Latest News - Page 2859

Red Hat, Inc., a leading provider of open source software solutions, announced today that it will acquire Inktank, the developer of Ceph, a leading software-defined storage platform for object, file, and block storage that runs on off the shelf hardware. Inktank had secured several early adopter customers who have deployed their solution to run both public and private clouds including Cisco and Deutsche Telekom, as well as established a partnership with Dell to deliver the solution to a broader market.

The software-defined storage market is still a very nascent one, but it has quickly been gaining steam over the past two years. According to a recent IDC report, "Software-defined platforms will continue to grow faster than any other market segment in the file- and object-based storage market." To capitalize on this growth, Red Hat's acquisition of Inktank's Ceph platform is a perfect addition to their existing GlusterFS-based storage offering.

Inktank was founded only 2 years ago by Sage Weil, founder and CTO. Weil initially developed Ceph while at UC Santa Cruz and has built it out as a replacement for legacy storage systems to provide a unified solution for cloud computing environments. Since forming in 2012, Inktank has done an excellent job of developing the Ceph community and providing customers with expertise, processes, tools and support to build a viable cloud-scale solution.

Research indicates a whopping 90 percent of the top 30 most visited Internet piracy websites in the United Kingdom contained some form of malware or "Potentially Unwanted Programs" (PUPs) to compromise user systems.

The piracy sites often rely on social engineering techniques to trick users into clicking fraudulent links: "These fake play buttons, and that sort of thing, are very much driven by the desire of people to download content," said according to the group. "We view it as a kind of social engineering attack on the users who are tricked into downloading stuff."

In an ongoing effort to combat piracy, copyright holders might have more success trying to inform users of the security threats they open themselves up to when downloading content - it would be a unique twist on sometimes rudimentary scare tactics.

Back in February PopCap announced that the third person shooter Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare was available on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 Game console. That game now has an official launch date for the PC. PopCap says that Garden Warfare will roll onto the PC platform as a digital download from Origin on June 24.

It will also be available on that day from retailers around the country. Players will get to play as a plant of a zombie and the game has a number of multiplayer modes. 12v12 competitive multiplayer combat is supported with Gardens & Graveyards and Team Vanquish modes.

The game also has an 8v8 Gnome Bomb mode and a cooperative play mode where four players can team up called Garden ops. PC gamers will get the new content made available after launch for box players with their purchase. That includes the Garden Variety pack and Zomboss Down. A digital per-order pack is available via Origin for $39.99.

Sandisk Corporation, a leading manufacturer of flash storage solutions, announced not one, but two new product lines today. Both are born out of their $307M acquisition of SMART Storage Systems last year. First, the Lightning Generation II 12Gb/s SAS SSDs built to address enterprise requirements of maximum uptime and intense throughput performance. And for customers more interested in high capacity, Sandisk has also announced the industry's first 4TB SSD, the Optimus MAX.

The new Lightning SSDs are two times the speed over previously available 6Gb/s SSDs, now providing the highest performance possible for web-scale data center application workloads. According to John Scaramuzzo, senior vice president and general manager of enterprise storage solutions at Sandisk, "Business data needs are becoming so performance-intensive that even applications that are already using SSDs need an additional boost." To address these ever increasing performance requirements from enterprise customers, Sandisk's new Lightning drives are capable of delivering up to 190k/100K IOPS of random read/write performance and sequential read/write speeds of up to 1000/600 MB/s for write-intensive application workloads.

For customers that require less performance but the maximum capacity, Sandisk also announced the first 4TB SSD, the Optimus MAX. According to Scaramuzzo, enterprise IT customers are "looking for a way to transition their data centers from HDDs to NAND flash, but have been forced to decide between cost and performance. The Optimus MAX eliminates the need for compromises." The new 4TB drives are now on par with what is available in the HDD space, at least in the high performance enterprise drive market. In the past, companies have relied on 15K rpm SAS spinning disks for mission-critical applications because they provided relatively high performance at a low cost. Now, with high-density SSDs that have higher performance like the Optimus MAX, enterprises are free to replace slower HDDs without paying a huge premium.

