News Posts matching #development

Return to Keyword Browsing

NVIDIA Introduces NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation GPU

Generative AI is driving change across industries—and to take advantage of its benefits, businesses must select the right hardware to power their workflows. The new NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation GPU delivers the latest AI, graphics and compute technology to compact workstations, offering up to 1.5x the performance of the previous-generation RTX A2000 12 GB in professional workflows. From crafting stunning 3D environments to streamlining complex design reviews to refining industrial designs, the card's capabilities pave the way for an AI-accelerated future, empowering professionals to achieve more without compromising on performance or capabilities. Modern multi-application workflows, such as AI-powered tools, multi-display setups and high-resolution content, put significant demands on GPU memory. With 16 GB of memory in the RTX 2000 Ada, professionals can tap the latest technologies and tools to work faster and better with their data.

Powered by NVIDIA RTX technology, the new GPU delivers impressive realism in graphics with NVIDIA DLSS, delivering ultra-high-quality, photorealistic ray-traced images more than 3x faster than before. In addition, the RTX 2000 Ada enables an immersive experience for enterprise virtual-reality workflows, such as for product design and engineering design reviews. With its blend of performance, versatility and AI capabilities, the RTX 2000 Ada helps professionals across industries achieve efficiencies. Architects and urban planners can use it to accelerate visualization workflows and structural analysis, enhancing design precision. Product designers and engineers using industrial PCs can iterate rapidly on product designs with fast, photorealistic rendering and AI-powered generative design. Content creators can edit high-resolution videos and images seamlessly, and use AI for realistic visual effects and content creation assistance. And in vital embedded applications and edge computing, the RTX 2000 Ada can power real-time data processing for medical devices, optimize manufacturing processes with predictive maintenance and enable AI-driven intelligence in retail environments.

Helldivers 2 Receives "Rapid" Post-launch PC Patch

The PC version of Helldivers 2 has shot up the Steam charts since yesterday's launch (also available on PlayStation 5)—according to tracking sites, peak player population sits at 151,927. Games industry watchdogs believe that this is Sony PlayStation's most successful launch title on PC platforms—24-hour peak telemetry has Helldivers 2 attracting 81,840 players versus God of War's 68,000 (January 14, 2022). An abundance of technical issues has prompted the submission of negative feedback—around 12,200 reviews have been left on the game's Steam Profile. Its current status is "Mostly Positive," but launch evening impressions were "Mixed" following 5300 review submissions. Eurogamer has summarized the problematic period: "Chief among criticisms are complaints about persistent crashes, while others have singled out server and matchmaking issues. Then there's ire directed towards PC optimization, and its kernel-level GameGuard anti-cheat software, which some feel is cause for concern, as well as complaints around Helldivers 2's monetization—which includes a battle pass and premium currency in-game shop, despite its £34.99/$39.99 price tag."

The development team at Arrowhead Game Studios implemented day-of-launch matchmaking fixes and addressed the most common crash problems. Helldivers 2 Game Director, Mikael Eriksson, stated that a patch was in the making: "If it's a success, we'll trigger a hotfix and get it out to the Steam community first, then roll it out to PS5 players as quickly as we can. Thank you—seriously—for your patience. We really want you all to have a blast playing this game. Bear with us, we're almost there." Arrowhead have followed up on their promise(s) today with another set of fixes pushed out to PC gamer population—Eriksson shared some good second day news: "We've uploaded a patch to Steam that should improve matchmaking for PC. The patch also includes some other crash fixes we've identified. We know there's more to solve, and we're working our way through it. Nevertheless, we hope this rapid patch goes a long way to making your experience better. Now go smash some bugs (and bots)!"

Hafnia Material Breakthrough Paves Way for Ferroelectric Computer Memory

Scientists and engineers have been experimenting with hafnium oxide over the past decade—many believe that this "elusive ferroelectric material" is best leveraged in next generation computing memory (due to its non-volatile properties), although this requires a major scientific breakthrough to get working in a practical manner. Hafnia's natural state is inherently non-ferroelectric, so it takes some effort to get it into a suitable state—a SciTechDaily article explores past efforts: "Scientists could only get hafnia to its metastable ferroelectric state when straining it as a thin, two-dimensional film of nanometer thickness." Research teams at the University of Rochester, New York and University of Tennessee, Knoxville have presented evidence of an exciting landmark development. Sobhit Singh, assistant professor at UoR's Department of Mechanical Engineering, believes that the joint effort has created a lane for the creation of bulk ferroelectric and antiferroelectric hafnia.

