Darkness Takes Hold in the Hellblade E3 2015 Trailer
Developer Ninja Theory has quite the resume when it comes to action-adventure, hack-and-slash titles: 2007's Heavenly Sword, 2010's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and 2013's DmC: Devil May Cry. The UK indie developer is about to add another to its list in Hellblade, and it's looking quite good. It's also looking quite dark and disturbing.
Hellblade tells the story of a Celtic warrior named Senua who is left traumatized by a Viking invasion. As the newly published E3 2015 trailer alludes to, mental health and psychosis are the key themes explored in Hellblade. The studio has been working closely with Psychiatrist and Professor of Health and Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, Paul Fletcher, in order to portray these sensitive subject matters as accurately as possible.
Hellblade will be coming to PC and PlayStation 4 in 2016.
Source: Press Release
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Co-op Platform Shooter Hollowpoint Gets an E3 Story Trailer
Want to know what co-op platform shooter Hollowpoint is all about? Well you're in luck, as publisher Paradox Interactive has released a new Story Trailer in advance of E3. Announced during Gamescom 2014, Hollowpoint "casts players as corporate mercenaries fighting to gain cash and prestige in the dystopian, cutthroat world of the future." The new trailer expands upon the backstory, while giving us a taste of the 2D/3D-blended gameplay toward the end.
Source: Press Release
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Shadow Warrior 2 Teased; Trailer Coming Tomorrow
It seems that every video game company is trying to get a head start on the E3 pandemonium, and publisher Devolver Digital is no different. Teased last week on the official Shadow Warrior Twitter account with a simple tweet asking "Who wants some more Wang...", Devolver Digital and developer Flying Wild Hog have confirmed today that "THE WANG HYPE IS REAL" and we'll be getting an official trailer some time tomorrow. Whether it'll be a mere teaser trailer or a full-blown trailer is yet to be seen.
For those that didn't experience 2013's Shadow Warrior remake, you can grab it right now during GOG.com's Summer Sale for a mere $3.99. The game is playable on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Source: Twitter
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Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe Join Toy Soldiers: War Chest This Summer
When it was announced back in August 2014, Ubisoft unveiled that Toy Soldiers: War Chest would be quite different than its predecessors. Not only is it more of everything, but we were also introduced to a brand new, quite unique army: the Star Power army, led by Starbright. By turning War Chest into a true battle of toys rather than strictly army men, that gives developer Signal Studios the ability to essentially add any type of army they want. And by the power of Grayskull, they've done it!
Ubisoft has announced that Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe will be joining the game in a special Hall of Fame edition. Unsurprisingly, the Masters of the Universe army is led by He-Man, while the G.I. Joe army will be led by field commander Duke.
Originally set to arrive early 2015, Toy Soldiers: War Chest is now scheduled to release this summer on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: Press Release and UbiBlog
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LEGO Marvel's Avengers Gets First Trailer
Announced back in January with a slew of other LEGO games, LEGO Marvel's Avengers has received its first trailer, courtesy of publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE). The game will feature storylines from both Avengers movies, The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. "Play as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in their quest to save the world while reliving some of the most amazing moments from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the famed Battle of New York between the Avengers and Super Villain Loki as seen in Marvel’s The Avengers."
Source: Press Release
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SourceForge Bundling Junkware With Software Downloads
SourceForge has long been a popular site for Open Source downloads and project hosting. Other resources such as GitHub have taken the lead but SourceForge is still widely used. The site was purchased along with Slashdot in 2012 by Dice Holdings and shortly thereafter a feature called DevShare was released. DevShare is an opt-in feature that wraps the software in "SourceForge’s own installer, which pushes intrusive junkware onto your system." The service followed this guideline at the start, though multiple developers are reporting that their software is being bundled with the junkware despite not opting in, GIMP being a notable example.
Source: How to Geek
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AMD Fiji XT Beat NVIDIA TITAN-X in OpenCL CompuBench Benchmark
Screenshots have been obtained that show benchmarks of the upcoming AMD Fiji XT GPU compared against the NVIDIA TITAN-X and several other cards. The AMD card outperformed the TITAN-X in two out of three tests, winning in the Ocean Surface Simulation and TV-L1 Optical Flow while being beaten handily in the Face detection test. The article notes that face detection is heavily dependent on drivers and updates to the AMD drivers could improve scores here. The hardware entry confirms that the card in the benchmarks is the Fiji XT with 4096 stream processors and 64 compute units.
Source: WCCF Tech
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Futuremark Announces Development of VRMark
Futuremark, the developers behind the PCMark and 3DMark benchmarking suites, has announced it is developing VRMark, a virtual reality benchmark. With many believing VR will achieve widespread adoption in the coming years, the ability to measure the capabilities of systems to deliver various kinds of VR content is going to become ever more important. To achieve this, VRMark will use a combination of software and hardware to measure performance, latency, and accuracy. Latency and accuracy come into play because VR headsets have sensors on them, which have to be able to communicate with the system quickly.
With the benchmark being in development currently, Futuremark is inviting companies that create VR hardware and software and others to join its Benchmark Development Program. This will give them exclusive access to VRMark throughout developing, including its source code, and the ability to provide direct feedback.
