Monthly Archives: July 2015
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp is This Week’s TV Highlight
Most of the big Summer TV premieres have already landed here in the final stretch of July - but not all. This week brings us the return of Comedy Central's hilarious Review, the final season premiere of the action-packed Strike Back, and the Netflix Original, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp - a prequel series to 2001's cult comedy classic starring Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, and Janeane Garofalo.
Netflix in August: Doctor Who, Reading Rainbow, More
In fact, First Day of Camp is our big TV (ish) pick for the week, as this eight-episode series managed to get just about every single name from its original cast back. Along with Rudd, Poehler, and Garofalo, Bradley Cooper, Marguerite Moreau, Christopher Meloni, Elizabeth Banks, Molly Shannon and all the State alum who populated the first outing have returned, playing younger versions of the characters they played in the original movie. Despite this series coming to us 14 years later.
Nvidia’s Mid-Range GTX 950 Reportedly Coming Next Month
Nvidia's next mid-range graphics card is rumored for debut on August 17. The GeForce GTX 950, as it's now known, will compete against AMD's Radeon R7 370.
According to TechSpot, the GTX 950 will have Nvidia's GM206 GPU, which first debuted in the GTX 960 back in January. However, 25% of the CUDA cores in the GM206 will be disabled for the GTX 950, giving it a core count of 768.
The reported clock speeds for the GTX 950 are between 1150 and 1250 MHz, with a boost clock speed between 1350 and 1450 MHz. This actually puts the speed of the 950 higher than the 960, which has a base clock speed of 1127 MHz and a boosted speed of 1178 MHz.
Christopher Nolan’s Next Film Is…
Director Christopher Nolan's (Inception, Interstellar, the Dark Knight trilogy) next film has been revealed to be a documentary on stop-motion animators Stephen and Timothy Quay.
The film, aptly titled Quay, pays tribute to some of Nolan's favorite filmmakers and provides a look into "the inner workings of the Brothers’ studio."
According to Film Forum's announcement (via The Film Stage), the documentary will be shown alongside the Quay brothers' three stop-motion films In Absentia, The Comb, and Street of Crocodiles on August 19 in New York City.
Advanced Warfare’s Reckoning DLC Coming Soon
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's fourth and final downloadable content pack, titled Reckoning, will be released August 4 on Xbox One and Xbox 360, Activision announced today. Reckoning will introduce four new multiplayer maps, the return of the Exo Grapple playlist, and the last chapter of Advanced Warfare's Exo Zombies saga.
Set in New Bahgdad, the first new multiplayer map, Overload, encourages medium to long-range combat. Quarantine, a medium-sized map, takes place in a biological testing center, while Fracture takes place at an arctic excavation site. Lastly, Swarm is located in Seoul, South Korea and is the smallest of the new maps.
Reckoning also includes Descent, the final Exo Zombies episode, which introduces new “fused” zombies and the Trident Reflected Energy Weapon. Here's an outline of the final chapter, courtesy of Activision:
Street Fighter 2 Battered Continue Screen Busts Revealed
Fans of Street Fighter II collectibles have something unique to look forward to, a line of busts for the World Warriors’ in-game "continue portraits."
Images from Japan’s Wonder Festival 2015 were posted on Nonsolohobby.org’s Facebook page, revealing all twelve busts at a booth loaded with displays of upcoming Street Fighter collectibles.
The busts perfectly capture the battered and bloody portraits seen at the continue screen that appears when a player loses.
Check out all of the images below:
No details were given about the possibility of a release outside of Japan, or for pricing.
Microsoft Tool Lets Windows 10 Users Block Unwanted Updates
A new tool in Windows 10 will allow users to block certain updates. The tool will be available as an optional download.
As the Windows support page where the troubleshooter can be downloaded explains, Package KB3073930 is used to prevent troublesome drivers or updates from being reinstalled again.
"In rare cases, a specific driver or update might temporarily cause issues with your device, and in this case you will need a way to prevent the problematic driver or update from reinstalling automatically the next time Windows Updates are installed."
The tool is called Troubleshooter Package KB3073930. However, it isn't capable of disabling every undesired update, and also requires users to uninstall the unwanted update beforehand. Earlier in the month, Microsoft announced that updates for Windows 10 will be mandatory.
New to Netflix for August
With the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel, The Green Legend, being moved out of 2015, Netflix's August is looking a little lean. Still, there's The Hurt Locker, Lord of War, some Russell Brand specials, all the Fred movies, and some classic Reading Rainbow to sift through.
Here's What's Leaving Netflix in August
Plus, there's Peter Capaldi's first run as The Doctor on Doctor Who, the first season of Girl Meets World, Once Upon a Time's big Frozen-fest, Revenge's fourth (and final) season, and more.
All Title Dates are Subject to Change
Nintendo TVii Is Shutting Down
Nintendo is shutting down the TVii service on Wii U in North America.
On August 11, Nintendo TVii will stop working on the home console, according to the company. Nintendo says a system update will soon eliminate the icon from the Wii U menu and GamePad home screen.
As for the reasoning behind closing TVii, Nintendo said, "Every service has a life cycle, and it is time to focus our resources on other projects." However, the company does note other video on demand applications will continue functioning as normal, like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.
Nintendo TVii was unveiled in September 2012, months ahead of the launch of Wii U. While the service has worked for almost three years in North America, TVii was never launched in Europe because of localization issues.
New Spidey Writers Say Peter Parker Is a Geek
Vacation co-writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have confirmed their previously rumored involvement in Marvel and Sony's upcoming Spider-Man reboot.
"We can finally acknowledge that," Daley told NPR. "This is the first time that we can say that we are writing it."
With regard to what fans can expect from this new incarnation of the web-slinging hero, Daley shared a few details on how they're handling the portrayal of Tom Holland's Peter Parker, noting that his relatability as a geek will be an important part of the character.
Capcom Apologizes and Postpones Next Street Fighter 5 Beta
Capcom has issued a formal apology for the problems with the Street Fighter V beta, which has been postponed to a later date.
In a post on Capcom-Unity, the publisher is remorseful for users not being able to access the beta due to connectivity issues over the weekend.
“Capcom offers its sincerest apologies to everyone who participated in this first beta test. While the purpose of a beta is to work out these type of issues, it was very clear that the issues we faced were more severe than we were prepared for. After three days of testing, while we were making progress and collecting valuable data, we felt the majority of players were not having a good experience, and the best course of action would be to take the servers offline for extended maintenance. We will be postponing our first beta phase until we believe the experience is going to be a positive one for players.”