Latest News - Page 2824

An Apple shareholder is suing the estate of deceased founder and CEO Steve Jobs, claiming that his actions compromised the company's value and put stock holders at risk.

In particular, R Andre Klein's complaint lies with Steve Jobs' hiring agreements with other Silicon Valley companies, which essentially amounted to a no-poaching agreement. Critics say that in effect, this secret deal could have stagnated wages and prevented workers from getting what they were due. Klein, who is filing on behalf of all Apple shareholders, says that this behavior violates the US Securities and Exchange act.

"Jobs's conduct is a reminder that even widely respected businessmen can knowingly commit unlawful acts in the zealous pursuit of profits," it was stated in court papers. "In this case, Jobs and the other individual defendants knowingly caused Apple to enter into agreements that violated California law and US antitrust laws." The present CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, is also a defendant. Klein is seeking a payment from Apple for damages to shareholders, Sky reports.

IBM in partnership with London's Science Museum is celebrating the world's first ever "smartphone" - the IBM Simon, which is now 20 years old.

Although it obviously doesn't hold a candle to the devices that are now available, the Simon was ahead of its time in many ways. For a product released in 1994. it was a piece of mobile technology that could take notes and even send emails, combined with a mobile phone. There was accompanying software and it could also operate with a fax machine. However, it weighed in at a chunky 1.1lb - a far cry from the portable kit around today.

At nearly 1,000 USD the Simon wasn't a market hit - and no mobile internet meant it wasn't particularly well connected. IBM's device had a battery life of just one hour, and it was taken off the shelves two years later. But museum curator Charlotte Connelly said that, nonetheless, it and the Information Age exhibition Simon will be shown at serve as a reminder of a more disconnected lifestyle. "It does remind us of that time," she told the BBC. "I definitely enjoy getting away from things and deliberately disconnecting myself. There's something quite nice about that."

Thanks to our friends at Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, we have copies of this week's Blu-ray release of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' up for grabs for three lucky readers!

After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Marvel's 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a SHIELD colleague comes under attack, Rogers becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy - the Winter Soldier.

To go into the running to take one Blu-ray copy home, simply correctly answer the following question:

For those of you who remember King's Quest, you may begin to get excited that Sierra has a small team working on a 'contemporary reboot' of the super-classic point-and-click adventure game from way back when. Activision's MacLean Marshall talked with Game Informer about Sierra coming back from the grave, and King's Quest - our first details on the game.

Activision unveiled the revival of the Sierra brand at Gamescom last week, where the company has some big plans for Sierra's titles - old, and even new creations. Marshall talked with Game Informer about the new project, and how the company is bringing back Sierra. Marshall said: "There's one piece of the puzzle, which is that Sierra was a brand that we acquired with Vivendi. It's been dormant and there wasn't a place for it, and we didn't know what we were going to do with it. Then, over the however many years, everyone's been watching this indie movement. There was that angle, where we had this really nostalgic brand that most gamers to varying degrees by age know. We wanted to find a way to expand our digital portfolio".

Game Informer also talked with Marshall about the new King's Quest, which is being developed by The Odd Gentlemen. Marshall said: "They are doing a contemporary reboot of King's Quest. It's not just an HD port. But that's not also to say that, maybe King's Quest is or isn't the right one, that's not on the table, too. It could be HD remakes of original Sierra content. It could be contemporary reimaginings of the old Sierra IPs. It could be stuff that's new, kick-***, awesome IP that has nothing to do with the old Sierra brand, but will be a Sierra thing when it launches". The gameplay for the new King's Quest will be a big departure from what you remember, with Marshall teasing: "There's not much I can say about King's Quest. All I can say is that I've seen it, and it's not a point-and-click game. But it looks *** awesome".

It shouldn't be long until Intel officially launches its new X99 chipset along with a slew of new high-end processors, with the star of the Haswell-E show being the upcoming Core i7-5960X processor. This new CPU has been spotted in some newly leaked photos that Hermitage Akihabara got its hands-on.

Intel's new LGA 2011-based Haswell-E processors are expected to be released on August 29, with three models to be unveiled: the Core i7-5960X, the Core i7-5930K and the Core i7-5820K. The top-of-the-line Core i7-5960X will have eight physical cores and eight provided through Hyper-Threading for a total of 16 threads - a monster of a consumer CPU.

