Latest News - Page 2589

Tim Peake, the first British ESA astronaut on the ISS, seems to have accidentally called the wrong number on Christmas. From space.

Presumably he was trying to reach his family on Christmas day when he accidentally phoned an unknown lady and said "Hello, is this planet Earth?", which he was likely promptly hung-up on. I can't imagine that that wouldn't sound like a prank call to someone on Earth, even if it's an endearing message from anyone who knows who the message was.

But these types of wrong numbers aren't unusual, either. Astronaut Sam Christoforetti has also accidentally called the wrong number while orbiting the Earth, to 911. Though I'm not sure that the police ever responded to let them know the dangers of calling if it's not an emergency.

Devil May Cry is getting a massive bundle for the Xbox One, and it'll be gracing Microsoft's console on December 29th, 2015 in a bundle with more DLC than you can shake a proverbial stick at.

When this bundle makes its debut on the Xbox One, Devil May Cry will run at 1080P and 60FPS with appreciably upgraded visuals that should continue to capture the unique visual style of the franchise.

The whole bundle includes Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition, Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition, DMC4SE - Lady & Trish Costume Pack, Super Nero/Super Dante/Super Vergil for DMC4 SE and a download that unlocks all modes for Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition.

New additions to the European General Data Protection Regulation have been proposed to the European Parliament which seek to further protect the personal data of minors, specifically teens under the age of 16 with some interesting new rules.

These new additions are not yet law and still need to be fully ratified by the greater European Council and European Parliament in early January of 2016 to become official, though they've passed through initial inspection by the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

There are eight separate clauses that EU regulators are trying to get passed that are supposed to provide a framework for modernising data privacy policies. And in actuality, the new proposed rules give greater control of your own data and are better suited to privacy.

It looks like HTC is set to dominate the gigantic Chinese market with its Vive headset, with the Taiwanese giant inking a deal with Hangzhou-based ShunWang Technology, Inc - one of China's biggest Internet cafe software companies.

HTC and ShunWang have established a pilot program in Hangzhou, which lets players buy 10 minutes in a Vive-powered VR room for $2 to $5. Chairman of ShunWang, Hua Yong, explains: "The sustainable development of VR gaming needs hardcore gaming, which is mainly supported by Internet café platforms. As the biggest Internet café platform service provider in China, Shunwang will make full use of its existing network and operation capacity in the industry to bring the best VR experience to hundreds of millions of Internet café game players".

The big deal here is that ShunWang's software is used in over 100,000 Internet cafes across China, accounting for around 70% of Internet cafes. ShunWang says that their software is used by over 100 million Internet cafe users, so with over 100,000 cafes, how many Vive-powered VR rooms will they make? This deal has thrown HTC into an entire new ballgame, as when the Vive launches in April 2016, it could see a very bright future in China, too.

A new job posting at Frontier Developments hints that we might eventually see Elite: Dangerous on Linux, which means it'll end up being one of only a handful of space-sims on SteamOS.

This information isn't based on much, though the job description is specifically for a systems programmer for helping to create cross-platform libraries for online services, and it does mention having the ability to "...write platform-independent code for deployment on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and current generation consoles."

At the very least it speaks towards further having a cross-platform back-end and galaxy that's persistent for everyone throughout on PC, Mac and Xbox One (and the PS4 in the future). Already the underlying economy and Power Play political atmosphere is similar, though you're unable to play with, or against, those on differing platforms.

A well-renowned data miner that's skilled in the art of dismantling and exploring the inner depths of game-files has uncovered ample evidence that story-based DLC is actually a real possibility in GTA V.

LondonTown2004 found some evidence of a DLC management system that could be making it's way to the game in the near future. Among the positive pointers are a modified pause screen with a bright blue "DLC" label, and a new alert screen (seen above) that mentions Story Mode DLC not being installed. He was able to find this by accessing a QAB server used by Rockstar, which may not have been the most legal action to take.

There was also evidence found that there could be more than one DLC, both free and premium, due to the sly data miner running into a separate screen telling him that his non-existent DLC wasn't authorized and had to be purchased.

Samsung has been failing to gain more traction throughout 2015, with not-so-great sales of both the Galaxy S6/S6 edge and the Galaxy S6+/S6 edge+. But the entire smartphone industry is having huge issues right now, with a large slowdown period in effect.

In a new report from Reuters, these issues could be stemming from upper management at Samsung not exactly getting the software side of the business. Former and current Samsung employees talked with Reuters, with the outfit reporting that "confusion and overlap between competing divisions, where the short-term interests of promoting hardware trump long-term efforts to build platforms that would add value for customers and increase their loyalty to the brand".

One employee said: "Samsung's upper management just inherently doesn't understand software. They get hardware - in fact, they get hardware better than anyone else. But software is a completely different ballgame".

