T3 Agenda: Yamaha's new cinema-aping Aventage AV receivers, HTC Vive's new VR startups and more

T3's daily roundup of the best new announcements from the world of tech

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In today's edition of the T3 Agenda, we shake off the Bank Holiday weekend with Yamaha's power new range of AC receivers, rumours abound that Sony is preparing to launch PS5 in 2018 and more...

Yamaha's new Aventage AV receivers could transform you home into a real life cinema

Yamaha is back with a new take on its high-end range of Aventage AV receivers, which now pack MusicCast tech to send audio all over your house, balanced audio inputs for high end stereo products and use the exclusive CinemaDSP modes to enhance your listening environment.

We all know the Aventage range already has Dolby Atmos and DTS:X object based audio as standard, but that new CinemaDSP tech makes full use of all the speakers in your setup regardless of the audio format being used. So whatever you might have at home in entertainment setup, the Aventage range will enhance the whole thing to make a fuller, richer audio experience.

MusicCast is available across 50 models in Yamaha's home entertainment range so you can effectively turn your whole home into a carefully enhanced cinema experience. The Aventage range even comes with DAB/DAB+ radio and much more.

The RX-A670 and RX-A870 are due in July 2017, the RX-A1070 and RX-A2070 will follow in August 2017 and the RX-A3070 will round up the new range update in September 2017. No prices have been confirmed as yet.

HTC's VR-focused Vive X program is helping supporting plenty of new tech startups

With support from HTC VIVE, and its $100 million accelerator program Vive X, Chinese VR start-ups including 7invensun, ObEN and TPCast were on hand to showcase their achievements at the fourth annual The Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance (VRVCA).

The event, which was founded by HTC, featured 7invensun - the first company to bring real-time eye tracking technology to all existing Vive systems - as well as ObEN, which presented the world’s first WeChat integrated VR experience through Vive. That tech is particularly exciting as it's enabled by the ground-breaking integration of their VR artificial intelligence technology with China’s most popular social platform.

TPCast, another startup funded through the Vive X program, was there and it announced its Business Edition tether-less upgrade kit for the Vive, which is the world’s first multi-user tether-less VR solution enabling up to six users to interact in one physical space.

Could PS5 be coming in 2018? The man who correctly predicted PS4 Pro seems to think so

Despite being three and a half years into one console cycle - and barely six months removed from the release of the iterative PS4 Pro - rumours are once again abound that Sony is preparing to launch PlayStation 5 in 2018. In fact, more petrol has been added to the fire following the words of one respected analyst.

According to Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong - who previously predicted the eventual arrival of both PS4 Pro and PS4 Slim - Sony will likely launch the proper next installment in the incredibly popular PlayStation brand as close as 2018.

The comments were made off the back of the firm's recent financial earnings in a Wall Street Journal report, so it's certainly going to help that rumour machine. However, here at T3 Towers, 2018 just seems too early for Sony to pull the plug on the hugely successful PS4. And with PS4 Pro not even a year into its life cycle yet, we shouldn't be seeing PS5 for a long while yet. 

Dom Reseigh-Lincoln

Dom Reseigh-Lincoln has been writing for T3 for over half a decade now, covering everything from mobile phones and laptops right through to video games and gaming peripherals. Purveyor of an excellent beard, as well as some perpetually cheeky offspring, Dom likes to wind down in his spare time by listening to heavy metal. 

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