His "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" study proposes an alternative material path: "Hafnia is a very exciting material because of its practical applications in computer technology, especially for data storage. Currently, to store data we use magnetic forms of memory that are slow, require a lot of energy to operate, and are not very efficient. Ferroelectric forms of memory are robust, ultra-fast, cheaper to produce, and more energy-efficient." Professor Janice Musfeldt's team at the University of Tennessee have managed to produce a ferroelectric form of hafnia—through an experimental high pressure process, based on Singh's exact calculations. The material remained in a metastable phase post-experiment, even in a pressure-relieved state. Musfeldt commented on the pleasing results: "This is as an excellent example of experimental-theoretical collaboration." Memory manufacturers are likely keeping an eye on Hafnia's breakthrough potential, but material costs are dampening expectations—Tom's Hardware cites shortages (going back to early 2023): "Hafnium (the key component in Hafnia) has seen a nearly fivefold price increase due to increased demand since 2021, raising its cost from about $1,000 per kilogram to about $5,000. Even at $1000 a kilogram, though, hafnium is by far more expensive than silicon, which measures in the tens of dollars per kilogram."

Windows 11 DirectML Preview Supports Intel Core Ultra NPUs

Chad Pralle, Principle Technical Program Manager at Microsoft's Windows AI NPU division has introduced the DirectML 1.13.1 and ONNX Runtime 1.17 APIs—this appears to be a collaborative effort—Samsung was roped in to some degree, according to Microsoft's announcement and a recent Team Blue blog entry. Pralle and his team are suitably proud of this joint effort that involved open source models: "we are excited to announce developer preview support for NPU acceleration in DirectML, the machine learning platform API for Windows. This developer preview enables support for a subset of models on new Windows 11 devices with Intel Core Ultra processors with Intel AI boost."

Further on in Microsoft's introductory piece, Samsung Electronics is announced as a key launch partner—Hwang-Yoon Shim, VP and Head of New Computing H/W R&D Group stated that: "NPUs are emerging as a critical resource for broadly delivering efficient machine learning experiences to users, and Windows DirectML is one of the most efficient ways for Samsung's developers to make those experiences for Windows." Microsoft notes that NPU support in DirectML is still "a work in progress," but Pralle and his colleagues are eager to receive user feedback from the testing community. It is currently "only compatible with a subset of machine learning models, some models may not run at all or may have high latency or low accuracy." They hope to implement improvements in the near future. The release is limited to modern Team Blue hardware, so NPU-onboard AMD devices are excluded at this point in time, naturally.

Canada Partners With NVIDIA to Supercharge Computing Power

AI is reshaping industries, society and the "very fabric of innovation"—and Canada is poised to play a key role in this global transformation, said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang during a fireside chat with leaders from across Canada's thriving AI ecosystem. "Canada, as you know, even though you're so humble, you might not acknowledge it, is the epicenter of the invention of modern AI," Huang told an audience of more than 400 from academia, industry and government gathered Thursday in Toronto.

In a pivotal development, Canada's Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne shared Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Canada has signed a letter of intent with NVIDIA. Nations including Canada, France, India and Japan are discussing the importance of investing in "sovereign AI capabilities," Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Canada. Such efforts promise to enhance domestic computing capabilities, turbocharging local economies and unlocking local talent. "Their natural resource, data, should be refined and produced for their country. The recognition of sovereign AI capabilities is global," Huang told Bloomberg.

Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel Team Bolstered with Veterans from Ubisoft Massive & Playground Games

CD Projekt has been on a recruitment kick in the USA and Canada—"Project Orion"—AKA a sequel to 2020's Cyberpunk 2077—is in the early stages of development at the company's Boston studio (according to earlier reports). An official announcement—issued a few hours ago—outlines a series of new hirings destined for their New England and Vancouver, BC offices. Additionally, multiple members of the original Cyberpunk 2077 development team have moved from CD Projekt Red's principal Warsaw location to the East Coast NA operation—most notably game director Gabriel Amatangelo, associate director Paweł Sasko, and creative director Igor Sarzyński. The company's executive team confirmed (last month) that their Poland office(s) will preside over the embryonic "Project Polaris"—the next mainline entry in their Witcher franchise.

CD Projekt Red North America's hiring of Anna Megill's has received the most press coverage—she will become the Cyberpunk sequel's Lead Writer. The company press release documented her work history: "narrative contributions to such titles as Control (Remedy), Dishonored: Death of The Outsider (Arkane), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Ubisoft Massive), Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet), and the upcoming Fable (Playground Games)." The Executive Producer position will be filled by Dan Hernberg, previously Head of Production at Amazon Games and Panic Button, as well as Lead Product Manager at Blizzard Entertainment—his CV includes "contributions" to New World, Apex Legends, and Diablo III. Ryan Barnard has been hired as Design Director, his past credits include: "Game Director at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, as well as Gameplay Director at Hitman developer IO Interactive." Alexander Freed (a former BioWare lead writer) will be contributing additional plot content. Cyberpunk multiplayer elements have been teased by CD Projekt leadership, so it would make sense to have several MMO-experienced senior staffers onboard.

"Granblue Fantasy: Relink" Devs Go Behind-the-Scenes

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is out now on PC, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. PlayStation Blog sat down with the General Director, Tetsuya Fukuhara, and Director Yasuyuki Kaji from Cygames to discuss the efforts that went into this title. Granblue Fantasy takes place in the Sky Realm, a world where myriad islands float in a great blue expanse. Take your role as captain of a skyfaring crew, joined by a scrappy little dragon named Vyrn and a young girl with mysterious powers named Lyria. Together you sail with a colorful cast of crewmates, including kings and misfits alike, for Estalucia, a fabled island beyond the end of the skies.

PlayStation Blog: Tell us your feelings and thoughts about the launched title.
Tetsuya Fukuhara: Just like most team members, the reality hasn't sunk in yet for me. With the support of the company, we were able to focus on the development of the game, and the demo version received a more positive response than we had hoped for, so I feel all the effort we made to make this title as exciting as possible has paid off.

Logitech Conference Room Products Transition to Recycled Plastic & Next Life Materials

Logitech has announced that all video collaboration devices that run on the CollabOS operating system will now be manufactured with next-life plastics, helping enterprise customers support their sustainability objectives. Existing products- Rally Bar, Rally Bar Mini, Tap IP, Tap Scheduler, and Scribe- are being refreshed with materials that lower the carbon impact of each product. This provides organizations with a partner that in turn helps position them to better manage their carbon footprint. "By transitioning our portfolio of conference room devices to a lower product carbon footprint, we are helping other companies navigate their sustainability challenges," said Prakash Arunkundrum, Chief Operating Officer at Logitech. "We're not only designing and manufacturing new products with recycled plastic and other lower carbon materials, but refreshing existing products to provide IT leaders with a new way to evaluate their workplace technology investment in conference room systems—one that includes people and planet. We do this without increasing prices or compromising the highest quality and performance companies expect from Logitech."

"By transitioning our portfolio of conference room devices to a lower product carbon footprint, we are helping other companies navigate their sustainability challenges," said Prakash Arunkundrum, Chief Operating Officer at Logitech. "We're not only designing and manufacturing new products with recycled plastic and other lower carbon materials, but refreshing existing products to provide IT leaders with a new way to evaluate their workplace technology investment in conference room systems - one that includes people and planet. We do this without increasing prices or compromising the highest quality and performance companies expect from Logitech." Efforts to reduce negative environmental impact have rapidly become a business imperative. In a recent survey of IT professionals by analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, 65% say that becoming a leader in environmental, social, governance and sustainability practices is a critical or very important business objective in the coming year.

Qualcomm Appoints Akash Palkhiwala as CFO and COO

Qualcomm Incorporated has announced the appointment of Akash Palkhiwala to the expanded role of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. In addition to his CFO responsibilities, as COO, he will now have oversight for the global go-to-market organization and operations, and IT. Palkhiwala's appointment will be effective immediately and he will continue to report directly to Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. "I'm pleased to expand Akash's CFO role to include that of Chief Operating Officer as Qualcomm executes on its growth and diversification strategy," said Cristiano Amon, president and CEO of Qualcomm. "Akash has played a key role in the execution of our business strategy as Qualcomm has expanded into new end markets, and is ideally positioned to further align the company's operations to capture future growth opportunities. I am thrilled to congratulate Akash on this expanded role."

Palkhiwala has served as Chief Financial Officer since 2019. Previously, he was Senior Vice President and finance lead for QCT, Qualcomm's semiconductor business. Palkhiwala joined Qualcomm in 2001, and during this time has held several finance leadership roles including Treasurer, Financial Planning & Analysis, and Corporate Development. Palkhiwala holds an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from L.D. College of Engineering in India and an M.B.A from the University of Maryland.

