Latest News - Page 2252

After laying dormant for nine years since the release of the ill-received 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor', Universal Studios has opened up the sarcophagus of the franchise for a new mega budget reboot starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella, which has just released its final trailer ahead of next month's theatrical release.

The new 'Mummy' reboot is being built from the ground up to launch a cinematic universe of the studio's classic horror icons, including The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, Van Helsing and Dracula. As the kick-starter for a new multiverse, there's quite a bit of expectation on its shoulders for first time director Alex Kurtzman, but it sure looks like it's off to a good start. Even if it's a complete disaster, it will still be better than the last 'Mummy' film.

'The Mummy' is set to scare cinemagoers in 2D, 3D and IMAX cinemas worldwide from June 9, 2017.

If there was something that I'm excited for at Computex 2017 beyond my addiction to GPU technology with AMD showcasing their Radeon RX Vega graphics card at the show, it would be the curious party invitation from Qualcomm.

The invitation I received is to a joint Qualcomm + Microsoft shindig, where they're asking the press to "join us under the stars at Computex 2017". The rest of the invite reads: "munch, mingle, and raise a glass to celebrate the growing ecosystem that will bring an out-of-this-world mobile PC experience to the masses".

Interesting. Very, very interesting.

Google has just unveiled its second-generation tensor processor, something that packs 45 TFLOPs of performance per chip, with four of them placed onto a tensor processor unit (TPU) module for a total of 180 TFLOPs.

The massively powerful systems are built for machine learning and artificial intelligence, and Google is pushing it into the cloud with their TPU-based computational powerhouse systems to be made available to Google Cloud Compute later this year. Google's first-gen Tensor processors were already 15-30x more powerful, and a huge 30-80x more power efficient than CPUs and GPUs for these types of workloads.

These new TPUs are "optimized for both workloads, allowing the same chips to be used for both training and making inferences. Each card has its own high-speed interconnects, and 64 of the cards can be linked into what Google calls a pod, with 11.5 petaflops total; one petaflops is 1015 floating point operations per second", reports Ars Technica.

AMD hosted a Reddit AMA earlier today, with Senior Vice President and Chief Architect of RTG Raja Koduri talking to the Radeon fanbase about all things Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, as well as some new details on the consumer Radeon RX Vega graphics cards. We also now know that AMD will detail Radeon RX Vega at its Computex 2017 press conference on May 31, and we will be sitting front and center for it.

First off, the most important part is that Raja will not be shaving his beard until Radeon RX Vega launches, which is music to my ears - Raja's looks like a boss with his beard.

For his introduction, Raja said:

We are so close, so very close - 12 more days until we get the skinny on Radeon RX Vega. AMD confirmed the news through Raja Koduri's Reddit AMA on Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, that AMD will be showcasing Radeon RX Vega at Computex on May 31.

During the AMA, Koduri said: "We'll be showing Radeon RX Vega off at Computex, but it won't be on store shelves that week. We know how eager you are to get your hands-on Radeon RX Vega, and we're working extremely hard to bring you a graphics card that you'll be incredibly proud to own. Developing products with billions of transistors and forward-thinking architecture is extremely difficult - but extremely rewarding - work. [...] We're working as hard as we can to bring you Radeon RX Vega".

Koduri added: "On HBM2, we're effectively putting a technology that's been limited to super expensive, out-of-reach GPUs into a consumer product. Right now only insanely priced graphics cards from our competitors that aren't within reach of any gamer or consumer make use of it. We want to bring all of that goodness to you. And that's not easy! It's not like you can run down to the corner store to get HBM2. The good news is that unlike HBM1, HBM2 is offered from multiple memory vendors - including Samsung and Hynix - and production is ramping to meet the level of demand that we believe Radeon Vega products will see in the market".

The long mooted follow-up to Jim Henson's 1982 fantasy feature 'The Dark Crystal' is finally set to happen - as a Netflix exclusive, with the platform revealing the first behind the scenes footage.

