Latest News - Page 2652

Original 'Tron' and 'Tron Legacy' actor Bruce Boxleitner has kept the franchise flame going for over 30 years now, but after Disney's cancellation of the second sequel in recent months, even he has sadly given up the faith.

Speaking to SlashFilm on the prospect of further 'Tron' films, the actor said "I don't really care anymore. I'm done with it. I've moved on. I hate to say that but it's been too up and down for me. I would rather not just keep going. I don't want to repeat my career anymore."

Whilst it might sound a bit harsh, Boxleitner clearly understands the business rationale in not continuing the franchise. "It breaks my heart, but I understand the times move on. Disney, it's not in their [wheelhouse] anymore. The animated series a lot of promise, they didn't stick with that either. I don't think they really want it anymore. I think they've got Star Wars. They've got Marvel. Legacy was successful. I'm not sure that they really had that much interest anymore. I hate to say that because I think there's a lot more to go."

Modders have been quite busy crafting a slew of additions and expansions for GTA V's PC port, leading to some pretty amazing things like playing as Iron Man, wreaking havoc with the game's physics with the car cannon mod, or even adding incredibly realistic visuals with the Project Realism script. Now one modder has made Los Santos into a sandbox for a chaotic RPG adventure.

With GTA: RPG, a modder by the handle of Logic Spawn has injected more RPG mechanics into Rockstar's heist caper by adding "typical RPG features such as leveling, questing, non-linear dialogue, skills, looting and more". Vanilla GTA V already had a light RPG system, but this particular script kicks things up a notch for some high-quality entertainment.

Each of the three main characters have designated classes--Time Master for Michael, Speedster for Tranklin and Berserker for Trevor--and players can create their very own character with a range of different customization options straight out of GTA: Online.

The Islamic State has had ups and downs while using social media, finding Twitter, YouTube, and other sites helpful in recruiting new members, sharing propaganda, and intimidating the public. Trying to fight the group has evolved into an international effort, with Europol and the US government looking for ways to crack down on the Islamic State.

"Every targeted country that the Islamic State brags about becomes more resolved to take on the Islamic State," said Max Abrahms, a political science professor at Northeastern University and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, in a statement published by Voice of America.

"While it's true that bragging about the violence over social media can be beneficial in terms of having a recruitment affect, there's also a very substantial attrition effect."

The public image of Japanese games publisher Konami continues to worsen as more news breaks on the company's controversial treatment of its own employees. Nikkei reports on the disdainful conditions that Konami employees are subject to on a regular basis, revealing things like invasive video monitoring and even reassigning key development talent to menial labor tasks.

"Konami's internal culture sounds poisonous. For one, email with outsiders is done with a randomized email address changed regularly," freelance games localizer Thomas James said in a series of translations of the Nikkei article. "It does not stop with emails. Lunchtime leave is regulated with time cards. Those who exceed allotted time are outed within company."

"Employees deemed useless have been known to do assembly line work, security guard detail, cleanup at fitness clubs," James continues. "These are not nobodies being told to do this work either. Producers and other prominent creators have had this hoisted on them."

With $1m AU set to be spread between three programs to assist disadvantaged and marginalized Aussies in gaining access to ICT services, the aim here is to promote these students to begin their own careers in IT.

Sent to not-for-profit organizations, this donation will ensure hands-on training can be supplied to approximately 10,000 students in total. One of the organizations involved and highlighted is Engineers Without Borders Australia and its 'Regioneering Roadshow' program, set to train regionally-located school age students, focusing on promotion of women in IT.

The Engineers Without Borders Australia director, Jane Hadjion, told iTnews about the wide variety of children that will benefit from this service, stating: "We're putting on 65 workshops in 38 locations over 12 months. We're reaching 6500 students, 470 teachers and 1400 parents."

Smartphone maker OnePlus is riding some strong marketing momentum after announcing the OnePlus 2 device in late July. The new flagship phone follows up the OnePlus One, as the company continues promoting powerful devices that don't have premium price tags.

"In 5 years I think it will be Apple, OnePlus and Samsung because there's no more room in the market," said Carl Pei, OnePlus co-founder, in a statement to USA Today. "Everyone else would've died because they couldn't reach the scale they wanted fast enough or they couldn't have a margin to sustain their business. Look at the soft drink space: there are only two players, Pepsi and Coke."

Pei said the company broke even last year, and is looking to break even again in 2015, though admitted OnePlus has aggressively expanded its staff. If everything goes well, OnePlus hopes to sell 3-5 million units in 2015, but officials are more interested in what consumers think of its products.

EA has posted its latest revenue numbers, where the company is seeing a huge 77% of its revenue in Q1 2015 arriving from online video game services and add-ons, some of which is thanks to DLC.

