Latest News - Page 2723

Halo has had a massive roller-coaster ride in the past few years in regards to eSports. Starting off as the building block for large events like MLG and ACL Pro, it had majorly fallen off in recent times, however 343 Industries wants to change this. In recent news, the Halo Championship Series Season 1 finals prize pool has seen a massive improvement from $50,000 to $100,000 - thanks to the developer.

Taken from Halo's official website, media director Che Chou has commented that this increase is thanks to gamer feedback and advice, stating: "One of the most important pieces of feedback we've heard is that all players - from amateur to top teams - simply want more opportunities to compete and earn more money in the HCS."

This prize pool increase will see the following payment structure take place:

Whether you're looking to 'raise your dongers' or post some kawaii faces on your favorite forum - the HTC One M8 comes pre-installed with almost every option under the sun.

My friend just received his model today and after inspecting the stock emoticon options (who wouldn't do that first?) he came to me extremely excited with a new find - extended meme-like 'smilies'.

This is nothing ground-breaking sure, but it's an awesome inclusion nonetheless. Here's hoping more phone companies subscribe to this kind of 'pop culture' and continue development in this direction.

Introduced nearly fifty years ago in 'Star Trek: The Original Series', the medical tricorder used by Dr McCoy and the medical staff of the Starship Enterprise was once a thing of far-off science fiction. Now, it's a reality.

The Scanadu Scout, which started life as an IndieGoGo campaign in May 2013 before raising nearly $1.7 million USD is now shipping out to backers. The device, which the company is trumpeting as the 'First Edition' works by placement on the patients forehead for a total of 10 seconds, before a vital stream of stats including heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, oxygen level and even a complete ECG reading are instantly sent to a mobile device, and also allows for historical tracking.

If you missed the initial campaign and are interested in the device, you can subscribe on the Scanadu site to join the list to purchase the next wave of devices. Now, can we please turn our attention to warp drive? K, thanks.

Released just days ago and despite poor reviews (rated at just 26% on Rotten Tomatoes) the adaptation of EL James 'Fifty Shades of Grey' has amassed an amazing haul of $240 million worldwide from 59 markets, making it the one of the biggest openings for an R-rated film.

Made for an economical $40 million, the success of the film ensures that the proposed second and third movies in the 'Shades' trilogy will now go into production for Universal Studios, with stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan already signed. The 2011 erotic romance novel by E. L. James famously started life as fan fiction for 'Twilight' and has sold over 100 million copies worldwide.

North Korea isn't a cyberespionage powerhouse like Russia or China, but the country has a budding cyber warfare program that could cause major headaches for the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang is investing more resources into its cyber capabilities, evolving attack habits to be highly disruptive.

"A prime example could be if we're imagining that North Korea was under attack from South Korea, which was being supported by the US Army," said Egle Murauskaite, trainer at the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, in a statement to the Christian Science Monitor. "North Korea could attack satellites to disrupt communication between the US and allies and imped the US ability to reach targets."

Along with satellites, precision guided missiles largely rely on electronics, so there are fears that attacks would be able to effectively disrupt these signals.

Companies and government agencies understand the need for improved cybersecurity to help defend against attacks and insider threats. It's a confusing mix of trying to defend against outside threats, and keeping reckless and improperly trained employees from causing harm.

Fifty-three percent of federal IT professionals believe insider threats, whether from intentional threats or untrained employees, remains the largest threat, according to a report from IT software firm SolarWinds. Furthermore, 64 percent of those surveyed think insider threats can be as damaging - or more damaging - than malicious external threats posed by hackers and cyberespionage.

"Contrasting the prevalence of insider IT security threats against a general lack of threat prevention resources and inconsistently enforced security policies, federal IT pros absolutely must gain visibility into insider actions to keep their agencies protected," said Chris LaPoint, group VP of product management at SolarWinds. "However, given the unpredictability of human behavior, the 'Why?' of those actions is an elusive query."

This massive stockpile of components will all be slotted nicely together in order to cool the NNSA's first Advanced Simulation and Computing Program's product - named the Trinity Supercomputer.

All of this gear is called 'warm-water cooling' and it's what you'd expect in order to provide an energy-saving alternative for some of the world's most advanced tech.

An explanation from the Los Alamos National Labarotory reads: "The Trinity supercomputer is the first of the NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing program's advanced technology systems. Once installed, Trinity will be the first platform large and fast enough to begin to accommodate finely resolved 3D calculations for full-scale, end-to-end weapons calculations. But the installation of such a powerful supercomputer is no small task." But wait, there's more! "In order to accommodate Trinity, the SCC first had to undergo a series of major mechanical and electrical infrastructure upgrades. Because energy conservation is a priority at Los Alamos, these upgrades included a shift to warm water cooling technology (which will result in a major energy savings), as well as a decrease in the use of city/well water for cooling towers.."

The surging biometrics market is predicted to reach $13.8 billion in 2015, largely due to government adoption, however, there could be growing interest in the private sector, according to the ABI Research group.

The United States and European Union nations will continue to adopt biometrics, with fingerprint recognition still the leading solution. Consumer and private sector biometrics spending could outpace government spending in 2018, according to ABI, as wearables and smartphones implement enhanced security protocols.

The healthcare industry is still trying to cope with news that Anthem suffered a major data breach - and there are increased talks regarding cybersecurity technologies that can be utilized to prevent future incidents. As more companies transition to electronic health records, biometrics supporters hope that it will present a great opportunity for hardware and software adoption.

Did you ever play Bridge Builder? I know I spend many hours of precious High School learning time teetering away, trying to build the best bridge on a budget to somehow transport my cargo across the raging chasm I was provided with.

Well we're now in the 'new age', with physics games being more than a few colors and lines - in comes Besiege. You're given a tiny starting block and as many resources as you can poke a stick at, each level has a slightly different objective and almost all have these cute little knights and archers waiting to slice you up.

Interested? Here's more - whether you're after a more tactical approach or simply want to build something ridiculous and massive like my aptly named 'Cannon Fire' as seen below, Besiege will present you with various problem solving tasks that you must complete. Each component in your arsenal can be tweaked and tinkered with, including different turning speeds, strengths and firing orders - further adding to the depth of this indie title.

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.