Far Cry 4 Review
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Ubisoft Announces Patches For Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed: Unity
Ubisoft has announced patches for its latest two games, Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed: Unity, that address a number of gameplay issues. The update for Assassin's Creed: Unity will address "more than 90 crashes, dozens of bugs and some specific frame rate drops in the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC game." The game has been plagued by numerous issues since it was launched and this is already the third patch to address those issues. Some of the areas that the patch will address include frame rates, gameplay, matchmaking, and AI. Far Cry 4 patch 1.4.0 is mild in comparison and will address the "problem causing users to encounter a black screen upon attempting to launch the game, as well as providing a remedy to those who saw a grey screen when reaching the end of an Outpost Master Mission."
Source: Polygon and Ubisoft
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Building a Ferroelectric Tunnel Junction with Graphene
Data storage is a big deal as all computers require it and in the case of RAM, it can also be one of the significant power sinks. This is because RAM has to continually refresh the information stored within it. High speed, nonvolatile memory would address this issue as it would not need the constant rewriting, and researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have recently found a way to improve a potential replacement for RAM.
Ferroelectric tunnel junctions contain a very thin ferroelectric layer between two electrodes. The layer is thin enough that electrons can tunnel through it, but only if its polarization allows. This polarization can be changed by applying a voltage. What the Nebraska-Lincoln researchers have done is created such a junction using graphene electrodes and ammonia. Graphene is an atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms that is highly conductive. The ammonia is placed between the graphene and the ferroelectric layer, and the key here was how the graphene interacted with the ammonia. The combination resulted in a greater difference between the on and off states of the junction, making it clearer which state it was in.
A larger gap between states will make it easier to quickly read the stored data. The researchers also found indications that the graphene-ammonia combination may increase the stability of the ferroelectric layer, which will tend to relax over time, losing its polarization.
Source: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Shipments of 4K Televisions Continue to Grow
According to a recently released report by DisplaySearch, a leading provider of reliable information, highly insightful analysis, and industry events specifically focused on the display supply chain and display-related industries, shipments of 4K televisions have increased more than 500 percent last quarter. The increase brings the total shipments of 4K televisions to 6.4 million for 2014, with more than 3 million shipments occurring last quarter alone. The report by DisplaySearch notes that Samsung currently holds 36 percent of the global market for 4K televisions, while LG Electronics makes up 15 percent and Sony makes up 9 percent. As manufacturers continue to produce more 4K televisions, prices are expected to drop and drive consumer demand over the holidays, with fourth quarter shipments likely to surpass those of last quarter.
Source: DisplaySearch
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Ubisoft Explains The Crew Review Embargo
Anyone following the latest gaming news has likely seen a number of pieces about troubles with Ubisoft titles, especially Assassin's Creed Unity. In just under a week, The Crew, an MMO CaRPG, is going to be released, but this week Ubisoft put out a blog post concerning the upcoming reviews.
The post states that the media will not be given copies to review prior to the game's launch, and that no embargo will be in place. It may seem odd or a bad omen for the game that reviewers will not have early access to the finished product, but that is actually the point Ubisoft attempts to make. Being an MMO with a focus on social gaming, the post explains that the optimal experience is had when playing with "thousands and thousands and thousands" of players, and not just the press and the developers. Some features, like Faction Wars rely on having large numbers of players, but also the game was built to be a "living playground full of driving fans." Further it points out that the developers used the four closed betas the game, and the current open beta on xBox One and PS4, to gather feedback to improve the experience, so the beta experience also may not reflect the game's release form.
Now I would like to do a little editorializing here, as someone with review and pre-release game experience. I have played games and game content prior to release and have seen major features changed and removed very shortly before release. If indeed The Crew is undergoing significant changes leading up to its release, then it would be an easy argument to make that it is irresponsible to review a pre-release version. Some games also see significant changes after release, which is one of the reasons I do the Years-Later Reviews. It may not be the case that twelfth-hour changes to The Crew are that significant, but they might be. Only a comparison between pre-release and the release versions would reveal this, just as only a released MMO can have the number of players in it as a released MMO. The people at Ubisoft always want their games seen and played at their best, and have certainly made these decisions with that motivation. One may disagree with these decisions, but one should still appreciate the motives and reasons behind them, which is no doubt why the blog post was made.
Source: UbiBlog
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KUDOS Z-9 Gaming Mouse Released by SPEEDLINK
SPEEDLINK, one of the leading brands in computer and video game accessories in Europe, has officially announced the KUDOS Z-9 gaming mouse. The latest gaming mouse by SPEEDLINK is tailored towards professional gamers, as it includes a precise laser sensor with configurable sensitivity levels from 50 to 8,200dpi, nine programmable buttons, and 64 colors for the profile illuminated indicator strip. The mouse is also fully customizable with the included KUDOS Z-9 configurator application, which allows gamers to easily change driver settings without having to open the actual driver software menu. The SPEEDLINK KUDOS Z-9 comes with flexible, sheathed 1.8m USB cable, a red illuminated scroll wheel, and a scroll wheel with 4-way support.
Source: TechPowerUp
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New Means to Manipulate a Material's Properties
Electricity and magnetism are two fairly different phenomena and at times, technologies based on them compete with each other, as they both have advantages and disadvantages. Many are working to develop technologies that employ both though, to tap the advantages of both, without the disadvantages. Researchers at MIT have recently made a discovery that could enable just that in computer memory and likely more.
The researchers were working with a device that looks similar to a capacitor, in that it has two conductive layers separated by an insulating layer. In this device though, both conducting layers are magnetic, but one has a fixed magnetic orientation while the other can be switched between orientations. When the two layers have the same orientation, more electricity can get through the insulating layer than if the orientations were different. The switching is achieved by applying a voltage. What the researchers discovered is that if the insulating material is an oxide, the voltage is 100 times more powerful at altering the magnetic properties. This is because the oxygen ions in the insulating layer would move in response to the voltage.
This discovery could one day be used to create a nonvolatile magnetic memory system and already the researchers have achieved a switching rate of a megahertz. Of course it will have to be faster than that to compete with modern, electrical memory, but this discovery could also open doors to controlling other properties, such as reflectivity and thermal conductance.
Source: MIT
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Refunds Coming to Early Adopters of PlayStation Vita
When Sony initially launched the PlayStation Vita in the United States during February 2012, many consumers became early adopters of the handheld gaming device. Before the launch of the PlayStation Vita, and even afterwards, Sony pushed advertisements that promoted game changing features, such as cross platform gaming, multi-player gaming through a 3G network, and remote play. These features failed to work properly for most owners of the PlayStation Vita, and the Federal Trade Commission has taken notice. After the FTC filed charges against Sony for deceiving consumers with false advertising claims surrounding the game changing features of the PlayStation Vita, Sony has officially agreed to settle the dispute. Sony will provide either a $25 cash or credit refund, or a $50 merchandise voucher for select video games, and/or services, to customers who purchased the PlayStation Vita before June 1, 2012. Additionally, the company is barred from producing similar advertisements in the future that mislead consumers.
According to the settlement, Sony will email eligible PlayStation Vita owners about their refund opportunity after the settlement is finalized by the FTC.
Source: Press Release
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