Latest News - Page 2870

With spring fresh in the air in the northern hemisphere, its that time for things to begin blooming once again. However, I am not talking about flowers and trees, I am talking about rumors of Apple's next-generation iPhone. A new report from RedmomdPie is suggesting that Apple will be pushing the 4.7-inch version of the iPhone 6 into mass production beginning sometime in May, but the 5.5-inch iPhone 6S will not be headed to production until later in the summer due to delays.

RedmondPie cites Reuters as the source of the info, which says that its contacts within the Asian manufacturing industry have said that Apple has began pushing out orders to its supply chain for the components that make up the iPhone 6. While I am inclined to take this news as mostly speculation, it is about time for the Cuppertino-based company to begin building up stock if it plans on launching a new phone this year, but with the iPhone 5C being such a major flop, will apple actually bring a second device to market for its sixth iteration of the iPhone? What do you think? Will we see 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone's hit the market later this year?

Today, at the WORLD HOSTING DAYS in RUST, Germany, LSI Corporation launched the Nytro MegaRAID 8140-8e8i. The new card is double the flash capacity compared to previous shipping Nytro cards and has four times the number of ports. The new design is geared towards scale-out servers and high capacity storage environments.

The launch of this card coincides with the announcement from LSI that it has surpassed the 100,000 units of Nytro cards shipped worldwide. Demand for Nytro continues to be driven by the ever growing requirements for high-performing, massively scalable datacenters. According to Tom Swinford, senior vice president and general manager, Datacenter Solutions Group, at LSI, "The Nytro MegaRAID 8140 card provides cloud and hosting companies with a single, integrated solution to simply and cost-effectively scale caching and connectivity to support their customers' growing performance and storage requirements."

The latest 8140-8e8i integrates an expander onto the card that enables scale-out server environments with connectivity for up to 236 SAS and SATA devices. In addition to this expandability, the card also contains 1.6TB of onboard flash for intelligent data caching to maximize application. Also included is the Nytro Flexible Flash feature which allows users to partition the flash as primary storage for data volumes or partition the onboard flash as a boot drive.

phLast summer it was Samsung that got caught cheating the system when it came to 3DMark benchmark scores, and it appears that HTC has now decided to follow a similar path with its new HTC One M8. 3DMark has delisted the new phone from its ranking system after research and testing was conducted by AnandTech that proved the M8 was falsely bumping performance when publicly available benchmarks were ran.

HTC was caught by a version of 3DMark that is not available to the public but otherwise identical to the public version showed results that were 15-percent lower than those ran on the detectable public version of the benchmark. This means that HTC is boosting performance when it detects 3DMark is running. This is a direct violation of Futuremark's rules and as such, it pulled all results from its 3DMark website.

HTC says that it does optimize performance when running benchmarks and that the deception is a feature as it shows the phones maximum performance. "Our engineers optimize in certain scenarios to produce the best possible performance. If someone would like to get around this benchmarking optimization there are ways to do so, but we think most often this will not be the case," said HTC. The issue is that 3DMark does not seek to discover a phones maximum performance, but rather its real-world performance. This means that the benchmark must be ran under normal everyday conditions.

A new patent filed by Apple is lending some insight into the companies future plans for its iPhone and iPad mobile devices. The patent shows that Apple has came up with a concept that would see DSLR-like interchangeable lenses attaching to a bayonet-style mount surrounding the camera. Add-on lenses for the iPad and iPhone have been around since the first iPhone launched, and now it looks like Apple wants to cash in on those accessories.

The bayonet mounting method has several advantages over some of the magnetic, and clip-on designs that are already on the market as it gives Apple a way to ensure that the lens is perfectly aligned with the iPhone's camera sensor every time. This will improve image quality, and allow Apple a licensing avenue that would force lens makers to pay Apple for the rights to create lenses to mount onto the new iPhones. In the end, I feel that this is exactly what Apple was going for, and I actually think that they will release this mount in the form of a case rather than built into the camera.

The Subaru Tribeca isn't exactly the best selling SUV that Subaru makes. When Subaru showed off its new concept car during the New York Auto Show in April called the Viziv 2, rumors surfaced that the concept car might be the next Tribeca. A new rumor going around suggests that the Tribeca name may be retired altogether.

The concept car is now said to hint at future small and larger SUVs from Subaru. The source of the rumor is said to be "close: to Subaru. This source also says that the new SUV will be close to the Tribeca in size for the larger model. No additional details were offered on the rumored smaller SUV.

