Apple’s mixed reality headset has been shrouded in rumors for months now, and a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman indicates that it could come with Apple’s flagship M2 processor. According to Gurman, Apple’s most recent version of the device, which is reportedly capable of delivering augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences, includes a base M2 chip and 16GB of RAM.
This deviates from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s previous prediction that Apple’s headset will have one processor with the capabilities of an M1 chip and an additional lower-end processor dedicated to handling data from the device’s sensors. While Gurman doesn’t mention the purported secondary chip in this report, a multiple chip setup has also been rumored in an earlier report from The Information.
If Apple was originally planning to use the M1 as the headset’s primary processor, it only makes sense for the company to swap it out for the most recent iteration of its in-house chip. Apple announced the new M2 chip at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, and says it offers an 18 percent faster CPU and 35 percent faster GPU when compared to the older M1 chip.
Rumors of the device’s standalone form factor have started to trickle out as well, and Gurman’s prediction that it will include 16GB of RAM could indicate a potentially more powerful level of performance than the all-in-one Meta Quest 2. Meta’s VR headset comes with 6GB of RAM and the Snapdragon XR2 Platform, so it’ll be interesting to see how Apple’s headset compares when it finally gets released.
There have been signs that Apple’s headset is getting closer to its rumored January 2023 launch window. Apple’s board of directors reportedly got the chance to try out the headset in May. RealityOS, the operating system the headset will reportedly use, has also appeared in Apple’s code and in a trademark application likely filed by the company.
Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook all but confirmed the headset’s existence when he told interviewers at China Daily to “stay tuned and you will see what we have to offer” in the mixed reality space.
July 2022’s PlayStation Plus freebie offering will include Crash Bandicoot 4 and The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan.
That’s according to Dealabs poster billbil-kun, who – as ever – has the scoop on what titles are next heading to Sony’s PlayStation Plus free game line-up next month.
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Though we have to take this with the usual pinch of proverbial salt, billbil-kun has been ahead of Sony’s formal announcement many, many times now, and hasn’t been wrong thus far.
There will be three titles is all; Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time and Arcadegeddon will be available for players on both PS4 and PS5, whereas The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan is only available on PS4.
Crash Bandicoot 4 got a Recommended badge from us when Chris reviewed it at the end of 202, saying it was a “flawed gem”, whilst Edwin said that Man of Medan was an “undersized but accomplished naval horror story”.
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Don’t forget that you can still grab 2018 God of War, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl for no extra cost – if you have a valid PS Plus subscription, of course – until 4th July.
PS Plus relaunched just this week in the UK and Europe, exceeding the promised number of catalogued games, but already some of its games have expiry dates.
Right at the bottom of the catalogue is a section called “Last chance to play”. Currently there are two games listed: PS4 game Shadow Warrior 3 and PS3 game Syberia. The former is set to leave the Extra catalogue on 5th July 2022 – although it’s been on PS Now since 1st March – while the latter will leave Premium on 19th July 2022.
“The fantasy of subscription services is that one day we’ll have time,” Donlan writes in his superb two-day journey through PS Plus. “I joined Game Pass for the same reason I own a bunch of large, beautiful novels I have yet to read: Ooh, one day I’ll have time for that.”
With GPU prices declining quickly, 3DCenter came up with an idea to compare official suggested retail prices to the graphics card’s actual performance.
This is an insight of how much should each card cost based on its performance alone. The price to performance value is calculated by 3DCenter’s 4K index, meticulously collected data based on a long list of reviews.
As graphics cards become cheaper and available through multiple channels, one can now choose between a number of different custom models, or even consider its competition from other brands. This is especially true for high-end models which were among the first cards to see a significant drop in price over the last few weeks.
It is also no secret that many cards released mainly in 2021 were overpriced from the beginning. Both AMD and NVIDIA chose heavily inflated MSRPs because those cards would never sell at a lower price anyway. However, it is about time both companies realize that their prices are no longer good in relation to the actual performance.
According to 3DCenter’s calculations, who have chosen RTX 3070 as the reference point, most of NVIDIA’s high-end models are overpriced and should cost a lot less. However, mid-range and low-end models from the NVIDIA lineup could be considered well priced, especially the RTX 3060 Ti model which offers better performance than its costs. That’s also the reason why many board partners had no 3060 Ti in stock for many months, it was simply too powerful for its price and board partners could easily sell costlier SKUs in its place.
In fact the situation on the GPU market has changed so much that NVIDIA is supposedly no longer shipping its RTX 3080 12GB model to board partners. The reason stated by leaker MEGAsizeGPU is its price in comparison to RTX 3080 Ti. NVIDIA has never publicly confirmed 3080 12GB MSRP though.
nope，only 3080 12G is been stop produced. After the dramatic price drop of 3080Ti, 3080 12G now has the same price as 3080Ti and that’s why Nvidia decides to stop sending 3080 12G chips to the AIC.
— MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) June 26, 2022
The RTX 3090 series are among the worst priced cards in whole comparison. Both cards retail above 1000 USD, while their actual prices should be below that value. However, anything under RTX 3080 Ti is actually within 10% of the ‘Fair Price’ index, which in most cases means small overpricing or perfect (100%) balance between MSRP and card’s performance (but remember this in reference to RTX 3070).
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 MSRP vs “Fair Price”
3DCenter.org
MSRP
4K Performance Index
Perf./List
Fair price
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
$1999
408%
41%
$814
GeForce RTX 3090
$1499
376%
50%
$750
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
$1199
366%
61%
$731
GeForce RTX 3080 12GB
?
~344%
–
$687
GeForce RTX 3080 10GB
$699
330%
94%
$659
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
$599
271%
90%
$541
GeForce RTX 3070
$499
250%
100%
$499
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
$399
217%
109%
$433
GeForce RTX 3060
$329
165%
100%
$329
GeForce RTX 3050
$249
~114%
91%
$228
Performance/price normalized to the GeForce RTX 3070, derived from the “fair list prices”
For AMD Radeon RX 6000 series, the RX 6800 and 6800 non-XT appear to be the best priced model considering their performance. The inflated MSRP prices for RDNA2 are not really that far from the ‘Fair Price’ index though, especially the middle of the stack. This isn’t the case for enthusiast and low-end models. The RX 6950XT should cost 735USD based on this analysis, while the RX 6400 should drop to the 107 USD level.
One should remember that performance is not always the only thing that should be considered. This is especially true for flagship cards which come with highly sophisticated board designs, massive cooling solutions or other features. That surely adds a cost for board partners that cannot be calculated by framerate alone.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 MSRP vs “Fair Price”
3DCenter.org
MSRP
4K Performance Index
Perf./List
Fair price
Radeon RX 6950 XT
$1099
368%
67%
$735
Radeon RX 6900 XT
$999
348%
70%
$695
Radeon RX 6800 XT
$649
322%
99%
$643
Radeon RX 6800
$579
278%
96%
$555
Radeon RX 6750 XT
$549
234%
85%
$467
Radeon RX 6700 XT
$479
221%
92%
$441
Radeon RX 6650 XT
$399
167%
84%
$333
Radeon RX 6600 XT
$379
159%
84%
$317
Radeon RX 6600
$329
~134%
81%
$267
Radeon RX 6500 XT
$199
(~71%)
71%
$140
Radeon RX 6400
$159
(~54%)
67%
$107
Performance/price normalized to the GeForce RTX 3070, derived from the “fair list prices” Performance values of Radeon RX 6400 & 6500 XT based on FullHD performance and its distance to the Radeon RX 6600
One thing is certain, the GPU price cut should be expected now more than ever. Sadly neither AMD nor NVIDIA are officially preparing one, however boards partners are eagerly awaiting such announcements soon. The time is ticking though, as the large stock of RTX 30/RX6000 cards is no longer a surprise to anyone, retailers will now only have 3 months to sell the majority of current-gen cards before gamers’ attention shifts to the next generation.
The PS Plus games line up for July 2022 has seemingly leaked ahead of the official reveal, which is set to take place on Wednesday. The leak once again comes from Dealabs, with user billbil kun having outed numerous PS Plus updates in the past. As such, there’s very little reason to doubt this latest leak.
According to the aforementioned post, July 2022’s PS Plus Essential games are as follows:
Crash Bandicoot 4 is probably the headline act here — a continuation of the classic platforming series that released in 2020 for PS4, and was ported to PS5 in 2021.
However, it’s choose-you-own-horror title The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan that’s bound to stir conversation. This is because Man of Medan is already available through PS Plus Extra — one of the new PS Plus subscription tiers that just launched. This is another example of Sony’s services overlapping — something that we saw multiple times on PS Now, before it was folded into the overhauled PS Plus.
And finally, Arcadegeddon is a colourful multiplayer shooter, which is set to release on the 5th July — also the day that these PS Plus games will become available to download. Online multiplayer titles have become a staple of PS Plus over the last six months or so. Being on PS Plus gives these games a shot at reaching a wider audience, but it’s safe to say that not everyone is a fan of this strategy.
What do you make of this supposed selection? For a complete list of every title currently available through Sony’s subscription service, check out our All PS Plus Games guide, and then tell us what you think of July 2022’s line up in the comments section below.
My review of the M2 MacBook Pro went up last Wednesday. But as soon as I got my hands on the device on the prior Thursday, it was clear that running down the battery — one of the most important things a laptop reviewer needs to do — was going to be a Whole Thing.
Reader, I tried. I would use the device all evening and leave it running all night, but it would still have plenty of charge left in the morning, and I’d have to plug it in for testing, abandon it to film, or give it to our video and photo teams for shooting before I could fully drain it down. I did not have a long enough interrupted span of time to continuously use the device. That’s how absurdly long this laptop lasts.
But, with the written review and the video review both live, and a solid evening and subsequent morning with no plans or obligations, last Thursday gave me my first real uninterrupted free time since the review unit had arrived. I decided, when I got home and finished dinner around 7:30PM, that it was time. I was going to kill this thing. I was going to drain this stupid battery down to zero if it was the last thing I did.
Quickly, some housekeeping. First, this is not the official battery life estimate with which I will ultimately be updating the review. That will be based on multiple trials, and hopefully many that are not as… weird as what I did here. (That said, our battery life test is always a ballpark estimate, and I’ve never pretended it’s anything else. Never treat one review as your only data point, etc. etc.)
The MacBook Pro M2, just sitting there, taunting me that I won’t be able to kill its battery in a reasonable amount of time.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Second, while I did really want to kill this battery, I should emphasize that I always want my battery tests to reflect my personal workload — so while there are certainly intense things I could’ve done to kill the battery more quickly, I did take care here not to artificially run anything ridiculous and to stick with programs and tasks that I would actually do on a real day (albeit a more intense real day, in parts).
Anyway, I did run the thing down. And I kept a little diary of the process, which I’m sharing here. This, I hope, will give you some idea of the various things I did on the device as I drained it, and some insight into how fast it might drain if you’re running a workload similar to mine. That said, it is my personal and private diary, so please don’t tell anyone about it.
8:00PM: I am in for the night. I’ve got around a dozen tabs open. I’ve got the screen at medium brightness, with True Tone off. I’ve got Spotify running the “Chill Pop” playlist. The battery is at 100 percent. Unplug. Let’s roll.
8:20PM: Still at 100 percent. I double check to make sure the battery meter is working. It’s getting dark out, so I turn on night light. Don’t judge me, I care about my eyes, you monsters.
8:25PM: The internet is boring. I pull up a short story I’m working on, which is a Google Doc that’s around 20 pages. God, I love how fast this thing loads Google Docs. I’ve still got around a dozen other tabs open.
8:30PM: My friends, we are still at 100 percent. Considering having a character die in my short story, because if this laptop won’t die, somebody’s gotta. I decide against it.
9:00PM: We are at 98 percent. The fear that this thing could last 50 hours is giving me legitimate stress. Like, my Garmin Venu is telling me to chillax.
Challenge accepted.
9:30PM: 95 percent. “I don’t think this thing is ever going to die lol,” I iMessage a friend. “Lol wow,” my friend replies. 9:30PM is our intellectual time to shine.
9:45PM: 91 percent.The “Chill Pop” playlist has run its course. I move on to “Today’s Hits”. Stay by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber begins playing. Ah, yes. Today’s’ hits.
10:15PM: Hitting a wall with my story, but I leave the Google Doc open in case inspiration strikes. I start running PugetBench for Premiere Pro just to feel something. It’s oddly therapeutic to give the benchmark full control of my computer and try to figure out what ridiculous things it’s doing. Is anything in life really in our hands? Are we not all obscure GPU effects being thrown at random Premiere footage, in a way?
10:30PM: This is around when the Gigabyte Aero 16 would be dying. The MacBook, though, is still very much alive. Anyway, I feel like I’m clearly not taxing this thing hard enough, so I look around for things that might need to be updated. Some of my Adobe apps are out of date, so I set those downloads off. I’ve been wanting to familiarize myself with After Effects, so I play around with that for a bit.
11:59PM: 78 percent. Well, I still don’t understand how to do anything in After Effects, but at least I tried. I’ve also gotten through “Today’s Hits”. Creative Suite is done updating, so I open all the apps I have at once just to see if it will slow the computer down. It doesn’t, of course. I mess around in Lightroom with some photos that I might (but probably will not ever) upload to Instagram, as one does.
A true musical journey.
12:15PM: I do some Swift Playgrounds 4 because I can’t get over how cute the little animations are. I do a Rosetta Stone lesson with Swift Playgrounds 4 running in the background. Look, therapist, you can’t say I’m not working on myself. The screen is starting to feel way too bright, but don’t worry: I will kill my eyes for the sake of the blogs.
12:26AM: 73 percent. I’ve run out of things to do. I am watching old K-pop videos on YouTube. “What if we went to Lollapalooza?” I iMessage a friend. “We are not going to Lollapalooza,” the friend responds.
12:47AM: I’ve wandered back to the short story. I’m very tired, so it’s getting a bit weird. I start downloading some more Adobe software, because you might as well go big. I have no idea what Bridge is, but I’m sure I can find a use for it.
2:13AM: 63 percent. Calling it a night. I leave a YouTube video (“Fireplace 10 Hours Full HD”, one of my favorites, the vibes are immaculate) running as well as the “Chill Hits” Spotify playlist. Please die, I think at the device, as I fall asleep with it beside my head. It’s in God’s hands now.
8:15AM: I wake up because construction is going on outside, which is the New York City 4-D experience. The MacBook Pro is still going strong at 36 percent. I start PugetBench to give it something to do and go back to sleep (I have the morning off).
10:26AM: I wake up again, this time because I’m stressed that I made a mistake in a draft I filed yesterday. This is just a thing I worry about. I pull up the draft and read through it. No mistake. Crisis averted. Back to bed. Laptop at 21 percent, various things still running.
11:40AM: I wake up for the final time, and it’s the first thing my bleary eyes see: The red battery. That glorious, glorious red. Red, the blood of laptop reviewers who have almost, almost completed their battery run. The laptop is at 9 percent. We are so close, everyone. So close.
11:42AM: Time to kill this thing dead. I open Slack. I keep Spotify blasting. I open three different email tabs, a bunch of blog posts, a video, iMessage, Sticky Notes, Lightroom. I start downloading a game on Steam. I work on my review of another computer, clicking around a whole bunch of other reviews that are covered in ads. It’s going to die any minute now, I think, with an eye on the red battery meter.
12:30PM: Well, the final stretch takes a lot longer than I thought it would. But after 16 hours, 30 minutes, and 39 seconds, the M2 MacBook Pro is done for. It died in the middle of playing Tomorrow X Together’s Can’t You See Memusic video, right as they’re setting a building on fire. There should be a metaphor in there somewhere, but I’m too tired to find it.
Don’t worry — I’ll run it down a few more times to get you a more rigorous result.
The Simpsons: Hit and Run has been remade as a gorgeous open-world game with new features. For those who aren’t aware of the original game, The Simpsons: Hit and Run was a GTA-like game released during the PS2-era that allowed fans to experience Springfield a semi-open world setting. Given the technical limitations of the game, Springfield was split up in to levels, each with its own narrative purpose and playable member of the Simpson family. It is widely considered to be one of the best-licensed games out there as its incredibly fun to drive through the animated city, hijack cars, push over citizens, and experience all of the fun references. On top of that, it has aliens, which is always a good addition to any game.
There’s been a lot of demand for a remaster of The Simpsons: Hit and Run and it seems like one fan is trying to make that a reality. YouTuber reubs has started remaking The Simpsons: Hit and Run with modern remastered graphics, one continuous open-world rather than a game split into levels or zones, and even multiplayer. It’s a pretty ambitious project, but reubs has stated that it’s being made purely for entertainment purposes and won’t actually ever be made available to the public. Understandably, reubs likely doesn’t want to risk any legal ramifications from Fox/Disney, so this decision makes sense.
Nevertheless, given the fact the possibility of a remaster of The Simpsons: Hit and Run has been posed by one of the producers of the original game, this could lead to an official remaster. Given there has been lots of requests for a remaster of this iconic game, support for reubs’ fan project could show Disney there is a lot of interest in an official version of this. After all, the desire for a remaster of Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom eventually resulted in THQ Nordic making it a reality.
Would you want to see a remaster of The Simpsons: Hit and Run? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
Although Guilty Gear Strive’s big Season 2 update dropped earlier this month, the balance and mechanic adjustments did not come alongside a new DLC character, which has left players wondering when the first piece of the second season pass will be coming.
With CEO 2022 going down this weekend, many fans were hoping to see that character announcement during Strive’s finals, but the newly released Version 1.19 patch notes for the incoming update suggest otherwise — it’s certainly not impossible, however.
According to Arc System Works, the Ver. 1.19 patch will only contain a handful of bug fixes for May, Faust, Zato-1, Ramlethal and I-No without mention of any new characters obviously.
