Latest News - Page 2899

It's been a while since we talked about Grace Digital. The company is known for making a number of Wi-Fi streaming music players with an eye towards online radio and other content. The company is back with a new Wi-Fi music player that would be at home next to the bed. The music player is called the Encore.

The Encore is fitted with a special tweeter and woofer arrangement for clear vocals and deep bass. The Encore connects to online radio and other content via Wi-Fi network in the home or office. You can save your favorite internet radio stations to a preset for easy access. The device supports just about any internet radio station you can think of along with Pandora, SiriusXM, Rhapsody, and Live365.

The Encore has enough storage to save 100 of your favorite stations to memory. It also has seven alarms with an adjustable sleep timer and a large snooze bar. Other features include a headphone jack, RCA output, and RCA aux-input.

Harman Kardon has been around for a long time and has a reputation for making speakers and other radio gear that sounds good and looks really cool too. Harman Kardon makes the cool Nova speakers that we talked about back in November. These speakers have a cool clear case and NFC tech crammed inside.

Harman Kardon is back with a couple new products being unveiled, including a set of attractive headphones called the Soho and a wireless loudspeaker called the Esquire. The Soho headphones are Android compatible and have an inline mic and remote. That means you can control your music without taking your smartphone out of your pocket or bag and make and receive phone calls.

The Soho headphones fold flat making them only 1.25-inches thick and easy to take on the go. They are available in white, black, and brown colors for £169.99. The Esquire wireless loudspeaker is aimed at people wanting to share their music with a large group.

If you are a fan of music games, you probably played Rock Band at one time or another. This game was a competitor to Guitar Hero and added in drums and vocals on top of the guitar rhythm play. Rock Band isn't particularly popular any more.

Way back in 2010 Viacom sold off Harmonix and we haven't heard much form them in a while. Harmonix has now announced that it is working on a new video game. Like the other games that the company is known for, it will be music based.

The new game won't have instruments that let you play as Rock Band did. Oddly, the new game is described as a musical FPS title. The game is called Chroma and it is being produced in cooperation with Hidden Path. If you are familiar with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, you are familiar with Hidden Path's work.

If you are a big fan of the Google Chromecast device, it will be getting a new trick soon. The Chromecast was designed to shoot content like photos, music, and video form the Android device to your big screen in the living room. Soon the Chromecast will get the ability to mirror screen content.

That should mean that anything seen on the screen of the Android device could be seen on your big screen. That means everything from your home page to your favorite game app presumably. The ability to mirror the screen will be coming via the AllCast app.

There will be a bit of lag, as you would get with other screen mirroring solutions like Miracast. The lag isn't expected to affect the ability for users to watch videos. There are a few things that we don't know just yet about the screen mirroring experience.

Following this mornings announcement from NVIDIA, boutique PC builder, Digital Storm, has announced that it now offers all three of NVIDIA's new discrete graphics solutions in its line of custom gaming PCs. Digital Storm is offering both the GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti, as a low-cost HD gaming solution to lineup. If Ultra-HD 4k gaming is more your style, Digital Storm is also offering NVIDIA's new flagship, the GeForce GTX Titan Black, the world's fastest GPU.

"HD gaming is the new standard and Ultra HD is not far behind with 4K displays already available for $800," said Rajeev Kuruppu, Digital Storm's Director of Product Development. "This is an exciting time for gamers and we're thrilled to incorporate NVIDIA's new cards into our systems to deliver the stunning graphics and advanced gaming experience our customers demand." Digital Storm went on to highlight a few of its PCs that pair up great with these new offerings.

There are two basic ways that you can get your hands on bitcoins. You can buy them with real-world money and hope that the value goes up in the future and you can make a profit. The other way is to get your hands on some PC hardware that will allow you to mine your own bitcoins. The mining process is resource intensive and isn't fast, but you can make money if you are successful.

Back in December, we talked a bit about the BIOSTAR mainboards that the company was positioning for bitcoin mining. Another new bit of bitcoin mining hardware has now turned up from a company called CoinTerra.

CoinTerra has unveiled its "affordable" bitcoin mining card called the GSX I. I say "affordable" because the GSX I sells for $1599, which is hardly affordable in my book. Compared to other mining options that can cost many times that $1599, it is affordable though.

Bitcoin is booming right now with the virtual currency worth a significant amount of real-world money. The success of bitcoin is a bit cloudy though with some countries deeming the virtual currency illegal, such as Russia. There have also been some issues with popular bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox stopping withdrawals in some instances.

