Latest News - Page 2217

Apple is expected to announce its new phones in September, but we've heard for the past few weeks that the company is having some serious problems regarding placement of the fingerprint scanner. This might delay the iPhone 8.

However, a new report states that Apple's problems are deeper and that the company might have to delay all three rumored phones - iPhone 7s, iPhone 7s Plus, and iPhone 8.

According to the report, production on the iPhone 8 hasn't yet begun, which means the phone won't be ready for release until November or December at the earliest.

Before Nintendo, Atari reigned supreme: the games-maker was on top of the gaming world and conquered the market with its home video games consoles. Now that nostalgia has become an extremely profitable market, Atari wants to cash in on the trend with its new Ataribox and put the once-mighty company back into the game.

It's been 24 years since Atari released its last console, the ill-fated Atari Jaguar, before fizzling out of the hardware market and relegating its retro games library to third-party storefronts like Xbox LIVE and Steam. But with its latest Ataribox, the company may be poised on a big comeback. Official details on the Ataribox are vague; in a recent newsletter (which you can see below in full) Atari affirmed that the new box is a "new product that stays true to our heritage, appealing to old and new fans," and that it'll deliver "classic and current gaming content."

Although Atari CEO Fred Chesnais said the Ataribox is "based on PC technology", I predicted that the Ataribox is will be more aligned with the NES Mini rather than a modern console like the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. The Verge seems to match my predictions. There's many reasons for this, but the principal one is that Atari simply can't take the risk of being utterly demolished by today's top console competitors.

After 17 years of working with BioWare, current General Manager Aaryn Flynn will depart the company at the end of July.

Today BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn announced his departure from the renowned Edmonton-based studio, where he helped make beloved games as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the Mass Effect series, and the Dragon Age franchise of RPGs. BioWare alum Casey Hudson will return to BioWare and lead the myriad of development teams as the new General Manager, Mr. Flynn said.

Mr. Flynn's departure comes at a key pivotal turning point for the company. BioWare is currently developing Anthem, its new action-based IP and most ambitious game to date with extensive online components and massive vertical open world exploration. BioWare's Edmonton team is also developing a new Dragon Age game, which is likely a big AAA RPG endeavor and not a spin-off.

There are a lot of rumors floating around about Apple's upcoming iPhone 8, specifically about the positioning of the fingerprint reader.

First, we heard that the company plans to embed the fingerprint scanner under the screen. However, a recent report states that the upcoming device won't have a Touch ID at all but will instead feature facial recognition only.

Now here's where it becomes interesting. The latest report claims that both options are out of the picture and that Apple will go with an enlarged power button on the side of the phone which will also serve as a fingerprint scanner.

Apple's iPhone SE was announced in March of last year, and the company still hasn't released its successor. Earlier reports indicated that the company is working on a worthy successor, but according to an analyst Pan Jiutang, that's not happening.

It appears that Apple wants to focus on phones with a larger display and has no interest in announcing another 4-inch device. If you want a smaller iPhone, you will have to make your peace with iPhone 7s, which should come with a 4.7-inch screen.

Read also: iPhone 8 might not support wireless charging after all

EA is enticing gamers to pre-order their upcoming Need for Speed Payback, by offering the Platinum Car Pack alongside the beyond exciting new Exclusive Tire Smoke.

Exclusive Tire Smoke will surely offer next generation smoke rendering technology that will require an AMD Radeon RX Vega or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 on its own to render, as it uses the latest DX12 and Vulkan APIs. You'll also need Windows 10 to render it all, as there are 50 billion draw calls per second to render Exclusive Tire Smoke in Need for Speed Payback.

EA offering the Exclusive Tire Smoke in Need for Speed Payback advances the entire driving game market, as the tires are meticulously recreated from the real-world. The tires in Payback will spin the wheels so realistically that the smoke that is created is indiscernible from real life. You'll probably even smell the burning rubber.

Samsung has just announced that it is increasing the production of its 8GB HBM2 chips, in order for the company to "address rapidly growing market demand". Remember, that Samsung isn't providing HBM2 to AMD for their new Vega GPU architecture, but NVIDIA is tapping Samsung's own HBM2 chips.

The increased HBM2 production is to ensure that important and emerging markets like AI, HPC, advanced graphics, network systems, and enterprise servers are flooded with 8GB HBM2 chips.

Jaesoo Han, Executive VP of Memory Sales and Marketing for Samsung Electronics said: "By increasing production of the industry's only 8GB HBM2 solution now available, we are aiming to ensure that global IT system manufacturers have sufficient supply for timely development of new and upgraded systems. We will continue to deliver more advanced HBM2 line-ups, while closely cooperating with our global IT customers".

