Apple : iPhone 11 and 11 Pro deals US: get the best prices for March 2020 |
- iPhone 11 and 11 Pro deals US: get the best prices for March 2020
- Nearly $10bn worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in the past three years
- Cyberpunk 2077 release date, price, trailers, gameplay and news
- The best iPhone 8 Plus prices and sales for March 2020
- Intel Xe graphics cards release date, specs, news and rumors
- Fable 4 is coming: here's everything we know so far
- PS1 classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is now on iOS and Android
- Don't expect the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, even if another GPU leak just appeared
- Pokémon Go updates: all the news and rumors for what's coming next
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 release date, price and specs: all the RTX 3080 rumors
- Sheffield Wednesday vs Man City live stream: how to watch the FA Cup 5th round from anywhere
- New Star Wars PS4 game Project Maverick leaks with X-Wing teaser image
- Disney Plus UK officially gets 600+ episodes of The Simpsons
- The best gaming PC 2020: 5 of the top gaming desktops you can buy
- Millions of websites put at risk after encryption fault
- The Batman's Batmobile has been revealed, along with more shots of the Batsuit
- No Time To Die release date pushed back to late 2020 as coronavirus fears escalate
- Apple sale at Best Buy: deals on the iPhone 11, Apple Watch, iPad and more
- These cheap Acer Nitro gaming laptops just got even more affordable
- The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 laptop gets a massive $350 price cut
| iPhone 11 and 11 Pro deals US: get the best prices for March 2020 Posted: 04 Mar 2020 02:08 PM PST The iPhone 11 and 11 Pro is Apple's latest smartphone, and it's available to order from all major carriers and retailers like Walmart and Best Buy. To help you wade through all the different plans, we've listed the best iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro prices and deals that are available in the US today. The Apple iPhone 11 features a 6.1-inch LCD display, while the iPhone 11 Pro comes with a Super Retina XDR OLED display in either a 5.8-inch or 6.5-inch size. The iPhone 11 and 11 Pro both have updated camera hardware with a Wide and new Ultra-Wide camera on the back of the iPhone 11 and Wide, Ultra Wide and Telephoto cameras on the iPhone 11 Pro. The multi-camera system allows you to capture ultra-wide photos and videos, and even "zoom-out" after a photo is taken to see more of the captured image. The front-facing camera on all new models is now an upgraded 12MP TrueDepth camera that can capture wider angle and even slow-motion selfies. iPhone 11 deals from US carriers:iPhone 11 Pro deals from US carriers:iPhone 11 Pro Max deals from US carriers:The iPhone 11 Pro Max, the bigger version of the 11 Pro, is priced at $1,099 from carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon. Sprint is offering the Pro Max for $45.84 on a Sprint Flex 18-month lease, and Verizon is offering up to $500 off with select trade-in and Unlimited. AT&T is offering up to $700 off when you switch to AT&T and port-in your number, or up to $500 off without port-in. Learn more about the newest iPhone with our hands on iPhone 11 review, iPhone 11 Pro review, and iPhone 11 Pro Max review. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Nearly $10bn worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in the past three years Posted: 04 Mar 2020 01:17 PM PST The $245bn cryptocurrency industry needs to do more to secure its digital assets if it wishes to continue to grow according to a new report from KPMG. Since 2017, hackers have stolen at least $9.8bn in digital assets as a result of weak security or poorly written code, the accounting firm said in its report titled “Cracking Crypto Custody”. As institutional investors have adopted cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, this has led to a competition for a place in their portfolios and safeguarding these digital tokens is more important than ever. Co-author of the report and co-leader of KPMG's cryto-asset services, Sal Ternullo explained why security is holding investors back from acquiring more cryptocurrency in a statement, saying:
“Institutional investors especially, will not take positions in cryptoassets if their value cannot be custodied and safeguarded in the same way traditional assets are.” Securing cryptocurrency investmentsCustody services for cryptocurrencies have begun to spring up and Fidelity Investments along with units from the cryptocurrency exchanges Intercontinental Exchange, Coinbase and Gemini have begun to offer them to investors. In the same way that cash and certain types of bonds are bearer investments where whoever holds them is the owner, so to are cryptocurrencies. However, the private keys, which are a string of characters stored in a digital wallet or written down on paper, are quite easy to misplace. When a user loses their private key or has it stolen, the asset is gone forever and this makes key custody a major challenge for traditional financial firms that are more familiar with protecting non-digital assets. KPMG explained why custody is so important to the continued growth of the cryptocurrency market in its report, saying: “Custody – the management of cryptographic private keys that cryptoasset owners use to execute transactions – is a critical building block for crypto insitutionalization. It is fundamental to earning customer trust in cryptoassets and allowing the market to scale. As crypto-assets proliferate, custodians have a tremendous opportunity to profit -- both by earning management fees for delivering straightforward custodian services, and also by offering adjacent services only possible in the emerging crypto ecosystem.” If cryptocurrencies are to continue to be bought and traded by institutional investors, then the industry needs to ensure that it can secure them first.
Via Bloomberg This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Cyberpunk 2077 release date, price, trailers, gameplay and news Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:59 PM PST The Cyberpunk 2077 release date was delayed to September 17, meaning it won't be hacking into our digital lives this April after all. The game is complete, says developer CD Projekt Red, but the extra time allows for more polish, and you can expect new teasers, trailers and gameplay footage in the coming months thanks to the delay. Cyberpunk 2077 is a massive dystopian RPG launching on Xbox One, PC, and PS4 – and it could be the current-gen swan song before PS5 and Xbox Series X come out, or even after, with a confirmed Xbox Series X release and a PS5 one highly likely to follow. This vast open-world game is draped in dizzying neon colors and futuristic gadgetry, and packed with more branching storylines than you could shake a high-tech drone at. In both an extended Cyberpunk 2077 trailer and in our hands-off demo at E3 2019, we saw a bit more of the metropolis of the future, where body modification has become an obsession, and you play a mysterious outlaw in the sleazy underbelly of Night City. (Will we see more at E3 2020? It's likely.) Here's all the news, trailers, and announcements we've had on Cyberpunk 2077 so far. Or, if you can't take the anticipation ahead of the game's 2020 release, check out our thoughts on the Cyberpunk RED tabletop role-playing game instead. [UPDATE: A new video might have revealed one of the gangs that will roam Night City. Read on to find out more.] Cut to the chase
What is Cyberpunk 2077?
Cyberpunk 2077 is a neon cyberpunk game that has The Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red moving from a gritty, high fantasy world to an equally gritty, science fiction world metropolis. It's based off the pen-and-paper RPG of the same name, but plays a hell of a lot like The Matrix game we've always wanted. We caught our first peek at the game behind closed doors at E3 2018 – you can check out what we saw in the 48-minute walkthrough video below (in the trailers section). Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that looks vastly different from its developer's The Witcher series, with towering neon skyscrapers, bionic enhancements and a focus on vertical movement rather than wide open plains. It's also all in first-person. At E3 2019 we learned a lot more about the plot of the game, which features the one and only Keanu Reeves. Reeves plays a character named Johnny Silverhand who's embedded in a biochip that's placed in the main character's brain. In order to unlock the secrets to the biochip, what basically becomes the main thread of the game, Silverhand will guide you to Alt Cunningham, the most legendary net runner of all-time. The only problem? She’s dead. But her consciousness lives on the web and you’ll need to do whatever it takes to track her down – including, but not limited to, befriending or eliminating leaders of the biggest gangs in Night City. Cyberpunk 2077 release date
The Cyberpunk 2077 release date is September 17, 2020. It wasn't always that way, as the game's first official teaser trailer stated it would come out “when it’s ready.” It didn't have a solid date attached to it until the E3 2019 trailer, which gave it an April 16, 2020 launch date. That was the constantly touted Cyberpunk 2077 release date for six months until the latest (and hopefully last) delay. The reason for the Cyberpunk 2077 delay to September isn't because the game isn't done. CD Projekt Red says it's finished, but more time to fine-tune the expansive game is necessary. It is, after all, a massive RPG. Cyberpunk 2077 trailersThe latest Cyberpunk 2077 trailer is a 15-minute deep dive into the game's lore, world, and gameplay. If you don't mind spoiling some of the visual treats in store – including what it's like to actually step into cyberspace – check out the video here. E3 2019 gave us an incredibly slick trailer, with a look at some new characters, weapon-play – including Keanu Reeves, who will be playing the rock star Johnny Silverhand. Get your fix in the trailer below. In March 2019, we got yet another video, this time of the development team gearing up for the E3 2019 showcase event. Those hoping for a 2019 release may want to start to brace themselves however – though the game remains without a release date, the suggestion of the video below is that development is still in full swing, and a release date may be some time away yet: After a veritable truckload of hype, CD Projekt Red released 48 minutes of gameplay footage, based on the demo journalists saw at E3 2018. In it, you'll see what gunplay looks like, character creation and backstory assignment, plus how you'll upgrade yourself via cybernetic enhancements. You'll meet some of the characters in Cyberpunk's seedy crime circuit and explore the city on foot and in vehicles. (Quick warning: the trailer contains nudity, violence and swearing.) We were treated to a Cyberpunk 2077 trailer during E3 2018 which you can watch below:
Cyberpunk 2077 news and featuresWho are the Tyger Claws? As we're approaching the release of Cyberpunk 2077 new information on the game has been a little limited and CD Projekt Red has been keeping quiet. But a recent video posted to YouTube by Madqueen Show (via VG247) is purporting to reveal one of the gangs that will roam Night City when the game is released: Tyger Claws. The gang, which also exists in the tabletop RPG of the game, is described in the video as being “a Japanese booster gang" which "settled in the district of Westbrook, also known as ‘Japantown,’ the part of the city where people go when they’re looking for thrills. As they are the protectors of the Japanese community at large, it is thought they are backed up by one of the most powerful megacorporations of Cyberpunk 2077: Arasaka.” The contents of the video haven't been confirmed by CD Projekt Red but adding some credence to it is a Tyger Claws poster over on the official Projekt Red store which describes Tyger Claws as a Night City gang hailing from Japantown. Another gang poster features a group called the Valentinos from the barrio. Grimes tells all in apparent gameplay leak Grimes appeared on a live stream in late February, and spoke about her involvement in Cyberpunk 2077 as the singer / performer Lizzy Wizzy, possibly revealing more than she was meant to, with mention of how her in-game character appears and the rather sci-fi situation she finds herself in. Spoilers below, obviously. The YouTube video was quickly pulled, but this thread on Reddit features a "summary" of what was mentioned (meaning this may not be perfectly verbatim): "I did my voice acting for Lizzy Wizzy, that game is going to be fucking good. I mean I haven’t played it, but I saw someone play an hour of the game. The game was fantastic, and I play a pop star who committed suicide on stage, and they had to quickly come and preform emergency surgery and replace her whole body with cybernetics while she was dead for an hour and then she finished the show as a cyborg. One of the greatest pieces of performance art ever made."
Confirmed for Xbox Series X – as a Smart Delivery title The official Twitter account for the game responded to news of Microsoft's new Smart Delivery feature – which allows Xbox owners to access souped-up versions of previously-purchased games, even after switching to a next-gen console – stating that anyone buying Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One would get the game for free on Xbox Series X. It's a big incentive to buy early, rather than wait for the improved graphical power of the next-gen console. We doubt PS5 will have the same feature, though you can be sure we'll get official word on the game coming to the next-gen PlayStation console too. As to when the next-gen versions will land? The tweet only says "when available", though we expect it will happen some time in 2021. Nvidia GeForce Now support You'll have to buy Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam before playing it on GeForce Now but this is a big win for Nvidia after losing Activision Blizzard's games. VR not happening Mamais wasn't particularly forthcoming on the topic of a port for Nintendo Switch, either, saying it's unlikely but that similar things had been though of The Witcher 3. “I don’t know if Cyberpunk 2077 would work on the Nintendo Switch. It might be too heavy for it. But then, we did put Witcher 3 on it and we thought that would be too heavy too, but somehow we pulled it off.” Big names on the soundtrack Game map Reddit Q&A reveals more details According to the poster, the game's day and night cycle will have an impact on quests; at certain times of day, for example, a location may be more or less guarded which could impact your likelihood of success. Weather, though, won't have an impact quite so severe although in-game characters will react to it. The game's crime system has been revealed as being similarly dynamic— so police won't jump on you for a small crime like, say, assault on a particular individual. But they will "absolutely try to fry your ass" for more extreme things like causing harm to large groups of people with a gun or vehicle. Quests in the game will be wide-ranging, branching and evolving, even impacting one another. And the game won't necessarily end with the completion of the main story; you can opt to keep playing. Replayability is said to be higher with this game than The Witcher 3. As far as customization goes, the developer has acknowledged that players are interested in car customization but has asked for more patience before saying anything with regards to any plans, while, interestingly, there won't be an option to buy a new apartment. Instead V's apartment will evolve and change depending on the paths that players take when playing the game and it'll feature options within it for customization and expression though what they are has not been confirmed.
Post-launch content In an interview with GameSpot at PAX Australia, the head of CDPR's Krakow office, John Mamais said “I think it’s a bad idea to do microtransactions after you release a game. It seems like it’s very profitable, though. It’s probably a hard decision for the guy that runs the business to decide if we should do it or not. But if everyone hates it, why would we do something like that and lose the goodwill of our customers?” As far as Mamais is concerned, the Witcher 3's model which saw free DLC launched with big paid expansions was "a good model" which "worked pretty well." As a result, Mamais added "I don’t see why we wouldn’t try to replicate that model with Cyberpunk 2077. We’re not talking about that yet, but it seems like that would be the smart way to go.” Photo mode? The video shows a scene of the Night City skyline while the symbol of a camera shows briefly. The hashtags on the tweet itself read Capture Cyberpunk and Photos From Night City. This makes a photo mode seem very likely and given it's a feature found in most big budget games these days that may not be entirely surprising. However, the game's first person perspective may present some challenges if CD Projekt Red wishes to allow players to take pictures which will include their fully-customised avatars. No Reeves romance for you What about multiplayer? Character creation will be gender fluid Jonkers said that "you don’t choose your gender anymore. You don’t choose, ‘I want to be a female or male character’ you now choose a body type. Because we want you to feel free to create any character you want." GTA-style radio Coming to Stadia Spin-off card game “The game thrusts players into the dark alleyways of Night City, where ruthless gangs clash with corporations in an endless war for money, power, and control. “In Cyberpunk 2077: Afterlife, players become Fixers, the data brokers and masterminds in Night City that recruit cyberpunks, equip them with gear, and send them out on missions. But nothing's free in Night City. Players need to balance between what they want and what they can actually afford. Using an innovative drafting mechanic and special dashboard, players must decide which cards they want to buy, and which to sacrifice for funds in order to purchase new ones. Each successful mission raises the player's Street Cred, with mission survivors becoming Veterans, imparting their knowledge and experience to newer recruits. In this chrome-infused world, Street Cred is the only currency that truly matters.”
Hardcore mode that says goodbye to UI Of course, it’s not just the hardcore players that are being catered to in Cyberpunk 2077; Liu revealed that there will also be modes for those who are less experienced with first person games and shooters and wish to enjoy a more laidback experience. “If you want to play more casually for the story and maybe you’re not experienced with shooters, which was a real big concern for us. We want to tell a story and maybe you’re a big fan of The Witcher and you’re not comfortable playing a shooter, we have settings available for that.” Liu explains that as well as settings for less experienced players, there will also be weapons. The smart gun, for example, will help players to aim. Though it comes at the cost of the smart gun being a weaker and slower weapon. It will, however, be a good start for those looking to get to grips with the aiming system. For those unfamiliar with first person games, there’s also going to be a Field of View slider. Making more of the game world visible through the eyes of the avatar should alleviate that sense of tunnel vision that comes from trading third person view for first person and the potential for nausea this can cause some players. Environmental hazards
Settings available for those uncomfortable with FPS Cyberpunk 2077 will look just as good on console as PC "Actually no, we have a very custom engine, the RED Engine," Liu responded. "And actually, we’re targeting consoles as first-class platforms and it looks amazing there. So obviously, if you spent, you know, $2,000 building your PC rig, it’s going to look better on that. But the graphics are quite amazing for what you’re going to get from Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles and low-end PCs." Could we see a movie adaptation in the future? "I can’t really say anything on that," Pondsmith told VGC in response to whether he is optioning the Cyberpunk movie rights. "But with Keanu Reeves being tied up in things, it’s become much more of a possibility." "At this point we are teaching people about this new kind of cyberpunk. My favorite film is Blade Runner, but I recognise inherently that it’s a cerebral film and 2049 was even more cerebral. A cerebral film is not necessarily going to allow other people to enter that space and understand it, but at the same time you don’t want to do it totally action." Keanu Reeves' band gets its first single There may or may not be three games in development Take your pick of protagonists There will be romance
There will be no morality system There's more than Night City In an interview with VG247, the Lead Quest Designer, Pawel Sasko, revealed that players will be able to go beyond the walls of the metropolis and explore an area known as the "Badlands". Largely desolate and populated by Nomads, this area will have its own quests. You can even start the game as a Nomad and begin your story outside of the city. Multiple Endings
New Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay shown at E3 2019, but not playable Inside Pacifica, two gangs – The Animals and The Voodoo Boys – are fighting for supremacy. In order to meet Bridgitte, the head of the Voodoo Boys, you'll have to first deal with her lieutenant Placide, who wants you to infiltrate The Animals' hideout. Your goal, at least you're told, is to find a high-tech van that's monitoring all the network traffic in Pacifica. To get to this van, you'll have to make your way past The Animals' crew. The reason they're called The Animals, it turns out, is because they take a drug that enhances their muscle mass. To get through them you'll either need to fight your way through – a risky proposition – or sneak your way into the hideout. Customization: perks, skills and attributes The choices are vast, and while they're not completely limitless, CD Projekt Red doesn’t want to confine you to a single play style or set path. The reasoning behind that, it seems, is to better mirror the game’s source material – a 30-year-old tabletop role playing game called Cyberpunk (however, there was also a later edition called Cyberpunk 2020). Behind all of the hacking and gunplay lies a fairly complex RPG – the perks screen we saw during our demo had more than 20 perks to choose from and level up. These perks impact how your character plays, but can also impact what choices you have in conversations with the world’s NPCs.