Mt. Gox has promised that withdrawals are coming back soon. While bitcoin is having some issues, the world keeps moving forwards. The US is set to get its first bitcoin ATMs soon. A company called Robocoin announced this week that it would be putting bitcoin ATMs in place in Austin, Texas, and Seattle, Washington.

The company says that the bitcoin ATMs will require the user to scan an official ID like a passport or driver's license before a transaction can be made. The ATMs will allow users to swap bitcoin for cash, deposit cash, and purchase bitcoins.

When NVIDIA first unveiled the GeForce GTX Titan to the world, it instantly became the must-have video card for every hard-core gamer and custom PC enthusiast on the planet. Fast forward to more than a year later, and the original GTX Titan is still considered a force to be reckoned with. This morning NVIDIA unveiled the new Titan Black, the successor to the original Titan, and the fastest GPU on planet earth.

NVIDIA's new Titan Black is based on its Kepler architecture and boast an impressive 2,880 CUDA cores which equates to about 200 more cores than the original Titan. Stock clock speeds have also been increased to 889MHz, and 980MHz when boosted, which is slightly higher than the original Titan. 6GB of GDDR5 is addressed over a 384-bit memory bus, and just like its older brother, the Titan black is a massive power hungry beast. With a TDP of 250-watts, the GPU requires both a 6-pin and 8-pin power connector just to get the card up and running.

Two dual-link DVI ports, one HDMI, and one Display Port 1.2 connector allow for multiple monitor connections, while several Titans can be chained together via NVIDIA's SLI connector. NVIDIA says that the Titan Black is about 10-percent faster than the original Titan and is capable of powering the most extreme games at 4K resolution and higher across multiple 4K compatible monitors. Just like its predecessor, the GeForce GTX Titan Black is expected to be priced in the $1000 USD range, and is available from OEMs such as Palit, and is also being featured at several boutique builders such as Origin, Digital Storm and Cyberpower PC.

When it came to sales numbers for the last generation of consoles, the PS3 was typically outsold by the Xbox 360. Things are looking much different for the latest generation of game consoles with the PS4 outselling the Xbox One. Not all has been perfect in the PS4 launch story though.

Some users had issues with their PS4 hardware early on and supply was so limited, they had to wait until 2014 to get replacement hardware. Sony PS4 developers are also having success with games for the PS4 console flying off the shelves with over 9.7 million games sold as of January.

Sony is taking the time to officially brag about the sales of the PS4. Sony has now sold over 5.3 million units globally. That number came in early February even though the console is not available in Japan yet. Japanese gamers have been waiting to get their hands on the console and that launch will certainly help sales.

phFor many years now, flash memory manufacturers have been working hard at shrinking USB drives down smaller and smaller, and today Team Group announced the launch of a new ultra-small compact flash drive that is truly the size of your thumb. The new C134 Compact Flash Drive measures in at just over 24mm x 12mm x 6mm in size and weighs only 3.4-grams, making it one of the smallest thumb drives on the market today.

The extremely small size of the C134 makes it ideal for use in applications where a traditional thumb drive could easily get bumped and broken off, or where a very small profile is ideal for discrete operation. The new C134 is available in capacities from 4GB up to 32GB, and is encased in an all metal, gold-anodized zinc body.

"The compact size allows it to stick closely to other lightweight mobile devices while in use, so that it will not interfere or become an obstruction when using two USB devices or when carrying or moving the device.It prevents unnecessary space wastage and avoids possible collisions due to the excessive body size. It also echoes perfectly with the design concept of Ultrabook and tablet PCs, working impeccably together," said Team Group in a statement.

It seems that Microsoft and Sony just keep exchanging blows over which console is better than the other. Today Konami released a statement confirming that its long awaited fifth installment to the famed Metal Gear Solid franchise will in fact run better on Sony's PlayStation 4 console. This is a major blow to Metal Gear Solid fans who bought the Xbox One awaiting the game.

Konami says that Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes will run at its native resolution of 1080p at 60fps on the PlayStation 4 while only running at 720p and 60fps on the Xbox One. To further pour salt on the wound, the games creator, Hideo Kojima, said that; "I think, between the home console available in the domestic market, the PS4 is the best. Since it does it a little better than other hardware, the image quality of the PS4 is the most beautiful. It's the closest to the photo-realistic quality we are aiming at." With many new games launching with native 1080p resolutions, it appears that Microsoft may be playing catch-up with the PS4 for quite some time to come.

