Latest News - Page 2373

ZOTAC has been releasing some of the best high-end GeForce graphics cards over the last few years, with the GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme one of the best GTX 10 series cards, period. Now the company is back, celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a massive event at the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong.

During the event, ZOTAC unveiled their new GeForce GTX 1080 ArcticStorm Thermaltake 10 Year Anniversary Edition graphics card, which the company teases has a "completely new PCB which delivers 16 power phases (instead of the traditional 8+2 power phase) on the board, enabling significantly greater power regulation at higher speeds. Another feature that gives more control into user's hands is the innate ability to support dual BIOS, and enabling BIOS switching via FIRESTORM".

The default BIOS on the watercooled GTX 1080 from ZOTAC has slightly increased clocks than the normal GTX 1080 ArcticStorm, hitting base/boost clocks of 1657/1797MHz, respectively. I'm sure it'll be capable of much more, and those building custom PC rigs are going to be in love with the design.

The scariest night the year is almost here, and in celebration of Halloween, Niantic Inc. will be launching Pokémon GO's first in-game event.

The spooky-themed feature will commence October 26, and run through until November 1. During that time, players will earn double the amount of candy for catching, hatching, and transferring Pokémon.

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween and all things scary, players will encounter more ghoulish type Pokémon over the next week. Gastly, Haunter, Gengar, Zubat, Golbat, Drowzee and Hypno will be more visible throughout the event duration.

AMD has confirmed it will be launching its next generation Zen CPU architecture in early 2017, during the company's Q3 2016 earnings call.

Chris Hemmelgarn from Barclays asked: "With Summit Ridge launching in Q1 of 2017, I guess how would you expect the channel to ramp that? Do you see it ramping pretty fully in the first couple of quarters of the year, or are you looking for more normal PC seasonality?", to which AMD CEO Lisa Su replied: "You know, I would expect that there will be a relatively good initial demand for Summit Ridge that may be you know, not quite at the seasonal patterns".

Su added: "From where we see, Summit Ridge is playing in a space in the high-end desktop that we currently aren't offering a product. So we believe we'll be competitive certainly with Core I5 as well as Core I7 and we will be launching in those areas".

It's been coming for a long, long time, but it seems that Sony Pictures is serious about bringing Nathan Drake to the big screen, and has hired a new director to finally make it happen.

According to Deadline Hollywood, Sony has now hired director Shawn Levy, who's previously helmed the Ben Stiller 'Night at the Museum' franchise and the Hugh Jackman robot beat-em-up 'Real Steel' to direct the long gestating video game adaptation. Despite his new duties, Levy will also return to produce and direct episodes from the upcoming second season of the Netflix series 'Stranger Things' later this year.

Sony Pictures haven't yet committed to a new release date for the film, but I wouldn't expect to see it until late 2018 at the earliest.

The last go around for 'Indiana Jones' in 2008's 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' wasn't warmly embraced by long-term fans, and so news that Disney, the new franchise owners are keen to get another entry off the ground was met with interest, but more than a little trepidation. But now it seems that half of the creating team will be absent and that's gotten a pretty mixed reaction.

According to David Koepp, the Hollywood screenwriter who's currently writing the as-yet untitled 'Indiana Jones 5', confirms that George Lucas hasn't been part of the story process, saying "I've had no contact with him." Lucas has been co-credited with writing the story for all four previous films, and created the character with Steven Spielberg. Koepp went on to give a not-so-serious update on the development thus far "I'm deeply immersed as we speak. All I can say is that there's lots of aliens and Indy dies at the end. Lots of hiding in lead-lined refrigerators, aliens, and he dies. Should go over very well."

Disney have previously announced that Harrison Ford will return in the fifth entry, which will hit cinemas on July 19, 2019. Stay healthy, kids.

Xiaomi has unveiled their second VR device today in Beijing, and it looks much better than their Mi VR Play, revealed this summer.

The new device, simply named Mi VR, is stunningly beautiful and at first glance, and its design reminds me of PlayStation VR. The Mi VR will work with Xiaomi's latest phones, including the Mi 5 and Mi Note 2.

Xiaomi says the new virtual reality headset comes with a motion sensor that will keep latency low at 16ms, and a 9-axis inertial motion controller.

