Latest News - Page 2920

Microsoft's three key Windows platforms will eventually be merged into one, super OS, according to Microsoft executive Julie Larson-Green. The MS exec recently spoke at the UBS Global Technology Summit, where she said that this merging will take some time.

Larson-Green said: "We have the phone OS, we have Windows RT, and we have full Windows. We are not going to have three." The executive did have some comments regarding the necessity of the platform, for Microsoft's current operations: "We do think there is a world where there is a more mobile operating system, that doesn't have the risks to battery life or the risk to security [that Windows does]," she said, "but it also comes with a cost of flexibility."

Google is sending out more invites, which will see more users walking around with Google Glass Explorer Edition devices, making me more and more jealous as the days go by. Google has invited many more people, with the following message being sent around:

It's still at that $1500 price, but that is not too bad at all for a wearable device - I'd be happy to slap down $1500 if Google would send me an e-mail. I'll just cry here in the corner waiting for the consumer edition.

Black Friday is quickly approaching and information on various retailers sales is beginning to pour in. Today GameStop announced that it has hired 17,000 more people to help staff its stores on Friday, and has also released its Black Friday sale list. The list may not be very large, but for those of you lucky enough to get into a GameStop early enough, massive savings await.

Unfortunately none of the next-generation consoles are on the list, but you could score an Xbox 360, or PS3 both with 250GB HDDs for just $250 each. Alternatively, Battlefield 4 will be on sale for just $24.99 which equates to more than half off of its MSRP. A Sophix 7-inch Android tablet will be on hand for just $70 as well. The full list of items on sale is below.

Acer has announced their new Acer C720P Chromebook, which is a touchscreen version of their C720 budget Chromebook that was introduced last month. The Acer C720P will be available early December, and will come equipped with a HD 11.6 inch 1366x768 LED touchscreen display. This is Acer's first touchscreen Chromebook.

The Acer C720P has a 7.5 hour battery life and a 7-second boot up time. It runs off an Intel Celeron 2955U processor, it also comes with a 32GB SSD and 2GB of DDR3 memory. Other features include an HD webcam, duel speakers, both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, as well as an HDMI port. It can support 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and will come with 100GB of Google drive storage free for two years, plus 12 free Gogo inflight passes. The Acer C720P will be available to purchase from Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Acer early December for $299.99.

Acer CTO Arif Maskatia: "Our new touchscreen C720P gives customers an intuitive way to browse sites online, enjoy apps, and do more with the Chromebook. The Acer C720 Chromebook line has been praised for its performance and battery life, and this new touchscreen model allows us to address the needs of an even wider range of customers with exciting new capabilities. We're certain many holiday shoppers will jump at the chance to get a touchscreen Chromebook for just $299.99."

I am willing to bet that almost everyone who reads this post has at some point folded a piece of paper into the shape of an airplane and sailed it across the room, I know I certainly have many times. This morning I received an email from a friend who I attended grade school with. We were team members in a paper airplane competition once, and not to brag but we almost won the whole thing.

The email contained a link to a Kickstarter campaign that features something I have been dreaming about since I was in the 6th grade. PowerUp 3.0 is basically a control and propulsion system designed to attach to any paper plane. It appears that all you have to do is clip the PowerUp 3.0 module to a paper airplane, sync with your smartphone and the sky is truly the limit. When I say that this thing is cool, I am not exaggerating in the slightest.

The PowerUp 3.0 module has an effective range of about 180-feet and is constructed of carbon fiber to make crash damage a thing of the past. The modules inventor says that anyone can fly the airplane since it has built-in algorithms that correct for user error and assist in extra thrust when banking. At the moment the PowerUp 3.0 only supports iOS devices, but if the $150,000 stretch goal is met an Android app will be created. I have already jumped in at the early-bird special, and as an avid Android user and paper airplane enthusiast, I desperately hope to see that stretch goal met. Head over to the source link below to pledge to get your own PowerUp 3.0.

Today Synology announced the launch of its latest high-performance rack mounted NAS, the all new RackStation RS814 NAS. The system is designed around a 4-bay 1U server design and can scale up to eight total drives with the inclusion of the RX410 expansion module.

Synology says that the new RackStation RS814 NAS is optimized for small to medium business environments and features passive cooling of the CPU which greatly limits ambient noise generated by the device. The RS814 comes equipped with thw award-winning DiskStation Manager OS that allows for easy and efficient management of your storage media. With performance exceeding read speeds of 200MB/s and write speeds of 130MB/s the RackStation RS814 is the ideal solution for SMB and SOHO deployments. The RS814 retails for $599 while the 4-drive expansion RX410 cost an additional $599.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is making a comeback on iOS, windows phone, android, and kindle. Rockstar has remastered the 2004 PlayStation 2 classic with better visuals. Characters and cars have been updated to have a better overall look and better shadow detailing.

San Andreas for mobile devices has been redesigned to be used with touchscreen devices. The game will also include support for MFi controllers on Apple devices. An improved checkpoint system as well as three different control setups for driving and maneuvering have also been added.

