Latest News - Page 2590

LG is set to have the biggest CES yet, with the company showing off a slew of new TVs - including its kick-ass 4K OLED TVs, but the company has announced that it is set to launch premium home appliances at the Consumer Electronics Show next month.

LG is calling its premium home appliances brand "LG Signature", but hasn't provided any more details on the new gear. The South Korean giant has formed a team within the company to create the LG Signature products, with input from "leading design experts". LG has teased that its Signature appliances have been "stripped of all features that detracted from the brand's spirits".

The team over at University of Washington has been playing around with real-time tracking of fingers in the VR world, thanks to the power of magnets.

Oculus is working with the University of Washington to develop a magnet and sensor combination that will allow natural use of your hands in the VR world, instead of using sticks or gloves that requires line of site. The project is called Finexus, which uses magnets that are the size of fingernails, which are placed on top of a user's fingertips.

From there, they can determine the exact location of your fingers in the 3D space. The magnets claim to be accurate up to just 1.3mm, too. They don't require a line of sight with a camera, so they can be used for nearly anything, and in endless positions or body orientation. If the Finexus project ends up becoming real, which I think it will, it could be a very natural input device for VR, and especially the Oculus Rift, since the Facebook-owned VR startup is involved.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk was at the Stanford FutureFest recently, where he updated his timeline for the progression of AI.

During the chat, Musk said "If any given year you find your predictions are going further out or coming closer in, that actually one way to think of acceleration [of progress] because otherwise what's the quantitative measure of AI?"

While talking with Fortune's Kirsten Korosec, Musk said "We're going to end up with complete autonomy, and I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years". Now, keep in mind that Musk is referring to a "level 4 autonomous vehicle", which The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) describes as a "vehicle designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip".

Just in time for the holidays and almost right on schedule, EA's servers are down for the moment for unknown reasons. Earlier this month we heard that from a hacking group that threatened to take down Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Perhaps Origin was part of their plan as well.

And as usual EA is looking into the issues to see if they can quickly fix it. But don't hold your breath, because it's been down since at least 6AM EST. It seems that servers going down over the holidays is becoming somewhat of a tradition. Last year we saw outages of both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live just as people were unwrapping and enjoying new games.

The DDoS is an effective tool against web servers because it's difficult to defend against the massive amount of traffic that can be used against a given server. Infrastructure can only handle so many requests and so much bandwidth before becoming overwhelmed. Hopefully this is a true technical difficulty and not a DDoS and we don't see a repeat of last years attacks.

The original Super Mario Galaxy, which debuted on the original Wii in 2007, is now available on the Virtual Console for the Wii U. It's available now for $20, just in time for Christmas.

Super Mario Galaxy was perhaps the most popular game in the Mario franchise, with over 12.59 million copies sold as of September of 2015. It had some unique and engaging gameplay, intuitive and rewarding puzzles and one of the best soundtracks to come from a Mario game.

If you enjoy a good 3D platformer and have never tried this particular part of the franchise, then the OG Super Mario Galaxy might be a good place to start. It's relatively beginner friendly, but challenging enough to feel great. It's certainly a great refinement over Super Mario 64, which it will be joining on the Virtual Console.

During the filming of the latest, and last Resident Evil movie, a crew member has died in a horrific on-set accident.

South African website IOL reports that 34-year-old Ricardo Cornelius was severely injured during the filming of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, when a US Army issue Hummer fell on top of him on the film's set in Cape Town. Cornelius died in hospital on December 3.

Reports state that the Hummer was standing on a small platform, which then tilted when it was being manually rotated. The vehicle fell, landing on Cornelius. But it gets worse. He was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support, with his wife telling IOL "At the hospital, doctors said they had to take him into theatre as soon as he arrived".

We've just found out what to expect in the different editions and packs of The Division, and now some more details are coming to light about the open-world game from Ubisoft.

