G.Skill to host OC World Record Stage and OC World Cup at Computex

Derek Strickland | Trade Shows | May 24, 2016 8:19 PM CDT

Thanks to G.Skill, all of the world's most renowned and prestigious overclockers will meet at Computex this year to push today's most powerful hardware to its limits.

G.Skill to host OC World Record Stage and OC World Cup at Computex

Armed with an all-star ensemble of overclockers and the world's most powerful motherboards, video cards, DDR4 RAM, SSDs, CPUs and more, G.Skill is ready to completely redefine everything we know about overclocking. G.Skill will be hosting this year's major OC events at Computex--the 5th Annual World OC Record Stage 2016 and 3rd Annual OC World Cup 2016--with Intel, Samsung and NVIDIA sponsoring the events.

G.Skill has partnered with the world's greatest motherboard partners like ASRock, ASUS, EVGA, GIGABYTE and MSI to allow the world's greatest OC'ers to "break as many overclocking world records as possible" using today's most powerful Intel Core CPUs, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 video card, and G.Skill's DDR4 RAM. Expect to see some staggering new benchmark records, with Skylake CPUs, 4000 MHz DDR4 RAM, and NVIDIA's new insane GeForce GTX 1080 pushed to its limits--and beyond.

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Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' teaser dethrones 'Force Awakens' views

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | May 24, 2016 6:22 PM CDT

The live action remake of Disney's 1992 animated classic 'Beauty and the Beast' released its first teaser trailer yesterday, and has quickly dethroned the first day trailer views of the previous record holder 'The Force Awakens'.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the minute long teaser video generated 1.8 million views worldwide in its first 24 hours, besting the 2014 teaser trailer for the 'Star Wars' sequel.

Starring Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast, 'Beauty and the Beast' hits theaters in March 2017.

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Rocket League adds cross-play between Xbox One, PC

Sean Ridgeley | Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones | May 24, 2016 12:26 PM CDT

Popular part-racing part-sports game Rocket League gets even better today as developer Psyonix launches cross-platform play. When the clock strikes 6pm ET / 10pm UTC, Xbox One players and PC players can duke it out with each other, making the game that much more competitive and making it that much easier to find a quality match.

"We're really excited to bring Xbox One and PC players closer together," said Jeremy Dunham, Vice President, Psyonix. "Cross-network play has been something that Xbox One gamers have been asking us for since the day we launched, and thanks to Microsoft's new cross-network policies, we're proud to give it to them."

The Xbox One player base stands tall at about two million; as of August 2015, PC sales were at one million.

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AT&T begins enforcing broadband caps, offers $30 waiver option

Sean Ridgeley | Internet & Websites | May 24, 2016 11:07 AM CDT

AT&T began data capping its U-Verse broadband customers back in 2011, although it didn't enforce its new rules. That changes this week as May 23 has arrived: the date the company said it would begin enforcing caps.

Whereas the cap was 250GB per month in 2011, that's been increased to 300GB for those with 768 Kbps-6Mbps plans; 12Mbps-75Mbps plans will have a 600GB cap, and 100 Mbps-1Gbps means a 1TB cap. Should you exceed the limit (and you'll receive plenty of e-mail warnings before you do), you'll be charged $10 for each 50GB of extra data. Alternately, you can pay a flat $30 extra per month for unlimited data.

AT&T says about 4% of its customers go over the new limits.

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DOTA 2 now second game to support Vulkan

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 24, 2016 9:47 AM CDT

Valve's DOTA 2 is now the second game to support the Vulkan API, an evolution of AMD's Mantle that allows developers to squeeze a ton more performance out of a game. The first: 2014's The Talos Principle, which received support earlier this year.

Support is in the beta stage, so you'll need to grab it as DLC. And if you use the Steam Overlay, you'll want to opt in to the Steam Client Beta to have the newest Steam Vulkan Overlay to prevent issues. Also, Valve notes the first time you play with Vulkan, you might notice stuttering, but that should go away after a full match.

