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A new technology being developed at Western Michigan University hopes to give coaches and medical staff a better glimpse when a player suffers a concussion on the field. A new pressure sensor designed for helmets uses printed electronics that sends information to a smartphone, providing immediate data on hit severity.

All data can be stored so coaches and staff can monitor each player's complete history following a concussion-related incident.

"Basically, this device or system would eliminate the possibility of inaccuracies from field judgments made by coaches, who rely on the self-assessment or self-reporting of players," said Massood Atashbar, WMU electrical and computer science professor, in a statement to local media. "The coach would receive real-time, actionable information when one of the players receives a potentially dangerous and serious impact to the head."

In a strangely self-referential post, Britain's public broadcasting network, the BBC, has outlined the technical issues that have been plaguing, well, the BBC.

Although issues continued throughout the weekend, BBC News has now published a post that speaks about the problems. Its iPlayer service - the flagship streaming website that allows Brits to watch TV live, on demand, or listen to the radio for free provided they pay a licence fee - was struggling for unspecified reasons. Some users were unable to access the service at all, while the BBC website was forced to display a basic version. It led to speculation from some online users the network was victim of a Denial of Service attack. The iPlayer is critically acclaimed for its service and pioneering of official on-demand streaming.

The corporation put out tweets saying it hoped the service would be back up and running soon, as well as issuing an official apology. UK internet providers also noticed something was wrong. "The final fixes for the problems were expected to be applied on 21 July when the vast majority of people should be able reach the web-based video services as normal," the BBC News website says. "The BBC said it would issue a statement when it knew more about the cause of the glitches."

GM has been fighting massive recalls of some of its most popular cars for months now as the US government forces the automaker to crack down on cars with potentially lethal problems. One of the biggest issues for GM is the ignition recall that has halted sales of cars like the Chevrolet Cruze until the issue is fixed.

GM is going so far with recalls as to tell its dealers that they can no longer sell two popular Cadillac models on dealer used car lots. The models that can't be sold used by GM dealerships is the Cadillac CTS and SRX. No fix is in sight for the ignition issue that was originally issued on June 30.

GM says that the ignition switch on these Cadillac models can move to the accessory position if bumped. If that happens, the car's power steering, power brakes, and air bags won't function. The original recall covered 554,000 Cadillac cars.

We have been reporting on the still on-going issues over at Crytek, but things just got worse for the developer of Crysis. Tiago Sousa, Crytek's Lead R&D Graphics Engineer has left the company, joining the ranks of id Software.

Sousa is now working as the Lead Rendering Programmer on the new reboot of Doom and the engine that powers it: id Tech 6 game engine. Sousa was with Crytek for 11 years, so this is quite the loss for Crytek. According to Sousa's LinkedIn profile, he has contributed to work on CryENGINE 3, as well as all three Crysis games, Ryse: Son of Rome for the Xbox One, Warface and "undisclosed multiplatform projects".

Considering most of Crytek's UK-based staff have stopped going to work, and the studio isn't paying its staff on time, this is troubling times. This isn't considering that the studio has already lost key staff such as the game director for Homefront: The Revolution leaving, as well as its Development Manager, Ben Harris.

According to the latest research from SuperData, there is some serious money being made from MMOs. The top five subscription-based MMOs in the world as it stands are: World of Warcraft, Lineage 1, TERA: Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Lord of the Rings Online.

World of Warcraft leads this effort when it comes to revenues, with $1.04 billion made last year, securing itself a 36% chunk of the subscription-based MMO market share for 2013. Lineage 1 comes in at second place with $253 million for NCsoft and a 9% share, TERA: Online generated $236 million for NHN Corporation in third spot with an 8% share. Star Wars: The Old Republic sits in fourth place with $165 million made for EA with 6% of the subscription-based MMO market share, and Lord of the Rings Online made $104 million for Turbine, Inc. and secured them 4%.

Revenue subscriptions have dropped every year from 2010, from 30.6 million subscribers to 23.4 million this year. MMO publishers see this decrease in subscribers due to the increased offerings of free content, more payment tiers and microtransactions.

The owner of ConnectZone.com, Daniel Oberholtzer, has been sentenced for participating in conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, receiving 37 months in federal prison. The company must forfeit $716,778 that was collected for selling counterfeit products, advertising the sale of network products that were promoted as Cisco products.

