Latest News - Page 2487

Following its recent 15 million viewer NFL live stream, Yahoo is partnering with the National Hockey League (NHL) to stream free, live out of market hockey games via Yahoo Sports to US viewers. Starting tomorrow with the Tampa Bay Lightning-Philadelphia Flyers game at 730 PM ET, it will offer up to four games per week on top of the current Wednesday and Sunday national games (in partnership with NBC Sports).

"This alliance brings us one step closer to providing fans a live professional sporting event every day, on Yahoo, completely frictionless and for free - no cable subscription or authentication required," says VP of Media Partnerships at Yahoo Phil Lynch.

Yahoo will also provide highlights and condensed games.

We all want to be able to game on our laptops, even if we don't necessarily admit it readily. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to fire up one of our favorite games for a quick spin when we're bored in a hotel room. It's possible, and gaming laptops exist that are both powerful and also not that massive, but they too are still limited in their abilities. And mobile GPU's aren't exactly the most powerful chips even if they can provide a good framerate. You can upgrade them, but an MXM module is far more expensive than a typical GPU. It's a problem that really wasn't being asked, but the solution to that might

AMD is introducing their XConnect technology that allows any laptop with Thunderbolt 3 to be able to have a discrete GPU connected to it. And there's a huge market for thin and light laptops out there because they're far more convenient to lug around. External graphics is actually a sound idea, too. When traveling, the external enclosure can be completely separate and safely ensconced in another piece of luggage completely, setup only when you're at your destination or when you really absolutely must have that extra GPU power, and AMD is the first to bring you this power. Plug-and-play GPU's are finally here, and they don't require a reboot anymore.

And they've done this by partnering with Razer and Thunderbolt in order to do this. Their innovations in allowing for graphics information to be passed via this interface isn't a closed-source method, either. They're staying true to their GPUOpen initiative and pushing their innovations out to be available to everyone. That means that yes, NVIDIA, can make use of their plug and play GPU technology.

Yesterday, Google's DeepMind AI took the first game against Go world champion Lee Sedol, to the shock of many. You might think it's just one game and Sedol could just as well come back to trounce 4-1, but today DeepMind did it again, putting itself up 2-0. Sedol, who after yesterday's loss commented he was still very confident he could beat the AI, is now very much on the backfoot.

"Yesterday I was surprised but today it's more than that - I am speechless," Lee remarked after the game. "I admit that it was a very clear loss on my part. From the very beginning of the game I did not feel like there was a point that I was leading."

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis said the AI was confident in victory from the midway point onward.

Not content with having totally redefined the RPG genre with The Witcher 3, CD Projekt RED is already laying out its plans for the future of RPG greatness.

In a recent earnings call, company president Adam Kicinski highlighted CDPR's development strategy for 2017-2021. This multi-year roadmap not only includes the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, but also a brand new unannounced AAA RPG whose details are pretty much unknown.

Since the timeline is a full eight years after the release of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, listeners speculated that CDPR's new AAA RPG could be for the upcoming next-generation PlayStation 4 and Xbox Two consoles. Kicinski wasn't able to comment on this, saying that the plans of new consoles are "closely guarded secrets", and that he had no clue what Sony or Microsoft are planning.

Traffic app Waze has arguably been the best of its kind for some time now, except for two major flaws: a wretched interface and high battery consumption. Both are fixed today with the new 4.0 update, which brings numerous quality of life improvements:

If you haven't tried it yet and are wondering why you should over Google Maps, those who prefer it say they enjoy the more aggressive rerouting and reports on police activity, hazards (including potholes), and so on.

When the minds behind The Witcher 3 says they're working on a project that "no one else has done before", we can only imagine what kind of awesomeness the studio is cooking up.

During CD Projekt RED's financial earnings call, company Adam Kicinski revealed that the Polish dev team will release a brand new game in 2016, and it'll be completely different than anything we've seen so far. Presentation slides reveal that the new game will be "a new type of video game format previously unexplored by the studio".

Kicinski didn't deliver concrete info, but teased that the new game will be "experimental", and it'll be something "no one else has done before". The Witcher 3's second Blood and Wine expansion is still on track to release this year, and will be the last of Geralt's adventures.

The Legend of Zelda for the Wii U was one of the most anticipated games of 2015, and now it retains that status for 2016. The producer for the game, Eiki Aonuma, says we should expect something new compared to the previous games, maybe even something more mature than we're used to.

In the latest issue of Famitsu, the producer was excited to report that progress for the game has been very good, and that the whole game is taking shape very well. He likens the change to how different The Ocarina of Time was compared to A Link to the Past on the SNES. It was dramatic, but it was also quite enjoyable. He even hinted at seeing a possible western influence to shake up the franchise.

He emphasized that we should look forward to what he has in store for us, that the differences will be good for Link and Zelda. "Perhaps, players will be surprised. Please look forward to it, because I think we'll be able to make 'something new' like Ocarina of Time was." Aonuma said to Famitsu.

