Latest News - Page 2742

Quadcopters are starting to hit the mainstream market in force, thanks to their recently lowered pricing, ease of flying for beginners and various camera opportunities including GoPro recording or First Person View (FPV) flying - as seen below mounted on normal two-winged, one propeller R/C aircraft.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has issued a warning this holiday season, stating on their Twitter that pilots should be aware that they must "remember to keep 30m away from vehicles, buildings & people." This comes after a Melbourne man ended up crashing his drone in the middle of a police operation and almost taking down an officer with it.

Little-known to most, if you're looking to use a quadcopter for commercial filming purposes, you must actually obtain an official license - with only a handful of people holding these nation-wide, so I'm told.

As noticed by Gizmodo, Cyberdyne systems featured a major part in the Terminator series - building lethal robots and developing Skynet, which eventually tries to destroy all of humanity.

Well, if you haven't been keeping up with the robot exoskeleton world - there's a real-life company in the 'biz' and they're also called Cyberdyne. Based in Japan, they're currently producing exoskeletons for elderly patients in nursing homes and hospitals. What's even more of a coincidence, or creepy, or maybe even funny? The suits are called HAL - just like the evil robot in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Founded back in 2004, this company either had a great sense of humor, or they're going to eventually make the human race their personal slaves. However, apparently their name comes from an amalgamation of the term Cybernics, which refers to the field of studying how ageing populations can be assisted be machines, and "dyne" which is the Greek term for power.

Stuffed full with a myriad of different technology brands all tied together with an awesome watercooling rigid tubing design, Stuart Tonks from GGF LAN has produced another beastly modded system. Set out in two parts, this Lian Li DK-02 desk chassis is once again, set to impress - fully featured on GGF's website along with a very cool loop filling video.

Packed with three ASUS GTX 780s, plenty of SSDs for quick-access storage and powered by a pair of Cooler Master V power supplies, the whole system is capped off by the Bitspower cooling system filled with red colored coolant.

Part A of the build contains:

Microsoft is really pushing the gaming side of its upcoming next-generation desktop OS, Windows 10, with a big event planned for January 21, just days away. During this event, Xbox boss Phil Spencer will be talking about Windows 10 and how it will be a platform for gamers.

Spencer said: "I'm excited to be talking on January 21st. We have speakers coming up talking about Windows 10 and the great work that we're doing there. For the Xbox team, this is the beginning of our discussion with fans about the work that we're doing to bring gaming to the Windows 10 operating system". We previously heard that Windows 10 would be more focused toward gamers, but we've heard that before, too.

Spencer continued, saying "It's really nice to finally be able to get to talk about this. We'll continue the conversation throughout the year. We remain committed to gaming on console, but we know that we have fans and gamers that also play on PC and phone, and it's important that we build out the features that we have, learning from what we've done on console, and helping make Windows 10 the best operating system we've ever created for gamers on PCs".

According to a class action lawsuit against Apple, the company has tried to hide the issues with their 2011 MacBook Pro, something that is coming out because of the lawsuit.

Apple Insider is reporting details of the case, which is unearthing some interesting details that were otherwise hidden by the company. Law firm Whitfield, Bryson & Mason LLP said in a note "Specifically, we allege that between early- and late-2011, Apple released a software update that dramatically reduced the graphical performance of the GPUs in order to prevent them from reaching temperatures that would cause the GPUs to effectively self destruct".

The lawsuit itself has been expanded, with the firm stating that it has expanded to cover California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Puerto Rico and Vermont. Various members of the class action lawsuit have offered up their hardware for testing, with experts performing various tests on their faulty MacBook Pros. The company is expected to file a motion to dismiss the case on January 29, but Whitfield, Bryson & Mason will be responding with their own filing on March 5.

"It could be used for legitimate reasons, right?" was the first thought that went through my head when looking at this website - well that's apparently not the case. If you're looking to seek revenge or hold a grudge and have money to spend - Hackers List will enable you to list up your task and a price - helping you search for the most suitable hacker for your needs.

As described by the New York Times, there are potential clients on here including a Sweedish man offering up $2,000 for someone to hack into his landlord's website and even a lady from California ready to pony up $500 for someone to gain access to his Facebook and Gmail accounts - talk about a healthy relationship!

