Latest News - Page 2786

Some unofficial benchmarks have surfaced on the alleged AMD Radeon R9 300 series GPU, something that is arriving as "Captain Jack" from the Pirate Islands family of products.

The GPU was benchmarked against a slew of other cards, on a bunch of different games. These games were all benchmarked, which provided a heavily-stacked average FPS, versing this mystery card against a bunch of other cards on the market. You can see in the image above, that the "Captain Jack" sample kicks some serious ass with 65.6FPS average, against the 50.1FPS average of the R9 290X and the 56.6FPS average of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980.

But these days, it's not all about brute performance, but performance-per-watt. The "Captain Jack" sample GPU is doing quite well here too, with load power consumption of an average of 197W. This is compared to the average power consumption of the GeForce GTX 980 pulling 185W, while the R9 290X pulls much more, at 279W. Whatever this card is, if it turns out to be true, AMD could really stomp back into the market with a card that goes toe-to-toe with the GeForce GTX 980, and some.

Anonymous has continued its #OPKKK campaign against members of the Ku Klux Klan in Missouri, after the group brazenly challenged the hacker collective online. The @KuKluxKlanUSA Twitter account was compromised last week, and the hacking fun was only beginning for Anonymous.

I won't link directly to the dox page, but it doesn't take much imagination into how one would easily find the information posted online, courtesy of Anonymous. Frank Ancona, the "KKK Imperial Wizard," had his address, phone number, Social Security number, credit card information, and other personal information - with the dox also targeting his wife - posted online.

Anonymous also might target government websites and infrastructure in Missouri to respond for the Grand Jury failing to indict Officer Darren Wilson: "We find it disturbing that you, the grand jury, have chosen this patch as everyone will not choose to stand calm and let you choose to let him walk free. As you've seen all the riots and businesses, police cars, etc., being burned down while Anonymous shall target any Missouri government or bank sites now, so you better increase your security because we're here and we're not going to stand by and watch you let this man walk free."

We already know that the Radeon R9 390X is going to be a special card, where according to rumors we can expect it to arrive with a 4096-bit memory bus, made possible with High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM. This card should have memory bandwidth of a truly next-gen 640GB/sec. But, what comes after that, is going to be even better.

The first generation of HBM, which SK Hynix is now shipping, provides 2Gb per DRAM die, 1Gbps speed per pin, 128GB/sec of bandwidth and is stackable in groups of four. This results in 4 x 128GB/sec = 512GB/sec, with another 128GB/sec coming from somewhere else on the card. But, the second-generation HBM is going to be lightning quick, even compared to the already-damn-impressive first-gen HBM tech.

The second-gen HBM technology will allow for 8Gb per DRAM die, up from 2Gb on the first-gen HBM for starts. This means we should see GPUs with 8-16GB of VRAM on-board. Second, the bandwidth increases to 256GB/sec (up from 128GB/sec) which should arrive as around 1.28TB/sec of available memory bandwidth. Considering NVIDIA's second-generation Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 980s only have 224GB/sec of memory bandwidth on a 256-bit bus, the 4096-bit wide memory bus with 1.28TB/sec of bandwidth will surely do some insane things, especially at Ultra HD and beyond resolutions.

As according to 'China Economic Weekly News' and Chiphell, Foxconn Technology is rumored to be producing the next-generation of sapphire glass screens for Apple's iPhone platform. As it currently stands, they are one of Apple's main OEM partners and taking on this project will be yet another service they offer to the technology giants.

Foxconn and Apple have reportedly come to agreement to create a 300 acre large production factory in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China - this is following news last week that Foxconn will be building a new factory in Taiwan for iPhone screen production.

This deal is rumored to have taken place with Foxconn due to Apple's last partnered screen provider, GT Advanced Technologies, delacring bankruptcy a mere two months ago. The sapphire screen isn't confirmed for release in next-generation iPhones, but according to sources it seems like the most likely offering.

According to latest reading services data, since the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in May this year these two devices have changed user's reading habits favorably toward the aforementioned smartphones and away from iPad's offerings.

Two million articles and videos have been analyzed, covering before and after release of Apple's new champion products. The study claims that once an iPhone 6 has been purchased, they will proceed to use this device for 72% of their total time, in comparison to an 80% share in usage for an iPhone 6 Plus when in compared to an already-owned iPad.

The study also claims that due to the iPhone 6 Plus' big screen offering, the users have experienced on average, a 40% increase in video viewing.

