Latest News - Page 2548

It might seem like fantasy, but scientists have found a way to delete bad memories from your head - forever. The news is coming from a new documentary being shown in the US this week called "Memory Hackers".

Memory Hackers is a NOVA documentary from PBS, which looks into the cutting edge research being done on the nature of memory, and how it might be used for the benefit of mankind. The filmmakers said: "For much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays it intact".

They continue: "But now, researchers are discovering that memory is far more malleable, always being written and rewritten, not just by us but by others. We are discovering the precise mechanisms that can explain and even control our memories".

Now that we know Quantum Break won't be an Xbox One exclusive with the announcement of a release on the PC - with it being an exclusive to Windows 10 as it requires DX12 - we're finding out that it will not be on Steam, either.

Quantum Break will be a Windows Store exclusive according to Aaron Greenberg during the MajorNelson podcast. Greenberg said: "So, Quantum Break on Windows 10 is a Windows store exclusive". So while this is good, there were issues surrounding the Windows Store version of Rise of the Tomb Raider, so let's hope it doesn't happen with Quantum Break.

The Windows Store version of Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn't feature exclusive full screen support for SLI and Crossfire-based setups, and PC gamers aren't able to use third-party overlay programs like FRAPS or MSI Afterburner.

During E3 2015, PC Gamer hosted the awesome PC Gaming Show, which was an event for all things PC gaming. This year, it's coming back, and once again it'll happen during E3 in June.

PC Gamer says: "With the help of all the feedback and support everyone gave the event in 2015, we're looking forward to bringing you an even better show than last year. In 2015 it was really important to us to get a big variety of participants on stage to help convey the spectrum of exciting stuff happening on PC, but an inevitable effect of that was that we ran quite long".

They continued: "This year's show will be more focused, but packed with tons of new announcements and exclusive reveals". As for participants, we don't know who will be at this year's PC Gaming Show, but we can expect some big names - last year, we saw AMD, Microsoft, and many game developers join in on the PC gaming fun.

Intel's unreleased Broadwell-EP powered Xeon processor has hit eBay, with the Xeon E5-2600 v4 processor being an 18-core part (36 threads thanks to Hyper-Threading) and priced at a pretty damn decent $999.

The new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 works on existing X99-based motherboards, with a base clock of 2.2GHz, and Turbo frequency of 3GHz. The new Xeon CPU is based on Intel's 14nm process, with a big note that this particular CPU is an engineering sample with the 'A0' stepping which means it's an early sample.

It features 2.5MB of L3 cache per core, with 45MB LLC cache in total. The Xeon E5-2600 v4 comes with a 145W TDP. Now, this super-awesome 18-core Xeon E5-2600 v4 works with the Supermicro X10SR series with the BIOS R 2.0, while the X10DR series works with the BIOS R 2.0 release.

ARK: Survival Evolved has finally been updated on the Xbox One to v732.0, which enables some sweet old-school split screen gaming competition.

The update weighs in at 4.5GB and also adds three new prehistoric creatures for you to attempt to tame, the Dung Beetle, Dimetrodon and the Gallimimus. The Gallimimus can handle up to three people on it and run incredibly quickly. The Dimetrodon can shelter you from harsh environments with its gigantic sail, a useful feature.

Some other new items have made it into the game such as an electric prod type weapon and SWAT-style armor to help protect you from the new creatures. You're also able to build a greenhouse and brew your own beer. Because pre-historic micro-breweries were a thing. They've even added a hangover effect that happens after the fun stops. Performance hasn't explicitly been optimized in this patch though some people are reporting a slight increase in framerate.

We all know just how big Twitch is, but how many minutes did people spend watching gamers play games in 2015? Oh, just a casual 241.1 billion minutes - or if you like zeroes, that would be 241,100,000,000. Yeah, a lot.

Twitch had an average of 1.7 million broadcasters streaming every month, with the average concurrent viewers for 2015 reaching 550,000 with peak concurrent users reaching its milestone of 2.09 million on August 23 for the ESL One: Cologne 2015 and the League of Legends NA LCS Finals on the same weekend. As for the top ten games streamed, here's the list:

Reports indicate that Google is working on a self-powered, all-in-one VR device that won't leverage the power of a PC or smartphone to function. In a sense, Google's self-reliant headset would be to VR what Microsoft's Hololens is to AR.

