Latest News - Page 2792

We've been enjoying NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology for a while now, but AMD is about to join them with their own spin on the refresh rate magic; FreeSync. At the Future of Compute Event, AMD announced it had partnered up with Samsung on a slew of FreeSync-powered displays, which will hit the market in March 2015.

Samsung will release the UD590 in both 23.6-inch and 28-inch models, while there'll be a UE850 available in 23.6-inch, 27-inch and 31.5-inch models. Eventually, FreeSync will spill over onto Samsung's Ultra HD range of monitors, too. Vice President of Samsung Electronics Southeast Asia Headquarters, Joe Chan, said: "We are very pleased to adopt AMD FreeSync technology to our 2015 Samsung Electronics Visual Display division's UHD monitor roadmap, which fully supports open standards. With this technology, we believe users including gamers will be able to enjoy their videos and games to be played with smoother frame display without stuttering or tearing on their monitors".

Supercomputing 2014: Intel and SGI combined their talents to create an HPC monster that touts 30 million IOPS of 4k random speed with 180GB/s of sequential throughput. Scaling storage performance and capacity in tandem is an ongoing challenge in the enterprise storage world, and old interfaces have been the primary culprit hampering these objectives. A diminishing point of returns is reached as more storage devices are added to the server, and performance begins to decline as latency increases. This is a particular pain point when utilizing RAID and HBA architectures in tandem with 2.5" SSDs.

Enter the PCIe SSD. Moving flash to the PCIe bus provides better performance scaling, but many initial revisions of PCIe SSDs leveraged existing standards, such as AHCI, for host communication. This leads to performance degradation and excessive CPU overhead as performance scales. As explained in our Defining NVMe article, NVMe is a new storage protocol designed specifically for non-volatile memory. A slew of architectural refinements combine to provide the best performance possible over the PCIe interface. Intel's DC P3700 (covered in-depth in our Intel DC P3700 1.6TB NVMe Enterprise Review) is one of the fastest PCIe SSDs available, and the combination of NVMe and consistent performance provide enhanced scalability when deploying multiple units.

Intel and SGI decided to push the performance envelope by integrating a whopping 64 of the DC P3700's into a 32-socket server to test the limits of NVME scaling. The results are quite impressive, and the modified SGI UV 300H SAP HANA server surpassed 30 million IOPS in 4k random testing. Perhaps the most impressive aspect is the linear performance scaling in the graphic above. The solid blue lines denote the IOPS performance curve as more P3700's were added, and the dotted blue line is a trend line illustrating a theoretical linear progression. From the results we can see that the SGI beast barely deviates from the perfect scaling trend line. The throughput, tested with 128k sequential blocks, topped out just shy of 180 GB/s.

High-definition TV and display manufacturer AOC has announced its 34" Ultra-Wide Quad HD U3477PQU monitor, featuring a 21:9 display and 3440x1440 resolution. The 34" monitor has a 5ms response time, and the HD display is equivalent to two 20" displays side by side.

"IPS technology offers extended range for brilliant and consistent color, and wide viewing angles for natural transitions between hues delivering exceptional realism," the AOC press release says. "The display also includes picture-by-picture mode, which is ideal for displaying two sources of content on the same screen, while picture-in-picture is optimized for video chat. The display comes equipped with a wide range of connectivity options, including DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI, and MHL to easily connect to devices, peripherals, smartphones, and even a second computer."

The AOC 34" UltrawideQuad HD monitor will launch on December 8 and will have an $899 MSRP price tag.

A scam that allowed customers to purchase Sony PlayStation 4 consoles from $50 to $100 by creating fake ads online, has been nixed by Walmart. It's not surprising to hear Walmart moved quickly to prevent further lost revenue, especially as more satisfied customers boasted their success via social media.

"We can't tolerate fraud or attempts to trick our cashiers," Walmart said in a statement. "This kind of activity is unfair to the millions of customers who count on us every day for honest value."

