Latest News - Page 2594

The last trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain went live today, and it feels like Kojima's heartfelt goodbye to fans across the world.

Hideo Kojima's new (and final) Metal Gear trailer has a very distinct air of finality to it, and the feels are quite overwhelming. Everyone wants to play Metal Gear Solid V, and for good reason. But at the same time it represents the end of an era; when MGSV releases, it will be the last true Kojima MGS game we'll likely ever see. Sure Konami says that it'll make more Metal Gear Solid games in the future, but it won't ever be the same. It just won't be the same.

Although the footage is labeled as the launch trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it's more of a kind of epitaph on the gravestone that is MGS in its current form; a sort of eulogy read during the funeral of the series. We're sad to see it go, but we're also glad it's been around since 1998 and that we'll get one last hurrah before it's over. And the end will be anything other than a quiet slip into death--Kojima's MGS will go out with an explosive bang.

If you're like me, you've often wondered what retro game systems would look like if they were displaced into different timelines--NES consoles with joysticks etc--and one talented gadgeteer shows us what a Game Boy might have looked like in the era of wood paneling.

Back in the day faux wood paneling found its way on everything from station wagons to game consoles like the Fairchild Channel 4 and the legendary Atari 2600. And now that stylish veneer has skipped a few decades to enfold the a customized Game Boy style handheld emulator.

Introducing the PE358, a pocket-sized portable game system created inspired by the Game Boy Advance SP console. Crafted by the renown Swedish designer Love Hultén, the PE358 is a full-fledged emulator encased in a simple clamshell-style screen-and-controller duo enfolded by sturdy walnut box. The screen even resembles an old tube TV display, adding in even more old-school nostalgia..

GTA V has just received its first major photo-realistic overhaul mod that brings incredible pristine visuals that look better than real life.

The amazing Toddyhancer mod was created by Martin Bergman in the Rockstar Editor, and contrary to popular belief Bergman says that he didn't go nuts with anything too complicated to create the mod: "Don't go bananaz! its just Reshade Shaders, ENB series, simple tweaks and some tonemapping with class!" Right now the mod is a work in progress and doesn't have a name, but it looks to be a strong contender for this generation's ICE Enhancer mod for GTA V.

Toddyhancer's lighting is superlative, bringing a truly unique filmic look and feel to every single environment, capturing a huge scale of hues across day to night timeframes. Although the overhaul is a feast for the eyes, game performance is going to take a hit with a hard 40FPS cap. The FPS dip is quite noticeable in the mod's trailer, but Bergman attributes most of the lag to playing and recording on a laptop.

Despite some solid pre-release hype, the worst casualty of the packed 2015 summer blockbuster season was undoubtedly the fifth film in the 'Terminator' franchise; 'Genisys' which failed to crack $90m in the U.S. domestic market (to illustrate how bad this is, the $29m dollar comedy sequel 'Pitch Perfect 2' grossed double in the U.S.) and combined with international market grosses generated a total take of $352 million worldwide. From a production budget of $155 million, this was a disappointing figure and after advertising, probably leaves the film with a very slender profit margin. But then something amazing, but not entirely unforeseen happened: China.

According to Forbes, the film took an amazing $27.4 million haul on it's first day alone in the Chinese market and conservative estimates have it making at least $100m. This is a crucial outcome for the struggling film and which means that 'Terminator 6' will more than likely happen after all.

Who said "Hasta La Vista"?

Fans of the classic BBC period comedy 'Blackadder' which starred a pre-'Mr. Bean' Rowan Atkinson might be a little bit excited, but even more cautious after news that the show might be coming back after nearly two decades off TV screens.

Quoted in The Telegraph, actor Sir Tony Robinson who portrayed Baldrick stated that he thinks "a new series of Blackadder is on the cards. I have spoken to virtually all the cast about this now", but that it all hinged on whether the station can still afford Hugh Laurie. "He's a huge star now - or so he'd like to think." During the latter seasons of 'House', the British actor commanded a fee of $400,000 USD per episode - clearly out of the spectrum of the public broadcaster.

