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PlayStation VR2

Will Sony’s PlayStation VR 2 live up to the hype?

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In much less than two weeks, the PlayStation VR2 is scheduled to go on sale. On February 22, Sony will launch a new age of virtual reality on the PS5, and with the second generation of its headgear soon to be released, marketing efforts are inevitably picking up.

With a new trailer that showcases the headset’s advantages and shows them with specific gaming sequences from upcoming titles, Sony is hammering the marketing drum.

PlayStation VR2
Image Source: reviewgeek.com

A brand-new PS VR2 Gameplay Features trailer from Sony has just been released, and this two-minute sizzle reel-style clip has only heightened users’ anticipation. Though perhaps not as large as Sony had intended, the PlayStation VR’s initial release on the PlayStation 4 demonstrated that there is a market for virtual reality games on consoles.

Also Read: Can ChatGPT assist Microsoft in dethroning Google Search?

However, Sony is hopeful that the PS VR2 on the PlayStation 5 will help the platform development and that the improved PlayStation VR2 technology will help draw in new users. On February 22, the VR2 is expected to go on sale. For $549.99, customers may get the virtual reality headgear and two Sense controllers.

Although the PS VR2 won’t support PlayStation VR games, the launch lineup of over 30 games should prove to be an enticing selection for early adopters. The most recent PlayStation VR2 trailer from Sony provides a clear justification for PlayStation 5 owners to consider purchasing the VR system when it launches.

The teaser for the PlayStation VR2 concentrates on several of its key selling aspects in much less than two minutes. The PlayStation VR’s hardware features include a “4K HDR Display,” which refers to its two 2000×2040 OLED displays, “Tempest 3D AudioTech” for 3D audio through headphones, “110° Field of View,” which is higher than the original PlayStation VR’s 100° FOV, “Foveated Rendering,” “Eye-Tracking,” and even “Headset Feedback,” which vibrates the players’ skulls.

The new trailer also places a lot of emphasis on the PS VR2 Sense controllers. Highlighted features for in-game natural hand gestures are “Haptic Feedback,” “Adaptive Triggers,” and “Finger Touch Detection.” Players engage with virtual environments using their hands, and the more lifelike the hand presence, the more immersed they might feel.

Also Read: Why is Meta shutting down Echo VR?

It makes sense why Sony is emphasizing the Sense controllers in addition to the headset. The incorporation of footage from forthcoming PlayStation VR2 games is another feature of the trailer worth highlighting.

While not everyone is ready to experiment with virtual reality just yet, this brief Sony trailer provides a fascinating overview of what the PlayStation VR2 has to offer. In terms of appearance and functionality, the PS VR2 is an obvious improvement over the original PlayStation VR and a legitimate rival to current PC VR headsets.

iPhone Ultra

Is the iPhone Ultra worth the wait?

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Apple may unveil a new, more costly iPhone tier to its lineup named “Ultra.” According to the rumour, the new iPhone tier will be introduced alongside the iPhone 16 series in 2024 and would sit above the Pro Max and Pro iPhone models.

The brand has previously used the term “Ultra” to distinguish between its top-tier smartwatch, the Apple Watch Ultra, and the most advanced M1 processor. According to the source, Apple has internally contemplated releasing an Ultra model iPhone.

iPhone Ultra
Image Source: macworld.com

However, other than pricing, it is currently unclear how the Ultra model would vary from the Pro and Pro Max models. CEO Tim Cook reportedly stated in Apple’s earnings release last week that he thinks customers will shell out more for a better model.

According to one speculation relating to the iPhone 15 Ultra, Apple may use a new titanium alloy exterior, a feature that was initially expected for the iPhone 14 Pro range but didn’t materialise.

Also Read: The iPhone may get a microLED display. What does that mean?

This rumour gained credence after tipster Leaks According to ApplePro, the iPhone 15 Ultra’s chassis will be made of titanium, while another leak purportedly showed the material up close on a sample iPhone.Titanium is as robust as stainless steel but is lighter, thus this would result in a more robust phone that may still be lightweight.

The only issue is that, given the increased cost of titanium, this could result in an increase in the cost of the iPhone 15 Ultra. The titanium body, however, was recently depicted on the Pro and Ultra iPhone 15 editions in a depiction of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Thus, perhaps this update won’t be an Ultra-only feature.

According to ShrimpApplePro, the iPhone 15 Ultra’s back panel may have curved edges, which is another odd potential modification. The resulting iPhone would look drastically different and, presumably, feel more pleasant to carry.

But according to the most recent reports from LeaksApplePro, Apple may continue to use the flat-back design it currently uses because to supply chain concerns and wireless charging design limitations.

This fall, the company is anticipated to launch the iPhone 15 series. There are rumours regarding what might be in the new phones, despite the fact that not much is revealed about the new lineup. According to one report, all upcoming iPhone models would incorporate USB-C connections for charging.

Also Read: Why Did The iPhone 14 Plus End Up Being A Failure?

In 2022, the European Union decided that starting in 2024, USB-C would be the standard charging port for all smartphones. Another speculation regarding the iPhone 15 is an increase in price for all smartphone models. The current range of US pricing for the iPhone 14 variants is $829 to $1,599.

The greatest time to purchase a new smartphone is when users actually need one. If your iPhone is beginning to show its age, you’ll want to give the iPhone 15 a serious look, regardless of what the iPhone Ultra might be hiding in the wings.

Herb Chambers

Herb Chambers: A High School Dropout becoming a Billionaire

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American billionaire businessman Herb Chambers is the owner and President of The Herb Chambers Companies, a collection of 60 auto dealerships in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, region. He was ranked 392 out of the 400 wealthiest Americans in 2015, when he was 74 years old, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion.

Early Life

Chambers was raised in the working-class Dorchester district of Boston, where he worked as a cart collector at the neighborhood grocery store. After dropping out of high school and searching for a career in 1959, Chambers joined the US Navy as an aircraft electrician. He served for four years, earning the rank of Petty Officer Second Class.

Herb Chambers
Image Source: bostonglobe.com

Following his return, he pulled $500 from his mother to launch his first business, a copy distributor, which he later sold for $80 million. Herb founded A-Copy America, which grew to be the largest office copier dealership in the world, before going into the vehicle industry.

He combined that business with what is today known as Ikon in 1983. Ikon is a multinational corporation with eight operating nations that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Success Story

Herb looked for a new business challenge in 1985. He has always had a passion for cars and saw the automotive industry as being full of opportunities. After buying an Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealership in New London, Connecticut, in 1985, Chambers launched his own vehicle company.

Also Read: The Success Story of Sam Walton: Founder of Walmart

He made the business purchase as a result of his own disappointing dealership buying experience. Chambers established the Herb Chambers Companies after making improvements to the initial auto dealership.

Following the purchase of the Cadillac and Oldsmobile dealership in New London, General Motors authorized the purchase of a second Cadillac franchise in Rhode Island. In the same year that Hyundai entered the U.S. market, numerous suitable candidates applied for dealerships in strategic locations.

Hyundai selected Herb Chambers to be their local dealer after carefully examining each applicant’s qualifications. A little over a year later, Boston had Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche stores. It goes without saying that many people applied because they wanted to buy one of these expensive cars. All three manufacturers settled on Herb Chambers as their sole choice.

For his excellent achievements in the automobile industry, Chambers received the New England Motor Press Association Executive of the Year Award in May 2017.

Also Read: Gabe Newell: The richest man in the video game business

With more than 17,000 employees, the Herb Chambers car dealerships produce annual sales of over 1.5 billion dollars. Herb thinks that the training he obtained from other dealers before entering the industry has contributed to the company’s exceptional success in the auto dealer industry.

