Latest News - Page 2517

We all know the pain of being on a plane without Wi-Fi, but US communications company ViaSat could change all of that. The company has teamed up with Boeing to launch three new satellites that would have massive bandwidth.

The companies will be launching new satellites that will feature twice the total combined network capacity of all of the connected satellites flying through space. The two companies have already started this work, with two of the three ViaSat-3 satellites. These new satellites will have more than 1Tbps of capacity, each.

ViaSat will be in control of designing and manufacturing the payload while Boeing will be taking care of developing the "associated satellite bus platforms" for its 2019 launch. The first two satellites will take care of the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) while the third satellite will cover Asia.

Since the release of Windows 10, we've been slowly learning just how much of a spying tool it is for Microsoft, but these new numbers are going to blow you away.

Voat user CheesusCrust has completed some extensive testing on Windows 10, where he reports that during an 8-hour period, Windows 10 attempted to send back data from his PC to over 51 different IPS addresses owned by Microsoft, and at a staggering 5500 times.

After 30 hours, the data being sent back to Microsoft from Windows 10 expanded to a huge 113 non-private IP addresses. These IP addresses being non-private means that hackers can intercept that data, which makes anyone using Windows 10 very, very vulnerable. You might think this is just a once-off, and that the proof can't be replicated? Yeah, well, no.

AR and VR companies Magic Leap and Virtuix are the latest to join the Entertainment Software Association.

Magic Leap only recently secured itself a huge $800 million investment, which will see their augmented reality (AR) technology leap into the arms of consumers in the near future. Virtuix on the other hand, is a VR firm that took to Kickstarter with its Virtuix Omni platform, which enables physical movement and mobility in the VR world.

Jan Goetgeluk, founder and CEO of Virtuix, said: "We're proud to join ESA during this exciting time of transformation for video games and virtual reality. We look forward to joining ESA at the forefront of critical policy issues facing our dynamic industry".

After the whirlwind success of 'The Force Awakens' comes to an end, with an astonishing $2b worldwide haul, attention now moves to the series continuation, and it's upcoming spin-off 'Rogue One'. In an announcement that's sure to get fans in a tizzy, Disney and Lucasfilm have announced that cameras have begun rolling on the as-yet untitled 'Episode VIII'.

According to ComingSoon, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed during an investor conference call yesterday that "filming of 'Star Wars: Episode VIII', the next chapter of the legendary saga has just commenced"" before also confirming that "production of 'Episode IX' ... has also begun."

If you've seen 'The Force Awakens' you'll have a pretty solid idea at who's set to return, a mixture of the original cast and the new cast. Under the helm of 'Looper' director Rian Johnston, 'Episode VIII' will hit screens worldwide in December 2018.

It looks like the mobile app market is doing extremely well, with a new report from App Annie expecting to see global spending reach $50.9 billion this year - with the Google Play Store to overtake the Apple App Store in 2017.

App Annie released its new Mobile App Forecast recently, predicting that worldwide mobile app store revenues would hit $101.1 billion in 2020. The analyst firm is expecting consumer spending on apps to be up 24% year-over-year at $50.9 billion this year, with these numbers including non-gaming apps, but not mobile commerce and advertising revenue.

The company expects the Apple App Store to be the single highest grossing app storefront into the near future, with $44.8 billion generated in 2020, it will be overtaken by the Google Play Store in gross revenue numbers next year, with $55.7 billion expected in 2020. Why is Android poised to take over? The report points to the huge growth of Android in emerging markets like India, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia.

The whole world mourned the loss of P.T. but it looks like we might see it live again in another way through Visage, which is inspired by the likes of P.T. and the Silent Hills series.

Visage has taken to Kickstarter with a funding goal of $35,000 CAD - at the time of writing and with 30 days to go, it has reached $47,603 CAD with 1424 backers. Visage is explained as: "The game will be set inside a huge house in which terrible things have happened. You'll wander through the gloomy corridors, explore every dead room, and get lost in endless mazes, your head filling with memories of the dead families that once lived in this very home. This twisted environment, void of any life other than yours, will take you to places you couldn't even bear imagining".

The next stretch goal doesn't seem too hard at $50,000, which will see the game made with VR support - but then once it hits $75,000 "it gets real" with more 3D character models.

Nothing says confidence in your product than starting development on a sequel before the first one has even hit screens, but such is the buzz (and audience tracking) on 'Deadpool', that Fox have apparently greenlit a sequel to the Marvel feature.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, 'Deadpool' writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have already been commission to write the follow up, which 20th Century Fox have already given the go-ahead for. While director Tim Miller has not yet been re-hired, the core team of the writers, Miller and star Ryan Reynolds are all expected to return.

