Latest News - Page 2731

With a viewership of over 110 million worldwide, a spot on the Superbowl can be worth its weight in marketing gold, even at the cost of a sweet $4 million USD. Still, by the looks of this impressive 30 second mini-trailer for this summer's 'Terminator: Genisys', they (and we) got their money's worth.

Set parallel to the events of the original 1984 'Terminator', 'Genisys' sees Arnold Schwarzenegger returns for the fourth time as the T-800, joined by 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' star Jason Clarke as mankind's savior John Connor, while 'Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke will portray the young Sarah Connor.

Helmed by 'Thor: The Dark World' director Alan Taylor, 'Terminator: Genisys' hits screens worldwide on July 1st and for the first time in 3D.

Ahead of its scheduled release date of March 17, an open beta of Battlefield Hardline will take place from Tuesday, February 3 to Sunday, February 8. The game is powered by the Frostbite 3 game engine and includes both single player and multiplayer modes.

There will be three separate modes for gamers to enjoy: A conquest mode that is similar to traditional team-based death match, supporting up to 64 gamers on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - and 24 players for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3. The Hotwire mode focuses on chase scenes, and the Heist mode features bank robbers trying to complete a heist before the police capture them.

Interestingly, a "Hacker" mode is available so one person on each team can hack to operate cameras and better spot enemies, with information relayed back to teammates.

With the gaming organization known as Team Solo Mid (TSM) picking up a North American CS:GO squad, they have publicly claimed to now be supporting the highest paid CS:GO players on the planet - later being bested by Team Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP), with their CEO Per Lilliefelth claiming an even better salary for his squad.

I'm sure you're wondering exactly what the figure is here - it's $3,000 US per month, per player. Nothing celebrity status that's sure - but pretty amazing given they are playing video games for employment. But wait, there's more. This $3,000 doesn't cover any of the in-game sticker sales alongside any prize money that the players may win at international tournaments, which can include total prize pools of up to $250,000.

Different from other gaming organizations, TSM have promised to take no cut of prize money or sticker sales, meaning that if these players see themselves added into a 'legends sticker pack' they could see up to $400,000 spread between the five-man squad.

Apple has taken the top spot in the Chinese smartphone market. China has the largest population in the world, and dwarfs most of the nearest countries, with the exception of India. India isn't nearly as developed, or experiencing the massive growth rate China is, so the China market holds tremendous strategic potential for Apple.

Xiaomi and Huawei are entrenched competitors that are slowly eating away market share, particularly from Samsung. Apple seems to have deflected their rising market share with popular new smartphones. Apple also has the notable accomplishment of unseating their bitter rival Samsung from the top spot. The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have been big contributors to Apple's rise in the market with a 70% sales increase in Q4'14.

Apple's rise in China comes in spite of the fact their phones cost nearly double that of the competition. Apple devices are coveted in China, even resulting in large smuggling rings that bring them in to avoid taxes.

Small drones being flown by recreational hobbyists can be hijacked using malware, as a security expert found a backdoor in the Parrot AR drone. The AR quadcopter helicopter drone can be controlled by a smartphone, tablet, NVIDIA Shield and similar devices, but can be hijacked with the Maldrone malware.

Security specialist Rahul Sasi was able to infect the drone and could interfere with its navigation features. Once compromised, he could issue a kill command, or fly the drone under his command - opening the odor to potential invasion of privacy cases, or stealing an onboard camera/video recorder.

"In this we would show infecting a drone with Maldrone and expecting a reverse tcp connection from drone," according to researchers. "Once connection is established we can interact with the software as well as drivers/sensors of the drone directly. There is an existing AR drone piloting program. Our backdoors kills the autopilot and takes control. The backdoor is persistent across resets."

Intel is refreshing their datacenter SSD line with new models that deliver faster write performance than their predecessors. The Intel DC S3710 Series provides 25% more write performance, topping out at 45,000 random write IOPS for the 1.2TB model. The DC S3710 SSDs come in capacities of 200, 400, 800, and 1.2TB. Random read performance weighs in at 85,000 IOPS, and sequential read weighs in at 550MB/s, and sequential writes vary by capacity points, reaching a top speed of 520MB/s. The DC S3710 is geared for high-performance computing, high data rate analytics, operational databases, and large-scale virtualization.

The Intel DC S3610 Series addresses the exploding mid-level performance tier, while offering faster random write speed with an economical price point. The DC S3610 comes in wide range of capacities, with 200, 400, 480, 800GB, and 1.2TB models in the 2.5" form factor. Random read tops out at 84,000 IOPS, and varying write performance (based upon capacity) reaches up to 28,000 IOPS. Sequential read comes in at 550MB/s, and sequential write performance reaches 520MB/s (depending upon capacity). The DC S3610 series also offers capacities of 200, 400, and 800GB in the incredibly small 1.8" form factor, but performance specifications for the 1.8" haven't been released as of yet.

