China’s quantum satellite enables hack-proof communications
China has made history by launching the first ever quantum satellite developed by a team of Chinese and Austrian scientists, according to state-run media and The Wall Street Journal. If it works just as planned, then it signifies the beginning of a communications network that no hacker can infiltrate. See, a quantum-enabled network relies on the laws of physics rather than on common techniques for encryption. This satellite, which is named after the fifth century BC Chinese scientist “Micius,” reportedly carries a crystal that can encode data and encryption keys in quantum particles beamed back to Earth.
Only authorized ground bases can read the encoded data, because the particles are destroyed if anybody else tries to decipher whatever is in them. As Gregoir Ribordy of Geneva-based quantum cryptography firm ID Quantique told the WSJ, “If someone tries to intercept [a particle] when it’s being transmitted, by touching it, they make it burst.” Further, the bases will know if someone tried to tamper with their data, since their computers can monitor changes in the particles’ state. Clearly, a quantum-enabled network will beef up China’s defenses against cyber spies deployed by other superpowers. It won’t, however, boost the country’s ability to launch cyberattacks.
Scientists from US, Japan, Canada and various parts of Europe have been pushing for the development of their own quantum communications systems. Unfortunately, their countries’ governments haven’t been as willing to invest in the development of the technology. While China’s state media didn’t mention how much was spent to build Micius, the WSJ notes that it forked out $101 billion for the research phase alone.
The team behind the project will test if the system works by beaming data to ground bases in Beijing and Vienna once the satellite is ready. If all goes well, China plans to deploy 19 more satellites or so to form a network that covers the entire planet.
Source: Xinhuanet, The Wall Street Journal
Oculus Rift will hit UK and Canadian retailers on September 20th
Now that Oculus has caught up with the pre-order backlog for its VR headset, the Facebook-owned company has decided it’s time to make the Rift available in more places. In an announcement today, Oculus announced that its VR solution will be available in a number of European and North American retailers from September 20th. In fact, consumers in the UK, France and Germany and Canada can pre-order the Rift today and have it ship late next month.
The company has lined up a long list of partners in the UK, including Amazon, John Lewis, Curry’s PC World, GAME and Harrods. It’ll also be available from Amazon in France and Germany, as well as Best Buy and Microsoft Stores in Canada, with a suggested retail price of £549 (€699). Some retailers will also let customers book in a demo, like HTC is doing at some Curry’s PC World stores.
If you do decide to take the plunge, Oculus will bundle VR platformer Lucky’s Tale, hundreds of 360-degree videos and movies and localized manuals and software. The company says it’s also working with developers to ensure games and VR experiences are relevant for global customers too.
Source: Oculus Blog
‘Overwatch’ season two takes cues from ‘League of Legends’
Overwatch’s 15 million-plus players are going to see some pretty big changes come the game’s second season. First up is how rankings work. The current 1 – 100 skill ranking is going away in favor of a 1 – 5,000 rating that breaks down into seven tiers like bronze, silver, gold and, at the highest level, master and grandmaster — similar to League of Legends and, most recently, Halo 5: Guardians. Game director Jeff Kaplan says that the idea behind this overhaul is to make it feel less like you’re performing poorly overall just because you had a bad night. “We want skill rating to be a gauge of where you are as a player,” he says in the video below. “We don’t want that number to be the thing you associate with you as a competitive player.”
It’s because someone with a 60 skill ranking was actually in the top six percent of Overwatch players — they weren’t a D-level player, as our school-focused minds might lead them to believe.
“We want you to realize that the skill rating is naturally going to go up and down as you’re playing competitive matches; it’s a very normal thing,” he says. Once you meet the requirements for a given tier, you won’t drop out of it if you’re having a bad night. That’s unless you’re playing in the high-level master and grandmaster skill levels.