Rockstar post:

Today Ozone launched an new mechanical gaming keyboard to its lineup of gaming peripherals. The all new Strike Pro is a mechanical keyboard designed for the serious gamer in mind. The utilization of Cherry MX switches in red, blue, brown, or black flavors lets gamers chose which keystroke profile will give them the edge over their competition.

The Strike Pro features white LED back-lit keys with the gaming specific keys being back-lit by red LEDs for quick and effortless acquisition of gaming keys when gaming in the dark. The Strike Pro also features 30 macros across five profiles, which can be customized to suit your gaming style. Profiles are stored on 64k of internal memory.

Additionally, the keyboard can be configured to have a response time of between 1ms and 16ms. A built-in USB hub and Audio ports are also featured. "For me there is no other option for a keyboard than mechanical, and there is no other option than the Ozone Strike Pro. Cherry MX Switch, HUB & Audio inputs, LED back light, good design ... So, yes, I have many reasons to choose Strike Pro to my sessions as a professional gamer," said Cho "Mata" professional gamer on the Samsung Ozone Team.

Cooling your CPU use to be the most important part of your PC if you wanted to extract any extra performance from the machine, but now CPU cooling is easy and very efficient. The hardest component to cool in a modern PC is the discrete GPU. There are aftermarket air coolers available, but they are few and far in between.

Liquid cooling your GPU is another option, but is expensive and something only advanced users should tackle, until now that is. Today NZXT unveiled a new mounting bracket kit for its Kraken G10 liquid All-in-One CPU Cooler that allows the G10 to easily mount to many of the popular discrete GPUs on the market today. The mount allows the Kraken G10 to directly attach to the GPU chip while a built-in fan keeps the rest of the card cool.

I feel that this is a great idea and wonder why no one has thought of it before now. Many PC enthusiast have at least one All-in-One cooler laying around from previous machines and they could be put to use quite easily if mounts were available. The mounting kit is available in red, white, and black finishes, and retails for just $29.99 at NZXT's armory store. For a list of compatible video cards, head over to the NZXT source link below.

Next year, there are two companies that have me the most excited: Valve and Oculus VR. The latter, for its awesome virtual reality device, Rift, and the former, for its multiple product releases, and software releases.

One of these, is the Steam Machine. The latest Steam Machine prototype has been teased by Engadget, which has had the first look at iBuyPower's prototype for a Steam Machine. It looks awesome, and looks nothing like a PC - which is exactly what Valve, and PC makers, need right now. There's a gorgeous light bar through the center of it, which looks like it changes color, an awesome touch.

There's a gigantic Steam logo on top, which is nice to see on a console. Better yet, it'll be just $499 and include a decent GPU in the AMD Radeon R9 270 - which is an $180 GPU on its own. One top of this, there'll be a multi-core AMD processor inside, and a Steam Controller. We're talking about specs that beat the next-gen consoles, with a price that matches them. This is what I know: I want one, and I want one now.

Unfortunately for Xbox 360 users who use their console as a U-verse TV receiver, you will no longer be able to use that service. AT&T is informing their customers that they will no longer have the IPTV support for the Xbox 360. AT&T says this will come in affect after December 31st.

Users will have to order a traditional U-verse receiver but 360 U-verse users will at least get a $99 credit in return of their troubles, according to AT&T it was originally going to be a $60 credit but they decided to make it $99. It doesn't look like they will be transferring the service to Xbox One either.

Letter to Xbox 360 U-verse customers:

We reported about the issues with some Xbox One consoles and their Blu-ray issues, but Microsoft is quickly jumping into damage control mode, offering anyone with a broken Xbox One free games.

If you're one of these people, you can ring up Microsoft customer support, and get a free game through the Xbox One exchange program. You'll receive a digital code for one of 4 games: Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse, or Zoo Tycoon. Not too bad at all, isn't it? If you're experiencing issues with the Blu-ray drive on your Xbox One, get onto that free game deal, now!

Today reports have surfaced that state that the FDA has ordered the Google backed startup 23andMe to immediately cease and desist all sales of its DNA testing kits. The ban on sales is the result of the company failing to obtain "marketing clearance or approval" from federal regulators to sell its product.

The company sells a "DNA Spit Kit" that is used to test a customers DNA and then reports on over 250 health conditions, traits and other genetic identifiers that one might have, or be susceptible to. In a statement, the FDA said that it "is concerned about the public health consequences of inaccurate results from the PGS device. The main purpose of compliance with FDA's regulatory requirements is to ensure that the tests work."

In response 23andMe had the following to say. "We recognize that we have not met the FDA's expectations regarding timeline and communication regarding our submission. Our relationship with the FDA is extremely important to us and we are committed to fully engaging with them to address their concerns."

One of the biggest bottlenecks in any project involving custom circuitry is troubleshooting the actual circuit itself before moving to manufacturing something permanent. A new project on Kickstarter will greatly improve on the speed at which one prototypes electronic circuits.

