Latest News - Page 2893

While the general conscious is that the Galaxy S5 is nothing to get terribly excited about, the phone does bring a few new features to the market and it can now lay claim to being the fastest gaming smartphone in the world. Today Rightware announced that the Samsung Galaxy S5 scored high enough in its Basemark X benchmark to claim the number one spot on its fastest smartphones list.

Featuring a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked to 2.5GHz and an Adreno 330 GPU, the Galaxy S5 was able to obtain a Basemark X score of 23501.52 which is 1155.36 points higher than its closest competitor the ASUS Padfone Infinity 2 which runs the Qualcomm MSM8974, a quad-core processor clocked to 2.1GHz. The Galaxy S5 also beat out the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, and both variants of the Xperia Z1.

To download basemark X for your device visit the source links below.

Dean Hall, the creator of DayZ, is planning to step down as the lead designer of the game. He has explained his desire to leave Bohemia Interactive, something he will do before the end of the year, after which he will set up a new studio in New Zealand.

Hall said: "I have a specific use. I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life. Like you say, maybe I've got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it. Eventually, that's the bad person to have. Eventually, you don't want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I'll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role".

The DayZ creator said that he had no plans to be around this year, but claimed "it would be stupid not to, and it would be unfair to the community". Don't fret though, as Hall will "always be involved" with DayZ, in either a leader or creative role. Hall said that DayZ is a "fundamentally flawed" concept, and that it is "not the perfect game, it's not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, [with] the absolute spark that I want in it".

One of the things that bummed out some Xbox One gamers at launch was the fact that the Twitch live broadcasting service for games wasn't available. All the Xbox One gamer could do was record and upload videos. Gamers on the PS4 console were able to stream their live games.

The good news is that Twitch live game streaming will be coming to the Xbox One game console next month. The feature will come along with an update to the console in March. The update will bring with it in addition to live streaming of games the ability to start game broadcasts using your voice, the ability to archive game clips, and the ability to watch Twitch streams broadcast from any device.

That means you can watch PS4 game streams on your Xbox One. Right now, the Xbox One user can only spectate on streams or record game clips using the Upload app. Players will also be able to broadcast from their living room using the Kinect camera. The update should land on March 11 along with Titanfall.

San Diego based Astute Networks released an update to their ViSX family of performance storage appliances, the ViSX G4 OS version 5. This latest release is an all solid state flash performance appliance that Astute claims is the industry's lowest cost-per-GB with the highest IOPS per dollar solution in the market. It is available in capacities up to 45.6TB in a 2U platform, with add-on flash modules available in sizes up to 1900GB.

Astute adds to their iSCSI offering the additional support for NFS (v2, v3, and v4). Designed for both virtual and physical infrastructure, ViSX is compatible with 1GbE or 10GbE infrastructure and does not require a forklift install. According to Deni Connor, founder and senior analyst, SSG-NOW. "Astute's Networked Flash appliance removes all storage and network I/O constraints to dramatically accelerate virtual machine and application performance - while co-existing with an organizations existing infrastructure."

The Astute Network appliances aim to speed performance for intense enterprise application workloads. Astute claims 5 to 10 times performance boost for enterprise applications such as VDI, SQL Server, MySQl, Oracle, and Sharepoint. With their latest release of ViSX, they also provide solutions for cloud service providers with support for OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds.

Samsung and PayPal have announced that they have teamed up to allow users of the Samsung Galaxy S5 announced this week to make more use of that fingerprint scanner the smartphone offers. PayPal will allow the S5 user to use the fingerprint scanner to login and shop at any merchant that takes PayPal.

That includes online and in-stores that accept PayPal. The use of the fingerprint scanner means that the user won't need to memorize a password or login info for multiple websites. PayPal says that is provides a secure wallet in the sky and no personal details are stored on the device.

The S5 has FIDO Ready software that can communicate securely between the fingerprint sensor on the device and the PayPal service in the cloud. The only information shared between the device and PayPal is a unique encrypted key that verifies the user's identity. The fingerprint authentication service will launch on the Galaxy S5 in April and will be offered in 26 markets.

There are alls sorts of gadgets and accessories that go along with the iPhone and iPad. You can find an accessory for just about anything you might need. If you are one of the many who have hearing loss, you can even get a made for iPhone hearing aid now.

That hearing aid is the ReSound LiNX and it is now available to purchase. It is also offered as the Beltone First with the same exact features. The LiNX uses an app that runs on the iPhone or iPad and allows the user direct control lover the hearing aid and its settings.

