Latest News - Page 2898

We knew it was coming, but it is now official: LG has announced the G2 mini smartphone. LG's new G2 mini is the company's first ever "compact" smartphone, and will be unveiled in detail, at Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, Spain, next week.

The G2 mini features a 4.7-inch qHD IPS panel with a resolution of 960x540, comes in two SoC variants: with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm quad-core processor, or the 1.7GHz clocked NVIDIA quad-core Tegra 4i SoC. 8GB of on-board flash storage expandable through an SD card is available, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera (or 13-megapixel camera, depending on the market), and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel snapper.

A removable 2440mAh battery will be featured on the G2 mini, while Android 4.4 KitKat will serve as the OS. The new G2 mini will be LTE-capable, and will feature Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and will come in four colors (depending on the region): Titan Black, Lunar White, Red and Gold.

It's almost that time again, and this year Google is making it a little tougher to get into its I/O conference. Today Google announced that it will hold its I/O Developer Conference on June 25th and 26th, and that the conference will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Google did not really give any information on what will be shown off at the conference, but they did elaborate on how to get tickets for this year's event.

Google I/O has become so popular that its 2013 event sold completely out in about 45-minutes, so to make it fair for everyone, Google says that those wishing to attend need to submit their interest with the company and it will then randomly draw names to the lucky group that gets to attend. For those unable to attend, Google will live stream all of the keynotes and sessions on Google+ like it did last year.

WhatsApp is the largest messaging service in the world and today the biggest social network in the world took notice. Today Facebook filed a document with the SEC that confirms the massive acquisition which was valued at $16 billion in cash and stock. Facebook says that WhatsApp will remain independent from Facebook and its competing messenger app, and the acquisition is part of Facebook's ongoing plan to connect the world with each other.

Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO, said, "WhatsApp's extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide. We're excited and honored to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our product to more people around the world."

"WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected."

One of the biggest problems in Battlefield 4 is the pace at which different players rank up their weapons and unlock new ones. Each person unlocks weapons at different rates due to their skill level, time spent in each class, and even their campaign and challenge participation. EA and DICE have just released a new feature for Battlefield 4 that they hope will level the playing field for some players who are new or are falling behind.

Known as Shortcut Kits, these new packs allow players to purchase (free for premium players for a limited time) kits that fill out their Handgun, DMR, Grenade, and Shotgun kits by simply buying the pack from the in-game store. During February and the beginning of March, 4 shortcut packs will be available, and you can find out how to get yours below.

One of the things that makes the Forza franchise so popular is that the development for each version continues well after the game is introduced. That means that you get new cars and in the case of Forza Motorsport 5, you get new tracks as well.

The first track add-on for Forza Motorsport 5 has been announced. The track is one of the premier facilities in the US and is called Road America. The track is fully integrated into the Forza 5 experience. Players will get to drive the track at events in Career mode.

The player can also drive the virtual track in Career bonus events after the mini-Career series is complete. Players will also be able to play against each other on the track with availably in the Rivals Mode and multiplayer lobbies.

NEC has been making projectors for a number of years. The company makes a wide range of units that have features suited to specific uses. One of the best projectors for people looking for a big image that don't have a huge room is a short-throw unit. These projectors are able to throw big images from closer to the wall or screen than normal projectors.

NEC has added two new units to its M Series of short throw projectors. The projectors include the M332XS and the M352WS. These projectors differ in a few key areas. The M332XS has 3300 lumens of brightness while the M325WS offers 3500 lumens. The two projectors also differ in resolution with the 332XS offering XGA resolution and the 352WS offering WXGA resolution.

Both of the projectors use DLP tech and have a special ECO Mode to save power and extend the lamp life. The M332XS has a 0.6:1 throw ratio while the M352WS has a 0.48:1 ratio. The projectors also have a variable audio output to allow external speaker volume be controlled by the projector remote.

Its been a few months since I first reported on Microsoft being forced to rename SkyDrive, and just a few weeks ago we learned that the service would be transitioning to the moniker "OneDrive." The initial announcement said that it would take several weeks for the new branding to be fully implemented, and today Microsoft's cloud storage service is now officially named OneDrive.

Visiting Skydrive.com redirects you to the OneDrive site as does OneDrive.com, but the official URL is OneDrive.live.com, something that may be confusing to some non-technical customers. Microsoft has only changed the service's name and all functionality appears to have remained the same. New users who sign up receive 7GB of free storage space and an additional 500MB for each additional user they invite to the service. Additionally, users who opt into auto backing up images from their smartphone receive an additional 3GB of free storage space.

"Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to get all of your favorite stuff in one place - one place that is accessible via all of the devices you use every day, at home and at work. Because let's face it, until now, cloud storage services have been pretty hard to use, and the vast majority of us still have our stuff spread out everywhere," said Microsoft's Chris Jones. "In fact, according to a recent poll, at least 77 percent of people who are familiar with the cloud still have content stored on a device that is not backed up elsewhere. We want to change that."

