EA has treated us to a couple impressive teasers of Star Wars: Battlefront's infantry gameplay on Endor and Hoth so far, but the latest glance at the game's fighter squadron battle mode may be the most hair-raising yet....Read more...
Our annual reader event is rapidly approaching. TR BBQ XII is happening on August 15 in Holland, Michigan, and if at all possible, you should find a way to be there.We generally have an amazing barbecued lunch, a cornhole tournament, a hardware swap-meet, a micro-brew tasting, and more tech conversation than ...Read more...
Get in your space suits, gentlemen. Elite: Dangerous is about to get its first paid gameplay expansion, titled Horizons. Developer Frontier calls it a "season of major gameplay expansions," the first of which adds planetary landings to the game's universe. Take a look at the teaser here:...Read more...
When it comes to monitor color these days, most of the world runs on the sRGB gamut, which is the expected range of colors for most monitors, the Web, and consumer printing. Creative professionals might prefer to begin their workflow with a broader range of colors, though, and that's where the wider Adobe RGB gamut comes in. Philips' Brilliance 27" display with "PerfectKolor" (272P for short) can reproduce 99% of the Adobe RGB gamut, as well as 100% of sRGB. ...Read more...
This evening's edition of The TR Podcast live stream will be a juicy one. Skylake is here. In the wake of our epic review, we have CPU expert and all-around good guy David Kanter of Real World Tech lined up to discuss Intel's new CPU architecture. Heck, we've cleared the boards to spend the entire time with David.We'll begin at 9:30 PM ET/6:30 PM PT on the TR Twitch channel , and we'll be taking questions from the chat. We'll also answer questions from ...Read more...
The Windows 10 upgrade may be free, but it removes Windows Media Center from PCs with the add-on installed. Users with Windows Media Center enjoyed DVD playback without the need for third-party software before Microsoft killed it off. As a result, Windows 10 can't play DVDs out of the box, but Microsoft's $15 Windows DVD Player app puts that feature back. ...Read more...
Times are tough for HTC. The Taiwanese phone maker has announced (PDF) its Q2 2015 financial results with a loss of NT$5.1 billion ($157 million) on revenues of NT$33 billion ($1.04 billion).This drop is a considerable one from the year-ago quarter (PDF), in which the company posted a profit of NT$2.3 billion ($87 million) on NT$65.1 billion ($2.12 billion) in revenues. HTC cites weak demand at the high end of the Android phone market and slow sales in China as the main contributors. The ...Read more...
Seems every company is doing the rainbow-lit peripheral thing these days, and Razer is no exception. The company has announced updates to two of its gaming keyboards, the Darkstalker Chroma keyboard and the Orbweaver Chroma auxiliary keypad. ...Read more...
Crytek recently added Oculus Rift support to Cryengine 3, and now the developer is working with Basemark to create a VR headset benchmark. The two companies say the joint effort will give users "recognizable, real-world metrics to describe their system’s VR readiness" with multiple head-mounted displays.The Cryengine-based benchmark will purportedly provide detailed feedback on measurements like frame rates, latency, and 3D audio fidelity—positional audio is important for an immersive VR experience. Basemark founder and CEO Tero Sarkkinen says using Cryengine ...Read more...
Last week's revelation of the Stagefright Android vulnerability has security-conscious Android users on edge. Fortunately, it looks like Android device makers aren't asleep at the wheel. Google and Samsung have both promised to make security a priority on their phones.Google's Android blog has the low-down on the new update policy for its Nexus products. Nexus devices with numbers in the name will start receiving a Stagefright-related security update today. Additionally, Google says that starting with ...Read more...
Diligent gerbils may have noticed a lack of storage reviews around here recently, but we're happy to announce that the drought will soon be over. No, Geoff is not back, sadly. But someone has been armed with his testing procedures, spreadsheets, and macros—and he's feeling pretty dangerous.I'm that someone. Hi! My name is Tony Thomas, and I'll be working on storage reviews for TR from here on out. I've been an avid TR reader for several years now, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to join the team. It takes ...Read more...
2015 is apparently the year of Linux on the desktop RGB lights in peripherals. In keeping with that trend, Corsair is showing off some funky-looking new headsets, some of which have RGB LEDs inside. That's supposed to make for "sound that you can see." ...Read more...
