Chevy’s New, Affordable Electric Car Boasts 200 Mile Range
Chevrolet officially announced the Chevy Bolt, its new electric car. During the company's keynote at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, it revealed that the car will retail for a little less than $30,000 (after federal tax credits for electric cars).
Chevy's Bolt boasts an impressive range of over 200 miles, more than its competitors—the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3. TechCrunch notes that Chevrolet's Spark EV, the company's other electric car, costs less than the Bolt will, but comes up short with its 80 mile range.
The Bolt's concept was first shown-off in January of last year, though not much information was released. While the company still has its secrets regarding the Bolt, we now know that it'll feature the "rear camera mirror and surround vision," according to TechCrunch. Surround vision uses four cameras to give a "360-degree view of what's going on around the car." This mode, however, will only be activated while parking.
Psychonauts 2 Has Been Funded
Psychonauts 2 has hit its crowd-funding goal of $3.3 million as of this afternoon.
The Fig funding page now sits just over that goal, with five days left in the campaign.
"Holy Smokes! We did it you guys!" reads a brief note. "Psychonauts 2 is now fully funded! We want to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for making this possible. We’ve wanted to make this game for a long time, and now we finally can! So thank you, thank you, thank you!"
The sequel to the 2005 platformer was announced in December during The Game Awards, and raised more than half of its goal on the first day.
Knights Templar Show Coming from Jeremy Renner
History has ordered a 10-episode first season of Knightfall, an original drama series exploring the Knights Templar during the Crusades with Jeremy Renner (The Avengers, The Bourne Legacy) producing and guest starring.
Here's a brief synopsis of Knightfall, courtesy of History:
"Knightfall reveals the great secrets protected by the Templars and tells the story of faith, loyalty and brotherhood that help sustain these warriors on the battlefield, and the dark events that would forever sear the infamous date of Friday the 13th into the world’s psyche."
Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye
Arrow’s John Barrowman to Write Dark Archer Comic
DC Comics has revealed its latest comic book tie-in to the Arrow TV series. As revealed by TV Insider, Arrow: The Dark Archer is a prequel comic that will flesh out the life of Malcolm Merlyn and his journey towards becoming a member of the League of Assassins. Interestingly, the series will be co-written by none other than Malcom Merlyn himself. Actor John Barrowman and his sister Carole will script the series, with Daniel Sampere and other unnamed artists illustrating.
Sandler’s Ridiculous Six Sets Netflix Record
Netflix has revealed that Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous Six is the most popular film ever for the streaming service.
The company's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, boasted about the flick's success at CES, according to The Verge.
"The Ridiculous Six, by way of example, in the first 30 days on Netflix it's been the most-watched movie in the history of Netflix," he said. "It's also enjoyed a spot at No. 1 in every territory we operate in, and in many of them it's still No. 1."
It's important to note that the Adam Sandler vehicle isn't just topping Netflix originals; it's also beat out licensed films from other studios that appear on the service.
Sony’s 2016 Developer’s Conference Will Focus on VR
Sony's PlayStation 4 Developers Conference will be a big jumping-off point for more virtual reality development for the upcoming PlayStation VR platform.
According to the 2016 DevCon announcement from Sony, this year's conference will provide "essential information" for developers looking to push their work "into high gear."
Sony said it's "building up an agenda that will focus on PlayStation VR," but the conference will also cover areas such as "recent features and services," PlayStation Network, advanced graphics concepts and optimizations, utilization of the PS4's CPU, as well as "submissions updates."
The conference will be held at the Loews Hollywood Hotel May 10 through May 11 and will also include roundtable sessions. Sony said the discussions "are positioned to be an open environment," one where developers can trade "experiences, thoughts, feedback, and lessons learned."
Microsoft Cutting Support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10
Anyone that's decided to stick with some older versions of Internet Explorer may want to consider upgrading to something else soon, as Microsoft has announced that it will soon cut support for those versions beginning next week.
By "next week," the company explains that support for IE 8, 9 and 10 will cease on Tuesday, January 12. One final update will arrive on that day, but after that, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or technical support for those versions. The last update will also include a notification feature informing users of the upcoming shift.
Apple Reveals ‘Record-Breaking Holiday Season’ for App Store With $1.1 Billion in Sales
The App Store got a lot of attention over the holidays, probably due to all the new iPhones and iPads that people received as gifts. As such, Apple announced today that the recent holiday season was pretty good for the digital store, resulting in a record breaking $1.1 billion in sales in just two weeks.
During that two week period that ended on January 3, 2016, people spent a massive amount of money not just on apps, but also in-app purchases. Weekly records were set for overall traffic and the amount of purchases made.
In addition to that, New Years Day was the biggest day in the App Store's history, with customers spending over $144 million and breaking the previous record that had just been set on Christmas Day. All told, across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, over $20 billion was spent on apps in 2015.
Oculus CEO Says Company Is Not Making Money on Rift
After revealing the price of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset this morning, Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey took to Twitter today to answer concerns regarding the headset's pricing.
The Oculus CEO stated that "
is not making money" at the Rift's current price point of $600 / £500 / €700.
To reiterate, we are not making money on Rift hardware. High end VR is expensive, but Rift is obscenely cheap for what it is.
Here’s the Other Guy Who Played Chewie in Force Awakens
Peter Mayhew wasn't the only guy wearing the Chewbacca suit on the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Given Mayhew's age (he's 71), reprising his role in all of Chewie's action scenes wasn't always possible, and that's where Finnish actor and basketball player Joonas Suotamo stepped in.
Suotamo started auditioning for the role in 2013, after being recommended to movie production staff looking for a 7-footer with blue eyes. "I was told to send in an audition tape of me doing a caveman impression," Suotamo told Business Insider.