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Apple is rumored to release their new smart glasses or AR headset later this year, and now The Financial Times are reporting that the iPhone maker is making a pair of AR-powered smart glasses, lining up with the various rumors that Apple is set to crank the dial to 11 later this year.

Apple is looking at multiple ways of delivering its glasses, with one design featuring 3D cameras and wait for it... no display on the device itself. There's no final design just yet, as Apple would be keeping this under wraps more so than any other launch in their history. The report states: "A particular area of experimentation, people familiar with the matter say, is a pair of AR glasses that might move cameras, sensors and screens from the smartphone to the face. Yet despite the excitement surrounding ARKit, internally the company is still not sure what the most compelling application for such a headset might be".

We should expect the company to unveil their next-gen iPhone sometime next month, with the purported iPhone X and iPhone 8 to be unveiled alongside next-gen smart glasses. It's an exciting time to be a technology enthusiast, that's for sure.

SIGGRAPH 2017 - AMD were on fire at SIGGRAPH 2017, debuting their new Radeon Pro SSG and Radeon Pro WX 9100 graphics cards, both based on the new Vega GPU architecture and both featuring HBM2 tech, and HBCC.

The new Radeon Pro WX 9100 is AMD's new workstation graphics card that is built for today and tomorrows video and design/manufacturing workloads, featuring 12.3 TFLOPs of peak single preciion compute performance. Inside, the Radeon Pro WX 9100 features the full Vega 10 NCU, 16GB of HBM2 ECC memory, and AMD's next-gen High Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC).

AMD's new Radeon Pro WX 9100 handles 8K 60Hz, 4K 120Hz and everything in between with its DisplayPort 1.4 HDR-ready connections for up to 6 displays.

SIGGRAPH 2017 - NVIDIA had a lot to show at SIGGRAPH 2017 this year, with Quadro P6000 systems that were editing 8K video in real-time, to multiple different demonstrations of artificial intelligence and deep learning systems.

One of the AI demonstrations was an AI system called Isaac, who was a Pixar-style robot that you played dominoes against. NVIDIA had a sealed off room that you stepped into, with 3 x systems all powered with high-end Quadro P6000 graphics cards. One of the systems was powering a HTC Vive headset, while the other two were GPU grunt for the AI system, Isaac.

In the VR world, you stand in a class room, across the table from Isaac. Isaac is there to play dominoes against, with NVIDIA building their AI system to detect your moves in the game, and then countering them. If you placed a domino down and it had a single dot, Isaac would respond by working out what he's seeing (a domino with a single dot) and then reaching for one of his dominoes, and placing it next to yours - prompting you for your next move.

Steam is riding a huge wave of PC gaming, especially with Battlegrounds just eating up the Steam charts, but over the last 18 months the company has added 27 million new gamers to Steam... or 1.5 million gamers per month.

GeekWire is reporting that one of Valve's slides at a presentation showed that Steam has 33 million daily active players, and 67 million monthly active players. Since January 2016, Valve has added 27 million new gamers to Steam, or 1.5 million per month for 18 months. Steam has also reached a huge 14 million concurrent users, up from 8.4 million in 2015 - while 125 million registered users in total.

Breaking the numbers into region, the US scoops up 34% of Steam gamers, while Europe is home to 29%. Asia continues to get bigger for Steam, hitting 17% of all users spread across Korea, China, and Japan.

Update: I've talked to AMD about this article since it went live, and I've been informed that something isn't right here - and that the new Radeon Pro SSG will wipe the floor with NVIDIA's Quadro P6000 graphics card. AMD has promised to send me a Radeon Pro SSG when it launches to do my own in-house testing against the P6000 with real-time 8K video editing, something that is meant to be only capable on Radeon Pro SSG.

AMD debuted their upcoming Radeon Pro SSG during Capsaicin just before SIGGRAPH 2017 kicked off, with their next-gen Vega GPU architecture featuring a 2TB NVMe drive soldered to the graphics card as 2TB of massively-fast cache. Perfect, and reportedly needed for real-time 8K video editing from RED Cinema cameras... until we visited NVIDIA a couple of days later.