VR is about to explode onto the tech scene, and every big name in the industry wants a piece of the action. While titans like Google and Apple have yet to formally unveil earnest VR hardware, there have been rumblings about Cupertino's secret VR divisions and Mountain View's dedicated Cardboard VR successor.. Now those rumblings become even louder as The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is working on a standalone VR headset in conjunction with a smartphone-powered device.

According to WSJ, Google's all-in-one VR device will feature "a screen, high-powered processors, and outward-facing cameras powered by Movidius motion-tracking processors".

While Xbox One fanboys have their knickers in a knot over Remedy Entertainment unveiling Quantum Break for the PC, instead of it being a timed exclusive fro the Xbox One, we're finding out more details on the PC version of Remedy's new cross-platform game.

Quantum Break is a DX12-only game, requiring Windows 10. Not only that, but Remedy has requirements of 8GB of RAM, with the developer suggesting you have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti or an AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, as well as 16GB of RAM for their "Ultra" requirements. As for their recommended PC requirements, you'll need a GTX 970 or R9 390.

The minimum CPU required is an Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD FX-6300 while the recommended specs are the Core i7-4790 or the "AMD equivalent". You'll need 55GB of HDD space for Quantum Break on your PC, too.

The latest patch for Rise of the Tomb Raider will be hitting Steam shortly, with v1.0.616.4 for the PC version of ROTTR including some multi-GPU fixes, and more.

Here's the full changelog:

Another holiday another round of deals to commemorate the day. The PlayStation Network is rife with savings up to 75% off on games for the PS3, PS4, PS Vita and even the aging PSP. All these deals are going on until the 15th at 11AM PT.

The funny thing is that none of the games listed are necessarily titles that have anything to do with the loving holiday. It's an excuse to sell us things at lower prices, which isn't a bad thing if you've been wanting something and have been waiting for a sale like this one to get it. And the selection this weekend is massive with 216 titles to choose from.

Looking to enjoy the Battlefield series if you hadn't had the chance already? Battlefield is at the forefront on all platforms with 60% off. Magicka 2 is also there for $5.99 and you can find the classic Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition for the PS3 on sale for $8.99. Overall a good selection that warrants a look through to add something new to the collection, or to lovingly add to your partners collection, because that's what great significant others do, right?

Recently, iPhone users have been encountering error code 53, an issue prevents users from installing updates or just flat out bricks the device. It triggers when the TouchID buttons are damaged or replaced.

Consequently, a Seattle law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Apple, arguing the behaviour is "abusive" and that Apple failed to warn buyers of what could happen should the sensor be damaged or replaced. It goes on to claim over 62 million units have been affected. For now, class-action status hasn't yet been granted by a judge.

The iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus are confirmed affected; it's not known whether the 5S is or not.

Multiple sources have informed The Hollywood Reporter that Apple is developing a television series starring revered rapper Dr. Dre, who previously sold his Beats Electronics company to Apple for a stunning $3 billion. Titled 'Vital Signs', it's said to be a semi-autobiographical dark drama with "no shortage of violence and sex."

The show sees veteran music video director Paul Hunter billed as director; Empire co-executive producer-writer Robert Munic was specifically chosen by Dre to write and produce all six of the show's first episodes, which will be released all at once, likely via Apple Music and possibly other Apple outlets. It's said the concept for the show originates with Dre, who executive produced the highly successful 2015 drama Straight Outta Compton, which was based in part on his career.

Faced with the issue of redundancy after launching Google Photos last year, Google has decided to retire its Picasa photo service on March 15. You will continue to be able to use it, but there will be no official download available, and no updates. The Web Albums service will go offline May 1.

"After much thought and consideration, we've decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos," Anil Sabharwal, Head of Google Photos writes in a new blog post. "We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products."

If you do use Picasa, you'll be taken care of: Google says it will "take some time in order to do this right and provide you with options and easy ways to access your content." In the meantime, you can already access all of your Picasa photos and videos via Google Photos. If you have some weird hatred of Google Photos, you'll soon be able to access your content in a new, currently unspecified location, although you won't be able to manage albums.

As the weeks fly past, we're getting closer and closer to the reveal of the next-gen GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD. Today, we have news that NVIDIA is currently testing four of its next-gen Pascal-based GPUs.

The four Pascal GPUs have reached the testing and validation phase, with the GPUs being sent from TSMC's fabrication plants to NVIDIA's testing facilities in India. The four boards include the '699' serial number which was spotted back in December, with these four cards having the following serial numbers:

699-2H403-0201-500

Vertical NAND is all the rage, something that was initially released commercially by Samsung but is in development by the other manufacturers as well. Micron is unveiling their first generation of 3D NAND into the wild, ready to improve density, reliability and performance.