Minimum system requirements are as follows:

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Nintendo's next-gen handheld called 'MH', will co-exist with NX?

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 24, 2016 7:32 AM CDT

Nintendo's post-3DS next generation handheld might be codenamed the "MH", and it could co-exist alongside the Nintendo NX games console.

Nintendo's next-gen handheld called 'MH', will co-exist with NX?

According to Yahoo Japan, who cited a report from Japanese financial site Traders Web, Nintendo may be planning on releasing an upgraded portable handheld to accompany the Nintendo NX console. "The driving force up until now has been new business from "health services, theme parks and mobile games etc", but will switch over to the next generation game system (NX) and next-gen handheld game device (MH (temporary name))," reads a translation provided by IGN.

This doesn't seem quite right, especially considering the NX will likely have a Wii U-like gamepad controller that sports 3DS-like portability. It's also too soon for Nintendo to release a handheld. The New 3DS was released in 2014 in Japan, and February 2015 in North America, and the N3DS has yet to adopt its own exclusive games library.

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Radeon 16.5.3 drivers optimized for Warhammer, Overwatch, DOTA 2

Sean Ridgeley | Video Cards & GPUs | May 24, 2016 7:26 AM CDT

AMD's Radeon Crimson Edition 16.5.3 driver is out, and with it comes optimizations for top games, new Crossfire profiles, and bug fixes for various games and system issues.

If you're getting in on the Total War: Warhammer or Overwatch action (both newly released), AMD has you covered with this driver set, which is optimized and includes Crossfire profiles for both. As well, a longtime favourite in DOTA 2 gets some love with improved support for the Vulkan API (Valve has also enabled it on their end with a patch for the game).

As for fixes, that stuttering while playing Fallout 4 in Crossfire should be gone as should flickering in the Division while using Crossfire. Various niche system issues are no more, either.

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Extended 'Independence Day: Resurgence' trailer shares new secrets

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | May 23, 2016 6:40 PM CDT

It's been eagerly awaited for 20 years since the release of the original, but the marketing juggernaut for the 'Independence Day: Resurgence' is kicking up a gear today with the release of an epic, 5 minute long trailer which plays as a 'best-of' from the previously released trailers, alongside new footage.

Returning stars Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch and Vivica A. Fox are joined by newcomers Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe and Jessie Usher in defending the world from a second, much more powerful wave of alien attack, with the film promising to unleash visual effects as mind-blowing as they were in 1996.

'Independence Day: Resurgence' hits 2D, 3D and IMAX cinemas worldwide from June 23rd.

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Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 23, 2016 2:26 PM CDT

Uncharted 4 is a smashing success for Sony and Naughty Dog, selling an incredible 2.7 million global units in its first week. The game now holds the mantle as the fastest-selling first-party Sony game in North America.

Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units

Sony broke the amazing sale figures on the PlayStation Blog, and the company is understandably peacocking the feat to the rest of the gaming world. Uncharted 4's 2.7 million sales are actual "sell-through" sales, meaning 2.7 million people across the globe actually bought the game digitally or on disc. After a bit of quick math we see Uncharted 4 (just the game, mind you) generated an insane $172.8 million in its first week.

But wait, there's more: Uncharted 4's sale figures reportedly smash the first-week sales figures of Halo 5, despite Microsoft's claims that Halo 5 sold $400 million worth of global software and hardware sales during its launch week.

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Anniversary Update will let Windows 10 run on more devices

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | May 23, 2016 1:37 PM CDT

Microsoft has changed the hardware requirements of Windows 10 in light of the looming Anniversary Update. On the whole, these are for the better, allowing a wider range of devices to use the operating system.

Once the update is live, Windows 10 Mobile devices up to 9'' will be able to run it (versus the previous 7.99''), whereas the desktop version can be installed on devices with screens as small as 7'' (down from 8'').

RAM requirements are now up for 32-bit versions of the OS: 2GB versus the previous 1GB. As for storage, that's now at 16GB and 20GB for 32-bit and 64-bit devices, respectively.

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