The next installment in the iconic Call of Duty franchise will apparently be so realistic in every detail that gamers will have a hard time believing it’s actually a game they’re playing.

Activision has made the bold promise that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be so realistic in every detail, nobody’s going to believe it’s actually a game. A new video has just been launched by the gaming giant in conjunction with Sledgehammer Games, which lifts the lid on what’s going on behind the scenes prior to the title’s November launch.

“Because our subject matter is very advanced and technical, and we’re kind of peering into the future, we did whatever it took to make the game look as photorealistic as possible,” said Joe Salud, art director for Sledgehammer.

“The first thing the gamer’s going to notice when they see our facial performances, they’re going to wonder, like ‘It looks like it’s on TV!’ And then they’re going to realize, ‘Oh my god, that’s a game.'”

Also teased in the new video are the new-generation character animations developed under the watch of Christopher Stone, who insists that the result will be nothing short of mind-blowing.

“We’re building a whole separate character skeleton on top of the character animation to be able to see all those articulated parts and things moving as he’s running,” said the animation director.

“It’s really going to let you feel like a badass, which is something that everybody needs to feel like playing Call of Duty,”

“It’s not an experience like you’re used to from Call of Duty,”

“It’s going to blow people away.”

November 4 marks the release date for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One,
Xbox 360 and PC.

Terry Gou of Foxconn has spoken out in defense of his company, insisting that the raft of over a dozen suicides in 2010 cannot be blamed on poor working conditions…or at least 95% of them, anyway.

Foxconn has broken silence on it rather questionable employee welfare and safety record and…unsurprisingly…has denied any wrongdoing.

Four years ago, Apple’s primary iPhone and iPad assembly partner hit the headlines all over the world after a string of employee suicides rocked the industry to its core. Foxconn had previously been accused of enforcing inhumane working conditions and treating its employees like animals, though none had expected things to get as bad as they apparently did.

The finger of blame was of course pointed squarely at CEO Terry Gou, though Apple also faced questions as to how it could possibly turn a blind eye to what was going on.

This week however, Mr. Gou has gone on-record to insist that as far as he is concerned, the raft of suicides four years ago were nothing to do with him, his company or Foxconn’s working conditions. He did however admit that it’s possible for dull and repetitive work to contribute to a person’s poor mental wellbeing, but stated outright that at least 90% of the Foxconn employee suicides happened as a result of family problems or issues with personal relationships.

Going a little deeper into his theory, Mr. Gou said that a large proportion of Foxconn’s employee-base is comprised of young singles under the age of 25 who live and work a long way from home. As such, he theorized that relationship problems and family issues further intensified by not having any close friends or compatriots to talk to could have led to many of the suicides.

Of course, critics will and in some cases are already arguing that Gou’s explanation still doesn’t paint a particularly positive picture of a factory in which vast swathes of the workforce are doing their daily duties while suffering from crippling depression, loneliness and in some cases serious mental health problems. According to the CEO however, the working conditions at Foxconn has always been a cut above national averages in China – he even insists his firm was in the top five percentile at the time of the suicides in 2010.

South Korea’s global Android leader has unleashed a barrage of four new Galaxy Smartphone, designed to deliver a serious wallop to the market’s mid-range high-fliers.

Samsung has over recent months only hit the headlines for its ultra-high-end Smartphone and tablet PC plans…the Galaxy Note 4 Phablet being a prime example. However, it seems the South Korean firm though it high-time to remind the world just what it’s capable of in the mid-reaches of the market too, having just unveiled not one or two, but four new Galaxy Smartphones.

And while none of the devices can hold a candle to the S5 in terms of raw power and performance, they’re likely to deliver a hammer blow to the industry’s other low to mid-range mainstay brands.

Samsung Galaxy Core II

First up is the Samsung Galaxy Core II, which boasts a quad-core CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, 768MB of RAM, a 4.5-inch WVGA touchscreen, 4GB of expandable memory and a similar back-plate to that of the Galaxy S5. There’s also a decent enough 5-megapixel camera and it ships with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 4

One of the less powerful new entries is the Samsung Galaxy Ace 4, which runs on a dual-core 1Ghz CPU and 512MB of RAM. Internal storage comes in at 4GB, the 4-inch WVGA touchscreen is pretty bog-standard and there’s a 5-megapixel camera gracing the rear.

Samsung Galaxy Young 2

Smaller still is the 3.5-inch Samsung Galaxy Young 2, which features a single-core processor clocked at 1.0GHz, 512MB of RAM and a 3-megapixel rear-mounted camera. The 4GB of internal storage space is expandable to 32GB with a micro-SD card.

Samsung Galaxy Star 2

Last up comes the Samsung Galaxy Star 2, which is very similar to the Young 2 only with a slightly less capable 2-megapixel camera and a smaller 1,300mAh battery.

Coffee Stain Studios has announced the launch of the official retail version of Goat Simulator – the game that started life as something of a joke and went on to become a cult hit.

Goat Simulator…the first time we heard about it we thought it was a joke, and we’d bet out bottom dollars you did too. Of course, it took one look at the trailer for the thing to realize that not only was it far from a joke, it was just about the best thing we’d ever seen. Hardly a title for overly-serious gamers and riddled with more bugs than a thousand polished games, Goat Simulator became an instant cult classic and sold by the boatload.

And given the fact that its creators even put a warning out saying not to bother buying the thing at all, the fact that it did so well is just plain genius.