Another interesting tidbit is that the new SUV is tipped to be a plug-in hybrid using a diesel engine. The engine will reportedly be a 2.0L turbo boxer diesel producing 148hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. There is no indication of how much power the electric engine will add. There is a chance that the hybrid system will be similar to what was shown in the Viziv 2 with rear motor driven symmetrical AWD. The new SUV is tipped to be coming for late 2017 availability.

In Late January, we got our hands-on the new LaCie Fuel 1TB storage device for review. We liked the Fuel a lot and gave it a 90% rating when all the tests were done. One of the things that might have bothered some about the Fuel was that 1TB of storage isn't that much space.

LaCie has announced a new version of that drive that has the same feature, but has twice the capacity. The storage capacity is now up to 2TB. The 1TB version is still available. LaCie talks about the device as if it's for the iPad only. It should work with just about any mobile device that has a version of the Seagate media app available. Devices that support that app include iOS devices, Android, and the Amazon Kindle.

The 2TB Fuel is able to stream content to up to five devices without needing an internet connection. When a Wi-Fi connection is available, the Fuel can be used as a hotspot. AirPlay is supported making it easy to shoot content to the big screen in the living room. Battery life for the device is 10-hours. The 2TB Fuel can be pre-ordered now for $249.99 in the US with shipping globally happening this month.

Wearable electronics are the hottest thing in tech right now and with things like fitness trackers, smartwatches, and head mounted displays being released every week, it was only a matter of time before the DIY community joined the party. Today, MbientLab has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for its new MetaWear development and production platform that is designed to make DIY wearables easy, cheap, and fun!

MetaWear is designed around a small ARM processor and Bluetooth LE platform that is small enough to fit in arm bands, watches, headbands and more. MbientLab has optimized Metawear for cost and shrunken the Bill of Materials, so that use can take its design and move straight into production with your finished product. The entire development board is about the same size of a US quarter and is CE and FCC certified by TCB lab in California, meaning that no additional paperwork needs to be filled out.

Additionally, MetaWear has been designed with smartphone and mobile device integration in mind. This allows the end-user, product designer, or every day maker to quickly and easily integrate custom built apps that interface with the board. MbientLab has created a custom developer friendly API that easily allows integration into iOS and Android platforms, and use smartphones and tablets to control sensors, peripheral or feed back data to the device.

A few days ago, we mentioned that some images had leaked that were supposed to be a new line of tablets from Samsung. Samsung has now made those Galaxy Tab4 tablets official. There are three different tablet models in the series, and they are all very similar.

The only real differences between the tablets are the screen size and the battery capacity. All three tablets can be had in Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and mobile broadband equipped versions. They all use a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and have screens with 1280 x 800 resolution. All three offerings also use Android 4.4 for the operating system. Rear cameras have 3MP resolution with the front camera having 1.3MP resolution.

Rounding out the feature list for the trio is Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and Glonass. The quad-core processors are paired with 16GB of internal storage and 1.5GB of RAM on all units. They also all have microSD card slot for expansion.

HP has taken a beating on its purchase of WebOS from Palm. The sell off of WebOS left many investors in the computer maker upset. They were angry enough that they filed a class action suit against HP. That suit now has a settlement offer on the table.

HP has agreed to a $57 million settlement that will be placed into an interest-earning escrow account. The money will sit there until the judge presiding over the case decides whether he feels that the deal is good enough. The suit was filed by some major investors of HP after the company talked up its major WebOS plans only to back out and sell the asset off later.

The plaintiffs are a number of institutional investors that are angry about what HP said publicly and planned privately to do. The suit that was filed lists information given from unnamed HP employees that claims while HP was saying it would flood the market with WebOS devices; it didn't plan to launch the first devices using the OS until 2013.

If you are a fan of The Walking Dead or other zombie movies and shows, you probably have wondered how you would fare in a zombie apocalypse. I know I would not want to be in a major city in the event of a zombie outbreak, too many people to be turned. I'd certainly rather be in a rural area.

A site has taken a bunch of statistics on gun owners and fitness along with data gleaned from Facebook and cobbled together a list of the states most likely and least likely to survive the zombie apocalypse. The list is entertaining if you like zombie shows, but ultimately the research is a bit weak.