Sony admits that its PlayStation VR won't be as robust as PC-powered VR headsets like the Oculus Rift, and affirms the PSVR isn't made for hardcore enthusiasts.

Sony isn't playing coy with the PlayStation VR. The Japanese console-maker outright says that the Oculus Rift (and HTC Vive by implication) is more powerful than its PS4-powered PSVR headset, but waves the age-old trade-off that consoles are much cheaper than high-end PCs.

"If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR. However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC," PlayStation executive vice president Masayasu Ito told Polygon. Ito goes on to say that the PlayStation VR is meant for everyday consumers and probably won't meet the high-spec needs of enthusiasts. "The biggest advantage for Sony is our headset works with PS4. It's more for everyday use, so it has to be easy to use, and it has to be affordable. This is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It's for the mass market."

Sent to us recently in an email, TinySticky is a current crowdfunding project on Indiegogo and aims to be the next best smartphone or tool accessory.

Holding up to 3 pounds in weight on any smooth and flat surface, this little device is exactly as the name suggests - tiny and sticky. This double sided contraption has been designed mainly for smartphone use, allowing you to stick your phone on your car dash, home wall, whiteboard, kitchen bench or roof if you really want.

While 'Tiny Sticky Labs' (the manufacturer) suggests that this product will be rejuvenated of its stickiness just by a simple wash, I would be a little hesitant to use the same tab consistently for an extended period of time. What's great regarding this fact is that it's quite cheap, currently available for $1 if you share it on Facebook or $3 plus shipping at a normal price.

The consoles seem to get patches a little later than the PC with Fallout 4, but that's not a bad thing at all, it just means further time for refinement and optimizations. Right? This patch, 1.4 is a big one and it has a lot of changes, specifically those that'll help to add support for add-ons and mods that'll be coming later on.

The list of fixes and additions is quite long with more metal and wood door variants to choose from when looking to create the perfect settlement, more signs to put up to confuse yourself and others and more clutter. But the important part is the support for future mods, something that consoles haven't been able to enjoy as much as their PC brethren.

The long list of what the patch brings can be found right here, and we'll be updating this if there's anything specific to the consoles that isn't quite listed in that list.

Released in an ATX form-factor format and carrying support for AMD AM3+ processors, GIGABYTE's new 990X-Gaming SLI motherboard is said to be a direct continuation of its AMD 970 motherboard releases, as reported by techPowerUp recently.

Designed to be built with an AMD FX-8370 processor, this new product features support for up to 32GB of dual-channel DDR3 RAM running at 2400MHz speeds, further packing in two PCI-E x16 slots, PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI options. Other ports include two USB 3.1 Type-A, four USB 3.0 ports, an Intel-powered I-218C gigabit Ethernet connection and 10-channel audio thanks to a 115 dbA SNR CODEC. Wrapping up the feature list are storage offerings including a single 20 Gb/s M.2 port and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

With this board set for release soon, reports say that it should hit the shelves at around $100.

Things are looking up for the future of Dead Island 2. Sumo Digital has agreed to take up the project and continue development where it left off.

The publisher, Deep Silver, was left without a proper developer once they officially parted ways with Yager, who was contracted to create the game. That left an IP without a proper home. But now they plan on partnering with a company that Deep Silver believes understands the brand better and has the creative foresight to fully realize the idea.

Sumo Digital is a very well renowned developer, having exclusively created LittleBigPlanet 3 and helped a number of other developers realize high-end and complex projects, such as Crackdown and Disney Infinity 3.0. And because of their achievements, Deep Silver is incredibly excited about their partnership.

With many companies vying for the number one position in the emerging enterprise SSD market, Lite-On has announced its addition recently, showcasing its EP2 U.2 Series SSD.

Utilizing a U.2 interface, this model is able to be converted to both SATA-Express and M.2, as explained by techPowerUp recently. With speed being key, this new product features sequential transfer rates capped at 2200 MB/s read and 1300 MB/s write.

Further features include a 290,000 IOPS 4K random read rating, a capacity of up to a massive 1920GB and being quoted as "designed for read-intensive database servers."

The body collision issue in The Division is a fairly serious issue that takes away some of the joy from playing The Division. The problem is that other players can physically block you from progressing by simply standing in your way. It's frustrating many players in safe-houses, the Dark Zone or any other area cooperative area.

Ubisoft has issued a statement on the matter and has detailed a very clever workaround that's been put into the game. If you find yourself unable to move forward, just move into the offending person for around 3 seconds and then you'll be granted access to where you're trying to go. Simple, effective and it doesn't completely remove object collisions because it's a surprisingly important part of a tactical game.

The Division has sold more than any other game for Ubisoft in a 24 hour period, which is quite the achievement. The launch of the game has been mostly successful. Servers have had small issues related to the unexpectedly high traffic though for the most part logging in and playing hasn't been an issue. The Snowdrop engine, too, has performed rather well in our initial benchmarks. In all, a much better launch than previous games from Ubisoft.

