Latest News - Page 2822

It has been over a month since Amazon launched its first smartphone, the Amazon Fire Phone, but how are sales going? Well, Amazon haven't released official sales figures, but Charles Arthur of The Guardian has smashed some numbers into a calculator, with some estimates on the sales of the Fire Phone.

Arthur's estimated sales number of the Fire Phone comes in at just 35,000 sold, where he used data from both Chitika and ComScore. Arthur found that the Fire Phone has barely made an appearance on US mobile traffic since it launched last month, with the 35,000 estimated Fire Phones sold being the best case scenario.

"Therefore even allowing for margins of error, it seems unlikely - based on Chitika's data and the ComScore data - that there were more than about 35,000 Fire Phones in use after those 20 days [of being available]," according to Arthur. He continues: "Amazon had not responded to a request for comment on the calculation by the time of publication."

Samsung just announced today that they have begun mass production of the industry's first 3D TSV technology based DDR4 modules for enterprise related products. Samsung has said: "announcing that we have begun mass producing the industry's first 64GB DDR4 RDIMMs that use 3D 'through silicon via' (TSV) package technology. The new 64GB TSV module performs twice as fast as a 64GB module that uses wire bonding packaging, while consuming approximately half the power."

"Samsung's volume production of 3D TSV modules marks a new milestone in the history of memory technology, following the company's initial production of 3D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory last year. While 3D V-NAND technology embraces high-rise vertical structures of cell arrays inside a monolithic die, 3D TSV is an innovative packaging technology that vertically interconnects stacked dies. With its introduction of the new TSV modules, Samsung has further strengthened its technological leadership in the '3D memory' era. Samsung has worked on improving 3D TSV technology since it developed 40nm-class* 8GB DRAM RDIMMs in 2010 and 30nm-class* 32GB DRAM RDIMMs in 2011 using 3D TSV. This year, Samsung started operating a new manufacturing system dedicated to TSV packaging, for mass producing the new server modules."

In order for Samsung to build these 3D TSV modules, the dies are ground down to a few dozen micrometers, and then pierced to contain hundreds of fine holes. Electrodes passing through the holes allow them to be vertically connected and stacked. In the future Samsung believes they will be able to stack more than four dies using 3D TSV technology.

BioWare has teased that Dragon Age: Inquisition will feature four-player cooperative play, with the developer teasing on the official FAQ for that game that players will be able to game with others on new missions given by specialists, acquire gold and loot, craft new items, as well as unlocking new characters, weapons, potions, armor and more.

The developer does have a goal, which "is to make a fun dungeon-crawling experience that you can play with your friends. There will be no pay walls in Dragon Age multiplayer. Everything is accessible with gold coins. You can use premium currency, but you don't have to." Better yet, Dragon Age: Inqusition's multiplayer can be played without any effects on the single-player side of things, and vica versa. The cooperative story is completely separate from the single-player campaign, with items from the multiplayer side of things not carrying over to the single-player side.

"We wanted to make sure that the two economies are separate, which will allow a stronger progression in both SP and MP," BioWare says. They continued: "If you play Dragon Age multiplayer, you will learn how each class plays a different role in combat, how different skills work, and how your party composition can give you a tactical advantage on the battlefield. This knowledge is transferable to SP, but items are not."

The Crew skids onto gamers' machines and consoles on November 11, with Ubisoft teasing that the team working on the game is aiming for 30FPS at 1080p on the Xbox One, PS4 and wait for it... PC. Yes, the PC is getting a framerate cap, for absolutely no reason it seems.

Forum members complained that the beta of The Crew was limited to 30FPS, with an Ubisoft community manager saying: "The final game will run in 1080p with 30 frames per second on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, and will support up to 5760 x 1080p on PC for triple screen set-ups. Right now the team is focusing on providing an optimal experience for all players."

The community manager later edited his reply, saying that the development team is hoping to hit 60FPS on the PC - something that truly baffles me. He edited his post to say: "We can officially say that we're aiming for 60FPS on PC at launch. Our Beta build is still more performant at 30FPS, but you can expect to play at 60FPS on PC when the game is launched." What I don't understand is why there is a framerate cap in the first place?