LucasFilm has surprised virtually everyone, announcing that the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII will star not only Harrison Ford, but Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Andy Serkis also joins the movie, too.

J.J. Abrams, co-creator of Lost and the director of Star Trek: Into Darkness is back with Star Wars on the big screen with Episode VII with a release date of December 2015. It stars Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. Original stars from Star Wars will also be featured, including Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker.

Now the big question is, just how much did Disney pay for all of this - considering it purchased LucasFilm for $4 billion - this seems like a massive investment. I'm sure it wasn't cheap getting the original actors on-board, but this should be somewhat exciting for Star Wars fans.

Microsoft made an announcement that it will start selling its Xbox One console in China from September onwards. Microsoft CVP of devices and studios Yusuf Mehdi said,"In China, there are over half a billion gamers, so the opportunity to create globally and locally created content to delight millions and millions of of gaming families everywhere is something that we're really passionate about.".

In January 2013, news started to come in that China may lift its ban on sales of gaming consoles, and later in September, it was confirmed that China will lift the ban on foreign-origin gaming consoles.

The video was posted in Xbox One's official YouTube channel where the announcement was made, but for some reason the video is now marked as 'private'.

Microsoft is working on a Kinect-style keyboard that can track your hand gestures. This is done by using a low-resolution proximity sensors that are embedded between the keys on the keyboard.

The prototype has 64 sensors. The sensors are good enough to detect and recognize common hand gestures, such as hovering, swiping, pinching to zoom in and out, and tapping in the air. This keyboard prototype was presented in the Computer Human Interaction conference held in Toronto, Canada.

Stuart Taylor, a Microsoft senior research engineer said,"The main goal is for users to be able to keep their hands-on or very close to the keyboard while typing and using input gestures." He continued,"What we've found is that for some of the more complicated keyboard shortcut combinations, performing gestures seems to be a lot less overhead for the user."

Sony has confirmed the list of features that will be present in PlayStation 4's 1.7 firmware update. The biggest feature is the introduction of SHAREFactory.

SHAREFactory is a free video editing suite that will allow PS4 console gamers to edit their gameplay video recordings. Sony released a video to explain how SHAREFactory works.

The 1.70 update also allows more flexible gameplay captures by giving an option to turn off HDCP. According to the list, this was one of the most highly request features that users wanted in PS4. The console now allows you to disable High-bandwidth Digital copy protection for games which would enable its users to record games via HDMI through an external capture device for longer recordings and even live streaming.

According to a new report, Amazon is looking for engineering so that the company can build its own server chips. According to the job listing, the company is looking forward to integrate ARM chips and have been hiring many engineers for this project.

Most of the employees that Amazon have hired so far are former employees of a Texas-based company called 'Calxeda' which makes ARM-based servers. The online retail giant will also be hiring Calxeda's former CTO.

Many employees have taken positions such as Principal engineer, silicon optimization and hardware design engineer, director of silicon optimizations at Amazon web services. Currently, there's a job listing for a CPU architect/Micro-architect. Seeing that the company is very aggressive in its hiring spree and people have started working since this month, its a no-brainer that the company is really into it.

2014 has definitely been the year of the wearable, and with the sector growing more with every passing day more retailers are finding better ways at capitalizing on this trend. Today Amazon.com announced that it has launched a new online storefront that is dedicated 100-percent to wearable technology.

"Wearable technology is an exciting category with rapid innovation and our customers are increasingly coming to Amazon to shop and learn about these devices," said John Nemeth, Director of Wireless and Mobile Electronics at Amazon. "We're thrilled to bring our customers a store with the largest selection and great prices that helps eliminate the guesswork when deciding which wearable devices best fit their needs-whether that is tracking activity, staying connected through smart watches or capturing their next adventure with wearable cameras."

The new online storefront is designed to not only sell customers on the latest and greatest wearable electronics, but educate them on what is best for them too. "To help customers learn more about wearable technology, the new store features a "Learning Center" which includes product videos and detailed buying guides. These resources provide information about device compatibility, product comparisons and use-case suggestions to help customers find the right device for them. Customers can also take advantage of the "Editor's Corner" to find information about wearable technology industry news, device reviews and more."