Image Credit: CD Projekt Red Vampire Bloodlines and Deus Ex were inspirations for the game Tomaskiewicz said that games such as Deus Ex, Vampire Bloodlines and Elder Scrolls had influenced him in his work on Cyberpunk 2077's quests. He cites the original Deus Ex as a particular influence and praises the ways in which it gives players the freedom to complete missions in multiple ways. This suggests we can expect a great deal of freedom and complexity and non-linearity in Cyberpunk 2077’s missions as well as in the protagonist you'll be using to cause havoc in the game world which is something quite different from the tight gameplay-loop found in The Witcher. CD Projekt Red is working on two AAA titles – both to be released by 2021 This release window was reaffirmed on the official CD Projekt Red forums, with moderator Donata Popławska confirming the studio is sticking to its original roadmap. "As far as the strategy of the CD Projekt Capital Group for 2016-2021 is concerned, its plans to release the second AAA game by 2021 remain unchanged," the moderator wrote (translated via Resetera user Antiax). However, Popławska did not expand on what the second AAA title to be released in this time frame could be. "We are currently focusing on the production and promotion of Cyberpunk, so we do not want to comment on further projects," they continued. Lady Gaga could be making an appearance? In addition ActuGaming claimed the collaboration would be officially announced at E3 2019, with Gaga rumored to be making an appearance at the gaming convention however that didn't happen. In 2018 Gaga tweeted a strange mix of letters and numbers, which the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account replied to with "Of course! Of course we will!", suggesting the A Star is Born actress would be involved with the game in some way or another. E3 2018 confirmed features It's a first person RPG set in a huge open world known as Night City – a metropolis split into six districts, each offering a different environment to explore. During the demo we only saw a small part of one of them. Players can create their own character called V and embark on their journey to crawl up from the criminal underbelly. This is a dark game and though The Witcher series is mature, this takes it to a new level. As you'd expect, the game lets you augment your body using various bits of tech – illegal or otherwise – and you can use drugs to enhance your combat, or a kind of digital brain-hack called 'Braindance'. We know weapons are wide ranging and seriously creative, with smart guns and bullets as well as terrifying Mantis Blades for melee. There are no loading screens in Cyberpunk 2077 and the story and side quests are branching and numerous, and your choices genuinely impact the outcome. You can read more about how impressed were were by what we saw.
Image Credit: CD Projekt Red It will be on Steam It’s going to be bigger than The Witcher 3 In fact, he said that The Witcher 3 was being treated as a learning experience and that they could do better. To do better, the studio has doubled in size with studio head Adam Badowski saying that after The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 needs to be “even better, even bigger, even more revolutionary” than what had originally been planned.
There may be multiplayer The company president said in March 2018 that these elements are not on the table right now, so it's possible that they'll be introduced after the game's release in a sort of online world like GTA Online. There will be online Whether or not the online elements will feed into the multiplayer is unclear. But there won't be microtransactions It appears that while many studios are feeling the need to move to a service model to ensure their titles make money, CD Projekt is staying committed to the story-driven single player experience with Cyberpunk 2077, one which served them very well with The Witcher. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best iPhone 8 Plus prices and sales for March 2020 Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:56 PM PST If even the iPhone 11's budget flagship price (to say nothing of the iPhone 11 Pro Max's pricetag) is too much for you to stomach, but you still want a big-screened iPhone, then perhaps the iPhone 8 Plus is the way to go. To help you sort through all the offers we've listed the best iPhone 8 Plus prices and sales that are available online. The iPhone 8 Plus features a 5.5-inch screen and an impressive camera that continues to get better with iOS 13, even if doesn't have the extra lenses of Apple's leading phones. It's still not the cheapest handset, so you'll definitely want to peruse all the iPhone 8 Plus deals that you'll find here - but at less than half the price of the leading iPhone 11 Pro, it's the best compromise between iOS value and power in the iPhone range. We've listed all of the buying options below, whether you want to buy an iPhone 8 deal from a mobile carrier on a contract or purchase it unlocked from a retailer, we've listed the best deals and contracts that are currently available. Don't need such a big phone? Check out these iPhone 8 deals. The best iPhone 8 Plus deals from US CarriersIf you want to shop for newer iPhone models you can see the best iPhone XR deals and the best iPhone 11 and 11 Pro prices and deals. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Intel Xe graphics cards release date, specs, news and rumors Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:48 PM PST Intel Xe is such a huge deal in the graphics card world, even if we don't know much about it. For so long the best graphics cards have been represented by only two companies: Nvidia and AMD. But, now that Intel Xe graphics cards are eventually going to arrive, we're finally going to get a third player in the GPU game. Right now, the only Intel Xe graphics cards we know we're getting any time soon are going to be in Intel Tiger Lake CPUs, acting as integrated graphics, much in the same way as Ice Lake's Gen11 Intel Iris graphics. However, we don't know when we're going to see the dedicated graphics – even though we did get to play with them at CES 2020. Either way, Intel's first Xe graphics card is officially a thing. We have already got some GPUs for Exascale computing, but we know that consumer-facing GPUs will eventually make their way to market. These mainstream GPUs are still a way out, though, but there is loads of speculation to tide us over until then. So, keep this page bookmarked, and we'll be sure to keep it updated with all the latest Intel Xe graphics card news and speculation. Cut to the chase
Intel graphics cards release dateAll we know is that Intel Xe will see the light of day in some form in 2020. Whether or not that's just for the integrated graphics found in Tiger Lake remains to be seen, but we have previously heard from Intel that it would release graphics cards in 2020. So, at GDC 2019, Intel showed off some renders of its future graphics cards. Team Blue kind of did the same thing at CES 2020, but this time clarified that these renders were for PCIe versions of the DG1 mobile chip that it would send to developers, so that they could code on the new hardware. It's unlikely that any of the renders we've seen so far will be the final design of any consumer-facing GPU. On the other hand, Intel has released a graphics tuning software, even updating it very recently with a video recording feature. It's not quite as robust as the offerings from AMD and Nvidia, but it could point to Intel preparing to release gaming-ready graphics cards sometime in the near future. Either way, we don’t know the exact release date for Intel’s graphics card until the company wants us to (or until the release date gets leaked, as is likely to happen).
Intel Xe prototype shroud design Intel graphics cards priceIntel’s pricing for its graphics cards is ultimately going to boil down to what segment of the consumer market it plans to capitalize on it. We’re sure that there will be professional and datacenter GPUs that cost thousands of dollars, but we’re more interested in consumer or gaming graphics cards. There are some signs that Intel is going to compete with the likes of AMD. In an interview with Russian YouTube channel Pro Hi-Tech – that's been taken down – Intel senior vice president of architecture said Intel graphics cards would target the mainstream, which starts at $200 (about £165, AU$294). Since then, however, Intel has since come out and clarified that Koduri was talking about the mainstream market starting at that price point and not future Intel graphics cards starting at that price. However, it is possible that Intel would target the high-end enthusiast market, too. We've heard that Intel Xe graphics cards would feature baked-in support for ray tracing – something AMD hasn't caught up with. However, there is a chance that only high-end GPUs targeted at enterprise users would feature this capability. Obviously, this far out from the actual launch of Intel Xe graphics cards, it's hard to nail down how much we'll have to pay for Team Blue's GPUs. And, because this would be the first generation of Intel graphics cards, we can't exactly look to the past to try and suss out how much we'll be spending. At the end of the day, we don’t know what Intel is doing here, but we’re excited nonetheless. We’ll be keeping our ears to the ground on this one, waiting until more information starts surfacing — so stay tuned.
What can Intel Xe graphics cards do? Intel graphics cards specsUsually, this is the part of the story where we dive into past releases and try to guess what the future products are going to look like. But, we can’t really do that this time around – it’s been almost two decades since Intel has released a discrete GPU, and that didn’t end so well for team blue. That doesn't mean that there isn't anything out there that we can take a look at. We have seen a leaked graphics driver show up on the Anandtech forums, possibly referencing several discrete graphics cards – and a rough idea on their specs. For instance, we saw a iDG2HP512, which looks like a bunch of random numbers and letters at first glance. However, if you take DG to mean 'discrete graphics' and the 512 to signify the number of EUs (execution units), we can get a rough idea of what it can do. These execution cores are essentially Intel's equivalent to Nvidia's CUDA cores, where the more you have, the faster the GPU is. For comparison's sake, in Intel's latest Ice Lake processors that sport Gen11 integrated graphics, the beefiest GPU only has 64 EUs. Intel is claiming that these discrete Intel graphics should be an order of magnitude faster than the integrated Gen11 graphics on Ice Lake. In fact, Intel is claiming that even the integrated graphics found on Tiger Lake will be twice as fast as what's found on Ice Lake – which is already twice as fast as Whiskey Lake's graphics. And, while Intel hasn't released specific Intel Xe graphics card specs, Team Blue had an Intel Xe GPU, lovingly called "DG1", at CES 2020, where it was able to run Destiny 2. For a new graphics card from AMD or Nvidia, this would hardly be noteworthy, but it does mean that Intel Xe graphics cards actually work in real life. Intel has also announced that its discrete graphics will support hardware-optimized ray tracing – but it's unclear whether or not this will be an enterprise-level feature. However, now that we know the PS5 and Xbox Project Scarlett will feature ray tracing, Intel may need to include this capabilities in its graphics cards, especially if they release alongside AMD's rumored Navi 23 graphics. Intel is taking some notes from its competition, when it comes to software, too. At GDC 2019, Intel launched the new Intel Graphics Command Center, which is the Blue Team’s equivalent to something like Nvidia’s GeForce Experience. This isn’t especially helpful right now, as integrated graphics aren’t the best for playing games, but it does mean that once Intel graphics cards do release, they’ll feature one-click game optimization. At the end of the day, there are only a couple things we need to see in these new GPUs, they need to be capable of 4K gaming, and they need to be priced competitively. If Intel is able to hit these two marks, we could see Intel competing in the bloodthirsty GPU marketplace. But, we won’t know until Intel is ready to share. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Fable 4 is coming: here's everything we know so far Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:43 PM PST It's 2020 meaning we're now approaching an entire decade since the release of Fable 3 all the way back in 2010. Despite being one of Microsoft's most lauded series, Fable hasn't had a fourth instalment but, as the new generation of consoles approaches with the Xbox Series X, fans are hoping that could change.
Image Credit: Lionhead Of course, it's not been the case that Fable 3 was released and suddenly things went quiet. The studio behind Fable, Lionhead, was initially directed to pivot to the increasingly popular online games-as-service model with a game called Fable Legends. But this game never saw the light of day as Lionhead was shuttered, seeming to take the Fable world with it. But that wasn't the case. In early 2017, Phil Spencer reignited the hopes of fans by saying that the series wasn't, in fact, dead and that it still had places to go. More recently than this, reports emerged that Playground Games, the developer behind the Xbox exclusive Forza Horizon series, is working on a fourth Fable game that will restore the series to glory. Adding fuel to the fire, an alleged Fable 4 leak emerged on Reddit in June 2019 and although nothing has yet come of this leak it certainly captured the imaginations of fans. To the disappointment of many, Fable 4 never made an appearance at E3 2019 but with 2020 being the year of new generations and big announcements, could we finally see something confirmed? We'll just have to sit tight and wait. We’ve put together everything you need to know regarding the news and rumours about Fable 4, as well as what we'd love to see from the next instalment. Cut to the chase
Release dateGiven that Fable 4 hasn’t actually been confirmed yet, and we sadly don't have the prophetic powers of the games' soothsaying Theresa, it’d be hard to pin down any kind of release date for Fable 4. However, back in 2018, Eurogamer posited that development on the game was in its very early stages, with rumored developer Playground Games still hiring to boost team numbers up to around 200. Of course that news feels a little old now, but it's all we have to go on at the moment. We know that the next Xbox generation will launch towards the end of 2020 and it seems unlikely that Microsoft would want to launch a new Fable title before then so, taking all that we know with a grain of salt, if a new Fable game were to be released it's likely it wouldn't be until 2021, the end of 2020 if we're being very optimistic.
Image Credit: Lionhead News and rumorsThough Microsoft hasn’t officially confirmed Fable 4 is on the way, there have been signs that the franchise hasn’t been abandoned. We've collected together all of the top rumors and news below, take each with a grain of salt and remember that some of these are years old now - we're keeping them here to show you the full development of Fable 4. Fingers crossed the wait will be worth it. The next generation Microsoft has unveiled its next generation console, the Xbox Series X, and a rough release window of 'Holiday 2020'. Naturally, players are wondering what titles Microsoft might want to showcase on this new and improved platform. If the rumors around Fable 4 are correct and it is in the works and not simply a hope and dream, 2020 could finally be the year we hear more about it. Phil Spencer has confirmed via a Tweet that Xbox will be present at E3 2020 for a "milestone year" in which it's expected the company will lay out its plans for the Xbox Series X launch year. Whether or not a new Fable game will be a part of those plans remains to be seen. Writing chops If the rumours that Playground Games is indeed the studio tasked with developing the next Fable game are true then things are looking positive for the game’s story. Recently (via VGC) senior scriptwriter Kim MacAskill joined the studio’s as-yet-unannounced RPG team from Rocksteady to work alongside fellow Rocksteady and Batman: Arkham Knight writers Martin Lancaster, who is now a narrative director, and Craig Owens, principal scriptwriter. It remains unconfirmed that Playground Games’ RPG project is Fable 4 but if it is then the game will have some narrative chops thanks to the Arkham Knight alumni. Reddit leak On June 3, 2019, Reddit user LagSwag 1 published details of an alleged Fable 4 leak. The details come from a video that's since been removed (and which we haven't seen ourselves), which details a few key features of the fourth installement, including both first and third-person perspectives, an in-depth character creator, no guns, the option to ignore the main quest, the option for players to build towns, multi-player and running on Unreal engine. Wow, that's a lot to take in. If that wasn't enough to throw your head in a spin, two more details have emerged from the leak. The first is that the land of Albion (where the game is set) could be no more, with different worlds and planets to explore. And to access these planets? There could be a time travel element, via a Demon Door. This is clearly a huge departure from the original Fable games, but it sounds ambitious and exciting too. We also expected nothing less given past iterations of the game made huge leaps time-wise between each installment. Jumping possibly centuries into the future to a time when time travel tech is around makes a lot of sense. However, that's porting over old ideas of how the game progresses onto the new idea. Maybe this will take us back to the past of the first game but with time travel elements added in? The leak suggested the reason for the new planets is that someone got control of the magic Spire and used it to destory the planet (!), which means we might not be in the future at all? These are all just guesses, of course, but it's fun to speculate where the game might be taking us next.
Image Credit: Lionhead Peter Molyneux talks Fable 4 Though Peter Molyneux is no longer actively involved in the Fable 4 franchise, rumors of the next title have reached him and in a recent IGN interview he had some comments to make on where he'd like to see it go, as well as what he regretted in games gone by. Molyneux said that he regretted the massive time jumps between the mainline games and that he'd like to see the next game be a prequel: “Fable story hinted at a dramatic time before Fable 1 when the Guild was founded, this would be a perfect setting for Fable 4, the land of Albion would be much more primitive, the magic much more attuned to nature, the combat much more brutal. The story would follow the founding members of the heroes guild, why it was set up." Finally, he wants to see a more organic morality and character progression systems, where players will affect their alignment through their actions rather than choosing a class at the beginning of the game. Find yourself stealing lots of stuff and making use of stealth? You'll quickly become known as a thief. The Eurogamer report In January 2018 Eurogamer said that according to sources close to the project, a brand new high-budget Fable game is in the works. This news comes less than two years after the closure of Lionhead Studios, and the report says that UK developer Playground Games, best known for its work on the Forza Horizon series, will be the new developers for the series. Eurogamers sources say that a team of more than 200 will be working on Fable from the team’s new offices in Leamington Spa, though development is still in the very early stages. Just what kind of Fable might Playground be working on? Well, the report says that the game is planned to be an open world world action RPG with a focus on character and story.
Image Credit: Lionhead The game that Playground will reportedly be working on sounds rather similar to the vision Lionhead had for Fable 4 before its pitch was rejected and the studio was shut down. Prior to its closure, Lionhead had been working on Fable Legends, a free-to-play service game with a heavy emphasis on online multiplayer. This was quite a departure from Lionhead’s previous Fable titles and the studio hoped that it would be able to return to creating single-player story-driven adventures when development of Legends was complete. This didn’t happen. Fable co-creator Simon Carter told Eurogamer that the news left him with “mixed” feelings. Though he said it was great news for the UK games industry and he’d be pleased to return to Fable as a “punter”, he added that it’s “curious” that Microsoft would get rid of a development team that knows the franchise inside out. He doesn’t doubt, however, that the team at Playground is “very talented” and will do a “fantastic job.” It is somewhat curious that Microsoft has taken this sudden shift in attitude towards the Fable franchise. According to Eurogamer, it’s the result of the success of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon: Zero Dawn, This single-player story-driven game was a hugely beneficial exclusive for PlayStation and a sign that the future isn’t just exclusively for service-based online games.
Image Credit: Lionhead Playground is a studio that has done fantastic work for Microsoft with the Forza Horizon series so it’s understandable that the company would turn to them in the hopes of another exclusive success. Microsoft has yet to comment on these rumors so Fable’s return remains unconfirmed. The Xbox Live API Leak Before Eurogamer’s report, in early January 2018 an Xbox Live API leak suggested that a Fable project with the codename Wisdom is being worked on by a UK-based developer. The Lionhead tweet Not long after this, a former Lionhead Lead Engine Programmer called Don Williamson posted on Twitter that he’d worked out which studio was working on Fable 4, stating that he believed it to be an interesting choice. This has since been deleted though it was captured by WCCFTech. When asked by WCCFTech if the studio working on the game was based in Brighton, Williamson replied that there was no Brighton-based studio big enough to take on the task. With the knowledge gained from the Xbox Live API Leak, WCCFTech surmised that it must be Playground Games working on Fable. The studio had been recruiting developers to work on a Triple-A open world RPG before this point, which ties in neatly with these suspicions. Given that Playground Games is best known for the Forza Horizon titles and hasn’t worked on an open world RPG before, it’s unsurprising that Williamson believed the studio to be an interesting choice. However, given the degree of hiring going on we imagine the team is trying to get developers with the necessary expertise.
Image Credit: Lionhead Phil Spencer Our very first sign that the Fable franchise would one day return came from Xbox’s own Phil Spencer. In early 2017 Spencer tweeted that though Microsoft had nothing to announce at that time, there were “plenty of places” the IP could go. It wasn’t much to go on but it added weight to reports that emerged in the aftermath of Lionhead’s closure that Microsoft had turned down offers to buy the studio as it wanted to keep hold of the Fable license. What we want to seeAn exciting story Albion is a world with serious potential and we’d love to return to it in style. Previous Fable storylines haven’t always been groundbreaking and the story in Fable 3 was really very disappointing. However, the history of heroes and guilds has always been an interesting one and the Fable universe is far from short of interesting and well-written characters to jump off from. If more recent rumors are true, we may have to make peace with the Fable universe in a literal sense. We'll be sad to say goodbye to Albion, of course, but we're also confident that if the game is taken to different places, and even different planets, it'll make sense to the experience as a whole. Each iteration of the game has always felt like a big change - Fable 4 is likely to be no exception. A great soundtrack Without fail, every single Fable game has had a soundtrack that’s stuck in our heads. Every track manages to create an atmosphere and a real sense of fairy tale fun. We’d love to see this commitment to sound and music make a return in any new instalment. Multiplayer One of the biggest recent rumors is that the game could be getting a multiplayer mode. We're not entirely sure how this will work, but it's an option that will add a new twist on the classic game that we're excited to try for ourselves - and with everyone we know.
Image Credit: Lionhead That sense of humor Alongside its soundtrack, the Fable franchise is recognisable for its sense of humor. It’s a little bit silly, occasionally a little bit dark and always individual. Though it’ll be a hard thing to replicate exactly, we’d love to see the new game take that same approach of not taking itself too seriously. It always helped Fable stand out from the other RPGs on the market and it would undoubtedly continue to do so - no other game has yet to strike the balance in quite the same way. More choices and consequences Peter Monyneux always had a grand vision when it came to Fable’s morality system but sadly it never quite lived up to his vision. It’s been a long time since the last numbered Fable title and the power of consoles has come a long way. Greater power means vastly improved AI and we really hope the new development team will use this to create a far deeper morality system. Rather than simplistic good and bad choices, we’d love to see more complex decisions and far-reaching consequences. Especially the chance for your character to be a more neutral presence in the Fable universe. Recent rumors suggest you don't have to necessarily become the hero to play the game anymore, so we're hoping for more nuance in character development here. The thought of Fable returning is exciting and given the criticism Microsoft has received with regards to its lacklustre exclusive offerings on Xbox, it’d make sense for the company to revive one of its most beloved worlds. However, the main thing to remember here is: nothing is official. But, we have everything crossed that will all change during Microsoft's E3 2019 conference where more details - as well as an official announcement - could well be revealed.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| PS1 classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is now on iOS and Android Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:29 PM PST Out of nowhere, the PlayStation classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has been released on a new platform: smartphones. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is $3 and available now on the iOS App Store, while it should be the same price on the Google Play store (which should be now, but we haven’t seen it yet).
Yes, this port has touchscreen controls, but it thankfully includes controller support if you want a more robust gaming experience – both mobile operating systems allow you to hook up a PS4 or Xbox One gamepad, but it might be worth upgrading to the latest versions of iOS 12 and Android 10 in case you're uncertain.
The monster-slaying-and-exploration side-scroller first launched on the original PlayStation in 1997, and became a critical darling and favorite of the franchise. Since then, Castlevania: SotN has been digitally re-released on new platforms for the last few console generations. This mobile version is one of the latter - specifically, one that debuted on the PlayStation Vita handheld system - which tragically has an updated translation. That means no “What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets” lines, points out VentureBeat. Why now? Well, because Netflix’s animated Castlevania series is launching its third season on March 5, giving you just enough time to play the game on your commute to get in the spooky vampire-hunting mood.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Don't expect the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, even if another GPU leak just appeared Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:24 PM PST Right now it seems like we're getting fresh and spicy graphics card leaks on a daily basis, but one of the most interesting cases is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 – or lack thereof. While another leak has surfaced that shows a supposed Nvidia Ampere GPU, you shouldn't get your hopes up for an RTX 3080 quite yet. This latest leak, spotted by the fine folks over at VideoCardz, shows an Nvidia graphics card with 124 compute units. For comparison's sake, the RTX 2080 Ti, the current consumer champion, has a comparatively tiny 68 compute units. That's nearly double the size – but that's not all that seems fishy.
The leaked GPU also comes with a whopping 32GB of VRAM which is way more than any consumer graphics card will need in the next decade, even with the PS5 and Xbox Series X around the corner. Coupled with the relatively low clockspeed of 1.1GHz – compared to the RTX 2080 Ti's 1.6GHz boost clock – it looks like this GPU is being primed to take on data center workloads. Given that right now the rumor is that Nvidia is going to unveil this mystery GPU at GTC 2020 – which will now be held exclusively online – the likelihood that this GPU will be targeting gamers just keeps getting more unlikely. At the end of the day we won't know what Nvidia's next GeForce graphics card will look like until Nvidia finally lifts the veil. Until that day finally arrives however, we'll be stuck with Nvidia Turing – or whatever AMD RDNA 2 graphics cards will look like. If not now, when?We've been stuck with Nvidia Turing graphics cards since August 2018, which means we'll be hitting the two-year anniversary in just a few short months. Since then, AMD has been making huge gains in the mid range with graphics cards like the Radeon RX 5700 XT. But, Nvidia has no need to rush out a new GPU. Even though competition has heated up substantially from where it was a year ago, Nvidia still has the only graphics cards that can do ray tracing and DLSS. That's not even mentioning performance, which is currently dominated by GPUs like the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 Super with virtually no competition from Team Red. This means that until AMD pushes out 'Big Navi' – another hotly anticipated GPU that's likely very far away – Nvidia has no reason to launch another graphics card generation. And historically speaking, we generally see a new pro graphics architecture before the consumers get theirs. For instance, Nvidia launched its Volta architecture in May 2017, and even back then all the rumors were suggesting that it would be the architecture behind the "GTX 1180" (those were the days). However, it wasn't until more than a year later than Nvidia lifted the veil behind Nvidia Turing and the GeForce RTX 2080. The point is, Nvidia Ampere is likely going to be an architecture designed from the ground up for professional and creative workloads. Whenever Nvidia is ready to release another GPU architecture for everyday users, you can bet that it's going to be built from the ground-up for gaming. Until that happens, though, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Pokémon Go updates: all the news and rumors for what's coming next Posted: 04 Mar 2020 11:59 AM PST Pokémon Go: the world's first augmented reality app to become a household name. Niantic's mobile AR game is still going strong two years after it first released, with a constant drip of events and updates keeping budding trainers glued to their phones and pounding the streets. And while it hasn't managed to top the peak of its popularity in 2016, it's still going strong and finding plenty of new ways to improve its player experience. So what's the latest news for Pokémon Go? As you'd expect, brand new features are being added all the time and community events are still going strong. Plus we have some more themed events and brand new Pokémon being introduced at regular intervals. But without further ado, here's our guide to all the latest Pokémon Go news and updates.
