Latest News - Page 2402

Crytek has updated their roadmap for CRYENGINE, with the release of CRYENGINE 5.3 promised for November, where support for Vulkan and PhysX will be included.

The new version of CRYENGINE also has improvements for SVOGI (Sparse Voxel Octree Global Illumination), the voxel-based GI solution that was teased a few months ago. But it's the v5.4 update to CRYENGINE that's coming in February 2017 during the Game Developers Conference that has me excited.

CRYENGINE 5.4 will include Multi-Adapter support thanks to DirectX 12, which will allow gamers to use both discrete and integrated GPUs together, as well as better multi-GPU support overall if you're running a pair of NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in SLI, or AMD Radeon cards in CrossFire.

We all know NVIDIA is preparing a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, but we don't know when the company will announce, or release it. New rumors have emerged, from an enthusiast who spotted the specifications of the GTX 1080 Ti on NVIDIA's own website.

NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti's leaked specifications teased the GP102 GPU, the same chip that powers the new Titan X, with 3328 CUDA cores and 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. The big thing to note here is that the purported GTX 1080 Ti wouldn't be using the faster GDDR5X that the new Titan X and GTX 1080 use, but it'll rock the 384-bit memory bus that the Titan X uses.

Equipped with the 384-bit memory bus, the purported GTX 1080 Ti would have 384GB/sec of memory bandwidth - sitting in between the Titan X and its 480GB/sec, and the GTX 1080 with its 320GB/sec - the GTX 1080 uses a 256-bit memory bus, while the Titan X uses a 384-bit memory bus. The GPU would be clocked at 1503/1623MHz for base and boost clocks, respectively - with a 250W TDP.

With people being burned and their cars, or houses setting on fire from the battery-related problems on the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung could push the negativity out of consumers' minds with the early release of the Galaxy S8. We've also been hearing that Samsung could remove the 3.5mm headphone jack from the Galaxy S8, replacing it with a proprietary connector... ugh.

Samsung is rumored to be much closer to being finished with the Galaxy S8 than previously thought, with the company possibly unveiling the new Galaxy S8 ahead of time. KB Investment & Securities analyst Kim Sang-pyo talked with The Korea Herald, saying: "If Samsung's flagship smartphone launch is delayed to the end of the first quarter of next year, the profitability of the mobile business division could be worsened next year".

He continued: "Regardless of the sales resumption, an earlier launch of a new quality flagship model seems to be the most realistic solution to dealing with the current recall crisis". The impact that the Note 7 recall is hurting Samsung in a big way, with $36 billion wiped away from their shares, the early launch of the Galaxy S8 could actually be a saving grace.

If you're a truck or taxi driver, an Uber driver or work in customer service, your days of employment could be numbered - with robots taking out 6% of these jobs in the US by 2021 according to a new report from market research firm Forrester.

The intelligent agents will be powered by artificial intelligence technology, where they will be capable of understanding human behavior, and then making decisions, for you. We're already dabbling in it now with AI-based services like Google Now, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and more - which for the moment mostly simple, but they will get much more advanced in the coming decade.

Once this breakthrough happens, the world of AI assistants, self-driving cars and computer hardware that can think for you, the changes to the world will be enormous. The Guardian reports that it's "not so good if you're an employee working in a simple-to-automate field". This is reiterated by Forrester's report by Brian Hopkins, who said: "By 2021 a disruptive tidal wave will begin. Solutions powered by AI/cognitive technology will displace jobs, with the biggest impact felt in transportation, logistics, customer service and consumer services".

Apple launched their new flagship phones last week - iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on September 7th. Fans are already lined up in front of Apple stores waiting for September 16th when first iPhones arrive in stores. Reports say that one fan started waiting in front of an Apple Store on August 25th, two weeks before the iPhone 7 was officially launched.

But for those who are having second thoughts about the new iPhone, we decided to take a closer look at what improvements the iPhone 7 brings, and we asked an expert his opinion.