However, Walmart will match rival sales listings from Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers on Black Friday, as retailers fight for consumers. It will be curious to see how Walmart decides to verify price matches, to better prevent future scams.

Just how much data does Netflix stream every month? A damn lot, that's how much. The US-based streaming company in the first quarter of 2014, streamed some 6.5 billion hours of videos, equating to over over 19.5 million terabytes of video streamed. With Netflix streaming 6.5 million terabytes per month, the company will have streamed 78 million terabytes before the end of the year.

Last year, Netflix streamed just 4 billion hours of video, with over 12 million terabytes of data in Q1 2013, so we're seeing quite the uptick in the amount of people using Netflix. But how will the company deal with things going into the future, as we move toward more 1080p streaming, and then 4K? HD uses around 3GB per hour, but if 4K is used, that goes right up to 7GB per hour. This would increase the total data streamed every three months to around 45.5 million terabytes.

After ten years in business, Wicked Lasers has a new owner. The company hasn't stated much other than what you see below, a new own and unfortunately, no more sales to the USA for products over 5mW.

The company has come under fire over the last few years from safety groups, people that don't like fun and even George Lucas. Without an official statement we don't know if the unwanted attention played a role in the decision to end US sales.

Wicked Lasers will no longer be shipping >5mW handheld lasers to US-Based cutomers starting Jan 1, 2015.

Pirated versions of Far Cry 4 are making the rounds on various sites and services around the world, but it is missing a very important part of the game: field-of-view adjustments. FOV controls are completely missing from the pirated versions of Far Cry 4 on the PC.

Why? Well, Creative Director on the game, the now infamous Alex "Low Res FTW" Hutchinson took to his Twitter account, saying: "PC players! If you're online complaining about the lack of FOV control ... You pirated the game". The proper copies of Far Cry 4 feature an FOV slider, but it's nice to see Ubisoft trolling pirates with taking a simple, but important version of the game out.

Many consumers filed complaints about companies who gave false promises of cleaning up PCs and taking take of other PC-related problems in ads from websites and through other means. Such scams sugar-coat their lies in the name of PC cleanup service, removal of unwanted and/or malicious files and even PC 'speed boost' services.

According to consumers, they said that the 'service' offered to help them remove malicious software and system errors in an over exaggerated manner for either free, trial or minimal cost... at first. But as the 'support' progresses, the consumer falls down the rabbit hole where the tech support and sales agents use scare tactics to extort more money under the name of 'service plans'.

The FTC and the State of Florida said that many of these PC clean up service scammers were able to earn more than $120 million. The FTC was able to get a court order which will enable them to temporarily shut down tech support scams. Some of these companies were named, such as PC Cleaner Inc, Netcom Global Inc, Netcom3 Software Inc, PC Vitalware LLC and few others.

Sony Pictures announced in 2012 - with great fanfare - they had secured the rights to Walter Isaacson's spectacular and award winning autobiography 'Steve Jobs' and have tried for a number of years to get the film into production, recently courting Christian Bale and Seth Rogen for lead roles, before the former dropped out soon thereafter.

Now, Sony Pictures has dropped the film altogether, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Now in turn-around, producers are open to ship the project around to rival studios, with Universal said to be interested. Universal previously distributed the 2013 Steve Jobs biopic, which starred Ashton Kutcher.

'Steve Jobs' now has an uncertain future, with a small production window before director Danny Boyle is needed on another film.

Nifty has taken to Indiegogo to fund its latest product, the XOO Belt. What is the XOO Belt? It's an actual belt, with a 2100mAh internal lithium ion battery that features either a Lightning connector, or micro USB connector to charge your smartphone.

