Latest News - Page 2591

Space agencies have shown a great interest in manned missions to Mars, even though the technology and resources available will need to greatly advance in coming years. Some critics wonder if we should try to send humans to a planet so far away - especially since Earth and Mars were 34.8 million miles apart at their known closest pass to one another.

However, the European Space Agency (ESA) feels like mankind has the ambition - and evolving technological prowess - to make a manned mission possible. It would take up to 10 months to reach the Red Planet, and a crew could stay up to one year, and then take up to 10 months to make a return trip home again.

"Humans will go to Mars, I'm very sure of this," said Alexander Gerst, an astronaut for the ESA, in a statement published by Euronews. "You just have to look back in human history and you'll know. As soon as we learned to build ships, we took them not only to go to the next island, we took them to sail over the horizon."

In Destiny's new The Taken King expansion, Xur will have an impressive new buff that will significantly boost exotic item drop rates--but you'll have to gamble to get it.

During IGN's PAX 2015 panel, Bungie dev Luke Smith revealed that Destiny's interstellar merchant, Xur, will have a new consumable that could make it rain exotics: "What Xur has on him is an item that lets you basically gamble the chance to find an exotic on the next boss you kill."

"Xur's still going to show up every week, he's still going to sell some amount of exotics," Luke Smith iterated when asked how the infamous Agent of the Nine might change in the new expansion. "But now he's got a new mechanic that we're not talking too much about yet, but it's a new way for you to sort of gamble and get exotics out in the world. We're pretty excited about this."

The UK government wants to be a bit more proactive in discussing its strategy to counter the spread of the Islamic State, and is using the @UKAgainstISIL Twitter account to help share that message.

The Foreign Office officially launched the account last Thursday, and will share "updates on the UK government's ongoing work to defeat Isil." The group is sharing updates regarding airstrikes, condemn the Islamic State's activities, and share information on how to defend against the group.

"The government is very well aware of the fact that it doesn't have the ability to say things that will resonate with extremist Islamists," said Charlie Winter, senior researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, in a statement published by The Guardian.

Audio company Phiaton has launched its PS 202 NC earphones, an audio product featuring active noise cancellation designed to block 95 percent of ambient background noise.

The earphones also have a half in-ear design, and should deliver additional listening time. The 14.3mm drivers provide an adequate level of optimized vibration, and includes everplay-x so owners can keep listening even if battery power runs out. For those of you interested in using the earphones while connected to a smartphone, it's possible to use the in-line remote and microphone to manage a playlist and answer phone calls.

The Phiaton PS 202 NC earphones are currently available for $109.

Famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin is working on a so-called "master plan" to help colonize the Red Planet of Mars sometime in the next 25 years. Aldrin, the second person in history to walk on the moon, hopes for a Mars settlement by 2039, but admitted it's an "adjustable" schedule..

If a Mars settlement can be created, it wouldn't be a one-way mission, and believes a 10-year duration could be created. NASA hasn't spoken publicly about Aldrin's plans, however, he believes the US space agency would at least listen to the mission plan. NASA is actively working on a next-generation rocket and spacecraft that would allow for the long journey to Mars.

Aldrin has partnered with the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) to develop the Buzz Aldrin Space Institute - designed to promote manned missions to Mars. The new university program backs the following mission: "commercial and international development of lunar resources to support an eventual Mars settlement."

LG Electronics has partnered with REEDS Jewelers to create an expensive luxury watch that isn't like most other smartwatches currently available.

The watch features a 1.3" full circle P-OLED display, runs Google Android Wear, and features a 410mAh battery. Owners can receive smart notifications, alerts, navigational prompts, fitness integration, and use the "OK Google" feature. The watch itself has a handmade alligator strap and features 23-karat gold.

If you have deep pockets, you can visit the REEDS' website and pre-order a unit for $1,195. The limited edition watch will have an initial run of just 500 units - with each model receiving its own serial number to authenticate it.

Avid Life Media was unable to find a willing suitor for Ashley Madison, and trying to generate new funds proved extremely difficult.

Avid Life sent a letter to investors that it was interested in purchasing $10 million worth of shares, amid pressure to improve the company's liquidity. Any aspirations for an IPO would be crippled in a "doomsday scenario," according to bankers speaking to Reuters prior to the massive data dump.

