Latest News - Page 2426

Thanks to delayed review copies and an awkward embargo, No Man's Sky review scores likely won't be ready until days after the game launches. We'll have plenty of livestreams though.

Review embargoes for No Man's Sky don't lift until August 8 at 11PM EST, just an hour before its release on PSN and Steam, and publications won't be receiving their review copies until Monday, August 8.

So don't expect anyone to have their review ready by the time the embargo lifts, and it might be as long as two to four days after No Man's Sky launches before we get an official review. Before you get too disappointed, I'm sure we'll see an incredible volume of livestreams to showcase the game in action.

Apple has announced that App Store developers have earned $50 billion so far, with company CEO Tim Cook revealing the news on Twitter.

Cook added that July was a record-breaking month for the App Store, with the highest-ever monthly billings and money paid to iOS developers. Apple takes a nice cut of those profits, so the iPhone giant is laughing all the way to the bank. Apple reported a quarterly revenue of $42.4 billion, with a net income for the quarter of $7.8 billion.

Apple CFO Luca Maestri said: "Our Services business grew 19 percent year-over-year and App Store revenue was the highest ever, as our installed base continued to grow and transacting customers hit an all-time record".

Blizzard will reveal a remastered HD port of StarCraft this September, with details following at Blizzzcon in November, according to reports from Korean news site iNews24.

"Today, multiple sources with knowledge of Blizzard internal plans said that Blizzard will reveal StarCraft HD to the public this September. The StarCraft HD remastered version will retain the original gameplay and is said to have improved graphics resolution and user interface (UI)," says the Korean publication.

This isn't the first time we've heard about HD remasters of classic Blizzard games. An old Blizzard job listing strongly indicated that WarCraft III, StarCraft and Diablo II would be getting HD remasters: "Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. We're restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done," reads the now defunct listing.

Good guy Valve has just announced SteamVR's room scale 3D tracking technology is now open source, with development kits including two HTC Vive base stations; a "full complement of EVM circuit boards to enable rapid prototyping of your own tracked object" and 40 sensors for tracked objects that can be anything from a VR golf club, an indoor drone, and so much more.

On Valve's FAQ page, the company says there's no catch when it comes to charging licensing fees, but you do need to get yourself to a $3000 in-person training session in Seattle as part of the process. The company hopes that with classes beginning in September, that new groups of industrial designers, and mechanical and electrical engineers attend the training session, instead of individuals.

id Software made a big comeback with the reboot of DOOM, and now Quake Champions is on the way, a new PC-exclusive arena-based first-person shooter due out in 2017.

The company has released the first gameplay trailer to Quake Champions, which is above, and it has plenty of rocking jumping goodness. The gameplay trailer was unveiled by id Software Studio Director Tim Willits during QuakeCon 2016.

Quake Champions has infused the old-school Quake games, while keeping load outs away from Quake Champions. Willits explained: "No loadouts, no limit to the amount of guns you can carry. Time the weapon pickups, or kill your opponents. That's how you get weapons in a Quake game".

Tesla founder Elon Musk has said that the company is working on some exciting stuff in its autonomous technology sector, with Musk saying: "Full autonomy is going to come a lot faster than anyone thinks it will. And what we've got coming is going to blow people's minds. I mean, it blows my mind".

The company has increased the production of electric vehicles to 2000 per week, with the company making 14,402 vehicles in Q2 2016, an increase of 43% over the same three-month period of 2015. Around 2/3 of those vehicles were the Model S vehicles, while 4638 of those sales were the higher-end Model X SUV models. For the whole of 2016, Tesla has made 18,345 electric vehicles, short of their 20,000 goal by the first half of the year.

Tesla's upcoming Model 3 is planned to hit the production line on July 1, 2017 but it might get pushed back a few weeks or a month through issues with suppliers.

After delivering over a decade of blockbusters including the 'Dark Knight Trilogy', 'Interstellar', 'Inception' and 'The Prestige', director Christopher Nolan has turned his eye to a real life WWII story for his next feature film, which has just released its first teaser trailer.