The DC S3610 is designed to meet the requirements for operational and analytical databases, virtualization, e-commerce, and cloud infrastructures. Both new SSDs feature standard 6Gb/s SATA connections and 20nm IMFT NAND. The DC S3710 provides up to 10 DWPD of endurance, and the DC S3610 provides 3 DWPD. Both new SSDs come with power fail protection and a high level of reliability. In fact, Intel is one of the only storage manufacturers to provide concrete failure rate data to the public.

In a order to easily organize and store photos in your account, Microsoft has added an Albums feature for their OneDrive service - claimed by some as a move to compete with popular competitors including Dropbox and Google's storage options.

Released this Wednesday through a company blog post, this addition will feature capabilities mirroring Dropbox's Carousel photo gallery app and Google Drive's built-in albums feature. Available through the iOS app now, the company has stated they will add Android and Windows phone support "soon".

It's also claimed that next month will see an addition of automatic photo import features for Windows 7 and 8 users, as already seen with Android, iOS and Windows Phone versions as of last July. This new feature will see a camera imports folder added, becoming the location for all automatic imports from both PC's and mobile devices - changing it from the current "All photo's" folder.

Complete with a 13-inch screen squeezed into a bezel that generally houses 11-inch offerings, Dell's new XPS 13 2015 is packed full of tech goodies including the new Broadwell U CPU, 4GB of RAM, a tiny 2.99lb weight rating and a 1366 x 768 resolution touch-screen.

Being initially released to the market at a tiny price of $800, some are claiming this model to be a MacBook Air killer. Touted by many at CES to be part of their 'best of' categories, with the vibrant screen, strong audio and configuration options helping describe why it's such a winner. Bear in mind that the touchscreen isn't part of the $800 base-model, however it's a great inclusion if you're that way inclined.

Comparing this to Apple's MacBook Air, you're looking at a starting price of $999 for 128GB of PCI-e based flash storage, an Intel i5 dual-core, 4GB of RAM and a slightly smaller 2.38lb weight rating. With the specifications sitting fairly close (bar the CPU), you can't argue with a $199 saving on Dell's product.

With smartphones now accounting for over two-thirds of Facebook's total revenue, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff have just published some extremely positive Q4 2014 results.

Claimed by the social media giant to make up for roughly 69 percent of total revenue, their total number posted for this period was $3.85 billion. This exceeded the $3.77 billion consensus estimate by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters and is a 49 percent rise when compared to 12 months earlier.

Just one year ago, mobile advertisements made up for only half of Facebook's total revenue, showing that the rise of the smartphone has been sharp and expansive. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was impressed by the results, stating "we got a lot done in 2014. Our community continues to grow and we're making progress towards connecting the world."

It's been a rough few months for the CS:GO community, seeing six top figures from the North American and Canadian scene get pinned with match-fixing, a betting ring scandal and then a plethora of bans from almost-all major tournaments across the globe.

In unusual fashion, even Valve spoke up - damning the betting ring and match-fixing, personally banning the players involved from all future Valve major events.

One of the players involved in this scandal was 17-year-old Braxton Pierce - gamer name 'swag'. Name aside, he first hit it big in the North American Counter Strike 1.6 scene where he competed in many top level tournaments at the ripe old age of 15, often surpassing many players 10 years his senior and proving himself as a major player to watch in the future.

As of today, YouTube will now default to HTML5 video on your web browser when available - if not, Flash will still be used. This is said to promote faster video loading, better compression and smoother frame rates.

Flash was was seen on almost every major website, providing a once-new aged feel and expansive additions to various companies who loved to auto-play music, display animations and provide interactive experiences. Now these features are long gone, along with Flash and their default integration with the massive online streaming service, YouTube.

Explained as a four-year development cycle, HTML5 will enable YouTube videos to load "15 to 80 percent" faster due to this process including updates for MediaSource extensions, enabling ABR and the potential for time-shifted live video broadcasts. This HTML5 inclusion supports Ultra HD and 60 frames per second streaming, hinging on Google's open-source VP9 codec - often known as WebM. WebM is said to continue the video quality trend of H.264, but will reduce bandwidth requirements by 35 percent as explained by Gizmodo.

When Valve launched Steam Workshop, I don't think most people could have imagined it would grow this large. Well, it has continued to grow and there's no signs of it stopping, with the company announcing it has given out over $57 million to content creators since 2011.

Creators of in-game content for titles like Team Fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have made quite a lot of money over the years, with over 1500 creators in 75 different countries. Valve has also announced that it has curated Workshops opening for two non-Valve games which will allow gamers to purchase in-game items for Dungeon Defenders: Eternity and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

Valve has also added that "We expect more curated Workshops to become available for creators and players in various games over the coming weeks and months". The company also teased that it would soon be releasing new tools for these content creators, something that will allow them to keep track of their sales, for both individual items and overall, both in real-time.

It looks like LG is about to jump ahead of the competition with an impressive successor to its flexible OLED displays, which will have double the bending radius. Right now we have 2.95-inch (or 30mm), but the new displays will flex much more, right up to an insane 1.18-inch (or 75mm).

