Latest News - Page 818

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has announced that it is acquiring the premium audio brand Audeze, with Sony making it clear that the company "will continue to operate independently and develop multi-platform products" while benefiting from being under the PlayStation banner.

Audeze's gaming headphone and headset range sit on the premium high-end spectrum, with the company's Maxwell Wireless Gaming Headset retailing for USD 299 while its flagship LCD-GX Open-Back Gaming Headset retailing for USD 899. The latter sits more in the company's audiophile range, where non-gaming headphone products carry price tags in the many thousands of dollars range.

The LCD-GX is as audiophile as you can get with a gaming headset, with the cans featuring Audeze's impressive 103mm Planar Magnetic drivers and an analog design that can double as headphones for mixing and editing audio. It's an interesting acquisition for Sony, especially for the PlayStation brand.

At Gamescom, over the weekend, CORSAIR announced its first desk designed for gamers and content creators called the Platform:6. CORSAIR notes that it has taken the decades of experience it has in creating all of the PC, desktop, and content creation gear it has developed over the decades and used that as the basis to create a modular desk for all.

With a motorable adjustable height and plenty of space to properly manage and route cables, it's a feature-rich desk that will organize and properly showcase your gear, whether you're a gamer, streamer, or simply work from home using a PC. It's also customizable; the six-foot-wide surface area "can be expanded even further," and you can choose from different surface materials and other add-ons.

Even a Platform:6 Creator Edition is coming that features a back/wall mount called the Elgato Multi Frame expansion. It features its adjustable height and rubberwood surface for storing additional equipment and mounting things like lights and cameras.

WhatsApp is already one of the most popular instant messenger apps around and is used in a big way across Europe. But it's always had one major limitation in the way it handles the sharing of photos and videos. Now, it seems that parent company Meta is finally starting to fix it.

Sending photos and videos over WhatsApp has historically seen them greatly reduced in quality with the service ensuring that they can be sent and received as quickly as possible. However, with cellular connection speeds continuing to increase WhatsApp recently started to roll out so-called HD photo and video sharing for the first time. That allows for better quality media to be sent in chats, but now it appears that WhatsApp is testing going a step further and finally allowing people to share their photos and videos in their original quality with no additional compression taking place. The result will be that photos of our food, family, and pets will look better than ever before.

This is all according to the WhatsApp beta watchers at WABetaInfo who note that the latest beta for the Android version of the app is already starting to roll out the testing for the new feature. It appears that the new option will appear within the document picker that allows people to choose photos and videos from the app gallery. The option to select original quality photos or videos is available in the latest beta available to testers, with WhatsApp now treating the media as general documents which means that files as large as 2GB in size can be sent.

When Apple announces the new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, likely next month, it's expected hat they will both get a new titanium construction. If that happens we can likely expect the new handsets to be noticeably lighter than the models that came before them.

How much lighter will the new iPhones be? That's a difficult one to try and figure out, but that hasn't stopped 9to5Mac from having a go at it. The figures produced are prefaced with a few caveats including the fact that the figures might not be all that accurate. But they could at least give us an idea of what we can expect from the new models.

Apple's Pro iPhones have historically used a stainless steel construction which makes them heavier than the aluminum constriction associated with the non-Pro models. But the move to titanium could change that, and these figures make for some interesting reading.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro are just around the corner and with the expected September 12 or September 13 announcement just weeks away we're starting to see more and more leaks crop up. Now, it appears that one of the new iPhones has made an appearance in a regulatory database that shows the handsets are closer than ever to being released.

This new regulatory appearance comes after MySmartPrice spotted that an unknown A3090 product ID had appeared on the BIS Indian certification website, meaning that it has gone through the process of being made ready to go on sale in the country.

This news comes after the same database outed the existence of the A3094, another unconfirmed device that is likely to be an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro. Apple is expected to announce four new models next month with the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max on the way assuming Apple follows with the rumors we've been hearing of late.

Cloud storage provider Dropbox has killed off its offer of giving people as much space as they need without additional fees after various groups of people started to abuse it, the company has confirmed.

Writing in a blog post detailing why it is now going to use a metered model on the previously unlimited Advanced plan, Dropbox says that there were instances of people going as far as to pool storage and even reselling it to others for a fee.

Dropbox previously allowed people to sign up for its Advanced plan and use as much storage as they needed. That's now changing, with the plan now giving people three active licenses and 15TB of storage across all of them. The plan is obviously designed for used within businesses, with each license being given to a different member of the team.

With over 400 games on PC and console, Xbox Game Pass looks like the best deal in gaming for consumers, but publishers use the subscription to meet different needs.

While most publishers are open to Xbox Game Pass, some of the largest games-makers very much disagree on the service's day-and-date selling point. For gamers, this is great--being able to play titles day one without buying them outright saves a lot of money. But for publishers trying to selling millions of copies of a game to not only break even but make a profit, day-and-date launches on Game Pass could cripple their plans.

The FTC v Microsoft federal case has proven that Xbox Game Pass has an undesirable "cannibalistic effect" wherein users will simply subscribe to the service instead of buying the games outright (the reverse has also been proven, too).

The wait for a new Dragon Age game continues onward as BioWare lays off key pivotal developers in the fantasy franchise.

Just days ago, BioWare general manager Gary McKay made a somber announcement. The studio is to lay off 50 people as part of Electronic Arts' new lean restructuring and cost-savings plan. That's about 10% of BioWare's total workforce. Many of the affected developers have already been laid off, including 17-year Dragon Age veteran Mary Kirby, who not only created the wisecracking dwarf Varric but also helped shape the storylines of all of the Dragon Age games.

Laying off so many people while Dreadwolf is in development will assuredly affect the game's progress. According to Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb, BioWare has set a tentative Summer 2024 release window for Dragon Age 4.

It's pretty normal for Apple to be at the center of the rumor mill, especially when it's getting closer to the release of two pairs of new iPhones. But right now all of the talk is about what colors some of those iPhones will come in rather than what features they will have or even how much they will cost. They're going to cost a lot, by the way. But we digress.

You've probably seen the reports already. Apple is expected to do away with the popular and familiar Gold color when it releases the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro next month, replacing it with what sources have apparently told 9to5Mac will be Titan Gray. The story goes that Apple wants to lean into the fact that it is moving on from the familiar usual stainless steel construction and using titanium from here on out. To do that, it's going to use a new gray color - just like it did with the titanium Apple Watch Ultra.

The problem is the mockups that we've seen show a gray iPhone that, frankly, underwhelms. However, a new mockup from AppleInsider might actually change some minds because it doesn't look bad at all. Does it look good? That's subjective, but it looks better than any of the mockups that we've seen before and may just explain why Apple is going to go this route after all.

A new ad for Amazon's upcoming Fallout TV show has fans scratching their heads in disbelief.

It's no surprise that Amazon is making a Fallout adaptation for its Prime subscription service. The show stars Walter Goggins of Justified fame, and is being put together by Westworld showrunners Lisa Joy & Jonathan Nolan, Amazon, and Bethesda. Originally announced in 2020, filming on the first season has wrapped and the show is set to premiere sometime in 2024.

While previous captures and images show that Amazon is indeed focused on authenticity, the same can't be said for the recent Fallout TV show promo image. Amazon's choice of image used to advertise the 2024 premiere has been mostly glanced over. Upon close inspection, the ad has all the puzzling and strange trappings of an AI-generated image, including inconsistencies that defy logic.

The rumors and leaks continue to point to Apple releasing as many as four new iPhones in September, with two of them being the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. It's those two models that are at the center of a lot of talk right now, with new reports claiming that Apple is getting ready to make some big changes to the colors they'll be offered in.

