Latest News - Page 2907

British government officials are currently debating the Intellectual Property Bill, with the Prime Minister's staff looking to crack down severely on repeat file sharers. The government wants to begin removing Internet access privileges to repeat offenders that are determined to be 'persistent offenders.' In fact, increasing the maximum penalty for copyright infringement up to 10 years is a current topic of discussion during the meeting.

"The discrepancy I mentioned is a source of great frustration," said Mike Weatherly, the Prime Minister's intellectual property MP, in a statement. "For example, the private prosecution by the Federation Against Copyright Theft of Anton Vickerman, who was making £50,000 a month from running a website (SurfTheChannel) that facilitated mass-scale copyright infringement, saw him convicted of conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to four years in prison."

A counter argument issued by Helen Goodman, UK MP, noted that it seems ignorant to distinguish between the teenager downloading music for a mobile device and organized copyright piracy groups.

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) IT contractor now living in Russia following his high-profile data leak, won't return to the United States until current laws are changed. The federal Whistleblower Protection Act isn't applicable to former government contractors, which means he could face significant legal trouble if he returns to the United States.

"Returning to the U.S., I think, is the best resolution for the government, the public, and myself, but it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistleblower protection laws," Snowden said in response to a question about getting a fair shake if he one day returns to the United States.

It seems highly unlikely Snowden will return to the U.S. unless he's offered immunity by the U.S. government, which is something the White House hasn't recently discussed publicly. It seems that the NSA and other government agencies would be able to learn from Snowden, but he won't touch U.S. soil just to face possible espionage charges.

Today ZOTAC announced the launch of its ZBOX Nano series of mini-PCs featuring Intel "Haswell" 4th Generation Core processors. The new ZBOX ID68 and ZBOX ID69 series mini-PCs feature Intel Core i5 and i7 processors with Intel Turbo Boost Technology and take palm-sized computing to new levels.

"Users that want a taste of Intel Turbo Boost technology can opt for the ZOTAC ZBOX nano ID68 series with a high-performance Intel Core i5 4200U that can turbo boost up to 2.6 GHz," Zotac said in a release. "Demanding users that require the best performance available from the compact form factor can step up to the ZOTAC ZBOX nano ID69 series with an Intel Core i7 4500U processor that turbo boosts up to 3.0 GHz."

ZOTAC ZBOX ID68 series

With many parts of the world still waiting for 4G or even 3G coverage, the South Korean government is looking forward and beginning to invest into the infrastructure needed to bring 5G to the country by 2020. South Korea will invest $1.5 billion in the infrastructure build-out and will work with local firms to accomplish the task.

5G is expected to become much faster than most of the wired broadbad service in most of the world with speeds hitting limits up to 1000 times the current fastest 4G LTE bandwidth. This means that 5G users will be able to download a 1GB file in less than two seconds, or an entire Blu-ray ISO in less than a single minute. South Korea expects the network roll out to be completed by the end of the decade, and it expects handset technology to have caught up by then.

The past few days have been quite exciting for scientist and astronomers world wide due to a very bright super nova appearing in the galaxy M82. While a super nova appearing is not a rare event, one happening in a galaxy as close as M82 is quite the rarity indeed.

M82 is just 12 million light years away making this one of the closest nova events recorded by modern science. Furthermore, this event is quite special for amateur astronomers as well as causal star gazers as the super nova is bright enough for viewing with binoculars and is quite spectacular in even the most modest amateur telescopes. The super nova is expected to brighten to about the 8th magnitude which would last for a few days.

In the image above you can see the super nova appear in the bottom image. Nothing is known about the star that exploded, but one thing is for sure... anything orbiting the star pre-nova was vaporized in the blink of an eye. With the galaxy being roughly 12 million light-years away, the star actually went super nova about 12 million years ago, and we are just now begging to see the photons emitted from the explosion. Some scientist say that with a super nova this close, we could even see neutrinos from the event making their way to Earth.