If you aren't happy with the sound your TV has right out of the box, there is a wide range of solutions that will get you better sound. If you have the room and the inclination, you can go with a full surround sound system with multiple speakers.

However, some people don't want wires and speakers sitting all around the room. For this sort of person, a soundbar might be the best thing and Yamaha has a new offering that has nice features and a nice price. The sound bar is the YAS-103 and it is the follow-up to the best selling Yamaha sound bar ever called the YAS-101.

The main difference between the YAS-101 and the new 103 is that the YAS-103 has support for Bluetooth streaming and for control via a smartphone app. The YAS-103 supports Dolby Digital and DTS virtual surround sound. It also has two full range drivers, two down firing subwoofers, and a bass reflex port.

Earlier this month we reported that the update for the Xbox One that had been expected in February wouldn't land until March. Microsoft came back and changed that a bit when it made the update available last week. Many Xbox One owners installed the update straight away to get their hands on the new features it brought with it.

The update added in notable new features like a battery level indicator for the controller and the ability to access the device storage and delete things. The Xbox One update bought several other things that gamers will appreciate, but hit some with an issue no one wants.

The update has also resulted in a bug that is affecting some users. The bug manifests by presenting a black screen to the user when they power the console on. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and has offered a quick fix for the problem.

A couple days ago, we mentioned that the coming video game from Konami called Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes was going to have a higher native resolution on the PS4 than the Xbox One. Konami tipped that on the PS4 the game would have a native resolution of 1080p at 60 fps. Xbox One gamers will have to get by with 720p at 60 fps.

Konami had also announced that the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game would get by with 720p via upscaling and 30fps frame rates. If you wondered at the time what differences would be noticeable between the four versions, Konami has a new video you will like.

The new video has all four of the console versions put up side by side. It's clear from the video that the next generation consoles have much better lighting effects. Konami also notes that the PS4 and Xbox One also have larger texture maps giving extra detail. Objects on the screen in the PS4 and Xbox One version certainly look more realistic and three-dimensional.

Back in July of 2013, we first reported the rumor that Nokia was working on a product called the Treasure Tag. That rumor has now become reality with Nokia announced the Treasure Tag officially and offering up pricing and launch information. The Treasure Tag will launch in April.

Each of the tags will cost $29.90 in the US. The tags will work with Nokia smartphones and with iOS and Android devices via a third party app. Up to four Treasure Tags are supported at once allowing you to tag multiple items. Each of the Treasure Tags measures 30 x 30 x 10 mm and weighs 13g.

Treasure Tags sound an alarm if you walk away from either the smartphone used in the system or a device that you have tagged. The idea is that the alarm sound will let you know you left something behind. Both the smartphone and the tag alarm so you can find the lost item.

Lenovo India has removed three of the leading Indian e-tailers from their authorized sellers list: Snapdeal, FlipKart and Amazon India. The Chinese based PC and mobile device maker also issued a notice in their website with a message that users should check the warranty period while purchasing from such sites. Few months ago, Nikon delisted FlipKart and Snapdeal from their authorized list.

Many of these companies with its own online retail websites have started a protest against such online retail websites as their 'predatory' pricing are hurting their business and profit margins.

Lenovo India said: "It has come to our notice that some of the online stores and marketplaces are selling Lenovo products at heavily discounted prices. Our observation is that these may not be Lenovo authorized resellers and keeping our end customers' interest in mind, we have accordingly issued an advisory on our Web site."

A Reddit post in Counter-Strike: Global offensive thread caught many people's attention about Valve's Anti-cheat system. The post came with a screenshot and an explanation which claimed that VAC was collecting browser information and sending it back to Valve's servers. But Gabe Newell of Valve Software immediately made a post in Reddit to dismiss any such claims and set the record straight.

Gabe Newell explained that they do not talk about anti cheating or its counter hacking systems in the open because it creates more opportunities for cheaters to attack the system. But because of the heated discussion in Reddit, he had to make an exception.

Newell continued,"VAC checked for the presence of these cheats. If they were detected VAC then checked to see which cheat DRM server was being contacted. This second check was done by looking for a partial match to those (non-web) cheat DRM servers in the DNS cache. If found, then hashes of the matching DNS entries were sent to the VAC servers. The match was double checked on our servers and then that client was marked for a future ban. Less than a tenth of one percent of clients triggered the second check. 570 cheaters are being banned as a result."

Google is trying to stop people from making Glassholes of themselves in public with its wearable Glass device, so the Mountain View-based giant is now offering a list of "Do's" and "Dont's" of wearing Glass.

Google specifically asks Glass users: "Don't be creepy or rude (aka, a 'Glasshole')". Yes - Google even refers to "Glasshole", something I was quite shocked - but amused - to see. In the list of "Do's", Google wants you to take in the world around you, use Glass' voice commands, and Google wants you to "Ask for permission" while using Glass.

