Latest News - Page 2699

Nintendo won't throw in the towel on its Wii U gaming console, hoping that it can sell more units in the United States and European markets.

"I believe the Wii U business still has considerable room for growth, as a number of software titles that are compatible with the console are slated for release in 2015," said Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, in a statement published by Nikkei.

Iwata believes many Japanese consumers enjoy using smartphones and Nintendo 3DS for mobile gaming, while gamers in the western world still prefer to have devices connected to their TVs. However, some critics believe Nintendo is fooling itself into thinking there is hope for the Wii U - and should consider preparing a next-generation console to compete against the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4.

With over 10 years of cooperation, Intel have been a mainstay in Apple hardware - taking over from Apple's co-designed chips with PowerPC due to them reportedly having issues with slimming down their laptop range, turning to the processor giant for some help.

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Intel's CFO Stacy Smith stated "for a customer like Apple you'd have to take a big step off performance to step off our architecture. That is what in essence enables us to win across different customers."

This is a rather big statement from Intel, but lets be honest here - Intel is at the top and it will stay that way for a long period of time no matter what happens.

Ryanair wants to give smartwatch wearable owners additional features, such as boarding gate information, digital boarding passes, and post-landing information. A prototype app offering will be unveiled after the Apple Watch launches in the spring, according to company officials.

Additional details about the custom smartwatch offering will be released in the coming months.

"In the future, Ryanair wants to be able to provide information throughout a passenger's journey, from the second you go to bed in a hotel, to when you land and need to find your car, or book a taxi," said John Hurley, CTO of Ryanair, in a statement published by The Telegraph. "People want micro-moments, micro pieces of information."

Every tech site has been signing the praises of the brand new Raspberry Pi 2. Featuring double the RAM of its predecessor, a quad-core processor and more, you can basically build a fully-functional general-use machine running on the new Windows 10 platform for a tiny investment.

You've purchased a Pi 2 for yourself, set it up and pulled out your camera to take a few pictures and share them on your favorite forums - big mistake! According to recent findings, any camera containing a Xenon flash will cause the system (whilst in operation) to freeze or turn off.

No - we're not joking. There hasn't been an official statement yet from the manufacturers, but plenty of users have reported the same fault upon testing their own units. Apparently due to shielding issues, if you've got a Raspberry Pi 2 and a Xenon-flash equipped camera, we'd love you to share your results with us.

Speaking at the D.I.C.E Summit in Las Vegas, EA chief creative officer Richard Hilleman stated that games are "too hard to learn," explaining that basic titles which will take users hours to learn to operate are not optimal.

He added that "our games are actually still too hard to learn. The average player probably spends two hours to learn how to play the most basic game. And asking for two hours of somebody's time--most of our customers, between their normal family lives...to find two contiguous hours to concentrate on learning how to play a video game is a big ask."

Shared on Hot Hardware, many users are outraged by these statements coming from one of EA's most senior developers. Besides the PC Master race comments, many users claim that their fun gaming experience comes from mastering a game and learning all of the tips and tricks involved. Other users agree, with them using games as relaxation - wanting something they can easily jump in and start playing without learning involved.

$12 is all it takes to get your own copies of 12 classic Star Wars games through the Humble Bundle - including smash hits like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Star Wars Republic Commando and Star Wars Battlefront II.

Donating to charity has never been cooler, thanks to the release and upkeep of the Humble Bundle. This project allows you to give a small donation to charities, the developers and Humble Bundle themselves - spreading the love around to all. We've seen plenty of bundles come and go, ranging from large-scale developer offerings to small indie brands with basically every bundle guaranteed to offer you 20+ hours of game play enjoyment.

As with all bundles, you can spend what you wish - however the more your donation is, the more games are unlocked for you to play. The smallest of donations will see you get the three basic titles of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and Star Wars: Dark Forces. Expanding this to above the average donation amount of $11.54 will see you open the doors to a further six games - with finally a $12 or higher donation seeing you unlock the full 12 titles.

If MSI's GTX970 KRAIT edition didn't already look awesome enough, Math Military Modding has given it an all-white makeover.

This graphics addition would certainly look great on our previously covered sticker-bombed black, white and grey project by Corsaronero333.

It's possible that this video card will be placed within Math's new carbon fiber project, however there's no being sure just yet. We will certainly cover the build as it progresses to completion.

According to some security researchers at Kaspersky, a group of hackers have used tricky malware to steal at least $300 million from bankers throughout 30 countries across the world.