Now that EA is making big business from digital distribution, the company can invest the money it used to put into manufacturing and shipping physical retail copies of games into other things. With its Q1 2015 revenue hitting $693 million, 77% of that is a massive chunk of money courtesy of digital goods. EA also noted a 32% rise in profits over the previous year, securing itself $442 million.

EA has some big games in its wings waiting for release, with Star Wars Battlefront to be released in November, with analysts expecting over 10 million sales.

We knew it was coming, but the retail packaging for Intel's upcoming Skylake processors have leaked online. We now have a legitimate look at the Core i7-6700K, and Core i5-6600K processors.

The Core i7-6700K will feature 4 physical cores and 4 HT cores to make up an 8-threaded CPU, while boasting a 4GHz clock speed, support for dual-channel DDR4 and DDR3L memory, as well as Intel HD Graphics 530. The Core i5-6600K on the other hand, features just four physical cores at 3.5GHz, without Hyper-Threading the same dual-channel DDR4/DDR3L RAM support, and Intel HD Graphics 530.

Imagine walking into a restaurant and seeing a team of robots making your meal for you... sure, some people don't like the idea of machines doing this type of work, but it is the future. Technology runs so much of our lives, from the smartphone in your hand to the cloud it connects to, right up into space to satellites and everything in between.

But now we're looking at a group of experts based in the UK who are working on the first "robotic kitchen" which can be installed into any home. The scientists behind the project have made a machine that is capable of emulating human chefs in the kitchen while packing access to an unlimited library of programmed recipes.

They plan to have the robotic kitchen ready by 2018, for just $75,000 with the costs coming down "substantially" if the unit sells well. But the sheer tease of this is exciting, as custom home builders could start including a robotic kitchen in their designs in the next decade. Imagine walking through a new home that you're planning to buy, and it featuring a robotic kitchen making world-class meals, without you having to lift a finger from food preparation, cooking, and cleaning.

The specs of Samsung's Galaxy Note 5 haven't been much of a secret, but now notorious leaker @evleaks has dished the specs on Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 5.

We should expect Samsung to be using an 8-core Exynos 7420 processor, a 5.66-inch 2560x1440 QHD display, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of on-board storage (with 64GB and 128GB models, too), a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera backed up by a 5-megapixel selfie shooter, Android 5.1.1 and no SD card slot. The last bit is going to have Galaxy Note fans up in arms, as it was one of the more powerful features of the previous generation handsets.

Samsung should include some updated, and new pen-orientated apps that the S Pen can be used with, but here's hoping there's more in store for the Galaxy Note 5 ahead of its unveiling later this month.

With the release of Windows 10 last week, some users are excited about the Xbox One to Windows 10 game streaming feature, which has been detailed in some newly released screenshots.

Thanks to some screenshots released by DualShockers, we now have some shots to look at the game being run natively on a Xbox One, compared to being streamed to a PC running Windows 10. We have a bunch of screenshots to show, with the native Xbox One version on top, while the version being streamed to Windows 10 is underneath it.

As you can see, there's a dip in quality and texture detail because of the compression used to stream the game, but it's not too bad at all.

When we heard about AMD's upcoming Zen architecture, we were excited, but with the latest news on this new APU, the excitement level has increased ten fold.

According to WCCFTech, AMD's upcoming APU is being dubbed an "Exascale Heterogeneous Processor", or EHP. AMD's new EHP will pack 32 x86 Zen cores, a massive Greenland-powered graphics die, and up to 32GB of HBM2 on its 2.5D interposer. That's not a mistake, we're looking at a 32-core processor, with enough graphics grunt to play games at 4K, and with up to 32GB of next-gen HBM2.

AMD's EHP can pack up to 32GB of HBM2, but it can be expanded through a DDR4 channel that is baked onto the package. As for the GPU side of this new APU, we don't know how many Greenland GPU cores will be used, but we're sure that AMD will use a smaller node for it, so we should expect it to pack quite the performance punch.

After initially leaking online over the weekend, Paramount Pictures has decided to officially release the first teaser trailer for the eagerly awaited sequel to 2001's 'Zoolander', with Ben Stiller reprising his role as male model Derek Zoolander.

Whilst the teaser doesn't reveal any film footage per se, it does reacquaint audiences with the character and his low intellect quite well. Similar to 'Anchorman', 'Zoolander' was not a massive hit upon release, but has acrued a solid fan-following on home video.

'Zoolander 2' hits cinemas worldwide in February 2016.

Apple Music has successfully generated a lot of interest, but it's easy to find vocal critics willing to share some of the horror stories they've endured so far.

One longtime Apple "watcher" explained how he lost more than 4,000 songs after the app on his phone gave him complicated and confusing settings. After some tinkering, he was reportedly able to get most of the songs back. Tech analyst Ben Thompson believes Apple Music is something the company released to the public because executives may have thought it was necessary - with other users reporting it is underwhelming.