Just when you thought your 4TB HDD was huge, Seagate goes and announces the new 8TB drive for your storage needs. Seagate's new 8TB HDDs are the world's first 8TB HDD, providing "scale-out data infrastructures with supersized-capacity, energy-efficiency and the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) in the industry for cloud content, object storage and back-up disaster recovery storage."

"As our world becomes more mobile, the number of devices we use to create and consume data is driving an explosive growth in unstructured data. This places increased pressure on cloud builders to look for innovative ways to build cost-effective, high capacity storage for both private and cloud-based data centers," said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. "Seagate is poised to address this challenge by offering the world's first 8TB HDD, a ground-breaking new solution for meeting the increased capacities needed to support the demand for high capacity storage in a world bursting with digital creation, consumption and long-term storage."

Seagate's new 8TB HDD leverages the popular SATA 6Gbps interface, which provides a cost-effective way of seriously upgrading the storage inside of your system. Seagate is shipping the 8TB drives out to "select customers" now, with wide availability next quarter.

Heading to Disney in the future? Don't be surprised if you see drones flying overhead, as the company recently filed multiple patents to use drones in its amusement parks. It seems Disney wants to substitute drone-assisted shows for fireworks or large light shows, providing customers with a new experience.

Disney recently filed three patents for drone use, including a multi-drone projection screen system, possible overhead light displays, and drones attached to puppets or balloons to give them motion capabilities. The drones would be controllable from the ground, but would be pre-programmed and have synchronization to avoid contact with one another while in the air.

Drone use by militaries and governments seem to get the most attention, but there is a booming market for civilians and private sector companies trying to expand their capabilities. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently working on commercial drone laws, as more private sector companies want to use small drones for commercial purposes.

Boutique PC gaming company Digital Storm unveiled the Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition, a small form factor (SFF) system that is liquid cooled and meets the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Battle Box standard.

The Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition from Digital Storm is now available for less than $5,000. The system currently includes an overclocked Intel Core i7 4790K CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z 12GB GPU, ASUS Maximus VI Impact motherboard, 16GB DDR3 and a 700W PSU, liquid cooling, and runs Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit.

"NVIDIA launched the GTX Battle Box Program to allow gamers to play AAA, combat-focused games at max settings and super high resolutions," said Harjit Chana, Digital Storm Chief Brand Officer, in a statement. "But gaming in 4K requires much more than simply upgrading components. Our Hardline Cooling System allows gamers to unlock the Bolt II's full potential and experience games in ways they never thought possible."

Social media is a great communication method for companies to reach their customers, but has become a successful tactic by terrorist organizations trying to spread propaganda and fear.

The Islamic State was booted from Twitter, but has found success using Diaspora and other social media outlets to spread propaganda, recruit new followers, and share shocking images and statements with those curious enough to look.

"Terrorist organizations have moved their online presence to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media outlets," said Gabriel Weimann, University of Haifa professor, in a statement to the media. "They have turned to the new media not only because counterterrorism agencies have disrupted their traditional online presence but also because the new media offers huge audiences and ease of use."

The clock is still ticking on Tizen, but Huawei boss Richard Yu thinks that Android and iOS will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Yu said that his company has no plans to use the Linux-based open-source mobile OS, an OS that is backed by companies like Intel and Samsung.

Carriers have reportedly been asking Huawei to build a Tizen-based smartphone, with Huawei considering it at one point, researching into it. The project was cancelled, as the company feels that Tizen has no chance at being successful. Yu was also asked if Huawei was thinking of building its own mobile OS, but Yu was quick to point out that it isn't hard to build an OS - using Microsoft and Windows Phone as an example - that its the ecosystem behind it that is more important, and much harder to build.

Building a Windows Phone-based smartphone isn't profitable to Huawei, as it finds it hard to convince customers to use a Windows Phone device compared to an Android device. The company has now put all of its future Windows Phone devices on hold, concentrating solely on Android. Yu is aware that Huawei is putting all of its faith, and the future of the company (as we know it now anyway) into Android, but they have no other choice. Yu added that Huawei has a strong relationship with Google.

We will meet the Galaxy Note 4 next week, where it should feature the same Synaptics Natural ID fingerprint technology that is found in Samsung's flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5. Not only that, but the Galaxy Note 4 should feature added functionality compared to the sensor featured in the S5.

