Latest News - Page 2624

On the heels of iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus sales, reports indicate that Apple is ready to bring 4K resolution to its 21.5-inch iMacs.

Sources at 9to5Mac say that Apple will start selling the new 4K iMacs as early as October 13, making it a surprise announcement to bolster its product line and fill in the gap between September's iPhone sales and November's upcoming iPad Pro release.

Although the 4K-ready iMacs will sport 4,096x2,304 resolution, the new models will reportedly match the current 1080p iMacs in terms of aesthetics. Significant changes are coming under the hood, however, with refreshed hardware across the board including a beefier video card to power the display. It's assumed Apple's El Capitan OS will be pre-loaded, and speculation hints that Apple's new Force-Touch Magic Mouse 2 and a new enhanced Bluetooth keyboard combo could come inside the box.

Not long ahead of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie launch and about a week before the Star Wars: Battlefront game launch, HP is releasing its Star Wars Special Edition Pavillion notebook.

It's a cheeky love letter of sorts to the hardcore Star Wars fan that packs in Star Wars sound bytes (like R2-D2 talking when you plug or unplug devices), a Death Star themed recycle bin icon that changes depending on how full it is, and a treasure trove of over 1,100 behind the scenes images, storyboards, artwork, audio selections, concept art, and more (which you can browse via the "Star Wars Command Center").

As for hardware, you can choose between a Skylake Core i5 or i7 CPU and Intel HD Graphics 520 or NVIDIA GeForce 940M7 GPUs, and set yourself up with as much as 12GB of RAM and 2TB storage. The display is a welcome 15.6'' and can be made touchscreen; an optical drive and B&O tuned speakers are also included; the battery will last you about seven hours. This is not the gaming laptop you are looking for, but if you're a Star Wars geek, it may be worth the $699.99 they're asking (an extra $39.99 if you want the themed wireless mouse and sleeve) over the $549.99 for the non-themed version.

Google met with technology companies and publishers recently to discuss the issue of slow loading websites on mobile, an issue they believe causes significant revenue loss for website owners.

Following the talks, they've launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. As you can probably tell from the name, the aim is to improve mobile browsing performance, but it's also to better how code functions across all the different devices available today.

The project is built on AMP HTML, "a new open framework built entirely out of existing web technologies, which allows websites to build light-weight webpages."

Synology has teased that it is making some very large changes in 2016, where the NAS maker will be unveiling its new DiskStation Manager (DSM) 6.0 operating system, apps for wearables like the Apple Watch, advanced network attached storage (NAS) products, and its first ever router - the Synology RT1900ac.

The company will launch the DSM 6.0 beta today, with the full release scheduled for sometime in 2016. Synology Marketing Manager Jason Bonoan said: "Synology is more than NAS devices. Many of our business customers use our DiskStations and RackStations as replacement servers. So, it makes sense that SMEs and SMBs asked for more features for virtualization, data protection, disaster recovery, and productivity apps. We've listened and redesigned our OS and hardware to meet their demands".

On the consumer side of things, Synology is working on being the first to support Apple Watch with DSM 6.0. Synology's updated OS will be the first to support Apple Watch, where users can "use simple gestures or voice control to quickly check or create notes, or enjoy their favorite music - whenever and wherever they want". Inside of DSM 6.0 will be a new Video Station which is "refreshingly new, strikingly intuitive" according to the company. Synology added: "the completely redesigned Video Station will use a popular on-screen button layout, making navigation smoother and more intuitive than ever. New support for offline transcoding and Windows 10 enables users to switch between different devices and platforms - so they can enjoy an uninterrupted viewing experience".

If you're a fan of multiple monitor setups and enjoy the productivity that it gives, you may sometimes run into taskbar related issues, seeiong as you're only able to utilise the taskbar on your primary monitor.

Released by Actual Tools for Microsoft Windows OS only, 'Actual Multiple Monitors' software allows you to put a fully functional taskbar on any other monitor, including a fully functional recycling bin, start button and system tray.

As a celebration for its 13th anniversary, Actual Tools is offering this window manager for 40% off - priced at $29.95 for a limited time. Although possibly quite useful, is it worth that amount of money? The answer to this question is up to you to decide.