Forza Motorsport's Fifth Update to Resolve CPU Spike Issues on PC

Hi everyone, in January we shared with you all a status update on 3 key areas of feedback from the Forza Motorsport community that our team is working to improve—Car Progression, Forza Race Regulations and Drivatar AI. For Car Progression, today we began collecting feedback from various sources on changes that will give players freedom to equip the parts they need regardless of car level. We have additional changes to the system in various states of design and testing with plans to implement these changes as soon as possible. For Forza Race Regulations, we have enabled Race Marshals and some content creators the ability to flag in-game incidents for review to help feed changes to the adjudication model that will improve the system. Lastly, we're testing out fixes to the Drivatar AI to alleviate competitors bunching up around Turn 1 and causing the first few AI opponents to reach insurmountable leads. Beyond those key changes, we're investigating other priority fixes for the AI that improve their overall driving behavior and reduce how aggressively they stick to the racing line. These are just a few examples of where we are prioritizing work in these areas, and we will be sharing more on each soon.

While we have 3 distinct teams here at Turn 10 working on these key improvements, we're also actively developing fixes and improvements to other areas of the game. These will begin rolling out alongside Update 5 in February and will include a Skip Practice option to the Career mode pre-race menu to make it more discoverable, and a save point after finishing a Practice session so you can complete the Featured Race later. We're also developing fixes and quality-of-life improvements to the Livery Editor based on the reports you've shared with us, including custom advanced zoom for applying decals, the ability to paint upgraded brake calipers, and a prompt to save your design when exiting the Livery Editor. While this update is in active development, we wanted to share an earlier-than-usual look at some of the changes we're targeting for this release.

NVIDIA Contributes $30 Million of Tech to NAIRR Pilot Program

In a major stride toward building a shared national research infrastructure, the U.S. National Science Foundation has launched the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource pilot program with significant support from NVIDIA. The initiative aims to broaden access to the tools needed to power responsible AI discovery and innovation. It was announced Wednesday in partnership with 10 other federal agencies as well as private-sector, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. "The breadth of partners that have come together for this pilot underscores the urgency of developing a National AI Research Resource for the future of AI in America," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "By investing in AI research through the NAIRR pilot, the United States unleashes discovery and impact and bolsters its global competitiveness."

NVIDIA's commitment of $30 million in technology contributions over two years is a key factor in enlarging the scale of the pilot, fueling the potential for broader achievements and accelerating the momentum toward full-scale implementation. "The NAIRR is a vision of a national research infrastructure that will provide access to computing, data, models and software to empower researchers and communities," said Katie Antypas, director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure at the NSF. "Our primary goals for the NAIRR pilot are to support fundamental AI research and domain-specific research applying AI, reach broader communities, particularly those currently unable to participate in the AI innovation ecosystem, and refine the design for the future full NAIRR," Antypas added.

Khronos Publishes Vulkan Roadmap 2024, Highlights Expanded 3D Features

Today, The Khronos Group, an open consortium of industry-leading companies creating advanced interoperability standards, announced the latest roadmap milestone for Vulkan, the cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API. The Vulkan roadmap targets the "immersive graphics" market, made up of mid- to high-end smartphones, tablets, laptops, consoles, and desktop devices. The Vulkan Roadmap 2024 milestone captures a set of capabilities that are expected to be supported in new products for that market, beginning in 2024. The roadmap specification provides a significant increase in functionality for the targeted devices and sets the evolutionary direction of the API, including both new hardware capabilities and improvements to the programming model for Vulkan developers.

Vulkan Roadmap 2024 is the second milestone release on the Vulkan Roadmap. Products that support it must be Vulkan 1.3 conformant and support the extensions and capabilities defined in both the 2022 and 2024 Roadmap specifications. Vulkan roadmap specifications use the Vulkan Profile mechanism to help developers build portable Vulkan applications; roadmap requirements are expressed in machine-readable JSON files, and tooling in the Vulkan SDK auto-generates code that makes it easy for developers to query for and enable profile support in their applications.