With over 500 jobs currently listed, everything is completed completely anonymously, with the website working as the 'middle man' when it comes to jobs, correspondence and payment.

This brings me back to my high school days, playing Stick Cricket throughout my computing class while pretending to complete assignments. Well if you haven't kept up-to-date or have no idea what Stick Cricket is, you're in for an awakening. With over 28,000 followers on Twitter and over 15 million app downloads - this game which started out as a cool browser time-waster has become a rather large project.

It's basically a very simplistic and addictive way to play Cricket on your phone or PC, allowing simple controls for users to slog it out and take a break from their Candy Crush Saga addition. If you haven't heard, there was a tragedy recently in the Cricket world, seeing Aussie player Phillip Hughes cop a nasty hit to the back of a head while batting, courtesy of a 'bouncer' (a ball which was bowled and ended up around head height) and eventually saw his life support being switched off.

Stick Cricket decided to change their simple app to reflect respect towards this occurrence. Previously if a bouncer was missed, your character would be struck on the head, eventually falling onto the stump and classifying you as out. However due to this tragedy taking place, Stick Sports' Creative Director, Colin Rowe, has stated in an interview to News.com.au that "we felt that the landscape had changed," further adding "it was there for comedic value, and when we first made Stick Cricket, no one had ever died from a head blow in professional cricket, so we felt justified to add the comedy. It's sobering now and no longer funny, so we had a team meeting the day Phillip Hughes died and put plans to change the game with the very next update."

We know it's coming, but NVIDIA hasn't confirmed anything just yet - but here it is, the GM200. If you didn't know, this is the fully unleashed Maxwell GPU, which should materialize into the GeForce GTX Titan II.

The GM200 engineering board (180-1G600-1102-A04) will use a PG600 board according to VideoCardz, and features 24 of Hynix's H5GQ4H24MFR modules, clocked at 7GHz. We have a total of 12GB of VRAM, which indicates this will be a new Titan part, and not a normal GeForce GPU. We don't know if it will be the Titan Z II, Titan Ultra, Titan II, or something else entirely, but whatever it is... it's going to be awesome.

We can see the prototype board is missing the DVI port, but it features three DisplayPort outputs, and HDMI 2.0 just like the GTX 980 and GTX 970 cards. We should expect the full Maxwell card to feature 3072 CUDA cores, too. This card will be a monster, something I expect NVIDIA will unveil at GTC 2015 in March.

Some hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of the New York Post and the United Press International, where they said that World War III had been declared by the Pope and that the United States and China were engaged in a serious military battle.

This was obviously a hoax, with both the UPI and New York Post stating their respective Twitter feeds had been hacked by 1PM on Friday, just as US President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the media about the concerns of cyber security, and the fact they need to increase their online defenses.

The news organizations' Twitter feeds were throwing out some really huge statements, saying that China condemning President Obama's "pivot to Asia" before firing on, and damaging the USS George Washington, which is an American aircraft carrier based in the Pacific. The hacked feeds were also spouting that the US were engaged in "active combat" against China in the South China Sea. One of the tweets read: "US Joint Chief of staff: USS George Washington damaged, US navy now engaged in active combat against Chinese vessels in South China sea". Another tweet said "JUST IN: Xi Jinping: Obama 'condemned' for Asia pivot, 'has forced China to protect its interests through military means".

We constantly hear of the mountains of money that mobile giants like Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and more make, but what about the industry itself? According to a new report commissioned by Qualcomm from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), we are getting a handle on just how much money the industry is generating.

In 2014 alone, the mobile industry generated a gigantic $3.3 trillion, with six of the 25 most valuable companies in the world - Alibaba, Apple, China Mobile, Facebook, Google and Verizon - earn revenue directly from mobile technology. But it's not just the big tech giants that are enjoying these returns, as mobile technology has created 11 million jobs in six countries that BCG studied. These countries are Brazil, China, Germany, India, South Korea and the United States.

The report also found that investments into infrastructure and technology hit $1.8 trillion between 2009 and 2013, and those who are involved in the mobile industry will continue to spend heavily into research and development, especially in areas like the titanic shift between 4G and 5G that is coming in the next few years. It's expected that companies will spend around $4 billion in R&D over the next five years alone.