By today's standards, the $58m budget is considered for a movie of this genre and the fact it's tracking to recoup its entire budget on opening weekend probably plays a part in today's news. But will the film be any good? Come back in a week for TweakTown's review!

During the Unity Vision Summit, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey had some choice words to say regarding the expectations of Rift pre-orders, and that it should be far more than a few hundred thousand units.

Luckey said: "A few hundred thousand dev kits is nothing compared to what we will be doing this year...". Luckey also added that Oculus had shipped around 200,000 developer kits to developers, including the DK1 and DK2 units. Judging by what Luckey is saying here, it looks like he's hinting that Oculus would be shipping millions of Rift units, and that doesn't seem right.

We reached out to our good friend Anshel Sag, Staff Technologist and Technical Writer of Moor Insights & Strategy, who said: "I believe that it would be extremely unlikely that Oculus would ship more than 100,000 to 200,000 Rift headsets this year. I believe that Palmer's statements are more of his wishes and hope than the reality of the current situation, similar to what we saw with pricing of the Rift".

AMD's upcoming Zen architecture is exciting on its own, but what about the Opteron line of processors? According to the latest slides used by Liviu Valsan, a Computer Engineer with CERN, the Zen-based Opteron is going to be a beast.

The slide teases that the Zen-based Opteron would be made on the 14nm process, "expected to bring a 40% improvement for Instructions Per Clock compared to current generation AMD processors", and a huge 32 physical cores. We should also see 8-channel DDR4 support, up from the quad-channel DDR4 on enthusiast platforms from Intel.

With AMD offering its Zen-based Opteron with up to 32 CPU cores, it means the company can scale right down to SKUs with 8, 16, and 24 cores, too. This means on the consumer desktop platform, AMD will have 8-core FX series CPUs, but it would be nice to see 16-core processors based on Zen, too.

With the release of Far Cry Primal around the corner, Oz Modz custom PC builder Stephen Hoad had created a beautiful custom gaming PC in the theme of Ubisoft's upcoming first-person shooter.

The PC rocks an ASUS T.U.F. Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1 motherboard, backed up by 2 x ASUS Strix NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970s in SLI. CPU wise, Stephen used an Intel Core i7-6700K, backed up by 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM. The Corsair RM 850i PSU was used, with 2 x 240GB Kingston Hyper-X Savage SSDs backed up by a 2TB Western Digital Black HDD handling storage. The full list of gear inside of the system, we have below:

Just as it was alluded to last month, the next great expansion to the free-to-play MMO, Neverwinter, is here for the Xbox One.

The new expansion lets you journey into the Underdark with a story that's written by one of the original Forgotten Realms creators, R.A. Salvatore himself. After the initial encounter there'll be a whole new campaign waiting for you. Complete with hordes of demons that obviously need your slaying.

Inside there'll be two new skirmishes, the Prophecy of Madness and the Throne of the Dwarven Gods that should prove to be quite challenging. After you whet your whistle with those, you can enjoy a better looking Tarmalune Trade Bar STore, which has been overhauled and has a lot of new items with vastly reduced prices. Below you can see all the great new things that're included in the new expansion.

The head of Sony's VR studio, Dr. David Ranyard is stepping down from his position at Sony's London Studio. According to a press release, he plans on pursuing independent VR projects.

In a statement he said that "2016 is going to be the year of VR so it's the perfect time for me to take this step into independent development." The potential opportunities in the industry are what drew him to alternative possibilities. "The emergence of a new medium like VR doesn't come along very often and I really want to be a part of this new world."

It's sad to see such leader in the industry move on from a large venture such as the one he was heading at Sony's London Studio. But even with the loss, that just means the proliferation of more opportunities and more competition to help fuel better innovation. PlayStation VR is looking closer to release, so it's likely he wants to help other startups and make VR a much more common and accessible experience. He hasn't said specifically where he'll be going next, though.

If you wanted to give Paragon a try during the PlayStation 4 test that they're having on February 13th, then you'll also be able to play on servers against PC players in a marvelous example of true cross-play functionality.

They started asking for beta testers just last month when they opened up the sign-up page to include PlayStation 4 users. If you were one of those that has beta access, you'll get some more information from them this week and a way to redeem a PS4 specific key. Just make sure you've linked your Epic Games account with your PSN account in order for it to work properly.

Below are the official testing times for the beta, dubbed Online Test 7.

Sonic the Hedgehog is getting his own feature film, after nearly 25 years since he was first introduced to the world. Sony will be teaming up with Sega Sammy Group in order to realize the blue blur into a combination action and CGI film.