After 12 months on Steam's Early Access, DayZ is getting some much needed updates, with its developer finally coming clean on what's going on with the open-world game next year.

Bohemia Interactive have said that two very important things will happen for DayZ next year, with the first being it will reach beta in Q4 2015 - a year from now - and that the final version will launch in the first half of 2016. DayZ will continue to be $30 during the Steam Fall Sale, which starts today, but it will increase to $35, and then $44 when the launch of the beta kicks off. The final version of DayZ will be $50.

The developer is splitting the updates into quarterly released, where in Q1 2015, we will see DayZ updated with a new zombie AI, basic vehicles, diseases and more. Q2 will see advanced vehicles, advanced animals, a new UI, player stamina, and more. Q3 will have traps, barricading, aerial transport, and a console prototype. Then in Q4, we'll see the beta unleashed, as well as animal companions, base building and Steam community integration.

News has just come to light that Android continues to dominate the global market in smartphones, controlling a massive total of 85% of all devices. This marks Apple and Windows OS systems falling further behind the leader, likely due to Chinese domestic phone offerings incorporating third-party Android OS platforms.

Recent reports claim that BlackBerry and Windows Phone have swapped positions, seeing Microsoft creep into a third place standing. However, Windows devices are still only accountable for 5% of the total market share.

As far as tablets are concerned, IDC claims that Android's market share makes up for 67.7% of the total amount, alongside Apple's iOS offering falling to 27.5% and Windows sitting at just under 5%. However, Microsoft has experienced a growth of 67.3% over 2014, fllowing suit of Android who grow 16% in its own right. Unfortunately for Apple, as the competitors grow, they must fall - reporting a 12.7% drop over the same time period.

The launch of Assassin's Creed: Unity didn't go too well at all, with the game still experiencing teething problems. Ubisoft has now come out and apologized to everyone, announcing it will be providing its upcoming "Dead Kings" expansion pack for free, to all AC:U players, as a way of saying sorry for shipping a clearly, very broken game.

Ubisoft Montreal boss, Yannis Mallat, took to a blog writing: "Unfortunately, at launch, the overall quality of the game was diminished by bugs and unexpected technical issues. I want to sincerely apologise on behalf of Ubisoft and the entire Assassin's Creed team. These problems took away from your enjoyment of the game, and kept many of you from experiencing the game at its fullest potential".

For those who purchased the season pass or Gold edition of Assassin's Creed: Unity will get the DLC for 'free' anyway, so these people will be offered a free game. You can choose from Far Cry 4, The Crew, Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Rayman Legends, and Just Dance 2015.

It seems like for years, director producer duo Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin have been promising a sequel to the 1996 sci-fi epic 'Independence Day' which went on to gross $817 million worldwide and rejuvenated science fiction films once again.

Well today, Twentieth Century Fox has officially greenlit a sequel, as announced via Twitter by Dean Devlin.

As reported by Deadline Hollywood, 'Independence Day 2' is expected to go into full production starting in May 2015, after Roland Emmerich finishes duties on his next picture 'Stonewall', and it is assumed the previously announced release date of July 4 2016 still stands.

It looks like ASRock is about to unveil a true beast of a motherboard, in the form of the X99 WS-E/10G, which will feature no less than four Ethernet ports. Yes, four.

This will be the first time a consumer motherboard has shipped with four Ethernet ports, two of which are GbE (1Gbps) but the other two are 10GbE (10Gbps). All four Ethernet ports are Intel made, with the GbE ports being based on the Intel I210AT chip, while the two 10GbE ports are the X540-BT2 for some super-intensive, high-speed networking transfers. On top of that, all four of them can be bridged together for an absolutely insane amount of networking bandwidth, hitting 22Gbps.

ASRock hasn't just made the networking side of the X99 WS-E/10G impressive, as we also have two PLX 8747 bridge chips, allowing for up to seven PCIe 3.0 x16 slots. This means you can have full x16/x16/x16/x16 quad SLI or Crossfire. If you wanted to go single cards the whole way, you can do x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8.

The unfortunate incident between officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown, which left Brown dead and many people rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, has become a prominent platform in the promotion of body cameras. A growing number of police agencies are deploying wearable cameras, typically clipped to an officer's uniform, as a method to record officer interactions with members of the community - and a way to help provide insight into deadly encounters.