The publisher of the list doesn't even give us a key so we know what the points mean. It appears the less points in a category, the better. I also take issue with Texas being labeled as not surviving the zombie hoard. We may not have as many paintball or laser tag places as some states, but there are three gun ranges within a 15-minute drive of me in a city of 100,000 people. I think a gun range and a real weapon is the best training. The best state to be in according to this list if the zombies come is Alaska with the worst being New Jersey.

Mozilla's new CEO has come under a lot of fire lately because of his negative stance on gay marriage. In fact three of Mozilla's board members resigned over his appointment to the CEO position. Today the entire company is catching more flack due to Brendan Eich's anti-gay politics, with OkCupid notifying every Firefox user of his stance on gay rights and urging them to use another browser that is headed up by a more equal rights friendly CEO.

OkCupid is not outright banning Firefox users from accessing its site though, and has a small link at the bottom of the letter that lets users pass through to the full site. Mozilla takes issue with the new CEO over a $1000 donation he made to support proposition 8, the bill that would have banned gay marriage in California. OkCupid says that if gay marriage were banned world-wide more than 8-percent of the relationships it has created would be illegal.

Eich has released a statement on the matter saying, "I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla...I am committed to ensuring that Mozilla is, and will remain, a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion." and so has Mitchell Baker, chairwoman of Mozilla. "Acting for or on behalf of Mozilla, it is unacceptable to limit opportunity for *anyone* based on the nature of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This is not only a commitment, it is our identity"... "Speaking as the Chairwoman, I want to speak clearly on behalf of both the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation: Mozilla supports equality for all, explicitly including LGBT equality and marriage equality."

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS!

This morning Tesla Motors announced it is teaming up with Apple to design and release a special edition of Tesla's Model S electric vehicle that matches perfectly, the colored anodized finish of Apple's iPhone 5S smartphone models. This news puts an end to months of speculation surrounding a secret, behind-the-scenes meeting between Elon Musk, Tim Cook and Apple & Tesla executives.

"This partnership signifies both Apple and Tesla Motor's commitment to releasing products that its users demand as well as continuing the cutting edge design that both companies are known for," Tesla said in a statement. "Apple's expertise and assistance with anodizing has been paramount to getting this project off the ground. In late 2014, the first iPhone Gold, Silver, and Space Gray Model S vehicles will roll off the line, thanks to Apple's amazing commitment."

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets connected to the Internet open the door to home automation services, according to the Home Automation Study from The NPD Group.

The study found that 88 percent of mobile device users are familiar with current home automation devices, a full 10 percent higher than regular consumers. Furthermore, four-out-of five own a smartphone, tablet or some type of mobile device - and because of this, home automation adoption could continue to grow.

"Mobile connectivity has enabled products from programmable thermostats to home security systems, to be controlled remotely, thus increasing their appeal and utility," said Ben Arnold, The NPD Group industry executive director, in a statement. "Another key part to this growing industry is the app ecosystem which allows consumers to use one device to monitor and control multiple products."

Less than one week after two banks hit Target and credit card security service company Trustwave with a class-action lawsuit, the banks have pulled the lawsuit.

It seems Trustwave was inaccurately noted as a Target IT security contractor, which doesn't appear true - interestingly, the class-action lawsuit aims to try and expand responsibility of the data breach away from just Target.

"Contrary to the misstated allegations in the plaintiffs' complaints, Target did not outsource its data security or IT obligations to Trustwave," said Robert McCullen, Trustwave CEO, in a public statement. "Trustwave did not monitor Target's network, nor did Trustwave process cardholder data for Target."

It's been more than a year in the making, but Alessandro Ranellucci has finally released Slic3r 1.0 to the masses. For those not in the know, Slic3r is the default-slicing program that most 3D Printing enthusiast, such as myself, use to slice the 3D models we wish to print into manageable layers. Slicer also handles the hard-work of plotting the tool-path head, injecting control coding, and spitting it all out into machine-readable GCode. While there are other slicing programs out there, Slic3r is by far the most popular and feature rich.

Today Slic3r 1.0 stable has been released and it brings with it, a myriad of new features as well as support for a host of new printers and tool-heads. As always, Slic3r 1.0 is fully open source, and free to download, modify and distribute as you see fit, making it fully Libre / Open Source compliant. A lot has changed in Slicer 1.0 so I fully recommend that you read the user manual before jumping straight into use.

Slic3r 1.0 boast the following new features as well as many more.