Jeff Kaplan reveals upcoming changes to Season 2 of Competitive Play—coming soon to PTR! | 📽 https://t.co/hRXq8UU4vK pic.twitter.com/2Rn2URbb0l
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) August 15, 2016
The coin toss is going away as well, in addition to sudden death. Teams will earn competitive points for tied games, even though instances of teams scoring the same overall should be pretty rare. And speaking of competitive points, those are going to be multiplied by ten (even those you have banked), but loot like golden guns will cost ten times as much too.
In the 15-minute video, one thing is incredibly clear: Developer Blizzard is taking community feedback very seriously. Pretty much every tweak to season two is the result of player suggestions and concerns. So, if bits of season two don’t gel for you, or if you have any gripes with how it’s playing, make sure to hit the Overwatch forums and let the team know. Just remember to be polite, okay?
Via: Overwatch (Twitter)
Source: Overwatch (YouTube)
Hangouts On Air shifts to YouTube Live as steady move away from Google+ continues
Well you can’t be surprised, can you?
In what only felt like an inevitability, Google has put out an announcement that Hangouts On Air events will no longer be tied to Google+ and will be completely contained into YouTube Live instead. It’ll be a hard break on September 12, where Google+ will no longer be able to create Hangouts On Air and any events scheduled for the future will have to be manually recreated on YouTube Live.
Just one less reason for big media outlets and personalities to use Google+
It doesn’t take much thought to realize this makes a whole lot of sense from multiple perspectives. Not only has Google+ usage continued to decrease as YouTube continues to be as strong as ever, but the idea of live video streams from your phone and computer being tied to YouTube while live Hangouts were tied to Google+ just made things confusing. With the move to YouTube Live, it will be even easier to keep everything contained into a single platform rather than crossing streams.
If you want to look at things from a bit more cynical (albeit increasingly rational) point of view, you’ll also note that this means businesses and media personalities will no longer have to go anywhere near Google+ in order to have a live show or interview using the Hangouts On Air technology. And considering the notable exposure that provided for Google+ as a platform for discussions and groups, this is a pretty big move away from Google+ in terms of promotion and marketing.
Google’s new video chat app Duo is finally rolling out right now
And its companion app Allo is nowhere to be seen.
Almost exactly three months after announcing Duo back at Google I/O, Google has subtly put up a blog post stating that the new standalone video chat app is rolling out imminently.
If you needed a refresher on the app (it has definitely been a while), Duo is a simple person-to-person video chat app that’s designed to take the fuss and hassle out of making a video call — to make it a more “human” way to communicate. The technology behind Duo is supposed to make calls seamless and fast, even on slower network connections, and a standout feature called “Knock Knock” gives you a glimpse at the other person before you pick up the video call so you know what you’re getting into. It’s also a cross-platform app, with iOS support from Day 1.
At the time of writing the Duo app listing is still listed as a “pre-register” rather than download, but that has been the case off-and-on for months now … but we expect the download links to go live shortly as things propagate. The official Duo website is now live, though, albeit with very sparse information and links back to the Google Play Store. Google’s blog post indicates that in just a few days it’ll be available around the world to let you link up with your friends and family in a more personal way.
Interestingly, Duo’s companion app, the full-featured chat app Allo, is nowhere to be seen as part of this announcement.
Google will shift Hangouts to the enterprise after Allo and Duo release
Hangouts will live on, but perhaps not in the way you expect.
Alongside the announcement of video chat app Duo’s imminent release, and the hint that companion messaging app Allo is just around the corner, Google has announced that its divisive multi-platform Hangouts service will shift its focus away from consumers.
In an interview with Engadget, Nick Fox, Google’s VP of communication products, said that “because Hangouts is built on a Google account, [and] because it’s deeply integrated with Google apps… it’s seen much more success in the enterprise.”
Earlier today, the company announced that Hangouts on Air, Google’s live video conferencing and sometimes podcast solution, would be moving from Google+ to YouTube Live in an attempt to salvage one of Hangouts’ most popular features.
