Latest News - Page 2814

Microsoft today unveiled its Windows 10 operating system, a push into the future to try and help desktop and PC users forget about the Windows 8/8.1 debacle. During an invite-only event in San Francisco, the company showed off Windows 10, which mixes live tiles with the familiar UI of Windows 7, including a Start menu and taskbar. The "Metro" start screen and the regular Start Menu of older versions of Windows have been blended together, to provide a more cohesive user experience.

Starting tomorrow, Microsoft will open up a Windows 10 technical preview for PCs and laptops, with additional device support expected in the near future. The company hopes to make a transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 much more comfortable than the headaches that followed many users as they tried to embrace the touch-centric Windows 8/8.1. Additional details about the OS will be unveiled in early 2015.

Microsoft chose to skip the Windows 9 name and help usher in the idea that its OS needs to be robust and compatible with a wider variety of different products:

After the mess that was the launch of Battlefield 4, EA is taking a much different, and more appropriate path for the launch of the Visceral Games-developed Battlefield: Hardline. The company delayed it into 2015, but it looks like it could be for a good reason.

At the Tokyo Game Show, Game Revolution talked with Ian Milham, the Creative Director of Visceral Games. Game Revolution asked Milham whether the game will be 100% ready at launch, as most games these days don't seem ready for their big launches, with pretty much every big game launched lately enjoying its fair share of problems. Milham replied with: "What you're basically asking is, 'Is you're game going to work?' and the answer is yes, it's gonna work. We actually started on this more than a year before Battlefield 4 came out".

He continued: "We've been working with the DICE guys for a long time; some of our engineering work is actually in Battlefield 4 and things they've been doing since then. It's in pretty great shape now and all that work is gonna come into what we're doing". Milham also added: "We already had one very successful beta, we're going to have another beta on every platform we ship on. We take shipping a working game pretty seriously. So, yes, the game will work".

Android L is expected to be unveiled with the forthcoming Nexus 6 smartphone, which should sport a 5.9-inch QHD display, but this new mobile OS will be modified for Google's modular Project Ara smartphone.

Google's Paul Eremenko has teased that we are to expect hot-swappable components, so that users can switch out the camera module for example, without having to power off the entire phone. Virtually every single component will be hot-swappable, apart from the display and the CPU. On its Phonebloks blog, Google said: "Project Ara will use a modified version of Android L, developed in collaboration with Linaro. Thanks to this version, the modules, except the CPU and the display, will be hot swappable".

These hot-swappable modules will be made available through the Google Play store, which will open up "a new online store" to sell the modules too. We should expect the modular smartphone to be made available to consumers early next year.

Ryse is going to hit the PC soon, after being an Xbox One exclusive and launch title for Microsoft. The Crytek developed game is now being compared between the Xbox One and PC in a new video, which you can watch below.

I watched that video, and to me, I didn't see much of a graphical change between the two. I did notice massively increased frame rates on the PC, and reduced motion blur, but only slight upgrades in terms of texture quality and animation. Digital Foundry are behind the video, noting that they were playing with the preview build of Ryse for PC, which isn't the complete version gamers will receive soon.

Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry explained that he found the PC version can improve in two very obvious areas: resolution and frame rate. Leadbetter said: "The PC version we tested-a two-level press demo-offers the opportunity to resolve these issues conclusively. Slotting a Radeon R9 290 into our Core i7 3770K PC overclocked to 4.3GHz, Ryse's spectacular opening renders beautifully at a native 1080p, with a flawless 60fps update. A 30fps cap is included in the options, but crucially, Crytek allows PC users to run fully unlocked - and given the right hardware, the impact is spectacular".

Project Cars is shaping up to be one of the best, if not the best-looking racing game of all time, but how will it look on the now current generation consoles?

Slightly Mad Studios, the developer behind the game, has said that they are aiming for 1080p at 60FPS on both the Xbox One and PS4. Andy Tudor from Slightly Mad Studios talked with Eurogamer recently, where he said that even though the recent work-in-progress versions of the Xbox One version of the game were "not quite 1080p at the moment" the studio is "still aiming to get there".

Tudor continued: "Towards the end of the game you're always optimizing, and during development it's a rollercoaster. Sometimes you look at the game and think oh god, that's not working, that's not working. But other days you hit 60 fps, and it's awesome". Tudor also explained that the "physics underneath runs at 600 times a second" and that the developer calculates "the input you're doing on the controller 250 times per second". Project Cars slides onto gamers' rigs and consoles on November 18, arriving on SteamOS and Wii U next year.