How so? Well, Google explains: "Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends (see Don'ts #4). The Glass camera function is no different from a cell phone so behave as you would with your phone and ask permission before taking photos or videos of others".

Mike Davis who is a principal research scientist in IOActive found that Belkin WeMo home automation modules have multiple vulnerabilities which could endanger homes of half million users.

According to the report, the vulnerabilities found in Belkin WeMo devices can potentially cause threats to users' house from anything as serious as opening doors to wasting electricity.

The attackers can do to following via Belkin WeMo devices:

After releasing the GeForce GTX 750, 750 Ti and GTX Titan Black video cards, NVIDIA released the GeForce 334.89 WHQL drivers. The chip maker claims that the new driver has performance optimizations of up to 19%, along with 12 new and improved 3D Vision profiles and 6 new SLI profiles.

According to the release notes, the 334.89 WHQL drivers have introduced fixes for certain games and applications, such as fixing low frame rate, frame drops and shuttering issues in Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut, losing ambient occlusion while sprinting in Half-Life 2 and providing 'Enable SLI' option in its control panel for GTX 460 in SLI. Another notable fix was for NVIDIA ShadowPlay, as the older drivers caused certain games to crash or lock up with 3-way/Quad SLI setups.

NVIDIA also pointed out certain issues with the newer WHQL drives, such as Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Warframe unable to use GPU PhysX acceleration on Maxwell GPUs with 32-bit operating systems, though NVIDIA also points out that Ubisoft will release a game patch in March for Assassin's Creed IV, whereas Digital Extreme would release a new patch very soon.

Hackers have exploited an 8 month old flaw in ASUS routers. This exploits allows the hacker to access the data stored in a storage drive that connected via the USB port of the router.

This vulnerability was found by a researcher called Kyle Lovett back in June of last year. Kyle also published an article on how this exploit works, followed by a temporary fix such as disabling FTP and AICLOUD. He pointed out in the article that more than 40,000 ASUS routers with USB ports for attaching storage drives are at potential risk.

Some users have also found a text file in their connected drives left by the hackers. The text file contained a following message educating users with exploited routers:

In a weird turn of event's, the developer behind the Bioshock franchise has abruptly closed up shop and dissolved the company. Irrational Games has been around for almost two decades, and as of today, the company is no more. It's parent company, Take Two Interactive will form a new team around Irrational Games founder, Ken Levine, which will focus on a new genera of gaming with a much smaller development team.

"While I'm deeply proud of what we've accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we've done before. To meet the challenge ahead, I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers," said Levine. "In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience."

Bioshock fans need not worry though, as Levine says that Irrational Games will release a the final DLC for Bioshock Infinite titled "Burial At Sea," but Levine will sever all ties with the Irrational team. Take Two says that those laid off from Irrational will have the opportunity to take on new opportunities within Take Two Interactive, and that Levine will aid in helping staff find jobs at other companies.

Yesterday we posted a news story about a top-secret meeting between Elon Musk and Apple executives, that sparked many rumors about Apple's possible acquisition Tesla Motors, but today a little more light has been shed on the meeting and its topic. Sources tell TweakTown that the meeting was not about an acquisition, but rather a partnership to bring a new-age battery manufacturing facility to the US.

It's no secret that Tesla has been spending millions on new battery research to ultimately invent a new battery to power its Model S and upcoming Model X vehicles, and it appears as if that research is close to paying off. Sources tell us that the recent meeting between Tesla Motors and Apple were to discuss a partnership that would build a next-generation battery manufacturing facility right here in the USA. Not much is known about the type of batteries that may be manufactured, but chances are good that it is based on Lithium technology.

With backers such as Elon Musk, and record breaking growth on the stock market, one does have to ask why Tesla would need Apple's help, and the answer is quite simple. To minimize risk... Apple has tons of cash just sitting idle in banks, and Tesla knows that they have also been looking at more efficient battery technology. When you really sit back and think about it, Apple is the perfect investor and partner for a new state-of-the-art battery manufacturing facility, and Tesla apparently wants them on board.

The United States Navy is ready to begin rolling out next-generation futuristic weapons that sound like something out of your favorite Sci-Fi movie - but will play an important role in the development of modern warfare.

The new laser system will be deployed on the USS Ponce later this year, and can be controlled by a single person. The laser will be used with a focus on defense against aerial drones, speed boats, and any type of threat to allied warships. Although it's cheaper than missiles or traditional smart bombs, and can fire continuously at targets, it won't be as effective in poor weather conditions.

In addition to the laser, Navy officials want to deploy an electromagnetic rail gun by 2016, which could one day replace regular firearms - and include the ability to launch projectiles almost seven times the speed of sound, according to military sources.