Enshrouded Early Access Available Now on PC

Awaken, Flameborn! Enshrouded is finally OUT and available in Early Access! The realm of Embervale has been engulfed by the Shroud a long time ago, and has ever since been waiting for a hero. Or up to 16 heroes. We started this project 4 years ago with the idea of an adventure and survival game set in a world split between light and darkness. A world that players could appropriate and make theirs, to build fortresses and homes, go on adventures, explore, and everything else in-between. We could never have expected the response and the level of enthusiasm we've seen from all of you! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Enshrouded is the most ambitious game we've ever made, set in the most expansive world we've ever created. We chose Early Access because we wanted to get the community's input to help us steer our vision of the game, and make Enshrouded the best game it can be.

Since the Steam Next Fest Demo, we've been hard at work adding more and more content, polishing the game, optimizing performance and fixing issues. Ensuring that everyone can play Enshrouded in the best conditions will be our main focus for the upcoming weeks, so if you have any problems or feedback, press F1 in-game and select the appropriate option. In its current state, Enshrouded should already offer you and your friends many, many hours of fun, and we hope that you stick around in the community to help us make reclaiming Embervale an experience you'll think about for years to come.

Taiwan's Academia Sinica In-House Developed 5-Qubit Superconducting Quantum Computer Becomes Accessible Online

With computation potential far beyond current supercomputers, quantum computers are the subject of enthusiastic research and development worldwide. In 2023, Academia Sinica successfully overcame various bottlenecks in the fabrication, control, and measurement of quantum chips. In October, the creation of a 5-qubit superconducting quantum computer developed in Taiwan marked a significant milestone. Starting this week, it will be made available online to project collaborators.

Dr. Chii Dong Chen, Distinguished Research Fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Physics and Research Center for Applied Sciences, noted that this project is part of the quantum technology special project funded by the National Science and Technology Council. Initially scheduled to build a 3-qubit quantum computer by February of 2024, Academia Sinica's research team surpassed the development schedule approved by the National Science and Technology Council and built a 5-qubit system by October of 2023. The fidelity of the quantum bit logic gates reached an impressive 99.9%.

Multiplayer Elements Considered for Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel

Reuters has conducted an interview with Adam Badowski and Michał Nowakowski—Joint Chief Executive Officers at CD Projekt. The news agency wanted to find out more about the current roster of projects in development across the Polish gaming group's globally-scattered studios. The Boston branch of CD Projekt Red has started work on a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel—codenamed "Orion"—as revealed by Igor Sarzyńsk (Narrative Director) earlier this month. The sequel's scope could grow beyond a single-player campaign—Nowakowski mentioned in the Reuters interview that multiplayer elements are under consideration by "Orion's" design team, but he declined to elaborate any further. CD Projekt Red downed tools on Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer aspect around launch time (December 2020), and instead focused on improving the game's core functionality. A "triple-A" multiplayer spin-off was teased a few years ago, but abandoned at some point in favor of a new "more systematic, agile approach."

Badowski stated that "Orion" is still in a conceptual phase of development, and its team is expected to grow over the course of 2024—he anticipates around eighty members of staff by the end of the year. The North American team appears to be on a recruitment drive, while the European "Orion" gang is not expected to expand as quickly. The priority for CD Projekt's Warsaw studio is "Polaris" AKA the next mainline Witcher title—Badowski elaborated on their hiring goals in Poland: "we'd like to have around 400 people working on the project by the middle of the year." The joint-CEOs want "Polaris" entering into a full production stage in 2024—industry analysts predict a 2026 or 2027 launch window. Reuters brought up the obligatory question about artificial intelligence's place in CDPR operations—Nowakowski responded with: "We think that AI is something that can help improve certain processes in game production, but not replace people." When grilled about lessons learned from launch day disasters, Badowski stated that his company's production pipelines have undergone a positive overhaul: "We believe that in the future we'll avoid a premiere like the one we faced with Cyberpunk 2077"

EdgeCortix Foresees Barrier Breaking Efficient Next-gen Edge AI Chips

EdgeCortix, the Japan-based fabless semiconductor company focused on energy-efficient AI processing, predicts that 2024 is set to be a watershed moment for Edge AI. Through its predictions for the year, EdgeCortix believes that Edge AI landscape will be transformed during this exciting year for the industry. Next-gen AI chips, hybrid edge-cloud architectures, software supremacy and the rise of new generative-AI applications "at the edge," will revolutionize the world of business as we know it.

1. Next-Gen efficient Edge AI Chips will break barriers:
Prepare for a hardware uprising! EdgeCortix foresees next-gen energy-efficient AI chips that not only break the barriers of processing power but redefine them. These chips are not just powerful; they are customized for multi-modal generative AI and efficient language models, enabling cutting-edge AI capabilities at low power for a whole new spectrum of applications.