Users can control the treble and bass settings as well as the volume from that app. One of the coolest features is that the app supports geotagging. With geotagging, you can choose settings that are specific to certain locations and they will change automatically when you get to that location.

Cybercriminals enjoy using mobile malware to create vulnerabilities, with around 100,000 new malicious programs introduced in 2013 - more than double the 40,059 samples that went live in 2012.

Russia (40%), India (8%), Vietnam (4%), Ukraine (4%) and the United Kingdom (3%) led the list with users under attack the most, and the majority of mobile malware threats are aimed towards stealing money. Banks and mobile customers are under fire and need to be vigilant, ensuring some type of anti-malware solution is being used to better protect smartphones and tablets.

"Today, the majority of banking Trojan attacks target users in Russia and the CIS, said Victor Chebyshev, Kaspersky Lab Virus Analyst, in a press statement. "However, that is unlikely to last for long: given cybercriminals' keen interest in consumer bank accounts, the activity of mobile banking Trojans is expected to grow in other countries in 2014. We already know of Perkel, an Android Trojan that attacks clients of several European banks, as well as the Korean malicious program Wroba."

A gigantic 400kg meteor smashed into the Moon on September 11 last year, hitting the lunar surface at 37,900 mph. The meteor itself was ten times larger than the previously recorded hit, which left a 131-foot-wide crater.

Jose Madiedo of the MIDAS project said he "couldn't imagine" such a collision before seeing it himself on the day, where he added: "This is the largest, brightest impact we have ever observed on the Moon". Scientists at MIDAS had been studying lunar collisions since 2009, said that the crash was quite explosive, releasing the equivalent energy of 15 tons of TNT.

The meteor hit the dark side of the Moon, which is unfortunate as the blast was big enough that it would've been visible with the naked eye here on Earth. Madiedo said: "Usually lunar impacts have a very short duration - just a fraction of a second. But the impact we detected lasted over eight seconds. It was almost as bright as the Pole Star, which makes it the brightest impact event that we have recorded from Earth".

RSA 2014 - PC and server maker Hewlett-Packard and security solutions company Trend Micro have teamed up to introduce new software to defend against targeted attacks. The new effort combines Trend Micro's Deep Discovery with HP's TippingPoint, with the new solution aimed at effectively detecting, reporting, and blocking data breaches.

HP relies on software and vendor products to help keep its PCs, servers, and other products protected - and creating custom partnerships will allow for a great opportunity to keep products more secure.

"Cyber criminals are going well beyond traditional malware and conventional attack vectors, and enterprise need protection that keeps pace and adapts faster than the adversaries," said Rob Greer, HP TippingPoint Enterprise Security Products, in a statement. "Collaborating with pioneering security companies like Trend Micro supports our mission to deliver the most comprehensive solutions on the market to block and remediate advanced threats."

Nikon has just unveiled its new flagship DSLR camera, the new D4S. Nikon's D4S still features the same 16.2-megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor, as well as the 51-point autofocus system and RGB 3D metering system.

We still have the 3.2-inch display on the back, 100% view optical viewfinder, and compatibility with the existing FX and DX lenses. Nikon has said that the 16.2-megapixel sensor is now capable of up to 409,600 ISO, an extra stop beyond the 204,800 capable on the previous D4. The company says that on top of the new group autofocus mode, the D4S is better at keeping focus on an object that is being tracked.

Nikon has installed an Expeed 4 image processor inside the D4S, something the company results in 30% more processing power than its predecessor. This means we have an extra frame of shooting available versus the D4's 10fps, up to 11fps. RAW shooters can now use newer, smaller RAW SIZE S files, which are half the size of traditional RAW files.

Mt. Gox has just gone offline, with a joint statement released from several organizations from the Bitcoin community distancing themselves from the site. Not only is the site gone, but exchange's entire Twitter feed seems to have been wiped.

A spokesperson for the group told Recode: "Mt. Gox has confirmed it will file bankruptcy in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community". The Verge reached out to Mt. Gox, but the exchange didn't respond. Then there's an unverified document that tells the world that Mt. Gox's "crisis strategy" alleges that the exchange lost some 744,00 Bitcoins in a theft that goes back quite a few years.

The theft is said to have been enabled by the malleability bug that caused the exchange to stop all withdrawals earlier in the month. The join statement reads: "This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company's actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry. There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in Bitcoin. These companies will continue to build the future of money by making Bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants. As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today".

Santa Clara-based PureWave is working with Artemis Networks, which is company behind the impressive pCell Technology that we reported on a few days back now. The two companies are working together on the design and development of base stations for Artemis' pCell technology.

Artemis Networks chose PureWave to supply pWave radios for its upcoming trial deployments, with the test involving the companies using various bands and power levels to wireless carriers who will be using pCell. Dan Picker, PureWave Networks' CEO, said: "PureWave is excited to have partnered with Artemis Networks in helping to realize this promising new pCell technology. It has long been clear to industry veterans that a completely new approach is required to keep up with the exponentially increasing mobile broadband capacity demands of today's users".

He continued: "PureWave has focused on Smart-Antenna and Small Cell Base Station technologies to improve the efficiency in which valuable spectral resources are consumed. For this reason, we quickly understood the potential of pCell technology, since it effectively exploits a combination of these techniques. We also knew that our latest generation base station platform would be the perfect complement to realizing the technology in a real-world setting".

Stephen Elop, the ex-Nokia CEO, has taken control of Microsoft's Devices and Studios division, which includes a bunch of Microsoft's most important lines of products. This includes Xbox, Surface and the company's game and entertainment studios.

Don Mattick left the post last year for Zynga, where Julie Larson-Green took over. Larson-Green is moving on to another role, leading the "My Life & Work" time in Microsoft's Application and Services Group, where she will serve as its Chief Experience Officer. Larson Green wrote in an internal memo: "I want to thank each and every one of you for welcoming me and supporting me as the leader of Devices & Studios over the past 7 months. I'm very proud of what we have accomplished during such a short timeframe. We launched Xbox One, Surface 2 & Pro 2, blockbuster games like Forza and Ryse, a brand new Xbox Music and Video service, PPI, and some amazing unannounced innovations just to name a few...".

There were rumors that the ex-Nokia CEO would take over as the CEO of Microsoft, but does this position suit him more? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

To help companies trying to embrace the "bring your own device" craze, Dell has launched its SonicWall mobile security platform for managed and unmanaged tablets and smartphones.

Dell included SonicWall Mobile Connect 3.0 and SonicWall secure remote access (SRA) 7.5 with its latest software update, giving administrators new abilities to ensure their networks are as secure as possible.

"In today's mobile workplace, it is vitally important to enable remote and mobile employees to maintain their productivity without compromising network security," said Patrick Sweeney, Dell Security Products Director of Product Management, in a press statement. "The co-mingling of business and personal applications and data on mobile devise presents an even greater challenge to IT when it comes to providing users with mobile access to everything they need to do their jobs, but still protecting corporate data - in-flight, at rest on the device, and on the network - from the multitude of threats posed by mobile devices."

For quite some time now, scientist have known that the earth is over 4 billion years old, but just how old exactly has been a mystery with little evidence to back up claims and theories. Today scientist announced that the oldest fragment of the Earth that has ever been found has been discovered in the Jack Hills mountain range in Western Australia.

The Gem is a fragment of Zircon that formed just 100 million years after the meteor impact that caused part of the earth to be ejected into space and formed the moon. This means that the zircon fragment pictured above is a mere 4.375 billion years old, making it the oldest piece of the earth ever uncovered. The age conformation came from the University of Wisconsin, Madison where John Valley and other researchers used atom-probe technology to count the individual lead atoms within the sample. This method allows scientist to accurately date geological samples with absolute confidence in the results.

Previously, a method involving counting lead isotopes was used to date the samples, but proved to be inaccurate as lead can migrate from part of the crystal to another over hundreds of millions of years causing the originating source to have an apparent older age than it actually is. The new atom-probe method is much more accurate and researchers say that it proves the chemical records inside these zircons are trustworthy.

Today Seagate announced the launch of its seventh-generation hard drive line specifically designed for use in video surveillance data storage systems. The newly refreshed surveillance HDD is a 3.5-inch drive available in capacities up to 4TB, leading up to a video capacity of 480 hours of full high-definition video content.

The new Surveillance HDD has been designed to support surveillance applications from up top 32 channels at any required resolution, and is the preferred flexible solution in applications where scalability is at the forefront of planning. The drive also features a new time-to-read system that allows installers to custom tailor the drives power settings to better support motion-activated cameras which ensures that not even a single frame is missed when it matters the most. Seagate says that the Surveillance HDD has a 1 million hour MTBF, meaning that on average each drive can be kept in the field longer which equates to a longer service life and increased savings for customers.

"There is a growing need to analyze and make use of large amounts of video data, including applications where cities can predict and improve traffic flows, airports can reduce wait times, and emergency responders can react faster- the possibilities are endless," said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. "We pioneered this market more than a decade ago, delivering the world's first surveillance HDD, and can leverage our vast knowledge of this technology and market to provide our customers with the optimal solution for recording and accessing surveillance data."