NVIDIA were showing off their Quadro P6000 graphics card, which has been available for months and months now, editing 8K footage from a RED camera - all in real-time, without 2TB of cache.

Corsair surprised gamers earlier this year with their SFF gaming PC, Corsair ONE, and have since updated it with some new hardware. The new Corsair ONE PRO includes a Core i7-7700K with liquid cooling, the option for either 16GB or 32GB of RAM, and new GPU options.

The new Corsair ONE PRO starts at $2299 with the GeForce GTX 1080 w/LCS, 16GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, a 480GB NVMe SSD, 2TB HDD, and the options of a 400W PSU for $2299, while there's a $2699 model with the same innards but the GTX 1080 Ti w/LCS. Lastly, there's the $2899 model that includes the faster GTX 1080 Ti w/LCS but bumps up the RAM to 32GB, and includes a 500W PSU.

Corsair worked with MSI on th e GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which sees the GPU clocked at 100MHz higher than NVIDIA's own GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition. The PSU itself is a 500W 80 Plus Gold PSU from Corsair, while the 32GB of RAM is Corsair's own Vengeance LPX RAM. Motherboard wise, Corsair includes an board based on Intel's Z270 chipset, with a custom SFX PSU that features just a single fan.

Acer has been teasing gamers for most of 2017 with its upcoming Predator X27 gaming monitor, promising 4K @ 144Hz with HDR and G-Sync... but now the company has delayed it until 2018. No reason has been given for the delay, with Acer announcing the news over Twitter of all places.

Acer would've been one of two companies with a 4K 144Hz HDR G-Sync gaming monitor, with ASUS being whisper quiet on its upcoming display with the same specs. Acer delaying its Predator X27 gaming monitor until Q1 2018 is a weird move, and could be for a few reasons. First, it has never been done before: 4K @ 144Hz with HDR is a huge shift in gaming panels. It represents the utter peak of the enthusiast market, and will quickly become the Ferrari of gaming displays.

Secondly, there's no hardware that can drive 4K at 144FPS minimum... period. Since it's a NVIDIA G-Sync supported panel, you'll want GeForce graphics cards to power it, and even two GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards in SLI won't be enough. Maybe Acer have delayed the Predator X27 to better line up with NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce GTX 11 series graphics cards to power 4K @ 144FPS. Does this mean we'll see the GeForce GTX 1180 Ti released before the GTX 1180? It would make sense, that's for sure.

UPDATE: Monolith community manager Steve Rabago reportedly confirmed Shadow of War can be played offline "at the moment", countering his quotes on the official forums. Mr. Rabago reportedly said "at the moment you can play offline" in a Discord chat session. Original article is as follows.

Warner Bros. Games recently confirmed that Middle-earth: Shadow of War can't be played offline and will need an internet connection, however it appears that stipulation may change in the future.

"At the moment, we require an internet connection," Monolith Productions Community Specialist Steve Rabago said in a recent thread on the community forums, hinting the studio could enable offline play.

Blizzard games were the top earners for Activision's second quarter, outperforming core IPs like Call of Duty and King's popular mobile games.

The company's Blizzard games segment, which includes massively popular breadwinners like Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone, pulled in $556 million in net revenues in the second quarter period from April through June, up an incredible 175% year-over-year and accounting for 42% of Activision's total segment net revenues of $1.362 billion.

Activision attributes these strong earnings to efficient monetization of the record engagement and MAU growth Blizzard saw during the quarter. Blizzard enjoyed the "biggest quarterly online player community in its history" with a record 46 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 38% year-over-year, with Overwatch and Hearthstone responsible for the bulk of this growth.

Major games-makers like Activision are pushing towards the digital landscape for stronger revenue growth via recurring monetization and direct consumer sales, and Activision has made big strides in its digital strategy.

Activision reported its second quarter financials for the fiscal year ending December 2017, which beat forecasts and pulled in a record $1.631 billion in net revenue. Digital online, which includes full game downloads and sales from all channels and platforms as well as monetization from DLC and add-ons, accounted for 80% of Activision's second quarter net revenues, or $1.309 billion. Not only is digital segment revenue up by 15% year-over-year, but the percentage share is up by 7%, as digital accounted for 73% in Q2'16.

