Latest News - Page 2407

Dell has released an absolute monster of a display, with their new UltraSharp UP3017Q being revealed back at CES 2016 - it was their first monitor to use an OLED panel, and has some serious specs behind it.

Dell's new UltraSharp UP3017Q is a 30-inch OLED display with a huge 120Hz refresh rate, making it the first 4K 120Hz OLED panel in the world. With a 30-inch panel and 3840x2160 native resolution, we have a pixel density of 146PPI, with a super-low 0.1ms response time. This means it can be used not only as a professional screen, but high-end enthusiast gamers will have wet dreams over Dell's UltraSharp UP3017Q.

The UltraSharp UP3017Q can reproduce 1.07 billion colors, with a color gamut of 100% Adobe RGB and 97.8% DCI-P3, with a 400,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Dell has included USB Type-C, HDMI 2.0 and miniDP 1.2 ports for display connectivity. Now that we have established how much of a beast Dell's new UltraSharp UP3017Q is, we need to know the price, right? Dell has slapped a rather large $4999 price on it - which is expected from a super-fast, 4K-capable OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate.

NVIDIA announced its GeForce GTX 1060 in the last 24 hours, and now the AIB partners are revealing all of their custom cards - with one of the first being GIGABYTE with its new GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming card.

GIGABYTE's new GP106-based GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming card features the company's Windforce 2x cooling technology with 2 x 90mm alternate-spinning fans with the "unique blade design and 2 composite copper heat pipes with direct touch to the GPU, together keeping the card cool and quiet even when heavily overclocked". GIGABYTE also adds that the 3D Active Fan provides semi-passive cooling, so if you're sitting idle or low loads are on the GPU, you'll enjoy silence.

The new GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming has the company's GPU Gauntlet Sorting technology which promises some serious overclocking. NVIDIA's own GTX 1060 Founders Edition features a 3+1-phase design, while GIGABYTE ramps it up to 6+1-phase, which has the MOSFET's operating at lower temperatures to provide higher stable voltage outputs for increased overclocking headroom.

With preview screenings for 'Star Trek Beyond' playing across the world, initial reaction is beginning to leak out but it's changes to the sexuality of character Sulu that's causing the most fuss. And the openly-gay actor that originally portrayed him, George Takei, is leading the charge.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Takei said: "Unfortunately, it's a twisting of Gene's creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it's really unfortunate... This movie is going to be coming out on the 50th anniversary of 'Star Trek', the 50th anniversary of paying tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the man whose vision it was carried us through half a century.."

Takei revealed that he begged the creative team behind 'Star Trek Beyond' to create a new gay character and not change Sulu's sexuality, saying "Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted". Alas, the creative team persevered with the concept and the rest is history.

Microsoft wants to make the transition from Xbox One to Project Scorpio as seamless and easy as possible with a trade-in/trade-up program.

With 6TFLOPs of performance and a new semi-custom Polaris + Zen AMD SoC to enable 4K gaming, Microsoft's new "monster" Project Scorpio isn't expected to be cheap. It'll likely be in the $599 range. Luckily Microsoft wants to offer an Xbox One trade-in program to shave off some of the cost and make Project Scorpio more accessible.

"We want to make that transition as smooth as possible," Xbox Services manager Dave McCarthy told the Daily Star. "Some of our retail partners today do trade-in programs and that's definitely going to be partnerships we continue to move going forward. We'll try partnerships with our retail partners to smooth it even more with trade-in programs and things like that."

After weeks of rumors and leaks on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060, the company has finally made it official. Riding on the wave of AMD's new Radeon RX 480 which is priced at $199, the new GeForce GTX 1060 features GTX 980 level performance starting from $249.

For $249, NVIDIA has constructed the GeForce GTX 1060 to be a mid-range monster with 1280 CUDA cores and 6GB of GDDR5 RAM at 8GHz. For clock speeds, NVIDIA has said that the boost clock on the GP106 GPU hits 1.7GHz, and can be "easily overclocked to 2GHz for further performance". As for power consumption, thanks to the incredibly efficient Pascal architecture and the new 16nm FinFET process, the GeForce GTX 1060 has a power-sipping 120W TDP.