Your smartphone can be sitting in your pocket while it charges it up, which is a really nice feature. The battery technology that the UK-based company used it actually a flexible battery, placed inside of the belt itself. Nifty explains: "We've hidden six overlapping layers of cutting-edge flexible battery within each belt, giving a base power of 1,300 mAh of charge. Add this to the 400 mAh in each buckle-for a total of 2,100mAh-and you've enough to fully charge an iPhone 6 with some left over".

Nifty is hoping to secure over $50,000 to get the XOO Belt off the ground, and onto your hips, and at the time of writing they had $30,534 of their $50,000 goal, with 29 days left to go. This means that the XOO Belt will receive its funding without a problem, but the two early-bird products are sold out. 'The early-bird belt' had 100 units available, selling them all at $99 each, while 'The early-ish bird belt' is also sold out, at $125 each. The next level is 'the belt belt' which sells for $155.

The latest expansion to World of Warcraft has launched, with Warlords of Draenor increasing the subscriber base of Blizzard's MMORPG, even amongst the various server problems the game has experienced.

Blizzard sent out a press release earlier today, announcing that the Warlords of Draenor expansion had sold over 3.3 million copies in its first 24 hours alone, pushing the total World of Warcraft subscriber base past 10 million. Before this, the expansion base of WoW had slipped to 6.8 million, but as the expansion release got closer, the subscriber base began to climb back up.

The previous expansion, Mists of Pandaria, had the subscriber base hit over 10 million, with both expansion boosts to its subscriber base down from the peak of 12 million back in 2010.

We don't see many water-cooled motherboards, but here we are: the iGame Z97 motherboard is a concept board that shows off a beautiful, sleek motherboard, cooled with liquid.

The company is closer to releasing the board, with a release date that is still "unknown" for the iGame Z97 Ymir X - a confusing name, but it doesn't take anything away from its beauty. We have 16-phase IPP high-profile power, a silver and all-metal look, with a brushed surface. We have four DDR3 slots, three PCIe 3.0 16x slots, four PCIe 2.0 single-land slots, eight SATA 6Gbps ports, mSATA and mPCIe, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, Killer NIC E2200, four USB 3.0 ports, and more from the front header, 8-channel HD audio, and more.

Mozilla and Yahoo have announced a new "strategic five-year partnership that makes Yahoo the default search experience for Firefox in the United States on mobile and desktop", with the companies adding they will explore other potential "future product integrations and distribution opportunities to other markets".

Until now, Google was the default search engine in Firefox, Mozilla's popular web browser, which will be replaced with Yahoo. There was a time when Firefox was the biggest competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but now Google is the competitor with Chrome. Firefox has around 16% of the browser market in the US according to StatCounter.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer took to the company blog, talking about the new partnership: "At Yahoo, we believe deeply in search - it's an area of investment and opportunity for us. It's also a key growth area for us - we've now seen 11 consecutive quarters of growth in our search revenue on an ex-TAC basis. This partnership helps to expand our reach in search and gives us an opportunity to work even more closely with Mozilla to find ways to innovate in search, communications, and digital content. I'm also excited about the long-term framework we developed with Mozilla for future product integrations and expansion into international markets".

A growing number of police agencies are adopting body cameras that officers wear while on patrol, providing a better account of what happens during interactions with the public. The cameras, about the size of a pack of cigarettes and worn on an officer's chest, can record at angles civilian cell phones and police cruiser in-dash cams can miss.

"In a couple of decades... every public safety employee, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, everybody will have them," said Charlie Beck, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) chief. "I think it improves behavior on both sides of the camera, which is our goal."

In addition to police officers behaving more appropriately, citizens - and potential suspects - could behave better if they know they are being recorded. However, there are privacy concerns because police officers are not required to inform people if they are recording.

It would appear some Google Android 5.0 Lollipop early adopters are having trouble with their update, with Google Nexus 7 tablets running slowly and crashing. Apps built by Adobe Air are being automatically uninstalled and users cannot reinstall the missing apps - Adobe has escalated the problem with Google, trying to find a solution as quickly as possible.

