Latest News - Page 2425

Computex 2016 - Thecus were on top of their game at Computex this year, showing off the latest advances in their network attached storage (NAS) products. Thecus had their entire line of NAS products on show at the Foxconn IPC group booth, too.

The company had their upgraded window NAS series, as well as teasing their next-gen enterprise, 16-bay NAS that is powered by a Skylake-based Intel processor and DDR4 RAM. The company also took the time to make a big deal of their upcoming N4810, a new 4-bay multimedia NAS that is capable of 4K playback. The Thecus N4810 is powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N3160 processor that clocks at up to 2.24GHz under burst, with 4GB of RAM and dual Ethernet ports.

For more information on Thecus' NAS products, check out their website, here.

Computex 2016 - Ugh, there were so many GeForce GTX 1080 cards at Computex 2016, that I literally had a nerd overload. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 Founder's Edition is a beautiful card on its own, but the custom design cards are... well... just so freakin' beautiful. We have a small roundup video below that you can check out.

We caught a glimpse of what MSI were showing off, some of the cards from GIGABYTE, as well as the monster GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme Edition from ZOTAC. One of the new members on the block is Colorful, which most of you have probably never heard of. Colorful is a gigantic Chinese video card maker that should be sampling us in the very near future as the first media in the world outside of China to receive a Colorful video card. I even introduced Luke from Linus Tech Tips to Colorful, as I love his work on video (and he's a super-cool guy as well), so expect some major exposure from Colorful in the future.

MSI's cards impressed me, as I have their GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G in the house right now and have been benchmarking it for days. I also have the G1 GAMING edition of GIGABYTE's GeForce GTX 1080 which will be benchmarked next week. So expect a flood of GTX 1080 reviews before AMD flings their Polaris-based offerings led by the Radeon RX 480 into the wild later this month.

Harmonix Music VR -- a virtual reality app launching alongside PlayStation VR that teleports you inside a world that reacts to your tunes -- already looked pretty awesome. Now Harmonix has revealed that they're turning Music VR into a dance party.

"The Dance is a brand new world for Harmonix Music VR that lets you to choreograph moves for whacky characters," says Harmonix' Nick Mudry. "Once you've got the party going on the dance floor, you can go to town with a variety of toys at the DJ booth, and even wreak havoc in Giant Mode."

I have no doubt this will be amusing both as player and as spectator. The Dance level will tap into what makes PlayStation VR unique right now among its competitors: an emphasis on social and multiplayer experiences that utilize both the PSVR headset and your television. Next party game confirmed!

By now everyone is beginning to understand that virtual reality is about much more than video games. From medicine to automotive to architecture, a roomscale VR system like the HTC Vive has near-limitless possibilities in the commercial and business space. HTC is poised to capitalize on that with a brand new version of the HTC Vive: A Business Edition that costs $1200, comes with a dedicated customer support line, commercial licensing, and a unique warranty.

"Virtual reality has already proven its appeal among consumers and is now revealing its potential for enterprise," said Olivier Ribet, Vice President High-Tech Industry, Dassault Systmes. "Vive helps us provide our customers from all industries with premium virtual reality experiences that offer unlimited perspectives to inspire product ideation and creation."

Dassault Systemes (owners of 3DS.com -- Nintendo must hate that!) is a company providing other business with virtual universes to test the experiences they're building at any point in the product lifecycle, so it's no surprise they're championing the Vive Business Edition.

On the heels of Ubisoft's Watch Dogs 2 reveal we spotted footage of seven minutes of gameplay in the funky-fresh hacktivist adventure, giving us a better idea of what an unscripted playthrough feels like.

The interesting thing about this clip is that it was apparently prematurely posted by Eurogamer, but the publication has since made the footage private, most likely because they accidentally broke an NDA. Given the game was just officially announced and revealed yesterday, it's quite soon to show off gameplay previews and the like. With Watch Dogs 2, it looks like Ubisoft has taught an old dog a bunch of new tricks--the sequel is a dramatic improvement over the original game and genuinely looks fun.