Samples of their own vertically aligned NAND were shown at CES this year, though they were playing a little coy with the details until things were actually finalized. And now those specifications are. Micron's first generation of 3D NAND will come in two flavors, a 256Gb MLC die and a 384Gb TLC die, and those are ready for manufacture it would seem, ready to be integrated into products coming out in the near future.

Interestingly, Micron has made some very significant advancements in how they package their NAND. In the past, the CMOS logic was packaged alongside of the actual memory die itself, but they've been able to place nearly 75% of the CMOS itself underneath the NAND array, similar to how HBM has localized the entire stack vertically. That innovation makes it more cost effective to manufacture.

Conan Exiles looks to be a desolate and demanding, one that requires a bit of mental fortitude in order to summon the strength and very essence of Conan himself. It's an open-world survival game that's as brutal as the story is beautiful.

This isn't the first time that a Conan game has been attempted. The mythos and universe was the subject of Funcom's own Age of Conan, an MMORPG set in the same Hyborian Age as most other fictional works of Conan, that has more traditional RPG elements that we're used to. Conan Exiles takes that universe and adds a dynamic single-player storyline where you get to choose your narrative, and survival elements in a way that surely won't be typical of that sub-genre.

The key elements of the game are to survive, build and to dominate. Take the mindset of Conan himself, who saves you from your own destruction in the beginning cinematic, to tame the harsh mistress that is the barbaric wasteland. It's going to be a violent game, as the developer diary suggests, it'll require you to out-think your opponents with violence, being the most savage of the land. Precisely what Conan is about.

CBS was in some heated negotiations with Apple to bring forth their lofty network services through the network, and potentially allowing you to stream that content to Apple devices. But that's no longer, or so says the CEO of CBS.

According to the CEO, Les Moonves, they really haven't heard from Apple regarding that aforementioned TV streaming service. The initial meetings occurred, and they appeared to be positive from what we can gather. It's just that Apple never called them back afterwards.

"We had conversations awhile back, and we haven't had recent conversations with them," Moonves told CNNMoney in an interview. Internet streaming services have accounted for nearly 40% of their revenue this past year, meaning that they understand the importance of digital media. They've made a number of partnerships with outside companies for streaming content, so a partnership with Apple isn't out of the question. Apple just needs to answer the phone.

The NPD, the organization that tracks retail sales throughout the United States, is reporting that the PlayStation 4 is off to vigorous start for 2016. January saw it outselling the Xbox One by a decent enough margin.

The market research firm showed that while the sales were lower than the 5.7 million units they pushed out during the holiday months (November and December), Sony was still able to take the lead going into the new year with actual year-over-year growth.

"Thanks to our fans and partners for making PlayStation 4 the top-selling platform and software sales leader in January, according to NPD. PS4 also saw impressive year-over-year growth in both hardware and software sales. We appreciate the support and will continue to deliver on our promise to bring the best entertainment experiences to gamers," Sony said in a statement regarding their sales.

Grand Theft Auto Online is celebrating the Hallmark holiday this weekend by adding in a new Adversary Mode called Death do us Part.

The new mode pits four couples on the "ultimate date" they say. But the catch is that each couple only has one life to live between the both of them. That means that if one person dies, the other person in the pair commits the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love, in true Romeo and Juliet style.

To show how much you love the other person, there're five new locations that are the epitome of romanticism in Grand Theft Auto. This mode might just last beyond Valentine's day as well, though they do plan on having a few bonuses and other cool things happening over this weekend to make it worth your while.

Final Fantasy 14 isn't nearly at the end of the road, as some might have thought with the introduction of Heavesward. Despite that particular story coming to its inevitable end, the game is getting more new content than you can shake a stick at.

The story was never over, not completely. This magical world has a lot of life left to breath into it. The Holy See is on the brink of war, once again, as peace finally washes over the land. Inevitable someone isn't quite happy with the the motives behind that peace and they wish to stand up against that change.

The main story is accompanied by even more side quests that delve deeper into Hildibrand Helidor Maximilian Manderville, a sort of Sherlock Holmes it would seem. Yours is to investigate the case of a missing man, and much more. There are also new beast side quests should you be interested. Aside from that, they're adding in a new raid dungeon that looks incredibly challenging. Certainly not for the lower levels here. And of course the obligatory solo, or group, PvE dungeons. New areas that should test your mettle.