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Dell buys IT firm EMC for $67 billion in largest tech deal in history

Derek Strickland | Business, Financial & Legal | Oct 12, 2015 7:55 AM CDT

Dell has just completed the single most substantial acquisition in the history of technology, paying a whopping $67 billion for EMC Corporation, one of the biggest names in data management.

Bringing EMC into the fold is extremely advantageous for Dell, who plans to bolster its data computing sector with EMC's valuable expertise in services like cloud management, enterprise-grade backup, recovery and archiving, and data virtualization. EMC powers a huge portion of the world's business data management, with companies across the globe utilizing its wide array of services to encrypt, analyze and interpret massive data streams across a wide variety of platforms.

"The combination of Dell and EMC creates an enterprise solutions powerhouse bringing our customers industry leading innovation across their entire technology environment. Our new company will be exceptionally well-positioned for growth in the most strategic areas of next generation IT including digital transformation, software-defined data center, converged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, mobile and security," said Michael Dell. "Our investments in R&D and innovation along with our privately-controlled structure will give us unmatched scale, strength and flexibility, deepening our relationships with customers of all sizes. I am incredibly excited to partner with the EMC, VMware, Pivotal, VCE, RSA and Virtustream teams and am personally committed to the success of our new company, our customers and partners."

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Continue reading: Dell buys IT firm EMC for $67 billion in largest tech deal in history (full post)

Qualcomm unveils its new 24-core server CPU based on an ARM design

Anthony Garreffa | Processors | Oct 11, 2015 6:31 PM CDT

Qualcomm has just unveiled its plans to enter the server CPU market with a new custom processor based on an ARM design. Qualcomm's latest chip is being aimed at the likes of hyper-scale customers like Google and Facebook, as well as many service providers and large enterprises.

The new chip was shown off last week, with the CPU being a purpose-built system-on-chip that is different to other Snapdragon processors. The first version of Qualcomm's new chip is a 24-core processor, combining PCIe, storage and other features into the SoC. According to Qualcomm Senior Vice President Anand CHandrasekher, the first pre-production processor has 24 cores, but future chips will have many more.

The chipmaker is now shipping its processor to big customers for testing, but Qualcomm isn't naming names. The company said it would provide a release window for the chip, but it would update the world in 2016.

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Continue reading: Qualcomm unveils its new 24-core server CPU based on an ARM design (full post)

ASUS unveils the super-small ROG Maximus VIII Impact motherboard

Anthony Garreffa | Motherboards | Oct 11, 2015 4:42 AM CDT

ASUS has just unveiled its latest Z170-based motherboard, the new ROG Maximus VIII Impact. The new Maximus Impact motherboard is the best yet, set to make it the centerpiece of new high-powered mini-ITX gaming PCs.

The new ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Impact features Intel's latest Z170 chipset, compatible with the new Skylake-powered processors like the Intel Core i7-6700K. The motherboard itself features two DDR4 slots that will take DDR4 RAM right up to a huge 4133MHz when overclocked. The motherboard features a "full-scale voltage-regulator module (VRM) dubbed Impact Power III vertically-mounted onto the tiny board, allowing you full access to digital power management for ultra-precise and stable overclocks with your processor and memory".

On the audio side of things, ASUS has deployed its SupremeFX Impact III which features beautiful LED-illuminated audio jacks and Sonic SenseAmp technology. Connectivity wise we have the brand new 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO technology which is built-in, so it doesn't take up any additional space. ASUS has also provided USB 3.1 Gen. 2 Type-A and reversible Type-C connectivity, as well as a built-in U.2 connector which provides up to 32Gbit/s of bandwidth.

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Continue reading: ASUS unveils the super-small ROG Maximus VIII Impact motherboard (full post)

Minecraft streamer buys $4.5 million house down the road from Notch

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Oct 11, 2015 12:33 AM CDT

Just how successful are some YouTubers? Well, YouTube personality Jordan "CaptainSparklez" Maron mostly plays Minecraft, just spent $4.5 million on a new mansion in the Hollywood Hills. His new mansion is just down the road from the massive house that the creator of Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson, purchased recently.

CaptainSparklez has over 8.8 million subscribers, and has a decent amount of subscribers on Twitch too, with over 1.2 million. Maron has over 1.9 billion views on YouTube, which has provided him with the bank account to dump down $4.5 million on a new house. Not too bad for playing games, hey, Mom?