It's been just over a year since BlackBerry first unveiled its BlackBerry 10 OS and accompanying hardware, and rumor has it that the company will be unveiling a new BB10 device aimed at the emerging markets during the 2014 Mobile World Congress. Originally known as project "Jakarta", the upcoming BlackBerry Z3 is said to be the company's budget-friendly entry-level smartphone that could combat already dirt-cheap Android smartphones.

Much like the Z10, the BlackBerry Z3 will be a touch-only smartphone with no physical buttons outside of the power and volume buttons. Additionally, the Z3's rear camera is positioned top left instead of being closer to the middle, while the entire rear will be coated in a grippy dot matrix pattern. Specs on the Z3 are rumored to include a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and an Adreno 350 graphics processor. A 720p resolution screen is likely as well as either 8GB or 16GB of RAM. No word on battery sizing has been leaked, but something in the 1300mAh range is possible, and MSRP could be as low as $150 per unit.

One of the most anticipated games of 2014 is Titanfall . We mentioned late last month that the demo for the game was coming to the PS4, Xbox One, and PC gamers giving us all a chance to check to the game before the official launch.

The game beta is available now and some gamer geeks have already set about data mining the demo code looking for hints at what goodies we can expect in the final production version of the game. Among the details that data miner dug up are the names of all 13 maps the game will offer and a bunch of power ups.

The new maps include Boneyard, Smugglers Cove, Airbase, Colony, Corporate, Lagoon, Nexus, O2, Outpost 207, Overlook, Relic, Rise, and Training Ground. We also know a few of the game modes that will come in the full version, or at least we think we know. The game modes were in the form of abbreviations in the beta code and some educated guesses were made on what those abbreviations mean.

A self replicating worm called "TheMoon" is taking advantage of an authentication vulnerability found in Linksys E-Series routers product line-up. This was discovered by SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center who immediately posted a warning when Linksys E1000 and E1200 were found to be scanning IP address ranges on ports 80 and 8080.

The worm infects these routers by exploiting an authentication bypass vulnerability on the firmware. ISC explained that the worm would first connect to port 8080 and if its necessary, it uses a '/HNAP1/' URL. This would prompt an xml formatted list of the router and the firmware details. Once the worm knows that a particular router has that vulnerability, it exploits the script in the firmware after which allows access to such routers without authentication credentials. The worm simply spreads itself and stifles the remaining bandwidth. The worm is a 2MB file and it has a list of about 670 networks from different countries.

So far, these are the Linksys E-Serious routers that are known to get affected by TheMoon worm: E4200, E3200, E3000, E2500, E2100L, E2000, E1550, E1500, E1200, E1000, and E900. Linksys did provide a solution in their knowledge on how to prevent TheMoon malware affecting their routers. Linksys Router users simply need to enable 'Filter Anonymous Internet Requests' and power-cycle their router which should clear the cache and remove the malware if the router was already infected.

While several advances have been made in traffic light technology over the years, nothing has really been done to improve the visual warning motorist get from the systems. As it sits right now, most countries use the standard three-light system for their traffic signals. Red means stop, yellow means prepare to stop / caution, and green means go, but the lights are usually six-inches in diameter and do little to catch the attention of motorist who are not focused on the road.

A concept drawing from artist, Hanyoung lee, is showing us a new way to think about how traffic lights of the future may look. Gone are the small, barely noticeable, three-light setups which have been replaced by a very modern, highly visible hologram system that is based on plasma laser beam technology. Hanyoung Lee's system uses an array of lasers to project a ten-foot tall virtual wall across the street with beams forming silhouettes of crossing pedestrians.

Hanyoung Lee says this his inspiration for this concept is based on the increasing pedestrian deaths that occur at pedestrian crosswalks every year in his home country of Korea. He says that traditional traffic lights are overshadowed by large electronic advertising signs, and the focus is lost at these intersections because the lights are less visible. His design would be impossible to miss due to its size, and wall-like appearance.

The next generation console wars are raging with the PS4 and Xbox One gathering diehard fans to each side. If you are a fan of the Metal Gear Solid franchise that likes high-resolution graphics, you probably want to get the coming title Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes on the PS4. Ground Zeroes is the prologue to the game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which is said to be much larger than Ground Zeroes.

