Latest News - Page 2820

The Sims 4 has now been launched, and as you can imagine, there are pirated copies being downloaded. The pirated versions of The Sims 4 has seen EA use some anti-piracy measures, where the pirated version of The Sims 4 seeing a massive injection of pixels, making it look like a retro mess.

The pixels kick in when a Sim steps into the shower, or gets naked for whatever reason. But the pirated versions of the game will see pixels continue to expand and blur, where it will eventually cover the entire screen. The results? What you see in the screenshot above. EA has had many customers already complain on The Sims 4's official forums about their "broken" copy of the game, but EA has said that they have no plans to help these customers enjoy their pirated version of the game, and to just purchase the legit copy if they don't like their pixelated experience.

Until now, Ryse: Son of Rome has been an Xbox One exclusive, but Crytek's game will be hitting the PC on October 10. It will be priced at $39.99 for those who pre-order it through their local retailer, or Steam, where they'll receive an exclusive digital copy of the official soundtrack.

Ryse: Son of Rome will arrive on the PC with all of its downloadable content, as well as support for resolutions of up to 4K. When it comes to the digital version of the game, Crytek will be taking care of it, while Deep Silver will be looking after the retail release. Carl Jones, director of business development at Crytek says: "We are bringing the Ryse experience to PC, with 4K resolution support."

Jones continues: "4K gaming is another leap in graphics quality for PC gamers and Ryse is the perfect showcase for what's now possible in high-end PC games. We've given our team the opportunity to show what Cryengine can really achieve, without compromising quality, thanks to the incredible hardware available now to PC gamers. Ryse will be a benchmark PC graphics showcase this year and probably for a long time in future. Our community asked for a Ryse PC version, and we have the means and technology to deliver this title with the highest quality possible."

The iPhone 6 launches in just five days time, but over a week out from its announcement (and not its release date) eager Apple fans are already lining up at Apple's flagship store in New York City.

Apple is poised to unveil its iPhone 6 next week, with two devices to be unveiled - a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone. The 4.7-inch iPhone should be available starting September 19, ten days after its announcement, while the 5.5-inch version might be launched at a later date. But with IFA 2014 kicking off, Apple has a mountain of competition to fight off, with the new Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge smartphones from Samsung. Sony has announced its new Xperia Z3 smartphone, and that's not counting the Galaxy S5, HTC One M8 and more that are already here, and purchased by millions of consumers around the world.

Rumor has it that we will also see Apple unveil its new iWatch at the event on September 9, as well as a full unveiling of its next mobile OS, iOS 8.

Sony Pictures have been trying to get a feature film adaptation of the epic PlayStation 2 era game 'Shadow of the Colossus' off the ground for some years now (as well as 'Uncharted' for that matter) but it seems they're now getting a little more serious.

Sony have hired Andrés Muschietti, who helmed last years horror-fantasy 'Mama' to direct the picture, from a script by Seth Lochhead, writer of 2011's 'Hanna', but haven't yet set a release date.

The video game, created and designed by Fumito Ueda wasn't a massive hit upon initial release, but was widely praised for its epic scale, gorgeous design and engaging gameplay which pushed the limits of the console which was then approaching end of life. The game was re-released as a remastered PlayStation 3, along with Ueda's earlier title 'Ico' in 2011.

It might not be the best video game to feature film adaptation of all time (far from it), but that hasn't stopped independent UK film distributor Second Sight from announcing the release of 1993's 'Super Mario Bros.' feature film on Blu-ray in the UK.

Coming on November 3rd, 'Super Mario Bros' comes remastered in full 1080p, with 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, including a 60 minute documentary 'This Ain't no Video Game' which will for the first time shed light on the troubled production, including newly shot interviews with Co-directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, Producer Roland Joffe, Actors John Leguizamo and Richard Edson, Writer Parker Bennett, Production Designer David Snyder, Art Director Walter Martishius, FX Artists Paul Elliot, Vincent Guastini and Rob Burman, Visual FX Designer Chris Woods, Editor Mark Goldblatt and Creature Designer Patrick Tatopoulos. Bob Hoskins and producer Jake Eberts will contribute via archival footage.

Other features included on the lavish Blu-ray set include a vintage 'making of' featurette, the original Electronic Press Kit and Theatrical Trailer, along with original storyboards and a stills gallery.