Xiaomi has been quite busy this Tuesday. After announcing the Mi Note 2, they unveiled the Mi MIX, their most ambitious phone so far.

The first thing you'll notice on this phone is the design. The Mi MIX comes with a 6.4-inch screen, 2040x1080 resolution, and an incredible 91.3 percent screen-to-body ratio, which the company says is the world's 1st.

The Android phone features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset clocked at 2.35GHz, 4 or 6 GB or RAM and 128 or 256 GB of storage. The Mi MIX comes with a fingerprint reader, 13 MP main camera and 5 MP selfie camera. It also rocks a massive 4400 mAh battery with Quick Charge support.

Xiaomi has launched the Mi Note 2 today at an event in Beijing, China. As the fourth biggest phone manufacturer in the world, China is an important market for Xiaomi, although they've been struggling to maintain their growth there lately.

At first glance, Mi Note 2 looks really good with curved edges, but it's hard not to notice a similarity with Samsung's Note7. The Mi Note 2 is curved on both front and back, comes with a 5.7-inch display, 22.56 MP main camera with a f/2.0 lens and 8 MP front camera.

Xiaomi Mi Note 2 features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor with a max clock speed of 2.35GHz, 4 or 6 GB of RAM and 64 or 128 GB of storage. It's also worth noting that there's a version with global support for 37 different 4G LTE bands, meaning it will work in pretty much any country.

The Nintendo Switch preview trailer is just a concept demonstration, and isn't meant to be taken as complete 100% accurate truth. The Switch console could drop resolution and/or FPS when detached from the docking station instead of delivering identical console-level gaming on the go.

Nintendo has affirmed that the gameplay footage shown in the trailer may not reflect the Switch's final experiences, meaning the handheld might actually have lower graphics while on-the-go and even during console play. In fact, at the very end of the preview trailer Nintendo warns that "gameplay footage not final; graphics and features subject to change." How did everyone miss that?

Nintendo further drilled the point home in an interview with Eurogamer, saying: "This video is all about explaining how the Nintendo Switch works," Nintendo told Eurogamer. "You shouldn't assume what you saw on the video represents actual game footage and further specifics on first-party games will be provided later."

Final Fantasy 15 could get some sort of co-op multiplayer functionality...but only if enough people made enough noise to get Square Enix's attention.

Given Final Fantasy 15 has a four-person party made up of Noctis and his three best bros--Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto--many gamers are curious why there isn't some sort of co-op feature within the game. Sure most Final Fantasy games are primarily one-play experiences, but FF15 has challenged the series' status quo in many ways, including its action-based combat.

Now Final Fantasy 15 game director Hajime Tabata says there's hope for co-op, but gamers will have to make quite a clamor to get it, especially since it'll be "very tough" to implement.

Last week we got a lot of new info about Nintendo Switch, you can read all about it here.

With its unique look, Switch reminded someone of a dog, and we got an illustration of it. Now, the Switch dog came to life.

Microsoft Xbox Live Gold subscribers will see the addition of four new games this coming November. The company recently announced the titles that will become available, free to users for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Xbox One games:

Xbox 360 games:

Square Enix has already affirmed that Final Fantasy 15 won't come to PC until the console versions launch, but how long after? A year or so? Maybe more? According to game director Hajime Tabata, PC gamers might be waiting for quite some time.

Tabata affirms that a PC port of Final Fantasy 15 would be a massive undertaking, and would actually require mostly new development. The team would have to totally focus on FF15 on PC and nothing else, to the point where their whole dedication would be on the PC version.

"About the PC we're focusing all our efforts into the console versions of the game. So we're not looking into it right now to be honest. Making a PC version of the game would mean we'd have to readjust a lot of stuff and concentrate solely on developing it, even though the development team has shown interest in getting a PC version out at some point," Tabata said in a recent interview with Hobby Consoles.

Nintendo's new Switch hybrid console will only have a tablet and dock bundle at launch, and gamers won't be able to buy a handheld-only SKU.

A Nintendo source told Let's Play Video Games' Laura Kate Dale that the Nintendo Switch would launch in March 2017 as a complete package containing the base tablet and the docking station. While the Nintendo Switch console (the tablet) can work independently of the dock, Nintendo doesn't want consumers thinking that they can hook the tablet directly up to the TV by itself.

