xbox One and PS4 both receiving massive improvements. Check out what Unreal Engine 4.18 will deliver: