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Virgin Active launches Pokemon GO based workout in London
Pokemon GO is spreading further than Nintendo could've ever wished for, with Virgin Active now jumping into the hype wave announcing the world's first ever Pokerun.
Virgin Active's upcoming Pokemon GO 5K workout is a free guided 5K run along key London PokeStops, with a qualified personal trainer starting and finishing at Virgin Active's Walbrook Club. There will be a section of the run that will take place alongside the river Thames, which will allow Pokemon GO players to catch water Pokemon.
Pokemon GO players will be challenged with interval outdoor bodyweight training, with a workout that will consist of press ups, tricep dips and lunches, reports VR Focus. The Pokemon GO 5K workout is perfect for Pokemon GO players, as your eggs will need 2K of travel, while some need 5K - so if you participate in the run, you can put your egg into an incubator, and by the end of the 5K workout, you will have a new Pokemon.
Continue reading: Virgin Active launches Pokemon GO based workout in London (full post)
Oculus adds multi-camera support to Rift, months before Touch launch
Oculus has provided support for multiple tracking cameras in its new Oculus Home v1.6 update, with the new firmware supporting up to four tracking cameras - but why are four tracking cameras needed? For the upcoming Touch controllers from Oculus, that's why.
Multiple tracking cameras will provide better hand-tracking for the Touch controllers in the VR world, providing much more immersive and realistic experiences compared to the Xbox One controller included with the Rift. You don't need to buy three more cameras, you can use a two camera setup that would provide the same room-scale VR experience that HTC offers with the Vive, by default.
Oculus Rift owners can now grab another camera or three, and have room-scale VR ready for the Touch controllers to be released later this year.
Continue reading: Oculus adds multi-camera support to Rift, months before Touch launch (full post)
Oculus shipping 'well over 5000' Touch developer kits before launch
Oculus has no firm release date for its Touch controller for the Rift headset, with a Q4 release window, but now we know the company is shipping over 5000 Oculus Touch developer kits to any developers.
The "unexpected component shortage" which affected the first waves of Rift headsets saw months of delay for Rift consumers, has the company now "on track to launch Touch and introduce true hand presence along with an amazing lineup of games and experiences later this year", reports Road to VR.
Oculus Touch developer kits won't be available to the public like the first DK1 and DK2 headsets were, with Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe tweeting earlier this week that "thousands of Touch dev kits are going to developers now". One suspicious Twitter user asked Iribe in a tweet: "Thousands, you certain its not hundreds? This sounds very unrealistic considering you mentioned developers", to which Iribe replied "well over 5,000 will be sent to developers before the consumer version ships".
Continue reading: Oculus shipping 'well over 5000' Touch developer kits before launch (full post)
Valve and HTC might release a next-gen Vive 2.0 headset by early 2017
Valve and HTC released the Vive headset just a few months ago, and have quickly become the favorite VR headset amongst VR enthusiasts and gamers. To add fuel to the fire, rumors are suggesting Valve and HTC are getting ready to announce a next-gen Vive headset, with an updated "HTC Vive 2.0" in the works.
It would be foolish to think HTC and Valve aren't working on a successor to the Vive, but another generation ahead of Oculus before Oculus has its Touch controllers in consumers' hands? That's a new reality, and according to suppliers of HTC, it's going to happen in the next 6-8 months with a new sleeker design, and upgraded components.
Reports are suggesting a new Vive 2.0 headset will be released late this year, or early 2017. If the rumors are true, HTC and Valve could really begin to dominate the VR market since the Oculus Rift isn't room scale, and the Touch controllers aren't out yet. The company has been facing consumer backlash over its various DRM efforts, with the company rewinding on promises it made before the Rift manifested into reality.
Continue reading: Valve and HTC might release a next-gen Vive 2.0 headset by early 2017 (full post)
NVIDIA's new GeForce 368.81 WHQL drivers released, supports Raw Data
NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce 368.81 WHQL drivers, which are Game Ready for a bunch of new VR titles that NVIDIA has just released - including VR Funhouse. You can download the new GeForce 368.81 WHQL drivers here.
There's also support for Everest VR, Obduction (from the makers of Myst), Raw Data, and The Assembly. As for the changelog on NVIDIA's new GeForce 368.81 WHQL drivers, here's what you'll need to know:
Game Ready
Continue reading: NVIDIA's new GeForce 368.81 WHQL drivers released, supports Raw Data (full post)
Battlefield 1 looks incredible with color correction, and in 4K
Battlefield 1 is already looking like one of the best-looking games to be released in 2016, but it looks washed out - unfortunately, that's what war probably looked like back 100 years ago, and that's the look DICE went for.
