Heroes have always been a crucial part of players' journey in Magerealm. Compared to fighting alone, having Heroes and Angels in your team greatly boosts Battle Ratings
Retro Assault, a upcoming top-down Sci-Fi Action Shooter from Big Shiny Games will be launching in North America on Android and iOS platforms this summer.
This year is strangely really low on big names. We do have Black Desert and Bless Looming. Then you also have Blade and Soul rounding out and picking up speed.
Cabal 2 is a new MMORPG that has been hyped up quite a bit by both media and players alike. With the game now out, it was time to put it to the test and see what it's really like. And this is my journey.
Today we bring you our First Look video of Dream of Mirror Online‘s open beta, a MMORPG originally released in 2005 and which now is about to be relaunched by Suba Games. The game transports us to a fantasy Chinese mythology inspired world where we are the heroes chosen to stop the evil forces from the fractured mirror world. […]
We took some time to give an extensive look at Nords: Heroes of the North from Plarium, a Facebook and browser based RPG from makers of Total Domination, Stormfall: Age of War, Soldier's Inc and a variety of other similar RPG strategy MMOs. Spending a few hours checking out the game we will admit it […]
Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata died of cancer on Saturday. The company provided a specific reason on Monday (pdf), saying that his passing was the result of a bile duct growth. Satoru Iwata was 55 years old.
Nintendo's announcement did not provide any clues as to who will replace Iwata. However, Reuters reports that Genyo Takeda will lead the committee that will handle Iwata's funeral, which, according to the report, indicates that Takeda will take a "leadership role" in the company.
"I am surprised at this sudden news and overcome with sadness," said Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto. "The entire development team at Nintendo will remain committed to our development policy which Mr. Iwata and we have been constructing together and to yield the development results which Mr. Iwata would appreciate."
The death of Iwata arrives as the company enters new territory: mobile. Iwata fought long and hard against the move despite what the investors wanted until just recently. The company made a deal with mobile developer DeNA to create mobile apps for iOS and Android based on popular Nintendo properties.
That said, Nintendo will need to choose a CEO and President that will carry out the company's mobile endeavors. Nintendo believes this deal with DeNA will double its annual operating profit in the year ending March 2016.
Iwata joined Nintendo back in 2000. At the age of 42, he became president of the company in 2002, succeeding Hirosha Yamauchi and becoming the first president that wasn't related to the Yamauchi family. He also served as Nintendo of America's CEO starting in 2013.
Iwata was a hands-on executive, speaking directly to the company's customers. That included the Nintendo Direct series, which launched in 2011, and his "Iwata Asks" section on Nintendo's Wii website. He was essentially the voice of Nintendo for many, many gamers throughout the years.
To honor Iwata, Nintendo of America is taking a day of silence across all social media outlets. At Nintendo's headquarters, the flags have been lowered at half-mast. Even the PlayStation Twitter account thanks Iwata for everything he has done.
"There are CEOs who make a difference to the lives of the people - Satoru Iwata was one of the few who did," tweeted Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan.
Thank you for everything, Mr. Iwata. You will be missed.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer hit the Internet browser scene back in August 1995 as part of the Windows 95 "Plus" pack. The browser mainly competed with Netscape and took the top spot in the browser wars thanks to Microsoft making Internet Explorer a native, pre-installed program. Now the browser is in its 11th version and is being pushed aside by a leaner, faster browser developed not by Microsoft's rivals, but Microsoft itself. This new kid in town is called Microsoft Edge.
So why call Microsoft's new browser Edge? "[The name means] the edge of consuming and creating, being closer to the modern capabilities of the Web," said VP of Operating Systems Group Joe Belfiore during BUILD 2015. "This is for note-taking, reading, and consuming content. Developers will care about the blazing fast speed and that it is a universal app."
