Latest News - Page 2835

First we had Respawn Entertainment, founded by the co-founders of Infinity Ward, and now ex developers from the studio have formed Reload Studios, a new studio that is focusing on a VR-based first-person studio.

Reload Studios is based in Los Angeles, and was co-founded by James Chung and Taehoon Oh. There are currently 12 developers working on game development for virtual reality, mobile and home console platforms. Former Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Series Producer, Pete Blumel, Infinity Ward developer Hougant Chen and Disney Animator, Nik Ranieri join the two co-founders at the VR-focused studio.

Chung said in a press release: "When I first saw what the latest round of VR devices could do, I realized these were not just peripherals but brand new platforms that could transform the way we experience, interact with and create media. It was the perfect time to follow my passion and bring together the most talented people I know under one roof to form a development culture that promotes creativity and collaboration". Right now, Reload Studios is working on a VR-enabled first-person shooter that will hit mobile and next-gen systems, something that we should see next year.

For those who don't know, there's $10 million up for grabs at the DOTA 2 "The International" tournament, with some of the biggest names in e-Sports clicking and tapping away at the biggest e-Sports tournament yet.

Gamefy, a Chinese e-Sports company, is at the tournament, with the crew walking into the off-limits player's room of Team DK before they played their match, and started filming. The crew then recorded, and broadcasted, Team DK's "core strategy" for not just that match being played, but for the entire $10 million competition.

Team DK ended up winning the match, but their entire strategy has now been leaked out to the world - and worse, their competitors at The International. This has put their chances of winning the competition on much tighter, near impossible odds, as their competitors know their strategy. Gamefy has apologized on their official site, claiming that the footage was uploaded "accidentally".

It was only a year ago that the German government considered the Xbox One to be a monitoring device, and this was at the time of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden coming out about the NSA spying on the entire world.

Well, the German government is now considering shifting back to the old-fashioned way of writing documents: using a typewriter. The use of a typewriter would be used to type up confidential documents, so that they don't get typed up on a PC, that has an operating system that can be hacked, which is connected to a network. A typewriter can have someone type up a confidential document, finish it, and file it away - without the prying eyes of the NSA getting to it.

Chair of the German Parliament, Patrick Sensburg, has an enquiry into the alleged spying by the NSA, saying that committee members are considering new security measures and are thinking about ditching e-mail in favor of a serious move back to using typewriters. He told the ARD Morning Show Monday: "As a matter of fact, we already have [a typewriter], and it's even a non-electronic typewriter".

Woah! Old PlayStation staple and Naughty Dog retiree Crash Bandicoot could well make a comeback, Sony Computer Entertainment's CEO Andrew House has said.

Speaking with Britain's Telegraph newspaper, House remarked that not only is it too soon to be closing the door on old friends like Bandicoot, but that the company has actively been thinking about the possibilities of bringing the character back, along with other franchises such as Spyro. "In concept, it is something we've been thinking about and discussing, and this is a shift for us," House said. "We've started to say that maybe there isn't anything wrong with going back and looking at characters that people still talk about, that were a big part of either their childhood or their youth. I definitely wouldn't close the door on that."

When Crash Bandicoot made his debut on the original PlayStation he was touted as Sony's answer to Nintendo's iconic Mario. And although he may not be quite that level of legendary - Bandicoot spurred platformer after popular platformer along with some well received spinoffs, like karting game Crash Tag Team Racing. As House says, it's certainly a bit of a shift for Sony to be considering such a resurgence, but we're sure fans new and old would welcome back the marsupial.

We know it's coming, but we don't know what exactly to expect. AMD is preparing its mammoth new GPU, which will be a huge 500sq.mm+ GPU, something that will arrive into our hands as the Radeon R9 390X.

AMD's new Radeon R9 390X is being designed by Synapse Design, a company that recently announced new GPU tapeouts - including two 28HPM silicons. The first is the massive 500sq.mm+, which will be as powerful as 20nm SoC technology, which should end up being the new R9 390X. The R9 390X should have a core clock of over 1GHz, but will unfortunately not feature High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM.

We should begin to hear more on the new GPUs as time goes by - but if these rumors are correct, the Radeon R9 390X is shaping up to be a beast.

VIA has launched its 10.1" Viega tablet, designed for business and enterprise users that need a durable tablet for use out in the field. Mobility is increasingly important for many businesses, but trying to take an Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab, for example, is risky business in factories, on job sites, and other locations where it could be damaged.