TR favorite franchise Mirror's Edge is getting a reboot in the form of the in-development Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. EA has released a new gameplay trailer that shows five minutes of what a mission might look like in the completed game, and it's not helping my impatience for this title....Read more...
Corsair continues to add products to its lineup of fancy peripherals, and its latest offering is the Scimitar RGB mouse. This particular species of yellow-and-black rodent is targeted at right-handed MMO and MOBA players, and it's got a thumb panel with—count' em—12 buttons. ...Read more...
ASRock has pulled back the curtain on its family of Z170 motherboards, and it's betting on USB 3.1 ports, M.2 connectivity and quality audio in the higher-end models as key features. As an added touch, nearly all of ASRock's Z170 models have USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports in their rear I/O clusters. The "+" models also include 5.25" front-panel bays with another set of ports. ...Read more...
EVGA isn't sitting out on the Skylake motherboard party today. The company has three motherboards ready for builds with Intel's new enthusiast CPUs. ...Read more...
Skylake is here, and Gigabyte has a raft of Z170 motherboards to go with Intel's sixth-generation Core CPUs. The G1 Gaming, Super Overclocking, and Ultra Durable-series boards are targeted at three distinct classes of system builder. Let's discuss each model line's particular appeal. ...Read more...
Skylake is here, and Asus has unleashed a torrent of motherboards for Intel's new processor family. The company's Z170-based boards all feature enhanced fan speed controls, which Asus claims to be the very best from any motherboard vendor.The new fan controls include support for up to eight fans, including those connected to the company's optional Fan Extension Card. That add-on card connects to a PWM fan header, and it can ...Read more...
MSI has taken the wraps off of its Z170 Gaming line of motherboards. While we already knew bits and pieces about them, the floodgates have now opened, and we have information on thirteen different boards across three different families. ...Read more...
Back at E3, Microsoft teased some big interface changes for the Xbox One, with a focus on speed. At Microsoft's Gamescom presentation, the ccompany announced it will bring the redesigned interface to the system in November. If it's anything like the E3 preview, Xbone owners everywhere (your author included) will rejoice....Read more...
Asus's latest gaming mouse, the ROG GX860 Buzzard, lets gamers channel its namesake's prey instinct while fragging. Or something. Asus touts the Buzzard's comfort and durability as reasons to choose it for your aviary. ...Read more...
Epson is taking an axe to the inkjet cartridge business model with the release of its new EcoTank desktop inkjet printers. As the name implies, these new models feature owner-refillable ink tanks, which are claimed to last as long as dozens of disposable cartridge sets. ...Read more...
Get out your 3D glasses, everybody. SanDisk and Toshiba's latest NAND chips cram 32GB (256Gb) of the companies' BiCS flash memory into 48 layers of TLC storage per die. It wasn't that long ago that we saw 16GB (128Gb) MLC BiCS flash chips from Toshiba, but these TLC chips represent a significant increase in density. ...Read more...
Creative has pulled the wraps on its new Sound BlasterX line of products. Most interesting among them is its new USB sound card, the aptly-named Sound BlasterX G5. ...Read more...
A zero-day vulnerability in OS X Yosemite has been exploited in the wild, and it's a doozy. According to Malwarebytes, a script that exploits the vulnerability can give a user root privileges without the need for a password prompt, which then allows malware running under that user's account to do untold harm to a vulnerable Mac.OS X (as well as other *nix operating systems) maintains a list of users who can access root privileges, called sudoers. The script in question uses the vulnerability, called DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE, to modify the sudoers file to grant those ...Read more...
With Windows 10's launch, all three major PC graphics companies (that's Intel, Nvidia, and AMD) released updated drivers for the new operating system. Both Ars Technica and Maximum PC have taken the new drivers for a spin and have reached the same conclusion: gaming performance in Win10 is largely the same as its predecessors.Ars Technica found that video cards from both AMD and Nvidia performed similarly to how they performed in Windows 8.1. Their tests used a Core i7-5930K with a Radeon R9 290X, R9 295X, and GeForce 980Ti. They tested ...Read more...
