Latest News - Page 2914

Intel's upcoming 14nm Xeon Phi, or Knights Landing CPU, will reportedly feature an insane amount of technology compared to what we see now in the Xeon range. The new Knights Landing CPU will see Intel increase the performance, throughput, and total TFLOP count with the next generation MIC (Many Integrated Core) card.

Intel's Knights Landing will be based on the company's Silvermont CPU architecture, which we see in the Bay Trail mobile products. Knights Landing on the otherhand, will support 512-bit AVX operations, and a new mesh interconnect architecture which will see 72 cores to ship on each PCB.

The new CPU with 72 cores on-board will also see 16GB of on-package eDRAM, and six DDR4 memory controllers which will be capable of seeing over 384GB of DDR4 memory. Then we have the rumor that Intel could abandon PCI-Express 3.0 because of its latency issues, and shift over to QPI which will ship with the Skylake-EX chipset.

Just months ago the US government was shut down, with hundreds of thousands of jobs in the air, millions of US citizens affected, but that's nothing when it comes to the blank cheques it signs to the National Security Agency for "research".

The US spy agency is reportedly working on a quantum computer that would break through any encryption thanks to its pure, insane amount of processing power. Edward Snowden is behind the leaks - come on, you're not surprised now, are you - revealing a program that is worth some $79.7 million, dubbed "Penetrating Hard Targets".

The Washington Post is reporting the news, stating that the majority of the research is being done at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Physical Sciences.

CES 2014 - Today Lenovo unveiled its newest addition to its already impressive smartphone lineup. The all new Vibe Z is Lenovo's first LTE-based smartphone and includes features such as gesture controls, photo enhancement software as well as other exciting technology.

The Vibe Z measures in at just 7.9mm thick and features a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 IPS display. A quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor is on-board and has been clocked to 2.2GHz, while 2GB of RAM keeps everything running nice and smooth. 16GB of on-board storage is present, and Android 4.3 is the Vibe Z's operating system of choice. Most importantly, the Vibe Z is Lenovo's first foray into LTE, with the device being capable of super-fast data upload at up to 50 Mb/s and downloading at up to 150 Mb/s to satisfy the most data hungry of individuals. The Vibe Z operates on GSM/UMTS networks up to 2100 and also comes with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

"We created the new Vibe Z with its elegant design, high performance and custom software so that people can truly have the best smartphone experience now at the speed of LTE," said Liu Jun, senior vice president, Lenovo Business Group, Lenovo. "Along with the Vibe Z, our new S and A Series smartphones offer consumers choices of screen size and features so they can pick the Lenovo smartphone that's right for them."

Mach Xtreme Technology has just unveiled what is arguably the smallest SATA-interface SSD on the consumer market today. The new DIY SATA 2 Series SSDs are barely larger than a postage stamp, and is designed to serve as a boot drive for your operating system of choice.

Mach Extreme says that the new DIY series uses the latest storage technology for extreme performance while offering hardware-modding enthusiast a fast, yet flexible storage solution that is 10 times smaller and lighter than a standard 2.5-inch SSD. Read speeds are said to be in the 220MB/s range while writes are performed at 80MB/s. Mach Xtreme manufacturers the DIY Series in both vertical and horizontal configurations, and packs them with storage capacities of 8GB up to 64GB.

For many PC enthusiasts, there has been a time when the thought of having your PC in your desk would be a great idea. For looks, style, or even for space restriction if you lived in an apartment or unit.

Well, Lian Li is now showing off its new DK01, a desk chassis prototype which looks simply stunning. It features a beautiful glass cover and monitor mount, which the company plans to include in the final DK01 model. It has some rubber feet on the bottom which should stop it from moving around, enough 3.5-inch HDD spots to cater to any storage troll, four front USB 3.0 ports, and enough room inside for some insane watercooling projects.

You can see plenty of screenshots here along with the ones we've posted above.

Snapchat is one of the most popular image sharing services in the mobile ecosystem, and today more than 4.6 million users are learning that their contact information has been hacked by unknown persons. A website called SnapchatDB.info has popped up that list out usernames and phone numbers of each account that was compromised.

Originally thought of as a hoax, SnapchatDB.info has been confirmed as real and its creators say that they stole the information and created the website to raise awareness around the security issues surrounding Snapchat. SnapchatDB.info did censor the last two digits of each phone number to reduce spam, and unwanted messages to users, but with only 10 numbers per spot, it would only take a few minutes to figure out which is correct. The full statement from SnapchatDB.info has been pasted below.

Back in November we reported that AOL had decided to shutdown Winamp for good. This news sparked a ton of outrage across the internet with long-time Winamp users feeling betrayed. Today it appears that Winamp may not on its death march after all, as the Winamp website URL has been transferred to a new company.