"Over the last couple of years, we have not been successful in exploring various alternatives including a sale of the business and seeking debt from third parties," a letter from the board of directors confirmed.

If you have a previous generation console, you won't be playing Mortal Kombat X. Warner Bros. has cancelled development of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Mortal Kombat X, saying that both versions would not meet the quality "expected of a Mortal Kombat game".

There's no more details on what exactly transpired, but I would dare say that the previous generation consoles couldn't hit 60FPS. The Xbox One and PS4 versions are pumping out the fatalities and blood spattering at 60FPS, but the previous-gen consoles are not up to scratch. Good on Warner Bros. to not just throw it out at 30FPS and expect everyone to just put up with it.

Intel is about to drop the rest of its Skylake processors into the market, after the release of the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K just recently. There will be eight more processors released, but the rest of them will not be unlocked models for overclocking.

The chipmaker will be offering up 10 total SKUs, with two of them already in the wild. The remaining 8 processors will be made up of four 65W, and four 35W low TDP chips. All of these processors will slot into the new LGA 1151 motherboards using the Z170, H170 and B150 chipsets. The new Skylake-S processors are as follows:

The most noteworthy chips out of the Skylake-S lineup are definitely the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K as they are the unlocked, overclocking ready CPUs. But, the Core i7-6700 will feature a 3.4GHz frequency with 4GHz boost making it a viable alternative to the 6700K if you don't want to overclock. The 'low TDP' chips in the form of the Core i7-6700T, and the three other Core i5 processors with the 'T' moniker will be decent processors for low-power devices.

What would you do with $2.5 billion? I know I would do countless things like buy all of my friends and family houses and put enough money in their accounts that they would never have to worry about money ever again. But what about the man who sold Mojang? The company behind Minecraft. Well, he's super lonely according to his recent tweets.

Markus "Notch" Persson sold Mojang to Microsoft nearly a year ago now for $2.5 billion, purchased a $70 million mansion, and has been hosting insane parties ever since. Recently, Persson tweeted: "The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance. Hanging out in ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I've never felt more isolated".

The tweets from Persson can be found below.

Julian Assange knows a little something about trying to avoid extradition, and urged former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to select Russia over Latin America. Not only was reaching Latin America a difficult journey, but Snowden's personal safety would have been at risk, Assange noted.

Assange urged Snowden to disregard "negative PR consequences" about choosing Russia, where his physical safety has been provided by the Russian government - a guarantee that would have been significantly less likely if he ended up somewhere in Central or South America.

Sarah Harrison, one of Assange's most trusted senior staff members, actually met with Snowden while the American was in Hong Kong - at a time when it was unknown where Snowden would end up.

It looks like Google's autonomous vehicle is still learning every time it hits the open road, and a cyclist at a stop sign helped give it another learning opportunity. The cyclist was doing a track stand at the stop sign, and since the car arrived first, the autonomous vehicle had the right of way - but the vehicle just wasn't sure how to proceed with the cyclist present.

When the cyclist moved forward, the car inched forward and would stop so the cyclist would be able to go. The car noticed the cyclist's presence, but may have been overly cautious - which is something autonomous vehicles are designed for - so this will have to be considered just one more learning experience for Google developers. The cyclist's trackstand, since he wasn't actively moving forward or completely stopped, threw off the autonomous vehicle.

As an avid cyclist, hearing Oxtox's encounter is a rather perplexing one that Google will certainly try to sort out. There are an alarming number of incidents between vehicles and people on bikes, and the forum post noted: "The odd thing is that even tho (sic) it was a bit of a CF, I felt safer dealing with a self-driving car than a human-operated one."

Corsair announced the production version of its Bulldog DIY 4K gaming PC, with the first prototype shown off during Computex. The barebones system is designed to be a full PC that can be used in the living room, and leaves plenty of options for consumers to build a system as they see fit.

The Bulldog chassis is a "highly ventilated, stylish, compact console design" able to keep PC components cool, along with a 600-watt SFX power supply, and Hydro Series H5SF small form factor liquid CPU cooler. It's powered by a motherboard capable of supporting the Intel Z170 chipset, with a PCI Express 3.0 16x slot, two memory slots able to support 32GB of DD4 RAM, USB 3.0 and SATA ports, and Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 7.1 channel audio.

Consumers must add their own Intel CUP, RAM, GPU, and storage - and can either run Microsoft Windows or SteamOS - to finalize the unit.