The once failing smartphone giant, BlackBerry, may have just been bailed out by US Taxpayers in a deal that will see The Pentagon purchasing more than 80,000 handsets from the Canadian manufacturer. The purchase comes as the US Department of Defense begins staging the roll out of a massive new wireless network which will primarily use BlackBerry handsets.

News of this injection of cash has been rumored for weeks and as a result, the company stock has more than doubled from its low of $5.75 per share just six weeks ago. This massive purchase from the US Government helps to further push the return to its enterprise roots that John Chen, the company's new CEO has been pushing for since taking the position late last year. No word has been released on how much the deal is worth, but you can imagine that it is in the $800 million to $1.5 billion range.

In the last few years, YouTube traffic has exploded thanks to faster internet connections and mobile device speeds increasing, and one of the biggest complaints is that YouTube seems to perform better on some ISPs than others. Today Google announced that it has released a performance report that outlines which ISPs perform better with YouTube.

At the moment, Google's video quality report only shows a series of slides that aim to educate the public on how YouTube videos are delivered to you via CDN servers, but ultimately will feature a list of ISPs and will rate them on how they perform with YouTube traffic. If viewers on a specific ISP are able to watch 90-percent of YouTube Videos at 720p resolution at consistent quality without buffering, then that ISP will be branded as "YouTube HD Certified."

"We wanted to give users a measure of performance that they can truly understand," Google's Shiva Rajaraman said in an interview. "The other side is we felt this would be beneficial for ISPs too, because now they can describe their service and the various product offerings and price points they might have to their customers in a way that they can truly understand: You can access YouTube in HD on my ISP, or not."

Today is the Catholic Church's World Communications Day, and to celebrate the occasion, Pope Francis, has released a statement that gives us a clue on the church's official stance on the interwebs. The Pope said that the internet has lead to "unprecedented advances" in technology which has made it easier than ever before to communicate with one another.

The Pope continued to praise the internet and wet as far as to announce that the web is truly a gift from God. Not all was praise however, as he did say that the internet's fad of social media isolates individuals from real interaction with their friends and family. He went on to say that the internet makes it easy for users to wall themselves within circles where their opinions are echoed back without any new ideas being injected, but he did concede that the Internet's benefits far outweigh its drawbacks.

"The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity," Francis said. "This is something truly good, a gift from God," said the pope. "The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbors, from those closest to us. We should not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind. While these drawbacks are real, they do not justify rejecting social media," he added. "Rather, they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement."

Subscription channels HBO, Showtime and Starz are fighting back against a recent NPD Group study that reported pay TV channels have dropped 6 percent of customers through the past two years.

Following the public outcry, NPD clarified its statement sand said while subscribers have declined, TV subscribers are including more channels to their subscription package.

There is fierce competition among broadcasters, cable/satellite providers, and online video content services all vying for consumer attention. Subscribers have a number of different choices when it comes to video content, with HBO, Showtime, Starz, and other broadcasters opening up Web-based streaming for paying customers.

What are Google's plans with digital currency, Bitcoin? Nothing it seems, with the Mountain View-based giant talking to The Next Web, confirming the news that it doesn't have any immediate plans to use Bitcoin.

A Google spokesperson told TNW: "As we continue to work on Google Wallet, we're grateful for a very wide range of suggestions. While we're keen to actively engage with Wallet users to help inform and shape the product, there's no change to our position: we have no current plans regarding Bitcoin".

Google was forced to come out and talk about it after a recent Reddit thread that tackled the digital currency issue, after a Reddit thread was titled "Google confirms their payments team is working to incorporate bitcoin". The user who posted the thread said he had e-mailed Google's Senior Vice President of Social, Vic Gundotra, asking him if the company was going to support Bitcoin.

LG really is at the forefront of flexible technology, with the South Korean giant launching its flexible 'G Flex' smartphone in the US later this month. LG's G Flex will launch at Sprint on January 31, featuring a curved 6-inch Plastic OLED (POLED) screen.