In case you need a refresher, we have tons of pictures, info and clips in our everything you need to know about Watch Dogs 2 post. Watch Dogs 2 takes place in San Francisco, with a new African-American hacker named Marcus in the lead. Marcus is quite athletic and uses parkour to move around Silicon Valley, and is able to utilize a wide variety of homebrew weapons and gadgets, from 3D-printed guns to a brutal billiard ball paracord lanyard combo and even remote-controlled drones.

E3 2016 - Renowned games journalist Geoff Keighley (aka Doritos Pope) promises that this year's E3 will be absolutely huge with tons of surprises.

Major E3 conferences are just days away, and the excitement is absolutely electric: we're going to see an entire galaxy of new games and hardware that will push gaming into a new generation. In fact, Geoff Keighley, who will host YouTube Gaming's E3 Live showcase on Monday, June 13 for "12 hours of wall-to-wall gaming," knows the full scope of the reveals and says gamers "aren't ready for what's about to happen."

So what has Keighley seen that's made him so enthusiastic? Probably the new PS4 and Xbox consoles. Sony is expected to show off its new powerful 4K-ready PlayStation Neo console at the event, alongside a retinue of first-party exclusives like The Last Guardian, a new Norse-themed God of War 4, and possibly even The Last of Us 2.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that for the majority of people -- those who aren't necessarily all about that fit and healthy life -- one of the major barriers to exercising is that it feels like exercise. A new startup called Black Box VR wants to change how the world perceives working out by whisking you away to imaginary world's and tricking your brain into thinking you're having fun, not merely burning calories for the sake of burning calories. Their mission: create the world's first virtual reality gym.

The company says that only three 40 minute workouts per week can increase your strength, endurance, and overall health. While Black Box VR applauds the "virtual trainer" approach that was popularized in games like Nintendo's Wii Fit, they insist that's not nearly enough. Their gym of the future will integrate resistance training that's integrated into the game experience.

Here's an explanation of how a virtual reality gym would work, in Black Box VR's own words:

Tinder has been available to 13 year-olds and up since the app launched four years ago, offering minors the opportunity to date and/or hook up with other minors. That's going to change next week though when it goes 18+ only.

"On a platform that has facilitated over 11 billion connections, we have the responsibility of constantly assessing our different user experiences," reads the company's statement. "Consistent with this responsibility, we have decided to discontinue service for under 18 users. We believe this is the best policy moving forward."

Tinder's underage users currently represent three percent of its userbase.

Computex 2016 - G.Skill's TridentZ DDR4 RAM was used to break the 5GHz once again, setting a new DDR4 world speed record at the 5th Annual OC World Record Stage.

Just weeks ago MSI's Taiwanese overclocker Topcc set a new world record by breaking the 5GHz DDR4 barrier with a liquid nitrogen build, but ASRock's pro OCer Allen "Splave" Golibersuch soared past the record at this year's OC World Record Stage. Splave hit a new all-time world record of DDR4-5189MHz using G.Skill's 8GB TridentZ DDR4 modules on an ASRock Z170M OC Formula motherboard and an Intel Core i7-6700K CPU.

Splave also used liquid nitrogen cooling to unlock the test bed's full potential, and actually downclocked the Intel Core i7-6700K CPU by 74% to just 1,004MHz in order to hit these high speeds. Take a look at the other new performance records that were set at the OC World Record Stage using G.Skill's Trident Z DDR4 RAM, Intel's Core i7-6700K CPUs, and NVIDIA's top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 1080 video cards.

Earlier this year I climbed Mt. Everest chickened out of a summit to Mt. Everest thanks to a fantastic combination of real-world photographs, Unreal Engine 4 visual effects, and NVIDIA's VRWorks technologies. Contributing to the realism was a technique called photogrammetry, which essentially is act of using photographs to measure distances and often reconstruct them to create maps or recreations of the world in a 360-degree viewable environment.

Valve actually employed this to great effect in The Lab, particularly a "Postcard" level that puts you and your trusty Fetchbot on top of Vesper Peak in Washington. Now they're bringing the same techniques they used to the masses with Destinations Workshop Tools, free software that lets you create explorable VR environments using photogrammetry, game levels, or just your imagination.