Focusing on the evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain and France after they found themselves surrounded by the German army during a fierce battle in World War II, the Battle of Dunkirk became a defining moment in the World War II after Allied strategists initially considered surrendering to Germany forces.

With a cast including Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, and Mark Rylance, 'Dunkirk' hits cinemas on July 21 next year.

While the shape shifting, liquid metal villain T-1000 from James Cameron's 1991 blockbuster 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' has wowed audiences for over two decades (it still looks seriously good), it's thankfully been relegated to the realms of science fiction. Until some Aussie scientists started working on it. Damn them.

According to The Independent, a team of engineers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia have made a breakthrough which could one day lead to bad news for humanity. Lead Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh told media: "We adjusted the concentrations of acid, base and salt components in the water and investigated the effect. Simply tweaking the water's chemistry made the liquid metal droplets move and change shape, without any need for external mechanical, electronic or optical stimulants. Using this discovery, we were able to create moving objects, switches and pumps that could operate autonomously - self-propelling liquid metals driven by the composition of the surrounding fluid." Spelling out their discovery a little more simply, Kalantar-zadeh continued "Eventually, using the fundamentals of this discovery, it may be possible to build a 3D liquid metal humanoid on demand - like the T-1000 Terminator."

Don't mind me. I'm off to build an underground bunker.

Bethesda has launched a new gameplay trailer for Arkane's new re-imagined Prey game, and boy is it creepy.

The new Prey game isn't what you think it is: it's not a reboot, it's not a sequel. It's a total re-imagining of the series from the minds that brought us Dishonored. It's still technically an FPS, but this time around the game takes on a more cerebral bent; Arkane wants to get inside your head and make you question your own identity. I mean listen to the opening line: "I keep having this dream. I'm staring at the black between the stars. There's something there. I know there is. I can't see it, but it sees me. It sees...everything." Just...creepy.

"Prey is not a sequel, it's not a remake, it has no tie with the original. You have to look at it as a re-imagining of the IP," says Raphael Colantonio, president of Arkane Studios and creative director of Prey. "Prey isn't just about shooting aliens. It's more of a hybrid game where narratives mix with action and a little bit of an RPG layer. So you have some weapons, but you have lots of other things too, including powers you can learn from the aliens themselves.

Before Disney purchased the 'Star Wars' franchise back in 2012, creator George Lucas and producer Rick McCallum had been in pre-production on a live-action 'Star Wars' TV show, with over 50 scripts written (from big names including Ron Moore of 'Battlestar Galactica' fame) and extensive character, costume and set designs all developed. But that work came to a hault when networks baulked at the $5 million per episode cost and Disney chose to focus their efforts on bringing the more lucrative feature film empire back to life. But now the films are up and running, the TV project might be coming back to life.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Channing Dungey, the president of Disney-owned channel ABC Entertainment president was asked at the Television Critics Association's press tour that there was some movement on the project, saying "Oh, as a fan, I would absolutely love to say 'Yes'. The conversations with Lucas, we have had conversations with them and will continue to have conversations with them. I think it would be wonderful if we could find a way to extend that brand into our programming." She also went further after proceedings had finished "It's all a little bit hush-hush. That company exists under a big shroud of secrecy. If you feel Marvel's secretive, [Lucasfilm] takes it to a whole other level ... [Talks] are ongoing. We don't have an official timeline yet".

With the future release of more 'Star Wars' film, books and multimedia experiences than you can poke a stick at, there's no doubt the franchise has never been stronger than now.

Facebook's handy news feed isn't perfect, sometimes offering up misleading and/or clickbait article titles. Well, the people have spoken and as a result, the company is cracking down.

"We've heard from people that they specifically want to see fewer stories with clickbait headlines or link titles," it writes in a blog post. "These are headlines that intentionally leave out crucial information, or mislead people, forcing people to click to find out the answer. For example: "When She Looked Under Her Couch Cushions And Saw THIS... I Was SHOCKED!"; "He Put Garlic In His Shoes Before Going To Bed And What Happens Next Is Hard To Believe"; or "The Dog Barked At The Deliveryman And His Reaction Was Priceless."