The tablet features a 1.2GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip, 1GB DDR3 DRAM, Mali-400 DP GPU, and 16GB eMMC flash that powers a 10.1" LED blacklit screen. The tablet also has a micro SIM and micro SD card slot, 2 USB micro USB ports, 1 micro HDMI-output, along with an optional 2-megapixel front and 5-megapixel rear camera. The tablet runs Google Android 4.2, and can be customized based on customer needs. VIA also included Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC connectivity support for its Viega tablet.

"As more and more enterprises seek to increase productivity and improve customer service by equipping their staff with mobile devices, they are quickly learning that it is critically important to deploy customized solutions built to withstand the demands of their target environments rather than standard off-the-shelf products," said Epan Wu, VIA Embedded Platform Division head, in a statement. "With its rugged design, enhanced security features, and customization support, the VIA Viega addresses this need and provides the longevity support that enterprise level customers require."

Typically, when we talk about missions to the ISS to resupply the crew aboard the space station, we are talking about SpaceX. The other company that has a contract in the US to resupply the ISS is Orbital Sciences, and it has just launched its third mission to the ISS.

Orbital put its Cygnus unmanned spacecraft into orbit yesterday with a cargo hold packed with supplies for the space station. Among the supplies aboard the spacecraft was food, science gear, and mini satellites. Cygnus launched and was successfully put into the required orbit to link up with the ISS after a "perfect" launch. Orbital has one more resupply mission set for this year with three to take place in 2015.

"Today's mission was the fourth successful launch of Antares in the past 15 months and the third deployment of Cygnus in less than year," said David W. Thompson, Orbital's president and CEO. "So far, our second operational CRS mission is off to a great start with Cygnus operating exactly as anticipated at this early stage of the mission. We are very pleased to be a reliable partner with NASA to meet their need for reliable, regularly scheduled cargo resupply for the ISS."

The Chromebook may not be putting a massive dent in the consumer market when it comes to outselling OS X and Windows machines to the public, but in the business and education market Chromebooks are growing massively. In the three weeks that ended on June 7, Chromebooks were a solid 40% of all computers sold in the commercial realm.

Commercial sales include sales to businesses, schools, governments, and other organizations. Beating out Mac and Windows machines in the education environment is a big deal as that is a very coveted market for all manufacturers. The reason so much weight is placed on educational sales is that when you get users when they are young, they are more likely to stick with a platform forever.

"Chrome's unit strength ahead of this year's education buying season shows how it has become a legitimate third platform alongside Windows and Mac OS X and iOS," Stephen Baker, NPD vice president of industry analysis, says. "The next test for Chrome will clearly be the most difficult, as both Apple and Microsoft get more aggressive in pricing and deal making over the next few months", Baker says. "By the end of the third quarter we will have a much clearer picture of the long-term impact Chromebooks will have in the commercial channel".

Many people get around by train all around the world, but Japan has some of the coolest trains in the world. The Japanese bullet trains can streak down the rails at very high speeds cutting transit times significantly. A Japanese rail service called Japan Rail East has had a Ferrari designer create a very cool luxury train.

The designer creating the sleek train is Ken Okuyama and the design is called the Cruise Titan and is set to go into service in the spring of 2017. The train will hold 34 passengers and is to feature ten carriages with five suites inside. One of the suites will be a deluxe unit and the train will feature two glass walled observation cars, a dining car, and a lounge.

The train will have an observation car in the front to allow the passengers to see down the tracks in front of the train. All of the suites will have a shower and toilet with space for four people to sleep. Cruise Titan will be able to operate on electric and non-electric rails.

Jon Peddie Research, or JPR, has a new report out that sees the PC hardware market valued at a huge $21.5 billion. This figure is over twice the amount of the console gaming market, which should see people finally seeing that the PC market is just as, if not more important than the console market.

JPR Senior Analyst Ted Pollak said: "We continue to see a shift in casual console customers moving to mobile. While this is also occurring in the lower-end PC gaming world, more money is being directed to mid- and high-range builds and upgrades by gamers". Pollak continued, saying that PC gamers simply aren't interested in gaming consoles, something he calls "pure content consumption platforms".

