Latest News - Page 2794

Electronics company Sony is desperate to find ways to restructure and revamp its business offerings, as the company struggles to keep up with industry rivals. The company's PlayStation 4 continues to sell extremely well, but its high-definition TV (HDTV) sector and other units have greatly struggled. Meanwhile, Sony wants to prove it can turn its entertainment business around, so it is able to contribute to financial revenue.

Sony Music and Sony Pictures total 18 percent of the company's overall sales, which is ahead of Sony's mobile business unit. However, the company still strives for $4.8 billion to $5.2 billion from the music division, at a time when the music industry is still trying to adapt to digital music.

"I understand that everyone expects me to show how Sony can be changed into a highly profitable company... and to unveil a roadmap toward growth for the overall company," said Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai.

The US Marshals plan to auction another lot of 50,000 bitcoins, worth around $19 million, which were seized when the federal government shuttered the original Silk Road. The second auction is scheduled to run for two weeks, and a winner will be announced on Dec. 5. The second auction takes place five months after a lot of 30,000 bitcoins were sold off by the US Marshals.

The first auction was won by venture capitalist Tim Draper, and the value of bitcoins have dropped from $647 down to $384 - but should still draw fierce competition from bidders able to pay the required $100,000 deposit to the US Marshals.

Finnish technology maker Nokia recently announced the N1 Google Android tablet, which will be released to the market in Q1 2015. Nokia has signed a licensing agreement with Foxconn to manufacture and distribute the device, as Nokia no longer directly markets its own consumer products.

The N1 features a 7.9" display and is powered by an Intel 2.4GHz Intel AtomTM quad-core processor, running Google Android Lollipop.

"We are pleased to bring the Nokia brand back into consumers' hands with the N1 Android tablet, and to help make sophisticated technologies simple," said Sebastian Nyström, Nokia Head of Products. "The N1 has a delightfully intuitive interface and an industrial design to match it. This is a great product for Nokia fans and everyone who has not found the right Android tablet yet."

Supercomputing 2014: Intel has announced a new Xeon Phi processor, code-named Knights Hill, at Supercomputing 2014. The Xeon Phi co-processors are the offspring of the Larabee project, and Intel has improved performance and inter-operability with each successive product generation. Knights Hill is a key advancement for Intel in the HPC (High-Performance Computing) market, and will leverage a 10nm process and integrate Intel's Omni-Path Fabric technology.

The Knights product series competes directly with NVIDIA in the supercomputing market, and Knights Hill is a natural progression of the product line which will enhance performance scaling and bandwidth while simultaneously reducing power consumption.

Knights Landing features the Intel Silvermont Architecture that is designed specifically for HPC applications. The architecture significantly boosts single thread performance by 3X in comparison to the Knights Corner product. The on-package memory tops out at 16GB and offers amazing bandwidth, over 5x more than DDR4. This stacked memory design also significantly reduces the power consumption of the memory subsystem by as much as 5X.

Supercomputing 2014: Huawei announced their new FusionServer X6800 products at Supercomputing 2014. The new FusionServer X6800 supports a variety of high-density nodes in a 4U chassis, which provides flexibility for different configurations of compute, storage, and GPU acceleration within the same server. The X6800 also supports the latest SSD configurations and offers two to four GE ports or two 10Gbe ports.

Huawei also announced a new liquid-cooled version of the FusionServer E9000. This blade server features cutting-edge heat dissipation technology in a 12U enclosure. This liquid-cooled behemoth features 16 slots and redundant power supplies, along with 40GBe or InfiniBand FDR (56G). The platform is built upon a scalable architecture that allows for dual or quad CPU nodes. Huawei will also be demonstrating the RH5885H V3 server, a standard 4U rack server that supports four Intel E7-4800 v2 processors, and the RH2288 V3, a dual socket 2U server rack that supports Intel E5-2600 v3 processors.

Foremay, Inc. has announced their new 4TB and 8TB SATA 6Gb/s SSDs. SATA SSDs are one of the hottest growth segments in the datacenter, and more capacity is always welcome. There are SAS SSDs with up to 4TB of capacity, such as the Sandisk Optimus MAX, but the introdcution of a high-capacity SATA SSD will broaden the use-case for high-capacity SSDs. Foremay focuses on the OEM market, and the new SSDs are geared for servers and ruggedized applications. The EC188 and SC199 features a random read/write speed of 100K/100K, and sequential read/write speeds of 500/500 MB/s.