Historically Apple has sold its best iPhones in Gold, Silver, some sort of Space Gray or Graphite, and then another special color that gets swapped out each year. But in 2023 it appears that Apple is going to try something different. According to reports by 9to5Mac, Apple will ditch the Gold color for the first time since the iPhone XS in 2018. That's strange enough, but what it will replace it with is even stranger.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple will replace the popular Gold colorway with a new gray, dubbed Titan Gray. And what's more, it has some mockups of what that gray will look like. It's a gray that will apparently lean into the move away from stainless steel and onto titanium, something that could make the new iPhones stronger yet lighter than previous models. But we have to admit that the new look isn't something we're particularly keen on. In fact, it's all a bit boring.

Windows 11 users with MSI motherboards have run into an issue with the latest preview update for Microsoft's OS in some cases, as was made clear earlier this week - and now we've had some further feedback from MSI on a workaround.

To backtrack a moment, the original problem was made apparent when reports came in from those running the latest BIOS from MSI for motherboards with Intel 600 and 700 chipsets. Those affected observed that after installing optional update KB5029351, their PC has crashed with a BSoD declaring that they have an 'unsupported processor' - a worrying message to see indeed.

For PC owners encountering this error, the good news is that KB5029351 will hopefully just uninstall itself, with Windows 11 rolling back the patch and returning to normal on reboot.

Moments ago, AMD lifted the lid on the Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT - two GPUs that the company is positioning as direct competitors to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB and GeForce RTX 4070, respectively. For the full breakdown on specs and performance (supplied by AMD; we'll have to wait until launch to see full reviews pop up online), be sure to check out our in-depth breakdown of what was announced.

Alongside the reveal of a new reference design for the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, which features a dual-fan setup and the same industrial look as the flagship Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX combo, we also got a look at what's coming from AMD's partners. For the Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT launch on September 6, 2023 (the same day as Starfield drops), here's a look at cards from AMD's AIB partners.

A list includes ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, GIGABYTE, PowerColor, Sapphire, Vastarmor, XFX, and Yeston. Before we get to the gallery, here's a quick look at the hardware for these two AMD offerings. Arriving the same day as Starfield is handy because if you buy any one of these cards you get a free copy of the game.

After what feels like an eternity (it's only been nine months), AMD has finally confirmed that its FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 update, or FSR 3, is "Coming Soon." With the company's new Fluid Motion Frames technology, alongside Anti-Lag+, it's set to finally deliver Team Red's answer to NVIDIA's groundbreaking DLSS 3 Frame Generation technology that debuted with the GeForce RTX 40 Series last year.

Unlike NVIDIA's approach, AMD's FSR and Fluid Motion Frames won't use specialized AI hardware or deep learning to deliver its "massive performance" uplift. It'll be compatible with all GPUs, including three generations of RDNA graphics cards across the Radeon RX 5700, RX 6000 Series, and the new RDNA 3-powered RX 7000 Series.

The first two titles that will use FSR 3 (which you'll have to enable in-game) will be Square Enix's Forspoken and the brand-new Immortals of Aveum, which uses the latest Unreal Engine 5.1 technology. In the case of Forspoken on the new Radeon RX 7800 XT, the 36 fps 4K Ultra-High RT jumps up to 122 fps with FSR 3 Performance mode.

AMD has finally announced new products to complete its RDNA 3 line-up of GPUs for PC gamers - with the Radeon RX 7700 XT (starting from USD 449) and Radeon RX 7800 XT (starting from USD 499) both getting a full reveal and a confirmed September 6, 2023, launch-the same day as Bethesda's Starfield.

As part of its presentation to the press (ahead of the on-stage Gamescom showcase), AMD noted that the new Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT have been developed for gamers who play on 1440P displays. Which, per the latest data from Steam, has grown by over 40% in the past year. And it's not hard to understand why; 1440P offers a noticeably crisper image than 1080p.