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Continue reading: Minecraft streamer buys $4.5 million house down the road from Notch (full post)

Star Citizen secures huge Hollywood acting talent for Squadron 42 cast

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 10, 2015 6:52 PM CDT

Roberts Space Industries has just put another notch on the belt of Squadron 42, the first-person shooter module of Star Citizen, by announcing some serious Hollywood talent for the game.

Star Citizen secures huge Hollywood acting talent for Squadron 42 cast

Gary Oldman of The Dark Knight Trilogy, Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame, and Mark Hamill who should need no introduction (and was featured in the Wing Commander games made by Chris Roberts) have joined Squadron 42 with their likeness and voice talent. RSI also announced that they will have John Rhys-Davis, Andy Serkis, and many more joining the cast. Oldman will be playing Admiral Ernest Bishop, but we'll have more updates on the game and hopefully its development soon.

Squadron 42 is due out in 2016.

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Continue reading: Star Citizen secures huge Hollywood acting talent for Squadron 42 cast (full post)

Xbox boss says the PS4 has a 'huge lead' over the Xbox One

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 10, 2015 6:29 AM CDT

We know that Sony is ahead of Microsoft in this generation of consoles, but to hear it directly from the boss of Xbox feels weird. During the 2015 GeekWire Summit, Xbox boss Phil Spencer had some choice words on the future of gaming, Microsoft's competition with Sony and Nintendo, and more.

Xbox boss says the PS4 has a 'huge lead' over the Xbox One

When asked about whether Microsoft could beat Sony with the current generation consoles, Spencer said: "You know, I don't know. You know, the length of the generation... They [Sony] have a huge lead and they have a good product. I love the content, the games line-up that we have. One thing that probably I didn't realize as much as I should have when I started in this role was the impact that the launch had on our team here in Redmond, the Xbox team".

So what's Microsoft's goal with the Xbox One? For once, the company isn't trying to beat Sony, as they just want to reach as many consumers as possible with their platform. Spencer continued: "Every time I sit down and I do a product review, mostly every time, the team comes in with surprise and delight around the momentum that they have, more than I'm able to add. And when I see that transformation of a team that's questioning the leadership of the organisation to a team that's motivated by the customers that we have and their ability to delight them, I see a team that's making amazing progress. [Backwards compatibility] was one".

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Continue reading: Xbox boss says the PS4 has a 'huge lead' over the Xbox One (full post)

Naughty Dog: around 80% of PS4 gamers 'have never played Uncharted'

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 10, 2015 12:34 AM CDT

The Uncharted series is a staple of gaming on the PlayStation, but did you know that around 80% of PS4 owners haven't played an Uncharted game? That's a number that is too high for Naughty Dog.

During an interview with MCVUK, Naughty Dog's Community Strategist Eric Monacelli talked about the upcoming Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, where he said: "We did a lot of research and discovered that about 80 per cent of the people that own a PS4 have never played Uncharted, period. That was one of the reasons why we thought remastering it would be a good idea". He added: "The other reason is we decided we wanted to do it; especially when we got The Last of Us Remastered done, we thought 'Oh man, this would be cool if we could go back'".

Considering the success behind The Last of Us, the hints of Naughty Dog's next big project could be surprising. Monacelli teased: "We tend to work on one game at a time. Uncharted 4 is what everybody's working on. After that, we're going to be working on Uncharted 4 DLC. Beyond that, there's been tons of ideas bandied around - everybody knows the rumour about The Last of Us 2. There could potentially be - who knows? We could go back to Jak and Daxter 4 if it seems right, or there could be something else in the future on our horizon. We tend to work with an idea always on the board and then once we have time to devote the right amount of attention to it, then we'll tackle it".

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Elon Musk refers to Apple as 'Tesla's graveyard'

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Oct 9, 2015 10:39 PM CDT

There have been a number of employees that have reportedly been poached from Tesla Motors by Apple to work on their rumored electric car project, but Tesla founder Elon Musk has had a few choice words to throw into the mix.

When talking with German newspaper Handselsblatt, Musk was questioned over the key members that Apple had secured, with Musk saying: "Important engineers? They have hired people we've fired. We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard.' If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding".

It's quite the statement, with Musk continuing his laugh at Apple when he was asked if he saw the iMaker as a serious competitor to its electric vehicles, where he said: "Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch". He added: "No, seriously: it's good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: 'Build me a car.' But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough".

