Mercenaries of fortune

Audio player loading… Resident Evil 4 VR came out last year to rave reviews from fans and critics (we gave five stars in our write-up ) but nearly everyone playing it had one question: where’s The Mercenaries mode? Well, developer Armature Studio finally has an answer. As announced at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase The Mercenaries mode is available right now as a free update to the game on the Meta Quest 2 . Much like the original, players are tasked with taking out as many Ganados as possible before time runs out, though the VR game mode has a few new tricks up its sleeve that even longtime fans won’t recognize. For starters, there are 20 new Challenges to test your skills against. Plus new online leaderboards will let you see how you shape up against the rest of the Resident Evil 4 VR player base. Completing challenges won’t just help you claim the rankings, you’ll also unlock various in-game rewards. This includes a Big Head mode, a Classic … [Read more...] about The Mercenaries mode finally comes to Resident Evil 4 VR on the Quest 2

Audio player loading… If you love PC gaming, you’re going to want a sweet gaming PC, but there are many things to consider before getting one, the biggest being budget. Trying to build the absolute best gaming PC imagineable can be obscenely expensive and buying one prebuilt isn't much better, but there are ways to get cheaper ones; particularly when you build your own, but even if you get them pre-built. More than anything, the best computer for gaming is ultimately the best one you can actually afford, but you don't want to just settle for any old PC. Here are some tips for how to get the very best gaming machine possible for any budget. Budget gaming PCs You don't have to spend a fortune to get the pretty good prebuilt gaming PC, believe it or not. Let’s start with the brand name. People tend to opt for PCs made by well-known brands like Alienware, Corsair or MSI. It makes sense that they would, particularly when shopping for a relatively expensive … [Read more...] about The best gaming PCs are cheaper than you think

Last month, EA published an update formalizing its policy that mods for The Sims 4 "cannot be sold, licensed, or rented for a fee." But the publisher tells Ars that there is still one important exception that should ensure many Sims modders can continue to make significant income from their game-expanding creations. EA's new modding policy, first published July 21 , is pretty direct in saying that Sims 4 mods "must be non-commercial and distributed free-of-charge" and that they can't "contain features that would support monetary transactions of any type." According to the published policy, those who want to monetize their Sims modding work are limited to indirect methods like "passive advertisements and requests for donations" on their own websites (but not within the mods themselves). Despite this recent formalization, this policy isn't entirely new. In late 2017, former EA Community Manager Amanda Drake wrote on the game's forums that mod creators "cannot lock … [Read more...] about EA cracks down on modders selling their custom

The Book of Boba Fett is closed and Obi-Wan Kenobi 's solo adventure is done, but The Mandalorian, the Disney Plus Star Wars show that introduced Grogu (aka Baby Yoda ), is coming back for season 3. The live-action series will kick off next February . Let's take a look at where Mando's adventures, which take place five years after Return of the Jedi , are likely to go next. We'll be diving into full SPOILER territory for the first two seasons and The Book of Boba Fett, so be warned if you aren't up to date. See Disney Plus subscription options When is season 3 coming to Disney Plus? It's scheduled to arrive in February 2023, as revealed during Star Wars Celebration Anaheim , but we don't have an exact release date yet. Since new episodes of Disney Plus shows generally come on Wednesdays, the season 3 premiere will likely come on Feb. 1, Feb. 8, Feb. 16 or Feb. 23. Is there a Mandalorian season 3 trailer? Yes, but no footage has been released … [Read more...] about ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3: What to Know About Baby Yoda’s Star Wars Future

Windows 11 made a number of functional and cosmetic changes to the Windows user interface. One of the most controversial is the new Start Menu, which takes up more space while displaying less information. Here’s how you can get Windows 10’s Start Menu on Windows 11. What’s Wrong With Windows 11’s Start Menu? Windows users are typically pretty resistant to change when it comes to the user interface (UI), especially when Microsoft changes prominent things like the Start Menu, the right-click context menu, or the taskbar. The Windows 11 Start Menu has proven to be one of the more controversial changes that came with Windows 11— it doesn’t display your installed applications without an extra click, you can’t show your pinned applications while displaying your installed applications, you can’t sort your pinned applications into groups, you can’t change the size of the icons of your pinned applications, and the entire recommended section is automatically populated. It looks … [Read more...] about How to Get the Windows 10 Start Menu on Windows 11