The new Core i7-5960X will also feature 20MB of L3 cache, quad-channel DDR4 RAM support, and 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes in total. The default clock speed on the Extreme CPU will be 3GHz, and it'll be built on Intel's 22nm process.

Palmer Luckey, the 21-year-old founder of one of the most exciting companies in the world, Oculus VR, has high hopes for the future of technology. With Oculus VR shipping its Development Kit 2, or DK2, Rift headset to consumers and developers over the last month, Palmer has had some interesting things to say in a recent interview with Kotaku UK.

Palmer said: "We see one in every home. [But], just at launch we need to be realistic. The people who are going to be buying this initially are going to be gamers, probably hardcore gamers, and they're going to be the ones with PCs most capable of running it". Palmer wants to see VR become something that expands past just pure gaming, with the Rift and VR in general becoming something for everyone. He continued: "As time goes on it'll become more and more mainstream, but at launch we're going to be targeting that core. Basically let's target it to the people whom we know are going to be buying and then let's go for the people who are going to take some convincing".

After testing out the Rift DK2 myself, I'd have to agree - I think VR will take off like smartphones did, selling tens of millions within the next five years. One in every home is a big statement, but there's a TV in most homes, isn't there? The Oculus Rift is cheaper than a cheap TV, so that statement, while it might sound prosperous to most, could happen - especially with the financial backing of Facebook.

Oculus VR had a strong presence at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this year - but they walked away with a massive win from the gaming event. With over 140 submissions for the awards at Gamescom 2014, 54 of them made it to the group of nominees, Oculus VR was one of these.

Oculus took out the Best Hardware of Gamescom with its Oculus Rift DK2 unit, with four other devices against it: the Cyberith Virtualizer, Sony's VR headset Project Morpheus, Nintendo's Amiibo, and NVIDIA's latest Shield Tablet and Shield Wireless Controller. We've only just received our Oculus Rift DK2 and we are in love with it, so it comes as no surprise for Oculus to be awarded Best Hardware of a gaming show like Gamescom.

One of the best kept copies of Action Comics #1, where Superman made his debut all the way back in 1938, is up for auction on eBay. This comic has its current bid at $1,750,200 - or $1.75 million.

The seller, Darren Adams who is based in Federal Way, Washington, explains that his copy of Action Comics #1 is "The finest known copy of the most sought after comic book in the world. A 1938 museum piece with PERFECT WHITE pristine pages". Adams said that he purchased it from a collector who had stored it in a bank vault. He adds: "I'm hoping that the next person can enjoy it as much as I do. I'd love it if a museum purchased this book for all to see".

Back in 2011, another copy of Action Comics #1 sold for $2,161,000 - with this copy reportedly belonging to Nicholas Cage, who is said to have purchased the comic for $150,000 in 1997. Funnily enough, Cage was in the running to star as the Man of Steel in the now-scrapped, thankfully, Superman Lives from around the time Cage purchased the copy of Action Comics. Bidding started on August 14, and will end of August 24, with 1% of the proceeds going toward the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Reeve playing Superman in the original Richard Donner movies, as well as Superman 3 and 4.

Repeated cyberattacks against French news website Rue89 has drawn criticism from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), with staff and their families being harassed after publishing a story related to a "militant Zionist" cybercriminal. The person in question, Gregory Chelli, lives in Israel, and reportedly attacked people he thought were against Israel.

The official Rue89 website suffered multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to Pierre Haski, website editorial director. An official complaint has been filed with the French public prosecutor's office, and Chelli already faced a suspended sentence in France, but it's unsure what will happen this time around.

"We call on French and Israeli authorities to launch a thorough investigation into these attacks on Rue89 and to ensure its staff members' safety," said Nina Ognianova, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator, in a statement. "Such intimidation tactics against journalists and their families must not be tolerated, lest they lead the media to self-censor."

Could it be? A sequel to an ever-changing online game that has been around for over 10 years and still dominates the charts, making $1 billion in revenue for 2013?

Game Informer asked World of Warcraft's Game Director, Tom Chilton, about the possibilities of a sequel to World of Warcraft. Chilton replied: "Definitely. It's something we have talked about. It's something we have talked about for ten years. I think that there are a lot of challenges there in seeing how World of Warcraft II relates to World of Warcraft, do they live alongside each other, does one feed into the other, what is that product, etc. These are challenges that have to be figured out before that becomes a reality".