"Innovation and our economy demand that the intellectual property of businesses be protected," said Jenny Durkan, U.S. Attorney, in a statement. "Here, the defendants used the hard earned brands of others and slapped it on inferior products."

Business owners and law enforcement have stepped up civil and criminal complaints against Internet pirates and counterfeiters. Leaders of organized rings conducting illegal business are being indicted and face prison time if found guilty.

At the height of his hacking career, Shane "Jason" Duffy was making a nice $1,000 per day from hacking League of Legends. The 21-year-old hacker had his room raided by police back in 2011 because of a League of Legends security incident, something that Riot Games addressed in 2012. Duffy's online activity while he was on bail saw police visit him again last year.

During an interview with The Daily Dot, Duffy said he was involved with the brute force hacking of League of Legends accounts, selling character skills from accounts for anywhere between $200 and $800. He also leaked League of Legends: Supremacy through a Riot Games employee's account, and created a service where players could pay to have other players knocked out of League games.

Duffy said that his group had access to millions of League accounts, something he claims he had access to through a senior Riot employee's account. Duffy said that even though Riot Games had noticed a breach, and told its staff to change their passwords, this one particular employee did not. This paved the way for Duffy to create a backdoor on Riot's servers, where he had access to the details of some 24.5 million accounts.

The lure of bitcoins has potential suitors interested in learning about the cryptocurrency, but after losing 45 percent of value in 2013, the slide will continue in 2014, Bloomberg Global Poll respondents noted. The value peaked at $1,100, but dropped, with some financial analysts wondering if the bitcoin bubble popped already.

Over half of survey respondents (55 percent) said bitcoins and other virtual cryptocurrencies have unsustainable currency trades, with 14 percent also saying bitcoin is closing in on a bubble - while 6 percent are optimistic and say no financial bubble is currently forming. The last 25 percent said they are unsure of what's going to happen with the currency.

An assortment of businesses and retailers accept bitcoin for payment, but some financial specialists and government officials aren't drinking the Kool-Aid just yet. It's difficult because bitcoin values have varied in 2014, from a low of $341 up to $900, while currently valued at $623 per bitcoin - and headlines find bitcoin more during controversies than victories.

Google's CEO Larry Page has slammed Samsung for picking its own Tizen in its smart watches over Android Wear, according to a report.

The Information claims Samsung's chairman Jay Y Lee and the Google CEO held a "tense private meeting" at the Sun Valley Allen & Co conference. Page allegedly spoke to Lee about his frustrations Samsung was heavily pushing Tizen devices like the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo over the Android Wear enabled Gear Live, and told Lee how he'd prefer it if the company focused on Android Wear, particularly as the latter is compatible with a wider range of Android smartphones and tablets.

The report, if true, could be indicative of a larger debate about the future of smart watches. As we reported earlier this year, there was some controversy when Samsung appeared to favor its own software rather than Android. Consumer wearable tech, specifically smartwatches, is very much in its infancy - with some of Samsung's own efforts largely being considered a swing and a miss to date. Although Samsung is the top Android manufacturer at the moment, tensions over which direction to take the emerging market could well cause conflict. That is, of course, reliant on if smart watches take off at all.

The winners of Britain's Great British Space Dinner contest have been announced by the UK Space Agency, deciding the extraterrestrial diet of English former Army Major Tim Peake as he makes his way to the International Space Station.

School kids across the country were asked to think up a Brit-themed, nutritious dinner suitable for eating in space. Elementary and high-school students entered the competition, and the winners have just been chosen by Peake and celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, who will work together with the designers to turn the dishes into real meals, edible aboard the ISS.

Among the winning dishes were a fusion English-Indian meal of spicy food and a rhubarb and custard dessert, from Chloe in Nova Hreod Academy, Swindon, and a full English breakfast in the form of a burger from Archie in Abberley Parochial V.C. Primary School in Worcestershire. Pictured is the Rocket Lolley, a three course meal all-in-one made of tomato and basil soup, a spicy mackerel curry, and the Eton mess dessert, by the KFSPACEGIRLS team from Emmanuel College, Gateshead. "I'm incredibly impressed with the creative and mouth-watering entries we've received from children all over the UK," said Peake, who will be aboard the Station for six months. "I'm really looking forward to enjoying a Great British Space Dinner on board the International Space Station."

