With Banner Saga 2 finally hitting digital storefronts in just under two weeks' time, developer Stoic has released a new trailer, and boy do the hardships just keep on getting harder. From the looks of our characters, their lives are just as fraught with peril as ever they were and …
Read More »Edward Snowden lambasts Cameron for sudden privacy u-turn
Although he might have tried to brush it aside as merely a “private matter,” British Prime Minister, David Cameron's involvement in the Panama Papers leak seems unlikely to go away quickly. Adding fuel to the fire is ostracised whistle blower, Edward Snowden, who has now started poking the PM over …
Read More »HMRC pays rent to hidden offshore company
With the fall out from the Panama Papers leak still snowballing, politicians resigning and calls for others to take more of a governing role of British Virgin Islands tax havens, one aspect has been largely overlooked. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the UK tax office, currently rents its headquarters …
Read More »Whatsapp confirms end-to-end encryption addition
The Whatsapp messaging service has confirmed that as of Tuesday 6th April, all communications on its platform are encrypted from end to end, meaning that even if it was given a court order, it wouldn't be able to read its users' messages or images. Only the sender and receiver will be …
Read More »Spectating DotA 2 in VR could be a lot of fun in itself
As much as playing games in virtual reality might be wonderfully fun and immersive, VR might actually be a great place to watch games too. In a recent teaser trailer for Valve's theatre mode for the HTC Vive, it also showed off a spectator mode for DotA 2, which has …
Read More »Pirate Party could take control of Iceland following Panama leak
Update: The Icelandic Prime Minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, has now officially announced his resignation. His deputy will continue on his stead until a new leader can be chosen. The Panama Papers leak which has painted targets on the backs of many of the world's leading politicians with suggestions of corruption and …
Read More »Be a reviewer for the day, win an MSI motherboard and GPU
As much as it's a fun job, being a reviewer isn't easy. It involves dedication, integrity and a deep technical knowledge that is gradually built upon year on year. But sometimes you guys think you can do a better job, so we're going to give you the chance to prove …
Read More »Google’s Revolv closure shows danger of cloud dependant hardware
Google is back as the black sheep of the tech world for many end users this week, after it announced that it would be shuttering, Revolv, a maker of smart-home hubs that Google purchased less than two years ago. But this raises a bigger concern for technology fans, as much …
Read More »First HTC Vives arrive in the hands of consumers
Amidst the news that Oculus has run into some difficulties with its shipping, the first HTC Vive virtual reality headsets have started arriving on the doorsteps of consumers all over the world. From Tokyo, to California, to New Zealand, Vives have been showing up over the last 12 hours, with …
Read More »EA vs Trump: publisher takes down Mass Effect rip off video
It's not every so often that two entities that aren't well liked go at each other, but that's what happened in the past 24 hours, when EA Games filed a copyright claim against a Tweet made by Republican presidential hopeful, Donald Trump. The man had retweeted a fan-made video that …
Read More »Panama money laundering leak totalled 2.6 terabytes of data
In what is being hailed by many as the biggest leak of confidential, incriminating data in the history of whistleblowing, more than 2.6 terabytes of data were handed over to journalists as part of the Panama Papers release. Pointing the finger of corruption at everyone from Vladimir Putin to the …
Read More »Amazon’s Blue Origin succeeds in suicide burn landing
In the ever more exciting space race to commercialise the waters beyond the shore of our cosmic ocean, Amazon has again re-launched its Blue Origin space craft out of our atmosphere and safely returned it to Earth. This time though, it completed a suicide burn, saving fuel, improving efficiency and still …
Read More »Speedlink Parthica Core gaming keyboard review
Although we spend a lot of time here extolling the virtues of mechanical keyboards and their switches, there is no denying that they are generally quite expensive. This is why sometimes you have to consider membrane designs. With Speedlink's membrane based Parthica Core, you get programmable buttons, backlighting options, macro …
Read More »Update: Oculus blames component shortage for delays
Update: Oculus VR has contacted pre-orderers who were promised a March shipping date, with a statement on what the status of their order is. It reads as follows: “We know you're anxious to receive your Oculus Rift and apologize for not updating your order status sooner,” the Oculus Team said …
Read More »Amazon Lumberyard demo shows it can hang with the big boys
Amazon is a company with many tentacle, with many fingers, in many pies, but game development seemed like a surprising choice for the long-time retailer. More surprisingly still, it announced its own game engine, Lumberyard and now we have our first look at what you can make with it. It's …