Pokémon Go news and Pokémon Go updates
Shadow Pokémon getting stronger Ahead of March's Team Go Rocket event, Niantic has announced that Team Go Rocket and their Shadow Pokémon are becoming stronger for as long as they remain in their shadow state. As a result, Shadow Pokémon now deal more damage with their Fast and Charged attacks (though to balance this out they also now take more damage); powering up a Shadow Pokémon and teaching one a new charged move takes less Stardust and Candy than before; and, finally, the Shadow Pokémon that can be rescued from Giovanni are now more powerful. Research Breakthrough Encounter The starring Pokémon for March's Research Breakthroughs has been announced: it's Ferroseed. This Grass/Steel-type and its bonus stardust will be available from March 1 through to April 1. Thundurus comes to Raids Thundurus, the Electric/Flying-type Pokémon, is making its Pokémon Go debut and will appear in five-star Raids from March 2. Legendary Raid Weekends Speaking of Raids, each weekend in March will bring a new Legendary Pokémon to Raids as well as the chance to catch a Shiny version of that Pokémon.
Pokémon Go Battle League Niantic has rolled out the long-awaited Pokémon Go Battle League to trainers of Level 10 and above. At the moment, the League is in Preseason, the time before competitive play really begins. Niantic is using this as a kind of testing period in which they can "optimize and balance" the new feature as well as decide on things like season lengths and ranks. Trainer Battles within the GO Battle League will rotate between three leagues and players will be able to rank against fellow Trainers, earning rewards for ranking. For preseason, the GO Battle League is beginning with the Great League, which will be followed by the Ultra League then the Master League. Even though preseason isn't competitive, players can still rank but it will be partially reset when Season 1 properly starts. Rewards for battling and winning can also be earned during preseason. Entering the Battle League isn't possible until a player has walked 5km (although in preseason this requirement is waived). They'll then unlock five online matches up to three times a day by doing this. Players can earn Stardust depending on rank and number of battles won as well as items like Rare Candies and TMS as well as the chance to get exclusive Pokémon encounters. Other rewards will include Pikachu Libre and exclusive avatar items inspired by it. Niantic has also announced that it's turning Premium Raid Passes into Premium Battle Passes. The pass will have a double function, allowing players to enter Raid Battles or the premium track in the Go Battle League. Winning using the Premium Battle Pass could yield better rewards and will lower the number of wins needed to earn a Pokémon encounter. The Great League is currently underway and will rotate to the Ultra League on Monday, February 10, before going into the Master League on Monday 24 February. Things will go back around to the Great League on March 9. Niantic has promised more details on when Season 1 of the Go Battle League will officially begin soon.
What's the next Pokémon Go Event?Team GO Rocket Takeover From March 6 to March 9, Team Rocket will be up to no good in Pokémon Go. During this period Poison- and Dark-type Pokémon will be appearing more often in the wild and it's believed that Absol will be one of the Pokémon appearing more often. On March 7 specifically, Team GO Rocket will be doing a global take-over. As part of this, Rocket Grunts will be attempting to seize more PokéStops while Sierra, Cliff, Arlo and Giovanni will be more active and more commonly encountered. During the take-over, players will be able to use Charged TMs to change the exclusive attack of a Shadow Pokémon to another attack and defeating Grunts and Leaders will earn twice the usual Stardust. Mysterious Weekend Event From March 20 to March 23 there will be a special weekend event in Pokémon Go. During the event, Normal-, Fire-, Water-, Electric-, and Ice-type Pokémon will appear more often in the wild. Karrablast and Shelmet will also be hatching more from 5 km Eggs and one to four-star Raid Battles across the weekend will feature Bug or Steel-type Pokémon. Bonuses during the event will double catch and double hatch Stardust. Live Events Niantic has announced that Pokémon Go Live Events will be coming to Taiwan, the US and the UK this year. The first event in Taiwan which celebrated the Lantern Festival has passed, while the others are still to come and will be ticketed at a cost of $12/£12 for General Admission and $18/£18 for Early Admission.
When's the next Pokémon Go Community Day?
Niantic has confirmed that the next Pokémon Go Community Day will take place on March 15 and that the Psychic-type Abra will be the starring Pokémon for the event and will appear more frequently in the wild to be caught. There'll also be the chance to catch a Shiny Abra. There's also going to be a special event-exclusive move for those who can evolve Abra through to its final form of Alakazam, though that move has not been confirmed just yet. Other bonuses available during the event include triple catch XP and a 3 hour period for Lure Modules rather than the standard 30 minutes. As with previous events, this Community Day will take place at different times on March 15 depending on the hemisphere in which you're playing. Those playing in the Northern Hemisphere will take part from 11am to 2pm local time, while those in the Southern Hemisphere join in from 3pm to 6pm local time. Pokémon Go update: what's next?Now that Go Battle League has arrived in Pokémon Go, Niantic has ticked another big promised feature off its list. At the moment, we're not sure what's next for the game aside from, naturally, new Pokémon being added. We'll update here when the roadmap becomes more clear.
Pokémon Go Plus dealsWant to buy yourself a Pokémon Go Plus wearable? Check some of today's best deals down below. (Image credits: Niantic/Pokémon Company) This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 release date, price and specs: all the RTX 3080 rumors Posted: 04 Mar 2020 11:26 AM PST Speculations about the the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 are starting to stack up. With Nvidia Turing graphics cards out for nearly two years at this point, we’re now seeing a ton of leaks about Nvidia Ampere. And, the popular theory is that it will be the graphics architecture behind the next lineup of Nvidia GeForce graphics processors. Not that we fully buy it, as Nvidia tends to release graphics architectures for professionals and data center first, before the consumer-facing architecture behind GeForce. It did so when Nvidia Volta preceded Turing. Still, that hasn’t stopped the internet rumor mill from spinning. The most recent of those rumors is that of a leaked benchmark for an Nvidia GPU with 33 teraflops of theoretical floating point performance. While this may not be the RTX 3080 we’ve been waiting for, it may still hint towards what the GPU could look like. We went and gathered all the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 rumors, gossips and hints in one spot. As more next-gen Nvidia GeForce graphics emerge, we'll keep this article updated with the latest speculation and information that come our way. Be sure to keep it bookmarked. Cut to the chase
RTX 3080 release dateIn the past, Nvidia GeForce lineups have been about two years apart. For instance, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 dropped back in May 2016, with the GeForce RTX 2080 succeeding it in August 2018. The time between the GTX 980 and GTX 1080 was a bit shorter, with the former arriving in September 2014. Still as a general rule, we've been able to historically count on there being a new lineup of graphics cards every couple of years. However, right now the rumor mill is suggesting that we're going to see the next GeForce lineup make an appearance at GTC, or the GPU Technology Conference in March. For the last few years, though, this conference has revolved entirely around data center and professional products, particularly AI and smart cars. We expect this year to be the same. In fact, the rumor that Nvidia Ampere will make its appearance at this conference makes us think it won't actually be behind GeForce. Nvidia Volta made an appearance at this show back in 2018, but it was exclusively behind Quadro and Tesla cards. Our guess is that if Nvidia is going to announce its next-generation graphics cards for gaming, it will either take place at Computex 2020 or E3 2020, similar to how AMD handled it in 2019 with Navi. With how these things typically go, we won't actually know when the RTX 3080 is on its way until Nvidia is ready for us to know. In fact, we won't know if it'll even be called the RTX 3080.
RTX 3080 priceBecause we're so far out from a potential GeForce RTX 3080 release, we obviously have no idea how much it will cost. But, that doesn't mean we can't do a bit of speculation about it. Nvidia Turing graphics cards saw a large price jump over their Pascal predecessors, and we'd almost expect the same to happen with whatever comes next. However, we have heard some rumors that suggest that the next-generation graphics cards will be more affordable. That said, this rumor revolves around another rumor that the cards will be manufactured using Samsung 7nm EUV (extreme ultraviolet) manufacturing process. We'd take that one with a grain of salt. One thing that absolutely needs to be taken into consideration when talking about RTX 3080 price is 'Big Navi'. When Nvidia Turing hit the streets it was basically completely unopposed by AMD. Even when Team Red dropped the Radeon VII in February 2019 it was totally incapable of dethroning the RTX 2080. Competition has definitely heated up since then, though. Both the Radeon RX 5700 series and the Radeon RX 5600 XT have caused Nvidia to drop prices in response, and the threat of 'Big Navi' supposedly beating the RTX 2080 Ti by 30% could force Nvidia to drop its prices to compete. Still, we won't know the RTX 3080's price until we see Nvidia lift the veil – or at least until more substantial leaks surface.