Digital also had a tremendous impact on Activision's 2H'17 earnings, which includes revenue earned in the six-month period from January to June. Digital accounted for 80% of 2H'17 net revenues, or $2.694 billion, up a big 12% in total YoY percentage share and a tremendous 30.3% in year-over-yer revenues.

Activision is arguably the king of monetization, and the company's recent earnings filings add more jewels to the company's crown.

Games industry giant Activision recently announced its second quarter earnings for the fiscal year ending December 2017, highlighting record quarterly earnings growth and MAUs. The reports underline the company's core digital revenue streams and give key insight on how Activision has managed to stay on top for so long with its massively lucrative monetization strategies.

As the games industry shifts towards the GaaS model (Games-as-a-Service), video games now have recurring revenue opportunities baked in via live services that facilitate online play mixed with in-game purchases via DLC, add-ons, and microtransactions. Activision is one of the major drivers to this new push, and the company makes most of its quarterly earnings by far from digital thanks to its profitable live services.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues to take over the gaming world, with the game hitting yet another milestone: 500,000+ concurrent players on Steam.

If we consider that global FPS juggarnaut CS:GO sits at 'just' 511,768 concurrent players and a peak of 546,789 - while Battlegrounds reached 519,478 - PUBG's new peak. Dota 2 is still king with a huge 772,822 concurrent players and a peak of 774,396 - while #4 goes to H1Z1: King of the Kill with a peak of 141,789 players.

SteamSpy reports that over 6.2 million copies of Battlegrounds have been sold so far, and that's before the big July update was delayed until this week - another driver in players, I'm sure. There's also the cosmetic DLC upgrade coming, but hasn't been met with total positivity.

AMD might have teased their Ryzen Threadripper CPUs last week, and after HotHardware released some synthetic results from their Alienware Area-51 gaming PC, LinusTechTips have released some - and by some, we mean a single gaming result from Threadripper.

LTT ran the Ryzen Threadripper up against an X299-based Core i9-7900X at stock clocks and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card, and ran Rise of the Tomb Raider in both DX11 and DX12 modes. The results, we have below:

According to these results, it looks like Ryzen Threadripper will handle gaming without a problem - but LTT didn't say what resolution they were running Rise of the Tomb Raider at, but it looks like 4K results to me. Seeing the X299 and Z270 systems at just a few FPS lower than the Threadripper system, and slightly ahead of the X370 system from AMD.

AMD launched their new Radeon RX Vega graphics cards last week, and while we were introduced to the new Radeon RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56, there was no news on a dual-GPU of any kind. Until now.

There are rumors from WCCFTech that ASUS is working on a new dual-GPU graphics card, since AMD approved AIB partners to tweak the designs of Vega to their liking. ASUS is looking to build a new beast with 2 x Vega 10 GPUs that would feature over 50 TFLOPs of compute performance, 25 TFLOPs of FP32 performance, and consume up to an insane 600W of power.

AMD might have gotten away with air-cooling on Radeon RX Vega, but liquid cooling is absolutely required on a dual-GPU of this size. Performance would be monstrous, easily beating everything NVIDIA has on the market, including the GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN Xp. Price wise, I think we'll see it at $1500 or so - given that Vega 64 is $499 and the liquid cooled version is $599. ASUS probably won't make many of them, as I'm sure they'll be a very limited edition card.

2K Games parent company Take-Two Interactive continues to tease a 2018-2019 release for Borderlands 3.

In its quarterly earnings call for fiscal Q1'18, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick once again teased Borderlands 3 may be a part of the company's upcoming fiscal year release slate. "Looking ahead to Fiscal Year 2019, we expect to deliver both record net sales and operating income led by the launches of Rockstar Games' Read Dead Redemption 2, and a highly anticipated new title from one of 2K's biggest franchises," Mr. Zelnick said during the call. The Borderlands series of games is the second most popular of 2K's biggest non-sports series, with the now-defunct BioShock series taking the top spot with 25 million lifetime sales.

Last April Gearbox Software confirmed Borderlands 3 is in development, and company CEO Randy Pitchford showcased in-engine footage of the game at GDC 2017. Mr. Pitchford also confirmed that Borderlands 3 will run on Unreal Engine 4 and will feature a number of new technologies.