It doesn't look like Google will be bringing its super-fast web service, Fiber, to the United Kingdom just yet - or have plans for anywhere outside the US.

Although a report in Britain's Telegraph talked of the possibility of Fiber heading to the UK in partnership with local provider CityFibre, a spokesperson told Engadget that it's probably best not to read too much into it. "We have informal conversations with other telecom companies all the time," the spokesperson said. "But we've never had any serious planning discussions about bringing Google Fiber to Britain." It's not exactly surprising that Google was keen to quash the rumor - it is stepping on enough toes in the United States with its immensely anticipated rollout of Fiber. That said, it's also a limited rollout, available only in a handful of cities thus far.

Google Fiber promises as much as 1 gigabit per second download and upload speeds, which is a veritable triumph over many of even the most comprehensive and speedy packages available from other providers in the United States and further afield. So it's not something to be ruled out from happening completely, but there will likely be a lot of groundwork to do closer to home before Google gets more ambitious abroad.

No matter what it tries the content industry can't seem to stem the popularity of public enemy number one, The Pirate Bay, and now new figures show the torrent indexer's traffic has doubled since the first wave of blocks came into place.

Despite many wings of the content industry claiming each countrywide block on The Pirate Bay a victory, actually its traffic is doing better than ever. The first really high profile blockades began in Denmark, the UK and Holland, but the website's visitor numbers have doubled since then. Actual visitor numbers were not revealed but TorrentFreak puts them in hundreds of millions per month.

Nearly 10 percent of all visitors to The Pirate Bay access the website through proxies or proxy services, meaning that even in countries where it's officially banned, users are finding ways to access it anyway. The most visitors were from the United States, where many of the more vocal voices from the content lobby reside.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden wants hackers to help develop new technologies that will help users access the Internet without government snooping. His plea for assistance was via video chat from Moscow, where he is becoming more vocal about snooping.

"You in this room, right now have both the means and the capability to improve the future by encoding our rights into programs and protocols by which we rely every day," Snowden recently told the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) attendees. "That is what a lot of my future work is going to be involved in."

SecureDrop, a service so whistleblowers can leak documents to the media, is one new technology that is being discussed at the conference. There is a great opportunity for software development after Snowden gave a much better picture of some of the surveillance programs currently underway.

President Barack Obama confirmed Malaysia Airlines MH17 was likely shot down over eastern Ukraine by Russian-supported separatists using a surface-to-air missile. Obama and military experts speaking to mainstream media aren't discussing much reasoning behind how they know - but it's plausible a Department of Defense military satellite saw a heat signature when the missile hit.

The U.S. government uses space-based technology to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles, serving as an early warning system. Newer satellites ushered in the Space Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) network that can identify missiles quicker so they can be intercepted.

Federal governments won't provide detailed images of the crash site, which spans several square miles, but commercial satellite owners could release further details. Some Earth-watching satellites have started to take a closer look at the airspace above eastern Ukraine. However, cloudy weather has hampered such efforts, but it could still be possible to identify how much the scene has been tampered with by rebels.

IDrive, a cloud backup and storage provider, has just announced the release of its new IDrive QNAP backup app. What this allows, is users to backup their QNAP NAS devices to IDrive, all with a simple-to-use app.

The IDrive QNAP app provides the option of an offsite disaster recovery option, as well as offering businesses a cheap and reliable way of backing up data stored across QNAP NAS devices. CEO of IDrive, Raghu Kulkarni said: "For businesses today, it is essential to ensure the privacy and protection of critical company data. We developed the QNAP backup app to assist with these business needs and provide a simple, fast, and cost-effective method for safeguarding data and ensuring business continuity, even in the face of a data disaster".

These are the key features of the new IDrive QNAP backup app:

When everything calms down after the DOTA 2 'The International' this weekend, we're going to see a change in the perception of professional gaming. One of the driving reasons behind this is that the total prize pool for DOTA 2 is an astonishing $10,887,235.

This $10 million will be split to 14 teams, with five players on each team. The winning team of The International 2014 will take home $5,008,128 - meaning that every player in the team will secure themselves $1,001,625.60 each. Considering that the $10 million prize pool was funded by the sale of the game to its fans, this is an achievement beyond words.