But enough about monitors, let's take a closer look at the Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT - covering full specifications, memory, power consumption, performance metrics (as supplied by AMD), and more.

With the next generation of Intel CPUs on the horizon, board makers are preparing for a new silicon to hit their hardware. This is where GIGABYTE's new Z790 X motherboards come in - with the company proudly stating that they will "fast track" you to Gen X thanks to simplified and improved overclocking capabilities, more expansive DIY options, better connectivity, and DDR5 auto XMP Booster profiles of DDR5-8266+.

The line-up is varied, covering a range of new boards for the next generation of CPUs, including the new Z790 AORUS XTREME X, the MASTER X, PRO X, and ELITE X. Different models will offer varying features, but the entire Z790 X range from GIGABYTE AORUS is all about delivering the very best DD5 performance alongside featuring a robust and impressive VRM design.

For DDR5, you're looking at auto-boosting DDR5-5600 to DDR5-6000, and with GIGABYTE's implementation of auto-boost XMP profiles, you can push kits up to speeds of over DDR5-8266 on a dual-channel 4 DIMM board with a single click. Awesome. The Z790 X series will automatically set DDR5 modules to the highest profile.

Following a spree of departures and three years without releasing a new original game, BioWare has announced plans to lay off 50 people.

BioWare isn't in the best shape right now. The storied RPG developer has been losing a number of high-profile people for years now, including some renowned veterans in the role-playing space. While no real information as to why devs were leaving BioWare has surfaced, it's not entirely difficult to put the pieces together.

BioWare hasn't released a new game since 2019's Anthem, which followed 2017's unpopular Mass Effect Andromeda (BioWare did however release the Mass Effect trilogy remaster on last-gen hardware in 2021). That's two consecutive critical failures back-to-back. Then Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the next big game in the series, has been rebooted a few times while in development.

Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer comments on rumblings that the Series S is holding back gaming, says that he doesn't believe there is a "fatal flaw" in the Xbox Series S hardware.

It's no secret that the Xbox Series S is a technically inferior machine to the Series X. One quick look at the Series S' tech specs say it all. The system has 40% less RAM, which is a big blow to developers that rely on unified console memory to feed the CPU and GPU. It also has a marginally weaker GPU that has less than half of the RDNA 2.0 architecture compute units as the Series X, which reduces the overall amount of shader hardware.

These limitations have been well-known for some time and has fragmented the console generation in the eyes of fans and possibly even developers: The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are on one part of the divide, and on the other is the Series S. The weaker console simply adds to the work that developers must target in order to release games on the Xbox platform, as Microsoft requires compatibility on both the Series X and S. If you want to release a game on Xbox, then it must be playable on both systems despite their varying tech specs.

Hello Games confirmed it is using AMD's FSR 2.0 tech to boost the visual quality of No Man's Sky on the Nintendo Switch.

Today Hello Games announced Echoes, the latest free expansion for their mega-successful space sim No Man's Sky. The new Echoes expansion packs in a ton of content, including a new alien language, pirate frigates, fresh settlements, new expeditions, and even a ceremonial staff you can use while exploring planets.

There's also some tech upgrades including foveated rendering on PlayStation VR2 to "boost resolution and detail at the center of your vision." Hello Games has also confirmed they are using AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 to enhance visuals on the lower-end Tegra X1-powered Nintendo Switch.

Don't look now - well, actually do look, or you'll miss it - but AMD is purportedly ready to reveal FSR 3, or at least an initial teaser, quite possibly tomorrow.

If you recall, Moore's Law is Dead recently aired the rumor that FSR 3 might just be coming out in September - or certainly at some point in Q4 - after a whole lot of radio silence since the announcement of the frame generation tech to rival NVIDIA DLSS 3.

In Moore's Law is Dead's latest video, another source has now assured the YouTube leaker that while they don't have specifics about FSR 3, there is suddenly a lot of buzz about the tech at AMD, and some staff are acting as if it's about to launch.