Konami recently offered up some details on the Ground Zeroes games that will be available on game consoles. The publisher confirmed that Ground Zeroes would run natively at 1080p and 60 frames per second on the PS4.

Xbox One gamers on the other hand will be limited to a native resolution of 720p at 60 fps. Ground Zeroes will be offered on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well with each of those versions running at 720p using internal scaling. However, the older consoles will only support 30 fps frame rates.

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has just announced that it has developed a workaround for the software bug that forced it to suspend all Bitcoin withdrawal transactions last week. The fix was developed in partnership with Blockchain.info, and Mt. Gox said that it has been implemented into its system and will prevent any fraudulent use of the malleability issue that shut down the system.

Mt. Gox says that along with the implementation of the malleability fix, withdrawals will resume "soon," and that the new system will be rolled out at a moderate pace. The new system also features new daily and monthly withdrawal limits that are designed to limit adverse effects on the exchange system based on current market conditions. Mt. Gox said that it is currently re-indexing the entire Blockchain of about 32 million entries, deploying the new NTX ID system, and implementing a new Bitcoin withdrawal queue that will undergo further testing before withdrawals are reinstated.

We should know more by this Thursday when Mt. Gox is expected to make another announcement on its plans to bring withdrawal transactions back online. At the moment the lack of withdrawals is seriously hurting Bitcoin prices on Mt. Gox, with a single Bitcoin now trading at about $320. That means that Bitcoins have fallen more than $300 since withdrawals were suspended. Until things return to normal, I fully expect to see Bitcoin's fall further on the third largest Bitcoin exchange.

Reports are floating around that Apple mergers and acquisitions chief Adrian Perica has met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The thought of Apple's mergers and acquisitions head meeting with Musk seems to indicate that Apple might be considering stepping into the automotive market in a much bigger way than it has with Siri Eyes Free.

The meeting happened last spring according to a source claiming to be familiar with the meeting. It would be strange for Apple to actually step into the car market. Tesla and Apple are both known as innovative companies. Apple has some of the most successful tech products on the market like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

Tesla on the other hand has one of the best electric vehicles on the market with the Model S. Neither Tesla nor Apple has offered any official comments on the rumored meeting, which certainly is no surprise. It's unclear what Tesla might gain from Apple other than deep pockets. Apple would presumably gain another platform for its technology in the form of its own car.

The agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is currently researching the possibility of increasing storage capacity of the Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) storage drives. The A*STAR institute in Singapore conducted investigations iron-platinum (FePt) nanocrystals can be used in ultra high density magnetic drive's performance.

Zhanhong Cen who is working at the A*STAR data institute said that,"Decreasing the size of magnetic particles makes the magnetic information become thermally unstable due to an effect called super paramagnetism. FePt nanoparticles are very promising, because for these nanoparticles, super paramagnetism is suppressed at room temperature." Cen also added that his simulations showed that introducing carbon into FePt nanocomposite boosts optical performance. This also helps to maintain the drive more energy efficient when reading and writing data as it required smaller optical spot for recording data.

To those who don't know, HAMR drives work by using laser to heat the drive's surface while the recording head writes data. Seagate was the first to demo HAMR storage drives at CEATEC 2013. The storage device maker said that it would make HAMR drives with 20TB capacity as early as 2020. Later, WD also started tinkering HAMR technology further. The company said that they can increase the areal density up to 5 times compared to the currently available mechanical storage drives.

A new leak has sprung today regarding Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S5's display resolution. The next-gen smartphone was outed in a supposed screenshot of its system info screen that says the S5's screen will be of the 5.25-inch class, and will have a refresh rate of 60Hz. However, the big news is not the screen size, but rather the 1440x2560 pixel resolution the leak unveils.

This leak all but confirms that the Galaxy S5 will feature a full QHD 2K display with a pixel density of 560 pixels per inch, making it one of the sharpest screens ever featured on a smartphone. What this means for the consumer, is that unlike 720p and 1080p, you will not notice any "screen door effect" when looking at the display up close. This is because anything above 300 pixels per inch is undetectable by the human eye.

This new screen resolution from Samsung also demonstrates Android's ability to grow the smartphone marketplace and push the technology to new heights with every new generation. In just 2 generations we have went from 720p all the way up to 2K resolutions on main-stream phones, while Apple is still stuck on its Retina technology, that was first introduced on the fourth generation iPhone 4. With the seventh generation iPhone 5S still featuring the same technology, Samsung is the clear leader in display technology at the moment.