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Flash Memory Summit 2014 - Silicon Motion today announced a new 4-channel controller designed to leverage the value of 3-bit per cell (TLC) NAND flash in a consumer SSD product. The new SM2256 uses new NANDXtend technology to increase TLC flash's endurance from 1K P/E cycles to 3K P/E cycles.

Performance should follow the company's quoted specifications since Silicon Motion provides SSD builders with the controller and firmware for a turn key solution.

Ultra High Performance

Flash Memory Summit 2014 - Phison Electronics announced the upcoming PS3110 quad-channel SSD controller today at Flash Memory Summit.

The press release sheds more lights on the new controller recently previewed in a world exclusive here at TweakTown just days ago.

The new controller leaves little doubt that Phison is now ready to make an appearance in the high performance controller market. Phison makes adaption easy since the company provides both the controller and firmware. Soon available in capacity sizes up to 2TB, the new S10 is ready for both MLC and TLC NAND flash.

The Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York has had couples booking weddings at their venue, but if they, or any of their guests or family leave a bad review on sites like Yelp, they will fine them $500 for every bad review found online.

The hotel's online policy explains: "Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our inn, your friends and families may not. If you have booked the inn for a wedding or other type of event . . . and given us a deposit of any kind . . . there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review . . . placed on any internet site by anyone in your party".

But it's not all doom and gloom, because if you remove your review, the hotel will refund you the $500. For negative reviews on the hotel, employees will come in trolling, saying things like the post was "mean spirited nonsense" and "she made all of this up". The hotel fired back at one of the negative reviews over the rude treatment over a bucket of ice, where the hotel said: "I know you guys wanted to hang out and get drunk for 2 days and that is fine. I was really really sorry that you showed up in the summer when it was 105 degrees . . . I was so so so sorry that our ice maker and fridge were not working and not accessible".

The Wireless Power Consortium has updated its Qi specification to version 1.2, something that allows the new Qi standard to blast its wireless powers up to 45mm, or 1.77 inches away. The current standard is only capable of 7mm, or 0.27 inches, so this is quite the increase.

Better yet, Qi 1.2 chargers and receives will be backwards compatible with Qi 1.1 devices, so a Qi 1.1 receiver (such as your Qi-capable smartphone) will be able to enjoy a power transfer range of up to 30mm. The Wireless Power Consortium has said that Qi 1.2 is capable of pushing out an incredible 2000W of resonant energy through the air for powering kitchen appliances.

This means we will eventually see kitchen top appliances being powered without cords, which will be great. The new version 1.2 standard also allows for a single inverter to power multiple coils, which should see much more affordable multi-device chargers.

The Mozilla Foundation has made a mistake that left the credentials of about 76,000 developers using its Mozilla Developer Network vulnerable to hackers. During a sanitation process on the server where the data was stored, some sort of error cause an emergency dump of the data on that server to be sent to a backup server.

That emergency dump is something that many servers do to prevent data loss. The catch is that the backup server where the data was dumped was unencrypted. That means that the details of those 76,000 developers were available to be copied by anyone along with 4,000 encrypted passwords.

Mozilla has removed the data now, but the information sat there for a month before developers noticed the issue. Mozilla says that the passwords would not work and that it hasn't seen any sort of breach using the data.

Elon Musk has founded some of the biggest companies involving technology, such as PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Musk thinks we need to build a home for humans on Mars as soon as possible, but when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), he has his reservations.

Over the weekend, Musk tweeted about a book recommendation, but after that he said: "We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes." Musk isn't new to his stance on AI, where back in June the SpaceX founder said he has even considred the possibility of a 'Terminator'-like scenario. Musk has also admitted that he's even invested money into AI companies, where he wants to keep an eye on where AI is going.

Only a few films in recent history have leaked before their theatrical releases, notables include 'American Gangster', 'Hostel II' and 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' (a work-in-progress with unfinished visual effects), but none have been as damaging as that incurred by LionsGate Films, following the reported theft of 'The Expendables 3' on June 24 which was uploaded a few weeks later - weeks clear of the films August 15th release date.

Now, LionsGate are going after the anonymous leaker with the full brunt of the law, according to an article at Hollywood Reporter, whilst also targeting websites such as limetorrents.com, billionuploads.com, hulfile.eu, played.to, swantshare.com and dotsemper.com.

It is not currently known how much effect the leak will have on the $90 million dollar production, but pre-release word is that the film is diabolically bad anyway, with much criticism levelled at the studios desire to court a family friendly PG-13 rating.

No Man's Sky has officially been announced for the PC, with Hello Games' procedurally generated exploration title enjoying a timed exclusive on the PlayStation 4, according to the latest issue of Edge magazine.

Hello Games' Managing Director, Sean Murray, said during the interview: "I actually got in a bit of trouble for saying that we wanted the game to feel really console-y. We've always had PC in mind but in my head (console-y) means solid frame rate and immediate controls. I think a PC game can be 'console-y' and it's intended as a compliment, but I get in trouble for saying it."

