Oculus VR made a lot of announcements at this year's Connect event, but one of the more exciting demonstrations was for a new wireless prototype called Santa Cruz. As well as untethering itself from a PC, it contains a battery pack, on board processing and self-contained positional tracking, meaning you …
Read More »Hacks and spying, how Yahoo lost a billion dollars
As a company still riding its wave of late '90s popularity, Yahoo is a company out of time. Its poor timing has really bitten it in the ass this year though, as while trying to accept a buyout from Verizon to the tune of near $5 billion, it's been faced …
Read More »Blade Runner movie sequel named, coming to virtual reality too
You may have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, but you haven't seen a sequel to the 1982 tech-noir movie Blade Runner, yet. The in-the-works sequel has now been named as Blade Runner 2049 and as was announced at Oculus Connect, when it debuts in October …
Read More »Oculus Avatars is the official Rift social app
Although experiences like AltVR, Rec Room and Big Screen have been offering ‘multiplayer' experiences where you can hang out and talk with people in virtual reality for a while, Oculus VR now has its own alternative. Called Oculus Avatars, users will be able to hang out in virtual environment, play …
Read More »Robo Recall is Epic Games’ first full VR title
Bullet Train was Epic Games' first forray into developing something for virtual reality and it offered a compact, first person shooter experience for those who were lucky enough to try it. Now at the Oculus Connect event, it's debuted the spiritual sequel to Bullet Train and its first full VR …
Read More »AMD driver update adds Frame Pacing for multi-GPUs
AMD has introduced a new feature for its latest driver release, Radeon Crimson Edition 16.10.1, that will be of benefit to anyone running more than one AMD graphics card. It's called Frame Pacing and when DirectX 12 games can take advantage of it, it should make the overall experience much …
Read More »Samsung Note 7’s are still catching on fire
If you have received your replacement Galaxy Note 7 from Samsung, we'd still urge caution with the device, as another example of a supposedly safe Note 7 has caught fire. This one happened to be on a Southwest airlines flight in the U.S., just before takeoff, leading to the entire …
Read More »Snowden 2.0? Another NSA contractor arrested for classified theft
The U.S. Department of Justice has confirmed that a government contractor was arrested in August and charged with removing and retaining classified materials without permission. Other sources have confirmed it was an NSA contractor who was detained, though it isn't clear at this time what information he is alleged to …
Read More »Blue Origin booster lands successfully after in-flight escape test
Blue Origin's New Shepherd rocket has touched back down safely after it was jostled by the launch of the flight escape system during a test run as part of its latest firing. This was far from expected, with CEO Jeff Bezos claiming beforehand that the test would likely cripple or destroy …
Read More »Gambling Commission wants Valve to end game skin gambling
Following on from the revelation that not only were lots of people gambling away their in-game skins for games like CS:GO, but that Youtubers were marketing the practice to children, a lot of people have asked Valve to do something about it. Throwing their weight behind that cry now, is …
Read More »4G coverage still patchy, but EE is now the fastest
If you live in an area with decent 4G coverage, think yourself lucky, as much of the UK is still living without the high-speed wireless internet connection. If you're trying to figure out which carrier might be best for it though, EE currently holds the performance crown, snatching it from …
Read More »4chan is going broke, may need drastic changes
Message board 4chan is in serious financial trouble and unless some drastic changes can turn the ship around, much of the site may need to close. The current owner told users on Sunday that the site may need to implement pop-up adverts, a cap on upload sizes and potentially even close …
Read More »Boeing challenges Space X in a race to Mars
Considering how young Space X is as a rocket developer, it's somewhat surprising that it seems so advanced and forward thinking, especially when it comes to getting people to Mars. Boeing however isn't happy letting it take all the limelight and has challenged the Elon Musk founded company to the …
Read More »Yahoo said to be complicit in email scanning for U.S. intelligence
If you're a Yahoo email user, you should be aware that in 2015 the web giant built a specialised piece of software to scan all incoming emails to all Yahoo mail accounts, searching for certain phrases and statements related to U.S. intelligence. Three former employees have claimed to have seen the …
Read More »Kerbal Space Program devs have all jumped ship at once
Kerbal Space Program might be one of the biggest indie success stories of recent years, but that hasn't been able to keep developers at the studio that made it. Eight developers have announced their departure from Squad at once, leaving the company essentially gutted of all its major staff. Kerbal …
Read More »Google Home to tackle Amazon Echo head on
