Latest News - Page 2803

It is rumored Microsoft is working on a new cheaper and smaller processor for the Xbox One, with AMD currently developing a 20nm 'slim' model. The current CPU is a 28nm technology, but AMD and Microsoft wants to innovate - while also helping make the console smaller - to entice additional sales, as the console struggled to keep up with the Sony PlayStation 4.

It's worth noting that 20nm architecture is expensive, and with such high demand from smartphone manufacturers, prices will likely remain high.

"This opens the door to a much smaller cooling assembly and a thinner chassis, which in turn leads to cost benefits throughout the whole manufacturing and distribution process," said Richard Leadbetter, a well-known and respected technology influencer. "Smaller consoles mean less packaging, meaning cost savings in physically shipping the units out from China to retail markets worldwide."

Global smartphone shipments topped 320 million units during Q3 2014, with the Google Android operating system capturing 84 percent of global market share, according to Strategy Analytics. Considering Android's appeal, and low cost to deploy for phone manufacturers, Apple, Microsoft and BlackBerry are struggling to try to compete.

Not surprisingly, Apple iOS was in the No. 2 spot with 39.3 million shipments, while Microsoft Windows was in No. 3 with 10.5 million global shipments in Q3. BlackBerry, the long-time smartphone king before the iPhone emerged, trailed with just 2.3 million shipments, as the company flirts with bankruptcy - and continued buyout rumors.

Here is what Neil Mawston, executive director of Strategy Analytics, said in a press release: "Android's leadership of the global smartphone market looks unbeatable at the moment. Its low-cost services and user-friendly software remain attractive to hardware makers, operators and consumers worldwide. However, challenges are emerging for Google. The Android platform is getting overcrowded with hundreds of hardware brands, Android smartphone prices are falling worldwide, and few Android device vendors make profits."

HDD capacity increases weren't that common in recent years, but recently we have begun to see higher capacity HDD's enter the picture with more frequency. Today Toshiba joins the party with a release of 4TB and 5TB drives for the consumer market. Toshiba's new products will carry a three-year warranty.

Specifics are scant, but we know that they are 7,200 RPM drives based on the tried-and-true PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology. These SATA drives come in the typical 3.5" form factor, and have an MSRP of $299.00 and $399.00, respectively. There are further big capacity increases coming in the near future as new technologies, such as HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) make their debut.

We hope to have samples soon for testing, and feel free to jump over to our consumer and enterprise storage areas for performance testing of the latest HDD's on the market.

The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo suffered a "serious anomaly" during a test flight in California over the Mojave desert, with one pilot killed in the incident. The other pilot suffered serious injuries and is being transported to the hospital, according to the company.

"The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely," said Virgin Galactic after the incident. "We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident and provide updates ASAP."

The SpaceShipTwo is designed to be carried on a mother ship and then can be released to ignite its rocket to head into suborbit, and can return to Earth by gliding back. A flight starts at $250,000 and passengers undergo three days of pre-flight preparation to verify they are physically and mentally prepared for the trip.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is now the No. 3 smartphone manufacturer in the world, trailing behind only Apple and Samsung. Described as "China's Apple," it continues to be an impressive run for Xiaomi, which has surpassed Lenovo and LG, after manufacturing smartphones for just three years.

Here is what IDC noted about Xiaomi: "Xiaomi jumped into the top 5 list for the first time at the number 3 position thanks to its focus on China and adjacent markets, which resulted in triple-digit year-over-year growth. Key to its success was the launch of its Mi4 smartphone in August, which was positioned as a high-end alternative to the status quo. What remains to be seen is how quickly can move beyond its home territories to drive volumes higher."

It seems inevitable that Xiaomi will try to invade the United States and Western Europe in the future - but with Apple and Samsung having so much success in these markets - Xiaomi will invest additional time to ensure a stranglehold in China and other parts of Asia first.

PAX AU 2014 - I have just stepped back into my hotel room after a hectic first day at PAX Australia 2014, which was held in the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, with the highlight of the day being the 'A Chat With Chris Roberts, The Original Wing Commander', the guy behind Star Citizen, which has raised close to $60 million through crowdfunding so far, with no signs of stopping.

