Latest News - Page 2396

Hello Games' procedurally-generated indie No Man's Sky is touted as a "near-infinite" universe with 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets to explore. With so many planets to uncover, the game has one central goal: to reach the center of the universe. After spending less than a week in the game, someone has already reached the center of No Man's Sky.

Remember the guy who bought an early copy of No Man's Sky for $1,250? His name is daymeeuhn, and he's been sharing tons of info about the game on Reddit. But now he's revealed something quite unsettling about No Man's Sky: he's already technically "beaten" the game by reaching the center of the universe in just 40 hours time.

How did he achieve this so fast? Hello Games has put in a distinct "design flaw" that lets gamers rack up an insane amount of cash, which is then converted to warp fuel. So instead of spending "hundreds of hours" grinding materials on planets, you can just grab these mats, sell them, and keep scouring the stars.

Intel has finally flicked the power button on its 10nm fabrication facility, with the prototyping phase to begin very soon. Intel will reportedly enter the trial production stage in the coming weeks, with Intel shipping Kaby Lake-based CPUs to customers on time.

The company will be starting its 10nm factory during Q3 2016, confirming that it's upcoming Cannonlake processors are still on track. This means we should see trial productions begin later this year, where volume production will begin in the first half of 2017. Intel's current 14nm process was delayed into the mainstream market by 6-9 months or so, but in that time it still managed to keep a node lead over competitors in Samsung and TSMC.

Spoiler Warning: If you want to keep No Man's Sky a surprise, steer clear from this post! A fresh batch of No Man's Sky gameplay has leaked, this time with over an hour of consistent in-game footage.

YouTuber Kengi01 has acquired an early copy of No Man's Sky and published a huge hour plus video of his first experiences of Hello Games' huge space sim. Gamers have thoroughly picked apart Kengi's gameplay and compared it with the notorious leaks from daymeeuhn, the gamer who spent $1,250 on his copy of the game.

We've also reported extensively on daymeeuhn's experiences with the game, especially his claim that No Man's Sky players can reach the center of the universe in less than two days time. This is certainly a far cry from Sean Murray's insistence that reaching the center takes players "hundreds of hours of grinding".

Microsoft surprised with its Surface Book, but its predecessor should be much better, and rumored to be unveiled in Q2 2017 rocking some serious hardware upgrades.

What could we expect from the Surface Book 2? Inside, we should see Intel's next-gen Kaby Lake processor, with lower power consumption than ever before, we should expect a thinner Surface Book 2 that is still a powerhouse in its size. Rumor has it NVIDIA will have its GeForce GTX 10 series GPU inside, so we could see a GTX 1050 or GTX 1060 inside of the Surface Book 2, which would make it quite the popular product.

The original Surface Book rocked a 3000 x 2000 resolution display, so we should expect Microsoft to knock that higher to the 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160, or so. The later Q2 2017 release window is quite the time between releases, but if Microsoft is playing its cards right and wants the Kaby Lake processor and GTX 10 series card, it might be worth the wait.

While Stranger Things fans are freaking out of Netflix downtime, HBO fans are going to explode in tears with the news that Game of Thrones will be ending in 2018.

During the Television Critics Association press tour, HBO boss Casey Bloys said that the 8th season of Game of Thrones will be the last. During a chat with Entertainment Weekly, Blows said that the Game of Thrones showrunners had planned for 8 seasons, and was happy to reach the end without continuing it past the agreed upon 8 seasons.

There will be two shortened seasons released in 2017 and 2018, with 13 episodes in total - but we don't know how many episodes will make it into season 8. Bloys said that HBO isn't against a spinoff of Game of Thrones, teasing: "It's something I'm not opposed to, but of course it has to make sense creatively". I think with the success of Better Call Saul after Breaking Bad ended, HBO could continue its run with a Game of Thrones spinoff - what do you think?

Stranger Things is one of the best TV shows of the last couple of years, with the Netflix exclusive set in the 80s with a constant reminder of Steven Spielberg movies - and it has some rabid fans already with my wife and myself, as well as my of my friends across the world in love with it.

Well, Netflix had an outage recently and it interrupted people during their binge on Stranger Things - with them taking their rage out to an 11/10 on Twitter. Netflix ANZ (Australian and New Zealand) social media team was on point, tweeting out to @amy_stevenson5 who said she was "having mom jeans withdrawals" that here is "a little something to keep you going. Be Strong. Be strong like Barb" - with Barb being an integral part of Stranger Things' storyline.

Some fans were completely broken, and it's understandable - Stranger Things is fantastic.

Google is hopefully only weeks away from unveiling its next-gen Nexus smartphones, which go by the codenames of Sailfish and Marlin - hence the Nexus M1 and Nexus S1 names. New information on the new Nexus smartphones is here, where rumors indicate we'll see metal and plastic bodies.

Both of the new Nexus smartphones will be made by HTC, with the higher-end model being the Nexus M1. Google's upcoming Nexus M1 smartphone will reportedly feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821 processor which is the successor to the Snapdragon 820, the same processor found inside of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge smartphones, among others - it'll be joined by 4GB of RAM.