He added that PC gamers have no problems paying thousands of dollars for "the ability to play games at very high settings" while also having the ability to do other desktop tasks, such as content creation and video editing "with maximum horsepower at their disposal in a desktop ergonomic environment".

A US-based Oculus Rift DK2 pre-order customer had attempted to sell his Rift DK2 unit (once he received it) on eBay for $5,000 - but once the VR community saw what was going on, they contacted Oculus VR which swiftly cancelled this order.

This person claims to have made his pre-order on the morning that Oculus VR announced the Rift DK2 unit, and is based in Laguna Beach. He went to eBay to sell his pre-order for some $5,000 - but was shut down within hours. 'cyberreality' on the Oculus VR forums, who is the Community Manager for the Facebook-owned VR start up, said posted in the Oculus VR forums: "Don't worry guys. We found him and cancelled his order".

The forum exploded with praise from future Rift DK2 owners with posts such as "This was literally the highlight of my afternoon" from 'racerx2', and "AWESOME!! Thank you!" from the thread starter, 'kingzope'.

Qendrim Dobruna, 27, has pleaded guilty to bank fraud in a case stemming back to 2011, and could face up to 30 years in prison. Operating under the names "cL0sEd" and "cL0z," he played a part in an operation that lasted 48 hours and led to $14 million stolen - with criminals withdrawing the funds via ATMs in 20 different countries.

Dobruna initially decided to plead not guilty, but thought better of it before changing his plea to guilty - and will serve at least nine years. Dobruna and his accomplices chose to defraud "JPMorgan Chase, and to obtain moneys, funds, credits and other property owned by, and under the custody and control of said financial institution, by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises," according to the federal government's indictment.

It took a growing number of cybercrime-related cases before the federal government jumped into action - but criminals conducting fraud and theft on a large scale are increasingly being targeted by police and federal agencies.

Scientists were able to invent a nano-pixel ultra high definition. The researchers at the Oxford University were able to achieve this by using a very small layer of a phase-change material which also allows you to be bend while maintains thousandths of a millimetre thickness.

Phase change materials are used for heat management purposes, and is used in rewritable DVDs. The layer is kept between two transparent electrodes and were able to produce pixels are as small as 300 nanometers which is smaller than the width of a human hair.This technology and has a lot of usefulness especially for wearable technology that benefits from foldable or flexible screens while having minimum thickness, such as smart contact lenses.

This implementation will still time take to appear as ready-to-use products. As of now, they aren't able to use it to display movable pictures but it is able to produce different colour changes. Professor Harish Bhaskaran explained,"The cool part about this is that the functional part is very thin. Because of that you could actually have displays that are non-intrusive, because you can keep the electronics far away."

Netflex and Verizon are having a catfight about allegedly capping internet bandwidth that affects the online streaming service. This time, Verizon is pointing its fingers at Netflix, claiming in its blog post that the streaming service is stifling its own subscriber's experience.

Verizon said that its subscriber complained of fetting bad Netflix performance even though he is using the 75Mbps FiOS connection plan. But Verizon defended its internet service by saying that there is no congestion from the company's broadband infrastructure, which offloads all the suspicion on Netflix.

Verizon's operations team conducted a study when it received a complaint from its customer when Netflix sent a mail to its Verizon's dastardly deed. Verizon explained that congestion happens when it reaches 100% capacity which usually happens during peak usage periods. However, when they compared with other services which uses non-Netflix traffic, there was no congestion at all.

The Pentagon is investing millions of dollars to develop technology that can be used for brain implants able to help patients recall memories. The surgically-installed implant is the latest idea from "neuroprosthetics," designed to help military personnel wounded and suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has teamed up with the University of Pennsylvania and University of California at Los Angeles, working together on the Restoring Active Memory program. Geared towards declarative memory, which is the brain's method to "record and recall times, places and other facts necessary for daily living."

"We don't have the Rosetta Stone for the memory system," said Michael Kahana, University of Pennsylvania computational memory lab director, in a recent statement. "The DARPA project is trying to dramatically accelerate that effort to decipher that Rosetta Stone. We're poised to do it. With this multisite effort, we might just be able to pull it off."

Street walkers and criminals trying to exploit prostitution are finding great success by becoming more Internet savvy, promoting their activities with little risk of law enforcement interference. Higher-end escorts - generating $500+ per hour for their "company" - rely on websites and Internet advertising to generate interest.