"To address this feedback from our community, we're making an update to News Feed ranking to further reduce clickbait headlines in the coming weeks. With this update, people will see fewer clickbait stories and more of the stories they want to see higher up in their feeds."

A PC port of Platinum Games' lauded action game Vanquish is looking more likely after a Kotaku interview with company co-founder Atsushi Inaba. Asked if the game might come to PC, Inaba replied, "Hrm. I wonder... If you stop recording, I can talk about that," before laughing.

There are a number of possibilities one could surmise from this reply. Namely, a port is a sure thing but Platinum and its publisher are waiting for the right time to announce it, or they're looking into it now but aren't sure it's technically and/or financially feasible.

Inaba notes he appreciates the success the platform has outside of Japan, and that his studio enjoys hanging out at the Valve offices to look at new technology and talk about "many different things." He also states the only thing that really determines whether Platinum releases a PC title or not is its publisher.

Nintendo's new NX, a transforming handheld/console hybrid, will have strong third-party support with major AAA publishers apparently signing on to port games over to the new platform.

Nintendo is keen on reversing everything about the Wii U, especially its faltering third-party games support. Sources have told MCV that the NX, which is reported to be a powerful handheld whose graphics sit between a PS3 and PS4, will have outstanding third-party games support from leading games publishers like Activision, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and SEGA.

Nintendo will also put forth major efforts for quality first-party games on the NX, including Zelda Breath of the Wild, and a new Pokemon and Mario game throughout the first six months of the NX's launch.

Apple is set to unveil its next-gen iPhone next month, but between then and now we have some new leaks to look at, and wonder where Apple is going with this new direction on the next generation iPhone.

According to Unbox Therapy, who has gotten their hands-on a new iPhone 7 Plus mockup from China (which is also rumored to be called the iPhone 7 Pro), there will be no 3.5mm headphone jack. You can see in the image above that the iPhone 7 Plus, which is the one at the bottom, has no 3.5mm headphone jack - and only has the Lightning port.

On the rear of the new iPhone 7 Plus, it has docking contact points, which could be for wireless headphones or possibly - and hopefully, wireless charging. The antenna is now along the side of the iPhone, compared to two bands running from left to right at the top, and bottom of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The new iPhone 7 Plus also feels lighter according to Unbox Therapy, and this could have the iPhone 7 Plus being thinner than the iPhone 6 Plus.

NVIDIA is preparing some pretty delicious mobile GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, and according to the latest rumors it could offer similar performance to the desktop GeForce GTX 1070, and nearly as fast as the desktop GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

This means the upcoming mobile GTX 1070 would be faster than the current GTX 980 that's for notebooks, but to be nearly as fast as the desktop GTX 980 Ti, which is considerably faster than the GTX 980? Impressive stuff. The report has the GPU clock on the mobile GeForce GTX 1070 reaching 1822MHz, while the typical boost sits at 1645MHz.

We should hear more information on the mobile GeForce GTX 10 series soon, but if this rumor turns out to be true, we could be in for some seriously fast gaming notebooks that could also be thinner and more power efficient.

New reports suggest that the Nintendo NX actually is a transforming handheld hybrid, and its graphics will sit somewhere between the PS3 and PS4.

Sources have told MCV that the rumors behind Nintendo's new NX games system are 100% accurate: the NX will unify handheld and console gaming with a powerful tablet-like handheld that can be docked for living room play. The sources go on to say that the NX's graphics will be "somewhere between a PS3 and PS4," further corroborating our reports that the NX is powered by NVIDIA's new Pascal-based Tegra chip.