Currently, Herb Chambers has four Honda dealerships in Massachusetts: Burlington, Boston, Seekonk, and Westborough. The biggest Honda dealer in New England is Herb Chambers.

Additionally, he owns New England’s highest volume Porsche, BMW, Hyundai, and Dodge dealerships.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk to unveil Tesla’s ‘Master Plan 3.’ What to expect for us?

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Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said on Twitter on Wednesday that he will unveil the eagerly anticipated Master Plan 3 on March 1 at the company’s investor day.

Tesla announced it will discuss its next-generation vehicle platforms at the forthcoming investor day, which will be held at its gigafactory in Texas. Elon Musk has said that these platforms would result in a car that costs around half as much as Tesla’s current vehicle underpinnings. The session will be broadcasted live.

Elon Musk
Image Source: hypebeast.com

The company said that some retail and institutional investors will be welcome to attend in person. According to the company, investors will be able to tour its manufacturing facility and speak with members of the leadership team about issues such as the company’s long-term expansion goals, its generation 3 platform, and capital allocation.

Also Read: Tesla is getting cheaper. Is it a good move by Elon Musk?

Musk originally made vague promises to increase Tesla operations to “extreme size” in his Master Plan 3 hints from last March. He also touched on issues like AI and said that his other companies, SpaceX and The Boring Company, would be a part of this next phase of the plan.

On Wednesday, there was a new update. He tweeted, “Master Plan 3, the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth will be presented on March 1.”

In 2006, Musk published a blog entry on Tesla’s website explaining what he referred to as the Master Plan. The four-step approach began with the development of a high-priced, low-volume vehicle, and then used the proceeds to fund the creation of a medium-volume, lower-priced car.

An affordable, high-volume car would be produced with the money made from the medium-volume car. The plan concluded with the phrase “provide solar power.”

Part two, or Part Deux, was introduced in 2016 with the goal to “create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage,” expand Tesla’s EV product line to include all key market segments, and provide self-driving technology that is ten times safer than manual.

Also Read: Why is Meta shutting down Echo VR?

The plan also claimed that owners will be able to use ride-sharing to leverage self-driving technology and profit from their unused vehicles. In part two, Tesla did not check off all the boxes. The Cybertruck, which is apparently a part of the strategy to extend the EV line of products, has not yet been released.

Despite the branding, its advanced driver-aid technology does not drive itself, so owners cannot convert their cars into money-making robot axis. Musk appears to be prepared to continue with Part 3 anyway.

Last year, Tesla shares experienced their worst yearly performance as a result of Musk selling Tesla shares to pay for his acquisition of Twitter and other shareholders losing faith in his commitment to the automaker, whose sales growth fell short of expectations.

chatgpt

Can ChatGPT assist Microsoft in dethroning Google Search?

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By incorporating ChatGPT into its Bing search engine, Microsoft is hoping to unseat Google as the dominant search engine. That is stated in a recent report from The Information, but will the risk be worthwhile?

Despite ChatGPT’s recent November 2022 launch, its uncanny realism has caused it to become popular among both the general population and artificial intelligence experts.

chatgpt
Image Source: bdtechtalks.com

Users have been utilizing it to write articles, create code, and create musical scores since they can enter any prompt they can imagine and get back something that closely resembles human-generated writing.

According to the Information, the Redmond-based corporation is attempting to introduce a new edition of Bing that uses ChatGPT technology to respond to user questions.

Also Read: Microsoft Considers $10 Billion Investment in ChatGPT Creator

Interestingly, the report asserts that this may be accomplished in a manner distinct from the standard list of links and text excerpts that users receive from any search engine presently.

Though the specifics of Bing’s AI-powered search results are still unknown, they most likely won’t significantly differ from current practices given that ChatGPT isn’t intended to be a search engine.