The hackers tricked bank staff into installing a virus, or malware, through a spoofed email, where they spied on staff to learn their behavior. From there, they were able to mimic bank staff, to learn telltale signs that money is being taken from the bank, and transferred to various accounts. The attacks did just that, transferring money to other bank accounts, but some of it is sent to ATMs where criminals are monitoring specific ATMs.

The banks that were hit are now aware of the attack, but Kaspersky cannot name the banks due to non-disclosure pacts. Some of the firms don't want to admit they were hit, as they would be looked at as victims, and that their security has failed them. As for the breaches of security, the hackers injected malware into banks in the United States, Russia, Japan and many more countries.

Two of the most talked about shows have their season premieres for free right now, with the season premieres of Better Call Saul and Game of Thrones free on the Google Play Store.

Any device that supports Google Play can watch these episodes, including your desktop, smartphone or even Chromecast. There are purchase options for the rest of the episodes, or the entire season run, too. Better Call Saul episodes are $1.99 each, or $16.99 for the entire season (with the first two episodes only available right now obviously).

Game of Thrones is a bit more expensive at $2.99 per episode or $28.99 for the entire season, of which there are four to secure. As for your region, you'll have to make sure that they're free before grabbing them, because for as far as we're aware, it's for the US only. If you find out it's free for you too, let us know in the comments below.

We should expect to see the HTC One M9 unveiled very soon at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but before then we're seeing more detailed leaks on HTC's upcoming flagship smartphone.

The HTC One M9 should feature a 5-inch screen, with a resolution of 1920x1080, which is a bit of a let down compared to its competitors with 1440p displays. We should see an 8-core processor, 3GB of DDR4 RAM, 32/64GB of on-board storage, support for LTE Category 6 (300/50Mbps), Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with Sense 7.0, a 20.7-megapixel rear-facing camera, 4-megapixel UltraPixel front-facing camera, BoomSound, Bluetooth 4.1, a microSD card slot and a 2840mAh battery.

Some of you might have noticed in those specifications that we've written DDR4 RAM, which is an interesting addition to the mix. The Full HD display will provide additional battery life compared to those with a QHD panel, so while HTC won't win at display resolution, it should have a decent amount of battery life compared to competing handsets.

AMD must be so close to unveiling its next-generation range of GPUs, but the latest information on the Radeon R9 390X has it rocking an all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler made by Cooler Master.

Cutting to the chase, AMD will reportedly ship its reference Radeon R9 390X with an AIO cooler but AIB partners like SAPPHIRE, XFX and so forth will ship their own coolers. WCCFTech is now reporting that the new Radeon 300 series, and more specifically the flagship Radeon R9 390X will launch in "four to six weeks", which should see it released in late March, or early April.

AMD has said that it's working on something "crazy" for the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015, which kicks off in early March. This new information could be true, with AMD showing off its new GPU at GDC 2015, which is incredibly exciting.

Many users are reportedly outraged due to NVIDIA's cancellation of overclocking capabilities for their 900M series - through the latest driver release. Although mobile video cards are not generally overclocked, customers who purchased systems containing GTX 980M GPU's were applying mild overclocks to get the most out of their system.

This driver update is the GeForce R347 (347.29), which has removed its overclocking tools and withdrew support for any third-party tools you may wish to install. Users have been issuing complaints on NVIDIA's official forums, which saw a response from NVIDIA staff. Manuel Guzman replied "unfortunately GeForce Notebooks were not designed to support overclocking. Overclocking is by no means a trivial feature, and depends on thoughtful design of thermal, electrical, and other considerations. By overclocking a notebook, a user risks serious damage to the system that could result in non-functional systems, reduced notebook life, or many other effects."

As seen on HotHardware, Guzman went on to express that allowing mobile GPU overclocking in the first place was a mistake made by his team and should have never been implemented.

Companies are scrambling to defend against cyberattacks in an effort to prevent data breaches, but are struggling to find success. Cybersecurity experts warn they must realize that hackers will likely enter their systems, and have to find ways to defend attacks after unauthorized access already occurs.

Worldwide IT security spending was around $70 billion in 2014, according to Gartner research group estimates - but that figure will top $109 billion by 2020 for just banks, energy and defense contractors. Spending is going to keep increasing with the number of attacks also reaching new levels, experts warn.

"Once an attack has made it past those defenses they're in the gooey center, and getting around is relatively simple," said Ryan Wagner, director of product management at vArmour, in a statement to Reuters. "You need to make sure that when you close the door, the criminal is actually on the other side of the door."

