An anonymous European developer has confirmed that a major European studio is working on a VR title for the Xbox One upgrade currently expected in 2017. Microsoft is expected to announce the new console at E3 this year, and the new title will likely debut there as well. Microsoft intends to work with Oculus Rift to support VR rather than building its own in-house solution, to Ars Technica. At this stage in the game that’s probably wise; VR headsets historically take several years to develop and the new Xbox One (Xbox 1.5? Xbox Two? Xbone Xtreme?) will already be hitting markets behind PlayStation VR and the PlayStation 4K / 4.5 / Neo.
One of the consistent claims about the rumored PS4K upgrade is that Sony has absolutely mandated backwards compatibility. Developers are supposed to target both the PS4 and PlayStation 4K / PlayStation Neo, but they aren’t allowed to introduce features or capabilities on one platform that don’t work on the other. An anonymous developer has challenged that assertion, claiming that part of why Sony put the PS4K into production is because it couldn’t get VR to run at its target frame rates. “PSVR was going to be terrible on a [launch] PS4,” a source told Edge Magazine in an .
In the cutthroat world of streaming services, Netflix has often been perceived as the 800-pound gorilla in the room, even as the total amount of content available on the service continues to drop. Netflix has been investing huge amounts of money in creating its own shows, many of which have been critically acclaimed. But this hasn’t been a perfect effort — if you love Doctor Who, getting more episodes of Daredevil or Jessica Jones isn’t exactly a replacement, even if you’re a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its various television shows. Now the company has announced that starting in September, it won’t just be the premier destination for video content, it’s going to be only place to find material from certain companies.
Ever since Windows Vista launched in 2007, the minimum hardware requirements for Windows have remained mostly unchanged (Windows 7 slightly increased the required storage footprint from 15GB of HDD space to 16GB). Now, Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, which drops in roughly two months, will make three significant change for the first time in seven years. RAM requirements, which have been 1GB for 32-bit installations of the OS and 2GB for 64-bit installations, will now be 2GB across both platforms. The improved memory won’t really impact anyone but system builders, and the overwhelming majority of systems currently ship with more than 2GB of memory anyway.
Gartner has released its quarterly report on global smartphone sales for Q1 2016 and the data isn’t particularly great for any of the major North American players. Apple, Microsoft, and BlackBerry all saw their market share decline compared with the same period last year, but the news is particularly bad for the latter two companies. Apple and Samsung continue to hold the top two spots in the overall phone market, with 14.8% and 23.2% of the market respectively, but both companies were off compared with 2015 — Apple’s market share fell 3.1 percentage points, while Samsung’s dropped 0.9 percent points.
The first consumer VR headsets are just starting to ship, but is an important call for early adopters. Both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift cost $600 and there’s already some exclusive software. Oculus recently added a “platform integrity check” to make sure its exclusive games could only be played on Oculus hardware, but it may have inadvertently made piracy infinitely easier. Oculus released its new VR on Friday, and it was cracked wide open just a day later. This is thanks to a popular user-created software package called Revive. Its goal is to make games from the Oculus store function on the HTC Vive.
Multi-monitor desktops are popular with both professional computer users and enthusiast gamers who want a more immersive widescreen experience, but setting up these systems can be somewhat difficult. It’s generally recommended that you use three of the same display to minimize issues related to mixing and matching different resolutions, as well as to avoid differences in color gamut and calibration from changing how work appears from one monitor to the other. Dell’s newest P4317Q (also known as the Dell 43 Multi-Client Monitor) is designed to alleviate these problems. While the display can run as a single monitor at 3840×2160, its real strength is as a bezel-less option to display up to four separate desktops, each at 1080p.
Linux and Sony used to be on good terms, if not the best of friends. Back in the early days of the PS3, Sony actively talked up its support for “Other OS,” and encouraged programmers to think about Cell as a potential competitor in HPC environments and as part of supercomputer clusters. Once hackers found ways to use Other OS in ways Sony didn’t anticipate, however, the company patched the functionality out of the PS3 altogether. When the PS4 launched, there was no noise about any sort of Other OS compatibility — the system would play games, pure and simple.
For all its scientific faults, The Martian did bring awareness to the very real problems associated with food in space, and on alien worlds. Matt Damon may have gotten potatoes growing in Martian soil, but real engineers and xeno-botanists (yes, there are real ones of those) know that the problems begin much earlier than that. Food is heavy, it’s perishable, and it has the annoying habit of killing people if you don’t make and store it correctly. It takes up a lot of room, needs to be kept at a controlled temperature, requires preparation — it’s a big hassle, and doubly so for long-haul trips of several years or more.