Atari has followed through with its promise of a "brand new Atari product" from E3 2017 last month, with the company giving more details on its upcoming Ataribox console.

According to The Verge, Ataribox is a NES Classic like console that is inspired by the classic look on the Atari 2600, with indicator lights that glow through the glass/wood materials. Atari is adding in a HDMI port, SD card slot, and 4 x USB ports. Atari will have two different Ataribox consoles, one in wood and the other in black/red.

Atari is promising all of the classic games we know and love from the Atari 2600 console as well as "current content", but we have no idea what new content to expect. Ataribox should be similar to the NES and SNES Classic consoles, offering retro games inside of new hardware.

Now that people are getting AMD's new Radeon Vega Frontier Edition into their hands, we've arrived at the release of the Radeon Vega Frontier Liquid Edition, which provides more stable GPU clocks - and a higher TDP that consumes much more power than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card.

Our friends over at PC Perspective have tested the new Radeon Vega Frontier Liquid Edition, rocking its 375W TDP (the air-cooled Radeon Vega Frontier has a 300W TDP). AMD dropped the price of its Radeon Vega Frontier Edition just before release to $999, down from $1200 - while the liquid cooled version was $1800 (!!!) and dropped to $1200 at the last minute.

PCPer's testing shows us some interesting numbers, with the most interesting being power consumption. The performance of AMD's new Radeon Vega Frontier Liquid Edition is comparable to the GTX 1080, but the power consumption is off the charts - double GTX 1080s even in SLI.

The release of AMD's next-gen Ryzen ThreadRipper is right around the corner, and now we're hearing that the company will be offering AIO liquid coolers with their upcoming ThreadRipper processors.

The bundled liquid coolers will be a massive benefit to those wanting to push the new CPUs to their limits, and is a great move by the company. Intel has made similar moves with its new Core i9 processors, but AMD's new Ryzen ThreadRipper CPUs are much better value for money than ANYTHING that Intel has to offer right now, or coming soon.

AMD's inclusion of providing AIO liquid coolers is a great move, as it shows the company was prepared for next-gen 12C/24T and 16C/32T processors that are sure to get hot - so providing AIO liquid coolers is the right move here. AMD... I'm looking forward to Ryzen ThreadRipper even more now.

Intel is like a T-Rex fighting AMD with its little arms right now, with this fact compounded by the rumors of Intel preparing new 6-core CPU parts under the upcoming Coffee Lake CPU architecture for early-2018.

Intel is reportedly working on the flagship Core i7-8700K processor (6C/12T) at 3.7GHz base, and a lowered 95W TDP. Comparing the 8700K against the newly-released Core i9-7800X which has a 140W TDP, it would begin chomping on the heels of the 7800X very quickly - which is probably why Intel isn't launching the 8700K until next year, to give the 7800X some breathing room.

We're also to expect a non-K variant in the form of the Core i7-8700, which will reportedly roll out with a 3.2GHz base clock. There will also be new Core i5 models with up to 6 cores which would be the most interesting part of the Coffee Lake CPU architecture launch.

Project CARS 2 is one of the best looking games made, and now that developer Slightly Mad Studios has lifted the NDA on the game, WMD2 members are now spilling the beans on the upcoming racing game.

NeoGAF members 'TheAdmiester' and 'Rayge' have shared new screenshots of Project CARS 2, but Rayge has also teased that his PC - rocking an Intel Core i7-6850K and NVIDIA TITAN Xp is running Project CARS 2 at 4K 120FPS when there's 8 cars on the track, but during demanding parts of the game - such as rain at night with reflections going crazy, he was still hitting 80-90FPS on Ultra settings.

This is damn impressive considering Project CARS 2 looks ridiculously gorgeous, and the fact that it's running at 4K, on Ultra settings, all on a single graphics card.

VPNs are used in all different ways with all sorts of different people, but 4TFY has hit Kickstarter offering itself as an "easy-to-use, cost-effective VPN service".

The Kickstarter page for 4TFY continues, saying that their VPN service "allows you to hide your browsing activity from both your government and internet service provider, bypass government-imposed censorship, access geo-blocked content, mask your IP address, hide your physical location, and encrypt your internet traffic for greater browsing security".

The reason 4TFY caught my attention is that it is just $89 for a lifetime VPN service, blowing other VPN services out of the water that charge $89 per year on average. 4TFY is very aware of the "mass government surveillance is now the norm", offering the lifetime VPN service so that "your activities are not recorded and that you are able to access any content, anywhere, anytime. We do this by masking your IP address, by encrypting your internet traffic, and by passing this traffic through one on our highly secure servers".