At the same time, however, the NX won't appeal traditional console fans who are used to PS4-grade quality--and by extension, PC gamers who expect high-end performance, and at least 1080p 60FPS. "It's a nice bit of kit, a bit of a novelty, but a good one," an unidentified industry exec, who had tried the NX, told MCV. "It won't appeal to PS4 fans. Nintendo seems set on trying to upgrade smartphone gamers. That's going to be a big job for the marketing department."

Google is getting all six degrees of separation with parent company Alphabet, and its life sciences company Verily - yeah, see - has announced it entered a new joint venture with GSK, one of the pharmaceutical powerhouses, called Galvani Bioelectronics.

Galvani Bioelectronics will be working on experimental medicine that uses will use electric signals and much smaller devices, in comparison to the current system of chemical drugs in order to treat chronic diseases. Verily, owned by Google along with GSK said they would invest over $700 million across 7 years, with GSK owning a 55% equity in the newly formed Galvani Bioelectronics. GSK is already familiar with bioelectronics, as it began work in the exciting new field back in 2012.

Verily has been working with much smaller medical devices, such as smart contact lens right after Google's X research labs formed. Verily has worked with another large part of big pharma, with a joint venture into medical robots with Johnson and Johnson. There have been reports from biotech insiders and former staff that have not agreed with Verily for working on too many 'far-fetched health care projects without focus", reports Recode.

AMD has officially launched its new Radeon RX 470, the second graphics card powered by the new Polaris architecture and made on the 14nm FinFET process. AMD's new Radeon RX 470 starts at $179 and is capable of 1080p 60FPS gaming on a 120W TDP. I have received a few Radeon RX 470 models, with the SAPPHIRE Nitro RX 470 4GB review going up very soon - but I thought I'd brief you on what to expect from the new $179 graphics card from AMD.

Inside, we have 2048 stream processors with up to 4.9 TFLOPs of performance and 32 compute units, this is joined by 4GB or 8GB of GDDR5 RAM at up to 7Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus, providing 211GB/sec memory bandwidth.

The Polaris architecture is about as future-proof as you can get, including DisplayPort 1.4 which supports up to 8K 30Hz displays as well as 4K 120Hz which isn't far away. HDMI 2.0 is finally here, after the Fiji architecture being let down without 4K 60FPS support through HDMI 1.4 at the time. We also have HDR display, which will allow High Dynamic Range monitors to provide Polaris-based graphics cards like the Radeon RX 470 with an experience that really is like no other. The Radeon RX 470 has FreeSync support, with over 80 monitors powered by FreeSync now on the market.

With the Olympics right around the corner, the BBC has said it will be launching an "experimental" service on Friday that will broadcast the Olympics in 360-degree video.

There will be around 100 hours broadcasted in 360-degree video, which will be playable through the new BBC Sport 360 app for iOS, Android and Samsung's Gear VR headset. The live events will see beach volleyball, boxing, basketball and fencing on display - while the opening and closing ceremonies will be broadcasted on August 5 and 22, respectively.

The BBC will be offering four different camera angles during each event, so you can move freely around the environment that is being filmed. The BBC adds that this is all possible thanks to some trials it worked on during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Job Simulator is one of the most fun games you can play in VR on the HTC Vive, with Owlchemy Labs kicking off their work back in 2013 with the original Oculus Rift DK1 headset.

Owlchemy continued working behind the scenes on its fundamental interaction and simulation algorithms over the last few years, something that has now paid off with a $5 million round of Series A investment led by Qualcomm Ventures. Owlchemy Labs started out as an indie game developer in 2010, but quickly changed tracks when VR headsets were announced - like the Oculus Rift hitting Kickstarter all those years ago.

The developer nailed its silly world in Job Simulator, turning you into a store clerk, chef, auto mechanic or office worker - with Owlchemy's impressive physics and simulation technologies really being shown off in a great way. These technologies and subsystems could power any number of VR titles, with Owlchemy teasing its latest VR project inspired by the infamous cartoon Rick and Morty, which will be built on the foundations of Job Simulator. Owlchemy CEO Alex Schwartz explains: "We were able to build this so much faster and easier because of everything we did in Job Simulator".