The Edge browser is minimal in appearance at best, providing the navigational buttons on the left of the address bar and the settings, sharing and other tools located on the right… just like Internet Explorer 11. However, the icons are larger than what's provided in the older browser, and unlike Internet Explorer 11, there are no toolbars of any sort by default. Thus the user can focus on the contents in the window and not the icons lining the top half of the browser.
One of the coolest features in Microsoft Edge is the Reading View aspect. In the top of the browser it's depicted as an open book, and when tapped, will get rid of everything on the page save for the image header and the text body. As an example, Maximum PC articles include the site's toolbar, advertisement and images leading to other articles on the site. All of this is gone in Reading View, leaving what could be mistaken as a clean PDF. Click the open book icon again and all ads and toolbars return.
Another cool feature is Make a Web Note, shown above. The icon appears as a pen on paper and when clicked will load up a purple toolbar for making edits directly in the Edge window. There are five editing capabilities offered on the left side: Pen, Highlighter, Eraser, Add as Typed Note and Clip. On the far right are links to save the edits, to share and to exit out of editing mode. Additionally, the Pen aspect allows the user to choose between twelve different colors and three pen sizes.
So why do we need an editing tool in a browser? The Web Note feature seems ideal for website administrators to point out mistakes or to illustrate potential design changes. Perhaps a few friends are making plans to travel and want to write about possible destinations. Maybe a teacher could highlight important notes for students. Whatever the case, these changes can be saved to the hard drive and shared to OneNote.
In addition to the Make a Web Note feature, Microsoft Edge provides a Hub that can be accessed by clicking on the three-lined icon between Favorites and Make a Web Note. This area is broken down into four parts: the user's Favorites, the Reading List, the browser's History and the Download link. Here the company seems set out to change the way people use bookmarks.
For instance, suppose you're visiting Maximum PC and want to save a specific article to read later. This is done by clicking on the Favorites' "star" icon and choosing the Reading List icon in the pop-up window. This page then ends up on the Reading List inside the Hub. Just want to add the site as a favorite? Click on the star icon, choose the name, the save location and then access it on the Favorites panel inside the Hub.
So what's the difference? Good question. Maybe the user doesn't want to make a specific website a "favorite" but wants to read one of its articles later. Visually their presentation within the Hub is a little different: the link in the Favorites panel is smaller than the one shown on the reading list. What's disappointing is that both options don't seem to have the capability to be shared with social networks and friends, but only to OneNote.
Finally we have the "More actions" panel that can be opened by clicking on the three dot icon. Here Microsoft Edge users can open a new window, open a new InPrivate window, zoom in or out, find a specific word on the current page, print, pin to Start, open the page with Internet Explorer 11 and send feedback. This is also where the users will find the Settings menu.
Under the Settings menu, users can choose a theme for Edge: either Light or Dark as of this article. Here users can also turn on the Favorites bar (it's off by default), open the browser with a specific page and open a new tab with either the user's top sites, top sites with suggested content or a blank page. There are also options to clear the browsing data, change the Reading view style and the Reading view font style. At the bottom is a link to the Advanced Options and the browser's current version number.
Microsoft Edge users jumping into the Advanced Options will find a number of switches that can be toggled on and off. These include showing the Home button, blocking pop-ups, using Adobe Flash Player and allowing caret browsing. "Caret browsing lets you select text using the keyboard," the browser states. "F7 turns on caret browsing for the current tab."
In the Privacy and services section, users can switch on saving passwords, saving form entries, sending Do Not Track requests, turning on Cortana's assistance within the browser and choosing what search engine will be used in the address bar (naturally Bing is the default search engine). There's also an option for not blocking cookies, allowing sites to leave protective media licenses on the device, using page prediction and malware protection.
What's great about Microsoft Edge is that it's connected to Windows 10's virtual assistant, Cortana. For example, highlight a link or word, right-click and then choose Ask Cortana. For instance, suppose you're ready for a vacation and a web page contains the word Disney. Instead of hitting the address bar to load up the official site, Cortana will bring up links like Disney's official webpage, the Disney Store, Disney's Cruise Line website and more in a panel attached to the right of the browser window.