In a surprise announcement, Netflix has announced that production on the 10 episode series 'The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance' is currently underway, which is said to take place many years before the film. The original concept designer Brian Froud is back on board, as is the Jim Henson company - so expect lots of live action puppets. 'Now You See Me' and 'Incredible Hulk' director Louis Leterrier will produce and helm the series.

It's currently too soon to officially announce when 'The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance' will hit Netflix, but a 2019 release seems more than likely.

LG has launched a new smartphone in the US - the Stylo 3 Plus.

The device is powered by a Snapdragon 435 and comes with 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage, expandable to 2TB with a microSD card.

The Stylo 3 Plus has a 5.7-inch Full HD display and, as the name suggests, comes with a stylus.

LG's V30 has been rumored ever since they launched the V20 last year, more speculation started to come out once the G6 came out, especially regarding which processor it would run. Because the LG G6 runs a Snapdragon 821, the expectation is that the more premium V30 will run a newer and more powerful Snapdragon 835 processor.

However, in addition to the Snapdragon 835 processor, it appears that the V30 will also be capable of supporting or meeting the requirements to support Google's Daydream VR platform. This is a big deal because LG doesn't currently have a Daydream supported device.

One of the big reasons for this is that OLED displays are needed in order to meet Google's display performance requirements for Daydream.

HTC unveiled its highly-anticipated flagship, the HTC U11, earlier this week, but they didn't mention pricing during the press conference.

In the weeks before the launch, we heard rumors that the U11 will be cheaper than the Galaxy S8. The sources claim that the U11 would cost around $660.

HTC's official website says that the U11 can be yours for $649 in the US. The estimated shipping date is in June.

OnePlus has confirmed that they will launch the OnePlus 5 this summer, and many are excited about OnePlus' upcoming flagship.

Their fans now have a reason for even more excitement. OnePlus has announced that they've teamed up with DxO to enhance the photography experience on their upcoming flagship.

DxO is most well-known for creating the defining photography benchmark, the DxOMark. They've got years of imaging experience and expertise, both for professional cameras and for smartphones.

Blizzard today announced a partnership with Bungie regarding Destiny 2 on PC, which will be hosted on Blizzard's widespread servers.

In a move right out of EA's playbook, Blizzard will assist Bungie in bringing Destiny 2 on the PC platform. The two juggernauts will partner together so Destiny 2 on PC will run on Blizzard's widespread and powerful Battle.net servers (no longer called Battle.net, but you get the gist) so Bungie doesn't have to create a whole new network client and worry about the logistics of another millions-player strong online platform.

However, this means Destiny 2 on PC will be exclusive to Blizzard's Battle.net platform, so you'll have to have an account to play. For most PC gamers this isn't a big deal, and Destiny 2 will just be another game tied to their account. This means PC players can use all the benefits of Battle.net including friends list, messaging, sharing, and purchasing Destiny 2 on PC with Blizzard Balance. However, if Blizzard doesn't operate in your global region, there's a chance you simply won't be able to play the PC game.

Ubisoft confirmed a not-so-surprising bit of news I suspected for a long while: all of its future games will have integrated live services to ensure longevity and consistent revenue streams.

In the last few years Ubisoft has made a considerable transformation in how it does business, moving away from big AAA releases and more towards sustainable online-based titles that consistently provide value via monetizing it over time. Ubisoft now favors games like Rainbow Six: Siege and For Honor with strong earnings via microtransactions and being able to provide new content via digital expansions. This online social engagement-fueled model is what the games industry is gravitating towards, and is the reason why many publishers and platforms are successful--from EA and Activision to Blizzard and Take-Two, and even Microsoft's Xbox LIVE platform.

So far Ubisoft has enjoyed considerable success with this strategy, so the publisher will fold all of its future games into the live services roadmap, including the new Assassin's Creed and Far Cry 5 games. But Ubisoft isn't foolish, and it knows it can't push microtransactions and in-game purchases that don't make sense--the company has to create live services that make sense for the title, and do so diligently as to not fracture the community.