SamMobile is reporting that the Galaxy Note 4 should feature two notable changes in its fingerprint sensor, with the first being the ability to control which application opens when you swipe your finger. This allows users to program a specific application to open up when they swipe their thumb, with the app opening up and displaying in front of you instantly - instead of your finger unlocking the phone, and then having to navigate to the app you were going to use anyway.

The second feature is that you will be able to save passwords and log into websites, with the new Web sign-in feature allowing you to visit sites like Amazon, Gmail and many others where your username and password have been remembered. Instead of typing in your password, you'll be able to swipe your finger on the sensor, where the browser will then enter in your credentials for you. These new features will be added to the what the Galaxy S5 is already capable of.

It wasn't long ago that we were reporting that according to multiple sources, Google were in the process of acquiring Twitch in a deal worth $1 billion. But now Amazon has confirmed today that it has reached an agreement to acquire Twitch for $970 million, with the deal closing in the coming months.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, said: "Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month - from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old. Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community."

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear had the following to say: "Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming. Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world."

LG Electronics has announced it will begin selling the first 4K OLED TVs, supporting 3840 x 2160 resolution in 77- and 65-inch screen sizes. Pre-orders will be accepted in Korea starting this week, with North America and Europe targeted next, according to a press release from the company. OLED TVs should overtake LCD sales in the next few years, but it seemed unlikely that companies would be interested in mass producing 4K OLED TVs.

"LG 4K OLED TV is the pinnacle of technological achievement and a new paradigm that will change the dynamics of the next generation TV market," said Hyun-hwoi Ha, LG Home Entertainment President and CEO, in a press statement. "As the next evolutionary step in display technology, OLED will play a major role in reshaping our industry. I feel confident when I say that 4K OLED is a bona fide game changer."

Both Sony and Panasonic showed off 4K OLED units during CES in 2013, but the TVs didn't enter production - LG hopes its "game changer" TV models will shake things up a bit - but 4K OLED will be expensive to manufacture and cost consumers a pretty penny. Instead, Sony and Panasonic have 4K LED TV units available to early adopters.

We're starting to hear more information on AMD's upcoming next-gen GPU architecture, code named "Faraway Islands". AMD's next-gen architecture is shaping up quite nicely, but this is all just a rumor right now. CHW.com seemed to have gotten the information from SemiAccurate, but right now this is in heavy rumor territory.

While we've heard rumors of NVIDIA skipping the 20nm process and shifting right onto the 16nm process, AMD looks to be baking its Faraway Islands-based GPUs onto the 20nm process, something it'll reportedly do over at TSMC and GlobalFoundaries. This will allow AMD to be first to the market with a new GPU based on a new process node, pushing NVIDIA to the side for a few months enjoying the slew of salivating-at-the-mouths consumers who want a new GPU desperately.

AMD's new Faraway Islands GPU architecture will be baked into all of AMD's future GPUs and APU products, so we should expect some low-power ARM-based SoCs and some decently powerful APUs from this new architecture. When to expect it though? 2015. Pirate Islands is still to come, also based on the 20nm process, but AMD could skip that all together and push right on over to Faraway Islands, either way, new GPUs are on their way!

AMD has announced its latest GPU during its 30 Years of Graphics and Gaming Innovation event, the Tonga PRO-based Radeon R9 285. AMD's new Radeon R9 285 GPU features 1792 Stream Processors, either 2GB or 4GB of VRAM set at 5.5GHz, a Core Clock of 918MHz and a 256-bit memory interface.

The new Radeon R9 285 requires two 6-pin PCIe connectors, has 176GB/sec of memory bandwidth, a 190W TDP, and will be available on September 2 starting at around $249. The new Radeon R9 285 will be joined by another GPU in a few weeks time, the Tonga XT-based Radeon R9 285X. This new GPU will have more Stream Processors, kicking up the numbers from 1792 to 2048, increasing the TMU count from 112 on the R9 285 to 128 on the R9 285X.

AMD's latest GPU is positioned between the Radeon R9 270/270X and the R9 280X, and will compete against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 760. In AMD's testing on Battlefield 4 at 2560x1440, the Red Team reports that the new R9 285 is "up to 15% faster" than the GTX 760. At $249, is the new AMD Radeon R9 285 something that will have you upgrading your PC?