In addition to Cortana integration, what's also great about Microsoft Edge is that users can load up Internet Explorer 11 when needed. The older browser lurks behind the Windows 10 scene and waits for the user to come across a web page that needs Internet Explorer 11's touch. Microsoft says it's great for enterprise web apps.
"Large organizations are likely to have a broad portfolio of web-based apps, and Internet Explorer 11 offers the security, performance, backward compatibility, and modern standards support that complex web app portfolios need," Microsoft states. "This is why we will continue to make it easy for enterprise customers to make Internet Explorer 11 their default browser through Group Policy."
Microsoft has stated in the past that Edge is built from the ground up for the modern Internet, meaning it has a whole different rendering engine and is more secure. The company says that Edge was developed to "defend users from increasingly sophisticated and prevalent attacks." The company talks about the browser's security aspect here, which includes web security threats, defending against malicious web sites and downloads and more.
As of this article, which was written on Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10159, Internet Explorer 11 is not listed as an installed app, making Microsoft Edge the main focus for browsing the Internet. The only way to access Internet Explorer 11, it seems, is through Microsoft Edge or asking Cortana to load it up.
All in all, Microsoft Edge is a great browser. Since it seems to be an exclusive feature in Windows 10, how Mozilla and Google plan to compete with Microsoft on the new operating system should prove to be quite interesting. The browser wars will definitely begin to heat up on July 29.
No fancy rhetoric is needed here, just an awesome deal on a lot of fast storage. Straight to the point, if you've been looking for a high performance solid state drive with lots of capacity and a relatively friendly price tag, then check out today's top deal for an OCZ Trion 100 Series 960GB SSD for $300 with free shipping (normally $360). That works out to just over 31 cents per gigabyte. As we pointed out before, the 960GB model in the Trion 100 series is the best performing of the bunch with sequential read and writes of up to 500MB/s and 530MB/s, respectively, along with random 4K read performance of 90,000 IOPS and random 4K write performance of 64,000 IOPS.
Comcast has gone and doubled the speed of Google Fiber and AT&T GigaPower, both of which top out at 1Gbps. However, hopping on Comcast's 2Gbps connection comes at a hefty cost -- try $299.95 per month, though that's only the beginning.
You're also on the hook for a $500 installation fee, plus another $500 to activate the multi-gig service. Tack on to that "equipment, taxes and fees, and other applicable charges" and you're looking at more than $1,300 just to get started.
Once you've swallowed that pill, consider that a minimum two-year service agreement is required, and yes, early termination fees apply. How much? Comcast doesn't say, though if going by the company's 505Mbps service, expect it to exceed $1,000.
While looking over the fine print, be sure to take note of the part that says "actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed," another otherwise standard piece of fine print that makes rolling the dice on such a pricey proposition an even bigger gamble.
If you agree to all that AND live in an area where Comcast's Gigabit Pro is available, get comfy because installation "may require 6 to 8 weeks or more to complete," the company says.
On the plus side, this is a symmetrical service, meaning up to 2Gbps uploads and downloads, and according to DSL Reports, Comcast plans to offer a $159 per month early promotional rate for users who ink a two-year commitment.
By comparison, Google Fiber pricing for 1Gbps service runs $70 per month for straight up Internet access. There's a $300 construction fee, though it's waived if you commit to a year of service. Alternately, there's a $130/month tier that includes 1Gbps Internet and TV service with over 150 channels, also with the option of waiving the $300 construction fee.
Comcast is currently offering its Gigabit Pro service in select parts of Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, and California.
It's been a tough stretch for PC gamers lately. First Warner Bros. decided to pull Batman: Arkham Knight from Steam after numerous reports of performance issues, then Square Enix followed suit by yanking the Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn from store shelves due to "various problems." Now there are reports of performance issues in Grand Theft Auto V after applying the latest PC patch, Title Update 1.28.
