Latest News - Page 2718

EA and DICE are currently walking the minefield that is game development, where it has to be careful with its next release after the not-so-well received Battlefield: Hardline. Star Wars: Battlefront is that next release.

During Sony's reveal on its upcoming games for the PlayStation this year, the Japanese giant teased Star Wars: Battlefront for a Winter 2015 release. We are being told to expect a large and expansive single player experience, where Star Wars fans being in their element. As for the multiplayer side of things, we can expect the usual goodness from DICE, we hope. With the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015 right around the corner, we could see EA and DICE tease it there, but E3 2015 is also not that far away now.

Star Wars: Battlefront has a Winter 2015 release date, and will hit the PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

We all know how it feels: to be out for the day and your smartphone is beeping or vibrating at you alerting you to the fact that you're on less than 20% charge. Then you can literally feel the minutes clicking over with each percent going down into that drain that your battery slides into. Well, not for long.

An Israeli startup known as StoreDot is looking to solve this thanks to the by-product of research from the nanotechnology department of the Tel Aviv University, which was looking into Alzheimer's disease. The researchers have discovered that a particular peptide molecule has high capacitance, which means it has the unique ability to hold an electrical charge.

Batteries that use this technology can absorb charge much faster than others, but their overall capacity would be smaller. This new technology can't just be baked into current smartphones and devices, but StoreDot is currently in discussions with 15 smartphone makers, with the hopes to getting a contact with a couple of those companies before the end of the year.

We've reported on Apple's car quite a few times, but things are becoming more real as the days flick over on the calendar. The New York Post is now reporting that Apple is offering some serious money and higher pay packages to secure car battery experts.

The New York Post has said that "Apple has been offering the best and the brightest in the car-battery field $250,000 signing bonuses plus salaries 60 percent higher than what they currently earn", something Tesla Motors CEO, founder and real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk, said to Bloomberg Businessweek. Former Ford engineer Steve Zadesky is the boss of Apple's 'Project Titan', so there's some weight to the story, and to having Ford's former engineer working with Apple.

Marc Newson has also joined Apple, with The Post calling him "one of the more elegant engineers in the world" and is very close friends with Apple's design boss, Jony Ive. Zadesky on the other hand, has a huge 90 or so patents, and was the sole signatory on a 2010 business ocntract with a company called Liquidmetal. Liquidmetal is known for its Moldable Metal, or "Nanophosphate metal" which can be shaped like plastic. Apple, along with Liquidmetal, have filed 17 patents together, with 14 of those taking place in the last 12 months or so.

Microsoft and 343 Industries released Halo: The Master Chief Collection onto the Xbox One some four months ago now, but even to this day, the game is still broken. Matchmaking and lobby systems still don't work, and this is a serious problem.

There have been countless problems found in the game, various patches, and game breaking bugs that have plagued the game since launch. But don't worry, it gets better. 343 Industries has created an achievement in the game called "Stick With It" that awards players for sticking with the game. Except, this achievement is also buggy, and won't unlock.

Facebook, the No. 1 social networking website, wants to integrate virtual reality into user news feeds, and is creating demo versions to show off the new feature. To take things a step further, Facebook users also have the ability to share their virtual experiences with other members.

In the live VR demos, Facebook members can visit Mongolia, or sit in an F/A-18 Hornet cockpit.

"Not a lot of people are going to get to Mongolia in their life... I've never been," said Chris Cox, head of product at Facebook, while speaking at the Code/Media conference. "You can look around. It's beautiful. And you immediately understand it's like one of these things... the first time you're in it, you realize you're looking at the future."

We reported yesterday that Valve would be talking about VR, physics engines and more but now the company has confirmed exactly what it will be teasing at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015, and it has us very excited.

Valve will be showing off the final Steam Controller for its upcoming Steam Machine platform at GDC 2015, as well as its "previously-unannounced SteamVR hardware system". Valve also has plans to show "new living room devices" at GDC, which will most likely arrive as a slew of new Steam Machines. What has us excited however, is the idea of a full unveiling of its SteamVR platform.

GDC 2015 takes place between March 2-6 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Recently we told you about how Pebble are set to launch a new smartwatch featuring a color display, replacing its black and white e-paper technology.

Thanks to a leaked photo from Pebble's own servers by 9to5Mac, we're able to get a little more insight into how the color display will actually look. This smartwatch is rumored to feature a slimmer body, an updated OS and obviously the color display as seen above. Reports claim that this may be another e-paper display, said to help keep battery life long and stable.

With the full announcement to be completed tomorrow, we look forward to what is to come.

Ireland and Denmark are in Apple's sights, with the tech giant announcing that we will see an environmentally sustainable data center constructed in each which country - set to cost them €1.7 billion ($1.93 billion US).