Thanks to an interview between Forbes and Massive Entertainment's Lead Environmental Artist, Sebastian Lindoff, and Technical Art Director Chad Chatterton, we've found out that you'll be able to choose both the time and weather for each mission in The Division.

As for the weather, they explained: "Totally. You can choose when to play any of the missions, night or day, with clear weather or during a snow blizzard. We only restrict some of the heaviest fog settings in some missions because it could adversely affect too much the combat balancing, but all the other weather settings can have an impact on how you approach an encounter, varying the levels of visibility for you and your enemies".

One of the first DirectX 12 titles to be released next year will be Fable Legends, with a new leak on Lionhead Studios' game pointing to just how much microtransactions will cost, and what you'll get for your money.

Fable Legends is a free-to-play title, with Lionhead recently delaying the game. The studio didn't realize how big the game was getting, and needed more time to get everything right. The studio explained that the team "working exceptionally hard and we're proud of how far the game has come. We're operating our closed beta 24/7 and have added lots more features, quests, creatures, and heroes to play. Hundreds of thousands of fans have participated in the beta so far, and we can't wait to open it up for all of you to play. To achieve our aspirations for Fable Legends, we've moved our open beta release to spring of 2016".

As for the microtransactions, Fable Legends will offer a 'ton of gold' for $59.99, where you'll receive 12,800 gold. There's also a hundredweight of gold, stone of gold, mark of gold, and finally, a pound of gold - all with varying prices. Lionhead splashes away gamers' issues with a pay-to-win formula for Fable Legends, with the studio explaining "You'll be able to play Fable Legends from beginning to end for free. That means the whole story as it stands, plus any additional quests/storylines we release after launch will all be free".

We know that EA DICE is working on the new Battlefield, but we don't know what Battlefield title we'll get. Will it be Battlefield 5, or will it be something different like Battlefield: Bad Company 3?

Well, it was only earlier this month that DICE's development director Dan Vaderlind took to Twitter saying: "Now that we've shipped Battlefront and a part of the team continues to work on it, I am moving on to another project, the next Battlefield". This was exciting news on its own, with EA CEO Andrew Wilson adding "I have no doubt that DICE LA will be building their game at some point, because it's a really, really passionate group of people".

DICE LA is actually hiring right now, looking for both a singleplayer and multiplayer level designer. The LA-based studio is also on the look out for a senior technical animator, a senior lighter, and a senior concept artist. DICE LA is looking for candidates to "push quality to the next level for an unannounced AAA title". While it doesn't specifically state that it's a new Battlefield game, we have confidence that it is.

Second live developer, Linden Labs, is working on a new product, called Project Sansar, that wants to integrate a more natural and social experience with upcoming VR solutions.

If there's one thing about the incoming VR revolution, it's that not everyone is necessarily convinced that it's here to stay. Is this stereoscopic 3DTV all over again? That's a fair question, because to some it seems just a bit gimmicky at first glance.

But the makers of Second Life want to make VR a social activity, so that it can potentially become a lot more appealing to a much wider audience. Speaking with PSFK, the CEO of Linden Labs, Ebbe Altberg spoke a little on what they see as the future of VR. Second Life already has Oculus Rift support as of 2014, which lets you immerse yourself like never before, but they want to significantly expand upon that.

Although The Force Awakens has conquered the world of cinema, Episode VII director J.J. Abrams has even more faith in Episode VII. According to Abrams, Episode VII's script is "so good" that he regrets not directing it.

The Force is strong with J.J. Abrams. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has smashed through box office records and propelled the franchise to a new galaxy of wonder. Abrams has helped reinvigorate the franchise after George Lucas led us astray with the Prequels, and is very much responsible for making Star Wars feel like Star Wars again. Despite his efforts, Abrams made the decision to hand off Episode VIII's directing off to Rian Johnson--a move that he now regrets.

"He read [the script for Episode VIII] and said something he never, ever says. He said: 'It's so good, I wish I were making it.'" said Greg Grunberg, an actor who plays a Rebel pilot in The Force Awakens, in a recent interview with The Washington Post . "He may have said something one time on Lost with Damon (the co-creator) but I've never heard him express regret like that."