Google is close to unveiling its new Nexus 6 smartphone, which according to Android Police, will feature a 5.9-inch 2560x1440 QHD display. There's some great new information on the phone, with a detailed picture of Google's upcoming flagship.

The 5.9-inch display is going to make it feel absolutely huge, even against the now large iPhone 6 Plus, or Galaxy Note 4. We have black, front-facing stereo speakers, with the power button and volume rocker finding their homes on the side of the device. Inside of the Nexus 6, we have a 3200mAh+ battery, which should keep the massive 5.9-inch QHD display and the rest of the pone powered for the entire day.

There's a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with OIS, backed up by a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies. The 5.9-inch QHD display will provide a retina-busting 496PPI, which should have display enthusiasts drooling. With Android Police giving this rumor a '9/10' we should expect this smartphone to be announced any day now, but I'm disappointed we have seen Google push the new Nexus right up to 5.9-inch. I'm hoping Google surprise us with a second Nexus, with a 5.2-inch (or so) display.

AMD has just released its new Catalyst 14.9 drivers, which has a massive list of performance improvements that it provides to various benchmarks, and some of the hottest games out right now.

The biggest improvements come to games like Murdered Soul Suspect on the Radeon R9 290X at 2560x1440 with 4x MSAA and 16x AF enabled, where there's performance improvements of up to 50%. Plants vs. Zombies receives an improved CrossFire profile, with the R9 290X in CrossFire at 4K seeing 92% scaling. Batman: Arkham Origins also sees improved CrossFire scaling, bumping up to 70% improvements.

Mantle improvements are also at play here, with Mantle being supported on AMD Mobile products with Enduro technology. Battlefield 4, Thief and Star Swarm all see improvements. You can read the full list of improvements, and grab the new Catalyst 14.9 drivers right here.

To celebrate next week's home video release of the 2014 blockbuster smash 'Maleficent' starring Angelina Jolie, we have five copies of the Blu-ray release to give away, thanks to our friends at Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

Once upon a time, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) the strong and powerful fairy, fell in love with a human peasant boy named Stefan (Sharlto Copley). As the pair grew older however, Stefan's desire for the throne outshone his love for Maleficent. A great betrayal led to a bitter and long lasting feud between the two, who now ruled the human and fairy realms as sworn enemies.

To go into the running to take one Blu-ray copy home, simply correctly answer the following question:

Streaming music sales are rising in popularity, but still cannot make up for the drop in both physical CDs and digital downloads, according to a report released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As Pandora and Spotify continue to shake up the music industry, Apple - and its acquisition of Beats - can help push the industry forward, despite the difficulty in convincing streaming users to purchase music.

Music business analyst Mark Mulligan noted that the music industry must try to determine if streaming music should be used as a marketing or sales tool in the future. There also is concern that many Spotify stations, for example, rely on major music hits from a small number of artists, while other songs and albums build a slow following over an extended period of time.

"The streaming picture is changing at an absolutely staggering rate and everyone across the value chain needs to get their heads around all the potential permutations else get left behind," Mulligan noted. "These are both exciting and daunting times."

It doesn't matter what type of technology is developed, when it comes to driving behind the wheel, your attention should be focused on the road. Recent research found that drivers in a simulator using both Google Glass and a smartphone to text were equally slow to respond to their environment, posing significant safety hazards.

"While Glass-delivered messaging has benefits, it does not in any way make driving-while-messaging safe," said Ben Sawyer, lead researcher, in a University of Central Florida peer-reviewed study done alongside the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Google Glass wearers reportedly recovered slightly faster than those using a traditional smartphone, but there was less distance between their vehicle and other vehicles ahead - dropping risk perception of a changing environment. There were hopes that the head-mounted display would allow drivers to keep their attention on the road in front of them, but interacting with Glass still proves to be too distracting for drivers.

Microsoft plans to open a new retail store at 677 Fifth Avenue in New York City, a few blocks away from Rockefeller Center - and not too far away from a rival Apple store. The company currently has more than 100 retail stores throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, with at least 10 more expected to open before the end of the year.

Learning from the success of the Apple store, where die-hard customers and curious onlookers wander in, Microsoft hopes its retail experience will help draw in potential customers. Even if a Microsoft store cannot draw the same attention as a rival Apple store, it's an important opportunity to allow consumers the chance to test new technologies they might be unfamiliar with.

"As our first flagship store, it will serve as the centerpiece of our Microsoft Stores experience," the company said in a blog post. "This is a goal we've had since day one - we were only waiting for the right location. And now we have it."

