Latest News - Page 2890

In a series of news releases this week, IBM is sending a message to the market that it is serious about being a major player in cloud services. Building upon its acquisition of Softlayer last year, IBM announced that it has invested over $1B in bringing a suite of development tools to the cloud to deliver a PaaS (platform as a service). In addition to this investment, they also announced the acquisition of Cloudant, a DBaaS (batabase as a service) provider.

These new services are geared towards application developers and providing them on-demand infrastructure that can be scaled up or down as requirements change. As part of the announcement, they have launched a beta version of their DevOps in the cloud solution codenamed BlueMix. BlueMix includes services to store and manage code, a built-in Web integrated development environment, and Eclipse and Visual Studio integrations to let developers use whichever environment they prefer. The platform enables agile planning, tracking, and collaboration across team members during the development cycle. Plus, there is application deployment automation to streamline delivery. Combined, the PaaS and DBaaS enable application DevOps teams to start projects faster and complete them more efficiently.

IBM is being very proactive in changing its model to address the reality facing them. Traditionally, developers would make a change request to have resources allocated to them which in turn would drive the storage or server team to purchase more equipment from IBM. With the proliferation of cloud services, developers can now simply go grab resources on demand from any of the cloud providers; thus, speeding up their time to get the resources and reducing the need for more IBM hardware. Realizing that the model has shifted, IBM is now empowering development teams to not just get resources, but is adding value around those resources to make their solution much more compelling than run of the mill cloud service providers.

Mt.Gox was the third largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, and was also the most controversial as well. A few weeks ago the service suspended all withdrawal transactions citing a known bug in the system as the culprit, and just a week later announced that all trading and transactions would return to normal soon. Unfortunately that last statement proved to be noting more than hot air, when the service completely went down a few days ago.

Today Mt. Gox, a Japanese-based company, filed for bankruptcy protection and announced that it is more than $60 million in debt. Today in a Tokyo court, officials from the company said that it has lost more than 750,000 bitcoins stored in its system owned by customers and that 100,000 of its own were gone as well. At the current going rate for a single bitcoin ($574.79 via Coinbase.) the a coins lost value at almost $450 million for customers and more than half a billion dollars total.

In the last few days Bitcoin prices have fallen several percent due to the news of Mt. Gox failing. During the court appearance Mt. Gox founder Mark Karpelès said: "There was some weakness in the system, and the bitcoins have disappeared. I apologize for causing trouble." Unfortunately for thousands of customers, simple apologies will not return the millions they lost because Mt. Gox failed to acknowledge a bug in the system that had existed for years. Bankruptcy will save the company from debt, but there should be negligence charges filed in my opinion. To let a devistating software bug exist for that long while making hundreds of millions in revenue is simply unacceptable.

Fans of Halo have been waiting in anticipation for news on when the next game in the franchise will be available to play. We heard rumors that Halo 5 was delayed until late 2015. We have also heard rumors that Halo 2 Anniversary would be launching this year.

This week Microsoft Studios' Phil Spencer tweeted a tidbit that will make fans of Halo really look forward to E3 2014 this summer. Spencer tweeted that Halo news will be coming at E3. He also noted that 343 Industries has a great plan in place, exactly what plan he is talking about is unknown.

The tweet came in response to a gamer that tweeted at Spencer a question about what was going on with the next Halo game. It's always cool when a fan can ask a simple question and get a response from someone with Microsoft that knows. It's cool to get a response even if the response really doesn't offer any more information than wait and see.

Dish Network is one of the most popular satellite TV providers in the US. The company has a slick Hopper whole home DVR system that will shoot recorded shows out to any TV in the home. That DVR system can also be controlled using an app running on the iPad.

The app for iPad users is called Dish Explorer. Dish has announced that it has made some updates to the Dish Explorer app that users of the system will appreciate. The updates include the addition of new controls for volume and power. The ability to control TV volume and power was missed by many users of the app in its last iterations.

Along with the new controls, the app also gets new personalized program recommendations. The program recommendations are based on your previous viewing habits. The Dish Explorer app is a second screen app that gives viewers a way to integrate social networking with their viewing.

Netflix is one of the most popular subscription streaming services on the planet with a huge number of users. The company has a bunch of TV shows and movies from Hollywood and other places and it has original programs. Netflix's House of Cards is one of its most popular programs.