Columbia University Engineers have successfully created the world's first biologically powered computer chip, which could ultimately usher in a new harmonious union of nature and technology.

Thanks to a new advancement in the field of bioelectronics, the union of man and machine may not be that far away. Researchers at New York's Columbia University have tapped the energy created by a natural biological process to power an integrated CMOS circuit, which is found in common electronics such as cell phones.

"In combining a biological, electronic device with CMOS, we will be able to create new systems not possible with either technology alone," says Ken Shepard, Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering who led the study. "We are excited at the prospect of expanding the palette of active devices that will have new functions, such as harvesting energy from ATP, as was done here, or recognizing specific molecules, giving chips the potential to taste and smell. This was quite a unique new direction for us, and it has great potential to give solid state systems new capabilities with biological components."

Amazon's new sale ensures you'll have some awesome stocking stuffers for the gamier in your life.

Although Christmas is only two days away and Amazon won't be able to ship any goods out in time for the big holiday, that hasn't stopped the online retailer from kicking off a great sale on video games. Amazon's new holiday sale is primarily focused on digital PC games that will make excellent stocking stuffers for the gamer in your life, with up to 70% off on great PC hits. Notable deals include XCOM: Enemy Unknown for just $7.50, Machine Game's epic shooter Wolfenstein: The New Order for just $9, the ultra-creepy Alien: Isolation for $12.50 and $BioWare's stalwart Dragon Age: Inquisition Game of the Year Edition for $30

There's also mark downs on physical PS4 and Xbox One games, but these are less pronounced, seeing anywhere from $10-15 in savings. Also be advised that Steam has just kicked off its annual Winter Sale, which has thousands of PC games discounted for the holidays. So between Amazon and Steam, PC gamers have a nice selection of sales to choose from. Never buy retail, folks!

It's going to be a bad Christmas for movie studios, as DVD screeners for some of the most anticipated films not scheduled for released for days, or even weeks have hit torrent trackers. Unreleased titles such as Disney-Pixar's 'The Good Dinosaur', Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight', 'Joy' starring Jennifer Lawrence and Oscar-bait 'The Revenant' starring Leonardo DiCaprio and recent titles such as 'Creed', 'The Peanuts Movie' and 'Straight Outta Compton' are all being shared in standard definition, yet allegedly high quality rips according to TorrentFreak.

One of the leaked screeners for 'The Hateful Eight' has been traced back to Alcon Entertainment co-CEO Andrew Kosove who strenuously denies leaking the disc, telling The Hollywood Reporter that "I've never seen this DVD. It's never touched my hands. We're going to do more than cooperate with the FBI. We're going to conduct our own investigation to find out what happened." The screener DVDs, sent to members of various award bodies including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts have a habit of being leaked, despite featuring in-built security safeguards such as watermarks. This latest batch of leaks might just spell the end of them.

Anonymous source and The Internet Association have both revealed that T-Mobile's Binge On program actually throttles data and reduces quality in order to serve up content.

T-Mobile shocked the world when the released their Binge On program, that allowed users to stream video and audio from various online services without having it count against your monthly data-caps. On the surface it seemed like a splendid deal, but there's always a catch.

That catch is that your content is served to you in lower quality, without you knowing and without giving you a choice. The Internet Association has been keen to point out the poor and sneaky business practices by T-Mobile, noting that providing Binge On is a boon to many customers, though even if it does happen to be throttled, proper notice or even a choice whether it should count against your data at the cost of high quality content, should be mandatory. The FCC is currently investigating the matter.

BioStar brings the performance gains of CPU overclocking to non-K Skylake chips with its new Hyper OC technology.

CPU overclocking has traditionally been reserved for Intel's enthusiast-grade K-series CPUs, however key hardware makers like BioStar and ASRock are bridging the gap to enable overclocking to non-K Skylake processors. BioStar's new HyperOC firmware allows easy overclocking of non-K series Skylake processors on BioStar Z170 motherboards, merging performance with accessibility and convenience.

