Latest News - Page 2662

We have now got a more precise release window for Star Marine, the first-person module of the ambitious Star Citizen. During an interview with Gamers Nexus, Star Citizen's mastermind Chris Roberts said that Star Marine would be out in "three, four, maybe 5 weeks" from now.

Roberts talked about the work required for the first-person module in deeper detail, which adds another dimension of personal combat and piloting space vessels, into a playable state. Roberts added: "We made a conscious decision very early to do it correctly. The proper third-person animations drive the first person. It makes things harder because you can't cheat in a lot of different ways".

It was the bigger quote about Star Marine has me excited, where Roberts explained: "The arms are [normally] right in front of the eyes. With Star Citizen, it's different than a normal FPS because it's essentially a whole world simulation. It's not just running around with a gun; it's interacting with stuff, flying ships, and interacting with people cooperatively. If someone is sitting next to you in the Constellation, you need to see what he's doing with the controls". He continued: "We don't separate between first and third person. It's all unified. The third-person animations drive the first-person; when you're looking around in first-person, you're looking through the eyes. [...] It makes things harder because you can't cheat in a lot of ways".

Before we exclusively revealed AMD was opting with the Radeon R9 Fury X name for its next-gen, HBM-based video card, we reported on the purported Radeon R9 490X that would arrive in 2016. We knew it would be based on the 16nm process, and use HBM2, but it looks like we were wrong with the name.

During AMD's recent earnings call, President and CEO Lisa Su talked about the company playing around with a couple of its first FinFET designs. Su said that FinFET is going to be very important for the company as we move into the new year. But, she also reiterated that a good design and architecture is just as, if not more important than the manufacturing process - something we definitely agree on.

AMD will be releasing its 'Arctic Islands' architecture next year, its next-generation GPU architecture based on the 16nm manufacturing process, and using the next-gen HBM2. HBM2 will deliver 8GB of HBM2 on a video card, with memory bandwidth of 1024GB/sec - up from the 512GB/sec found on the Radeon R9 Fury X. But what we need to know is: what will AMD call this card? Surely it can't be the Fury X 2, as I'm sure the dual-GPU card coming out later this year will take up the Fury X2 (no space) name. Could AMD release it as the Fury XX? Because I can't wait to see the third iteration: Fury XXX.

AMD will be launching one of its most exciting video cards ever next month, with the High Bandwidth Memory-powered Radeon R9 Nano to launch mid-August, according to company CEO Lisa Su.

Su announced the release window during AMD's Q2 2015 earnings call, where she said: "Fury just launched, actually this week, and we will be launching Nano in the August timeframe". We don't know exactly what to expect, but we do know it's going to be a super-small video card with a TDP of just 175W.

Inside the Radeon R9 Nano, we know that HBM will be used, and that it will have 2x the performance-per-watt compared to the R9 290X, as well as 2x the performance density of the 290X. This will see AMD be the Mini-ITX champion, so if you've got a super-small PC that you need to buy a video card for, the R9 Nano should be the one.

Swatch CEO Nick Hayek said his company will release the Swatch NFC smartwatch this summer, and there are already 20,000 units ready for launch. The connected watch isn't designed to be a smartphone on your wrist, but will be able to support wireless payments and other mobile functions.

"We will launch it in the US, China and Switzerland," Hayek said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. "We have 20,000 already in stock and we are very optimistic about the watch."

Hayek didn't disclose what impact the Apple Watch has had on the company, but Swatch's effort to join the smartwatch market should be a telling sign. I think it's a good move by Swatch - as the Apple Watch and other smartwatches won't take the high-end market - but will pressure the lower-end Swatch target market.

Project CARS has received yet another update, bringing the game to v2.50, delivering a bunch of improvements and fixes along the way. The developer has worked on the various game-stopping crashes, but there is a fair bit of fixing under the hood for Project CARS with this patch. The full changelog for v2.50:

Game Crashes

Pitting, tuning, setups

Hearing of professional athletes taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to get an edge on the competition isn't a shock anymore. However, you may be a bit more surprised to hear about PED use among eSports competitors.

Kory Friesen (a.k.a SEMPHIS), a former Cloud9 team member and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional player, recently said the entire team used Adderall. Friesen made his comments after discussing in-game communication between Cloud9 teammates (via Mohan "Launders" Govindasamy):

"The ESL comms were kind of funny in my opinion. I don't even care. We were all on Adderall. I don't even give a f**k. It was pretty obvious if you listened to the comms. People can hate it or whatever."

The gaming world was turned upside down after it was announced Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, 55, died earlier this week. Nintendo senior managing director Genyo Takeda delivered the memorial address during Iwata's funeral, which was posted online by Polygon.

In the eulogy, Takeda spoke of Iwata's personal and professional successes, and vowed to support Iwata's legacy.