These centers will be 166,000 square meters in size each and used for Apple online and cloud services for European customers. These fully renewable energy supplied facilities will be supporting Apple's iTunes, App store, iMessage, Maps and Siri applications.

No details have been provided just yet of exactly how this renewable energy will be generated and when asked by iTnews "on the design for power usage efficiency, total rack space capacity and server hardware choice for the data centers" no answer was given.

Whilst it was no surprise that the Academy honoured 2014 drama 'Birdman' with the Best Picture Academy Award, it was a surprise that star Michael Keaton was overlooked, in favour of rising British star Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of Professor Stephen Hawking in 'The Theory of Everything'.

Whilst Hawking wasn't at the ceremony in person, he has sent his well wishes via his Facebook page, writing "Congratulations to Eddie Redmayne for winning an ‪#‎Oscar‬ for playing me in The Theory of Everything Movie. Well done Eddie, I'm very proud of you." High praise indeed from one of the smartest men on the planet.

'The Theory of Everything' is currently certified fresh by Rotten Tomatoes, with a 79% aggregate.

Ahead of the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona next month, analysts are picking apart the current state of the smartphone market. Consumers have a number of appealing choices at the moment, as the smartphone market is "highly mature," and it is becoming harder for vendors to differentiate from one another.

"While Apple had a very successful 2014 and a record fourth quarter, Apple has to come up with something innovative in 2015 to replicate record sales," said Annette Zimmermann, researcher director at Gartner, in a press statement.

Samsung has 28 percent global smartphone market share (28 percent), ahead of Apple (16.4 percent), Lenovo (7.9 percent), LG Electronics (6 percent), and Huawei (5.9 percent), according to TrendForce. However, the competition is becoming explosive with Huawei capturing 5.9 percent market share, putting everyone else on notice that it is a serious contender.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden would have liked to come forward sooner regarding NSA surveillance, but had to wait until the appropriate time.

"I would have come forward sooner... [but] these programs would have been a little less entrenched, and those abusing them would have felt a little less familiar with and accustomed to the exercise of those powers," Snowden said during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session. "This is something we see in almost every sector of government, not just in the national security space, but it's very important. Once you grant the government some new power or authority, it becomes exponentially more difficult to roll it back."

Snowden knowingly sacrificed himself to help reveal NSA surveillance and spying activities, which has opened an international debate. In addition, Apple, Google and other companies are modifying their behaviors, including adding encryption and other technologies, to help keep user data more secure from outside snooping.

The wearables market will increase 38 percent year-over-year, reaching 70 million units in 2015, according to the Gartner research group. There is high interest among consumers, but penetration rate is still rather low - but could yield double-digit growth in the foreseeable future.

"We expect strong growth in wearables in 2015 with smartwatches and fitness bands and other trackers to reach nearly 70 million units, up 38 percent from 2014," said Annette Zimmerman, research director at Gartner, in a press statement. "However we don't see these devices replacing the smartphone in the next five years, rather they are a complementary device to the existing portfolio of devices."

During the 2015 CES show last month, Intel and other companies demonstrated hardware that can be used in future generations of wearables. Meanwhile, Samsung, Lenovo, Sony and other manufacturers will need to respond once the Apple Watch is released in April.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is under fire for claims it used sophisticated spyware loaded on hard drives for surveillance, with the head of the agency saying his agency complies with national law.

"Clearly I'm not going to get into the specifics of allegations," said US Navy Admiral Michael Rogers, refusing to speak out regarding NSA spyware accusations, while at the Washington forum. "But the point I would make is, we fully comply with the law."

The latest controversy stems from a Kaspersky Lab report that says the NSA embedded spyware on Western Digital, Toshiba and Seagate hard drives, giving them the ability to eavesdrop on users.

Valve, one of the most infamous developers in the world, will be having not one but four presentations at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015. The company said it wouldn't be hosting its Steam Dev Days conference for 2015, but instead it would have a "larger than usual presence at GDC".

The company won't be talking about specific games, but we can expect that out of the four presentations, the companyu will use its own upcoming games as examples in presentations. This means that we could see a massive tease of Valve's upcoming games, and while there might not be any actual announcements, we might see into the world's of these games. Think Left 4 Dead 2, Half-Life 3 and others and you might just feel the hairs stand up on your arms.

Valve will be hosting a panel on the future of OpenGL technology, which is something the company is invested into with its SteamOS being Linux-based, and Linux and OpenGL going hand-in-hand. Over the past couple of years Valve has been pushing for the adaption and improvement of OpenGL. We reported on this all the way back in 2012, where Valve squeezed more performance out of the OpenGL version of Left 4 Dead 2 than it did in Windows. Valve will also be talking about VR at GDC 2015, which is equally as exciting. We will learn about the creation of VR world's, which will end up moving into advanced topics like the challenges of creating high quality graphics, and having them pumped into users' eyes at high speeds.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattacks have plagued consumers and businesses for quite some time, but the rising number of DDoS attacks available as a paid service is troubling. Clients can pay from $2 up to $5 per hour to launch DDoS attacks, or pay a subscription for prices as low as $800 per month.