Ever since the dawn of video gaming, video game tournaments have helped to determine who's the best around. A tournament the size of The International Dota 2 Championships is a rare sight to behold, however. Twenty teams from all over the world are competing for $18 million this week in Seattle's Key Arena.You can watch the whole thing on the Dota 2 website , Twitch , or ESPN 3 . Let's all take a moment to marvel at ESPN putting even a tiny amount of weight behind a PC game tournament. You can even go ...Read more...
CCP Games has a new VR shooter in the works, dubbed EVE: Gunjack. Not to be confused with CCP's previously-announced EVE: Valkyrie, Gunjack is built for the new version of Samsung's Gear VR for the Galaxy S6. The game is reminescent of old-school rail shooters—except for the full-scale immersion. Check out the release trailer:...Read more...
Microsoft is rolling out its free Windows 10 upgrade in phases, which means that some of those who are signed up to receive the new OS have to wait (your author included). It's only human nature that waiting breeds impatience, and some diabolically clever malware makers are taking advantage of the situation. According to a new threat analysis by Cisco, a new crop of scam emails masquerading as a Windows 10 upgrade notification is making the rounds, with an attached "Windows 10 installer" zip file that's actually a variant of the CTB-Locker cryptographic ransomware.As is usually the case with these types of scams, the email itself contains a variety of malformed characters, questionable grammar, and amateurish-looking assurances that the message has passed a threat scan. If the user ignores ...Read more...
AMD revealed plans to release an APU for servers during its Financial Analyst Day presentation back in May, and we now have a better picture of what that processor might look like. AMD has released a journal article about the product called "Achieving Exascale Capabilities through Heterogeneous Computing" in IEEE Micro, and according to Italian site Bits and Chips, this new chip is called the "Exascale Heterogenous Processor," or EHP for short. ...Read more...
It doesn't seem like too long ago that Nokia went all-in with Windows Phone and differentiated itself with its Here map service. Since then, not only has the company sold its Devices and Services divion to Microsoft (which Redmond later restructured), but now the former mobile phone giant has also sold off the Here service . A consortium of automakers including Audi, BMW, and Daimler has purchased the unit for €2.8 billion ($3.06 billion).Here president Sean Fernback believes the acquisition is good news for the group's customers and employees. Fernback said the change in ownership "will allow us to accelerate our strategy, further scale our business and ...Read more...
If you're a game developer, you can't say you're not spoiled for choice these days. Autodesk has joined the gaming engine fray with Stingray. The company touts multiplatform support and close integration with its 3D graphics packages as key features for its new engine.Stingray was previously announced at the 2015 Game Developers Conference. It's technically not an original product—it was originally christened Bitsquid, the makers of which Autodesk acquired ...Read more...
What if the Cold War had turned into a white-hot nuclear war? Eugen Systems will try to answer that question with its upcoming real-time strategy game, Act of Aggression, upon its September 2 release. The latest trailer shows off the most advanced weapons in the game:...Read more...
Mozilla CEO Chris Beard has written an angry open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella regarding a change to Windows 10's default application settings. Apparently, if you aren't careful when you upgrade to Windows 10, the upgrade process will change the default browser to Edge without asking.In his letter, Beard calls on Microsoft to revert those changes to the upgrade process. Beard says these changes "throw away the choice [Microsoft's] customers have made about the ...Read more...
It's Friday once again, TR readers, and that means it's time for us to pan for gold in the rushing river of online deals. We only got a couple of good ones this week, but man, the first one is a doozy.That's it for this week. If you found a deal elsewhere that ...Read more...
The Wall Street Journal has a report on a new version of Google's Glass eyewear, which is apparently targeted exclusively at businesses. According to "people familiar with the situation," Google is pitching the new version at several industries, including health care, manufacturing, and energy.The new version is described as a clip-on model that can be attached to wearers' own glasses. The insiders also told the WSJ that the new prism can now be vertically adjusted as well ...Read more...
As we found out when we got together and recorded our latest podcast last night, Scott is the only member of the TR staff that's using Windows 10 so far, but at least he's not alone. Microsoft says 14 million people have upgraded to Windows 10 in the new operating system's first 24 hours of general release. Despite scattered reports that something tends to happen when upgrading, the company claims that reviews and consumer feedback have been "overwhelmingly positive" so far.That 14-million figure seems likely to grow manyfold over the coming weeks, as Microsoft continues the phased rollout process for Windows customers who took the company up ...Read more...