A survey of sex workers found they gave an average response of 3.91 on a scale of 1-10 when asked about risk of arrest - and more than 31 percent of those asked rated risk just 1 or 2.5.

"If a prostitute invests in her website's copy editing, professional photographs, or video, this may signal to potential customers her quality, education level, or income (and thus popularity or success in the market)," said Scott R. Peppet, University of Colorado law professor, in a recent research paper. "Such signals matter: evidence suggests, for example, that sex workers proficient in English can charge higher prices and are more likely to attract customers, and that prostitutes willing to reveal an accurate picture of themselves command higher prices."

What may come as a surprise with few gamers, free porn video website YouPorn is interested to sponsor an e-sports team who are playing either League of Legends, DOTA 2 or Hearthstone.

League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Hearthstone are few of the games that are played on the professional level in many countries, with a large userbase of players, spectators, fans and even sponsors. The prize pool is also equally large. Hearthstone Blizzcon Tournament had a prize pool of $250,000. Valve's 'The International' DOTA 2 tournament reached a prize pool of a jaw-dropping $10.5 million. Many smaller events were held in many countries, both as either a city-wide or a national tournament held every year.

YouPorn recently posted a Twitter message (NSFW Warning) asking opinion about the website sponsoring an e-sports team. As one would expect, this attracted a lot of comments, including those who have been asking if YouPorn would be interested in sponsored an E-sports team for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and even for Starcraft 2 team.

It looks like things could get quite good at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in September, according to DigiTimes' sources. These sources have said that Intel will show off its 14nm processors in September, but it will also be teasing its 10nm wafers at the event, too.

DigiTimes' sources said: "Intel will release its 14nm Core M-series processors in the fourth quarter and 14nm Broadwell-based processors in January 2015". Intel is expected weaker-than-expected yields, and has a lot of 22nm-based processors in its inventory, and mixed with poor PC demand right now, Intel has reportedly "postponed 14nm processor production, which is planned to be conducted at its Fab 42 in Arizona, the US", according to these sources.

According to these sources, we should expect TSMC to pump up the mass production of its 20nm process in Q3 2014, where it will announce its 16nm FinFET process in 2015, followed by a 10nm process that will enter mass production in 2016.

It seems that AMD is working on a new APU using 28nm process and stacked DRAM, codenamed 'Carrizo'. It is said that these APUs will benefit from HBM (Higher Bandwidth Memory) implementation compared to current DIMM slot counterparts.

Though the reports are unconfirmed, it is known that AMD is collaborating with Hynix to make stacked DRAMs. The HBM provides higher bandwidth which will benefitted by the APU especially by the onboard graphics core. The APU will be made with 28nm process, but the onboard HBM die will be based on 20nm process. Its speculated that Carrizo's APU core die size is smaller than Kaveri.

HBM can provide maximum bandwidth of 128-256GB/s, which will prove to be a better implementation over DDR4 support. These APUs will most likely use the FM2+ socket and maintains 65w TDP envelope. If AMD incorporates on package DRAM solution, it will allow higher speeds for the memory and have lesser latency even compared to DDR4 implementation and it would cost lesser than integrating L3 cache. Whether the stacked DRAM be implemented in all of Carrizo APU lineups and feasibility especially for low-cost APUs is currently unknown.

Battlefield 4 fans, get your trigger fingers ready for the month-long event that is Battlefest. This event is geared for all BF4 gamers, getting them read for the launch of Battlefield 4's new DLC coming this week, Dragon's Teeth.

The new Dragon's Teeth expansion rolls out this week with five new weapons, a new unlockable gadget in the form of a Ballistic shield, a new game mode, 10 new assignments, and a new Battle pickup. Gamers can now also submit their in-game screenshots for a daily contest known as Battleshots. Battleshots will see a daily winner taking home an AMD Radeon GPU (!), a $50 gift card to the DICE store, and a Battlefield 4 Premium membership for the platform of their choice.

The goodies continue, with the daily contest not the only thing that BF4 gamers have access to, but gamers will also receive a free camo in-game unlock each week, and another double XP weekend early next month. Battlefest also includes weekly community missions and a stunt video competition where the top 12 submissions get selected by DICE for some truly great prizes. These prizes include the nine finalists receiving an AMD video card valued at $300, while the top three winners get voted by fans, each receiving an AMD-powered PC worth over $3,000.