According to StatCounter, Google currently holds a nearly insurmountable lead among search engines, devouring 92.5% of the worldwide market. With only 3% of the market, Bing is mired in second place, making Google’s dominance glaringly obvious. Google is allegedly still concerned.

According to a December 2022 New York Times article, Google management had issued a “code red” alert in reaction to the release of ChatGPT because it posed a threat to the company’s hegemony and revenue.

And ChatGPT isn’t the sole AI that might put Google’s position as the industry leader in danger. There are also additional contenders for the title of best AI, including Google’s own LaMDA and BlenderBot from Meta.

Microsoft has included AI in its offerings in the past, in addition to ChatGPT. The corporation declared in 2022 that it would integrate the DALL-E 2 picture bot into its Designer application and Image Creator tool in Bing.

Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the company that created both DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT, leading to the development of both of these connections. Microsoft will consider its investment success if it ultimately manages to topple Google from its lofty heights.

Also Read: China’s Baidu to launch ChatGPT-style bot in March

ChatGPT is an OpenAI project that is built on top of the GPT-3 autocomplete text generator.ChatGPT is an OpenAI project that is built on top of the GPT-3 autocomplete text generator. On OpenAI, a demo of the chatbot was made accessible in late November (login required).

In addition to producing AI-generated material like music and poems, ChatGPT can accurately answer trivia questions. The AI’s capacity to assist with code debugging is another characteristic that might make it the perfect GitHub Copilot companion.

However, there are numerous reports claiming that ChatGPT frequently provides incorrect but plausible replies. Stack Overflow briefly banned the chatbot last month as a result of this uncertainty.

Echo VR

Why is Meta shutting down Echo VR?

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The critically acclaimed virtual reality game Echo VR will be going down in August, Meta announced last week. Since then, previous Meta consulting CTO John Carmack and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth have both provided additional information about the shutdown.

The multiplayer VR-based game’s developer, Ready At Dawn, said on Tuesday that the game will be ending on August 1st, 2023 in a piece on Medium. According to the statement, gamers can play to their hearts’ content for the time being, buy the game, and re-download it.

Echo VR
Image Source: fossbytes.com

However, the article stated that following that, the game’s servers and services would be turned off. Echo Points can still be used by players up until that point, but there will be “no refunds on in-app purchases, DLC, and in-game currencies,” according to the post.

The creator of Echo VR, Ready at Dawn, has given a clue that it would be concentrating on the future. The Echo VR development team stated in a blog post on the closure that “by no means was this decision made lightly.

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But it was made for many good reasons and chief among them is the studio coming together to focus on our next project. We can’t say anything about it yet, but we are all excited and need all hands on deck.”

According to UploadVR, Bosworth stated in an Instagram AMA that while the player base of Echo VR was “loyal as all get out,” it has decreased to the “low ten thousand.” He noted, “Unfortunately, keeping things alive takes work.

This is not like a return on investment money standpoint; it’s just those resources could be put to other uses that I think will be useful to the now tens of millions of people who are in VR.” Additionally, he said that certain “regulatory constraints” in Meta make maintaining the game more expensive.

The servers for Echo VR will continue to run until 1st August at 1 PM ET, after which time they will cease to exist entirely. While one would have thought that Meta would make it playable in a way similar to how Velan Studios is making Knockout City available, Bosworth appears to be ruling that out.

Echo VR has rapidly risen to the level of an e-sport in recent years. According to the Oculus website, Echo VR may be used with the Meta’s Oculus Quest, Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro, and Rift S devices.

Also Read: Why Apex Legends Mobile is shutting down?

After donning their headsets, participants are transported into a zero-gravity arena where they engage in robotic combat using a combination of gaming prowess and athletic prowess. According to The Verge, the game was one of the centerpieces of the Oculus Quest and Rift S launches.

Following the launch of the Meta Quest (formerly Oculus Quest) and Rift S, Facebook acquired Ready At Dawn in 2020, establishing Echo VR as one of the company’s flagship games