Amazon may have made quite a splash with the launch of it Echo home speaker and voice recognition system, but it's not the only one in the market. Google is expected to announce its Home device later today, which will offer comparable features but built on Google's own architecture. The …
Read More »Microsoft cans wearable development: No Band 3
Rumours have abound for a while now that Microsoft was halting the development of its Band platform and now the software giant has come forward to confirm them. Microsoft will not be releasing a Band 3 wearable this year and has even stopped selling the already available Band 2. Microsoft's …
Read More »Ultimate Ears can now sync up 50+ speakers
Bluetooth speaker manufacturer, Ultimate Ears – a subsidiary of Logitech – has announced an update to its back-end application. Expanding upon the previous stereo-link system which let you use two speakers at once for better sound quality, you can now link upwards of 50 speakers if you have enough friends with …
Read More »EVGA Powerlink can make your GPU power safer, neater
Tired of having to route power cables in an ugly arch over your graphics card? Would you like a little more protection against spikes or dropouts? EVGA's new PowerLink offers all of that in a neat little package. The L shaped connector plugs into your graphics card power ports and …
Read More »Developer that sued Steam gamers is ‘destroyed’
Former-Steam developer, Digital Homicide has dismissed its lawsuit against gamers following Valve's removal of all of its games from Steam, as it can no longer viably afford to continue with it. Claiming that it's company had been “destroyed,” by the move, representatives still say that the suits were valid, but …
Read More »Sky announces VR plans with new app
Sky is looking to tap into the burgeoning virtual reality marketplace with an application of its own. Called Sky VR, the app is compatible with iOS and Android, as well as PC based VR like the Rift (no word on the Vive), will offer 360 degree video and movie content, as …
Read More »360 degree video could get a lot better with HypeVR’s 3D
360 degree video is often the first look people get at “virtual reality,” through Google Cardboard or similar, even if it is nothing of the sort. Lacking any form of interaction, it's completely passive, but perhaps not for much longer. HypeVR's volumetric 3D videos allow users to more in, out …
Read More »MegaUpload is back, with MegaUpload 2 and Bitcache
Kim Dotcom has launched the pitch for his new file locker, MegaUpload 2.0 and Bitcoin micro-transaction system, Bitcache. Teaming up with BnkTotheFuture, investors and fans can now contribute Bitcoin towards the ventures, with the original MegaUpload and Mega founder looking for just shy of £4 million to proceed with their …
Read More »Tesla doubles year on year production for third quarter
Electric car maker Tesla has announced that it has managed to more than double its production capacity for vehicles year on year. With just 50,000 cars shipped in the entirety of 2015, Tesla has managed to deliver 24,500 in the past three months alone. That also represents a stark 70 …
Read More »DJ Steve Aoki now owns Rogue Esports teams
It's not that uncommon for people with lots of success and lots of money, to indulge in their best loved sports and purchase stakes in teams. Just look at Steve Ballmer. Well that sort of thing happens in Esports too and it turns out that famed DJ and producer, Steve …
Read More »Pokémon Go launch traffic was 50 x what Niantic expected
Even the best/worst case scenario for Niantic's launch of Pokémon Go traffic, was 10 times off in its estimation. The augmented reality developer ended up receiving 50 times the predicted traffic when it launched Pokémon Go earlier this year, which is why there were so many server issues and likely …
Read More »Zerodium ups iOS bug bounties to $1.5 million
Cybersecurity bug-hunting firm Zerodium has announced that it's increased its payouts for bug bounties on iOS v 10, to $1.5 million (£1.16 million) from $1 million. The reason it's now put a higher price on those exploits' heads, is because iOS 10 is harder to crack than previous iterations, so …
Read More »Rosetta space probe has final send off before crash later today
The European Space Agency, NASA and scientists and fans of space travel the world over are bidding farewell to the Rosetta space probe today. 12 years on from its launch from Earth's surface, the comet orbiting space probe will finally come to rest – quite spectacularly – on the surface …
Read More »Zynga appoints ex EA executive as CFO
With a net income of more than $120 million in the red, Farmville creator Zynga is not in the strong financial position it once was. Perhaps because of that it's hired on a new chief financial officer (CFO). Drawing from a similar well as it has in the past, Zynga …
Read More »Amazon debuts Breakaway, Crucible and New World
As the proud owner of the Twitch gaming platform, Amazon believes viewers deserve better than games with live streaming built in, they deserve games that were built for livestreaming. That's why at this year's Twitchcon it announced three brand new games from its Amazon Game Studios, all designed from the ground up …
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