As such, it comes as no surprise to hear confirmation that a fully-boxed retail version of Goat Simulator will indeed be released here in the US later this month. Coffee Stain Studios first announced the retail launch of the game in the UK back in May, but it seems folks on this side of the pond aren’t going to be left out of the fun either.

Speaking with the folks over at Polygon, Goat Sim developer Armin Ibrisagic said that Deep Silver had been in touch to discuss getting the thing out in the wild stateside.

“Steam has always been our primary source of income,” he said.

“So a retail version is nothing we planned or thought would bring us a lot of income, we were more motivated by the fact that a physical box with a goat’s face on it is pretty funny shit, so we decided to go for it,”

“I can just imagine a mom seeing it in a store and being like ‘Oh, Goat Simulator, that sounds like a fun game where you take care of farm animals, little Timmy will love this!’ and the next day when they’re having dinner, Timmy’s like ‘Mom, this food is penis shaped.”

When it launches before the end of the month, the retail version of Goat Simulator will sell for $9.99 and will have been patched to buggery to hopefully make it a wee bit smoother.

And just in case you’ve been hiding away for a while, check out the video below and we dare you not to chuckle:

A new study into the somewhat addictive habits of a Smartphone obsessed generation has revealed that nine out of ten young adults would rather ditch deodorant and toothbrushes than their cell-phones.

Ask yourself – could you go a full 24 hours without your Smartphone…honestly?

If the answer is ‘yes’ then you deserve a pat on the back as if a new study is anything to go by, you’ll soon be part of a distinct minority group.

Smartphone addiction has been called everything from a nuisance to a new-age plague killing the world and all it stands for. It doesn’t really matter what you choose to call it though, as the fact of the matter is it’s real…and it’s growing.

In terms of severity, if a new study is anything to go by then close to half of all adults in the US admitted they’d be unable to go even a single day without access to a Smartphone. It’s getting to such a point that for most, the idea of being disconnected for even 24-hours seems like a fate worse than death.

Bank of America’s Inaugural Trends in Consumer Mobility Report came up with the rather shocking data while assessing just how the relationship between American adults and their mobile devices has evolved over recent years. Incredibly, more than 90% of all adults polled insisted that in their daily lives, their Smartphones are just as essential to them as deodorant or their cars.

76% preferred their Smartphones to their TVs, while a further 36% would happily give up coffee rather than cease using their mobile devices for the day.

Things get even more depressing when looking at the younger age groups polled in the study. It was hardly surprising to find that 96% of those between 18 and 24 said their Smartphones were important to them. However, the shocker came in the form of 90% admitting their phones were more important than deodorant and 93% favoring their Smartphones over their toothbrushes.

In conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston is to roll out a series of cutting-edge park benches featuring two USB ports for the free charging of citizens’ mobile devices.

Boston is to introduce what could prove to be the future of park benches as we know them. Chances are most of us have found our mobile devices low on juice when out and about in the city – why not head over to the park for an eco-friendly top-up?

In conjunction with the sizeable brains at MIT, town officials in Boston are to begin rolling out a series of solar-powered benches complete with USB ports, which once up and running can be used by anyone to charge pretty much anything they fancy. The benches will first start appearing in various green spaces across the City – first in line being Titus Sparrow Park, Rose Kennedy Greenway and of course, Boston Common.

Under the name of the ‘Soofa’ the benches are technically the city’s second stab at bringing solar device charging to the masses free of charge, though the prior ‘Seat-e’ didn’t really get past its embryonic development stages.

And just in case you’re not won over by the ‘Soofa’ handle…which is probable…there’s a competition being run right now to give the benches a much better name and get your own name in Boston’s history books. Simply head over to the Twitter account of Changing Environments or its official website to make your entry.

It’s been suggested that the Surface Mini tablet may have been abandoned altogether, as Microsoft has decided that its market segment is simply too crowded for the device to compete.

When Microsoft invited us all to a ‘small gathering’ in New York City, we of course knew exactly what to expect. The Surface Mini was already well overdue and demand for the thing was off the scale – the careful choice of wording by Redmond being the smoking gun to end all.

And that’s exactly why the Surface Pro 3’s solo debut came as quite a massive surprise to the lot of us. Even the most skeptical analysts weren’t ready for that one, which of course led to fierce speculation as to where the Surface Mini was and why it didn’t turn up for its own launch event.

Everyone of course had their own explanation, though the general consensus seemed to be that the device had been held back for reasons unknown. Be it the late readying of MS Office for Windows Tablets or a simple component shortage, most reached the conclusion that we’d at least be seeing the Mini soon enough.

If a new report from DigiTimes is anything to go by however, best not hold your breath.

Published this morning, the report suggests that Microsoft has not in fact delayed the Surface Mini – it’s abandoned its plans to launch the thing altogether. The most obvious question of course being why, but according to DigiTimes there are two pretty sizeable reasons – low interest from third-party vendors and gigantic competition in the Surface Mini’s market segment.

Now, the latter of the two is undoubtedly the most interesting as ever since the first round of Surface tablets hit the market, demand for a smaller and more affordable option was huge. The reason being that the 7-inch and 8-inch Windows tablet PC market was for a long time near non-existent – the Surface Mini could have effectively claimed the segment as its own.

Fast forward to 2014 however and the Mini would have faced huge competition from all manner of sub-$200 Windows tablets, which in turn would have thrown the device’s place and worth into question. And if this is indeed Redmond’s motivation for scrapping the Surface Mini altogether, they’ve effectively blown the mother of all opportunities simply by holding back for far too long.

Would you still be interested in buying a Surface Mini at such a late stage, or are you happy enough with the rival Windows slates already doing the rounds?