The Winamp.com domain has been owned by AOL.com since 2011 when the company purchased it from Spinner.net. A new record has been released that shows the URL has been transferred to a new name server owned by Radionomy.com. Many industry analyst are speculating that Radionomy has purchased Winamp from AOL and will keep the service alive. Radionomy is a company that specializes in tools and infrastructure for radio producers, and is partnered with more than 6,000 radio stations nation wide. This leaves me wondering if Radionomy is planning on repurposing Winamp into a DJ console for radio stations or something similar!

Over the last few days many gamers looking to log into Battlefield 4 have been experiencing an error that prevents them from joining any servers. The most common error reads "Error: No contact with EA Online. Please try again later." The issue first arose last week, and it appeared that EA had fixed it, but this morning the issue arose again.

EA suggest that users check their NAT type and Port Forwarding settings in their router, but several users are reporting that nothing seems to fix the issue. The issue does in fact appear to be with servers on EA's end as Battlefield 3 players are experiencing the same issue.

I just checked and I was able to log into one Atlanta based server, but was unable to log into an LA based server. Unfortunately EA has not released any info on outages this morning, and until they fix things on their end, the issues will most likely persist. I wonder if EA realizes that server downtime equals negative kills in Battlefield?

According to security researcher Jason Appelbaum, and German news magazine Der Spiegel, the NSA has the ability to spy on virtually every iPhone, and users' digital communication sent from said iPhone.

The NSA reportedly has a program called DROPOUTJEEP, which allows the US spy agency to intercept most things - including SMS messages, contact lists, the physical location of the iPhone (and its user) through cell phone data, and even the ability to access the iPhone's microphone, and camera. Leaked documents have helped put the picture together, with the NSA claiming a 100% success rate when it comes to getting spyware into iOS-based devices.

Then comes the scary part: that the NSA requires physical access to the device, which the US spy agency reportedly reroutes shipments of iPhone's purchased online, but it is also working on a remote version, which is even worse. Appelbaum says: "Either [the NSA] have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce, and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves."

BlackBerry's new CEO, John Chen, says that no one should start counting his company out just yet. In an open editorial for CNBC, Chen said that BlackBerry is "well-positioned for the future," and that even though the company faced "challenging circumstances," he believes that BlackBerry will once again rise to profit.

"It was important to make swift and impact changes to ensure that our customers' investments in BlackBerry's infrastructure and solutions are secure," said Chen. "I'm surrounded by a talented team of industry leaders, including our new leaders for enterprise, corporate development and strategic planning, and marketing. In the coming weeks, I'll continue to build out my leadership team with those who have the skills and passion to get BlackBerry back on the path to profitability."

Chen went on to say that BlackBerry is still king of the enterprise market and that the public should not be fooled by the "competition's rhetoric claiming to be more secure or having more experience than BlackBerry" Chen finished up the editorial by saying: "We've accomplished a great deal in these last couple months, and we're positioned for the long haul. We have a strong cash position with more than $3 billion on hand, a renewed spirit, and trusted technology, network and platform. I believe BlackBerry has a clear lane ahead of us to create new trails as a nimbler, more agile competitor.The journey has just begun."

Mobile memory technology has taken a major leap forward with today's announcement of 8-gigabit low-profile double-data-rate 4 (LPDDR4) mobile DRAM chips from Samsung. The new DRAM chips offer the ability to pack 1GB on a single die, which will most likely lead to many upcoming next-gen smartphones featuring 4GB of RAM.

Samsung says that the new LPDDR4 silicon offers improved efficiency which results in up to 40-percent less power consumption than previously seen. This is possible because the chips are designed to run at just 1.1 volts each. The chips are designed on a 20nm process, which shrinks the package small enough to fit 1GB onto a single chip. With Qualcomm releasing a 64-bit mobile processor next year, and Apple's 64-bit A7 already on the market we could see a major jump in the amount of RAM smartphones house in 2014 and 2015.

"This next-generation LPDDR4 DRAM will contribute significantly to faster growth of the global mobile DRAM market, which will soon comprise the largest share of the entire DRAM market," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "We will continue introducing the most advanced mobile DRAM one step ahead of the rest of the industry so that global OEMs can launch innovative mobile devices with exceptional user convenience in the timeliest manner."

With in-vehicle technology growing at a faster pace than ever before, manufacturers are racing to beat each other to the next big thing. Audi is said to be teaming up with Google to develop the next-generation in-car system that will be based on Android and will control everything from vehicle information to entertainment and more.

The new Android-based system is said to deliver similar functionality of smartphones or tablets, with emphasis on Audi's "Infotainment" initiative. The new system is said to heavily utilize voice commands, and will feature everything from voice controlled navigation, to radio station selection. Google and Audi will develop, improve and implement the in many models over the next five years, but no further details were released about which models will get the new system.

Despite what companies like Apple wants to believe, a new report has been released that shows that many mobile customers want a cheaper smartphone. AdDuplex, a cross promotion marketing network has just released a report that states that Nokia's Lumia 520 and 521 now dominate the Windows Phone market with a 30-percent market share.