YouTuber 'jackfrags' has released a new video from the Battlefield 1 closed alpha phase, with some color correction applied using the BF1 Cinematic Tools released by Hatti Watti. Color correction was used, and the HUD was completely removed - providing an amazing look at a custom Battlefield 1.
Let's hope that DICE have seen this, and provide an option for the more colorful, HUD-less Battlefield 1 when it launches later this year. Remember to watch the video in 4K 60FPS, as it's truly glorious.
Continue reading: Battlefield 1 looks incredible with color correction, and in 4K (full post)
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 for notebooks should be as fast as desktop
We're not far away from the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060, and we're already hearing about the mobile variant, which is reportedly not going to have much of a performance difference between the desktop and notebook parts.
Polish website Purepc is reporting that the only difference between the GeForce GTX 1060 on the notebook and desktop is the clock speeds, where they said: "The only difference between the GeForce GTX 1060, for laptops and desktop version, will be reduced core speed. 1405 MHz instead of 1506 MHz in the basic mode, and 1671 MHz instead of 1709 MHz GPU Boost 3.0".
If this turns out to be true, the GTX 1060 will usher in a new performance standard for gaming notebooks, where 1080p 60FPS shouldn't a problem. Now we need to know the pricing on GTX 1060-powered gaming notebooks, which should be revealed in the very near future.
Continue reading: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 for notebooks should be as fast as desktop (full post)
AMD's next-gen Vega 10, Vega 11 GPUs spotted in recent OpenCL driver
AMD has released its Polaris 10-based Radeon RX 480 into the wild, with the next-gen Vega architecture in the oven, and ready for early 2017. But now we're hearing rumors of the Vega 10 and Vega 11 GPUs, in the middle of 2016.
In the new OpenCL driver, a few new chips were discovered under 'GFX9': Greenland, Raven1X, Vega10 and Vega 11. Greenland is something that has been swinging around the rumor mill for a while now, a new GPU that will reportedly rock 4096 stream processors, and a new SOC v15 architecture.
Vega on the other hand is a "high-end architecture for high-end gamers" according to AMD, and has an early 2017 release window. Vega will be the first GPU to utilize the faster HBM2 memory standard, which is something NVIDIA is using on its professional side of things on the Tesla P100 graphics card. Vega will be the first GPU to utilize the faster HBM2 memory standard, which is something NVIDIA is using on its professional side of things on the Tesla P100 graphics card.
Continue reading: AMD's next-gen Vega 10, Vega 11 GPUs spotted in recent OpenCL driver (full post)
Microsoft is serious about 'ushering true 4K gaming' with Xbox Scorpio
Microsoft could be ready to fight in a new way with its upcoming Xbox Scorpio console, which will be powered by a new semi-custom design from AMD, where we should see it featuring Polaris-based GPU cores. This power will unleash 4K gaming in the console space, which hasn't been done before - at least not by Sony or Microsoft.
Aaron Greenberg, the Head of Xbox Games Marketing has talked about Project Scorpio in his latest podcast, where he said that it's a really exciting project that has huge support from Microsoft partners like DICE and Bethesda, as well as Microsoft's own internal studios. Greenberg didn't say much that is new, but he did reiterate that Microsoft is serious about ushering in true 4K gaming.
I don't think we're going to see full 4K gaming on the new Xbox, but rather 1080p 60FPS gaming that is upscaled in a way that is better than anything we've seen previously. I wrote a report about AMD acquiring HiAlgo, a firm that works on upscaling technology that is actually very impressive.
Continue reading: Microsoft is serious about 'ushering true 4K gaming' with Xbox Scorpio (full post)
Watch Dogs 2 has 'significantly' better graphics, is also twice as big
Ubisoft found itself in hot water over the downgraded graphics in Watch Dogs, and it looks like the publisher has learnt its lesson for its sequel, which is due out very soon.
During an interview with The Evening Standard, Ubisoft Montreal's Dominic Guay - Senior Producer on the Watch Dogs franchise said that the world of Watch Dogs 2 has much bigger than the original. Guay added: "Watch Dogs 2 uses an evolved version of the first opus technology. With many years passing doing R&D on this hardware generation, we were able to expend the game's graphics significantly".
Guay also said: "The San Francisco Bay area is a great place to have long view distances with high detail and atmospheric effects. The lighting and effects are more realistic and the world much more detailed and dynamic. The game world is more than twice as big as the open world in Watch Dogs. But beyond size, it is much more of a varied, dynamic, and flavourful setting. It encompasses San Francisco, Oakland, part of Marine county, and a scaled down version of Silicon Valley".
Continue reading: Watch Dogs 2 has 'significantly' better graphics, is also twice as big (full post)