IMAX rumored to be working on their own movies for IMAX screens

Anthony Garreffa | TV, Movies & Home Theatre | Sep 13, 2015 11:24 PM CDT

If you've ever watched a movie in an IMAX screen that was filmed with an IMAX camera, you'll know that there's nothing better. But the company doesn't see many movies hitting its screens, and it wants to see that change - even if it has to do so itself.

The Wrap is reporting that IMAX is in the process of making their own movies, and even the possibilities of allowing alternate programming to be blasted onto IMAX screens in the future. The company is talking with various potential partners, TV producers, and filmmakers to see what they can do to get IMAX into the limelight.

Why now? Well, during August there were hardly any blockbuster Hollywood movies on IMAX screens. IMAX Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Greg Foster explained: "There were no blockbuster movies released in August, there were none last week and none this coming weekend. That's three or four weeks of beachfront property. We want to provide the very best premium entertainment 52 weeks a year, and if creating it ourselves is the best way to do it, we're going to be excited about taking that step".

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Gear of War: Ultimate Edition will have unlocked frame rate, and more

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Sep 13, 2015 5:12 AM CDT

The release of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition for the PC is getting closer, with it being one of the first DirectX 12 titles in development for the PC. The Coalition, the developer behind the game, has talked with Eurogamer recently with some interesting things to say.

Cam McRae, the Technical Director for the Windows 10 version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition has said that the use of DX12 and Asynchronous Compute will help them provide a stellar PC release. McRae said: "We are still hard at work optimising the game. DirectX 12 allows us much better control over the CPU load with heavily reduced driver overhead. Some of the overhead has been moved to the game where we can have control over it. Our main effort is in parallelising the rendering system to take advantage of multiple CPU cores".

He continued: "Command list creation and D3D resource creation are the big focus here. We're also pulling in optimisations from UE4 where possible, such as pipeline state object caching. On the GPU side, we've converted SSAO to make use of async compute and are exploring the same for other features, like MSAA".

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Samsung Galaxy S7 to feature 5.7-inch display, due in February 2016

Riding on the marketing train of the new iPhones that Apple unveiled earlier this week in the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, we're beginning to hear more rumors on Samsung's latest Galaxy smartphone, the Galaxy S7.

Samsung's Galaxy S7 will reportedly feature a 5.7-inch display, and will be using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor - seeing Samsung move away from using its own Exynos processor, something it did in the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. The Galaxy S7 will also include an upgraded camera, with rumors pointing to it featuring an insane 27-megapixel camera or so. Comparing this to the 16-megapixel shooter on the current Galaxy handsets, and 12-megapixel shooter inside of the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

Qualcomm and reportedly been working closely with Samsung on the new Galaxy S7, so we could see Samsung's next flagship smartphone being quite the powerhouse, inside and out.

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NVIDIA recommends GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti for 1080p 90FPS VR gaming

NVIDIA has come out with new recommendations for VR gaming on their GeForce video cards, with teh company recommending their Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 980 and GeForce GTX 980 Ti for VR gaming at 1920x1080 (1080p) at 90FPS.

Not only is the company recommending the GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti for VR gaming at 1080p 90FPS, but for 4K gaming at 60FPS on the latest AAA titles. The GTX 980 is capable of playing games at 1440p at 60FPS while the GTX 950 and GTX 960 are more than capable of running games at 1080p 60FPS. But when it comes to VR gaming, the GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti are recommended for 1080p 90FPS.

The more we move into the new year, the more we're going to see VR headsets released with the HTC Vive due later this year, and the Oculus Rift released in the New Year. NVIDIA is right on top of it all, with a full product stack ready for VR gaming.

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NVIDIA trolls the new Apple TV, reiterating its 4K-capable Shield TV

NVIDIA has been quick off the mark to trash talk the new Apple TV, which Apple says their latest TV device has gaming as a central part of their ecosystem. Well, NVIDIA is much stronger as a gaming-orientated company, so they've chimed in with their Shield TV, which is a 4K-capable device that does more than just 4K streaming or gaming.

NVIDIA trolls the new Apple TV, reiterating its 4K-capable Shield TV

NVIDIA created a post on the official Shield page, where it asked the question: "NVIDIA SHIELD or the New Apple TV?". NVIDIA has supported set-top gaming with Shield, which features 4K streaming, voice search, voice commands, and a massive gaming ecosystem that doesn't just include Android games, but PC games too.

And NVIDIA has a point; where the new Apple TV can play iOS games, it can't play anything outside of Apple's ecosystem. Where NVIDIA lets you live within the Android ecosystem, but it has the doors open to the PC too which expands Shield into hundreds of thousands, if not millions of games playable on its Shield TV device.

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New electroactive material could pave way for synthetic androids

Ras Labs has created a unique synthetic material that mimics human muscles under an electric current, which could lead to a new generation of comfortable prosthesis solutions...and lifelike skin for robots.