The new ZenFone 2 smartphone from ASUS is making waves, with Tom's Guide recently publishing an article that has three smartphones competing against one another to see which one recharges the fastest.

Many of the biggest and best smartphones out were tested, including iPhone 6, Nexus 6, LG G4, OnePlus 2, ASUS ZenFone 2, Samsung Galaxy S6 and Motorola Droid Turbo. The ASUS ZenFone 2 was the winner, hitting 53% from 0% in just 30 minutes, and was the fastest to reach 80% and full charge. When battery capacity is factored, the ZenFone 2 still beat the Galaxy S6, but not by much.

Acer today announced the Aspire Z3-710 Series all-in-one desktop PC, running the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system.

The AIO features a 23.8-inch display full HD (1920x1080) LED display, and is powered by an Intel Core Ci5-4590T CPU, up to 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and DVD super multi optical drive. The Aspire Z3-710 also has three USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, with 802.11ac wireless capability.

The Acer Aspire Z3-710 starts at $749.99 with an Intel Core i3 4170T CPU, 6GB RAM, and 1TB HDD.

Making good on its promise earlier this year to roll out Cortana to Google Android and Apple iOS, Microsoft has started a beta run of Cortana for Android devices.

Not surprisingly, the Android version of Cortana doesn't offer full features available to Windows users, with some apps left out - and you can't say "Hey Cortana" to get instant access. Microsoft also limited this beta phase to consumers in the United States only, and hasn't detailed international rollout just yet.

It looks like Microsoft has plenty of beta users, as the signup page offers the following message: "Thanks for your interest in becoming a beta tester for Cortana. At this time, the beta program has enough testers and isn't accepting more users."

Avid Life Media is still trying to deal with a major PR disaster after The Impact Team breached Ashley Madison, and the company has offered up a $500,000 CAD ($377,000) bounty.

"You know The Impact Team has crossed the line," said Bryce Evans, acting staff superintendent of the Toronto Police, during a Monday morning press conference. "This hack is one of the largest data breaches in the world. The social impact behind this leak, we're talking about families, we're talking about children, we're talking about wives, we're talking about their male partners. It's going to have impacts on their lives... this is affecting all of us."

Evans also asked for the hacking community to "do the right thing" and help Avid Life Media and the police identify the hackers. Even if members of The Impact Team are identified, however, trying to bring them to justice could be extremely difficult - depending where they are located in the world.

In case you didn't know, Microsoft has the rights to install system software updates to your installation of Windows 10, whether you want to, or not. Some experts don't agree with this stance from Microsoft, but it is leaving some users completely baffled about what is being installed onto their systems.

Microsoft recently spoke with The Register, where it confirmed that the "only time it will detail the type of updates it pushes down to users machines will be for significant updates", reports BGR. Microsoft continued: "As we have done in the past, we post KB articles relevant to most updates which we'll deliver with Windows as a service. Depending on the significance of the update and if it is bringing new functionality to Windows customers, we may choose to do additional promotion of new features as we deploy them".

The Register added: "Updates that offer minimal information about their functions don't inspire confidence. They should inspire the opposite - suspicion - not least because of Microsoft's historic sermonising about trust". And we would have to agree. Not knowing what is being installed into the operating system of your machine, if it were by someone else, would be malware, a trojan horse, or similar. Microsoft is definitely not providing confidence in users installing Windows 10, that's for sure.

LG Electronics will show off the G Pad II 10.1 tablet during the IFA 2015 tech conference in Berlin, offering both an LTE and Wi-Fi version.

The LG G Pad II 10.1 features a 2.26GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, 10.1-inch display (1920x1200), 16GB eMMC, 2GB RAM, and microSD. The device runs Google Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The device features LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity, and 5-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

Pricing information and an official release date will be announced during IFA 2015.