In an official statement, Devolver Digital and Dennaton Games have publicly stated that "in response to the report itself, we are concerned and disappointed that a board of professionals tasked with evaluating and judging games fairly and honestly would stretch the facts to such a degree and issue a report that describes specific thrusting actions that are not simply present in the sequence in question and incorrectly portrays what was presented to them for review."

Unhappy with the Australian Classification Board and their decision to refuse Hotline Miami 2 classification in Australia, the Devolver Digital and Dennaton Games teams have pointed out misconceptions revolving around the apparently classification report. They state that "the opening cinematic that was first shown in June of 2013 has not changed in any way. We also want to make clear that players are given an choice at the start of the game as to whether they wish to avoid content that alludes to sexual violence. The sequence in question is presented below in context, both after choosing the uncut version of the game and after choosing to avoid content that alludes to sexual violence."

Not only is the public quite annoyed thanks to the boards standings, but it seems the developers are claiming fair-play was not on the agenda. It's been further noted that a Reddit user has captured a screenshot of an email sent from the co-creator of this title, Jonatan Söderströmm, in which he tells people to "just pirate is after release" if "it ends up not being released in Australia." He went on to state that there is "no need to send us (the developers) any money, just enjoy the game!."

Australian residents have been, once again, told to take a long walk off a short pier - with Hotline Miami's long-awaited sequel being refused classification in Australia due to sex and drug usage.

What does the Australian Classifications Board have to say for themselves?

Numerous media outlets (including us) are trying to get our hands-on the official copy of the classification report to help you all stay a little more informed.

The launch of Watch Dogs was filled with controversy, with a delay, and then a deliberate bake down of graphics. But, we all knew Ubisoft were only beginning to start its downhill sprint toward pissing gamers across the world off.

Now we have Jonathan Morin, the Creative Director behind Watch Dogs talking about the sequel to the action adventure hacking title. Morin spoke with GamesTM about Watch Dogs, saying the team won't be keeping things the same when it comes to the sequel. Morin explains "I don't think Watch Dogs is perfect in any way and there's a lot of room for improvement. But you don't always see this when you ship a game. We deliver what we believe the brand should be at the time".

Morin continued "But afterward, when you cool down after five and a half years [of development] and take your vacations and people play the game, certain elements become clear. They let you continue to bring what you envision to the next level with the fans included this time, which is where I think it really gets interesting. When you start a new project [and new IP], it's a blank page and everything you do is what you want to do. With a sequel, there is more pressure to push a brand forward and we now have to appeal to fans in a new way". Morin added: "We have to give [the development team] something hard to do. If we don't, they could fade out, which means you don't benefit from their knowledge or they will leave. Our team is really assimilated with the challenge we have and who knows where it will lead us next".

While DayZ has the hearts and minds of PC gamers across the world, H1Z1 is an up-and-coming zombie shooter from Sony Online Entertainment which has just entered into its Early Access territory... and it is making huge headlines already, and not the good ones.

SOE has pushed in "paid airdrops" into the Early Access of H1Z1, which lets gamers purchase airdrops of crates that have ammo and guns inside, which is just a different way of having a "pay-to-win" title. It gets better, as keen-eyed gamers have noticed that 8 months ago SOE President John Smedley said on Reddit "We will NOT be selling Guns, Ammo, Food, Water ... i.e. That's kind of the whole game and it would suck in our opinion if we did that". There was an update to that thread, where Smedley added "We are not interested in selling weapons. Weapons are only acquired by crafting or exploring and finding one. We are not selling power".

Considering H1Z1 is a free-to-play, paid airdrops are kind of the reverse of that. More so when the President of SOE comes out and blatantly calls it out months and months ago, saying they would "NOT" be selling guns, ammo, and more in-game items. But don't worry, Smedley understands that you're pissed off, as he said on Twitter that he can't disagree with people that are upset about the changes. He said "here's what I can't disagree with - people that are pissed off at us that we changed our minds about it. fair point".

2014 was a massive year for gamers, but more specifically PC gamers were able to enjoy multiple digital distribution services like Steam, Origin and that inbred cousin we all love to hate: uPlay.

EA has just released some great details on Origin, showing that there were over 1.1 billion hours of games played on its service, which is 7,483 times longer than the average person sleeps in a lifetime. When it comes to their free games through Origin's 'On The House' service, over 25.2 million games were given out for free, or one free game for every seven gamers in the US (of which there are a total of 188 million).