It's not entirely clear what's going on, though initial evidence points some anti-modding and anti-hacking mechanisms Rockstar Games applied via patch 1.28. The creators of the LCPDFR mod for GTA V posted an potential explanation on Facebook describing the technical details.
"In the latest update for GTA V, Ill Gotten Gains Part 2, Rockstar Games strengthened their protections against modding introduced in the first update. Included in this was a whopping 3 MB of junk code designed to confuse modders," the post explained. "Instead of the native functions of the game being accessible directly - we now have to jump through 4 or 5 hoops each time, as the game also implements live decryption and obfuscation methods. This severely impacts performance, resulting in gameplay at 3 frames per second - even on some of the strongest PC systems available today."
That might be the case, though according to Express, the degradation in performance is affecting both players with and without mods installed. The good news is, Rockstar Games is aware of the complaints and is looking into things.
"We have received reports of lower framerate in GTA V and GTA Online after Title Update 1.28 on PC, and we are looking into these reports now. If you would like to receive an automatic email notification as soon as there is more information, please log into the Support Site and click Subscribe at the top of this page," Rockstar stated today in a support document.
The latest patch follows a ramped up effort on Rockstar's part to "combat cheating and griefing."
Consumers would welcome an alternative to passwords
It's a safe bet that part of the reason why so many people use easy-to-guess passwords like "123456" and "password" is because proper password security is a bother. This notion is underscored by a new survey suggesting that Internet users at large are very much open to password alternatives to protect their online accounts.
Accenture Research pinged 24,000 people spread out across half a dozen continents about their feelings towards passwords. Some 60 percent said they find usernames and passwords to be cumbersome, and more than three-fourths -- 77 percent, to be exact -- said they're interested in alternatives to passwords.
The challenge of having to remember hard-to-guess passwords isn't the only reason why Internet users want a change, they're also concerned with how secure passwords truly are.
"The widespread practice of typing usernames and passwords to log on to the Internet might soon become obsolete," said Robin Murdoch, managing director of Accenture's Internet and Social business segment. "Consumers are increasingly frustrated with these traditional methods because they are becoming less reliable for protecting their personal data such as email addresses, mobile phone numbers and purchasing history."
Interestingly, only 46 percent of respondents said they're confident in the security of their personal data. It's also not all that surprising, given how many hacker incidents (both big and small) occur on a yearly basis.
Are you content with passwords, or do you think it's time for a change in online security?
When Microsoft launched Windows 7, it tapped customers to host parties designed to showcase the operating system. Those who agreed received a special Signature Edition of Windows Ultimate. No such incentive is needed for Windows 10, as Microsoft is handing out upgrades like Halloween candy to anyone rocking a Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 license, though it still wants fans to be a part of the launch process.
Microsoft is especially interested in recognizing the 5 million people who helped test and shape the forthcoming OS. To do that, the Redmond outfit will host "global fan celebrations" for Windows Insiders in 13 cities, including Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, New Delhi, Dubai, Nairobi, Berlin, Johannesburg, Madrid, London, Sao Paolo, and New York City. The celebrations will consist of hands-on opportunities, product demos, entertainment (Microsoft didn't get into specifics here), and opportunities to meet the Windows team.
You can also look for Microsoft to celebrate the launch of Windows 10 in over 110 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.
"In select Microsoft Stores, fan celebrations will feature Windows 10 pop-up demo experiences, prizes, giveaways and more. Answer Desk services and free in-store workshops will help people learn how to get the most out of Windows 10," Microsoft said in a blog post.
Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 10. Truth be told, Windows 8 didn't get off to the kind of start Microsoft hoped, as consumers were either uninterested or confused by the Metro UI, which favored touch computing over mouse and keyboard controls.
Windows 10 puts the desktop experience back as the primary focus for desktop users, while introducing several new features and enhancements. It's also the last version of Windows -- going forward, Microsoft will use a Windows-as-a-Service (WaaS) model and dole out ongoing updates and feature upgrades as needed.