Of course, some of you responded that you've had no problems while testing the streaming music service. So, the jury is clearly still out as to whether or not Apple Music will be a major success, or end up being nothing more than a dud.

The Obama Administration desperately seeks changes to encryption, hoping technology companies will install hidden backdoors just for them. Former NSA analyst Edward Snowden is defending the argument supported by companies such as Google and Apple, as politicians in Washington demand better access.

"The central problem with insecurity mandates has never been addressed by its proponents: if one government can demand access to private communications, all governments can," Snowden said in an email published by The Intercept. "No matter how good the reason, if the US sets the precedent that Apple has to compromise the security of a customer in response to a piece of government paper, what can they do when the government is China and the customer is the Dalai Lama?"

"Technologists and companies working to protect ordinary citizens should be applauded, not sued or prosecuted," Snowden also said in the email.

Uber has just raised another $1 billion, which has the ride sharing giant being worth $50 billion, reaching the milestone two years quicker than Facebook did.

The company has attracted all sorts of different investors in its latest funding round, with one of them being Microsoft. According to sources of Bloomberg, Microsoft reportedly backed Uber by around $100 million. There's no information on what Microsoft's interest is in Uber, but abck in June, Uber secured itself a slice of Bing's mapping technology, as well as around 100 employees from Microsoft.

Microsoft isn't the first company to invest into Uber, with Chinese internet giant Baidu throwing some money into the ring, with an investment that is said to be around $600 million. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also invested into the company, all the way back in 2011, as well as Google Ventures pledging $258 million in 2013.

Sharp's Aquos line of TVs might be popular amongst enthusiasts, but the company has been forced to pull out of the LCD TV business in the United States after various financial problems had Sharp's hands tied behind its back.

The company sold its Mexican factory for $23.7 million, along with the rights to its Sharp brand in both North and South America to Chinese TV maker Hisense. Over the last quarter, Sharp lost $274 million, while over the last four years the Japanese giant has lost $13.4 billion. Sharp recently secured itself a $1.8 billion bailout, but company president Kozo Takahashi said: "we have to consider all options, including a spinoff of the LCD business. The LCD market is changing very rapidly".

Hisense has said: "The acquisition (of Sharp's brand) will help Hisense gain an upper hand in both North and South America". From here on out, Sharp's Aquos TV line up will continue to be sold in the US, but Hisense will be enjoying any profits made.

SUPERHOT is one of the most unique first-person shooters that I've seen, where time in the game only goes forward when you, the player, moves. If you stop, time slows down to a near stand still, similar to 'bullet time' from The Matrix movies, or the Max Payne franchise.

The developers behind the game have released the first gameplay video from the recently released beta of SUPERHOT, which we've embedded above. It shows off the gun play, as well as the melee combat where you can throw whatever is in your hand, including your gun, at your enemies. The slow-motion gunplay looks incredibly fun, but the one instance where SUPERHOT is going to take off is in VR.

We played SUPERHOT on the Oculus Rift back at PAX AU 2014, where it was quite the experience. The developers promise that SUPERHOT is on track for a release later this year where you can purchase it directly from the SUPERHOT website for $14, or $25 if you want the digital artbook in PDF, and the game's official soundtrack in FLAC quality.

At the China Joy 2015 expo, Xbox division boss Phil Spencer lays out his long-term strategy that calls for Microsoft to develop original first-party exclusives rather than having to rely on third-party games.

"My strategy is more around our own first party franchises, and investing in franchises that we own, and probably fewer exclusive deals for third party content. I want to have strong third party relations, but paying for many third party exclusives isn't our long term strategy."

In less than a week we'll see Spencer made good on his words when key Xbox One exclusives like Halo 5, Quantum Break, Crackdown, Gears of War 4 and Scalebound steal the show at this year's Gamescom conference. Microsoft has announced the Xbox Gamescom lineup and will stream the event across Xbox LIVE and the official Xbox website on August 5-6 at 9:00am PDT (12:00pm EST).

Earlier this week DICE teased a reveal for a new Star Wars: Battlefront multiplayer mode, and shortly after the devs unveiled the explosive Blast mode.

At its core Blast mode is pretty simple: it pits the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire for some enthralling laser-zapping 10 vs. 10 team deathmatch action, the kind that taps the game's fluid and frenetic pace. The objective of the game is pretty straightforward: the first of the warring factions to hit 100 kills or scores the most kills after a 10 minute round wins the game.

Vehicles won't show up in Blast, nor will there be any heroes of villains. In lieu of vehicles, DICE has peppered the maps with power weapons that can significantly turn the tide of the battle at any moment. "Whether you pick up a Droid scanning for nearby enemies or a turret that'll control a zone for you, the pickups can really turn the tide of a Blast match," says Battlefront Level Designer Dennis Brännvall "They are not around every corner though, so keep your eyes peeled."