What do you think of a sequel to World of Warcraft? Do you want to see it happen? Or would you want to see Blizzard just continue to evolve World of Warcraft, just as it has been doing for the past decade?

AMD has released the new Catalyst 14.7 RC3 drivers, which no longer support Windows 8 - something that AMD hasn't supported since the Catalyst 14.6 Beta driver. AMD recommends that Windows 8 users upgrade to Windows 8.1 for free, so that they can take advantage of the new features found in the Catalyst 14.7 RC3 drivers.

The new Catalyst 14.7 RC3 drivers offer "display interface enhancements to improve 4K monitor performance and reduce flickering" with the Radeon R9 290, R9 270 and HD 7800 Series all benefiting from this. The new drivers also offer some perofrmance improvements at 4K when gaming on Assassin's Creed IV, with up to 93% more performance with CrossFire.

You can download the new Catalyst 14.7 RC3 drivers here.

Hackers can compromise a smartphone user and eavesdrop by using the device's internal gyroscope, according to a study from Stanford University and the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems technology company. Instead of directly listening to a phone conversation, this is remote eavesdrop exploit so users can be snooped on when in the immediate area of a device.

"Whenever you grant anyone access to sensors on a device, you're going to have unintended consequences," said Dan Boneh, Stanford security professor, in a statement to Wired. "In this case the unintended consequence is that they can pick up not just phone vibrations, but air vibrations."

The gyroscope in smartphones use a small plate that vibrates around 200 hertz, which is fast enough to recognize human voices. Using customized speech recognition software allowed the researchers to accurately determine 65 percent of "numeric digits" of a specific speaker. Eavesdropping levels aren't quite the same as using a compromised smartphone's microphone, but shows the potential threat level of current data security efforts.

When the world found out about Silent Hills, we didn't know what to expect exactly. A return to the usual mechanics of Silent Hill, or something completely new? Well, luckily there is a "Playable Teaser" available for the PS4, providing just that - an amazing tease of things to come.

As you can see, Hideo Kojima wasn't lying when he said Silent Hills would make you 's**t your pants'. This teaser looks absolutely incredible, almost to the point where it could sell PlayStation 4 consoles on its own. Now imagine this game working with Project Morpheus, Sony's VR headset. Better yet, Kojima has announced that Metal Gear Solid 5 is coming to the PC, so imagine Oculus Rift support if it arrived on the PC.

I had actually found this walkthrough on Reddit, with one of the comments on there from 'EvenArrantzier' where he said: "I've got a sweet 110 inch projection screen and surround sound. Six 15 inch speakers spread out around the ceiling. It was fucking perfect. I'd hear the noises all around me. They really did a great job with the sound. I played for three hours with two of my friends, in a completely dark room. We spent the night screaming and yelping with fear. It didn't become any less scary despite knowing the layout and mechanics of the game. It remained as unnerving and frightening as the first ten minutes. And not a word of a lie, I swear to fuck, at one point my friend yelped, farted, and had to go to the bathroom to make sure he hadn't shit his pants. We all agree that demo was the single most terrifying thing any of us had ever experienced".

Cybercriminals successfully breached Albertson's and SuperValu, which are two of the largest and most popular grocery store chains in the United States. The massive data breach also impacts their umbrella companies, including Acme, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, Star Market, Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Shop 'N Save, Hornbacher's, and Shoppers Food & Pharmacy.

The SuperValu breach might have affected customers between June 22 and July 17 in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Virginia and Missouri. It's unknown how many Albertson's customers might be affected from the data breach.

"The safety of our customers' personal information is a top priority for us," said Sam Duncan, SuperValu President and CEO, in a statement. "The intrusion was identified by our internal team, it was quickly contained, and we have had no evidence of any misuse of any customer data. I regret any inconvenience that this may cause our customers but want to assure them that it is safe to shop in our stores."

Following a data breach suffered by Rady Children's Hospital in June 2013, a mother has filed a lawsuit against the company related to a security breach that led her daughter's medical records to be exposed.

The Rady data breach occurred when an employee emailed a spreadsheet containing patient admittance records from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 to four job applicants. The records included patient names, birth dates, primary medical diagnoses, medical record numbers, insurance carrier information, and admittance and discharge dates.