We talked to LG Australia's Head of Public Relations, Phillip Anderson, where we asked what LG thought about the G Flex smartphone, and why people should buy it over the $350 Nexus 5 smartphone, that LG also makes. He said:

"LG constantly strives to provide consumers with the latest and greatest technology and the G Flex is fantastic example of smartphone innovation that is designed to meet the needs of the user. LG has spent an extensive period of time developing its curved technology and from CES 2014 we have seen that the future definitely has 'curves' in it. The 'curve' provides consumer benefits such as a reduced distance between your mouth and the microphone when the device is held against the ear to deliver improved voice and sound quality. The Curved 6" Plastic OLED (POLED) screen has to be seen to be believed - it makes watching video content on LG's G Flex a very enjoyable and immersive experience. The G Flex is a step in to the future and we anticipate the early-adopter as well as intrigued consumers will be eager to get their hands on it".

Alcatel-Lucent and BT have teamed up to work on a new research project: 1.4Tbps broadband. The new technology using commercial-grade hardware, spun with a new protocol which pushes for these insane, next-gen speeds.

The new protocol has been dubbed Flexigrid, which allows multiple signals to be laid over the top of one another within the same cable. During testing, the researchers were able to layer seven 200Gbps channels, which created something they called an "Alien Super Channel", which was capable of driving 1.4Tbps across 255 miles of fiber.

The two connections were the bases of a BT research facility in Suffolk, to another BT Tower, in London. 1.4Tbps is... well, fast, very fast. How fast in real-world terms? Well, someone with this connection could stream some 64 hours of HD through Netflix, 38 hours of 4K through Netflix, or an insane 36,409 songs... all within a single second.

This just in: North Korea has landed a man on the Sun. 17-year-old Hung Il Gong started his journey at 3am this morning, travelling alone, to reach our nearest star, a journey that took him just 4 hours.

A North Korean central news anchorman said during a live broadcast: "We are very delighted to announce a successful mission to put a man on the sun. North Korea has beaten every other country in the world to the sun. Hung Il Gong is a hero and deserves a hero's welcome when he returns home later this evening".

Hung is expected back on Earth in just a few hours time, where he will be greeted by his uncle, and supreme leader: Kim Jong-un. Hung traveled in the cover of darkness, as it would protect him from the harsh, and extreme temperatures of the Sun. Hung will also be bringing back some sun spot samples for his uncle, which I'm sure he will show off to the world in a short amount of time.

Fans of Microsoft Windows now have something to look forward to in 2014 if newly leaked information is correct. A "hacker" going by the name of, WZor, says that we can expect to see Redmond release Windows 9 in October of this year, not the following April as previously expected.

WZor has been accurate in the past, and many industry insiders believe him to have insiders deep within Microsoft, if not an actual Microsoft employee himself. The new release date rumor came in the form of a Tweet which read "Win 9 released in April 2015? No! No! No! ..WIN RTM-0 RELEASED SIGN-OFF DEADLINE IN 21 OCTOBER 2014 :)" In any event, lets just hope that Microsoft returns to their senses and brings back something more similar to Windows 7 instead of the atrocity that Windows 8 is turning out to be.

When Valve first launched SteamOS late last year, many enthusiast in the community were a bit annoyed that the operating system required a fairly modern motherboard that supported UEFI BIOS. Additionally the ability to dual boot was not present as well and that too rubbed some people the wrong way.

Today Valve released an update to SteamOS Beta that now allows the operating system to run on motherboards that ate not UEFI-based and the ability to dual boot has been restored. However, Valve says that Dual Booting setup will take place in "Expert Mode," and that very little testing has been done with dual booting. So keep that in mind and back up any important files on the hard drive you will be using.