Let's face it, our smartphones do not last throughout the day for most users. I've tried all varieties of the iPhone, multiple Samsung, Sony, HTC and other handsets, but I just do not get through an entire day without worrying.

Well, hydrogen-powered batteries could alleviate this, with a British company teasing that hydrogen-powered smartphones could last for an entire week under heavy usage. The company has even shown off a working iPhone 6 prototype smartphone powered by a hydrogen battery. The fuel cell inside of the prototype is the same size as the iPhone 6 chassis but is so thin that it can "fit alongside the conventional battery without any alternations" reports Digital Journal.

Better yet, the hydrogen battery is recharged using the headphone jack on the iPhone 6, which was modified solely for this purpose. Intelligent Energy is the company behind the idea, where it said that production devices are still "a couple of years out". Intelligent Energy CEO, Henri Winand, said: "To our knowledge this has never been done before. We have now managed to make a fuel cell so thin we can fit it to the existing chassis without alterations and retaining the rechargeable battery. This is a major step because if you are moving to a new technology you have to give people a path they are comfortable with".

It was only two days ago that we reported that Samsung was offering iPhone users a 30-day trial of its new Galaxy smartphones for just $1, but the South Korean giant has received "overwhelming demand" and has, for the time being, stopped the test drive.

Samsung was offering iPhone users the chance to test drive one of their new Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ or Galaxy Note 5 smartphones for just $1. The company has now put up a note on their promotional page, thanking people for the huge demand. Samsung said: "Due to the overwhelming demand, we are temporarily out of test drive phones. Please keep checking back for available phones".

I think Samsung needs to pull out as many phones as it can to bring the offer back, as it was obviously quite the lure for iPhone users bored or looking to change over from their Apple smartphone.

What we already know about Optane and 3D XPoint: We know that Optane is Intel's brand name for storage using 3D XPoint, and we know that XPoint consists of layers (known as stacks). Each stack has wires that run perpendicular to each other (they are silver/gray in the image).

Between each set of perpendicular wires are a selector (yellow) and a cell (green). By providing varying amounts of voltage to the selector it can write or read to the cell. The benefit here is that the cells don't use transistors, and theoretically (depending on the size of the cell) you could squeeze much more of this into a given space than you could with the traditional transistor.

Cells can be written and read to at the same speed since you can find any point in space with only three points of reference. Now 3D X-Point fills a spot in the current memory market, right in between DRAM and NAND based SSDs. Its latency is 10x slower than DRAM but 1000x faster than NAND. It has similar density compared to NAND SSDs, which means its 10x denser than DRAM. All the speeds and density aside, 3D XPoint also offers non-volatility, which means it can store data even when it is powered off.

The graphics in The Division have been watered down over the years since it was first revealed, almost to the point where anyone can tell that it has been downgraded. But now there's news that there will be post-release patches that will make the visuals better, but is that good enough?

YouTube channel 'Open World Games' has talked about this exact topic, as you can see in the above video. The graphics in The Crew were downgraded as well, yet another Ubisoft title by the way, with the graphics improving with patches. The Division on the other hand, is already capped at 30FPS because of the lackluster hardware in the Xbox One and PS4, but now we're having to wait for years before the graphics get to as good as they were in 2013.

The video above is the best example of this, which compares The Division from 2013, to 2014 and then into 2015. As time goes by, you can see that the visuals have been severely watered down. This shouldn't be new for anyone familiar with Ubisoft titles, as it has happened to the biggest games under their umbrella for years - including Watch Dogs, The Crew, Assassin's Creed, and many more titles.

Some of you may have seen this robot from IDF on our front page, a robot which not only looks like it's smart, but which can image the world around it in real-time in 3D. This ability comes from the RealSense camera, whose output is on the screen in the background. Intel's RealSense Technology offers 3D scanning and imaging with a wide variety of uses.