Netflix recently held its announced Netflix Hack Day. The company says that the Hack Day gives its engineers a creative outlet. Hack Day lets engineers start hacking on Thursday morning and work through the night. On Friday morning, they present their projects to their peers. Netflix says that it often sees good ideas from the Hack Day.

The Hack Day last week brought with it what Netflix calls "spectacular work." The projects this time out ranged from data visualizations, to product feature ideas. Netflix has offered up some videos looking at its favorite hacks that were presented last week.

MWC 2014 - Industry body GSMA named LG the Most Innovative Device Manufacturer of the Year at the Global Mobile Awards this week. LG has unveiled quite a few devices at this year's Mobile World Congress, which has pushed it into award territory.

LG unveiled the G Pro 2, G Flex, G2 mini, F70, F Series and L Series. LG's market share is under 5%, so it's great to see the South Korean device maker making waves in the market with various devices. Last year, LG's G2 smartphone beat Apple's iPhone to be named smartphone of 2013 by Stuff magazine. And with 2014 just beginning, and MWC closing up, the year is only starting for LG.

Vice President of LG, Chris Yie, said: "We are incredibly humbled that GSMA selected LG from among the many capable companies in the mobile industry to honour with this award. Innovation has been the key to LG's success. This recognition, in addition to last year's Best Smartphone of MWC 2013 award, is clear proof that our hard work and effort is paying off".

Earlier, Intel had a demo about SSDs where you can bump your controller clock speed and its NAND chips. However, the chipmaker ditched the plan of doing so as they couldn't offer full warranty support on a product where its performance can be manipulated by the users. Intel calls its 730 Series as a flagship model for digital content creation, video editing, capture and for gaming.

Intel instead introduced 730 series SSD with a 50% boost in controller speed compared to its former models. The 730 series SSD has a bump from 400 MHz to 600 MHz, and a 20% bump in NAND flash NAND's speed from 83MHz to 100 MHz.

Pre-orders of Intel 730 Series SSDs have started in several online retailers, which will be shipped on 18th March. The 240GB version costs $250 and 480GB priced for $480. We have posted a review on Intel 730 480GB SSD.

The Japanese government believes bitcoin regulation needs to be a global endeavor among U.S., European and Asian governments, which will keep it more secure from possible money laundering. Meanwhile, US Congress should look at effective manners to regulate bitcoin and other virtual currencies, said Janet Yellen, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara wants to see how Mt. Gox and other bitcoin businesses or exchanges dealt with cyberattacks, which is a major security concern.

Since the bitcoin currency is unregulated, and no regular financial institutions are involved, there is concern over transactions - and taxes. Bitcoin owner identities also are not public information, so there is a certain underground feel to the still volatile currency.

"It's not just the Ministry of Finance; many other agencies are related," said Jiro Aichi, Japanese Vice Finance Minister, speaking during a recent news conference. "As for its legal position, a currency (under Japan's jurisdiction) would be coins or notes issued by the Bank of Japan. At the very least, we can say bitcoin is not a currency."

Developers who sell their games via Steam can now set their own discount and sales on their own. Steam has confirmed that they have given the necessary tools to developers. The tool will also allow them to choose if they want to be a part of weekly Steam deal.

Doug Lombardi from Valve confirmed that the screenshot put up by a a developer with the username 'Sharkiller' was genuine. He added,"As with the addition of a 'Recently Updated' section to Steam, this is another effort to shorten the distance between developers and customers. This new Steamworks tool allows developers to configure discounts for their own products, on their own schedules. They can define custom sale periods or opt in to regularly scheduled sales. This will enable developers to better coordinate their promotions with events, announcements, or major updates they are planning for their products."

A screenshot was put up recently on imgur, where it was revealed how developers could select discounts and have their own sales for custom periods. The tool gives them complete control over the sale. The week-long sales can be set up to two months in advance, and sales created in developers can also do the same. Once they've pre-set the choices, the game offer/discounts will be made available at the specified time automatically. Valve conducts series of seasonal and weekly discounts & sales throughout the year.

A recent study from Michael Ranson, a Senior Associate with Abt Associates, has quite the claim about global warming. His study claims that global warming will lead to more violent crimes, including rape and murder.

Ranson claims that climate change will lead to an additional "1.2 million aggravated, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft in the United States". The study is called "Crime, Weather and Climate Change", and you can take a look at it here.