While there is already an extended series of ASUS VivoPCs on the market, ASUS has decided to expand its plethora of company offerings with the VivoMini VM65 series of products. All models in this series are packed into a chassis that measures under 2 liters in capacity and will include 6th Generation Intel Core processors.

The top model is said to feature not only 16GB of DDR4 memory, but it will also have a discrete NVIDIA GeForce 930M inside. This model is named the VM65N and has been designed for 4K in mind, ASUS said in a recent press release, with the 4K support in this model being designed to "allow users to enjoy stunning videos, play casual games at their highest settings, or view incredibly-detailed photos."

The VM65N further comes packed with two SuperSpeed USB 3.1 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, audio output, an inbuilt Intel Wi-Fi card, plus further Display Port++ and HDMI display options. Wrapping up the feature list is room for a single 4.5-inch HDD or two 2.5-inch storage solutions, with this PC being VESA-mountable.

AMD has just released its new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers, which include a bunch of new features, optimizations and more. The new drivers from AMD also include support for Hitman, which launches on March 11.

The Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers include performance improvements and a Crossfire profile for Hitman, as well as an updated Crossfire profile for The Park. We also have performance improvements for Rise of the Tomb Raider (16% improvement on Fiji-based cards), Gears of War Ultimate Edition (which is up a huge 60% on Fiji hardware, and even 44% on R9 380 series cards).

The 16.3 release also has AMD providing full support for Vulkan's initial release, which supports compatible GPUs to make good use of a low-overhead API in supported games and applications. There are some new features with the 16.3 release, including per-game display scaling, support for two-display Eyefinity configurations, as well as the ability to disable some of the power efficiency optimizations through a 'Power Efficiency Toggle' on Radeon 300 and Fury X series GPUs.

The original Max Payne was a huge game at the time, with its sequel improving on the game in many ways - but many gamers felt Max Payne 3 wasn't as good as it could've been - with developer Remedy selling the rights to Max Payne to Take-Two Interactive all the way back in 2002.

Under Take-Two's ownership, Rockstar Games (the developers of Grand Theft Auto) released Max Payne 3 in 2012 - which was met with success. Fast forwarding to now, with the impending release of Quantum Break, Remedy's Sam Lake talked with Metro Game Central about what the developer would do if they were to be in the position of making another Max Payne game. Lake teased: "They did contact us close to the end of Max Payne 3 and wanted us to be consultants. We were playing the game and giving them feedback, and I had a nice opportunity of working with Dan Houser when he was creating the prequel comic book for Max Payne 3. But other than that we were not involved".

Lake continued: "I don't know... if that kind of opportunity did present itself I think it would be fun. Yes. You can't help but have all kinds of ideas, but we did two Max Payne games. From a creator's perspective it was actually nice knowing that we had sold the IP to Rockstar after the first one, and part of the deal was to make the second one. So through that whole project I knew that in all likelihood this was the last Max Payne that we would make. So doing that and saying your goodbyes to that franchise had a lot of closure for me. But who can say, if something like that would suddenly happen I'm sure that we could come up with something cool".

The upcoming 2016 Rio Olympic Games is only five months away, and this year it's coming with some pretty exciting technological breakthroughs.

According to Engadget, not only will select events including the opening and closing ceremonies be made available in VR around the world, around 130 hours of select events will be filmed with 8K cameras and broadcast in Japan in 8K, with a mind-blowing 22.2 channels of sound, as an experiment towards broadcasting the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in the Super Hi-Vision format. Unfortunately, sports fans in other countries will have to be content with 1080p broadcasting where available , as there are no plans for 4K broadcasts, which is a real bummer.

I don't know why I'm writing about Kim Kardashian of all things, but her latest mobile game 'Kim Kardashian: Hollywood' has made so much money, I had to write about it.

Glu Mobile's Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made an insane $80 million, a figure that Mrs Kardashian West took to Twitter to brag about. In a tweet, Kardashian said: "sorry I'm late to the party guys I was busy cashing my 80 million video game check & transferring 53 million into our joint account". We can only guess that Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made that money throughout 2015, as the mobile game earned $13.4 million in Q4, or 24% of Glu Mobile's total revenue for the quarter.

Throughout the entire of 2015, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made $71.8 million, or 30% of Glu Mobile's total revenue. The game is of huge importance to the company, but the earning power of the game has declined since its launch in 2014, where it made $43.4 million in revenue in Q3 alone. In the same quarter of 2015, this revenue dropped to $18.8 million. Not too bad for a game... about Kim Kardashian.

The 'Where's Wally' series of children's book (known as 'Where's Waldo' in the United States) is set to come to the big screen, with comedian Seth Rogen set to produce.

According to Tracking Board, MGM are behind the live-action project from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's production company Grey Point Pictures. 'Kung Fu Panda' screenwriter Todd Berger has written the latest draft of the script.

While there's no current word on who's being targeted to play the red and white striped hero, whoever brings him to life could be residing over a stroke of genius project - or a mad one.