The "Machete" cyberattack targeted Spanish speaking residents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and the malware was recently noted by security firm Kaspersky Lab. The targeted attack campaign likely launched in 2010 and was improved in 2012, with the Machete operation still potentially active. The malware is sent as a RAR file attachment that includes a PowerPoint presentation, researchers noted.

The malware can log keystrokes, capture geolocation data, capture screenshots, record audio from PC microphone, take photos via Web camera, and copy files to a remote server, among other similar cybercriminal activities.

There were 85 victims in Colombia, 282 victims in Ecuador, and 372 victims in Venezuela, though also found 45 victims in Russia and small numbers of victims in the United States and Europe. Much like other malware distribution, the criminals rely on social engineering to trick users to unknowingly install it on their machines.

Social media service Diaspora, an open source, decentralized service consisting of individual nodes, utilizes thousands of private servers. Unfortunately, there isn't a way for the Diaspora project team to edit or remove content from a network node, and that's likely why IS chose it.

After being booted from Twitter and other social networking sites, the Islamic State is looking for new alternatives. In an attempt to spread images, videos and published propaganda to shock the west and appeal to new recruits, IS wants to have a collection of social media accounts to use.

"As many of the members of the core team are pod administrators ourselves, we know it can be hard to detect such users," the Diaspora blog reads. "We rely on our community members to use the report function to alert their podmin to any post or comment they believe to be a cause for concern. However, because this is such a crucial issue, we have also accumulated a list of accounts related to IS fighters, which are spread over a large number of pods, and we are in the process of talking to the podmins of those pods."

The future of entertainment isn't just sitting in front of your TV watching a flat image, but it is going to be a world that wraps around you in virtual reality. This is where Jaunt steps in, a cinematic VR technology company, which just took in a new round of funding.

Jaunt received $27.8 million of new funding, which will help it pump more money into its omnidirectional camera shooting 360-degree experiences, perfect for VR technologies like the Oculus Rift. Jaunt had its funding come in from many different companies, who hope to see the company lead the future of cinematic VR.

Jaunt's technology was recently spotted at the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy, where it was shooting 360-degree footage which can be played back through the Oculus Rift. Jens Christensen, CEO of Jaunt, says: "The enthusiasm we have seen for our technology has been tremendous and we are working tirelessly to make VR experiences available to mass audiences".

One of the big downsides of the iPhone is the complete lack of expandable storage, with the biggest iPhone to date still being the 64GB model. But according to GeekBar's Weibo account, we could see a 128GB iPhone 6 according to a schematic they posted showing off the iPhone 6 with 128GB of NAND flash storage.

We can see that the NAND flash being used in this iPhone 6 is from Toshiba, with Hynix and Sandisk providing storage for the other models ranging from 16GB to 64GB with 32GB missing - which should raise some red flags. The next question is: will Apple charge more for the 128GB model, or unveil the 128GB iPhone 6 for the price that the current 64GB iPhone 5S sells for, reducing the other models to better compete with the likes of Samsung, OnePlus, LG, Sony and others?

With the Harry Potter book series franchise finished and the last 'Hobbit' movie being released later this year, Warner Bros have been keen to develop their next multi-film franchise, previously announcing that a trilogy feature film adaptation of author J.K. Rowling's 2001 'Harry Potter' spin-off 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' was on the way.

While the studio initially courted 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' and 'Gravity' director Alfonso Cuarón, who turned them down, The Hollywood Reporter is sending word that the studio has selected director David Yates, who helmed four of the eight 'Potter' films, including the final two parts 'The Deathly Hallows', to steer the course. Yates is seen as a steady hand by the studio, a trusted figure by author J.K. Rowling (who is also penning the scripts) and by the franchises legions of fans.

The book, which is based on Newt Scamander, the author on one of Harry's textbooks, is set approximately 70 years before the events of the 'Harry Potter' series.

It looks like Microsoft could unveil its new version of Windows as previously reported, with Windows 9 to be unveiled at a special media event on September 30, according to The Verge.

We should see this event have Microsoft unleash a preview version of the OS, codenamed Threshold. Windows 9 will deliver an evolution of Microsoft's ever-changing desktop OS, where we'll see a new Start Menu, virtual desktops, the removal of the Charms bar, and much more. We should also see Microsoft include its digital assistant Cortana, but we don't know if this will make it into the preview build or not.