The iPhone 7 critics will point out that the new iPhone doesn't have a headphone jack, and to be honest, Apple haven't really given any good alternatives, which may happen next year. Also, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are marked IP67, not IP68, which means they are splash proof but not submersible. If you take a closer look at Apple's ad, you will also notice (if you don't blink) a warning saying: "Water resistance IP67 under IEC standard 60529. Liquid damage not covered under warranty". So, if your iPhone 7 dies from water damage, Apple will not replace it.

EA has announced a big shake-up of its organizational structure, with big changes taking place with the formation of EA Worldwide Studios, which brings several EA development studios together under one roof.

Andrew Wilson, EA's Chief Executive announced the news on the official EA website. The shift will see EA Mobile and Maxis into the larger company, with Samantha Ryan stepping up as Senior VP, who is also with BioWare. One of the more notable changes here is that the Frostbite Engine team will move over to the technology side of EA's business, and will be run by Ken Moss acting as the Chief Technology Officer.

The move is something EA explains as a "responsibility to put [their] players first", with EA executive Peter Moore explaining last month that the company was aiming for a "player-first" direction. After EA had been voted "Worst Company in America" for a couple of years, EA is wanting to change direction and move towards a better path.

Can you believe it has been an entire year since AMD announced it was forming Radeon Technologies Group, a newly-focused team that had a hungry new thirst for the GPU market.

AMD formed the Radeon Technologies Group with a bang late last year in Sonoma, California, where it announced the new Polaris architecture and a tease of a new card that was capable of 1080p 60FPS using less than 100W of power. In that time, AMD has launched the exciting new Radeon RX 480 and landing new semi-custom designs with Microsoft and Sony for the Xbox One S that just launched, the new PS4 Pro coming soon, and the upcoming 4K-capable Xbox Scorpio console in 2017.

Radeon Technologies Group boss Raja Koduri (which on a personal note, I'm going to add is a super chill guy in real life who I've enjoyed a few ice creams with in the last 12 months after our random 3am icecream with the RTG guys and girls at CES earlier this year in the freezing night of Las Vegas) said: "We managed to bring the focus back to graphics and turned around the erosion that happened over the last few years".

'Star Trek' fans looking to boldly go once again after the release of this year's 'Star Trek Beyond' need to be patient for just a little while longer.

According to Variety, CBS has confirmed that the hugely anticipated return of 'Star Trek' to the small screen will now premiere in May 2017, delayed from the originally announced January premiere. Speaking on the delay, executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Fuller said that "Bringing 'Star Trek' back to television carries a responsibility and mission: to connect fans and newcomers alike to the series that has fed our imaginations since childhood. 'Star Trek' deserves the very best, and these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of." The delay comes as no surprise considering that filming isn't set to kick off until November in Toronto, Canada.

The new series will be set 10 years before the events of the original 1960's 'Star Trek' series, in the original timeline as opposed to the Kelvin timeline of the newly rebooted feature film series.

While last year's Blu-ray version of the multi-award winning thrill ride 'Mad Max: Fury Road' didn't come with the promised black and white version of the film advocated by director George Miller, Warner Bros have made good on their promise and will release the experimental 'Black and Chrome' version of the movie to Blu-ray later this year.

Coming to Blu-ray in the U.S. on December 6th, the "surreal" version of the film comes on a two disc set accompanied by the previously released theatrical version of the film. Miller has previously called this version of the film as his preferred vision, describing it as "something about it seemed more authentic and elemental". Detailing how it came to pass, Miller continued "I asked Eric Whipp, the colorist, 'can I see some scenes in black and white with quite a bit of contrast?' They looked great. So I said to the guys at Warners, 'can we put a black-and-white version on the DVD?' There wasn't enough room... on another version with commentary and other features."

The Blu-ray also comes with a new introduction recorded by Miller.

Amazon's second-generation version of the Echo Dot is out now and features a much lower $49.99 price point (versus the previous $89.99), despite the product selling out recently.

A puck-like device, it adds the Alexa voice assistance to any speakers you have around the home, allowing you to control your media with just the sound of your voice.

The new version features a redesigned voice processor, and spatial perception tech that detects multiple uses of the Dot, so that if you like, you can have different Dots for different devices, and control them all independently, with no extra effort on your part. The technology is also being rolled out for first generation devices.

One of the issues with PC gaming these days is having multiple game libraries across multiple services. While many attempts have been made at creating all-in-one frontend solutions, you might say they've all fallen short. The newly launched GameRoom, however, looks to be the best of the bunch so far with a sleek interface similar to Origin prior to its recent overhaul.

Feature-wise, it includes automatic import, sorting, support for command line arguments, a power saving mode, a play time tracker, and more.

The downside: it requires Java, which has been swiftly going the way of the dodo. If that doesn't dissuade you, download GameRoom here.

Microsoft made a pretty big shipping error back in 2013: it accidentally shipped out a prototype Xbox One console months before the system was revealed.

Back in March 2013, Jia Li ordered a laptop from the Microsoft Store. Instead of receiving the notebook, Li received a working prototype of an early Xbox One console codenamed "Kryptos".

"The box had a lot of security tape over it," Li told Business Insider. "So I was wondering, 'What is that?' I opened it, and it's something I've never seen before."

Some of the main creative forces behind World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and Battle.net have jumped Blizzard's ship to form their own games development studio with League of Legends' Riot Games picking up the check.

Blizzard is losing a lot of their talent lately: legendary Warcraft and Diablo co-creator Chris Metzen has retired, and now three more devs have left: Blizzard's cinematics expert Nick Carpenter, Diablo III's game director Josh Mosqueira, 16-year vet and Battle.net director Matthew Versluys, and Nexon's ex-CEO Min Kim have joined ex-World of Warcarft lead director Rob Pardo as the "original five" to form the new Bonfire Studios.

In an announcement blog post, Rob Pardo says that the original five left their cushy jobs at Blizzard so they could have more freedom and creative control over their projects.

When Apple revealed the new iPhone 7 without the headphone jack, the world stopped - finally asking if Apple had gone too far with its courage. Now there are rumors that Samsung's next-gen Galaxy S8 smartphone will also not have a headphone jack, and that's not good.

Digital Music News says it has a source in South Korea that is in "the broader supply chain of Samsung's smartphones" that the new Galaxy S8 smartphone could have its own proprietary connector, just like the iPhone, moving away from microUSB and USB Type-C connectors on the Galaxy S7, and Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.

Samsung's new connector would be incompatible with the Lightning ports on the iPhone, so there would be a proprietary connector that will annoy countless people. The stretch for profits goes wide and far, it is the courage that drives these companies to release some of the most popular products in the world without the standard we have on millions of devices - all without a clear benefit of what a proprietary connector provides, over the convenience of a 3.5mm jack.

To no one's surprise, Riot Games' MOBA League of Legends has hit astronomical popularity.

Everyone knows that League of Legends is a celebrated PC game--over the past seven years, the MOBA has risen to become one of the most renown titles in history of the platform (and gaming in general), surpassing Valve's own mega-famous DOTA 2. Riot has become a juggernaut in the industry with an estimated worth of $1 billion. But up until now, we didn't really know just how popular the game was.

Riot Games' co-founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck now reveals that League of Legends pulls in roughly over 100 million players each month. "It's hard to parse, but at the end of the day, those things don't even feel real. The coolest thing is actually when we're at the live events and get to meet fans face to face. Only then does it start to feel real. Otherwise, they're just numbers on a screen all over the world,"Beck told Polygon in a recent interview.

Destiny, one of the PS4's best shooters, won't harness the power of Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro console.

One of the best things that Sony could do to sell PS4 Pro consoles is to work with Bungie to upgrade Destiny to native 60FPS. I could care less about 4K support or HDR, just enable 60FPS and I'll be happy. Destiny is an extremely competent console shooter that clearly carries forth everything Bungie's learned from the Halo series, but there's just one problem: the game is locked at 1080p 30FPS.

Sadly, Bungie has no plans to upgrade the current form of the game, Destiny: Rise of Iron, to enable native 1080p 60FPS on the PS4 Pro. Speaking to Gamespot, Destiny executive producer Scott Taylor said Bungie has no plans to upgrade the game on PS4 Pro right now, but that could change in the future. "No, we're not planning on any support for PS4 Pro. Not for Rise of Iron. Maybe as far as the future, but we have nothing to announce today. But I mean we'll be looking at [PS4 Pro upgrades]."

BioWare and other key EA talent gets lumped together in a new label, complete with new management.

EA has announced its new Worldwide Studios, which groups BioWare, DICE, Maxis, and EA Mobile together. EA CEO Andrew Wilson says that this decision was made in order to "strengthen our studios and technology platform," but I'm a bit concerned about the new chain of command.

Patrick Soderlund will lead EA's Worldwide Studios as the main boss. BioWare now has a very distinct chain of command, and will be led directly by Samantha Ryan, who will oversee the studio above Aaron Flynn, BioWare's current GM. It's true that big publishers always have a very real chain of command, but this move could be problematic for future BioWare games, especially if the bosses clash with one another.

MSI is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the announcement of an exclusive limited edition graphics card, featuring a unique custom-designed EK waterblock and the GeForce GTX 1080 at its core.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1080 30th Anniversary graphics card features an exclusive closed loop liquid cooler from EK Water Blocks, with the newly designed EK-XLC Predator 120 All-In-On, with EK Water Blocks' R&D boss Niko Tivar explaining: "EK Water Blocks is very proud to be part of MSI 30 th Anniversary celebration and exclusively for this project, we engineered and designed EK-XLC Predator 120 All-In-On liquid cooler, that is not available anywhere else".

As you can expect, MSI has tweaked the GTX 1080 Anniversary graphics card, with the GPU clocked at 1721/1860MHz for base/boost clocks, respectively. The same 8GB of GDDR5X is found on the card, and cooled by the full cover EK Predator liquid cooler.

NVIDIA is positioning themselves for a huge show at CES 2017, teasing that it will have major announcements on gaming and VR products, as well as the usual development updates in AI and autonomous car technology.

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will be on stage for a keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, with NVIDIA teasing: "When Huang takes the stage, you can be sure he'll break news in some of the areas we're focused on: artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, virtual reality, and gaming".

What could NVIDIA unveil? We could expect a big reveal of their next-gen Volta architecture, but I think this is something we'll see at NVIDIA's own GPU Technology Conference later a few months after CES 2017, but what about VR and gaming? NVIDIA could unveil the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, a new Shield, or the Shield VR - which I've been saying for years that NVIDIA is working on a Shield-branded VR headset.

Fans of Cartoon Network's 'Regular Show' will be disappointed with today's news that the upcoming eighth season will be its last.

Variety has confirmed with the network that the show will end early next year, with over 250 episodes under it's belt. Cartoon Network chief content officer Rob Sorcher eulogized the soon-to-disappear show, saying "Our sincere thanks to this talented crew and cast for their incredible dedication, and I'm proud that they all agreed to go up in space together for one hilarious final journey." The creator of the show, and voice artist behind Mortdecai kept it strictly professional stating "Making 'Regular Show' has been so much fun. We got to tell all of the stories we wanted to tell, and making the choice to go out exactly how we want to go out. We're so proud and excited for people to see how we're wrapping things up in a big, big way. We're bringing everything full circle."

'The Regular Show' season eight will premier later this month and run until January 2017, where the series will exhaust the last episodes.