Latest News - Page 2761

Tesla Motors' CEO, Elon Musk, has just unleashed a Tweet to his awaiting fans, hinting that his company is working on a robotic charging system that will automatically connect and charge your car.

Instantly it makes you picture something out of a sci-fi film and that's exactly what it seems like is going to happen. Recent reports have shown that robot snake type products are actually a very real thing - OC Robotics has just shown off their Series II - X125 system snake bot, said to be used for 'a number of practical purposes' and the Carnegie Mellon University Biorobotics lab have been working on their own versions of these devices for quite some time.

There is no information currently pointing to any possible designs that Tesla may use for themselves, however the two above examples may give you a rough idea of what to expect.

Smartphones to Smartwatches and now Smart Rings, when will the downsizing of technology stop? Is it really worth developing and working on a tiny ring that's only real purpose is to inform you of a missed call or text message?

There's been a few different campaigns to get smart rings off the ground, with the MOTA: SmartRing even achieving $41,740 - well over its $35,000 goal.

Gizmodo had a chat to Kevin Bates, the man responsible for the Ö ring project. He gave a little insight into how crowd sourcing should work and exactly why he decided to undertake the project in the first place. Bates stated that "I made this just to see how small I could get the technology. I became inspired after seeing several crowdfunding campaigns for smart rings become hugely successful. I wanted to see if it was possible to develop a technology more advanced than what they had displayed in their promotional materials. In general, I think people should be more skeptical of hardware crowdfunding and demand to see more behind the scenes operation of the underlying technology."

Cybercriminals are having a field day targeting US companies, financial institutions and government agencies, with numerous campaigns in recent years. However, some frustrated victims, instead of solely focusing on improving cybersecurity defense, are interested in trying to get vigilante justice on hackers.

It doesn't matter the motives behind revenge hacking, it's still illegal - and the FBI is investigating a report by J.P. Morgan that target Iranian servers following a 2012 cyberattack. As the FBI improves its ability to determine what country or group could be responsible for attacks, they don't want banks and other victims to try their hand at launching attacks.

"Right now the situation is that companies are on defense," said Bloomberg News reporter Michael Riley. "They have to try and keep hackers out of their networks, and the hackers only have to win once. They are incredibly frustrated, they are incredibly vulnerable, and they are looking for other options, and some of those options may be going after the hackers."

Usually seen as competitors, Samsung and Sony are now banding together for the benefit of the consumer - seeing Samsung's Smart TVs released in 2015 include PlayStation Now compatibility.

It's expected to see this feature be presented at CES 2015 in Las Vegas, which is set to kick off in a only few days time - just as PlayStation now was originally announced at CES 2014.

With the announcement of the partnership happening just before Christmas day, North American consumers will be among the first to receive this offer. As with other PlayStation Now compatible devices, the Samsung TVs will contain an app to connect to Sony's Gakai-powered games service, allowing customers to chose from a list of games that they can rent - picking as they wish and playing them almost instantly.

If you're a fan of extremely well-built systems and don't have the patience, skill or time to do it yourself - pre-built computers from retailers and specialist companies is certainly a viable option.

MSI has teamed up with XOTIC PC to provide to the public this insane system, boasting components including SLI-980's, a water cooled Intel i7 5960X and an inclusion of a monstrous 32GB of RAM.

The press release issued doesn't have any quoted retail price and a quick search of the website comes up empty, but you can expect this system to come a quite a hefty cost.

The freshly designed balloon, said to carry a telescope that detects gamma rays unseen by human eyes, was set off with the task of floating over Antarctica for 100 days - marking it as NASA's longest scientific balloon mission ever.

Er, Houston - We have a problem. After only two days of soaring through the sky, the balloon has sprung a leak and plunged back to earth. As according to the COSI '14 Balloon Campaign and Shenanigans website: "I'm saddened to report that the COSI/SPB balloon flight was terminated much earlier than expected. The balloon developed a leak after the first day at float and we decided to increase the chances of instrument recovery this season instead of continuing operations for as long as the balloon maintained altitude."