The technology is already present in many high-end products from manufacturers ranging from Creative to Dell. It uses a 2D camera and an infrared camera and wide range infrared emitter. It uses a specially designed Intel chip to capture and process the 2D image and infrared data about the image to provide depth to images. There are two main versions, the first is a front facing camera used in video conferencing which can omit anything past a certain depth, and the second is a "world-facing" camera which is capable of things such as producing 3D images. You can even have your picture taken and then printed in 3D, but there is even more the camera can do such as real-time tracking of objects and even things as small as fingers. It allows for effective tracking, even enough for proper gaming as was demonstrated.

Here an Intel employee uses a hacked nerf gun and puts himself in the gameplay with RealSense technology. He is able to move through the game and shoot using this custom rigged apparatus. There are many possibilities that 3D depth sensors can give to a game, just look at the X Box Kinect, but pairing one with a high-quality camera can produce many more possibilities. RealSense is not only excellent for putting yourself in the game, but it is also capable of adding objects into the game.

Save the cheerleader, save your HDD space: PS4 exclusive 'Until Dawn' is now pre-loading, requiring some 46GB of the HDD space on your PlayStation 4 console.

Until Dawn is one of the few PS4 exclusives launching this year, especailly now that Uncharted 4: A Thief's End has been delayed into 2016. Until Dawn stars Hayden Panettiere of Heroes fame, as well as Peter Stormare who kicked some ass in Prison Break, and many other TV shows and movies. Where Until Dawn is new, is that it features an unpredictable and dynamically adaptive story, where gamers' actions within the game can have a huge impact on how Until Dawn pans out.

The developers explain: "Featuring innovative choice mechanics and the Butterfly-Effect Interface, gives players the chance to see the path of their story amid the thousands that are possible. Seemingly insignificant choices as well as huge moral dilemmas that will question your sense of fairness, good and evil, can have major unforeseen consequences. Using the power of the superior rendering capability of the Killzone Shadowfall Engine, and the power of the PlayStation 4 together with proprietary major enhancements in lighting, camera, and animation systems, Until Dawn brings emotional and credible performances of a talented Hollywood cast to life in its realistically terrifying environments".

Swatch is taking a relatively cautious approach to the smartwatch market, in an effort to avoid directly competing against the Apple Watch, Motorola Moto 360, and other smartwatches. However, the Swiss watch company has plenty of growth for its smartwatch product portfolio - while providing individual smartwatch features in its devices.

"Our product is called Touch Zero One and that gives enough room for Zero Five, Zero Nine," said Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group, according to the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper in Switzerland. "The Touch Zero One is not the end of the progression."

The Swatch Touch Zero Two will launch during the Rio Olympic Games 2016 next summer in Brazil.

After the Ashley Madison data dump, which featured more than 33 million accounts, it was no surprise that the fallout would ensnare plenty of people that would need to explain themselves. One political leader already claimed he used the site for "opposition research," and now Florida State Attorney Jeff Ashton publicly apologized after his name was discovered on Ashley Madison.

Ashton described his decision to sign up for Ashley Madison as a "bad, childish, stupid error" and he "did not commit a crime" by using the site. Ashton claims he typically logged in using a personal laptop and through public Wi-Fi networks. He reportedly didn't meet anyone via the site, and didn't have an affair.

"While I indulged my curiosity about the site it never went beyond that," Ashton said during a press conference. "These were incredibly stupid choices." In addition, Ashton won't step down and plans to return back to work: "I think I've humiliated myself enough for one weekend. Tomorrow morning I go back to work."

As China develops new space technologies, including anti-satellite capabilities, it's up to the United States to prepare for a possible space race against China and other rivals, political leaders believe.

"We must treat space for what it is, it is a domain in which we must be prepared to fight and win," said Henry Obering, EVP at Booz Allen Hamilton, in a statement during the Hudson Institute conference. "We should dramatically expand our investment in the battle space [that] is growing into space."

China, which became the third country after the United States and former Soviet Union to send men into space, has dramatically ramped up space technology research. The country developed an anti-satellite interceptor missile capable of hitting targets in low-Earth orbit, and missiles reportedly able to hit high-Earth orbit targets.