No Man's Sky arrives on the PS4 sometime next year, and will hopefully hit the PC not too long after.

Some GameStop customers have had to provide their fingerprints when they traded in their used games in some of the Philadelphia-based stores in the US. GameStop is using fingerprints to help authorities track criminals who trade-in used games.

One employee at GameStop talked with Kotaku, where they said that the new anti-crime measure has been in place for around a month now. One of the reasons behind the new system is that GameStop stores in the city received a mandate from GameStop's corporate HQ after Philadelphia police asked if they could offer stronger security measures.

This employee said that customers of GameStop in these fingerprint scanning equipped stores can no longer trade in games if they don't provide their fingerprints. The fingerprints that are collected are uploaded onto the online database Leads Online, according to the Philadelphia Police Department, reports CBS Philadelphia. According to customers of these GameStop stores that CBS Philadelphia interviewed, they aren't happy with these '1984' style measures, which makes them all feel like they're being treated like criminals.

Microsoft has issued an update for the popular Office for iPad app that brings some new tricks for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The update brings several user requested features to the apps, with one of the big new features being the ability to export files as PDFs.

Each of the apps has also received new Picture Tools that allow users to the ability to crop to focus on the portion of the image that's important. All three of the apps also get support for third party fonts in the update.

Excel also gets improved support for external keyboards and support for "Flick to Select" so you can select data in a cell with a flick of your finger. The new features for Word include the Picture Tools, fonts, and PDF feature. PowerPoint received more improvements with a new Presenter View, new presenter tools for highlighting and drawing, and more.

It looks like NVIDIA will unveil its GeForce GTX 880 sometime next month at a press event, but what to expect from NVIDIA for its next-gen GPU? We shouldn't expect too much in the performance department, but a decent price is something we can smile about.

VideoCardz.com is reporting that the GeForce GTX 880 will be announced mid next month, with retail availability of the GPU starting in late September. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of the GeForce GTX 880, we should expect NVIDIA to offer up 4GB and 8GB GDDR5 versions, both on a 256-bit bus. The best part about the GTX 880 will be its price, which is expected to fall somewhere around $400-$500 price range.

When it comes to performance, we should expect it to obviously beat the GK104-based GTX 780, and hopefully beat the GTX 780 Ti. By how much, we don't know. I think we can expect it to fall 10% either side of the GTX 780 Ti, and at $400-$450, this is going to push the prices of the GTX 780, and GTX 780 Ti down, too.

The latest numbers from market research firm Strategy Analytics for Q2 2014 see that Google is completely dominating the mobile OS market, with Android hitting a global market share of 84.6%, up from 80.2% in the same quarter of last year.

Google's biggest competitor, Apple, has just 11.9% market share, which is down 13.4% from the same period of 2013. Microsoft has also lost market share to Google, dropping from 3.8% in Q2 2013 to 2.7% in Q2 2014. BlackBerry is barely hanging on, dropping from an already low point of 2.4%, to just 0.6% this year.

When it comes to smartphone manufacturers, Xiaomi has become the world's fifth-largest brand, which has Strategy Analytics calling the company a "star performer" for taking control of 5% of the global smartphone market by shipping 15.1 million units. Samsung is still number one, with 74.5 million smartphones shipped in Q2 2014, down from 76 million units in the same quarter of 2013. Apple shipped more units this year, hitting 35.2 million shipments, up from 31.2 million in Q2 2013.

When OnePlus launched its One smartphone earlier this year, most were wondering when the company would release something else - were they working on the next version of One (Two?) or a wearable? Well, BGR India has an exclusive look at the OneWatch from OnePlus, something the company is reportedly close to launching.

The OneWatch will be build from some high-end materials, something that includes titanium for screen borders, leather for bands, and sapphire for the OLED display's cover. OnePlus kicks it up a notch with the OneWatch though, with Qi wireless charging capabilities, a circular screen like the beautiful Moto 360 smartwatch, and a curved battery. We should also see the OneWatch arrive with a user-configurable physical button on the side.

We don't know if OnePlus will use Android Wear on the OneWatch, or whether it'll feature a customized version of Cyanogen mod. OnePlus levied the custom Android-based OS for its One smartphone, so it might do the same with the OneWatch, too. The biggest selling point of the upcoming OneWatch will be its price, with OnePlus pricing its One smartphone incredibly cheap, at under half the price of the competition, with similar, if not better specifications inside of the One smartphone.

iFixit have given the new Oculus Rift DK2 unit its teardown treatment, revealing what makes the DK2 provide one of the best VR experiences known to mankind. Inside of the DK2, iFixit found that Oculus VR is using not just the Galaxy Note 3 panel, but Oculus VR has either sourced them directly from Samsung, or is buying up Note 3s as it still has the Samsung branding on it - inside of the DK2 itself.