"The findings suggest more than a 50 percent reduction in the total number of incidents of use-of-force compared to control-conditions, and nearly 10 times more citizens' complaints in the 12-months prior to the experiment," according to a Police Foundation-commissioned study.

Department of Justice officials and other law enforcement experts share similar findings - and believe the use of body cameras could help prevent future incidents like in Ferguson. Civil liberty groups say the videos would help prevent officers from abusing their authority, while law enforcement groups mention citizens would be less likely to falsely accuse officers of wrongdoing.

Just yesterday we published an article on 3DHead's apparent disappearance from the market, after promising to provide an "Oculus Killer" as mentioned through their wacky marketing video.

In updated news, billionaire founder and CEO Alki David has provided us with an exclusive statement and interview regarding the topic - rebutting claims and providing his own evidence against Reddit user crazy_goat's findings and theories published on the 25th of November.

David first mentioned the claims made regarding his 'FilmOn X' company, set to provide streamed broadcast TV to subscribers mobile phones, stating: "I've attached an article from Litigation daily that reviews the position of FilmOn X in the USA. Please note that FilmOn X is the company that was called Aereokiller not FilmOn TV.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was disgusted by NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance activities, and disclosed the questionable actions of both agencies. However, multiple lawmakers and politicians have spoken out against his actions, saying he has put military personnel and intelligence agents at risk.

British lawmakers hope to push the Communications Data Bill, which would force ISPs and mobile service carriers to keep Internet browsing activity, social media, email correspondence, voice calls, Internet gaming activity, texting, and other records on file for a minimum of 12 months. Phone and email contact data is already retained due to the Data Retention Regulations 2014 bill.

"Consequently there are people dying who actually would now be alive," said Lord West, a former UK security minister and Navy admiral. "It is now critical that we move forward the Communications Data Bill that was paused so unreasonably because there is a very real danger that unless we do this, I think it is not exaggerating to say that people will die in this country who would have been safe if that had been in place."

Data storage affects every aspect of modern life, but it turns out the technology developed for Blu-ray data storage can also have other uses. Solar cells work by trapping light, and it turns out that the same patterns used on the surface of Blu-Ray disks can absorb 21.8% more light than other textures. Solar cell efficiency is measured by how many photons they can absorb, and current designs utilize quasi-random nanostructures to boost efficiency. The pits and grooves present on a Blu-ray are between 150 and 525 nanometers, which is coincidentally the perfect size for trapping photons.

Researchers at Northwestern University began by testing with the patterns from a blank Blu-ray, but interestingly enough they found that greater efficiency is achieved when data is present. Researchers tested with different types of video on the Blu-ray, such as Jackie Chan's "Supercop", episodes of "Family Guy", and black and white movies. The efficiency of the solar cells increased no matter what type of video was present. The 21.8% increase in efficiency equates to a 12% improvement in conversion efficiency, which will result in more efficient solar panels and other applications.

The findings will be published in the journal Nature Communications under the title "Repurposing Blu-ray Movie Discs as Quasi-random Nanoimprinting Templates for Photon Management." Perhaps there is a use for those old dusty Blu-rays on the shelf after all.

The British government requested data on one journalist as part of Operation Elveden, focused on alleged bribes made to public officials for information, and "accidentally" received data on 1,000 News UK staff. Vodafone said there was some type of human error that led to the extra data being supplied, while police officials said they returned the information.

Police wanted information focused on one journalists that worked for News UK from 2005 to 2007, and used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to receive the data - and the information was returned back to Vodafone after about four months.

"Unfortunately, there was a human error during the processing of this information - which was drawn manually from a legacy system - as a consequence of which the Met Police were supplied with a corrupted dataset containing a significantly higher volume of metadata than had been the focus of the warrant received by Vodafone. The metadata in question relates to call logs and other information, such as pricing data, not the content or location of any communications."

Starting on Black Friday, and only available while supplies last, Samsung is offering a free Far Cry 4 download with any purchase of an 840 EVO SSD. The offer is only available from participating retailers, most notably Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg, Microcenter, Fry's, and Tiger Direct. Users will be able to download the game at a Samsung-hosted web address (Samsung.com/fc4) until September 1.

The 840 EVO is a value SSD that delivers tremendous performance. Our resident SSD expert, Chris Ramseyer, recently took a look at the 840 EVO in his Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD Review - An SSD with a Good Price and Performance article. Chris found the 840 EVO to offer a great mixture of price and performance, and the EVO won the TweakTown Editor's Choice award. The 840 EVO is currently selling at roughly 45 cents per gigabyte, and adding in the free Far Cry 4 game is the cherry on top.