Dell has just taken the wraps off of its new 5K monitor, with a resolution of 5120x2880 - yes, you read that right - higher than 4K. Dell will be selling its new UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K Monitor for $2500 when it launches in the holidays.

All of these pixels will be firing onto a 27-inch screen, with 16W integrated Harmon Kardon speakers, and six USB ports, too. Dell's UP2715K monitor will use two DisplayPort 1.2 ports, with the company running the monitor from a single NVIDIA Quadro K5000 card at the event. There are 70% more pixels on Dell's new 5K display than a 4K panel, which is an insane amount of pixels. The video above from Maximum PC shows off the 5K panel.

Intel has unveiled the My Intelligence Communication Accessory (MICA), a luxury smart bracelet that will be available at Barney's in time for Christmas. The bracelet has water snakeskin and semi-precious gems in a design that features a touchscreen display for wearers to interact with.

The only hardware features currently available from Intel is that it includes a 3G cellular radio. However, it will support SMS messaging, messages sent to the bracelet and calendar reminders from your mobile phone.

"The wearables market currently exists in two categories - sports wearables that track performance and wearables that are pretty much a cell phone crammed into a small space," said Aysegul Ildeniz, Intel new devices VP, in a recent interview. "We have to grow the pie collectively. We need to go after audiences not addressed currently by wearables and make them much more aesthetically pleasing."

There's currently a class-action lawsuit regarding the debacle of Aliens: Colonial Marines, which was close to a conclusion last month when Sega agreed to shell out $1.25 million. But, that is all up in the air right now.

A month after Gearbox filed a motion distancing itself from any form of financial obligation, which would see them not paying some $750,000 which would bring the total settlement to $2 million. Sega responded with its own motion, where it said that Gearbox was just as responsible for any payout responsibility. It gets pretty dirty, with e-mails, contracts and much more between the two companies.

There were many letters that saw Gearbox releasing many screenshots, videos and much more details on Alien: Colonial marines that had not been approved by Sega. Sega's thoughts on this had not been good when it got to October 2012, with a Sega PR rep blaming "persistent panel leaking" of game details on "Randy [Pitchford, Gearbox director] doing whatever the fuck he likes."

Most will remember Matrox, a company that dealt in mainly professional video cards that were great for multi-monitor setups before the likes of AMD's Eyefinity and NVIDIA's Surround Vision technology hit the market. Well, Matrox is coming back, and is releasing GPUs that are powered with AMD technology.

Matrox's next-gen video cards will be powered by Radeon GPUs, with the announcement stating that "key features of the selected AMD GPU include 28nm technology with 1.5 billion transistors; DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.4 and OpenCL 1.2 compatibility; shader model 5.0; PCI Express 3.0 and 128-bit memory interface." We should expect Matrox to be using a lower performance GraphicsCore Next (GCN) part, something from the Cape Verde GCN family. We could also see Matrox lean toward AMD's FirePro W600 cards, with Matrox sprinkling its custom-developed software applications such as Matrox PowerDesk on top.

This is an interesting move, as it frees up R&D that Matrox would spend on hardware costs, leveraging AMD's technology and putting more of its time into the software side of things. It helps AMD, as AMD can sell countless GPUs at higher "professional" prices, increasing their share of the professional market with AMD-powered Matrox cards.

Open WebOS has been given a name change, now known as LuneOS, and has been designed as an open source alternative to Google Android and other mobile operating systems.

Open WebOS is based on WebOS, designed by Palm and later owned by Hewlett-Packard, with HP deciding to contribute the software to open source coders. HP's last webOS update was in January 2012 when the company released webOS 3.0.5, but the open source community hopes to pick up the slack. webOS is now supported by LG Electronics, and has opened the door to coders and open source developers to play with a cross-platform JavaScript SDK.

LuneOS currently only supports the Google Nexus 4 and HP TouchPad, but designers hope to create a stable offering for these devices - and slowly expand to other smartphones. Instead of trying to directly compete with Android or Apple's iOS, LuneOS wants to bring back a bit of nostalgia for users that enjoyed webOS back in the day.

Samsung has announced that its 4K ultra-high definition 31.5-inch monitor, the UD970, will be released later this month with a $1999.99 MAP price. The UD970 features support for a 3840 x 2160 resolution and has 40 percent more viewing area than a regular 27-inch monitor - and is designed for digital imaging and video professionals. Live demonstrations with the monitors revealed bright, clear and vivid pictures, thanks in part to the screen's 10-bit color processing capability.