Chris had some great things to say during the speech, with that 1-hour chat available right here. But, we organized a chat with the man himself after the talk with the PAX AU crowd, where he had some interesting things to say. We talked about the state of PC gaming, where we have people like Alex Hutchinson, the Creative Director of Far Cry 4 saying that resolution in games is "not something" he "cares about". Roberts on the other hand, had the total opposite to say.

He said that the team is working on 4K and 8K textures, pushing the boundaries of the APIs in DirectX 11 and Mantle, where he said that Mantle and DX12 are going to provide some performance improvements to Star Citizen. This is because the game is quite CPU bound, something that DX12 should help out with when it launches next year. He finished the chat with a few great quotes, where he said: "I don't care about consoles" as he is really gunning for a true PC exclusive game in Star Citizen, something that pushes the entire PC gaming world forward in leaps and bounds.

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was found guilty in the Danish Court of Fredriksberg, after facing charges of hacking and serious vandalism. Warg and a 21-year-old co-defendant broke into servers hosted by CSC in April 2012, and kept control of the mainframes until August. He accessed hundreds of thousands of records of Danish residents, including Social Security numbers, extradition agreements and criminal records, along with additional private data.

Since this is Warg's second high-profile, significant hacking conviction - he was already serving a one-year sentence for hacking a different IT consulting firm - Danish prosecutors hope for a minimum five-year prison sentence.

Luise Høj, Gottfrid's attorney, had this to say before the ruling: "My recommendation has always been that the investigation has focused on finding clues that point to my client, even though the tracks have also pointed in another direction. I have recommended that the court dismiss the case based on the remote access argument. It is clear that my client's computer has been the subject of remote control, and therefore he is not responsible."

MSI has unveiled the GT80 Titan gaming laptop with a SteelSeries mechanical keyboard, becoming the first gaming laptop to include a mechanical keyboard. It's a unique product because mechanical keyboards tend to have better feedback, prevents key jamming and helps increase durability.

The GT80's keyboard has a keycap just 27mm of thickness - and the laptop itself is the world's slimmest and lightest 18-inch laptop, 17 percent thinner and 22 percent lighter than rival products.

"Performance is key for gamers and the GT80 Titan will forever change the mobile gaming experience," said Andy Tung, MSI Pan America President. "We are proud to be at the forefront of the gaming evolution and will continue to provide solutions that deliver the most outstanding gaming experience in the world."

MRAM has the ability to fundamentally change the way we use memory by combining the speed and endurance of DRAM with the data storage characteristics of NAND. ST-MRAM (Spin-Torque Magnetoresistive Random-Access Memory) retains data without power, which removes the need for complex capacitor arrangements and the associated firmware enhancements. MRAM has already been used in small quantities as data buffers in some cutting-edge SSDs and other applications. In spite of billions of dollars in research by several industry heavyweights, Everspin Technologies is the only company in full commercial production with MRAM.

The only thing holding MRAM back from wider acceptance is density. Higher density allows for wider application and also reduces cost. Everspin has over 600 patents and has been in production for over five years at their own facilities, but bringing Global Foundries in as a manufacturing partner is sure to speed advancements in the technology. Global Foundries will initially produce ST-MRAM on 300mm CMOS wafers with a 40nm lithography, but plans are already in place to move to a 28nm process soon, underlining the accelerated advance of ST-MRAM products. Other competitors are falling further behind Everspin at this point, with other manufacturers slated to begin production of MRAM in 2018.

As always, the leading edge of memory technology usually occurs in the enterprise space. With mass adoption of MRAM we can expect to see this technology utilized in everything from desktop computers to tablets, mobile phones, and essentially any device that currently utilizes RAM memory. We have had several opportunities to set down with Everspin on camera to discuss the future of MRAM, and those interviews can be found in our IT/Datacenter section.

The CurrentC mobile payment program, which has been selected by retailers as a viable rival to Apple Pay, confirmed the service has been breached. Best Buy, Rite Aid, CVS, Best Buy, and around 50 retailers back CurrentC under the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). Many compromised email addresses were dummy accounts and the CurrentC app wasn't breached, according to an MCX spokeswoman.