Ranson states that the analysis he provided is from a "30-year panel of monthly crime and weather data for 2997 US counties. I identify the effect of weather on monthly crime by using a semi-parametric bin estimator and controlling for state-by-month and county-by-year fixed effects".

Science Fiction has long imagined a world where robot sentries patrol the streets, office buildings, and college campuses, and today those fictions became reality. A company called Knightscope has unveiled a new 5-foot tall robot dubbed K5 that is loaded with sensors, cameras, and connectivity to make it the best security robot ever to roam the hallways of silicon valley.

The K5 was launched today in San Francisco, and has the ability to see, feel, hear and smell, and can issue warnings of biochemical attacks, leaks, or even notify officials of high levels of radiation. The robot uses complex algorithms to scan images it captures with its cameras to detect human threats such as a gun wielding criminal, at which point it automatically notifies authorities. K5 is also capable of scanning license plates on-the-fly to verify cars parked in parking lots belong to employees or authorized visitors.

The robot also features night vision and thermal imaging cameras, and can be used to patrol buildings, grounds, and any other location that should be free of personnel during non business hours. K5 is fully autonomous and even plugs itself back into its charging station when the need comes to recharge its batteries, much like your household Roomba does. The robot is passive though and does not have the ability to carry, aim or discharge any weapons though, so concerns about safety should be non existent.

RSA 2014 - RSA chairman Art Coviello wants increased global cooperation and governance for the security industry, especially after widespread NSA spying was revealed by Edward Snowden.

EMC-owned RSA also was accused of receiving a $10 million payment to create a backdoor into its software for use by the US government - though Coveillo also expressed anger over the accusations - and said the RSA-NSA relationship was a matter of public record.

Coviello hopes additional governance will give security experts the chance to develop next-generation platforms with less worry the tools will be used for inappropriate purposes.

HTML5 is one of the leading mobile technologies that consumers and companies should pay attention to, especially in 2015 and 2016, a new report from the Gartner research group indicates.

"HTML5 won't be a simple panacea for mobile application portability because it's fragmented and immature and therefore poses many implementation and security risks," said Nick Jones, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst, in a Gartner statement. "However, as HTML5 and its development tools mature, the popularity of the mobile Web and hybrid applications will increase. Hence, despite many challenges, HTML5 will be an essential technology for organizations delivering applications across multiple platforms."

Some developers are turning to HTML5 to get their feet wet - and create apps that are supported both on Google Android and Apple iOS. Moving forward, HTML5 development will become a growing priority for app and website designers, and there is plenty of opportunity for the technology to capture market share.

One of the hottest tower offence games of 2012-2013 is coming to the PlayStation 4. The news came from Pawel Miechowski of 11 Bit Studios, who posted the news on the official PlayStation blog. He did not give an exact date on when the title will arrive on the next-gen console from Sony, but he did go into great detail education readers who may not have played the game before, on what the game is all about.

"In Anomaly 2, the story continues right after the invasion of Earth in 2018. Our planet is controlled by the aliens, and humankind is almost extinct. Those who managed to survive are grouped in convoys. Your convoy is called Yukon," Miechowski said. "In this sequel, you're again playing as Commander, controlling him on the battlefield and supporting the units in your convoy with four special abilities which you deploy during missions."

I've spent some time in Anomaly 2 on the PC and it is an immensely addicting game, and if 11 Bit Studios can pull it off on the PS4 in similar fashion, they are sure to have a best seller on their hands. Anomaly 2 is an older game, and no word has been given on pricing, but it has been part of the Humble Bundle before, so I would not expect it to be too expensive.

Today Google announced the launch of a new feature that is designed to make publishing and searching for custom maps much easier than ever before. The all new Google Maps Gallery is a new way for Governments, non-profit organizations and businesses to easily publish and share their map data with the rest of the world from a familiar and easy to use interface.

Once published, the new custom maps can be easily viewed on Google Earth and are discoverable from all major search engines including Google, Bing and Yahoo. This brings maps from National Geographic, World Bank, and USGS instantly into the view of researchers, students, and the general public anywhere there is an internet connection.

HTC is continuing its campaign to hype up its next-generation flagship the HTC M8 before its launch next month on March 25th, and today the company has posted a new video teasing us about the next-generation of Boom Sound, the audio system featured on the HTC one. Alongside this video's launch new images have surfaced online that give us more conformation on what the new HTC One will look like.