Now that CD Projekt Red is done with The Witcher 3, the studio is pumping more resources into Cyberpunk 2077, its upcoming sci-fi RPG. The developer is now beginning to talk more about Cyberpunk 2077, teasing that it's going to be absolutely huge.

Visual Effects Artist Jose Teixeira talked with MCV recently, where he said: "Cyberpunk is far bigger than anything else that CD Projekt Red has done before. Far, far bigger. We're really stepping into the unknown in terms of complexity and size and problems we encounter". He continued, saying that the scope of The Witcher 3 has really helped the studio with the open world of Cyberpunk 2077.

Teixeira added: "The Witcher helped Cyberpunk quite a bit, because the game got so big and so complex that it really taught us. We really didn't know what was going to happen. If anything, working on The Witcher 3 was a really good and often brutal learning experience. Cyberpunk is going to benefit greatly from it. I can almost guarantee it. I have a lot of things that I want to change and do better the next time around, and I can guarantee that almost everyone in that studio has something that they go 'I did this this time, next time I can do it differently, I can do it better'".

We knew it was coming, but now it's official: the Roku 4 is here. The new media layer has 4K video playback capabilities, but it also has some unique features; like a remote finder.

The new Roku 4 has a quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM (up from the 512MB on the Roku 3). This means the Roku 4 is more than capable of playing back 4K video streams at up to 60FPS. Inside, the Roku 4 features 802.11ac MIMO WI-Fi, optical audio out, Ethernet, HDMI, a microSD card slot, and a Wi-Fi Direct powered remote with voice search, a headphone jack and the awesome remote finder.

The remote finder works by pressing a button on top of the box, which will make a sound come out of the remote so you can find it. If you constantly lose your remote, or like me have little ones at home who are always moving them around, this will be a killer feature.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest Xbox One games coming out this year will feature 4-player cooperative mode. 343 Industries, the developer behind Halo 5: Guardians, has said that the 4-player cooperative mode for the single-player side of the game can be controlled by other gamers, or by AI.

343 Industries says that it wanted to tell a "much more sociable" story, with the developer continuing: "We were winding down on Halo 4 and thinking about moving to a new console, and we had already planned some of the technological upgrades that we wanted to make to the engine. And early on we started talking about the types of stories that we wanted to tell and the experiences that we wanted to create, and we really wanted to focus on a much more sociable experience, especially in our campaign".

While cooperative play isn't new to Halo, the studio acknowledges that past Halo games didn't really do it well, in terms of gameplay and story. Executive Producer on the game, Josh Holmes, added: "I think co-op has always been a big part of Halo's campaign, but in the past it's sort of been treated as a completely separate experience, where you just have three other clones of the Master Chief running side by side. The narrative breaks down. One of the big creative goals that we had for Halo 5 was to bring that into focus and support it through the story".

With Continuum, Microsoft essentially wants to turn Windows 10 phones into portable PCs. The tech giant showcased a live Continuum demo at their New York event, revealing just how potent and revolutionary the feature actually is.

Along with a slew of cross-device functionalities like Windows Hello biometric authentication, Continuum is supported on Microsoft's new flagship Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL duo. Continuum represents a new shift in PC dependence, moving away from the traditional tethered desktop environment to a more free, unified ecosystem powered by Windows 10.

But how does it work? Continuum harnesses the Lumia 950's octacore processor to simulate a PC-like experience, making the phone the central heart or brains of the operation. This lets you completely circumvent the PC altogether. Just hook up a Lumia phone, a keyboard, mouse and monitor to the Display Dock hub to simulate a fully-fledged PC-like work environment.

Ubisoft has finally unveiled the specifics around yesterday's mysterious teaser, and it really is a Far Cry caveman survival sim...well sort of.

The game is officially called Far Cry Primal and takes place during the Stone Age era where giant mastodons and saber-toothed tigers roamed open expanses. Players will take the role of Takkar, a grizzled hunter that happens to be the last survivor of his clan. The goal of the game is to simply survive--but in a world where everything has teeth the size of your leg, that's easier said than done.