Private equity firm EagleTree Capital is in advanced talks to buy popular peripheral and hardware-maker Corsair, sources have told Reuters.

On Thursday Reuters reported that two sources affirmed that EagleTree Capital, a private equity firm based in New York, has offered to purchase Corsair for more than $500 million. Four different financial institutions will help finance the acquisition, the sources said, including Goldman Sachs, Macquarie Group, BNP Paribas, and Societe Generale.

Corsair's range of products include peripherals and hardware aimed at the professional gaming segment, including cooling solutions, keyboards and mice, audio headsets, high-end PC cases, RAM, and a unique small form-factor PC called the Corsair One.

HyperX today revealed two new mechanical keyboards in the Alloy performance gaming series.

HyperX's new duo includes the Alloy FPS, which offers Cherry MX switches, full N-key rollover and anti-ghosting along with a steel frame and an added USB port to charge other devices, and the Alloy Elite, which delivers similar performance with an added detachable wrist rest, dedicated media buttons, and USB 2.0 pass-through.

"Further raising the bar for personalization and comfort, HyperX is excited to reveal the new Alloy Elite Keyboard with Cherry MX Mechanical switches, detachable palm rest and custom lighting features. For TKL keyboard fans, the new Alloy FPS Pro was designed in our HyperX labs specifically for them," said Marcus Hermann, senior business manager, HyperX. "Ensuring that gamers connect and play immediately, keyboard customization options can be accessed without the assistance of software via keyboard functions."

HMD Global is pretty eager to bring back the days of old fame to the Nokia brand. They already announced a modern version of the Nokia 3310 and three Nokia smartphones. The company should also announce its flagship, Snapdragon 835 powered, Nokia 8.

Evan Blass has now revealed an image of the upcoming flagship which reveals the phone in its all glory.

The back of the phone shows vertically positioned dual camera setup with Zeiss' signature. HMD Global recently announced that they are partnering up with Zeiss to "to set new imaging standards within the smartphone industry."

Early Access sensation PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has now surpassed Rockstar's juggernaut GTA V in peak players on Steam.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has become a formidable force in PC gaming. The early access game has earned an impressive $100 million in three months, selling 4 million copies of its addictive battle royale survival sim on Steam. Not only has the game sold well, but players are sticking to the experience thanks in no small part to its online multiplayer mechanics.

Now PUBG creator Brendan Greene reveals his early access juggernaut is now number 4 out of Steam's top 10 all-time highest peak players, pushing GTA V to the number 5 spot. At the time of publication PUBG has an all-time high of 382,561 peak players versus Grand Theft Auto V's 360,761 peak players. We've compiled Steam's top 10 games in peak players in a graph below.

What's taking Kingdom Hearts III so long to make? Game director Tetsuya Nomura finally explains what's going on.

Four years after the game's official announcement and 12 years since Kingdom Hearts 2's release on PS2, Kingdom Hearts III finally has a 2018 release window. According to Kingdom Hearts III game director Tetsuya Nomura, there's many reasons for this long development time, but there's one that stands out the most: KH3 migrated to a new engine mid-development.

Kingdom Hearts III was originally developed using Square Enix's proprietary in-house engine, but after a full year of work, company executives made the decision to move to Unreal Engine 4. This re-tooling to UE4, Nomura said in a recent interview with GameSpot, caused "extensive delays" as the game likely meant the game had to be built from scratch in the engine. This is very similar to EA forcing BioWare to use Frostbite to make its RPG games, leading to massive re-tooling and work.

Tekken 7's missing classic Tekken characters may never step foot into the game.

As I predicted a bit ago, Bandai Namco has teamed up with other companies to bring more cross-over characters to Tekken 7. The first playable DLC character will be Geese Howard, the end boss from SNK's classic fighter Fatal Fury, and I expect the entire Tekken 7 season pass to be filled with more cross-overs.

Meanwhile many Tekken alums are still missing from the roster, including Julia, Ganryu, Anna, Baek, and even Zafina. As a long-time Tekken fan I'm a bit frustrated with this move--you can read more in our official Tekken 7 Review--especially since original characters are being sidelined for more promotional type characters. I personally feel that Akuma does not belong in Tekken 7's story canon, and players shouldn't be forced to use him to complete the story mode.

Evan Blass has revealed that LG will launch the V30 on August 31st, during IFA in Berlin. IFA was earlier rumored as the possible launch time frame, and since Evan Blass is rarely mistaken, we do believe that the company will launch the phone on August 31st.

The V30 should come with an interesting change compared to the other V series phones. According to reports, it won't have a secondary screen.

We've also heard claims that the V30 will come with an OLED display, a first of any LG flagship smartphone. This could also mean Google daydream VR support could be a feature as well.