The shift away from Hangouts and Google+ in the consumer space plays into Google’s vision for mobile-first communications
The shift away from Hangouts and Google+ in the consumer space plays into Google’s vision for mobile-first communications, which sees Android and iOS as the primary operating systems people will turn to for sharing their text- and video-based thoughts and feelings with the world. Hangouts, like Google+, will live on in reduced roles within the company, deemphasized within Google’s core product lineup but imperative to a small group of niche, loyal users.
To many people, Hangouts tried to do too much, and failed to do anything best. Allo and Duo are Google’s opportunity to reset the timer and meet the audience where they are: on phones. Unfortunately, they are well behind the competition, with giants like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Skype and others already amassing millions, and in some cases billions, of monthly users. It will be interesting to see whether Allo and Duo can have the impact Hangouts never did.
Gears of War 4 in 4K preview: Played on an Nvidia GTX 1070 notebook
Microsoft’s Gears of War 4, developed by in-house team The Coalition, is shaping up to be the best chapter in the series for years. Not only is it the first to be developed specifically for the current generation Xbox One, it offers HDR graphics for Xbox One S owners, giving them a wider colour gamut and a bit more contrast.
However, even that is chicken feed in comparison with the PC version for Windows 10. If you have a machine powerful enough, with top notch graphics card, you can play the long-awaited sequel in 4K, at a minimum of 60fps and with ultra settings.
That’s exactly what we did. And on a notebook to boot.
How? Well, we played a lengthy demo level of the single-player campaign during a special event Nvidia held just outside London, using an EVGA SC17 notebook with a 4K G-Sync capable display and GeForce GTX 1070 graphics running the show.
Pocket-lint
Nvidia announced that this year it wasn’t compromising on its portable graphics processors. Rather than mobile versions of its GPUs, as last time around, OEMs are putting full GeForce GTX 1080, GTX 1070 and GTX 1060 chips in their latest devices. The power management of the Pascal architecture enables them to work in such an environment in the same way they would a desktop, thereby opening up the possibilities for laptop 4K gaming at seriously good levels.
And boy did we see that in action.
There was also a notebook next to ours running the GTX 1080, but had a 120Hz display rather than Ultra HD one. We wanted to play Gears of War 4 in full 4K, so chose the lower spec’ed machine – crazy right?
The game itself is stunning, especially with the added detail afforded by the resolution. Lighting effects make the most of the ultra settings and we didn’t notice a drop in frame rate at all, even during the most chaotic, packed sequences.
We knew we’d be playing as JD Fenix, son of original protaganist Marcus, and we knew that his father would feature somehow thanks to an E3 reveal. What we didn’t know is that Marcus Fenix would be part of the squad. He accompanied us in our level, even helping out here and there. We wonder if there’s the possibility of playing as him in co-op? Guess we’ll find out soon.
Pocket-lint
- Gears of War 4 multiplayer preview: Grinding those gears
- Xbox One Gears of War 4 Elite Controller: The best gamepad just got even better
In addition, we also got to see a new, previously unannounced feature: windflares. On the level we played, the team faced new enemies The Swarm, while facing game-changing weather effects.
When caught in a windflare, the typhoon style effects have multiple consequences, that are of a disadvantage or can be used to aid your progress. For example, thanks to the strong winds, we managed to shoot a barrier holding back a massive, metal pipe which then proceeded to rapidly roll over our foes. On the flip side, we found we couldn’t use a Buzzkill effectively as the circular blades went off course as they were fired.
It makes for different strategies and a more tangible fight, we feel. And we loved every second of it.
At the end of that level, giant towers of electricity rained from the skies, which we had to avoid. And then it was over. We survived and cannot wait to play more closer to release.
First Impressions
In essence, our playtime with Gears of War 4 in 4K allowed us to do two things. First, we got to play the game in the best mode possible, which made us gasp on occasion with how amazing it looked.
We also got to see what’s possible on a gaming notebook, one of the fastest growing sectors in the games industry.