The new Nexus M1 will reportedly feature a 5.5-inch display with an aluminum case that looks similar to LG's current G10 smartphone. The Nexus logo on the back is emblazoned on the rear, found just under the fingerprint scanner and camera. The Nexus M1 will also reportedly sport a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, and backed up by an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. Google should be offering a 128GB storage option, too.

To celebrate this week's release of Batman: The Killing Joke on Blu-ray and DVD, we have ten Blu-ray copies to give away thanks to our friends at Roadshow Home Entertainment.

What does it take for a person to snap? How much despair for a mind to fracture? These are the twisted questions that The Joker has set out to answer, to show Gotham that even an ordinary man like Commissioner Gordon is only one bad day away from sheer insanity. Based on the acclaimed DC Comics graphic novel, witness a journey into the dark psyche of the Clown Prince of Crime. Follow his humble beginnings as a struggling comic to his fateful encounter with the Dark Knight that changed everything.

To go into the running to win a prize, simply answer the following question:

While NVIDIA hasn't sent us the new Pascal-based Titan X, there are some reviewers who have received their GP102-powered graphics card and are throwing it into synthetic testing to see how fast it really is.

The synthetic benchmark side of Titan X that was used was CuDNN, offering a huge 200% increase over the previous GeForce GTX Titan X (note, the new Titan X is just that 'Titan X' with the GeForce GTX branding dropped from the name). The new Titan X is using a new implementation of CuDNN, so the speedup is from both the software, and the improved hardware on Titan X.

Specifications wise, the new Titan X has 16% more CUDA cores and 42% higher GPU clocks - so in raw horsepower, we have a decent amount of hardware improvements. According to the benchmarks, we can expect the new Titan X to be 74% to 91% faster in Alexnet, 76% to 200% on OverFear, 74% to 84% on Inception and 91% to 98% in VGG.

During a gathering of people in a Polish meadow, Pope Francis challenged hundreds of thousands of young people should not be a "couch potato" who plays video games and uses an electronic device like a PC, tablet or console - and instead, "social activism and politics to create a more just world", reports Mashable.

The 79-year-old pope who has obviously never enjoyed a few games of Battlefield, CS:GO, Pokemon GO or League of Legends said: "Dear young people, we didn't come into this world to 'vegetate,' to take it easy, to make our lives a comfortable sofa to fall asleep on. No, we came for another reason: To leave a mark" to a crowd that Polish media said was over 1 million people.

Pope Francis came out bashing the escapism and consumerism that technology isolates people, with Francis saying Jesus is the "Lord of risk ... not the Lord of comfort, security and ease. Following Jesus demands a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths". Francis doesn't want you to play games, he wants you to sit on blankets and make their mark in the world by becoming engaged "politicians, thinkers, social activists" and to not help the world economy that is "inspired by solidarity".

Samsung is expected to unveil its larger Galaxy Note 7 smartphone on August 2, but what can we expect? Here's the skinny on Samsung's upcoming large smartphone, which will rock a 5.7-inch QHD display, an 8-core processor and 4GB of RAM.

The 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display has a native resolution of 2560x1440, and will arrive with two processors - depending on the market you buy it in. In the US, there'll be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, while in European markets the Galaxy Note 7 will be powered by Samsung's own 8-core Exynos 8890 processor.

Samsung really killed it with the rear-facing camera on the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge smartphones, with the Galaxy Note 7 said to feature a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, but it's the front-facing camera that has our eyes widen with excitement. There will reportedly be two front-facing cameras on the Galaxy Note 7, with one of them being an iris scanner. The 4K-capable rear-facing camera will feature Dual Pixel technology with an aperture of f/1.7.

Newegg is running a special on the Nexus 6P smartphone, offering $100 discount on the various sizes, with the deal running until midnight tonight, July 31. The deal will be for a limited time, only available in the US, and drops $100 from the price of the 32GB/64GB and 128GB models.

With the discount applied, the Nexus 6P with 32GB drops from $499 to $399, a 20% discount. The 64GB version drops 18% from its $549 price to $449, while the 128GB model drops from its price of $649 to $549, a 15% discount. Newegg may be a Canadian company, but these prices are for US consumers only. The only color Newegg has available for all three Nexus smartphones is gold, so you'd better be a fan.

To make the deal even sweeter, Newegg is offering an additional $25 gift card, a selfie stick and a clear case - an additional $50 in value. If you want to take $100 off on the Nexus 6P, Google itself is running a larger selection of models in different colors - with free shipping on some Nexus models still on offer.

Valve is still in the process of pulling the CS:GO skin gambling websites into line, threatening another 20 websites with legal action if they don't end their "skin gambling" operations.

Around two weeks ago, Valve finally starting taking CS:GO skin betting and gambling sites seriously, with some rather large sites closing immediately - without being issued a formal notice by Valve's lawyers. On July 20, Valve's general counsel threatened some 23 websites with legal action if they didn't close operations within 10 days.