Circuit Scribe is exactly what its name says it is, a pen that lets you draw electronic circuits via conductive ink. Designed for Makers, STEM Educators, Artist, Kids and Life Hackers, the Circuit Scribe pen allows users to simply draw out their circuits, place components onto the lines, connect a power source and then watch things come to life.

The team wanted to offer an easy way for Circuit Scribe users to quickly prototype circuits, so they also created a set of modules that house individual components and dubbed them "Electroninks Components." These little modules range from LED boards all the way up to boards that house integrated circuits such as 555 timers. Rare earth magnets appear to hold things in place on the paper to keep good contact with the inked circuit.

There is one word that you will find in just about every piece of marketing material related to both data storage and networking, and that word is "speed." Today Netgear unveiled a new network attached storage device that just might be worthy of excessive use of the word "speed"

The all new Netegear ReadyNAS 716 is designed to be nothing but a pure speed demon and is based off of a 10-Gigabit Ethernet controller that delivered blazing transfer speeds. The device features two 10GBASE-T ports on its rear and is packed with 16GB of error-correcting code memory. The new ReadyNAS 716 is available in a 24TB capacity configuration and is expandable to 84TB via an eSATA expansion chassis. The new ReadyNAS 716 from Netgear is available now and retails at an MSRP of $4500.

Designing your smartphone hardware to cheat the benchmark system seems to be the trendy thing to do, but some benchmarks are ensuring that this form of cheating is no-longer a viable method to boost the perceived performance of you device. Today Futuremark announced that it has delisted several phones from its results.

The phones were delisted from rankings because of accusation that they feature hardware-based loopholes that allow them to run faster when benchmarking apps are activated to run test. All in all a total of six smartphones were delisted, including the :HTC One, HTC One Mini, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Exynos 5 Octa, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 MSM8974, Samsung Galaxy Note III Exynos 5 Octa, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 MSM8974. While no mention of what each device did specifically to falsely boost scores, Futuremark did release a statement about the delistings.

Samsung has officially unveiled their new Galaxy Grand 2. Samsung's new large screen smartphone comes with a 5.25 inch HD display. The Galaxy Grand 2 runs on Android Jellybean 4.3. Other specs on the device are a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1.5 GB RAM, Bluetooth 4.0, 2,600 mAH battery, a 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.9 megapixel front facing camera. The Galaxy Grand 2 comes with 8 GB of built-in storage and is expandable to 64 GB with its microSD slot. Samsung will also be releasing models with dual-SIM capabilities. Samsung has not commented about availability or pricing for the Galaxy Grand 2.

Samsung announcement: "This evolution of the Galaxy Grand series brings meaningful upgrades to its predecessor including an improved HD viewing experience, enhanced performance, and many other intuitive features."

Today Western Digital announced the launch of its all new WD_BLACK2 Dual Drive, a unique smashup of a SSD and HDD combo. The new Black2 Dual Drive is the first of its kind and manages to pack in a 1TB HHD and 120GB SSD into a single 2.5-inch form factor case. This allows for easy integration into notebooks, small form factor PCs, and much more where the speed of an SSD is desired, but massive storage is needed.

"Our customers told us they like our Solid State Hybrid Drive technology, but our tech savvy users asked for more control of where they store their data," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit. "The WD_BLACK2 dual drives empower our customers to enjoy SSD performance and access high capacity storage in a no-compromise package. The WD_BLACK2 dual drive is a direct result of our interaction with our customer base through WD Labs initiatives. WD devised its beta labs program to provide an exclusive testing arena for key customers and technology influencers of existing and emerging WD storage products."

Western Digital says that the Black2 is free of caching algorithms and greatly benefits from the SATA 6GB/s interfaces speed. The new Western Digital WD_BLACK2 Dual Drive is covered by a five-year warranty, and retails now for $299. Our own Tyler Bernath has just finished up his review of the drive and you can find out how it performs by heading over to the review right here at TweakTown.

We aren't quite at the DDR4 stages yet, but as we do start slotting in DDR4 onto our consumer boards, we could begin to see over the horizon, and spot a new memory standard: MRAM.

This is because the US-Japan alliance is looking for a replacement of the old DRAM technology, with over 20 companies in Japan and US joining forces to develop mass-production techniques for a next-generation chip technology. This new tech is called magnetoresistive random access memory, or MRAM. Those involved include Tokyo Electron, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Renesas Electronics, Hitachi, and US memory giant Micron Technology.

MRAM will see data stored in magnetic storage elements instead of electric charges, or current flows. MRAM will also reportedly have just one-third the power consumption of DRAM, with 10 times the capacity, and wait for it - 10 times the writing speed. This will make the technology perfect for the next, next-generation of smartphones and tablets, too.

We thought it had happened last week, but now Apple has confirmed it has acquired PrimeSense. The company works on motion control devices, so this should be an interesting next few years for the iPhone maker.

Apple confirmed the acquisition with AllThingsD, where it said that it does buy smaller companies "from time to time". The company reportedly handed over around $360 million for the deal, which should cement Apple's future in the motion control space. I did think that Apple would use the tech for its Mac range of devices, which I think we'll begin to see teased in the first half of 2014.