We thought GoPro would wait a week or so to unveil its new Hero4 cameras, but nope, we were wrong: here they are! GoPro has officially unveiled the new Hero4 cameras, once again arriving in two editions: Black, and Silver.

The GoPro Hero4 Black is the star of the show, capable of shooting 4K video at 30FPS, and is touted by GoPro as "the most advanced GoPro ever". It can shoot 4K at 30FPS, 2.7K at 50FPS, 1440p at 80FPS, and 1080p, 960p, and 720p all at 120FPS. Previously, the Hero3 Black could shoot at 4K at 15FPS, but could shoot at 240FPS at 720p, something the newer GoPro can't do. For still images, you can snap 12-megapixel photos with the new GoPro Hero 4.

GoPro has improved the audio capture on the new Hero4, which captures twice the dynamic range. The front of the new GoPro features its expected ultra-wide angle glass lens, with three different field of view settings available: Ultra-Wide, Medium and Narrow. New manual settings make the cut, with color, ISO limit, exposure and much more to tinker with. It's waterproof at up to 131 feet, or 40m, has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, exposure settings for nighttime shooting, a "HiLight Tag" feature for marking key moments in footage, a QuikCapture feature which powers up and starts recording with a single press, and auto low-light features.

EVGA will soon launch two new GeForce GTX 980 cards, with their two forthcoming GPUs to be two of the most-remembered Maxwell-based GPUs thanks to their power. EVGA's new GeForce GTX 980 Classified and GTX 980 Hydro Copper are fastly different, but are supremely powerful.

First, we have the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Classified, which features the latest ACX 2.0 cooler, and a custom-designed PCB that is built for overclocking enthusiasts. The GPU features the same high-density heat sink array that was laid out across the GTX 780 Ti, but offers up a new duo of fans with the ACX 2.0 that should see even quieter operation. Better yet, EVGA's GeForce GTX 980 Classified is a dual-slot card, so SLI setups will be even better than some of the competition. The new Classified GPU features a nice black/grey scheme with a hint of red. But what are we talking about when it comes to clock speeds? EVGA will be providing users with a massive 1400MHz+ Boost clock out of the box, making it one of the fastest GTX 980s available.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Classified will feature the same 2048 CUDA cores found on the rest of the GTX 980s, a Base Clock of 1291MHz, Boost Clock of 1405MHz, and is capable of 2-, 3-, and 4-way SLI. 4GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 7GHz will also be baked onto the Classified.

NVIDIA has had huge success with its new second-generation Maxwell architecture, forming the new power-efficient, but super-fast GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 GPUs. AMD were rumored to fight back at GAME24, but nothing materialized, until now. WCCF Tech is reporting from a leak from overclockers.ru, that teases AMD's next generation GPUs.

AMD reportedly talked with 4gamer.net journalists in a round table discussion, teasing details on its upcoming products to compete against NVIDIA's new GTX 900 series of GPUs. The new product that AMD will fight back with is the Radeon R9 380X, and not the 390X that most would've presumed. The new R9 380X will be based on the Pirate Islands architecture, powered by the Fiji GPU. Overclockers.ru is reporting that AMD have three new cards in the pipeline, with the Fiji-based R9 380X which will replace the R9 290X, the Treasure Island-based R9 370X, and another.

The most exciting news is that AMD will not only reportedly fight back with new architecture, but it'll shift onto a smaller process, moving over to TSMC's new 20nm manufacturing process, as well as using 3D stacked HBM memory. The third card we mentioned above is what we're all here for today, with the new R9 390X reference GPU to feature AMD's hybrid "hydra' liquid cooling, which the company used on its dual-GPU R9 295X2 earlier in the year.

AMD is starting to ramp up its rumor machine, with talk of the new Radeon R9 390X, it's next generation flagship GPU. AMD's new R9 390X is expected to be available in the first half of 2015, according to DigiTimes.

The new Radeon R9 390X is based on AMD's Bermuda GPU core, which should kick some serious ass, bringing a slew of new things to AMD's silicon. First off, we should see the R9 390X being the first GPU to be built on TSMC's new 20nm manufacturing process, but the card is rumored to arrive with High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM. HBM is 3D stacked memory technology that will offer an incredible amount of bandwidth on the already-fast GDDR5 tech that is used, with around 100% more bandwidth, all while using less power.