Destinations includes Valve's Source 2 tool (the same one used internally at Valve for game creation), the Destinations viewer (this allows you to browse and explore other user-created levels downloaded from the Steam Workshop), and a bunch of sample destinations like Mars and a world littered with giant popcorn.

Doom's single player has been praised as a fast-paced, action-packed throwback to the 90s titles that started it all, and for good reason. The multiplayer, on the other hand, has been received with an overall lukewarm response. With no Free-for-all Deathmatch or Capture the Flag mode to speak of, no rentable servers, no server browser, and no SnapMap support, among other criticisms, it's no surprise.

Fortunately, improvements are coming. Pre-launch, developer id only had time for single player and left the rest to Certain Affinity, but now that the game is out and the studio has had its standard post-launch rest, it can put its weight behind the multiplayer. According to an interview with Doom's executive producer and game direction Marty Stratton, there's lots in the works.

"There's certainly no lack of commitment to Doom as a multiplayer game on our side," he said. "We are already working on private matches with custom game settings and expect to include that in a free update this summer."

China's current five-year economic plan came to light in March, and in it saw mention of the country's intent to build a manned deep-sea platform nearly 10,000 feet underwater. Now authorities have examined the particulars and decided to accelerate the project.

The purpose of the lab is multi-fold: to help hunt for treasure, evaluate mineral deposits (particularly oil), and to put it to military use (likely within the field of sensor and communication systems).

"Having this kind of long-term inhabited station has not been attempted this deep, but it is certainly possible," said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Manned submersibles have gone to those depths for almost 50 years. The challenge is operating it for months at a time."

E3 2016 - Microsoft has officially confirmed that Halo 5: Guardians isn't coming to PC and will stay exclusive to the Xbox One console.

Yesterday we reported on a rumor that Microsoft would drop a bombshell at E3 and bring Halo 5 to Windows 10 PCs. Now Remond has squashed the rumors, saying that Halo 5: Guardians won't ever be available to PC gamers. "Our approach is to deliver epic Halo experiences designed for PC gamers and Windows 10, such as Halo Wars 2 and the recently announced Halo 5: Forge. There are no plans to port Halo 5: Guardians to PC," a Microsoft rep told PC Gamer.

The rumor was substantiated by Microsoft's announcement to bring Halo 5's Forge Mode to PC, allowing gamers to build maps in 4K using the "mouse/keyboard precision of desktop PCs". The rumor gained even more momentum under Microsoft's new Project Helix strategy, which sees the Xbox platform merging with Windows 10 PCs. Under Project Helix, it's believed that all future Xbox One games would also cross-over to PC, and gamers thought that this could perhaps be applied to past games like Halo 5.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to a leaked Xbox store listing we're able to confirm that Destiny's Rise of Iron will raise the Light level cap, The Taken King is required to play the DLC, and the expansion takes up 14GB of free space on Xbox One. Here's the official store description for the DLC, and check below for the leaked store listing:

"Destiny Rise of Iron is the next highly anticipated expansion to the Destiny universe. The wall which stood for centuries along the southern border of Old Russia has collapsed. Fallen mutants now scavenge the tombs of the Golden Age, and the plague they have unearthed in the wastes is more dangerous than even they understand. Join Lord Saladin. Journey into the Plaguelands. Learn the fate of the Iron Lords and stop the growing threat before it is too late."

UPDATE: Activision has taken down the original leaked trailer, but we've found another mirror for the clip. Please excuse the loud dialog at the beginning!

Google parent company Alphabet is envisioning a not-so-distant future where internet doesn't require cable running through your city, but rather is beamed wirelessly into your home.

Company chairman Eric Schmidt brought the idea up at the annual shareholder meeting, where he stated that thanks to better computer chips and accurate "targeting of wireless signals", the technology is not only viable, but it can match its own Google Fiber speed-wise. Schmidt said he's met with Alphabet CEO Larry Page and CFO Ruth Porat to discuss it.

The technology is said to be in testing now in Kansas City, where Google first launched Fiber. The plan is to demonstrate it there by next year.

