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Codename: Urban Legends is a taste of what Niantic thinks 5G could do for AR gaming

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has unveiled Codename: Urban Legends, which it describes as “a multiplayer demo experience that offers a glimpse into the future of AR and 5G networks.” The game revolves around casting magic spells to kill monsters and rescue allies. It’s similar to Niantic’s previously released games, but the trailer includes a unique… Read more

Power sports company BRP will make electric watercraft, go-karts, and motorcycles

Canadian power sports firm BRP announced that it would spend $300 million to electrify its entire lineup of vehicles by 2026. The company, which manufacturers watercraft, snowmobiles, ATVs, and go-karts, will start rolling out its first products in the next two years. The $13 billion global power sports market is slowly coming around to electric… Read more

Rec Room rides uptick in users during the pandemic to become a VR unicorn

Gaming platform Rec Room is now a unicorn, valued at $1.25 billion during a recent funding round of $100 million. It appears to be one of the first, if not the first, virtual reality-focused startup to achieve unicorn status, a notable feat since Facebook’s landmark acquisition of Oculus VR for $2.4 billion in 2014 helped… Read more

Dota: Dragon’s Blood on Netflix fails to show what makes Dota 2 special

Competitive games like Magic: The Gathering and League of Legends are absolutely dripping with lore. While they might not tell a story in the traditional sense, they have surprisingly robust fantasy worlds. Usually, you can only catch this in brief snippets through flavor text or character bios. But increasingly, game studios are attempting to build… Read more

Google Hires Intel Veteran to Develop Custom Datacenter SoCs

Home News (Image credit: IEEE Spectrum) Large companies like Google have been building their own servers for many years now in a bid to get machines that suit their needs the best way possible. Most of these servers run Intel’s Xeon processors with or without customizations, but feature additional hardware that accelerate certain workloads. For… Read more

Intel invests $20 billion into new factories, will produce chips for other companies

Intel has a new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, and he’s not wasting any time to make some big changes. At the company’s “Engineering the Future” announcement today, Gelsinger announced plans to outsource more of Intel’s chip production to third-party foundries; a $20 billion investment into two new fabs in Arizona; and a new branch of the… Read more

The startup trying to augment audio reality in public spaces

A startup called Spatial is unveiling its first suite of products today, focused on creating audio experiences that are immersive, interactive, and automatically generated. The products themselves are a little complicated to explain, but the result is simple: ambient and interactive audio for public spaces that’s easy to create and more dynamic than the usual… Read more

Fitbit adds Tile tracking feature to its Inspire 2 wearable

A new partnership between Fitbit and Tile will now let users of Fitbit’s Inspire 2 locate their devices with Tile’s Bluetooth tracking, the companies announced Monday. The free update is available starting Monday. Users will just have to update their device software in the Fitbit app to add Bluetooth tracking, then download and activate the… Read more

Microsoft is bringing Xbox Series X/S ‘Auto HDR’ feature to PC

Matthew Wilson 2 days ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming One of Microsoft’s big features for backwards compatible games on Xbox Series X/S consoles has been Auto HDR, enabling High Dynamic Range across a number of SDR-only games. Now, PC gamers are also going to benefit, with Microsoft preparing to enable Auto HDR for… Read more

Congress tries to get the FTC in fighting shape

On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee lawmakers held a hearing with some of the most prominent players in antitrust enforcement today. Two Federal Trade Commission leaders and two state attorneys general currently suing Facebook for violating antitrust law testified before the committee. But while lawmakers have spoken extensively about breaking up companies like Facebook and Google,… Read more

AMD Expected to Become TSMC’s Second Largest Customer

Home News (Image credit: AMD) Now that AMD produces most of its CPUs, GPUs, and custom SoCs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the company may become the foundry’s second-largest customer, right after Apple (according to a report from Seeking Alpha). If this happens, AMD will have a much more favorable negotiation position with TSMC… Read more

Microsoft is bringing its Xbox Auto HDR feature to Windows

Microsoft is planning to automatically add HDR support to more than 1,000 PC games. The software maker is now testing a new Auto HDR feature on Windows 10, which works just like it does on the latest Xbox Series S and X consoles. Enabling Auto HDR will add high dynamic range (HDR) to a large… Read more

Micron to Sell 3D XPoint Memory Fab and Cease Further Development (Updated)

Home News (Image credit: Intel) Update: We’ve added responses from both Intel and Micron to the article below:Micron announced today that it is selling its 3D XPoint fab in Lehi, Utah, bringing an end to its production of the radical new memory technology that it developed with Intel. The company plans to sell the fab… Read more

Retail giants look to greener cargo ships to meet climate goals

Pressure from some of their biggest customers is pushing companies like global shipping giant Maersk to pollute less when they transport goods. It’s a sign that individual companies’ commitments to tackling climate change can influence others along the entire supply chain. One of the latest trends in retail has been for companies to pledge to… Read more

GoPro relaunches its smartphone app as Quik, adds private feed

GoPro is releasing a new version of its main smartphone app that will now be called “Quik.” The new app will remain the main interface for connecting to and controlling GoPro cameras, but it is also getting new features, including one called “mural” that’s sort of like a private Instagram feed meant to help people… Read more