Laptops sporting Nvidia’s latest Pascal GPUs will not be cheap – even those with the GTX 1060 will cost £1,000 and up – but they will be a direct equivalent of a desktop. They will be capable of running the latest games at their very best. And what’s more, they will be available very soon.
As for Gears 4, it’s part of the Xbox Play Anywhere deal so if you buy the digital download version for Xbox One, you’ll get the 4K-capable Windows 10 for free, so you can always start playing while you save up for that pukka laptop you’ve got your eye on. Job sorted.
Gears of War 4 will be available from 11 October.
NASA wants some assistance catching an asteroid
If you haven’t heard yet, NASA aims to capture an asteroid, drag it to the orbit between the Earth and the moon and ultimately send people to scour it for samples. While that sounds like a crazy plot from an astronaut movie, it’s very much real. In fact, the agency has just announced that it plans to ask for help from aerospace companies to make it happen. Under the new Asteroid Redirect Mission Umbrella for Partnerships (ARM-UP) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) project, NASA will accept proposals for different aspects of the mission.
Before elaborating on the proposals the agency will accept, you need to know that the mission has two stages. First is the robotic stage slated for launch in 2021 that will send an unmanned vehicle to drag an asteroid to cislunar space. For the second phase scheduled for 2028, NASA plans to send a crew aboard an Orion spacecraft to the captured asteroid to retrieve samples.
Starting in September, the agency will accept proposals for partner-provided payloads, such as scientific instruments, aboard the robotic flight. It will also accept membership applications for an investigation team who will lend their technical expertise to the project for the next three to five years. Finally, NASA will look at proposals from companies seeking to take part in the crewed phase of the mission and from those seeking access to the asteroid after its astronauts are done examining it.
The agency didn’t exactly explain why it’s opening up ARM to private space corporations, but Spaceref notes that the robotic stage’s projected costs went up from $1.25 billion to $1.4 billion. That’s a big issue, seeing as the government already made it quite clear that it doesn’t want to spend money on the mission. We’ll hear more details about the project soon when NASA holds its virtual community forum on September 14th, 2016 .
Via: PopSci, Spaceref
Source: FBO
Thin gaming laptops will run VR with NVIDIA’s new chip
Nvidia has just taken the wraps off a trio of laptop GPUs based on its new “Pascal” chip architecture, the GeForce GTX 1060M, the 1070M and the 1080M. While the 1080M is by far the most impressive, it’s the humble 1060M that could make the biggest impact on the market. Why? Because it facilitates using a virtual reality headset like the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift on a reasonably small laptop.
The 1060M essentially replaces the 970M, insomuch as it’ll fit into the same sort of products as the older chip. All of the technologies launched for the Pascal architecture, including VRWorks and Ansel, are supported on the 1060M, which has 1,280 CUDA cores, 6GB of 192-bit, 8Gbps memory and a base clock speed of 1,404MHz. The end result of these specs is a “VR-ready” chip that’ll fit in laptops as svelte as 18mm, like the Razer Blade.
What exactly “VR ready” means nowadays is a bit of a mystery. Oculus and HTC released their headsets targeting the desktop GTX 980, but both AMD and NVIDIA have since released cheaper cards (the RX 480 and the GTX 1060, respectively) that both claim to play nice with VR.
At a launch event in the UK, NVIDIA showed off the 1060M, 1070M and 1080M paired with various VR games. But while the more powerful chips were demoed with graphically intense games, NVIDIA chose The Thrill of the Fight. It’s a very fun, but relatively undemanding title, requiring only a desktop GTX 970 card. The MSI GS43 (an updated GS40 with a 1060M GPU inside) handled it perfectly. For regular gaming, NVIDIA claims it’ll do just fine. The same MSI GS43 hit 96.4FPS in Doom (1080p, ultra settings), 51.4FPS in The Witcher 3 (1080p, maxed settings, HairWorks disabled), and 71.5FPS in Tomb Raider (1080p, very high). Older games can play nice with higher resolutions, with <em>BioShock Infinite</em> hitting 72.4FPS at 1440p, and <em>Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor</em> hitting 62.1FPS, both with “ultra” settings.