Currently sitting at 350 miles from McMurdo at an elevation of 8000 ft, this unfortunate situation has seen a daring mission end extremely early. The previous balloon flight mission record sits at 55 days total, with this ambitious mission looking to almost-double this number. Judging by the wrap-up on this website, there are no repair and re-launch plans currently made - it seems like a completely dead project.

Telstra have just rolled out their new 700Mhz "4GX" plans as 2015 sees the 700Mhz spectrum split between carriers Optus, TPG and Telstra now available for customers.

As previously announced, Telstra said that they've got all capital cities and 50 regional towns ready to go with this technology. This has now been expanded to a further 600 locations throughout Australia starting from January the 2nd (today), local time.

Using LTE-A to bond the new 700Mhz network to their existing 1800Mhz network, this technology should see an improvement in download speeds for user devices. Due to it being a 'shared mobile spectrum', customers shouldn't expect to always receive blisteringly-fast downloads, also seeing your device switch between the two available frequencies for the best coverage as it sees fit.

Backwards-compatibility - a statement that will bring pain to the face of most console gamers in this day and age. We saw this when only the first-release PlayStation 3 could play PlayStation 2 games and now we're aware that your brand-new Xbox One cannot run your favorite 360 disks. How can you try and combat this? How about shoving both consoles into one laptop-like shell? That'll do it.

Well if you're crazy enough to try, this Xbook Duo guide will help you through the process. Apparently featuring no overheating issues, this hunk of technology will give you the ability to play your favorite Xbox 360 and Xbox One games in 'one' device. We say 'one' because it's basically two systems thrown into a single shell.

Lacking in aesthetics but teaming with usability - all they need is someone to come along and spruce up the looks department, then they'll have a winner on their hands.

Korean electronics giant Samsung plans to release smart TVs powered by its Tizen operating system, as the company hopes for Tizen to evolve into the "OS of everything." The Tizen-powered smart TVs will be shown off during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next week, with worldwide availability and pricing details unveiled.

"We are focusing our efforts on Tizen right now," said Kim Hyun-suk, Samsung president of visual display, in an interview with Reuters. "We hope that other TV makers will also use it and help build an ecosystem that will help the platform grow."

Samsung's efforts to expand Tizen to the smartphone market essentially failed, and it continues to rely on the Google Android operating system.

If you've forgotten your charging cable on a long road-trip, holiday, work/school day or just about anywhere within 5 miles of your home - its likely your phone is going to run flat. Not only will you be unable to check your Facebook notifications, but you'll likely be lost thanks to the lack of GPS available and the general population not knowing how to use the sun for guidance.

In comes the Power Pen, available for a purchase price of £24.99 ($39 US). Constructed as a ballpoint pen, stylus and charger, this device contains a 700mAh battery pack, giving your general smartphone around 30% of charge.

It comes with the ability to charge any Android or iOS device with a microUSB or lighting port, marketed as handy for your smartphone, tablet or portable speakers and giving you a little wiggle room when things go pear shaped.

Marking another step in our new-age of technology, Australia's largest telecom, Telstra, and a government funded news entity, ABC, covered the Sydney, Australia New Year's Eve fireworks with assistance of two purpose-built quadcopters - streaming this footage to mainstream TV.

These quadcopters were built with HD cameras and set to broadcast links 1000 ft above the Sydney Harbour in unison with nine cameras on-ground and a manned helicopter.

These drones were flown by licensed pilots and made to hover within the firework exclusion zone, as according to a spokeswoman. ABC also had to receive approval from the Civil Aviation Security Authority (CASA) to be able to fly these helicopters at such a height. Although they might be just remote-control models to some, we're seeing quadcopters used more and more throughout various sporting and public events. Much cheaper than use of a full-size manned helicopter, quadcopters are able to safely capture the action from up close or at a great distance, giving the pilot the ability to create smooth sweeping camera angles or beautiful fly-throughs (hint: skip to 52 sec in the video below).