Visions of Mana Launches Summer 2024

Visions of Mana is a game of many firsts. It's the first entirely new mainline Mana game for more than 15 years. It's the first game to offer such sprawling 3D worlds and freedom to explore them. And—perhaps most excitingly for the readers of this blog—it's the first Mana game to release on Xbox! Of course, that means that some of you may not be entirely familiar with this franchise. You may be wondering: What makes this one of the most beloved Square Enix series out there? Why did this announcement and trailer for Visions of Mana shown at The Game Awards 2023—and its surprise appearance in Developer_Direct—make people so giddy and excited. Let's start by introducing you to this brand new adventure.

What is Visions of Mana?
This sprawling new single-player action RPG puts you in the shoes of Val—a curious and carefree young man and skilled fighter. One eventful night, his childhood friend is chosen as an alm—someone who must travel to the Mana Tree and rejuvenate the flow of mana power. Val joins her as the Soul Guard to protect her on her journey, and an epic adventure begins. As Val, you'll explore vast areas, battle monsters, gain allies, and uncover the many secrets of this expansive world. And what a world it is! As you can see from the screenshots and trailer, it's a beautifully vibrant game with rich colors and expressive characters. The beauty is matched by equally appealing combat. Aerial combat allows for physical and magic attacks in mid-air, and the grand and mysterious powers of the Elemental spirits can assist players in the form of specialized weapons.. It's fast-paced, strategic, and endlessly satisfying.

"Senua's Saga: Hellblade II" Launches May 21, Digital-Only Release

Hello, Dom here, Studio Head at Ninja Theory. As I write this, we are now in the final few months of development on Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, preparing for our launch Day One on Xbox Game Pass and across Xbox Series X|S, Windows and Steam on May 21. It was a pleasure to give you all a deeper insight into Senua's next journey, our studio and our talented team in Developer Direct.

Since the release of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Ninja Theory has transitioned from being an independent team to one that sits within Xbox Game Studios. Although this has seen change for Ninja Theory, particularly in terms of the support now available to us for striving towards our ambitions, what has not changed is our passion and commitment to our studio mission - to craft life-changing art with game changing tech.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Features Explored

It's been almost 30 years since Lara Croft took her first snowy steps in the mountains of Peru. In about 30 days, console and PC players will get to re-experience Lara's first three globe-trotting adventures, with a fresh look and feel in Tomb Raider I-III Remastered on PlayStation 4|5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC. How did we get here? That story takes us to Austin, TX in 1998.

Aspyr & Lara go way back
A burgeoning video game company, Aspyr, launches Tomb Raider II on Macintosh computers. Aspyr continued with the Tomb Raider franchise until 2003, launching Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider III, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles, and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. We've always wanted to revisit these titles, but we always debated the right approach. For years, we worked through the right balance of preservation and modernization. And once we felt we nailed it, we got in touch with our friends at Crystal Dynamics.

Overwatch 2 Improvements Aim to Reduce Dependence on Teamwork

Hello everyone… and happy 2024!!! We're at the start of the new year, I thought it would be a great idea to talk about our view of 2024. This Director's Take will be one part of a series where we frame up the year according to a set of values we're using to develop the game. These values translate into goals and specific additions and changes to the game. There's a lot of different things coming up this year that I want to share, so think of this as the first in a series of topics to cover.

One of the biggest values of the team is to improve Overwatch's individual and team focused gameplay to meet the needs of our core audience. When I look at the future of Overwatch, a year or two out, I don't see the exact same game that we're playing now, but with a few more heroes and maps added to it. The game should always evolve with new systems and features that serve our players. Some of these features could live just outside of a match, such as a map voting system.

Naughty Dog Previews "The Last of Us Part II Remastered" Feature Set

The Last of Us Part II Remastered launches January 19, and we here at Naughty Dog are so thrilled to offer new and returning players the definitive way to experience Ellie and Abby's story. Coupled with new behind-the-scenes features and new modes, Part II Remastered is intended to let players dive deeper into the story and gameplay than they ever have before. Ahead of launch later this week, we're excited to showcase a new features trailer that digs a little further into all the ways The Last of Us Part II Remastered enhances the original release. Check it out below.