In addition to the fan celebrations, in-store launch extravaganzas, and a global advertising campaign that kicks off July 20th, Microsoft is committing to an yearlong "Upgrade Your World" philanthropic initiative.
"We are partnering with 10 global and 100 local nonprofits to help them upgrade the world. A total $10 million cash investment will be made in support of their missions and to promote awareness of their causes," Microsoft said.
All the hoopla aside, watch for Windows 10 to roll out in waves beginning July 29.
According to the latest edition of Top500, a biannual list of the world's fastest supercomputers, China's Tianhe-2 ("Milky Way-2" in English) continues to be the most powerful supercomputer on the planet. This is the fifth time in a row that the 3,120,000-core beast developed by the Chinese National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has topped the list.
This isn't surprising in the least if one considers what Top500's Jack Dongarra (the man behind the all-important Linpack benchmark) had to say about the TH-2 a couple of years back. After being briefed about the TH-2 capabilities in May, 2013 — while the machine was still undergoing assembly and testing — Dongarra was of the view that the Chinese supercomputer would go on to have a fairly long reign at the top, with no competitor in sight until at least 2015.
But China is not the overall leader in this field. That distinction belongs to the U.S., a country that accounts for nearly every second machine on the biannual list. And if that is not enough, five of the ten most powerful supercomputers in the world are also from the States.
Coming back to the TH-2, here is a quick rundown of its:
All of them have already served prison time in another case
The quartet, which was at the helm of The Pirate Bay's affairs from the site's founding in 2003 to its sale to a Seychelles-based company in 2006, can finally breathe easy. We are talking about the infamous torrent site's co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, erstwhile site spokesman Peter Sunde, and site financier Carl Lundström, who were recently acquitted by a Belgian court in a copyright infringement case.
According to a report published by Belgian newspaper De Standaard and picked up by other outlets, the four were alleged to have committed a number of crimes including intellectual property infringement, forgery, and abuse of electronic communications. The court, however, ruled there was nothing to show that they were connected with the site in any way during the said period. As mentioned above, the four defendants claim to have no severed all links with the site following its sale to a Seychelles-based company called Reservella in 2006.
All four of them have already served jail time in a 2009 copyright infringement trial in Sweden. Interestingly, Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij told TorrentFreak.com in an interview recently that the site was worth doing prison time for and that prison wasn't as bad as he had expected. So we take it that this is a missed opportunity for Neji.
Windows 10's unified Store experience includes apps, games, music, movies and TV shows
A couple of months back, Microsoft unveiled a new Store app for Windows 10. This new Windows Store is supposed to be a one-stop shop for all your software and entertainment needs, delivering apps, games, music, movies and TV shows all under one digital roof. While the unified Store experience isn't available everywhere in its entirety at this stage, Microsoft is gradually expanding it to new countries.
The company said on Friday it was rolling out the ability to purchase music from within Windows Store to Windows 10 Insider Preview users in 17 additional countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden. Previously, only users from U.S., Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand were able to access the Store's Music page. And there is some more good news for those in Brazil as the Movies & TV section is now also available there.
"If you're a Windows Insider running the latest build of the Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 10166 for PC and Build 10149 for mobile), you can go to the Music page in the Store and browse new albums and top songs, browse for music by genre, and purchase music you want to own," the company said in a blog post.
With the official release of Windows 10 just around the corner, you should fully expect any previously unknown details about the launch or the product itself to trickle out into the public domain over the course of the next fortnight or so. That's probably what happened on Saturday when German site WinFuture.de published what it says are official Windows 10 box art renders.
While these images are said to be from an "official source," it isn't clear if these designs are final. Further, we don't know if these box design are meant solely for retail DVDs (as appears to be the case) or also for Windows 10 USB sticks. Of course, none of this should be of any real concern to you if you're eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10.
If these images are authentic, it seems there is one thing Microsoft wants the retail packaging to convey loud and clear: the Start Menu is back.
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