NVIDIA teases its prototype VR headset using Light Field tech at VRLA

While we may have seen the elusive AMD Radeon R9 Fury X2 powering the HTC Vive at VRLA, NVIDIA was also there teasing its VR prototype, powered by Light Field technology.

Anshel Sag of Moor Insights & Strategy provided us with the above images, explaining: "This headset is an NVIDIA headset developed as a research project in conjunction with Stanford University project called the "Lightfield Stereoscope" which allows you to essentially view light field images in the headset and focus on virtually any point in the headset with your own eyes. This headset is clearly important enough to NVIDIA to show off at an event like VRLA and could be used for viewing things like Lytro's Lightfield photos that Lytro created with their light field cameras. This headset can also be used in VR to allow the entire scene to be rendered once and to let your eyes decide where to focus making the VR experience more realistic".

You might remember our story last year, where NVIDIA announced it was collaborating with Stanford University on a VR headset, which should reach us sometime in 2018. Well, checking out the official NVIDIA GeForce Twitter page, the GPU giant tweeted: "A user goes eyes-on with our Light Field Display prototype at @vrlosangeles. #VRLA".

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Original 'Star Wars' 35mm fan preservation released

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Jan 24, 2016 6:24 PM CST

While long term 'Star Wars' fans cling to the hope that they might just seen an official re-release of the original films, a group of fans has taken it upon themselves to archive film history.

For the last four years, a fan collective known as Team Negative One have painstakingly scanned a 35mm print of the original 'Star Wars' frame-by frame in 1080p, manually removing flaws and film artefacts and assembling the version of the film that audiences originally saw in 1977. Now their first assemblage is ready and the team have now shared their efforts online.

Coming from a theatrical print which is several generations removed from the original negative owned by Lucasfilm, and thus not as sharp or as clean, their restoration is still pretty astounding and the best way to currently view the film without all the CG crap added by creator George Lucas for the 1977 special edition release - and where Greedo shoots first.

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Snapdragon 830 rumored to hit 10nm, supports 8GB RAM on smartphones

Right now we have some seriously powerful smartphones, with up to 4GB of RAM and 8-core processors - but the next-gen chips are going to be insane. We're looking at 10nm, and up to 8GB of RAM - yeah, 8GB of RAM in a smartphone.

The latest rumor is coming out of China, claiming that Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon 830 processor will be manufactured on the 10nm process, which would make it the first system-on-a-chip (SoC) to be made on 10nm. Not only that, but Qualcomm has improved its Kyro cores on the processor for added performance, and lowered power consumption.

Not only will the CPU side of things be faster, but we're expecting to see 8GB of RAM in smartphones sometime in 2017. Qualcomm will reportedly launch its Snapdragon 830 processor next year, where we should see it powering the Galaxy S8 by Samsung, and similar, next-gen handsets.

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Horror classic 'The Exorcist' getting small screen reboot

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Jan 24, 2016 5:03 PM CST

The 1973 horror classic 'The Exorcist', based on the book by Peter Blatty went on to spawn two sequels and a more recent prequel, but despite remaining dormant for a decade, it's about to be resurrected to scare the crap out of a new generation.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox television has ordered a one hour television pilot based on the original 1971 Blatty novel to be penned by 'Fantastic Four' writer Jeremy Slater, which will act as a test bed to see if it go to a full season order.

There's no word yet on when we'll see 'The Exorcist' on the small screen or indeed if it can hold a candle to the original classic - but the future is certainly quite bright for the long-running series.

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AMD's dual Fiji-powered GPU used with HTC Vive at VRLA event

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Jan 24, 2016 4:46 PM CST

The last time we physically saw the dual-GPU version of the Fury X was at the launch event itself in Sydney, Australia - where we had our hands-on that beautiful PCB. But, the Radeon R9 Fury X2 has shown up again, this time at VRLA.

AMD's dual Fiji-powered GPU used with HTC Vive at VRLA event

The VRLA expo was an event for all things virtual reality, held in LA last week. During the event, some of the HTC Vive demos were powered using the Radeon R9 Fury X2. Thanks to Facebook, we noticed Antal Tungler, PR Manager for AMD and all-round cool guy, posted on his Twitter account. He said: "Prototype Tiki from @FalconNW powering #htcvive with dual Fiji @AMDRadeon at the #vrla".