"For today's professionals, UHD display technology unlocks a new dimension of rich and detailed imagery, enabling them to take their creativity and productivity to a new level," said Tod Pike, Samsung Enterprise Business Division SVP. "Samsung has a long history of leadership in display technologies and we're excited to bring this new advancement to creative professionals and enterprise users."

The cost of professional UHD displays are steadily dropping - as they were drastically more expensive just one year ago - but are working their way closer to mainstream consumers.

Lenovo has just announced its new Tab S8 tablet, a new slate that is powered by an Intel Atom processor and runs Android 4.4. This is Lenovo's first Intel-powered, Android-based tablet, with a 1.3GHz processor inside that will take care of the processing side of things, and if things get heavy, it'll go into burst mode to 1.86GHz.

The new Tab S8 features an 8-inch 1920x1200 display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal flash storage, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera backed up by a 1.6-megapixel front-facing shooter. The Intel processor found inside is an Atom Z3745 processor, which features Intel's Burst Performance Technology. The Tab S8 weighs 294g (or 0.65lbs), with it being just 0.78cm (or 0.31 inches) thick.

We also have optional 4G capabilities, and Wi-Fi for the communication side of things. Lenovo has also provided Bluetooth 4.0, and Dolby-enhanced dual front speakers to handle the audio side of things. Best of all, we will see the Lenovo Tab S8 priced at just $199, with the 4G model being more expensive, but the company hasn't unveiled the pricing or availability of the 4G-powered Tab S8 just yet.

After quite a few rumors and reports, Sony's new Xperia Z3 is totally official. The Xperia Z3 arrives with a 5.2-inch 1080p display, a quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera that is now able to reach 12,800 ISO sensitivity.

The lens on the Z3 now includes a 25mm-equivalent field of view, where it can capture more of the scene you're shooting. There's also improved image stabilization abilities for video, which should keep your video nice and still - 4K video recording included. The Z2 already feels like an amazingly well-built smartphone, but according to The Verge, the Z3 is a "little bit thinner, lighter, and easier to handle." The company has also cut down around 1mm of thickness from the Z3, without taking away any of the 3100mAh battery.

Sony says that the Z3 smartphone will last two days on a full charge, compared to the 1.4 days on the Z2 and 1.2 days on the Z1. The Z3 smartphone will launch later this year.

Samsung only unveiled the Galaxy Note 4 and Gear VR at IFA 2014 a few moments ago, with the Gear VR "Powered by Oculus". Oculus VR has just announced the new Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition, which is a new mobile VR headset powered by the Galaxy Note 4 smartphone.

The Gear VR was "created by Samsung and powered by Oculus" and over the "last 12 months, we've been collaborating with Samsung on the future of mobile virtual reality," according to Oculus. The Facebook-owned VR startup continues: "The project actually began as an experiment to see if great VR was possible on next-generation mobile hardware. Oculus CTO John Carmack and the mobile team at Oculus were able to blow everyone away in an extremely short amount of time, quickly proving that we were on to something special."

The Galaxy Note 4's internal GPU and CPU to power Gear VR, using the 2560x1440 low-persistence 5.7-inch AMOLED panel as its display. John Carmack's role as the CTO of Oculus VR is becoming more clear, as he has worked with the mobile team at Oculus on Gear VR. The year was spent between developing a new Oculus Mobile SDK, as well as optimizing Android and the GPU drivers for VR.

Something that wasn't too much of a surprise, but is an interesting new step for Samsung, is the just-announced Gear VR. Samsung has been rumored to have been working on a VR headset for a while now, but it is now official.

The South Korean electronics giant has teased that Gear VR works with the just-announced Galaxy Note 4 smartphone, which features a 5.7-inch 2560x1440 display, so it'll be interesting to see what Gear VR looks like against the Oculus Rift DK2 which features a 1920x1080 display.

The one big note here is that the Gear VR doesn't work with any other smartphone other than the Galaxy Note 4. The Note 4 will snap into the Gear VR, in front of dual-lenses that provide the 3D effect in the VR headset. There's a trackpad and back button on the right side of the Gear VR, with most of the movements and menu navigation to be performed through head movements and taps on the side-mounted trackpad. The Verge has already enjoyed some hands-on time with Gear VR, with some shots of the Gear VR teasing "Powered by Oculus".