The reveal trailer shows off spears, bows and clubs as the major weapons, taking players back to the barebone basics of a cruel prehistoric world. "This isn't the Stone Age you thought you knew. This is the Stone Age with irreverence and mayhem. This is the Stone Age by Far Cry," Ubisoft says.

KitGuru staff writer Anton Shilov yesterday reported AMD was beginning to sell new DDR4 RAM modules compatible with Intel platforms and its own next-gen platforms. This is true, but the trouble came when he made this very biased statement: "AMD's Radeon R7 DDR4 memory modules are not performance champions, but fans of AMD's Radeon video cards and modders make purchase decisions based on design and visual aesthetics, not on performance."

The article -- which sports a 1.6/5 rating courtesy of 63 reader votes as of press time -- has since been edited accordingly. The statement now has a strikethrough, and editor in chief Allan Campbell describes the statement as "incorrect [and] inflammatory". Further, there is a link to a full apology by him, where he explains the statement does not reflect the views of the website. The text in its entirety can be found below.

It seems like everyone wants to get in on the success of Microsoft's Surface hybrid: Google has the new Pixel C tablet, and Apple has the transforming iPad Pro. In order to stay on top, Microsoft had to push the bar even further, leading the Redmond tech giant to create the Surface Pro 4.

The new Surface Pro 4 is an all-around improvement over the previous Surface line: it's thinner, lighter and much more powerful thanks to the onboard Intel Skylake CPU. It has a 12.3-inch display that utilizes new PixelSense technology. Microsoft actually fashioned a dedicated G5 chipset to run the new optical stack, which powers PixelSense to bring dramatic improvements to latency, parallax and palm detection for fluid writing and drawing with the new Surface Pen. The pen itself has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitive and comes with an eraser (an obvious jab at Apple's iPencil), and doesn't need to be recharged more than once a year.

Microsoft's new Surface tablet is just 8.4mm thin and features a laptop-class keyboard designed for performance input. Under the hood the Surface Pro 4's silicon soul is powered by a sixth-generation Intel Skylake CPU. Full Windows 10 Pro integration gives access to a slew of cross-platform apps as well as full stables like Office, Outlook, Skype and even Cortana voice-searching with a single button press of the stylus.

Microsoft has taken aim at Apple's Macbook line with its own 2-in-1 Surface Book, a 13.5-inch Windows 10 laptop that features higher-end specs while fitting right into the new Windows ecosystem.

The Surface Book is touted as the "world's most powerful, thinnest PC" and Microsoft boasts that "ounce for ounce its the fastest 13-inch laptop on the planet". The hybrid laptop can be docked or removed from the base to transform from a laptop or a tablet, but the GPU itself is located in the base so you'll need to keep it docked to tap its power.

Even with these claims Microsoft has been somewhat vague on the GPU specifics, saying that the Surface Book has an accelerated NVIDIA GeForce GPU with GDDR5 memory that's been tuned by the Xbox team. It sports Intel's latest 6th-generation Skylake Core i5 and i7 processors for beefy performance, and can utilize up to 16GB of RAM. There's word that a NVIDIA GeForce 940M could be the GPU that powers the Surface Book's base, but nothing's been confirmed just yet.

At its Windows 10 event in New York, Microsoft unveiled the new Lumia 950 flagship line with the 5.2" Lumia 950 and 5.7" Lumia 950XL. Since these handsets were already leaked beforehand the specs aren't too surprising, but Microsoft had some extra tidbits up its sleeve.

With the new Lumia duo, Microsoft wants to "put Windows in your pocket", and to keep up with that ethos the Lumia 950 and 950XL have been overhauled to fit right into the Windows 10 ecosystem. One of the most impressive features is the Glance Screen tech, which lets users check onscreen information without using any battery life, avoiding the need to actually turn on the phone.

Under the hood the 950 sports a hexacore CPU, with the Lumia 950 XL has an octacore processor. To mitigate heat, Microsoft actually has put in "tablet class" liquid cooling into both handsets. A dual-antenna array that automatically picks the best connection around you, and also has USB Type-C for 5GB/S data transfer rates and rapid battery charging. The Lumia duo have 20MP cameras that support 4K video capture and excels in low-light environments, and a dedicated camera button.