Someone asked Tungler "When you say "Dual Fiji" do you mean 2x Fiji cards, or 2x Fiji GPUs on 1 card? ;)", to which he replied with "One card". So we know that it wasn't 2 x R9 Fury X cards in the machine, but a single, dual-GPU beast. But with Polaris around the corner, I have to ask the question: where does the R9 Fury X2 fit in? It would only have 4GB of HBM1 per GPU, which really isn't enough VRAM considering it will be $1000+. VR headsets are pushing 90FPS, and a high-resolution to boot. I guess we'll see in the coming months, maybe AMD will launch the Fury X2 in between now and the release of Polaris in June/July.

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The Division has multi-GPU, multi-screen, unlocked frame rate on PC

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Jan 23, 2016 8:33 PM CST

Ubisoft Massive has released a treasure trove of hardcore details on the PC version of The Division, where we're learning that the developer has put lots of time into making sure the PC version of The Division doesn't suck.

We can expect multi-GPU support, multi-monitor support, and resolutions of up to 4K where The Division will "automatically adapt the resolution to fit multi-screen configurations with FOV correction". Not only that, but the frame rate is completely uncapped, and The Division has 'optimized graphic settings & customized GPU effects" on the PC. Awww yeah. Here's a full list of what to expect for the PC version of The Division:

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Ubisoft reiterates that the 'PC is incredibly important to us'

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Jan 23, 2016 6:15 PM CST

Thanks to a chat with Rock, Paper, Shotgun - we're learning that Ubisoft seems to at least state that it cares about the PC. Creative Director on The Division, Magnus Jansén, said during the interview: "PC is incredibly important to us. There are plenty of incentives to do a good PC version".

He continued: "Personally it's important - a I play on PC whenever I can and I want the thing they play at home to be the best possible version. That is not to be underestimated as a driving force. Secondly, both of the studios, Massive and Red Storm started out on PC so it's a matter of pride, or heritage and pedigree if you will. We feel kind of ashamed if we don't do the PC version really well. It really is something that we care about".

"We're a very technical studio as well. Sweden is a very technical country - we're good at infrastructure and design, and a lot of our staff come from the old demoscene as well", he added. Continuing, Jansén said: "We're a very technical studio as well. Sweden is a very technical country - we're good at infrastructure and design, and a lot of our staff come from the old demoscene as well. There's a lot of that heritage in the Swedish dev community and that is true here at Massive as well. It comes very natural to us. The engine, Snowdrop, enables the artists to do all of that great UI work and makes it relatively easy to expose all of those options on PC".

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David Bowie's 'Labyrinth' getting ill-timed remake

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Jan 23, 2016 4:13 PM CST

Just weeks after the death of star David Bowie, Sony Pictures have announced they're moving forward with a planned remake of the actor-singers fantasy musical cult classic 'Labyrinth'.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio has hired 'Guardians of the Galaxy' writer Nicole Perlman to write the script after coming to a financial arrangement with rights holder The Henson Company.

The original film which was directed by Jim Henson and produced by 'Star Wars' creator George Lucas also starred Jennifer Connelly and a range of quirky Henson puppets was not a box-office success on initial release, but went onto gain success on the blossoming home video circuit - where it terrified many Gen-Y'ers including yours truly. Now the only thing that scares me about the film is Bowie's tight tights.

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Volition showed off cancelled Saints Row Undercover on Sony PSP

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Jan 23, 2016 3:04 PM CST

Saints Row Undercover was going to be a hand-held exclusive on Sony's PSP, until the project was cancelled, but Volition is more than happy to show-off the progress they made.

Originally Volition wanted to just port over Saints Row 2 onto the PSP, but that idea evolved into a full-blown PSP exclusive that could better take advantage of the handheld form-factor and to scale down to the PSP's horsepower level.

Strangely it seems that the majority of the staff at Volition didn't even know it existed until an associate video editor, Josh Stinson, found it by accident while rummaging through a storage room. Thankfully, the senior staff have no problem letting the public know about this would-be project of yesteryear.

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Amsterdam's opened a gaming focused hotel, consoles included

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Jan 23, 2016 1:17 PM CST

A very interesting themed hotel seems to have sprung up in Amsterdam recently, being dedicated to providing a gaming friendly atmosphere and experience.

This so called Arcade Hotel has 36 different rooms in the heart of De Pijp area of Amsterdam, that include consoles of various types in your room. Room service also includes game rental for those consoles, and any console you happen to bring along with. And if you somehow get bored of playing games, there's always the comic library you can visit as well.

But more than just allowing gamers a place to unwind, it's also a place to get together with like-minded individuals. This is a gamer paradise. And if you're hungry, never fear, for this special hotel also pretty nice restaurant with food from local farms. They'r especially excited about their cheese products.

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