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens nearing $1 billion in worldwide box office revenue, we're hearing more about the making of Episode VII - more so, in November 2014 when it was dubbed 'The Force Awakens'.

The Force Awakens was actually called something completely different until that point, with Pablo Hidalgo, the Creative Executive for the Lucasfilm Story Group taking to Twitter to explain it. Hidalgo was tweeting with Jedi News editor Justin LaSalata, saying that The Force Awakens had an alternate title.

Hidalgo said that "for a while" Episode VII was referred to as "Shadow of the Empire". Shadow of the Empire is close to the written novel from Steve Perry titled "Shadows of the Empire", which took place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, featuring the iconic trilogy characters, including Darth Vader.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is pushing towards $1 billion in worldwide box office sales at lightspeed, taking just 8 days to reach $890 million. The Force Awakens broke single-day box office records when it opened and pulled in $610 million in just a matter of days, as well as being the biggest opening in box office history in the US.

Out of the $890 million worldwide gross, $440 million has been grossed domestically in the US, while $449.9 million has been made overseas. The opening weekend saw The Force Awakens command $247 million in the US alone, but it looks like The Force Awakens will reach $1 billion in the next day or two.

These box office numbers are only up to Christmas Day, so we should expect a huge wave of numbers for the weekend to hit in the next day or so. The Force Awakens made an estimated $49 million domestically on Christmas Day, so we should expect $60 million or more for Saturday and Sunday, pushing the movie over $1 billion.

If you're a huge Pokemon fan, and you own the Nintendo Wii U, you might want to check out the awesome-looking Pokken Tournament Wii U controller from Hori.

Earlier this month, the Pokken Tournament Wii U controller popped up in Japan, and it looked like it was exclusive to the country at first. Well, it will be pushed out to a much wider audience when it launches early next year, with the Pokemon-infused (as Engadget calls it) fighting game controller is on Amazon for a price of $24.99, and a launch date of March 18, 2016.

Hori's Pokken Tournament Wii U controller features the same design of the arcade version of Pokken Tournament, with the "ZL" and "ZR" buttons on its face, instead of around the back on the traditional Wii U controllers from Nintendo.

After enjoying a few months as a timed exclusive on the Xbox One, Crystal Dynamics is ready to unleash Rise of the Tomb Raider on the PC. After rumors of it arriving on January 29, it has been spotted on Steam.

The Steam listing for Rise of the Tomb Raider says that it'll be available in "January 2016", with no specific date just yet. The listing does tease "Featuring epic, high-octane action moments set in the most beautiful hostile environments on earth, Rise of the Tomb Raider delivers a cinematic survival action adventure where you will join Lara Croft on her first tomb raiding expedition as she seeks to discover the secret of immortality".

It was only yesterday that we reported on rumors that NVIDIA would bundle Rise of the Tomb Raider with future GeForce cards, even though AMD has worked closely with Crystal Dynamics on the game, providing its TressFX technology for Lara Croft. We should expect a PS4 version to follow the PC release, sometime in 2016.

Roberts Space Industries has pushed out a new patch for Star Citizen, which is now available in the public test universe as Alpha Patch 2.1.0.

Developer Cloud Imperium Games said in a statement: "It is strongly recommended that players delete their USER folder for the Public client after patching, particularly if you start encountering any odd character graphical issues or crash on loading. The USER folder can be found (in default installations) at C:Program FilesCloud Imperium GamesStarCitizenText".

The developer also said that it is working "feverishly" to get Alpha 2.1.0 out the door, but there were a "couple of issues" which stopped them. First, huge frame rate drops, meaning that the developer has only pushed the update into the public test universe for now. CIG added: "The last thing we want is to jeopardize all of the fun everyone's been having with 2.0.0, and certainly not over the entire holiday period. With that in mind, we'll be keeping 2.0.0 on the Live service and opening up 2.1.0 on PTU for all players!"

While Valve deals with some serious issues with Steam, Sony is experiencing issues with its own PlayStation Network, with gamers not able to create new accounts over Christmas.

Sony took to Twitter to say "We're aware that PSN account notification emails are delayed. Thanks for your patience!" The verification emails that PSN users are waiting for are required before access to the PSN is granted, and without it, you can't access the PlayStation Store, nor can you join PlayStation Plus - which means, no online gaming.

Hopefully this is just a temporary issue with Sony being flooded with new users that received PS4s under their Christmas tree, and that by the time you read this, the issues are fixed.

ASUS motherboards are a staple of the PC master race, with the Taiwanese giant teasing its new ROG Maximus VIII Formula motherboard over the Christmas break. The new ROG-powered motherboard is using Intel's Z170 chipset.