DRIVECLUB was one of the most talked about games during Sony's announcement and buildup to its PlayStation 4 launch, and now its release is getting close. Today the games developer, Evolution Studios has announced the official launch date for the game. As expected, DRIVECLUB will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive, and will launch for purchase on October 7, 2014.

While the game was expected to launch earlier this year, it appears that some issues arose during development, that caused developers to push back the launch date to ensure the best product possible was available on day one. "We planned for the game to be ready for early 2014 and are committed to delivering on our ambitious promise of creating a truly innovative, socially connected racing game," said Shuhei Yoshida, President of SCE Worldwide Studios. "The problem with being ambitious is you have to be prepared to accept there will be challenges along the way. What DRIVECLUB offers has not been previously achieved in this category, and, because of this, the team needed more time to give you the game you're waiting for."

Today Alphacool announced a new GPU cooling solution that will see non-reference video cards included in its lineup instead of being left out as tradition dictates. The new custom GPU coolers are part of a new service Alphacool is offering that is based around a new three-part full-coverage GPU block that is designed to be completely modular, making it easier to custom cool any video card.

"Until recently the high cost of developing specialized full cover watercooling blocks has forced manufacturers to focus only on producing blocks for the higher-end cards. With new patented technology Alphacool have the ability to fill this gap in the market by producing full cover water-blocks for any non-reference or lower-end video card," Alphacool said in a release. "The cooler comprises of three parts shown in the image below. Firstly the water-block is designed around the 'core only' concept but is used in conjunction with the custom made base plate that is made specifically for each type of GPU ensuring the perfect fit. A custom made back plate is also included in the package at no extra cost."

Alphacool says that the new cooler has been designed to work universally, and will only require a plate upgrade when switching to a new GPU. The company has plans to launch a full coverage water-block line for AMD's new Radeon 200 series and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 700 series. Customers wishing to water-cool non-reference cards can send their card into Alphacool and have a custom plate made to fit that will work with the new universal GPU cooling block. This cooler will then be added to Alphacool's lineup so that customers with the same non-reference card can purchase a full coverage block.

Just when you thought that Warner had finished wringing all the cash it could from the Harry Potter franchise, well think again. Warner Home Video Australia has announced the upcoming release of the Harry Potter Hogwarts Collection on Blu-ray, which will hit retailers on June 11th.

Comprised of 31 discs, the lavish box set includes all eight movies, from The Philosopher's Stone (as it is known in Australia) to The Deathly Hallows (the latter two of which are also presented in 3D), along with dozens of discs of extra features containing commentaries, documentaries, featurettes and other behind the scenes tidbits, all encased in a beautiful book style packaging.

For fans who may already have one or more films on Blu-ray, Warner have also included an tantalizing exclusive disc of features, including the 90 minute documentary When Harry Left Hogwarts and a number of other features.

According to a report, NVIDIA has launched its plans to launch its flagship GPU GeForce GTX Titan-Z GPU that was expected to go on sale today. It was pointed out that the chipmaker is making last minute design changes for the GPU cooler.

There's also another report which indicates that it cannot be put against AMD Radeon R9 295X2. It was pointed out that the reported clock speeds would not make the NVIDIA's flagship compete with Radeon R9 295X2.

According to few retail websites that leaked the information, the flagship card with 2x GK110 GPUs has the base clock of 695MHz with Boost Clock of up to 730MHz with 7000MHz memory clock, 2x 6GB memory, 2x 384-bit memory bus which will take power via 8+8 PCIe pin and priced for a jaw dropping $3,000.

SAPPHIRE has just announced it has released the new SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X OC GPU, which is an overclocked version of the already-fast Radeon R9 290X. We have GPU clocks at 1080MHz, while the 4GB of GDDR5 coasts along at 1410MHz.

But the star of the show here is definitely SAPPHIRE's impressive Vapor-X cooling system, which sports vapor chamber technology, which is mounted between the GPU itself, and the base of the heat sink and cooler - this way, it draws as much heat as possible away from the GPU, and onto the cooler. SAPPHIRE has used a new Vapor-X cooler, which leverages its amazing Tri-X structure.