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Sony started working on PlayStation VR in 2010

Derek Strickland | Extended Reality (XR) | Oct 9, 2015 8:20 PM CDT

Sony's foray into virtual reality isn't anything new: the Japanese tech giant has been working on the PlayStation VR tech for about half a decade now, and it actually helped shape the PlayStation 4.

Sony started working on PlayStation VR in 2010

The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR are synergized in a very fundamental way and were specifically designed to compliment one another to make a uniform system. Tom's Hardware recently interviewed Dr. Richard Marks, who's been working on Sony's R&D department for 16 years, and he revealed some new info about the PlayStation VR.

"The official PlayStation VR project started around 2010," the Sony veteran said during the interview. "Once PlayStation Move came out some of the internal researchers were putting the controllers on their head and doing head-tracking with a display in front of them...it was a very low-end VR system. They were looking at what you could do and what experiences you could achieve."

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ASUS makes its PG279Q monitor official, QHD with 165Hz and G-Sync

Anthony Garreffa | Displays | Oct 9, 2015 7:29 PM CDT

ASUS has just officially announced its exciting new ROG gaming monitor, the PG279Q, at its Republic of Gamers Unleashed event in San Francisco. The PG279Q is a 27-inch successor to the super-popular ROG Swift PG278Q, but with some nice upgrades.

The new ASUS ROG PG279Q has a 27-inch QHD (2560x1440) panel, with a 144Hz refresh rate (where you overclock it to 165Hz) with NVIDIA's G-Sync technology. We have a WLED + IPS panel with 1000:1 contrast ratio, 350 nits of peak brightness, 4ms delay, and 178-degree viewing angles. It's an 8-bit panel with DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 inputs with two USB 3.0 and 3.5mm audio backing that up.

ASUS is pricing the delicious new gaming monitor at a not-so-bad price of $799, and we can't wait to get our hands on a sample for review to see how driving a 165Hz monitor is for those fast-paced first-person shooters.

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Continue reading: ASUS makes its PG279Q monitor official, QHD with 165Hz and G-Sync (full post)

Samsung didn't infringe on NVIDIA patents, judge says

Sean Ridgeley | Mobile Devices | Oct 9, 2015 3:34 PM CDT

Samsung has been in legal battles with Apple, Microsoft, and NVIDIA in recent years over the technology it uses in its mobile devices. A new development in the NVIDIA case today came about when a judge made a recommendation that means it's not looking good for the graphics company.

NVIDIA feels Samsung has infringed on its graphics patents and should not be able to sell certain devices as a result (and also pay a lot of money to NVIDIA), but administrative law judge for the US International Trade Commission Thomas. B. Pender says Samsung has not done this, and that one of the patents is invalid due to being covered in previous patents. While a formal decision still must be made, this seems like a big blow to the company. NVIDIA says they "remain confident", however.

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Continue reading: Samsung didn't infringe on NVIDIA patents, judge says (full post)

Microsoft goes on tour with HoloLens AR demos

Derek Strickland | Extended Reality (XR) | Oct 9, 2015 3:16 PM CDT

At its recent New York press event, Microsoft showcased a fresh new HoloLens demo that introduced the future of mixed-reality gaming. Now the Redmond tech giant is going on tour with the AR headset in an effort to spark interest and win over developers.

Like VR, Augmented Reality is really something you have to experience for yourself. The HoloLens head-mounted system is just brimming over with potential and Microsoft is eager to get it in developer's hands as soon as possible to reap the rewards. To do so, the company plans to hold a HoloLens tour across eleven major North American cities to show off the tech and its wide capabilities.

Despite its awe-inspiring magical reality-manipulating functionality, the HoloLens has a serious barrier for entry for enterprising developers: a $3,000 price tag. The cost is quite steep, but Microsoft affirms that the minimal headset packs a performance punch with "more computing power than the average laptop". Plus there's the added bonus that it's self-contained and doesn't need any expensive peripherals, wires, phones or PC's to power it.

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Continue reading: Microsoft goes on tour with HoloLens AR demos (full post)

Just Mobile launches 'self-healing' iPhone cases

Sean Ridgeley | Mobile Devices | Oct 9, 2015 3:01 PM CDT

Just Mobile has launched its TENC iPhone case line, which boasts Wolverline-like "self-healing" capabilities. Some would say the point of a case is for the case to get banged up instead of the phone, so why purchase a product like this? Well, maybe you like your case looking slick too, particularly if you're only dropping $24.99 or $29.99 on it anyway (which is what these cases are priced at). Also, TENC cases protect and heal the screen, not just themselves.