Considering the update is scheduled to release this upcoming Friday, July 1, that seems like it would have been the perfect time to drop Season 2’s first DLC if they were to be revealed at CEO.
The relatively large amount of work and resources required to test, approve and release individual updates for video games makes it unreasonable to expect another in such quick succession.
If a new Strive fighter was in our immediate future, ArcSys would have combined the updates together.
Click images for larger versions
Even though CEO would basically be the perfect place to do a big announcement, it also makes sense the studio may want to hold back on showing anything for Guilty Gear at this moment as to not take attention away from DNF Duel, which is releasing in just a few days on June 28.
We’re certainly not going to sit here and say that there’s no way Strive DLC appears this weekend because there’s still a pretty decent chance we will end up seeing something, even if it’s farther out in the future.
Looking back to CEO 2021 late last year, ArcSys did provide just a short teaser for Baiken’s arrival in GGST while her actual gameplay reveal and release would come a whole month later.
There could be a very similar situation waiting for us on Sunday night for Strive’s finals although ArcSys and Alex Jebailey have been quiet on teasing anything as of yet.
The PS5/PS4/Steam versions of Guilty Gear -Strive- will undergo monthly maintenance and implement bug fixes at the following hours:
▼Maintenance Time July 1 00:00 – 02:00(PDT) July 1 08:00 – 10:00(CET) ※Times may vary.
— GUILTY GEAR OFFICIAL (@GUILTYGEAR_PR) June 24, 2022
Since most character announcements for Strive thus far have been attached to large tournaments, the next most likely place to see the game’s first Season 2 fighter wouldn’t be until Evo 2022 in August.
Obviously, we’ll know for sure come Sunday night, but we just suggest not getting your hopes up for anything big just yet.
Fall Guys finally stumbled onto the Nintendo Switch, Xbox and other platforms this week as a free-to-play title and it seems it’s already paying off for developer Mediatonic. According to the game’s official social media account, Fall Guys’ free release managed to hit 20 million players in just 48 hours.
Here’s the announcement on Twitter:
While the launch was a successful one, there were some teething issues along the way – with reports of server problems. Fortunately, these issues were resolved relatively quickly.
Fall Guys now also includes full cross-platform multiplayer and full cross-play support. Here’s a sample of our review:
“the Switch version offers a solid way to play if you’re looking for some barmy 60-bean battling and the barrier to entry has never been lower.’
REVIEWFall Guys – The World’s Most Chaotic Game Show Lands On Switch, Now F2P
Were you one of the 20 million players who tried out Fall Guys when it went free-to-play earlier this week? Tell us below.
A sophisticated spyware campaign is getting the help of internet service providers (ISPs) to trick users into downloading malicious apps, according to research published by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) (via TechCrunch). This corroborates earlier findings from security research group Lookout, which has linked the spyware, dubbed Hermit, to Italian spyware vendor RCS Labs.
Lookout says RCS Labs is in the same line of work as NSO Group — the infamous surveillance-for-hire company behind the Pegasus spyware — and peddles commercial spyware to various government agencies. Researchers at Lookout believe Hermit has already been deployed by the government of Kazakhstan and Italian authorities. In line with these findings, Google has identified victims in both countries and says it will notify affected users.
As described in Lookout’s report, Hermit is a modular threat that can download additional capabilities from a command and control (C2) server. This allows the spyware to access the call records, location, photos, and text messages on a victim’s device. Hermit’s also able to record audio, make and intercept phone calls, as well as root to an Android device, which gives it full control over its core operating system.
The spyware can infect both Android and iPhones by disguising itself as a legitimate source, typically taking on the form of a mobile carrier or messaging app. Google’s cybersecurity researchers found that some attackers actually worked with ISPs to switch off a victim’s mobile data to further their scheme. Bad actors would then pose as a victim’s mobile carrier over SMS and trick users into believing that a malicious app download will restore their internet connectivity. If attackers were unable to work with an ISP, Google says they posed as seemingly authentic messaging apps that they deceived users into downloading.
Researchers from Lookout and TAG say apps containing Hermit were never made available via the Google Play or Apple App Store. However, attackers were able to distribute infected apps on iOS by enrolling in Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program. This allowed bad actors to bypass the App Store’s standard vetting process and obtain a certificate that “satisfies all of the iOS code signing requirements on any iOS devices.”
Apple told The Verge that it has since revoked any accounts or certificates associated with the threat. In addition to notifying affected users, Google has also pushed a Google Play Protect update to all users.