MWC 2014 - The quest for a $25 smartphone has been at the forefront of Mozilla and Canonnical's minds for sometime and now it appears that those dreams just might be coming true for Mozilla. Today Mozilla and Spreadtrum announced that they have teamed up to create a few turnkey FireFox OS powered reference design smartphones based on Spreadtrum's entry-level smartphone chipset.

Spreadtrum and Mozilla have completed several devices running Firefox OS and Spreadtrum's WCDMA and EDGE chip-sets, reference designs that will allow OEMs to bring the first $25 smartphones to market. "Spreadtrum's turnkey reference design brings together this highly cost-effective chipset platform with the intuitive, easy-to-use experience and Web/HTML5 application ecosystem of Firefox OS," said the company in a release. "Firefox OS smartphones are the first devices powered completely by Web technologies to deliver the performance, personalization and price users want in a smartphone with a beautiful, intuitive and easy-to-use experience that is unmatched by other phones."

"The combination of Firefox OS with Spreadtrum's entry-level smartphone platforms has the potential to dramatically extend the reach of smartphones and the Web globally," said Dr. Li Gong, Mozilla Senior Vice President of Mobile Devices and President of Asia Operations. "Firefox OS delivers a customized, fun and intuitive experience for first-time smartphone buyers and our collaboration with Spreadtrum enables the industry to offer customers an extremely affordable way to get a smartphone and connect with Web apps."

Today WhatsApp announced a new upcoming feature that most likely played a major role in Facebook's recent acquisition of the company. WhatsApp says that later this year it will be adding voice calling services to the popular text messaging app, a move that will undoubtedly send it rocketing even further past its competition. The new Voice calling feature will arrive on Android and iOS first, with Windows Phone and BlackBerry receiving the new features later down the road.

WhatsApp says that the new voice calling feature will be free initially, but could charge for the service in the future, much like the way its messaging service is free for the first year and then requires a $0.99 per year subscription fee. If the company can keep the new voice calling service in the same $0.99 to $2.99 per year range, I can see almost everyone subscribing at the new rate, which in turn would equate to massive revenue growth for Facebook and WhatsApp.

Additionally, WhatsApp's founder issued an official apology for the downtime the service recently suffered. Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO said that the outage was the app's longest ever, lasting about four hours. As someone who uses WhatsApp almost exclusively for all of his text messaging, the outage was an annoyance, but as a techie myself, I know that these things happen. I do find it refreshing to see a CEO apologize about the outage, something not many other leaders of tech companies do when their services go down.

Hewlett-Packard wants to push the boundaries of cyber threat collaboration, hoping to bring organizations together in an effort to share threat intelligence.

In 2013 alone, companies across the world spent an estimated $46 billion to counter cyberthreats - but the number of attacks actually increased 20 percent - and HP hopes to reduce the number of attacks.

"Collaboration is fueling unprecedented innovation in the criminal marketplace, enabling the ecosystem of adversaries to stay ahead of our defenses," said Art Gilliland, HP Enterprise Security Products SVP, in a press statement. "Crow-sourced threat intelligence from our vast community of customers, partners and researchers is essential in this battle against cyercrime; we need to stop chasing silver bullet technologies and start sharing actionable intelligence through our solutions, expertise and best practices if we are going to compete and win."

Today Elon Musk unveiled the new landing leg attachments that have been fitted to Space X's Falcon 9 rocket. The legs are intended to make recovery of the rocket's lift stages easier and more efficient. Currently Space X glides the first stage of the rocket into the Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles from the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida. As you would expect, this form of recovery is expensive, and time consuming.

With the addition of the new landing legs, Space X hopes to eventually fly the rocket's first stage back to a landing site near the launch pad, and have it land itself vertically, making recovery and reuse much easier and far cheaper than current methods. The new landing legs are built out of a carbon fiber outer skin with a honeycomb inner layer comprised from high-alloy aluminum. The legs are planned to play on the Falcon 9's mission to the International Space Station on March 16th, but the first stage will be guided to the Atlantic for this first flight as Space X needs to test how the legs handle take off before attempting a vertical landing.

This will be Space X's second attempted Atlantic Ocean recovery of the Falcon 9 first stage, and the company says that "Given all the things that would have to go right, the probability of recovering the first stage is low," SpaceX spokesperson Emily Shanklin wrote in an email to website SpaceFlightNow. "There was maybe a 10 percent chance of recovery on the first flight of v1.1; this time there's maybe a 30 percent to 40 percent chance. Given that, it probably won't work, but we are getting closer."