"This is not one or two records dropped in the parking lot," said David A. Miller, an attorney representing the mother, in a statement to the media. "The people they gave this information to didn't even work there. They were job applicants."

Following a public investigation and pressure from activist groups, Apple has banned the use of two dangerous cleaning chemicals linked to leukemia and potential nerve damage. The use of benzene and n-hexane in its Chinese facilities drew anger from groups such as China Labor Watch and Green America - 18 of the company's factories weren't using the chemicals, while four were. However, the four factories were reportedly using the chemical solutions within safe limits, but decided to impose the ban anyway.

Apple was called out in the past when a factory used N-hexane, which evaporates faster than alcohol, reportedly led to 137 employees being hospitalized.

"This is doing everything we can think of to do to crack down on chemical exposures and to be responsive to concerns," said Lisa Jackson, Apple VP of environmental initiatives, in a statement to the AP. "We think it's really important that we show some leadership and really look toward the future by trying to use greener chemicals."

Both Microsoft and Sony were reportedly running some game demos at Gamescom 2014 using powerful custom-built PCs to display console games. Live game demonstrations of "Ori" and "Blind Forest" crashed to the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, and the PCs appear to be powered by NVIDIA instead of AMD GPUs, according to reports.

It's not uncommon for game studios, even when promoting console games, to use PCs to help enhance the demonstration experience for attendees. However, even if the game is available on all next-generation consoles and the PC, gamers will often call out the studio if graphics and gameplay don't replicate what was originally shown to them.

During public demoes, companies are tasked with providing lightning-fast gameplay mixed with pretty graphics to entice gamers and media. It seems both companies have been caught doing this over the past few years, eager to demonstrate their latest and greatest console games - but using PCs instead of their own products to get the job done.

A group of researchers from a university in British Columbia came up with a very odd, yet very cool project called hitchBOT. The idea was to make a robot of sorts, put it on the side of the road, and see if it could hitch a ride across the country. This isn't the sort of bot that can't walk on its own, but it is computerized enough to interact with the people who help it.

So far, the bot has hitched numerous rides and ended up in some interesting places. It has hung out with folks on summer vacation, a rock band, and wound up at a wedding. During the wedding hitchBOT reportedly interrupted the groom's thank you for coming speech to say it likes to make friends.

HitchBOT began its cross-country trip on July 27 after being left on the side of the road near the Halifax airport. The bot has been taking photos and sharing them online as well as tweeting during its trip. The bot is expected to end its trip at the Victoria Open Space Gallery next week.

Researchers around the world are working on robotics to make them able to operate on their own and perform complex tasks. In the US, a group of engineers has designed a swarm of 1000 tiny robots that are able to shuffle their way into specific shapes when told to. Each of the bots is given an image of the shape controllers want and then they work together to make the shape.

It's not a fast process; it reportedly takes about 12 hours for the bots to take the desired shape. This is the largest swarm of robots to ever be used in a study of this type. Researchers from the group behind the project say that each of the bots is identical and have the exact same program.

The throng of robots is inspired by cells that form organs or ants that are able to build bridges to span water. The team hopes that knowledge gleaned from this study will help develop self-assembling tools and structures in the future. Each of the little bots is 3cm across and said to be about the size of a sushi roll and each has three straight legs. Commands are given using an infrared light overhead and a sensor on the robots.

Ubisoft is in a tough spot with PC gamers right now, but is the company finally starting to see the light? Probably not, but it is promising that it is trying to focus more on the PC, in the form of simplified DRM activation, and a better commitment to multi-platform releases.

During an interview with MVC, Ubisoft's European boss Alain Corre said: "We listen to feedback from players and continue to adapt accordingly. For instance, we switched to a simple, one-time activation for our PC games; a standard practice in the industry. We're also doing our best to bring our games to PC at the same time as the console versions".

We should begin to see the fruits of Ubisoft's labor in its upcoming titles, two of the biggest releases of the year: Assassin's Creed Unity, and Far Cry 4. Corre has said that the company is seeing an increase in revenue from the PC side of things, with its PC market growing from 11% in 2013 to 15% this year. Corre continued: "We recognise the importance and needs of PC gamers, and want to continue to improve how we create and support games for PC. We are committed to improving the optimisation of our games for each platform on which they're released, including PC".