While we still don't actually know whether or not Apple will call their new phone the iPhone 7S or iPhone 8, there are already many rumors floating around about Apple's next flagship device.

We recently learned that Apple had placed orders for their A11 chip that should power the new phone and we have seen a rendered video which allegedly shows Apple's upcoming flagship.

Now, an alleged mock-up of the phone has appeared, and it shows the final design of the phone. The images show the design which resembles the device we saw in the rendered video.

Today Ubisoft announced that new Far Cry and Assassin's Creed games will release before March 2018, and promised info on the titles will come sooner than you'd expect.

In today's released financial report Ubisoft confirmed the new Far Cry game is a mainline sequel called Far Cry 5. However, company CEO Yves Guillemot didn't answer when asked if the Western-themed Far Cry rumors were true or not, but he did say gamers can expect more news on the game "very soon."

"We can't comment on rumors. But you'll get more information very soon on that game, so it will comfort you on its potential," Guillemot said during Ubisoft's financial earnings call with analysts and investors. "And we are extremely excited with what we're coming with."

The Galaxy Note8 will likely debut this fall, and it is expected that the phone will feature a dual rear camera setup.

However, it seems that the Note8 won't be Samsung's first smartphone with a dual camera.

The latest leak suggests that the Galaxy C10, expected to be announced before the Note8, will rock a dual camera setup.

DXOMark, one of the photography industry's standards for image quality is also well known for evaluating the quality of smartphone cameras. They have been pretty fair when it comes to evaluating smartphone cameras, so it makes sense to trust their results. While DXOMark isn't necessarily the whole story when it comes to overall smartphone camera experience, they do provide an expectation of image quality.

Based on recent results distributed by HTC and talked about during their press conference, the new HTC U11 managed to dethrone the previous best smartphone camera, the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Read also: HTC U11: Hands-on and first impressions

OPPO has started this year with good results. Its R9s was the best selling Android smartphone in Q1 2017 with 8.9 million units shipped.

But OPPO is just warming up. While we are waiting for the launch of its long-rumored flagship, the Find 9, the company has launched another smartphone - the A77.

The OPPO A77 comes with a 5.5-inch display and is powered by an octa-core 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750T processor. The phone features 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, expandable up to 256GB with a microSD card.

Well, this is something for the uber rich who are true Pokemon fans, with high-end watchmaker RJ-Romain Jerome collaborating with Pokemon on a new $258,000 watch.

The watch has "features" on its product page, with the company saying it has "Pikachu," "Lightning bolt," "Oscillating weight," and "Pokemon colors". This isn't the first Pokemon watch by the company, with their previous Pikachu-centric watch costing a cool $20,000.

On the Tourbillon Pokemon product page, the company explains: "The highlight of the timepiece is definitely the colourful dial, standing out from the all-black 48mm case and hands. Completing the ensemble, the black alligator strap is enhanced with yellow and blue stitching as a tribute to the Pokémon logo's symbolic colors. The composition and the placement of the characters-all were created to appreciate the beauty of the dial's numerous Pokémon".

AMD will be hosting a Reddit AMA today at 2-3PM PST, where they will talk about all things Radeon Vega Frontier Edition.

This isn't an AMA on Radeon RX Vega, the consumer graphics card based on the Vega architecture, but instead the professional graphics card based on Vega - which fights Tesla/Quadro and Titan X from NVIDIA. Senior VR and Chief Architect at Radeon Technologies Group, Raja Koduri, will be hosting the AMA.

The latest trailer for Middle-earth: Shadow of War is here, with the trailer called 'Dominate the Open World' displaying the huge open world that Monolith Productions has built for Shadow of War.

The trailer teases: "The video introduces viewers to the vast environments within Middle-earth, stretching beyond Mordor, and giving fans the first glimpse of various new environments to explore, including the Island of Nurn, Cirith Ungol, Gorgoroth and more. Through the innovative Nemesis System, every player experiences a unique world to explore and share and every area of the world is larger, more varied and more dynamic than ever before".

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.