Insurance companies and other healthcare-related businesses can expect additional cybersecurity scrutiny in the future, after Anthem suffered a major data breach.

To better fight against cyberattacks - and subsequent data breaches - companies should conduct cyber vulnerability risk assessments and penetration testing. Just a few years ago, these types of activities were seen as luxuries that very few companies engaged in, but now business leaders must look to ensure their networks are secure.

Cybercriminals are extremely opportunistic and look for any opportunity they can manipulate for their benefit:

President Barack Obama claims he supports strong computer data encryption more than many law enforcement agencies, though sided with them regarding the need to keep the public safe.

To help address the issue, Obama wants a "public conversation" to discuss encryption and security efforts.

"And so this is a public conversation that we should end up having," Obama told Re/code. "I lean probably further in the direction of strong encryption than some do inside of law enforcement. But I am sympathetic to law enforcement because I know the kind of pressure they're under to keep us safe. And it's not as black and white as it's sometimes portrayed."

Microsoft has had its Windows 10 Technical Preview out for the PC now for a while, but it looks like it's time for the smartphone world to see the release of the Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Select Lumia-branded handsets can have the Windows 10 Technical Preview installed, with the Lumia 630, 635, 636, 638, 730 and 830 smartphones be the only ones capable of having it installed. The flagship Windows Phone-based handsets in the Lumia 1520 and Lumia 930 are not capable of having the Technical Preview installed, which is a shame. This latter two smartphones reportedly can't handle Windows 10 because of the very tight OS partitions.

So if you've got one of the aforementioned Lumia handsets, you can download the Windows 10 Technical Preview from the Windows Insider Program page after signing up for an account.

After a not-so-great year with the Galaxy S5 smartphone and its sales, Samsung is wanting to offset those loses by investing a huge $3.6 billion into OLED panel production, where it hopes other manufacturers will buy more of its components, and new OLED screens.

A spokesperson for Samsung Display spoke with Reuters, where they said that a new production line will be manufacturing small and medium-sized OLED panels that would make their way into smartphones, tablets and other small devices - VR headsets, for example. The large investment will take place over the next three years or so.

But it's not just Samsung that is investing into the future of OLED panel production, with its South Korean rival LG spending around $915 million on its TV-sized OLED panel production this year, after it cited increased demand. LG has already spent $726 million on OLED production, too.

The Internet of Things (IoT) offers great connectivity for consumers, but is becoming a soft target for cyberattacks, according to the Nexusguard "2015 Internet Security Trend" report. Of note, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks greatly concern cybersecurity researchers, with criminals hoping to interrupt access to connected technology.

The current IoT infrastructure largely relies on shared libraries and a fast development cycle, with security sometimes included as an afterthought. To make matters worse, cybercriminals can hijack poorly secured "Things" and help use them in botnet attacks against other targets.

"With the Internet of Things, people are posting personal or commercially sensitive information," said Terrence Gareau, Chief Scientist of Nexusguard. "It's a very complex question how people are going to secure that data, especially with increasingly sophisticated attacks. Furthermore, hackers may be incentivized to infect IoT devices and use them as an army for botnet attacks. Additionally, the smokescreen of DDoS attacks used for covering up data exfiltration, market manipulation and extortion, are ever more present."

Credit card company Visa plans to release a new location-based feature that will give cardholders the chance to update their location via smartphone. Banks will include the Visa software in their smartphone apps starting in April, and cardholders will have a chance to opt into the program.

When the cardholder's smartphone enters a new city or country, the app updates Visa so they are aware if credit card transactions take place in the new geographic location. This will prevent charges from being declined - and members won't have to call to confirm their whereabouts.

"We will be able to compare the merchant's location to the most recent cellphone location to show it's a less risky transaction," said Mark Nelsen, executive at Visa, in a statement published by the AP.

Wearable supporters promote fitness trackers and smartwatches as valuable tools to help monitor physical activity and general health - but a new study found that most smartphone applications are just as accurate, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

During a trial conducted at Penn, participants wore the following: a pedometer and two accelerometers, three wearable devices, and two smartphones (one with three apps and the other smartphone running one app. Smartphone data apps tracked step counts that were similar to one another, while the wearables provided greater variance.

"In this study, we wanted to address one of the challenges with using wearable devices: they must be accurate," said Meredith Case, Penn medical student and study author. "After all, if a device is going to be effective at monitoring - and potentially changing - behavior, individuals have to be able to trust the data. We found that smartphone apps are just as accurate as wearable devices for tracking physical activity."