"In an abundance of caution, we wanted to make you aware of this incident and urge you not to open links or attachments from unknown third parties," MCX said in an email to CurrentC testers. "We take the security of your information extremely seriously, apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your support of CurrentC."

CurrentC could be in more than 110,000 locations across the United States in 2015, and this is a significant setback - traditional point of sale (POS) systems have proven to be susceptible to cyberattacks - and any type of mobile payment system must ensure their systems aren't compromised.

The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) posted a warning that says drone operators that fly their aircraft near or over sports stadiums and racetracks could be punished by monetary fines and up to one year in jail. The rules will change flight patterns over 150 stadiums and racetracks with 30,000 or more people.

Drones will no longer be able to fly under 3,000 feet within three miles of a NCAA Division I college stadium, Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium, or National Football League (NFL) stadium - and the same rules apply for any Indy Car, NASCAR Sprint Cup or Champ series auto tracks.

The FAA is working to commercialize drone use, and while that has proven to be a drawn out mess, a growing number of private citizens are flying drones.

Comcast will pay $50 million to end an 11-year-old class-action overcharging lawsuit that was filed by angry Philadelphia customers. The lawsuit was filed on December 8, 2003, and originally wanted $875 million from the cable giant.

The payments, credits and free upgrades will be issued to subscribers in Philadelphia and four other local counties - and will help out current and former subscribers from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2008, according to legal documents.

Plaintiffs will receive a measly $15 payout, as just $16.67 million will be paid out in cash or customer credit - including four months of free Internet service upgrades, six free pay-per-view movies two free months of The Movie Channel, or one free month upgrade to Extreme 105 service.

A likely Russian state-sponsored hacker group is being blamed for launching cyberattacks against NATO, Georgia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Western European defense contractors, according to a report from FireEye. The APT28 group launches phishing attacks with links to websites that look like authentic news, with compromised information the type of data the Russian government would be interested in acquiring.

"The Sofacy group is using multiple malware families, including some that are not mentioned in the FireEye paper," said Aleks Gostev, Kaspersky Lab chief security expert of Global Research and Analysis. "They have been very active lately and have registered many domains in order to launch phishing attacks."

The FireEye report also notes APT28 sought "sensitive tactical and strategic intelligence" from governments in the region. Russia has been blamed for a number of coordinated cyberattacks against targets across Europe and in the United States, including a recent attack on the White House - and breaching point of sale (POS) machines of Home Depot.

Apple iOS 8 has captured 52 percent of the company's active mobile devices, continually taking market share from iOS 7. From Oct. 13 to Oct. 27, iOS increased from 48 percent up to 52 percent, with some analysts saying software bugs and possible lack of additional features have prevented some users from upgrading.

The required 5GB of free space also likely doesn't help, as Apple hasn't been able to convince owners to clear much-needed space before updating.

Despite the release of iOS 8.0.1 - which caused serious headaches for some iPhone 6 Plus owners - the adoption rate for iOS 8 is still significantly higher than the rival Google Android mobile operating system. Android 4.4 KitKat was publicly launched before November 2013, and has captured just 25 percent after an entire year.

The White House, also known as the Executive Office of the President (EOP), is familiar with enduring cyberattacks on a frequent basis. However, a recent attack was found to be organized and significantly powerful, with the White House's networks enduring a few days of consistent downtime.

"In the course of assessing recent threats we identified activity of concern on the unclassified EOP network," an anonymous source recently told the media. "Any such activity is something that we take very seriously. In this case we took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity."

In addition to state-sponsored hacker groups in China and Russia, other nations have shown interest in advanced cyber espionage tactics. The computers and systems were not damaged, but suffered extended downtime that has been largely resolved by federal cybersecurity experts, according to reports.

Samsung has teased the 850 EVO since media met in South Korea for the 850 Pro launch. The company is eager to flex its V-NAND advantage in 3bits per cell form but retail availability has been quiet, until now.

Fry's Electronics just broke the 850 EVO cover and put the 1TB model up for preorder. Priced at $499.99 until 10/30/14, 850 EVO 1TB preorders are currently scheduled to ship on November 24.