But when its pitted against "proper" professional sports, such as the Open Championship (or as the British Open in the US), it trumps it. The Open Championship has $9.2 million in prize money, but splits it across 156 entrants. The winner of the last British Open was Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland. He took home $1,196,055 for himself. Considering that the British Open started in 1860, some 154 years ago, and The International started four years ago, we've come a very long way.

We've been hearing about the next-gen Shield device from NVIDIA for a while now, something that should come to us in the form of a new tablet. The latest rumor is that NVIDIA will launch its Shield Tablet on July 29, starting at a competitive price of just $299.

The new NVIDIA Shield Tablet will come in two sizes, 16GB and 32GB, with the 16GB version being Wi-Fi only at $299. The 32GB version will feature LTE connectivity, with an additional $100 cost for a total of $399. There will reportedly be two accessories sold alongside it, the first being the Shield Controller for $59 and the second being the Shield Cover for $39.

NVIDIA will cram in some great technology and options into the Shield Tablet, starting with an 8-inch 1920x1200 IPS LCD display, microSD card support up to 128GB, Stylus support and it will also be 4K/Ultra HD ready. Inside of the Shield Tablet we should find NVIDIA's very capable Tegra K1 processor, which will feature 192 CUDA cores. Other than that, we have 2GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel cameras are featured up front and back, Bluetooth 4.0, and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n.

Want to use Netflix on social but scared your friends will see just how much you've watched those embarrassing guilty pleasures? Fear not - the TV and movie streaming service could be planning its very own incognito mode.

Right now the company is in the process of testing the option in all of its market over the next few months, but it's not available to every or even most users. But if it is set to be integrated in Netflix, it'll appear as part of the multiple user profile feature. Not only would the option keep your guilty pleasures safe, but it would also scrub these from contributing towards user recommendations.

It's not guaranteed that the feature will become widespread - with new corporate comms and tech director Cliff Edwards saying this depends on the reactions from users. "We may not ever offer it generally," he said, according to GigaOm. "At Netflix we continuously test new things. In this case, we are testing a feature in which a user watching a movie or TV show can choose to view in "Privacy Mode." Choosing that option means the program will not appear in your viewing activity log, nor will it be used to determine recommendations about what you should watch in the future."

Next year, frequent content pirates in Britain are to be sent official warning emails reminding them that downloading copyrighted content on P2P networks is against the law. However, if they're ignored, absolutely nothing will happen.

As part of a new initiative, which was agreed upon by the content industry and all major internet providers in the UK, frequent offenders will be monitored by a third party. Those found to be downloading copyrighted content will receive an educational email, reminding them that their actions are illegal, and providing options for legal alternatives - such as Netflix, Spotify, and Google Music. The process is heavily amended from the initial proposal, listed in 2010's Digital Economy Act, which demanded content pirates had their internet access stripped away. Its new iteration is called the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme and is considerably less stern.

The British Phonographic Industry, a lobby group which has been a key player in brokering the deal, said that this initiative is more about realigning people's habits rather than punishment alone - the latter being something the content industry is widely known for pursuing. "It's about persuading the persuadable, such as parents who do not know what is going on with their net connection," the BPI's chief exec George Taylor told the BBC. "Vcap is not about denying access to the internet, it's about changing attitudes and raising awareness so people can make the right choice."

Google is planning on giving 200,000 pounds sterling - nearly 350,000 US dollars - to ten shortlisted British charities it believes can advance the world for the better using technology.

The grants are part of the company's Impact Challenge, which originated in the UK, and has since traveled the world before its return. Of the ten shortlisted projects, four will be given an additional 500,000 pounds, which is over 800,000 dollars. Three will be decided by a panel of experts including Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and Helen Goulden of Nesta's Innovation Lab, while the remaining project will be put to a public vote. Among the proposals are initiatives to assist the vision of the blind and partially sighted with technology from the Royal National Institute of Blind People, a project that aims to aid encourage mental health well-being through gaming called We Are What We Do, and Centrepoint augmenting its work in tackling youth homelessness with big data.

Entrepreneur and British TV celebrity from Dragons Den, Peter Jones, is on the panel. "After an inspiring process, we've unearthed ten exceptional projects from ten exceptional charities," he said, according to the Telegraph. "Google's Impact Challenge shows that innovation is crucial to success. You can't stand still."