"As we gather here today for a joint funeral with Nintendo Co., Ltd. and Mr. Iwata's family, I would like to share my heartfelt condolences. President Iwata, allow me to call you Iwata-san, just as I always used to.

Now that Microsoft is just over a week away from the launch of Windows 10, the company has just enabled game streaming from Xbox One owners to Windows 10-powered PCs and tablets. Not only that, but the company is also delivering improved features to the Xbox app on Windows 10 in the coming days.

Anyone who owns an Xbox One and a Windows 10-powered PC or tablet can play all of their games from their console on their PC, all by going to your Xbox One and then 'Settings', then 'Preferences' and then 'Allow game streaming to other devices'. Once you've done this, it will install the latest version of the Xbox app on your PC or tablet.

Once you open the Xbox app on your Windows 10 device, go to Connect and then '+Add a device', and you'll then have to select your Xbox One console. Once you have a Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller hooked up to your PC, you'll be close to being connected to your Xbox One. From here, you'll need to go to 'Home' and then 'Recently Played' to select a Xbox One game, and then select 'Play from Console' to start your streaming session. Voila; you're not playing Xbox One games on your PC!

Fallout 4 has kept voice actors Brian Delaney and Courtenay Taylor quite busy, with more than 13,000 lines of dialogue recorded over the past two years. There is a large amount of hype and gamer excitement regarding Fallout 4, and it's great to see Bethesda apparently taking things seriously.

It's an interesting addition to Fallout 4, as it's going to be fully voiced, with gamers able to choose a male or female character. It has been a logistical process for Bethesda, but will offer unique playability for gamers. Here is what game director Todd Howard recently told the Telegraph:

"We were lucky to find two great voice actors. And it's interesting because she may read things or act things differently than he does. So scenes play out differently depending on whether you are playing the game as male or female."

Designed with gaming in mind, ADATA has announced its XPG Series SX930 SATA 6Gb/s SSDs to the market. These models come complete with a DDR3 DRAM cache buffer which claims to improve "the random read/write performance up to 2 times when compared to SSDs without a DRAM cache" as seen in a recently issued press release.

Why gaming? Because load times. Boasting a sequential read speed of 560 MB/s and write speed of 460MB/s, these drives offer you fast loading times into maps and levels alongside providing the basic features of NCQ, S.M.A.R.T and Windows TRIM.

Available in sizes including 120GB, 240GB and 480GB, the SX930 series is also packaged with ADATA's "pSLC Cache Technology," said to enhance transfer speeds.

Prison corrections services company JPay has launched the JP5mini tablet, a $70 device powered by Google Android. Apps are heavily restricted and email conversations can be closely tracked by prison officials, so inmates won't have free control over Internet access.

Since the device is designed to be used by prison inmates, it looks like JPay took a few additional precautions in regards to physical design and software.

The JP5mini is made from clear, polycarbonate plastic that prevents contraband from being easily spread through the prison facility. The OS has a secure boot loader, which will make it difficult for unauthorized operating systems and other software from being installed.

Computex 2015 was an interesting time in the case, cooler and power supply scene. This was not only due to some amazing releases by numerous companies, but because of accusations by CaseLabs and some technology media websites towards Thermaltake for allegedly 'stealing' design ideas.

In breaking news, Thermaltake has issued a press release today which included a formal apology letter from CaseLabs, signed by president James Keating and vice president Kevin Keating. This documentation apologized for public attacks against Thermaltake and its North American marketing manager, Shannon Robb, further stating that the accusations that Thermaltake "acted as an Asian business with poor character and integrity" were unjust.

Also enclosed was a letter from CaseLabs to Legit Reviews. This letter outlined that Kevin Keating's statement of Thermaltake helping "taint the industry with rip-off products" was ill advised and a public retraction of the statement was included. This document went on to request that Legit Reviews should remove the news post in which quotes Kevin Keating's words immediately.

Microsoft has reached the release to manufacturing (RTM) build of Windows 10, with its official release on July 29 right around the corner, but how will you be buying the new operating system? On a disc? Upgrading from your old installation, or on a USB flash drive?

Windows 10 can be pre-ordered on a USB flash drive on Amazon, but these drives won't be shipping until August 16. This date can change at anytime, so you could receive it earlier than that. Windows 10 Home is $119.99, while Windows 10 Professional will set you back an additional $80, for a total of $199.99.

With gamers across the world excited for the endless possibilities of Microsoft's upcoming HoloLens wearable, it looks like the first iteration of HoloLens won't be aimed at gamers, and instead it will be targeted towards developers and enterprise scenarios.

The news comes directly from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, during his recent interview with ZDNet, where he said that HoloLens will be "more about developers and enterprise scenarios". Nadella's statement on HoloLens rides directly from his demo on the wearable at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, where the CEO focused its concentration of HoloLens on tools like Autodesk and Maya.