Fry's Electronics also gave us our first look at the EVO with 3D V-NAND's specifications. 550 MB/s sequential read and 520 MB/s sequential write speeds. It should be noted this drive is marketed at 1TB and not 960GB, so there shouldn't be a large amount of overprovisioning. Samsung's 3D V-NAND uses a 3Xnm process and has enterprise level endurance ratings. Samsung shouldn't have to add overprovisioning to 850 EVO to extend the life of the flash or for increased performance.

EA has been in the news a fair bit in the last 24 hours, where we only just reported that Battlefield: Hardline has a release date of March 17, 2015 and we have a release window of Q4 2015 for DICE's Star Wars Battlefront. Now we're hearing about EA's financials for the quarter that finished on September 30.

The company reported $990 million in net revenue for the three-month period, which is an 18.5% slide from the $1.21 billion in revenue it posted from its last quarter. When comparing it to the same quarter from last year however, it shows the company has a nice 42.4% year-over-year increase. Net income for the company has improved from the same time last year, posting $3 million in income versus the $273 million loss from last year.

Digital revenues slipped 5.2% from $536 million to $508 million for the quarter, but this is still a 12.9% increase year-over-year. EA is still hoping to make a massive $1 billion in digital add-on content this year, and looks to be on track to reach that big goal. The company has adjusted its expectations for the fiscal year, something that ends on March 31, 2015, too. It has added $75 million to its projections, for a total of $4.375 billion. For the next three months, EA expects a net revenue of $1.1 billion.

It was only a few hours ago that we were reporting that EA announced that Battlefield: Hardline, which is being developed by Visceral Games, will be released March 17, 2015, and now we're hearing about Star Wars Battlefront.

EA has announced that Star Wars Battlefront, DICE's take on the Star Wars universe, will reach gamers in Q4 2015. Considering Star Wars: Episode 7 is due on December 18, 2015, this makes perfect sense - ride the marketing wave of the movie. Blake Jorgensen, EA's Chief Financial Officer confirmed that Star Wars Battlefront will indeed be a first-person shooter, and it'll be EA's "major first-person shooter" for the year.

The following year, 2016, DICE's Battlefield franchise will be fresh out of the oven, with Battlefield 5 (or a rename, or whatever it arrives as), will arrive in the third quarter of EA's 2017 fiscal year, so sometime in the last quarter of 2016. This means we're waiting an entire two years for the next true Battlefield game, which is sad news.

Gaming peripheral maker Razer has just announced its first surround sound bar, the Leviathan. Razer's Leviathan is a virtual 5.1 surround sound gaming and music bar, that streams your audio through Bluetooth 4.0 aptX, with a price tag of $199.99. Here's what we can expect inside of the Leviathan:

Razer's co-founder and CEO, Min-Liang Tan said: "The opportunity to produce a precision-engineered surround sound solution for high-performance gaming, movie watching and music listening, and make it versatile to use in any setting, was a very exciting proposition for us. The Razer Leviathan delivers what music aficionados, movie buffs and gamers alike are looking for to improve their entertainment setup".

With the 30FPS and low-res debacle causing outrage amongst gamers, Techland has just announced it has cancelled the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of its zombie survival game, Dying Light, which will now be exclusive to current-gen consoles, and the PC.

The developer said that the previous-gen versions were compromising the "core version of Dying Light", adding that it had spent the past three years of development on Dying Light "making sure that all the features of our game add up to create a truly next-gen experience". The developer continued: "Much of this 'next-gen feel' is tightly connected to the technological side of Dying Light. For instance, up to 200,000 objects can be displayed in the game at once. Add to this our use of realistic, physics-based lighting technology and you really start to push the next-gen systems to the limits. Features like these along with our core gameplay pillars - such as the player-empowering Natural Movement, threefold character development system, and vast open world - are all an inherent part of how Dying Light plays. However, combining all of these into one fluid experience is only possible on technologically advanced platforms".

"After thorough internal testing" the developer decided to axe the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, so that players will receive "the full and best experience regardless of the platform you play on". Dying Light was meant to be released before the end of the year, but was delayed until February 2015.