The SSDs feature AES-256 encryption and are TCG Opal 2.0 compliant and feature military-grade secure erase functionality. The new SSDs are designed for high heat environments to provide reliability in enterprise and industrial applications. Foremay SSDs are custom built, and can also equipped with a supercapacitor to provide power loss protection. There simply aren't any SSD controllers on the market to address that much flash, so this is likely to be a custom solution with a bridge device akin to the Intelliprop Hydra SATA bridge we evaluated recently.

Kaspersky is imagining the future of the world, with the increase in use of technology, the increase of threats are there too. Infrastructure attacks, financial system attacks, governments being hit, and much more. The video below does an incredible job of showing us how Kaspersky view the future.

One of the scarier things Kaspersky says in its video, is "will a single click trigger a global economic crisis", but follows it by a "world where technology works for us", or "controls us". The video continues, sayign "could it be a truly connected universe, where we'll be able to express the full power and imagination. Or one where those connections make our critical infrastructure vulnerable to attack".

The ad makes you really think about the many, many possibilities we as a human race have to face - as the world is constantly changing around us. Not only are we dealing with things at a personal level, but societal level, and then infrastructure level. Are the governments of the world prepared for these attacks, or simply taking our freedoms away with far-reaching government agencies like the NSA and GCHQ spying on all citizens at once. What do you think?

Toyota will jump into the emissions-free, hydrogen-powered vehicle market with the launch of Mirai next month in Japan. The vehicle will debut in the United States and Europe and while the $57,600 price tag will scare many potential buyers away, there will only be several hundred released in Japan, as Toyota tests the waters.

The Japanese automaker hopes Mirai is the first successful step to help bring fuel cells to the mainstream - and prices will drop as technological breakthroughs occur - as interest in next-generation vehicles continues to increase.

"In time, the fuel cell vehicle will become mainstream. We wanted to take the first step," said Mitsuhisa Kato, Toyota executive vice president, in a recent statement. "We want to beat the leading edge."

The Department of Justice (DOJ) program that reportedly uses cell-tower mimicking equipment during airplane flights that allows the federal government to snoop on mobile phones has drawn an angry response from many Americans.

Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass) wants Attorney General Eric Holder to provide details about the DOJ operation, such as mission length, additional surveillance programs, and which cities were impacted.

"Americans are rightfully disturbed by just how pervasive collection of mobile phone information is, even of innocent individuals. While this data can be an important tool for law enforcement to identify and capture criminals and terrorists, we must ensure the privacy rights of Americans are protected," Sen. Markey said in a public statement. "We need to know what information is being collected, what authority is being used to collect it, and if and how this information is retained and stored."

Profits are stumbling over at Samsung, so the South Korean electronics giant is set to reduce the amount of smartphones it offers next year, by up to 25-30% according to Head of Investor Relations, Robert Yi.

Yi said: "After maintaining smartphone operating-profit margins above 15% for 10 consecutive quarters, Samsung's margins from its mobile and information technology business were squeezed to just 7% in the third quarter ended September-the lowest level since the end of 2008, before it launched its first Galaxy smartphone. Acknowledging the slide in margins, Samsung executives said during an earnings call last month that its new goal is to maintain a sustainable double-digit percentage margin starting in the new year. They reiterated that pledge during this week's investor day meeting".

We don't know which models will be cut, but the company has said that it will focus its attention more on the mid- and entry-level segments. In order to do this, a Samsung executive said it will "increase the number of components shared across mid- to low-end models, so that we can further leverage economies of scale". I'm sure the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note ranges will be left mostly unchanged, especially handsets like the upcoming Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5.

The Indian government has decided to go on a blanket ban spree by making all the Internet service providers in the country block access to 39 websites. Most of these websites are not only porn sites, but also free image and file hosting websites.

While viewing porn in India isn't illegal, the distribution and watching child pornography is banned. What should be noted is that these websites and the content providers/owners are hosting it outside of India where are governed under their respected country's laws, such as 18 USC 2257 where producers are required to point out that all models are at least over 18 years of age. The Department of Telecom isn't very clear about the imposed blanket ban, but it does display the message "this website has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications".