Nintendo has confirmed that the Switch is a single-screen only experience, unlike the Wii U, which uses both the GamePad display and an HDTV for dual-screen gaming. This means the Nintendo Switch can only be used for TV gaming if its docked.

First, we had brick-like phones that were big and heavy. Then, the phone manufacturers tried to make them as small as possible and today we get to choose between many standard screen sizes. However, you wouldn't think someone would make a smartphone with a 1.54-inch display, would you? Well, that happened.

VPhone company made what is probably the world's tiniest smartphone. The Vphone S8 has 2.5D curved glass screen with 1.54-inch display and one button, used as a power button.

The phone has a speaker, microphone and... even a headphone jack! The Vphone S8 comes with a built-in FM radio, a heart rate sensor, a light sensor, and a pedometer. The company stated that the Vphone S8 can be paired via Bluetooth with your other smartphone so you can answer the calls coming to that phone. Basically, the Vphone S8 is a smartwatch that's not a watch? Something like that... You can put a sim card in the phone, but if you want to use it as a "smartwatch that's not a smartwatch", it does support iOS and Android phones.

Microsoft is set to reveal its new all-in-one Surface desktop PC tomorrow, and now there's evidence it could be called "Surface Studio."

Microsoft is holding a major Windows 10 press event tomorrow, and the major consensus from the tech press believes Microsoft will unveil a unique Surface-branded "iMac-killer" desktop PC at the event. Official details are slim, but its believed the Surface all-in-one is powered by Windows 10 and can be used as a detachable tablet or docked as a desktop PC. ZDNet says the Surface is codenamed "Cardinal," and can "turn your desk into a studio."

Speaking of a "studio," that might actually be the name of the device: Surface Studio, to be more exact. Trademark attorney Brian Conroy dug up some compelling evidence of a Slovenian trademark filing which also listed the Surface Laptop, Surface Dial, and Paint 3D--the latter of which could be for 3D artists, with the Dial being similar to Wacom's Express Remote, as per Microsoft's agreement with Wacom to release "dual protocol pens."

In the latest attempt to retain their customers after the Note7 fiasco, Samsung unveiled they will be offering a special upgrade program. South Korean customers who have decided to replace the Note7 for a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, will be able to upgrade the replacements to either a Galaxy S8 smartphone or a Note 8, Samsung said in a statement, confirming that the Note series isn't dead.

Users in this upgrade program will need to pay only half the price of the Galaxy S7 device, before exchanging it for an S8 or Note 8. The Galaxy S8 is scheduled to be released in February, while the Note 8 is expected for August or September next year.

The upgrade program in South Korea will be carried out by the end of November. As for other countries, Samsung hasn't explained how or if they plan to implement this program.

Modders are busily porting over Skyrim: Special Edition mods to consoles and PC, with over 100 mods and counting already available.

Bethesda has released the Skyrim: Special Edition Creation Kit to beta testers, and modders are porting over their content to the new Bethesda.net Skyrim remaster mod interface in preparation for the game's release.

Right now there are a total of 123 Skyrim: Special Edition mods available for all platforms, with 64 mods on Xbox One alone. One of the best Skyrim survival mods of all time, Frostfall, has also been uploaded to Xbox One, along with the excellent Open Cities. Both will be available when the game releases.

Global entry! We have teamed up with MSI to give away one GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GAMING X 4G and one GeForce GTX 1050 GAMING X 2G graphics card.

THE ULTIMATE PC GAMING PLATFORM

Get Game Ready with GeForce® GTX.

Google has purchased Eyefluence, a startup company that specializes in eye-tracking technology,

Google plans to fold Eyefluence's unique eye-tracking VR optics software tech into its new mobile-powered Daydream View VR headset. The software uses "vision-driven, intuitive eye-interaction" to discern quite a bit of information from users, chiefly whether or not HMD wearers are interested in what they're seeing or not. We're not 100% sure how Google will leverage Eyefluence to build a new optics solution for Daydream VR, but we could see some interesting convergences happen, including eye-controlled interfaces

"At Eyefluence, we are engineering the ability to transform intent into action through your eyes. Leveraging eye biomechanics and the eye-brain connection with the first-ever eye-interaction technology solution for HMD devices, we are expanding human potential and creating new possibilities in VR, AR, and MR worlds," reads the company's website.