BGR's Zach Epstein says, "It works. I've seen it work. Just Mobile sent along a brass brush with the test cases I was given, and I spent a bit of time scratching up the surface of several of the cases. In most cases, the scratches I made were gone a short while later. In a few instances, some scratches were still visible on the case's surface after a few minutes. Over time, however, they faded away to almost nothing."

The cases are available on Just Mobile's website, Amazon, and possibly through other outlets.

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BlackBerry could exit phone business if the Priv crashes

Derek Strickland | Mobile Devices | Oct 9, 2015 2:10 PM CDT

BlackBerry's new Priv smartphone is more than just the company's first Android device: it represents a kind of final push into the modern mobile market. If the hybrid OS-powered Priv--named for BlackBerry's emphasis on user privacy--doesn't take off, then the company might stop making handsets altogether.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen delivered the news to Re/Code during the Code/Mobile event, saying that if the new Priv smartphone didn't turn a profit, executives would think about ceasing smartphone production within a year. Chen told The Verge that BB needs to sell at least 5 million phones a year in order to turn a profit.

It looks like BlackBerry has put all of its eggs in one basket, hoping that their new power-sliding Android smartphone will be enough to bolster its software earnings. Since the Priv has a dual-OS system, it's compatible with Google's slew of Android apps on the Google Play store while maintaining all of the functionality and privacy offered by th BlackBerry 10 OS. Chen also affirms that the phone will be available in physical carrier stores when it launches.

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Surface Book has dual-GPU setup with custom 1GB GDDR5 Maxwell GPU

Derek Strickland | Laptops | Oct 9, 2015 1:00 PM CDT

With its new Surface Book, Microsoft one-ups its own Surface Pro line by melding the on-the-go utility of a tablet with the functionality of a laptop and the performance of a desktop. Microsoft touts the Surface Book as the "world's most powerful, thinnest laptop", and new info on the 2-in-1's dual-GPU setup helps add credence to Redmond's claims.

Rather than featuring a single graphics solution, the more expensive Surface Book models actually have dual-GPU setups: an iGPU complimented by a dGPU. The Surface Book's tablet portion houses Intel's integrated Iris Graphics by default, so this is the graphics solution you'll get with the $1500 and $1700 models.

Consumers who opt in for the $1900 and above flavors get a second discrete GPU that's housed in the attached keyboard base. The discrete solution is a Maxwell-based GPU with 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM that's been custom-built by NVIDIA. "The new GPU is a Maxwell-based GPU, and was designed to deliver the best performance in ultra-thin form factors such as the Surface Book keyboard dock," NVIDIA told Gizmodo. "With NVIDIA GeForce GPU powering this new hybrid, users will be able to speed up productivity apps such as Adobe Illustrator and Lightroom, and light PC gaming."

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Continue reading: Surface Book has dual-GPU setup with custom 1GB GDDR5 Maxwell GPU (full post)

Xbox boss: 'We aren't motivated by beating Sony'

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 9, 2015 11:10 AM CDT

Sony's PlayStation 4 remains triumphant over this generation of consoles, with its long-standing sales streaks only intermittently broken up by the Xbox One. Faced with the PS4's momentum and the system's new price drop to $350, Xbox boss Phil Spencer doubts whether or not Microsoft's Xbox One can even catch up--not to mention overtake--to Sony's console.

Xbox boss: 'We aren't motivated by beating Sony'

At this year's GeekWire Summit, Phil Spencer was asked if he thinks the Xbox One can beat the PS4. "You know, I don't know," Phil Spencer answered with candor. "In terms of the length of the generation, [Sony] has a huge lead over us and they have a good product. [But] I love the content and the games line-up that we have. I'll say we're not motivated by beating Sony. We're motivated by satisfying our current customers and gaining as many customers as we can."

The Xbox One's disastrous E3 announcement seriously harmed the trust that gamers had in the company, and thus pushed them towards the PlayStation 4. Spencer went on to chronicle how the original Xbox One announcement was a catastrophe for the company and how he came in to pick up the pieces.