The 4K TV market is finally expanding rapidly as we enter the holiday shopping season. The total sales figures for retail 4K TV's year-to-date weighs in at 6.4 million units, but over 3 million of those TV's shipped in the last quarter alone. Retailers are obviously stocking up for huge Black Friday sales, and the continued price reductions for ultra-high definition TV's are obviously fueling the healthy sales figures.

Surprisingly, China has led demand and has consumed 60% of the shipments thus far. Samsung occupies the leadership position, but low-cost panels from relatively unknown manufactures, such as Hisense and Changchong, are creating more competition in this space. Plasma TV's aren't faring as well, and several companies have ceased manufacturing them entirely. The overall TV market has been somewhat sluggish and only grew at a 4% rate last year. The growth is fed largely by 1080p LCD panels, but most consumers have already upgraded to 1080p at this point, and the catalyst for future growth will likely be yet another transition period as we move to 4K televisions.

Aside from excessive price, another significant reason many have forgone the move to 4K televisions is the lack of 4K media and players. Many of the early adopters are videophiles with impressive home theater systems, and the emergence of sensibly priced 4K-capable receivers is finally a reality. As the ecosystem of 4K capable devices continues to develop we expect a rapid increase.

Do you want to be a drone pilot? There is increasing need for private drone pilots, with salaries often starting at $100,000 per year - and the demand for these specially-trained workers is only increasing. The market is expected to create around 100,000 new jobs over the first 10 years, with a growing number of drones entering private US airspace.

Even with potential Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) problems, Amazon, Facebook, and other companies are interested in utilizing drones for various reasons. Some companies are already paying $50 per hour, and salaries will only increase even further above $100,000 per year, according to Al Palmer, University of North Dakota Unmanned Aircraft Systems director.

Expect more university programs dedicated to helping groom the next generation of drone pilots.

Audiophiles, rejoice! Windows 10 Project Manager Gabriel Aul has announced via Twitter that Microsoft will offer native FLAC support in their latest operating system. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a commonly used lossless audio format that provides a more accurate reproduction of recordings. In other words, it sounds better than other formats, such as MP3, which compress recordings down to a more manageable size but lose quality in the process.

FLAC audio files are very large, but the audio quality is superb. Windows has long forced users to turn to downloadable third-party audio codec packs to support FLAC, along with several other codecs. Microsoft has finally seen the light and is integrating FLAC directly into Windows Media Player 12 and the music app. Microsoft has also pleased the world at large by finally supporting MKV as well, so perhaps there will be less third-party codec downloads with insidious bloatware installers in our future.

Discerning ears want to know what took Microsoft so long to support the popular FLAC codec, but in some ways it makes sense. MP3, while of inferior quality, creates files that are small and can be flung out to mobile devices which have limited capacity. MP3 also produces 'good enough' quality for the majority of users. FLAC files are absolutely huge, as anyone who has downloaded them (legally, of course) is well aware of. As new dense storage technologies are working their way to market, such as 3D NAND, we will begin to see portable devices with enough capacity to easily store our precious FLAC files. In the interim, storage on PC's is plentiful and cheap. Prices are hovering around 2.5c per GB, and users can easily store tens of thousands of recordings relatively cheaply.

The floods in Thailand in 2011 sent a tidal wave of high prices through the HDD market. The ripples of the flood are just receding and HDD prices are finally rebounding. Black Friday sales are going to feature HDDs for roughly $25 a terabyte, and expect many of these great deals to come without the normal mail in rebate programs. External drives are also going to be exceptionally low priced and feature speedy USB 3.0 interfaces.

After years of declining sales the PC market is also finally improving. Storage devices are somewhat of a litmus test for the PC market. When sales of PC are bad the HDD market declines. Users seem to be turning back to their home computers. Sales of tablets, which helped eviscerate the PC space, are also starting to decline. The personal storage category has rebounded with a 4.8% increase in overall units shipped last quarter, according to IDC.

More units means lower prices and better deals as we hunt for Black Friday deals. Most consumer HDDs are somewhat similar in performance if they feature the same speed, and nearly all feature the same warranty period. If you are looking for the best hard drive price should be a major factor, as there is little to separate drives of the same speed.