Source: Futuremark
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2K and Gearbox Hold Contest to Play Battleborn at SDCC
Remember Battleborn, the Gearbox Software FPS-MOBA announced last year? If you want a chance to play it next month, check out the source link because 2K and Gearbox are going to bring two people to San Diego Comic Con to enjoy the convention and play Battleborn. To enter you need to like a specific Facebook post and post a comment naming your favorite of the currently announced Battleborn heroes. Entries are limited to US residents and naturally you have to be over 18. (There is a PDF with all of the rules at the source.)
The contest runs until June 22, with the winner announced on June 24. The winner gets to bring someone with them to SDCC and enjoy all of the panels swag, and more.
Source: 2K
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Hardware Roundup: Wednesday, June 10, 2015, Edition
We have reached the middle of the week, with some items to help you get through this Wednesday. There is a review of the Intel Celeron N3050 and the Pentium N3700, both of which are Braswell SoCs aimed at the entry-level desktop market. We also have the ADATA Premier SP600 128GB SSD, which uses one of the newest JMicron controllers to help provide it some speed. Another SSD gets tested, this time from the new company EMTEC, as its Power Plus 120GB SSD gets put to the test.
CPUs
Intel Celeron N3050 & Pentium N3700 @ TechSpot
Storage/Hard Drives
ADATA Premier SP600 128GB SSD @ Madshrimps
EMTEC SSD Power Plus 120GB @ ThinkComputers
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Injectable Electronic Scaffold Created
The idea of implants being placed into our bodies is hardly new, including devices meant to be placed into the brain. Typically these devices will cause inflammation and may need to be repositioned occasionally, and neither possibility is desirable. Now researchers at Harvard University have created a device that could be injected into the brain, but is flexible and small enough to not cause problems.
This new implant is actually the electronics scaffold the researchers were working with, which they discovered was flexible and almost invisible on its own. It is so flexible that it could be pulled into a glass needle or pipette, and from there by injected by a syringe into a subject's brain. Once there, the mesh could be used to monitor signals from neurons, as similar technologies have done. The mesh could even be used to stimulate neurons and promote regeneration, when connected to electronic devices, thanks to its subcellular features.
In addition to the great potential for applications, the mesh is also very easy to produce, as it is compatible with conventional methods for manufacturing microchips. The researchers are now looking for commercialization opportunities and expect it could have a major impact on neuroscience.
Source: Harvard University
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Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 Plus Introduced by Logitech
Logitech has officially announced the Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 Plus, the company’s latest soon to be released input device. The keyboard, which features a slim design along with rounded corners, comes with an integrated touchpad that makes it a breeze for users to access multimedia content on their PCs from the comfort of their couch. The touchpad on the device features adjustable cursor control and the K400 Plus offers shortcut buttons that provide easy access to volume controls and menu navigation. The Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 Plus also comes with pre-installed batteries that are capable of lasting up to 18 months.
Logitech plans to launch the Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 Plus in the United States sometime this month and globally in July, with the home entertainment device featuring an MSRP of $39.99.
Source: techPowerUp
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Assassin's Creed Syndicate Playtest Road Show Announced
Along with its plans to show off upcoming games at E3, Ubisoft has announced that it will be holding a playtest road show for Assassin's Creed Syndicate starting June 17. Those fans lucky enough to play the game will be able to provide feedback directly to the developers, and thus impact the final product when it ships later this year.
To be eligible for an invite, you must be at least 17 years old as of June 14 and send an email to playtestroadshow@ubisoft.com providing your name, age, and a summary of your Assassin's Creed experience no more than 100 words long. Participation is subject to availability and verification of eligibility, so just because you send the email does not mean you will be offered an invite. As the road show is being held in the Los Angeles area, you will also need to be able to get there for the appointed time, and transportation will not be provided by Ubisoft.
Source: Ubisoft
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Minecraft Used to Teach and Improve AI Algorithms
If you give a person a task, they will be able to quickly determine the best means of achieving the goal. Give a robot a task though, and it may take a long time for it to decide what to do, because it will evaluate every possibility available to it, even if it does not contribute to the goal. To reduce this problem, researchers at Brown University brought their AI into Minecraft, where the number of possibilities can be controlled.
The real world is filled with possibilities, and while humans can ignore those that are unnecessary for a given task, robots will consider them and suffer a state-space explosion. This is when the array of choices is so large the robot can struggle to work with the full array. The solution the Brown researchers have developed is to teach the robots goal-based action priors, which means that the robots know what is most likely needed to complete a task. To test this approach, the researchers brought the AI in Minecraft, because they could completely control the space and possibilities the AI would be working with. The AI agent was then allowed to learn how to achieve goals by trial and error, and as it learned the researchers increased the size of the space it was working in.
When tested in larger and unfamiliar Minecraft spaces, the researchers found their AI, with priors, was able to complete tasks faster than conventional planning algorithms. The researchers then brought the algorithm out of Minecraft and into a physical robot, to have it help with baking brownies. If you are interested in the mod the researchers made for Minecraft, you can find links to it in the source link. The researchers want others to be able to experiment with it, including other researchers and players. Perhaps one day it will be possible for the algorithm to operate on the whole of a Minecraft world.
Source: Brown University
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MSI Announces Motherboard Support for Fifth Generation Intel Core Processors
MSI has announced that its motherboards built using the Z97 and H97 chipsets offer full support for fifth generation Intel Core processors. A simple BIOS update gives owners of older motherboards the ability to use the next generation of Intel processors. MSI Click BIOS 4 features a "highly awarded" UEFI design resulting in a BIOS that is "reliable, easy to use, and able to unleash your system's performance."
Source: Press Release
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