Some Nvidia Shield Tablets built between July 2014 and July 2015 could pose a fire risk. The batteries in the affected tablets can apparently overheat to dangerous levels. As a result, the company has issued a recall notice. The recall applies only to tablets that show a battery model of Y01 on the About Tablet screen in the Settings application.If you own a Shield Tablet, Nvidia recommends that you make sure it's running the latest software update. The company will send a notification to affected Shield Tablets which includes the tablet's serial number and instructions for filling out the recall form. Once owners receive a ...Read more...
EVGA has announced its X99 Micro 2 motherboard, which looks to be aimed at enthusiasts who want to stuff a whole lot of CPU power into a microATX chassis. The X99 Micro 2 includes an onboard CPU temperature display, six-phase digital VRMs, and EVGA's E-LEET X tuning software package. Its four DDR4 DIMM slots can hold up to 64GB of memory. ...Read more...
Come join us for the live recording of the latest episode of The Tech Report Podcast on Twitch. We'll be discussing a boatload of new phones, Windows 10, Intel and Micron's 3D XPoint memory, and whatever listener questions our viewers throw at us. Come join in:...Read more...
Most modern motherboards support firmware write protection to prevent unwanted BIOS flashes, but a vulnerability in many UEFI firmware implementations could accidentally disable such protection. A new warning posted by Carnegie Mellon University's CERT says that when many x86-based systems wake from sleep, they fail to enable that write protection .The security hole opens when an affected system goes to sleep and then wakes up. Many Intel-based x86 systems use a specific flag stored in a BIOS register that controls write protection. When the bit is turned on, the BIOS is write-protected—but that bit is turned off by default. Every time a PC resets, this register is also reset to the ...Read more...
Do you regularly fire up TechPowerUp's GPU-Z to check your graphics card specs and status? Just upgraded to Windows 10? You'll want to download the latest GPU-Z, version 0.8.5, which adds Windows 10 support and a number of other useful features. ...Read more...
In a bold move, Microsoft is paving the way to the future of PC gaming with its expanded Solitaire suite. What's that mean? You have to pay a monthly fee to disable ads. That's right: the three Solitaire games Microsoft has bundled with Windows for years aren't just paid apps now. They're part of a subscription-based service. In fact, after I played a hand to get a feel for the ads, I unlocked an achievement called, "The first one's free." That's great, you guys. ...Read more...
We've been covering a report from search provider Algolia pointing out a potential issue in Samsung SSDs' TRIM implementation. More recently, Samsung itself reported that the bug actually resides in the Linux kernel, and that the company had submitted a patch for the problem.Now, we have more details of the bug. Samsung has provided us with internal documents detailing the exact cause of the issue, and the subsequent solution. We're geting a bit technical here, ...Read more...
We'll be recording the next episode of The Tech Report Podcast live tonight at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET on our Twitch channel. We'll take reader questions, dicuss the week's biggest news, and chat about our most recent reviews. Kick back and tune in if you're able. Here's the video version of our last episode:...Read more...
Samsung Electronics has released its Q2 2015 financial report. Sales were down approximately 8% from the year-ago quarter, totalling 48.54 trillion Korean won ($41.3 billion). Operating profit was down 5% compared to Q2 2015, at 6.90 trillion KRW ($5.8 billion) for the quarter.Samsung's smartphone sales declined, with the IT & Mobile division's sales down 10% to 26.06 trillion KRW ($22 billion), contributing 2.76 trillion KRW ($2.2 billion) in profit. The profits represent a drop of more than 37% from a year ago. Q2 sales and profits were down for the second straight year. Q2 smartphone sales were down from the previous quarter, as well, and Samsung blames lower sales of ...Read more...
Do we officially live in a post-tablet world yet? IDC reports that tablet sales worldwide declined for the third straight quarter, continuing a trend that started at the end of 2014. In the second quarter of 2015, IDC estimated global tablet sales at 44.7 million units, down 7% from 48 million from the same period last year.IDC research director for tablets Jean Philippe Bouchard blames several factors. "Longer life cycles, increased competition from other categories such as larger smartphones, combined with the fact that end users can install the latest operating systems on ...Read more...
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