As for gaming sessions, there were 1.7 billion game sessions over the year, and over 1.4 billion logins, too. That's close to one login for every single PC in the world, which is a huge number. But when you have games like Battlefield 4, Titanfall, and more - you can see why these numbers will only continue to grow going into the New Year.

The FBI insists North Korea is responsible for breaching Sony Pictures, while some cybersecurity experts aren't so sure. John McAfee, an eccentric cybersecurity pioneer, says he knows what group is responsible for breaching SPE - and it wasn't the North Koreans.

"I can guarantee they are wrong,"McAfee recently told IBTimes UK, while speaking about the FBI's assertion that North Korea is involved. "It has to do with a group of hackers - I will not name them - who are civil libertarians and who hate the confinement the restrictions the music industry and the movie industry has placed on art and so they are behind it."

McAfee spent much of his career defending users and companies against hackers - but has a mutual respect for hackers today, saying "they want freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to live unobserved."

Students from the University of Surrey used Petri dishes to test how much bacteria really is on our beloved smartphones - the results may shock you a little. Now, before you take a bottle of bleach to everything you own, remember that germs are normal and are contained amongst almost everything in this world.

These studies show that a good deal of bacteria is housed around our phones 'home' buttons, said to range from our own to friends, family and acquaintances germs all rolled into one. There isn't really anything harmful found here, but some disease-carrying bacteria such as the Staphylococcus aureus has been previously discovered in similar studies.

Dr Simon Park is Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology and is the man behind this annual study, he stated that "as part of a course called Practical and Biomedical Bacteriology, an undergraduate module that I run, I get the students to imprint their mobile phones onto bacteriological growth Petri dishes so that we might determine what they might carry. It's unusual but very effective way of engaging our students with the often overlooked microbiology of everyday life." He further went on to comment that our phones store ours and others bacteria, just like they store phone numbers.

Kim Jong-un became "supreme leader" of North Korea at a young age, and has shown political instability since his reign began in 2011. The North Korean government, meanwhile, has steadily invested time and resources into its Bureau 121 hacker division, aiming to compromise political rivals.

"In the case of the DPRK, the paranoia is amplified to the extreme," according to a commentary written about North Korea's cyberattack motivations on InformationWeek's Dark Reading. It's true that the North Korean government, which strives to maintain full control of its citizens, is suspicious of all outsiders - and launching cyberattacks to steal information has evolved into a valuable asset.

The FBI continues to say North Korea is behind the major data breach of Sony Pictures - and whether the reclusive government is responsible - foreign governments and cybersecurity companies are paying attention to Pyongyang's rising cyberattack capabilities.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) and British GCHQ intelligence agencies plan to step up their cybersecurity cooperation, as both governments face increasing numbers of cyberattacks. The agencies plan to launch cyber war games to test the cybersecurity of financial institutions, hoping to defend against the "biggest modern threats that we face."

"We have got hugely capable cyber defenses, we have got the expertise and that is why we should combine as we are going to, set up cyber cells on both sides of the Atlantic to share information," said British Prime Minister David Cameron during a press conference.

Following mass surveillance operations detailed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, critics said the US and UK government should focus on beefing up cybersecurity efforts - instead of spying on citizens, residents, and foreign governments - as cyberespionage campaigns target both countries.

The PC market has taken a beating over the last decade, but the recent stabilization is fueled in part by lower price points. While PC shipments haven't entirely leveled off, they are much better than the 10% decline experienced in 2013. Intel has owned a near-monopoly on desktop processors for several years, and many suspect artificially high CPU prices helped contribute to the decline of the PC. Affordability is a huge consideration for potential buyers, especially when they typically have smartphones that can easily handle most simple online tasks.

Laptops are now available for roughly $200 that can provide enough performance for many more tasks than any tablet or smartphone. Intel actually predicted during their recent investor call that prices will decline slightly over the coming year. Intel reported an 11% increase in laptop CPU sales, but an 3% decline in profits from those sales. The number of desktop CPU's declined by 1%, but the average prices have stabilized. Perhaps some more competition in this space would result in lower PC CPU pricing, which would certainly help fuel a resurgence much like the one seen with laptops.