| CUDA cores | 1,280 | 1,280 | 2,048 |
| Base clock | 1,404MHz | 1,506MHz | 1,126MHz |
| Boost clock | 1,670MHz | 1,708MHz | 1,216MHz |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR5* | 6GB GDDR5 | 4GB GDDR5 |
| Memory speed | 8Gbps | 8Gbps | 7Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192GB/sec | 192GB/sec | 224GB/sec |
*Up to
When pressed, representatives at the event said the 1060M is VR-ready, and agreed that a stable “90 frames-per-second is a must for VR,” but “you might need to play around with the settings, as you would on any PC game, in order to reach that.” That suggests that while, yes, the 1060M has the power to run the current crop of VR games, don’t expect to be playing with Ultra graphics settings. NVIDIA also cautions that the “VR-ready” status is only when you’re plugged into an outlet — when running from the battery it won’t reach the clock speeds necessary. Digging into NVIDIA’s official benchmark sheet (which doesn’t compare the two directly), it seems that the 1060M is basically on par with the GTX 980, which makes the decision to restrict demos to such a forgiving game a strange one.
Putting minutiae to one side, NVIDIA’s new laptop GPUs look like winners. The 1080M almost kills the need for laptops with desktop chips in them (although I’m sure the market will continue). It’ll support SLI, and even on its own, can maintain 60fps in 4K for all but the most-demanding of titles, and 120Hz gaming in 1080p as well. The 1070M will be the go-to option for gamers without $1000s to spare, sliding into any laptop that currently houses a 980M — think something like the Asus ROG G752, the Acer Predator 15, or the Origin EON 15-X. But it’s the 1060M that offers the most exiting proposition, to me at least. Laptops like the Razer Blade, the MSI GS40 Phantom and the Gigabyte Aorus X3 Plus are already combining portability with legitimate gaming chops. Now, newer versions will also be able to support VR.
MSI and Origin PC use NVIDIA’s desktop-grade laptop graphics
PC makers aren’t wasting any time implementing NVIDIA’s GTX 10 series laptop graphics in their lineups. Both MSI and Origin PC have revealed that their higher-end gaming portables will be among the first to pack the much faster, desktop-class graphics. At MSI, the big deal is that it’s not just big, chunky systems that are getting a refresh — even relatively slim laptops like the GS and GE series will have VR-worthy graphics thanks to the GTX 1060M. You’ll have to move up to the GT range to get the 1070M or 1080M (up to two of them in Titan SLI variants like the GT73VR above), but that’s a solid baseline.
The upgraded MSI rigs should be available now, although they won’t come cheap. The experience starts with the $1,599 GS43VR Phantom Pro and its 14-inch 1080p screen, GTX 1060M, 2.6GHz Core i7, 16GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive, and you can spend as much as $5,099 if you want an 18-inch GT83VR Titan SLI with dual GTX 1080Ms, 2.9GHz Core i7, two 512GB SSDs, a 1TB hard drive and 64GB (!) of RAM.
Origin PC, meanwhile, is focused strictly on updating its beefy EON-15 and EON-17 machines. Pricing will vary depending on your configuration, but you can get up to a GTX 1070M in the 15-inch EON15-X (below), a 1080M in the 17-inch EON-17X, and dual 1080Ms in the EON17-SLX. They can all carry up to a 4K display, 64GB of RAM, dual 1TB SSDs and a desktop-level 4GHz Core i7 processor. None of them are svelte, then. However, they might be what you’re looking for if you can’t imagine giving up any significant amount of performance when on the road.
And it’s important to stress that these aren’t the only two vendors lining up. Heavyweights like Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo and Razer have also committed to NVIDIA’s new laptop video tech, giving you plenty of choices.
Source: MSI, Origin PC
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