The Tri-X structure features five heat pipes, and three very efficient fans. This should keep the new SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X OC GPU cool, even when overclocked past its already overclocked speeds. There's also the Digital Power control on the new Vapor-X OC card, as well as a new Aero10 VRM section which pumps 10-phase power with high-power Direct-FET technology into the GPU, memory and circuitry.

ASUS has just unveiled its new PB287Q monitor, which is a 4K-capable display that is priced at just $799. The new monitor is a 28-inch, 4K display, with a resolution of 3840x2160 at 60Hz.

The ASUS PB287Q has 330cd/m2 brightness, 100,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1ms grey-to-grey response time and 170/160-degree viewing angles. On the connectivity side of things, we have DisplayPort 1.2, two HDMI ports - with one of those being MHL-capable. ASUS has baked in a range of adjustment, with swivel, tilt, pivot and height adjustments as well as VESA mounting capabilities for wall and stand mounting.

ASUS will be pricing the new 4K-capable PB287Q starts at just $799, and is available right now in Taiwan, Asia Pacific, Europe and the United States.

According to the latest report by DFC, its now known that the PC games market generates more revenue in comparison with console games counterpart worldwide.

DFC Intelligence's David Cole revealed this finding to PCR during an interview. He also added that PC gaming's dominance will still continue. He said,"On a global basis PC games have surpassed console games but the new console systems means consoles should show an increase."

He continued,"Among core gamers there is a heavy overlap with most console gamers also playing on a PC. The big difference is that consoles are now the luxury item and PCs are the necessity. Just a few years ago the reverse was true. This means PCs have the broader audience."

United States security officials are concerned that Russian-based hackers could retaliate for stricter sanctions, launching cyberattacks against the U.S. government and large corporations. Whether directly from the Russian government, or splinter support groups, there will continue to be an increased urgency to defend US infrastructure from foreign attack.

"A cyberattack is a real concern that we all need to have," said Paul Smocer, head of the industry Financial Services Roundtable, in a statement to the press. "Nation states' ability to launch the cyberattacks is certainly real nowadays, and so in any conflict, I think that the possibility exists as we worry about escalation."

The political situation between Russia and Ukraine already has led to cyberattacks, with the Kremlin being attacked in retaliation for targeted attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure. Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has greatly struggled to try and recruit cybersecurity experts, while other government branches have voiced similar concerns.

AT&T revealed its plans to offer in-flight internet service in collaboration with few companies using a new air-to-ground 4G LTE technology. The company stated that it will be using its existing spectrum and plans to work with Honeywell for hardware and software solution to provide in-flight connections.

"Everyone wants access to high-speed, reliable mobile Internet wherever they are, including at 35,000 feet," said John Stankey, Chief Strategy Officer at AT&T. "We are building on AT&T's significant strengths to develop in-flight connectivity technology unlike any other that exists today, based on 4G LTE standards. We believe this will enable airlines and passengers to benefit from reliable high speeds and a better experience. We expect this service to transform connectivity in the aviation industry - we are truly mobilizing the sky."

AT&T also will be building an air-to-ground network in United States which will be based on 4G LTE standards.

Over the past seven years or so, I have been around my fair share of 3D Printers and robots, and while all of them have been extremely cool, the ones that still fascinate me the most are the delta bots. Delta bots use vertical shafts to articulate a trio of arms to position a head anywhere on a circular platform below, more efficiently than a standard linear X,Y and Z Cartesian robot. Today a new multifunction delta bot hit the internet and I just had to share it with everyone.

The ZEGO is a multifunctional delta bot that is capable of not only 3D printing, but can be used to do a wealth of other task thanks to its easy change tool-head. The ZEGO can function as a plotter that draws in pen, pencil, or marker, or even hold a pen-style hobby cutter if one felt like modifying a few things. ZEGO also offers additional tool-heads that allow for CNC wood burning, engraving and PCB milling, and even pick & place PCB population. A pledge of $549 is all it takes to get a ZEGO classic kit, but if you really want all of the tool heads, you will need to shell out $2,499.