The video does allude to the M8 as the "New HTC One" and says that the audio quality will be even better and more rich than its predecessor which featured "Beats Audio" technology. As an owner of the current HTC One, I can not imagine how they will be able to stuff any more audio quality into the new device, but I can not wait to see if it truly is any better than before. The video is the first in a new series called "HTC Technical Translations" and should see more episodes launch before the March 25th unveil.

Website, Phandroid has managed to get its hands-on some new leaked images of the HTC M8, which seem to confirm that the phone will look almost identical to the HTC One that is on retail shelves now, and that the device will in fact feature the dual camera setup we have seen in previous rumors and leaks.

Titanfall is one of the most anticipated games of 2014 and today Xbox One gamers got the big letdown everyone has been expecting since the beta took place. Instead of releasing the game in 1080p for the Xbox One, its developers say that the game will not arrive on the Xbox One in full HD but somewhere between 720p and 1080p. Titanfall on the PC is no slouch with almost 50GB of install files, so we know the high-resolution textures are there, but not being utilized on the Xbox One.

The news came from Respawn Entertainment co-founder, Vince Zampella, via Twitter where he answered a question about the game arriving on the Xbox One in full HD. A Twitter user linked to a Twitter post by @Titanfall_EN which said "Titanfall will be 1080p on Xbox One, and asked if this is true. Zampella responded with the word "no." Unfortunately this appears to be the general conscientious when it comes to AAA titles on the Xbox One.

The biggest question here is how could Microsoft continue to let the biggest upcoming titles in gaming launch on its platform in anything but 1080p? Full HD is the common resolution in household living rooms today and virtually every PC game launched in the last two years has 1080p support. It almost appears as if Microsoft wants the Xbox One to fail so it can exit from the console gaming arena entirely. A friend of mine recently commented that it "feels like Microsoft has moved the Xbox franchise onto the same release patter that it uses for Windows. Good, Decent, Crap, Good, Decent, Crap. If so, does that mean that in 10 years, we will see a full HD Xbox released when 8K resolution is beginning to be phased out?

Mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras have been one of the biggest items in the photography market space over the last two years and companies like Samsung have been leading the charge to make them smaller, more efficient, and higher quality than ever. Today we got a fresh look at what could be Samsung's next NX mirrorless camera thanks to the website NXRumors.

Specs accompanying the leaked image says that the camera will feature a 20-megapixel, 1-inch back illuminated CMOS sensor that is powered by a DRIMe 4 image processor also of Samsung origin. An ISO rage of 160-12,800 is on hand to handle all lighting situations, and video capture is set to 1080p at 30FPS. Burst speeds up to 22 frames per second are possible and shutter speed can be dialed up to 1/16000 of a second.

The rear LCD is of a 3-inch hVGA variety and is capable of flipping 180 degrees for instant selfie acquisition. The new NEX camera will be bundled with 9mm and 9-27mm lenses, but may not be backwards compatible with previous NX lenses. The entire camera measures in at just 1.37-inches thick and weighs less than a pound with lens attached. All of this information should be taken with a grain of salt though as nothing official has been announced from Samsung yet, and this is the only leak we have seen on this particular camera.

A new report from analytics firm Strategy Analytics has been published that looks at the number of Wi-Fi devices that are in use around the world today. According to the report, there are about 4 billion Wi-Fi devices in use globally.

The research firm expects that number to grow to over 7 billion devices by 2017. A more interesting statistic is that Wi-Fi capability is now embedded in 68% of all consumer electronics devices sold in the US. If you look at the number of products with Wi-Fi sold around the world, 57% of all CE devices have Wi-Fi.

The biggest product category for Wi-Fi devices is mobile phones and tablets. Strategy analytics says that 59% of all Wi-Fi enabled devices fall into the mobile phone and tablet category. The second most common category for Wi-Fi devices is in the mobile computer (notebook) category.

Two new implementations is expected to come soon that will be a boon for PC gamers. Following Mantle API, DirectX and OpenGL will start offering low-level access to provide more efficient ways of programming graphic grads. This will help to reduce the CPU overhead in Direct3D and OpenGL.

AMD implemented low-level access for Mantle API for the same reason, and it wasn't that long ago when first Mantle-based games have started rolling in. The announcements are expected to come up during Game Developer's Conference 2014, but the session of GDC has given a good deal of information.

One of the sessions has a title 'DirectX: Evolving Microsoft's graphics platform' which will be talked by Anuj Gosalia, Development manager for Windows graphics.