When it comes to performance, NVIDIA promises GTX 980 like performance, with the GTX 1060 being around 15% faster and over 75% more power efficient "than the closest competitive product", adds NVIDIA. By "the closest competitive product", we're guessing NVIDIA means AMD's new Radeon RX 480, which has a 150W TDP and can't beat the GTX 980 on its own.

G.Skill's new firmware update for Ripjaws RGB mechanical keyboards adds galaxies of scintillating prismatic flair to your fingertips.

With the new SW0.104/FW57 firmware update, G.Skill has unlocked a massive new range of per-key color customization options to KM780 and KM780R Ripjaws RGB mechanical keyboards. Armed with the new update, users can fully personalize their keyboard's glowing hues with the full palette of 16.8 million different color combinations, and even save their creations to profiles and share them with friends.

The Reactive and Ripple RGB lighting effects can also be assigned custom backlighting on a per-key basis, offering even more style to your keyboard. The board's top row of special function keys also get a makeover; users can now assign individual and personalized color combinations to macro and media keys.

Bethesda has some bad news for those of you who are expecting secret DLC after Nuka World: the amusement-park themed add-on will definitely be the very last bit of official content for the game.

When asked about more Fallout 4 DLC, high-ranking Bethsoft exec Pete Hines smashed all of our dreams with two words: "last one." When Nuka World drops in August, Fallout 4's add-ons are officially over with. But it's okay, right? Modders will pick up the slack! That is if Bethesda's careless service hasn't destroyed the modding community.

So gamers effectively payed $50 for two medium-sized story add-ons (Far Harbor and the erstwhile Nuka World) and a whole lotta junk contraptions that basically have the same content as the game's free mods. I realize that Far Harbor is actually pretty huge, but I've come to find only the landmass is big; the content is surprisingly slim pickings.

Microsoft has just changed up the rules of its new cross-platform Play Anywhere functionality, iterating that Xbox console exclusives will still be available and not all first-party titles will jump to PC.

According to new alterations made to Xbox exec Yusuf Medhi's famous blog post, the new Play Anywhere service won't include all future Microsoft Studios games. With Play Anywhere gamers unlock a free digital Windows 10 version when they purchase specific digital console games, effectively giving a two-for-one deal. This new revision means upcoming titles like Halo 6 aren't guaranteed to come to PC.

The new revision states that only "new titles published from Microsoft Studios that we showed onstage at E3 this year will support Xbox Play Anywhere," which is a pretty big jump from the original which clearly states "every new Microsoft Studios game" will support Play Anywhere.

So... I'm addicted to Overwatch. Previously, I was addicted to Team Fortress 2, but stopped playing it around 2 years ago, but now in the wave of Blizzard's dominance with Overwatch, Valve has a huge 'Meet Your Match' update on its way.

Team Fortress 2's upcoming Meet Your Match update will add matchmaking, several new modes and maps, and Competitive Mode. Competitive Mode feels like a knee-jerk reaction to Overwatch and its new Competitive Play mode, with TF2's taking away the random critical hits, and features 9 new classes in a 6v6 match.

Competitive Mode will also allow you to verse players in your own rank, earn medals for playing well, and you'll be able to track all of your stats, too. Your rank will be determined by your match-to-match performance, so playing with lower-ranked friends won't tank your score.

GALAX has officially revealed its new GeForce GTX 1080 HOF, which has a strikingly beautiful white PCB - oh, and some great overclock speeds, too.

The new GALAX GeForce GTX 1080 HOF features the same 2560 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR5X RAM at 10GHz and the same display output connectivity as the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, but has some great overclocks on the GP104 GPU.