Read More »White dwarf stuns scientists with near 100 per cent 02 layer
Oxygen has quite an important part to play in life on Earth, but it can also be found in reasonable quantities around the universe. Rarely though is it seen in high concentrations and certainly not on the surface of a star, at near 100 per cent saturation, but that's exactly …
Read More »Tesla Model 3 now officially on sale, pre-orders top 115,000
Tesla has been advancing the production, marketability and availability of electric vehicles around the world for a number of years now, but it's never really made them affordable for the average consumer. That's what the Model 3 is designed to fix, with its £25,000 price tag and expansive 215 mile …
Read More »Standup comedy, dev talks and DnD, all upcoming VR events
Although there might be a fierce debate raging about whether the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive are better for gaming, both offer a chance to do more social things in VR too. AltSpace VR offers a place for people to enjoy those types of experiences and in the next week, to …
Read More »Final Fantasy XV must sell more than 10 million copies
Gaming might be the biggest media industry in the world right now, but that doesn't mean all that extra revenue and investment can't create headaches of its own. Games are often being made too big and too expensive to fail and Final Fantasy XV is a perfect example of that. …
Read More »The Gallery trailer shows it could be the prettiest VR game yet
Virtual reality is awe inspiring when you first step inside a virtual world – especially when you can walk around and interact with it using your real hands. But many of the experiences we've seen so far have come from smaller developers and indie teams, who haven't had years to …
Read More »It was never just one iPhone: FBI to crack more handsets
The big argument from the FBI and its proponents in its case vs. Apple in recent months, was that it was ‘just one iPhone,' and that weakening its security wouldn't affect any others. Just days after it cracked the phone without Apple's help, it's now set to aid the Arkansas …
Read More »Encryption finds ally in form of U.S. senator Ron Wyden
Often it seems that politicians are either wilfully ignorant, or unconsciously so, about encryption, with the legislative changes they propose almost always railing against the obfuscating technology. Not so with all of them though, as U.S. senator Ron Wyden has promised to protect it by fighting against a push to …
Read More »AMD VR Performance featuring Sapphire
It has been a long time since anyone asked, “can it run Crysis?” but there is no doubt that the recommended specifications for high-end Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality are expensive. An i5-4590 and a R9 290 or GTX 970 are priced at a level that only a …
Read More »’80s VHS Dark Souls III is rad, retro horror at its best
One of my favourite in-game effects of recent years, was the way Alien Isolation channelled its late '70s roots by emulating all of the distortion and tracking problems of old. That's not the only game that that could work with though, as this mock-trailer for Dark Souls III shows, complete …
Read More »Japanese black-hole tracking satellite Hitomi may be lost to space
The $270 million Japanese satellite, Hitomi, launched earlier this year, has gone quiet, leaving scientists on the ground anxious to get back in touch with it. Although there has been some sporadic messages from the orbiting craft, no solid lines of communication have been opened up, with some wondering whether …
Read More »Apple wants FBI to reveal how it hacked the iPhone
The FBI has been trying to force Apple to do something it doesn't want to for the past few months and now the shoe is on the other foot. Following the FBI calling off its legal demands and announcing it had used a third party to break into the San …
Read More »Shadow of Mordor 2 development confirmed by CV
Shadow of Mordor was a real break out franchise when it debuted in 2014, so the idea of a sequel has been floating around for a while now. Although nothing has yet been officially announced, it seems very likely that another is in the works, as a stuntwoman has listed …
Read More »The Oculus Rift can do roomscale, but watch your head
One of the big selling points of HTC's Vive virtual reality headset, is that it can “do roomscale.” That means users can get up and walk around in the real world, while ensconced in virtual reality. It turns out though that the Oculus Rift can do that pretty well too, …
Read More »File sharing sites ordered to pay $150k each for Expendables 3 leak
Despite receiving a lukewarm reception from critics and moviegoers alike, The Expendables 3 will likely always be remembered for its impact on the piracy scene. It heralded a dramatic response from the authorities as it was leaked before the official cinematic release and now the sites that helped distribute it are …
Read More »Testing glucose in sweat: how graphene could help fight Diabeties
Graphene is a wonder material in oh so many ways and that seems likely to remain true for quite some time. In one of its more recent, exciting uses, the allotrope of carbon is now being used to create a wearable device that could help combat type II diabetes. The …
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