The Lizard Squad hacker group helped draw increased scrutiny to the underground cybercriminal activity - demonstrating its LizardStresser DDoS service in successful attacks against the Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft Xbox Live. Meanwhile, the Gwapo DDoS service has been publicly advertised via social media and YouTube posted videos, with attacks starting at $2 per hour.

"Since their inception in 2010, DDoS-for-hire capabilities have advanced in success, services and popularity, but what's most unnerving is booters have been remarkably skilled at working under the radar," according to the "Distributed Denial of Service Trends" report from Verisign. "Given the ready availability o DDoS-as-a-service offerings and the increasing affordability of such services, organizations of all sizes and industries are at a greater risk than ever of falling victim to a DDoS attack that can cripple network availability and productivity."

HTC is expected to officially unveil the One M9 smartphone on March 1 when Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 kicks off, but there are some early leaks on HTC's upcoming flagship smartphone.

We can expect HTC to bake in an 8-core Snapdragon 810 processor clocked at 2GHz, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of NAND flash storage expandable through microSD, and more. On the back, we have a 20-megapixel UltraPixel camera, which is reportedly housed inside of a camera module that protrudes from the rear of the One M9's body, like the iPhone 6 Plus.

Software wise, we should see Android 5.0 Lollipop with Sense 7 splashed on top. Two new colorways are shown off in the leaked shots, with a gold and silver style for a two-tone look while the other is gunmetal gray. BoomSound speakers make the cut, with the 5-inch 1080p display filling out the One M9. We should expect the know the exact details on the phone on March 1 when MWC 2015 starts.

Researchers have used custom built PCs to display a galaxy simulation dataset at 7680x4320, or 8K. This mammoth display set up was pushing out 128 million particles across the 16 displays.

As for the PCs, they were running an Intel Core i7-980X, ASUS P6T motherboard, 6GB of Corsair Dominator GT 2000MHz DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 video cards, and 1 and 10GbE network connectivity. The team used 55-inch digital signage (1080p displays) with 7mm combined bezel. When it comes to software, the researchers use cgIX that "synchronizes the user input and drawing loop across all of the machines. On top of that is a custom application I developed that does out-of-core particle and volume rendering". Multiple computers are driving the 16 displays, where at any given time there were 4, 8 or 16 computers driving the displays.

What was the insane 8K set up of displays used for? The researcher explained on Reddit: "To support high-resolution visualization of large-scale particle datasets. Specifically, enabling the human visualization system to continue be used as an interrogation tool as the size of simulation datasets grows. Without these types of high resolution displays, it would become impractical to actually look at datasets that grow beyond the giga-scale because you simply couldn't get anything rendered on a single display screen that captures both detail and scale".

Tech executives aren't impressed by President Obama's current efforts to streamline cybersecurity, with a strong lack of trust after increased knowledge of government surveillance operations. It's a fragile relationship that must be improved, especially if Obama is serious about Silicon Valley companies sharing threat data with the US government.

"I think we missed an opportunity," said Jason Healey, former director of cyber infrastructure protection for the White House, in a statement published by The Hill. "Real leaders focus on privacy and they don't compromise on that."

There will need to be an open discussion from the Obama Administration regarding encryption, privacy, and other matters - but trying to boost cybersecurity efforts appears to be a more pressing matter.

How much time to you spend being entertained by your phone? Presto has joined Stan and Quickflix, fighting for your eyes by providing another video streaming subscription option in Australia.

With Netflix said to launch in 'The Land Down Under' next month, Citrix Mobile Analytics claims that "the mobile user experience is, increasingly, a video experience," which would explain the sudden surge in openings.

Compatible with iPhone 5S, 5S and higher Apple models, Android users will see multiple devices supported across Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony and ZTE. Access can be granted through the Presto app on either the Apple App Store, Google Play or the Samsung App Store.

Ransomware cyberattacks are on the rise, and businesses must be ready to address the threat head on, with law enforcement constantly one step behind.

The FBI previously issued a warning regarding ransomware attacks, especially as cybercriminals tweak their malware code. Similar to statements issued by cybersecurity experts, the FBI says users should be extremely careful when opening email attachments - the most popular infection method to compromise business users.

The authors of the CryptoLocker ransomware were able to quickly generate at least $3 million in revenue from ransomware attacks, collecting hundreds of dollars in ransom at a time. Cybercriminals are opportunistic and will continue to rely on ransomware attacks as long as they easily find victims installing the malware on PCs and laptops.