GALAX has ramped up the GPU to 1809/1961MHz for Base/Boost clocks, respectively. GALAX says that it has a 180W TDP, even though it has 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors. GALAX provides dual BIOS capabilities, so you can flash back to a previous BIOS if your overclock goes horribly wrong, too.

We've reported in a previous article that the early shipments of AMD's new Radeon RX 480 will include 8GB of RAM - but now there's proof. Riding on the waves of our latest story, which has AMD releasing its next-gen Vega 10-based video card in March 2017, rocking the ridiculously fast HBM2 technology.

WCCFTech is reporting that they have an XFX Radeon RX 480 4GB they secured on Newegg, and it has 8GB of RAM - with a 4GB sticker on the box, which when peeled away, reveals it is an 8GB card. We've already stated a few times that this is happening with the early stock of the Radeon RX 480, so if you buy the 4GB model right now - you have a good chance of getting the 8GB model, but this won't last forever.

Considering the Radeon RX 480 4GB is just $199, it's a steal as you can flash it to the 8GB model and enjoy a $40 savings, double the VRAM, and an extra 1GHz in RAM clock speeds. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

AMD has the mid-range market tied up with its Radeon RX 480, which we reviewed right here - and then again with Radeon RX 480s in CrossFire which destroyed the GeForce GTX 1080 - but what about the high-end, enthusiast market?

Now we have news from our friends over at Fudzilla, who are reporting that we'll see AMD's first HBM2-based product in early 2017, rocking the next-gen Vega architecture. There will not be any HBM2-based GPUs released this year, as HBM2 yields are not high enough to hit consumer video cards. Right now, NVIDIA has all of the HBM2 to itself, using it on its high-end Tesla P100 video card.

What memory standard will the Vega 10 card use? We suspect it'll use GDDR5X, which scales up to 10GHz, and was recently used on the GeForce GTX 1080 from NVIDIA. The Vega architecture should deliver some large improvements over the Polaris architecture, and I'm sure it's going to be a monster that will battle NVIDIA in the high-end arena with its purported Titan X successor which is reportedly going to drop next month.

Rick and Morty fans listen up! The show's co-creator, Justin Roiland, has been working on multiple VR projects for a while now, but it looks like San Diego Comic-Con 2016 could be the time that he teases a Rick and Morty VR experience.

On a post on Toucan, the official Comic-Con blog, reader Lenny Glionna spotted a mention of a Rick and Morty Virtual Reality experience that will take place during the 'Adult Swim on the Green' event during SDCC 2016. The post was swiftly updated, with the mention of the Rick and Morty VR experience removed. It could've been a mistake, but if it was real - it would be pretty kick ass.

As for Roiland, he has been a big advocator of VR - stating he has been working on an "original HTC Vive game" and that he "will get funding" for it. He said he's "five months into designing/writing/developing" the game, back on June 10, 2016.

After a whirlwind sixth season for 'Game of Thrones' the wait for more episodes is going to be even longer. Literally.

While new seasons of 'Game of Thrones' typically premiere in March or April, creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss dropped in for a special appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast to reveal why there might be up to a few months delay with the next season of the show. "We don't have an air date yet, but this year will probably be a bit later. We're starting a bit later because at the end of this season, winter is here. And that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes any more. So we've kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot."

Coupled with the previously announced news that there are only to be 13-15 episodes left in the entire series, next season is also expected to only run to about 7-8 episodes.

AMD is betting big on virtual reality, but not just in the gaming space. AMD's Roy Taylor has been evangelizing VR to anyone who will listen, and that includes a spate of major Hollywood movie studios. The company has even opened an office in Los Angeles dedicated to helping the movie industry move toward VR, and assisting Hollywood with the technical hurdles of integrating it into as a new storytelling medium.

Their partnership with the VR Society makes perfect sense, as that organization's goal is to "accelerate the transformation, innovation and profitability of the Virtual Reality Content, Distribution and Technology Business." Together, AMD and the VR Society are producing "VR On The Lot," a two-day content and technology summit hosted this October at Paramount Studios.