The biggest thing here is that ASUS has used RGB lighting on the ROG Maximus VIII Formula, with RGB LEDs placed all around the motherboard that lets users customize their motherboard to their personal liking. It's an interesting move by ASUS, but we've seen other companies pushing into RGB lighting this year, too.

The new Maximus VIII Formula motherboard has some things in store for users that should keep them happy, including a charcoal black PCB with a silver aluminum finish on the PCH heat sink. The entire PCB is also covered by a protective shield that has been used by ASUS since the Maximus VI Formula, otherwise known as ROG Armor.

Out of the $3 billion that Spotify has paid out in the last six or so years, less than 1% has actually reached the hands of artists who have their tunes on the streaming giant's service.

Well, Spotify is sick of this, and has said that it is going to get knee-deep into the music royalty business, noting that different publishers own the rights to the same tracks in different countries. Years ago when physical sales were dominating, this didn't used to be an issue. But with global streaming services, it takes time to find out who to pay, and some royalties end up just sitting there.

Spotify has said: "Today we are excited to announce that Spotify will invest in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system to solve this problem". This is all Spotify is saying on the matter right now, so we can expect more to be said in the New Year.

With Oculus all-hands-on-deck for the launch of the Rift VR headset, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey took to Twitter on Christmas Eve saying some huge things about VR and its future.

Luckey said in his tweet "Reminder of something I have talked about before: VR will become something everyone wants before it becomes something everyone can afford". Luckey's tweet would be a way of talking about the price concerns around the Rift, with Luckey tweeting afterwards "there are a lot of people who expect to spend a couple hundred bucks and use their existing low-end laptops" to play VR content.

Luckey continued his tweet rampage, adding "we are taking some big steps to make sure people know what they are getting into - we don't want to sell to people who don't".

Star Wars: The Force Awakens might be taking in countless hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office right now, but 20th Century Fox just dropped its new trailer for Deadpool in two varieties - the green, and red band trailers. The red band trailer is obviously NSFW - so be careful there.

The new trailer shows a very different superhero to what we're used to in the MCU and DCEU, with classic moments from Deadpool. If you notice, he kicks off one guys head - which then smacks into another guys head. Awesome. Another part has Deadpool talking to Collusus, with Deadpool saying "I don't have time for your X-Men bull****, Collusus".

It looks like Star Wars Battlefront won't be getting any DLC that touches on Episode VII. At least currently they're concentrating on bringing original trilogy content into the game first, according to a Twitter post.

So if you thought that they would include some great new maps or even characters based off of the new movie that has recently been breaking so many records, then you can think again. This response isn't the final answer, though, and it would make sense to include some sort of official filler content before Episode VIII hits. And fans would probably even be excited to see content from the prequels too. The Clone Wars were always a fun timeline to do battle in, even if Jar Jar Binks was obnoxious.

The current state of Battlefront is somewhat less than exciting, being a great game visually, but lacking the sort of content that might keep people interested long-term. It's a great game, but that excitement doesn't last as long as they likely intend.

The Hyatt chain of hotels just yesterday found malware running on their systems that operate the payment processing for their hotels.

In their statement they said that they've launched a full-scale investigation and are cooperating with some of the leading cyber-security experts in order to get the issues resolved. In the meantime, if you happen to have stayed at a Hyatt owned hotel within the past six months, be sure to keep an eye out on your bank accounts just in case something suspicious happens to show up.

How does one get malware onto a payment processing system? It's not terribly hard but there are best practices in place to make sure that it's difficult to do. Segmenting the network used and keeping it separate from other networks used for browsing the web, making sure that a proper IDS is in place to detect weird activity and limiting any IP addresses that actually access those systems processing card data to those on a whitelist. But those don't make it impossible, just harder and more likely to scare away all but the most seasoned and prepared of individuals. You can read all about the Payment Card Industry standards here.

Shuhei Yoshida, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment, wants PlayStation VR to expand into more segments of VR than just gaming, and this means movies and even photographic experiences.

There are a lot of possibilities that come with virtual reality, including creating visceral second life experiences. Shuhei Yoshida sees a lot of opportunity in other types of media, and making it accessible through the PS4 and the PlayStation VR. Fox and and other companies are already looking at making true 3D 360 degree movie experiences that can only be truly enjoyed with a proper headset. Oculus has their Cinema App and even Samsung has an app to watch movies in 3D on their Gear VR.

But Sony knows that in order to truly break into the scene, they have to offer something that no-one else actually does. The advent of 360-degree video is an attractive new medium that could help to attract even more attention. If, say, Sony were to have a VR-content channel that's easily accessed and easily populated by indie and professional, quality, content, and it was actually enjoyable, then VR, and especially PSVR could become a household name. Yoshida says that these new markets are "going to be very important," because he himself is a big fan. "The power of these mediums can be communicated in nongaming form," which means that the PS4 could become a prime mechanism for doing just that.