Some deem that this is an abuse of power as there are no actual laws in the IT act where the Indian government can force Indian-based internet service providers to block porn sites along with the image and file storing websites. Sunil Abraham of Centre for Internet and Society said, "There is a possibility that government is interpreting some sections of the IT Act to suit its purpose but I feel that is wrong and should be challenged in the court by ISPs if they care about the rights of their users."

Bungie is currently pushing out a new patch for Destiny, bringing the open-world title up to version 1.0.3. The new patch has the developer baking in fan-requested features, such as a beta for voice chat when in the matchmaking screen. The full patch notes are available on Bungie's website.

The problem is, if you're playing Destiny, you're going to need to leave your game in order to download, and install the patch - something that weighs in at a very connection-straining 2.44GB. Bungie has released this patch, as the start of a series of updates that will end in the first DLC for Destiny, The Dark Below, being released on December 9.

Bungie has also doubled the number of bounty slots, upping the number from five to 10, provided gamers with the ability to preview emblems, and armor shaders, too. The new update also makes some slight changes to Destiny's Iron Banner: Fireteam leaders, which now need to be at level 10. Players will also need to be within three levels of their opponents in order to be competitive. Players below level 20 will also need to be with a Fireteam leader in order to enter. There's also a 10-15% increase in the incidence of public events, descriptions for skull modifiers, as well as the usual slew of fixes, bugs and other bits and pieces.

While many gamers across the world are looking forward of their copy of Dragon Age: Inquisition, those in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will not. EA has cancelled pre-orders from these countries and started refunded money to those who placed an order for physical and digital copies.

EA said in its EA Help website: "In order to avoid a breach of local content laws, EA has withdrawn Dragon Age: Inquisition from sale in India and the game is no longer available for pre-order. Customers who pre-ordered the game will be contacted directly and will be fully refunded."

EA regional marketing director Simon Smith-Wright said, "The current action we've taken only affects Dragon Age Inquisition." It should be noted that EA did not give any proper reasons for refusing pre-orders from these countries. Later, nation-wide distributor Milestone Interactive confirmed speculation made by many gamers that it was due to the options of engaging in same-sex and bi-sexual relationships. For those who don't know, India has a law under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1861 declares that having sex between two consenting adults of the same gender punishable by law.

It looks like myself, and countless other gamers aren't the only ones pissed off with Ubisoft right now, with a former Minister and Presidential Candidate in France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, denouncing Assassin's Creed: Unity as "propaganda" that favors the "favors the narrative of France's ruling elite over the revolutionaries" reports Polygon.

Mélenchon spoke on French radio, with the Daily Telegraph translating him, where he said: "[Unity] presents an image of hatred of the Revolution, hatred of the people, hatred of the republic which is rampant in the far-right milieu". He added a description of Marie-Antoinette as "that cretin, who is celebrated as a poor little rich girl" in AC:U.

He also said: "The man who was our liberator at a certain moment of the Revolution, because the Revolution lasted a long time, Robespierre, is presented as a monster. It is propaganda against the people, the people who are [portrayed as] barbarians, bloodthirsty savages. In 1789 there were the poor aristocrats, and they are presented as fine upstanding people".

Far Cry 4 has launched in the last 24 hours, with Ubisoft already patching up the first-person shooter on the PC to version 1.2. The patch includes some things that should've made the launch version, such as support for NVIDIA's SLI technology. The day one patch on the PS4 brings it up to version 1.01, and a 600MB download for PlayStation owners. The PC version on the other hand, had two patches to bring it up to version 1.2.

What I don't understand is, Ubisoft worked closely with NVIDIA on Far Cry 4 (and Assassin's Creed: Unity) but SLI support was missing from the game as it says right there in the patch notes that the patch "added SLI support". For one of the biggest releases of the year, and a game NVIDIA had invested heavily into, one would think SLI testing would've been done very early on and baked into earlier code of the game - not having to provide SLI support after the game was released.

The patch notes are quite lengthy, but we have them listed below (or in the for you:

A five-year-old boy has become the youngest person in the world to pass Microsoft's Certified Professional exam. Ayan Qureshi is still in his first year as a student at Clifford Bridge Primary School, in the UK, but in his spare time he is now considered an IT expert with his new certificate proving it.