BioStar's official press release notes that the Hyper OC software can boost the clock speed of entry-level CPU's like Intel's 3.3GHz Pentium G4400 by up to 36%. The company also used its Hyper OC tech to boost an Intel Core i3-6100T by 35% to an overclocked clock frequency of 4.32Ghz. The Hyper OC firmware can be downloaded with a simple BIOS update on select Z170 mobos including BioStar's Z170W, HI-FI Z170Z5, GAMING Z170X and GAMING Z170T models.

AMD has seen a staggering 90.65% stock price drop over the last decade, but things are looking up in recent times. In the past 24 hours, following the news Samsung is said to be partnering with AMD to help produce its upcoming Greenland GPU and Zen CPU chips, stock has risen 3.25% as of press time, and 21.19% over the past five days. Looking at the bigger picture, it's seen a 28.83% hike over the past month, and a 68.24% hike over the past three months.

Looking at the news in those time periods, we can see things were going mostly wrong for AMD up until about a week into October with layoffs, failed investment deals, the departure of Jim Keller, reduced spending, market share drops, and more.

But then, it began to turn around. Though there was still some bad news (Phil Rogers heading over to NVIDIA, decreased revenue over last year), there was much more to be excited about: a Fury X2 rumor, a partnership with Oculus and Alienware, the 8-core Hierofalcon CPU, rumors of strong performing GPUs on the horizon, and then, a flood of information about Zen, the forthcoming CPU architecture that was said to finally make AMD a contender in the CPU game again, and assurance the company was committed to still offering great GPUs, too. This assurance was later backed up with specific efficiency claims, the release of Crimson Edition drivers and the new Radeon Settings (which replaced the slightly clunky Catalyst Control Center), and the announcement of GPUOpen, its open source answer to NVIDIA's GameWorks.

While Microsoft is planning to progressively release a myriad of new apps for its Windows 10 PC OS, there's still been no word as to if Windows phones will be getting the same treatment, marking yet another hour, day and week that Microsoft OS phones are left high and dry.

This slow and steady 'Universal Windows Platform' app release schedule includes some big-name apps like 1-800-flowers, AccuWeather, American Express, Wall Street Journal and Netflix, with others like Bank of America said to follow suit soon, according to ZDNet.

With so many applications ready to hit consumers, people are starting to ask as to whether this will be a long-term thing, or whether Microsoft apps will fizzle out shortly. Microsoft has begun to open up advertising options for developers in order to make some money of their own, so there's always the possibility that big and small business' alike will take and run with third-party Microsoft app development - we will have to wait and see.

It's been a long time coming, but The Beatles music catalogue is finally arriving on streaming services. As of Christmas Eve (December 24) 12:01 AM local time, you'll be able to listen to the catalogue (including "essential" collections like Past Masters) via Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play, Microsoft Groove, Amazon Prime, Rhapsody, Slacker, and Tidal. Even better: it will be available globally.

The Beatles split in 1970 but have remained an enduring force ever since.

They arrived on iTunes in 2010. Media research firm Midia believes coming to streaming services has taken this long for the band because they didn't want to hurt the sales of reissues and retrospectives, and that they've been waiting for the right time to get the best deal.

Naughty Dog has done the unthinkable, they've delayed Uncharted 4 again until the 27th of April for the US and the 29th of April in the UK. But the news isn't necessarily all bad either.

Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley wrote an official statement on the PlayStation Blog, and talked about where the project is and why they've decided to delay the release of one of the most anticipated games in the history of the series. "Essentially, it's because they want to further polish it before it's released to the public."

But hearing the news of having such an anticipated game delayed, once again, isn't easy to take. And it apparently wasn't an easy decision for the co-directors to make either. They want tot show off their most ambitious game just as much as we want to play it, but they don't quite think it's ready for primetime. And thus, they "humbly ask you to wait a bit longer."