By the numbers, VR On The Lot will comprise 20 keynote speakers including Roy Taylor and special effects wizard Robert Stromberg (Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar, The Martian VR Experience), 1000 Hollywood and VR industry leaders, and 40 VR companies. But it's also set to be the home for several world premiere VR demos from major Hollywood studios like Marvel, LucasFilm, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros, and 20th Century Fox.

Back in February, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) ruled hoverboards unsafe due to fire safety concerns, with mass recalls expected to follow. That day has now come: the same organization has issued recalls that affect over half a million of the boards/self-balancing scooters, all of which are made in China. Swagway is among the brands included.

"We are urging consumers to act quickly. We've concluded pretty definitively that these are not safe products the way they were designed," said CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye. "This is a huge recall. It's the recall we've all been waiting for to address this product that as soon as it came on the market presented a pretty significant fire hazard, and continues to present a fall hazard."

Over 100 accidents from burns to property damage have been reported since the boards hit the market; two dogs have died, and children have been injured, as well.

Rumors of a sniper-healer hybrid class in Overwatch have been bandied about for some time, and now we have what might be the first concrete evidence of it.

On the official Overwatch Twitter account, Blizzard has "leaked" the prototype design for said class' weapon, which appears to be some kind of hybrid of a traditional(ish) sniper rifle and a healing staff not unlike Mercy's. Biotic field devices like Soldier 76's are shown as well, though exactly how they'd be implemented is unclear. From this, it can be assumed that either you switch between heal and fire modes, or the staff functions sort of like an underbarrel grenade launcher, except it heals. Either way, it's likely the healing functionality has some serious range to accommodate the sniper playstyle.

As for who will use the weapon, currently rumored characters include Sombra, a mysterious cloaked figure, and Pharah's mother, Ana Amari, a decorated sniper (pictured above).

Codemasters' Dirt Rally is one of the most exhilarating racing games I've ever played, so I'm excited that a VR version is coming to an HMD near you in the very near future. NVIDIA just sent word that we'll be able to play a "custom-built virtual reality version" on the Oculus Rift, and that their latest Game Ready WQHL driver (368.69) is locked and loaded with full support for an optimized experience.

From NVIDIA's latest blog post, it sounds like the launch of a standalone version of Dirt Rally VR is imminent on the Oculus Home store (considering their driver is already available for download). For existing owners of the game on Steam, a free update is headed your way this month, though no exact date was given.

My only reservation about Dirt Rally VR is that I've yet to experience a cockpit racer in VR that felt truly immersive. Space sims like Elite Dangerous and EVE Valkyrie have nailed the format, but VR has felt a bit tacked on with traditional racers. Here's to hoping Codemasters gets it right. If they do, those hairpin rights are going to be downright harrowing.

Earlier today, ratings for a Witcher 3: Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition surfaced, indicating an all-inclusive version of the superb RPG was on the way. Now, CD Projekt Red game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has confirmed the news, and that the wheels are turning.

"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was a gigantic effort for the entire studio, and both the team and me were amazed by the good reception of Geralt's adventures. Since launch, we've released two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, which added a lot of new adventures to the already potent mix."

"With all the free DLC and updates the game received so far, including significant changes to the game's interface and mechanics, many gamers have asked us if we're working on some sort of a Game of the Year Edition. I'm happy to confirm - yes, plans are in motion to release such an edition. We'll release more details, including the release date, in the future. In the meantime, I'd like to thank every fan of the game for their support - you're really amazing!"

BlackBerry Ltd. is shutting down production of its BlackBerry Classic, the revamped version of the original phone that made the Canadian company a once dominant force in the phone market.

"The Classic has long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone in today's market," general manager for devices and chief operating officer Ralph Pini said in a blog post. "We are ready for this change so we can give our customers something better."

The company is currently developing two new Android phones to the disapproval of analysts, who say Chief Executive Officer John Chen should pull out of hardware while he still can. Chen insists the the division will be profitable by September, while noting a software and service revamp are top priority.