"Luke Skywalker's prosthetic arm in Star Wars is somewhat the ultimate goal of prosthetics," Ras Labs CEO Eric Sandberg said to TechCrunch. "It provides that lifelike motion, control, and dexterity."

The material, dubbed as Syntethic Muscle, expands and contracts just like living muscle tissue under an electric current. The "electroactive" substance can directly convert energy into motion with a highly adaptable form factor; it can be hard and firm when it needs to be, or soft to conform to various curves and shapes of body parts. While Ras Labs wants to first revolutionize prosthetic limbs, the material has infinite potential: it could even be used to give lifelike flesh to robots and pave the way for synthetic androids straight out of the Alien canon.

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Dell readies new Windows tablet with 4K edge-to-edge touch display

Leaked slides show that Dell will release its own 2-in-1 tablet called the XPS 12 while simultaneously pushing Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 into the enterprise sector.

The XPS 12 is very much like the Surface Pro 3 in terms of form and functionality, but Dell's new convertible tablet is has a decidedly beefier 12-inch 3840x2160 4K infinity edge-to-edge touch display that supports Dell's Active Stylus. The XPS 12 sports a 10-hour battery, a Thunderbolt 3 port, a back-facing 8MP camera complemented by a 5MP front-facing camera, and the tablet runs Windows 10.

Dell's 4K tablet also comes with a magnetic keyboard dock that features illuminated keys for extra accenting and precision typing. The leaks haven't revealed any further specifications on the XPS 12 like processing power, RAM or memory.

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Xbox One is 'literally a Windows device', says Microsoft

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Sep 12, 2015 1:18 PM CDT

"The Xbox One is literally a Windows device," says Microsoft's Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela, illustrating how Microsoft doesn't see a distinction between the Xbox One and other platforms like Windows-powered phones and PCs.

"A core power metric for us is Windows 10 devices. That's not PC statement.That will be phones, that will be tablets, that will be laptops, that will be desktops, that will be big surface hubs that will be Xboxes," Capossela said at this year's Citi Global Technology Conference. "Xboxes today run Windows and so every time we sell an Xbox we're actually creating a Windows active device that hopefully people love it; it's a gaming device in their living room. It is not a separate animal. It is literally a Windows device."

While the Redmond-based tech giant has a role for every Windows 10 device, the OS acts as a glue to connect and cement each platform to a unified scope. The seeds of Windows 10 kernal will be planted into the Xbox One in November as part of the console's major new update, opening up new functionality like extensive backward compatibility with Xbox 360 games, Cortana support, and up to "thousands" of Windows 10 apps in the future.

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YouTuber demands $22K to promote indie game

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Sep 12, 2015 12:00 PM CDT

Indie devs already have it pretty hard, and getting the attention of the gaming community can be even harder. Some devs turn to YouTubers as a natural way to advertise their games...but when you're asked to pay $22,000 for a single sponsored video, it makes your jaw drop.

"On one of my normal PR rounds I received an email from a very popular YouTuber with a few million subscribers offering to have one of our games featured on their YouTube channel for a rate of either $17,600 for 2-3 talking points or $22,000 for 2-3 talking points AND a description link," Ben Tester, whose indie studio Wales Interactive is responsible for games like Soul Axiom and Master Reboot, said on Reddit.

This kind of huge payoff isn't anything new. YouTubers have done promos and sponsored videos all over the place, earning up to $15,000 to $30,000 for a single video. This kind of cash is enough to fund an indie game and it's as much as some people make in a year. It got to the point where advertisements and original content bled so closely together that no one could tell what content was promoted. Eventually the Federal Trade Commission had to step in and force regulations on YouTube's multi-million dollar system, ruling that YouTubers now have to make promoted videos explicitly clear to viewers.

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Taxi lawsuit dismissed, told to compete technological advances, Uber

Chris Smith | Software & Apps | Sep 12, 2015 11:25 AM CDT

With Yellow Cabs being combatant against the rise of Uber and other similar applications, a lawsuit was launched to have this method of transportation banned from use. However, Queens Supreme Court Justice Allan Weiss recently ruled that for-hire vehicles requested through an electronic medium may continue operate alongside Yellow Cabs - effectively ensuring Uber is safe to live another day.

Addressing the case at hand, the judge wrote that "any expectation that the medallion would function as a shield against the rapid technological advances of the modern world would not have been reasonable," adding "in this day and age, even with public utilities, investors must always be wary of new forms of competition arising from technological development."

The lawsuit was filed by four Queens credit unions who each have stakes in Taxi medallions. Their lawyer, Todd Higgins, told media that this ruling is "a stunning abdication of leadership and responsibility that will haunt New York City for years to come," adding "a catastrophe is unfolding, as an entire industry continues to be illegally destroyed, while elected officials allow it to happen on their watch."

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