Grand Theft Auto Online appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut, and Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive is making revenues hand-over-fist as a result.

In its fiscal Q3'18 earnings report, Take-Two Interactive announces that Grand Theft Auto Online has just enjoyed its biggest quarter yet. The massively lucrative online mode broke two records in the three-month period ended June 30: most earnings in a single quarter, and most monthly active users (MAUs), both of which were driven by massive engagement from new content updates like the Gunrunning DLC.

GTA Online contributed to Take-Two's quarterly performance across the board, from the $418.2 million in net revenues (up 34% YoY) earned during the period to the $348.3 million in net sales (up 28% YoY) gleaned in fiscal Q1'18. Bear in mind the company earned these revenues without releasing a new game, and 94% of earnings were from catalog titles. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick confirms GTA Online was the single most largest contributor to the $171.468 million earned from recurring consumer spending during the period, which was boosted by a massive 71% year-over-year.

To celebrate the upcoming home video release of 'Get Out', we have fifteen Blu-rays to give away thanks to our friends at Universal Sony Home Entertainment.

Gripping, scary, witty and timely! When a young African-American man visits his white girlfriend's family estate, he becomes ensnared in a more sinister real reason for the invitation. Now that Chris and his girlfriend, Rose, have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy and Dean. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.

To go into the running to win a prize, post this article to your social media profiles and send your correct answer to the following question ( along with your postal address), to ben at TweakTown dot com before the competition closes on August 11:

Take-Two Interactive starts its new fiscal year with big earnings across the board thanks to Grand Theft Auto Online and NBA 2K.

Despite not releasing any major games during the three month period ended June 30, Take-Two Interactive has recorded impressive earnings from recurring consumer spending and purchases of its catalog titles slate. In its fiscal Q1'18 period the company pulled in a total of to $418.2 million in net revenues, up 34% year-over-year from fiscal Q1'17, driven by NBA 2K17, GTA Online and GTA V, WWE 2K17 and WWE SuperCard, and Mafia III. As we reported earlier, 82% of Take-Two's first quarter net revenue was made on consoles.

The Grand Theft Auto parent company pulled in $348.3 million in net sales during the quarter, up 28% year-over-year, with catalog making up 94% of net sales for the period. Operating income was up a huge 255.92% year-over-year to $60.276 million, versus the loss of $38.657 million from fiscal Q1'17.

Take-Two Interactive continues to earn most of its revenues from consoles as digital becomes the dominant medium.

Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive's recent fiscal Q1'18 earnings show strong growth in net revenues primarily driven by Grand Theft Auto Online's strong monetization. These trends show that Take-Two's games are evolving well past their purchase point with additional content, which significantly builds digital revenues. The earnings report showed that Take-Two is continuing to make most of its money from digital distribution, and that consoles are the most lucrative platform.

Out of the $418.216 million Take-Two earned in fiscal Q1'18 net revenues, consoles accounted for 82% of that value, or $344.917 million, up 35.78% year-over-year from fiscal Q1'17. This marks the sixth consecutive year in a row that consoles have pulled in the bulk of Take-Two's net revenues.

Warner Bros. Interactive's new upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War game will have loot box-based microtransactions that players can buy with premium currency.

Monolith and WB Games has confirmed Shadow of War, the sequel to the hit Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, will be monetized with in-game purchases via a new Market system. In the Market players can spend two forms of currencies--Mirian, which can be earned naturally in the game, and Gold, which is also doled out to users as they play but can also be purchased with real money as a premium currency on the Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, or Steam--on randomized loot boxes.

Loot Chests, War Chests, XP Boosts and Bundles are the different types of items purchasable on the in-game Market, and all have randomized rewards depending on the chest's tier. The chests and boxes themselves will be segregated into varying tiers of quality; ie higher level chests can deliver rewards of greater rarity and efficacy. Loot Chests contain randomized weapons and armor, War Chests include Orc followers of randomized rarity to fill out the in-game army, XP Boosts are consumables that level up Talion more quickly, and Bundles package Loot Chests, War Chests, and Boosts together.