Latest News - Page 2853

If you've been waiting for a better look at Bungie's upcoming first-person multiplayer shooter, Destiny, then now is your time to check out some new gameplay footage from the PS4, below.

In the video, Bungie talks about how it made the world of Destiny, and the various skills and abilities that players will be able to use to play against, or with each other. Destiny won't just be hitting the PlayStation 4, but the PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. Destiny should be quite the game, with Activision already spending $140 million, with $500 million prepared for a massive marketing campaign to start soon.

Activision sees Destiny as its next $1 billion franchise, which should join Call of Duty in that cash-creating club.

Gmail for Android has been updated, which includes quite a few changes and improvements. The new Gmail for Android app is now capable of saving attachments directly to your Google Drive account, instead of saving it onto your smartphone, and then shifting it over to Drive. A full list of changes is below:

When the news broke that Twitch was being acquired by YouTube - which is owned by Google - for $1 billion, it shocked most. But, did people really think that Twitch only had a single offer? No, no it did not.

YouTube is having to fight against other interested parties, which includes Microsoft. Google and Twitch have agreed on the price, and are now reportedly working on the details of the deal, such as just how independent Twitch and its brand will be once it is fully acquired by YouTube. Twitch has reportedly looked at competing bids, but chose YouTube as it felt like the company was the best suited to its massive growth over the recent years.

Twitch has the aim of being the definitive platform for watching and streaming live video gaming, where it thinks Google can provide the means to get there.

Another day, another phishing scam targeting online banking users. This time around, cybercriminals are targeting Bank of America Merrill Lynch customers, tricking users to install malware designed to steal personal information. The scam email includes a PDF attachment which has a malware link that initiates a download of a "SecureMessage.zip" file - packaged with the Spyware/Win32.Zbot Trojan.

Similar to other phishing attacks, the "secure message" includes a zip file, and users open the attachment inside of a Web browser. Users end up clicking a Dropbox download link where the malware is installed - another stark reminder for Internet users to be careful when clicking links from unknown users.

One-third of phishing attacks are aimed at financial institutions, and because of the large amount of attacks, banks have to follow new guidelines to better defend against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Palmer Luckey is set to become a household name over the years, but to us, he already is. Well, reaching the cover of WIRED magazine will surely speed that process up, with the founder of Oculus VR gracing the June 2014 cover.

Peter Rubin interviews Luckey in the issue, with a quote on the front sure to get most people's attention: "This kid is about to change gaming, movies, TV, music, design, medicine, sex, sports, art, travel, social networking, education - and reality. The Oculus Rift is here, and it will blow your mind". There's not a word I disagree with there, I agree that VR - and more specifically, the Oculus Rift - will change, everything.

According to Crytek's US Engine Business Development Manager, Sean Tracy, the 8GB of RAM in the next-gen consoles isn't that much. Tracy has said that the 8GB of RAM in the Xbox One and PS4 isn't impressive.

Tracy elaborated: "8 gigs can easily be filled up. But also keep in mind that developers don't necessarily even have access to all 8 gigs of it. For example the Xbox One retains some of the RAM for OS purposes". He continued, saying that the computational requirements of games will quickly hit the new 8GB ceiling, noting that his team has already struggled with the 8GB of RAM ceiling on Ryse: Son of Rome on the Xbox One.

"[8 GB of RAM] will be one of the limiting factors surely in this generation," added Tracy, he also added: "As hardware gets stronger the complexity of scenes can be increased and the dynamism within them. However, with that said it's not the raw power alone that will allow for photo-realistic graphics but technology that intelligently scales and utilizes all that the hardware has to offer".

The Worms saga is one of those game series that has managed to hold on for more than a decade and still remain relevant to new generations of gamers. Today Team 17 Digital Ltd announced via Sony's official PlayStation blog that the series' latest installment, Worms Battlegrounds, will be heading to the PlayStation 4 on June 3rd of this year.

Worms Battlegrounds features a massive single player campaign spanning 25 story missions and 10 "Worm-Ops" time-attack missions, which have been set across five stunning environments (Inca, Viking, Feudal Japan and Industrial Revolution) with new day-to-night lighting transitions as well. "We've even added in multiplayer clan support! Create your own clan and choose your own clan emblem or simply join another existing clan and take part in league matches! All of these earn you community points, which allow your clan to level up and grow larger," said the blog post. "A particularly cool thing is that if we were in a clan together we could - for the first time - play controlling the same team! I'd take control of two of the worms, and so would you. Just don't let me down; we're fighting for our clan's reputation as the best global Worms clan after all!"

Tesla Motors is one of the most successful EV manufacturers in the world. Tesla CEO Elon musk is working hard to bring the EV to the mainstream with cheaper vehicles that the average driver can afford. The current Model S EV can cost around $100,000 putting it out of the reach of the masses.

One of the things that is needed to bring the cost of EVs down to more reasonable levels is cheaper batteries. Musk says that the EV industry needs at least 200 gigafactories. Musk and Tesla plans to build the first of these gigafactories to help the company build cheaper battery packs for cars.

200 of these massive factories is a huge number. Tesla predicts that the first battery gigafactory that it plans to open will decrease the cost of EV battery packs by more than 30%. Musk thinks with more factories we can see battery cost reductions greater than 30%.

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson might have been gone for five years, but that certainly hasn't stopped him from releasing a new album, Xscape (which is fantastic, I might add), but death also hasn't stopped him from performing on stage, thanks to the power of holograms.

The technically impressive, but invariably creepy performance of his latest single Slave to the Rhythm at the Billboard Music Awards show which just concluded in the United States, can be seen in a video uploaded to YouTube below.

Xscape, which went on sale last week, has shot to the top of the charts worldwide, taking out the number one spot on the iTunes charts in 52 countries. It would seem the public appetite for the King of Pop has not yet been sated.

To celebrate this week's release of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit on home video formats, our friends at Paramount Home Entertainment Australia have supplied us with copies of the film on Blu-ray to give away to five lucky readers.

An action hero is reborn in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, the origin story of Tom Clancy's iconic character which sees CIA recruit Ryan (Chris Pine) caught in a dangerous web of intrigue spun between his unsuspecting fiancée (Keira Knightley), a shadowy government agent (Kevin Costner), and a ruthless Russian criminal (Kenneth Branagh). Ryan must quickly evolve from analyst to full-fledged operative to stop a devastating terrorist plot against the United States.

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

According to Glassdoor.com, something that it describes itself as the "world's most transparent career community" where companies acquire talent, as well as a place for employees to rate their companies, id Software isn't going well at all.

A former id Software has claimed that the Doom and Quake developer has a lack of professionalism, where this person writes: "Expect lots of inappropriate jokes, comments and a generally unprofessional work environment. Our HR director quit recently over the many internal issues". It didn't stop there either, with some details on Doom 4 popping up. This person said that the entire technology team at id Software has left, for the virtual reality arms of Oculus VR - something former id Software guru John Carmack did back in August last year.

This person continued: "When all of the teams merged together to create the "new" Doom team 2 years ago, there was around 140+ developers to make the game. Now, there is only around 50. The non-stop attrition has gotten so bad, that they had to contract outside the company for the multiplayer portion of the game, and we have contractors doing a bulk of our art work".

According to sources familiar with the deal, YouTube (which is owned by Google) is buying Twitch for over $1 billion. The acquisition is an all-cash deal, which should be officially announced any minute now.

Considering Google purchased YouTube back in 2006 for $1.65 billion, this is a huge deal for both YouTube and Twitch. For those who aren't familiar with what Twitch does, it is a San Francisco-based company that streams video games online for millions of users. Twitch has a reported 45 million monthly users, with over 1 million members who upload videos each month.

Twitch has deals with Microsoft and Sony for streaming content to its next-gen consoles, as well as distribution partners in CBS Interactive's GameSpot, Joystiq and Destructoid.

According to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the PS4 and Xbox One use a large amount of power even when in standby mode. Then we have some astounding numbers to look at.

The NRDC's new report has said if the PS4, Wii U and Xbox One replace the 110 million current-generation consoles sold in the US between 2005 and 2013, the total energy use of the three current-generation systems will be over 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year - enough juice to power the United States' fourth-largest city, Houston.

At what cost? Well, this would cost American households over $1 billion per year in energy costs, with 40% of it coming from the consoles' standby mode alone. The report reads: "The new consoles consume more energy each year playing video or in standby mode than playing games". The Xbox One in standby mode uses 15.7W of power, while the PS4 uses 8.5W and the Wii U with just 0.4W.

After being delayed back in October last year, and the various next-gen console resolution wars, Watch Dogs has finally gone gold. Ubisoft is now all systems go for the May 27 launch on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Jonathan Morin, Watch Dogs' Creative Director, says: "It's exciting to be gold. But it'll be more exciting when people are playing. For the fans it means that it's true. It means there will be no such thing as another delay. But for us, it's not done until they actually have it in their hands".

Ubisoft is really expanding Watch Dogs when it comes to special editions, with nine special edition versions being made available. When it comes to the resolution Watch Dogs runs at on next-gen consoles, we have 900p on the PS4 and 729p on the Xbox One. Alienware even chimed in on that one, too.

Ever since the Disney corporation purchased the Star Wars franchise and its parent company LucasFilm in 2012, fans have been given a new hope (pun intended) that they might be able to finally enjoy the original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy in a high quality presentation, free of the changes that were made by creator George Lucas for the 1997 special edition release and further modified for subsequent home video releases.

Whilst Lucas had been steadfast in his shunning of the "half finished movies", the fan community have sought to fill the gap, including one project by a group of well organised fans who are scanning, frame by frame, a well preserved 35mm print. This morning, a report has surfaced from Bleeding Cool that Disney is not only planning to finally relent to fan demands, but that marketing plans for this are already well in motion.

Even if this particular rumour doesn't come to pass before the release of Star Wars: Episode VII, I still anticipate that this will eventually occur, after all Disney have a great track record of monetizing their products, including acquisitions such as Marvel Studios and The Muppets. Sooner or later, Disney need to produce a new scan of the original film elements, as the current digital intermediate was produced in 2004 at 2K resolutions - a step down from the 4K and 8K scans of classic films that are commonplace today. It is worth noting that before Disney can officially release A New Hope, they need to come to an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox, in a complex deal that has them own the distribution rights to the first film in perpetuity.

Another day, another acquisition, with Google acquiring Quest Visual, the company behind iOS app Word Lens. Word Lens uses the camera on the rear of the iPhone, translating the text to your desired language in front of your eyes.

The technology that makes Word Lens work will be baked into Google Translate, but I think we'll also see it work its way into Google Glass, too. While Quest Visual is rolled into Google, the company will make the Word Lens language packs free to consumers, where it said: "As a thank you to everybody who supported us on our journey, we've made both the app and the language packs free to download for a limited time while we transition to Google".

Mobile security is a major effort from handset manufacturers, wireless carriers, and security companies, though many smartphone and tablet users remain blissfully unaware. A lot of users don't have any type of additional security software on their devices, or conduct activities which open themselves up to additional threats, researchers previously noted.

To help share methods on how users can keep themselves better protected, TweakTown asked Roberto Martinez, a Kaspersky Lab researcher with the Global Research and Analysis Team: "There are several ways that the users can be protected. It's recommended to not perform procedures of 'rooting' or 'jailbreaking' in devices because this eliminates protection features of the operative systems. It's also recommended to regularly update any OS and applications."

In addition to avoiding jailbreaks, there are other tips and techniques for users to avoid being compromised: "Users should be very careful with the applications that are installed in devices, especially those that are offered for free and don't come from reliable sources. Additionally, users should be careful when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks, and if applicable, use VPN tools instead. And of course, always use anti-malware and encryption protection tools."

The Federal Trade Commission should be tasked with enforcing security protocols to protect Internet users from security threats posed by online advertising, according to a recent report from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate's Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

"Consumers can incur malware attacks [through online ads] without having taken any action other than visiting a mainstream website," the report notes. "Similar attacks have struck across many online advertising platforms."

It seems significantly more likely for users to be infected with malware or security threats when visiting piracy websites, for example, though third-party advertisers have been hacked in the past. Malware creators are getting more creative in their efforts to compromise users, as they find many security loopholes and very little risk.

Overland Storage, Inc., a manufacture of tape libraries and network storage devices, is merging with a little known company located in Canada, Sphere 3D. According to the earning reports announced the same day, the combined company will, "deliver a new purpose built virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) appliance and software defined storage solution, which will include Overland's NAS platform and be delivered through Overland's channel partners."

Terms of the deal state each share of Overland common stock will be exchanged for 0.510594 common shares of Sphere 3D. That equates to roughly $4.43 per Overland share which recently (May 9th) was trading at $2.63 per share. Interesting to note - the surge in share price and volume from May 9th until the announcement on May 15th. Certainly, it could not be attributed to stellar sales results as the quarterly earnings report presented on May 15th resembles every report for the past several years - millions of dollars of losses.

This merger is just one more in a long string of M&A activity with Overland. Most notably, the acquisition of Snap Appliances for a mere $3.6M in 2008, just four years after Adaptec bought Snap for nearly $100M. More recently, in November of last year, Overland merged with Tandberg, one of the other long standing tape library leaders. Throughout all of these mergers, every new incarnation continuously bled money while trying to find a path out of being the tired, old tape vendor.

Printrbot has long been known for creating and selling affordable 3D Printer kits that enable almost anyone to begin 3D printing in their home, but that changed at this week's MakerCon in San Francisco. Earlier this week the company unveiled its first CNC Router that is targeted at beginner CNC users. The new Printerbot CNC Router is capable of machining wood, plastic and aluminum, albeit at different speeds.

The machine features a Wi-Fi enabled Raspberry Pi that runs a web-based control software suite enabling users to connect to the device wirelessly. The control board is based on the TinyG board, and movement is accomplished via NEMA 23 stepper motors. A Makita Router is utilized as the tool head, and the entire thing looks to be able to accept stock up to 24-inches square. No word on pricing has been released, but I have reached out to Printrbot for more information.