It's been a few months since Google first released Android 4.4, and the updated mobile operating system is now on many of the current handset models out. As with any new major release, a handful of bugs have been discovered, and it appears that Google is aiming to fix them with the next update to the software.

Android 4.4.3 has been rumored to be headed to release for a few weeks now, and it appears that Google is closer to its unveiling that previously thought. AndroidPolice has discovered the unofficial changelog of the 4..4.3 build, and based on what it shows, the build will mainly be a bug-fixer. This is nothing new for Google, as it likes to keep the major changes and new features tucked away for major release updates. AndroidPolice has also posted a screenshot of 4.4.3 running on a Nexus 5, which could mean that the update is coming down the pipes quite soon.

Today Sandisk announced the addition of four new Enterprise-grade SATA SSDs to its CloudSpeed Serial ATA line of solid state drives. The CloudSpeed Extreme, CloudSpeed Ultra, CloudSpeed Ascend and CloudSpeed Eco Solid State Drives have been designed to deliver the best business-critical performance possible in mixed-use enterprise applications often found in today's business world.

"Organizations in every industry are turning to SSDs to meet the challenges faced by growing volumes of data," said John Scaramuzzo, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at Sandisk. "However, finding a solution that meets the performance and cost needs of your individual environment can be difficult. The CloudSpeed SATA SSD product family was designed to meet the needs of applications across the read-write spectrum, meaning organizations and server designers no longer need to make tradeoffs between system performance and cost."

The new CloudSpeed drives utilize Sandisk's flash management Guardian Technology Platform to become the first SSD vendor to ship a drive capable of ten full writes per day that has been built on a 19nm scale. This technology also helps the drives to offer the best value in long-term operation. Sandisk says that 90-percent of the world's data has been generated in the last two years, and that this rapid growth has "catapulted" the industry into the so-called "big-data era," and it will take new technologies like CloudSpeed to keep up with the demand of this boom.

When John Carmack left the walls of id Software for Oculus VR, we knew good things were about to happen, and it was a time when the thought of the world's largest social network acquiring a virtual reality start up were far, far from your mind. Carmack, the Chief Technology Officer of Oculus VR, has finally weighed in on Facebook acquiring the company he just joined.

"Titans" is a term Carmack used to talk about Facebook and Oculus VR, where he said: "The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is inevitable, and the real question is how deeply to partner with, and who. Honestly, I wasn't expecting Facebook (or this soon). I wasn't personally involved in any of the negotiations - I spent an afternoon talking technology with [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, and the next week I find out that he bought Oculus".

People have concerns, thinking that Facebook will be the end of Oculus VR - something that I'm going to write about in a few days when I get home - but Carmack has said: "There is a case to be made for being like Valve, and trying to build a new VR ecosystem from the ground up. This is probably what most of the passionate fans wanted to see. The difference is that, for years, the industry thought Valve was nuts, and they had the field to themselves. Valve deserves all their success for having the vision and perseverance to see it through to the current state".

Samsung has announced several new displays that will be launching in the coming weeks. The most interesting of them is the 28-inch UD590 display. This monitor supports UHD resolution with a native resolution of 3840 x 2160.

One of the coolest parts about that display is that it is affordable even though it has UHD capability. The UD590 will sell for $699.99. For the money, you get a screen with good viewing angles and a brightness rating of 370 cd/m2 and support for 2 billion colors.

It features dual HDMI ports and a single DisplayPort. Response time for the panel is 1Ms GTG and it has a stand that can be tilted for a comfortable angle. Samsung also has a number of other new displays coming that support full HD resolution ranging in price from $249.99 to $329.99. The UD590 can be pre-ordered now and it's unclear when it will ship.

You can bet that if your average action sports junkie is doing something crazy, they will have at least one camera in tow. You can also bet that most of the time the video of said crazy stunt will end up on YouTube. A kayaker named Dane Jackson took his kayak and a GoPro camera along with some friends to a waterfall in Veracruz, Mexico.

The team of people had to climb a cliff and drag the kayak up the cliff to perform the stunt. The drop from the river up top to the river below the falls is 60-feet. With the GoPro on, Jackson paddled off the edge and plummeted to the water below.

One of the coolest things about the video to me is that he stays on the water after dropping over the edge for a while and controls the kayak with the paddle as he falls down. At the end of the video, it appears that he ends up under the water briefly, but it's hard to tell if he is just swamped with water from the falls after hitting the lower river surface. With a fall from that height, I could certainly see the kayak going under for a bit.