Even with the big push of Minecraft on HoloLens at E3 2015 last month, the company isn't pushing HoloLens onto gamers anytime soon. Nadella added: "What we can uniquely do is bridge consumer to enterprise. That's in our DNA. I want every technology of ours to seek that out. In the HoloLens case, when I look at the interest, it's amazing how many are in hospitals, healthcare, retail. That's where I'm seeing the interest and we'll definitely go after it". He continued: "I wanted a hit game even for the new medium of mixed reality. And we will have that. Gaming will always be a scenario and there will be other entertainment broadly. But, with the V.1 of HoloLens, I want us to push a lot more of the enterprise usage".

Boasting revenues of $13.2 billion, an operating income of $2.9 billion, a net income of $2.7 billion and an EPS of 55 cents, Intel posted up impressive Q2 2015 results. These figures show what Intel CEO Brian Krzanich claims to be a "transformation of our business as growth in data center, memory and IoT accounted for more than 70 percent of our operating profit."

Naming the PC market as "challenging," Krzanich further explained that "the launches of Skylake, Microsoft's Windows 10 and new OEM systems will bring excitement to client computing in the second half of 2015." As for further reports, Intel generated around $3.4 billion in cash from operations, it paid dividends of $1.1 billion and used $697 million in order to repurchase 22 million shares of stock.

Looking forward to the third quarter, Intel expects to see a revenue of $14.3 billion, plus or minus $500 million. They also expect to spend $4.9 billion on R&D and MG&A combined.

Claiming to be "the market leader in PC power supplies in Germany for nine consecutive years," Be Quiet! has decided to continue its domination by releasing the Silent Base 800 windowed model, assisting users in showing off the orange highlighted innards and any crazy technology featured within this massive chassis.

With the window being made of double-glazed polycarbonate, Be Quiet! claims this design will ensure noise isolation and scratch resistance. The window is also housed within a rubber insert, meaning it wont vibrate when all of your internal fans roar to life and helps to showcase the attention to detail paid in the design. As for fans, this case comes packed with three pre-installed Pure Wings 2 fans which also claim whisper-quiet operations.

Available now for $149.90 excluding taxes, owners of the windowless version can purchase the side panel alone for $29.90 (excluding tax). For a look into exactly how the case fits some mid to high range components, check out the image above.

Boasting transfer speeds of up to 480 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write, Super Talent's new SATA Slim SJ2 technology is designed with medical, point-of-sale, laptop and embedded applications in mind.

Built on a SATA-III interface, these drives also claim to withstand extreme temperature ranges and are quoted as "a great choice when physical space is a limiting factor for a host system" in a recently issued press release.

This NAND storage also brandishes low power qualities, making it useful for numerous industrial applications with sizes ranging up to 128GB. More information can be found out about this model here.

Apple has just unveiled its new 2015 iPod, which includes a bunch of new models, starting at $199 for the 16GB iPod touch. This quickly ramps up to $399, if you opt for the 128GB version.

The new iPod touch is the centerpiece of Apple's new push with the iPod this year, but there is a new iPod shuffle and nano, too. The new iPod touch features the same style, but has seen its rear-facing camera increased to an 8-megapixel shooter, while it enjoys a 64-bit A8 processor and M8 co-processor for its number-crunching prowess.

Apple's new iPod nano and iPod shuffle come in a variety of new colors including darker blue, pink, and gold. Other than that, they're the same iPod shuffle and nano that we've been used to for a while now. Apple's new iPod touch, shuffle and nano are available from the usual retailers, and Apple's website, now.

Tesla has come along way from being an electric vehicle manufacturer, as it is now stepping out into the limelight of battery technology, and so much more. It wasn't too long ago that Tesla unveiled Powerwall, its Internet-connected home battery.

Now we have Tesla Motors' Chief Technology Officer, JB Straubel, taking to the stage of Intersolar's opening ceremony talk about energy density and other benefits of lithium-ion batteries for electronic cars. The Tesla CEO also said that the company is confident in renewable energy to make solar and wind available on-demand after sunset, or when the wind starts to slow down.

Straubel said that battery costs will tumble much quicker than expected, and that demand for energy storage equipment will expand rather quickly, with the same going for solar panels. This one-two punch will create a great path for cheaper electricity, especially when compared to what the world currently pays from fossil fuel-based power plants. Straubel added that "we are within grasping distance of that goal". He added: "I'm quite certain that it will happen in the next 10 years".

The day is here... Windows 10 has reached build 10240, which Microsoft has selected to be the final release to manufacturing (RTM) copy of Windows. The RTM version of Windows 10 will now be sent out to PC makers to bake into their new machines, as well as manufacturing the physical copies of Windows 10.

Microsoft internally signed off on the RTM release of Windows 10, but will most likely announce the RTM publicly later this week. With the official release of Windows 10 set for July 29, we're only two weeks away from Microsoft's next-generation operating system.