Before former NSA contractor Edward Snowden fled to Russia, the FBI demanded the immediate arrest - and extradition - of Snowden if he went to any Scandinavian nations. Snowden applied for asylum in Norway, but once FBI officials heard he would try to head to a Scandinavian country, they began pressuring Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Trying to leave Moscow, however, wouldn't be an easy task:

"The US Department of Justice is prepared to immediately draft the necessary paperwork to request the extradition of Snowden to the US from whichever country he travels to from Moscow," according to the letter. "The FBI expresses its gratitude... for any assistance that can be provided on this important matter."

It's likely the FBI and other government officials sent similar requests to many other European nations, which prevented Snowden from traveling outside of Russia.

The NASA-funded Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) experiment has started on Earth, designed to simulate a Mars mission.

The six participants, three men and three women, are scientists - and will be in tight quarters, living inside a 36-foot-wide dome that is 20-feet high. The project began on Friday and will last 365 days. Researchers will collect information regarding cognitive, social and emotional factors between each participant - and how they interact with one another.

NASA believes a mission to Mars could take more than three years to complete, so this is an important step to gather data.

Avid Life Media announced that CEO Noel Biderman has stepped down, following the company's embarrassing public data breach.

Senior management will be responsible for day-to-day operations of the company, until a permanent replacement can be identified. It's going to be a confusing time for Avid Life Media, after a "criminal intrusion" that reportedly occurred over years by unknown hackers.

"This change is in the best interest of the company and allows us to continue to provide support to our members and dedicated employees," Ashley Madison noted in a statement. "We are steadfast in our commitment to our customer base."

Final Fantasy 15 has seen lots of transitions during its storied development, including an experimental phase centered around immersive VR experiences.

Instead of forcing gamers to strap on an Oculus Rift for hours on end, Square Enix toyed with the idea of using VR for certain sections of the game in order to immerse players into the overall experience. "We had tested out utilizing VR," Square Enix's Hajime Tabata told IGN at PAX 2015. "At the time we were looking into it, we felt that it could potentially work as a passive experience for a portion of the game utilizing VR."

In the end, the devs decided that VR just wasn't a good fit for their action-based RPG--especially with that finicky targeting camera which would induce dizzying motion sickness."We felt that it would potentially make sense for a segment, but in terms of the overall game in itself, the entire game, we didn't feel that having that headset on for the entirety of the game and that experience would match what we were aiming for with XV. It's a very long game [and] you'd wear that headset for hours."

With its near-limitless potential, virtual reality remains one of the most exciting new tech innovations in recent memory--but Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey concedes that the transition to VR will be a very slow-going process.

Accessibility remains one of VR's principal hurdles, as higher-end hardware is required to generate the illusion of total immersion. Headsets like the Oculus Rift pretty much act like advanced peripherals with the computer shouldering the brunt of the workload, and most everyday consumers just aren't ready to shell out for a beefier rig--ontop of the HMD's cost.

"I mean the question is: how fast can virtual reality really take off? Right now, it requires a fairly significant investment in computing hardware, a pretty high-end PC," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said in an interview with TrustedReviews. "Virtual reality is going to take a long time to become something that's truly mainstream."

Samsung's marketing team is coming up with some good ideas to grab iPhone users, offering consumers a test drive of their latest and greatest Galaxy smartphones for just $1. Now, the South Korean giant has upped the ante.

Samsung is offering consumers $200 if you switch from an iPhone to a Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge or Galaxy S6 edge+ smartphone. Samsung will split it into two, offering a $100 Google Play store gift card and a $100 cheque. iPhone owners will have to trade in their handset, but with $200 enticing them, some users will take up the deal.

The deal is a limited time only affair, where you have until December 31 to make it happen, and up until January 1, 2016 to redeem the $200 in Play store credit and the cheque.

'Synce' has used CryEngine 3 for a super impressive interior technology demo that uses Crytek's new Global Illumination technology known as SVOTI (Sparse Voxel Octree Total Illumination). The results are amazing, as you can see below.

Synce notes that the demo was created to showcase the capabilities of SVOTI, where he said: "SVOTI means Sparse Voxel Octree Total Illumination. This system can achieve high quality global illumination in real time. In this demo you can change the time of day, and look how the light reacts".

If you want to try out the demo on your system, download it here.