A group of Polish security researchers have been rewarded with $50,000 from Google, thanks to their investigation and findings of 30 flaws within the Google App Engine developer platform - said to give hackers possible access beyond their own virtual machines.

This flaw was further explained as allowing intruders the ability to bypass the Oracle Java security sandbox.

While in operation, Google detected this research team conducting their tests and locked them out of their Google App Engine account - meaning no more progress could me made. After two weeks Google allowed this team to continue their research, complete their exploration of the GAE flaws and produce a report on the findings. There was one clear-cut rule however, the researchers must limit their work to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) layer and steer clear from the next sandboxing layer.

The Wi-Fi networks aboard the International Space Station (ISS) could allow robots to autonomously roam the orbiting research lab. The SPHERES robots have been aboard the ISS since 2006, mainly used in a small cube location that is marked by ultrasound beacon limiters.

This would be a unique opportunity to determine if robots would be able to carry out menial tasks board the ISS, so astronauts are able to handle more pressing activities. Operators from the NASA Ames Research Center want to discover if it'd be possible to direct SPHERES using the current ISS Wi-Fi infrastructure.

NASA and other participating space nations have shown increased interest in using robotics technology aboard the ISS - hoping to make the environmental safer to work in, while also helping astronauts with their workloads.

To make up for a few days of PlayStation Network disruption because of the Lizard Squad distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, Sony has announced it a "holiday thank you" to gamers.

"Happy New Year! Since access to PlayStation Network was impacted during the holidays, we wanted to show our appreciation for your patience by offering all PlayStation Plus members that had an active membership or free trial on December 25th a membership extension of five days."

The extension will be automatically applied, and additional details will be published on the official PlayStation Blog. Also, all PlayStation Network gamers can receive a 10 percent discount code for a one-time purchase from the PlayStation Store. The discount is applicable towards new releases, indie games, game add-ons and season passes, along with select movies and TV episodes.

Sony Pictures announced it is spreading release of "The Interview" to In Demand, a premium pay-per-view network that includes customers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, PlayStation Network, and other major carriers. Even with increased interest among Internet users to illegally pirate the movie, "The Interview" still appears to be racking up strong online rentals and purchases - which is why additional partners wanted to jump onboard.

Considering it wasn't long ago when Sony Pictures announced it would pull the movie from theaters - and online release also seemed in jeopardy - it's good to see the film hit additional markets. "We have always sought the widest possible distribution for "The Interview," and want to thank our new partners for helping us make that happen," said Michael Lynton, Sony Entertainment CEO, in a press statement.

Sony Pictures still hasn't outlined international release schedule for the film, but an announcement is expected to take place sometime in the near future.

Microsoft plans to phase out sales of the original Kinect for Windows sensor starting in 2015, after shipping the Kinect for Windows v2 sensor and 2.0 software development kit (SDK) in late 2014.

Kinect users spend $199 to invest in a hands-free motion sensor system that allows them to interact with games, productivity tools and apps, using gestures or voice. However, the Kinect SDK 2.0 allows developers to create Windows Store Kinect-enabled apps, and use the Kinect Adapter for Windows to use the Xbox One sensor and still develop Windows apps.

"The original Kinect for Windows sensor was a milestone achievement in the world of natural human computing," Microsoft wrote in the blog. "It allowed developers to create solutions that broke through the old barriers of mouse and keyboard interactions, opening up entirely new commercial experiences in multiple industries, including retail, education, healthcare, education, and manufacturing."

Apple may be their own best competitor, and sales of the iPad have declined 12.7% with further drops in sight. The iPad, and tablets in general, are suffering from market saturation and competition from smartphones with larger screens. Apple's latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are only adding to the problem with their larger screens and faster processors, and many speculate the rate of iPad decline is increasing.