RTX 3080 specsWe have seen a lot of really vague speculation and rumors surrounding supposed RTX 3080 specs, but there are some constants: that it’ll be 7nm and will be faster than the RTX 2080. That second one should be super obvious, of course – why would Nvidia put out new graphics cards if they're not significantly faster? The other rumor, the 7nm manufacturing process, is much more interesting. If you've been following the AMD vs Intel smackdown over the last year, you're probably aware that one of the things that's kept AMD on top of the CPU world is the fact that it's been able to fully adopt 7nm while Intel, at least when it comes to desktop, being stuck at 14nm. If Nvidia is able to adopt a 7nm manufacturing process for the RTX 3080, AMD won't have such an easy time dunking on it. If these rumors are actually true, it would mean that Nvidia could significantly boost performance - up to 50% according to some rumors - while boosting power efficiency significantly. When combined with DLSS, which will absolutely be a part of whatever graphics cards Nvidia puts out next, could potentially lead to 4K graphics cards being available in the mid-range sector for the first time. Exactly how much faster and more powerful the RTX 3080 would be, it’s too early to tell. However, there’s a Nvidia GPU with a whopping 33 teraflops, 24GB of memory and 1.11GHz clock that was recently spotted in a benchmark. While this card may be too powerful to be the RTX 3080, it could also hint towards what the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 may look like. We have even seen some more specific spec leaks, notably one from hardware leaker KittyCorgi, who suggests that Nvidia's next-generation flagship could potentially come with up to 20GB of VRAM. Of course, this is a leak we'd take with a hefty dose of salt, but it could potentially prove our theory that the next graphics architecture Nvidia announces will in fact be for professionals. The Quadro RTX 6000, for instance, packs 24GB of GDDR6 - but it also costs $4,000 (£4,066, AU$6,999). Right now, if we had to put our money down, we'd suggest that these leaked specs are for an Nvidia Quadro or Tesla card, or maybe even the follow-up to the Nvidia Titan V. Whatever the GeForce RTX 3080 looks like, we seriously doubt we've seen it yet. Don't worry, though. We'll keep our eyes open for the next generation of GeForce, and we'll be sure to update this article as soon as we see any juicy RTX 3080 spec rumors. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Sheffield Wednesday vs Man City live stream: how to watch the FA Cup 5th round from anywhere Posted: 04 Mar 2020 11:09 AM PST After winning the Carabao Cup and their first piece of domestic silverware at the weekend, Pep Guardiola's Sky Blues will be looking to keep on track for a cup double with a win over the Owls tonight. Don't miss a moment of the action and watch tonight's FA Cup 5th round clash wherever you are with the help of our Sheffield Wednesday vs Man City live stream guide. A 2-1 win over Aston Villa at Wembley on Sunday saw Man City lift the EFL Cup for the third successive season, and in a campaign which has seen them lag far behind Liverpool in the league, a second FA Cup win on the trot would go some way to softening any potential disappointment. Standing in City's way of a place in the quarter-finals? Sheffield Wednesday, who will be licking their wounds after a demoralising 3-1 home defeat to Derby County in the Championship at the weekend. Sheffield Wednesday don't seem to have had much luck with the FA Cup draw in recent seasons, with this being the second year running that they've been pitted against the cup holders, having faced Chelsea in the 4th round last year. Those hoping for a shock win from the home side may want to ignore the history books - City have made it past Wednesday on all four of their previous FA Cup meetings, the most recent being a 2-1 win at the Etihad under then boss Manuel Pelligrini in January 2015 that saw James Milner score both City goals. The home side can at least draw encouragement from their surprise win over Premier League outfit Brighton & Hove Albion in the previous round, while the return from injury of their leading scorer Steven Fletcher will also provide a boost. We'll talk you through the best ways to watch the FA Cup 5th round action in the UK and the rest of the world below, so you can ensure you can find a Sheffield Wednesday vs Manchester City live stream that's reliable and easy to access.
Sheffield Wednesday vs Manchester City live stream: watch the FA Cup 5th round in the UK for freeWatch Sheffield Wednesday vs Man City: live stream the FA Cup from outside your country right nowIn the US? Then keep scrolling, as we have your viewing options below...spoiler alert, you'll need an ESPN+ subscription. And footy fans in Canada and Australia can also see who's broadcasting today's big FA Cup 5th round match for them. But if you're abroad for the game and find that you can't watch your home coverage online because it is geo-blocked, we have a handy alternative to allow you to watch as if you were back on your couch back home.
How to watch Sheffield Wednesday vs Man City: live stream the FA Cup in the US
How live stream Sheffield Wednesday vs Man City in Australia
How to live stream Sheffield Wednesday vs Manchester City in Canada
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| New Star Wars PS4 game Project Maverick leaks with X-Wing teaser image Posted: 04 Mar 2020 11:07 AM PST A new Star Wars game called Project Maverick has leaked, after a database listing on the EU PlayStation Store revealed the name and a promotional image from the title. That's not all, either – as reported by Gematsu, background music for the game's PS4 page has leaked, and a Play Together parameter of '5' implies this game likely has a multiplayer component. In addition, Project Maverick is not listed as a VR game, which some speculated it would be. Finally, this listing appears to be for a beta of some kind. There's not much to glean from the teaser image. Four X-Wings can be seen flying towards a star destroyer against the backdrop of looming towers (or shadows) and asteroids. Some speculated this might be a remaster of the Rogue Squadron games – but that really seems like a stretch, especially with that series' tight ties to Nintendo consoles. Instead, this is likely a project from EA that's already been reported on.
What is Star Wars: Project Maverick?Last month, in a Kotaku report on a canceled spin-off of Star Wars: Battlefront, reporter Jason Schreier mentioned the existence of "a smaller, more unusual project" at EA's Motive studio as another Star Wars game that publisher EA had in the works. Schreier responded to a Twitter user that Project Maverick is indeed the project he was referring to, meaning this game would be an EA-published project, like Jedi: Fallen Order. VR games like Vader Immortal were instead published by Disney Interactive. EA hasn't officially announced anything either way, but we're excited to see what kind of Star Wars experience its developers come up with next off the back of Jedi: Fallen Order and a great year of Battlefront 2 content.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Disney Plus UK officially gets 600+ episodes of The Simpsons Posted: 04 Mar 2020 11:04 AM PST Disney Plus UK will now have over 600 episodes of classic animated sitcom The Simpsons to stream, Disney has revealed on Twitter ahead of launch on March 24. This ends a lot of questions fans had about the streaming service – and it's terrific news for UK customers, who can watch the animated sitcom on-demand for the first time ever. This news came shortly after Sky and Disney announced a multi-year partnership to launch the service on Sky Q. If the presence of The Simpsons makes the service a must-buy for you, you can still get a year's subscription to Disney Plus for £10 off before launch. That's 12 months of streaming content from Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Disney and The Simpsons for £49.99 instead of £59.99. Check out The Simpsons announcement trailer below, which teases all the good TV you've got to look forward to – well, 10 classic seasons and 20 of varying quality, anyway. Why subscribe to Disney Plus UK before it's even released, The Simpsons aside? Along with whatever Disney archive content comes to the service, you're getting a year of big-budget exclusives. Your first 12 months will include seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian and future Marvel shows like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It won't just be Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and Disney stuff to look forward to, though – Disney Plus revealed in marketing materials that Fox movies like X-Men: Days of Future Past and Ice Age are coming to the UK version of the streaming service. If you know that Disney Plus is the streaming service for you, we've also uncovered a way whereby you can start watching it all right now. Thanks to the wonders of a VPN, you can connect to a server in the US and watch as if you were over on the other side of the Atlantic.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best gaming PC 2020: 5 of the top gaming desktops you can buy Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:42 AM PST Because there are so many amazing gaming PCs on the market right now, you're always going to want one of the best gaming PCs. Even if you're not exactly on the cusp of being a pro gamer, you want a bit of firepower if you want to crank up the settings in the best PC games. After all, PC gaming should be an immersive experience, and there's nothing more immersive than having all those shiny graphical effects cranked up to 11 without tanking your framerate. In fact, if you’re planning on playing the latest and upcoming AAA games, you must get one of the best gaming PCs packed with the most cutting edge internals possible like Nvidia’s Super RTX graphics cards or AMD’s Navi cards. Of course, just because a gaming PC is that powerful, that doesn’t mean it’ll cost you an arm and a leg. There are quite a few out there touting the best processors and best graphics card, alongside a price tag that’s affordable to many. You just have to scour the market to find them. To cut through the overwhelming options out there, we’ve put together a list of the best gaming PCs you can get right now, all of which we’ve personally reviewed. There’s a variety of options to check out on this list, whether it’s from stalwarts like Alienware or newer firms like Corsair. Best gaming PCs at a glance
There's definitely something for everybody as far as HP Omen Desktop PC's configurations go. While the Decepticon look this gaming PC sports might only be for some, there’s definitely something for everybody as far as configurations go – whether you’re a casual gamer on a budget or a hardcore one willing to drop a lot of dough for a souped up rig. At less than $1,500 (about £1,180, AU$2,170), you’re getting more than enough power to get you through AAA games, albeit probably not on Ultra. At $2,335 (about £1,835, AU$3,235) or more, you’re getting a considerable amount of power and storage. Plus, HP Omen Desktop PC comes in a tool-less design, making it upgradeable. There isn’t any doubt that this one belongs on our best gaming PCs list. Read the full review: HP Omen Desktop PC
If you're looking for the best gaming PC under $1,000, the Intel Hades Canyon NUC may just be your dream machine. If you’re looking for the best gaming PC under $1,000, the Intel Hades Canyon NUC may just be your dream machine. This teeny gaming PC isn’t just cost-effective, but space-saving as well. In fact, it resembles a set-top box more than a gaming PC. Don’t let its size fool you, however – it houses all the power that the best gaming laptops should to handle the best laptop games, with an 8th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and discrete AMD Radeon graphics. You’ll have to provide your own RAM, storage and your own OS, but if you have extra PC hardware lying around, there are still plenty of savings to be had. Read the full review: Intel Hades Canyon NUC
With Alienware Aurora R9, the manufacturer took things to a whole new level. Alienware has a knack for concocting form factors you won’t see anywhere else, which makes its gaming laptops and desktops more appealing than their rivals. With Alienware Aurora R9, the manufacturer took things to a whole new level, design-wise. More importantly, it boasts configurations touting the most powerful internals right now. But what’s even better is that budget-minded users won’t even have to look elsewhere. This new line boasts a broad range of specifications, so that you don’t have to pay a small fortune to take it home. Read the full review: Alienware Aurora R9
This rectangular monster is definitely worthy of its moniker as it boasts lots of power. This rectangular monster is definitely worthy of its moniker as it boasts lots of power… more than enough, in fact, for most gamers’ needs. When you’ve the funds for an upper-tier configuration, you’ll get a behemoth. Unfortunately, budget minded buyers will have to be satisfied with gameplay at medium settings, since the lower end models don’t pack the same firepower. Still, because of its high upgradability and tool-less design, such buyers are only an upgrade or two from the best gaming experience on Ultra or Max settings either. Plus, we’ve honestly seen more expensive machines for those specs. Read the full review: HP Omen Obelisk review
The Dell G5 boasts 9th-generation Intel chips as well as Nvidia's most powerful gaming GTX and RTX graphics cards. A unique chassis coupled with a price to beat, Dell’s latest in its G series gaming PCs is a solid contender in budget gaming. The Dell G5 boasts 9th-generation Intel chips as well as Nvidia’s most powerful gaming GTX and RTX graphics cards, starting with an i3 processor and the GTX 1650 to handle many powerful games without burning a whole in your pocket. Of course, if you’ve got more case to spare, it’s VR ready configurations are also on hand, though even those are absolutely affordable.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Millions of websites put at risk after encryption fault Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:35 AM PST The Let's Encrypt project has announced that it will revoke more than three million TLS certificates after a bug was discovered in its Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) code. The bug impacts the server software used by Let's Encrypt, called Boulder, which allows the project to verify users and their domains before a TLS certificate can be issued. Let's Encrypt has decided to revoke the TLS certificates because the implementation of the CAA specification inside Boulder was affected by the bug. CAA is a security standard that was approved back in 2017. It allows domain owners to prevent the organizations that issue TLS certificates, called Certificate Authorities (CAs), from issuing certificates for their domains.