AMD is also rumored to be using hybrid liquid cooling on the new reference R9 390X, similar to what the company used on its dual-GPU Radeon R9 295X2 earlier this year. The problem here is, without a next-gen GPU coming out until at least Q2 2015 or so, what will AMD do to fight off what is an incredible new set of GPUs from NVIDIA? Aggressive price cuts on its R9 290 series, that's what. The only thing AMD can do until its launches its new R9 300 series is drop the prices of what it has now, considerably, to fight off Maxwell from NVIDIA.

Microsoft Indonesia has reportedly confirmed that the upcoming Microsoft Windows 9 operating system will be a free upgrade for current Windows 8 and 8.1 users. The company is expected to host an event on September 30 to detail Windows 9, where pricing and release information should be revealed.

Although Windows 8/8.1 provides significant security updates and a "modernized" interface, many users refused to upgrade to the touch-centric OS. Microsoft has accelerated its operating system road map to meet changing consumer and business user demands, and Windows 9 should help gauge where the company stands.

It's also worth noting that as users become familiar with major software updates, such as Apple iOS or OS X and Google Android, for example, the updates are available for free. This is a great opportunity for Microsoft to prove it has listened to users and is prepared to make changes for the future.

With all of the conflicts the US has been involved with since 9/11, and the decades prior, one would think they would be masters of conflict, battle knowledge, strategy, and so much more. But, it looks like Washington think tank is asking for help, in a very weird place: by hiring the maker of Call of Duty, to envision the future of war for the US.

The Atlantic Council think tank says that even with all of its money, power and capabilities, the United States isn't thinking creatively when it comes to threats in the 21st century. The creator behind the Call of Duty franchise, Dave Anthony, will be among other authors, screenwriters and entertainment figures for an initiative called 'The Art of Future War Project', something that will launch next week.

The idea of this project came about when former Pentagon official Steven Grundman walked in on his son playing Call of Duty: Black Ops II, in which a cold war between China and the United States takes place, in 2025. In the game, the two superpowers are fighting against each other for rare earth elements in section missions. Anthony said: "He was struck how realistic our portrayal in 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II' was of a future conflict.

Thanks to our friends at Warner Bros Home Entertainment Australia, to celebrate the Blu-ray release of the box office smask 'Godzilla' on Blu-ray, DVD and digital, we have five awesome 'Godzilla' prize packs to give away.

In this gritty, realistic sci-fi action epic, Godzilla returns to its roots as one of the world's most recognized monsters. Directed by Gareth Edwards and featuring an all-star international cast, this spectacular adventure pits Godzilla against malevolent creatures that, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.

Godzilla stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass), Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai, Inception), Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene), Oscar® winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Cosmopolis) and Bryan Cranston (Argo, Breaking Bad).

Samsung is gearing up for the release of its Galaxy Note 4, unleashing a new four-minute ad that focuses on the 5.7-inch smartphone, which has two friends with the new Galaxy Note 4, deciding to play a game where they rename as many words they can, with "note".

It sounds like it won't work, and to some they won't think it's funny, but I actually didn't mind the ad. It didn't force the features of the Galaxy Note 4 down our throats, but I would've liked to have seen a little more of the features in between. An introduction and acknowledgement of Gear VR would've been good too, with one of them even sitting on the couch playing it, and using the 'note' pun somewhere in there.

I do have to say, the bit with the barista/bartender was golden, when he started pushing back with the puns.

During an interview with Japanese site AV Watch, Xbox boss Phil Spencer had some interesting things to say about Xbox, and more. There was a question thrown in about VR, which is the most interesting part of this interview.

When asked about the potential and rumored spin off of the Xbox brand from Microsoft, Spencer replied with: "Creating the appropriate tools, finding the right developers, we have gathered such a great community. With Xbox 360, our efforts were crowned by considerable success. And I'm committed to the success of Xbox One. In the past six months Xbox One has changed. We introduced to gamers the version without Kinect and broadened the choice. We will continue to update the system, and starting with Japan we're launching in new markets. The launch in Shanghai in China will happen next week, and I believe that by such changes we'll gather an even bigger audience".

Spencer also talked about VR, where he said good things about the competition in Oculus and Sony, but teased that Microsoft is working on its own VR tech for Xbox, but isn't ready to talk about it just yet. Spencer said: "The industry as a whole continues to invest in research and in new elements. New technologies invite us to explore new gaming world's. I believe that Kinect, voice and virtual reality are those key new elements. That's why I'm glad that Sony and Oculus are investing in VR. We're also working on an investment of our own, but it's not at a stage in which we can talk about it yet".