For returning players who have been waiting to jump into the remastered version the $10 upgrade will be available as Part II Remastered launches! If you're an existing digital or physical owner of The Last of Us Part II on the PlayStation 4 console, head on over to the PlayStation Store as soon as Part II Remastered is available to purchase the upgrade. If you own The Last of Us Part II via a disc, you must insert disc copies into your PS5 via a disc drive to download and play the digital version of The Last of Us Part II Remastered. You'll be able to import existing saves from the original PS4 game and pick up from where you left off. Existing Trophy progress will also migrate to The Last of Us Part II Remastered.

CD Projekt Red Teases Project "Orion" - Cyberpunk 2077's Sequel

CD Projekt Red released the final chunks of post-launch content for their blockbuster action role-player last autumn—Cyberpunk 2077 was handsomely padded-out with a significant Update 2.0 as well as the well received Phantom Liberty campaign expansion. Company leadership confirmed in October that CDPR development departments would be focusing on a full-blown sequel, rather than produce further DLC add-ons for the first entry in the series. Igor Sarzyńsk, the sequel's narrative director, announced earlier this week that he had arrived at CD Projekt Red's recently established office in Boston, Massachusetts. This new outfit appears to be separate from CD Projekt's other East Coast studio: The Molasses Flood.

Sarzyńsk's tweet establishes that CDPR's new-ish North American team is working on Cyberpunk 2077 Part Deux: "First day in the Boston office! So good to meet old friends and officially kickstart our Orion journey. I couldn't be more excited for this project and I'm sure we can make it something special. 2077 was just a warm-up 🔥." Gaming news outlets have focused a lot of attention on Sarzyńsk's (slightly premature) implication that the CP2077 sequel is going to be greater in scope. The original game had a troubled development cycle, so it will be interesting to see how a combination of studio veterans and new staff get a handle on the successor—especially with a switch over to Epic's Unreal Engine 5. Cyberpunk 2077 was the final game to utilize the company's proprietary REDengine.

Minecraft Legends Receives Final Post-Launch Content, Official Development Ends

Since launch, we—Mojang—have been working hard together with Blackbird Interactive to bring improvements and new features to Minecraft Legends based on your feedback. With Minecraft Legends, we took a completely new approach to gameplay, so much so that we had to make up a new genre for it (kind of): action strategy. Our community has always helped us shape our games and that's something we value greatly, especially when launching a completely new game. The latest title update brought the fearless frog, witches, clangers, air choppers and a host of enhancements to the game's mechanics, making the battles in Minecraft Legends even more intense. And, thanks to your input, we've made various tweaks to the gameplay and interface, from enhanced pathfinding to a more comprehensive Battle View UI.

A DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
Since launch, we've listened to community feedback and implemented a series of changes and tweaks to make the game better. With that complete, we're now going to take a step back from development. While we won't be releasing any new content (i.e. updates, Lost Legends, or Marketplace DLC) for Minecraft Legends, the fun doesn't stop here. We'll continue having a blast playing the game alongside our community because those rowdy piglins are showing no signs of slowing down. Plus, we're leaving you one last freebie: the Bright-Eyed Hero skin, which you can claim now on Minecraft Legends Marketplace. Illuminate your path forward and continue fighting the good fight!

Five Leading Semiconductor Industry Players Incorporate New Company, Quintauris, to Drive RISC-V Ecosystem Forward

Semiconductor industry players Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor ASA, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., have formally established Quintauris GmbH. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the company aims to advance the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development.

The formation of Quintauris was formally announced in August, with the aim to be a single source to enable compatible RISC-V-based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish solutions to be widely used across various industries. The initial application focus will be automotive, but with an eventual expansion to include mobile and IoT.

DNP Develops Photomask Process for 3nm EUV Lithography

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) has successfully developed a photomask manufacturing process capable of accommodating the 3-nanometer (10-9 meter) lithography process that supports Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography, the cutting-edge process for semiconductor manufacturing.

Background
DNP has continually responded to the demands of semiconductor manufacturers in terms of performance and quality. In 2016, we became the world's first merchant photomask manufacturer to introduce the multi-beam mask writing tool (MBMW). In 2020, we developed a photomask manufacturing process for 5 nm EUV lithography processes, and have been supplying masks that meet the needs of the semiconductor market. In this latest development, in order to meet the needs of further miniaturization, we have developed a photomask for EUV lithography capable of supporting 3 nm processes.
Return to Keyword Browsing
May 21st, 2024 17:11 EDT change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts