Although Electronic Arts has expressed hesitation concerning VR, the Battlefield devs at DICE are all too eager to explore the new dimensions and possibilities that virtual reality offers.

DICE's own Johan Andersson revealed that the company is recruiting active tech experts to flesh out its new "small and collaborative VR team". The VR ensemble will be part of DICE's Frostbite outfit, which is responsible for creating and developing a number of EA's AAA juggernauts from Mass Effect to Dragon Age.

According to info gleaned from DICE's jobs page, the company is hiring five different VR specialists including a creative director, technical artist, software engineer, gameplay engineer and a rendering engineer. "We have a small multi-disciplined team with Frostbite who will work on virtual reality projects and for that team we are now looking for a Sr Technical Artist," reads each job listing.

In a not-so-surprising development, reports indicate that the PlayStation 4's backward compatibility with PS2 games only extends to the digital realm. PS2 game discs won't be playable on the PS4, which was pretty much a given from the start.

The revelation comes straight from a PS2 emulation video published on Sony's own PlayStation YouTube channel. Sony quickly deleted the video after they realized what they had done, but not before a sharp-eyed Twitter user immortalized the content via a quick screen capture. The video announced that the PS2 game Dark Cloud is coming to the PlayStation 4 by means of backward compatibility emulation, but the description clearly says that "PS2 Classics and PS2-formatted discs are incompatible with the PS4 system."

As soon as Sony officially announced PS2 backward compatibility was coming to the PS4, I predicted that Sony wouldn't follow in Microsoft's footsteps and allow PS2 game discs to be playable. I knew that Sony's PS2 emulation would be digital only, and for good reason. Sony spent $380 million to buy Gaikai, the cloud-based game-streaming infrastructure, in order to power its similar online streaming PlayStation Now venture.

PCgameshardware.de has tested Intel's Skylake CPUs and found because of its thinner substrate versus its previous processors, coolers that apply a lot of pressure to the CPU and socket can damage both.

As of now, just Scythe -- who have confirmed damage to Skylake CPUs with their coolers is possible -- is the only company confirmed as affected by it as of yet. Arctic says it has verified no issues with its coolers, though it advises you don't travel with your cooler mounted; NZXT and EK Water Blocks both have stated their coolers do not experience the reported issues, with the exception of its older gen large tower coolers like the Havik 120/140 from NZXT and the older generation of compatible LGA-1151 water blocks with a "classic, undefined clamping force type mounting mechanism". These are compatible with Skylake CPUs, but both companies recommend erring on the side of caution and not using them with Skylake.

Scythe is redesigning its cooler mounting mechanism in light of it, changing screws to reduce mounting pressure. If you have a Scythe Ashura, Mugen 4, Mugen 4 PCGH-Edition, Fuma, Ninja 4, Grand Kama Cross 4, Mugen Max, or Kotetsu cooler, fill out this form to be sent a free set of these screws.

Capcom's action RPG Dragon's Dogma is a little late to the party on PC, but by the looks of a PS3 versus PC graphics comparison by Candyland, it's going to make up for it plenty.

Among the differences shown: massively improved texture quality, the addition of bloom, miles more precise shadows, less aliasing, and the addition of tessellation and light shafts. As well, you can observe much higher framerate and lower frame time latency. I don't hesitate to say these changes bring the game at least a half generation forward and make it much more digestible by the standards of today's PC gamers.

Dragon's Dogma launches January 15, 2016 on Steam. Be sure to check out the game's video options below, and the PC version of Dragon's Dogma will support 4K resolution as well as a cap-less frame-rate.

Engineers at the Oregon State University have devised a new method of integrating nanoparticles that could pave the way to ultra-flexible and efficient quantum circuitry.

Using a process called photonic "sintering", scientists are able to fuse ultra-tiny nanoparticles together into a functional 2-D film, which can then be fabricated into working nanocircuits. To understand sintering and the physics of quantum-scale mechanical effects, engineers have experimented with different substrate materials and thermal sources. As sintering is powered by heated light, some materials like plastic and paper were previously off-limits--until now.

During their experiments, the OSU team reported that xenon light was able to trigger the photonic sintering process twice as fast and was over ten times more efficient than other light sources. With such tremendous efficiency, scientists now have precise control over temperatures, meaning that thermal-sensitive substrates such as super-thin plastic wrap and paper could potentially be used.

Oculus VR teased that a "special announcement" was planned for The Game Awards 2015, leading many to believe that a release date for the Oculus Rift was finally coming. Instead of revealing a launch date for its VR headset, Oculus VR opened the door for a new kind of immersive experience to bolster its virtual reality hardware.

Oculus founder and VR pioneer Palmer Luckey revealed that Rock Band will be making the jump to virtual reality, bringing the explosive thrill of on-stage rockshows to millions of gamers worldwide. Oculus teamed up with Harmonix, the studio behind the Rock Band games, and hired real-life bands like Dragonforce to help make the game as authentic as possible.

The trailer reveal was vague in terms of actual gameplay mechanics, but it looks as if Rock Band VR will realistically merge actual guitar playing with virtualized play, so the on-screen queues might not show up. It'll be interesting to see how Rock Band VR actually works, and if it can avoid the semi-nauseating "VR sickness" which stands as a major roadblock for the new platform.

Amid recent financial woes and scandals, Japanese electronics company Toshiba today announced that it has sold its image sensor business to Sony for 19 billion yen ($155 million).

Starting in April 2016, Sony will take over Toshiba's semiconductor fabrication facility in Oita, Japan, which can ship up to 12,500 300mm wafers a month. Along with the Oita facility, Sony will take in all equipment and 1,100 employees who will now operate under Sony's own Semiconductor Corporation. The facility will focus "primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors."

This move sees Toshiba effectively pull out of the image sensor market. Negotiations for the takeover started back in October, and Nikkei notes that Toshiba turned right to Sony due to past business.

The controversy between estranged Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and Japanese games publisher Konami continues to roil across the games industry, culminating in a new incident at this year's The Game Awards showcase.

Metal Gear Solid V won Best Action/Adventure game at The Game Awards 2015, but the celebration was short-lived when gamers realized that Hideo Kojima wasn't in attendance. According to TGA 2015 host Geoff Keighley, Kojima was advised not to attend the show or accept any on-stage awards at the behest of Konami's lawyers.

"As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I want to tell you a little about that," Keighley said after the winners were announced. "Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight, but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight's awards ceremony to accept any awards. He's still under an employment contract. And it's disappointing and it's inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates."

XXIt may or not signal the return of fan favourite 'Game of Thrones' character Jon Snow, but the newly released tease for the show's sixth season does give a pretty good hint.

The brief teaser flashes through some of the more memorable scenes in the series first five seasons, before a shot of the seemingly lifeless Jon Snow that we saw in the season five finale.

Hitting screens in April 2016, the next batch of ten episodes will not be based on a George R.R. Martin plot, having exhausted all the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books in the last season. Instead, screenwriters have crafted the plot through discussions Martin, but may very well deviate from the material in the forthcoming sixth novel.

Up until now, Vimeo has been allowing its Pro members to upload 4K videos, with the video sharing company now allowing some users 4K adaptive streaming. Vimeo's 4K streaming will roll out to the rest of the world in Q1 2016.

The company has pushed out support for 4K streaming across its site, and its entire catalogue of apps. This rollout features support for adaptive streaming, where your Internet connection will be battling it out for allowing up to 4K (2160p) streaming - similar to how YouTube does 4K streaming right now.

Vimeo's rollout of 4K support will include the streaming player on Vimeo.com, with videos embedded on other sites, Vimeo on Demand, and all of the apps on iOS, Apple TV, Android, Amazon and Roku.

Expectations were high for the first 'Mad Max' film in 20 years, but who would have thought that 'Fury Road' would end up being the darling of film critics? While the film enjoys a stellar 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the real surprise is that the film has taken out the 2015 Best Film award from the prestigious National Board of Review.

According to Vanity Fair, the award board known for favouring stuffy critic-bait in the past have embraced blockbusters in 2015, also awarding Ridley Scott with Best Director for 'The Martian' and Best Screenplay to Quentin Tarantino for the upcoming 'The Hateful Eight'.

Skype 7.16 for Windows launches today, and with it comes two practical new features: a media toolbar and URL previews.

The toolbar is a compact set of buttons next to the message window that let you easily share photos, files, video messages, contacts, and emoticons. Happily, the toolbar will minimize as you type so as not to be intrusive. It can be expanded anytime by clicking the paper clip menu.

Amusingly, the Skype team says "long, ugly links" are now a thing of the past thanks to the addition of URL previews. Familiar to most anyone who's used Facebook Messenger, they simply give you a brief look at what's behind a link, helping you decide if want to click it or not.

'Family Guy' creator and voice artist Seth MacFarlane has directed a few feature films now, with 'Ted' and it's 2015 sequel, along with last year's 'A Million Ways to Die in The West' but now the talent looks to be returning to his roots and helming a feature film version of the long running animated hit. Responding to a fan question via Twitter, MacFarle simply confirms the film will be coming "soon".

In 2012 MacFarlane told ScreenRant that "We do know what the 'Family Guy' movie will be. 'The Simpsons' movie, I thought, was hilarious, but the one criticism I would have is that it's a story they probably could've done on TV. There could've been an episode that had that plotline.... That's the challenge with animation. You pretty much can do any story you want, so what is the reason for the movie? We finally hit on the answer to that question and it will be something that would be impossible to do on TV."

We all know it's coming, but AMD is expected to launch their next-gen 'Arctic Islands' GPUs in mid-2016. These new cards will be powered by the much faster HBM2 technology, driving up to and over 1TB/sec memory bandwidth - up from the 512GB/sec found on the Fury cards, powered by HBM1.

AMD's new cards will launch on the 14nm/16nm FinFET process, with the GPUs including a huge 2x performance per watt increase over the previous generation cards. With multiple parts powering the new cards, a new architecture, HBM2 and a huge process shrink, I have some big expectations on next-gen GPUs. AMD has recently changed things up with spinning off its GPU business into Radeon Technologies Group, as well as the big changes with Radeon Software.

The flagship GPU in the Arctic Islands family is the exciting Greenland GPU, which is rumored to feature up to 18 billion transistors, and up to 32GB of HBM2.

Nintendo is starting to talk more about its next-gen console, currently codenamed 'NX', with Nintendo's new president, Tatsumi Kimishima talking with Time recently.

Kimishima said: "As far as NX goes, I've said it's different and obviously a new experience. If you look back to the beginning of our conversation today, we talked about the transition from Wii hardware to the Wii U hardware and how difficult it is to explain to the consumer base what is different and new about the new hardware. It's difficult to convince them to switch from their current platform to the next platform".

If you thought that the NX would be a new, next-gen Wii or Wii U, you're wrong. Kimishima squashed those rumors, telling Time: "That being said, I can assure you we're not building the next version of Wii or Wii U. It's something unique and different. It's something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base".

Described as a crucial part of Android before the Google takeover, Andry Rubin was the co-founder of this brilliant technology and is now interested in working on the hardware side of things.

He's currently recruiting fellow staff for this endeavor, says The Information, but overall the information is quire vague. Reports, or Rubin himself, have not yet confirmed any substantial information, with people left to speculate if this man will be destined to fund, fun, own or operate this new company.

After leaving Google last year, Rubin has raised $300 million for 'Playground', further becoming a partner at Redpoint Ventures earlier in 2015. Some are speculating that the only gap in the market for this new brand would be high-end devices, but we will have to wait for confirmation from the man himself.

Appointed as a representative for six major Hollywood studios, The Motion Picture Association of America (The MPAA) has published new anti-piracy guidelines, addressing how they are slightly loosening the noose on cinemas and more.

Set to target those who film movies while at the cinema, The MPAA is now telling these facilities that calling the cops on recorders is now an optional endeavor, previously ordering workers to call law enforcement immediately. While this policy is targeted mostly at handy cam users looking to leak movies on torrent websites, The MPAA has included recording devices of any kind, including Google Glass.

The MPAA previously implemented a $500 'bounty' to workers who caught and apprehended pirates looking to steal content, with this also being removed in the latest update. While a bounty was a good token in the first place, the removal of a 'bonus' will possibly breed a negative culture within the cinema employees.

Pouring cold water on rumours that Chris Pratt might be looking at donning Indiana Jones trademark bull whip and fedora, co-creator and director Steven Spielberg has declared that star Harrison Ford will return as the treasure hunter - or the film won't happen at all.

Speaking to Screen Daily, Spielberg states that "I don't think anyone could replace Harrison as Indy. I don't think that's ever going to happen. It's certainly not my intention to ever have another actor step into his shoes in the way there have been many actors that have played Spider-Man or Batman. There is only going to be one actor playing Indiana Jones and that's Harrison Ford."

While that seems a pretty definitive statement on the future of the 'Indiana Jones' franchise, despite his relative health, at 73 years of age Harrison Ford can't keep doing the action required of the role forever, so they'll want to get moving on a fifth entry as soon as possible. As long as it's better than 'The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull', then I'm in. Ah, who am I kidding. I'd be in anyway.

Parntered with 'Enterprise Rent-A-Car', Uber is now offering its drivers the chance to hire cars through this new project, allowing its workers to obtain a car for around $1000 per month.

This 'pay-to-work' system is nothing groundbreaking but is certainly the first of its kind for a new industry like Uber, with the first drivers in Denver being shelled out cars for $210 per week before tax and additional fees. This pilot program has been created in order to give drivers access to cars that they may not normally be able to afford, meaning they are now able to work for a new Uber overlord.

While Uber has slated this as a major positive for the working-class, there's a few of fees, catches and issues with this program. Not only is there a $500 refundable deposit to be made payable and a $40 sign-up fee, drivers travelling over 4506km per month have to cough up extra money too. If you run over your 145km-a-day cap, expect to pay $0.25 per mile in additional fees.

It's only been a few days since Warner Bros. sent out a brutal new teaser trailer which depicted the eagerly awaited fight between Batman and Superman, and today they've followed up with an explosive new three minutes of footage from the film, which truly ratchets up the anticipation for the superhero sequel.

Featuring the first footage of Wonder Woman, along with tantalising glimpses of the epic action and a mutated Doomsday apparently created by Lex Luthor, the new trailer is a must watch for fans. But be warned - it will make the wait until March all the more harder.

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' will be released in 3D and 2D cinemas as well as IMAX screens on March 25th 2016 worldwide.