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Continue reading: Xbox boss: 'We aren't motivated by beating Sony' (full post)

ARK: Survival Evolved developer has no ETA on DX12 patch

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 9, 2015 9:20 AM CDT

Studio Wildcard, the developer behind ARK: Survival Evolved has come out talking about a new update promised for next week, where they said: "Hello Survivors, It's been a long week here at Studio Wildcard as the programming team has been grinding to get the DX12 version ready for release".

They continued: "It runs, it looks good, but unfortunately we came across some driver issues that we can't entirely tackle ourselves :(. We've reached out to both NVIDIA and AMD and will be working with them to get it resolved as soon as possible! Once that's tackled, we'll be needing to do more solid testing across a range of hardware with the new fixes. Sadly, we're gonna have to delay its release until some day next week in order to be satisfied with it. It's disappointing to us too and we're sorry for the delay, really thought we'd have it nailed today but we wouldn't want to release ARK DX12 without the care it still needs at this point. Hang in there, and when it's ready for public consumption, it should be worth the wait!"

SO it looks like the DX12 version of the game will be delayed for a while, with Studio Wildcard adding: "After we found out it was heavily dependent on drivers and the hardware vendors progress we slowed ours a bit. It's still being worked on, but we have no plans on releasing it until it at least runs better than the DX11 version. And that is a hard thing to generate an ETA for".

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Continue reading: ARK: Survival Evolved developer has no ETA on DX12 patch (full post)

The Witcher 3 receives a new 15GB patch, with a 13-page changelog

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 9, 2015 7:27 AM CDT

The Witcher 3 has just been updated, dragging it up to v1.10 with the patch weighing in at up to 15GB on the consoles and between 6-15GB on the PC. But it's the changelog that has us surprised, with CD Projekt Red including an insane 13-page, five-part changelog.

You can check out the elaborate changelog on Steam, with the studio saying there are over 300 improvements in the v1.10 patch. As for the improvements, there are a lot of them, so we're not going to paste them all here. However, we will include just a handful:

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Continue reading: The Witcher 3 receives a new 15GB patch, with a 13-page changelog (full post)

Uber hack in early 2014 allegedly traced back to the CTO of Lyft

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Oct 9, 2015 5:39 AM CDT

Last year Uber was hacked with around 50,000 drivers' names and license numbers accessed, Uber's legal investigations into the attack led them to an IP address of who was responsible.

The address? The Chief Technology Officer of Lyft, Uber's competitor - at least according to two sources familiar with the matter. Uber announced it was hacked in February during a lawsuit it filed in the San Francisco federal court, so it could find out who was behind the IP address. According to the ride sharing giant's papers, an at-the-time unidentified person was using a Comcast IP address and had access to a security key that they used for the breach.

According to two of Reuters' sources, the IP address was traced back to the CTO of Lyft, Chris Lambert. The court papers have no correlation between the IP address and the person behind the attack, with Uber finding the IP address through a process of elimination where it worked through all of the IP addresses that accessed a critical security key that had been accidentally deposited on the public code-sharing platform, GitHub. As for the IP address, it was used by a VPN service based in Scandanavia, with the Judge Laurel Beeler saying that the information that Uber wanted through its subpoena for Comcast's records was "reasonably likely" to help reveal the "bad actor" behind the attack.

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Continue reading: Uber hack in early 2014 allegedly traced back to the CTO of Lyft (full post)

Light's new camera has 16 camera sensors, takes 52-megapixel photos

Light has just unveiled their latest L16 camera, which features an impressive 16 camera sensors on the front, each capturing 13-megapixel images. When a photo is taken on the Light L16, it comes out as a huge 52-megapixel image.

The L16's 16 separate camera sensors are divided into three groups, which each having a lens of a different focal length. There are five cameras with 35mm effective focal length lenses, five with 70mm modules, and six with 150mm modules. Light then uses some impressive software and stitching tools, which allows the L16 to zoom through an effective range of 35mm to 150mm without any moving parts or adjustable lenses.

It's an impressive feat, considering the camera sensor on each of the 16 cameras being 13 megapixels. With the L16 being a little thicker than a smartphone, and the stitching of photos to make a huge 52-megapixel photo being a huge tick on its side of awesomeness. Another great feature with the Light L16 is that the focus of the photos can be adjusted after the shot has been taken, making it similar to the Lytro camera. But, the L16 is capable of shooting 4K video which is something the Lytro can't do.

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Continue reading: Light's new camera has 16 camera sensors, takes 52-megapixel photos (full post)

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