Computex 2016 - Sandisk unveiled their new Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C flash drive during Computex 2016, with the new generation drive featuring a new retractable design, higher speeds, more capacity, and more.

Vice President of Sandisk's Product Marketing, Dinesh Bahal explains: "With its reversible connector, impressive speeds, and multi-purpose potential, USB Type-C is a game-changer. More Type-C devices are entering the market and through our Type-C mobile drives, we can offer consumers a complete line of mobile storage solutions. The new Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C flash drive now provides more than twice the capacity and offers the flexibility to quickly and conveniently move photos, videos and files between devices, as well as the freedom to expand device capacity".

The new Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C flash drive comes in up to 128GB with a reversible USB Type-C connector and a standard USB Type-A connector that will allow you to connect it up to your PC, notebook, or even smartphone and tablet. We have USB 3.1 performance pushing up to 150MB/sec, which is more than enough speed to throw huge files onto the drive, at high speeds. The new drive arrives in capacities of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB with pricing of $19.99, $29.99, $39.99 and $69.99, respectively.

Computex 2016 - Lian Li was in force at Computex this year, unveiling two more "conventional" desks, in the form of the new DK-12 and DK-16. These new desks from Lian Li are automated standing desks, with a "similar console and customizable height presets to the DK-04".

The desktop on the other hand, is a particle board with a waterproof, leather-like surface mounted on aluminum. The standing mechanism itself can lift, and handle up to 264 lbs (120kg). The big difference between the DK-12 and DK-16 is that the DK-12 is 140cm wide (55 inches) while the DK-16 is around 200cm wide (78.7 inches). Lian Li will have a planned accessory for mounting under the desk, with an adjustable arm that can hold any shape/size PC, so that when the desk moves up and down, so too will your PC.

With the swirl of E3 2016 announcements and teases so far, one of the biggest ones is that Halo 5 is reportedly on its way to the PC, according to NeoGAF's industry insider 'Enter the Dragon Punch'.

The rumor teases that 'Enter the Dragon Punch' says "I have it on good authority from multiple sources that Halo 5 will be coming to PC". Most would discredit someone called Enter the Dragon Punch, but this person has been on the mark with several other leaks in the past, including the recent Sunset Overdrive on the PC rumor. It would make sense for Microsoft to release Halo 5 onto the PC, as they own both Xbox and Windows, but will they actually come through and release it well?

We all saw how Quantum Break was released on the PC alongside the Xbox One version, so if Microsoft does end up releasing Halo 5 on the PC, they need to do it in a big way. Far better graphics, tuned controls for the PC, countless graphics options (think DOOM), and more.

Something we missed during our Computex 2016 coverage was the new Plextor M8Pe series SSD, which is the company's new PCIe-based SSD which arrives with the super-fast 32Gb/s PCIe interface.

The new Plextor M8Pe series SSDs arrive in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and even 1TB sizes, all powered by the Marvel 88SS1093 series processor, baked onto Toshiba-made MLC NAND flash. The 128GB version of the drive reads at up to 1.6GB/sec while writes are slower at 500MB/sec with up to 120,000/130,000 IOPS R/W 4K random access. Moving up to the 256GB model, which is capable of up to 2GB/sec reads and 900MB/sec writes with 210,000/230,000 IOPS random access.

The larger 512GB model packs reads speeds of up to a whopping 2.3GB/sec while write speeds are 1.3GB/sec, with 260,000/250,000 IOPS random access, while the 1TB version has some insane numbers, with up to 2.5GB/sec reads and up to 1.4GB/sec writes with 280,000/240,000 IOPS random access.

FIFA 17 has been announced with the new game powered by the beautiful Frostbite engine, the engine created by EA DICE that has powered Battlefield 4, Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield Hardline (let's forget about that), Need for Speed, and others.

EA has also detailed some of the different editions of FIFA 17, with a Standard Edition, Deluxe Edition and even a Super Deluxe Edition. FIFA 17 launches on September 29 on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC - but first, here are the details on the three different versions of FIFA 17:

Standard Edition