Samsung unveiled two new Galaxy Note smartphones at IFA 2014, with the Galaxy Note 4, but the surprise here was the Galaxy Note Edge. The Galaxy Note Edge features a sloping, curved OLED display.

The display itself is a QHD Super AMOLED display, the same panel that is found in the Galaxy Note 4, except that it is a 5.6-inch panel compared to the 5.7-inch panel found on the Note 4. Samsung uses specific software to join the two parts of the 5.6-inch display, which allow them to be simultaneously independent and connected.

What does the sloping screen on the Galaxy Note Edge offer? The default status has it sitting there as a kind of quick launcher, where it is home to your most-used apps. Samsung provides a bunch of widgets, and much more. The edge can also act as a toolbar, where it will provide quick access to various menus and camera modes, or in-app settings. For example, at night time, it can be used as an alarm clock, with the time being displayed on the edge of the panel.

Samsung has made its Galaxy Note 4 official at IFA 2014, something that we've known was coming for quite a while now. We don't know much about this smartphone, but we're going to fill you in on that very shortly.

The Galaxy Note 4 features a premium metal frame with a slight curve to its 2.5D glass, which is now stronger and more durable. The star of the Galaxy Note 4 show is the 5.7-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, meaning we have 2560x1440 panel here with 3.7 million pixels compared to the 2 million pixels of the Full HD display on the Galaxy Note 3.

Samsung will be offering two different models of the Galaxy Note 4: one model with a 1.9GHz octo-core processor, and another with a 2.7GHz quad-core processor. We have 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal flash storage and a microSD card slot for up to 64GB of expandable storage. Samsung cranks up the 4G speed with LTE Category 6, capable of 300/50Mbps. LTE Cat 4 is also here, as well as the usual 2.5G and 3G connectivity options. We have Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, USB 2.0, MHL 3.0, and more.

ASUS has finally taken the wraps off of its ZenWatch, the company's first wearable, at IFA 2014 in Berlin, Germany. The new ZenWatch is powered by Google's wearable OS, Android Wear, and features a 1.63-inch, 320x320 AMOLED touchscreen.

The body of the ZenWatch sports a curved stainless steel case which is surrounded by a rose-gold-colored inset, with the top of the smartwatch featuring a piece of 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass 3. It includes a genuine stitched-leather strap with a quick release clasp in the box, but this can be swapped out with your own 22mm band.

Inside of ASUS' first wearable is the same processor that powers some of the smartwatches from Samsung and LG: a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 SoC. We also have 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal flash storage, a 1.4Wh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, a microphone and a biosensor that can monitor your heart rate and activity. ASUS has splashed an IP55 rating on the ZenWatch, so you don't have to take it off if you're going to jump in the shower. The Taiwanese manufacturer has also ported some of its ZenUI elements onto the ZenWatch, with some pre-loaded functions making the cut.

NVIDIA will be holding an event for PC gamers on September 18 called GAME24. GAME24 is 'the first global celebration of PC gamers' and will take place in multiple locations across the world: Los Angeles, Shanghai, Stockholm, London, and more.

Better yet, is that if the reports are true, NVIDIA will officially launch its new GeForce GTX 900 series on September 19, the day after GAME24. VideoCardz.com has done some detective work, where they found the main page to be titled "NVIDIA Maxwell Teaser homepage" that the Twitter hashtag of #maxwelliscoming in between the lines of some javascript.

Whatever happens, you can be sure we'll be on it here at TweakTown, giving you the details on NVIDIA's next-generation GPU launch, and GAME24, as it happens.

For years now the question of "can it run Crysis" has been inked onto the PC community, as Crytek's game was more of a benchmark than a game when it was released. Shortly after, Crytek saw the numbers on consoles and wanted the market, all but leaving the super high-end, PC-melting graphics engine business, watering it down to play it on the potato machines, or should I say, consoles.

Well, Silicon Studio has just teased their new tech engine, Mizuchi, and holy hell is it beautiful. The demo itself is run in real-time, with the level of graphics shown off in the game unlike anything you've ever seen before. We're talking Pixar-level and above graphics, but running in real-time, and looking absolutely beautiful.

I don't think we'll see a game running this engine anytime soon, but it would be great if we could have this released as a benchmark for our hardware, wouldn't it? What do you think? Would you want to run something that looks this insane on your PC?