At today's Windows 10 event, Microsoft unveiled the future of mixed-reality gaming powered by the HoloLens, showing what's possible with the tech and how it will shape the future of gaming.

The demonstration culminated in a demo for an AR game codenamed Project X-Ray, which pretty much allows users to physically hold holograms and use holographic weapons to defend an area against a robot invasion. The demo was quite impressive, and really highlighted how truly immersive and dynamic the HoloLens really is. Microsoft hasn't released any footage yet, but we'll be sure to update the page when video goes live.

Also Microsoft announced that it is now taking applications for HoloLens developer kits starting now, and plans to ship them starting Q1 2016 for a pretty beefy $3,000. The tech giant also reminded us that the AR headset is "completely untethered", and doesn't need an external device like a PC or phone to operative. It's also 100% cordless and has a custom-built silicon soul for the "world's first holographic processing unit".

If you're wondering about the star-studded commentary line up for Major League Gaming's (MLG) 2015 world finals, wait no more! As announced in a recently issued press release, big names such as Toby "Tobiwan" Dawson, Jacob "Maelk" Toft-Andersen, Austin "Capitalist" Walsh, Soe Gschwind and more are set to take the stage.

Alongside these Dota 2 commentators are over 15 personalities spread across the other gaming titles, being: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U & Melee and SMITE. With $500,000 of cash on the line in New Orleans, Louisiana, this tournament is set to commence on October 16 and run for three days in total.

If you're interested in more information on the event head here, check out the full commentary list here and buy tickets here.

Valve is probably working on Half-Life 3, but until we get an announcement, all we can do is dream. But there are things you can do to make the time go by as a Half-Life fan, such as checking out the Unreal Engine 4-powered Half-Life 2 environment project by Polycount member 'PogoP'.

The screenshots alone do it justice, with PogoP explaining: "Just so you know, I do plan to release this scene online for people to play around with. I'm not going to release it just yet, as I would really like to get it working with Oculus Rift before I do.. So you can run around with virtual reality. Not entirely sure if its going to work, but I'll give it a good go!"

Bungie has announced that Destiny will get microtransactions starting October 13, complete with its own in-game currency called Silver.

These microtransactions will be cosmetic rather than the pay-to-win schemes, Bungie affirms. A new NPC will arrive in the Tower and players will be able to exchange Silver for their choice of 18 different new emotes. Silver can be purchased for money, but we still don't know the exact exchange rates.

Reports indicate that this new cosmetic microtransaction model is how Bungie will fund Destiny's further development, and will release free DLC updates once a month throughout Fall 2016.

Earlier this year we reported that Paramount and Hasbro were forging ahead with plans to carve out a 'Transformers' cinematic universe over multiple films and platforms, and it looks like those plans are coming to fruition, with Hasbro chief content officer Steven J. Davis bullish on the future.

As reported by Variety, Davis reports that the writers room has successfully mapped out the next ten years for the franchise. "Nine of some of the most creative writers I have ever worked with, shepherded by Akiva Goldsman, who many of you may know won an Academy Award for 'A Beautiful Mind' and written a bunch of great movies. And they plotted out the next 10 years of 'Transformers'. Similarly, we are doing the same in television and in digital. So stay tuned, 'Transformers 5' is on its way, and 6 and 7 and 8."

While this might sound like over-confidence, bear in mind that the last entry 'Age of Extinction' is the 14th highest grossing film in history, with $1.1B worldwide.

One of the most attractive selling points on the is that its huge assortment of buttons are infinitely customizable, adding in a touch of the kind of macro peripherals we see at esports tournaments. But now it looks like custom button mapping is coming to all Xbox One controllers after all.

Xbox exec Mike Ybarra--the Microsoft vet who's responsible for helping developing OneCore, Xbox One's custom Windows 10 kernal--innocuously broke the news in a response to a fan query on Twitter.

Ultimately it looks like Xbox One fans aren't too happy about having to shell out $150 for a function they believe should be stock. So far Microsoft has done a splendid job using fan feedback to shape the future of the Xbox brand, and this is no different. While there's no timeline other than the maddeningly vague "soon", I'm guessing it'll be introduced with the Xbox One's huge Windows 10 update in November.