Google has promoted Android 5.0 as a "quantum leap forward" and demand for the mobile OS has accelerated. However, user problems might have other Android supporters rethinking updating their smartphones and tablets until these problems are resolved.

Google Nexus, LG Electronics, NVIDIA and Motorola have rolled out Android Lollipop updates for their mobile devices, but with apps crashing or freezing, it's possible to hear even more user complaints in the near future. If nothing else, Google is likely working quickly to ensure these problems are fixed as more devices are expected to receive the update.

Walmart is desperate to compete with Amazon, Best Buy, and other rivals ahead of Christmas, and have been getting tricked by a price-matching scam. People are creating fake Amazon selling accounts and listing Sony PlayStation 4 units as low as $50, taking a screenshot of the online price, and taking it to a local Walmart to claim their prize. Other sneaky customers were picking up PS4 bundles for $100, but it looks like Walmart has wised up and has altered its price matching policy.

Previously, Walmart was getting scammed into selling $60 Nintendo Wii U and 3DS bundles, thanks to a mistake on the Sears website. Customers quickly jumped on the erroneous listing, and found that Walmart met the price match even with a wrong price on a rivals website.

"We're committed to providing low prices every day," the Walmart website proudly boasts. "On everything. So if you find a lower advertised price on an identical product, tell us and we'll match it. Right at the register."

Powermat wireless charging stations will be introduced into 200 San Francisco Bay Area Starbucks locations, as the company plans to launch nationwide rollout before heading to Europe and Asia within 12 months. The chargers will be built directly into tables and bars inside of Starbucks, and the popular coffee chain hopes to win over patrons with the wireless charging offering.

It was announced earlier this year that Starbucks was testing the wireless charging stations in the Bay Area, but trying to find them in-store proved difficult for many guests. The Power Matter Alliance produces the Powermat technology, and is supported by Starbucks, Google and AT&T.

"The availability of Powermat Spots in Starbucks is transformative for San Francisco Bay residents who no longer have to worry about making it through their day with limited battery power," said Ran Poliakine, Powermat Technologies CEO, in a press statement. "They know that the nearest charge is only as far away as the nearest Starbucks."

The online PC gaming industry will grow from $24.4 billion this year up to an estimated $30.7 billion in 2017, the performance marketing agency Ad2Games and analyst firm Newzoo recently reported. The PC and MMO game market will account for 31 percent of international video game revenue, with Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America expected to see 95 percent of growth over the next three years.

Trying to expand to attract - and retain - new gamers proves to be extremely expensive, with costs as low as 37 cents up to $5.63 per user, the report indicates.

The sector will see 7.9 percent year-over-year growth over the next three years, while free-to-play video games continue to woo new gamers. These types of games

More than 90 percent of US households currently have at least three or more Internet-connected devices, according to a recent report published by Ericsson. The average household has 5.2 connected devices per household, and that number will increase as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to be common place.

The Ericsson survey also found that 97 percent of households have at least one mobile phone, while mobile phone saturation continues to increase. By 2020, 90 percent of the global population over six years of age will own a mobile phone - and many phone owners will be using smartphones.

At the end of 2013 there were 1.9 billion smartphone subscriptions, and that number is expected to increase up to 2.7 billion by the end of this year. Analysts believe that number will increase 15 percent each year through 2020, as smartphones become more affordable.

The expansion of 4K content and high frame rate movies present graphically appealing content, but digital animation studios are struggling, a recent industry expert noted. Production schedules could be impacted due to high-resolution images, forcing studios to reconsider how they create films.

"They are both going to present a huge challenge," said Bruno Mahe, Illumination Mac Guff technical head recently told the BBC. Traditional animated films are viewed at 2K resolution with 24 frames per resolution, but 4K boosts the videos up to 4K resolution and 48fps - and it isn't an easy transition.

In addition to slowing down production, studios also need increasingly powerful render farms to produce images and send them to other animation facilities.