Not only will the new screens be much more flexible, but they'll be shatter-proof, too. This is thanks to LG adopting a "true flexible" plastic OLED display instead of using glass. Tech spec wise, this is what we can expect: 60lm/W efficiency, 75lm (807 nits) peak brightness output, 3000K in color temperature, and CRI over 85.

What devices will these new all-plastic flexible OLEDs be going into? We don't know just yet, but we could expect the G Flex 3, G4 and many other devices. Maybe a new wearable, too.

According to Qualcomm's Q4 earnings release, we have learned a few things. We've seen that the chip giant has revised its profits estimations to between $26 billion and $28 billion, compared to $26.8 billion and $28.8 billion.

But, it was something else stated in this release, that should have people opening their eyes. The company said "Expectations that our Snapdragon 810 processor will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer's flagship device". We would dare say that this would be the Samsung Galaxy S6 not using its Snapdragon 810 processor, with the South Korean giant being a "large customer", something most could agree on.

We know that AMD will be announcing and then launching its Radeon R9 300 series, but the latest video could be a very big tease of an imminent announcement, we hope. Take a look at AMD's 'The Fixer 3' teaser below.

It really is just a teaser, as it shows off absolutely nothing. A man is walking away from the camera holding a Radeon video card of some sort, with the "The FIX3R" showing up on the screen. We have already seen Fixer 1 and Fixer 2, so the Fixer 3 could be totally unrelated to the Radeon R9 300 series, but there's still hope.

We know that AMD will be launching its Radeon R9 300 series in Q2 2015, so we should expect AMD to begin its marketing machine in the coming weeks and months, for sure.

Dying Light launched yesterday, but it looks like the PC version is filled with various performance-related issues, as most games are these days that are multi-platform.

Techland has been seeing Dying Light gamers experience random crashes and stuttering issues, low FPS or FPS drops, sound stuttering or noise and sound lag issues, DLL crashes on startup of "DyingLight.exe has stopped working", SLI problems, and even a total failure of starting the game itself. There are various things you can do to get around these issues, but I think there's a bigger issue at hand here: why are these problems here in the first place?

Dying Light isn't a small game on Early Access (which if it was, it would probably not have 75% of these issues). But, if you need to get it working and you're experiencing these issues, you're going to have to do some work to get it working.

Nintendo has posted its latest financial report, where we can see just how successful its consoles and handhelds are. Starting with the New 3DS, it has helped Nintendo push the "3DS family" over the 50 million mark.

This is all while the New 3DS hasn't even launched in the United States or Europe, with these sales scooting along in Japan and Australia for now. When it comes to the Wii U console, Nintendo pushed 1.91 million units during the holiday quarter, while Wii U sales are sitting at a total of 9.2 million systems. Wii U software sales are sitting at 52.87 million.

Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. were big sellers for Nintendo across 2014, with Mario Kart 8 selling 4.77 million units while Super Smash Bros. sold a nice 3.39 million units. In total, New Super Smash Bros. had sold 4.16 million units.

Count Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as a fan of the HoloLens technology Microsoft recently showed off, though said it will take a few years of development. Speaking during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" chat, this marked the first public statement Gates had regarding the emerging technology.

"The HoloLens is pretty amazing," Gates recently said. "Microsoft has put a lot into the chips and the software. It is the start of virtual reality. Making the device so you don't get dizzy or nauseous is really hard - the speed of the alignment has to be super, super fast. It will take a few years of software applications being built to realize the full promise of this."

Both augmented reality and virtual reality have seen numerous breakthroughs in recent years, but there are a number of challenges both technologies face. Microsoft says there is nothing like HoloLens currently available, and the headset won't directly compete with Oculus Rift, Project Morpheus or other VR headsets being developed.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is currently engaged in a widespread license plate reader program nationwide, and millions of license plates have been collected, according to a report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The campaign started in 2008 and focused on taking pictures of vehicles, occupants and license plates, in an effort to identify and better track suspected criminals smuggling drugs and money to and from Mexico.

"It's not the kind of information government should be compiling," said Jay Stanley, a policy analyst for the ACLU, in a statement to the media. "Location data is very powerful information."

The following states were targeted, based on popular drug smuggling routes on highways: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Georgia, Florida and New Jersey. Once collected and archived, the DEA shared information with local and state policy officials. Data was stored on record for two years until 2012, when program officials dropped it down to six months, the ACLU report found.

Microsoft clearly is excited about the potential for its HoloLens platform to succeed in gaming, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella both promoting how augmented reality can boost the gaming experience. Microsoft hasn't disclosed gaming projects for its HoloLens platform, but gaming is expected to be a major effort to help push AR mainstream.

"It's also getting clearer how the games people love today will evolve to mind-blowing experiences in the future when designed for the mixed reality that Windows 10 and HoloLens create," Nadella said during a Microsoft financial call. "Just imagine what is possible with Minecraft. Gaming truly is a valuable part of millions of people's lives and Microsoft will excel and increase our lead."

The HoloLens headset and Windows Holographic platform can be paired with video games to provide a unique environment - while Microsoft and Mojang have already created two HoloLens demonstrations that they look forward to launching.