Snow blowers, lawn mowers, and kids playing stick ball are the cause of thousands of window breaks every year, but a recent incident in New York City may be one of the most expensive rock through window accidents in history. During a recent routine snow removal pass by Manhattan's posh $6.7 million Apple Store, a rock was sent flying through the air, striking one of the stores massive panes of glass.

Apple says that the store will stay open despite the damage and I don't see why not as no one appears to be in danger as the glass looks to be coated with safety coatings preventing the glass shards from collapsing. Unfortunately for Apple, the single pane of glass is going to cost a whopping $450,000 to replace, which puts it at one of the most expensive window pane replacements in history. Below are some photos that New Yorker's have posted on Twitter of the damaged store.

Just one day operating under its new name, OCZ Storage Solutions has released its first new SSD of 2014. The Vertex 460 SATA III series of SSDs is a client level SSD designed to meet the needs of consumers looking for solid state storage. The Vertex 460 is an evolved designed based off the Vertex 450, but features new Toshiba-based 19nm MLC NAND Flash as well as OCZ's in-house Barefoot 3 M10 controller.

OCZ says that the Vertex 460 will be fast out of the gate and remain so throughout its life without the use of "synthetic software-based optimization." The new SSD series offers up sequential read speeds of up to 545MB/s with sequential writes hitting 525MB/s. 95,000 4K random read IOPS, and up to 90,000 4K random write IOPS are achieved, while featuring sustained 4K random write performance up to 23,000 IOPS.

The real gem here is the use of OCZ's Barefoot 3 M10 controller which now features AES-256-bit encryption, and a power-optimized clock that is designed for the consumer market and does not compromise performance for efficiency. The Vertex 460 line is rated to deliver 20GB of host writes per day and includes a three-year warranty. Available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB, each Vertex 460 SSD includes a 3.5-inch desktop adapter, as well as a copy of Acronis True Image software to make cloning your data over quite easy.

The co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has made quite the prediction in the Gates Foundation's annual letter. Gates has said that there will be "almost no poor countries by 2035."

The Gates Foundation is expected to give away the entire Gates fortune of around $67 billion once the couple has been dead for over 20 years, has published a letter for each of the last dive years, detailing global philanthropic progress. Gates talked with Forbes Magazine's Editor, Randall Lane, where he said there will soon be a point where "you'll have to give a reason why a country is poor."

Gates wrote: "I am optimistic enough about this that I am willing to make a prediction. By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer. It will be a remarkable achievement. When I was born, most countries in the world were poor. In the next two decades, desperately poor countries will become the exception rather than the rule. Billions of people will have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The idea that this will happen within my lifetime is simply amazing to me."

You thought free-to-play games made nothing? Think again: Tencent's free-to-play first-person shooter made $950 million last year. This is quite the sum of money, considering Riot Games' League of Legends only managed $624 million.

The remaining top 10 popular free-to-play titles were from developers Nexon, Electronic Arts and Blizzard. Nexon's fantasy title, Dungeon Fighter Online, made $426 million in revenue, while World of Warcraft made $372 million. For EA, Star Wars: The Old Republic made $138 million, after the developer's decision to shift away from its subscription-based model.

Super Data Research, the company behind these numbers, noted that the digital free-to-play market grew by 45% in the US last year. With free-to-play titles making $2.9 billion total, with earnings from subscription-based titles dropping 21%, to just $1.1 billion.

During a recent Reddit AMA, Valve god Gabe Newell had something interesting to say about Steam Machines, and EA's Origin service. "We're trying to make it as open as possible," said Newell, continuing: "If EA wants to put Origin on it, that would be fine, etc... (trying to pick an example of something that people think we would prohibit)."

One of the big hurdles of Steam Machines in the market, would be to cut themselves off from the world, and not accept competitors' digital distribution or gaming services on its devices. But as we can see here, Newell is all for it - a totally open platform.

I think we're seeing the beginning of something very special here, a true living room PC. All we need are some awesome games like Half-Life 3, Team Fortress 3, Left 4 Dead 3 and more, and we'll be in gaming heaven.