This is the first theatrical production with Sonic, though he's had plenty of other animated for TV dramatizations. Speaking to The World Folio, the Sega chief executive, Hajime Saito confirmed the movie, saying that "Sega Sammy Group is currently planning with Sony Pictures to create a live-action and animation hybrid Sonic The Hedgehog movie scheduled for release in 2018."

Sonic is celebrating his 25th anniversary this year and there has been much speculation as to whether a new game is in development as well. Sega even teased a new piece of the puzzle just yesterday, hinting at something special for this year.

North Korea set a major record over the weekend following the launch of their first satellite -carrying rocket. The problem, however, is that the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 satellite doesn't even work at all. And it's tumbling about in orbit, on a trajectory to burn-up in orbit. And smash into the Earth.

The US Department of Defense and other agencies around the world have analyzed the orbital object and have determined that it's in an unstable orbit, and absolutely incapable of functioning in any useful way. Other than as a proof of concept.

Of course officials from various countries and the U.N. Security Council are worried that this test is a display of their technological prowess and a secretive way to test technologies that could evolve into better intercontinental ballistic missiles, or even spy satellites.

Tomorrow's February update to DriveClub is bringing a whole new level of fun to the game. A hardcore handling mode and new tracks should help infuse some needed love into one of the better console racing games.

The new mode lets you turn off all traction control and any other driving assist features to let you truly feel the road. It also might make it that much easier to crash. But just imagine the fun you can have before the moment of impact. In case that isn't quite your thing, this update is also adding six variants of a new track, Scotland - old Town.

All of this is just a precursor to much larger expansions, No Limits and Suzuki, which are coming out on February 23rd. Those will add new cars, bikes and six extra events to play through. Those will be paid expansions, however, and this update with hardcore mode is completely free.

Rocket League has been promised to make it to the Xbox One this month, and it looks like they're releasing it right on schedule.

Starting on the 17th of February you'll be able to pick it up from the Xbox store for $19.99. The Xbox One version is getting all three of the previously released DLC packs bundled into it for free, adding a bit more value to it. That means you'll get six new cars and more decals than you'll know what to do with.

To sweeten the deal, prospective Xbox One owners will get two exclusive vehicles, the Armadillo, from Gears of War fame and a Warthog, from Halo. It would be blasphemy if these made their way to the PS4 or even the PC. They're also keen on adding in some garage items from Sunset Overdrive, again exclusive to the Xbox One.

Nine days before the beta for Hitman, the PC requirements have show up on the Steam page. Of course these could very well be subject to change after the beta reveals important data about performance. Check them out below to see if your system can handle it.

It looks like the more cores the better. And unfortunately we won't be able to play with DX12 or Vulkan quite yet, though those are rumored to be coming later on. But all you need for a good time is an R9 290 at a minimum or a GTX 770. Hopefully it's been a bit more optimized since the alpha version showed the Titan X struggling to keep up even at 1080P. We'll be in the beta, and we hope to see your thoughts too.

Minimum:

Following yesterdays restructuring news, Mad Catz has decided to layoff 37% of their workforce after seeing less than ideal profits.

That is, they had the second-highest quarterly sales for the year, with a 114% increase in profit year-over-year. That, however, was not enough to sustain operations given their primary focus in the peripheral market. Net income, likely due to the investment in Rockband 4 and in the creation of Star Citizen peripherals, which costs considerable R&D capital, was down by 10%. "Rock Band sell-through was lower than originally forecast resulting in higher inventory balances as well as lower margins due to increased promotional activity with retailers," Mad Catz said in their official statement.

The restructuring and layoffs are expected to save them around $5 million by the start of FY 2017. That should significantly increase their profitability, despite the negative impact on the surrounding job market.

Descent: Underground is bringing on the six-degree of freedom (6DoF) revolution. The fast-paced action packed Early Access game has inspired the creation of another game of its ilk, Overlord, which is being worked on by some of the co-creators of the original Descent game.

The new studio, Revival Productions, plans on launching a Kickstarter later today to help raise $300,000 to assist in the development of their dream. When all is complete, and there's no estimated date yet, they want to have it available on the PC, PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.

Inside you'll have a complete single-player experience with 15 levels designed specifically to take advantage of the unique FPS like physics and 6DoF movement. You'll be able to choose from a dozen different, upgradeable weapons, to fight against more than 12 different enemies and three intimidating bosses. Just because these can be a bit fast-paced even compared to CoD, there'll be five different difficulty levels to suit nearly every player.