The new iPhone models are comparable to iPad performance, and also feature a longer battery life. Tablets have long been preferred for their large screens and batteries, and faster processors. New cell phone models are much like a smaller tablet, but with cellphone connectivity. Many users also utilize iPads for e-reading, but that trend is also migrating to cellular phones. The iPad is also suffering from technological stagnation. While cell phones are increasingly more powerful and can provide more services, the iPad remains relatively the same. There are very few reasons for users to upgrade to a slightly lighter or powerful iPad when the device in their hand the most, the ever-present cell phone, can accomplish any task the iPad can. iPads also suffer from limited storage capacity, and the addition of a USB port to allow users to swap in more storage might be a wise move to provide an incentive to use the iPad over a cell phone.

News reading service Pocket has tracked user activity and notes that users with large cellphone screens use tablets less. As all cell phones begin to feature larger screens expect this trend to increase. It's amazing that a few short years ago many predicted the demise of the PC due to the popular tablet. The tables have turned, and the PC space is growing as tablets rapidly decline. With no real use for cell phones other than content consumption, as opposed to creation with PC's, we expect the PC to continue to enjoy a healthy resurgence.

RAM drives and RAM caching have long been a secret of the gaming and overclocking elite to attain the fastest load times and smoothest gameplay possible. The advent of the SSD has reduced usage of RAM caching due to the SSDs similar performance, and overall simplicity. RAM drives and RAM caching have several hindrances, they require a lot of DRAM because they cache the entire OS, along with everything else, into the DRAM. RAM is also susceptible to power loss. For those with overclocked gaming rigs an errant BSOD can cause massive data loss and require complete reinstallation of the OS. This is not a tradeoff many are willing to make.

Enter Dimmdrive. This new program, which will be available for $34 on Steam today, takes a different approach that removes many of the disadvantages of typical RAM caching. Dimmdrive allows users to specify exactly which data is cached into the DRAM, so users can load just a single game into the RAM. This reduces the amount of RAM required, and also helps minimize exposure to data loss from any type of BSOD or power loss. It is much simpler to reinstall a game than an entire operating system. Once the game is loaded into RAM users can expect speeds up to 13 GB/s for any cached data.

Details are slight on how deeply the program is integrated in Steam. It will be available for purchase, and the best implementation would be for users to simply select a game in the dashboard to accelerate performance. If the program works separately the user will have to manually select the game folder.

We've covered this Australian giant online retailer in the recent past, showing off their $329 windows 8.1-Based Laptop and explaining how Kogan's self-branded technology components are quite often listed well-below or placed around the lowest priced offerings on the market at any given time.

With an apparent 668 views today alone, Kogan's new 256GB SSD is no different. Boasting a maximum sequential read rate of 460 Mb/s and a maximum sequential write rate of 320 Mb/s, this new offering is said to utilize Intel's NAND flash technology.

Comparing the retail listing with other similar devices in the local Australian market, you can see that the Kogan SSD is very well priced. When looking at other 256GB SSD's, it's noted that you can pick yourself up a Crucial MX100 256GB SSD for $139 AU - which offers sequential read speeds of up to 550MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 300MB/s. If you're looking for higher specifications and higher pricing, you can expect to fork out $219 AU for one of Samsung's 850 Pro Series 256GB SSDs - offering sequential read speeds of up to 550MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 520MB/s.

Often described as still the best game in the series, the modding community of SA:MP has reached out to TweakTown - explaining that their San Andreas community is extremely alive and well, showing us screenshots of thousands of players pitting their might against each other in modded servers.

Ranging from role-playing modifications to extremely fun RPG-only battle zones, the team at SA:MP have already started work on their GTA V mod list. As according to James Beatie, V:Multiplayer's Lead Developer and Community Leader, "this modification can be created before the game is released, as a large portion of the programming needed can be done at any time. We feel the head start will open many doors to add as many features as possible."

His team specializes in mods that "allow a large expansion onto the regular multiplayer featured in the game. This allows players to play in an environment controlled by a dedicated server that anyone can host. This allows for roleplay servers to be hosted, which is a very popular occurrence in modifications listed above." We're not talking large player modes as in 64 v 64 Battlefield 2 scenarios here, we're talking 1,000 players on a server at one time - one thousand!