Qureshi said he found the exam difficult, but he enjoyed it, adding: "There were multiple choice questions, drag and drop questions, hotspot questions, and scenario based questions". His father said that the hardest thing was explaining the language in a test, in a way that a five-year-old could understand. The young boy has an excellent memory, a trait that led to him excelling in the test.

His father introduced him to computers when he was just three years old, and from there he has obviously learned quite a bit in two years. His father added: "I found whatever I was telling him, the next day he'd remember everything I said, so I started to feed him more information". When Ayan turned up to sit for the exam, supervisors were concerned he was too young, but his father said it would be fine, which he most obviously was.

Intel previously unveiled the My Intelligent Communication Accessory (MICA) wearable, an expensive and stylish wearable bracelet geared towards women. MICA wearers won't need to carry a smartphone and will be able to connect to Facebook, Google, Yelp, and other online services through an AT&T data plan, and indicates Intel wants to find new ways to connect with consumers.

"We really approached this first and foremost about why would a woman want to wear this everyday, and how can it be incorporated into her wardrobe," said Humberto Leon, Intel creative director. Intel purchased wearables firm Basis earlier in 2014, as a number of hardware companies jump into the wearable market.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich had to claw its way into the smartphone and tablet markets, after losing out to ARM and other rivals, but wants to ensure it is an early adopter in the wearables market.

OCZ Storage Solutions has just announced the release of their Vertex 460A. The original Vertex series has been a stellar product with a history that spans back to the original version with the first-gen Indilinx Barefoot controller. The new version leverages Toshiba's latest A19 MLC NAND flash. The A19nm process geometry is the second generation of Toshiba 19nm MLC. The new version also features the Barefoot 3 controller and sequential speeds of 545/525 MB/s read/write (480GB model). Random speeds also top out at 95,000/90,000 random read/write IOPS, respectively, but performance varies depending upon capacity, as noted in the graphic below.

The Vertex 460A features an endurance rating of 20GB of writes for the three-year warranty period. OCZ is providing their new ShieldPlus warranty, which provides advance shipping and covers return shipping costs if there is the need for an RMA. The new Vertex also features Acronis True Image for cloning an existing installation to the SSD, and a 3.5" desktop adaptor. OCZ recently launched a new online shop, and we expect units to be available there shortly.

The new Vertex comes in 120, 240, and 480GB capacities and also offers toll-free tech support. Chris put the original Vertex 460 through the testing gauntlet, and the SSD received the TweakTown Editor's Choice Award. The switch to the newer process shouldn't yield huge variations in performance, as a matter of fact the specifications are very similar. Head over to the OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD Review for a closer look at the previous model, which should be indicative of performance experienced with the new model.

NVIDIA has launched its new Tesla K80 compute card at the Supercomputing 2014 (SC14) conference in New Orleans, which is a dual GPU design, cramming in an insane amount of compute power into a single card.

One of our friends, Anshel Sag, over at Bright Side of News reported the news, explaining that "Logically, you would think that the K80 would naturally be two K40's smacked together into a single card, but that's not accurate. In order to build the K80, NVIDIA actually went with GPUs with similar shader core counts as the Tesla K20, but what's most important is that they actually did double the onboard memory of the K80 from the K40 to 24 GB of GDDR5". 24GB. OF. RAM.

NVIDIA is using 12GB of GDDR5 per GPU, for a total of 24GB of RAM. We have 4992 shader cores, with the company using two GK210 GPUs, instead of the GK110B's found on the Tesla K40. NVIDIA is claiming that the new Tesla K80 is capable of 8.74 teraflops single-precisiion, and 2.91 teraflops double-precision. These numbers are over double that of the K40.

Nintendo continues to take shots at the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4, as all three console giants prepare for a 2014 Christmas holiday shopping season slugfest.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo continues to speak out against rival consoles, trying to promote the cheaper device.

"The good news, for us, is that we're presenting the best value right now in new home consoles," said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president. "$299, includes two games; it's a compelling proposition for consumers this holiday. For us the message is simple; you want to play these great games, you want to have these fantastic experiences, you have to upgrade to the Wii U."