The screen itself is Samsung's 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1920x1080, or 960x1080 per eye. Oculus VR have overclocked this panel up to 75Hz, from the default 60Hz on the Note 3. Remember that Oculus VR has a partnership with Samsung, which would explain the use of the Note 3 panels inside of the DK2.

Considering the rumors of the Note 4 sporting a 5.7-inch 2560x1440 panel, this is what I think we'll find in the CV1 (the retail release) of the Oculus Rift. The rest of the iFixit teardown on the Oculus Rift DK2 unit is an interesting watch, and if you don't have time for the video, there's a slew of pictures you can flick through here.

A man has survived being shot thanks to having his 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 smartphone in his shirt pocket, stopping the bullet from piercing him and possibly killing him.

The man ended up in a street altercation with another man after he armed man dropped his wallet, the victim picked up the wallet for the man, joking about using it to buy a beer. The armed man pulled out his gun, and fired it into his chest, but thankfully his Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 blocked the bullet. You can see in the shot above that the phone is done for, but the owner survived.

Now we just need Samsung to build a Galaxy jacket, made from the same materials that stopped this bullet. For someone like myself, who keeps their phone in their jeans or trouser pocket, I would've had this bullet shot into me. Luckily this man, out of all the clothes he owns, wore this top with the pocket on that day.

The International Space Station requires a constant stream of new components, food, and water to remain in operation. Sometimes the US send up supplies and scientific gear and sometimes the resupply ships come from Europe. A new supply mission is underway from the ESA that sent an Ariane 5 rocket into space with a cargo ship aboard to resupply the ISS.

This particular resupply mission had something onboard that astronauts on the ISS will really appreciate, cappuccino and tiramisu. The resupply ship is set to dock with the ISS on August 12 at about 9:30 am. This is the last resupply mission that the ESA will perform.

After this resupply mission all future resupply will be handled by Russian Progress spacecraft and the Japanese HTC cargo ships. In the US resupply, missions will be handled by SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. Among the 5941 pounds of material on the resupply ship are cappuccino, water, oxygen, air, research gear, and spare parts. The cargo ship also contains 1896 pounds of fuel to be used by the Russian thrusters aboard the ISS.

There has been a bit of debate over the years amongst scientists and astronomers on how exactly the Moon was formed. A detailed study of the shape of the moon has revealed some new details on its shape, which in turn shed a bit of light on how the moon may have formed.

When you look at the night sky, the moon appears to be a sphere. However, the analysis of the shape of the moon shows that it is actually slightly lemon-shaped. This study looked at the Moon as it would be if millions of meteorites hadn't hit the surface and knocked chunks off it.

"If you imagine spinning a water balloon, it will start to flatten at the poles and bulge at the equator," Ian Garrick-Bethell said. "On top of that you have tides due to the gravitational pull of the Earth, and that creates sort of a lemon shape with the long axis of the lemon pointing at the Earth."

Apple has announced that it plans to shed about 200 workers from Beats Electronics after it takes over. Apple gobbled up Beats in a deal worth about $3 billion this year. A person familiar with the restructuring plans says that Beats workers in human resources, finance, and other roles with overlap between Beats and Apple will be let go.

The source claiming to know Apple's plans didn't want to be identified since the plans aren't public at this time. Beats was the largest purchase in Apple history and gains Apple a line of high-end headphones and a streaming music service.

No official comment has been made by Apple or Beats at this time on the layoffs. The Beats headphones often sell for hundreds of dollars per set making them high-end and a good fit with Apple's high-end product mix.

HTC has been rumored to be working on a new Windows Phone 8.1 device that is said to be a version of the flagship HTC One M8 smartphone. New rumors are now suggesting that the Windows Phone version of the M8 will hit stores next month.

The rumors were substantiated when HTC began sending out invites to a media event in New York on August 19. The media invites don't say exactly what the event is about, so it could be unrelated to the Windows Phone device.

Rumors suggest that the Windows Phone device will be called the HTC One W8. Previous rumors claimed that the device would hit Verizon stores by Q3 of this year and that it would use the same hardware as the Android version on the market already.

According to Samsung's Senior Vice President of Mobile Communications, Kim Hyun-joon, the South Korean giant will be launching two new smartphones within the next six months to fight off the competition.

One of these new smartphones will be built using "new materials," which should arrive as the new flagship smartphone from Samsung, the premium Galaxy S5 we've all been waiting for, while the other one will be a large-screen model according to analysts. This large-screen smartphone should materialize into the Galaxy Note 4, which should rock some pretty serious specifications. The Samsung executive also said that the company will be launching new models into the mid-to-low-end market with enhanced specifications.

These teases of new devices are thanks to the company seeing its net profit drop 19.6% from the previous year due to "mismanagement of inventory, stiff competition and a strong Korean won that made its products less competitive overseas" reports The Wall Street Journal. Samsung's mobile division saw profits drop 30%, which is the company's biggest profit generator. The company said in a statement: "Prospects for growth remain unclear as competition over global market share intensifies in the mobile industry".