This news comes just under a year after the Lumia 521 was released, and slightly before the Lumia 525 takes the role of flagship budget phone for Nokia. Just a few months ago, the 520/521 combo was said to account for only 23-percent of all Lumia smartphones on the market. Many industry analyst are predicting that as smartphones get more powerful, we will begin to see a shift towards mid-range and upper low-end models dominating as they will be more than powerful enough to handle most users day-to-day needs.

HTC continues to get battered, with news breaking out in the last day or so that its ex-Lead Designer, Thomas Chien, prosecuted in Taiwan for fraud. The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office concluded its investigation on Chien, reporting that he leaked HTC's upcoming icon designs, and much more.

He took the designs, showing them to his then-future business partners for a new company they were planning to form. The investigation also concluded that Chien's friends took around $1.12 million in the way of false expense claims, as well as rebates from a supplier. A quarter of this cash was found in Chien's Audi, with another taken from him on another occasion.

The prosecutors' allegations were not denied by most of Chien's friends, but Chien himself was in denial about most of what he was being accused of, and has the prosecutors recommending that the court place a big sentence on Chien for his "malignant" behavior.

No. 1 PC manufacturer Lenovo will continue to battle Hewlett-Packard in the PC consumer market, and the company won't become stagnant by avoiding newer ventures. Lenovo plans to attack the smartphone market across the world in 2014, as the company has strong market presence in China.

"I'll be very clear: Our aspiration is someday to be No. 1 in the mobile space," Lenovo executives told the media. Earlier in the year, there were rumors that Lenovo wanted to purchase the BlackBerry phone unit - but the deal never materialized, and BlackBerry is no longer for sale. The smartphone market is highly saturated in the United States, but Lenovo can gain market share in the US and across Europe if done properly.

Just a few years ago, many doubted Lenovo would be able to climb the sales charts in the PC market - and the Chinese electronics maker is spending more time researching server products for the enterprise.

Despite fallout from former IT specialist Edward Snowden, it appears more U.S. voters are interested in security over privacy-related issues. Seventy-five percent of users are worried about personal information theft over 54 percent of those users worried about browsing history being tracked.

"By wide margins this survey clearly shows that ID theft has touched the majority of consumers in some way, and that hacking is more worrisome to consumers than tracking, and that voters want the government to more aggressively go after cyber criminals," said Ed Black, CCIA President and CEO, in a statement. "Safeguarding users online must become a higher priority for companies and also for the regulators and policymakers charged with protecting consumers."

Even though security is more thought about by U.S. citizens, privacy concerns have caused a major backlash against the National Security Agency (NSA), other US federal branches, and a handful of major corporations.

EA is already battling class action lawsuits over Battlefield 4, but now the first-person shooter has been banned in China, with the Chinese government citing "national security" concerns.

EA has declined to comment on the ban when The Wall Street Journal tried to make contact. The problem with Battlefield 4 is that the single player campaign involves China in the year 2020, with the Chinese admiral planning to overthrow the government. Then we have Battlefield 4: China Rising, which is a DLC for the first-person shooter, featuring maps, vehicles and a new gametype, all set on the Chinese mainland.

A new DDoS Botnet has the ability to infect both Microsoft Windows along with Linux-based systems, according to the Poland Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). Unlike many cyber-based attacks, this botnet is only interested in launching DDoS attacks to knock certain servers and websites offline.

The Linux-based botnet reportedly handles dropping servers, while the Windows-based botnet easily hijacked consumer PCs. "Most servers that are injected with these various scripts are then used for a variety of tasks, including DDoS, vulnerability scanning, and exploiting," according to security expert Andre Dimino, in a blog post. "The mining of virtual currency is now often seen running in the background during the attacker's 'downtime.'"

Seeing DDoS attacks to turn zombie PCs into an effective botnet isn't Earth-shattering news, but this cross-platform attack is relatively unique. As bitcoin mining and launching attacks to impact certain companies is easily done when using unsuspecting machines.

There were rumors of this all the way back in September, but it looks like a 12.2-inch tablet from Samsung is becoming a reality. A photo of the 12.2-inch slate was posted on a Korean forum, with some specs.

Now we have a report coming out of South Korea, stating that the new "Galaxy Note Pro" or "Galaxy Note 12" slate would launch early next year. ZDNet Korea is now reporting from an unnamed industry source that the slate will feature a massive 12.2-inch 2560x1600-pixel display, 2.4GHz processor, 3GB of RAM, a gigantic 9500mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat.

We should see this tablet at CES 2014 in just a couple of weeks time, where we will hopefully have some hands-on time with it.

Valve is currently offering Left 4 Dead 2 for free, which promptly took down the Steam Store servers, but the Steam Holiday Sales continue no matter what, right? Of course!

Today sees a bunch of new games on sale, including Skyrim with 75% off, down from $34.99 to just $8.74, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut also seeing 75% off, down from $19.99 to just $4.99. If those games don't tickle your fancy, you could grab Payday 2 for $13.49, down from $29.99 or 55% off.