The deadline for the first wave of sites that were sent cease-and-desist notes by Valve expires on Wednesday, with some of them still in operation. We should see them close soon, or feel the wrath of Lord GabeN.

If there's one thing Pokemon GO players have wanted since its release and rise to super stardom is for a more stable, better equipped Pokemon GO experience with more features and improved gameplay.

Well, the new Pokemon GO update has been greatly improved, with an impressive list of fixes and improvements. If your game hasn't already updated, be sure to hit the iTunes store or Play Store to grab the latest version of Pokemon GO.

Sony will be launching its PlayStation VR headset in October, and one of the launch titles looks to be DriveClub VR - with the original development team from the now-closed Evolution Studios have worked on PSVR game.

The news is coming from the Japanese PlayStation blog, and DriveClub director Paul Rustchynsky. The announcement has been removed, but the cached version of the page says DriveClub VR will launch on October 13, the launch date of PlayStation VR. Rustchynsky has said on NeoGAF that the original DriveClub team was bought into Codemasters, who picked up Evolution Studios, and then Rustchynsky said the original team was bought into the fold.

He said: "The same development team who made DRIVECLUB, also made DRIVECLUB VR". We should hopefully hear news on DriveClub VR in the coming weeks leading up to the launch of PlayStation VR.

Samsung has been pushing the marketing for its Gear VR headset much more in the last 6-12 months, and selling them alongside - and even bundled sometimes for free, Samsung has been getting Gear VR headsets into more houses than ever.

There are now over 1 million monthly active users on the Gear VR, according to Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's recent earnings call. During the earnings call, Zuckerberg said: "1 million people a month are now using Oculus on mobile phones through our Gear VR partnership with Samsung".

The exact sales numbers on the Gear VR isn't clear, but Samsung did say back in June that it had sold 300,000 units in Europe alone. If we take into consideration the push in Europe and the massive push in the US and many other markets giving the Gear VR for free with Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge smartphones, which have been so successful for Samsung that they reported profits that have hit a two-year high.

The Metal Gear Solid franchise is one of the most iconic game series, with creator Hideo Kojima becoming a household name thanks to the series - but according to Konami's financial report, the MGS franchise has sold over 49 million copies to date.

In Konami's recent financial report, we now know that the Metal Gear Solid franchise has sold 49.2 million copies as of March 31, 2016. During the first quarter of this year, Konami reported $481 million in revenue - a 3.5% decline year-over-year. Konami's profits were $89 million, a decent 40% increase in the same amount of time.

Digital sales have become the cornerstone of most publishers, with $246 million in revenue for the quarter - up 5.6% year-over-year. Profits made from digital sales generated $85 million in profits for Konami over Q1 2016, up 34% year-over-year.

Disney has made some changes to its release schedule, something I like to think is in retaliation to the teases of Justice League - even while Zack Snyder might not have the same grip on Justice League as Patty Jenkins does with Wonder Woman, which looks phenomenal, by the way.

The changes to Disney's revised schedule sees Avengers: Infinity War as a single movie, instead of the planned two-part series that would've been Infinity War - Part 1, and Infinity War - Part 2. The Wrap reports that there's now a new movie known as "Untitled Avengers", but now it makes the new Marvel movies much more interesting to think about.

The Russo Brothers are behind Avengers: Infinity War, the same directors who handled Captain America: Civil War - but the now scrapped second Infinity War movie will be rolled into something else. Avengers: Infinity War is scheduled for May 4, 2018 while the new Untitled Avengers movie will be released on May 3, 2019.

While Apple iPhone sales aren't as strong as people think, Apple revenues were stable during a tumulus time for the company where Jon Rettinger of TechnoBuffalo says Apple is boring, and stopped innovating years ago.

Well, Samsung has posted its Q2 2016 earnings report - and while we're late to the party on the news, I've been on planes and airports for over 36 hours and I'm currently enjoying the effects of jetlag, and so much international travel. Continuing to Samsung's Q2 2016 financial results, the company posted a 18% increase in revenue, with $45.2 billion in revenue over the three-month period, while profits were up 5% to $7.22 billion.

Samsung's success with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 have been noticed, after the last two smartphones failed to gain this type of traction. The company is now actually competing and beating Apple in many areas, bringing back missed features they took away from the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge like the microSD card slot. The company has added that its Q3 2016 results should be impressive, teasing that "the release of a new large-screen flagship smartphone will help to maintain solid sales of high-end smartphones led by the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge".

Samsung's new Galaxy Note 7 is nearly here, where it will rock a 5.7-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, 4GB of RAM, some impressive cameras, and more.

The Galaxy Note 7 should rock a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera with an f/1.7 aperture that will also include OIS (optical image stabilization - making your videos appear smoother, and not so shakey cam) and 4K video support. The Galaxy Note 7 should also include a rather large 3500mAh battery, 64GB of onboard storage which is expandable through an included microSD card slot (thanks, Samsung - now don't take it away again), and a USB Type-C port.

We're expecting the appearance of an iris scanner, while Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 7 will measure in at 153.5mm x 73.9mm x 7.9mm, with a weight of 168 grams, reports 9to5Google.