What just happened? AMD has once again surpassed its processor (and soon-to-be GPU) rival Intel in terms of market capitalization. The companies swapped places after Intel revealed a very difficult quarter that saw it lose half a billion dollars. AMD, meanwhile, will report its second-quarter earnings tomorrow (Tuesday, August 2), when it's expected to confirm strong growth over the three months. This isn't the first time AMD has passed Intel when it comes to market cap. That happened in February when team red's $49 billion all-stock takeover of Xilinx boosted its market cap to $197.75 billion, pushing past Intel's $197.24 billion by $51 million. AMD only managed to stay ahead of Intel for a few weeks before Chipzilla once again became the more valuable company. But that changed in the wake of Intel's disastrous quarterly report in which it announced a 22% year-on-year revenue decline of $15.3 billion and a $454 million net loss, which represents a 109% YoY fall. Intel blamed … [Read more...] about AMD is once again more valuable than Intel

As the wave of omicron coronavirus subvariant BA.5 continues to flood the US, daily COVID-19 hospitalizations are four times higher than four months ago, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data reflects the high ongoing transmission of coronavirus subvariants adept at evading fading immune responses in a population that is largely unboosted. In early April, as the US fell into a brief pandemic lull in the wake of the towering BA.1 omicron wave, the seven-day rolling average for new hospitalizations sunk to around 1,420 per day nationwide. Now, after waves of subvariants BA. 2, BA.2.12.1, and the current BA.5, hospitalizations have floated back up. The current seven-day rolling average is nearing 6,300. Overall, more than 37,000 people in the US are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Fortunately, deaths have not risen as a result of increased hospitalizations. The average number of daily deaths is around 375 per day, according … [Read more...] about With help from BA.5, new COVID hospitalizations quadrupled since April

Rating: 6/10 ? 1 - Absolute Hot Garbage 2 - Sorta Lukewarm Garbage 3 - Strongly Flawed Design 4 - Some Pros, Lots Of Cons 5 - Acceptably Imperfect 6 - Good Enough to Buy On Sale 7 - Great, But Not Best-In-Class 8 - Fantastic, with Some Footnotes 9 - Shut Up And Take My Money 10 - Absolute Design Nirvana Price: $179.99 While I doubt you miss untangling wired headphones, you may miss their audio quality. Lossless Bluetooth devices are starting to surface, bringing wired quality to untethered listening. The Edifier NeoBuds S are among the first. Even with their superb audio quality, you are left expecting more. Here's What We Like Fantastic audio quality Variety of listening modes Quick charge And What We Don't Limited control customization Unresponsive touch controls Inconsistent connection App’s permanent banner Table of Contents Snapdragon Sound: Lossless Audio Listening Modes Mic Test … [Read more...] about Edifier Neobuds S Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Buggy

Pinterest has engineered a way to serve its photo-sharing community more of the images they love. The social-image service, with more than 400 million monthly active users, has trained bigger recommender models for improved accuracy at predicting people’s interests. Pinterest handles hundreds of millions of user requests an hour on any given day. And it must also narrow down relevant images from roughly 300 billion images on the site to roughly 50 for each person. The last step — ranking the most relevant and engaging content for everyone using Pinterest — required a leap in acceleration to run heftier models, with minimal latency, for better predictions. Pinterest has improved the accuracy of its recommender models powering people’s home feeds and other areas, increasing engagement by as much as 16%. The leap was enabled by switching from CPUs to NVIDIA GPUs, which could easily be applied next to other areas, including advertising images, according to Pinterest. “Normally … [Read more...] about Pinterest Boosts Home Feed Engagement 16% With Switch to GPU Acceleration of Recommenders

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk has been named Time's 2021 Person of the Year . The magazine also honors vaccine scientists who tackled COVID-19 as their heroes of the year , and Olympic and world champion gymnast Simone Biles was named athlete of the year . Time said it gave Musk the award for his "dreams of Mars as he bestrides Earth, square-jawed and indomitable." "The richest man in the world does not own a house and has recently been selling off his fortune," Time writes in tribute. "He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver . With a flick of his finger, the stock market soars or swoons." Born in South Africa in 1971 to a family that made its money in mining, Musk moved to the US and was a key player in PayPal's rise. In 2002 he founded SpaceX and a few years later was an early investor in electric car company Tesla, which he now runs. Time's profile notes Musk's "madcap" … [Read more...] about Elon Musk is Time’s Person of the Year for 2021