By adding a “CAA field” to a domain's DNS records, a domain owner can make it so that only the CA listed in the CAA field has the ability to issue a TLS certificate for their domain. Certificate Authorities, such as Let's Encrypt, are required to follow the CAA specification exactly or they could risk facing penalties from browser makers. Revoking TLS certificatesAfter becoming aware of the issue, Let's Encrypt engineer Jacob Hoffman-Andrews disclosed the fact that a bug in Boulder had led the server software to ignore CAA checks in a forum post, saying: “The bug: when a certificate request contained N domain names that needed CAA rechecking, Boulder would pick one domain name and check it N times. What this means in practice is that if a subscriber validated a domain name at time X, and the CAA records for that domain at time X allowed Let’s Encrypt issuance, that subscriber would be able to issue a certificate containing that domain name until X+30 days, even if someone later installed CAA records on that domain name that prohibit issuance by Let’s Encrypt.” The Let's Encrypt project worked quickly to patch the bug over the weekend and Boulder is now able to verify CAA fields properly before issuing any new certificates. Thankfully, it is very unlikely that someone exploited the bug, according to the project. As of today, the Let's Encrypt project has revoked all of the certificates that were issued without proper CAA checks. Now all of the impacted certificates will trigger security errors in browsers until domain owners make a request for a new TLS certificate to replace the old one.
Via ZDNet This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Batman's Batmobile has been revealed, along with more shots of the Batsuit Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:12 AM PST The Batman's Batmobile has been revealed by director Matt Reeves – and it's a very different ride to past movie interpretations of the vehicle. Reeves released three images of the Batmobile on Twitter, which also offer new glimpses of Robert Pattinson's Batsuit in the background of each shot. On first glance, it looks more like a custom sports car than the Batmobiles seen in the past few Batman movies, which were closer to military vehicles in design. Take a look below: The images offer our best look yet at the Batsuit, showing off the armored styling hinted at by the initial reveal by Reeves back in February. It definitely looks closer to the look of the Batsuit from the Arkham games than the versions worn by Christian Bale and Ben Affleck. And the ears are really, really pointy. Like, Michael Keaton pointy.
What's in a Batmobile?In the comics, Batman has never just had one Batmobile – and this design could reflect the rumored 'year two' setting of Reeves' Dark Knight movie. It does look like someone bought a really expensive car from a showroom and stuck a rocket booster onto it – this looks like something Rockstar would sell you in GTA Online. And, of course, it still has pointy bat elements on the sides. Yep, this sure looks like something Batman would drive. The Batman is released on June 25, 2021.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| No Time To Die release date pushed back to late 2020 as coronavirus fears escalate Posted: 04 Mar 2020 09:24 AM PST The next James Bond movie, No Time To Die, has been pushed back from an April release date to late 2020 amid fears over the spread of coronavirus. Originally due on April 3, the movie will now release on November 12 in the UK and November 25 in the US. "MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of No Time To Die will be postponed until November 2020," says a statement posted on the official 007 account. This is the first major motion picture to have its release date affected by the global spread of coronavirus, and it seems unlikely that it'll be the last. That's not the specific reason given by the producers, here, but with the virus dominating headlines around the world, it's hard to see there being another factor at play. No Time To Die was less than a month from release, and its first trailer arrived back in December – this week, we'd even seen a Nokia partnership being teased around the film. It's better to be safe than sorry, of course, but if No Time To Die is just the first blockbuster movie to be delayed, the knock-on effect could be huge.
Which other movies could be delayed?Other movies scheduled for this spring include Black Widow (May 1) and Fast and Furious 9 (May 22). Whether No Time To Die is just a one-off case or not, we'll likely find out in the coming weeks – but it's unlikely to be a unique event. Along with the cancelation of MWC and the postponement of GDC, it feels like we're just seeing the start of Covid-19's effects on the worlds of tech and entertainment. A story on THR yesterday suggested coronavirus could cost the movie industry $5 billion in box office revenue. Still, none of that comes close to the importance of people being able to stay safe – so the Bond move makes a lot of sense. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple sale at Best Buy: deals on the iPhone 11, Apple Watch, iPad and more Posted: 04 Mar 2020 09:21 AM PST Best Buy's Apple sale event is happening right now, which means you can score massive discounts on best-selling devices. Best Buy's Apple bargains include incredible deals on the all-new iPhone 11, Apple Watch, iPad, Beats headphones, and more. Shop more of Best Buy's top discounts below and keep in mind, these are limited-time offers, so you should take advantage now before it's too late. Apple deals:Shop more Apple deals with our roundup of the best cheap Apple Watch prices and the best iPad deals. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| These cheap Acer Nitro gaming laptops just got even more affordable Posted: 04 Mar 2020 08:29 AM PST It's rare to find a cheap gaming laptop that offers the specs to run the latest titles at such a high quality as these Acer Nitro machines. At their everyday price, these gaming laptops are excellent value for money, so when they do receive discounts you can bet there are big savings to be had. Whether you're looking to game on the go or you're just after a less expensive home set up, grabbing a cheap gaming laptop when you can is always a great shout. Prices start off at $619 on the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop and £749 in the UK. You're picking up a cheap gaming laptop deal, sure, but that doesn't mean you'll be shying away from the latest releases. These particular Acer Nitro models offer powerful specs sitting inside a sleek shell, with big SSD's available, and the processors to run them with ease. Cheap gaming laptops worth running rarely come at less of an expense than this, so if you're in the market for a new rig you'll want to check out these particular deals while they last. If you're looking for more choice, check out our roundup of the best gaming laptop sales this week. Acer Nitro gaming laptop deals in the US
Cheap Acer Nitro gaming laptop deals in the UK
We're tracking all the latest gaming laptop deals to keep you informed of the best prices around. While you're splashing out on a new rig, why not refresh your setup with a cheap gaming monitor deal, or the best gaming mouse sales going. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 laptop gets a massive $350 price cut Posted: 04 Mar 2020 08:14 AM PST While Dell's Presidents' Day sale might be over, the retailer still has incredible laptop deals that you can shop right now. For a limited time, you can get the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 laptop on sale for $499.99 when you apply the coupon code LTINSP137AFF at checkout. That's a $350 discount and a fantastic price for the 2-in-1 laptop. See more laptop sales with the best cheap laptop deals: prices start at just $62 today. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechRadar - All the latest technology news. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment